Secondly, Alicia Florrick exemplifies a marriage ethos I know well from New England and the upper Midwest, deeply rooted in old WASP values, a crucible of suffering to be sure, but fibrous and strong. I keep expecting the series to revert to a Hollywood template, with people jumping in and out of each other’s beds with great aplomb. So far, that hasn’t happened.

Thirdly, Julianna Margulies in the role of Alicia Florrick shines.

Fourthly, I spent a half hour trying to find some intelligent comment on the series in the media. I couldn’t find any. TV critics are superficial schmucks. Quite a bit of TV series content, at least at the beginning of a series, is beyond the kind of people who review it for the media, who are mostly interested in glam and glitz. But I’m betting many people are watching this series, and thinking hard in the process.

Room must be made for other senses of the text, developed by other traditions, and historical criticism must learn to interact more creatively with those other traditions, neither surrendering to them nor demanding that they surrender to historical criticism.

Levenson is an advocate of the “dignity both of traditional interpretation and of modern criticism.”² Is it likely that the field of biblical studies will ever make progress in the direction he points?

No and yes.

No, because many biblical scholars consider it their duty to nudge their students in the direction of thinking and acting like nice, secular, liberal people, the de facto religion of the religiously uncommitted academic world. If their students are already nice, secularized, uncommitted people, a fundamentalist “other” is constructed as a punching bag, in the interests of producing lean, mean, fighting machines. Traditional interpretation of the Bible, except insofar as it can be construed to dovetail with the Enlightenment project, or be tarred as irrational, is not useful in this regimen. It is neglected or simply ignored.

Scholars of this stripe, and they are legion, tend to regard evangelicals, traditional Roman Catholics, and neo-conservative Jews – the kind of people behind magazines like Christianity Today, First Things and Commentary: just examples! - with a certain fear and loathing, as opponents of their sacred causes. Perhaps they are. One might expect that sort of thing in a pluralistic world.

It is of course also true that several categories of traditional Jews and Christians regard the historical study of the Bible and the commitment to recover the sense of the biblical text apart from their particular appropriation of it with suspicion and hostility.

But there are scholars who, regardless of their point of arrival in terms of cultural loyalties, see the existence of religious communities and traditions of interpretation of the Bible which have not simply caved in to modernity as a great positive in a world in which men read Maxim and women read Vogue.

On this understanding of the discipline of biblical studies, the goal is to point the way for non-believers, believers, and everyone in between to interact creatively with traditions of interpretation other than their own, neither surrendering to them nor demanding that they surrender to their tradition of interpretation.

¹ Jon D. Levenson, “Historical Criticism and the Fate of the Enlightenment Project,” in The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993) 106-126; 106. A version of the same essay with essentially the same content is available online here.

² Jon D. Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993) xv.

It seems to me that a state is wise to have a written constitution and a body of legal precedent courts construe against, not necessarily with, majority public pressure to do otherwise. So, my criticism of the British court is not that it is, by some external standard, overreaching. Rather, it is reaching in the wrong direction. Enough of nanny courts, intent on compelling people to make decisions, not in accordance with a constitution or a body of legal precedent, but with whatever enlightened ideas of justice the members of the court happen to have on a day in which, for all we know, they simply woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Judicial fiat is a rotten way to make law. Innovation in law is the prerogative, not of the courts, but of legislative processes undertaken by democratically elected representatives. Or, if one is brave to the point of potential recklessness, via local and national referenda. 

The major differences between ESVSB and TLSB are the following:

(1) As the IMonk (Michael Spencer) points out,

The notes contain extensive theological reflections on Law and Gospel, the sacraments, the church and the Trinity. These are much more devotional [than ESVSB] and less purely technical. There are extensive quotes and references from the Church Fathers, Luther, Lutheran reformers, classic works of church history and contemporary Lutheran works, including excellent recent commentaries. It’s a wealth in information and a much greater variety in intention and kind than any other study Bible.

I don’t think that is quite true - The Orthodox Study Bible (just the New Testament and Psalms, NKJV translation) is similar its own way.

It is the case that TLSB works out the meaning of Scripture in constant reference to a confessional framework whereas ESVSB reads the text in reference to cues within the text, and avoids giving a confessional cast to its interpretive notes. If the premise on which TLSB is based is that in order to understand the Bible aright, you must be a conservative Lutheran - as the slick advertising puts it (go here for a link): “just because the Bible was made for Lutherans doesn’t mean that it’s just for Lutherans,”¹ the premise on which ESVSB is based if that if you understand the Bible aright, you will end up being conservative Reformed.

Kevin Sam, my favorite Lutheran blogger, has been pumping TLSB for some time (go here and here, but also, here). He concurs with Spencer: TLSB is a great study Bible because it is unabashedly Lutheran, and because the text it offers is ESV, a translation Sam recommends (Sam also recommends, as gender-inclusive translations of choice, NRSV and NLT).

(2) TLSB is far less open than ESVSB to examining the Old and New Testaments against the background of everything we know about the life and times in which they were written. The inferior quality of TLSB’s maps and technical notes is not an accident. It is an index of current conservative Lutheran priorities.

LCMS and WELS, TLSB’s de facto church sponsors, are about where the Roman Catholic Church was, with respect to the field of biblical studies and the evolution-creation controversy, half a century ago. For example, views of the authorship of the Pentateuch which allow for a large part of its composition to be dated to the 7^th and 6^th centuries bce, and views that countenance the possibility that evolution and creation are not in contradiction, remain beyond the pale.

The paradox: that is a small price to pay, if the alternative is to give up on one’s confessional tradition altogether, except for odds and ends thereof that are in sync with whatever is considered politically correct at the moment.

For extensive samples of TLSB, go here. For a list of contributors – I recognize some excellent OT scholars in the list, Horace Hommel and Andrew Steinmann for example – go here.

¹ The conviction seems to be that the world is divided between the married (Lutherans) and those who are waiting to get married (future Lutherans). 

All of these feature a hero/anti-hero who is out of favor with deity and engaged in a mission in which he encounters danger and experiences confusion about divine ways.

Jonah, however, is a prophet, whereas Adapa is a priest/sage and Gilgamesh a king.

Walton notes that in modern scholarship Jonah is thought to be a parody or a satire. He describes the book of Jonah as a satire, specifically (5:104),

a written composition in which vice, folly, or incompetence is held up for ridicule. The closer to reality a satire can be, the more effective it is. By definition, it targets real people and tries to use the mannerisms and words that they use. Satire exaggerates reality, but by its nature is based on reality.

Walton goes on to cite other examples of parody and satire in the Bible and ancient Near Eastern literature. Finally, he raises the possibility that the fish in Jonah be understood in light of the appearance in ancient literature of divinely appointed creatures sent from the gods, creatures that are presented as real but supernatural. For comparative purposes, Walton cites the “Bull of Heaven” Anu sends against Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and the cherubim / seraphim in the Bible.

Walton never criticizes those who think of the book of Jonah as if it were an example of modern historical biography the dialogues of which amount to transcripts of conversations between the human protagonists and between Jonah and God. Without dogmatism, he argues for another approach. Walton attempts to understand the book of Jonah on its own terms in light of everything we know about the literary conventions of the time.

Bibliography

John H. Walton, general editor. Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. 5 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.

Jeremy Curley notes in the Q & A that we don’t normally recount the Puritans’ escape from persecution and establishment of a “city set on a hill” in the New World by following it up with an account of how the Puritans in turn persecuted the Quakers. My immediate thought was: Yes, we do, if we are writing historiography in a strong sense. Any decent history of colonial America is going to include accounts of both, with the inevitable dissonance that results. This points back to Wolterstorff’s thesis, that the hagiographic sections of the book of Joshua were consciously juxtaposed by the author/redactor to the “down-to-earth” sections of the same book and of Judges 1. According to W the juxtaposition is not mindless but indicative of the felt sense that the hagiographic accounts are to be read in light of the “down-to-earth” accounts. If this is the case – and I think it is – Joshua-Judges and especially, the Primary History taken as a whole, is historiography in the strong sense.

If this is the case, furthermore, Louise Antony’s denial of the ethical correctness of the hagiographic genre – “hysterical” is her tongue-in-cheek characterization of her position – turns out to be in sync with the biblical ethos. It is not the biblical narrative which gives us the hagiographic sections of the book of Joshua without non-hagiographic context. It is post-biblical interpreters who abstract and pervert content by so doing.

On the other hand, I am in complete disagreement with Antony with respect to her apparent claim that there is never a place for one-sided hagiographic narrative. My daughter Anna, all of 6 years old, recently spent many hours visiting the Martin Luther King Jr. attractions in Atlanta. Anna was extremely attentive. Her mother explained everything in Italian in great detail. But Paola left out the part about MLK being a womanizer who deeply disrespected his wife Coretta Scott in coincidence with his greatest rhetorical exploits, and how Coretta remained faithful to her faithless husband.

There is a time and place for everything. For hagiography, and hagiography contextualized. For peace, and for war, and the killing of innocent people that ensues. Indeed, there is a time to take sides, and a time not to take sides. It would seem as if Antony’s “perfect piety” disallows such complexity – my guess: only in principle, the better to eat theists alive – not in practice.

That said, I am not convinced that Wolterstorff solves the theological problems the book of Joshua entails. As far as I can see, the divine command to exterminate the autochthonous inhabitants of Canaan in Deut 20:15-18 was meant to be read as a description of what the Israelites should have done, but did not do. It is no different in 1 Samuel, vis-à-vis Amalek. But in the latter case, the narrative ups the ante, because, through Samuel, fulfillment of the command is achieved. Nonetheless, the descent of the people into historical disaster is not thereby averted. The people continue to lose their way, religiously speaking, nor is it given even temporary respite from lethal struggles with external enemies. All of this conforms with history in the most literal of senses. A world ordered in this way has to be judged a failure, unless it can be judged in light of what it has not yet become. In the midterm, that would require, within the range of realistic possibilities, an aftermath of what clinical psychologists call “post-traumatic” or “adversarial” growth (on this concept, check out Eleanor Stump here). Of course, this is exactly the sense in which Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel understood the exile. In the long term, such a world literally cries out to be replaced by a new heavens and a new earth of the sort an apocalypse like that of John describes. At the center of that description, the one who will wipe away every tear, is a “slain lamb” who alone is fit or worthy to do so.

¹ Antony’s Love of Reason, published in her edited volume, Philosphers without Gods, is a disarming description of her intellectual journey; I can’t wait to read her “Atheism as Perfect Piety,” forthcoming in God and Ethics, ed. by Robert K. Garcia and Nathan L. King.

If you are planning to attend, and/or would like a prereserved copy of AYB Proverbs Volume 2 on hand, comment to that effect below or drop me an email. Some of you already have. This will help with logistics. Objectively speaking, AYB Proverbs by Michael Fox is likely to be the standard scientific commentary on Mishle for some time to come. You might as well get a copy now at a steeply discounted rate ($40.50), courtesy of Eisenbrauns.

It is still possible to add a few spots at the slow food dinner table beforehand, from 7-8 pm. Details here. Let me know if that mouth-watering occasion interests you. 

CEB, to judge from the Gospel of Matthew sampler, is going to contain too many neologisms. “Human One” for the traditional “Son of Man” has been noted as jarring or the like by Esteban Vazquez and a number of other commentators (go here; though Wayne Leman seems to like it). If it is the case – and I think it is - that phrases like “the abomination of desolation” and “the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven” count as technical terms or language in code, one cannot easily dispense with them any more than one can dispense with “Christ” and “John the Baptist,” both of which CEB mercifully keeps.

CEB 24:15 the disgusting and destructive thing for the traditional “abomination of desolation” is in fact too colloquial. CEB 24:30 the Human One coming in the heavenly clouds has no chance of “working” unless the occurrences of “Son of Man” wherever found in Daniel are rendered concordantly – which I don’t think is possible.

CEB seems destined to repeat NRSV’s lamentable tendency to translate phrases one way in the text Jesus is quoting, and a different way, but without justification, when Jesus quotes it (Daniel 7:13 a human being coming with the clouds of heaven = Matthew 24:30 the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven; Daniel 9:27 an abomination that desolates = Matthew 24:15 the desolating sacrilege).

More pedestrian CEB neologisms include phrases like “children of snakes.” This is an example of 5^th grade level explanatory Biblish. Google “children of snakes” if you don’t believe me. A snake’s young are not normally called “children” in English. In any case, a reference to underage snakes is not the point of the Greek phrase. Furthermore, CEB Matthew 23:33 You snakes! You children of snakes! is not just odd; it’s weak compared to the traditional “You serpents, you brood of vipers!” “You serpents, you brood of vipers!” or very strong language like it, is necessary in Matthew 23:33, unless the desire is to have a kinder, gentler Jesus, regardless of how the gospel of Matthew presents him.  

Another example: CEB Matt 12:27: if I throw out demons by Beelzebul, then by whom do your people throw out demons? But do people throw out demons in English? This, it seems to me, is another neologism. In English, we cast out demons, or drive them out.

To be sure, CEB avoids traditional language with the result that certain passages come alive whereas they could otherwise sound trite. For example, John the Baptist does not say, “Repent,” but “Change your hearts and lives” (Matt 3:2). The advantage of CEB's translation is that it makes sense on the fly. But it will be impossible to translate the Old Testament background texts which form the basis of John’s appeal in concordant fashion. In the process, CEB will obscure the coherence of the biblical narrative. This is a common defect of Bible versions on the “free” side of the translation continuum.

Similarly, it is not “an evil and adulterous generation” that asks for a sign, but an evil and faithless generation in CEB (Matt 12:39). That destroys the connection with the Old Testament subtext (Hosea; Ezekiel; and so on). At the very least, it takes the sexual innuendo out of it, what you do, I guess, when teaching the faith to people who on other days of the week watch “Desperate Housewives.”

Blasphemy against the Spirit” becomes insulting the Spirit (Matt 12:31). But insulting is too weak. I admit there is a part of me, the teacher in me, not the poet, that wants to get rid of the word blasphemy. The dilemma is this: once you get what the word means – slander of the vilest sort – blasphemy becomes the best of all possible translations. It is however always helpful to explain that Matthew 12:31 means to say that slander of every kind is forgivable, but not slander against the Spirit, which is what people do when they attribute the Spirit’s work to the devil.  

Joel Hoffman questions whether CEB keeps its promise to dumb down the language of the source text where necessary to bring it to a 5^th to 7^th grade level, in the case of magi in Matthew 2:2, 7. Of course, there are those of us who will stay away from CEB like the plague precisely because of that fateful promise, even if, mercifully, CEB has the good sense to retain magi – a technical term if there ever was one, with just the right overtones of magic and the occult in English - where we expect to find it. 

Israel was wise not to cooperate with the fact-finding mission created by the United Nations Human Rights Council headed up by Goldstone. That would have been playing with fire. But Israel would do well to give a full accounting of the events that occurred during the Gaza War. Including a dose of self-criticism. I am not looking for such an accounting from Hamas. Why? I hold my friends to a higher standard than I do my enemies. 

It will not do to stand Wellhausen on his head and be done with it. Rather than reverse Wellhausen’s value judgments such that it is now the religion of pre-exilic ancient Israel that is the whipping boy of our enlightened scorn, not the religion of “P,” Ezra and Nehemiah, and the Sadducees and Pharisees, the time has come for all the major periods of the history of ancient Israel and ancient Judaism and Christianity, and the conflicts which took place therein, to be seen for what they are: intensely formative examples of paradigm shifts in motion. 

Rather than once again proposing that a “mature,” more or less “catholic” form of Judaism or Christianity garner our critical approval, with the stance of an Amos, Micah, or Isaiah, of a Jesus or Paul, seen as nothing more than an antithesis badly in need of a synthesis; with the Book of the Covenant replaced by the Deuteronomic code replaced by the Holiness code; with the “Jesus” of Mark replaced by the “Christ” of Paul’s Letter to the Romans replaced by the Christ of Ephesians and/or Hebrews and/or the incarnate Logos of John, the time has come to acknowledge – for example - that, though the Deuteronomic code may have been designed to replace the Book of the Covenant, the Holiness code, its immediate precursor(s), the genius of the canon lies precisely in the fact that the various legal corpora were integrated into a larger whole, juxtaposed to each other, protected from each other through the medium of narrative buffers, such that the resultant macro-text must elicit “a strong reader” intent on interpretation if the text is to serve a norming function.

Neither Wellhausen nor Kugel (click on names for relevant texts). The basis on which Bernard Levinson says the following is quite different. Nonetheless, this is a case of “all roads lead to Rome.”¹ In short (94):

Seen from that vantage point [of a corpus that sanctions theory], the canon is radically open. It invites innovation, it demands interpretation, it challenges piety, it questions priority, it sanctifies subversion, it warrants difference, and it embeds critique.

Bibliography

Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

¹ Not in the ecclesiastical sense. On the other hand, if Rome ever allowed herself to be normed by the canon in the sense here explained, she would become truly Catholic. 

A strength of Levinson’s bibliographical essay is its wide-ranging scope. Well-known and little-known authors alike are canvassed for their contribution to the study of the phenomenon of rewriting within the Hebrew Bible.

The essay’s point of departure is the seminal work of Julius Wellhausen and a little-known essay by Simon Rawidowicz which successfully stood Wellhausen’s chief thesis on its head. For Wellhausen, the First Temple period as reflected in 1-2 Samuel and the classical prophets was a time of authentic religiosity unfettered by a superstructure of casuistic law and an obsessive focus on purity of body, social body, and place (temple); the Second Temple period, on the other hand, was an arteriosclerotic age of inversion and stagnation. Wellhausen assigned not just 1-2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah but all “priestly” materials in the Pentateuch to the outer realm of Second Temple darkness, when Israelite religion became Judaism. (Students of the New Testament know that Wellhausen construed the history of Christianity in the same way, a pure, authentic beginning deformed first by Paul and then by the Church Fathers). Rawidowicz on the contrary regarded the Second Temple period as the period of intense creativity. By that time, Rawidowicz claimed, a “culture of text and interpretation more conventionally associated with the rabbinic movement of the post-Second Temple period” (Levinson, p. 101) was in full swing.

Levinson’s essay goes on to introduce the research of a number of scholars who are often neglected by students of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: Renée Bloch, Samuel Sandmel, Gershom Scholem, Jacob Weingreen, Jacob J. Finkelstein, Geza Vermes, Hindy Najman, and Richard Hays, for example, none of whom are Alttestamentler in the classical sense. A host of French-language and German-language scholars whose contributions deserve to be better-known among English-language scholars are introduced: inter alia, Christoph Levin, Odil Hannes Steck, Reinhard Kratz, Eckart Otto, Konrad Schmid, Jean-Pierre Sonnet, Jean Louis Ska, Ruth Scoralick, Molly Zahn, and Timo Veijola.

Jokingly, one might describe ancient Hebrew literature as one giant crime scene in the hands of modern scholars, and then turn the metaphor on its head: our CSI investigators turn out to be “perps” themselves, at the very least, “persons of interest.”

Despite the essay’s thoroughness, it is not difficult to point out still other scholars of interest worth introducing: for example, Erhard Blum and Alexander Rofé; Erich Zenger and Frank-Lothar Hossfeld for the Psalms; Eugene Ulrich, Peter Flint, Dieter Böhler, Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, and Adrian Schenker at the interface of textual and literary criticism.

Is it possible to replace Wellhausen’s understanding of the relationship of the religion of Israel to that of Judaism and of the relationship of the Jesus of the Synoptics to that of Paul and the early Church with something more accurate and compelling in light of everything we’ve learned in the interim? A replacement that does more than turn Wellhausen on his head? Surely. In my next post, I describe a new paradigm.

Bibliography

Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Series on Levinson’s Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel

Bernard Levinson and the Conflict of Interpretations in the Bible
Point and Counterpoint: The Meaning of Canon
The Ten Commandments: A History of Monotheism in Miniature
Why the Decalogue insists on the crossgenerational transfer of the consequences of human behavior
A Bibliographic Essay on Inner-biblical Exegesis

For other comment on this volume, and a summary of its subject matter, check out the publisher’s introduction here.

J'ai commencé à réfléchir à un moment où notre culture agressait d'autres cultures dont je me suis alors fait le défenseur et le témoin. Maintenant, j'ai l'impression que le mouvement s'est inversé et que notre culture est sur la défensive vis-à-vis des menaces extérieures, parmi lesquelles figure probablement l'explosion islamique. Du coup je me sens fermement et ethnologiquement défenseur de ma culture. (propos recueillis par Dominique-Antoine Grisoni, "Un dictionnaire intime", in Magazine littéraire , hors-série, 2003).

I began to reflect [on the subject matter of cultural hegemony] at a point in time in which our culture was the aggressor relative to other cultures which I on my part defended and on whose behalf I served as a favorable witness. More recently, I have the impression that the momentum is reversed and that our culture is on the defensive vis-à-vis external menaces, among which probably figures the Islamic explosion. As a result I now think of myself, firmly and ethnologically, as a defender of my own culture.

It is not yet chic academically to make a statement like the one just quoted. Then again, academic fashion and truth are not known to be in any kind of strict correlation. Go here for more background. (HT: Celucien Joseph)

On this view, faced with his fellow expatriates’ moral blame-game, their acquiescence to a fate they cannot control, Ezekiel throws as it were a Hail Mary (my metaphor, not Levinson’s). As Levinson puts it, Ezekiel counters by insisting that “freedom, moral action, and repentance [are] the sole forces that govern human action” (67).

In the following, I take Levinson’s conclusions in a direction unlike the one he develops. Levinson’s take on the history of moral theory is radically innovative in that, with Ezekiel, Aristotle, Paul, Catholic and Protestant Christianity, and Kant firmly in view, he bypasses the middle terms and draws a direct line between Ezekiel and Kant. My take is more traditional. It goes like this.

Ezekiel is a towering figure in the history of ethics. Next to Aristotle and Paul, it is hard to think of any other individual in antiquity who grappled with the issues more than he.

It is hard to think of a more theocentric theorist than Ezekiel. In this he resembles Paul, not Aristotle. At the same time, it is hard to think of a biblical author who seeks to nurture responsible moral agency more than Ezekiel.

The fact brings to light a paradox, one which both moderns and post-moderns fail to grasp: in the shadow of a strong, overpowering God like that of Ezekiel, strong, almost Promethean human moral agency is nurtured. Conversely, the tragedy of our age, not just of Ezekiel’s forlorn compatriots, is that under an empty sky, moral weakness flourishes. Strong moral agency lacks a leg to stand on.

Under an empty sky, moral agency retreats into a purely imaginary world. It tends to exhaust itself in the expression of ideological preferences. The contrast with, for example, the earth that exists below the strong, overpowering God of Calvin’s heirs is striking. The overarching God of the Huguenots and Puritans – Prussia and Prussia’s Berlin, it might be noted, are creatures of Frederick the Great, and therefore of Calvin’s, not Luther’s Reformation² – creates a space in which moral action is privileged and human initiative exalted. Immense human undertakings like epic voluntary migrations, the theory and practice of capitalism, revolution, and international law (Grotius) take place in this framework under the aegis of God’s blessing and transcendent determination. In this framework, God is the Moral Absolute who underwrites the moral absolutes human beings negotiate.

Conversely, the absent God of Christa Wolf – if there be a lesson in her great novel entitled Cassandra, viewed against the foil of her life – creates a space, within the imagination, for a titanic struggle between things like matriarchy and patriarchy, but within the real world, for nothing more than the usual compromises and contradictions. Excuse me if I use Wolf as an example. She is little-known outside of continental Europe. But she deserves to be better-known.

What if it is true that strong moral agency is best nurtured within a framework which plays up the extent to which actions are judged by a principle of justice the force of which exceeds that of fate by several orders of magnitude? Under an empty sky, in a world in which justice is purely immanent, strong moral agency, except as a throwback based on other paradigms, may not even be possible.

The Decalogue’s insistence on the cross-generational transfer of the consequences of human behavior is, I submit, of a piece with Ezekiel’s denial thereof. The goal in both cases is to nurture strong moral agency. Stress on the transfer in the context of the Decalogue is meant to deter moral slackness. Denial of the transfer in the context of Ezekiel’s moral tirades serves the very same goal.

Sometimes the only way an alcoholic, a gambler, or a womanizer, whose father was probably the same, can reinvent himself is by looking into the face of his daughter, someone he loves more than himself, and not looking back. If the only thing at stake were his own life, he might choose not to choose. For the sake of his daughter, perhaps his granddaughter (a subtheme of The Bucket List²), he does what he otherwise would not do.

Here are the key passages Levinson cites. Exod 20:5-6:

כִּי אָנֹכִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֵל קַנָּא פֹּקֵד עֲוֺן אָבֹת עַל־בָּנִים עַל־שִׁלֵּשִׁים וְעַל־רִבֵּעִים לְשֹׂנְאָי וְעֹשֶׂה חֶסֶד לַאֲלָפִים לְאֹהֲבַי וּלְשֹׁמְרֵי מִצְוֺתָי

For I am יהוה your God, a God who brooks no rivals, who visits the guilt of parents on their children to the third and fourth generation - of my despisers; but who deals kindly to the thousandth generation of my friends, of those who adhere to my demands.

Ezek 18:1-4:

וַיְהִי דְבַר־יְהוָה אֵלַי לֵאמֹר׃ מַה־לָּכֶם אַתֶּם מֹשְׁלִים אֶת־הַמָּשָׁל הַזֶּה עַל־אַדְמַת יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר אָבוֹת יֹאכְלוּ בֹסֶר וְשִׁנֵּי הַבָּנִים תִּקְהֶינָה׃ חַי־אָנִי נְאֻם אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה אִם־יִהְיֶה לָכֶם עוֹד מְשֹׁל הַמָּשָׁל הַזֶּה בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל׃ הֵן כָּל־הַנְּפָשׁוֹת לִי הֵנָּה כְּנֶפֶשׁ הָאָב וּכְנֶפֶשׁ הַבֵּן לִי־הֵנָּה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַחֹטֵאת הִיא תָמוּת

The word of יהוה came to me: “What’s with you that you quote this proverb about the land of Israel: ‘Parents eat sour grapes, but it’s their children’s teeth that are blunted’? Cross my heart and hope to die - pronouncement of יהוה - if this proverb continues among you, against Israel! Look: the breath of all souls is mine. The breath of the soul of a father like that of a son. They are mine. The soul that sins, that soul alone shall die.

In effect, as Levinson points out, Ezekiel “devoices” the attribution to God of the doctrine of the cross-generational transfer of the consequences of human behavior per Exod 20:5-6 and “revoices” it as folk wisdom (63).

Bibliography

Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Series on Levinson’s Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel

Bernard Levinson and the Conflict of Interpretations in the Bible

For other comment on this volume, and a summary of its subject matter, check out the publisher’s introduction here.

¹ Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 51-88.

² In 1685, the year Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg issued the Edict of Potsdam, an invitation to Huguenots in France suffering under an illiberal and despotic regime to come and live abroad in peace and safety. Thousands came. At one point, more French Huguenots lived in Berlin than Germans. Modern history is incomprehensible without attention to the mass migrations, not only of Puritans to colonial America, but of Huguenots to Germany and Dutch Calvinists to South Africa.

³ Lines from The Bucket List which covertly handle the issue of transgenerational punishment include Edward Cole (italics mine): “The first time he hit her, she came to me. Wouldn't let me take care of it, said it was her fault, he'd had a rough day and too much to drink. The next time he hit her, she didn't come to me. The ex told me about it. So I wanted to be a good father, so I took care of it. I called a guy who called a guy who called his friends, they didn't kill him, what they did, I don't know, but he never bothered her again, and then she said I was dead to her.” Carter Chambers to Edward Cole: “Virginia said I left a stranger and came back a husband; I owe that to you. There's no way I can repay you for all you've done for me, so rather than try, I'm just going to ask you to do something else for me - find the joy in your life. You once said you're not everyone. Well, that's true-you're certainly not everyone, but everyone is everyone. My pastor always says our lives are streams flowing into the same river towards whatever heaven lies in the mist beyond the falls. Find the joy in your life, Edward. My dear friend, close your eyes and let the waters take you home.” Cole goes on to reconcile with his daughter, and experience himself as grandfather to his grandchildren.

No one can read Buber’s essay without being overcome by the ever-incipient tragedy of the quest for a philosopher-king and a suitable Republic. Plato’s quest in the real world for the realization of his Republic ended, not once but more than once and without fail, in disaster. Not a minor detail, unless philosophy be understood as little more than a cerebral version of a drunken stupor.

Finally, who can fail to be saddened by the failure of the prophet Isaiah as Buber recounts it? It is not difficult to conclude that Buber’s own sense of failure is encapsulated in the essay.

Like Cassandra, Isaiah spent a night in the temple of his God, at which time the temple snakes licked his ears clean so that he was able to hear the future.¹ Like Apollo, Isaiah’s God sees to it that no one will believe Isaiah’s predictions. According to Isaiah 6, the prophet spoke the truth to power in full consciousness of the fact that his advice was destined to be ignored.

No matter that such accords with human experience. The history of interpretation of Isaiah 6 is largely the story of wish-projection in which interpreter after interpreter corrects the extant text in favor of a gentler, more amenable deity. But if reality corresponds to the extant text, what advantage is there in imagining another deity, unattested in the text, and unattested in reality as we experience it?

The political dimension of life is a minefield in which nothing is more explosive and destructive than having a philosopher-king at the helm, except perhaps having a prophet foresee the future without the ability to effect a change in outcome. Yet how many people continue to look for salvation in the political dimension. An illustration, it seems to me, of a well-known aphorism: “beggars can’t be choosers.”

¹ To be sure, the “metaphors” in Isaiah 6 are somewhat different. The seraphim put a burning coal to Isaiah’s mouth. Per the usual, the hieratic language of this passage of Scripture is more realistic than that of the Greek myths.

Bibliography

Martin Buber, “Plato and Isaiah,” in idem, Israel and the World: Essays in a Time of Crisis (2d ed.; New York: Schocken Books, 1963 [1948]) 103-112

If Levinson is right, the Ten Words reflect the history of Israelite monotheism in miniature: the transition from monolatry – worship of one God only, but with other nations having their own gods, attested in earlier versions of Deuteronomy 32, sources of the book of Judges, and beyond – to monotheism, in which “other gods” are understood as no gods at all, whose presence on earth in the form of inhabited images are construed as being nothing more than vacuous simulacra the making of which had long been forbidden.

As Levinson puts it (51):

Most likely, [Exodus 20] verse 5 would originally have continued directly after verse 3. At a later stage in the history of Israelite religion, as monotheism replaced monolatry, the recognition here of the existence of deities other than Yahweh became problematic or was no longer understood. It was “corrected” by means of the insertion of verse 4 to refer instead to the worship of inert idols.

Levinson reaches this conclusion based on the observation of grammatical detail. “Other gods” in 20:3 is picked up by “them” in 20:5. 20:4 is intrusive to this grammatical continuum (50).

The transition from monolatry to monotheism may not have been sudden. Regardless, full-blown monotheism is amply attested by the late 7^th and 6^th cent. bce, in Jeremiah and Isaiah 40-55. Conversely, monolatry is clearly attested in the earliest material only preserved in the Bible. That being the case, it makes sense to date an iteration of the Ten Commandments without Exod 20:4 to that earliest period.

Nothing stands in the way of an early dating of the Ten Commandments in nuce. To be clear, much of their current content is easily understood as secondary expansion. Below, a rough-and-ready attempt to imagine what the Ten Words might have looked like in, say, the 9^th cent. bce, quite possibly, earlier still. I propose this date on the assumption that the substance of texts like Deut 26:5-10; Amos 2:4-3:2; and Ps 78 belong to the earliest recoverable stage of the history of the religion of Israel. The advantage of a speculative reconstruction of this kind is that basic features of the text are more readily visible. Seen from this perspective, the divine “I” of the Ten Commandments is the guarantor of the unmolested freedom of a nation. With the goal of preserving that freedom, the same “I” demands exclusive worship and requires a day of rest, the respect of familial bonds, and other’s corporate inviolability.

0 אָנֹכִי יְהוָה
   הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם
   מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים

1 לֹא יִהְיֶה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנָיַ

2 לֹא־תִשְׁתַּחְוֶה לָהֶם וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם

3 זָכוֹר אֶת־יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת לְקַדְּשׁוֹ

4 כַּבֵּד אֶת־אָבִיךָ וְאֶת־אִמֶּךָ

5 לֹא תִּרְצָח

6 לֹא תִּנְאָף

7 לֹא תִּגְנֹב

8 לֹא־תַעֲנֶה בְרֵעֲךָ עֵד שָׁקֶר

9 לֹא תַחְמֹד בֵּית רֵעֶךָ

10 לֹא־תַחְמֹד אֵשֶׁת רֵעֶךָ
    וְעַבְדּוֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ וְשׁוֹרוֹ וַחֲמֹרוֹ

(0) I am יהוה.
      I brought you out of Egypt land,
      out of the house of bondage.

(1) You shall have no other gods beside me.
(2) You shall not bow down to them or serve them.

(3) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
(4) Honor your father and mother.

(5) You shall not kill.
(6) You shall not commit adultery.
(7) You shall not steal.

(8) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
(9) You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.
(10) You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, 
       his bondsman or his bondswoman, his ox or his donkey.

Bibliography

Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Series on Levinson’s Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel

Bernard Levinson and the Conflict of Interpretations in the Bible
Point and Counterpoint: The Meaning of Canon
The Ten Commandments: A History of Monotheism in Miniature
Why the Decalogue insists on the crossgenerational transfer of the consequences of human behavior
A Bibliographic Essay on Inner-biblical Exegesis

For other comment on this volume, and a summary of its subject matter, check out the publisher’s introduction here. 

אין לה מנחם מכל אוהביה - אמרו אותו היום שנכנסו אויבים לעיר והחריבו בית המקדש, היה חוץ לירושלים יהודי אחד חורש במחרשתו, וראה שהפרה שהיה חורש בה הפילה את עצמה לארץ, ולא הייתה רוצה לחרוש, אלא תמיד הייתה גרעה [גערה],

There is none to comfort her of all who love her (Lam 1:2) - They said: The very day enemies converged on the city and destroyed the enclosure of the sanctuary, outside Jerusalem a Jew was plowing with his plow. He saw that the cow he was plowing with threw herself to the ground. She had no desire to plow, but balked continually, again and again.

ראה אותה האיש ונבהל מאוד, והיה מכה את הפרה כדי שתחרוש, ולא הייתה רוצה, אלא תמיד הייתה מפלת עצמה לארץ, והוא מכה אותה תמיד, עד ששמע קול אומר: מה לך לפרה, הנח אותה, שהיא צועקת על חורבן הבית ועל מקדש שנשרף היום.

The man saw it and was distraught. He went on beating the cow so that she would plow, but she had no desire to. Instead, she threw herself to the ground continually. He continued to beat the cow, until he heard a voice say, “What do you have against the cow? Let her be, for she cries out on account of the destruction of the enclosure and of the sanctuary that burned down today.”

 שמע האיש, מיד קרע את בגדיו, ותלש את שערו וצעק, ונתן אפר על ראשו ובכה ואמר אוי נא לי, אוי נא לי.

When the man heard, he rent his garments then and there, plucked out his hair, cried out, and put ashes on his head. He wept, and said, “Misfortune is mine! Misfortune is mine!”

לאחר ב' או ג' שעות עמדה הפרה על רגליה ורקדה ושמחה, תמה האיש מאוד, שמע קול אומר טעון וחרוש כי בשעה זאת נולד משיח,

Two or three hours later, the cow stood up on her legs and skipped and rejoiced. The man was totally astonished. He heard a voice saying: “Load up and plow, for this very hour, Messiah was born.”

שמע האיש רחץ פניו וקם ושמח הלך לביתו ולקח רצועות ארוכות של משי לתינוקות להעציבם בעריסם, לקחם והלך לירושלים, וכשבא לעיר לקחם ונתנם על זרועותיו, וקרא ברחוב העיר, מי יקנה פרה לבנו או לבתו,

When the man heard, he washed his face, arose, and rejoiced. He went home and retrieved long silken straps for babies to tie to their beds. He retrieved them and went to Jerusalem, and when he entered the city, he took them, put them on his arms, and called out in the town square, “Who would purchase a cow for his son or his daughter?”

שמעה שכנת אם משיח, ואמרה לו לך לבית פלוני, שהרי ילד יולד לה, הלך ונכנס לבית ואמר להם קנה לבנך רצועה, אמרה לו לא אקנה לו, כי הוא נולד יום שנחרב בית המקדש, ארור היום שהוא נולד בו,

Shechinat, the mother of Messiah, heard and said to him, “Go to so-and-so’s house, because a child was born to it.” He went and converged on the house and said to them, “Purchase a strap for your son.” She said to him, “I will not purchase it for him, because he was born the day on which the enclosure of the sanctuary was destroyed. Cursed the day on which he was born!”

מיד בא האיש אצל הילד ונשקו על ראשו ונתן לו רצועה, וביקש האם עליו והלך לו לביתו, ובכל שנה ושנה בא לירושלים לראותו. ושם הילד מנחם בן עמיאל, שנה אחת בא לירושלים ונכנס לבית, מיד הרימה אם הילד קולה, ואמרה אין לה מנחם שהרי נגנז, והוא שכתוב אין לה מנחם מכל אוהביה"

מדרש זוטא איכה (בובר)-נוסח ב' פרשה א', על הפסוק: אין לה מנחם

The man went beside the child right then and there, kissed him on the head, gave him a strap, and beseeched the mother on his behalf. He made his way home, but year after year he went to Jerusalem to see him. The name of the child: Menachem ben Amiel. One year he went to Jerusalem and converged on the house. Right then and there, the mother of the child raised her voice and said, “No one can comfort (Menachem) her, because he is hidden! And it is as written, “There is none to comfort her of all who love her.”

Midrash Zuta, Eikha [Buber] - Nusach 2, 1

In light of the child-Messiah's disappearance, the following is bittersweet:

הַיּוֹם בּוֹ נוֹלַדְתָּ

הוּא הַיּוֹם בּוֹ הֶחְלִיט הקב"ה

שֶׁהָעוֹלָם אֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לְהִתְקַיֵּים בַּלְעֲדֶיךָ

רבי נחמן מברסלב

The day on which you were born,
that is the day on which God declared
that the world could not be preserved without you.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

But one might dare to believe, of others still:

יום נולדת בו
הוא היום אמר יהוה
אין מנחם לארץ ושמים בלעדיך

שאילמלא דם ברית לא נתקיים שמים וארץ
שנאמר
אם לא בריתי יומם ולילה חקות שמים וארץ לא שמתי
[ירמיהו לג:כה]

ברכות פרק ו, תוספתא יח

If not for the blood of the covenant,
heaven and earth would not be preserved,
as it is said:
Were it not for my covenant,
day and night,
the laws of heaven and earth,
I would not have established.

Berachot 6, Tosefta 18

For context and discussion, go here. Both Judaism and Christianity are “bloody” religions. Though the primary reference differs – in Judaism, it is the blood of circumcision; in Christianity, that shed by the Messiah on the cross – in both cases, the blood of the covenant is the axis on which the world turns.

אילמלא תורה לא נתקיימו שמים וארץ
שנאמר
אם לא בריתי יומם ולילה חקות שמים וארץ לא שמתי
[ירמיהו לג:כה]

פסחים · סח ב

If not for Torah
heaven and earth would not be preserved,
as it is said:
Were it not for my covenant,
day and night,
the laws of heaven and earth,
I would not have established.

Talmud Bavli, Pesahim 68, 2

If not for the blood of the covenant, if not for the Torah, but then, by the same token: if not for the one whose blood is shed, if not for the one who upholds Torah, heaven and earth would not be preserved.

Ergo:

הַיּוֹם בּוֹ נוֹלַדְתָּ

הוּא הַיּוֹם בּוֹ הֶחְלִיט הקב"ה

שֶׁהָעוֹלָם אֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לְהִתְקַיֵּים בַּלְעֲדֶיךָ

רבי נחמן מברסלב

The day on which you were born,
that is the day on which God declared
that the world could not be preserved without you.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

היום בו נולדת
הוא היום בו החליט הקב"ה
שהעולם אינו יכול להתקיים בלעדיך

As translated in the book:

The day you were born
is the day God decided
that the world could not exist without you.

There you have it, fused in a single affirmation, a sense of God’s election of each and every human being, the essential role “you” fulfill. What a beautiful thought to impress on one’s child. The quote is attributed to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, an attribution I do not doubt. Nonetheless, given that the quote derives from a great Hasid, the above translation without a doubt understates the import of the Hebrew.

Here is the blessing once again, vocalized and retranslated:

הַיּוֹם בּוֹ נוֹלַדְתָּ
הוּא הַיּוֹם בּוֹ הֶחְלִיט הקב"ה
שֶׁהָעוֹלָם אֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לְהִתְקַיֵּים בַּלְעֲדֶיךָ

רבי נחמן מברסלב

The day on which you were born,
that is the day on which God declared
that the world could not be preserved without you.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

That החליט means “adjudicate, (legally) declare,” not “decide,” is, I think, well-known. I refer the interested reader to the relevant loci cited by Jastrow (the standard dictionary, woefully out of date, of the Talmud and Midrashim).

That התקיים means “continue to exist,” not simply “exist,” and more precisely, in a context like this one, “be preserved,” is also not a controversial claim.

Without you taking your place in the world, heaven and earth would not stay in place. This is what Rabbi Nachman of Breslov affirms. It is an expression of confidence in the election of all things. In my next post, the deep background to this affirmation.

Point 1: “The canon is radically open.” In the Bible, the principle of reality and the principle of justice are one and the same. The maker of all that is, the alef of all that occurs, the giver of all norms and all wisdom, is identified with the judge who promises the tau of justice and reconciliation. Anticipation of the promise’s fulfillment variously understood, far more than disenchantment with its non-realization, sets in motion a conflict of interpretations. But the terms of the conflict are established. They are not subject to revision. The canon is radically open and radically closed at the same time.

Point 2: “It invites innovation.” It invites innovation within an established framework. Innovation occurs within a tradition of innovation. Innovation is traditioned, and is designed to preserve tradition.

Point 3. “It demands interpretation.” At the same time, the Bible is its own interpreter. It contains interpretation, and demands that that interpretation be treated on a par with that which is interpreted. No matter how strident the conflict, the whole is the preferred starting point of further interpretation.

Point 4. “It challenges piety.” It ridicules impiety, the eventual lack of pietas, of devotion to God, country, and family.  

Point 5. “It questions priority.” It questions priority in the name of more fundamental priorities.

Point 6. “It sanctifies subversion.” It sanctifies the subversion of one tradition on the basis of another. It sanctifies the subversion of subversion.

Point 7. “It warrants difference.” It strives for coherence. However tentatively, it harmonizes.

Point 8. “It embeds critique.” It resists critique that proceeds on the assumption that God does not care. If that conclusion is reached, it is nonetheless understood to be a completely reprehensible fact.

A disclaimer. Levinson’s definition of canon is not meant to be comprehensive. As he puts it (94):

Seen from that vantage point [of a corpus that sanctions theory; italics mine], the canon is radically open. It invites innovation, it demands interpretation, it challenges piety, it questions priority, it sanctifies subversion, it warrants difference, and it embeds critique.

Furthermore, my counterpoint to point 3 receives extraordinary emphasis by Levinson throughout his essay. It is the leitmotif of the whole, on the basis of which all of his above points are cogent. The realities in the text to which my counterpoints remand are in productive tension with the realities to which Levinson’s points remand. Finally, though Levinson chooses to focus on the extent to which the canon sanctifies subversion, he is not unaware of an another, equally powerful inner dynamic which he associates in particular with the latest layers of the biblical text (83):

Once read closely, the Pentateuch everywhere makes it clear that it has a vital legal and intellectual history in which later authors and editors respond to, challenge, reinterpret, reconcile, expand, and harmonize the earlier layers of the legal tradition. The latest layers of the Pentateuch are replete with examples where editors actively seek to create a uniform Scripture and a coherent tradition out of such divergence.

My counterpoints to points 2 and 7 are more modest than, and in fact somewhat contrary to, the remarks just quoted. I am not convinced that it is typical of earlier tradition to permit difference and sanction subversion, and typical of later tradition to create uniformity. I don't find that to be the case with, for example, Chronicles over against the Primary History; Qohelet over against Proverbs; the earlier Psalms over against the later Psalms; and so on. Indeed, if it is the case that Deut 7:9-10, a text which creates difference, not similarity, is to be classified as one of the finishing touches to Deuteronomy (a proposal Levinson is comfortable with [83]), the creation of divergence, not uniformity, must be acknowledged as constitutive of the ongoing development of doxological affirmations as well.    

Bibliography

Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Series on Levinson’s Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel

Bernard Levinson and the Conflict of Interpretations in the Bible
Point and Counterpoint: The Meaning of Canon
The Ten Commandments: A History of Monotheism in Miniature
Why the Decalogue insists on the crossgenerational transfer of the consequences of human behavior
A Bibliographic Essay on Inner-biblical Exegesis

For other comment on this volume, and a summary of its subject matter, check out the publisher’s introduction here.

The Bible possesses a seemingly endless capacity for holding irreconcilable truths in unreconciled tension, and demanding respect for those truths in the form of specific doxological and halachic determinations. For that very reason, in that very sense, the canon formula is accurate:

אֵת כָּל־הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוֶּה אֶתְכֶם
אֹתוֹ תִשְׁמְרוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת
לֹא־תֹסֵף עָלָיו
וְלֹא תִגְרַע מִמֶּנּוּ

Everything I demand of you
you must take care to do.
You must not add to it,
and you must not subtract from it. (Deut 13:1)

The formula creates the need for a “strong reader,” as is evident as soon as it is acknowledged that the demands and prospects of the divine “I” over the length of the biblical canon³ are incommensurate with reality and more or less inapplicable in times and places subsequent to the time and place presupposed in the texts. Specifically, across the mosaic of biblical miṣvāh (injunction), the miṣvōt (injunctions) are in unreconciled tension with each other. Not one of the injunctions of the divine “I,” taken by itself, makes any sense. Everything, taken together, raises just as many questions as it answers. The Sages – and Jesus, James, and Paul – were perfectly aware of this.

The selfsame doxological affirmations of Torah – the Shema Yisrael and the Thirteen Modes of Divine Mercy – cry out for interpretation. How shall one interpret the claim that one and the same God is Lord of history, Lord of Israel, and Judge of both? Should we set aside these mysteries, something the Bible does not do even when it says it does, the question remains: how shall one interpret the injunction that everything the Lord requires of us, we must take care to do?

The Bible, as Levinson emphasizes, is interpretation in the above senses. That is its definition.

It is never just the precise content of ortho-doxy and ortho-praxy⁴ that is at issue in the Bible. It is the meaning and purpose of such, and that meaning is, everywhere and always, given in narrative theology:

כִּי־יִשְׁאָלְךָ בִנְךָ מָחָר לֵאמֹר
מָה הָעֵדֹת וְהַחֻקִּים וְהַמִּשְׁפָּטִים
אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ אֶתְכֶם
וְאָמַרְתָּ לְבִנְךָ
עֲבָדִים הָיִינוּ לְפַרְעֹה בְּמִצְרָיִם
וַיּוֹצִיאֵנוּ יְהוָה מִמִּצְרַיִם בְּיָד חֲזָקָה . . .
וְאוֹתָנוּ הוֹצִיא . . .
לָתֶת לָנוּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֵינוּ
וַיְצַוֵּנוּ יְהוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת־כָּל־הַחֻקִּים הָאֵלֶּה
לְיִרְאָה אֶת־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ
לְטוֹב לָנוּ
כָּל־הַיָּמִים
לְחַיֹּתֵנוּ
כְּהַיּוֹם הַזֶּה׃

Should your son ask you on the morrow,
“What about the terms, dispositions, and customs
יהוה our God demanded of you?”
you shall tell your son,
“Slaves we were to Pharaoh in Egypt land.
יהוה brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand. . . .

And when he brought us out, us as in all of us, . . .
to give us the land he swore to our fathers,
יהוה demanded we keep all these dispositions
out of reverence for יהוה our God,
for our own good,
at all times,
for our survival,
in the now.”  (Deut 6:20-24)

The synchronization is clear. Participation therein, immedesimazione – a technical term for the capacity of actors to “make themselves one” with their personae – with the addressed “you” in the text, is the foundational event the text requires. Deut 6:20-24 falls within the purview of 13:1. Everything, including this, must be observed, in the triple sense of “noted,” “acknowledged,” and “practiced.”

It also proved possible, based on new facts, to weave new tapestries. Judaism and Christianity are witnesses thereto. Oceanic deposits of text – the deuterocanonical and pseudepigraphical literature, the New Testament, the Mishnah and early Midrashim are mere examples – are witnesses thereto. These too are preservative additions, but they stand outside the original whole. In Jewish and Christian tradition, the primary tapestry survives, tightly woven, delimited, infrangible. It is called the Tanach, or Primeval Testament. It endures as a perpetual point of first departure. As such it is appropriated every Shabbat, every Lord’s Day, in the remotest village in Africa, in the bowels of Caracas, Shanghai, and Manila, in Jerusalem, Topeka, and Montreal.

But within the “university” falsely so-called, to quote Levinson (93),

[T]he biblical text, in particular, is regarded as a parade example of an unredeemed text that encodes and perpetuates concepts of power, hierarchy, domination, privilege, xenophobia, patriarchy, and colonialism.

In the book I here quote, Levinson tackles “the false dichotomies that are repeatedly projected on to” the biblical text (93). His method is covert and indirect rather than confrontational. He takes a road less traveled by, one of patient exegesis. This is possible, in my view, precisely because the canon is a coincidence of opposites in unresolved nervous tension. As such, the canon sanctions theory, and traditioned innovation which springs from it.

Levinson puts it this way (94) – I will nonetheless counterpoint these affirmations in my next post:

Seen from that vantage point [of a corpus that sanctions theory], the canon is radically open. It invites innovation, it demands interpretation, it challenges piety, it questions priority, it sanctifies subversion, it warrants difference, and it embeds critique.

Bibliography

Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. I thank Joyce Reid of CUP-New York for sending me a review copy.

For the notion of "preservative additions," which goes back to John Henry Newman, I refer the reader to Chapter 4, "Development of Doctrine: Patterns and Criteria," in the seminal work by Jaroslav Pelikan, Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution (John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004) 115-149. 

Series on Levinson’s Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel

Bernard Levinson and the Conflict of Interpretations in the Bible
Point and Counterpoint: The Meaning of Canon
The Ten Commandments: A History of Monotheism in Miniature
Why the Decalogue insists on the crossgenerational transfer of the consequences of human behavior
A Bibliographic Essay on Inner-biblical Exegesis

For other comment on this volume, and a summary of its subject matter, check out the publisher’s introduction here.

¹ This phrase, employed by Carl Schmitt to describe Roman Catholicism as a complex of opposites, a juxtaposition of antitheses which resist all attempts at synthesis, applies equally well – better still – to the Bible, as Schmitt recognized: “[T]his complexio oppositorum also holds sway over everything theological; the Old and New Testaments are scriptural canon; the Marcionitic either-or [aut aut] is answered with an as-well-as [et et]” (Carl Schmitt, Roman Catholicism and Political Form [tr. and annotated by G. L. Ulmen; Contributions in Political Science 380; Westport: Greenwood, 1996 (1923)] 7).

² This phrase, or the first part of it, goes back to Paul Ricoeur. I have in mind something very basic: the conflict of interpretations and the interpretation of conflict that arises in the course of all historical and embodied existence. On the ground, in life, the logical inconsistencies of facts and desires give rise to recursive recognition of an unresolved situation which, in the biblical canon, is not merely articulated, but attacked even if that means fighting to the point of self-injury (Jacob) or self-immolation (Jesus).

³ The foundational norm of all pre-modern exegesis, scripturam ex scriptura explicandam esse, the analogia totius scripturae, derives its force from the canon formula.

⁴ Ortho-doxy is articulating truth, if necessary, counterfactually; ortho-praxy is practicing truth through mimetic action.

One of the preliminary steps in interpreting a biblical text is identifying its literary genre. Esther (like many biblical books) has proven something of a challenge in this regard. While the text reads like a historical account (similar to the books of Kings and Chronicles), appearances can be deceptive. Modern novelists can embellish their stories with historical details and local color, not for the purpose of deception but for vividness and realism.

Tomasino goes on to associate Esther with the ancient genre known by the label “court tale” in modern scholarship (3:472):

[T]hese stories are set in the royal court. The drama occurs when a hero uses skill or luck to foil enemy plots. In the process, the hero receives wealth, power, and/or glory. (The biblical stories of Joseph and Daniel are examples of court tales.) The tale of Ahiqar, about an Assyrian courtier who uses his wits to overcome a treacherous nephew’s machinations, was well known and loved by both Jews and other Near Eastern peoples.

Tomasino goes on to compare the book of Esther with the book of Judith, and notes that both contain an element of comedy, “an under-appreciated aspect of ancient Near Eastern literature” (3:472). He also notes the irony in the fact that the book of Esther contains no reference to God, no prayers, sacrifices, or other religious observances, yet “God seems to lurk everywhere in the background of this book.” What excellent points.

Tomasino is not interested in making chop suey of those who think that Esther is to be understood along the lines of, let us say, a modern historical biography. But he gently argues for another approach. The same tone and the same interpretive approach are evident in the recent commentary of Adele Berlin in the JPS Bible Commentary Series.

Neither Tomasino nor Berlin think of their scholarship as in conflict with the robust forms of Christianity and Judaism, respectively, to which they adhere. They are simply trying to read the book of Esther on its own terms.

Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary 
A Review Series

Reading Genesis as if Moses wrote it in the Late Bronze Age
The ZIBBC: An Overview
Genre Identifications in the ZIBBC Part One
Genre Identifications in the ZIBBC Part Two
Genre Identifications in the ZIBBC Part Three
Genre Identifications in the ZIBBC Part Four

Bibliography

Adele Berlin, Esther (JPS Bible Commentary Series; Philadephia: Jewish Publication Society, 2001); John H. Walton, general editor. Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. 5 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.

Chris Myers, the volunteer chef for the dinner, chefs at one of the best New Orleans restaurants, and will offer a spread of local cuisine, vegetarian, meat, and “kosher” options (provisional menu available on request). Bar is not part of the dinner, but will be available, at the attendees’ discretion. The cost of the dinner for attendees is $50 a head, the proceeds of which, after expenses, will be devolved to a local Episcopalian charity, the Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative (http://www.jerichohousing.org/). The goal is to raise $1000. The dinner part of the evening will last from 7 to 8. The bar will, we think, be open until 10. The book presentation and signing will occur, 8 to 9 (mingling time at the beginning of about 10 minutes).

We will have pre-reserved copies of volume 2 of AYB Proverbs by Michael Fox on hand at a 33% discount ($40.50) thanks to the generosity of Eisenbrauns, the premier bookseller of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern books in the world. Note well: that price is as good as it gets, better than Yale U Press’s 30% SBL discount rate.

If you wish to attend the dinner, and/or reserve a copy of AYB Proverbs 10-31 to be signed by the author following the dinner, please contact me at jfhobbins@gmail.com. Dinner reservations at the moment stand at 24, with others seeking to clear their calendar so as to permit participation.

If you are a bona fide penniless graduate student, and would like to attend the dinner but not shell out $50, do not despair. You can offer to help the cook prepare the food, act as a server, and/or clean up afterwards. You can do that anyway, if you wish to work with a master chef.

It is also our hope that you will help out in some way with the biblioblogs.com site (see the earlier post to that effect). 

Brandon and I hope to see you in New Orleans and we appreciate your participation in the biblioblogs.com project should that interest you. Thank you for taking the time to ponder this invitation.

Sincerely,

John Hobbins  ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com

Brandon Wason  sitzimleben.com

Blogs listed will be active blogs one or more of whose authors

(1) Is a member of a recognized community of students and scholars such as EABS, Tyndale House, SBL, IBR, CBA, ETS, SIL, AAR, ASOR, and AOS. The above list of communities is not meant to be comprehensive in any way. Blogs will be listed when membership in one or much such communities is acknowledged by the blogger;

(2) Blogs on issues of biblical criticism and interpretation in interaction with a broad cross-section of biblical scholarship 18x or more a year ([re-]start-up status factored in) – after a 6-month hiatus, a previously listed “active blog” will be removed;

(3) Keeps a blogroll, a comment function, and/or demonstrates commitment to link to and engage with other blogs that touch on shared interests.

(4) Commercial, institutional and associational blogs will not be listed until someone is in place to manage such a list and limit it to true blogs.

(5 Anonymous blogs are not listed.

(6) All blogs are listed by category, multi-author and semi-anonymous blogs included, alphabetically by blog name (title only, not subtitle).

(7) An aggregate blogroll of all blogs will be provided, alphabetically by blog author (format: first name, last name (if known); in the case of multi-author blogs, listed under the names of at most 3 people;

(8) Blog categories are in terms of primary focus.

There are many bloggers who enjoy interacting with biblical scholarship but do not wish to contribute or get the training to contribute to academic biblical studies and/or related disciplines. When that is the case, it stands to reason that criterion (1) will not be met. Criterion (1) is useful if the goal is to put together a list of scholars and scholars-in-training who are also biblical bloggers. That is our goal here.

To be sure, non-academic bloggers are sometimes more prepared on a topic than their academic counterparts. They are often teachers in communities of faith, seminaries, and/or wider communities (some members of the just-named categories, of course, pursue academics at the same time). But, for reasons of their own, they have chosen not to be scholars, that is, people who do dreary things like deliver papers at associational meetings, contribute to peer-reviewed journals, and otherwise write for academic as well as non-academic readerships.

Some of the best biblical bloggers are bereft of academic pretensions. Conversely, some academically qualified bloggers are known most of all for their dismissive attitude toward those with views other than their own. This is the opposite of scholarship as we understand it. “The Short List of Scholar Bloggers in Biblical Studies and Cognate Disciplines” is not the list of blogs we recommend. It serves another function. It is a measure of the involvement of academic bloggers in online debate. A list of recommended blogs in biblical studies and cognate disciplines might include some of the blogs in the list we plan to offer, and would include others not on the list. For a comprehensive list of biblical bloggers, see The Biblioblog Top 50. 

Blogrolls by Category: A Draft Proposal

ANE & Mediterranean Archaeology
Ancient Near Eastern Context
Hebrew Bible / Old Testament
Judaism of the Greek and Roman Periods
Ancient Mediterranean Context
New Testament
Early Christianity
Bible Translation
History of Interpretation
Reception of the Bible in Literature, Film, Music, and Art
The Bible and Modern Ideologies
Generalists
Serious Fun