Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 125, No. 2 (Summer 2006)

125 2 2006

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Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible T. M. Lemos 225–241 The Neo-Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt and Yahweh’s Answer to Job Michael B. Dick 243–270 The Significance of Jesus’ Death in Mark: Narrative Context and Authorial Audience Sharyn Dowd and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon 271–297 Righteous Bloodshed, Matthew’s Passion Narrative, and the Temple’s Destruction: Lamentations as a Matthean Intertext David M. Moffitt 299–320 Implicating Herodias and Her Daughter in the Death of John the Baptizer: A (Christian) Theological Strategy Ross S. Kraemer 321–349 The Question of Motive in the Case against Morton Smith Scott G. Brown 351–383 A Woman at Prayer: A Critical Note on Psalm 131:2b Melody D. Knowles 385–389 Small Change: Saul to Paul, Again Sean M. McDonough 390–391

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Term Expiring 2006: THOMAS B. DOZEMAN, United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH 45406 PAUL B. DUFF, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 CAROLE R. FONTAINE, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 02459 JUDITH LIEU, King’s College London, London WC2R 2LS United Kingdom MARTTI NISSINEN, University of Helsinki, FIN-00014 Finland KATHLEEN M. O’CONNOR, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA 30031 EUNG CHUN PARK, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA 94960 TURID KARLSEN SEIM, University of Oslo, N-0315 Oslo, Norway BENJAMIN D. SOMMER, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60645 VINCENT L. WIMBUSH, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA 91711 2007: MOSHE BERNSTEIN, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 JOHN ENDRES, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94709 JO ANN HACKETT, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 MATTHIAS HENZE, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251 ROBERT KUGLER, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR 97219 TIMOTHY LIM, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH1 2LX Scotland STEPHEN MOORE, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940 STEPHEN PATTERSON, Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO 63119 EMERSON POWERY, Lee University, Cleveland, TN 37312 ADELE REINHARTZ, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 Canada RICHARD STEINER, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 SZE-KAR WAN, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 02459 2008: ELLEN B. AITKEN, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T5 Canada MICHAEL JOSEPH BROWN, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 TERENCE L. DONALDSON, Wycliffe College, Toronto, ON M5S 1H7 Canada STEVEN FRIESEN, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 JENNIFER GLANCY, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York 13214 A. KATHERINE GRIEB, Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, VA 22304 ARCHIE C. C. LEE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin New Territories, Hong Kong SAR DANIEL MARGUERAT, Université de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland RICHARD D. NELSON, Perkins School of Theology, So. Methodist Univ., Dallas, TX 75275 DAVID L. PETERSEN, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 YVONNE SHERWOOD, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ United Kingdom LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK, University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3RS United Kingdom PATRICIA K. TULL, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY 40205

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JBL 125, no. 2 (2006): 225–241

Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible t. m. lemos [email protected] Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511

Mutilating enemies’ bodies was a common wartime practice in the ancient Near East. One finds in Mesopotamian and Egyptian art many examples of the mutilation of enemies by both these powers, and the Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha, too, attest the widespread nature of the practice.1 According to biblical narratives, the Israelites both experienced said mutilation and practiced it against others, sometimes even against other Israelites when the fighting was not against a foreign group but internal. At first glance, these narratives are striking merely for their brutality, but when one looks further, it becomes apparent that violently altering the bodies of one’s enemies was not a random act of sadistic aggression in ancient Israel but was in fact one that functioned in certain striking and important ways. One of these was that mutilation signaled a newly established power A version of this paper was presented to the Warfare in Ancient Israel consultation at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2004 in San Antonio, Texas. I thank Saul M. Olyan for his mentorship of this project in its various stages. 1 See, e.g., ANEP, nos. 318, 319, 340, 348, and 451; and Jutta Börker-Klähn, Altvorderasiatische Bildstelen und Vergleichbare Felsreliefs (Baghdader Forschungen bd. 4; Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Phillip von Zabern, 1982), bd. 2, photo no. 172. One may find enlargements of some of these photos in Erika Bleibtreu, “Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death,” BAR 17, no. 1 (1991): 52–61, 75. The practice of mutilating enemies is also described in various Assyrian royal inscriptions. See COS 2:113A:262, 2:115B:280; ANET, 288, 295, 302; ARI 2:124, 126; Daniel David Luckenbill, The Annals of Sennacherib (University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications 2; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924), 45–46, etc. The practice is indirectly attested in extrabiblical narrative texts, as well, e.g., CTU 1.3, col. 1, lines 5-13, where Anat fastens the heads of enemy warriors to her back and their hands to her belt. I include apocryphal texts in this analysis because, as will become apparent, the mutilations described within them are in many ways continuous with ancient Near Eastern practice both in symbolism and in manner of execution. The ways in which they are not continuous will also be briefly addressed.

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dynamic between the victim and the aggressor. Another, as we shall see, was that mutilation served to bring shame upon the victim and their community by associating the victim with a lower-status group and/or by effecting an actual status change in the victim.2

I. “Mutilation” and “Shame” Defined Before moving to an examination of biblical texts that describe the practice of mutilating enemies, two key terms merit definition. The first of these is the word “mutilation” itself. This term, as I define it, refers to a negatively constructed somatic alteration. As the phrase “negatively constructed” should imply, conceptions of what qualifies as a mutilation vary from society to society. For example, what an American would consider mutilating is not necessarily what a Pacific Islander or a Nepalese tribesman would consider mutilating; such a construction is dependent on one’s social and cultural norms. Even within a single culture, however, what would be considered normative behavior for one individual is not necessarily what would be considered acceptable for another, for a society’s notions of normativity are often contingent on the age, and especially the gender, of the individual.3 Because constructions of mutilation vary in these ways, this treatment will not be limited to particular acts that we as Americans, or as modern Westerners perhaps, see as mutilating or disfiguring,4 but will instead treat those physical changes which the biblical texts themselves construct as such. The second part of the above definition, that mutilations are “somatic alterations,” refers to the fact that a mutilation is always a result of some physical change, whether by removal of some part of the body, by marking the body, or by manipulating parts of the body. The word mutilation, then, is not synonymous with the word “blemish” in my usage, though both refer to negatively constructed physical attributes, for the word “blemish” (or “defect”) signifies any somatic deviation. Thus, blemishes may be congenital (being born with one eye, for example); they may develop over time (e.g., a skin disease); or they may be caused by an external agent. Mutilations, on the other hand, are always brought about by an external agent or force. They are created; they do not merely arise or spontaneously appear, as a blemish could. To put the matter succinctly: all mutilations are blemishes, but not all blemishes are mutilations. 2 Wolfgang Zwickel also notes that mutilation has the ability to make power relations manifest, but he does not discuss the connection between mutilation and shame, nor does he go far enough in explicating the relationship between mutilation and power. See Zwickel, “Dagons Abgeschlagener Kopf,” VT 44, no. 2 (1994): 238–49. 3 For example, in the United States alteration of the male genitalia (namely, circumcision) is considered by most people to be normal and acceptable while that of the female genitalia is considered barbarous. 4 The words “mutilating” and “disfiguring” will be treated as synonyms here.

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The second term that requires definition is the word “shame.” Much ink has been spilled by anthropologists and psychologists alike in attempting to define what shame is exactly and in contesting the definitions of others.5 In the past decade various biblicists have also devoted energy to applying these definitions to the Hebrew Bible.6 This treatment, like some of those by the latter group of scholars, will not focus on the theoretical issues surrounding the study of shame but will center instead on describing shame in specific contexts in ancient Israel as it relates to mutilation. Thus, I will turn only briefly to a theoretical discussion of shame in order to ground the treatment that follows. Benjamin Kilborne has written that shame “relates: (1) The (internal) experience of disgrace together with fear that . . . others will see how we have 5 For anthropological treatments of shame, see J. G. Peristiany, ed., Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965); Julian Pitt-Rivers, The Fate of Shechem: or, The Politics of Sex: Essays in the Anthropology of the Mediterranean (Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology 19; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); David D. Gilmore, ed., Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean (American Anthropological Association ser. 22; Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association, 1987); and idem, Aggression and Community: Paradoxes of Andalusian Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 162–66; Rosemary J. Coombe, “Barren Ground: Re-conceiving Honour and Shame in the Field of Mediterranean Ethnography,” Anthropologica 32 (1990): 221–38; Millie R. Creighton, “Revisiting Shame and Guilt Cultures: A Forty-year Pilgrimage,” Ethos 18 (1990): 279–307; J. G. Peristiany and Julian Pitt-Rivers, eds., Honor and Grace in Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Gideon M. Kressel, “Shame and Gender,” Anthropological Quarterly 65, no. 1 (1992): 34–46; and the various articles in Social Research 70, no. 4 (2003), among others. More psychological treatments may be found in Carl D. Schneider, Shame, Exposure, and Privacy (Boston: Beacon, 1977); John Deigh, “Shame and Self-Esteem: A Critique,” Ethics 93 (1983): 225–45; Michael Lewis, Shame: The Exposed Self (New York: Free Press, 1992); etc., though some of the discussions cited above have psychological aspects, e.g., those of Creighton or Gilmore. Richard A. Shweder also combines anthropological and psychological approaches (“Toward a Deep Cultural Psychology of Shame,” Social Research 70, no. 4 [2003]: 1109–30). 6 Lyn M. Bechtel, “Shame as a Sanction of Social Control in Biblical Israel: Judicial, Political, and Social Shaming,” JSOT 49 (1991): 47–76; Lillian R. Klein, “Honor and Shame in Esther,” in Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna (ed. Athalya Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 149–75; Saul M. Olyan, “Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations in Ancient Israel and Its Environment,” JBL 115, no. 2 (1996): 201–18; Ken Stone, Sex, Honor, and Power in the Deuteronomistic History (JSOTSup 234; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996); Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin, eds., Honor and Shame in the World of the Bible (Semeia 68; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996); David A. DeSilva, “The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Honor, Shame, and the Maintenance of the Values of a Minority Culture,” CBQ 58 (1996): 433–55; T. Raymond Hobbs, “Reflections on Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations,” JBL 116 (1997): 501–3; Timothy S. Laniak, Shame and Honor in the Book of Esther (SBLDS 165; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998); Johanna Stiebert, The Construction of Shame in the Hebrew Bible: The Prophetic Contribution (JSOTSup 346; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002); etc. There were a few earlier discussions of shame by biblicists, but these did not utilize anthropological research. See, e.g., Simon J. DeVries, “Shame,” IDB 24:305–6; Martin A. Klopfenstein, Scham und Schande nach dem Alten Testament (ATANT 62; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1972); S. Seebass, “#wb,” TDOT 2:50–60; J. Gamberoni, “rpx,” TDOT 5:107–11; E. Kutsch, “Prx,” TDOT 5:203–9.

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dishonored ourselves; (2) The feeling that others are looking on with contempt and scorn at everything we do and don’t do; and (3) A preventative attitude (I must hide or disappear in order not to be disgraced).”7 Although one might contest certain aspects of this definition, it is useful overall because it points to two important characteristics of shame: that it has to do with one’s relation to an other, and particularly with an observing other, and that it is generally seen as relating to honor, or the lack thereof. Relating to the first characteristic, David D. Gilmore writes, “. . . shame is above all visual and public. Unlike guilt, shame requires an audience: the watchful community. In the psychic mechanism of shaming, it is the ‘eye’ of the community and the related sense of paranoic observation that are assimilated to worldview and personality.”8 As was just stated, many researchers have seen shame as being related to honor, and honor as being tied clearly to reputation. In fact, they have seen honor as being almost synonymous with having a good reputation. In the classic formulations of honor put forth by such anthropologists as Julian Pitt-Rivers and J. G. Peristiany, shame was viewed largely as an absence of honor, its binary opposite. More recently, the placing of shame in strict binary opposition to honor has been problematized9—as have been binary oppositions in general10—but this fact does not greatly affect the argument being putting forth here. What is important is that shame, like honor, is inextricably linked to what others think of one, as well as to one’s own perceptions of what others think of one. In the case of shame, it is harm to one’s reputation that elicits a sense of shame. Reputation is, in a sense, an abstracted seeing by others. As Gilmore’s statement makes clear, however, shame 7 Benjamin

Kilborne, “Fields of Shame: Anthropologists Abroad,” Ethos 20 (1992): 231. D. Gilmore, “Honor, Honesty, Shame: Male Status in Contemporary Andalusia,” in Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean, 101. 9 See Michael Herzfeld, “Honour and Shame: Problems in the Comparative Analysis of Moral Systems,” Man 15 (1980): 339–51; Unni Wikan, “Shame and Honour: A Contestable Pair,” Man 19, no. 4 (1984): 635–52; etc. 10 Various poststructuralists have in different ways called into question the usefulness of binary oppositions as analytical tools. See, e.g., Jacques Derrida’s concept of deconstruction, outlined in Of Grammatology (trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976) and Writing and Difference (trans. Alan Bass; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978); the critiques of the opposition subject/object put forth by Gilles Deleuze, in Nietzsche and Philosophy (trans. Hugh Tomlinson; New York: Columbia University Press, 1983) and AntiOedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, written in collaboration with Félix Guattari (trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane; New York: Viking, 1977); Michel Foucault’s ideas regarding medicalization and normalization in, especially, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (trans. Richard Howard; New York: Vintage, 1973), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (trans. Alan Sheridan; New York: Vintage, 1979), and The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction (trans. Robert Hurley; New York: Vintage, 1980); Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of hybridity in The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994); and Judith Butler’s critiques of “gender” and biological “sex” as distinct constructs in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (New York: Routledge, 1993). 8 David

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is elicited also by literal gaze, the scornful gaze of one’s community, or, as will become apparent, of one’s enemies.

II. 1 Samuel 10:27–11:11: Mutilation as Shaming Blemish Turning away from shame in the abstract to shame in the more specific setting of ancient Israel, one finds numerous cases of wartime mutilation in biblical texts, many of them explicitly making a connection between shame and this practice. Most of these texts are found in the books of the so-called Deuteronomistic History. A noteworthy example is 1 Sam 10:27b–11:11, which deals with the trouble stirred up by Nahash the Ammonite. 1 Samuel 10:27 relates that Nahash had been abusing the members of the Transjordanian tribes of Gad and Reuben, gouging out the right eye of every Israelite belonging to those groups. The text notes, however, that seven thousand of these Israelites had escaped to Jabesh-Gilead.11 A month later, Nahash besieges the latter city and, upon their request that he make a vassal treaty with them, he says, “With this will I cut [a covenant] with you, with the boring out of all of your right eyes, so that I may put shame upon all Israel” (11:2).12 The elders then send word to Gibeah, the city of Saul, whose residents begin to weep when they hear of the horrible plight of their brethren. Luckily, Saul takes this opportunity to prove himself as a leader and musters the various Israelite tribes against the Ammonite. This text explicitly states that it is a desire to shame the Israelites that moves Nahash to mutilate them. The word found here is hprx, which is a term used quite commonly in the Hebrew Bible to denote “shame,” though it is by no means the only word thus used.13 The mutilation and shaming of the Transjordanians and Jabesh-Gileadites are apparently no small matter, for the people of Gibeah, who are in no direct danger from the Ammonite, weep over the lot of these groups. It seems likely, too, that they weep over their own potential feeling of shame. After all, the Ammonite’s motive in disfiguring the Jabesh-Gileadites, as he expressly states, is a desire to bring shame upon “all Israel,” not just those mutilated. 11 The entire portion of v. 27 that speaks of Nahash’s actions against these groups is absent from the MT. As P. Kyle McCarter writes: “We read the text of a long passage that is unique to 4QSama among the surviving witnesses, though it was present also in the Greek text used by Josephus (see Ant. 6.68–71). It cannot be regarded as secondary, for it introduces completely new material with no epexegetical or apologetic motive” (I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 8; New York: Doubleday, 1980], 199). See Antony F. Campbell, 1 Samuel (FOTL 7; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 110–11, for a summary of the debate regarding the originality of this passage. As is apparent from my citation of it above, I agree with McCarter and others that the passage is most likely authentic. 12 All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 13 Other terms used to refer to shame are #wb and t#b, rpx, Prh in its verbal form, and Mlk, among others.

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But how would the mutilation function in this way? Why would it shame all Israel—why would it even shame the Jabesh-Gileadites? First of all, Nahash is clearly establishing a certain power relationship with the groups he is disfiguring or threatening to disfigure. His actions function to assert his domination over them, a domination that reaches its apex when the Jabesh-Gileadites implore him, saying, “Cut a covenant with us, and we will serve you” (11:1). Certainly the mutilation of the Transjordanian tribes brings the power differential between Nahash and these groups into very sharp relief, for it makes their subjugation clear to anyone who sees them even from afar. The threatened mutilation of the JabeshGileadites, had it been carried out, would have functioned in such a manner, as well. This latter mutilation would have even damaged the status of Israelites not in any danger from Nahash, for it would have implied that they were too weak to come to the aid of their brethren. Aside from signifying a newly established power dynamic—and one in which the mutilated party was of inferior status—the mutilation here in all likelihood elicited shame for other reasons, as well. These relate to the Israelite conception of wholeness, a conception that affected notions of beauty and, in some cases, even fitness to participate in cultic activities.14 There are several biblical texts that discuss the relationship between blemishes and physical appearance. The most important of these are Cant 4:7; Dan 1:4; and 2 Sam 14:25, the last of which describes the beauty of David’s son Absalom. It reads: “And there was no man as exceedingly praised for his beauty as Absalom in all of Israel; from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, there was not a blemish (Mwm) in him.” This text makes clear that beauty was related to an absence of physical defects and, conversely, implies that unattractiveness was due at least in part to the presence of such defects. But what qualified as a “defect” or a “blemish”? Saul M. Olyan writes: Somatic alterations constructed as blemishes in biblical texts include blindness, lameness, genital damage, various other physical injuries or defects (for example, broken bones, overgrown limbs), skin afflictions (scabs, sores), and other abnormalities caused by disease (an eye defect). Most, if not all, of these conditions are visible to the eye. A number of them are clearly characterized by an unappealing somatic asymmetry of some kind (for example, limbs of uneven length). Some of these conditions are permanent; others may be temporary. In all cases, a body with a blemish has lost its quality of wholeness and completeness.15

This category then includes both congenital attributes and those caused by external agents, and it certainly would have included having one’s right eye gouged 14 For

a discussion of the relationship between wholeness and holiness, see Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (New York: Routledge, 1966), 52–58. 15 Saul M. Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 103.

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out, which would be problematic not only for being a defect but also for being one that was asymmetrical. Thus, the mutilation of the Gadites and Reubenites and the threatened mutilation of the Jabesh-Gileadites would have rendered the disfigured individuals physically incomplete and, in their cultural context, quite unattractive. What’s more, their lack of wholeness may have even affected their ability to participate in the cult. In addition to certain texts that discuss the prohibition on offering blemished animals as sacrifice,16 there are several that deal with the cultic status of blemished humans. Leviticus 21:16–23, a passage concerned with the status of priests with physical defects, states explicitly that such priests are barred from performing some of the most important rites in the Israelite sacrificial system, including approaching the altar of burnt offerings, and thus all of the activities associated with that area. In the case of the high priest, the prohibition also includes entering the holy of holies. The blemished priest is allowed to remain in the sanctuary, though, making clear that his “blemish is not constructed as generally profaning to holy space and holy items.”17 Although mutilating a member of the priesthood, this text makes clear, would greatly limit his ability to take part in the cult, mutilating a nonpriestly Israelite would limit his cultic participation only in certain cases, according to Deut 23:2 (Eng. 23:1), a text that bans only the genitally mutilated Israelite from “entering the assembly of Yahweh,”18 that is, participating in temple worship.19 2 Samuel 5:8 may also attest to the ability of blemishes to limit a person’s cultic participation, though the text is problematic for many reasons. It reads: “David had said on that day, ‘Whoever strikes down the Jebusites, let him strike at the windpipe,20 for David hates the lame and the blind.’ Therefore, they say, ‘The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.’” The word tyb is often used to refer to temples, and so some commentators feel that this text is further evidence for a prohibition on people with certain blemishes—or all blemishes if the phrase “the blind and the lame” is a merismus—entering sacred precincts.21 16 See

Lev 1:3, 10; 3:1; 4:32; 22:17–25; Deut 15:21–22, 17:1; and Malachi 1. Rites, 105. 18 For a discussion of the meaning of the phrase “to enter the assembly of Yahweh,” see Olyan, Rites, 107–8. 19 Isaiah 56:3–5, too, presupposes the inability of those with damaged genitals—in this case eunuchs—to take part in cultic activities, though it rejects such a ban. 20 The meaning of the term rwnc in this context is disputed. See P. Kyle McCarter, II Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 9; New York: Doubleday, 1984), 135, 139–40, for a discussion of the various possibilities. McCarter himself settles on the translation “let him strike at the windpipe,” which I have adopted here. 21 Olyan suggests that the phrase may be synecdochic, representing all blemished individuals (Rites, 109). For an extended discussion of the passage, see Olyan, Rites, 106–11; and idem, “‘Anyone Blind or Lame Shall Not Enter the House’: On the Interpretation of Second Samuel 5:8b,” CBQ 60 (1998): 218–27. 17 Olyan,

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Obviously one can only speculate on the exact meaning of this verse. What is certain is that the existence of such an adage attests to a strong dislike, even a hatred, for the blemished, a category into which all mutilated individuals would fall. For members of the priesthood, such mutilations would have been a major social and religiocultic impairment, for they would have drastically limited one’s ability to function as a priest according to Leviticus.22

III. 2 Samuel 10 and Judith 13–14: Mutilation and Gender The texts just examined clue us in to why the loss of an eye was so problematic, and why Nahash would choose gouging out his enemies’ eyes as a way to manifest his domination over them. 2 Samuel 10 is another text that discusses wartime mutilation, though the mutilation there draws its shaming power from something other than potential cultic disenfranchisement.23 In this text, David sends envoys to Hanun the Ammonite to “console” him over the death of his father, Nahash. David, who had apparently been in a covenantal relationship with Nahash, was merely acting in a manner befitting a treaty partner, who was expected to send “comforters” to mourn along with the family of the deceased.24 The Ammonites, however, misinterpret the Israelite’s actions, thinking that David had sent the envoys to “search” and “overthrow” the city (v. 3).25 In retaliation, “Hanun took the servants of David and shaved off half of their beards, and he cut their garments in half up to their buttocks and sent them away” (v. 4). Verse 5 continues: “When 22 There are also several texts from Qumran that negatively construct physical blemishes. See 11QTa 45:12–14; CD 15:15–18; 1QSa 2:3–10; 1QM 7:4–7; 4QFlor 1:3–5, etc. For treatments of this material, see Aharon Shemesh, “‘The Holy Angels Are in Their Council’: The Exclusion of Deformed Persons from Holy Places in Qumranic and Rabbinic Literature,” DSD 4, no. 2 (1997): 179–206; and Saul M. Olyan, “The Exegetical Dimensions of Restrictions on the Blind and the Lame in Texts from Qumran,” DSD 8, no. 1 (2001): 38–50. Shemesh also treats discussions of blemishes in rabbinic texts, including m. H ̣ ag. 1:1, m. Kel. 1:8–9, and m. Bek. 7. 23 2 Samuel 10, unlike the texts above, describes a somatic alteration that few Westerners would consider mutilating, for it involves neither bloodletting nor pain nor any permanent disfigurement. The alterations are certainly negatively constructed by the text, however, and so my decision to include them here. 24 See also 1 Kgs 5:15, where Hiram of Tyre sends servants to Jerusalem upon hearing of the death of David. For more on “comforters,” see Olyan, “Honor, Shame,” 212–13 for a brief discussion; and Gary A. Anderson, A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance: The Expression of Grief and Joy in Israelite Religion (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), for a detailed treatment of Israelite practices of mourning and rejoicing. 25 Gary Stansell attributes their behavior to the agonistic nature of ancient Israelite society. See Stansell, “Honor and Shame in the David Narratives,” in Honor and Shame in the World of the Bible, 68–69.

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David was informed, he sent to meet them, for the men were greatly shamed (d)m Mymlkn My#n)h wyh yk). And the king said, ‘Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown, then return.’” In the next few lines, a war ensues between the two parties. The acts described in v. 4 thus work on two levels. Politically, they serve as a way effectively to end the covenantal relationship between David and Hanun. This is accomplished on a personal level by the humiliation of the envoys, David’s representatives before the Ammonites.26 The act of shaving off half of the men’s beards fulfills its aim by ridiculing the masculinity of the envoys, a fact that has been pointed out by Ken Stone and P. Kyle McCarter.27 Reliefs and biblical and other ancient texts strongly suggest that it was normative for ancient Near Eastern men, including Israelites, to wear full beards. This text itself implies such a fact, because if being clean-shaven were an option for a man in ancient Israel, the men would not have had to stay at Jericho until their beards had grown. Thus, the partial shaving effects a lowering of status by removing that which visibly separates one status group from another, that is, men from women. In addition, the shaving off of only half of their beards, while probably best explained by the ancient Israelite dislike for asymmetry, seems also to express the male/female dichotomy and to communicate with which side of that dichotomy—and with which set of opposing characteristics—the Ammonites have symbolically associated the envoys, and thus David, whom they represent. In addition to ridiculing the masculinity of these envoys, the act of shaving off half of their beards is likely meant to make a mockery of a fairly commonplace gesture of mourning, that of shaving part or all of the beard.28 The second act of humiliation performed upon the men, that of exposing their buttocks and/or genitalia, is one known from other texts to have been particularly shameful. In Isa 20:4, Yahweh states that the Egyptians would go into exile naked and barefoot, buttocks exposed, “for the shame of Egypt.”29 In 26 Olyan,

“Honor, Shame,” 213. Sex, Honor, 122–23; McCarter, II Samuel, 270. Stansell also writes that the “shaving of the beard is an assault on their masculinity, for the beard is a symbol of their honor,” though the biblical texts he cites in support of this have more to do with the removal of hair and beard as mourning custom than as shameful act (“Honor and Shame,” 69). This is the case also with the texts cited by McCarter. As Olyan notes, there exists in some texts a relationship between mourning and shame, but the mourning behaviors are secondary to the experience of shame in those instances (Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions [New York: Oxford University Press, 2004], 98– 104). Stone provides better evidence than McCarter or Stansell for the beard as a “gender signifier” and site of “gender-based prestige” (Sex, Honor, 122), as does Cynthia R. Chapman (The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter [HSM 62; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004], 26 and 39). 28 Olyan, “Honor, Shame,” 213. 29 The Hebrew is Myrcm twr( and may also be translated more literally as “the nakedness of Egypt.” If the latter, the phrase is redundant in the verse. Many have in fact seen it as a gloss. Joseph Blenkinsopp writes: “‘ervat misirāyim since it is not linked by conjunction with šēt it may be 27 Stone,

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addition, the incident in Genesis 9, where Japheth and Shem walk backwards with a garment in hand in order to cover their naked father Noah without actually seeing his body, demonstrates just how shameful exposure of one’s genitals was considered to be by the ancient Israelites. McCarter goes so far as to say that the combination of shaving and exposure in this passage “suggests symbolic castration, a peculiarly appropriate punishment for presumed spies in view of the widespread analogue of eyeballs and testicles in myth and folklore.”30 Cynthia R. Chapman, in a newly published work, examines in detail representations of nudity in Assyrian reliefs and suggests that exposing the enemy was an act of feminization.31 If she is correct, then both the shaving and the exposure shame the envoys by associating them with a lower-status group, namely, women. Thus, the shame caused by the mutilation in 2 Samuel 10 was related not only to subjugation and the reframing of power relations, as it had been in 1 Samuel 10–11, but also to gender norms and gender-ascribed status. The book of Judith, despite its Hellenistic date and its language of composition, contains an example of mutilation that also draws its shaming power from a manipulation of these norms and that is in many ways similar to other biblical and ancient Near Eastern cases of disfigurement. In Judith 13, the heroine is left alone with the very drunk general Holofernes, and she cuts off his head with his own sword. The text itself emphasizes that gender norms are at issue in 13:15, where Judith displays the head to her fellow Israelites and says: “Look, the head of Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army, and here is the canopy beneath which he lay in his drunkenness. The Lord has struck him down by the hand of a female (qhleiva").” Bagoas, Holofernes’ steward, upon finding the man’s headless body, exclaims in 14:18, “The slaves have tricked us! One Hebrew woman has brought shame (aijscuvnhn) on the house of King Nebuchadnezzar.” Unlike in 2 Samuel 10, the shame here is elicited not by the removal of a physical mark of Holofernes’ masculinity but by his defeat at the hands of a woman, a fact which calls that masculinity into question.32 Yet it is not only his masculinity that is impugned but that of the entire regime he had served. We see here, then, that the shaming force of mutilation is not always one that affects the actual person whose body has been altered or disfigured. Holofernes was dead, after all, but the removal and display a gloss with the purpose of replacing dorsal with frontal nudity . . . which has slipped into the text, though the phrase is in 1QIsaa and apparently also 4QIsab” (Isaiah 1–19: A NewTranslation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 19; New York: Doubleday, 2000], 321). Regardless of which stance one takes on the matter, there is ample Egyptian and Assyrian evidence for the practice of forcing the conquered to go into exile naked. See ANEP nos. 332, 358, and 359, and Börker-Klähn, Altvorderasiatische Bildstelen, 31. 30 McCarter, II Samuel, 270, though he unfortunately provides no evidence for this analogue. 31 Chapman, Gendered Language, 220. 32 Judith also emphasizes the gender dimension of her act in 9:10 and 13:15.

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of his head still had efficacy, shaming his entire army and even the very house of Nebuchadnezzar. The above act of mutilation has much in common with Israelite and ancient Near Eastern practice and norms. Like 2 Samuel 10, the mutilation in Judith 13– 14 is explicitly constructed as shaming, and in a manner that is tied to genderascribed status. Though the clarity with which Judith 13 expresses the latter point may be a Hellenistic feature—Greek texts on the whole are more likely to discuss ajndreiva or a man’s lack thereof than are Israelite—it is not necessarily thus.33 Unsurprisingly, 2 Samuel 10 is not the only biblical text that points to aspects of a normative, and socially privileged, Israelite masculinity. The most obvious example of another text that does the same is Judges 4. There, after Barak states to Deborah that he will battle Sisera only on the condition that she come with him, she replies: “I will surely go with you; however, your glory will not come on the path which you are about to walk, for Yahweh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman (v. 9).” In Judges 4, then, one sees a reference to gender norms that is quite similar to that in Judith 13. Among the other biblical texts noteworthy for their references, whether explicit or implicit, to gender-ascribed status are Jer 50:37 and 51:30; Nah 3:13; and 2 Sam 3:29, which negatively constructs men who hold a spindle-whorl, presumably because it was considered effeminate to do so.34 Both the latter verse and Jer 50:37 bring to mind one of the curses of the succession treaty of Esarhaddon,35 which reads: “May all the gods who are called by name in this treaty tablet spin you around like a spindle-whorl, may they make you like a woman before your enemy” (line 616).36 As Chapman’s recent study makes abundantly clear, the latter is merely one of many Assyrian texts both written and visual that 33 A great deal has been written of late on gender, and masculinity specifically, in ancient Greek texts and society. See, e.g., John J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece (New York: Routledge, 1990); Brit Berggreen and Nanno Marinatos, eds., Greece and Gender (Papers from the Norwegian Institute at Athens 2; Bergen, Norway: Norwegian Institute at Athens, 1995); Karen Bassi, Acting like Men: Gender, Drama, and Desire in Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998); and Ralph M. Rosen and Ineke Sluiter, eds., Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity (Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica batava; Leiden: Brill, 2003). Also germane to the topics of both gender construction and shame is Douglas L. Cairns, Aidōs: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993). 34 The prayer to Ištar of Nineveh says this explicitly: “Take from (their) men masculinity. . . . Place in their hands the spindle and mirror of a woman!” Quoted in Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., “Symbols for Masculinity and Feminity: Their Use in Ancient Near Eastern Sympathetic Magic Rituals,” JBL 85 (1966): 331. 35 This text was referred to as the Esarhaddon vassal-treaties by D. J. Wiseman in his editio princeps. See Wiseman, The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon (repr. Iraq 20 [1958] part 1; London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1958); and Simo Parpola and Kazuko Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (SAS 2; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988), XIXX–XXX. 36 Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, 56. See also Wiseman, Vassal-Treaties, 76.

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show a preoccupation with gender and masculinity.37 She goes so far as to say that “the curse sections of these treaties revel in the use of gendered literary tropes.”38 This can only lead one to the conclusion that the explicit manner in which Judith 13 connects shame and emasculation marks the continuity of that text not only with Israelite constructions but with a pre-Hellenistic discourse concerning gender that was more broadly ancient Near Eastern. Another feature of the passage that links it with Israelite and ancient Near Eastern texts and practices is found in the postmortem decapitation of Holofernes and in the use of his head as evidence of his death and vanquishment.39 One sees this also in 1 Sam 17:41-57, where David removes the head of Goliath and presents it to Saul; 2 Sam 4:7-8, where the head of the Saulide heir Eshbaal is presented to David; 2 Sam 20:21-22, where the head of the rebel leader Sheba is used to evidence his death; and 2 Kgs 10:6-11, where Jehu has the heads of the Omride heirs piled up for the same reason.40 One finds another example of this practice in an Assyrian relief in which the head of the Elamite king Te’umman hangs from a tree with Aššurbanipal lying on a divan and feasting nearby.41 In the latter relief, as well as in Judith 14 and many of the other biblical passages, public display of the decapitated head is involved. This fact, and its relationship to mutilation’s ability to shame, will be discussed in more detail below, along with the role of such displays in manifesting shifts in power relations.

IV. Judges 1: Mutilation and Dehumanization Judges 1:1–7 contains another striking case of mutilation, the shame of which is related not to gender but to another kind of status. In this pericope, the Israelites are led by Joshua’s successor, Judah, and his brother Simeon in battle against the Canaanites and Perizzites and defeat them at Bezek. Though their leader, the appropriately named Adoni-Bezek, flees, the Israelites overtake him and cut off his thumbs and big toes. He says to them, “Seventy kings, their thumbs 37 Chapman,

Gendered Language, 20–59. 40. 39 I do not assume here the existence of a homogeneous ancient Near Eastern culture, encompassing every society in the region, nor the passing on of Assyrian and Babylonian cultural features to the other groups in the area à la diffusionism, only that there were certain similarities and continuities between these societies. Naturally, there were ways in which these cultures differed from one another as well. For a brief but useful discussion of the comparative method in biblical and Assyriological studies, see Chapman, Gendered Language, 14. 40 1 Chronicles 10:8–12 most likely attests to the same practice. 41 ANEP, no. 451. See also Zwickel, “Dagons,” 241. I do not imply here that such a practice is limited to the ancient Near Eastern sphere, only that it is well-attested and well-established in this sphere. 38 Ibid.,

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and big toes cut off, used to pick up (scraps) under my table. Just as I have done, thus God has paid me back” (v. 7). Adoni-Bezek’s treatment of his enemies is striking because it so clearly relegates them to a subhuman status. By forcing the kings to await scraps beneath his table, the Canaanite is treating them like dogs, who also sit at their master’s knee, hoping for some choice morcel to be thrown down to them. And, as if this act of degradation were not enough, Adoni-Bezek also removes from these men their thumbs and big toes—the parts of the body that most clearly distinguish humans from the members of the animal kingdom. Although this text does not speak explicitly of shame, one may reasonably infer that Adoni-Bezek’s aim in mutilating his enemies and forcing them to act in such a fashion was to shame them. While one might also posit that the dismemberment of the victims’ thumbs and big toes may have been carried out to cause pain, certainly making men who had formerly been kings—or any human beings, for that matter—pick up scraps beneath one’s table could only be a way of shaming those men. In eliciting shame through dehumanization, the mutilation and behavior in this text function in a manner similar to many of the curses that one finds in ancient Near Eastern treaties, as well as in biblical covenantal texts.42 For example, the treaty between Aššurnerai V and Mati, “REPLY: Secret Mark,” in IOUDAIOS-L, , 30 June 1995. Archived at: ftp://ftp.lehigh.edu/pub/listserv/ioudaios-l/archives/9506e.Z. Davies was not defending the letter’s authenticity. 95 Grafton, Forgers and Critics, 40–41, cited by Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 80, who does not appear to realize that this scenario could not describe a hoax. Hoaxes that support particular beliefs do so for the purpose of ridicule or social critique by making dupes of the people who are liable to accept such things (e.g., Piltdown Man, the Sokal Hoax). If Smith devised a hoax that supports his own beliefs, he would have been targeting himself and the like-minded people he respected, whose opinions on this and other subjects he actively sought out. Hence, Carlson’s descriptions of how “secret” Mark supports Smith’s positions (pp. 80–84), besides being largely unintelligible, make no

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resort to fraud in order to “jump-start his career.” Smith had too much going for him.96 Still, it is conceivable that he sought the fame and prestige that comes from being the discoverer of an important document, support for his theories about Jesus, or both. In either case, Smith would have to have worked backward from explanation to document. Rather than creating the document first and then figuring out what it proved, he would have started with his theories about Jesus and devised the Gospel quotations so that they give credence to these theories; then he would have devised the letter so that it authenticates the Gospel quotations and validates his interpretation. What we should be considering, therefore, is the connection between the Letter to Theodore and the actual agenda Smith used it to support. Smith always claimed that the letter’s significance lay in the historical conclusions he derived from it. In 1962 he commented on the letter’s value to Gershom Scholem: the edition of Clement on the Carpocratians creeps along by inches, but quite wonderful things keep turning up. I am really beginning to think that Carpocrates and the sort of things he represented (and especially the ascent through the heavens) were far closer to Jesus than has ever been supposed. What’s more, I have the evidence. I wish you were here so that I could discuss it with you.97

Here Smith, if I understand him correctly, was telling Scholem that he viewed his discovery as evidence that libertinism and mystical ascent might have a connection to Jesus. In his 1973 reply to Fitzmyer, Smith explained that the letter supplied an essential component of his theory about Jesus because “[i]t is only the letter that tells us that Jesus administered a secret, nocturnal initiation, and that he taught the initiate ‘the mystery of the kingdom of God.’”98 When interviewed eight years later by Saniel Bonder, Smith opined that someday scholars will stop evading longer Mark and the magical papyri and confront the reality of esotericism and magic in earliest Christianity.99 A few years later in his response to Per Beskow, Smith added, “Perhaps the most important consequence of the new text is the vindication of Paul’s teaching of freedom from the law.”100 If Smith had a motive to forge this text, it should be here, in the views he argued using this text as support. Accordingly, in Mark’s Other Gospel I examined whether, prior to 1958, Smith already expressed the beliefs about Jesus that he later claimed to have been led to by the Gospel excerpt and whether this excerpt seems tailor-made to support these beliefs.101 In both cases, the answer is no. sense within Carlson’s thesis that this Gospel was a joke intended to suggest that Jesus was arrested and crucified for seeking a homosexual encounter in a public park (pp. 66–71, 85). 96 Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 79–80. 97 Cited in Stroumsa, “Comments,” 150. 98 Smith, “Mark’s ‘Secret Gospel’?” 64. 99 Smith, “On the Secret Gospel.” 100 Smith, “Regarding Secret Mark,” 624. 101 See Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 49–54; idem, “More Spiritual Gospel,” 106–14. Carlson’s

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Smith’s association of Jesus with magic, hypnosis, mystical ascent, and libertinism first appears in his publications and extant private correspondence after 1958. More importantly, the letter itself provides tenuous support for these elements of Smith’s theory. The raising of the young man in Bethany is no more magical than the miracles in canonical Mark, and less magical than the healings in 7:32–37 and 8:22–26. Smith was able to perceive magic and mystery initiation in the young man’s linen sheet and “the mystery of the kingdom of God” because his training as a form critic during the 1930s and 1940s led him to strip these elements from their literary context and interpret them within real-world settings that they resembled. In the literary context specified by the letter, however, the sindwvn is not a magical garment but a burial wrapping (Mark 15:46), and the musthvrion is not a cultic rite but a perplexing facet of God’s plan for salvation (4:11–12). Smith most likely perceived mystical ascent in LGM 1 because he subconsciously associated the manuscript with the mystical experiences he had during his first visit to Mar Saba in 1941. In the opening pages of SG, he recollected how the nocturnal worship service—endless hypnotic chanting between midnight and dawn in an “enormous church” lit by small flames that mimicked the stars—produced the experience of participating “in the perpetual worship of heaven.” Smith also noted that around the time of his first visit to the monastery, he had learned from Gershom Scholem about Jewish rites of ascent that involved “the recitation of long rhythmical prayers and hymns and lists of angels with terrific, resonant names, like Seganzagael.” He naturally wondered whether these experiences influenced his interpretation of LGM 1. Of course they did. Where else could Smith have derived the notion that LGM 1:12 adumbrates Jesus’ use of “repetitive, hypnotic prayers and hymns” at night in order to produce the experience of being in God’s heavenly kingdom?102 Like every other explanation of LGM 1, Smith’s theory bears the unmistakable imprint of his personal experiences and research interests, especially his willingness to imagine how the pagan aspects of Galilean culture could have influenced Jesus and his followers. After three decades of speculation, Smith’s prosecutors have failed to demonstrate motive, a vital element in any case of forgery that is based on circumstantial evidence.

counterclaim that the theories Smith argued in CA and SG are irrelevant to the question of motive because those books are “fifteen years too late” is ill-considered (Gospel Hoax, 80). Smith did not develop those theories in 1973, when his books were published, but during the years 1960 to 1963, as he recounted in SG (pp. 63–77). The first draft of CA was finished sometime after the summer of 1963; a revised draft was accepted for publication in 1964 (SG, 76). Smith’s letter correspondence with Gershom Scholem during the early 1960s corroborates Smith’s account. So we are not dealing with theories that are “fifteen years too late.” Carlson’s additional claim that the so-called later theories espoused in CA and SG (and elaborated over the rest of Smith’s career) are “a trap for the unwary, designed to obscure what the text supports” exemplifies how the Hoax Hypothesis disposes of evidence it cannot explain by labeling it deception (Gospel Hoax, 81). 102 Smith, SG, 5–8, 113 n. 12.

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Critical Notes A Woman at Prayer: A Critical Note on Psalm 131:2b

In Psalm 131, the speaker initially tries to convince Yhwh that he or she has not been arrogant or haughty: the speaker’s heart is not “lifted up,” nor the eyes “raised too high,” nor has he or she been occupied with thoughts “too great and marvelous for me” (v. 1). In the next verse, the negative protest changes to a positive one: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child . . .” (v. 2).1 Based on this image, the speaker then exhorts the nation to hope in God: “O Israel, hope in Yhwh, from this time on and forevermore” (v. 3). The precise translation of v. 2b is a notorious crux. This has more to do with the problematic syntax than with any major textual variant.2 The disputed phrase compares a weaned child with its mother to the author’s soul: y#$ip;=nA yla(f lmug%Fk%a w$m%)i yl'(j lmugFk%; In the scholarly discussion, two major emendations have been proposed—one to modify the second occurrence of lmgk, and one to delete the second part of the phrase entirely. According to Sigmund Mowinckel, the second lmgk should be changed to lmgt.3 I would like to thank Prof. Patrick Miller, Jr., for his advice and encouragement, and the two anonymous reviewers of earlier drafts of this note for their helpful comments. 1 The interpretation of this metaphor is itself an issue of discussion. See P. A. H. de Boer, “Psalm CXXI 2,” VT 16, no. 3 (1966): 287–92: “I have made myself without resistance or movement . . .” (p. 292); Willem A. VanGemeren (“Psalm 131:2–kegamul: The Problems of Meaning and Metaphor,” HS 23 [1982]: 51–57) prefers to translate “like a contented/satisfied child [suckling or infant])” and argues that the metaphor is “an image of quietness and rest” (p. 56). See also Klaus Seybold, “Zwei Bemerkungen zu lmg/lwmg,” VT 22 (1972): 112-17; idem, “lmg,” TDOT 3:23–33. 2 The only significant variant is the LXX’s translation of the two appearances of lmgk: first as ajpogegalaktismevnon (“de-milked one”), then as ajntapovdosi" (“wages”; LXXA reads ajntapovdosei"; LXXS reads ajntapovdwsei"). Although these are possible translations of the Hebrew radicals, it is more likely that the identical Hebrew terms gave rise to the different Greek terms rather than the other way around. 3 Sigmund Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien I (Kristiania: Jacob Dybwad, 1921), 165 n. 3, followed by, among others, Artur Weiser, The Psalms (trans. Herbert Hartwell; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 776. Mowinckel later interpreted Ps 131:2c (i.e., Ps 131:2bβ) as simple dittography (Real and Apparent Tricola in Hebrew Psalm Poetry [Oslo: Hos H. Aschehoug (W. Nygaard), 1957], 69;

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Thus, Hans-Joachim Kraus translates the phrase, “Like a quieted child with its mother, so is quieted (lmgt) my soul within me.”4 Other scholars claim that the repetition indicates a scribal error and delete the phrase.5 In opposition to both of these suggestions, Gottfried Quell has argued that parallelism in the text is deliberate, and thus the phrase (with the two appearances of lmgk) must be retained.6 The parallelism should also guide the translation such that, since yl( is read with lmgk in v. 2bα (“as a weaned child with/on its mother”), in v. 2bβ the term should not be read with y#$pn (“my soul with me is like a weaned child”), but rather with lmgk as it is in the previous cola (“like a weaned child with/on me am I [literally, ‘is my soul’]”). On the basis of parallelism with the preceding line, and in accordance with the text and pointing in the Leningrad Codex, Quell translates the colon as follows: As a weaned child on its mother; As the weaned child on me am I.7 According to Patrick D. Miller, the point of the simile that this translation emphasizes is not just that the author’s soul is like a weaned child, but rather that it is “like a weaned child on/with its mother” (emphasis Miller’s).8 Quell’s translation is followed by most recent commentators.9 Significantly, all of the various interpretations named above follow the pointing in the Leningrad Codex with regard to the two appearances of yl(: first as yl'(j (usually and idem, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship [trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962], 2:129). 4 Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60–150 (trans. Hilton C. Oswald: Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989; German original, 1978), 469. See also Charles Augustus Briggs and Emilie Grace Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Book of Psalms (ICC 13.2; New York: Scribner, 1907), 466–67: “As a weaned child upon his mother, so is bountiful dealing unto my soul.” 5 C. Budde, “Das hebräische Klageleid,” ZAW 2 (1882): 1–52, esp. 42; Patrick W. Skehan considers Ps 131:2bβ an “accidental repetition” and deletes it from his translation (Studies in Israelite Poetry and Wisdom [CBQMS 1; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1971], 61–62). See also Walter Beyerlin, Wider die Hybris des Geistes: Studien zum 131. Psalm (SBS 108; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1982). One other emendation is the addition of a noun such as ybl after ytyw# in v. 2a, argued for by Oswald Loretz, “Zur Parallelität zwischen KTU 1.6 II 28-30 und Ps 131,2b,” UF 17 (1986): 183–87. Although the resulting meter is more regular, the proposal has not met with widespread acceptance. 6 Gottfried Quell, “Struktur und Sinn des Psalms 131,” in Das Ferne und Nahe Wort: Festschrift Leonhard Rost (BZAW 105; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1967), 173–85. 7 “Wie ein Kind auf seiner Mutter, // wie das Kind auf mir bin ich” (Quell, “Struktur und Sinn,” 173). 8 Patrick D. Miller, Jr., “Things Too Wonderful: Prayers of Women in the Old Testament,” in Biblische Theologie und gesellschaftlicher Wandel für Norbert Lohfink SJ (ed. Georg Braulik, Walter Gross, and Sean McEvenue; Freiburg: Herder, 1993), 237–51, esp. 244–45 n. 15. See also in the same footnote a detailed analysis of this reading. 9 Klaus Seybold, Die Wallfahrtspsalmen: Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte von Psalm 120–134 (Biblisch-Theologische Studien 3: Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 37–38; Miller, “Things Too Wonderful,” 244–49; Loren Crow, The Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120–134): Their Place in Israelite History and Religion (SBLDS 148; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 92.

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understood as a form of the preposition l(a, found in poetic contexts and translated as something similar to “upon”),10 then as yla(f (usually understood as the preposition l(a, with the first common singular suffixed pronoun and translated as something similar to “upon me”).11 The problem with this reading is that, regardless of the poetic examples, yl'(j is rare in the Hebrew Bible, and one expects simply l(a to denote the spatial relationship (so Isa 49:22: “your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders” (Pt'k%f-l(a); and 2 Kgs 4:20: “and he [i.e., the child] sat on her lap [hfyIk%er:b%i-l(a] until noon”).12 Since yl'(j is sometimes used in poetic contexts to indicate this spatial relationship, the distinctive pointing is not illegitimate. Yet it could also be argued that the parallel structure of the two lines (with the two occurrences of yl( standing in identical places in both cola of v. 2b) leads one to expect a similar pointing. Regardless of the poetic examples, it does not strain the text to repoint the first occurrence of yl( as yla(f (“on/with me”) in parallel with v. 2bβ. This repointing not only makes logical sense in the line, it also renders parallel the two appearances of yl( in v. 2b: Like a weaned child on me (yla(f) its mother, Like the weaned child on me (yla(f) is my soul. If the above emendation of yl'(j to yla(f represents the original pointing, then the pointing of the Leningrad Codex can be explained. Assuming that the speaker of the text was not a woman (in view of the masculine voice of most of the psalter13 and the attribution “to David” in the superscription), the scribes vocalized the text in an unusual but permissible fashion. Disregarding the parallelism with the next part of the verse, they made an interpretive decision regarding the sex of the speaker and obfuscated the female voice in the text. 10 For this form, see Joüon §103m. Examples include Gen 49:17 (2x), 22 (2x); Deut 32:2 (2x); and Ps 49:12. 11 Scholars who prefer to understand yl( as something other than an indication of spatial proximity include De Boer (“Psalm CXXXI 2,” 290–92), who translates v. 2b, “just as one does with his mother, thus I have made myself content,” arguing that a local sense of l( “occurs nearly always in connection with places, rivers, and the like” (and thus is excluded in this text). In addition, he argues that when l( is preceded by lmg, the sense is “to do something to another person, to deal with someone, to give him what is coming to him, in malam et bonam partem”; he thus prefers the sense of “against, up, upon, over.” 12 See also 2 Sam 13:5: “Lie down on your bed” (K1b;k%f#$;mi-l(a); 2 Kgs 4:21; and Isa 11:8. 13 In an unpublished article, David J. A. Clines argues that both the implied speakers and the implied hearers of the Psalms are predominantly male. See “The Book of Psalms, Where Men Are Men: On the Gender of Hebrew Piety,” http://www.shef.ac.uk/~biblst/Department/Staff/Bibs Research/DJACcurrres/GenderPiety.html, accessed Dec. 29, 2003; used with permission of the author). See also Marc Zvi Brettler, “Women and Psalms: Toward an Understanding of the Role of Women’s Prayer in the Israelite Cult,” in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. Victor H. Matthews, Bernard M. Levinson, and Tikva Frymer-Kensky; JSOTSup 262; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 25–56; and Erhard S. Gerstenberger, “Weibliche Spiritualität in Psalmen und Hauskult,” in Ein Gott allein? JHWH-Verehrung und biblischer Monotheismus im Kontext der israelitischen und altorientalischen Religionsgeschichte (ed. Walter Dietrich and Martin A. Klopfenstein; OBO 139; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 349–63.

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Such a reading has implications for the identity of the speaker. On the basis of Quell’s reading, some scholars have interpreted this text (or this particular verse at least) as a text sung by a woman.14 The repointing for which I am arguing in this note solidifies the identification of a female voice in this text, a voice that was later embedded in a text associated with male authorship (dwdl in the superscription) and obliterated in the vowel pointing. Yet does this female voice, incorporating within it the metaphor of a weaned child with his or her mother, necessarily indicate that this text was written by a woman? Is there enough information in Psalm 131 to distinguish between actual female authorship and the attribution of a quotation to a female?15 The specific details linked with the speaker’s experience (the avoidance of “high matters,” the affirmation of humility, and sitting with a weaned child) could be considered stereotypical and public enough to be written about by either a male or a female author. One might also argue that, in its valorization of humility, docility, and childlikeness, the text could have been written by someone (either a man or a woman) intent on teaching women such behavior. No evidence rules out such a possibility. Thus, the portrayal of a woman’s prayer in Psalm 131 is not necessarily, though it could be, a record of such a prayer. According to this reading, the text is open enough to include both men and women as authors, and this same openness can extend to its subsequent readers and pray-ers. Throughout the Hebrew Bible parts of pre-extant formalized prayers are “bracketed” by the one who recites them: included in Hannah’s prayer about a barren woman giving birth to seven children (1 Sam 2:5) is the affirmation that “The adversaries of Yhwh shall be shattered. . . . He will give strength to his king” (1 Sam 2:10). Although it may very well be that Hannah was concerned about Yhwh’s enemies and Yhwh’s king, there is not a single hint of this in the prose narrative (in fact, there is not a king reigning over Israel at this point in the narrative). Adopting pre-extant prayers on the basis of a conceptual link may also entail bracketing concepts that do not immediately pertain. In terms of the reuse of Psalm 131, just as Hannah could pray for the strength of a king (not yet enthroned), so men could incorporate the voice of a mother with her child in Psalm 131 into their own prayer.16 14 Quell believes that the content and rhythm of v. 2 create an image of a mother holding her child and pacing to the rhythm of this song and was likely sung by a female worshiper (Quell, “Struktur und Sinn,” 178). Seybold and Miller extend the possible female voice into v. 1 as well. According to Miller, the text reflects “the quiet voice of a woman . . . [who] has learned from the child who has sought security in trust on her breast” (Miller, “Things Too Wonderful,” 245; see also Seybold, Wallfahrtspsalmen, 37–38, 54). 15 For a discussion about the distinction between female authorship and the attribution of female authorship, see Athalya Brenner and Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series 1; Leiden: Brill, 1993), 6–11. 16 If, as I am arguing, members of the congregation had to sing poems that contained verses not precisely appropriate to their situation, then Bernard P. Robinson’s objection (“Form and Meaning in Psalm 131,” Bib 79, no. 2 [1988]: 180–97) to Quell’s identification of a woman’s voice in v. 2 seems much less persuasive. Robinson writes, “I find it hard to believe that a poem would have found its way into the Psalter if it could have been sung only by a minority of the congregation”

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Added to these dynamics of formalized prayer is the nature of metaphor itself. As descriptive and evocative patterns of speech (made even more so in a poetic context), metaphors are not strictly confined to the experience of the author. Even if the text is written from the point of view of a woman, this does not eliminate its recitation or even authorship by men, since metaphors can reflect the experience of a larger community. In addition, if women and children were participants in public worship (as Deut 31:12 indicates), then the sight of a mother with her child might not have been outside the immediate experience of the praying community.17 Thus, while the text may reflect female authorship, it does not necessitate such attribution. Yet regardless of authorship, the text shows that female imagery was not out of place in the public worship of the temple cult and that the experience of a woman and her child (authentic or stereotyped) was not out of place in psalmic piety. Indeed, in the final line of the text (“O Israel, hope in Yhwh, from this time on and forevermore,” v. 3), the author commends to the nation the daily disciplines of a real or stylized woman (“no high looks”) and the contentment of a weaned child as seen from its mother’s perspective as a model of piety. Like the story of Hannah and her sacrifice, the experience of a woman pertains to the corporate well-being of the entire nation.18 Melody D. Knowles [email protected] McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL 60615 (p. 189)—yet congregations routinely sing poems (or parts of them at least) that may not reflect their experience. 17 For a discussion of Deut 31:12 with its explicit reference to women and children participating in the hearing of the Torah read at the festival in booths, and its interpretation in rabbinic texts, see Mayer I. Gruber, “Breast-Feeding Practices in Biblical Israel and in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia,” JANES 19 (1989): 61–83, esp. 67–68. Gerstenberger has also pointed to a possible origin of this text in “domestic cult rituals,” wherein the participation of women may have been even more familiar (Psalms, Part 2, and Lamentations [FOTL 15; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001], 361). For other discussions about women in the Israelite cult, see the articles by Phyllis A. Bird gathered in Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997); Mayer I. Gruber, “Women in the Cult According to the Priestly Code,” in Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel (ed. Jacob Neusner, Baruch A. Levine, and Ernest S. Frerichs; literary editor, Caroline McCrackenFlesher; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 35–48; Judith Romney Wegner, “‘Coming Before the LORD’: lpny yhwh and the Exclusion of Women from the Divine Presence,” in Hesed ve-emet: Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs (ed. Jodi Magness and Seymour Gitin; BJS 320; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 81–91; and eadem, “‘Coming before the Lord’: The Exclusion of Women from the Public Domain of the Israelite Priestly Cult,” in The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception (ed. Rolf Rendtorff and Robert A. Kugler, with Sarah Smith Bartel; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 451–65. For a list of women’s prayers recorded in the Hebrew Bible, see Miller, “Things Too Wonderful,” 237 n. 2. 18 See the article (and especially the concluding paragraph) by Carol Meyers, “Hannah and Her Sacrifice: Reclaiming Female Agency,” in A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings (ed. Athalya Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 93–104.

Small Change: Saul to Paul, Again

The change in names from Saul to Paul in Acts has long intrigued commentators. Suggestions for the shift have included the salacious connotations of sau'lo" in Greek; Paul’s desire to honor Sergius Paulus; or Paul’s wish to have a Gentile name for the Gentile mission.1 One neglected clue, however, lies hidden in Acts 13 itself. Although it may not solve the historical problems related to the name change, it does give us insight into what the author of Acts may have been thinking in this regard. The transition from Saul to Paul comes in 13:9: Sau'lo" dev, oJ kai; Pau'lo". A few verses later (13:16–41), Paul speaks to the synagogue leaders in Antioch in Pisidia. He begins with a typical recitation of Israel’s history leading up to the present day. It bears resemblance to Peter’s early speeches in Acts, and especially to Stephen’s lengthy speech in Acts 7. Not surprisingly, Paul’s scriptural discussion climaxes with King David, from whom came the Messiah. What is unusual, however, is the inclusion of Saul son of Kish (Saou;l uiJo;n Kiv") in the sacred history (v. 21). This is the only time in the entire NT that (the OT) Saul appears. It seems unusual that this sole occurrence should come just after the Apostle’s name change in 13:9. Two explanations present themselves. On the one hand, it is surely relevant that Saul son of Kish was the chief persecutor of the Messiah’s forebear David (1 Samuel 18–31). Such a name might seem ill-fitting, given Paul’s activities on behalf of David’s descendant.2 (One might feel that the name change would have been more appropriate earlier in the narrative, but ch. 13 does present readers with the author’s first extended portrayal of Paul preaching in a synagogue.) The ominous note about God’s removal of Saul in 13:22 (metasthvsa" aujtovn) hints at the negative role Saul plays in Paul’s speech. But a more precise connection also suggests itself. Paulus, of course, means “small” or “little” in Latin. Saul son of Kish was notorious for his physical stature: on two occasions he is described as being literally “head and shoulders” above his fellow Israelites (1 Sam 9:2; 10:23: kai; uJywvqh uJpe;r pavnta to;n lao;n uJpe;r wjmivan kai; ejpavnw). Just prior to David’s anointing, by contrast, Samuel is enjoined by God not to look at physical stat1

Most of the options adopted by modern commentators were laid out as early as 1869 by Philip Schaff, in “Biblical Monographs: Saul and Paul,” Methodist Quarterly Review 51 (1869): 422–24 (with thanks to Jonathan Moo for pointing out this and other relevant references to me). Another dated but still very useful treatment is G. A. Harrer, “Saul who is also called Paul,” HTR 33 (1940): 19–34. For a more recent survey, see T. J. Leary, “Paul’s Improper Name,” NTS 38 (1992): 467–69. 2 This would argue against Paul’s inclusion of Saul here as a point of pride. See, e.g., C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 1:635.

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ure or appearance (1 Sam 16:7: mh; ejpiblevyh/" ejpi; th;n o[yin aujtou' mhde; eij" th;n e{xin megevqou" aujtou'). More pointedly for our purposes, David is introduced in 1 Sam 16:11 as (literally) “the little one” (LXX oJ mikrov"; MT N+fq%fha; Vg parvulus).3 The emphasis on the respective stature of these two figures is heightened by the repeated comments on David’s youth (1 Sam 16:11; 17:33, 42) culminating in Goliath’s dismissive remarks in 17:43.4 In light of the above, I would suggest that the name change in Acts 13 serves for the author of Acts as a vivid illustration of Paul’s transformation from the proud “big man” who persecuted the church, to the servant of “little” David’s messianic offspring.5 The introduction of Saul into a NT narrative of Israel’s story is unique; the tension between Saul and David in 1 Samuel is one of the most dominant themes in that book; and the amount of Latin needed to pick up on the wordplay is very small indeed. This does not preclude other explanations for the transition from Saul to Paul, nor does it necessitate that Paul himself consciously initiated the change in light of the wordplay.6 But it does give us one interesting perspective on the matter from within the text of Acts itself. Sean M. McDonough [email protected] Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA 01982 3 Note also Ps 151:1 LXX, where David, speaking in the first person, declares mikro;" h[mhn ejn toi'" ajdelfoi'" mou kai; newvtero" ejn tw'/ oi[kw/ tou' patrov" mou. On the Vg reference, note that paulus and parvulus are related forms, both being akin to the Greek pau'ro", as noted in Lewis and Short (A Latin Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879]). 4 In 1 Sam 15:17 Samuel chastises Saul, telling him that prior to his ascension to the throne Saul had considered himself “small in his own eyes” (LXX mikrov"; MT N+ooqf; Vg parvulus). 5 Something like this (though without reference to the context in Acts) was offered by Augustine in Spir. et litt. 12, where he contends that Paul adopted this name to show that he considered himself little, the least of the apostles. For the reference and discussion, see F. J. Foakes-Jackson and Kirsopp Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, part 1, The Acts of the Apostles (5 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1920–33), 4:146. 6 See Augustine, who despite the explanation offered above from De Spiritu et Littera, offers another view in Conf. 8.4. Here he contends that Saul adopted the name Paul as a tribute to the conversion of Sergius Paulus.

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JBL 125, no. 2 (2006): 393–419

Book Reviews Book reviews are also published online at the Society of Biblical Literature’s WWW site http://www.bookreviews.org. For a list of books received by the Journal, see http://www.bookreviews.org/books-received.html

From time to time, the JBL book review section offers differing (and sometimes innovative) formats for the review of recent materials in the field of biblical and cognate studies. We are pleased to open this volume with a fairly well known genre—the book review essay.

New Testament Theology: The Revival of a Discipline A Review of Recent Contributions to the Field C. Kavin Rowe The Divinity School, Duke University Durham, NC 27708

The New Testament theology will never be written. It can never be written, because in principle the discipline . . . New Testament theology is never a finally closed book but constitutes a task that continues with us all our days. —Gerhard Ebeling, “The Meaning of ‘Biblical Theology’,” in Word and Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), 94 [emphasis original]. It has often been thought that since Bultmann’s monumental Theology of the New Testament New Testament Theology (NTT) has become a sterile discipline. It is true that, despite periods of activity after Bultmann, a glance at the state of research over the past fifty years does raise the question of whether or not NTT has ever left its cul-de-sac. In the last decade or so, however, there has been a determined attempt to move forward (see recently Frank J. Matera, “New Testament Theology: History, Method, and Identity,” CBQ 67 [2005]: 1–21 [6–15]). Thus it is the purpose of this article to review the most significant current work in the field (I) and, on this basis, to identify briefly several areas that offer a sense of the shape and movement of the discipline (II).

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The grandest of the complete NTTs is Ferdinand Hahn’s nearly 2000 page Theologie des Neuen Testaments (2 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001, 2005 [1st ed. 2002]). Indeed, in terms of its critical sophistication and attempt at theological synthesis, Hahn’s work is the most significant Theologie to emerge since Bultmann’s. Hahn begins by distinguishing the NT theological task from theology more broadly conceived: “Theologie ist Nachdenken über den Glauben und damit Nachdenken über den als gültig anerkannten Wahrheitsanspruch der christlichen Botschaft. Theologie des Neuen Testaments konzentriert sich auf das Glaubenszeugnis des Urchristentums, das als solches Grundlage aller christlichen Verkündigung und Theologie ist” (1:1, emphasis added). In order best to encompass the scope of “das Glaubenszeugnis des Urchristentums,” Hahn divides his TdNT into two volumes. The first volume, Die Vielfalt des Neuen Testaments: Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums, represents a diachronic investigation of the manifold and theologically diverse layers of tradition within the NT. The second volume, Die Einheit des Neuen Testaments: Thematische Darstellung, provides a systematic ordering and presentation of the contents of vol. 1. Volume 1 is structured around the “Jesustradition und deren Rezeption seitens der nachösterlichen Gemeinde” (1:vii). In contrast to Bultmann, Hahn argues that close attention to early NT traditions reveals the interpretive necessity of a “Rückfrage nach Jesus”: insofar as the NT texts themselves exhibit a deep concern to relate the “Christusverkündigung” to the “Geschichte Jesu,” a theology of the NT must take seriously this movement toward the Jesus of history (esp. 1:30–32, 40–43). Hahn thus sees the probing of the space between the Proclaimer and the Proclaimed as an essential task of NTT. Indeed, it is only in light of the “Rückfrage” that the NT kerygma can be seen in its complexity and depth. The significance of Easter not only entails the outward movement of the message about Jesus but also the backward movement toward his earthly life and preaching. Hence, the first volume moves in (fairly standard) chronological order from the “Verkündigung und Wirken Jesu” through its multifaceted reception in the earliest Christian communities (Aramaic and Greek speaking), to Paul, the Pauline school, the non-Pauline Hellenistic-Jewish writings (James, 1 Peter, Hebrews, and Revelation), the Synoptics (Acts is treated with Luke), the Johannine literature, and finally, the “transition to the second century” (Jude, 2 Peter, and the Apostolic Fathers). The exegetical attempt with each of these textual groups is to discern the diversity in the theological concepts and ecclesial practices that are a response to the Christ-event. This investigation yields a vast variety within NT Christianity in both practice and belief, to the extent that the reader is reminded of—and ultimately referred to—Käsemann’s famous thesis regarding the concomitance between the diversity in the NT canon and later church confessions: the “Vielfalt enthält durchaus die Tendenz zu divergierender Ausbildung christlicher Identität und konnte gegebenfalls zu unterschiedlichen konfessionelle Ausprägungen führen (vgl. Ernst Käsemann)” (1:763). Methodologically speaking, the chronological orientation and conceptual telos of Hahn’s Theologiegeschichte are hardly original, as displaying resolutely the diversity in the various “Traditionslinien” has long played a vital role in the history of the discipline

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(see recently Klaus Berger, Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums: Theologie des Neuen Testaments [Tübingen: Francke, 1994]). Yet for Hahn, what is significant is not the diversity per se, but rather the constructive character of such diversity for the question of the NT’s unity: “[d]ie Einheit des Neuen Testaments darf keinesfalls einfach vorausgesetzt werden; sie muß Kritisch erarbeitet werden aufgrund der Analyse der verschiedenen Traditionen” (1:26). That is, the diversity of the NT is inherent to its unity. Here Käsemann is reversed: the radical diversity of the NT does not preclude but instead discloses its unity. In this way, the thematic presentation and argument for unity in vol. 2 arise out of the technical tradition-history work in vol. 1 (e.g., esp. 1:27), as the diversity of the NT demonstrated in the first volume determines materially the kind of unity exhibited in the second. The overall arrangement of Hahn’s TdNT is thus hermeneutically significant in that it moves beyond a mere juxtaposition of two separate projects toward the structural and logical interpenetration of a truly synthetic account. Moreover, for Hahn the synthetic nature of the NT theological enterprise is necessary sensu stricto. An authentic NTT must pursue the question of the unity of the NT: “Eine Theologie des Neuen Testaments muß sich, wenn sie ihrem theologischen Anspruch gerecht werden will, neben der Vielfalt der Schriften auch mit der Frage nach der Einheit des urchristlichen Zeugnisses befassen” (1:xv). But it is insufficient to address this complex question in the customary final chapter; rather, “es muß anhand der zentralen Themen aufgezeigt werden, wie sich die Einheit bestimmen läßt” (1:xv). Volume 2, therefore, offers a thematization of the unity of the NT. The overarching rubric under which Hahn constructs vol. 2 is the revelation-act of God (Offenbarungshandeln Gottes): in the light of vol. 1, God’s act of self-revelation emerges as that which constitutes the unity in the various lines of tradition in the NT and thus enables them to be organized into a coherent thematic presentation: “Neutestamentliche Theologie ist Theologie der Offenbarung Gottes” (2:167; cf. 2:27, 161). The NT’s account of God’s revelation, however, is unintelligible apart from the OT (contra Hans Hübner, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments [3 vols.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990–93], per se and not simply in novo receptum). With respect to the God who reveals God’s self in the OT, there is with the NT a “heilsgeschichtliche Kontinuität, die für das Verständnis des christlichen Glaubens konstitutiv ist” (2:85; cf. 2:86–87). Thus does a discussion of “Das Alte Testament als Bibel des Urchristentums” (Teil I) precede the thematic ordering of the unity of God’s revelation in the NT. The center of God’s revelation in the NT is, of course, the person of Jesus Christ (part 2). In this way “christology” provides the particular unifying force for the rest of vol. 2, for it allows the most significant aspects of God’s self-revelation to be related coherently to one center (cf. 2:259). The further traditional distinction between the person and work of Christ proves valuable descriptively in that the various exegetical data of vol. 1 can be coordinated with “Das Offenbarungshandeln Gottes in Jesus Christus” on the one hand (part 2), and the effects of this revelation on the other: Die soteriologische Dimension des Offenbarungshandelns Gottes (part 3), Die ekklesiologische Dimension des Offenbarungshandelns Gottes (part 4), and Die eschatologische Dimension des Offenbarungshandelns Gottes (part 5). Thus, the unity of the NT is, strictly speaking,

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theological: the NT traditions point in all their variety to the reality of the God of Israel’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. Unity, however, is not uniformity (2:805). To affirm the former rather than the latter is to allow tensions and even basic contradictions to remain. The many views of the Torah, for example, are “höchst spannungsreich” (2:364–65), and “zwischen den Aussagen des Paulus über die total verlorene Gotteserkenntnis und der Aufassung des Lukas, daß alle Menschen trotz ihrer Sünde und Gottlosigkeit über eine bedingte Gotteserkenntnis verfügen, ist keine Brücke zu schlagen” (2:804). Even within NT eschatology—an area treated as a dimension of the unity of God’s self-revelation—it may be said that the “eschatologischen Aussagen des Neuen Testaments sind höchst unterschiedlich und in ihrem Erwartungshorizont nicht miteinander zu vereinen” (2:804). In Hahn’s sense, then, unity is not to be mistaken for an easy harmonization of the NT’s theological diversity. Rather, “[d]ie Einheit des Neuen Testaments besteht . . . in einer vielgestaltigen Entfaltung der urchristlichen Botschaft” (2:805). Thus “[kann] die Einheit . . . nur Einheit in der Vielfalt sein” (1:770). But let there be no mistake: “Einheit in der Vielfalt” is a real, substantive unity. Contra William Wrede, Heikki Räisänen, and other skeptics, Hahn affirms that the theological gauntlet thrown down by the collection of twenty-seven different documents has been taken up: one can write not only a Theologiegeschichte but also a Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Ulrich Wilckens would agree. Already in his retirement, Wilckens began a threevolume TdNT (Theologie des Neuen Testaments [4 vols.; Neukirchener-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002–5]). Because it is presently incomplete, however, Wilckens’s project is difficult to evaluate comprehensively (vol. 1, Geschichte der urchristlichen Theologie, has appeared in four parts: Teilband 1: Geschichte des Wirkens Jesu in Galiläa [2002; 2nd ed. 2005]; Teilband 2: Jesu Tod und Auferstehung und die Entstehung der Kirche aus Juden und Heiden [2003]; Teilband 3: Die Briefe des Urchristentums: Paulus und seine Schüler, Theologen aus dem Bereich judenchristlicher Heidenmission [2005]; Teilband 4: Die Evangelien, die Apostelgeschichte, die Johannesbriefe, die Offenbarung und die Entstehung des Kanons [2005]). On the basis of his work in vol. 1, it is nevertheless worthwhile to note some of the leading themes and methodological decisions, not least of all because they represent substantive convergence with Hahn. First, with respect to the overall structure of the work, vols. 1 and 2 of Wilckens’s TdNT deal with the “historische Darstellung der Geschichte Jesu und des Urchristentums” and the “systematisch-theologische Darstellung des Ganzen dieser Geschichte,” respectively (1:1.50–51; vol. 3 offers a “kritische Darstellung der Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Bibelwissenschaft” [1:1.51], and gives the methodological justification for the procedure in vols. 1 and 2). Like Hahn, Wilckens avers that the diversity of the NT writings must be respected. To understand the theological unity of the NT is to work through, not against, the contingency of the individual compositions. “Jede Schrift,” argues Wilckens, “soll zunächst so gehört werden, wie sie an je ihrem Ort in der Geschichte des Urchristentums entstanden ist und von ihren Adressaten gehört werden sollte” (1:3.v). Thus, for example, with respect to the Gospels, the presentation in vol. 1 follows a historical rather than a canonical order: Gospel material is of course used

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in part 1 to reconstruct crucial moments in the early history, but the treatment of the Gospels as whole compositions is reserved until part 4. Moreover, Wilckens takes “Jede Schrift” seriously: part 3, for example, treats individually every letter in the Pauline corpus (in “chronological” order), Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, Jude, and 2 Peter. Yet Wilckens is careful to underscore the point that every historical presentation of the diversity or individuality of the NT writings involves a larger schematized perception of the overall history and development that surround the particular NT documents: “[I]m historischen Teil [werden] entscheidende Aspekte vorausgesetzt, die erst im systematischen Teil thematisch zusammenhängen dargestellt. Diese Verwurzelung des Historischen im Systematischen bestimmt aber bereits die Methode von Bd. I.” (1:1.51). This critical awareness of method prevents one from taking vol. 1 in isolation, as if it could be viewed simply as the “historical” component of the TdNT (with vol. 2 as the “theological” component). Instead, at least if it is carried through, there is a substantive interpenetration of vols. 1 and 2. For Wilckens as for Hahn, diachronic investigation and systematic presentation are not two separate ventures but rather two movements in one interpretive enterprise. Second, Wilckens argues that the “historical Jesus” is integral to NTT. Here, however, Wilckens labors to redefine critically the way in which the historical Jesus has been conceived. Rather than a figure who is best accessed in abstraction from his resurrection (1:1.29), the historical Jesus is the Jesus known through an examination of the essential continuity between the pre- and post-Easter period. If initially one is not committed to an understanding of reality that precludes resurrection (esp. 1:1.21–29), then “eröffnet sich eine faszinierende Möglichkeit, das Zentralproblem der historisch-kritischen neutestamentlichen Forschung: die Kluft zwischen dem historischen Jesus und dem verkündigten Christus historisch so zu lösen, daß sich ein theologischer Zusammenhang zeigt, der ebenso sinnvoll wie der historische Zusammenhang plausibel ist” (1:1.35; emphasis original). Wilckens admits that securing a theologically discerned historical continuity between the “Selbstverständnis Jesu” and the “urchristlichen Christusverkündigung” will involve “das ganze Geschichtsbild der historisch-kritischen Forschung in einer historischen wie theologischen Revision von Grund auf ” (1:1.35). But, in his view, such a christological revision of modern conceptuality is nothing less than the task of NTT. Third, the unity exhibited through the diversity of the NT is ultimately a profoundly theological one: “Die Einheit und Gemeinsamkeit urchristlichen Glaubens und urchristlicher Theologie hat in der Wirklichkeit Gottes ihren eigentlichen Grund” (1:1.55). In contrast to the old “Lehrbegriff ” model, Wilckens is at pains throughout vol. 1 to make clear that it is not the idea or doctrine of God that unifies the testimonies of the NT but “God” in the sense of a reality outside the text. “Der Konzeption der hier vorgelegten ‘Theologie des Neuen Testaments’ . . . liegt das Urteil zugrunde, daß alle Schriften des neutestamentlichen Kanons die Wirklichkeit des lebendigen Gottes selbst voraussetzen und bezeugen, der sich in der Geschichte seines Handelns mit den Menschen offenbart” (1:.4.vi [emphasis original]; cf. 1:1.11). Lest the NT scholar fret over the encroachment of systematic theology, it is important to note that such an explicitly theological claim functions also to ground Wilckens’s conviction that NTT must engage in rigorous historical inquiry. Because “[d]ie Wirklich-

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keit Gottes ist selbst geschichtlich,” the NT theologian who seeks to explore this reality must do so historically. Thus the theological character of the NT provides the necessity for historical investigation: “[F]ür die Notwendigkeit historischer Exegese biblischer Texte [gibt es] vor allem theologische Gründe” (1:1.23; emphasis original). In this way, for Wilckens, the unity of the NT texts (the reality of God) commits the exegete simultaneously to the diversity of the NT (the revelation of God’s reality in history). Finally, to locate the unity of the NT in the identity of God is also to point to the importance of the OT for the NT: “Daß im Alten wie im Neuen Testament der eine und selbe Gott bezeugt wird, ist die Grundvoraussetzung jeder Theologie des Neuen Testaments, die dessen Inhalt gerecht werden will” (1:1.2). Wilckens’s “Einführung in das Gesamtwerk” in 1:1, therefore, begins not with the NT but with the OT. With Hahn, moreover, Wilckens rejects Hübner’s more narrow focus on the OT’s reception in the New and maintains that “[d]as Alte Testament als ganzes ständig im Blick stehen [muß]” (1:1.13; emphasis added). The OT is not a set of proof texts from which the NT writers draw carefully (or willy-nilly) to suit the occasion. To the contrary, the OT informs the theology of the NT in a far-reaching and significant sense. For example, both the christology and ecclesiology “des Urchristentums [haben] ihre Wurzel in der Heilsgeschichte Israels” (1:1.56). The NT’s construction of the identity of Jesus and the church is inseparably bound to the history of Israel and its God. Thus, to come full circle, NTT is embedded in the OT because of the continuity in divine identity and act: “Christliche Gemeinden leben mit dem Gott Israels. Deswegen ist das Alte Testament ihre Heilige Schrift” (1:1.55; emphasis original). Even Peter Stuhlmacher could not have put it more strongly. Stuhlmacher’s second volume of his much discussed Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments (BThdNT) appeared in 1999 (Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Band 1: Grundlegung: Von Jesus zu Paulus [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991]; Band 2: Von der Paulusschule bis zur Johannesoffenbarung: Der Kanon und seine Auslegung [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999]). For the purposes of this review, Stuhlmacher’s project need not be covered in full. It will instead suffice to note three cardinal areas of similarity with Hahn and Wilckens. First, the title of Stuhlmacher’s work makes the importance of the OT immediately clear. By situating his NT investigations within the larger framework of “biblical” theology, Stuhlmacher is able to characterize his NT theological endeavor as “eine vom Alten Testament herkommende und zu ihm hin offene Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments.” NTT itself, that is, does not exist as a self-contained discipline; it is instead always and only a “Teildisziplin einer Altes und Neues Testament gemeinsam betrachtenden Biblischen Theologie” (1:5). Like Hahn and Wilckens, Stuhlmacher affirms that the importance of the OT for the NT is far greater than the significance attached to citations and allusions alone (1:36–38). Indeed, “Das Neue Testament is ohne das Alte nicht zu denken” (2:288). Where Stuhlmacher differs somewhat from Hahn and Wilckens, however, is in the amount of weight he places upon Kanonsgeschichte. Adopting the thesis of Hartmut Gese, Stuhlmacher grounds the unity of the OT with the NT in the (debatable) fact that the “closing” of the OT and NT canon was actually one historical process, not two separate events. Around the time of the NT, that is, the OT canon was not closed

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but remained open to further developments. In point of fact, the open OT went in two observable directions: that of rabbinic Judaism with the Mishnah, and that of early Christianity with the NT texts. Thus, in Stuhlmacher’s account, neither the OT nor the NT existed in final form independently. In the historical trajectory of the Christian tradition, there is really only one book: “Altes und Neues Testament lassen sich darum zwar als erster und zweiter Teil des biblischen Kanons unterscheiden, aber nicht trennen. Trennt man sie, versteht man das Neue Testament sowohl historisch als auch theologisch falsch” (1:5; emphasis added). The primary way in which a separation of the Old from the NT is “theologisch falsch” joins Stuhlmacher closely again with Hahn and Wilckens. The God who is revealed in the OT and the NT is one and the same God. At bottom, then, the historicalcanonical process has its meaning in the revelation of God: “Die Entscheidung der Kirche für den zweiteiligen christlichen Kanon war die konsequente Reaktion auf die Traditions- und Offenbarungsgeschichte, der sie sich verdankt” (2:303). Second, Stuhlmacher affirms that NTT must give an explanation for the unity of the NT, why, that is, “gerade die 27 neutestamentlichen Bücher zum zweiten Teil des Kanons zusammengefaßt werden konnten” (1:34). Rather than an entire volume of systematic presentation, however, Stuhlmacher structures his BThdNT differently. The overall work is divided into two parts: (1) Entstehung und Eigenart der neutestamentlichen Verkündigung (2) Das Problem des Kanons und die Mitte der Schrift. But one should note that vols. 1 and 2 do not correspond exactly to these two parts. (Indeed, Part 1 comprises the majority of vol. 2 as well.) Instead, vol. 1—von Jesus zu Paulus—presents the “Grundlegung” of a biblical theology of the NT. Stuhlmacher begins with the message and life of Jesus, moves to the preaching of primitive Christian community, and finally to Paul. Volume 2 presents the rest of the NT as the building upon this foundation (the Pauline school, the “catholic letters,” the Synoptics with Acts, and the Johannine literature). In the final 62 pages (out of ca. 750 total text pages in the two volumes), Stuhlmacher turns to part 2 of his project and grapples with issues of canon and the center of Scripture. Stuhlmacher’s attempt to establish the unity of the NT could be caricatured as the “final chapter” statement against which Hahn warns. Such a caricature, however, would not do justice to the conceptual significance of the work’s structure or to Stuhlmacher’s resolute effort throughout part 1 to locate the points of continuity which then fund the construal of the NT’s unity in part 2. The structure and approach of the project together make a strong argument for the unity of the NT in traditionsgeschichtliche terms. There is a continuity in history between Jesus’ life and message and the response thereto: “die christliche Missions- und Gemeinde-Predigt [ist] geschichtlich legitimerweise Predigt von Jesus als dem Christus Gottes, oder mit A. Schlatter formuliert: Der irdische Jesus war kein anderer als der Christus des Glaubens” (1:157; emphasis original). For Stuhlmacher, this continuity is understandable only within the larger theological context of God’s relation to the world as narrated in the OT. Thus is the theology of the NT a biblical theology of the NT: “Die Biblische Theologie des (Alten und) Neuen Testaments wird konstituiert durch das kerygmatische Zeugnis von dem einen Gott, der die Welt geschaffen, Israel zu seinem Eigentumsvolk erwählt und in der Sendung Jesu als Christus für das Heil von Juden und Heiden genug getan hat” (1:38; cf. 1:34; 2:311–13).

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Third, despite the “klare Konturen für eine Glaubenslehre, die über den Differenzen der verschiedenen Traditionszeugen des Neuen Testaments steht,” the unity “[hat] nicht zur Uniformität gezwungen” (2:311). It is therefore incumbent upon the NT exegete to draw out the diversity of the writings under discussion and to treat them in their individual, historical contexts (e.g., 1:10). The logic that undergirds the collection of twenty-seven different documents does not posit a bland theological uniformity but instead, under the conviction of a theologically continuous history, moves freely through the manifest diversity of the individual texts. Read together, the NT theologies of Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher constitute a powerful voice in German NTT today. In multiple and important ways—and regardless of their many differences—their theologies converge to provide a coherent alternative to the larger Bultmannian paradigm in NTT. Where Bultmann famously side-stepped the significance of the OT, Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher all affirm the inseparability of the Old from the New. Where Bultmann refused the historical Jesus a part in the theology of the NT, Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher press for the necessity of Jesus’ earthly life as an essential ingredient of NTT. Where Bultmann saw deep and irreconcilable theological contradiction within the NT (the radical divergences between Paul/John and Frühkatholizismus, for example), Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher argue for a discernible theological unity amidst the obvious and real diversity of the NT writings. And, finally, where Bultmann’s existential interpretation clearly placed the accent on theological anthropology (human “self-understanding”), Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher all insist on the centrality of theology proper: the NT is first of all about God. Recent German NTT, however, is not univocal. Georg Strecker’s posthumously published TdNT (German, 1996) (Theology of the New Testament [ed. F. W. Horn; trans. E. Boring; Berlin: de Gruyter; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000]), for example, continues in the Bultmannian vein with an explicit focus upon the cognitive structures of religious experience, “believing comprehension” (2). Strecker, moreover, does not argue for the unity of the NT. Indeed, he explicitly sets the NT’s diversity over against the possibility of its unity: “the theological unity . . . cannot be presupposed. It is rather the case that in the writings of the New Testament we are met with a multiplicity of theological conceptions. These are to be investigated and presented according to their own structures of thought, in relation to their own historical and literary contexts” (2–3). Joachim Gnilka, too, has offered a recent TdNT which differs significantly from Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher (Theologie des Neuen Testaments [HTKNT Sup 5; Freiburg: Herder, 1994]). The title of the work notwithstanding, Gnilka, like Strecker, makes no concerted attempt to address the question of the theological unity of the NT. In fact, where he identifies the element common to the various “Vorgaben” of the NT documents—the kerygma of the death and resurrection of Jesus—he concurrently precludes the unity of the NT by also asserting that this is the source of manifold diversity (esp. 454–64). In addition, though he begins with Paul, Gnilka agrees with Bultmann with respect to the role of Jesus in a NTT: “In eine Erörterung über die Ursprünge und den Anfang der Kirche gehört Jesus von Nazaret unverzichtbar hinein. Schriebe man eine Theologie des Neuen Testaments, so konnte man auf dieses Kapitel verzichten” (Die

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Frühen Christen: Ursprünge und Anfang der Kirche [HTKNT Sup 7; Freiburg: Herder, 1999], 11–12, with reference to his own TdNT). Despite the uncontestable sophistication of these works, it is difficult to concede that Strecker and Gnilka have written successful Theologies of the NT (so, rightly, Matera, “New Testament Theology,” 8, though his remark that they have presented “reliable accounts of the theologies in the writings of the NT” undercuts his critical move). Although their studies carry forth Bultmann’s perspective in certain important ways and display numerous exegetical insights, in the end they seem not to amount to more than valuable sets of historical- or redaction-critical articles. Yet precisely in this way they are tradents of one side of the history of the discipline, the side in which the extensive diversity of the NT appears to render questionable its existence as a collection. A more creative effort to deal constructively with the NT’s diversity from within the Bultmannian existentialist framework is François Vouga’s Une théologie du Nouveau Testament (MDB 43; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2001; see 439, 445, etc.; though Swiss-born, Vouga’s institutional home is the Kirchliche Hochschule Bethel in Germany). In contrast to the diachronic methodology of Strecker, for example, Vouga’s work is arranged thematically. The attempt here is not to follow the traditional dogmatic loci or a history of theological development but to let the NT itself suggest the organizing topics (esp. 19–21): “La révélation du temps nouveau,” “La réalité de l’existence nouvelle,” the three theological virtues (foi, espérance, amour) and so on (these larger themes are also further subdivided). The fresh aspect of Vouga’s treatment is the imaginative manner in which he structures debates around these matters from within the NT itself. The NT texts are not pressed or mixed together in order to speak with one voice on a particular topic. The emphasis, rather, is upon letting the relevant NT authors speak with their own voices to a variety of different issues. So, for example, when Vouga treats “La réalité de l’existence nouvelle,” he organizes the dialogue around four different ways in which the NT authors construe “new existence”: Luke and John are employed to address new existence in light of their emphases upon salvation (“salut”), while Hebrews and John are allowed to speak about the images of deliverance and purification (“images de la délivrance et de la purification”); Paul, Matthew, and Luke discuss forgiveness (“pardon”), and, lastly, Paul reappears to reflect with the author of Ephesians upon new existence as reconciliation (“réconciliation”). In this way, Vouga is able to elaborate the distinctive perspectives of the various NT documents from multiple angles of vision. In Vouga’s judgment, the diversity that emerges from this method of reading the NT texts together excludes the kind of final theological unity for which Hahn et al. have argued. The response to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ is deeply pluralistic and cannot be reduced to an overarching theological perspective. In view of this irreducible diversity, NTT becomes dialogue, debate, or finally a conflict of interpretations (442–43). This conflict, however, is fully in accord with earliest Christianity itself, in which there never was an original theological unity (F. C. Baur’s influence is marked); thus does NTT as a conflict of interpretation mirror well the nature of its source (Vouga is aware of course that Acts, e.g., presents a more unified picture of early Christian theol-

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ogy than he does. But this picture, in his view, is a fictive projection of later ecclesiastical authorities/wishes [440]). In light of such radical disagreement within the NT, one might expect Vouga to abandon altogether any attempt at unity. Instead, he presents “la diversité des théologies comme principe d’unité du christianisme” (21). For Vouga, diversity and conflict result in conversation, and it is this dialogical mode of discourse that itself becomes the proper form of unity: “Le christianisme se définit lui-même comme conflit des interprétations de la révélation historique de Dieu en Jésus-Christ, de sorte que le dialogue ouvert est la forme appropriée de l’unité du christianisme” (442; emphasis altered). Or, to state positively the “unity” of NT Christianity in Vouga’s sense: “L’unité . . . consiste nécessairement en un ‘conflit des interpretations’” (443). If there remain structural curiosities and organizational oddities (e.g., the treatment of the historical Jesus in the middle of the book does not evidence a logically necessary relationship to its surrounding material), the overall conceptual proposals in Vouga’s TdNT are remarkably consistent. It is, finally, no small wonder that the only two figures who receive significant discussion are F. C. Baur and Bultmann (380–90, in a digression). If one is convinced in Baur-like fashion that the level of theological conflict in the NT is as substantive as Vouga believes, then it is indubitably convenient to be convinced in Bultmann-like fashion that the thrust of the NT is essentially anthropological (“self-understanding”). This coordination allows Vouga to avoid positing directly an essential conflict in the identity of God (as would be the case if he construed the unity in ultimately theological terms), for God is no longer the primary horizon of the NT. Vouga’s work recalls the unfinished New Testament Theology of George B. Caird (completed and edited by L. D. Hurst; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), who, like Vouga, attempts to bring the NT authors together in conversation with one another. Structurally speaking, Caird rejects the dogmatic loci approach, the developmental or chronological approach, the kerygmatic approach, and the author-by-author approach (5–18). In the place of these defective organizational schemata, Caird sets the “Conference Table Approach.” The methodological presupposition “is simply stated: to write a New Testament theology is to preside at a conference of faith and order. Around the table sit the authors of the New Testament, and it is the presider’s task to engage them in a colloquium about theological matters which they themselves have placed on the agenda” (18). In practice, Caird’s NTT then proceeds thematically, and the NT authors are employed to speak with their own voices to various aspects of “salvation”—the overarching theme to which all others are related. Indeed, six of the eight chapters that comprise the body of the book are essentially about salvation. The eighth chapter concerns “the theology of Jesus.” This reflects Caird’s conviction that Bultmann put “the cart before the horse” (25). Because we have only “the message of Jesus according to Mark, or Luke, or Matthew, or John,” we can only arrive at the “teaching of Jesus” after a thorough study of the NT documents (25–26). Such an approach presupposes that the task of NTT is “modern academic research into the ideas of the New Testament writers,” rather than a reconstruction of the message of Jesus behind the Gospels. Of course, this is precisely Caird’s point. Unlike Vouga, however, Caird displays no postmodern hermeneutical tendencies, affirming resolutely the traditional Wrede/Stendahl line: “New Testament theology is a

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historical discipline. . . . Its purpose is descriptive” (1). Also in contrast to Vouga, Caird holds out for the theological unity of the NT. The model is given by the NT itself in the form of the Jerusalem council (23–24), in which there was presumably unity without homogeneity. By no means, that is to say, is the “music of the New Testament choir . . . written to be sung in unison” (24). The question is not whether the NT texts “all say the same thing, but whether they all bear witness to the same Jesus and through him to the many splendoured wisdom of the one God” (24). Thus, for Caird as for Hahn et al., the unity of the NT is finally a question about the unity of God. Philip Esler (New Testament Theology: Communion and Community [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005]) shares Caird’s conviction that a proper NTT ought to be historical and descriptive. The “normative” role of NTT is rejected in favor of “the valorization of what Stendahl called the descriptive task” (36). Yet for Esler such historical work is theological in scope. Esler begins his “entirely different model” for NTT by stating that his “intention in writing is an avowedly theological one,” by which he means that he intends “to promote a specifically Christian rationale for reading the New Testament” (1). Thus the whole of the descriptive, historical investigations is “set within a theologically and socially constructed framework of persons in communion” (276). These are the two sides of Esler’s proposal: on the one hand, there is the adamant commitment to the historical-critical and social-scientific enterprise, and, on the other, there is the attempt to develop a theological account of personhood. Historical, social-scientific investigation centers the interpreter’s attention upon the oral/aural dynamic of author/audience communication in the ancient world. “Textuality” is largely a modern construct; “scriptality”—despite the awkward neologism—captures better the fact that the author was presumed to be present via his/her written communication (180ff.). That is, communication through written documents was not merely a dispensing of information but was an “interpersonal” affair. In the face of difficulties with authorial intention, textual transmission, and canonical shaping, Esler focuses on Paul and maintains that present-day readers still have direct access to the real (not implied) author through reading his documents. Indeed, this is the purpose of NTT: to commune interpersonally with the authors of the NT. In order to establish this communion as a serious possibility, Esler develops an account of the human person that draws on the thought of systematic theologians ranging from Schleiermacher to John Zizioulas (Orthodox), as well as on current work in genetics, sociology, literary theory, and philosophy. Esler’s theoretical melting pot yields the conclusion that the old ecclesial notion of “communion with the saints” wields sufficient explanatory power as that notion that best brings “the results of historical criticism of the New Testament into fruitful conjunction with the ongoing life and belief of contemporary Christians” (256). In the present climate, Esler’s “new approach” to NTT is novel in the sense that few NT scholars would want to claim that we have “direct” access to the NT authors (282ff.) and probably even fewer that such “interpersonal communication” is a direct result of historical research. Yet the overall concern to bring together exacting historical exegesis and contemporary Christian life is hardly new at all. In fact, such a concern is arguably

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imbedded in the origins of the discipline itself, and one has only to look over to the University of Aberdeen to see massive evidence of precisely this larger program. Howard Marshall’s recent tome (New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004]) is the best example of what divinity students typically think of when they think of NTT: an exegetical and theological map of the NT that shows how all the various lines fit together to make one picture. There are “many witnesses” but only “one Gospel.” In a sense, the question of the unity and diversity of the NT stands at the center of Marshall’s project. In contrast to the separate, systematic treatments of Hahn and Wilckens, however, the methodological manner in which Marshall considers this problem is essentially via the accumulation of descriptive exegesis: the construction of the work is an author-by-author treatment that builds its synthetic case in brief comparative sketches at the end of major textual groups (the Theology of the Synoptic Gospels and Acts; Paul, the Synoptic Gospels and Acts; John, the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, and Paul; Hebrews, James, 1–2 Peter and Jude in the NT). This structure reflects Marshall’s conviction that if there is to be a synthetic NTT, “it must begin with seeing each writer in his own terms” (726). The investigation of the individual witnesses of the NT does not proceed chronologically but, by and large, according to modern canonical groupings (Synoptics and Acts, corpus Paulinum, Johannine literature, the rest of the NT). The “historical Jesus,” however, is not thereby set aside. To the contrary, Marshall relies heavily on the Synoptic traditions and argues that NTT must include “jesusology as well as christology” (46). Here, like the views of Wilckens and Stuhlmacher, Marshall’s view of the historical Jesus is essentially concomitant with that of the figure presented by the Synoptic Gospels. In this way the theological continuity for which Marshall argues is also a historical one, in that the message of the NT (naturally) has its origin in the life and ministry of Jesus. Unity and continuity do not mean, however, that the NT documents are simply identical in theological expression. Indeed, there are significant differences in the way the various NT authors develop the central theme of the Gospel: “[t]he unity is expressed in diversity” (726; see also 21, 731, etc.). Yet, as he candidly admits, Marshall’s construal is weighted heavily toward the side of unity: “I have to admit that I am probably the kind of person whose bias or temptation is to see the likenesses and play down or not notice the differences, and therefore my observations may tend to be one-sided” (185; see esp. the evaluation of the list on 589–90 that compares the Synoptic Gospels with John. Of the nine listed items, four exhibit rather considerable differences between the Synoptics and John [nos. 1, 3, 4, and 5]. But Marshall concludes that the list as a whole indicates “a basic agreement between the Synoptic Gospels and John . . .” [590]). Adopting J. C. Beker’s “coherent/contingent” pattern of analysis for Pauline thought, Marshall argues that the coherence or “core” of the NT is its message of redemption (717). There are four discernible stages to this “religion of redemption . . . common to all the writers”: “(1) the situation of human need understood as sin that places sinners under divine judgment (2) the saving act by God that is accomplished through Jesus Christ . . . whose death and resurrection constitute the saving act that must be proclaimed to the world (3) the new life for those who show faith in God and Jesus Christ (4) the act of God to bring his redemptive action to consummation with the parousia of Christ, final judgment . . . and

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the establishment of the new world” (717–18; Marshall’s formulations are purposefully reminiscent of Kümmel’s articulation of the message of Jesus, Paul, and John: “what Kümmel established for three witnesses can be extended to cover all of them” [715]). Further, in addition to the “main theme” of redemption, all the NT writers share the same larger conceptual structure, or “framework of thought,” which is fundamentally Jewish in shape. The basic importance of the OT, for example, is presupposed (a “divinely authorized and inspired account of God’s dealings with his people”), as are the doctrine of creation and the theological significance of history (718). Finally, though they do so in various ways, all the NT writers develop the main theme of redemption with an emphasis upon what Marshall broadly terms “mission” (the “context of mission,” “center of mission,” “community of mission,” and “consummation of mission”). For Marshall, this is true historically no less than noetically. Not only is the existence of the NT dependent upon the “mission of Jesus”; it is also “worth remembering that people were believers only if they had become believers . . . [I]nevitably, therefore, the church was active in mission, or else there would have been no church” (709). To the objection that Paul’s letters, for example, are hardly tools of evangelism, Marshall has a ready reply. It is “a narrow view of evangelism that confines it to the activity whereby people are brought to faith; the nurture of converts and the establishment of the congregations they comprise are equally important as part of the task” (709). As Marshall defines it, the notion of mission thus encompasses the majority of the NT literature. “New Testament theology is essentially missionary theology” (34). To his own question, then, of whether the diversity in the NT “amounts to significant difference or even contradiction” (726), Marshall has answered with a clear “no.” Paul and the Synoptics (with Acts) are “not identical, but they are recognizably the same” (483). The positions of Paul and James “on the issue of faith and works . . . are harmonious” (691). Though the NT authors may sing different parts, they “are all singing from the same hymnbook” (484); there is “a harmony between the different writers” (483). They all “bear testimony to what is palpably the same complex reality” (726). In contrast to Vouga and Strecker, but like Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher, Marshall obviously posits a substantial level of unity between the various NT documents. Yet, in contrast to Wilckens et al., this unity is not derived from the identity of God as much as it is located in the thought of the particular NT writers (esp., e.g., 28–30). In this sense, Marshall’s version of unity is perhaps best read as a counterpoint to Vouga: where Vouga argues for permanent diversity on the basis of the perspectival differences between the authors of the NT, Marshall maintains that “a descriptive account of the theological thinking of the early Christians” (45) yields an essentially harmonious NTT.

II It is impossible to evaluate individually each of the NTTs treated above. It is also exceedingly difficult to draw together many thousands of pages from conceptually diverse works without reduction and oversimplification. Nevertheless, we may identify

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several areas of the foregoing discussion that help to sketch the development and present contour of the discipline. 1. The Old Testament. In marked contrast to a strong tendency in past scholarship (e.g., Harnack, Bultmann, Baumgärtel, Hirsch), recent work in NTT has reached the point of consensus on the importance of the OT for NTT: readings of the NT that downplay or even erase the fundamental historical and theological significance of the OT for the New contradict the NT itself to such a degree that they cease to be NTT. Whether “soft” or “hard,” Marcionite hermeneutics radically distort the constructive role of the OT in the NT. With varying interpretive strategies, the authors of the NT documents all seek to understand and explicate the meaning of the Christ-event in intimate connection with the OT. Moreover, contra Hübner, there is widespread agreement that the import of the OT extends far beyond citations and/or allusions; the entirety of the OT must be taken into account. 2. The Historical Jesus. There has also been a significant shift in NT theological research with respect to Jesus. Despite his otherwise enthusiastic acceptance of the Bultmannian program, even Vouga maintains that Jesus should occupy a place within NTT. Gnilka demurs, but Hahn, Wilckens, Stuhlmacher, and Marshall all attempt to incorporate the question of continuity between the NT and the figure whose life and teaching generated its documents. By attempting to show that the unity of the NT has its basic origin in Jesus, these scholars argue for a unity that operates at a deeper level than an interpretation of the NT that would avoid asking the historical question. In their view, NTT encompasses rather than brackets out the pre-NT period: there is in fact a “sachliche” continuity between Jesus’ proclamation/life and its reception. However, the question remains as to the definition of the “historical Jesus” and the consequences such definition has for the overall argument. As Martin Kähler might caution, there is a considerable difference between speaking of the “historical Jesus” in the sense of a critically reconstructed figure behind the Gospels, on the one hand, and in the sense of the figure presented by the Gospels, on the other. Where Stuhlmacher, for example, speaks of the “earthly Jesus,” one would do well to interpret this expression primarily in the latter sense, for a “reconstructed Jesus” plays little to no part in his BThdNT. And where Gnilka objects to the place of the “historical Jesus” in a NTT, one should interpret the expression in the former sense. The critical point pertains to the theses of the scholars who locate the “historical Jesus” within their NTTs and thereby argue for continuity between Jesus and the theology of the NT. If by historical or earthly Jesus one means in practice the figure presented by the Gospel narratives, then it is of little wonder—and also of little historical, argumentative value—that this figure is basically continuous with the theology of the NT. Leander Keck’s criticism of Alan Richardson is far overdone for the authors considered here, but it is not without a certain bite: “The Jesus who teaches everything Richardson attributes to him has been pasted together with New Testament texts; he is not a flesh and blood, first century, north Palestinian, Aramaic-speaking Jew. [Richardson’s] Jesus is a Christian theologian, probably an Anglican” (“Problems of a New Testament Theology,” NovT 7 [1964]: 217–41, here 237). That is to say, regardless of the perpetual meth-

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odological problems in so doing, if the attempt is to trace a historical continuity between the life of the Jesus who gave rise to the Gospels and the theology of the NT itself, then one will have to work with a historically reconstructed Jesus—the “historian’s Jesus” (cf. Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971]). In my judgment, current research has not demonstrated that this particular task belongs properly to the discipline of NTT. Bultmann’s methodological manifesto is thus still on the table. 3. NTT and Theologiegeschichte. Stuhlmacher’s response to the repristination of Wrede’s vision by Heikki Räisänen captures well the larger contour of NTT in the present: Räisänen’s project should not bear the name New Testament Theology, for the NT “ist . . . als Buch der Kirche auf uns gekommen” (1:34; emphasis original). To commit oneself to a collection of (at least!) twenty-seven different documents is therefore to position oneself within a particular, ecclesial construal of these texts. Restricting one’s analysis, that is, to the interpretation of the NT is already to adopt a theological posture, as Wrede himself understood well (“The Task and Methods of ‘New Testament Theology’,” in The Nature of New Testament Theology [ed. and trans. R. Morgan; Naperville, IL: Allenson, 1973], 68–116 [71]). Conversely, to reject the demarcation of the NT as an interpretive field is to engage in a different task than that of NTT. Pure (rein) or neutral NTT is a fiction, as is the neutrality of an interpretation that rejects the NT (so Wilckens in particular). Yet the basic Gablerian conviction that NTT must deal with the NT historically continues fundamentally to shape the work of NT theologians. Thus the structure of both Hahn’s and Wilckens’s projects impressively makes the point that diachronic Theologiegeschichte is integral to NTT. And Stuhlmacher’s traditionsgeschichtliche method is shaped by a historical reconstruction of biblical tradition history. Still, the type of Theologiegeschichte advocated by these scholars is different in kind from that of the history-of-religions school or even Klaus Berger, for example. For the former, the NT itself was an obstacle to be overcome on the way to broader historical insight; for the latter, it is a quarry to be mined for a reconstruction of early Christian theology in toto (Theologiegeschichte, v: “die Geschichte der frühchristlicher Theologie im Ganzen . . .”). By contrast, the type of Theologiegeschichte that is associated with the NT theologies covered in this review is methodologically interwoven into the NT theological task itself. Theologiegeschichte in this sense is oriented teleologically toward the understanding of the New Testament, as a distinct textual entity. It is, understood methodologically, Neutestamentliche Theologiegeschichte. In point of fact, the particular emphasis within this kind of reconstructive task is the elucidation of the diversity of the NT. Such diversity, however, is not emphasized for its own sake, but rather for the purpose of working toward unity. Precisely in this way the larger integrative possibilities for NTT proffered by Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher move beyond Bultmann’s methodological hybrid (where Wredian Religionsgeschichte and Heideggerian Sachkritik hardly converse). 4. The Unity of the NT. There is complete consensus in terms of the scholarly necessity to respect the diversity and individuality of the NT compositions. It would also not be an overstatement, however, to say that there is an emerging consensus that for a

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work to count as an actual NTT it must address the problem of the NT’s unity. Just how much unity is needed to retain the NT as one book, however, is unresolved. On one side, there is Vouga, who constructs his entire NTT around the idea of theological or interpretive conflict within the NT. Yet Vouga’s attempt is to present a way of taking the NT together as a whole. The form, to be sure, is a highly contentious debate, but the intent is to make it a New Testament debate. On the other side, there is Marshall, who does not shy away from difference within the NT, but clearly thinks that such difference does not amount to actual contradiction. Indeed, it is unclear in Marshall’s NTT whether or not there exists even serious tension within the NT. In the middle of Vouga and Marshall stands Hahn, inter alios, whose entire second volume argues forcefully for the unity of the NT. As we have seen, however, Hahn’s is the kind of unity that allows contradictions to remain (e.g., in the realm of eschatology). Such thorough differences in the accounts of the NT’s unity should give one pause and encourage a more delicate probing of the intersection between the concept of unity, the view of the NT’s subject matter, and the presuppositions about the nature of the biblical text itself. Such an investigation is impossible here. Suffice it to note that if one ultimately sees God as the subject matter of the NT and has a rather “high” view of the Bible, it will be difficult to admit to basic theological contradictions within the biblical texts (e.g., Marshall). If, however, one sees humanity in its self-understanding as the primary subject matter of the NT and views the biblical texts as various expressions of this attempt at religious self-understanding, then one can easily embrace significant contradictions (e.g., Vouga). For scholars such as Hahn or Stuhlmacher, however, the interconnection is not as easy to discern, due primarily to what presents itself as a suppleness in thought. At least on a prima facie account, it appears that the entire process of writing a NTT that argues for unity as Hahn or Stuhlmacher understand it is intrinsically dialectical in that it involves a subtle movement between guiding principles of thought and their confirmation or disconfirmation by the NT itself. At any rate, the status quaestionis in the present makes clear that, against detractors from various quarters, it is possible to make a robust case for the unity of the NT, both historically and theologically. At the same time, the divergent ways in which the case has been made—not to mention the varying outcomes—suggest that the unity of the NT cannot be read off the surface of the texts, as if any scholar who happened to ask the question would receive a clear affirmative answer. Thus does the entire issue need more reflection with respect to theological/philosophical questions (what exactly constitutes the unity?), epistemological questions (how does one know this?), and, for lack of a better term, quantitative/qualitative questions (what is the bar under which the NT cannot pass without forfeiting its unity?). 5. Neglected Factors. Though undoubtedly more could be brought forward, I will close with two issues that should provoke further thought about the discipline of NTT, particularly as they pertain to its future. First, in relation to the problem of unity and diversity, there is a notable absence of reflection on narrative as a possible way to consider the problem. Stuhlmacher’s “regula fidei” construal of the center or unity of the NT is perhaps the closest contemporary analogy in that it is stated in a narrative form, and there is probably an overarching narrative inherent in Hahn’s systematic structure in vol.

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2 (cf. Matera, “New Testament Theology,” 15).Yet neither Stuhlmacher nor Hahn actually works on a sophisticated level with the narratives the NT texts “tell or presuppose” (Matera, “New Testament Theology,” 16; Matera’s suggestions here have much promise). Rather, discerning narrative at the heart of their construals of unity has far more to do with the irreducibly narrative shape of the grammar used to speak about unity. It is precisely this aspect of the problem that remains submerged in the “consciousness” of the discipline and needs to be brought to the surface. This absence of narrative is particularly regrettable since narrative has the inherent structural ability to exhibit considerable diversity and discontinuity within the unity and continuity of one story. In a word, narrative is flexible. The same kerygmatic story can be interpreted and reinterpreted in numerous ways without the abrogation of that which makes the story intelligibly the same story. As a medium for NTT, narrative seems well suited to the task. Second, there remains the remarkable lack of non-European contributions to NTT. Prior to Frank Thielman’s Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), which reached me too late to be considered for this review (it is a cousin to Marshall’s effort), the only substantive North American NTT was written over thirty years ago (George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament [1974; rev. ed.; ed. D. Hagner; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993]; the major exception here is by a non-NT specialist and spans both testaments: Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992]). More specifically, as Hahn repeatedly notes, NTT has been primarily a German affair (TdNT, 1:xiii, xvii, 11, which is also an attempt to justify his almost exclusive concentration on German exegesis). As it stands, a vast amount of significant work in NT scholarship is largely ignored. From the treatments of Pauline theology, for example, one would hardly know that there exist counterproposals to the traditional Lutheran debates over Paul’s Rechtfertigungslehre. Though the names are occasionally mentioned, the signal contributions of E. P. Sanders, J. Louis Martyn, Richard Hays et al. have no substantive impact on the discussion. The problem is more than simply parochialism in German scholarship. It is indicative of a larger phrenic circumscription, in which the shape of human thinking is determined in important ways by deep-seated cultural and intellectual patterns (e.g., the Wirkungsgeschichte of biblical interpretation in Europe), the criticism of which is difficult—if not impossible—from the inside. Indeed, if Hans Frei is correct (The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974]), it is telling that the lack of attention given to narrative and the fact that NTT “ist in der deutschen evangelischen Exegese beheimatet” (Hahn, 1:11) are far from coincidental. Though it has been said that “writing a theology of the Old or New Testament . . . is no longer the ultimate aspiration of most biblical scholars,” this survey offers some European evidence to the contrary (Leander Keck, “The Premodern Bible in Postmodern World,” Int 50 [1996]: 130–41, here 132). In fact, given the recent surge of important works in NTT, we may even be justified in speaking of a revival of the discipline. Nonetheless, if this resurgence is to be of more than passing significance, it must also arouse the interest and response of new communities of thought. Inasmuch as particular con-

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struals of NT theology involve larger—even universalizing—claims, they call for critical testing and reformulation by those who occupy culturally and intellectually different spaces of historical and theological inquiry.

The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches, by Ziony Zevit. London/New York: Continuum, 2001. Pp. xxii + 821. $69.95 (paper). ISBN 0826463398. This substantial volume offers an account of Israelite religion during the Iron Age, up to 586 b.c.e., based on a thorough presentation of evidence. Rather than a history of Israelite religion on the order of well-known works by Yehezkel Kaufmann, Helmer Ringgren, and Rainer Albertz or a focused comparative textual treatment like the studies of Frank Moore Cross or Mark S. Smith, Zevit intentionally seeks to offer something different. In so doing, he responds to what he views as a scholarly propensity toward theoretically driven scholarship that is unduly influenced by understandings of religion operative in our contemporary setting, a propensity that, according to Zevit, results in presentations of “the alleged contents of Israel’s belief (as reflected in the Bible)” (xiii). As a correction, Zevit takes a phenomenological approach with two aims: (1) to describe Israelite religion based on an integration of biblical, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence; (2) “to synthesize these within the structure of an Israelite worldview and ethos involving kin, tribes, land, traditional ways and places of worship, and a national deity” (xiv). Chapter 1 locates Zevit’s study philosophically and methodologically within the humanities and social sciences broadly considered and more specifically within the scholarly fields of religion and history. In short, Zevit approaches the matter within a modernist paradigm that includes an awareness of the limits of human knowledge about the past, the inevitable role of subjectivity in the historian’s task, and the constructed and complex nature of knowledge. Early in this discussion, Zevit offers the following definition of his subject: “Israelite religions are the varied, symbolic expressions of, and appropriate responses to, the deities and powers that groups or communities deliberately affirmed as being of unrestricted value to them within their worldview” (15). Apart from the final chapter, the rest of the book is organized largely by evidence categories. In ch. 2, “Of Cult Places and of Israelites,” Zevit challenges the currently prevailing view in the archaeology of Syria-Palestine that Iron Age Israelites in large part descended from the preceding Late Bronze Age “Canaanite” population. Arguing from the same settlement data and ceramic evidence, Zevit concludes, alternatively, that the Israelites entered the land during Iron I as a population of distinct ethnicity. One logical and procedural consequence for the remainder of Zevit’s study is a relative lack of attention to comparative textual religious evidence from the Late Bronze Age, especially from Ugarit—evidence that is regularly invoked in discussions of Israelite religion. In ch. 3, “Architecture Parlante: Israelite Cult Places,” Zevit draws on excavation reports and other published discussion of archaeological sites to give an overview of architectural evidence for religious activity. This chapter deals with the organization of space in various cult places, temples, caves, cultic corners, and shrines. Zevit’s survey begins with four sites that are identified as non-Israelite (Philistine, Edomite, and

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Aramean) but that—because they are located in close proximity to Israelite territory— offer some of the most reliable evidence for cultic space and thus allow one to establish a relatively objective methodological approach and typology for the discussion of Israelite sites. From there he goes on to make an overview of the range of identified cultic spaces at various Israelite sites. Although the data are too sparse and fragmentary to allow for a comprehensive picture, Zevit contends that the heterogeneity of the remains supports the conclusion that there was no single, centralized authority controlling the organization of cultic space for Iron Age Israel. This diversity is in contrast to the situation in the Late Bronze Age, when a certain degree of uniformity prevailed especially in regard to temple architecture. According to Zevit, this difference reinforces his earlier conclusion based on settlement patterns and other material culture that Iron Age Israel represented a new population in the land. Furthermore, some of the evidence—such as the “twoness” or “threeness” of a cult place’s layout or groups of three or five standing stones in sanctuaries or cultic corners—also suggests to Zevit polytheistic worship within single cult places. Chapter 4 is titled “Tangible Belief: The Material and Textual Aspects of Cultic Artifacts” and offers a virtually exhaustive overview of published archaeologically recovered objects whose cultic function and significance is most obvious: figurines, altars, cult stands, shrine models, scarabs, and seals. Zevit’s thorough inventory of the material evidence is matched by a discussion that relates it to biblical and other textual evidence. In ch. 5, “Writ on Rock—Script on Stone,” Zevit focuses on inscriptions preserved in stone on the walls of caves, tombs, and buildings in a Judean desert cave near Ein Gedi and at Khirbet el-Qom, Kuntillet >Ajrud, and Khirbet Beit Lei. He also examines the Beit Lei drawings and the >Ajrud pithoi inscriptions and drawings. Zevit chooses these inscriptions because they come from sites that for the most part seem to have been devoted to cultic or related activity. Zevit attends to these inscriptions’ philology, paleography, and, most extensively, their archaeological context. Zevit’s bent toward social scientific analysis is evident where he invokes as the framework for this discussion the SPEAKING model for ethnographic analysis of communicative acts—Setting, Participants, Ends, Act, Key, Instrumentality, Norms, and Genre. Zevit’s conclusions in this chapter include the recognition that Israelite religion included “the commonality of intercessory prayer, the adoration of El, Baal, YHWH, and Asherah, the notion of divine causality in history, and the use of hymnic snippets in liturgical, cultic, contexts [sic]” (437). Zevit voices his reluctance to assume the homogeneity of these phenomena for ancient Israelites or Judahites generally, or even for those represented by these finds collectively. In ch. 6, “Israelian and Judahite Historiography and Historiosophy,” Zevit discusses the Deuteronomistic History as a written source for Israelite religion. With a brief overview of the scholarly theory of the Deuteronomistic History since Martin Noth, Zevit approaches the biblical documents in question as derived from a religiously motivated historical work created by an editor who used a variety of historical and narrative sources analogous to those recovered in various ancient Near Eastern inscriptions, including most significantly Mesopotamian royal annals. As Zevit asserts, a critical reading of this biblical material may yield information about royal religion in ancient Israel. According to Zevit’s understanding of the Deuteronomistic History’s theology, the Jerusalem

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temple was to have remained the rightful religious center of a “pan-Israel amphictyony” even after the dissolution of the northern and southern kingdoms. Reading the Deuteronomistic History as a historical source, Zevit concludes that in the northern kingdom beginning with Jeroboam I, royal religion amounted to the king’s support of a few sanctuaries (Bethel, Dan, and Samaria’s Baal temple) and that otherwise the influence of the monarchy on religious life was limited. In the southern kingdom of Judah, by contrast, the monarchy exercised fairly strong control over a more extensive royal religious establishment that had a greater influence on national religious life. Chapter 7, “Israelite Mantic Religions in Literary, Social, and Historical Contexts,” examines narrative descriptions of prophetic activity in the Deuteronomistic History, Chronicles, and the prophetic books. For Zevit, the prophets represent a lively and variegated realm of religious activity that was socially complex, “developing patterns of behavior that were acceptable even as they were perceived as marginal” (510). Zevit rejects the conventional distinction between ecstatic and verbal prophetism as religious types. In ch. 8, “Visions of a Foreign Land,” the evidence category consists of polemical statements in prophetic literature directed against allegedly non-Yahwistic cult practices by Israelites. Zevit spends seventy pages citing, translating, and commenting individually on sixty-five short passages from Isaiah 1 to Zechariah 13. Following this mini-anthology, he gives a summary list of practices and institutions thus attested—Baal rituals, bowing to the east, child sacrifice, cult of the dead, marzeah, tophet, etc. These activities generally involve ritual activities that presumably could have been carried out by the general populace without an officially designated priesthood or other leadership, activities that offered the participants a measure of manipulation and control over powers they believed to ensure their own welfare and security. Concluding with a kind of political ideological critique, Zevit characterizes the opposition to these practices voiced in the prophetic sources as a viewpoint that disempowered the general populace in favor of the authority of the prophetic spokesmen and other Yahwistic cult professionals. Chapter 9, “The Names of Israelite Gods,” treats another important source of information about Israelite religion, namely, biblical theophoric anthroponyms and toponyms, specifically non-Yahwistic ones. In an approach similar to that of J. C. de Moor, Zevit locates the personal and place names within certain historical periods and tribal affiliations as indicated by the portrayal of the biblical documents. In his conclusions, Zevit briefly incorporates Jeffrey H. Tigay’s discussion of non-Yahwistic divine elements in Israelite epigraphic personal names (You Shall Have No Other Gods: Israelite Religion in the Light of Hebrew Inscriptions [HSS 31; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986]). While Zevit agrees with Tigay that biblical and epigraphic personal names indicate the dominant worship of Yahweh in Israel during the monarchy, he lends much more significance to the non-Yahwistic names than does Tigay. Based on place names whose establishment Zevit assigns to an Iron I Israelite settlement, Zevit infers a fairly extensive list of deities worshiped by Israelites: ,,,,,,,, ,. He makes a similar conclusion based on anthroponyms, including the deities ,,,,, (Egyptian Amun),  (Isis),  (= Bes), (= Horus). Zevit’s presentation culminates with ch. 10, “Israelite Religions: A Parallactic Synthesis.” Here Zevit seeks to bring together the “parallel and oblique lines of inquiry” from

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the previous chapters, hence the term “parallactic” in the chapter and book titles. Based on narrative and genealogical information from the Deuteronomistic History and from Chronicles, Zevit begins this final chapter with a description of the social context of Israelite religious activity. For Zevit, these sources show Israelite society until 586 b.c.e. to have been primarily tribal in character (with supporting levels of clan and household). The monarchy, which derived its power from the tribes, was relatively limited in its significance for social and religious life. From there, Zevit goes on to discuss ancient Israel’s “gods” and “pantheons,” based on conclusions from earlier chapters. In short, Zevit makes room for a vast number of deities worshiped in ancient Israel, in accordance with a variety of local and tribal systems of identity and practice and with no centralized or systemized authority of any comprehensive range, even in the southern kingdom of Judah. He then brings this larger socio-religious landscape into relationship with archaeological data for cult places presented earlier in the book. Again, the picture is one of heterogeneity and various combinations of deities worshiped at different places. Using earlier conclusions from biblical historical narratives, Zevit describes Levitical and other (mainly, Merarite and Kehathite) priestly family networks as being significant to the limited centralized religious activity that existed under the monarchy. Zevit explains the interrelationships among these levels of religious activity in social scientific terms: “Israelite tribalism comprised a subcritical system, while that of the monarchy and its institutions an essentially supercritical one. . . . Israelite religions were woven into these complexly organized frameworks, acting on them and being acted on by and through them” (648). He speaks of Israel’s deities in similar fashion: “In terms of complexity theory, the Israelite pantheon as described above may be considered a subcritical system with many nodes, decentralized, highly redundant, and capable of manifesting itself in a variety of ways. Yahwism considered independently may have constituted a critical system. Radical Yahweh-alone cults, not dealt with in this study, would have constituted a supercritical system” (652). Still in this final chapter Zevit returns to data already discussed from Israelite inscriptions, architecture, anthroponyms, toponyms, and archaeological information on architecture and furnishings of cult places. In keeping with his conclusions, Zevit argues against the notion of an influential centralized national religion by minimizing the significance of Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s “reforms” as politically expedient measures having little impact on most of the population. Zevit then speaks to various cosmic and social levels of gods and goddesses in Israelite religion, followed by a discussion of biblical psalms as a source of information on Israelite myth. This section includes a novel hypothesis for the Elohistic Psalter based in part on discussion of Papyrus Amherst 63 and its striking parallels to Psalm 20. It is at this point that Zevit considers the meaning of “Canaan” and the relationship of this geographic designation to the origins of Israelite tribes and to the Israelite worship of Yahweh. Zevit suggests that some of the northernmost Israelite tribes probably entered the land from the north and east as ethnic Canaanites, thus leaving room in his analysis for some extent of “Canaanite” influence on a distinct Israelite religion. In conclusion, Zevit notes that the complex social-politicalinstitutional system of Israelite religions that he describes gives way during the exile and Persian period to a widespread and consistent adherence to the Yhwh-alone viewpoint, a view that becomes basic to nascent Judaism.

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Zevit’s study, simply on the basis of its innovative approach and comprehensive presentation of evidence, is nothing less than a scholarly feat and a truly novel and significant contribution to the study of Israelite religion. Nonetheless, its sheer extent and somewhat experimental quality also leave it open to much criticism. The volume entails numerous points and issues that merit response and discussion. The space allotted here allows for comment on a few. While the current state of the field warrants ongoing examination of epistemological foundations and other methodological issues, the introductory chapter is inordinately expansive for the purpose of thus situating Zevit’s work. Zevit’s definition (quoted above) contains a curious irony. Though Zevit prefers to speak of Israelite “religions” in the plural as perpetuated by plural “groups or communities,” he attributes to the latter a single, shared “worldview.” While this inconsistency might have been an oversight, it begs a particular question: if one can speak of a shared “worldview” among Israelites, cannot one speak more confidently of a measure of coherence among Israelite religious ideas and activities more broadly, as incorporating the diversity and complexity that Zevit so effectively describes? A significant degree of overall coherence would seem to be implied by the broad commonality that characterizes Judaism’s emergence and development after 586 b.c.e., a phenomenon that Zevit himself notes to be strikingly at odds with his portrayal of Israelite religion (690). The definition also gives the flavor not only of the disproportionately prolix introduction but of the entire work, that is to say, admirably thorough and yet frustratingly disjointed. A general example is the way in which, partly due to the book’s organization by evidence types, discussion of data treated earlier in the volume is taken up again in the final chapter, with a combination of redundancy and continuing argumentation that would be more suitably developed with the main discussion of the evidence in question. Zevit’s phenomenological approach provides a helpful complement, if not a refreshing alternative, to the typically essentialist genre of history of Israelite religion. At the same time more synthesis and interpretation of the data would have been welcome. Aside from some tentative and overarching conclusions that Zevit draws (as described in the summary above), the coverage of data in this work has an atomistic quality and gives one the sense of having “the trees without the forest,” alles und nichts. In some instances, the book offers questionable analysis or consideration of evidence. One example is the operative assumption in ch. 9 that we can systematically take at face value the biblical documents’ location of specific anthroponyms—and thus the particular divine names or titles they contain—in certain historical periods and tribal affiliations. More extensive utilization of epigraphic personal names might offer the possibility for needed controls in this type of analysis. Similarly in his treatment of theophoric place names in the same chapter, Zevit tends, without adequate justification, to date to the time of an Iron I Israelite settlement the establishment of biblical place names that might well have derived from an earlier time. The resulting identification of various deities worshiped in significant numbers by Israelites, though not problematic in principle and based on other evidence, is in this case not well substantiated. Most importantly, Zevit’s almost total dissociation of Iron Age Israel from the indigenous Late Bronze “Canaanite” population and culture is a starting position quite at odds with the generally recognized indications of philological and archaeological

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evidence. Zevit’s archaeological case for this position in ch. 2 relies largely on: (1) an explanation of what he considers to be obfuscating theological and other professionalideological factors involved in the success of the “native Canaanite hypothesis”; (2) the drastic difference in population between the Late Bronze and Iron I central highlands as indicated by settlement data; (3) an observed east to west movement from Iron I to Iron II in the central hills as indicated by survey results; (4) a renewed case for the collared rim jar as an ethnic marker—in spite of its broad, even if sparse, distribution already during the LB Age; and (5) a decline in quality and style of stamp seals between the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. While some of Zevit’s points along these lines illustrate the need for both caution and refinement in analysis, none of these arguments is sufficiently convincing to support a new conquest model, such as Zevit seems to commend, or to dismiss the prevailing model of a new settlement pattern for the central hills in Iron I, a model that accords well more broadly with what is known of the end of the Late Bronze socio-political pattern in the eastern Mediterranean. As noted above, Zevit frames Israelite distinctiveness from Late Bronze culture in terms of ethnicity, a concept that in recent scholarship has become fairly well defined in sociological terms but that remains nonetheless vexingly elusive with regard to its expressions in material and intellectual culture. In making this move, Zevit relies on a model of ethnicity that minimizes the significance of language as a determining factor (89–90). In any case, definitions of ethnicity and the vital importance of archaeological religious evidence notwithstanding, Zevit’s arguments do not justify overlooking philology as a decisive factor in determining what constitutes evidence relevant to Israelite religion. In so doing, he excludes from his discussion important comparative evidence for deities and phenomena that appear in the other data he examines. Where Zevit does turn to such comparative evidence, the results are illuminating—for example, his brief discussion of Ugaritic texts as evidence of the deity Mot’s relationship to temples (327–28). More comparative analysis on this order would have been profitable to Zevit’s treatment of the Israelite evidence and welcome, especially in view of Zevit’s proclivity throughout the work for free speculation in treating the material evidence (e.g., the suggestion that multiple rooms in a single temple reflect the worship of a corresponding number of deities [132] or the suggestion, informed by reference to biblical texts, that altars low to the ground were for blood offerings to chthonic deities [280–81, 311]). At the same time, Zevit’s work makes many significant and valuable contributions. To reiterate, the phenomenological approach and the rigorous incorporation of archaeological evidence is a needed complement to the philologically based analysis that has tended to dominate the study of this subject. In this respect, Zevit has, at least to some degree, achieved the first of his stated goals (see above). While in my mind the work falls far short of the second goal, that of offering thorough integration and synthesis, such is probably an impossible task, given the encyclopedic scope of the evidence Zevit treats. Incorporating the full breadth of Israelite religious data, textual and archaeological, is a strength of this work not to be underestimated. Despite the odd organization of the book, a thorough bibliography and good topical, authorial, scriptural, and lexical indexes help make it useful as a kind of reference work. Throughout the book, Zevit includes brief and helpful summations of scholarship on evidence categories that are still not widely utilized in the study of Israelite religion,

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especially in regard to shrine models and cult stands in ch. 4 and iconographic evidence from scarabs, seals, statuary, and reliefs as treated most famously by Othmar Keel and the “Fribourg school.” Specific examples of textual and iconographic evidence that are not well known but to which this work gives due attention include the Ein Gedi cave inscription, the carved stele with bovine imagery from Bethsaida-Geshur, and Papyrus Amherst 63. While Zevit’s suggestions about how to interpret some material tend to be by his own admission speculative, they are a useful starting point in surmising what is not apparent from texts or artifacts and for stimulating further exploration and new ideas. With respect to broader developments within the field, recent treatments of Israelite religion such as Karel van der Toorn’s Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria, and Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1996) and Rainer Albertz’s two-volume history (Religionsgeschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992]) demonstrate a far greater complexity and diversity to the phenomenon than that implied by the older “official vs. popular” dichotomy (see the framing of discussion in Albertz, Persönliche Frömmigkeit und offizielle Religion: religionsinterner Pluralismus in Israel und Babylon [Stuttgart: Calwer, 1978]). Zevit’s volume is a breakthrough by offering evidence for what studies have increasingly suggested in this regard and illustrating the richness and complexity of Israelite religious life at various social levels. Though much of Zevit’s analysis requires further development and many of the specific points he makes will be disputed, this work as a whole points in the right direction and offers a formidable challenge to those will seek to improve upon it. Zevit’s study is instructive and essential for any student of Israelite religion and should remain so for some time to come. Joel S. Burnett Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798-7284

Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines and Early Israel 1300–1100 b.c.e., by Ann E. Killebrew. SBLABS 9. Leiden: Brill; Atlanta: SBL, 2005. Pp. xx + 372. $164.00 (hardcover)/$39.93 (paper). ISBN 9004130454/1589830970. The question of whether a specific “ethnic identification” of an ancient people can be determined on the basis of material culture remains one of the most difficult and yet urgent issues in archaeology worldwide today (see, e.g., S. Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present [London: Routledge, 1997]). Ann Killebrew, an American scholar with a long record of involvement in field archaeology and research in Israel, now at Pennsylvania State University, plunges into this debate with a resounding yes. The introduction (1–19) sets forth the theoretical issues with special reference to the history of American-style “biblical” archaeology, defends a somewhat eclectic methodology for analyzing what is often called nowadays “ethnogenesis”, and briefly

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introduces the rationale for selecting the four “peoples” Killebrew will use as test cases. Killebrew defines her own “neither overly skeptical nor naively optimistic” approach as differing from earlier studies by “presenting a more complete and integrated picture of this multicultural period of time by now focusing mainly on one group or relying too heavily on one discipline” (10). Chapter 1, “The Age of Internationalism: The Eastern Mediterranean during the Thirteenth Century b.c.e. and the ‘Crisis’” (21–49), sets the stage for the appearance and interaction of Killebrew’s four “peoples” in Canaan at the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age in Canaan. This is one of the most succinct, thoroughly documented, and authoritative discussions of this troubled horizon that I have seen. Chapter 2, “Egypt in Canaan: Empire and Imperialism in the Late Bronze Age” (51–92), is an equally competent and well-documented review of the Egyptian late New Kingdom empire in Canaan. Its unique strength is not only the correlation of textual and archaeological data, but in particular the expert summary of the unpublished, definitive evidence from recent Israeli excavations at the Egyptian outpost of Beth-shan, which Killebrew had full access to in her Hebrew University doctoral dissertation. Her discussion is rather technical, based as some of it is on ceramic analysis, but nonspecialists can quote it with confidence. Chapter 3, “Canaan and Canaanites: An Ethnic Mosaic” (93–148), will have broader appeal for biblical scholars. Again, this discussion adds much new data from Killebrew’s 1999 dissertation, especially a comparative catalog of Late Bronze II pottery. Contrary to the currently fashionable revisionist skepticism about recognizing any historical “Canaanites,” Killebrew argues that such a people can be identified archaeologically, if not as an “ethnic identity” then at least as the bearers of a distinct and unified material culture with clear “social boundaries” (94). Chapter 4 is titled “Early Israel: A Mixed Multitude” (149–96). Here Killebrew proposes to differ from recent quests that focus on Israelite ethnicity and identity by seeing the emergence of ancient Israel as a “process of ethnogenesis, or a gradual emergence of a group identity from a ‘mixed multitude’ of peoples whose origins are largely indigenous and can only be understood in the wider eastern Mediterranean context” (149). She does not present the abundant archaeological data in any detail, referring instead to recent surveys by Israel Finkelstein (The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement [Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1985]), Lawrence E. Stager (“Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel,” in The Oxford History of the Biblical World [ed. Michael D. Coogan; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 123–75), and myself (Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003]), which also adopt models of indigenous origins. Reading this chapter, biblical scholars will understand how outdated are all “conquest, peaceful infiltration, and peasants’ revolt” models. Killebrew’s contribution consists of employing not only data from recent Israeli surface survey (not always published in English), but also an analysis of the early Iron I pottery that is a defining characteristic of the 300 or so highland villages we know (my “Proto-Israelites”). As Killebrew demonstrates (along with others), a model of a “mixed multitude” and a gradual socio-cultural evolution fits well with the narratives in Judges, if not in Joshua. Chapter 5, “The Philistines: Urban Colonists of the Early Iron Age” (197–245),

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introduces the last of Killebrew’s test cases. One of the ironies of current archaeological excavation and research is that we now know more ethnically about the Philistines (and other “Sea Peoples”) of Iron I than we do of our putative “Israelites.” Here Killebrew provides another authoritative summary. She comes down firmly on the side of those who regard the Philistines as immigrant entrepreneurs who gradually introduced Mycenaean-style culture along the coast of Canaan in the twelfth–eleventh centuries b.c.e., probably coming via Cyprus, not as refugees or conquistadors as some diffusionists maintain. Here Killebrew depends heavily on the new archaeological data from the joint American-Israeli excavations at Tel Miqne, biblical “Ekron,” directed for the past twenty years or so by Seymour Gitin and Trude Dothan. Killebrew was a senior staff member and has previously utilized the pottery (in particular) in several groundbreaking studies, summarized here. This chapter is one of the best and most up-to-date syntheses of Philistine material culture now available. Chapter 6, “Identifying the Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel” (247–51), is essentially a brief conclusion. The bibliography (253–334) contains hundreds and hundreds of items, and it alone would justify the purchase of this book by all biblical scholars (that is, historians, if there are many left), students of the ancient Near East, and even professional archaeologists. Indeed, while ostensibly written for nonspecialists, or teachers looking for a reliable textbook, Killebrew’s book will be used widely by her fellow archaeologists. That is because it highlights a number of current and controversial issues, with a comprehensive and balanced discussion, accompanied by exhaustive documentation. This is a superb handbook that in my estimation will have a very long shelf life—quite an achievement by a relatively young archaeologist, and one who, like so many of her generation, might be dismissed as “too specialized.” Such uncommon high praise does not mean that I do not have some reservations. For one thing, it is refreshing to see younger archaeologists so “positivist” in the face of faddish postmodernist denials of ethnicity (confusing ethnicity with “race,” which is, of course, politically very incorrect). Nevertheless, I would have welcomed a bit more explicit defense of Killebrew’s own theoretical stance. The skeptics have a point: “ethnicity” is difficult to establish without contemporary texts—and even with them, since ethnicity is (at least in part) a “social construct.” The question is only whether the construct is entirely fictional, or it is based to some degree on facts. Killebrew assumes the latter— i.e., that archaeological facts can be determinative—as I do. But in today’s revisionist climate it may be necessary to justify optimistic treatment of ethnicity like Killebrew’s. One recalls, for instance, T. L. Thompson’s recent dictum: “Ethnicity, however, is an interpretive historiographical fiction. . . . Ethnicity is hardly a common aspect of human existence at this very early period” (in “Defining History and Ethnicity in the South Levant,” in Can a “History of Israel” Be Written? [ed. L. L. Grabbe; JSOTSup 245; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997], 175). Thus ethnicity, according to the revisionists, is only a modern attempt to describe societal relationships and collective decisions. Yet Thompson insists: “The physical effects of such collective decisions are often arbitrary and are, indeed, always accidental” (emphasis added). Obviously this sort of “know-nothing” epistemology would render archaeology, and in fact all the social sciences, impossible. The “physical effects”—that is, what

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archaeologists call “the material correlates of behavior”—are culturally patterned, directly observable, can be quantified, and are capable of being explained by analogy. It is the regularities, not some assumed “arbitrariness,” that make analysis possible. Thompson and some of the other biblical revisionists really are nihilists (for a more extensive critique of biblical revisionism, see my What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?). This is what Killebrew and many of us archaeologists, Israeli and American, are up against. And biblical scholars should be concerned as well, lest the revisionists succeed in what Baruch Halpern calls “erasing Israel from history” (“Erasing History: The Minimalist Assault on Ancient Israel,” BR 11, no. 6 [1995]: 26–35, 47). Killebrew’s method in defining ethnicity is also a bit simplistic. After duly noting various theoretical approaches, most of them hotly debated in the literature, she opts for a sort of eclectic combination, which she calls “multidisciplinary.” She does allude to the World Systems model of Immanuel Wallerstein and others, but she does not pursue it. She cites the eminent ethnographer Fredrik Barth, but she does not adopt his notion of ethnic “trait lists,” which have been out of favor, but are now gaining renewed respect (although some such “traits” are discussed on 171–81). Critics will surely pick up on this weakness, although in her defense Killebrew makes her conclusions stick reasonably well despite what some might regard as a certain lack of methodological rigor. In conclusion, Killebrew’s study of archaeology and ethnicity is exceptionally timely; and because it succeeds on both the academic and the nonprofessional level, it deserves and will surely find a wide audience. William G. Dever 30 Winding Lane, Bedford Hills, NY 10507

New and Recent Titles THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PYRAMID TEXTS James P. Allen The Pyramid Texts are the oldest body of extant literature from ancient Egypt. First carved on the walls of the burial chambers in the pyramids of kings and queens of the Old Kingdom, they provide the earliest comprehensive view of the way in which the ancient Egyptians understood the structure of the universe, the role of the gods, and the fate of human beings after death. Their importance lies in their endurance throughout the entire intellectual history of ancient Egypt. This volume contains the complete translation of the Pyramid Texts, including new texts recently discovered and published. It incorporates full restorations and readings indicated by post-Old Kingdom copies of the texts and is the first translation that presents the texts in the order in which they were meant to be read in each of the original sources. Paper $39.95 1-58983-182-9 484 pages, 2005 Code: 061523 Writings from the Ancient World Hardback edition www.brill.nl

TEXTS FROM THE PYRAMID AGE Nigel C. Strudwick Texts from the Pyramid Age provides ready access to new translations of a representative selection of texts from Old Kingdom Egypt (ca. 2700–2170 B.C.). These royal and private inscriptions, coming from both the secular and religious milieus and from all kinds of physical contexts, not only shed light on the administration, foreign expeditions, and funerary beliefs of the period but also bring to life the Egyptians themselves, revealing how they saw the world and how they wanted the world to see them. Strudwick’s helpful introduction to the history and literature of this seminal period provides important background for reading and understanding these historical texts. Paper $39.95 1-58983-138-1 564 pages, 2005 Code: 061516 Writings from the Ancient World Hardback edition www.brill.nl

Society of Biblical Literature • P.O. Box 2243 • Williston, VT 05495-2243 Phone: 877-725-3334 (toll-free) or 802-864-6185 • Fax: 802-864-7626 Order online at www.sbl-site.org

New and Recent Titles HERACLITUS: HOMERIC PROBLEMS Edited and Translated by Donald A. Russell and David Konstan

“Donald Russell and David Konstan, world-renowned experts in ancient rhetoric, literary theory, philosophy, and later Greek prose, have put us all in their debt by providing what is, on balance, the best Greek text of the treatise that is currently available, a lively and sensitive translation into clear but elegant English, a basic apparatus of textual and explanatory notes, a wide-ranging and up-to-date introduction, and a helpful introductory bibliography. The volume will be of enormous help to students (and their teachers) of classics, comparative literature, biblical studies, and many other fields.”—Glenn W. Most, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and The University of Chicago Paper $20.95 1-58983-122-5 176 pages, 2005 Code: 061614 Writings from the Greco-Roman World Hardback edition www.brill.nl

ANCIENT FICTION The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative Jo-Ann A. Brant, Charles W. Hedrick, and Chris Shea, editors

These essays examine the relationship between ancient fiction in the Greco-Roman world and early Jewish and Christian narratives. Major authors and texts surveyed include Chariton, Shakespeare, Homer, Vergil, Plato, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Daniel, 3 Maccabees, the Testament of Abraham, rabbinic midrash, the Apocryphal Acts, Ezekiel the Tragedian, and the Sophist Aelian. The contributors are Jo-Ann A. Brant, J. R. C. Cousland, Rubén Rene Dupertuis, Noah Hacham, Gerhard van den Heever, Ronald F. Hock, Tawny L. Holm, Sara R. Johnson, Jared W. Ludlow, Dennis R. MacDonald, Chaim Milikowsky, Judith B. Perkins, Richard I. Pervo, Andy Reimer, Gareth Schmeling, and Chris Shea. Paper $39.95 1-58983-166-7 392 pages, 2005 Code: 060732 Symposium Series Hardback edition www.brill.nl

Society of Biblical Literature • P.O. Box 2243 • Williston, VT 05495-2243 Phone: 877-725-3334 (toll-free) or 802-864-6185 • Fax: 802-864-7626 Order online at www.sbl-site.org

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Extending the Conversation in Biblical Studies Proverbs Tremper Longman III 080102692X • 624 pp. • $39.99c

With Proverbs, veteran Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman III offers an accessible commentary on one of Scripture’s most frequently quoted and visited books. With his deft exegetical and expositional skill, the resulting work is full of fresh insight into the meaning of the text. In addition to the helpful translation and commentary, Proverbs considers theological implications of these wisdom texts as well as their literary, historical, and grammatical dimensions. Footnotes deal with many of the technical matters, allowing readers of varying interest and training levels to read and profit from the commentary and to engage the biblical text at an appropriate level. This built-in versatility has application for both pastors and teachers. This is the second volume in the Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms series.

Song of Songs Richard S. Hess 0801027128 288 pp. • $29.99c AVAILABLE

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Psalms, vol. 1 Psalms 1–41 John Goldingay 0801027039 640 pp. • $44.99c AVAILABLE JULY 2006

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Biblical Studies from Baker Academic Reading the Sermon on the Mount Charles H. Talbert 080103163X • 160 pp. • $17.99p Most interpretations treat the Sermon as an ethical text—concerned about the way Christians behave. Charles Talbert, however, argues that it is more concerned with character formation and ethical decision making. He argues that it is a text about covenant fidelity to God and to other humans, in which Jesus seeks to affect perceptions, dispositions, and intentions. The result is a superb commentary on the Sermon that will be of value to anyone studying this core passage of Scripture.

Jesus People David Catchpole 0801031605 • 304 pp. • $29.99p Drawing on recent scholarship but focusing on the Gospel texts themselves, Catchpole explores the origins of the Jesus movement in the community of Israel. Beginning with the mission of John the Baptist, he moves on to consider the costs and implications of discipleship, the centrality of prayer, attitudes toward Israel’s way of holiness, the significance of the temple, and Jesus’s understanding of his own death.

Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile Brant Pitre 0801031621 • 600 pp. • $49.99p “In this rich, exciting, and grand book, the author shows himself to be both a gifted New Testament scholar and a sensitive and thoughtful theologian. Initially inspired by the works of Albert Schweitzer and the rigorous historical Jesus methodology practiced by John Meier, the author argues that the historical Jesus spoke and acted in light of the widespread expectation of the Great Tribulation, inseparably linked to the enduring Jewish hope for a final and decisive End of the Exile of the twelve tribes of Israel.... This book is a bold and reasoned challenge to many cherished assumptions of modern historical Jesus scholarship as well as a theological tour de force.”—David E. Aune, University of Notre Dame

Christian Beginnings and the Dead Sea Scrolls John J. Collins and Craig A. Evans, editors 080102837X • 144 pp. • $16.99p In this volume, six leading scholars—John Collins, Craig Evans, Martin Abegg, R. Glenn Wooden, Barry Smith, and Jonathan Wilson—examine some of the major issues that the Dead Sea Scrolls have raised for the study of early Christianity. These cutting-edge articles explore the impact of the Scrolls on Christianity, delving deeper than most surveys on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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Biblical Studies from Baker Academic

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

The Story of Christ

How Long, O Lord?

Scot McKnight

A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer David Crump

0801031613 • 192 pp. $12.99p

reflections on suffering and evil, 2nd edition D. A. Carson

080102689X • 352 pp. $22.99p

How are we to understand the nature of petitionary prayer? This is an issue of perennial concern to the church, from both a theological and a pastoral standpoint. Certainly much has been written on the topic from a devotional/ experiential approach, as well as from a philosophical one. But Knocking on Heaven’s Door by David Crump is the first attempt to exhaustively examine the New Testament writings that have bearing on the topic.

The Story of the Christ features insights from McKnight offering a compelling introduction that provides helpful background information on the the Gospels, the religious setting of Jesus’s life, the heart of Jesus’s teaching, and a summation of what kind of person Jesus was. The goal is to draw a portrait of Jesus that a first-century observer would recognize. The book then offers a continuous narrative account of the life and words of Jesus, woven together from the four canonical Gospels.

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0801031257 • 256 pp. $22.99p

“A straightforward, tough-minded, pastorally motivated treatment of the problem of evil. Carson writes, not as a philosopher trying to give an account of evil to skeptics, but as a biblical scholar addressing fellow believers who struggle with the challenge evil poses for their faith.” —Jerry L. Walls, Asbury Theological Journal

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A Master Storyteller Humorist

&

Creatively Retells

the Bible Stories Reluctant Prophets and Clueless Disciples: Introducing the Bible by Telling Its Stories, by Robert F. Darden. It was once said that all a person has to do to realize God has a very good sense of humor is to look at a platypus. The same sentiment applies to the Bible. The Bible often seems like foreign territory, not only for students encountering it in introductory classes, but also for those who have spent many years in church. To many people, it is an intimidating collection of rules, lists, and theological arguments. But in reality, most of the Bible is made up of fascinating stories. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re weird, sometimes they’re inspiring, but they’re never dull. This college-level introduction invites students into biblical studies through creative, humorous retellings (and a few cartoons) of the basic biblical narratives. The best way to get into the Bible, says Darden, is to get to know its stories. In this new approach to introducing the Bible, Darden covers the major biblical stories and characters, retelling them in such a way as to bring out their original humor and pathos, and inviting students to encounter them more fully by moving into the text itself. CA6-0687493951. Paper, $25.00

abingdonpress.com

| 1.800.251.3320 |

JBL66610083 PACP00333339-01

Fax 1.800.836.7802

JBL 125, no. 2 (2006): 432

Index of Book Reviews Esler, Philip, New Testament Theology: Communion and Community (C. Kavin Rowe) 403 Gnilka, Joachim, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (C. Kavin Rowe) 400 Hahn, Ferdinand, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (C. Kavin Rowe) 394 Killebrew, Ann E., Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines and Early Israel 1300–1100 b.c.e. (William G. Dever) 416 Marshall, I. Howard, New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel (C. Kavin Rowe) 404 Strecker, Georg, Theology of the New Testament (C. Kavin Rowe) 400 Stuhlmacher, Peter, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments (C. Kavin Rowe) 398 Vouga, François, Une théologie du Nouveau Testament (C. Kavin Rowe) 401 Wilckens, Ulrich, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (C. Kavin Rowe) 396 Zevit, Ziony, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (Joel S. Burnett) 410

Ben Witherington III SMYTH & HELWYS BIBLE COMMENTARY SERIES

Matthew

Retail Price: $60.00 • 608 pp/hc • 1-57312-076-6

• Includes searchable CD-ROM with text, photographs, and fine art • View available volumes online

Save 25% with a Standing Order Plan Adopt as a classroom text and receive a free desk copy.

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JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE

SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE (Constituent Member of the American Council of Learned Societies) EDITORS OF THE JOURNAL General Editor: GAIL R. O’DAY, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 Book Review Editor: CHRISTINE ROY YODER, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA 30031 Associate Book Review Editor: TODD C. PENNER, Austin College, Sherman, TX 75090

RECENT NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS FROM EERDMANS FOUR GOSPELS, ONE JESUS?

EDITORIAL BOARD

A Symbolic Reading Second Edition Richard A. Burridge

Term Expiring 2006: THOMAS B. DOZEMAN, United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH 45406 PAUL B. DUFF, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 CAROLE R. FONTAINE, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 02459 JUDITH LIEU, King’s College London, London WC2R 2LS United Kingdom MARTTI NISSINEN, University of Helsinki, FIN-00014 Finland KATHLEEN M. O’CONNOR, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA 30031 EUNG CHUN PARK, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA 94960 TURID KARLSEN SEIM, University of Oslo, N-0315 Oslo, Norway BENJAMIN D. SOMMER, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60645 VINCENT L. WIMBUSH, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA 91711 2007: MOSHE BERNSTEIN, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 JOHN ENDRES, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94709 JO ANN HACKETT, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 MATTHIAS HENZE, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251 ROBERT KUGLER, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR 97219 TIMOTHY LIM, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH1 2LX Scotland STEPHEN MOORE, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940 STEPHEN PATTERSON, Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO 63119 EMERSON POWERY, Lee University, Cleveland, TN 37312 ADELE REINHARTZ, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 Canada RICHARD STEINER, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 SZE-KAR WAN, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 02459 2008: ELLEN B. AITKEN, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T5 Canada MICHAEL JOSEPH BROWN, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 TERENCE L. DONALDSON, Wycliffe College, Toronto, ON M5S 1H7 Canada STEVEN FRIESEN, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 JENNIFER GLANCY, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York 13214 A. KATHERINE GRIEB, Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, VA 22304 ARCHIE C. C. LEE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin New Territories, Hong Kong SAR DANIEL MARGUERAT, Université de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland RICHARD D. NELSON, Perkins School of Theology, So. Methodist Univ., Dallas, TX 75275 DAVID L. PETERSEN, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 YVONNE SHERWOOD, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ United Kingdom LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK, University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3RS United Kingdom PATRICIA K. TULL, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY 40205

Incorporates the latest scholarship on the historical Jesus, a new section on how the Gospels have been read throughout history, and an expanded discussion of how to teach and preach the Gospels through the lectionary. Praise for the first edition:

“A rare merger of the very best of modern biblical scholarship with a readable and engaging telling of the Gospel portraits of Jesus.” — Anglican Theological Review ISBN 0-8028-2980-5 • 216 pages • paperback • $16.00

IS JESUS THE ONLY SAVIOR? James R. Edwards “An unusual book on the question of religious pluralism. . . . This valuable contribution from the pen of a New Testament scholar will assist readers looking for a defense of the historical Christian understanding of the person and place of Jesus.” — I. Howard Marshall ISBN 0-8028-0981-2 • 264 pages • paperback • $16.00

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW THE NEW INTERNATIONAL GREEK TESTAMENT COMMENTARY John Nolland Without neglecting the Gospel’s sources or historical background, Nolland places his central focus on the content and method of Matthew’s story. His work explores Matthew’s narrative technique and the inner logic of the unfolding text, giving full weight to the Jewish character of the book and its differences from Mark’s presentation of parallel material.

Editorial Assistant: Christopher B. Hays, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 President of the Society: Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304; Vice President: Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ 08542; Chair, Research and Publications Committee: Benjamin G. Wright III, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015; Executive Director: Kent H. Richards, Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Suite 350, Atlanta, GA 30329. The Journal of Biblical Literature (ISSN 0021– 9231) is published quarterly. The annual subscription price is US$35.00 for members and US$150.00 for nonmembers. Institutional rates are also available. For information regarding subscriptions and membership, contact: Society of Biblical Literature, Customer Service Department, P.O. Box 133158, Atlanta, GA 30333. Phone: 866-727-9955 (toll free) or 404-727-9498. FAX: 404-727-2419. E-mail: [email protected]. For information concerning permission to quote, editorial and business matters, please see the Spring issue, p. 2. The Hebrew font used in JBL is SBL Hebrew and is available from www.sbl-site.org/Resources/default.aspx. The Greek and transliteration fonts used in this work are available from www.linguistsoftware.com, 425-775-1130. The JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE (ISSN 0021– 9231) is published quarterly by the Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Suite 350, Atlanta, GA 30329. Periodical postage paid at Atlanta, Georgia, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Society of Biblical Literature, P.O. Box 133158, Atlanta, GA 30333.

ISBN 0-8028-2389-0 • 1579 pages • hardcover • $80.00

At your bookstore, or call 800-253-7521 www.eerdmans.com

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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JOURNAL OF

BIBLICAL LITERATURE SUMMER 2006

Nineteenth-Century Women Writing on Women in Genesis

Marion A. Taylor and Heather Weir, editors This remarkable volume not only fills a painful lacuna in the history of biblical interpretation, but it opens up a new field within the discipline by recovering hundreds of forgotten female voices. - Brevard S. Childs, Yale University $44.95 | 6 x 9, 495 pages | Cloth ISBN 1-932792-53-8

baylorpress.com

1-800-537-5487 ...on the path of faith and understanding

JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

Let Her Speak for Herself

VOLUME 125, NO. 2 Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible T. M. Lemos 225–241 The Neo-Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt and Yahweh’s Answer to Job Michael B. Dick 243–270 The Significance of Jesus’ Death in Mark: Narrative Context and Authorial Audience Sharyn Dowd and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon 271–297 Righteous Bloodshed, Matthew’s Passion Narrative, and the Temple’s Destruction: Lamentations as a Matthean Intertext David M. Moffitt 299–320 Implicating Herodias and Her Daughter in the Death of John the Baptizer: A (Christian) Theological Strategy Ross S. Kraemer 321–349 The Question of Motive in the Case against Morton Smith Scott G. Brown 351–383 A Woman at Prayer: A Critical Note on Psalm 131:2b Melody D. Knowles 385–389 Small Change: Saul to Paul, Again Sean M. McDonough 390–391

Book Reviews

393–419 US ISSN 0021-9231

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