Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture [1 ed.] 9781575067599, 9781575067582

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture Douglas S. Earl

Journal of Theological Interpretation Supplement 17

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.

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Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

Journal of Theological Interpretation Supplements Murray Rae

University of Otago, New Zealand

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Editor-in-Chief

  1. Thomas Holsinger-Friesen, Irenaeus and Genesis: A Study of Competition in Early Christian Hermeneutics   2. Douglas S. Earl, Reading Joshua as Christian Scripture   3. Joshua N. Moon, Jeremiah’s New Covenant: An Augustinian Reading   4. Csilla Saysell, “According to the Law”: Reading Ezra 9–10 as Christian Scripture   5. Joshua Marshall Strahan, The Limits of a Text: Luke 23:34a as a Case Study in Theological Interpretation   6. Seth B. Tarrer, Reading with the Faithful: Interpretation of True and False Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah from Ancient Times to Modern   7. Zoltán S. Schwáb, Toward an Interpretation of the Book of Proverbs: Selfishness and Secularity Reconsidered   8. Steven Joe Koskie, Jr., Reading the Way to Heaven: A Wesleyan Theological Hermeneutic of Scripture   9. Hubert James Keener, A Canonical Exegesis of the Eighth Psalm: Yhwh’s Maintenance of the Created Order through Divine Intervention 10. Vincent K. H. Ooi, Scripture and Its Readers: Readings of Israel’s Story in Nehemiah 9, Ezekiel 20, and Acts 7 11. Andrea D. Saner, “Too Much to Grasp”: Exodus 3:13–15 and the Reality of God 12. Jonathan Douglas Hicks, Trinity, Economy, and Scripture: Recovering Didymus the Blind 13. Dru Johnson, Knowledge by Ritual: A Biblical Prolegomenon to Sacramental Theology 14. Ryan S. Peterson, The Imago Dei as Human Identity: A Theological Interpretation 15. Ron Haydon, “Seventy Sevens Are Decreed”: A Canonical Approach to Daniel 9:24–27 16. Kit Barker, Imprecation as Divine Discourse: Speech Act Theory, Dual Authorship, and Theological Interpretation 17. Douglas S. Earl, Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture

Copyright © 2017. Pennsylvania State University Press. All rights reserved.

Douglas S. Earl

Winona Lake, Indiana E isenbrauns 2017

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

Copyright © 2017 Eisenbrauns All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America www.eisenbrauns.com

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Earl, Douglas S., author. Title: Reading Old Testament narrative as Christian scripture / Douglas S. Earl. Description: Winona Lake, Indiana : Eisenbrauns, 2017. | Series: Journal of theological interpretation supplement ; 17 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016052169 (print) | LCCN 2017003770 (ebook) | ISBN 9781575067582 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781575067599 (ePDF) Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Old Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. Classification: LCC BS1171.3 .E27 2017 (print) | LCC BS1171.3 (ebook) | DC 221.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016052169

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.♾™

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

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For Sophie, Daniel, Sarah, Peter, Hannah, Matthew, Chloe, Isaac, Esther and Isobel

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Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

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Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

C ONTENTS Preface............................................................................................................................ xi Abbreviations............................................................................................................... xii

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1. Prologue ..................................................................................................................... 1 Texts, Meaning, Significance and Use......................................................... 5 Discourse and the World of the Text......................................................... 11 The Hermeneutics of Tradition and the Critique of Ideology...............20 Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation.................................... 27 Overview of the Book................................................................................... 29 2. Genesis 34: Analysis of Why an Old Testament Narrative Has Failed to Find Christian Significance Using Literary Poetics and Neo-Structuralism...33 Recent Historical Criticism and the Text of Genesis 34..........................36 The Poetics of Genesis 34 and Meir Sternberg’s Reading of the Narrative........................................................................................ 38 Genesis 34 in the Context of the Book of Genesis....................................40 A Neo-structuralist Perspective on Genesis 34........................................ 45 An Introduction to Structuralist Approaches to Myth...............45 Neo-structuralist Approaches to Myth.........................................47 Neo-structuralist Analysis of Genesis 34.......................................51 The Significance of Genesis 34 Developed................................................ 52 Genesis 34 and the Construction of Identity................................ 52 The Relationship Between Narrative and Structure...................53 The Christian Significance of Genesis 34...................................... 58 Christian Hermeneutics and Old Testament Narrative..........................60 Preliminary Conclusions............................................................................. 62 vii

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Contents

3. Joshua 1-12: Myth, Symbol and a Proposal for the (Christian) Significance of ‫ חרם‬in the Book of Joshua .........................................................66 The Reception of Joshua 1-12 .................................................................... 71 Understanding ‫ חרם‬................................................................................... 77 Re-examining ‫ חרם‬in the Deuteronomistic Literature................79 A Symbolic Approach to ‫ חרם‬in the Old Testament.....................82 The Significance of ‫ חרם‬in Deuteronomy......................................86

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The Significance of ‫ חרם‬in Joshua ................................................. 88 The Reception of Joshua Analyzed............................................................ 92 Toward a Christian Reading of Joshua ..................................................... 93 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 95 4. The Joseph Story (Genesis 37-50): The Hermeneutical Significance of the Reception History and the Literary Horizons of Three Theologically Problematic Texts................................................................................................. 103 Some Portraits of Joseph in Reception History.....................................104 Approaches to the Joseph Story in Historical-Critical Scholarship....106 An Analysis of the Reception of the Three ‘Problem Texts’ (Genesis 41:45; 42:15; 44:5, 15) ............................................................ 110 Ancient Jewish Texts.......................................................................... 110 Pre-Reformation Christian Interpretation..................................... 111 Christian Interpretation from the Reformation until the Twentieth Century...................................................................114 Twentieth Century............................................................................. 116 Contexts for Reading the Joseph Story: Reading the Story with different Textual Horizons and with Reference to different Hermeneutical Assumptions .............................................................. 121 Joseph in the Context of Genesis ................................................... 128 Joseph in Old Testament Canonical Context ...............................132 Joseph in the New Testament Canonical Context .......................134 Reading the Joseph Story as Christian Scripture and the goals of Theological Interpretation ..................................................................137 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 141

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5. The David Story: The Hermeneutical and Theological Significance of ‘Minimalism’ ..................................................................................................... 148 Minimalism and the Old Testament ....................................................... 150 John Van Seters’ Reading of the Story of David ....................................155 Canonical Perspectives and the Theological Implications of the David Saga ....................................................................................... 161 Old Testament .................................................................................. 161 New Testament ................................................................................ 164 The Hermeneutical Implications of the David Saga .............................167 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 176

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6. Rahab and Dinah Revisited: ‘Reading as’ Scripture through Possible Construals of the ‘World of the Text’ in Christian Contexts ..........................182 Genesis 34 Revisited................................................................................... 185 The Interpretation of the Story of Rahab Revisited..............................192 Possible Readings and the Multiple Senses of Scripture ..................... 197 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 201 7. The Story of Ruth: Relationships between the Reader, Christian Ethics and Old Testament Narrative.............................................................................. 206 Ruth and Boaz on the Threshing Floor................................................... 208 Ruth and Naomi ......................................................................................... 217 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 232 8. Genesis 1:26: Christian Theology, Metaphysics, and Old Testament Narrative...................................................................................... 234 Genesis 1:26 in Recent Scholarship .........................................................237 Analysis of the Christian Reception of the Plural Pronoun in Genesis 1:26 ....................................................................................... 240 Preliminary Analysis of Christian Readings of Genesis 1:26 ...............254 Genesis 1:26 in Contemporary Theological Reflection ........................ 259 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 271

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9. Salvation History: A Framework for Old Testament Interpretation? The Second Naivete, the Patristic Concept of Oikonomia, and Myth ............273 Salvation History—Its Problematic Nature if Construed as a Historical Thesis or Concept ............................................................... 280 The Origins of the Pentateuch: The Relationship Between Genesis and Exodus .......................................................................280 The Hexateuch, the Octateuch: The Relationship Between Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges and the ‘Two Origins’ Tradition ................................................................ 290 Salvation History: The ‘Historical Books’ ..................................... 292 Israel’s Conception of History and Modern Conceptions of Israel’s History ...................................................................................... 294 The Emergence and the Development of the Concept of Salvation History from Pre-Modern to Modern Interpreters ........297 Recovering the Concept of Oikonomia, and its Relation to Salvation History .................................................................................. 308 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 315 10. Epilogue: Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture as a Task Best Left Jagged ........................................................................................ 321

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Bibliography............................................................................................................... 333 Index of Subjects and Authors................................................................................. 351 Index of Scripture...................................................................................................... 362

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

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PREFACE In my research for Reading Joshua as Christian Scripture I considered the interpretation of various other Old Testament narrative texts in a Christian context. It seemed to me that some families of texts could be interpreted using fairly similar approaches, whilst other texts seem to call for quite different approaches, although I felt that the concepts of the ‘world of the text’, cultural memory and myth were generally helpful in addition to traditional concepts such as canon and rule of faith as reading contexts. Moreover, I was interested to see how questions of history, ethics and more ‘metaphysical’ theology seemed to work out differently in different cases, and perhaps in what seemed to me to be rather dissatisfying ways. I wanted to study further the question of the role of concepts such as authorial intention, originary context, literary and canonical context and the history of reception in forming contemporary interpretation. Various Old Testament texts came to mind as possibly fruitful test cases, and I wrote essays on each. However, these essays seemed to suggest a somewhat disjointed, and perhaps apparently dissatisfying approach to the task of reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture as a rather ad hoc task. However, I have become increasingly comfortable with construing the task in this way, and found it illuminative, especially in the light of studying the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. This book is an attempt to draw all this together, not to form some overarching method, but to indicate and hopefully illuminate what I take to be the nature of the task of reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture. As ever, a number of people have contributed significantly to help shape this work. My thanks go especially to Walter Moberly and Richard Briggs, both of whom read and commented on complete earlier drafts. I am also grateful to Andrew Louth, Krastu Banev and Julie Woods who read shorter sections and offered valuable comments and insights. Furthermore, the comments of the anonymous readers have been helpful in improving the work. I would like to thank Murray Rae and Jim Eisenbraun for all their assistance, and in accepting the manuscript for the JTI Supplement series and seeing it through to print, during the process of which Martin Ward has given valuable assistance with regard to font and word-processing difficulties. Finally of course, I’d like to express my thanks and gratitude to my wife Rachel, and my children, for their support and encouragement in this (rather lengthy and disjointed) project.

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Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

ABBREVIATIONS AB ABD ACCS 1 ACCS 2 ACCS 4 ACCS 8 ACW ANE ANET

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ANF AT AThaNT BAR BETL BHS Bib Or BZ BZAW CBQ CD D DH

The Anchor Bible D.N Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 6 vols., 1992) A. Louth (ed.), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament I: Genesis 1-11 (Downers Grove: IVP, 2001) M. Sheridan (ed.), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament II: Genesis 12-50 (Downers Grove: IVP, 2002) J.R. Franke (ed.), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament IV: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005) Q.F. Wesselschmidt (ed.), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament VIII: Psalms 51-150 (Downers Grove: IVP, 2007) Ancient Christian Writers Ancient Near East(ern) J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament 3rd ed. with supplement (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1969) A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (eds.), Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 10 vols., 1885-1896, Reprint: Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994) Altes Testament Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments Biblical Archaeological Review Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovanisensium K. Elliger and W. Rudolph (eds.) Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Stuttgart: Deutcsche Bibelgesellschaft, 4th ed. 1990) Bibliotheca Orientalis Biblisiche Zeitschrift Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Catholic Biblical Quarterly K. Barth, Church Dogmatics (London: T&T Clark, 15 vols., paperback ed. 2004) Deuteronomist Deuteronomistic History/Historian xii

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

Abbreviations Dtn DtrG/H EJ ET FC FRLANT

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HTR HUCA JBL JSOT JSOTSup JTI JTI Sup KD KP LEC MdB NIBC NICOT NIDOTTE NAS NET NIV NJB NKJ NLT NPNF

NRSV OBO OTL P Pg PL

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Deuteronomy / deuteronomic Deuteronomistic History C. Roth and G. Wigoder (eds.), Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia Judaica, 16 vols., 1971-1972) English translation Fathers of the Church Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments The Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Journal of Biblical Literature Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Journal of Theological Interpretation Journal of Theological Interpretation Supplement Series D-Komposition P-Komposition Library of Early Christianity Le Monde de la Bible New International Biblical Commentary New International Commentary on the Old Testamenr W.A. VanGemeren (ed.), New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis (Carlisle: Paternoster, 5 vols., 1997) New American Standard Version New English Translation New International Version New Jerusalem Bible New King James New Living Translation P. Schaff, et al., (eds.), A Select Library of the Nicene and PostNicene Fathers of the Christian Church (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 2 series, 14 vols. each, 1887-1894, Reprint: Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994) New Revised Standard Version Orbis Biblicus et Orientalensis The Old Testament Library Priestly source / writer Priestergrundschrift J.P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina (Paris: Migne, 221 vols. 184464)

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

xiv PG SJOT ST TDOT TOTC VT VTSup WBC WMANT

J.P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Graeca (Paris: Migne, 166 vols. 185786) Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament T. Gilby (ed.), Summa Theologiae, Latin text and English Translation (Blackfriars ed.; London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 60 vols., 1964-1974) G. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, 1977-) Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

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ZAW

Abbreviations

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017. ProQuest

C HAPTER 1

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PROLOGUE One of the dangers in discussing the hermeneutics of reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture is that one can be drawn into debates that proceed at rather abstract and general levels. The discussion then becomes somewhat removed from the possibilities and difficulties that arise from the actual activity of reading particular scriptural texts. If one focuses one’s attention on a priori questions concerning hermeneutics in general, the risk is that it is fairly straightforward to then cherry pick texts whose interpretation exemplifies one’s hermeneutics whilst neglecting other texts that do not. The interpretation of particular texts can then have the form of an afterword, perhaps giving the impression that there is a place from which one can develop a method of interpretation prior to full engagement with the variety of scrip tural texts read as such that in fact form the subject matter of interpretation. My wish in this book is to ground the discussion of the hermeneutics of Old Testament narrative in the reading and study of specific texts. The texts chosen will offer a range of problems and possibilities for interpretation. Their study will, I hope, allow a hermeneutic to emerge from engaging in the practice of the reading of the texts. In doing so I shall explore the use of a variety of assumptions and approaches to interpretation. This will involve an exploration of various possibilities for understanding the nature of the Christian interpretation of Old Testament narrative through the ‘nitty-gritty’ of reading a range of texts that highlight different interpretative issues. This will allow us to ex plore where different hermeneutical assumptions lead in the interpretation of particular texts. The task of interpretation has been described in terms of a ‘hermeneutical spiral’, being something of an iterative process that forms a journey of discovery and development. Interpretations are refined as various assumptions that the reader has made are revisited in and through the process. In the chapters that follow I seek to reflect something of this journey, revisiting texts and interpretative assumptions in the process. Before doing this however, in this prologue, written a posteriori, I will make some remarks about the task of Christian 1

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture

theological interpretation that emerge after the study of the texts considered. I shall sketch out and show in a provisional way why the task of reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture is something of an ad hoc affair requiring judgments to be made on a case by case basis. I do not think that there is any overarching method or systematic treatment of hermeneutics that will result in good interpretation. Some tools and assumptions or perspectives may be illuminative with some texts and in some reading contexts but not others. This rather abstract and philosophically orientated prologue will hold the studies of the texts together in a way that indicates that these somewhat dis parate studies and approaches do in fact embody what is involved in the task of reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture, showing by example rather than by the explicit formulation of rules what the task involves. If there is any overall perspective to adopt, it is that this task is best construed initially as a ‘practice’, or like a ‘game’ in Wittgenstein’s sense as an ‘activity with a broadly conceived point’. 1 Such ‘games’ often involve implicit (rather than explicitly formulated) rules and rule-following as shown in their application in particular cases.2 That is, practices are learned or shown through examples. I take the practice that I am considering, namely, reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture, as intersecting with the prac tice of ‘literature’ and its interpretation as set out by Peter Lamarque. 3 Lamarque considers ‘literature’ in terms of ‘a rule-governed practice or institution involving interactions between authors, works, and readers’ (382). He develops this idea using Wittgenstein’s emphases on practices as activities and on language as social interaction between participants rather than picture of reality (379). The interpretation of Christian Scripture is especially complicated in that the literature in view has had a lengthy process of composition and reception involving multiple authors and reading contexts, so that the interactions involved are many and complex, especially with regard to the pro cess of the formation of the canon and its significance. 4 ‘Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture’ can be considered as a specific practice, having important affinities with or resemblances with the practice of literature. The practice and activities involved with Scripture differ from those associated with literature that Lamarque sets out however. Judgments on the ta1. Cf. P. Lamarque, ‘Wittgenstein, Literature, and the Idea of a Practice’, in British Journal of Aesthetics 50.4 (2010): 375-388, here 380. 2. Ibid., 385. 3. Ibid.. 4. For discussion of the significance of the re-use of texts by later authors in the context of Scripture see S. Wheeler III, ‘Intentionalism and Texts with too many Authors’, Nonsite 6 (2012), online at http://nonsite.org/article/intentionalism-and-textswith-too-many-authors.

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Prologue

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citly agreed rules and practices from perspectives external to, or at least from the boundary of the ‘game’ are more visibly invoked in the interpretation of Scripture in a way that perhaps they are not in literature more generally. 5 What I have in mind is that, for example, historical-criticism presents a challenge to the practice of spiritual reading as a hermeneutical approach, and that ethical criticism challenges some of the perspectives, attitudes and concepts that the reader is encouraged to adopt in engaging with the literature of Scripture. What is not clear, however, is the extent to which such critiques ought to be adopted in relation to the task at hand. In the rest of this chapter I shall spell out what this perspective on interpretation means. To be clear, my aim is to address what is involved in inter preting and appropriating Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture well in a contemporary context. It will be worth dwelling on this description to consider the significance of each term as a way of orientation to the concerns that I wish to address. First, ‘Old Testament’. Describing the materials for interpretation here as ‘Old Testament’ implies that they are read together in a col lection that is given a particular identity. ‘Testament’ may be taken to imply the character of the materials as something like an authoritative and trustworthy witness, although ‘Old’ denotes a sense in which the materials are somehow relativized or recontextualized by newer material. Secondly, ‘narrative’ reflects the genre of the material considered. Being narrative, it is to be interpreted as such—literary work that may be construed and read as ‘story’ perhaps, although this will require careful development. Thirdly, ‘as Christian Scripture’, implies that the recontextualization just alluded to is that formed by the Incarnation, the subsequent reflection on the Incarnation in the materials collected as the New Testament, and the context of use of the materials in the Christian Church. This is not to denigrate Jewish interpretation of similar or perhaps the same material in a different context (depending upon which canon is adopted),6 but is rather a statement on the context and intentionality of interpretation and the theological assumptions that these imply. Indeed, both Jewish and Christian interpreters can surely learn and benefit from one another’s readings. ‘Scripture’ implies an enduring character of the Old Testament material as generative and somehow authoritative. ‘As’ implies the adoption of an interpretative stance with particular in5. Behind this is ‘the difference between questions raised within a practice and questions that seem to challenge the practice itself ’ (Lamarque, ‘Wittgenstien’, 381). See further Wittgenstein’s On Certainty §310-317. 6. As I think will become clear in the studies that follow, I take it that the boundaries of the Old Testament canon can be somewhat flexible, but that attempting to establish a definite boundary is not essential to my project here. My inclination would be to be generous towards the inclusion of texts.

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture

terests and concerns. It is not a reading ‘from nowhere’—a location that is in all likelihood a chimera. This reading stance is part of a practice rooted in the life of the church as the body of Christ. It is an expression of an intentional stance for interpretation, a description under which the texts are interpreted. 7 There are various ‘descriptions under which’ interpretation can take place, and one is not compelled to interpret with reference to the concerns of any particular in terest or to attempt to form a meta-value judgment as to whether one set of interests is better than another or not, although one may, and indeed in the practice of Christian interpretation one will need to make progress towards such judgments. ‘Interpretations as’ are descriptions under which interpretation takes place with respect to particular interests, goals or concerns, and it may be that some interests that are crucial in one interpretative stance are of little significance in another. So then the Old Testament could be read as literature, as witness to the development of religious ideas, as colonial or patriarchal literature and so on. When reading as Christian Scripture it may or may not be the case that such other concerns are of significance, and they should not be forced upon Christian interpretation, but rather used where they might be illuminative for the task. But of course, under any description one may read well or poorly; some descriptions may not be very significant, and interpreta tions with respect to different descriptions can be mutually enlightening, such as reading as the Old Testament or as the Hebrew Bible. So, fourthly, reading ‘well’ acknowledges that there are various possible ways of reading a particular text, as both traditional Christian and Jewish interpreters have seen in terms of the ‘multiple senses’ of Scripture or in the midrashim. The interpretative goal is not that of the formation of a single ‘cor rect’ reading, even within a particular interpretative stance, although some readings may be poor or weak. Implied then is the expectation of a shared recognition of norms so that a judgment may be formed as to what constitutes reading a particular text well, even if it may be tricky, or perhaps impossible, to lay out specific criteria for what this involves explicitly.8 Fifthly, ‘in a contemporary context’ reflects the role of the reader and especially their situated-ness in a particular cultural and intellectual context coupled with their associated practices and forms of life in interpretation. The concepts, questions, concerns, hopes and goals of such contexts shape the reader’s approach to and expectations of the text at hand. It is in a situated context that desire for, knowledge of and faithful response to God as inspired by the Scriptural witness is formed.9 However, we come to interpret the scriptural texts as already situated in a tradition shaped by their reception and use, 7. I have in mind here Elizabeth Anscombe’s work on intention. See G.E.M. Anscombe, Intention (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 2nd ed. 1963). 8. Cf. Lamarque, ‘Wittgenstein’, 385.

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Prologue

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as indeed the other contexts that we inhabit are historically-effected and rooted in their own traditions. Thus we ought to expect that the traditional readings of the church will shape and inform contemporary readings even as the questions and concerns of the contemporary context reshape and re-inform the ongoing tradition and use of the scriptural texts. This implies the possibility of either the critique or reassertion of earlier interpretations, or, perhaps most likely, it may be generative of the development of and enlargement of earlier understanding and interpretation as further insights are gained, for example through insights gained through human psychology or scientific understanding of nature more generally. Finally, the question that we are addressing, i.e. interpreting and appropri ating Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture well in a contemporary context, is an activity the goal of which has existential and transformative di mensions. There is a tacit understanding that, in some sense, ‘God speaks’ through Scripture to guide the reader into ever fuller knowledge of, desire for and appreciation of God, into new and fuller life, and that Scripture and its theological interpretation is life-giving. 10

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T EXTS, MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE AND USE Christian interpreters of Scripture have often understood the interpretat ive task primarily in terms of elucidating ‘the meaning’ of biblical texts, construed perhaps as the meaning that the author intended, as for example Augustine suggests in On Christian Doctrine I.36–37. Traditionally, it has been essentially the divine author that has been in view, although in the modern era emphasis on the meaning intended by the human author grew to the point where reference to a putative divine author is all but elided in most discus sions. So for example most recent commentators appeal only to possible mean ings that the human author of Gen 1:26 could have intended, and intended within their historical context. This supposition has formed the basis of much contemporary interpretation of the text, in contradistinction to appeals to a possible divine meaning in which the first person plural here could refer to God as Trinity (so Augustine). But whether one seeks a scriptural text’s meaning in terms of human or divine intention, in each case, the underlying assumption is that the text has associated with it a meaning to be discovered in 9. In particular, I have in view contemporary Western contexts in which historical critical and ethical critical concerns—as well as wider ideological concerns of which these are a part—have influenced contemporary biblical interpretation. 10. An interesting question emerges if one considers the primary usage of Scripture to be liturgical, and what this involves in relation to the task considered here. I will not address this question as it merits a further study in its own right.

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terms of what the author intended, and that the text successfully refers to this, and that the goal of interpretation is to clarify this reference and subsequently how the text may be appropriated and used. Use of the text is thus seen as dependent upon establishing its meaning and reference, which have been estab lished exegetically on this picture through consideration of the meaning of the words so as to infer the referent that the author had in mind. Traditionally, this did not rule out multiple senses however, in that a biblical text could bear stable allegorical, moral and anagogical meanings that were deduced from the literal meaning of the text. Multiple referents are possible at different levels. Alternatively, in more recent hermeneutics there have been moves to locate ‘meaning’ not in the intention of the author, but in the text itself, or in the response of (or constructed by) the reader. What these traditional and contemporary approaches share is the assumption that correlated with a text con sidered as discourse (see below) there is or are some referent(s) considered to be its ‘meaning(s)’. In other words, the meaning(s) is (are) located somewhere (to use a spatial metaphor) and await discovery. From this assumption flows various interpretative dilemmas especially in relation to Scripture. Moreover, this picture allows ‘meaning’ and ‘significance’ to come apart, in that the significance of a text may be understood in terms of how a text has in fact been interpreted and used, in contradistinction to its meaning(s). Its interpretation and use, and hence significance, can be taken to be misguided or mistaken if they do not properly reflect the meaning(s) of the text as discourse. However, such pictures of meaning and significance are problematic. It seems wrong to picture meaning(s) as ‘located’ anywhere, as if the meaning of a word or text is correlated with something.11 The difference between meaning and significance tends to collapse since meanings are associated with practices and ‘forms of life’ both in the case of the meaning of words and in the case of the meaning of texts construed as literature for instance.12 In the case of literature complex rule-governed practices or institutions involving interactions 11. Cf. G.P. Baker & P.M.S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning Vol.1 Part II – Exegesis §§1–184 (Oxford: Blackwell, rev. ed. 2005), 137. 12. I shall move rather freely here between questions of meaning in relation to words, concepts, texts, literature and Scripture. In particular I shall use discussions of meaning in relation to words to illustrate meaning in relation to texts, texts in relation to literature, and literature in relation to Scripture. These reflect different cases or practices in which different issues are involved and so should not be conflated. However, each case reflects an instance of language and linguistic activity considered in the context of social interactions in rule governed practices and forms of life in Wittgenstein’s sense in which the question of meaning arises. There are then sufficient similarities here so as to enable one to move fairly freely between the cases to consider certain aspects of meaning, whilst acknowledging important differences in each case in which the question of meaning arises.

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between authors, works, and readers are involved. In this way the dilemma brought about by picturing meaning as located ‘somewhere’ is avoided, being seen as the pursuit of a chimera, but without despairing about meaning. To see the issues involved a little more clearly in the case of the meaning of words, and to see the difficulty with Augustine’s conception of meaning in particular, we briefly consider Wittgenstein’s discussion of the problem: Augustine, in the Confessions 1.8: ‘When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shewn by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of their face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding something. Thus, as I heard these words repeatedly used in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own desires.’ These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language. It is this: the individual words in language name objects—sentences are combinations of such names. — In this picture of language we find the roots of the following idea: Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands. Augustine does not speak of there being any difference between kinds of word. If you describe the learning of language in this way you are, I believe, thinking primarily of nouns like “table”, “chair”, “loaf ”, and of people’s names, and only secondarily of the names of certain actions and properties; and of the remaining kinds of word as something that will take care of itself. Now think of the following use of language: I send someone shopping. I give him a slip marked “five red apples”. He takes the slip to the shopkeeper, who opens the drawer marked “apples”; then he looks up the word “red” in a table and finds a colour sample opposite it; then he says the series of cardinal numbers—I assume that he knows them by heart—up to the word “five” and for each number he takes an apple out of the drawer.—It is in this and similar ways that one operates with words. — “But how does he know where and how he is to look up the word ‘red’ and what he is to do with the word ‘five’?”—Well, I assume that he acts as I have described. Explanations come to an end somewhere.—But what is the meaning of

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture the word “five”? —No such thing was in question here, only how the 13 word “five” is used. (§1)

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Wittgenstein shows how usage of language is central, and that we ought to pay attention to the different ways in which language functions in different cases. He goes on to note, ‘That philosophical concept of meaning [Augustine’s conception of words naming objects and having meanings correlating with the words] has its place in a primitive idea of the way language functions. But one may also say that it is the idea of a language more primitive than ours.’ (PI §2). He then introduces the concept of a language game, and discusses an example based on the communication between a builder and his assistant in which the language consists only of the words “block”, “pillar”, “slab” and “beam”. On calling out one of these, the assistant brings the builder the relevant object. Using this example he considers what the words signify; in particular, the dif ference between “Slab!” in this simple language game and in our more complicated language. He considers whether ostensive teaching of the word “slab” effects an understanding of the word. He remarks, ‘Don’t you understand the call “Slab!” if you act upon it in such-and-such a way? —Doubtless the ostensive teaching helped to bring this about; but only together with a particular training. With different training the same ostensive teaching of these words would have effected a quite different understanding.’ (PI §6). Thus Lamarque suggests that Wittgenstein ‘crucially shifts attention from language as a picture of reality to language as social interaction between participants’, 14 and Marie McGinn notes that for Wittgenstein, Language is essentially embedded in structured activities that constitute a ‘form of life’. Almost all of the activities that human beings engage in are ones that are intrinsically connected with, or somehow grounded in, our use of language; our form of life is everywhere shaped by the use of language … our form of life is fundamentally cultural in nature. Learning our language, or coming to participate in our form of life, is essentially connected with acquiring mastery of countless kinds of language-game.15

The Christian life as life formed within the community of the church is such a structured activity constituting a form of life of which scriptural interpretation and the mastery of language games is a part. The Christian life is shaped by the use of language and narrative in the formation of concepts, beliefs, val13. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe; Oxford: Blackwell, 2001). 14. Lamarque, ‘Wittgenstein’, 379. 15. M. McGinn, Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations (London: Routledge, 1997), 58.

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ues and attitudes, especially through the narrative of Scripture as taught within the Church. This shaping can also be described as a re-orientation in response to the gracious activity of God, a description that offers another (theo logical) rather than a competing perspective. The interpretation of Scripture forms parts of language games concerned essentially with, let us say (in the traditional sense identified with Evagrius for example) theological formation. The practice of interpretation is a learned activity bound up with rules (in the Wittgensteinian sense) which may be in some sense known even if they are hard to state explicitly or ‘say’ (cf. PI §78). What then about meaning? McGinn, reflecting on Wittgenstein’s philo sophy suggests that, ‘The philosopher’s concern with the construction of an account of the essence of meaning … does not only “send us in pursuit of chimeras” (PI §94), but it ignores the real distinctions and complexities that are revealed only when we look at language when it is functioning, within our dayto-day practice of using it.’ (60). Of course, in many everyday cases Augustine’s picture is adequate for practical purposes—one can successfully use concepts of tables, chairs, people and plants and make references in ways that are in most instances beyond doubt, even if, significantly, there are borderline cases (another of Wittgenstein’s emphases). 16 Similarly, in many everyday cases one can read texts such as newspaper articles, instruction manuals, textbooks, ‘coffee-table’ books and monographs for instance and be confident that one can establish ‘what they mean’, which is often taken in the sense of what the au thor intended to convey. Good interpretation in such cases involves elucidating what it is that the author intended to refer to. But it is this everyday success, coupled with borderline cases such as historical fiction for example, that misleads us in the essentialist direction that Wittgenstein outlines. For example, it is far less clear what good interpretation of narrative literature that is evocative of ethical or aesthetic concepts, and judgments about them, involves especially if the author and the reader are situated in different cultural contexts. I will discuss concepts and judgments below as these involve further issues. But for now we note that it is much harder to talk of ‘the meaning’ of a text in the way that this is normally to be understood. One can however speak more read ily of the significance that a text has in a given context. On Wittgenstein’s account meaning and significance tend to coalesce rather than come apart. To avoid misunderstanding however it may be preferable to talk in terms of significance, understood in relation to the reception and use of a literary text in a particular context. As we noted above however, norms and judgments are always in play in the practice of interpretation, so it is not the case that any in terpretation is as good as any other. Texts can be read and used badly. So, especially in the task of the theological interpretation of Scripture we want to de16. See Wittgenstein’s MS 115, 40–42 & BT 248.

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture

velop some way of considering what significance a text ‘ought’ to have, or to develop a sense of what it means to read well in a particular context. This will not involve the explicit formulation of a set of rules, but will be developed through examples and on a case by case basis. The theological interpretation of Scripture forms part of a language game in which there are associated rules or practices that one follows in the game— certain interpretative moves are allowed, or at least recognized as possible moves, whilst others are not. In terms of how the Old Testament is read as Christian Scripture there may be no meta-justification or methodological description available for the practice as one of rule-following. 17 It is simply ‘what we do’. Different interpretative approaches may be illuminative in considering the formation of good interpretation of particular texts in different cases, in dicating the complexity of the interplay between author, text and reader, and the traditions of which they are a part. So for example in Gen 1:26 one may wish to appeal to a Trinitarian reading of the plural pronoun, being in some sense a canonical reading that encourages the reader to construe all of cre ation as a Trinitarian action. On the other hand, within the same chapter of Genesis even, it may be helpful to draw attention to the likely polemical inten tion behind Gen 1:14–19. The creation of the stars is added as a parenthetical comment together with the portrayal of the sun and moon as created objects to encourage the avoidance of some forms of idolatry. A case can be made that each of these readings reflect good Christian theological interpretation and use of Genesis 1, although the justification for each reading is quite different. 18 There are two aspects to the issue of the use of norms and judgments in the practice of interpretation. These reflect the distinction Lamarque alludes to between internal and external debates and judgments in relation to rule following and games.19 That is, one may consider what counts as good interpreta tion within a particular interpretative tradition or practice, and what counts as good interpretation from the perspective of a critical stance towards that tradition. The latter cannot be set out in terms of an absolute or ultimate metacritical perspective however. Whilst this need not lead to conventionalism or relativism (for instance this is not where Wittgenstein’s own philosophy led), but it is nonetheless a difficulty for the theological interpreter of Scripture. In order to give content to and organize our discussion of these issues, I would like to consider them in relation to three of Paul Ricoeur’s themes. I will take these themes as starting points to be elucidated and developed. The first 17. Cf. O. Kuusela, The Struggle Against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Phi losophy (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 2008), 215–28. Cf. e.g. PI §50, 78. 18. See chapter 8 for a detailed discussion of Gen 1:26. 19. Lamarque, ‘Wittgenstien’, 378. It may be difficult to make such a distinction in all cases—for instance regarding norms and judgments on what constitutes goodness.

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is Ricoeur’s treatment of discourse in terms of the ‘world of the text’; the second relates to the interplay between the ‘hermeneutics of tradition’ and the ‘critique of ideology’, and the third is ‘the idea of a hermeneutic of revelation’.

D ISCOURSE AND THE WORLD OF THE TEXT

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We should not lose sight of the fact that texts are considered to be ‘about something’ even if it is hard to specify how this is to be understood. Interpretations are in a sense answerable to facts about the world that are at hand. Paul Ricoeur offers an account (that will require clarification and nuancing) of how we may understand texts to be ‘about something’. He frames his account in terms of a triple-event character of discourse. By ‘discourse’ he means ‘the actualization of language in a speech-act based on a kind of unit irreducible to the constituents of language as “code”.’ 20 He goes on to suggest that the ‘origin of the text in discourse must be recalled because it is discourse which simultaneously raises the question of the reference forward to an extra-linguistic reality, the reference backward to a speaker, and the communication with an audience’ and hence that ‘the object of hermeneutics is not the “text” but the text as discourse or discourse as the text’.21 Or, as he puts it elsewhere, ‘Discourse consists of the fact that someone says something to someone about something. “About something” is the inalienable referential function of discourse. Writing does not abolish it, but rather transforms it.’22 However, what is finally to be understood in a text is not the author or his presumed intention, nor is it the immanent structure or structures of the text, but rather the sort of world intended beyond the text as its reference. … For the reference of the text is what I call the issue of the text or the world of the text. The world of the text designates the reference of the work of discourse, not what is said, but about what it is said. Hence the issue of the text is the object of hermeneutics. And the issue of the text is the world the text unfolds before it23 self.

20. P. Ricoeur, ‘Biblical Hermeneutics’, in Semeia 4 (1975): 29–148, here 66. 21. Ibid., 66–7. In the case of literature, and especially Scripture, with a length history of reception into its final form or into canon this picture is in need nuance, perhaps using the concept of ‘icon’ that Ricoeur develops elsewhere. 22. P. Ricoeur, ‘Naming God’, in Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) 217–35, here 220. 23. P. Ricoeur, ‘Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation’, in P. Ricoeur (ed. L.S. Mudge), Essays on Biblical Interpretation (London: SPCK, 1981), 73–118, here, 100.

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture

For Ricoeur, although ‘literary texts involve potential horizons of meaning, which may be actualized in different ways’,24 not all interpretations are equal. There are means of arbitrating between interpretations. 25 Ricoeur’s analysis shows one way of negotiating the tension between the different pictures that we have a tendency to construct regarding the meaning of a text, and what it means to interpret and use a text well. As we have seen, it is problematic to claim there is any ‘fact-of-the-matter’ here. Rather, what it means to interpret a text well is something that may be discerned on a case by case basis, even if the ‘world of the text’ is perhaps a good starting place that holds interpretation together. Ricoeur’s remark that there are ways of arbitrating between interpretations, especially when coupled with other comments that some interpretations are more probable than others is not unproblematic, for perhaps it implies that the interpreter’s task is concerned with the discovery of the most prob able interpretation. But ‘most probable’ according to what criteria? How is such a judgment formed? Consideration of the story of Rahab in Joshua 2 & 6 demonstrates that the task of Christian theological interpretation is more that of developing possible readings of the world of the text that are fruitful for Christian reflection and growth. Indeed, I argue in chapter 3 that the most likely reading of Joshua 2 & 6 on its ‘own terms’ is that Rahab’s story is a story that urges the conversion of Israel’s perception of ‘outsiders’ like Rahab, rather than it being primarily about Rahab’s conversion or salvation. This, I suggest, would be a good candidate for the most probable reading. However, Christian interpreters have read the story otherwise as we shall see in chapter 6. The fo cus is often Rahab’s conversion or at least salvation. Such readings are existentially powerful and formative of Christian beliefs and practices, but they seem to be less probable readings than the one just outlined. But with the weight of the Christian tradition that is behind them, coupled with their evocative power in setting Rahab up as paradigmatic convert, it would seem unwise to dismiss traditional Christian readings. Rather, it would seem that the most fruitful approach to interpretation is to develop each of these possible readings of the text, each of which is formative of Christian identity, allowing two facets of the significance of the story to unfold. This is perhaps something of a re-expres sion of the classic Christian or Jewish understanding of multiple senses or interpretations of Scripture as found in the patristic homilies, commentaries, medieval works and the midrashim. There are further complications to the picture that Ricoeur develops, even though it has considerable heuristic value. My concern is that, if rigidly ap24. P. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: The Texan Christian UP, 1976), 78. 25. Ibid, 79.

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plied, it risks replacing one general picture of meaning with another one that does not account for the complexities of the reception and re-use of texts, or specific practices involved with specific kinds of text. Wittgenstein’s reflections on language and its use would urge caution here against trying to establish a general, all-encompassing schema that applies equally to all narratives. Ricoeur’s approach seems most robust when formulated in terms of interpretation of the world of the text such that the text is understood as an icon actualized by the reader 26 in terms of the forms of life that constitute the Christian community in the case of Christian Scripture. We should start now to consider the role of external norms and judgments on practices. If one leans towards concerns with intentionality or indeed genre in shaping an account of good interpretation one needs to offer an account of what goes on in the case of the appropriation of texts in which mistakes were made by the author or by subsequent authors reusing a text. For instance if the genre of a text is misidentified, in particular by the compilers of, say, the final form of another text incorporating it, or during the compilation of the canon of Scripture, what account of good interpretation is one to offer? Moreover, it is not clear that the conception of a particular genre is sufficiently stable across time and cultures.27 For example, if in Gen 1:26 the author had in mind the divine assembly when using the plural pronoun as many commentators suppose (see chapter 8), then this is arguably a mistake in terms of contemporary Christian metaphysical understanding. Can the text still be appropriated then? In a picture of significance in which the text is treated as icon it would seem that it can be. Indeed, clearly Gen 1:26 has been used to powerful evocative theological effect in a Trinitarian understanding of creation. It would seem wrong to dismiss this as a mistaken use of the text. The question then concerns what it is that warrants such use. The complexity of the interplay between author, text and readers, and the traditions and practices of which they are a part, comes to the fore. To take a different example, suppose that the narrative of Samuel-Kings was composed as fiction whilst it was received canonically under the assumption that it was historically reliable. 28 Does this influence our 26. This is one of Ricoeur’s emphases. 27. Ricoeur himself leans in this direction in distinguishing the different kind of referential claims in historical narrative and fiction in his illuminating essay ‘The Nar rative Function’, in Semeia 13 (1978): 177–202. 28. The NT authors seem to read OT narratives ‘realistically’ for example. But it is not clear what the significance of this observation is. One could take it to imply no more than that the NT authors regarded the OT stories as authoritative and useful for the construction of Christian identity; or one could take it as an indication that the NT au thors considered OT narrative as factually accurate in a narrow sense. Most likely perhaps, such a sharp dichotomy as we might wish to draw was not in view.

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use of the text, or the decision as to whether it is trustworthy or usable? What interpretative stance toward these texts ought we to take, and how should we understand their Christian significance? An interesting theological perspective is provided by Origen who sugges ted in On First Principles that historical inconsistencies or ethical difficulties in scriptural texts when read in what might be termed the plain, historical nar rative sense lead the interpreter to construe the significance of the text in question in another way, a spiritual way. Origen understood these difficulties to be placed in the text by the Holy Spirit to guide readers toward such a spir itual reading.29 One may see Origen and others such as Gregory of Nyssa practise such a hermeneutic in readings of Genesis, Exodus and Joshua for example. Whilst one may or may not wish to adopt the metaphysical picture of inten tionality presented by Origen, it indicates that we are presented with a further option for the construal of the significance of problematic scriptural texts that is rooted in the texts themselves, the Christian tradition, and the desire to con tinue to value and appropriate the texts. Such an account confounds the ex pectations of a ‘literal’ reading strategy, at least when ‘literal’ is narrowly construed. So, briefly to bring Origen into dialogue with Augustine, I wish to develop an interpretative stance towards reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture that is informed and shaped by Augustine’s famous dictum that such interpretation ought to build up the two-fold love of God and neigh bor (On Christian Doctrine I.36). This reflects the suggestion that theological interpretation is inherently concerned with the trustworthiness and appropri ation of Scripture in the formation of the Christian life, attitudes and expecta tions, broadly construed. Alternatively, I sit much more lightly to the role that Augustine gives to authorial intention and to his account of meaning (On Christian Doctrine I.37), and to historical apologetic (e.g. City of God 16.9). Unfortunately it is these latter concerns rather than the former that have tended to shape modern interpretation. This has led to a number of difficulties, as well as a flattening-out of the richness of Scripture and the its interpretation, at least as far as Christian theological interpretation of Scripture is concerned. 30 It is worth discussing in more detail now issues concerning the significance of the correspondence with history in biblical narratives, the problem of 29. On First Principles, Latin Text, 4.2.9, in G.W. Butterworth (trans.), Origen: On First Principles (Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1973), 285–287. This is quoted and discussed in more detail in chapter 3. 30. The latter two stances are of course significant for those reading Old Testament narrative with historical interests. The problem has been the assimilation of theological interpretation into these concerns. Noting that Augustine, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa adopt rather different hermeneutical approaches indicates that now as in the past there are a plurality of approaches to Christian interpretation available.

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possible mistakes either of historical or metaphysical nature and the misidentification of genre from another perspective, as these have been seen as rather pressing problems for the theological trustworthiness and interpretation of the Old Testament. In the interpretation of Old Testament narrative there is often an appeal made to historicity, either as being associated with the real locus of interpretation, or as providing warrant for belief in the narrative (or, con versely, fostering mistrust toward the narrative). But I want to argue against these as general principles, placing greater weight instead on reading the narratives as narratives that shape the values, attitudes and beliefs of the reader in the context of their use within the Christian tradition, coupled with a sensitivity to the particular case at hand.31 Indeed, to adapt a quote of Wittgenstein’s in Zettel to the context of debates on the historicity of the Old Testament: One Christian is convinced in the historical veracity of the Old Testament, another a convinced minimalist and teaches his children accordingly. In such an important matter as the historical reliability of the Old Testament they don’t want to teach their children anything wrong. What will the children be taught? To include in what they say: “The Old Testament is historically accurate” or the opposite? If someone does not believe in fairies, he does not need to teach his children “There are no fairies”: he can omit to teach them the word “fairy”. On what occasion are they to say: “There are …” or “There are no …”? Only when they meet people of contrary belief. But the (Christian) minimalist will teach his children the story of David and Bathsheba and Psalm 51 after all, for of course he wants to teach them to do this and that, e.g. to be able to repent after moral failure and find grace in a loving God. Then where will be the difference between what the minimalist-educated children say and those that believe in the historical veracity of the Old Testament? 32 Won’t the difference only be one of battle cry?

In the usage of Samuel-Kings and Psalm 51 in Christian formation and in the Christian life no such thing is in question as to whether or not there was a historical David or whether the incident with Bathsheba happened. The use of these texts (which are trusted because they are Scripture) evokes a sense of 31. So for instance historicity (in a broad sense) would seem important in the interpretation and use of the gospel accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection (cf. 1 Corinthians 15), whereas historicity in a more narrow sense applied to other narratives in the gospels would seem inappropriate (cf. On First Principles 4.3.1 regarding Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness). Thus I do not wish to claim that an awareness of and sensitivity to issues of historicity is never important; rather, I think that if one asserts that historicity is important in a particular case then one owes an account of why. 32. Adapted from Zettel §413–4.

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God’s grace and forgiveness following repentance after sin. It is a paradigmatic story that shows this. To claim that it is important to assert the existence of a historical David who actually did this seems often to relate to seeking a war rant for belief in the theology expressed in the story. But this is to confuse epi stemology with theology. The assertion of historicity is not the expression of an adequate ‘theology of history’ for instance, for no such thing as a theology of history is in question here in the Christian interpretation and use of the Psalm and the story. This is not to say that the issue of historicity is unimportant for everyone in all cases however. For the historian of ancient Israel for instance, the historical referentiality of the Old Testament materials is precisely what is in question. It might have been in question for early audiences of the materials. But it is not what is in question for the theological interpretation and use of the materials now. However, it might be objected that the original author of Samuel wrote this story knowing it to be a fiction, and is thus to be interpreted as fiction, whilst conjecturing that the canonical compilers included the material on the assumption of its historical veracity. Thus its inclusion in Scripture would be based on a mistake. Or, to take a different kind of example, perhaps the author of Gen 1:26 made a mistake regarding his metaphysical picture. Such mistakes would seem to leave us with texts that are untrustworthy or just wrong. But this is to confuse justification of use with using well, or perhaps issues relating to intention with those relating to significance. Here it will be useful to turn to discussion of the status of fictions, mistakes and models in the contemporary philosophy of science. Paul Teller, a philosopher of science, writes: Imagine that when Euler developed his hydrodynamical equations everyone actually believed water to be a continuous medium. These equations give an excellent description of many aspects of the fluid properties of water. Then, practitioners discovered that water is not a continuous medium … in characterizing water as a continuous medium they had made a mistake. But they, and we today, continue to use Euler’s equations in a wide range of applications. This example illustrates the way in which what had the status of a mistake can acquire the status of a fiction. After the discovery, char acterization of water as a continuous medium is retained for a wide range of models that give excellent results for many aspects of fluid properties, including not just the capacity for accurate predictions but also explanatory understanding of the mechanics of the fluid behaviour of a substance such as water. But now we know that water is not continuous, its characterization as continuous takes on the status of a fictional element in otherwise very accurate models. Characterization as a mistake or as a fiction function as epistemic categories. As we noted before, a fiction is never a mistake. A mis-

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take is a claim made in the belief that it is true or accurate, although in fact it is false or inaccurate. A fiction is also a description that is false or inaccurate. But it is one that is known as such. When we find that a former mistake-turned-fiction facilitates otherwise veridical representations, we continue to put it to good use in producing 33 veridical accounts of the world.

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Teller defines ‘veridical’ as ‘the umbrella success term when, with respect to present interest, a representation succeeds in representing things as they are, in the way achieved by an accurate map, a true (enough) statement, and other sorts of accurate but not completely exact representations.’ (237). This would seem to be suggestive of a more fruitful basis for considering the way that Scripture may be interpreted and used in a way that accounts it a trustworthy or veridical status. Or, to look at the matter from an explicitly theological per spective, for considering what the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture and its revelatory nature might consist of. In other words, there will be a focus on the heuristic value of a narrative for shaping knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, however obtained, rather than a focus on meaning and correspondence with facts in a strict sense.34 If the physical sciences are to be taken as the ‘gold standard’ for deriving knowledge claims about the world, then it would be unreasonable to expect the interpretation of literature to meet higher standards as regards the nature of representation, knowledge and beliefs than in models in science.35 33. P. Teller, ‘Fictions, Fictionalization and Truth in Science’, in M. Suárez (ed.), Fictions in Science: Philosophical Essays on Modeling and Idealization (New York: Routledge, 2009), 235–47, here 245–6. 34. It is illuminative to compare Teller’s account in science with Nicholas Wolterstorff’s account of Ps 93:1–2, and to note how accounts that may have been intended literally acquire use through metaphorization. Wolterstorff’s treatment contrasts divine and human discourse (Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks [Cambridge: CUP, 1995], 208–216). The difficulties with Wolterstorff’s account should be clear in the light of the above, and also in the light of Teller’s example, for Teller’s example and the example of Ps 93:1–2 would seem somewhat analogous and yet I doubt anyone would wish to analyze Euler’s hydrodynamical model in terms of divine discourse. In other words there is much to work out in terms of understanding the ability of fictions or metaphors to offer veridical representations be that in science or liter ature before appealing to divine discourse. The move to divine discourse is too quick and short circuits important issues of human conceptual and linguistic activity, learning and epistemology. 35. The last couple of decades have witnessed a flourishing of interest in fictional models in the philosophy of science, as seen in Suárez’ collection of essays. However, philosophers of science are nervous of the use of the term ‘fiction’ in case its significance is misunderstood. See especially Ronald N. Giere’s essay, ‘Why Scientific Models

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In these terms then, we might look for an account of the inspiration of Scripture, or of its revelatory nature, in the sense that allows one to say that Scripture provides an evocative veridical narrative. That is, Scripture provides a map not in the sense of exact correspondence with timeless, contextless moral, ethical, historical or metaphysical concepts or truths, but in the sense that Scripture, as a human linguistic artefact, offers a narrative or a collection of narratives that help one to find one’s way around through its reception and use. Scripture enables one to find one’s way around such concerns in the context of and with the interests of living out a life of faithful response to God. But the extent of the contexts of veridicality may be somewhat fluid, even if Scrip ture has enduring value in terms of the fashioning of a ‘cultural memory’ (see chapter 2 & 5). This is perhaps none other than a generalization of the classic Christian three-fold approach to the Mosaic Law in which some aspects, the moral, are seen to have enduring significance and applicability, the ceremonial find fulfilment in Christ, and the civil are applicable only to the nation of Is rael. Of course, such a distinction is problematic in the originary frame of ref erence of the Law in which no such distinctions were made, but the need arose to introduce such categorization to make sense of the Law in the context of the lived Christian life, and it proved heuristically valuable to do so. However, as Old Testament narrative reflects, or is in dialogue with the moral, ethical and metaphysical concepts and aspects of the Law, one may find that the veridical nature of Old Testament narrative might be similarly contextual. On this account, the assessment of a narrative in its reception and use as mistaken, fictional, veridical or true is rather fluid and complex. For example, the story of David and Bathsheba may have been composed as a fiction but in cluded in the canon on the assumption of its historical veracity, which then leads some today to see the appropriation of the narrative as problematic. However, none of these epistemic stances toward the narrative need alter the existential significance of the narrative which points in a metaphysical or theological direction in fact. The narrative, in the context of its reception, offers a veridical map that helps one find one’s way around the Christian life after moral failure, urging repentance and the discovery of God’s grace amid failure. This existential significance is not warranted by the correspondence of the narrative with history, but rather, as Paul Ricoeur shows us, in testimony and witness in various forms, as we shall see below. The warrant, if we wish to speak in such terms, derives from the appropriation of the text in experience, tradition and testimony, for which the composition, formation, preservation and transmission of the biblical texts in the canon is central. should not be regarded as Works of Fiction’ in Suárez’ collection. I feel the same dilemma in my use of the term ‘myth’ (see below), that it is illuminative but wide open to misunderstanding and misappropriation.

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The story of David and Bathsheba especially as read in conjunction with Psalm 51 demonstrates the enduring veridical significance of an Old Testament narrative. Genesis 34: the rape of Dinah and the ensuing slaughter of the She chemites by Levi and Simeon is an example for which the contexts of veridicality may be more limited. Meir Sternberg’s reading of this difficult story indicates that the pressure of the portrayals in the text inclines one to see a positive appraisal, in mythological or structuralist terms, of the separatist actions of Levi and Simeon over and against Jacob’s inaction.36 This is reflected in ancient Jewish interpretation of the text, but not Christian interpretation, which is very limited but tended to favor Jacob’s inaction. Especially given the portrayal of violence in the text, it would be easy to form a judgment that what is portrayed in the text simply reflects a mistaken view of what constitutes desirable human behavior. But this is to move too fast, for we may well want to say that if the text evokes the need for separatism, there may be contexts in which a separatist stance is a reflection of faithful response to God. Finally, let us consider again Gen 1:26 from this perspective. 37 If originally it was the divine assembly in the Mesopotamian sense that was in the author’s view, and if it was the case that the text would have been heard as such, we could take this as a mistake. We may read the text as fiction, although this may or may not be a good description of the author’s intentional stance towards the composition of the text. But in the light of a Trinitarian theology, the story read as fiction may evoke the action of the Trinity in creation, and the creation of humanity in the image of the Trinity, whatever we may take this to mean. Whatever the epistemic warrant this text may, or most likely may not, provide for a Trinitarian theology of creation, when read in the Christian theological context it provides an existentially evocative veridical map of the nature of creation and the significance of humanity within creation in Trinitarian terms. So what we see then is the somewhat ad hoc nature of the interpretation and appropriation of Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture and the justification for a particular interpretation or use. There does not appear to be any general meta-level justification or alternatively any general external judgment on Christian reading practices for interpreting texts ‘as we do’ as Christian Scripture. There is no fact-of-the-matter regarding how one ought to de termine the significance of a text in terms of what it means to use a text well. Often however there is a tendency to conflate or confuse issues of epistemology or issues of warrant for beliefs with theological issues—perhaps one of the biggest false-starts of the modern era was to anchor theology in a putative his tory behind the biblical texts, or in the intentions of the authors of the texts. We have seen that such views of meaning, significance and reference are prob36. See chapter 2. 37. See chapter 8.

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lematic. Moreover, the inherent nature of the virtue of Christian faith as faith is precisely that its epistemic warrant may be thin. Faith is founded on and generated by the relationship of the knower and the known rather than on evidentially derived epistemic warrants. Christian faith is perhaps paradigmatically expressed in terms of Peter walking on the water in response to Jesus’ call rather than in terms of any warrant that the water may or may not provide —indeed, when a warrant for belief is sought in these terms Peter sinks (Matt 14:22–33). But the question remains whether one can still sketch some partial account of some warrant or justification for adopting certain readings as good Christian readings, for forming judgments about both Christian interpretative practices and the appropriation of the existential, ethical and metaphysical concepts that Scripture and its interpretation evokes. We have made some progress towards this that we shall now develop further from another perspective.

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T HE HERMENEUTICS OF TRADITION AND THE CRITIQUE OF IDEOLOGY As we are beginning to see, the details of the Christian interpretation of Old Testament narrative are, inherently, worked out on a ‘case by case’ basis. There are different issues involved in different cases that call for an eclectic approach. Associated with the issue of interpretation there is an issue concerning the appropriation of texts in terms of the formation of judgments in rela tion to the reception and use of texts. Imaginatively inhabiting the ‘world of the text’ may offer a good picture for reading and appropriating a text well in some cases in which certain kinds of critical judgment are not in view. Altern atively, Nicholas Lash discusses the task of Christian interpretation and appropriation of Scripture in terms of considering how ‘what was once achieved, intended or “shown”’ in scriptural texts in terms of concrete expressions of human practice and behavior might be re-expressed faithfully today in concrete expressions of human practice and behavior. 38 But how then might one judge what constitutes appropriating or using a particular scriptural text well, or even whether a particular text ought to be appropriated at all in the light of ethical criticism for instance? Here one seeks judgments from an external perspective both on the practices associated with the interpretative traditions within which the texts are read, and with the concepts or ideas that are promoted in the texts, especially those of an ethical or metaphysical nature. Such an external perspective is, however, a perspective that is not available in an absolute or ultimate sense. So how might one negotiate this difficulty? Before considering how the Christian might appropriately appeal to ‘revelation’, we shall look at one way in which Paul Ricoeur handles the difficulty. 38. N. Lash, ‘What might Martyrdom mean?’ in Theology on the Way to Emmaus (London: SCM, 1986) 75–92, here 89–91.

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In his essay ‘Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology’ Ricoeur addresses the two different poles between which the interpreter is situated. On the one hand, one always and already stands within a tradition and its language games and practices. It is within such a tradition that one forms ‘prejudices’ (to adopt Gadamer’s preferred concept, with no pejorative sense implied in the term ‘prejudice’) that enable one to interpret, understand and have knowledge, even if such traditions offer provisional rather than final, absolute understanding and knowing. On the other hand, to put the matter in its starkest terms, such traditions and their hermeneutics are subject to critiques of ideology that seek to locate and express ‘interests’, critiques that seek defiantly to unmask false consciousnesses and the hidden exercise of force within such traditions. Yet the ‘critique of ideology’ is not ‘from nowhere’, being a part of its own tradi tion, and provisional itself and not absolute, and thus in need of the hermen eutics of tradition. This leads to an interesting tension or ‘interpenetration’ between the two concerns.39 Ricoeur suggests that The gesture of hermeneutics is a humble one of acknowledging the historical conditions to which all human understanding is subsumed in the reign of finitude; that of the critique of ideology is a proud gesture of defiance directed against the distortions of human communication. By the first, I place myself in the historical process to which I know that I belong; by the second, I oppose the present state of falsified human communication with the idea of an essentially political freedom of speech, guided by the limiting idea of un restricted and unconstrained communication. My aim is not to fuse the hermeneutics of tradition and the critique of ideology in a super-system which would encompass both … each speaks from a different place. Nonetheless, each may be asked to recognise the other, not as a position which is foreign and purely 40 hostile, but as one which raises in its own way a legitimate claim.

Ricoeur suggests further that The task of the hermeneutics of tradition is to remind the critique of ideology that man can project his emancipation and anticipate an unlimited and unconstrained communication only on the basis of the creative reinterpretation of cultural heritage. If we had no experience of communication, however restricted and mutilated it was, how could we wish it to prevail for all men and at all institutional levels of the social nexus? It seems to me that critique can be nei ther the first instance nor the last. Distortions can be criticised only 39. P. Ricoeur, ‘Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology’, in J.B. Thompson (ed.), Paul Ricoeur: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: CUP, 1981), 63–100. 40. Ricoeur, ‘Hermeneutics’, 87–88.

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in the name of a consensus which we cannot anticipate merely emptily, in the manner of a regulative idea, unless that idea is exemplified; and one of the very places of exemplification of the ideal of communication is precisely our capacity to overcome cultural dis tance in the interpretation of works received from the past. He who is unable to reinterpret his past may also be incapable of projecting 41 concretely his interest in emancipation.

There is no simple fusion of these concerns to construct a method that will ‘solve’ the difficulty, for as Ricoeur concludes, ‘The moment these two interests [of reinterpretation of cultural heritages received from the past and that of the futuristic projections of a liberated humanity] become radically separate, then hermeneutics and critique will themselves be no more than … ideologies!’ 42 If these categories are interpreted sufficiently broadly, they reveal an in teresting way with which to consider the formation of judgments as part of the task of Christian interpretation of the Old Testament—of the stories that it presents, and of the values, ethics and metaphysics that it projects. I wish to work with a concept of the ‘critique of ideology’ as implying the critique of the hermeneutics and understanding of a tradition, the texts it cherishes, and its interests from the perspective of a critical understanding within particular systems of ideas and interests, without necessarily seeking to develop in any detail the question of the sense in which a traditional consciousness might re flect distortion, domination and violence, or to try and interpret a traditional consciousness in these terms. I wish to speak from the location of trust within the hermeneutics of tradition as nuanced by the critique of ideology, rather than from a defiant or suspicious stance primarily concerned with the critique of ideology. In other words, I start from a fundamental stance of trust rather than mis-trust towards Scripture and the Christian tradition. 43 The difficulty with a category such as the ‘critique of ideology’ for Christians is perhaps that ideological critiques are often suspicious, defiant gestures that reduce or collapse our understanding of traditions and discourses simply to exercises of the will to power, and come not from a sense of ‘participation in’ the divine reality. In a contemporary setting, such critiques often stem from contexts that are fundamentally hostile to Christianity and implicitly try to claim the last word—there is little or no space accorded to respond from within 41. Ibid., 97. 42. Ibid., 100. 43. This is perhaps one way of characterizing Christian theological interpretation. I take it that interpretations as well as texts can transcend the circumstances of their production, and that whatever forces motivate their production they may well have enduring significance that is life-enhancing, and not reducible to socio-political interests alone. Cf. Lamarque, ‘Wittgenstein’, 377.

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the tradition and its hermeneutics. Ricoeur discusses the difficulty of such a position in his essay, and thus for the Christian interpreter I prefer to think of the ‘critique of ideology’ more in terms of a sympathetic questioning of the tradition and its interests from the perspective of a certain worldview, its con cepts and its assumptions than a decisive word of judgment. It reflects a questioning to which the tradition responds, being free to accept or reject in dia logue with its own resources. This sets up a conversation that may be fruitful, even if there is a tension. It would seem that this is the space in which the theological interpretation of Scripture and its appropriation takes place, espe cially if the concept of the critique of ideology is taken so as to incorporate a slightly wider (if also slightly archaic) conception of ideology as concerned with systems of ideas and ideals. 44 There are two specific ways in which this dialogue might be brought into contact with the concerns outlined above. First, in relation to examining the nature of concepts, their application, and judgments concerning their use, for which we return to Wittgenstein. Secondly, turning to Lash, by considering how a critique of ideology can be viewed as a critique of idolatry and thus inherent to the tradition already. So, first, we consider the nature of concepts. Concepts are crucial to our task as they shape how we experience, see and interpret the world. A major factor driving the composition and reception of Scripture may be understood in terms of the adoption and shaping of appropriate ethical, metaphysical and theological concepts such as goodness, forgiveness, lying, marriage, sacrifice, faith, the nature of creation, the divine nature and so on. These are as much evoked symbolically through narrative as laid down propositionally. But these are especially the sorts of concepts for which the alluring Augustinian picture of language and reference breaks down, and so we must make judgments about both their application within a practice and about their metaphysical status or valence. In PI §76–77 Wittgenstein discusses the degree to which sharp pictures can resemble blurred ones, suggesting that if one has patches of colors that merge, then it may be impossible to draw a sharp picture that corresponds to the blurred one. So he suggests, ‘Won’t you have to say: “Here I might as well draw a circle or heart as a rectangle, for all the colours merge. Anything—and nothing—is right.”—And this is the position you are in if you look for definitions corresponding to our concepts in aesthetics or ethics.’ ( PI §77). Wittgenstein concludes PI §77 by drawing attention to the observation that we learn 44. Perhaps a rather less provocative expression than the ‘critique of ideology’ might be something like, ‘a critical or questioning stance towards the subject-matter of the text, the tradition in which it is used and its hermeneutics as informed by the concerns and understanding of contemporary contexts and worldviews’. However, as this risks domesticating Ricoeur’s thesis too much, and is a rather cumbersome expression, I shall stay with Ricoeur’s categories.

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the meaning of a word such as ‘good’ from its use in examples in the context of language games. Christians learn what it is that constitutes goodness from the exemplification of various attitudes and actions in the Scriptural narratives themselves but also in the context of their Christian interpretation and appro priation via the value-judgments that are given on the actions in the narratives. The Christian application, interpretation or valence of an ethical concept evoked by a narrative might differ from that envisaged by the narrative’s author. So whilst there may be undisputed instances of goodness as exemplified by analogy with the centre of a patch of color where the color is well-defined, as one moves away from the centre the concept becomes less distinct, and it becomes harder to know what to call, or to interpret as ‘good’. Judgments are required both in terms of what comes under the description of a concept, and in terms of the status or valence of the concept itself. So take a moral concept, such as the supposed virtue of not telling lies. The temptation for the Christian is precisely to attempt to draw sharp boundaries that are deduced from Scripture and adopt these. But a Wittgensteinian account of language and the formation of judgments regarding the use of concepts, developed here using the analogy of the blurring and merging of colors, would imply that sharp boundaries regarding what constitutes lying and to the moral valence of lying (i.e., whether it is never to be interpreted as good or whether it can sometimes be understood as good) are unavailable. Confidence in the definition and applica tion of such boundaries arises from an Augustinian picture of language. Indeed, we find in the tradition of Augustine and later Calvin a sharp rejection of lying in any context since it is contrary to God’s moral law—the putative boundaries are sharply drawn and known.45 To support this view one may also witness the tendency to assimilate the Decalogue’s ‫לע־תענה ברעך עד שׁקר‬ (Exod 20:16) in which a specific legal context seems presumed, to a blanket prohibition on lying. The trouble is of course for Augustine and Calvin that at a number of points in the biblical narrative actions that are most naturally con ceptualized as lies are told in a way in which a positive interpretation of the ac tion seems required, such as the Hebrew midwives protecting babies in Exodus 1, or in Rahab hiding the spies in Joshua 2. Indeed, John Chrysostom is fully aware of positive biblical examples of lying, devoting a chapter of On the Priesthood to expound the virtue of lying and deceiving in a Christian context for the good of others. In a sense then Chrysostom can be viewed as developing the hermeneutics of the tradition (i.e., of the biblical narratives) in contradistinction to Augustine or Calvin’s ‘critique of ideology’ (albeit informed also by the tradition) in which, ideologically, lying is morally wrong. The contemporary interpreter then has to form judgments regarding what constitutes lying, and what constitutes a moral response to it. In this way we see how the ‘hermen45. See e.g. Augustine’s On Lying.

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eutics of tradition’ and the ‘critique of ideology’ interweave in complex ways in relation to how judgments are formed. To develop the example of lying further, we do not know what to make of the Gibeonite deception in Joshua 9, es pecially because the ethical valence and conceptualization of such deception varies considerably across different cultural contexts, bringing the question of the appropriation of concepts and judgments regarding concepts central to a narrative to the fore. 46 The concepts that a narrative is taken to reflect, and the judgments that one forms about them, are fluid and are to be understood in terms of a complex interplay between the author, the text, and the reader and the contexts in which they stand or practices of which they are a part. The concepts can be blurry or fluid, or even problematic in different contexts, calling for judgments to be made. The interpretation of the Gibeonite deception in Joshua 9, and the sense in which the story is best appropriated, is not given to us on a plate. Perhaps Christian readers ought to be critical of their deception, or, possibly alternatively, be critical towards the stance of the author and the assumptions of the context of production towards the deception. As we shall see in chapter 7 similar issues arise in relation to contemporary ethical issues regarding sexuality, and in chapter 8 in relation to theological issues concerning the divine nature. In each case we shall study some of the factors involved in the complex interplay between the author, text and reader and the practices and conceptual frameworks that each are associated with, especially in terms of how Christian readers today form judgments regarding ethical and metaphysical concepts that are evoked by the narratives. Secondly then, whilst the language of the ‘hermeneutics of tradition’ and especially the ‘critique of ideology’ may well be rather jarring to some interpreters, the concerns that they express have resonances with traditional Christian theological understanding. The production, reception and use of Scripture do not escape human creaturely limitations. This might be understood in terms of inherent human nature, or perhaps it relates to our fallen-ness. It is this latter point that I wish to develop here. The problems of human motiva tions stemming from self-deception and self-interest coupled with a propensity toward idolatry are well-recognized in Christian spirituality, with an awareness of these issues leading to the recognition of the necessity for self-examination or self-critique.47 Indeed, as Nicholas Lash has put it, 46. For discussion of the difficulty in evaluating the Gibeonite deception see D.S. Earl, Reading Joshua as Christian Scripture (JTISup 2; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 157–63. For discussion of how interpreters through the ages have dealt with the issue of deception see J.L. Thompson, Reading the Bible with the Dead: What you can learn from the history of exegesis that you can’t learn from exegesis alone (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2007), 71–92.

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It has, in these postmodern times, become a little easier to win a hearing for the suggestion that Ideologiekritik is always, in the last 48 analysis, critique of idolatry. [T]he critical dimension of the theological task is to be sought in the direction of the critique of idolatry–the stripping away of the veils of self-assurance by which we seek to protect our faces from expo49 sure to the mystery of God.

Contemporary Christian interpretation of Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture is rooted in and grows out of the Christian tradition and the history of reception and use of the texts within that tradition, yet we may only gradually come to be aware of idolatries that are ever pervasive even within the witness of the tradition. This suggests that a critical stance toward the tradition from within the tradition is to be adopted, albeit from a stance of trust. Such critique ought to be viewed in terms of attentive self-examination of the Christian tradition using the resources of the tradition so as to nuance Christian self-understanding and practices, and should not be overstated. The contemporary interpreter of Scripture is thus likely to draw upon the hermeneutics and interpretations of figures like Origen, Augustine and Aqui nas (for example), yet will also be in dialogue with the critiques of modern and post-modern thinkers and movements that question the tradition and its interpretation and use of Scripture, as well as Scripture itself, via movements like historical criticism, ethical criticism, feminist and postcolonial critique for example.50 This means that one’s aim is not to repackage the interpretations of figures such as Origen or Augustine, but rather one allows modern critique to reshape one’s understanding and appropriation of figures such as these. But modern critiques of spiritual interpretation or a certain ethical concept (for example) need not be determinative. One may reject or nuance such critiques, even if they seem unavoidable in contemporary worldviews—worldviews formed through various traditions. This is not far removed from what Christian interpreters have always done—interpreting and appropriating texts using the resources of the tradition in the light of contemporary questions and an 47. For an illuminating study of these concerns in classic Christian spirituality see Rowan Williams, Teresa of Avila (Outstanding Christian Thinkers; London: Continuum, 2004). 48. N. Lash, ‘Hollow Centres and Holy Places’, in The Beginning and End of Religion (Cambridge: CUP, 1996), 183–98, here, 194. 49. N. Lash, ‘Criticism or Construction? The Task of the Theologian’, in Theology on the Way to Emmaus (London: SCM, 1986), 3–17, here, 9. 50. In the language of the terms just introduced, one might say that historical criticism can educate us away from a certain kind of idolatry in our understanding of the biblical text, even as it introduces its own kind of idolatrous patterns of thinking that requires the critique of the tradition.

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awareness of human limitations. Perhaps the difference now is that greater emphasis is granted to ‘critique’ than to ‘tradition’. We now consider how the concept of ‘revelation’ might be brought to bear on this discussion.

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T OWARD A HERMENEUTIC OF THE IDEA OF REVELATION In ‘Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation’ Ricoeur develops the concept of the ‘world of the text’ coupled with the sense in which ‘poetic discourse’ (as he terms it) can be understood to have a ‘revelatory function’ that restores to us a sense of ‘participation in’ along with the idea of the experience of testimony.51 He develops a sense of participation-in rather than justificationof. Ultimately, it is the divine reality that the Christian participates in, as aided by and witnessed to through Scripture, tradition and its practices and forms of life. One may view Old Testament narrative as symbolic, existentially-involving discourse that manifests itself to us ‘as icon’. Perhaps it is in these terms that the conception of Scripture as canon does its real work. The preservation of the texts as canon is a witness to or testimony to a revelatory function of the texts in terms of their being foundational, constitutive and generative of the life of the Christian community. The canon is reflective of the ‘cultural memory’ of the Christian community in broad terms, suggesting that the texts are worthy of attending to and wrestling with. The texts as part of a living tra dition witness to and provide a means by which we may be drawn into parti cipation in the divine reality and the world experienced as God’s creation. Some of Ricoeur and Wittgenstein’s themes may also be felt through Rowan Williams with respect to the questions of ‘revelation’ and how we learn to speak about God. Williams addresses some of these issues in his essay ‘Trinity and Revelation’, noting that ‘Theology … is perennially liable to be seduced by the prospect of bypassing the question of how it learns its own language’,52 and expresses a concern with the question of what grounds or ‘authorization’ can be given for speaking of God, and of how we may speak of ‘revelation’. He suggests that revelation ‘is essentially to do with what is generative in our experience … “revelation” is a concept which emerges from a questioning attention to our present life in the light of a particular past—a past seen as “gener ative”.’ ‘The “revelation” of YHWH occurs as part of the process whereby a community takes cognizance of its own distinctive identity. It constitutes a concept of God for itself by asking what it is that constitutes itself.’ The ‘lan51. Ricoeur, “Toward a Hermeneutic”. Perhaps the terms ‘poetic discourse’ and ‘poetic fiction’ that he uses elsewhere are not the most appropriate, but I shall stay with Ricoeur’s terms to indicate my indebtedness to Ricoeur’s ideas and analyses. 52. R. Williams, ‘Trinity and Revelation’, in On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 131–47, here, 131.

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guage of revelation is used to express the sense of an initiative that does not lie with us and to challenge the myth of the self-constitution of consciousness.’ We may ask if an event is revelation on the basis of the question, ‘If we live like this, has revelation occurred?’53 Williams draws upon a book by R.L. Hart 54 to observe that ‘revelation’ may be ‘taken to include both the event generating a hermeneutical enterprise and “the movement of the hermeneutical spiral it self.’ Thus Williams suggests that revelation is not fundamentally an impartation of God’s self-knowledge, an ultimate epistemological security, but rather it is worked out in the relation between the divine act and the hermeneutical process, rather than in a concept of ‘absolute knowledge’. We interpret a particular narrative and not another, but we must show how it is a story that is able to give meaning to the human condition in various circumstances. 55 In the studies that follow in this book, I hope to show how we can ‘learn about our learning’ with reference to the nature of Scripture and the process of its interpretation and appropriation, and what we might mean by describing Scripture as inspired and its appropriation as ‘revelatory’. A sense of humility here will help us to be cautious in how we use scriptural texts and develop our theology, but also to be cautious in the critical judgments that we form. In terms of how we learn about our learning, two categories for understanding the nature of some of the biblical texts, their usage and the task of their interpretation come from contemporary anthropology: from approaches to ‘myth’, and from the idea of ‘cultural memory’. Myth and cultural memory offer ways of thinking about how the worldview, hopes, fears understanding and identity of people and communities are shaped. This is precisely in keeping with the use of Scripture, even if we may wish to claim that Scripture in some sense does more than this—being able to transform the reader or hearer through the work of the Spirit in grace in a sense that is unique to Scripture. The study of myth (especially in the Christian context) is, of course, controversial and complex, and I hope to develop this in a helpful way in what follows.56 53. Ibid., 135. 54. R.L. Hart, Unfinished Man and the Imagination. Toward an Ontology and a Rhetoric of Revelation (New York, 1968) esp. 83–105. 55. Williams, ‘Trinity’, 142. 56. For a detailed discussion of the contemporary use of the term ‘myth’ in anthropological studies and its applicability in a Christian context see my Reading Joshua, esp. 14–48. The obvious difficulty with using the term ‘myth’ in the context of Christian theological interpretation of Scripture is the statement in 2 Pet. 1:16 that ‘we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.’ A prima facie case can be made that Christian theological interpreters should avoid the category ‘myth’ to describe Scripture. However, the sense, reference and significance of the word differ in the ancient and contemporary contexts. This is unfortunate, and is a dilemma faced

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Despite the unease about the use of terms such as myth and fiction with refer ence to the Bible, it is worth recalling C.S. Lewis’ succinct statement, ‘I think He meant us to have sacred myth and sacred fiction as well as sacred history.’57 Indeed, as we shall see in the studies, construing biblical revelation in terms of myth will perhaps be helpful in considering the question of how we learn about our learning so that we are better able to make judgments. 58 It is of course a temptation for Christians to attempt to short-circuit or bypass the limitations of human language, concepts and literary activities and practices. It is tempting to move quickly past issues concerning the production, reception and use of texts in contexts with their own particular practices via appeals to certain kinds of doctrine of scriptural inspiration or revelation. But as we have seen this will not do. Scripture is composed, received and used in human language using human concepts and practices, and is a species of hu man literary activity with all the limitations as well as possibilities that this implies. What the notion of ‘revelation’ gives to us is a sense of trusting parti cipation in a tradition that evokes, testifies to and witnesses to God, and gives meaning to life as life lived out in relation to and in dependence on God, even though it is ‘as through a glass darkly’. As we learn more about what is involved in this process of learning, hopefully we come to see more clearly.

O VERVIEW OF THE BOOK

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I will examine a number of Old Testament narratives that each in various ways highlight both the difficulties and possibilities in reading the Old Testa ment as Christian Scripture. Such difficulties and possibilities span those of theological, ethical and historical concerns. The texts are chosen and studied with a number of terms such as spiritual, religious, mystical and history, but one we must live with. The solution, it seems to me, when it is difficult to avoid a term is to clarify what is meant when using it. Thus I relate myth to how the identity, beliefs, worldviews and values of societies are shaped, often in symbolic and evocative ways that have existential dimensions as much as propositional or historical dimensions. Mythical narrative need not be set up as the antithesis of historical narrative, since his torical narratives are used to shape the identities, values and worldviews of societies, and the degree of correspondence of historical narratives to facts is somewhat fluid. 57. C.S. Lewis, in a letter to Janet Wise, October 5, 1955; cited in Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ‘On Scripture’, in The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis, ed. R. MacSwain and M. Ward (Cambridge: CUP, 2010), 75–88, here, 87. 58. I adopt a neutral stance to the terms myth, ideology and prejudice, using them without pejorative connotations, or expectation that a false consciousness is reflected. Thus I am happy to talk about Christian myth, prejudice or ideology when the terms are helpful categories for discussing particular issues. Of course, there is harmful and false myth, ideology and prejudice, but I do not treat this as inherent to the categories.

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with a view to considering how the Old Testament may be read and appropriated well, and what it is helpful to consider in the interpretation of particular narratives. The texts studied are by no means the only texts that could have been chosen. I have tended to focus on texts where there are perceived diffi culties, since this it seems to me is where clarity in the task of interpretation is most needed. It is with some regret that I have not discussed texts that deal more explicitly with divine grace or love—Exodus 34 for instance. Yet I hope that some of the interpretative considerations highlighted by the texts selec ted here can fruitfully be brought to bear on such texts. With all this in mind, initially then, in chapter 2, I study Genesis 34 which narrates the rape of Dinah followed by the slaughter of the Shechemites by her brothers. Clearly, this text is wide open to a critique of ideology with regard to the ethics of what is narrated. I commence with this text so as to highlight the difficulties that are involved in seeking to understand (and use) Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture, not pretending that it is a straightforward task. Here I look at the value of reading a text like this as a story in its own right and ‘on its own terms’, using a ‘literary poetic’ approach. I also consider structuralist approaches to the text, and the value of understanding the text as ‘myth’ read in existential and structuralist perspectives. Together, these give important pointers toward understanding the text and its reception, and why it has found rather little Christian significance. We shall consider whether the text has in fact been read well by Christian interpreters. The use of ‘literary poetics’ coupled with neo-structuralism indicates a critique of the rather sparse traditional interpretations and uses of the text, a critique that we shall return to consider in chapter 4 and again in chapter 6. In chapter 3 we shall look at the book of Joshua from similar perspectives, but indicate how, perhaps surprisingly, Joshua has considerable Christian significance. Here, by listening to contemporary historical and ethical criticism of Joshua I show how one may draw upon some of Origen’s hermeneutical principles, that moral and historical difficulties with the text encourage engagement with the text in a way other than a naïve, literal or plain reading of the text. The reading that emerges has interesting resonances with Christian con cerns as expressed in texts such as Matthew 25 for example, pointing the way to a reengagement with the book of Joshua. The critiques of contemporary ideology promote a reshaping of the contemporary hermeneutics and its assumptions as regards the book of Joshua, but the Christian tradition offers a resource for moving beyond the ‘disabling moves’ implied in contemporary critiques of Joshua. In chapter 4 I turn to the story of Joseph (Genesis 37–50) with several goals in mind. First, I wish to study the reading strategies that emerge for dealing with theologically problematic aspects of some of Joseph’s actions narrated in

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the text—marrying the daughter of an Egyptian priest (Gen 41:45); swearing by pharaoh (Gen 42:15), and practising divination (Gen 44:5). Secondly, I consider the role that seeking to recover the authorial intention that the text represents and the socio-historical context of the text’s composition has in shaping inter pretation. Thirdly, I study the influence that the chosen textual horizon within which the story is located has for interpretation. Finally, I use these problematic texts to consider the role that the history of reception plays in forming on going interpretation. From these considerations I start explicitly to develop ways in which the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur might offer a helpful resource in the task of Christian theological interpretation of Old Testament narrative. In many ways this chapter is pivotal for understanding this task in terms of ap propriating the world of the text through the meeting of the hermeneutics of tradition with the critique of ideology, and exploring what this looks like in practice. It becomes clear that there are various interpretative moves that might be made. Indeed, the significance of Joseph being portrayed as living be fore the Law was given can be construed in two opposed ways. Two different interpretative options for the problematic texts are available. In chapter 5 I consider how the story of David might be interpreted if in fact the account of David in Samuel turns out to be largely fictional and arises from different interwoven political ideologies. Indeed, the portrait of David evoked in the final form of the text might in fact derive from two very different portraits of David—one unswervingly positive and another that is in some ways defamatory or critical, especially towards the idea of the Davidic dynasty. As well as leading to further discussion of the hermeneutical issues raised in the previous chapter, this study will lead us into discussion regarding the way in which we might understand such a text to be ‘revelatory’, and I start to tease out some of the implications of this. This chapter also represents an attempt to show how one might respond to an ideological critique of the Old Testament materials based on what some have dubbed a ‘minimalist ideology’, from within the hermeneutics of the Christian tradition. In chapter 6 I revisit the interpretations of Genesis 34 and Rahab’s story developed earlier, suggesting that what seems an obvious goal for interpreta tion (that of seeking the ‘most probable’ reading) needs to be rethought by showing how possible readings of the stories when developed in terms of a Christian context might form foundations for Christian appropriation of the stories in a context specific manner. In chapter 7, using the book of Ruth, we study the significance that the context, practices, concepts and assumptions of the interpreter have on inter pretation, here in the hubristic contemporary context of sexual ethics. In what sense might or might not the story be formative for a Christian sexual ethic, a question that leads to the bigger question of the extent to which Old Testa -

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ment narratives are a resource for shaping contemporary ethics in any straightforward sense? This chapter shows what happens when the critique of ideology meets the hermeneutics of tradition head on with it becoming clear that narratives do not shape Christian ethics in a straightforward sense since ethical assumptions also shape the interpretation of a narrative such as Ruth. Having looked at length at what it means to read Old Testament narrative ‘as story’ with interpretations that have often involved the ethical outworking of the Christian life, looking at various historical and moral difficulties with the texts, in chapter 8 I study a text that has had much more metaphysical and theological weight placed on it, Gen 1:26. I aim here to reconsider what is in volved in the interpretation of Old Testament narrative texts when metaphys ical questions are in view, especially when the metaphysical issues involved stand at the heart of Christian confession and seem to emerge from the interpretation of the text in question. Do the critiques of traditional Trinitarian interpretations of Gen 1:26 arising from certain ideologies associated with historical criticism and author centred hermeneutics imply that the traditional interpretation(s) are no longer viable? Finally, in chapter 9 I turn to what has been regarded over the last couple of centuries as one of the main features of Old Testament theology—namely that of ‘salvation history’, a feature that has more recently been seen as prob lematic. Through a study of recent approaches to pentateuchal criticism and critiques of the nature of the biblical material, when coupled with conclusions from earlier chapters in the book I suggest that salvation history is itself a mythical concept that emerges out of a particular reading strategy of the canon as a whole in a particular reading context—that of modernity. As a concept it has a number of resemblances with the patristic concept of oikonomia, or the ‘economy of salvation’. ‘Salvation history’ is often used to inter pret the patristic concept—yet this brings concerns of a particularly modernist flavour that may distort the patristic concept. Re-appropriating the patristic concept, allowing it to be reshaped in the light of modern criticism would therefore seem to be a fruitful avenue to pursue as we ‘learn about our learn ing’ of how we can speak appropriately about ‘salvation history’ and use it as a ‘hermeneutical key’ to interpretation. I hope that studying these texts and reflecting on their interpretation and appropriation in these ways will help to foster a context and stance toward interpretation that will be beneficial in reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture so as to grow in wisdom, understanding and maturity in the Christian life and in the love of God and neighbor in Christ.

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C HAPTER 2

GENESIS 34 A NALYSIS OF WHY AN OLD TESTAMENT NARRATIVE HAS F AILED TO FIND CHRISTIAN SIGNIFICANCE USING L ITERARY POETICS AND NEO-STRUCTURALISM

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On any reckoning Genesis 34, which tells the story of the rape of Dinah followed by the deception and slaughter of the Shechemites by her brothers, is a difficult text. In his commentary on Genesis Walter Brueggemann states that ‘this narrative will surely not be widely used in theological exposition’, 1 and in t h e Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Mark Sheridan notes that the story ‘was a cause of scandal rather than edification to Christian readers of these Scriptures. This probably accounts for the little attention given to it by commentators.’2 In other words, there is an implicit critique of the ideology re flected in the world of the text. Indeed, even Origen, perhaps the master for developing Christian application from some of the most demanding Old Testa ment texts, has virtually nothing to say on the story in his Homilies on Genesis, 1. W. Brueggemann, Genesis (Interpretation; Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 279, and compare with various commentaries where nothing is said of Christian appropriation of the text in works that otherwise have such a concern as a focus, e.g. G. von Rad, Genesis (OTL; rev. ET; London: SCM Press, 1963); V.P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 18–50 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1995). 2. M. Sheridan, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Genesis 12–50 (Downers Grove: IVP, 2002), 227. For surveys of its history of interpretation see R. Parry, Old Testament Story and Christian Ethics: The Rape of Dinah as a Case Study (Paternoster Biblical Monographs; Bletchley: Paternoster, 2004), 87–122; J.A. Schroeder, Dinah’s Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 11–55; J.L. Thompson, Reading the Bible with the Dead: What you can learn from the history of exegesis that you can’t learn from exegesis alone (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2007), 185–214.

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and makes only a single passing reference to Gen 34:5. 3 Likewise, in the Antiochene tradition there is little comment on the story in, for example, Theodoret’s Questions on Genesis. Theodoret refers to the story only once, and remarks on Gen 34:25–31 that Jacob expressed his anger against Simeon and Levi as well, and, distressed at their unlawful slaughter of the Shechemites, prayed to have no share in their transgression. Nonetheless, he cursed, not them, but their wicked passions: their wrath, their frenzy. He referred to their wrath as “desire,” since the word “wrath” is derived from desire, for an angry man desires to take vengeance on his foe. And this punishment of theirs was also a prophecy: “I shall divide them in Jacob and 4 scatter them in Israel.” [Gen. 49:7].

Theodoret’s reading is fairly typical of the extant readings of Genesis 34 dating from around the time of the early Christian era into the patristic era. Jacob usually emerges in a positive light demonstrating wisdom and the control of anger, such as in 4 Macc 2:18–20:

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… the temperate mind is able to get the better of the emotions, to correct some, and to render others powerless. Why else did Jacob, our most wise father, censure the households of Simeon and Levi for their irrational slaughter of the entire tribe of the Shechemites, saying, "Cursed be their anger"? For if reason could not control anger, he would not have spoken thus. (NRSV)

Similarly, Josephus understands the story as portraying Jacob in a positive light in contrast to his sons (A.J. 1.21.1–2 §340–341), as does Ambrose. 5 Robin Parry notes that later Christian expositors of Genesis 34 such as Luther and Calvin find an unjust atrocity in Simeon and Levi’s actions. Jacob emerges as a positive figure, but Dinah is criticized for her curiosity in going out from her father’s house.6 This concern also reflects earlier Jewish interpretation (e.g., Genesis Rabbah 80.1–12). But in the contemporary context Genesis 34 has be come one of the parade examples of the problematic nature of the Old Testa -

3. See R.E. Heine (trans.), Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus (FC 71; Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982) Hom. Gen. 15.4, 208. 4. R.C. Hill (trans.), Theodoret of Cyrus: The Questions on the Octateuch: Volume I: On Genesis and Exodus (LEC 1; Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007) Question 112.1, 207. 5. For discussion of Ambrose’s reading in which Jacob emerges in a positive light against a Roman backdrop see M.L. Colish, Ambrose’s Patriarchs: Ethics for the Common Man (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 115–119. 6. Parry, Old Testament Story 102–8.

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ment and its use.7 It is taken as a difficult ‘test case’ for projects to construct Christian ethics from the Old Testament. 8 There is fairly little to say regarding recent theological interpretation of Genesis 34. It is a text that is often avoided by theological interpreters, or interpreted in terms of models of behavior to avoid, models that are used to in terpret modern problems. For example Walter Brueggemann suggests that

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Sadly, at the end of the narrative Jacob’s sons have learned nothing and conceded nothing (v.31). They are fixed on the narrow sexual issue. The sons remain blind to the larger economic issues, blind to the dangers they have created, blind to the possibilities of cooperation, and blind even to the ways they have compromised their own 9 religion in their thirst for vengeance and gain.

James McKeown develops Brueggemann’s reading suggesting that ‘[t]his thirst for vengeance is still a motivating factor in the world today. … Reason and common sense gave way to blind sectarian vindictiveness and thirst for revenge. This is what Jacob feared.’10 Rusty Reno suggests that ‘Simeon and Levi have the right motive: they want to make clean that which has been defiled [Dinah]. They want to protect the future of the covenant. But their methods are hopeless. What they do to the Shechemites parallels the flood. They try to remove defilement by destroying all that is unclean.’ 11 Reno develops this line of interpretation to suggest that ‘[d]efilement must be brought before God for atonement’, but notes that the ‘modern moral imagination no longer trusts in the power of atonement. Not surprisingly, therefore, recent centuries have seen a return to Simeon and Levi’s strategy’, citing the French Revolution, the Nazis and Russian revolutionaries as examples.12 However, these readings, whilst resonating with contemporary global concerns, may not so ‘obviously’ reflect the values exhibited in the world of the text and, quite probably, by its author(s). Indeed, these readings stand in contrast with earlier Jewish interpretation and use of Genesis 34 in which the ac tions of Simeon and Levi are praised: 13 in Jubilees 30, Judith 9 and Testament of 7. See e.g. Schroeder, Dinah’s Lament. 8. E.g. Parry, Old Testament Story; Gordon J. Wenham, Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Ethically (Old Testament Studies; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 109–19. 9. Brueggemann, Genesis, 279. 10. J. McKeown, Genesis (The Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2008), 160. 11. R.R. Reno, Genesis (SCM Theological Commentary on the Bible; London: SCM, 2010), 255. 12. Ibid., 256. 13. Parry suggests that Jewish interpretation of Genesis 34 is generally positive toward the story whereas Christian interpretation understands the events portrayed in a

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Levi 6–7 the Shechemites are destroyed with divine approval (Jdt 9:2; T. Levi 6:8–11, Jub 30:6); Jacob’s sons’ actions are praised, being described in terms of righteousness (Jub 30:23) while Levi is rewarded with the priesthood (Jub 30:18–20). Moreover within the Pentateuch itself, perhaps Genesis 34 forms a ‘type’ for Numbers 25 and 31, even if the sense in which it is a ‘type’ and the direction of the typology is debated. 14 Finally, we note that in Philo’s reading, Simeon and Levi’s actions are praiseworthy, since they ‘destroyed those who were still involved in the labor devoted to pleasure and to indulgence of the passions and uncircumcised’.15 How then is one to understand Genesis 34, given that there are two dis tinct hermeneutical traditions of its interpretation? One tradition arises from a critical stance toward one possible understanding of the ideology reflected in the world of the text, resulting in a positive construal of Jacob, whilst the other tradition develops precisely such an ideology, upholding Simeon and Levi for the righteousness?

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R ECENT HISTORICAL CRITICISM AND THE TEXT OF GENESIS 34 In the modern era historical criticism was seen as one of the key tools or strategies used to interpret Old Testament narrative, both in historical and theological terms, for these concerns were conflated. So having looked briefly at the history of reception of Genesis 34 as a guide to its interpretation, we shall now have a very brief look at historical critical analysis of Genesis 34. Much scholarly debate on Genesis 34 over the last century or so has reflected the modern tendency to attempt to understand texts through their origins coupled with their history of redaction, rather than the text that we now have as the subject of interpretation. Difficulties and ambiguities have been ‘ex plained’ through appeal to somewhat clumsy redaction of multiple sources in to the text that we now have. On such an account one might then seek to ac count for the two different histories of the reception of Genesis 34 in terms of appeal to two traditions represented in the text itself that offer conflicting as sessments of the actions narrated. Thus one could claim that the final form of the text presents a somewhat confused narrative. Following the rise of Julius more negative light (Old Testament Story, 217). I shall return to this observation later. 14. Parry, Old Testament Story, 185–96. 15. On the Migration of Abraham 39, in C.D. Yonge (trans.), The Works of Philo (new ed.; Hendrickson: 1993), p.275. Philo overlooks the fact that the Shechemites were circumcised! Whilst Philo pursues allegorical reading strategies, an approach developed in a Christian context most notably by Origen, it is noteworthy that Origen does not make this kind of move with Genesis 34.

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Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis 16 scholars have attempted to classify material in the narrative in terms of the putative J (Yahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deuteronomist) and P (Priestly) sources, or subsequent refinements and combinations of them. However, E.A. Speiser suggests that it is ‘no wonder that the documentary analysis of the chapter [Genesis 34] has run into its share of snags’, noting that there is general agreement that the core stemmed from J, but with the possibility of ‘intrusions’ from P or E having been raised. 17 Whilst Speiser allocates the whole chapter to J, S.R. Driver for example had attributed some material to J and some to P, reflecting a fairly typical analysis of the material. On this basis Driver suggests that ‘in P the entire transaction is on a much larger scale than in J, and what in J is a personal matter becomes in P an affair involving the whole of the two communities of Israel and Shechem.’ 18 If this, or some similar division is possible, then perhaps one might be able to account for the ambiguity and difficulties in interpreting the story (i.e., that on some accounts Levi and Simeon emerge in a positive light whilst Jacob emerges in a positive light in others) in terms of the reflection of two different perspectives arising from accounts made up with significantly different ele ments. So for example John Van Seters suggests that ‘this combination of J and P does not result merely in ambivalence or a “balance” of viewpoints … but in contradiction and incoherence.’19 However, a number of scholars have moved away from this kind of recon struction of the text in terms of putative J, E and P sources. There is a tendency to view the text as a late ‘unit’ that forms a unified composition. In that case it is difficult to appeal to contradiction and incoherence arising through redaction as grounds for difficulties in interpreting the text. Indeed, Genesis 34 has often been seen as somewhat anomalous. Its portrayal of violence sits rather uncomfortably in a period that otherwise reflects something of an ‘ecumenical bonhomie’.20 So for example Jean–Louis Ska regards Genesis 34 as an example of a ‘separate narrative … [that] may have existed independently before being integrated into the “Jacob cycle”’; 21 Reinhard Kratz holds up the narrative as a 16. See J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, ET: 1885). 17. E.A. Speiser, Genesis (AB 1; New York: Doubleday & Co, 3rd ed. 1983), 266. 18. S.R. Driver, The Book of Genesis (Westminster Commentaries; London: Methuen & Co. 15th ed. 1948), 302. 19. J. Van Seters, ‘The Silence of Dinah (Genesis 34)’, in J.-D. Macchi and T. Römer (eds.), Jacob : commentaire à plusieurs voix de = Ein mehrstimmiger Kommentar zu = A plural commentary of Gen 25–36 : mélanges offerts à Albert de Pury (Genève : Labor et Fides, 2001) 239–247, here 247. 20. Wenham, Story, 20; cf. R.W.L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament: Patriarchal Narratives and Mosaic Yahwism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 97, 99, 104.

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post-Priestly midrash-like addition, 22 whilst David Carr argues that Genesis 34 is secondary to its context, disturbing the movement of the wider story. He suggests that ‘the placement of Genesis 34 in the non-P material postdates … the broader Jacob story of which [it is] a part.’23 Similarly Konrad Schmid proposes the existence of ‘an independent narrative complex’ that forms an an cestor story contained within Genesis 12–50 that does not include Genesis 34. 24 Thus there is clearly much difficulty with this story. There appear to be in creasingly good grounds to regard it as a unit in its own right, and this is how I shall proceed to analyze the story here. This suggests that it is difficult to de velop an account of the purported inherent ambiguity of the story via appeal to the redaction of sources or traditions. Perhaps then there is a more coherent way of reading the text as a whole, and so we shall now consider Meir Sternberg’s literary poetic reading of the text in which a coherent reading of the text as a whole emerges.

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T HE POETICS OF GENESIS 34 AND MEIR STERNBERG’ S READING OF THE NARRATIVE The period from the 1970s–1980s in particular witnessed a flourishing of ‘poetics’, which envisaged a fresh kind of literary reading of Old Testament narrative. Such approaches to biblical texts take the final form of the text that we now have as the matter for interpretation. This is in distinction from the earlier trends of historical criticism that sought putative source documents or traditions behind the text and their subsequent redaction on the one hand, or, as in more recent trends in interpretation, the history of the reception and use of the text on the other. By paying close attention to the way in which meaning is created or implied in the text that we now have by various literary devices or 21. J-L. Ska, Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, ET: 2006), 206. 22. R. G. Kratz, The Composition of the Narrative Books in the Old Testament (London: T&T Clark, ET: 2005), 260. Genesis 14 and Genesis 34 are late midrash ‘which presupposes the commandment about circumcision in Gen. 17 (P) …’ (260). ‘[T]he passages are post- rather than pre-Priestly’ (260). 23. D.M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville: WJKP, 1996), 252. 24. K. Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible (Siphrut 3; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 116–117. See further C. Levin, Der Jahwist (FRLANT 157; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 263; E. Blum, Die Komposition derVätergeschichte (WMANT 57; Neukirchen-Vlyun: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), 210–23; J. Alberto Soggin, Das Buch Genesis (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1997), 409–411.

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techniques, particularly fruitful readings of biblical texts emerged, clarifying what appears to be represented in the texts as discourse. Techniques such as repetition, characterisation, use of ambiguity, withholding information until key points of the story, use of perspective, use of key-words or particular themes or narrative ‘types’ have all been analyzed in this regard. Understand ing the art of composition of the narratives has been seen as a key to helping us to understand them.25 Meir Sternberg’s brilliant literary-poetic reading of Genesis 34 draws at tention to the way in which its author seeks to persuade the reader to adopt the ideology reflected in the text when the subject matter is so difficult, a story in which, according to Sternberg, Simeon and Levi emerge in a positive light and Jacob in a negative light. 26 Sternberg suggests that one means of persuading the reader is through portrayal. Jacob is portrayed in the story largely by the way in which characters are described in relation to him, and by his absence in most of the story; Jacob, initially prominent, ‘drops out’ of the action, and reappears at the end. Dinah is explicitly and repeatedly described as ‘Jacob’s daughter’ initially (34:1, 3, 5 and 7), but becomes the ‘sister’ of her brothers as the story unfolds (34:13, 14, 27 and 31). By telling the story in this way the narrator casts Jacob in a negative light and Dinah’s brothers in a positive light; clearly what happened to Dinah was an outrage, yet Jacob did nothing. He did not exercise a fatherly concern for his daughter. Rather it was Dinah’s brothers who acted. This sets her brothers up in a positive light—as caring for their sister—to prepare for what follows. Moreover, in the conclusion, when Jacob expresses outrage at the massacre, his words are carefully chosen so as to indicate not a moral outrage at the massacre, but a concern for the consequences. The repeated use of ‘I’ and ‘me’ indicates a concern for himself. But the question with which the brothers respond to Jacob (34:31), a question that is left unanswered, indicates the problem; ‘Should our sister be treated like a whore?’ Sternberg also draws attention to the importance of withholding and re vealing information. For example, the report of v.26 is unexpected; ‘[Simeon and Levi] ... took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and went away’. Only now, after the massacre, do we learn the surprising information that Dinah was be ing held captive by her rapist all along. Suddenly, what is developing into a portrait of a brutal massacre in the reader’s mind looks rather different. In deed, at the beginning of the story Dinah’s brothers are portrayed positively, 25. See especially R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (Basic Books, 1981), and M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985). 26. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 441–81. The following analysis is dependent upon Sternberg.

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but the massacre at Shechem tarnishes their image, to say the least. How can the narrator ‘rescue’ them? By introducing this vital piece of information in v.26, that Dinah was being held captive, the massacre is transformed from an act of brutal revenge into a hostage rescue mission, albeit a violent one. The reader, shocked at the action of the brothers, regains some sympathy for them since the use of deceit and force now appears more legitimate. Furthermore, now that the reader knows that the Hivites were holding Dinah captive, the speech of the Hivites in v.9 (‘... give your daughters to us, and take our daugh ters for yourselves’) reads rather differently. The reader now sees that their speech is suggestive of a stance of domination. This affects the portrayal of the Hivites who seem unconcerned with the outrage of the rape, which simply be comes an opportunity for trade for them (v.10). The narrator also introduces differentiation between Dinah’s brothers, highlighting the role of Simeon and Levi, and their positive portrayal. It is Simeon and Levi who are responsible for the rescue mission, whilst for the rest of Dinah’s brothers the attack is about revenge and plunder (v.27). Furthermore, referring only to Simeon and Levi in the final dialogue with Jacob devel ops Jacob’s negative portrayal. Jacob singles out for criticism only those who were concerned with the rescue of Dinah. Jacob does not single out those concerned with revenge and plunder. So as Sternberg puts it, ‘He who twiddles his thumbs about the rape and deems the gifts fair compensation is as guilty of making a whore of Dinah as the rapist and giver himself.’27 Thus Sternberg indicates how through the ‘drama of reading’ the story as a whole is set up to cast Simeon and Levi in a positive light and Jacob in a negative light. This is unlike most traditional Christian interpretations of the story, and unlike historical-critical readings that claim to isolate putative sources behind the text that offer conflicting portraits and assessments of some basic narrative ‘kernel’.

G ENESIS 34 I N THE CONTEXT OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS A significant difficulty for a positive appraisal of Simeon and Levi arises from the juxtaposition in the final form of Genesis of Genesis 34 with Gen 49:5– 7, part of Jacob’s farewell blessing to his sons. Simeon and Levi emerge in a negative light in Jacob’s blessing, apparently owing to the incident described in Genesis 34. 28 However, Sternberg suggests that here after the passing of time Jacob can ‘afford to play the moralist’,29 and thus whilst one might assume that the perspectives of Jacob, the narrator and God converge in this solemn 27. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 475. 28. Parry, Old Testament Story, 179–85. 29. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 473.

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‘farewell blessing’ as an evaluation of Genesis 34, this need not be the case. Does the ambiguity of Jacob’s character, from the narrator’s perspective, continue to the end of his life? Gen 49:5–7 is a problematic text with various textual and exegetical diffi culties. In a thorough study of these difficulties Stanley Gevirtz reconstructs and re-reads the text on linguistic grounds to produce a reading that is at some variance with the MT: Simeon and Levi are spent owls, Cashiered hawks are they.

‫ֹחי־ם כֵ ִלי‬ ֵ ‫ִשׁ ִמעוןֹ וְלֵ ִוי א‬ ‫ַּת ְח ִמסֵ ־ם ִכ ֵר ִתי ֵהם‬

Into their council I will not enter, In their assembly I do not rejoice.

‫ל־תב ֹא נ ְַּפ ִשׁי‬ ָּ ַּ‫ִבס ִֹדם א‬ ‫ִבֹדי‬ ִ ‫ִב ְק ָּהלָּ ם אַּ ל ִת ַּח ד כ‬

For in their anger they kill(ed) men, And in their caprice tore out a bull. Cursed be their anger so potent, And their vehemence so callous! I shall divide them in Jacob 30 And shall scatter them in Israel.

‫ִכ י ְבאַּ פָּם ָּה ְרגו ִאישׁ‬ ‫צנָּם ִע ְקרו שׁור‬ ֹ ‫ו ִב ְר‬ ‫אָּ רור אַּ פָּם ִכי עָּ ז‬ ‫ְועֶ ְב ָּר ָּתם ִכי ָּקשָּׁ ָּתה‬ ‫קב‬ ֹ ֲ‫א ַּח ְל ִקם ְביַּצ‬ ֲ ‫וַּאֲ ִפיצֵ ם ְביִ ְשׂ ָּראַּ ל‬

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He then considers the history behind the text, concluding that, The persona of Jacob’s Blessing, representing the ideal(ized) pre-Judaean federation of Israelite tribal groups, now at the point of (or shortly after) its dissolution in the reign of Jeroboam I, expresses in Gen. 49:5–7 disdain for Simeon and Levi. Characterizing them as perishing birds of prey, he dissociates himself from them, curses their anger which had led them to commit actions inimical to the perceived interests of the association, and consigns them to dispersion. The felonious actions which are here remembered, and which may be said to have occasioned this indictment, were Simeon’s joint military venture with Judah and Levi’s despoliation of the bull-calf 31 image at Bethel.

Whilst such reconstruction remains speculative, the issue here is that Gen 49:5–7 need not refer to Simeon and Levi’s actions in Genesis 34, at least in a context prior to the final form, and possibly even in the context of the final form.32 Indeed, on either Sternberg’s or Gevirtz’ reading of 49:5–7 Jacob 30. S. Gevirtz, ‘Simeon and Levi in “The Blessing of Jacob” (Gen. 49:5–7),’ HUCA 52 (1981): 93–128, here 113. 31. Ibid., 128.

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emerges in a rather negative light, 33 drawing attention to the realpolitik rather than the piety of the blessing. However, in the final form of Genesis, if Jacob’s perspective in the blessing is taken to align with the narrator’s (or God’s) perspective (e.g. 49:28) then the resonances set up between Genesis 34 and 49:5–7 are awkward whatever the original circumstances of the production of each text were. When reading Genesis 34 ‘on its own terms’, arguably Simeon and Levi emerge in a positive light and Jacob rather negatively, as we have seen, whilst within the context generated by Genesis 49 Simeon and Levi emerge negatively in a text that, whatever its history, might be taken most naturally to refer to Genesis 34 in the final form. But there remains a real difficulty in de termining the narrator’s perspective in 49:5–7, and if it coincides with Jacob’s then a crucial hermeneutical question is raised. If the final form of Genesis represents the conflation of different sources that are reflected in these texts, does their composition into the final form represent good use of these texts? Was one of the texts used poorly and if so what is the significance of this? The key question for us is then that of how one might read Genesis 34 well in the light of 49:5–7. As we have already alluded to, historical critics have sought to explain the awkwardness of the juxtaposition of the texts in terms of the pre-history and growth of Genesis. Gen 49:5–7 is normally ascribed to J, as is at least a substantial core of Genesis 34. However, S.R. Driver ascribes a large proportion of Genesis 34 to P, arguing, for example, that in the ‘representation of P, the treachery and cruelty are much greater; and probably,—like the terrible narrative of Nu. xxxi. —it is merely an ideal picture of the manner in which the priestly writer conceived that a people hostile to Israel … ought to be treated.’ 34 Such a hypothesis might be supported by the observation that the era presented in the patriarchal materials was not characterized by warfare, but rather an ‘ecumenical bonhomie’.35 In other words, it is quite possible that in the light of materials such as Numbers 31 (or such concerns as are reflected here if Numbers 31 postdates Genesis 34) a priestly writer re-shaped Genesis 34 in the way that Driver suggests. If this is the case, and if a hypothesis such as Gevirtz’ regarding 32. However, Gevirtz follows Sigo Lehming in taking the references to Levi and Simeon in Genesis 34 as secondary, added as an ‘explanatory background’ to Gen 49:5–7 (‘Simeon and Levi’ 94). See S. Lehming, ‘Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte von Gen 34,’ ZAW 70 (1958): 228–50. For more recent discussion of the problematic nature of the relationship between Genesis 34 and Gen 49:5–7 see Soggin, Genesis, 409–11. 33. I.e., if Sternberg is correct then Jacob is simply playing an ‘armchair moralist’, whilst if Gevirtz is correct in his historical reconstruction then Levi emerges positively as one concerned with legitimate worship. 34. Driver, Genesis, 307. 35. Cf. Moberly, The Old Testament, 97–99.

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the origins of 49:5–7 is correct, then it is possible that these traditions ‘play off’ each other; 49:5–7 is seen to refer to Genesis 34 in its priestly form in which the ‘treachery and cruelty are much greater’ than in an earlier version of the story. But this is speculative, and indeed E.A. Speiser denies any shaping of Genesis 34 by P, ascribing the entire story to J. 36 However, as we saw above, a number of scholars have moved away from trying to understand the pre-history of Gen esis in this way, and are viewing Genesis 34 as a unit. Moreover, such analysis— even if it does account correctly for the history of the text that we now have— does not take us far in understanding how to read the text that we now have as Christian Scripture. Even if Gevirtz’ proposal is correct as a historical thesis, the problem for the contemporary reader is that of how one reads Genesis 34 as part of the same narrative that contains Gen 49:5–7. Whatever the textual history, in the book of Genesis that we now have Gen 49:5–7 may be said to of fer an interpretation of Genesis 34 that casts Levi and Simeon’s actions in a negative light. One could seek to read Gen 49:5–7 in pejorative terms with respect to Jacob as Sternberg does, but this is something that must be inferred as it is not obvious that Jacob’s blessing should be read pejoratively. Thus it may well be that the final form of Genesis is best understood as preserving different perspectives on Levi and Simeon’s actions—a positive appraisal in the story itself, and a more negative (redactional) one demonstrated in Gen 49:5–7 that might reshape one’s reading of Genesis 34. But how might the interpreter determine which perspective to adopt? Leaving Genesis 49 to one side, one might ask if there is any further support in Genesis for a negative appraisal of Jacob, and positive appraisal of Simeon and Levi’s actions as described in Genesis 34. Perhaps there is in Gen 35:5, for here Jacob’s concern in 34:30, that Simeon and Levi’s actions will lead to further violence, is shown to be groundless. Sternberg suggests that the sons ‘having done right … merit and receive divine protection’. 37 However, the terror that falls in 35:5 might be construed as being the result of Jacob’s actions in 35:2–4 (suggesting a positive portrayal of Jacob here in Genesis 35) rather than being the result of Simeon’s and Levi’s actions. But even if this is the case, Jacob’s complaint in 34:30 is shown to be groundless, suggesting that 36. Speiser, Genesis, 266–68. For a more recent overview of the notoriously difficult question of the source analysis of Genesis 34 see G.J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50 (WBC 2; Dallas: Word, 1994), 309–10. 37. M. Sternberg, ‘Biblical Poetics and Sexual Politics: From Reading to Counter– reading’, in JBL 111 (1992): 463–88, here 483. However, it is interesting to note differing Christian and Jewish construals of this verse; for Sternberg the divine assistance is the result of Levi and Simeon’s merit, whereas for Wenham it is simply the result of grace in which ‘God treats his people much more kindly than they deserve in order to demonstrate his faithfulness to his promises’ (Story as Torah, 119).

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his perspective in Genesis 34 is flawed. Thus, however one should take 49:5–7, it seems that Simeon’s and Levi’s actions in Genesis 34 are to be construed pos itively in the context of the surrounding story, and, as we shall see below, in the context of the Patriarchal narratives generally. So perhaps the readings of Genesis 34 that we find in Jubilees and Judith for example reflect good interpretations of Genesis 34 in terms of what it sought to ‘show and achieve’ as discourse. Moreover, read canonically in this way it does serve as a ‘straightforward’ type for Numbers 25 and 31 (or vice versa). The verdict on Phinehas in Ps 106:30, that what he did was ‘reckoned to him as righteousness’, is a verdict that might be equally applicable to Simeon and Levi (cf. Jub 30:23) when the story is read in the context of ‘Mosaic Yahwism’ and its developments in which warfare and certain forms of religious zeal feature more prominently. Alternatively, the traditional Christian construals of the story in which it is Jacob that emerges positively reflect a development of the inherent ambiguity of the story, especially when read through the lens of Gen 49:5–7, even if argu ably they also reflect a weaker reading of the text on its own terms. However, we would seem to have two traditions, and perhaps we might say two hermen eutical traditions, reflected in the Pentateuch, and possibly in Genesis itself with regard to the way in which this story was interpreted and was used. In summary, the reception of Genesis 34, both in Genesis and beyond, highlights certain aspects of the story’s ambiguity and difficulty. The appraisals of Jacob, Simeon and Levi are played out in two different histories of recep tion, one that construes Jacob positively, and one that construes Simeon and Levi positively. These histories of reception have their roots in Genesis itself, histories which tend to heighten the ambiguous natures of these characters and their actions. However, Sternberg’s reading of the story indicates that the ambiguity of the story when read on its own terms is, at one level, less than it may appear. Through the ‘drama of reading’ the narrator seems to guide the reader subtly and carefully towards an evaluation of the characters, even if their actions retain a moral ambiguity. But perhaps the story is meant to be morally problematic and shocking. So if the narrator does wish to say something positive through this story in relation to Simeon and Levi, then what precisely? I would like to take as point of departure Sternberg’s comment that ‘[Jacob’s] inaction amounts to an acquiescence in what a patriarch, whatever his paternal instincts, must fight tooth and nail: exogamous marriage. Dinah must be extricated even at a risk.’ 38 I shall now turn to neo–structuralism as a tool with which to develop this interpretation and to consider the later signi38. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 474. Whilst I take Sternberg’s general point, perhaps he overstates the case—for example, Joseph marries Asenath (Gen 41:45) without any negative appraisal in the narrative. See chapter 4 for discussion.

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ficance of the text, and the lack of Christian significance and appropriation of the story in particular.

A NEO-STRUCTURALIST PERSPECTIVE O N GENESIS 34 Seth Kunin discusses Genesis 34 as a case-study in his development of the structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss into what he terms ‘neo-structuralism’. Before turning to analysis of Genesis 34 from this perspective we shall first briefly consider structuralism, and its development into neo-structuralism, especially as they apply to Genesis as a whole.

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A N INTRODUCTION T O STRUCTURALIST APPROACHES T O MYTH We saw in chapter 1 that it might be fruitful to understand biblical narrat ive in terms of contemporary anthropological approaches to what has been termed ‘myth’. One such approach to myth is the structuralist approach. The structuralist study of myth is closely associated with Claude Lévi-Strauss. In his introduction to the structural study of myth he treats two essential character istics of structuralism and its developments. First, myths are understood to have dynamic significance—‘[structuralism] eliminates … the quest for the true version [of a myth], or the earlier one. On the contrary, we define myth as con sisting of all its versions ... a myth remains the same as long as it is felt as such.’39 Secondly, he suggests that in structuralist perspective ‘mythical thought always works from the awareness of oppositions towards their progressive mediation’.40 Robert Segal helpfully develops the significance of this point regarding the significance of oppositions: Lévi-Strauss alone dispenses with the plot, or ‘diachronic dimension’, of myth and locates the meaning of myth in the structure, or ‘synchronic dimension’. Where the plot of a myth is that event A leads to event B, which leads to event C, which leads to event D, the structure, which is identical with the expression and resolution of contradictions, is either that events A and B constitute an opposition mediated by event C, or that events A and B, which constitute the same opposition, are to each other as events C and D, an analo41 gous opposition, are to each other.

Structuralist readings often highlight the nature of the construction of identity in a society via myth, and the nature of the worldview of the society. In 39. C. Lévi-Strauss, ‘The Structural Study of Myth’ in The Journal of American Folklore vol. 68, No. 270 (Oct.–Dec. 1955): 428–444, here, 435. 40. Ibid., 440. 41. R.A. Segal, Myth: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 118–9.

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particular, structuralism highlights concerns such as who are ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, what is ‘forbidden’ and what is ‘permitted’, and how these various categories interrelate. Indeed, Sir Edmund Leach, developing Lévi-Strauss’ work, provided an interesting structuralist overview of the book of Genesis at a relatively early stage in the development of structuralism. He takes as his starting point the question, ‘But if myths do not mean what they appear to mean, how do they come to mean anything at all? What is the nature of the esoteric mode of communication by which myth is felt to give “expression to unobservable realities”?’42 He is concerned with the observation that there are a variety of possible ‘receivers’ of myth, each of whom ‘decode’ the myth in various way owing to the ‘redundancy’ of information that a myth exhibits, asking if, therefore, a myth can be interpreted in any way that one chooses. He suggests that it is the ‘binary structure of myth that suggests otherwise’, and hence that;

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Despite all variations of theology, this aspect of myth is a constant. In every myth system we will find a persistent sequence of binary discriminations as between human/superhuman, mortal/immortal, male/female, legitimate/illegitimate, good/bad … followed by a “mediation” of the paired categories thus distinguished. “Mediation” (in this sense) is always achieved by introducing a third category which is “abnormal” or “anomalous” in terms of ordinary 43 “rational” categories.

Leach proceeds to analyze Genesis 1–11 with this perspective, suggesting that in each of the main stories one can identify ‘perfect ideal categories’, ‘imperfect real categories’ and ‘confused anomalous categories’. This leads into a discussion of the rules of sexual relationships, and their transgression, as exhibited in the patriarchal narratives with particular reference to endogamy and incest. He considers various relationships between the patriarchs and their wives from this perspective.44 This kind of approach is famously reflected in Mary Douglas’ influential essay, ‘The Abominations of Leviticus’. Here, she takes up the three-fold scheme of classification of earth, waters and firmament that is reflected in Genesis 1 and proceeds to analyze the way in which Leviticus 11 takes up this scheme in order to classify animals. She suggests that Leviticus 11 ‘allots to each element its proper kind of animal life’, and that any creature ‘not equipped for the right kind of locomotion in its element is contrary to holi ness’, and is thus an abomination. She then concluded that the significance of 42. E. Leach, ‘Genesis as Myth’, in Genesis as Myth and Other Essays (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969), 7–23, here, 7. 43. Ibid., 11. 44. Ibid., 18–22. I shall develop these points below.

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the dietary laws ‘would have been like signs which at every turn inspired med itation on the oneness, purity and completeness of God. By rules of avoidance, holiness was given a physical expression in every encounter with the animal kingdom and at every meal.’45 N E O- STRUCTURALIST APPROACHES T O MYTH Structuralist approaches have been widely criticized, notably by Paul Ric oeur, who said of Lévi-Strauss, as far as you are concerned there is no ‘message’ ... you despair of meaning; but you console yourself with the thought that, if men have nothing to say, at least they say it so well that their discourse is amenable to structuralism. You retain meaning, but it is the meaning of non-meaning, the admirable syntactical arrangement of a dis46 course which has nothing to say.

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In light of such criticism, Seth Kunin has developed the structuralist work of Lévi-Strauss in new directions into what he terms ‘neo-structuralism’, critiquing and developing also the work of Leach and Douglas in relation to Gen esis in the process.47 Kunin’s approach is, broadly speaking, to introduce both narrative and structural levels of meaning into the analysis of myth simultaneously, thus allowing myths to be analyzed as more than simply expressions of the logic and relationships of an underlying yet essentially contentless struc ture. It is Kunin’s approach and analysis that I would now like to consider in more detail. Kunin suggests that the basis of structuralist approaches to myth is that all cultural objects will have as their foundation an unconscious underlying structure. Cultural objects from the same context will largely share the same underlying structural equation. ... [S]tructure 45. M. Douglas, ‘The Abominations of Leviticus’, in Purity and Danger (Abingdon: Routledge, Routledge Classics Edition, 2002 [reprinted from 1966 original]), 51–71, esp. 69–71. Note however Douglas’ significant change of perspective, outlined in her preface to the 2002 edition. She notes, ‘I now question whether they [the purportedly abominable creatures] are abominable at all, and suggest rather that it is abominable to harm them.’ (xv). See also critique in S.D. Kunin, We Think What We Eat: Neo-structuralist analysis of Israelite Food Rules and Other Cultural and Textual Practices (JSOTSup 412; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 29–103. Kunin emphasizes the dyadic nature of Gen 1, and regards it as reflecting the same underlying structural system, rather than seeking to identify dependence of one text upon another (ibid., 84, 96). 46. P. Ricoeur in ‘Claude Lévi-Strauss: A Confrontation’, in New Left Review I/62 (Jul– Aug 1970): 57–74, here, 74. See also P. Ricoeur, ‘Biblical Hermeneutics’ in Semeia 4 (1975): 29–148, here, 65. 47. Kunin, We Think What We Eat.

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture at its deepest level organizes patterns of categories that are abstract and contentless—it is the pattern that is significant rather than the meanings articulated by that pattern. The pattern, however, should also be seen as the basis for creating meaningful cultural objects. Structure provides the underlying logic that allows things to be said and to be understood. It creates the logical possibilities that deter48 mine how and what can be meaningfully communicated.

In neo-structuralism distinctions into levels of structure and narrative are in troduced.49 But unlike Lévi-Strauss and other structuralists who seek to impose a ‘particular content or meaning on a biological or universal level’, neo-structuralism considers ‘culture specific aspects of structure rather than the biological’.50 Observing that ‘many readings of structuralism viewed it as denying human agency both in the creation of cultural artefacts and in practice’, Kunin seeks to account for such agency:

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Agency comes into play in the process of emphasizing or de-emphasizing aspects of structure, particularly in cases of cultural overlap. This process leads to possible transformation in structure, and thus removes the static view of culture that is often associated with structuralism. ... Agency provides one of the motors for structural transformation. Agency, which is largely conscious, does not directly change underlying structure, rather it privileges different aspects of the structural equation, and by so doing leads to a slow process by which models of categorization and thinking can 51 change.

Three structural levels and a narrative level are introduced in the analysis of neo-structuralism, denoted S1, S2, S3 and N. S1 is the basic and abstract level, reflecting the biological structure of the brain as capable of structuring; S 2 is the next structural level, which has no informational content, and is ‘under stood to be unconsciously shaped by a culture’, providing the basis for constructing categories and the relationships between them in order to create culturally meaningful patterns; 52 The S3 level is culture and context specific, containing available mythological elements (mythemes or symbols) that find meaning in relation to other mythemes or symbols in that cultural context. Finally, at the N level these symbols or mythemes are woven into a narrative that is the 48. Ibid., 7. 49. Ibid., 5. 50. Ibid., 6. ‘[T]he holy grail of classical structuralism was the discovery of the underlying structures of the brain that were shared by all human beings.’ (7). 51. Ibid., 6. 52. Ibid., 11.

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narrated myth itself. 53 So, for example, in a given culture the S 2 level reflects the existence of families of abstract categories that we may label simply A and B for example, and the nature of the relationships between them. The categories A and B and the relationships between them are given content at the S 3 level of description. So for example, at the S 2 level A and B may be mutually exclusive categories such that mediation or transformation between them is impossible. Kunin suggests that such is the case in the worldview structure of Ancient Israel. In this he departs from the three-fold classifications of Leach and Douglas.54 This form of structure at the S 2 level finds concrete expression at the S3 level in the categorization of animals as ‘clean’ or ‘unclean’, or in the cat egorization ‘priests’ and ‘non-priests’, or ‘Israel’ and ‘non-Israel’ for example. In other words, the abstract A / B categories are given content. Mediation or transformation between categories such as these is not, on the whole, possible in the ancient Israelite structure. The basic underlying structure at the S 2 level is ‘recapitulated’ in various ways throughout the culture in concrete categor ies.55 These ‘concrete’ categories, understood as symbols or mythemes, are then woven into narrative material at the N level, forming actual myths. Classical structuralism was largely concerned with understanding S1 and S2 levels, whilst neo-structuralism develops the importance of S 3 and N levels for interpreting myths. Kunin introduces a definition of myth [that] works on two levels both of which arise from structuralist theory. The underlying structure of the definition is “highly structured narrative (or related) material”. This definition ... sees myth as that body of material in which the structures are most strongly articulated. The definition at this level is open-ended; it makes no determination either to content or function. The next level of definition narrows this range to narrative or related material (for example genealogies) that is used by a particular commu 56 nity to structure its understanding of self and the world.

Thus a narrative that is considered ‘mythical’ in this sense requires ana lysis at both structural and narrative levels, and these analyses will inform one another. So whilst for Lévi-Strauss myths are simply instances of the outworking of the logic of the relationships between categories, being ‘coldly intellec tual’ in nature, for neo-structuralism, myths are viewed in more particular, culturally specific and existential ways. Myths on a neo-structuralist account 53. Ibid., 7–14. 54. Ibid., 29–103. See here for extended discussion of the analysis of underlying Israelite structure. 55. Ibid., 25–27. 56. Ibid., 20.

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are a means of evoking particular worldviews and practices in terms of the ways in which the world is categorized. Specifically, Kunin considers the importance of endogamy in the construc tion of Israelite identity in neo-structuralist perspective, developing it in detail with regard to the Patriarchal Narratives in Genesis. Here he sees the importance of endogamy indicated in the relationships of the patriarchs with their wives, relationships which are, according to levitical legislation (Lev 18:9–18), incestuous.57 Indeed, the transformation from wife to sister in the ‘Wife/Sister texts’ that creates structural or actual incest is characteristic of Genesis as a whole. Sarah is Abraham’s sister in Genesis 20; Rebekah is symbolically transformed into Isaac’s sister in Genesis 26; and Jacob’s marriage to Rachel is forbidden as incestuous (cf. Lev 18:9, 18:18). Moreover, Judah’s relations with Tamar in Genesis 38 are incestuous (Lev 18:15), but all these incestuous relationships are portrayed in a positive light. ‘Thus, mythologically and structurally, incest is positive, while culturally and socially incest is prohibited. Incest, or the logic of incest, is related to both the Israelite preference for endogamy and the attempt to make Israel’s origins qualitatively distinct.’ 58 Endogamy is thus a recapitulation of the basic Israelite structural concep tualization of the world in relation to the construction of Israelite identity. One is either an Israelite or a non-Israelite. There is no mediation or transforma tion between these categories possible, since they are genealogically determ ined.59 In other words the wife/sister texts exhibit a structural logic, but have 57. Ibid., 168–93, esp. 181–83. Regarding the diachronic relationship between the priestly and patriarchal materials he suggests that, ‘While it might be argued that the narratives discussed belong to a different textual strata than the rules on incest, and indeed the P text in which the rules are found may well post-date the texts of the narratives, we are more concerned with the editorial present of the texts as a whole, and therefore the relationships would have been incestuous in that context. Even if we focus on the texts themselves, it is likely that many of the relationships would have been con sidered incestuous (father/daughter or daughter-in-law and brother/sister) even in the cultural contexts preceding the completion of the P texts.’ (176). Indeed, to approach a text as ‘myth’ is to be concerned with questions of persistence and use (as Kunin argues), and for the interpreter of these texts as Scripture their juxtaposition in the canon is suggestive of a reading strategy that is concerned with ‘the editorial present’. This will be developed in the following chapters. 58. Ibid., 176. 59. This is to note the general pattern of the construction of Israelite identity – there are ‘exceptional outsiders’ such as Rahab, Ruth and Naaman who are familiar to Christian readers of the Old Testament. But it is precisely because their stories indicate the possibility of transformation between categories (i.e., ‘conversion’) that they are well known and normative, whereas in fact they are exceptional, being stories that are indicative of the ‘pushing’ of the underlying structural ideology of Ancient Israel.

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cultural significance in terms of encouraging endogamy. To marry an Israelite with a non-Israelite is to attempt to mediate categories in a way that is structurally forbidden in the Israelite worldview. This is a particular instance of an outworking at the S3 level of the S2 level structure. N E O- STRUCTURALIST ANALYSIS O F GENESIS 34 Kunin suggests that Genesis 34 ‘raises two associated questions: is it proper for Israel to give its daughters in marriage (or more broadly to exchange women with another group)? And, can Israel, abandoning its cultural boundaries, join with other nations?’60 For Kunin Dinah symbolizes Israel and Shechem the nations, so that their potential union symbolizes the potential union of Israel with the nations. This is what the narrative forcefully denies. Moreover, Gen 34:15–17

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also raises an additional question about the definition of Israel as presented and developed in Genesis as a whole. The sons of Shechem suggest that circumcision … would in effect transform the Shechemites into Israelites: they would by the operation become part of the covenant. The … text, however, undermines this assumption; it denies that circumcision is a sufficient condition for being 61 part of Israel.

Finally, Kunin discusses the moral issues relating to the acts of Jacob’s sons, a problem raised in 34:30. But he suggests that in structuralist terms what is important is that the narrative is consonant with the underlying structure—and it is, for the narrative (as discourse) denies the possibility of mediation or transformation between non-Israel and Israel, being a recapitulation of the underlying structure or structural ideology.62 Thus we return to something like Sternberg’s reading, but in neo-structuralist perspective, another perspective that indicates that Sternberg’s construal of Simeon and Levi in a positive light is essentially a good (fitting) reading of the story that respects its nature as discourse in its context in Genesis. Moreover, one may suggest that the strand of reception of the story that con strues Simeon and Levi in a positive light can be understood as a ‘crystalliza tion’ and consolidation of the structural (S-level) concerns that permeate the story. Alternatively, the strand of reception that construes Jacob positively reflects a crystallization of certain aspects of narrative (N-level) concern (i.e. excessive violence) in which the original S-level concerns, and thus the function of the story as discourse, in Ricoeur’s sense of the term, are eclipsed. This may 60. Ibid., 183. 61. Ibid., 183–84. 62. Ibid., 184.

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be explained in terms of reading the story in a different cultural context with different underlying structure in which the original structure and the con cerns that it reflects have faded from view. In this context it is no longer in stinctive to read the narrative in terms of the original structural concerns that it reflected, concerns that appear to be central rather than tangential to the function of the story as it was originally composed and received on a neostructuralist account.

T HE SIGNIFICANCE OF GENESIS 34 DEVELOPED Kunin’s analysis raises three related questions: First, is Genesis 34 essentially concerned with the construction of Israelite identity via endogamy as an ideology? Secondly, if so, then what is the relationship between the structural and narrative levels of the story for shaping identity (i.e., does the story nar rate actions that are a model for behavior in the avoidance of exogamy?) Fi nally how does this relationship affect the enduring significance of the narrative in a Christian context where identity is not constructed genealogically and the original structure has faded from view?

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G ENESIS 34 AND THE CONSTRUCTION O F IDENTITY Genesis 34 raises the issues of endogamy (and hence the importance of genealogy and ethnicity) and circumcision for the construction of identity in Ancient Israel as we have seen. But it also raises another ‘pillar’ of Israelite identity—the land. In 34:10 Hamor encourages the Israelites to settle in the land (the Promised Land): ‫והארץ תהיה לפניכם שׁבו וסחרוה והאחזו בה‬ (the land shall be open to you; live and trade in it, and get property in it. (NRSV))

The land is ‘open’ to the Israelites, they can live there, and acquire property. In other words, here is a golden opportunity for Israel to obtain the land of prom ise (Gen 15:7, 17:8, etc.), a promise central to God’s covenant with Abraham, a covenant that required appropriate obedient responsiveness (Gen 17:9–10, cf. Genesis 22). The promise and possession of the land are foundational to Israel’s existence, being part of the covenant, a covenant for which circumcision was to be the sign of appropriate response (17:10–14). These issues are all raised in Genesis 34 (vv.10, 15–17). So what Genesis 34 is inherently concerned with is the question of what is essential to Israelite identity. Endogamy (genealogy), land (geography), and circumcision (symbolic obedience / responsiveness, or perhaps ‘rebirth’ in structuralist perspective) are raised as (interrelated) pos-

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sibilities. If Jacob’s sons took up Hamor’s offer, then it would lead to an ‘easy fulfilment’ of the promise, and stress the centrality of the land for the con struction of Israel’s identity. If circumcision had led to a mingling of the peoples, then it would indicate that circumcision was more basic to Israelite identity than genealogy. This would imply that structurally speaking ‘conversion’ into Israel via the mytheme of rebirth is allowable. But as the story un folds it is clear that neither circumcision nor the land, and what they represent, are ‘the bottom line’ in the construction of Israelite identity here, even if the remainder of Genesis indicates their importance. Rather, genealogy is here ‘the bottom line’, being a recapitulation of the Israelite structure that places ‘ethnic Israel’ and ‘non-ethnic Israel’ in two distinct categories, so that medi ation or transformation between them impossible. The story forcefully rejects circumcision and land possession as being the ‘bottom line’ of Israelite identity, while the violent and morally problematic contents at the narrative level indicating the disastrous consequences of attempting to push the underlying structural ideology. The story suggests that it is ethnic and genealogical iden tity that is central to Israel’s identity. Circumcision and the possession of the land, whilst clearly important, are not essential or sufficient in themselves. Thus, at this level, Simeon and Levi appear in a positive light for they buttress this central aspect of Israel’s self-understanding, whereas Jacob emerges in a negative light, for he appears ambivalent on this crucial issue. However, the slightly ambiguous and open ending of Genesis 34 perhaps reflects the moral difficulties that this story raises at the narrative level. Whilst the important structural ideology that the narrative reflects is unproblematic for the Ancient Israelite, at one level some aspects of the narrative ideology (i.e., of deception and unrestrained violence) is problematic.63 This brings us to the second question above, that of the relationship between the narrative and structural levels of significance. T H E RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NARRATIVE AND STRUCTURE We have seen that at one level the narrative does give content to the un derlying structure and structural relationships through the ‘mythemes’ of en dogamy, circumcision and land. The reading above is not ‘contentless’, in distinction from some forms of classical structuralism; rather structural concerns are used to explain the narrative content, and vice versa. But at another level the narrative is deeply problematic in terms of its ethical and moral content. Does the narrative urge the actions presented here as being in any sense a model for behavior—that mingling is to be avoided in this sort of way perhaps? Or, referring back to the wife-sister texts, do they imply that incest ought to be 63. Since the narrative gives content to the structure as a myth to shape identity, it is some and not all aspects of the narrative that may be problematic.

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practiced—or at least that one should understand that it once was as some form of expression of piety? Although there is an established tendency to construe scriptural narratives as shaping ethics at the narrative level, providing models for behavior in this kind of way, this is, sometimes, to fail to respect the nature of the material. ‘Myths’ such as Genesis 34 do not provide ‘models’ for ethical behavior in any straightforward sense—they might, or they might not, as often elements in the narrative might serve structural requirements,64 or indeed literary requirements. In Genesis 34 one might say that the problematic nature of the narrative serves to evoke the disastrous consequences of exo gamy and mingling, and the zeal with which exogamy is to be avoided—one imagines that what happens here is the kind of thing associated with mingling. Some of Victor Turner’s comments on myth might provide a good per spective from which to consider Genesis 34. This is another anthropological perspective on myth that may well be fruitful for illuminating the biblical ma terial. Turner’s approach focuses on existential rather than logical understandings of myth, and as such it is opposed to classical structuralism. However, in neo-structuralism there is the possibility of a rapprochement between the two approaches. Turner suggests that myths are liminal phenomena: The well-known amorality of myths is intimately connected with their existential bearing. The myth does not describe what ought to be done ... Liminal symbolism, both in its ritual and mythic expressions, abounds in direct or figurative transgressions of the moral codes that hold good in secular life, such as human sacrifice, human flesh eating, and incestuous unions of brother-sister or mother-son deities or their human representatives. Thus the theory that myths are paradigmatic (Eliade 1957) or that myths afford precedents and sanctions for social status and moral rules (Malinowski 1925) requires some sort of qualification. Myths and liminal rites are not to be treated as models for secular behavior. Nor, on the other hand, are they to be regarded as cautionary tales, as negative models which should not be followed. ... Liminality is pure potency, where anything can happen, where immoderacy is normal, even normative, and where the elements of culture and society are released from their customary configurations and recombined in bizarre and terrifying imagery. Yet this boundlessness is restricted - although never without a sense of hazard - by the knowledge that this is a unique situation and by a definition of the situation which states that the rites and myths must be told in a prescribed order and in a symbolic rather than a literal form. The very symbol that expresses at the same time restrains; through mimesis there is an acting out -

64. Kunin, We Think What We Eat e.g., 119 and 176.

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rather than the acting - of an impulse that is … socially and morally 65 reprehended.

In his later work Turner develops the sense in which myths form the basis for enactment in everyday life, 66 but this is not a straightforward enactment of the narrative as a paradigm for behavior. So read ‘as myth’ Genesis 34 finds its enactment in terms of zealous endogamy—exogamy is to be scrupulously avoided, but not (necessarily) by violent means. Similarly, the wife-sister texts do not offer paradigms for incestuous behavior. Rather, they existentially evoke enactment in terms of endogamous marriage practice. 67 In Genesis 34 the morally problematic nature of the narrative simply reinforces at the affectual and existential level the disastrous consequences of mingling and exogamy and the vigor with which these are to be avoided. So there is interplay between the narrative and structural levels in which there is some tension, and indeed ambiguity when it comes to the reception and use of such myths. We have seen that circumcision serves a ‘structural’ role, but it also serves a literary role as part of a captivating story, allowing for the cunning, easy defeat of the Hivites. But the question of the relationship between the narrative and structural levels raises further questions regarding the persistence, development and use of narratives such as this. Is the significance of an Old Testament narrative to be construed ‘on the surface’ at the narrative level (the ‘plain sense’ perhaps), as is often assumed, or in terms of what the narrative inherently seeks to achieve as an act of discourse (when suitably recontextualized), in this case something that is explained well by ‘structural’ concerns? Indeed, in addressing the hermeneutical task of the Christian interpretation of Scripture Nicholas Lash discusses the task in terms of considering how ‘what was once achieved, intended or “shown”’ in scriptural texts in terms of concrete expressions of human practice and behavior might be re-expressed faithfully today in concrete expressions of human practice and beha vior.68 But if what Genesis 34 essentially ‘achieves, intends and shows’ is an eth 65. V. Turner, ‘Myth and Symbol’, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (ed. David L. Sills; Macmillan & The Free Press, 1968) 10.576–81, here 577. 66. V. Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: PAJ, 1982), 7–19, 122. 67. Here, we may understand the incestuous marriages of the patriarchs in terms of the logic of (neo-) structuralism. For the patriarchs to marry endogamously logically required the relationships to be incestuous. It is endogamy (the structural concern) rather than incest (the narrative concern) that is taken to be significant for ongoing existential enactment of these prototypical stories. Here, the understanding of myth as prototypical comes to play. 68. N. Lash, ‘What might Martyrdom mean?’ in Theology on the Way to Emmaus (London: SCM, 1986) 75–92, here 89–91.

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nically exclusive construction of identity that is expressed in endogamy, deny ing the possibility of mediation or transformation, then does Genesis 34 have any enduring Christian significance (cf. Gal 3:28)? For we shall see below how there is a significant transformation between the structures of ancient Israel and the Christian community: conversion and mediation become central ele ments in the Christian worldview. To be read in a Christian context Genesis 34 as myth undergoes a trans formation in its appropriation. Neo-structuralist analysis suggests that transformation of myths, and structure, occurs at several levels in their reception and use. It occurs at the narrative level, where transformations of the narrative, or developments of it, tend to crystallize and articulate various mythemes if these elements are not culturally problematic, or to cloud them if they are problematic. Through such development mythemes can be given different emphases or prominence. The process of transformation at the S 3 level is denoted as bricolage, transformation which reflects changes in the elements from which myths are constructed as the cultural context changes. ‘It is through bricolage that new elements are unconsciously categorized and assembled to create new cultural constructs.’69 But neither of these processes transform the underlying structure of the myth. However, in a departure from classical structuralism Kunin introduces the idea of agency. Whilst this relates to processes of transformation at all levels, the most important transformations occur at the S 2 level, at the level of the underlying structure. It ‘comes into play through the individual’s conscious and unconscious emphasis or privileging of aspects of the underlying structural equation.’ Differing emphases ‘will shape [a group’s] own conscious and unconscious use of the underlying structure, and can, through pushing at the edges of the system, shift it as it transforms through time. This process is facil itated in cultural situations in which different cultural equations come into contact’.70 Kunin describes the ‘conscious articulation of this form of agency’ as jonglerie, or ‘identity juggling’. It encapsulates the process by which individuals privilege different elements of their cultural repertoire at different points in time depending on context and individual choice. Jonglerie is not a random process, it allows the individual to highlight or select different aspects of their identity and thereby to shape and reshape different levels of their use and experience of structure. The theoretical concept of jonglerie highlights the constant process of conscious and un-

69. Kunin, We Think What We Eat, 18. 70. Ibid., 22.

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conscious negotiation of identity and the fact that all identities are 71 in some sense contested.

So we see here how concerns relating to ideology come into play, and how the development of the significance of a narrative relates to those of structure, and vice versa, and how this is played out at conscious and subconscious levels. The narrative can ‘push’ the structure, and vice versa, and the context in which a myth is used can affect the way in which its significance at structural and narrative levels is understood. So what we see in the Christian reception of Genesis 34 is the clouding of the mythemes expressed in the text. At both narrative and structural levels ethnic separation and endogamy are not part of the Christian worldview. 72 These mythemes are ‘clouded’ out in interpretation, and the symbolic, myth ical nature of the text with respect to these themes has become opaque to Christian interpreters as these themes are not part of the Christian interpretative horizon. Moreover, the portrayal of violence at the narrative level is problematic, and so the only reading strategy that remains—if one is to make positive use of the text—is to find a paradigm of wisdom in Jacob’s silence, even though as we have seen, this seems to cut across what the text ‘shows’. Thus the mytheme of wisdom as demonstrated in the restraint of anger is developed through the text, and is a reading that resonates in a context in which apatheia is seen as a goal of the spiritual life.73 However, in Jewish interpretation, the structural concerns remain more prominent, so, perhaps Levi and Simeon can in the subconscious, existential, liminal realm of other-worldly heroes, be praised for their actions, thus crystallizing the interpretation of the myth and its mythemes. 74 For modern readers with raised ideological awareness, such an interpretation of the subject matter of the text, as developed through the tools of neo-structuralism or literary poetics would seem to invite the critique of ideology towards expressions of self-interest and violence as manifested here, even if the violence in the narrative is taken symbolically. 71. Ibid., 23. 72. There is however a ‘soft’ endogamy in the sense that Paul, for instance, encourages Christians to marry Christians (1 Corinthians 7), although the motivations and considerations at play are quite different. For instance conversion to Christianity ought not to lead to divorce from the non-Christian spouse. 73. On the significance of apatheia in the Christian tradition see e.g. A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition from Plato to Denys (Oxford: OUP, rev. ed. 2007), 103–110. 74. Perhaps this accounts for the confidence of Sternberg’s analysis in distinction from the claims of ambiguity by recent Christian readers of the story, for example Wen ham suggests that ‘readers have the utmost difficulty in deciding what the author thinks about the event described’ (Story, 110).

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture

T H E CHRISTIAN SIGNIFICANCE O F GENESIS 34 The classic three-fold distinction of legal materials in the Old Testament into moral, civil and ceremonial laws in which the moral law is considered to have enduring Christian significance, the civil law is seen as having relevance only to the society of Ancient Israel, and the ceremonial law is understood to be ‘fulfilled’ in Christ,75 although problematic, especially with regard to the originating frames of reference for such material, nonetheless reflects a heuristic ally valuable Christian hermeneutic that recognizes that some aspects of the legal corpus no longer have significance in a Christian context because they are made ‘obsolete’ on theological and cultural grounds by Christ and the New Covenant.76 Classically, the Pauline corpus is taken as a point of departure for this hermeneutical move (e.g. Gal 3:1–14). However, perhaps more resistance exists to making a similar hermeneutical move with regard to narrative material. There appears to be more reluctance within the Christian tradition to treating certain narratives as ‘obsolete’ on theological and not just cultural grounds. The Antiochene exegetical tradition is perhaps the exception within the tradition.77 In our context of raised ethical consciousness it is tempting to argue that certain Old Testament narratives should become obsolete simply on moral and ethical grounds. Genesis 34 is a prime candidate. But this move would reflect a failure to understand the nature of such material as ‘mythical’ and often inherently amoral, as we saw above in Turner’s analysis. Indeed, especially in the Alexandrian interpretative tradition difficulties in Old Testament narratives of either historical or moral kinds were taken as cues to construe the significance of a narrative at a level somewhere other than at the ‘narrative level’, i.e., somewhere other than the plain or ‘literal sense’ of the text. 78 Whilst this may have led to certain ‘excesses’ of allegorical reading, nonetheless it seems that the instincts of such interpretation were basically sound, demonstrating an 75. For a classic expression and detailed development of this hermeneutic see Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a2ae, 98–105, in D. Bourke and A. Littledale (trans.), Summa Theologiae Vol.29: The Old Law (1a2ae. 98–105) (London: Blackfriars, 1969). 76. For discussion of the distinctions as a ‘classic Reformation strategy’ see R.W.L. Moberly, ‘The Old Testament in Christianity’, in S. Chapman and M. Sweeney (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament (Cambridge: CUP, forthcoming). 77. Moreover, the legal materials in the Old Testament occur in a narrative context, suggesting that strict division into legal and narrative materials is problematic. See F.M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 1997) for discussion of the differences between Antiochene and Alexandian exegesis. 78. See e.g. Origen, On First Principles, (Latin Text) 4.2.9 in G.W. Butterworth (trans.), Origen: On First Principles (Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1973), 285–87; Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses 2.100, in A.J. Malherbe and E. Ferguson, (trans.), Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses (The Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 77.

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awareness of the nature of the material being dealt with and where its signific ance lay, something that may be described today via recent anthropological approaches to myth, such as in Kunin and Turner. As Paul Ricoeur has put it, ‘The matter of the text is not what a naïve reading of the text reveals, but what the formal arrangement of the text mediates.’ 79 But why then is there so little Christian development of Genesis 34, partic ularly in Origen, the ‘master of allegory’? Returning to Kunin’s work, he notes that whilst Israelite structure is categorized by oppositions such as Israel : Non-Israel and that transformation and mediation between such categories is impossible in a number of Old Testament traditions, in Christianity a major shift in structural conceptuality occurs. In Christianity mediation and trans formation are now essential in the construction of Christian identity. It is ‘faith’ that expresses the mode of transformation. The ‘transformation in mytholo gical structure reflects a transformation in social structure. Unlike the culture which created the Hebrew Bible, whose definition of self was based on a purely genealogical model and a pattern of endogamy, the community that created the New Testament defined itself through faith’. 80 Therefore, what was ‘achieved, intended and shown’ by Genesis 34 is, at one level, theologically at odds with the Christian construction of identity, for the Christian societal (theological) structure is one that depends on conversion (theologically: through faith) and mediation (theologically: through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit), which is precisely the sort of transformation and mediation that Genesis 34 seeks to deny, structurally speaking. In other words, Origen’s refusal to develop Genesis 34 may reflect a sensitivity to the nature of the text and what it sought to ‘achieve, intend and show’, even if he did not have the vocab ulary and tools of neo-structuralism,81 which might suggest that his ‘allegorical’ hermeneutic was not one of an alien and arbitrary imposition of Christian meaning onto Jewish texts. Genesis 34 has in large part failed to find Christian significance because it is theologically and ethically problematic at structural and narrative levels. In other words it is paradigmatic of the ‘oldness’ of the Old Testament, and its theological discontinuity with the New Testament, just as is the case with some 79. P. Ricoeur, ‘Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology’, in J.B. Thompson (ed.), Paul Ricoeur: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: CUP, 1981) 63–100, here, 93. 80. Kunin, We Think What We Eat 138, cf. 140. 81. Cf. R.B. Williams, ‘Origen’s Interpretation of the Old Testament and LéviStrauss’ Interpretation of Myth’, in A.L. Merrill and T.W. Overholt (eds.), Scripture in History & Theology: Essays in Honor of J. Coert Rylaarsdam (Pittsburgh: The Pickwick Press, 1977) 279–99. Williams argues that Origen’s interpretation of the Old Testament can be understood in terms of structuralism.

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of the legal materials in the Old Testament. What little traditional Christian use there has been of the text can be understood as attempts to develop the ambiguities of the morally problematic nature of the text at the narrative (N) level in a certain direction, perhaps as represented in Gen 49:5–7. In such cases Jacob emerges in a rather more positive light as one wisely concerned with excessive violence, as the structural (S) level concerns of the text (the concerns that really drive the narrative) recede from view. Such Christian development possibly also reflects a somewhat ‘wooden’ hermeneutic that attempts, a priori, to construe Jacob in a positive light (as he is a patriarch), and a hermeneutic that seeks to find ‘application’ in all biblical narratives. But it is questionable whether such a reading really reflects a good use of the text as discourse (i.e., it is not ‘fitting’ to the text, and not a reflection of ‘what was once achieved, intended or “shown”’), which may account in part for why such interpretation of the text has been rather insignificant, even if such reading represents an attempt to navigate the difficulties and ambiguities of the text at the N level. Thus the reception of the story indicates the delicate relationship between S and N level concerns in certain texts, indicating the significance of this relationship for the ongoing appropriation and use of Genesis 34. That said, it may be to move too fast to disregard Genesis 34, and I shall offer some remarks below as to why this might be the case, before considering in chapter 6 a slightly more nuanced reading in terms of evoking a separatist attitude that will bal ance the assimilative character of the Joseph story that we shall consider in chapter 4. Indeed, whilst the nature of Christianity inherently involves conver sion, transformation and mediation in various ways—which is what Genesis 34 denies—there is still a place for separatism in the construction of Christian identity. Such separatism stems from the avoidance of idolatrous and sinful practices and habits. As western societies become increasingly post-Christian, the question of the role of separatism in the construction of Christian identity, in some sense and expressed in various forms, is likely to become increasingly significant when previously it was opaque in societies largely shaped by a Judaeo-Christian worldview. In the vocabulary of the NT one might say that this is nicely expressed in terms of being in the world, and in the world for its benefit, but not of the world.

C HRISTIAN HERMENEUTICS AND OLD TESTAMENT NARRATIVE It is interesting to reflect on the relationship between structural and narrative levels in the light of the Christian use of two other texts, Gen 1:1–2:4a and Joshua. We shall see in chapter 3 that Joshua, whilst problematic at the narrative level, reflects an ideology at the structural level that represents a ‘pushing’ of the underlying Israelite ‘societal structure’ toward that of Chris-

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tian structure in which transformation is possible. Rahab’s story (Joshua 2 and 6) indicates the possibility of transformation from ‘non-Israel’ to ‘Israel’; in deed, Rahab is developed in Christian interpretation as a paradigm of faith or as a ‘type’ of the church. Conversely, Achan’s story indicates transformation from ‘Israel’ to ‘non-Israel’ expressed through his (and his genealogical des cendents’) execution (Joshua 7). Thus Joshua, whilst problematic at the narrative level owing to the portrayal of genocide, something recognized by Origen, 82 finds Christian significance because what it seeks to ‘achieve, intend and show’ latently reflects, at the structural level, the construction of Christian identity. Joshua is a narrative that may be re-expressed in new cultural (theological) idioms without requiring violence to the basic intent of the work as discourse. Conversely, Gen 1:1–2:4a, whilst reflecting the structural conceptuality of ancient Israel expressed in the theology of the priestly writer, 83 finds Christian significance because the material at the narrative level is ripe for reflection and development. For instance at the narrative level it depicts humanity as being created in the image of God, even if the narrative becomes structurally prob lematic and is thus eclipsed in Christian use of the text. 84 Thus Gen 1:1–2:4a, Genesis 34 and Joshua provide three paradigmatic texts with which to consider the hermeneutics of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture from a neo-structuralist perspective. Genesis 34 struggles to find enduring significance because it is problematic at structural and narrative levels. Joshua, problematic at the narrative level finds clear resonances at the structural level, thus allowing it to be developed as a resource for the construction of Christian identity when suitably recontextualized at the narrative level. In deed, Joshua seems to qualify and make problematic precisely that which Gen esis 34 seeks to ‘achieve, intend and show’, qualifying the genealogical nature of Israel’s identity. Gen 1:1–2:4a, whilst problematic at the structural level for the Christian, is a rich resource for reflection at the narrative level, and finds its significance developed in this sense whilst structural concerns are largely eclipsed and tend to go un-noticed. Together, these texts then raise interesting and difficult questions of what it means to appropriate Joshua and Gen 1:1–2:4a coherently and well in a Chris-

82. See e.g. Hom. Josh. 8.1, and his way of dealing with such issues in 12.1, discussed further in chapter 3. 83. Kunin, We Think What We Eat 96–97; Cf. e.g. S.E. Ballentine, ‘Creation’s Liturgy and the Cosmic Covenant’, in The Torah’s Vision of Worship (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999) 81–118. 84. See chapter 8 for discussion of the development of narrative level concerns in the Christian context. The theological richness of Gen 1:1–2:4a requires a book length study in its own right, hence I shall concentrate on a single issue in chapter 8.

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tian context,85 questions that we shall address in the following chapters through a study of a variety of texts.

P RELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS

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Genesis 34 has generally failed to find Christian significance because it inherently reflects the ‘oldness’ of the Old Covenant and does not provide a nar rative that readily lends itself to development in contexts other than this. 86 Indeed, the approach developed here suggests the need for a reappraisal of Christian hermeneutics of Old Testament narrative that has wide ranging implications for its use as Christian Scripture. In particular, attempts to develop Christian accounts of Old Testament ethics or theology based on ‘literal’ readings of narratives and their transposition into Christian contexts are problem atic. Viewing the task of Christian Old Testament interpretation fundamentally in terms of reading texts as narratives in their ‘plain sense’ and ‘on their own terms’ so as to re-apply what is said seems wrong-footed. Theologically speaking, for a Christian reader Old Testament texts can only find their significance in juxtaposition with and as read through the New Testament materials (cf. e.g. John 1:1–5; Col 1:15–20), and their reception and development in the tradition.87 What might be a moral or an ethical critique of Genesis 34 arising in a Christian context thus shapes the hermeneutics of the Christian tradition’s appropriation of this story at two levels. 88 At the structural level, the Christian structural ‘ideology’ (i.e., that of mediation, conversion, etc.) critiques the ideology reflected in the tradition that gave rise to Genesis 34 so as to overcome it by promoting conversion as foundational to Christian identity. At the 85. For example, Gen 1:1–2:4a describes an ordered cosmos in a story that reflects the underlying nature of Israelite structure and its structural relationships in which mediation and transformation are denied. What difference to a description of the cosmos and its creation might a Christian structure and set of relationships that allow for mediation and transformation make? For example, is evolution (when theologically nuanced, perhaps in terms of secondary causality) an expression of mediation and trans formation in a way that in fact offers a Christian account of creation? Whilst the idea of an ordered creation is developed in Christianity (and indeed, it makes science possible) the nature of the ordering and the relationships between categories will look different in a Christian context from that expressed in Genesis. 86. This preliminary conclusion will be revisited in chapters 4 and 6. 87. This is not to deny the importance of studying texts ‘on their own terms’ since this is a vital moment in the interpretative process, as we have seen. But for a Christian reader of the Old Testament, this is perhaps a prelude to interpretation of a text with a view to its use in shaping Christian identity. 88. See chapter 1 for brief discussion of Paul Ricoeur’s essay, ‘The Hermeneutics of Tradition and the Critique of Ideology’.

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narrative level, the ideological critique of violence displaces the positive construal of Simeon and Levi, and a positive account of Jacob’s actions (he was wisely patient) becomes the dominant reading. Thus we see one example of what happens in the tension between the critique of ideology and the hermen eutics of tradition. A new path in the tradition of interpretation is formed, although an uneasy one as the hesitancy in use of this story indicates. 89 Moreover, we see how contemporary tools of interpretation and understanding (literary poetics, neo-structuralism, existential approaches to myth) can be used fruitfully to understand the world of the text and its reception and use. But in light of such understanding, how does one interpret Genesis 34 well in a Christian context today? Do the ‘hermeneutics of the tradition’ simply give rise to a poor reading of the world of the text of Genesis 34? Does this imply that one is only realistically left with a reading such as Sternberg’s, possibly suggesting that one should critique the ideology of the text and its use, and so perhaps render it otiose in the Christian context, given that arguably it simply reflects the promotion of self-interest? I would like to return to this question in a wider context in chapter 6 once we have had the chance to consider the hermeneutics of some other Old Testament narratives. However, I shall make some initial remarks here. Tempting as it might be to suggest that Genesis 34 be ‘discarded’ for Chris tian reflection, from the perspective of ‘cultural memory’, or ‘chain of memory’, this would seem to be a mistake. 90 Cultural memory is the term that Jan Assmann applies to the development of Maurice Halbwach’s work on ‘col lective memory’,91 work also developed by Danièle Hervieu-Léger in terms of ‘chain of memory’,92 being concepts that relate to the importance of a traditional memory for the formation of a cohesive identity in the present. Assmann suggests that cultural memory ‘includes the noninstrumentalisable, heretical, subversive and disowned’,93 and that it is ‘complex, pluralistic, and labyrinthine; it encompasses a quantity of bonding memories and group iden tities that differ in time and place and draws its dynamism from these tensions 89. As we saw earlier, this is not only a Christian development, but one that existed in ancient Jewish interpretation too. 90. For an introduction to the development of the concept and its possible use in relation to the Old Testament see J.W. Rogerson, ‘Towards a Communicative Theology of the Old Testament’, in G. McConville and K. Möller (eds.), Reading the Law: Studies in Honour of Gordon J. Wenham (Library of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies; London: T&T Clark, 2007) 283–96. 91. J. Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory (ET; Stanford: Stanford UP, 2006). 92. D. Hervieu-Léger, Religion as a Chain of Memory (ET; New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2000). 93. Assman, Religion 27.

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and contradictions.’94 Hervieu-Léger, concerned with the analysis of religion in contemporary French society, argues for the importance of a ‘chain of memory’ in maintaining a cohesive community identity, concluding that ‘the religious reference to a chain of belief affords the means of symbolically resolving the loss of meaning that follows from heightened tension between the unrestrained globalization of social phenomena and the extreme fragmentation of individual experience,’ 95 and that ‘traditional religions can only hold their own by tentatively exploiting the symbolic resources at their disposal in order to reconstruct a continuing line of belief for which the common experience of individual believers provides no support.’96 Taking Assmann and Hervieu-Léger together then it seems that Genesis 34 is perhaps precisely the kind of text that is ‘noninstrumentalisable’ yet is nonetheless an important sym bolic root of the community, being part of the narrative that has constructed the identity of the Christian (and Jewish) communities, thus having enduring historical effects. Their approach would suggest that one ought to read texts in a way that is ‘fitting’ (to respect and preserve continuity), but also that it would seem a mistake to ‘discard’ texts such as Genesis 34 if they cannot be ap propriated in a way that is ‘fitting’. In this sense Genesis 34 does find Christian significance, but not in the way that one might expect. Alternatively, interpret ative communities may find possible although problematic ways of reading the text so that it can be used to shape the identity of the community. The strategy of reading that understands the text to be showing Jacob’s wisdom is a good example. We have seen that it is a possible way of reading the text, but a rather problematic one. The lack of development and use of the story in this regard is perhaps indicative of the realisation that such interpretation is problematic. Finally, whilst it is appropriate to leave the question of contemporary Jew ish interpretation of Genesis 34 to those within the Jewish community, there are two observations that I wish to make. First, rabbinic Judaism is generally positive towards proselytes, even though this is structurally problematic; 97 as Kunin notes, ‘the Jewish model needs … to include some possibility of conversion, despite the structural problems it creates. It resolves the problem by allowing it but in effect denying its occurrence.’ 98 Indeed, this possibility is reflected in the Hebrew Bible itself, in Joshua, as we have seen. But perhaps rather tellingly, Nahum Sarna in his Understanding Genesis does not discuss Genesis 34, and thus it seems that in practice, maybe Jewish and Christian commentators agree that the fullest existential significance of Genesis 34 is con94. Ibid., 29. 95. Hervieu-Léger, Religion 166. 96. Ibid., 176. 97. Kunin, We Think What We Eat, 234–37. 98. Ibid., 236.

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fined to the world of ancient Israel, 99 even if both communities live in the light of its effects. That is, the preservation of the distinctive identity of an emerging yet endangered community and its practices that reflected a response to the call of God amid pressures toward syncretism and the loss of identity, an identity shaped by responsiveness to God. In this sense, a separatist stance can be given a positive interpretation. Having faced some of the difficulties for Christian theological interpreta tion that an Old Testament text poses owing to its morally and theologically problematic nature (the ‘critique of ideology’), and having seen how Victor Turner and Seth Kunin’s analyses help us to understand the nature of the text and the difficulties that it poses, yielding rather negative results overall, in the next chapter I would like to add historical difficulties in to the mix. Yet in the next chapter I would like to show how consideration of these themes in dialogue with traditional Christian interpretation of the book of Joshua yields a surprisingly different result in terms of how a morally, historically and theologically problematic Old Testament text may yet speak to the contemporary Christian community. The ‘hermeneutics of tradition’ provides the resources to move beyond the ‘critique of ideology’ when presented as a strategy for disabling contemporary engagement with certain biblical texts. 100

99. N.M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis: The World of the Bible in the Light of History (New York: Shocken Books, 1966). Cf. M. Greenberg, ‘On the Political Use of the Bible in Modern Israel’, in D.P. Wright, et al (eds.), Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns) 461–71, esp. 467–70. 100. Author’s note: Chapter 2 is a revised version of my essay, ‘Towards a Christian Hermeneutic of Old Testament Narrative: Why Genesis 34 fails to find Christian Significance’ in CBQ 73.1 (2011): 30–49.

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C HAPTER 3

JOSHUA 1-12 M YTH, SYMBOL AND A PROPOSAL FOR THE (CHRISTIAN)

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S IGNIFICANCE OF ‫ חרם‬IN THE BOOK OF JOSHUA We saw in chapter 2 how analysis of Old Testament narrative through close attention to literary poetics, neo-structuralism and Victor Turner’s symbolic/existential approach to myth shed light on the Christian interpretation and (lack of) appropriation of a difficult text—Genesis 34. Here, I would like to consider the use of these same tools in dialogue with some of the hermeneut ical insights of Origen in the service of the Christian theological interpretation of the book of Joshua and its appropriation. In chapter 2 we gained understanding of a difficult text. We saw why its appropriation is problematic and limited, and why the text’s significance is unclear. We shall eventually reconsider this in chapter 6 after some further studies. Here however I would like to consider how these same approaches to interpretation may be used fruitfully to point to interesting and perhaps surprising ways of appropriating the ethically and historically challenging text of Joshua. In this sense, I wish to develop the hermeneutical instincts and resources of the tradition to engage with and respond to contemporary critiques of ideology arising from the concerns of history and ethics. This will demonstrate the value of the resources of the tra dition on the one hand, whilst also showing that, on the other hand, the critique of ideology need not represent a determinative move that disables con temporary appropriation of the text, but rather can renew and further our un derstanding and use of it. The ‘critique of ideology’ as applied to Joshua draws attention to a number of issues—for example, the apparent promotion of the self-interest of Israel, vi olence, and of a false consciousness arising from the assumption of the book’s historicity and claim that God spoke in the way claimed. Indeed, the book of Joshua, and especially the account of conquest in Joshua 1–12, has come to be 66

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seen as problematic, and paradigmatically so, in both ethical and historical terms. The narrative portrayal of the razing of Jericho (Joshua 6) along with its inhabitants—men, women and children—highlights these problems. In historical terms, excavations at Jericho and their subsequent analyses have led many scholars to conclude that there was no razing of Jericho in the era implied by the biblical materials.1 Moreover, as excavations of the near East have proceeded, more and more difficulties have become apparent for attempting to reconcile the biblical account of conquest with an archaeologically reconstructed history of Israel and the region. 2 On the other hand, morally and ethically the difficulties that the book of Joshua and its use presents are clear. Much literature, both popular and scholarly, is now devoted to the issue in various ways. It has been suggested that whether Joshua is history or fiction, the result is that it serves to ‘legitimate religiously motivated violence’ and various claims to en titlement of land possession. This leads some to a hermeneutic that calls for an explicit rejection of the construction of identity via Old Testament narrative. 3 So for example Robert Coote suggests that

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Much about the book of Joshua is repulsive, starting with ethnic cleansing, the savage dispossession and genocide of native peoples, and the massacre of women and children—all not simply condoned but ordered by God. These features are worse than abhorrent; they are far beyond the pale. Excoriable deeds and many others of at 1. For a detailed summary (with extensive bibliography) of the results of the archaeological data see D. Merling, Sr., The Book of Joshua: Its Theme and Role in Archaeological Discussions (Andrews University Seminary Doctoral Dissertation Series 23; Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 1997). See pp.115–120 for Jericho in particular. 2. A good introductory summary of recent research in this field and discussion of its concerns is provided by P.R. Davies, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History – Ancient and Modern (Louisville: WJKP, 2008). 3. See e.g. R. Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam Press, 2006), esp. 247; M. Prior, The Bible and Colonialism: A Moral Critique (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997); R.M. Schwartz, The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1998); R.A. Warrior, ‘Canaanites, Cowboys and Indians: Deliverance, Conquest, and Liberation Theology Today’ in D. Jobling, et al. (eds.), The Postmodern Bible Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 188–194. It has become commonplace to draw a trajectory from the book of Joshua through the Crusades in to modern forms of ‘religiously legitimated vio lence’ and genocide, interpreting each in terms of the other. Particularly influential in this trend is R.H. Bainton’s Christian Attitudes to War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1960), (esp. 44–52). However, I argue elsewhere that this whole approach is wrong-footed, and that no significant appeals were made to Joshua in the preaching of the Crusades, or their interpretation. See my ‘Joshua and the Crusades’ in H. Thomas, J. Evans and P. Copan, Holy War in the Bible: Christian Morality and an Old Testament Problem (Illinois: IVP Academic, 2013), 19–43.

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture least questionable justifiability have been committed with the sanction of the book of Joshua, such decimation of the Native American peoples. People who regard themselves as peaceable Christians tend to shun the book of Joshua as not simply unedifying but irreconcilable with their faith, or to justify a tacit Marcionism by equating the worst parts of the book of Joshua with the entire OT. The book of Joshua scarcely appears in the ecumenical lectionary for preaching used in many denominations; not only are its most repugnant passages ignored, but most of the rest of the book is too. ... The purpose of a careful study of the book of Joshua is not in the first place to redeem it but to understand it better, and through it to understand 4 ourselves better.

Thus Dora Mbuwayesango suggests that

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the book of Joshua can help the people of God to construct its identity in a sound way, namely by acknowledging and making explicit the revulsion we have for its narratives. Precisely because these stories of relentless massacres shock us, they warn us that the construction of identities that are exclusive and religiously sanctioned —however overt or covert this religious exclusivism might be—leads 5 to genocide and extermination of entire ethnic groups.

In the late twentieth and our early twenty-first century context historical and moral problems with biblical narratives have come to be regarded as pressing and urgent difficulties demanding resolution. As we have just seen, the response often takes the form of a call to confess revulsion towards the narratives and reject them. However, Christian interpreters of the past have handled the issues rather differently, whilst not being unaware of some of the difficulties. Interpreters in the patristic era were often quite aware of historical and moral difficulties, but have taken them to be hermeneutical cues to read the biblical text not literally but in another way. 6 Thus Origen comments: But if in every detail of this outer covering, that is, the actual history, the sequence of the law had been preserved and its order maintained, we should have understood the scriptures in an unbroken course and should certainly not have believed that there was 4. R.B. Coote, ‘The Book of Joshua’, in The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), vol. 2, 555–719, here 578. 5. D. Mbuwayesango, ‘Joshua’ in D. Patte (ed.), Global Bible Commentary (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2004), 64–73, here, 69. 6. This is not to say that they were aware of the same issues—clearly they were un aware of the archaeological issues for instance, but they were aware of inconsistencies in the narratives that indicated that the narratives did not represent a straightforward historical report.

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anything else buried within them beyond what was indicated at a first glance. Consequently the divine wisdom has arranged for certain stumbling-blocks and interruptions of the historical sense to be found therein, by inserting in the midst a number of impossibilities and incongruities, in order that the very interruption of the narrative might as it were present a barrier to the reader and lead him to refuse to proceed along the pathway of the ordinary meaning: and so, by shutting us out and debarring us from that, might recall us to the beginning of another way, and might thereby bring us, through the entrance of a narrow footpath, to a higher and loftier road and lay open the immense breadth of the divine wisdom. And we must also know this, that because the aim of the Holy Spirit was chiefly to preserve the connexion of the spiritual meaning, both in the things that are yet to be done and in those which have already been accomplished, whenever he found that things which had been done in history could be harmonised with the spiritual meaning, he composed in a single narrative a texture comprising both kinds of meaning, always, however, concealing the secret sense more deeply. But wherever the record of deeds that had been done could not be made to correspond with the sequence of the spiritual truths, he in serted occasionally some deeds of a less probable character or which could not have happened at all, and occasionally some which might have happened but in fact did not. … All this, as we have said, the Holy Spirit supervised, in order that in cases where that which appeared at the first glance could neither be true nor useful we should be led on to search for a truth deeper down and needing more careful examination, and should try to discover in the scriptures which we believe to be inspired by God a meaning worthy of God. … And so it happens that even in them the Spirit has mingled not a few things by which the historical order of the narrative is interrupted and broken, with the object of turning and calling the attention of the reader, by the impossibility of the literal sense, to an examination of the inner 7 meaning.

As we can see, Origen was well aware of the existence of ‘historical difficulties’ in Scripture. Moreover, we see that in his Homilies on Joshua he understands ethical difficulties in scriptural texts to function rather like historical diffi culties. They are hermeneutical cues to seek the significance of the texts in question in a ‘spiritual sense’ rather than in the ‘literal sense’. It is a case in which a ‘critique of ideology’ arising from history, or the logic of history as narrated, or from ethics, informs and reshapes the hermeneutics that operate within the tradition. To put it another way, the ‘critique of ideology’ challenges 7. On First Principles, Latin Text, 4.2.9, in G.W. Butterworth (trans.), Origen: On First Principles (Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1973), 285–287, emphasis added.

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the assumption that the significance of biblical narratives is to be located in terms of the quality of the history or ethics presented in their literal or plain sense. In his homily on Joshua 10:20–26 he remarks, But Marcion and Valentinus and Basilides and the other heretics with them, since they refuse to understand these things in a manner worthy of the Holy Spirit, “deviated from the faith and became devoted to many impieties,” bringing forth another God of the Law, both creator and judge of the world, who teaches a certain cruelty through these things that are written. For example, they are ordered to trample upon the necks of their enemies and to suspend from wood the kings of that land that they violently invade. And yet, if only my Lord Jesus the Son of God would grant that to me and order me to crush the spirit of fornication with my feet and trample upon the necks of the spirit of wrath and rage, to trample on the demon of avarice, to trample down boasting, to crush the spirit of arrogance with my feet, and, when I have done all these things, not to hang the most exalted of these exploits upon myself but upon his cross. Thereby I imitate Paul, who says, “the world is crucified to me,” and, that which we have already related above, “Not I, but the grace of God that is in me.” But if I deserve to act thus, I shall be blessed and what Jesus said to the ancients will also be said to me, “Go courageously and be strengthened; do not be afraid nor be awed by their appearance, because the Lord God has delivered all your enemies into your hands.” If we understand these things spiritually and manage wars of this type spiritually and if we drive out all those spiritual iniquities from heaven, then we shall be able at last to receive from Jesus as a share of the inheritance even those places and kingdoms that are the kingdoms of heaven, bestowed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 8 “to whom is the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen!”

What is interesting is that this ethical-theological hermeneutic that reflects a ‘critique of ideology’ in Origen’s thinking operated precisely in contrast to the hermeneutic of the Gnostic ‘heretics’ who asserted that the hermeneutically significant level of the Old Testament was discovered in the ‘literal sense’ of the text. Adoption of the critique is warranted from Scripture as a whole which informs the theological portrait of God as a loving God. Moreover, Origen’s form of interpretation has interesting resonances with Victor Turner’s existential approach to myth that we considered briefly in chapter 2. For Turner, narratives of immoral behavior in myth provide liminal, symbolic stories that evoke existential enactment in ways that are not always straightforwardly re8. Hom. Josh. 12.3 in B.J. Bruce, (trans.), Origen, Homilies on Joshua (FC 105; Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 123–24.

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lated to what is narrated in the story in its plain sense. We saw how this worked out in the case of Genesis 34 through neo-structuralist analysis. Thus Turner’s hermeneutic relating to symbolic existential enactment has interesting points of contact with Origen’s spiritual reading strategy. Moreover, Ori gen’s spiritual reading strategy also has important points of contact with recent structuralist approaches.9

T HE RECEPTION OF JOSHUA 1–12 Let us now briefly consider the reception of some of the stories in Joshua 1–12. We have just seen that Origen’s interpretation of Josh 10:20–26 shows that for him the moral difficulties—the critique of ideology perhaps—offer an indicator in the text that invites a ‘spiritual reading’, a reading of Joshua that would be normative for Christian interpretation for a millennium. Indeed, Origen reads the injunctions and promises in Joshua 1 to possess the land spiritu ally, as an exhortation to growth in Christian character:

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[W]e understand the promise to us from our Lord Jesus that “every place we set the soles of our feet” will be ours. But let us not imagine that we may be able to enter into this inheritance yawning and drowsy, through ease and negligence. … In like manner, some angels [of Lucifer] incite pride, jealousy, greed and lust and instigate these evil things. Unless you gain the mastery over their vices in yourself and exterminate them from your land—which now through the grace of baptism has been sanctified—you will not receive the full10 ness of the promised inheritance.

The promise and exhortations to the Israelites entering the land are trans ferred to the spiritual journey of the individual Christian. This kind of inter pretation was widespread. For example Gregory of Nyssa uses the account of the Jordan crossing in Joshua 3–4 to interpret baptism: ‘Cross the Jordan, [he says,] hasten towards the new life in Christ, to the land that bears fruit in happiness, flowing with milk and honey according to the promise. Overthrow Jericho, your former way of life! ... All these things are figures of the reality which is now made manifest.’ 11 Here, we see the common interpretative move 9. Raymond B. Williams argues that Origen’s interpretation of the Old Testament can be understood in terms of structuralism. See R.B. Williams, ‘Origen’s Interpretation of the Old Testament and Lévi-Strauss’ Interpretation of Myth’, in A.L. Merrill and T.W. Overholt (eds.), Scripture in History & Theology: Essays in Honor of J. Coert Rylaarsdam (Pittsburgh: The Pickwick Press, 1977) 279–99. 10. Hom. Josh. 1.6, (Bruce, 34). 11. Against those who put off Baptism (PG 46.421A) in J. Daniélou, From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s mystical writings (London: John Murray, ET: 1962), 19–21.

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to interpret Jericho spiritually as symbolising sinful life in and of the world (as pejoratively construed). And indeed, unsurprisingly, this is how Origen construes Jericho. In terms of traditional interpretation, one would describe such a mode of reading as allegorical—but in terms of approaches to myth we might simply describe such a reading as symbolic, appropriating and developing the symbolism of the original myth in new contexts. Indeed, Origen alludes to Ra hab in his treatment of Jericho here, interweaving, interpreting and reinter preting the original story with the unfolding story of the church and the eschatological era:12 ‘Jesus our Lord conquers Jericho with trumpets and overthrows it, so that out of it, only the prostitute is saved and all her house. … Therefore, our Lord Jesus will come and he will come with the sound of trumpets. … And may he join and unite this prostitute with the house of Israel.’ 13 Rahab’s story received much attention from Christian interpreters, and it is interesting to consider the subtly different—although generally similar— ways in which her story has been read. So for example whilst Theodoret of Cyrus offers a more ‘literal’ reading of Joshua than Origen does, 14 his reading of Rahab’s story is similar to Origen’s. Rahab, and her house, is a type for the church.15 Indeed, Rahab as representing a type for the church appears to be the ‘centre of gravity’ for Christian interpretation of the story. 16 In the New Testament however, she is a paragon of faith (Heb 11:31), or for the necessity for 12. Significant for Origen is the observation that the names ‘Joshua’ and ‘Jesus’ are identical in the Greek text: see Hom. Josh. 1. See also Hom. 13 for further development of the significance of names. Names were taken to have ontological significance, being an expression of essence of what is named—see V. Lossky, The Vision of God (Crestwood: SVSP, ET: 1983), 75–76. This is problematic in the light of contemporary philosophy of language especially—see the discussion of Wittgenstein in chapter 1. However, such a linkage or typology might be understood in contemporary terms in two ways. First, via appeal to the etymology of names as a literary device in Old Testament narrative (e.g. Exodus 1:10; Ruth 1:20), providing an alternative justification—in literary terms—that a name is an expression of the essence of what is named. See M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985), 329–33. Secondly, via appeal to the concept of symbol, in the Ricoeurian sense at least, where there is a sense that the symbol (as opposed to a sign) participates in what is symbolized. See P. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil (Boston: Beacon Press, ET: 1969). Thus whilst the justification offered for the typology might differ today from that of the early patristic era, the use of such typology can still be made coherent. 13. Hom. Josh. 6.4, in Bruce, 71–73. 14. Quest. Josh. 7, in R.C. Hill, (trans.), Theodoret of Cyrus, ‘Questions on Joshua’ in The Questions on the Octateuch (LEC 2; Washington, The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 260–307, here, 281. 15. Origen, Hom. Josh. 3.5, (Bruce, 49–50); cf. Theodoret of Cyrus, Quest. Josh. 2.2 ‘No one should imagine that Rahab was unworthy of being a type [τòν τύπον] of the Church’, (Hill, 267).

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faith to be accompanied by works (Jas 2:25). These two aspects, her ‘faith’ and her ‘works’ are differently developed and emphasized in the tradition. For Cyril of Jerusalem she is ‘saved through repentance’, 17 and ‘saved … when she believed’.18 Similarly, Calvin stresses her faith; ‘What seed of righteousness was in Rahab … before she had faith?’ 19 Alternatively, Gregory of Nazianzus neglects her faith and stresses her hospitality; ‘Rahab the harlot was justified by one thing alone, her hospitality’.20 In 1 Clement 12 both are held together; ‘for her faith and hospitality Rahab the harlot was saved’. 21 Whilst the story of Jericho concludes Rahab’s story, it introduces Achan’s— the disobedient Israelite who disobeyed the Lord in keeping some of the treasures of Jericho for himself. Achan’s story ends badly for Achan. He is executed along with his family. Yet his seemingly unambiguous fate appears to be ‘reversed’ in the Jewish tradition. He becomes a model penitent, confessing sin to gain life in the world to come.22 However, given the importance attached to the confession of sin in the Christian tradition, it is particularly interesting (and perhaps disorientating for the Christian) that the Christian tradition does not 16. E.g. Chrysostom, Homilies on Repentance and Almsgiving 7.5.16, in J.R. Franke, (ed.), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament IV: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1–2 Samuel (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 12; Cyprian, Letter 69.4 in ACCS 4, 14; Jerome, Homily on Exodus 91, in ACCS 4, 40. 17. Catechetical Lectures 2.9, in ACCS 4, 12. 18. Lecture 10.11, in NPNF 2.7, 201. 19. Inst. 3.24.11, 978. Cf. Joshua, 46, in which Rahab is said to ‘pass by faith to a new people’. Interestingly, whilst he cites Jas. 2:25 here, he uses it to emphasize only her faith, which runs against James’ use of Rahab’s story. 20. Theological Oration 40.19, in NPNF 2.7, 695. Cf. Oration 14.2 – whilst Abraham is an example of faith, justified by faith, Rahab is praised, spared for her hospitality (in B.E. Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus [The Early Church Fathers; Routledge, New ed.: 2000], 76). 21. 1 Clement 12, in ACCS 4, 12. 22. E.g. Lev. Rab. 9.1, in B.A. Freedman and M. Simon, Midrash Rabbah translated into English with notes, glossary and indices under the editorship of Rabbi Dr. H. Freedman, B.A., PH.D. and Maurice Simon, M.A., (London: The Soncino Press, 10 vols., 1939): ‘Another interpretation: ‘Whoso offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving (todah), etc.’ refers to Achan, who sacrificed his Evil Inclination by means of a confession (todah), [as it is said], And Joshua said unto Achan: My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and make confes sion (todah) unto Him... and Achan answered Joshua and said: Of a truth I have sinned (Josh. VII, 19 f.). And to him who ordereth his way aright, will I show the salvation of the Lord (Ps. loc. cit.), refers to the fact that he [i.e. Achan] has shown to penitents the way [to the salvation of the Lord]. This is [indicated by] what is written, And the sons of Zerah: Zimri, and Ethan and Heman, and Calcol and Darda: five of them in all (I Chron. II, 6).’ (106–107) A detailed, imaginative retelling of the story is found in Num. Rab. 23.6, in which Achan has a share in the world to come (‘This day,’ he implied, you are troubled, but you will not be troubled in the World to Come, and you have a share therein.’ [Ibid., 870]).

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make this move that the Jewish tradition makes. Achan’s ‘ultimate fate’ is not developed. Rather, Christian interpreters have seemed more concerned with punishment in the ‘here and now’, and with the corporate effects of Achan’s crime.23 The observation that Achan’s ‘confession’ is ineffective in turning aside God’s wrath receives little comment, presumably because it does not sit well with the role that confession of sin plays in the Christian life. His story is more often taken to exhort the need to correct evil doers and respect the name of the Lord, and this becomes especially prominent during the Middle Ages. For example Humbert of Romans, in his work on the Crusades, Opus Tripartum, notes on Joshua 7 that

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we should correct evildoers, as was done to Achan: the children of Israel stoned him when they discovered that he was the man in the army of the Lord who had stolen something under the ban against the Lord’s command and that because of his crime they had been defeated. And … we should grieve over the abasement of the name of the Lord, as Joshua grieved when the people he had sent against 24 Ai were defeated.

Finally, in terms of the conquest account of Joshua 1–12 it is worth considering how Origen reads Joshua 9, the account of the deception by the Gibeonites. He commences his homily with a quotation of John 14:2, ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions.’ 25 Origen contrasts the Gibeonites with Rahab to link their stories with the observation that there are differences in glory at the resurrection of the dead, even as there are many rooms in the Father’s house. There are differences depicted between those who come to salvation. It is interesting that he does not develop the ‘problem’ of the deception in any depth. Rather, he interprets the Gibeonites in terms of those who have not wholly put away the old self with its actions’ and concludes, And therefore Jesus, when he sees the narrowness and smallness displayed in their faith, preserves a very just moderation towards them, so that they might merit salvation. Although they had brought a little faith, nevertheless they did not receive the highest rank of the kingdom or of freedom because their faith was not enno23. E.g. Origen, Hom. Joshua 7.6–7 (Bruce, 80–84); Theodoret, Quest. Josh. 10 (Hill, 283–284); Constitutions of the Holy Apostles 2.3.10 (ANF 7, 790) & 7.1.2 (ibid., 925). Also see various excerpts in ACCS 4, 41–45, and my ‘Joshua and the Crusades’ for discussion of the use of Joshua 7 in the mediaeval period. 24. Humbert of Romans, Opus tripartium, in L. and J. Riley-Smith, The Crusades: Idea and Reality 1095-1274 (Documents of Medieval History 4; London: Edward Arnold, 1981), 115–17. 25. Bruce notes that ‘mansiones’ is the same term used for the stages in the Christian life in Hom. Num. 27.2 (109).

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bled by the increase of works, since the apostle James declares, 26 “faith without works is dead.”

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It is worth making a number of preliminary observations at this point. First, we saw in Origen’s reading of Joshua 10:2–26 how a moral difficulty in the text was a cue to interpret the text in spiritual rather than literal terms. It is at the spiritual rather than at the literal level that Old Testament texts find their Christian significance.27 But we may note other difficulties in the narrative that might point away from a ‘literal reading’ of the text too. In places the book of Joshua appears to narrate a complete conquest of the land (Josh 10:40–42; 11:16, 23), whilst in other places there are suggestions that the conquest was partial (Josh 15:63, 16:10 and 17:13). Moreover, the implication that Rahab’s house is built in Jericho’s walls (Joshua 2) sits uneasily with the report of the total collapse of the wall in Joshua 6, an observation that has often troubled the rabbis. It is interesting to note that Origen associates literal readings of such texts with the heretics rather than with faithful Christian readers.28 This spiritual reading allows him to recontextualize the text in a way that allows the text to resonate with Christian concerns, even if we may generally find the development of the specifics of his approach unconvincing today. However, as we have noted, there are important points of contact with Turner’s approach to myth and with (neo-)structuralist analysis of myth. We have a text that depicts morally problematic behavior, and in Joshua 10 as a whole, a ‘fantastic’ liminal world in which the sun and moon stand still (10:12–14) is depicted. Thus per26. Hom. Josh. 10.1–2, (Bruce, 109–112). 27. Cf. also Gregory of Nyssa’s first homily on Ecclesiastes: ‘In all the other scriptures [i.e., other than Ecclesiastes], whether histories or prophecies, the aim of the book also includes other things not wholly of service to the Church. Why should the Church be concerned to learn precisely the circumstances of battles, or who became the rulers of nations and founders of cities, which settlers originated where, or what kingdoms will appear in time to come, and all the marriages and births which were diligently recorded, and all the details of this kind which can be learned from each book of scrip ture? Why should it help the Church so much in its struggle towards its goal of godliness?’ See Homily 1, trans. S.G. Hall and R. Moriarty in S.G. Hall (ed.), Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on Ecclesiastes: An English Version with Supporting Studies (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993), 33–34. 28. This kind of non-literal reading is perhaps more characteristic of the eastern Christian traditions that the western. Augustine for instance offers a more literal, apologetic account of the narrative on the basis that God had ordered what is depicted. See Questions on Joshua 16; it is interesting to note this literal, apologetic reading here in spite of Augustine’s famous interpretative injunction to build up the two-fold love of God and neighbor (On Christian Doctrine I.36). It was, however Origen’s reading that would be more influential for several centuries. See further ‘Joshua and the Crusades’.

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haps we are invited to approach it through existential symbolic imagination— not quite in the ‘spiritual’ way of Orgien, but perhaps in a way that is not too far removed, and that has properly spiritual issues in view. How one interprets the symbolism and seeks to enact it is then a function of one’s context. For the Christian reader, this is the Christian context. The symbolism is interpreted in terms of milestones and growth in the Christian life, such as the story of the crossing of the Jordan (Joshua 3–4) evoking baptism. Again, it might be possible to nuance one’s understanding of the approach in terms of an imaginative recontextualization that is perhaps not so far removed from an allegorical reading strategy. Indeed, the recontextualization of Rahab’s story in which she comes to symbolize the Christian convert is a good example in which a traditional allegorical or typological reading would seem rather similar to a symbolic appropriation of the story in the Christian context. Moreover, in terms of neo-structuralism (see chapter 2), Rahab’s story reads well in terms of a Christian worldview structure that involves transformation or conversion—from sinner to Christian one might say. Her story concerns the relationships between categories of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ with reference to the community, and so is sus ceptible to structuralist analysis. It is interesting to compare this reception of Rahab’s story in the Christian tradition with Achan’s in the Jewish tradition. In the Jewish tradition Achan is ‘saved’ eventually. He is genealogically an Israelite, and so in structural terms he should remain one, as Israelite worldview structure denies the possibility of transformation.29 Ultimately Achan must remain an Israelite in the Jewish context, whilst Rahab must be a convert in the Christian context. Thus, provisionally at least, we may see how some of the difficulties, concerns and themes developed in traditional interpretation of Joshua 1–12 reson ate with some of the issues raised by recent anthropological approaches to reading myth as in Turner and Kunin. Before looking in some more detail at how these approaches relate to reading Joshua as Christian Scripture I would like to look at the concept of ‫( חרם‬ḥerem—a verb meaning to annihilate completely, or a noun referring to what is to be annihilated) in some detail as the narratives in Joshua 1–12 are built around this concept. The concept is introduced in Deuteronomy 7:1–5, a text that Joshua appears to narrate the fulfilment of. Thus to understand Joshua we must understand the significance of ḥerem. Indeed, perhaps because the church Fathers generally read the Old Test ament in Greek, little attention was paid to ḥerem as such in traditional interpretation. Yet it has become a central concern in recent interpretation as it ex -

29. See chapter 2.

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emplifies the moral, ethical and historical difficulties represented by the Old Testament for the contemporary reader. 30

U NDERSTANDING ~rx

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The precise sense of the use of the verb ‫ חרם‬and the noun ‫( ֵח ֵר ם‬homonym I)31 is varied and difficult to determine. The usage of the root is associated with various (perhaps contradictory) categories as demonstrated in attempts to translate ‫ חרם‬in Joshua 6:17, describing the razing of Jericho. The Hebrew root has been translated as ‘devoted for destruction’ (NRSV); ‘devoted’ (NIV); ‘under the ban’ (NAS); ‘set apart’ (NET); ‘devoted under the curse of destruction’ (NJB); ‘doomed to destruction’ (NKJ) or ‘completely destroyed as an offering’ (NLT). The root ‫ חרם‬occurs frequently in Deuteronomy and in Joshua and is associated with the conquest, but it is rarely used elsewhere in the remainder of the Old Testament. There is, perhaps surprisingly, little to be gained from studying ancient Near Eastern texts with a view to understanding the practice and significance of ‫חרם‬. In the extant texts, cognates of ‫ חרם‬occur only twice: first, in the Mesha Inscription, a 9th century BC Moabite inscription that describes how Mesha, King of Moab, seizes Israelite territory; secondly, in the Ugaritic text, ‘An In cantation Against Infertility’ (KTU 1.13), where the verb is associated with an30. See the collection of essays in Thomas, Holy War. 31. The most comprehensive recent study of ‫ חרם‬is P.D. Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem: A Window on Israel’s Religious Experience (Brown Judaic Studies 211; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), perhaps replacing C.H.W. Brekelmans, De ḥerem in het OT (Nijmegen, 1959) as the standard work. Other treatments include: H.H. Cohn, ‘ḥerem’ in E J 8, 344–56; Y. Hoffman, ‘The Deuteronomistic Concept of the Herem’, in ZAW 111.2 (1999): 196–210; N. Lohfink, ‘ḥāram’ in TDOT V, 180–99; R.D. Nelson, ‘ḥerem and the Deuteronomic Social Conscience’, in J. Lust and M. Verdenne (eds.), Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Literature (Peeters, 1997), 39–54; C. Schäfer–Lichtenberger, ‘Bedeutung und Funktion von Ḥerem in biblisch-hebräischen Texten’, in BZ 38 (1994): 270–75. Moreover, there are important discussions in ‫ חרם‬in M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 200–209; J. Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27 (AB 3B; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 2417–21 and G.M.H. Ratheiser, Mitzvoth Ethics and the Jewish Bible: The End of Old Testament Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 307–15. Stern distinguishes a ‘war-‫ ’חרם‬from a ‘priestly- ‫( ’חרם‬represented in Leviticus 27), a distinction that I shall develop. He argues that ‘priestly- ‫ ’חרם‬is a later re-interpretation of ‫ חרם‬in a peaceful cultic setting. It still involves separation, inviolability, holiness and destruction however. (Stern, Ḥerem, 125–6) He argues that the earlier war- ‫ חרם‬is deeply rooted in mythic concepts. The execution of ‫ חרם‬is interpreted as a participation with Yahweh in fighting the forces of chaos to secure order (220–21).

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nihilation.32 Other conceptual parallels to ‫ חרם‬have been sought, such as the assaku offering in the Mari letters. Yet seeking parallels between categories and concepts in different cultures that are all poorly understood is as likely to mis lead as to help. For example, using one purported understanding of ‫ חרם‬to interpret the assaku offering, which often occurs in quite different contexts and certainly in very different ‘forms of life’ from ‫חרם‬, and then reading the understanding of this concept so obtained back to reinterpret ‫ חרם‬seems especially problematic.33 Given the available evidence, analysis of the ancient Near Eastern context thus seems unlikely to contribute significantly to our understanding of ‫חרם‬. ‫ חרם‬occurs in three main contexts in the Old Testament. First, in the deuteronom(ist)ic materials ‫ חרם‬is associated with total annihilation of peoples and property.34 In Deuteronomy ‫ חרם‬is central to the content of the command to annihilate the inhabitants of Canaan in the conquest (Deut 7:1–5). However, it is also used in relation to what to do with Israelite settlements where other gods are worshipped (Deut 13:13–19 (Heb.)). In each case it is associated with dealing with idolatry. ‫ חרם‬is the appropriate response to idols and idolatry. The root ‫ חרם‬is common in Joshua (occurring twenty-eight times), although it is noteworthy that idolatry is never explicitly associated with ‫ חרם‬in Joshua. Secondly, the prophetic literature uses the verb ‫ חרם‬in an eschatological/apocalyptic sense to describe the fate of the nations (e.g. Jer 50:21, 26; 51:3), or sinful Israelites (e.g. Isa 43:28), apparently depicting their annihilation. Thirdly, the root occurs in the priestly materials, usually to refer to something or someone that is irrevocably dedicated to Yahweh (e.g. Lev 27:21–29). Outside these three contexts, its usage is rare. There has been a tendency to understand ‫ חרם‬via the conflation of its usages in these three contexts. It has been assumed that essentially the same concept is in view in each case, and that one aspect is developed in each case. Then, by reading the usages together an overall understanding of what is taken to be essentially a single concept or category is gained. Thus an understanding of the concept from one context is read in to, or assumed, in the others. But this is problematic. There may be different concepts (intentionally or not) in 32. For texts see Stern, Ḥerem, 5–6 and 55–56. 33. See Stern, Ḥerem, 5–87 for a full discussion of the parallels that have been proposed. More recently L.A.S. Monroe has redated RES 3945, placing it in an era relevant for understanding the Old Testament (‘Israelite, Moabite and Sabaean War-ḥērem Traditions and the Forging of National Identity: Reconsidering the Sabean Text RES 3945 in Light of Biblical and Moabite Evidence’, in VT 57 [2007]: 318–41). 34. For convenience I shall consider deuteronomic (i.e., material relating to the book of Deuteronomy) and deuteronomistic (i.e., materials relating to the so-called ‘Deuteronomistic History’) together at this stage.

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view. In Deuteronomy what is declared as ‫ חרם‬is associated with that which is detested and abhorred ( ‫שׁקץ‬, ‫ תועבה‬Deut 7:25–26). Yet in Leviticus, and in other Priestly material, that which is declared ‫ חרם‬is associated with that which is holy ( ‫)קדשׁ‬, used here as a noun. 35 So comparison of Leviticus 27 with Deuteronomy 7, texts which perhaps offer paradigmatic accounts of ‫ חרם‬in the Priestly and deuteronomistic materials respectively, indicates a confusion of categories if the same conception of ‫ חרם‬were to be in view. The usage of ‫ חרם‬is different in each case. However, in Deuteronomy and Joshua, what is ‫ חרם‬is said to be ‘‫ ’חרם ליהוה‬meaning something like ‫ חרם‬to Yahweh (e.g. Josh 6:17). This resembles the vocabulary of and grammar associated with offerings, where offerings are made to Yahweh. This might be said to connect with Priestly conceptualities and usage of the term after all. Moreover, Deutero nomy 7 and 13, and Joshua 7 (the story of Achan and Ai) in particular, give the impression that objects that are subject to ‫ חרם‬may be viewed as a ‘contagion’ that have ‘a property of ‫ חרם‬that may be transferred in some sense. In other words, an object that has been declared as subject to ‫ חרם‬can give rise to the need to subject further objects or people around it as subject to ‫חרם‬, and thus be annihilated, such as in Joshua 7. Again, there are resonances with certain forms of understanding of Priestly categories relating to ideas of ‘contagion’. Yet objects that are declared ‫ חרם‬vary in the deuteronomistic literature (compare Joshua 6 with Joshua 8), so it is difficult to identify any such inherent property of ‘herem-ness’ as an intrinsic property of an object or person that may be transferred. Finally, whilst Deuteronomy 7 uses ‫ חרם‬to interpret the mode of Israel’s entrance to Canaan, this category is not used in the parallel accounts of Exod 23:20–33 and Num 33:50–56. This suggests further that a divine declaration of people or objects as, or subject to ‫ חרם‬does not reflect some inherent, irrevocable ‘property’ or ‘state’ of the people or objects that would provide the correct (theological) interpretation of Israel’s entrance to Canaan, or the rationale for annihilation. The Bible can describe Israel’s entrance to Canaan in different traditions without using the term. Thus we see that we must re-examine our understanding of ‫חרם‬. R E - EXAMINING ‫ חרם‬I N THE DEUTERONOMISTIC LITERATURE Is the ‘Priestly’ conception of ‫ חרם‬found in Lev 27:21–29 also reflected in the deuteronomistic materials? Several texts have been taken to indicate that it is. First, Josh 6:19 and 24 provide two examples. Here, precious objects from Jericho are said to be deposited in the ‘treasury of the Lord’ rather than destroyed as per Deut 7:5 and Josh 6:17–18. Depositing such objects in the treasury of the Lord resonates more with the conception of ‫ חרם‬in Leviticus 27 than that in Deuteronomy 7. Secondly, in Joshua 7 Israel’s defeat at Ai is traced to 35. Leviticus 27; Num 18:14; Ezek 44:29; Ezra 10:8, and perhaps Josh 6:19.

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Achan’s disobedience in keeping back some of Jericho’s ‫חרם‬-objects (cf. 6:19 and 24). So it may appear here that ‫ חרם‬has a ‘contagious’ nature, somehow ‘contaminating’ Israel perhaps, resulting in her defeat (7:11–13). Such an interpretation could well be taken to resonate with or be driven by Priestly con cepts and categories. Finally, it has been argued that Deut 7:25–26 supports a conception of ‫חרם‬-objects as contagious. Here, if an Israelite brings an idol into their house then they, like the idol, will ‘become ‫’חרם‬. So it has become popular to regard ‫חרם‬-objects as somehow ‘contagious’. This view is exemplified by Joel Kaminsky: ‘The sacral character of ‫ … חרם‬extends to the effect it has on those who misuse it. It is clear from Deut. 7:25–26 ... and from Josh. 6:18 ... that when one misappropriates ‫חרם‬, one runs the risk of having the ta booed status of the ‫ חרם‬transferred to oneself.’36 However, there are further considerations that tell against understanding a Priestly conception of ‫ חרם‬to be reflected in the deuteronomistic materials. First, ‫ חרם‬is never associated with the vocabulary of ‘spreading’, ‘contagion’ or ‘purity’ as per Priestly categories such as ‫ פרשׂ‬,‫ פשׂה‬,‫ טמא‬and ‫טהר‬. The language of ‘transmission’ for ‫ טמא‬uses the verb ‫( נגע‬touch), a verb not used in conjunction with ‫ חרם‬anywhere. Furthermore, there are no deuteronomistic equivalent concepts to such categories with regard to ‫חרם‬. Whilst Deut 7:25– 26 and 13:12–18 (Heb) might be said to imply such conceptions of the transmis sion of a ‘property’ of ‫חרם‬, Deut 13:12–18 uses instead the language of ‘cleaving’ (‫)דבק‬, and Deut 7:25–26 uses the language of ‘coveting’ ( ‫)חמד‬, which implies more than a notion of ‘contagion’ per se—rather, an ‘attachment’ in some sense is implied. Thus it is not clear that one should seek to construe these texts in metaphysical terms in the sense of understanding ‫ חרם‬to be a metaphysical property of people or objects. Rather, it would seem that a better way of making sense of these texts is to read them in terms more related to existential commitments, symbolically portrayed, through rhetoric. The texts are concerned with the avoidance of idols. If one reads the texts in a rhetorical sense, then it would make sense to see ‫ חרם‬symbolically as evoking an existential threat. I.e., if you are attached to idols or idolatry then you will perish with them. A life that involves idolat rous practices leads ultimately to death, be that understood literally or metaphorically. It is idolatry, and the practices, habits and commitments associated 36. J.S. Kaminsky, ‘Joshua 7: A Reassessment of the Israelite Conceptions of Corporate Punishment’, in S.W. Holloway and L.K. Handy (eds.), The Pitcher is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gösta W. Ahlström (JSOTSup 190; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 315– 346, esp. 331. See also L.D. Hawk, Joshua (Berit Olam; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 100; R.D. Nelson, Joshua (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 101; J.F.D. Creach, Joshua (Interpretation; Louisville: John Knox Press, 2003), 72–4; Lohfink, ‘ḥāram’, 194.

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with it that is presented as the contagion rather than ‫חרם‬. Then in Joshua 7 the issue is not that Israel is contaminated with ‫ חרם‬and so ‘becomes ‫’חרם‬, but that Achan’s theft of the precious objects of ‫ חרם‬from Jericho represents disobedience to Yahweh manifested in lying, stealing, coveting and covenant viol ation. Indeed, the vocabulary of the story draws attention to Achan’s crime by using these categories from the Decalogue (7:11). So ‫ חרם‬here, building on 6:18, affords the opportunity to evocatively symbolize such covenant violation, which may be understood ultimately in terms of idolatry, even if this is to go beyond the text’s own frame of reference. Secondly, there is the question of whether or not ‫ חרם‬is to be construed as something like an ‘offering’ to Yahweh. The grammar of ‫ חרם‬as being ‫ ליהוה‬is rare,37 and the sense of the lamed preposition is wide and varied, and need not be taken thus.38 However, the use of ‫ כליל‬in Deut 13:17 (Heb) in conjunction with ‫ חרם‬is often taken to reinforce further this sacrificial understanding of ‫חרם‬. Usually ‫ כליל‬is taken to mean ‘whole burnt offering’ here, but I suggest that it should be read adverbially, for emphasis: ‘burn the town and all its spoil with fire completely for the LORD your God’ (rather than ‘burn the town and all its spoil with fire as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God’). This rendering would reflect the more common usage of ‫ כליל‬taking it in an adverbial sense as reflecting completeness,39 especially since it seems odd to offer that which is associated with detestable ( ‫ )תועבה‬practice to Yahweh. Thirdly, scholars have suggested that Josh 6:19 and 24 are later Priestly or post-Priestly additions to Joshua 6 since the reference to the ‘treasury of the Lord’ seems anachronistic.40 The conception found here is, therefore, not the deuteronomistic concept as such, and is thus not the basic conception of ‫חרם‬ in Joshua or Deuteronomy but a development of it when priestly and deuteronomistic conceptions were interpreted in terms of each other. 41 As we have just seen, the difficulty with making such a move prematurely—of reading differing conceptions into each other—is that it leads to a skewed interpretation of texts 37. Found only in Josh 6:17 in the deuteronomistic materials, and only Mic 4:13 and Leviticus 27 elsewhere. 38. Cf. e.g. Gen 24:26; Deut 1:41; 16:1; 1 Sam 1:3; 2:8; 3:20; 2 Sam 21:6; 1 Kgs 6:1–2; 19:10 and 2 Kgs 6:33 for a variety of senses for ‫ליהוה‬. 39. It occurs in Exod 28:31; 39:22; Lev 6:15, 16; Num 4:6; Judg 20:40; Isa 2:18; Lam 2:15; Ezek 16:14; 27:3; 28:12 in the sense of completeness, and Deut 33:10; 1 Sam 7:9 and Ps 51:21; in the sense of offering. Cf. Lohfink, ‘ḥāram’, 184 who questions whether ‫כליל‬ ‘was perceived as a sacrificial term’ here. 40. See further Earl, Reading Joshua, 96–97. 41. However, it is interesting that Joshua 7 is read in terms of a Priestly conception of ‫ חרם‬in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q379 3.2.5–6). Along with the additions of Josh 6:19 and 24, this indicates a tendency to read the differing conceptions of ‫ חרם‬together from a very early stage.

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like Joshua 7. Provided that one is clear about the basic sense and significance of ‫ חרם‬and its symbolism in each tradition, then perhaps something of a merging of conceptualities may evoke a greater ambiguity of the symbol, which might benefit theological interpretation. In summary then, there has been a tendency to understand ‫ חרם‬in deuteronomistic texts in something like ontological terms as a property of people or objects that can ‘spread’ or ‘contaminate’, inevitably leading to destruction. This is associated with a tendency to read conceptions of priestly- ‫ חרם‬into the deuteronomistic accounts of ‫ חרם‬and has led to this skewed understanding of ‫ חרם‬in Deuteronomy and Joshua. But it appears to make more sense to understand ‫ חרם‬in imaginative, symbolic and perhaps rhetorical terms, and con strue its significance in these terms. In this way ‫ חרם‬is related to questions of commitment in a sense that requires careful development. The different conceptions might have been drawn together ‘through language’, especially via texts such as Micah 4:13, and subsequently in Priestly-influenced redactions of the Hexateuch. This tendency began at an early stage, witnessed to in redactional glosses in Joshua (6:19 and 24). Such a process is made explicit in 4Q379 3.2.5–6, a text in which Joshua 7 is rewritten using allusions to Leviticus 27.

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A

OL D TESTAMENT I will now develop the suggestion that a symbolic / rhetorical / existential rather than literal / ontological / historical reading of texts involving ‫ חרם‬is a more appropriate way of reading the texts as discourse, a more faithful rendering of the world of the texts. Indeed, locating the significance of the concept in symbolic and existential terms will allow for the development of interesting readings in Christian terms and allow for interesting ways in which the hori zon of the text meets the horizon of the reader. A symbolic conception is in herently reader-involving in the construction of significance. Outside the Priestly conception reflected in Leviticus 27, ‫ חרם‬functions existentially and symbolically in different ways in different contexts. It takes the image of mass annihilation (perhaps stemming from ancient Near Eastern imagery as found in the Mesha Inscription) as its literal or ‘concrete’ sense. For the interpreter of Joshua, this literal sense may well be confined to the ‘world of the text’. It does not necessarily refer to historical events that one might suppose that the text describes were Joshua to be taken as a historical account, hyperbolically portrayed or not. In Victor Turner’s terms, read literally, ‫ חרם‬is immoral behavior that forms part of the portrait of a liminal world, and is to be enacted in some sense other than via copying the literal sense, or via assuming that the literal sense described what actually happened. The signific ance of ‫חרם‬, and especially its theological significance, is discovered elsewhere SYMBOLIC APPROACH T O ‫ חרם‬I N THE

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through its nature as a symbol. ‫ חרם‬is to be appropriated or enacted existentially in another way, through the symbol’s opaque or ‘second-order’ sense. 42 It is in this sense that we discover the significance of ‫ חרם‬as a theological witness, even on the Old Testament’s own terms. Thus I would like first to con sider ‘temporal’ perspectives on ‫ חרם‬to help establish its symbolic, or even ‘mythical’ character, before secondly, considering what its significance is by studying the way in which its second-order sense was construed and developed according to the witness of various biblical texts, i.e., how ‫ חרם‬as a concept was used. Outside Deuteronomy and Joshua, references to a deuteronomistic concep tion of ‫ חרם‬are rare. In Judges, Samuel-Kings and Chronicles it occurs only occasionally, and mostly in relation to activities that relate to the conquest. The significant exception is in 1 Samuel 15 where Saul is rejected as king. We shall return to this story later. But the virtual absence of ‫ חרם‬from Judges, SamuelKings and Chronicles is striking. Leaving aside 1 Samuel 15, it only occurs nine times in these books, only three of which relate to the action of Israelites after the conquest, thus suggesting that it is not part of Israel’s vocabulary of warfare.43 None of the major battles are narrated using the term. Similarly, the ab sence of ‫ חרם‬from the psalms is significant, indicating that it is not inherent to Israel’s liturgy, worship or self-understanding of its foundations as portrayed in the psalms. Leaving Deuteronomy and Joshua aside for a moment, taken together, these observations suggest that ‫ חרם‬is not a category that Israel uses to describe her existence or narrate her actions in the present, suggesting that narratives that use the term ‫ חרם‬are not set in an era contemporaneous with their composition. ‫ חרם‬is ‘displaced’ from the present. It is primarily related to what is perhaps an ‘other-worldly conquest’ located in the prototypical past. Turning to the prophetic literature, ‫ חרם‬i s developed and used in an other-worldly eschatological or future direction as part of the language of poetic prophetic oracles that are replete with metaphor. Here, it is used rhetoric ally to warn Israel against unfaithfulness (as this will lead to ‫)חרם‬, or encourage her to remain faithful to Yahweh in the face of her oppressors whose ultimate fate will involve ‫חרם‬.44 So in the prophetic literature ‫ חרם‬is suggestive of a glimpse of what the future holds so as to provide the contours for Israel’s (or the Christian reader’s) existential response and commitments in the ‘here and 42. See Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, 15, on symbol. 43. Judg 21:11; 1 Chr 4:41 and 1 Kgs 20:42, which is a somewhat anomalous usage. Judg 1:17; 1 Kgs 9:21; 1 Chr 2:7 all refer back to the era of Joshua. It is used to narrate actions of non-Israelites in 2 Kgs 19:11 (and parallels: 2 Chr 32:14; Isa 37:11) and 2 Chr 20:23. 44. Isa 34:2, 5; 43:28; Jer 25:9; 50:21, 26; 51:3; Dan 11:44; Mic 4:13 and Zech. 14:11.

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now’. In other words, in texts written to challenge a people that risk being complacent or envious the message is not to go after the nations and their ways. Do not worry about them, for they will be no more (as ‫)חרם‬, as will you be if you keep following their gods. Alternatively, in texts written to encourage a suffering people the message is not to worry, keep persevering because you will no longer be subject to destruction from the nations—rather, they will be subject to destruction. So it makes sense to see ‫ חרם‬as having an imaginative, existential and rhetorical rather than ‘literal’ or ontological significance, evoking commitment to Yahweh. Indeed, whilst Israel was prophetically threatened with ‫ חרם‬in her near future, when such punishment subsequently occurred it was not interpreted using the category of ‫ חרם‬in the canonical narrative books. So ‫ חרם‬remained rhetorical in nature, not being used to describe what actually happened when it happened.45 So in the prophets, actualization of ‫ חרם‬per se is kept in an imaginative portrait of the future, existing only in the world of the text. It is always displaced from the present, even if—and perhaps this is the main point—it has existential significance in the present as it evokes various commitments. But, returning to Joshua and Deuteronomy, why shouldn’t one take these texts as reflecting a factual description of the past recorded in an era that is roughly contemporary with the events narrated? We noted above that the ar chaeological evidence for a conquest as narrated in Joshua seems absent, or is at best problematic. Many scholars consider Deuteronomy and Joshua to be written much later than the events that they portray, where the historical status of the narrative content is unclear.46 But we also saw above that there are indicators in the text itself that make it difficult for one to understand the text as reporting a factual history. Indeed, there is evidence in the texts them selves that might point towards their genre as ‘mythical’. That is, mythical in the sense of the texts being symbolic presentations of an imaginatively con structed prototypical past that are written to shape the worldviews and re sponses of later readers, without trying to describe the past. First, Joshua places the portrayal of a ‘literal ‫ ’חרם‬in a past that is most naturally taken as 45. In the prophetic books see e.g. Jer 25:9. However, Isa 43:28 is an exception, in that ‫ חרם‬is Yahweh’s own interpretation of what he did to Jacob. But this is in the con text of a poetic oracle replete with metaphor, and such an interpretation of Jacob’s punishment is not found elsewhere. Again, the concept is rhetorical in focus. 46. For discussion of trends in research see T.C. Römer and A. de Pury, ‘Deuteronomistic Historiography: History of Research and related Issues’, in A. de Pury, et al (eds.), Israel Constructs its History: Deuteronomistic Historiography in Recent Research (JSOTSup 306; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 24–141. For an introduction to the archaeological issues, and a suggestive account of the nature of the texts such as Joshua and Samuel-Kings see Davies, Memories.

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mythological. This is seen through, first, for example, references to the Anakim and Rephaim in the conclusion of the conquest in Joshua 11 and Joshua 17, mythical giants and ghosts from the distant past that dwelt in the world of Joshua’s ‫חרם‬, a world very different from the Israelites’ experienced world.47 Secondly, the portrait of entrance to the Promised Land via ‫ חרם‬is only one of several portraits of entrance to the land in the Old Testament. The injunctions of Deut 7:1–5 are based upon ‫ חרם‬in a text that resonates both with Exod 23:20–33, which uses ‫( כחד‬disappear) and not ‫ חרם‬to interpret the means by which the inhabitants of the land will go, and Num 33:50–56 which uses ‫ירשׁ‬ (possess) for how Israel enters the land, and not ‫חרם‬.48 Moreover, in Leviticus the land is said to vomit (‫ )קיא‬the locals out so that Israel can possess the land (Lev 18:24–30; 20:22–24), providing another symbolic and rhetorical image of how and why Israel came to be in the land, without ‫חרם‬. Furthermore, some scholars suggest another portrait of Israel’s emergence in Canaan using the book of Genesis.49 A portrait of gradual peaceful emergence is traced that is possibly more fitting with the archaeological data too. Thus ‫ חרם‬forms the basis of one of several different portraits of the emergence of Israel in Canaan in Scripture. It reflects a retrospective category that has symbolic significance in senses that we shall develop below. Finally, there are indicators within the narrative of Joshua that would suggest that it is not appropriate to take Joshua as a ‘factual history’ in genre. For example, the location of Rahab’s house in the city wall (Joshua 2) does not sit easily with the report of the collapse of the wall (Joshua 6). Moreover, portrayals of complete conquest (Josh 10:40–42; 11:16, 23) do not sit well with reports of incomplete conquest (Josh 15:63, 16:10 and 17:13) within the book. One could regard these as reflecting what Origen described as ‘stumbling blocks’ within the text itself that point one away from a ‘literal’ reading towards a ‘spiritual’ reading. ‫ חרם‬in Joshua may thus be understood to function symbolically as part of an other-worldly prototypical past so as to shape the present identity of Israel in a sense to be spelled out. In summary then, in the Old Testament ‘literal’ ‫ חרם‬only exists in the world of the text; it is ‘never now’, it is never used to narrate or to interpret contemporary events or experience even if the symbol has a second-order sense that relates to contemporary life ‘here and now’ in a way that we shall 47. See discussion in Reading Joshua, 168–70 on the Anakim and Rephaim. 48. Deuteronomy 2–3, cf. Num 21:21ff; Deut 7, cf. Exod 23:20–33; 34:10–14 and Num 33:50–56. It seems that if there ever was a conquest, it is very unlikely that it was inter preted using the category of ‫ חרם‬at the time. 49. See K. Schmid, ‘The So-called Yahwist and the Literary Gap between Genesis and Exodus’, in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006) 29–50, esp. 49.

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see. ‫ חרם‬exists in the world of the text in the prototypical past and in the apo calyptic future, but not in everyday experience, and it is appropriate to seek its significance in symbolic, existential and rhetorical terms in the construction of a theology of ‫חרם‬. T H E SIGNIFICANCE O F ‫ חרם‬I N DEUTERONOMY Deut 7:1–5 associates Yahweh’s command to conduct ‫ חרם‬with the notion that Israel is a holy and chosen people entering a land of peoples that worship idols. These peoples are likely to lead Israel astray into the worship of idols. There are thus two conflicting sets of commitments available to Israel—to be faithful to Yahweh, expressed in obedience to the covenant, or unfaithfulness, expressed in idolatry. We shall see that there is an association of the concept of ‫ חרם‬with these commitments. Deut 7:1–5 offers the paradigmatic sense of ‫חרם‬ in Deuteronomy, while its other occurrences are associated with the themes found here. What then is the significance of ‫ חרם‬in Deut 7:1–5? The book of Joshua does, in some sense, present the fulfilment of Deut 7:1–5, and we may find some clues in the conclusion of Joshua, Joshua 23–24. Here, from the parallels in the concerns that are exhibited in the texts, one may see that Joshua 23– 24 draws the specific commands to Israel prior to entering the land in Deut 7:1–5 into an ongoing exhortation to Israel relevant to the life of the reader, in a homiletic style. But it is noteworthy that Joshua 23–24 does not mention ‫חרם‬ or indeed the destruction of property such as idols. Only separation from Canaanites is commanded, whilst commitment to Yahweh is exhorted. But this is something that is already implicit in Deut 7:1–5. Indeed, Deut 7:1–5 is incoherent if read literally, for the command to kill all the inhabitants of the land is followed by an exhortation against intermarriage or forming covenants with them. If all the inhabitants had been annihilated there would be nobody to marry or to make covenants with! This is precisely the sort of ‘stumbling block’ that Origen has in view as a cue to interpret the text spiritually rather than literally. It does not make sense if read literally. Moreover, as Turner would put it, Deut 7:2 forms an immoral command set in a liminal world, and thus one would expect to find the enactment of such a command worked out in a differ ent, even if somehow related way, from what is literally said. Using the cat egories that we are developing, we would therefore say that a symbolic or ex istential interpretation is indicated and appropriate. Thus, especially as may be inferred through Joshua 23, in a symbolic or existential sense, Deut 7:1–5 itself encourages not so much annihilation of Canaanites but radical separation from them and their idolatrous practices so as to be fully and faithfully committed to Yahweh. Indeed, Joshua 23 might be seen as something of a ‘commentary’ on Deut 7:1–5, developing the significance of the symbolism in a homiletic genre that may be appropriated and en -

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acted directly as literal ethical exhortation. Deut 7:1–5 is, therefore, best read rhetorically in an existential sense, drawing on ‫ חרם‬as a symbol. This sense of enactment of Deut 7:1–5 as separation from for commitment to finds confirmation in Ezra 9:1–2 through the explicit use of ‫( בדל‬separation) as an interpretation of what ‫ חרם‬calls for in a text in which Deut 7:1–5 is developed. Why then might Deuteronomy not simply spell out what is required directly rather than using symbol? By using ‫ חרם‬as a symbol something more is said. There is a surplus of meaning with the use of symbol, and it is a powerful (even though potentially dangerous) way of communicating, being able to evoke and motiv ate in a way that literal instruction cannot. The reader is engaged in a liminal world, a world that interprets and is interpreted by the everyday world of the reader. By using symbolism rather than commanding separation, the sense of conflict against idolatry, the need for its radical avoidance, and its harmful nature is evoked. The image of ‫ חרם‬as total annihilation inculcates a sense of caution or fear in regard to idolatry—one fears the consequences of becoming entangled with it. This is comparable with the use of ‫( קיא‬vomit) in the priestly materials in relation to the inhabitants of the land and their practices (Leviti cus 18 and 20), where the symbolism here evokes a sense of revulsion against idolatry. Deuteronomy evokes a sense of fear for one’s life in the presence of idolatry, whereas Leviticus makes one feel sick about idolatry. Thus in Deut 7:1–5, and in texts that develop it, the sense of ‫ חרם‬is that of the radical separation of Israelites and Canaanites (and other peoples of the land). It evokes the need for a radical separation from the idolatrous practices of the Cannaanites in order to be devoted to Yahweh, enacted through obedi ence to the covenant. In structuralist perspective, symbolically, ‫ חרם‬demonstrates here in the most dramatic terms that there is no transformation or mediation possible between the categories of ‘non–Israel’ and ‘Israel’. They are symbolically separated through ‫חרם‬, which denies the possibility of the coexistence of idolatry with commitment to Yahweh. In neo-structuralist terms it is perhaps the paradigmatic expression of the major tradition of Israelite worldview structure reflected in the Old Testament. It reflects the same structural relations as we saw in Genesis 34 of non-mediation and non-transformation. Israel is Yahweh’s chosen and treasured people (Deut 7:5) and there can be no mingling, mixing, mediation or transformation between Israel and non-Israel. ‫ חרם‬dramatically evokes this, and is enacted as radical separation. The identity of Israel as developed in Genesis 34 and much of the remainder of the patriarchal narrative as being exclusive, given by God as God’s chosen people, worked out in particular in the ‘wife-sister texts’ in terms of endogamy in Gen esis, is worked out here in terms of radical separation—which of course includes endogamy. Read symbolically there are clear resonances between Genesis 34 and Deut 7:1–5.

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T H E SIGNIFICANCE O F ‫ חרם‬I N JOSHUA One’s first impression of the book of Joshua on a naïve reading is that it represents the fulfilment of Yahweh’s commands to Israel in Deuteronomy re lating to her entrance to the land. Deut 7:1–5 commands ‫חרם‬, and the conquest narratives of Joshua 1–12 repeatedly use the term to describe what Israel does upon entering the land, at least in the world of the text. However, as we saw above, an existential or symbolic approach to reading Joshua would seem appropriate. In Origen’s terms, there are stumbling blocks that are cues to favor a spiritual reading over a literal reading, both on moral terms (cf. Origen’s comments above on Josh 10:20–26), and in terms of narrative and historical logic (e.g. the different portrayals of complete and partial conquest). In Turner’s terms, the book of Joshua is symbolic, narrates immoral behavior in a context at some remove from everyday life, portraying a liminal world in which rivers split (Joshua 3–4), city walls miraculously fall (Joshua 6), in which the sun and moon stand still (Joshua 10) and where giants dwell (Joshua 11; 17). The sym bolism evokes existential enactment derived from, but different from, what is presented at the literal level of the narrative. But does the symbolism function in the same way as in Deuteronomy? The story of Rahab (Joshua 2 & 6) in par ticular would indicate that the narration of the fulfilment of Deut 7:1–5 and the significance of ‫ חרם‬as a symbol may be less straightforward. Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute, is portrayed as ‘saving the day’ in Joshua 2, and is herself saved from the destruction of Jericho in Joshua 6. This is hardly a straightforward account of the fulfilment of Deut 7:1–5. Indeed, it is hardly a conquest ac count at all, since most of the narrative space is given to the stories of crossing the Jordan (Joshua 3–4), Rahab (Joshua 2 & 6), Achan (Joshua 7) and the Gibeonites (Joshua 9). Joshua is not then really a narrative that is fundamentally about conquest, and it does not portray the fulfilment of Deut 7:1–5 in a straightforward way. In fact, Joshua uses the symbol of ‫ חרם‬in a rather different way from the way that it is used in Deuteronomy. It is more subtle, and uses the symbol of ‫ חרם‬from Deuteronomy to qualify the assumptions reflected in Deut 7:1–5, and indeed the way in which ‫ חרם‬is to be understood and enacted. In the world of the text of Joshua ‫ חרם‬can be seen as a cipher for ‘divine action’ that demands a response in some way. How characters respond reflects their character or identity in a theological sense—it shows where their true commitments lie. If one responds appropriately to ‫( חרם‬i.e., favorably towards Yahweh or Israel) it establishes one as essentially ‘Israelite’, whereas an inappropriate response establishes one as ‘non-Israelite’. The separation between Israel and non-Israel that Deuteronomy envisages on ethnic or socio-political terms is qualified. The separation in Joshua is between those who respond appropriately to ‫ חרם‬in all its forms and those who do not. In neo-structuralist

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terms ‫ חרם‬is no longer the paradigmatic symbol of non-mediation and nontransformation. Rather, it actually becomes the basis of the possibility of such mediation or transformation in to or out of ‘true Israel’. True Israel is consti tuted of those who respond to Yahweh appropriately as symbolised in responding to ‫ חרם‬with the appropriate commitments. Rahab, the ‘quintessential other’—a Canaanite prostitute—behaves as a model Israelite when confronted with ‫חרם‬, which is depicted as an interpretation of Israel’s past and future actions. She offers an exemplary ‘confession’ that is matched only by Moses and Solomon elsewhere in the Old Testament (Josh 2:9–11; cf. Deut 4:39; 1 Kgs 8:23). Her own actions in saving the spies are interpreted in terms of ‘doing ‫’חסד‬, a characterization that is at the heart of the covenant between Yahweh and Israel (Exod 34:6; Deut 5:10; Psalm 136 and Micah 6:8). In other words, what characterizes Rahab is precisely that which is identified in various traditions as characterising the true Israelite, and Yahweh himself. Conversely, Achan, the model Israelite genealogically, an observation emphasized through repetition (Josh 7:1, 16–18), lies, covets and steals (7:20– 21) when confronted with ‫חרם‬. Achan’s actions and response to ‫ חרם‬thus symbolize disobedience to the covenant as expressed in the Decalogue, for the vocabulary here is precisely that of the Decalogue. Achan’s response is in a sense then associated with idolatry.50 Hence, despite his genealogy, Achan is the paradigmatic non-Israelite in terms of character and response to Yahweh— he breaks the covenant when confronted with ‫חרם‬. Moreover, it is interesting to note that the stories of Rahab and Achan have Jericho at their intersection. The extreme ‫ חרם‬of Jericho is required by the narrative to make the stories of Achan and Rahab work. The story of Jericho (Joshua 6) concludes Rahab’s story and introduces Achan’s. If the ‫ חרם‬of Jericho was not extreme, Achan would not have exemplified disobedience as he could well have taken some of the spoils without any problem, and Rahab might have lived anyway if there were even a small number of survivors. Thus the significance of the extreme ‫ חרם‬in Joshua 6 may essentially be literary and required by the logic of the story—to make sure that Rahab and Achan’s stories ‘work’. Without extreme ‫חרם‬, the significance of the symbolism just developed is likely to be lost. It helps to draw out and clarify the issues. The various local kings (especially in Joshua 10–11) are portrayed as reacting with aggression toward Israel when confronted with ‫חרם‬, confirming their status as non-Israelite or ‘outsiders’. Joshua, and the Israelites, are completely obedient to commands to conduct ‫( חרם‬in the world of the text), confirming their Israelite status as those who respond faithfully and obediently to Yahweh —they are shown to be committed to Yahweh. Finally, there are the Gibeonites 50. This may be clear in subsequent Christian frames of reference in a way that it is not in the context of ancient Israel.

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who deceive the Israelites into making a treaty by pretending that they are from afar (cf. Deut 20:10–20, where people from afar are not to be subject to ‫)חרם‬. It is striking that the term ‫ חרם‬does not occur in their story in Joshua 9 even though there are places where its usage would seem obvious (e.g. 9:24). They behave in a somewhat marginal way, and end up in a ‘liminal’ state—they are betwixt and between on the boundary. The ‘test’ of ‫ חרם‬is unable to establish the nature of their response to God and hence their identity clearly. They do not have positive traits to the full extent that Rahab does, but neither do they have the negative traits of the hostile kings—they are on the borders of what constitutes Israel in terms of character (cf. Origen’s homily on Joshua 9 that we discussed above). Thus Joshua provides a matrix of ‘test cases’ (summarized in Table 1 below) that reflect the construction of Israelite identity, manifested through re sponse to ‫חרם‬. Perhaps one could say that ‫ חרם‬is symbolically reflective of divine presence and action in the world of the text, and this, I think is the significance of ‫ חרם‬in 1 Samuel 15 too, the other extended and extreme ‫ חרם‬narrative. Saul does not respond to ‫ חרם‬appropriately, and is thus rejected. In Joshua ‫ חרם‬is the symbol that reveals how one responds to Yahweh in the most demanding circumstances (‘limit-situations’) in a liminal narrative, indicating one’s true allegiances and identity. Person/group

Initial status

Response to ‫חרם‬

Nature of response

‘Revealed’ status

Rahab (Joshua 2 & 6)

Outsider

Glorify Yahweh and does ‫חסד‬

Positive

Insider

Achan (Joshua 6–8)

Insider

‫חמד‬, etc.

Negative

Outsider (death)

Local kings (Joshua 10–11)

Outsiders

Aggression

Negative

Outsiders (death)

Joshua (passim)

Insider

Obedience

Positive

Insider

Gibeonites (Joshua 9)

Outsiders

No response to ‫ חרם‬per se

??

?? (slavery)

Table 1: The Construction of Identity as Response to ‫ חרם‬in Joshua

Whilst Joshua 23–24 confirms that Israel is to be separate from the nations and to abhor idolatry, the rest of the book subtly and searchingly qualifies the nature of this separation from its deuteronomic basis. Canaanites with Israelite character are embraced by Israel whereas Israelites with Canaanite character

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are expelled (symbolically, through death). There is no attempt to justify the conquest in terms of the extreme wickedness or idolatry of the Canaanites (unlike Deut 9:5 and Lev 20:22–24). So in fact, rather than being a narrative that represents the celebration of conquest and xenophobia, the narrative of Joshua actually seems to have been composed with a view to challenging significant points of a ‘conquest ideo logy’, and challenging a xenophobic stance. It might thus be said to represent something of the ‘critique of ideology’ as already built in to the tradition (possibly one might say the deuteronomistic tradition). Although set in the context of conquest, the message of Joshua, and the significance of ‫חרם‬, is not that of conquest or annihilation. If one is to seek a contemporary analogy, perhaps Joshua functions something like a modern day war protest movie rather than a more traditional war movie. Indeed, the ‘them’ and ‘us’ of Deut 7:1–5 is challenged, and this is reflected in Josh 5:13–15. Rather than being a cryptic episode or an indication of a defective text, Josh 5:13–15 can be seen to function as the hermeneutical key to reading Joshua. In Josh 5:13–15, a figure with a drawn sword appears to Joshua. Joshua asks whose side he is on. The figure identifies himself as the commander of Yahweh’s army. But he refuses to answer Joshua’s question on Joshua’s terms, simply replying ‘no’. This little account would seem to embody in a different way the reading suggested above. The book of Joshua does not fundamentally encourage the drawing of ethnic and sociopolitical boundaries and then to ask whose side God is on, or indeed seek di vine warrant for the drawing of such boundaries. Rather, Joshua encourages one or one’s community to seek God in worship and obedience, and for identity to be constructed in these terms. Ultimately Yahweh does fight for Israel (10:42) within the world of the text, but only after it has been made clear what ‘Israel’ symbolizes. Again, theologically it is appropriate to take such a reference to God fighting in symbolic and spiritual terms, as something that one can find existential encouragement and support in during times of difficult obedience to God or in growth in the spiritual life amid trial and temptation, rather than in literal socio-political terms. The stories between 5:13–15 and 10:42 indicate that notions of ‘sides’ and God as taking sides are problematic. To put it another way, Josh 5:13–10:42 indicates that God works on the behalf of those who respond faithfully to him— Israel has been demonstrated to be comprised of those who respond faithfully to God. This challenges the portrait or self-understanding given by Deut 7:1–5 or Genesis 34. Josh 5:13–15 offers a clear critique of self-interest, of the false consciousness of the assumption that ‘God is on our side’ in a sense that is of human initiative and choosing, an assumption that seeks to encourage the use of violence against others for one’s own interest. The presentation alongside texts such as Genesis 34 and Deut 7:1–5 in the canon suggests that we are

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presented with a self-understanding of identity that is negotiated amongst the texts and traditions.

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T HE RECEPTION OF JOSHUA ANALYZED We briefly set out above some of the ways in which Joshua has been re ceived in the Christian tradition. We saw that in the reception of the text not only has it been interpreted ‘spiritually’, but also in such a way as to recontextualize its symbolism in the Christian context. If one reads it in this kind of way, unlike Genesis 34, Joshua is more readily amenable to use in the Christian context, such as with the story of Rahab. Why might this be? When considered in neo-structuralist terms, the reading of Joshua just developed through careful consideration of ‫ חרם‬indicates why the book of Joshua has found Christian significance in a way that Genesis 34 has not. Genesis 34 reinforces a (presumably) widespread ancient Israelite worldview structure of non-transformation and non-mediation in a narrative that is ethically problematic. Thus there is little to develop at narrative or symbolic levels in the Christian context, given that the Christian worldview is based on the possibility of mediation and transformation coupled with a desire to avoid violence. In Joshua, whilst the narrat ive is ethically problematic, structurally it resonates with the Christian worldview, a worldview that is structured in such a way as to make mediation and transformation its foundation. Moreover, whilst a setting of conquest is mor ally problematic at the narrative level, a number of themes emerge at the narrative level that sit well within a Christian context. The Christian tradition found in the story of Rahab a model convert, who turns away from a pagan life of idolatry and prostitution to one of faithfulness, belief, hospitality and stead fast love. She has been seen as exemplifying the response to the gospel call, to the mission of God in the world. Achan on the other hand provides an exhorta tion to a continued life of faithfulness. His story warns against the dangers and temptations of greed and coveting that lead to faithlessness. The account of the failure of confession to bring forgiveness is passed over by most interpreters. Indeed, the failure of confession to bring about change powerfully evokes warning. In Kunin’s terms however, this report becomes culturally or theolo gically problematic especially in a contemporary context rather than in, for example the middle ages, so it is ‘clouded’ through the dominance of the nar ratives of the New Testament, unlike the story of Rahab that is ‘crystallized’. Moreover, the name Joshua is the same as that of Jesus in the Greek, and so there is a natural typology of the two figures. In different senses the two fig ures bring people of God into the ‘promised land’—a concept amenable to literal and existential interpretation, both exemplifying obedience to God. Symbolically Jericho and the Canaanites naturally represent and evoke idolatry and

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the ways of the world that are to be conquered. But it is an internalized con quest against the passions in readings such as Origen’s that is developed, or an invitation to the world to conquer sin through Christ. In other words, established traditional Christian readings of Joshua offer selected recontextualizations of the stories told in Joshua in a Christian context and in Christian terms. Traditionally, this would be described in terms of typology or allegory, but we might also describe the process in terms of interpreting the excess of meaning of the symbolism in specifically Christian terms. The recontexualizations are selective because some aspects of the stories do not sit well, such as Achan’s confession of sin as leading to death. Thus Christian use of a story such as Joshua is likely to be somewhat ‘atomistic’, as reflected in much patristic interpretation. The success of typological or allegorical readings derive in part from their ability to fit with the ideology or concepts of the underlying worldview structure that is being worked out in the texts, 51 and in part from the continuity of the symbolism involved. For example, crossing the waters of the Jordan to enter the Promised Land naturally evokes baptism. Moreover, even though the portrayal of annihilation of peoples at the literal level is morally problematic, the symbol may be powerfully interpreted in terms of annihilation of sin in the self or the ability of Christ to overcome sin even at ‘institutional’ levels through response to the Gospel of Christ.

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T OWARD A CHRISTIAN READING OF JOSHUA It is worth reconsidering the interpretation of Rahab’s story. There is a natural tendency for Christian interpreters to read the story in terms of her conversion, as we have seen, and recontextualize her conversion to one of Christian conversion. Yet if the hermeneutical task of Christian theological in terpretation of Scripture is something along the lines of that proposed by Nicholas Lash, who sees the task in terms of showing how ‘what was once achieved, intended or “shown”’ in terms of concrete expressions of human practice and behavior might be re-expressed faithfully today in terms of concrete expressions of human practice and behavior, 52 we might want to develop the contemporary use of Rahab’s story—and other elements in Joshua—in a slightly different direction. So what is Joshua about—what is the ‘matter’ of the text? What did it achieve, intend or show? It is not about Israelite conquest, rather it is about nuancing Israel’s self-understanding of who constitutes the people of Israel, 51. Cf. Williams’ reading of Origen in terms of structuralism in ‘Origen’s Interpretation of the Old Testament and Lévi-Strauss’ Interpretation of Myth’. 52. N. Lash, ‘What might Martyrdom mean?’ in Theology on the Way to Emmaus (London: SCM, 1986) 75–92, here 89–91.

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and of what should characterize this people. It challenges complacency within the community, and attitudes to those who are categorized, or stereotyped perhaps, as outsiders. This was explored symbolically using ‫ חרם‬in relation to certain paradigmatic figures. But this suggests that Rahab’s story is less a story of her ‘conversion’ (as Christian interpreters have often understood it) and more a story of the conversion of Israel’s perception of her, as one who sym bolizes a certain kind of ‘outsider’. It is about ‘conversion’ in the underlying structure of the Israelite worldview, a conversion that moves toward the Christian worldview of mediation and transformation and might be said to be a preparation for the Gospel, at least in a loose sense. But in Rahab we find someone who already confesses Yahweh, whose life is characterized by ‫חסד‬, and helps Israel. There is no indication of a ‘before’ and ‘after’ in her story. There is no ‘repentance’ reported, no ‘coming to faith’ or change of heart. Israel simply discovers a local inhabitant who behaves and thinks like she does—like an Israelite. In the Christian context, it is natural to make the move to interpret her story in terms of her conversion—and it is an evocative story to use to typify conversion. Yet this is not what the text suggests, and in some important ways this is to miss the point of the ‘subject matter’ of the text, and dull the challenge that it brings to those who would claim to be part of God’s community today. The text is not about the conversion of the outsider, rather it is about the conversion of the insider. Re-expressing the story in the Christian context, for those in the church it is ‘safe’ to read the story as Rahab’s conversion. Yet it seems truer to the story, as well as more demanding and challenging, to read the story in terms of the perception and labelling of others by the church, and, using Achan’s story, ourselves; do those of us who identify as Christians live out that identity? Achan’s story (as well as that of the hostile kings) indicates that it is not that there are no boundaries, that boundaries are completely ‘deconstructed’, but that they are nuanced and clarified. The concept of identity, and its boundaries, are envisaged rather like Wittgenstein’s picture of ethical concepts that we saw in chapter 1 in terms of the merging of colors in PI §76– 77. It is not that there are no definitions, distinctions or helpful stereotypes that express the cores of Israelite/Christian or non-Israelite/non-Christian identity, but rather that the boundaries are somewhat blurry around the edges with borderline cases. Joshua shows us examples of the uncontested ‘cores’ and borderline cases. A close literary reading of the text that is sympathetic to its symbolic dimensions can offer a critique (perhaps one might say as a particular ‘ideology of reading’) of the ‘hermeneutics of tradition’ associated with the story of Rahab. The question now is what one does with this insight, an important question that we shall return to in chapter 6. If one seeks to re-express what was once achieved, intended or shown in Joshua but in a Christian context, then the question of response to God as sym -

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bolized in the text via ‫ חרם‬is now demonstrated in people’s lives in terms of response to Jesus, the supreme instance of divine presence and action in the world. The gospels indicate that one’s identity in God is manifested by how one responds to Jesus. But if one is to appropriate the narrative of Joshua in this context, then the challenging questions that it raises are those that relate to how we seek to define and determine what constitutes proper or adequate response to Jesus. It may well be that those who are confident of their response are complacent and are in some sense responding inappropriately by maintaining divided loyalties (cf. Achan). Alternatively, those seemingly outside the Christian community or perhaps those seemingly peripheral to it may well have responded well, and perhaps be unaware of the quality of their response. In this sense Matthew 25 offers something analogous to the treatment of some of the major themes in the book of Joshua. It calls us to reflect on the question of what constitutes appropriate response to Jesus—is it to be defined in terms of a quality of life, the recitation of the ‘sinners prayer’, the confession of the Creed(s), church attendance, baptism, participation in Holy Communion / Mass / Eucharist, or something else? And should the church seek to define its boundaries clearly in any case? These are the sort of existential challenges that a symbolic appropriation of Joshua in the Christian context is concerned with, if we understand the interpretative task in terms of the book of Joshua’s recon texualization, or in terms of re-expressing what was once achieved, intended or shown.

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C ONCLUSION In this chapter we see a different way in which the tension between the hermeneutics of tradition and the critique of ideology can work out. Here, the critique of ideology can call for a reconfiguring of the hermeneutics of the tra dition, whilst simultaneously being responded to precisely from the hermeneutics of the tradition. Moreover, we have seen how the narrative of Joshua in itself already reflects the critique of a tradition, so indeed the dialectical pro cess is written into the canon already. However, the reading just developed in vites several important questions and comments. First, in relation to issues of history, we have seen how to make sense of Joshua and interpret it without be ing concerned with the probable lack of historicity of the account. Rather, it is as fiction that it is in some sense ‘revelatory’. We need to read it as fiction rather than history (in the modern sense) in order to be able to appropriate it. And as we have seen, there are good reasons to suppose that it was indeed composed in a genre more akin to what we call fiction than to history. Indeed, Paul Ricoeur argues in his important essay ‘The Narrative Function’ that

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both history and fiction refer to human action, although they do so on the basis of two different referential claims. Only history may ar ticulate its referential claim in compliance with rules of evidence common to the whole body of science. In the conventional sense attached to the term “truth” by the acquaintance with this body of science, only historical knowledge may enunciate its referential claim as a “truth”-claim. But the very meaning of this truth-claim is itself measured by the limiting network which rules conventional descriptions of the world. This is why fictional narratives may assert a referential claim of another kind, appropriate to the split reference of poetic discourse. This referential claim is nothing other than the claim to redescribe reality according to the symbolic structures of the fiction. And the question, then, is to wonder whether in another sense of the words “true” and “truth,” history and fiction may be said to be equally “true,” although in ways as different as their 53 referential claims.

Elsewhere he notes with regard to discourse as poetic fiction that ‘the reference [of the text] is the mode of being unfolded in front of the text’ and that the ‘paradox of poetic reference consists precisely in the fact that reality is re described only insofar as discourse is raised to fiction.’ 54 In other words—and just as Origen and other early Christian interpreters realized—in many cases Old Testament narrative is only ‘revelatory’ as Christian Scripture when it is read as fiction (to use Ricoeur’s category) or spiritually (to use Origen’s term).55 Both interpreters wish to avoid seeking a correspondence of such narratives with history, and see the value in poetic texts precisely in their being set loose from historical referentiality. Perhaps ‘history’, or the historicity of the text risks becoming something of an idol that interpreters have become falsely attached to owing to the power of modernist frames of reference. But to develop Ricoeur’s comments, the ‘mode of being’ that he refers to is the nature of the Christian life evoked to which the text calls (read in a Christian context). The redescription of reality is, in the case of the book of Joshua, the redescription of church boundaries and attitudes towards them and toward others. 53. P. Ricoeur, ‘The Narrative Function’, Semeia 13 (1978): 177–202, here 194–5. 54. P. Ricoeur, ‘Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology’, in J.B. Thompson (ed.), Paul Ricoeur: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: CUP, 1981), 63–100, here, 93. Perhaps ‘poetic fiction’ is not the most helpful term, and it might be better instead to opt for a category such as ‘symbolic fictional history’ with reference to the biblical materials. However, as there does not appear to be a completely satisfactory alternative, I shall work with Ricoeur’s term here and elsewhere in the book. 55. This is perhaps in contradistinction to interpreters such as Augustine, as we saw in chapter 1.

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In ‘poetic discourse’ ‘description is suspended’ (i.e., historical description of actual events in the world) so that ‘redescription may occur’. The referential claim of a narrative understood as ‘poetic fiction’ is thus ‘to redescribe reality according to the symbolic structures of the fiction’. It has a prophetic dimen sion, and in a sense perhaps this has resonances with Joshua’s location in the Hebrew Bible in the prophets. This is not to say that God is not referred to or that there is nothing that we can infer about God from the narrative. Rather, reference to God is indirect and is discerned through the manner of the appropriation of the narrative. The form of appropriation and enactment of the nar rative implicitly shows something of what ‘God is like’. However, this raises the question of how the reading developed here dovetails with Joshua’s location in the canon which in some sense encourages one to read it as part of what has variously been described as a ‘grand narrative’ of ‘salvation history’. We shall return to this question in chapter 9. Secondly, given that Joshua and Deut 7:1–5 (and Genesis 34) each represent Christian Scripture, how does the interpreter deal with the different directions that they pull in? Again, this is a crucial question that we shall consider in the next two chapters via other texts. But one provisional observation is worth making here. Whilst Joshua and Deut 7:1–5 do pull in somewhat different directions, their concerns can be seen as being rather different. Deut 7:1–5 is largely concerned with the problem of idolatry and its avoidance so as to en courage a life of faithful response to God, and the construction of Israel’s identity from this perspective. Joshua is concerned with Israel’s identity especially in relation to boundaries (and their maintenance) of identifying as Israelite, in what is another dimension or aspect of living faithfully in response to God. Thus it is possible for Christian interpreters to develop reading strategies for the two texts along these lines considering the value of the texts in speaking to these issues (and indeed how they might relate) rather than focusing on elements of contradiction per se. Joshua might be said to nuance (rather than repudiate or deconstruct) Deuteronomy. The Christian can use the imagery of ‫ חרם‬in Deut 7:1–5 as a symbol that powerfully evokes the problem of idolatry and the need to deal with it radically. Indeed, the tradition of interpretation suggests that it is the idolatry within oneself that requires the most radical treatment—one should fight it and annihilate it. Indeed, although Deut 7:1–5 has not been a text that has been much used in the Christian tradition, 56 this is the way that it has found use. For example, the Glossa Ordinaria develops readings of 7:1 at some length, where the ‘seven nations’ are the seven main vices which the ‘spiritual warrior’ overcomes by God’s grace; ‘Septem gentes sunt septem principalia vitia, quae per Dei gratiam spiritalis miles exsuperans exterminare 56. For development of a possible line of contemporary interpretation see D.S. Earl, ‘The Christian Significance of Deuteronomy 7’ in JTI 3.1 (2009): 41–62.

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jubetur.’57 Notice here, that as with Origen’s reading of the book of Joshua, the conflict is internalized and not taken as a mandate to compel others to deal with idolatry through the use of force. Thirdly then, with regard to ethical and moral issues, we have seen how the problematic nature of the text in these regards assists in urging a symbolic reading, as with the historical difficulties, and thus that critiques in these areas inform our reading and use of the text. This does however raise the question of the appropriateness of the symbolism used, especially with regard to ‫חרם‬. This is a real difficulty granted the obvious dangers of the misappropriation of the symbolism. But construed appropriately, the symbolism can powerfully evoke the nature of the conflict with idolatry, as we have seen with Origen’s reading of Joshua and in the Glossa Ordinaria on Deut 7:1. The symbolism would seem to have real value when used responsibly and well, even though it is dangerous. Thus although the symbolism is indeed dangerous, the tradition indicates a stable and evocatively potent and valuable means of construing it with refer ence essentially to the regula fidei. One can imbue it with evocative power in the development of the Christian life, safeguarding it against misuse provided that one reads and interprets within the tradition. In terms of ‘reading as’ we may, and indeed we may be required to ‘bracket out’ some of these difficulties. In other words purging oneself of idolatry so as to be freed to worship and respond to God faithfully and fully is an ongoing battle of the Christian life. It involves conflict, fighting, dedication and annihilation in regard to what might be described as vices, temptations, disordered desires and so on. The difficulty occurs when the texts are divorced from their canonical and traditional Christian contexts and concerns and taken as a mandate to compel others, or used to serve one’s own ends in which one loses sight of the Christian frame of reference for reading. We should by no means abandon the symbolism—rather, we should learn to use it responsibly and well. Fourthly then, if the reception of the text within the traditional Christian context is important as the comments just made would indicate, then should one in fact abandon the traditional Christian uses of Rahab’s story, even though it does not seem to be as good a reading of the text as the one outlined above? I shall return to this question in chapter 6, exploring one possible response of what happens when the critique of ideology and hermeneutics of tradition meet. Finally, if we are to try and draw some of these concerns together, what is it that we are left with that we can infer about God through Joshua? The ques tion is raised especially with reference to texts such as Josh 10:40, ‘So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and 57. There is no modern critical edition of the Glossa. For convenience I shall use the version in Patrologia Latina, which follows the Douai edition of 1617. PL 113, col. 459.

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the slopes, and all their kings; he left no one remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded.’ (NRSV). A naïve reading of 10:40, taking the text at face value in its literal sense, implies that God commanded genocide. Therefore, as the argument goes, unless Joshua or the biblical writers were mistaken, this command reflects something of God’s nature as willing genocide—even if it is willed on the basis of the sinfulness of the societies concerned as per the interpretation given in Deuteronomy. In deed, Josh 10:40 is in a sense paradigmatic of what seems especially morally problematic in Joshua. Yet Origen’s interpretation is quite different from this reading. The verse represents a stumbling block that points us toward a spir itual reading owing to the moral incongruity of the ‘literal sense’ of the text in relation to the New Testament. 58 Origen’s own interpretation of 10:40 is woven in to Homily 13 on Joshua: [The Christian] affirms that even now my Lord Jesus Christ wars against opposing powers and casts out of their cities, that is, out of our souls, those who used to occupy them. And he destroys the kings who were ruling in our souls “that sin may no longer reign in us,” so that, after he abolishes the king of sin from the city of our soul, our soul may become the city of God and God may reign in it, and it may be proclaimed to us, “Behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” This is, therefore, a work of highest compassion that the heretics accuse of cruelty; what was dimly sketched formerly by the son of Nun through certain individual cities the Lord Jesus accomplishes now in truth through certain individual souls of believers. So when wicked and malicious kings who “follow the prince of the air of this world, the spirit who now works in the Sons of disobedience,” are expelled and annihilated from the souls they used to possess, Jesus deigns to make the souls “the dwelling place of God” and “the temple of the Holy Spirit.” Then the members that had served under an unjust king “for injustice leading to impurity, now serve righteousness leading to sanctification.” … I myself think it is better that the Israelite wars be understood in this way, and it is better that Jesus is thought to fight in this way and to destroy cities and overthrow kingdoms. For in this manner what is said will also appear more devout and more merciful, when he is said to have so subverted and devastated individual cities that “nothing that breathed was left in them, neither any who might be saved nor any who might escape.”’ 58. As Origen observes, this is not to contrast the testaments but rather to unify them—Origen shows what kind of reading strategy is required to read them as a unified book that witness to the same reality.

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Would that the Lord might thus cast out and extinguish all former evils from the souls who believe in him—even those he claims for his kingdom—and from my own soul, its own evils; so that nothing of a malicious inclination may continue to breathe in me, nothing of wrath; so that no disposition of desire for any evil may be preserved in me, and no wicked word “may remain to escape” from my mouth. For thus, purged from all former evils and under the leadership of Jesus, I can be included among the cities of the sons of Israel, concerning which it is written, “The cities of Judah will be raised up and they will dwell in them.” … And thus at last we may be entitled to be included in the inheritance of the holy land, in the Israelite portion. Then our enemies will be abolished and destroyed so “that none of them remains who may breathe in us,” but only the spirit of Christ breathes in us, through works and words and spiritual understanding, according to the 59 teaching of Christ Jesus our Lord

As we commented above, the symbolism is used in a powerful way to interpret something of the nature of the Christian life, offering an encouraging resource for reflection and for imaging the nature of the Christian life amid times of dif ficulty and trial.60 In many respects though Origen’s reading of 10:40 is more a reading of Joshua in terms of understanding it as a fulfillment of Deut 7:1–5, rather than a qualification of it. And this is one possible reading strategy. We shall return to the question of multiple reading strategies over the chapters that follow, considering in particular the question of the extent to which they may co-exist in Christian theological interpretation. But read in the way that we have sought to develop above, taking Origen’s approach as a cue to move away from literal interpretations of statements such as 10:40, we can understand statements such as 10:40 as helping us to develop and interpret the symbolism—respond ing to ‫ חרם‬symbolizes response to God. Thus Joshua (and Israel) responded appropriately to God since, in the world of the text, they were obedient in conducting ‫חרם‬. However, we have become so attuned to reading ‘history-like’ texts such as Joshua at face value that we have difficulty in grasping and respecting the symbolic, liminal nature of the text and what this means for inter pretation. We have lost the ability to read with ‘poetic imagination’ on the one hand and to foster the responsible use of powerful symbolism on the other. We have become used to reading statements like this in terms of trying to deduce something about God’s nature (or how Israel understood it), yet this is not how such statements function in the text. Instead, what we learn about God comes 59. Hom. Josh. 13.1–4 (Bruce, 125–9). 60. It is noteworthy that here Origen understands the battle to be Jesus’, who fights on our behalf.

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implicitly and obliquely, through texts such as Josh 5:1–15. What this implies about God is that God is not there to be co-opted to assist socio-politically defined ‘sides’—rather we are to fall to our feet in worship and faithful response to God, embodied in the Christian as faithful response to Jesus, and Je sus will drive out and overthrow the enemies within ourselves. Josh 5:13–15 critiques the promotion of self-interest through the use of religious language that reflects self-deception in an attempt to exercise power. Christian theological reading of Joshua is inherently symbolic and existential in its focus. Analysis of myth through the approach of Victor Turner highlights the genre and significance of the text, confirming that Joshua is not to be understood as a model for enactment at the literal level, an insight that reflects that of Origen. Moreover, analysis of myth in neo-structuralist perspect ive indicates something of the significance of the symbolism in Joshua, and shows why Joshua has found Christian significance whereas, by and large, Genesis 34 has not. This is, of course, one particular ‘ideology of reading’ that is open to critique. Yet the hermeneutics of the Christian tradition, and its cul tural memory, would seem to have established that this way of reading (i.e., Christian appropriation through Christian recontextualization of symbols and concerns) is in fact a fruitful way of interpreting Old Testament narrative in a Christian context. Whilst within the modern period strong critiques of tradi tional reading practices arose, and may well suggest a rather more restrained use of typology or allegory than has in fact been the practice in the Christian tradition, modern critique need not disable traditional reading, but rather point to its reconstrual in terms of symbols and their recontextualization. Moreover, we should recognize that interpretation reflects an instance of rulefollowing according to certain language-games that are encultured activities, and so different interpretative practices reflect different pictures of the loca tion of the significance of texts. It may be that some pictures are better than others in certain circumstances, to be judged on a case by case basis, as we dis cussed in chapter 1. But it is perhaps worth dwelling on some of these issues a little longer using another text as a study. I would like to turn now to consider the role that the history of reception, the reconstruction of an originary context and purpose for writing, and the textual horizons within which a story is read plays in interpretation, especially with regard to the formation of ‘reading strategies’. Is the purpose of composition normative for determining the concerns of on going interpretation? Is a story (like Genesis 34) best read and interpreted ‘on its own terms’, within its own textual horizon, or that of Genesis, or the canon? Does the history of reception indicate to us how a text ought to be read? The reading of Joshua developed here sits well in many ways with what would seem to be the purpose of writing, the sense of the text ‘as text’ and the reception of

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the text, even if there are interesting tensions such as in the interpretation of Rahab’s story. Yet both approaches to reading the story of Rahab sit rather awkwardly with Genesis 34. How does the interpreter handle scriptural narratives that seem to point in different directions? In the next chapter I would like to consider these questions in detail through a study of some theologically problematic aspects of the Joseph story (Genesis 37–50).61

61. Author’s note: Chapter 3 is largely a summary of my fuller reading of Joshua in Reading Joshua as Christian Scripture (JTISup 2; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010) and in places follows my essay ‘Holy War and ‫ חרמ‬: A Biblical Theology of ‫ ’חרמ‬in H. Thomas, J. Evans and P. Copan, Holy War in the Bible: Christian Morality and an Old Testament Problem (Illinois: IVP Academic, 2013), 152–75.

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C HAPTER 4

THE JOSEPH STORY (GENESIS 37–50) T HE HERMENEUTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RECEPTION H ISTORY AND THE LITERARY HORIZONS OF THREE

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T HEOLOGICALLY PROBLEMATIC TEXTS In chapters 2 and 3 we studied how morally and historically problematic Old Testament narratives may be read by Christian interpreters. We saw that the concerns of structuralist interpretation were important in understanding these narratives and their significance, and that, broadly speaking, the contemporary ‘critique of ideology’ applied to the texts of Genesis 34 and the book of Joshua was met by the ‘hermeneutics of tradition’ with different outcomes. With regard to the Joseph story, we shall see that the issues look somewhat different. The issue of different locations for the significance of the narrative is more problematic. The outcome of the meeting of tradition and critique is somewhat more ambiguous. It is less clear what might be considered as a good interpretation or appropriation of the narrative. It is perhaps only resolved in particular instances of use of the narrative in particular contexts, although as we shall see as our analysis unfolds in this chapter and in chapter 6, the same might in fact be said for Genesis 34. This will introduce the categories of wisdom and discernment, as classically understood, into the heart of the process of interpretation and appropriation of texts in particular contexts. It indicates that in some sense Old Testament narrative can be seen as functioning so as to inculcate ‘wisdom’ in the reader as well as requiring it of the reader in terms of the appropriation of the texts. In other words one forms and uses a worldview shaped by wisdom in the interpretation and use of Old Testament narrative. In this chapter then I would now like to consider how theologically prob lematic narratives might be interpreted when different reading strategies are adopted.1 Or, to put it another way, to consider how theologically problematic 1. For an earlier discussion regarding the problem of the morality of the Patriarchs that anticipates some of the issues developed here see R.H. Bainton, ‘The Immoralities of the Patriarchs According to the Exegesis of the Late Middle Ages and of the Reforma-

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narratives are interpreted differently according to different understandings of the location of the significance of a text. We shall see what is involved in such reading strategies, using some aspects of the Joseph story in Genesis to explore this issue. We shall explore the significance of the reception history of the Joseph story, from its incorporation into the book of Genesis, through its reception in the canon, and into the Christian tradition. In addition to considering traditional Christian readings of the story we shall look at the significance of modern construals of the locus of textual meaning and significance. So the role of authorial intention, the significance of a putative originary context, and finally the use of literary approaches to reading that encourage one to develop the significance of the world of the text in various intertextual contexts will be analysed. I shall sit lightly to explicit discussion of the categories of hermeneutics of tradition and of the critique of ideology in this chapter so as to use more traditional language, although hopefully the implicit map that these cat egories provide will be clear. So, turning now to the Joseph story. The Joseph story (Genesis 37–50*) appears rather different in character from the character of the stories in the re mainder of Genesis. There are three references in particular in the Joseph story that appear problematic theologically: Joseph is reported to marry the daughter of an Egyptian priest (41:45); to swear by the life of pharaoh (42:15); and possibly practise divination (44:5, 15). I wish to use these three ‘problem texts’ to explore the nature of Christian theological interpretation of the Joseph story. First, we shall briefly consider the reception and interpretation of the Joseph story as a whole. Then, secondly, we shall consider different historical contexts in which the composition of the story might be located. Thirdly, we shall study the reception history of the ‘problem texts’ (41:45, 42:15 and 44:5, 15). Finally, we shall consider how these problem texts read within the textual horizon of the story itself, the horizon of Genesis, and the horizon of the canon(s). This will enable us to consider what factors influence the interpretation of the theologically problematic texts. 2

S OME PORTRAITS OF JOSEPH I N RECEPTION HISTORY There is little development of the portrait of Joseph in the Old Testament. The name Joseph is often used to represent northern Israel, sometimes in a pe jorative sense (e.g. Ps 78:67), although on the whole Joseph is portrayed in positive terms where he is referred to (e.g. Josh 24:32; Ps 105:16–22). Indeed, the tion’, in HTR 23.1 (1930): 39-49. 2. For a recent treatment of issues of composition and reception of the Joseph story see C.A. Evans, J.N. Lohr & D.L. Peterson (eds.) The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception and Interpretation (VTSup 152; Leiden: Brill, 2012).

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deutero-canonical and non-canonical books related to the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, paint very positive portraits of Joseph. 3 Rusty Reno suggests that ‘For Christian readers, Joseph’s role as the source of life for his brothers begs for a christological interpretation. The basic features of the narrative suggest the theological structure of the story of Jesus’s life.’4 Indeed, traditional Christian interpreters have focused on a Christological interpretation of the story, also finding in Joseph a model for the virtuous life. Genesis 39, where Joseph refuses the advances of Potiphar’s wife, is com monly developed in this regard.5 However, Reno suggests that Joseph is not so obviously virtuous in other episodes. With his ambitious dreams, he seems a vain young man rather than the paragon of virtue. Later, Joseph dresses like an Egyptian and marries an Egyptian, more the model of faithless assimilation than holy virtue. … [W]e should avoid projecting moral and spiritual perfection onto 6 Joseph.

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Indeed, rather than seeking positive paradigms of behavior for the Christian life in the Joseph story, critical modern readers have focused on the more problematic aspects of Joseph’s life, 7 such as Joseph’s treatment of his brothers 3. E.g. Sir 49:15; 1 Macc 2:53; 4 Macc 2:2; Acts 7:9–15; Heb 11:22. We shall discuss the positive portraits of Joseph in Jubilees, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and Joseph and Asenath below. 4. R.R. Reno, Genesis (SCM Theological Commentary; London: SCM, 2010), 259. 5. Ibid., 267–8. See especially Ambrose’s De Joseph Patriarcha. For discussion see further M.L. Colish, Ambrose’s Patriarchs: Ethics for the Common Man (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 127–48. For discussion (with bibliography) of such interpretation into the 18th century see D.W. Rooke, ‘Joseph: Saint or Sinner? Italian Opera, Handelian Oratorio, and Eighteenth-century Commentaries’, in D.W. Rooke, Handel's Israelite Oratorio Libretti: Sacred Drama and Biblical Exegesis (Oxford: OUP, 2012), 121–44, here 127–8. For the reception of the Joseph story in the Jewish tradition see J.L Kugel, In Potiphar’s House: The Interpretative Life of Biblical Texts (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1994), 13–155; Maren Niehoff, The Figure of Joseph in Post-Biblical Jewish Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1992). So for example Ambrose saw Joseph as a ‘mirror of purity’, (De Ioseph 1.2, in M.P. McHugh (trans.), Saint Ambrose: Seven Exegetical Works (FC 65; Washington DC: CUA Press, 1972), 189). Chrysostom speaks of the ‘surpassing virtue of the good man’, and that we should be ‘vigilant and alert and imitate this young man’s self control, his other virtues and noble attitude’, Hom. Gen. 62.19, 62.24 in R.C. Hill (trans), Saint John Chrysostom: Homilies on Genesis 46–67 (FC 87; Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1992), 207, 210. 6. Reno, Genesis, 268. 7. See especially Rooke, ‘Joseph’, 127–36 for discussion of critical readings of Joseph from the eighteenth century and responses. See also R.W.L. Moberly, The Theology of the Book of Genesis (Cambridge: CUP, 2009), 231–2.

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in Genesis 42–44. So for example in 1740 Thomas Morgan presented Joseph as ambitious, calculating, and tyrannical. 8 The need to respond to such readings has brought greater subtlety to the story’s interpretation for both Christian and Jewish readers. For example, commenting on Joseph’s speech to his brothers in 42:18–26 Meir Sternberg suggests that the ensuing developments, culminating in the secret tears, make it less and less probable that [Joseph] still entertains punitive designs beyond a token revenge. … Not that the originally signalled desire for revenge now proves illusive but that it proves short-lived: Joseph has checked and outgrown the temptation. Indeed, this underground development is one of the tale’s subtlest psychological touches. The very primitiveness of the initial urge renders the hero’s later magnanimity all the more credible, and his change of mind or heart parallels his overall change of character in growth 9 from adolescence to maturity.

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Similarly David Cotter suggests that Joseph is ‘an example of real human transformation; the self-absorbed teenager of Genesis 37 becomes the generous and forgiving man of Genesis 50. No spectacular divine manifestations were required in order to create the effect. Human life, the apparently secular life we all lead, is itself enough to form us, if lived well.’10 Thus sympathetic readers of the Joseph story reading it from the perspective of a second naiveté find a portrait of human transformation achieved through suffering and openness to God (e.g. Gen 45:4–8), a transformation that is subtly and searchingly narrated, rather than a somewhat flat portrait of a character who always displays virtue.

A PPROACHES TO THE JOSEPH STORY I N HISTORICAL- CRITICAL S CHOLARSHIP Julius Wellhausen located the story in the context of Northern Israel: Joseph here appears always as the pillar of the North-Israelite monarchy, the wearer of the crown among his brethren, a position for which he was marked out by his early dreams. The story of Joseph … is based on much earlier events, from a time when the union was just being accomplished of the two sections which to11 gether became the people of Israel.

8. The Moral Philosopher Vol. III (London, 1740). See Rooke, ‘Joseph’, 128. 9. M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985), 290–91. 10. D.W Cotter, Genesis (Berit Olam; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2003), 269.

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For some time the Joseph story was analysed in modern scholarship in terms of the Documentary Hypothesis, although attempts to attribute material to J or to E showed considerable variation in results, and even prior to the purported demise of the Documentary Hypothesis the usefulness of this hypothesis in relation to the Joseph story was questioned. There is now a strong tendency to view the story as a unit, even if some additions are discernable, such as Genesis 38 narrating the story of Judah and Tamar.12 Thus I shall consider the Joseph story as a story in its own right as the basis for interpretation. Gerhard von Rad observed that the Joseph story has a distinctive literary form. He proposed a historical thesis to account for its distinctive features, namely that the story reflected the ‘Solomonic Enlightenment’ in which a new consciousness pervaded Israel that was expressed in the wisdom literature particularly, drawing upon Egyptian wisdom literature. For von Rad the Joseph story is a ‘narrative embodiment of the theology of wisdom, with a didactic purpose for those who would become administrators in the royal court.’ Joseph’s portrayal represents that which Proverbs advocates. 13 Walter Moberly notes a number of difficulties in von Rad’s approach: the thesis of the ‘Solomonic enlightenment’; the historical linkage of the Joseph story with Proverbs; and the assumption that wisdom literature functioned to train royal administrators. However, Moberly suggests that reading the Joseph story through the lens of wisdom literature might prove to be a useful heur istic tool. So for example, Joseph’s ‘abandonment of the folly of his behaviour as a youth in Genesis 37 in favor of a wiser course of life—can readily function as a portrayal that teaches wisdom.’14 Walter Brueggemann also reconfigures von Rad’s reading, although in a different way, suggesting that the Joseph story appears to belong to a generation of believers in a cultural climate where old modes of faith were embarrassing. The old idiom of faith 11. J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, ET: 1885), 323. 12. R.G. Kratz suggests that Genesis 12–35 and 37–50 form ‘two very different sets of narrative’, and that the documentary hypothesis is not applicable to the Joseph story, it being sui generis, including three ‘undisputed’ larger insertions: Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38); the blessing of Manasseh and Ephraim in Genesis 48, and the ‘tribal sayings’ in Genesis 49. Otherwise Genesis 37–50 is more or less a unit (275), differing in character from the remainder of the ancestral narrative. See The Composition of the Narrative Books in the Old Testament (London: T&T Clark, ET: 2005). Such a view has gained widespread support (cf. e.g. Rooke, ‘Joseph’, 123). Thus the Joseph story probably functioned as a story in its own right—a ‘national myth’. 13. Moberly, The Theology of the Book of Genesis, 227–8. See G. von Rad, ‘The Joseph Narrative and Ancient Wisdom’, in K.C. Hanson (ed.) From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress 2005), 75–88. 14. Moberly, Genesis, 229–32.

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had become unconvincing. Thus, the narrative should be understood as a sophisticated literary response to a cultural, theological crisis. How does one speak about faith in a context where the older 15 ways are found wanting? That is the issue in the Joseph narrative.

Estimates for the date and context of composition of the Joseph story vary wildly. The association of the Joseph story with northern Israel in the monarchical era is still argued by some, such as David Carr.16 Carr argues that there is little indication that the story was originally connected to its current liter ary context, and that the characters in the story are human representatives of social groups.17 He traces several editions of the composition, identifying in particular northern and southern editions prior to a ‘proto-Genesis’ composi tion.18 Joseph stood for the northern kingdom and Judah the southern, and Carr suggests that the ‘political connections of the characters in the Joseph story are our first hint that the picture in the Joseph story of Joseph’s divine destiny to rule almost certainly had political overtones to its early audience. It was not just a subtle characterization of human interactions. Rather it was at the same time a subtle argument for the North’s destiny to rule both Northern and Southern Israelite groups.’19 He goes on to suggest that ‘this constellation of themes addresses specific elements of the largely northern antimonarchial movement that resisted David’s and Solomon’s rule during the tenth century’, but also that ‘the Joseph story brings a rhetoric of reconciliation to bear on the centrifugal antimonarchial forces calling for a return to more decentralized forms of rule.’20 Thus he identifies the probable historical context of the original story in the northern kingdom, in the early stages of its formation. The prominence of Judah possibly explains the acceptance of the story in the south also.21 The independent Joseph story is ‘another step in the movement toward harnessing ancient Israelite traditions to support an existing political structure. … In contrast to the Jacob story, we are no longer looking at the elegant encompassing of subversive traditions. Instead, the Joseph story builds on court traditions.’22

15. W. Brueggemann, Genesis (Interpretation Series; Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 288–9. 16. D.M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville: WJKP, 1996). 17. Ibid., 272–3; cf. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 318–20. 18. Ibid., 297–311. 19. Ibid., 274. 20. Ibid., 276–7. 21. Ibid., 277–8. 22. Ibid., 301.

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The more conservative scholars now appear to shy away from dating the composition of the story in the second millennium BCE. The preference is rather to argue that the story preserves historical traditions from this era that were passed down faithfully and subsequently edited together sometime in the early first millennium. Thus J.E. Hartley argues for the reliability of the Patriarchal Narratives,23 suggesting that

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it is difficult to imagine that one or more authors who lived cen turies later would have had the inclination, let alone the skill, to compose stories about Israel’s ancestors living and worshipping so differently than prescribed by the Sinaitic law. It is even harder to imagine that such stories would have been so widely accepted as to become part of the canonical tradition if they were first introduced 24 in the exilic or early postexilic eras.

For conservative scholars the Joseph story records Israel’s early history, which is also ‘salvation history’. The more theologically awkward elements are under stood to be indicative of reports of what people actually did in the patriarchal era before the Law was given. However, other scholars have imagined how later authors might have composed just such stories. A significant number of scholars now understand the Joseph story against the context of the Egyptian diaspora community and its conflicts with ‘Jerusalem orthodoxy’ in the Persian or even Hellenistic eras.25 Typical of this trend is Thomas Römer. After showing that there are indications that lead towards a late dating for the Joseph story, Römer goes on to suggest that it is a novella written for the Egyptian diaspora so as to enable the community to maintain its identity in light of the return of orthodox rule in Jerusalem in the Persian era. The Joseph story is a polemic against restrictive Palestinian orthodox theology, showing that one can live and prosper in a foreign land.26 Römer suggests that the theology of the Joseph story is rather en lightened, speaking neither of Torah nor covenant. God is seldom called Yahweh. What is important is a certain form of ethical behavior. For Römer the ‘problem texts’ point toward this reading. Joseph practises divination (Gen 44:5, 15) in contrast to its prohibitions in the Law (Lev 19:26; Deut 18:10). In 23. J.E. Hartley, Genesis (NIBC; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), 24. 24. Ibid., 32. See similarly D. Kidner, Genesis (TOTC; Leicester: IVP, 1967), 22–6, 200– 203; V.P. Hamilton (The Book of Genesis Chapters 18–50 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 67–71. 25. E.g. T. Römer, ‘Joseph Approche: Source du Cycle, Corpus, Unité’, in O. Abel and F. Smyth (eds), Le Livre de Traverse: De l’exégèse Biblique à l’anthropologie (Paris: Cerf, 1992) 73–85; J.A. Soggin, Das Buch Genesis: Kommentar (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1997), 435–6. 26. Römer, ‘Joseph’, 84.

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Gen 41:50–52 Joseph becomes the son-in-law of an Egyptian priest, and has two sons with this Egyptian woman, the tribes of whom remain there unlike in the ‘official version’ of 1 Chr 7:29. Joseph thus practices mixed marriages, marriages which Ezra fights with enthusiasm (Ezra 10). The remark in Gen 43:42 that Egyptians cannot eat with the Hebrews is probably an ironic allusion to the food laws and the exclusivism preached by the Priestly rulers in Jerusalem. It is then only at a very late stage that the Joseph story was reconciled with other traditions and incorporated into the form that we now have in which it links the patriarchs and exodus.27 Thus we see a wide variety of approaches to the Joseph story.

A N ANALYSIS OF THE RECEPTION OF THE THREE ‘PROBLEM TEXTS’ (GENESIS 41:45; 42:15; 44:5, 15)

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There is no explicit biblical reception of Gen 41:45; 42:15 or 44:5, 15, so we now turn to consider their reception in Jewish and Christian tradition. A NCIENT JEWISH TEXTS The ‘problem texts’ are dealt with in various ways in ancient Jewish inter pretation. Divination appears the most contentious and problematic issue, with Jubilees, Samaritan Pentateuch, Targum Neofiti and Targum Onqelos emending the text so as to suggest that Joseph either uses the cup for drinking or testing (‫)נסה‬, but not divining ( ‫ )נחשׁ‬. Targum pseudo-Jonathan retains the reference to divination, whilst Philo and Josephus both omit the reference to divination. 28 The marriage to Asenath is seen positively as a reward for virtue in The Testament of Joseph 18:3, and it is viewed positively in Philo and Josephus. 29 In Jubilees the account that culminates in the marriage is introduced with a note that the kingdom of Pharaoh was upright, and that there was no Satan and no evil (Jub 40:10). Targum pseudo-Jonathan adds a note that Asenath was in fact a 27. Ibid., 85. 28. Jub 43:2, 10; Josephus Ant. 2.128; Philo, On Joseph 35. For the Targumim see B. Grossfeld, The Targum Onqelos to Genesis (The Aramaic Bible 6; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988); M. Maher, Targum Pseudo–Jonathan: Genesis (The Aramaic Bible 1B; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1992); M. McNamara, Targum Neofiti 1: Genesis (The Aramaic Bible 1A; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1992). For Jubilees see O.S. Wintermute, ‘Jubilees’, in J.H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (New York: Doubleday, 1985 (2 vols.)), 2.35–142. 29. Philo, On Dreams 1.14; Josephus Ant 2.91, where Asenath was a virgin and a wife of ‘very high quality’. See Niehoff, Joseph, esp. 106–7 for discussion. For discussion of Joseph’s marriage to Asenath in ancient Jewish interpretation generally see V. Aptovitzer, ‘Asenath, the Wife of Joseph’ HUCA 1.1924: 239–306.

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child whom Dinah had borne to Shechem, whilst the other targumim follow Genesis without amplification. The most developed amplification of the report of marriage forms a book in itself, Joseph and Asenath. The story describes their love and Asenath’s conversion at length. In short, Asenath is an idolatrous virgin who falls in love with Joseph. Joseph falls in love with her, prays for her repentance and conversion, and, following this, he marries her.30 The reference to swearing by Pharaoh’s life receives little attention. It is omitted in Jubilees, and there is a passing reference to it in Genesis Rabbah.31 Thus we see that there are a variety of responses to the texts. It is interesting, however, that Genesis Rabbah does not address the questions of divination or intermarriage.

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P R E- REFORMATION CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION Origen does not discuss any of these texts in his Homilies on Genesis. Chrysostom understands Asenath as Joseph’s reward, and says nothing on the other problem texts, concentrating instead on the overall thrust of the narrative. So for example he concentrates on interpreting Genesis 44 as a test without lingering on details such as the issue of divination. 32 Ambrose takes Joseph to be a type of Christ as well as a mirror of purity. Thus he interprets the mar riage to Asenath typologically. Joseph typifies Christ who takes a wife from the gentiles, the church.33 Moreover, the cup for divination is also interpreted ty pologically, as the cup of salvation.34 Theodoret of Cyrus does not comment on the marriage (41:45) or swearing by pharaoh (42:15) in his Questions on Genesis. On divination however he asks: What is the meaning of “he practices augury with it”? To add to the seriousness of the accusation for the alleged theft, they called the cup an instrument of divination. In fact, Joseph himself declared: “Are you unaware that a man of my station will practice augury?” Now, he said this, not because he was practicing div30. For the text in translation see C. Burchard, ‘Joseph and Asenath’, in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2.177–247. 31. ‘When he wanted to take an oath falsely, he would say, “By the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies’, Gen Rab 16:7.5 in J. Neusner, Genesis Rabbah: the Judaic commentary to the book of Genesis : a new American translation (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 3 vols. 1985) 3.275. 32. Chrysostom does not find any difficulties in Gen 41:45. He suggests that there are no negative connotations of having an Egyptian wife, rather, Asenath is his reward, (Hom. Gen. 63.18–19, see Hill, 220–21). Chrysostom uses the story to make a general exhortation to not despairing in distress and persevering in faith. He does not discuss Gen 44:5, 15, (Hom. Gen. 64.21), although he quotes the text and understands references to divination here (Ibid., 235) 33. De Joseph Patriarcha 7.40. 34. De Joseph Patriarcha 11.63–64. See Colish, Ambrose’s Patriarch’s, 139 for discussion.

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture ination and augury, but to adapt his words to the role he had assumed. We must admire his precise choice of words. Even when putting on this act for his brothers, he was unwilling to attribute divination to himself and applied the attribution to another man in the same position. Note, he did not say, “I practice augury’ but “a 35 man of my position will practice augury.”

This treatment is reflected in much Christian interpretation of the references to divination here. A similar line of interpretation is found in Augustine. 36 This trajectory of interpretation continues into the middle ages. For example, Au gustine’s interpretation is cited in the glossa ordinaria on Gen 44:15,37 and also by Thomas Aquinas in the response to the question of whether divination is lawful or not: Is divination by auguries, omens, and the like unlawful? … Apparently divination by auguries, omens and similar observations of external phenomena is not wrong. If it were, then holy men would not employ it. But in Genesis we read that Joseph’s steward was to say, The cup which you have stolen is that in which my lord drinketh and in which he is wont to divine. And later Joseph said to his brothers, Know you not that there is no one like me in the science of divining?

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But in the response: So then we should conclude that all such divinations are superstitious and unlawful when they go beyond the limits set by the order of nature and divine Providence. According to Augustine, when Joseph said that there was no one like him in the art of divining, he was speaking in jest, referring perhaps to the vulgar opinion of him. And his steward spoke in the same 38 fashion.

35. Question 107, in R.C. Hill, (trans.), Theodoret of Cyrus: The Questions on the Octa teuch: Volume I: On Genesis and Exodus (LEC 1; Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 197–8. 36. Questions on Genesis 146 (PL 34 col. 587). See also Questions 135–6 (PL 34, cols. 584– 5) for discussion of Gen 41:45. 37. ‘An ignorátis quod non sit símilis mei in augurándi scientia?. AUG. Quaest. in Gen., tom. 3 Quid hoc sibi velit quaeri solet. An quia non sério sédjoco dictum est, etc., usque ad cógnito fratre, quem a se pérditum existimábant.’ (Migne edition [1880] with some additions and emendations from the Editio Princeps. Electronic text created by Steven Killings, in Vul Search 4). 38. ST 2a2ae. 95, 7, in T.F. O’Meara and M.J. Duffy (trans.), Summa Theologiae Vol.40, Superstition and irreverence (2a2ae. 92–100) (London: Blackfriars, 1968), 59–63.

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This reading of Aquinas is referred to and developed by Paul of Burgo (d.1435) in his addition to Nicholas of Lyra’s Postills on Genesis. Lyra paraphrased the text of Genesis 44 regarding divination, without any comment on divination, whilst offering an allegorical reading of the cup as prefiguring Paul. 39 Lyra interpreted the oath sworn by Joseph (42:15) as ‘that he swore by God, who was, in effect, the health of Pharaoh.’ 40 Peter Comestor mentions Joseph’s marriage to Asenath (41:45) in his Scholastic History, but without comment. 41 Thus in premodern Christian and Jewish interpretation we see clear tendencies to maintain the portrait of Joseph as the model of virtue. Various read ing strategies arise so as to avoid imputing problematic actions to Joseph. However, I am not aware of any attempt to justify Joseph’s actions in terms of an appeal to the observation that he lived before the law was given. 42 Rather, the desire in this era seems to be to interpret Joseph as a ‘holy man’ modelling virtue, and, in the Christian context, a type of Christ. The text is thus inter preted with these portraits of Joseph providing hermeneutical keys. Moreover, it is interpreted in such a way so as to speak directly to the context of the contemporary reader, so that the reader has ‘immediate access’ to the story rather than indirect access as mediated by various historical contexts. In other words, the significance of the pre-Mosaic or Mosaic contexts for reading carries little or no weight for the interpretation of Joseph’s story.

39. J.A. Schroeder (ed. and trans.), The Book of Genesis (The Bible in Medieval Tradition; Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2015), 206–210. See also her discussion regarding the links to rabbinic interpretation here (30–35). 40. Ibid., 194. 41. Ibid., 189. 42. As we shall see further below, it is striking that virtually no appeal was made to the narrative sequence in Scripture for the interpretation of the patriarchal narratives (i.e., in particular, that their more problematic actions could be interpreted or justified in terms of their living before the Law was given). The only such appeal that I am aware of (and a rather curious one at that) is in the context of what was taken to be adulterous relationships. This strategy is used to discuss Abraham’s sexual relations with Hagar (Gen 16:1–5) by Ambrose in de Abraham 1.4.23 and Theodoret in Quest. Gen 68. See Colish, Ambrose’s Patriarchs 54–5 for discussion, although Colish seems to make more of this interpretative strategy than is warranted by the texts. It is interesting then that neither interpreter appealed to such a strategy in the interpretation of the more problematic episodes in Joseph’s life. See further J.L. Thompson, Reading the Bible with the Dead: What you can learn from the history of exegesis that you can’t learn from exegesis alone (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2007). Thompson discusses the interpretation of the story of Hagar from different perspectives (13–32), and the problem of ‘patriarchs behaving badly’ (71–92). He does not offer any examples of, or consider a reading strategy of explaining problematic episodes in the patriarchs’ lives in terms of their living before the Law.

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C HRISTIAN INTERPRETATION FROM THE REFORMATION UNTIL THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Calvin discusses issues with all three of the ‘problem texts’, although he is not at all concerned to excuse Joseph, unlike earlier interpreters. Calvin says that he can ‘scarcely be induced to believe’ that Joseph’s father-in-law was an Egyptian priest, and thus understands cohen as prince rather than priest. The issue of intermarriage per se does not seem to bother Calvin; rather what worries him is that it is an Egyptian priest’s daughter whom Joseph marries.43 Calvin is far more concerned with the issue of swearing by the life of Pharaoh than many of the earlier interpreters, and interprets the oath in the opposite direction to Peter Comestor for instance. He notes that .

this mode of swearing is abhorrent to true piety. … [I]n accommodating himself to this depraved custom of speaking, he had received some stain. His repetition of the expression shows, that when anyone has once become accustomed to evil, he becomes exceedingly 44 prone to sin again and again.

Moreover, Calvin follows traditional Christian approaches to the issue of divination in regarding Joseph as not actually practising divination. But he adds a new twist to the problem, arguing that Joseph sinned in the act of pretending, as this is deception:

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Joseph … combines many falsehoods in one, and takes advantage of the prevailing vulgar opinion that he used auguries. Whence we gather, that when anyone swerves from the right line, he is prone to fall into various sins. … [Joseph] now sins in pretending that he is a 45 soothsayer or diviner.

For Calvin the desire to portray Joseph as a type of Christ or model of virtue is eclipsed, concerns that are eclipsed in his theology more generally. 46 Yet he still does not excuse Joseph on the grounds of living before the law—presum ably Joseph broke something like the ‘moral law’ which ought to be obvious to true piety. 43. J. Calvin, A Commentary on Genesis (Geneva Series; London: Banner of Truth, ET: J. King 1965), 330. 44. Ibid., 341–2. 45. Ibid., 368–9, 371. It is interesting to note that Ambrose for example interpreted the whole episode in terms of Joseph practising deception, but did not offer any negative appraisal of this. For Ambrose the whole episode is seen in positive terms (de Joseph 11.62–66). 46. Calvin makes one typological-like reference—‘in the person of Joseph, a lively image of Christ is presented’ (261). Calvin’s exegesis is, however, essentially concerned with the ‘literal meaning’ and application to the Christian life rather than typology or allegory. Also see Inst. 3.14.2–3.

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A critical stance toward Joseph became widespread in modernity. His character and virtue came under attack. Many commentators were then driven by apologetic goals, being at pains to refute the charges against Joseph. Gen 41:45; 42:15; 44:5, 15 were pivotal texts. Deborah Rooke discusses in detail how various commentators sought to defend Joseph. 47 She suggests that Joseph’s marriage to Asenath was defended on the grounds of practicalities: Joseph had to marry an Egyptian; on the grounds of divine revelation to Joseph to marry her; and on the grounds of Asenath’s probable conversion prior to the marriage. 48 She notes that the objection ‘that Joseph swears by the life of Pharaoh, and thereby blasphemes, is countered … with the claim that what appears to be an oath is nothing more than a ‘vehement asseveration’ … this was not an oath’. Finally, Rooke notes that commentators carefully avoid the suggestion that Joseph practiced divination, suggesting that more charitable interpretations are to be preferred.49 For example, in 1735 Samuel Humphreys suggested that

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The character of magician, or sorcerer, is so odious, that we ought not to apply it to that great patriarch, unless we should be obliged by any formal text of Scripture; but there can be none brought to support such an opinion, and the sentiments of those who say, that Joseph made profession of discovering the greatest mysteries, either by the natural talents he had received from heaven, or by extraordinary revelations from thence, are more charitable and more proba50 ble also.

Others, notably Matthew Henry, John Wesley and Adam Clarke, follow the ancient Jewish strategy and emended the Hebrew text to remove any reference to divination, or to reinterpret the sense of ‫ נחשׁ‬as ‘inspecting’. So for example Wesley comments on 44:5, ‘Is not this it in which my lord drinketh? And for which he would search thoroughly—So it may be rendered.’51 47. See Rooke, ‘Joseph’, 129–36 for detailed discussion of what follows (with bibliography). 48. See e.g. Thomas Stackhouse, A New History of the Holy Bible (1733; second edition, London 1742), and Samuel Smith’s The Family Companion: or, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (London, 1735 and 1739). 49. Thus adopting Augustine’s hermeneutic in which charitable interpretations that build up love of God and neighbor are to be preferred (On Christian Doctrine 1.36). 50. Samuel Humphreys, The Sacred Books of the Old and New Testament, recited at large (London, 1735), 120. 51. M. Henry, Commentary on the whole Bible: Volume 1 Genesis-Deuteronomy (Hendrickson electronic edition, 1991–1994 from 1706 original), commentary on Genesis 44; A. Clarke, Clarke’s Commentary: The Old Testament Vol. 1: Genesis through Deuteronomy (AGES electronic text, 1997 from 1810–26 original), commentary on Genesis 44; J. Wesley, Notes on the Bible (online text at: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/notes.ii.ii.xlv.ii.html accessed 22–03–12 from 1754–65 original).

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Thus nobody wishes to regard Joseph as practising divination. And again, nobody prior to the twentieth century, as far as I am aware, considers the pos sibility that as he is portrayed as living before the law that he might have prac tised divination without this being a problem. Neither is the possibility con sidered that he did practise divination but simply sinned in doing so. The text merely reports what he did. Calvin’s interpretation is unusual and has not gained a following, with most commentators reasserting traditional interpretative strategies. In other words commentators have wished to avoid imputing any sinful behavior to Joseph, even if in the wider historical context of modernity it was becoming commonplace to attack Joseph’s character. However, assessments of swearing by the life of Pharaoh and marrying Asenath have been various. The texts have been passed over without comment, reinterpreted within a positive portrayal of Joseph (Comestor), or taken to indicate that Joseph sinned, and the nature of sin (Calvin). T WENTIETH CENTURY We have seen how Römer’s interpretation of the Joseph story radically revises traditional understanding of the story. For Römer the three problem texts are taken to indicate a positive construal of the assimilation of some aspects of Egyptian culture into an Israelite diaspora community as against a ‘Palestinian orthodoxy’. On this reading the Joseph story would then itself reflect the result of a critique of existing ancient Israelite tradition(s) and its/their interests, or an attempt to renegotiate what it is that constitutes Israelite identity. The Joseph story would then reflect and encourage the promotion of the diaspora community’s own interests and ideology. The incorporation of the Joseph story into the Palestinian tradition through the canon then gives rise to some inter esting possibilities for interpretation. Thus if Römer is correct, the question of how the text is read well in the literary context in which it now stands is raised. Moreover, it raises the associated question of the extent to which a pu tative reconstruction of the originary context and purpose of composition of a text shapes its ongoing interpretation, as against the extent to which the his tory of reception and use of a text shapes its continued interpretation and ap propriation. This perhaps reflects the ongoing interaction between the ‘hermeneutics of tradition’ and the ‘critique of ideology’, a process that it would seem may be represented in the book of Genesis already. However, more traditionally minded twentieth century commentators have been less bothered about the problem texts than earlier interpreters. Joseph’s marriage to Asenath is simply not discussed by many commentators, 52 or it is interpreted in positive terms—Joseph becomes a full member of Egyp52. E.g. Cotter, Genesis; Kidner, Genesis; G.J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50 (WBC 2; Waco: Word, 1987).

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tian society, and the narrator does not have any scruples in recording this. 53 Brueggemann offers a positive interpretation of the whole episode that summarises Joseph’s assimilation and rise to power in Egypt (Gen 41:37–45), noting that ‘Joseph is now completely encapsulated in Egyptian reality. … the narrat ive provides a delicate blend of fidelity and enculturation, of faith and reason.’54 However, Claus Westermann introduces a historical perspective for the evaluation of Joseph’s actions, suggesting that a positive interpretation of Joseph’s assimilation is possible in the pre-Deuteronomistic era, but not the post-Deuteronomistic era.55 von Rad made a similar point in relation to the is sue of intermarriage, but related the change of outlook to the period of EzraNehemiah—Joseph’s marriage could be seen positively before the era of EzraNehemiah, but not after. 56 Thus for the first time we see a diachronic or dispensational perspective developing as a reading strategy for the story of Joseph, something that we shall return to later. Reno is rather more worried about assimilation than Brueggemann, for example, suggesting that readers are ‘meant to confront the ambiguity of Joseph’s success’.57 Indeed, the issue of intermarriage would seem more troubling than many commentators have granted. As we saw in chapter 2, Seth Kunin’s neo-structuralist analysis of the ancestral narratives highlights the overwhelming preference for endogamous marriage in Genesis, demonstrated positively in the ‘wife/sister’ texts (Genesis 12; 20; 26) in which a patriarch takes a close relative (incestuously) as a wife, and negatively in Genesis 34 where proposals for intermarriage are decisively and finally rejected through genocide; Genesis 38, and finally Genesis 39, where Joseph refuses the advances of a foreigner. Kunin concludes that each text ‘poses a different configuration in respect to marriage patterns’ and that ‘endogamy is the only acceptable pat tern.’58 The issue of endogamy is itself the sociological outworking of a theo logy of chosen-ness,59 and is reflective of an underlying worldview structure in which Israel is set against non-Israel by the construction of mutually exclusive categories between which no mediation or transformation is possible. This is 53. Hartley, Genesis, 329; Hamilton, Genesis, 507. 54. Brueggemann, Genesis, 334. 55. C. Westermann, Genesis 37–50: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, ET 2002), 96. 56. G. von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM, ET 2nd ed. 1963), 373. 57. Reno, Genesis, 270. 58. S.D. Kunin, We Think What We Eat: Neo-structuralist analysis of Israelite Food Rules and Other Cultural and Textual Practices (JSOTSup 412; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 182–7. Genesis 39 narrates the avoidance of sexual relations with foreigners, evoking a rejection of exogamy. 59. Ibid., 122. Israel is chosen because God chose Abraham and made promises to him and his descendants.

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seen in the opposition of priests to non-priests, and clean to unclean animals, for example, as well as chosen to unchosen, an opposition maintained in prac tice by endogamy. However, the marriage of Joseph to Asenath poses a signific ant problem for Kunin’s thesis, on which he comments

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Joseph’s ultimate marriage to an Egyptian is problematic and perhaps in the biblical context impossible to resolve. It is possible that she can be seen as structurally incestuous … [I]f Joseph’s wife is symbolically and structurally the daughter of Joseph’s father then the relationship is incestuous and mythologically acceptable. It is no surprise, however, that several midrashic texts suggest that Joseph’s 60 wife is a long-lost relative.

This pinpoints the nature of the problem—and shows that there is a real prob lem here in relation to Israelite practice as highlighted by structuralist analysis. Interpreters really ought to be troubled by the marriage. In terms of the origins of the texts, Kunin’s analysis may well point to something like Römer’s thesis, as the Joseph story may reflect a different underlying structure from the other patriarchal narratives, a structure that becomes clouded with time as the texts are redacted together into Genesis. There is very little discussion of the problem of swearing by Pharaoh’s life (Gen 42:15) in twentieth century commentaries, as is also the case in works of pre-reformation interpretation. 61 It would appear then that the theological dif ficulties with this verse were essentially a feature of a particular era of early modernity, an interesting observation in itself but it is one that I do not wish to explore further here. Discussion of Gen 44:5, 15 on divination in the twentieth century generally develops the traditional approach, although textual emendation seems to have fallen out of favor. 62 But whilst commentators remain reluctant to ascribe divination to Joseph,63 commentators also hedge their bets regarding explicit mention of the observation that Joseph lived before the prohibition on divina tion in the Law (Lev 19:26; Deut 18:10). This observation is explicitly made for the first time in relation to Gen 44:5, 15. Hartley suggests that: Whether or not Joseph practiced divination is open to question. While such practice was condemned by the law (Lev. 19:26b; Deut. 18:10b), Joseph was not under that law. However, since God endowed 60. Kunin, We Think, 187. 61. It is not mentioned by von Rad, Hartley, Kidner or Wenham in their Genesis commentaries and Westermann has only a brief historical note (109), as does Hamilton (522) without any discussion of theological difficulty. 62. However, von Rad suggests that Joseph possessed a ‘mantic gift’ where ‘the charisma of seeing the future came from God’ (Genesis, 388). 63. E.g. Wenham, Genesis, 424.

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Joseph with wisdom, he might have had this cup solely to accommo64 date himself to Egyptian custom.

This is a new interpretative move for the interpretation of the problematic as pects of Joseph’s story. This ‘diachronic perspective’, whether one takes it in terms of a literary or a historical perspective,65 is developed at length by Walter Moberly. The point is that in the biblical story Joseph is portrayed as living before the law was given. Moberly develops his thesis not primarily in terms of the ancient historian (i.e., he does not develop his thesis with a view to considering or elucidating the actual practices of the era prior to the traditions of the Mosaic Law), but rather with regard to ‘Israel’s own understanding of its foundational traditions’. 66 He analyzes patriarchal religion as portrayed in Genesis in terms of the categories of monotheism; comparison with Canaanite practice; cultic practices compared with those of the Mosaic Law; prophecy and priesthood; the land of Canaan; lack of moral content, and lack of holi ness.67 Moberly’s thesis is that

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the relationship of patriarchal religion in Genesis 12–50 to Mosaic Yahwism in Exodus onward is analogous to the relationship of the Old Testament as a whole to the New Testament. … Each case gives the sense of looking back on a previous period that has in some ways superseded the old. The dynamics inherent in such a perspec68 tive are of great theological interest.

Moberly does not discuss in any detail any of the three ‘problem texts’, and makes only passing reference to 41:45.69 In many ways the theologically problematic nature of these texts would seem to add weight to his thesis, and it might be a strategy to alleviate something of their problematic nature, as we just saw in Hartley’s discussion of Gen 44:5, 15. However, it is interesting and significant that this whole line of interpreta tion does not seem to have been explored as a general reading strategy for the patriarchal narratives prior to twentieth century. It was occasionally used, as we noted earlier, in the specific case of Abraham’s sexual relations with Hagar 64. Hartley, Genesis, 338. Cf. Kidner, Genesis, 205. The move was (perhaps implicitly) anticipated earlier, but not properly spelled out or developed; see Bainton, ‘The Immoralities’. 65. I.e., one can take the diachronic nature to refer to either actual historical eras, or to the development of the story in the canonical narrative in terms of narrative time, whatever the original historical relationship between the stories is. 66. R.W.L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament: Patriarchal Narratives and Mosaic Yahwism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 81. 67. Ibid., 87–104. 68. Ibid., 126. 69. Ibid., 88, 95.

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in Gen 16:1–5, although it did not catch on as an overall interpretative strategy.70 It would appear then that such an interpretative strategy is reflect ive of an era of raised historical consciousness, i.e. the late-modern era. This approach in which the diachronic relationship between the patriarchal and Mosaic eras is exploited is a particular reading strategy informed by a modern context in which historical progression and development are assumed to be of foundational importance to interpretation, even though, as Moberly notes, the model for such a reading strategy is in fact presented in the relationship 70. See Ambrose de Abraham 1.4.23 and Theodoret in Quest. Gen 68, and see Colish, Ambrose’s Patriarchs 54–5 for discussion. Ambrose uses this reading to develop an interpretation of the Christian experience: ‘But let us consider first that Abraham was before the Law of Moses, before the Gospel. It was not yet seen that adultery was prohibited. … The penalty is from the time of the Law which forbade the offence, nor was there any condemnation of the guilty before the Law, but as a result of the Law. Therefore, Abraham did not transgress the Law, but he preceded the Law. In Paradise, although He had commended marriage, God had not condemned adultery. For He does not desire the death of a sinner … and, therefore, promises a reward and exacts no punishment. For He prefers to invite the meek, rather than frighten the fierce. Ye too sinned, when ye were Gentiles; ye had an excuse. Ye have come to the Church, ye have heard the Law … now ye have no excuse for your transgression.’ (On Abraham 1.4.23), in On Abraham, trans. T. Tomkinson (Etna: Centre for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2000), 12–13. Theodoret does not draw any application from the observation. Chrysostom interpreted Gen 16:1– 5 with a positive appraisal of all the characters and actions without any reference to the Law (Hom. Gen. 38). Origen’s interpretation is positive too, but very different, noting that ‘Scripture recounts that some of the patriarchs had many wives at the same time … The purpose of this is to indicate figuratively that some can exercise many virtues at the same time’ (Hom. Gen. 11.2, in Heine p.171). Bede develops another line of interpretation, whilst noting typological signification. For Bede, ‘Abraham cannot be branded with guilt in connection with this concubine. The truth is, he used her to beget offspring, not to satisfy his lust, not insulting but rather obeying his wife.’ (On Genesis 4.199–200), in On Genesis: Bede C.B. Kendall (trans.) (Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2008), 277–78. Thus the interpretative strategy seems to be used to deal with a specific problem and not as a gen eral frame of reference for reading in the way that Moberly and recent commentators use it. It did not seem to take root however, which is interesting in itself. Indeed, the application to Gen 16:1–5 is curious on two counts: First, that to make this appeal to mitigate adultery rather than, say, irregularities in cultic practices seems odd for a Christian interpreter, given that adultery would more naturally be interpreted in terms of natural or moral law that ought to be plain without recourse to the Mosaic Law or the Gospel— see e.g. Bede on Gen 20:9. Secondly then, it is curious that Ambrose and Theodoret did not employ the same strategy for reading Joseph’s story. Taken together these observations indicate the multiplicity of interpretations of a particular, problematic text (Gen 16:1–5) that have been adopted in the Christian tradition, and that the philosophy of history reflected in Moberly’s thesis really wasn’t in view throughout much of the his-

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between the Old and New Testaments. 71 The hermeneutical potential for handling difficult texts that Moberly’s thesis offers does not seem to have been ex plored prior to the twentieth century, even if it had been raised as a possibility in a specific case by Theodoret and Ambrose as we have just seen. 72

C ONTEXTS FOR READING THE JOSEPH STORY: READING THE STORY WITH DIFFERENT TEXTUAL HORIZONS AND WITH REFERENCE TO DIFFERENT HERMENEUTICAL ASSUMPTIONS

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What constitutes good theological interpretation of the Joseph story? What influence does a putative knowledge of the original context and purpose of composition have on contemporary interpretation and use of the text? What is the effect of choosing a particular textual horizon (e.g. Genesis 37–50, the book of Genesis, or the canon(s)) within which to read the story? What influ ence does the subsequent history of reception have on contributing to the in terpretation of the story today? For example, what difference might it make to our interpretation of the story today if we knew that it was a polemical story that arose in a diaspora community in the Persian era as opposed to a story that preserved a witness to the actual events of the life of a Patriarch living in the early second millennium? What difference does it make that Joseph’s marriage to Asenath seems to be viewed positively within the horizons of the Joseph story whilst endo tory of the church. Or at least if it was, it was subordinated to other concerns. 71. The importance of ‘history’ itself appears, perhaps rather ironically, to be something of a ‘mythical’ perception of reality. Cf. W.T. Stevenson, ‘History as Myth: Some Implications for History and Theology’ in Cross Currents 20:1 (1970): 15–28. We shall return to this point in chapter 9. 72. It is interesting that in different ways both Jewish and Christian interpreters have avoided appealing to a diachronic argument in relation to the piety or obedience to the law of the patriarchs. As we have seen, in the Christian tradition there is a focus on Joseph as a model of virtue and type of Christ, and that as a pious man he would have lived a pious life. In the Jewish tradition, it is Abraham who is the model for the Torah–observant Jew, performing Torah before it was given (Gen 26:5, cf. Qiddushin 4:14). Interestingly, more of a concern is the question of whether or how Abraham observed Torah outside the land rather than before Torah was given. See A. Green, Devotion and Commandment: The Faith of Abraham in the Hasidic Imagination (Cincinnati: HUC Press, 1989) for discussion. Thomas Aquinas considers the timing of the giving of the Law (ST 1a2ae q.98.6) and whether the ceremonial precepts were in existence before the Law (ST 1a2ae q.103.1), but I am not aware of him using a ‘dispensational type argument’ to interpret episodes in the patriarchal narratives. Chrysostom occasionally reflects an awareness that the patriarchs lived before the Law (e.g. Hom. Gen. 39), but does not develop the observation or use it as an interpretative strategy.

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gamy is strongly urged in the remainder of Genesis? What difference does it make to us that earlier interpreters strenuously argued that Joseph did not practise divination, whereas twentieth century commentators admit the possibility, and note that he lived before Sinai? These kinds of questions resonate with a number of concerns in Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics, and so I would like to use the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur as a framework for discussion of these questions. For Ricoeur, stories like the Joseph story are discourse that is ‘about something’, 73 presented in ‘the world of the text’ that we, as readers, actualize imaginatively as we explore the plenitude of meaning expressed by the text. However, as a text is discourse that is ‘about something’, the interpreter should actualize a text in a way that is ‘fitting’ to the text as discourse—the text refers to a world, the ‘world of the text’, and interpretation must be fitting to this world. A text ought not then be read well in any way that one pleases. Rather, the interpreter needs to show that their interpretation is ‘not only probable, but more probable than another interpretation … it is not true that all interpretations are equal’. 74 Ricoeur also discusses the role of tradition in interpretation, noting that it provides the basis for ‘sedimentation’ and ‘innovation’. As a text such as the Joseph story has a long history of use in the Christian tradition its interpretation is subject to both ‘innovation’ and ‘sedimentation’. So we as interpreters arrive at the text in some way shaped already by the tradition with certain expectations or ‘prejudices’ of how we might construe the world of the text and of what signi ficance it has for the Christian reader. Simultaneously however, we have some freedom to be innovative in its interpretation, construing it in new ways. 75 A difficulty with the Joseph story then concerns identifying what the ‘about something’ is. To what extent is it associated with ‘original intention’ of the author? For Ricoeur what is to be understood in a text is not the presumed intention of the author, but rather ‘the sort of world intended beyond the text as its reference [i.e., the world of the text]’. 76 He suggests that the text and the author have ‘different destinies’. There is something different about textual and verbal communication: ‘What the text signifies no longer coincides with 73. P. Ricoeur, ‘Biblical Hermeneutics’, in Semeia 4 (1975): 29–148, here 66–7; ‘Naming God’, in Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 217–35, here 220; ‘Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation’, in P. Ricoeur (ed. L.S. Mudge), Essays on Biblical Interpretation (London: SPCK, 1981), 73–118, here, 99–100. 74. P. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: The Texan Christian UP, 1976), 78–9. 75. P. Ricoeur, ‘Toward a Narrative Theology: Its Necessity, Its Resources, Its Difficulties’, in Figuring the Sacred, 236–248, here, 240. 76. Ricoeur, ‘Toward a Hermeneutic’, 100.

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what the author meant; verbal meaning and mental meaning have different destinies. … [T]he “matter of the text” may escape from the author’s restricted intentional horizon … the work decontextualizes itself, from the sociological as well as the psychological point of view, and is able to recontextualize itself differently in the act of reading’. 77 But the questions that then arise are what is the ‘text’, and how is a story like the Joseph story decontextualized and recontextualized within a wider textual horizon when it is placed in Scripture, let alone the Christian tradition? Is the text the ‘Joseph story’, the book of Genesis, the Old Testament or Scripture as a whole? What difference might it make if one reads according to these different horizons? There are several acts of discourse here to consider as different reading contexts as generated by different textual horizons alter the world of the text. Each of these reading contexts shape the story in a different way, and each of these stages of discourse is likely to involve sedimentation and innovation in the appropriation of the story. In Ricoeur’s approach he

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brings into play a reading of the biblical writings laid out as one vast “intertext.” … [T]he reading I am proposing begins from the fact that the meaning of the recounted events and the proclaimed institutions has become detached from its original Sitz-im-Leben by becoming part of Scripture, and this Scripture has so to speak substituted what we may call a Sitz-im-Wort for the original Sitz-im-Leben. … This synchronic reading is at the same time an intertextual read ing, in the sense that, once they are apprehended as a whole, these texts of different origins and intentions work on one another, deplacing their respective intentions and points, and they mutually 78 borrow their dynamism from one another.

We will now consider how this works in practice by studying what ‘probable interpretations’ of the problem texts might look like within different tex tual horizons as the problem texts work on and are worked upon by other texts with a view to considering the contemporary theological interpretation of the Joseph story. T H E JOSEPH STORY WITHIN ITS OWN TEXTUAL HORIZON Joseph is portrayed as participating in Egyptian culture. He takes an Egyptian name, an Egyptian wife, and was given a role as a high-ranking official. Moreover, Joseph claims to forget his father’s house, as expressed in the name Manasseh of his first son born to Asenath (41:51). All this implies assimilation 77. P. Ricoeur, ‘Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology’, in J.B. Thompson (ed.), Paul Ricoeur: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: CUP, 1981), 63–100, here, 91. 78. P. Ricoeur, ‘Biblical Time’, in Figuring the Sacred, 167–80, here, 171.

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to Egyptian culture. However, Joseph still interprets his life in terms of how elohim has treated him, and Joseph is portrayed (in his own speech to his brothers) as one who ‘fears God’ (Gen 42:18), an expression which is ‘the Old Testament’s prime term for right human response to God … [indicating] right atti tude and obedience.’79 This suggests that such assimilation is real although partial and within the overall framework of relating to Israel’s God as he makes no reference to Egyptian deities for example. Joseph thus lives a somewhat ‘hybrid’ life, eventually reconciling his family, whilst also developing Egyptian loyalties in the process. Interpreters agree that assimilation is presented, although it is differently assessed, as we saw above in Brueggemann and Reno for example—for Brueggemann it is positive whilst for Reno it is negative. Perhaps the clearest description of assimilation is conveyed in 41:37–45, which Wenham suggests is part of ‘one of the major peaks of the whole Joseph story’. 80 Joseph’s appointment here is a reward from Pharaoh, 81 a reward that is explicitly associated with wisdom. Joseph is characterized as being wise (‫( )חכם‬41:39), as well as one who ‘fears God’ (42:18). Thus assimilation appears intertwined with wisdom, reward, blessing and divine providence. There is no indication that assimilation or the rewards of a high lifestyle in Egypt are negatively viewed in the story itself. Indeed, Egypt, and Egyptian culture are portrayed in neutral to positive terms in the Joseph story, and the rewards bestowed on Joseph are providential in the reconciliation and provision for Jacob’s family. His ‘right human response to God’ indicated in the comment that he ‘fears God’ appears to be outworked in assimilating to Egypt with wisdom. Hence there is no reason to suppose that any of the three problem texts (41:45; 42:15; 44:5, 15) provide reports that are either implicitly or explicitly construed negatively by the narrator, or within the world of the text of Genesis 37–50. There is no reason to suppose that Joseph’s assimilation to Egyptian culture including marriage to Asenath and his possible use of divination are to be seen as problematic within the textual horizon of the Joseph story. Difficulties only arise when the Joseph story is read within a wider context and juxtaposed with other texts prohibiting divination or condemning intermarriage for example (Deut 18:10 on divination; Genesis 34; Ezra 9–10 on intermarriage). The interesting question then is whether such a wider context ought to be implied 79. Moberly, The Theology of the Book of Genesis, 187. See Gen 22:12; Exod 20:20; Job 1:1–2:10. The interpretation of ‘fearing God’ here indicates that ultimately it is unrealistic to attempt to read a text such as the Joseph story purely within its own horizon if the well attested nature of the idiom is to be respected. The use of idioms such as this indicates that a wider context for interpretation is ever present. 80. Wenham, Genesis, 392. 81. Ibid., 396.

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when the text is used, whether or not such a wider context was in view when the text was composed. Let us now look at the texts more specifically. Marriage to Asenath appears to be portrayed as a reward for Joseph. In the context of a story that demon strates God’s providence, and has resonances with the wisdom tradition, the reward would appear then to reflect not simply Pharaoh’s reward to Joseph but God’s, and thus the marriage implicitly has a positive interpretation. 82 Asenath is characterized as the daughter of an Egyptian priest. In terms of the concerns expressed in relation to intermarriage elsewhere in the Old Testament, Joseph’s marriage to her represents both ethnic intermarriage that pollutes the ‘holy seed’ (cf. Ezra 9:2) and marriage to one who may well encourage di vided religious loyalties and idolatry (Deut 7:3–4). But the narrator nonetheless characterizes Asenath as the daughter of an Egyptian priest and subsequent editors refrained from modifying the characterization. The marriage, as it is, is most naturally understood in a positive sense in the Joseph story and there do not appear to be any concerns with it. If the story is read symbolically with Joseph representing Israel for example, then one might construe the report of the marriage as reflecting the acceptance of intermarriage in the context of a community living wisely outside the land of Israel. References to divination (44:5, 15) in a sub-plot that is instrumental in bringing much of the Joseph story to a positive climax might have positive rather than negative connotations. There are no hints or suggestions that these references are problematic within the horizon of the story. Indeed, if Joseph’s assimilation to Egypt in Genesis 41 is unproblematic, then there seems no reason to suppose that references to divination are to be understood pejor atively, or that Joseph did not really practice divination, unless the text is somehow to be read within an implied wider context that views divination pe joratively. Perhaps divination may have been practised within the context of a ‘relationship’ with God in terms of seeking God in prayer, rather like a prophet, rather than through ‘mechanical’ or perhaps ‘magical’ means even if any such practice would be condemned elsewhere in the Old Testament, except perhaps for the use of Urim (Num 27:21). But divination is what someone in Joseph’s position would have done, as the story suggests, and this is an assumption that the narrator does not seek to challenge or correct. On the other hand, the pur pose of the references to divination within the story occur in a ruse that Joseph employs to test his brothers. 83 Thus references to divination may simply 82. Indeed, Moberly identifies three instances of intermarriage in Genesis 37–50 (Gen 38:2; 41:45, 50–52; 46:10), and remarks, ‘There is no hint of adverse comment against these marriages, and they are not presented negatively in terms of the development of the story.’ (Moberly, The Old Testament, 90) 83. Cf. Westermann, Genesis, 132.

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form part of the ruse—divination is what someone in his position would be expected to do, and so fulfils this expectation in the speech as it forms part of the development of the story. It is not necessarily what Joseph should be assumed to have actually done (whether as a literary or historical figure) as interpreters have noted.84 So within the horizon of the text it is by no means necessary to see Joseph portrayed as a diviner. But if divination was problematic for the narrator of the Joseph story, then it is interesting that the narrator took the risk of implying that Joseph did practise divination, and that a parenthetical note was not added to clarify matters. So within the horizon of the Joseph story one can say that both readings (that is, either understanding Joseph as practising divination or not) are strong or probable, and are both plausible on a point that is not clarified or developed. This is an interesting ambiguity that leaves a gap that the reader may fill in. Does one read the story and imagine that Joseph practises divination or not? As we have seen, the story itself seems to leave both possibilities open, and so how one reads it would seem to be driven by the presuppositions or perhaps the character of the interpreter, 85 presuppositions and character that are formed within the society and traditions in which the reader is situated. So for example perhaps the interpreter today situated in and shaped by a liberal Christian environment and who enjoys, and whose life is in some sense formed by, consulting horoscopes in the daily papers is more likely to be inclined to imagine Joseph as practising divination than the interpreter who has been formed by a strict Evangelical Christian environment in which any such practices are condemned. Furthermore, even if one imagines that Joseph did not practise divination, there is then the question of whether Joseph sinned in pre tending to, as Calvin highlights. Again, how this point is assessed will be shaped by the reader’s theological presuppositions, preferences and character, even as these are shaped by Scripture itself,86 in the hermeneutical spiral. 84. However, even though his speeches form ruses, it would be unusual to suggest that his claim to ‘fear God’ (42:18) is a ruse. In other words, as interpreters we bring extra-textual criteria to the text with which we make significant interpretative decisions. 85. For the importance of the character and the Christian formation of the interpreter as influential in interpretation see e.g. R.S. Briggs, The Virtuous Reader: Old Testament Narrative and Interpretive Virtue (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010); R.W.L. Moberly, ‘Theological Interpretation, Presuppositions and the Role of the Church: Bultmann and Augustine Revisited’ in JTI 6.1 (2012): 1–22; E.F. Davis, ‘The Soil that is Scripture’, in W.P. Brown (ed.), Engaging Biblical Authority: Perspectives on the Bible as Scripture (Louisville: WJKP, 2007), 36–44. 86. Similar questions are raised in relation to the actions of the Hebrew midwives in Exodus 1, and Rahab in Joshua 2. See Augustine’s treatment in Against Lying 15.31–32 in M.S. Muldowney et al. (trans.) Treatise on Various Subjects (FC 16; Washington DC: CUA Press, 1952), 165. It is interesting that whilst Augustine and many other interpreters un-

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Regarding the issue of the purported oath that Joseph makes (42:15), it is not clear that there is a real problem here. Rather, the history of reception seems to indicate that concerns with this statement are limited to a particular phase of modern interpretation. Recent as well as ancient commentators have not construed the reference problematically. It is interesting to note then that analysis of the reception history of the story helps to pinpoint where the problems are, and contributes to shaping the way that one now imaginatively fills in gaps and ambiguities in the story. It shows how other Christian readers have sought to actualize the world of the text with Christian imagination. On the other hand, the results of historical critical research may add plausibility to a particular interpretation. For example Römer’s understanding of the Joseph story and its composition as reflecting polemic against Palestinian orthodoxy from within the context of an Egyptian diaspora community might help one to envisage a context in which one could imagine Joseph as practising divination and intermarrying in a way that is understood positively. It can aid the imagination. However, it is not clear what the significance of purported historical re constructions of the composition and purpose of the story are when several construals are, and remain, possible textually. The text, as text, escapes the finite horizon of the author’s intentions and socio-historical context. From a historical perspective, Carr’s thesis might appear somewhat weaker than Römer’s as it is difficult to envisage a historical context in the early monarch ical era in which a positive account of Egypt is likely to have been developed as it is in the Joseph story. But more fundamentally, where one locates the Joseph story historically seems to make little difference to our interpretative conun drums. From what we have said above, it would seem to make little difference if one placed the story in an Egyptian diaspora context in the Persian era as polemic fiction as opposed to a second millennium Palestinian context as historical report. In either context it is plausible that Joseph either did or did not practice divination, and that his marriage to Asenath may have been portrayed in positive terms. The historical contexts allow these construals, as does the text itself. In the end though, we make deductions from the text itself and the world that it presents, imagining this world and its significance for ourselves, an imagination that is formed by our preunderstanding. It is noteworthy that the narrator appears to encourage readers to do this—for example, regarding whether or not Joseph actually practised divination. How we imaginatively fill derstood Joseph as in some sense pretending to practise divination, Calvin seems to be the first to understand this deception as a problem. For a positive appraisal of the use of deception toward beneficial ends in the Christian tradition see Chrysostom, On the Priesthood Bks. 1–2; see e.g. St. John Chrysostom: Six Treatise on the Priesthood (trans. G. Neville) (Crestwood: SVSP: 1996).

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the gaps appears to be shaped more by our own formative influences and character than by a purported originary context of the story. J OSEPH I N THE CONTEXT O F GENESIS Egypt and Egyptian culture are generally portrayed in neutral to positive terms in Genesis as in the Joseph story, and thus assimilation may be viewed positively or at least neutrally. There is still no obvious difficulty with divina tion in this context, since there are a number of ‘cultic practices’ in Genesis that seem irregular in the wider Old Testament context. 87 Joseph’s marriage to Asenath is more problematic. Intermarriage is problematic in the context of Genesis, as we saw in neo-structuralist analysis of the ancestral narratives. Indeed, Genesis 34, as well as the so-called ‘wife-sister’ stories indicate that intermarriage is incompatible with Israelite identity. Endogamy is portrayed as more foundational to Israelite identity than circum cision or land possession.88 Overall Genesis rejects intermarriage, yet intermarriage is apparently not problematic in the Joseph story itself. Gen 41:45 is then a problem for an overall ‘theology’ of Genesis, even if it is unproblematic within the Joseph story. Moreover, the Joseph story offers paradigms for behavior in what one might call a ‘naïve reading’ of the story at the literal narrative level, for in stance in the rejection of the advances of Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39). The way that Joseph acted in the story is generally taken as a model of behavior for the reader. Genesis 34 does not offer a paradigm for behavior in this way. Rather, the significance of Genesis 34 is best discovered in a symbolic and essentially different manner, as displayed prominently in neo-structuralist analysis. Genesis 34, and the wife-sister texts depicting incestuous unions, are ‘mythical’ in the sense adopted by Victor Turner—when read literally they are amoral, and do not offer models for behavior at the narrative level. Rather, they are sym bolic, existential narratives whose significance and enactment is discovered through symbolism that has an ‘other-worldly’ logic.89 This is not the case with the Joseph story. The mythical reading of Genesis 34 has clear resonances, using an anthropological description of the reading, with a theological account of ‘spiritual reading’ as practised by Origen, as we have seen, but also with Gregory of 87. Cf. Moberly, The Old Testament, 85–103. 88. See chapter 2. Cf. Sternberg, ‘For [Jacob’s] inaction amounts to an acquiescence in what a patriarch … must fight tooth and nail: exogamous marriage’ (Poetics, 474); see also Kunin, We Think What We Eat, 183–4. 89. V. Turner, ‘Myth and Symbol’, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (ed. D.L. Sills; Macmillan & The Free Press, 1968) 10.576–81, here 577. Also see V. Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: PAJ, 1982), 7–19, 122.

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Nyssa for example. In the prologue to his commentary on the Song of Songs, after considering Paul’s interpretative practices in Galatians and the letters to the Corinthians, Gregory states:

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It is absolutely necessary not to remain at the letter, as the surface meaning of what is said injures us in many ways in the life of virtue, but to pass to the immaterial and spiritual contemplation, so that the more bodily considerations might be transformed into the spiritual and intelligent [meaning] the more fleshly sense of what is said being shaken off as dust. For this reason, he says “the letter kills, but 90 the Spirit gives life” [2 Cor 3.6].

Genesis 34, and the wife/sister stories, are applied or enacted in the practice of endogamy, as a sociological outworking of a theology of chosenness, rather than through genocide or incest. This is the form of behavior or theology that the texts evoke symbolically and indirectly. They do not model incest or genocide as desirable practices. Arguably however, this assertion derives from the reading context of the narratives—one could perhaps imagine reading contexts in which such texts might be used to warrant incest or genocide. But such interpretation would be rejected on moral and theological grounds by responsible Christian and Jewish readers. In other words, the tradition and context in which stories such as these are valued, transmitted and actualized shapes the way in which we understand the genre and significance of the stories. An interesting question then is whether there may be enough indicators in a particular text to show that a symbolic reading is more probable than a ‘naïve’ reading without requir ing the situation of the text in a particular tradition. To what extent are Origen’s ‘stumbling blocks’ a function of the tradition in which the text is read, and to what extent are they inherent to the logic of the narrative? 91 With regard to Genesis 34, it would seem that the moral difficulties are stumbling blocks for reading in a Jewish or Christian context, yet they may not be in other contexts—they may not be stumbling blocks that are inherent to the text in a way that reports of partial and complete conquest are in the book of Joshua. The latter difficulties are simply a matter of logic, whereas the former are a matter of moral response or judgment. This highlights the importance of 90. Song Prol. 6.14–7.2, in J. Behr, The Nicene Faith Part 2 (New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004), 460. Behr comments, ‘The narratives of Scripture do not always offer, on the surface level, anything beneficial for the life of virtue, and so need to be translated, as it were, before such fruit can be offered.’ (460). Behr’s comments resonate with Turner’s or Kunin’s. 91. See chapter 3 for discussion of Origen’s hermeneutics, and On First Principles 4.2.9 for Origen’s own statement. See G.W. Butterworth (trans.) Origen: On First Principles (Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1973), 285–7.

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reading context, or at least textual horizon for interpretation and indeed how genre might be assessed. The narration of genocide in Genesis 34 and incest in the ‘wife-sister’ texts are problematic when read in the context of the Old and New Testaments, but arguably not within the context of Genesis itself. The reading context and tradition of use shapes what we consider to be stumbling blocks and indeed genre. Genesis 34 and the ‘wife-sister texts’ encourage marriage within the Israelite community. Endogamy is portrayed as foundational for Israelite life, reflecting her self-understanding as a chosen people. In the sense that both Genesis 34 and the Joseph story shape the identity and life of a people as symbolic or perhaps fictional stories set in foundational eras they could both be described as ‘myths’, although myths in different senses, as we have just seen. The Joseph story presents paradigms for wise living at the narrative level (e.g. Genesis 39), whilst Genesis 34 and the wife-sister texts do not. Thus these various texts individually seem to reflect different genres, but genres that have been sub sumed into an overarching, coherent ‘history-like’ narrative—the book of Genesis, a book that presents a story that reads as the earliest part of Israel’s foundational story. This process of ‘historicization’ may reflect what Claude Lévi-Strauss suggested was typical in the processes of the life of myths. Myths ‘die’, and become understood as historical narratives that are interpreted through ideological elaborations of the story understood as historical description. 92 In this process something of the message of the myths as myth is lost, or is at least transformed as the existential immediacy of the symbolism tends to be replaced with historical inquisitiveness. So interpreted in this way the reference to Joseph’s marriage to Asenath becomes a mere incidental historical detail or puzzle without particular existential significance. It either finds elaboration in works such as Joseph and Asenath as the report is interpreted within the framework of a more dominant myth, or it is simply passed over as a report of what the ‘historical Joseph’ in fact did, whether it was commendable or not. When read within the horizons of Genesis, the reference to intermarriage becomes ‘static’ that is ‘clouded’ by the dominant myth of endogamy, which is strongly associated with the idea of chosenness in Genesis. 93 And if one goes further, 92. See C. Lévi-Strauss, ‘How Myths Die’, in Structural Anthropology 2 (New York: Penguin, ET: 1976), 256–268, esp. 268. Cf. Kunin who suggests that destructured myths may be used for historical or ideological purposes, working simply at the conscious rather than the subconscious level. (We think, 204–5). 93. Joseph and Asenath does not suggest that the marriage is endogamous. Rather, in the era in which Joseph and Asenath was composed what comes to be seen as important is that marriage should be within those that have in some sense adopted Israelite identity (cf. Rahab, Ruth). This is a development and modification of the ideology of en-

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and reads Genesis within the canon of the Old and New Testaments, the significance of endogamy or intermarriage is likely to be lost almost entirely. The historicization of myth gives rise to a different kind of reading strategy. Indeed, a different reading strategy is called for once the Joseph story and Gen esis 34 are juxtaposed in a single narrative that forms part of a text that is in some sense authoritative. To put this in Ricoeur’s terms, the world of the text of Genesis looks different from that of the Joseph story, which in turn makes specific parts of the Joseph story look different. As readers, we may imagine a different sort of world depending upon the textual horizon. Hence there are important differences in terms of both message/ideology and genre reflected in the various stories in Genesis as they have been understood in the tradition(s) that cherish and transmit these texts. Thus the issue of intermarriage in particular does not simply reflect a difference between a putative ‘patriarchal religion’ and Mosaic Yahwism that may be explained in ‘dispensational’ terms within the storyline of the Old Testament, either as a historical or literary thesis. It is a tension within the system of ‘patriarchal religion’ itself. Historically speaking, rather than understanding Genesis as narrating an actual era of Israelite religion, it seems preferable to understand Genesis as the juxtaposition of a collection of narratives formed to establish particular ‘cultural memories’ into a new narrative that is at the roots a new emerging cultural memory, and that ‘patriarchal religion’ is the construct of this juxtaposition, forming Israel’s self-understanding of (some of) her formative traditions. This creates interesting hermeneutical difficulties, or possibilities, for how one reads Genesis as a book. Can, or should, one respect the differing genres and messages of individual stories? If so, then how does this relate to understanding the book as a whole? One can either read Genesis as offering alternative perspectives on the nature of proper response to God through issues like marriage, or one might say that the pressure of the text ultimately does urge an authoritarian voice and perspective, in that the minority voice is overcome by the majority. In the latter case, reading strategies emerge that allow the minority voice to be interpreted within the framework of the majority. For example, Asenath is portrayed as a convert, or the Joseph story is seen simply as reporting the marriage as an incidental detail of little significance, or the significance of the re port might not even be noticed. If it is noticed it might be interpreted as a his torical report simply of what Joseph in fact did, whether he acted well in doing so or not. Whilst the text does not rule out the possibility of Asenath’s conversion, and is therefore an entirely possible reading, it would seem unlikely and indeed improbable within the story’s own frame of reference. dogamy. For the association of endogamy with chosenness see Kunin, We Think, 122.

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Again, the option that an interpreter is likely to prefer is shaped by extratextual presuppositions and commitments. Is the interpreter’s worldview shaped by a preference for authoritarian univocal discourse that clearly sets out ‘the rules’ or by a preference for a plurality of voices and perspectives for example? One might rather fruitfully and traditionally appeal to the nature of the wisdom tradition and literature as a hermeneutical key for interpreting Genesis in its final form to explore the possibility of understanding Genesis as representing a plurality of voices, albeit from within the context of a specific theological metanarrative. Rather than understanding Genesis as representing a univocal, authoritative moralizing discourse of instruction that reflects ‘law’, perhaps Genesis might be interpreted as something like wisdom literature, where different responses to God or ways of life are presented in different situations and contexts. The reader is involved in the discernment of which approach is more faithful in a particular context. In other words, rather than understanding Genesis essentially as ‘law’—as a book of Torah—or indeed as a ‘historical book’, perhaps it could be read as ‘wisdom’. This of course suggests that texts such as Genesis 34 and the Joseph story have in all likelihood transcended the original horizons and intentions of the author and his socio-historical context. It is the ‘world of the text’ that is the subject of interpretation. The ques tion then is just what textual world is taken as forming the context for interpretation, as a variety of textual horizons are available. J OSEPH I N OL D TESTAMENT CANONICAL CONTEXT A number of key figures in the Old Testament are portrayed as working within the systems of foreign powers towards a greater end, especially Daniel and Esther. This is not unlike the case with Joseph. However, Daniel is por trayed as carefully avoiding assimilation to certain aspects of Babylonian cul ture (Dan 1:8), and although the extent to which Esther assimilated to Persian culture is not clear, it is noteworthy that Greek Esther strenuously avoids por traying Esther as one who assimilates. This is the concern of one of the lengthy additions (Esther 14:15–19). Therefore, the pressure of the canon tends to lead one to interpret assimilation per se in negative terms,94 leading one to conclude either that Joseph sinned in assimilating, or that the assimilation presented was not genuine, but was a means to an end. Egypt and Egyptian culture are generally portrayed in negative terms outside Genesis, lending further weight to the problem of assimilation and to the assessment of how Joseph acted. In canonical context, there are obvious and widespread problems with divination and associated practices (e.g. Lev 19:26; Deut 18:10) and intermarriage (e.g. Deut 7:1–5; Ezra 9–10), although some texts notably challenge endogamy (e.g. Ruth). The motivation against intermarriage is also different in dif94. Cf. also texts such as Deut 7:1–5.

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ferent places as we noted earlier. In Genesis it appears bound up with the identity of God’s people as chosen, whilst in Deuteronomy 7:1–5 for example it is associated with the problem of being led astray into idolatry. The ‘two voices’ in Genesis regarding intermarriage (Genesis 34 and Joseph’s marriage to Asenath) are thus mirrored in the canon. The majority voice perhaps favors endogamy in each case. Divination however is viewed in uniformly negative terms within the Old Testament textual horizon. Thus, especially when coupled with the desire to uphold Joseph as a pious figure, it is natural to un derstand references to divination in the Joseph story as being part of a ruse that did not reflect Joseph’s actual practice. Thus the textual horizon makes a significant difference to what one considers to be the most probable interpret ation of the problem texts, and, as we shall see below, to how one uses and applies such an interpretation. As we have seen, recent commentators have proposed a ‘dispensational’ reading strategy in the consideration of Joseph’s conduct by appealing to the storyline of the Old Testament to note that within the world of the text Joseph lived before Sinai in contradistinction to traditional interpreters who (apart from Calvin) simply wished to interpret Joseph as a figure of true piety. In such a dispensational perspective irregular aspects of Joseph’s behavior are ex plained and excused on the grounds that he lived before the Mosaic Law was given, in the narrative world at least. However, the observation that this is an essentially modern argument that was not developed prior to the twentieth century suggests that it is in fact a reading strategy based on certain presuppositions that are not inherently part of the scriptural text or indeed the tradi tion, even if it is in fact a natural way of construing the world of the text once these presuppositions are held. These presuppositions are informed by a modern reading context in which a worldview of historical progression coupled with a notion of God’s revelation as progressively unfolding in history are pre valent. However, a less modern perspective associated with the hermeneutics of ‘myth’ would encourage interpreters to regard stories presented in earlier eras as being more foundational than those in later eras. 95 This is the perspective that Paul uses in Galatians 3 with regard to the ancestral narrative. The covenant established with Abraham (understood as being based on faith and promise for Paul) is more foundational than the covenant with Moses, based on the Law. Arguably then the portrayal of Joseph’s life in what it encourages in terms of responsiveness to God might be considered more foundational in some regards at least than prohibitions in the Law. This provides a different reading strategy. 95. See e.g. B. Malinowski, ‘Myth in Primitive Psychology’ in Magic, Science and Religion and other Essays (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1984), 93–148, here 97–101, 107, 126.

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Moreover, yet another reading strategy is displayed in traditional Christian readings of the Joseph story which emerged in a context in which typological or allegorical interpretation was widespread and part of the philosophical presuppositions and commitments of the worldview of that era. 96 There was a widespread desire to interpret Joseph as a type of Christ and model for the life of virtue. Interpreters wanted to show how all Scripture spoke to the Christian, without there being portions that were simply otiose (cf. 2 Tim 3:16). A dispensational reading strategy risks rendering texts otiose, or at least it risks a premature closure of interpretation. Thus different interpretative strategies are set before us, and it would seem then that how one interprets the Joseph story within the horizon of the Old Testament is a choice that the interpreter makes which is shaped by one’s tradition and context, which includes the philosophy and spirit of the age. As with reading within the other textual horizons discussed above, the question is then that of how the reader is able to foster the ability to read well. The difficulty of determining the ‘most probable’ interpretation becomes an acute one. J OSEPH I N THE NE W TESTAMENT CANONICAL CONTEXT In the New Testament divination and any associated form of sorcery is clearly condemned as per the Old Testament. 97 Little is said of intermarriage per se, although the implication is that the voice of texts such as Ruth has in fact reshaped the previously dominant perspectives on endogamy. Ruth and indeed Rahab are included in Jesus’ genealogy for example (Matt 1:5). Gone is the prevalent construction of identity that associates chosenness with endogamy—within the horizon of the Old Testament one was chosen if one was a child of Abraham by physical descent. Instead, chosenness is now associated with divine grace and expressed in faith in Christ. As Kunin has noted more generally, the New Testament reflects a transformation of the underlying worldview structure relative to the Old Testament. The Old Testament world view was shaped in terms of separation and non-mediation, for example in the oppositions of clean to unclean, Israel to ‘non-Israel’, and priest to non-priest, even if this underlying stance was subject to negotiation as we saw in the case of Rahab (and also Ruth and Naaman for example). The New Testament world view is based on transformation and mediation—conversion, and the process of sanctification. Chosenness is now based on being called personally and re ceiving grace and salvation—those chosen are transformed to become spiritual children of Abraham (e.g. Matt 3:9). This structuralist observation explains the lack of Christian development of Genesis 34, for the story reinforces the under96. See e.g. F.M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 1997). 97. E.g. Acts 8:9–25; 16:16–40; 19:19; Gal 5:20; Rev 9:21; 18:23; 21:8; 22:15.

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lying structure that refuses mediation and transformation as expressed in endogamy. When coupled with the problematic portrayal of violence at the narrative level, the story does not find significant Christian use or development. There is no easily identifiable way to construe the world of the text Genesis 34 naïvely or symbolically that is compatible with Christian identity in a way that offers a reading that is ‘probable’ with respect to the text. Reading the story in terms of the wisdom of Jacob as some Christian interpreters have done is possible, but it would seem not probable. 98 The concern with endogamy moves from an ethnic perspective to a faith perspective in the New Testament. There would appear to be implicit critiques of marriage between a believer and an unbeliever (1 Cor 7:12–16; 2 Cor 6:14– 18), a view that still exists today in a number of Christian contexts. The ques tion of Joseph’s ethnic intermarriage no longer registers for many Christian readers of Genesis, as we have seen in various commentaries, both traditional and modern. The question, not usually raised in relation to the interpretation of the Joseph story, however, is whether a Christian should marry a non-Christian. The problem of Joseph’s marriage to Asenath is more naturally understood in terms of whether Asenath shared Joseph’s ‘faith’ rather than his eth nicity. Indeed, this is the concern of Joseph and Asenath. The nature of the issue is transformed and recontextualized. 99 However, perhaps the concern with endogamy may be developed in two directions in a New Testament informed con text. First, there is this issue of marriage as we have just seen. But secondly, if endogamy is the sociological outworking of chosenness in Genesis, then one could argue that the underlying principle that is the ‘matter of the text’ is in fact that of what constitutes chosenness or how it is reflected in the Israelite or the Christian community, rather than a concern with marriage per se. In that case, in the New Testament chosenness is associated with receiving grace and the Holy Spirit expressed in terms of faith in Christ. Thus one could read Gen esis 34 and the Joseph story in terms of the principles that they deal with, i.e. in terms of the concern of what it is that constitutes the identity of the Christian church and what it means to be and to live as part of God’s chosen people, the church, rather than in terms of intermarriage. Hence the references to divination remain problematic in the Joseph story, but intermarriage becomes somewhat ambiguous and may be interpreted in various ways at varying levels of abstraction. Ethnic intermarriage is no longer an issue, yet the wisdom of marrying an unbeliever (as Asenath would now be categorized) might be questioned. It would be straightforward if Asenath were 98. See chapter 2. 99. Indeed, Rivka Nir argues that Joseph and Asenath is a product of 3rd–4th century Syriac Christianity, and that it is only fully comprehensible against this backdrop. See R. Nir, Joseph and Asenath: A Christian Book (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012).

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a convert, as per Joseph and Asenath, but without such ‘gap filling’ the evaluation of the marriage is problematic. But perhaps when reading Genesis in a context informed by the New Testament one can be ambivalent on the inter pretation of the marriage, especially if the Joseph story has been subsumed into a ‘historical narrative’ in which the report of the marriage may be re garded as an incidental detail in a much bigger story. Alternatively, as another reading strategy, a Christian reader might read the narrative at a more abstract level by recontextualizing the principles involved, i.e. in terms of what it means to be chosen by God and how one is then to live accordingly. To read Genesis in a context shaped by the New Testament is to read within a significantly different worldview and set of presuppositions than reading contexts informed by texts from the Old Testament alone. This will no doubt reshape the significance, actualization and use of the stories in Genesis. Rather than declaring Old Testament stories otiose, the preference in the Christian tradition has either been for typological or spiritual reading, or for deducing and reapplying principles, perhaps viewed as the essence of what is narrated, an approach that is perhaps most clearly demonstrated in Christian interpretation of the ‘civil laws’. 100 This may involve the reconstrual of certain themes, such as the nature of endogamy, which might, furthermore, involve considerable abstraction combined with the reapplication of principles. For example, according to this approach, the theme of endogamy is abstracted to that of chosenness, and chosenness is recontexualized in terms of receiving grace through faith in Christ, and then appropriated in terms of what it means to live as one chosen in this way. This process would seem to run close to, or is perhaps a development of allegory. However, the texts in Genesis offer different perspectives on what it is that is foundational to the life of God’s people, as we noted above. So appropriation of the texts offering differing perspectives then involves issues to do with wis dom and discernment. This suggests the possibility that different answers might be given in different contexts regarding what is foundational to the life of God’s people. How one lives as ‘chosen’ is likely to vary between contexts, as might be encouraged or evoked by appeal to the relevant story in Genesis for the situation at hand. Old Testament texts have been read and actualized imaginatively from within the context of and with the presuppositions of the ‘rule of faith’ in such a way that they are treated as a locus of revelation. The rule of faith shapes the reading strategies that may be adopted, and this is reflected in the history of 100. See e.g. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a2ae, 98–105, in D. Bourke and A. Littledale (trans.), Summa Theologiae, Vol.29: The Old Law (1a2ae. 98–105) (London: Blackfriars, 1969) for a classic expression and detailed development of this hermeneutic, a hermeneutic also developed by the Reformers.

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reception of texts. I don’t know of any Christian interpreter who would un ashamedly claim that Joseph practised divination or married a pagan without considerable qualification for example, yet both these readings are good readings of the text within its own horizon. In the Christian context it is one thing to understand the Joseph story by itself, in the context of Genesis, and in the context of the Old Testament. But it is another thing altogether to actualize the Joseph story in a Christian context in which considerable abstraction and reapplication of principles may be needed if the narrative is to find application. Much of this consideration of how the Joseph story might read in a Christian context reflects certain aspects of Nicholas Lash’s hermeneutic.101 We have briefly considered this already with regard to Genesis 34 where it seemed problematic. What about this hermeneutic in relation to the Joseph story? In addressing the hermeneutical task of the Christian interpretation of Scripture Lash uses the example of martyrdom to consider how ‘what was once achieved, intended or “shown”’ in scriptural texts in terms of concrete expressions of human practice and behavior might be re-expressed faithfully today in con crete expressions of human practice and behavior. Use of the term ‘intended’ here is, arguably, somewhat problematic. However, applying what I take to be his main point to the case at hand here, the task of interpreting the Joseph story as Christian Scripture might be understood to involve the use of wisdom and discernment in determining what is foundational to Christian practice and behavior today, especially when this is unclear or contested.

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R EADING THE JOSEPH STORY A S CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE AND THE G OALS OF THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION In the previous section we considered the incorporation of the Joseph story into wider textual horizons. Its appropriation within these contexts may provide examples of the imaginative actualization of the Joseph story in ways that probably do not reflect the original purpose of the composition of the story. Such an assertion is necessarily conjectural. A more helpful way of framing the problem is to use Ricoeur’s categories to observe that the more ‘probable’ readings of the Joseph story with reference to the ‘world of the text’ that it presents within its own textual horizon differ from the more probable readings evoked by other textual and reading contexts, reading contexts that give rise to different reading strategies. We saw this with reference to divination. Moreover, when reading the story in a Christian context informed by the whole of Scripture it might seem improbable that Asenath did not in some 101. N. Lash, ‘What might Martyrdom mean?’ in Theology on the Way to Emmaus (London: SCM, 1986), 75–92, here 89–91.

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sense ‘convert’ to Joseph’s religion. Thus some aspects of the original act of discourse may be eclipsed, or, alternatively, developed by new acts of discourse as the story becomes a part of a larger ‘world of the text’ that looks somewhat different in the final form setting of the canon. As we now read it the Joseph story is shaped by its location in Genesis and in the canon. However the degree to which such shaping was conscious or deliberate so as to preserve a purported ‘true meaning’ is at best unclear, and probably unlikely. The canonical shaping of the Joseph story and its interpreta tion may in fact derive from intertexual ‘pressure’ arising from the juxtaposition of the story with other texts and traditions that transforms the nature of the more probable readings of the story. Such ‘pressure’ may or may not derive from the intentions of the compilers of Genesis or the canon. The wider read ing context alters how one might best seek to fill the underdeveloped comments, uninterpreted remarks, gaps and ambiguities in the story. The wider reading context also creates the need for reading strategies to be developed to deal with what become theologically problematic issues. It is probably fair to say that, until recently at least, 102 one of the main goals of theological interpretation of a biblical story over the last century or so has been construed in terms of seeking to understand, verse by verse, either the authorial purpose or the scope of the text as a unit, aided either by historia, historical criticism, literary poetics or some other tool. The text is exegeted accordingly, often with little reference to reception and use. A tradition of interpretation with its own particular hermeneutics emerged in this process, often as a critique of earlier Christian traditional interpretation. But this tradition and its hermeneutics are themselves open to critique. Reading in these kinds of way or with such a goal in view might in fact be more provisional, or even misguided, than has been recognized generally. This is indicated by the observation that a given textual unit reads rather differently within its own horizon as compared with its more probable kinds of construal in the canonical context. If a criterion of ‘reading well’ is then to be sought for contemporary inter pretation, the theological interpreter may wish to speak of reading a text such as the Joseph story well as part of the canon from within the Christian tradi tion in a particular reading context. The text under consideration is part of a network of texts that together form a single discourse (the canon), yet under the pressure of their juxtaposition, the various texts inform and reshape each other, modifying the nature of what might be described as a ‘good reading’ of the text. The goal of theological interpretation then is not that of seeking to identify and develop the ‘most probable’ construal of a text within its own horizon per se, but rather that of developing possible readings of a text within its 102. For an example of a change in perspective, see the collection of essays in R.M. Allen (ed.), Theological Commentary: Evangelical Perspectives (London: T&T Clark, 2011).

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own horizon that appear probable in light of the horizon of the canon and tradition of reception in a way that is fruitful for growth in faith, hope and love in and for God in the context of the reader or interpreter. There may be several possible theologically faithful reading strategies within which this can occur, leading to different actualizations of the text. 103 This is not to say that exegetical work is unimportant—rather, it is crucial in exploring the possibilities for how one may construe a text. However, one must re-examine the value, and perhaps ideology, of exegesis as it is usually understood since the results of careful verse-by-verse interpretation may well be eclipsed by reading within other contexts which have become normative for interpretation. Moreover, there remains the question regarding the extent to which exegesis is shaped by the interpreter’s assumptions. Yet careful exegesis promotes understanding and fosters respect for the text, providing the reader with the tools to make informed and responsible choices in reinterpreting the story with reference to wider textual horizons. Exegesis is thus a provisional but valuable and necessary task, helping one to read slowly and carefully and encouraging reflection on all the details and possibilities within the text.104 Conversely, one might consider how the results of careful exegetical work might suggest that traditional or canonical understandings might be nuanced or re developed as new insights are gained, or simple misunderstandings indicated. A particular hermeneutical difficulty arises when different texts point in different directions, especially when they are part of the same narrative, as with Genesis 34 and the Joseph story on the issue of intermarriage. Marc Zvi Brettler argues that the Bible is a ‘contradictory anthology, and thus speaks in many voices’ and suggests, in a Jewish context, that ‘if I want [the Bible] to be authoritative for me (within my community) I must decide which voice is au thoritative.’105 But, especially as a Christian reader, must one in fact choose the ‘more authoritative voice’ in such a way that makes one voice normative? Must one choose either the voice of Genesis 34 or the Joseph story as ‘authoritative’? Instead, wisdom, as expressed in the wisdom tradition and literature of Israel, would seem to be an important hermeneutical key for the theological inter preter, since interpretation is developed through consideration of the juxta 103. In many ways this proposal would resonate more with the process of compiling multiple interpretations in Jewish midrashic collections than with Christian commentary or homily. The midrashic texts model different ways of dealing with ambiguity in scriptural texts, and demonstrate both different ways in which texts can be read intertextually, and the use of different reading strategies in different contexts. 104. Cf. Davis, ‘The Soil that is Scripture’, esp. 40–41. 105. M. Zvi Brettler, ‘Biblical Authority: A Jewish Pluralistic View’, in W.P. Brown (ed.), Engaging Biblical Authority: Perspectives on the Bible as Scripture (Louisville: WJKP, 2007), 1–9, here, 4–5.

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position of texts that may well point in different directions. 106 In a Christian context, perhaps the freedom to choose well in informed ways is something like what is meant by the Christian life being characterized by freedom to act in love in the Spirit rather than by adherence to universalizable moral codes expressed as laws (cf. Gal 5:13–14). Rather than identifying the authoritative voice, or encouraging readers to identify or choose the authoritative voice, and raise it to a normative status, might the interpreter instead seek to be shaped in wisdom by the different possibilities expressed in the different texts? Can the different texts, as they now stand in juxtaposition, be seen to offer differ ent provisional paradigms of different expressions of faithful responses to God in different contexts on seemingly similar issues—issues that might carry dif ferent implications in different contexts? In other words, might Genesis 34 speak to the wisdom of separation as faithful response in some contexts, and the Joseph story to the wisdom of assimilation in other contexts? The reception and history of interpretation of the Joseph story firstly in Genesis and subsequently in the canon(s) and finally in the Christian tradition could be said to reflect the processes of sedimentation and innovation associ ated with the role of tradition. The traditionally rooted yet imaginative inter pretations of the story demonstrate both the stable and dynamic or adaptive nature of the Christian tradition with respect to Scripture. The processes of tradition effectively privilege one particular family of possible construals of the world of the text, so long as they are possible whether or not they are in fact the most probable, in a way so as to encourage the use of the story in a way that is generative of living well in response to the call of God. How then does the contemporary interpreter relate to these processes of sedimentation and innovation? To what extent is the interpreter constrained by traditional constru als of the story for an interpretation to be deemed ‘good Christian interpretation’? To what extent might the interpreter be innovative as the reading con text continues to change as our worldviews and questions change, and thus be described as ‘prophetic’? One might suggest that in addition to developing technical competence, developing good practices of theological interpretation involves cultivating the ability to imagine through contemporary eyes the world projected by the juxtaposition of the various biblical stories in the canon and how this vision 106. Compare with the comments of John J. Collins, ‘Ongoing criticism has tended to highlight the tensions and differences within the biblical texts. Consequently, it is difficult to regard the Bible … as a whole, as a coherent guide to life.’ J.J. Collins, The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2005), 10. Rather, it would seem that one can regard the Bible as a ‘guide to life’ if it is construed more in terms of shaping a life of wisdom clustering around a particular set of priorities, than as law.

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may be enacted or outworked. Such ‘imagination’ ought to be faithful with re gard to the stories themselves, the big story of Scripture, the Christian tradition as well as to the context of interpretation. Yet the vision ought also to have a creative or revelatory aspect, so that growth in faith, hope and love fol low.107 In this way, the task of theological interpretation is a prophetic one that involves wisdom. To do this well would seem to require, as Ellen F. Davis suggests, that the interpreter cultivates certain virtuous habits of reading Scripture, such as humility, charity and patience, 108 whilst reading with the hermeneutics of the tradition in mind on the one hand, and engaging with challenges from contemporary critiques from a number of fields on the other.

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C ONCLUSION The overall depiction of Joseph’s life as one who grows in maturity, wisdom and perhaps virtue provides a portrait of a life that may evoke and en courage growth in living the Christian life. Through a combination of suffering and divine providence, and through a life that is ultimately open to God amid problematic incidents, real difficulties, temptations and possibilities for revenge Joseph grows from immaturity to one who is wise and ‘fears God’. In doing so he brings reconciliation to his family. In this process the assimilation to Egyptian culture is presented as demonstrating wisdom, and reflects faithful response to God. The ‘problem texts’ form parts of this picture. We have briefly considered a variety of proposals for the historical situation of the composition of the Joseph story. We have also studied the reception of the three theologically problematic texts, and considered how the prob lematic texts within the story read when the story is read as a unit, as part of Genesis, and as part of the canons within the Christian tradition. Within the Joseph story’s own textual horizon neither divination nor intermarriage appear theologically problematic. In the context of Genesis divination is not problematic but intermarriage is, whilst in the canonical context(s) both intermarriage and divination are problematic, even if the issue of intermarriage is contested in the Old Testament and ultimately transformed in the New. How ever, the references to divination and intermarriage are sufficiently undeveloped in the story as to leave gaps that may be filled by the reader in various ways depending on reading strategy and context and the commitments of the interpreter, thus allowing different construals and a range of possible or probable interpretations of the ‘problem texts’. The world of the text looks dif107. Cf. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine I.39–40. Augustine does, however, suggest that one goes astray if one takes a meaning from Scripture other than that which the author intended (1.36). 108. Davis, ‘The Soil that is Scripture’, 36-44.

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ferent depending upon the wider textual and contextual worlds that frame it, and upon the preunderstanding the interpreter brings coupled with the character of the interpreter in forming judgments. There are various imaginative possible reading strategies that allow for different construals of the text as there is just enough that is unsaid or undeveloped in the text as well as enough flexibility in choosing a reading strategy. However, interpretation of the text may be ‘stretched’ somewhat in some readings into what are perhaps less probable although still possible readings—such as in the story of Joseph and Asenath. The story of Joseph and Asenath is a possible yet perhaps (historically) not very probable complement to the Joseph story in Genesis. 109 Deducing the most probable reading of a text such as the Joseph story within its own horizon is not necessarily the goal of the theological inter preter. Thus it would seem that a criterion for interpretation for the theological interpreter is to develop a possible reading that sits well with the canon and rule of faith in a way that respects the story’s traditionality as well as being prophetically innovative in the reading context at hand so as to lead readers on to an ever deeper and more faithful life in God. A good reading in these terms might be termed ‘revelatory’. How does this relate to the practices of exegesis and interpretation? In terms of evaluating and applying the text to Christian belief and practice, it would appear that interpreters work in a tension. In this tension one should take account of the most natural or probable construals of the text within its own horizon, within the horizon of Scripture, and within the rule of faith and the Christian tradition. Various tools may be used on an ad hoc basis to assist with this, such as historical criticism, literary approaches and structuralism for example. In this process consideration of the reception history of the text is likely to be valuable, as well as self-reflection on the context of the interpreter, and the challenges and understanding that this brings. In one sense, this tension mirrors Ricoeur’s understanding of the encounter of the hermeneutics of tradition with the critique of ideology, when broadly enough construed. Exegesis is a somewhat provisional task, for as one considers a text within different textual horizons, the role and significance of the text is reshaped. With a text like the Joseph story the goal of the theological interpreter would seem to be not so much to derive the most probable reading of the story with reference to a particular textual horizon or the rule of faith, but rather readings that are possible with respect to each and that ap109. The difficulty here is how one judges ‘probability’, for the issue is not whether this is what really happened or what the author of the Joseph story might have imagined, but rather whether it is a good, imaginatively probable account to read with the biblical Joseph story. It might be interesting to consider whether it would make any difference to the assessment of probability if Joseph and Asenath was part of Scripture.

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pear fruitful in terms of the response to God in faith, hope and love that they might evoke in the reading context at hand. In this way, the meeting of the hermeneutics of tradition with the critique of ideology of modes of interpreta tion makes for ambiguities—or new possibilities—in interpretation. Four features have emerged that are worth commenting on. First, in one sense seeking to locate the Joseph story in a particular historical context ap pears to contribute surprisingly little to settling questions regarding the inter pretation of the problematic texts. The decision to locate the story’s composi tion or origins in the early second millennium as a historical record, or in the monarchical era in the North as an expression of political ideologies and aspirations, or in the Persian era in an Egyptian diaspora community as polemic fic tion does not seem to resolve the interpretation of the problem texts, either when trying to read the Joseph story within its own horizon, or in the canonical or later Christian contexts. Locating the Joseph story in a given historical context might however help to make certain readings plausible and aid the imagination as to how it might be read in certain contexts. In this sense historical criticism is able to motivate certain readings and indicate some of the issues that need to be addressed in interpretation. Secondly, there is the question of interpretations based on appeal to the observation that Joseph lived before the law in the plot of the biblical story. This observation may seem to give rise to an obvious hermeneutic to contem porary interpreters, but it is surprising and significant that it was not developed prior to the mid-twentieth century. It was noted above that such a hermeneutic seems to be associated with a modern view of history, historical progression and a progressive view of revelation in history, even if it is also expressed rather awkwardly in the relationship between the two testaments. But more typically, in terms of the interpretation of myth, the earlier in the life of a society a foundational story is set the greater claim to normativity it often has, although this itself is a ‘reading strategy’. This might tend to problematize a dispensational reading strategy. However, both these perspectives coexist in the New Testament, indicating that each is a possible Christian reading strategy. In relation to the Law of Moses, in a sense Christianity simultaneously supersedes and upholds it. Thus interpretation of the Joseph story via appeal to Joseph living before Moses is not straightforward, and, moreover, we have seen that it is problematic in the case of intermarriage in any case, since Genesis as a whole rejects intermarriage whereas the Joseph story does not. Theologically, it seems that in both Jewish and Christian traditions interpreters have preferred to understand pious individuals such as the patriarchs as ‘naturally’ or ‘inherently’ living pious lives and providing exemplars for the Jewish or Christian life. With regard to history, the text has been read with a some -

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what ‘timeless’ perspective,110 while the desire of interpreters seems to be to show how the text directly informs the life of the reader without requiring a process of historical mediation—Joseph was a model of virtue for example. Trying to distance the text from the reader through a philosophy of history in order to solve theological problems was not the preferred strategy. We are therefore faced with alternative imaginative reading strategies that construe, in general terms, the significance of the text in quite different ways, both of which have merits as well as weaknesses. As poetic fiction, one might appropriate the Joseph story using either framework as neither would seem to be strongly preferred theologically. Indeed, one might perhaps choose a framework on an ad hoc basis depending on the issues and context at hand. In a sense, the formation of alternative reading strategies reflect different ways of attempting to juxtapose the hermeneutics of tradition with the critique of ideology. Clearly though, if issues of historicity are important, then there is a ‘fact of the matter’ one way or the other. But I have been seeking to demon strate that this is not in fact the case, that the texts when read with the goal of Christian (or Jewish) theological interpretation in view find their significance in terms of story or myth. This might include the consideration of historical facts in particular cases, even if not in general. I shall develop this in chapter 5. Thirdly, it appears that the reception of the text significantly shapes its on-going interpretation, even if it is not finally decisive. It would seem im plausible to develop a Christian interpretation of the Joseph story—owing to both the history of reception of the text and the rule of faith—in which Joseph was understood to practise divination, even if the text itself is ambivalent on the issue and might even favour it. On the other hand, theologically it would be easy to imagine Asenath as a ‘convert’ as we find in the reception of the story. However, given different approaches of interpreters to Joseph’s marriage to Asenath—many of whom are not particularly interested in the issue—it would seem that more fluidity in interpretation is possible here, especially as the question of intermarriage is contested in the Old Testament and transformed or elided in the New. But, given the problems with intermarriage in Genesis on the one hand and the positive portrayal of the marriage to Asenath within the Joseph story on the other, there is a real question here regarding how we read biblical books well as books with a continuous and progressive narrative and a coherent message. Whilst patristic interpretation is often seen as ‘atomistic’, often drawing criticism as such, perhaps interpretation is inherently atomistic in some cases, as it might reflect a sensitivity to the text as presenting differ ent types of story with different perspectives on similar issues, such as Genesis 34 and the Joseph story. For example, L.T. Johnson notes that; 110. Cf. Green, Devotion, 31–2 for comment on the Jewish notion that ‘there are no “earlier” and “later” in the Torah’.

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Patristic and medieval interpreters had much more of an atomistic approach to narratives, seeing them in oracular terms. Amongst ancient interpreters, the desire to have the Gospels speak to the world of the readers sometimes by-passed a full immersion in the world 111 within the text.

In the case of Genesis, one might say that it is precisely a full immersion in the world of the text that is suggestive of atomistic interpretation. Such an atomistic approach might be developed in terms of a hermeneutics of wisdom. Fourthly, we have seen how even within the book of Genesis very different practices are encouraged, associated with very different theological understandings of the foundations of Israel’s existence as God’s chosen people. Thus the book does not present a clear portrait of what constitutes faithful or cor rect response to God, whatever intentional stance the compiler of the final form of Genesis may have had (if it is even reasonable to attempt to identify such a person). The text presents us with different portraits of faithful response to God, even if they cluster together. If one is to respect the text as it is in all its plurality, a good paradigm for interpretation might be to use ‘wisdom’ as a hermeneutical key whilst privileging the final form of the text within the context of Scripture as the world of the text, which is the received text. Rather than turning to a text such as Genesis, or indeed an individual text within Gen esis, to provide ‘instruction’ through a single authoritative voice—especially in a moralizing sense—perhaps we should turn to the text as part of a network of texts with the expectation of being shaped in wise living as we discern a number of different yet each in their own way faithful paths of response to God, albeit within a particular theological metanarrative as shaped now by the rule of faith. The text encourages us to learn how to choose well between possible alternative paths of faithful response to God as called for in different situations. The effect of the final form of the text is to grant space to the reader to reflect upon and explore the different ways in which people have faithfully responded to God as shown in the stories told. The original intention of the authors of the stories was quite possibly to urge or to demonstrate a particular path, but the combination of the stories in their canonical context provides a different form of instruction, something more like ‘wisdom’ than ‘law’. It may be that it is here in the juxtaposition and use of traditions that Christian theology and eth ics are best developed. The Christian interpreter also needs to contend with the development of themes in a text such as the Joseph story in a new context. How for example does the Christian interpreter seek to interpret and actualize texts in Genesis 111. L.T. Johnson, ‘Response to Bill Kurz’, in L.T. Johnson and W.S. Kurz, The Future of Catholic Biblical Scholarship: A Constructive Conversation (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002), 249–62, here 250.

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that deal with endogamy? Following the Christian traditional practice of abstracting principles and recontextualizing themes from Old Testament texts, one might for example abstract and then recontextualize the principles that form the basis for the practice of endogamy. Rather than trying to construe the contemporary significance of texts in Genesis in terms of endogamy, the Chris tian interpreter might seek instead to appropriate the texts in terms of an un derstanding of what forms the basis of faithful response to God today. Overall then Genesis encourages reflection on this point and creates space for allowing one to discern different foundations for faithful response in different contexts. In some contexts an affirmation of traditional forms of identity and practices— involving perhaps a conscious separation from alternatives—may reflect the most faithful responsive path for the church (Genesis 34), whereas in others some forms of accommodation might be the wiser and more faithful response (Genesis 37–50). If one is to take the ‘final form’ of Genesis with full seriousness, reading the text carefully and slowly and respecting the diverse perspectives urged, it does not seem possible to appeal to the normativity of the author’s original in tention (one particular hermeneutical ideology) or to the purpose of composi tion of a story within Genesis for the Christian interpreter. Making such an ap peal is a reading strategy, but perhaps it is one of the most problematic ones, despite its privileging in much interpretation. Neither does it seem possible to appeal to the most probable reading of a story taken within its own textual horizon as normative. If one makes such a claim, one ultimately privileges one story at the expense of another. Christian interpretation that seeks fully to respect and cherish the text of Scripture as revelatory inherently invites scriptural texts to be read imaginatively together within the horizon of the rule of faith using wisdom and love to negotiate and actualize the different possibilities reflected in Scripture for faithful response to God—and this is one form in which we can understand the ‘hermeneutics of tradition’ to be exhibited. Here, we have seen it meet the critique represented in the assumption that authorial intention is to be privileged. Pursuing an ‘ideology’ of authorial intention can lead to poor Christian reading and use of texts. Interpreters have developed a number of reading strategies in response to difficulties in the text or through immersion in a particular context. I would now like to consider interpretation of the story of David to explore some of these kind of concerns further in a different context in which the rela tionship between two different critically reconstructed traditions within a single book leads to a different kind of reading strategy in the final form of the text. We shall also consider further the implications of understanding there to be rather little correspondence between the biblical text and the actual history of Israel. That is, we shall consider the theological significance of what has

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been termed ‘minimalism’ in relation to the historicity of Old Testament narratives. I shall develop the idea that the Christian significance of Old Testament narrative is to be found in the categories of stories or myth rather than history in the modern sense of the term, even if historical facts may be important in some cases.

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C HAPTER 5

THE DAVID STORY T HE HERMENEUTICAL AND THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF

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‘MINIMALISM’ We saw in the previous chapter that in all likelihood distinct traditions with quite different emphases and understandings of the nature of how life is to be lived before God—often understood through the social construction of the identity of a people—are preserved in a single book of Scripture, while the different traditions are merged through narrative into the final form of the book. This gives rise to some interesting hermeneutical challenges—and pos sibilities—that indicate the genuine difficulties involved in reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. We also saw that in the case of the Joseph story its ongoing Christian interpretation seems to be driven by the reception history and use of the text as it is read as a part of the canon within the Christian tradition. The reconstruction of the purpose or meaning of the Joseph story in a putative originary context seems less significant than its reception in shaping its continued appropriation as Scripture. I would now like to turn to the interpretation of the David story in Samuel to explore further some of these issues in another context. This offers an example that will require a different approach to the interpretation and appro priation of an Old Testament narrative for the formation of the Christian life in terms of how one reads a scriptural book well. I will argue that Samuel reflects the fusion of traditions that probably originally pointed in different directions and had different interests. Each tradition can now be understood to critique the ideology of the other. So far, this is rather like what we have seen is likely to be the case in Genesis. But here in Samuel, one tradition becomes dominant, one through which the other is read in a way that is much clearer than is the case in Genesis in which the traditions remain in some tension. The investigation that forms the topic of this chapter will also provide an opportunity to sketch out a Christian theological response from within the hermeneutics of the tradition to the critique of certain contemporary forms of 148

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ideology reflected in what have been dubbed ‘minimalist’ approaches to the Old Testament—the view that there is little correspondence between what is narrated in the Old Testament and an archaeologically or critically reconstructed history of Israel.1 It may be one thing to question the ancient history of the patriarchs and the conquest, but quite another to question the existence of the united monarchy under King David given the foundational significance of the Davidic dynasty for understanding and interpreting messianic expectations, for example. To put it somewhat crudely and over simplistically, what might the hermeneutical and theological consequences be for the Christian theological interpreter if one understands Samuel-Kings to reflect ideological fiction with a strongly political nature rather than a history of Israel that is essentially theological? We shall study John Van Seters’ analysis of the story of David as a basis for our analysis of the various issues involved. Whilst his analysis is one proposal among various proposals for the reconstruction of the history of the text and its relation to the history of Israel, it is a good proposal to consider as it highlights well the issues involved. Van Seters’ proposal is of course a putative reconstruction of the development of the text’s history that may be as much subject to revision, correction or development as any other. 2 Indeed, some readers may of course be unconvinced by a thesis such as that of Van Seters, and thus find the argument that I wish to develop unnecessary or unconvincing, and that it deals with a problem that does not exist. However, similar hermeneutical difficulties to those that Van Seters’ proposal raises exist elsewhere and the exploration of a thesis such as his allows the in terpretative issues to be highlighted and considered. So for example we find the juxtaposition in Genesis of the two creation accounts, traditionally ascribed to P and to J, or, in the New Testament, in the two accounts of the giv ing of the Spirit in John and in Luke-Acts. In both these cases (and in the David story, according to Van Seters), different accounts serving different theological / ideological / sociological functions that arose in different traditions have been juxtaposed in the canon necessitating the development of a reading

1. The questions of whether ‘minimalist’ is a good category to use to cover a variety of approaches to the issue that share some family resemblance, and to what degree it reflects a particular kind of ideology that disables contemporary engagement with the biblical text are perhaps open ones. I do not wish to discuss these points here, using the term as a convenient shorthand. 2. J. Van Seters, The Biblical Saga of King David (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009). For a proposal such as this a scholarly consensus on the issues involved seems ever more unlikely. Van Seters’ proposal indicates the nature of the real historical and literary difficulties involved with more naive understandings of the nature of the text and the history of Israel and is thus worth taking as the basis of this study.

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strategy to handle the tensions that arise. 3 I have decided to base my discussion on Van Seters’ thesis, however, since it highlights more starkly the hermeneutical issues involved without requiring detailed engagement with com plex (and often controversial) theological issues that are tangential to the concerns here. In addition, his thesis forms a framework within which the issue of ‘minimalism’ may be discussed on a theological footing, being an interpretation that is posed as an ideological critique of the hermeneutics of tradition. I shall consider how the tension between these two poles of the debate may be negotiated without being forced largely to adopt the stance of either pole. I do not wish to engage in critical discussion of Van Seters’ thesis—rather, I use it as a way into discussing some of the hermeneutical issues involved in the story of David that is in some sense representative of the contemporary issues and worries in relation to the Old Testament, history, archaeology and politics. Therefore, I shall take the thesis ‘as read’, recognizing that as has always proven to be the case with historical theses, that it remains conjectural and subject to criticism and revision. To set the issue up in terms of Paul Ricoeur’s dialectic introduced in chapter 1, ‘minimalist’ and ‘minimalist-like’ approaches represent a ‘critique of ideology’ to the ‘hermeneutics of tradition’ regarding the overall historicity and thus the trustworthiness of the Old Testament nar ratives. Minimalist approaches are of course wrapped up in their own (ideolo gical) assumptions and traditions that require critique. But this is not my aim here—rather, it is to explore how the hermeneutics of tradition can respond to this contemporary critique of ideology, accepting it, for the moment, as it is.

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M INIMALISM AND THE OLD TESTAMENT The last century of Old Testament scholarship has witnessed the percep tion by a number of scholars of an ever-increasing gap between “biblical Israel,” that is, the history of Israel as depicted in the Old Testament, and the 3. Recognition of the different character of the materials in Genesis led early in the history of its interpretation to the proposal of a ‘double creation’, in which Gen 1:1–2:4 describes the spiritual creation, after which follows the account of the material creation. (See Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis 1.4; Origen, Hom. Gen. 1.13). In historical critical scholarship, the differences are accounted for via appeal to putative source traditions P and J. Attempts to harmonize the accounts suggests that differences in perspective are offered in the narrative. Regarding the giving of the Spirit, again, various reading strategies arise. For example, those seeking to harmonize the accounts often suggest a distinction between the ‘Spirit indwelling’ in John and the ‘Spirit outpoured’ in Acts, or suggest that the Johannine account is symbolic of what was to come at Pentecost. For discussion see D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (PNTC; Leicester: Apollos, 1991), 649–55.

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“historical Israel,” the history of Israel as reconstructed from archaeological data.4 The historicity of the conquest was questioned in the early-mid twenti eth century, especially following the excavations of Jericho and the subsequent analysis of the findings.5 Subsequently the historicity of the narratives that portray the patriarchal era in Genesis was thrown into doubt, 6 and finally at the end of the twentieth century and into the early twenty-first century the existence of a united monarchy as portrayed in Samuel-Kings has been rejected by some scholars. A growing number of scholars thus conclude that there is only a minimal amount of history preserved in the Old Testament. The term ‘minimalist’ has been coined for the approach or perhaps ‘option’ (as it has been termed) of scholars such as Philip Davies, Thomas Thompson, Niels Peter Lemche, and Keith Whitelam. 7 Others have adopted a similar stance, finding support from other historians and archaeologists such as Lester Grabbe, Israel Finkelstein, and Neil Silberman. 8 So, for example, Whitelam claims that there is no historical reality to the Davidic state, 9 a claim also found, although in a rather different context, in John Van Seters’ work. 10 This is a postulate that is gaining support more widely. The support for this position, and a history of re 4. See, e.g., M.E. Mills, Historical Israel: Biblical Israel: Studying Joshua to 2 Kings (Cassell Biblical Studies; London: Cassell, 1999). 5. A. Alt, Die Staatenbildung der Israeliten in Palästina (Leipzig: A. Edelmann, 1930). For a survey of the archaeological research see D. Merling, Sr., The Book of Joshua: Its Theme and Role in Archaeological Discussions (Andrews University Seminary Doctoral Dissertation Series 23; Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 1997). 6. T.L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Histori cal Abraham (BZAW 133; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974). 7. P.R. Davies, In Search of Ancient Israel (JSOTSup 148; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992); idem, The Origins of Biblical Israel (London: T. & T. Clark, 2007); T.L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and the Archaeological Sources (SHANE 4; Leiden: Brill, 1992); idem, The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999); N P. Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (Biblical Seminar 5; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988); K.W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (London: Routledge, 1996). M.B. Moore identifies these scholars in particular as “minimalists”. See M.B. Moore, Philosophy and Practice in Writing a History of Ancient Israel (London: T. & T. Clark, 2006). 8. L.L. Grabbe, Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? (London: T. & T. Clark, 2007); I. Finkelstein, “The Archaeology of the United Monarchy: An Alternative View,” Levant 28 (1996): 177–87; I. Finkelstein and N.A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Free Press, 2001); idem, David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (New York: Free Press, 2006). 9. Whitelam, The Invention, 128. 10. Van Seters, The Biblical Saga.

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search into the story of David is helpfully discussed by Van Seters, 11 and more briefly by Philip Davies.12 Indeed, Davies suggests that the assumption of the existence of a united monarchy is ‘under threat from archaeological reasoning’ (66–7), a point that he develops later (74–76), for example suggesting that, ‘As for the supposed So lomonic architecture at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, Finkelstein argues that its dating has been derived only from the biblical reference in 1 Kings 9:15 … extrapolated to other sites. … The “low chronology” proposed by Finkelstein dates the Solomonic architecture and its associated pottery to Omri (886–874), whom the Assyrians (and others) regarded as the founder of Israel.’ 13 Indeed, Davies notes that the ‘earliest biblical individual to whom any inscription makes a direct reference is Omri king of Israel … although in most cases it is his dynasty or “house” that is mentioned, and not the king himself.’ (87). As for references to the ‘House of David’, Davies suggests that the reference in the Tel Dan Stela, discovered in two stages in 1993 and 1994, is not straightforward. The placement of the two fragments of the stela is debated. The first fragment (A) states that an unnamed king of Israel had invaded the territory of the father of the king responsible for the inscription, but he had repulsed the invasion. Later there is a single word, bytdwd that editors read ‘house of David’. Moreover, the name of the Judean king Amaziah is supplied by editors on the basis of a final yh. But bytdwd does not necessarily mean ‘house of David’. And Davies notes similar problems with attempts to read ‘house of David’ in line 12 of the Mesha Inscription.14 (95–7). Thus it would appear that there are significant difficulties with the view that there was a united monarchy under David— at least in terms of archaeological and epigraphic evidence. Davies suggests there is increasing evidence to suggest that northern Israel led Judah in social, economic and political development, and that there is no epigraphic attestation of any individual king prior to Omri (153). 15 Davies also helpfully traces the growth of the “minimalist option,” as he terms it, suggesting that it provides a “framework” rather than a single thesis 11. Ibid., 1–89. 12. P.R. Davies, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History—Ancient and Modern (Louisville: WJKP, 2008). 13. Davies, Memories, 75, discussing Finkelstein, ‘The Archaeology of the United Monarchy’. 14. Cf. A. Lemaire, ‘“House of David” Restored in Moabite Inscription’, BAR 20: 31– 37. Many scholars do, however, accept these references. There are, of course, two issues here—whether the reference is present, and its significance if it is present. 15. For a recent collection of essays surveying a number of these issues see R. Kratz and H. Spieckermann (eds.), One God—One Cult—One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives (BZAW 405; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2010).

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or cohesive group, and is not a “school” or an ideology.16 He suggests that the ‘minimalist option’ was ‘a response to the tensions between archaeology and the biblical text, to developments within historical-critical studies, such as a greater emphasis on the roles of redactors as the real authors compared with their postulated sources, and the contribution of new literary criticism to issues of story, point of view, and ideology’.17 ‘Maximalism’ is then construed as a response to the minimalist option, options that he suggests present two poles of trust / doubt; a reliable account of the past / a created (unreliable) past; an early (monarchic) dating / a late (post-monarchic, often Persian) dating. 18 But more generally, he notes that three modes of response to the minimalist option have emerged—engagement,19 disengagement,20 and confrontation, 21 sometimes with unhelpful rhetoric.22 However, Davies does not discuss in any detail the theological significance of the debate, and what the theological and hermeneutical ramifications might be if the ‘minimalist option’ were to prove correct in its general thrust. It would appear that those with theological interests in the Old Testament often tend to follow a mode of response of either disengagement or confrontation, arguing over the interpretation of the evidence. 23 But, theologically speaking, 16. Davies, Memories, 150–156. 17. Ibid., 155. ‘Minimalism’ is, perhaps, a reaction to prior Albrightian confidence. 18. Ibid., 146–47. 19. Reflected in J.B. Kofoed, Text History: Historiography and the Study of the Biblical Text (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005). 20. E.g., I. Provan, V.P Long and T. Longman, A Biblical History of Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003). 21. E.g., K.A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). 22. Davies, Memories, 156–70. See also K. Schmid, “Ist die Bibel historisch zuverlässig? Bemerkungen zum Maximalisten-Minimalisten-Streit in den Bibelwissenschaften,” Reformatio 51 (2002): 283–99 for analysis of the debates. For another perspective on the debate see W.G. Dever, What did the Biblical Writers Know & When did they Know it? What Ar chaeology Can Tell us about the Reality of Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2001). Dever laments that ‘Nowhere in the revisionist literature do I find any appreciation of the sheer literary beauty or the lofty moral aspirations of the Hebrew Bible at its best. … [T]he revisionists’ latent(?) hostility to the Hebrew Bible and its worldview … troubles me most … because it leads to aesthetic and moral devaluation.’ (296) What I am trying to explore in this chapter is how one might develop a revisionist approach in the context of an ‘appreciation of the sheer literary beauty [and] the lofty moral aspirations of the Hebrew Bible’ in which the Bible and the worldview is cherished. 23. See, e.g., contributions in A.R. Millard et al., (eds.), Faith Tradition and History: Old Testament Historiography in Its Near Eastern Context (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994) and more recently R.S. Hess et al. (eds.), Critical Issues in Early Israelite History (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008).

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is it in fact necessary a priori to confront or to disengage the minimalist option, and reassert the historical reliability of the Old Testament, even if only in rather loose terms, and of the story of David in particular? Apparently there may be a prima facie case for doing so, given the centrality of David for later reflection coupled with a concern to understand God as ‘acting in history’ through people like David. To pose the question another way, then, what is at stake hermeneutically and theologically in this debate? We shall return to consider the issue of God as ‘acting in history’ in chapter 9 as part of a broader debate about the concept of ‘salvation history’. But for now it is worth noting that if we are to learn from the history of inter pretation then perhaps we should be rather cautious about too quickly reject ing minimalism. For example, John Goldingay seems to refer to something similar to ‘disengagement’ and ‘confrontation’ in his comments on evangelical re sponses to nineteenth-century historical criticism, noting that, ‘An ironic as pect of this story is the way the marsh consumed evangelicals as well as liberals. Evangelical commentaries were also dull and predictable, but in different ways from liberal commentaries, largely confining themselves to paraphrasing the text and reassuring their readers that the events were historical, really.’ 24 Might one say the same for some contemporary Christian responses to the minimalist option? History indicates that the church has not been well-served by resistance to various forms of historical criticism, even if its nature and scope needed qualification, as exemplified in Karl Barth for example. 25 Moreover, earlier in the history of interpretation, interpreters such as Origen or Gregory of Nyssa were less concerned with the historical veracity of Old Testament narratives than moderns as we have seen. Historical difficulties were seen as hermeneutical cues for a ‘spiritual’ reading strategy. Other early interpreters such as Augustine for example do appear to have been more concerned with apologetics and historical veracity of Old Testament narrative. 26 Thus the assertion or significance of the historical veracity (or lack of in places) of Old Testament narrative is something that has been up for debate throughout the history of the church. However, the denial of a united mon archy would probably go well beyond what most traditional interpreters would have envisaged as historical difficulty. Here, I have presented the debate from the perspective of the minimalist option. I do not wish to claim that the debates on the early history of Israel are essentially closed, the minimalists having swept the field of the maximalists. 24. J. Goldingay, An Ignatian Approach to Reading the Old Testament (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2002), 5. 25. See, e.g., Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (15 vols.; London: T&T Clark, 2004), III/I, 82. 26. See e.g. City of God 15.9.

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Neither do I wish to claim that minimalism and maximalism are the only op tions for relating the Bible to the history of Israel, as if an interpreter is forced to choose one frame of reference or the other. New discoveries, such as the in scription discovered at Khirbet Qeifaya, are likely to ensure that the debates will continue unresolved for some time. My aim here is not to enter these debates per se.27 Rather, acknowledging that a case can be made for the minimalist option that calls for engagement, the question that I wish to address is this: What might be the hermeneutical and theological consequences of accepting the overall thrust of the minimalist option? As we have already suggested, John Van Seters’ recent work, The Biblical Saga of King David offers an interesting test-case for considering the nature of Christian theological interpretation of Old Testament narrative. On the one hand it will help us to study the emergence of another kind of reading strategy when differing traditions are combined in the final form of the text. On the other hand it will allow us to form and develop a theological response to ‘minimalism’. It reflects some of the results of the minimalist option in denying the historical existence of a united monarchy under David, coupled with a revised construal of the character of David from literary perspectives. This approach has affinities with other revisionist approaches to the Old Testament from ideological perspectives.28 His approach is interesting as it draws upon developments in archaeology, ideology, and historiography, coupled with a careful literary approach to the text. Again, I do not wish to attempt to critique Van Seters’ proposal; rather, I wish to explore the hermeneutical and theological implications of such a proposal so as to consider whether, and if so how, theological interpreters might engage fruitfully with such work while the more intractable historical debates continue. It may turn out that the minimalist stance is too pessimistic regarding the historical basis of some Old Testament narratives. But I hope to show that read as Christian Scripture, the historical basis (or otherwise) of a particular narrative is often not what is at issue.

J OHN VA N SETERS’ READING OF THE STORY OF DAVID Van Seters provides a provocative analysis of the stories of David and Saul in 1 Sam 16:14—1 Kgs 1:46. He suggests that the narrative that we now have is the product of a Deuteronomistic (Dtr) account of David that is unswervingly 27. In addition to the works already cited, see, e.g., R.E. Tappy and P. Kyle McCarter Jr., eds., Literate Culture and Tenth-Century Canaan: The Tel Zayit Abecedary in Context (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008) and S.L. Sanders, The Invention of Hebrew (Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2009) for additional recent perspectives. 28. E.g., B. Halpern, David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001).

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positive in its portrayal of David, the House of David, and the institution of the Israelite monarchy, together with a later account which he terms the ‘David Saga’. The David Saga uses the account of the Deuteronomistic History / His torian (DtrH) as a framework which he describes as ‘serious entertainment’ and anti-monarchial in intent.29 David’s actions are presented as a parody on Deuteronomistic ideology.30 The basis for this proposal is several-fold. First, Van Seters discusses recent developments in socio-archaeological research that suggest that a tenthcentury Israelite united monarchy is very unlikely, if not impossible. 31 The evidence suggesting instead that the mid-eighth century is the earliest date for which an imperial Judean state was possible. 32 Thus Van Seters concludes that one should not seek to interpret the story of David in terms of historical sources or witnesses that arose in or around the tenth century. Second, Van Seters’ primary point of departure is the positive evaluation of David’s reign by DtrH when compared with David’s portrayal in SamuelKings. He notes that a number of incidents in David’s life would hardly call for such a positive evaluation. 33 Indeed (in an earlier work) he considers this “the clearest and strongest argument against the priority of the Court History and its use as a source by DtrH. This is the fact that we have a basic contradiction between the behavior of David in the Court History and Dtr’s Judgment of David that he was the just and righteous king who was completely obedient to Yahweh and who was the model for all subsequent kings to follow.” 34 Third, Van Seters identifies a number of anachronisms in the stories of David and Saul. Through comparison with Greek sources he develops the signi ficance of Greek mercenaries, their practices and uses. 35 Such mercenaries are reflected in 1 Samuel 27 and 30. But these mercenaries reflect a Persian rather than pre-exilic context, and are thus anachronistic. 36 As further evidence of anachronism he also cites familiarity with later cultic procedures (1 Sam 21:2– 29. Van Seters, Saga, 197. 30. Ibid., 202. 31. Ibid., 53–89. 32. Ibid., 92. 33. Ibid., 36–37. 34. John Van Seters, “The Court History and DtrH: Conflicting Perspectives on the House of David,” in A. de Pury and T. Römer (eds.), Die sogenannte Thronfolgegeschichte Davids (OBO 176; Frieburg: Universitätsverlag, 2000), 70–93, here, 71. This is contestable, depending on what might count as such an evaluation. See R.P. Gordon, “In Search of David: The David Tradition in Recent Study,” in Faith, Tradition and History, 285–98. 35. E.g., 2 Sam 8:18; 20:23, where the Kerethites and Pelethites are identified as Cretan archers and Peltasts, common in the fourth century (Saga, 116). 36. Van Seters, Saga, 99–118.

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10; 22:6–23),37 the use of the term “Hittite”, 38 reference to Ashurites as Assyrians (2 Sam 2:9),39 and the separation of Israel and Judah in the David Saga. 40 Such anachronisms lead him to situate these stories in a different historical context from monarchical Judah / Israel, namely, the Persian context, a context that would appear to illuminate some of the stories of David, as we shall see below. Thus Van Seters identifies the ‘David Saga’ as a comprehensive narrative addition to the Deuteronomistic story of David in Samuel-Kings that radically revises DtrH’s ideology through a radical revision of David’s portrait. 41 The David Saga is written ‘to subvert and satirize the older historical and ideological tradition of Dtr’.42 For example, David’s portrait in 1 Samuel 30 is a ‘damning moral critique…of David and his monarchy’.43 However, the David Saga is ‘not so much…anti-David…as it is antimonarchy.... The intent of the work is to offer a revision of Dtr’s work by way of supplementation, to call into question the institution of the monarchy in general and the Davidic dynasty in par ticular, and to question the theological legitimacy that has been used to sup port it’.44 ‘The author of the David Saga draws widely from the whole of DtrH in his characterization of David’s actions, modelling him on the worst kings of Is rael, Ahab and Jeroboam, as well as the rejected Saul. … Why would any people wish to be ruled ‘forever’ by such an unjust, chaotic, and dysfunctional monarchy?’45 Thus the David Saga reflects a radical revision of Dtr’s view of state. The ideology of an ‘all Israel’ state is ‘completely subverted’, while the distinction between Israel and Judah is maintained.46 The revision of DtrH’s account is sometimes accomplished via minor additions that reinterpret existing stories, such as in the return of the ark to Jerus alem in 2 Samuel 6. Here, the David Saga additions (6:1, 3b–4, 6–14, 16, 20–23) ‘dismiss the ark as the relic of a bygone age that is of dubious benefit to anyone’47 where, moreover, the use of the ‘Dtr theme of David’s divine election [in 37. Ibid., 172. 38. Ibid., 115. 39. Ibid., 272. 40. Ibid., 271. 41. He attributes 1 Sam 17:1–18:4, 6a; 19:18–21:10[9]; 22:6–23; 23:6–14, 19–24a; 25:1– 28:2; 29:1–30:31; 2 Sam1:1abb, 5–10, 13–16; 2:2abb; 2:4–4:12; 5:3a, (4), 5, 13–16; 6:1, 3b–4, 6–14, 16, 20–23; 8:16–18; 9:1–20:26; 1 Kgs 1:1–52; 2:5–9, 13–46 to the David Saga (Ibid., 362–3). 42. Ibid., 355. 43. Ibid., 204. 44. Ibid., 197. 45. Ibid., 343. 46. Ibid., 351, cf. 353. 47. Ibid., 280.

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6:21–22] completely undermines its use in the David oracle [2 Samuel 7] and turns David’s humility into hypocrisy’.48 Elsewhere the revision of DtrH is accomplished with the invention and addition of new stories that subvert David’s positive image, such as 2 Samuel 9–20. Here, ‘the author of the Bathsheba affair has consciously set out to revise and undermine the favorable view of David and his dynasty’.49 Van Seters argues that the features of the story are shaped by the Bathsheba affair, and so it is pointless to seek a primitive military account underlying the story. 50 The strongest argument against taking the Bathsheba story as part of DtrH is the basic contradiction between David’s portrayal here and Dtr’s judgment of David as the epitome of the just and righteous king. Indeed, he compares the story with the account of Ahab and Naboth in 1 Kings 21, noting many points of similarity, 51 and suggests how

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utterly unlikely it is for Dtr to regard Ahab as the worst of all the kings of Israel and for his dynasty to be condemned as a result of this act and yet for Dtr to consider David the best of all the kings of Israel and Judah in spite of his crimes. Dtr could not plausibly have known of this episode and included it in his history because it would 52 have made a mockery of all his positive statements about David.

Another similarity in the David and Bathsheba story with other stories in Kings is the death of David and Bathsheba’s child, a child that dies for the sins of the father, whom Van Seters compares with the child of Jeroboam (1 Kings 14). 53 Thus Van Seters concludes that the author of the David Saga has modelled his portrait of David in the Bathsheba affair on the worst kings of Israel—Ahab and Jeroboam.54 Moreover, in the introduction to the story, David is associated with kings who ‘go out to war’ just like other ancient despots,55 although David himself remains at leisure unlike his brave soldiers. Both these descriptions thus cast David in a negative light. Indeed, one of the main themes of the story is the contrast between David and Uriah the Hittite. David, the supposed model Israelite king, while at leisure in the midst of warfare commits adultery, is impi ous, disloyal, deceitful, and murderous, whereas Uriah the Hittite is a conscientious, devout worshipper of Yahweh displaying piety that causes trouble for David, and is faithful to David. 56 That Uriah is a Hittite is stressed, thus exacer48. Ibid., 279. 49. Ibid., 296. 50. Ibid., 290. 51. Ibid., 291–93. 52. Ibid., 36. 53. Ibid., 295. 54. Ibid., 343. 55. Ibid., 290. 56. Ibid., 297–98.

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bating the shocking contrast between the characters in order to portray David in a negative light. While Van Seters’ literary reading of the text is not unlike other literary readings of the text, the novelty of his reading is in setting the story’s composition in a Persian context, and questioning the intentionality of the story with respect to DtrH and Dtr’s assessment of David. If Van Seters is correct regarding the nature of this relationship, then this has important im plications for how reference in DtrH to following Yahweh with one’s whole heart (e.g. 1 Kings 14:8) was understood, and how it comes to be understood in the final form of Samuel-Kings, as will be explored below. Before doing so it will be helpful to consider one further example in which Van Seters’ reading differs significantly from other recent readings, namely, his reading of 1 Samuel 27–30. Van Seters compares David in 1 Samuel 27 with Saul in 1 Samuel 15. But unlike the case with Saul’s actions, there is no suggestion of religious motivation for David’s actions in 1 Samuel 27, where nonAmalekites are included in those whom David killed. Van Seters suggests that the comparison is deliberate, but ‘only to emphasize that David’s actions were done entirely for his own self-interest’. 57 He reads this story against the context of the use of mercenaries in the Persian period, 58 as reflected in Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 7.29.59 Indeed, Van Seters notes that references to mercenaries are numerous in the later version of the story of David and Saul, and most notable is David’s employment in the service of Achish, king of Gath (1 Sam 27:1–28:2, 29:1–30:31).60 He notes that many commentators seek to commend David, but, ‘given the widespread contempt for the brutality and complete unreliability of mercenaries and their leaders in antiquity, there can be little doubt that the narrator presents David in this same negative light’. 61 David “displays no concern for a higher cause or principle and uses religious legitimization for his actions only when it suits his purpose”. 62 The spoil in 1 Samuel 30 is described as ‘David’s spoil’,63 and David ‘is able to use it for polit 57. Ibid., 192. 58. Ibid., 99ff. 59. Ibid., 106. 60. Ibid., 110–15. 61. Ibid., 111. Regarding the historical context he notes, ‘This totally fictional account of David’s monarchy presents a vivid picture of the militaristic regimes of the Persian period, with an elite professional core and heavy dependence on mercenary armies, with specialized tactical skills such as those of the Cretans and the peltasts, under the control of their own leaders. …There is no other period that provides such an appropriate context for this portrayal of a Near Eastern monarchy than this particular period’ (Ibid., 118). 62. Ibid., 114. 63. Ibid., 205.

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ical purposes among the elders of Judah’. 64 ‘Both David’s company and the Amalekites are marauding bands who raid each other’s communities and live off the spoil, but the Amalekites seem to be more scrupulous in their treatment of captives. There is nothing “apologetic” about this portrait of David. It is, indeed, a damning moral critique that is entirely in keeping with so much of the rest of the author’s treatment of David and his monarchy’. 65 Moreover, with regard to religious legitimization in the narrative Van Seters sees David’s response to the crisis as ‘hardly requiring divine guidance’ (cf. 1 Sam 30:8). Appeal to Yahweh in the narrative reflects a ‘use of religion [that] reinforces David’s leadership in the crisis. It is not, however, by any obvious divine direc tion but by fortuitous circumstances that David and his men find an Egyptian slave…who is able to lead them to the Amalekite camp’. 66 This reading contrasts with those of a number of recent commentators, especially those whose goal is Christian interpretation. Ralph Klein concludes with respect to 1 Samuel 30, ‘In addition to underscoring David’s heroism, his equity, and his generosity, the narrator clearly sees David’s successes as Yahweh’s own deed. … David’s successful campaign just before Saul’s final failure portrays him with characteristics and actions fit for a king who was proceeding with oracular guidance.’67 Moreover, Joyce Baldwin suggests that the ‘hand of the Lord is to be seen in all these diverse but interwoven aspects of the episode, in which David is able to achieve something positive out of a bitter calam ity’.68 Walter Brueggemann concludes that 1 Samuel 30 ‘is a story of human success, generosity, and power. It is a David story. It is, however, anchored in verse 6, where David’s strength is said to be in Yahweh, and in verse 8, where Yahweh offers assurance to David. David’s daring and generous acts are reckoned to be acts sanctioned and authorized as acts of Yahweh.’ 69 Thus Van Seters concludes, The story allows the reader to take one of two quite-different attitudes and perspectives toward these events. … [T]hey could be viewed as a miraculous intervention by the deity in that there was not a single casualty and nothing missing that was taken in the raids. … One could therefore interpret the story of the Amalekite pursuit and rescue as a theological narrative about divine guidance and interaction in the affairs of men and nations. 64. Ibid., 194. 65. Ibid., 204. 66. Ibid., 205. 67. R.W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC 10; Waco: Word, 1983), 285. 68. J. Baldwin, 1 and 2 Samuel (TOTC; Leicester: IVP, 1988), 170. 69. W. Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel (Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990), 206.

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A more cynical reading of the narrative, and the one that seems to come closer to the relentless drive of the narrative itself, is to see in David one who is able to manipulate events, with a certain amount of pious legitimation, in such a way as to bring him to his goal in the 70 accession to power.

It is interesting to note that, if Van Seters’ reading is essentially correct, then in the more ‘traditional’ readings of the story what was originally an ironic statement about fortuitous circumstances that aimed to mock David becomes a statement regarding the mode of divine action and guidance. As in chapter 4, we see that there are various possible readings of the text. The context and as sumptions of the interpreter strongly shape their interpretation. Do traditional readings take as their hermeneutical control the assumption that David has been received as a positive figure whose actions are construed positively wherever possible, thus displacing the original goal of the narrative, construed either in terms of authorial intention or as the ‘matter’ of the text? And if so, is such displacement of meaning legitimate or beneficial, or neither—and how might it be assessed? To put it in the terms developed in chapter 4, we have two different possible readings that arise from different reading strategies. But which is the more probable, and in what (or whose) terms? Thus if Van Seters’ reconstruction of the origins and history of the text are essentially correct, the question is what counts as good interpretation of David’s story. I shall explore this question in a number of stages.

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C ANONICAL PERSPECTIVES AND THE THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE DAVID SAGA O L D TESTAMENT First, let us consider the reception of David in the Old Testament. Outside Samuel-Kings, references to David are found in the prophets, Chronicles, and the psalms. The prophetic literature demonstrates an unswervingly positive image of David and Davidic kingship.71 However, if Van Seters’ thesis is correct, then the majority of these references probably predate the David Saga, draw ing only upon Dtr’s unswervingly positive portrait of David. These references thus reflect the reception of Dtr’s David and not the David Saga’s. Read canon ically (intertextually) however, this unswervingly positive portrayal in the prophetic literature has the effect of buttressing a positive appraisal of David. It is then through this positive appraisal of David that the David Saga is read, 70. Van Seters, Saga, 205–206. 71. E.g., Isa 9:7; 16:5; 37:35; 55:3; Jer 21:12; 22; 23:5; 29:16; 30:9; 33; Ezek 34:23–24; 37:25; Hos 3:5; Amos 9:11; Zech 12:8.

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causing, in all likelihood, elements of the David Saga to be read rather differently from what was intended (see below). In Chronicles, if one assumes that the author of Chronicles knew SamuelKings in roughly the form that we now have, 72 then it appears that the author simply removed the dubious portraits of David that did not sit well with his idealization of David. 73 So in terms of reception, Chronicles represents the conscious rejection of the ideology of the David Saga’s portrait of David, (inten tionally) buttressing Dtr’s positive account of David. Finally, turning to the psalms, David emerges as a most positive figure, es pecially via the ascriptions. What is interesting is that Psalm 51, for example, draws on the David Saga (cf. 2 Samuel 11–12) and converts the negative por trait of David (as an adulterer) into a positive one (as a pious penitent). Indeed, this psalm becomes a model for repentance and penitent sinners.74 It is perhaps through this kind of transformation that it is possible to construe David as portrayed in the David Saga as Dtr’s man after God’s heart who was faithful and obedient (1 Sam 13:14; 1 Kgs 9:4; 11:4; 14:8; 15:3). Through this transformation, however, what the characterization of David as a man after God’s heart means itself undergoes transformation, being enlarged to include humble penitence in the face of moral failure. Being a man after God’s heart does not then mean that one does not commit or suffer moral failure, but rather that one returns humbly to God and seeks grace when one does fail. The effect is that Dtr’s portrait of David frames the negative portrayal of David in the David Saga and in doing so introduces new dimensions to what it means to follow Yahweh 72. See, however, S.L. McKenzie, The Chronicler’s Use of the Deuteronomistic History (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), who argues that Chronicles is dependent on a different version of Samuel–Kings. 73. Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 37. 74. See e.g. Chrysostom, On the Epistle to the Hebrews 32.3; Sayings of the Fathers 12.9; Fulgentius of Ruspe, On the Forgiveness of Sins 1.12.3; Jerome, Letter 122.3; Pachomius, Paralipomena 8.14; Augustine, Sermon 19.1; Casiodorus, Exposition of the Psalms 18.13; Ambrose, Concerning Repentance 2.13.17, etc., in ACCS 8, 2–9. However, Theodore of Mopsuestia understands the psalm as prophecy rather than confession ‘since in David’s time Sion had not been destroyed’ and suggests that, ‘Under inspiration then, David is saying this from the viewpoint of the people by way of prophecy, teaching them how they ought to prostrate themselves before God and confess their own sins, not despairing of salvation as a result of the magnitude of the calamity affecting them, but awaiting God’s help, which in his love and mercy he will provide to those repenting of the sins they committed, both absolving the sins and in pardoning them cancelling their punishment.’, in R.C. Hill (trans.), Theodore of Mopsuestia: Commentary on Psalms 1–81 (Writings from the Greco-Roman World 5; Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 667. For a contemporary Christian approach see, e.g., J.L. Mays, Psalms (Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 197–204.

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with all one’s heart. In other words, what is understood by ‘keeping Yahweh’s commandments and following him with all one’s heart, doing only that which was right in Yahweh’s sight’ (1 Kgs 14:8) undergoes significant transformation in moving from the DtrH context to the canonical context. This transformation is generated by the addition of the David Saga to DtrH. This major redaction when coupled with a hermeneutic that subordinates the perspective of the David Saga to that of DtrH as is expressed in Psalm 51 for instance transforms how one reads statements or stories from either tradition. Indeed, Psalm 51 might be said to offer a ‘hermeneutical lens’ for reading the story of David in the from that we now have. The resulting transformation develops the significance of 1 Kgs 14:8 to include the importance of humility, contrition, and repentance in one’s relationship with Yahweh in terms of the human aspects of the divine-human relationship. From the aspects of the divine side of this relationship, the gracious nature of Yahweh, his calling, his covenant, and his forbearance become manifest.75 Something ‘new’ is said about human nature, the divine nature, and the nature of the human-divine relationship in this subordi nation of the David Saga’s perspective to DtrH’s. This would then reflect ‘reve lation’ not in history per se, the acts of God, or through an inspired authorial intention to portray such, but rather in the results of imaginative intertextual reading in the wake of a questioning of tradition. Such imaginative reading results from the juxtaposition of various influential texts—as texts that form the subject of interpretation. These influential texts were read together as a ‘cultural memory’ in order to shape a new identity. This new identity was developed theologically, in terms of a theological more than a political reading, regarding the perception of a particular understanding of what constitutes human responsiveness to God.76 Rather than displacing or qualifying the positive view of David in DtrH with a political agenda in view, the result of David’s por trayal in the David Saga is the development and nuancing of what it means to follow Yahweh with all one’s heart. In this sense the ideology of Dtr has been modified, although not in the way that the David Saga’s author might have wished. Concerns with politics, kingship and dynasty have been eclipsed by those of personal piety and responsiveness to God. The specific somewhat messy world of political ideological manipulation becomes the arena of grace, theology, and liturgy in the context of the spiritual life. In summary, although the David Saga’s author would seem ex hypothesi to have intended to subvert Dtr’s unswervingly positive portrait of David, com posing an account where David’s positive actions are construed through the lens of negative actions, the result viewed in these terms seems to be a failure. Instead, the negative aspects introduced in the David Saga either recede into 75. This arises within the David Saga itself (e.g., 2 Sam 12:13). 76. See chapter 2 and below for ‘cultural memory’.

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the background or are read through Dtr’s positive portrait, even if this leads to some interesting qualifications of the nature of David’s positive portrayal and what it means to follow God with one’s whole heart.

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N E W TESTAMENT Turning to the New Testament, it will be helpful to look at the reception of David’s portraits through the issue of messianic expectation, since this issue relates to the purpose of the David Saga as Van Seters construes it on the one hand, and to many of the New Testament’s references to David on the other. Van Seters asks What is it that the author of the David Saga is trying to say? … The artistry … is serious and it is playing to a sophisticated audience of the late Persian period that is familiar both with the national tradition as reflected in DtrH and with the power politics of the Persian Empire … With all the grand dreams about the revival of a Davidic empire … the audience is confronted by a question: Is this what you want? This question is implied by the author’s consistent and unrelenting attack on Dtr’s central theme of the divine promise to David, which became the basis of messianism in the later period. For the author, the messiah or “anointed one” is nothing more than the product of a political action taken by those in authority, the elders of the people, or the result of a military coup, a status that can be just as quickly withdrawn or rescinded. And religious officials in the form of prophets and priests are just as likely to be involved in power politics as anyone else. The same applies to the use of religious texts, such as the divine promise to David, that are cited as justification for immoral actions, such as murder and assassina77 tion.

With this in mind, let us consider Mark 12:35–37, where Jesus asks how it is that the teachers of the law can say that the messiah is the “Son of David.” Francis Moloney suggests that the expectation of a royal messiah from David’s line was common in first century Judaism (cf. Mark 10:47–48; 11:10), but that this pericope expresses “a brief but subtle argument against Davidic messianic expectation” reflecting an unusual use of Ps 110:1. 78 He argues that, The veil covering Jesus’ messianic status … has been further folded back in this exercise in biblical exegesis showing the scribes’ faulty 77. Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 358–59. 78. F.J. Moloney, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2002), 242–45, here, 243. Cf. Acts 2:34–35. For the use of Ps 110:1, see B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations (London: SCM, 1961), 46–47.

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understanding of the Messiah … His instruction of the disciples across 8:22–10:52 was marked by an attempt to lead them into true sight, to make them understand and accept that his journey to Jerusalem was not to take possession of a royal city as a Davidic Messiah. … A false messianic hope has been expressed in Jesus as “Son of David” in the acclaim that greeted his ascent to Jerusalem (11:10). Jesus’ exegesis of Ps 110:1 now makes the Markan point of 79 view explicit.

But perhaps the question is whether Mark qualifies the nature of Davidic conceptions of the messiah, or rejects the concept. 80 Either way, the Markan portrait of the messiah in relation to David would seem to be closer to the ideo logy of the David Saga than to DtrH. Mark’s portrait of Jesus represents a revi sion of popular, established messianic expectations, offering a portrait that is ‘apophatic’ or perhaps “kenotic” rather than ‘triumphalist’. Perhaps this is suggestive of a Christian hermeneutical perspective with which to read the David Saga that allows an ambivalent or even negative appraisal of David in 1 Samuel 27–30, for example. Although Mark resists the notion of a ‘Davidic messiah’, John’s Gospel is somewhat more ambiguous. There is only one reference to David in the gospel (which is striking in itself), in John 7:42, where people from the crowd suggest that Scripture says that the messiah will be from David’s family. But this re mark is not developed. However, Matthew clearly presents a Davidic messiah (Matt 1:1, 6, 17, 20) as does Luke (Luke 1:27, 32, 69; 2:11; 3:31), 81 and Paul also understands Jesus as the Davidic messiah (Rom 1:3; cf. the Deutero-Pauline 2 Tim 2:8). However, this does not appear to be a major theme for Paul, as these are the only references to a Davidic messiah in the Pauline and Deutero-Pau line materials. The only other references to a Davidic messiah in the New Test ament are in the book of Revelation (3:7; 5:5; 22:16). These texts outside Mark and John thus draw more on Dtr’s perspective of Davidic kingship and messi 79. Moloney, Mark, 244. 80. W.R. Telford, The Barren Temple and the Withered Tree: A Redaction-critical Analysis of the Cursing of the Fig-Tree Pericope in Mark’s Gospel and Its Relation to the Cleansing of the Temple Tradition (JSNTSup 1; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980), 251–69; J. Marcus, The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark (SNTW; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), 137–52. But see W.L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 435–39, for the possibility of regarding the pericope as a qualification of the Davidic nature of the messiah rather than its rejection: ‘It is the failure to recognize that Jesus was posing a Haggada-question which has led a number of commentators to affirm that Jesus denied the Davidic descent of the Messiah’ (436 n. 62). 81. Thus Matthew and Luke’s authors may have construed Mark 12:35–37 (cf. Matt 22:41–46; Luke 20:41–44) differently from the reading above, as an affirmation rather than rejection of a Davidic messiah.

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anic expectation than Mark and John, whose authors seem to qualify or even reject the notion. The result at the canonical level is an ambiguity in the portrayal of Jesus as the messiah especially against the backdrop of the Old Testament, an ambiguity comparable with the ambiguity of David in Samuel-Kings. David’s portrait is contested and open to multiple interpretations in SamuelKings, something that is mirrored in the New Testament in the way that Jesus is or is not presented as the Davidic messiah. Little use is made of stories of David in the New Testament, as with many figures of the Old Testament. But an interesting exception is in the story intro duced with the conflict of Jesus with the Pharisees regarding whether his disciples could pick corn on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23–27 and parallels). Here, Jesus appeals to 1 Sam 21:2–10 (where David and his companions were hungry and ate some of the consecrated bread) in order to reach the conclusion that ‘the Son of Man’ (not David) is lord of the Sabbath. Jesus appeals, via analogy, to David’s actions as a paradigmatic authoritative figure whose actions are to be construed in a positive light. The implication is that Jesus and his followers can act likewise. But if David’s actions in 1 Sam 21:2–10 are construed negatively, then such a negative construal would undermine Jesus’ point. Now Van Seters ascribes 1 Sam 21:2–10 to the David Saga, arguing that it only makes sense in the Persian period,82 and that David’s actions place the priests in danger here, leading to their massacre by Saul in 22:6–23, indicating the disastrous consequences of David’s actions. ‘The point of the story [1 Sam 21:2–10, 22:6–23] centres both on the character of David, whose actions and ambitions needlessly place the lives of others in jeopardy, and the nature of Saul’s monarchy.’ 83 ‘David … makes the entirely unnecessary and thoughtless visit to the sanctuary at Nob, which compromises its priesthood and leads to the massacre of the en tire community. The one priest who escapes, Abiathar, joins David, who then admits his mistake.’84 Thus, for Van Seters, 1 Sam 21:2–10 is part of the David Saga, and portrays David and his actions here in a negative light. From a hermeneutical perspective what is interesting is that this story (1 Sam 21:2–10), perhaps written to cast David in a negative light, particularly through presenting his actions in a negative light, is understood and used as a positive model for the actions of Jesus and his disciples in order to make a Christological point in Mark’s Gospel (and parallels). But the basis for the development of the story in Mark would seem to be that it is something like an ad hoc, ad hominem argument against the Pharisees that hinges on the ‘received David’ in the first century. In this context David was understood to be an authoritative, paradigmatic figure whose actions are, generally speaking, construed in a positive light— 82. Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 172. 83. Ibid., 199. 84. Ibid., 349.

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that is, he was perceived to offer a model to follow. The reading presented in Mark is thus a possible reading of the story that reflects the positive reception of the character of David, even if Van Seters would judge the reading in Mark to be less probable than his. In other words, if Van Seters is correct, then the point of the story of 1 Sam 21:2–10 and the portrait of David it reflects has been eclipsed by Dtr’s portrait of David, a portrait that Jesus uses rhetorically through appeal to a possible reading of a particular story of David in a context that resonates with the possible reading. This again raises the question of what it means for Christians to read and use stories such as this well. But as a start ing point, if we may in some sense take Jesus’ hermeneutic as paradigmatic for Christian reading of the Old Testament, then it would seem that interpretation builds from possible readings of the received text in the final form in a way that is theologically beneficial and fruitful in the context of use, rather as we saw in chapter 4 with the Christian appropriation of the Joseph story. In summary, on the one hand, in some sense Mark’s rejection, or perhaps qualification, of Jesus as the ‘Davidic Messiah’ is in keeping with the David Saga’s goal of radically revising contemporary messianic expectation. This is not the case in Matthew and Luke. But on the other hand, the use of 1 Sam 21:2–10 in Mark 2:23–27 reflects the reading of what can be argued to have been originally a damning portrayal of David in the David Saga through the lens of Dtr’s David. The reading through Dtr’s David allows Jesus’ disciples actions to be construed in positive terms in a dispute with the Pharisees, reflect ing common ideas about David as a paradigmatic model. Together, these two uses of David’s portrait raise the interesting question of what it means to read Samuel-Kings well today as Christian Scripture.

T HE HERMENEUTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE DAVID SAGA What might be the hermeneutical and theological implications of the re ception and use of the David Saga, and the claim that it is fictional rather than historical in nature? In chapter 4 we saw that consideration of authorial inten tion or the socio-historical context of a text like the Joseph story’s composition was of rather limited significance for the task of ongoing theological interpret ation of the text. Rather, it is the ‘world of the text’ as poetic fiction that is the subject of interpretation, a world that is construed ever anew with reference to new horizons. When the Joseph story is interpreted alongside Genesis 34 as part of Genesis and the wider canon of Scripture we saw that a hermeneutic that draws upon wisdom is suggestive for the interpretation of the text. Both texts ‘play off’ each other to some extent. With this in mind, let us begin our discussion of the hermeneutics of the David story with the question of inten tionality, for a substantial part of Van Seters’ work is concerned with identify -

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ing and developing the purpose of composition of the two main traditions be hind the David story—DtrH and the ‘David Saga’. What did the David Saga’s au thor intend by its composition, and what claim to normativity does such intentionality have? Can we develop the same kind of hermeneutics derived from wisdom here as in Genesis? If Van Seters is correct, then the intention of the author of the David Saga was the subversion and parodying of Davidic kingship as understood in DtrH. The intention reflected in the text that we now have was not to present David ‘as he really was’ or to present the history of early monarchical Israel ‘as it really was’ by combining historical witnesses, nor was the text that we now have in Samuel written with a single ideological (as political or theological) purpose in view. Moreover, the intention was not to present David as the model penitent sinner who found grace, as one who failed morally yet turned to God in humble repentance. Rather, the book of Samuel would appear to witness to two different pieces of political or ideologically motivated literature. The au thor of the David Saga is responsible for shaping the final form as an ideological attempt to undermine the Davidic dynasty in the Persian era. For the au thor of the David Saga, seeking to re-establish the glorious era of united Dav idic monarchy (as fictionally or mythically constructed by Dtr) is not the solution for the problems of the society of the day. The institution of Davidic kingship is portrayed as inherently involving division and strife. Problems are caused by self-serving rulers, and David is presented as such. Thus if one privileges the normativity of authorial intention, even of the final form of the text of Samuel, which the David Saga essentially reflects as it was a redaction rather than a replacement of the existing Dtr account, then one ought to use David’s portrait rather differently from the way in which it has indeed been received and used. Indeed, even David’s canonical reception, as demonstrated in Psalm 51 with its ascription to David, is problematic in terms of the David Saga for in Psalm 51 the negative portrait of David in the David Saga is reinterpreted and transformed so as to cast David as a humble pious penitent—a man after God’s own heart. Thus when the reception of the David Saga is considered, it seems that the author of the David Saga failed in his aims. What has been interpreted is the text of Samuel as we now have it; the negative portraits of David have been (re)interpreted through the lens of the positive portrait, which is seen as normative, rather than the other way around. This is the opposite of what the author of the David Saga intended according to Van Seters’ proposal. Yet what has in fact taken place in such interpretation is interpretation of the ‘world of the text’ of Samuel very much along the lines that Ricoeur suggests. Our vision or construal of the ‘world of the text’ of Samuel has been shaped through Scripture as a whole, through Psalm 51 for example. It is the text rather than any putative intentions ‘behind it’ that has been the subject of imaginative in-

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terpretation within Scripture and beyond. This indicates that something like the hermeneutic that Ricoeur outlines has in fact been the one developed by interpreters in Scripture and beyond, both in Jewish and Christian traditions. Dtr’s portrait of David has been taken as the primary one through which others are interpreted, yet it has been nuanced through that of the David Saga. Thus as we saw in the previous chapter, Paul Ricoeur has argued that what is to be understood in a text such as this is not the author’s presumed inten tion, but rather the world that the text unfolds in front of itself, a world that is pictured also through juxtaposition with other texts. The picture of the loca tion of the significance of a text as being rooted in the intention of the author is a poor one in this case. Ricoeur notes that ‘writing stands in a specific relation to what is said. It produces a form of discourse that is immediately autonomous with regard to the author’s intention.... [I]n this autonomy, is already contained...the issue of the text which is removed from the finite intentional horizon of the author.’ 85 For Ricoeur it is the issue of the text, the world that the text presents, the ‘world that the text unfolds before itself ’ that is the object of interpretation, 86 and that is hermeneutically significant. How the world is understood to unfold will be influenced by the context and assumptions of the interpreter, as well as the textual horizon within which the text is situated. So, especially if, for example, Psalm 51 is included within the textual horizon, then the interpreter may be led to interpret those dubious aspects of David’s life as told in the Bathsheba story within the framework of a pious penitent. It is not that David did not fail, but rather what is made of this failure that is at issue. David is a model of one who is a man after God’s own heart who humbly repents and seeks grace after a sequence of serious moral failures. This may well not reflect the intention of the author of the Bathsheba story, but this is the world that the text unfolds before itself. Similarly, it probably does not reflect what DtrH understood and intended to portray when David is characterized as a man after God’s heart (1 Sam 13:14; 1 Kgs 9:4; 11:4; 14:8; 15:3). Yet this reading established and inspired through Psalm 51 is what emerges as the text unfolds itself and the world that it presents, and forms a good reading of the details of the narratives involved. One who is a man or woman after God’s own heart is open to and responds to God’s grace and mercy following failure, and is willing to recognize and confess such failure to God. The text escapes and transcends the limited contextual horizon of political machinations of an cient Israel and grows as an ‘icon’ informing the liturgy and the spiritual life of Christians throughout the ages and across the world. Socio-historical and political contexts and their significance for reading are replaced with literary 85. P. Ricoeur, “Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation,” in P. Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation (ed. L.S. Mudge; London: SPCK, 1981), 73–118, here 99. 86. Ibid., 100.

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(i.e. canonical) and liturgical (theological) contexts for reading for Christian theological interpretation. These become the significant contexts and factors for Christian interpretation. However, the reinterpretation of the negative portraits of the David Saga through the lens of the positive portrait of David has led to some rather ques tionable, though possible, readings of the more dubious accounts of David (e.g. 1 Samuel 27–30). The positive portrait of David has so dominated interpretation that negative portraits are reinterpreted in such a way that they reflect positively on David and provide paradigms for Christian life or reflection on God. The assumption that David is a paradigmatically positive figure is so strong that it has become a reading strategy that has arguably skewed inter pretation in ways that are unhelpful as well as helpful. If such a reading strategy were confined simply to 1 Samuel 27–30, or to interpretations of it in recent commentaries, it might be possible to argue that such interpretation is poor, and that the task of the theological interpreter is to correct such interpretation by drawing attention to the dynamics of the text. But 1 Sam 21:2–10, part of the David Saga that portrays David in a negative light according to Van Seters, is used as a positive paradigm by Jesus in Mark 2:23–27 so as to answer his critics—he acts in the same way that the ‘legendary’ King David acts. If David was, as a received figure in the cultural memory of Israel, the paradigmatic godly king of ages past as Jesus’ opponents supposed, then if Jesus acted like him then his opponents are incoherent in seeking a Davidic leader whilst criticizing and rejecting Jesus for acting like David. Jesus’ interpretation of the story served an important rhetorical function in a context of conflict and dis pute. It is then difficult for a Christian theological interpreter to argue that reinterpretations that construe episodes from the David Saga in a positive light are of necessity misguided, if this is a hermeneutic that Jesus is himself portrayed as adopting. Possible readings that are theologically fruitful may be those that are preferred to more probable readings that are more fitting to the text ‘on its own terms’. Indeed, reading the negative portrayal of David through the positive so as to nuance and reconfigure the nature of the positive portrait of David offers a paradigm for Christian interpretation that has led to fruitful developments in theology and spirituality, such as is represented in the interpretation of the Bathsheba story developed in Psalm 51. 87 This may not represent the intentionality of the story at all. Moreover, it is not a reading strategy based on wisdom as a hermeneutical key as in Genesis when we considered two differing traditions as having been redacted together. A reading strategy for interpreting Samuel as Christian Scripture is thus different from 87. As Theodore noted with critical acumen, perhaps the psalm did not originally refer to the Bathsheba incident. But through the ascription, this is how it is interpreted canonically.

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that of Genesis, even if there are significant family resemblances. Unlike Genesis, in the case of Samuel, Christian readers do adopt an overall normative perspective for interpretation—that David is, by and large, a figure who is to be construed positively. Interpretation of individual stories takes place within that overall frame of reference. Yet this does not mean that positive readings of dubious accounts such as 1 Samuel 27–30 must always be preferred interpretations. This overall frame of reference for interpretation need not lead to positive paradigms of behavior being deduced from David’s life in every detail. We can suppose that interpretation is carried out on a somewhat ad hoc, case-by-case basis. If one decides to make a positive portrait of David and a desire to find paradigms for behavior wherever possible one’s hermeneutical frame of reference, then one can read stories such as 1 Samuel 27–30 in such a way as to find positive paradigms through David’s actions. It depends on how one chooses to fill gaps, resolve ambiguities and assess what is not explicitly interpreted. But as Van Seters shows, a close reading of the text coupled with an openness to consider that David might be cast in a negative light with no real redeeming ending in a given story indicates that a negative reading might lead to theologically fruit ful and challenging readings.88 Indeed, if one reads 1 Samuel 27–30 as reflecting a negative appraisal of David, such a reading can be theologically fruitful and provide in some senses a better interpretation than traditionally anchored readings. Van Seters’ reading highlights the ambiguity of character and motiv ation of even God’s chosen king. If even David was flawed in this regard, then we cannot expect better of ourselves. The story of David warns against the abuse of power and authority, especially as concerns the deceptive use of reli gious language for self-serving ends. To read in this way is to read with sensitivity toward the mixed portrait of David that the final form presents as a text and the possibilities that this offers, and is perhaps a strategy that offers a more ‘probable’ reading than readings that assume and then buttress a positive portrait of David everywhere. Reading this way also produces theologically and pastorally challenging and evocative interpretations to reflect upon, especially in our contemporary context concerned with the abuse of power—especially in the religious domain—and in a context that demands high moral standards (in some regards at least) in those in authority. So again we see that the potential fruitfulness of a reading is a factor in determining what constitutes good theo logical interpretation, and here we see that an awareness of the critique of ideology leads to an important questioning of the way in which the hermeneutics of tradition may have become complacent. 88. I take it that a challenging reading is (or at least can be) theologically fruitful or virtuous as it in all likelihood calls for transformation, which is an essential part of the Christian life.

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Thus we see in these various approaches to the interpretation of texts from the purported ‘David Saga’ how the ‘world of the text’ as interpreted from a particular context and its assumptions has been, and continues to be, the subject of Christian interpretation. The reading strategy that emerges is that of an overall positive frame of reference for interpreting the portrait of David, but a frame of reference that allows for ambiguity and the nuancing of the nature of the positive portrait. It is not the putative history behind the text or the intention of the authors, but the text itself and the world that it unfolds that is the subject of interpretation in this case. But the world of the text is a world that is open to interpretation in different ways. In the examples just dis cussed, we see again how the interpreter operates within a tension between what one might infer from a close reading of the text, what the author inten ded to convey, the reception history of the text, and the context and assumptions of the interpreter. The way the tension is resolved is different in the three texts that we discussed (1 Sam 21:2–10, 1 Samuel 27–30 and 2 Samuel 11– 12). It would seem that the interpretation that is to be preferred is a reading that is possible—not necessarily the most probable (however that might be assessed)—and at the same time theologically fruitful and fitting to the context of use and its concerns. Granted, this approach is a ‘reading strategy’, but it is no more and no less so than any other approach. Seeking to interpret according to authorial intention or purpose is also a reading strategy. One could assert that Christian interpretation is concerned with seeking the intention of the author of a text. But if this is the case, then as we see in the case of Van Seters’ analysis of the David story, one ends up in a difficult place. For if Van Seters is correct, then over two millennia of fruitful use of Psalm 51 as a spiritual resource for those seeking grace after failure would seem misguided. Is this really where we want to end up? 89 However, if the sort of criteria for interpretation that we are developing here centre around imaginatively deriving possible ways in which one may construe the world of the text as unfolding itself in such a way that it is fruitful or fitting theologically and that resonates with the context of the reader, then does this not risk Scripture simply becoming a ‘wax nose’? Is interpretation then trapped in circular arguments, reduced to claiming whatever reading one might wish leading to various competing claims with no referee? Is it ever pos 89. Cf. Ricoeur: ‘The abstraction [of a text] from the surrounding world made possible by writing and actualized by literature gives rise to two opposed attitudes. As readers, we may either remain in a kind of state of suspense as regards any kind of referred to reality, or we may imaginatively actualize the potential non-ostensive references of the text in a new situation, that of the reader.’ (P. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning [Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press, 1976], 80– 81.)

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sible to ‘verify’ an interpretation as ‘correct’, especially if the David story is to be regarded as ‘poetic fiction’ rather than ‘historical report’? If a reading might appear fruitful, how does one discern whether it is a good reading that does indeed lead ‘in to all truth’, or simply the projection of one’s own expectations and desires on to the world of the text? In a sense, what one really wants to know is whether and if so how one can trust a text coupled with a particular interpretation, as being in some sense ‘revelatory’ and that in some sense one is ‘authorized’ to pass the text and interpretation on to others. What one wants to know is that a text coupled with an interpretation points people forward in the Christian journey and leads into a deeper quality of life and experience in and before God. Whilst not finally solving the problem, Ricoeur’s use of the categories of testimony, manifestation and revelation may well be helpful. Rowan Williams offers a thoughtful reflection and development of some of Ricoeur’s discussion of these ideas: How ... do we speak of revelation? The point of introducing the notion at all seems to be to give some ground for the sense in our reli gious and theological language that the initiative does not ultimately lie with us; before we speak, we are addressed or called. Paul Ricoeur, in an important essay on the hermeneutics of the idea of revelation, has attempted to link the concept with a project for a ‘poetics’, which will spell out the way in which a poetic text, by offering a frame of linguistic reference other than the normal descriptive/referential function of language, ‘restores to us that participation-in or belonging-to an order of things which precedes our capacity to oppose ourselves to things taken as objects opposed to a subject’. The truth with which the poetic text is concerned is not verification, but manifestation. That is to say that the text displays or even embodies the reality with which it is concerned simply by witness or ‘testimony’. … It displays a ‘possible world’, a reality in which my human reality can also find itself: and in inviting me into its world, the text breaks open and extends my own possibilities. All this, Ricoeur suggests, points to poetry [sc. poetic discourse] as exercising a revelatory function — or, to rephrase this in the terms proposed at the beginning of this paragraph, it manifests an initiative that is not ours in inviting us to a world we did not make. … Revelation, on such an account, is essentially to do with what is generative in our experience — events or transactions in our language that break existing frames of reference and initiate new possibilities of life. ... And to recognize a text, a tradition or an event as revelatory is to witness to its generative power. It is to speak from the standpoint of a new form of life and understanding whose roots can be traced to the initiating phenomenon. …

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Thus ‘revelation’ is a concept which emerges from a questioning attention to our present life in the light of a particular past — a past 90 seen as ‘generative’.

Thus for Williams, ‘Revelation … is essentially to do with what is generative in our experience … “revelation” is a concept which emerges from a questioning attention to our present life in the light of a particular past—a past seen as “generative”.’ ‘The “revelation” of YHWH occurs as part of the process whereby a community takes cognizance of its own distinctive identity. It constitutes a concept of God for itself by asking what it is that constitutes itself.’91 Thus perhaps we can regard the story of David as a text that is generative of a particular community, forming not a historical report of events long past, but rather a ‘cultural memory’ that shapes and forms a particular community through a narrative rooted in the past, a shaping that no doubt had and con tinues to have socio-political dimensions, but is a formation of identity that is primarily theological in focus—to help us to know and respond to God, and to interpret and shape our lives well. The story of David as interpreted through Psalm 51 for example is generative of Christian life and spirituality, manifesting something new about the nature of human weakness and divine grace, and how one ought to worship God in the light of these. It is testified to in Christian experience through the ages. What it is that is generative of this forma tion of theology is an interpretation of life experiences through reflective and imaginative intertextual reading of different traditions about David—through hermeneutics outworked in the formation of a particular cultural memory based on the interpretation of the fusion of various traditions. Indeed, drawing upon a book by R.L. Hart,92 Williams develops the notion that ‘revelation’ may be ‘taken to include both the event generating a hermeneutical enterprise and “the movement of the hermeneutical spiral itself.’ 93 In a sense then, the compositions of DtrH and the David Saga and what they represent in their origin ary socio-political contexts might be said to be the ‘events generating the her meneutical enterprise’. ‘Revelation’ develops through the ‘movement of the hermeneutical spiral’ of the interpretation of these texts, as texts that tran scend their originary horizons. Indeed, in Philip Davies’ reflections on the ‘minimalist option’, his sugges tion that ‘cultural memory’ provides a useful conceptual tool for studying and 90. R. Williams, ‘Trinity and Revelation’, in On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 131–47, here, 133–34. 91. Ibid., 135. 92. R.L. Hart, Unfinished Man and the Imagination. Toward an Ontology and a Rhetoric of Revelation (New York, 1968) esp. 83–105. 93. Williams, ‘Trinity’, 142.

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reading the Old Testament is helpful here. 94 He defines cultural memory as the ‘production and reproduction of images about the past for the purpose of defining social identity.’95 There are interesting points of contact here with Willi ams’ suggestion, indicating that understanding the story of David as poetic fiction as a fusion of traditions that forms a cultural memory that generates the identity of the community that values the text is likely to help us to see how we might describe such a text as ‘revelatory’ and trustworthy. Associated with the text as cultural memory there is a tradition of reception and use that testifies to the ability of the text to refer the reader to God, and shape the life of the reader appropriately as part of a community of those who seek to live their lives with God as the purpose and end of their lives. The final form of the text of the David story as situated within an interpretative tradition as reflected in Psalm 51 for example is generative of certain ways of life, a perception of God, and response to God. It ‘manifests’ and evokes a certain understanding of what it means to be a person after God’s own heart —it shows the depths of the problem of the human heart and of the nature of repentance and grace. Within the life of the community across the genera tions, perhaps as exemplified in those who found grace in the gospels (e.g. Luke 18:9–14), such a way of viewing life in God is manifested and testified to as a good interpretation, itself providing the context and basis of further inter pretation of Scripture. The Gospels testify that Jesus’ use of 1 Sam 21:2–10, even if it does not reflect the most probable reading of the text, is a good read ing that interpreted the significance of Jesus’ life and actions. Positive construals of David’s actions in 1 Samuel 27–30 are a possible reading of the text that is in some sense theologically fruitful (for example, developing the mysterious nature of divine providence). Yet, arguably, Van Seters’ reading is a more probable reading of the text as discourse (as perhaps is his reading of 1 Sam 21:2– 10, than Jesus’), and a more probable reading that is also theologically challenging and fruitful that speaks to the ambiguity of motives and desires in even the most godly. It warns against the abuse of authority and misuse of religious language, a concern that is sadly witnessed in society and the church. Thus it would seem that ‘revelation’ occurs in the juxtaposition and imaginative reading of texts as they become embedded in traditions of interpreta tion and use as cultural memory. There is an interesting dialogue formed in the fusion of differing traditions that creates insights greater than the sum of the parts, as for example with regard to the question of what it means to be a per son after God’s own heart. Revelation does not (necessarily) take place in the events narrated in a text, nor in the intention of the authors or even canonical 94. Davies, Memories, 122. 95. Panel Discussion of the “Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis” session at EABS Annual Meeting, University of Lincoln, 26th–30th July 2009.

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compiler, but rather in the juxtaposition of texts and traditions that were held to be important and became important in shaping the life of the community as these are read and used by that community. What we learn about God and how to live before and in him may come more through the shaping of stories such as these in the life and experience of God’s people than through the details of an archaeologically reconstructed past, of what a ‘historical David’ may or may not have done. In Ricoeur’s terms texts such as the David story, in its final canonical form, may be understood and interpreted as ‘poetic fiction’ that redescribes reality (as the traditions and worldviews of which we are a part have encouraged us to perceive it),96 leading to an enlargement of perspective and understanding that might be termed ‘revelatory’. This leads in turn into a life that moves ever closer to that for which God has created us for. If the final form of the David story does indeed represent the fusion of two traditions that reflect something like an ‘ideology of legitimation’ or complacency toward Davidic kingship and an ideology of suspicion or critique, then the result is a searching engagement with conservative tradition and its radical critique. It calls us beyond such a dialectic, re-envisaging and describing these concerns, into a portrait that invites us to reflect upon the nature and challenges of liv ing life before God, a life called into existence by God, made fragile by our propensities for self-deception and sin, yet sustained by and explicitly relying upon grace through the darkest episodes. Our confidence that such a portrait is a trustworthy one comes not through claims to the correspondence of the narrative to the life of the ‘historical David’, but rather through what this nar rative testifies to, perhaps as fiction, and the testimony afforded to it by the saints throughout the ages as guided by the Holy Spirit.

C ONCLUSION I have tried to show how theological interpreters can engage with the ‘minimalist option’ within a frame of reference of ‘faith seeking understand ing’. The ‘option’ points towards an interpretation of the text of Scripture ‘as text’. The locus of interpretative significance is the text itself rather than the history or intentions behind the text. The subject of interpretation is the final form of the text, a text that, if one follows Ricoeur, may be termed ‘poetic fic tion’.97 What we encounter in the final form of the text as located in the canon is a complex fusing and reshaping of stories, insights, ideologies and traditions as they are juxtaposed—often with considerable tension—with each other. Yet 96. P. Ricoeur, ‘The Narrative Function’, Semeia 13 (1978): 177–202, here 194–5, and see the discussion in chapter 4. 97. As noted in chapter 3, this may not be the most helpful term to use, but I have chosen to work with Ricoeur’s favored term.

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it would seem that it is in this crucible in which various texts are fused that they shape a community that values them during which process revelation may take place, and ideologies of legitimation and suspicion are transcended. The hermeneutics of the fusing of tradition here in Samuel are, however, different from those in Genesis. The final form of Genesis invites the development and use of wisdom in the interpretation, appropriation and application of the text to the Christian life, whereas the final form of Samuel invites the nuancing of an authoritative tradition. Moreover, in our reading of Genesis we drew much from structuralist interpretations, finding this to be a valuable tool. But our analysis here has not made use of structuralism, indicating that as with other approaches to interpretation it is like a tool that is helpful in some situ ations, but perhaps not in others. If the critique of ideology that emerges from minimalist approaches (i.e., in the sense of a critique of the ideology that biblical texts are and must be historically accurate to be true, and thus usable) is along the right lines, then perhaps the way it reshapes the hermeneutics of the tradition is essentially in how we understand the biblical texts to be trustworthy or to be ‘revelatory’. In many ways, such critique impinges more upon how we ‘learn about our learning’ and on how we should be cautious in how we use the texts well, than on how we actually interpret the world of the text of the narrative of David. For example, instead of reading within Van Seters’ scheme one could instead form a reading strategy based on seeking to discern pro-David and anti-David strands according to the logic of the text, without stepping outside the world of the text and seeking to reconstruct its history of composition in terms of putative political movements. Such a reading strategy would, I think, lead to very similar interpretations of the material. One could assert, in faith, that the text of Samuel corresponds fairly closely with actual history. But, as I hope to have shown in this chapter, this is a problematic position that is held (in all likelihood mistakenly) in faith. It is not a foundation for faith as it is often presented in apologetic. The archaeological and textual evidence does not support the idea (at least, not in any unambiguous and incontestable way) that the history behind the text can function as a foundation for faith or theology. I have sought to show that a Christian rule of faith does not require a close correspondence between narrative and history. For sure, God acts in history, but this need not be understood as manifested in the correspondence of the biblical narrative with history. Moreover, as we saw in chapter 3, it may be helpful to know that a difficult text such as Joshua is not historical, for then we are not obliged to assert that genocide was commanded and conducted, but rather than the significance of such a portrayal is elsewhere. Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic is helpful in focusing our attention on the sub ject of interpretation—that it is the world of the text, and the way that it unfolds in front of itself that we seek to interpret. It is neither the intentions of

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the author, nor the socio-historical context of the composition that is the matter of interpretation—rather it is the text itself, coupled with the world it un folds before its readers, that is the locus of interpretation and revelation. As Ri coeur has put it, Writing is not simply a matter of the material fixation of discourse; for fixation is the condition of a much more fundamental phenomenon, that of the autonomy of the text. A threefold autonomy: with respect to the intention of the author; with respect to the cultural situation and all the sociological conditions of the production of the text; and finally, with respect to the original addressee. What the text signifies no longer coincides with what the author meant; verbal meaning and mental meaning have different destinies. This first form of autonomy already implies the possibility that the ‘matter of the text’ may escape from the author’s restricted intentional horizon, and that the world of the text may explode the world of its au thor. What is true of psychological conditions is also true of socio logical conditions, even though he who is prepared to liquidate the author is less prepared to perform the same operation in the sociological sphere. The peculiarity of the literary work, and indeed of the work as such, is nevertheless to transcend its own psycho-sociological conditions of production and thereby to open itself to an unlimited series of readings, themselves situated in socio-cultural contexts which are always different. In short, the work decontextualises itself, from the sociological as well as the psychological point of view, and is able to recontextualise itself differently in the act of reading. It follows that the mediation of the text cannot be treated as an extension of the dialogical situation. For in dialogue, the vis-à-vis of discourse is given in advance by the setting itself; with writing, the original addressee is transcended. The work itself creates an audi98 ence, which potentially includes anyone who can read.

In a loose sense, there is something that seems somehow ‘mystical’ about a text of poetic discourse, and theologically it may be interesting to reflect upon the significance of the observation that God forms the community of his people through a text together with its interpretation. Scriptural texts are de contextualized from the politics and concerns of their immediate socio-histor ical contexts, being recontextualized in the liturgy, spirituality and practice of Christian theology. Texts like the David story may be understood in terms of poetic fiction that redescribe reality, or at least our socially and culturally conditioned perspectives and understanding of reality. Yet the world of the text is 98. P. Ricoeur, ‘Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology’, in J.B. Thompson (ed.), Paul Ricoeur: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: CUP, 1981), 63–100, here, 91.

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always associated with a tradition and context of reception, and it is such tra dition that testifies to the sort of ways of viewing the world of the text that are generative for the life of the Christian community, indicating (at least in broad terms) that one can trust the text together with a particular mode of interpret ation as being revelatory. Van Seters’ reading adds a clearer appreciation of the ambiguity of David, something reflected in the different portraits of the messiah in Davidic terms in the Gospels. It also helpfully reaffirms the observation that Christians (or Jews) need not seek paradigms for behavior or obedience to the divine will in morally difficult texts such as 1 Samuel 27–30, thus allowing interpreters to explore the ambiguous dynamics of the abuse of power and religious language in figures of authority instead. So, although Van Seters’ reading may be innovative and controversial, and may turn out to be wide of the mark, it has the heur istic value of encouraging renewed engagement with difficult texts such as 1 Samuel 27–30 and indicates the real tensions that exist in the scriptural portrait of David, tensions that are the subject of interpretation. His reading may thus point to a way of understanding these texts that is more theologically faithful than a number of existing Christian readings. However, even if Van Seters’ thesis is incorrect regarding the historical origins and development of the text, his work provides a reading strategy that draws attention to the ambiguities and difficulties in the interpretation of the David story, helping us to resist premature closure on difficult interpretative questions. According to Van Seters’ analysis, in the story of David we find the product of images of David designed to define social identity in different ways. Perhaps then the roundedness and ambiguity of biblical characters, together with the richness of the stories of which they are a part, a richness to which literary approaches to the Old Testament draw attention, arise through the accretion and contestation of cultural memories that were originally reflected in rather ‘flatter’ portrayals of such characters. Together, these portraits give rise to a richer and more diverse cultural memory that finds expression in the canon by which ongoing generations are shaped. Davies suggests that cultural memory in volves ‘commitment to a story’. 99 Perhaps it is this issue of commitment that is often the anxiety driving contemporary debates and worries about minimalism. Might it be the case that rather than being concerned with history per se, the anxiety that ‘maximalists’ express relates more to issues of trust and com mitment to the Old Testament for shaping contemporary Christian identity and understanding of God?100 If so, rather than disengaging or confronting the 99. Davies, Memories, 124. 100. See J.W. Rogerson, A Theology of the Old Testament: Cultural Memory, Communication and Being Human (London: SPCK 2009), esp. 13–41, for development of a theology of the Old Testament as “cultural memory.”

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minimalist option (and perhaps the burden of proof is moving towards the maximalists in a way that it was not even a decade ago), theological interpret ers of Scripture might engage minimalism fruitfully, and perhaps view this ‘option’ as a leading of the Spirit into all truth. It will be helpful to return to the quotation of Wittgenstein’s that I adap ted in chapter 1:

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One Christian is convinced in the historical veracity of the Old Testament, another a convinced minimalist and teaches his children accordingly. In such an important matter as the historical reliability of the Old Testament they don’t want to teach their children anything wrong. What will the children be taught? To include in what they say: “The Old Testament is historically accurate” or the opposite? If someone does not believe in fairies, he does not need to teach his children “There are no fairies”: he can omit to teach them the word “fairy”. On what occasion are they to say: “There are …” or “There are no …”? Only when they meet people of contrary belief. But the (Christian) minimalist will teach his children the story of David and Bathsheba and Psalm 51 after all, for of course he wants to teach them to do this and that, e.g. to be able to repent after moral failure and find grace in a loving God. Then where will be the difference between what the minimalist-educated children say and those that believe in the historical veracity of the Old Testa101 ment? Won’t the difference only be one of battle cry?

There will of course be a difference for the historian, but not for the theolo gical interpreter or Christian reader who appropriates the text as Scripture. As in the previous chapter, we have seen how the interpreter needs to negotiate the tension between various traditions behind the text of the canon of Scripture as they confront us in the text, and the traditions and contexts in front of the text, whether or not the interpreter is aware that this is in fact what they are in all likelihood doing. There are awkward tensions between what might be the most probable readings of biblical texts in their own terms, readings in the context of the canon, and the traditions of reception and use of the text. Different texts seem to call for different strategies of reading and dif ferent construals of the location of their enduring significance if they are to be read in a theologically fruitful manner. We saw in chapter 4 how a hermeneutic of wisdom seems appropriate for reading Genesis, not subordinating the per spective of Genesis 34 to that of the Joseph story or vice versa. This is not the case in Samuel. We saw in Genesis how structuralist interpretation could be 101. Adapted from Zettel §413–4.

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fruitful, whereas in this study it has not been appealed to. 102 Here in Samuel however, we see that a hermeneutic based upon a desire broadly to construe David in positive terms is appropriate, thus subordinating the perspective of a putative ‘David Saga’ to that of DtrH whilst allowing the portrait of the David Saga to nuance aspects of DtrH’s portrait, a process that is in itself ‘revelatory’. In the next chapter we shall revisit Genesis 34 and Rahab’s story with some of the concerns of this and the previous chapter in view. 103

102. One might use structuralism to illuminate the dynamics of the story of David and Bathsheba in which there is repeated emphasis on Uriah’s ethnicity as a Hittite— and is thus an outsider who acts faithfully in contrast to David’s unfaithfulness. 103. Author’s note: Parts of chapter 5 appeared (with a slightly different focus) in my essay ‘“Minimalism” and Old Testament Theological Hermeneutics: The “David Saga” as a Test Case’ in JTI 4.2 (2010): 207–228.

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C HAPTER 6

RAHAB AND DINAH REVISITED ‘R EADING AS’ SCRIPTURE THROUGH P OSSIBLE CONSTRUALS

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OF THE

‘WORLD OF THE TEXT’ IN CHRISTIAN CONTEXTS

In the previous chapters we have seen how there are various ways in which the significance of a biblical text when read as Christian Scripture can be construed. Moreover, there are various ways in which the hermeneutics of tradition interplays with the critique of ideology, not least in the composi tional processes of the biblical books themselves as we now have them, such as in Genesis or in Samuel, or in the relationship between Deuteronomy and Joshua. Different traditions represented in the final form of a text may remain in tension, as in Genesis, or one may become subordinate to (whilst perhaps reshaping) the other, such as in Samuel. In some cases authorial intention may be of some significance, such as with regard to Joshua, although perhaps it is not clear that it is authorial intention per se and not simply the world of the text, and a close literary reading of the text, that is doing the work in driving interpretation. In other cases the reception history may be a dominant factor in continued appropriation of texts, such as in the Joseph story. Historical critical concerns help us to understand and motivate various interpretative options, but they do not determine the way in which texts continue to be appro priated, or how they ought to be appropriated as Scripture. Thus difficult judgments are required regarding the way in which Old Testament narrative texts are to be appropriated, as for example with regard to the issue of separatism as evoked by Genesis 34. There is a complex interplay of factors involved in the consideration of possible and probable readings of the texts. Wisdom and not just scholarly competence would appear to be an im portant factor in forming judgments regarding the appropriation of Old Testament narratives in particular contexts and situations. I would now like to consider this further using the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur as a way of framing the issues. 182

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The hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur have offered a fruitful and helpful framework for understanding the interpretation of Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture as we have seen. Ricoeur suggests that ‘the object of hermeneutics is not the “text” but the text as discourse or discourse as the text.’1 For Ricoeur, ‘Discourse consists of the fact that someone says something to someone about something. “About something” is the inalienable referential function of discourse.’2 Yet precisely as text, the discourse is abstracted from its originary context and is read in new situations. Thus, ‘The abstraction from the surrounding world made possible by writing and actualized by literature gives rise to two opposed attitudes. As readers, we may either remain in a kind of state of suspense as regards any kind of referred to reality, or we may imaginatively actualize the potential non-ostensive references of the text in a new situation, that of the reader.’ 3 Hence Ricoeur suggests that

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what is finally to be understood in a text is not the author or his presumed intention, nor is it the immanent structure or structures of the text, but rather the sort of world intended beyond the text as its reference. … For the reference of the text is what I call the issue of the text or the world of the text. The world of the text designates the reference of the work of discourse, not what is said, but about what it is said. Hence the issue of the text is the object of hermeneutics. And the issue of the text is the world the text unfolds before it4 self.

However, whilst he suggests that ‘literary texts involve potential horizons of meaning, which may be actualized in different ways’, 5 there is a conflict between competing interpretations, and so an interpreter must show that an ‘interpretation must not only be probable, but more probable than another in terpretation’.6 He concludes that if it is true that there is always more than one way of construing a text, it is not true that all interpretations are equal. The text presents a limited field of possible constructions. The logic of validation allows us to move between the two limits of dogmatism and scepticism. It is always possible to argue for or against an interpre1. P. Ricoeur, ‘Biblical Hermeneutics’, in Semeia 4 (1975): 29–148, 67. 2. P. Ricoeur, ‘Naming God’, in Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 217–35, here 220. 3. P. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: The Texan Christian UP, 1976), 80–81. 4. P. Ricoeur, ‘Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation’, in P. Ricoeur (ed. L.S. Mudge), Essays on Biblical Interpretation (London: SPCK, 1981), 73–118, here, 100. 5. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 78. 6. Ibid., 79.

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tation, to confront interpretations, to arbitrate between them and to seek agreement, even if this agreement remains beyond our im7 mediate reach.

Ricoeur does not spell out how one arbitrates between interpretations in order to argue that one is more probable than any other, or in particular, on what grounds probability is judged. Indeed, we have seen the difficulties involved here in the previous chapters: which textual horizon is to be adopted in order to consider the probability of an interpretation? Do arguments from history of reception and use count in determining what is more probable, especially as these are associated with a hermeneutics of testimony? Does the resonance with the reader’s context or the fruitfulness of a particular interpretation contribute to the assessment of a reading as probable? In light of these difficulties, in chapters 4 and 5 we have implicitly ex plored the possibility of moving away from assuming that the goal of theolo gical interpretation of Old Testament narrative texts is that of determining the ‘most probable’ reading of the text in question. Instead of seeking a putative ‘most probable’ reading, we now consider whether it might be the goal of Christian theological interpretation of Old Testament narrative to be that of developing possible interpretations that are both theologically fitting (to the rule of faith for instance) and, to use another of Ricoeur’s categories, interpretations that testimony indicates (i.e., through reception and experience) are revelatory in that they are interpretations generative of new understandings of self, God, ways of life and community identity. In a sense then, it is a theologically fitting possible reading of a given text as mediated through tradition that may be understood to be ‘revelatory’ to a reader in a particular context. Thus readings that are possible, attested in the tradition (or at least in sympathy with the tradition) and fruitful theologically —that is, they are evoke something of the nature of and growth in the Christian life and understanding of our humanity and relationship with God—might be said to be good Christian theological readings. In a sense, this is to restate Augustine’s principle that the goal of reading Scripture is the promotion of the love of God and the love of neighbor. 8 With this in mind, I will now reconsider the theological interpretation of Genesis 34 developed in chapter 2, and the interpretation of the story of Rahab in the book of Joshua developed in chapter 3.

7. Ibid., 79. 8. Cf. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 1.36. Augustine does however suggest that authorial intention is of prime importance, and that readings that do not reflect this will be problematic in the long run.

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G ENESIS 34 REVISITED We saw in chapter 2 that there was significant convergence between Meir Sternberg’s literary poetic reading of Genesis 34 and Seth Kunin’s neo-struc turalist analysis of the text. In different ways, both readers identified exogamy as a (if not the) major theme in the narrative. Thus a ‘highly probable’ reading of the narrative is that it indicates that exogamy was to be forcefully rejected. Levi and Simeon emerged in a positive light on this account—as taking the lead in rejecting exogamy and rescuing their sister—whilst Jacob emerged in a negative light, as one who acquiesced on the issue of exogamy and appeared indifferent regarding Dinah’s fate. In the light of these readings I suggested that Genesis 34 considers three key issues involved in Israelite identity—circumcision, land possession and en dogamy, with the possibility of compromise on these issues explicitly raised. Thus the possibility of mediation or transformation with reference to the identities of peoples other than Israel is raised. Does group circumcision alone mean that a people may ‘mingle’, coexist or intermarry with Israel? Can Israel share the land in some form of mediated identity defined with reference to the land? The story shows the answers to be no. Endogamy is central to Israelite identity, and is more foundational than circumcision or land possession. This is a reflection of the dominant underlying societal structure expressed in the Old Testament, and the Old Covenant. Israel resists the transformation of the nonIsraelite into the Israelite, and vice versa. Israel is chosen by God, and this theological notion of chosen-ness is sociologically outworked as endogamy, as we saw earlier. Genesis 34 encourages an exclusivist construction of identity where separatism is practised. This, I argued, represents the most probable reading of the story, a reading that was appropriated and enacted in the way that Victor Turner’s analysis of myth implied. The story is not a model of behavior to copy at the literal or narrative level on a naïve reading of the story, but rather it evoked enactment in terms of the scrupulous avoidance of exogamy, and is read as a call for Israel to be separatist in outlook. I argued that as the story is problematic at both the narrative and structural levels in the Christian context then it is unlikely to find any significant Christian development and use as it urged separatism or exclusivism in a way that denies the possibilities of mission and conversion. The structure of Christian worldview is founded on the possibility of mediation and transformation, requiring conversion, the very possibilities that Genesis 34 forcefully denies. However, in chapter 4, through dialogue with Genesis 37–50 I suggested that a Christian significance of Genesis 34 might be discovered in the sense that the story reflects the assertion of the self-identity of the community in

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the face of pressure to compromise and relinquish or compromise its identity, unlike the Joseph story in which a certain degree of compromise or assimilation is portrayed. The two stories thus present alternative ways of understanding the foundation of identity and practices. In these terms Genesis 34 might find significance in terms of evoking the importance for the Christian church of maintaining its identity amid pressure from an intolerant secularism or other ideology for instance. However, given that the nature of the symbolism of Genesis 34 is bound up with what some might term today as sectarian violence, there are challenges in appropriating the story in this way. Yet for those willing to work with the symbolism from the perspective of a second naïveté, there is a fruitful dialogue represented between the narratives of Genesis 34 and the Joseph story. Together these narratives evoke questions of how tradi tional definitions of Christian identity and practice might need to be reasserted on the one hand, leading to something of a separatist outlook, yet re thought, nuanced or qualified on the other hand so as to recognize that some degree of assimilation may be beneficial or fruitful. Such assimilation might reflect faithful Christian living in a particular context. The development of Sternberg’s reading along with neo-structuralist analysis of Genesis 34 reflects a highly probable, and perhaps the most probable reading of Genesis 34 in terms of letting the world of the text unfold itself be fore us when viewed from the perspective of myth with the text understood as discourse. However, as we saw in chapter 2, this is not how Christians have read Genesis 34, with what little interpretation there has been leading in a very different direction. The interpretation in 4 Macc 2:18–20 is perhaps typical: … the temperate mind is able to get the better of the emotions, to correct some, and to render others powerless. Why else did Jacob, our most wise father, censure the households of Simeon and Levi for their irrational slaughter of the entire tribe of the Shechemites, saying, "Cursed be their anger"? For if reason could not control anger, he would not have spoken thus. (NRSV)

Readings such as this reflect a concern to develop the significance of the portrayal of violence and the characters’ relationship to it at the narrative level, coupled with a desire to find positive paradigms of behavior in Jacob (being a patriarch) especially in a context in which the structural level concerns have dropped out of view. The procedure is rather like that adopted for many inter pretations of aspects of the David story that we saw in chapter 5. David is taken as a positive figure, so his actions are interpreted positively wherever possible. A hermeneutical key is provided by the character of the main character. Likewise here, Jacob, being a patriarch, is interpreted in positive terms wherever possible. Moreover, in an interpretative context in which the control of the passions is seen as one of the goals of the Christian or the good life, such a

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reading as this makes good sense. Jacob emerges as a wise figure who controlled his passions, unlike Levi and Simeon. Jacob’s apparent passivity and in action is construed as an active, positive response. Despite the tragedies and painful circumstances that Genesis 34 depicts, which could lead to one being overcome with grief or revenge, Jacob has wisely controlled his anger. Reading along these lines is certainly a possible way of reading the story that might be theologically fruitful. It is interesting that such a reading has a number of affinities with that of Danna Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn. They offer an alternative reading to Sternberg’s precisely to critique his reading and his assumptions. In particular, they wish to question what they see as a central concept in his overall work, a concept that Sternberg calls ‘foolproof composition’. Fewell and Gunn wish to expose something of the ideological anchorage of Sternberg’s reading as they see it, suggesting that his reading is ideological like any other. 9 They suggest that rather than offering ‘the correct’ way of reading biblical narrative, he offers a reading strategy that is informed by a particular set of concerns and in terests. Fewell and Gunn suggest that other reading strategies are equally valid, and will lead to a different assessment of the gaps and ambiguities in the story. They suggest that, So long as we do not willfully distort what we read—which is to say, as long as we attempt to be competent readers, Sternberg-like in our attention to the text—then we can hardly miss the ideological point, the moral, of this ideological literature. Notwithstanding biblical narrative’s propensity for complexity and ambiguity and the reluctance of the narrator to tell us overtly how to form our judg ments, still the narrator’s control is inexorable. Just a modicum of goodwill on our part and we cannot go wrong. The point—the point 10 —will be transparent.

They continue, This is all very acceptable if we are fundamentalist readers. If, however, we are inclined to take the narrative’s play with ambiguity and complexity as more than a kind of window dressing, we will expect the possibility of multiple and conflicting “competent” readings. That every resolution of ambiguity, for example, should result in the 9. Danna N. Fewell and David M. Gunn, ‘Tipping the Balance: Sternberg’s Reader and the Rape of Dinah,’ JBL 110 (1991): 193–211. Sternberg responded in ‘Biblical Poetics and Sexual Politics: From Reading to Counter-reading,’ JBL 111 (1992): 463–88. See further R. Parry, Old Testament Story and Christian Ethics: The Rape of Dinah as a Case Study (Paternoster Biblical Monographs; Bletchley: Paternoster, 2004), 123–78 for discussion of the debate. 10. Fewell and Gunn, ‘Tipping the Balance’, 193–4.

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same ideological conclusion is inherently improbable. Nor does this situation pertain in practice, once the description of possible resolutions is taken out of Sternberg’s tight control. The reason is obvious. Sternberg’s poetics of foolproof composition depends not only on the notion of an omnipotent narrator but also on the notion of an ideal, competent reader. … Our aim is twofold. We wish to deny Sternberg’s claim that his textoriented poetics (hardly the poetics) can account for key evaluative responses by readers. We also wish to press for more self-consciously ideological readings of biblical narrative. Such reading can help to block the monopolization of biblical meaning and to facili11 tate the life of the text in contemporary society.

Presumably the assumption that there is a ‘Sternberg-like’ reader would sug gest that there are methods, practices and disciplines of reading to be acquired that assist one in reading the biblical texts well, just as is the case in many tasks. Competent reading is a practice that is learned through discipline, attentiveness and experience. In this sense, once certain disciplines of reading are acquired—acquired through, amongst other things, familiarity with and immersion in the narratives of the Old Testament—one is likely to be able to produce a reading that is more probable than others. To put it in Wittgensteinian terms, interpretation is a practice bound up with rules of language-games which are learned in just this kind of way, and training in the rules leads to competent readers and readings. This perhaps reflects Sternberg’s approach. But perhaps a Wittgensteinian would draw back from a dogmatic assumption that Fewell and Gunn attribute to Sternberg’s approach namely that there is a ‘fact of the matter’ regarding a ‘correct’ reading that gives the enduring significance of the text, and that there is a correct way of reading and appropriating the text that is laid down in advance.12 Elsewhere Fewell and Gunn spell out a little more of their own assump tions regarding interpretation: Unlike [the other literary approaches] ... our book understands interpretation to hinge crucially upon the reader, and not just in terms of a reader’s ‘competence’. Meaning is not something out there in the text waiting to be discovered. Meaning is always, in the last analysis, the reader’s creation, and readers, like texts, come in an infinite variety. No amount of learning to read biblical narrative 11. Ibid., 194. 12. For a reading of Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophy as anti-dogmatic whilst resisting the assumption that such an approach implies relativism see O. Kuusela (The Struggle Against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Philosophy (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP), 2008), 263.

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‘correctly’ will lead inexorably through the ‘given’ poetics of the 13 text to the ‘correct’ interpretation.

and, Instead of seeking the one legitimate meaning, namely what the text (usually defined as the author) meant in its ‘original context’, we recognize that texts are multivalent and their meanings radically contextual, inescapably bound up with their interpreters. This reader-oriented approach to textual meaning has its conse14 quences.

Finally, they suggest:

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We are not offering the correct way of reading the Bible. Rather we are suggesting lines of interpretation and a reading method for people of our own times who share something of our own culture. Our 15 hope is to provoke enlivening engagement with biblical stories.

Thus they focus on the reader and the reader’s assumptions. So for example when Fewell and Gunn discuss Sternberg’s suggestion that exogamous marriage is a real problem they suggest that ‘the prevention of an exogamous mar riage is absurd in this context. How are the members of this family supposed to marry, if not exogamously? The brothers have no problem about this themselves (see Genesis 38; 41:45); why impose such a stipulation on Dinah?’ 16 This is indeed a question that would occur in the logic of the modern reader. How ever, we have analysed the issue of endogamy at some length and seen how exogamous marriage is in fact repeatedly avoided by the patriarchs in Genesis, and is arguably an observation that derives from having fostered a certain degree of reading competence via immersion in the narratives themselves. In stead, Fewell and Gunn approach the text with the kind of rationalizing logic and assumptions of reading fostered in late modernity, an approach to reading that lacks a certain kind of mythical imagination perhaps. If we let the world of the text of Genesis unfold itself before us, it would seem that a concern with the avoidance of exogamy is a more probable reading of Genesis 34. Granted that both these approaches to exogamy are reading strategies, is it really fair to say that there is no sense in which one might suggest that one offers a better strategy than the other? Whilst one may wish to shrink back from positing a single correct reading and appropriation, one may still form judgments as to whether a reading that is presented is a good reading or not. Such judgments 13. D.M. Gunn and D.N. Fewell, Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: OUP, 1993), xi. 14. Ibid., 9. 15. Ibid., 33. 16. Fewell and Gunn, ‘Tipping the Balance’, 206.

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are rooted in, amongst other factors, reading competence in the type of literat ure in view. It is not that one cannot or should not form judgments about read ings, but rather that what constitutes a good reading or a good appropriation of a text is not laid down in advance. Moreover, judgments on what constitutes good reading, in a technical sense, and good appropriation in a given context do not necessarily coincide. Or, to put it in terms of ideology, one may not al ways wish to appropriate the ideology of the text for oneself. To seek to appro priate the worldview structure of Genesis 34 in a Christian context is a poor rather than good Christian use of the text. Fewell and Gunn offer interesting alternative readings to Sternberg’s, emphasizing ambiguities in the text and the possibility of different construals of the gaps and silences. For example, after analysing 34:1–4 they conclude that: rather than seeing this first portion of the story as accumulating sympathy for the absent, uninvolved brothers, we would see the narrator creating a complicated ethical situation calling for a compromised, but realistic, resolution. However one views the rape, one must acknowledge that the narrator tips the balance in Shechem’s favor: Shechem moves from raping an object to loving a woman and seeking to make restitution for the wrong he has done her. If sympathy is being accumulated, it seems to us to be sympathy for Shechem. Even our concern for Dinah is lessened as we view 17 Shechem’s resolve to take care of her.

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This indicates well the ambiguities that the text presents, and offers a rather different evaluation than Sternberg. Moreover, a particularly interesting as pect of their reading having affinities with traditional Christian reading concerns Jacob’s response: Another possible reading is that Jacob’s silence is indeed a response. To keep still, to keep one’s peace, can be the most difficult response of all. The servant’s passivity (or action through inaction) in Isaiah 53 is a stumbling block to many readers, especially to readers in an activist, Western culture. Sternberg’s response to the term heHéríš here betrays a prejudice toward action-oriented heroics. He favors the “busy activity” of the Hivites and Jacob’s sons. He does not give Jacob’s “stillness” the benefit of a moment’s doubt—he simply condemns it. We can, with Sternberg, rush to judgment on Jacob’s si18 lence, or we can pause to consider other possibilities.

Fewell and Gunn conclude:

17. Ibid., 197. 18. Ibid., 198.

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First, that where Sternberg’s reader sees admirable principles, our reader sees culpable neglect of responsibility. If Simeon and Levi are Sternberg’s heroes, they are certainly not ours. Second, that where Sternberg’s reader expresses contempt for the characters Jacob, Hamor, and Shechem, our reader expresses a measure of sympathy for them, not as heroes but as complex characters making the best of a flawed world, Third, that where Sternberg’s reader sees Dinah as a helpless girl to be rescued, our reader sees a young woman who could have made her own choices—limited though they might have been—had she been asked. In short, we have read along with Sternberg this foolproof text, not challenging his notions of competence, not quarreling, that is, with his reading method, but nevertheless debating his response, point by point. And we have read a moral point diametrically at odds with his. 19 The foolproof text is a dangerous illusion.

The dialogue represented here between Sternberg and Fewell and Gunn reflects Ricoeur’s suggestion that ‘literary texts involve potential horizons of meaning, which may be actualized in different ways’ 20 by different readers. Yet Ricoeur suggests it is possible to argue for one interpretation over another. But how might one assess whether or not a particular reading is ‘more probable’ than another when it is claimed that competing actualizations are simply the products of competing (or simply differing) ideologies, or even reading strategies? In many ways, it seems that Sternberg’s reading does offer the more probable reading of the text as discourse, simply because it makes more sense of certain details and features of the text, especially when read against Genesis as a whole. But not everyone will be persuaded. If a feminist ideology of reading or ‘value system’ is employed as a lens for interpretation—as Fewell and Gunn claim for their reading—then a different interpretation may emerge than if one adopts a more traditional scholarly approach to what might be termed the ‘mythical poetics of Old Testament narrative’. Such a reading will seek to account for a different set of features in the text understood against a different system of values. Indeed, in a context of reading in which control of the passions is seen as the goal of the good life or the Christian life then yet an other interpretation may emerge. In each case different aspects of certain am biguities are developed and accentuated whilst others are passed over or played down. But how does one ascertain the ‘most probable’ or even ‘more probable’ reading? Yet even more fundamentally, even if this may be ascertained, is de19. Ibid., 211. 20. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 78.

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velopment of the ‘most probable’ reading the goal of the particular interpretative task and practice of Christian theological interpretation of Scripture? We saw in chapters 4 and 5 that perhaps it is not necessarily the most probable reading that is to be preferred. Whilst I prefer Sternberg’s reading as the most probable of those considered—and I think that there are good grounds for this —should this ‘most probable’ reading (assuming for a moment that it is) actually form the basis of Christian interpretation of the story? Might it be a better Christian reading strategy to take a possible reading—such as that in 4 Maccabees —and to develop an interpretation of Jacob as a wise figure who does not give way to anger and revenge? In this case one simply brackets out the issue of exogamy which is no longer significant in the Christian context. 21 Such a reading has considerable resonances and value in the Christian context. It is a theo logically fruitful reading. So perhaps as we have already suggested in chapter 5 good Christian theological interpretation is concerned with the development of possible readings that are theologically evocative and fruitful in a given context. If a possible (rather than the most probable, however that may be defined) reading of an Old Testament text encourages us to participate imagin atively in the story and to enact it in our lives in a way shaped by the regula fidei then is this not a good reading of Scripture?

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T HE INTERPRETATION OF THE STORY OF RAHAB REVISITED We looked briefly at the interpretation of Rahab’s story as part of our reading of Joshua 1–12 in chapter 3. From the perspective of ‘possible readings’ I will now recap and develop further some aspects of traditional Christian readings of her story together with the reading that I developed in chapter 3. The story of Rahab, of which the miraculous fall of Jericho is a part, has captured the imagination of Christian readers throughout the ages. As the story goes, Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute hides the Israelite spies sent by Joshua to spy out the Promised Land before Joshua and the Israelites cross the Jordan and enter the land. Rahab shows kindness (‫ )חסד‬to the spies in hiding them and makes an agreement with the spies that when the Israelites enter the land and take Jericho, they will spare her life, for Rahab knows that Yahweh has given the land to the Israelites. The spies escape, the walls of Jericho miraculously collapse and everyone in the city is killed, except Rahab and her family who are spared. Rahab’s story has become a paradigm for displaying certain aspects of the Christian life from the New Testament onwards. In the book of Hebrews, Rahab 21. However, there have of course sadly been a number of instances where this has been an issue in Christian contexts, yet these instances fail to reflect genuinely Christian practice.

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is an exemplar of faith, for it is her faith that saves her (Heb 11:31). In the book of James, Rahab’s story illustrates that faith must be accompanied by works— because it was what Rahab did that saved her (Jas 2:25). In 1 Clement 12 her faith and her hospitality are held together; ‘for her faith and hospitality Rahab the harlot was saved’. 22 Alternatively however, for Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Rahab the harlot was justified by one thing alone, her hospitality’. 23 For Cyril of Jerusalem she is ‘saved through repentance’, 24 and ‘saved … when she believed’.25 Similarly, Calvin stresses her faith; ‘What seed of righteousness was in Rahab … before she had faith?’ 26 Thus in different ways Rahab is firmly established as symbolizing and embodying something of the essence of the Christian faith. Moreover, Rahab, and her house, were soon established in the Christian tradition as a type for the church. Such a construal forms the ‘centre of gravity’ for Christian interpretation of the story. 27 Rahab’s story is one of the paradigmatic stories of the Old Testament used in the Christian context. For contemporary Christian interpreters, especially those of a specifically evangelical persuasion, Rahab’s story models Christian conversion. Rahab is the paradigmatic sinner far from God and from the church—she is a prostitute, and, owing to the broader portrayal of Canaanites in the Old Testament, a member of a particularly wicked and evil society (e.g. Deut 9:4)—yet she turns to God and is saved. In Christian interpretation she is therefore portrayed as exemplifying the sinner, the outsider, the non-Christian 22. 1 Clem 12, in ACCS 4, 12, 23. Theological Oration 40.19, in NPNF 2.7, 695. Cf. Oration 14.2—whilst Abraham is an example of faith, and justified by faith, Rahab is praised and spared for her hospitality. See B.E. Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus (The Early Church Fathers; Routledge, New ed.: 2000), 76. 24. Catechetical Lectures 2.9, in ACCS 4, 12. 25. Lecture 10.11, in NPNF 2.7, 201. 26. Inst. 3.24.11. See F.L. Battles (trans), Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, (The Library of Christian Classics 20; Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 2 vols., 1960) p.978. Compare with Calvin’s commentary on Joshua in which Rahab is said to ‘pass by faith to a new people’. See H. Beveridge, (trans.), Commentaries on the Book of Joshua by John Calvin, (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1949), 46. Interestingly, whilst Calvin cites Jas 2:25 here, he uses it to emphasize only her faith, which runs against James’ use of Rahab’s story. 27. Origen, Hom. Josh. 3.5, in B.J. Bruce, (trans.), Origen, Homilies on Joshua (FC 105; Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 49–50; cf. Theodoret of Cyrus, Quest. Josh. 2.2 ‘No one should imagine that Rahab was unworthy of being a type [τòν τύπον] of the Church’, in R.C. Hill, (trans.), Theodoret of Cyrus: The Questions on the Octateuch (LEC 2; Washington, The Catholic University of America Press, 2 vols., 2007), 2.267. See also Chrysostom, Homilies on Repentance and Almsgiving 7.5.16, in ACCS 4, 12; Cyprian (Letter 69.4 in ACCS 4, 14); Jerome (Homily on Exodus 91, in ACCS 4, 40).

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who repents and comes to faith. Her story is, therefore, interpreted and appropriated as a model story for Christian conversion, at least when suitably recontextualized in a Christian frame of reference. But this reading of the story, even without any specifically Christian recontextualization, would not seem to be the most probable reading of the story as we saw in chapter 3. There we developed a reading of the story in terms of it urging the conversion of Israelite attitudes to others, a reading that is in fact more searching and demanding for the Christian interpreter if one recontextu alizes it in terms of the church. Indeed, from the perspective of a critique of ideology, the traditional reading can be said to risk promoting the self-in terests of the Church. The use of the story in the context of ‘outsiders’ risking being an exercise in seeking to gain domination and power—‘you need to convert to us or else …’.28 In chapter 3 we saw how a better reading of the story on its own terms that is more faithful to the text (of Joshua) as discourse could be developed. I argued that Rahab is presented as one who already had something like ‘faith’ in Yahweh, already acting with ‫—חסד‬one of the Old Testament’s prime characteristics of the essential relationship between Yaweh and the Israelite. There is no indication of a conversion moment—of a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ or of repentance. She is simply presented and encountered as one whom the spies meet who, prostitution aside, already has the primary characteristics of the Israelite. Indeed, her ‘confession’ (2:11) matches that of Moses (Deut 4:39) and Solomon (1 Kgs 8:23), placing her in esteemed company. Thus I argued that Rahab’s story is not about Rahab’s conversion, but is rather a story that urges the conversion of Israel’s perspective on what constitutes the identity of Israel as a people called by Yahweh. 29 The story of Rahab challenges the perspective of Deut 7:1–5, a text that the book of Joshua appears to fulfil, and the kind of perspective expressed in Ezra 9–10 in which the identity of Israel is genealogically constructed. In such a perspective those who were ethnically other would forever remain outside Israel. Rahab’s story—along with Ruth’s— challenges such a perspective. As a Canaanite prostitute Rahab is portrayed as 28. I suspect that ideological critics outside the Christian tradition would analyze the story and the traditional reading in these terms, whereas those within the tradition would see the matter rather differently, whilst hopefully being aware of the dangers of abuse involved in using the story this way. Postcolonial readings of Rahab’s story develop certain features of the critique of ideology. See D. Mbuwayesango, ‘Joshua’ in D. Patte (ed.), Global Bible Commentary (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2004), 64–73, esp. 66 and M.W. Dube, ‘Rahab says Hello to Judith: A Decolonizing Feminist Reading’, in R.S. Sugirtharajah (ed.), The Postcolonial Biblical Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 142–58, esp. 156. Faced with such a critique the Christian interpreter could respond that living as a Christian is life-giving rather than life-diminishing. 29. See D.S. Earl Reading Joshua as Christian Scripture (JTISup 2; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 145–8.

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the extreme outsider, Yet she is characterized as one who professes an exemplary faith in Yahweh (2:11; cf. Deut 4:39; 1 Kgs 8:23) and acts with ‫—חסד‬the quality that is at the heart of Yahweh’s covenant with Israel (Deut 5:10; Exod 20:6; 34:6–7; Micah 6:8).30 She is thus the most unpromising outsider in one sense, and yet one whose heart and mind is simultaneously most promisingly Israelite. Thus she represents a paradox to the orthodoxy expressed in texts such as Deut 7:1–5 and Ezra 9–10. The ‘happy ending’ of the story without any negative comments about her causes the reader to rethink the orthodoxy, or ideology of texts such as Deut 7:1–5. Indeed, such a reading is strengthened by the juxtaposition of Rahab’s story with Achan’s (Joshua 7). Both stories have the destruction of Jericho as their intersection. Achan is Rahab’s foil. Together with the overall story of how Joshua acted and how the hostile kings were destroyed, it seems that the book of Joshua portrays a number of paradigmatic characters and uses them to nuance both the boundary definitions of Israel, and attitudes to those outside and within that boundary. Together the stories of Rahab and Achan urge that the definition of Israel ite identity be based on the way one acts as assessed by the covenant and what one confesses. The stories together urge the conversion of Israelite attitudes and prejudices. There is no indication in either story that Rahab or Achan con verted at any moment represented in either story—rather, the stories simply indicate their habitual natures. Rahab is presented as already one who can confess in faith the power of Yahweh. Reading in this way suggests taking the stor ies as demanding self-critique by the community that uses them, rather than as risking the promotion of self-interest, as in Josh 5:13–15. Thus it would seem that reading Rahab’s story as a story that urges the conversion of attitudes of the ‘orthodox’ reader is a stronger or more probable reading than the construal of the story in terms of Rahab’s conversion. Moreover, what I consider to be the ‘stronger reading’ has strong and fruitful Christian resonances that could be recontextualized in the Christian context to provide a searching and demanding examination of a particular church’s or Christian denomination’s attitudes to those ‘outside’. This reading has resonances with unexpected stories of the reversal of expectations such as Matthew 25. The reading proposed above seems faithful—indeed probably more faithful —to the text of Joshua or the Old Testament as read within their own horizons than the family of established traditional Christian readings, and it might be said that it would ‘preach well’. It is a reading that ‘redescribes reality’ as vari ous communities have come to perceive it—or perhaps even as many have tried to construct it—by nuancing boundaries and attitudes to them that the church has formed. The reading that I propose suggests that those boundaries might not actually map the realities of human culture and the boundaries of 30. See Earl, Reading Joshua, 124–7 for detailed discussion.

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the church and their significance as God would see them (cf. Josh 5:13–15, and Wittgenstein’s PI §76–77 discussed in chapters 1 and 3). It is a question about the realism of boundaries even when core identity is clear and not in question. It is therefore a reading that sits well with the New Testament (cf. Matthew 25), evokes a new way of looking at contemporary concerns from within the symbolic resources of Scripture and calls for a searching and challenging con version of attitudes and practices. On the other hand, the traditional Christian reading of the story sits very well with the New Testament and evokes the possibility of conversion even for the person from the most troubled and unpromising background. Its use in this regard carries the weight of testimony that suggests that such a reading is evocative and fruitful, and can be said to be a good reading of the text even if it is not the most probable.31 The question then is what one does with these two different Christian readings of Rahab’s story. Both readings focus on conversion, but locate it in different places. The evangelical Christian reading associates conversion with the ‘outsider’ becoming an ‘insider’—a sinner repents and becomes a Christian. The reading that I have proposed locates conversion in the attitudes of ‘insiders’ towards ‘outsiders’—in particular, in the understanding of the boundary. Such conversion results in the modification of the boundary between in siders and outsiders, or its perception as somewhat fuzzy and blurry. If one understands the goal of Christian theological interpretation of an Old Testament story in terms of discerning the most probable interpretation of the world of the text of the story within the textual horizon of the book of Joshua, then I would suggest that one ought to abandon the traditional Chris tian reading of the Rahab story. This is probably the case even if one expands the textual horizon against which interpretation is conducted to the whole of Scripture, or certainly the Old Testament. But would this be wise, and does this constitute good practice in theological interpretation? The testimony of the Christian tradition and experience would suggest not. Indeed, in chapter 5 we saw that Jesus’ interpretation and use of 1 Sam 21:2–10 in Mark 2:23–27 was in all likelihood the privileging of one possible reading over what may be the most probable reading of the story. If then we are to learn anything from Jesus’ hermeneutics—or at the very least the portrayal of Jesus’ hermeneutic in Mark’s gospel, then it is that we may adopt possible readings of stories for theological use as the context demands. Indeed, comparing interpretations of Rahab’s story indicates that making the goal of theological interpretation the identification and development of 31. It is worth noting, as we saw earlier, that the Church Fathers interpreted Rahab’s story with different emphases. It is not the case that it has always been read simply as a conversion story.

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the most probable interpretation of a story is problematic. It would seem to be theologically fruitful and responsible to develop both the above construals of the story of Rahab. But is it coherent to suggest that one might develop both readings? If one attempts to understand the story and locate its significance primarily in historical terms—in what really happened with a historical Rahab —or in terms of what the author intended, then perhaps it might be problem atic to develop both construals. But if we do not seek to interpret the story in terms of a quest for the ‘historical Rahab’—and our discussion in chapter 3 of the book of Joshua and Origen’s approach to it would indicate that one should not seek to locate its significance in terms of historical referentiality—then the polyvalency of the symbolism of the narrative understood via poetic fiction in vites and encourages the possibility of multiple construals.

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P OSSIBLE READINGS AND THE MULTIPLE SENSES OF SCRIPTURE Perhaps this is a way of reconfiguring the traditional Christian understanding of the multiple senses of Scripture. Traditionally, Christian and Jewish interpreters have, in different ways, been content with and indeed have de veloped at length multiple senses or interpretations of Scripture. For example, Thomas Aquinas devotes the tenth article of the first question of the Summa Theologiae to the question of whether one passage of Scripture can bear several senses. He discusses the possibility of reading according to the historical or literal sense, the parabolic sense (as part of the literal sense), and the spiritual senses—the allegorical, the tropological or moral, and the anagogical. He con cludes that words signify things in the literal sense, but these things in turn signify other things which the spiritual sense (or senses) constitute. Indeed, in the previous question in the Summa he has concluded that ‘sacra Scriptura’ uses metaphor and symbolic language, with ‘Holy Scripture fittingly deliver[ing] divine and spiritual realities under bodily guises.’ 32 There are resonances here with the kind of symbolic approach to reading Scripture that we have sought to develop thus far. One might say that the various senses that Thomas Aquinas outlines reflect what we would describe as interpretations ac cording to differing reading strategies and concerns, and these modes of interpretation could be described as offering different ways of construing and developing possible readings in different contexts. Yet whilst the tradition is used to accommodating multiple senses of Scripture, the readings developed here— for example with reference to Rahab—are rather different from the multiple senses developed in the Christian tradition. Perhaps the approach to forming the readings that we are developing has more in common at some points with 32. ST 1a. 1.9–10, in T. Gilby (trans.), St Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae Volume 1 (1a. 1): Christian Theology (Cambridge: CUP, 2006), 33–41.

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Jewish interpretation in the midrashim. In the midrashim multiple differing interpretations of a Scriptural text are juxtaposed as various possible interpreta tions. Whilst they tend to cluster around a common core, the midrashim seem to encourage readers to explore and to choose different interpretations as might be fitting in particular situations. But we need not look towards multiple senses in terms of different levels of meaning in traditional Christian interpretation. For in Ad Thalassium 64 Maximus considers various ways in which the story of Jonah can be read, and, taking his cue from different understandings of what the word ‘Jonah’ means, he develops several readings that are quite different, rather like our two readings of Rahab’s story are quite different. 33 Indeed, it appears to be theologically fitting to construe Rahab’s story in either of the ways outlined above—there are two good ways of reading the story. Reading the story in terms of Rahab’s conversion is entirely possible, as the way in which she came to demonstrate ‫ חסד‬and confess faith is a gap or ambiguity in the narrative that the reader is free to fill. It is possible to fill it by imagining that Rahab somehow changed when confronted by the spies. Or it is possible to see ‫ חסד‬as her established character and her attitudes to Yahweh as well established. Thus, to put it in terms reminiscent of traditional categories, one discerns and develops multiple meanings of Scripture, even if as in this case there is a certain tension between the two construals of the Rahab story. But this is not problematic if the significance of the story is not located in au thorial intention or correspondence with historical facts, but rather rooted in the world of the text. Turning to Genesis 34, an interpretation that one might call ‘literal’ (or narrative level in neo-structuralist vocabulary) develops the wisdom of Jacob, whilst a ‘spiritual’ or symbolic interpretation (or structural level in terms of neo-structuralist vocabulary) develops the issue of endogamy, which in a Christian context might then be further abstracted in the way discussed in chapter 4 as evoking a separatist stance, although without the underlying Is raelite worldview structure. Rather, in the Christian context it would be a form of separatism based on a specific issue or practice that would be seen as incompatible with the Christian life. As the tradition indicates, both these readings are possible readings, and it is a matter of wise judgment whether or not one reading or the other (or neither) is to be appropriated in a particular context. Hence it would seem that the goal of Christian theological interpretation is often not that of seeking to discern the single ‘most probable’ interpretation of a text understood as discourse using some method or set of methods and 33. See e.g. On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St Maximus the Confessor (trans. P.M. Blowers & R.L. Wilken) (Crestwood: SVSP, 2003), 145–71. Cf. chapter 3 on the significance of names.

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showing that it is in some sense more probable than others, although I leave open the possibility that it may be this in some cases. Rather, as we have seen in various specific cases, the goal of Christian theological interpretation of Old Testament narrative is often that of discerning possible readings of the world of the text within the context of Scripture as a whole, when read within the context of the Christian tradition as expressed particularly in the rule of faith, and then developing such readings that are fitting and fruitful in a particular context. Whilst this has some resonances with the idea of multiple senses of Scripture in traditional interpretation, and establishes the possibility of developing multiple interpretations each of which has a family resemblance to traditional Christian interpretation, there are important differences too, especially in the justifications offered. Indeed, it is not the case that simply any possible reading will do, and that reading a biblical text in terms of the concerns of any context will be theologically fruitful. Judgments are to be formed. For example, the stories of Rahab and Ruth have been the subject of interpretation within postcolonial contexts. Postcolonial readings in which Joshua is read from a Canaanite perspective find in the story of Rahab the story of a colluder with imperialism, or a traitor,34 rather than the paradigmatic convert of the Christian tradition. Similarly, postcolonial readers of Ruth have found it problematic that Ruth (another non-Israelite who embodies ‫ )חסד‬converts and is assimilated into a hegemonic culture (Israel), a process that involves the ‘relinquishing of her ethnic and cultural identity’. 35 Thus rather than interpreting Ruth’s actions in positive terms, it is Orpah who ‘connotes hope rather than perversity’. Orpah is a paradigm of postcolonial resistance, demonstrating a ‘courageous act of self and communal affirmation: the choosing of the indigenous mother’s house over that of the alien Israelite Father.’36 Within a postcolonial context and with reference to such concerns in which the affirmation of indigenous identity is the decisive virtue, such a reading is a good possible reading of the text. Yet within the Christian context, it is a poor reading, since transformation (indeed, continual transformation) is central to Christian identity, even if it is a specific form of transformation that is not fundamentally cultural, whilst always being expressed in cul tural forms. The gospel offers hope in the possibility of transformation from oppression, idolatry and sin to new life in Christ. It is by necessity transformative. As Richard Briggs has pointed out, Donaldson’s reading ‘essentializes the virtue of staying with one’s own people … so that now, apparently, it becomes impossible to demonstrate love through conversion, a judgment that seems no 34. See Mbuwayesango, ‘Joshua’, 66 and Dube, ‘Rahab’, 156. 35. L.E. Donaldson, ‘The Sign of Orpah: Reading Ruth through Native Eyes’, in The Postcolonial Biblical Reader, 159–70, here, 166–68. 36. Ibid., 166–168.

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less “oppressive” on its own terms than the one to which Donaldson’s reading first objected.’37 Briggs is more explicitly concerned with the value-system of the text itself than I am here. I am more concerned with the theological context for reading and its significance. I suggest that Donaldson’s reading is a poor one for a Christian reader because it does not sit well with foundational ideas of Christian identity and theological anthropology. So it is not fitting in this sense. One judges it to be a poor Christian reading for it fails to reflect what it is that Scripture and the tradition testify to, however much the testimony may be ‘as through a glass darkly’. To be a Christian is to be caught up in the process of transformation from a former way of life into a new way of life (e.g. Eph 4:21–24). Thus a postcolonial reading context does not foster good Christian theological interpretation of texts such as Ruth and Joshua. 38 The value of postcolonial concerns for the Christian interpreter lies, however, in posing a searching challenge to the way in which evangelism and mission has been practiced, and to the ways in which books such as Joshua might have been misread by Christians. Have missionaries been mistaken in the interpretation of culture, both of their own and of the culture of reception, demanding transformation when none is in fact demanded by the gospel? Has preaching been practised in an oppressive way? Developing both possible readings of Rahab’s story as above offers two ways of construing the world of the text of Joshua in which some features are accentuated in one reading, and allowed to recede in the other. The inevitable gaps are filled in different ways in each case. Developing the traditional Christian reading reflects a theological metanarrative that indicates the life-giving nature of the conversion to and living of the Christian life, as a life of salvation. Her story is powerfully evocative in this way. On the other hand, the reading presented in chapter 3 offers an interpretation that prevents the metanarrat ive of the traditional reading becoming one that is self-serving and a hidden exercise in the will to power and the promotion of self-interest. In turn, the traditional reading provides a metanarrative of hope that leads one out of the 37. R.S. Briggs, The Virtuous Reader: Old Testament Narrative and Interpretative Virtue (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 150. 38. This is not to say that when reading as literature from the perspective of postcolonial analysis the readings referred to above are not good readings. Rather, it is when reading as Christian Scripture with Christian theological concerns that I suggest they are poor readings. Indeed, from the reading perspective of postcolonialism the theological readings that I am developing would probably be regarded as poor. It is a question of making a meta-level judgment (if one feels the need) regarding which perspective (postcolonial or Christian theological) offers a framework for shaping a better worldview for fostering, let us say, human flourishing. As we have noted, the two concerns may inform one another, but each is located in a different place with quite different assumptions.

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despair of becoming lost in a turbulent and sometimes violent sea of rival ideo logies, each prematurely claiming the way to emancipation.

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C ONCLUSION We have seen that both the construals of Rahab’s story that we have discussed are possible textually. One will favor one or the other depending upon how one interprets the gaps, ambiguities and silences in the narrative. The pressure of the text does not favor the traditional construal, whilst the pres sure of tradition coupled with the sanctified imagination perhaps does, or at least places it on a roughly equal footing with the reading developed above, which it is probably fair to call the more probable reading. Whether or not one prefers one reading over the other will likely depend on context of use and the character and ‘prejudices’ of the interpreter—is the interpreter fond of narratives of conversion to an orthodox and clearly defined Christian faith, or does the interpreter favor ambiguity in categorization and the drawing of community boundaries? I would suggest that both construals of the Rahab story are good construals that may be developed fruitfully in Christian theological inter pretation. This is not problematic since we have argued that neither authorial intention nor the putative historical facts behind the text are determinative for interpretation, at least in general, even if they might be in some cases that we have not considered. Thus we have seen how assessing whether one reading is more probable than another is a complex and difficult question. As interpreters we are probably unlikely to agree on a set of criteria according to which this may be judged, let alone the actual judgments made within a set of criteria. But in any case, we have seen that there are real problems with abandoning possible read ings of a text that have become well established and used in the Christian tradition. Even if I am correct that the revised understanding of Rahab’s story proposed in chapter 3 is the most probable reading, it would seem to be a poor interpretative practice to abandon the traditional Christian reading of the story that understands and uses the story in terms of Rahab’s conversion. Yet as poetic fiction, one may develop both interpretations, this being an instance of the plurality of meanings of Scripture. The preference of one over the other is determined, in part at least, by context of use. With Genesis 34 we have seen that it is possible to argue that the story has no real ongoing Christian significance. The story is problematic at the narrat ive level with its portrayal of ‘sectarian violent revenge’ (to use a category mo tivated by contemporary concerns) and at the structural level as it asserts the exclusivist construction of identity that denies mediation or conversion. A Christian hermeneutic of Genesis 34 might then be based on an analogy with

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the traditional Christian approach to the Mosaic law with its three-fold cat egorization of the significance of the legal materials, suggesting that Genesis 34 is no longer significant, except perhaps through its preservation as ‘cultural memory’. Alternatively, the story might in fact be read in a more abstracted way (and perhaps this again relates to the traditional Christian hermeneutic of Old Testament law in which principles are sought, abstracted, recontextualized and reapplied) in the sense of urging the assertion of Christian identity against ideological or political pressure to compromise and conform to some other norm. Or, the story might be read in quite a different way in which the wisdom and virtue of Jacob is developed, evoking the possibility of offering a response of wise silence and non-violence rather than revenge following the violation of his family. Each of these approaches offer possible readings of the story according to different kinds of reading strategy and contexts, and each has a certain theological fruitfulness that encourages engagement with the text. Each reading might be said to be generative of the identity of the Christian community, in rather different ways—through a realization of its difference with Old Testament Israel; through an assertion of its difference from other communities, or through cultivation of an ‘active silence’ amid violation or oppression. Each has its benefits and problems, and each is liable to abuse or misuse. Which reading is preferred is then a matter of wisdom and discernment relative to a particular context. Developing multiple interpretations is similar to the prin ciples of Jewish interpretation reflected in the midrashim, and might be considered a reconstrual of the traditional Christian observation that there are multiple senses to Scripture. I suggest that traditional spiritual or allegorical reading may be reconstrued in terms of interpreting the second-order sense of symbol, so that multiple readings develop the polyvalency of such symbolism in different contexts. Thus it would seem that the hermeneutics of tradition can accommodate various critiques of ideology, even if it is often reshaped in the process. Moreover, the critique of ideology is reframed by the hermeneutics of tradi tion. The hermeneutics of the tradition has room for multiple readings. But readings that emerge from the critique of ideology sometimes appear surprising, and check the human tendency for the promotion of self-interest and selfdeception within the tradition. Perhaps the impression that one gains from the interpretations developed in this and the previous chapters is that good theological interpretation of Scripture is rather unconcerned with the metaphysics of God or the Christian life. Interpretation has been construed in categories of imaginative reading of fictional stories with a view to social constructions of identity, often drawing more upon categories from social anthropology than from theology per se. The interpretations developed have been largely existential in focus, concerned

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with fostering attitudes and practices for living the Christian life. They have not focused so much on seeking to understand Scripture in somewhat modern ist terms as offering a resource for propositional statements about the history of Israel, the ‘faith’ of Israel, ‘God’s acts’ in the history of Israel, or indeed the nature of God. Yet it would be wrong to say that our interpretation has been socio-anthropological or imaginative in terms of its focus or its ends. Indeed, the end of the theological interpretations being developed is indeed theological, yet it is theology worked out in a way that takes seriously how we ‘learn about our learning’ about God. Our interpretations do indeed say something of the nature of the life lived in open-ness and responsiveness to God, and indeed to the nature of God. The relationship between our contemplation of God and the ethics that we adopt is a complex one. Each concern shapes the other. We know God in order to know how to live, and in living well we know God. Thomas Aquinas deals with concerns like these in the first question of the Summa Theologiae. He suggests, ‘[sacra doctrina] deals with human acts only in so far as they prepare men for that achieved knowledge of God on which their eternal bliss reposes’ (1a.1.4, p16–17).39 Aquinas addresses the nature of sacra doctrina in terms of whether it is scientia practica—knowledge directed to doing and making, such as ethics or art or architecture, or scientia speculativa—knowledge seeking truth for its own sake, and involving contemplation that is an ‘intimate sharing with the object’. Aquinas suggests that whilst sacra doctrina is a single discipline that embraces things belonging to different disciplines, sacred doctrine takes both functions, even if it is more theoretical or contemplative than practical, ‘since it is mainly concerned with divine things that are, rather than with things that men do’ (1a.1.4, p.16–17). As Rudi Te Velde puts it: ‘scientiae’—the science of sacred doctrine has a mixed or hybrid character. It is a practical science insofar as sacred doctrine teaches men how to direct their intentions and actions to the ultimate end. In this respect revelation is moral instruction. But because sacred doctrine is concerned with human acts inasmuch as the moral life of man is ordained to the perfect knowledge of God, in which eternal beatitude consists, its knowledge is more speculative than practical. It is primarily knowledge of God. In this sense revelation is self-revelation of God: God reveals knowledge of himself in order that men may have some foreknowledge of their end and direct their lives according to that end, which consists in enjoying the full knowledge of God (visio beatifica). Insofar as God addresses himself through his revelation to man in the midst of his way towards the end, revela39. T. Gilby (trans.), St Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae Volume 1 (1a. 1): Christian Theology (Cambridge: CUP, 2006).

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tion is moral instruction concerned with the means to the end; but insofar as God reveals himself as the very end of human life, revelation is concerned with the end itself which is already present to man in faith. The knowledge of faith has, therefore, a speculative aspect because God himself is somehow present in his revelation and gives himself to be known by faith as the beatifying end of human life. Although the knowledge of faith is not yet perfect knowledge of God, it is an inchoate beginning of the final and perfect knowledge which consists in the vision of God. The hybrid character of the scientia of sacred doctrine — partly practical, partly speculative — is rooted in the dynamics of divine revelation by means of which God makes himself known to man in his temporal and earthly existence 40 (in statu viae), as the end of human life.

To put it in another vocabulary, existential, socio-anthropological readings of Scripture as they relate to ethics and practice lead to, or are already in some measure theological readings. Aquinas’ treatment of sacred doctrine in terms of scientia speculativa and scientia practica as well as his understanding of Scripture as having multiple senses and employing symbol at the very beginning of the Summa Theologiae indicates that our approach to interpretation has important resonances with the concerns of traditional Christian interpretation. There is at least a family resemblance between what I am suggesting and traditional Christian understandings of the nature of doctrine, Scripture and interpreta tion. This is not to say that I am ‘following Aquinas’, but rather to suggest that the approach taken here can be seen as in some ways a reconstrual of the resources and practices of the tradition, establishing it as Christian theological interpretation in nature. The approaches that I am suggesting entail the recog nition that the nature of the balance between how we understand Scripture in terms of scientia speculativa and scientia practica—and the way in which we speak of ‘multiple senses’—might look rather different now, seeming a little more blurry than previously. So, for example, in the case of the book of Joshua, we have interpreted it with reference neither to description of actual events in the past, such as the fall of Jericho, nor to portraits from which the nature of God are inferred, often problematically—such as deducing that in some sense God commands genocide (Josh 10:40). We have not tried to interpret the book by suggesting that Joshua is really Jesus in some allegorical sense. Rather, through attention to symbol, we have seen how it may be interpreted with reference to practical questions— particularly concerning how the community of God’s people understands its identity and relation to others? What is it at the level of practical living that 40. R. Te Velde, Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 21.

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qualifies or disqualifies one from membership of the community? The readings developed for Genesis 34, Genesis 37–50 and the book of Joshua are primarily concerned with scientia practica—with how the community shapes its identity through its ethics. Such identity and ethics have theological foundations. They reflect the implications of ‘enjoying the full knowledge of God’ for daily life. In the next chapter I would like to consider further the influence that con text has on interpretation, even within the Christian community, and explore further the interpretation of a text largely in terms of scientia practica, before turning in chapter 8 to the interpretation of a text that is read primarily as scientia speculativa.

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C HAPTER 7

THE STORY OF RUTH R ELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE READER, CHRISTIAN ETHICS

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AND

OLD TESTAMENT NARRATIVE

In our contemporary Western context some of the most significant practical consequences arising from the confrontation between the hermeneutics of tradition and the critique of ideology relates to issues of sexuality and sexual ethics. I would like to explore the nature of the confrontation in the book of Ruth, and consider some of the ways in which biblical narrative might, or might not, inform the contemporary debates. Moreover, in doing so I will develop further some of the discussion in the previous chapter in the context of a study of some aspects of the book of Ruth. We have seen that in the Chris tian context there are (at least) two possible readings of Rahab’s story that may be developed. We have also seen that there are multiple readings of Genesis 34, which allows us to avoid interpreting the literal portrayal of genocide in posit ive terms. Either a mythical reading is developed as would be implied by the analyses of Victor Turner or Seth Kunin for example, or Jacob’s silence on the events of the chapter is construed in terms of his wisdom. In either case, the context for interpretation gives rise to a reading strategy that avoids the possibilities of construing the violence that is narrated as an actual historical act in the past, or as a form of behavior that is to be encouraged. However, especially in the light of raised awareness of various forms of ideologically motivated genocide over the last century or so, it would be quite possible to imagine reading contexts in which this is not the case. One could imagine reading contexts in which violent revenge or the use of genocide in the construction or maintenance of identity would be seen as a virtue. This would be judged to be a poor reading in a Christian context—it is not how one ought to read the text in a Christian context. But just how strong an influence is context for theological interpretation within an overall Christian frame of reference? Can Scripture be said to speak to or ‘above’ context in a straightforward way on issues that present ethical difficulties? 206

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I will consider some aspects of the interpretation of the book of Ruth from the perspective of what might be loosely termed scientia practica; that is, I will investigate how the book may be used to shape our ethics in response to God, and especially how possible imaginative reading of the world of the text of Ruth is shaped by the context and presuppositions of the interpreter, especially within a Christian frame of reference. The story of Ruth is another Old Testament story that has captured the hearts and imaginations of Christian readers through the ages. Whilst not as well developed in the tradition as Rahab’s story, there are some significant points of contact between the stories. Both figures are women, and women of foreign nations that were particularly despised by the Israelites—Rahab a Canaanite, and Ruth a Moabite. Both ethnic groups represent feared ‘outsiders’ whose societies represented the antithesis of the worship of Yahweh (cf. Deut 7:1–6; 12:29–32; 23:3–4; Ezra 9:1). Yet both Ruth and Rahab offer exemplary confessions of faith (Josh 2:9–11; Ruth 1:16–17) and act with ‫( חסד‬Josh 2:12; Ruth 3:10). ‫ חסד‬is perhaps the defining characteristic of the relationship between God and Israel or the Israelite, being a description of the ‘way of life’ for the Israelite (e.g. Exod 20:6; 34:6–7; Deut 7:12; Micah 6:8). In a similar way to what we have seen thus far, the story of Ruth in the Old Testament would appear to challenge the ‘orthodox’ construction of Israelite identity on the basis of ethnicity or genealogy. Her characterisation as a Moabite is stressed. But like Rahab, Ruth is one who exemplifies ‫חסד‬, and both demonstrate a commitment towards Israel. Ruth makes a solemn declaration that Yahweh will be her God, and that she will set out on an unknown journey with Naomi in a way that has been seen to have resonances with Abraham’s journey. Yet it is a journey of still higher quality as there was no explicit divine call.1 Her commitment to Yahweh and Yahweh’s people in faith and action is clear, and the conclusion of the book—where Ruth is placed in the genealogy of David—establishes her inclusion in the people of Israel. 2 Moreover, for the Christian reader the inclusion of Ruth and Rahab in Jesus’ genealogy (Matt 1:5) firmly establishes their posi tions in ‘salvation history’. The interpretative issues that I wish to pursue here are those that relate to how the interpretative imagination of the reader of a text of poetic fiction that is part of Scripture is shaped in reading the story by the context in which the interpreter is situated, and by the character of the interpreter formed by im 1. See P. Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 173. 2. I do not wish here to enter into debate regarding the function and origins of the ‘genealogical appendix’ relative to the rest of the book. See E.F. Campbell, Ruth: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary (AB 7; New York: Doubleday & Co., 1975), 172; K. Nielsen, Ruth: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: WJKP, 1997), 21–28.

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mersion in that same context. How does one construe and imagine the world of the text as unfolding in front of itself, especially as this relates to filling gaps and ambiguities within a story? In particular, I will consider the interpretation of two passages (Ruth 1:14–18 and 3:1–18) that have, in various ways, been construed in sexual or erotic terms and explore whether construal in these ways reflects good Christian interpretation of the story.

R UTH AND BOAZ O N THE THRESHING FLOOR First, I will consider 3:1–18 as a text in Ruth that has been well-worked in this regard. Katherine Doob Sakenfield suggests that Ruth 3:6–9a

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entices readers toward imagination and speculation … Lacking textual controls, imagination may lead readers in wildly different directions: a steamy tryst between mutually desiring persons (in the genre of the North American soap opera or formulaic romance novel); or, a beautiful but needy young Ruth forcing herself to relate to a rough, pot-bellied, snaggle-toothed (but rich) old man for the sake of her mother-in-law; or, a wily, scheming Ruth cooperating with Naomi to compromise and thus force the hand of the most handsome and wealthy bachelor of the community. The very reticence of the text leads readers to supply additional details … . Awareness of competing interpretations by other readers challenges each reader to greater self-awareness and greater attention to what 3 limited evidence is provided by the text itself.

Contemporary interpreters have drawn attention to the repeated and perhaps ambiguous use of sexual innuendo in this passage. For example, Yitzhak Berger suggests that, ‘Ruth will cunningly invite Boaz’s advance, and the relationship will be consummated at the point when, as Naomi tantalizingly predicts, “he will tell you what you are to do” (3.4). As various commentators have noted, the use of several key terms enhances the expectation of a sexual encounter, including ‫גלה‬, ‫ידע‬, ‫כנף‬, ‫בא‬, ‫שׁכב‬, and ‫רגל‬. And indeed, Ruth assures her mother-in-law, “All that you have said to me I will do” (3.5).’ 4 But the story encourages the reader to fill gaps, to fill out the story. As Ellen Van Wolde notes: [Ruth] tells her mother-in-law everything that Boaz has done for her (3.16b). But who can tell what that was, whether anything happened, whether they lay in one another’s arms or only talked; whether they enjoyed making love? As readers, we have heard nothing of this. The narrator, apparently deliberately, simply says suc3. K. Sakenfield, Ruth (Interpretation; Louisville: WJKP, 1999), 57. 4. Y. Berger, ‘Ruth and the David-Bathsheba Story: Allusions and Contrasts’ in JSOT 33.4 (2009): 433–452, here, 442.

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cinctly, “And she told her all that the man had done for her.” “All” 5 could mean anything.

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The difficulties involved in filling the gaps is heightened by the narrative itself: Edward F. Campbell detects a ‘roster of double entendres’;6 André LaCocque suggests that ‘The atmosphere is highly sexual’;7 John Gray notes that ‘uncover his feet: lit. ‘the place of his legs’, [is] a euphemism for sexual parts (cf. Exod. 4:25; Isa. 6:2). This word, like ‘lie down’, which has often the sexual sense, poses the problem of what actually happened on the threshing-floor.’ 8 Modern commentators have thus interpreted the story in various ways, following a variety of options for understanding ‘what happened’ (i.e., what the most probable unfolding of the world of the text looks like to them), and with what motivation. Opinions vary from readings close to traditional read ings that stress chastity and virtue, even if more attention is drawn to the innuendo,9 through to understanding a manipulative sexual encounter to have taken place.10 The two different approaches are reflected well in LaCocque on the one hand and Danna Nolan Fewell and David Gunn, or Anthony Phillips on the other. Fewell and Gunn suggest: Why should Naomi set up such an arrangement? The literary allusions suggest that entrapment is the goal. Sexual intercourse, if not pregnancy, will enforce either marriage or a pay-off. The man, remember, is a “man of substance” (a “man of property”, we might say, or a “man of worth”-’ish gibbor hayil [2.1]). He is also a relative (at least by marriage); all the more reason for him to wish to avoid a public scandal. But why not approach Boaz directly? And why has Boaz not ap proached Ruth himself? … What stands as a barrier between Ruth and marriage to Boaz, in Naomi’s view? The answer must lie in the fact that Ruth is a Moabite woman. The text constantly offers us this point of view through 5. E. van Wolde, Ruth and Naomi (London: SCM, ET: 1997), 79. 6. Campbell, Ruth, 130–132. 7. A. LaCocque, Ruth: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, ET: 2004), 102. 8. J. Gray, Joshua, Judges, Ruth (New Century Bible Commentary; Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1996), 394. There is a difficulty here understanding just what is uncovered. See the different perspectives in Nielsen, Ruth and F.W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC 9; Dallas: Word, 1998). Note also ambiguity of legs (See Campbell, 121). 9. See e.g. Bush, Ruth; LaCocque, Ruth. 10. A. Phillips, ‘The Book of Ruth—Deception and Shame’, in JJS 37 (1986), 14; D.N. Fewell and D.M. Gunn, ‘“A Son is Born to Naomi!”: Literary Allusions and Interpretation in the Book of Ruth’, in JSOT 40 (1988): 99–108, here, 105–106. Even sacred prostitution has been proposed—see Gray, Joshua, Judges, Ruth for summary.

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture persistent and carefully placed use of the epithet “Moabite woman”. Allusion to Lot’s daughters and (perhaps) the women of Baal-peor compounds it. And that perception fits well with what we have suggested earlier regarding Naomi’s values. She understands the conventions only too well. A pillar of society like Boaz cannot afford to pursue his interest in a Moabite woman in terms of marriage, unless under some kind of cloak or compulsion. Naomi decides to go for 11 compulsion.

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Fewell and Gunn adopt a reading strategy informed by a hermeneutic of suspi cion, reading in a context informed by suspicion of motive, readily assuming that characters act in a manipulative way. In response to reading strategies such as these, LaCocque suggests that (and note the reference to imagining): The text says nothing about the possible sexual relations between Boaz and Ruth on the threshing floor. One can imagine, as I do, that Boaz respected this woman offered to him and thus confirmed the intuition of Naomi, who sent him her daughter-in-law. Phillips, on the contrary, maintains that they had sexual relations, and even, since Boaz was drunk like Lot in the sordid story of Genesis 19, “sleeping Boaz” does not know if they had had sexual relations, like Lot not remembering anything after waking up. In any case, Boaz was then placed in a compromising position, especially if the woman became pregnant from his act. He consequently had to act swiftly and officially marry Ruth. One must then, with Phillips, regard the question of property sold by Naomi a trick of Boaz, concealing the true problem: his union with a foreign and poor woman. After this deception, Boaz draws undeserved honor at the expense of so-and-so, who is fooled in the matter (and with him the “elders,” “the whole people,” and the choir of the women, as well as naive readers, a group among whose number I gladly choose to be). The least one can say then is that all the characters of the story are, somehow or other, devious and that Boaz had the unbelievable luck in playing his cards close to his vest that Naomi just happened to have a piece of property to sell. Such a cynical reading of Ruth is not very attractive, all the more so as it completely ignores the principal motif of the story, hesed (see among others Ruth 3:10). According to the Midrash—where the interpretation is exactly the opposite of Phillips’s—Boaz showed himself even superior to 12 Joseph’s restraint in front of Potiphar’s wife.

11. Fewell and Gunn, ‘Literary Allusions’, 105–106. 12. LaCocque, Ruth, 96–97.

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For LaCocque a reading such as Phillips’ or Fewell’s and Gunn’s is not to be preferred since it is cynical and unattractive, a hermeneutic that has resonances with Augustine’s in that charitable interpretations are to be preferred. Moreover such cynical readings ignore ‘the principal motif of the story, hesed’. Here, we see something of the influence that the context, preferences and as sumptions of the interpreter have on the interpretation of the text. One traditional line of Christian interpretation of Ruth 3, or reading strategy, has been to allegorize the encounter. 13 For example, the Glossa Ordinaria supplies only an allegorical interpretation of 3:4: Discooperies,. etc. Quod dicit: Agnósce Christum pro te passum, et veni devóta mente, discúte operiméntum lítterae Véteris Testaménti in quo tégitur sacraméntum incarnatiónis Christi; et cum cognóveris inde tibi salútem promíssam, humíliter ad auxílium ejus 14 confúge, ut ibi permáneas omni témpore.

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However, much traditional interpretation has been concerned less with the allegorical and more with the moral sense of the text. Traditional commentators largely either missed or ignored the innuendo in the text, perhaps only questioning in passing the propriety of Ruth sleeping at Boaz’s feet. 15 For example, Theodoret of Cyrus notes that ‘There are those who find fault with Naomi and Ruth: with the former, for suggesting that Ruth sleep at the feet of Boaz and with the latter, for heeding and doing what Naomi suggested.’ Theodoret re sponds by arguing that the events narrated, including the following marriage, took place in accordance with the Law and with kinship and not lust (ἐπιθυμίᾳ). He stresses Boaz’s virtue and Ruth’s excellence: Naomi suggested that [Ruth] sleep at the feet of Boaz, but not to sell her beauty, since the words in which she couched her proposal indicate the opposite. As she said, “You will go and uncover the place at his feet and lie down, and for his part he will tell you what you are

13. As with the story of Rahab, Christian interpreters have found in Ruth one who prefigures gentiles joining the church. See for instance Ambrose, Exposition on Luke 3 (PL15 1589A–1612C), and P.S. Hawkins, ‘Ruth amid the Gentiles’, in P.S. Hawkins and L.C. Stahlberg (eds.), Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs (New York: Fordham UP, 2006), 75–85, here, 79–81 for discussion. 14. You will take off, etc. Insofar saying: Recognize Christ spread out before you, and come with consecrated mind, breaking the literal covering of the Old Testament in which is hidden the sacrament of the incarnation of Christ; and when you then recognize the salvation promised to you, humbly take refuge in his help so that you may remain there always. 15. The innuendos may however be obscured in the commonly used LXX versions.

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture to do.” This is how confident she was in the man’s continence and 16 righteousness.

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What is interesting here is that Theodoret’s reading does not sit well with Naomi’s instruction to Ruth to ‘make herself up’ for the encounter, which is surely to draw attention to beauty. Indeed, Robert Hubbard remarks that, ‘Obviously Ruth was to make herself attractive, perhaps even enticing’, 17 and Kirsten Nielsen that ‘The instructions to Ruth to wash and perfume herself are naturally to make her irresistible.’ 18 Moreover, unlike modern commentators, Theodoret makes nothing of the sexually charged atmosphere evoked by innu endo, only recognizing the atmosphere in passing insofar as Ruth lies at Boaz’s feet at night. For Theodoret Ruth 3 exemplifies continence and righteousness. Erotic connotations are elided or viewed pejoratively. The subsequent marriage took place out of a sense of duty rather than out of any sense of attraction or desire—it derived from kinship and law. Similarly, in the Incomplete work on Matthew, [Ruth] feared neither that [Boaz] would perhaps spurn her, as a just man might spurn a lascivious woman, nor that he might deceive her and, worse, despise a deceived woman, as many men might have done. But, obeying her mother-in-law’s plans, she confidently believed that God would prosper her action, knowing her conscience, because lust did not push her to it but rather religion was her encouragement. What, however, is praised in Boaz? Humility, chastity and religion. Humility indeed and chastity, because he did not touch her as a lascivious man would [touch] a girl or abhor her as a chaste man would a lascivious girl, but as soon as he had heard her speak of the law, he ascribed her actions to religion. Nor did he despise her as a rich man would a pauper, nor was he in awe of her, as a mature man might be 19 of a young woman.

16. Question 2 on Ruth, in R.C. Hill, (trans.), Theodoret of Cyrus: The Questions on the Octateuch (LEC 2; Washington, The Catholic University of America Press, 2 vols., 2007), 2.369. 17. R.L Hubbard Jr., The Book of Ruth (NICOT; Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1988), 201. 18. Nielsen, Ruth, 68. Note however P. Satterthwaite and G. McConville, Exploring the Old Testament Volume 2: The Histories (London: SPCK, 2007): ‘She is not inviting Boaz to sexual pleasure, but to assume responsibility for her needs.’ (224). For ancient Near Eastern parallels that suggest that Ruth is preparing herself as a bride see Hubbard, Ruth, 202; Nielsen, Ruth, 68. 19. Incomplete work on Matthew, Homily 1, PG 56:619 in ACCS 4, 188.

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The opaque nature of the sexual innuendo to traditional interpreters, and one might say a prudish approach to the text, is well established in the Christian traditions. For example the Puritan commentator Matthew Henry is troubled by Naomi’s instructions, and notes that Her coming to lie down at his feet, when he was asleep in his bed, had such an appearance of evil, was such an approach towards it, and might have been such an occasion of it, that we know not well how to justify it. Many expositors think it unjustifiable, particularly the excellent Mr. Poole. We must not do evil that good may come. It is dangerous to bring the spark and the tinder together; for how great a matter may a little fire kindle! All agree that it is not to be drawn into a precedent; neither our laws nor our times are the same that were then; yet I am willing to make the best of it. If Boaz was, as they presumed, the next kinsman, she was his wife before God (as we say), and there needed but little ceremony to complete the nuptials; and Naomi did not intend that Ruth should approach to him any otherwise than as his wife. She knew Boaz to be not only an old man (she would not have trusted to that alone in venturing her daughter-in-law so near him), but a grave sober man, a virtuous and religious man, and one that feared God. She knew Ruth to be a modest woman, chaste, and a keeper at home, [Titus 2:5]. … Naomi herself designed nothing but what was honest and honourable, and her charity (which believeth all things and hopeth all things) banished and forbade all suspicion that either Boaz or Ruth would attempt any thing but what was likewise honest and honourable. … We must therefore think that the thing did not look so ill then as it does now. Naomi referred her daughter-in-law to Boaz for further directions. When she had thus made her claim, Boaz, who was more learned in the laws, would tell her what she must do. Thus must we lay ourselves at the feet of our Redeemer, to receive from him our doom. Lord, 20 what wilt thou have me to do? [Acts 9:6].

Henry continues later on: He did not offer to violate her chastity, though he had all the opportunity that could be. … Boaz knew it was not any sinful lust that brought her thither, and therefore bravely maintained both his own honour and hers. He did not put any ill construction upon what she did, did not reproach her as an impudent woman and unfit to make an honest man 21 a wife. 20. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible: Volume 2, Joshua–2 Samuel (Hendrickson electronic edition, 1991–1994 from 1706 original), 551–52. 21. Ibid., 554.

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As with Theodoret and the Incomplete Work on Matthew, Henry appreciates the ‘sexual possibilities’ of the situation without drawing attention to either the sexual innuendo or the potential ambiguity in the text. These interpretations seem to miss what is manifested and accentuated in the world of the text, and the way in which that world is presented, something that the majority of modern commentators are well aware of. In minimizing the erotic dimensions and the ambiguous nature of the encounter between Ruth and Boaz, some dimensions of the story and what it evokes are missed. These traditional readers in fact then read ‘against the grain’ of the text in a way that modern readers do not. For example, Campbell notes that ‘Together with the air of mystery there is built up a carefully contrived ambiguity; it re volves around whether Ruth’s act in approaching Boaz under such compromising circumstances will result immediately in sexual intercourse. The storyteller clearly means to have his audience reckon with the possibility.’ 22 But why should the storyteller wish to do this? In a careful and sympathetic reading of Ruth 3 van Wolde considers just ‘what happened’ on the thresh ing floor. After a lengthy discussion she concludes that sexual intercourse between Boaz and Ruth does not occur. The dénouement has to wait until the following chapter. At the same time the vocabulary of the scene indicates that the atmosphere was erotic, and that there could have been sexual contact. The words thus indicate what is detectable below the surface. The ambiguity allows us to feel what the characters experienced. The narrator leans heavily on the ambiguity of the language in order to build up the emotional tension, the erotic atmosphere, without breaking off the story line. Therefore not only Ruth and Boaz feel this tension, 23 but also the reader.

In other words, taking cognisance of the innuendo is part of the ‘drama of reading’, a drama that encourages the use of the imagination, and in some sense encourages emotional participation in the scene. As interpreters we are encouraged to engage with the story imaginatively and emotionally—and in doing so we acknowledge and in a sense properly exploit the genre and nature of the material. Van Wolde’s discussion, as she plays with the possibilities of the scene, indicates how as interpreters we are invited to linger over the text, choose how to fill the gaps, choose to some degree the motivations, desires and outcomes of what is narrated, and work through the different possibilities and what they imply. One wonders if traditional commentators noticed the depth of the innu endo in the text, or whether it was rendered opaque to them by their context 22. Campbell, Ruth, 131. 23. Van Wolde, Ruth, 86.

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and assumptions. The traditional interpreters that we have just considered in terpret the encounter in Ruth 3 with reference to their expectations of virtue as worked out in chastity, honor and religious conformity. Any sense of ‘attraction’ or desire or of there being any significant erotic dimension of the rela tionship is carefully denied or avoided, as the story is read through a particular interpretative lens. Such a reading is not limited to Christian interpretation, since the Targum of Ruth 3:8 for example states that Boaz felt no erotic desire for Ruth,24 and the midrash suggests that Boaz acted in a way superior even to Joseph when he was confronted by Potiphar’s wife. These kinds of reading apparently reflect something like a Stoic influence that was formative for Christian spirituality. This influence of Stoic philosophy on Christianity (and early Judaism) is manifested in terms of an understanding of the good life as associated with deliverance from external disturbances caused by passions and desires toward the ideal of apatheia, freedom from external disturbances. This is reflected in the New Testament in, e.g. Titus 3:3, which suggests that Christians were once slaves to passions and pleasures in their former way of life (δουλεύοντες ἐπιθυμίαις καὶ ἡδοναῑς ποικίλαις), but are now trained to renounce worldly passions. Indeed Rowan Williams notes that for Origen, who was a foundational figure in the development of Christian spir ituality, Stoicsm is one of ‘the main intellectual influences visible in Origen’s work. The characteristic problems of the period—how to understand the relation between “passion” … and virtue … are clearly high on Origen’s agenda.’ 25 These concerns are expressed in relation to sexual pleasure in the Christian tradition in a fairly uniform way. So for example, Gregory of Nyssa, in On Virginity speaks of virginity as the ‘nobler state’. 26 ‘We say that virginity is given to man as an ally and an aid in this thought and lofty desire, as Scripture suggests. … [T]he pursuit of virginity is a certain art and faculty of the more divine life’.27 Indeed, his twentieth point in this treatise is, ‘That it is impossible to serve the bodily pleasures and, at the same time, to reap the enjoyment of God.’28 Maximus, in the Second Century of Love 16–19, for example, speaks of the ‘demon of unchastity’, and understands sex to be for the begetting of children and not for sensual pleasure. 29 Basil, in his Homily on the Words ‘Give heed to thyself’ suggests that we should ‘Attend not to the flesh nor seek after its good in 24. See M.S. Moore, ‘Ruth’, in Joshua, Judges, Ruth (NIBC; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), 291–373, here, 355. 25. R. Williams, ‘Origen’, in G.R. Evans (ed.) The First Christian Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 132–142, here, 141. 26. See V.W. Callahan (trans.), ‘On Virginity’, in Saint Gregory of Nyssa: Ascetical Works (FC 58; Washington DC: CUA Press, 1967), 1–75, here, 6. 27. Ibid., 27. 28. Ibid., 62.

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any form—health, beauty, enjoyment of pleasures, or longevity’. 30 Such an understanding is reflected in some more recent writings. For example commenting on sex in relation to Genesis 1 Dumitru Staniloae suggests that ‘The love between man and woman surpasses the dimensions of sexual pleasure; we may even say that such love can grow more profound and is more lasting where no preoccupation with this pleasure exists. Human beings needed to multiply’. 31 Thus the ‘traditional Christian context’ 32 that forms the expectations for reading narratives such as Ruth 3 as a Christian is the assumption that sexual desire, passion or pleasure is unhelpful for the spiritual journey. As Ruth and Boaz are both seen as exemplary characters, embodying virtue, there is likely to be a strong urge stemming from such pre-understanding of the interpreter to re-interpret what is actually narrated in the text. Features of the story that might point away from the assumptions of the traditional Christian context are likely to be re-interpreted. Some of the details of the story become opaque. Recent readings of Ruth 3 are set in a very different context. Different as sumptions and prejudices shape interpretation. In contexts informed by feminism and a hermeneutic of suspicion more generally, readings such as Fewell’s and Gunn’s may appear to be ‘obvious’ interpretations of the text. The context for understanding sex in terms of pleasure—and the evaluation of this—is now very different too. The pursuit of sexual pleasure is understood as a healthy element of a fulfilled life in contemporary Western societies. It seems to be a foundation of contemporary worldviews, and indeed it has become something of an obsession as may be seen in contemporary literature, education, film and television. Given that such an ideology is so pervasive, it is likely that it will increasingly influence Christian communities and attitudes. The kinds of attitude that are commonly encouraged towards sexual relationships are likely to predispose readers of Ruth 3 to read it with greater attention to eroticism and the pursuit of sexual pleasure as a positive driving force in the encounter between Ruth and Boaz. Sexual activity is likely to be seen in the encounter and regarded in positive terms. We would do well to seek a more nuanced perspective than we have discovered in traditional Christian readings on the one hand, and in contempor ary readings shaped by preoccupations with sex and suspicion on the other 29. In G.E.H. Palmer, P. Sherrard and K. Ware (trans.), The Philokalia: The Complete Text Volume Two (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), 67–8. 30. In M.M. Wagner, St. Basil: Ascetical Works (FC 9; Washington DC: CUA Press, 1962), 435. 31. D. Staniloae, The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Volume Two: The World: Creation and Deification (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, ET: 2000), 96. 32. This is perhaps a rather too crude and generalizing construct—I use it as a shorthand whose sense I hope is sufficiently clear.

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hand, especially if we are to allow the narrative of Ruth to shape our priorities in the hermeneutical spiral between the text and the reader’s expectations and assumptions. Alicia Ostriker offers a nuanced reading that draws together concerns of sexual pleasure anticipated amid patient chastity: What charms us in Ruth is the inextricability of ethical behavior from erotic gratification. Is Boaz doing the right thing, and more than the right thing, is he acting as God wishes men of honor to act because he is attracted to this attractive female? Well, yes. And is he attracted to her in part because she herself has behaved honourably, beyond the line of duty? Yes again. So eros and ethics join at the 33 moment of the harvest.

R UTH AND NAOMI I now turn to the interpretation of Ruth 1:16–17, and in particular to the nature of the relationship between Ruth and Naomi. Some of the issues involved are outlined by Ostriker:

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My students tend to see Ruth’s declaration to Naomi as sincere and passionate, possibly sexual. Some are disturbed at Naomi’s unresponsiveness; others are confident that she loves or comes to love Ruth. Either way, they identify emotionally with Ruth. They divide over their interpretations of Ruth-Boaz: some see Ruth as humiliatingly submissive, while others see her as successfully landing a fish. A few find the story touching, but nobody finds it romantic. … All of which is to say: my students see the Book of Ruth as a complex, sub34 tle, not simple, portrayal of relationships.

van Wolde explains that: Ruth holds tight to Naomi. The Hebrew word used here of Ruth is dabaq, which means ‘hold tight’, ‘be close’, ‘cleave’, ‘grasp’, but it can also have an erotic or sexual meaning. For example, [as in] Genesis 2.24 … The word usually has a sexual connotation. Generally speaking, the idea of “physical proximity” seems to underlie dabaq. What does dabaq mean here? Does Ruth put her arm round Naomi out of compassion, or is she so strongly attached to Naomi that she never wants to leave her? And can’t this attachment be described with words like “love”? … [Ruth 1:16–17] sounds very like our modern marriage promise with the vow ‘until death us do part’. Ruth expresses as her ardent wish 33. A.S. Ostriker, For the Love of God: The Bible as an open Book (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2007), 52. 34. Ibid., 157.

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that from now on she will be and remain with Naomi. She does not use the vague ‘for ever’, but is quite precise: she will not leave Naomi in life (16b), in death (17a), and even in the time after death, i.e. in the grave (17a). No more convincing proof of Ruth’s love for Naomi is possible. The words dabaq and ‘spend the night’ could have erotic connotations. This word dabaq occurs three more times in the following chapters, twice with a non-sexual sense of “attach oneself to” or “remain close to” (2.8; 2.21) and once with the possibly sexual meaning of ‘cling to’ (2.22b). Therefore it is not clear to what extent there are sexual connotations in what Ruth does and states in 1.16— 17. At all events, it is certain that Ruth is very attached to Naomi and loves her, for the loyalty which Ruth expresses is all-embracing and definitive. She has made her choice of Naomi: an all-determining and absolute choice which will extend from the whole of life un35 til after death.

With these issues in mind, Peter S. Hawkins notes that Ruth 1:16–17 ‘has become a standard choice for same-sex unions and commitment ceremonies, as well as a biblical model for human love that flourishes outside the framework of patriarchy. In this light, the book of Ruth is seen … as celebrating a deep “unconventional” love that stands apart from the reproductive goals of heterosexual marriage.’36 Again, in the contemporary context for interpretation in which there is a drive to construe so many texts or phenomena in sexual terms, whether arising from feminist hermeneutics or from a society that is obsessed with issues involving sex, sexuality and gender, it is perhaps no surprise that there is a move to imagine a sexual dimension to the relationship between Ruth and Naomi. Likewise, as one might expect, this interpretative possibility has been opaque to traditional Christian interpreters of the book, who have focused instead on Ruth’s conversion to ‘right religion’ and affection for her mother-in-law (Theodoret), 37 or her merit in standing by the deserted (Jerome).38 Hubbard speaks here of Ruth’s ‘lifelong commitment’ and of a ‘majestic monument of faithfulness above the biblical landscape’ 39 in which Ruth ‘gave up marriage to a man to devote herself to an old woman’. 40 LaCocque suggests that she ‘attaches herself … to a woman instead of a man’.41 In all these traditional readings there is no discussion of any possible sexual di mension to their relationship, or any consideration that the relationship might 35. Van Wolde, Ruth, 19–20. 36. Hawkins, ‘Ruth’, 82. 37. Questions on Ruth, 1, in Hill, Theodoret, 363–65. 38. Letter 39.5, in ACCS 4, 182. 39. Hubbard, Ruth, 117. 40. Ibid., 120. 41. LaCocque, Ruth, 52.

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be described as ‘lesbian’, or even that Ruth was ‘bisexual’ given her relationships with Naomi and Boaz. The interpreter’s context strongly influences their construal of the world of the text, or even the construals that are considered. 42 Irene Travis asks of the relationship between Ruth and Naomi, where does duty and honor end and romantic love begin, if at all? … It is a story of the love between women, celebrating faithfulness, passionate care, commitment, devotion, and loyalty. … We now know that many women such as Ruth and Naomi exist … as emotionally intimate lesbians and that genital expression is not neces43 sarily the defining quality of lesbianism.

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Similarly, reading from a bisexual perspective Celena Duncan, comments on her own experience that her life ‘has been enriched by a number of bisexual relationships that have nothing to do with sex or even sensuality yet have been deeply gratifying, connections so spiritually rewarding that, like Ruth and Naomi, a bond has been formed that has gone far beyond simple friendship, far beyond concern or thought that the bond was formed with either male or fe male’44 She suggests that 42. Regarding how one interprets or categorizes the relationship between Ruth and Naomi, if one may draw some analogies with categories relating to predominantly male homosexuality, Gerard Loughlin notes that the term ‘homosexual’ was first used in print in 1869, and introduced into the English language in 1892 (276). He suggests that it marked a ‘new way of thinking human identity in terms of “sexuality”. For it imagines that each person has an inner essential core of sexuality which can be variously oriented, and which is given by the object of erotic interest, by the sex of that object: male and/or female. This way of thinking is now so dominant in the West that it appears en tirely natural; just the way things are.’ (276). He notes that ‘what began as a pathology became a politics and, more recently, a “life-style”, a certain regime of production and consumption.’ (277). However, the social construction of same-sex affections and acts differs even if the universal reality is not in question. Foucault drew a distinction between ‘homosexual’ and ‘sodomite’ characterized as a distinction between a “nature” and an “act”, between a disposition and a practice (277). Like the Bible, medieval moral theology has nothing to say about homosexuality according to Mark Jordan (278). With this in mind, it is difficult to know what possibilities might have been available to interpreters to understand, describe or categorize Ruth and Naomi’s relationship. See G. Loughlin, ‘Idol Bodies’, in S.C. Barton (ed.), Idolatry: False Worship in the Bible, Early Judaism and Christianity (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 267–286. 43. I.S. Travis, ‘Love your Mother: A Lesbian Womanist Reading of Scripture’, in R.E. Goss and M. West (eds.), Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2000), 35–42, here 38. 44. C.M. Duncan, ‘The Book of Ruth: On Boundaries, Love, and Truth’, in R.E. Goss and M. West (eds.), Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2000), 92–102, here, 93.

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[Ruth] found herself being drawn to the love of another woman, bonds stronger than her own with Moab. Her love for Naomi crossed ethnic and patriarchal boundaries. … Thousands of lesbians have repeated these same words [Ruth 1:16–17] in rituals blessing their unions. Ruth created family with Naomi. … Ruth crossed the boundaries into a deep, mature form of love by re sponding to what, in Naomi, compelled her. Ruth committed herself to a relationship with another woman, a deep bond that went far beyond sexuality, gender, and ethnicity and one that sought the physical, the spiritual, all the things attracting one person to another. What Ruth saw in Naomi was the elder woman’s goodness, compassion, and kindness, but it was a bond of love between women that could only exist under the rubric of patriarchal marriage and 45 family.

She concludes that ‘in her silence, Naomi accepted what the younger woman offered, a bond of support, companionship, assistance, loyalty, and love. Are these not the elements of a marriage?’ 46 In other words, read in a contemporary lesbian or bisexual context, what the text explicitly narrates regarding the relationship between Ruth and Naomi invites the imaginative construal of the world of the text precisely in terms of a lesbian or bisexual relationship. However, we see that how one best categorizes the relationship, especially with re gard to any possible sexual aspect of the relationship is ambiguous, both in terms of what interpretative possibilities there are of the text itself, and in terms of the contemporary category of ‘lesbian’. 47 Outside the contemporary contexts in which lesbian and bisexual relationships are in view the world of the text may be construed entirely without reference to any relationship cat egorized in these ways. It could be described entirely in terms of friendship, as we shall discuss further below. Together then, these various frames of reference for reading the text illus trate the importance of context and ‘prejudices’ for interpretation. One might say that in terms of ‘exegesis’—identifying what is explicitly said in the text— traditional Christian interpreters in fact identify a very similar set of defining characteristics of the relationship between Ruth and Naomi to recent lesbian and bisexual readers. The difference then is how this ‘exegesis’ shapes ‘interpretation’ of the world of the text in dialogue with the horizons of the reader as the world of the text is imaginatively unfolded and interpreted. The ques 45. Ibid., 94. 46. Ibid., 95 47. Especially in the light of Loughlin’s comments above, it seems extremely unlikely that the relationship between Ruth and Naomi would be conceptualized as les bian (or any contextual equivalent) in the originary frame of reference of the story, since such categories were not available and thus not subject to dispute.

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tion is then whether or not one categorizes the relationship as a committed friendship (and so imagine love within this context), or rather as lesbian, or bisexual (and love within those contexts). But is there in fact anything in the text that suggests that a lesbian or bi sexual interpretation is more probable or a better way of characterizing the relationship than not? One starting point is the question of whether there was an erotic or sexual dimension to the relationship portrayed. For example, Rebecca Alpert identifies erotic and sexual dimensions as central characteristics in lesbianism, noting that ‘without romantic love and sexuality, the story of Ruth and Naomi loses much of its power as a model for Jewish lesbian relationships’.48 However, Travis’ and Duncan’s comments suggest that this may not be the central concern. As Duncan puts it,

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I do not understand bisexuality only in terms of sexual attraction because this understanding limits human capabilities and reduces people to sexual objects, no better than the sum of their sexual organs. Beautiful and sacred though it is, the physical act of sex does 49 not need to be the bottom line in every discussion of sexuality.

Whilst there are different perspectives on the question of the significance of erotic or sexual dimensions in defining lesbian or bisexual relationships, it may still be a helpful point of departure. Is there any indication of the characterisa tion of the relationship between Ruth and Naomi that there was an erotic or sexual dimension? We have seen how the innuendo and sexually charged atmosphere of Ruth 3 has been opaque to many traditional Christian interpreters, and thus, especially if the concept of lesbianism is a modern construct it is quite possible that any features of the text that might be interpreted as indic ating an erotic or sexual dimension to the relationship (whether intentionally offered or not) between Ruth and Naomi may not have been considered by interpreters in the past. First, the interpretation of ‫( דבק‬dabaq, Ruth 1:14) is significant. What is involved or implied in the concept here? van Wolde claims that it ‘usually has a sexual connotation’, and could have erotic connotations. Indeed, this line of interpretation is developed elsewhere: But Ruth cannot bear to [return home]. Her feelings run too deep. The Hebrew word used in Ruth 1:14 to describe those feelings is quite telling. The text says, “Ruth clung to [Naomi].” The Hebrew

48. R. Alpert, ‘Finding Our Past: A Lesbian Interpretation of the Book of Ruth’, in J.A. Kates and G.T. Reimer (eds.), Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994), 91–96, here, 95. 49. Duncan, ‘Ruth’, 93.

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word for “clung” is “dabaq.” This is precisely the same Hebrew 50 word used in Genesis 2:24 to describe how Adam felt toward Eve.

What is interesting here is that a category of ‘feelings’ (very much a con temporary concern) is introduced to interpret ‫ דבק‬in a way that resonates with romantic attachment, thus suggesting ‫ דבק‬has erotic and sexual connotations. But is this warranted? Does ‫ דבק‬usually—or even often—have a sexual connotation? In fact, the usage of the word in the Old Testament shows that it rarely has such a connotation, if ever. It is used 58 times to refer to attach ments in various senses, referring to leprosy clinging (2 Ki 5:27), keeping inheritance (Num 36:7), holding fast to Yahweh (Deut 4:4, 10:20, etc) being ‘taken [or overtaken] by disaster’ (Gen 19:19), a hand clinging to a sword (2 Sam 23:10), and the tongue sticking to the jaw (Ps 22:15 [16]). Clearly, close attachment is involved, but it would seem premature to assume that it has sexual or erotic connotations, even if there is an intriguing ambiguity here. Interpreting ‫דבק‬ with sexual connotations is possible, but this does not reflect the most com mon usage of the term, and it is not entirely clear the extent to which sexual or emotional connotations are specifically in view when it is used in such a way that it could have sexual resonances (Gen 2:24; 34:3). However, it is interesting that the term is used to characterize the relationship between two women, a term that is used in the paradigmatic characterisation of marriage between male and female (Gen 2:24) and between the Israelite and Yahweh (e.g. Deut 4:4). ‫ דבק‬seems to have more to do with attachment, in whatever sense, than emotions or sex. Perhaps Ellen Davis’ suggestion that it is rendered in Ruth as ‘stuck by’, or later as ‘stick with’ is helpful.51 Secondly, there is no direct or euphemistic reference to any supposed sexual dimension to the relationship between Ruth and Naomi. There is nothing like the innuendo used in Ruth 3 with regard to the encounter between Ruth and Boaz in relation to Ruth and Naomi. There are no references to them ‘sleeping together’ or ‘lying together’. However, thirdly, other indicators in the text do point toward the ‘special relationship’ that Ruth and Naomi had: The focus [in the book of Ruth] is on the quality of their relationship. The biblical storyteller chronicles how Ruth cared for Naomi by taking the only job available to a husbandless woman, gleaning. When the author tells of Ruth’s eventual marriage to a much older man, the marriage is portrayed as one of convenience, contrived to 50. http://www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence/ruth_naomi.html accessed 26/09/12. 51. E.F. Davis, ‘“All that you say, I will do”: A Sermon on the Book of Ruth’, in in P.S. Hawkins and L.C. Stahlberg (eds.), Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs (New York: Fordham UP, 2006), 3–19, here, 15.

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help Ruth and Naomi survive the harsh conditions of widowhood. No mention is made of Ruth’s love for her husband. And, when Ruth finally bears a son from her marriage, the text focuses on Naomi and her reaction to the great news, not on the father. In fact, the women of the village (and the author) ignore the father entirely, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” (Ruth 4:17) They remind her that Ruth “who loves you, is more to you than seven sons.” (Ruth 4:15) Everyone seems to understand that, for Ruth and Naomi, 52 their most important relationship is the one they share.

Whilst there is perhaps a rather premature assumption here that Ruth’s mar riage to Boaz is one of convenience, two interesting observations might sug gest that Ruth’s relationship with Naomi is indeed primary. First, Ruth is said to love ( ‫ )אהב‬Naomi, but nowhere is Ruth said to love (‫ )אהב‬Boaz. The question is then whether that is interpreted within the context of friendship, or lesbian relationships. Perhaps the comments of Travis and Duncan suggest that such distinctions are not in fact clear. Secondly, the child born to Ruth is said to be a child born to Naomi, not Boaz. As Duncan puts it, ‘The women further acknowledged the primacy of the relationship with Naomi and Ruth.’ 53 Indeed, even if one adopts a reading strategy in which one seeks to interpret the book in the context of levirate marriage, the attribution of the child to Naomi, and the genealogy that follows, is unusual. Commentators have noted that with regard to levirate marriage, the genealogy ought to attribute the child to Mahlon or Elimelek. 54 Moreover, S.R. Driver notes that it is not the duty of levirate marriage that is in view (cf. Genesis 38; Deut 25:5) for Boaz was not Ruth’s brother in law. 55 Thus one ought to be cautious in using ‘levirate mar riage’ as a frame of reference or interpretative strategy for reading the story. One need not conclude that Ruth’s marriage to Boaz was driven by duty or law alone (as some traditional commentators may imply); it may well have been driven as much by love and attraction as by duty or indeed economic necessity, even if such factors are clearly important. Indeed, whilst levirate marriage per se—at least in the form now preserved in the canonical literature—may not be strictly in view, something along these lines is, and thus there is a sense of duty or covenant obligations in view. It is worth noting, especially in our con temporary context, that the story of Ruth casts actions performed on the basis

52. http://www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence/ruth_naomi.html accessed 26/09/12. 53. Duncan, ‘Ruth’, 100. 54. See Campbell, Ruth, 165; Gray, Ruth, 404; Nielsen, Ruth, 96–99. 55. S.R. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, rev. 9th ed., 1913), 454.

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of duty in a positive light, or alternatively that such performance places the characters in a positive light. Clearly then, the book of Ruth characterizes the relationship between Ruth and Naomi as special. There is an unusual depth of friendship and commitment that goes beyond that of many relationships. Whether or not one construes their relationship as a lesbian relationship, and/or understands it as having an erotic or sexual dimension is an ambiguity that the reader or reading community considers once the question is raised. By and large, the issue would seem to have been opaque to Christian interpreters through the ages. But Christian readers with traditional assumptions on sexuality who are aware of the possibility would presumably appeal to prohibitions on ‘same-sex sexual relationships or acts’ and their negative appraisal in either the context of the Old Testament (e.g. Genesis 19; Lev 18:22) or the New Testament (e.g. Rom 1:27; 1 Cor 6:9). Such appeal would require careful nuancing owing to the use of contemporary categories to interpret scriptural texts in which different concepts may be involved to some extent. 56 Similarly, appeal could be made to the Chris56. However, cf. Loughlin, ‘Idol Bodies’, esp. 274–277, 283–84 regarding the translation of παρὰ φύσιν (Rom 1:26) and μαλακός and ἀρσενοκοίτης (1 Cor 6:9), and what is signified in the social context then and now. Loughlin suggests that ‘we cannot say that Paul had any idea of modern homosexuality or of homosexual persons, and we must re member that Paul associated paranatural [i.e., παρὰ φύσιν (Rom 1:26)] sexual inclinations and practices with idolatry, with a fundamental misperception of the world. It is only because the terms “homosexual” and “homosexuality” are now so ubiquitous that we can suppose they were always ready to hand. … There is no idea in Paul of a variant desire—a homoerotic orientation—as is now commonplace. Modern homosexuals do not exchange their natures but live them out, when they are out.’ (280). ‘For Paul, the natural is the conventional, and the paranatural is that which exceeds the given. The paranatural is that which breaks order and crosses borders. It is contrary to common sense, and common sense is given by social conventions, the forms of life by which a culture is constituted.’ (282). Loughlin notes that para phusin occurs in Rom 11:13, 24 with reference to gentiles being grafted into Israel, contrary to nature, and that in 1 Cor 11:14–15 it is contrary to nature for men to cut their hair, an example that is ‘highly counter-intuitive for anyone who supposes that the natural is what nature does, as opposed to what culture teaches, for what could be more unnatural … than to cut one’s hair?’ (282–83). Loughlin also disputes the traditionally accepted translations of 1 Cor 6:9–11 (283– 284). He suggests that the ‘“natural intercourse”… against which Paul’s idolatrous Gentiles turned consisted in the male “use” … of the female. For a man to have sex with a woman (or boy) was for him to “use” … the woman (or boy), and for the woman (or boy) to be used by him. … What Paul thinks natural we can only think, if not unnatural, then at least improper or immoral for those who, in Christ—and as Paul himself teaches—are learning to love one another in mutual subservience (1 Cor 7:3–4). Furthermore, ancient sex was never between social equals, but always between a superior and an inferior

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tian tradition’s self-understanding to argue either that there is not really any ambiguity here, or, if there is, to argue that the Scriptural context for interpretation indicates that the ambiguity ought to be resolved in favor of there being no lesbian, erotic or sexual dimension to the relationship between Ruth and Naomi. However, quite apart from the difficulties that Loughlin’s analysis raises here, such an appeal is in fact more problematic than it may appear when in terpretation in structuralist terms is considered. Ruth is repeatedly characterized as a Moabite, and in the scriptural context Israelites were to avoid associations with Moabites (e.g. Deut 23:3). But Ruth is presented as a Moabite who embodies ‫חסד‬, and she is portrayed in the most positive terms. She embodies that which the faithful Israelite is to embody, despite her ethnic origin, just like Rahab in the book of Joshua. As Duncan notes: Whether it was done consciously or not, Boaz, Ruth, and Naomi worked together to bring down the false and negative boundaries thrown up in the name of ethnicity, age, race, religion, and gender boundaries that separate and divide. At the same time that those boundaries were coming down, the three, as God’s agents, were erecting true boundaries—ethical and moral boundaries—that must exist if the reign of God is ever to be fully realized in the world. To the modern observer, they created a bisexual family. For God’s realm to be realized concretely on earth, at the center of one’s life must be love of God, respect for self and for others, lovingkindness, responsibility, accountability, and integrity. … In the Creator of all, there is no straight or gay, asexual or bisexual, oriental or occidental, this nation or that one, old or young, not even Protestant or Roman Catholic. There is only the diversity that the Creator in wisdom, love, and grace wants to share with us, diversity that we 57 are expected to treat responsibly and respectfully.

In structuralist terms the book of Ruth can be understood to function so as to motivate the qualification of Israelite identity, in particular in terms of the portrayal and significance of ethnic boundaries as presented elsewhere in Scripture. So in structuralist perspective, one might well construe Ruth in terms of the qualification of boundaries defined in terms of sexual orientation and practice too, whether or not it is supposed that this was originally in view person. … The erotic was the social, and any respectable man feared to take on a socially inferior role, just as any respectable woman would fear to reach above her status, by playing the part of a man.’ (284–85). In other words, caution is required in the assessment of just what it was that Paul opposed in these texts as understood against their first century context, and whether or not it is a good use of these texts to argue against a ‘lesbian reading’ of Ruth. 57. Duncan, ‘Ruth’, 100–101.

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in what the book was written to achieve. 58 To put this in terms of Nicholas Lash’s hermeneutic that we have discussed previously, this would reflect one way of appropriating what was once shown, intended or achieved by the story of Ruth in today’s context. In other words, the enduring significance of the story of Ruth is construed in terms of deconstructing, or at least qualifying, boundaries and taboos. In these terms, rather than defining boundaries in terms of ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation (to use modern categories), Ruth may motivate the drawing of boundaries with reference to those who wish to worship Yahweh and embody ‫חסד‬, the content of which is given through the actions of characters such as Rahab and Ruth. However, the Christian interpreter with traditional understandings of sexual ethics who does not envisage a lesbian or bisexual relationship here would presumably argue that there are some boundaries that Ruth qualifies, and others that Ruth does not qualify. The question is then one of content rather than structure. I.e., the question concerns the basis upon which this decision is made: how do structure and content relate? Interpreters such as Duncan are adopting and devel oping a full-blown structuralist interpretation. But the question is essentially that of what content is given to worshiping Yahweh in wisdom and love and embodying ‫חסד‬. Alpert interprets Micah’s injunction to ‘do ‫ ’חסד‬precisely in terms of fighting for lesbian rights. 59 Writing in a Jewish lesbian context Alpert notes that: Only through … midrashic suggestion do Naomi and Ruth become true models for contemporary Jewish lesbians. While public vows of commitment, familial connections, female friendship, and cross-cultural and intergenerational relationships are important aspects of lesbian culture, sexuality is central to lesbian identity. Many heterosexuals mistakenly assume that all that is different about lesbian women is that they have sex with other women. Jewish lesbians have sought to establish that lesbian culture includes other elements, including those described above. Yet without romantic love and sexuality, the story of Ruth and Naomi loses much of its power as a model for Jewish lesbian relationships. A Jewish lesbian midrash on Ruth requires that we read between the lines of the text and imagine Ruth and Naomi to be lovers. To les 58. I.e., hermeneutically, there are two ways of understanding this proposal—either that in the depiction of the relationship between Ruth and Naomi the author of the text intended to qualify the boundaries of allowable forms of relationship as well as ethnic boundaries; or, that as a reading strategy in a 21st century Western context the story can be read as qualifying these boundaries as well as ethnic boundaries. 59. R.T. Alpert, ‘Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly: Reflections on Micah and Gay Ethics’, in in R.E. Goss and M. West (eds.), Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2000), 170–182, here, 178–81.

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bians, this is not implausible. Throughout the centuries, sexual love between women was hidden from public view. That the Hebrew Bible prohibits male homosexuality but does not mention lesbian sex may be because women’s private behavior did not matter or went unnoticed, rather than because lesbian sexuality was not practiced. … When other scholars and commentators look at the Book of Ruth, they fail to see what we see. They are sure that Ruth means only to dedicate herself to Naomi’s God. They are convinced that the important love relationship is the one between Ruth and Boaz. They can’t imagine that there is a theme of love between women written between the lines. … To find what is written between the lines has been the essence of midrashic interpretation throughout the ages. What makes the biblical narrative so powerful is that it can be reinterpreted in every generation. A midrash works when it enables people to see the story in a new light or with an added dimension.

She also notes that:

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It is not the goal of midrash to prove that the story actually hap pened this way, but to make room for change within tradition while providing historical antecedent for the change. Making room for lesbian interpretations of the Book of Ruth is a way of welcoming 60 lesbians into the contemporary Jewish community.

So it would seem that the way in which one interprets the nature of the rela tionships between Ruth, Naomi and Boaz is strongly influenced by how one in terprets what is said in the story in terms of what is not said, and this is shaped by the context, character and imagination of the interpreter. However, perhaps much of the strength of the argument for the lesbian or bisexual reading of Ruth is that there is a clear ‘family resemblance’ between the relationship that is portrayed between Ruth and Naomi and that which is understood to embody marriage—as reflected in the use of Ruth 1:16–17 in wedding ceremonies. The contemporary readings discussed thus have purchase on the observation that Gen 2:24, and its reception and use (e.g. Matt 19:4–6), has formed the ‘bedrock’ (in the Wittgensteinian sense) of the marriage relationship, i.e., how we organ ize, interpret and understand our concept of marriage. 61 This, coupled with the 60. Alpert, ‘Ruth’, 95–96. 61. For the role of ‘bedrock’ or ‘river-bed’ see On Certainty. For discussion see D. Moyal-Sharrock, Understanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) and A. Hamilton, Wittgenstein and On Certainty (Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks; London: Routledge, 2014). See Hamilton, 107–109 for discussion on the possibility of shifts.

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note that Ruth loves Naomi (4:15) and that the son is interpreted as being born to Naomi (4:17), creates expectations for how one might fill the silences in the narrative in relation to a lesbian or sexual dimension to their relationship. But is it helpful to seek explicitly to understand the relationship with reference to those terms? As Duncan asks, ‘Were Ruth and Naomi close in-laws? or friends? or sexual intimates? Labelling their relationship is to limit and diminish what they had. Special friendship does not even describe it. What I have described is, to me, precisely what bisexuality is about. It breaks boundaries of all kinds …’ 62. However, Alpert suggests that

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When these words [Ruth 1:16–17] are read through the lens of lesbian feminist experience, they point toward something greater than a relationship of loyalty and obligation between these two women. This story of female friendship resonates powerfully with Jewish lesbians in search of role models. Ruth and Naomi have a committed relationship that crosses the boundaries of age, nationality, and religion. … Had the speakers been of opposite sexes, Ruth 1:16–17 would cer63 tainly have been read as a poetic statement of love.

Alpert’s comments reflect the hermeneutic that we have been developing in terms of reading Old Testament narrative as ‘poetic fiction’ that is formative of a cultural memory that is generative of the life of the worshipping com munity. As readers of Scripture we seek exemplars that either reshape or resonate with our beliefs and practices. As we have seen previously, the task of the interpreter is not that of seeking to identify what ‘actually happened’, or what the author of the text intended or envisaged, but rather to consider how the world of the text may be imaginatively construed as part of Scripture and the tradition that emerges from reflection upon it. Sometimes it is not even the ‘most probable’ but rather ‘possible’ readings that are to be preferred. Traditional, lesbian and bisexual readings of the relationship between Ruth and Naomi are all possible, and all in some sense represent good readings of the text with reference to different assumptions regarding Christian ethics. How the text is imaginatively construed here is very much a reflection of the context of the interpreter, their character and imagination, and the assumptions that are embodied and encouraged in their context. A number of reading strategies are possible each of which gives rise to a different yet possible reading of the text. So it is possible to read the story well in several ways. Interpreting from within a particular context shapes how one is likely to resolve the ambiguities. But then the story coupled with its interpretation may be generative in part of the identity of that context. In a sense, this is to say that interpretation and 62. Duncan, ‘Ruth’, 102. 63. Alpert, ‘Ruth’, 93–94.

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construction of identity and context proceed in a somewhat circular fashion until a convergence in interpretation and generation of identity is reached— this is simply the outworking of the ‘hermeneutical spiral’. Yet it seems possible that depending upon what one’s initial context is, the hermeneutical pro cess may lead to the convergence of a number of different interpretations. To a traditional Christian reader 64 the book of Ruth may indicate just what is possible in a committed friendship, or the depth of family loyalties, and what this might look like in practice. In a society that is preoccupied with sex in various ways and at many levels the story might be used to indicate that erotic or sexual dimensions need not exist in or be relevant to a deeply committed friendship. The silences in the narrative on issues of a sexual or erotic nature can be taken to imply just this—the narrative is construed as silent be cause these aspects are assumed to be absent and irrelevant. Read this way the book evokes the possibilities implicit in genuine deep friendship that is not motivated by issues of sex, and may be paradigmatic in attempting to recover the notion and value of what such committed friendship may represent, espe cially in a society that is preoccupied with issues relating to gender, sexuality and sex and that seeks to discover sexual or erotic aspects to almost any relationship or activity. Such an interpretation may prove to be truly liberating. Indeed, Jesus calls his disciples ‘friends’ ( φίλοϛ John 15:15) and associates such friendship with commitment in love ( ἀγάπη), a commitment that involves laying down one’s life for another, thus suggesting that this is in fact the greatest form of love (John 15:13). The form of relationship that Jesus envisages here would seem to resonate with that between Ruth and Naomi, yet it is perhaps somewhat churlish to suggest that Jesus has any erotic or sexual dimension to the relationships in view in John 15:13. Thus it is quite possible to interpret the relationship between Ruth and Naomi in the categories employed here in the Fourth Gospel, interpreting references to ‫ דבק‬and ‫ אהב‬through John 15:13–15. Such an interpretation is reinforced if Ruth is read intertextually with (the re ceived interpretation of) Rom 1:18–32, coupled with an understanding of human sexual relationships as shaped by Gen 2:24 and its scriptural reception. Thus it is a good reading of Ruth in the Christian context to suppose that there 64. As before, I use the category ‘traditional Christian reader’ for convenience in the discussion that follows, referring to a Christian who adopts a traditional, conservative sexual ethic—that sexual relationships properly occur only in the context of a lifelong marriage commitment between one man and one woman. I use this category in distinction from lesbian or bisexual readers (and again for convenience I consider both categories together, recognizing that they are of course two separate categories), by which I mean Christians who practise lesbian or bisexual relationships. Clearly this categorization is inadequate and incomplete, but does, I hope, offer clarity and succinctness to the discussion that follows and helps highlight the issues involved.

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was no erotic or sexual dimension to Ruth’s relationship with Naomi, and that it need not be interpreted as a lesbian relationship. It is not surprising that in terpreters have very seldom considered the possibility. On this interpretation the story challenges certain contemporary assumptions regarding the pervasiveness of the interpretation of texts and relationships that focus on issues of sex, sexuality and gender. This interpretation reinforces traditional under standings of the importance and significance of friendship, commitment, grace, duty and family bonds. On the other hand, a lesbian or bisexual reader is likely to find evoked in the story a model of just such a relationship here in the book of Ruth. Reading this way one takes the ‘family resemblance’ of Ruth and Naomi’s relationship with a heterosexual marriage relationship, which when coupled with the refer ence to ‫ דבק‬in 1:14, to ‫ אהב‬in 4:15 and to the child as said to be born to Naomi in 4:17, to suggest that lesbian and possibly sexual dimensions to their rela tionship are implied. Given the family resemblance, why should one assume that this is not the case? It makes good sense to read it in this way in the con text of lesbian or bisexual commitments or communities. Read in juxtaposition with Rom 1:18–32 and Gen 2:24 one may privilege the lesbian/bisexual reading of Ruth with regard to such relationships over Rom 1:18–32 in a similar way that one privileges Ruth over Deut 23:3 with regard to the acceptance of Moabites within the Israelite community—for the story questions precisely such traditional assumptions. Indeed, the structuralist principles of Gal 3:28 may be appealed to, enlarging its scope to include, in Christ, the removal of boundaries based on sexual orientation.65 Thus a reading strategy emerges that is shaped by the context and character of the interpreter as well as a close reading of the text and consideration of its structural significance. Again, such a reading is a good reading of Ruth, but with respect to this different frame of reference. The story could be said to be a model for what might be possible in terms of lesbian, or indeed bisexual love and commitment from within Scripture. Thus both families of readings are good readings of the text as text, readings that are shaped in each case by a particular context, set of character traits, assumptions and prejudices. Moreover, one might argue that each reading is a good reading in the context of Scripture as a whole. The readings differ in how they interpret the silences, on how they interpret 1:14, 4:15 and 4:17, and on 65. Cf. Loughlin, ‘Idol Bodies’, 283–86. This is, however, a possible rather than necessary extrapolation of the structuralist principle. The critic can respond that in the Christian context not all boundaries are removed. Moreover, see the discussion on Joshua in chapters 3 and 6. A mediating stance might be that there are certain ‘core’ values in the area of Christian sexual ethics as well as rather blurry and ambiguous boundaries. Of course, such a mediating position may seem unacceptable for both sides of the debate.

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the question of whether a reading of Ruth as deconstructing boundaries and norms is determinative for interpretation beyond the issue of ethnicity. They differ also in terms of one’s prior assumptions about sexuality and sexual ethics. One reading strategy operates within the context of the ‘sedimentation’ of tradition, the other appealing to ‘innovation’ that might be possible within the resources of the tradition when questions are asked in new ways in the light of the testimony of experience and in the light of contemporary scientifically informed understandings of human nature. It is not possible to use the story of Ruth to seek to resolve which context, assumptions and prejudices are pre ferred, or the ethics of relationships that would be implied. Readings of the story according to both contexts are good, probable readings within the assumptions and boundaries of each context, and indeed both readings could be developed together—to develop the importance of friendship on the one hand, and a more fluid understanding of human sexuality on the other. They need not be competing. The meta-critical theological question that remains is to make a judgment on whether a particular stance ought to be adopted with regard to sexual relationships and ethics.66 Thus the book of Ruth, even read within the textual horizon of Scripture, neither promotes nor rejects lesbian or bisexual relationships per se—their acceptance or rejection is made on other grounds and the story is read accordingly to reinforce the assumption. In other words, traditional or lesbian/bisexual interpretations form reading strategies. The significance of the book of Ruth is always subject to interpretation as part of the hermeneutical circle. But with reference to the hermeneutical circle on the one hand and the goal of theological interpretation as fostering growth in the Christian life toward the end of beholding and enjoying God on the other, the question then is how one might determine whether one context (coupled with its assumptions) is more able to allow that text to function toward this end. To put it another way, what context might the interpreter inhabit so that Scripture is indeed revelatory and a means of grace and growth, generative of the Christian life? Thus it is not so much a matter of whether or not one reading is better than another reading as a reading, but rather whether or not one reading context and its assumptions is preferable to another in achieving this end. This example in the interpretation of Ruth indicates rather dramatically how the task of interpretation of a scriptural text can be fundamentally about learning how to shape and adopt a context and its assumptions for interpretation so as to allow a text to be most transparently ‘revelatory’. Arguments can, and of course have, been 66. There are a variety of stances, and I do not seek to advocate any particular stance here. The hermeneutical question that I am exploring here is the extent to which Old Testament narrative texts, and Ruth in particular, reflect, shape or reshape our ethics.

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made for either context as preferable in this regard. I do not wish to replay them or seek to adjudicate between them here. Rather, I simply wish to make the point that the difficulty that the story of Ruth highlights is that Old Testament narrative can confound our expectation that scriptural narrative should offer a map that straightforwardly shapes our ethics. Scripture itself is not sufficient to form our ethical worldview to cover all cases. Scripture helps to shape our ethics as illuminated by theological reflection and tradition on the one hand, and as interrogated by the critique of ideology from Christian experience and further insights into human nature on the other hand. Much as it may complicate matters, Old Testament narrative does not straightforwardly give us scientia practica.

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C ONCLUSION In this study we have seen the clearest example yet of a confrontation between the hermeneutics of tradition and the critique of ideology, a confrontation that is currently a live issue within the church. It is not clear how the confrontation will be negotiated well. Scripture may play a less determinative role than one might expect. We have seen the power that context has in shap ing the interpretation of Old Testament narrative. It is a factor that can be as determinative for interpretation as what is actually narrated in the text. As Richard Briggs has suggested with regard to the interpretation of Gen 1:26, ‘the hermeneutical frameworks brought to bear actually generate (that is, construct) readings rather than simply uncovering them in the text.’ 67 As poetic fiction, the world of the text can allow very different worlds to be unfolded and evoked in the reader’s imagination, even when the text is read within the textual horizon of the whole of Scripture and within the Christian tradition. In early Christian interpretation, an interpretative context that was shaped by Stoicism rendered some aspects of the world of the text of Ruth 3 opaque and perhaps led to the undervaluing or misconstrual of human sexual relationships. Conversely, interpretation of Ruth 3 in a highly sexualised culture can lead interpreters to very different construals of Ruth 3 in which the erotic dimensions of the text are unhelpfully overdeveloped at the expense of the dimensions of the story relating to duty and obligation; these concerns become opaque. Similarly, how one construes certain aspects of the relationship between Ruth and Naomi are shaped by the context within which the story is read and the assumptions and imagination of the reader. The issue then is how to adopt and develop contexts that foster growth in the Christian life and hu man flourishing so that scriptural texts are revelatory for us. Indeed, whilst 67. R.S. Briggs, ‘Humans in the Image of God and Other Things Genesis does not make Clear’, in JTI 4.1 (2010): 111–126, here, 116.

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Briggs suggests that ‘the hermeneutical frameworks brought to bear actually generate (that is, construct) readings’ with regard to Gen 1:26, he also suggests, with reference to the interpretation of Ruth, that ‘Perhaps trying to discern love in the Old Testament text without reference to the God of Israel is a pro ject doomed to the task of staring down the well of interpretative possibilities and seeing only the reflection of one’s own preferences.’ 68 The difficulty that we have seen is that even with reference to the God, trying to discern the nature of love, or ‫ חסד‬in Ruth seems to be a ‘project doomed to the task of staring down the well of interpretative possibilities and seeing only the reflection of one’s own preferences.’ Our expectation of the development of something along the lines of scientia practica in terms of human sexuality and sexual ethics via the narrative of Ruth is confounded. The best that we can do is to suggest that our lives and relationships are to be characterized by ‫חסד‬. The importance of bonds of family, friendship and duty are important, as indeed are romantic interests, as seen in the mode of portrayal in the story. Our backgrounds and our understanding and experience of God (our theology) shapes our practical ethics and our character—and this in turn shapes our ability to read texts well and be conformed more fully to the image of Christ and thus to know and experience God in ever deeper ways. The hermeneutical spiral interacts with theology. In this case, it is extremely difficult to set out what this means concretely, and indeed it is the concrete characterization of ‫ חסד‬that is at issue. In terms of scientia speculativa not a great deal of Christian doctrine of the metaphysics of God hangs explicitly on Ruth, Joshua, Genesis 34 or Genesis 37– 50. But what about Old Testament narrative texts that have played a significant role in the development of Christian metaphysics? Indeed, in this and the pre vious chapters we have developed interpretations of Old Testament narrative in largely existential terms relating to living the Christian life ( scientia practica perhaps), rather than in terms of historical or metaphysical referents from which something of the nature of God is known more directly, even if a certain kind of metaphysics of God are implicitly or indirectly implied. We have not, however, dwelt on metaphysical issues or tackled them directly. I will consider questions of a more metaphysical nature in chapter 8 in the context of an exploration of the possibility of a Trinitarian reading of Genesis 1:26.

68. R.S. Briggs, The Virtuous Reader: Old Testament Narrative and Interpretative Virtue (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 150.

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C HAPTER 8

GENESIS 1:26 C HRISTIAN THEOLOGY, METAPHYSICS, AND OLD

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T ESTAMENT NARRATIVE In this chapter I will consider the interpretation of Gen 1:26, and in partic ular the use of the plural pronoun with reference to God. This text would appear influential in developing some of the core metaphysical aspects of Chris tian theology. Accordingly Christian interpretation of Gen 1:26 falls within the realms of scientia speculativa. The plural pronoun is often taken as referring to the nature of God as Trinity. Stories such as Genesis 34, and the books of Ruth and Joshua might be construed as ‘poetic fiction’ that redescribe ‘reality’ through the world of the text that unfolds and manifests new ways of being. Such texts interpreted in this way reflect a concern with something more like scientia practica than scientia speculativa, even if the nature of God is in fact in directly in view in such interpretation. We developed readings along these lines through Paul Ricoeur’s claim that texts representing poetic fiction have a different kind of referential claim than those representing historical truthclaiming narrative. Taking our bearings from Origen, we saw how moral and historical stumbling blocks in narratives such as Genesis 34, Joshua or indeed Samuel pointed toward understanding the stories as poetic fiction calling for imaginative symbolic existential interpretation rather than regarding the texts as something like ‘historical truth-claiming narratives’. Thus it would seem appropriate to understand such stories along the lines of scientia practica, even if their ultimate end is that of transforming us to be able to behold and enjoy God. But construing Gen 1:1–2:4a as poetic fiction in this way might seem more problematic for interpreting Gen 1:26 in Trinitarian terms more directly and explicitly within the domain of scientia speculativa and Christian metaphysics since this seems to require interpretation in terms of a metaphysical referent. In other words, there might seem to be a problem with trying to interpret Gen 1:26 in traditional Trinitarian terms if it reflects poetic fiction. Gen 1:26 has been influential in seeking to give an exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity, 234

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especially in the Augustinian tradition. It has been taken to demonstrate both the plurality and the singularity of God via its use of pronouns. It is assumed that we can exegetically ‘read off’ something about the metaphysical nature of God and of ourselves from the text. But what implications does this have for interpretation? If we wish to use Gen 1:26 in this metaphysical sense, is it only legitimate to do so via a ‘literal’ reading of the text by showing that this is what the text, or perhaps the author, is actually referring to? But what then happens when its literal sense within its Old Testament or ancient Near Eastern context is understood to be a reference to something other than God as Trinity? Does one abandon a Trinitarian inter pretation, as the majority of recent commentators have? Indeed, in the light of the last century or so of Old Testament scholarship coupled with the tradition of Jewish interpretation of the text, it becomes clear that a Trinitarian reading of Gen 1:26 is simply one particular and contextual reading. Contemporary Old Testament scholars tend to prefer interpretation against the backdrop of the ancient Near Eastern concept of the ‘divine assembly’, as we shall see below, whilst Jewish interpreters have opted to understand the plural referent either as a ‘majestic plural’, or in terms of the angelic host, a concept deriving from a reading of the Hebrew Bible as a whole rather than the text at hand. 1 Thus as we saw in the previous chapter, the interpretative context can play as determinative a role for interpretation as what the text actually says. Jewish as well as Christian readings therefore seem more akin to imaginative interpretation of the text as poetic fiction interpreted in their respective ca nonical and traditional contexts. But if Genesis 1:1–2:4a is read as myth, or as poetic fiction perhaps, then must one abandon a metaphysical interpretation, given that this seems like the wrong kind of referential claim to make in rela tion to the text? Indeed, in modern interpretation, especially in the light of the study of concepts found in ancient Near Eastern religion when coupled with the rise of science, particularly in the areas of evolutionary biology and cosmology, Genesis 1 has come to be understood in terms of poetic fiction—or myth—rather than as a literal description of how God created the world. Biblical scholars have come to prefer interpretative strategies that draw upon the ancient Near Eastern context for understanding. 1. For interpretation as a reference to the angelic host see e.g. N. Sarna, Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia, 1989), 12; for interpretation as a majestic plural see S.R. Hirsch, The Pentateuch Translated and Explained: Vol. 1 Genesis (London: ET: 1959), 29– 30. Both positions are well represented in the tradition, see e.g. N. Scherman and M. Zlotowitz (eds.), Bereshith / Genesis: A New Translation (New York: Mesorah Publications, 1986), 67–69. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes the reference to ‘ministering angels’ explicit, whilst Jubilees removes reference to creation in the image.

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It is interesting to note that such a perception of the problematic nature of a literal understanding of Genesis 1:1–2:4a is by no means a modern concern. It has ancient roots, as may be seen in Origen’s comments for example:

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THE PRINCIPLE UNDERLYING THE OBSCURITIES IN DIVINE SCRIPTURE AND ITS IMPOSSIBLE OR UNREASONABLE CHARACTER IN PLACES, IF TAKEN LITERALLY. Now what man of intelligence will believe that the first and the second and the third day, and the evening and the morning existed without the sun and moon and stars? And that the first day … was even without a heaven? And who is so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer, ‘planted a paradise eastward in Eden’, and set in it a visible and palpable ‘tree of life’, of such a sort that any one who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life; and again that one could partake of ‘good and evil’ by masticating the fruit taken from the tree of that name? And when God is said to ‘walk in the paradise in the cool of the day’ and Adam to hide himself behind a tree, I do not think anyone will doubt that these are figurative expressions which indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history and not through actual events. … And what more need I say, when those who are not altogether blind can collect thousands of such instances, recorded as actual events, but 2 which did not happen literally?

In other words, there are precisely the sort of stumbling blocks here in Genesis 1 that are cues pointing away from a literal reading of Gen 1:26 towards a spir itual reading, or a reading as ‘poetic fiction’ perhaps. 3 Indeed, Ellen Davis, developing a suggestion by Walter Brueggemann, states that, ‘The coherence and importance of Genesis 1 are best appreciated when it is read as a liturgical poem.’ 4 Where then does this leave the metaphysical interpretation of Gen 1:26 in terms of God as Trinity? Is it simply a possible reading that arises as the figment of the poetic imagination fostered by the Christian context of the interpreter? If so, what might warrant such a meta physical interpretation? I will now consider the interpretation of the text in more detail from a number of different perspectives.

2. De Princ., 4.3.1 (Greek text), in G.W. Butterworth, (trans.), Origen: On First Principles (Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1973), 288–89. 3. See also K. Barth, Church Dogmatics (London: T&T Clark (15 vols.), ET, paperback ed. 2004) III.1, 61–94, esp. 81–82. 4. E.F. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (Cambridge: CUP, 2009), 43; cf. W. Brueggemann, Genesis (Interpretation; Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 26, 30.

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G ENESIS 1:26 I N RECENT SCHOLARSHIP Gen 1:26, ‘Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness …”’ is a verse which has been the subject of much interpretation, both traditionally and in contemporary scholarship. I will focus on one small aspect of its interpretation, namely the use of the plural pronoun with reference to the creative action of God in conjunction with the singular forms of ‘image’ and ‘likeness’. A number of recent commentators observe that the verse has traditionally been understood in Trinitarian terms. 5 But recent commentators themselves usually seek to understand the verse either within a purported originary historical context, or with reference to its literary context of either Gen 1:1–2:4a, Genesis 1–11, or the Old Testament. Significantly however, the New Testament is seldom included to form a Christian canonical con text. Interpretation has thus developed in such a way as to privilege a certain literary context (e.g. Genesis 1–11) or reconstructed historical context (e.g. the Priestly writer during the exile), or even a purported ancient Near Eastern context. These are preferred to a theological context of, e.g., a Trinitarian theology of creation. Indeed, discussion of the ever-emerging theological context appears to have dropped out of recent interpretation of Gen 1:26, which now proceeds mainly in historical or literary terms. Victor Hamilton provides a helpful summary of interpretation in this vein , surveying six options for understanding the use of the plural pronoun to refer to God here in Gen 1:26 (and also 3:22 and 11:7): 1. An address to something God created, such as the earth, from which human ity is made; 2. A plural of majesty; 3. A cohortative plural of deliberation; 4. Reference to ‘angels’ in the heavenly court; 5. A polytheistic setting in which other gods are referred to; 6. A ‘plural of fullness’, which approaches the traditional Trinitarian view. 6 An interesting particular adaptation of the ‘plural of fullness’ interpretation has been proposed by David Clines, taking the plural as a reference to duality within the Godhead, specifically to God himself and the Spirit (Gen 1:2), thus drawing upon the literary context of the verse. 7 Hamilton himself concludes that ‘The best suggestion approaches the trinitarian understanding but em 5. See e.g., J.E. Hartley, Genesis (NIBC; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), 53 6. V.P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1–17 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 133–4. See also e.g. Hartley, Genesis, 52–3. 7. D.J.A. Clines, ‘The Image of God in Man’, in TB 19 (1968): 53–103, here 68–69. The Spirit is the agent of creation in Genesis 1, and one could think of the Spirit as a person with divine being.

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ploys less direct terminology’. 8 He notes difficulties with the other readings in forming this view. For example, he suggests that the address to the earth would seem to be ruled out by the usage of the plural pronoun in 3:22, and whilst the use of a plural of majesty is perhaps possible, there are no other ex amples of the usage of plurals of majesty with pronouns. Moreover, whilst in Mesopotamian texts a god making a speech sometimes speaks in the first per son plural (e.g. Enuma Elish I:118–127) it is unclear whether a singular or plural referent is in view in such cases; a polytheistic interpretation seems unlikely. 9 However, E.A. Speiser translates 1:26 ‘I will make … after my likeness’ (4), noting that ‘no other divine being has been mentioned; and the very next verse uses the singular throughout … The point at issue, therefore, is one of grammar alone, without a direct bearing on the meaning.’ God refers to himself, and elohim is plural in form.10 Clearly, interpreters are divided on how to understand the plural reference, even those with roughly similar theological commitments. For example, J.E. Hartley suggests that, ‘Before undertaking the next act of creation God took counsel. This unique reference to God’s reflecting in community before making something underscores both the importance and the uniqueness of what God was about to create. That community is either the plurality of the deity or the heavenly council that is witnessed in several texts (1 Kgs. 22:19— 22; Job 1:6—12).’11 Gerhard von Rad suggests that ‘God includes himself among the heavenly beings of his court and thereby conceals himself in this major ity.’12 Patrick Miller suggests that elsewhere in the Old Testament the concept of a ‘heavenly court’ clearly exists (Isaiah 6, 1 Kgs 22:19–22), and thus concludes that it is reflected in Gen 1:26. It is reminiscent of addresses in ancient Near Eastern texts to the divine assembly,13 a concept that had considerable significance in Mesopotamia especially. 14 However, echoing Hamilton, Westermann suggests that it is unlikely that the purported priestly source P would re tain anything polytheistic, whatever the origins of the text might be. 15 Westermann himself concludes that ‘The plural of deliberation in the cohortative is 8. Hamilton, Genesis, 134. 9. Hamilton, Genesis, 132–4. 10. E.A. Speiser, Genesis (AB 1; New York: Doubleday & Co, 3rd ed. 1983), 7. 11. Hartley, Genesis, 47. 12. G. von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM, ET 2nd ed. 1963), 57. 13. P.D. Miller, Genesis 1–11: Studies in Structure and Theme (Sheffield: University of Sheffield, 1978), 9–18. 14. T. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), 86. 15. C. Westermann, Genesis 1–11: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, ET 1994), 144–5.

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an attested and sufficient explanation.’16 Yet Miller suggests that the cohortative address is unlikely as there are few convincing analogies; those usually cited are ambiguous (Cant 1:9–11, 2 Sam 24:4). Miller therefore favors the ‘heavenly court’ interpretation. 17 Thus we see attempts to interpret the plural reference based on both historical and literary contexts. These contexts are regarded as normative for establishing good interpretation even if there is very little agreement regarding the assessment of the relative merits of each reading. The grammar of discourse here seems however to be drawn more from ancient Mesopotamia than the church Fathers or the creeds of the Church. A number of recent interpreters (interestingly, largely those with explicit concerns with theological interpretation) pass over the significance of the plural referent, or do not propose a preferred interpretation. James McKeown, for example, concludes that, ‘None of these explanations of the plural in Gen esis 1:26 has gained overall approval and the matter must, for the moment, remain open.’18 So it is interesting to note that contemporary interpreters, even those whose interests and goals are explicitly those of Christian theological interpretation, carefully avoid interpreting the verse in Trinitarian terms. It would appear that interpretation is often construed in terms of recovering the ‘original meaning’ of the text, or the sense of the text that would be allowed within the literary or historical context of the Old Testament. Adopting a Trinitarian reading is perhaps regarded as being either anachronistic or as making a metaphysical claim that is not warranted (presumably owing to an implicit privileging of authorial intention), or as a claim about the ‘matter’ of the text that is not encouraged by the immediate literary and purported historical contexts of the text. Two different kinds of objection can be raised against a Trinitarian understanding of Gen 1:26. First, irrespective of whether the text is interpreted as ‘poetic fiction’ or not, a Trinitarian reading is alien to the immediate literary and historical context of the text, and it is almost certainly alien to the intention of the author and the sort of world envisaged by the author. Such a read ing is therefore judged a poor reading. Alternatively, if one follows Paul Ric oeur in reading the text as ‘poetic fiction’, thus taking the matter for interpretation as the world of the text as presented by the text, a world that transcends the finite horizon and context of the author and the originary context, 19 then 16. Westermann, Genesis, 145. 17. Miller, Genesis, 9–18; cf. Hamilton, Genesis, 133–34. 18. J. McKeown, Genesis (The Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2008), 26. Cf. also R.W.L. Moberly, The Theology of the Book of Genesis, (Old Testament Theology; Cambridge: CUP, 2009); R.R. Reno, Genesis (SCM Theological Commentary on the Bible; London: SCM, 2010), 51–3. 19. See discussion in the previous chapters.

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the difficulty with a Trinitarian reading is that it appears to carry too heavy a metaphysical burden, particularly if the text is appealed to in order to justify a Trinitarian theology. How might a fictional text be used to develop metaphysics? However, one might ask whether or not this objection reflects a good un derstanding of the nature of Trinitarian theology and the interpretation of Scripture within such a theological framework. We will explore this question in various ways in what follows. For now, I merely note that the way is open to read Gen 1:26 with a second naiveté as poetic fiction in which a world is unfolded in front of the text. In the context of Christian theological reflection it can be imaginatively construed with strong Trinitarian resonances. In Ricoeur’s terms, the text escapes or transcends the limited horizon of the author’s intention, the originary socio-historical context of the text precisely as text. We are presented with the ‘world of the text’. This is the subject of interpretation. 20 A Trinitarian reading seems quite natural in the light of the whole canon of Christian Scripture as read within the Christian theological tradition. Indeed, the Trinitarian reading of Gen 1:26 is precisely what the Christian theological interpreter would want to say anyway about what the text narrates—that Father, Son and Spirit were and are intimately involved in creation, especially the creation of humanity. If the text is read as ‘poetic fiction’ the puzzle of unpicking and formally identifying the ostensive reference of the plural pronoun —and the following reference to the image and likeness in terms of the singular—no longer seems quite so urgent and acute. One need not feel constrained to have to specify the sense in which the text implies that humanity might have a Trinitarian character. Rather, as with poetic fiction generally, the text of Genesis may evoke reflection in broader terms beyond the specifics of this verse as it is read intertextually in the context of Scripture and in the light of Christian thought and experience. Gen 1:26 might not provide ostensive metaphysical references to be discovered per se, but the text might well inspire fruitful reflection at the metaphysical level, reflection that will be aided by a study of the tradition of reception of the text.

A NALYSIS OF THE CHRISTIAN RECEPTION OF THE PLURAL PRONOUN IN G ENESIS 1:26 Whilst a number of commentators make reference to ‘the traditional Trinitarian understanding’ of Gen 1:26, this reading is in fact rather less obvious or dominant within the Christian traditions than one might expect, even though 20. See P. Ricoeur, ‘Hermeneutics and the Critique of Ideology’, in J.B. Thompson (ed.), Paul Ricoeur: Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: CUP, 1981), 63–100, here, 91, discussed in chapter 5.

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it is in the Augustinian tradition. Of course, many of the great Christian theolo gians wrote amidst or even prior to a clearly articulated Trinitarian theology. Yet it is interesting to see that during, and even after this period of emergence of Trinitarian theology the interpretation of Gen 1:26 was far from obviously or uniformly Trinitarian. Perhaps this may be explained in terms of the tendency for debates in this period often to focus on articulating the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son. However, there are interesting exegetical and interpretative issues that were explored in different directions in different Christian traditions, as we shall now see.21 An early example of what we would now call a Trinitarian interpretation of Gen 1:26 is found in the second century in Irenaeus’ Against the Heretics. Citing Gen 1:26 Irenaeus notes

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For with Him were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks, saying, “Let Us make man …” … I have also largely demonstrated, that the Word, namely the Son, was always with the Father; and that Wisdom also, which is the 22 Spirit, was present with Him, anterior to all creation.

Ireanaeus’ proto-Trinitarian reading was followed by Tertullian. He concluded that humanity was made like the Son who would one day put on human nature, and also like the Spirit, who will sanctify humanity. 23 However, this reading was by no means widely adopted. Rather, the plural in Gen 1:26 was of ten and indeed usually interpreted in terms of the Father consulting the Son, with no reference to the three-fold nature of God, or to the Spirit in the inter pretation of the text. 24 Notably, Origen does not comment explicitly on the 21. For summaries of the emergence of Trinitarian theology in Eastern and Western traditions see. J.A. McGuckin, ‘The Trinity in the Greek Fathers’ in P.C. Phan (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity (Cambridge: CUP, 2011), 49–69, and M.R. Barnes, ‘Latin Trinitarian Theology’, in Cambridge Companion to the Trinity, 70–84. 22. Against the Heretics 4.20.1 & 4.20.3 in ANF 1, 969–971. 23. Adversus Praxean 12.3, in ANF 3, 606–607. 24. Understanding the plural of Gen 1:26 in terms of God addressing Jesus are: The Epistle of Barnabas 6 (The Apostolic Fathers: Early Christian Writings (trans M. Staniforth, rev. A. Louth London: Penguin, 1987), 166); Justin (c.110–165), Dialogue with Trypho 62 in ANF 1, 436–7); Theophilus (ca. 180) To Autolycus, Bk 2.18, i n ANF 2, 188; Marius Victorinus (280/285–355/363), Against Arius 1A.20, in ACCS 1, 29; Athanasius (296–373), Contra Gentes III.46: 5–8 in NPNF 2.4, 262–63 (also Against the Arians 2.31; 3.29); Ephrem the Syrian (306– 73), Commentary on Genesis 1.28, in E.G. Matthews Jr. and J.P. Amar (trans.), Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works (FC91; Washington DC: CUA Press, 1994), 74–106; Basil the Great (330–379), Hexameron Homily 9.6 (NPNF 2.8,307–8), but cf. On the Origin of Humanity

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plural referent in Gen 1:26 in his Homilies on Genesis, although, as we shall see below, there are good grounds to suppose that he understands God as addressing Christ here.25 Here, and elsewhere in the tradition, the move to interpret the plural of Gen 1:26 in terms of God the Father addressing Jesus the Son would appear to be driven by the various New Testament references to creation as being through and in the Son (e.g. John 1:3; Col 1:16), and to the notion that it is Christ who is the image of God (e.g. Col 1:15), and that the Christian destiny is that of being conformed to Christ (Rom 8:29). These various references, resonances and allusions form a context in which it seems natural to suppose that God addresses Jesus here. So for example Ephrem the Syrian (306–73) in his commentary on Genesis 1:26 writes: But to whom was God speaking? Here, as in every place where He creates, it is clear that He was speaking to His Son. The Evangelist said about Him that everything came to be through Him and without Him not one thing came to be. Paul, too, confirms this when he said, In Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, all that is visible and 26 all that is invisible.

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We find a similar idea in Athanasius’ On the Incarnation, even if no explicit reference is made to the plural pronoun: They [humanity] would be no better than the beasts, had they no knowledge save of earthly things; and why should God have made them at all, if He had not intended them to know Him? But, in fact, the good God has given them a share in His own Image, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and has made even themselves after the same Image and Likeness. Why? Simply in order that through this gift of God-likeness in themselves they may be able to perceive the Image Absolute, that is the Word Himself, and through Him apprehend the Father; which knowledge of their Maker is for men the only really 27 happy and blessed life.

It is interesting to note that for Athanasius, we bear the image in order to help us to know God the Father through the Son, the ‘Image Absolute’. We ‘image’ I.4 which does reflect a Trinitarian understanding of Gen 1:26, although some take this to be a sermon of Gregory of Nyssa; Chrysostom, Homily on Genesis 8.8, in R.C. Hill (trans.), St. John Chrysostom: Homilies on Genesis 1–17 (FC 74; Washington DC: CUA Press, 1986), 109; Prudentius (c.348–410), Poems, in ACCS 1, 29; Hilary of Poitiers On The Trinity 4.17–20, 5.8, in NPNF 2.9, 292–4; Cyril, Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 10.6, in NPNF 2.7, 198. 25. Homily on Genesis 1.13, in R.E. Heine (trans.), Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus (FC 71; Washington DC: CUA Press, 1982), 63–7. See below for discussion. 26. Commentary on Genesis I.28, in Matthews and Amar, Ephrem, 74–106. 27. Athanasius, On the Incarnation 11, (trans: a Religious of CSMV (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary, 1993), 38.

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God so that we can know him. Moreover, for Ephrem God’s creative work is associated with the Son, whereas today it is common to associate God’s creative work with the Spirit, both in the context of Old Testament theology and Christian theology more generally (see below), a debate associated with one’s un derstanding of Gen 1:2. Indeed, Ephrem considers whether the πνευμα or ‫רוח‬ of Gen 1:2 is the Holy Spirit or simply a wind. Ephrem refuses to identify the πνευμα of Gen 1:2 as the Spirit, noting that some do, but states ‘the faithful do not make this connection, for these things cannot be so related’. 28 Likewise John Chrysostom, who as with Ephrem takes the plural in Gen 1:26 as a refer ence to God the Father speaking to Jesus the Son, asks, ‘What is meant by the part of the text, “The Spirit of God moved over the water”? It seems to me to mean this, that some lifegiving force was present in the waters: it wasn’t simply water that was stationary and immobile, but moving and possessed of some vital power.’29 Similarly Theodoret of Cyrus knows of the interpretation of Gen 1:2 in terms of the Holy Spirit but rejects it in favor of ‘air’. 30 However, Basil the Great in the Hexameron suggests that the spirit in Gen 1:2 is ‘the [Holy] Spirit which completes the divine and blessed Trinity’. 31 Thus it is interesting to note that the interpretation of Gen 1:2 was not settled by such major inter preters as Basil the Great and John Chrysostom even well into the fourth century, a debate that continues today in Old Testament scholarship. 32 Theodoret does however apparently read Gen 1:26 in Trinitarian terms,33 despite not finding a reference to the Spirit in Gen 1:2, whilst Basil the Great, although finding a reference to the Spirit in Gen 1:2, which he explicitly discusses in Trinitarian terms as we saw above,34 reads Gen 1:26 in terms of the Father addressing the Son and not in fully Trinitarian terms. 35 Indeed, even in the context of fourth century Trinitarian theology Hilary of Poitiers in On the Trinity understands Gen 1:26 in terms of the Father addressing the Son without reference to the Spirit.36 Gregory of Nyssa suggests that by the plural significa28. Comm. Gen. 1.7. 29. Chrysostom, Hom. Gen. 3.4, in Hill, Chrysostom, 41. 30. Theodoret, Questions on Genesis, Question 8, in R.C. Hill (trans.), Theodoret of Cyrus: The Questions on the Octateuch: Volume I: On Genesis and Exodus (LEC 1; Washington DC: CUA Press, 2007), 24–27. 31. Basil, Hexameron, Homily 2.6, in NPNF 2.8, 228–29. 32. For detailed discussion on the patristic interpretation of Gen 1:2 see P.M. Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety (Oxford Early Christian Studies: Oxford: OUP, 2012), 113–118. 33. Theodoret, Questions on Genesis, Question 19. 34. Hexameron, Homily 2.6. 35. Hexameron, Homily 9.6. 36. Hilary of Poitiers On The Trinity 4.17–20, 5.8, in NPNF 2.9, 292–4.

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tion in Gen 1:26 the Holy Trinity is revealed, 37 although it is interesting to note that Gregory does not cite or allude to Gen 1:26 in either On the Holy Trinity, and of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit 38 or On “Not Three Gods” 39 despite the presence of a number of scriptural allusions and citations in these works, including Deut 6:4 for example.40 Thus Gen 1:26 does not seem to have been an obvious Trinit arian ‘proof text’, and is perhaps not foundational then in the development of a Trinitarian theology. However, in On the Origin of Humanity I.4, a sermon that is attributed either to Basil of Caesarea or to Gregory of Nyssa, a Trinitarian understanding of the plural and the singular forms is again reflected—the plural reflects consultation of God the Father with Son and Spirit, whereas the singular form in Gen 1:27 demonstrates the unity of the Godhead, 41 an exegetical strategy that later comes to dominate the Western tradition, and thus seems important in articulating and developing a Trinitarian theology. An explicitly Trinitarian understanding of Gen 1:26 does not seem to play a significant role in the Byzantine theology that follows. For example, in Max imus’ lengthy discussion of the unity of the Trinity in his Commentary on the Our Father, there is no appeal to Gen 1:26–27, 42 and similarly in Mystagogia.43 37. On the Making of Man 6.3, in NPNF 2.5, 758. Gregory returns to the question of what it means to be in the image of God in On the making of man 16. There is also a homily that has been attributed to Gregory of Nyssa (PG 44, 1327–46) that apparently develops this idea. However, Hans Urs von Balthasar suggests that Gregory did not develop a genuinely Trinitarian mysticism, and notes that he has abandoned his ‘earlier Contention that the homily on Genesis 1:26 (PG 44, 1327—46) is a genuine work of Gre gory of Nyssa … The homily speaks of an “image of the Trinity” … in the three parts of the soul (sensual, emotional, rational), as well as in the soul’s role as psyche, nous, and logos (1337A) But … “Such an interpretation and application of the image-motif to the Trinity is not to be found anywhere, even by intimation, in all the genuine works of Gregory, even though he has many opportunities to do so” … The whole human person is image and likeness of the triune God—an image that had been darkened by sin and that is restored to its original brilliance when it is cleansed by the redemption. This motif is developed in a thoroughly Plotinian way, in that the unity of the created mind re mains the leading theme.’ (Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, ET: 2003), 98). 38. Cf. NPNF 2.5, 641–8. 39. Cf. NPNF 2.5, 649–60. 40. Ibid., 651. 41. On the Origin of Humanity I.4, in N.V. Harrison (trans.), St Basil the Great: On the Human Condition (Popular Patristics 30; Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005), 33–4. 42. See G.C. Berthold (trans), Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings (The Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 110–112. 43. PG91 699D–701A; See N. Madden, ‘Maximus Confessor on the Holy Trinity and deification’ in D.V. Twomey and L. Ayres (eds.), The Mystery of the Trinity in the Fathers of

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Conversely, as far as I am aware, where Maximus does discuss Gen 1:26 he does not discuss the significance of the plural pronoun. 44 Likewise, John of Damascus does not discuss the nature of the plural referent in Gen 1:26 in places where one might expect it, for example in his discussion on ‘after his image’ in Exposition of the Orthodox Faith II.12.45 Rather, it seems that Eastern theology was more concerned with elucidating the significance of ‘image’ and ‘likeness’, and how these concepts relate to humanity’s creation and destiny specifically in Christ, and the significance of this for the Christian life, as we shall now see in more detail.46 Lars Thunberg discusses the question of whether Maximus understands there to be an Imago Trinitatis in humanity.47 He suggests that there is, noting that in ‘Amb 7 Maximus emphasizes that the human mind, λόγος and spirit should be conformed to their archetype: the great Mind, Logos and Spirit, and in a passage of Amb 10, the same triad of the human soul is said to be an image of the Triune Archetype.’48 There are, however, no direct appeals to or citations of Genesis 1:26 in the relevant texts. Maximus does turn to Genesis explicitly in the Church (The Proceedings of the Fourth Patristic Conference, Maynooth, 1999) (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), 100–117, esp. 107–111; Mystagogia 23 in Berthold, Maximus, 205–206. 44. E.g., The Four Hundred Chapters on Love, Chapter 25, in Berthold, Maximus, 64. 45. See NPNF 2.9, 691–95. 46. I am not aware of any discussion of the plural referent in Gen 1:26 in either Maximus or John of Damascus. 47. L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Chicago: Open Court, 2nd ed. 1995), 129–32. See also P. Sherwood, St. Maximus the Confessor: The Ascetic Life: The Four Centuries on Charity (ACW 21; New York: The Newman Press, 1955), 38–45, and A.G. Cooper, The Body in St Maximus the Confessor (Oxford: OUP, 2005), 95 on metaphysical triads. 48. Thunberg, Microcosm, 130. See PG 91:1088A, 1196A and cf. Sherwood, St. Maximus, 41. The passage in Ambiguum 7 reads ‘our mind and reason and spirit will advance to the great Mind, Logos and Spirit, indeed our entire self will wholly pass over to God as an image to its archetype.’, in P.M. Blowers and R.L. Wilken (trans.), On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St. Maximus the Confessor (Popular Patristics; Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 62–3; and Ambiguum 10 reads: ‘… of the unity the mind perceives in the Trinity. For they know that the soul is a middle being between God and matter and has powers that can unite it with both, that is, it has a mind that links it with God and senses that link it with matter. When they have completely shaken off the senses and everything perceived through them by means of the activity that relates and inclines it to them, their soul can be ineffably assimilated to God by means of the mind alone, and wholly united to him alone ineffably, so that possessing the image of the archetype according to the likeness in mind and reason and spirit, they can behold the resemblance so far as is possible, and learn in a hidden man ner the unity understood in the Trinity.’ (PG 1193D–1196A), in A. Louth, Maximus the Confessor (The Early Christian Fathers; London: Routledge, 1996), 147.

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relation to the Trinity. However, as Thunberg indicates, it is to the story of the three angels visiting Abraham that he turns rather than to Gen 1:26. For Max imus the visit of the three visitors to Abraham (Genesis 18) illustrates the relationship between the inner unity of man ‘established through the direction of the mind, freed from its dependence upon matter—and the revelation of the Holy Trinity to rational beings in the created world.’ Abraham was able to regard multiplicity as oneness.49 This eventually led to the depiction of the scene in Rublev’s famous icon.50 Andrew Louth suggests that the notion of the Trinitarian image of God in humanity here is reminiscent of Augustine (On The Trinity 9–10), whilst derived from Gregory Nazianzus (Sermon 23:11, PG 35:1161C) and bequeathed to John of Damascus. Yet he suggests that in Byzantine theology it never attained the influence that it did in the West. 51 However, this is not to say that there was little interpretation of Gen 1:26 in the Greek fathers, for as Louth notes elsewhere

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The doctrine of man’s creation in the image of God is the foundation of patristic anthropology. The mention of his likeness to God points to the destiny of his sanctification and glorification. … Most of the early Fathers and later Greek fathers take the image according to which man is created to be Christ himself; hence man is an “image of the image”… Among the Greeks there is generally a distinction drawn between the image and the likeness: man is created according to the image, 52 and his destiny in freedom is to achieve likeness to God.

Indeed, A.G. Cooper notes that there is a tradition that distinguishes ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ in Genesis 1:26 that reaches back to Philo, and that the distinction can be found in Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Diadochus of Photike and Evagrius for example.53 Origen relates this distinction between image and likeness to the contrast between Genesis 1:26 and 1:27. So for example in Clement what is according to the image is given at creation, and what is according to the likeness is given in future perfection. 54 For Evagrius, ‘That which is natural to man, is that man was created in the image of God; what is supernatural is that we come to be in his likeness’. 55 There is probably an echo of 49. Thunberg, Microcosm, 132; see Ep 2, Thal 28 (PG 91: 400C; CCSG 7: 203). 50. See G. Bunge, The Rublev Trinity (trans. A. Louth) (Crestwood: SVSP, 2007) for a rich account of the lengthy development of the iconographic depiction of Genesis 18. 51. Louth, Maximus, 211. 52. Louth, ACCS 1, 27. 53. Irenaeus Haer. 5.6.1; Clement, Strom. 2.22; Origen, de Princ. 3.6.1; Diadochus, Cap. 89; Evagrius. Mel. 12.484–5, see Cooper, The Body, 97. 54. Str 2.22.6–9; Cooper, The Body, 97. 55. Mel. 12.484–5, in Cooper, The Body, 96.

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Neoplatonism here, for as Cooper notes, ‘there exists in Neoplatonic spirituality a concern to restore the beauty of the image of God in the soul so that the soul may be likened to him.’56 Cooper suggests that the distinction between image and likeness is fundamental for Maximus’ theology. 57 For example, Maximus notes that, ‘To the inherent goodness of the image is added the likeness (cf. Gen 1:26) acquired by the practice of virtue and the exercise of the will.’ 58 It is with reference to these concerns that we find Maximus’ exegetical concerns with Gen 1:26 worked out. In Quaestiones et dubia Maximus asks, ‘Why does it say, “Let us make man in the image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1:26), but then a little further on it says, ‘so God created man, in the image of God he created him” (Gen. 1:27), omitting the phrase “according to his likeness”?’ As noted above, the exegetical question of the plural referent is not discussed in Maximus’ response, perhaps because it is easily taken as a royal ‘we’. 59 Rather, his concern is with the distinction of image and likeness. In his response Maximus notes that man was made according to God’s ‘image’ in the sense of incorruption, immortality and invisibility, all of which image the divine, and are images of the essence (ousia) of God. But “likeness” is impassibility, gentleness, patience and all the other characteristics of the goodness of God which are indicative of the activity (energeia) of God. Those things belonging to God’s essence are given ‘naturally to the soul’ whereas those that belong to God’s activity ‘he has left to our self-determining will while he awaits the perfection of man—if man should somehow make him self like God through the imitation of the divinely fitting characteristics of virtue’.60 Thus as Cooper comments, ‘That humanity is created in God’s image is natural—it belongs to “being”. But the acquisition of likeness to God through ascetic struggle, correlated to the attainment of “well-being”, is a gift of grace alone. This goal of perfection (likeness, well-being) attained by grace and by the life of virtue presupposes an incorporeal ontological foundation (image, being) by nature.’ 61 Thus Cooper suggests that we may see the significance of the practical life for Maximus in the fulfilment of humanity’s divinely given vocation with ‘the attainment of likeness through active participation in the 56. Cooper, The Body, 96; Plotinus, Enneads 1.2.1–7; 1.6.1–9. Plato ‘equates the ideal of flight … with a process of “likening [oneself] to God as far as possible”’ ( Theaetetus 176ab). 57. Cooper, The Body, 95–7. 58. Amb 7 (PG 91: 1084A, in Blowers, On The Cosmic Mystery, 59. 59. The use of the royal ‘we’ by bishops can be traced from the 4 th century (personal communication from A. Louth). 60. QD 3 1.1–20 (CCSG 10.170) in Cooper, The Body, 97–8. 61. Cooper, The Body, 98. Cf. Thunberg who notes that in Maximus likeness is ‘consistently related to the life of virtues and the via practica’ (Microcosm, 128).

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virtues collaps[ing] the distance between this world and the next, between time and eternity’.62 We find similar ideas in John of Damascus—

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[God] creates with His own hands man of a visible nature and an invisible, after His own image and likeness: on the one hand man’s body He formed of earth, and on the other his reasoning and thinking soul He bestowed upon him by His own inbreathing, and this is what we mean by “after His image.” For the phrase “after His image” clearly refers to the side of his nature which consists of mind and free will, whereas “after His likeness” means likeness in virtue 63 so far as that is possible.

Again, it is interesting to note the development of the significance of the themes of image and likeness without there being any explicit discussion of precisely whose image and likeness it is that is referred to. This is probably because it is implicitly assumed through interpretation of the New Testament, from the tradition, and through theological deduction that it is Christ’s. In deed, Cooper notes that the Fathers in general followed Origen in understanding that only Christ (the logos) is the image of God (Col 1:15) whereas rational beings (logikoi) are created according to the image.64 This point follows from careful exegesis of the Greek texts. In Col 1:15 Christ ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ whereas in Gen 1:26 in the LXX εἶπεν ὁ θεός ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ᾽ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ᾽ ὁμοίωσιν. In other words Christ is the image (Col 1:15; 2 Cor 4:4) whereas humanity is made according to the image (Gen 1:26). Redeemed humanity will be conformed to the image (Rom 8:29), will bear the image (1 Cor 15:49), and be renewed according to the image (Col 3:10). We probably come closest to an explicit discussion of these ideas in rela tion to understanding the plural referent when it is construed as referring to Christ alone in Gen 1:26–27 in Origen, where he uses a string of scriptural citations and allusions in a homily on Genesis ( Hom Gen 1.13). It may seem natural then to take the plural referent in Gen 1:26 in the trajectory of interpretation through Origen, Maximus and John of Damascus in the Greek tradition as referring to Christ or the Logos. However, it may be stretching it to suppose that the fact that the image is Christ or the Logos means that the plural ‘us’ must embrace the Logos. Indeed, the use of ‘our’ in 1:26 and ‘his’ in 1:27 could well support an interpretation of the plural as a majestic plural. 62. Cooper, The Body, 99; cf. Amb 7. 63. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2.12 NPNF 2.9, 692. Cf. also Origen, ‘Let us always, therefore, contemplate the image of God that we can be transformed to his likeness.’ (Hom. Gen. 1.13, in Heine, Homilies, 66). See also Origen de Princ 3.6.1. 64. Cooper, The Body, 97. See e.g. Origen, Hom. Gen. 1.13.

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Explicit discussion and interpretation of the plural referent of Gen 1:26 in Trinitarian terms became well established in the Western church presumably owing to Augustine’s influence. Augustine discusses the plural referent in The Literal Meaning of Genesis, using exegetical clues to elucidate the Trinity in terms of a plurality of persons as one God—Gen 1:26 speaks in terms of the plural in relation to the image whilst Gen 1:27 speaks in terms of the singular. Noting that the implication of humanity’s dominion over creation is that humanity surpasses non-rational animate beings in 1:28, and through Eph 4:23–24 and Col 3:10 which speak of the renewing of the mind and new self according to the image, Augustine locates the image in ‘reason itself, or mind or intelligence or whatever other word it may more suitably be named by … man was created to God’s image … in a certain form of the illuminated mind’. 65 Augustine has already set the scene for a Trinitarian reading of Genesis 1 in his discussion on Gen 1:1–2. Here Augustine takes the reference to the πνευμα / ‫ רוח‬to be to the Holy Spirit, and this, together with the suggestion that God as Father is re ferred to in the word ‘God’ and Jesus the son in the word ‘beginning’ (presumably via John 1:1; Col 1:15; Heb 1:10; 1 John 2:13–14; Rev 21:6; 22:13, although Augustine does not allude to any of these texts) provides ‘a complete indication of the trinity’ at the beginning of creation. 66 We can see how Augustine reconfigures the traditional understanding of the plural referent being understood in terms of the Son, and of the relation ship between image and likeness in a passage in On the Trinity: “Let us make” and “our” are said in the plural, and ought not to be received except as of relatives. For it was not that gods might make to the image and likeness of gods, but that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit might make to the image of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in order that man might subsist as the image of God. But God is the Trinity. … For how can He say “to our image,” since the Son is the image of the Father alone. But as we have already mentioned, man is said to be “to the image” on account of an imperfect likeness, and, therefore, “to our image,” in order that man might be the image of the Trinity, not equal to the Trinity as the Son to the Father, but approaching it, as has been said, by a kind of similarity, just as nearness, not of place but of a sort of imitation, may be signified even in distant things. For in this sense it is also said: “Be reformed in the newness of your mind” [cf. Rom 12:2]; and to them he likewise says: “Be you, therefore, imitators of God, as most dear children.” [Eph 5:1] For it is said 65. The Literal Meaning of Genesis 3.19–20, in J.E. Rotelle (ed.) On Genesis (Works of St. Augustine I.13; New York: New City Press, 2002), 234. 66. The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1.5–6 in Rotelle, On Genesis, 173.

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture to the new man: “Who is being renewed unto perfect knowledge, ac67 cording to the image of him who created him.” [cf. Col 3:10]

The implication then is that humanity, with reference to something like the ‘illuminated mind’, images the Trinity and is intrinsically Trinitarian. Augustine provides his own summary of On the Trinity at the end of the work, especially with reference to the Trinitarian image:

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Our discussion in the ninth book brought us to the image of God, which man is according to the mind, and we found a kind of trinity in it, namely, the mind, and the knowledge by which it knows itself, and the love by which it loves itself and its knowledge; and we pointed out that these three are equal among themselves, and are of the one essence. We treated this subject more carefully and more precisely in the tenth book, and this brought us to an even more evident trinity in the mind, that is, in the memory, understanding, and will. But we also made this discovery: that the mind could never be so that it would not always remember itself, understand itself, and love itself, even though it would not be always thinking of itself, and that even when it did think of itself, it did not always separate itself in the same thought from corporeal things; hence, we put off the discussion about the Trinity of which this is the image, in order that a trinity might also be found in the corporeal things themselves, where the reader’s mind could be more suitably exercised. … [In the fourteenth book] … the Trinity appears in the image of God, which man is according to the mind; this is being renewed in the knowledge of God, according to the image of Him who created man [cf. Col 3:10] to His own image [cf. Gen 1:27], and so perceives wisdom which 68 consists in the contemplation of eternal things.

Augustine develops further the relationship between looking within oneself to memory, understanding and will so as to be able to grasp something of the idea of God as Trinity in his so–called ‘Sermon 52’. He suggests, ‘For if you have fully grasped what you want to say [about God], it isn’t God. If you have been able to comprehend it, you have comprehended something else instead of God.’ 69 He goes on to ask how then one might be able to begin to comprehend something of what it means to say that God is Trinity. He suggests that: You are looking in creation for three somethings which can be pointed out separately and which work inseparably. If you are look67. On the Trinity 7.6.12, in S. McKenna (trans.), Saint Augustine: The Trinity (FC45; Washington DC: CUA Press, 1963), 240–41. 68. On the Trinity 15.3.5, in McKenna, Saint Augustine, 456–57. 69. Sermon 52.16, in J.E. Rotelle (ed.) Sermons: 51–94 (Works of Saint Augustine 3.3; New York: New City Press, 1991), 57.

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ing for them in creation, first look in yourself. After all, you can’t say that you are not a creature. You are looking for a likeness. Are you going to look for it in animals? … Are you going to search in the sun, in a star? Which of these … was made after the image and likeness of God? … It’s man you see, that God made after his image and likeness. Search in yourself—perhaps the image of the Trinity may 70 hold some trace of the Trinity. And what kind of image?

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He goes on to discuss memory, understanding and will, concluding ‘So these three, memory, understanding and will … are uttered separately, but operate inseparably.’71 He notes that he does not mean by this a strict comparison. Rather, it is a way of grasping separability and inseparability of a triad. 72 In other words, for Augustine, using Gen 1:26 as the basis of a scriptural argument that humanity images God, one can look within oneself so as to help to form a picture—partial though it is—of what we mean by saying that God is Trinity. This understanding is not unlike that of Athanasius’ that we saw earlier, that we bear the image of God so as to help us to know him. 73 Augustine’s Trinitarian understanding of Gen 1:26 became well-established in the Western tradition. It was developed in some detail by Fulgentius (c.467–532), bishop of Ruspe, who was strongly influenced by Augustine, in To Peter on the Faith. 74 It was also developed in detail along similar lines by Bede (672–735) in On Genesis: This also gives testimony to the nobility of his creation, that God did not say, as he did in his other creatures, “Let man be made, and man was made”, or “let the earth bring forth man, and the earth brought forth man”. But before he was made, it is said, “let us make man”, so that it would truly seem that he was formed as a rational creature, as though made with deliberation. … And when it is said, Let us make man in our image and likeness, the unity of the holy Trinity is clearly proclaimed. Since the same indivisible Trinity was revealed mystically in the preceding act of creation, when it was said, And God said, let it be 70. Sermon 52.17, in Rotelle, Sermons, 58. 71. Sermon 52.19, in Rotelle, Sermons, 60. 72. Sermon 52.23, in Rotelle, Sermons, 62. 73. However, see Gregory of Nyssa for discussion of the impossibility of understanding oneself, and on the image as mind as being incomprehensible in On the Making of Man 11.3–4, in NPNF 2.5, 767. For Gregory we lack essential knowledge of soul, body and universe. See Contra Eunomius 2.106–124, in L. Karfíková, S. Douglass and J. Zachhuber (eds.), Gregory of Nyssa: Contra Eunomium II: An English Version with Supporting Studies: Proceedings of the 10 th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (Olomouc, September 15–18, 2004) (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 82; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 83–86. 74. To Peter on the Faith 5, in R. Eno (trans.), Fulgentius of Ruspe: Selected Works (FC 95; Washington DC: CUA Press, 1997), 63.

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made ... And God made ... And God saw that it was good, it is now made known more openly, when it is said, Let us make man in our image and likeness. … For the expression, Let us make, connotes one action of three persons; but the following phrase, in our image and likeness, indicates the one and equal substance of the same holy Trinity. For how would image and likeness be one, if the Son were less than the Father, if the Holy Spirit were less than the Son, or if the glory of the whole Trinity were not of the same consubstantial power? Or how would it be possible for Let us make to be said, if there were not cooperative power in one divine nature of three persons? Nor could God have said, Let us make man in our image and likeness, to the angels, because there is no reason at all for us to believe that the image and 75 likeness of God and the angels is one and the same.

As we can see, Bede also proposes here that the idea of deliberation conveys honor and dignity on humanity in a way that exceeds the rest of creation. This theme is attested also at a much earlier date, for example in Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa.76 The Trinitarian reading becomes dominant in the West, as may be seen in t h e Glossa Ordinaria on 1:26 for instance. Moreover, Augustine’s Trinitarian reading of Gen 1:26 is developed by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae Part 1a. 93.77 From Gen 1:26 he concludes that there is a Trinitarian image in humanity: ‘We must, therefore, say that in man there exists the image of God, both with regard to the Divine Nature and with regard to the Trinity of Persons; for also in God Himself there is one Nature in Three Persons.’ 78 Aquinas then considers the possible objection that the image is that of the Son only, and not the Trinity, which he does using an exegetical argument on Gen 1:26 based on the pronouns used. 79 He then considers the question of whether the image is to be understood with regard to the mind alone. He concludes that ‘we find in man a likeness to God by way of an “image” in his mind; but in the 75. On Genesis, Book 1, in C.B. Kendall (trans), Bede: On Genesis (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008), 89–90. 76. Hom. Gen. 2.1, 8.6. See Hill, Chrysostom. 77. It is interesting to note that the very strong Greek kata has been rendered in Latin by the rather weak ad. 78. Reply in ST 1a.93, 5. 79. Aquinas reply in ST 1a.93, 5. Note however that for Aquinas ‘the image’ is the Son alone (1a. 35). See M. Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (Challenges in Contemporary Theology; Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 184–5 for discussion, and see further A.K. Min, ‘God as the Mystery of Sharing and Shared Love: Thomas Aquinas on the Trinity’, in P.C. Phan (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity (Cambridge: CUP, 2011), 87–107.

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other parts of his being by way of a “trace.”’80 Turning to the question of whether the image is in the acts of the soul he notes that:

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the image of the Trinity is to be found in the acts of the soul, that is, inasmuch as from the knowledge which we possess, by actual thought we form an internal word; and thence break forth into love. But, since the principles of acts are the habits and powers, and everything exists virtually in its principle, therefore, secondarily and consequently, the image of the Trinity may be considered as existing in the powers, and still more in the habits, forasmuch as the acts 81 virtually exist therein. (Q93 A7)

Finally, he considers whether likeness and image are to be distinguished. He admits a distinction, but does not develop it as per the Byzantine fathers. 82 In a later period in the East this Augustinian approach seems to have influenced theological reflection in the eastern tradition. St Gregory of Sinai (ca. 1265–1346) speaks of the Trinity in terms of unbegottenness, begottenness and procession (Text 27), and that in man there is intellect, consciousness and spirit, and that each subsists in the others and itself so that ‘In this way man is a dim image of the ineffable and archetypal Trinity, disclosing even now the di vine image in which he is created.’ (Text 31). 83 The trajectory of the Trinitarian understanding of Gen 1:26 continued into the Reformation tradition, albeit in less developed form and with less metaphysical speculation involved. For example, in his commentary on Genesis, on Gen 1:26 John Calvin writes: ‘But since the Lord needs no other counsellor, there can be no doubt that he consulted with himself. … Christians, therefore, properly contend, from this testimony, that there exists a plurality of Persons in the Godhead.’84 Thus two reading strategies develop even after the emergence of a well-articulated Trinitarian theology as exemplified by Augustine, Bede and Aquinas in the West, and Maximus and John of Damascus in the East. With time elements from the West are adopted in the East however. In the West, a Trinitarian theology of creation coupled with a desire to seek vestiges of the Trinity in creation so as to enable one in some sense to know God as Trinity and what 80. ST 1a. 93, 6. 81. ST 1a. 93, 7. 82. ST 1a. 93, 9. 83. St. Gregory of Sinai, ‘On Commandments and Doctrines, Warnings and Prom ises; on Thoughts, Passions and Virtues, and also on Stillness and Prayer: One Hundred and Thirty–Seven Texts’, in G.E.H. Palmer, P. Sherrard and K. Ware (trans.), The Philokalia: The Complete Text Volume Four (London: Faber and Faber, 1995), 212–252. 84. J. Calvin, A Commentary on Genesis (trans. J. King) (London: Banner of Truth, 1965), 92.

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this means invites a Trinitarian reading of Gen 1:26–27. In the East, although eventually influenced by the West, a different theological focus was in view that sought to develop the idea that Christ is the image of God, conformity to whom is the goal of the Christian life. However, whilst one may suppose then that the plural pronoun in Gen 1:26 encompasses Christ, this is not explicitly stated. The plural referent is perhaps being taken more naturally to be a majestic plural in this tradition. Theologically, this is not of course to deny that creation is a Trinitarian act. Rather, it raises the question of whom it is that God is referring to in the creation of humanity. It is the specific question of whose image is referred to in Gen 1:26, and what the significance of this is that is at issue. What difference might it make to Christian theology, anthropology and living if one understands humanity as imaging the Son, or the Trinity as a whole? Furthermore, if creation is a Trinitarian act, is it actually possible to understand humanity as not in some sense imaging the Spirit? Both interpretative traditions have important existential and theological motivations, and both have strong exegetical grounding as readings of the world of the text as text, particularly when read intertextually with Scripture as a whole. Moreover, it is interesting to note that the exegetical grounding of these readings of the Old Testament that are foundational for Christian theo logy and anthropology do not require the use of allegory or typology as they are usually understood. Both ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ reading strategies are good reading strategies that give rise to good interpretations that seem both metaphysically and existentially fruitful.

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P RELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF CHRISTIAN READINGS OF GENESIS 1:26 As Richard Briggs has suggested, Genesis does not make clear what being ‘in the image of God’ means. He concludes that ‘Genesis uses the language of “the image of God” as a relatively underdetermined place-holder for something that can only be more clearly defined by seeing how the canonical narrative develops, beyond Genesis’.85 He notes, moreover, that ‘the hermeneutical frameworks brought to bear actually generate (that is, construct) readings rather than simply uncovering them in the text.’ 86 The ‘world of the text’ of the creation narrative(s) in Genesis presents us with interesting challenges and possibilities for interpretation. On the one 85. R.S. Briggs, ‘Humans in the Image of God and Other Things Genesis does not make Clear’, in JTI 4.1 (2010): 111–126, here 111. 86. Ibid., 116. See further his essay ‘The Hermeneutics of Reading Genesis after Darwin’ in S.C. Barton and D. Wilkinson (eds.) Reading Genesis after Darwin (Oxford: OUP, 2009), 57–71 for analysis in particular of what is involved in reading Genesis in the con text of ancient Near Eastern texts.

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hand, it is helpful to characterise the narrative as ‘poetic fiction’, the interpretation and significance of which is imaginatively shaped by the wider textual context in which it is read (for the Christian, the canon of Scripture), its tradition of reception and use, and the context, assumptions and prejudices of the reader. On the other hand, albeit through fiction or perhaps ‘myth’, it is a narrative that in some sense does appear to evoke referential claims regarding the nature of God, humanity and the cosmos. However, such claims are evoked in directly through symbolic imagination rather than ostensive reference, al though interpreters such as Augustine seem to have supposed that it is through ostensive reference. The result has been considerable metaphysical speculation. The challenge for the interpreter lies in discerning how best to evoke the symbolism of the text. Moreover, the nature of the interpretation of the symbolism—interpretation that will transcend the intention of the author or the readings of the text possible in its originary context—may inspire and be inspired by a theology that makes metaphysical claims as well as carrying existential significance. Might one say that good existential interpretation here gestures toward a Christian metaphysic? First, some comments on insights from the Scriptural context. If one is to fill the gap of the reference to ‘us’ in Gen 1:26 from the immediate textual con text of the creation narrative, then one important factor to consider is the question of how to understand the ‫ רוח‬of Gen 1:2. Indeed, this informs David Clines’ reading of Gen 1:26. If the Spirit is referred to in 1:2, then one natural reading of the plural in 1:26 might be to understand it as a reference to God and the Spirit. But as we have seen, several ancient interpreters understand the reference being simply to a wind, 87 while modern commentators and Bible translators are divided on the issue. The NEB, Westermann, von Rad, Speiser and Sarna understand the reference here to be to a wind, whilst others such as Skinner, Cassuto, Kidner and Wenham understand Spirit. 88 Some have argued that if Genesis 1 is read in an ancient Near Eastern context, reading ‘wind’ is supported in texts such as Enuma Elish, although the parallel would appear somewhat doubtful.89 87. Moreover, Targum Onqelos has wind, Jonathan and Jerusalem have ‘blowing’ but qualified as ruach of mercy from before the lord. For the Targumim see B. Grossfeld, The Targum Onqelos to Genesis (The Aramaic Bible 6; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988); M. Maher, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis (The Aramaic Bible 1B; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1992); M. McNamara, Targum Neofiti 1: Genesis (The Aramaic Bible 1A; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1992). 88. See McKeown, Genesis, 21. 89. See Hamilton, Genesis 113–5 for discussion. The reference in Enuma Elish is IV: 98f, it being an ‘evil wind’ with which Marduk slays Tiamat. For a defence on reading ‘wind’ see H.M. Orlinsky, ‘The Plain Meaning of Rȗaḥ in Gen. 1.2’ in JQR 48 (1957/8): 174– 82. For Orlinsky, the first time that ‫ רוח‬should be understood as spirit in Genesis occurs

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Turning to the wider Old Testament context, S.R. Driver notes that in the later books of the Old Testament the Spirit was understood as power which creates and sustains life (Ezek 37:14; Isa 44:3f; Job 33:4; Ps 104:30). 90 Similarly Walter Brueggemann suggests that ‘the originary power for life (that is, spirit) … has its sources and locus in the person of Yahweh. As a consequence, Israel speaks about the life-force that Yahweh gives into creation’. In Isa 63:10–11 the reference to the ‘holy spirit’ coupled with a parallel use with ‫ ברא‬in Psalm 51 suggests an allusion.91 Indeed, if one reads Gen 1:1–2:4a in an imagined exilic context then the juxtaposition of these texts would be likely to evoke the idea that it is the same spirit of God that will participate in creating new life in restoring exiled Israel as participated in the original act of creation. Restoring Israel from exile is like an act of new creation. Indeed,

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The Spirit of God is the agent of creation (Ps 104:29; Job 33:4). His Spirit was active not only at the original creation (Gen. 1:2) and at the re-creation after the Flood (8:1), but also at the creation of the people of Israel (in the form of a wind, Exod. 14:19–20; 15:10) and at 92 the creation of the church (Acts 2:1–4).

This indicates the close association—and even ambiguity—of the wind and the spirit in these biblical texts even if today we are keen to make a clear ontological distinction between wind and spirit. Thus if one is to fill the gap of the plural reference in Gen 1:26 either from the creation narrative itself or the wider Old Testament context, then there are good grounds for taking the reference to be to the Spirit. It ‘makes sense’ in the context of these other texts, whatever the author originally intended to say. Arguably such a reading today is strongly theologically colored with a personification of the Spirit as understood through fourth century Trinitarian debate. But such coloring is likely to enhance rather than diminish our understanding of creation as we gain greater understanding of the nature and work of the Spirit. Of course within the context of the Old Testament as a whole, it also makes good sense to interpret the reference in Gen 1:26 in terms of the divine assembly or heavenly council (e.g. 1 Kgs 22:19; Ps 89:5–6; Job 1:6; Isa 6:8). Either of these readings are then good interpretations as read within the textual hori zon of the Old Testament. The question that remains is whether they are good readings in a wider theological context—understanding the Spirit to be inin Gen 41:8. 90. S.R. Driver, The Book of Genesis (Westminster Commentaries; London: Methuen & Co. 15th ed. 1948), 4. 91. W. Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 292. 92. M.V. Van Pelt, W.C. Kaiser Jr. and D.I. Block, ‘ ‫רוח‬ ַ ’ i n NIDOTTE 3.1073–8, here 1075.

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volved in creation is a reading that has clear Christian resonances, but the notion of a divine assembly does not. An alternative interpretative strategy is to interpret the reference through the context of Christian Scripture as a whole in such a way as to prioritise references to Jesus. As we have seen, many patristic interpreters understood the reference to the image in Gen 1:26 through texts such as John 1:1–4 which por tray Christ as God’s co-agent at creation. When one reads Genesis 1 through John 1 it is natural to take the plural reference in terms of reference to God the Father and God the Son. Moreover, for writers of the New Testament, the image of God is Christ (ὅς [Jesus] ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου (Col 1:15));93 and humanity is to be conformed to the image of Christ in redemption ( ὅτι οὕς προέγνω, καὶ προώρισεν συμμόρφους τῆς εἰκόνος τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ (Rom 8:29); καὶ

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ἐνδυσάμενοι τὸν νέον τὸν ἀνακαινούμενον εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν κατ᾽ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν (Col 3:10)). When coupled with the observation that in the

Greek text of Gen 1:26 humanity is said to be created according to our image (καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ᾽ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ᾽ ὁμοίωσιν ), it would be theologically instructive to read Gen 1:26 in terms of the Father deliberating with the Son. However, as Aquinas pointed out, there are difficulties with this reading strategy as Gen 1:26 refers to ‘our image’ rather than ‘your image’.94 This is a difficulty that is avoided by focusing attention on Gen 1:27 instead, as Origen does for example, and neglecting the plural pronoun, or see ing it simply as a plural of majesty. 95 There is a good scriptural and theological logic in reading Gen 1:26 in terms of (at least) Father and Son, and as we have seen in the development of this reading in the Eastern tradition, it has import ant existential resonances with living the practical Christian life through reflection on the distinction between image and likeness. But to do so does not require interpretation of the plural pronoun as anything more than a majestic plural. Perhaps then when such a reading is coupled with both the Christian understanding of Father, Son and Spirit as involved in creation and a more developed doctrine of the Trinity in which Father, Son and Spirit are understood to act together, it is preferable to take the plural pronoun as a reference to the 93. See also Rom 12:2; Eph 4:22–24. Cf. Wisdom 7:26 in which wisdom is the image of God, while humanity is formed by wisdom in 9:1–2. The question though is who is personified as wisdom—Christ or the Spirit? Wis 2:23 also makes use of image language to speak of humanity as created in the image of God’s own eternity ( εἰκόνα τῆς ἰδίας ἀϊδιότητος ἐποίησεν αὐτόν ). 94. Also, much earlier Germinius made the same point, although to elucidate the idea that there is no difference between the Father’s divinity and the Son’s. See Hilary of Poitiers, Historical Fragments B V.VI. 1–2, in C. Kannengiesser, ‘Patristic Exegesis of the Books of the Bible’, in Handbook of Patristic Exegesis (The Bible in Ancient Christianity; Leiden: Brill, 2 vols., 2004), 1.280. 95. See Hom. Gen. 1.13 above.

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Trinity, as in the Western tradition. Indeed, such is the strength of the reading that it has found its way in to the interpretations of contemporary Orthodox theologians, as we shall see below. But we may go on to ask what it is that is symbolized in what we take to be this intra-Trinitarian deliberation portrayed at the ‘literal level’ of the text. How do we imagine such deliberation, and what significance does it have for our understanding of the Trinity, of ourselves, and of the Christian life? In a sense, we have to build our metaphorical and symbolic imagination from ob jects, people or concepts within the world—for where else can we turn? So for example, an initial though perhaps somewhat naïve and theologically prob lematic image would be that of three ‘persons’ talking together. Alternatively, it might be through thinking about memory, understanding and will. But how does one avoid the problem of distorted, unhelpful and idolatrous ‘objectifica tion’ of the Godhead from occurring? Do pictures like these actually give us genuine or helpful insight into the Godhead, humanity, or the Christian life? Alternatively, the Eastern reading, despite its exegetical difficulty, has important theological and existential resonances for living the Christian life. One realizes one’s truest nature and created destiny through Christ in various forms of ascetic practice. Yet, with reference to concerns of our contemporary context, one may ask whether particular ascetic practices are in fact helpful in encouraging ‘human flourishing’—in the fullest theological sense of the term. The Eastern reading potentially has immense practical significance. More metaphysically (although with practical implications), whilst encouraging us to see Christ as logos in all things, it does not seek to give insights into the Trin ity. Conversely, in the Western tradition, there has been a greater focus on de veloping interpretation that gives insight into the Trinity in order to aid our metaphysical comprehension. Indeed, within the Western tradition, following Augustine, the portrait of humanity as created in the image of God inspires one to search within oneself to discover traces or vestiges of the image of the Trin ity. Doing so, it is suggested, helps us to form a better portrait of the Trinity for ourselves, generally being worked out in analogies with memory, understanding and will.96 Until the recent emergence of interest in ‘social doctrines’ of the Trinity that often prefer Eastern portraits of the Trinity rather than Augustine’s, the focus of interpretation in the West has been more metaphysical than practical or existential in focus. Gen 1:26 as implicit in Trinitarian theology is now being evoked in practical ways with respect to the nature of community and church. So for example Karen Kilby says of Jürgen Moltmann’s work that

96. See especially Augustine’s Sermon 52.

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“it is not the monarchy of a ruler that corresponds to the triune God; it is the community of men and women, without privileges and without subjugation.” Because the persons of the Trinity have everything in common, Moltmann writes, “except for their personal characteristics, … the Trinity corresponds to a community in which people are defined through their relations with one another and in their significance for one another, not in opposition to one another, in terms of power and possession.” Something similar holds in ecciesiology: just as a merely monotheistic doctrine of God “justifies the church as hierarchy,” so, he writes, “The doctrine of the Trinity constitutes the church as ‘a community free of dominion.’ … Authority and obedience are replaced by dialogue, consensus and harmony.” Therefore a “presbyterial and synodal church order and the leadership based on brotherly advice are the forms of organization 97 that best correspond to the doctrine of the social Trinity.”

But even if one grants the thesis that we have been developing, that a work of poetic fiction presents us with a ‘world of the text’ with a surplus of meaning and significance that transcends the intentions of the author and the work’s originary context, in what sense might (or might not) it be appropriate to use a text understood as poetic fiction for the elucidation of a metaphysic (for ex ample, as in Augustine), or for exhortation to a vocation of an ascetic life (Maximus), or in the development of an ideology of community or church government (Moltmann)? I will now consider these questions via a study of Gen 1:26 in contemporary theological reflection.

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G ENESIS 1:26 I N CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION We noted above that contemporary biblical scholars have retreated from Christological or Trinitarian interpretations of Gen 1:26, preferring to interpret the verse against an Old Testament, or presumed ancient Near Eastern context rather than against the context of a Christian theology of creation. Conversely, much contemporary theological reflection, especially in Western traditions, is often less explicitly shaped by biblical exegesis than in the interpreters that we studied above. For these reasons, there is rather little contemporary material to engage with in terms of Christian theological reflection on Gen 1:26 per se. However, portraits of the Trinity from the Eastern tradition are now in forming new approaches to Trinitarian theological reflection in the West, 97. K. Kilby, ‘Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity’, in New Blackfriars 81 (2000): 432–45, here 437, citing J. Moltmann, Trinity and the Kingdom of God (London: SCM, 1981), 198.

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whilst a Trinitarian understanding of Gen 1:26 has continued to be adopted by a number of influential contemporary Orthodox theologians, such as Dumitru Staniloae,98 and Vladimir Lossky for example. Lossky writes: But on the sixth day, after the creation of the animals, when God said “Let us make man in Our image and according to Our likeness,” it seemed that He stopped Himself and that the persons of the Trinity were in consort. The plural number that appears now shows that God is not alone. It is the deliberation of the “Divine Council” which proves that creation was the work neither of necessity nor of arbitrariness, but a free and reflective act. But why does the creation of man demand, instead of a simple order to the earth as with the animals, this council of the Three? This is because man, a personal being, needs the affirmation of the personal aspect of God in whose image he is made. The orders of God give rise to the different parts of created being. But man is not a part, since a person contains everything within himself. Free totality, he is born of the “reflection” of God as free totality. “And God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female.” Thus the mystery of the singular and plural in man reflects the mystery of the singular and plural in God: in the same way that the personal principle in God demands that the one nature express itself in the diversity of persons, likewise in man, created in the image of God. Human nature cannot be the possession of a monad. It demands not solitude but communion, the wholesome diversity of love. Then the divine order, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it,’ establishes a certain correspondence between sexuality and cosmic domination of the first couple and the mysterious overcoming in God of duality 99 by the triad.

Staniloae suggests that the divine image ‘becomes actual in communion. It is in communion with our fellow human beings … that the mystery of the interpersonal divine presence is most clearly revealed.’ 100 Boris Bobrinskoy alludes to Gen 1:26 read through Gen 2:18 to argue that by nature and vocation humans are beings of communion, which thus forms the roots of an ecclesiology: ‘If God is Trinity, then man, created in his image and likeness, is not only an in dividual, but also a trinitarian communion.’ 101 And, ‘to speak of the Church as trinitarian communion is to understand that the mystery of the Church is the 98. D. Staniloae, The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Volume Two: The World: Creation and Deification (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, ET: 2000), 95. 99. V. Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, ET: 2001), 66–67. 100. Staniloae, The Experience of God, 94.

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same mystery as that of the Trinity, namely, a mystery of love. Trinitarian love is thus the ontological, primordial event which establishes and creates the Church in its being’.102 N.V. Harrison also takes a Trinitarian understanding of the image of God as a starting point. ‘The Fathers identify a variety of human characteristics as the divine image and likeness. We can conclude that the di vine image is multidimensional; it has many aspects. These include freedom and responsibility; spiritual perception and relationship with God and neighbor; excellence of character and holiness; royal dignity; priesthood and the created world; and creativity, rationality, the arts and sciences, and culture.’ 103 Lossky suggests that there are two different approaches with which the image and likeness of God in humanity are considered with respect to theology and anthropology. He characterizes the western approach, exemplified by Augustine, as taking the image of God in humanity as its starting point, attempt ing to work out from this an idea of God. On the other hand the eastern ap proach, as exemplified by Gregory of Nyssa, starts with ‘what revelation tells us of God in order to discover what it is in man which corresponds to the divine image.104 Arguably for both approaches Gen 1:26–27 is central, and provides the warrant for the analysis that follows, whichever direction it goes in. These different approaches are an indication of the difficulty that we face. How do we in fact, or how can we ground our knowledge of ourselves and of God in the bib lical text, a text that is construed in terms of symbol, myth or poetic fiction? This kind of problem is tackled by Karen Kilby, who illustrates well the need to proceed with caution in the context of a discussion of perichoresis and social doctrines of the Trinity. Indeed, we have just seen how pervasive social doctrines of the Trinity are in contemporary theological reflection. The difficulty that Kilby highlights is that of projection, and circular arguments based on it. She notes: we have here something like a three stage process. First, a concept, perichoresis, is used to name what is not understood, to name whatever it is that makes the three Persons one. Secondly, the concept is filled out rather suggestively with notions borrowed from our own experience of relationships and relatedness. And then, finally, it is 101. B. Bobrinskoy, ‘God in Trinity’, in M.B. Cunningham and E. Theokritoff (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology (Cambridge: CUP, 2008), 49–62, here, 59. 102. Ibid., 60. 103. N.V. Harrison, ‘The Human Person as Image and Likeness of God’, in M.B. Cunningham and E. Theokritoff (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology (Cambridge: CUP, 2008), 78–92, here 81. 104. V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., ET: 1957), 114–115.

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Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture presented as an exciting resource Christian theology has to offer the wider world in its reflections upon relationships and relatedness. … Projection, then, is particularly problematic in at least some social theories of the Trinity because what is projected onto God is immediately reflected back onto the world, and this reverse projection is 105 said to be what is in fact important about the doctrine.

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Taking her bearings from George Lindbeck,106 Kilby concludes: The doctrine of the Trinity, I want to suggest, does not need to be seen as a descriptive, first order teaching—there is no need to assume that its main function must be to provide a picture of the divine, a deep understanding of the way God really is. It can instead be taken as grammatical, as a second order proposition, a rule, or perhaps a set of rules, for how to read the Biblical stories, how to speak about some of the characters we come across in these stories, how to think and talk about the experience of prayer, how to deploy the “vocabulary” of Christianity in an appropriate way. The doctrine on this account can still be seen as vitally important, but important as a kind of structuring principle of Christianity rather than as its central focus: if the doctrine is fundamental to Christianity, this is not because it gives a picture of what God is like in se from which all else emanates, but rather because it specifies how various aspects of the Christian faith hang together. But surely, one might respond, if I am told that God must be spoken of as three persons and one substance, I will inevitably try to make sense of this. If God must be spoken of in this way, what does that mean about how God really is? The question, perhaps, is inevitable, and the history of theology is littered with (conflicting) attempts to answer it. What I am suggesting, however, is that it is nevertheless a secondary question—affirming a doctrine of the Trinity does not depend on being able to answer it, nor does establishing the relevance of the doctrine depend on finding the “right” answer to it. Theologians are of course free to speculate about social or any other kind of analogies to the Trinity. But they should not, on the view I am proposing, claim for their speculations the authority that the doctrine carries within the Christian tradition, nor should they use the doctrine as a pretext for claiming such an insight into the inner nature of God that they can use it to promote social, political or ec107 clesiastical regimes.

105. Kilby, ‘Perichoresis’, 442. 106. G.A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Louisville: WJKP, 1984). 107. Ibid., 443–4.

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Kilby’s comments resonate with the approach to interpretation that we are trying to develop. Namely, a way of reading that develops particular symbolic resources within the text and the tradition to form an evocative Christian reading of Genesis 1 that helps shape a Christian worldview and self-understanding. A Trinitarian theology (however this is to be given content) evokes and encourages a particular way of reading and appropriating the text in this sense. It fosters a particular kind of human self-understanding and understanding of creation in relation to God. It shapes our identity and worldview through a particular understanding of our origins—and destiny, as we saw particularly clearly in some of the readings of the eastern tradition concerning the image and likeness. However, as we noted at the beginning of this chapter, there may be concerns with taking a text construed as ‘poetic fiction’ (or myth, etc.) and interpreting it in metaphysical terms, or at least with metaphysical concerns in view. But perhaps the worry has more to do with justification or warrant, i.e. epistemological issues. An approach such as Kilby’s is suggestive of how to avoid this worry. Rather than reading Gen 1:26–27 as a warrant for descriptive metaphysical doctrines, the doctrine of the Trinity can be understood to supply a context or ‘rule’ for reading the text that shows how ‘various aspects of the Christian faith hang together’. We see that such a reading is in some sense fruitful—or perhaps we might even say ‘revelatory’. Reading Genesis 1 through a Trinitarian perspective helps us to make fullest sense of the story of creation, and humanity in particular. Does such a Trinitarian ‘rule of reading’ encourage growth in the Christian life, the enjoyment of God and the pursuit of human flourishing? It would seem that it does, as for instance pervasive appeals to the imago dei in various ethical contexts illustrates. The account that Kilby provides, as well as that of Lindbeck’s upon which hers is based, is in some senses ‘deflationary’ with respect to traditional approaches to Trinitarian theology, its propositional or descriptive nature, and questions of truth. The worry is that too much content is emptied from tradi tional theology, if theology is understood in terms of a regulative grammar that is culturally and contextually governed in some way.108 But if in fact texts such as Gen 1:26–27 are best construed in poetic, symbolic, fictional or mythical terms, do we simply deceive ourselves if we use such texts to analyze the Trinity or ourselves in relation to God as Trinity in any developed metaphysical or ontological sense? Indeed, does the desire for metaphysical elucidation and clarity run the risk of becoming a form of idolatry if such clarity is simply unavailable? In what way can we talk of God as Trinity as ‘revealed’ to us, and in what sense does a Trinitarian rule of reading generate an encounter with 108. See Lindbeck, Nature, 92–4 for Lindbeck’s own discussion of the nature of the Nicean formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity and its regulative role in Christian theology, and 63–69 on ‘truth’ in the cultural-linguistic framework that he develops.

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Gen 1:26–27 that is in some sense ‘revelatory’? And why adopt a Trinitarian understanding of God if it is not grounded in biblical texts? 109 I will now consider these issues in some detail. We started to sketch a response to issues surrounding the idea of ‘revela tion’ in chapter 5. I would now like to develop this further in this more expli citly metaphysical context. Recall that Rowan Williams addressed some of these kinds of issues in ‘Trinity and Revelation’. He notes that ‘Theology … is perennially liable to be seduced by the prospect of bypassing the question of how it learns its own language.’110 Williams is concerned initially with the grounds of ‘authorization’ that can be given for speaking of God, and with how we may speak of ‘revelation’. He works these issues out through a discussion of Paul Ricoeur’s essays ‘Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation’ and ‘The Hermeneutics of Testimony’. These essays develop the importance of the concepts of manifestation, witness and testimony. For Williams ‘Revelation … is essentially to do with what is generative in our experience … “revelation” is a concept which emerges from a questioning attention to our present life in the light of a particular past—a past seen as “generative”.’ ‘The “revelation” of YHWH occurs as part of the process whereby a community takes cognizance of its own distinctive identity. It constitutes a concept of God for itself by asking what it is that constitutes itself.’ Yet ‘revelation’ is more than a metaphor for new ideas, for the ‘language of revelation is used to express the sense of an initiative that does not lie with us and to challenge the myth of the self-constitu tion of consciousness.’ We may ask if an event is revelation on the basis of the question, ‘“If we live like this, has revelation occurred?”’ (135). Williams develops these concerns in the context of how one might speak of the revelation of a Trinitarian understanding of God. First, he considers the significance of Jesus as Lord of the believing community, noting how the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is revelatory, and generative of this community. (136–7) In Ricoeur’s terms, we might say that it is in the incarnation, broadly understood, that we find the supreme testimony to God. Williams continues, If the [Christian] communities are concerned about what it means to call God “Father”, this concern is rooted once again in the language and experience of the Church’s Lord: to be under Christ’s Lordship is to recognize his name for God as defining your relation to the same God, to recognize Jesus’ “Abba” as the decisive interpretation of your own prayer. It is important to grasp that early Chris109. Of course, such a claim would require a study of all biblical texts appealed to in the development of the doctrine of the Trinity. Here I am simply seeking to motivate an alternative approach to the doctrine more along the line of Kilby’s. 110. R. Williams, ‘Trinity and Revelation’, in On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 131–47, here, 131.

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tianity was, as much as anything else, the discovery of fresh modes of prayer; and the connection with Jesus’ own prayer is swiftly and authoritatively made. (137).

And further, ‘the “generative” character of [Jesus’] story is as radical as the generative significance of our language about the world’s source and context, God.’ (138) Secondly, Williams then moves on to discuss the Spirit. He asks first about ‘the divinity of the agency which perpetually renews the experience of grace and re-creation in the believing community, yet which is not straightforwardly identical either with the absolute creativity which is the source and context of all things [i.e., God], or with the historical event generating the reconstruction of the human world [i.e. the incarnation of God as Son]’, (140) noting that similar points emerge. He suggests that ‘Spirit’ is a ‘perilously vague term … but a useful cipher for that mode of creative presence and action which cannot simply be identified with “the Father” and “the Son”’, (141) and goes on to associate the generative action of the Spirit with love, grace and renewal (141–2). However, ‘None of this finally resolves the basic difficulty of spelling out the nature of the continuity between absolute and derivative; but for a Christian committed to some kind of talk about God as a “gracious” or “loving” or even “personal” God, only a trinitarian account of God seems able to safeguard theology against agnosticism and formalism.’ (142) Thus we might say that a Trinitarian theology—the rule that we use in speaking about God and in interpreting Scripture—emerges from generative events, and reflection upon them, such as the incarnation especially, or the formation of the church. In Kilby’s terms, a doctrine of the Trinity helps us to see how all this hangs together. It helps us to make sense of these events, stories, testimonies and experience. We can know, albeit partially and provision ally, because God has engaged with the world in particular ways, and in our experience. A Trinitarian theology is then in some sense a way of knowing. Knowing God as Trinity emerges from the dialogue between the imaginative and (in some sense) inspired composition and reception of particular texts that have been regarded as generative for the church in light of foundational events in the church’s life. It emerges from the experience and testimony that pro ceeds from texts and events and the light that they are able to shed on each other in dialogue with contemporary experience and prayer—a hermeneutics of testimony and revelation. It is not that one attempts to ‘hang’ or deduce a descriptive metaphysical doctrine of the Trinity on Gen 1:26, or John 1:1, or on the incarnation in isolation from the history in which the origins and use of these texts or events that they portray are caught up. Rather, the doctrine emerges as a way of making sense of such testimony in the formation of a worldview or identity. Such testimony comes in various forms—inspired poetic compositions, the life of a particular Jew in first century Palestine, early Chris-

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tian communities and the life of believers throughout history. A doctrine of the Trinity is a kind of hermeneutical key that emerges to make sense of such testimony, whilst being itself generative of new possibilities of human life. A Trinitarian understanding of creation and redemption helps us to make sense of creation and redemption. Returning to our analysis of Gen 1:26, to put it in the language of fictional models and veridical maps that we introduced in chapter 1, it may well be that the author of Gen 1:26 was mistaken in terms of what he intended to portray (if something like the Mesopotamian divine assembly was in view). Or, it may be that what was said here has been developed beyond what was intended even if it was not a mistake (if a majestic plural was in view), but the text read in a Trinitarian way has in fact proven to be an evocative, heuristically valuable veridical map regarding the relationship between God as Trinity, creation and humanity, whatever the intention or status of the description of the author of Gen 1:26.111 Thus it is not that metaphysics is bracketed out, but the kind and limits of metaphysics that is possible and its justification or warrant look rather different from that of traditional metaphysics. In another essay Williams notes that ‘We do not begin with the trinitarian God and ask how he can be such, but with the world of particulars, cross, empty tomb, forgiven and believing apostles, asking, “How can this be?”’ 112 Rather, ‘[T]rinitarian reflection begins in the recognition that the encounter of Jesus with the God of Israel “transcribes” the encounter that is intrinsic to the life of God, but it does not finish there. God is constitutive of the identity of Je sus; God is also constitutive, in a different sense, of the process of the Church continually coming to judgement—the encounter of believers with the en counter of Father and Son.’113 As well as regarding the doctrine of the Trinity in terms of ‘making sense of things’, the doctrine also avoids our attempts to objectify God in terms of objects, concepts and categories from within the cosmos, helping us to move free of our propensity to idolatry in naming as God what is not god, and pursuing or desiring as God what is not god. There are two different although related ways in which we can bring further clarity to what we understand the signific111. Moreover, see G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘The Intentionality of Sensation’ in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind: Collected Philosophical Papers Vol. 2 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), 3–20 for the problematic status of intentional objects. She uses the example of a man aiming at what he takes to be a stag, but is actually his father, and shoots his father. The question is, what was the object (as intentional object) of his shooting (9– 10)? 112. R. Williams, ‘Trinity and Ontology’, in On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 148–66, here, 161. 113. Ibid., 164–65.

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ance of the doctrine of the Trinity to be. The first I develop from Wittgenstein, whose philosophy was foundational for Lindbeck and subsequently Kilby. To motivate this first approach, observe that it is clearly of heuristic value to speak of God as Father, Son and Spirit on the one hand, and yet to speak of the one-ness of God as the Godhead on the other. This is what testimony has indic ated, and how we best make sense of God. But immediately we tend then to take these names ontologically seriously. We want to say that what we name as Father, Son and Spirit, and the Godhead, all exist, and that their names each in some sense correspond to something in terms of nature or being perhaps. It seems that we have three ‘elements’ that make up one simple composite. But then we are already in trouble; we have a problem of ‘composition’. Here, in the innocent-looking ‘first move’, we have already given rise to the problem that metaphysical doctrines of the Trinity try to either resolve or mystify. The problem relates however to the metaphysical pictures that we adopt regarding the existence of parts (especially simple parts or elements), composition, and part-whole relationships. On the one hand, we wish to confess the identities of Father, Son and Spirit, whilst on the other, we wish to confess the simplicity of the Godhead. The doctrine of the Trinity, metaphysically construed, is an at tempt to make sense of both these horns of the dilemma. The problem is associated with the issue of analysis in different language-games. It is is one of our making: it stems from the pictures that we form regarding how we understand composition, elements and components. The difficulty is in being clear about what we mean by ‘composite’ and how to apply it in particular cases, and in the association of name with the supposed existence of what is named relative to different language-games. When is something a simple element and when is it a composite? We suppose that certain everyday pictures of existence of parts and composition can be applied to God. Wittgenstein discusses these issues in PI §46 onwards. He considers a square grid of monochrome colored tiles, and discusses what we mean by composition and elements when the tiles are arranged in certain ways. This he likens to a particular language-game. But now we replace the monochrome square tiles with rectangular tiles consisting of two colored squares, say red and green, and suppose that we imagine a situation in which these two colors always occur together in a tile and never indi vidually. He likens this to another language-game. Then the question is, would it make sense to analyze what we have described as a composite tile in the first language-game into components in the second? ‘In what sense do the symbols of this [second] language-game stand in need of analysis? How far is it even possible to replace this language-game by [the first]? It is just another languagegame; even though it is related to [the first].’ ( PI §64) The question of composition illustrated here, associated with Wittgenstein’s discussion of naming and existence in this context would seem to have analogies with the doctrine of the

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Trinity and the questions of composition that it raises. For instance, imagine a tile that has regions that we name as red, blue and green. But suppose also that we can never isolate a sample that has only one or two of these colors, that the three colors always occur together. Then in what sense would one be able to say that any of these individual colors existed, or that the tile was composed of them? I.e., is it appropriate to analyze tiles in this language-game using rules from another? If we may think of the Trinity in terms of this analogy, then perhaps we can see where construing the doctrine in descriptive terms runs into trouble. The language-games that we use and that are available to us (i.e., description in relation to our concepts) seem ill-suited to the task of describing the Trinity. The Trinity is sui generis, and description and analysis of the Trinity is beyond our language. We could diagnose the problem in terms of the initial assumption that the names that we use are to be taken with full ontological seriousness and the picture of composition that this implies. If we refrain from making this move (i.e., refrain from regarding the doctrine of the Trinity as a first-order descriptive doctrine) then we avoid the dilemma. In other words, we can avoid the dilemmas or difficulties, and possibly unwarranted meta physical speculation, if we note that testimony demonstrates the heuristic value of the language-game or rule of naming God in terms of Father, Son and Spirit, and confessing their unity, but then refuse to reify individually what is named by Father, Son and Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity forms a rule for speaking, interpreting and knowing within the Christian tradition. It is not that it is a mere convention that is one among many that could be adopted, for it is a reflection of the metaphysical reality of God, and in this sense it is meta physical, and has metaphysical implications. It is answerable to facts. Rather, treating the doctrine as a rule that reflects how we are to speak of the meta physical reality of God but without describing the Godhead directly (i.e. in terms of direct correspondence between concepts and reality) reflects a recog nition of the limits of what we are able to say in metaphysical terms, and we stop short of many of the dilemmas that are formed by trying to go too far. ‘Trinity’ or ‘Trinitarian’ is the sui generis name or rule that we give to what we take the reality of the Godhead to be as simple, yet testified to in terms of Father, Son and Spirit. The implication of this for our interpretation of Gen 1:26 is that we ought to be extremely cautious in seeking to develop metaphysical accounts of the constitution of humanity in the way that, for example, Augustine does in trying to trace what it is that the image of God in humanity consists in. At the same time, one recognizes the evocative and ethical potency of a Trinitarian reading of Gen 1:26–27, and its value as a rule for interpreta tion of text and creation. The second, and perhaps related, way of developing the significance of the doctrine of the Trinity relates to how the doctrine of the Trinity leads us away

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from idolatry. This point is developed by Nicholas Lash. Paul Murray comments: For Lash, Christian pedagogy is not simply towards the Trinity, it is within and into the Trinity. As such, it is a pedagogy the specific patterning of which reflects the prior patterning of the threefold being of God as inexhaustible mystery, uttered Word and outbreathed lifegiving Spirit within which it unfolds. Moreover, the pattern Lash finds here is one of ceaseless mutual correction of “each of the three principal modes of our propensity to freeze the form of relation [with God] into an object or possessed description of the nature of God”. [Easter in Ordinary, 271] Again, “the doctrine of God’s Trinity serves at one and the same time, to indicate where God is to be found and—by denying, at each point, that what we find there is to be simply identified with God—to prevent us from getting stuck in 114 one sidedness” [Easter in Ordinary, 267].

Lash suggests that, The Christian doctrine of God, the doctrine of God’s Trinity, is thus the threefold figure that furnishes the grammar for our education from threefold idolatry—from worship of the dark, from worship of the uttered word and from worship of the living world—into the freedom of confession of God’s holy mystery as all things’ source, and sense, and harmony; as all things’ origin, and healing word, and 115 destined peace; as Father, Son and Spirit.

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Lash notes further: As I understand it, the Christian account of God, the doctrine of the Trinity, is a doctrine of the unknown God inasmuch as it is never and nowhere appropriate to “stop the dance”, to interrupt the dialectic of experience and to say: this and this alone is what we mean by “God”; here and here alone is his presence and activity to be dis116 cerned.

Thus consideration of Williams’ and Lash’s discussions on the significance of the Trinity is suggestive of understanding the doctrine of the Trinity and in terpretation of Gen 1:26 as emerging as an interesting interweaving of scientia practica and scientia speculativa. It is ‘contemplative’ in the sense that interpretation of Gen 1:26 and the doctrine of the Trinity draw us into reflection on God. 114. P. Murray, ‘Theology “Under the Lash”: Theology as Idolatry-Critique in the Work of Nicholas Lash’, in S.C. Barton (ed.), Idolatry: False Worship in the Bible, Early Judaism and Christianity (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 246–66, here 261–62. 115. N. Lash, The Beginning and End of Religion (Cambridge: CUP, 1996), 64. 116. N. Lash, Theology on the Way to Emmaus (London: SCM, 1986), 155.

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Such reflection on God is continually purified, helping us to behold a vision of God and the manifestation of God in humanity and indeed all creation and its redemption. Thus it is ‘practical’ in that the doctrine educates us away from our propensity to idolatry—our tendency to name as God what is not god; to pursue what is not God, and thus our ethics are shaped. Indeed, knowing that humanity is created in the image of God is foundational for Christian ethics. Yet these practical aspects, in their outworking, also move us further into con templation of God, and so have a contemplative dimension. Thus we see how a properly construed Christian doctrine of the Trinity might be said to emerge and how it may function in the Church. A Trinitarian reading of Gen 1:26 is one possible reading among others, and it is a contextual reading. But the context that gives rise to this reading is the one which gives a full, well-interpreted and rich picture of humanity and creation, and helps us to make the best sense of our humanity and creation. Gen 1:26 does not offer a foundation of or a warrant for the doctrine of the Trinity. Rather, reading it in Trinitarian terms evokes something of what humanity and creation are in relation to God. In this sense, the relationship between theology and Genesis 1 is rather like the question of the relationship between the formation of ethics and the narrative of Ruth in the last chapter. It is not so much that a particular narrative forms the warrant for a certain metaphysic or ethic, but rather that once a particular metaphysic or ethic has been adopted, the narrative is used to illuminate it, evoke it, and give it fuller content and understanding. Outside the Christian context Genesis 1 would be (and indeed has been) read otherwise. Yet a Trinitarian reading has many important resonances for the Christian, offering a revelatory account that leads one to know God, ourselves, and creation more fully. Clearly, there are metaphysical implications to a Trinitarian reading, and perhaps more obviously than in the cases of Genesis 34 or Rahab’s story. Such interpretation is testified to through the Incarnation, the reflection of the Christian tradition on the activity of God as Father, Spirit and Son, and through the experience of each Christian. Yet there is no need to regard a Trin itarian reading of Gen 1:26 as making a particular metaphysical claim through requiring a direct reference in the ‘literal sense’ of the text, or that the ground for the doctrine of the Trinity is weakened if Gen 1:26 cannot provide a warrant for the doctrine in this way. Similar comments can be made regarding theological anthropology. The traditional interpretations, both eastern and western, of Gen 1:26 provide ways of reading the text that can be construed as existentially signific ant developments of its symbolism for making sense of the Christian life in ways that have metaphysical implications and significance. Construed in the way that we have sought to develop, one is not forced to choose either the eastern or the western way of reading Gen 1:26–27. The writers of the New

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Testament grasped that in some sense Christ was the image of God through whom all things were made, and that human life flourishes when it conforms to that image. The Spirit gave and continues to give life in the generative work of seeking conformity to that image. The believer may invoke this work in prayer and in the cultivation of virtue, anticipating God’s gracious action. It is work that is manifested in the fruits and character of daily living (Gal 5:22–23), in the way that we treat our image-bearing neighbors. We are truly our most human, as we were created to be, when we are transformed by the Spirit away from idolatry so as to bear the fruit of the Spirit and as we are together ever more conformed into the image and likeness of Christ.

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C ONCLUSION We have seen how a Christian reading context with its assumptions of a Trinitarian theology, understood as a rule for interpretation, fosters good Christian interpretation of Gen 1:26 in Trinitarian terms. Such reading assists us toward our end of worshipping and loving God, and is worked out in our theological ethics and anthropology. As in previous chapters, we have seen that issues of authorial intention and the socio-historic context behind the text’s composition become of minor concern for the text’s ongoing appropriation and use as Christian Scripture. Such concerns have in fact reflected a critique of ideology (an ideology of hermeneutics that privileges authorial inten tion for instance) that has shaken the hermeneutics of tradition in terms of its reading practices. Yet the hermeneutics of tradition has the resources to con tinue to develop a refined and more carefully nuanced Trinitarian construal of the text in response to the critique from the ideology of modern hermeneutics. It is the Scriptural and theological contexts that shape interpretation of Genesis 1, contexts themselves shaped through divine encounter with the world in the Incarnation and the life of the church. These contexts provide ‘rules’ that guide the imagination in interpreting Gen 1:26 as myth, and become a locus for divine encounter. In this context, a Trinitarian understanding of the verse is appropriate and robust. It is a possible reading of the text that is evocative and fruitful in the Christian context. It enables a good interpretation of humanity and creation in relation to God. It leads toward contemplation of God inter woven with Christian ethics, as for example in the treatment of each other as in some sense created in the image of God. It is generative of Christian identity, metaphysics, hope and practice. It is good theological interpretation. But such Trinitarian interpretation need not be required to provide warrant for de scriptive or propositional claims regarding the nature of the reality of God by assuming that the text makes direct referential claims. We have seen that this is not how the significance, interpretation and use of the text (or indeed the

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doctrine of the Trinity) are to be understood. The significance of the text, or the warrant for its Trinitarian interpretation, are not located in the intention of the author of Gen 1:26 or in the text itself per se. Rather, it is located in the metaphysics, in the practices and in the creative imagination that the readers bring to the text, as shaped by the canon as a whole and the Christian tradition with its generative events. In this way the text generates a fuller understanding of the relationships between God, humanity and creation. In this chapter, as in the previous chapters, we have seen how scientia practica is intertwined with scientia speculativa, each generating and informing the other through a complex relationship with Scripture, tradition and testimony. It is interesting that particular Old Testament narratives function in a similar way in shaping both, not so much as a warrant or ground, but as creatively in spiring and reinforcing beliefs and practices for which other factors come into play in their formation in dialogue with Scripture. But let us now take another pair of traditional categories, theologia and oikonomia. Whilst in many ways we have been concerned with theologia here, it has been interwoven with oikonomia.117 Indeed, it is the activity of God in the world that grants us access to theologia. In the next chapter I will turn to the question of oikonomia, and in particular to the relationship between more explicitly historical concerns and theology starting with the category of ‘salvation history’. 118

117. On the close relationship between the categories theologia and oikonomia in general see P.M. Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Chris tian Theology and Piety (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: OUP, 2012), 291–92. 118. On this question and its relationship to this chapter as regards the Trinity, see K. Rahner, The Trinity (with introduction by C.M. LaCugna) (New York: Crossroad, 1997) esp. 21–24. Our knowledge of the Trinity is of the ‘economic’ nature—as has been made known to us; but note the discussion above regarding the nature of the doctrine.

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C HAPTER 9

SALVATION HISTORY A

FRAMEWORK FOR OLD TESTAMENT INTERPRETATION? T HE SECOND NAIVETÉ, THE PATRISTIC CONCEPT OF

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O IKONOMIA, AND MYTH Thus far we have studied the interpretation of particular stories, or ele ments from them, in various frames of reference—the world of the text of the story itself, the story situated in the canon, and the story as received in the Christian tradition for example. We have used the idea of the meeting of the hermeneutics of tradition with the critique of ideology as one way of illumin ating what is involved in the Christian appropriation of Old Testament narrative. In this final study, I wish to draw together a number of threads from the previous studies, and consider not the interpretation of a single story, but rather a concept that emerges as an organizing principle, a theology that provides a hermeneutic for reading the Old Testament as a whole. The aspect of theology that I am referring to—that of ‘salvation history’—can be said to be an ideology itself that emerges from a particular hermeneutics of the tradition that received the various texts of the Old Testament, an ideology that has been theologically and existentially fruitful. However, it has become a hermeneutic of the tradition that has itself been subject to the critique of ideology. A putat ive reconstruction of the actual history behind the traditions of the Old Testa ment when coupled with certain kinds of reading strategies pushes for the abandonment of the concept. Moreover, in a postmodern context metanarratives or even ‘big pictures’ are viewed with suspicion, and so any construction of a ‘grand narrative’ of salvation tends to be distrusted. The concept of ‘salvation history’ has been widely used in theological and biblical studies, being pervasive in the contemporary Christian imagination even if it is often heavily qualified or even rejected by Old Testament scholars. 273

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The term is, however, a relatively modern construct. John Goldingay helpfully summarizes the emergence of the term: The expression [salvation history] translates the German Heilsgeschichte, introduced into biblical study by J.C.K. von Hofmann and the Erlangen School, a conservative wing of nineteenth-century Lutheran thought. In his key work, Weissagung und Erfüllung (2 vols, 1841–44), von Hofmann sought to base the unity of the scriptures as a whole, and of the OT and NT, each in itself, on their being the proclamation of a divinely-achieved process of redemption in history with Christ at the centre, to be understood and personally appropriated by faith. His approach thus combined three features of biblical faith which have led to his ideas being taken up by three dif ferent schools of theology. His emphasis on the actual events of the history of Israel and the life of Christ, forming a purposeful sequence leading from Old Testament to New, appears in the work of scholars such as G.E. Wright (God Who Acts, 1952), O. Cullmann (Salvation in History, ET 1967) and G.E. Ladd (A Theology of the New Testament, 1974). They stress the factuality of God’s acts in history by which human redemption was achieved, particularly major ‘acts of God’ such as the exodus and the resurrection. Cullmann’s work, in particular, was written in polemical dialogue with that of R. Bultmann, who took up a second aspect of von Hofmann’s approach in his contributions to Essays on Old Testament Interpretation/Hermeneutics (ed. C. Westermann, ET 1963) and The Old Testament and Christian Faith (ed. B.W. Anderson, 1964). For Bultmann the important element in von Hofmann’s approach was his stress on the individual’s personal appropriation of the salvation events. Salvation history is our ever-repeated personal journey from the preChristian time of promise or law to the Christian experience of fulfilment or gospel. A third appropriation of the model appears in G. von Rad’s Old Testament Theology (ET 1962—64). Von Rad’s stress on salvation history relates more to von Hofmann’s understanding of the Bible as the history of the proclamation … of salvation. Von Rad was aware as von Hofmann was not of the difficulty of establishing what events lie behind the biblical story: his theology was a study of what Israel said about Yahweh’s deeds rather than a study of the significance of the deeds themselves. More recent interest in the OT story as narrative could also be seen to link with the feature of von Hofmann taken up 1 by von Rad.

1. J. Goldingay, ‘Salvation History’, in R.J. Coggins and J.L. Houlden (eds.) A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (London: SCM Press, 1990), 606–607.

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Thus in the context of biblical studies there appear to be three ways in which the term ‘salvation history’ is used and applied: first, as stressing the factuality of God’s acts in history by which human redemption was achieved; secondly, in the context of the personal appropriation of salvation events—‘our ever-repeated personal journey from the pre-Christian time of promise or law to the Christian experience of fulfilment or gospel’. Thirdly, it has been used to describe the history of the proclamation of salvation. The concept has been particularly influential, and perhaps finds a paradigmatic expression in the work of Gerhard von Rad. Von Rad suggests that Israel’s confession that Yahweh brought Israel out of Egypt indicates that even the earliest avowals to Yahweh were ‘historically determined’. The name of God was connected with his saving action in history. 2 However, he takes the ‘Credo’ of Deut 26:5–9 as an ‘out and out confession of faith … [that] recapitulate[s] the main events in saving history from the time of the patriarchs … down to the conquest … with close concentration on the objective historical facts.’3 Thus for von Rad there is still a focus on God’s acts as historical facts as well as the proclamation of salvation. After discussing the presentation of the Old Testament books from creation to the restoration after the exile he con cludes, ‘Now this sequence given by the great pictures of the history, with their very different conceptions of the progress of the saving history, prescribes the way in which we too have to unfold the witness of the Old Testament. What other starting-point can we take than the colossal theological structure which Israel raised on the foundation of her oldest confession of Jahweh?’ 4 Von Rad’s thesis has been very influential. So for example in Gordon McConville’s commentary on Deuteronomy he notes that Deut 26:5–10 is a ‘selfstanding statement of faith, conveying the outline of Israel’s most ancient beliefs. … The force of the confession … is that the worshipper, bringing the pro duce of the land, acknowledges that it is all due to Yahweh’s gift of land to Israel in the events that formed the people. The act of worship … is understood in terms of Yahweh’s historical saving acts on the people’s behalf.’5 Similarly, Patrick Miller suggests that ‘The words uttered here are often called a “credo”, and with Deuteronomy 6:20–25 they provide the earliest examples of members of the community of God’s people confessing their faith, declaring … what God has done in their behalf. Here, therefore, is the precursor of all the creedal activity of the later communities of faith.’ 6 In the context of hermeneutics von 2. G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology: Volume I: The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions (London: SCM Press: ET 1975), 121–128. 3. Ibid., 122. 4. Ibid, 127. 5. J.G. McConville, Deuteronomy (AOTC 5; Leicester: Apollos, 2002), 379–80. 6. P.D. Miller, Deuteronomy (Interpretation; Louisville: WJKP, 1990), 180–81.

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Rad’s proposals regarding the ‘Credo’ have influenced the work of Paul Ricoeur who suggests that:

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A theology of testimony which is not just another name for the theology of the confession of faith is only possible if a certain narrative kernel is preserved in strict union with the confession of faith. The case par excellence is the faith of Israel which, at first, confessed Yahweh by relating the facts of deliverance which punctuate the history of its liberation. Every “theology of the traditions,” following von Rad, is built on this basic postulation that the Credo of Israel is a narrative confession on the model of the nuclear Credo of Deuteronomy 26:5–9. Where a “history” of liberation can be related, a prophetic “meaning” can be not only confessed but attested. It is not possible to testify for a meaning without testifying that something has happened which signifies this meaning. The conjunction of the prophetic moment, “I am the Lord,” and the historical moment, “It is I, the Lord your God, who has led you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2)—is as fundamental as the conjunction of the prophetic moment and the juridical moment. A tension is thus created between confession of faith and narration of things seen, at the heart of which is renewed the ever present tension between the judgment of the judge, who decides without having seen, and the narration of the witness who has seen. There is therefore no witness of the absolute who is not a witness of historic signs, no confessor of absolute meaning who is not a 7 narrator of the acts of deliverance.

Thus Ricoeur, in developing his hermeneutics of testimony, suggests that it is necessary to testify that something has happened—the ‘facts of deliverance’ that ‘punctuate the history’ of Israel’s liberation as expressed in the Credo at test to a prophetic meaning that can be confessed. Moreover, in the context of contemporary theology, Karl Rahner adopts and develops the category ‘salvation history’ as an interpretative framework for his discussion of Thomas Aquinas’ treatise On the Triune God. He contrasts a metaphysical account of God (as ‘immanent Trinity’) with God as experienced in ‘salvation history’ (as ‘economic Trinity’): the treatise becomes quite philosophical and abstract and refers hardly at all to salvation history. It speaks of the necessary metaphysical properties of God, and not very explicitly of God as experi7. P. Ricoeur, ‘The Hermeneutics of Testimony’, in P. Ricoeur (ed. L.S. Mudge), Essays on Biblical Interpretation (London: SPCK, 1981), 119–54, here, 133–34. This essay has in turn been influential in Rowan Williams’ essay ‘Trinity and Revelation’ in On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 131–47 that we discussed earlier. In this essay Williams discusses the significance of the events of the exodus.

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enced in salvation history in his free relations to his creatures. For should one make use of salvation history, it would soon become apparent that one speaks always of him whom Scripture and Jesus himself calls the Father, Jesus’ Father, who sends the Son and who 8 gives himself to us in the Spirit, in his Spirit.

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Whilst Rahner goes on to argue that the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity, Matthew Levering finds Rahner’s attempt to oppose metaphysics and salvation history in Aquinas’ treatise problematic. 9 Indeed, Levering himself adopts the category of ‘salvation history’ as an interpretative category for dis cussing Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas, arguing that one must reconsider one’s expectations of what theology derived from attention to ‘salvation his tory’ might look like. After quoting from Athanasius’ On the Incarnation he suggests that the ‘alleged opposition between metaphysics and salvation history in theology founders when confronted with this understanding of salvation (in history) as holy contemplation, an understanding shared by Aquinas.’ 10 Levering concludes that Aquinas’s treatise is engaged with, and governed by, salvation history in a way that Rahner did not recognize … we must revise our expectations about what kind of theology should flow from attention to salvation history. For Aquinas, a theology of God guided by salvation history must be contemplative in character … In a world conditioned by idolatry, the words and deeds that reveal God must be appropriated sapientially, if their regulative function is to be adequately grasped. … [T]he crucial means for retrieving Aquinas’s theology of the triune God, especially as regards its relationship to salvation history, will be reclaiming his vision of theology as contem11 plative wisdom patterned by the narrative of Scripture.

Indeed, ‘salvation history’ is frequently used by contemporary readers of the patristic literature as an interpretative category, to aid understanding of the concerns of the Church Fathers. So for example H.G. Reventlow suggests that Irenaeus sets out the idea of salvation history for the first time in Adv Haer 3.18.1;12 Eric Osborne interprets Adv Haer 4.14.2 and 4.20.2 in terms of salvation 8. K. Rahner, The Trinity (with introduction by C.M. LaCugna) (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 17–18. 9. Cf. also our discussion in chapter 8 regarding the nature of the doctrine of the Trinity. 10. M. Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (Challenges in Contemporary Theology; Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 10. The worry is expressed in other contexts in terms of oppositions between ‘theology’ and ‘history’. 11. Ibid., 26–27.

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history;13 Martin Laird uses the category ‘salvation history’ in his discussion of Gregory of Nyssa’s homily 5 on the Song of Songs; 14 Janet Williams uses the category of ‘salvation history’ with reference to Maximus, 15 and Morwenna Ludlow in an essay on the Cappadocian Fathers has a section titled ‘salvation history’, a section in which she discusses the conception of the divine oikonomia in the Cappadocian Fathers.16 Clearly then, the category ‘salvation history’ is pervasive in contemporary biblical studies, hermeneutics, theology and patristics. However, just as the term has taken hold and spread beyond biblical studies, so it has come to be seen as problematic by some biblical scholars also. In the context of recent scholarship on the origins of the Pentateuch Konrad Schmid suggests that

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it is obvious that … [one] has to abandon the thesis so popular in the twentieth century that the religion of ancient Israel was based on salvation history (Heilsgeschichte). That such a view can no longer be maintained has been made clear by the numerous archaeological finds discovered … in the past years. One must envisage the religion of Israel differently than the biblical picture suggests. The polemics of the Deuteronomists are probably closer to the preexilic reality in ancient Israel than the normative-orthodox statements in the Bible 17 that promulgate a monotheism based on salvation history.

Moreover, whilst ‘salvation history’ is a category used in the contemporary interpretation of patristic literature, there are no obvious Greek or Latin concep tually equivalent categories that the fathers themselves used, perhaps with oikonomia being the closest.18 However, oikonomia is rarely, if ever, interpreted in terms of history per se in the patristic literature, even if it is clearly associated with concepts of creation and salvation. It would seem then that certain modern philosophical conceptions of history have been imported, via the category 12. H.G. Reventlow, History of Biblical Interpretation Volume 1: From the Old Testament to Origen (Atlanta: SBL, ET: 2009), 161. 13. E. Osborn, ‘Irenaeus of Lyons’, in G.R. Evans (ed.), The First Christian Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 121–126, here, 123–4. 14. M. Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith: Union, Knowledge, and Divine Pres ence (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: OUP, 2004), 185. 15. J.P. Williams, ‘Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor’, in G.R. Evans (ed.), The First Christian Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 186–200, here, 196. 16. M. Ludlow, ‘The Cappadocians’, in G.R. Evans (ed.), The First Christian Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 168–185, here, 179–80. 17. K. Schmid, ‘The So-called Yahwist and the Literary Gap between Genesis and Exodus’, in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium Series 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006) 29–50, here 48, with bibliography. 18. See e.g. Ludlow, ‘The Cappadocians’, 179–80.

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of ‘salvation history’, to interpret pre-modern theologians in a way that is likely to be problematic. Indeed, in the references cited by G.W.H. Lampe, oikonomia is primarily associated with ideas such as ministration, organization, dis pensation or ordering, especially as related to creation and salvation, 19 and not history as such. Furthermore, contemporary use of the concept as an interpretative category seems likely to be problematic in the light of the comments of Schmid and of ‘minimalist’ Old Testament scholars. 20 The category of ‘salvation history’ only seems to have been employed from the 1840s onwards following the use of the term Heilsgeschichte by J.C.K. von Hofmann, but dropped out of favor in the late twentieth century. It appears to be a concept that might seem bound up with modernity and its particular concerns. Given that the problematic nature of the category’s biblical basis has now been outlined, one must ask whether it is a helpful category to use, and if so then in what sense? In other words, what sort of a concept is it, and what justifies its use? It would seem that its usage in the nineteenth-twentieth centuries suggests that it is properly historical on both counts. That is, it is a thesis about the history of God’s progressive salvation of humanity, and it is justified or warranted on the basis that the biblical narrative corresponds with a progression of such facts of history. Moreover, it is on the basis of such correspondence-with-the-facts that ‘this is how we know’ that God works to save humanity in the way outlined. If this is the case then historical-critical concerns are likely to be central in the assessment, interpretation and use of the concept of salvation history, and in the study of biblical texts that are understood to deal with it. But are these modern historical approaches in fact the best way of seeking to understand the significance of what the concepts of ‘salvation history’ and oikonomia were developed to achieve? We have already seen in our discussions of Genesis 34, Genesis 37–50, Joshua and 1–2 Samuel that construing the biblical texts in terms of history is problematic. I will now consider Schmid’s thesis in more detail so as to consider whether or not there is any sense in which the overall framework implied in the Credo (Deut 26:5–10) of ancestral origins—migration to Egypt—exodus— conquest/settlement, and the subsequent establishment of the monarchy, remains a feasible foundation or warrant for a concept of ‘salvation history’. I will then revisit the use of the category of salvation history more broadly in hermeneutics, theology and patristics before reconsidering how we might now speak in terms of ‘salvation history’, and whether it can in fact be framed and understood more in terms of the ‘mythic’ or more literary approach developed 19. οἰκονομία in G.W.H. Lampe, (ed.), A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: OUP, 1961), 940–42. 20. See chapter 5.

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thus far. In other words, if it is historically problematic, can we use it as a mythical rather than historical concept, if suitably nuanced?

S ALVATION HISTORY—ITS PROBLEMATIC NATURE IF CONSTRUED AS A H ISTORICAL THESIS OR CONCEPT

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T H E ORIGINS O F PENTATEUCH: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GENESIS AND EXODUS For much of the twentieth century the model of the origins of the Pentateuch in terms of the Documentary Hypothesis set out by Julius Well hausen in his 1883 work, Prolegomena to the History of Israel was the dominant model used to explain the emergence of the Pentateuch in terms of putative sources J, E, D, and P.21 This model, continually subject to developments and refinements, provided an encompassing paradigm, basic interpretative lens, or frame of reference with which to organize and speak about the Pentateuch. However, Albert de Pury suggests that in the 1970s this paradigm collapsed.22 Since then, especially in European scholarship, a new paradigm to explain the compositional history of the Pentateuch, or Hexateuch, or indeed Ennateuch has been sought. But now, in the early twenty-first century, the only real consensus that ex ists is the view that the Pentateuch is composed from Priestly and non-Priestly materials.23 How these relate to each other, the extent of the Priestly material, 21. J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, ET: 1885). 22. A. de Pury, ‘The Jacob Story and the Beginning of the Formation of the Pentateuch’, in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium Series 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 51–72, here 54. de Pury cites J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale UP, 1975); H.H. Schmid, Der sogenannte Jahwist. Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1976) and R. Rendtorff, Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (BZAW 147; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977). For more details of the ‘crisis’ as de Pury terms it, see A. de Pury and T. Römer’s contributions in A. de Pury and T. Römer (eds.) Le Pentateuque en question, (MdB 19; Genève: Labor et Fides, 3rd ed. 2002), 9–80. 23. As with discussion of Van Seters’ thesis in chapter 5, I expect that some readers will be unconvinced by the recent trends in pentateuchal criticism expressed here. Again, I wish to engage with the critique of the ‘hermeneutics of tradition’ that they represent by considering how one might respond to the critique from within the tradition without seeking to argue against the critique itself. Perhaps now that over a century has passed since Wellhausen’s major work referred to here, the putative and provisional nature of historical theses is clearer than ever. In this sense, even if one is unconvinced by the details of the revisions presented here, it seems to me worthwhile to engage with its results as a paradigm of the contemporary ‘critique of ideology’ from the

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whether the Priestly material is a source or redaction, the delimitation of and relationship between the ‘basic’ Priestly material Pg and ‘supplements’ P s,24 and how the non-Priestly materials relate to putative Yahwist or Deuteronomic tra ditions are open questions.25 One of the most hotly debated questions is now that of whether or not one can speak of a Yahwist. 26 What often emerges, however, is the tendency to understand the Pentateuch as some form of negotiated compromise between Jewish parties in the Persian era.27 Much of the discussion has been driven by the question of the relationship between the books of Genesis and Exodus. In particular, much discussed is the relationship between the patriarchal / ancestral tradition concerning Abra perspective of historical concerns. Thus as before, I simply present representative theses to engage with rather than argue for or against in detail. 24. See, e.g., K. Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible (Siphrut 3; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2010), 47–48, 238–54 for discussion with bibliography. (Updated English translation of Erzväter und Exodus: Untersuchungen zur doppelton Begründung der Ursprünge Israels innerhalb des Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testament [WMANT 81; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1999]). 25. See e.g. Blum, expanding the significance of D, who discusses the composition of the Pentateuch in terms of a proto-Pentateuch ‘D-Komposition’ (KD), developed from the Moses narrative and the Deuteronomistic History, and ‘P-Komposition’ KP, forming the ‘First Pentateuch’ from KD and, in his later work, separate origin / patriarchal traditions that form the basis of Genesis (i.e., in his later work he does not detect KD in Genesis). See E. Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (BZAW 189; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990). Others prefer simply to speak of P and ‘non-P’ material, such as 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: Leuven UP, 2001), 273– 295. 26. See Christoph Levin, Der Jahwist (FRLANT 157; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), and Van Seters as other scholars who have retained the Yahwist. Van Seters reverses the classical sequence of J preceding P. Others such as Gertz, Schmid and de Pury have abandoned the hypothesis of a Yahwist. See further the essays in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium Series 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006) and J.C. Gertz, Schmid, K., & Witte, M., (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexa teuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (BZAW 315; Berlin; Walter de Gruyter, 2002). 27. T. Römer, ‘The Exodus Narrative According to the Priestly Document’, in S. Shectman and Joel S. Baden (eds.), The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions (AThaNT 95; Zürich: TVZ, 2009), 157–74, here 157. See also A. de Pury, ‘Abraham: The Priestly Writer’s “Ecumenical” Ancestor’, in S.L. McKenzie (et al) (eds.), Rethinking the Foundations: Historiography in the Ancient World and in the Bible: Essays in Honour of John Van Seters (BZAW 294; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000), 163–181, here, 175–6; Blum, Studien, 358; J–L. Ska, Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, ET: 2006), 231.

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ham, Isaac and Jacob, and the exodus tradition concerning Moses. This relationship has been explored in a number of ways for centuries, from at least the time of the composition of the book of Jubilees onwards. In critical scholarship the difference between the traditions was explored by W. Staerk in 1899, and later K. Galling, who concluded that the ancestral narratives and the exodus narrative each represent separate traditions of the election of Israel.28 The question then is how these traditions have been combined. Various proposals have been offered. For example, John Van Seters proposed that the merging of the traditions was the innovation of the exilic Yahwist historian; Rolf Rendtorff proposed that the merging of the traditions was a late develop ment, but the work of a Deuteronomistic editor, whilst for Konrad Schmid and Jan Christian Gertz it is the Priestly author who was the first ‘historian’ to combine the traditions.29 Again, these (and similar) positions are held with various nuances.30 Thomas Dozeman suggests that,

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The past models for interpreting the Pentateuch have tended to harmonize the two traditions into one story of salvation history. The result has been the subordination of the ancestral stories to the ideology of holy war in the story of the exodus. The hypothesis of the late formation of two origin traditions provides a new way of reading the canonical Pentateuch as two competing ideologies of

28. W. Staerk, Studien zur Religions und Sprachgeschichte des alten Testaments (Berlin: Reimer, 2 vols., 1899); K. Galling, Die Erwählungstraditionen Israels (BZAW 48; Giessen: Töpelmann, 1928). 29. J. Van Seters, ‘Confessional Reformulation in the Exilic Period’ in VT 22 (1972): 448–59; Rendtorff, Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem; K. Schmid, Genesis; J.C. Gertz, Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung: Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch (FRLANT 186; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000). 30. See e.g. R.G. Kratz, The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament (London: T&T Clark, ET: 2005); E. Zenger, ‘Theorien über die Entstehung des Pentateuch im Wandel der Forschung’, in E. Zenger (ed.), Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Studienbücher Theologie 1/1; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 5th ed. 2004), 74–123, esp. 100–105; Ska, Introduction; de Pury, ‘Jacob Story’; Römer, ‘The Exodus Narrative’. For further discussion see further T.B. Dozeman, ‘The Commission of Moses and the Book of Genesis’ in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium Series 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 107–129, here 107–109, and T.C. Römer, ‘The Elusive Yahwist: A Short History of Research’ in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium Series 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 9–27.

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land possession, one exclusive and violent and the other inclusive 31 and peaceful.

Dozeman helpfully summarizes Schmid’s conclusions of the differing outlooks of the two traditions in the table below: Separate Origin Tradition of the Ancestors 1. Central Theme: Land Possession 2. Promise: Present Life in Land 3. Indigenous to Land 4. Inclusive to Other Peoples in the Land 5. Peaceful 6. Israelite Identity: Genealogy 7. Focus Is on Abraham 8. Southern Point of View 9. Bearers of Tradition: People of the Land 10. Literary Boundaries: Ancestor Cycle

Separate Origin Tradition of Moses/Exodus 1. Central Theme: Land Possession 2. Promise-Fulfillment: Conquest of Land 3. Outsiders to Land 4. Exclusive to Other Peoples in Land 5. Holy War 6. Israelite Identity: The Exodus 7. Focus Is on Moses 8. Northern Point of View 9. Bearers of Tradition: The DTR school 10. Literary Boundaries: Exodus—2 Kings32

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The significance of the differences between the traditions is developed in a different direction by Walter Moberly. Moberly develops the notion of two dif ferent dispensations within the Old Testament, 33 as we saw earlier. Konrad Schmid suggests that in the strict version of the thesis of the ‘farewell to the Yahwist’ there never was a pre-Priestly connection between Genesis and Exodus.34 Conversely, Jan Christian Gertz suggests that there is a ‘minimal consensus’ between those still proposing a Yahwist, namely that, there is a running thread of pre-Priestly material in the Tetrateuch. By way of this thread, the Yahwist purportedly connected the essential components of the various accounts into the transmitted sequence of historical events. Although the end of the pre-Priestly narrative is disputed, there is a consensus that the pre-Priestly Tetrateuch created by the Yahwist comprised at least three sections:

31. Dozeman, ‘The Commission of Moses’, 129. 32. Ibid., 129. 33. R.W.L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament: Patriarchal Narratives and Mosaic Yahwism (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992). 34. K. Schmid, ‘The So-called Yahwist and the Literary Gap between Genesis and Exodus’, in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium Series 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 29–50, here 35.

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the primordial history in Gen 1–11; the patriarchal cycles (including 35 the story of Joseph); and the exodus narrative.

So for those who wish to say ‘farewell to the Yahwist’, it is generally the priestly writer who first provides the running literary thread through the Tet rateuch, combining the patriarchal and exodus traditions. As Gertz concludes, ‘the string holding the pearls of the non-Priestly pentateuchal narratives was furnished by P!’36 The key to much of the debate is, therefore, the relationship between the patriarchal and exodus traditions, and how they are understood to be related through the books of Genesis and Exodus, and if there is such a relationship, whether it is supplied by the Yahwist. Looking initially to the Old Testament as a whole, the supposition that the traditions were separate and only combined at a late stage gains support, first, from John Van Seters’ observation that the ancestors in Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History are of the generation of the ex odus and not the patriarchs of Genesis. This thesis was developed by Römer, indicating that for the Deuteronom(ist)ic material, Israel’s history commenced in Egypt.37 Indeed, Schmid suggests that the theological viewpoint behind the promise of the land to the ancestors in Genesis runs counter to the Deuteronom(ist)ic theology of conditional promise of land. Thus references to Genesis in Deuteronomy should be regarded as secondary. 38 Secondly, the earliest references to Abraham as patriarch in the prophetic materials are in the exilic texts of Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah, and it is noteworthy that there are no explicit references to the ancestral narratives in Joshua—2 Kings whilst there are many to the exodus.39 Moreover, thirdly, Schmid suggests that it is evident in the ‘historical psalms’ (Psalm 77; 78; 105; 106; 135; 136) that the ancestor story and the exodus are not bound literarily into a narrative sequence. Indeed, apart from Psalm 105, none of the historical psalms refer to the ancestor story, and there are few references to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Rather, one finds clear state35. J.C. Gertz, ‘The Transition Between the Books of Genesis and Exodus’, in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium Series 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 73–87, here 73–4. 36. Ibid., 87. 37. Van Seters, ‘Confessional Reformulation’; T. Römer, Israels Väter: Untersuchungen zur Väterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition (OBO 99; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990). See further Schmid, Genesis, 68–9. 38. Schmid, Genesis, 69. 39. Schmid, Genesis, 70. The exception is of course Josh 24, a text much studied. Schmid discusses it alongside Gen 15 and Exod 3–4* in terms of post-Priestly redactions, noting significant commonalities between the texts (224–233).

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ments that portray the beginnings of Israel in Egypt (e.g. 77:16–21; 78:12, 43– 62; 106:6–7; 135:8–9; 136:10–12). This fits the theological profile of the psalter ‘because it is a prayer book for readers rooted in Torah piety (see Psalm 1)’. 40 Finally, understanding there to be separate traditions of origins gains support from Albert de Pury’s suggestion that the separation of the traditions is appar ent in Hosea 12, reflecting a critical evaluation of the Jacob tradition in light of the exodus tradition.41 de Pury develops the idea that the Jacob story originally functioned as an ‘autonomous founding legend of the people of Israel’, 42 and that this is in competition with the founding story relating to Moses. He suggests that these two conceptions of Israel’s identity are reflected in Hosea—one symbolized by the woman which is genealogical; the second, being called by Moses, which is vocational—the woman presents Jacob as a patriarch. For Hosea the only real ancestor is Moses who called Israel into existence. Hosea 12 is thus a plea to choose identity—to choose the right ancestor. 43 Thus genealogical and prophetic conceptions of identity formation are opposed. These ob servations lead to a careful study of texts that appear to link the ancestral and exodus traditions in Genesis and Exodus.44 So, turning now to Genesis and Exodus, a number of texts in Genesis and Exodus prove crucial to understanding the combination of the traditions. The difficulty is, as Gertz shows, that it is often possible ‘to go either way’ in how one interprets the relationships between texts in relation to this combination of traditions.45 So to take Genesis 15, Gertz suggests that ‘the prolepsis of the exodus in Gen 15:13–16 represents a post-priestly supplement to the primary stratum of Genesis 15, which is itself very late’. Analysis of the explicit crossreferences produces results that are unfavorable for the thesis of a Yahwist. But he notes that the proponents of the thesis of the Yahwist treat the explicit cross references as ‘late attempts to augment the coherency of the preexistent narrative’ emphasizing ‘the implicit cross-references as well as conceptual and linguistic characteristics that represent the point of departure for postulating a unified literary work.’ There is, however, a growing body of scholarship that 40. Schmid, Genesis, 71. 41. A. de Pury, ‘Le cycle de Jacob comme légende autonome des origins d’Israël’ in J.A. Emerton (ed), Congress Volume: Leuven 1989 (VTSup 43; Leiden: Brill, 1991), 78–96. See further Dozeman, ‘The Commission of Moses’. 42. de Pury, ‘The Jacob Story’, 56. 43. Ibid., 60. 44. Note however Blum’s critique in ‘Die literarische Verbindung von Erzvätern und Exodus: Ein Gespräch mit neueren Endredaktionshypothesen’, in J.C. Gertz, Schmid, K., & Witte, M., (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (BZAW 315; Berlin; Walter de Gruyter, 2002), 119–56, esp. 122. 45. See also G.I. Davies, review of J.C. Gertz, K. Schmid & M. Witte (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten, in Bib Or 62.3–4 (2005): 315–6.

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regards Genesis 15 as a late, post-priestly text designed to cement the patriarchal and exodus traditions.46 Its role in the debate is crucial. Schmid suggests,

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the content and linguistic form of Genesis 15 are best explained when it is classified as originating after P. This means that the probability of the thesis considered by de Pury and Römer increases significantly; that is, the connection between the ancestors and the exodus was first undertaken by P, because the most important bridge text (Genesis 15) between the ancestors and the exodus in Genesis is 47 later than P.

Furthermore, Gertz considers the similarity of Gen 12:10–20 with the plagues narrative of Exod 7–11, and asks, ‘Does this text constitute a prolepsis of the exodus within a literary work comprising the patriarchal narratives and the exodus account, or does it represent an attempt to reclaim the exodus tra dition for an independent corpus of patriarchal narrative?’ 48 Moreover, whilst the relationship between Gen 12:2 and Exod 1:9 might be seen as a ‘Yahwistic bridge’ between Genesis and Exodus, Schmid suggests that in fact the texts il lustrate ‘the absence of a clear relationship between the two bodies of literat ure’, and that it is ‘all the more remarkable that the connections on the P-level are very tight’ between Exod 1:7 and Gen 1:28; 9:7 and 17:2. 49 Thus a plausible case for the ‘farewell to the Yahwist’ can be made, along with the thesis that originally separate patriarchal and exodus traditions were combined by P. To make such a case requires one to look at the material through a new lens, seeing some texts such as Genesis 15 or Exod 2:24aβ–25 for example as late, Priestly (so Exod 2:24aβ–25) or post-Priestly (so Genesis 15) material that cements the joining of the traditions and the formation of the books of Genesis and Exodus. In order to focus the discussion more clearly, I would now like to turn more specifically to the analyses of Konrad Schmid and Albert de Pury as rep resentative of these trends. There are a number of distinctive themes in the Priestly material. According to the Priestly author Moses reflects the fulfilment of the patriarchal promises to Abraham. The Priestly author introduces the progressive revelation of the divine name in order to join the two blocks of tradition. P regards the patriarchal narrative as ‘the Old Testament of the Old Testament’. Thus Exod 6:2–8 represents P’s concept of history—P newly com bines two blocks of tradition that have different literary and theological aims. 46. See Schmid, Genesis, 154–171, 224, 269. 47. Schmid, Genesis, 171. 48. Gertz, ‘The Transition’, 74–5. 49. Schmid, ‘The So-called Yahwist’, 33–34, and see further Schmid, Genesis, 216–24. See also Gertz, ‘The Transition’, 82–3. Gertz suggests that Exod 1:9–10 presupposes P. For a different perspective see Carr, ‘Genesis in Relation to the Moses Story’, 291.

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Exod 6:2–8 creates a logical, linear history to achieve this; ‘P had to create this sequence from scratch. The fusing of the different concepts of God is a remarkable accomplishment by P.’ 50 But this idea—of the progressive revelation of the divine name—makes the use of the divine name in the presentation of Yah weh’s own speech in the purportedly post-Priestly text of Gen 15:7 particularly interesting. Schmid suggests that the use of the divine name here, coupled with Yahweh’s self-presentation as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Exod 3:6 (another purportedly post-Priestly text) serve as two programmatic texts that reciprocally link the ancestor and exodus stories, 51 presumably thereby clarifying the identity of the God of the ancestors and Yahweh as one and the same God. Abraham is seen as explicitly worshipping the same God, Yahweh, as Moses. Moreover, P introduces the patriarchs as strangers in Canaan, and only in P in Genesis are they ‫ מגור‬or ‫( גר‬Gen 17:8; 23:4; 28:4; 35:27; 36:7; 37:1). Strangers could not acquire land, and this labelling of the patriarchs as strangers is only necessary if in contrast to the non-P promise in Genesis the descendents of the land had to leave the land first in order to retake possession. This only makes sense, according to Schmid, on the assumption that Genesis and Exodus were distinct bodies of literature prior to P. 52 However, one of the main issues in the relationship between the traditions is the question of how the Israelites end up in Egypt after dwelling in Canaan for much of Genesis. Schmid notes that ‘The forefathers of Israel dwell in the land of Canaan in Gen 50, and it is only by means of the one verse (Gen 50:14) that they are brought back to Egypt to set the stage for the exodus.’ 53 Moreover, of the many passages that promise the land in Genesis, only one (Gen 15:13–16, cf. 50:24) states that the descendants of the patriarchs had to leave Canaan before the promise would be fulfilled in a second immigration. This idea is alien to other promises in Genesis.54 50. Schmid, ‘The So-called Yahwist’, 42. This raises the question of the origin and significance of Exod 3:1–4:18. For discussion see Schmid, Genesis, 172–193. Schmid concludes, ‘[A]ll these observations point clearly to the idea that Exodus 3–4 must have originated in a similar time period as Genesis 15. Both texts were composed in the wake of P and are placed before a central P text that they receive and modify. Genesis 15 duplicates the Abrahamic covenant, and Exodus 3 duplicates the divine revelation to Moses from Exodus 6.’ (193). Also raised is the issue of the origin and significance of the use of the divine name in Genesis. For a different perspective, see Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament. 51. Schmid, Genesis, 231–2. 52. Schmid, ‘The So-called Yahwist’, 43. 53. Ibid., 32–3. See also Gertz, ‘The Transition’, 78–9. 54. Ibid., 33.

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Schmid suggests that the Joseph story (Genesis 37–50) ‘adds further doubts regarding a continuing Grundschicht in Genesis-Exodus.55 He argues that if with de Pury in Gen 37:2 one limits P’s contribution to ‫אלה תלדות יעקב‬, then one has a ‘complete description of the eisodos within P without an account of Joseph but with an Israelite stay in Egypt of 430 years summarized later in Exod 12:40–41.’56 Schmid continues,

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The assumption of such a small literary bridge between the patriarchs and the exodus in P converges now with a generally recognized aspect of the internal analysis of the Joseph story, namely, that it was not composed—as argued by Martin Noth—as the literary joint between patriarchs and exodus. Rather, the plot and the connecting literary devices show that the story was originally attached to the patriarchal narrative before it was transformed into the connecting link, as a secondary literary development. Thus the connection of the patriarchs and the exodus made by P—without an elaborated Joseph story—indicates that it does not presuppose a prePriestly connection of the patriarchs and the exodus in an earlier composition of the story of Joseph. Otherwise, one would have to 57 expect that P also had a Joseph story.

Whilst assessments of the origins of the Joseph narrative differ wildly—recent proposals range from the period of the Northern Kingdom right down to the second-century—Schmid’s own view being that it was an independent, prepriestly narrative ‘created as a critical response to Ex(ff.), especially to Sam, and connected to the book of Exodus after P’. 58 The important point here is that it was originally an independent narrative that was incorporated into Gen* and linked with Exod* only after P.59 Indeed, it is worth observing here that for several stories in Genesis whose composition has been classically accounted for in terms of J, E and P there is a growing tendency to ascribe such stories as independent, and often post55. Ibid., 32. 56. Ibid., 46. In Gen 37–50 Schmid follows de Pury in attributing Gen 37:1–2a; 46:6– 7; 47:27b–28; 49:1a, 28bβ, 29–33; 50:12–13 to P G. Gertz attributes 50:14* to P (‘The Transition’, 78). Also, for the ascription of 50:14 to J see C. Levin, ‘The Yahwist and the Redactional Link between Genesis and Exodus’, in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium Series 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 131–141, here, 135. 57. Schmid, ‘The So-called Yahwist’, 47. 58. K. Schmid, ‘Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch’, in J.C. Gertz, Schmid, K., and Witte, M., (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (BZAW 315; Berlin; Walter de Gruyter, 2002), 83–118, here 118. 59. See Schmid, Genesis, 54 for a summary, and chapter 4. The asterisks here refer to putative earlier versions of the texts.

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Priestly narratives that have been inserted into Genesis at a late stage. Schmid suggests that the ancestor story of Genesis 12–50* is an ‘independent narrative complex apart from the Priestly portions and the texts that link it to Exodus (Genesis 15; 48:21; 50:24–25). It establishes its own understanding of the existence of Israel in the land’ and comprises: Genesis 12–13*; 16*; 18–19*; 21*; 25:19ff*; 26*; 27–33*; 35*; 37*; 39–45*; 46:28ff*; 47*; 49*; 50* (less 8b, 14, 22– 26).60 Thus a number of important stories appear as later insertions that are something like independent units. Schmid also finds a number of narratives in Genesis 12–36* to have etiological significance: stories of the Ishmaelites (Gen esis 16); Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) (and derivation of Moabites and Ammonites); Beersheba (Gen 26:26–33); the relationship of Jacob/Israel to Esau/Edom (Genesis 25, 27) and to the Arameans (Genesis 29–31); stories about Bethel (Gen 28:10–22) and Penuel (Gen 32:23–33) are etiological. Moreover, ‘The traditions already noted within the Abraham narratives that establish the identity of Israel in distinction to its neighbors by stories of separation are par ticularly well represented.’ Such etiologies show that Gen 12–36* did not anti cipate Israel’s total migration to Egypt.61 In summary, Schmid argues that one should abandon heilsgeschichte as the basis for Israelite religion, and view the discontinuity between Israel and her neighbors as developing in the Judaism of the Persian period in which its ideals are projected back into the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, he suggests that We arrive at a new perspective, however, if we realize that the patriarchal narrative and the story of the exodus stood next to each other as two competing concepts containing two traditions of the origin of Israel with different theological profiles. Even behind the carefully crafted final form of the Pentateuch the different conceptions remain apparent: the patriarchal narrative is constructed mainly autochthonous and inclusive, while the story of the exodus is allochthonous and exclusive. Of course, such a polar opposition can only serve as a model, but it points nevertheless to a basic difference between the two blocks of tradition. To be more precise, the patriarchal narrative constructs a picture of the origin of Israel in its own land—a fact that is especially prominent in the specific formulations of the promises of the land that do not presuppose that there will be several centuries between promise and fulfilment. At the same time, the patriarchal story is both theologically and politically inclusive: the different gods can—without any problems—be 60. Schmid, Genesis, 116–7, with bibliography. Whilst Blum includes Genesis 22 here (see Vätergeschichte, 328–31), many scholars, including Schmid himself, do not, instead discussing it in terms of ‘a much later period of origin’. Moreover, the relation of Gen 37–50* to Gen 12–50* is also debateable (see later discussion). 61. Schmid, Genesis, 81.

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identified with YHWH, and the patriarchs dwell together with the inhabitants of the land and make treaties with them. In contrast, the story of the exodus stresses Israel’s origin abroad in Egypt and puts forward an exclusive theological argument: YHWH is a jealous god who does not tolerate any other gods besides him, and the Is62 raelites shall not make peace with the inhabitants of the land.

T H E HEXATEUCH, THE OCTATEUCH: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEUTERONOMY, J OSHUA, JUDGES AND THE ‘TWO ORIGINS’ TRADITION Joshua 24 is something of a pivotal text in the debate regarding the ‘two origins’ tradition, as well as for understanding the significance of textual horizons such as ‘Pentateuch’ and ‘Hexateuch’, and the value of such categorisation in understanding the diachronic development of the Old Testament. For ex ample, Erhard Blum notes that, ‘Joshua 24 … is not only a key component in the compositional-editorial fabric that goes back to the narratives of the patri archs. The chapter in its own right is a summary of the story told in the book of Genesis up to the book of Joshua, or, to quote G. von Rad, “Ein Hexateuch in kleinster Form.” In many ways Josh 24 can be considered as a “younger brother” of the book of Deuteronomy.’ 63 The literary development of the book of Joshua has proved—and continues to prove—difficult to determine. There have been a number of attempts to trace various layers of deuteronomistic redaction, attempts to identify a priestly source behind the book or to identify post-priestly redactions in order to account for the book and its relationship with the other books in the collection Genesis—2 Kings. The debates have become yet more complex in the light of recent approaches to the Pentateuch outlined above. 64 My concern here is not so much the literary development of the book, but rather, first, to reiterate the difficulties that there are in understanding there to have been an actual conquest of the land as narrated in Joshua, and second, to make some brief comments on the relationship between Joshua and the narratives that it is contiguous with in Deuteronomy and Judges in order to show that there are diffi culties in understanding these texts as representing (in terms of their origins) a consecutive historical sequence of narratives. In chapter 3 we briefly considered some aspects of the book of Joshua that indicated that it did not represent simply a historical report of how Israel 62. Schmid, ‘The So-Called Yahwist’, 49. 63. E. Blum, ‘The Literary Connection between the Books of Genesis and Exodus and the End of the Book of Joshua’, in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium Series 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 89–106, here, 98–99. 64. See D.S. Earl, Reading Joshua as Christian Scripture (JTISup 2; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 72–88 for an overview, with bibliography.

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entered the Promised Land. We briefly looked at some literary issues, such as the conflicting reports of complete conquest (Josh 10:40–42; 11:16, 23) and partial conquest (Josh 15:63, 16:10 and 17:13), and noted that the conclusions of archaeological research—especially at Jericho—indicates that what is narrated in Joshua probably does not correspond with the actual history of Israel. 65 Moreover, we saw that the book of Joshua does not simply present the fulfilment of the command and promise to possess the Promised Land as per Deuteronomy 7. So whilst from the perspective of salvation history it might seem natural to understand Joshua as reporting the fulfilment of Deuteronomy 7 (cf. Josh 21:44–45), we saw that this is not in fact how we might make best sense of the text. Instead, the book of Joshua seems best understood to qualify a number of the assumptions of Deuteronomy 7, or perhaps we might say the Deuteronomic tradition, using the language, expectations and symbolism of this tradition. Indeed, we saw that there were in fact several expressions within the Pentateuch regarding the means by which Israel came to inhabit the land (the ‘two origins’ traditions of Genesis-Exodus; Exod 20:20–33; Lev 18:24–30; 20:22– 24; Num 33:50–56; Deut 7:1–5). Finally however, Josh 24:1–13 does offer a sum mary of what might be described as ‘salvation history’, and is a text that is of ten cited in contemporary debates regarding the origins of the Pentateuch / Hexateuch. In some sense it summarizes the major traditions of the Pentateuch. In the narrative the function of Josh 24:1–13 appears to be essen tially rhetorical, bringing the reader to the point of decision in 24:14–15 as to whom to serve. In this sense there are indeed resonances with various contemporary understandings of the function of the idea of salvation history. Because God is portrayed as having acted graciously and purposefully from the call of Abraham right up to the point where the people find themselves established in the land, it calls for a response in faithfulness to God. Looking in the other direction from Joshua forward to Judges, from the perspective of salvation history it has been commonplace to read the book of Judges in terms of the degeneration of Israel from the phase of Israel’s life when all was well following the settlement of the land in Joshua and the people’s pledging of allegiance to Yahweh (Joshua 24), until the appointment of a monarchy to ensure that Israel continued to follow Yahweh. Indeed, the book of Judges appears to make such a link itself in Judges 1:1–2:5. This section of Judges forges continuity between the books and offers a way of harmonizing the books so that they might be read as a continuous ‘history like’ narrative, rather than as two different perspectives of Israel’s early life in the land. John 65. See D. Merling, Sr., The Book of Joshua: Its Theme and Role in Archaeological Discus sions (Andrews University Seminary Doctoral Dissertation Series 23; Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 1997) for discussion with bibliography on the archaeological issues.

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Van Seters suggests that the ‘fundamental problem of the Hexateuch is, per haps, how to view Judg 1:1–2:5 and its relation to what comes before and after it’, for he regards it as an intrusion in its present context.66 The likelihood that Judg 1:1–2:5 might be a redactional addition to Judges so as to help harmonize the book into a continuous history with Joshua at a relatively late stage might find support in W.W. Hallo’s observation that in Judg 1:15 Achsah ‘uses the Ara maism hāvā-lî (‘give me’), for tenā-lî (‘give me’), in Joshua [15:19]’.67 Moreover, Axel Knauf suggests that there is a Joshua-Judges redaction of Joshua reflected in Josh 18:2–19:48 and Joshua 23, arguing that the connection between Joshua and Judges was only made at a late stage. 68 Thus in some ways there are analogies between the relationship between Joshua and Judges, and the ancestral narratives and Exodus. Genesis-Exodus represents the redactional fusion of two alternative traditions of Israel’s origins into a continuous narrative just as Joshua-Judges forms a similar redactional fusion into a continuous narrative. But these narratives are fused into a ‘grand narrative’ from Genesis-Judges (and, as we shall see below, Genesis—2 Kings) to form a single ‘history’ of Israel from various traditions of origins written to serve a variety of purposes and no doubt promote a variety of interests. A unified narrative is formed out of a variety of voices that often existed with significant tensions.

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S ALVATION HISTORY: TH E ‘HISTORICAL BOOKS’ We saw in chapter 5 that a number of scholars now question or even reject the idea of the existence of a united monarchy under Saul, David and Solomon. We discussed John Van Seters’ proposal for understanding the origins of the material in Samuel, and examined some of the theological and hermeneutical implications of this proposal. In a historical frame of reference he suggests that We have already seen from the sociohistorical and archaeological evidence that there is little historical basis for believing in a united kingdom of David and Solomon. It is much more likely that Saul was an early ruler of a petty “kingdom” or chiefdom within the tribal district of Benjamin, and traditions of the region remembered him as a champion, fighting against outposts of Philistines in the northern highlands. In a similar fashion, David was leader of a band of warriors who conducted successful skirmishes in the southern high66. J. Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Ori gins of Biblical History (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 337–38. 67. W.W. Hallo, ‘New Light on the Story of Achsah’, in J. Kaltner and L. Stulman (eds.), Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East. Essays in honour of Herbert. B. Huf mon (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 330–35, here, 330. 68. E.A. Knauf, Josua (Zürcher Bibelkommentare AT 6; Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2008), 22

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lands against the Philistines and was able to secure for himself a foothold in Hebron and possibly later in Jerusalem as a petty ruler or chieftain. In neither case can we speak of the founding of a state; nor is it likely that David or Saul had any original connection with each other. … Furthermore, during the period in which there was a separate and distinct state of Israel, there is no reason to believe that the term Israel stood for anything other than the inhabitants of this particular region in the northern highlands of Palestine. … Consequently, it was Dtr who took up various northern traditions, probably mediated through the Benjaminites, having to do with Moses and the giving of the law in the wilderness, the settlement of the land, and the stories of the judges. From these, he fashioned an account of the origins of the people of Israel and their history up to the reign of Saul. All of this was viewed as having taken place under the guidance and intervention of Yahweh, the God of Israel. What was clearly necessary, in Dtr’s view, was to integrate the origins of the Judean state into this sacred history of Israel if there was to be a common historical tradition and a common identity within the 69 “people of Israel” under the one deity Yahweh, the God of Israel.

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Thus it would appear that there is little material in the bible that would correspond with history in anything like the modern concept of the term until at least well into the monarchical era, although it is difficult to know what criteria one may adopt with which to judge this. One main criterion has been the correspondence with other ancient Near Eastern textual accounts, such as we find with reference to Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem. 70 But such accounts are 69. J. Van Seters, The Biblical Saga of King David (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 345–6. 70. Three biblical accounts describe Hezekiah’s confrontation with Sennacherib in Sennacherib’s ‘Third Campaign’ in 701 BC: 2 Kings 18–20; 2 Chronicles 32; Isaiah 36–37, with somewhat different emphases, such as whether Hezekiah paid tribute to Sennacherib (only narrated in Kings). There are a number of relevant extant Assyrian inscriptions. The earliest (700) and primary source is the Rassam Cylinder. The other major sources are the Taylor Prism, the Chicago Prism and the Bull Inscriptions which are later copies of the Rassam Cylinder. These sources describe Sennacherib’s Third Campaign. There are only minor differences between them, the major difference being the longer list of Hezekiah’s tribute in the Rassam Cylinder. None explicitly mention a setback for Sennacherib, unlike the biblical accounts. See See e.g. B.S. Childs, Isaiah and the Assyrian Crisis, (London: SCM Press, 1967); W.R. Gallagher, Sennacherib’s Campaign to Judah, (Leiden: Brill, 1999); M. Cogan and C. Tadmor, II Kings, (AB; New York: Doubleday & Co, 1988), 246–47; A.L. Oppenheim, ‘Babylonian and Assyrian Historical Texts’, in J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 287–88; M. Cogan, ‘Sennacherib’, in W. W. Hallo and K.L. Younger (eds.), The Context of Scripture: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World (Leiden: Brill, 3

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in all likelihood tendentious themselves.71 These are indications that the biblical authors may well have somewhat tendentiously used these accounts for their own purposes in a way that is not strictly historiographical, such as the apparent conflation in 2 Kings of the account of the siege of Jerusalem with Sennacherib’s death twenty years later. 72

I SRAEL’ S CONCEPTION OF HISTORY AND MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF I SRAEL’ S HISTORY

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The importance of ‘history’ in the sense of a continuous narrative of the past is something that may have arisen as a result of, or alongside a Hellenistic concern for the construction of such narratives.73 Indeed, Van Seters suggests that one can fruitfully compare the emergence of ‘history writing’ in the Bible with Greek historiography. Yet it is not history in the modern sense—rather, as Van Seters puts it: The past was used in many different ways and by means of many distinct forms to exercise an authority over institutions, customs, rights, and behavior. An expansive portrayal of the past, however, could embody the explanation and the legitimation of all of these in one complex genre. The prestige of a dynasty, the primacy of a temple and its priesthood, the question of territorial rights and boundaries, civil and religious laws—all could be integrated and supported by one “history,” instead of using a variety of forms, such as king lists, temple legends, priestly genealogies, treaty “histories,” and law codes. The genius of the Dtr history is that it attempted such a wide-ranging integration of forms in order to set forth within one 74 work the whole foundation of Israelite society.

We might describe this well in terms of the formation of cultural memory through narrative, a narrative that is ‘history-like’ in form. In an ancient convols., 2003), 2.300–305. We have sources confirming Sennacherib’s assassination in 681 in Assyrian texts (The Rassam Cylinder of Ashurbanipal IV: 65–82, see Oppenheim, Babylonian and Assyrian Historical Texts, 288) and in Babylonian texts (Babylonian Chronicle 1:iii: 34–38, see A. Millard, ‘The Babylonian Chronicle’, in W. W. Hallo and K. L. Younger [eds.], The Context of Scripture: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World, [Leiden: Brill, 3 vols., 2003], 1.467–68). 71. See e.g. A. Laato, ‘Assyrian Propaganda and the Falsification of History in the Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib’, in VT 45.2 (1995): 198–226, 200. 72. See Childs, Isaiah and the Assyrian Crisis, 12–13; D.N. Fewell, ‘Sennacherib’s Defeat: Words at War in 2 Kings 18.13–19.37’, in JSOT 34 (1986): 79–90, 80. 73. Van Seters, In Search of History, 8–54; 209–48. 74. Van Seters, In Search of History, 357.

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text then, the desire to construct a ‘unified history’ may not be associated with a concern for historical thinking or of a philosophy of history. Rather the construction of a unified history may be more associated with a concern to produce a unified story that shapes the identity of the society in a coherent, uni fied fashion—cultural memory. Thus John Strange for example argues that ‘in view of the ingenious way that the Book of Joshua is interwoven with the rest of the story [Gen. 11–2 Kg. 25] … the Book of Joshua is an editorial ploy, a creation by an editor who by writing it turned the whole story from Gen 11 to 2 Kings 25 into a “Hasmonean Manifesto”, and at the same time made the Tetrat euch and the Deuteronomistic History into one single piece of historical liter ature’.75 He argues for a very late (first century) date for this process. 76 Whilst this process may not be as late as he suggests,77 the possibility that a redaction of materials into a harmonized history may have taken place relatively late might indeed reflect the rise of Greek historiography. 78 But, to return to Van Seters, is it fair to ‘empty’ the concept of history and its importance, even as a construct for the perception of divine action, in this way? He discusses Israelite historiography and various approaches to it, and in particular the idea of ‘history’ in Israel in some detail. 79 He suggests that one approach to Israelite historiography is to discuss “historical thinking” or the “idea of history” in the Old Testament, usually in contrast to the rest of the an cient Near East (237). Von Rad suggested that there were predisposing factors that explained the origin of the historical sense among Israelites (commencing in the early monarchical period), stating, ‘The Israelites came to a historical way of thinking, and then to historical writing, by way of their belief in the sovereignty of God in history.’80 Van Seters notes that M. Burrows in his essay 75. J. Strange, ‘The Book of Joshua—Origin and Dating’, in SJOT 16.1 (2002): 44–51, here 50. 76. Ibid., 44. 77. It seems very unlikely to be this late, granted that 4QJosh a is dated on palaeographic grounds to the second half of the second century BC. See M.N. Van der Meer, Formation and Reformulation: The Redaction of the Book of Joshua in the Light of the oldest Textual Witnesses (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 95. 78. It is interesting to note, however, that this construction of a continuous narrative as ‘historiography’ is more evident in the Greek versions of the Old Testament in which the books are ordered thus in to a sequence that implies the narration of a continuous history. In the Hebrew Bible, the divisions of law, prophets and writings, including, for example, Ruth in the writings and Joshua in the prophets, suggests a different approach to the books than in the Greek Bible in which they form parts of a (reason ably) continuous narrative. 79. Van Seters, In Search of History, 237–48. 80. G. von Rad, ‘The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel’, in The Problem of the Hextateuch and other Essays (London: SCM, ET: 1966), 166-204, here 170.

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in The Idea of History in the Ancient Near East develops this further through his own theological interests, concluding that ‘the basic, distinctive presupposi tion of all ancient Hebrew ideas about history is the conviction that in human history the one eternal, living God is working out his own sovereign purpose for the good of his creatures, first for his chosen people, and through them for the rest of mankind.’ 81 Moreover, Van Seters notes that for H. Gese, ‘Israel viewed history as divine judgment. The covenant relationship is a process toward ultimate fulfilment—a plan of salvation.’ (239) Thus Van Seters concludes that ‘There is a rather pervasive opinion that Israel was unique in the ancient world in its understanding of history and in its formulation of theology as revelation through history. The contrast was sharpened by characterizing the Mesopotamian world as polytheistic and therefore mythical and cyclic in its view of nature and history. For this reason, it could have no sense of history and no history writing.’ (240). Indeed, it would seem that this approach is sometimes associated with an apologetic strategy that is used to bolster con fidence in understanding the Old Testament to be revelatory. The historical witness of the Old Testament to God’s acts in history is contrasted with polytheistic myth. Thus Israel, and her texts, are seen as being essentially different in nature from her neighbors at many levels. However, Van Seters notes that this perception of difference between Israel and her neighbors with regard to history was strongly challenged by Bertil Albrektson, who notes that in fact in comparing Mesopotamian texts with the Old Testament there is very little difference in outlook (240). Indeed, Albrektson concluded that the specific content of the Hebrew faith … is, in the last resort, derived from what the Old Testament represents as a divine revelation through the word. That is why the exaggerated emphasis on historical events as a distinctive and supreme medium of revelation, which is characteristic of much contemporary Old Testament theology, requires modification. Both the extra-biblical material and the Old 82 Testament itself demand it.

Finally, Van Seters notes that J.J.M Roberts cautions against confusing historiography as a literary category with what is taken to be a self-evident philosophical concept of history.83 Perhaps then we may trace two aspects to the concept of ‘salvation his tory’ as it has been developed by twentieth-century biblical scholars. First, is 81. M. Burrows, ‘Ancient Israel’, in R.C. Dentan (ed.), The Idea of History in the Ancient Near East (American Oriental Series 38; New Haven: Yale UP, 1955), 99–131, here 128. 82. B. Albrektson, History and the Gods: An Essay on the Idea of Historical Events as Di vine Manifestations in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1967), 122. 83. J.J.M. Roberts, ‘Myth versus History: Relaying the Comparative Foundations’, in CBQ 38 (1976): 1–13.

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the idea that God ‘acts’ in history on behalf of Israel in such a way that the acts are themselves ‘revelatory’, distinguishing Israel’s theology, ethics and society from that of her neighbors. Second, is the idea that God acts and reveals himself in history in a progressive sense in the events as depicted in the biblical narrative. The narrative reflects or forms a proclamation of salvation on the basis of God’s historical acts. In the unfolding of these acts his sovereign purposes are worked out. By studying this progressive revelation, either in the his torical acts or their proclamation, we discover God’s purposes and the end of salvation that is in view: God ‘saves’ according to an unfolding plan. The diffi culties with these theses as historical theses have been made clear however.

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T HE EMERGENCE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF S ALVATION HISTORY FROM PRE- MODERN TO MODERN INTERPRETERS First, it is interesting to note that Deut 26:5–10, a text that is perhaps paradigmatic for some contemporary accounts of ‘salvation history’ by biblical scholars, receives little treatment in patristic and traditional Christian interpretation. There are no comments on it in the Glossa Ordinaria for example. Moreover, Josh 24:1–13, a text that, as we have noted, has significant resonances with the concept of ‘salvation history’, and is often cited in contempor ary debates on understanding the origins of the Pentateuch, is a text that seems of little significance in this regard for the patristic interpreters. Origen does not consider it at all in his homilies on Joshua, although, like Theodoret, he uses it rhetorically elsewhere only to develop the question that the text it self moves towards, namely the question of the choice to follow Yahweh (24:14–15).84 Augustine considers several exegetical issues without considering issues that might be said to relate to ‘salvation history’ per se.85 The Glossa Ordinaria only makes passing reference to Augustine’s treatment of these exeget ical issues. Thus in the biblical interpretation of the pre-modern Christian tradition there appears to be little interest with the kind of issues relating to ‘sal vation history’ that modern interpreters have been concerned with. 86 Second, if ‘salvation history’ essentially reflects a reading strategy that only emerged clearly in a modernist context, then why does it emerge and what is it expressive of in the modernist context? There are a number of reson 84. Theodoret, Question 19 on Joshua, in R.C. Hill, (trans.), Theodoret of Cyrus: The Questions on the Octateuch (LEC 2; Washington, The Catholic University of America Press, 2 vols., 2007), 302–305; Origen, ‘Exhortation to Martyrdom 17’, in ACCS 4, 95–96. 85. Questions on Joshua 25–27, in ACCS 4, 94–96. 86. I do not wish to suggest that pre-modern interpreters had no interest in historical concerns. Rather, in the context of the discussion here, I am simply observing that their concerns were not those of ‘salvation history’ per se.

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ances here with R.W.L. Moberly’s thesis of the ‘Old Testament of the Old Testa ment’ that we studied in chapter 4. Both strategies develop the significance of historical progression, whether actual historical progression or progression as expressed in narrative,87 as an interpretative strategy. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the thesis of the ‘Old Testament of the Old Testament’, and the as sociated interpretation of the Joseph story as we saw in chapter 4, develop fol lowing the rise in importance of the concept of salvation history. The use of such reading strategies may seem ‘obvious’ to those influenced by modernity, but this is perhaps more of a comment on the pervasive nature of the myths of modernity, even if the idea of historical progression is inherent to the relation ship between the Old and New Testaments. 88 Indeed, W.T. Stevenson argues that ‘history’ is a mythic perception of reality: My thesis is that what is commonly termed “history” is a mythic perception of reality. When one stands within this myth, all reality is seen as being historical in nature. ... Briefly stated, myth performs two functions for the community which adheres to it: it reports the “true story” of events which “actually took place”, and it sets going concrete sacral forces which structure man’s world intellectually, emotionally and socially. Further, because myth is the true story, it is all-embracing and cannot be explained in terms of stories or categories more fundamental than those of the myth. If it could, then it would no longer be the true story; it would be demythologized. Now, it is history which, either explicitly or covertly, performs just these functions in our civilization. History is for us the true story of events which “actually took place.” (By contrast, those whose view of reality is derived from one of the religions of the East deny this historical actuality; but this only shows that they do not know the true story, i.e., our true story. They have not been “clued in.”) History is for us the true story of reality. It is the way things are in our experience. More specifically, the myth of history sets going concrete sacral forces which enable us to perceive and order the totality 87. Here Moberly’s perspective differs from a modern one, in that his concern is with progression as expressed in narrative rather than through actual historical reconstruction. In this sense Moberly reconfigures a philosophy of history as a reading strat egy for narrative. See R.W.L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament: Patriarchal Narratives and Mosaic Yahwism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992). 88. Of course, I do not wish to suggest that there is no sense of, for instance, prophetic anticipation of salvation or deliverance and its occurrence or fulfillment prior to modernity. For this is clearly a way in which the New Testament writers understand the eras of the two testaments to be related, and it is how the return from exile within the Old Testament is portrayed. The distinction between this kind of concern and that of the modern conception of salvation history will be developed in what follows.

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of human experience so that ultimate or sacral meaning is understood to be present in the specific empirical and transitory phenomena of the historical process; a process which is understood to be driving forward in hope to an ever greater realization of meaning. The historical understanding of reality is oriented primarily toward those phenomena which are the creation of man, and above all toward the phenomenon of man himself; but it also encompasses every area of our experience, including our experience of nature. Consequently, history is both evolutionary and humanistic—when these terms are correctly, i.e., historically, understood.89

Stevenson’s comments would indicate why the concept of salvation history took hold so firmly in modernity. Perhaps in a late-modern or postmodern context the concept of ‘cultural memory’ implicitly serves a similar function to that of ‘history’ in Stevenson’s comments here. The move towards cultural memory in preference to ‘history’ per se perhaps reflects how we now understand the way in which societies are shaped by the appropriation of narratives or myths. The valuing and appreciation of such narratives as such has arisen from the adoption of a stance of a ‘second naiveté’, in that we have become aware of the historical, philosophical and ideological difficulties with narratives that shape worldviews, especially those purporting to express the past. Modernity supposed that historical narratives shaped us because they were in trinsically historical and truthfully reported or were at least correlated with the facts of the past, which in some sense gave us access to ‘reality’. Now we may see ways in which narratives can shape identities and worldviews without the requirements of correlation in this sense. In modernity history, as reported in narrative, served epistemological and teleological functions in a way specific to that context: we come to know and are able to know God through special inter ventions in history, interventions which if arranged in historical sequence appear to have a purpose that points forward toward a goal. Implicit in modern interpretation then is often the assumption that what is significant for inter pretation is the linear development of a plot sequence. But it is quite possible to read a narrative in other ways, as myth, through structuralist approaches in particular, in which such apparent sequential development may not be signi ficant. For example, Robert Segal suggests that ‘Lévi-Strauss … dispenses with the plot, or “diachronic dimension”, of myth and locates the meaning of myth in the structure, or “synchronic dimension”’ so that myth is understood as a process in which oppositions or contradictions are resolved. 90 In other words, one might understand the fusion of separate ancestral and exodus traditions 89. W.T. Stevenson, ‘History as Myth: Some Implications for History and Theology’ in Cross Currents 20:1 (1970): 15–28, here, 17–18. 90. R.A. Segal, Myth: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 118.

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into a single narrative in Genesis-Exodus not as a ‘history’ per se, but rather as a narrative that resolves the tensions and oppositions between two origin traditions, and the different constructions of identity that they imply. 91 So we have here two different pictures for how we construe the significance of a text or texts. We can explore the significance of the diachronic development of the plot in terms of what we might tentatively call ‘salvation history’, or explore synchronic structural relations for example in the fusion of traditions so as to construct a unified identity. In the later case readings are likely to be more atomistic, being less concerned with the development of an overall plot. Read 91. An example of another reading strategy that is close on the one hand to classical historical criticism, yet draws its value judgments from more post-modern concerns is provided by Albert de Pury. He suggests that P g was the first writer to link the legends of Jacob and Moses on the literary level and to make the Jacob legend a prologue to the Moses story, ‘thus in a way reconciling two stories that had been considered incompatible by prophetic and Deuteronomistic circles.’ For P g history does not begin in Egypt as for D/DH but starts with the creation of the earth at the beginning of time and space. Peoples settle ‘each according to their clans, their languages, their countries, and their nations’ (Gen 10:5, 20–21, 31, 32a). (‘The Jacob Story’, 67) For de Pury P g is not an editor or redactor, but rather an architect and creator. (68) He argues that Pg writes ‘not so much a history of the origins of Israel, but a history of God’s universal project. The role of Israel in this project is pivotal but also surprizingly discreet: Israel will allow YHWH to take his abode among humankind, in a location and according to a model that are not even defined yet.’(69) He goes on to situate Pg at the end of the reign of Cyrus (535–530), suggesting that Pg displays an ‘extraordinary concern … for the formation of a kind of fraternity or “ecumenism” between the populations of southern Palestine by their inclusion into an Abrahamic genealogy.’ (70) Whilst originally Abraham was probably a local intertribal ancestor hero linked to his cave or rock in Hebron, Pg as a ‘creator’ chose this interethnic figure to respond to Persian interests and local demands. However, in the wake of the choice of the Pg story as the framework for later developments, later redactors introduced new stories and elements into this grundschrift, even if some of these new stories might be ‘traditional, recuperated stories’, such as the non-Priestly Jacob story. Indeed, perhaps ‘very soon in the fifth century, the theological climate turned away from Pg’s peaceful “humanism” and readopted a more nationalistic and combative view of Israel’s place in the world.’ (72) So for example, elsewhere de Pury suggests that Gen 16 and 21 contain elements later than Pg reflecting a writer that is uncomfortable with Pg’s ecumenism. The most pressing concern for the post-P redactors is then to make sure that Abraham’s illegitimate descendants are relegated to the horizon and removed from Canaan (e.g. Gen 25:18). (‘Abraham’, 179–80) ‘In that context, the scenes of Jacob despoiling Esau or cheating on Laban might have been considered much less offensive.’ (‘The Jacob Story’, 72). But de Pury concludes that ‘the Priestly writer’s great vision of an ecumenical humanity reconciled around YHWH’s priestly people fell victim to the epigones’ anxieties and shortsightedness. … [The “ecumenical Abraham’s] most important “ecumenical career” as the patriarch of Jewish proselytes, of Christians and Moslems, had yet to take its course.’ (‘Abraham’, 181). In other words, in the con-

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in terms of symbol, myth or poetic fiction there is no need to choose one at the expense of the other however. Thirdly, another way of considering a reading strategy that understands narratives somehow ‘as history’ may be explored through consideration of the processes involved in the life of ‘myth’. We considered briefly in chapter 4 how it is common for myths to ‘tire’ or ‘die’. Myths ‘ossify’ over time, becoming objectified and historicized. Their significance is then sought increasingly in these historicized terms rather than in symbolic existential terms. In this process of ‘historicization’ myths, that once functioned in a symbolic, existential sense in which the world of the text was tacitly construed as a liminal world, come to be understood as descriptive historical narratives. They are interpreted via ideological elaborations of the story presented such that the story is understood essentially in first-order descriptive terms rather than in terms of what it symbolizes.92 In this process something of what the myth, as myth, evokes at the existential level is lost, or at least transformed, as the symbolism collapses into description. Does this then suggest that to try to read GenesisKings as a ‘history’ and interpret it as part of an emerging ‘history of salvation’ is wrong-footed if indeed many of the stories that constitute the narrative have strong symbolic resonances? Is it to make a category mistake regarding how the text is understood if one seeks to identify (often probably non-exist ent) historical referents and construe the significance of the text in terms of these? The concept of salvation history was founded upon claims of historical and historicizing natures. However, it would seem that the concept could be developed through symbolism in a ‘properly’ mythical way, as a new myth along the lines that we shall now consider. This will be not unlike the way in temporary context, with its concerns for ecumenism and ‘tolerance’, such concerns are used to form value judgments and a reading strategy for Genesis-Exodus through, further, the modern concern that a stream is purest closest to its source. The result is that one takes the original Pg as the preferred text to interpret. The potential difficulty here for Christian theological interpretation is that the preferred text is a putatively recon structed text rather than that testified to as the text that forms a part of the canon of Scripture. 92. See C. Lévi-Strauss, ‘How Myths Die’, in Structural Anthropology 2 (New York: Penguin, ET: 1976), 256–268, esp. 268. Kunin develops and nuances Lévi-Strauss’ thesis, suggesting that destructured myths may be used for historical or ideological purposes, working at the conscious rather than the subconscious level. (S.D. Kunin, We Think What We Eat: Neo-structuralist analysis of Israelite Food Rules and Other Cultural and Textual Practices (JSOTSup 412; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 204–5). Arguably though, this reflects a reading strategy of the life of myth precisely in Stevenson’s terms, and is perhaps a modernist analysis of myth. Perhaps what is at issue is not so much the ‘historicization’ of myths, but rather the tendency to read them in a more woodenly literal way, instead of what they symbolise existentially.

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which we reconstrued a Trinitarian reading of Gen 1:26–27 in which the association of the concept or reading strategy with a purported warrant or ground in the narrative of Genesis construed in first-order descriptive, referential terms is no longer sought or required. We have seen how texts that may be read as poetic fiction, as Ricoeur would term it, invite multiple interpretations of the world of the text. Such texts can be used in a variety of ways, such that their original purpose or function is transcended in their continued use, even though their continued use is in some sense answerable to facts. In theological interpretation of Scripture, different imaginative possible readings of the world of the text can be unfolded in front of the text in the context of the reader and their assumptions, as we have seen. There are ‘multiple senses’ to Scripture to put it in more traditional vocabulary. The interpreter may develop and reflect on different aspects of a particular story for different purposes, which might be ethical or theological for example. Correspondingly, various aspects of the given story will recede in significance for a particular reading. As we have seen we can interpret Rahab’s story in more than one way, and perhaps we may interpret it in terms of ‘salvation history’ too. To do so however we should reconstrue the concept of salvation history as something other than a historical (and perhaps somewhat apologetic) thesis, or at least as a thesis that is less strongly bound up with its warrant as given in terms of the historicity of the narratives that the concept is used to interpret. Indeed, we saw in the previous chapter that there are often interesting and complex relationships between ethics, theology and what we might call metaphysics in a broad sense on the one hand and symbolic, myth ical or fictional texts on the other. Poetic fiction, or the use of and reflection on symbols, can in their own way inspire a metaphysic or creatively fill it out or evoke it, even if it might not provide the ground or warrant for it in the way that moderns (in particular) may assume or desire. But perhaps the difficulties are especially acute for developing a responsible and robust conception of ‘salvation history’, given that the concept seems to be about history and its warrant as such. In this case historical concerns would seem more important in interpretation than in our previous studies. But we should not limit the signific ance or use of the concept with its origins, and its perceived original warrant. So for instance we may be able to interpret the concept in both metaphysical and existential terms as a development of a particular reading strategy for the overall narrative of Scripture. In this case we would say that the concept of salvation history provides a rule for reading that uses the symbolism of the bib lical narrative to evoke the sense in which God providentially cares for creation and his people. It evokes the idea of redemption from sin and oppression to salvation and the enjoyment of proper fellowship. But can we fully avoid reference to history?

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Before answering this, let us consider now how this fairly abstract discussion plays out in practice in terms of the readings that we developed in earlier chapters, and in terms of the discussion earlier in this chapter. The difficulty for the concept of salvation history in its formulation as a modern concept has been shown in a number of ways. In this chapter we have focused in particular on the relationship between Genesis and Exodus, and the different origin traditions that they represent. Genesis-Exodus may well have originally reflected two distinct origin traditions, or myths that shaped the cultural memories of different groups in different symbolic, existential ways. We have seen how some of these traditions in Genesis may be understood and interpreted in this way. In broad terms, the book of Exodus may evoke the idea that Yahweh acts on behalf of Israel to deliver the people from oppression and slavery in order to worship him through the covenant. 93 Similarly Joshua and Judges may well have reflected two different traditions serving differing functions, Joshua per haps reflecting the nuancing of the exodus tradition as developed itself in Deu teronomy, and Judges evoking the benefits of the monarchy. Samuel, in the form that we now have it, may reflect the fusion of two ideological portraits of the myth of a Davidic dynasty of kingship. None of these are particularly ‘historical’ in focus at all, at least in terms of being descriptions of the past. Rather, they might be said to be attempts to shape or reshape the ongoing history of the people. Each book or tradition shapes different aspects of the identity and life of Israel, not as history per se (in the modern sense) but as cultural memory or myth, in terms of symbolic, existential narratives, i.e. more as ‘story’. In a sense the concern is with history, but with shaping it in the present and future rather than it being descriptive of the past. The question of how all these vari ous traditions arose and were related to each other in history, and the question of what correspondence these traditions might have with actual historical events is quite unclear. Schmid is probably correct in suggesting that one should abandon the notion of salvation history as forming a historical basis for Israelite religion. There may never have been a mass exodus from Egypt; ‘conquest’ is quite possibly a poor model for describing the actual process of the establishment of Israel as a people in the land, and the portrait of a united monarchy may be an inaccurate one for the origins of Israel as a political entity. Read in a modern context however one naturally supposes that there is significance to the diachronic dimensions of the plot (resulting in the development of concepts of ‘salvation history’ and the ‘Old Testament of the Old Testament’) so formed through the construction of the (more or less) continuous narrative of Genesis–2 Kings, let us say. The concept of salvation history might well not have been a shaping principle for the composition or emergence of the 93. See J.D. Levenson, ‘Exodus and Liberation’, in The Hebrew Bible, The Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (Louisville: WJKP, 1993), 127–159.

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canon.94 Yet the concept is suggestive of a particular reading strategy within the assumptions of a particular context, so that the stories are read together as a coherent, unfolding big story that gives a community its identity, cultural memory and theology. So in terms of a hypothesis of origins, the narrative se quence constructed in the canon may not reflect the emergence of a concept of salvation history as an organizing principle. Rather, the narrative sequence may have originally functioned as an ordering principle to enable the various stories that compose it to be arranged and read as a coherent story to form a new, unified cultural memory for a unified society. ‘Salvation history’, if it is a concept that we wish to continue to use, ought not to have as its foundation the correspondence between what is narrated in the text and actual events in history, nor perhaps even the emergence of a new form of self-understanding of Israel, be that located in a putative ‘Solomonic enlightenment’ or in the Persian or Hellenistic eras.95 It does not (or should not) form the foundation of an apologetic distinction between Israel and her neighbors or the direct founda tion for a theological metaphysic based on a particular philosophy of history and narrative. Rather, the myth of salvation history as evoked by the compilation Genesis–2 Kings, especially when read within the world of the text of Scripture as a whole in a modern reading context, is a reading strategy (as well as a doctrine) that has emerged and is encouraged by the redaction and sequencing of these varying traditions into a continuous and progressive narrative. That narrative provides a ‘grand historical narrative’ that helps the communities that value these texts to make sense of their identity and destiny in terms of the worldviews of a particular kind of reading context—that of modernity especially. The doctrine or reading strategy might be said to be ‘revelatory’ in a modern con text, when understood mythologically, for what emerges as the concept of ‘salvation history’ as a theological doctrine is a portrait of God’s care and oversight of his people and indeed all creation throughout all time. It evokes and reinforces the idea that God ‘saves’, delivering from sin and oppression into rest and fellowship. This in turn evokes a response to God of grateful and thankful worship.

94. Indeed, there is probably rather little that we can say about the shaping of the canon. Perhaps the shaping of the canon arose simply from a desire to preserve traditional texts that were thought to be authoritative or important. 95. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the continuous narrative sequence of Genesis—2 Kings (and beyond) with ‘history’ as an ordering principle is clearer in the Christian Old Testament than the Jewish Hebrew Bible. In the latter Ruth, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles are displaced from the sequence. The concept of ‘historical books’ is apparently a Christian construct. I have not been able to trace the original use of the term.

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God is seen as leading and guiding humanity in various ways in a purpose ful rather than random or ad hoc fashion, yet respecting human choice and free will. God progressively acts to save humanity from the brokenness of a ‘fallen’ world to a redeemed new creation, thus evoking hope, faith and thanksgiving toward God who is seen as good, loving, powerful and able to save. It may seem ‘obvious’ to many contemporary readers that Scripture progresses along a sequence such as creation, through the narrative history of Israel to the Incarnation and finally the eschatological consummation of creation. It is seen as a sequence that in some sense evidences a purposeful progression of the unfolding drama of salvation from creation to the Old Covenant to the New Covenant to the eschaton. But this interpretation may in fact reflect concerns that are taken more from our context than the original composition of Scripture. However, to observe that the concept of ‘salvation history’ is one that emerges particularly in modernity does not imply that it forms a poor reading strategy or one of limited significance, provided one is careful in the kind of claims one makes or warrant one seeks for the thesis. For the strategy may enable certain implicit or inherent aspects of the biblical narrative and of the way that God relates to humanity to emerge more clearly, even if the founda tion, justification or the warrant of the concept needs to be relocated from its basis in modernity. The modern reading context may indeed be one that enables revelation to take place, so long as one is willing to read with a ‘second naiveté’. Various biblical texts seem to invite the development of a concept of salvation history, even if this idea was not originally part of the rhetorical function of the texts. For Josh 24:1–15 does read well as the fusion of various traditions in the Hexateuch that stress (in the world of the text at least) the gracious activity of God on behalf of the people of Israel from the call of Abraham to the establishment of Israel in the land, thus showing God’s activity to be gracious and purposeful. This narrative account forms the basis for a faithful response to God (24:14–15). Israel is portrayed as having been called out from the worship of other gods and idols to the worship of Yahweh in the Promised Land. This portrait serves the rhetorical function of encouraging Is rael to make the right choice in response to Joshua’s question now, to shape their on-going identity and commitments. To return to the worship of other gods would be to ‘undo’ all the good that Yahweh has done for Israel, to revert to where they were (as symbolically expressed in the narrative) before being called and blessed. In this sense, Joshua 24 encourages a reading strategy of Joshua (and the Pentateuch) that does indeed stress the fulfilment of promise with a divine ordering of events towards that end. It can symbolically evoke Nicholas Lash’s conception of the Christian life as a journey of growth away from idolatry to the enjoyment of God, involving the decision continually to

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choose God over idolatry in all its forms. The scriptural narrative provides the symbolic resources for this journey. Such a reading does have resonances with modern conceptions of salvation history, and seems to have been missed, or at least not developed, by traditional interpreters. If the book of Joshua is read with attention to ‘salvation history’ as a reading strategy, as implied by its sequential placement in the canon, then the nar rative, as myth or poetic fiction perhaps, symbolises the way in which God, having called his people, cares for them and guides them into possession of the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey. It speaks of God’s blessing and protection for his people over and against sin and idolatry, and fulfills his promise to lead his people into rest. He establishes a community worshipping him through the covenant in a desirable land that is a blessing to his people in which idolatry and oppression have no place. It is part of the narrat ive sequence leading from creation, through the ‘fall’, to establishment in the land before the judgment of the exile, and ultimately to redemption in Christ. Read in this way it does indeed evoke a purpose and direction to God’s dealings with humanity. But this is based upon inhabiting the world of the text of the canon of Scripture, and not reconstructed historical events. Whilst the genocide of the local inhabitants of the land in this portrait may of course seem problematic on such a reading, it is perhaps a feature of encultured human learning and worldview formation as embodied in and developed by texts that have a mythical or symbolic dimension that we are generally able to bracket out or read past such issues in order to focus on the evocation of something else—or at least we can if we so choose. We can focus on what is mythically symbolized (as set out above) rather than on the consequences of a literal interpretation of the symbol as seen from a different reading perspective if we so choose. We may read with a picture of the significance of the text that does not dwell on the ethically problematic mythic elements, but rather dwell on some thing else. This reflects Origen’s insight. Meaning is construed in terms of symbolic use. It is an answer in a context of ethically raised consciousness to say that the text does not report history, and to say that responsible Christian reading does not take a ‘literal’ construal as a model for behavior, past or present, for that is not how we read the text as Christian Scripture. Rather, the mythic imagination rejoices in God’s care for his people, and that he ‘fights’ on behalf of his people to protect, sustain and bless them in the face of dangers. The story may be read imaginatively yet responsibly as myth in which the Canaanites symbolize idolatry, oppression and opposition, as would be encouraged by reading in the context of Scripture as a whole in which love for neigh bor, whoever that might be, is urged (Luke 10:25–37). Reading today, the Canaanites and their destruction in the story are as much part of the mythical imagination as are the destruction of Storm Troop -

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ers in the Star Wars movies for example. Especially in the contemporary context, both Canaanites (as portrayed in Scripture) and Storm Troopers are mythical constructs, symbolizing opposition, oppression and evil. In this sense, we are encouraged to rejoice that they are overcome, salvation is obtained, and a victory over evil is secured. It might be different if we were regularly to encounter Storm Troopers or Canaanites as real people, or if we sought carelessly (and self-servingly) to project their identity onto other people groups today. Indeed, it is a difficult question to consider how one might portray evil in a narrative today in a way that is always immune to ethical objections. 96 In this case more attention to the ethics of portrayal would be required. But this is a different issue from the on-going reception of an ancient text that has been formative for Christian identity when read appropriately. One can read Joshua in terms of celebrating God’s care, provision and blessing of his people, bracketing out issues of the portrayal of the mythical protagonists, so long as one dwells on the mythical and adopts a Christian ethic and reading perspective. It is not always desirable or even appropriate to read from the perspective of ‘the other’, for this may be to miss what is at issue. The difficulty arises when one projects the descriptive element of being Canaanite (for instance) in an ethic ally problematic and usually self-serving way on to actual people in one’s own context, as has sadly happened. 97 The solution to mis-use is however not a disavowal of a narrative such as Joshua, but rather the recognition of the need for good, responsible use of the narrative, a narrative which, as with many others, is dangerous if misused. But that the narrative is dangerous or portrays violence are not grounds for its disavowal—many everyday human activities or stories are dangerous yet often beneficial or necessary; but they need responsible and careful use.98 96. This is not to say that we cannot imagine certain groups as embodying evil or oppression. Sadly, it is no doubt the case that the reader can envisage a number of people groups in contemporary or recent history (usually those committed to some ideol ogy) as embodying evil, such as Nazis for instance. 97. R.A. Warrior, ‘Canaanites, Cowboys and Indians: Deliverance, Conquest, and Liberation Theology Today’ in D. Jobling, et al. (eds.), The Postmodern Bible Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 188–194. 98. For instance, driving a motor car, using a kitchen knife or cooking with oil are all dangerous but familiar activities, and stories that construct group identities may be beneficial but dangerous if misused as one can always ask “What about the ‘other’?” In many cases, perhaps familiarity obscures danger, and in this sense ethical criticism for example offers a helpful reminder to be careful in how we use Scripture. It is not that one should seek the eradication of anything that is associated with danger or that can be misused; rather one should seek careful, responsible use, and a society that encourages such, coupled with the ability to discern and judge danger and misuse appropriately. Moreover, there is a distinction to be made between a judgment about a contem-

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Reading through the lens of the construct of salvation history, as a reading strategy rather than as a historical thesis, is another possible way of constru ing the world of the text of Joshua when read against the textual horizon of Scripture as a whole in a modern context.99 It sits alongside the other possible readings developed earlier. It neglects the challenge that Joshua presents to the construction of Israel’s identity and her attitudes toward others, bracketing this concern out, and developing instead the portrait of God’s care, salva tion and blessing of his covenant people as part of a larger picture of salvation. The Christian community can beneficially embrace both portraits. It perhaps goes astray when one portrait is neglected. However, as in the previous chapter in which we reconfigured a Trinitarian reading of Gen 1:26–27, we should also consider the basis upon which we build such a reconfiguration of the concept of salvation history—in what way is it anchored to facts?

R ECOVERING THE CONCEPT OF OIKONOMIA, AND ITS RELATION TO S ALVATION HISTORY

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As we have just suggested, ‘salvation history’ might be best construed, or reconstrued, as a mythical concept that emerges especially within the modern context through reflection on the Scriptural narrative read as a continuous, progressive sequence.100 It is not derived from the correspondence of the narrative with a linear sequence of historical facts. The concept is used poorly when the doctrine functions in an apologetic fashion as part of a Christian epistemology. It is used well when used as a unifying story by the Christian community that evokes the idea that God oversees and guides his creation towards porary narrative portrayal regarding how evil and oppression are symbolized well in such a narrative, and judgments about the use of an ancient narrative embedded in the cultural memory of a tradition with its associated symbolism. Ethical criticism, if em ployed as an ideology to reject the use of narratives owing to the portrayal of violence or the nature of the symbolism employed, is likely to be too blunt a tool, for it fails to offer the possibility of discerning between the serious portrayal of violence to evoke some important ethical or aesthetic end, and gratuitous violence. It seems that what is required is discernment on a case-by-case basis. There are a number of important issues here that warrant further exploration. 99. As in our discussion of the Trinity in the previous chapter, the concept finds its warrant more through the symbolic resonance of the text so interpreted with the ongoing testimony and experience of God’s people than through the correspondence of the text with the facts of history. 100. On Stevenson’s account of the ‘myth of history’, salvation history was always a mythical concept. What I mean here is an explicit recognition of the concept as such, without understanding it with reference to modern construals of history and its associated philosophy.

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redemption. In symbolic terms it portrays how God guides, blesses, disciplines and cares for his people, leading toward the ultimate goal of unhindered fel lowship and communion with God and each other. It evokes a response in hope, trust, faith and worship. As we saw with Gen 1:26, an imaginative, creative reading of the text (here, Genesis—2 Kings in the context of the whole of Scripture) works in harmony with the testimony of and generative acts within the tradition and Christian experience to form our theology. The imaginative juxtaposition of texts, traditions and experience thus evokes a metaphysic through which we gain insights into the character of God as well as our destiny in him. Salvation history is a myth that emerges from juxtaposing the biblical narratives into a continuous sequence, and reflecting upon them in a modern Christian context. This is not to say that there was not a concept of a ‘big story’ in which Jews and Christians participated previously, but rather that certain aspects of the story’s interpretation and development are essentially reflections of modern concerns. But perhaps this is to move a little too fast. If we are to ‘learn about our learning’ and ask what justifies the appropriation of a concept of salvation his tory along these lines, we have seen that this reading derives from reading Scripture essentially as myth or poetic fiction. The concept of God that it reflects derives from reflection on the symbolic resources that the narrative offers when read imaginatively in a particular way. As with our analysis of the Trinitarian interpretation of Gen 1:26, we now know that difficulties arise if we suppose that the text provides the possibility for making direct referential claims between narrative and historical reality, or that it warrants or justifies such claims. Thus we need to read from the perspective of a ‘second naiveté’. Then the basis of knowing salvation history is the imaginative discernment and development of the symbolism of the narratives that experience through life, history and ‘events’ testifies to as knowledge. The trustworthiness of the concept of salvation history, that it does evoke a metaphysic and portrait of God that is in some sense reliable, is indicated, according to Paul Ricoeur through testimony and experience. Moreover, for Rowan Williams it is testimony, experience and reflection on generative events that are related to an account of ‘revelation’. Yet it is precisely here that there is a problem, for both Ricoeur and Williams draw upon the exodus especially and (perhaps indirectly for Williams), von Rad’s ‘credo’. The difficulty for Ricoeur is that he appealed to the exodus and to von Rad’s thesis of the development of the credo to ground his discussion of testimony and experience—testimony is testimony to an event, and in the credo such events are testified to and confessed. The difficulty is twofold. First, as we have seen in this chapter and in chapter 5, there may be rather little correlation between the events portrayed in biblical narrative and actual historical events. Secondly, von Rad’s thesis about the ‘credo’

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appears to be a modern reading of certain key texts rather than the self-under standing of the tradition’s reflection of the key texts in antiquity. These two observations make the appeal to testimony as it has been framed problematic. Recent understandings such as we find in minimalist stances of the correlation between the biblical traditions and historical events may prove to be too pessimistic. But in a context where it is precisely the grounds for testimony that are in question since there are good reasons to doubt the grounds offered, one cannot simply assume such a correlation to ground the testimony. Ricoeur’s approach might be nuanced or reconfigured by moving it away from a foundation in modern conceptions of salvation history and founding it instead on the patristic concept of oikonomia. Oikonomia expresses much of what we want to say about salvation history—that God manages, orders and plans the cosmos and its redemption, and that this ought to evoke a response of trust, hope and thanksgiving. This is testified to in reflection upon creation and the experiences of God’s people as symbolically expressed in biblical narrative as resources for the tradition. Yet perhaps ultimately, for the Christian at least, it is the testimony of the Incarnation as event that might form the foundation for Ricoeur’s thesis and Williams’ development of it.101 Indeed, for the church fathers the concept of oikonomia focused on, or was worked out in, ideas of creation but especially on the Incarnation. As Paul Blowers puts it (and note his emphasis here on myth): In the overall project of expounding the mythic biblical account of God’s creation of the world from primeval formlessness, patristic commentators addressed key questions of “nothingness,” of matter, and of how and when the Creator introduced form and order into the fledgling creation. And yet they framed these issues precisely in terms of the disclosure of the Creator’s unlimited freedom, resourcefulness, and salvific prowess. Already in Genesis and throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the vulnerability of the contingent creation was of a piece with the vulnerability of Israel, and the Creator’s power to create ex nihilo was one with his ability to redeem Israel from chaos and to open up new possibilities for Israel to flourish. Patristic interpreters, appealing to the New Testament as well as the Hebrew Scriptures, in turn expanded this mythos. Now it was to include Jesus Christ as the ultimately resourceful Creator who, while widening Israel, inaugurates a glorious new creation out of the rich resources of the old; and the Holy Spirit as the Creator who constantly brings beauty and perfection to that new creation. The

101. In fact, this is essentially what Williams does even though he commences his discussion with the significance of the exodus (‘Trinity and Revelation, 134).

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biblical mythos could thereby be interpretively unfolded as continu102 ous recreation in Christ and the Spirit.

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Blowers traces this interpretative strategy to Irenaeus: Irenaeus deserves some substantial credit for this pattern of imitating the Bible’s dramatic mythos, but he was by no means alone. Historically, he represents an early generation of patristic thinkers, still at the front end of the closing of the Christian biblical canon, who were producing new modes of theological discourse at the same time that they were pulling together available pieces of scriptural tradition and clarifying the lines of continuity between “prophets and apostles.” Even if much of his writing was apologetic or polemical, and he apparently never wrote in the form of an extended commentary on Scripture, Irenaeus’ hermeneutical intuitions proved decisive and enduringly influential. Imitating the pattern of the Bible, he galvanized the integration of creation and redemption, treating them as elements in a seamless “plot” … in which the Creator negotiated his creation through and beyond the tragedy of the Adamic fall toward a glorious transformation. Rather than mapping the oikonomia as a pure sequence of episodes (creation … fall … redemption … consummation), however, Irenaeus fixed the whole history of creation on the incarnation of Christ as the ultimate recapit ulation (Eph. 1:10) of the Creator’s objectives. Here, for Irenaeus and the later theologians in his debt, was the climax definitive of the entire drama of creation and salvation. For Irenaeus, the vertical, kenotic movement of the incarnation penetrated the horizontal or temporal play of the drama of creation’s destiny, effectively collapsing the beginning and end of creation into its middle, Jesus Christ. Little surprise, then, that when patristic commentators on Genesis 1 considered the meaning of the phrase “in the beginning” (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1), many of them, from Theophilus of Antioch on, were already predisposed to identify creation’s true “beginning” … as the Logos or Christ. As Creator, and as the very Word and Wisdom “through whom all things were made,” Jesus Christ was the preeminent dramatis persona on whose resourceful actions, in obedience to the Father, the denouement of the world drama depended.103 102. P.M. Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: OUP, 2012), 374–75. See however J.D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipo tence (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988) for a critique of the notion of a creation ex nihilo as determinative for Israel’s self-understanding. The doctrine of an ex nihilo creation quickly became established in Christian thought however. See G. May, Creatio Ex Nihilo (London: T&T Clark, ET: 2004) for discussion of the establishment of the concept. 103. Ibid., 375.

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Oikonomia, as God’s plan of salvation (cf. Eph 1:10; 3:9), is not so much worked out and demonstrated in and through the progression of history from beginning to end as corresponding with the details of the biblical narrative, but rather in Christ, who is the beginning and end of all creation. As we saw above, oikonomia has resonances with plan, strategy, ordering and organization. The oikonomia of salvation is not revelation in history or salvation history as such. Such concepts, especially in a context informed by modernity, collapse oikonomia and the Scriptural witness to oikonomia to issues of history. Rather, as Irenaeus suggests, oikonomia relates to how ‘in a variety of ways, [God] adjusted the human race to an agreement with salvation.’ (Adv Haer 4.14.2). The whole of creation and human experience is in some sense ‘collapsed’ into Christ. Moreover, as E. Osborn comments with reference to Justin Martyr: Christ rounds off the divine plan (oikonomia) in his Incarnation. He completes the dispensation, which was the will of his father (Dial. 67.6). The long process of preparation for Christ, both in prophets and philosophers, is needed because man must choose for himself whether to obey God or not. … God’s plan of salvation thus includes law as well as Logos. Just as the Logos came in part to men of old and then fully in Christ, says Justin, so the old law was an anticipation of the new law in Christ. The law of Moses was given, first, to encourage those who had shown the hardness of their hearts in failing to perform what is good and just (Dial. 45.3). Secondly, the law was concerned to set right what had gone wrong. … It fulfilled a temporary purpose and looked forward to the coming of a perfect law. It had been written that “there should be a final law and covenant supreme over all which now all men should keep if they wish to pursue the inheritance of God … And Christ was given to us as an eternal and final law and a faithful covenant after which there 104 shall be no law, no precept, no commandment” (Dial. 11.2).

Thus oikonomia is in fact a broader concept than that of ‘salvation history’. It is the Incarnation that grounds the concept of oikonomia, which is in turn perhaps the best justification that we can offer for the adoption of the mythical concept of salvation history. Being rooted in the Incarnation it is thus not devoid of historical content after all. The concept of oikonomia offers a resource for the interpretation of Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture that avoids the problematic aspects of ‘salvation history’ whilst enabling the more helpful aspects to be developed, such as the discernment of God’s ‘plan’ for the cosmos through imaginative Trinitarian interpretation of narratives, reflection on creation, law and philosophy. As such, salvation history is a somewhat un 104. E. Osborn, ‘Justin Martyr’, in G.R. Evans (ed.), The First Christian Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 115–120, here, 118.

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helpful and distorting category to use with reference to the interpretation of pre-modern theologians. Whilst, as we saw above, Matthew Levering works with the category of ‘salvation history’ in a way that might be problematic, his conclusion that ‘the crucial means for retrieving Aquinas’s theology of the triune God, especially as regards its relationship to salvation history, will be reclaiming his vision of theology as contemplative wisdom patterned by the nar rative of Scripture’ suggests a fruitful avenue to pursue. Rather than focusing on the revelation of God through God’s purported acts in history, one focuses on theology as contemplative wisdom patterned by the narrative of Scripture, a narrative that is often best interpreted as much in terms of poetic fiction as in terms of history. In this sense one shifts the focus from the question of the events that lay behind the exodus (for example) to the contemplative reflection patterned by the symbolism of the narrative and the narrative’s development in beholding the nature of creation as God’s creation in Christ, and in God’s strategy of the redemption of all creation as summed up in Christ. The key to understanding the narrative patterning of Scripture is Christ, and / or perhaps, as we saw in chapter 8, a Trinitarian reading strategy. It is through understanding Christ that we understand the Scriptural narratives and their significance as part of the oikonomia of salvation, and it is the Incarnation (rather than the exodus or von Rad’s credo patterned on the Hexateuch) that forms the foundational event (philosophically even if not in terms of historical development) for the testimony to the theological interpretation of the texts as poetic fiction and as being revelatory of God, humanity, and the hope and experience of salvation. The Old Testament, as cultural memory that shaped the first century society into which Jesus lived and from which the Incarnation was witnessed to and interpreted, forms the preparation for, or anticipates the Incarnation (cf. Gal 3:19–29). We saw this hinted at above in Osborn and Blowers. Through the narrative patterning of Scripture humanity is indeed ‘adjusted to agreement with salvation’. As Blowers put it for Irenaeus in the oikonomia, ‘the vertical, kenotic movement of the incarnation penetrated the horizontal or temporal play of the drama of creation’s destiny, effectively collapsing the beginning and end of creation into its middle, Jesus Christ.’ Origen’s treatment of the fall of Jericho is a good example of how one might read Joshua from the perspective of the oikonomia of salvation rather than ‘salvation history’ in the modern sense. Jericho is surrounded; it must be captured. How, therefore, is Jericho captured? The sword is not drawn against it; the battering ram is not arranged, nor is the spear hurled. The priestly trumpets alone are employed, and by these the walls of Jericho are overthrown.

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We frequently find Jericho to be placed in Scripture as a figure of this world. … Consequently, this Jericho (that is, this world) is about to fall; for indeed the consummation of the age has already been made known a little while ago by the sacred books. In what way, therefore, will the consummation be given to it? By what instruments? By the sound, it says, of trumpets. Of what trumpets? Let Paul make known the mystery of this secret to you. Hear what he himself says: “The trumpet will sound,” he says, “and the dead who are in Christ will rise incorruptible,” and, “The Lord himself with a command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven.” At that time, therefore, Jesus our Lord conquers Jericho with trumpets and overthrows it, so that out of it, only the prostitute is saved and all her house. Therefore, our Lord Jesus will come and he will come with the sound of trumpets. But just now let us pray that he may come and destroy “the world that lay in wickedness” and all things that are in the world, because “everything that is in the world is the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes.” May he destroy that, may he dissolve it again and again, and save only this one who received his spies and who placed his apostles, received with faith and obedience, in the high places. And may he join and unite this prostitute with the 105 house of Israel.

Thus we see here how Origen does indeed collapse the beginning and end into the middle, that is, into Jesus. The fall of Jericho is not interpreted as a part of a historical sequence of salvific acts of God ‘in history’, but rather it is inter preted symbolically through the significance of the Incarnation and the anti cipation of the eschaton and applied in a somewhat symbolic existential sense. The story of the fall of Jericho finds its Christian significance (or at least one aspect of its Christian significance) in its appropriation in and through the context of the revelation of the Incarnation and the eschaton. The significance of Joshua 6 was not construed in terms of it being a part of a sequence of salvific acts as might be implied by reference to the fall of Jericho in Josh 24:11 that indicates God acting ‘in history’ on behalf of his people. Rather, Origen in terpreted it as symbolic of the oikonomia of salvation. Reading in this way has the rhetorical affect of collapsing the Old Testament narrative, the Incarnation and the eschaton into the horizons of the reader. The concept of the oikonomia of salvation draws these various strands together into the imagination and experience of the reader.106 105. Hom. Josh. 6.4, in B.J. Bruce, (trans.), Origen, Homilies on Joshua (FC 105; Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 71–73.

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This is a good interpretation of Joshua with the assumptions of oikonomia as reading strategy. It is a good possible reading of the text that is fruitful for development in the Christian life. Yet reading Joshua in terms of salvation his tory, as ‘mythically construed’ above, in which the idea that God guides his people and fulfils his promises to them to give them rest in the Promised Land as symbolizing the way in which God deals with us is also a good possible reading. It is a reading that is not in fact very far removed from the assumptions of oikonomia, even if its warrant or its justification is best given in terms of oikonomia, if one feels the need to look for a warrant. Likewise the two different readings of Rahab’s story discussed in chapter 6. Finally, Andrew Louth suggests that it is right to mistrust the collapsing of salvation history into oikonomia. He suggests,

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It seems to me that they are addressing very different questions, oikonomia is mostly about how we can discern the activity of an eternal God in the world of space and time; its rationale is mostly philosophical. The answer is largely in terms of how to interpret a text, and the answer is, roughly, intertextually: if it is all the action of the God revealed in Christ, then it is from that perspective that things will begin to make sense. The register of this reading is manifold, from taking the account as a moral tale to probing an elaborate allegory (or pattern of symbolism): the latter particularly, I think, in relation to the temple. One problem that salvation history attempts to solve—the gap between the story told and history—was not, I think, a problem for the Fathers, not because they were naive, on the contrary, rather because what they thought interpretation amounted to 107 would have taken that step in their stride.

C ONCLUSION As part of the canonical collection of books, Genesis—2 Kings (and beyond) forms a narrative that forms the cultural memory of a people or groups of people. Through various traditionally agreed yet always evolving and developing ways of reading, it generates the identity and worldview of such people that value the story. It is an agreed, shared story that offers symbolic resources that form the grammar of discourse with which to interpret the world and our experience, shaping attitudes toward it. In particular, Genesis—2 Kings, as part of the Old Testament, offers a tradition and a narrative context within which to interpret the Incarnation and its significance, while the narrative itself is in106. Another way of putting it is in terms of the ‘thickness’ of understanding history in a sense that Blowers develops (Drama, 97–98). 107. In personal communication, January 2014.

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terpreted through the Incarnation as part of a hermeneutical spiral. Read in a modern (or late-modern) context with its concern for historical progression— even if simply expressed in terms of plot development in the world of the text rather than history per se, the narrative of Genesis—2 Kings is evocative of a metaphysics and ethics. That is, it symbolizes God’s calling and leading; it symbolizes God as making and fulfilling promises. It symbolizes God as delivering from oppression, as establishing and saving a people called into relationship with him. This picture is formed and justified not through the narrative alone, but through experience, tradition, testimony and the generative events of the tradition. As in Joshua 24, this myth naturally evokes a response in the reader. In the light of a picture of God who may be envisaged (through symbol) as acting in the sort of ways symbolized in the narrative, what sort of a response is appropriate? These glimpses are developed through the Incarnation, the primary generative event that testifies to and firmly establishes once for all that God acts ‘in history’ (i.e., in humanly experienced creation) to save. Woven into this narrative patterning are concepts such as that of blessing for faithful living before God, and the curse of alienation from God for turning away from God toward idolatry. Yet in the drama or pattern of ‘salvation history’ God’s grace emerges as finally determinative in overcoming human weakness and failure. This is therefore a way in which a doctrine of ‘salvation history’ can be construed as emerging from the imaginative canonical juxtaposition of various traditions when read in a modern context, and in a way that does not depend on the correspondence of events narrated in the text with actual history. Rather, the narratives are understood as symbolizing the way in which God in teracts with humanity, whatever the historical basis might be for that symbolism, being testified to in the experiences of God’s people and supremely in the Incarnation. Such an approach to the narrative lends naturally to its liturgical use as a celebration of God’s love for his people, which is reflected back to him in worship. Thus in terms of how we ‘learn about our learning’, the doctrine of salvation history is testified to in various ways, not unlike that of the Trinity, being supremely manifested in the Incarnation. Just as Jesus is our clearest manifestation and revelation of God, so in the life of Jesus we see the clearest manifestation of salvation history—Jesus encapsulates it in the Incarnation. God emp ties himself to enter personally and experientially the arena of human exist ence to save humanity within that arena. The cultural memory of the Old Testament prepared the community for the incarnation and its interpretation, in dicating that God has indeed acted in history. God has acted through experience, through the composition of literature and law, in the reflections of philo sophy and in the imagination. In these ways Israel was prepared for the messiah, and God acted to save in Jesus the messiah. A doctrine of salvation history

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emerges via the inspired imagination through the resdescription of the world in myth and the poetic imagination. Such redescription is testified to in the life of the community of God’s people and made concrete in foundational events such as the Incarnation. If the nature of the doctrine of the Trinity is best construed not simply to provide a propositional account of God, but rather to provide a rule of interpretation, understanding and knowing, then perhaps the doctrine of salvation history does likewise. It does not provide a descriptive, propositional account of the way that God has acted, but rather it provides a rule for interpretation of Scripture and of humanity. It is not that the doctrine of salvation history is not metaphysical or ethical—rather it is a question of what kind of metaphysic it is and what its epistemological warrant is, rather like the Trinitarian reading of Gen 1:26. The doctrine says something of what God is like, how we ought to interpret the world, and how we ought to live in response to the doctrine. We have considered several possible ways in which the story of Jericho may be construed as Christian Scripture. First, as developed in chapter 3, as part of Rahab and Achan’s stories it is used as part of a story that nuances the way in which the community of God’s people defines itself and its relations to others. Whilst this reading might not explicitly relate to salvation history per se, it does indirectly. That is, as we come to understand how to define ourselves and our relation to others as God would wish, this is in fact an aspect of the unfolding of God’s saving work in the arena of human history. In gaining appro priate self-understanding of the Christian community and its relation to oth ers, God’s salvation is unfolded and faithfully enacted throughout the world and throughout history. Secondly, we have studied the traditional Christian usage of the story as evoking Christian conversion. Such a reading relates to a reading in terms of God’s oikonomia. Thirdly (and relatedly), the story of Jericho may be read with reference to a reading strategy informed by the discernment of God’s oikonomia, as in Origen’s reading above. This forms the context and basis for traditional ‘spiritual’ reading. Fourthly, and again relatedly, the story of the fall of Jericho may be read imaginatively and symbolically through the interpretative framework of ‘salvation history’ as part of the narrative sequence of Scripture in which God is understood to call, lead, guide, sustain and even ‘fight for’ his people in establishing them in the Promised Land. The story points toward and in some way anticipates the work of Christ as well as the need for it. The promised rest given in Joshua was temporary, indicating the need for God to act to bring his people fully into rest (cf. Hebrews 3–4). This approach to reading in terms of salvation history (or indeed oikonomia) can evoke hope for the reader who draws encouragement from the portrait of God that emerges through his gracious ordering, planning, calling, guiding and helping towards the end of enjoying resting in God. This approach becomes

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problematic however when its significance is construed in historicizing terms, or used as the foundation of an epistemology based on a purported historical referentiality, or if certain kinds of ethical objection are stressed in which the mythic nature of the narrative’s use is lost. Indeed, this reading approach, i.e., in terms of salvation history, is best held in tension with the reading of Joshua in chapter 3 in which triumphalist or self-serving constructions of identity are questioned. The ‘myth’ of salvation history is a good one however as it is testi fied to in the experience of God’s people and in the wider story that includes the incarnation, forming the Christian grammar of discourse for interpreting experience and talking about God. So for example in Psalm 66 God’s ‘deeds’ are recounted as a recognizable symbolic grammar with which to speak of God, and used so as to interpret and praise ‘what God has done for me’ (Ps 66:16). Similarly, in Psalm 136 God’s deeds are recounted, as a grammar of discourse common and intelligible to all who cherish the text of Scripture, but with the rhetorical and existential end of giving thanks to God, who is good, and whose steadfast love endures forever. So for example if God graciously frees me from some form of seemingly insurmountable oppression, I can interpret this as an ‘exodus experience’ that leads me into greater thanksgiving and worship of God. Interpreting it as an exodus experience helps to evoke and interpret the way in which God is working, and is intelligible when recounted to others. It thus helps to lead one into fuller experiential encounter with God, and into re cognizing it as such, and a fuller life expressive of thanksgiving and praise. This then provides the context for further discernment and experience of God. If the premodern oikonomia in some sense became drawn into modernity’s ‘salvation history’, perhaps ‘salvation history’ is now drawn into the postmod ern concept of a ‘grand narrative’ (or meta-narrative). ‘Grand narrative’ is a concept which, following Lyotard especially, has been explicitly rejected in some strands of postmodern philosophy, yet is explicitly adopted by some (especially Evangelical) biblical scholars,108 who place the Incarnation at the centre of the narrative. Indeed, some aspects of modernity’s confidence in and fascination with a philosophy of ‘history’ have been deeply misleading for the theological interpretation of Scripture and its conception of ‘salvation history’ (requiring the postmodern ‘correction’ to modernity). But, deeply misleading for theology too are those aspects of postmodernism that reject the possibility of any adequate ‘grand narrative’ within which to situate human existence and experience. The adoption of the concept of ‘grand narrative’ as a description or interpretative lens for Scripture is perhaps a good one in the contemporary context. On the one hand, its adoption marks a shift away from the over-con108. See B. Smart, Postmodernity (London: Routledge, 1992), 25–6, 75. N.T. Wright and C.J.H. Wright both adopt the category of ‘grand narrative’. See e.g. C.J.H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Leicester: IVP, 2006).

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fidence of the modern era as regards certain understandings of history and truth. On the other hand, its adoption marks a rejection of postmodern pessimism or postmodern relativism especially when construed as an ideology. Describing Scripture as a ‘grand narrative’ offers a way of understanding Scripture by which people may be ‘called again’ beyond the deserts of certain modern and postmodern assumptions and criticisms. Matthew Levering comments that ‘the crucial means for retrieving Aquinas’s theology of the triune God … will be reclaiming his vision of theology as contemplative wisdom patterned by the narrative of Scripture.’ This comment might well form the basis for our vision of theology too. In a postmodern context we might develop or interpret concepts such as oikonomia, salvation history, and patterning according to the ‘narrative of Scripture’ in terms of the category of ‘grand narrative’ or meta-narrative as a rhetorical move to instantiate trust and hope amid certain strands of postmodern suspicion and despair. One might say that human experience, activity and contemplation in all the various arenas in which humanity is involved is drawn into the ‘grand narrative’ of the story of God’s creation and its salvation in Christ, offering future hope amid extremes of postmodern uncertainty, the clamor of competing interests, and despair of meaning. Using the category of salvation history as an interpretative lens is one of several possible reading strategies for Old Testament narrative, and, used well, it can be a good form of theological interpretation just as other reading strategies can be. The risk with using the term ‘salvation history’ in biblical interpretation is that in a context informed by modernity the focus is more on the ‘facts of history’ than on Christ himself and an overall divine ordering and patterning of creation. The danger is that God’s activity is seen primarily in the punctilinear events purportedly located ‘behind’ the biblical texts, and not in human imagination, philosophy, literature, culture, society and law as these flow into and out of the Incarnation. The risk in a postmodern context is that the scriptural narrative becomes simply one among many that reflects the interests of a particular group, and a robust sense of a ‘grand narrative’ disappears. Claims that there is a patterning to God’s communion with humanity and the world is seen as an expression of a false consciousness. Perhaps then a recovery of the understanding of the premodern category of oikonomia may be helpful, especially as for most today it will have to be explained, but interpreted in terms of a ‘grand narrative’ of creation and redemption with Christ as the foundation and centre. The historical ‘stumbling blocks’ that we have seen in this chapter especially with regard to a literal construal of Genesis—2 Kings points to the nature of the significance of the narrative, and thus the concept of salvation history as being essentially ‘spiritual’ (to use the traditional term). The concept has exist-

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ential significance in the life of the believer as the narrative is projected through Christ to us, and on to the eschaton. Thus we see how the hermeneutics of tradition can interact with the critique of ideology in a lively and fruitful manner so as to lead, albeit provisionally and as through a glass darkly, into all truth, thereby helping us to enter imaginatively and appropriately into the world of the text which is a witness to the revelation of God to us and an icon testifying to Christ. The basis for our theology, and for the ‘grand narrative’ that we confess is not established essentially through an objective analysis of ‘facts of history’ that form ‘salvation history’ in terms of a modern conception of history, but rather through ‘divine encounter’ in the whole arena of human imagination, philosophy, literature, culture, society, law, and, of course, primarily and especially in the incarnation. We know because we encounter and commune with God as Trinity, a communion into which we each enter that is always already there, expressed and discerned in the divine oikonomia.

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C HAPTER 10

EPILOGUE R EADING OLD TESTAMENT NARRATIVE AS

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C HRISTIAN SCRIPTURE AS A TASK BEST LEFT JAGGED Through a study of various texts we have considered what the practice of reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture looks like with a view to trying to discern some kind of ‘family resemblance’ regarding what characterizes interpreting and appropriating Old Testament narratives well today. We have sought to investigate this matter by using the resources of the Christian tradition in conjunction with other contemporary resources, resources that often imply a critique of traditional interpretations or their appropriation. To this end we have seen that a variety of interpretative strategies contribute to our understanding of Old Testament narrative and its interpretation and use as Christian Scripture. However, Christian interpretation of Old Testament narrative is conducted in a somewhat ad hoc and contextual fashion. Some approaches are more suited to some texts than to others. To put it in the context of Paul Ricoeur’s work, such interpretation takes place in the tension between the hermeneutics of tradition and the critique of ideology, as broadly construed. The stance of a ‘second naiveté’ is adopted in which the subject matter of interpretation is understood to be the ‘world of the text’ as this has been received in the Christian tradition. Indeed, we have considered various pictures of hermeneutics with a view to studying how one might situate the significance (or meaning) of scriptural texts, in the author’s intention, in the world of the text, or in the construction of the reader. We have seen that the significance of particular texts can be construed in various ways, such as in the story of Rahab and the fall of Jericho for example. This question—that of the location of the significance or meaning of a (scriptural) text—has all the features of the kinds of philosophical problems that Wittgenstein engages with in his later work. Tackling the question in a 321

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Wittgensteinian way suggests that a diagnosis of hermeneutical difficulties and anxieties regarding the meaning and significance of texts may be given in terms of the initial assumption that one can or ought to, a priori, ‘locate’ the meaning or significance of texts in general somewhere, such as in the intention of the author, in the text itself, or in the response of the reader. Once one has made such an assumption, the location chosen forms the basis of a criterion as to what constitutes good interpretation as a general principle, and the ‘conjur ing trick’ is made. From this flow interpretative dilemmas and difficulties as we have seen. The problem lies in the assumption that there is a ‘fact of the matter’ regarding the meaning or significance of texts in general, that a text has a meaning simply in virtue of the text being correlated with something which is to be discovered. But in trying to argue a priori for a location of meaning one may very well be chasing a chimera. If, as Wittgenstein has argued, it is usage and rules for usage that are often in question in philosophical problems, 1 then, as a philosophical problem of hermeneutics, the nature of the task of the inter pretation of Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture construed in terms of rules for usage within the Christian tradition will look rather different than if one supposes either that narratives have meanings that are to be discovered, being what the text refers to, or that meaning is purely a construct of the reader with no reference to facts. To appeal to usage and rules for usage within particular language games is not to say that we are merely concerned with conventions in use, and that any one use is as good as any other. Judgments that are constrained by various facts or norms (whatever these may be) are always in play. So there is always an issue of judgment in interpretation. This is not to say that picturing meaning and construing the significance of texts in terms of authorial intention or in the world of the text itself or in the reader is wrong or unhelpful, or that it does not matter if a text is fictional rather than historically referential. Rather, it is to say that such construals may be useful and fitting in some situations when considering what it means to use some texts well, but not others. So, when contesting an interpretation in some cases it might be appropriate to claim that this is not what the author meant, whilst in other cases one might argue that what the author meant is not at issue. Rather, what might be at issue is the imaginative construal of the symbolism of a text within a later context, in the light of further ‘revelation’ perhaps, and construed as being illuminative of some aspect of the Christian life. Thus through consideration of the practice of interpretation and the goal of Christian interpretation in terms of growth in the Christian life toward the end of beholding and enjoying God, we have seen that considerable flexibility 1. Cf. PI §43: ‘For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word “meaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.’

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in hermeneutical strategy is called for in the interpreter. Hermeneutics is something worked out on a case-by-case basis. ‘Stumbling blocks’ in the narratives, either of a historical, logical or moral nature, point us away from a single, straightforward, naive reading of Scripture at the literal level, and point instead toward a spiritual reading, as Origen would put it, or toward a symbolic reading as poetic fiction, to use Ricoeur’s terminology. ‘Spiritual reading’, for example, is thus understood as reading in a specifically Christian context in which the Incarnation is the ‘hermeneutical key’ that draws the narrative pattern of Scripture and the horizons of the reader together in an imaginative existentially significant way with Christ at the centre. 2 Such spiritual reading assists in the formation of a veridical map for the development of the worldview, attitudes, expectations, commitments and hopes of the reader, and evokes both a fuller perception of the world as God’s creation and God’s redemption of it in Christ. The world is conceived specifically as the oikonomia of God’s creation and salvation. Such interpretation is enacted in a life and church ever transformed. Good Christian interpretation continues to transform that life into one that is ever more fully able to know and enjoy God. Again, Origen’s hermeneutics coupled with a Wittgensteinian approach shows us a way past the false dilemmas that are set up with regard to the his torical and ethical veracity of narratives when read in something like the ‘literal sense’. The dilemmas, as they have been set up in recent debates, take the form that either certain texts in question are historically or ethically problematic, and are therefore to be seen as otiose or rejected, or that one must ‘close one’s eyes’ and accept the history and / or ethics as presented. But this is a false dilemma—I, or the church, am / is free to view texts as, at the literal level, lacking historical or ethical veracity whilst developing their use in other terms, bracketing the literal difficulties out (consciously or not) so that I or the church am / is shaped by the stories. Victor Turner’s, as well as structuralist approaches to myth show that the symbolic construal and use of historically and ethically problematic materials is ubiquitous in human culture and practice, being a common feature of human learning and the appropriation of worldviews in which identities are shaped through engaging stories. This is not to say that ‘anything goes’ as regards the portrayal of violence in myths and stories, for we are, on the whole, able to form judgments about what is in the end good material and what is not. Such judgments may have both aes thetic and moral issues in view. By and large, to take contemporary film as a widely accessible example, people are able to judge films that use gratuitous 2. To be clear, whilst I make reference here to existential aspects of scriptural interpretation, I take the Incarnation, broadly understood, to have both historical and existential dimensions which go hand in hand and are not to be separated. The Incarnation is neither to be reduced to certain ‘historical facts’, nor to an ‘existential theology’.

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violence in a way that is ethically problematic from those that do not in which the portrayal of violence may serve a serious or ethical end, as in a war-protest movie for instance. The difficulty arises when we encounter a text (or indeed a film) in a context that is separated from its normal context of use which is not now properly known, and we need some help to enable us to find our way around. But to deny the use of historically and ethically problematic materials, and myths and stories that shape societies is in fact to deny something inher ent in our humanity regarding the kinds of story that we become enculturated by and form our worldviews with. Of course, wisdom in forming judgments is always required as there are good and bad stories and ideologies that are used to shape societies. But this is a separate issue. Ricoeur’s development of the idea of the world of the text, and the inter pretation of narrative as poetic discourse through symbolism whose significance may be developed differently in different contexts has been influential for us. It is the world of the text as icon that is the focus for interpretation. We discover the rich variety of ways in which the world of the text may be con strued by paying attention to the way that the text has in fact been interpreted within a variety of contexts within the Christian tradition. However, it is in studying the process of the meeting of the hermeneutics of tradition with the critique of ideology that we ‘learn about our learning’, and gain insight and understanding into the nature of the biblical materials and what they are best taken to portray. For instance, attention to historical critical issues indicates that we have falsely understood or sought to construe the significance of con cepts such as salvation history, and used them poorly. Historical and ethical critical analysis grants us insights into the nature of the biblical texts and aids our understanding of them, and of how to use them well as Christian Scripture. Moreover, I hope to have shown that a variety of approaches to interpretation —historical criticism, ethical criticism, minimalism, spiritual reading, literary poetics, structuralism, etc. all offer valuable tools that in various places give insight and understanding into the biblical narratives that serve well the task of reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture. Difficulties arise however when one seeks to raise the status or significance of any of these tools to an overall ideology or strategy for reading or appropriating Old Testament narrative. To change the metaphor, all these approaches are good servants but poor masters in the task of theological interpretation. Their value or significance is discovered on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis. I have sought to indicate how the theological interpreter can fruitfully engage with, but without becoming subject to, such approaches to the biblical texts. Christian interpretations of an Old Testament text represent the develop ment of families of possible construals of the world of the text in the specifically Christian context together with its concerns and assumptions. Pursuing

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this approach leads to the consideration of various possible readings of a given text in a Christian theological framework (shaped by the rule of faith) with the interests and concerns of some particular context in view. Different possible construals can offer potentially good and trustworthy (even if provisional) in terpretations of texts as Christian Scripture. This can lead to the position where the interpreter may wish to prefer a reading that is possible, yet in some sense less probable than another reading. 3 The employment of possible readings both calls for and encourages wisdom and the use of discernment as shaped by the character, experience and prejudices of the reader in forming judgments regarding differing interpretations. We saw in passing for instance in chapter 4 that even within a relatively short phase of early traditional Christian inter pretation of Gen 16:1–5 a number of different possible Christian interpreta tions of Abraham’s sexual relations with Hagar were developed. Different pos sibilities offer checks and balances for each other, as we find in the wisdom lit erature in the Old Testament. It would seem that this is in fact how Christian theological interpretation of Old Testament narrative has been practised, even if not explicitly. Moreover, as the rabbis realized, as expressed in the midrashim, there is always ‘another explanation’ that is fruitful to pursue and develop ow ing to the richness of the materials and the depth of human and divine character and life. Of course, one could argue that it is the most probable reading that ought in fact to be adopted, understood perhaps in terms of the most probable intention of the author. But it is not clear what grounds such a stance, and one must look long and hard at the consequences of adopting such a stance for the use of the Old Testament in Christian formation. It would seem to offer very limited possibilities for appropriation, and perhaps lead down a road of modern-day Marcionism, and to a disavowal of the construction of much Christian identity that has been developed by reflection on scriptural texts for around two millennia. The interpretation of Rahab’s story and the fall of Jericho is a good case in point. In chapter 3 we developed a reading in which Rahab’s story is taken to be concerned with the conversion of Israel’s perception of others rather than with the conversion of Rahab’s heart, thus engendering a reversal of expecta tions on the part of the reader when read from the perspective of ‘the insider’, rather as in Matthew 25. This, I try to argue, is a more probable reading of the subject matter of the text (and of what the author probably intended) than that offered by traditional Christian readings in which Rahab’s conversion or 3. Quite how one establishes whether one reading is more probable than another is difficult to determine—what criteria are relevant in the assessment of probability? On the approach that I am taking, whilst this is an interesting question it need not detain us. The interpreter who wishes to claim that it is the most probable reading to be preferred needs to set out the grounds upon which this is judged.

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salvation is in view, a family of readings that I discussed in chapter 6. Both kinds of reading are possible, but each develops some aspects of the story, and in particular the gaps in the narrative, in different ways. This shows how the meaning or significance of the story can be construed in different ways de pending on which hermeneutical picture one adopts, or perhaps depending on what use or end the story is put to, and in what context. In each picture the world of the text is central, but in the interpretation that I developed in chapter 3, authorial intention and likely meaning in an originary context were taken as important factors. In chapter 6, the interpretation was shaped more by resonances of the story in a later context. Both readings are possible, and neither does violence to the text. It would seem mistaken, or lacking in wisdom in judgment, to reject traditional readings that are evocatively powerful, theologically fruitful, and have nourished the church and new Christians through the ages simply because they do not reflect what the author intended, or are slightly less probable readings. The traditional reading is only mistaken if it is claimed that it is expressive of the author’s intention. But no such claim need be made. Both the traditional and the revised reading that I proposed resonate with what I have suggested make for good theological interpretation and Christian concerns. The revised reading (chapter 3) offers a ‘check’ to the traditional reading (chapter 6) that prevents the traditional reading being used in self-serving and ways, but with the traditional readings suggesting that some change or transformation is needed to enter into the community of God’s re deemed people. There is no reason not to pursue both readings as good theolo gical interpretations, accepting that there are multiple ways in which the story can be read. Beyond this, Rahab’s story can be construed in another way as regards the big story of ‘salvation history’, or as regards oikonomia, as might be hinted at in Rahab’s inclusion in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus (Matt 1:1–17). In the reading in chapter 3, the ethical objections to the portrayal of conquest were met by arguing that the book of Joshua was not really about conquest, even if set in this context, and that its significance is elsewhere. However, in either the broad perspective of ‘salvation history’ or oikonomia the story is read differently. Something like conquest is in view but in a mythical, symbolic or perhaps spiritual sense as in Origen’s homiletic reflections on the fall of Jericho. 4 In these kinds of readings one imaginatively inhabits the grand sweep of the scriptural narrative of the story that leads from creation, through the Incarna tion, to the eschaton. I take the whole story, in a somewhat symbolic or existential way, as a veridical map to interpret the Christian life, the life of the Christian community, and the life of the world in relation to Christ as a drama involving conflicts against sin and evil. In this sense the Canaanites mythically 4. Hom. Josh. 6.4, quoted in chapter 9.

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embody sin and evil. Again, the reader is free to bracket the alleged ethical dif ficulties of such a symbolism and take the significance of the story as being that of God’s creating, sustaining and redeeming love and care of his people in the face of sin. It is a story of his blessing and of his guiding his people and seeing them through danger, fighting oppression and dangers on behalf of his people to grant peace, rest and security. It is a story of creation and salvation. Of course, one may focus on the ethical or historical difficulties, but something is lost if one dwells on these excessively, and this would be to ‘read as’ some thing other than Christian Scripture. Of course, one may use the story badly to justify conquest for political ends, as sadly has been the case. Good Christian interpretation would seem then to involve developing good possible and theologically fruitful readings, bringing the creative imagination as aided by contemporary analytical tools into dialogue with traditional interpretations. This is not to say that any ‘possible’ reading that has Christian or contemporary resonances is a good reading. For example seeking to construe the ‘fear of God’ in Genesis 22 in contemporary terms without reference to the significance of the idiom in the Old Testament is likely to offer a poor reading of the text in terms of ‘reading as’ Christian Scripture. 5 The criteria then for forming a judgment on what constitutes a good reading of an Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture are rather fluid and specific to particular cases. Refusing to make authorial intention normative does not imply the adoption of reader-centred hermeneutics instead, and conversely. Perhaps it is this fluidity of the locus of meaning or significance that differentiates Scripture (and to some extent ‘classic’ literature) from texts in general, where authorial intention may play a more normative role. To take another couple of examples: In chapter 3 I suggested that Josh 6:19 & 24 are best seen as later Priestly or Priestly-inspired additions to the story that reflect an attempt to harmonize Joshua 6 with the Priestly conception of ‫ חרם‬in Leviticus 27, and as such, it distorts the story. Whilst usually one will prefer the final, canonical form of the text, in this case there is good reason not to go with the canonical final form based on the use of interpretative judgments and wisdom rather than some all-encompassing and inflexible hermeneutical method and as sumption about the text. Alternatively, in Gen 1:26, following a canonical and indeed later traditional reading in terms of a Trinitarian interpretation of the plural pronoun may be judged to be good interpretation. Finally, in the Joseph story different interpretative strategies are available for dealing with the theologically problematic texts as we saw in chapter 4. Yet again, we see that inter 5. See D. Gunn & D.N. Fewell, Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: OUP, 1993), 90– 100 and the discussion of ‘fear of God’ and response to Gunn & Fewell by R.W.L. Moberly (The Bible, Theology, and Faith: A Study of Abraham and Jesus (Cambridge: CUP, 2000), 78–97, 170–76).

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pretation is thus fluid and calls for wisdom and discernment in the formation of judgments to be made on a case-by-case basis using the experience and skill of the interpreter. Different tools are helpful (or not) in different cases. For in stance structuralist interpretation was illuminative in the case of Genesis 34 but not Gen 1:26. Moreover, we have seen that what we have in Scripture is a narrative that draws together a collection of differing stories about and insights and perspectives on how the identity of a community of people living faithfully before God ought to be shaped. We run into trouble when we elevate one to an all-encompassing ideology. The differing portraits of Genesis 34 and Genesis 37-50 offer resources to be used wisely in shaping Christian identity. The danger often emerges when one perspective is used to exclude another and becomes or is promoted as an ideology in its own right, becoming for instance the basis for a radical ‘fundamentalist’ sectarianism or a liberal ‘diverse’ inclusivism, if one may invoke contemporary stereotypes. The appropriation of Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture is a task in which wisdom and discernment are inherent. Their exercise is essential when making judgments regarding faithful appropriation in different contexts. We have seen that the relationship between narratives as shaping identity, worldview, beliefs and practices and these factors shaping in turn the interpretation of a narrative is a complex one. The interpretation of Gen 1:26 and of the story of Ruth are cases in point. We have considered also the role of mis takes and the use of fictional models in forming veridical maps for beliefs and practices. We saw in chapter 1 through the work of Paul Teller how fictional models, and models that were based on mistakes are able to form veridical maps that give knowledge of the world in the context of the philosophy of sci ence. I suggested that if science constitutes the ‘gold standard’ for knowledge claims and methodology then we ought not to require that more stringent cri teria be applied to the use of narratives in the formation of knowledge and beliefs about the world. The problem that arises is when texts are misused as warrants for belief, metaphysics, ethics or practice when in fact the relationship between narratives, beliefs and practices is very complex, probably working differently in each instance. In some cases we may wish to use a text as a warrant for belief, but it is far from clear that this is always or straightforwardly justifiable. Unfortunately, use of the Old Testament has often become too concerned with ethical, apologetic or epistemological issues, rather than with the shaping of faith as faith. This is not to say, of course, that issues of historical reference for instance are never important. Ricoeur and Williams’ use of the categories of testimony and generative experiences show that they are important in some cases. How then does one judge whether a particular reading, appropriation or use of a particular text might be a good one rather than a poor one? It would

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seem that wisdom shaped by experience and maturity in the Christian life, the enculturation into such wisdom via certain language games and forms of life with the associated ‘prejudices’, assumptions and priorities that this brings is needed to judge what constitutes good Christian interpretation in any in stance. One recognizes that owing to our human frailty we are subject to attachments and idolatries that prevent us from hearing and interpreting well, something that we are constantly in the process of being educated away from, so the task of interpreting well is always an on-going one. More optimistically, the doctrines of the inspiration of Scripture and the role of the Spirit within the church encourage us to persevere in the task, and to value Scripture and tradition as contributing to the formation of Christian identity. Part of the task of Christian theological interpretation therefore, is character formation and the cultivation of assumptions and reading practices that will help to foster the ability to make good interpretative judgments and to hear scriptural texts well, a point that we shall return to below. But this requires wisdom, discern ment and the formation of habits that are learned in community. Indeed, it is perhaps the formation of wisdom as much if not more than technical competence that is required for making good judgments regarding the appropriation of particular interpretations. This may require a certain ‘gifting’ or ‘prophetic vocation’ with respect to the public appropriation of particular interpretations. Technical competence allows one to set out the interpretive issues well, but is less valuable when it comes to issues of appropriation. Moreover, the appropriation of ‘possible readings’ is judged not just by the rule of faith and the preferences of an interpreter, but also by the community cherishing Scripture. Readings and interpretations require ‘testing’ within the church community. 6 Does a particular possible reading gain assent or does it fade from view? There are many possible ‘individual’ readings, but only some will become ‘classics’ recognized by the church as being edifying and faithful to the text as Scripture, to the tradition (the church), to Jesus, and to the context of use. In principle the ‘most probable’ reading of a text could be determined by a technically wellequipped appropriately trained expert scholar. But the plurality of possible readings and the discernment of those that are apt for the context and situ ation at hand is an activity of the Christian community requiring wisdom and discernment. To be clear, the plurality of possible readings available should not be taken to suggest that ‘anything goes’, as I hope I have made sufficiently clear by now. Moreover, the availability of a variety of possible readings should not be taken to imply that traditional Christian readings and appropriations of texts are otiose, wrong or misguided. To show that a reading may be contested 6. Of course, with the fragmentation of the Church as it now is, this proposal has a somewhat overly idealistic ring. However, one hopes that through the Spirit the process will nonetheless proceed.

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is not to show that it should be abandoned, but rather that further discernment and wisdom is required. Conversely, just because a reading is possible does not imply that it should be appropriated. We have seen how we might begin to talk about Old Testament narrative as ‘revelatory’, in that as part of the process of the hermeneutical spiral a com munity is formed that knows and worships God. The identity of such a community is testified to in the experience of the community in light of the Incarnation as part of the oikonomia of creation and salvation. Yet, as our earlier comments might suggest, trying to make this into a general rule is problematic. Psalms 44 and 89 indicate that there can be striking discords between contemporary experience, and what it apparently testifies to, and the testimony of faith and the tradition. 7 In this case faith is manifested, and indeed developed, through trust in and perseverance with the testimony of the tradition, testimony formed right from the era of Scripture to the contemporary church. Psalms 44 and 89 indicate that faith, as faith, is tested, and speak to the nature of faith as faith. Theology learns its language from the generative experiences and insights of communities of people open to God, primarily as expressed in Scripture. The scriptural texts themselves encapsulate something like a hermeneutics of tradition that has met with critiques of ideology in a hermeneutical spiral, a pro cess that extends beyond Scripture into the reception of Scripture and our appropriation of it. It is a process in which it is all too easy to be seduced into bypassing or neglecting in one way or another the encultured and inherently hu man limitations of learning, knowing and acting. Or one can be seduced into despairing of there being a big story of which we are a part, and thus of the possibility of good interpretation and interpretative judgments. It is primarily in the Christian church, in the community formed through the Spirit by the Incarnation that we discover the context for interpreting Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture, shaping our imaginative construals of the strange new world that the text presents us with, even as the Old Testa ment forms the original basis for interpreting the Incarnation. Our context and our assumptions shape interpretation too, and the challenge for us is so to allow ourselves to be shaped in our assumptions, imagination and character so as to be able to form wise interpretative judgments that allow us to hear the scriptural text in a way that is revelatory and leads us toward our end of beholding and enjoying God. Indeed, as Richard Briggs has noted the reading context for a scriptural text is generative of meaning. In reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture we are not simply interpreting a text—rather, we 7. For discussion of Psalms 44 and 89 see R.W.L. Moberly, Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture (Studies in Theological Interpretation; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 211–42.

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are interpreting a text that is part of a tradition that extends from Scripture into our context, and we form our interpretations in terms of our own prejudices and assumptions (which may be helpful or unhelpful). Ellen Davis suggests: Since the Bible is about human life in the presence of God, it follows that teaching the Bible confessionally is not primarily a matter of conveying historical information. The teacher’s task is to impart the information and the conceptual framework, but even more, the imaginative skills for wondering fruitfully about the ultimate facts of life: love, sin, redemption, forgiveness—facts that can be pondered and confirmed as true, yet never really explained, and certainly not explained away. The Bible confronts us with facts that are peculiar in this way: the better we understand them, the more we wonder about them. So teaching the Bible confessionally means enabling people to wonder wisely and deeply. Wondering is the business of scholars and preachers, just as it is of Sunday school children. … The capacity for fruitful theological wondering resides chiefly in the imagination. Theologian Garrett Green has argued persuasively that in many instances the biblical term “heart” … refers to what we call imagination.’ This notion wonderfully illuminates the use of that word in the eucharistic liturgy: “Lift up your hearts”—lift up your imaginations, open them toward God. Yet an aroused imagination is not in itself a holy state, for the “heart” can be healthy or perverted. Perhaps it is in tacit recognition of this fact that Anglican eucharistic worship begins with the Collect for Purity: … The Collect for Purity introduces the Ministry of the Word. Thus we ask that when the appointed lections are read, we may be changed in order to hear them with healthy “hearts.” Yet at the same time, the church understands that through the action of the Holy Spirit, “the word of the Lord” may itself be an agent of cleansing for our imaginations. Therefore, the subsequent reading of Scripture is part 8 of God’s gracious answer to the Collect for Purity.

The account that I have given of reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture is, in many ways a rather jagged and unsatisfying one, in which appear many ‘possiblys’, ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ and ‘maybes’. Elizabeth Anscombe recalled that Wittgenstein ‘would describe [his dislike for rationality in religion] with a 8. E.F. Davis, ‘Teaching the Bible Confessionally in the Church’, in E.F. Davis and R.B. Hays (eds.), The Art of Reading Scripture (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2003), 9–26, here, 11–12.

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characteristic simile: there is something all jagged and irregular, and some people have a desire to encase it in a smooth ball: looking within you see the jagged edges and spikes, but a smooth surface has been constructed. He preferred it left jagged.’ 9 I think we would like to smooth over the jaggedness of Scripture and its interpretation, and form a nice smooth package of interpreta tion. We would probably like a method that we can apply, to encase the jagged ness of particular texts and their interpretative possibilities and difficulties in the smooth ball of a consistent general method or approach. But the task of reading Old Testament narrative as Christian Scripture is a jagged one and ought to be left as such, especially when it comes to talk of methods, justifica tions or warrants, just as our encounters with God are somewhat jagged.

9. G.E.M. Anscombe, quoted in R. Teichmann, The Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe (Oxford: OUP, 2008), 211.

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____________, Homilies on Genesis, in R.C. Hill (trans), Saint John Chrysostom: Homilies on Genesis 46–67 (FC 87; Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1992). ____________, On the Epistle to the Hebrews, in ACCS OT 8, 2. Clark, M., ‘De Trinitate’, in E. Stump and N. Kretzmann (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (Cambridge: CUP, 2001), 91-102. Clarke, A., Clarke’s Commentary: The Old Testament Vol. 1: Genesis through Deuteronomy (AGES electronic text, 1997 (original 1810–26)). Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator, in ACCS 2, 105. Clines, D.J.A., ‘The Image of God in Man’, in TB 19 (1968): 53–103. Cogan, M., ‘Sennacherib’, in W. W. Hallo and K.L. Younger (eds.), The Context of Scripture: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World (Leiden: Brill, 3 vols., 2003), 2.300–305. Cogan, M., & Tadmor, C., II Kings, (AB; New York: Doubleday & Co, 1988). Cohn, H.H., ‘Herem’ in EJ 8, 344–56. Colish, M.L., Ambrose’s Patriarchs: Ethics for the Common Man (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005). _________, The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2005). Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, in ANF 7. Cooper, A.G., The Body in St Maximus the Confessor (Oxford: OUP, 2005). Coote, R.B., ‘The Book of Joshua’, i n The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), vol. 2, 555-719. Cotter, D.W., Genesis (Berit Olam; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2003). Creach, J.F.D., Joshua (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching) (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2003). Cyprian, Letter 69, in ACCS 4, 14. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, in NPNF 2.7. Daley, B.E., Gregory of Nazianzus (The Early Church Fathers) (Routledge, New ed.: 2000). Daniélou, J., From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s mystical writings (London: John Murray, ET: 1962). Davies, G.I., review of J.C. Gertz, K. Schmid and M. Witte (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten, in Bib Or 62.3-4 (2005): 315-6. Davies, P.R., In Search of Ancient Israel (JSOTSup 148; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992). ____________, The Origins of Biblical Israel (London: T. & T. Clark, 2007). ____________, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History—Ancient and Modern (Louisville: WJKP, 2008). Davis, E.F., ‘Teaching the Bible Confessionally in the Church’, in E.F. Davis and R.B. Hays (eds.), The Art of Reading Scripture (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2003), 9–26. ___________, ‘“All that you say, I will do”: A Sermon on the Book of Ruth’, in in P.S. Hawkins and L.C. Stahlberg (eds.), Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs (New York: Fordham UP, 2006), 3–19. ___________, ‘The Soil that is Scripture’, in W.P. Brown (ed.), Engaging Biblical Authority: Perspectives on the Bible as Scripture (Louisville: WJKP, 2007), 36–44. _________, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (Cambridge: CUP, 2009).

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_______, On First Principles, in Butterworth, G.W., (trans.), Origen: On First Principles (Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1973). _______, Exhortation to Martyrdom, in ACCS 4, 95–96. _______, Homilies on Genesis, in R.E. Heine (trans.), Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus (FC 71; Washington DC: CUA Press, 1982). Orlinsky, H.M., ‘The Plain Meaning of RûaH in Gen. 1.2’ in JQR 48 (1957/8): 174–82. Osborn, E., ‘Irenaeus of Lyons’, in G.R. Evans (ed.), The First Christian Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 121–126. __________, ‘Justin Martyr’, in G.R. Evans (ed.), The First Christian Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 115–120. Ostriker, A.S., For the Love of God: The Bible as an open Book (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2007). Pachomius, Paralipomena, in ACCS 8, 3. Parry, R., Old Testament Story and Christian Ethics: The Rape of Dinah as a Case Study (Paternoster Biblical Monographs; Bletchley: Paternoster, 2004). Phillips, A., ‘The Book of Ruth—Deception and Shame’, in JJS 37 (1986). Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis, in R. Marcus (trans.), Philo: Questions and Answers on Genesis (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1953). _____, On Joseph, in C.D. Yonge (trans.), The Works of Philo (new ed.; Hendrickson: 1993). _____, On Dreams. in C.D. Yonge (trans.), The Works of Philo (new ed.; Hendrickson: 1993). _____, On the Migration of Abraham, in C.D. Yonge (trans.), The Works of Philo (new ed.; Hendrickson: 1993). Prior, M.A., The Bible and Colonialism: A Moral Critique (The Biblical Seminar 48; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997). Provan, I., Long, V.P., and Longman, T., A Biblical History of Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003). Prudentius, Poems, in ACCS 1, 29. Rad, G. von, Genesis (OTL; rev. ET; London: SCM Press, 1963). ____________, ‘The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel’, in The Problem of the Hextateuch and other Essays (London: SCM, ET: 1966), 166-204. ___________, Old Testament Theology: Volume I: The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions (London: SCM Press: ET 1975). __________, ‘The Joseph Narrative and Ancient Wisdom’, in From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology (ed. K.C. Hanson) (Minneapolis: Fortress 2005), 75–88. Rahner, K., The Trinity (with introduction by C.M. LaCugna) (New York: Crossroad, 1997). Ratheiser, G.M.H., Mitzvoth Ethics and the Jewish Bible: The End of Old Testament Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2007). Rendtorff, R., Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (BZAW 147; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977). Reno, R.R., Genesis (SCM Theological Commentary on the Bible; London: SCM, 2010). Reventlow, H.G., History of Biblical Interpretation Volume 1: From the Old Testament to Origen (Atlanta: SBL, ET: 2009). Ricoeur, P., The Symbolism of Evil (Boston: Beacon Press, ET: 1969).

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Sarna, N.M, Understanding Genesis: The World of the Bible in the Light of History (New York: Shocken Books, 1966). ____________, Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia, 1989). _____________, Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel (New York: Schocken Books, 1996). Satterthwaite, P. & McConville, G., Exploring the Old Testament Volume 2: The Histories (London: SPCK, 2007). Sayings of the Desert Fathers, in ACCS OT 8, 2. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, C., ‘Bedeutung und Funktion von Ḥerem in biblisch-hebräischen Texten’, in BZ 38 (1994): 270-75. Scherman, N., & Zlotowitz, M., (eds.), Bereshith / Genesis: A New Translation (New York: Mesorah Publications, 1986). Schmid, H.H., Der sogenannte Jahwist. Beboachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1976). Schmid, K., “Ist die Bibel historisch zuverlässig? Bemerkungen zum MaximalistenMinimalisten-Streit in den Bibelwissenschaften,” Reformatio 51 (2002): 283–99. ____________, ‘Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch’, in J.C. Gertz, Schmid, K., and Witte, M., (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (BZAW 315; Berlin; Walter de Gruyter, 2002), 83–118. ___________, ‘The So-called Yahwist and the Literary Gap between Genesis and Exodus’, in T.B. Dozeman and K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL Symposium 34; Atlanta: SBL, 2006) 29-50. ___________, Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible (Siphrut 3; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010). Schroeder, J.A., Dinah’s Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007). ________________, (ed. and trans.), The Book of Genesis (The Bible in Medieval Tradition; Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2015). Schwartz, R.M., The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1998). Segal, R.A., Myth: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2004). Sheridan, M., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Genesis 12–50 (Downers Grove: IVP, 2002). Sherwood, P., St. Maximus the Confessor: The Ascetic Life: The Four Centuries on Charity (ACW 21; New York: The Newman Press, 1955). Ska, J-L., Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, ET: 2006). Smart, B., Postmodernity (London: Routledge, 1992). Smith, S., The Family Companion: or, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (London, 1735 and 1739). Soggin, J.A., Das Buch Genesis (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1997). Speiser, E.A., Genesis (AB 1; New York: Doubleday & Co, 3rd ed. 1983). Stackhouse, T., A New History of the Holy Bible (1733; second edition, London 1742). Staerk, W., Studien zur Religions und Sprachgeschichte des alten Testaments (Berlin: Reimer, 1899 (2 vols.)).

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Staniloae, D., The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Volume Two: The World: Creation and Deification (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, ET: 2000). Stern, P.D., The Biblical Ḥerem: A Window on Israel’s Religious Experience (Brown Judaic Studies 211; Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1991). Sternberg, M., The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985). _______________, ‘Biblical Poetics and Sexual Politics: From Reading to Counter–reading’, in JBL 111 (1992): 463–88. Stevenson, W.T., ‘History as Myth: Some Implications for History and Theology’, in Cross Currents 20.1 (1970): 15-28. Strange, J., ‘The Book of Joshua—Origin and Dating’, in SJOT 16.1 (2002): 44-51. Tappy, R.E., & P. Kyle McCarter Jr., eds., Literate Culture and Tenth-Century Canaan: The Tel Zayit Abecedary in Context (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008). Te Velde, R., Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). Telford, W.R., The Barren Temple and the Withered Tree: A Redaction-critical Analysis of the Cursing of the Fig-Tree Pericope in Mark’s Gospel and Its Relation to the Cleansing of the Temple Tradition (JSNTSup 1; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980). Teller, P., ‘Fictions, Fictionalization and Truth in Science’, in M. Suárez (ed.), Fictions in Science: Philosophical Essays on Modeling and Idealization (New York: Routledge, 2009), 235–47. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on Psalms, in R.C. Hill (trans.), Theodore of Mopsuestia: Commentary on Psalms 1–81 (Writings from the Greco-Roman World 5; Atlanta: SBL, 2006) Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on the Octateuch, in Hill, R.C., (trans.) Theodoret of Cyrus: The Questions on the Octateuch (LEC 1-2; Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2 vols., 2007). Theophilus, To Autolycus, in ANF 2. Thompson, J.L., Reading the Bible with the Dead: What you can learn from the history of exegesis that you can’t learn from exegesis alone (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2007). Thompson, T.L., The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham (BZAW 133; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974). _________________, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and the Archaeological Sources (SHANE 4; Leiden: Brill, 1992). _________________, The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999). Thunberg, L., Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Chicago: Open Court, 2nd ed. 1995). Travis, I.S., ‘Love your Mother: A Lesbian Womanist Reading of Scripture’, in R.E. Goss and M. West (eds.), Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2000), 35–42. Trible, P., God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978). Turner, V., ‘Myth and Symbol’, in D.L. Sills (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Macmillan & The Free Press, 1968), vol. 10, 576-81.

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_________, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: PAJ, 1982). Van der Meer, M.N., Formation and Reformulation: The Redaction of the Book of Joshua in the Light of the Oldest Textual Witnesses (Leiden: Brill, 2004). Van Pelt, M.V., Kaiser, W.C. Jr. and Block, D.I., ‘ ‫רוח‬ ַ ’ in NIDOTTE 3.1073–8. Van Seters, J., ‘Confessional Reformulation in the Exilic Period’ in VT 22 (1972): 448–59. ______________, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale UP, 1975). ___________, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997). ___________, “The Court History and DtrH: Conflicting Perspectives on the House of David,” in Die sogenannte Thronfolgegeschichte Davids (ed. A. de Pury and T. Römer; OBO 176; Frieburg: Universitätsverlag, 2000), 70–93. ___________, ‘The Silence of Dinah (Genesis 34)’, in Jean-Daniel Macchi and Thomas Römer (eds.), Jacob : commentaire à plusieurs voix de = Ein mehrstimmiger Kommentar zu = A plural commentary of Gen 25–36 : mélanges offerts à Albert de Pury (Genève : Labor et Fides, 2001) 239–247. ___________, The Biblical Saga of King David (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009). van Wolde, E., Ruth and Naomi (London: SCM, ET: 1997). Victorinus, Marius, Against Arius, in ACCS 1, 29. Warrior, R.A., ‘Canaanites, Cowboys and Indians: Deliverance, Conquest, and Liberation Theology Today’ in D. Jobling, et al., (eds.), The Postmodern Bible Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 188-194. Wellhausen, J., Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, ET: 1885). Wenham, G.J., Genesis 16–50 (WBC 2; Dallas: Word, 1994). _____________, Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Ethically (Old Testament Studies; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000). Wesley, J., Notes on the Bible (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/notes.ii.ii.xlv.ii.html accessed 22–03–12 from 1754–65 original). Westermann, C., Genesis 1–11: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, ET 1994). ______________, Genesis 37–50: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, ET 2002). Wheeler, S. III, ‘Intentionalism and Texts with too many Authors’, Nonsite 6 (2012), http://nonsite.org/article/intentionalism-and-texts-with-too-many-authors. Whitelam, K.W., The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (London: Routledge, 1996). Williams, J.P., ‘Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor, in G.R. Evans (ed.), The First Christian Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 186–200. Williams, R., On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). ____________, ‘Trinity and Ontology’, in On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 148–66. ____________, ‘Trinity and Revelation’, in On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 131–47. _____________, Teresa of Avila (Outstanding Christian Thinkers; London: Continuum, 2004).

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____________, ‘Origen’, in G.R. Evans (ed.) The First Christian Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 132–142. Williams, R.B., ‘Origen’s Interpretation of the Old Testament and Lévi-Strauss’ Interpretation of Myth’, in A.L. Merrill and T.W. Overholt (eds.), Scripture in History & Theology: Essays in Honor of J. Coert Rylaarsdam (PTMS 17; Pittsburgh: The Pickwick Press, 1977), 279-299. Wintermute, O.S., ‘Jubilees’, in J.H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (New York: Doubleday, 1985 (2 vols.)), 2.35–142. Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations (Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe; Oxford: Blackwell, 2001). _________________, Zettel (Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967). Wolterstorff, N., Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks (Cambridge: CUP, 1995). Wright, C.J.H., The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Leicester: IVP, 2006). Young, F.M., Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 1997). Zenger, E., ‘Theorien über die Entstehung des Pentateuch im Wandel der Forschung’, in E. Zenger (ed.), Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Studienbücher Theologie 1/1; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 5th ed. 2004), 74–123. Zvi Brettler, M., ‘Biblical Authority: A Jewish Pluralistic View’, in W.P. Brown (ed.), Engaging Biblical Authority: Perspectives on the Bible as Scripture (Louisville: WJKP, 2007), 1–9.

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I NDEX OF S UBJECTS AND A UTHORS abstraction 136-137, 183, 202 Abraham 52, 119, 121, 133, 134, 207, 246, 284, 287, 291, 305 Achan 61, 73-74, 76, 79-81, 88-90, 9295, 195 Acsah 292 actualize see use Adam 236 agency 48, 56 Ahab 157 Albrektson, B. 296 allegorical interpretation / sense see spiritual sense Alpert, R.T, 221, 226-227 Alt, A. 151 ambiguity 44, 55, 60, 126-127, 136, 138, 141, 143, 172, 175, 179, 187191, 198, 200-201, 208, 214, 220, 224, 228, 255-256 Ambrose 34, 105, 111, 120, 211 Anakim 85 ancestor story 38, 117, 133, 281-284, 299 Ancient Near East(ern) 67, 77-78, 82, 235, 237-238, 254-255, 259, 293, 295 angel 235 anger 34, 57, 186 Anscombe, G.E.M. 4, 266, 331-332 anthropology 27-29 apatheia 57, 215 apologetic 14, 75, 177, 296, 308, 328 appropriation see use Aptovitzer, V. 110 Aquinas, Thomas 58, 112, 121, 136, 197, 203-205, 252-253, 257, 276277, 313 archaeology 67, 84-85, 149-156, 177, 278 Asenath 103-147 passim assaku offering 78

assimilation 60, 105, 116-117, 123-124, 128, 132, 186 Assmann, J. 63-64 Athanasius 241-242, 251, 277 attachment 80, 222 attitudes 9, 17 Augustine 5, 7-8, 14, 24, 26, 75, 112, 115, 126, 141, 154, 162, 211, 246, 249-254, 258, 261, 297 author 9-14, 19, 32, 35, 122-123, 132, 138, 146, 162-163, 167-168, 172, 175, 177-178, 197, 228, 235, 259, 272, 322 authorial intention see intention authoritative 139-140 Bainton, R.H. 67, 103-104, 119 Baldwin, J. 160 Balthasar, H. Urs von 244 baptism 71, 93 Barnes, M.R. 241 Barth, K. 154, 236 Basil of Caesarea 244 Basil the Great 215, 241, 243 Bathsheba 15, 18-19, 158, 169-170 Bede 120, 251-252 Behr, J. 129 beliefs 9, 12, 17 Berger, Y. 208 bisexual 219-221, 228, 230 Blowers, P.M. 243, 310-311, 315 Blum, E. 281, 285, 290 Boaz 208-217, 223 Bobrinskoy, B. 260-261 borders / boundaries 94, 97, 195-196, 201, 225-226, 230 Brekelmans, C.H.W. 77 Brettler, M.Z. 139 bricolage 56 Briggs, R.S. 126, 199-200, 232-233, 254, 330-331

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Brueggemann, W.A. 33, 35, 107-108, 117, 124, 160, 236, 256 Bunge, G. 246 Burrows, M. 295-296 Calvin, J. 24, 34, 73, 114, 116, 126, 193, 253 Campbell, E.F. 207, 209 Canaan 78-79, 85, 119, 287, 306-307 canon, canonical context 3, 10, 18, 27, 44, 84, 91, 104, 119, 132-140, 143, 148, 161-170, 176, 179-180, 231, 237, 272, 304, 316, 327 Cappadocian Fathers 278 Carr, D. 38, 108, 127, 281 Carson, D.A. 150 Casiodorus 162 characterization 162 chastity 209, 215, 217 Childs, B.S. 293-294 chosen-ness 117, 129-130, 133, 134136, 185 Christ see Jesus Chrysostom 24, 105, 111, 121, 127, 162, 193, 242-243, 252 Church 4, 8-9, 72 circumcision 52-53, 185 Clarke, Adam 115 Clement of Alexandria 246 Clines, D.J.A. 237, 255 Cohn, H.H. 77 Colish, M.L. 34, 105, 113, 120 Collins, J.J. 140 colonial 4 competence 140, 182, 187-191 composition, composition history 31, 104, 107-109, 116, 143, 177, 182 foolproof 187-191 composition, metaphysical 267-268 concept 8-9, 23-26, 29, 32, 78-79, 81, 224, 227, 235, 266, 273, 308 confession, confessional language 73, 89, 92, 94, 194 conquest 66-71, 75, 78, 85, 91, 279, 290-291, 326 conquest account(s) 88 conservative scholars 109 contagion 79-80

context 4-5, 9, 18-19, 24, 31, 34-35, 4044, 48, 52, 56, 68, 76, 78, 92, 95-96, 101, 103-104, 106, 108, 113, 116, 121-137, 139-141, 143, 148, 157, 167, 172, 179-180, 183-185, 189, 192, 198-199, 201, 206-207, 214, 216, 220, 223, 225, 228-231, 235, 237, 239-240, 255-256, 258-259, 270-271, 297, 302-304, 309, 315, 322, 324, 326 conversion 12, 62, 76, 94, 111, 138, 144, 185, 194-198, 200-201 Cogan, M. 293 Cooper, A.G. 245-248 Coote, R.B. 67-68 Cotter, D. 106, 116 covenant 52, 81, 86, 89, 109, 195, 296 coveting 80 creation 13, 19, 27, 235, 237-238, 242, 245, 247, 249-250, 254, 256, 259260, 263, 279, 305-306, 308, 319, 323, 326 Credo 275-276, 279, 309, 313 crucifixion 15 Crusades 74 cultural memory 18, 28, 63-64, 163, 170, 175, 179, 202, 294, 304, 313, 315-316 Cyril of Jerusalem 73, 193 Daniel 132 David 15-16, 18-19, 31, 148-181 passim, 186, 207, 292 David Saga 155-181 passim Davies, P.R. 67, 84, 151-153, 174, 179 Davis, E.F. 126, 139, 141, 222, 236, 331 Davies, G.I. 285 Dawkins, R. 67 death 80, 93-94 Decalogue 24, 81, 89 deception 24-25, 74-75, 114, 126, 210 de Pury, A. 84, 280-281, 285-288, 300 Deuteronomist(ic) 37, 78-82, 117, 155168, 181, 293-295 Dever, W.G. 153 diachronic perspective 117, 119, 122, 133, 143, 279, 283, 290, 298, 300 Diadochus of Photike 246

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diaspora community 109, 116, 121, 127, 143 Dinah 19, 30, 33-65 passim, 189-190 discourse 11-20, 55, 60, 82, 138, 175, 183, 186, 194 dispensational perspective see diachronic perspective divination 31, 109, 110-137 passim, 141 divine assembly 13, 235, 238, 257 D-Komposition 281 Documentary Hypothesis 37, 107, 280 Donaldson, L.E. 199 Douglas, M. 46 Dozeman, T. 282-283, 285 Driver, S.R. 37, 42, 223, 256 Dube, M.W. 194, 199 Duncan, C.M. 219-221, 225, 228 duty 212, 223, 232 Earl, D.S. 25, 67, 74, 81, 85, 97, 194, 290 Egypt(ian) 109, 114, 124, 285, 287, 290 Elohist 37 enaction / enactment 55, 76, 88, 128, 185 endogamy see intermarriage Ephrem the Syrian 241-243 eschatology / eschatologization 83, Esther 132 ethical criticism / ethics 9, 18, 20, 23, 25-26, 29-30, 32, 35, 51, 53-59, 62, 66-71, 77, 82, 86, 92, 98, 103-104, 109, 114, 128-129, 145, 162, 204, 228, 231-232, 270, 306-308, 316317, 323-324, 326-328 Euler, L. 16 euphamism 209 Evagrius 9, 246 exclusivism 110 exegesis 139, 220, 241, 244, 247, 254, 258-259 exemplar see model exile / exilic era 109, 237, 256, 306 existential significance 4-5, 18-20, 27, 30, 49, 54-55, 63-64, 70-71, 76, 80102 passim, 128, 130, 202, 234, 255, 258, 301-303, 314, 318, 326 exogamy see intermarriage

353

exodus / exodus tradition 276, 282284, 290, 299, 318 Ezra 110 faith 20, 59, 61, 72-73, 94, 107-108, 117, 134-136, 177, 192-198, 203, 275, 296, 305, 330 faithful commentary / picture / reading / response 4, 18-19, 89, 91-92, 95, 97, 124, 133, 137, 140143, 145-146, 225, 291, 316 fear of God 124, 141, 327 feelings 221-222 Fewell, D.N. 187-191, 209-210, 294, 327 fiction, fictional 9, 13, 16-17, 19, 29, 31, 67, 95, 127, 130, 144, 149, 167, 173, 176, 201, 207, 234, 240, 255, 259, 261, 263, 302, 309 final form 42, 146 Finkelstein, I. 151-152 Fishbane, M. 77, Fitting, fittingly 64, 197-198 form of life 4, 6, 78 foundation story see prototypical past / time fulfilment 88 friendship 220-221, 224, 229-230 Fulgentius of Ruspe 162, 251 Gallagher, W.R. 293 Galling, K. 282 game see language game gap see ambiguity genealogy 89, 134, 207, 285 genocide 99, 129, 177, 204 genre 3, 9, 15, 84-85, 130 Germinius 257 Gertz, J.C. 281-286 Gese, H. 296 Gevirtz, S. 41-42 giants 88 Gibeonites 25, 74-75, 88-90 Giere, R.N. 17-18 glossa ordinaria 112, 211, 297 Goldingay, J. 154, 274 Gordan, R.P. 156 gospels 15, 164-165, 175, 179

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Grabbe, L. 151 grace 18, 162, 169, 176, 247 Grand Narrative 292, 318-320 Gray, J. 209 Greek historiography 294-295 Green, A. 121, 144 Gregory of Nazianzus 73, 193, 246 Gregory of Nyssa 14, 58, 71, 128, 154, 215, 242-244, 251-252, 261, 278 Gregory of Sinai 253 Gunn, D.M. 187-191, 209-210, 327 Hagar 119 Hallo, W.W. 292 Halpern, B. 155 Hamilton, A. 227 Hamilton, V.P. 109, 117, 237, 255 Harrison, N.V. 261 Hart, R.L. 28, 174 Hartley, J.E. 109, 117-118, 237-238 Hawk, L.D. 80 Hawkins, P.S. 211, 218 Heilsgeschichte see salvation history Hellenistic era 109 Henry, Matthew 115, 213-214 hermeneutical spiral 1, 217, 229, 233, 316, 330 hermeneutic of suspicion 210, 216, 273, 319 Hervieu-Léger, D. 63-64 heuristic value 12, 17-18 Hexateuch 82, 290-292, 305 Hilary of Poitiers 242-243, 257 Hirsch, S.R. 235 Historical Books 292-294 historical criticism 26, 30, 36-38, 40, 42, 106-110, 138, 142-143, 146, 149-155, 182, 237-240, 279-294, 324 history / historiography / historical context 9, 13-16, 18-19, 29, 32, 36, 66-71, 77, 82, 84-85, 95-96, 100, 107-109, 113, 119-120, 121, 127, 130-131, 136, 143, 149-155, 163, 167, 169, 172-173, 176-179, 197198, 201, 203-204, 206, 233, 234, 236-237, 239, 273-320 passim, 323, 327-328

God acts in 297, 316 of reception see reception philosophy / concepts of 121, 144, 294-297 Hoffman, J.C.K. von 279 Hoffman, Y. 77 Holy Spirit 14, 59, 99, 237, 241, 243244, 249, 255-256, 265, 271, 277, 329 homosexual 219, 224 Hubbard, R.L. Jr, 212, 218 human nature / limitations 27-29 Humbert of Romans 74 Humphreys, Samuel 115 icon 11, 13, 27 identity, construction of 12, 27-29, 45-46, 50, 52-53, 59-61, 64-65, 87, 90, 109, 128, 130, 133, 146, 148, 179, 185-186, 194, 199-202, 204205, 206-207, 225-226, 228, 263, 265, 285, 289, 293-295, 299, 303304, 315, 318, 323, 328-329 ideology 20-27, 31-32, 33, 36, 51, 53, 57, 62, 65, 66-71, 91, 94, 101, 104, 116, 131, 139, 142, 148-150, 153, 157, 163, 168, 171, 176-177, 182, 186, 187-191, 194, 202, 206, 216, 232, 259, 271, 273, 280, 282, 299300, 319, 324, 328, 330 idols / idolatry 10, 26, 60, 78, 80-81, 86-87, 91, 96-98, 111, 133, 199, 263, 269-271, 305, 316 image 237, 240, 242, 245-249, 253-254, 257, 260-261, 271 imagination 35, 76, 100, 127, 141, 172, 189, 201-202, 207, 210, 214, 220, 227-228, 235-236, 255, 258, 265, 272, 302, 306, 309, 317, 319, 330 incarnation 264, 270, 305, 310-316, 318, 326 incest 50, 53, 129 innovation 122, 231 insider 46, 76 inspiration see revelation intention, intentionality 3-6, 9-14, 19, 61, 101, 104, 121-123, 132, 137, 146, 148, 161, 167-168, 172, 175,

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177-178, 182, 197, 201, 221, 228, 239, 259, 266, 272, 322, 326-327 interests 4, 25, 57, 91, 116, 194, 200, 292, 319 (inter)marriage 31, 44, 50, 52, 56, 59, 87, 110, 117, 121-122, 125, 127-131, 132-133, 135-136, 139, 141, 143144, 185, 189 interpretative strategy see reading strategy intertextual, intertextuality 104, 123, 161, 163, 174, 229, 240, 254, 315 inuendo 209, 211-213 Irenaeus 241, 246, 277, 311 Isaac 284, 287 Israel 37, 49-53, 79-81, 83-91, 97, 104, 106-107, 108, 117, 119, 128, 130, 134, 150-161, 185, 194, 207, 225, 256, 276, 278, 285, 289-292, 296297, 303, 305 northern 106-108, 152, 287, 293 Jacob 19, 33-65 passim, 185-187, 190, 198, 206, 284-285, 287, 300 Jacobsen, T. 238 Jericho 67, 71-77, 81, 89, 192, 195, 204, 313, 317, 325-326 Jeroboam 157-158 Jerome 162, 193, 218 Jerusalem 109-110, 293 Jesus 15, 72, 92, 95, 99-100, 111, 121, 134, 134, 166, 196, 207, 211, 229, 241-245, 248-249, 254, 257, 264, 266, 271, 277, 311, 313-314, 316, 319, 323, 326, 329 Jewish interpretation 3-4, 12, 19, 3435, 57, 73-74, 76, 110-111, 121, 198, 202, 215, 235 John of Damascus 245-246, 248 Johnstone, L.T. 144-145 Jonah 198 Jordan 71, 88, 93 Joseph 103-147 passim, 210 moral difficulties 105-106 marrying Egyptian 105, 110, 110137 passim practising divination see divination

355

swearing oath 110-121 passim, 127 Josephus 34, 110 Joshua (person) 90, 92, 99 Judah 108, 152 judgments 3-4, 9-10, 12, 19-20, 24, 42, 98, 126, 137, 140, 161, 167, 182, 184, 189-190, 198-199, 201, 230, 307, 322-324, 327 justification 10, 15-16, 19-20, 27, 199, 263, 270-271, 279, 302, 309, 312, 315, 317, 328, 332 Justin Martyr 241, 312 juxtaposition of texts 139-140, 163, 175-176, 195, 230, 309, 316 Kaminsky, J.S. 80 Kidner, D 119 Kilby, K. 258-259, 261-263 kings, hostile 89 Kitchen, K.A. 153 Klein, R.W. 160 Knauf, E.A. 292 Kofoed, J.B. 153 Kratz, R. 37, 107, 152 Kugel, J.L. 105 Kunin, S.D. 45-52, 56-57, 64, 117-118, 130, 134, 185, 206, 301 Kuusela, O. 10, 187 Laato, A. 294 LaCocque, A. 209-210, 218 Laird, M. 278 Lamarque, P. 2, 4, 8, 10, 22 Lampe, G.W.H. 279 land 52, 67, 71, 75, 85, 88, 92-93, 185, 192, 283, 290-293, 305, 315, 317 Lane, W.L. 164 language 8, 27, 29 language game 2, 9-10, 24, 187, 267268 Law, Mosaic 18, 31, 58, 109, 113, 120, 143, 211, 312 era prior to 113, 116, 118, 120, 133, 143 three-fold distinction in 18, 58, 136, 202

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Lash, N. 20, 23, 25-26, 55, 93, 137, 226, 269-270, 305 Leach, E. 46 Lemaire, A. 152 Lemche, N.P. 151 lesbian 217-233 Levenson, J.D. 303, 311 Levering, M. 252, 277, 313 Levi 19, 33-65 passim, 185-187 Levin, C. 281, 287 Lévi-Strauss, C. 45, 47, 130, 299, 301 levirate marriage 223 Lewis, C.S. 29 likeness 237, 240, 242, 245-248, 253, 257, 260 liminal / liminality 54-55, 57, 75-76, 86-87, 90, 100, 128 Linbeck, G.A. 262-263 Lindars, B. 164 literal meaning / sense 14, 30, 55, 62, 68-71, 75, 82, 84-85, 87-88, 99-100, 128, 185, 197-198, 211, 235-236, 258, 270, 306, 323 literature, literary texts 2, 6, 11, 1718, 139, 183, 191 Lohfink, N. 77, 80, 81 Long, V.P. 153 Longman, T. 153 Lossky, V. 259-260 Loughlin, G. 219, 224-225, 230 Louth, A. 57, 245-247, 315 Ludlow, M. 278 lust 211 Luther, M. 34 lying see deception Madden, N. 244 manipulation 209-210 Marcion / Marcionites 69-70 Marcus, J. 164 Marius Victorinus 241 marriage vow 217-218, 227 Maximus the Confessor 198, 215, 244245, 247, 278 May, G. 311 Mays, J.L. 162 Mbuwayesango, D. 68, 194, 199 McCarter, P.K. 155

McConville, J.G. 275 McGinn, M. 8-9 McGuckin, J.A. 241 McKenzie, S.L. 162 McKeown, J. 35, 239, 255 meaning 5-9, 17, 19, 47, 59, 104, 148, 183, 189, 191, 239, 259, 319, 322, 330 as use 8 mediation 50, 59, 62, 87-89, 92, 117, 134, 184, 185, 201 Merling, D. Sr. 67, 151, 291 Mesha Inscription 77, 152 messianic expectation 164-167 metaphor 17 metaphysics 13, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, 32, 82, 202, 233, 234-236, 239-240, 253-255, 258-259, 263, 266-270, 272, 276-277, 302, 309, 316-317, 328 midrash 12, 111, 198, 202, 210, 215, 226-227, 325 Milgrom, J. 77 Millard, A. 294 Miller, P.D. 238-239, 275 Mills, M.E. 151 Min, A.K. 252 minimalism 15, 31, 150-155, 174-176, 179-180, 279, 310, 324 evangelical response to 154 mistake / misunderstanding 13, 1517, 19, 139, 200, 266, 328 Moabite 207, 209-210, 225 Moberly, R.W.L. 58, 105, 107, 119-120, 124-126, 128, 283, 287, 298, 327, 330 model, for behaviour 53, 105, 128, 134, 140, 158, 167, 171, 185-186, 192-197, 216, 218, 232, 306 scientific 16-17, 266, 328 modern, modernist, modernity 19, 32, 36, 57, 95-96, 101, 104, 107, 115, 120, 143, 154, 189, 214, 278, 293-294, 297, 303, 309-310, 318320 Moloney, F.J. 164 Moltmann, J. 258-259

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monarchy, monarchial 108, 150-161, 279, 291-292, 295, 303 Monroe, L.A.S. 78 moon 10, 75, 88, 236 Moore, M.B. 151 Moore, M.S. 215 moral difficulty see ethics moral response 24, 129 moral judgment 129 Morgan, T. 106 Moses 89, 194, 285, 293 Moyal-Sharrock, D. 227 Murray, P.D. 269 myth 19, 28-29, 45-51, 72, 83-84, 121, 128, 130, 143, 186, 189, 191, 206, 235, 255, 261, 263, 271, 279-280, 296, 298-299, 301, 306-312, 315316, 318, 323, 326 definition of 49 existential / symbolic approaches 49, 54-55, 63, 70-71, 72, 83 historicizing / objectification / tiring of 130-131, 301 (neo-)structuralist approaches 19, 30, 45-65, 75-76, 128, 299, 324 Naaman 134 Naomi 207-233 passim narrative / narrative level meaning 3, 17-18, 47-65 passim, 139, 144, 161, 186, 201 narrator 40, 42, 124, 126-127 Nelson, R.D. 77, 80 neo-structuralism 45-65, 75-76, 87-89, 92, 117, 128, 185, 198 New Covenant / Testament 13, 58-65, 72-73, 92, 121, 130, 134-137, 141, 143, 149, 164-167, 192, 196, 224, 242, 248, 257, 271, 298, 305 Nicholas of Lyra 113 Niehoff, M. 105, 110 Nielsen, K. 207, 212 Nir, R. 135 norms see judgments oath 31, 127 offering 81

357

oikonomia 32, 272, 278-279, 308-320, 323, 326 Omri 152 Oppenheim, A.L. 293 Opus Tripartum 74 Origen 14-15, 26, 33, 58-59, 61, 68-76, 85, 90, 93, 98, 99-100, 111, 128-129, 154, 193, 215, 234, 236, 242, 246, 248, 297, 313-314, 317, 323 Orlinsky, H.M 255 Orpah 199 Osborne, E. 277-278, 312 Ostriker, A. 217 outsider 12, 46, 76, 89, 94, 195-196, 207 Pachomius 162 Palestinian orthodoxy 109, 127 paradigm see model Parry, R. 35 passions 33-36, 186, 215-216 patriarchs / patriarchal tradition / era 109, 119, 143 Paul 129, 133, 224-225, 314 Paul of Burgo 113 Pentateuch / pentateuchal criticism 44, 280-290 perichoresis 261-262 Persian era 109, 121, 127, 143, 156, 159, 164, 166, 168, 281, 289 Peter 20 Pharisees 166 Philips, A. 209 Philo 36, 110, 150, 246 P-Komposition 281 pleasure 215-217 poetic discourse, poetics 27, 38-40, 57, 63, 96-97, 100, 138, 144, 167, 178, 185, 197, 236, 324 polemic 109, 121, 127 politics, political significance 108, 149, 163, 169, 178 possible reading 12, 31, 131, 138, 140142, 161, 170-172, 182, 184, 187, 192, 196, 197-201, 206, 228, 271, 308, 315, 324-325, 327, 329 post-colonial / post-colonialism 26, 194, 199-200

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post-exilic 109 post-modern 299, 318-319 practice(s) 2, 4, 6, 9-10, 12-13, 26, 50, 55, 65, 86, 101, 137, 146, 186, 187, 196, 203-204, 258, 262, 272, 317, 322, 325, 328 presuppositions 126-127, 132-133, 136, 220 Priestly 37, 78-79, 81, 237, 280-290 passim, 300, 327 Prior, M. 67 probable reading 12, 31, 122, 133-135, 137-138, 140-142, 171-172, 175, 180, 182-186, 191, 196, 198, 201, 231, 325 promised land see land prototypical past / time 83-84, 86, 130, 143 Provan, I. 153 Prudentius 242 Rad, G. von 107, 117, 238, 275-276, 290, 295, 309, 313 Rahab 12, 24, 31, 61, 72-77, 85, 88-90, 92-94, 102, 134, 192-197, 199-200, 206-207, 211, 225-226, 315, 325326 Rahner, K. 276-277 reader 4, 9-11, 13, 84, 113, 122, 124, 126, 131, 136, 178, 183-184, 187191, 210, 220, 227, 229, 255, 302, 314, 316-317, 322, 325 reading strategy 100, 103, 113, 120, 131, 133, 136, 141-146, 170, 172, 187-191, 202, 206, 210, 228, 273, 297, 302, 304, 323-324, 327 reception, reception history 4, 13, 26, 36, 38, 57-60, 71-77, 92-95, 101102, 104-106, 110-121, 127, 141142, 148, 168, 180, 182, 200, 229, 240-254, 265, 307, 326 recontextualization 61, 75-77, 93-95, 101, 123, 136, 145, 178, 194 redaction 37-38, 82, 107, 292, 295 referentiality (also see meaning) 96 regula fidei 98, 136, 142, 177, 192, 199, 329 Rendtorff, R. 280, 282

Reno, R.R. 35, 105, 117, 124 repentance 18, 73, 111, 162, 168, 193 Rephaim 85 resurrection 15 revelation / revelatory 4, 17, 20, 2729, 31, 95-96, 133, 136, 163, 173174-175, 177-181, 184, 231, 261, 263-264, 287, 296-297, 312, 330 Reventlow, H.G. 277 rhetoric / rhetorical 82, 84-86, 108, 167, 170, 318 Ricoeur, P. 10-29, 31, 47, 59, 95-96, 122, 142, 169, 172, 176-178, 183184, 191, 234, 240, 264, 276, 309, 323-324 Roberts, J.J.M. 296 Rogerson, J.W. 63, 179 Römer, T.C. 84, 109-110, 116, 118, 127, 280-281, 284 Rooke, D.W. 105, 115 Rublev 246 rules see practices Ruth 31, 134, 194, 199-200, 206-233 Sabbath 166 Sakenfield, K.D. 208 salvation 12, 200, 211, 279, 296-297, 312-313, 316, 323, 326 salvation history 32, 97, 109, 273-320, 326 Sanders, S.L. 155 Sarna, N.M. 64, 235 Saul 83, 292 Schäfer-Lichtenberger, C. 77 scientia practica 203-205, 207, 232, 272 speculativa 203-205, 233, 234, 272 Schmid, H.H. 280 Schmid, K. 38, 85, 153, 278, 281-290 Schroeder, J.A. 113 Schwartz, R.M. 67 science 16-17 Scripture 1-6 multiple senses of 4, 6, 12, 197201, 204, 302 secularism 186 Segal, R.A. 45, 299 Sennacherib 293

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Index of Subjects and Authors separation / separatism 19, 60, 65, 8688, 146, 185-186, 289 Septuagint 211, 248, 257, 295 sexual ethics 31, 119, 206-233 passim Shechemites 33-65 passim Sheridan, M. 33 Silberman, N. 151 Simeon 19, 33-65 passim, 185-187 Ska, J-L. 37 Smart, B. 318 Smith, Samuel 115 Solomon 89, 194, 292 Solomonic Enlightenment 107, 304 sources 36-38, 42 Speiser, E.A. 37, 43, 238 Speickermann, H. 152 spiritual life 91 spiritual sense / spiritualizing 58, 6873, 75-76, 92-93, 97-98, 105, 111, 121, 128, 134, 136, 193, 197, 211, 236, 254, 317-319, 323-324, 326 Stackhouse, Thomas 115 Staerk, W. 282 Staniloae, D. 216, 260 stars 10, 236 Stern, P.D. 77-78 Sternberg, M. 38-40, 51, 106, 128, 185, 187-191 Stevenson, W.T. 121, 298-299, 301, 308 Stoic influence 215, 232 Strange, J. 295 structure / structural level meaning 47-65 passim, 76, 87, 92-93, 117118, 128, 134, 142, 177, 180, 185186, 190, 201, 225-226, 230, 300, 328 sun 10, 75, 88, 236 symbol 27, 48, 57, 72, 76, 80-102 passim, 125, 128-129, 135, 186, 198, 202, 204, 234, 255, 258, 261, 270, 301-308, 314-315, 322, 324, 326 Tadmor, C. 293 Tappy, R.E. 155 Targum(s) 110-111, 235, 255 Tel Dan Stela 152 Telford, W.R. 164

359

Teller, P. 16-17, 328 Tertullian 241 testimony 18, 27-29, 176, 184, 200, 264-265, 272, 276, 309, 317, 328329 Te Velde, R. 203-204 Theodore of Mopsuestia 170 textual horizon 121-137 Theodoret of Cyrus 34, 111, 120, 193, 211-212, 218, 243, 297 Theophilus 241 Thompson, J.L. 25, 113 Thompson, T.L. 151 Thunberg, L. 245-247 Torah 121, 132, 285 tradition / traditional(ity) 4-5, 12, 1415, 18, 20-27, 30-32, 36, 38, 44, 65, 72, 79, 82, 92, 94-95, 98, 101, 103104, 108, 110, 116, 122-123, 129, 134, 138-142, 146, 148, 150, 170171, 176, 179, 182, 184, 190, 194, 196-198, 200, 204, 206, 209, 211, 214, 216, 218, 229-232, 235, 240254, 265, 268, 270-272, 273, 280, 282, 285, 293, 315, 325, 330 transformation 50, 56, 59, 61, 76, 8789, 92, 106, 117, 134, 141, 144, 185, 199 Travis, I.S. 219 treasury of YHWH 79, 81 Trible, P. 207 Trinity / Trinitarian 5, 10, 13, 19, 32, 234-272 passim, 276-277, 313, 320, 327 social doctrines of 258-259 trust / trustworthiness 14-15, 175176, 179, 309 truth / truth-claim 18, 96, 234, 263, 298, 319 Turner, V. 54-55, 65, 70-71, 75-76, 82, 86, 101, 128, 185, 206, 323 Type, typological sense see spiritual sense Uriah 158 use 4, 13-17, 19, 26, 33, 35, 38, 42, 45, 55, 60, 83, 95, 103, 127, 135-137,

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Index of Subjects and Authors 145, 167, 180, 182-183, 187, 271272, 307, 326

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values 9, 15, 35 van der Meer, M.N. 295 Van Seters, J. 37, 149-152, 155-161, 164, 167, 171-172, 175, 280, 282, 284, 292-296 Van Wolde, E. 208-209, 214, 217-218, 221-222 veridical 17-19, 266, 323, 326 violence 37, 53, 57, 67, 91-92, 186, 206, 307 virginity 215 virtue 20, 24, 105-106, 110, 113, 121, 134, 141, 144, 202, 206, 209, 211, 215-216, 247, 271 warrant see justification Warrior, R.A. 67, 307 Wellhausen, J. 37, 106-107, 280 Wenham, G. 124 Wesley, John 115 Westermann, C. 117, 125, 238 Wheeler, S. III 2 Whitelam, K.W. 151 wife/sister texts 50, 53, 87, 117, 128, 130 Williams, J.P. 278 Williams, R. 26, 27-29, 173-174, 215, 264-265, 276, 309 Williams, R.B. 59, 71 wind 255-256 wisdom 34, 57, 64, 103, 107, 124-125, 132, 137, 139-141, 145, 170, 180, 182, 187, 198, 202, 206, 324-325, 327-329 Wittgenstein, L. / Wittgensteinian 2, 7-10, 13, 15, 23-24, 94, 180, 187, 196, 227, 267-268, 322, 331-332 Wolterstorff, N. 17 ‘world of the text’ 11-20, 31, 35, 85, 90, 104, 122, 124, 132, 135, 137, 141, 145, 167, 172, 177-178, 182183, 186, 189, 208, 220, 232, 240, 254, 259, 308, 320, 324

worldview 26, 45, 50-51, 60, 76, 84, 87, 92-93, 103, 117, 133, 140, 176, 185, 190, 232, 263, 265, 299, 315, 323 works 73, 193 Wright, C.J.H. 318 Wright, N.T. 318 Yahwist 37, 280-290 Young, F.M. 58, 134

H EBREW W ORDS ‫ אהב‬223, 229 ‫ בא‬208 ‫ בדל‬87

‫ ברא‬256 ‫ גלה‬208 ‫ גר‬287

‫ דבק‬80, 217-218, 221-222, 229 ‫ חכם‬124

‫ חמד‬80, 89

‫ חסד‬80, 192, 194-195, 198, 207, 210-

211, 226, 233

‫ חרם‬77-102 passim, 327 ‫ טהר‬80

‫ טמא‬101 ‫ ידע‬208 ‫ ירשׁ‬85 ‫ כחד‬85

‫ כליל‬81 ‫ כנף‬208 ‫ ל‬79 ‫ מגור‬287 ‫ נגע‬80

‫ נחשׁ‬110, 115 ‫ נסה‬110

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.

Index of Subjects and Authors ‫ פרשׂ‬80 ‫ פשׂה‬80

‫ קיא‬85, 87 ‫ רגל‬208

‫ רוח‬243, 249, 255 ‫ שׁכב‬208 ‫ שׁקץ‬79

‫ תועבה‬79, 81

G REEK W ORDS

ἀγάπη 229 ἀρσενοκοίτης 224 ἐπιθυμίᾳ 211 λόγος 244, 245, 248, 258 μαλακός 224

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οἰκονομία see oikonomia πνευμα 243, 249 φίλοϛ 229 φύσιν 224

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361

I NDEX OF S CRIPTURE

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O LD T ESTAMENT

Genesis (cont.) 17:10-14 52 18 246 18-19 289 19 224 19 289 20 50, 117 20:9 120 21 289 22 52, 289, 327 22:12 124 23:4 287 24:26 81 25 289 25:18 300 25:19ff 289 26 50, 117, 289 26:5 121 26:26-33 289 27 289 27-33 289 28:4 287 28:10-22 289 29-31 289 32:23-33 289 34 30, 31, 33-65, 66, 71, 87, 91, 92, 97, 101-102, 103, 117, 124, 128-135, 137, 139-140, 146, 167, 180, 182, 184, 185-192, 198, 201-202, 205, 233, 234, 270, 279, 328 34:1 39 34:1-4 190 34:3 39 34:3 39, 222 34:7 39 34:9 40 34:10 40, 52 34:13 39 34:14 39 34:15-17 51 34:25-31 34, 52

Genesis 1 46-47, 255, 263, 311 1-11 46, 237, 284 1:1 311 1:1-2 249 1:1-2:4a 61-62, 150, 234-237, 255256 1:2 237, 243, 255-256 1:14-19 10 1:26 5, 10, 13, 16, 19, 32, 233, 234272, 309, 317, 327-328 1:26-27 234-272, 302, 308 1:27 244-250, 257 1:28 249, 286 2:18 260 2:24 217, 222, 227, 229-230 3:22 237-238 8:1 256 9:7 286 10:5 300 10:20-21 300 10:31 300 10:32a 300 11-2 Kings 25 295 11:7 237 12 117 12-13 289 12-35 107 12-36 289 12-50 38, 289 12:2 286 12:10-20 286 15 284-289 15:7 52, 287 15:13-16 285, 287 16 289 16:1-5 113, 120, 325 17 38 17:2 286 17:8 52, 287 17:9-10 52

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Index of Scripture Genesis (cont.) 34:27 39, 40 34:30 43, 51 34:31 39 35 289 35:2-4 43 35:5 43 35:27 287 36:7 287 37 106, 107, 289 37-50 30, 104, 107, 121, 124, 146, 185, 205, 233, 279, 288, 289, 328 37:1 287 37:1-2a 288 37:2 288 38 50, 117, 189, 223 38:2 125 39 105, 117, 128, 130 39-45 289 41 125 41:37-45 117, 124 41:39 124 41:45 31, 44, 104, 110-121, 124, 125, 128, 189 41:50-52 110, 125 42-44 106 42:15 31, 104, 110-121, 124, 127 42:18 124, 126 42:18-26 106 43:42 110 44 111, 113 44:5 31, 104, 109, 110-121, 124, 125 44:15 104, 109, 110-121, 124, 125 45:4-8 106 46:6-7 288 46:10 125 46:28ff 289 47 289 47:27b-28 288 48 107 48:21 289 49 289 49:1a 288 49:5-7 40-44 49:7 34

Genesis (cont.) 49:28 42 49:28b 288 49:29-33 288 50 106, 287, 289 50:8b 289 50:12-13 288 50:14 287, 288, 289 50:22-26 289 50:24 287 50:24-25 289 Exodus 1 126 1:7 286 1:9 286 1:9-10 286 2:24a-25 286 3 287 3-4 284, 287 3:1-4:18 287 3:6 287 4:25 209 6 287 6:2-8 286-287 7-11 286 12:40-41 288 14:19-20 256 15:10 256 20:2 276 20:6 195, 207 20:16 24 20:20 124 23:20-33 79, 85, 291 28:31 81 34 30 34:6 89 34:6-7 195, 207 34:10-14 85 39:22 81 Leviticus 6:15 81 6:16 81 11 46 18 87 18:9 50 18:9-18 50

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Leviticus (cont.) 18:18 50 18:22 224 18:24-30 85, 291 19:26 109, 118, 132 20 87 20:22-24 85, 91, 291 27 77, 79, 81, 82, 327 27:21-29 78, 79

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Numbers 4:6 81 18:14 79 21:21ff 85 25 36, 44 27:21 125 30:50-56 291 31 36, 42, 44 33:50-56 79, 85 36:7 222 Deuteronomy 1:41 81 2-3 85 4:4 222 4:39 89, 194-195 5:10 89, 195 6:20-25 275 7 79, 85, 291 7:1 97-98 7:1-5 76, 78, 85-88, 91, 97, 100, 132-133, 194-195, 291 7:1-6 207 7:3-4 125 7:5 79, 87 7:12 207 7:25-26 79, 80 9:4 193 9:5 91 10:20 222 12:29-32 207 13 79 13:12-18 80 13:13-19 78 13:17 81 16:1 81 18:10 109, 118, 124, 132 20:10-20 90

Deuteronomy (cont.) 23:3 225, 230 23:3-4 207 25:5 223 26:5-9 275-276 26:5-10 275, 279, 297 33:10 81 Joshua 1 71 1-12 66, 71, 74, 76, 88, 192 2 12, 24, 75, 85, 88, 90, 126 2:9-11 89, 207 2:11 194-195 2:12 207 3-4 71, 76, 88 5:13-15 91, 101, 195-196 5:13-10:42 91 6 12, 67, 75, 79, 81, 85, 88, 89, 90, 314, 327 6-8 90 6:17 77, 79, 81 6:17-18 79 6:18 80 6:19 79-82, 327 6:24 79-82, 327 7 74, 79, 81-82, 195 7:1 89 7:11 81 7:11-13 80 7:16-18 89 7:19 73 7:20-21 89 8 79 9 74, 88, 90 9:24 90 10 75, 88 10-11 89, 90 10:2-26 75 10:12-14 75 10:20-26 70, 71, 88 10:40 98-100, 204 10:40-42 75, 85, 98, 291 10:42 91 11 85, 88 11:16 75, 85, 291 11:23 75, 85, 291 15:19 292

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.

Index of Scripture Joshua (cont.) 15:63 75, 85, 291 16:10 75, 85, 291 17 85, 88 17:13 75, 85, 291 18:2-19:48 292 21:44-45 291 23 86 23-24 86, 90 24 284, 290-291, 305, 316 24:1-13 291, 297 24:1-15 305 24:11 314 24:14-15 291, 297, 305 24:32 104 Judges 1:1-2:5 291-292 1:15 291 1:17 83 20:40 81 21:11 83

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Ruth

1:14 221, 230 1:14-18 208 1:16-17 207, 217-229 2:1 209 2:8 218 2:21 218 2:22 218 3:1-18 208, 211-217, 221-222, 232 3:4 208, 211 3:5 208 3:6-9a 208 3:8 215 3:10 207, 210 3:16 208 4:15 223, 228, 230 4:17 223, 228, 230

1 Samuel 1:3 81 2:8 81 3:20 81 7:9 81 13:14 162, 169 15 83, 90, 159

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1 Samuel (cont.) 16:14–1 Kings 1:46 155 17:1-18:4 157 17:6a 157 19:18-21:10 157 21:2-10 156-157, 166-167, 170, 172, 175, 196 22:6-23 157, 166 23:6-14 157 23:19-24a 157 25:1-28:2 157 27 156, 159 27-30 159, 165, 170-172, 175, 179 27:1-28:2 159 29:1-30:31 157, 159 30 156-157, 159-160 30:6 160 30:8 160 2 Samuel 1:1 157 1:5-10 157 1:13-16 157 2:2 157 2:4-4:12 157 2:9 157 5:3 157 5:4 157 5:5 157 5:13-16 157 6 157 6:1 157 6:3b-4 157 6:6-14 157 6:16 157 6:20-23 157 6:21-22 158 7 158 8:16-18 157 8:18 156 9:1-20:26 157-158 11-12 162, 172 12:13 163 20:23 156 21:6 81 23:10 222 24:4 239

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.

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Index of Scripture

1 Kings 1:1-52 157 2:5-9 157 2:13-46 157 6:1-2 81 8:23 89, 194-195 9:4 162, 169 9:15 152 9:21 83 11:4 162 14 158, 169 14:8 159, 162-163, 169 15:3 162, 169 19:10 81 20:42 83 21 158 22:19 256 22:19-22 238

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2 Kings 5:27 222 6:33 81 18-20 293 19:11 83 1 Chronicles 2:6 73 2:7 83 4:41 83 7:29 110 2 Chronicles 20:23 83 32 293 32:14 83 Ezra

Job

9-10 124, 132, 194-195 9:1 207 9:1-2 87 9:2 125 10 110 10:8 79 1:1-2:10 124 1:6 256 1:6-12 238

Job (cont.) 33:4 256 Psalms 1 285 22:15 222 44 330 51 15, 162-163, 168-170, 172, 175, 256 51:21 81 66:16 318 77 284 77:16-21 285 78 284 78:12 285 78:43-62 285 78:67 104 89 330 89:5-6 256 93:1-2 17 104:29 256 104:30 256 105 284 105:16-22 104 106 284 106:6-7 285 106:30 44 110:1 164-165 135 284 135:8-9 285 136 89, 284 136:10-12 285 Song of Songs 1:9-11 239 Isaiah 2:18 81 6 238 6:2 209 6:8 256 9:7 161 16:5 161 34:2 83 34:5 83 36-37 293 37:11 83 37:35 161

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.

Index of Scripture Isaiah (cont.) 43:28 78, 83, 84 44:3f 256 53 190 55:3 161 63:10-11 256

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Jeremiah 21:12 161 22 161 23:5 161 25:9 83, 84 29:16 161 30:9 161 33 161 50:21 78, 83 50:26 78, 83 51:3 78, 83

Zechariah (cont.) 14:11 83

D EUTEROCANONICAL B OOKS Judith 9 35 9:2 36

Greek Esther 14:15-19 132 Wisdom 2:23 257 7:26 257 9:1-2 257 Sirach 49:15 105

Lamentations 2:15 81

1 Maccabees 2:53 105

Ezekiel 16:14 81 27:3 81 28:12 81 34:23-24 161 37:14 256 37:25 161 44:29 79

4 Maccabees 2:2 105 2:18-20 34, 186

P SEUDEPIGRAPHA

Daniel 1:8 132 11:44 83

Jubilees 30 35 30:6 36 30:18-20 36 30:23 36, 44 40:10 110

Hosea 3:5 161 12 285

Testament of Levi 6-7 36 6:8-11 36

Amos 9:11 161

Testament of Joseph 18:3 110

Micah 4:13 81-83 6:8 89, 195, 207

N EW T ESTAMENT

Zechariah 12:8 161

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Matthew 1:1 165 1:1-17 326 1:5 134, 207 1:6 165

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.

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Index of Scripture

Matthew (cont.) 1:17 165 1:20 165 3:9 134 14:22-33 20 19:4-6 227 22:41-46 165 25 30, 95, 195-196, 325 Mark

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Luke

John

Acts

2:23-27 166-167, 170, 196 8:22-10:52 165 10:47-48 164 11:10 164-165 12:35-37 164 1:27 165 1:32 165 1:69 165 2:11 165 3:31 165 10:25-37 306 18:9-14 175 20:41-44 165 1:1 249, 265, 311 1:1-4 257 1:1-5 62 1:3 242 7:42 165 14:2 74 15:13 229 15:13-15 229 15:15 229 2:1-4 256 2:34-35 164 7:9-15 105 8:9-25 134 9:6 213 16:16-40 134 19:19 134

Romans 1:3 165

Romans (cont.) 1:18-32 229-230 1:26 224 1:27 224 8:29 242, 248, 257 11:13 224 11:24 224 12:2 257 12:12 249 1 Corinthians 6:9 224 6:9-11 224 7 57 7:3-4 224 7:12-16 135 11:14-15 224 15 15 15:49 248 2 Corinthians 3:6 129 4:4 248 6:14-18 135 Galatians 3 133 3:1-14 58, 140 3:19-29 313 3:28 56, 230 5:22-23 271 Ephesians 1:10 311-312 3:9 312 4:21-24 200 4:22-24 257 4:23-24 249 5:1 249 Colossians 1:15 242, 248-249, 257 1:15-20 62 1:16 242 3:10 248-250, 257 5:20 134

Earl, Douglas S.. Reading Old Testament Narrative as Christian Scripture, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.

Index of Scripture 2 Timothy 2:8 165 3:16 134 Titus

2:5 213 3:3 215

Hebrews 1:10 249 3-4 317 11:22 105 11:31 72, 193 James 2:25 73, 193 2 Peter 1:16 28

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1 John 2:13-14 249 Revelation 3:7 165 5:5 165 9:21 134 18:23 134 21:6 249 21:8 134 22:13 249 22:15 134 22:16 165

A POSTOLIC F ATHERS 1 Clement 12 73, 193

D EAD S EA S CROLLS 4Q379 3 II 5-6 81-82

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