Reading from Right to Left: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in honour of David J. A. Clines (JSOT Supplement)

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES 373 Editors David J.A. Clines Philip R. Davies Executive...

Author: J. Cheryl Exum | H. G. M. Williamson

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JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES

373

Editors David J.A. Clines Philip R. Davies Executive Editor Andrew Mein Editorial Board Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, John Jarick, Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller

Sheffield Academic Press A Continuum imprint

Reading from Right to Left Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of David J.A. Clines edited by J. Cheryl Exum and H.G.M. Williamson

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 373

Copyright © 2003 T & T Clark International A Continuum imprint Published by T & T Clark International The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 15 East 26th Street, Suite 1703, New York, NY 10010 www.continuumbooks.com Reprinted 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset and edited for Continuum by Forthcoming Publications Ltd www.forthcomingpublications.com

Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham ISBN 0-8264-6686-9

CONTENTS Preface Abbreviations List of Contributors

WHAT WAS A BIBLICAL PROPHET? WHY DOES IT MATTER?

ix xv xix

1

A. Graeme Auld

A PUZZLE IN DEUTERONOMY

13

James Barr

THE PROPHET ODED AND THE ZAKKUR INSCRIPTION: A CASE OF OBSCURIORE OBSCURUM?

25

Hans M. Barstad AN EARLY METACOMMENTARY: TERTULLIAN'S AGAINST MARCION John Barton

38

THE UNITY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH: ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT BRIDGING THE GORGE BETWEEN ITS Two MAIN PARTS Willem A.M. Beuken

50

THE ONE IN THE MIDDLE

63

Joseph Blenkinsopp

THEME REVISITED: BREADAGAIN! 76

76

Walter Brueggemann

A TRIBUTE TO THE BOOK LIST OF SOTS Brevard S. Childs

90

Reading from Right to Left

vi

THE PEOPLE OR THE BOOK

95

Richard J. Coggins

TRAGEDY AND ETHICS : REVISITING ATHENS AND JERUSALEM

107

Philip R. Davies

A PHRASE IN A PHOENICIAN PAPYRUS AND A PROBLEM IN ISAIAH 5.14

121

J.A. Emerton

SONG OF SONGS AS AN 'ANSWER' TO CLINES'S BOOK OF JOB

128

Tamara Cohn Eskenazi

'THE VOICE OF MY LOVER': DOUBLE VOICE AND POETIC ILLUSION IN SONG OF SONGS 2.8-3.5

141

J. Cheryl Exum

WISDOM AND THE SELF-PRESENTATION OF WISDOM LITERATURE Michael V. Fox

153

So WHAT MIGHT THE SONG OF SONGS Do TO THEM?

173

John Goldingay

THE EPHRAIMITE MESSIAH AND THE TARGUM(S) TO ZECHARIAH12.10

184

Robert P. Gordon

THE PUZZLING POLITICS OF ANCIENT ISRAEL

196

Norman K. Gottwald

WERE THE PRE-MACCABEAN HIGH PRIESTS 'ZADOKITES ' ?

205

Lester L. Grabbe

'LAWLESS RIOT AND INTESTINE DIVISION': JUDGES 19-21 AND CIVIL WAR IN ENGLAND AND NORTH AMERICA, 1628-1786

216

David M. Gunn

THE ROLE OF THE POOR IN PROVERBS Walter J. Houston

229

Contents

INSIGHTS ON JOB 3, FROM A MEDIEVAL COMMENTARY: RABBI SAMUEL BEN MEIR (RASHBAM) ON THE BOOK OF JOB

vii

241

Sara Japhet

WHICH PARTS OF 1 ENOCH WERE KNOWN TO JUBILEES! A NOTE ON THE INTERPRETATION OF JUBILEES 4.16-25 254

254

Michael A. Knibb

GOD's RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE ORIGINAL AND IN TRANSLATIONS Joze Krasovec

263

FROM DAVID TO DAVID: PSALM 24 AND DAVID CLINES

275

Francis Landy

TWELVE COMMANDMENTS—THREE STAGES: A NEW THEORY ON THE FORMATION OF THE DECALOGUE

290

Bernhard Lang

HOLY PERSUASION: THE BIBLE AS ADVERTISING

301

Burke O. Long

MAN AND WOMAN: TOWARD A THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Patrick D. Miller

320

THE REBEL IN BIBLE LANDS

329

Johannes C. de Moor

'THE CONSOLATIONS OF GOD': ASSESSING JOB'S FRIENDS ACROSS A CULTURAL ABYSS

347

Carol A. Newsom

NADAB AND ABIHU

359

RolfRendtorff

THE WISDOM FORMULA 'Do NOT SAY. ..' AND THE ANGEL IN QOHELET5.5

Alexander Rofe

364

viii


MEASURABLE AND IMMEASURABLE: THEMES IN OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY

377

John W. Rogerson

ISAIAH AND THE JEWS: SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE CHURCH'S USE OF THE BIBLE

390

John F.A. Sawyer

INTERESTED PARTIES: HISTORY AND IDEOLOGY AT THE END OF THE CENTURY

402

Keith W. Whitelam

JUDGMENT AND HOPE IN ISAIAH 1.21 -26

423

H.G.M. Williamson

LOVE AND HATRED IN A MULTIRACIAL SOCIETY: THE DINAH AND SHECHEM STORY IN GENESIS 34 IN THE CONTEXT OF GENESIS 28-35 435 Ellen J. van Wolde PSALM 87: A CASE FOR IDEOLOGICAL CRITICISM?

450

Erich Zenger Bibliography of David J. A. Clines Index of References Index of Authors

461 477 492

PREFACE We confess we were not the only ones who thought of calling this volume Why Is There a David Clines and What Does It Do to You If You Read Him? For David Clines has written so much of importance in so many areas of our discipline—philology, commentary, exegesis, literary analysis, ideological criticism, methodological and theoretical studies—that few of us will not have been influenced, inspired, challenged, nettled, perhaps convinced or possibly persuaded to think differently about a topic as a result of his work. The title we did decide upon in the end, Reading from Right to Left, was inspired by a phrase coined by David for the variety of reading strategies available to the modern reader of the Bible. For David, reading from left to right meant reading the biblical text in English and, more important, in our own cultural context, whereas reading from right to left referred to reading the text in Hebrew and according to the conventions of its time.1 Since it was decided early on that the present volume would be a collection of essays on the Hebrew Bible only, we felt that 'reading from right to left' would be a good way of signalling this. (There was, however, no requirement that the contributors approach the text in terms of the conventions of its time!) Multiple reading strategies are represented here, reflecting the wide range of David Clines's scholarly interests. One cannot fail to be impressed by the prodigious range of David's competence across the field of biblical studies and by his breathtaking productivity. The main areas of his scholarly writing, as he has defined them, are method, literature, history, theology, language, Psalms and the book of Job.2 There is too much for us to survey here, and, fortunately for us, David himself has provided an overview in the form of reflections on his work, 1. See, for example, 'Reading Esther from Left to Right' (1990; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern [1998]); 'The Ten Commandments, Reading from Left to Right', Interested Parties (1995). For full bibliographical details for all the studies referred to in this Preface, see the bibliography of David Clines's work at the end of the present volume. 2. See On the Way to the Postmodern.


X

both as part of the 'intellectual biography' of the Department of Biblical Studies at Sheffield in Auguries* and in the Introduction to On the Way to the Postmodern, where he describes his oeuvre in terms of an intellectual journey. 'On the way', we think, is a fitting description, not just because it perceives a pattern and direction in the life's work but also because it points to an aspect of David's scholarly publications that is so distinctive: not content to repeat himself by revisiting the same questions or remaining with a single book or topic, he is always exploring new ideas and testing new approaches. Reading Clines is never dull or predictable; there is always an encounter with new ideas and innovative ways of looking at things. Though we make no attempt to present a comprehensive overview, we cannot let the opportunity pass to single out an illustrative sample of David's outstanding contributions to the field. If we mention first the traditional disciplines of philology and textual criticism, this is because they stem from David's background in conservative Christian circles in Australia (something he has never sought to hide or disown), circles in which biblical languages are still highly valued. His degree in Greek and Latin from Sydney University, and another in Oriental Studies (Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac) from Cambridge University, prepared him not only for an academic career but also for a lifelong interest in classical Hebrew. It may come as a surprise to some readers to peruse the full bibliography of David's works in this volume and find regular references to linguistic and textual studies in such bastions of critical respectability as Vetus Testamentum, Biblica, Tyndale Bulletin and the Journal ofNorthwest Semitic Languages. Even in such fields, however, scholarship does not stand still, and with his masterminding of the massive undertaking of The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (1993-) we see how he has continued to give thought to the most effective approach to discerning the meaning of words in an ancient language. Entirely in line with much modern thinking, primacy of place is devoted to syntagmatics. This raised howls of protest from some more traditional quarters, and it is characteristic of David that, in responding to this by the provision of bibliographies on each lexeme or root, he has gone much further than his critics ever went in assisting those of a more historical or comparative disposition. Textual and what used to be known as literary (that is, source) criticism were taken forward in an innovative manner by his monograph The Esther Scroll: The Story of the Story (1984), as may be seen from the fact that it

3.

1998; see especially pp. 20, 26-27, 33-35, 42-43, 56-62.

Preface

xi

has inspired a generation of studies on the textual history of the book. This was achieved by setting both disciplines in a new context, namely, narrative coherence, an area where he was also working at the time, as will shortly be mentioned. The approach turns the conventional order of procedure on its head; these days, when synchronic and diachronic analyses have learned to inform each other to a great extent, it is easily forgotten how radical it appeared when David was among the first to introduce narrative analysis into fields other than the exclusively literary. Linguistic and textual competence are, of course, given full rein in David's commentary writing, but such work demands a much wider range of skills as well. This has sometimes led him into recondite areas where technical competence of a high order is to be found, nowhere more so than in his outstanding article 'In Search of the Indian Job' (1983), in our opinion one of the finest pieces of detective work in the field of the history of scholarship ever penned. Characteristically, his understanding of commentary has not stood still either. It takes little source-critical skill to discern which parts of his Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (1984) were added to a much earlier draft that had been turned down by an unenlightened publisher (who had commissioned it), but it is, of course, in his monumental and ongoing commentary on Job that we find the full flowering of his mastery of the multi-skilled work which is commentary. The chorus of admiration that greeted the first volume in 1990 appears to have been unanimous, and we eagerly anticipate the conclusion of the work in the near future. Another area in which David's contributions are considerable includes a range of literary-, gender- and ideological-critical approaches we might classify as postmodern, or, to use his phrase, 'on the way to the postmodern', which he characteristically describes as a 'quizzical re-evaluation of the values of the modern'.4 David's impressive literary skills are evident in such works as his early /, He, We and They: A Literary Approach to Isaiah 53 (1976) and The Theme of the Pentateuch (1978), an innovative study that has become a classic. David's literary interests blossomed naturally into inquisitiveness about newer approaches that focused more specifically on textuality—he was a pioneer in applying deconstruction to biblical texts—and on the interests, or ideologies, not only of the biblical writers but also of their readers. Thus he avidly pursued reader-response, or, 'readerly questions', as the title of his 1990 book What Does Eve Do to Help? and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament reveals, as well as, in 4.

On the Way to the Postmodern, xvi.

xii


his book Interested Parties (1995), questions about the motivations of biblical writers and readers—questions captured in such quintessentially Clinesian titles as 'Why Is There a Book of Job, and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?',5 'Why Is There a Song of Songs, and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?'6 Prominent among the readers whose motives or interests he calls into question are biblical commentators themselves, an inquiry he was perhaps the first to call 'metacommentary'.7 In all these pursuits, what characterizes David's work is his keen interest in the multiple meanings of texts and in multiple strategies for reading them. And here, too, we find David engaging in one of his passions, looking beyond the discipline to broader intellectual currents, and asking about their relevance for biblical studies. If that is a question about the influence of the modern world on the Bible and biblical criticism, its mirror image, a question about the influence of the Bible on the modern world, is equally in the forefront of his attention. For some years he taught a course on the Bible in the Modem World, which proved to create a good deal of excitement among Sheffield students. His reflections on this topic became the Didsbury Lectures in 1993, subsequently published as The Bible and the Modern World(\991}. The biblical text is always at the centre of David's inquiries, and he professes to being not much of a theoretician; yet the methods we adopt in biblical study are for him paramount subjects for enquiry; and he has developed an enviable gift for expounding theoretical ideas and their consequences in an accessible style. Reviewers typically comment about the engaging style of David's writing, his wit and the clarity of his presentation, as well as his scholarship and insight. David has never been the sort of scholar to pursue research in an ivory tower. In addition to lecturing around the globe, throughout his career he has been an indefatigable contributor to the activities of the Society for Old Testament Study, the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament and the Society of Biblical Literature. Over the past thirty or so years, hardly a meeting of these societies has passed without at least one paper with a provocative title by David Clines, always delivered with humour and panache. His efforts on behalf of the Society for Old Testament 5. First published in W.A.M. Beuken (ed.), The Book of Job (1994); a revised version appears in Interested Parties. 6. First published in Jian Dao (1994); a revised version appears in Interested Parties. 7. 'Metacommentating Amos' (1993); reprinted in Interested Parties.

Preface

xiii

Study, as a member of various committees, as Secretary in 1978-82 and as President in 1996, have been much appreciated in Britain, while his successful proposal to secure the future of the Society's annual Booklist by including it as a fifth issue ofJSOT has benefited many scholars internationally. In the SBL, he has served on committees, chaired program units and organized sessions, and he regularly presents papers at both the national and international meetings of the Society. It is therefore fitting that this volume is being presented to him at the SBL Annual Meeting, which conveniently takes place each year on his birthday in November. Closer to home, David has played a major role in shaping the identity of the Department of Biblical Studies at Sheffield University. The design of Sheffield's distinctive undergraduate curriculum, with its focus on the Bible in the Modern World, owes much to his vision. Little could he have known, when he came to Sheffield in 1964, that he would spend his whole academic career in Sheffield nor that, through his dedication, foresight and scholarship and that of his colleagues, Sheffield would attain an international reputation, attract hundreds of graduate students (of whom he himself has supervised more than thirty), and even, for good or ill, come to be known in some quarters of the field as the 'Sheffield school'. However one views this label, the name of David Clines will always be associated with it. No account of David's scholarly career would be complete without mention of his valuable and long-lasting contributions to biblical studies as editor and publisher. The name of JSOT Press, later to become Sheffield Academic Press and recently acquired by Continuum, is familiar to everyone in the field. David recounts in Auguries how the Press had its beginnings in 1976 after a meeting of SOTS, when, in the train back to Sheffield, he, Philip Davies and David Gunn decided to launch a Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. The rest, as he says, is history. Initially the Press provided a much needed forum for the exploration of new methods, especially literary and synchronic, two areas of inquiry dear to David's heart and to which he has, throughout his scholarly career, made important contributions. Over the years the Press has promoted the work of numerous authors, especially younger scholars, and has been a reliable venue for the publication of monographs, collected volumes and Festschriften. From 1976 to 2000 David was editor, with Gunn and Davies (and later with Davies) of the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament; he remains coeditor of the JSOT Supplement series, the 'green flood' in which well over 300 monographs on the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible have been published.

xiv


David has not only been both a strong supporter of the guild of biblical scholars, he has also provided an important critical voice, drawing attention to what we are and are not (and, in his view, should be) doing in the discipline of biblical studies (see, e.g., his articles on what has and has not happened at SBL international meetings and at congresses of the IOSOT).8 In 2001, the University of Amsterdam conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa, citing his unique contributions to biblical criticism and cultural analysis, his inspiring teaching and innovative research, and his role in the leadership of a scholarly publishing house. Many of the contributors to this volume included in their essays comments about the encouragement they had received from David in their scholarly work, testimony to David's friendship and generosity, and warm good wishes; in the interests of space we have edited and abridged these sentiments. We trust that the volume as a whole will convey the esteem and affection in which David is held by so many of his colleagues, longtime conversation partners and friends. Congratulations, David, on this your sixty-fifth birthday. It is a pleasure for us to honour you with this volume. J. Cheryl Exum H.G.M. Williamson

8. 'From Salamanca to Cracow: What Has (and Has Not) Happened at SBL International Meetings' and 'From Copenhagen to Oslo: What Has (and Has Not) Happened at Congresses of the IOSOT', both in On the Way to the Postmodern.

ABBREVIATIONS AAH AB ABD

ael AfO AHw AnBib ANET

AO AOAT ASV ATD ATDan ATSAT AV AW BARev BBB BOB

BETL BEvT BHS Bib Biblnt BibOr BiOr BIFAO

Acta antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Anchor Bible David Noel Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) AEL M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature (3 vols.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973-80) Archivfur Orientforschung Wolfram von Soden, Akkadisches Handworterbuch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1959-81) Analecta biblica James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950) Archivfur Orientforschung Altes Orient und Altes Testament American Standard Version Das Alte Testament Deutsch Acta Theologica Danica Arbeiten zu Text and Sprache des Alten Testaments Authorized Version H. Brunner, Altdgyptische Weisheit(Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1988) Biblical Archaeology Review Bonner biblische Beitrage Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907) Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Beitrage zur evangelischen Theologie Biblia hebraica stuttgartensia Biblica Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches Biblica et orientalia Bibliotheca Orientalis Bulletin de I'lnstitutfrancais d'archeologie orientate

XVI

BJS BKAT BN BWANT BWL

BZ BZAW CBQ CEV

CRINT CSCO DBSup DCH

DJD EDSS Erls EvQ EvT ExpTim FAT FzB FOTL FRLANT GCT GKC HALAT

HAT HBS HeyJ HSM HTR HUCA ICC IDBSup JAAR JAOS JBL JEA JNES

Reading from Right to Left Brown Judaic Studies Biblischer Kommentar: Altes Testament Biblische Notizen Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament W.G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960) Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur ZAW Catholic Biblical Quarterly Contemporary English Versions Compendia rerum iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplement D.J.A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991-) Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Encyclopaedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls Eretz Israel Evangelical Quarterly Evangelische Theologie Expository Times Forschungen zum Alten Testament Forschung zur Bibel The Forms of the Old Testament Literature Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Gender, Culture, Theory Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (ed. E. Kautzsch, revised and trans. A.E. Cowley; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910) Ludwig Koehler et al. (eds.), Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament (5 vols.; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967-1995) Handbuch zum Alten Testament Herders biblische Studien Heythrop Journal Harvard Semitic Monographs Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual International Critical Commentary IDB, Supplementary Volume Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Abbreviations JNSL JPSV JSHRZ JSJ JSNT JSOT JSOTSup JSS KAI KAT KHAT KJV KTU

LCL NCB NIDOTTE

NIV NJB

NJPSV NRSV

NTOA OBO OBT OIP OTE OTG OIL OTS RB REB

RevQ RGG RSV

SBLDS SBLMS SBLRBS SBLSP SBLTT SEA

xvii

Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Jewish Publication Society Version Judische Schriften aus hellenistisch-romischer Zeit Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series Journal of Semitic Studies H. Dormer and W. Riillig, Kanaanaische und aramaische Inschriften (3 vols.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1962-64) Kommentar zum Alten Testament Kurzer Hand-Kommentar zum Alten Testament King James Version M. Dietrich, O. Loretz and J. Sanmartin, Die Keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit (AOAT, 24; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1976) Loeb Classical Library New Century Bible Willem A. VanGemeren (ed.), New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (5 vols.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997) New International Version New Jerusalem Bible New Jewish Publication Society Version New Revised Standard Version Novum Testamenrum et orbis antiquus Orbis biblicus et orientalis Overtures to Biblical Theology Oriental Institution Publications Old Testament Essays Old Testament Guides Old Testament Library Oudtestamentische Studien Revue biblique Revised English Bible Revue de Qumran Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart Revised Standard Version SBL Dissertation Series SBL Monograph Series SBL Resources for Biblical Study SBL Seminar Papers SBL Texts and Translations Svensk exegetisk arsbok

xviii SFSHJ SHCANE SJOT SNTSMS StudOr Stv TDOT THAT

ThWAT

Reading from Right to Left South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Studia orientalia Statenvertaling G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann (eds.), Theologisches Handworterbuch zum Alien Testament (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1971-76) G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theologisches Worterbuch zum Alten Testament (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer,

1970-) TOB TRE TynBul UF VT VTSup WBC WMANT WO ZA ZAW ZDMGSup

Traduction cecumenique de la Bible Theologische Realenzyklopddie Tyndale Bulletin Ugarit-Forschungen Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum, Supplements Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Die Welt des Orients Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie Zeitschriftfur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, Supplements

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS A. Graeme Auld, Professor of Hebrew Bible, University of Edinburgh James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew Emeritus, University of Oxford Hans M. Barstad, Professor of Biblical Studies, University of Oslo John Barton, Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture, University of Oxford Willem A.M. Beuken, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, Catholic University of Leuven Joseph Blenkinsopp, John A. O'Brien Professor Emeritus, Department of Theology, University of Notre Dame Walter Brueggemann, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies, Columbia Theological Seminary Brevard S. Childs, Sterling Professor of Divinity Emeritus, Yale University Richard J. Coggins, formerly Senior Lecturer in Old Testament Studies, King's College London Philip R. Davies, Professor of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield J.A. Emerton, Emeritus Regius Professor of Hebrew, University of Cambridge Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, Professor of Bible, Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion J. Cheryl Exum, Professor of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield

XX


Michael V. Fox, Halls-Bascom Professor of Hebrew, University of Wisconsin John Goldingay, David Allan Hubbard Professor of Old Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary Robert P. Gordon, Regius Professor of Hebrew, University of Cambridge Norman K. Gottwald, Professor of Biblical Studies Emeritus, New York Theological Seminary Lester L. Grabbe, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism, University of Hull David M. Gunn, A.A. Bradford Chair of Religion, Texas Christian University Walter J. Houston, Chaplain Fellow in Theology, Mansfield College, Oxford Sara Japhet, Yehezkel Kaufmann Professor of Bible, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Michael A. Knibb, Samuel Davidson Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Studies, King's College London Joze Krasovec, Professor of Old Testament Studies, University of Ljubljana Francis Landy, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Alberta Bernhard Lang, Professor of Old Testament and Religious Studies, University of Paderborn and University of St Andrews Burke O. Long, Kenan Professor of Religion Emeritus, Bowdoin College Patrick D. Miller, Professor of Old Testament Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary Johannes C. de Moor, Professor of Semitic Languages Emeritus, Theological University Kampen

List of Contributors

xxi

Carol A. Newsom, Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, Emory University Rolf Rendtorff, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Theology, University of Heidelberg Alexander Rofe, Y. Becker Professor of Bible Emeritus, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem John W. Rogerson, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield John F.A. Sawyer, Visiting Professor in the Department of Linguistics, University of Florence Keith W. Whitelam, Professor of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield H.G.M. Williamson, Regius Professor of Hebrew, University of Oxford Ellen J. van Wolde, Professor of Old Testament Exegesis and Hebrew, University of Tilburg Erich Zenger, Professor of Old Testament Exegesis, University of Munster

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WHAT WAS A BIBLICAL PROPHET? WHY DOES IT MATTER? A. Graeme Auld In this tribute to David Clines, I want to revisit an Alice-world. This is first and foremost to celebrate the several wonderlands of fresh perspectives which his own scholarship has offered readers of the Bible. However, I also wish to acknowledge his role in helping launch an enterprise that has had me in thrall for twenty years. The then Home Secretary of the Society for Old Testament Study wanted to experiment with the format of Society meetings (still unchanged after twenty years); and I volunteered to extend a study recently completed (Auld 1984) and prepare a related paper on prophetic terminology, somewhat longer than the norm, to which a whole morning would be devoted, discussion led by two pre-selected respondents. 'Prophets through the Looking Glass' was the paper (1983a); Robert Carroll (1983) and Hugh Williamson (1983) were the respondents; and David Clines's responsibility was increased when the 'Sheffield journal' published the texts with a response from myself (Auld 1983b). To help stimulate discussion, he had asked me to 'trail my coat'. It sometimes seems as if I have been following that coat's trail ever since. What Was a Prophet? The main trail started in the corridor which could only be glimpsed in the looking glass leading out from the room (Auld 1983a: 14-16). The suggestion offered there that Samuel-Kings and Chronicles were alternative appropriations of a common source-narrative was developed in Kings -without Privilege (Auld 1994). In time, and again under challenge from David Clines, that common source acquired a name, the Book of Two Houses (BTH). Its theme was the conjoint story of the houses of Yahweh and David in Jerusalem—a story with the end of a royal line (Saul's) and the capture of Jerusalem (by David) at its beginning, and with the Babylonian

2


capture of Jerusalem and the fate of David's distant descendant at its end. The trail led in a direction opposite to the broad consensus about the socalled Deuteronomistic History. There were two linked reasons for this. (1) The narrative in the books from Joshua to Kings was developed from the Book of Two Houses backwards, and not from Moses forwards: the core of the material concerned the period of David's dynasty. That story of kingship and prophecy was first extended into the books called 'Samuel and Kings' (or, even better, 'Kingdoms', their Greek title), with kingship now made secondary to prophecy. And only later were the books of Joshua and then Judges added by authors who were penning anticipations to the royal story already told and available. (2) The relationship between Deuteronomy and the following history was probably more complex than the term 'Deuteronomistic History' suggests: on the one side, the manifest links between BTH and Deuteronomy, and also 'Kingdoms' and Deuteronomy, were better explained as Deuteronomy learning from the story of kingship and prophecy than as that story being told in the light of Deuteronomy; on the other, Joshua does seem both to draw on themes from the royal story and at the same time to continue where Deuteronomy leaves off. The quest for the prophets through the looking glass never went cold, despite earlier concentration on how the narrative books developed. One paper (Auld 2000a) noted that in the relatively small number of prophetic stories found in BTH, the stories common to Samuel-Kings and Chronicles, the prophets are presented as institutional prophets. Nathan, Micaiah and Huldah (and possibly Isaiah too) are consulted by David, Jehoshaphat, Josiah—and Hezekiah; and Gad is actually termed 'David's seer'. Some of these advisers in fact give their own opinion first, and only subsequently transmit a divine oracle. By contrast, the non-synoptic prophetic stories in most of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles portray prophets or seers as bursting onto the scene unbidden by the king but with a message from Yahweh. A second paper reviewed the opening chapters of 1 Samuel, and argued that the figure of Samuel was a late composite of once separate royal and prophetic traditions (Auld 2001). And the stories of Elijah and Elisha in Kings reinforce the expectations aroused by this portrait at the beginning of 'Kingdoms'. They reverse the expected relationship of king and prophet (Auld 2002): Elijah gives instructions to Ahab without invoking divine authority, and chooses when he may be seen by the king; the succession of Elisha to Elijah is quasi-royal; and the description of Elisha as 'the prophet who is in Israel' (2 Kgs 6.12) must represent a challenge to 'the king who is in Samaria'(1 Kgs 21.18).

AULD What Was a Biblical Prophet?

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Quite the most sustained critical engagement known to me with issues raised in 'Prophets through the Looking Glass' and in the closely related (and even more coat-trailing) New College Opening Lecture of 1984 (Auld 1988) was provided by Hans Barstad (1993). Like Helmer Ringgren's polemic at a congress in Jerusalem (1988), he began by commenting on Otto Kaiser's work on Isaiah 1-39 and suspecting its reductionist implications; and, like Ringgren, he complained that several scholars were ignoring the well-documented evidence of prophecy among Israel's neighbours in the ancient Near East. Barstad found both Auld and Carroll 'rather vague and reticent over what terms like "prophet" and "prophecy" can or should mean' (1993: 45); and their 'weighty contributions...lacking any serious attempt to relate the contents of the prophetical books to the phenomenon of biblical and ancient Near Eastern prophecy in general' (46). I can only speak for myself, and observe that an article often does appear one-sided because it has space mainly to develop a fresh point and little to underscore its agreement otherwise with the consensus. My point was never that there was no continuity between ancient prophecy (ancient Near Eastern, including 'Israelite') and biblical prophecy—but simply that much the larger part of the evidence within the Bible (in terms of technical terminology at least) was of highly edited biblical prophecy, not of anterior historical phenomena. It cannot be denied that some ancient prophets claimed DN1 rP!T of what they had to say; yet, within the pages of the Bible, that phrase is overwhelmingly the contribution of their editors. Barstad is right (1993: 55-56) to deplore the relative lack of interest among biblical scholars in the oracles against other nations, that part of the content of biblical prophecy that is most closely related to prophecy generally in the ancient Near East. And yet this is neither the major nor the distinctive element in the material. What Does 'Biblical' Mean? It is not only 'prophet' and 'prophecy' that remain remarkably difficult terms, despite their familiarity. 'Biblical' too is a far-from-transparent modifier. 'Biblical Studies' is a concept more like a marquee than an umbrella, covering anything and everything 'to do with' the Bible: background, contents, comparators, influence. 'Biblical standards', at least in the mouth of a more fundamentalist Protestant Christian, are contemporary standards held to be convergent with norms and teachings within the Bible. By contrast, 'biblical history' or 'biblical archaeology' study that part of the ancient

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past about which the Bible writes and out of which it grew. In asking about the 'biblical prophet', I am operating closer to the third of these senses: but only closer to and not within. 'Classical' may work as a replacement for 'Biblical' in the Sheffield Hebrew Dictionary (Clines 1993:14-15), but not for my purposes. In fact, in that 'biblical prophecy' is concerned only with prophecy within the Bible, the term avoids the critique that is properly levelled against 'biblical history' and 'biblical archaeology': that they tend to silence or marginalize other voices in the shared record of their period. The editing of the prophetic corpus was of course a historical phenomenon; however, the more it is recognized as involving a radical representation of the historical prophets, the less it has to do with these prophets in their times. But even that is only the beginning of the problem. It is more important when discussing 'prophecy' than in dealing with most other 'biblical' topics to be clear which 'Bible' we are talking about. It is commonplace to cite the familiar canonical issue. Christianity and Judaism hold the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve in common as 'Prophets'. Christians would add Daniel to these, and also Lamentations alongside Jeremiah. In contrast, balancing the four books of the Latter Prophets already listed, Jews add the four Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. Radically.different decisions about which among the shared biblical books are 'prophetic' go hand in hand with quite as divergent perceptions of what constitutes 'prophecy'. Equally, within the more extended Christian scripture, it may be appropriate to distinguish between Old Testament and New Testament prophecy. In some, at least, early Christian communities there were those who exercised 'prophetic' gifts, just as others healed, discerned spirits, or worked miracles—while all of these were features of prophets in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. It is possible, however, to push through or behind this canonical divide. Earlier discussion of the 'canonical' significance of the manuscript fragments found near Qumran seemed more concerned to align the Dead Sea 'library' with either the Masoretic Bible or the longer Old Testament collections of the early churches. Fragments of all books in the Hebrew Bible (but Esther) were found there—yet there was knowledge also of elements of a fuller 'canon'. That debate resembled earlier Catholic/Protestant sniping within Christianity about the proper extent of the 'Old Testament'. Both sides argued over which 'biblical' books were held authoritative by the authors of the books that became 'New Testament'. Happily the discussion has moved forwards; and I mention just two more recent contributions which appear to have the potential to nudge it further.


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Timothy Lim (2001) has recently disputed the view that 4QMMT refers to the tripartite division of the Hebrew Bible. Line 10 of the manuscript, as restored by Qimron and Strugnell, refers to 'the book of Moses, the books of the prophets, and David' as fit sources for enlightenment. And this threefold expression has, not surprisingly, been compared with the reference in Lk. 24.44 to 'the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms', which has also been taken to refer to the familiar 'Law, Prophets, and Writings'. However, Lim notes that Judges, Samuel and Kings are never mentioned as titles in sectarian documents, from which he deduces that no collection of 'prophets' from Joshua to Malachi was known. And he argues that 'David' is more likely to be an ellipse for '(the deeds of) David' than for '(the psalms of) David'. 'David' in 4QMMT could therefore refer to part or all of the Former Prophets. I find the first part of his case completely persuasive; however, while the elliptical 'David' could refer to an account of his deeds, his songs or psalms are much more substantially represented among the Qumran manuscripts than histories of his deeds. Discussing what may have constituted 'Bible' at Qumran, Julio Trebolle Barrera (2000) proposes three tests, and finds the results of each converging with the others: (1) Which (biblical) books are found in many copies, and which in a few? (2) Which books are more often cited as authoritative in the non-biblical, 'sectarian' writings found at Qumran, and which less? (3) Of which books do the available copies exhibit a standard text, and for which books do we have clear evidence of a text which has not been standardized? It is the books of Moses, together with Isaiah, the Twelve, Psalms and (possibly) Job, that are available in more copies, with little textual divergence despite the larger number of copies, and that are most often quoted. While copies of almost all the other books within the familiar collection of the Hebrew Bible were found at Qumran, we should deduce from Trebolle's shorter list that the others were not yet 'biblical', did not yet share the same authority, had not yet merited the selection of a standard form of their text. The answer from Qumran to the question, 'What was normative prophecy then and there?', might have been: the sort of material we find in the two books of Isaiah and the Twelve. Each is set by its title verse 'in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah' (Isa. 1.1 and Hos. 1.1), yet each obviously contains material from a wide range of centuries after the eighth century BCE. The striking difference between them is that the book of the Twelve is explicit about (some of) the variety within it of setting and contribution, while the other book recognizes only the epony-

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mous Isaiah of Jerusalem. Some New Testament witnesses might add David (in the Psalms) to our list of prophetic books (and that collection, like Isaiah and the Twelve, has developed over a very long period). This evidence from Qumran is all the more important because of its resonance with observations from elsewhere. The books most cited in the sectarian documents are also the books most often appealed to in the New Testament writings (Trebolle 2000:93-94). And the books within the 'biblical' collection by the Dead Sea which display textual pluriformity are largely those where certain Septuagint texts, pre-eminently Codex Vaticanus (LXXB), attest a Hebrew Vorlage very different from the Masoretic Text (MT). For the purposes of this paper it is particularly noteworthy that these books include, in addition to Joshua and Judges, precisely Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah and Ezekiel: the books in which the language of prophecy (especially the usage of nb') is concentrated, the books in which the role of the prophet is a feature. Daniel, among the prophets in the Christian Old Testament but not in the Jewish Bible, is another book that we have in very different versions. Was the text of these books more flexible—were they still being added to and rewritten—because they did not (yet) share the authority of Torah, Isaiah, the Twelve and Psalms? Or were they not authoritative, because there was no fixed and recognized text? Texts that diverge from the (proto-)masoretic 'standard' are called by some scholars 'non-standard' or 'parabiblical'. However, Trebolle wisely counsels against the use of these terms for books such as Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. 'Non-standard' implies that there was a standard, and 'parabiblical text' that there was a 'biblical text'. Yet the evidence of Qumran, the New Testament and the ancient versions relating to Joshua-Kings and Jeremiah-Ezekiel is against there having been any standard in that period by which to measure what was non-standard. Paradoxically, the two earliest standard 'biblical' prophetic books are much more diverse, much more tolerant of different answers to our question, 'What was a biblical prophet?', than the then non-standard Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, which were only later recognized as 'biblical' books. These are not completely consistent in themselves, and they do not agree with each other; and yet they do have more in common with each other than with most of Isaiah or the Twelve. At the beginning of this section I noted that the question about biblical prophecy would receive a different answer from the Jewish than from the Christian canon of scripture. The answer to the question 'What was a biblical prophet?' is different again when we push back behind these, and


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answer on the basis of the much smaller collection of books that the Dead Sea documents and the writings of the New Testament appear to have received as authoritative. Many of the statements made about the completion or canonization of the Hebrew Bible by participants in the 1998 and 1999 sessions of the European Seminar in Historical Methodology would be usefully reconsidered in the light of Trebolle's discussion. Robert Carroll did note in his contribution (2001:105) the relevance of my own work to the debate. What does it matter for literary and religious history? In the remainder of this paper, I sketch some illustrative questions. How Long Did the Development of the Four Books of the Latter Prophets Take? It has been common to suppose that the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, as rather more consistent books, with their focus each on the contribution of a single prophet, could have been the product of a relatively short period of development—relative at least to Isaiah and the Twelve. There has been a conservative tendency to hold that the distinctively different Hebrew and Greek texts of Jeremiah might have co-existed as alternative accounts of Jeremiah from a period not so long after his death. By contrast, the book of the Twelve was manifestly collected over a much longer period. And this was mostly readily accepted also in the case of Isaiah, even if Jacques Vermeylen's description (1977-78) of the book of Isaiah as the product of as much as half a millennium of religious history was considered extreme by some readers. But the positive and negative data presented by Trebolle should force even the unwilling to consider that the development of the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel may have been quite as long as that of Isaiah and the Twelve. The eponymous Jeremiah and Ezekiel may be located a century later than Isaiah, Hosea, Amos and Micah, but the completion of their books had also come later. This simply underscores a decisive difference between 'biblical' and 'historical' prophecy: all other ancient Near Eastern prophets are encountered by us in near-contemporary words accidentally preserved from re-edition, while we meet biblical prophets in highly edited documents reporting on a very distant past. Dead Sea and Looking Glass Trebolle's appraisal of the 'biblical' evidence excavated from the caves by the Dead Sea can be readily appropriated as further evidence for 'Prophets through the Looking Glass' and Kings without Privilege. He has, after all,

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provided more objective grounds than are commonly disposed of in biblical studies for treating Samuel-Kings and Jeremiah-Ezekiel as distinct from Isaiah and the Twelve, and as developing until a still later date. The expansion of the Book of Two Houses into the four books of Kingdoms shares a number of features with the addition of Jeremiah and Ezekiel alongside Isaiah and the Twelve. Isaiah and the Twelve employ a wider range of terms for prophetic service of Yahweh than Kings and Jeremiah (Ezekiel is more diverse than Jeremiah, and uses nilf/pin much more than Jeremiah or Samuel-Kings), and Kings is indebted to the older Book of Two Houses for such diversity as it does possess. That major source manages within the six relevant short narratives to use all of 'seer' (run), 'vision' (]im), 'man of god' (QTl'TKn t£TN), and 'utterance of Yahweh' (miT DUD) once each, in addition to 'prophet' (6 times) and 'prophesy' (4 times). Such variety gives it something of the flavour of the Twelve or Isaiah, a flavour almost overlaid by the much repeated 'prophet' of the rest of Kings. Then the books of Jeremiah-Ezekiel share with Samuel-Kings increased interest in the persona of major prophetic figures: Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, alongside Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Although the book of Isaiah is as long as Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Isaiah himself is not nearly so prominent—not even in the first half of the book. Can Biblical Hebrew be Dated?

Many scholars have been confident that the charted history of the Hebrew language gave them rather more objective control over dating biblical materials. And this is certainly true of a recent piece by Zipora Talshir (2000). Dubbing my discussion of Solomon in 1 Kings, 3 Kingdoms and 2 Chronicles 'simplistic' at the outset, she goes on to attack it in several misrepresentations of both argument and biblical texts. To mention only three: (1)1 was seeking to establish not an earlier, shorter version of 1 Kings (2000:238), but a source of 1 Kings. (2) Talshir brackets 1 Kings 11 out of the discussion (234), and is then able to claim that the Chronicler's main omissions from Kings were from before Solomon's temple building (242)! 1 Kings 11 is one of the main pluses in Kings, and typically appears very differently in MT and LXX. (3) I have no problems over the broad agreement in Hebrew and Greek texts over Solomon's wisdom and riches (24041)—they are witnesses to the same book, a book different from Chronicles. But it remains important to account for the fact that virtually all the divergences between the Hebrew and Greek 'editions' of that book of Kings occur in material which neither of these 'editions' shares with Chronicles.


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Her attempted coup de grace is administered in the final footnote:' Auld... also discards, with no tenable explanation, the proof from the diachronic nature of the language of the Old Testament, Chronicles being an obvious witness of late Biblical Hebrew; see Avi Hurvitz...' It turns out, however, there is very much more to say on that issue than I was even dimly aware of when making the few remarks about Chronicles as benchmark for late biblical Hebrew (Auld 1994:9-10) to which Talshir took exception. Rising to her challenge, Robert Rezetko has presented a first selection of the wide-ranging counter-evidence available to him, in a closely argued and superbly documented article (2003). He concludes: '[T]he best starting point for comprehending the relationship(s) between [Samuel-Kings and Chronicles] is a meticulous, comprehensive and dispassionate textual, stylistic and literary analysis of their content and shape'. Can the Case Really Be so One-Sided? Without detracting from the argument so far, two pieces of apparent counter-evidence need to be entered. The one is that Ben Sirach's (second century BCE) praise of famous men (Ecclus 44-49) already includes Jeremiah and Ezekiel after (and only just more briefly than) Isaiah, and also devotes many more 'column inches' to Samuel and Elijah, Joshua and Caleb. Lester Grabbe charts the correspondences in detail (2001:144-46). The other is that the books of the Former Prophets have an enormous influence on the New Testament Gospels. The echoes of 1 Samuel 1-3 in the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke are well known; and Jesus' acts of feeding, dealing with a Phoenician woman, healing, raising of the dead and being himself caught into heaven resonate famously with those of Elijah and Elisha. However, the many links between the first Jesus/Joshua and the second are often overlooked: Joshua is spoken to directly by God, like Moses before him, and not (like a prophet) through receipt of the divine 'word'. The Jordan, and feet dipped in it, and symbols of the 'twelve-ness' of Israel are important at the beginning of his main career. Jericho is a feature of both stories, including accepting hospitality there from a questionable host. It is Joshua who built the ancestral altar to which the Samaritan woman directed the attention of Jesus. Only the first of these points is close to what Ben Sirach found noteworthy about the first Jesus: that he was successor (StaSoxos, 46.1) to Moses in matters of prophecy. Ben Sirach describes the relationship of Elisha to Elijah the same way (48.8). It is clear from all this, however narrowly the word 'biblical' should properly be defined, that decisive influence was not restricted to books that were

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cited, and of which many copies were held in a standard text. Some sorts of narrative clearly demonstrated their vitality by their influence on others and their openness to their own reformulation at the same time. In this respect, the narrative books of the Former Prophets were simply continuing in the tradition of the Book of Two Houses. It was one of the conclusions of Kings without Privilege that BTH had supplied some of the most important themes of the book of Deuteronomy as well as metamorphosing into the books of Kingdoms. Further influence from these narrative books on other books of the Pentateuch simply extends this phenomenon of influence from narratives about the monarchic period. The portrait in Deuteronomy, and indeed Exodus, of Moses as supreme prophet is indebted to elements of Samuel and Kings and Jeremiah. The stories about Joseph and Judah in the latter quarter of Genesis include variations on the account in 2 Samuel of David and his family (Auld 2000b; 2000c). And the command to be fruitful and multiply and fill a vacant land/earth had been issued in Jeremiah (3.16; 23.3) to settlers returning to the promised land, before it was ever laid on Adam at creation. Only relative datings are possible. However, if the stories of Israel's sons at the end of Genesis draw on the stories of David's family, and if these in turn have been added to BTH, and if that must be later than the collapse of Jerusalem and the houses of Yahweh and of David with it, then the last quarter of Genesis is no earlier than the Persian period. Only internal evidence, like the greater role for Joseph in the Pentateuch and how that might relate to Jewish/Samaritan issues on one side or to the figure of Daniel on another, could take us further forward. The work of the European Seminar in Historical Methodology has already been noted. The volume mentioned above (Grabbe [ed.] 2001) was devoted to discussion of Niels Peter Lemche's 'The Old Testament—a Hellenistic Book?' (Lemche 1993 [2001 ]). I can only agree with the several contributors who found it impossible to answer the question: Persian or Hellenistic or even Graeco-Roman? On the one side, most of the materials I have been reviewing appear to have been the product of a long period of development. On the other, the text of even the books in the smaller Qumran 'canon' could have remained open till Hellenistic times. But it is important to state that, in this discussion, 'Hellenistic' is mainly a description of date and not of influence. Hans Barstad's demonstration in that volume (2001) is crucial: that the 'biblical' books, however late their completion, were thoroughly Near Eastern rather than Greek. And he has reinforced it still more recently (2002).


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Bibliography Auld, A.G. 1983a 1983b 1984 1988

1994 2000a 2000b

2000c 2001

2002 Barstad, H. 1993

2001 2002 Carroll, R.P. 1983

'Prophets through the Looking Glass: Between Writings and Moses', JSOT 27: 3-23; reprinted in Gordon 1995: 289-307, and in Davies 1996: 22-42. 'Prophets through the Looking Glass: A Response to Robert Carroll and Hugh Williamson', JSOT21: 41-44; reprinted in Davies 1996: 57-60. 'Prophets and Prophecy in Jeremiah and Kings', ZAW96: 66-82. 'Word of God and Word of Man: Prophets and Canon', in Ascribe to the Lord: Biblical and Other Studies in Memory of Peter C. Craigie (JSOTSup, 67; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 237-51. Kings without Privilege (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). 'Prophets Shared—but Recycled', in T. Romer (ed.), The Future of the Deuteronomistic History (BETL, 147;Leuven: Leuven University Press): 19-28. 'Samuel and Genesis: Some Questions of John Van Seters' "Yahwist"', in S.L. McKenzie and T. Romer (eds.), Rethinking the Foundations: Historiography in the Ancient World and in the Bible (BZAW, 294; Berlin: W. de Gruyter): 23-32. 'Tamar between David, Judah and Joseph', SEA 65: 93-106. 'From King to Prophet in Samuel and Kings', in J.C. de Moor (ed.), The Elusive Prophet: The Prophet as a Historical Person, Literary Character and Anonymous Artist (OTS, 45; Leiden: E.J. Brill): 31 -44. 'Prophecy', in J. Barton (ed.), The Biblical World (London: Routledge): I, 88-106. 'No Prophets? Recent Developments in Biblical Prophetic Research and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy', JSOT57: 39-60; reprinted in Davies 1996: 106-26. 'Deuteronomists, Persians, Greeks, and the Dating of the Israelite Tradition', in Grabbe(ed.) 2001:47-77. 'Is the Hebrew Bible a Hellenistic Book? Or: Niels Peter Lemche, Herodotus, and the Persians', Transeuphratene 23: 129-51.

'Poets not Prophets: A Response to "Prophets through the Looking Glass"', JSOT'27: 25-31; reprinted in Davies 1996: 43-49. 2001 'Jewgreek Greekjew: The Hebrew Bible Is All Greek to Me. Reflections on the Problematics of Dating the Origins of the Bible in Relation to Contemporary Discussions of Biblical Historiography', in Grabbe (ed.) 2001:91-107. Clines, D.J.A. (ed.) 1993 The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, I. N (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Davies, P.R. (ed.) 1996 The Prophets: A Sheffield Reader (The Biblical Seminar, 42; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Gordon, R.P. (ed.) 1995 The Place Is Too Smallfor Us: The Israelite Prophets in Recent Scholarship

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Reading from Right to Left (Sources for Biblical and Theological Study, 5; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns).

Grabbe, L.L. 2001

'Jewish Historiography and Scripture in the Hellenistic Period', in Grabbe (ed.)2001: 129-55. Grabbe, L.L. (ed.) 2001 Did Moses Speak Attic? Jewish Historiography and Scripture in the Hellenistic Period (European Seminar in Historical Methodology, 3; JSOTSup, 317; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Lemche, N.P. 1993 'The Old Testament—a Hellenistic Book?', SJOT 7: 163-93 (a slightly revised version appears in Grabbe [ed.] 2001: 287-318). Lim, T.H. 2001 'The Alleged Reference to the Tripartite Division of the Hebrew Bible', Revue de Qumran 20: 23-37. Rezetko, R. 2003 'Dating Biblical Hebrew: Evidence from Samuel-Kings and Chronicles', in I.M. Young (ed.), Biblical Hebrew: Typology and Chronology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Ringgren, H. 1988 'Israelite Prophecy: Fact or Fiction?', in J.A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume: Jerusalem 1986 (VTSup, 40; Leiden: E.J. Brill): 204-10. Talshir, Z. 2000 'The Reign of Solomon in the Making: Pseudo-Connections between 3 Kingdoms and Chronicles', FT 50: 233-49. Trebolle Barrera, J. 2000 'Qumran Evidence for a Biblical Standard Text and for Non-Standard and Parabiblical Texts', in T.H. Lim et al. (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls in their Historical Context (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark): 89-106. Vermeylen, J. 1977-78 Du Prophete Isa'ie a I'apocalyptique: Isai'e, I—XXXV, miroir d'un demimillenaire d'experience religieuse en Israel (Etudes Bibliques; 2 vols.; Paris: Gabalda). Williamson, H.G.M. 1983 'A Response to A. Graeme Auld', JSOT21:33-39; reprinted in Davies 1996: 50-56.

A PUZZLE IN DEUTERONOMY James Ban

The passage in Deuteronomy about the treatment of fruit trees in war (Deut. 20.19-20) reads as follows in a typical modern translation: When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you under siege? Only trees which you know do not yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siege-works against the city that is waging war on you, until it has been reduced. (The Torah, IPS 1962. One sentence is italicized because it is the problematic one for the present study.)

The first sentence and the last seem fairly simple. The criterion is whether a tree is fruit bearing or not. The (presumably Israelite) soldier may eat from a fruit tree, but must not cut it down. If a tree is known not to be fruit bearing, the soldier may cut it down as timber, for use in the construction of palisades, shelters and towers. Note the importance of its being 'known'. The implication is that, if a tree simply has no fruit (which might, after all, be a seasonal matter), the soldier might say, 'That's got no fruit on it, cut it down'. No, says the law, you have to know that it is a non-fruit-bearing tree. Here is the Hebrew of the central sentence: Our main concern lies with the first part of this line. The second part, however, is also vague and obscure and, as it has some bearing on the understanding of the whole, we shall consider it first of all. In the first part, as we shall see, there is a scholarly consensus which is almost universal. In the second part there is some difference, but it is a vague difference rather than a conflict between clearly formulated positions. On the whole, modern translations show considerable consensus. Apart from the central sentence they are very similar. In the central sentence we find:

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Reading from Right to Left NRSV: 'Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from youT NIV: 'Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege themT NIV: offers also an alternative, very generalized, rendering: 'Do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the fruit trees are for the benefit of man'.

A brief note on the Hebrew words may be helpful. The noun TISID is used both for a siege in general and for siege works such as palisades and towers, which may be 'built' with wood if available, as in Deut. 20.20. The verb 'come' is a common one, commonly bordering on 'come in, enter'. The collocation of it with 'siege' is found several times of a city coming under siege (of Jerusalem, 2 Kgs 24.10; 25.2; Jer. 52.5), but I have not found it used of fighters retreating into the security of walls or fortifications. The adverbial phrase 'from before you' is common, especially in Deuteronomy (13 cases or more) and is usually used in contexts such as that of driving out previous inhabitants 'from before you'. The collocation of these three words seems to lead to no clear picture of the kind of action that is being talked about. With this we can turn back to the first phrase, which appears to make the basic distinction: a tree is one thing, a human is another. There are two major questions: first, does the Hebrew sentence actually say this? And second, is it not remarkable that this rather poetic, rhetorical and improbable piece of reasoning can be part of the sober usage of the legal core of Deuteronomy? Does the Hebrew actually say this? Translations tend to leave unsaid the fact that they depart from the traditional Hebrew text and work from an emended text. The difference is so great as to amount to that between positive and negative. What does the Hebrew, taken as it stands, say? As one recent commentator makes plain, 'As it stands the MT means "men are trees of the field"' (Mayes 1979: 96). Putting it in another way, we might say: it should mean either 'for the human being is a tree of the field' or 'for the tree of the field is a human being' (the allocation as between subject and predicate is doubtless significant, but for our present purposes both possibilities may be left open). Where then is the difference of text? In the first part of the central phrase, i~nfcn j*I7 cnttH ""3, it is an old suggestion, accepted by scholars such as Ewald, Keil and Dillmann, that the n of the second word should be taken not as the definite article but as the interrogative particle, understood to be ri. This solution has been widely adopted and is accepted in many commen-

BARR A Puzzle in Deuteronomy

15

taries and dictionaries (BOB, 209b; HALOT, I, 236a; otherwise DCH, I, 124, on which see below). Indeed, it is difficult to find any opinion that differs from this consensus or even mentions the MT with any seriousness.1 Incidentally, consensus of this degree is unusual in biblical study. Textual emendations are unpopular and are nearly always opposed by someone. In this case, however, even those constituencies that are most suspicious of emendation seem ready to swallow this one, for which the evidence is not very strong. Why is this so? Doubtless because there seemed to be no other way if sense was to be found. The chief textual evidence adduced is the LXX version. For the central sentence it has: \ir\ avSpcoiros TO £uAov TO ev TCO aypcp EioeXSelv airb irpoocoTTOU aou E'IS TOV xapaKa. We can translate this as something like: 'Surely the tree of the field is not a human, to come in from before you into the stockade.' The recent version of C. Dogniez and M. Harl (1992: 242) is more elegant: L 'arbre qui est dans le champ est-ilpar hazard un homme quipuisse aller loin de taface dans le retranchement? Certainly this is an example of'a question expecting the answer "No" '.2 The tree in the field is not a human, nor is a human that tree. This evidence is quoted in most critical editions and most serious commentaries. It underlies the modern translations. Yet there is something ambiguous about it. Unquestionably the Greek made the passage negative, or interrogative, which is the same thing: the human was not a tree, nor was the tree a human. That was obvious. But on what basis did the Greek translator make this decision? Does his rendering adequately support the view that the Hebrew text itself had been a question? Or is it an example of the old fallacy that changes of vocalization are superficial and can be made at will? For to make the phrase into a question, indeed into a rhetorical question, is more or less the same as to negate it. There are two ways in which the ancient translators may have worked (Barr 1967,1990). It may be implied that the translator heard (for no written registration existed) the syllable as /he/ (Tiberian segol) and not as /ha/ (Tiberian qames) and that he recognized this as a proof that the phrase was a question. This is my Method B. It depends on recourse to the vocal text, as it was heard from competent readers.

1. One recent exception is the new Swedish Bible. Its text prints Trddenpa fallen dr inte manniskor, but its textual notes correctly register the MT as or manniskorna (?). See Bibeln. Gamla Testamentet (2000), I, 372, and Ovrigt, 3369. 2. For a recent note on this usage of pr) in the LXX see Muraoka 1993: 155.

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But he could have worked by my Method A. He looked at the string of written signs and worked out the possible syntactical/semantic indications that they gave. He saw that they most obviously led to the positive statement either that 'the human is a tree' or 'the tree is a human'. But this seemed impossible, not textually but factually. So it must be a question which in Hebrew does not have to have a peculiar particle to mark it. If he worked in this way, his translation is not a textual evidence for a text other than (the vocalized) MT; rather, it is evidence that the translator saw the same difficulties which modern commentators and translators have seen, and reacted in the same way. Thus LXX can be explained without construing it as arising from a different vowel in the written form h. The LXX, which never had anything other than the written consonant before it, knew quite well that, although a Hebrew h was commonly a definite article and translatable as such, there was a quite frequent variation in which it was an interrogative and as such made the sentence into a question and was often rendered into Greek with Mr|, as here. Familiar examples include Gen. 4.9; 18.14,17; Isa. 10.15; Job 1.9. Hatch and Redpath's article on pf| helpfully marks the examples with an asterisk (Hatch and Redpath 1907: II, 919-20), and this listing may not be exhaustive. This does not disprove the suggestions of commentators and the resultant suggestions of modern translators. It only shows that the LXX text does not necessarily prove them to be correct. The fact remains, as indicated above, that to most Hebrew readers the more obvious or 'natural' reading of the words would be either 'for the human being is a tree of the field' or 'for the tree of the field is a human being'. The tradition of the LXX and the modern versions deal with this by making it into a question expecting the answer 'No'. There are one or two other points about the Hebrew interrogative that may be added. As we saw, in ancient times the particle would be present in writing only in the form of the consonant letter h. The only way in which the LXX rendering would count as evidence would be if they worked by Method B and heard a distinct and distinctive pronunciation. This could be misleading. For one thing, grammarians have noted that this particular particle is 'often written wrongly' (HALOT, 1,236a) and some serious cases are quoted (Lev. 10.19; Num. 16.22; Jer. 2.10; Ps. 89.48), as well as our Deut. 20.19 if it truly is a case. This could indeed mean a scribal inaccuracy, but it could also mean that the pronunciation of this particle was not as certain and universal as our grammars tell us. In my opinion the Masoretes


17

did not put in points in order to establish one interpretation or another, but put them in in order to record the vocal reading tradition, already long established. If so they placed the qames in the h because they heard it so, but the effect was that it was a definite article and not an interrogative. This, however, does not rule out the possibility that the sentence was a question. And there is a still more decisive argument that probably makes otiose all our discussion about the form of the interrogative particle: for a Hebrew sentence to be a question, it does not require to have an interrogative particle at all! It could be understood as a question, and translated as such by LXX or other translator, even if there never was any interrogative particle. Certainly the interrogative particle, or particles since there are more than one, is much more common. But questions can certainly be asked without one. GK§150a quotes H.G.Mitchell (1908:113-15andnote 1), who after rigorous investigation concluded that there were 39 instances in the Bible, of which 12 (or 17) are thought to be the result of textual errors. Strong examples of questions having no interrogative particle include Gen. 27.24; 1 Sam. 11.2; 16.4; 22.7; 2 Sam. 6.17; 18.29; 1 Kgs 1.24; Hos. 4.16; Zech. 8.6; maybe Prov. 5.16. One can also ask about rhetorical questions. Unquestionably rhetorical questions are fairly common in the Hebrew Bible. In Deuteronomy we find examples such as: Deut. 4.7: For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us? Deut. 5.26: For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God...? Deut. 32.30: How should one chase a thousand.. .unless their Rock had sold them?

Rhetorical questions are therefore well evidenced. But these examples are in the paraenetic sections of the book, or in the two poems 32-33. They are not good parallels for the existence of a rhetorical question in the legal section, embedded within a clear and sober law. Questions remain therefore when a rhetorical question is identified in a passage like Deut. 20.1920. It is easy enough to make the alteration, but when one looks at the resultant sentence it seems weird. Again, since the ""D must be causal and mean 'for' or 'because', giving a reason why the fruit trees are not to be cut down, one asks how often S D with this function is followed by a rhetorical question. Still more, how often is the interrogative particle attached to a noun which is the first element in a nominal (or 'verbless') clause of which the second element is

18


another noun or noun phrase, with no intervening particle such as 81H, commonly used in such a position? The writer began some research on these questions but has to admit that final results were not achieved in time for the delivery of this essay. Data are not easy to obtain or to analyse. To study every question in the Bible seemed a large undertaking. The particle "•2 is registered in Jenni's careful statistical section as having 'c. 4470' occurrences, while the electronic text I use gives the figure 4377. In any case, it is a lot of work to look up every example and study it from this point of view. Grammars and dictionaries mostly cannot do this kind of work either. It was somewhat easier to study the interrogative H. Jenni gives 746 cases, including 94 in Job. My electronic text was the reverse of helpful, for, as I had predicted since the origin of such devices, the user is at the mercy of the unknown persons who 'morphologically tagged' each word and thus classified it as noun, feminine, plural, or verb, second person feminine, etc. For, in the computerized text I use, while the interrogative particle is correctly identified when it has the dominant vowel hatep pathah, in the less common case where it has pathah it has generally been registered as the definite article. In this situation valuable help came from DCH. The interrogative H is one of the few terms that it rightly does not seek to register exhaustively. But it classifies the cases (DCH, II, 482) clearly and simply, according to the part of speech with which the particle is collocated. Then under each of these headings it gives examples. For our present purpose I took the section on collocation with a noun, which alone is relevant for the question of Deut. 20.19. The question I put to myself was: if we take NP for noun or noun phrase, how often do we find an expression of the form: ?-NP—NP, with the meaning 'Is the one NP somehow equated with the other?' Though such a form is doubtless possible in Hebrew, to what extent is it actually found? The consideration of the probability of this sentence type in Hebrew is quite as relevant as the textual possibility of a vowel different from that of MT. For present purposes, it does not matter whether one NP or the other is considered as 'subject'. The question is how much this pattern is found at all. In the examples cited in DCH, which seemed to be well representative, I did not find any.3 Looking for other examples, I saw some similarity in Job 4.6: "pTT Dm -jmpn "fn^DD -JHKT K^n. NRSV translates: 'Is not 3. F.I. Andersen (1970) assumes that Deut. 20.19 is a question and registers it as one of his 555 clause types: it is #547 (p. 107). He appears not to register any other passage that has the same type.


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your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?' This has some similarity to the sentence of Deut. 20.19, but differs in the important presence of the pronoun suffixes. Job 10.5, &13N "'ID''3n ~DJ "'D-D "pmDETDN "per, is again not very similar. Job 6.12, rO'DK 271 n] "Hfcn'DN TO D"1]^, differs in some ways , for example, in having the different particle DK and in having a personal suffix twice. But none of these is very similar. If the central sentence of Deut. 20.19 is indeed a rhetorical question, it seems to be one of a rather unusual type for the Hebrew Bible. Though occurrences of the interrogative particle are quite numerous, I found that a large proportion belonged to other clause patterns. 1.

2. 3.

4.

5.

A large group has the collocation with N *? 'not', thus N *?n. Since it means in effect 'is it not the case that?', this is less a question, and more a strong assertion of the positive. Another large group is formed by those that have a verb: 'shall animals be slaughtered?' (Num. 11.22). A third large group have some sort of local or deictic expression: 'is there no balm in Gilead?' (Jer. 8.22). So in the common expression 'Is there peace for X?' Again, there may be a personal pronoun, for example, 'Art thou my son Esau?', which makes a category different from that to which Deut. 20.19, if a question, would belong. Again there may be an 'or', which may make a difference. Job 7.19, 'Am I a Sea or a Tannin?', is not really asking a question between alternatives. It does not ask whether Job is a Yam or a Tannin. Rather, it combines two alternative questions: Am I a Yam? Or, am I a Tannin?

Of course, then, rhetorical questions existed and could have existed here: but how likely is it that one of them would be used in exactly this rather unusual legal passage? A simpler and perhaps bolder approach is to avoid the rhetorical question and simply insert the word not, perhaps accompanying it with the comparative term like. This is done in Targumim such as Onkelos, PseudoJonathan and Neofiti, and in the Syriac. The total effect of this is similar to that produced by interpretation as a rhetorical question, but it avoids the question form and thus by implication takes the initial letter of DINH as the definite article, which would be the obvious way for the average reader to see it. All in slightly different words say that 'the tree of the field is not

20


like the human being'. Pseudo-Jonathan has an additional aspect: it is concerned with the idea that a human fugitive might conceal himself from before the attackers in the siege or siege works. Thusiporque un arbol en la superficie del campo no es como un hombre quepuede esconderse de delante de vosotros en el esedio (Diez Macho 1980: 175). Moreover, there is another, markedly different, Jewish (and Christian) tradition. S.R. Driver (Driver 1906:240) expressed this well, starting from the MT: [MT] can only be rendered, 'man is the tree of the field', which is explained to mean 'man consists of the tree of the field', i.e. he lives on it (so Ibn Ezra who paraphrases iTTIZn |T Kin DIN ]H "H ""D, whence AV).

Ibn Ezra read the clause in what seems a natural order, as any Hebrew reader would, but has to supply an additional semantic element, viz. 'life of. Is this illegitimate? Well, it depends. Ibn Ezra could have been influenced by the parallel (in the very same corpus) of the millstone, which one is forbidden to take in pledge. Why? Because it means taking I23B3, life, in pledge. If this could be true of a millstone, why not of a fruit tree? Other parallels might perhaps be thought of. Anyway, as Driver said, AV followed this line, as always scrupulously marking with italics the words that it had supplied. When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them; for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life).

Thus understood, the basic linkage between tree and human was positive and not negative. The point of the central sentence was not an antithesis, but the expression of a common element between tree and human. The advantage of the reading by Ibn Ezra and AV is that it takes the words more in the way they would naturally be read and avoids the gross alteration made by introducing a negative or introducing a rhetorical question. Though they had to introduce a semantic element (life) that was not expressed in the text, it was an element that could perhaps be defended. To sum up on the purely grammatical side, it remains quite possible that the solution now customary, following the LXX and making the phrase into a rhetorical question, may be quite right. But it has been too easily done and too easily accepted, without adequate consideration of the several difficulties which have been pointed out here. It seems to me that very little has been done to explore the alternative possibility of starting with the MT


21

and seeing where it may lead. In this respect I was pleased to see that DCH (I, 124) has given 'the trees of the field are human' as its first gloss on the passage, though rightly adding in parenthesis the possibility of the alternative text. A more serious difficulty in the now customary solution is: if the sentence is a question, why should this question be asked at all? The law in itself, omitting the central sentence, is clear enough: if the tree is fruit bearing, you must leave it; if it is not fruit bearing, you can cut it down and use it as timber. Does this rather simple instruction require to be supported by a hazy and poetic appeal to the difference of status between the human and the arboreal? No such support is found in the closely comparable laws of the bird's nest (Deut. 22.6-7) and of the millstone (24.6), or indeed in much of the legal material of the book. What is the logic of the contrast between human and tree? This support fails to agree with the law that it is supposed to support, for it gives no place for the distinction between fruitbearing and non-fruit-bearing trees which is the principle of that law. It seems to introduce a quite other distinction, that between human beings, whom it will be natural to destroy without limit, and trees, about which prudence will dictate some careful discrimination. Some might think of the converse position, namely, that the distinction is between human life, which is valuable and indeed sacrosanct, and arboreal entities, only some of which need be protected; but the context seems entirely contrary to such an interpretation, for it is assumed that human life can be destroyed in war while fruit-bearing trees are to be exempt from warlike destruction. All in all, therefore, the central sentence leads one to consider whether it really belongs to the question of distinguishing between fruit trees and other trees and whether it refers to a different stage or a different period. One naturally thinks of the D"in or ritual destruction of persons, animals and things taken in war, especially since this very institution has just been referred to (Deut. 20.10-18). It has often been thought that Deuteronomy's laws included some considerable elements of ethical progress and humanization, and laws like those of the fruit trees and the bird's nest have been seen in this way. But in the case of the fruit trees it does not work so well. For if the siege is successful and the city captured, then the victorious troops would take over the city and its lands; in that case it would be only self-interest not to damage the fruit trees. On the other hand, one must consider the interesting thoughts of Carmichael (1974: 132). He writes that the language of our puzzling sentence 'implies that the practice [of destroying fruit-trees]

22


existed, may even have been enjoined', but that 'common sense and practical counsel call for its cessation'. In Deut. 20.16-17 and in its 'influencing law', 13.12-18, 'all of an enemy's spoil, including by implication his fruit trees, must be totally destroyed'. This might suggest that the wrong the law seeks to forbid is not the cutting down of fruit trees to provide wood for siege works, but rather an older 'religious zeal' (CarmichaePs words) which positively longed for their destruction for its own sake. The destruction of the trees thus took them out of human use and production, just as domestic animals were killed and metal utensils dedicated to special religious use. Notoriously, the rules regarding spoils of war are altered as between one place and another in the Bible, so that this would not be surprising. And indeed the principle of the D~in might well seem to be contradicted if the fruit trees continued to be kept in production when other goods and resources were destroyed. This is an attractive line of thought, and yet it seems to me more likely that some of the laws of war stood outside the boundaries of the D"1FI and that this was so of our law of the fruit trees, as likewise of the law of the captive woman (21.10-14). The well-known case of 2 Kgs 3.19, where the Lord through Elisha enjoins that every city of the Moabites should be conquered, every good tree cut down, the water springs blocked and every good piece of land ruined with stones, seems to imply a savage lust for destruction but something different from the Din. The rhetorical question about the human and the tree, however, which blends poorly with its present context, may indeed come from older ideas of war, or, perhaps better, from ideas of human relations with nature. Would it be totally fantastic to see a relation with the blind man just recovering his sight (Mk 8.24), who said, 'I see people, that I see some walking about like trees'? What is the mental background of such a perception? This brought me to recall Johannes Pedersen, who thought extensively of these matters (Pedersen 1940: II, 22-32). The Israelite knows that even the plants and trees have a life which is to be absorbed and exploited, but not violated. [Fruit must not be taken until the fifth year, and] thus the tree is slowly being made intimate with the world of men (Pedersen 1926:1,486).

These thoughts might be a starting point for interpretation of our difficult verse. And similarly, if we think as Pedersen did of the 'soul' that animates everything, the tree has a soul:


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If we take a tree such as the palm, the individual palm is a form of the palm species, of the life or soul of the palm. The soul is the tree as a whole, but it is also something separate, an organon from which palm life flows (1940: II, 507).

He was impressed by the thought of Eliphaz, 'With the stones of the field is thy covenant, and the wild beasts of the plain have been brought to peace with thee' (Job 5.23), and equally with Job 31.39 (Pedersen 1940: II, 507-508). Where does this leave us? I have no illusions of having 'solved' this problem. The most I have done is to point out some weaknesses in the present consensus, which may nevertheless turn out to be entirely right. But I do think that alternatives ought to be explored. And, as soon as we consider that the human and the arboreal might be more positively related, we have to look again at the vague and ill-related words at the end of the sentence. The words are Deuteronomic but they seem as if they were fragments of quotations from another context: and Deuteronomy often quotes characteristic phrases, its own or those of other biblical writers.4 Bibliography Andersen, F.I. 1970 Barr, J. 1967

1990

The Hebrew Verbless Clause in the Pentateuch (Nashville: Abingdon Press). 'Vocalization and the Analysis of Hebrew among the Ancient Translators', in Hebrdische Wortforschung: Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstagvon Walter Baumgartner (ed. Benedikt Hartman et al; VTSup, 16; Leiden: E.J. Brill): 1-11. ' "Guessing" in the Septuagint', in Studien zur Septuaginta, Robert Hanhartzu Ehren (ed. D. Frankel, U. Quast and J.W. Wevers; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht): 19-34.

Carmichael, C. 1974 The Laws in Deuteronomy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press). Diez Macho, A. 1980 Deuteronomium (Biblia Polyglotta Matritensia, Series 4; Targum Palaestinense in Pentateuchum, 5; Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas).

4. It is a pleasure to dedicate these thoughts, with congratulations, to David Clines. I remember with special gratitude his speech of introduction for me when I lectured at the Society of Biblical Literature in New Orleans: it was beautifully worded, very generous and very accurate, and was the best of such introductions I have ever received. Biblical study has gained enormously from his initiative and his readiness to explore new paths.

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Dogniez, C., and M. Harl 1992 La Bible d'Alexandrie. V. Le Deuteronome (Paris: Cerf)Driver, S.R. 1906 A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (ICC; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons). Hatch, E., and H.A. Redpath 1907 A Concordance to the Septuagint (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press). Jenni, E., and C. Westermann (eds.) 1971, 1976 Theologisches Handworterbuch zum Alien Testament (2 vols.; Munich: Kaiser Verlag). Mayes, A.D.H. 1979 Deuteronomy (New Century Bible; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott). Mitchell, H.G. 1908 'The Omission of the Interrogative Particle', in Old Testament and Semitic Studies in Memory of William Rainey Harper (ed. R.F. Harper, F. Brown and G.F. Moore; 2 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press): I, 115-29. Muraoka, T. 1993 A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint. Twelve Prophets (Louvain: Peeters). Pedersen, J. 1926, 1940 Israel: Its Life and Culture (4 vols. in 2; Copenhagen: Branner).

THE PROPHET ODED AND THE ZAKKUR INSCRIPTION: A CASE OF OBSCURIORE OBSCURUMT Hans M. Barstad

The Personal Name Oded There are (apparently) two persons by the name of Oded in the Hebrew Bible: the prophet Azariah is called bn-'wdd in 2 Chron. 15.1, and a prophet Oded ('ddhnby') is mentioned in 2 Chron. 15.8. As we may see from the current commentaries, however, the reference to Oded in 15.8 is text-critically problematic (Rudolph 1955: 244; Japhet 1993: 717). In the Septuagint, the prophet of v. 8 is called Adad. Codex Alexandrinus has Adad also in v. 1. More attention has been attached to the prophet Oded ('dd) mentioned in the Chronicler's version of the story of King Ahaz of Judah, in 2 Chron. 28.9 (Micheel 1983: 60-62; Mason 1990: 90-94 and passim). This text, too, however, is problematic, and the Masoretic text seems not to be of a good quality. It is of a certain interest that the Peshitta here has Ww—Iddo, and not Oded. The names Iddo and Oded are probably somehow related (Ross 1970: 7). Since the name is not found elsewhere, it is not difficult to understand why extra-biblical evidence has played such an important part in the discussion of the biblical name Oded. By 'extra-biblical evidence', I am here, above all, thinking of the Old Aramaic Zakkur inscription, dating to the late ninth, early eighth century. A problem in itself concerns the occurrence of the name Oded on a Hebrew seal, dated from the seventh to the sixth centuries BCE. From the secondary literature, one may get the impression that this text is unproblematic (Davies 1991:177,456; Gogel 1998: 110,360,483). However, in David Clines' s distinguished career is so often associated with literary criticism and postmodern approaches that it is easily forgotten that he is also responsible for another pioneering achievement: The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. This modest contribution is dedicated to David the lexicographer.

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Readingfrom Right to Left

a catalogue of Israelite museum seals, the editors write: 'The second name presents some difficulty, and can perhaps be vocalized as 'Oded, a name mentioned in the Bible (2 Chron. 15.1, 8)' (Hestrin and Dayagi-Mendels 1979: No. 94). Moreover, when I look at the photograph in the catalogue, it seems to me that what is found in the second line of the seal looks more like drr than 'dd. The Zakkur Text In the Zakkur text, we are informed, among other things, of how King Zakkur of Hamath (Kama) prayed to Baal-Shamen for assistance during a siege, and how the deity answered him (KAI 202, line A12): \b\yd. hzyn.wbyd. 'dan, 'through seers and 'ddrC (the plural n of 'ddis restored). Whereas many would claim that hzyn, 'seers', is unproblematic (we could, however, have to do with a word for 'prophecy', 'vision', rather than 'prophet', 'seer'), the meaning of 'ddhas, to this day, not been satisfactorily explained. From the context, though, it may be assumed that the word 'dd has something to do with divination. The text was first published by Pognon (Pognon 1907: 156-78, PL IX, Pis. xxxv-xxxvi). Pognon's editioprinceps has played an important role as all later text-editions are based on it (Pognon 1907: PL xxxv). Pognon did not, however, refer to Chronicles. It is often assumed (following Lidzbarski 1915: III, 8) that Halevy was the first to suggest a connection between 'ddin the Zakkur text and the biblical personal name Oded. Since then, many scholars have read Zakkur A12 in the light of 2 Chronicles, and vice versa. A fairly comprehensive bibliography is available from the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project (Fitzmyer and Kaufman 1992: 13-14). Additions to the printed edition are accessible on-line. Depending on how one understands the etymology, or the context, of 'dd, the lexeme has variously been rendered as 'messenger' (Ross 1970:3; Gibson 1975:9; Cody 1979:104; Becking 1986:446; Reinhold 1989:257; Hoftijzer and Jongeling 1995: II, 827-28; Jeffers 1996: 37; Lipinski 2000: 255,509), 'diviner' (Brauner 1975:10; Millard2000:155), 'prophet' (Parker 1997: 107), 'a sort of ecstatic or oracular prophet' (Greenfield 1987: 73), 'foreteller' (Black 1961: 246), 'arbitrator' (Sanmartin 1980: 347) and 'soothsayer' (Gogel 1998:110 n. 97). In German, we find the following renderings: 'Wahrsager' (Lidzbarski 1915: 10; Gressmann 1926: 444; Koopmans 1962:1,27; Delsman 1982:627), 'Prophet', 'Seher' (Noth 1928:252), 'Zukunftskundig' (Dormer andRollig 1973:205; Fuhs 1978:48), 'Orakel-

BARSTAD The Prophet Oded and the Zakkur Inscription

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deuter' (Degen 1969:47), 'Mantiker' or 'Orakelpriester' (Zobel 1971:97). In the French literature, we find 'devin' (Ramlot 1972: 901; Sader 1987: 209) and 'messager' (Lemaire 1993: 43). Lidzbarski 's Legacy The influence of Lidzbarski's study from 1915 on early Zakkur scholarship can hardly be overestimated. Even though he was not the first one to relate the Zakkur inscription to Oded in 2 Chronicles (see above), Lidzbarski's authority secured this connection for subsequent generations. Lidzbarski translated 'ddn as 'Wahrsager' (Lidzbarski 1915: 10). He also suggested that Oded in 2 Chronicles was an appellative, rather than a name. He admits that the meaning of 'ddis obscure (Lidzbarski 1915:8). He, does, however, relate the word to Arabic 'adda, 'to count', 'to number', or 'to prepare', suggesting a meaning 'counters' (Zdhler), or 'preparers' (Bereiter). Since he is able to establish that the tails of the double consonant dd are long, he rules out the possibility that these letters can be rr, and the word in question 'rrn, 'awakeners' (of gods). Lidzbarski's view on the name Oded was introduced already into the 17th edition of Gesenius' Dictionary in 1915, and in the first edition of Koehler's and Baumgartner's Dictionary in 1953. The impact of this on later scholarship is obvious. For instance, in his influential work on Israelite personal names Martin Noth suggests that Oded is an invention by the Chronicler, and that the name simply means 'seer', 'prophet' (Noth 1928: 252). Dormer, too, is dependent on Lidzbarski. When commenting on line A12, he refers to Arabic 'adda as a possible etymology for 'ddn (which he takes to be an active masc. pi. part.). Dormer translates 'ddn 'Zukunftskundigen' ['ruture-knowers'] (Dormer andRollig 1973: II, 205). He further refers to Oded in 2 Chronicles 15 (and 28), suggesting that what we have here is not a personal name but an appellative (Dormer and Rollig 1973:11,208). Also Fuhs takes 'dd in 2 Chronicles to be an appellative rather than a proper name (Fuhs 1978: 48 n. 220). The most recent author that I have come across who believes that biblical Oded should not be considered a personal name is Gogel (Gogel 1998: 110 n. 97). The view that the Chronicler's Oded is not a name, but an appellative, is a main reason why the 'prophet' in the Zakkur inscription has played such an important role in the discussion of the 'prophet' in 2 Chronicles 15 and 28. There are good reasons to suppose that the Zakkur text would have

28


attracted far less attention if Lidzbarski had not introduced this view into his influential handbook. Here, we must also bear in mind former generations' low estimation of Chronicles in general and the proper names in Chronicles in particular (Fowler 1988: 21). In point of fact, Oded ('weld, 'dd) is not impossible to explain, and has been understood as a proper name by quite a few scholars. BDB regards Oded, 'Restorer', as a masculine proper name (from * 'wd, with the probable meanings: 'return', 'go about', 'repeat' 'do again'). HALATexplains the proper name Oded ('wdd, 'dd) as a shortened form of 'He (YHWH) has helped up' (polel of 'wdl, 'help', 'help up'). It is not so important whether any of these suggestions is correct or not. The main thing is that the name 'wdd( 'dd) is perfectly understandable as a shortened name form. Rudolph, for instance, admits that we cannot know with certainty the etymology of the name. Nevertheless, he believes that Oded should be taken as a shortened form of an ordinary constructed (sentence) proper name (Rudolph 1955: 245 n. 1). The Ugaritic 'dd Material Whereas Dormer's authoritative edition of the Zakkur inscription does not refer to any Ugaritic texts at all, recent years have witnessed a significant change in scholarly positions. It is, for instance, a result of Ugaritic influence when the review above lists 'messenger' as the most frequent rendering of Old Aramaic 'dd. An eager proponent for finding an Ugaritic cognate etymology for 'ddn in Zakkur A12 is Ross. He refers to earlier scholars who have pointed to Ugaritic parallels (above all Ginsberg), and mentions several texts. The main text, however, is CTCA 4.VII.45ff. [KTU 1.4]. Here, Ross translates WJas 'messenger, ambassador, herald, or the like' (Ross 1970: 6). Ross provides us also with a useful survey of Zakkur research (Ross 1970:4-8). As for Oded, Ross, too, follows Noth, and asks: 'is it not possible that the Chronicler (or his source) is using an old term for a prophet-messenger as a proper name?' (Ross 1970: 8). There are, however, some inaccuracies in Ross's work. For instance, he criticizes scholars who translate 'ddon the basis of the context rather than from a proper understanding of 'root meanings' (Ross 1970: 4-5). As we know, 'root meanings' are highly controversial. When facing semantic problems, it is vital to draw on both etymology and context. Moreover, Ugaritic 'dd and Arabic 'adda are not opposites the way Ross appears to


29

assume (Ross 1970: 5). These roots are probably related (Thompson 1965: 232-33). Willi also gives a series of references to Ugaritic texts: I* ABIV, 25; II AB III, 11; II AB VII, 46; III AB, B 22,26,28, 30,41,44 (Willi 1972: 221 n. 23). Willi, however, is not convinced that all of these texts are of equal interest, and he believes that II AB VII, 46 [KTU 1.4] makes the best starting point. After a discussion of different possibilities, he seems to favour the translation 'messenger' ('Bote'). Gibson, too, translates 'messengers' (Gibson 1975: 9), and refers to Ugaritic 'dd, 'herald', occurring in II AB vii 46 [KTU 1.4] (Gibson 1975: 15). We notice that, although quite a few Ugaritic passages are referred to, only one text appears to be sufficiently lucid to be used by all scholars: KTU 1.4 (II AB, UT 51, CT[C]A 4). The text in question is the story of Baal's temple building, and the relevant words are found in a passage where the fight with Mot is anticipated. For the sake of clarification, I quote KTU 1.4.45-47a: dllali lak. I bn [46] ilm.mt. 'dd.lydd [47] il.gzr... The text may be translated as follows: 45. A dll, messenger (Olmo Lete and Sanmartin 1996:1,132), I shall not send (or I shall send) to the son 46. of the gods (= the god) Mot, a 'ddto the beloved of 47. II, the hero ... We should note that the continuation of this text, lines 47b-49a, is extremely difficult and has been interpreted in a variety of ways. There is, consequently, not much help to be gained from the rest of the context. We notice that 'ddin line 46 parallels dll, 'messenger', in line 45. Judging from the context, we may also translate 'dd with 'messenger' as has been done by some scholars. This rendering, however, is debatable, and, frankly, we do not know for certain the meaning of Ugaritic 'dd. Sanmartin (1980: 346), for instance, claims that 'ddn of the Zakkur inscription should be related to Old Aramaic 'd, 'treaty' (Hoftijzer and Jongeling 1995: II, 824-25). He translates dll with 'Makler' ['mediator, negotiator'] and 'dd with 'fur Vertrage Zustandiger' ['arbitrator'] (Sanmartin 1980: 347). The argument is not whether Sanmartin is correct or not. He has, for instance, been criticized by Becking, who still prefers the translation 'messenger'. Becking claims that 'messenger' also fits much better for the slmy h 'don a fourth (?) century Hebrew (Ammonite? Edomite?) seal (Becking 1986). However, even if this could be the case, it is probably impossible to decide on the basis of such scanty evidence alone. Concerning the Ugaritic evidence, we should probably follow the conclusion of Jonas Greenfield who once suggested a Ugaritic parallel for Old Aramaic 'dd (Greenfield 1972: 176). When commenting on the same text a

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few years later, however, he writes about 'ddn that it 'is without a cognate and has not to date been convincingly interpreted' (Greenfield 1987: 73). Zakkur Reading Difficulties There are also other problems connected with the Zakkur inscription that should be mentioned here. The well-known difficulty of distinguishing between d and r was felt also by the early readers of the Zakkur inscription. Above, we noted how Lidzbarski did not find this to be a problem in relation to Zakkur A12. However, when commenting on the deity 'Iwr in line Al, Lidzbarski is unable to decide whether to read 'Iwr or 'Iwd. Likewise, he is not certain whether the name brhdd in lines A4 and A5 should be read as brhdd or brhdr (Lidzbarski 1915: 3, 7). On a few occasions, scholars have also claimed that 'dd of our text should be read as 'rr. Some years ago, Uffenheimer maintained that we should read 'rrn, 'awakeners', as a plural participle from 'wr (Uffenheimer 1966). He was, deservedly, criticized by, among others, Degen (1968; 1969: 6). Even if it may be difficult in some places in the Zakkur inscription to know whether we are dealing with a d or an r, this does not apply in the case of 'dd'vn. line A12. Also on Pognon's heliograph (Pognon 1907: PI. ix), the letters 'dd are very clear, and there appears to be no reason to doubt this reading. Here, I am also grateful for the expertise of my friend Andre Lemaire who checked his 'good photographs', and sent me the following electronic message (on 27 January 2002): 'the reading of DD is perfectly clear and the length of the tail is clearly shorter than for a R. For the N, we have only part of the head so the reading is between very probable and practically certain'. Lemaire's statement is reassuring also with regard to the n. When judging from Pognon's heliograph alone (Pognon 1907: PI. ix), the fairly significant part of an n that appears on the printed text (Pognon 1907: PI. xxxv = KAI HI, PI. xiii) is somewhat unexpected. One might have supposed that the reconstruction of the n is strongly influenced by the n of the preceding hzyn. It is puzzling that Lidzbarski in his text edition did not indicate that the n is reconstructed (Lidzbarski 1915: III, 3). Since he was here followed by others (e.g. Koopmans 1962: II, 3), this led to the impression, found in of some of the secondary literature, that the n is unproblematic. Another uncertainty that has played a remarkably insignificant part in scholarly discussions is the matter of scribal errors. In the editioprinceps,


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Pognon maintains that the meaning of the words hzyn and 'ddn is uncertain. He does, however, compare hzyn to Syriac hzy', which he translates 'spectateur', 'voyant', 'devin', 'prophete'. As for 'ddn, he mentions that this may be an error for 'rdn, 'helpers'. He does not, however, put much weight on this suggestion, rather doubting that there is a mistake in the text (Pognon 1907: 167). When, as in the present case, a word fails to yield any satisfactory meaning, we cannot exclude the possibility that we are dealing with a rare word, or a word that is, hitherto, not (well) known. On the other hand, the option of scribal mistakes should not be ruled out. Scribal errors were quite common in all the cultures that we are dealing with here, including that of Ugarit (Segert 1961). Scribal errors are well known also in Phoenician inscriptions (Benz 1972: 200-202). In fact, Benz claims that the frequent confusion between letters in Phoenician inscriptions suggests that the engravers were illiterate, and that they 'could not read or follow the copy from which they worked' (Benz 1972:245 n. 2). Since Old Aramaic and Phoenician shared the same alphabet until the middle of the eighth century BCE, Phoenician scribal practices are, of course, highly relevant in our case. Scribal errors are known also from Old Aramaic inscriptions. Degen provides some illuminating examples from the Sefire inscription, which is almost contemporary with the Zakkur stela (Degen 1969: 25). Quite likely, scribal errors are more frequent when confusion between letters is close at hand, as in the case of d and r. This is probably also why the 'first reader' in modern times, Pognon (see above), suggested that 'ddn was a scribal error for the well known 'dm (Fowler 1988: 223; Maraqten 1988: 227). The rendering 'helper' also seems to fit the context of Zakkur A12 well. However, since the original phonemes *dand *z in Old Aramaic were both represented graphically as the bivalent z (Garr 1985: 26), this may be less likely. The shift from * d to d appeared later, perhaps in the seventh or the sixth century (Ginsberg 1945: 161 n. 8; Bordreuil 1986: 90). A possible misspelling of 'dr is, nevertheless, worth mentioning. There appears to be little standardization in the earliest inscriptions. Moreover, since what is known of Old Aramaic only represents a linguistic fragment, we know too little to be certain in these matters. Besides, we must always reckon with the possibility of dialectal variants. Another, quite probable, scribal confusion is to mistake a d for a b. For instance, when commenting on 'ddn in Zakkur A12, Noldeke discussed whether the third letter could be a b, in which case we would get the word

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'dbn, 'lots' ('Lose'). He rejects his own suggestion, however, since Pognon's heliograph, in his view, did not seem to favour the reading of a b (Noldeke 1908: 382). As we noticed above, there can be no doubt about the letter d. However, if we take into consideration also the possibility of a scribal error of a d for a b, we get, with Noldeke, a possible 'dbn, which could refer to lots as oracular media. If the error is found not in the third but in the second letter, we get the word 'bd, conventionally translated as 'slave', 'servant', 'bdll is found in North-West Semitic inscriptions from all periods, and it is frequent in Aramaic texts (Hoftijzer and Jongeling 1995: II, 817). Moreover, the word is often used of cultic personnel (Hoftijzer and Jongeling 1995: II, 81819). We notice with interest that the use of 'bd for a cultic servant has a long history, and is found also much later in Palmyrene Aramaic texts (Stark 1971: 102). I shall mention only one last possible scribal error. If we take the second d as dittography, we get another word: 'd I, 'treaty'. The word occurs in Old Aramaic inscriptions in connection with deities (Hoftijzer and Jongeling 1995: II, 825). This suggestion, moreover, brings us closer to the Ugaritic parallel referred to above. Speculations like the ones that I have just presented could go on and on. It is not my point here that any one of these suggestions necessarily provides us with the correct answer. What is important is the stressing of the difficulties that we are facing. I believe that it is only fair to admit that we do not know at all how 'dd in Zakkur A12 should be understood. Notwithstanding this, we may assume, on the basis of the context, that 'dd or, possibly, another word, has something to do with divination. Reading More than There Is... In the secondary literature, one finds, quite often, statements concerning Aramaic religion and ancient Israelite prophecy based on the occurrence of the word 'ddn in Zakkur A12. For instance, it is rather surprising to read the following remark (no further comments on the intricate problems involved are given): 'The system of court prophets in Israel has a long history behind it' (Black 1961: 250). Zobel claims that the question whether we have to do with two different professions, that of a cultic prophet or that of an oracle priest, has to be answered on the background of the inscription itself. He is inclined to believe, on text-internal grounds (there is only one salvation oracle [!]),


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that we are dealing with different titles for similar priestly functionaries (Zobel 1971:97-98). Jeffers writes: Zakir invokes his god who in turn answers him. But is the word of Baalshamayn perceived by both 'seers' and 'revealers' in the same way, or have they a different function, i.e. the 'seers' see visions and the 'revealers' tell the news? Do the seers have to be accompanied by interpreters? These questions remain unanswered (Jeffers 1996: 37).

Despite his wise caution concerning the etymology of 'dd Greenfield is more optimistic when it comes to extracting historical information from the text: It was perhaps a sort of ecstatic or oracular prophet, or one like the apilu known from Mari texts, who bring the divine answer. Since both words are in the plural, it is clear that Zakkur had a battery of prophets working for him (Greenfield 1987: 73).

Lipinski writes: As for a differentiation of the hzh, literally 'seer', from the 'dd, attested at Ugarit with the meaning 'spokesman', it is difficult to establish it on such a tenuous basis, but the inscription seems to distinguish the man of God who receives the divine message and the one who notifies it to the person to whom it is addressed (Lipinski 2000: 509).

When noticing the meagre evidence, as well as all the other problems with the interpretation of 'ddn in Zakkur A12, it is remarkable how much information some scholars are able to provide. It may be, in view of the many difficulties involved, that future research should be more careful as to how many historical details it is reasonable to extract from the text. Conclusion The publication of the Old Aramaic Zakkur stela in 1907 soon led scholars to make comparisons between the enigmatic 'ddn. in line A12 of this text and the problematic personal name Oded in 2 Chronicles 15 and 28. Since then, a veritable 'Zakkur industry' has developed. The present paper is critical of much of this research. It remains a problem that 'ddn is still imperfectly understood. During recent years, the scholarly world appears to have reached some sort of consensus. Based on Ugaritic parallels, 'ddn is, quite commonly, translated by 'messengers'. However, the Ugaritic evidence is also problematic. Since 'ddis so badly understood, we must reckon with

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the possibility that we are dealing with a scribal error. Due to the many problems involved, we should not continue to make comparisons between Old Aramaic Vft/and the biblical name Oded. It is not sound, from a methodological point of view, to use another word in another language, from another period of time, to explain a lexicographical problem when none of the words that are compared can be said to be well understood. Also, it is not impossible to explain the name Oded as a regularly constructed personal name. In fact, this is precisely what many scholars have done. Bibliography Becking, B. 1986 Benz, F.L. 1972

Black, M. 1961 Bordreuil, P. 1986

Brauner, R.A. 1975 Cody, A. 1979 Davies, G.I. 1991 Degen, R. 1968 1969

'A Remark on a Post-Exilic Seal', UF 18: 445-46. Personal Names in the Phoenician and Punic Inscriptions: A Catalog, Grammatical Study and Glossary of Elements (Studia Pohl, 8; Rome: Biblical Institute Press). 'The Zakir Stele', in D.W. Thomas (ed.), Documents from Old Testament Times (New York: Harper & Row [1958]): 242-50. Catalogue des sceaux ouest-semitiques inscrits de la Bibliotheque Nationale, du Musee du Louvre et du Musee biblique de Bible et Terre Sainte (Paris: Bibliotheque Nationale). 'The Old Aramaic Zakir A Inscription and Comparative Semitic Lexicography', Gratz College Annual of Jewish Studies 4: 9-27. 'The Phoenician Ecstatic in Wenamun', JEA 65: 99-106. Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ']TTU. Note to B. Uffenheimer's paper Les. XXX 163-174',Ief 32:409-11. Altaramdische Grammatik der Inschriften des 10.-8. Jh. v. Chr. (Abhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 38.3; Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner).

Delsman, W.C. 1982 'Aramaische Inschriften', in D. Conrad et al., Historisch-chronologische Texte, III (Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments. I. Rechts- und Wirtschaftsurkunden. Historisch-chronologische Texte; Giitersloh: Gerd Mohn): 625-37. Dormer, H., and W. Rollig 1973 Kanaandische und aramdische Inschriften (KAf), II (3 vols.; Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 3rd edn [1964]). Fitzmyer, J.A., and S.A. Kaufman 1992 An Aramaic Bibliography. I. Old, Official, and Biblical Aramaic (Publications


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of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project; Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press). Fowler, J.D. 1988 Fuhs, H.F. 1978

Garr, W.R. 1985 Gibson, J.C.L. 1975 Ginsberg, H.L. 1945

Gogel, S.L. 1998 Greenfield, J. 1972

1987

Gressmann, H. 1926

Theophoric Names in Ancient Hebrew: A Comparative Study (JSOTSup, 49; Sheffield: JSOT Press). Sehen undSchauen. Die Wurzelhzh im Alien Orient undim Alien Testament. Bin Beitragzumprophetischen Offenbarungsempfang (FzB, 32; Wurzburg: Echter Verlag). Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000-586 B.C.E. (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press). Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions. II. Aramaic Inscriptions, including Inscriptions in the Dialect ofZenjirli (Oxford: Clarendon Press). 'Psalms and Inscriptions of Petition and Acknowledgement', in S. Lieberman et al. (eds.), Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research): 159-71. A Grammar ofEpigraphic Hebrew (SBLRBS, 23; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press). 'The Zakir Inscription and the Danklied', in Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies. The Hebrew University Mount Scopus-Givat Ram, Jerusalem, 2-11 August 1969 (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies):!, 174-91. 'Aspects of Aramean Religion', in P.O. Miller, P.O. Hanson and S.D. McBride (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion. Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press): 67-78.

'Nordsemitische Inschriften und Papyri', in H. Gressmann (ed.), Altorientalische Texte zum Alien Testament (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 2nd edn[ 1909]): 440-62. Hestrin, R., and M. Dayagi-Mendels 1979 Inscribed Seals. First Temple Period. Hebrew, Ammonite, Moabite, Phoenician and Aramaic. From the Collections of the Israel Museum and the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums (Jerusalem: Israel Museum). Hoftijzer, J., and K. Jongeling 1995 Dictionary of the North- West Semitic Inscriptions (Handbuch der Orientalistik. Erste Abteilung. Der Nahe undMittlere Osten, 21; 2 vols.; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Japhet, S. 1993 I & II Chronicles: A Commentary (OIL; London: SCM Press). Jeffers, A. 1996 Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, 8; Leiden: E.J. Brill).

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Koopmans, J.J. 1962 Aramaische Chrestomathie. Ausgewdhlte Texte (Inschriften, Ostraka und Papyri) bis zum 3. Jahrhundert n. Chr. I. Teil. Einleitungen, Literatur und Kommentare. II. Teil. Aramaische Texte im Umschrift (2 vols.; Leiden: The Netherlands Institute for the Near East [NINO]). Lemaire, A. 1993 'Les groupes prophetiques dans 1'ancien Israel', in Ancient Near East and India: Intercultural Religious Parallels. The Franco-Finnish Symposium, 10-11th Nov. 1990, The Finnish Institute, Paris (StudOr, 70; Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society): 39-55. Lidzbarski, M. 1915 Ephemerisfur semitische Epigraphik: Drifter Band 1909-1915 (Giessen: Alfred Topelmann). Lipinski, E. 2000 The Arameans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 100; Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters). Maraqten, M. 1988 Die semitischen Personennamen in den alt- und reichsaramdischen Inschriften aus Vorderasien (Texte und Studien zur Orientalistik, 5; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag). Mason, R. 1990 Preaching the Tradition: Homily andHermeneutics after the Exile. Based on the 'Addresses' in Chronicles, the 'Speeches' in the Books of Ezra andNehemiah and the Post-exilic Prophetic Books (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Micheel, R. 1983 Die Seher- und Propheteniiberlieferungen in der Chronik (BBET, 18; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang). Millard, A.R. 2000 'The Inscription of Zakkur, King of Hamath', in W.W. Hallo (ed.), The Context of Scripture. II. Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World (Leiden: E.J. Brill): 155. Noldeke, T. 1908 'Aramaische Inschriften', ZA 21: 375-88. Noth, M. 1928 Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung(BWANT, HI/10; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer). Olmo Lete, G. del, and J. Sanmartin 1996 Diccionario de la lengua ugaritica (Aula Orientalis. Supplementa, 7; Barcelona: Editorial AUSA). Parker, S.B. 1997 Stories in Scripture and Inscriptions: Comparative Studies on Narratives in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions and the Hebrew Bible (New York: Oxford University Press). Pognon, H. 1907 Inscriptions semitiques de la Syrie, de la Mesopotamie et de la region de Mossoul (Paris: Victor Lecoffre, J. Gabalda).


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Ramlot, L. 1972 'Prophetisme', DBSup 8: 811-1222. Reinhold, G.G.G. 1989 Die Beziehungen Altisraels zu den aramdischen Staaten in der israelitischjuddischen Konigszeit (European University Studies, Series 23,368; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang). Ross,J.F. 1970 'Prophecy in Hamath, Israel, and Mari', HTR 63: 1-28. Rudolph, W. 1955 Chronikbucher (HAT, 1/21; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr). Sader, H.S. 1987 Les etats arameens de Syrie, depuis leurfondationjusqu 'a leur transformation en provinces assyriennes (Beiruter Texte und Studien, 36; Beirut: Franz Steiner). Sanmartin, J. 1980 'Zu den W(^-Denominierungen im Ugaritischen', UF 12: 345-48. Segert, S. 1961 'Die Schreibfehler in den Ugaritischen literarischen Keilschrifttexten im Anschluss an das textkritische Hilfsbuch von Friedrich Delitzsch klassifiziert', in J. Hempel and L. Rost (eds.), Von Ugarit nach Qumran: Beitrdge zur alttestamentlichen und altorientalischen Forschung Otto Eissfeldtzum 1. September 1957 dargebracht (BZAW, 77; Berlin: Alfred Topelmann): 193212. Stark, J.K. 1971 Personal Names in Palmyrene Inscriptions (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Thompson, J.A. 1965 'Expansions of the 11? Root', JSS 10: 222-40. Uffenheimer, B. 1966 ' "The Awakeners": A Cultic Term from the Ancient Near East' (in Hebrew), Les 30: 163-74. Willi, T. 1972 Die Chronik als Auslegung: Untersuchungen zur literarischen Gestaltung der historischen Uberlieferung Israels (FRLANT, 106; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Zobel, H.-J. 1971 'Das Gebet um Abwendung der Not und seine Erhorung in den Klageliedern des Alten Testaments und in der Inschrift des Konigs Zakir von Hamath', VT 21:91-99.

AN EARLY METACOMMENTARY: TERTULLIAN'S AGAINSTMARCION John Barton

Not the least of David Clines's many contributions to biblical studies has been his creation of a new genre, the metacommentary. As the name suggests, this is a commentary on commentaries. But it is not simply a 'helpful' account of which is the 'best' commentary among the profusion available on any biblical book, a 'Guide to Commentaries for the Scholar's (or Preacher's) Bookshelf such as might be found in Interpretation or The Expository Times. It is an attempt to confront the assumptions and presuppositions of the commentators. To borrow expressions from the title of David Clines's collected metacommentaries (Clines 1995), it is meant to make us aware that commentators are 'interested parties' who have 'ideologies'—seldom if ever înterested readers with a pure concern for textual meaning. I

Clines's metacommentaries point to three features found in nearly all commentaries of recent times: 1. They avoid reading the text in its natural sense when this would give a meaning that they would personally be unable to accept, and then fudge the issue by taking refuge in a subtle reformulation. Thus the Ten Commandments purport to have been spoken by God. Probably no critical commentator believes that they were: they are generally regarded as a human formulation of certain basic ethical convictions, attributed to God by their human author. (If the Pentateuch is pseudo-Moses, then the Decalogue is pseudo-God.) But critical commentators generally do not say this in so many words, but rather elide the issue, attributing a literal belief that God uttered these ten sayings to a 'superficial' understanding of the Bible. Thus they do not take the text in its obvious sense ('God spoke all these words'), but change the meaning so that it is capable of being true according to

BARTON An Early Metacommentary

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modern canons of what is historically probable ('These words developed in Israelite thinking'). At the same time they continue to speak as though the text were divinely dictated, benefiting from the rhetoric of such an attribution while avoiding the risk of being convicted of crassness. Thus Weinfeld, as cited by Clines: 'At the dawn of Israelite history the Ten Commandments were received in their original short form as the basic constitution, so to speak, of the Community of Israel. The words were chiselled or written on two stone tablets' (my italics). 'Were received' gives the impression that they really are of divine origin, though it is quite clear from other comments by Weinfeld that he actually believes them to have had a human origin. He retains the biblical way of speaking, while radically reconceptualizing the content. This is a commentator acting in bad faith, according to Clines, and his metacommentary on commentators on the Decalogue is written to point it out and so set readers on their guard (see Clines 1995: 26-45). 2. They fail to distinguish between restating what the text says in their own words, and expressing value judgments based on their own (usually religious) convictions. Clines illustrates this nicely with a quotation from Erling Hammershaimb's Amos commentary. Hammershaimb slips almost imperceptibly from 'For him [Amos] Yahweh is the creator God, who has led the people out of Egypt and preserved them during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, and then defeated the Amorites in the land of Canaan, so that Israel could dwell there'—which can hardly be faulted as a presentation of what the text says or implies—to 'He knows too that Yahweh has continuously cared for the spiritual well-being of the people, and sent prophets to speak to the people and remind them of his commandments'. 'Knows' here is the give-away. Hammershaimb is no longer telling us what Amos believed. He is telling us that Amos is right: that there really is a Yahweh who really has cared for his people, and who did in fact defeat the Amorites. Of course anyone is at liberty to believe this—though they perhaps ought to reflect a bit more on what it means in terms of real human suffering to claim that God 'defeated' a given nation. But care should be taken to distinguish between saying that the book of Amos implies it, and saying that it is indeed the case. Clines does not want commentators to suppress their own beliefs and opinions about the matters the text deals with—indeed, he would like them to be much more upfront about them. What he does insist on is that they should not make an illegitimate, unacknowledged slide from what the text says to what they themselves wish to affirm (Clines 1995: 87, quoting Hammershaimb 1970:12).

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3. Frequently commentators connive (as Clines would see it) at proposals made in the text, failing to recognize that it is itself an 'interested party'. A good case is the social critique in the pre-exilic prophets, such as Amos. Commentators almost always assume that the book of Amos is correct in its analysis of the ills of Israelite society in Amos' day. If it says that the rich were oppressing the poor, that they lived in excessive luxury, and that they regularly perverted the course of justice, then this is all true: there is no suspicion that the prophet (or whoever wrote the book) may have an axe to grind, and may be overstating his case or even misleading the reader for ends of his own. Furthermore, he is also assumed to be correct in asserting that such sin will result in national disaster. The prophets believe that the corruption they detect in the society of their day will lead to the destruction of the nation; and the prophets are right. There may be interesting hermeneutical difficulties in applying all this to our own situation, but it is seldom doubted for a moment that it was an adequate analysis of Israel in the eighth century BCE. The commentator's task is held to be done once Amos' critique, assumed from start to finish to be essentially correct, has been illustrated from any supplementary evidence (other texts, archaeological finds, or whatever) that can be found. The task does not, people think, include interrogating the assertions of the text in the light of a suspicion that they may be tendentious. And this idea is seriously mistaken: commentators ought not to acquiesce in the text's notions in this supine way (Clines 1995: 78-84). Clines's point here is one that would be shared by many feminist scholars, who similarly do not believe that a commentator should unquestioningly accept what the text tells them, but insist that it also belongs to the commentator's task to go on to ask whether the text should be believed. II

I said that Clines invented metacommentary, and in terms of modern scholarly literature this is certainly the case. But there have always been those who criticized existing commentaries from one point of view or another, and among them I think I have identified a precursor to Clines in an important patristic text, Tertullian's work adversus Marcionem, Against Marcion (see Evans 1972 for the text and translation followed here). A brief analysis of the way Tertullian argues in this work will show some surprising parallels with Clines's metacommentating approach, though also of course some differences, which will concern us at the end.


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Marcion arrived in Rome from Sinope in about 130. After being expelled from the church there for heresy, he went on to found a church of his own, which flourished for many generations and was often a serious rival to 'orthodox' Christianity in many places. We know about his beliefs almost exclusively from his opponents, but a consistent picture of his teaching emerges. Marcion believed that the God revealed in Jesus (who was only apparently a man—Marcion was a docetist) was quite different from the creator God to whom the Old Testament bore witness, and that Jesus' task had been to save those destined for salvation from the clutches of the creator. The creator was a severe, punishing deity, but the God seen in Jesus was a kind and forgiving figure. This meant that the Old Testament was to be seen as wholly set aside in the work of Jesus. Where the Gospels implied or asserted that Jesus had referred to the Old Testament with approval, that could only be because the text had been falsified by adherents of the creator: in its true form (a truncated version of Luke) it never implied any connection between the God of Jesus and the divinity spoken of in the Old Testament. We do not possess Marcion's work in its original form, but can at best partially construct it from various patristic sources. Among these Tertullian's Against Marcion, which passed through three editions between 198 and 208, is the most important. Although we know that Marcion wrote a work called Antitheses, in which he drew contrasts between the God of the Old Testament and the saviour-God he believed to have been present in Jesus, Tertullian does not comment directly on this work in Against Marcion. Rather, in Books 4 and 5 he seems either to be discussing a continuous commentary on the texts that Marcion included in his biblical canon— the (edited) Gospel according to Luke, and certain Pauline epistles—or else to have arranged material from the Antitheses in biblical order, so as to comment on Marcion's theories as they bear on the New Testament text read sequentially. On either supposition we do not have Marcion's own words, but from Tertullian's argument it is often possible to see what they must have implied. (For the surviving fragments of Marcion's own work, see the classic study by Adolf von Harnack [1924].) Thus what Tertullian wrote is in effect a metacommentary. He attends to the text of the Gospel and Epistles commentated by Marcion, and tries to show inadequacies in Marcion's treatment of them, tracing these back to Marcion's peculiar theology/ideology. It will be interesting to notice both similarities to and differences from David Clines's metacommentating work. I shall limit my comments to Book IV of Tertullian's work, which discusses the Gospel.

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Readingfrom Right to Left

III One of Tertullian's main charges against Marcion was of course that he had falsified the text of Luke's Gospel by removing evidence of Jesus' acceptance of the Old Testament, and of the identity of the creator god with his own deity. However, Tertullian proceeded in detail by accepting for the sake of argument the truncated Lukan text proposed by Marcion, and attempting to show that even in its corrupted form it supported his own interpretation of Jesus rather than Marcion's. Book 4, which deals with the Gospel, ends indeed with these words: 'even in your gospel Jesus Christ is mine'. The discussion proceeds on the basis that at least everything in Marcion's Gospel is authentic, even though there are wilfully introduced lacunae which to some extent distort it. Tertullian's analysis of Marcion is guided throughout by the conviction that Marcion makes certain theological assumptions, in the light of which he interprets the text. Tertullian sees him as importing these assumptions where they do not correspond to what the text most naturally seems to mean. One such assumption is that everything in the Gospel is the opposite of everything in the Old Testament or in Judaism, so that whatever Jesus did and said must be taken as implying a rejection of everything that had gone before in Israel. Thus Marcion reads Luke 6.1-11, where Jesus heals on the Sabbath, as implying that Jesus was opposed to the Sabbath because it was a commandment of the creator god of the Old Testament and therefore not in force within the new kingdom of the redeemer god revealed in Jesus. Terrullian argues against this that Jesus enters into a controversy over just what the Sabbath law does and does not require, and that in doing so he clearly accepts that the Sabbath is itself of divine institution. There could have been no discussion as to why he was breaking the sabbath, if it had been his duty to break it. And it would have been his duty to break it, if he had belonged to that other god, and no one would have been surprised as his doing what it was incumbent upon him to do (4.12).

Marcion's assumption that Jesus is opposed in principle to the law is thus undermined by the logic of the story, which presupposes that he affirms the Sabbath but has new insights to bring to its observance. Tertullian goes on to argue that what Jesus did and said was, after all, not so novel as Marcion thought, since it was anticipated in the Old Testament itself. One of his most ingenious arguments on the subject of Sabbath-


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keeping is that God himself suspended the Sabbath regulations when the Israelites were invading Canaan, for he commanded the people to walk round Jericho blowing trumpets for eight days—and eight days are bound to include at least one Sabbath! Thus sabbath-breaking in a good cause is already to be found in the Old Testament, and Marcion is therefore mistaken to oppose Old Testament to New on this point. Furthermore, Jesus' suspension of the Sabbath is already anticipated in Isa. 1.14, where we read, 'Your new moons and Sabbaths my soul hates': implying not that God hates the Sabbath as such, but that he is opposed to the way people are keeping it. On this basis he can argue that Jesus is actually fulfilling Scripture by his attitude to the Sabbath—something of a tour deforce that might be felt to offer a hostage to fortune, since (as we shall see) it concedes rather a lot to Marcion's perception that there really is a considerable difference between the old dispensation and the new, and that the old was aware of its own possible demise. Still, so far as the argument goes, it is a good debating point. Another argument that Tertullian deploys against Marcion's interpretation is that many of the elements that Marcion has retained in his gospel actually presuppose the Old Testament or Judaism as blessed by God, and so cannot be used to argue (as Marcion did) that Jesus was opposed to them. His very first act, when (on Marcion's reading) he descends to earth, is to enter the synagogue at Capernaum ('from heaven straightway into the synagogue', 4.7). How can Marcion suppose, asks Tertullian, that Jesus' mission was to destroy Judaism, if his very first act was to enter a synagogue? Even if Marcion has removed from the Gospel account such sayings as 'I am sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel', which of course is in Matthew (15.24) not Luke, the very deeds which he retains testify to the same idea. See how he enters the synagogue first: surely to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. See how he offers the bread of his doctrine to the Israelites first: surely he is giving them preference as sons... Yet on whom would he have been more ready to bestow it than on strangers to the Creator, if he himself had not above all else belonged to the Creator? (4.7).

Thus according to Tertullian Marcion's interpretation of Jesus will not square with the facts as he himself reports them. His interpretations are tendentious. Another assumption made by Marcion is that Jesus, as representing the beneficent saviour-god, was always kind to others—he was a sort of'Gentle Jesus, meek and mild'. Tertullian has no difficulty in showing, on the one

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hand, that there are plenty of places in the Gospel where Jesus is stern. This can be seen, for example, in his rebuking of demons: in the story in Lk. 4.31 -37 the demoniac says, 'You have come to destroy us', and 'to that extent he had recognized Jesus as the Son of the judge, the avenger, and (if I may say so) the severe God, not of that perfectly good god who knows nothing of destruction and punishment' (4.8). On the other hand, the God of the Old Testament is not stern all the time, so that when Jesus does act 'mildly' that does not in itself mark him out as the proclaimer of a new divinity: cf. Mic. 7.18-20, 'Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession?' In forgiving sins Jesus is fulfilling prophecies such as these, not abolishing them as part of the revelation of a malignant creator god (cf. 4.11). Thus the sharp contrast between Old and New Testaments that is the basis of Marcion's entire interpretation is not borne out by the texts themselves, but is imposed upon them. So, at any rate, Tertullian argues. The subtlest and trickiest arguments come where Marcion assumes that differences between Jesus and the Old Testament are indicators of hostility and discord, because Tertullian as a Christian is bound to agree with Marcion to the extent of thinking that the New Testament represents in some way or other an advance on the Old. His solution is the phrase diversum sednon contrarium (4.11): 'different yet not contrary'. Tertullian indeed begins his whole work with the major concession to Marcion that there is a significant difference between the Testaments: 'I do not deny a difference in records of things spoken, in precepts for good behaviour, and in rules of law'—but, he goes on, 'provided that all these differences have reference to one and the same God, that God by whom it is acknowledged that they were ordained and also foretold' (4.1). 'Foretold' is essential; for Tertullian's concern is to show that where Jesus did introduce some difference to the older dispensation it did not come as a surprise, or at least should not have done to anyone who had really read the Old Testament, where there is continual reference to the giving of fresh revelations of God's will. (Thus Isa. 2.3, 'the law will go forth from Zion', is taken to refer to a new law.) Antithesis is built into Scripture, not a problem but a hermeneutical key, says Tertullian: 'Why need you distort against the Creator those antitheses in the evidences, which you can recognize also in his own thoughts and affections? / will smite, he says, and I will heal, I will slay, he says, and also make alive' (4.1, referring to Deut. 32.39 and Isa. 45.7). What Marcion has done is to take a self-revelation by God which is already inherently


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dialectical, and set up its two poles as the features of two different and radically opposed religions. Thus Marcion's own religious beliefs have hindered him from understanding the subtlety of the biblical witness and led him to find contradiction where there is in fact complementarity. He has (according to Tertullian) oversimplified the biblical material, merely sorting it into two piles (stern and evil creator versus kind and good redeemer) and thereby failing to do justice to any of it. His interpretative principles are allowed to dominate the material they are meant to be interpreting, reshaping it so that it communicates his own ideas. IV

With this last point, however, we begin to see some of the difficulties Tertullian had got himself into, and perhaps some of the difficulties that are inherent in metacommentary—which is not to say that they are not worth taking on. One specific problem is that, in order to oppose Marcion's interpretation, Tertullian is at times manoeuvred rather against his will into defending more continuity between the old and the new dispensation than perhaps he was really comfortable with. He finds himself arguing that what Jesus did or said was really hardly new at all. In cleansing a leper, for example, Jesus did nothing that Elisha had not done before him (4.9): there was nothing remarkable about it. He commanded that people should keep the law, when in this case he told the leper to go and make the statutory offering, so that even this Lukan Christ was in effect saying, 'I did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it'. Was Tertullian, the defender of the 'new prophecy', really content with such a seamless join between the Testaments, one might wonder? Or again, when Jesus said that the whole do not need a physician, but only the sick (Lk. 5.31), was he really, as Tertullian argues (4.11), expressing 'approval of Jews more than others.. .this was an assurance that those Jews, who he said had no need of a physician, were in good health'. Was Tertullian fully happy with his own argument when he continued, 'If that is so, his coming down to destroy the law was ill-conceived, if his purpose was the remedy of that ill-health, when those who were living in the law were in good health, and had no need of a physician'? His antiMarcionite stress on the continuity of Jesus with the law here leads him almost to say that Jesus' own teachings were unnecessary, and that is surely further than he really wanted to go. But this is perhaps a problem of all metacommentary, that it is hard for the metacommentator to avoid leaning too far in the direction opposite

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from the commentator being criticized. Certainly Tertullian sometimes gets into difficulties through an overzealous rejection of Marcion's reading. An additional, equal and opposite, problem is how to deal with matters on which his own presuppositions and those of Marcion are in reality quite close. We see this in the introductory discussion of sameness and difference between the old and new dispensations, where Tertullian is at pains to point out that he is not saying there is no difference, rather that Marcion has conceptualized it wrongly: 'I do admit that there was a different course followed in the old dispensation (dispositione) under the Creator, from that in the new dispensation under Christ' (4.1). To deny that, of course, would in effect be to deny that there was any need for Christ to come at all, which he cannot do. But in the process he has to make concessions to Marcion's interpretation that he may similarly have been rather uncomfortable with, arguing that the principle of antithesis is actually inherent in the order of the world: 'the world is constructed out of the diversities of substances in mutual hostility' (4.1). He goes on to claim that it is therefore not nearly so interesting or important in the evaluation of the Gospel material as Marcion thinks: God's ordering of things is likewise 'consistently antithetic', and consequently ought not to surprise one or lead one to argue in an exaggerated way that there are two gods, one for each pole of the antithesis. But he seems uncomfortable, and this may be because he could see that the recognition of such antitheses did plausibly lead in a Marcionite direction. In all this Tertullian of course operates with the presupposition that the text has a 'plain sense' that ought to be clear to persons of good will. He is not saying that Marcion's interpretation does not happen to suit him, Tertullian, but that it is objectively mistaken. Marcion's system is wrongheaded, he believes, and that could be shown on general theological grounds—Books 1-3 set out the arguments. But in Books 4 and 5 he is trying to show that even the evidence of the Gospels and Epistles as recognized by Marcion himself witnesses against him, and he can do this only if he can take it as given that these texts have discernible meanings on which readers can be brought to agree. Part of his argument is therefore the unspoken principle that his own readings do not work only on his own ('orthodox') assumptions about the nature of Christ, but are publicly available to the unbiased reader. He does not propose his own hermeneutical principles as a precondition for finding in the texts the meaning he does find, but simply appeals to what is 'obvious'. Marcion presumably did not find it obvious at all, nor did the many who followed him; but the whole basis of


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Tertullian's argumentation is that certain textual meanings are indeed plain for all to see. V

In conclusion it may be interesting to ask how far Tertullian's metacommentary is like or unlike the genre as established by David Clines. I return to the three points teased out in Section I. 1. Tertullian certainly argues, as Clines does, that the commentary being examined distorts the sense of the text on which it is commenting in the interests of its own understanding of what was really going on in the life and teaching of Jesus, while retaining as if authoritative much of the text on which it and 'orthodox' interpreters agree. The Gospel of Luke, even in its Marcionite version, does not (so Tertullian argues) support the notion that there are two gods, and that the one revealed in Jesus has nothing to do with the creator-god worshipped by the Jews and set forth in the Old Testament. Marcion retains the wording of that Gospel, but fills it with such a new meaning that it might just as well be a different text. This is certainly a similar objection to Marcion as Clines's objection to the commentators he metacommentates on. Clines dislikes it when commentators continue to exploit the prestige value and religious persuasiveness of the wording of the Bible when in fact they are saying something very different from what the text appears to be asserting—for example, continuing to talk as though the Ten Commandments were 'received' from God when what they really mean is that they were developed by human beings. In the same way Tertullian complains that Marcion is benefiting from the fact that he apparently affirms the words of a gospel at least substantially similar to that of the 'orthodox', when in fact he believes something entirely different from what that Gospel affirms. There is, however, one very significant difference. Clines does not argue that the commentators he complains of falsify a meaning in the biblical text which is publicly available and 'objective', but only that they interpret it in the light of their own interests. The casual reader is likely to come away with the impression that he is castigating them for actually falsifying the 'real' meaning of the text while retaining its wording, but this is probably to misunderstand Clines, who does not believe in 'objective' meanings in texts—at least, I think he doesn't. Nevertheless the style of argument is similar. 2. Marcion, according to Tertullian, fails to distinguish between expounding the text—giving its basic sense to the reader—and telling us what he

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himself believes. He does not expound the text's meaning neutrally, but always tendentiously, and does not tell us what Luke says, but what is (in his view) in fact the case about Jesus—namely, that he is the representative of a new god. Of course Tertullian does not really go in for neutral exposition himself, but he thinks he is doing so, and certainly accuses Marcion of failing in this respect. This is not unlike Clines's charge against modern biblical commentators who slide from telling us what the text says to telling us what is in fact the case. A major difference is that this seems to concern Clines mainly when what they think is the case agrees with the biblical text, whereas Tertullian worries when what Marcion tells his readers contradicts the text (as he understands it). But formally the position is the same: the commentator has a theological position which he wants to get across, and there is a point where, as Clines puts it in metacommentating Hammershaimb, 'the scholarship stops and the religious assumptions begin' (Clines 1995: 87). Marcion, according to Tertullian, was quite incapable of distinguishing his own religious position from what Luke (in his version) had said, even though to a 'detached' observer they were in fact very different. Tertullian, naturally, was not really detached at all; but then Clines would not claim that he, as a metacommentator, is detached either, but is keen to emphasize that he has 'interests' too. Tertullian, living before modern literary theory made writers more conscious of their own presuppositions, was far less aware of this. But what they say about the commentators on whom they metacommentate is nevertheless not so very different. 3. Clines's third point is that commentators connive at the biblical texts and do not criticize them as they should, and here I do not think there is any parallel with what Tertullian accuses Marcion of. He, naturally, does not think there is anything undesirable in the gospel that it would be wrong to agree with, and he has no notion of the desirability of subjecting the biblical texts to any kind of Sachkritik. On this there is an uncrossable gulf between a metacommentator like Clines and any 'pre-critical' student of the Bible, and my comparison here breaks down. An interesting point made by Clines should, however, be brought in here. That is that critical scholars of earlier generations often did engage in the kind of critique of the biblical text that Clines thinks so desirable. As he mentions in a footnote: Some older commentators, especially when writing from an avowedly Christian perspective, did not feel the same degree of inhibition towards evaluation of their text [as do most more recent ones]... However unacceptable today the theory of 'progressive revelation' may be, at least it enabled its adherents to adopt a critical stance toward their texts (Clines 1995: 77-78).


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In many ways 'critical' commentators seem to me, as to Clines, to have become more rather than less 'reverent' since the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. One could hardly accuse Wellhausen, for example, of failing to criticize biblical texts—though the fact that he did so from a liberal Protestant perspective may make his criticisms less than welcome to some, and of course his persistent critique of the priestly strands in the Old Testament as 'Jewish' in a pejorative sense raises further problems of its own. A metacommentary on Wellhausen would need to make very different points from Clines's metacommentary on late twentieth-century scholarship. There is a lot more to be said about metacommentaries both ancient and modern, but perhaps this essay may help to underline how important a genre this is, and how many subtle and complex issues it opens up. My comments are offered to David Clines with great gratitude for the new perspectives he has introduced in biblical studies in this and so many other areas. Bibliography Clines, D.J.A. 1995

Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).

Evans, E. 1972 Tertullian Adversus Marcionem (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Hammershaimb, E. 1970 The Book of Amos: A Commentary (ET J. Sturdy; Oxford: Basil Blackwell). Harnack, A. von 1924 Marcion: Das Evangelium vomfremden Gott (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs).

THE UNITY OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH: ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT BRIDGING THE GORGE BETWEEN ITS Two MAIN PARTS Willem A.M. Beuken The conviction that the book of Isaiah (BI) forms a unity has become something of a confession among contemporary Isaiah scholars. It forces us to reject the tripartite paradigm ascribed to Bernhard Duhm (1892) that dominated research for the greatest part of the twentieth century. According to this hypothesis, BI consists of three parts that have been loosely joined together to form an artificial whole. The core of the first part stems from the period of the kingdom of Judah while the second part reflects the end of the exile and the third the reconstruction of Jerusalem. In short, three Isaiah documents are proposed with their roots in three different periods of occupation: the Assyrian, the Babylonian and the Persian. This perspective on BI has now been largely abandoned, at least with respect to the proposition that the three parts came into existence independently of one another. A broad consensus holds sway that the three individual parts not only underwent a complex redactional process but that they have also been attuned to one another in the course of an equally complex redactional process. Any suggestion that the notion of three Isaianic authors has made way for a single author is clearly an oversimplification. With the exception of certain conservative perspectives, the unity of BI is not understood on the basis of authorship. To what then does BI owe its unity? One is often left with the impression that scholars hide behind the confession of a single Isaiah in order to avoid the explanation thereof. The situation is in fact no different than with that other confession: 'Hear, O Israel: YHWH is our God, YHWH is one' (Deut. 6.4), a confession which implies a great deal more than a simple pronunciation. It begins, according to the tradition, with the clear articulation of the words. For example, one is expected to pronounce separately the two lameds in the expression: 'You shall love YHWH, your God, with all your heart (bekol-lebabkemy (Deut. R. 2.31). Once the correct pronunciation has been taken care of, one is then obliged

BEUKEN The Unity of the Book of Isaiah

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to pay serious attention to the content. The 'Hear, O Israel' implies not so much that one rejects idolatry—the gods are not even mentioned—rather that one loves and serves the one God of Israel with one's entire self. While I may be accused of irreverence in extending this comparison to the present context, it remains a fact that the confession of a single Isaiah implies more than the rejection of the notion of three individuals referred to by the same name. We are ultimately obliged to articulate what we mean thereby. Respect for BI compels us to do so. In order to explain the unity of BI, scholars have made use of the variety of exegetical methods developed since the 1970s. In the last ten years, however, the focus of research has been on the redaction history of the text (cf. the survey of Berges 1998:11-49). This methodological approach can be divided into two primary models. The first and older model is often styled the Vereinigungsthese, albeit in a thoroughly revised form. According to this thesis, the three parts of BI stem from one and the same setting that over the centuries, and with the help of its own theological and literary expertise, developed the message of Isaiah ben Amoz and thereby produced new documents in the process. These new documents were then collected into a single book together with the original collection of the prophecies of Isaiah. The book as such underwent a variety of adaptations according to the differing historical circumstances in which it found itself (Rendtorff 1984; Clements 1985). In contrast to the first, the second model or Fortschreibungsthese argues that certain large textual complexes never existed independently and that they were designed from the beginning as the continuation and interpretation of older textual complexes. Scholars initially applied this model in order to explain the growth process of Isaiah 40-55 and Isaiah 56-66 as well as the relationship between the two, and later still the relationship between Isaiah 40-55 and Isaiah 1-39. It is striking that scholars endeavour to explain certain matters according to both models, and not without success. Research into these questions reveals that the two models of Vereinigung and Fortschreibung are insufficiently refined to claim the exclusive right to an explanation (Clements 1997; Feuerstein 1998). Both theories reveal their weakness explicitly with respect to the explanation of the most significant breach found in BI: the transition from ch. 39 to ch. 40. The Vereinigungsthese recognizes the breach and considers earlier chapters, ch. 33 and chs. 34-35, as bridges between Proto-Isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah (henceforth PI and DI). Such an explanation is surprising in that it does not establish the bridge between the end of PI and the beginning of DI but locates the connection at an

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earlier stage. Chapters 36-39 are thus seen to form a sort of projection floating above the breach. The Fortschreibungsthese considers ch. 39 to be an interpolation replacing Assyria with Babylon as archenemy of Jerusalem in preparation for the Babylon texts in DI. In the context ofFortschreibung, however, it is strange that Isaiah does not announce the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 in this chapter but rather the plundering of Hezekiah's palace and the deportation of his offspring in 597. We are thus left in a quandary when we are forced to choose between these two theories. It is for this reason that what has become the Grand Canyon of BI clearly deserves another look. 1. The Translation ofHezekiah 's Response (Isaiah 39.8) The conclusion of ch. 39 raises a number of questions. The translation of v. 8 most frequently employed in contemporary Bibles runs as follows: 'Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah: "The word of YHWH which you have spoken is good." For he thought: "There will be peace and security in my days"' (v. 8 RSV). This translation establishes opposition between the king's words and his thoughts. The latter can be reduced more or less to the narcissistic notion: apres nous le deluge. Such an opposition, however, remains open to dispute. While it is possible, of course, to interpret "IQN'n as 'he thought', in the present context, and without a change of speaker, one would expect the customary idiom: 'he said in (to) his heart' (cf. Isa. 14.13; 47.8; 49.21; etc.). The contemporary translation of this verse remains inadequate for several other reasons.1 The authoritative translations of the modern period (M. Luther, AV, Stv) do not tend to follow this line of thought. They adhere rather to the ancient translations, which render Hezekiah's second statement in the form of a prayer: 'Let there be peace and faithfulness in my days' (LXX, Vg, Tg). Once again, however, this is not the intention evident in MT.2 An unbiased translation should read: 'Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah: "The word of YHWH which you have spoken is good". He said: "Truly, there will be peace and faithfulness in my days."' 1. It is difficult to derive the conjunction 'for' at the beginning of v. 8b from the verb form ~)QK'1'1. Moreover, the conjunction ""D at the beginning of the second statement remains without translation. 2. Person (1999: 375-76) considers the LXX reading, in which Hezehiah utters a prayer (yevEoGco), as prior to the MT reading, in which he makes a statement about the future (ITrr ""D). His argument, however, is not text critical: 'The I(saiah)H(ebrew) and I(saiah)Q(umran) reading does not fit the context for nowhere in the previous text has Isaiah declared peace for Hezekiah' (376).


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2. The Purport ofHezekiah 's Response in the Context of Isaiah 36-39 Hezekiah's reaction to the announcement of judgment is twofold (v. 8). First, he accepts the sentence of YHWH delivered by Isaiah. Obedience to the prophet forms an integral part of the image of this king (cf. Jer. 26.1819). As such, he re-assumes the exemplary role that he played in chs. 3638. In these chapters he accepted the prophet as God's emissary (37.2,21; 38.1,4) and continued to have faith in YHWH and in Jerusalem's ultimate liberation in spite of the apparent invincibility of the Assyrian forces (37.15, 17, 20; 38.4, 10, 20). There also he praises God for saving him from his deadly illness, in recognition of his sins and with a 'doxology of judgment' (38.15-17). In the same way, he now accepts the announcement that his possessions and sons will be taken into captivity as something 'good'. Because we are not told how Hezekiah could envisage the exile as something good, his astonishing first remark thus provides the narrative with an open end. This is even widened by his second remark (v. 8b).3 This has long been a source of exegetical difficulty because of the repetition of the introductory 'he said' after the direct discourse of only one sentence and the absence of a person addressed. These data, however, need not imply that the half verse constitutes a side reflection, which the king conceals from the prophet. For the phenomenon of 'resumptive "1QN within direct discourse' is frequent in the Hebrew Bible and can have a variety of functions and antecedents (Meier 1992:73-81). The second introduction may indicate that the following statement deals with a completely different topic, one which has a much broader significance than the narrative context of the discussion with the prophet allows. The statement cannot imply that Hezekiah thus endeavoured to conceal the forthcoming disaster from himself (cf. 2 Sam. 18.24-33). This is too psychological an explanation for this part of BI. On the threshold of Isaiah 40-55 one would expect a statement in harmony with DI's view of the exile, as is the case with the king's first statement.4 Just as little can the 3. From the text-critical perspective v. 8b appears to be a redactional interpolation since the B-text of the LXX of the parallel text in 2 Kgs 20.19 has only the first half of the verse (// Isa. 39.8a), while the Hexapla provides the second half (// Isa. 39.8b) with an asterisk (Field 1875: 691; Konkel 1993: 477). Other differences which play a role are: (1) LXX does not translate the second "O^l; (2) LXX and Vg employ the volitive form here. 4. The history of the interpretation of this verse is a classic example of scholarly bias (cf. the survey of Alexander 1976: II, 92). Echoes of Duhm's commentary, 'hides-

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statement mean that what will happen later is of no concern to Hezekiah (cf. 1 Kgs 21.29; 2 Kgs 22.20; Job 21.21; contrast in Jer. 31.15). Apathy for the fate of one's progeny does not tally with the ancient Near Eastern tradition that prosperous descendants keep a person's name alive (Pss. 112.1-3; 115.14; 128; Job 5.25-27). It is against this background that we should interpret the second statement: 'Truly, there will be peace and faithfulness in my days'. In the first instance it suggests a theo-political prognosis: in Hezekiah's days, in contrast to 'the days (that) are coming' (v. 6), there will be a trustworthy peace, the words 'peace and faithfulness' (nDNl Dl *?C?) evidently forming a hendiadys (Th WA T, 1,334 [A. Jepsen]). The expression plays a role in the dispute of the YHWH prophets with the shalom prophets who prophesied 'lies, worthlessness and deceit' ("p2J... *T *?K.. .niQ"in) about Jerusalem's inviolability, as it comes to the fore in the book of Jeremiah (Jer. 14.13; 33.6; McKane 1986: 324-28; cf. Est. 9.30). In association with the narrative concerning Hezekiah's sickness and recovery, however, a second interpretation is likewise evident. For in that story 'peace' is the outcome of the king's bitter experiences (38.17) and 'faithfulness' the currency of exchange between Hezekiah and God (38.3, 18-19). Moreover, Hezekiah has placed the newly acquired extension of his life under a specific mandate: 'The father makes known to the sons your faithfulness' (38.19). These statements continue to resonate in 39.8. Even after hearing that his offspring are to be deported to Babylon to serve at the court there, the king bears witness to his expectation that YHWH will go on to provide 'peace and faithfulness' as the horizon of his existence.5 Seen in this way, the king plays an exemplary role at the point of transition between PI and DL He accepts the word of YHWH with regard to the future of his house and pledges himself to the lessons which his sickness and recovery have taught him. sen uberschreitet diese Gottergebenheit und Zufriedenheit auf Kosten anderer und sogar der eigenen Nachkommen das Mafi erlaubter Naivitat' (Duhm 1922:286), continue to resonate (cf. Oswalt 1986: 697; Watts 1987: 66; Motyer 1993: 297; otherwise Penna 1958: 394). 5. The statement is commonly interpreted as referring to what Hezekiah expects from YHWH but we cannot exclude that it also points to the programme of his government in subservience to YHWH (cf. the combination of TD with the imperfect of ilTI in Exod. 3.12; 23.33; Judg. 6.16; 2 Sam. 18.3; 19.23; Isa. 1.30; Mai. 3.12, 21; 2 Chron. 12.8). It is then to 'peace and faithfulness' that he commits himself, in agreement with his policy of reform, to which he refers himself (Isa. 38.3), and the memory of which is preserved by the tradition (cf. 2 Kgs 18.4; Jer. 26.17-19; 2 Chron. 29-31).


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3. Hezekiah 's Response against the Background of the Promise to David Hezekiah's rehabilitation finds support if we read his response against the background of YHWH's promise to David. Hezekiah's narrative contains topics that are clearly at home in this context. Indeed, the primary text of the promise, the prophecy of Nathan to David together with the king's prayer of thanksgiving in 2 Samuel 7, exhibits significant kinship with Isa. 39.8.

a. 'The Days of David' vs. his Kingship 'for Ever' In the first instance, the opening of the actual dynastic oracle is interesting on account of the theme dealing with the fate of David's descendants after 'the days of David': 'When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom' (2 Sam. 7.12; cf. 1 Chron. 17.11). The promise then follows that the throne of Solomon and David's further offspring 'shall be established for ever' (v. 16). In his thanksgiving prayer, David is silent concerning the commission to build a house for YHWH. His primary theme is that kingship over Israel shall continue to belong to his house ('for ever' occurs four times in w. 25-29, as it does three times in w. 13-16). It is for this reason that Renaud concludes: 'La perpetuite de la promesse traverse tout le chapitre. De plus, a la perspective d'un avenir illimite est liee 1'inconditionalite de la promesse... Quoi qu'il arrive, celle-ci se realisera' (Renaud 1994: 50). b. 'Faithfulness' A second term from the oracle of Nathan that we also find in Hezekiah's response is 'faithfulness'. The oracle concludes: 'Your house and your kingdom shall be made trustworthy (faithful) forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever' (2 Sam. 7.16). This concept came to enjoy some degree of significance in the Davidic tradition. Psalm 89, which builds upon the Nathan oracle, speaks no less than seven times about God's 'faithfulness' with respect to David (v. 15: PQK; w. 6, 9, 25, 29, 34, 50: HD1QN).6 1 and 2 Chronicles employ the term in places that do not have a parallel in Samuel and Kings, both for God's position with respect to David's offspring (1 Chron. 17.23-24; 2 Chron. 1.9; 6.17) and for Hezekiah's behaviour with respect to God (2 Chron. 31.20; 32.1). 6. With regard to the priority of 2 Sam. 7 vis-a-vis Ps. 89, cf. Schniedewind 1999: 30,41-43.

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Besides the oracle of Nathan, the thanksgiving prayer of David that follows constitutes a striking parallel with Isa. 39.8, since the concepts 'faithfulness' and 'good' both occur together in it: And now, O Lord YHWH, you are God, and your words are faithfulness and you have promised this good thing to your servant. Now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you (2 Sam. 7.28-29; in 1 Chron. 17.26 the term 'faithfulness' is lacking).7

c. 'Peace' If one is able to acknowledge the suggestion that 2 Samuel 7 forms the background to Hezekiah's remarks, then one is also at liberty to associate the term 'peace' in the latter remark with texts related not to the prophecy of Nathan but to the Solomon narrative. The first text concerns David's charge to Solomon to build a temple, in which he refers to the name of his son as established by YHWH: 'Behold, a son shall be born to you; he shall be a man of peace. I will give him peace from all his enemies...' (1 Chron. 22.9). The second text is from Psalm 72, in which the ideology of the Davidic kingship is elaborated with a view to his successor Solomon: 'In his days may righteousness flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more' (v. 7; cf. v. 3). The third concerns the remark whereby Solomon justifies the execution of Joab (1 Kgs 2.33). d. Conclusion Against the background of the prophecy of Nathan and the texts that build upon it, especially Psalm 89, Hezekiah's remarks clearly do not simply constitute some form of coarse calculation, mixing religion and politics together; they form rather a recognition on the part of Hezekiah that the trajectories of God's promise to the house of David remain visible during his own kingship. How this promise relates to the tragedy that will confront his own offspring is a question Hezekiah does not ask. Against the background of the Davidic tradition, however, such silence is no light matter. The first part of BI is thus open-ended. Does the second part provide an answer to this lack of closure? 7. The preceding argument does not take the redactional growth of 2 Sam. 7 into account. With regard to this, opinions diverge widely. Recently there is a growing consensus that Nathan's oracle to David (w. 1 lb-17) and David's thanksgiving prayer (w. 18-28) constitute an original unity, and also that in the oldest form of Nathan's oracle, v. 12 and v. 16 are related to each other (Gorg 1975: 178-271; Jones 1990: 8283;Renaudl994).


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4. Hezekiah 's Response as trait-d'union between Isaiah 1-39 and Isaiah 40-66 Having established that the Davidic tradition constitutes the frame of reference of Hezekiah's remarks, it makes sense to examine whether the first part of BI prepares us for 39.8 and whether the second part of BI builds upon it. In any case, the terms 'peace' and 'faithfulness' do not occur as a word pair again. a. 'Peace' and 'Faithfulness' in Isaiah 1-39 In Isaiah 1-39 the terms 'peace' and 'faithfulness' function in texts that build upon God's promise to David. The first of these is the announcement of a 'Prince of Peace' on the throne of David, who shall substantiate his name because God establishes his kingship on 'justice and righteousness' (9.5-6). The assurance that 'Of peace there will be no end' (cf. further on: 'from this time and for evermore') may constitute the redactional point of reference of Hezekiah's remark: 'There will be peace and faithfulness in my days' (39.8). The second text stands in the same tradition and employs the concept 'faithfulness' (16.4-5). While the promise to David acquires a 'messianic' perspective in these texts, Hezekiah announces in 39.8 that 'peace and faithfulness' shall in any event characterize his kingship. This constitutes an overture to the definitive fulfilment of the promise. b. 'Peace' and 'Faithfulness' in Isaiah 40-66 It should not come as much of a surprise that the terms 'peace' and 'faithfulness' in Isaiah 40-66 are attuned to their particular context and the situation of the exile. The fact that 'peace' plays a central role here is primarily evident from the original concluding passage of DI: the coming of the messenger of peace who announces that YHWH has accepted kingship (52.7). 'Peace' in this context, however, is not related to the same concepts as in 39.8. Scholars have already established a relationship between 39.8 and the threefold redactional division of Isaiah 40-66 based on the colophons of 48.22 and 57.21: "There is no peace", says YHWH (my God), "for the wicked'". As such, these structuring proverbs do not say very much. The first, however, flows out of a promise of 'peace', as the fruit of 'righteousness', which expresses itself in countless offspring: 'O that you would hearken to my commandments! Then your peace would be like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Your offspring would be like

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the sand, and your descendants like its grains' (48.18-19). Although the promise to the house of David does not constitute the specific framework at this juncture, the association of righteousness, peace and offspring does establish an inter-textual reference to the conclusion of Isaiah 39.8 Of primary importance, however, is ch. 54. Here, the future of Zion is characterized by the promise: 'Your sons shall be taught by YHWH, and great shall be the peace of your sons. In righteousness you shall be established' (w. 13-14; cf. v. 10). In texts referring to the promise to David, the commission to maintain righteousness is coupled with the assurance that YHWH will 'establish' his house and his throne (]ID; 2 Sam. 5.12; 7.12-13, 16,26 [cf. the parallels in IChron. 14.2 and 17]; 1 Kgs2.12,46; Isa. 9.6; 16.5; Ps. 89.3,5,38; 1 Chron. 22.10; 28.7). One is left with the impression that Zion in 54.14 has entered the scene as the inheritor of YHWH'S promise to the house of David, which appeared to have been suspended in the offspring of Hezekiah. The other term, 'faithfulness', occurs in Isaiah 40-66 for the first time in the so-called first song of the Servant: 'He will faithfully bring forth justice' or rather (LXX): 'He will bring forth justice so as to establish faithfulness' (42.3). It is generally accepted that this figure exhibits royal, Davidic characteristics. The opening of this passage ('Behold, my servant', v. 1) connects—bridging over the preceding chapter in which YHWH accepts Israel as servant (41.8-9, 'but you, Israel, my servant... I have chosen you and not cast you off)—with the conclusion of the first Hezekiah narrative, in which God promises the king deliverance 'for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David' (37.35). The connection is established, at the level of the redaction of BI, by means of the end of PI in 39.8. Hezekiah clearly plays a connecting role at this juncture. 'We may credit Hezekiah with the awareness that repentance could change this verdict, as his own prayers and tears had reversed the prediction of imminent death' (Blenkinsopp 2000: 489, cf. 82-83, 90-91, 478; Blenkinsopp 1997: 160-66). This son of David has accepted YHWH'S judgment. Therefore, although 'faithfulness' appeared to be limited to his days, the Servant of YHWH shall once again establish 'faithfulness' in the course of his mission. In this way, one is left with the suspicion that YHWH'S promise to David, according to DI, is first realized on behalf of the servant Israel and then anew on behalf of Zion.

8. The second colophon, too, concludes a passage in which injustice and peace are opposed (57.21; cf. w. 17-20).


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5. From Isaiah 39.8 to Isaiah 55.3-5 What we have seen so far may suffice to convince us that the last verse of Isaiah 1-39 has the promise to David as its background. Indeed, it is far from strange that Hezekiah should allude to this promise. In the preceding narratives, YHWH himself alludes to 'my servant David' when he announces to the king that Jerusalem is to be redeemed (37.35), and even speaks of himself as 'the God of your father David' when he promises Hezekiah that he is to be healed of his fatal illness (38.5). The crucial question remains, however: can one ascertain that the Davidic tradition in 39.8 establishes a bridge with Isaiah 40-66, given the fact that its role in these chapters is so minimal? The name 'David' occurs in these chapters on only one occasion: I will make with you an everlasting covenant, the faithful mercies for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call nations that you know not, and nations that knew you not shall run to you, because of YHWH, your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you (55.3-5).

This passage is, nevertheless, of importance for our argument. Isa. 55.35 shares a number of terms and topics with 2 Samuel 7, Psalm 89 and Psalm 18, texts with which Isa. 39.8 also appears to enjoy a close relationship. Isa. 55.3-5 deviates from the Davidic tradition on one point, however: 'There is no direct reference to.. .the distinctive substance of the promise of God to David: that one of his sons would always sit on the throne to rule over the nations' (Kaiser 1989: 93). The offspring of Hezekiah, who, according to PI, are to be robbed of power and dignity and forced to serve the king of Babylon (39.8), are completely absent from the image formed by DI of the return of the exiles (55.1-13).9 While Hezekiah's and thus David's offspring may be absent, however, the witness of David is not. Just as YHWH once established David as 'a witness to the peoples', so now it would appear that Israel is being given a similar mission (w. 4-5). The comparison builds further upon the image of David in Psalm 18, presenting both a point of agreement and a point of opposition. David enjoyed dominion over the nations and was thus capable of bearing witness in that position to the God who provided him with protection (Ps. 18.44-51). While Israel, by contrast, has no role to play among 9. Fischer (2000) has demonstrated that vv. 1-3 refer to the passage through the desert. In this way they depict the exodus as the background of ch. 55.

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the nations, the glory it acquires by God's act of redemption (46.13; 52.1) is sufficient to draw the nations into the recognition of YHWH (45.14,22; 49.22-23; 52.10; extensively Beuken 1974). In this way, 'the everlasting covenant' that YHWH intends to conclude with Israel coincides with 'the faithful mercies for David' (v. 3b: apposition). Summary With respect to 'the gorge' between Isaiah 1-39 and Isaiah 40-66, recent theories on the redactional connections between both parts of BI clearly have a right to exist. We should be on our guard, however, not to ignore the fact that the conclusion of PI presents its readers with a question, the answer to which can only be discovered in the following chapters of DI. The problem of the unity of BI lies not only at the level of the text but also at the level of its readers. YHWH'S promise to David serves as the background to Isa. 39.8. Hezekiah confesses his belief that this promise will become a reality in his lifetime, although he remains silent on the problem raised by the announcement of the deportation of his own offspring, namely, whether YHWH will remain faithful to his promise that the house of David and his kingship will survive forever. Isa. 42.1-7 adumbrates a new bearer of the promise to David: the Servant. Isa. 55.3-5 provides this promise with a new content. The words 'house', 'kingship' and 'throne' are no longer found here, only 'covenant', 'mercies' and 'faithful'. Those in Israel who listen to YHWH constitute the descendants of David. They are the children of Zion and the servants of YHWH(54.13, 17). Die Verheissungen an David werden neu relevant, wo die Gemeinschaft selbst seine Aufgabe und Sendung in dem Sinn der durch den Gottesspruch beglaubigten Auslegung wahrnimmt. In Neubestimmung und kollektivem Verstandis entspricht dieser Ansatz in zusammengefasster Form dem, was Dtjes zum 'Gottes-Knecht' entwickelt hat. Eine strittige Frage wird hier durch ein Gottes-Votum entschieden (Baltzer 1999: 598).10

Can the same be said for the unity of the book of Isaiah?11 10. 'The promises to David acquire fresh relevance where the community recognizes its task and mission as explained to them in this divine oracle. In its succinct form, this new collective interpretation corresponds with what DI has developed in the concept of the Servant of YHWH. The question at issue [are the promises to David still valid?] is thus decided by a pledge of YHWH himself.' 11. For the research underlying articles such as this, scholars are greatly assisted


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Bibliography Commentaries on the Book of Isaiah or Parts of It Alexander, J.A. 1976 Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah I-II (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 7th edn [two volumes in one; originally 1846 and 1847]). Baltzer, K. 1999 Deutero-Jesaja (KAT, X/2; Giitersloh: Gutersloher Verlagshaus). Blenkinsopp, J. 2000 Isaiah 1-39: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 19; New York: Doubleday). Duhm, B. 1922 Das Buck Jesaia (HAT, III/1; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 4th edn [1892]). Motyer, J.A. 1993 The Prophecy of Isaiah: A n Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press). Oswalt, J.N. 1986 The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1-39 (NICOT; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans). Penna, A. 1958 Isaia (La Sacra Bibbia; Turin: Marietti). Watts, J.D.W. 1987 Isaiah 34-66 (WBC, 25; Waco, TX: Word Books). Miscellaneous Berges, U. 1998 Das Buch Jesaja: Komposition und Endgestalt (HBS, 16; Freiburg: Herder). Beuken, W.A.M. 1974 'Isaiah 55.3-5: The Reinterpretation of David', Bydragen 35: 49-64. Blenkinsopp, J. 1997 'The Servant and the Servants in Isaiah and the Formation of the Book', in C.C. Broyles and C.A. Evans (eds.), Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah: Studies of an Interpretive Tradition, I-II (VTSup, 70/1-2; Leiden: E.J. Brill): 155-75. Clements, R.E. 1985 'Beyond Tradition-History: Deutero-Isaianic Development of First Isaiah's Themes', JSOT31: 95-113. 1997 'Zion as Symbol and Political Reality: A Central Isaianic Quest', in J. van Ruiten and M. Vervenne (eds.), Studies in the Book of Isaiah: Festschrift WillemA.M. Beuken (BETL, 132; Leuven: Peelers): 3-18.

nowadays by David Clines's Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. For this major work, the first volume of his commentary on Job and for many other stimulating studies I would like to express my gratitude. Dr Brian Doyle, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Theology, Catholic University of Leuven, has provided the translation of this article.

62 Feuerstein, R. 1998

Field, F. 1875 Fischer, I. 2000

Gorg, M. 1975

Reading from Right to Left 'Weshalb gibt es "Deuterojesaja"?', in F. Diedrich and B. Willmes (eds.), Ich bewirke das Heil und erschaffe das Unheil (Jesaja 45,7): Studien zur Botschaft der Propheten. Festschriftfur Lothar Ruppertzum 65. Geburtstag (FzB, 88; Wiirzburg: Echter Verlag): 93-134. Origenis Hexaplorum Fragmenta I (Oxford: Clarendon Press). 'Der Schriftausleger als Marktschreier: Jes 55,1-3 und seine innerbiblische Bezuge', in R.G. Kratz, Th. Kriiger and K. Schmid (eds.), Schriftauslegung in der Schrift: Festschrift fur Odil Hannes Steck zu seinem 65. Geburtstag (BZAW, 300; Berlin: W. de Gruyter): 153-62. Gott-Konig-Reden in Israel und Agypten (BWANT, 105; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer).

Jones, G.H. 1990 The Nathan Narratives (JSOTSup, 80; Sheffield: JSOT Press). Kaiser, Jr., W.C. 1989 'The Unfailing Kindnesses Promised to David: Isaiah 55.3 \JSOT45:91-98. Konkel, A.H. 1993 'The Sources of the Story of Hezekiah in the Book of Isaiah', F743:462-82. McKane, W. 1986 A Critical andExegetical Commentary on Jeremiah, I (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). Meier, S.A. 199SpeakSpeakingofSpeaking:MarkingDirectDiscourseintheHebrewB of Speaking: Marking Direct Discourse in the Hebrew Bible (VTSup, 46; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Person, Jr., R.F. 1999 'II Kings 18-20 and Isaiah 36-39: A Text Critical Case Study in the Redaction History of the Book of Isaiah', ZA W111: 373-79. Renaud, B. 1994 'La prophetic de Natan: theologies en conflit', RB 101: 5-61. Rendtorff, R. 1984 'Zur Komposition des Jesajabuches', FT34: 295-320. Schniedewind, W.M. 1999 Society and the Promise to David: The Reception History of 2 Samuel 7.1-17 (New York: Oxford University Press).

THE ONE IN THE MIDDLE Joseph Blenkinsopp

The Text As for those who consecrate and purify themselves (to enter) the gardens, following the one in the middle, who partake of swine's flesh, unclean things, and rodents; their deeds and their devices will together come to an end. A declaration of YHWH (Isa. 66.17).1

This description of this (from the author's perspective) deviant cultic celebration appears to be contextually isolated, as one of several addenda or appendices to the book of Isaiah. Following on the imminent, fiery judgment immediately preceding (66.15-16), it could have served to make the point that the practitioners of garden cults condemned in 65.1-7 are included among those subject to this judgment. At any rate, 65.1-7 and 66.17 have enough in common to permit the conclusion that they derive from the same source. The other reference in Isaiah to garden cults occurs at the beginning of the book (1.29), in a passage generally regarded as forming an inclusion with part or all of the last chapter (1.27-31). Both these passages may therefore be of help in understanding the nature of the ritual obliquely referred to in 66.17. An immediate and formidable obstacle is the enigmatic phrase 'following the one in the middle' ('ahar 'ahadbattawek). The text-critical situation can be summarized as follows. Kethiv 'ehad, masculine, has the support of Theodotion according to Jerome (alterpost alterum). Peshitta also prefers a male hierophant (had batar had), and is the source of NEB'S intriguing 1. Textual notes: 'to enter': the verb is supplied; 'unclean things': retaining MT seqes over the objections of Duhm (1922: 486) et al. who emend to seres, a generic term for small insects, as in Lev. 5.2 and 11.10; seqes (IQIsa8 siqqtis} refers to any object that renders ritually unclean (Lev. 7.21; 11.10-13; Ezek. 8.10); 'Their deeds and their devices' (ma '"sehem umahsebotehem) is transferred from 66.18 where it is unintelligible, cf. 'ahar mahsebotehem in the similar passage 65.2b-5a.

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'one after another in a magic ring'. But qere 'ahat, feminine, is supported by more than 30 Hebrew MSS in addition to both Qumran Isaiah scrolls and, almost certainly, the Vulgate.2 As is often the case in LXX Isaiah, a difficult text is rendered very freely: 'They that sanctify and purify themselves for the gardens, and eat swine's flesh and their abominations and mice in the forecourts (en tois prothurois) shall together be consumed, says the LORD'. Since 'in the forecourts' cannot easily be construed as a translation of anything in 66.17, it seems that the translator was influenced by Ezekiel 8 where the reprehensible cult practices revealed to the prophet during his supernaturally guided tour of the temple are represented as taking place in the forecourts of the sanctuary (epi tonprothuron tesphules, Ezek. 8.7 LXX; also w. 3, 14, 16). The Targum seems to have read 'ahat, feminine, since it substitutes a feminine noun for this word: They who assemble and purify themselves for your gardens of the idols, one company after another (si 'a' batar si 'ay, and similar readings prevailed in the Jewish exegetical tradition (Ibn Ezra, Saadia Gaon, Yefet ben Eli, et #/.). We can therefore in good conscience break the uncertainty over kethib/qere, which, according to Barthelemy, deadlocked his text-critical committee, and opt for the feminine (Barthelemy 1986: 462; see also Seeligmann 1948: 74). It was no doubt inevitable that this strange expression would set off a flurry of emendations, especially in view of daleth/resh confusion. Emerton (1980: 21-25) lists some of these and himself offers a revised form of an ingenious proposal by D. Winton Thomas, to the effect that these three words resulted from vertical dittography with the previous line. An equally ingenious suggestion is that of C.C. Torrey according to whom the original text read 'ehad 'ahar 'chad, to which was appended a marginal note, 'ahar battawek, meaning 'the word in the middle is 'ahar\ which marginal note then found its way back into the text (Torrey 1928: 474). But MT makes good sense and should be retained. The Preparation Like the other closely related denunciations of 'pagan' cult practices in Isaiah 56-66 (57.3-13; 65.1-12; 66.3-4), 66.17 is not concerned to provide information about these rituals or, much less, give the reader a fair and 2. In lQIsab only the final fl[ ] appears. Vulgate post ianuam intrinsecus, 'behind the door inside', probably results from a corruption of post unam, 'after one' (fern.), as in the San Girolamo edition.

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objective evaluation of them. Read critically, however, these texts can provide some credible evidence about religious practice in Judah during the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian periods.3 The preparation for taking part in ceremonies in the garden is stated only in the most general terms, with reference to participants who are consecrating and purifying themselves (hammitqaddesim, hammittaharfm), activities that are not clearly distinguishable. We can nevertheless make some progress in understanding by looking at comparable situations in that particular culture and elsewhere. We know that all significant cult acts required a preliminary sacralization of place, time and officiants. One essential feature of this process is the absolute prohibition of encroaching on the temenos in the pre-initiation phase. Instructions prior to the Sinai theophany prescribe that 'You must set limits for the people all around. Take care not to go up the mountain or touch its confines; anyone who touches the mountain must be put to death' (Exod. 19.12). Both the encroacher, deliberate or inadvertent, and in due course the initiate are 'sanctified', become meqaddes or mitqaddes, taboo, untouchable, by contact with the cult enclosure (Exod. 19.13). This will help to explain the point made by the initiate in Isa. 65.5: 'Do not come near me, for I have been "sanctified" with respect to you'. Forbidden contact may also project some light on the woman's reply to the snake in the garden of Eden, to the effect that she and the man were forbidden under pain of death not only to eat but also to touch the sacred tree (Gen 3.4: Id' tigge'u bo; cf. Exod. 19.13: Id' tigga' bo). This prohibition was normal practice just about everywhere. In the Eleusinian mysteries, for example, any uninitiated person passing beyond the door into the telesterion was subject to the death penalty (Burkert 1977:429). In the Sinai episode, the consecration consisted in the (male) participants washing their clothes and abstaining from sexual activity (Exod. 19.14-15). Washing or changing clothes (Gen. 35.2; Lev. 14.8-9; Num. 8.21) and bathing the body (Lev. 14.8; cf. Ps. 51.4) were common features of purification rites. Since body fluids induce ritual pollution, sexual abstention was also practically de rigueur, and was often accompanied by 3. Several exegetes of note have dated these cult allusions to the Hellenistic period (especially Volz 1932: 200, 280-81, 292; Vermeylen 1978: 515; Steck 1991: 38-40,229-30,273-74). But there is nothing exclusively or even distinctively Hellenistic about any of these cults, including those addressed to Gad and Meni (65.11), and much that resembles practice in late monarchic Judah, abundantly documented in Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Deuteronomistic History.

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fasting. Other activities attested in biblical texts are shaving body hair (Lev. 14.8-9; Num. 8.7), sprinkling with water or blood (Lev. 14.7; Num. 8.7) and sacrificing (Num. 8.8; 1 Sam. 16.5). Candidates for muesis at Eleusis first bathed in the sea, fasted and underwent a purification ceremony seated on a stool covered with a fleece and with their heads shrouded. We do not hear of sexual abstention at this stage, but the hierophant, and probably all the cult officials, were expected to abstain during the mysteries (Clinton 1974: 45-46, 116). The Location The garden (gannd here and Isa. 1.29-30; 65.3) as cult site calls for some explanation. As Ibn Ezra noted, this is not a vegetable garden but a grove, orchard or park (paradeisos in LXX of Gen. 2.8; Qoh. 2.5; Cant. 4.13). Garden symbolism evokes plenitude and abundant life, and its primary associations are with running water (Num. 24.6; Isa. 58.11; Jer. 31.12; Cant. 4.12,15) and of course trees, among which we hear frequent mention of cedar, palm, and fruit-bearing trees (Num. 24.6; Isa. 1.29-30; Jer. 29.5, 28; etc.). In the Neo-Assyrian version ofGilgamesh (5.1), the cedar mountain of Lebanon is called 'the abode of the gods', recalling Ezekiel's 'cedars in the garden of God' (Ezek. 31.8-9) and 'the streams flowing from Lebanon' in the garden of the beloved in Cant. 4.15. Palace gardens or groves created by monarchs to impress visitors and enhance royal status, such as the splendid gardens of Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal, are attested from Near Eastern inscriptions and iconography. An Assyrian prince had a dream in which he saw the shade of a predecessor receiving permission from Ashur to rebuild the akitu house 'in the garden of abundance, the image of Lebanon' (Lipinski 1973: 358-59). A particularly interesting example is the 'Court of Palms', a lush palace garden represented in a wall painting from the palace of Zimri-Lim at Mari (Wiseman 1983: 137-44; 1984: 37-43; Stordalen 2000: 94-102; Stager 2000:36-47,66). Gardens provided an appropriate setting for ritual activity, and especially for the ritual celebration of the union of male and female deities. Enki impregnated Ninhursag and several of her female linear descendants in Dilmun, place of 'the waters of abundance', at one time a candidate for the real garden of Eden. During the Neo-Assyrian period, the final act of the akitu festival took place outside the city in 'the Garden of Abundance' (kirinuhsi).The most fully documented case is the erotic encounter between the god Nabu and the goddess Tasmetu which began in the ritual


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bedchamber (bit ersi) and ended on the eleventh day of the festival in the garden (kiru). In recent studies of this ritual and the hymns associated with it, Martti Nissinen has drawn attention to parallels, some practically verbatim, with the 'garden of love' theme in the biblical Canticle (Nissinen 1998: 585-634; 2001:93-135). While the dramatis personae in the Canticle are clearly human, the ritual undertones are unmistakable. A garden is often represented as the abode of the deity, or at least the place frequented by the deity. Depending on the date one assigns to it,4 the paradigmatic garden of Eden myth in Genesis 2-3 may be read as taking over and developing in imaginative narrative form the topos of 'the garden of YHWH/Elohim', an expression which begins to appear with some frequency only in the Neo-Babylonian period (Isa. 51.3; Ezek. 28.13; 31.8-9; 36.35; Joel 2.3). In Genesis 2-3 the garden is called 'eden (as in Isa. 51.3; Ezek. 28.13; 31.9), organ 'eden, organ be'eden. 'Eden' is no less a symbolic place name than 'the land of Nod' ('eres nod) to which Cain was banished (Gen. 4.16; cf. Cain as the na' wanad, the wanderer, in 4.14). In Northwest Semitic, including Ugaritic (Millard 1984; Fensham 1989: 8790), the stem 'dn denotes pleasure, luxury, abundance. It also denotes sexual pleasure, a point worth making in view of the erotic aspects of garden cults referred to above. On being promised a child in old age, Sarah muses whether sexual pleasure ('ednd) can still be in her future (Gen. 18.12), and an erotic connotation is also probably intended in the allusion to the Woman Babylon as aserd was associated with sacrifice (Deut. 16.21; Jer. 17.2; 2 Chron. 34.4, 7), incense altars (hammanim, Isa. 17.8; 27.9; 2 Chron. 34.4), chthonic cults (2 Kgs 16.4 = 2 Chron. 28.4), and cults of an erotic nature (1 Kgs 14.23; Jer. 2.20; 3.6, 13). The >aserd also occupied a prominent position in or on the 'high places'. The stock phrase 'under every tree in leaf (tahat kol- 'es ra >anari) occurs fairly often to designate a place where the great goddess was worshipped (Deut. 12.2; 1 Kgs 14.23; 2 Kgs 17.10; Jer. 17.2), and in this connection there are also allusions to secret ceremonies (2 Kgs 17.10; cf. Ezek. 8.12). For the increasing number of commentators who assign a late date to the so-called Yahwist writer, the question will sooner or later arise whether Genesis 2-3 can be construed, at some stage of its literary history, as directed against Judaean garden cults in honour of the high goddess, cults of the kind referred to obliquely in Isa. 66.17. The question calls for a more thorough discussion than is possible here, but some lines of enquiry may be briefly mentioned. We could think of Eden as a garden shrine10 and 'the tree of life in the middle of the garden' ('es hahayyim betok haggan, Gen. 2.9) as the iconic replica of Asherah who, according to the author, holds out the promise of life but delivers death.1' The woman Hawa, mother of all the living (3.20) as the Canaanite-Hebrew Asherah was mother of all the gods, would be the human counterpart of the goddess, her hierophant and cultic intermediary. In view of the sacramental meal in the garden shrine, her leading the initiates to the goddess would be appropriately symbolized in the act of eating. There is therefore a kind of symbolic superimposition of goddess, tree and hierophant. The sexual constituent of the garden cults is also clearly represented, and the snake would embody the chthonic aspect of these cults vividly in evidence in Isa. 57.3-13.12 The 10. Several scholars have worked this angle on the garden of Eden narrative, including Andrae 1952: 485-94; Hvidberg 1960: 285-94; Wyatt 1981: 11-21. 11. Speculations about the Eden story in relation to late Judaean cultic practice are documented in Stordalen 2000: 310-12. Wyatt 1981:10-21 and Wallace 1985:101-72 are especially relevant to the point under discussion. 12. In assigning a role to the Snake (nahas), the author no doubt has in mind the homophonous verbal stem nhs, practise divination, often linked with necromancy and the Asherah cult (Lev. 19.26-28; Deut. 18.10-11; 2 Kgs 17.16-17; 21.6-7). Cf. the 'onend (sorceress) and her children in Isa. 57.3-13.


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Eden narrative would then join those other texts, Deuteronomistic and prophetic, which fought against, and eventually silenced, the religious practice into which Isa. 66.17 provides an obscure but intriguing glimpse. Bibliography Ackerman, Susan 1992 Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah (HSM, 146; Atlanta: Scholars Press). Andrae, W. 1952 'Der kultische Garten', WO 1: 485-94. Barrick, W. Boyd 1996 'On the Meaning of mcn/TITTD and monrnm and the Composition of the Kings History', JBL 115: 621-42. Barthelemy, D. 1986 Critique textuelle de I'ancien testament. II. Isai'e, Jeremie, Lamentations (OBO, 50/2; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Blenkinsopp, J. 1992 The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible (New York: Doubleday). 'P and J in Genesis 1:1-11:26: An Alternative Hypothesis', in A.B. Beck et 1995 al. (eds.), Fortunate the Eyes that See: Essays in Honour of David Noel Freedman (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans): 1-15. 2000 Isaiah 1—39: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 19; New York: Doubleday). Burkert, Walter 1977 Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer). 1987 Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Cheyne, Thomas Kelly 1882 The Prophecies of Isaiah, II (London: Kegan Paul, Trench). Clinton, Kevin 1974 The Sacred Officials of the Eleusinian Mysteries', Transactions of the American Philosophical Society NS 64: 3-143. Delcor, M. 1978 'Le probleme des jardins d'Adonis dans Isa'i'e 17,9-11 a la lumiere de la civilisation Siro-phenicienne', Syria 55: 371-94. Dillmann, August 1890 Der Prophet Jesaia (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 5th edn). Duhm, Bernhard 1922 Das Buck Jesaja ubersetzt und erkldrt (HAT, III/1; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 4th edn [1892]). Eichrodt, Walther 1970 Ezekiel: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press). Emerton, J.A. 1980 'Notes on Two Verses in Isaiah (26:16 and 66:17)', in J.A. Emerton (ed.),

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Reading from Right to Left Prophecy: Essays Presented to Georg Fohrer on his Sixty-fifth (BZAW, 150; Berlin: W. de Gruyter): 21-25.

Fensham, F.C. 1989

Birthday

'The Term 'dn in Keret 14.32-34 (KTU 1.14.11.32-34) and a Few Other Occurrences in Ugaritic Reconsidered', JNSL 15: 87-90.

Gleis, Mathias 1997 Die Bamah (BZAW, 251; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Hvidberg, F. 1960 'The Canaanite Background of Gen i-iii', VT10: 285-94. Irwin, W.H. 1967 ' "The Smooth Stones of the Wadi"? Isaiah 56,7', CBQ 29: 31-40. Lewis, T.J. 1989 Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit (HSM, 39; Atlanta: Scholars Press). Lipinski, E. 1973 'Garden of Abundance, Image of Lebanon', ZAW85: 358-59. Lowth, Robert 1833 Isaiah: A New Translation with a Preliminary Dissertation and Notes (London: T.T. & J. Tegg). Marti, Karl 1900 Das Buch Jesaja erkldrt (KHAT, 10; Tubingen: Mohr). Millard, A.R. 1984 'The Etymology of Eden', VT34: 103-106. Nissinen, M. 1998 'Love Lyrics of Nabu and Tasmetu: An Assyrian Song of Songs?', in M. Dietrich and I. Kottsieper (eds.), 'Und Mose schrieb dieses Lied auf: Studien zum Alten Testament undzum Alien Orient. Festschrift fur Oswald Loretz zur Vollendung seines 70. Lebensjahres (Minister: Ugarit-Verlag): 585-634. 2001 'Akkadian Rituals and Poetry of Divine Love', in R.M. Whiting (ed.), Mythology and Mythologies (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project): 93-135. Robertson Smith, William 1972 The Religion of the Semites: The Fundamental Institutions (New York: Schocken Books [1889]). Schmidt, B.B. 1994 Israel's Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cults and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Traditions (FAT, 11; Tubingen: Mohr). Seeligmann, I.L. 1948 The Septuagint Version of Isaiah: A Discussion of its Problems (Leiden: E. J. Brill). Stager, L.E. 2000 'Jerusalem as Eden', BARev 26.3: 36-47, 66. Steck, Odil Hannes 199 Studien zu Tritojesaja (BZAW, 203; Berlin: W. de Gruyter).en zu Tritojesaja (BZAW, 203; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Stendebach, F.J. 1974 'Das Schweineopfer im Alten Orient', BZ 18: 263-71.

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Echoes of Eden: Genesis 2-3 and Symbolism of the Eden Garden in Biblical Hebrew Literature (Leuven: Peeters). Torrey, Charles Cutler 1928 The Second Isaiah: A New Interpretation (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). Vaux, Roland de 1933 ' Sur quelques rapports entre Adonis et Osiris', RB 42: 31 -56 [= The Bible and the Ancient Near East (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970): 210-37]. 1958 'Les sacrifices des pores en Palestine et dans 1'ancien orient', in J. Hempel and L. Rost (eds.), Von Ugarit nach Qttmrdn: Beitrdge zur alttestamentlichen undaltorientalischen Forschung, Otto Eissfeldtzum 1. September 1957 dargebracht von Freunden undSchttlern (BZAW, 77; Berlin: Topelmann): 25065 [= The Bible and the Ancient Near East (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1971): 252-69]. Vermeylen, Jacques 197 u propheteIsaieal'apocalyptique: Isa'ie, I-XXXV, miroir d'un demi-millenaire d'experience religieuse en Israel, II (Etudes Bibliques; 2 vols.; Paris: Gabalda). Volz, Paul 1932 Jesaia, II (KAT, 9; Leipzig: Deichert). Wallace, H.N. 1985 The Eden Narrative (HSM, 32; Atlanta: Scholars Press). Wiseman, Donald J. 1983 'Mesopotamian Gardens', Anatolian Studies 33: 137-44. 1984 'Palace and Temple Gardens in the Ancient Near East', Bulletin of the Middle East Centre in Japan: 37-43. Wyatt, Nicholas 198 'Interpreting the Creation and Fall Story in Genesis 2-3', ZAW93: 10-21. Zimmerli, Walther 1979 Ezekiel I: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel Chapters 1-24 (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press).

THEME REVISITED: BREAD AGAIN! Walter Brueggemann

This paper returns to one of David Clines's early but still illuminating publications, The Theme of the Pentateuch (1978). It seeks to make a modest suggestion on a particular textual interface, and then to ponder the ways in which consensus horizons and categories (paradigms) govern our research. It is a delight to offer the paper in thanks and appreciation to Professor Clines, who is a primal force in the dramatic change of horizons in our generation of scholarship.

I The course of critical study of the Pentateuch has of course developed in the twentieth century in ways that could not have been anticipated at the beginning of the century. In order to situate Clines's contribution we may identify four aspects of the course of that critical study. 1. It is commonplace to observe that the Documentary Hypothesis commanded the field well into the century, a hypothesis that pertains, in its full statement, both to the literary formation of the text and to the course of the religious history of Israel that is reflected in the several literary sources. It appears that at the end of the century one may safely say three things about the hypothesis. First, it is clear at best that the hypothesis concerns only literary development and is no reliable guide to religious history, for the notion of such evolutionary development in linear fashion is seen to be unconvincing. Second it is clear, in more recent work clustered around Rolf Rendtorff(1990)andJohnVanSeters(1975,1992,1994), that the hypothesis no longer claims the field and is likely to be abandoned. But third, given that emergent opinion in the last two decades, it seems evident as well that the power of the hypothesis persists, so that, except for a rare scholar, the hypothesis still largely sets the shape and limits of critical conversation. It is an attestation to the force of the hypothesis (not unlike that of Sigmund

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Mowinckel on the hypothesis of a 'New Year's Festival') that in its rejection it continues to be influential. It is important to notice that in his Theme Clines had already moved well beyond the notion of sources. 2. The major break in the source theory was accomplished by Gerhard von Rad in his durable essay, in 1938, 'The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch' (1966a), though it was only in retrospect that the major break would be seen. In his analysis of themes recurring in different 'credo' recitals, von Rad decisively shifted attention away from sources, for it could be seen that the several themes recurred across every source analysis. Von Rad's proposals came to be termed 'tradition history', which, in fact, was no longer interested in sources (Knight 1975). That accent was programmatically reenforced by Martin Noth's attention to 'themes', even though Noth (1972) continued to treat the themes with reference to their place in the sources. 3. It was not recognized by von Rad or Noth—or by others generally— that the newly articulated approach of'history of tradition' was in deep tension with the older source analysis. It remained for a later generation of scholars, especially Rolf Rendtorff (1990) and H.H. Schmid (1976), to signal the ambiguity of von Rad's so-called 'Yahwist', and to take the daring step away from sources. The positive proposal of Rendtorff—re-enforced by Erhard Blum and now thoroughly reviewed by Norman Whybray (1987), Damian Wynn-Williams (1997) and Ernest Nicholson (1998)—has focused on textual clusters, 'large units', with a disregard for sources. It is to be noticed that while Rendtorff intends to be doing something very different from von Rad in his interest in tracing the formation of a 'larger unit' from its smallest elements, that 'larger unit' in the end is not unlike the 'themes' of von Rad and Noth. And of course it is obvious in the debate about the Priestly material that these newer approaches cannot have done without source analysis, even if they intend something else. 4. It strikes me as highly ironic that Norman Whybray (1987), in his characteristically meticulous study, has come something of full circle to propose, in the conclusion of his book of 1987, that the Pentateuch has a single author (Whybray 1987: 222), and that 'the first edition may be the final edition' (Whybray 1987: 232-33). Whybray of course is in no way naive about the formation of the text and intends to be making only a historicalcritical judgment that the Pentateuch is created as a programmatic foundation for emerging Judaism in the Persian period after the deportation. As a foundational document, it no doubt derives from and serves the narrow ideological interests of a particular segment of the Jewish community.

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Given the critical awareness that Whybray had fully mastered, I find irony in the thought that 'single authorship' sounds strangely, mutatis mutandis, like old-fashioned 'Mosaic authorship', against which critical scholarship has always set itself. Of course the mutatis mutandis is so huge that Whybray would not have feared any suggested parallel between the two notions.

II It is in the ferment of the questioning of the regnant hypothesis that Clines's little book is to be understood (Clines 1978). In it, Clines boldly refused questions of sources. He deliberately set himself against the 'atomism' and 'geneticism' that dominated the field, to treat 'the Pentateuch as a single literary work' (Clines 1978: 11). Beyond that he took care to make clear that his use of'theme' as a 'dominant idea' of the whole is not the same as the use of the term 'theme' by Noth, for Noth allows for a series of'themes' and does not reflect upon their coherence into a single dominant idea (Clines 1978: 17-21). Clines, of course, proposed that the 'dominant idea' of the Pentateuch is the 'promise to the patriarchs' which works itself throughout the material of the Pentateuch, characteristically around a tension between the force and substance of the promise and the frequent questioning about the efficaciousness and reliability of the promise (Clines 1978: 48-49). The importance and daring of Clines's proposal at the time can hardly be overstated, for while there was among scholars (a) a movement away from sources, (b) a recognition of several themes identified by von Rad and explicated by Noth, and (c) a suggestion of independent 'larger units', the notion of continuity with one dominant idea was not on the horizon of critical study. Clines's proposal, moreover, might easily have been taken at the time as a departure from critical procedures. In this quick reread of Clines's work, I want to notice three other matters. First, it is important to recognize that Clines, as always, was primarily concerned for methodological issues that I suspect interested him more than the substantive unity of the Pentateuch. The methodological issue he faced concerning atomism and geneticism now seems far away indeed. But it is now far away precisely because of work like that of Clines and others who followed him. Second, his phrasing of the 'final form' of the text is a phrase that has become a mantra in the important work of Brevard Childs, so that it is fair to consider Clines's proposal in relation to what has become Childs's


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'canon criticism' (Clines 1978: 10). It is important, moreover, that in the preface to his book Clines cites Childs as a reader of the manuscript to whom he is indebted. There is no doubt that in the 1970s and in the general 'recovery' from critical fragmentation, attention to literary coherence of 'final form' and theological attention to canon were twinned, as John Barton (1996) has nicely noticed. And indeed, Clines's theme of promise is one rich with theological freight, as he notices in his generous citation of Jiirgen Moltmann: A few pages of Jiirgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope.. .say almost all that needs to be said by way of analysis of the concept of promise. I propose to do little more than take up some of his points and apply them to the Pentateuchal theme (Clines 1978: 111).

I suspect that two things are true of the 'final form' approach of Clines. On the one hand, he would not at all want to be connected to Childs's ongoing development of 'canonical perspectives' that has come to mean reading according to the church's 'Rule of Faith'. But at the same time, on the other hand, it seems likely that focus on a larger theme commits interpretation to some theological accent, even if Clines would not want to invest such theological accent with the force of ecclesial authority that is important to Childs. In any case, Clines's resistance to atomism and geneticism is a concern shared by Childs in his initial movement toward 'canon'. Third, for his daring proposal of unity, it is clear nonetheless that Clines worked, as he inescapably would, well within the confines of the scholarship of that day. Specifically he recognizes that to locate the 'theme' in the patriarchs and particularly in Gen. 12.1-3 poses problems for handling Genesis 1-11, material that he takes as a 'prefatory' theme (Clines 1978: 61). Indeed he acknowledges: The theme of the Pentateuch from Genesis 12 onwards is made quite explicit, though to discern the overall theme of the Pentateuch requires a little subtlety (Clines 1978: 20).

And nowhere is subtlety more required than in the treatment of Genesis 1-11. In fact, Clines follows closely the resolution of von Rad (1966b) and Hans Walter Wolff (1966), who, like Clines and before him, had relegated the materials of Genesis 1-11 to a marginal place in the unity of the text. Those materials 'derive from a totally different sphere of culture and religion' (von Rad 1966a: 64). Given that judgment, the relationship of Genesis 1-11 to the ancestral narrative poses a problem that von Rad

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resolved with a clue from Karl Budde. Von Rad proposed that Gen. 12.13, which sets the patriarchal promises in motion, is devised as the key to Genesis 1-11 (von Rad 1966b: 65-68), so that Abraham and his family become a source of blessing to the nations heretofore under curse: In this melding together the early history of the world and the history of redemption, the J writer submits his account of the memory and purpose of the redemptive relationship which Yahweh had vouchsafed to Israel. He provided the aitiology of all Israelite aitiology (von Rad 1966b: 65-66).

It is this insight of von Rad that became the clue to the important article of Wolff in 1966. Wolff subjects Gen. 12.1-3 to a careful and detailed analysis and then concludes that the blessing of Abraham is the antidote to the history of curse in Genesis 1-11: Our text is the key word on the transition from the history of humanity to the history of Israel... The so-called primal history explains in advance why all the families of the earth need the blessing (Wolff 1966: 145).

Wolff's analysis advances the clue of von Rad by carrying through a survey of 'blessing texts' and by suggesting a tenth-century monarchical context for J's work. But the key point is the same. In his attempt to relate Genesis 1-11 to the 'theme', Clines's work is informed exactly by this perspective. I wish to identify in Clines's treatment five phrases that are important to my following comments: (1) following von Rad, Clines found in Genesis 1-11. a characteristic and recurring sequence of 'Sin-Speech-Mitigation-Punishment' (Clines 1978:61); (2) following von Rad, Clines observes the tension in 'the spread of sin, spread of grace' (Clines 1978: 64); (3) following von Rad, Clines identifies the patriarchs as a 'mitigation' that seeks to counteract the sorry story of creation and curse (Clines 1978: 78-79); (4) Clines observes that the 'generations' of long life are an announcement that 'grace much more abounds' (Clines 1978: 68); (5) Clines allows that the over-arching pattern of these chapters is 'creation-uncreation-recreation' (Clines 1978: 73). For what follows I want to observe that in the exposition of this unit of text, Clines is largely informed and limited by the horizon of von Rad and Wolff, which in itself was enormously imaginative. But it is correct to observe that all of the interpretive energy that pivoted on Gen. 12.1-3 was derived from and congruent with the judgment von Rad (1966) had already made in 1936 that creation was a marginal theme in the Old Testament that is completely subordinated to 'historical themes' that cluster around Moses. (I have suggested [Brueggemann 1996] that in addition to a mes-


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merization with 'history', the particular reason for von Rad's enormously influential judgment was the German Church Struggle in the 1930s with the inchoate 'fertility religion' of National Socialism.) The complete focus upon 'historical-redemption' traditions dominated the field. In his Theme, Clines accepted the scholarly interpretive playing field as he found it. That is, he used the going grid of texts in order to advance his methodological interest which has since that time largely prevailed. But I also notice that in characterizing this material, Clines formulated a theme, albeit 'prefatory', for Genesis 1-11: creation-uncreation-recreation. In fact, he did almost nothing with his own rich suggestion. It is promptly dropped in his discussion as he moves on to his main point. From this I draw two observations. First, that while Clines operated with the given assumptions of the day, he was at the same time, characteristically, pushing beyond them to another horizon. Second, by settling for a pattern that von Rad had laid out, he did not in fact deal with 'the final form of the text' which is decisively framed by creation texts. Rather he settled for a critical judgment that is not able, given the patterns formulated in the German Church Struggle, to escape those accents for the sake of the 'final forms'. I do not at all fault Clines on this count, but simply take the opportunity to observe how our best interpretive efforts—then, now and always— are highly contextual. Ill

The major shift in theological study of the Pentateuch—which when done responsibly is never distant from historical-critical developments—is the recovery of the motif of creation as a major impetus for the shaping of the text. That is, 'the final form of the text', as Clines phrases it and as Childs takes it canonically, is not remote from Whybray's judgment that 'the first edition may be the final edition' (Whybray 1987:232-33). Taken either as canonical 'final form' or as historical-critical 'final edition', the opening affirmations of Genesis 1 concerning creation cannot be ignored in an attempt to see the text whole. The reason for von Rad's decisive subordination of creation in his articles of 1936 and 1938 is clear and indisputable and led Clines, among others, to treat Genesis 1-11 as a 'prefatory theme'. Scholarship, however, has shifted decisively. In addition to my own survey of that shift, attention should be paid to the theological reflection of Patrick D. Miller (1995). Miller's interest in this essay is theological and not critical; he insists that

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creation and covenant are themes that are dialectically related to each other. For that reason one cannot, as von Rad held, either subordinate creation or make it a prefatory concern. Miller observes the ways in which covenant has one-sidedly dominated scholarship through the twentieth century. He then reports on the recovery of creation in recent scholarship with particular reference to H.H. Schmid (1984), Rolf Rendtorff (1990), Jon Levenson (1988) and Terence Fretheim (1991 a and b). While he does not go as far as Schmid (1984) in making creation the 'broad horizon' of biblical theology, Rendtorff is of interest because he self-consciously takes a canonical approach with reference to the 'final form'. Specifically, Rendtorff—and Miller after him—accent the Noachic covenant as the pivot point of theological reference: The Noachic covenant legitimates God's structures of creation for humankind, precisely those that belong to the natural world's capacity to sustain the matrix of history. The covenantal benefit, however, includes nature itself and not just humankind ['all flesh'].. .the natural environment is secured in covenant with human and natural creation. The covenant with Noah restores and secures the creation for the benefit of the creatures, animal and human. Human treatment of the natural world, therefore, is a matter not only of the attitude toward the creation, but also how humankind receives the promise, which it shares with the animal world (Miller 1995: 165).

By suggesting that the Noachic covenant may be the defining text for the 'securing and restoration' of creation, the role of Israel is more fully subordinated to the agenda of world restoration. While the older model of von Rad and Wolff (followed by Clines) saw Israel as a blessing and an antidote to the curse of the world, in this reading the juxtaposition of world/ Israel or nations/Israel is given a very different nuance, suggesting that the 'theme' of the Pentateuch is primarily creation-uncreation-recreation, as Clines suggested but then disregarded in his accent on the ancestral promise. Thus it is important to revisit Theme because the accent on creation is a way of organizing and reading that matches the contemporary interpretive context at the turn of the century, even as the 'curse/blessing' motif served an earlier context. I need not say that this interpretive model of creationuncreation-recreation is 'better' than 'curse/blessing', but only that it is different and invites a very different sense of the whole of the text. As we draw—finally—nearer to the text, the work of Terence Fretheim merits special attention. His remarkable work on the Exodus tradition led him to this conclusion:


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God's work in creation pro vides the basic categories and interpretive clues for what happens in redemption and related divine activity. It is the creator God who redeems Israel from Egypt.. .what God does in redemption is in the service of these endangered divine goals in and for creation (Fretheim 1991a: 13).

Fretheim's closer work that leads to the conclusion that the Exodus tradition voices creation theology is a study of the plague narrative of Exodus 7-11 (Fretheim 1991b). Fretheim (1991b: 385) notices the rhetoric of creation's fruitfiilness in the narrative and judges that Pharaoh is presented as 'an embodiment of the forces of chaos, threatening a turn of the entire cosmos to its precreation state'. The disruptive, deathly power of Pharaoh disturbs God's intention for creation, and turns creation into a dysfunctional, anti-life imperial system. YHWH'S 'recreational activity' (Fretheim 1991b: 395) defeats the power of chaos and permits creation to resume is course of abundance. Thus Fretheim opens the way to explicate Clines's alternative or 'prefatory' theme of creation-uncreation-recreation. IV

My modest suggestion to support such a changed notion of 'theme' is to reflect on the seam between the 'larger unit' of the Exodus tradition (Exod. 1-15) and the 'larger unit' of the wilderness tradition (Exod. 16-18), or, more specifically, the interface of Exod. 15.1-21 and Exod. 16.1-36. (My point includes 15.22-27 and 17.1-7, but for purposes of clarity I will not dwell on these texts.) The importance of this seam has been hinted at by Fretheim, but not explicated in detail. In the critical work on the Pentateuch of the last several generations, very little attention has been given to the sojourn tradition (Coats 1968; Burden 1994). Von Rad (1962: 280-89) treats the sojourn tradition as a collection of local traditions and notices (a) that it is an old element in the recital of faith, (b) can be celebrative of a positive relation of God and Israel (as in Jer. 2.2-3) or (c) a quite negative one (as in Ezek. 20; Ps. 106). Von Rad does not, however, relate the tradition to larger theological issues. Noth concludes that 'it is also obvious that this is not a very important or really independent theme' (1972: 58-59, 115), but serves to bridge the geographical gap (1972: 206). Clines follows by judging it to be 'transitional material' that sustains the tension of the promise and questions about the promise (1978: 48-49). The shift in scholarly emphasis now permits us to suggest that the Song of Miriam (Exod. 15.21) and the Song of Moses (15.1-18), culminating in

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the doxological celebration of YHWH'S kingship (15.18), constitute a glad acknowledgment that the forces of chaos have been defeated, the disruption of creation is voided, and YHWH as the creator-king is again fully in charge, ready and able to enact again the well-being and abundance of YHWH'S created order. It follows, then, that the gift of water (15.22-25; 17.1-7) and bread and meat (16.1-19) are the full gifts of creation again possible, available, and visible. (It is to be noticed that nothing here alludes to the ancestral promises.) The doxological claim, filled out by narrative detail, is fully congruent with Israel's hymnic celebration of creation: These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things (Ps. 104.27-28). The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing (Ps. 145.15-16).

The accent on 'all', the full comprehensiveness of all creation and all creatures, in these exclamations is congruent with the terminology of'all flesh' noticed by Miller in the flood story (1995: 48) and the 'all' of the Exodus narrative—noted by Fretheim as 'over fifty times' (Fretheim 1991b: 386). The 'all' of nourishment, food and sustenance by the creator God is celebrated doxologically and narrated with specificity in Israel. We may notice six particular items in the sojourn narrative that contrast the liveliness of the wilderness with the deathliness of Egypt and attest that wilderness is a place of life because it is governed by the creator God who had defeated the powers of death: 1. The giving of water (15.22-27; 17.1-7) counters the polluted water of the Nile (7.20-25) and perhaps alludes to the rivers of Gen. 2.10-14 (on which see also Ezek. 47.1-12). 2. The protection of obedient Israel from the 'diseases of Egypt' (Exod. 15.26; see Deut. 7.15; 28.60) means that the 'healer' brings the venue of Israel (the wilderness) back to its proper state of well-being after the distortions wrought by Pharaoh. (Notice the 'healing' of water in 2 Kgs 2.1922 for a parallel act.) While scholars have used immense energy seeking to give a medical identity to the 'diseases', in context it is enough to see that


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they pertain to the deathly power of chaos that distorts and immobilizes the full functioning of creation. 3. The gift of bread is indeed the gesture of the one who 'gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater' (Isa. 55.10). The free, wondrous inexplicable bread that cannot be stored or hoarded (and need not be because the creator is endlessly abundant) is in contrast to the bread of Egypt (bread of affliction) that is always hoarded, limited and costly. Already in Gen. 47.15,17,19, we observe the bargaining for bread and hear the vulnerable complaint of the needy in the face of the imperial bread monopoly, yet another text dominated by 'all' (see vv. 14,15,17,18,20). The bread that dazzles Israel in the wilderness is quite in contrast to Pharaoh's power that used bread as a weapon and that refused to sustain, because chaos can never give life. 4. Three times the manna narrative uses the word pair 'eat, fill' in order to characterize deep satiation. The first use in v. 3 is ironic, for it alludes to Egypt. The latter two uses (vv. 8,12) are an enactment of abundance that is in deep contrast to the memory and reality of Egypt. The word pair, moreover, is used in Deut. 6.11 and 8.10,12 to characterize the good and generous land finally under YHWH'S governance, the land that concretely embodies and enacts the will of the creator for a life of well-being. The claim is that wilderness becomes fully fruitful creation because the lord of all presides over it. 5. The phrase 'You shall know I am YHWH' permeates the Exodus narrative, as Walther Zimmerli (1982: 42) has seen. The phrase recurs in 16.6,12 (see Deut. 4.32; 7.6, 8,9; 29.4) (Zimmerli 1982: 43-44), indicating that the enactment of creative power in the wilderness is a mighty exercise of sovereignty that is commensurate with the mighty act of Exodus, the one to defeat chaos and its resistance to the rule of YHWH, the other to enact concretely the rule of creation's abundance. 6. The culmination of the bread narrative in sabbath (16.22-34) of course makes more sense if it is seen as a counterpoint to Gen. 2.2-3. The creator is 'finished' when the power of chaos (see 1.2) is defeated and abundance becomes the normal order of the day. In Exodus 16, sabbath becomes the appropriate act because in Exodus 1-15 the powers of death had reasserted a claim, a claim once again completely defeated. In the sabbath celebration of Exod. 16.22-34, creation is yet again peaceably at rest, brimming with abundance yet again. Thus the narrative of Exodus 115 is in fact bracketed so that the sequence of creation-uncreation-recreation is given us as Genesis 1-2—Exod. 1.1-15.21—Exod. 15.22-16.36.

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Given our earlier reference to Genesis 47, it may be possible to suggest that the middle term of dysfunction ('uncreation') is not limited to Pharaoh's appearance in Exodus 1-15 but already operates in Genesis 47. If that is a possible reading, then we may see that a reading of the 'final form' cannot be contained by reading one of the 'themes' of von Rad and Noth at a time, for the theological accents of the single theme of the Pentateuch move across the 'large units' of the tradition. Specifically our analysis suggests that the point of the sequence will be missed if Noth's triad of guidance out of Egypt, guidance into the arable land, and guidance in the wilderness are kept discrete and distinct (Noth 1972:47-59). Clines's instinct about a single theme is surely correct. It may be possible, however, to work primarily with his suggestion of creation-uncreation-recreation that already anticipated moving beyond the 'history' besotted accents of mid-century interpretation. V

I take the liberty of adding a comment on the curious placement of Mk 6.52 in the Gospel narrative, a comment suggested to me by the foregoing analysis (see Quesnell 1969; Young 1999: 146-50). The narrative of Mk 6.30-51 consists in two distinct narrative episodes, the feeding of the five thousand (vv. 30-44) and the stilling of the storm (vv. 47-51 introduced by vv. 45-46). Verse 52 is placed as an addendum to the second narrative. Because it concerns 'the loaves', it appears to be connected to the first narrative of w. 30-44 and not to the second with which it is placed. My consideration of the juxtaposition of Exodus 15 (with the victory of YHWH at the sea) and Exodus 16 (on the bread) suggests an explanation of the placement of v. 52. The narrative on the stilling of the storm concerns Jesus' defeat of the sea and the stilling of the powers of chaos, an act that replicates the defeat of chaos in Exodus 14-15 that leads to the reenthronement of YHWH in 15.18. The feeding of the five thousand is not only a narrative report on a 'wonder' enacted by Jesus, but, like Exodus 16, the narrative asserts that the abundance and generosity of creation in the production of food are again operative. Thus the exhibit of creation's bounty and the defeat of chaos are placed back to back in Mark 6, as in Exodus 116, only with the order reversed. It is the defeat of chaos that permits creation to function fully and freely again and thus produce ample bread. Mk 6.52, in such a sequence, expected the disciples as witnesses to 'understand' that chaos has been defeated (w. 47-51) and therefore 'loaves


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abound' (vv. 30-44). The disciples, however, characteristically missed the point and did not understand about the restoration of creation. The reason that they were unable to understand is particularly telling: 'their hearts were hardened'. While the theme of hard hearts recurs in the Gospels (see 3.5; 8.17, and with sklerokardia in 10.5; 16.14), the phrasing is surely calculated to allude to the old memory of the denning power of Pharaoh, the embodiment of chaos. The disciples are inured in a chaotic world where nothing is possible or available but the 'bread of affliction'. So powerful is the force of Pharaoh's defining power that it is impossible for them to notice the renovation of creation, impossible to 'understand' bread that is given outside the sphere of Pharaoh's parsimonious governance. The response of the disciples, in their failure to appreciate the narrative offer of a restored, generous creation, is not unlike Israel in the wilderness where the reestablished power of the creator is not yet appreciated: The Israelites said to them, 'If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger' (Exod. 16.3).

A shift of interpretive images, in Mark as in the Moses narrative, suggests and permits a different sense of the text, a different problematic, and a different sort of resolution. In the shifted pattern of interpretation, the dominant theme of creation subsumes the so-called 'historical traditions'. Bibliography Barton, J. 1996 Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study (London: Darton, Longman & Todd). Blum, E. 1984 Die Komposition der Vatergeschichte (WMANT, 57; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag). 1990 Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuchs (BZAW, 189; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Brueggemann, W. 1996 'The Loss and Recovery of Creation in Old Testament Theology', Theology Today 53: 177-90. Burden, T.L. 1994 The Kerygma of the Wilderness Tradition in the Hebrew Bible (New York: Peter Lang). Clines, D.J.A. 1978 The Theme of the Pentateuch (JSOTSup, 10; Sheffield: JSOT Press).


88 Coats, G.W. 1968 Fretheim, T.E. 199la 1991b Knight, D.A. 1975

Levenson, J.D. 1988 Miller, P.D. 1995

Nicholson, E. 1998 Noth, M. 1972 Quesnell, Q. 1969

Rad, G. von 1962 1966a 1966b

Rendtorff, R. 1990 Schmid, H.H. 1976 1984

Van Seters, J. 1975 1992 1994

Rebellion in the Wilderness: The Murmuring Motif in the Wilderness Traditions of the Old Testament (Nashville: Abingdon Press). Exodus (Interpretation; Louisville: John Knox Press). 'The Plagues as Ecological Signs of Historical Disaster', JBL 110: 385-96. Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel: The Development of the TraditioHistorical Research of the Old Testament, with Special Consideration of Scandinavian Contributions (SBLDS, 9; Missoula: Scholars Press). Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Doctrine of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row). 'Creation and Covenant', in S.J. Kraftchick, C.D. Myers, Jr and B.C. Ollenburger (eds.), Biblical Theology: Problems and Perspectives in Honor ofJ. Christiaan Beker (Nashville: Abingdon Press): 155-68. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (Oxford: Oxford University Press). A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall). The Mind of Mark: Interpretation and Method through the Exegesis of Mark 6.52 (AnBib, 38; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute). Old Testament Theology, I (2 vols.; San Francisco: Harper & Brothers). 'The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch', in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (New York: McGraw-Hill [1938]): 1-78. 'The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation', in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (New York: McGraw-Hill [1938]): 131-43. The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch (JSOTSup, 89; Sheffield: JSOT Press). Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag). 'Creation, Righteousness, and Salvation: Creation Theology as the Broad Horizon of Biblical Theology', in B.W. Anderson (ed.), Creation in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press): 102-17. Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press). Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press). The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus-Numbers (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press).

BRUEGGEMANN Theme Revisited Whybray, N. 1987

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The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study (JSOTSup, 53; Sheffield: JSOT Press).

Wolff, H.W. 1966 'The Kerygma of the Yahwist', Interpretation 20: 131-58. Wynn-Williams, D.J. 1997 The State of the Pentateuch: A Comparison of the Approaches ofM. Noth andE. Blum (BZAW, 249; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Young, G.W. 1999 Subversive Symmetry: Exploring the Fantastic in Mark 6.45-56 (Biblical Interpretation Series, 41; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Zimmerli, W. 1982 / Am Yahweh (Atlanta: John Knox Press).

A TRIBUTE TO THE BOOK LISTOF SOTS Brevard S. Childs The important role that the Booklists (BL) of the Society for Old Testament Study have played for biblical scholarship within the English-speaking world for over five decades is widely recognized. Not only have they registered the development of the discipline from the early 1940s, but they have also continually shaped it through critical assessments of each year's publications. The recent decision to ensure the future of the BL by merging with theJSOTas a fifth issue owes much to the foresight of D.J.A. Clines. It seems, therefore, appropriate to offer an essay reflecting on the BL in a Festschrift celebrating his many achievements within the field. Initial credit for offering a vision and establishing an agenda for the BL obviously redounds to H.H. Rowley. At the outset, he provided the categories for organizing the material that have largely remained constant: General, Educational, Archaeology, History, Text and Versions, Literary Criticism, Exegesis, Religion and Theology, Post-Biblical Judaism, and Philology. Nevertheless, there have been some significant alterations over the years that have refined and expanded the format in order more accurately to handle the diversity of the material being reviewed. Before long, the educational category was dropped and the more practically oriented volumes such as school textbooks were listed at the conclusion. Very soon, archaeology was expanded to include epigraphy, and geography was joined with history. Shortly, literary criticism was enlarged to include introduction, canon and the history of interpretation. Then, exegesis was aligned with modern translations. In 1950, religion and theology were prefaced by the addition of the term law, and the Apocrypha was included with Post-Biblical Judaism. In 1952 a new category appeared entitled 'The Life and Thought of the Neighbouring Peoples' that documented an impressive broadening of the BL's range. In 1950, the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls were included in an appendix, but by 1952 this material received a

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separate category. Later, the term Dead Sea Scrolls was replaced by Qumran Studies. Then, in 1974, the material was encompassed within the rubric Post-Biblical Studies. The number of books reviewed has steadily increased from approximately 125 in 1947, 149 in 1948, 339 in 1975, 382 in 1985, and almost 500 in 2000. During the first ten years, the number of reviewers was largely restricted to a sub-committee, but even in the early years well-known European scholars were also enlisted. In the successive years, the number of reviewers has been expanded, which was obviously required as the range of modern languages grew. Also, there was an effort made to make use of younger colleagues as well as the established veterans. By and large, Rowley's original directives have been followed in providing a short review, which both described the book's contents and assessed its quality. At first, there was a tendency to assign certain areas to a somewhat limited number of reviewers (Porteous for biblical theology, or G.R. Driver for philology). This procedure ran the risk of skewing the perspective, especially when controversial volumes were involved. Driver's review of Torczyner's Job seems rather harsh even when some censure was appropriate (BL 1946). Conversely, some evaluations appear unduly bland with a recurring conclusion: 'no one can read this book without some profit'. Conservative and fundamentalist volumes were often dismissed with a note of condescension. Still, even here the use of well-respected evangelical scholars, such as F.F. Bruce, sought to bring a note of fairness to the debate. Finally, it is fitting to recall how well Robert Carroll served the BL by interjecting a lively sense of humor in his spicy, often outrageous reviews. One can also notice the growing thoroughness in the manner by which the books were listed. In the early years, a minimum of bibliographical information was included, but before long the number of pages and the location of the publications were added. Then, in the early 1980s, the ISBN identification was listed. Most recently, the changes in the format include two new indices and the inclusion of the author's full name, when available. Thus, into the new world of 'high-tech' the BL has entered the new millennium with great competence. From the outset, it was Rowley's intent to make the BL into an international organ of research. It was simply assumed that French, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish books would be reviewed. However, it was not obvious that Scandinavian books would also be included. One is amazed to see the careful attention paid to the immediate post-World War II genera-

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tion of great Scandinavian scholars writing in their native tongue (Engnell, Lindblom, Hvidberg, Widengren). Shortly, modern Hebrew, Japanese and East European volumes received reviews. During the last several decades, the sheer volume of books published in North America has also left its mark, for better or worse. The increasing dominance of the English language has meant that the number of translations into English listed in the BL has dramatically increased. One can only wonder to what extent marketing techniques have begun to exert an influence on the shape of academic publications. There are certain features of the BL that call for special praise in providing very helpful information. The BL carefully documented the progress of many of the major biblical encyclopedias, dictionaries and lexicons such as the RGG\ TRE, and DBSup. The contents of annuals such as HUCA and series such as VTSup were carefully recorded and key articles highlighted. For decades, the BL has kept the scholar abreast of the publication of the Qumran texts. Of greatest help has also been the practice of covering the details contained in rare Festschrift volumes. Because of the careful listing of the articles, a scholar can often find material of interest hidden among essays lying well outside of one's own field. Equally important has been the documentation of a host of new directions emerging within the area of biblical studies. These are difficult to subsume under any one category. A quick perusal of the last twenty years shows how widespread is the interest in new literary, sociological and postmodern methodologies. By and large, the same concern for a fair and objective evaluation obtains in spite of an occasional sense of mystification reflected by some of the reviewers. Equally dramatic has been the explosion of interest in feminist and gender studies. In spite of the fact that most of the reviewers are still male, there appears to be a conscious effort to do justice to these new perspectives. Another area that has taken on renewed life within the BL has been the Apocrypha and Post-Biblical studies. The focus on Early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism and Greco-Roman Antiquities has been greatly expanded beyond the traditional boundaries of Old Testament studies. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean studies have been added to the earlier interest in rabbinical texts and form a link with the renewal of interest in the whole history of biblical interpretation. One can discern in British scholarship a certain practical, empirical orientation toward biblical studies that grows impatient with too many abstract formulations or with lengthy methodological debates matched by

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irritating jargon. Highest praise is rather evoked by careful philological and historical analyses of texts conducted in succinct, lucid English. A rare talent in reviewing is one that interjects a note of wit into an evaluation or uses irony as a subtle critique. There is another aspect to the problem of assessing the contribution of the BL that is not always easy to determine. When viewed retrospectively, how well did the reviewers' evaluations stand the test of time? What was the level of fairness to authors especially with those with whom the reviewer disagreed? Or again, were reviewers able to recognize either the demise of certain trends or the rise of genuinely fresh approaches shaping the field? I think it true to say that the majority of books that were later judged to be groundbreaking were generally recognized, at least to some extent. Rowley set a good example in his choice of books to be reviewed in 1946 when he covered the years immediately before, during, and after the end of World War II. He included the illustrious names of Lieberman, Smalley, Brooke and McLean, Noth, Pfeiffer, Albright, Eichrodt, Engnell, Pedersen and C.H. Gordon. Later, the important contributions of Alt, von Rad, Zimmerli and Mowinckel were all positively assessed. Admittedly, there was a tendency to overestimate the lasting contribution of the works of Rowley and his close colleagues. Rowley's books were universally praised, yet they seem not to have left a lasting impact. Aubrey Johnson's small monographs attracted great attention in Britain, but were greeted with less enthusiasm in Europe. H.W. Robinson's essay on 'Corporate Personality' resonated widely beyond Britain, but his monograph Revelation and Inspiration, although lauded as 'magnificent', did not create the excitement world-wide which one might have expected. The Old Testament theologies of Eichrodt and von Rad were both reviewed by N. Porteous in the BL over the period from 1948 to 1962. The choice was fully justified since no one in Britain at that time was more deeply involved with German theology. His reviews show great learning and appreciation for the work of both theologians. Each was judged to be monumental. Yet it also seems clear that Porteous understood and agreed basically with Eichrodt's position. He emphasized Eichrodt's insistence that Old Testament theology was a historical, not normative science, and that the unity of the Old Testament could be demonstrated. Above all, the activity of God in history was thought to guard against the Old Testament's becoming mythology. When Porteous turned to von Rad's work, he acknowledged its importance and its brilliance. However, he remained

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uneasy with von Rad's view ofHeilsgeschichte, which he felt was not fully rooted in empirical history. He objected to seeing a tension between the covenant tradition at Horeb and the covenant tradition with David. Finally, he agreed with Eichrodt's attack on von Rad's theology as a form of existentialism akin to Bultmann. There is no doubt that this reviewer was striving valiantly to be fair and objective in his judgment. Yet because of his own training and disposition, he felt much more at home with Eichrodt's position. As a result, even the issues that largely concerned Porteous—historicity, unity, literal sense— were those shaped by earlier debates. In retrospect, the question can be raised whether English-speaking scholars in the 1950s and 1960s fully understood the rationale undergirding von Rad's position which called forth a far more radical break with the nineteenth century, or why European scholars in the post-World War II period had largely consigned Eichrodt's Old Testament theology to the past in their preference for von Rad's. It would be folly to suggest that biblical scholars should strive to be clairvoyants of the future. Certainly, this is not our task. Yet it does seem fitting that a major vehicle for biblical research such as the BL should continue to feel the responsibility of grappling with the larger intellectual and theological issues arising from a study of the Bible both in clarifying the past and in illuminating the future.

THE PEOPLE OR THE BOOK Richard J. Coggins

I

In 1925 the British Society for Old Testament Study, then very much in its infancy (it had been founded only in 1917), was responsible for the publication of a collection of essays under the editorship of A.S. Peake which was given the title The People and the Book. Thereby was started a custom which continued for the remainder of the twentieth century, of producing a series of volumes whose primary concern was to look back at the characteristic features of scholarship in the discipline since the appearance of the previous volume. The most recent of these volumes, Text in Context, edited by A.D.H. Mayes, appeared in 2000, and is in some important ways different from its predecessors. The intention of this essay is to reflect upon at least one of those differences and its implications for a contemporary approach to the Hebrew Bible. Such a designation of the material is in itself one characteristic change now widely accepted in academic writing. It is interesting to note that the inaugural collection contained one essay by a Jewish scholar, I. Abrahams, which was entitled 'Jewish Interpretation of the Old Testament', though in his text Abrahams regularly referred to what was being interpreted as 'the Hebrew Bible'. This matter of usage is not, however, my present concern. It is the title of that collection which has provided my starting point. I have been unable to discover evidence of any particular debate which led to the volume being called The People and the Book. It appears that it was taken for granted then that the book, regularly referred to as the 'Old Testament', reflected the history of the people described in it. So, to learn more about the book would enable readers to know more about the people, and increasing knowledge of the people, particularly its history, would bring greater insight into the contents of the book, envisaged as 'word of God', since it seems that all the contributors except Dr Abrahams were Christian believers. It is interesting to note the regular and apparently unquestioned use of the singular

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'book' to describe its varied contents. This is a point to which I want to return later. Assumptions concerning the inter-relatedness of people and book had of course been playing a prominent part in study of the material long before The People and the Book was published, and have continued to do so for much of the time since 1925. Probably one of the most popular titles for books offering a general treatment of the Hebrew Bible has been 'History of Israel', with the usual minor variations. At least two underlying assumptions can be traced here. First, it has been taken for granted that the most satisfactory way into the material was an historical approach. The books from Genesis to Esther in the order found in English translations all appeared to make historical claims, and the same could be said of the great majority of the prophetic collections. Only the Psalms and wisdom literature seemed excluded from this understanding. Even in the Psalms some historical concerns could be traced, in the light of the titles given to many of them, linking them with particular episodes in the life of David. But in any case the Psalms have always enjoyed a special place in the piety of both Jews and Christians, and so they were given a distinct status. Only the books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs remained; and during much of the period under consideration these wisdom books were notoriously liable to be neglected. The second assumption was that the history contained in the biblical text really did provide a reliable account of the story of ancient Israel. Exception was usually made for Genesis 1-11, and even there speculations concerning possible historical linkages were rife; great interest was taken in, for example, possible evidence of a catastrophic flood. In any case these chapters had the whole of humanity rather than one particular people as their focus. But certainly until the 1960s it was still widely held that a plausible historical setting could be found for the stories from Genesis 12 onwards, relating to Abraham and the other ancestors, and the historicity of subsequent events was largely taken for granted. There is no need to rehearse here the increasing scepticism that has characterized the academic guild with regard to the reliability of this history. Not only has it become usual for many scholars to say that it is only with the ninth or eighth centuries BCE that Israel and Judah can be placed securely upon the historical map of the ancient Near East, but also it has seemed entirely natural for books to be published with titles such as Can a 'History of Israel'Be Written? (Grabbe 1997).

COGGINS The People or the Book

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It has also increasingly come to be recognized that in the Hebrew Bible itself the distinction between history and story is much less sharp than has often been proposed by modern scholars. Examples are not far to seek. The story told in Kings is reshaped in Chronicles in a way that has caused great problems for those wishing to maintain the reliability of the Chronicler as a historian. (I am aware that one of my fellow-contributors to this volume, Graeme Auld, takes a different view of the relation between Kings and Chronicles [Auld 1994], but the substantive point is unaffected.) More revealing, perhaps, is the way in which various of the biblical writers felt quite free to make use of the enemies of Israel as symbolic in a variety of ways of God's dealings with the people. I have already touched elsewhere on some of the developments in the understanding of Babylon (Coggins 1999); equally remarkable, because of its unexpectedness, is the treatment of Nineveh in Jonah. Other examples could readily be provided, and serve as a warning against any attempt to reach detailed knowledge of any of the peoples referred to, Israel or its enemies, from a surface reading of the text. What has been sketched so far is a well-known story. Less often explored is the question, Where do we go next? For some the pursuit of 'the people' still remains paramount. If we cannot simply take for granted the account of ancient Israel offered to us by the biblical text, then we must use whatever resources are available in order to provide a more reliable picture. Some at least of the contributors to the volume edited by Grabbe just mentioned take this approach, and the quantity of archaeological research relating to ancient Palestine points in the same direction. Here of course an additional complication arises: most current archaeological excavation in the area is being carried out by Israeli scholars and under Israeli sponsorship, and clearly important ideological concerns arise at this point. In this context, to excavate a site which may have been mentioned in the Hebrew Bible is not simply a matter of extending one's knowledge of the ancient world, it also has an important role in spelling out one's own people's past. It is of great importance to many modern Israelis (and indeed to many fundamentalist Christians) to establish that their state is indeed the successor of biblical Israel. One answer to our question then is that the people are paramount, and that we must endeavour to learn all that we can about that people. There will be others, however, for whom such a quest is at best misdirected. Their concern is primarily with the book. They may approach the book from the standpoint of religious believers, regarding it as a sacred

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text, or their interests may be more literary, regarding the Hebrew Bible, either in its original language or in translation, as one of the great literary masterpieces of our culture. And it is important to remember that, though these religious and literary concerns are sometimes presented as if they are in some way opposed to one another or even irreconcilable, it is in fact perfectly possible to combine the two: to value the 'Old Testament' as a part of Christian Scripture, to be listened to and perhaps expounded in a context of worship, and also to have the highest regard for it as part of our literary heritage. It might seem, therefore, that future study of the Hebrew Bible may be in terms not of 'The People and the Book' but of 'The People or the Book'. Are we to concentrate mainly, perhaps even exclusively, on the history of an ancient people? If the biblical record engenders more scepticism as to its historical reliability than was once customary, then it is obviously possible to supply some gaps in our knowledge by means of archaeology, in the broadest sense of that word. Alongside this approach it would be perfectly possible to suppose that we should engage with the text in the same kind of way as we might engage with other texts that have come to be regarded as 'classics'. Such an engagement might have primarily religious concerns, but it is not difficult to envisage a wide variety of other motives. It is appropriate in a volume offered to David Clines, whose work reflects a range of approaches, to note the rich variety of interpretation which has engendered interest in the Hebrew Bible from many different angles in recent years. One might draw a parallel with the novels of Jane Austen. It is known that they were produced at a time when Britain was engaged in protracted war with France under Napoleon, and the diligent reader can find allusions to that state of affairs in some of her novels. But no one surely would claim that the prime reason for reading Jane Austen was to explore the state of England at war. The literary interest, in its different facets, is all-consuming. One more comment is perhaps in order before we leave The People and the Book. Reference there to 'the people' was to the people who constituted ancient Israel. That was no doubt appropriate up to a point, though it has led to the marginalization of all other groups, as Whitelam (1996) and others have reminded us. A different kind of limitation has received less attention. Too often in subsequent discussion 'the people' has in practice meant other scholars. As was noted at the outset, the series of survey volumes produced by the Society for Old Testament Study has largely concentrated on discussion of scholarly approaches to different aspects of Hebrew


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Bible study, and this has tended to mean that more attention was given to discussing scholarly output than to the texts themselves. Such a danger is liable to affect any academic discipline, perhaps particularly any that is concerned with literary or philosophical issues, but it is still a potential hindrance to engagement with more primary concerns. It is a point which has attracted David Clines's criticism, when he discovered, as an external examiner, that to do well in an examination on 'Theology of the Old Testament' it was more important to have a good knowledge of Eichrodt or von Rad than of the Old Testament itself, since 'no knowledge of the Old Testament itself was called for in any question' (Clines 1998b: 287). This is, however, not an issue to be pursued here; we shall look more carefully at the dichotomy between people and book outlined above. II

Brief reflection will suggest that there are some ways in which the dichotomy between people and book, while it is greater now than it must have seemed to the editors of that first Society for Old Testament Study volume, need not be quite so drastic as might at first appear. This point is perhaps best illustrated by examples taken from different parts of the material rather than by a theoretical discussion. The book of Ruth may provide a starting point. At one level it can be taken as an attractive tale, skilfully constructed and engaging its readers' attention regardless of historical background. By contrast, the older pattern of critical study of Ruth, as Rogerson has pointed out, required attention to such matters as the date of composition, relation to the marriage policies of Ezra and Nehemiah, the question of levirate marriage, and the possible historicity of the concluding genealogy. The 'narrative arch' of the book, by contrast, was simply not a part of the traditional scholarly agenda (Rogerson 2001: 360-61). For some recent studies of Ruth, the situation has changed dramatically. Fewell and Gunn, for example, have explored the narrative technique of the book in a way that requires little attention to its possible historical setting. They announce from the outset their intention to 'read the text as we would a novel or a short story' (Fewell and Gunn 1990:13). To take the most obvious example; the development of the story so as to bring its heroine, a sexually available young woman, into close physical contact with an older, and much richer, man, at dead of night, is a device that requires no knowledge of ancient Israel for its dramatic effect, and in Fewell and Gunn's reading this situation arose from Naomi's thoughts 'about the possibility of seduction' (50).

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But Sakenfeld has argued in her recent commentary that some knowledge of the social (and thus, by implication, of the historical) situation underlying the book of Ruth is a desirable, perhaps even a necessary, requisite for the full understanding of the book. How were foreigners, particularly young women, actually perceived in ancient Israel? What marriage customs were regarded as acceptable in that society? Even, at the most basic level, some knowledge of the incidence of famine is helpful— is it a plausible situation, geographically and socially, to suggest that one could escape from famine by going to Moab, or is that simply a literary device to provide the setting for the story? Sakenfeld's commentary throughout is alert to these dimensions of the story as important for our full appreciation (Sakenfeld 1999). Her treatment of the notoriously complex exchanges between Boaz and the 'next-of-kin' in Ruth 4 is shaped by the same concerns. Similar points arise if we turn to a familiar story such as that of Naboth's vineyard in 1 Kings 21. Again, it is certainly possible to read this simply as an illustrative story, setting out the kind of power struggle that might emerge in many different contexts. A tyrant claims what is not his, and those who attempt to resist are deemed guilty by a corrupt court. In this case an additional frisson is provided by the machinations of the foreign woman, who uses her position to ensure that the court's verdict is 'fixed'. At the last moment, however, justice is done: the innocent victim has indeed been killed, but the tyrant's efforts to corrupt justice are thwarted by the hero, who shows that both the villainous king and his scheming wife stand condemned in the sight of God. Now stories of this kind can be found in traditions, both oral and written, from a great variety of backgrounds. Is 1 Kings 21 adequately served by a literary treatment focusing on these points? Some would say so, but it is undeniable that at least two other factors have been important in interpretation, both traditional and more recent. Traditionally, attention has focused upon the reason for Naboth's refusal to take what must have seemed a very attractive offer (1 Kgs 21.2). We might suppose that his refusal was a matter of sheer stubbornness. At first glance this would perhaps seem to be the most obvious reading of the text, but it is not a view taken, as far as I am aware, by any recent commentator. A more usual approach has been to attach great significance to the repeated phrase nahalat '"botai, and to see in it some important difference between Israelite and Canaanite views of the land, a difference expressed to the detriment of the latter.


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A variant on this understanding has been developed recently in readings of the Hebrew Bible influenced by liberation theology. Such readings see, in episodes such as this, and in the condemnations of the 'eighth-century prophets', especially Amos, evidence of basic social injustice, and Godgiven approval of attempts to denounce and break down such a social system. Here it seems clear that the weight of such a reading is strongly dependent on the situation described having some historical basis; the story, it is claimed, must have affected real people, and not simply be the product of the book. But I have deliberately put the expression 'eighthcentury prophets' in quotation marks, for the question has been raised whether the final forms of the books of Amos and his supposed contemporaries can legitimately be taken as reliable indicators of the social structure of eighth-century Israel and Judah. As I have tried to suggest in my recent commentary, in Amos 'there are very few elements which specifically require an eighth-century setting' (Coggins 2000: 6), and there is widespread agreement that the book of Amos in the form in which we have it is the product of a later age. Once again the 'people or book' question arises. It has certainly been usual among those who have appealed to the prophets in support of a liberation reading of the Hebrew Bible to have assumed that the situation there described is rooted in the historical circumstances of ancient Israel. It was at one time fashionable even to point to archaeological evidence showing cramped small-scale buildings as supporting such an interpretation. (This is of course a very risky procedure; in present-day London much of the building in, say, Knightsbridge or Islington could be regarded as showing signs of serious overcrowding, but that would not necessarily be a reliable indication of a deprived social status among their occupants.) In theory at least it would be possible to argue that the telling of a story setting out the need of particular groups for liberation from their oppression could be as effective a support for liberation theology as would be a demonstration of the historical existence of social distinctions. The question of how we read prophetic texts provides a further example of the people/book tension. Older readings, seeing the prophets as either expositors of the Torah (as in traditional Judaism) or as foretellers of a distant future (as in traditional Christianity) no longer seem plausible to those outside those communities, and the view of the prophets as the originators of ethical monotheism now seems very dated. Some will see the primary concern in the study of the prophets as the attempt to establish them as individuals and then to discover more about the society in which

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they lived and proclaimed their message; others will regard this as an unattainable aim and concentrate much more on the literary form of the books as they have come down to us. Recent work on Jeremiah well illustrates this tension; see for example the varied essays in Diamond, O'Connor and Stulman(1999). A further example, from a different part of the Hebrew Bible, may illustrate our point from another angle. No traditional introduction to the study of the Psalms would be complete without the appropriate gestures of respect to the pioneering work of Hermann Gunkel in analysing the different forms of individual Psalms. (I am aware of the risk involved in a statement like this in an essay offered to David Clines, who makes clear that 'in my class on the Psalms [there is] not a word about Gunkel' [Clines 1998b: 288].) Form-critical study is often treated as a purely literary analysis, placing Psalms into specific groups in accordance with a number of well-defined criteria. What is often overlooked is that Gunkel's concern for form also involved an attempt to identify the appropriate social setting. A recent assessment of his work has concluded that 'Gunkel's genius lay in his recognition that genre is both a literary and social category. As a historian, he was primarily interested in the way that genre groupings functioned in ancient Israel' (Nasuti 1999: 211). There are important implications here for much modern study of the Psalms. One of the most influential of recent presentations is that of Walter Brueggemann, who has proposed in several studies a reading of the Psalms in terms of orientation-disorientation-reorientation. (Brueggemann 1980 was one of the first of his studies along these lines, though his thesis has subsequently been refined.) This presentation has been criticized, by Nasuti and others, on the ground that it is purely a modern scholarly construct, without any roots in the realities of the life of ancient Israel. We are, that is to say, in the world of the book, and divorced from the life of the people. There is clearly some force in this point, though it should surely not act as a disqualification. It raises, however, a more general difficulty, the proper resolution of which I should not begin to decide. Our scholarly activity takes place in a world which seems to be characterized by two radically opposed features. On the one hand, we know more and more about the life of our ancestors, and there is a sense in which it becomes possible to reconstruct the life of the people of ancient Israel in greater detail than ever before. On the other hand, the kind of life they lived is becoming increasingly remote, and in a strict sense unimaginable to postmodern humanity. Much study of the


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biblical material, especially in Jewish and Christian faith communities but also more generally, has been based on the assumption that the people described and the world in which they lived were pretty much like our own. Such an assumption becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. The issue of 'cultural relativism' has been present for a long time, but rarely seems seriously to engage the mainstream of biblical scholarship (Nineham 1990). It is at least arguable that our successors will be forced to regard the material simply as literature if it is to evoke any meaningful response. It may even be that the very idea of a body of literature will itself soon become a quaint survival from the past. Ill

This raises a further problem, apparently an obvious enough concern, yet one which is rarely addressed in either scholarly or more general treatments of the biblical material. All that survives to us from a thousand or more years of a people's history is gathered within one 'book'. It was noted at the outset that the contents of this 'book' are more diverse than might appear from the custom of binding them all within one volume, and of course within both Jewish and Christian tradition the treatment of this material as 'Bible' has posed difficulties when contradictions, real or apparent, are encountered. Nevertheless, despite the occasional diversity, this is still a very small quantity of material, which has emerged from a very narrow social base. Most of those who have taught the Hebrew Bible must have encountered the question from their students whether the only interests to have engaged the people of ancient Israel were religious. At times the Hebrew Bible itself seems to recognize this narrowness, as in the frequent reminders in the books of Kings that those seeking further information about the rulers described can find them in some other source: 'the Book of the Acts of Solomon' (1 Kgs 11.41) or 'the annals of the kings of Israel/Judah' (1 Kgs 14.19, 29, and elsewhere). It has been questioned whether such chronicles ever actually existed, or are simply a literary flourish, but for this purpose it scarcely matters. The recognition that further information might be sought is itself an indication that the editors of our present collection were aware that there were matters relating to the monarchy that they had not included. On the other hand, we should also bear in mind that if the current interest in and detection of 'inner-biblical exegesis' is justified, then the base from which our texts have emerged may be even more straitened than has

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usually been supposed. Again a simple example may illustrate the point. It has been customary to picture Zechariah as a new kind of prophet for a new age, markedly different from his predecessors, to whom no more than a passing nod is given in the preliminary verses (Zech. 1.4-6). But much recent study has regarded large parts of the book of Zechariah, even the often bizarre visions, as essentially an up-dating and application of earlier traditions which were regarded as authoritative (thus for example Delkurt 2000). The extent of our base of study would become even narrower if this is a proper reading. In some parts of the Near East it has been possible to build up a more extended picture of ancient society by a variety of archaeological finds, but the amount of such material from Palestine is too scanty for any significant new dimensions to become available. It is striking that Paula McNutt, in one of the best recent treatments of ancient Israel as a society, begins with an acknowledgment that use of the biblical material in such a task is a matter of 'unscrambling omelets and collecting butterflies' (the title of her first chapter), and then uses the methods of a social anthropologist rather than those of an archaeologist to explore the nature of that society (McNutt 1999). Social anthropology has much to contribute that is relevant to the concerns of this essay, but even its most accomplished advocates would accept that it does not afford the means of reconstructing an ancient society in specific detail. IV

Thoughts of this kind had been engaging me independently, but it seemed particularly appropriate to set some of them down in writing when I was invited to contribute to a volume in honour of David Clines. My first thought for a title was 'Why is there a David Clines and what does he do to you if you disagree with him?' This is, of course, a rather feeble adaptation of a form of title which he himself has several times used, but it does reflect two particular concerns. The first may be regarded as a kind of reader-response criticism. There are many biblical scholars, some of them of great distinction, whose personalities and individual concerns remain completely hidden behind their writings. This could never be said of David. He will never be accused of the kind of authorial modesty that hides its own views behind the veneer of scholarship. Not many other Hebrew Bible scholars could have produced a collection such as On the Way to the Postmodern, the introduction to which begins with the assertion that 'we like


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to tell stories, especially the ones we make up for ourselves, and especially those we invent about ourselves' (Clines 1998a: xv). For his readers, David's writings have the important result of making them think. The second issue relates to the vigour with which David is prepared to express his views when he sees some inadequacy. Australian cricketers are known to be adept at sledging (not of the winter sports kind), and their fellow countryman shares that facility. Biblical studies in the United Kingdom have long enjoyed a privileged position, and David is one of the not many scholars who is willing to point this out. Such a situation is bound to come under increasingly close scrutiny, and it will be important for those engaged in biblical studies at higher level to decide what it is they are studying and how it should be commended to those who have control of the purse strings. (Some of the implications of this for New Testament scholarship are explored by Houlden 2000, but his comments are also applicable to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible.) One very simple question which will have to be addressed is: Are those who study the Hebrew scriptures primarily engaged in trying to reconstruct the history of an ancient people? or is the first task a literary one, to make available the riches of a particular body of literature which has shaped our society? Answers may be a long way off, but at least it is important to start asking the questions. Bibliography Auld, A.G. 1994 Kings without Privilege (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). Brueggemann, W. 1980 'Psalms and the Life of Faith: A Suggested Typology of Function', JSOT17: 3-32. Clines, D.J.A. 1998a On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1968-1998 (2 vols.; JSOTSup, 292-93; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). 1998b 'The Postmodern Adventure in Biblical Studies', in D.J.A. Clines and S.D. Moore (eds.), Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies (JSOTSup, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press): 276-91. Coggins, R.J. 1999 'The Exile: History and Ideology', ExpTim 110: 389-93. 2000 Joel and Amos (New Century Bible; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Delkurt, H. 2000 Sacharjas Nachtgesichte: Zur Aufhahme und Abwandlung prophetischer Traditionen (BZAW, 302; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Diamond, A.R.P., K.M. O'Connor and L. Stulman (eds.) 1999 Troubling Jeremiah (JSOTSup, 260; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).

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Fewell, D.N., and D.M. Gunn 1990 Compromising Redemption: Relating Characters in the Book of Ruth (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press). Grabbe, L.L. (ed.) 1997 Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written ? (JSOTSup, 245; European Seminar in Historical Methodology, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Houlden, J.L. 2000 'Enlightenment, Establishment and the Word', JSNT78: 67-82. Mayes, A.D.H. (ed.) 2000 Text in Context: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (Oxford: Oxford University Press). McNutt, P. 1999 Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel; London: SPCK). Nasuti, H.P. 1999 Defining the Sacred Songs: Genre, Tradition and the Post-Critical Interpretation of the Psalms (JSOTSup, 218; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Nineham, D.E. 1990 'Cultural Relativism', in R.J. Coggins and J.L. Houlden (eds.),J Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (London: SCM Press): 155-59. Peake, A.S. (ed.) 1925 The People and the Book (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Rogerson, J. (ed.) 2001 The Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sakenfeld, K.D. 1999 Ruth (Interpretation; Louisville: John Knox Press). Whitelam, K.W. 1996 The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (London: Routledge).

TRAGEDY AND ETHICS: REVISITING ATHENS AND JERUSALEM Philip R. Davies

1. Comparison and Contrast In 1977, a popular textbook appeared called The Old Testament and the Literary Critic, by David Robertson of the University of California. Robertson had been the author of the article on 'The Bible as Literature' in the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Supplementary Volume (Robertson 1976). However, despite the flowering of literary criticism in biblical studies since its publication, neither this nor his book a year later is much cited, let alone used. I recall a discussion of the book, soon after its publication, among the three Hebrew Bible (or was it 'Old Testament' in those days?) lecturers at the University of Sheffield. We all seem to have either forgotten or ignored it. The book is not mentioned in the otherwise wellreferenced review of literary criticism by Exum and Clines (1993), nor by Gunn (1980); Gunn and Fewell (1993) list it in their bibliography but do not discuss it. Sheffield scholars (myself included) are in company with most of the guild, which has neglected to engage with it. One partial exception is Cheryl Exum, who at least included an essay by Robertson in her collection on tragedy and comedy in the Bible (Robertson 1984).' At the time I first read Robertson's book, what struck me was the chapter on 'Comedy and Tragedy: Exodus 1-15 and TheBacchae\ Here Robertson offers us two stories that he says are mirror images of the same dramatic coin (Robertson 1977: 16). He sees the biblical story, of course, as the comedy, and the common plot of the two stories is how a 'strange and little known god authenticates his claim to godhood by unleasing [sic] his divine power against a proud and stubborn unbeliever' (17). Yet Robertson—and this is the unusual feature, I think, of an essay published in 1977—was not content simply to draw parallels, nor did he try to 1. For Robertson's influence on Exum, see Exum 1992: 164 n. 54—though she does not use the chapter under discussion.

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argue that there was any direct historical or cultural relationship between the stories. He made instead a judgment between them on the basis of aesthetics and ethics. First, he observes that Euripides' play has, as he says, a 'capacity to absorb irony'. The spectator or reader is not unambiguously on the side of Dionysus; Pentheus is after all behaving rationally, has the peace and order of his city at heart, and ends up the victim of a god who represents the opposite of order, indeed, a scapegoat of Dionysus's cult. Because the conflict between the two characters is full of such ironies, the audience is hindered from making any automatic or simple moral judgment between them. There is no obvious hero or villain. The fact that one of the characters is a god and, indeed, the god in whose honour the play is being staged does not load the dice. Indeed, Dionysus is asked by Cadmus whether a god should be so ruled by the human emotion of vengeance. The play does not celebrate the victory of Dionysiac ecstasy over social order, and it is hard to imagine that the original audience was expected to interpret it this way. Rather, the tragedy stages the conflict between the forces of chaos embedded in the cult of Dionysus and the democratic ideals of the Athenian city: justice and order, the ideals the Athenians and their philosophers were trying so hard to promote as the basis of their civic system. The audience, then, is invited to see conflict, recognize irreconcilable demands and values, and make their judgment. Pentheus is a fool to fight with a god, but his opposition to such a barbaric cult is surely not unreasonable. And is he not deserving of sympathy for his fate? To make this fate more poignant, his mother Agave is the locus of the two opposing forces, impelled by the machinations of the vengeful god to butcher her own son, without recognizing him. The famous recognition scene, one of the stock features of Greek tragedy, also unmasks the Dionysiac frenzy as an unreality and in fact endorses the world represented by Pentheus, the sacrificed mortal, as the real. By contrast, the Exodus story, which opposes the god Yahweh to the king of Egypt, offers the reader no possibility of ambiguity and no invitation to moral decision, unless the reader, who will be a modem one, is resourceful enough to force such a reading. (David Gunn, for example [Gunn 1982], has highlighted how Yahweh hardens the heart of the king, thus creating an ambiguity over responsibility for the prevention of the release of Israelites, and this episode is noticed also by Robertson as a parallel to what Dionysus does to Pentheus.) The human perpetrator of the evil is thus himself, at least partly, a victim. Yet there is no hint from the narrator that in so doing Yahweh is acting immorally or that one should sympathize with

DAVIES Tragedy and Ethics

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the pharaoh, whose characterization, thin as it is, allows no space for such feelings. There is, in short, an obvious hero in the biblical story. Moral clarity we have here in abundance and our sympathies are directed towards Yahweh and Moses. The original readers or hearers of the story are not incited, either, to feel any twinge for the slaughter of firstborn sons, far less sympathize or perceive a contrary viewpoint. The suffering of humans is effaced by the demonstration of divine power (and preference). After this comparison, Robertson concludes that while Euripides inculcates essentially adult emotions (ambivalence toward self, others and the gods), the biblical story represents the simplicity of the child, in which there are simple categories of good and evil. 'It is preferable', he finally says, 'to practice living by reading The Bacchae than by reading Exodus 1-15' (Robertson 1977: 30). The Bacchae is superior to the biblical story as the adult world is to the child's. However, this contrast can be taken, as Robertson also suggests, well beyond the two individual stories. These stories are exemplary of most of the repertoire of the Bible and of Greek tragedy respectively. The Exodus plot, for example, of Yahweh's vindication over enemies that do not recognize and honour him, is mirrored in several other biblical stories, including the Gospel of Mark, while all or most of Greek tragedy (and a lot of other Greek literature) is also characterized by the moral ambiguity and critical perception of The Bacchae. In short, Robertson's larger thesis is that reading the Bible as a whole is not good for you if you want to be an adult. Much better to read classical Greek literature. Does this provocative thesis explain why his essay has been virtually ignored in subsequent scholarship? What he claims was for many teachers and students of the Bible far too heretical: that the Bible does not head the league of morally uplifting literature, that reading the Bible stunts your moral growth. Even among the more recent wave of literary and ideological critics of the Bible there remains a good deal of chauvinism towards what is still a loved and favoured body of literature. Nevertheless, prompted by the refusal of some feminists to 'redeem' the literature morally or aesthetically, there have been other critiques (gay/queer, postcolonial) prepared to put the biblical contents morally under interrogation. Few have yet done so with the boldness of Robertson. In this essay I want to comment on Robertson's claim that the Bible is, morally speaking, for children, not adults. I want to explore the theological and the political contexts of this comparison of Greek tragedy and biblical narrative and to make some further observations on the moral dimension of reading the Bible and the tragedies. Finally, I shall make some suggestions

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about our contemporary Western culture and its absorption of the radically different registers of biblical and Greek ethical systems.2 To begin with, Robertson's analysis can certainly be undergirded by a consideration of Genesis 3—4, the story of Eden. Despite the differences in meaning this myth has within Judaism and Christianity, it charts the movement from a childlike world to an adult one: the world of the child is denominated by the parental veto, the lack of responsibility for sustaining one's own life, the lack of knowledge of the difference between good and evil. Adult life is characterized by open eyes, moral responsibility, work, awareness of death. The Eden story can thus easily be read, and has been read,3 as a myth of humanity growing up, of the child rebelling against its parent, achieving autonomy, thus becoming adult, realizing it is naked, full of guilt and moral self-consciousness. One can find a story of a god who, unable to create evil in the world because everything he does is good, creates the possibility of evil as disobedience and thus absolves himself from responsibility for evil by defining it as human sin. In which case, the humans grow up and face their responsibilities and the deity does not. The essential point here, though, is that the childhood state is characterized, in both later Jewish and Christian interpretation, as a paradise, a place lost with regret, hopefully to be regained corporately or individually at some future point. This hope recapitulates not so much the wish for immortality as the adult desire for the state of childhood, a state without responsibility, without angst, or the need for self-reliance or moral decision. The story itself does not pretend that the leaving of the garden can be reversed, that childbirth will be painless, that snakes will walk upright again. The Christian religious mythology based on it, however, has made it so; childhood is the state in which humans were created and for which they were intended. The metaphysics of the Bible, then, as constructed by its traditional reading as scripture at least, conforms with the ethics as defined by Robertson: the ideal state of humanity is infancy. The 'law of the father', as Freud and Lacan would have it, not only established the Edenic existence but also continues to rule. In what would be a typically Clinesian move, we might assert that the Fatherhood of God means the Childhood of Humanity. If Robertson's claim, then, is at least a very substantial one, and to some extent supported by traditional Christian anthropology, is his comparison 2. Some of what follows is based on the discusssion in Davies 1995. 3. For a convenient range of readings from Jewish, Christian and other perspectives see Morris and Sawyer (1992), especially the introduction by Morris, 21-38.


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with Greek tragedy valid? Martha Nussbaum has made this observation on Greek tragedy: Greek polytheism, surprisingly, articulates a certain element of Kantian morality better than any monotheistic creed could: namely, it insists upon the supreme and binding authority, the divinity, so to speak, of each ethical obligation, in all circumstances whatever, including those in which the gods themselves collide (1986: 49).

Nussbaum is pointing here to the nature of individual ethical acts, which all entail a unique human decision, choice, amid a conflict of feelings, impulses, arguments and pressures. Examples come readily to mind: the slaughter by Agamemnon of his daughter Iphigenia, a decision which either way will bring disaster to him and his house. Are we directed by the dramatist to condemn him when he chooses to make the sacrifice? When he is slain by his wife do we see this as just retribution? We are certainly prompted to consider the terrible chain of events already invoked by the feud between Atreus and Thyestes, in which Atreus served up to Thyestes his own sons at a banquet; yet even this act has its own provocation. Where does evil begin? and how is it requited except by another evil? how is the chain of evil to be brought to an end? The same dilemma confronts us in the character of Oedipus, whom we might well regard as an innocent victim but who regards himself as the perpetrator of an outrage. What is the moral value of his lack of recognition of either his father or mother? And what of the duel between Antigone and Creon over the corpse of Polyneices? Here indeed is a famous debate, and Hegel may have been right to see the two protagonists as mirror images. Is Antigone so right and Creon so wrong, even when Teiresias intervenes to convince the king of his wrong? Would a man who puts the city before his own kin necessarily draw contempt from an Athenian audience? There is a kind of nobility in his actions that makes his final grief worthy of sympathy. Part of the morality of Greek tragedy is that heroes, while responsible for their actions, do not have full control over events. They have the demands of family and society and of political duty to balance; but they also confront the capricious allegiances of gods, usually conflicting, to which we can add—a point of which Nussbaum makes much—the element of chance. Not least, as already indicated, is the thread of disaster that runs through families (houses, oikof) for generations, the curse that comes home finally to Orestes. In all this, the human must time and again make the decision, taking responsibility for what he or she does, perhaps aware of the immediate effects but not of the ultimate consequences. The impor-

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tance of the recognition scene in Athenian tragedy is vital: here in dramatic form is laid out the peril of not seeing things or persons for what they are. Ignorance is (as Plato's Socrates taught) an enemy of virtue. There are, then, multiple moral imperatives in the ties of family, of civic duty and of allegiance to one god or goddess. The universe of the tragedies as a whole, then, is not evidently a moral system: it is an arena of conflict, in which there are more ways of losing than winning, or even sometimes no ways of winning. The gods cannot be relied upon, as Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound shows. Precisely in the absence of a single god to determine morality by his will (let alone convey it to humans), the individual becomes the effective agent of moral decision, and each decision stands on its own, has its unique elements, cannot be generalized into a norm. Indeed, as I have already stated, these decisions are usually characterized by a conflict of norms. In the Greek theatre, we cannot even rely on the authority of the chorus, which, though its function varies among the dramatists, acts in general more as a filter or a megaphone for the currents of human response than as the voice of an authorial verdict. In the words of Schlesinger (1963: 45): '[The Chorus] does not point up a moral: it points up a dilemma'. No, it is the individual human that is the measure of all things, and there is no escape from this challenge, nor from the consequences of a choice whether perceived as right or wrong. Essentially, the Hebrew Bible and the Athenian tragedy operate in two different moral climates. Wherein precisely lies the difference? An excellent illustration of this is Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22).4 Here it is not Abraham but God who is truly the parent, and Abraham needs only to act in a childlike, trusting, obedient and totally unreflective way. Which he does. There are no hints of moral ambiguity in the story: to be sure, the command is perhaps seen as outrageous (even in a world where child sacrifice is not unknown) and so is presented as a test—which Abraham passes. But what Abrahamfeels about the command we do not know, and what Isaac feels we do not know since he hardly figures and in any case is unaware of what is his fate. (What Sarah feels we also have no idea about and are not invited to consider.) It is not a test of Abraham's conscience; it is not an invitation to decide, not even a moral dilemma. It is a test of his resistance to all that is humane and adult. His obedience overcomes all, and he is rewarded. Had Abraham been allowed to think, 'Such 4. According to Exum and Whedbee (1985: 9-19) the story of Isaac is a comedy; on Gen. 22 specifically, see 14-15.


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a demand is unworthy of a god that I would worship', he would have expressed a modern sentiment, but, even more importantly failed the test. The contrast with Agamemnon is stark. The king is a double parent: father of his daughter but also father of the Greek army. He has nothing to obey (or perhaps he has too much to obey); his own reason or conscience is what he must follow. He is, indeed, very much the adult (and not merely by virtue of being a parent). The case of Jephthah's daughter (Judg. 11.29-40) offers perhaps a closer parallel to the case of Agamemnon and Iphigenia, since here too is a daughter, and one sacrificed for the sake of military success. Unlike Abraham, Jephthah is not bound by a divine command but, like Agamemnon, by an obligation he has entered into—though in Agamemnon's case the enterprise was not entirely voluntary. In the confrontation with his daughter we ought to expect some kind of pathos (tragedy?) if not conflict. Some protest at his predicament might be anticipated. But, in fact, we find nothing of the kind: rather, as with Genesis 22, obedience to the divine vow is never questioned, and in that sense Jephthah absolves himself of responsibility, having been ignorant of its consequence at the time of making the vow. At least, that is how he behaves. Does he admit, let alone reflect on, the folly of his decision? No: he reflects on the folly of his daughter's decision! Seeing her, Jephthah rips his garments and cries, 'Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low: you have become one of my troublers; for I have opened my mouth to Yahweh and I cannot recant' (v. 35). This is an outburst that is self-centred and reproachful of his own daughter. He has the decision, in theory, whether or not to carry out the vow. The consequences on himself would be grave, no doubt, but at least no worse than on his own daughter! But the availability, or perhaps the validity, of this decision is as invisible to him as it was to Abraham. Moreover, it is also invisible to his daughter, for she replies, 'Father, you have opened your mouth to Yahweh; do to me what came from your mouth, now that Yahweh has given you vengeance over your enemies, the Ammonites' (v. 36). She has somehow guessed, or heard, that the victory has her as its price. She too has a choice: to protest to her father, to plead (a choice of which Iphigenia certainly avails herself). Yet the daughter (unnamed, in keeping with her passive status, the withholding of character, of personhood, that the narrator wishes, as we find also in Genesis 22, where Isaac is unnamed; this is not necessarily a gender issue) does not recognize that either she or her father has a choice. So she asks for two months to wander up and down on the mountains and 'bewail her virginity', at the end of which her father presumably fulfils his

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vow (pace Marcus 1986). Again, the 'adult' dimension, the responsibility of making a decision, of being an autonomous moral agent, is absent; the will of the god, real or assumed, precludes, stifles even, the thought of acting contrary to a prescribed code of obedience. Although the story does not have a happy ending, then, one feels very little for either of the characters.5 This story could so easily be rewritten into a great tragedy. But that is the point: rewritten. The modern reader surely feels cheated of a dramatic enactment of the cruel confrontation of personal ambition, divine obligation and paternal love. 2. Behind the Difference While stating the obvious is sometimes good and necessary, it is inadequate. What lies behind the difference in the ethical universes of Jerusalem and Athens? As quoted earlier, Nussbaum notes with apparent surprise that it is Greek polytheism that generates the kind of post-Kantian definition of ethics to which most moderns subscribe. But should that in fact represent a paradox? The advantage of a monotheistic world view is that there is an absolute truth and an absolute ethic. By definition the will of God will always prevail and all endings will be the right ones: history must be a comedy. Even in a relatively sophisticated theology such as that of Proverbs, where intermittent divine intervention is displaced by human behaviour in a universe created to operate according to a fairly automatic moral code, there are absolute 'rights' and 'wrongs' implanted by the one god as part of the fabric of the universe he created. If there is one deity, there can be no moral conflict, and we all get what we deserve (which, depending on one's view of tragedy, might eliminate it from the biblical corpus). The same is not true, of course, in a polytheistic society, except under the condition that the gods have a sovereign. But even then, sov-

5. The detailed analysis of the story by Exum (1992:45-69) differs from my reading here in some respects, but she also concludes that 'Jephthah, in contrast to Saul, fails to attain genuinely tragic proportions' (57), and that 'the daughter, too, lacks the development that makes for a genuinely tragic personality', and pertinently contrasts her with the Iphigenia of Aeschylus. She also makes much of the divine silence, but unlike Genesis 22, it was not the deity here who initiated the course of events; and Jephthah does not even ask whether he might be released from the vow. For me the silence of the deity underscores Jephthah's complete submission to what he sees as his only duty. We are perhaps left wondering whether the god of Genesis 22 might have relented here too—if asked.


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ereigns do not always possess complete autonomy; they are prone to the motives of their consorts and their would-be heirs (just like human monarchs). In a polytheistic universe humans have to choose their allegiance, and may well hedge their bets by trying to please as many deities as possible, or, as in the case of Assyria, opt for the protection of a patron deity (see Porter 2000). A monotheistic universe is an ordered universe, and the Athenians (following the lonians) sought order as much as any others. Indeed, Plato attacked the tragedians, and other poets too, on the grounds that they misinterpreted the truth by suggesting that good men can be unhappy and vice versa, and that they nourished the irrational by evoking fear and pity. The political world of the ancient Near East, by contrast, was a mirror of the heavenly world: henotheism and monotheism are forms of heavenly monarchy and the principle of monarchy is the very opposite of individual autonomy, however much compromise is exercised in practice. The political ideology of the Bible's world, not surprisingly, conforms to the overwhelmingly monarchic pattern. For the Sumerians and Babylonians kingship had descended from heaven. The king, in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, personified, or represented, the deity; effectively he was god on earth, appointed by birth or election. He was responsible for law, order, and hence morality. He was, either in effect or in official ideology, god on earth. All subjects were sheep, the king the shepherd, at least in theory. Morality was not for the flock. They had merely to obey the laws of nature and of society, which were in effect identical. The advent of democracy in Athens therefore implied a different conception of society. Wresting power from the oligarchy and vesting it in the citizenry, the democratic system created a new human being: the individual as a political agent, as an autonomous actor. As a result of the laws of Solon (594 BCE) the individual (if free and male) was 'politicized'. Every citizen participated, or was expected to participate, in the ruling and administration of the city. The privilege of citizenship involved obligations in public service: the exercise of reason and judgment when the citizen, as an individual together with other individuals, was asked to declare a verdict in a judicial hearing, or to decide in assembly whether the city should go to war. The responsibilities of each Athenian citizen involved weighing priorities, assessing human motivation, determining a collective course of action. This political configuration is a prerequisite of the Athenian tragedy. 'In fifthcentury Athenian tragedy, as in life, the individual existed as a separate, clearly defined entity, aware of his selfhood and moral responsibility for his actions' (Vickers 1973: 37).

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Greek tragedy, however, is not about abstract principles, though these principles underlie the dilemma of each protagonist; 'it is about people, as drama should be, and about what they do to each other. It deals with human relationships' (Vickers 1973: 3). Each decision was fundamentally a unique one, as in every good court of law. The impossibility of applying principles consistently is indeed the essential condition that the tragedies express. The Athenians had to discover that politics was not merely about principles but about the management of conflicting claims, about individual cases. A classic dilemma was the conflict of household/family and city, the issue that divides Creon and Antigone. There were, of course, social traditions of behaviour and there were the requirements of the gods. These themselves, however, were not the answer, but part of the calculation, and needed to be weighed alongside other considerations. What made a person guilty or not? This is an especially difficult decision once the definition of guilt is problematized. Very few characters in Athenian tragedy are absolutely guilty or innocent, even if they may have committed deeds that invited condemnation. Is a course of action wise or not? How can the outcome, by which such matters should be determined, be known in advance? These issues were dramatized in the Athenian theatre, exploiting a rather narrow range of stories, borrowed largely from Homeric myth and legend, and, like so many modern soap operas, confined within the walls, real and symbolic, of an oikos, a family, a household. Family and kin were paramount in Greek, as in Israelite, society, and here lay the strongest duties and the strongest emotions—and so here lurked a potential conflict with personal and civic responsibilities. (As Hitchcock famously observed, the family is where most murders take place.) For the Athenian body politic, or at least their dramatists and philosophers, the gods themselves are little more than glorified humans, morally speaking. As mentioned earlier, it is debated whether in the great Athenian dramatists (or in some), Zeus himself is presented as a transcendental guarantor of order, or rather, like the Wagnerian Wotan, a personality of desperate internal conflict, his own instinct at war with what he is supposed to represent. The point, however, is that in Athenian society, political matters were not decided with reference to divine decrees; what is right is decided by the demos, by public opinion, and not by royal or divine decree, not by the verdict of the elders, and perhaps only to an extent by traditional laws and within the household (in strong contrast to the biblical system and presumably to the society of post-monarchic Judah).

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Thus, ambiguity of motive, lack of moral uncertainty, conflict of duties and the inexorable laws of consequence are all exposed on the stage and the audience subjected to the spectacle of a world that threatens at any time to fall into chaos through the squabbles of the gods, through the endless cycle of human vengeance (the duty of custom), through lack of adequate human knowledge, foresight and recognition, or through the personal weaknesses of individuals.6 How in this democratic society will order be created, defined and defended by the citizenry? Only when citizens can look back from the stage into their own feelings and motivations rather than upward to the heavens or downward into the pages of holy books. The movements in philosophy at the time of the Athenian tragedies were turning from cosmology and natural science to politics and ethics, the science of human behaviour, individual and collective (Euripides was influenced by both Anaxagoras and Protagoras). We might speak, without a huge amount of exaggeration, of a humanistic movement in which the tragic drama played a key role, and in which the human being was publicly represented as the measure of things. Again, as suggested earlier for the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, metaphysics, politics and ethics are bound up together. So in the texts of the Hebrew Bible individualism is condemned as 'doing what is right in your own eyes',7 and in Athens it is embraced, though not necessarily with total joy. Such simplicity does not, of course, adequately prove that the Bible offers an ethically infantile world while Athenian tragedy offers an adult one. But the charge is illuminating, and I am suggesting that it may be quite difficult to refute. The matter should not stop here, however. David Clines is fond of saying that the Bible is a modern book for a modern world (but I would add, not necessarily for a 6. What is especially interesting, however, is that despite the exclusion of women from the demos, and the preponderance of male persons and activities in the Homeric myths on which they are based, the Athenian tragedies often feature women not just as the objects of male decision-making (e.g. Iphigenia, Hecabe) but also as subjects (Andromache, Antigone, Clytemnestra). Here too is a significant contrast with the literature of the Hebrew Bible, but the possible reasons for this contrast are beyond my scope at present. 7. Even in the book of Proverbs, where a case might be made for some degree of individual observation and intelligence in discerning the moral order, the emphasis is on transmitted 'wisdom' and, of course, ultimately this 'wisdom' is identified with the will of the god. The writer of Ecclesiastes went so far as to deny the notion of a divine order, but accepted a natural order. Unlike the Athenians, he did not understand that social order is something that humans can (and in fact inevitably do) create.

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postmodern one), and the implication of this is that biblical scholars are dealing with the world of here and now. In what sense, then, is a discussion of the ethical systems of the Bible and ancient Athenian tragedy relevant to the twenty-first century? For example, if Robertson is right, are those of us who still claim to live in a Judaeo-Christian culture morally immature? The answer to this question is 'no', because in fact our civilization is not (despite claims to the contrary) Judaeo-Christian, but Judaeo-Greek-Christian. We certainly did not inherit individualism, democracy or the rule of reason from Judaeo-Christian roots. In which case, if Robertson is right, then is our civilization ethically schizophrenic! Do we try to combine the ethical perspectives of Jerusalem and Athens? In the course of probably the most comprehensive comparison of Greek and biblical culture, John Pairman Brown takes a view quite different from Robertson. He observes as follows: Today relations are the exact opposite of what they were in the later Middle Ages. Then society was based on a generally accepted system of belief, and secular Greek rationalism was only just making its way. Today Christian (and Jewish) belief is marginalized as a private choice, while Greek rational thought seems everywhere triumphant (2001: 199).

Brown's verdict on this state of affairs is gloomy. For him, our civilization needs the heritage of both Israel and Greece; we must hold together the classroom and the congregation, reason and faith, logic and trust. We can, indeed, benefit from the biblical and the Greek genes our civilization has inherited. Yet I doubt if Brown's analysis is quite true. The humanistic ethic of Athens and the theocratic ethic of Jerusalem are today as influential as each other; neither is subordinated, nor are they harmoniously combined. I can here only give an illustration by way of sparking the debate: the holy war of the West against 'terrorism' launched in 2001 and at the time of writing ongoing and without end in sight. The dualistic morality characteristic of the Bible is to the fore in the rhetoric and prosecution of this conflict as the West fights for 'freedom' against 'terrorism', or for 'good' against 'evil'. Both sides agree that they are self-evidently right, the other selfevidently wrong: for the West, 'terrorism' (as if it defined an ideological position rather than simply a tactic) is to be defeated in the 'War of the Children of Light against the Children of Darkness'. For the 'terrorists' (so-called, as if helicopter gunships and high-altitude aerial bombing were not just as terrible) America and the West are the Great Satan, cause of all ills, enemies of God.

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The 'freedom' for which the 'Children of Light' (I mean the West, or some of the West) do battle is defined in Greek terms: democracy, humanistic values, liberty and reason, while the 'terrorists' are identified as 'fundamentalists' who believe in a society governed by God and what he has revealed through his prophet. As I perceive it, the spectacle is a paradoxical one: of a biblical war led by Athens against Jerusalem. It is a war fought on biblical terms, full of what Robertson calls 'moral clarity', bereft of rational analysis or perception of ambiguity: what, for instance, motivates this 'terrorism'? The Western 'democracies' are in fact behaving in a very unAthenian way, indeed, in a very 'Jerusalemite' way.8 Our dual heritage from Athens and Jerusalem, then, is not necessarily 'complementary', despite centuries of Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism from Christian theologians of classical and mediaeval times. It can easily be conflicting. Using Robertson's terms, we might suggest that Western moral behaviour is perhaps neither childish nor adult, but adolescent, famously a time of conflict as the passage from childhood to adulthood is negotiated. The question is whether we will grow out of it into adulthood. Where would such a growing up leave the Bible? What should we do with it? My answer is that, if nothing else, biblical scholars can reflect, critically and in public, on how our biblical heritage can responsibly be used in private and public ethics and how the tragedies of thousands of dead innocents, in New York, Israel and Palestine, Asia and Africa, can be related, in a way that properly reflects an adult humanity, to whatever insights our Bible and our heritage of reading and misreading it have to teach us. Between preaching it as Word of God and detachedly dissecting its history and literature and how it came about, there is surely another way to engage with it ethically and to free ourselves also of its ethical shortcomings. Bibliography Auerbach, E. 1957 Brown, J.P. 2001

Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (trans. William Trask; Garden City, NY: Doubleday). Israel and Hellas .III. The Legacy of Iranian Imperialism and the Individual (BZAW, 299; Berlin: W. de Gruyter).

8. Though, to be accurate, only 'un-Athenian' in theory: Athenians were guilty of terrible atrocities themselves in the fifth century, for which the 'demagogues' were only partly responsible. The ideals of the Athenians were no more put into immediate effect than those of the French Revolution.

120 Davies, P.R. 1995

Exum, J.C. 1992

Reading from Right to Left 'Ethics and the Old Testament', in J.W. Rogerson, M. Davies and M. Daniel Carroll R. (eds.), The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium (JSOTSup, 207; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press): 164-73.

Tragedy and Biblical Narrative: Arrows of the Almighty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Exum, J.C., and J.W. Whedbee 1985 'Isaac, Samson and Saul: Reflections on the Comic and Tragic Visions', in Exum (ed.) 1985: 5-40. Exum, J.C. (ed.) 1985 Tragedy and Comedy in the Bible (Semeia, 32; Decatur: Scholars Press). Exum, J.C., and D.J.A. Clines (eds.) 1993 The New Literary Criticism and the Bible (JSOTSup, 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International). Gunn, D.M. 1980 The Fate of King Saul: An Interpretation of a Biblical Story (JSOTSup, 14; Sheffield: JSOT Press). 1982 'The "Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart": Plot, Character and Theology in Exodus 1-14', in D.J.A. Clines, D.M. Gunn and A.J. Hauser (eds.), Art and Meaning: Rhetoric in Biblical Literature (JSOTSup, 19; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 72-96. Gunn, D.M., and D. Fewell (eds.) 1993 Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Humphreys, W.L. 1985 The Tragic Vision and the Hebrew Tradition (OBT, 18; Philadelphia: Fortress Press). Marcus, D. 1986 Jephthah and his Vow (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech Press). Morris, P., and D. Sawyer (eds.) 1992 A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden (JSOTSup, 136; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Nussbaum, M. 1986 The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Porter, B.N. 2000 'The Anxiety of Multiplicity: Concepts of Divinity as One and Many in Ancient Assyria', in B.N. Porter (ed.), One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World (Transactions of the Casco Bay Assyriological Institute, 1; Chebeague, ME: Casco Bay Assyriological Institute): 211-71. Robertson, D. 1976 'The Bible as Literature', in IDBSup: 547-51. 1977 The Old Testament and the Literary Critic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press). 1984 'Tragedy, Comedy and the Bible—a Response', in Exum (ed.) 1985:99-106. Schlesinger, A.C. 1963 Boundaries of Dionysus: Athenian Foundations for the Theory of Tragedy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Vickers, B. 1973 Towards Greek Tragedy (London: Longman).

A PHRASE IN A PHOENICIAN PAPYRUS AND A PROBLEM IN ISAIAH 5.14 J.A. Emerton

I

In 1968, a Phoenician (or possibly Punic) papyrus was discovered in a tomb in Malta. It was published in 1975 by Tancredi C. Gouder and Benedetto Rocco, and was discussed further by Hans-Peter Miiller in 2001. The papyrus was found in a bronze amulet, which is in the form of a falcon representing Horus. Egyptian influence is also present in a drawing of Isis on the papyrus. Gouder and Rocco date the talisman between the middle of the seventh and the sixth centuries BC, and the papyrus in the sixth century (1975: 3, 18). The papyrus contains five lines of text, of which parts of lines 3,4 and 5 are illegible. The present article is primarily concerned with a phrase in line 1; and lines 1 and 2 contain enough clear readings to make it possible to offer a translation and interpretation despite the uncertainty about four letters. Lines 1 and 2 contain the following words: 1. 2.

Gouder and Rocco mark the first three letters of line 2 as uncertain, yet they regard M *? as the only possible reading (10). They also note the possibility that n in the same line could be read as D, but they prefer the former reading. Lines 1 and 2 are translated by Gouder and Rocco as follows: 1. Ridetevi, o forti d'animo, del vostro nemico, 2. fatevi beffe, fiaccate ed assalite 1'awersario.

In general Miiller accepts their translation of these lines, although he does not follow them in every detail.

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The second-person masculine plural suffix at the end of line 1 implies that this line is addressed to a number of readers or hearers; and Gouder and Rocco, followed by Miiller, interpret the verbs as masculine plural imperatives. Since this kind of Phoenician script does not use vowel letters, the final vowel of the imperatives, which was presumably -u, is not written. The parallelism between the two lines has suggested that they are in verse (Miiller 2001: 263). Muller also compares the papyrus with Egyptian analogies and convincingly interprets it as instructions to the deceased about the coming journey through the after-life and the dangers that it threatens, especially that of a particular enemy, presumably some demonic being. Because the suffix at the end of line 1 is plural, these are instructions to the dead in general, which are here offered to a particular deceased individual. The incomplete lines 3-5 raise various problems, but the two earlier articles on the subject attempt to make such sense of them as they can. Thus, Muller offers an interpretation of them in accordance with his interpretation of lines 1 and 2 and also notes possible traces of parallelism (25962). I am, however, interested primarily in a phrase in line 1, and I shall not discuss lines 3-5; but certain words in lines 1 and 2 need some comment. Line 1. The verb pnto (beginning with the letter sin) means 'to laugh' in Hebrew, and it appears here to be used of laughing at the threat posed by the enemy (cp. Ps. 2.4). However, in Hebrew the verb does not take a direct object, and a preposition is expected before the noun denoting that at which one laughs; but there is no such preposition in line 1 of the papyrus, and it looks as if DD")U is the direct object. Muller (2001:256) draws attention to possible examples of the use of this verb with a pronominal suffix in extra-biblical literature, and that suggests to him that the verb could take a direct object. One of them is found in 1 IQPs" (=11Q5), col. 21, line 15 (= Sir. 51.18): HpniZJNI T11QT, which Muller translates 'ich sann darauf, mit ihr (der Weisheit) zu spielen'. Garcia Martinez and Tigchelaar (1998: 1175) translate the words 'I determined to enjoy myself. The form of the second word is identical with that of the cohortative, but the context is concerned with a feminine noun, presumably wisdom, and a reference to it is expected here. The letter he is therefore more likely to be a pronominal suffix than the ending of the cohortative. It is also possible that the verb here is not the one meaning 'to laugh'. Di Leila and Skehan (1987: 575) explain it from Hebrew pnc? (with the letter shin, not sin), which BDB (1006-1007) understands to mean 'rub away, beat fine, pulverize', and in Sir. 6.36 'go often (wear by treading)'. Di Leila and Skehan (1987: 573,

EMERTON A Phrase in a Phoenician Papyrus

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575) interpret Sir. 51.18 to mean literally 'I resolved to wear her down (by treading)', or 'I resolved to tread her paths' (i.e. the paths of wisdom), and they compare 6.36. Miiller (2001: 256) also compares an Aramaic inscription from Hatra in which nnpPIIE is found, which he translates 'Du hast iiber ihn (freundlich) gelachelt', but he observes in a footnote that this word has also been explained as a form of the verb that begins with shin. In any case, even if the verb with sin appears in both these passages, the presence of a pronominal suffix does not necessarily prove that the verb is taking a direct object. In Hebrew, at least, a pronominal suffix is sometimes used to express what would have been a noun preceded by a preposition, if the noun itself had been used rather than being represented by a suffix (GKC, § 117 x). It seems better simply to recognize the probability that the verb in the Phoenician papyrus takes a direct object, although Hebrew usage is different. It is improbable that the verb in the papyrus is pFICJ with a shin, if is the correct reading in the parallel line 2 (although W^ is not listed by Hoftijzer and Jongeling as attested elsewhere in Phoenician). Miiller (2001: 255 n. 20) notes a number of verses in Hebrew in which 3U b and pntD (with a sin, or its cognate pny) appear together: Pss. 2.4; 59.9; Jer. 20.7; Ezek. 23.32; Prov. 1.26; 2 Chron. 30.10 (Miiller says 30.7, but that must be a slip of the pen); IQpHab, col. 4, lines 1-2, 6. He could have added Job 22.19 and Prov. 17.5. Line 2. In the Hebrew Bible, wb takes a preposition with the object of mockery. In line 2 of the papyrus, however, ITN may rather be the direct object of "pi (or of n, if it is a verb). Gouder and Rocco take "pi to be a form of the root "[11, and Miiller (2001: 259) rightly regards it as a polel. (There is also a verb "pi in Aramaic, and the existence of the same root in Hebrew is implied by the adjective ^1.) Hoftijzer and Jongeling (1995: 243) give the meaning 'to shatter', but they regard the reading and the interpretation here as uncertain. Gouder and Rocco, and also Miiller, understand n to be the masculine plural imperative of the verb nn3, which is found nowhere else in Phoenician, but in Hebrew means 'to lead, guide'. Miiller (259), however, is conscious of the problem of finding a meaning that fits the context of line 2, in which it appears to denote something hostile to the enemy. He rightly objects to the view of Gouder and Rocco that it here means 'to attack', and he suggests that it means 'to drive away' ('Vertreiben'): 'Zerschlagen' and 'Vertreiben' are, he thinks, alternative ways of getting rid of the enemy. He claims (259 n. 42) that the meaning postulated is 'Zumindest ahnlich' when it is used of "Treiben" seitens des

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Hirten' inPss. 23.3; 77.21; 78.53; andlsa. 63.14 (if the text is emended with the help of the ancient versions). It may be doubted, however, whether leading, or even driving, sheep offers much support for the hostile meaning demanded by the context. There is also a weighty objection to the whole attempt to explain m as a conjunction followed by an imperative of HP!]. In Hebrew, the masculine singular of the imperative qal of this H"1? verb is nnD (Exod. 32.34), and the masculine plural would be 1PID. It is not one of the verbs in which the nun is assimilated in the imperfect and dropped in the imperative (GKC, §§66 b, c and 75 c). When nun is the first consonant of a verb, it disappears in the imperative only when it is assimilated in the imperfect (as in, for example, 2)33, NiD3, ]HD). The imperfect qal of this verb is not attested in the Hebrew Bible, but the nun is not assimilated in the imperfect hiphil. Further, as was noted above, this is a H"1? verb. It is unsatisfactory to explain this n in the papyrus by deriving it from a verb that is attested in Hebrew but not elsewhere in Phoenician, and then postulating a form that differs from the Hebrew. It is not surprising that Hoftijzer and Jongeling (1995: 724) say of the derivation and translation offered by Gouder and Rocco that they are a 'highly improvable] reading and interpret[ation]'. Can another explanation of m be found? I can only venture the speculation that it is the name of some demonic being who is the enemy the deceased is urged to deride. Perhaps his name was Wach or the like. Unlike DD"liJ in line 1, IPN in line 2 lacks a pronominal suffix. However, its absence can be explained as an example of the practice that, 'when a pronominal suffix is attached to one noun, its force may be carried through to the parallel noun, which may then dispense with the corresponding suffix' (Driver 1948:164-65). Driver offers examples in Ugaritic and Biblical Hebrew. The following tentative translation of lines 1-2 may be suggested: 1. Laugh, you who are strong of heart, at your adversary; 2. Mock, shatter Wach (?), (your) enemy.

II

I have left until now a consideration of the phrase 2^ TU, which causes no problems, in line 1. The second word is, of course, a noun meaning 'heart', and the first is an adjective which is found elsewhere in Phoenician and which is cognate with the Hebrew adjective TIJ, meaning 'strong'. Here it appears to be used in the construct plural. It is of interest to me because in


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1967 I suggested an emendation of the last two words in Isa. 5.14 which resulted in PO1? TI7, literally 'the strength of her heart'. I suggested that it meant either 'her stubbornness' or 'her courage' (Emerton 1967: 142). There is no need to discuss the former rendering here, for only the latter is relevant to the papyrus under discussion. My evidence (141^42) for the latter translation, 'her courage', was as follows. First, strength of heart is the opposite of being afraid: when people are afraid, their hearts are said to melt (Isa. 13.7; Deut. 20.3; Jer. 51 .46). Second, in1? fDK appears in Amos 2.16, and j'QK'1 is used of a heart exhibiting strength in Ps. 27.14 and 31.25. Further, those who are described as 3^ ''TDK in Ps. 76.6 and Isa. 46.12 are the courageous. The context of the phrase H1? TU in the papyrus shows that it denotes courage, rather than stubbornness. Miiller (2001 : 257) interprets the phrase by comparing 31? ""TUN and "O1? ]"QN. He also mentions a passage in which the verb HI? is used with "2 *? as the subject in a non-biblical text that I had overlooked, CD 20.33: DD1? Tin, 'and their heart will be strong'. The reference is to the time when the followers of the Teacher of Righteousness 'will prevail over all the sons of the world' (tan ''DD ta ta l^QTn). I proposed the emendation rn1? TI? in Isa. 5.14 because of a difficulty in the last two words of the verse:

Therefore Sheol has expanded her jaws, And opened wide her mouth without measure, And her splendour and her din will descend, And her uproar, and he who exults in her.

An alternative way of construing the last line is to regard the antecedent of the pronominal suffix in rn in the last line as Sheol, and to suppose that it goes with 'descend' in the third line: 'will descend into her [i.e. into Sheol]'. However, the fact that !~Q comes immediately after T ^17 suggests that the two words are closely related in meaning, and favours the translation offered above. In any case, the principal problem of the verse remains the same on either view of the significance of i"Q in the MT as it stands. The third-person feminine singular suffixes in the first two lines have Sheol as their antecedent, but obviously the antecedent of the third-person feminine singular suffixes in the third and fourth lines must be different (except perhaps in i"Q). Verse 14 speaks of someone's splendour, etc.,

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descending into Sheol; and the fact that in some places Isaiah speaks of God's judgment on the prophet's people and city leads the reader to suspect that the suffixes refer to Jerusalem. If so, the verse may be a fragment that has lost its original context, in which Jerusalem was named. In that case, it is unnecessary to change the vocalization of the suffix to an o vowel (the third-person masculine singular suffix written in an archaic way with the letter he}, and to suppose that the antecedent is ''QI? in v. 13 (there would then be an inconsistency in the spelling of the suffix in 1TQD1 in that verse). Anyhow, I shall work on the hypothesis that the suffixes under discussion refer to Jerusalem. After several abstract nouns ending with a third-person feminine singular suffix, it is strange, indeed harsh, to find the adjective TÛ, and the problem is not solved by the hypothesis that the nouns are to be explained on the principle of abstractum pro concrete. Some scholars have suggested that the text should be emended (see Emerton 1967: 137). My suggestion that mi1? TU should be read involves only the transposition of two letters and the division of the two words in a different place. I observed in my article (1967:141) that the noun D *? is nowhere else (in the Old Testament) used with TI7, and I relied on analogies to support the claim that 'the idiom would not have been improbable'. I had overlooked the use—outside the Hebrew Bible, of course—in the Damascus Document of "^~> with the verb TTU. The Phoenician papyrus, which uses the adjective TU with D1?, cannot prove the emendation to be correct, but it increases the plausibility of the text resulting from the emendation. Isa. 5.14 speaks of Jerusalem's splendour, etc., descending into Sheol, and the Phoenician papyrus probably refers to the journey of the deceased through the after-life. It would, however, be claiming too much to see any significance in the fact that both passages refer to what happens after death. It is enough to note that a phrase which I had conjectured in Isa. 5.14 is made more plausible by the existence of a similar phrase in Phoenician.1

1. It is a pleasure to dedicate this article to David Clines, who has been a friend for many years. I am grateful to Professors G.I. Davies and H.G.M. Williamson for reading and commenting on drafts of the present article, and to Mr J.D. Ray for allowing me to consult him on Egyptological questions.


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Bibliography Di Leila, A., and P.W. Skehan 1987 The Wisdom of Ben Sira (AB, 39; New York: Doubleday). Driver, G.R. 1948 'Hebrew Studies', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: 164-76. Emerton, J.A. 1967 'The Textual Problems of Isaiah v 14', VT17: 135-42. Garcia Martinez, F., and EJ.C. Tigchelaar 1997, 1998 The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (2 vols.; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Gouder, T.C., and B. Rocco 1975 'Un talismano bronzeo da Malta contenente un nastro di papiro con iscrizione fenicia', Studi Magrebini 7: 1-18. Hoftijzer, J., and K. Jongeling 1995 Dictionary of North- West Semitic Inscriptions (Handbuch der Orientalistik, Erste Abteilung, 21; 2 vols.; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Muller, H.-P. 2001 'Bin phonizischer Totenpapyrus aus Malta', JSS 46: 251-65.

SONG OF SONGS AS AN 'ANSWER' TO CLINES'S BOOK OF JOB* Tamara Cohn Eskenazi

Carl Jung, in his provocative book, Answer to Job (Jung 1960), insists on the inadequacy of God's verbal answer to Job in the book of Job. The real answer to Job, Jung concludes, is the incarnation: Job's confrontation with God in the book of Job triggers developments that cause God to seek to become human. This change in consciousness leads to the incarnation and culminates in the holy marriage depicted at the end of the book of Revelation. Jung approaches the Bible as a unified story, as the record of the development of consciousness, tracing its development in the order in which the books are arranged in the Bible, basing his analysis on the Christian Bible. If Jung's insight is valid, then what kind of an answer does the Hebrew Bible offer, given that the incarnation and the book of Revelation are not part of it? This paper explores the ways Song of Songs 'answers' Jung's questions in Job and further examines what the juxtaposition of Job and Song of Songs contributes to David Clines's readings of the book of Job. 1. Jung's Answer to Job Jung focuses on the incongruity of God's answer from the whirlwind, an answer that completely ignores the issues that have been raised by Job and by his situation. Job, after all, asks questions about the injustice in the world in general and the injustice of his own sufferings in particular (Job 10.2-3, for example). God responds with a series of rhetorical questions This paper is a segment of a larger work to be titled, 'Song of Songs as an Answer to Job' (forthcoming). An early version of this paper was delivered at the 1981 Annual Meeting of SBL and occasioned my first meeting with David Clines. My plans to revise the paper for publication were repeatedly interrupted. These delays now enable me to contribute this paper in honor of a dear friend, whose work, including his superb commentary on Job, has been a constant inspiration.

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that do nothing more than extol God's power and accentuate Job's nothingness, merely flaunting 'almightiness' in front of Job: Where were you when I founded the earth? (38.4) Did you ever command a morning, Post dawn in its place...? (38.12) Have you an arm like God, Can you thunder with a voice like his? (40.9)

As Jung notes, none of this is pertinent to the issues at hand. After all, Job 'never doubted God's might, but has hoped for right as well' (Jung 1960: 43). Job is all too keenly aware of God's power, having just become its victim. He does not question God's might; he questions God's 'right' or righteousness. To this question he receives no genuine answer. Job is silent at the end of the book not because he has been convinced of God's right, but because he gets a glimpse of God's amoral nature and recognizes the futility of further questions. The irrelevance of God's answer to Job in the book of Job, and the incongruity of the situation, lead Jung to look elsewhere in the Bible for a more adequate answer to Job, approaching the Bible thematically and as a whole. He views it as the expression of the collective unconscious and a record of the development of consciousness. Jung treats the various books in the Bible as chapters in one, unified story, with a definite plot line.1 Using this framework, Jung suggests that even though Job receives no adequate final answer, something consequential does take place. The encounter between God and Job discloses a morally superior human being to a God who has been an amoral, blind force. This collision between Job and God produces important changes in God and a dawning of a new consciousness. An important sign of this change is found in the reappearance of wisdom, Hokmd/Sophia (a feminine noun in both Hebrew and Greek). Jung notes her appearance on the scene in the book of Proverbs which follows Job in Jung's Bible (see especially Prov. 8.22). This wisdom is God's feminine aspect. She has been at God's side from the very beginning, says Proverbs (Prov. 8.22), but is only now called upon to participate actively in the transformation that ensues. Jung contends: 1. This approach has been successfully emulated by Jack Miles' s award-winning God: A Biography (Miles 1995).

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Reading from Right to Left The reappearance of Sophia in the heavenly regions points to a coming act of creation... A momentous change is imminent: God desires to regenerate himself in the mystery of heavenly nuptial...and to become man (Jung 1960: 73-74).

Two motives fuel God's desire to become human: (a) God's wish to emulate the superior humanity of Job; (b) God's wish to atone for the unjust sufferings inflicted on innocent Job (Jung 1960: 98). The incarnation expresses and fulfills the first of these wishes and the death on the cross fulfills the other. But the story does not end there. It is still necessary .to reconcile and unite God's inner antimony, which was revealed in the encounter with Job. The story, therefore, continues all the way to the end of the book of Revelation, in which we find what Jung calls a 'uniting symbol'. This uniting symbol, the marriage of the Lamb and his bride (Rev. 19.7), or, as Jung puts it, the Son and the Mother/Bride, or God and Sophia, is a union of opposites. Its harmony signals the integration of opposing components and expresses wholeness. For Jung, this holy marriage at the end of Revelation indicates a successful resolution of the events and issues raised by the book of Job. Jung does not claim to be a biblical scholar and refers to himself as 'a layman in things theological' (Jung 1960:190). Nevertheless, some important scholars and theologians concur with his focus on the incongruity in Job and the amoral nature of God's response. J. William Whedbee (Whedbee 1977; see also 1998), for instance, makes incongruity in the book of Job the keystone of his innovative interpretation of Job. He writes: I would argue that the irony and incongruity of the Yahweh speeches are best interpreted as elements in a comic vision. As interpreters have often noted, Yahweh's answer to Job is NO answer—at least it is not an unambiguous answer. Incongruity is involved, however one chooses finally to deal with that incongruity (Whedbee 1977: 25).

M. Tsevat interprets God's answer this way: 'Divine justice is not an element of reality. It is a figment existing only in the misguided philosophy with which you have been inculcated. The world in which you and the friends are spun is a dream. Wake up, Job!' And wake up is what Job does in the end (Tsevat 1966: 100).

John Curtis adds that Job rejects God's answer (Curtis 1979:498), and concludes that 'It becomes clear that the Yahweh speech, rather than solving Job's problem, only makes it far worse. The very issue that had troubled Job has been reinforced; he had felt that God had great power but no justice' (Curtis 1979: 511).


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Jung, then, is clearly not alone in responding as he does to the incongruity of God's words to Job. Nor is he alone in approaching the Scriptures as a developing story.2 The significance of context and the way adjacent texts comment upon each other have shaped much in contemporary literary and structural analyses as well as rabbinic interpretation in antiquity. It is not even necessary to treat Job as an incomplete unit in order to recognize it as an integral and necessary component—a building block—within the larger unit. As Landy puts it, 'No text is isolated, self-sufficient. None can be understood without reference to others' (1979: 516; see also 1983). Canonical sequence is not innocent of meaning. Compare the theological message made by the Christian Bible's narrative where Malachi—with its prediction of Elijah heralding the day of YHWH (Mai. 4.5)—ends the Old Testament, to be followed immediately by Matthew, with its genealogy and its account of John the Baptizer. Compare this canonical order with the different metanarrative of the Hebrew Bible, where Psalms follows Malachi and Chronicles' exhortation to 'go up' concludes the entire collection. The context, then, is important; it, too, tells a story. As Brevard Childs points out: The ordering of the tradition for this new function involved a profoundly hermeneutical activity, the effects of which are now built into the structure of the canonical text. For this reason an adequate interpretation of the biblical text, both in terms of history and theology, depends on taking the canonical shape with great seriousness (Childs 1979: 60).

2. Song of Songs as an Answer to Job What sort of an answer to Job does the Hebrew Bible offer, given Jung's premise that no satisfactory answer is given in the book of Job? Looking at what has become the normative Jewish canon, now commonly known as Tanakh, one notes two important differences from the Christian canon: First, obviously, the Tanakh does not include the New Testament. Thus the incarnation and the holy marriage of Revelation, alleged to be an adequate answer to Job, cannot serve as an answer in the Hebrew canon. Second, in the Tanakh, Proverbs precedes Job and Song of Songs directly follows it. Thus wisdom/hokmd is not a result of the encounter between God and Job as it is for Jung. Instead, feminine wisdom in the Jewish sequence leads up to the confrontation that occurs in the book of Job (note too the provocative role of Job's wife); it is more responsible for 2.

See, e.g., Miles 1995.

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posing the question than representing a part of its resolution. Job emerges therefore as 'a revolt of wisdom' (Perdue 1991). What, then, are the possible ways in which Song of Songs, placed where it is, can be conceived as an answer to Job from within the Hebrew Bible? Song of Songs offers a number of possible answers to and resolutions of the issues raised in the book of Job because the Song elicits a wide range of meanings and symbols, resulting in a multiplicity of possible interpretations. The central theme of the Song is clear: the Song is primarily about love and about lovers. Most debates revolve around the identity of these lovers. Are they allegorical or are they 'historical'? Is the Song about the love of God and Israel (as in Jewish tradition) or the love of Christ and the Church (as in Christian tradition)? Is the relationship between the soul and God or, as in medieval Jewish mysticism, the active and passive intellect? Are the lovers a couple reenacting ancient cultic practices or are they 'every woman' and 'every man' celebrating their marriage? All of these possibilities are subject to discussion but cluster around the centrality of the theme of love. This centrality of love, and the particular ways in which this love is depicted, make possible several distinct interpretations of Song of Songs as an answer to Job. a. Song of Songs as an Answer to Jung's Job Song of Songs contains numerous Jungian symbols and motifs. The garden (5.1), the rivers (5.15), the dream states (5.2) and the different roles which the lovers project onto each other as they journey or move towards one another (4.9)—all of these invite fruitful Jungian analysis. But the most important of these is the celebration of love and the union of male and female. In Jungian terms, such a union of opposites is a symbol of wholeness. It is the symbol and the process of integrating the 'otherness' into a harmony and a completion. It is precisely this symbol, coniunctio oppositorum, which Jung identifies as the culmination in the book of Revelation and the ultimate outcome of God's answer to Job (Jung 1960: 630). The drive to union of opposites in the Song parallels the reconciliation which Jung finds in the book of Revelation, and which, for Jung, constitutes a successful resolution of the problem of Job. In the Jewish Bible this unification takes place early, immediately after the confrontation in the book of Job, before the tension between God and humanity (or within God, given God's dual nature) reaches the cosmic


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dimensions that it does in Jung's analysis of the Bible. Song of Songs, then, with its motif of the union of lovers functions in an analogous manner to the book of Revelation in the New Testament—but without necessitating the apocalyptic upheavals that precede such a union in Revelation. When we read the Bible as Jung does, that is, as a story about God's developing consciousness, we find in the Hebrew Bible a different plot line from the one Jung describes on the basis of his Christian Bible. In the Hebrew Bible God's consciousness is first prompted by wisdom (hence the book of Proverbs). Wisdom and the feminine are thus not a result of the encounter with Job, as Jung suggests, but a causal factor in God's ability to be engaged with Job. The book of Job (which follows Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible) then becomes the challenge and the emergence of a new consciousness. Finally, Song of Songs becomes the response to that challenge of the book of Job, modeling a conjunction of opposites (which Jung finds in Revelation) as a dialogue of lovers, without combative aspects. b. Song of Songs as an Alternative to the Inadequate Resolution in the Book of Job This interpretation suggests that, given the inconclusive nature of God's answer to Job in the book of Job, the problem of suffering cannot be adequately handled by confronting God. Nor can wisdom satisfactorily resolve or solve the problem. Wisdom can only help articulate the problem—hence the book of Proverbs—and offers important insights. But the answer to the problem of suffering, given the coupling of Job and Song of Songs, is something to be faced existentially, confronted through intimate and concrete relationships based on love. For, 'love is strong as death' (Song 8.6). c. The Return to the Garden as Song of Songs' Answer to Job Both Job and Song of Songs employ creation elements from Genesis 1-3.3 There are different ways the connection between Job and Song of Songs can be construed in relation to Genesis. One such reading will be examined here: the paradigm of temptation (others will follow in Section 3). Several interpreters focus on the parallels between the temptation in the garden of Eden and the testing of Job. Chrysostom pointed out some of these relationships in the Homily on the Power of Man to Resist the Devil, comparing Adam, Eve and the Serpent with Job, his wife and Satan. He argues that Job's trial is far more grievous than Adam's, Job's temptation 3. On Job's echoes of Genesis 1-3, see especially Whedbee 1998 and Keller 2002: ch. 7.

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by his wife more persuasive than Adam's, and Satan more powerful than the serpent. Yet Adam was defeated and Job emerged a conqueror.4 Job's own speech already calls our attention to Adam when, at the climax, he contrasts his own behavior with Adam's: 'Did I hide my transgressions like Adam...?' (31.33 NJPSV).5 If Adam's failure leads to the loss of paradise for himself and for all humankind, what happens when Job succeeds in maintaining his faithfulness? One expects a comparable restoration not only for himself (as in Job 42.10-17) but for others as well.6 That such consequences ensue is, of course, Jung's point, with the incarnation as one of these. Song of Songs, which follows Job, suggests another far-reaching consequence, namely a restoration of access to the prohibited 'garden of Eden'. As Phyllis Trible notes, Song of Songs recreates the garden of Eden in historical time and space and reverses what has 'gone awry' in Genesis 13. Trible reads Song of Songs as, among other things, an invitation 'to enter a garden of delight' (Trible 1978: 144). She calls Genesis 2-3 'the hermeneutical key with which I unlock this garden'. For Trible, Song of Songs 'redeems' the debacle in the garden, hence her title 'Love's Lyrics Redeemed', for the chapter on the Song, following 'A Love Story Gone Awry' for Genesis 2-3 (Trible 1978: 144 and 72). The two texts center on the garden. In both man and woman share the garden harmoniously with the animals. In Genesis, the animals, as foils, 'participated in the creation of woman and provided a context for the total joy of 'ish and 'ishshah. In Canticles, their names become explicit as does their contextual and metaphorical participation in the encounter of the lovers' (Trible 1973: 43). Thus ravens, doves, goats and other animals become metaphors for the lovers themselves (see, e.g., 4.1-2; 5.11-12). There are other elements in common, such as work as a source of joy, disrupted only by disobedience (Trible 1973: 44). The most important parallel between Genesis 2-3 and the Song is the manner in which both affirm the mutuality of the sexes. 'There is no male 4. Nahum Glatzer 1977: 25. The rabbis, too, see a relationship between Adam and Job and comment on the fact that Job did not listen to his wife, as did Adam (Gen. R. 19.12). 5. An alternative translation reads 'adam not as a reference to the first man but as a generic human being. Thus NRSV has 'concealed my transgressions as others do'. 6. The use of the root 'return' in Job 42.10 is also a clue that more is to be expected. For a discussion, see the longer version of this paper, 'Song of Songs as an Answer to Job' (forthcoming).


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dominance, no female subordination, and no stereotyping of either sex' (Trible 1978:161)—at least not until the 'Fall', when inequality and strife enter the picture. The Song, however, reverses this 'Fall', and the term 'desire' illustrates this reversal. As Trible points out, the word 'desire' appears in the Hebrew Bible only three times (Gen. 3.16; 4.7; and Song 7.10). In Genesis it signals punishment and inequality. In the Song it is a joy, not a judgment (Trible 1978:159-60). Moreover, as desire of the male lover for the female, it reconfigures the relationship. Trible asks: 'Has one mark of sin in Eden been overcome here in another garden with the recovery of mutuality in love? Male dominance is totally alien to Canticles. Can it be that grace is present?' (Trible 1973: 36). Trible concludes: Let us stress that these lovers are not the primeval couple living before the advent of disobedience. Nor are they an eschatological couple, as Karl Barth would have us believe. They live in the 'terror of history' (Eliade), but their love knows not that terror. To be sure, the poetry hints of threats to their paradise... But all these discordant notes blend into the total harmony of love. If death did not swallow the primeval couple, neither does it overpower the historical couple. 'Love is strong as death' (8.6)... Whatever else it may be, Canticles is a commentary on Genesis 2-3. Paradise Lost is Paradise Regained (Trible 1973: 46-47).

This interpretation of Song of Songs, combined with the interpretation of Job as a reversal of Adam's temptation, leads to the following typology: as the action of the rebellious man, Adam, resulted in the expulsion of humanity from paradise, so the behavior of the pious and innocent Job can be seen as leading to the restoration of paradise that we find in Song of Songs. Job's faithfulness becomes the occasion of reconciliation and the reason for the reversal depicted in the Song. The full answer to Job is not found in God's words to Job, nor even in God making Godself present to Job by responding. The answer is in the reversal and restoration of the possibility of the garden of Eden on earth that Song of Songs describes. 3. Song of Songs as an Answer to Clines 's Job All readers of biblical texts, as of any other texts, bring their own interests, prejudices, and presuppositions with them. While they would be wrong to insist that the Bible should say what they want it to say, they would be equally wrong to think that it does not matter, in reading the Bible, what they themselves already believe (Clines 1989: xlvii).

Clines has advocated a conscious 'left to right' reading of biblical texts alongside 'right to left' readings (Clines 1990), and demonstrates the rich-

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ness of such 'ambidextrous' approaches. As for Job, it may be premature to speak about Clines's 'Book of Job' before the final volume of his Job commentary appears. Fortunately, however, we already have a polyphony of Clines's readings that justify a dialogue with Clines's Job and Song of Songs. Each of these readings highlights a different dimension of Job, and is capable of eliciting a different canonical response from similar 'readings' of Song of Songs. a. Job's Final Words Although Clines's own final words on Job are not yet available, his unique translation of Job's final words offer a clue. According to Clines, Job at the end neither denies nor repents but expresses awe and satisfaction: Therefore I melt in reverence before you, and I have received my comfort, even while sitting in dust and ashes (Job 42.6).

Clines suggests that Job's religion and theology 'are suddenly able to cohere' (Clines 1989: xlvi). God still remains ultimately unknowable and God's reasons 'in the last analysis incomprehensible' (xlvi). Now, however: Job finds this position acceptable, even actually comforting: to bow in awe before a mysterious God he cannot grasp... This is the Job of the prologue, but with a difference: the religious instinct is now supported by a theological realignment. Now he not only feels, but also has come to believe, that it makes sense that God should not be wholly amenable to human reason. It was the theology of wild animals that convinced him, the inexplicability of whole tracts of the natural order, the apparent meaninglessness of creatures useless to humankind but unquestionably created by God nevertheless (Clines 1989: xlvii).

We can read Song of Songs as an exposition on a life lived with such a reverent acceptance of God's inscrutability, disclosed via a theology of wild animals. The incomprehensibility of God and the acceptance of limits require a shift in orientation to the earthly, more confined arena of human interaction. New energies are marshaled to address the impenetrable world of the unfathomed, yet accepted world of the Joban dialogue. The wild animals in YHWH'S speeches illustrate the need for a new kind of integration of self with the world, the human and non-human world, that is. Reintegration begins in the book of Job by Job getting off the ash heap and rejoining community. It continues in fresh ways when, together, lovers in Song of Songs retreat from the place of the 'wild things' that God's


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speeches invoke, to the sphere of the possible, sense-making human relations, as an answer to what God no longer can supply. Song of Song's answer is a call to celebration, with the focus on the other—this time the human other—in a dialogue of love. From the grand cosmic questions, hurled heavenward and back to earth, the focus shifts to the search for the other and the discovery of the other in an earthly love. This resolution can be understood in at least two ways. It conveys either that human love is a haven from theological and social injustice that cannot be rectified, or that the capacity to love is the beginning step for rectifying that which has been exposed in Job as troubling and hurtful but not removed by God. The capacity for love is released by the awe that Clines perceives in Job's last words, with the Song as 'the rekindling of a passion for life' (Walsh 2000: 7). b. A Feminist Reading Clines, in wrestling with 'A Feminist Reading', points out the injustices inflicted upon Job's wife—both by God in the story and by the narrator (Clines 1989: xlviii-1). He also touches on the concluding mention of the three daughters and their inheritance (without reference to their names) and ends with the astute feminist question as to whether the book's 'principal concern is in any way a gender-determined one' (1). If it is difficult to imagine an alternative version of the book in which all the protagonists were female and in which at the same time the principal issue arising from the loss of family, social standing and reputation was the doctrine of retribution and the justice of God, then to that extent the book, however sublime a literary work, may be defective, as yet another expression of an uncritical androcentricity (Clines 1989:1).

As if overhearing Clines's challenge, Song of Songs offers a response: a book in which protagonists are largely females and the solution to life's losses and possibilities is not construed in litigious questions about retribution. To the feminist question whether Job is androcentric, the Song responds by inserting the mother's house as the locus of security and safety and origin of possibilities. It replaces the so-called dialogue of antagonists—Job and his friends or Job and God—with women's questions. Voices and lives suppressed in Job burst forth in melodic poetry in the Song, with daughters celebrating—not opposing—a woman's quest (5.9). Far from shutting out female expression in the manner of Job's retort to his wife, the woman in the Song is celebrated for her speech (2.14) and male dialogue is replaced with female dialogue as the dominant discourse.

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The major concern is not retribution or loss of family but rather reinforcement of family relation through love and the discovery of 'the other' as the basis for equitable and adequate human relations. Social standing and reputation in the Song give way to the determination of lovers to seek intimacy even at the cost of transgressing conventions and courting social strictures by the 'guardians of the walls' (Song 3 and 5).7 In all these ways, the Song 'remedies' some of the ills that the book of Job perpetrates and constitutes an alternative to the questions and answers posed in Job. The reintegration that began in Job with the naming of his daughters is enlarged when the women blossom in the Song as they also find voice and vocation. c. A Vegetarian Reading of Job and Song of Songs The verdant world of the Song is yet another answer to Job. In 'A Vegetarian Reading' (Clines 1989:1-lii), Clines asks whether Job 'uncritically adopts the attitude of a carnivorous culture toward animals, or whether in any way the text undermines those attitudes by a more positive estimation of animals' (1). He notes the places where animals play a significant role and concludes that at the end animals serve as an analogy to the 'inexplicable elements of the moral order of the world' (li). Clines concludes that in the view of the book of Job, 'proper estimation of the animal creation is essential for coping with certain of the riddles of human existence' (lii). From the depiction of the animals as a challenge and analogy for moral order, the Song moves to animals as metaphors for human love and relations—wild yet gentle, they give language to embodied love. If in Job they explicate a mystery of God, in the Song they articulate the mystery of lovers, not merely accepting such mystery but celebrating the inexplicable. d. A Materialist Reading of Job and Song of Songs In his 'Materialistic Reading' (Clines 1989: lii-liv) Clines writes that a 'materialist approach argues that literature is written, to a greater or lesser extent, to support the interests of the social class of its author' (lii). Job, Clines concludes, is a rich person's book, exploring a rich person's question, namely, retribution and Job's concern with status. The book does not 'envisage poverty as a moral criticism of wealth' (liii). How refreshing it is, then, to move into the world of the Song. Song of Songs takes on a radically different position vis-a-vis wealth and undercuts 7. Admittedly, it is the woman, not the man, who takes the risk and suffers the consequences.


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the assumptions of Job. Solomon's glory is now ridiculed; instead, the materiality of the body is affirmed. Measuring love by economic categories or possessions (8.7) is explicitly scorned (scorn remains whether the poet is criticizing a society that does not appreciate the man who foregoes wealth for the sake of love or the one who thinks money can buy love). It is noteworthy that the repeated denial of the power of wealth concentrates in the Song at the end—a suggestive antidote to the materialistic conclusion of Job in Job 42. At the same time, the material nature of our life is not ignored when a reconciled Job gets off the ash heap and finds comfort in the human realm. Companionship and food (in that order) come first (42.11), and brothers and sisters stand out as the context for that restoration. Family language resumes and heals. Family relations8 and friends form the binding and nurturing web of love and life in Song of Songs, as lovers envision each other as siblings (4.9) and invoke the mother as a source of teaching and support (3.4). 4. Conclusion

One could develop additional responses to Clines's Job to correspond to the other, multivalent readings of Job by Clines;9 but enough has been said to illustrate how the canonical shaping invites us to consider the contiguities as well as complementarity that bind Job and Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible. The two extensive poetic dialogues in the Bible, placed side by side in the Tanakh, are point and counterpoint. Clines's tantalizing title of a paper delivered some years ago asks: 'Why Is There a Song of Songs and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?' (Clines 1995: 94121). With this essay I give one of many possible answers to Clines's question. Song of Songs exists so that when we have reached the limits of a dialogue with God10 we might turn and face each other and perceive anew what it means to have been created in the image of God. In the yawning void of God's subsequent silence we have the Song and its poets to carry forth the dialogue.11 8. Family relations are not romanticized, however. Note the conflict with the brothers (1.6). 9. See, e.g., Clines 1995: 122-44; 1989: liv-lvi. 10. As Miles points out, God never speaks after the book of Job (1995: 338). 11. I thank my beloved dialogue partner, Bill Whedbee, for his insightful comments on this paper.


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Bibliography Childs, B.S. 1979 Clines, D.J.A. 1989 1990

1995 1998 Curtis, J. 1979 Glatzer, N. 1977 Jung, C.G. 1960 Keller, C. 2002 Landy, F. 1979 1983 Miles, J. 1995 Perdue, L. 1991 Trible, P. 1973 1978 Tsevat, M. 1966 Walsh, C.E. 2000

Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (London: SCM Press). Job 1-20 (WBC, 17; Waco, TX: Word Books). 'Reading Esther from Left to Right: Contemporary Strategies for Reading a Biblical Text', in D.J.A Clines, S.E. Fowl and S.E. Porter (eds.), The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield (JSOTSup, 87; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 22-42. Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998 (2 vols.; JSOTSup, 292-93; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). 'On Job's Response to Yahweh', JBL: 497-511. The Dimensions of Job (New York: Schocken Books). Answer to Job (Cleveland/New York: Meridian Books). The Face of the Deep (London: Routledge). 'The Song of Songs and the Garden of Eden', JBL 98: 513. Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs (Bible and Literature Series, 7; Sheffield: Almond Press). God: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf). Wisdom in Revolt: Metaphorical Theology in the Book of Job (Bible and Literature Series, 29; JSOTSup, 112; Sheffield: Almond Press). 'Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation', JAAR 42: 30-48. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press). 'The Meaning of the Book of Job', HUCA 37: 73-106. Exquisite Desire: Religion, the Erotic, and the Song of Songs (Minneapolis: Fortress Press).

Whedbee, J.W. 'The Comedy of Job', Semeia 7: 1-39. 1977 1998 The Bible and the Comic Vision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

'THE VOICE OFMY LOVER': DOUBLE VOICE AND POETIC ILLUSION IN SONG OF SONGS 2.8-3.5

J. Cheryl Exum

In Song 2.8-17 the female protagonist recounts a visit by her lover to her house and his invitation to her to join him outdoors, where spring's arrival is announced by flowers coming into bloom, birdsong, budding vines and fragrance in the air. This section of the Song of Songs ends as it begins, in an image of sexual energy, with the man leaping over mountains like a gazelle or young deer. In Song 3.1-5 she describes her nocturnal search for her lover and its resolution when she finds him, and then she addresses the women of Jerusalem, placing them under oath not to awaken or disturb love until it is ready. Although there is a break between 2.17 and 3.1 and the mood changes, I take 2.8-17 and 3.1-5 as one long, sustained speech by the woman (or, we might say, a speech in two parts or two movements). Taken together, 2.8-17 and 3.1-5 bear a remarkable similarity to 5.2-6.3, a tightly constructed and clearly articulated unit within the Song, where these two scenes—the lover's visit and the seeking and finding—are merged into one.1 Here in our passage, these two scenes are merely juxtaposed instead of interwoven. If, however, we view the lover's coming and going in the first scene as a variation of the seeking-and-finding motif in the second, the juxtaposition becomes less jarring than it first appears. Both scenes are poetic acts of conjuring (see below). Something new and, in terms of the unfolding of the poem, extraordinary happens in 2.8-3.5.1 The woman tells a story, or juxtaposes two stories, each with a narrative movement and a sense of closure, a tension and a resolution—in other words, with a plot. Indeed 2.8-3.5 and its counterpart 5.2-6.3 have more of a plot line than any other parts of the Song. Here in 1. For details, see Exum 1973: 56-59, but taking the beginning of the unit as 2.8 rather than 2.7. 2. In the interest of space, I focus here primarily on 2.8-17; by 'the poem' I refer to the Song of Songs in its entirety.

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2.8, for the first time, the Song of Songs acknowledges the presence of a narrator, a narrator who is also a character, as distinguished from the poet as narrator, whose narrative presence throughout the Song is deftly effaced. The poet puts words into the woman's mouth, creating her speech (2.8-3.5) in which she puts words into her lover's mouth, creating his speech (in 2.10-14). Even when using a narrator whose presence is evident (to the point of such an obvious sign of narration as 'my lover answered and said to me', v. 10), the poet maintains what I call the illusion of immediacy—the impression that, far from being simply reported, the action is taking place in the present, unfolding before the reader's very eyes (Exum 1999a: 48-51). This poetic strategy is, in my view, central to the Song's poetic power and effectiveness and to its romantic vision of love as 'strong as death'. Captured on the page as ever in process, the lovers' desire is perpetual, it cannot fade, and the poet's vision of love is actualized whenever we read the poem. 2.8

2.9

2.10

2.11 2.12

2.13

2.14

Listen! My lover! Look! He's coming, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills. My lover is like a gazelle or young deer. Look! He's standing outside our wall, peering in through the windows, peeking through the lattice. My lover answered and said to me, 'Rise up, my friend, my fair one, and come away, for look, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. Blossoms are seen in the land; the time of singing has arrived, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens its first fruit, and the budding vines give forth fragrance. Rise up, my friend, my fair one, and come away, my dove in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff. Let me see you, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and you are lovely.'

EXUM 'The Voice of My Lover'

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2.15 Catch us foxes, little foxes, spoilers of vineyards, for our vineyards are in bloom. 2.16 My lover is mine and I am his who grazes among the lilies. 2.17 When the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my love, be like a gazelle or a young deer upon the cleft mountains. 3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

On my bed night after night, I have sought my soul's beloved. I sought him but I did not find him. I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek my soul's beloved. I sought him but I did not find him. The watchmen found me, those who go the rounds of the city. My soul's beloved—have you seen him? Scarcely had I passed them, when I found my soul's beloved. I caught hold of him and would not let him go until I had brought him to my mother's house, to the chamber of her who conceived me. I place you under oath, women of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or does of the open field, not to arouse or awaken love until it wishes.3

The illusion of immediacy is achieved in the woman's speech through a combination of poetic techniques: (1) the use of riDH ('look!') as a focalizer of present action, (2) the reliance on what I call the erotic imperative, the call to love by means of imperatives and vocatives that give the impression of the lovers' presence at the moment of utterance ('rise up, my friend, my fair one, and come away', 'let me see', 'let me hear', 'turn, my love, be like a gazelle'), and (3) the prominence given to participles to capture action in process (the man is leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills, standing outside the wall, peering in through the windows, peeking 3. Translation mine; for discussion, see my forthcoming commentary. I am indebted to Fox (1985) for the apt translation of "EJE3 mnNKJ PIN as 'my soul's beloved'.

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through the lattice, his activity arrested in time). When the woman quotes her lover, it is as if we are overhearing him, so unobtrusive is the double narratorial voice, the poet telling us what the woman is telling us that the man is saying. Another defining feature of the Song's poetic artistry that comes to the fore in 2.8-3.5 is the conjuring up of the loved one and letting him/her disappear (so that the conjuring can begin again) (see Exum 1999a: 51 -56). Through the woman's speech the man's voice is heard (2.8,10-14). First heard, then seen at a distance, he materializes through her poetic powers of representation (i.e., those of the poet who puts this speech in her mouth). She brings her lover to her house from afar (in w. 8-9) only to send him away (v. 17) in what is not really a sending away. Between 2.17 and 3.1 it seems that he is not there, and she seeks him, cannot find him, seeks and finally finds him (3.1-5). Conjuring up her lover is what the woman does in both 2.8-17 and 3.1-5, in an unending game of seeking and finding, of desiring and experiencing satisfaction, that mirrors the rhythms of love. Ultimately it is the poet's game, an attempt to embody desire through seductive language and erotic imagery, by means of signifiers that both denote and seek to overcome the absence of the signified, the lovers (see Brooks 1993:7-8). At key points in her story, the woman's narrative presence is as adeptly effaced as the poet's own presence throughout the poem. Her voice not only distinguishes itself as that of a narrator and a character in her own narration, it also merges with the poet's (as its creator) and her lover's (when she quotes him). The distinction between past and present is blurred; for example, the lover spoke, yet we hear him speaking ('rise up, my friend... and come away', 2.10-14); the watchmen found the woman, and we hear her questioning them ('My soul's beloved—have you seen him?', 3.3). The artistry of the entire speech is exceedingly complex, the result seems effortless—a mark of a great poet, as another great poet, William Butler Yeats, has put it so well: 'A line will take us hours maybe; /Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, /Our stitching and unstitching has been naught' ('Adam's Curse'). The story the woman tells may have a plot of sorts, but it is no less lyric poetry than the rest of the Song. We should not therefore expect it to follow the conventions of prose narrative, which is what Roland Murphy (among many others) seems to do when he calls 2.8-17 a 'reminiscence' on the part of the woman and speaks of the man as 'present to her at least in the memory of the visit which she is evoking' (1990:140) and 'present


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at least in spirit' (142). To be sure, insofar as the woman is recounting what her lover said to her, she is reminiscing. Interestingly, the reminiscence hangs entirely on only four words in the Hebrew: "*"? "IQN1 "Hll n3I7 ('my-lover answered and-spoke to-me'). Without this line, we would have a continuation of the pattern established at the beginning of the Song (1.22.7), in which alternating speeches are presented as direct discourse, and so appear to be taking place in the present. The effect of the words 'my lover answered and spoke to me' on the status of the speech in 2.8-17 is remarkable, but for all the pressure they exert on its meaning, they do not control the whole speech in the sense that they place the woman's entire narrative in the past. The immediacy effect works as a counter-pressure against the reminiscence effect. The beginning of the woman's speech (v. 8) is vividly situated in the present (the lover is approaching). The narrated story that follows (what the man said) is transformed, through the illusion of immediacy, into the present, as we overhear him saying, 'Rise up, my love, and come away'. By the time he says to her 'let me hear your voice' (v. 14) and she replies in w. 15 (?), 16-17, the indicators of narration have faded away. In v. 17, she addresses him with a double imperative, 'turn, my love, be like a gazelle'. Is v. 17 still part of her narration of the past, or has she conjured up her lover so vividly that she now speaks to him directly? The blurring of the boundaries between past and present is also a blurring of the distinction between the woman as narrator and the woman as a character in her own narrative. We cannot tell the storyteller from the story.4 The woman's speech begins with the voice (HI! "Tip), a voice that signals her lover's presence before he speaks. Hearing and seeing, the voice and the gaze, are central metaphors in the Song, and they play an important role in our passage. 'Listen! (^lp) My Lover!' and 'Look! (HDH) He's coming, leaping over the mountains...' create the impression of immediacy. Who is supposed to listen and look? To whom is the speech, as a whole, directed? As elsewhere in the Song, we may think both of the women of Jerusalem (the audience in the poem whose presence is acknowledged in 3.5) and, also and especially, of the poem's readers. Anticipating the sound of his voice, the description in w. 8-9 brings the man ever 4. I allude here to Yeats, whom I quoted as a poetic authority above. The poet of the Song of Songs exemplifies Yeats's artistic ideal: 'O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,/Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?/O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,/How can we know the dancer from the dance?' ('Among School Children')-

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closer until we hear him speak. The woman creates a vivid picture of his approach: he is first observed at a distance, upon the mountains, and then seen from up close, outside her house, where we spy him spying, peeping in the windows to catch a glimpse of her. Whereas she and, through her eyes, we can see him coming closer until we can hear him, he, for his part, is trying to catch sight of her through the windows so that he can tell her that he wants to see and hear her. In v. 10, 'my lover answered and said to me' simulates a narrative, and it sounds as if the woman is going to report some event from the past. Robert offers the pertinent observation that, although the woman presents it in the form of a historical narrative, the scene is actually outside of time, but he then proceeds to locate the scene in the future (in keeping with his allegorical interpretation of the Song, he sees this narrative as expressing hope for restoration after the exile [1963: 117]). Michael Fox rightly perceives that the woman describes events 'as if they were happening in the present' (1985:112), though he locates the events in the past. Critics typically try to resolve the temporal fluidity as if it were a problem, because they do not perceive its poetic purpose in creating a sense of immediacy and urgency. An exception is Jill Munro (1995: 121-23, 126-27), who rightly emphasizes the blurring of distinctions between past and present as characteristic of the Song's literary artistry. Rendered in most translations of v. lOa as 'said', HDU normally means 'answered'. We have only to recall that the Song is a dialogue for 'answered' to make sense here. It is as if the man is replying to the woman's description of his approach in w. 8-9, transforming a reminiscence (to use Murphy's term) into a conversation. His speech is rhetorically effective in building up to the climax, his request to see and hear her. The direct address, 'Rise up, my friend, my fair one, and come away', repeated from v. 10 in v. 13, serves a dual function: it rounds off the first part of the man's speech, making it an inclusio, and it introduces the second part. In the first part (1 Ob-13a), he explains why she should come outside; in the second (13b-14), he reveals why he wants her to come out.5

5. The Masoretes placed a setuma at the end of v. 13, indicating a sense division. The alternative division of the speech I am proposing takes 13b with the following, as introducing the second part of the speech, so that each reason for her to come out—so that she can enjoy the springtime in the first, so that he can see and hear her in the second—is preceded by the invitation to rise up and come away with him. There is, in fact, a chiasmus formed by w. 8-9 and 17, comparing the man to a gazelle or deer


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He first presents his case from her perspective, as it were; she should come outside so that she can enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of early spring. Spring, when nature comes to life, is, after all, the season quintessentially associated with love. The invitation to share the delights of spring derives its persuasive power from its appeal to the senses. 'Look!' (n3H, v. 11) directs the woman's—and the reader's—attention as spring unfolds before us. Blossoms are seen, the turtledove's cooing is heard, the budding vines fill the air with fragrance. There is even a hint of taste in the mention of ripening figs and grape vines. The repeated references to 'the land', 'our land', in v. 12 suggest a widening of perspective, bringing the total sensory picture into the ambit of the entire countryside. The sensuous blossoming of the season mirrors the awakening of love (Munro 1995: 117). The man wants to share the beauty of spring with his lover. When he invites her outside the second time (w. 13c-14), he comes to the main reason, from his point of view, for her to come outside: never mind the sights and sounds and smells of spring, he wants to see her and hear her (v. 14). The sense of sight is understandably privileged in the Song. Lovers love to gaze upon each other, and the Song, accordingly, gives us detailed descriptions of the lovers' bodies. As mentioned above, the voice also features prominently. The Song begins with a disembodied voice asking for something other than speech from the loved one's mouth: 'let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!' (Cook 1968:115). It ends with the man asking to hear his lover's voice, as he does here in 2.14—to which he receives virtually the same reply that he gets in 2.17. The woman begins her account in 2.8-17—the account in which the man's request to see and hear her is embedded—with the injunction to listen and look, and her first word is "Tip, literally 'voice'. Her lover's request in v. 14 brings seeing andhearing together in one beautifully balanced chiastic couplet. Let me see your form, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your form is lovely.6

upon the mountains (A and A') and the identical call to the woman in vv. 10 and 13 (B and B'); see Exum 1973: 54. 6. It is difficult to reproduce the emphasis on sight and sound in English, and it is not represented in the translation offered earlier of 2.8-3.5; nN~lft, here translated 'form', is the appearance, that which is seen, the total visible form.

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I take the following verses (w. 15-17) as the woman's reply to this request. The meaning of the verse about the foxes is the subject of considerable debate, and I shall not rehearse it here. Taking the foxes as an allusion to lustful young men and the vineyards to ripe young women, I see the woman as speaking on behalf of women in general and saying, in effect: young men can roam about freely in search of romance, like foxes romping through the vineyards. They want our favours and we want theirs, but we are not so free as they are to dally. The important thing for us is to catch a fox for our very own (each of us, her own fox). These adventurous young men need to be caught, seized hold of and brought home—which is what the woman does a few verses later (3.4) when she seizes her lover (the verb is the same, Tf"IN) and refuses to let him go until she has brought him to her mother's house. (Ideally, in the scenario envisioned in v. 15, the man is caught and brought home for good.)7 Verse 15 is the general and v. 16 the particular. The woman's caricature of the way women and men look at love differently—the former from the perspective of the vineyard and the latter from the perspective of the fox— does not, she says, apply to her and her lover. As a reply to her lover's request in v. 14 to hear her voice, v. 15 about the foxes is only a teasing backdrop against which she makes a serious and profound claim in v. 16: 'my lover is mine and I am his'. Her point is: lustful young men in general are rather like foxes who by nature seek to take advantage of blossoming vineyards, but my lover, in contrast, is committed to me. Our relationship is exclusive and mutual: he is mine and I am his. He is not to be found in just any vineyard; he grazes among the lilies (the lilies being symbolic of the woman herself; cf. 2.1-2, 16; 6.2-3). She speaks in response to his request to hear her voice, but does she answer his plea to let him see her? Her account of her lover's visit does not mention her going outside to join him. Only if we want to maintain a strict narrative framework in w. 10-17 will we need to imagine her speaking from inside the house. In v. 17 the woman addresses her lover directly, as though he were there before her. This is typical of the way the Song plays with presence and absence, conjuring up the lover only to let him disap7. This interpretation fits, I believe, the general picture the Song of Songs gives of a society in which a man's freedom of movement is greater than a woman's, as well as its picture of love as something that women give and men take. It also fits the particular situation portrayed in the woman's account here in 2.8-17, in which she is in the house and the man comes, when he chooses, to court her. Most important, it provides the context for understanding the next verse, for which it is only the prelude.


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pear, so that the seeking and finding can begin again. Having replied to his request to hear her voice with an assertion about their love (w. 15-16), here in v. 17 she urges him either to return home (at dusk? at dawn?) or to come to her—whichever she means depends upon how one understands this enigmatic verse. First, we have the problem whether the verse refers to the coming of the evening or the morning, a point on which commentators are divided. When does the day 'breathe' (DTTI niS1^ "(17)—in the morning, when it blows softly in, or in the evening, when it becomes cool (as in 'the cool of the day', Gen. 3.8)? Does the fleeing of the shadows refer to their lengthening until they disappear, as day draws to a close, or to their disappearance when the sun rises? Does ~tf II) mean 'until' (NRSV, NAB, KJV), or 'while' (NEB), or 'when' (NJPSV) or 'before' (NJB)? Second, there is the question whether 'turn' (3D) indicates that the woman is calling her lover to her—in the sense of 'turn to me' or 'return'—or sending him away. Third, she exhorts him to be like a gazelle or young deer upon the mountains, using the same imagery she used to describe his approach in w. 8-9. Here, however, the mountains are specified as "ifD "H!"!, 'cleft mountains', 'mountains of separation', or 'mountains of Bether'. Do the mountains represent the woman (as the 'mountains of spices' seemingly do in the similar exhortation in 8.14), or are they the mountains beyond which he came in 2.8, here specifically identified as the mountains of Bether, or are these some other mountains? It is striking that v. 17 is ambiguous with regard to the lover's movements in so many respects. Is the woman sending the man away and calling him to her at the same time, in what seems to be a contradictory impulse? (This appears to be the case in 8.14, when virtually the same exhortation appears.) The problem is resolved if we understand the woman's words as double entendre.8 In the context of the woman's 'story' of her lover's visit in 2.8-17, telling him to be like a gazelle upon the mountains means that the time has come for him to go home. 'Turn' in this scenario would mean to turn away from her, to return to the place over the mountains from where he came (v. 8). But the woman does not say, 'Turn, my love, be like a gazelle or young deer leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills'. The change in wording from v. 8 is significant. What are the "IPO "HH? Some see "1PQ as a place; others, as a type of spice; others 8. The previous verse (2.16) ended with a double entendre—is the man grazing among lilies, i.e., engaging in love play, or pasturing a flock? (so NRSV, NJB, Rudolph 1962: 136)—and double entendre is very much in evidence in 5.2-6, the other story the woman tells of a visit by her lover (see Exum 1999b: 78-84).

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understand 'cleft mountains' as a veiled reference to the woman. Understood as double entendre suggestive of the woman herself, either 'mountains of spices' or 'cleft mountains' presents her as the mountain on which her lover should now cavort (the 'turning' would thus be toward her). A similar double entendre appears in 4.6, when the man says, 'When the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will make my way to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense'. His words, which echo hers of 2.17, strongly suggest that his movement, when evening comes, is toward her. Assuming that v. 17b is double entendre, I am inclined to see v. 17a as referring to the end of the day. In the story the woman tells, the man's invitation to her to join him outside and his description of the sights and sounds she should enjoy give the impression of a daytime visit (Rudolph 1962: 133; Murphy 1990: 140; contra Fox 1985: 115). In v. 17 she tells him that, when evening comes, it will be time for him to return home (this also sets the stage for her longing for him in bed at night and seeking him in the following verses, 3.1-5). On the erotic level, far from encouraging him to leave when it is evening, she invites him to spend the night with her. He besought her to join him outside (w. 10-14), now she intimates, by means of sexual innuendo, that he should come to her.9 The woman's words in v. 17 are virtually identical to the last verse of the Song, where once again they are spoken by her in response to the man's request to hear her voice: 'Flee, my love, and be like a gazelle or a young deer upon the mountains of spices'. The differences are (1) i~l~Q, 'flee', appears in place of 3D, 'turn', which makes the movement away from the woman more apparent, and (2) 'mountains of spices' replaces 'cleft mountains', which more strongly suggests movement toward the woman. These differences pull in opposite directions, foregrounding the dual impulses already at work here in 2.17. In its poetic unfolding, Song 2.8-17 offers a clue to the meaning of the Song as a whole. The poem ends, as this speech does, with the woman sending her lover away and calling him to her in the same breath. The 9. A different approach is offered by Wiirthwein (1969:46-47), who reads v. 17a with v. 16; thus, the male lover grazes among the lilies until, or when, the evening breezes blow. Then, in v. 17b, the woman invites the man to come to the mountains of Bether ('Komm her'). Curiously, however, when this enigmatic couplet about the day breathing and shadows fleeing appears again (2.17a = 4.6a) immediately after a reference to 'grazing among the lilies' (cf. 2.16 and 4.5), Wiirthwein does not connect the clauses (50-52). Similarly, Muller (1992: 32), though he thinks 4.5b-6 is a later addition (42).


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scene in 2.8-17 is followed by a second scene in 3.1 -5 in which the woman seeks and finds her lover. This pattern indicates that the paradoxical sending away and calling for(th) is a prelude to the lovers' union, a union that throughout the Song is simultaneously assured, deferred, and, on a figurative level, enjoyed. The Song does not come to an end, rather it folds back upon itself.10 Only when the woman sends her lover away can the poem begin again, with the longing and the search for him. The Song of Songs could be described as a lyric poem without beginning or end, for it begins in medias res, 'let him kiss me', and ends without closure. The poet resists closure because erotic satisfaction or fulfilment would mean the end, or death, of desiring, the silence of the text.11 Conjuring up the lovers and letting them disappear in a continual play of seeking and finding is the poet's attempt to make present, through language, the lovers who stand for all lovers and, ultimately, for a vision of love as strong as death. Bibliography Brooks, Peter 1993

Body Work: Objects of Desire in Modern Narrative (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Clines, David J.A. 1995 'Why Is There a Song of Songs and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?', in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press): 94-121. Cook, Albert 1968 The Root of the Thing: A Study of Job and the Song of Songs (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).

10. As Munro observes, the effect of 8.14 is to assure us that the Song will never end, that the lovers will evermore be engaged in love's game of seeking and finding (1995: 89). 11. Peter Brooks writes about 'the way in which narrative desire simultaneously seeks and puts off the erotic denouement that signifies both its fulfillment and its end: the death of desiring, the silence of the text' (1993: 20). See also Landy (1983: 113): 'The tension in the Song between the desire of the lovers to unite and the inevitability of their parting is that also between their voice and the silence into which it vanishes, and between love and death—the ultimate parting, the unbroken silence'. I am touching here on what David Clines, in a provocative essay on the Song of Songs, refers to as 'the implied psychological profile of the author' (1995: 102-106), but with a different view of the author's desire; namely, the desire to immortalize a particular vision of love.

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Exum, J. Cheryl 1973 'A Literary and Structural Analysis of the Song of Songs', ZA W85: 47-79. 1999a 'How Does the Song of Songs Mean? On Reading the Poetry of Desire', SEA 64: 47-63. 1999b 'In the Eye of the Beholder: Wishing, Dreaming, and double entendre in the Song of Songs', in Fiona C. Black, Roland Boer and Erin Runions (eds.), The Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation, and Biblical Interpretation (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature): 71-86. forthcoming The Song of Songs: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press). Fox, Michael V. 1985 The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press). Landy, Francis 1983 Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs (Bible and Literature Series, 7; Sheffield: Almond Press). Miiller, Hans-Peter 1992 Das Hohelied (AID, 16/2; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Munro, Jill M. 1995 Spikenard and Saffron: A Study in the Poetic Language of the Song of Songs (JSOTSup, 203; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Murphy, Roland E. 1990 The Song of Songs: A Commentary on the Book of Canticles or the Song of Songs (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press). Robert, A., and R. Tournay, with A. Feuillet 1963 Le Cantique des Cantiques (Etudes bibliques; Paris: J. Gabalda). Rudolph, Wilhelm 1962 Das Buch Ruth, Das Hohe Lied, Die Klagelieder (KAT, 17/1-3; Giitersloh: Gerd Mohn). Wiirthwein, Ernst 1969 Ruth, Das Hohe Lied, Esther (HAT, 18; Tubingen: Mohr).

WISDOM AND THE SELF-PRESENTATION OF WISDOM LITERATURE* Michael V. Fox Contrary to Mieder's famous dictum,1 a proverb in a collection is not dead, but it does enter a new life each time it is used. In every new use it must meet a particular need, and this role imbues it with a 'performance meaning' (Fontaine 1982: 50). In a collection, a proverb has a fairly stable semantic core which is communicated to most readers; otherwise it would be useless in further interactions. Its performance meaning, however, exists only as a potential. A proverb is thus like a coin, whose value is definable but remains latent until the coin is spent on something, whereupon it can be said to have 'performance value'. C. Fontaine's Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament (1982) introduced the concept of proverb performance into Bible studies and demonstrated its value by applying it to the citation of sayings in biblical narratives. In the Bible, however, it is precisely where we have the most proverbs—namely, the book of Proverbs—that performance analysis is most problematic. For Translations of Egyptian texts are my own. Full translations, along with references to publications of the originals, can be found in Lichtheim 1973-80 (abbrev. AEL) and Brunner 1988 (abbrev. AW). References to Egyptian texts are by column/ verse of the major MS or the section divisions in the Kleine Agyptische Texte editions. Quack 1994 is used for Anii and Posener 1976 for the 'Loyalist Instruction'. Pap. Chester Beatty IV includes a collection of school texts, four of which (§§1, 3, 4, 6) belong to the Wisdom or instruction genre (A W 222-29). Sometimes I translate an eclectic text, whose wording will be evident when the collated editions are consulted. For Babylonian texts, the translation of Foster 1993 (abbrev. BTM) or Lambert 1960 (abbrev. BWL) is used. The Sumerian Suruppak is translated by Alster 1974: 33-51. Supe'ameli (or Sube'awilum): Dietrich 1991. 1. 'Each age, each author, each work and each situation will force a new function onto the proverb. It is for this reason that the proverb in a collection is dead! It lives only when used, and as a mirror of life it can function in an infinite number of ways. Asking for the function of the proverb in a literary work is the breath of life of such an investigation' (Mieder 1974: 892). The present essay asks the latter question, not about individual proverbs but about the life of the collection as a whole in its literary context.

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the editors have, by the very nature of their task, detached the sayings from actual use and assembled them (as well as new coinages) in readiness for redeployment in a limitless variety of new contexts. Until then, they exist as literature and are susceptible to literary analysis. Further, the assembled proverbs have been given enriched meaning through literary re-contextualization. The shape of the new context, now a literary one, may be described in a variety of ways. For Camp (1985: 167-78,209-22), it exists by means of an overarching theme, which in Proverbs is the personification of wisdom as a woman. For other scholars, it is created and controlled by intricate formal designs with hierarchical structures.2 Heim (2001: esp. 21-25,72-75) argues that in place of an oral performance context, the collected pro verbs are arranged in coherent editorial groupings, each of which creates a 'literary performance context' (24). But literary structures, no matter how tightly organized, are not 'performance contexts'. They are not situations (real or fictional) in which someone uses a proverb in an attempt to influence others. There is, however, one type of context in Wisdom books that is comparable to proverb performance but that has not been recognized as such: the discourse setting in which the teachings are delivered.3 Here we do hear someone speaking to someone else with an attempt to influence him or the situation. Such a setting can be called 'wisdom performance', since it pertains not to individual proverbs but to the Wisdom book as a whole. Most ancient Near Eastern Wisdom books are given a performance setting. This is a deliberate literary choice, as shown by the fact that some proverb collections do not receive one. There are Sumerian and Babylonian texts that are only compilations of sayings.4 Some of the sayings give advice, but others are merely clever phrases that have no didactic message.5 2. A number of scholars have tried to discern designs of varying scope in the proverb collections. Scoralick, for example, delineates designs largely on the basis of repeated proverb-variants (1995: 161 and passim). Krispenz marks out compositional groups largely on the basis of paronomasia in conjunction with thematic groupings (1989: 32-40). R. Van Leeuwen (1988) applied structural analysis to Prov. 25-27, proposing an intricate design in 25.2-27. 3. I capitalize 'Wisdom' to indicate the literary genre, to be distinguished from the faculty and knowledge of wisdom. 4. Alster 1997; BWL: 223-80. 5. An example of the former is 'Being strong does not compare with having intelligence' (Alster 1997: 178). An example of the latter is 'A wild stag ascended like a poplar, and is coming down' (Alster 1997:205), which looks like a risque wisecrack.

Fox Wisdom and the Self-Presentation of Wisdom Literature 155 The purpose of these collections is not stated, but it seems to be to provide scribal students with a rhetorical resource and not to convey wisdom directly. Such collections are marginal to the genre of 'Wisdom literature', which is most usefully confined to books that seek to guide the reader in matters of moral and practical import. The present study does not address the issues of the historical origins or the actual Sitze im Leben of the proverbs or the books (on which see Fox 1996). Rather, it describes the way that Wisdom books present themselves and define their speakers and audiences, the media by which their teachings are said to be communicated, and their purposes.

1. The Participants a. Father and Son The ostensible context of wisdom performance—whenever one is stated or implied—is the family. In almost all Wisdom books, insofar as the condition of the manuscripts allows us to ascertain, the speaker is the father and the audience his son or sons. In one case, the mother is the teacher (Prov. 30.1-9). Elsewhere there is occasional mention of mothers teaching wisdom,6 but they are not quoted. Daughters are never explicitly in the audience, with the possible exception of the Egyptian 'Loyalist Instruction' (AEL: 1,128), which is addressed to 'his children'. (The word is written in some manuscripts with both male and female determinatives [§8.2; Posener 1976: 101].)7 The following are spoken by a father to his son or children:

6. Prov 1.8; 4.3; 6.20; 31.26; Duachety XXXf-g (cf. AEL, 1,191); and see 'Mothers as Teachers' in Fox 2000: 82-83. In the Ptolemaic tomb of Petosiris, an inscription praises his wife Renpet-Nefret for being: 'expert with (her) mouth, sweet in speech, excellent in counsel in her writings' (Fox 1985: 350 7. The use of the female determinative with hrdw 'children', though possibly a reflex of the common writing of the word, suggests that for some scribes the inclusion of daughters among the auditors was not unthinkable. The fragmentary words of Sasobek (Pap. Ramesseum I; Barns 1956: pis. I-VI), may be addressed to 'people' (rmt (pi. 1,1. 167), also (as is usual) with the male + female determinatives, if Barns's restoration in pi. I is correct. This text, insofar as it is comprehensible, has some wisdom advice but is largely a lament. According to D. Harrington (1996: 58,83-84), a fragmentary Qumran text (4Q415 frag. 2, ii 1-9) may be directing its advice to a female, using the 2 fern. sg. imperative. The reading of the relevant words is, however, very uncertain.

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Reading from Right to Left In Egypt: Hardjedef (AEL, I,58), Kagemeni (plural; AEL, 1,60), Ptahhotep (AEL, I, 63), Merikare (see AEL, I, 97), the 'Loyalist Instruction' (plural; AEL, 1,128), king Amenemhet (AEL, 1,136), Duachety (AEL, 1,185), The Instruction of a Man for his Son' (AW, 188), Amenemope (AEL, II, 149), Ami(AEL,ll, 136,144), the priest Amenemhet (plural ;AW, 3 90), and Anchsheshonq (AEL, III, 163). A unique variation of the father-son pattern is the case of the friends Amenakhte (A W, 231 -33) and Hori (O. Gardiner 2, recto), whose instructions address each other's son (Bickel and Mathieu 1993:49). In some Egyptian texts, lacunae prevent us from determining if an audience was mentioned (Pap. Beatty IV, Pap. Insinger). Only The Instruction according to Old Writings' (O. Petrie 11; AW, 213-17) definitely does not designate an audience. In Mesopotamia: Suruppak (Alster 1974: 35), Shupe'ameli (Dietrich 1991:39,41), and the Babylonian 'Counsels of Wisdom' (BTM 328). Ahiqar addresses his nephew, whom he has adopted (Syriac recension, Conybeare, Harris and Lewis 1913: 99, 103). In Israel: The father-son relation is implied in Proverbs 1-9 in the exhortations to 'my son' to listen to his father's instruction (1.8; 4.1; 6.20). The parallel between 'father' and 'mother' in 4.3 confirms that 'father' does not mean 'school teacher'. There is no reason to identify this 'son' as a pupil in a school. It may be a conventional address to any young person, but, again, occasional references to the mother indicate that 'son', in the first instance, is meant literally. Ben Sira occasionally addresses his 'son' (e.g., 3.17; 4.1; and often) or 'sons' (41.14) and calls himself'father' (3.la). Ecclesiastes has an identified speaker, the fictional king Qohelet, but he does not speak to a specific audience. The epilogue, however, addresses 'my son' (12.12).

The family is the primary setting for character education, which is Wisdom's purpose. There is never a hint of a school setting, though scholars have usually regarded this as the locus of wisdom teaching (see Fox 1996: 228-32). For a particular work, the father-son setting may be fictional (as is certainly the case with the antediluvian Suruppak) or actual (as is probably the case with most Egyptian instructions, whose authors are clearly named and provided with titles). When the father-son setting is fictional, it reveals what Wisdom authors presumed to be the natural and appropriate setting for instruction. They considered it necessary to create such a setting, presumably to give their instructions credibility and authority by accommodating them to traditional genres. b. Future Generations While the father-to-son setting of Wisdom instruction is widely recognized, it is less well noted that a Wisdom book may be intended for the

Fox Wisdom and the Self-Presentation of Wisdom Literature 157 benefit of later descendants. There are some allusions to family transmission in Egyptian Wisdom. Ptahhotep says, 'When [the obedient son] grows old and reaches veneration, he will speak likewise to his children, renewing the teaching of his father... He speaks to (his) children; then they may speak (to) their children' (11. 590-96). The word 'renew' (sm W) is significant: the teaching is 'made new' or, we might say, 'actualized', whenever it is delivered. Duachety ends his instruction by saying, 'see these things which I have placed before you and the children of your children' (XXXg; cf. AEL, I, 191). The father speaking in the 'Loyalist Instruction' says to his children: 'Imitate my character; do not neglect my words. Practice the rules which I have made. Then you can speak to your children, for the mouth has instructed since the time of the God' (§7.6-§8.1; Posener 1976: 99-101). In other words, people have given (oral) instruction from the time of creation onwards, and if you learn my precepts, you can continue this chain of tradition. A similar continuity is implied in Proverbs 1-9. If the untutored youth gains wisdom (1.4), he will become wise, and a wise man, the next verse says, has np"?, which is knowledge for teaching. This process is alluded to in 4.3-9. The speaker begins with an exhortation of the sort that opens all the lectures in Proverbs 1-9:8 'Hear, O sons, a father's instruction; listen to learn understanding! For I give you a good instruction [np1?]; forsake not my teaching [THin]' (4.1-2). The father's teaching takes the form of a quotation of his father's teaching. This is an exhortation to seek wisdom (4.4b-9): 'Let your heart hold my words; keep my precepts and live. Get wisdom, get understanding, do not forget, do not stray from the words of my mouth, etc.' (4.4b-9). Why does the father quote the listener's grandfather, when the grandfather's message is no different from that of the other lectures? For one thing, the quotation enhances the authority of the teaching by rooting it deeper in the family tradition. For another, the father may be holding himself up as evidence for the efficacy of the teachings in bringing one success and wisdom. But the quotation also gives the son a model of continuity: As I instruct you with my father's teachings, so must you instruct your sons with my teachings.

8. Following the prologue (1.1 -7), there are ten discourses or lectures addressed to the son: 1.8-19; 2.1-22; 3.1-12; 3.21-35; 4.1-9; 4.10-19; 4.20-27; 5.1-23; 6.20-35; 7.127. Embedded in them are five poetic 'interludes' (1.20-33; 3.13-20; 6.1-19; 8.1-36; 9.1-18). See Fox 2000: 44-47.

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Ben Sira does not mention his descendants, but we know that his teaching was transmitted in the family at least until his grandson, who translated it. 1. Author and Reader The father is not the only communicator, nor the son (and future generations) the only audience in Wisdom literature. The author is sometimes conscious of speaking to future readers. This dimension of communication is present in any written work (either in the author's or transcriber's intention), but only rarely are future readers given explicit attention. Amenemope's prologue says that he 'made' (that is, composed) his teaching for the edification of his son Kanakht, who is addressed in the second singular throughout the book. At the same time, the epilogue commends the book's value to all readers. Look to these thirty chapters: They entertain, they instruct; they are the foremost of writings; they make the ignorant wise. If they are read before an ignorant person, he is purified by them (§30).

In other words, while the teachings are formally spoken to Kanakht, they are written for future readers—and listeners. Note the clause, 'If they are read before an ignorant person' (not: 'If a youth reads them'). Future readers are to employ the book by reciting it aloud to others, presumably youngsters. In the second dimension of communication, the users of the book are teachers—whether schoolmasters or fathers—who can align themselves with Amenemope and instruct their sons or pupils by means of his carefully crafted words. Indeed, it is implied that this is a duty. Grumach observes: What is special in this place is the duty not only of'hearing' the instruction, as in chapter 1, not even only of 'reading' in and of itself, but also of 'reading aloud before the ignorant'. Knowledge is a duty, not a monopoly (Grumach 1972: ISO).9

The editor of the Instruction of Shupe'ameli says that the ancient sage spoke both to his son and to future generations:

9. 'Das Besondere an der Stelle ist die Verpflichtung nicht nur zum "Horen" der Lehre, wie im Kapitel 1, auch nicht nur zum "Lesen" fur sich selbst, sondern zum "Vorlesen vor dem Unwissenden". Wissen ist Verpflichtung, nicht Monopol.'

Fox Wisdom and the Self-Presentation of Wisdom Literature 159 From his mouth will come the decisions for the following times; for the people will he express homages; to the firstborn will his counsel come forth he will speak prudent prayers.10 The layering of speakers and audiences in Proverbs is more complex. The prologue (1.2-7), which creates the teaching context of the entire book in its current form, indicates two audiences.11 One audience—of the book, not the prologue proper—is the callow or untutored child (TIB) (1.4), who is to gain wisdom by hearing the proverbs that follow (1.2). In Proverbs 19, at least, he will be the audience in the text addressed by the father. Since a naive, untutored boy can hardly be expected to educate himself by independently studying the book, the book must be intended for use by someone else in educating him. This user is a reader, to be identified with the 'wise man' mentioned in 1.5. It is he, and not the boy, to whom the prologue speaks. The reader of Proverbs envisioned by its prologue is aligned with this 'wise man'. He is to use the book to educate the young and, secondarily, to cultivate his own wisdom: 'Let the wise man listen and enhance his instruction, the astute man gain guidance' (1.5, cf. v. 6). The speaker in the prologue is an author speaking to readers, who are already 'wise'. The father who speaks in chs. 1-9 is a wise man of this type, one who has wisdom to offer (e.g. 1.8-9; 2.2; 4.1, 11; 5.1) and is instructing his son or sons (e.g. 1.8,10,15; 4.1; 7.24). He is paradigmatic of the readership intended by the prologue. Any future reader of this sort can align himself with him and use the book as a model for teaching his own sons. The schema of interaction is:

10. Aus seinem Mund werden die Entscheidungen fur die folgenden Zeiten kommen, fur das Volk wird er Huldigungen aussprechen; an die Erstgeborenen wird sein Rat ausgehen, er wird besonnene Gebete sprechen (trans. Dietrich 1991: 39). 11. In Fox 2000: 325-26,1 argue (as do many commentators) that the entirety of Prov. 1-9 is later than the rest of the book (except possibly chs. 30-31). It was prefixed to the older collections to explain the nature of their wisdom. The prologue (1.1-7) was probably added at the same time, because it seems particularly cued to the lectures in chs. 1-9. The absence of allusion to the personification of wisdom in the prologue suggests that the interludes (see n. 8) were added somewhat later (Fox 2000: 326), but this proposal is based on negative evidence and must remain a hypothesis.

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Reading from Right to Left speaker

audience

medium

author wise man

wise man son(s)

writing speech

This schema did not necessarily apply to the older collections (chs. 1029) before they were brought together and provided with an introduction by the prefixing of chs. 1-9. Nevertheless, in the other collections (besides 24.23-34, which is an appendix), there are occasional pointers to the fatherson setting, particularly the address to 'my son' (19.27; 23.15, 19; 23.26; 24.13, 21; 27.11; cf. 30.2). When the prologue was added, its view of the audiences and purposes of Wisdom naturally became those of the book in its entirety. Ben Sira too intends his teachings for the future: 'Again I will radiate my teaching like the dawn, and will leave it behind for future generations. See, I did not toil for myself alone, but for all who seek (wisdom)' (24.33-34).12 2. The Media of Wisdom In the cases where an author refers to a future audience, he is certainly thinking of his wisdom in a written form. People might memorize it (though there is no evidence for this), but they would basically be learning from a written text. Sometimes the author speaks explicitly of the written text, indicating that inscripturation is in some way relevant to performance. Since the subject of the present study is the self-presentation of Wisdom literature, I set aside the question of whether Wisdom literature was originally oral or written. Certainly in Egypt, the instructions lack the concision and 'apodictic' qualities of oral wisdom, and Assmann (1990:493) is certainly right in calling the oral setting a fiction. It is hard to imagine that the instruction of Amenemope, for example, in which both father and son are scribes and part of a proud scribal culture, was originally spoken as we have it and subsequently recorded from memory. Proverbs may well contain some folk proverbs, especially monostichs that were shaped into literary couplets by the addition of a parallel line (Eissfeldt 1913:47). As they exist in the book of Proverbs, however, they have a distinctively literary character. Unlike most of the folk sayings cited elsewhere (see Eissfeldt), the sayings in Proverbs are mostly in strictly parallel couplets and sometimes with motivational extensions. The relations among adjacent proverbs often affect their meaning, and longer clusters of proverbs are frequent. 12. Verse 34b was copied from Sir. 33.18 by a later scribe.

Fox Wisdom and the Self-Presentation of Wisdom Literature 161 The longer literary units, especially in Proverbs 1-9,30-31, are certainly not proverbs created and transmitted orally.'3 The same may be said of the Mesopotamian Wisdom books. They exist as literary compilations, whatever the proveniences of their minimal components. More fundamentally, the dichotomy between oral and written oversimplifies the range of possibilities, especially when it assumes that these were sequential stages of development, with oral ('folk') wisdom developing into written ('school') wisdom (Westermann 1995:3,108). In the self-presentation of several Wisdom books, including Proverbs, speaking and writing are intertwined, sometimes in surprising ways. Amenemope pictures his teachings as delivered orally when he tells his son, 'Give your [sg.] ears to hear the things that are spoken' (§1). Yet he also describes his teachings as written when he says: 'Look [sg.] to these thirty chapters' (§30). He clearly has a literate audience in mind, for he says, 'As for the scribe skilled in his office, he will find himself worthy to be a courtier' (§30). Merikare's father (whose name is lost) regards the wisdom of the past as transmitted in writing. He instructs Merikare to imitate the ancestors, whose words 'remain in their books' (line 35). Wisdom literature is assumed to be available in written, not oral, form. Anii's instruction was ostensibly spoken, for it concludes with a debate between him and his son, Khonsuhotep.14 But Anii had earlier exhorted his son to study written wisdom: 'One will do all you say, when you study the writings. Study the writings, put them in your heart. Then all your words will be effective' (20.4-5). Anii has Wisdom books in mind, for they are the ones that propose to teach effective speech. The assumption of written discourse continues in the epilogue. In the course of arguing that Anii's teaching is too difficult for him to absorb and apply, Khonsuhotep asserts that book learning in itself is an uncertain path to wisdom: 'A son thinks poorly in himself15 when he (merely) recites sayings from books' (22.1516). The books Khonsuhotep has in mind include Anii's own teaching, the book just concluded, because Khonsuhotep goes on to say: When your words are pleasing in the heart, the heart inclines to receive them. (Then) the heart rejoices in the abundance of your virtues, and thoughts 13. See Hermisson 1968: 14-96 for a careful argument for the literary character of most (but not all) of the material of Proverbs and its present organization. 14. Although Suys (1935: 98-108) calls the sections of the debate 'Lettres', they lack epistolary formulae and are to be understood as a record of an oral dialogue. 15. Lit., 'in his body'; in other words, internally, in his unspoken thoughts.

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Reading from Right to Left are lifted up to you.16 A boy cannot perform the moral teachings'7 when the books are (merely) on his tongue (22.16-17).

This implies that Anii's teachings are in writing and that Khonsuhotep is supposed to learn them by reading. The moment of delivery is pictured (perhaps fictively) as oral instruction, yet the instruction is also a writing, to be studied by repeated reading. This reading was, to be sure, done 'on the tongue', that is, verbalized, probably in a chant (see Merikare XVIII; AEL, I, 101). It is likely that individual reading in the ancient world was generally, if not always, verbalized. The significant distinction is between reading to oneself (whether or not verbalized) and reading aloud to another. In Pap. Chester Beatty IV (verso 6.3-4; Gardiner 1935: 37-44), the instruction in §6 is introduced thus: 'I shall stretch out \pd. i] before you an instruction. I shall teach you the way of life.' 'Stretch out' can be read as either a literal reference to the unrolling of a scroll or as a metaphor for presenting a teaching. In either case, writing is envisaged as a medium of instruction. Suruppak is said to have spoken his teachings to his son in ancient times (11.1-8; Alster 1974:35), after which his wisdom was recorded for posterity (11. 280-81; Alster 1974: 51). Ahiqar's teaching to Nadin is embedded in a frame narrative, which is a first-person, written report of his experiences.18 Ahiqar purportedly spoke (dbr) the first set of his teachings to Nadin at an earlier time, when Nadin was adopted (1.13). Later, after many tribulations, Ahiqar delivers a second set of instructions—actually, rebukes—this time addressing Nadin but having his words recorded in writing as they are spoken (S2, VII 26; Conybeare, Harris and Lewis 1913: 122). In this and the previous case, there is a fiction, if not a reality, of a teaching having originally being delivered orally and only later recorded.19 16. This apparently means that he brings his wisdom up to the level the father demands. 17. The phrase sb 'yt mtrw ('teaching of righteousness' or the like) is close to the modern term 'Wisdom literature'. 18. This is preserved in the Syriac recensions (Conybeare, Harris and Lewis 1913: 99, 103). The Elephantine version is fragmentary here. 19. Ptahhotep' s prologue reports that when he was on the verge o f death, he asked the king for permission to appoint his son as his successor. The introduction speaks about Ptahhotep as a figure in the past. It reports that he spoke the subsequent instructions to his son and successor (1. 51; cf. AEL: I, 63).

Fox Wisdom and the Self-Presentation of Wisdom Literature 163 This order can be reversed. In the epilogue of the instruction to Kagemeni, Kagemeni's father, the old vizier, gives his children his instruction in writing, and they subsequently read it aloud: 'Then he said to them: "All that is written in this book: heed it just as I have said it"... And they recited it aloud in accordance with what was written' (2.4-5). The oral recitation is based on and conforms to the written record. This idea expresses the scribal ethos of fidelity to the written text. But even in this reversed procedure, the moment of instruction, when the teaching itself occurs, is supposed to be oral. The written teaching is activated through recitation. The title of the Instruction of Duachety is 'The instruction which a man of Sile, named Duachety, made for his son Pepy, when sailing upstream, etc.' Duachety was taking his son to the palace school. The text continues, 'Then he said to him' (Ha). This implies that he first wrote the book, then recited his own work.20 In Proverbs 1-9, orality or, more precisely, the fiction of orality, is implied by the exhortations to listen (22.17; 23.19) and in the consistent second-person singular address even outside of imperative constructions. In the father's reminiscence of having been taught by his father when he was a little child (4.3), the teaching is clearly oral. Outside of Proverbs 1-9, oral instruction is implied in the admonition, 'Listen to your father who begat you, and do not show disdain when your mother grows old' (23.22). Verse 22b means, do not disdain her teachings, as a comparison with 1.8; 4.3; and 6.20 shows, for these exhort the son to listen to the wisdom of his father and mother.21 The kind of teaching that a mother would do is certainly oral; there is no evidence for female scribes in Israel. In 22.17-21, which is the introduction to the third collection of Proverbs (22.17-24.22), the sage speaks of the teachings that follow as a written instruction: 'Have I not written for you thirty22 (maxims) in deliberation and knowledge?' (22.20a). Yet the same introduction exhorts the reader (in the verso) to listen to these same teachings (v. 17).23 This implies that

20. To 'make an instruction' (iri sb 'yt) elsewhere means composing it, not just delivering it orally, and the sentence 'then he spoke to him' uses a verb form (an 'h '.n dd.n.f) which indicates sequential action. 21. The lines complement each other and can be paraphrased: 'Listen to your father and mother and do not be contemptuous when they grow old.' 22. Reading D-fll^tf 'thirty' for D'tZTto (qere) or DltzfteJ' (kethiv). The parallel with Amenemope supports this widely accepted reading. 23. This is true whether we translate 22.17a according to the MT, 'Incline your ear

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by reading a text one replicates the performance context of a son listening to his father speak. The oral-written duality persists in the book of Ecclesiastes. Qohelet wrote 'the most honest of words of truth' (12. lOb), but he also 'taught the people knowledge' (v. 9a), which suggests oral instruction in a public forum, perhaps in the *?np 'public assembly'. Ben Sira has little suggestion of orality. His is a self-consciously literary work. But in his concluding acrostic in praise of wisdom, he speaks of his hookas a 'house of study'24 and speaks as a teacher delivering his instruction orally: 'Turn to me, fools, and dwell in my house of study... I open my mouth and speak about (wisdom). Get yourselves wisdom without money'(51.23, 25). In some later Wisdom books, the instruction is perceived as written, with no suggestion of orality. Anchsheshonq has no oral component. According to the fictitious introductory narrative, Anchsheshonq produced his book in writing, on potsherds, which were to be sent to his son (AEL, III, 163). This, however, was an anomalous situation, necessitated by Anchsheshonq's imprisonment. V.A. Hurowitz (1998) has studied the complexities of the relationship between written and oral transmission of certain Mesopotamian texts (not Wisdom literature). Both forms of transmission existed side by side as supplementary, mutually reinforcing media rather than as earlier and later stages of development (13). Some songs and laws, for example, the Shulgi hymns and the Code of Hammurabi, were inscribed but also perpetuated and disseminated orally (13-16). Hurowitz finds an Israelite counterpart in Deut. 31.19-22, the preamble to the Song of Moses. The song is to be written down, taught to the people, 'place[d] in their mouths', and not forgotten. Hurowitz also notes the procedure in Exod. 17.14, in which Moses is commanded to write something as a memorial in a book and then 'place it in the ears' of Joshua. Recent studies of orality and literacy, such as that of S. Niditch (1996), have undermined the assumption of a dichotomy between these two and hear the words of the wise', or emend to ""Q1 tfQCn "[TDK CDn .D^DDH "HST, 'The words of the wise. Incline your ear and hear my words.' This emendation is based on the LXX and is probably correct. 24. This is not an actual school, previously unmentioned, which ben Sira is inviting fools to enroll in. It is the book itself. The passage concludes the book and recommends it to the reader as if it were a school, but one in which anyone can gain wisdom 'without money' (v. 25).

Fox Wisdom and the Self-Presentation of Wisdom Literature 165 media. Niditch refers to an oral register, which is not a mode of composition but a style (10). Niditch thinks of a continuum from oral to written (78), but this still conveys the impression of polarity. In actuality, these are two media of communication that can function separately or together, like pictures and sound in a movie. Wisdom literature basically follows a model that Niditch describes as 'a written imitation of oral-style literature' (1996:130). 'Even at the literate end of the continuum', she emphasizes, 'the oral mentality is present and active, informing the way writing is used' (98). This is true of Wisdom literature, but the picture is even more complex. In Wisdom's self-presentation the two media intertwine and support each other. The Wisdom books are to be read to oneself and studied, but they are also to be read aloud (that is, to others) and taught from. Inscripturation is not an incidental recording device but an intentional mode of use, which enriches and deepens the wisdom. Even in a highly literary sub-culture such as produced Wisdom literature, the essential moment of teaching, the teaching's performance, is presumed to be in some way oral. Oral delivery is a way of activating the message and recreating the immediacy of the communication between teacher and pupil. In this way, it replicates in literature the authoritative but intimate oral discourse between father and son.

3. The Working of Wisdom Just as one can ask how a proverb operates in performance, so one can ask about the functioning of a Wisdom text in its literary setting. In one sense, the answer would require a complete rhetorical analysis of Wisdom literature. But the object of the present study is not the proverbs and counsels of wisdom but the self-presentation of Wisdom texts in their entirety. What do they say about their own operation? The answer can be reduced to two phases: Hear and do and Study and understand. Hear and do is basically a simple concept and, though of great importance, requires little elaboration. The father tells his son to listen, absorb the teachings, remember them, and do what is advised. This demand is the substance of the exordia to the lectures in Proverbs 1-9 and is frequent elsewhere. Ptahhotep in particular insists that hearing is the precondition of moral growth (11. 534-97; AEL,II, 74-75). Complexities arose when the sages considered whether learning requires an innate aptitude. A debate ensued on this issue, with some authors

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quoting and refuting their predecessors. One view held that some people are innately incapable of learning, not because of what we would call a lack of intelligence but because of an insuperable stubbornness, a deep character blemish. According to another, learning is always possible, because it can be effected by an imposition of will. A third view was that learning is often problematic but still possible, given the right approach. (I discuss this pedagogical dialogue in Fox 2000: 309-17.) All would agree that an individual's natural receptivity is a significant factor in the teaching's efficacy. Study and understand means that a Wisdom book is intended as an object of study, in addition to its service as wise advice. Some books present themselves as texts for study and explication, activities intended to exercise and develop interpretive skills. This is wisdom in the sense of erudition and intellectual competence rather than wisdom as prudence and righteousness. Some Wisdom books speak of the importance of interpreting the counsels as well as obeying them. The 'Instruction of a Man to his Son' says, 'He who penetrates into the words can clarify [lit. 'open'] for others what is heard' (2.3). For Amenemope, the teaching of virtues and life-skills is not the only goal. In his introduction, he exhorts his son: 'Give your ears to hear the things that are said. Set your heart to interpret them' (§ 1 ).25His concluding charge is: Be filled with [these teachings], put them in your heart, and you will become one who interprets them, who interprets them as a teacher (§30).

Papyrus Chester Beatty IV §3 regards book study as a means to the deeper understanding of wisdom: 'When you become expert [sss'] in the writings, you will penetrate [ 'q\ the teachings' (verso 4.6; repeated in 4.9). The order is significant: it is not that 'penetrating' the teachings makes one 'expert' in the writings, but that expertise in literature is a precondition for the ability to 'penetrate' or interpret the teachings on a deeper level. It is difficult to determine the semantic range of the terms used, but it appears that sss' (= ss'), which may be used of a variety of skills, is close to 'learning' 25. The word translated 'interpret' is wh', lit. 'untie', 'loosen', hence 'explain'. This represents a stage beyond 'hearing' and 'receiving' the teaching and corresponds to Hebrew ^DH 'understand', 'perceive' (Shupak 1993: 47).

Fox Wisdom and the Self-Presentation of Wisdom Literature 167 or 'erudition'. It means knowing the writings. The verb 'q (lit. 'penetrate' or 'enter') means to understand in depth (Shupak 1993: 62). Anii similarly promises to make the reader 'a wise man who can penetrate ('q) words' (15.4). Later, he says that studying books and 'penetrating' their words empowers one's own speech: 'All that you say will be done, when you are expert (sss1) in the writings. Penetrate ('q) the writings, put them in your heart. Then all your words will be effective' (20.4-5). That is to say, studying and understanding the writings is a means to effective speech. This calls to mind Prov. 1.5, 'Let the wise man hear and increase his teaching [np "?]'. np "p is knowledge or a lesson as imparted to others; it is not static erudition possessed but not communicated (Fox 2000:62-63). Proverbs' prologue promises that the book will do two things. First, it will impart wisdom and ethical virtues to the young (1.2-4). Second, it will help the wise, learned reader advance his wisdom (v. 5), in particular by furthering his skills in the interpretation of literary wisdom. It promises to teach the reader: 'to understand a proverb and an epigram [HIT^D], the words of the wise and their enigmas [Dmin]' (v. 6). The verb "pnn1? 'to understand' is one in the series of infinitives dependent on the title (v. 1) which state the book's purpose. This means that, among its other functions, Proverbs will advance the reader's ability to understand the words of the wise and their enigmatic sayings. The promise of interpretive competence is also implied in v. 2, n] n D "HGK "p^n1?, literally, 'to understand words of understanding' (1.2). The 'words of understanding' (i.e., words of wisdom) are the contents of this book and others like it.26 The prologue introduces some locutions not found elsewhere in the book. The phrase rim •'"1QK ]^nb 'to understand words of understanding' (1.2) and the words nTn 'enigma' and HiT^Q 'epigram' (1.6) are used only in the prologue. In fact, outside the titles (1.1; 10.1; 25.1), even mashal is not a prominent concept in Proverbs. (The proverbs about proverbs [26.7, 9] describe the use of sayings in daily interactions, not the educational situation.) The author of the prologue is thus reinterpreting the book by describing its contents and goals in new terms and from a new perspective: wisdom as literature. The prologue's perspective on the transparency ofmeshalim differs from the view of wisdom in the rest of chs. 1-9 and the following collections 26. In 1.6, as in the heading at 24.23 and, originally, 22.17 (emending to *~Q1 D"Q3n), the words of the wise are particular sapiential utterances or writings. Elsewhere in Proverbs, the 'words of the wise' refers to their speech in daily life (12.18; 14.3; 15.2, 7) or to the message of their teachings (13.14; 16.23).

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(chs. 10-31). Elsewhere, references to the book's teachings (frequent in the exordia) assume that their meaning is accessible, at least to an adequate degree, to anyone with good intentions and reasonable perseverance. This belief is expounded carefully in 2.1 -22: If you listen to the teachings attentively and seek wisdom (w. 1-4), you will attain fear of the Lord, because it is he who gives wisdom (w. 5-6). What is needed is a receptive and eager attitude. Then God will reward your efforts. The image of Lady Wisdom going about public places and summoning everyone to her (8.1-4; 9.3-6) concretizes the idea that wisdom is public and accessible, not esoteric or obscure. As Lady Wisdom says, 'those who seek me will find me' (8.17). In Proverbs 1-9, one must love wisdom and try to absorb the teachings rather than striving to penetrate their inner message. For a person with the right attitude, the teacher's words of wisdom need only be heard and obeyed, not analyzed and interpreted. Hence, 'for a perceptive man, knowledge is easy' (14.6b). The prologue does not contradict this view but provides an additional one. It looks at the book as a whole and promises to enhance a different sort of wisdom, namely, analytical competence, required for interpreting texts (1.6). Wisdom is not simply the message of the teachings and the knowledge they convey. It is also scholarship, the unfolding of new meanings and layers of meanings through textual interpretation, as well as the analytical competence this requires. The hermeneutic skills promised are applicable to all 'proverbs and epigrams, words of the wise and their enigmas' (1.6), and not only in the book of Proverbs, but in all wisdom, written and oral. It would, after all, be trivial to claim merely that this book is to be used for interpreting the wisdom in this book. Qohelet's wisdom too, according to the epilogue, included interpretive skills: 'Having listened and investigated, he composed many proverbs' (12.9b).27 Since both "Ipn and |pn are transitive, min U^m 'many proverbs' is most naturally construed as the object of all three verbs, including ]TN. The point is not that Qohelet 'listened' to whatever people were saying and investigated life generally (though he did), but that he listened to proverbs and examined them. Whether ]pfl means to 'compose'

27. The first two verbs are circumstantial to the third. 'Listened', ]TN, is literally 'gave ear', reminiscent of a usage frequent in Egyptian instructions. For a justification of ]TR 'listen' (rather than 'weighed'), see Seow 1997: 384-85.

Fox Wisdom and the Self-Presentation of Wisdom Literature 169 or 'edit',28 the creative task indicated by this verb was based on attention to and examination of proverbs. Ben Sira too regards the wise man as an interpreter of texts. These embrace the entire sweep of sacred literature and the wisdom of the ancients, including parables and enigmatic proverbs (39.1-3).29 His hakam is a scholar as well as a speaker of wisdom (Sir. 38.24 + 33b; 39.1 -3). Sira promises that the study of words of wisdom (such as his own) will increase the reader's wisdom: 'Those intelligent in words: they too will become wise and pour forth precise proverbs' (18.29). Ben Sira also advises, 'Do not abandon the discourse (nrPKJ) of wise men, but busy yourself with their enigmas (niTn), for from them you will gain instruction (rip1?), so as to stand before princes' (8.8b). This means that the words of the wise hold enigmas, and by identifying and explaining them one can develop his own expertise, np1? is usually associated with eloquent speech (e.g., Deut. 32.2; Prov. 7.21 [used facetiously]; 16.21, 23), a sense in Sir. 8.8 supported by the conjunction with the following clause: the rip*? will help you 'stand before' princes and serve them as counselor. As important as study and interpretation of texts are to these authors, none of them explains how to pursue these endeavors. Apparently it is enough to read the books with a desire to comprehend the message, and the skill will grow by the exercise. This resembles the Egyptian practice of teaching arithmetic through paradigmatic calculations. In conclusion, the teachings of Wisdom do not come in a vacuum. They are given a performance setting, namely, a teaching event with a complex nexus of speakers, audiences, media and purposes. Future readers are to place themselves imaginatively in this setting, standing, as it were, in place of the son listening to his father. Then they can in turn replicate the father's role in instructing others. Wisdom literature is self-consciously literate and does not envision oral transmission of memorized sayings. Orality comes into play at two

28. |pn (which usually means 'fix' or 'straighten') refers to some aspect of the creative process. Seow (1997: 385) translates it 'edited', in other words, compiled and arranged the sayings. But in rabbinic Hebrew, |pn (piel and hiphil) can mean 'ordain', 'institute'. This supports the translation 'composed', since authorship is a more appropriate description of Qohelet's activity than editing. The book as a whole is not a collection. 29. The translator describes the field of Ben Sira's wisdom in similar terms: the Law, the Prophets and the 'other books of our ancestors' (Foreword, v. 3).

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moments: in the original delivery (at least fictively) and the subsequent recitation, when the original performance is replicated. Reconstituted orality allows the act of teaching to be reenacted repeatedly and perpetually. Bibliography Alster, B. 1974 1997 Assmann, J. 1990

The Instructions ofSuruppak (Copenhagen Studies in Assyriology, 2; Copenhagen: Akademisk Press). Proverbs of Ancient Sumer (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press). 'Weisheit, Schrift und Literatur im alten Agypten', in A. Assmann (ed.), Weisheit (Munich: W. Fink): 475-500.

Barns, J.W.B. 1956 Five Ramesseum Papyri (Oxford: Griffith Institute). Bickel, S., and B. Mathieu 1993 ' L' ecrivain Amennakht et son enseignement', BIFA (793:31-51. Brunner, H. 1988 Altdgyptische Weisheit (Zurich: Artemis Verlag). Camp, C.V. 1985 Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Bible and Literature Series, 11; Sheffield: Almond Press). Conybeare, F.C., J.R. Harris and A.S. Lewis 1913 The Story ofAhikar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Dietrich, M. 1991 'Der Dialog zwischen Supe'ameli und seinem "Vater"', UF23: 33-74. Eissfeldt, O. 1913 Der Maschal im Alten Testament (BZAW, 24; Giessen: Tb'pelmann). Fontaine, C.V. 1982 Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament: A Contextual Study (Bible and Literature Series, 9; Sheffield: Almond Press). Foster, B.R. 1993 Before the Muses (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press). Fox, M.V. 1985 The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press). 1996 'The Social Location of the Book of Proverbs', in M.V. Fox, V.A. Hurowitz, A. Hurvitz, M.L. Klein, B.J. Schwartz and N. Shupak (eds.), Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns): 227-39. 2000 Proverbs 1-9 (AB, 18A: New York: Doubleday-Anchor). Gardiner, A.H. 1935 Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum (Ser. Ill; London: British Museum): pis. 37-44. Grumach, I. 1972 Untersuchungen zur Lebenslehre des Amenope (Munchner Agyptologische Studien, 23; Munich: Deutscher Kunsrverlag).

Fox Wisdom and the Self-Presentation of Wisdom Literature 171 Harrington, D.J. 1996 Wisdom Texts from Qumran (London: Routledge). Heim, K. 2001 Like Grapes of Gold Set in Silver (BZAW, 273; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Hermisson, H.-J. 1968 Studien zur israelitischen Spruchweisheit (WMANT, 28; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag). Hurowitz, V.A. 1998 ' Spanning the Generations: Aspects of Oral and Written Transmission in the Bible and Ancient Mesopotamia', in R.M. Geffen and M.B. Edelman (eds.), Freedom and Responsibility (New York: Ktav): 11-30. Kimhi, David 1990 'Commentary on Proverbs', in Frank Talmage (ed.), Commentaries on the Book of Proverbs by Joseph Kimhi, Moses Kimhi, and David Kimhi [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes). Krispenz, J. 1989 Spruchkompositionen im Buch Proverbia (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang). Lambert, W.G. 1960 Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Lichtheim, M. 1973-80 Ancient Egyptian Literature (3 vols.; Berkeley: University of California Press). Mieder, W. 1974 'The Essence of Literary Proverb Studies', Proverbium 23: 88-94. Niditch, S. 1996 Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press). Posener, G. 1976 L 'enseignement loyaliste: Sagesse egyptienne du Moyen Empire (Geneva: Droz). Quack, J.F. 1994 Die Lehren des Ani (OBO, 141; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Scoralik, R. 1995 Einzelspruch und Sammlung: Komposition im Buch der Sprichworter Kapitel 70-75 (BZAW, 232; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Seidel, P. 1976 'A Social Use of Metaphor', in Dan Ben-Amos (ed.), Folklore Genres (Austin: University of Texas): 125-43. Seow, C.L. 1997 Ecclesiastes (AB, 18C; New York: Random House-Doubleday). Shupak, N. 1993 Where Can Wisdom Be Found? (OBO, 130; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Suys, E. 1935 La Sagesse d'Ani (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute). Van Leeuwen, R. 1988 Context and Meaning in Proverbs 25-27 (SBLDS, 96; Atlanta: Scholars Press).

172 Weitzman, S. 1997

Reading from Right to Left Story and Song in Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).

Westermann, C. 1995 The Roots of Wisdom (trans. J.D. Charles; Louisville, KY: Westminster/ John Knox Press; orig. Wurzeln der Weisheit [Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990]).

So WHAT MIGHT THE SONG OF SONGS Do TO THEM? John Goldingay

Only perhaps in communities that are both essentially patriarchal and committed to the authority of the Bible may the Song still have a liberating effect and be able to suggest a vision of an alternative style of being (David Clines).1 Keep this book away from your girlfriend—it contains too many of your secrets to let it fall into the wrong hands.2

I think it was at my first SBL meeting after I moved to California that someone commented (perhaps they were quoting from someone else) that in Britain one does theology looking over one's shoulder at the Germans but in the USA one does theology looking over one's shoulder at fundamentalism. Most of my students in Pasadena come from communities that are 'essentially patriarchal and committed to the authority of the Bible', indeed fundamentalist. They themselves mostly repudiate patriarchalism and fundamentalism (or keep quiet about the matter), though they may have a hard time ministering in such communities when they return to them—as they will have a hard time ministering in the light of other aspects of the different understanding of the Bible into which the seminary has sought to invite them. But then, surely most readers of the Bible belong to patriarchal communities that are committed to the Bible's authority. It would therefore be no trivial achievement if the Song of Songs were to have a liberating effect and suggest an alternative style of being for such average Bible readers. So what would this look like? I begin from stories about such communities on three continents, though I will allude more briefly to further such stories. 1. Clines 1995: 117. 2. From a review of Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity as quoted on the blurb of his novel About a Boy.

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The southern part of the United States is the most Christian part of this quintessentially Christian nation. At the Dixie Chicks' 2001 concert in Los Angeles, no song received a more enthusiastic response than Dennis Linde's 'Goodbye Earl':3 Well, it wasn't two weeks after she got married That Wanda started gettin' abused She put on dark glasses and long sleeved blouses And make-up to cover a bruise...

After Wanda initiated divorce proceedings and Earl responded by putting her into intensive care, she and her friend Mary Anne formed a plan. They cooked Earl a nice southern meal with black-eyed peas and something more sinister, and, when it had done its work, wrapped his body in a tarpaulin and dropped it in the lake. At the end of the story Mary Anne and Wanda are running a roadside stand on Highway 109, selling Tennessee ham and strawberry jam. The disclaimer 'The Dixie Chicks do not advocate premeditated murder, but love getting even' was not enough to stop their song being banned on the radio, presumably by men. This past quarter, a student of mine from southern Africa wrote a paper on gender violence in Judges and Isaiah, interweaving biblical study with accounts of her life at home. She began with an account of homestead life in her grandparents' day. Her grandfather had eleven wives, each of whom had six to ten children. His wives' huts stood in a half-moon, his in the centre so that he could monitor and control his family. If another man angered him and he could not fight the man, he would beat one of his wives. When one wife got pregnant and he thought another man was the father, before the other wives he beat her until she aborted. The wives fled but returned in fear of wild animals, and as the ringleader the student's grandmother was beaten, her collarbone being broken. Her parents were among the first people who came to believe in Christ when Christian missionaries followed on the coattails of British colonists and soldiers, but one should not assume that the Christianization of southern Africa totally transformed it in this respect. She has just heard about the death of a friend after being beaten by her husband. The story of the Levite's wife in Judges 19 reminded her of a woman who used to run away to her brother's house because her husband beat her. The husband would always come to get his wife back, and the brother would always surrender her because the husband had the right to do what he liked with her, as his property. If she had 3.

Copyright EMI Blackwood Music Inc/Rising George Music (BMI).

GOLDINGAY So What Might the Song of Songs Do to Them?

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run back to her parents' home, this would be to invite a lecture from her mother on submission to her husband. Eventually her husband hit her on the head with an iron bar and she died. The same property understanding of marriage means that women have no right to withhold themselves sexually from their husbands when the latter have contracted AIDS or HIV through their promiscuity, so that many of the countless women who have died from AIDS were infected by their husbands. Another student spoke of the place of women in society and church in his experience of growing up in Korea. He thinks Korean culture was once more egalitarian, but under Confucian influence the family came to be thought of in patrilineal terms, and the church now strongly supports the patriarchal tradition. So if a woman's first child is a girl, Christians may wonder whether she must have committed a sin. Marriages are arranged by the couple's parents and their pastor. It is then assumed that a woman leaves her parents' family when she marries and joins her husband's parents' family. The married couple is expected to live in his parents' house and under their authority, especially if he is the eldest son. This tradition is seen as an ethical principle and a couple who resisted the expectation would cause a scandal in society worthy of reporting in the newspaper. The church accepts this tradition as part of its emphasis on the duty of respect to parents, though it does not emphasize any correlative obligation of parents to children. On marriage a woman is expected to resign her job to stay at home in the shared menage, and the situation is a frequent cause of conflict between the parents and the married couple, especially between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The church's teaching is that one should be thankful in the context of such difficulties and believe that an attitude of thankfulness is the key to resolving difficulties. The situation is also a cause of conflict between the couple themselves, and a cause of a kind of formalization of the relationship rather than the development of a personal relationship. It is a major reason for divorce and for Korean emigration to North America. What might the Song of Songs do for such Christian cultures? Currently, they interpret the Song allegorically. This need not imply they have a hang up about sex. I recently heard a conservative pastor say that to satisfy the interests of his congregation, he really needed only three Sunday School classes—one on sex, one on the end times, and one on whether there will be sex in the end times. But conservative Christians (like many others) generally assume that the Bible is supposed to be a manual about how to relate to God, and they interpret the Song accordingly. The function of allegorical

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interpretation is to make texts speak to the agenda it is assumed they should have. Roland Murphy observes that an interpretation of the Song as portraying the relationship between God and the people of God 'held sway from late antiquity until relatively modem times and continues even today to find some support' (Murphy 1990:11). The words could give the impression that this understanding has now been generally abandoned. This is only the case in the rarified groves of the academe. It is still the way most readers understand the Song. Perhaps paradoxically (or perhaps not), even in some Christian circles that are enthusiastic about sex an interpretation of the Song as referring to the love relationship of God and the believer remains alive and well. It is important to continue to urge that this is a meaning imposed on the Song, which offers no hint that the poems have anything to do with our love relationship with God or God's with us. The allegorical understanding has been provided with partial justification on the ground that elsewhere scripture portrays the relationship between God and people by analogy with marriage, but this justification does not work. On the one hand, we will note how the Song is not concerned with marriage. On the other, there is no hint elsewhere in scripture (e.g. in the Psalms) that we have a relationship with God that on our side has the dynamics of sexual love. The kind of love that our love for God resembles is rather that of (adult) children and parents, or subjects and rulers, or students and teachers. The relationship is characterized by warmth, affection, mutual self-sacrifice and commitment, but the disparity of status and power makes the dynamics of the love portrayed in the Song inappropriate to it. Perhaps it would be odd if we thought we had a relationship like that with the Holy One, and the scriptures do not suggest that we do. As the Song does not speak of a love that involves self-sacrifice and commitment, so the scriptures never speak of our emotional relationship with God in terms of passionate love. Love for God is a matter of commitment. Indeed, in scripture, people never declare that they love God. In the English Bible the exceptions that prove the rule are the openings of Psalms 18 and 116. In the former case the verb is raham—the only use of the qal and surely one of the strangest and most enigmatic readings in the Hebrew Bible. In the latter case the verb 'love' has no object. Scripture is less reticent about attributing emotion to God's relationship with us, which may also be suggestive about being a parent or a leader or a teacher. But the Song's particular portrayal of relationship is misleading when applied to God. The allegorical interpretation of the Song thus fails a standard traditional test for such interpretation, that it fits the way other


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parts of scripture speak more directly. Love's shafts are fiery, flames of YHWH (8.6). If human love reflects God's love in this respect (so Murphy 1990: 104), this is a frightening fact. Other parts of scripture imply that God is always reaching out for us and wanting to be in relationship with us, like a parent in relation to children. It is not a normal part of this relationship for God to be like a beloved whom you are not sure you will be able to find. While conservative Christians are as keen on sex as anyone else, their presuppositions about God and the Bible do not encourage them to read the Song as relating to sex. These presuppositions encourage them to bring Bible and sex into relationship only in certain moralistic ways. Thus their traditional Christian morality may have some effect on the way they give expression to their enthusiasm for sex. The divorce rate among conservative Christians in the USA is apparently even higher than among other groups, because such people often still feel obliged to get married in order to have sex, but the marriages then do not last. In this connection the liberating effect of the Song might lie in encouraging people to rethink the linkage of sex and marriage, since the Song does not link these two. I do not mean the Song would not presuppose a link, which in its own culture is unlikely. If heuristically we may reify the lovers in the Song as if the poems all concern the same couple whether or not this was originally so, the Song does point to their being a man and a woman whose sexual involvement belongs in the context of an exclusive one-to-one relationship so all-consuming that one would expect them to reckon it would be lifelong—in other words, a quasi-marital relationship. (The wisdom of the poems may be Solomonic, but it is difficult to imagine the historical Solomon in a relationship like this one.) Certainly the process whereby the Judean community came to treat the Song as scripture would have involved the presupposition that the sexual relationship belongs in the context of marriage. Of course 'certainly' means I have no evidence of this, but the circumstantial evidence is strong. Indirect testimony to the fact that readers knew how to read the Song appears in the famous rabbinic warning about singing it in the banquet hall as if it were an ordinary piece of music (e.g. b. Sank. 101 a). In contrast, there is neither direct nor circumstantial evidence for the often-stated view that the Song was accepted into the canon only on the basis of first having been understood as a treatise on the relationship between YHWH and Israel. Yet some people who listened to the Song presumably noticed that either the couple were not married or that theirs was a very odd kind of

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relationship involving an inversion of the practice of living together without being married. The Song may take for granted that this couple were on their way to marriage, at least, but it is not very interested in that fact. Indeed, it is not interested in it at all, except in the picture of a wedding procession in 3.6-11 and the epithet 'bride' in 4.8-5.1. It assumes that marriage is not the only framework within which sex needs to be considered, because marriage is about many things other than sex. There is food for thought in the joke about marriage being when two people stop having sex. Marriage is (for instance) a way of imaging God in the world as two people who are markedly different from each other make a lifelong commitment to each other that creates something bigger than the sum of their parts and persists no matter what pressures drive them apart. Marriage is an institutionalized, legal, community structure for such a lifelong one-on-one relationship. Marriage is an arrangement in whose context people can have sex so that within it children may be born, brought up, educated and looked after. Marriage is a device whereby a woman moves from the ownership and protection of one man (her father) to those of another man (her husband). We could have most of those things without having marriage, but marriage provides a way of having them. The Song is concerned with none of them but with the happiness and the fear, the anxiety and the fulfilment of sexual love. In some cultures there has been little link between those and marriage, as is so now in Western culture. There is little direct indication that Old or New Testament scriptures link the happiness and the fear, the anxiety and the fulfilment of sexual love with marriage. Even if the Genesis accounts of the origin of man and woman are much less patriarchal than they have been read, among others David Clines has persuasively urged that they do not emphasize the personal relationship of marriage in the way we might wish (Clines 1990:25-48). Indeed, outside the Song the scriptures show little interest in the happiness and the fear, the anxiety and the fulfilment of sexual love. This is food for thought regarding either the scriptures or Western culture or both. But the importance of this topic in Western culture shows how important the Song is. Not its least significance is to require fundamentalists to bring the topic of sex into Christian discussion in connections other than the moral ones that often preoccupy Christians. So what does the Song tell conservative readers about the sexual relationship? It opens with shocking directness: May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth (1.2). The poems draw—or rather yank—readers straight

GOLDINGAY So What Might the Song of Songs Do to Them? 179 inside the physical relationship between two people, like the 2002 Mexican film Y Tu Mama Tambien. Like the movie, the Song is not saying human beings should be like this, but just that we are, and readers had better own the fact—in the way that much of Proverbs does not say that life should be a certain way, simply that it is. Secular poetry, music, films and novels presuppose this, even though religious literature usually does not. The poems open with the woman's words, notwithstanding this being 'the Song of Songs which is liseldmoh\ Whatever the meaning of that expression,4 it is striking that the phrase introduces poems in which a woman speaks first and longest, and often takes the initiative in the relationship. Whereas Niv's headings describe the man and the woman as 'lover' and 'beloved', the poems point conservative readers to a more egalitarian understanding of the relationship, questioning any assumption that the man has to make the approaches or set the pace in a relationship. A woman is free to take the initiative and a man is free to expect that. Both express appreciation and longing for the other. The poems do not prioritize the physical over the relational, nor the relational over the physical. They assume that the two belong together, like body and spirit. They do reflect the fact that physical appearance may be more important to a man than to a woman; the man spends more time talking about this than the woman does. They invite a woman to be aware of that. She may make the most of it if she wishes, but she might also be wary of it. If David Clines is right that the Song is a male fantasy, then one of its values to women will be its revelations regarding what men are like. Women could of course discover this by watching Ally McBeal or Friends, but the latter are not in the Bible and therefore have less formal authority than the Song of Songs, even if they have more effect in shaping behav4. English translations imply that / suggests authorship, but BDB notes that this is a rare usage and other meanings of the preposition seem more likely. It might mean 'to'—were these poems offered or dedicated to Solomon? It might mean 'belonging to' (cf. 'Belonging to the Korahites', Ps. 42)—in other words, they count as Wisdom. It might mean 'for'—for Solomon to use or learn from? Since he was especially inclined to use sexual relationships as a political device, this would be a telling hope. It might mean 'on behalf of, with similar implications. It might mean 'about', with some irony. The succeeding references to Solomon (1.5; 3.6-11; 8.11-12) suggest 'about' or some similar meaning rather than 'by'. My guess is that (as BDB implies in connection with / in the Psalms) the meaning of the expression changed over the centuries. If it originally suggested 'to' it may have come to mean 'belonging to' and then 'by', when people wanted to associate the authorship of works within scripture with someone famous.

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iour than the average book of the Bible does. Ally McBeal is written by a man, but some women find it breathtakingly true in its portrayal of women as well as breathtakingly revealing about men. So whoever wrote the Song, let us suppose that it does (sometimes) represent a woman's perspective. The presence of the Song in scripture implies that the kind of relationship it celebrates might be significant for people in general, not just for young people on their way to marriage. One reason is that 'Everybody's searching for intimacy... Everybody's hurting for intimacy'.5 The Song is significant, for example, for married people with their lives focused on their children and their work, and middle-aged people whose children now have children of their own, and people whose spouse is handicapped or has died—and in Western culture, for people who have stayed single or have divorced. In Western culture, the attractiveness of romantic comedies for people in all these situations parallels this. So does the capacity of middle-aged or old people to fall in love again when their marriage has gone stale or they have divorced. There is nothing time limited about falling in love. Actually here in California, where 'Everybody's Searching for Intimacy' was written,6 everybody is avoiding intimacy. This is not to deny that at some level they are longing for it, but the problem is that they are also hurting for it. Half of them have been brought up in broken homes and they are disabled for intimacy. As another country song puts it, 'Nobody love, nobody gets hurt',7 but people are in no position to take the risk. The Song invites readers to summon up the strength to take the risk. Sitting under the surface of their lives, if not on the surface, most have the kind of feelings described in the Song. These poems, or the romantic comedies, bring them to the surface in some way. One might have thought that was a risky thing, but maybe the existence of the poems in scripture suggests it is a good thing, if not just a thing that happens. One reason is that if readers do not own these feelings, the feelings may catch them out as they find expression in inappropriate ways—for example, by their falling in love when they are not in a position to do so. After all, the Song gives expression to intrinsic human needs. It presupposes the human need for loving 5. From a song by Billy Steinberg and others, sung in its hit version by The Corrs. 6. The Corrs are Irish, but Steinberg is a Califomian. 7. A song by Bobbie Cryner, known to me in the version by Suzy Bogguss. They are allegedly words written out by the orthographically challenged would-be robber of a 24-hour supermarket who meant to write 'Nobody move, nobody gets hurt'.


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recognition and acceptance, for the sense of being 'special', which makes self-acceptance more possible. The woman describes herself as darkened by the sun, but pretty (1.5-6)—she feels comfortable with herself because she is loved. She is only a common wild flower—but to him she is a lovely flower against the background of weeds (2.1-2). He is not an impressive tree compared with the giant redwoods—but as far as she is concerned, he provides shade and produces lovely fruit (2.3). They are just an ordinary couple, but their love turns them into a prince and a princess (3.6-11). The Song invites its readers to recognize that relationships are always on-the-way and continue to involve risk. They cannot be taken for granted. The couple spend much time in ecstatic enjoyment of each other's presence, and also spend much time in pained grief at separation from each other. Separation makes them feel ill (2.5; 5.8). They long for meeting and seek each other anxiously. She does not know where she may find him (1.7-8). She can only dream of their being able to live together (3.1-5). She dreams of missing him or losing him and of her dreams turning to nightmares, as happens in a romantic comedy (5.2-8). He seems to have disappeared—is he off with someone else (6.1-3)? There is an 'if only' about the relationship, caused by the need to observe society's constraints (8.13). She still wants him to make her the most valuable thing in the world to her. Her passionate, jealous love for him ('ahabd is explained by qin 'a) is fierce as death, as strong as Sheol. He will not be able to resist it. Vast floods could not quench those fiery flames it flashes (8.6-7). Experience suggests this is not true of every passionate love—people do fall out of love. The 2002 Israeli film Late Marriage tells of a man whose passion can be quenched by his parents' opposition to his match. In the Song the point is that when you are the subject or the object of such love, you cannot do anything to make yourself stop loving the other person or to make the other person stop loving you. And as you cannot decide when it goes, so you cannot decide when it comes, and therefore, for example, try to buy it (8.7b). Notwithstanding the impossibility of controlling whether another person falls in love with one, or of making oneself fall out of love, the poems talk about not arousing love till the right moment (e.g. 2.7). To some extent, then, at least, we can control whether love gets aroused—contrary to the mythology of Western culture, which takes love as an irresistible force. Yet the Song also talks about having one's heart captured (4.9)—that is, it recognizes that one person may overwhelm another whether the latter wants this or not. The poems keep asking for love not to be aroused before

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its time, but they themselves arouse love in a way that for many readers may be before its time. They also raise the question whether people can rekindle love when the flame seems to have gone, in a way that also fits the exhortation in Prov. 5.15-19. People do find security in a love relationship that leads to marriage, but once they take that for granted, they may imperil it, in several senses. Part of the thrill of the not-yet-married relationship is its not-yetness—it has the excitement of being on a journey. This is also one of the attractions of having an affair. So there is a sense in which couples need not to take each other for granted and need to see themselves as still on the way. One image in the poems is that of wanting to get away from everyone else (2.10-13), and couples need that. The first time I gave a nascent version of this paper in a lecture, a man in his thirties rather scornfully suggested that I was taking these expressions of teenage feelings too seriously, but he then told his discussion group (I later heard) that he said this because he was uncomfortably aware that his marriage no longer had the spark of the Song. He knew I was raising the question whether he might have a vision for rekindling love. In papers they wrote, three middle-aged women in the class also described their interaction with the Song. For one, getting attracted to another man was making her try to rekindle love in her relationship with her husband; she was succeeding, and getting a response. The second as a single person had been caused to revisit the great love of her life and do some more coming to terms with the fact that this relationship came to an end, and yet somehow find hope for this part of her. The third had been abused as a teenager and had never been at ease about sex, but the Song had been giving her a new vision or hope for her sexual relationship with her husband. It thus came to her, too, as a gospel text, a promise about God's vision for us that may only be fully realized at the resurrection, but in some sense will be realized. If the Bible-believing patriarchal communities of southern Africa or of the American south or of the flourishing Korean church were to read the Song of Songs, it could surely be a liberating text that suggested a vision of an alternative style of being. No doubt it would cause some trouble, too, as liberation does.


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Bibliography Clines, David J.A. 1990 What Does Eve Do to Help? (JSOTSup, 94; Sheffield: JSOT Press). 1995 'Why Is There a Song of Songs and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?', in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press): 94-121. Murphy, Roland E. 1990 The Song of Songs: A Commentary on the Book of Canticles or the Song of Songs (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press).

THE EPHRAIMITE MESSIAH AND THE TARGUM(S) TO ZECHARIAH 12.10 Robert P. Gordon

Zechariah 12 envisages the besieging of Jerusalem by a coalition of 'all the nations of the earth' (v. 3), and their destruction by God as he moves to protect the city (v. 9). This saving intervention will be accompanied—or more probably followed—by a nation-wide outbreak of mourning for someone whom those recently delivered by God had 'pierced' (v. 10). The remainder of the short chapter emphasizes the intensity of the mourning for the mysterious figure of v. 10. Comparison is made, for example, with 'the mourning for Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddon' (v. 11). The Targumic tradition has responded to the obscurity at the heart of Zech. 12.10 with two distinct interpretations of the 'pierced one'. The standard Targumic version (ST) supplants the idea of piercing with a reference to exile, while a marginal reading in Codex Reuchlinianus (CR) introduces the figure of the Messiah son of Ephraim and purports to describe the circumstances of his death at the hand of the eschatological arch-enemy of Israel, Gog. The Marginal Variant

We begin with the CR reading, since it will generate a good proportion of the discussion that follows. In Reuchlinianus it is accompanied by the siglum trg(wm) yrws(lmy), and is therefore presented as a fragment of'Jerusalem Targum'. It has no known haftaric connection, and its dialect is 'mixed' (Kasher 1996: 223). First a translation into English is offered: And I shall cause to rest upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of prophecy and true prayer. And afterwards the Messiah son of Ephraim will go out to do battle with Gog, and Gog will kill him in front of the gate of Jerusalem. And they will look to me and inquire from me why the nations pierced the Messiah son of Ephraim. And they will mourn for him just as a father and mother mourn for an only son, and they will lament for him just as they lament for a firstborn.

GORDON The Ephraimite Messiah

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Two main figures are therefore presented here: the Messiah son of Ephraim and Gog, the former known mainly from the Targums and (other) rabbinic references and the latter first appearing in Ezekiel 38-39. First, we should note that there can be no question of the essentially Targumic character of the CR variant. The evidence begins with the first word, since, whereas the ST represents MT 'I will pour' by its cognate Aramaic verb, the CR variant uses one of the Targumists' stock verbs for the conveying of ideas of divine presence and activity: 'I will cause to dwell'. Thus the variant is referring to the divine Spirit when it talks of 'the Spirit of prophecy'.1 The ST may also be speaking of the divine Spirit, since it also translates 'pour' in Joel 3.1 (2.28), referring to the divine Spirit, by its Aramaic cognate (cf. also Ezek. 39.29). Still, ST's 'a spirit of mercy and compassion' may be as ambiguous as the Hebrew that it translates, and so may not necessarily indicate the divine Spirit. Again, the CR variant's statement about mourning as for an only son is virtually identical with the ST version and confirms the closeness of the variant to the Targum tradition. The longer text of the CR reading calls for attention not only because of its portrayal of the conflict between the Ephraimite Messiah and Gog but also because of the way in which it maintains the vantage point and the momentum of the ST text just at that point where the latter descends into obscurity and possibly even grammatical incongruence. This integrality of the variant with the fabric of the ST version is evident in a couple of ways. The first is the description of the Ephraimite Messiah going out to confront Gog, who kills him in front of the gate of Jerusalem. This is very much in agreement with the thrust of w. 1-9, which are constructed around the idea of an attack by the nations on Judah and, especially, Jerusalem (w. 23,9). By contrast, one of the puzzling aspects of the ST text is that its reference to scattering or exile introduces a quite distinct topic, even if it is a commonplace elsewhere in the Targums. Secondly, the CR variant is very much of a piece with the ST text in its mention of an enemy ruler who kills an Israelite leader and thereby engulfs the nation in mourning. In this regard, moreover, the connection is very much with the ST rather than with the MT; it is the ST that personalizes and expands the MT'S by now opaque reference to mourning for Hadad-Rimmon. Here 'Hadad-Rimmon' is disaggregated so as to become an allusion to the death of King Ahab in the battle at Ramoth Gilead against Benhadad son of Tabrimmon (cf. 1. Cf. 1 Sam. 10.10;Isa. 11.2;inl Sam. 18.10 it is even used of an evil spirit sent from God to afflict Saul.

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1 Kgs 15.18; 22.1 -40), and although the identification of Ahab' s opponent with the Benhadad who was contemporary with Asa (as 1 Kgs 15.18) is debated, this would not have been a concern of the Targumist. Again, the mention of Megiddo(n) inspires in the ST a reference to the death of King Josiah who fell in battle when trying to interrupt Pharaoh Neco's progress through Judah on his way to the Euphrates (2 Kgs 23.29). If, therefore, we were to substitute the CR variant for the ST version at v. 10 we could construct the following set of parallels: Verse 10 Verse 11

Messiah son of Ephraim Ahab son of Omri Josiah son of Amon

whom Gog killed whom Benhadad son of Rimmon killed whom Pharaoh the Lame killed

Since the context speaks much of mourning, the appropriateness of Ahab and Josiah in this setting did not go unremarked by rabbinical interpreters. Special mourning is associated with the death of Josiah already in the Bible. According to 2 Chron. 35.24-25 'all Judah and Jerusalem' mourned for Josiah, Jeremiah composed a lament for him, and a tradition of lamenting his death continued down the years among the guilds of male and female singers.2 There is no biblical tradition about mourning for Ahab, but the claim is made in the Babylonian Talmud (b. M. Qat. 28b), which cites Zech. 12.11. Clearly, it was on the basis of a Targumic version of Zech. 12.11, or at the very least of a Targum-type explanation of the verse, that the claim about special mourning for Ahab was made. The Standard Version

Thus our CR variant is very well suited to the contextual surround of Zech. 12.10, and in a way that is not true of the ST at v. 10, and so it is to the ST that we must now turn. And I shall pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of mercy and compassion. And they will entreat from before me because they were exiled; and they will mourn for him just as they mourn for an only son, and lament for him as they lament a firstborn.

For the MT'S 'and they will look to me whom they pierced' the ST therefore has 'and they will entreat from before me because they were exiled', which, as we have noted, represents a distinct change of direction on the part of the Targum, and the more noticeably so when compared with the 2.

Cf. also, for example, b. M. Qat. 25b.


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CR alternative. Strack-Billerbeck, however, propose to translate the ST in a way that avoids this problem. They suggest two possible renderings: 'Sie werden bitten von vor mir fur die, welche in die Verbannung gingen' and ' Sie werden bitten von vor mir fur den, um dessentwillen sie in die Verbannung gingen' (Strack-Billerbeck, II, 583). They prefer the second option because it makes for a much better syntactical fit with the rest of the verse, and they suggest that the Targumist has the Messiah son of Ephraim in mind. It is in some sense because of the Messiah son of Ephraim that the people are 'exiled'. So the reference to exile is explained in the light of a tradition that says that the people of Jerusalem would have to flee Jerusalem for the wilderness when the Ephraimite Messiah was killed (StrackBillerbeck, II, 584).3 However, despite the obvious attraction of this explanation, there is good reason to question it. First, the translation itself is not secure. It is not at all certain that 7 d'tltlw can be translated 'for him on whose account they were exiled' (see below). Secondly, in Leqach Tov on Num. 24.17, which recounts the tradition of the Ephraimite Messiah at length (Buber 1884:258-59), the mourning comes before the withdrawal to the wilderness, and this absence, lasting 45 days, provides the context in which the destinies of righteous and unrighteous Israelites are determined. Thirdly, if the Targum wished to refer to the Ephraimite Messiah it has behaved most oddly in disregarding the obvious cue in the MT, namely, the reference to 'piercing'. By comparison, mention of 'him on whose account they were exiled' is convoluted, even if it were defensible in other respects. Fourthly, and perhaps because of the particular eschatological fit that they had in mind, Strack-Billerbeck have not mentioned a further, and perhaps the more obvious, translation possibility at Zech. 12.10: 'because they were exiled'.4 If this is the appropriate translation, then the Targum is simply resorting to one of its stock themes when bringing exile centre-stage. Since the presumption in the text would be that the exiled people of Judah had been restored to their land, 'because they were exiled' could have a pluperfect sense, and the whole clause might even imply a measure of repentance for what had in the first place occasioned the exile. Such a simple reference to exile at this point would be less context-specific than the alternative about to be discussed; nevertheless it would be perfectly congruent with the 3. Cf. Strack-Billerbeck, II, 298. 4. The translation of MT 't 'sr by 'because' would parallel LXX anth' hon ('because'; cf. Saeb0 1969: 99). For Targum 'Id- meaning 'because', see Ezek. 39.23, 25, 28, etc.

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Targumic predilection for the theme of exile. Targumists frequently introduce it with or without the encouragement of the MT. If, on the other hand, the first Strack-Billerbeck possibility ('for those who were exiled') is preferred, it cannot be the whole community that goes into exile, as in the Strack-Billerbeck scenario. Nevertheless, an end-time perspective could be maintained with the help of Zech. 14.2 (MT and Targ.), which talks of half the city of Jerusalem going into exile (bgwlh) when the nations are finally assembled against it. In that case, the singular referent in 'they will mourn for him', closely following the MT, could, with a little goodwill, be explained within its Targumic setting as a collective, continuing the reference to those who had been exiled from Jerusalem-Judah. Ezekiel and the Variant One of the most striking features of the CR marginal text is the time reference expressed by wmn btr kdyn: ''Andafterwards the Messiah son of Ephraim will go out to do battle'. The use of this time marker ensures that we understand that the death of the Ephraimite Messiah takes place after the accession of the divine Spirit upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and such an order of events is not to be taken for granted in a context like this. If we compare, for example, Joel 3.1-5 (2.28-32) on the subject of the outpouring of the divine Spirit in the end time, the impression conveyed is that this will follow a time of suffering and of attack by 'the northerner' (2.1-17, 20). So 3.5 (2.32) promises deliverance for 'the survivors whom the Lord calls'. 3.1 (2.28) begins, accordingly, with 'And afterwards' (Targ. wyhy btr kyn).If, in the case of Zechariah 12, we take into account the verses immediately preceding v. 10, the contrast between the conditions following upon God's intervention, as in the chapter, and the death of the Ephraimite Messiah after the coming of the divine Spirit, as in the CR variant, becomes more apparent. 'At that time', according to the MT, God's merciful intervention on behalf of Jerusalem and Judah would bring it about that even the weak among the citizenry of Jerusalem would be like David, and that the house of David would exercise its leadership role like the very angel of God (v. 8). At that time, moreover, God would set out to destroy the nations that attacked Jerusalem (v. 9). This is poor preparation for the suggestion of a dying messiah outside the gate of Jerusalem, as in the CR variant. The CR variant therefore presents an alternative to the basic sequence of return to Jerusalem-outpouring of divine Spirit-era of prosperity, and the


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explanation appears to lie in the presentation of Gog and the events surrounding his appearance in Ezekiel 38-39. First, we should note that Ezekiel 36-37 describes the reconstitution of the exiled people of Judah, who are cleansed from the pollution of their idolatry (36.25) and infused with the divine Spirit (36.27). Chapter 37 in particular describes the re-creation of the nation as a 'corporate' entity (w. 1-14) and its unification under a restored Davidic ruler (w. 15-28). Then Gog comes on the scene, and a unique perspective on the Judah of the return is offered in ch. 38. For it is when the Judaeans are restored to their land that Gog makes his attack. After many days you will be mustered. In future years you will come to a land that has recovered from the sword, assembled from many nations upon the mountains of Israel, which had been perpetually desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and they all lived in safety. You and all your troops, and many nations with you, will go up, coming on like a storm, like a cloud covering the land (Ezek. 38.8-9).

In certain respects the eschatological standpoint of Zech. 12.1-9 corresponds to that of Ezekiel 38-39. Whether or not the CR variant makes this assumption for the earlier verses of ch. 12 is difficult to judge, given its isolated (marginal) position in relation to the main text. It itself certainly seems to reflect the Ezekielan order of events: the divine Spirit remaining 'upon' the restored community, then ('afterwards') the attack by Gog and the Ephraimite Messiah's death in battle. It differs from the ST version, where the outpouring of the spirit of compassion and mercy leads to the beseeching described in the remainder of v. 10. In the variant, then, the attack of Gog and his allies represents a stage beyond the return of the exiles to their homeland. So it is in the one passage in the New Testament where Gog is mentioned: following a thousand-year period of messianic rule Gog and Magog head up the last outbreak of satanic rebellion before being destroyed with fire from heaven (Rev. 20.8-9). Somewhat later, the tradition recounted in Leqach Tov on Num. 24.17 envisages the attack of Gog after the restoration and prospering of Israel back in their land: 'After all this Gog-Magog hears and comes up against them'. However, a challenge to this ordering of events can also be found in the ancient sources. With perhaps more than a hint of pastoral concern, Tar gum Canticles has the King Messiah counsel the Jewish diaspora to wait until the destruction of Gog and Magog, so that then God could restore them to the land of Israel (8.4; cf. 7.13). That the CR variant is beholden to Ezekiel 38-39 for its event sequencing makes its depiction of Gog as victorious over the Ephraimite Messiah

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all the more surprising. For, while nothing is implied about the subsequent fate of Gog, what is said nevertheless contrasts radically with his treatment in Ezekiel. There God himself declares that he will summon a sword against Gog on the mountains of Israel (38.21) where Gog is destined to fall (39.4); it will take the house of Israel seven months to bury all the host of Gog's fallen warriors, hence the naming of the Valley of the Horde of Gog (39.11-12). This destruction of Gog is also mentioned in the Targum tradition. In Pseudo-Jonathan to Exod. 40.11 the Messiah son of Ephraim—said here to be a descendant of the Ephraimite Joshua son of Nun—is the one through whom the house of Israel is to conquer Gog and his allies at the end of the age. In both Targum Neofiti and a Fragment-Targum version of Num. 11.26, on the other hand, victory over Gog and Magog is attributed to the King Messiah (i.e. the Davidic Messiah).5 Both texts also show dependence upon Ezekiel 39, so that their specific reference to Gog's attack on Jerusalem, as in the CR variant at Zech. 12.10, is noteworthy. In Ezekiel 38-39 the attentions of Gog are trained on the land and the mountains of Israel, and this appears to be the assumption in the Pseudo-Jonathan version of Num. 11.26: 'Their corpses shall fall upon the mountains of the land of Israel'. Perhaps the specific focus on Jerusalem in Targum Neofitiand the Fragment-Targum has been influenced by the like of Zech. 12.2-3, 9. Antiquity At the very least, the traditions of interpretation that are reflected in both the ST text and the CR variant are attested elsewhere in rabbinic literature. In b. Mo 'ed Qatan 28b R. Akiva quotes Zech. 12.11 (sic), apparently to show that mourning was made for King Ahab despite a certain lack of merit on his part. This is followed by a statement by R. Joseph of Pumbeditha confessing that he would not have understood Zech. 12.11 without

5. Cf. Pseudo-Jonathan to Num. 24.17 ('a mighty king of the house of Jacob'). According to Targ. 1 Sam. 2.10 God himself is directly involved in the destruction of Gog, as in Ezekiel 38-39. In Targ. 2 Sam. 22.49 God delivers David, the speaker in the chapter, from Gog and the Gentile armies accompanying him. God himself also acts in Pseudo-Jonathan to Num. 11.26, and in Targ. Ezek. 38-39, though it has to be noted that the Targum to this prophet universally fails to mention the Messiah; cf. Levey 1974: 85-87. In Targ. Cant. 4.5 the Davidic and Ephraimite Messiahs are mentioned together as deliverers of Israel.


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the help of the Targum.6 There are clear implications here for the antiquity of the extant Targum, since the version quoted by R. Joseph agrees closely, and there is no reason to assume that the Talmudic quotation has been assimilated to the ST text.7 That the forerunner of the ST text predated R. Joseph by a significant period of time seems to be the minimum that we should conclude from his statement.8 For its part, the CR variant has its interpretative counterpart in b. Suk. 52a, where the Ephraimite Messiah is regarded as a possible referent at Zech. 12.10. Again, Midrash Rabbah on Numbers (11.6) has an explanation of the words 'and be gracious to you' in the 'Priestly Blessing' (Num. 6.25) that depends on Zech. 12.10 as interpreted in the marginal variant. In the Midrash the verb 'be gracious' is interpreted to mean 'raise up prophets', on the basis of the expression 'the spirit of grace' as it occurs in Zech. 12.10. However, although the concept of the 'spirit of prophecy' is well known in the Targumic literature (e.g. Isa. 61.1), and the pouring out of the divine Spirit is associated with prophesying already in Joel 3.1 (2.28), there is nothing in MT Zech. 12.10 that explicitly suggests the subject of prophecy. This is also true of the literalish ST text at this point, but the marginal version, with 'spirit of prophecy' for 'spirit of grace', provides the missing link. Again, it is inadvisable to claim that the Midrash presupposes the marginal Targum itself, though this cannot be ruled out. Priority The question of the possible priority of the one Targumic reading of Zech. 12.10 over the other inevitably calls for discussion. The use by both versions of the verb b'y in their rendering of MT 'and they will look to me' calls for comment in this regard: ST CR

and they will entreat from before me and they will look to me and will inquire from me

The translation of BH nbt (hiphil) by Aramaic b'y is not the most obvious one, and the occurrence of the same Aramaic verb in both the ST and the

6. Similarly in b. Meg. 3a. 7. E contra, the Talmudic quotations of Targum texts can differ significantly from the standardized version (cf. Zeph. 3.18 as quoted in b. Ber. 28a). 8. The Peshitta agrees with the Targum in rinding a reference to the lamentation for Josiah ('the son of Amon') in Zech. 12.11, though the MT'S mention of the plain of Megiddo(n) may have been sufficient inspiration for the Syriac translator.

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expansive text of the CR variant suggests the possibility of a relationship of some sort between the two readings. An abridgment theory of the type that Pierre Grelot invoked to account for the variant texts woven together as 'Toseftic Targum' at Zech. 2.14-15 would argue that the standard Targum had omitted the literal equivalent of MT 'they will look' and retained only the amplificatory 'and will inquire from me' (cf. Grelot 1966: 197211). However, there is precedent for the rendering of nbt by b'y (see Isa. 8.22),9 and the issue is slightly complicated by the likelihood that the two versions use b'y in different senses. The CR variant clearly uses it in the sense of'ask why': they will inquire why the Ephraimite Messiah has been allowed to die while in combat with Gog and his armies. In the ST version the more likely sense is 'entreat': 'they will entreat from before me because they were exiled'. Even with the other translation possibilities that have been considered above, some sense such as 'beseech' or 'entreat' would be appropriate, and still the verb would be differently nuanced from its counterpart in the CR variant. Moreover, the soundness of Grelot's arguments for taking the toseftic Targum associated with Zech. 2.14-15 as representative of a longer original text that has been abridged to become the standard version is seriously doubted.10 Identity There have been various attempts to account for the introduction of the figure of the Messiah son of Ephraim into Jewish messianism, whether as a reaction to historical developments of one sort or another, or as an expression of more deeply felt needs within Judaism (Heinemann 1975:1 -15). In general, the Targum tradition reflects the idea of a triumphant messianic figure out of the Davidic mould, and the expectation was that this Davidic Messiah would live forever (Levey 1974: 108). This roseate view is strikingly evident in the Targumic version of Isa. 52.13-53.12 where the Messiah plays a conspicuous part, yet is spared any of the negatives in the Hebrew text. Here ideas of suffering and servitude are distributed by the Targumist between Israel and the nations. One short clause in ch. 53 stands out as a possible exception, when it is said of the Messiah that he 'handed himself over to death' (v. 12). Whether this actually means that the Messiah died or that he merely risked death is debated. The Hebrew text that is 9. Here the Targum is free: 'And he will seek support from the inhabitants of the land'. 10. See Kasher 1975-76: 27-45; 1996: 213-19; Gordon 1994: 96-107.


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thus translated says that the servant 'poured himself out to death', and could be held to be equally ambiguous, except that the MT original of the poem has other statements about the servant that would, taken in their natural sense, imply his death. The argument, sometimes appropriate in discussion of the Targums, that similarity to the parent Hebrew text may reduce the significance of a particular rendering as an independent interpretation, hardly applies here in view of the importance of the subject of the Messiah, the unusual lengths to which the Targumist goes in this chapter in order to protect his understanding of the Messiah's role, and the importance of Isaiah 52-53 in Jewish-Christian polemic. In Targ. Judg. 5.18 there is a similar statement about the tribe of Zebulun who 'handed themselves over to death',11 but it could be argued that the same ambiguity applies there. Even so, the mere suggestion that the Messiah would 'risk his life', if we so limit the sense of the term in Isa. 53.12, is hardly expressive of the ideology of the Davidic Messiah, and may hint at that diversity of views on the Messiah that could accommodate even the Ephraimite Messiah. Perhaps it was awareness of this concept of a dying messiah that allowed the Isaiah Targumist to render the MT relatively literally at this point, when so much else in the chapter was fundamentally reconstructed. Those who look for historical causation to explain the Ephraimite Messiah turn most naturally to Simeon bar Kokhba, who was famously acclaimed by R. Akiva as a messianic figure.12 However, Bar Kokhba's revolt against the Romans failed, and he himself became a casualty, following the prolonged siege at Bethar. The tradition—which in this kind of discussion is as important as the actual historical facts—has it that, when the Romans took Bethar, Bar Kokhba perished, and his head was removed and presented to the emperor Hadrian.13 The 'reception-history' of Bar Kokhba is a complex matter,14 nevertheless there is sufficient positive treatment of him in Jewish tradition to suggest that his messianic pretensions were not universally dismissed, even after his failed attempt to oust the Romans. 11. Because the Targum redi vides the MT in its translation of Judg. 5.18 our rendering corresponds to the words 'themselves to death'. It is therefore inappropriate in this case even to consider the underlying Hebrew as a possible guide to the meaning of the Targum. 12. For wide-ranging discussion of the Bar Kokhba revolt see Schafer 1981. 13. j. Ta'an. 4.5;Lam. R. 2.4. 14. This provides the focus for the monograph by R.G. Marks (1994).

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The other main possibility canvassed is that the 'Messiah son of Ephraim' developed as a reflex of Christian preaching of Jesus as a suffering and dying messiah. However, key differences between the Christian messianic concept and the Messiah son of Ephraim (or, Joseph) as depicted in rabbinic sources were already noted by Dalman over a century ago (1888:2223). At the same time, the CR variant's description of the death of the Messiah son of Ephraim does not fit with what is known of Bar Kokhba's death (see above). Indeed, it could be argued that the Ephraimite Messiah's death at the hand of Gog 'before the gate of Jerusalem"5 has more in common with the crucifixion of Christ who, according to the unanimous New Testament tradition, 'suffered outside the gate' of Jerusalem (cf. Heb. 13.12). Since, however, the view that Bar Kokhba served as a prototype for the Ephraimite Messiah does not assume his identity with that messiah, we should not expect a perfect correlation between the two in respect of the circumstances of their deaths. Even Heinemann's explanation of the death of the Messiah son of Ephraim as a secondary, Bar Kokhba-influenced, element in the tradition should not require this degree of correspondence (Heinemann 1975: 6-10). The honorand may well regard this (or any) contribution on Targum as 'strange fire', nevertheless it is offered in recognition of the unique talent and prodigious industry that have served, stimulated and more than once twitted the Old Testament guild (I almost said 'fraternity') during the past thirty years. Bibliography Buber, S. (ed.) 1884 Chilton, B.D. 1983 Dalman, G. 1888 Gordon, R.P. 1994 Grelot, P. 1966

Lekach-Tob. III. Sepher Bamidbar (Wilna: Romm). The Glory of Israel: The Theology and Provenience of the Isaiah Targum (JSOTSup, 23; Sheffield: JSOT Press). Der leidende und der sterbende Messias der Synagoge im ersten nachchristlichen Jahrtausend (Berlin: H. Reuther). Studies in the Targum to the Twelve Prophets: From Nahum to Malachi (VTSup, 51; Leiden: E.J. Brill). 'Une Tosephta targoumique sur Zacharie, II, 14-15', RB 73: 197-211.

15. According to Leqach Tov on Num. 24.17 Gog kills the Ephraimite Messiah in the streets of Jerusalem.

GORDON The Ephraimite Messiah Heinemann, J. 1975

Kasher, R. 1975-76

1996 2000 Levey, S.H. 1974 Levine, E. 1988 Marks, R.G. 1994

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'The Messiah of Ephraim and the Premature Exodus of the Tribe of Ephraim', HTR 68: 1-15 (also in L. Landman [ed.], Messianism in the Talmudic Era [New York: Ktav, 1979]: 339-53). 'The Targumic Additions to the Haphtara for the Sabbath of Hannuka' (Heb.), TarWz 45: 27-45. Targumic Toseftot to the Prophets (Heb.) (Sources for the Study of Jewish Culture, 2; Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies). 'On the Portrayal of Messiahs in Light of an Unknown Targum to Lam 4:2122', Jewish Studies Quarterly 7: 22-41. The Messiah: An Aramaic Interpretation (Monographs of the Hebrew Union College, 2; Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion). The Aramaic Version of the Bible: Contents andContext (BZAW', 174; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). The Image of Bar Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature: False Messiah and National Hero (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press).

Pearson, B.W.R. 'Dry Bones in the Judean Desert: The Messiah of Ephraim, Ezekiel 37, and 1998 the Post-Revolutionary Followers of Bar Kokhba', JSJ29: 192-201. Saeb0, M. Sacharja 9-14: Untersuchungen von Text und Form (WMANT, 34; Neu1969 kirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag). Schafer, P. 1981

Der Bar Kokhba-A ufstand: Studien zum zweiten judischen Krieg (Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum, 1; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]). Strack, H.L., and P. Billerbeck 1924 Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, II (Munich: C.H. Beck).

THE PUZZLING POLITICS OF ANCIENT ISRAEL Norman K. Gottwald

When I began to work on my recent book, The Politics of Ancient Israel, I encountered a puzzling obstacle to construing the politics of ancient Israel. I realized that all the political leaders in the Hebrew Bible were at the same time religious figures, and all the political institutions mentioned were simultaneously viewed as religious institutions. Moreover, the biblical descriptions and evaluations of politics were almost entirely cast in a religious voice, to such an extent that it was difficult to grasp the specifically political character of ancient Israelite life. The success or failure of every political regime seemed to hinge on the religious policies and practices honored or violated during its incumbency. This framing of politics as a reflex of religion was aggravated in the extreme by the widely recognized fact that the religious standards used to evaluate Israelite politics were largely those developed during the Deuteronomic Reform of the late seventh century. These standards were applied anachronistically to the tribal and monarchic periods from the late thirteenth century onward. In effect, political leaders were declared good or bad on the basis of religious standards that were not in force in their day. Thus, we have a two-fold blow to our understanding of Israelite politics: not only is the politics obscured by religion but the reformist religion used to assess politics was unknown to the earlier political leaders on whom it is unfairly foisted. Methodological Strategy How then are we to access politics so distorted after the fact by retrospective religious judgments? To surmount this obstacle, I decided on two methodological moves. The first was to bracket the overload of late religious glossing of politics in order to locate the probable political and religious challenges faced by political leaders from era to era in Israel's history, as

GOTTWALD The Puzzling Politics of Ancient Israel

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well as the resources and options available to them. What remained was a sketch of Israel's political history with many gaps and uncertainties. A second methodological move was necessary in order to fill some of the biblical gaps and to provide a comparative basis for viewing Israel as an ancient Near Eastern polity. This is best accomplished by drawing on archaeology, ancient Near Eastern texts, ancient Near Eastern political history and comparative social sciences. My resulting re-visioning of Israelite politics is one that will seem strange to Bible readers accustomed to the religious guidelines by which Israel's history is normally read. The usual reading of Israel's religious and political history is what I call a 'triumphal back-reading' in terms of the eventual emergence of Judaism and/or Christianity. On this reading, the aspects of old Israel that carried over into later Jewish and Christian belief and practice are highlighted as a more-or-less unbroken course of development, while those aspects that were dropped are dismissed as 'heterodox'. In contrast, the reading of Israel's religious and political history at which I arrived is what I call a 'non-triumphal forward-reading' in terms of the contingencies and crises at each stage of the history, taking into account all discernible religious stances relevant to politics, and without any attempt to force the outcome in a direction compatible with later Jewish or Christian developments. This of course means that I 'suspend' the canonical status of the biblical writings in order to let them speak for themselves in the context provided by extrabiblical sources. I do so in the confidence that the value of biblical religion and politics for today will have to adjust to the down-sized reading that I conclude best accords with ancient Israelite experience. With this context in mind, let me describe the gist of my critically imaginative account of ancient Israelite politics. Three Zones of Ancient Israel's Politics Ancient Israel passed through three major zones of political organization in its long history from the thirteenth and twelfth centuries to the end of the biblical period, which for my purposes I define, against all prevailing convention, as the second century CE. These three zones of political organization may be characterized as the tribal era (c. 1225-1000 BCE), the monarchic era (c. 1000-586 BCE), and the colonial era (c. 586 BCE-135 CE, interrupted by a brief revival of the monarchy under the Hasmonean dynasty, 140-63 BCE, and extending on for centuries thereafter until the inclusion of Jews as citizens of modern states). It is important to note that these eras did not totally displace one another, since institutional and ideological

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aspects of the tribal era live on under the monarchy, and both tribal and monarchic memories and aspirations appear in the colonial period. Nevertheless, these three zones or horizons constituted the dominant and determinative political regimes in three successive eras of ancient Israel's history. As is now widely recognized, the determinative literary voices of the Hebrew Bible speak from a colonial context in which traditions from tribal and monarchic times are assembled, often revised or glossed, and included either within or alongside fresh traditions. As a result of this elongated literary trajectory involving sources that are cumulative and temporal in depth, political data about ancient Israel are 'dispersed' and 'scrambled' throughout the sources. While the dominant political perspective is colonial, some of the details and dynamics, as well as the ideologies, of tribal and monarchic politics are retained amid the recast traditions. These surviving features of pre-colonial politics can be assessed for their plausibility in the light of extrabiblical information and with the help of comparative social science models. Tribal and Monarchic Politics An examination of the rich trove of archaeological finds, replete with information about ancient Near Eastern states, demonstrates that the Israelite monarchic experience recounted in the Hebrew Bible is a familiar instance of the many small to mid-size tributary monarchies in Syro-Palestine. With the assistance of this body of information, a stratum of politically authentic information in the Bible is thus separable from its heavy handed religious overlay. As a tributary monarchy, Israel's political structures and strategies were remarkably similar to those of other such agrarian states ruled by small elites whose lifeblood was drawn from a peasant population vulnerable to famine, warfare, taxation and debt. Israelite states engaged surrounding states in commerce, diplomacy and warfare, participated in shifting alliances, and in the end were destroyed by two of the dominant powers, Assyria and Neo-Babylonia. In spite of the biblical premise that the Law of Moses predated the tribal and monarchic eras, and that its laws should be regulative of Israelite politics, there is very little indication that these laws had significant effect on Israel's kings or even that most of the laws were known to them. In all fundamental respects, Israel's monarchy was like other ancient Near Eastern monarchies, oriented to the interests of the ruling elite and for the most part dismissive of the interests of the populace at large in spite of the political rhetoric trumpeting their just and peaceful rule.


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Taking into account advances in our knowledge of the multiple, often competitive, forms ofpre-exilic Israelite religion, it is reasonable to conclude that the cult of Yahweh, while a creative force in the tribal era and the official state religion under the monarchy, was neither dominant enough nor sufficiently unified in its diverse manifestations to shape the politics of the Israelite states in a decisive manner, even though various versions of Yahwism were enlisted in political causes and conflicts. A royal theology, premised on a divine covenant with David and the sanctity of Jerusalem, gave ideological validation to the state, but it was counterbalanced and often opposed by familial, local and regional forms of Yahweh worship, especially in the north but also in Judah. Some of these non-royalist religious currents were rooted in a notion of kinship between the deity and the people, sometimes articulated as a covenant that bypassed kingship or radically subordinated centralized politics to its more 'populist' terms. A broad spectrum of non-Jerusalemite practices is summed up by the author of Kings as illicit worship at 'the high places'. Worship of Baal and Asherah, either openly or in sublimated form in Yahwistic circles, frequently added to the Israelite religious melange. Prophets, variously aligned with diverse forms of Yahwism, sometimes supported but more often criticized the foreign and domestic policies of kings. It would not be amiss to speak in the plural of the religions of ancient Israel prior to the reforming monotheism of colonial times. It is, I conclude, a mistake to claim that somehow a covenant-based form of Yahwism, stemming from Moses and associated with reforming kings such as Joash, Hezekiah and Josiah, was controlling—or even influential— in monarchic politics. Even though Deuteronomy tries to subject the king to the covenant mediated through Moses, it is clear that few kings before Josiah and none after him regarded themselves beholden to covenant politics. Alleged 'checks and balances' in Israelite governance are dubiously attested. The 'people of the land' referred to in some texts were ad hoc groupings with particular political interests, and not a representative assembly of leading citizens or a council of state. Prophets who railed against state politics had no political channels to work through other than to confront the kings and their bureaucrats directly with religious inducements and threats. Israelites who might consider themselves equals under Mosaic Yahwism were not 'citizens' in a constitutional state but 'subjects' of a tributary state. Such 'seeds' of democracy or popular rule as might be located in the Hebrew Bible are at best implicit in its religious pronouncements and critiques but not in the political practice it reports. The frequent

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theme of royal obligation to enact social justice is more indebted to a general ancient Near Eastern notion than to any specific Israelite religious dictum. Less biblical and extrabiblical information is available concerning tribal and colonial politics. Nevertheless, a feature of the political traditions in the Hebrew Bible that is not found in other ancient Near Eastern states is its inclusion of a sizable body of traditions from the tribal era, largely concentrated in Joshua and Judges. While a history of the tribal era, or even a full profile of its social organization, is not reconstructible at present, the clear signs of a loose pre-state association of peasants and herders are evident in the biblical text and in archaeological finds. Why was this eccentric body of pre-state lore preserved? The answer appears to be that it served the political and religious interests of subsequent Israelites, especially in the colonial era when Israelites were thrown into a stateless condition analogous in some ways to the tribal period. In reinforcing the attribution of Israelite law to Moses, colonial Israelites were downplaying the failed monarchy and reconnecting with the traditional fountainhead of the tribal period. To be sure, we have no historical evidence of an exodus or of a Moses, but their prominence in biblical lore attests to the importance that colonial Yahwists attached to cultural and religious foundations independent of monarchic structures and policies. Traces of such nonstatist, even anti-statist, foundations are discernible in the fragmentary tribal traditions that have survived editing and re-editing. Colonial Politics So we are brought to a critical question: if the tenacity of ancient Israel as a people is not creditable either to its political institutions or to a completed revelation of its religion to Moses at the beginning of its history, to what factors and forces is that tenacity and creativity to be attributed? My tentative conclusion is that the cultural and religious vibrancy of Israel's tribal era, surviving as a substratum under the monarchy, eventually fructified the energies and commitments of colonial Israelites to fashion a fundamentally 'a-political' mode of communal life. In the process, the ancient tribal cult of Yahweh, emerging out of its Canaanite milieu, enriched by royal, wisdom and prophetic elements during the monarchy, was shaped into the literate monotheism of colonial times. The evolving Hebrew Bible caught up traditions from the several stages of this religious development, downplaying politics but not entirely effacing the political counterpoints to this long cultural and religious struggle.


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The politics recounted or implied in the Hebrew Bible, however, are not sufficient to grasp the full course of biblical politics vis-a-vis its religion. In my view it is necessary to extend the story line well beyond the usual 'ending' of the biblical era in the fourth or third century BCE. My study convinces me that thefundamental sociopolitical and religious dynamics of the biblical period extend on as far as the second century CE. In this misnamed 'intertestamentar period, Israel made three bids for political independence, once successfully against the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire and twice unsuccessfully against Rome. The eighty-year rule of the Hasmonean dynasty was opposed by many Judahites because of its religious irregularities and its socially repressive policies, to such an extent that in the end Judahites preferred rule by Rome rather than by corrupt native kings. But soon the yoke of Roman rule grew heavy and two uprisings by Judahite nationalists in 66-70 and 132-35 CE were crushed. In this same period, the religion of Israel had an institutional center in the Jerusalem Temple, until it was destroyed in 70 CE, and it cherished a body of traditions carrying considerable authority but not as yet delimited in contents and, more importantly, not as yet submitted to a commonly agreed upon hermeneutics. As a result, many 'brands' of Yahwistic religion competed for dominance but without resolution until the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism. It is to be noted that the blossoming of Rabbinic Judaism, with its delimited canon and consensual hermeneutics, was made possible by the utter failure of the attempts to re-establish Israelite statehood. Provincial in their religious interests and alienated from large numbers of their compatriots, neither the Hasmonean state nor the Jerusalem Temple priesthood was able to achieve religious stability among the competing forms of Yahwism. It was the 'a-political' lay rabbis who managed, via Mishnah and Gemara, to fashion a communal polity in which longstanding arguments about textual interpretation and cultic practice could be peacefully adjudicated. Only with this rabbinic achievement is it correct to speak of Judaism in the singular, since all that preceded it were various 'Judahisms'. At one stroke, the rabbinic consensus shaped the Jewish community as a 'surrogate state' under the aegis of a life-affirming and socially bonding interpretation of canonized Scripture. Looking back over the whole course of Israelite politics, I believe it is fair to say that the Israelite people never managed to develop a political structure that matched the creativity and novelty of the culture and religion they produced. Moreover, beyond a general aspiration that their form of rule should be accordant with religious ideals and respectful of ordinary

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Judahites, they never developed a conception or model of political order as a viable alternative to the tributary or imperial state. The political visions they entertained harked back vaguely to tribal comradeship, or longed for a truly righteous king, or projected harmonious rule by the righteous after foreign and domestic sinners would be annihilated All these nostalgic and Utopian visions, powerful as protests against abusive politics, depended on religious loyalties as the basis for resolving the dilemmas inherent in the exercise of corporate power. But the hoped-for religious solidarity was itself an issue of political dispute, and the longed-for derivation of the ends and means of political order from religious solidarity remained unspecified and unrealized. The Political Legacy of Ancient Israel Finally, what is the contribution of ancient Israelite politics to contemporary political thought and practice? I conclude that the legacy of ancient Israelite politics provides us with no distinctive politics and with no template for translating culture and religion into a viable polity. To be sure, ancient Israel's politics have been repeatedly mined for the support of the divine right of kings, revolution against unjust authority, covenant-based commonwealths, liberal democracy, religious nationalism, anarchism, capitalism and socialism. This habit of biblical proof-texting to validate one or another form of politics has been tempting because of the religious and cultural authority invested in the Hebrew Bible. The small 'grain of truth' in this practice is that the unsystematized and unreconciled political structures, practices and viewpoints expressed in the Hebrew Bible contain elements that appear to have certain affinities with a wide spectrum of western political systems. The nearest 'whole view' of ancient Israelite politics I have been able to conjure in my critical imagination is that of a tributary agrarian monarchy, preceded by a loose association of tribes exercising diffused power and authority, and followed by semi-autonomous religiocultural enclaves incorporated into monarchic empires. As far as I can determine, none of these political forms is transferable into contemporary politics. They cannot be transferred as a whole, or in selected parts, if only because the course of world history has unfolded far beyond the adequacy of ancient models to do more than inform us of the sources of some of our notions and sentiments about politics and to highlight political dilemmas that have been with us since 'the dawn of civilization'. The modern state of Israel, committed to its biblical roots,


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has not been able to recuperate a coherent biblical politics that can resolve the conflicting claims of religious nationalism and liberal democracy. Various attempts to conceive the United States theopolitically as a 'New Israel' have foundered on the shoals of religious diversity and liberal democracy. The gulf between culture/religion on the one hand and politics on the other was never successfully bridged in ancient Israel, nor has it ever been in the long and uneasy relations between these two divergent networks of social power. The rise of liberal democracies, with their separation of church and state, attests to the systemic weaknesses and gross abuses of polities grounded in religion, while leaving unsettled the ontological and moral foundations of these religiously neutral states. My conclusion that biblical politics are of limited value for contemporary political theory and practice should not be construed to imply that there is no basis for judging between political systems and particular political establishments. It is rather to say that our political judgments must involve a web of pragmatic, historical, moral, religious and philosophical considerations, within which the Hebrew Bible is but one modest resource, more cautionary than instructive in its effects. Indeed, those biblical interpreters who invite us to revel in the literary artfulness of the Hebrew Bible, without trying to draw lessons from it, may offer the wisest counsel on biblical politics. It is perhaps the very 'disconnect' between religion and politics that constitutes one aspect of the enduring attraction of the Hebrew Bible, since in its pages we are invited to rehearse critically and imaginatively the political dilemmas that still bedevil us in a modern/postmodern world, and thus to note how even the most religious of peoples can flounder when it comes to politics. Bibliography Gottwald, N.K. 2001 The Politics of Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press). Launderville, D. 2003 Piety and Politics: The Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans). Mann, M. 1986 The Sources of Social Power. I. A History of Power from the Beginnings to AD 1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Pleins, D. 2001 The Social Visions of the Hebrew Bible: A Theological Introduction (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press).

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Sharkansky, I. 1996 Israel and its Bible: A Political Analysis (New York: Garland). Walzer, M. et al. 2000 The Jewish Political Tradition. I. Authority (New Haven: Yale University Press). Zevit, Z. 2001 The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis ofParallactic Approaches (New York: Continuum).

WERE THE PRE-MACCABEAN HIGH PRIESTS 'ZADOKITES'? Lester L. Grabbe

It has been commonplace to speak of the pre-Maccabean high priests as Zadokites. Just to give one example from a well-known older work, G.H. Box and W.O.E. Oesterley refer to 'the pre-Maccabean high-priests who were descended from Zadok' (Box and Oesterley 1913:277). A quite recent example, from the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, shows that the conventional view is still widespread, with statements that the priests under the Seleucids were 'Zadokite' but that Menelaus was a 'non-Zadokite' who ousted the 'Zadokite dynasty' (Falk 2000: 362). It is conventionally argued, therefore, that a crisis developed at the time of the Maccabean revolt when the office of high priest passed out of the Zadokite family. Thus, when Jason replaced his brother Onias (2 Mace. 4.7-10), this might have been an illegitimate usurpation of power, but at least the office was kept in the family, so the story goes. With Menelaus, however, the high priesthood left the traditional Zadokite family and went to another priestly family (2 Mace. 4.23-25).1 After Menelaus was executed, Alcimus was appointed as high priest but, although of the tribe of Aaron, he was not of the Zadokite line (1 Mace. 7.11-14; 2 Mace. 14.3, 13; cf. Josephus,Ant. 12.9.7 §387; 20.10.3 §235). After his death, the office of high priest was probably vacant for a period of time.2 Then Jonathan Maccabee 1. The main Greek manuscripts of 2 Mace. 3.4 (cf. 4.34) suggest that Menelaus was a Benjaminite and thus of a non-priestly tribe. However, it is now widely accepted that the preferred reading (preserved in the Latin textual tradition) should be Balgea, which designates a family of priests. See the critical text of Kappler and Hanhart (1976) and the discussion in Grabbe (1992: 377-78). 2. In Ant. (12.10.6 §§414, 419; 12.11.2 §434) Josephus states that Judas the Maccabee was high priest for three years, although elsewhere (Ant. 20.10.3 §237) he seems to accept that the office was vacant for seven years after the death of Alcimus. It has also been suggested that the Qumran 'Teacher of Righteousness' held the office during this time (Murphy-O'Connor 1976), though this is very much a minority point of view (cf. Burgmann 1980; Wise 1989-90).

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took the office (1 Mace. 10.17-21), and it remained in the Hasmonean family until the reign of Herod, at which time it became the practice for Herodean rulers and the Romans to set up individuals in the office from a number of priestly families—and to depose them quite frequently (Grabbe 1992:386-91). The question before us is this: until Menelaus disrupted the traditional line of high priests, was the family seen as Zadokite? To put it another way, did the Jewish people as a whole see Menelaus, Alcimus and the Maccabees as illegitimate because they were not Zadokite? It is this issue that I wish to explore in the present article. Survey of Texts Hebrew Bible Zadok first appears, without father or mother or genealogy, in 2 Sam. 15.2436.3 It has been argued that Zadok's sudden and mysterious appearance is due to his being a priest of the old Jerusalem Jebusite cult whom David took over to consolidate Jebusite and Jerusalemite inhabitants. Although this thesis has been contested, it seems to me to have a good deal of merit,4 but this point is not really relevant for present purposes and will not detain us. Despite the importance of Zadok in this and a few other passages (e.g. 1 Kgs 1), little is made of him in other biblical passages. Yet it is often asserted that at the time of Josiah's cultic reform, the Jerusalem priests were Zadokite, and that they continued to dominate the Jerusalem priesthood despite attempts by other groups and families of clergy to obtain greater rights and status.5

3. Zadok is first mentioned in 2 Sam. 8.17, but the text is problematic. It seems to say that Zadok is son of Ahitub and Ahimelech is son of Abiathar; however, elsewhere Ahitub is the father of Ahimelech who is father of Abiathar (1 Sam. 22.20). This suggests that the text is corrupt here and that the original had a genealogy of Abiathar, like that in 1 Sam. 22.20, but not of Zadok. 4. The thesis seems to have been developed in detail by H.H. Rowley (1939), though Wellhausen already suggests such a view (Wellhausen 1871: 176-77). See Grabbe (1995: 61-62) for a bibliography of the main studies and a discussion of the various arguments. Those who have opposed it are Cross (1973:209-14), followed by Ramsey (1992). This thesis has recently been favoured by Albertz (1994: 129) and Schaper (2000: 93, 270). 5. The most recent argument for this scenario is given by Schaper (2000), Nurmela (1998) and Albertz (1994: 220-21). See also Gunneweg (1965) and Cody (1969).

GRABBE Were the Pre-Maccabean High Priests 'Zadokites'? 207 The exception is Ezek. 40.46; 43.19; 44.15; 48.11. Here the priesthood is divided into two classes, the altar priests who are the 'sons of Zadok' (plliJ n ]H) and the 'sons of Levi' who are lower clergy. This division is not unusual in the sense that the P document also divides between the Aaronites who are altar priests and the Levites (e.g. Num. 8), but Ezekiel is unique in the Hebrew Bible in referring to the altar priests as 'sons of Zadok'. However, in Ezekiel's world all altar priests are 'sons of Zadok', not the high priest in particular. In the books of Chronicles Zadok is firmly in the line of Aaron. This is clear in the high priestly genealogy which makes Zadok a descendant of Aaron through his son Eleazar (1 Chron. 5.29-41 [Eng. 6.3-15]; 6.35-38 [Eng. 6.50-53]; 24.3,6). The high priest Azariah in the time of Hezekiah is said to be of the 'house of Zadok' (2 Chron. 31.10). The books of Ezra and Nehemiah seem to have the same tradition, with Ezra tracing his genealogy back through Zadok to Aaron (Ezra 7.2) while Zadok is the grandson ofAhitub(Neh. 11.11). Unfortunately, the statements about Aaron as a priest or as the ancestor of the altar priests seem to be primarily in late texts.6 The many references in the Pentateuch are mainly from the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, and seem to be from the P source. After the many references in the Pentateuch, one is surprised to find Aaron's name largely absent from the Deuteronomistic History. Joshua 21.13-19 describes the cities assigned to Aaron's descendents. It is debated whether this is a pre-exilic or post-exilic passage.7 Apart from Joshua 21.13-19, the references to Aaron appear in the Deuteronomistic History in Josh. 24.33 (which states that Eleazar was the son of Aaron), Judg. 20.28 (stating that Phinehas was son of Eleazar who was son of Aaron the priest) and 1 Sam. 12.6, 8 (Moses and Aaron appointed by YHWH). Josh. 24.33 and Judg. 20.28 are usually interpreted as postexilic passages, while 1 Sam. 12.6, 8 does not say that Aaron was a priest. Similarly, the single mention of Aaron in the Prophets associates Aaron with Moses but does not say he was a priest (Mic. 6.4). The picture of Aaron in the books of Chronicles is very much that of P: the altar priests are from Aaron. The Levites have important roles, though their role is secondary to that of the Aaronites (cf. 1 Chron. 23-26). The exclusive right of Aaronites to preside at the altar is given graphic illustration in 2 Chron. 26.16-21, in which King Uzziah contracts leprosy for 6. A good discussion of the Aaron tradition is given by Spencer (1992). 7. Cf. Schaper (2000:172-73), who argues for postexilic dating, with Cody (1969: 162-63) and Nurmela (1998:76-80), who think it shows a pre-exilic reference to Aaron.

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attempting to offer incense. The references in the Psalms are generally thought to be postexilic (105.26; 115.10,12; 118.3), though there is a question about Psalm 118.8 The problem is that there are several passages that give a negative view of Aaron. In the golden calf incident, the general view is that Aaron is also criticized (Exod. 32; Deut. 9).9 It is conventional to see this chapter in its present form as a criticism of the bull cult at Bethel. If so, the inference is that the Bethel priesthood was Aaronite, which raises the question of when the Jerusalem priests also came to be considered Aaronite. A second negative passage is found in Numbers 12 where Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses. Miriam seems to be the main culprit, but Aaron hardly comes off very well. Thus, the picture that emerges in this analysis is that Aaron was a priestly group, perhaps based in Bethel, but opposed by other groups who had a hand in the process of transmitting the tradition. It was only in the postexilic period that the Aaronites became the dominant group and impressed their identity on all the altar priests.10 As for the priests in the pre-exilic period, the picture given in SamuelKings is one in which David has two main priests, but at the end of his life one (Abiathar) is disqualified and banished (1 Kgs 2.26-27). The remaining priest is Zadok. The impression given is that from then on the priests were of the line of Zadok, though this is not stated. If other groups of priests served at the altar, there is no information on them in the text. This picture is very hypothetical, of course, and the history of the priesthood before the end of the monarchy is likely to have been rather more complicated than just described. For example, John Bartlett has shown that from the named high priests in the Deuteronomistic History and in Chronicles it would be difficult to argue that the same family held the high priesthood through the centuries, despite the genealogies. This goes contrary to the picture given in various re-creations.11

8. Kraus gives the view that the date of its origins cannot be determined and that the 'late dating widely accepted cannot be proved with certainty' (1989: 390). 9. There are those who see the negative comment as aimed primarily at the people rather than at Aaronites (Gunneweg 1965: 30-36; Nurmela 1998:37-38). In any case, it is widely accepted that the original story was probably pro-Aaron, with the anti-Aaron tone the result of later editing (cf. Albertz 1994: 145; Schaper 2000: 276). 10. Cf. Schaper (2000: 269-79), who suggests how this came about. 11. As Bartlett (1968) shows, the genealogies do not contain all the names of those alleged to be practising high priests in the narrative texts, nor do the narratives suggest that the succession was always from father to son.

GRABBE Were the Pre-Maccabean High Priests 'Zadokites'? 209 Other Early Jewish Texts One would think that Zadok and the Zadokites would have an important place in later Judaism. Surprisingly, they are completely absent from much of the literature of Second Temple Judaism. This is in spite of the fact that priests in general and the high priest in particular are often mentioned in these texts. Hecataeus ofAbdera. Writing about 300 BCE, Hecataeus gives a description of Judah in his own time. We do not have Hecataeus directly but only as quoted in Diodorus Siculus (40.3.1-7), and the precise source of his information is not known.12 However, in this case the question of historicity is not really the primary concern; whatever Hecataeus's source our interest is in the interpretation of the priests given there. According to his account, Moses established the temple and cult and originated the priesthood by selecting those men of greatest ability. The priest of greatest virtue and wisdom is chosen to be high priest. Nothing is said about Aaron or about a hereditary priesthood or high priesthood. Ben Sira. In 45.6-22 is a panegyric on Aaron which seems to be based mostly or entirely on information in the Pentateuch. Aaron is of the tribe of Levi, the brother of Moses, and is given the priesthood. His 'heritage'— presumably meaning the priesthood—is for his descendants alone (45.25). Although the Levites are not otherwise mentioned in the book, it is likely that Ben Sira's view of them is the same as that found in the Pentateuch.13 Chapter 50 is a hymn of praise to the high priest Simon. Although his genealogy is not given, the expression 'sons of Aaron' is twice used of his companions in the cultic celebration (50.13,16). The Hebrew text of Ben Sira contains a section in 51.12 that does not occur in the Greek. Here the statement is made, 'Give thanks to the one who chose the sons of Zadok for the priest(hood)' (51.12i: ]HD^ pTTH 'm IITD1? ITin). 1 Enoch. The Animal Apocalypse, which traces history from Adam to Judas Maccabeus, naturally has several allusions to Aaron (89.18,31,37). However, none of these mentions that he held the office of priest. 12. See Grabbe (1992: 173; 2000: 37-39) for a discussion of Hecataeus's account, including possible sources of his account. 13. I have argued that Ben Sira knew the Pentateuch in much the form we now have it (Grabbe 2001), and the information given here seems to come entirely from the text of the Pentateuch rather than a separate tradition. If so, this means that Ben Sira is likely to have accepted the picture of the priesthood, with the Aaronite priests presiding at the altar and Levites as lower clergy, that we find in the present form of the Pentateuch.

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Testament ofLevi and Related Literature. The relationship of the Greek text of Testament ofLevi to the Hebrew text found in the Cairo Genizah (CTLevi ar) and Qumran (1Q21; 4Q213; 4Q213a; 4Q213b; 4Q214; 4Q214a; 4Q214b) continues to be debated. For our purposes here we need note only that all the writings seem concerned to present Levi as already having been chosen to serve as a priest, contrary to the text of Genesis which makes no such statement. The (fictional) setting of all these writings is the lifetime of the patriarch Levi or shortly afterward. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that they mention neither Aaron nor Zadok. Tobit. There is a reference in 1.7 to 'the priests, the sons of Aaron' in the extant Greek versions (B, A and Sinaiticus; this passage is not preserved in the Qumran fragments).14 Jubilees. This book has a particular interest in the priesthood (especially in 30.18-20; 31.11-17; 32.8-9). Not surprisingly, though, the office and statements all focus on Levi, Jacob's son, since the book is supposedly being revealed to Moses and written down by him. Although there is opportunity for Aaron to be mentioned at the beginning and end of the book, there is no reference to him. Jubilees' parallels to the Pentateuch cease at just about the point where Aaron and his sons are put forward as priests in Exod. 28.1. 1 Maccabees. In 7.5-25 the appointment of Alcimus as high priest (to replace Menelaus who had been executed [2 Mace. 13.3-8]) is described. A significant segment of the Jews, including the Hasidim, seem to have been content with this appointment. The reason for the Hasidim's acceptance of Alcimus is that a priest 'from the seed of Aaron' (1 Mace. 7.14: EK TOU atrepnaTos Aapcov) had come. Letter of(Pseudo-)Aristeas. The high priest, who is named as Eleazar, is mentioned quite a few times (1,6,11,32, 35,41,51, 81, 83,96,112,123, 126, 172-73, 320). Nothing further is known of such a high priest during this time, and it could be a name simply used for purposes of the story because of priestly resonances (e.g. Eleazar the son of Aaron who succeeded him [Num. 20.23-28]). General references to priests are also found (53, 87,92,310), but there is no statement that connects either the priests or the high priest to Aaron or Zadok or even Levi. Judith. The book has several references to the 'high priest' (6 iepeus o (jeyas) Joakim in Jerusalem (4.6, 8, 14; 15.8). There are also two refer-

14. On the text of Tobit, see especially Fitzmyer 1995a; also Thomas 1972. For the Hebrew and Aramaic texts at Qumran (4Q196-200), see Fitzmyer 1995b.

GRABBE Were the Pre-Maccabean High Priests 'Zadokites'? 211 ences to 'priests' in general (4.14; 11.13), but no further designation occurs in the book. Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (Pseudo-Philo). This book covers from creation to the death of Saul. Perhaps if it had extended a bit further, Zadok would have been included. As it is, the focus is very much on Moses, to the point that Aaron is hardly mentioned. Nevertheless, Aaron's priesthood is not in doubt. The golden calf incident is covered, though no blame seems to be attached to Aaron (12.1-7). In the rebellion of Korah, Aaron's priesthood is confirmed (17.1-4; 52.2; 53.9). Both Moses and Aaron are said to be priests (51.6). Josephus. He has a number of statements about the high priesthood, beginning with Aaron and continuing to the fall of the temple in 70 CE. First, he talks of the high priesthood to the time of Solomon (Ant. 5.11.5 §§361-62). Next, he describes the transfer of the high priesthood from the family of Eli to the house of Zadok (Ant. 8.1.3 §§11-12), giving a genealogy of Zadok based on 1 Chron. 6.35-38 (Eng. 6.50-53). He goes on to say that eighteen further individuals held the high priesthood to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, but he does not name them or make any point of their being descendants of Zadok (Ant. 20.10.2 §§231-32). He notes that after Onias's death in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, the office of high priest was taken by lakimos (Alcimus) who was descended from Aaron but was not of the same family as Onias (Ant. 20.10.3 §235). He may well be dependent on 1 Mace. 7.14 for this information. Josephus would no doubt have argued that the line of Onias would ultimately be traced back to Zadok; on the other hand, he makes no statement about the Oniads being 'Zadokite'. If Josephus thought of the high priests of Onias's line as being Zadokites in particular (as opposed to Eleazarites, Simonites, Oniads), he never says so. In other words, Zadok would most likely have been seen by Josephus as forming part of Onias's lineage, but that is a separate matter from naming the whole line after Zadok. He may well have viewed all priests as descendants of Zadok, not just the Oniads. Qumran Texts[5

The term 'sons of Zadok' (pllil "3D) is a standard one in a number of the Qumran and related texts. In several texts this term is evidently applied to all priests within the community (1QS 5.2, 9; lQSa 1.2, 24; 2.3; lQSb 3.22; 4Q266 fr. 5 lb.16); indeed, the term 'son of Zadok' seems synony15. For an important study that covers all the texts, see Davies 2000.

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mous with 'priest'. Ezek. 44.15 is quoted in the Damascus Document (CD 3.21-4.6), yet here it is allegorized to refer to aspects of the history of the community. In 4QFlorilegium Ezek. 44.10 is quoted and applied to the 'sons of Zadok and the men of their counsel who are pursuing righteousness' (4Q174.16-17). (The reference in 4QpIsc [= 4Q163] 22.1.3 is too fragmentary to give any context.) Alongside references to 'sons of Zadok', we find the term 'sons of Aaron' used apparently in a similar sense. 1QS, which has several references to the 'sons of Zadok the priests' as noted above, also has references to the 'sons of Aaron' (1QS 5.21-22; 9.6-7), who seem to have the same place and function in the community as 'the priests' (e.g. 1QS 6.8, 19). lQSa also speaks of the 'sons of Aaron the priests' (1.15; 2.13; cf. 1.23) just as it speaks of the 'sons of Zadok the priests' (1.2, 24; 2.3). 1QM speaks of some 'priests from the sons of Aaron' (7.10) and mentions the 'covenant of an everlasting [priesthood]' made with Eleazar and Ithamar, the two sons of Aaron (17.2). In accordance with well-established usage in the Pentateuch, the Temple Scroll not unsurprisingly speaks of 'the priests, the sons of Aaron' (11QT 22.5; 34.13). We should be careful about imposing a single viewpoint on the various Qumran scrolls, even those which have been widely identified as stemming from the same community. But in 1QS and lQSa the terms 'sons of Zadok', 'sons of Aaron' and 'priests' all seem to be synonymous. New Testament No references to Zadok the priest are found in New Testament texts.16 There are several references to Aaron, however. Acts 7.40 contains a brief reference to Aaron in connection with the golden calf incident. The book of Hebrews has a good deal of discussion about the priesthood in the context of investigating the divine priesthood of Jesus. His position as priest after the order of Melchizedek is contrasted with the earthly Aaronite priesthood (7.11). Heb. 5.4 mentions that the high priest is called by God just as Aaron was, implying that the high priest is an Aaronite. In 9.4 reference is made to Aaron's rod that budded, which established his authority in the priesthood (Num. 17). Thus, whatever else the priesthood might have been, it was Aaronite.

16. A Zadok (Sadok) is found in the genealogy of Jesus (Mt. 1.14 [also Lk. 3.23-31 in manuscript D]), but this figure would be of the tribe of Judah, not of the priestly line.

GRABBE Were the Pre-Maccabean High Priests 'Zadokites'? 213 Summary and Conclusions The results of our investigation allow us to answer the question posed by the title of this article. As so often, though, the answer is not a straight yes or no. The following points summarize the situation as it emerges from an examination of the relevant texts. 1. During the time of the First Temple under the monarchy, a number of priestly groups seems to have existed. The Deuteronomistic History tells a story of two priests under David: Abiathar and Zadok. Under Solomon, however, the former was dismissed, with the implication that the priesthood was exclusively the prerogative of Zadok and his descendants. Yet little reference is made to Zadok after 1 Kings 1, and the Jerusalem priests are not referred to as 'Zadokites'. As for the other priestly groups, the 'Levites' at some point joined the temple (under Josiah, is the general view) but only as second-class clergy. The place of the 'sons of Aaron' is variously debated, though many think they were not part of the Jerusalem temple establishment at this time; they are frequently thought to have had a base in Bethel. 2. Although initially without a clear genealogy, Zadok became assimilated to the Aaronite line, as attested by the genealogies in 1 Chronicles (5.29-41 [Eng. 6.3-15]; 6.35-38 [Eng. 6.50-53]; 24.3,6). All the high priestly genealogies in the biblical text connect the individual in question with the line of Zadok. Thus, there seems to have been a strong belief that the high priests of the temple had Zadok among their ancestors. Whether they thought of themselves as 'Zadokite', though, is not known. 3. Ezek. 40.46; 43.19; 44.15; 48.11 considered all altar priests as 'sons of Zadok'. However, it is the only source for several centuries to use that term of the priests. If the priests were thought of as, or took their identity from, 'sons of Zadok' our sources do not mention it. On the other hand, 'sons of Aaron' and other terms connecting the priests with Aaron are found widely in the sources. 4. Apart from Ezekiel and a brief reference in Sir. 51.12 (Hebrew text only), the only other writings that refer to the priests as 'sons of Zadok' are found among the Qumran scrolls. Here the terms 'sons of Zadok', 'sons of Aaron' and 'priests' seem to be synonymous or interchangeable terms, as seems also to be the case with Ben Sira. The answer to our initial question thus has to be broken down into several aspects: Were the high priests in the Second Temple period thought of as descendants of Zadok? Yes, they probably were, by almost everyone.

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At the same time, there is no evidence that the high priestly line (at least, until the Maccabees) was regarded as uniquely Zadokite. Rather, all altar priests were regarded as 'sons of Zadok' by some Jews, if not by most. At the time of the Maccabean revolt, there were those who regarded any high priest outside the Oniad line as illegitimate, but there is no evidence that this was because they were seen as 'non-Zadokite' but rather because they were non-Oniad. It is clear that many Jews were willing to accept Menelaus, Alcimus and the Hasmoneans as high priests, suggesting that to them it was not essential for the high priest to be of the Oniad family. The view that the high priestly line was the exclusive Zadokite line, and in this way differed from other priests, is nowhere attested in our sources. In that sense, the high priests of the Second Temple did not bear the exclusive or particular designation of'sons of Zadok' or 'Zadokite'. Bibliography Albertz, Rainer 1994 A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. I. From the Beginnings to the End of the Monarchy (London: SCM Press). Bartlett, John R. 1968 'Zadok and his Successors at Jerusalem', JTS NS 19: 1-18. Box, G.H., and W.O.E. Oesterley 1913 'The Book of Sirach', in R.H. Charles, The Apocrypha andPseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press), I: 268-517. Burgmann, Hans 1980 'Das umstrittene Intersacerdotium in Jerusalem 159-152 v. Chr.', JSJ 11: 135-76. Cody, Aelred 1969 A History of Old Testament Priesthood (AnBib, 35; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute). Cross, Frank M. 1973 Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Davies, Philip R. 2000 'Zadok, Sons of, in EDSS, II, 1005-1007. Falk, Daniel K. 2000 'High Priests', EDSS, I, 361-64. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 1995a 'The Aramaic and Hebrew Fragments of Tobit from Cave 4', CBQ 57: 655-75. 1995b 'Tobit', in James VanderKam (ed.), Discoveries in theJudaean Desert. XEX. Qumran Cave 4: XIVParabiblical Texts, Part 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press): 1-76. Grabbe, Lester L. 1992 Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian. I. Persian and Greek Periods; II. Roman Period (Minneapolis: Fortress Press).

GRABBE Were the Pre-Maccabean High Priests 'Zadokites'? 215 1995

Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages: A Socio-historical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International). 2000 Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period: Belief and Practice from the Exile to Yavneh (London/New York: Routledge). 2001 'Jewish Historiography and Scripture in the Hellenistic Period', in Lester L. Grabbe (ed.), Did Moses Speak Attic? Jewish Historiography and Scripture in the Hellenistic Period (JSOTSup, 317; European Seminar in Historical Methodology, 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press): 129-55. Gunneweg, A.H.J. 1965 Leviten undPriester: Hauptlinien der Traditionsbildung und Geschichte des israelitisch-judischen Kultpersonals (FRLANT, 89; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Kappler, Werner, and Robert Hanhart 1976 Maccabaeorum liber II (Septuaginta, 9/2; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2nd edn). Kraus, Hans-Joachim 1989 Psalms 60-150: A Continental Commentary (trans. H.C. Oswald; Minneapolis: Fortress Press). Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome 1976 'Demetrius I and the Teacher of Righteousness (I Mace., x, 25-45)', RB 83: 400-20. Nurmela, Risto 1998 The Levites: Their Emergence as a Second-Class Priesthood (SFSHJ, 193; Atlanta: Scholars Press). Ramsey, George W. 1992 'Zadok', ABD, VI, 1034-36. Rowley, H.H. 1939 'Zadok and Nehushtan', JBL 58: 113-41. Schaper, Joachim 2000 Priester und Leviten im achdmenidischen Juda: Studien zur Kult- und Sozialgeschichte Israels in persischer Zeit (FAT, 31; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck). Spencer, John R. 1992 'Aaron',^fiD,I, 1-6Thomas, J.D. 1972 'The Greek Text of Tobit', JBL 91: 463-71. Wellhausen, Julius 1871 Der Text der Bucher Samuelis (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Reprecht). Wise, Michael O. 1989-90 'The Teacher of Righteousness and the High Priest of the Intersacerdotium: Two Approaches', RevQ 14: 587-613.

'LAWLESS RIOT AND INTESTINE DIVISION': JUDGES 19-21 ANDCIVIL

WAR IN ENGLAND ANDNORTH AMERICA, 1628-1786

David M. Gunn

They had no King: as well the fools as wise Did all what did seem right in their own Eyes (Robert Gomersall, 'The Levite's Revenge').

Writing for the benefit of youth in Great Britain, in the mid-1780s, Mrs Trimmer (1741-1810; nee Sarah Kirby) drew from the stories in Judges 17-21 of Micah and the Levite's 'wife' (traditionally in English, 'concubine') a lesson about the benefits of sound and stable government. 'From these two events', she advised, 'we may discover, that there was at that time great confusion in the land of Israel; and that the excellent form of government which had been ordained by Moses, at the command of God, was corrupted and disregarded.' The stories showed what a variety of ill effects were produced in Israel for want of a regular settled government; as it is repeatedly said, that they happened when there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

She recounted how the Israelites had broken their covenant with God and how God in turn had left them to fend for themselves without any governor at all, so as 'to feel the sad effects of their presumption and self-dependance'. A clear lesson was to be drawn: How thankful should those be who live in a kingdom blessed with laws calculated to defend the weak, protect the innocent, and punish injustice and violence; who have a good king, and magistrates of various ranks to put them in execution! Never should people in so happy a case indulge a wish to be at liberty to do everything that may appear right in their own eyes; lest, enticed by faction, impelled by mistaken zeal, or hurried on by tumultuous passions, they should be led to break the command of God, subvert His holy religion, and infringe the peace of that society, of which they are members, for they may assure themselves that they will by such wickedness

GUNN 'Lawless Riot and Intestine Division'

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bring down God's judgments upon themselves.—War with a foreign enemy is a great evil, but lawless riot and intestine division are productive of the greatest misfortunes that can happen to any country, of which may we never be even spectators! (Trimmer 1786: II, Section XLVIII).

A century and a half earlier, around 1628, the young English cleric Robert Gomersall (1602-c. 1646) had shared this aversion to the prospect of civil war in his 'poetical meditations' upon Judges 19 and 20. They had no King: as well the fools as wise Did all what did seem right in their own Eyes. And Sodom's crime seemed right to some: to see When every man will his own monarch be, When all subjection is ta'en quite away, And the same man does govern and obey...

The account of the aftermath of the rape of the concubine (or wife of secondary rank) is edged with irony. Conjuring up the appropriately voiced eloquence with which the messenger sent to Judah delivers his missive, Gomersall narrates: But he that unto princely Judah went, Carrying the head of the dismembered corse, With such a voice which sorrow had mad hoarse, (Lest he should rave too highly) thus begins! 'Is there an heaven? and can there be such sins? Stands the earth still? methinks I hardly stand, Feeling the sea's inconstancy on land. After this act, why flows the water more? ...'

Whereupon, after many further passionate words, the people of Judah themselves fall into a passion: He tells them all, what I before have wept; Now Judah storms, and as a River kept From its own course by wears and mills, if once It force a passage, hurries o'er the stones, Sweeps all along with it, and so alone Without storms makes an inundation: Such was the people's fury. They're so hot That they will punish what we credit not, And be as speedy as severe...

There follows, however, a counterpoint to the strains of war. There are some elders, it would appear, who urge caution against a rush to judgment:

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Reading from Right to Left ...but some Who loathed the bloody accents of the drum Who thought no mischiefs of that foulness are, But that they gain excuse, compared with war, And war with brethren—these, I say, of age The chief amongst them, do oppose their rage, Exhort them to a temper. 'Stay', says one, 'And be advised before you be undone. Whence is this fury? why d'ye make such haste To do that act which you'll repent as fast?'

The speaker continues by posing the crucial issue of proportionate response by conjuring up the realities of war—rape, destruction, neglect, insecurity and death: Are any glad to fight? or can ought be Mother of war beside necessity? Be not mistaken! Brethren, take good heed, It is not physic frequently to bleed. He that for petty griefs incision makes Cannot be cured so often as he aches. Are then your sisters, daughters, wives too chaste? Or are you sorry that as yet no waste Deforms your richer grounds? or does it stir An anger in you, that the soldier Mows not your fields? Poor men, do you lament That still you are as safe as innocent? We yet have cities proudly situate, We yet have people: be it not in Fate That your esteem of both should be so cheap To wish those carcasses and these on heap.

The voice of restraint continues by confronting—and countering—its critics: Do I excuse them then to please the time, And only make an 'error' of a crime? Am I sin's advocate? Far be 't from me To think so ill of war as sodomy! For 'sodomy' I term it: Justice calls That 'fact' which never into action falls If it hath passed the license of the will: And their intent reached to that height of ill— But whose intent? O pardon me, there be Benjamites spotless of that Infamy. Shall these be joined in punishment? a sin


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You'd war against? O do not then begin To act a greater, as if you would see Whether injustice equaled luxury!

The poem ends with a recognition of its whimsy, that words rather than swords might stop the cycle of revenge. With civil war in England but a few short years away, these lines have, in hindsight, a kind of sad prescience: But are not we true Benjamites in this, And aggravate what e'er we do amiss By a new act, as if the second deed Excused the former, if it did exceed? Did we not thus, an end were come to war; Did we not thus, no more should private jar Molest our peace. Kings might put up their swords, And every quarrel might conclude in words: One conference would root out all debate And they might then most love, who now most hate, The most sworn foes: for show me, where is he Would seek revenge without an injury? (Gomersall 1633).

A decade or so later and Robert Gomersall's vision of restraining voices among the Israelites is a vain echo from the past. England has enjoyed its civil war as the Israelites had enjoyed theirs in Judges. In the aftermath of the war, John Milton (1608-74) appeals to Judges 19-21 as Gomersall had done prior to it, but in very different vein. In January, 1649, hard on the execution of Charles I, a book appeared purporting to be the king's personal memoir (arguably 'ghosted' by his chaplain, John Gouden) during his last days: Eikon basilike, the pourtraicture of His Sacred Mates tie in his solitudes and sufferings. The immense success of this book in portraying Charles as a royal martyr prompted Parliament both to ban the book and to commission a rebuttal by Milton, justifying the beheading. His painstaking response, Eikonoklastes, appeared within months, though it was never able to match the popularity of its rival. Ten years later, on the eve of the restoration of Charles II, Milton's own book was burned by the public hangman; Milton was imprisoned and narrowly escaped execution. Charles charges that Parliament's undue severity exacerbated the rebellion in Ireland and for that reason deserved a curse such as Jacob called down upon his sons Simeon and Levi (Gen. 49.7) for their slaughter of the men of Shechem in retaliation for the rape of their sister Dinah (Gen. 34). Milton responds that the king seems little concerned for those who had lost fathers, brothers, wives and children through the cruelty of the rebels

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and that retaliation is not, as the king supposes, 'unevangelicaP. He observes first that the king's defence of his own prerogatives ('the Toys and Gewgaws of his Crown, for Copes and Surplices, the Trinkets of his Priests') has caused the deaths of thousands in England. He then challenges the king's use of the Shechem story. Parliament's action does not compare to Simeon and Levi's destruction of a whole city for the sake of one sister, whose ravishing was 'not don out of Villany, and recompence offer'd by Marriage'. Nor, for that matter, is it comparable to the heavenly fire upon Sodom summoned by the angels ('Disciples') who were denied lodging there. At issue is whether it is right 'for a Nation by just Warr and execution to slay whole Families of them who so barbarously had slaine whole Families before'. Milton's trump card is Judges 19-21: Did not all Israel doe as much against the Benjamits for one Rape committed by a few, and defended by the whole Tribe? and did they not the same to Jabesh Gilead for not assisting them in that revenge?

To which he adds the caveat that he argues thus, not that such measure should be meted rigorously to all the Irish, or as remembering that the Parlament ever so Decreed, but to shew that this his Homily hath more of craft and affectation in it, then of sound Doctrin (Milton 1649: Chapter XII—Upon the Rebellion in Ireland).

Milton is here drawing on established lines of argument by Puritan writers regarding just war and holy war, going back at least to Henry [Johann Heinrich] Bullinger's influential sermon 'Of War'. Bullinger (1504-75), whose sermons were required reading for Elizabethan clergy, extends standard Augustinian just war theory to include the duty of the magistrate 'to make war upon men which are incurable, whom the very judgment of the Lord condemneth and biddeth to kill without pity or mercy'. Bullinger cites the wars of Moses against the Midianites and Joshua against the Amalekites: Of that sort are the wars.. .with those also which, rejecting all justice and equity, do stubbornly go to persist in their naughtiness. Such were the Benjaminites... Such are at this day those arrogant and seditious rebels which trouble commonweals and kingdoms... (Bullinger 1577).

Within two years oiEikonoklastes, and again writing in response to a defence of Charles I and an attack on Parliament—Salmasius's Defensio Regia pro Carolo I [A Defence of the Reign of Charles I], funded by Charles II and published anonymously in November 1649—Milton returns


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to this theme and this text. Assailing Charles as wholly accountable for the bloodshed and destruction of families during the civil war he defends both the restraint of the 'magistrates and people' against the king's provocations and their eventual prosecution of the war, civil though it be. What teachings of law or religion ever instructed men to consider their own ease and the saving of money or blood or life more important than meeting the enemy? Does it matter whether the enemy be foreign or domestic? Either one threatens the state with the same bitter and ruinous destruction. All Israel saw that without much shedding of blood she could not avenge the outrage and murder of the Levite's wife; did they think that for this reason they must hold their peace, avoid civil war however fierce, or allow the death of a single poor woman to go unpunished? (Milton 1651: Chapter V).

That the death of 'a single poor woman' should not go unpunished is hard to gainsay. Gomersall turned the crime of Gibeah broadly to' sodomy'; Milton focuses sharply on the murder of a wife. Yet place Milton's argument in Gomersall's poem, against the voices of those 'Who loathed the bloody accents of the drum', and it sounds less compelling. At issue, of course, in the argument, is proportion. At issue in the reading of the biblical text is tone. We might conjecture that Gomersall is reading a text that satirizes prejudice and excess, Milton a text that maps civil behavior. Mrs Trimmer, it would appear, reads like Milton in this respect, but with Mr Gomersall's unease on the question of disproportion. That disquiet leads her distinctly away from the sharp lines drawn by the Puritan to a very Anglican 'middle way': In the war between the Benjamites and the other tribes, great losses were sustained on both sides; neither party had any reason to hope for the protection and assistance of GOD, and they were made instruments of punishment to each other (Trimmer 1786).

The war against Benjamin found itself much in vogue again during another civil war that became the American War of Independence (177583). As with Milton, the text's users, for the most part, read it 'straight', at face value, without allowing that its tone might be sardonic. The only question, then, is that of identity: 'Who (today) are the Israelites and who the Benjamites?' In July 1775, on the fast-day appointed by the Continental Congress, a day set aside for prayers for forgiveness and blessing (and 'His smiles on American Councils and arms', as John Adams put it), at the Great Valley Baptist Church in Pennsylvania, the minister, David Jones (1736-1820),

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preached a sermon urging that war was a legitimate Christian course of action in defense of freedom against tyranny: We have no choice left to us, but to submit to absolute slavery and despotism, or as free-men to stand in our own defence, and endeavor a noble resistance. Matters are at last brought to this deplorable extremity; —every reasonable method of reconciliation has been tried in vain; —our addresses to our king have been treated with neglect or contempt.

All will not be easy. To the Most High we can appeal, and submit the event to his pleasure. It is more than probable that we may meet some defeats, and have much blood shed; but even if this should be the case; let us not be discouraged; for so it was with Israel in their first battles with Benjamin,but in the third battle the whole tribe of Benjamin is cut off, save six hundred men (Jones 1775).

Three years later in April 1778, marking the third anniversary of the start of the war, Jacob Gushing (c. 1729-1809), minister of the church at Waltham, Massachusetts, delivered an impassioned sermon at the site of the opening skirmish, near Lexington, Massachusetts. Again the theme is the just war and again the war against the Benjaminites is appealed to as scriptural warrant. He reflects on the concept of responsibility of the governed to resist tyranny: If this war be just and necessary on our part, as past all doubt it is, then we are engaged in the work of the Lord, which obliges us (under God mighty in battle) to use our swords as instruments of righteousness, and calls us to the shocking, but necessary, important duty of shedding human blood; not only in defense of our property, life and religion, but in obedience to him who hath said, 'Cursed be he that keepth back his sword from blood' (Jeremiah 48.10) (Gushing 1778).

A few years later, 'a Moderate Whig'—possibly Captain Stephen Case (1746-94) of the Ulster County (New York) militia—dedicated a treatise to General Washington in which he appealed to the Bible among other authorities to show 'the approven duty of defensive arms against oppressing rulers'. Not only did the children of Israel under Gideon rightfully avenge themselves against the cruelty of the Midianites, but they were morally justified in waging war against the Benjaminites, since 'there is a command [Deut 13.12,15] to punish every city or party, making apostacy unto idolatry'; and if people are to bring to condign punishment idolatrous apostates, much more ought they to resist all tyrants, seeking to destroy all religion and


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liberty, for they are twins. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. As I said before, destroy the one and the other cannot live (Case 1783).

But the Bible being the Bible, there is, of course, another side to the story. From the other side of the conflict and the Atlantic ocean we hear, in a remarkable tour de force on the biblical passage, from John Fletcher (1729-85; born Jean Guillaume de la Flechere in Switzerland to a military family), Vicar of Madeley in Shropshire, England, and a friend of John Wesley, who gave him great praise. For Fletcher the issue is clear: the colonists are in the wrong and God is not on their side (Fletcher 1776; dated 6 December). In his 1776 address, 'The Bible and the Sword', Fletcher begins by affirming the value of the royal proclamation that a public fast and humiliation be observed throughout England, upon Friday, December 13, in order to obtain pardon of our sins; and may in the most devout and solemn manner send up our prayers and supplications to the Divine majesty, for averting those heavy judgments, which our manifold sins and provocations have justly deserved; and for imploring his intervention and blessing speedily to deliver our loyal subjects.

The fasts in the colonies had become the subject of much mud-slinging. As the Reverend Samuel Langdon (1723-97), who later became President of Harvard, put it in a sermon preached to the Massachusetts Bay Colony Congress on 31 May 1775: If God be for us who can be against us? The enemy has reproached us for calling on his name, and professing our trust in him. They have made a mock of our solemn fasts, and every appearance of serious Christianity in the land. On this account, by way of contempt, they call us saints; and that they themselves may keep at the greatest distance from this character, their mouths are full of horrid blasphemies, cursing, and bitterness, and vent all the rage of malice and barbarity (Langdon 1775).

In this context of bitter accusations, Fletcher affirms, against the cynics, that 'The sovereign acts herein the part of a Christian prince, and of a wise politician' and urges his audience not to 'leave the field of national prayer to our revolted colonies'. He offers in support 'a similar case, in which God testified his approbation of a fast connected with a fight; yea, with a bloody civil war'. He is appealing, of course, to the account of the Israelite's initial defeat by Benjamin in Judges 20, and to their fasting and offering of sacrifices prior to inquiring of God for the third time, after which they were successful.

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He recounts briefly the story of the rape and death of the woman, the summoning of Israel against Gibeah, and Benjamin's denial of their 'just request' to deliver up those responsible. He then draws his analogy. Certain sons of Belial, belonging to the city of Boston, beset a ship in the night, overpowered the crew, and feloniously destroyed her rich cargo. The government was informed, that this felonious deed had been concerted by some of the principal inhabitants of Boston, and executed by their emissaries; and being justly incensed against the numerous rioters, it requested the unjust city to make up the loss sustained by the owners of the plundered ship, or to deliver up the sons of Belial who had so audaciously broken the laws of the land; and a military force was sent to block up the port of Boston, till the sovereign's just request should be granted. The other colonists, instead of using their interest with the obstinate inhabitants of Boston to make them do this act of loyalty and justice, gathered themselves together unto Boston to go out to battle against the sons of Great-Britain, and by taking up arms against the king to protect felons, made themselves guilty both of felony and high treason.

Returning now to the biblical account, he observes that God did not forbid them 'to bring their obstinate brethren to reason by the force of arms', but instead, when they went up to the house of God and asked counsel, God replied with directions for the battle. To be sure there were grievous losses at first, 'But alas! the righteousness of a cause, and the divine approbation, do not always ensure success to those who fight in the cause of virtue'. Then came the weeping and fasting before the Lord and thereupon the Benjaminites were delivered into their hand. And the few Benjamites that escaped the edge of the vindictive sword, lamented the obstinacy, with which their infatuated tribe had taken up arms for the sons of Belial, who had beset the house, in the inhospitable city of Gibeah. And so will the revolted colonies one day bemoan the perverseness, with which their infatuated leaders have made them fight for the sons of Belial, who beset the ship in the inhospitable harbour of Boston.

He proceeds to sum up the argument drawn from scripture: To return; From the preceding scriptural account, it evidently appears: (1) That God allows, yea commands the sword to be drawn for the punishment of daring felons, and of the infatuated people who bear arms in their defence... (2) That, in this case, a sister-tribe may conscientiously draw the sword against an obstinate sister-tribe; much more a parent-state against an obstinate colony, and a king against rebellious subjects: (3) That Providence, to try the patience of those who are in the right, may permit that they should suffer great losses: (4) That whilst the maintainers of order and justice draw the sword to check daring licentiousness, it is their duty to go


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up unto the house of God, and to weep and fast before the Lord: (5) That God makes a difference between the enthusiastical abettors of felonious practices, who fast to smite their brethren and rulers with the fist of wickedness; and the steady governors, who, together with their people, fast to smite the wicked with the sceptre of righteousness... And lastly, that although no war is so dreadful as a civil war, yet when God is consulted three times following, all his answers shew, that the most bloody civil war is preferable to the horrible consequences of daring anarchy; and that it is better to maintain order and execute justice with the loss of thousands of soldiers, than to let the mobbing sons of Belial break into ships or houses, to commit with impunity all the crimes which their lust, rapaciousness, and ferocity prompt them to.

Lust, rapaciousness and ferocity forge exactly the link Fletcher wants between the outrage at Gibeah and the outrage in the North American colonies. And as usual in the genre, the political sermon, the outrage is what the other side commits. Mr Fletcher, however, does not leave it at this. Remarkably, having laid the blame for instestine division upon the colonists, he retreats from the sharp dichotomies of good and evil and the claim to God's side. The sermon turns by degrees to an ostensibly more conciliatory tone, with an appeal to fast not only for 'ourselves, and those who fight our battles', but also out of regard 'to our American brethren', remembering the injunction of the Lord to 'love your enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use you', and bearing in mind also that many of them 'have been deceived by the plausible and lying speeches of some of their leaders' or, seized by 'the epidemical fever of wild patriotism', are unaware of its dreadful consequences, and 'already repent of their rashness, earnestly wishing for an opportunity of returning with safety to their former allegiance'. It is as though the naysayer of the Reverend Robert Gomersall's poem has managed to whisper again, But whose intent? O pardon me, there be / Benjamites spotless of that Infamy. / Shall these be joined in punishment?

So from approbation of the near extermination of the Benjaminites we are led to intercession, with 'hearts full of forgiving love, and Christian sympathy', for their American counterparts. A tour de force indeed! John Fletcher's address of 1776 was fashioned in the thick of conflict. The war and the loss of the colonies to Britain (the peace treaty was signed in 1783) took place in the years just prior to Sarah Trimmer's publication of her Sacred History. She makes no allusion to the struggle and the acrimonious rhetoric it generated (and by which it was generated!). That may

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not be wondered at, given that subsequent editions of her work carried a dedication, dated 1 January 1788, to the Queen (Charlotte), including the wish: 'May YOUR MAJESTY long continue to bless this land, and soften the cares of ROYALTY to the best of SOVEREIGNS!'). The sovereign was, of course, George III. Yet it is hard not to read Trimmer's account of the war against Benjamin without those recent events in mind. She exhorts her readers to be thankful, 'who live in a kingdom blessed with laws calculated to defend the weak, protect the innocent, and punish injustice and violence; who have a good king, and magistrates of various ranks to put them in execution!' How curious that she should exclaim, 'may we never be even spectators!' of so destructive a misfortune as 'intestine division'. For she had been just such a spectator. It is as though the war that had begun as 'intestine' had in its loss turned into a war against a 'foreign enemy'. It is as though the American colonies, as Benjamin, had been wholly excised from the British body politic. No survivors. No need of wives, either. Sarah Trimmer was not interested in facilitating contemporary reflection, for the comprehension of youth, on the stories of the women of Jabesh Gilead and the daughters of Shiloh. They are passed over in decent silence. As she says in her Preface: Great care is required in selecting for [young persons] such parts of the Sacred Writings as are suited to the progressive improvement of youth; and it was my experience of the inconveniences attending an indiscriminate use of the SCRIPTURES, when educating my own children, that first suggested to me the design of [the Sacred History}.

The Bible does have its limits. And so did Mrs Trimmer. It is a privilege to contribute to this volume in honor of David Clines, longtime friend and, from 1970 to 1984, close colleague in the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield. His breadth of scholarship is quite extraordinary and there lives no critic more meticulous and acute. For me, his support, his enterprise and his openness to inquiry, wherever it led, proved to be cornerstones of my early academic career. I shall be forever grateful. As it happens, among many interests we shared was a delight in perusing antiquarian bookseller catalogues for books in our field. Among those I came across during my days with David in Sheffield were six nicely tooled leather volumes of Mrs Trimmer's Sacred History} Completed 4 July 2002 1. This paper is much indebted to Edward McMahon for seeking out many of the sources and to Diane Klein for making them accessible in a database on the reception


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Bibliography Bullinger, Heinrich 1577 Fiftie godlie and learned sermons, diuided into jive decades conteyning the chiefe and principall pointes of Christian Religion (London). Case, Stephen ['A Moderate Whig'][?] 1783 Defensive Arms Vindicated and the Lawfulness of the American War Made Manifest. (Attribution uncertain; dated 17 June 1782 at New-Marlborough; written, according to the text, in 1779.) Gushing, Jacob 1778 Divine Judgments Upon Tyrants: And Compassion To The Oppressed: A Sermon Preached at Lexington, April 20th, 1778. In commemoration of the Murderous War and Rapine, inhumanely perpetrated, by two brigades of British troops, in that town and neighbourhood, on the Nineteenth of April, 7 775 (Boston). Fletcher, John 1776 The Bible and the Sword: or, The Appointment of the General Fast vindicated: In an Address to the Common People concerning the propriety of repressing obstinate licentiousness with the sword, and of fasting when the sword is drawn for that purpose (London). Gomersall, Robert 1633 'The Levite's Revenge: Containing Poetical Meditations upon the 19. and 20. Chapters of Judges', Poems. (This poem written c. 1628) Jones, David 1775 Defensive War in a just Cause Sinless: A Sermon Preached On the Day of the Continental Fast (Philadelphia). Langdon, Samuel 1775 A Government Corrupted by Vice, and Recovered by Righteousness (Maybe found in John W. Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution [Boston, I860]: 233-58.) Milton, John 1649 Eikonoklastes, in Answer To a Book Intitl 'd Eikon Basilike, the Portrature of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings (London). (May be found in Don M. Wolfe [Gen. Ed.], The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, III [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962].) 1651 Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, Contra Claudii Anonymi, alias Salmasii Defensionem Regiam (London). (Trans, as A Defence of the people of England, by John Milton: in Answer to Salmasius 's Defence of the King [Amsterdam?, 1692]. May be found in Wolfe [see above], Complete Prose Works of John Milton, IV [1966].) Salmasius [Claude de Saumaise] 1649 Defensio Regia pro Carolo I ad Serenissimum Magna Britannia Regem

history of the book of Judges for a volume being prepared for the Blackwell Bible Commentary series. Some of the works cited may be found most easily in Ellis Sandoz's collection of political sermons of the American founding era (Sandoz 1991).

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Reading from Right to Left Carolum II. Filium natu majorem, Heredum & Successorum legitimum [A Defence of the Reign of Charles 7] (Leiden).

Sandoz, Ellis 1991

Political Sermons of the American Founding Era (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Press). Trimmer, Mrs [Sarah] 1786 Sacred History, Adapted to the Comprehension of Young Persons (6 vols.; London). (Several further editions, including the 6th, in 1810, under the revised title: Sacred History, selected from the Scriptures; with Annotations and Reflections, particularly calculated to facilitate the study of the Holy Scriptures in Schools and Families [London]).

THE ROLE OF THE POOR IN PROVERBS Walter J. Houston

Anyone familiar with the work of David Clines will be aware that in recent years he has shown an increasing concern for the exercise of critical judgment with regard to the ethics of the Hebrew Bible. I share this concern, but I come at the question from a different point of view, as a Christian theologian concerned to discover in an often morally problematic text aspects which may work as a critique of our lives and attitudes in the modern world. My particular concern is that of social justice and more specifically the issue of class, that is, of unequal relations between groups within society that are related to the economic structure. The Hebrew Bible has always been seen as having relevance to this issue because of its frequent words against oppression and in favour of care for the poor. Yet there can hardly be any doubt that the great majority of the Hebrew Bible is the work of social elites and is likely, a hermeneutic of suspicion will maintain, to represent their interests. One approach (Mosala 1989: 101-53) regards such words as isolated fragments voicing the interests of the oppressed. But as I have argued elsewhere (Houston 1999: 343), it is better to regard them as integral to the ideology of the texts, for it is in the interests of the rulers as much as of the ruled to encourage 'a decent provision for the poor', which the Tory Samuel Johnson saw as 'the true test of civilization'. Traditional ideas of social solidarity and generosity, or religious ideas of God as the guarantor of justice, inevitably form part of any ideology that lays claim to universal truth and popular support, but taken in their full weight may be read as challenging the dominant role of the classes that sponsor it (Houston 1995: 298). This thesis can be illustrated from the book of Proverbs. Here we must have in view two questions, which are related but can be kept distinct. The first is the social background of the writing of Proverbs. Who were the wisdom writers? How did they fit into the society of the time? Whom did

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they serve? Who were their patrons? When they collected proverbs, such as those in Proverbs 10-29, did those proverbs originate in circles like their own, or are they rather a popular oral literature, and if so in what sort of social background did they originally circulate? The second is: what attitudes towards wealth and poverty are displayed in this literature? These attitudes are of course very likely to be a function of the social background of the authors or of the people among whom the proverbs circulated, so that one way of investigating the first question might be by answering the second question first, and then arguing that people who had such and such attitudes must have come from such and such a group in society. Thus it might be argued that people who believe that those who live on welfare benefits are all scroungers are likely to come from comfortably off backgrounds themselves. But many of those who hold that view about welfare recipients are themselves among the poorer elements of society. Conversely, while such a view may be popular in the clubs of London's West End, not everyone in the upper middle classes holds it. It seems best, therefore, to tackle the questions separately. The question of the social background of Proverbs has been dealt with at some length by the late Norman Whybray (Whybray 1990), who deals separately with the different sections of the book, marked out as they are by differences in literary form. Like everyone else he is clear that the discourses and wisdom poems in Proverbs 1-9 reflect an upper-class urban background (Whybray 1990: 100-101). The young man addressed has leisure and money, which he may use wisely or unwisely. There is no reference at all to the poor in these chapters (102; actually there is an indirect reference in Prov. 6.30, 'People do not despise a thief who steals to satisfy his hunger'); so although one can safely say that they reflect the experience and values of a wealthy urban elite, one cannot get out of them any reflection on class relationships, except perhaps by way of an argument from silence: there is no instruction, as there is later in the book, to devote part of one's wealth to the relief of poverty. Whybray takes all the sentence literature (10.1-22.16 and 25-29) together, and sees it as reflecting the experience and values of people of a middle station in life: modest farming folk—note the many references to an agricultural setting—who are neither rich nor poor, and observe both rich and poor dispassionately, but are constantly threatened by the danger of poverty (Whybray 1990: 31-34).1 This would account, in his view, for 1. A very similar view is taken by Westermann (1995), at least of a hypothetical older form of these proverbs.

HOUSTON The Role of the Poor in Proverbs

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the large number of warnings of the sad fate awaiting the lazy (38). These people are in a situation where they can maintain their modest standard of living only by constant hard work; this is threatened by the lazybones who fails to contribute to the community's hard-won store. The large number of proverbs concerned with the king and the royal court do not show that they originated in the court, for people of any class may be interested in the king (54-58). Even the proverbs which commend charity to the poor and condemn oppression are not necessarily addressed to the rich: even the modestly well-off may be asked to help the poor (35). But Whybray's and Westermann's views of these chapters have been effectively criticized by Michael Fox (Fox 1996) and by Mark Sneed (Sneed 1996). The agricultural setting is in no way dominant (Fox 1996: 233); and the court sayings 'speak not only about kings and courtiers, but to and/or them' (235, quoting Prov. 16.10,14; 25.6-7). Fox sees the prominence of this theme, with the reference to editorial work by 'the men of Hezekiah' in 25.1, as showing that 'the court was the decisive locus of creativity' (236). Even if some proverbs circulated among the population, it must certainly have been among the governing cadre of the scribes, associated with the court (of the king or, later, the governor) or the temple, that they were collected and shaped. Sneed defines the scribes simply as an upper-class group (Sneed 1996:297-99), largely on the basis of Ben Sira, who regards a private income as essential to the status of scribe (Ecclus. 38.24). Fox points out that the cadre would include 'clerks of high and low degree' (Fox 1996: 236). But the likelihood is that the highest level of the service were landowners drawing income from their estates, not mere hangers on of the ruling class but themselves members of the economic and social elite. Sneed also shows that Whybray is wrong to go as he does mainly by the content of the literature to identify its class background. Aristocratic literature as we know it from Egypt has a wide range of interests, including much with a popular appeal; landowners are inevitably interested in agriculture; and the fact that the proverbs appear to view both rich and poor in objective terms is no guide to the standing of the authors. He quotes the Egyptian wisdom writer Amenemope, who was clearly wealthy, but speaks of rich and poor in a very similar style to Proverbs: God loves him who cares for the poor, More than him who respects the wealthy (26.13-14, as in Sneed 1996: 305).

Sneed concludes that there is nothing in Proverbs which requires the authors of the sentences to be humble folk; it is perfectly possible that

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some of the proverbs have a popular oral origin, but 'there is no need to assume this for the bulk of Proverbs' (Sneed 1996: 305). But if it is accepted that Proverbs as a whole has a broadly upper-class orientation, how is this shown in its attitudes? J. David Pleins's chapter on Proverbs in his massive study of social attitudes in the Hebrew Bible (Pleins 2001: 452-S3)2 takes a clear line both on the social location of the authors of Proverbs and on their attitude towards wealth and poverty. 'This literature is a product of the ruling elite' (457), 'professional functionaries in the monarchic establishment' (456), who formed the royal civil service and composed literature such as Proverbs as educational textbooks for their apprentices. By this means the young men who are repeatedly addressed in the instruction literature would not only learn to read and write but would also become instructed in the norms and ethics of the world of government and diplomacy which they aspired to enter. 'It is to be expected, then', continues Pleins, 'that the values and practices advocated in the wisdom tradition are in accord with the political and economic leanings of the ruling classes.' What are these values and practices? He has already given a broad hint in discussing the wisdom Psalms in the previous chapter. The authors of Proverbs (but not of the Psalms) launch 'a veritable attack on the poor' (437). This is strong language. It is slightly qualified in the chapter on Proverbs, but not withdrawn; rather it is backed up by the assertion that in seeking opponents to define their ethical views the one identifiable social group the wise can use is the poor, since the 'wicked' or the 'fools' are not definable in sociological terms (465: 'the poor as such are the only sociologically defined objects of the wisdom creed's ethical landscape'). The role of the poor in Proverbs is to stand as a dreadful warning of the state to which the audience may be reduced if they fail to heed instruction. The basis for this assertion lies in the repeated statements, both in the instruction and sentence literature, that laziness leads to poverty.3 'The wise see poverty's origins in a lack of commitment to the labors at hand' (469): the poor are responsible for their own poverty. Pleins constantly celebrates prophecy as a foil to the 'wisdom creed', on the ground that 2. Largely anticipated in Pleins 1987. 3. Proverbs in the sentence literature denouncing laziness appear at Prov. 12.11, 14,24,27; 19.15,24; 20.4; 21.5,25; 22.13; 26.13, 14,15, 16; 28.19; longer poems on the topic appear at 6.6-11 and 24.30-34, which close with the same couplet. The majority of these warn that lack of diligence will lead to want, though some simply poke fun at the lazy person.


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prophecy in contrast finds the origins of poverty in the exploitative activity of the ruling class (Pleins 2001: 470). Pleins is not alone in this estimate of the role of the poor in Proverbs; he depends on a strong tradition in scholarship. He quotes C. van Leeuwen: poverty is 'a punishment that one brings upon oneself through one's own fault' (Leeuwen 1955: 153, as in Pleins 2001:469). He also draws on the work of Kuschke (1939), who argued that the term tin, the commonest word for 'poor' in Proverbs, was used when referring to 'poverty as a selfinflicted evil, as something contemptible' (Kuschke 1939: 44), whereas "HU and JVHN, which are not as common in this book, implied the rightful claim of the poor to consideration;4 hence the use of tin served to justify existing class divisions (Kuschke 1939: 47). Is it true that the writers of Proverbs 'see poverty's origins' in laziness? Could tin be translated 'bum' (in the American meaning of that word), as Pleins half-jokingly suggests (Pleins 2001: 469)? There is no question that Proverbs very frequently says that laziness begets want (see above, n. 3). But it is not a logical conclusion from the fact that laziness leads to poverty that poverty, wherever it exists, is caused by laziness. Now there is nothing to prevent the writers from being guilty of such illogicality; and there is much evidence that the connection back from sickness to sin, consequence to cause, was frequently drawn: compare, for example, the line taken by the friends of Job, or the psalms of lamentation which confess sin. But in the sentence literature and Proverbs generally this reverse connection is virtually absent. I have been able to find only one sentence in the entire sentence literature of Proverbs, one verse in 600, that deduces conduct from its results, 16.31: 'Grey hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life'—which is the converse of the frequent observation that righteousness leads to long life. Hence it is far from demonstrable that the point of the sayings warning of laziness leading to poverty is to hold up the actual poor as a horrid example of what laziness leads to. Indeed this is the more unlikely in that the writers know of a number of other possible causes for poverty. 'Wealth hastily gained will grow small' (13.11);' A lover of pleasure will suffer want; whoever loves wine and oil will not grow rich' (21.17). The doctrine of retribution so beloved of the wise maintains that the wicked will come to a bad end; a variety of bad

4. Regrettably, constraints of space make it impossible to discuss here the possible distinctions between the various words translated 'poor'.

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ends, one should say, one of which is to fall into poverty: 'The wicked earn deceptive wages' (11.18); 'The righteous eat their fill, but the belly of the wicked will be empty' (13.25). But of course it will be pointed out that in citing these verses I have indeed extended the range of the understanding of the origins of poverty in Proverbs, but not altered the basic fact that poverty stands as a dreadful warning: it is generally one's own fault, whether through laziness or through extravagance or as the just retribution for wickedness—in other words, what we might understand as a typically upper-class view of the poor. But there are several reasons why I find this interpretation problematic. The first, to repeat, is the lack of any sentences reversing the deductive process. There are various ways to get poor, but there are no condemnatory statements about poor people and how they have brought their poverty upon themselves. This is the decisive objection to the view of Kuschke, Pleins, van Leeuwen and others that the wise despise the poor, 'attack' the poor and so on. The necessary assertions in a literature that is not shy of assertive statements are simply not there. Secondly, the upper-class bias which undoubtedly is present in this literature shows itself in a different way. All the warnings about the dangers which threaten the lazy, the wicked, the pleasure lovers and all the rest of the damned crew who are held up to the reader's gaze apply to the well off. They tell them how they might lose their wealth and join the ranks of the poor. They say nothing about how the poor as a class originate. How the well off might become poor is a constant theme of these writers. Why the poor are not well off is not a question that ever occurs to them. A survey of the way in which the poor do appear as subjects of this literature soon demonstrates, as we shall see, that poverty is understood as a given. The poor just are poor; nothing is said about why they are poor. The true limitation of the writers' vision appears in this incuriosity about the structure of society. They do not blame the poor for their own poverty because they are not interested in what causes poverty. One sentence in Proverbs may make an assertion very close to some in the prophets: (13.23) CDSIDD «ta HSD3 Kh D'Cfcri T3 tatTD")

If D"1^"! can be understood as a spelling of D^tin (as it is taken by the NRSV, REB and others) this would mean 'The land of the poor produces much food, but it is often swept away by injustice (or unjustly)'. Clearly


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this does not say that injustice makes a person poor, which in any case does not mean destitution; but it does say that the poor may become destitute by injustice. This is also the implication of the injunctions against oppression of the poor which are also found in the book. But they do not amount to a theory of the origin of class division: on the contrary, they take that as a given. But the most important reason why we cannot speak of an 'attack on the poor' in Proverbs is that the tone of the sentences which speak of the poor is either regretfully objective or positively sympathetic. There is none of the saloon-bar ranting about scroungers and layabouts we might expect from our own experience of upper-class culture (to repeat, the lazy in the proverbs are not members of a class of poor people; they are well-off people who are in danger of becoming poor). The sentence I have just quoted about injustice is a good example of that dry-eyed observation of social facts which gives rise to numerous other sentences which express the fact that the poor are at a serious disadvantage beside the rich. 'A poor man (tin) is hated even by his neighbours, but a rich man has many friends' (14.20).5 'The appetite of a worker works for him: his hunger drives him on' (16.26). 'A poor man (tin) uses entreaties, but a rich man gives harsh answers' (18.23). 'A rich man rules over poor people (CTEn), and the debtor is his creditor's slave' (22.7). 'A roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a poor people (^TDU)' (28.15). Note that the rich man who gives harsh answers and the creditor who enslaves his debtor are not distinguished from kind rich men or indulgent creditors. The sentences are true of the class as a whole. It is true, as we have already seen, that the wise are not interested in the origins of the social system, nor are they interested in changing it. But in these sayings we begin to be aware that they have a very good idea of how the system works. Wealth means power, and power is generally used arrogantly. Of that the wise are well aware, and despite the deadpan way in which the facts are presented, a necessary effect of the literary style, they clearly do not approve. This is shown by their frequent injunctions to their readers to make sure that they behave differently. 'One who closes his ears to the cry of the poor (*?"[) will himself call out and not be answered' (21.13). 'The generous

5. I offer no apology for the non-inclusive language of these translations. They represent the ethos of the original, which is concerned almost exclusively with men, more accurately than the contortions of the NRSV.

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(p JTTIC3) is blessed because he gives from his own food to the poor (*?!)' (22.9). 'One who despises his neighbour is a sinner, but one who is kind to the afflicted (or poor: ''DU) is blessed' (14.21). 'One who gives to the poor (tin) has no lack, but one who turns a blind eye gets plenty of curses' (28.27). If it were really true that the teaching about laziness implied contempt of the poor as a class, the presence of sayings like these in the same collections would be inexplicable. Sayings in these collections (14.21; 17.5) warn the reader not to despise or mock the poor; to interpret other sayings as if they implied contempt for the poor is perverse. Most significant for my purpose are those sayings which lay a theological foundation for the injunction to be generous to the poor and not to oppress them. Prov. 14.31 reads, 'One who oppresses a poor man (*?"T) insults his Maker, but one who is kind to the destitute (JV3K) honours him', and 17.5 is similar: 'One who mocks a poor man (tin) insults his Maker, and one who gloats over misfortune will pay for it'. 'The poor man and the exploiter have one thing in common (N&JB3 D^DSP tiTNl tin): it is YHWH who gives light to the eyes of both' (29.13). These sayings from the sentence literature root their abhorrence of oppression in the goodness of the Creator. The poor have a dignity which derives from the fact that they are creatures of God; but the oppressor is just as dependent on God for the common goods of life as the poor person. A slightly different approach is taken by two instructions in the little collection at 22.17-24.34. At 22.22-23, we read, 'Do not rob a poor man (*77) because he is poor, and do not oppress the afflicted ODU) in court, for YHWH will defend their cause and despoil of life those who despoil them'. A similar point is made by 23.10-11: 'Do not remove an ancient landmark or encroach on the fields of fatherless children; for their Redeemer is strong: he will defend their cause against you'. These sayings rest on faith in the activity of God in human affairs and not solely in creation, but by the same token they risk disconfirmation, in the same way as every confident assertion of retribution that this literature makes, when the expected defence fails to materialize, as Job complains: 'The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the eyes of its judges' (Job 9.24). Pleins emphasizes the fact that the theological basis of the wisdom literature shows no knowledge of the covenant or the distinctive Israelite traditions on which prophecy is based, and sees this as a ground for prophetic hostility to the wise. This I doubt. Rooting the call to generosity in creation and our solidarity as human beings is a universalist approach which in no way contradicts the more particularist understanding that relies on the cove-


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nant. But as it happens, the warnings against oppression of the poor in the Book of the Covenant in Exodus show a clear relationship to the traditions in Proverbs: compare Exod. 22.22-23, 'You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry', with Prov. 23.10-11 and particularly 21.13. It is very much oversimplifying things to make such sharp distinctions. There is a great deal of cross-fertilization between traditions in ancient Israel, and the plausibility of the teaching of the wise depends to a very large extent on their sharing of a common fund of ethical understanding and theological insight with the population as a whole. This is another point made by Sneed: 'The various classes shared most of the same values. Tried and true values had been disseminated throughout ancient Israelite society' (Sneed 1996: 306). Now, as Sneed emphasizes, this line of exhortation to generosity and kindness to the poor is perfectly characteristic of aristocratic wisdom literature in all ancient cultures. It does not show that the writers were either members of a lower class—we have already dealt with that—or that they had a distinctive solidarity with the poor or one which cut across their generally upper-class interests and concerns. As Sneed says, this would assume 'that aristocratic concern for the poor is somehow antagonistic to their self-interest, and this is just not the case' (302). Public expression of concern for the poor might have served as a catalyst for peace within the total society. In other words, if the poor feel as though the upper class cares and they see restraint placed on wanton oppression, they may be less willing to revolt (303).

This is to put it at its lowest. More generously, Kovacs defines this ethic as one of noblesse oblige: the wise 'are responsible and dutiful citizens who act to uphold the proper social order' (Kovacs 1974: 178), and the proper social order includes the duty of the leaders of society to care for the poor as well as the duty of the poor to respect their leaders and patrons. This means that the inculcation of values shared with the whole of society is a necessary part of the education of those who will take leading positions in it. It becomes clear, then, that the compilers of the collections in Proverbs 10-31 have typically upper-class attitudes, but share their fundamental social values with the society as a whole. They accept that society is divided into rich and poor: that appears to them to be a given; it has not crossed their mind that it might be changed or that it is the result of human decisions. But they are aware of the destructive effects that this division of society into powerful and powerless may have. And so they attempt to

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bring up the youth of the ruling classes to be aware of their responsibility towards those who will be in their power, and to treat them in a way that recognizes their common humanity. This would be part of their general responsibility, urged throughout the book, to act moderately and restrain their greed and other passions for the sake of peace in society. It would appear that there is a serious contradiction in the wisdom teachers' position. They know that rich people treat poor people badly, and say so in more than one place. But their remedy for this is to appeal to individuals to restrain their appetites and be generous. The difficulty is apparent: their solution depends on the very people who are the problem,6 though maybe that is hidden from them because they are confident of the effectiveness of their own teaching. However, their approach could be defended were it true, as they claim, that the wicked, which of course includes the oppressors, were restrained by the workings of a cosmos built on the principle of retribution. Oppression could not then get very far, and the current order of society would be reasonably benign. Unfortunately, as Job and Qoheleth both point out, this confidence is an illusion. Job draws a terrifying picture of the sheer brutality of life in the rural slums of Israel in Job 24: They reap in a field not their own, and they glean in the vineyard of the wicked. They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold... Yet God pays no attention to their prayer... Yet God prolongs the life of the mighty by his power.

The principle of retribution fails. But as David Clines has sharply suggested (Clines 1998: 258), Job should not really be asking for God to sort out a problem which human beings have created and human beings ought to be able to solve. But if they are to solve it, simple appeals to generosity are not enough. In any society the key to social relationships may be found in the fundamental religious or philosophical principles which are current. Most significant, therefore, for our purpose in Proverbs are those few texts that ground the appeal to generosity on creation, rather than retribution, on what God and not human beings have made. For if it is true that our common creatureliness binds us in solidarity with one another, this takes precedence over any justification for the division of society in a way which gives a few people absolute power over the rest and the choice of how to use it,

6.

This is true also of Deuteronomy's moral appeals: see Houston 1995: 311.


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the division which the wisdom teachers dumbly accept but do not attempt to justify. 'The poor man and the exploiter have one thing in common: it is YHWH who gives light to the eyes of both' (29.13). There is then no justification for any other goods to be monopolised by the one and denied to the other. This paper is dedicated to David Clines in appreciation for his thoughtprovoking scholarship, and especially for his respect, support and friendship during my seven years as a rather marginal member of the Department of Biblical Studies at Sheffield. Bibliography Clines, David J.A. 1998 'Quarter Days Gone: Job 24 and the Absence of God', in Tod Linafelt and Timothy K. Seal (eds.), God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann (Minneapolis: Fortress Press): 242-58. Fox, Michael V. 1996 'The Social Location of the Book of Proverbs', in Michael V. Fox, V.A. Hurowitz, A. Hurvitz, M.L. Klein, BJ. Schwartz andN. Shupak(eds.), Texts, Temples and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns): 227-39. Houston, Walter J. 1995 ' "Open your Hand to your Needy Brother": Ideology and Moral Formation inDeut. 15: !-18',inJohnRogerson, Margaret Davies and M.Daniel Carroll R. (eds.), The Bible in Ethics (JSOTSup, 207; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press): 296-314. 1999 'The King's Preferential Option for the Poor: Rhetoric, Ideology and Ethics in Psalm 72', Biblnt 7: 341-67. Kovacs, Brian W. 1974 'Is There a Class-Ethic in Proverbs?', in J.L. Crenshaw and J.T. Willis (eds.), Essays in Old Testament Ethics (New York: Ktav). Kuschke, A. 1939 'Arm und reich im Alten Testament mit besonderer Berucksichtigung der nachexilischen Zeit', ZAW51: 31-57. Leeuwen, Cornelis van 1955 Le developpement du sens social en Israel avant I'ere chretienne (Studia Semitica Neerlandica, 1; Assen: van Gorcum). Mosala, Itumeleng J. 1989 Biblical Hermeneutics and Black Theology in South Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans). Pleins, J. David 1987 'Poverty in the Social World of the Wise', JSOT31: 61-78. 2001 The Social Visions of the Hebrew Bible: A Theological Introduction (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press).

240 Sneed, Mark 1996


'The Class Culture of Proverbs: Eliminating Stereotypes', SJOT 10: 296308. Westermann, Claus 1995 Roots of Wisdom: The Oldest Proverbs of Israel and Other Peoples (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; ET of Wurzeln der Weisheit: Die dlteste Sprtiche Israels undanderer Volker [G6rtingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990]). Whybray, R.N. 1990 Wealth and Poverty in the Book of Proverbs (JSOTSup, 99; Sheffield: JSOT Press).

INSIGHTS ON JOB 3, FROM A MEDIEVAL COMMENTARY:

RABBI SAMUEL BEN MEIR (RASHBAM) ON THE BOOK OF JOB

Sara Japhet

R. Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam, c. 1085-1160+) was the greatest biblical exegete in the school of 'Plain-Meaning Exegesis' (0235) of medieval northern France during the 'golden age' of Jewish biblical exegesis.1 Unfortunately, only part of his comprehensive work has come down to us; three of the four works which survived in full (or almost so) have been published in critical editions: on the Pentateuch by David Rosin (1881),2 on Qohelet by Sara Japhet and Robert B. Salters (1985),3 and on Job by Sara Japhet (2000).4 David Clines joined a long and impressive line of scholars who dedicated their efforts to decipher the secrets of the book of Job and penetrate its enigmatic language and artful rhetoric, the splendor of which equals the depth of its reflection. I thought it fitting to celebrate David's jubilee by presenting him with a short passage of an, until now, unknown work of a great fellow exegete, who struggled with the same book over 800 years ago, not far from Britain. It should give concrete meaning to the continuity and dialogue which constitute the very essence of exegesis; apudPs. 19.2: 'Exegete to exegete declares knowledge'. The study of medieval exegesis may seem to a modern scholar an 1. For a concise description in English of his life and works, see Japhet and Salters (1985: 11-18). 2. A non-critical edition is included in the common editions of the Rabbinic Bible (Miqraoth Gedoloth), while the new edition of the Rabbinic Bible, Miqraoth Gedoloth Haketer, is based on Rosin's edition. For an English translation of the commentaries on Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus, see Lockshin 1989, 1997, 2001. 3. The commentary was first published by Jellinek 1855. 4. For a description in English of his commentary on Job, see Japhet 1997a. The fourth work is the commentary on the Song of Songs, which was published and attributed to Rashbam by Jellinek in 1855.1 hope to publish it in a critical edition in the near future.

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unrewarding task. The short laconic notes, the rather obscure language, and the absence of clearly denned questions that drew the commentator's attention may create the impression of a rather simple response to the text's demands. The great investment required for understanding this exegesis, with its historical and intellectual background and peculiar exegetical methods may be deemed unworthy, if not futile. However, such an attitude, which is not uncommon, may deprive biblical scholarship of some of its greatest achievements, and certainly harm our view of the continuous hermeneutical process. I chose to present Rashbam's work by his commentary on one chapter— the first poetical piece in the book of Job. I hope that the English translation of the commentary and the following comments will give the reader a taste of Rashbam's work, of his method and contribution. Following the Hebrew edition, the commentary is presented according to its internal structure, with its own vocalization and punctuation, to which the necessary numerical references have been added.5 The biblical lemmata and quotations follow the NRSV when possible; in other cases they are represented by literal translations or the original Hebrew. I have tried to limit the use of Hebrew to the absolutely necessary. 1. Translation 6

v. 1. His day: The day of his birth. v. 3. ID I'TIN: In which I was born.7 "7'TIN is a future form of the niphal conjugation but its meaning is past. The verses are not precise in this matter. A statement whose meaning is past may be written in a future form, while a statement with future meaning may be written in a past form. And the night that said: The night in which someone said about me.8 A man-child is conceived: May it perish too. Is conceived (Tiffin): This is the strong conjugation of the root rnn. rnin is like *pit0, *piB, DTin, D"]iD. 5. For the Hebrew text, see Japhet 2000: 35 1 -53; for the guidelines of the Hebrew edition, Japhet 2000: 315-16. 6. A literal translation, followed e.g. by KJV but not by the NRSV or JPSV, where the interpretation suggested by Rashbam (and others) is already incorporated into the translation. See Clines 1989: 78-79. 7. The point of the interpretation, that the verb 1 ^18 should be understood as past, is already incorporated into the English translations (e.g. NRSV, JPSV, etc.). 8 . The interpretation suggested by Rashbam (and already by Rashi) is followed by KJV. See below.

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And the night that said: Here he curses in brief the day of his birth and the night of his conception; he then goes on to curse at length each of them by itself. v. 4. That day: In which I was born, when it arrives every year, may it be darkness, that it will never have happiness and joy. May ... not seek it: A double expression. That no light may shine in it. Or shine (USin ^1): Like IT SIP ^1.

L/£/rt(rnrn):rrnrn. v. 5. Cloud:9 Nueah in French.10 The blackness of the day (DV emet(Ps&. 19.10; 40.11; 71.22; 85.11, 12; 89.15; 119.142, 160), 'emund (Pss. 33.4; 36.6; 40.11; 88.12; 89.2,3,6,9,25,34,50; 96.13; 98.3; 119.75, 138; 143.1), beraka (Ps. 24.5), hesed (Pss. 5.8; 33.5; 36.6, 8, 11; 40.11; 85.8, 11; 88.12; 89.2, 3, 15, 25, 34, 50; 98.3; 103.4, 8, 11, 17; 143.12), kabod(Pss. 85.10; 97.6), mesarim (Pss. 9.9; 96.10; 98.9; 99.4), mispat (Pss. 33.5; 36.7; 48.11; 72.1, 2; 89.15; 94.15; 97.2; 99.4; 103.6), salom (Pss. 35.27; 72.3,7; 85.11); the adjectives: hannun (Ps. 116.5), hasid (Ps. 145.17), merahem (Ps. 116.6); the verbs: the hiphil form lehosia' (Ps. 36.7; 98.1; 116.6), zakd (Ps. 51.6). In almost all cases the context and nature of these synonyms underline the redemptive meaning of divine righteousness, thereby reinforcing the idea that mispat does not primarily have a judicial-retributive meaning but denotes instead the universal divine guidance of and providence in the world. Once the fundamental meaning of the concept of God's righteousness has been established, it is easy to find the antonyms. If this concept signi-

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fied God's judgment and punishment, the antonym could only be divine mercy. But since, in the final analysis, God's righteousness signifies divine compassion and solidarity, the exact opposite is the case; the antonym is God's anger. In the Hebrew Bible, the antonym 'anger' is a permanent possibility, a permanent threat in the event of a people not being faithful. But in the Psalms words expressing divine anger do not occur in antithetical parallelism with words containing the root sdq; this is because in the majority of cases it is not God himself or his prophet who speaks (an exception is, for example, Ps. 50), but the oppressed 'righteous' petitioner^). Petitioners hope and plead for divine righteousness, that is, for prosperity, faithfulness and mercy. In Ps. 89, the antithetic pair fidelity// infidelity becomes apparent from the broader context, that is, the contrast between the sections vv. 6-19 + 20-38//W. 39-46; here the antonym appears as the basis for the plea to God to remember God's own previous faithfulness and vows and to show fidelity in the current moment of extreme distress. In the book of Psalms, the irreconcilable opposition between the categories of righteousness and wickedness is particularly illuminating. The more divine righteousness is revealed to be an expression of a pure divine gift to the righteous, the more the shadow of judgment falls upon the wicked—the unfaithful who can never partake of divine righteousness. In principle, divine righteousness is valid for all members of the covenant people but only under the condition that they respond with fidelity and confidence. Human infidelity alone creates the wall that divides the righteous from the wicked as far as partaking of the benevolence of divine righteousness is concerned. The opposition between the righteous and the wicked is shown most clearly in the book of Psalms by the distress of the just psalmist who begs for divine righteousness/deliverance: divine righteousness should show itself in deliverance from the hands of the wicked. c. Interpretation in Translations Ancient translations are surprisingly accurate in rendering the Psalms. There are almost no paraphrases. In contrast to most other parts of the Hebrew Bible, the Targum Tehillim employs the Aramaic variants of the Hebrew root sdq: the noun fdaqa (Pss. 4.2; 22.32; 35.24), sidqd (Pss. 5.9; 7.18; 31.2; 35.28; 36.11; 40.11; 51.16; 71.2, 19, 24; 72.1; 88.13; 97.6; 98.2; 103.17; 119.40, 142, 160; 143.1; 145.7), sidqa' (Pss. 23.3; 40.10; 72.2; 85.11, 12, 14; 119.62), sidqata7sidqeta' (Pss. 24.5; 33.5; 48.11; 65.6; 89.15,17; 94.15; 96.13; 97.2; 98.9; 99.4; 103.6; 119.142,144,172),

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sidquta'(Pss.36.1;l\.\5, \6),sedeq(Pss.35.27; 119.123, 164; 143.11), zekut/zekuta' (Pss. 9.9; 50.6; 72.3; 111.3; 119.106); the adjectives saddiqa' (Pss. 11.7; 69.28; 72.7), zakka'd (Pss. 7.10, 12; 9.5; 116.5; 129.4), zakka(')y (Pss. 119.75, 139; 145.17); verb forms from the root zkh (Pss. 19.10; 51.6). The concept dikaiosyne or dikaios appears almost exclusively in the Septuagint. Since the translation is always literal, it is not clear whether the translator was using the word in the classical Greek sense or in the characteristic Hebrew one. This question also hangs over three exceptions where the translator uses the word eleemosyne (Pss. 24.5; 33.5; 103.6). The situation in the Vulgate is essentially the same. In the majority of examples the translation uses iustitia, occasionally aequitas (Pss. 9.9; 97.13; 119.40, 75, 144,172; 143.11). In Pss. 24.5, 33.5 and 103.6 the Vulgate also uses the word misericordia. Hence we can conclude with certainty that the Vulgate depended upon the Septuagint. A similar consistency can also be found in the Renaissance translations. Luther uses the noun Gerechtigkeit consistently in his translation of the book of Psalms, yet the adjective occurs in two different forms: gerecht and recht. The latter occurs in the following phrases: '(Gott ist) ein rechter Richter' (Pss. 7.12; 9.5); 'er fuhret mich auf rechter Strafie um seines Namens willen' (Ps. 23.3); 'Auf das durechtbehaltest in deinen Worten' (Ps. 51.6); 'Derm Recht muB doch Recht bleiben' (Ps. 94.15); 'Herr, ich weifi, das deine Gerichte recht sind' (Ps. 119.75); 'Derm alle deine Gebote sind recht' (Ps. 119.172). The KJV/AV expresses all these forms with English analogues: righteousness, righteous and to justify. The only exception concerns God's kingship in Ps. 89.15: 'Justice and judgment (sedeq umispat) are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face'. This exception is all the more striking because in Ps. 97.2 the same phrase is rendered as expected: 'righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne'. In Buber and Rosenzweig's version the concept of sdq is expressed in the relevant passages using derivatives from the root wahr: Bewahrheitung (Pss. 4.2; 24.5; 35.27; 103.6), (sick) bewdhren (Pss. 19.10; 119.144; 129.4), (der) Bewdhrte (Ps. 12.1lBewahrung(Pss. 22.32; 35.28; 36.7,11; 40.11; 48.11; 51.16; 71.15, 16, 19, 24; 88.13; 89.17; 97.6; 98.2; 103.17; 111.3; 119.7,40,62,106,123,142,160,164; l45.1),Bewdhrtspruch(Ps. 69.28),wahrerscheinen(Ps. 51.6), \vahrhaftig(Pss. 7.12; 23.3; 119.137; 145.17), Wahrhaftiger(Pss. 7.10; 11.7), Wahrhqftiges&s.AQ.lO), Wahrhaftigkeit (Pss. 5.9; 7.18; 11.7; 31.2; 35.24; 65.6; 71.2; 72.3; 85.11,12,14;

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99A; 119.138; 143.1,11), Wahrheit (Pss. 33.5; 72.2; 89.15; 94.15; 97.2; 119.75, 172), Wahrspruch (Pss. 9.5, 9; 72.1; 96.13; 98.9). In the RSV and the NRSV, the derivatives from sdq are rendered mainly to convey the sense of righteousness/deliverance: acquittal (Ps. 69.28), deliverance (Pss. 22.32; 40.10; 51.16; 65.6), just (Ps. 145.17), to justify (Ps. 51.6), right (Pss. 4.2; 23.3 [NRSV]; 119.75, 172), righteous (Pss. 7.10, 12; 9.5; 11.7; 19.10; 94.15 [subject humans]; 116.5; 119.7,62,106,123,137, 142, 144, 160, 164; 129.4), righteous acts/deeds/help(Pss. 11.7; 71.15; 71.24), righteousness (Pss. 5.9; 7.18; 9.9; 23.3 [RSV]; 31.2; 33.5; 35.24,28; 36.6; 50.6; 71.2,16,19; 72.1,2,3,7; 85.11,12,14; 89.15,17; 96.13; 97.2, 6; 98.9; 99.4; 103.17; 111.3; 119.40, 138,142; 143.1,11; 145.7), saving help (Pss. 40.11; 88.13), salvation (Ps. 36.11), victory (Ps. 48.11), vindication (Pss. 24.5; 35.27; 98.2; 103.6). At this point, a comparison between a few passages of the NRSV and the CEV is illuminating. Ps. 7.12 in the NRSV: 'God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day'. The CEV: 'You see that justice is done, and each day you take revenge'. Ps. 24.5 in the NRSV: 'They will receive blessing from the Lord, and vindication from the God of their salvation'. The CEV: 'The Lord God, who saves them, will bless and reward them'. Ps. 33.5 in the NRSV: 'He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord'. The CEV: 'He loves justice and fairness, and he is kind to everyone everywhere on earth'. Ps. 35.24 in the NRSV: 'Vindicate me, O Lord, my God, according to your righteousness, and do not let them rejoice over me'. The CEV: 'And prove that I am right by your standards. Don't let them laugh at me.' Ps. 51.6 in the NRSV: 'Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment'. The CEV: 'You are really the one I have sinned against; I have disobeyed you and have done wrong. So it is right and fair for you to correct and punish me.' Ps. 116.5 in the NRSV: 'Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful'. The CEV: 'You are kind, Lord, so good and merciful'. Ps. 145.17 in the NRSV: 'The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings'. The CEV: 'Our Lord, everything you do is kind and thoughtful'. 3. Conclusion

The first observation to be made is that ancient, Renaissance and most recent standard versions are all based on the formulaic principle of trans-

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lation: vocabulary and phrasing is relatively uniform. It is clear that Martin Luther or Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, for example, deliberately used the same translation equivalents. But how did the 'collective' translations such as the Septuagint, the KJV/AV and the most recent standard translations achieve such consistency? In such cases, consistency was more or less possible because one person or a committee coordinated and edited the whole work. Views were harmonized in joint discussions and decision-making, as is shown by various reports on the work of translation. The report by Philippe Reymond (1967) on the TOB, for instance, states that the committee's guiding principle was unity of vocabulary and phrases. Even though I had not yet heard about the methods for achieving homogeneity of vocabulary in other countries, I composed a list of about 400 key concepts for my translation and editing work in the project of the new Slovenian translation of the Bible. The existence of numerous synonyms and antonyms is one of the reasons why the main theological vocabulary has to be unified. This survey of the vocabulary used to translate God's righteousness requires some appreciation of individual types of translation. A comparison of translations in various versions shows that the question whether the subject of the concept of righteousness/justice is God or humans might have played a crucial role in some places in the selection of the particular word in the translation. Some translators apparently assumed the subject of righteousness/justice to be human when the divine subject should have been taken for granted. Nonetheless a general appreciation of the tasks of translation and an understanding of the Hebrew notion of righteousness/ justice was decisive. The classical ancient, and some recent, translations testify to the fact that the translators were professional biblical scholars or specialists in literature in general. They were therefore capable of grasping the original meaning and of finding an appropriate literary form in the receptor language. The translators of some recent contemporary versions are obviously less well qualified, as the renderings distorting both the original meaning of God's righteousness and the universal literary forms, beginning with parallelismus membrorwn, show. The Bible has a unique and exclusive place in the religious history of Jewish and Christian cultures. It would, therefore, seem safer to follow the traditional, classical hermeneutics rather than the proponents of the dynamic equivalence method of translating. The claim that the search for a dynamic equivalence in translation is in agreement with the classical translations of the Bible, and makes the meaning of the text clearer, is becom-

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ing increasingly doubtful with the appearance of every new translation based on this theory. The great works of Bible translation (Septuagint, Vulgate, Luther's Bible, KJV/AV, etc.) testify more or less clearly to the principle of unity between content and form as far as universal poetic and rhetorical forms are concerned. Bibliography Buber, M. 1930

Krasovec, J. 1988

Luther, M. 1972 Reymond, P. 1967

'On Word Choice in Translating the Bible: In Memoriam Franz Rosenzweig', in M. Buber and F. Rosenzweig, Scripture and Translation (trans. L. Rosenwald with E. Fox; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press): 73-89. La Justice (sdq) de Dieu dans la Bible hebraique et I 'interpetationjuive et chretienne (OBO, 76; Freiburg: Universitatsverlag; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Die gantze Heilige Shrifft Deudsch: Wittenberg 1545 (Munich: Bogner & Bernhard). ' Vers une traduction fran9aise cecumenique de la Bible', in G.W. Anderson etal. (eds.),Hebrdische Wortforschung: Festschriftzum 80. Geburtstagvon Walter Baumgartner (VTSup, 16; Leiden: E.J. Brill): 231-43.

FROM DAVID TO DAVID: PSALM 24 AND DAVID CLINES Francis Landy David Clines's essay on Psalm 24, 'A World Established On Water',1 has always been one of my favourites, and one I have always wanted to respond to. It is Clines all over: pugnacious, clever, imaginative, funny and passionate. Also he succeeds in offering an interpretation, albeit, he claims, a 'bespoke interpretation', which seems to me to come very close to the real issue in the poem. Further, I share David's ambivalence about it. Psalm 24 is for me the Hebrew equivalent of 'Land of Hope and Glory', inspiring the same mixture of affection and contempt. Clines's argument is perhaps deceptively easy to summarize. He begins with a 'reader response' criticism, in which he notes that the psalm is factually incorrect, since the earth is not founded on water,2 and ethically unacceptable, since it supposes that holiness is exclusive of sinners and that God is a warrior. 'In subscribing to Psalm 24, we are writing a blank cheque for war...' (Clines 1995:176). Next he conducts a deconstruction, by which he means that the overt ideologies of the text are shown to be incoherent. There are four major points, of which perhaps the most important is that the ideology of God as a warrior subverts the purity demanded of the worshipper. Finally, he recommends a practice of'bespoke' or 'customized' interpretation, interpretation orientated to whichever interpretative community you happen to belong to. The success of an interpretation is to be judged not by its truth to the text in question, but by its acceptance by that community. It is here that the essay becomes rich and strange. For suddenly Clines the critic gives way to Clines the poet. He advances the 'bespoke' interpretation that the psalm concerns the difficulty of exegesis in an indeterminate 1. 'A World Established On Water (Psalm 24): Reader Response Criticism, Deconstruction, and Bespoke Interpretation' (1993). The essay is republished, considerably revised, in Clines's 1995 collection of essays. My references are to this version. 2. What about continental drift?

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world, and that the 'king of glory' is the hermeneut who achieves the apotheosis of scholarly acclamation, and then he intimates, if only for a moment, the appositeness of this thesis to the poem and to poetry in general. 'I wanted to expose the fragility, the volatility, of the text, its weakness and its incoherence.. .to point up the fragility of texts in general, the inconclusiveness of interpretations, and the impulse to stitch them together again no matter how' (186). It is here that he becomes true, both to the poem, and, I think, to himself, throughout his thirty or more years of criticism. In this essay I offer my own reading of Psalm 24, in dialogue with that of Clines, so as to assert that we are a community of interpreters, whose health is to be measured not by the success of any particular understanding but by the seriousness of our response to each other and to the text. It seems to me that Clines is asking very serious questions, and deserves a serious and attentive response. But it is also a performance; in fact, Clines is rather clearly fulfilling our expectations of the pleasures to be obtained from a Clines essay. I suspect he is enjoying himself, though joy is not always a word associated with our profession. It is not just a reading of the text and the issues it entails; it is also a creation of the critic, reader and poet, and a work of self-exposure. The fragility of texts of which Clines speaks evokes the fragility of the self that writes them and comments on them. The questions that pervade our poem, 'Who will go up to the mountain of YHWH?', 'Who is this king of glory?', inevitably provoke questions such as 'Who is this Clines?' and 'Who am I?' Reader response criticism has always had two distinct aspects. One is the study of the semiotics of the communication process in literature; the other is the shift of critical focus from the author and text to readerly reception. The readerly self, as Eco (1994) points out, may differ from the self in its interaction with the world; indeed, we inhabit in part an alternative world with a different set of experiences and skills, but nonetheless, reading is one activity in which we can be free of everyday encumbrances. Clines, however, is distinctly unforthcoming about the readerly experience. He tells us that Psalm 24 is 'fine and famous' (Clines 1995:172), but he does not tell us why it is fine and famous. For what really interests Clines is the ethical question: how can we take pleasure in a text indifferent to the values it promotes? The question goes back to Plato, and if pursued consistently would eliminate much of world literature. I don't see it troubling our colleagues in Classics or Sanskrit.

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But it seems to be prevalent in contemporary biblical studies.3 In part this is a consequence of a half-acknowledged theological agenda, and the ambivalent attachment of many of us to the Bible and its authoritative claims. But it also reflects an awareness that none of us can be purely 'etic', uncommitted observers of a textual phenomenon.4 We are all of us textual constructs, read by the text as well as reading it. What are we to make of images like' YHWH puissant and mighty, YHWH mighty in battle' (Ps. 24.8)? Of course, it evokes the whole tradition of divine violence in the Hebrew Bible, paradigmatically the conquest of Canaan. What are we to make of my pleasure in such images? Is this pleasure a purely masculine identification with the hero? What would a devotee of Kali say? I doubt if our literary personae are gendered that simply. At any rate, the psalm comes from, and speaks for, a different world. I don't have to be a believer in that God, or any God, to value it, just as I don't have to be a believer in Indra to take pleasure in the Vedas or the Mahabharata. The very difference of the psalm is part of its appeal to me; through it I travel through time and between worlds. It is also my ethical responsibility to listen to the messages of that poet in that other world for what they can tell me about that world, as well as, perhaps, about mine. This does not account for my particular pleasure inyhwh 'izzuz wegibbor, 'YHWH puissant and mighty'. I am not sure that I would find any actual encounter with YHWH puissant and mighty, Kali, or Dracula, that pleasurable. This raises an obvious point, that YHWH puissant and mighty is not YHWH puissant and mighty. We have a textual representation, a trace, of divine violence, not only in my mind but in that of the poet. The literary consumption of violence is a dangerous pastime, as the contemporary histories of India and Israel show. Nonetheless, it is consumption at one or more remove, and for most readers, and poets, stays that way. Through it the poet and reader may participate vicariously in God's triumph, drawing on its fearsome satisfactions. The transmutation of God's consummation into poetry displaces it, leaves it aside, so as to become the material of 3. Much feminist and ideological criticism concerns precisely this question. One may note, for instance, the special issue of Semeia on Bible and Ethics of Reading, edited by Danna N. Fewell and Gary A. Phillips (1997). 4. The problem of 'etic' and 'emic' interpretation is pervasive in Religious Studies and Anthropology, with the recognition that the reader and interpreter cannot be purely detached. Cf. the remarks at the beginning of Carrasco (1999:1-4) and the recent article of Tweed (2002). For a stirring defence of maintaining the distinction between emic and etic interpretations of the Bible, see Davies (1995).

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poetry, what it thinks of, and with. The poem, indeed, is about the violence of God, and how to accommodate that violence in language and the world. We should not expect it to be a 'good' poem. But it may be a true poem, in that it truly confronts and tries to make sense of that which is most unacceptable to us. I must confess, though, that I find the poem, and these lines in particular, a bit silly. It is not simply that the glorification of the God of War is inseparable from that of war, and hence a patriotic and theological ideology that most of us find embarrassing. It is not even the nakedness of its expression, embarrassing precisely because it is crude. It is an effect of the rhetoric, whose insistence, with its repetition of the last lines, suggests to me a hollo wness, a phallic uncertainty. Who is this king of glory? Who indeed? The pleasure of the text, as Barthes (1973) points out, is in any case excessive;5 it is that which is experienced over and above the overt message of the poem. Pleasure draws on strange resources; our literary pleasures are as hard to locate, and as surreptitious, as our other delights. In this poem, and habitually in Hebrew biblical poetry, pleasure is correlative to parallelism. In HQn'pQ "n33 n ~11331 TIT!? 71, 'YHWH puissant and mighty, YHWH mighty in battle', my pleasure is linked to the repetition of 'YHWH' and "1133, 'mighty'. "1133 moves from third position to second, in an ellipse; YHWH'S power is concentrated in this one phrase. The repetition both augments the message—YHWH is doubly powerful, as it were—and diffuses it; the less semantic content, the greater the rhythmic, phonemic and sensory impact. To look more closely, T1TU and "1133 are virtual synonyms; their coupling both suggests the profligacy of the lexicon, its inadequacy to account for the divine glory, and the tendency of words to lose distinct meanings. To look even more closely, T1TI7 affords me a particular pleasure; the addition of the final syllable, zuz, is a poetic coinage6 which amplifies the unmarked adjective, I S , 'strong'. T1TI7 is one better than TU; it is to be super-strong. Moreover, it makes 'z', through the superfluous doubling, a sound peculiarly associated with divine power. One can imagine metaphorical and synaesthetic components of this linkage; the 'z', as a voiced continuant, may buzz with the resonance of God's advent. But I would emphasize the inarticulate, unstructured aspect of the association. 'Z', as pure sound, independent of meaning, represents YHWH as pure power—

5. A valuable application of Barthes to the erotics of reading the Song of Songs is Black (1999a, 1999b). 6. It only occurs here and in Isa. 43.17, where it appears to be a noun.


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and also the possibility of pure jouissance,7 in language whose driveenergy has not yet been shaped, repressed and transmuted into symbolic worlds. What I find most pleasurable is also that which I find most silly; the repetitions, the unabashed celebration of power, the unrelenting rhythm. This may indicate a divided aesthetic consciousness, which turns up its nose at that which it secretly enjoys, and, more pervasively, the aesthetic ambivalence and tension Freud perceived as characteristic of art. Our critical enthusiasms and resistances are suspect, or, as Clines would say, founded on water. And there to be deconstructed? Or self-deconstructing? Clines's reflections on the poem's own work of self-construction/deconstruction are in one respect very traditional. A long line of sober critics regards this psalm as incoherent, a set of fragments stuck together.8 Others interpret it in terms ofrelecture, the adaptation of one genre in terms of another (Podella 1999; Kraus 1991). Clines sees the fractures, or the clash between genres and ideologies, as being evidence of the poem's unconscious tensions, the inherent failure of its programme. There are problems with Clines's deconstructive approach, as with deconstruction generally.9 For one thing, the contradictions he perceives are overstated. To give but one example, Clines asserts that the requirement for clean hands to enter the divine gates excludes the deity, whose fingers drip with gore (Clines 1995:178). But the 7. Barthes contrasts 'pleasure' and 'jouissance' throughout Le Plaisir du Texte, while insisting on the ambiguity of the term 'pleasure', and lamenting the lack in French of a single word to cover both concepts (1973:29-30). 'Jouissance' refers to the unexpected, unconditioned joy one sometimes experiences in literature, cinema, etc., corresponding to sexual orgasm, 'plaisir' to the culturally conditioned euphoria induced by the literary or artistic work. Both are in excess of the social and structural function and functioning of the text (29). 8. 'There is.. .a general tendency to regard it as a composition made up of three fragments of different origin' (Kissane 1953: 106). Others divide it into two (Kraus 1988: 311). It should be noted that Kraus himself does not agree with this view. However, Klaus Seybold (1996: 104) does think it is composite. 9. Deconstruction, as a practice or unified theory, would be self-defeating. Deconstruction, in essence, is a very close reading and critique of the logocentricism of western philosophy, especially after Hegel. A very succinct summary of the issue is to be found in Morris (1991: 235): 'Deconstruction derives all its critical force from the way that it questions certain kinds of mystified truth-claim while yet subscribing to the highest standards of argumentative rigour and respect for the protocols of textual close reading... this fact.. .is.. .lost upon those who embrace deconstruction as a license for dispensing with every last notion of truth, validity, and reason'.

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Temple is the place of sacrifice, in which blood is sprinkled if not on the deity, at least in his immediate vicinity. Priests' hands are hardly spotless. More fundamental than the details of Clines's deconstruction is the enterprise itself. Why deconstruct? One answer is that it qualifies Clines to enter a desired hermeneutic community with analytical purity and critical integrity. Another, however, is that it conforms to his ethical agenda. Not only does he not like what the Psalm says, but it does not actually say it. It is here that I begin to wonder. Deconstruction suffered from hegemonic claims, and poetry, and non-western thought in general, is ill served by it.10 Deconstruction, moreover, is fun, but, as Derrida (1996: 95) says, it is an analysis, a taking apart, which poetically precedes synthesis. If we are left only with the deconstructed pieces, we might feel that the work has not yet started. What Clines has missed, I think, is that the abrupt transitions and inconcinnities are characteristic of metaphorical thinking, whereby two or more apparently unrelated or contradictory items are perceived in relation to each other, to contribute to a cumulative vision. It is indeed a poem about world-building and orienting, as Clines says (1995:185), and world-building is coterminous with poem-building. The poem is an image in language of the world. 'YHWH's is the earth and its fullness, the world and its inhabitants.' We begin with a gesture of belonging, that we, and everything terrestrial, originate in YHWH and are subsumed under him. YHWH is the starting point from which the poem emanates and to which it returns. The 'fullness' of the world suggests totality, indeed, a semiotic satiety to which nothing can be added, but also the variety of created things, and hence the perfection of creation according to Genesis 1 and Psalm 104. This 'fullness' of creation will become more concentrated as the poem proceeds, but also more etiolated. We begin with the plenitude of language and the world, out of which the poem has to select its own words and images, and with a sacred and political realm that is increasingly articulated. The movement of the poem, from world to Temple, from the density of existence to its implication in, transmutation of or exclusion from sacred space, metaphorically conforms to the movement of language towards apophasis. As the poem progresses, so its semantic load is reduced, leaving it open to the advent of the divine glory.

10. It is noteworthy that Derrida, at least, consistently opposes philosophy to poetry, e.g., in his essays on Jabes and Celan, and Greek thought to Hebraic thought.


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The parallelism, * YHWH'S is the earth and its fullness/the world and its inhabitants' matches synonyms or virtual synonyms. The B clause adds nothing of significance to the A clause, since nothing can be added; it merely provides imaginative space for its contemplation.11 'Earth' (JHK) and 'world' (*?nn) differ only in that the latter is a poetic term;12 their coupling indicates, among other markers, conventional poetic idiom or metalanguage, through which one enters into a special domain of discourse, with its associated commonplaces of thinking and feeling. 'Its inhabitants' (nn "HET1) brings the fullness to life;13 the added prepositional phrase H3, 'on it', completes the couplet through rhythmic balance and through the rhyme nfcl^Q / i"D, and, more important, returns us to the first subject, jHN, 'earth', with which it agrees in gender. The verse is linear, passing from A to B, but it also describes a circle, in which the last word refers back to the main subject and thence to YHWH. It is a closed unit, representing a closed if replete world, which can only be augmented, expanded or unfolded through juxtaposition. The next verse, 'For he founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers', is another synonymous parallelism. Both verses, moreover, match each other; in each an introduction referring to God gives rise to two complementary images of earth.14 The parallelisms impart equilibrium, both metrically and through the lack of dynamic movement between their parts. Verse 2 logically precedes or is contemporaneous with v. 1. The fabula— the underlying narrative—in which God founds the earth and therefore owns it reverses the forward movement of the recit, its verbal expression. The verbs 'found' (ID"1), 'establish' (pD) and 'dwell' (DCT) communicate stability, inherence. It is thus very surprising to hear that it is founded on water, that its solidity rests on fluidity. 11. One could adapt James Kugel's famous formula, 'A, and what's more, B!' to 'A, and what's more, A!' for this verse. 12. Mazor (1993: 305) argues that "?3P refers to cultivated land and thus is a more limited term than j"~)N. Consequently, the relationship between the two clauses of the parallelism is one of increasing focus. However, the concordance does not support Mazor's thesis. See also Kraus (1988: 313). 13. Miller (1986: 34), like Mazor, regards this as an instance of specification within parallelism, in accord with Robert Alter's (1985) thesis of the dynamics of intensification or heightening within parallelism. 14. Seybold(1996:104). Auffret (1990:106-107) notes that the coupling of YHWH and 'he' (Kin) occurs both at the beginning and the end of the poem. In the last section of the poem, however, mentions of YHWH occur at the end of each unit. The poem is thus framed by a trajectory from YHWH as creator to YHWH as victor (1990: 107).

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It is not enough to say, with Clines (1995: 172), that the psalmist is wrong. That is to mistake a poetic for a scientific discourse. Ancient cosmography tells us little about the world, but much about the mental universe of the poet. As Clines says (186), it is foundationally insecure, with repercussions which are ethical and political as well as cosmic. The association of'seas' and 'rivers' with primordial chaos needs no elaboration.15 God's establishment of the earth is accompanied by the pacification of the primeval waters. God's victory over chaos is the condition for creation, but it is also the prototype for all divine victories. The celebration of God as puissant and mighty must refer, at least in part, to the beginning of the poem. God comes from creating the world and defeating his enemies; however, the antagonists, if subdued, are always potentially insurgent. The middle section (vv. 3-6) focuses our attention on the mountain of YHWH and the individual who wishes to ascend it. The mountain of YHWH may be a microcosm; its relation to the rest of the world would then be analogous to that of the world to its chaotic foundations. But it is also a centre, and hence appropriately occupies the centre of the poem. It also introduces a quest, whereby the adherence of the earth to God is enacted by the human who moves from the periphery to the centre, from the foot of the mountain to its summit, culminating in the holy place. The ascent is communicated through the verbs nbl?, 'go up', and Dip, 'rise', and the combination of synonymous and sequential parallelism in v. 3. The holy place is a point of convergence, indicated by the word play between Dip1', 'rise', and DlpQ, 'place'. The act of rising suggests self-transcendence as well as humility in the holy place, and that in any case the movement upwards is not concluded.16 The ascent in v. 3 is the core action in the psalm, reciprocated by the acquisition or 'lifting up' of blessing in v. 5. The action is repeated with different actors, and thereby gains ever greater resonance. The repetition of the action makes it paradigmatic, but also increases the potential for reinterpretation and subversion. It is here that a deconstructive critique, which is no different, I would stress, from normal reading, might be pertinent.

15. Seybold (1996: 104); Kraus (1988: 313). See, in particular, Ps. 93.3, which is closely related to this verse. Keel (1978: 16-55) provides abundant ancillary evidence. Again, Mazor (1993: 306) thinks that m~n3 is a more limited term than D"1 Q"1, but is not supported by the biblical evidence. 16. Auffret(1990: 103-104) argues that the whole of w. 1-6 is unified by morphological variants on the theme of rising.


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The middle section belongs to a genre of which a prime example is a psalm often paired with ours, Psalm 15.l7 In it a question as to who may enter or survive in the divine precincts is answered by a list of virtues such a person will possess.18 This genre is a subset of the claim that ethics supersedes ritual, widespread in the Prophets and Psalms. Sin and impurity, as Jonathan Klawans (2000) has recently shown, were separate categories in the Hebrew Bible. Sin did not contaminate God's holiness, and sinners were not excluded from the Temple. The psalm's presupposition is historically incorrect and belongs, indeed, to a polemic against Temple practice.19 One wonders what this section is doing in a psalm which may have been performed liturgically, whether ritual accommodates its own critique, and whether the mountain of YHWH here is the physical Temple mount or some metaphorical counterpart. In contrast to the two outer ones, the middle section is anthropocentric. From the cosmos and the mountain of YHWH we reach the heart and soul of the successful postulant. The person who rises in the sacred place embodies its qualities. The human being, and within the human being the heart (3D1?) and soul (tfSD), are the focus of the earth's fullness. On the mountain, YHWH and the ideal human being meet; the human being is infused with God's holiness. Yet they remain distinct; between them the drama of the poem is enacted. The human at the centre is the antithesis of YHWH at the extremities. The human,20 however, is empty: clean of hands, luminous of heart.21 He is a tabula rasa, unsoiled by the world and its complexities. The two expressions for clarity or impeccability of action and thought are matched by two negations: 'who does not lift up his soul22 to vanity, and is not sworn to deceit' (v. 4). The negations, and likewise the freedom from 17. Girard (1984: 205); Lohfink (2000: 58-59; Kraus (1988: 313-14). Auffret (1982: 407-38) proposes that Pss. 15 and 24 form the outer ring of a unified composition embracing the two. 18. Another example is Isa. 33.14. For comparative material, see Keel (1978:126). 19. See, in particular, the discussions of Podella (1999) and Kraus (1991). 20. The human seems to be male, at least grammatically. I am presupposing, however, an androcentric mindset, corresponding to the late and rather pious communities in which I imagine this poem to have been written. 21. "Q is usually translated as 'clean' or 'pure'. Its association with luminosity is evident from Ps. 19.5, where the commandment of YHWH is H~n, enlightening the eyes, and Song of Songs 6.10, in which the woman is as !T"D as the sun. 22. Reading the kethib 12J£] for the qere ''(DSD. Some translate EJSD as 'throat', but this seems to me to be too limiting an interpretation.

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imputation, are, one assumes, a reverse portrait of the unsuccessful or indifferent applicant, of humanity at large. The formulations are unspecific, especially when compared with Psalm 15, and indeterminate; the vanity and deceit could refer to other deities or to delusions and duplicity in general.23 In any case, his virtue is reciprocated; his lack of delusion, guilelessness, innocence and undarkened mind are compensated for by or permit the influx of divine blessing and righteousness. The human being is defined negatively; its renunciation of common human desires, initiatives, temptations, and cunning make it into a psychic space free for the access of divine gifts. Since he does not 'lift up' (NET) his soul to delusion, he can 'lift up' (WET) blessing from YHWH. That he lifts up blessing suggests that it comes from below, perhaps from within himself. 'Righteousness', HplJf, is paired with 'blessing', as a gift from God. Their meanings interfuse; blessing is manifested in np"TJf and vice versa. HplH is clearly a divine as much as a human ethical attribute, 'rectification' rather than 'rectitude'.24 It proceeds from 'the God of his salvation' and is its harbinger or vehicle. The parallel terms blessing/righteousness and YHWH/the God of his salvation thus indicate a soteric teleology. Clines wonders why, and in whose eyes, the visitor needs vindication (1995: 177). This seems to me not to be the point. For 'salvation' is the object of all desire, promises ultimate satisfaction. We begin with the world originating in God and primordial theomachy; at the centre we have another point of origin, at the end and within the worshipper.25 Something in me wants to read 1&EJ] in v. 4 with the qere as "'KJSD, 'my soul'.26 The reference would either be to the psalmist and his anxiety that people not take him seriously, deconstruct him, or to God, who would intrude momentarily in the first person. The allusion to the third commandment would be more overt.27 The misprision of God's name, or God 23. Seybold(1996: 105). Girard(1984:205), however, thinks that «1(D refers only to idolatry. See also Dahood( 1965:151),Beauchamp(1976:120) and Murphy (2000:82). 24. For an example of npTH in this sense, common in late and eschatologically orientated texts, see Isa. 1.27 and commentaries ad loc. 25. Auffret (1990: 105), regards these two occurrences of YHWH as demarcating the extremes of a complex chiasm. 26. Botha (1994: 364), also prefers the qere, adducing the reference to the third commandment. Dahood (1965: 151) adopts the qere too, but regards it as being an instance of a third-person -y suffix. 27. In addition to Botha, see also Kraus (1988: 314), Seybold (1996: 105) and Weiser( 1962: 234).


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himself, is a persistent anxiety in the Hebrew Bible, the converse of the equivocal desire to be known.281 do not wish to press this reading for its own sake, but to suggest that between the qere and the kethib a gap opens, which permits two alternative readings of the poem. Through this gap the subversive reader may enter. Why should I want to read like this, against the grain? Perhaps it is a romantic desire to hear a personal voice, or to make things more difficult for myself. At any rate, the hesitation between the two possibilities, even momentarily, ensures that the poem is not closed, that its order, like that of the world, is fissile. A much more serious ambiguity is germinal to v. 6: 'This is the generation of those inquiring after him, those that seek your face, O Jacob'. Up to this point the psalm has concerned space, contracting from the world to the mountain to the heart; now time is substituted for space.29 The individual ascending the mountain of YHWH is typical of his, and the Psalmist's, generation; his age is represented as the apex of history. Behind this generation are the ghosts of many others, which presumably did not share its quest, since the deictic, !"IT, singles it out.30 This is emphasized by the word play between TH, 'generation', and VETn, 'inquiring after him', as if the generation were homonymous with its quest.31 The second half of the verse, despite the straightforward parallelism of ttrn/tfjpn, 'inquire after/seek', and 'him/your face', changes the third person for the second person of the object, and introduces a vocative, Jacob. Is the addressee God, in accordance with the first part of the verse and the entire pilgrimage context? Or is it Jacob? Is Jacob an abbreviation of 'the God of Jacob', or is it a free-floating apostrophe, in apposition to the second-person addressee of 'your face', that is, God, as well as to the concluding exclamatory selahl If Jacob is the object of the search, is he an 28. The anxiety is most evident in passages such as Isa. 1.10-17, critical of cultic misappropriation of YHWH, which are related to our psalm and Ps. 15. 29. For the importance of time in the psalm, see Botha (1994: 366). Kraus (1988: 314) eliminates the temporal reference by interpreting "in as 'type'. Dahood (1965: 151 -52), citing an Ugaritic parallel, suggests that it is a synonym for 'eternity' and that HT refers to God. 12Tn, in his reading, is a second-person imperative. He translates accordingly, 'The One of Eternity seek'. 30. Botha (1994: 364) notes that this is the answer to the question 'Who?' in v. 4, and that the psalm is in part constructed round such questions and answers; cf. also Beauchamp (1976: 119). Auffret (1990: 103) thinks that it is Jacob. 31. Mazor (1993: 310 n. 6) suggests that it is a play on the commonplace formula, TH "HI, though its meaning is the opposite.

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idealized representative of Israel and hence the focal point of the community? Conversely, Jacob as Israel may be the goal of a search by the nations, corresponding, for instance, to Isa. 2.3 (Lohfink 2000: 61).32 In that case, the difference between Israel and the nations, or between the ideal individual and his community and the rest of humanity, is erased. These possibilities are not mutually exclusive. Jacob, even if the object, signifies communion with God. The nations, for instance, approach God through Jacob. But the ambiguity does suggest a radical turn, grammatical, emotive and ideological. We read the text with a set of conventional assumptions, and we can either shore up those assumptions through reconstruction, at the cost of extreme syntactic discontinuity, or change them. It is not that one reading is necessarily preferable to the other, but their coexistence means that we cannot know what the poem is talking about, and that one reading affects or modifies the other. n "?0 is climactic and signals a shift to a new section of the poem. Whatever problems v. 6 leaves us with will not be resolved, at least not immediately. Instead, we have a new addressee, the gates. Again, however, we have an irresolvable ambiguity. Are the gates the gates of the Temple, as most scholars assume, or are they celestial gates, as proposed by Marc Girard (1984: 207)?33 In that case, the phrase DÛ ^HHS, 'doors of eternity', indicates a transition from time to timelessness, and from the world to that which transcends it. Again, there is no need to solve the problem, and there may be no discontinuity between heavenly and earthly realms (Kraus 1988: 315). Nonetheless, two very different readings of the poem are possible. In one, God's entrance coincides with that of the pilgrims, and his day's adventures, especially if one regards the poem as a liturgy, end with his ceremonial return.34 In the other, God enters his own sacred space, inaccessible to the pilgrims, and the movement of the poem is not from beginning to an end that recapitulates and celebrates it, but a progressive ascent.

32. Beauchamp (1976: 120) also sees this psalm as stemming from the same Josianic circle as Isa. 2.3. Others correct the MT in conformity to the LXX (e.g. Kraus 1988:311). 33. Cooper (1983) proposes a third interpretation, that the gates of eternity are the gates of the underworld, citing Egyptian parallels. In his view the passage celebrates YHWH'S victory over death. There is, however, very little evidence from within the Hebrew Bible to support Cooper's thesis. 34. A time-encrusted interpretation is that this psalm accompanied the re-entry of the Ark to Jerusalem. See most recently Stager (2000:45). There is no evidence, however, for such a ceremony, still less for the association of the psalm with it.


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The gates are liminal, between the Temple and that which is outside it, between the world and its centre. But God is outside the gates. The centre then is empty, except perhaps for the poet. The whole movement of the poem is towards a point which is never reached. 'Who is this King of Glory? YHWH, puissant and mighty, YHWH mighty in battle.' The victory over the sea is echoed in that over Canaan. YHWH returns home to his settled polity. However, the reprise of these verses drops the martial imagery, except perhaps for the standard formula 'YHWH of Hosts', whose military connotations seem to me doubtful.35 Instead, the reprise merely repeats, 'He is the King of Glory'. Why does it do this, and why are the last two verses repeated? A simple answer is apophasis, the dissolution of language, imagery and mythology, including the mythology of conquest, in the epiphany. The empty space at the centre corresponds to an empty space in language. However, the motif of divine rest is persistent in the Hebrew Bible. Rest precludes conquest, it is a moment beyond violence. It is here that the poem ends, with a final H^D, a word signifying a pause or a climax, a convergence of meaning and sound, and, presumably, music. Where does God come? He comes home. Home is Zion or its heavenly equivalent. Zion is God's female partner, daughter, and also a maternal figure, both for Israel and the nations, as Erich Zenger (2000) has pointed out. God, in entering the empty space of the centre through the portals of eternity, is entering maternal space, as mother, husband or child. The space at the centre is also a matrix. Bibliography Alter, Robert 1985 Auffret, Pierre 1982

1990

The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books). La sagesse a bati sa maison: Etudes de structures litteraires dans I'Ancien Testament et specialement dans les Psaumes (Fribourg: Editions universitaires). 'Qui est ce roi de la gloire? Etude structurelle duPs 24',Revue Thomiste90: 101-108.

Barthes, Roland 1973 Le Plaisir du texte (Paris: du Seuil; ET Richard Miller, The Pleasure of the Text [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990]).

35. In Gen. 2.1, for instance, N3H seems simply to designate the denizens of creation.

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Beauchamp, Evode 1976 Le Psautier: Ps 1-72 (Paris: Gabalda). Black, Fiona C. 1999a 'The Grotesque Body in the Song of Songs' (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sheffield). 1999b 'What Is My Beloved? On Erotic Reading and the Song of Songs', in Fiona C. Black, Roland Boer and Erin Runions (eds.), The Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation, and Biblical Interpretation (Senieia Studies; Atlanta: SBL): 35-55. Botha, P.J. 1994 'Psalm 24: Unity in Diversity', OTE 7: 360-69. Carrasco, David 1999 City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization (Boston: Beacon). Clines, David J.A. 1993 ' A World Established On Water (Psalm 24): Reader Response Criticism, Deconstruction, and Bespoke Interpretation', in J. Cheryl Exum and David J.A. Clines (eds.), The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 79-90. 1995 Interested Parties: The Ideology of Biblical Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Cooper, Alan J. 1983 'Psalm 24: 7-10: Mythology and Exegesis', JBL 102: 37-60. Dahood, Mitchell 1965 Psalms. 1.1-50 (AB, 16; New York: Doubleday). Davies, Philip R. 1995 Whose Bible Is It Anyway? (JSOTSup, 204; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Derrida, Jacques 1996 Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (trans. Eric Prenowitz; Chicago: Chicago University Press). Eco, Umberto 1994 Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Fewell, Danna N., and Gary A. Phillips (eds.) 1997 Bible and Ethics of Reading (Semeia, 77; Atlanta: Scholars Press). Girard, Marc 1984 Les Psaumes: Analyse structurelle et interpretation: 1-50 (Montreal: Bellarmin; Paris: Cerf). Keel, Othmar 1978 The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (trans. Timothy J. Hallett; London: SPCK). Kissane, Edward 1953 The Book of Psalms (Dublin: Brown & Nolan). Klawans, Jonathan 2000 Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Kraus, Hans-Joachim 1988 Psalms 1-59: A Commentary (trans. Hilton C. Oswald; Minneapolis: Augsburg).

LANDY From David to David 1991

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'Tore der Gerechtigkeit', in Dwight R. Daniels (ed.), Ernten, was man sat: Festschrift fur Klaus Koch zu seinem 65. Geburtstag (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag): 265-72.

Lohfink, Norbert 2000 'Covenant and Torah in the Pilgrimage of the Nations (Isaiah and Psalm 25)', in Lohfink and Zenger 2000: 33-84. Lohfink, Norbert, and Erich Zenger 2000 The God of Israel and the Nations: Studies in Isaiah and the Psalms (trans. Everett R. Kalin; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press). Mazor, Yair 1993 'Psalm 24: Sense and Sensibility in Biblical Composition', SJOT1: 303-16. Miller, Patrick D. 1986 Interpreting the Psalms (Philadelphia: Fortress Press). Murphy, Roland 2000 The Gift of the Psalms (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson). Norris, Christopher 1991 Spinoza and the Origins of Modern Critical Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell). Podella, Thomas 1999 'Transformationen kultischer Darstellungen: Toralirurgien in Ps 15 und 24', 5/0712:95-130. Seybold, Klaus 1996 Die Psalmen (HAT, 1/15; Tubingen: Mohr). Stager, Lawrence 2000 'Jerusalem as Eden', BARev 26: 36-47. Tweed, Thomas A. 2002 'On Moving Across: Trans locative Religion and the Interpreter's Position', JAAR 70: 253-77. Weiser, Artur 1962 The Psalms: A Commentary (trans. Herbert Hartwell; Philadelphia: Westminster). Zenger, Erich 2000 'Zion as Mother of the Nations in Psalm 87', in Lohfink and Zenger 2000: 123-60.

TWELVE COMMANDMENTS—THREE STAGES: A NEW THEORY ON THE FORMATION OF THE DECALOGUE

Bernhard Lang

Although the Decalogue, considered here in its Deuteronomic version (Deut. 5), is one of the most famous and familiar texts of the Hebrew Bible, it is far from being easily understood. In this paper, I will argue that once it is realized that the Decalogue reached its present form by stages, some of the interpretative problems of this text find their solution. I distinguish three successive stages of textual growth. The first stage is a short series of five exclusively religious commandments; the second stage adds the five non-religious injunctions of the Decalogue's 'second table' and thereby creates a list often commandments; the third stage, with its addition of the Sabbath commandment, gives the text its traditional form. At the third stage one has apparently counted six commandments of the first and six commandments of the second table, so that the present text was most likely understood as a dodecalogue. 1. The Decalogue (Deuteronomic Version), Considered as a Whole Although scholars have spent much energy on elucidating the Decalogue, this biblical text remains in many ways a riddle. In what follows I offer a number of new suggestions that may help our understanding of this difficult passage. It may be best to start with a working translation of Deut. 5.6-22 which incorporates some of the suggestions I shall make and explain in detail: (6) I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. [I] (7) You shall have no other gods before me. [II] (8) You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;

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[III] (9) you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I Yahweh your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, (10) but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. [IV] (11) You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain: for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. [V] (12) Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Thus Yahweh your God commands you: (13) Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; (14) but the seventh day is a Sabbath for Yahweh your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, your son, or your daughter, or your manservant, or your maidservant, or your ox, or your ass, or any of your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you. (15) You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore Yahweh your God commands you to keep the Sabbath day. [VI] (16) Honour your father and your mother. Thus Yahweh your God commands you that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which Yahweh your God has given you: [VII] (17) You shall not kill. [VIII] (18) Neither shall you commit adultery. [EX] (19) Neither shall you steal. [X] (20) Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbour. [XI] (21) Neither shall you covet your neighbour's wife; [XII] and you shall not desire your neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour's.

First of all I must explain where and how my translation departs from standard versions found in our printed Bibles. Part of the Sabbath commandment is generally rendered as follows: (12) Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as Yahweh your God commanded you. (13) Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; (14) but the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh your God; (in it) you shall not do any work... (after RSV).

The words k'sr swkyhwh are generally understood as referring to an earlier occasion on which God had given this commandment: 'keep it holy, as Yahweh your God commanded you (earlier)', and the implication might be that in Deuteronomy, Moses, by quoting the Decalogue, refers to God's original commandment given at Mount Sinai. A more natural understanding of the Hebrew wording implies that the phrase, rather than referring back, actually is designed to introduce what follows:

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Reading from Right to Left (12) Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Thus [= as follows] Yahweh your God commands you: (13) Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; (14) but the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh your God; (in it) you shall not do any work...

This translation can be justified philologically on the basis of a recently published ancient Hebrew inscription; dating from c. 700 BCE it is presumably a scribal exercise text. It reads: 'Thus (= as follows) commands you Ashyahu the king: To be given into the hand of Zakaryahu silver of Tarshish for the house of Yahweh—3 shekels' (Lang 1998).1 Looking at Deut. 5.16, where we again find the words k'sr swkyhwh, we can make another observation. Traditionally, the verse in question is rendered as follows: (16) Honour your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God commanded you; that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which Yahweh your God gives you (after RSV).

I have often wondered why life and well-being in Yahweh's land are attached to just this one commandment, the one concerning the parents. I am sure my students remember having heard me explain that the divine promise, though literally associated with the parental commandment, should actually be taken as being valid for each one of the Decalogue commandments. This view can be supported on the basis of the Deuteronomic speech of Moses in which he addresses the Israelites, saying: Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which Yahweh your God gives you for ever (Deut. 4.40).

Now as I consider the implications of the possibility of starting an ancient Hebrew sentence with the words k'srswk, implied in the Hebrew inscription just mentioned, I prefer to dissociate the promise given in v. 16 from its specific and exclusive association with the parental commandment. I suggest the following rendering: (16) Honour your father and your mother. Thus [= as explained above] Yahweh your God commands you, that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which Yahweh your God gives you. 1. Another passage that may involve the forward-looking use of & 'sr can be found in Deut. 18: 'but they shall have no inheritance among their brothers; Yahweh is their inheritance. Thus (k 'sr) he told them: this shall be the priests' due from the people...' (Deut. 18.2-3, disregarding the Masoretic verse division between w. 2 and 3).


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This time, the words seem to refer to all the previously given commandments (exclusive worship of Yahweh, no images, etc.), including, of course, the injunction to honour one's parents. But the phrase may also, in Janus fashion, look forward, introducing the commandments that follow: (16) Honour your father and your mother. Thus [= as explained in what follows] Yahweh your God commands you, that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which Yahweh your God gives you: (17) You shall not kill. (18) Neither shall you commit adultery.

In the Exodus version of the Decalogue, things are different. Here the promise is attached exclusively to the parental commandment: 'Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives you' (Exod. 20.12). I take the entire Exodus version of the Decalogue to be a later adaptation of the original Deuteronomic text, made by someone who no longer understood the original function of the promise as the conclusion of the 'first table'. As is well known, the Decalogue is in two parts: the first gives religious injunctions (w. 7-16) and the second 'civil' ones (w. 17-21). This pattern is rough rather than neat, for the last commandment of the first series appears, at least at first sight, to be a non-religious one: 'Honour your father and your mother'. Read in their ancient Near Eastern cultural context, these words admonish people to support and care for their aged parents (Lang 1977). However, a closer analysis reveals that in the context of the Decalogue, the parental commandment may well be classified as 'religious'. In two places, the Decalogue refers to parents; the first reference is to 'the iniquity of the fathers' (v. 9), the second one to honouring 'your father and your mother' (v. 16). These two sets of parents cannot be identical. The solution is as follows: the Decalogue, in its (at first sight invisible) 'deep structure', thinks in terms of three generations. The first generation is that of the 'bad' ancestors, those who committed 'the iniquity of the fathers'. This expression can be used to determine the date of our text. It must be the time after the end of the Judaean state, that is, after 586 BCE. The passage blames the national disaster—the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile—on 'the iniquity of the fathers', that is, their violation of the commandment to worship Yahweh exclusively. The 'fathers' are the immediate fathers of the generation of the exile: the men who in 609 BCE defected from King Josiah's reform by returning to Judah's traditionally polytheistic religion. Due to the sin of the fathers, the present or second (exilic) generation finds itself in a situation of punishment. The present generation—the second one on our counting, the one to whom the Deca-

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logue is addressed—is challenged to detach itself from 'the iniquity of the fathers' and, by firmly embracing the proper form of religion, to stop the divine punishment under which they suffer. Finally, the third generation— the sons and daughters of the exiles—is admonished to honour their parents' decision to stay faithful to the exclusive worship of the one God. The discontinuity between the first and the second generation is balanced by the continuity between the second and third generation. This continuity was no doubt primarily seen in religious terms, and so it makes sense to include the commandment 'Honour your father and your mother' among the religious injunctions. That the Decalogue prioritizes religious commandments over civil ones also comes to the fore when we start counting its words. Counting the words of biblical passages smacks of arcane numerology, and most biblical scholars refrain from engaging in this doubtful art. But, occasionally, counting does yield results that are interesting if not actually relevant to exegesis. This seems to be the case with the Decalogue. The Decalogue, beginning with v. 6 ('I am Yahweh your God') and ending with v. 21 ('or anything that is your neighbour's') has 189 Hebrew words; of these, 146 are taken up by religious commandments (from v. 7 to v. 16a); by contrast, only 27 words are used for civil injunctions (from v. 17 to v. 21). The word at the very centre—no. 95 of 189 words—is l-yhwh, 'for Yahweh', and this expression may be taken as a kind of religious slogan of the Decalogue compiler. It was no doubt intentional that the compiler placed the expression 'for Yahweh' at the very centre of his text, and that the Decalogue uses this divine name ten times (no more and no less frequently). We could stop at this point and enjoy the idea of having made some progress in understanding an important biblical text. It is tempting, however, to offer reasonable speculations on how the Decalogue gradually grew and eventually came to have the form we now read in the Bible. This will be done in what follows. 2. Toward a Prehistory of the Decalogue Several features of the Decalogue call for an explanation: (1) Why are there, according to the most natural counting, twelve rather than ten commandments? The Decalogue itself does not force us to look for exactly ten (rather than twelve, or any other number) commandments; nevertheless, the Bible does occasionally refer to the Decalogue as the 'ten words' (Deut. 4.13), though without telling us how to count. There seem to be


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more commandments and prohibitions than ten. A possible solution might be the assumption that the Decalogue is not transmitted in its original form, for an originally shorter text may have been expanded, perhaps by the addition of certain commandments. (2) The second problematic feature is v. 16b, for it conveys a sense of closure in the middle of the Decalogue: 'Thus [= as explained above] Yahweh your God commands you, that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which Yahweh your God gives you'. Here the solution may be the assumption that the original, shorter Decalogue ended at v. 16b. (3) A third—and to the non-specialist no doubt less pressing—problem has to do with the reference to the Sabbath (w. 12-15). Scholars assume that the Sabbath originated not in a Deuteronomic milieu, but in a 'sacerdotal' one; this can be concluded from the fact that, outside of the Decalogue, Deuteronomy and Deuteronomistic literature never refer to the Sabbath; so-called priestly texts, by contrast, have several versions of the commandment to keep the Sabbath day (Exod. 31.12-17; 35.1-3; Lev. 19.3; 23.3; Num. 15.32-36; see Lang 2001a). So one wonders whether the Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5 originally lacked the commandment to keep the sabbath day, and it was introduced at a later stage of textual development. Considering all these issues I have made an earlier attempt to reconstruct the history of the Decalogue (Lang 200 Ib). In what follows I offer a revised, somewhat simpler version, one that is more economical in its critical assumptions. I present my reconstruction in the hope that the analysis will challenge others to engage with it in critical dialogue and either find more arguments to support it or refute my speculations. Stage 1: The Pentalogue (6) I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. [I] (7) You shall have no other gods before me. [II] (8) You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; [III] (9) you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I Yahweh your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, (10) but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. [IV] (11) You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain: for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

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Reading from Right to Left [V] (16) Honour your father and your mother. Thus Yahweh your God commands you that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which Yahweh your God has given you.

The text seems to have been compiled from several building blocks— prohibitions in which God speaks in the first person and others that refer to God in the third person. These building blocks must have belonged to different, now lost textual structures, but were reused here and left intact, presumably because of their sacred or at least traditional character. Compiled of somewhat heterogeneous, first-person and third-person commandments, the text was framed by the self-presentation of God—'I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage'—and the conclusion: 'Thus Yahweh your God commands you, that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which Yahweh your God has given you'. Reconstructed in this manner, vv. 6-16 (minus w. 12-15) are a text complete in itself, a text that challenges its addressees to commit themselves to the exclusive worship of Yahweh, the God of the Exodus and of the giving of the land of Israel. What we have here is a series of five commandments which is complete in itself. It is purely religious in nature and does not include any 'secular' prohibitions. As I have pointed out above, even the parental commandment is here taken as a religious one, for it admonishes the younger people among the addressees to continue their parents' commitment to orthodox Yahwism. The 'Stage 1' text blames the national disaster on 'the iniquity of the fathers', that is, their violation of the commandment to worship Yahweh exclusively. Set in the first person singular as if God himself was speaking, the passage may have been a priestly or prophetic oracle delivered in the liturgy of a community of exiles in Babylonia; the very expression 'the iniquities of the fathers' seems to belong to the language of priestly oracles (see Exod. 34.7; Num. 14.18). The 'Stage 1' oracle challenges the exilic addressees to detach themselves from 'the iniquities of the fathers' and thereby assure their living in post-exilic Palestine. What I have said earlier in this paper (see above, Part 1) on the relationship between three generations—the generation of the fathers, that of the sons of these fathers, and that of the grandchildren—can help us understand the mentality of the pentalogue as that of a new generation intent on distancing itself from that of the 'fathers' and on creating a continuity with their children.


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Stage 2: The Double Pentalogue or Ten Commandments Subsequently, the purely religious nature of the earlier text—that of Stage 1—was no longer maintained. An editor felt that the series of five religious prohibitions and commandments should be matched by an equal number of civil commandments. Accordingly, the pentalogue was expanded by the addition of vv. 17-21: (6) I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. [I] (7) You shall have no other gods before me. [II] (8) You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; [III] (9) you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I Yahweh your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, (10) but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. [IV] (11) You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain: for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. [V] (16a) Honour your father and your mother. (16b) Thus Yahweh your God commands you that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which Yahweh your God has given you: [VI] (\1) You shall not kill. [VII] (18) Neither shall you commit adultery. [VIII] (19) Neither shall you steal. [IX] (20) Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbour. [X] (21) Neither shall you covet your neighbour's wife; and you shall not desire your neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour's.

The addition, printed here in italics, is a fine series of five commandments or, rather, prohibitions, all of which are phrased in the same way. Added to the five commandments of Stage 1, we get a double pentalogue. All of the new commandments are short, and the overall structure is a long religious pentalogue, followed by a short non-religious pentalogue. The addition of 'civil' law to the pentalogue repeats the general movement of the entire history of biblical law. Two basic types of law are juxtaposed and merge—the civil law of Mesopotamian provenance and the religious law indigenous to Israel. Thus the Decalogue's distinctive blend sums up the history of law in biblical Israel and brings it to its logical conclusion, presenting its essence in the form of a small set of laws accompanied by

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explanations and exhortations (what we have termed the pentalogue), followed by a short series of civil-law commandments that needed no explanation. Religion comes first, and civil law is added as a kind of afterthought; this seems to be the implied, though not articulated message. Or, in modern parlance, religion sustains and encompasses the realms of law and ethics, but cannot be reduced to it. It makes sense to assume that at this stage the expression 'the two tables' was coined (v. 22). The idea that there were two tables of the law (Deut. 4.13—'two stone tablets') may reflect the form of the passage—a unity made of two parts. This is how Josephus read the text: 'two tables on which were graven the ten words, five on either of them' (Josephus, Ant. 3.101). Interestingly, v. 16b—'Thus Yahweh your God commands you that your days may be prolonged, etc.'—is now used to introduce what follows; or rather, the same words may be read as both concluding the first series of five commandments (the religious pentalogue) and as introducing the second series of five commandments (the civil pentalogue). Stage 3: The Twelve Commandments or Dodecalogue A subsequent editor missed a reference to the Sabbath in the ten commandments (Stage 2), and, by inserting the long Sabbath commandment of vv. 12-15, gave the Decalogue its final form, the one found in our Bibles and translated above, in Part 1. There can be little doubt that in the eyes of the editor who inserted the Sabbath commandment it was precisely the Sabbath that mattered most. The Sabbath commandment was apparently new, and so people had to be instructed in the details of its rules—hence a commandment that is longer than any other commandment of the Decalogue. The injunction to keep the Sabbath day now appears as the pivotal commandment, the one which structures the individual's life most visibly. In its wording, the Sabbath commandment combines language characteristic of the 'sacerdotal' milieu ('Sabbath', 'holy') with typically Deuteronomic rhetoric ('Yahweh your God', 'with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm'), as if two authors with two different schoolings had cooperated in its compilation. The inserting editor must have been influenced by the 'sacerdotal' school of exilic Israel (sixth century BCE, presumably), which, as indicated above, did much to promote the Sabbath as a new institution. The addition of the Sabbath commandment upsets the relatively balanced structure of the 'Stage 2' text—five religious plus five civil commandments—for now, at Stage 3, we have six religious commandments plus


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five civil ones. This imbalance was presumably solved by a different way of counting the non-religious commandments of the 'second table'. The tenth commandment of the 'Stage 2' text—the one prohibiting the appropriation of someone else's estate during the owner's prolonged absence (Lang 1981)—was presumably seen as consisting of two prohibitions, and so the complete, balanced text was seen as made up of six religious and six civil commandments. As a result, the ten commandments have become twelve commandments. I wonder how the editor responsible for the 'Stage 3' text, the one now printed in our Bibles, dealt with the fact that Deuteronomy actually refers to the Decalogue as 'the ten words' (Deut. 4.13; 10.4). I venture the suggestion that the editor, by using the divine name Yahweh ten times in his text, tried to make up for the disappearance of the set of 'ten' commandments. For him, the dodecalogue is a text marked by ten sacred words—the tenfold reference to Yahweh. The passage immediately following the Deuteronomic Decalogue is worth considering at this point: These words Yahweh spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice, and he added no more. And he wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to me (Deut. 5.22).

The text of the two tablets of the law is now complete and must not be tampered with any longer. In other words: there were enough revisions, and there should be no more adding to the text which now had become the Decalogue. 'These words Yahweh spoke to your assembly.. .and he added no more' (v. 22). At this point, the modern interpreter also has reason not to add any more commentary. Nevertheless, one concluding point may be appropriate. Is the assumption of a complicated textual development in several stages really warranted? As a matter of fact, in many cases, biblical scholars seem to resort to theories of layering too frequently and without sufficient reason. I think that few biblical texts show signs of multiple editorial activity or reworking; some, however, do have these signs—and it is generally the important texts, for only important texts were worth editing and re-editing. It is to these important texts that the Decalogue belongs.

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Reading from Right to Left Bibliography

Gorg, M. and B. Lang (eds.) 2001 Neues Bibel-Lexikon (3 vols.; Zurich: Benziger). Lang, B. 1977 'Altersversorgung,BegrabnispflichtundElterngebot',ZDMGSup3:149-56. 1981 'Du sollst nicht nach der Frau eines anderen verlangen: Eine neue Deutung des 9. und 10. Gebots', TAW93: 216-24. 1998 'The Decalogue in the Light of a Newly Published Palaeo-Hebrew Inscription (Hebrew Ostracon Moussaieff no. 1)', JSOT11: 21-25. 2001a 'Sabbatgebot', in Gorg and Lang 2001: III, 391-94. 2001b 'Zehn Gebote', in Gorg and Lang 2001: III, 1186-88.

HOLY PERSUASION: THE BIBLE AS ADVERTISING* Burke O. Long

When scholars of postmodern sensibilities do their work, they give up the conviction of being able to occupy a vantage point from which they know something outside the play of power, interest and ideology. Of course, these scholars hardly discard modernist premises entirely. Theirs is a dialectical culture of dissent, since heresy gains substance in part from denning the orthodoxy it rejects (Long 2000). One marker of this new situation is that professional biblical scholars who adopt postmodern perspectives no longer assume that they are specially trained guardians, Master Knowers, who employ rigorously objective, historical methods to discover the original and most valued meanings of biblical texts. Deprived of that firewall, biblical scholarship is open to hermeneutical diversity, which involves self-conscious awareness that scholarly practices are entangled with ideology and politics. Typically free-ranging, transgressive inquiry competes in the arena of contested truth, and often with high stakes in struggles for social change. Yet one disciplinary paradigm of modernist biblical scholarship, the idea of a singular text-as-object (despite its complicated history of composition), remains undisturbed even if, under postmodern analysis, it is admitted as a necessary fiction of critical study. The Bible, a singular entity fixed in late antiquity, isolated and embraced by scholarly imagination, yields its secrets to tool-gathering, compounding consciousness. The recently published Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation (Adam 2000) illustrates the point. The compendium includes informative introductions to the thought of influential postmodern theorists. It also offers many essays, for example, on postcolonialism and queer theory, that show how biblical scholars have conscripted a broad range of theory and cultural studies into It is a pleasure to dedicate this essay to my friend and colleague David Clines. His energy, inventiveness and restless travel along the frontiers of biblical knowledge have always been exemplary and inspirational.

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the traditional service of illuminating the received, and objectified, biblical text. However, somewhat obscured in the fluidity of postmodern scholarship, other studies imply not so much the controlling idea of a singular, written Bible as the notion of many bibles, each one realized in different cultural and historical circumstances. Thus, one may now read of bibles represented and materialized as entertainment (Aichele 2000) and fantasy (Aichele and Pippin 1997), or bibles constructed out of willful liaisons with often stigmatized elements of contemporary pop culture, such as body awareness, pornography and fast foods (Moore 1996; Boer 1999). Such culturally constructed bibles, of course, exist in relation to the written Bible. They live, however, as ephemeral moments of interactivity. Along with hints of context and social history, they survive, fossil-like, in various artifacts—an advertising card, a film or a broad bill, a painting, an essay, a series of photographs. The written Bible (this must.be represented in discourse, too) is (or was) in its new cultural representation, and the new representation is (or was) as it references the written Bible. In these situations, neither the Bible nor its ephemeral representation claims priority for scholarly inquiry. Both have to be imagined together in dynamic interaction with each other. Moreover, both have to be visualized in relation to those who, for example, appropriate a 'Bible' film and thus share in the creation of a culturally specific Bible/bible. Today, in hunting artifacts of such Bible/bibles, scholars depart their monkish cells and abandon their exegetical obsessions with a single text. They roam more promiscuous haunts—museums, newspapers, theme parks, popular music, science fiction, visual arts, television shows, feature films, religious book stores, even cyberspace. Analytical energy flows toward understanding Bible/bibles which are, or have been, realized in complex events of cultural production and appropriation. Cheryl Exum and Stephen Moore recently celebrated these new initiatives and, without exactly saying so, recognized the fundamental re-imagining of scholarly object that is occurring. Biblical studies/cultural studies is not just the Bible influencing culture or culture reappropriating the Bible, but a process of unceasing mutual redefinition in which cultural appropriations constantly reinvent the Bible, which in turn constantly impels new appropriations... (Exum and Moore 1998:35).

As a modest contribution to this trend, and drawing upon a larger study underway, I offer some comments on two artifacts of pop culture that strike me as typical of what I have so far been able to locate. Each is a trace of a

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past event of 'mutual redefinition' in which a North America-specific Bible/ bible was invented and promulgated as a commodity of nationalism and consumerist capitalism. I try to imagine each as a moment of cultural realization, the dynamic interplay of image, allusion and Bible interpretation entangled with cultural values, religion and political ideologies. The Buckeye Promised Land In the United States, 1888 was a presidential election year. The Aultman Miller Company of Ohio used the occasion to distribute a colorful folding card advertising one of its products, the light-weight, two-horse 'Buckeye' hay binder.

Figure 1. Buckeye Centennial, front cover. The Henderson-Achert Lithograph Co., 1888.

On the front cover, figures suggestive of Daniel Boone and family look westward, Moses-like, toward a cultivated and industrialized Canaan. In

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the near distance, a farmer harvests golden grain, undoubtedly with Buckeye equipment. The pioneers have their sights on something more distant, however. They gaze toward a huge factory and goods-laden trains, all sending forth smoky banners of industrial might. Beyond these, the backlighted horizon intimates more factories, the open West that invited all Americans to contemplate the future of limitless possibility. A future, that is, for certain members of the population. For to the right of the pioneers sits a dejected Indian figure, his very name a misnomer of erasure given him by mercantile invaders looking for a western passage to 'India'. He seems to contemplate not the luminous West, but some inner space of dismal fortune. Perhaps he has internalized all directionality, all sense of prospect, as defeat and dispossession. The caption addresses a reader, viewer, prospective purchaser of hay binders, directly and simply: 'Our Predecessors Viewing the "Promised Land'". The reverse side of the card (Fig. 2) maps the political landscape of Ohio. Boundaries of congressional districts, statistics of population and voting, and the decorative iconography of a farming landscape characterize Ohio as home to the Buckeye manufacturing facility and as overwhelmingly rural, despite cities such as Cleveland and Cincinnati. The statistics suggest that Ohio is vital to all political parties, not least for the state's economic prosperity. The Buckeye factory alone is worth 3.3 million dollars, a final notation proclaims, or about one dollar for each resident. Festooned with American flags, presidential candidates Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland dominate this cartographic space. One simple sentence blends candidates, patriotism, the Buckeye company and political intimations into a timely and civic minded appeal: 'Take your choice'. Which goes for purchasing farm equipment, too. This complexly conflated image is emblematic of ideologically charged, symbolic meanings associated with an iconic Bible. Yet, the written Bible is present in its absence. A single phrase simultaneously quotes from the iconic book, stands for its entirety, and authorizes Bible-like sanctity for a nationalist narrative of westward expansion. In short, the Buckeye 'Promised Land' bible realized American myth and biblical typology. Like the Puritan divines of New England, this Bible/ bible affirmed America as a redeemer nation and, in the service of capitalist enterprise, invoked biblical patterns to explain the significance of events, people and situations of United States history (Bercovitch 1983; Noll 1982).


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Figure 2. Buckeye Centennial, back cover. The Henderson-Achert Lithograph Co., 1888.

Of course, memory of a biblical narrative—Moses being shown all of Canaan from the heights of Mount Nebo—stood behind the Buckeye artist, whose application of Deut. 34.1-4 belongs to a long history of cultural appropriation. In 1659, Nicolas Visscher the Elder drew a map of the 'Holy Land as Moses Viewed it from Mt Pisgah'. Visscher's artistic projection, which looked west and north from the Transjordan plateau, would subsequently dominate Dutch delineation of the Holy Land for the next century andahalf(Nebenzahl 1986: 132). Although fresh and arresting as cartography, the vantage point was not entirely original. The narrative moment, which typically incorporated into itself Nebo and Pisgah as a single place, had been favored in typological exegesis at least since the European Middle Ages. Moses saw more than the promised land, Christian exegetes asserted. He looked far beyond the physical confines of Mount Nebo, far beyond the unspoiled riches of

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Canaan, and glimpsed the advent of Jesus, the Redeemer. Later Victorian literature and music extended the type to those Christians who, on their deathbeds, were permitted the sight of heaven or the risen Savior (Landow 1980; 1992). French artist James Tissot translated this sentimentalism onto canvas around 1900 and inspired a commentator's remark, in 1936, that 'in his mind's eye [Moses] must have seen much more of what lay in the future' (Harby 1936: 65). The radiant power of Moses and Mount Nebo inspired Christian pilgrims of late antiquity to locate Mount Nebo in the highlands northeast of the Dead Sea (Piccirillo 1992). The traditional identification held firm and nineteenth-century travelers continued visiting the site. Although many were driven to authenticate biblical events through geographical science, they also sought primal religious experience. It made little difference that Nebo's precise location remained stubbornly elusive. Edward Robinson, innovative, scientifically minded, drew near the area in 1838. 'I was much interested', he wrote, 'in looking out among the eastern mountains for Mount Nebo.' Disappointed when he could not find the scriptural mountain, Robinson settled for what piety demanded of him, and what feeling he allowed himself. Surely, at the least, he must be standing very near the spot of venerable inspiration. Somewhere from these plains Moses must have clambered up to some high part of the adjacent mountains; from which he would everywhere have an extensive view over the Jordan Valley and the mountainous tract of Judah and Ephraim towards the western sea (Robinson and Smith 1868:1, 570; italics in the original).

Frank DeHass, American Consul in Jerusalem in the 1870s, was much more effusive. Writing that he had at last realized a dream of his life, DeHass was quite satisfied that his meticulous analysis of biblical geography had overcome all doubt as to the authenticity of the location bequeathed to modern pilgrims. Now he, like Moses, looked westward into the promised land (DeHass 1882: 341). About thirty years later, biblical scholar and Assyriologist George Barton set aside any hesitancy he may have felt. Reflecting on his climb to the summit, he later wrote, 'This was a great day. Think of standing where Moses stood and getting his view of Canaan!' (Barton 1904: 150-51). An ideational space so arresting for religious imagination was enthralling for armchair pilgrims as well. Jesse Lyman Hurlbut and Charles Foster Kent, authors of Palestine through the Stereoscope, a popular photographic tour of the Holy Land, took their readers to Mount Nebo and asked:


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Can you not with the mind's eye see on that summit a venerable form, standing erect and alone, gazing upon the land of promise, to whose borders he led the hosts of Israel, though he was not permitted to enter? To look upon the land, and then to lie down upon the mount and die—this was the sublime end of the sublime life of Moses, the Man of God (Hurlbut and Kent 1914: 159).

Such fantasies, endemic to accounts by Holy Land travelers, were particularly engaging in the United States, which from the beginning of the Republic had fostered a largely Protestant Christian consciousness of biblical heritage. Running through the literature of Puritan and Revolutionary America, as Samuel Levine put it, was 'the meta-physical transference of Holy Land specifics to New World identities' (Levine 1977:23). Early settlers fashioned New World topography out of biblical names (Davis 1995). Essayists praised the revolutionary wars as a millenarian exodus leading God's church into a new Canaan, or imagined America's rising glory as 'A Canaan here, another Canaan [that] shall excel the old, and from a fairer Pisgah's top be seen' (Bercovitch 1975: 145-46). Timothy Dwight cast George Washington as Joshua leading his Israelites into the promised land (Dwight 1785). Some seventy-five years later, as westward expansion had taken hold, one writer extended the typology to the wilds of West Virginia (Strotherl857). New England Puritan divines had invented the typological discourse that defined this errand into the wilderness. In sermons and learned treatises, in poetry and essays, they sanctified the new social order by the Bible's eternal patterns (Mason 1969). To John Winthrop, for example, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a figure in sacred history, a 'city on the hill'. Others saw all of New England as a great 'company in covenant, summoned by God to a historic mission' whose wayfaring settlers looked 'forward to the New Jerusalem that is to descend upon Mount Zion' (Bercovitch 1983: 221). Later, in the nineteenth century, writers transformed this Bible-based view of American identity to an ever adaptable 'call for order in a community committed to progress, mobility, and free enterprise' (Bercovitch 1983: 221). The malleable myth easily domesticated raw imperialist desire, too. Symbol-makers asserted the rights of a superior culture to subjugate those native inhabitants who stood in the way of territorial expansion, which since colonial times had been accorded glory as an entitlement of national destiny (Morrison 2001). The Canaan that was to excel the old meant that Christianity would triumph over paganism, the white race over the dark, the enlightened over primitive societies (Bercovitch 1983: 222-23). And

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when some began to view nature, transcendental and sublime, as the source of prophecy, the old Bible typologies simply embraced the new situation. Scripture and Nature were complementary. They were the Old and New Testaments, as it were, of the American way. The Bible had foretold America; the New World landscape radiated the types of things to come (Bercovitch 1983: 225).

These notions of American identity shaped the traditions of biography, too. From the revolutionary period onward, whether chronicled in legend, poems or adventure narratives, the lives of public figures constituted an ongoing spiritual biography of America. Authors portrayed heroes as ideal Americans who in moral character and accomplishments embodied the true spirit of the nation. This perspective shaped all types of biography, 'from the sagas of folk-heroes, like Daniel Boone, the Moses of westward migration, to campaign biographies', including the major romantic histories (Bercovitch 1975: 148-49). It is hardly accidental, then, that the Buckeye artist imagined Daniel Boone, a quasi-biblical American ancestor, the quintessential scout of unexplored territories, standing on the heights of some new Pisgah, overlooking some new Canaan. Boone had established his fame in explorations of what would become the state of Kentucky. However, John Filson's account of early Kentucky history and Frank Norton's lurid novel transformed Boone into a mythic hero. In folklore, legend, popular song, children's literature and visual art, Daniel Boone symbolized both the spirit of frontier individualism and the racist entitlement of westward expansion. Through many permutations of public symbol, according to John Faragher, 'the notion of Boone as the embodiment of American possibility remains his most powerful cultural legacy' (Faragher 1992: 341). It thrives in children's books, art exhibitions (Sweeney 1992), even a contemporary poem by Susan Mitchell: I felt the grass growing westward starting to pick up speed like an animal running for the sheer joy of running, and I thought of Boone following his traps each trap biting deeper into the green absence of prairie. I understood his wanting to keep it for himself, the space that lay down with him each night, breathing into his face (Faragher 1992: 342; Mitchell 1984: 223).


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A century earlier, the Buckeye artist caught something of this seductive lure of the 'absence of prairie'. In a sense, the trade card relegated to the past that notion of a divinely ordained right of territorial and racial conquest. Perhaps better said, the mythic substance of manifest destiny now embraced some new West, a Canaan of agricultural and industrial prowess. It conjured a promised land of capitalist production and democratic elections, of consumerism and civic duty in 1888. The Buckeye Bible/bible served as prophecy, and its language both reflected and prefigured all that some Americans at least discovered, and would discover, to be real and true about their experiences. Reconfigured in latter-day Puritan discourse, Moses, or Daniel Boone of the Buckeye Bible/bible, stood yet again on the heights of Nebo, espying that golden, covenanted land of open possibility, now in need of harvesting machines. The Ringling Brothers' Bible At winter shows in Tampa, Florida, the Ringling Brothers Company sold a ten-cent promotional booklet, Magazine of Wonders and Daily Review. In 1914, circus goers in this 'Golden Age' of tent shows (Culhane 1990:16382) were told that their ten cents bought them a 'magazine of marvels, program of the arena, guide to the menagerie', and general information on 'How To Enjoy [the] Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows'. As if these claims were not sufficiently enticing, a full color scene of biblical opulence lured customers a little further into the big tent. And a banner across the top of the page trumpeted, 'The Stupendous Historic Bible Spectacle, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba'. Despite the front cover billing, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba had to share the ring with America's 'Circus Kings': Otto, Alfred, Charles, John and Al Ringling (Culhane 1990:145-201). The Magazine of Wonders represented the five as ideal, typical 'Americans'. Both their life story—written as a single protagonist morality tale—and the huge entertainment business they created were offered as inspirational examples of benevolent capitalist enterprise. Sons of German immigrant parents, the brothers lived by a Bible-based morality (some competitors dubbed their circus the 'Sunday school show'). They were ambitious and patriotic, and made the most of opportunities implicitly accepted as available to all. They were models of capitalist rationality and masters of managerial discipline. They worked with single-minded devotion to their dreams. And they gained fame and fortune, starting from nothing.

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Figure 3. The Queen of Sheba before Solomon. Ringling Brothers' World's Greatest Shows, Program Booklet, Front Cover. The Strobridge Lithograph Co., 1914.

Like many nineteenth-century histories of public figures, the Ringling brothers' story amounted to a national biography set in a land of abundant biblical consciousness and vested with perduring symbols of American identity. Each of these men might indeed be a 'circus king', but each was a man of wealth and standing that any ordinary American, at least one favored by the social biases of law and custom of the time, could dream of becoming. Crafted out of legend and idealized episodes, and shorn of haphazard detail, the 'authentic biography' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 1) is a didactic tale of agonistic triumph. When they founded their show in 1884, asserted the narrator, refusing them individual names, the brothers possessed little except imagination and boundless determination. They 'knew not the meaning of the word fail'. They ignored 'the power of all difficulties, and by seeking to overcome them, they vanquished every vestige of hard luck and made disadvantages turn to their favor' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 6). Their


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lives, asserted the narrator, illustrated 'the surpassing advantage of our great country—our glorious land of golden opportunity'. Moreover, the brothers are exemplars of a capitalist and Protestant work ethic, for their moral worth comes through industriousness and achievement. They mark out the unbounded possibility of every American. Their story has a 'replica in the history of many men who have won fortune from small beginnings and gained fame through achievements which mark them as worthy, above all their fellows, to be examples for others to emulate' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 1-2). Just as the Ringling Brothers mirrored a mythic image of America from the inside, so to speak, as individualism and personal achievement, so the shows they created mirrored a certain public, national image of America. Following the Spanish American War, the United States was often thought of as a youthful player, endowed with special character, striding at last onto the stage of older nations and destined to play the leading role. The Ringling Brothers circus, wrote the biographer, is 'the typical American amusement'. It has 'the nervous energy, tremendous growth and imposing features that savor of the soil, and [it] has lifted into greater importance than all the other worlds the newest continent, America' (Ringling Brothers 1914:26). Like conquering heroes, the Ringling brothers earned the 'appreciation of the public', which 'amply rewarded this foremost American exhibition for its enterprise, courage and prodigal investment'. In short, the logic of capitalism worked, aided by aggressive marketing, monopolistic practices and control of labor that were typical of businesses as yet unrestrained by government regulation (Weeks 1993:14). As the official biographer admiringly put the matter: the 'World's Greatest Shows' were 'alone in prodigious size, splendid equipment, modern invention, popular esteem and supreme success' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 28). Remarkably, the circus animals joined this public acclamation and, moreover, testified to the upright moral character of their keepers. Readers were told that the 'monarchs' of the animal kingdom—the 'lordly' lion, the 'formidable' Bengal tiger, the elephant of extraordinary 'sagacity', all dwell contentedly under the benign care of the circus kings (Ringling Brothers 1914: 16-18). Workers and performers were also among this admiring company of loyal subjects, living 'in the open while the fields and trees are green and the skies are distilling health for all nature'. Traveling together, the many husbands, wives, sons, daughters, uncles and aunts radiate domesticity and

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family strength. Performers grow up to be 'splendid specimens of manhood and womanhood', as circus patrons could see for themselves in two full-page photographs of female performers, said to be 'some of the healthiest, best developed, and most beautiful women in America' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 16D, 16E). These workers make their 'well equipped and cozy Pullman train' bloom 'cheerily with a genuine domestic pride'. Outside the home, they enjoy social clubs, sewing bees, care by a 'skilled physician' and healthy meals prepared by seventy workers in a sanitary 'canvas hotel' (Ringling Brothers 1914:29-31). In brief, the 'Circus Kings' cared mightily for their workers, at least in this version of successful capitalist triumph, which was on display as much as the elephants and horseback acrobats. Should show goers have required still more reassurance, the narrator added that management had taken stringent measures to rid the circus of 'fakirs and thugs', those 'hungry hordes of dishonest camp followers' who often prey upon the public. Thanks to a 'corps of efficient detectives' the show grounds are free of this 'long persisted in abuse of the public's rights' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 8). Patrons would discover a family show (profanity was banned along with charlatans) and wholesome entertainment. Despite the dubious reputation of tent shows, audiences might have taken the promoter's pitch. Perhaps they welcomed the performers as socially acceptable, ordinary neighbors and, just as importantly, show business as benign and quintessentially American. Some of those able to build winter mansions in Florida and buy the luxury Pierce-Arrow and Haynes automobiles advertised in the program booklet might also have taken comfort in assuming for themselves such populist generosity. Worked into the design of this unfurled flag of idealized big-owner capitalist America was the biblical pageant, a fairly common feature of nineteenth-century popular entertainment. As early as 1850, P.T. Barnum offered biblical dramas and versions of Christianity in a lecture hall annex built alongside his American Museum in New York City. The pious attractions balanced the sensationalist exhibits of the museum and underwrote Barnum's efforts to cultivate an audience among middle-class families who believed in the supreme values of Christianity, temperance, domesticity, entrepreneurship and whiteness (Adams 1997:75-163; McConachie 1992: 164-69; Allen 1991: 63-65). The Ringling Brothers added 'Orientalism', that European and North American invention of the East as a place of romanticized beauty and attractive decadence, available for penetration, display and subjugation (Ackerman 1994; Kleitz 1988; Said 1978).


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The Ringling version, the 'stupendous historic Bible spectacle', was an extravagant fantasy of opulence, a pageant of exotic despots who were, like the Queen of Sheba, suffused by the dark 'mysticisms of [their] desert kingdoms'. The program booklet proclaimed the 'magnificence of the gatherings, the regal pomp of the ceremonies, the brilliant settings, the vast procession of horses, camels, and people, the wonderful festivals' that awaited circus goers. The show required a 'cast of 1,250 characters, 600 horses, 300 dancing girls, grand opera chorus and [a] trainload of special scenery, costumes, properties and stage effects' costing about 1 million dollars annually (Ringling Brothers 1914: 16B and 31). The extravagant production consisted of five scenes, all performed in pantomime. Actions 1 and 2 dramatized Solomon's judgment between two women, each claiming to be the mother of a single child (1 Kgs 3). Actions 3-5 reenacted the visit by the Queen of Sheba to Solomon's court (1 Kgs 10; 2 Chron. 9). The printed libretto and commentary helped patrons understand the action while assuring them that the spectacle gave 'the closest possible attention to historic [biblical] accuracy' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 16B). Nevertheless, producers admitted, they had allowed some slight alterations of the biblical accounts, but only where necessary for dramatic effect. Spectacular effect, of course, was the point, even before the show began. The mannerist painting reproduced in full color on the cover of the program booklet suggested the wondrous exhibition awaiting show goers who ventured inside the tent (Fig. 3). The Queen of Sheba (the libretto gives her the name Balkis) stands before King Solomon in the immense 'Great Judgement Hall', surrounded by symbols of extravagant wealth. Both a peer and subservient petitioner, the Queen approaches King Solomon with dignified deference, surrounded by gift bearers and servants, gesturing as she speaks, but occupying a somewhat lower and socially diminished space before the king. As the show proceeded, the libretto reinforced what the action would have made clear, that neither the Queen's fabulous riches nor the hard questions with which she meant to test Solomon's sagacity could overcome the king's natural (and male?) superiority. Portrayed to the audience as godly and benevolent (there are no royal misdeeds in this theatrical Bible/bible) and 'possessed of Wisdom, Riches and Honor beyond all compare' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 12), Solomon simply overwhelms the Queen in this competition of wit and wealth. He cleverly answers 'the most difficult questions of the age' and gives Balkis a necklace 'made up of stones a hundred

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times more costly than all the Queen's gifts combined'. Not content with this victory, Solomon summons an enormous display of pomp and ceremony, which ends with a frenzied dance. The librettist wrote of a 'vast, swirling bejeweled throng of fairy-like dancing girls' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 16D). However, an artist imagined titillating ranks of chorus lines, each dancer kicking and strutting in her jewels and off-the-shoulder gowns, swirling her gossamer veils and showing lots of leg. Show goers were to take these celebrations as 'final proof of the enormity of [Solomon's] wealth and the multiplicity of his genius' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 16D). Might they have associated this proof with the Ringling Brothers as well? As the biblical pageant lionized Solomon, so the 'authentic biography' of the circus kings trumpeted the immigrant brothers. As the spectacle lavishly displayed Solomon's wealth and genius, so the biography of the Ringling brothers exhibited individual acumen, entrepreneurial ambition and profuse affluence. If Solomon were to be admired, how much more so the brothers and their capitalist success? Similarly the reenactment of Solomon's judgment between two women, each of whom claimed a child as her own (1 Kgs 3), made a show of extravagant wealth and shrewd intelligence. These scenes, which preceded the Queen's arrival at court, glorified Solomon and the power of his genius. They also reaffirmed Victorian notions of true womanhood (Smith-Rosenberg 1985; Melendy 1903). The librettist pointedly made one of the petitioners the perfection of selfless motherhood, and the other a paragon of heartless impiety. Complicating this moralistic construct were the dancers of Solomon's court who in both segments of the spectacle seemed rather less images of domesticity (the true woman) than socially acceptable specters of heterosexual male, beyond-the-home desire. As the drama develops, each woman claims that the living child held by the 'captain of the [royal] guard' is hers. The librettist built dramatic tension, as if the story were new to each member of the audience. How will the king determine the real mother? 'Here is a problem which must surely be beyond even the Wisdom of Solomon.' Yet no one could have mistaken the imposter for the rightful mother, for one of the women is said to be 'filled with humility and bent with grief, and the other 'silent and impudent of mein'. Moments later, when Solomon issues his order to divide the baby with the sword, the librettist explained that the 'true mother utters a piercing cry, calling out in her anguish'. The other woman remains 'unmoved by the terrible judgment' (Ringling Brothers 1914:14). Translating these characterizations into bodily postures, an illustrator


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Figure 4. Dancers perform before Solomon. Ringling Brothers' World's Greatest Shows, Program Booklet, p. 14.

Figure 5. Solomon's Judgment. Ringling Brothers' World's Greatest Shows, Program Booklet, p. 16.

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portrayed one woman on her knees, arms outstretched toward Solomon (or perhaps God in heaven) in pleading anguish. The other stands nearby, her chin lifted in defiance, eyes fixed on some distant inspiration for her resolve, her arms crossed in adamant indifference. Of course, true motherhood and the rightful mother were obvious for all to see. Palace guards lead the imposter away. Perhaps she is to be punished as much for her deception as for her betrayal of the character traits and social roles prescribed for her sex. To 'break tension' and to celebrate the triumph, explained the librettist, the assembled crowd shouted its approval while 'court entertainers advanced toward the throne [to] engage in a series of marches and graceful poses' (Ringling Brothers 1914: 14). Retrospective Like the Buckeye Bible/bible, the Ringling Brothers' pageant was an ephemeral moment of what Exum and Moore called unceasing 'mutual redefinition'. Spectacle defined the written Bible, even as the latter took form and life in performance. In this sense, both the advertising card and the circus program booklet are material vestiges of interactive social realities. While affirming and promoting specific cultural values, both artifacts imply rhetoric and action, the holy persuasions and lived responses that would have created Bible/bibles and enlivened narratives of American identity. Reinventing an older Puritan discourse of prophecy, the 1888 Buckeye Bible/bible aligned the language of Canaan with an industrialized America that was secure in its manifest destiny to rule a continent and inhabit a promised land of capitalist production, democratic electioneering, and uncharted expansionism. A generation later, the Ringling Brothers' Bible/bible blessed such a lordly people, the models of capitalist achievement and inspiration, even as it appealed to its middle-class family audience and affirmed the permitted range of sexual fantasy: virtuous mother-wives and music hall dancers. These Bible/bibles added their voices to the enduring notions of American identity. The mythic themes were quite undisturbed by tensions around race, rising anti-immigrant feeling, labor troubles and the increasingly active progressive movements of the time. Upright, patriotic and hardworking folk—at least those included in the narrative of innocence—could imagine themselves attaining the life of kings in a land where there are only presidents. Or they might take up projects of an expansionist spirit—


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buying or making hay binders, for example—in ever recurring Canaans. Either way, a person could become what cultural myths always authorize: the true, the essential, the eternal. Bibliography Ackerman, Gerald 1994 American Orientalists (Paris: ACR). Adam, A.K.M. (ed.) 2000 Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation (St Louis, MO: Chalice Press). Adams, Bluford 1997 E Pluribus Barnum: The Great Showman and Popular Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota). Aichele, George 2000 Culture, Entertainment and the Bible (JSOTSup, 309; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Aichele, George, and Tina Pippin (eds.) 1997 The Monstrous and the Unspeakable: The Bible as Fantastic Literature (Playing the Texts, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Allen, Robert C. 1991 Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press). Barton, George 1904 A Year's Wandering in Bible Lands (Philadelphia: Ferris & Leach). Bercovitch, Sacvan 1975 The Puritan Origins of the American Self (New Haven: Yale University Press). 1978 The American Jeremiad (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press). 1983 'The Biblical Basis of the American Myth', in Giles Gunn (ed.), The Bible and American Arts and Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress Press; Chico, CA: Scholars Press): 219-29. Boer, Roland 1999 Knockin' on Heaven's Door: The Bible and Popular Culture (London: Routledge). Culhane, John 1990 The American Circus: An Illustrated History (New York: Henry Holt). Davis, Lottie, and Moshe Davis 1954 Land of our Fathers: Guide to Map of Biblical Names in America (New York: Associated American Artists). Davis, Moshe 1995 'Biblical Place Names in America', in idem, With Eyes toward Zion. IV. America and the Holy Land (Westport, CT: Praeger): 135-46. DeHass, Frank S. 1882 Buried Cities Recovered, or, Explorations in Bible Lands (Philadelphia: J. W. Bradley, 5th edn).

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Dwight, Timothy 1785 The Conquest of Canaan: A Poem in Eleven Books (Hartford, CT: E. Babcock). Exum, J. Cheryl, and Stephen D. Moore (eds.) 1998 Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium (JSOTSup, 266; GCT, 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Faragher, John Mack 1992 Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (New York: Holt). Filson, John 2001 The Discovery, Settlement and Present State ofKentucke with an appendix 'The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon' (Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press [1784]). Harby, Clifton 1936 The Bible in Art: Twenty Centuries of Famous Bible Paintings (New York: Covici Friede). Hurlbut, Jesse Lyman, and Charles Foster Kent 1914 Palestine through the Stereoscope (New York: Underwood and Underwood). Kleitz, Dorsey R. 1988 'Orientalism and the American Romantic Imagination' (PhD dissertation, University of New Hampshire). Landow, George P. 1980 Victorian Types, Victorian Shadows: Biblical Typology in Victorian Literature, Art, and Thought (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul). 1992 'Pisgah Sight', in David L. Jeffrey (ed.), A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans): 616-17. Levine, Samuel 1977 'Palestine in the Literature of the United States to 1867', in Isidore S. Meyer (ed.), Early History of Zionism in America (New York: Arno Press [1958]): 21-38. Long, Burke O. 2000 'Scholarship', in Adam 2000: 227-32. Mason, Lowance, Jr 1969 'Typology and the New England Way: Cotton Mather and the Exegesis of Biblical Types', Early American Literature 4.1:15-37. McConachie, Bruce A. 1992 Melodramatic Formations: American Theater and Society, 1820-1870 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press). Melendy, Mary R. 1903 Perfect Womanhood for Maidens-Wives-Mothers: A Book Giving Full Information on all the Mysterious and Complex Matters Pertaining to Women (Chicago: Monarch). Mitchell, Susan 1984 'Boone', in Jack Meyer and Roger Weingarten (eds.), New American Poets of the 80s (Green Harbor, MA: Wampeter Press): 222-23. Moore, Stephen D. 1996 God's Gym: Divine Male Bodies of the Bible (London and New York: Routledge).


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Moore, Stephen D. (ed.) 1998 In Search of the Present: The Bible through Cultural Studies (Semeia, 82; Atlanta: Scholars Press). Morrison, Michael A. 2001 'Manifest Destiny', in Paul Finkelman (ed.), Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century (3 vols.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons): II, 248-52. Nebenzahl, Kenneth 1986 Maps of the Holy Land: Images o/Terra Sancta through Two Millennia (New York: Abbeville Press). Noll, Mark A. 1982 'The Image of the United States as a Biblical Nation, 1776-1865', in Nathan O. Hatch and Mark A. Noll (eds.), The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press): 39-58. Norton, Frank 1883 The Days of Daniel Boone: A Romance of 'the dark and bloody ground'(New York: American News Company). Piccirillo, Michele 1992 'Nebo, Mount', ABD, IV, 1056-58. Ringling Brothers 1914 How to See and Enjoy Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows (Buffalo, NY: The Courier Co.). Robinson, Edward, and Eli Smith 1868 Biblical Researches in Palestine and in the Adjacent Regions: A Journal of Travels in the Year 1838 (2 vols.; Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 3rd edn). Said, Edward 1978 Orientalism (New York: Vintage). Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll 1985 Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf). Strother, David Hunter 1857 Virginia Illustrated, Containing a Visit to the Virginian Canaan and the Adventures of Porte Crayon and His Cousins (New York: Harper and Bros.). Sweeney, J. Gray 1992 The Columbus of the Woods: Daniel Boone and the Typology of Manifest Destiny. An Exhibition Commemorating the Colombian Quincentenary (St Louis, MO: Washington University Gallery of Art). Weeks, David C. 1993 Ringling: The Florida Years, 1911-1936 (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press). Weinberg, Albert K. 1935 Manifest Destiny: A Study ofNationalist Expansionism in A merican History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press).

MAN AND WOMAN: TOWARD A THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Patrick D. Miller

The opening chapters of Genesis have played a large part in the history of Christian doctrine, particularly at the point of developing a theological anthropology. That has been especially the case in regard to the matter of the imago del and the 'fall' or the question of the origin and nature of sin. I would suggest, however, that the larger anthropological matters in these chapters have to do with the community of man and woman and the interface of humanity with the natural world, but more particularly with the earth.1 The Community of Man and Woman In the first of the creation stories (Gen. l.l-2.4a), the culmination of God's creative acts is the forming of human beings. Very little is said in that context about the human creature. Only two things—the human being is made in the image of God and is male and female. The ramifications of that are large for theological anthropology, for the doctrine of the human. For it is precisely creation of humanity as man and woman and as woman and man in community that is the climax of the story of God's creative work. The story is not indifferent to humanity's being comprised of two genders. It specifically sets that to the forefront, but without elaboration, when it tells of the final creative act of God. Despite the fairly common reading of the account as indicating a general notion of relationship or even a concept of sociability, it is much more specific than that. Maleness and femaleness, whatever that may consist of—and one notes the story does not 1. This essay represents a return to the subject matter of an earlier piece (Miller 1978) but with a more theological intent. That is, the essay may be understood as a piece of theological exegesis or exegetical theology. Its presence in this volume is a small expression of my esteem for its honoree as scholar, teacher and editor and, even more, of my gratitude for his friendship through the years.

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seek to spell that out at all—are not hidden or even secondary in the creative purpose. They are prominent. Furthermore, it is not the man by himself or the woman by herself. That is, it is not woman and man separate or individually or as distinct but separate genders. It is women and men in community to whom the divine blessing and the human task are given. Once the declaration is made that it is as man and as woman that God has created human beings, then the story speaks of them only in the plural: 'Let them have dominion (male and female)...' And God blessed them (man and woman) and God said to them (female and male): 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it (man and woman together) and have dominion (woman and man) over the fish of the sea, etc....' and God said, 'Behold I have given you (male and female) every plant... you (man and woman) shall have them for food'.

This community of woman and man is where the image of God is represented according to the parallelism of the tricolon in Gen. 1.27. The image is clearly a ruling function in this text as indicated first in v. 26. The purpose of creating 'adam in the image of God is that the human creature may rule the earth. That purpose is further indicated in the contextual fact of the way that images of kings were set up in different places to represent the rule of the king in those places. The image identifies who rules there. God's rule of the creation is through the divine image bearer. But that divine image bearer, and thus the ruler of creation, is man and woman together. Not only is there no subordination of the woman in this account, but she is specifically given a ruling task along with the man.2 In the divine blessing that follows immediately upon the creation of human life as man and woman, three things are present: (1) One is procreation to bring about humanity on the earth, though this is probably to be understood quite specifically in relation to the creation of nations and communities (see, e.g., Gen. 17.20 [Ishmael and the Arabs]; 35.11; 47.27; Exod. 1.7 [Jacob and the Israelites]).3 That is, the procreative dimension is also a culture-creating activity as well as a biological one. (2) Another part of the blessing is the provision of the fruit of the earth as food for its creatures. The relation of woman and man as the human creatures is thus more complex. The biological dimension with its procreating possibilities for growth 2. On the character of this ruling activity, see Brueggemann 1969. 3. See in this regard the argument of Norbert Lohfink (1982:176-78) that the word for 'subdue' in Gen 1.28 (kabas) may be seen in relation to the peoples' taking possession of their territories, as at the end of the Priestly literature in Josh. 18.1 with reference to Israel.

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is clearly a facet of this relation and a significant dimension, but it is only one. Man and woman are also joined together as a community of need who live by divine providence. (3) Finally—and it would seem most important because it is a part of the expressed divine intention prior to the act of creating man and woman (Gen. 1.26)—is the divine assignment of the human task: the ordering and care of the earth, which is what the image of God is all about, belongs to the community of women and men. The story assumes from the start that it is together and only together that the human responsibilities for filling the earth with peoples and ruling the earth and its creatures, that is, the tasks that belong to our very being as God's creatures, can be carried out. The human story starts that way and cannot be read or lived as if this beginning is not true in the deepest sense. It is out of this creative intention of God that all the proper notions of cooperation, mutuality and complementarity between men and women flow forth. Underscoring the above analysis of the text is the fact that the focus upon woman and man in relation to each other and to God is continued immediately in the next episode of the story, Genesis 2 and 3. Here the narrative form makes man and woman the primal couple. There are some features of that story that are quite important for thinking about the community of men and women. 1. The divine reflection, 'It is not good that the creature should be alone' (Gen. 2.18), lifts up the relationship between man and woman as God's intention in the creation. Human loneliness and isolation are not a part of God's plan, and the primary form of companionship and relationship in the creation is that of woman and man. Furthermore the relationship and companionship between woman and man is distinctive and fulfilling in a way that is not the case between woman/man and other parts of the created order. Genesis 2 tells of the creation of the animals as an outcome of the divine judgment that it is not good for ha 'adam to be alone, but that outcome is insufficient for the fundamental companionship that belongs to human existence. Nor does the Yahwistic story identify the creation of woman as for the purpose of procreation. Companionship and sexual union (2.24) are what the story focuses on in its account of the creation of the woman to join the man. Procreation, which is part of the blessing of God upon the man and woman in Genesis 1, comes into the Yahwistic story but is not at the center of the divine intentionality. 2. The mutuality and complementarity of male and female is accented in the clear indication that woman and man need each other ('a helper as his partner', Gen. 2.18). Coming together in community, whether in the intimacy of a loving relationship or in other more extended ways is not redu-


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cible to biological urges and marriage, though that is certainly part of being man and woman and the Bible affirms both. Nor is it due to the accidents of proximity, but because we find we need each other and our wholeness is in some sense achieved in the relation of women and men. As many have noted, the expression 'a helper as his partner' does not imply subordination, for in the Old Testament the term 'helper', often applied to God, refers to the person in superior position, able because of greater strength, and the like, to 'help' the other person. The expression kenegdo, 'corresponding to it', indicates precisely what it means: a correspondence or shared identity, mutuality and equality (Trible 1978: 90). 3. The expression 'bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh' (Gen. 2.23) is a covenantal formula suggesting solidarity in weakness and strength, as Brueggemann (1970) has demonstrated in a careful study of this formula in the Old Testament.4 While it is commonly taken that the 'help' is either a serving responsibility, which is not the case, or simply a generalized assistance, it is reasonable to presume with Brueggemann that the 'help' provided by the woman for the man is in the assignment that has been given to the man, that is, to work and watch over the garden. The solidarity and mutuality implicit in the covenantal formula have to do with solidarity in the human task, the care of the garden (and later the ground, Gen. 3.23), a shared responsibility comparable to that articulated in the Priestly account in Genesis 1.5 4. While the story in Genesis 2-3 shows reflexes of the patriarchal context in which it took shape, for example, 'the man and his wife', in various ways the story shows at one time the man and at another time the woman as the attracting center or the initiator of action: male—woman made out of the rib from man female—man leaves his place and security to cleave to his wife female—woman initiates the conversation with the snake and eating the fruit male—one of the results of the sin and judgment is man's rule over his wife.

4. 'The key phrase about the relationship in 2.23a is a covenantal formula which does not speak about derivation in a biological sense but means to speak about commonality of concern, loyalty, and responsibility.' Brueggemann's analysis is consistent with the above discussion in that he argues that the three main dimensions of this part of the story are the need for a mate, the affirmation of finding a partner and the implication of this new partnership. 5. On the way in which the taking of the woman from the rib of ha 'adorn indicates

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5. The judgment 'to your husband shall be your desire, but he shall rule over you (the woman)' has caused much trouble for women and ultimately has had devastating effects on the community of men and women. A couple of things need to be said about that. (a) This is not divine creative intention but the outcome of human sin and divine judgment. (b) In most cases, the human community seeks to overcome the results of its sinful actions. That is no less the case here. This rule of man over woman and husband over wife is bracketed by two other statements of sinful results: the painful toil and labor of child-bearing and the painful toil and labor of earning a living. In both of these other cases, the human community has done all it can to overcome these negative dimensions of the human condition. And indeed the whole biblical story is oriented toward an overcoming of that final result of human sinfulness—death. The corollary of that history is that male dominance and female submission are to be struggled against as vigorously as human beings struggle to make human work less toilsome and child-bearing safer and less painful. In none of these cases has the human race overcome the punishing outcome, but it surely is going to keep trying. (c) The Bible itself proffers a counter word about the nature of this relationship in the Song of Songs. The expression 'your/its desire (fsuqa) is for...' is an unusual one in the Bible, occurring only three times, twice in this story with regard to the woman's desire for her husband that ends up in male dominance and in Gen. 4.7 where the desire of sin is for Cain but he is unable to rule over it or dominate it. The only other occurrence of this idiom is in the description of the relationship between the two lovers in Song of Songs. But there the 'desire' (fsuqa) is that of the male lover for his beloved, the woman. This desire that carries with it no implication of rule or dominance is then completed by the references to the mutual desire of the woman and the man, though without the technical term that appears in Genesis 3-4 (2.16; 6.3). As Ellen Davis has noted, this is an intentional echo and reversal of 'the sad ending of the idyll in Eden. No longer, the poem declares, are desire and power unequally distributed between woman and man' (Davis 2001: 72).6 both continuity and discontinuity but no more subordination of the former to the latter than is implied in the 'taking' ofha'ddam from the ground, see Trible 1978: 94-102. 6. Davis comments with regard to the author's frequent allusion to other biblical texts and phrases: 'It is her (?) habit to take old words from the religious tradition and set them in new contexts, where they acquire fresh associations. She is consciously


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6. Finally, the story describes a primal breach in the relationship of human and God, and there, too, woman and man are together. It is not so much a question of who acted first, or who is the active, inquiring, aggressive one—surely the woman in this primal story—or who is the passive, acquiescing one—surely the man. It is rather that man and woman are in this from start to finish together. They are both prohibited from eating the fruit; they both eat the fruit and thus disobey. Together they see their nakedness and together they try to do something about their new plight. They both pass the buck when confronted by God. With both man and woman, God deals mercifully in providing clothes to cover nakedness. The story of the garden as a story of the beginning of the human race makes clear that our life and death are with each other, as woman and man in relationship. It does not ascribe certain characteristics to man or woman. It does not place one or the other totally controlling the relationship. It does not see one as more sinful or more punished than the other. We are in this as woman and man together, and together we live, together we blow it, together we work to overcome the effects, together we are treated mercifully. Human Beings and the Earth The image of God is a particular dimension of this matter, but as most interpreters of these texts have recognized, the divine image has less to do with some inherent nature of human being and more with the role of the human being vis-a-vis the natural world. That is, the image is a representative one more than it is an indicator of some innate aspect of human life. In the Mesopotamian context, the king was the image of the god and so represented the deity's rule in the particular place where the king ruled. In the biblical literature, that representative rule has been democratized and universalized. The image points to the responsibility for dominion over the earth and its fullness. Thus the imago Dei is clearly not a nature but a role, not a characteristic but a responsibility (cf. Psalm 8), the rule of the earth and its creatures. rereading the tradition, at the same time creating a continuation and a turning point in that tradition. She is witnessing to the new possibility that she sees God creating with this man and this woman' (72). See also Trible's discussion of the interplay of the Song and Genesis 2-3 (Trible 1978: 144-65) and specifically her comment with regard to the repetition of this phrase: 'Another consequence of disobedience is thus redeemed through the recovery of mutuality in the garden of eroticism' (160).

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That such a rule of the earth is complex and not simple and assumes all kinds of interdependencies between the human creatures and the earth is demonstrated by the degree to which the history of humanity in its primeval story is an interpretation of humanity's relationship to the earth and the soil, a point scored by both parts of the creation story, the Priestly and the Yahwist.7 In Genesis 1 the relationship is articulated in relation to 'the earth' (ha'ares). All three parts of the divine assignment/blessing have to do with the relation of the man and woman community to 'the earth'. They together have the responsibility for 'filling it' and for 'ruling it'. But the earth also is the source of sustenance for both the human beings—and it is clear that one really cannot talk about anthropology in terms of 'man' but only in terms of man and woman and so must speak of human beings and not only of human being—and the animate creatures of the earth. At this point, things are more complex in that such providence, effected by God's good creation in behalf of the sustenance of man and woman, is shared with the other sensate creatures. There is a complicated interdependency that is evidenced in the ruling responsibility of the man and woman and the provision that is shared by man and woman and the different animal creatures of the earth.8 One may presume that at least a dimension of the ruling responsibility is a caring for and ordering of the earth, that is, the man and woman's responsibility to see that this shared interface with 'the earth' and its produce is possible and works. But there is a tension here. The provision of sustenance is a differentiated gift to all the sensate beings that God has made and not a part of a hierarchical order. What the man and woman do in their rule of the animal world does not involve appropriation of or control over the provision that God has 'given' to the animal world. The Lord says, in effect: 'See, I give you this and the animals that' (Gen. 1.29-31). The interdependency of the creation and the human creature, implicitly understood as man and woman, is echoed in Psalm 104, though without the notions of dominion or rule that are explicit in Genesis 1 and without the differentiated understanding of the human as man and woman. The sense of the shared creation and the provision for life as a part of the creative work of God is developed in an even more elaborated way there as the poem speaks of providing place for all the animals (e.g. w. 16-18), time for animals and humans to do their work of finding food (e.g. vv. 19-23) 7. Thus the 'yes, but' playing off of the Priestly and Yahwist creation accounts is unnecessary, as Michael Welker has vigorously argued on other grounds (1999:61-64). 8. See in this regard the discussion of Welker 1999: 70-73.


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and a differentiated provision of food for the animal world and for the human world (though these are not formulated in the same way in Genesis 1 and the Psalm). The responsibility of the human creature for caring for the earth, ordering it and making it work is implicit in the way that the human provision is described in Psalm 104. For while the provision for the animals is grass and herbage (and, of course, water), the human provision is not grain and grapes and olive trees but bread and wine and oil, products of culture, of human activity. In the Yahwist's account in Genesis 2-4, the complicated interdependency and interaction of the human creature with the earth is developed in a different and more narrative fashion. This point is obvious in the wordplay between 'adam and >adamd, 'human being' and 'ground'. But it goes much further than that. The account of creation, of life under God and rebellion against God, of creaturely existence, of sin and judgment, of human vocation and community is a story of the intricate relationship between 'adam and >adamd. The pre-creation state is when there is no 'adam to till the >adamd. 'adam is taken or created from the >adamd and in death returns to the >adamd. 'adam's vocation is to work the >adamd even when sent from the garden. From the >adamd comes the sustenance of human life. When 'adam sins, the earth is also affected; the consequences involve the natural order, the ground, and humanity's involvement. And the relief that is given to human existence under the judgment of toilsome labor is given by an 'is ha 'adamd, a man of the soil, Noah, who by his name is seen to be the one who provides relief from the work: 'Out of the ground (ha 'adamd) which the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands' (5.29). The evidence for this complex interdependency is even more substantial than the above summary indicates. This is sufficient, however, to suggest that in multiple ways human existence exercises its dominion over the natural world at the same time that it is related to that world in origination, vocation and destiny. Hierarchical relationship is a facet but not the whole.9 9. The play on >adamd and 'adam forces the discussion around the one designated 'adam, but the way in which that term moves back and forth from its reference to the male to its reference to the human being as both male and female (particularly in the expression ben 'adam) and the covenantal, helping relationship between the woman and the man indicate that the term resists a simple designation with reference to the male. That is further confirmed by the different ways in which the connections clearly involve both the man and the woman even when the story distinguishes between them (taken out of the >adamd and returning to the >adamd, sent from the '"damd to work the

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Insofar as Christian anthropology attends to and takes its cues from Genesis 1-11, a rich source, it requires at its center an understanding of the human as oriented around both the differentiation of man and woman as well as the complex but highly productive and dangerous interdependencies of men and women and the interdependencies—hierarchical, providential and otherwise—of man and woman with the earth/ground and with the creatures who also inhabit it. Bibliography Brueggemann, Walter 1969 'King in the Kingdom of Things', Christian Century 86: 1165-66. 1970 'Of the Same Flesh and Bone [Gn 2, 23a]', CBQ 32: 532-42. Davis, Ellen 2001 Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament (Cambridge: Cowley Publications). Lohfink, Norbert 1982 'Growth: The Priestly Document and the Limits of Growth', in Great Themes from the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark): 167-82. Miller, Patrick D. 1978 Genesis 1-11: Studies in Structure and Theme (JSOTSup, 8; Sheffield: JSOT Press). Trible, Phyllis 1978 God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (OBT; Philadelphia: Fortress Press). Welker, Michael 1999 Creation and Reality (Minneapolis: Fortress Press).

'"darna). The role distinctions arise in the breakdown of the human enterprise and the judgments that are placed on man and woman. They are not placed as central to the relationship as God created man and woman. For more detailed elaboration of the interplay of >adamd and 'adam, see Miller 1978: 37-42.

THE REBEL IN BIBLE LANDS* Johannes C. de Moor

1. Introduction All innovation starts as rebellion. A politician advocates radical change and succeeds in convincing the electorate that a new type of society should be founded. A heretic challenges the authority of the Pope and succeeds in founding a new church that appeals to the masses. A scientist dissatisfied with current theory develops a rival new model which eventually wins her a Nobel prize. A daughter modernizes her father's factory as soon as she becomes the managing director. A minority realizes that the ruling party is oppressing the nation and starts a successful revolution. Initially such challenging acts meet with disbelief, mockery, indignation, or even merciless repression. The perpetrators are depicted as rebels who are endangering the very framework of the existing order. Yet their efforts and sacrifices are the motor of progress in history. This paper will try to demonstrate that this has been the case from the earliest recorded times on. It is meant as a small tribute to a great rebel in the field of biblical scholarship, an inspiring innovator who has thoroughly transformed our methods and premises: David Clines. 2. Rebellion in the Family The break-down of family ties was seen as the ultimate, almost apocalyptic disaster that could befall a society. From this perspective a rebellion threatening the harmonious life of a family was seen as utterly undesirable (see e.g. Barta 1975-76: 57; van der Toorn 1985: 14-15, 60; Lambert 1989; Fechter 1998: 287-305). If it occurred nevertheless, there was a clear tendency to hush up the unfortunate incident. Disruption of family ties was Thanks are due to Mrs J. Paans-Spoelstra who participated in the research for parts of this paper.

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tantamount to godlessness, as is indicated in the following speech of the evil god Erra in the Babylonian epic bearing his name: I shall so change men's hearts that father will not listen to son (And) daughter will talk to mother with hatred. I shall cause them to speak ill and they will forget their god (And) speak gross blasphemy to their goddess (Cagni 1974: 42,11. 9-12).

A similar description which was destined to inspire many an apocalyptist1 is found in Mic. 7.5-6: Put no trust in a neighbour, have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.

a. Wife against Husband In the patriarchal societies of the ancient Near East, a wife was supposed to obey her husband unquestioningly. Yet quarrels between couples will have been common enough. In the Hebrew book of Proverbs it is invariably the woman who is accused of having caused trouble, never the man (Prov. 21.9, 19; 25.24; 27.15). Whether or not such strife may have ended in tender reconciliation2 depended not so much on his willingness to forgive her as on his position in society. If he was a king, for example, a quarrel with the queen who had her own court and a certain amount of power might endanger his position. In Egypt several conspiracies against the ruling Pharaoh appear to have started in his harem (Desroches Noblecourt 1986: 113-25; Redford 2002). According to the Ugaritic text KTU 1.14.1.14 the first wife of King Kirtu of Khuburu rose against him.3 Because all his other wives died,4 it must be assumed that this first wife was 1. Cf. Reicke 1967: 359-60; Grelot 1986. Cf. Isa. 3.4-5; Jer. 12.6; Ezek. 22.7; Pss. 38.12; 41.10; 69.9; Job 19.13-19; G/U/wc. Ezra 3.12-13; 11QT 54.19-21; Mt. 10.3436; Lk. 12.51-53. 2. Cf. the Middle Babylonian version of the Myth of Nergal and Ereshkigal, 75-85 (Foster 1996: 416). 3. The verb is tb' which normally means 'to rise, to leave', but here probably 'to rebel' (cf. AHw, s.v. tebii(m) G 3.i). It is unlikely that this implies that she left her husband of her own accord, as some would have it, because that was allowed only if the husband had misbehaved badly, which would have made Kirtu guilty and therefore deserving the loss of his wife. This would run counter to the thrust of the story, which makes Kirtu a righteous sufferer. 4. A new reading based on a collation by J. Tropper (1995-96:269) now supports this interpretation.

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executed because of her temerity. A unique and tragic dossier from Ugarit confirms that a queen who behaved too independently and was suspected of licentious behaviour with friends and servants could be executed with the consent of all male parties concerned and without trial, even though initially her husband was inclined to forgive her.5 In none of the documents dealing with this case is the queen ever mentioned by name, so offensive did the men in power deem her behaviour, which is termed 'a great sin' (Moran 1959). b. Children against Parents In the authoritarian societies of the ancient world, which valued societal continuity above everything else, open rebellion against parents was almost unthinkable (Reinhold 2002: 3-6). Severe punishment awaited disobedient children. Corporal punishment was only the least. Rebellious children could be driven away from home, could be disowned, could be cursed with a death-curse, and in very serious cases might even be executed. It should be remembered that young adults fell under the category of 'children' in antiquity and that therefore the obligation of the stronger young to take care of the elderly was the main concern of those who demanded absolute obedience from the younger generation.6 Yet eagerness to assume power sometimes lured young men into rebellion against their fathers. A letter in the Mari archive suggests that a certain Sumu-Yamam murdered his father Yahdun-Lim but was himself murdered soon after by his own servants (Durand 1998: 409; but see also Grayson 1972: 27-28; Malamat 1998: 159). A similar drama occurred in Emar (Fales 1991: 84-86). Cases of princes murdering their father in the hope of succeeding him abound, one of the best-known being the slaying of Sennacherib (van der Kooij 2000: 113, 118, with earlier literature). A well-known example from Ugarit is the rebellion of crown-prince Yassubu against his ailing father Kirtu: Yassubu also returned to the palace. And his soul instructed him: 'Go to your father, Yassubu, go to your father and speak, 5. A fresh interpretation of these texts has been proposed by Marsman 2003: 663-71. 6. For all this, see e.g. Conrad 1970; Albertz 1978: 372; Loretz 1979; van der Toorn 1985: 13-15; Schottroff 1992; Otto 1994: 32-35; Feucht 1995: 184-93; Janssen and Janssen 1996; Stol and Vleeming 1998; Houtman 2000: 50-58.

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Reading from Right to Left repeat to the gr[acious lad of Ilu]: "Listen and let [your ear] be attentive! The most munificent you drive away, But the usurer you allow to stay!7 You have let your hand fall down in slackness: You do not judge the case of the widow, You do not try the case of the impatiently waiting. Ah! You are a brother of the bed of sickness, You are a companion of the bed of illness. Abdicate the kingship, let me be king! (Abdicate your) dominion, let me sit (on the throne)!"' (de Moor 1987: 221-22).

Kirtu refuses indignantly and curses his eldest son for his impudence: 'O son, Horonu8 break— Horonu break your head, (and) 'Athtartu, consort of Ba'lu, your skull! May you fall down at the height of your years, In the prime of your strength, and yet be humbled!' (de Moor 1987: 222-23).

The circumstance that a father could invoke divine help to execute his son for such a rebellious deed indicates that obedience towards parents was a religious duty. It has often been stated that the death penally that Deut. 21.18-21 requires for a rebellious son is without parallel in the ancient Near East—in other cultures less drastic punishment was the rule (e.g. Bellefontaine 1979; Marcus 1981; Dion 1993; Otto 1994: 35; Tigay 1996: 196). But it is always hazardous to argue from silence. In any case the Ugaritic example seems to suggest that the actual decision to kill a rebellious son was left to the deity, as is the case with Eli's sons in 1 Sam. 2.25 and with Absalom (cf. 2 Sam. 17.14). It may have been the intention of Deut. 21.18-21 to leave the decision to the judges who were supposed to act as representatives of the deity (cf. Gamper 1966). Just as the people invoke YHWH to prevent Saul from killing his disobedient son Jonathan (1 Sam. 14.29-30,45), so it may be assumed that the judges took into account mitigating circumstances. Whereas corrective beating of children and even cursing children was a right of parents, the reverse was not tolerated. In Israel, for example, it was stated, 'Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death' 7. 8.

Cf. de Moor 1973: 9\-92,pace Renfroe 1992: 37-41, 68-69. God of black magic, master of demons.


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(Exod. 21.15), and 'Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death' (Exod. 21.17; cf. Lev. 20.9). But here again it may be assumed that in many cases parents forgave their children, which may have moved the judges, often the 'elders' belonging to the same generation as the parents, to dismiss the complaint. In Babylonia incantations could achieve a release from cursing a parent (Reiner 1958: 26). It therefore comes as a surprise that in the standard version of the Epic ofGilgamesh (Vl.iii) a daughter, the goddess Ishtar, threatens her father Anu if he does not give her the Bull of Heaven to punish Gilgamesh who had scorned her invitation to make love with her. Similarly, the Ugaritic goddess ' Anatu repeatedly threatens to smash in the skull of her old father Ilu if he does not give in to her whims (KTU 1.3.V.23-25; 1.18.1.6-14; de Moor 1987: 17,241). On another occasion both she and her sister misbehave badly at a party thrown by their father Ilu (KTU 1.114; de Moor 1987: 135-36). Such behaviour is so extraordinary in ancient society that there must have been a special reason why the author of these Ugaritic literary works, the scribe Ilimilku, introduced the theme of the rebellious daughters into his works. Possibly he wanted to prepare his audience for the impendent demise of the old pair Ilu and Athiratu in favour of the young Ba'lu and 'Anatu/'Athtartu (de Moor 1997: 41-102; Korpel 1998: 105-11). A Hurrian-Hittite epic contains a parable about a bronze beaker that, after it had been finished, cursed its maker. A few lines at the end of the parable explain that the smith is a father and the beaker an irreverent son whom the gods have cursed because of his lack of respect (Neu 1996: 81, 83, 165-66; cf. Isa. 45.9-10). In Ugarit the duties of a son towards his father are clearly enumerated in the Legend of Aqhatu. The son has to take care of the ancestral cult, has to silence people uttering abuse against his father, has to support him when he is drunk, has to serve him at sacrificial meals in the temples, has to repair his father's roof and clean his equipment (Loretz 1979). The combination of cultic and other tasks would seem to indicate that filial duties were seen as a religious obligation. The fifth commandment of the Hebrew Decalogue unmistakably hints at the possibility of premature death as a divine sanction in the case of filial disobedience (Exod. 20.12; Deut. 5.16). Parents could set their children a bad example by not living in accordance with the law of God themselves (e.g. Pss. 78.8; 106.6; Jer. 2.5; 3.25; 11.20; 14.20; Ezek. 20.18). Both their bad and good deeds influenced God's behaviour towards later generations

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(Exod. 20.5-6; on these verses and related texts, cf. Houtman 2000: 2630). In other cultures of the ancient Near East the spirits of the deified ancestors actively participated in gatherings of the tribe or family and directly furthered (or endangered) their health and prosperity. The obligation to obey your parents did not stop when they had died. In Egypt the living children had the obligation to provide for their parents not only during their life but also long after they were dead. One of the most ardent wishes was to be re-united as a family in the Nether World. In many graves the owner piously declares that he has never given his parents occasion to complain about his behaviour. This made disobedience of children towards their parents almost a form of sacrilege in Egypt, even though an explicit divine commandment to love your parents is attested only as late as the Ptolemaic period (Feucht 1995: 135-43). In this way previous generations could mete out retaliation for rebellion on the part of the living children. The cult of the ancestors and the veneration of family gods was widely spread throughout the ancient Near East (van der Toorn 1996).9 In the Old Testament canon only vestiges of this ancestral cult remain (de Moor 1997:317-61). 3. Rebellion against a Ruler The life of a king was always threatened. Even in his own palace plots were frequently laid against him by rebelling parties and rivals. In this respect a king could trust nobody, not even his own wives (§2.a above), children (§2.b above) and personal servants. Because obviously the preparations for a coup were always shrouded in deep secrecy, kings sought to find out about possible conspiracies by consulting oracles (Oppenheim 1965: 113-15; Reiner 1984: 66,241). Kingship being the gift of the deities, it was only by divine intervention that a ruling monarch could be saved from the machinations of rebels (Parpola 1997: 27). Prayers were sent up and incantations recited to guarantee him this divine protection. Shalmaneser I prays to his gods before crushing rebelling countries with their help (Grayson 1972: 81, 83). His successor prays to subjugate the Shubarites who had rebelled against Shalmaneser I (Grayson 1972: 103). The myth of power dictated that the ruling king always enjoyed divine protection. Anyone opposing him was a sinner by definition (Oded 1992). Centuries later the Assyrian king Esarhaddon gives an elaborate description of

9.

Further bibliography: de Moor 1997: 320-21.


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how he quelled the revolt of those, including his own brothers, who refused to accept him as the legitimate successor of Sennacherib who had been murdered by two other sons. Esarhaddon calls his brothers rebels because they did not respect the decision of his father to appoint him, Esarhaddon, as his sole heir and because they had relied on their own strength instead of accepting the will of the great deities of Assyria (Borger 1956: 40-47). A good king was a 'trampler/conqueror of the rebellious' (e.g. Grayson 1972: 87, 92, 106, 109). Their subduing is represented as an an act of piety. Shalmaneser I throws the rebels 'at the feet of the goddess Ishtar, his mistress' (Grayson 1972:93). Those who rebel against Tukulti-Ninurta are hostile to the god Ashur (e.g. Grayson 1972:106,109,112,114). Insubmissive foes of Tiglath-Pileser I are crushed because they have withheld tribute from the god Ashur (Grayson 1976: 7). It is Ashur who commands him to pacify all the rebellious (Grayson 1976: 14). Sometimes a foreign ruler might deflect the wrath of the Assyrian king by placing the responsibility for the rebellion on others, like the king of Qumanu who handed over 300 families, 'rebels in his midst who were not submissive to the god Ashur' (Grayson 1976: 15). Ashur-nasir-apli II is able to break up the forces of the rebellious because he acts with the support of the great gods (Grayson 1976: 120). It would be easy to multiply examples. Official propaganda is always one-sided. The virtues of the Assyrian kings are extolled, their victories magnified, their losses minimized. What the rebel side achieved is always obscured and therefore it is often difficult to reconstruct the truth. It is only rarely that unofficial documents like letters allow us a somewhat more reliable view into what really happened, as in the case of the Nimrud letters about the insurrection of the Babylonian Ukin-zer against the Assyrians (Saggs 1955). The punishment the Assyrians imposed for rebellion was extremely cruel. When the inhabitants of the city of Suru deposed the Assyrian governor and appointed Ahi-yababa, 'a son of a nobody', as their king, Ashurnasir-apli II retaliated by taking the city back 'with the support of the gods Ashur and Adad' and setting a deterring example: I erected a pile in front of his gate; I flayed as many nobles as had rebelled against me (and) draped their skins over the pile; some I spread out within the pile, some I erected on stakes upon the pile. I flayed many right through my land (and) draped their skins over the walls. 1 slashed the flesh of the eunuchs (and) of the royal eunuchs who were guilty. I brought Ahi-yababa to Nineveh, flayed him, (and) draped his skin over the wall of Nineveh (Grayson 1976: 123-24).

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Most rebellions against the Assyrians took a similar terrible toll.Yet sometimes it happened that a rebel succeeded in overthrowing the ruling king and founded a dynasty of his own—always a disturbing innovation in antiquity. Assyrian inscriptions designate such men with the derogatory epithet 'son of a nobody' (e.g. Grayson 1972:50). Yet their names are commemorated in king lists (e.g. Grayson 1972: 31), which points to a certain degree of grudging recognition. In Ugarit the shades of successful usurpers were raised during necromantic sessions next to the shades of legitimate kings (de Moor 1987: 166, 272). Weakness on the side of their overlord offered vassals an opportunity to liberate their countries from the heavy tribute and punitive campaigns a subject had to suffer. Hezekiah's rebellion against Assyria in 705-704 is an example.10 A good time for a crown prince to try to shed the oppressive yoke of a foreign ruler was the grave illness or death of his father who had been forced to accept the status of a mere vassal (e.g. Grayson 1972: 60). Deposing such a sickly father was seen as a brave move on the part of the son, which made him very popular because the heavy tribute a vassal had to pay pressed severely on the entire population of a country. This is the main difference with Yassubu's attempt described earlier—apparently there had been only internal problems during Kirtu's illness, and not foreign domination (see §2.b above). Another example of a successful rebellion is the rise of David under Saul. Whether or not Saul's mental illness gradually weakened the latter's position cannot now be established, but it seems fairly certain that David started his career as a pretender to Saul's throne with a band of dissatisfied fugitives in Adullam (1 Sam. 22.2; cf. Mic. 1.15; 4.14), just like Idrimi of Alalakh who invoked the help of the Hapiru, notorious scum (Smith 1949: 14-17). Also in such cases later propagandistic historiography obscured the real course of events to emphasize the rebellion as the will of the deity. David was anointed beforehand as God's elected king. Also Jeroboam's rebellion against Solomon and Rehoboam (1 Kgs 11-12), Jehu's usurpation of Joram's throne (2 Kgs 9-10) and the coup against Athaliah (2 Kgs 11) are examples of insurrections against the ruler in power that were presented as the will of God. Similarly, Idri-mi of Alalakh piously states that he waited seven years for the sign of the weather-god Adad before he made his decisive move from exile.

10. For various proposals see Gallagher 1999: 263-74.


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Mesopotamian kings who had not been successful in repressing revolt were remembered for thousands of years as sorry failures. Several legendary accounts of a great revolt against the Old Akkadian king Naramsin relate how he had to confront numerous rebellious opponents and invoked the help of the goddesses and gods who, however, did not come to his help. Whereas the rebels are depicted as inhuman, bloodthirsty murderers, Naramsin himself is a model of piety (Westenholz 1997: 221-61; Charpin 1997, both with earlier literature). Also in the so-called 'Cuthean Legend' the opponents of Naramsin are dehumanized: they have 'bodies of cave birds and ravens' faces', even though they are creatures of flesh and blood (Westenholz 1997: 265,308-309,314-15). Yet this same legend teaches, at least in the Old Babylonian version, that a king who becomes impatient and takes control himself without awaiting a divine decision cannot hope to succeed. Only much later Naramsin's opponents would be punished for their savagery (Westenholz 1997: 316-31). Of course there was a certain amount of xenophobia involved in all this. Both in Israel and in the Umwelt all kinds of unruly and sinful behaviour were ascribed to foreigners (Limet 1972; Kinnier Wilson 1979; de Moor and Sanders 1991: 296-97; see also Jer. 9.26). The ancient Egyptians regarded foreigners as barbarians and depicted them as poor nomads, brigands, traitors, thieves, murderers, makers of noise, plotters of turmoil, the demonic followers of Seth, god of confusion (te Velde 1967: 111-13; Fischer-Elfert 1986; Loprieno 1988). These descriptions hardly differ from those Sennacherib provides for rebellious Aramaeans, 'fugitives, runaways, blood-stained murderers, criminals' (Luckenbill 1924:42). The stranger is a potential rebel who might well modify generally accepted customs, endanger the habitual way of life and put an end to certain privileges (Limet 1972: 130). Towards the end of the second millennium BCE the oppressive rule of Egypt over its Canaanite colony had created large classes of impoverished and dissatisfied people who felt compelled to fall back on robbery and guerilla warfare (Stork 1984; Giveon 1971; de Moor 1997:64-71,277-81, with bibliography). Among them were the Proto-Israelites who, like some present-day bedouin, were proud to be rebels who did not recognize any authority and openly boasted of robbing their overlords occasionally, even if they traded with them and served them as mercenaries if that suited them better (de Moor 1997: 2000). The merciless repression of the Shasu 'bedouin' is depicted vividly in the battle reliefs of Seti I (Epigraphic Survey 1986). One of the accompanying inscriptions runs:

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Reading from Right to Left One came to tell His Majesty. 'The Shasu enemies are plotting sedition. Their tribal leaders are gathered in one place, standing on the foothills of Khor [Canaan, de M], and they are engaged in turmoil and uproar; one of them is (always) killing his fellow. They do not consider the laws of the palace.' His majesty—may he live, prosper and be healthy!—was happy at this. For, as for the Good God, he rejoices at engaging in battle, and he enjoys a transgression against him. His head is satisfied with seeing blood when he chops off the heads of disaffected persons. He loves a moment of pounding more than a day of celebrating! His Majesty killed them all at once, he did not leave heirs among them (Epigraphic Survey 1986: 20-21).

Apparently Egyptians and Assyrians were equally cruel towards rebels. And also in Egypt the ideology dictated that in reality it was the god himself who crushed the rebels for his elected ruler. In a Triumph Hymn for Tuthmosis III the national deity Amun-Re promises the king, I bind up the Nubian tribesfolk by ten-thousands (upon) thousands, and the northerners by hundred-thousands, as prisoners. I cause your opponents to fall beneath your sandals, So you may trample down the rebellious and the treacherous... (Kitchen 1999: 166-67).

Again, just like the Assyrians, the Egyptians of the New Kingdom forced the local rulers to conclude disadvantageous treaties that enabled the pharaoh to take drastic action as soon as a vassal stepped out of line (Kitchen 1979a). Since the Hittites also used this means of controlling their vassals (e.g. Del Monte 1986), it is warranted to conclude that a covenant between unequal parties became a common instrument to prevent insurrection. Breaking such a treaty, to which the vassal was bound by oath, was tantamount to challenging the deities supposedly guaranteeing its effectiveness. 4. Rebellion against the Deity As we have seen, rebellion against the existing social and political order could be interpreted as sin against the deity because it was an axiom that those in authority, whether parents or rulers, enjoyed the full support of the gods and goddesses. So a person rebelling against parents or king had to be a sinner, even if she or he belonged to a different nationality and religion. Kings of Urartu, for example, are accused of disobeying the Assyrian gods Assur, Marduk, Nabu and Shamash by breaking their oaths of loyalty towards Sargon II (Thureau-Dangin 1912: 16.92-95; contrast 20.112-21; 48.309-10; 52.346). Indeed the Assyrians made their vassals


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swear by the deities of Assyria as well as by their own gods (Wiseman 1958; Watanabe 1987; Parpola and Watanabe 1988). Breaking such a treaty was considered a sin that not only the Assyrian deities were sure to revenge but also the vassal's own gods (Parpola and Watanabe 1988:4-5, 8-13, etc.). Tablet 6 of the standard version of the Babylonian Epic ofGilgamesh describes how the hero brusquely turns down Ishtar's advances, insulting her by enumerating the sorry end of all her previous lovers. At first Gilgamesh seems to get away with this sacrilege. Together with his friend Enkidu he conquers the Bull of Heaven, which Ishtar had sent to punish him for his insolence. But that same night Enkidu dreams that he will die, as happens indeed soon after. After the death of his friend Gilgamesh refuses to accept that eventually this will be his fate too. Through amazing acts of heroism he finally obtains the plant of eternal rejuvenation, but a snake steals it from him (Tablet 11). Sooner or later, rebellion against a deity ends in death. In the texts of Ugarit, remarkably often we encounter protests of young people against the theology their parents believed in. The children of Kirtu as well as Aqhatu, the son of Dani'ilu, reject the idea of immortality that was part of the belief in a beatific afterlife for famous people. Aqhatu openly refuses to give in to ' Anatu's wish that he hand over his magic bow and calls her promise of eternal life rubbish. He deliberately insults her as the patron of hunting by declaring that the bow is a man's weapon which is of no use to womenfolk (KTU 1.17.VI.34-41; de Moor 1987: 239). 'Anatu explicitly calls this 'rebellion' and 'presumption'. Since we have reason to suspect that not only Aqhatu but also all the children of Kirtu— but for the youngest girl—died prematurely, the lesson seems to be that whoever rebels against a deity risks her or his life (de Moor 1997:91-102). No doubt the most famous heretic in the ancient Near East was Akhenaten, the Egyptian king who deposed all deities but one, his beloved Aten. He was the first true monotheist and, although his innovative revolution lasted only twenty years, the counter-revolution that brought back polytheism in a modified form has had a lasting influence on the development of religion (de Moor 1997). Later generations tried to ignore this radical fanatic or simply called him 'the rebel' (Kitchen 1979b: 158.15). In the Bible rebellion against the deity is a theme that spans the history of humankind from creation to eschaton. Time and again the Israelites break the rules of the covenant and are punished, sometimes by death, but those spared are ultimately forgiven and restored (see e.g. Coats 1968). Of

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course this type of consciousness of guilt and the need of remission of sins is not absent in other cultures of the ancient Near East,11 but just as no other nation admitted that its founding fathers were rebels, so no other nation constructed its national history deliberately as an endless chain of sin and redemption. Terms for rebellion abound in the Old Testament and the vast majority of instances signify rebellion against YHWH (DCH, V, 478-81; Carpenter and Grisanti 1997). Why are the Israelites such stubborn rebels against their own God? In my opinion the answer Israel gave to this disquieting question should be sought in the pessimistic wisdom literature, especially in the book of Job on which David Clines is writing such a magnificent commentary (Clines 1989-). Thinking about one God creates totally different types of rebels— like the rebel king Akhenaten in Egypt and the biblical Job. I believe that initially the historical Job was anything but a rebel (de Moor 1997: 13162), but thinking about only one deity who could be held responsible for both good and evil made him a rebel. The strange thing is that everybody assumes that the book of Job, like so many other pessimistic wisdom books of antiquity (de Moor 1997: 52-58, 61-64, 99-102), ends in a theodicy: Job would grant God his all too easy victory. Usually Job 42.6 is translated as an admission of guilt on the part of Job: 'idcirco ipse me reprehendo et ago paenitentiam in fa villa et cinere' (Vulgate), 'Darum spreche ich mich schuldig und tue Busse in Staub und Asche' (Luther), 'therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes' (KJV), 'Wherefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes' (ASV), 'therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes' (RSV), 'Therefore, I recant and relent' (JPSV), 'Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes' (NIV), 'I retract what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes' (NJB). DCH, V, 120 proposes that m 's without object might mean 'feel loathing, contempt, revulsion'. Grammatically it would also be possible to assume a reflexive meaning, 'to despise oneself (cf. RSV and Korpel and de Moor 1998:205 n. 3). In either case Job would be refusing to admit who has won the fierce debate. He feels only loathing for his inability to reply satisfactorily to the long list of challenging questions God has put before him. These questions mainly concern the physical world and have

11. Compare, for example, Kitchen 1999: 289, 'While the servant was sure to do wrong,/yet the Lord is sure to be mercirul./The Lord of Thebes does not spend the whole day angry,/when he is angry,—it's for a moment, without reproach', with Isa. 54.7-8; Jer. 3.12; Pss. 30.6; 103.9; etc.


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goaded humankind ever since into joining Job's rebellion and trying to find out the answers (cf. Barrow 1988: 33). 5. Conclusions Obviously it is too early to draw conclusions. The theme of this paper deserves a collaborative volume by specialists from various disciplines. Yet refusing to conclude is the easiest way out, as Claude Bernard wrote in his Cahiers des notes (1850-60). At the outset I stated, 'All innovation starts as rebellion'. Now it is time for the sobering observation that not every rebellion achieves innovation. We have seen that already in antiquity the burden of custom, belief, establishment and repression often proved to be too heavy for a rebellion to succeed. The main reason why few rebels succeeded proved to be the legitimation of domination by religion. Naturally those who suffered undeservedly from this construction eventually challenged the righteousness of deities supporting oppression. But even this ultimate rebellion against divine authority usually ended in theodicy. God is always right. As a result, innovative change was minimal and marginal in the ancient Near East. What impresses the Orientalist is the pervading sense of continuity in the development of the civilizations of the ancient Near East. Of course, empires toppled and none of them has survived. But they were vanquished by outside forces, foreign hordes sensing the inherent weakness of self-centred systems that resisted fresh impulses for too long. Yet some rebels from antiquity have left a lasting mark in history. Israel deliberately depicted its heroes of the past as rebels. I am sure it does not matter much to David Clines whether or not Job, Moses and King David were historical persons. But what will no doubt appeal to him is that, in contrast to all other peoples of the ancient Near East, Israel forged its past in such a way that these rebels got a legitimate place in history and continue to exercise their innovative influence up to our own day. Bibliography Albertz, R. 1978 Barrow, J.D. 1988

'Hintergrund und Bedeutung des Elterngebots im Dekalog', ZAW9Q: 34874. The World within the World(Oxford: Oxford University Press).

342 Barta, W. 1975-76

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Bellefontaine, E. 1979 ' Deuteronomy 21.18-21: Reviewing the Case of the Rebellious Son', JSOT 13: 13-31. Borger, R. 1956 Die Inschriften Asarhaddons Konigs von Assyrien (AfO, Beiheft 9; Graz: E. Weidner). Cagni, L. 1974 The Poem ofErra (Sources and Monographs: Sources from the Ancient Near East, 1/3; Malibu: Undena Publications). Carpenter, E., and M.A. Grisanti 1997 '1HDB', in NIDOTTE, III, 706-10. Charpin, D. 1997 'La version mariote de 1'"Insurrection generate contre Naram-Sin"', Florilegium marianum III (Memoires de NABU, 4; Paris: SEPOA): 9-17. Clines, D.J.A. 1989 Job 1-20 (WBC, 17; Waco, TX: Word Books). Clines, D.J.A. (ed.) 2001 The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, V (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Coats, G.W. 1968 Rebellion in the Wilderness: The Murmuring Motif in the Wilderness Traditions of the Old Testament (Nashville: Abingdon Press). Conrad, J. 1970 Die junge Generation im Alien Testament: Moglichkeiten und Grundziige einer Beurteilung (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt). Del Monte, G.F. 1986 // trattatofra Mursili II di Hattusa e Niqmepa' di Ugarit (Orientis Antiqui Collectio, 18; Roma: Istituto per 1'Oriente). Desroches Noblecourt, C. 1986 Lafemme an temps despharaons (Paris: Stock). Dion, E. 1993 'La procedure d'elimination du fils rebelle (Deut 21,18-21): Sens litteral et signes de developpement juridique', in G. Braulik, W. Gross and S. McEvenue (eds.), Biblische Theologie undgesellschaftlicher Wandel: Fur Norbert Lohfink SJ (Freiburg: Herder): 73-82. Durand, J.-M. 1998 Les documents epistolaires du palais de Mart, II (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf). Epigraphic Survey, The 1986 The Battle Reliefs of King Sety I (Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak, 4; Chicago: The Oriental Institute). Fales, P.M. 1991 'Notes on the Royal Family of Emar', in D. Charpin and F. Joannes (eds.), Marchands, diplomates et empereurs: Etudes sur la civilisation mesopotamienne offertes a P. Garelli (Paris: ERC): 81-90.

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Die Familie in der Nachexilszeit: Untersuchungen zur Bedeutung der Verwandschaft in ausgewahlten Texten (BZAW, 264; Berlin: W. de Gruyter).

Das Kind im alien Agypten: Die Stellung des Kindes in Familie und Gesellschaft nach altdgyptischen Texten und Darstellungen (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag). Fischer-Elfert, H.-W. 1986 Die satirischen Streitschrift des Papyrus Anastasi, I (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Foster, B.R. 1996 Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (2 vols.; Bethesda: CDL Press, 2nd edn). Gallagher, W.R. 1999 Sennacherib's Campaign to Judah: New Studies (SHCANE, 18; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Gamper, A. 1966 Gott als Richter in Mesopotamien und im A lien Testament: Zum Verstdndnis einer Gebetsbitte (Innsbruck: Universitatsverlag Wagner). Giveon, R. 1971 Les bedouins Shosou des documents egyptiens (Documenta et monumenta orientis antiqui, 18; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Grayson, A.K.. 1972 Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, I (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). 1976 Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, II (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz). Grelot, P. 1986 'Michee 7,6 dans les evangiles et dans la litterature rabbinique', Bib 67: 36377. Houtman, C. 2000 Exodus, III (Historical Commentary on the Old Testament; Leuven: Peelers). Janssen, R.M., and J.J. Janssen 1996ng UpGrowing Up in Ancient Egypt (London: Rubicon Pndon:RubicPres). Kinnier Wilson, J.V. 1979 The Rebel Lands: An Investigation into the Origins of Early Mesopotamian Mythology (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, 29; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Kitchen, K.A. 1979a 'Egypt, Ugarit, Qatna and Covenant', UF 11: 453-64. 1979b Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical, II (Oxford: Basil 1979b Blackwell). 1999 Poetry of Ancient Egypt (Documenta Mundi: Aegyptiaca, 1; Jonsered: Paul Astrb'ms fb'rlag). Kooij, A. van der 2000 'The Story of Hezekiah and Sennacherib', in de Moor and van Rooy 2000: 107-19. Korpel, M.C.A. 1998 'Exegesis in the Work of Ilimilku of Ugarit', in J.C. de Moor (ed.), Intertextuality in Ugarit and Israel (OTS, 40; Leiden: E.J. Brill): 86-111.

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Korpel, M.C.A., and J.C. de Moor 1998 The Structure of Classical Hebrew Poetry: Isaiah 40-55 (OTS, 41; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Lambert, W.G. 1989 'A Babylonian Prayer to Anuna', in H. Behrens, D. Loding and M. Roth (eds.), DUMU-E2-DUB-BA-A: Studies in Honor of Ake W. Sjoberg (Philadelphia: S.N. Kramer Fund): 321-36. Limet, H. 1972 'L'etranger dans la societe sumerienne', in D.O. Edzard (ed.), Gesellschaftsklassen im Alien Zweistromland und in den angrenzenden Gebieten. XVIII. Rencontre assyriologique Internationale, Munchen 29. Juni bis 3. Juli 1970 (Munchen: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften): 123-38. Loprieno, A. 1988 Topos und Mimesis: Zum Auslander in der agyptischen Literatur (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Loretz, O. 1979 'Das biblische Eltemgebot und die Sohnespflichteri in der ugaritischen AqhtLegende',5W8: 14-17. Luckenbill, D.D. 1924 The Annals of Sennacherib (OIP, 2; Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Malamat, A. 1998 Mari and the Bible (SHCANE, 12; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Marcus, D. 1981 1981 'Juvenile Deliquency in the Bible and the Ancient Near East',JANESCU 13: 31-52. Marsman, H.J. 2003 Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Religious Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East (OTS, 49; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Moor, J.C. de 1973 'Ugaritic Lexicography', in P. Fronzaroli (ed.), Studies on Semitic Lexicography (Quaderni di Semitistica, 2; Firenze: Istituto di Linguistica e di Lingue Orientali): 61-102. 1987 An Anthology of Religious Texts from Ugarit (Nisaba, 16; Leiden: E.J. Brill). 1997 The Rise ofYahwism: The Roots of Israelite Monotheism (BETL, 91; Leuven: Peelers, 2nd edn). 2000 'Genesis 49 and the Early History of Israel', in de Moor and Rooy 2000: 176-98. Moor, J.C. de, and P. Sanders 'An Ugaritic Expiation Ritual and its Old Testament Parallels', UF23: 2831991 300. Moor, J.C. de, and H.F. van Rooy (eds.) 2000 The Deuteronomistic History and the Prophet (OTS, 44; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Moran, W.L. 1959 'The Scan dal of the "Great Sin" at Ugarit', JNES 18: 280-81.1959 'The Scan dal of the "Great Sin" at Ugarit', JNES 18: 280-81. Neu, E. 1996 Das hurritische Epos der Freilassung. I. Untersuchungen zu einem hurritisch-hethitischen Textensemble aus Hatusa (Studien zu den BogazkoyTexten, 32; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz).

DEMOOR The Rebel in Bible Lands Oded, B. 1992

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War, Peace and Empire: Justifications for War in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions (Wiesbaden: Reichert). Oppenheim, A.L. (ed.) 1965 The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, II, B (Chicago: The Oriental Institute). Otto, E. 1994 Theologische Ethik des Alien Testaments (Theologische Wissenschaft, 3/2; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer). Parpola, S. 1997 Assyrian Prophecies (State Archives of Assyria, 9; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press). Parpola, S., and K. Watanabe 1988 Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (State Archives of Assyria, 2; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press). Redford, S. 2002 The Harem Conspiracy: The Murder of Rameses HI (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press). Reicke, B. 1967 'Liturgical Traditions in Mic. 7', HTR 60: 349-67. Reiner, E. Surpu: A Collection of Sumerian and Akkadian Incantations (AfO, Beiheft 1958 ll;Graz:E. Weidner). Reiner, E. (ed.) 1984 The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, XV, S (Chicago: The Oriental Institute). Reinhold, M. 2002 Studies in Classical History and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Renfroe, F. 1992 Arabic-Ugaritic Lexical Studies (Abhandlungen zur Literatur Alt-SyrienPalastinas, 5; Minister: UGARIT-Verlag). Saggs. H.W.F. 1955 'The Nimrud Letters, 1952. Part I: The Ukin-zer Rebellion and Related Texts', Iraq 17:21-50. Schottroff, W. 1992 'Alter als soziales Problem in der hebraischen Bibel', in F. Criisemann, C. Hardmeier and R. Kessler (eds.), Was ist der Mensch...? Beitrdge zur Anthropologie des Alten Testaments: Hans Walter Wolffzum 80. Geburtstag (Munich: Kaiser Verlag): 61-77. Smith, S. 1949 The Statue of Idri-mi (London: The British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara). Stol, M., and S.P. Vleeming (eds.) 1998 The Care of the Elderly in the Ancient Near East (SHC ANE, 14; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Stork, L. 1984 'Rauber', in W. Helck etal. (eds.), Lexikon der Agyptohgie, V (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz): 78-83.

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Thureau-Dangin, F. 1912 Une relation de la huitieme campagne de Sargon (714 av. J.-C.) (Paris: Paul Geuthner). Tigay, J.H. 1996 The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society). Toorn, K. van der 1985 Sin and Sanction in Israel and Mesopotamia: A Comparative Study (Assen: van Gorcum). 1996 Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (SHCANE, 7; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Tropper, J. 1995-96 'Review of M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, J. Sanmartin, The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places', AfO 42-43: 264-74. Velde, H. te 1967 Seth, God of Confusion: A Study of his Role in Egyptian Mythology and Religion (Probleme der Agyptologie, 6; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Watanabe, K. 1987 Die ade-Vereidigung anldsslich der Thronfolgeregelung Asarhaddons (Baghdader Mitteilungen, Beiheft 3; Berlin: Mann). Westenholz, J.G. 1997 Legends of the Kings ofAkkade: The Texts (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns). Wiseman, D.J. 1958 The Vassal-Treaties ofEsarhaddon (London: The British School of Archaeology in Iraq). Wyatt, N. 1998 Religious Texts of Ugarit: The Words ofllimilku and his Colleagues (The Biblical Seminar, 53; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).

'THE CONSOLATIONS OF GOD': ASSESSING JOB'S FRIENDS ACROSS A CULTURAL ABYSS

Carol A. Newsom

The book of Job presents many hermeneutical problems, one of which is how to understand and assess the role of Job's friends as comforters.1 Although grief and consolation are universal human experiences, the particular forms they take are culturally specific. What is expected in one culture may be deemed quite inappropriate in another. That discrepancy is part of the hermeneutical difficulty. Modern Western expectations for how one comforts or consoles another are deeply at odds with the way the friends respond to Job. The gap is so great that most critics realize that they cannot simply rely on their own cultural norms to grasp and interpret what the friends are doing. How can one tell if the friends are being presented as model comforters, as initially good but increasingly bad comforters, or as complete caricatures of the cultural model of the consoling friend? Very little information exists within biblical sources to show what the cultural expectations for consolation were in ancient Israel. Where information is so limited, it may be helpful to introduce a comparison from a culture that is neither that of the text to be interpreted nor that of the reader. Such comparison provides a kind of 'triangulation' that allows one to test certain assumptions and perhaps to attend to features that otherwise did not seem distinctive. To this end I wish to suggest that there is value in looking at the Greco-Roman literature on consolation in relation to the performance of the friends in Job. I do not suggest the possibility of influence in either direction, but use the comparison in a purely suggestive manner. To begin, however, it is important to survey what we do know about Israelite expectations concerning consolation. Our sources are three: (1) the semantics of the words 11] and DPI]; (2) the narratives that describe grief 1. It is an honor but also a daunting prospect to dedicate an article on Job to David Clines, since his own commentary on Job is quite simply without peer in Joban scholarship.

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and consolation; (3) the literary representation of a dialogue of grief and attempted consolation in Job 3-27 and its close generic parallel in the Babylonian Theodicy. The semantics of DilD have been discussed in many contexts, and it is not possible here to deal with all the issues of its nuances. The one point important for my purposes, however, is that the range of meanings of the word in the niphal ('to be sorry', 'to regret', 'to change one's mind', 'to be consoled', 'to take satisfaction') all have to do with a change in disposition toward a particular state of affairs. Although I would disagree with parts of his analysis, Simian-Yofre's analysis of DP13 helpfully describes this process as 'dissociation,' either from a particular action or decision or earlier feelings (1998: 60). As Gary Anderson has pointed out, however, the word does not simply denote inner emotions but behaviors. One who is 'consoled' ceases mourning practices and resumes normal life (Anderson 1991: 9-14). In the piel 0113 has to do with actions that produce or facilitate such a change in disposition. The range of emotions or states of affairs implicated in the piel is narrower than that of the niphal, however, for the verb in the piel is concerned exclusively with actions of comfort and consolation. Anderson (84) argues that the piel can have eitherprocessual or resultative nuance, that is, it may refer to 'the symbolic action of assuming a state of mourning alongside the mourner' or 'it can have the nuance of bringing about the cessation of mourning'. Although the distinction is appropriate, it should not be overdone, for in all cases the word refers to a social action that is fundamentally oriented to effecting an emotional and behavioral change. This important aspect of DPI] is highlighted when it is paired, as it is in Job 2.11 and 42.11, with the word Tl]. Marvin Pope's judgment, that these are simply synonyms (Pope 1973:24), is not entirely adequate. The word 11] is a more restricted term. In non-grief contexts it refers to a shaking movement (e.g. shaking reeds, 1 Kgs 14.15; shaking of the head, Jer. 18.16), and so in contexts of grief it appears to denote the sympathetic movements one makes in the presence of the grief-stricken. Thus it is often translated as 'grieve' or 'bemoan' or 'show sympathy'. In all five instances in which it is paired with DPI] (in addition to Job 2.11 and 42.11; Isa. 51.19; Nah. 3.7; Ps. 69.21), it appropriately is always the first of the two terms, for it describes the initial stages of the longer process of achieving consolation. What do we know of the social process of consolation in ancient Israel? Several narratives supply the outlines of what was expected in acts of consolation following a death. These accounts include that of Isaac and the

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death of Sarah (Gen. 24.67), Jacob and the presumed death of Joseph (Gen. 37.32-35), Judah after the death of his wife (Gen. 28.12), David's response to the death of the Ammonite king Nahash (2 Sam. 10.2a), David's comforting Bathsheba after the death of their child (2 Sam. 12.24), David's response to the death of Amnon (2 Sam. 13.39), Ephraim and the death of his sons (1 Chron. 7.20-23) and, of course, Job and the death of his children, together with the rest of his calamities (Job 1-2; 42.7-17). David's actions during the illness of his child (2 Sam. 12.15b-23) and Ezra's reaction to the news of Judean intermarriage (Ezra 9.1-4) exhibit similar mourning behaviors in other situations of great distress. The basic pattern is clear, although not all elements are mentioned in each account. While I think we can place the actions in a logical and meaningful sequence, this sequence has to be reconstructed from partial descriptions. The initial act is simply that of presence: family and friends come to be present with the one who mourns (Job's friends and, later, his brothers and sisters and those who knew him; David's messengers to the king of Ammon; Ephraim's brothers; the sons and daughters of Jacob); they express identification with the mourner by physical gestures (e.g. weeping, tearing robes, tossing dust).2 Apparently following the noisy manifestations of grief there is a period of sitting in silence (Job's friends; allusions in Isa. 23.1-3a; Ezek. 26.15-17a; cf. Ezra's sitting in appalled silence in Ezra 9.4), which may be followed by more lamentation (Pham 1999: 29-31). At some point there is also a meal (Jer. 16.7 refers to 'breaking bread' and 'the cup of consolation'; Job's brothers and sisters eat and drink with him). Ritual mourning for the dead apparently lasted for seven days (Gen. 50.10; 1 Sam. 31.13//1 Chron. 10.12; Jdt. 16.24; Sir. 22.12), although the internal process of consolation could take much longer (as in the reference to David's being consoled for the death of Amnon after three years; 2 Sam. 13.3839). The termination of mourning (i.e. the public state of being consoled) was marked by specific actions. These included getting up, washing, anointing with oil, putting on clean garments, eating, worshiping and, above all, having sex.3

2. There are many other practices in which the primary mourner engages (e.g. tearing or cutting hair, gashing oneself). There is no evidence one way or the other, however, as to whether those who come to mourn with the bereaved also participate in these activities. 3. Anderson (1991: 78-80, 82-84) argues that both Siduri's advice to Gilgamesh and David's actions when his sick child dies are both indications of termination of

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What these narrative accounts and poetic allusions do not make clear is whether there was a verbal component to the act of consolation and, if so, what sorts of things one was expected to say. Presumably, there were verbal expressions of sympathy. The expressive poetry of dirges and laments would have their place here.4 But given that the process of consolation had, as part of its purpose, a dissociation from earlier dispositions, were there also interpretive topoi of consolation that one addressed to the sufferer? Was there a discursive, rational aspect to the practice of consolation? Apart from the book of Job itself (and only the poetic part at that), it is hard to find evidence one way or the other. Only one account may give a clue, that of Jacob mourning for Joseph. Jacob recognized [Joseph's cloak]...and Jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and he mourned for his son for many days. All his sons and all his daughters got up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, 'Truly, I will go down to my son in Sheol in mourning.' And his father wept for him (Gen. 37.33-35).

Anderson (1991: 86-87) aptly notes that if DRD here meant only 'offered expressions of sympathy', then Jacob's refusal would make no sense. What the children are trying to do is to move him along in the process, to get him to the state of consolation in which a person takes up normal life again. The text does not say in what way they attempt this, but presumably it would be by some sort of verbal persuasion. It is not clear, however, whether the children were doing something that was a standard part of the consolation process—and so were shocked when Jacob suddenly refused to do what was expected of him—or whether their intervention itself was a response to what they already recognized as a 'blocked' process. Jacob was said to have mourned Joseph 'for many days', so perhaps he had exceeded the socially approved length of time for engaging in mourning.5 In either case we do not know what the children said or how they framed their attempt to persuade Jacob to be consoled for the loss of Joseph.

mourning, though in David's case it was mourning behavior performed as part of a penitential rite. In almost all of the cases involving the termination of mourning after death there is a reference to the resumption of sexual relations (Isaac [Gen. 24.67], Judah [Gen. 38.12-18], Ephraim [1 Chron. 7.22-23], David [2 Sam. 12.24], and, implicitly, Job in Job 42.11-13). Though the gesture is not interpreted, perhaps it is a performative symbol of the generation of new life. 4. Cf. Isa. 23.1-3a; Ezek. 26.15-17a; 2 Sam. 1.17-26. 5. Sir. 38.17-18 cautions against expressive grieving that exceeds two days.


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The only other instance in which DFID is used in the context of rational persuasion to consolation is in Ezek. 14.21-23.6 There, after the long oracle of judgment against Jerusalem, God tells Ezekiel and the exiles that survivors of the destruction will come to them. And when they see the 'ways and deeds' of the survivors, Ezekiel and his community will be 'consoled for the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem'. Why is this? Because 'you shall know that it was not without cause that I did all that I have done in it'. The placement of the disaster within a rational and explicable framework does the work of consolation. It allows the ones grieving over Jerusalem to begin to dissociate from their former disposition of confused distress. The setting of Job echoes that of Jacob in that it appears to be another instance of a process of consolation that goes awry. After the expressions of sympathetic identification with Job's mourning and after the seven days and nights of silence, there should be movement toward ritual closure. It is time for the breaking of bread and the cup of consolation. Job's culturally inappropriate outburst in ch. 3 provides the opening for the poetic dialogue, which in the context of the book can be understood as an attempt to advance the process of consolation through an appeal to rational judgment. The author's use of a poetic wisdom dialogue for this portion of the book (chs. 3-27) complicates the issues. Is one warranted in taking its contents as indicative of consolatory topoi that would have had cultural currency in ancient Israel? To judge from the book of Job and the Babylonian Theodicy, the genre of the wisdom dialogue is a means for intellectual exploration of many issues about human existence, the rationality of good and bad fortune, the nature of the gods, and so forth. It is certainly not a transcript of a typical social occasion of consolation. Nevertheless, although the wisdom dialogue is a sophisticated literary genre with its own norms, the fact that it takes as its setting the situation of the sufferer who refuses to be consoled suggests that one is warranted in assuming that it will employ some of the standard topoi of consolation. Indeed Job refers to the friends as 'comforters', albeit 'miserable comforters' (16.2) whose consolations are both 'pointless' and 'fraudulent' (21.34). Job has every right to his opinion, of course, but I am more interested in whether the friends are making a culturally appropriate performance than whether or not he is persuaded by them. 6. In Isa. 40.1 -2 the words of consolation announce a changed situation. In Ezek. 14.21-23 the consolation is a matter of becoming reconciled to a situation that cannot be changed.

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Some recent studies have attempted to interpret the friends explicitly in light of appropriate cultural norms. David Clines's own analysis of Eliphaz's first speech refutes those who see in his address to Job sarcasm and cruelty. Instead he interprets Eliphaz as 'well-disposed and consolatory toward Job' (Clines 1989:121). Similarly, Norman Habel( 1985:118-23) analyzes Eliphaz's first speech in relation to what he calls 'sapiential counseling', though he draws attention more to parallels for the sapiential forms of speech than to the content. Gerald Mattingly (1990: 305-48) supplies some of this lack by situating the arguments of the friends (and not Eliphaz alone) in relation to traditional Mesopotamian understandings of suffering, the nature of human existence, the gods and reality itself. I wish to supplement that approach to the friends further with the suggestion that light may be shed on their performance by looking at the Greco-Roman literature of consolation. In this short article I can in no way do justice to the scope and complexity of that literature. But even a brief examination is instructive. A number of sources exist for the Greco-Roman material, including literary, philosophical, papyrological and inscriptional evidence.7 Despite the variety, there is significant similarity in the topoi of consolation that occur in different media.8 Although the literary consolations are usually considered a late genre,9 the earliest preserved examples of consolatory topoi appear in Homer. Both Homer and Euripides are frequently cited in the consolationes. By the late fifth and early fourth centuries, treatises dealing with consolatory topics are attested, although unfortunately most of this early literature is known from references in later writers. Among the most intriguing is Plutarch's reference to the fifth-century sophist Antiphon who was said to have created an 'art for the alleviation of grief' (Holloway 2001: 58). A larger quantity of extant material comes from the literature of the late Republic and early Empire. The consolatory letter is perhaps the

7. In this discussion I am deeply indebted to the work of Paul Holloway (2001), who provides a richly detailed and documented survey of the Greco-Roman traditions. I also wish to thank him for reading and commenting upon an earlier version of this article. 8. Lattimore (1962:215-16) considers the relationship between funeral inscriptions and the literary consolatory texts. Although he rejects the notion that the literary consolatio is the primary source for the consolatory epitaph, he assumes that both types of texts employ common cultural commonplaces. 9. Manning (1981: 12) associates its development with the concern of Hellenistic philosophy 'to equip the individual to meet the changes and chances of life'.


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best attested genre, with important examples from Cicero, Seneca, Pliny, Plutarch, Apollonius of Tyana and others. Plutarch's essays and Cicero's Tusculan Disputations are also rich sources for consolatory topoi. The genres and topoi continued to be prominent in early Christian writings. Although much of the literature on consolation is related to the topic of death, many other forms of distress were treated. Cicero observes that there were specific discourses designed to address poverty, life without honor, exile, the ruin of one's country, slavery, illness, blindness, 'and any other misfortune to which the term calamity can properly be applied' (Tusc. 3.34.81; my trans.). Many of the arguments, however, were multi-purpose and could be used in relation to a variety of situations (Holloway 2001:64). As one would expect, the specific task of consolation and the arguments used differed according to the philosophical perspectives that informed them (Kassel 1956: 1-48). Cicero distinguished five different theories of consolation, which correlated with the various philosophical schools (Tusc. 3.32.76). The Stoic Cleanthes sought to show the sufferer that the supposed evil was not an evil at all. The Peripatetics sought to moderate grief by showing that the evil was not so great. The Epicureans, who could not deny that mental anguish was evil, tried to avert attention from unpleasant things to pleasant things. The Cyrenaics thought that the real distress was being unprepared for evil and so attempted to show that what had happened was not really unexpected. And finally Chrysippus, another Stoic, tried to disabuse persons of the notion that grief is a sort of duty, when in fact it is an inappropriate and useless response. Precisely because specific arguments about consolation are systemically linked to larger sets of belief, one would not expect to find many specific content parallels between ancient Near Eastern consolatory topoi and those in the Greco-Roman repertoire. Some do exist, of course, since certain consolatory gestures are simply common responses to a common problem. Warnings against the dangerous, even fatal effects of unregulated emotion can be found in both traditions (e.g. Job 5.2; Sir. 38.18; Ps.-Plutarch, Ad Apoll. 102C). Similarly, it is a commonplace that death comes to all. The statement of the friend in the Babylonian Theodicy that 'our fathers in fact give up and go the way of death. It is an old saying that they cross the river Hubur' (11. 16-17; trans. Lambert 1960) anticipates the Greek epitaph, 'Do not weep: the threat of the Fates summons all' (Lattimore 1962: 218). Lattimore (219) himself draws attention to the striking similarity between the Latin epitaph,^ ta animam dederant fata eademq[ue] negant ('the fates gave life, and the same fates deny it') and Job's words of self-

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consolation, 'YHWH has given, and YHWH has taken away' (Job 1.21). In general, however, one is struck by the differences in content more than the similarities. The exception, not surprisingly, is Ben Sira. The consolatory topos in Sir. 38.16-23 bears striking resemblance to the Greco-Roman material, presumably because Ben Sira reflects the cultural milieu of Hellenistic popular philosophy. More helpful than fishing for parallels of content, however, is an examination of the fundamental assumptions that underlie the Greco-Roman understanding of the nature, purpose and appropriate modes of consolation. I will mention five such assumptions. First, a clear distinction is made between sympathy and consolation. Each has its place in a process of dealing with grief, loss or distress. Sympathy is most appropriate to the time immediately following the death or misfortune, but consolatory letters also often begin with brief expressions of sympathy. But the distinction is insisted upon. In Aelianus's Varia histoha 7.3, Aristippus declares, 'I have come not to share your grief but to stop your grief (trans. Hollo way 2001: 62). Similarly, in Pericles' funeral oration in the Peloponnesian War 2.44 he declares to grieving parents, 'I will not weep for you, only console you' (trans. Blanco 1998). The duty of consolers, as Cicero describes it, is 'to do away with distress root and branch, or allay it, or diminish it as far as possible, or stop its progress and not allow it to extend further or to divert it elsewhere' (Tusc. 3.31.75; trans. King 1927). Consolation thus intentionally moves away from sympathy. Second, consolation is a fundamental expression of friendship. In the Pseudo-Plutarchian letter to Apollonius upon the death of his son, the author indicates that he waited for a time, since in the days immediately following the funeral 'compassion was more seasonable than advice'. But 'now that a competent time is past.. .1 believed I should do an acceptable piece of friendship, if I should now comfort you with those reasons which may lessen your grief and silence your complaints' (Plutarch 1909:413). Third, and perhaps most important, consolation was fundamentally a rational enterprise. Holloway (2001: 56) defines it as 'the combating of grief through rational argument'. Whether the target was grief itself or an excess of grief, the problem was seen as a failure of the understanding. If the sufferer could be taught to understand correctly, then he or she would be consoled and able to resume normal life and appropriate duties in the world. Consolation, thus, is fundamentally a kind of moral instruction, designed to help the sufferer embody the virtues appropriate to a wise person. Plutarch brings together these first three points in the introduction to his essay on exile.


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[M]any people visit the unfortunate and talk to them, but their efforts do no good, or rather do harm. These people are like men unable to swim who try to rescue the drowning—they hug them close and help to drag them under. The language addressed to us by friends and real helpers should mitigate, not vindicate, what distresses us; it is not partners in tears and lamentation, like tragic choruses, that we need in unwished-for circumstances, but men who speak frankly and instruct us that grief and self-abasement are everywhere futile, and that to indulge in them is unwarranted and unwise (On Exile 559B; trans, de Lacy 1929).

Fourth, it is appropriate in the case of someone who resists consolation to be abrupt and even to rebuke them. Thus Gregory Nazianzen refers to the responsibility of the consoler 'to sympathize on some points, exhort on others, and, perhaps, to deliver a rebuke on others' (Holloway 2001: 63). Oftentimes these rebukes were couched in relatively polite or indirect ways. But they could be brutal, as in Seneca's rebuke of Marullus. Seneca introduces the letter with the reflection that When a man is stricken and is finding it most difficult to endure a grievous wound, one must humour him for a while; let him satisfy his grief or at any rate work off the first shock; but those who have set themselves to make lamentation should be rebuked forthwith.

His address to Marullus begins abruptly. Is it solace that you look for? Let me give you a scolding instead! You are like a woman in the way you take your son's death (Ep. 99.1-2; trans. Gummere 1925).

Finally, even though, as I indicated earlier, different arguments concerning consolation took different forms according to the philosophical presuppositions governing them, in many compositions there is an eclecticism that is not careful about logical self-consistency. Cicero himself, after carefully distinguishing the five approaches, goes on to say that in his own essay, 'I threw them all into one attempt at consolation; for my soul was in a feverish state and I attempted every means of curing its condition' (Tusc. 3.31.76; trans. King 1927). The purpose of drawing this very sketchy portrait of certain GrecoRoman assumptions about consolation is to allow it to stand between our own intuitive assumptions about sympathy, consolation and the proper response to one in distress and those that are exhibited by Job's friends. None of these three sets of cultural assumptions is entirely like the others, but the ancient Israelite and Greco-Roman models certainly stand closer to one another than to our modern Western one. Thus the comparison serves

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to normalize elements of the friends' words and behavior that we are often not certain whether to treat as examples of good cultural performance of consolation or as an outrageous failure of true friendship. At least when seen through the lens of Greco-Roman assumptions, the friends appear to be fulfilling in a consistent and appropriate manner the tasks of consolation. They have, as friends, begun with sympathy, but their friendship offering would have been incomplete had they not also engaged in consolation. The rationalism of their arguments is neither inept nor inapt but is precisely the instruction that is needed when grief disorders insight. Appropriate, too, is the eclecticism of their consolatory repertoire, for one does not know what will prove useful. Even the increasing harshness of tone and moral rebukes would have appeared appropriate from the perspective of Greco-Roman traditions. A second potential value of such a comparison is to highlight differences. Although the Greco-Roman and Israelite traditions share a distrust of excessive and intemperate emotions, emotion itself is much more the focus in Greco-Roman than in Israelite literature (with the notable exception of Ben Sira). What takes the central place in the Joban dialogue is not unruly passion but the question of the ultimate fairness or meaningfulness of what has happened—in short, the question of justice. Consolation, the return of equanimity, thus necessarily becomes entangled in resolving that issue. Such a comparison allows one to see the different intellectual uses to which suffering is put in the two cultures. Related to this intellectual profile, of course, is the sharp difference in literary genres by which the issues of grief and consolation are treated. Although the Greeks and Romans write dramas and poetry in which consolatory topoi are employed, their systematic examination takes place in letters, in essays and in dialogues that are really monologues. The one to be consoled is never quite present, never given a voice. By contrast, in the ancient Near Eastern literature the agon of consolation is what fascinates, whether this is embodied in the internal struggle of the emblematic sufferer in Mesopotamian texts or in the wisdom dialogues of the Babylonian Theodicy and Job. One cannot imagine Cicero or Plutarch or Seneca truly entering into and giving expression to the mind and reasons of one who was intent on resisting consolation.10 10. This is not to say that resistance to consolation does not make its appearance in the Greco-Roman literature at all. It tends, however, to be acknowledged as a failure or defeat. In consoling his friend, Seneca observes that 'he who writes these words to you is no other than I, who wept so excessively for my dear friend Annaeus Serenus that, in


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Finally, the value of such a comparison is hermeneutical. It is too easy when one is focused only on one particular text to see the strangeness of the text as its strangeness. When we look at the Joban dialogue in company with the Greco-Roman literature of consolation, there is a better chance of experiencing the se/f-estrangement that Gadamer says is so important to the hermeneutical process. That is to say, our own assumptions about grief, friendship, sympathy and consolation—and the broader set of beliefs to which they are related—may become the oddity that requires explaining to a mystified and skeptical Israelite or Roman. In this article I have tried to summarize what we know and do not know about the cultural practice of consolation in ancient Israel. Since one of the big gaps in our knowledge concerns the nature of verbal consolation, I have attempted to supplement the comparisons that have been made with the exemplary sufferer literature of Mesopotamia with a different sort of comparison, one that involves the culturally non-contiguous literature of Greco-Roman consolation. Although this brief examination has scarcely scratched the surface, I hope I have begun to indicate some of the ways in which a closer examination might help us to assess the consolatory efforts of Job's friends across the cultural abyss that separates us from them. Bibliography Anderson, G. 1991 Cicero 1927 Clines, D.J.A. 1989 Habel, N. 1985 Holloway, P. 2001 Kassel, R. 1956

A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Press). Tusculan Disputations (trans. I.E. King; LCL; London: William Heinemann). Job 1-20 (WBC, 17; Waco, TX: Word Books). The Book of Job (OIL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press). Consolation in Philippians (SNTSMS, 112; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Untersuchungen zur griechischen und romischen Konsolationsliteratur (Zetemata, 18; Munich: C.H. Beck).

spite of my wishes, I must be included among the examples of men who have been overcome by grief. To-day, however, I condemn this act of mine...' (Ep. 63.14; trans. Gummere 1925).

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Lambert, W.G. 1960 Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Lattimore, R. 1962 Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press). Manning, C.E. 1981 On Seneca's 'Ad Marciam' (Mnemosyne Supplementum, 69; Leiden: E.J. Brill). Mattingly, G. 1990 'The Pious Sufferer: Mesopotamia's Traditional Theodicy and Job's Counselors', in W. Hallo, B. Jones and G. Mattingly (eds.), The Bible in the Light of Cuneiform Literature (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen): 305-48. Pham, X.H.T. 1999 Mourning in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 302; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Plutarch 1909 The Complete Works of Plutarch, II (New York: The Kelmscott Society). 1929 Moralia, VII (trans. P.H. de Lacy; 15 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Pope, M. 1973 Job (AB, 15; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 3rd edn). Seneca 1925 AdLucilium Epistulae Morales (trans. R.M. Gummere; 3 vols.; LCL; London: William Heinemann). Simian-Yofre, H. 1998 lDnr,inTDOT, IX, 340-55. Thucydides 1998 The Peloponnesian War: A New Translation, Backgrounds, Interpretations (trans. W. Blanco; ed. W. Blanco and J.T. Roberts; New York: W. W. Norton & Co.).

NADAB AND ABIHU RolfRendtorff

Now Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his pan, put coals in it, and laid incense on it; and they brought near to the LORD a strange fire which he had not commanded them. And fire came forth from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. Then Moses said to Aaron, 'This is what the LORD meant when he said: "Through those near to me I shall sanctify myself, and before all the people I shall glorify myself'.' And Aaron was silent (Lev. 10.1-3).

There are many strange stories in the Bible, but this is one of the strangest. Many things in this story we do not fully understand. In this little essay I will deal with only a few of them.1 Leviticus 10 is the only narrative chapter in the book of Leviticus. From a formal point of view chs. 8 and 9 could be called narrative as well, compared with the purely ritual texts in chs. 1-7. But actually these chapters only conclude the series of texts from Exodus 25 on, which explain the preparations and installation of the cult in the 'tent of meeting'. This series is definitely completed by the scene in Lev. 9.23-24 when 'the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people and fire came out from the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar'. Suddenly the ceremonial mood of the text is interrupted by a dramatic story. In the just completed cultic center there occurs a violation of the cultic order just installed. Yet what is the violation? And who are Nadab and Abihu? What does the reader know so far about the two? The answer is rather mixed. In some texts Aaron's four sons are mentioned: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar (Exod. 6.23; 28.1). But in Exod. 24.1, 9 only Nadab and Abihu are mentioned alongside Moses and Aaron, without any hint of their relationship to Aaron. Together with seventy elders of Israel they are called ^"l(2T S33 1'lTi£N, a hapax legomenon of unknown 1. I dedicate this little fragment of my present work on Leviticus to David Clines as a token of friendship.

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etymology which obviously defines the leaders of the people (see DCH, I, 263). Exod. 24.1-2, 9-11 contain a very exceptional story, as unrelated to its context as Lev. 10.1-3. The most enigmatic aspect in this text is the notion that the group of leaders 'saw the God of Israel' (v. 10), but that they survived in spite of that. Should we understand Leviticus 10 against the background of Exodus 24? Did Nadab and Abihu understand themselves as exceptional persons who 'saw God'? Did they feel entitled to another special encounter with God? In any case, they did something that had been neither commanded nor mentioned at all so far. That is why we do not know exactly what it was they did. Nadab and Abihu 'each took his nnnQ'. About this instrument we learn from the dictionary: 'firepan, utensil of altar, for carrying burning coals or ashes' (DCH, V, 233). It is an instrument belonging to the altar. But why 'his firepan'? Does a certain pan belong to somebody personally? And if so, for what purpose? The dictionary has a second meaning of nnnQ: 'censer'. This meaning is almost exclusively to be found in Leviticus 10 and Numbers 16-17—with one exception: Lev. 16.12. In one respect Numbers 16 is parallel to Leviticus 10: the pan is used by individuals who each take 'his pan' (w. 17, 18) and put incense on it. But the differences are obvious: in Leviticus 10 it is an individual decision by Nadab and Abihu to take 'each his pan', while in Numbers 16 Moses tells Korah and his followers to take 'pans' (v. 6), and only after they do so does the text say 'each his pan' (vv. 17, 18), which could mean: the pan that had been allotted to him. But did Korah and his followers actually bring an incense offering? The chapter combines two stories about an insurrection against Moses and Aaron; in only one of them are the pans and the incense mentioned (w. 6, 17,18,35). According to the text, following the instructions of Moses they took pans and put fire coals and incense on them in order 'to bring it near before the LORD'. But after they had reached the entrance of the tent of meeting, nothing more is said about the pans and the incense. It is just stated: 'They stood at the entrance' (v. 18). Only at the end of the chapter there follows a brief sentence without any relation to the story in the verses before: 'And fire came forth from the LORD and consumed the two hundred and fifty men bringing near the incense' (v. 35). The parallel to Lev. 10.2 is obvious. Whatever might have been told in the obviously lost piece of the story in Numbers 16, the action of the 250 men is as condemnable as that of Nadab and Abihu.2 2. The question remains why Moses told them to take the pans and to put incense on them. The key to the answer could be found in Num. 16.7: it will be demonstrated

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In the following chapter another rebellion is related, this time on the part of the whole congregation (Num. 17.6-15). Now it is Aaron who, directed by Moses, takes a pan and puts fiery coals from the altar on it and adds incense (v. 11). But the situation is totally different: Moses explains that Aaron's action should serve to make expiation (15D, NRSV [16.46] 'atonement'). Thus Aaron takes his pan with the incense and runs to the midst of the congregation, and the plague that has already begun is checked (v. 13). This, of course, was not an illegitimate use of incense, but it was a very exceptional one. The main point is that it was executed by Aaron, who had a unique position in cultic matters; therefore it could not serve as an example for anybody else. The second point is the function of the incense for expiation. This leads us to Leviticus 16. Aaron, just before he enters the adytum, takes 'a panful (nnrtQiTN^Q) of fiery coals... and two handfuls of finely ground perfumed incense' (v. 12), but he puts the incense on the fire only inside the veil 'before the LORD so that the cloud from the incense covers the kapporef(v. 13). This is another very special action with incense, again executed by Aaron—that is, from a later point of view, the High Priest—and only once a year at Yom Hakkippurim.The two texts in Numbers 17 and Leviticus 16 show different sides of the use of incense by Aaron. What is common to both of them, in addition to the fact that it is only Aaron and nobody else who could act like this, is the close relation to expiation. In the case of Numbers 17, Aaron brings the incense as a means of cultic action against the plague. Because the plague comes from God, this action is a way of expiation for those suffering from the plague. In Leviticus 16 the situation is different. Once a year Aaron's action with the incense is part of an expiation ritual which works in favor of the Holy Place (tiTTpn, v. 16a), the Tent of Meeting (v. 16b), or even of the whole congregation (v. 17).3 As different as they are, the two texts Numbers 17 and Leviticus 16 are in close relationship to each other, compared with the rest of the texts that speak about incense. It is only Aaron, that is, the High Priest, who is allowed to bring incense, and even for Aaron this is only allowed in a situation related to expiation. The only additional context for a legitimate 'burning of incense' (TBpn mop) is the incense altar, on which Aaron each morning and each evening 'shall burn a daily incense before the LORD throughout your generations' whom God elected. But how? At the end of the story it is only shown that God elected none of them. 3. This is not the place to discuss the details of the structure of Lev. 16.

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(Exod. 30.7, 8; cf. 2 Chron. 2.3). According to this text the burning of incense on a fixed place, which is erected only for this purpose, is a daily ceremony. But this ceremony is not described as 'to bring near before the LORD' (m!T ^S1? IT~lpn). And nowhere else in the commandments on sacrifices, be it in Leviticus 1-7 or elsewhere, is incense mentioned in conjunction with such terminology—except Lev. 16.12-13. So we have to conclude that there is no legitimate incense offering at all apart fom the one of the High Priest on Yom Hakkippurim. But this is exactly what Nadab and Abihu wanted to do: to offer an incense offering. The attempted incense offering is called HIT tDK (Lev. 10.1; cf. Num. 3.4; 26.61). What is meant by this wording? The nearest parallel is mop n~)T in Exod. 30.9. Here it is forbidden to offer on the incense altar anything other than what is prescribed for Aaron in the verses preceding. There the two main kinds of sacrifices are named, ilÛ and nn]Q. This means that the incense altar must not be used for regular sacrifices. In addition, two other kinds of offerings are mentioned that are not listed in the commandments on sacrifices: mttp and "]DD (libation). It would go beyond the scope of this essay to deal with the problems of libation. Two things are of interest in our context. First, libation is, like incense, not a sacrifice or offering commanded by the law. It is sometimes mentioned, together with nriDD, as an additional offering, in particular in the two calendars, Numbers 29-30 (passim) and Leviticus 23 (vv. 13,17,37) (Rendtorff 1967: 170-72). Second: Libation is frequently mentioned as a syncretistic offering (Jer. 7.18; 19.13; etc.) (Dohmen 1986:488-94). In some cases incense offering is also mentioned as a syncretistic action. Isa. 1.13 speaks of'futile ni"l3Q' and calls incense an 'abomination' (!"OJ?in). The same expression is used in Ezek. 8.9,11, where the burning of incense is one of the abominations that are practised in the ruins of the temple; cf. also Ezek. 16.18; 23.41. Insofar as the action of Nadab and Abihu can be called W* mi, their offering \sforeign and forbidden (DCH, III, 98). A different aspect of the meaning of IT is expressed in Num. 17.5 (ET 16.40). The pans of Korah and his group are to be hammered out as a covering for the altar as a reminder 'that no outsider ("IT t£FN), one not of Aaron's offspring, should approach to offer incense before the LORD'. Here the point is stressed that the offerer may not be someone who is not an Aaronite. This, of course, was not the point with Nadab and Abihu. Obviously, this problem had been looked at from different angles, and possibly in different times.

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Finally, it might be no accident that the two stories in Leviticus 10 and Numbers 16 are both dealing with a kind of rebellion. Though the motivations of Nadab and Abihu are not explicated, one could imagine, as mentioned above, that they wanted to demonstrate their specific role as Aaron's eldest sons, and thereby as next in the priestly hierarchy. They might have felt, like Korah and his followers, that Moses and Aaron elevated themselves too much, and therefore they wanted to claim privileges similar to their father's. Behind all that, there seems to be a story of rivalry within the Aaronite priesthood about which we can only speculate. The exegesis of the enigmatic verse Lev. 10.3 would have to look at those problems. But this is beyond my present topic (Wiesel 1997: 18-28). Bibliography Dohmen, Christoph 1986 '"jCn nasak\ in ThWAT, V, 488-94. Rendtorff, Rolf 1967 Studien zur Geschichte des Opfers im Alten Israel (WMANT, 24; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag): 170-72. Wiesel, Elie 1997 'Nadab and Abihu', European Judaism 30.2: 18-28.

THE WISDOM FORMULA 'Do NOT SAY. ..'

AND THE ANGEL IN QOHELET 5.5

Alexander Rofe

I

The saying and the instruction constitute the shortest and simplest elements in biblical Wisdom. The saying expresses an inference deduced from dayto-day reality, such as: 'Wine is a scoffer, strong drink a roisterer; he who is muddled by them will not grow wise' (Prov. 20.1). As against this, the instruction is an incitement or admonition phrased as a wish or command: 'Let the mouth of another praise you, not yours, the lips of strangers not your own' (Prov. 27.2). The majority of maxims in the book of Proverbs are sayings; they make up almost all of the second, longest, collection in the book (10.1-22.16). The instructions are not many; they are present in the third (22.17-24.22), the fourth (24.23-34) and part of the fifth collection (chs. 25-27). Some of the instructions are unsubstantiated (cf. 27.2); mostly, however, they are sustained by an explanatory phrase, opening with the word 'D (for) or ]S (else) as in 'Do not answer a dullard in accord with his folly, else you will become like him' (26.4), or 'Do not boast of tomorrow, for you do not know what the day will bring' (27.1). Most instructions recommend a certain life style or act likely to bring about success and happiness.1 In the instruction, more precisely in the negative one, that is, the admonition, we may detect a subtype, the 'Do not say' warning. This category has not yet been listed, neither in general textbooks of the Hebrew Bible nor in specific introductions to Wisdom literature. Yet, it has repeatedly been noted by scholars who, independently from each other, have worked on

1. Driver 1913: 392-407; Baumgartner 1914; Zimmerli 1933; Eissfeldt 1965:47276; von Rad 1962:418-41.1 cannot subscribe to Zimmerli's opinion that the advice is later than the saying; McKane 1970; Nel 1982.

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distinct aspects of Wisdom literature.2 Before trying to characterize this formula and its function, let us collect a series of significant examples. 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Prov. 20.22: 'Do not say: "I will requite evil"; put your hope in the Lord and He will deliver you.' Cf. Prov. 24.29; 2 Sam. 13.32 (interpreted in v. 33); Jer. 1.7; Isa. 56.3-8; Hos. 7.2; Deut. 9.4a, 5 (six instances in all). Sir. 15.11,12: 'Do not say: "From God is my transgression"; for that which He hates He did not make. Do not say: "He made me stumble"; for there is no need of evil men.' Cf. Sir. 5.1,3,4-5,6,7,9; 11.23,24; 16.17; 34(31). 12 (nine additional instances). Qumran, Sapiential Text 4Q416.2.III.12-15 = 4Q418: 9+9a+9b+9c (DID, XXXIV, 110): 'You are needy; do not say: "I am poor and I will n[ot] seek knowledge". Bring your shoulder under all instruction; and with all [ ] refine your heart, and with much understanding—your thoughts. Enquire into the mystery that comes, look into all the ways of truth and contemplate all roots of iniquity. Then you shall know what is bitter for a man, and what is sweet for a person.' M Ab. 2.4: 'Do not say: "(This) thing cannot be understood". For finally it will be understood.3 And do not say: 'When I have leisure I will study'. Because perhaps you will not have leisure'. Cf. m. Ab. 4.8; t. San. 3.8; Mek., Mishpatim 20;4 Sifre, Debarim 16; 48;5 Sifra, Ahare Mot 13.11; Qedoshim 4.26 (seven additional instances). Abot deRabbi Nathan, 1st version, ch. 3: 'Rabbi Yishmael says: If you studied Torah in your adolescence, do not say: "I will not learn in my old age"; but study Torah, because you do not know which will be suitable'. Cf. Abot deRabbi Nathan, chs. 2 and 3 (four more instances).7 Der. Er. Zut. 2.9: 'Do not say: '"I will flatter this one and he will feed me, I will flatter that one and he will saturate me, I will flatter the other one and he will dress me". Better you be ashamed in front of yourself and not in front of others.' Cf. Der. Er. Zut. 4.3,4 (six more instances).8 Ahiqar (Elephantine) 13.206: 'Let not the rich man say: "Inmyriches I am glorious".'9 Syriac Recension, Prov. 29: 'My son, do not say:

2. Marbock 1971: 172; Prato 1975:234; Crenshaw 1975:48-51; Rofe 1978; Strugnell and Harrington 1999: 119 (commenting on fragment 2 III 12). 3. Albeck 1953: 358, 495; Travers Herford 1925: 40. 4. Horovitz and Rabin 1960: 326. 5. Finkelstein 1969: 25, 113. 6. Sifra 1862: 86a, 89a. 7. Kister 1997: 14, 16. 8. Sperber 1979: m, n^-CO^. 9. Ginsberg 1950: 430; Lindenberger 1983.

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Reading from Right to Left "My lord is a fool, and I am wise"; but take hold of him in his faults and you will be loved.'10 8. Any 5.2: 'Do not say: "I am young to be taken." For you do not know your death'. Cf. Any 6.8; Amenemope 6.18-19; 19.18-23; 22.1-2, 3-4 (five more instances).'' 9. Ankhsheshonq 8.3: 'Do not say: "I am learned." Set your self to be learned.' Cf. Ankhsheshonq 8.16; 9.11; 14.16; 10.1(7), 2; 11.21-23; 15.5,18; 16.7-8; 17.7; 18.16-11,22; 27 A \(!); 28.2; Pap. Insinger 4.12 (at least 14 additional instances).12 10. Qoh. 7.10: 'Do not say: "How was it, that former times were better than these?" For not out of wisdom you raised that question.'13

We have thus gathered no fewer than 63 cases of the 'Do not say' admonition in Wisdom literature—biblical, Apocryphal, rabbinical, as well as ancient Near Eastern. In the latter the Egyptian occurrences predominate, no less than 21, and 2 additional cases from Ahiqar, 1 from the Aramaic version and 1 from the Syriac. To my knowledge, no instances show up in Mesopotamian Wisdom, either Sumerian or Akkadian.14 This finding constitutes an additional point of contact between biblical and Egyptian Wisdom. Noteworthy is the concomitance of Ben Sira and Ankhsheshonq—both belonging to Hellenistic times—regarding the augmented use of the formula 'Do not say'. This points to contacts between Siracides and Demotic Wisdom, although the character of this relationship is still debated among scholars.15 The constitutive elements of this sapiential admonition appear to be the following: (a) the sage addresses a disciple or a layman; (b) he commences with the formula 'do not say' which actually means 'do not think/believe that...'; (c) then the sage quotes an erroneous opinion, usually coined in personal terms. In Sir. 15.11, for instance, the quote does not say 'transgressions come from God', but rather: 'from God is my transgression'; the same pattern occurs very frequently elsewhere; (d) then the sage responds, usually introducing his argument with 'for' CD) or the like. The opening 'do not say' does not always have the function of reporting 10. Conybeare, Harris and Smith 1913: 105. At this point, they translated ttrhm as 'you shall obtain mercy'. 11. Lichtheim 1976: 135-63. 12. Lichtheim 1980: 159-217. 13. NJPSV is followed in part. 14. I have checked the material found in Gordon (1959) 1968; Gordon 1957; Gordon 1960; Lambert 1960. 15. Sanders 1983; aliter Lichtheim 1983; Harrington 1994.

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a fallacious opinion. At times the phrase refers to an actual discourse and not to a belief, as for example in Prov. 3.28: 'Do not say to your fellow "Come back again, I will give tomorrow" when you have it with you.' Or in Sir. 31(34).31: 'At a banquet of wine, do not rebuke a friend, and grieve him not in his joy; do not say to him a reproachful word and do not afflict him in the presence of people'.16 Yet, the fact remains that in the great majority of its occurrences the expression 'do not say' is used as a terminus technicus to confute a mistaken opinion. A border case obtains in Sir. 31 (34). 12: 'My son, if you sit at a lord's table, do not open your throat on it, do not say "There is plenty on it"; remember how harmful miserliness is'.'7 Here, indeed, the formula 'do not say' refers to a thought, but a transient one, not a rooted opinion. The secondary use of the 'do not say' pattern, as made in Sir. 31(34). 12, shows how recurrent this formula was with Ben Sira. He employed it extensively, at times with slight variations. Side by side with the short advisory formula—in both its substantiated and unsubstantiated form—Ben Sira introduced a double reasoning followed by a single answer (11.23-25) or even a four-stich series (5.1-6). Moreover, twice we find the formula prefacing full-fledged theological sermons (15.11;16.17) whereby it departs from its original setting as basic advice—in dialogue form—to become part of a new context: the elaborated wisdom sermon. The fact that in Sir. 15.11-20 we have two answers spoken by the sage—a short one formulated as a proverb together with an extensive sermon—also witnesses to this secondary use. Yet the widespread usage Ben Sira made of this formula should not be considered a hallmark of personal style. The formula became embedded in Jewish wisdom tradition, as evidenced by its recurrence in Tannaitic sources. On the other hand, its early origin is attested by a source generally considered as one of the oldest in biblical narrative, the Succession Document. In 2 Sam. 13.32 we read: But Jonadab, the son of David's brother Shimah, said, 'Let not my lord say: "All the boys, the king's sons have been killed". For only Amnon is dead; for this has been decided by Absalom ever since his sister Tamar was violated.' 16. The translation is based on Box and Oesterley 1968: 423-24; Segal 1971-72: ad loc. has been consulted. 17. I have rephrased the translation, taking into account Edersheim's note, as reported by Box and Oesterley (preceding note), and the primary meaning of 'good/ evil eye' in Biblical and Rabbinical Hebrew.

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Addressing David as 'my lord', 'the king', necessitated the phrasing in third person singular. Were it not for this, the phrasing would comply with the pattern known to us: 'Do not say: "All the boys, my sons have been killed", ..."O ../D', that is, quoting a dictum coined in personal terms, followed by a double "*3, two answers doing away with the erroneous assertion. In early monarchical times we already find the formula in its classical form. One may note here what happens to a distinctive Wisdom formula when it is quoted in an extraneous context. The next verse, 2 Sam. 13.33, runs: 'Therefore, let not my lord the king nurture the thought ("13113 *? ^ D^fo) that all the king's sons have died, for 03) Amnon alone is dead'. The gist of v. 32 is repeated, but the phrase 'Do not say' has been substituted with an expression meaning 'Do not think'. A technical Wisdom formula has been rephrased for non-professional readers. A similar phenomenon can be observed in Hos. 7.2 ('Let them not say to their hearts...') and in Deut. 9.4a, 5 ('Do not say in your heart... ').18 While the passage in Hosea is somewhat obscure, the one in Deuteronomy is a clear instance of a false opinion being discarded in favor of the right one. Here again the Wisdom formula 'Do not say' has been expanded for the benefit of a non-professional public. This case of stylistic impact exercised by Wisdom circles upon Deuteronomy can be added to the evidence concerning themes and contents collected by scholars in the past.19 The detection of the 'Do not say' instruction offers some clear exegetical gains in two prophetical passages. Let us consider each of the cases: Jer. 1.7: 'Do not say "I am still a boy", for you will go wherever I send you, and speak whatever I command you'. On first reading this answer of the Lord seems to silence Jeremiah's scruples with a sheer imposition.20 Yet if we have here a preset formula employed in theoretical discussions, what we should look for in the Lord's reply is a substantiation refuting the prophet's objection. What the Lord says is that Jeremiah being only a boy is of no consequence, since it is not for him to decide where he shall go, nor is it up to him to determine what he is to say.21 The Hebrew word 18. Deut. 9.4b is a textual expansion due to homoeoteleuton (cf. Weiss 1995, dealing with similar cases). It is not represented by LXXB. Strangely enough the fact has been overlooked in the BH and the BHS. Wevers in his edition of the LXX has v. 4b printed in the text (Wevers 1977: adloc.). 19. Weinfeld 1972 and the strictures of Rofe 2002: 221 -30. 20. Duhm 1901; Rudolph 1968. 21. Up to a certain point David Kimchi's commentary reflects this explanation.


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order in this sentence—opening with verbs that emphasize the Lord's part in Jeremiah's mission— sustains this conclusion. Isa. 56.3-7: 'Let not the foreigner say. . .and let not the eunuch say. . . For thus said the Lord'. Identifying the Wisdom formula enables us to determine the extent of this prophetic unit. It has been suggested that 56. 1-2 are separate from vv. 3-8,22 in spite of the Sabbath theme which unifies w. 18. Now the phrasetfJIDN"HttJN (happy is the man) is typical of Wisdom literature;23 thus we may presume that vv. 1-2 and 3-8 are not only thematically of a piece, but are also unified by their belonging to the same literary genre. This is the word of the Lord interwoven with Wisdom saws. From a form-critical point of view the discussion formula in Isa. 56.3-7 has lost its original purpose: it no longer serves as a theoretical refutation of an erroneous assumption; here it introduces the words 'Thus said the Lord', which by their very authority resolve the problem. II

We have already indicated the presence of the 'Do not say' admonition in Qoh. 7.10. The phrasing is not unexpected since we are dealing with an exponent of Wisdom, flourishing probably during the Egyptian domination of Judea, not long before the other Jewish sage, Ben Sira. Taking these data into account, we will now look into the difficult phrase in Qoh. 5.5: And do not say before the angel that/because. . .

Commentators usually translate "[Nân as 'messenger', 'envoy' and, relating him to the preceding verses, which deal with the payment of vows, they take the 'envoy' to be a kind of exactor, perhaps a priest, coming on behalf of the Temple to collect the debt.24 Yet such an interpretation is rather forced. In the Hebrew Bible, when ""[N^Q refers to a human messenger this understanding is always justified by the context. Late writings apply the title "[N ^0 to prophets (Isa. 44.26; Hag. 1.13; Mai. 1 . 1 ; 2 Chron.

22. Westermann 1966: adloc. 23. Baumgartner 1914:167;Zimmerli 1933: 185-86n. 1,contraHurvitz 1991:1921. It is not only the occurrence of an expression in a literary corpus that determines its pertaining to a literary genre, but its significance as well. Statistics may be misleading. 24. Besides the well-known commentaries in the various series I have consulted the following: Luzzarto [1912-13] 1969-70; Lartes 1964; Ginsberg 1961; Castelli 1866. Cf. also: Spangenberg 1998; Hieke 1998. Both these studies refer to previous literature.

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36. 1 5; Ps. 1 5 1 .4 [Lxx]25) or to priests (Mai. 2.7; 3.1 -4); however, in doing so they mostly emphasize that prophets or priests are more than common people. One may sincerely doubt whether Qohelet would refer to an emissary of the Temple as a "JNÊ. Let us, then, hold on to Jerome's translation, angelus, and see where it will lead us. Following the patterns of the formula identified above, one should begin by punctuating the phrase in a different way: And do not say: 'Before the angel', for. . .

However, if we take into account that the contested opinion is so often reported in personal terms (1st pers. sing.), it is advisable to vocalize "^sb accordingly: not "'D.sb but ^s'p, translating it as follows: And do not say: 'Before me there is an angel', for this is an error.

It is not surprising that Qohelet advances such an idea. The God of Qohelet is a kind ofdeus absconditus, who does not manifest himself and does not communicate with humanity.26 Thus, in the pericope under discussion (4.17-5.6) as well one reads: 'God is in heaven and you are on earth; that is why your words should be few' (5.1). Besides, some of Qohelet's positions have been defined, rightly in my opinion, as protoSadducean, as for instance his negation of the immortality of the soul (3. 19-2 1).27 And from Acts 23.8 one learns that the Sadducees negated resurrection and the existence of angels and spirits, while the Pharisees 98 upheld both these beliefs. Therefore, the interpretation of Qoh. 5.5 advanced above conforms with what we could expect this author to profess. At this point it is worth recalling that a trend of opposition to the belief in angels existed in Israel since late pre-exilic times. The D document in the Pentateuch accurately avoided all mention of angels when in Deuteronomy 6-7 it paraphrased and restated the divine promises of Exod. 23.20-33. The same was done later by P in Exod. 12.13: it omitted all reference to the destroying angel indicated by an older source in Exod. 12.23. Thus, both major theological-historiographical schools of Israel suppressed the mention of the actions and the very existence of angels.29 25. Sanders 1965: 54-64. As against angelos of LXX the Hebrew scroll presents 26. 27. 28. 29.

D'Alark>2001. Levy 1912. Zeitlin 1964. For a discussion and preceding literature, I refer the reader to Rofe 1 979: passim.


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This kind of suppression should be attributed to a rigorous monotheism that considered angels as a remnant of heathen beliefs, chiefly connected to the worship of local numina. The Deuteronomic school, operating in the seventh to the sixth centuries BCE, and the Priestly school, active in the sixth to the fifth centuries BCE, were still concerned about a possible resurgence of paganism, that could propose its traditions transvested in angelological clothing. Qohelet, who composed his book about the mid-third century BCE, probably did not oppose the belief in angels on account of its heathen connections. For him this opposition could have been just a legacy inherited from distant predecessors. At the same time, in the religious milieu of Qohelet there appeared already new currents, factions and antagonisms: apocalyptic with its visions-revelations and its eschatological promises stood as the ultimate antithesis to Qohelet's message; and the means by which apocalypses were transmitted was exactly that of dreams and angels.30 In this context, Qohelet's intimation: 'And do not say: "There is an angel before me", for it is an error' sounds very appropriate. We shall next see what this author had to say—in this same speech—concerning dreams. At this point it is legitimate to ask: if indeed one should vocalize "3B1? as ''jS1?, and translate it 'before me', how did such a reading get lost by tradition? Is it possible that a vocalization that fits in so well with Wisdom style and makes such good sense could fall into oblivion? In my view, there is no lack of cases in the MT in which absolutely natural vocalizations have been substituted by awkward ones.31 Here, however, one should take into account a distinct factor, a theological one: Qohelet was protoSadducean; his book, however, was passed on by the Pharisaic synagogue. And the Pharisees did believe in angels; therefore they could hardly preserve the supposed primary reading and resorted to correction. In the same way they corrected the reading of ilîun in 3.21, substituting the interrogative -TI with the determinative. By means of this minor correction, Qohelet's doubt concerning the soul's immortality was eliminated; the human's spirit ascends to heaven.32 Finally, let us take a look at the entire pericope, Qoh. 4.17-5.6, in order to consider how the phrase discussed so far suits its context.

30. Rosso Ubigli 1983; Sacchi 1994: 170-71. 31. Rofe 1989. 32. Ginsburg 1897: 461-62.

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Reading from Right to Left 4.17. Sacrifice is relativized, since it pertains to the fools. Better to obey God. 5.1. Prayer too is relativized. God is lofty, one should not importune Him with hasty words. 5.2. Dreaming is caused by much brooding, just as the fool's speech comes with many words. 5.3. A vow, once proffered, must be paid in time, unlike the practice of the fools; probably, the fool, scared by a bad dream, hurries to formulate a vow, from which he later withdraws. 5.4. Vows too are relativized: it is better not to utter a vow than to vow without paying (the vows were in the first place promises of donations to the Temple). 5.5a. The first admonition, 'do not let your mouth make your body sin', still warns against hasty vows; the second one negates angelophanies. (These as well may be part of the fools' reveries.) 5.5b. Motivation of the first injunction: God punishes on account of unpaid vows, damaging the property of the perjurer. 5.6. Motivation of the second injunction: 'Much dreaming (with related angelophanies) leads to futility and to superfluous talk' (NJPSV).

Such a construction, in which two instructions are followed by two motivations, each of the motivations being related to one injunction, and following in the same order (a.b.a.b.), is not uncommon in biblical style. There are several similar cases.33 Exod. 29.27: (a) the breast of the wave offering (b) and the thigh of the heave offering, (a) which has been waved (b) and which has been heaved up... (KJV, mainly). Deut. 14.24: (a) Should the distance be too great for you, (b) should you be unable to transport them, (a) because the place ... is far from you, (b) because the Lord your God has blessed you (mainly NJPSV). Ps. 113.6-7: Who is like the Lord our God: (a) enthroned on high, (b) He sees what is below, (a) in heaven (b) and on earth (NJPSV mainly).

Qohelet too adopted this construction in 4.13-14: Better (a) a poor but wise youth than (b) an old but foolish king... (a) for he can emerge from a dungeon to become king, (b) for even being a king he can become a pauper (adapted from NJPSV).

The sequence of Qoh. 5.5-6 can be interpreted in the same way.

33. The following instances have been noted by Ehrlich 1905: 286; Ehrlich 1914: 71-72.


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III

I would like to conclude this short contribution with a brief reflection on the text, exegesis and theology of Qohelet. The text of this book has been transmitted, here as elsewhere in the Bible, by scribes who often dissented from the opinions expressed by the author. As a result the original message of the author has been dimmed by tendentious vocalizations, pious corrections and additions introduced by epigones.34 It is not always possible to recuperate the primary readings which conveyed the original message. But at times we may try, assisted by the knowledge accumulated so far about biblical diction and the style of its literary genres. A confirmation is then provided by the plausibility of the reading. Therefore, the constitutio textus does not precede the exegetical work, but rather is an integral part of it. Then, from the combined results of textual criticism and exegesis we obtain an understanding of Qohelet's ideas, of his theology. Once a theologoumenon has been retrieved, its affinity with other ideas expressed in the book offers us further confirmation that textual criticism and exegesis have led us on the right way. Thus, I would like to insist on a postulate that in the past was universally accepted: the study of a text, its exegesis and the inquiry into its religious thought should not be kept distinct from each other, rather they go hand in hand. The philological discipline is one and the same, in the study of Qohelet as in the study of all ancient texts.35 Bibliography Albeck, H. 1953 Seder Neziqin Meforash (Jerusalem-Tel-Aviv: Bialik-Devir).

34. Two tendentious vocalizations have been dealt with above. A pious correction is present in Qoh. 12.1: instead of "JNTQ, 'your creator', one should read "["TO, 'your cistern' or "["ltd 'your spring'—an allusion to the feminine organ and to sexual pleasure. Theological additions are fewer than what has been asserted, yet they are present in 12.13-14; 11.9b;8.12b-13. 35. For instances of this method I refer the reader to the writings of I.L. Seeligmann, esp. Seeligmann 1948: 39-69; Seeligmann 2000. My thanks go to the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for its assistance in preparing this manuscript, during my stay as a guest in the Winter 2001/2002, and to Ms Judith H. Seeligmann who graciously helped me in matters of English style.

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Baumgartner, W. 1914 'Die literarischen Gattungen in der Weisheit des Jesus Sirach', ZA W 34: 16198. Box, G.H., and W.O.E. Oesterley 1968 'The Book of Sirach', in R.H. Charles (ed.), The Apocrypha andPseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (repr.; 2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press [1913]): I, 268-517. Castelli, D. 1866 // libra del Qohelet: Tradotto, con introduzione critica e note (Pisa: Nistri). Conybeare, F.C., J.R. Harris and A.L. Smith 1913 The Story ofAhikar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn). Crenshaw, J.L. 1975 'The Problem of Theodicy in Sirach: On Human Bondage', JBL 94: 47-64. D'Alario, V. 2001 'Struttura e teologia nel libro del Qohelet', in E.G.-A. Passaro (ed.), // libra del Qohelet: Tradizione, redazione, teologia (Milan: Edizioni Paoline): 25675. Driver, S.R. 1913 Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 9th edn). Duhm, B. 1901 Das Buch Jeremia erkldrt (KHAT, 11; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr). Ehrlich, A.B. 1905 Die Psalmen, neu iibersetzt und erkldrt (Berlin: Poppelauer). 1914 Randglossen zur hebraischen Bibel, VII (Leipzig: Hinrichs). Eissfeldt, O. 1965 The Old Testament: An Introduction (ET; Oxford: Blackwell). Finkelstein, L. (ed.) 1969 Siphre adDeuteronomium (repr.; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary [1939]). Ginsberg, H.L. 1950 'Aramaic Proverbs and Precepts', in ANET: 427-30. 1961 Koheleth (Tel Aviv: M. Newman) [Hebrew]. Ginsburg, C.D. 1897 Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (London: Trinitarian Bible Society). Gordon, E.I. 1960 'A New Look at the Wisdom of Sumer and Akkad', BiOr 17: 122-52. 1957 'Sumerian Proverbs: Collection Four', JAOS 77: 67-79. 1968 Sumerian Proverbs: Glimpses of Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (New York: Greenwood Press [1959]). Harrington, D.J. 1994 'Sirach Research since 1965: Progress and Questions', in J.C. Reeves and J. Kampen (eds.), Pursuing the Text: Studies in Honor of Ben Zion Wacholder on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (JSOTSup, 184; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press): 164-76. Hieke,T. 1998 ' Wie hast du's mit der Religion? Sprechhandlungen und Wirkintentionen in


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Kohelet 4, 17-5, 6', in A. Schoors (ed.), Qohelet in the Context of Wisdom (BETL, 136; Leuven: Leuven University Press-Peeters): 319-38. Horovitz, H.S., and I.A. Rabin (eds.) 1960 Mechilta D 'Rabi Ismael (repr.; Jerusalem: Bamberger & Wahrman). Hurvitz, A. 1991 Wisdom Language in Biblical Psalmody (Jerusalem: Bialik [Hebrew]). Kister, M. Avoth de-Rabbi Nathan: Solomon Schechter Edition, with References to 1997 Parallels... (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary). Lambert, W.G. Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press). 1960 Lattes, D. 1964 // Qoheleth o I'Ecclesiaste (Roma: Unione delle Comunita Israelitiche Italiane). Levy, Ludwig 1912 Das Buch Qoheleth: Bin Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sadduzaismus, kritisch untersucht (Leipzig: Hinrichs). Lichtheim, M. 1976 Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings. II. The New Kingdom (Berkeley: University of California Press). 1980 Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings. III. The Late Period (Berkeley: University of California Press). 1983 Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature in the International Context: A Study of Demotic Instructions (OBO, 52; Freiburg: Universitatsverlag; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Lindenberger, J.M. 1983 The Aramaic Proverbs ofAhiqar (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press). Luzzatto, S.D. 1969-70 mhqiy hyhdwt (repr. Jerusalem: Makor, 5730 [1912-13]): I, part 2, 60-122. Marbock, J. 1971 Weisheit im Wandel: Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie bei Ben Sira (BBB, 37; Bonn: Hanstein). McKane, W. Proverbs: A New Approach (OTL; London: SCM Press). 1970 Nel, P.J. The Structure and Ethos of the Wisdom Admonitions in Proverbs (BZAW, 1982 158; Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter). Prato, G.L. llproblema della teodicea in Ben Sira (AnBib, 65; Rome: Pontificio Istituto 1975 Biblico). Rad, G. von Old Testament Theology, I (ET; Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd). 1962 Rofe, A. ' "The Angel" in Qohelet 5.5 in the Light of a Wisdom Dialogue Formula', 1978 in M. Haran (ed.), H.L. Ginsberg Volume (Erls 14) (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society [Hebrew]): 105-109. The Belief in Angels in Ancient Israel (Jerusalem: Makor). 1979

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2002 Rosso Ubigli, L. 1983 Rudolph, W. 1968 Sacchi, P. 1994 Sanders, J.A. 1965

'Isaiah 59.19 and Trito-Isaiah's Vision of Redemption', in J. Vermeylen (ed.), The Book of Isaiah (BETL, 81; Leuven: Peelers): 407-10. Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). 'Qohelet di fronte alPApocalittica', Henoch 5: 209-34. Jeremia (HAT, 1/12; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 3rd edn). Storia del Secondo Tempio (Turin: Societa Editrice Internazionale). The Psalms Scroll ofQumran Cave 77(11 QPsa) (DID, 4; Oxford: Clarendon Press).

Sanders, J.T. 1983 Ben Sira and Demotic Wisdom (SBLMS, 28; Chico, CA: Scholars Press). Seeligmann, I.L. 1948 The Septuagint Version of Isaiah: A Discussion of its Problems (Ex Oriente Lux, 9; Leiden: EJ. Brill). 2000 'Studies in the History of the Biblical Text', Textus 20: 1-30. Segal, M.H. 1971-72 spr bn syr' hslm (repr.; Jerusalem: Bialik, 2nd edn). Sifra 1862 Sifra: Commentar zu Leviticus (Vienna: J. Schlossberg). Spangenberg, I.J. 1998 'A Century Wrestling with Qohelet: The Research History of the Book Illustrated with a Discussion of Qoh 4,17-5,6', in A. Schoors (ed.), Qohelet in the Context of Wisdom (BETL, 136; Leuven: Peeters): 61-91. Sperber, D. 1979 Masechet Derech Eretz Zutta with Commentary (Jerusalem: Tsur-Ot). Strugnell, J., and D.J. Harrington 1999 Qumran Cave 4. XXIV. Sapiental Texts, Part 2 (DJD, 34; Oxford: Clarendon Press). Travers Herford, R. 1925 Pirke A both... with Introduction, Translation and a Commentary (New York: Jewish Institute of Religion Press). Weinfeld, M. 1972 Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Weiss, R. 1995 'A Peculiar Textual Phenomenon', Textus 18: 27-32. Westermann, C. 1966 Das Buch Jesaja, Kap. 40-66, ubersetzt und erklart (ATD, 19; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Wevers, J.W. 1977 Deuteronomium (Septuaginta) (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Zeitlin, S. 1964 'The Sadducees and the Belief in Angels', JBL 83: 67-71. Zimmerli, W. 1933 'Zur Struktur der alttestamentlichen Weisheit', ZAW51: 177-204.

MEASURABLE AND IMMEASURABLE: THEMES IN OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY*

John W. Rogerson

If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed; you shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your wine press... But if he says to you, 'I will not go out from you', because he loves you and your household, since he fares well with you, then you shall take an awl, and thrust it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your bondman forever. And to your bondwoman you shall do likewise (Deut. 15.12-14a, 16-17).

This passage combines what the title of this essay calls the measurable and the immeasurable. On the one hand are the precise, that is, measurable, instructions about the period of service of slaves. Slaves, male and female, may serve as slaves for no longer than six years. If they decide to give up their right to freedom, then a ceremony must be enacted, presumably in public (in the parallel passage in Exod. 21.6 it is carried out before Elohim— either God or judges), in which an awl is thrust through the would-be perpetual slave's ear, pinning him or her to the door. On the other hand there is the immeasurable, in the form of the command to the master to furnish the freed slave liberally out of his flock, his threshing floor and his wine press. No quantities are specified. Instead, there is a most expressive phrase in the Hebrew 1^ pÛfl (TDUH (ha'aneq ta'aniq 16), which the lexicons connect with the noun and HUD. 1 In modern exegesis one generally maintains that v. 2 describes force, although some argue that the verb nDU indicates that 'Shechem "raped" Dinah', and others take one of the other verbs as a marker of violent actions.2 However, in three recent studies it is stated that there is no justification, as far as the verb H3I7 is concerned, for the conclusion that the encounter is a violent one (Wyatt 1990; Bechtel 1994; Gruber 1999). Some short semantic remarks about these verbs, therefore, are in order. With regard to the verb Pip1?, Schmid (1971) and Seebass (1984) demonstrate convincingly that the verb's basic meaning is not characterized by the idea of 'seize', 'force' or 'violence', but expresses the act of 'taking' as an action initiated by a responsible subject, in which very often spatial movements are involved. Thus, the verb rip1? appears to indicate both the act of 'getting' and a spatial aspect: one takes from one place to another place, from another place to one's own, takes away and carries off. Therefore, one has to conclude that in Gen. 34.2a the verb rip1? indicates that Shechem 'takes her' in the sense of 'transfers her to his own house'. This is confirmed by v. 26, where Dinah's brothers take (rip1?) Dinah from Shechem's house and transfer her home, so that this act can be understood as the reversal of Shechem's taking in v. 2.3 It is most remarkable indeed that Dinah's

1. The Septuagint translates none of these words by 'violence', 'abuse' or 'rape', whereas the Vulgate renders the Hebrew verb Ftp *? by rapuit. In the rabbinic tradition some take np"? as a description of abduction', whereas others consider D8 3DKJ as the expression of the crime, viz. enforced sexual intercourse (Bereishis-Genesis 1997). 2. Sternberg (1985:446) renders HJU as 'abuse'. Sarna (1989:233) holds the three verbs in Gen. 34.2 to be an indication of the increasing severity of the violence: whereas the first verb np1? simply means 'to take', the second verb 3DEJ with the preposition J"IN 'to sleep with' points to the fact that Dinah is treated as an object, and it culminates in the third verb HDU which shows that Shechem 'raped' her. Freedman (1990) holds that H3U refers to illicit sexual intercourse, although not to rape. Fewell and Gunn (1991) may differ in many respects from Sternberg, but still consider the verbs in Gen. 34.2 to refer to rape. Noble (1991) adheres to Steinberg's position. Frymer-Kinsky (1992:194) conceives H3S7 as a denotation of illicit sex. Brenner (1997: 96 n. 14) writes that 'Previous consensus decrees that this verb (HD17), especially where it occurs with other lexemes offeree", "physical force" designates "rape"'. Amit (2000:191) adheres to Brenner's view. Scholz (2000: 136,138) suggests the possibility of hendiadys, in which the three verbs express the single action of rape. 3. Wyatt (1990: 439) comes to the same conclusion: 'This indicates that the verb

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transference to Shechem's house is not preceded by his going away or leaving, but by Dinah's leaving. This is extraordinary in the social domain in which to take the initiative of leaving is prototypically reserved for men. The verb 3DCJ, 'to lie down', occurs in the Hebrew Bible with the prepositions DD andnN, both indicating 'have sexual intercourse with'. Orlinsky (1944) made an analysis of all the biblical material in which both collocations, DI7 3D& and PIK IO5£J, occur, and demonstrated convincingly that there is no semantic difference between them. They both refer to the act of sexual intercourse, and no difference derives from the allegedly transitive or intransitive character of the verb or from the legal or illegal, licit or illicit, voluntary or forced character of the sexual act. Thus, the verb indicates in Gen. 34.2 that 'Shechem had sexual intercourse with Dinah'. Thirdly and finally, the verb H3I? occurs in seven biblical texts in the piel with a woman as object, namely, Gen. 16; 31.43-54; 34; Deut. 21.10-14; 22.13-29; Judg. 19.22-20.7 and 2 Samuel 13. In an extensive study (van Wolde 2002) I demonstrated that this verb refers to the act of debasement in a social-judicial perspective, often in relation to the social debasement of the men related to her. It does not describe Shechem's rape or sexual abuse of Dinah, but evaluates Shechem's previously described actions ('take' and 'sleep with') as a debasement of Dinah from a social-juridical point of view. This is confirmed by the Septuagint, which translates H3 J? in the Hebrew Bible with TairEivoco, 'make low', 'make humble'. In conclusion, a semantic study of these three verbs shows that v. 2 does not describe rape. A Love Story The events told in v. 2 have a strong effect on Shechem, described in v. 3 with 3 1C3B3 p31, 3718 and 3crb:J 131. The meaning of the first term p31 clusters tightly around spatial proximity, indicating 'be close by', 'keep close', 'adhere', 'cling'. The verb p31 is collocated here with the subject &33. Three times in the Hebrew Bible this collocation occurs, and all three usages express how a person shows a complete attachment to someone or something.4 Thus, in Gen. 34.3 this word combination designates the state does not have a purely sexual function in v. 2, but rather has the sense that Shechem took the girl into his house, from which she was later removed'. 4. Ps. 63.9: 'my very self is attached to you' ("fin« '2JS3 np31); Ps. 119.25: 'my very self attaches to dust' flftM ISUb npin). In Gen. 34.3 (TlD-n IttJS] paim) the preposition 3 is used.

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or process in which Shechem's whole person is caught up with or adheres to Dinah. His very self is involved with her. The second verb D!"IN, 'love', confirms this involvement, because it expresses Shechem's strong emotions towards her. He loves her; his attitude and behaviour is one of deep affection. Consequently and in accordance with these feelings, 'he spoke to the heart of the young woman'. Dinah is addressed here as a (grammatically) independent subject unrelated to the speaker, and as someone with a heart or personality of her own. This is the first (and last) time Dinah is treated by someone as a person, who presumes that she has her own vantage point. Not by the narrator though, because he does not show her reaction. Shechem's new behaviour is amplified in v. 4: he wants to marry her. He asks his father 'take for me this girl as a wife'. He joins his father in his visit to Jacob and his sons, to ask for Jacob's daughter's hand. He is prepared to give anything they ask from him and his family, if only they allow him to marry her. His plea in v. 13 is moving: 'Please, please show me your favour, whatever you will ask, I will give, but please give me the young woman as a wife'. That is what Shechem aims for, a proper marriage, and his urgent demand on his father in v. 4 perfectly fits the official terms of a legal arrangement of marriage. The subsequent actions of Hamor and Shechem, described in w. 8,9,12,16 and 21, are in complete accordance with this legal procedure and expressed by the words commonly used to indicate marriage. Although Jacob's household is brought into a difficult position by the debasement of Dinah, there still is a solution. It is not an insoluble problem, as Exod. 22.15-16 and Deut. 22.28-29 show us. These texts present the appropriate procedure in cases like this: a correction can still be made, if the legal procedure is carried out properly, that is, if the man pays the bride-price to the Jacob family and if they give their daughter to him legally. What about Dinah? Two data may reveal something of Dinah's feelings. If Dinah hated Shechem after he had taken her home and had intercourse with her, she would have been able to leave the place as soon as possible. But in v. 26 it turns out that she stayed there; if not, she could not have been taken by her brothers out of Shechem's house. Another indication of Dinah's attitude might be deduced from v. 3, which tells that Shechem adhered to her, loved her and spoke to her for the first time as someone with her own personality. Before this all happened, nobody shared her perspective; and after this has happened, nobody will share her perspective. Only in relationship with Shechem is she given shape as a character: she is

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referred to as a young marriageable woman and as a girl; she is addressed as a person with a heart and a view. And would Dinah not be in love with him? They had sex together, and Shechem started to love her afterwards, so that one may conclude that it was (at least from his point of view) a successful meeting. Could Dinah not be emotionally involved? So, for the time being the conclusion can be drawn that Genesis 34 is a love story, with Shechem and Dinah as another Romeo and Juliet. Both are young and naive. Threats are everywhere, because he is a member of the Hivite family living in the city of Shechem and she is a member of the Jacobite family living in a tent facing the city of Shechem. So we have two rival families as in ancient Verona, but are these two households 'both alike in dignity', as in Shakespeare's play? A Story of Hatred The dignity of the Jacob family can be detected from their words and deeds. The words of Jacob's sons are reported in vv. 14-15: We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to a man who has a foreskin, for that is a disgrace for us. Only in this we consent to you, if you will be like us, every male to be circumcised.

The Jacobites' line of argumentation is clear: (1) They start by saying no. (2) They proceed to talk about Shechem's person, not about his previous actions: they identify him as a man with a foreskin. (3) They lay down a condition and speak about complete identity ('you will be like us'), and then they concentrate on one aspect (circumcision). They do not, however, elucidate how these two areas are related, as is shown by the loose grammatical link in which the protasis of the condition (indicated by DN) is related by an infinitive to the apodosis, 'every male to be circumcised'. In other words, by stipulating a condition, Jacob's sons disguise partial identity ('every male among you to be circumcised') as complete identity ('you are as we are'). This is the suggestive inference they impose on the Shechemites, as if the removal of one difference (the foreskin) would create complete identity. Thus Jacob's sons talk about the unity of two families/ peoples. They explicitly say so in v. 16: 'we will become one people'. This is their most essential point: they suggest that such a unity is possible by removing one difference. And the narrator warns us: 'They spoke deceitfully' (v. 13). Deceitful, indeed, were their words, because after the Shechemites circumcised themselves, 'Two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, took their

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swords, came upon the city unopposed and killed every male. They killed Hamor and Shechem by the mouth of the sword' (w. 25-26). One has to conclude: the story according to two sons of Jacob is not a love story, but a story of hatred. They talk about becoming one people, but they actually kill and murder the other people. It is, actually, one of the shortest descriptions of genocide in history, "Orta IJTPI. A whole town massacred in three words.5 The other sons of Jacob plunder the town, seize the flocks and herds, loot the city and take the wives and children as captives. The comparison is made clear between what happened to Dinah ('the two sons of Jacob took Dinah from Shechem's house', v. 26) and what happened to the wives in Shechem ('the sons of Jacob took the wives and children as captives', v. 27): all women and children, cattle and goods are taken away. In the final dialogue between Jacob and his two sons (w. 30-31), Jacob does not talk about Dinah or about the murders committed by his sons, but about the consequences of war or violence for himself and his house. Twice he depicts it as if it were an action executed upon him: 'I will be destroyed, I and my house'. Jacob is talking about other men as a threat to his own house, whereas he and his house have been a threat to others. The Narrator in Genesis 34 A narrator tells a story, selects the material, arranges it and chooses the perspectives. In a story, the indirect narrator's texts are very influential.6 5. The question can be raised whether or not one can speak of 'the holocaust of the Shechemites'. The word 'holocaust' (although it originally referred to the burnt offering) is used today to refer to the systematic mass murder of the European Jews by the Nazis. Those who oppose the use of this word for genocides other than the Shoah of the Jews claim that the holocaust of the Jews was unique and sui generis because nothing comes anywhere near the enormity of the holocaust. The holocaust was horrible, but the prohibition to use this term for other people denies that other genocides were and are horrible too. To claim the uniqueness of the use of this term is in itself a product of exclusive thinking—as if there is a hierarchy in suffering. The universality of human rights is based on the fact that no one wants his or her body to be beaten, battered, mistreated, raped, starved or murdered, be it individually murdered or systematically massacred. By using the term 'holocaust' to describe the massacre of the Shechemites by two sons of Jacob, one could exactly point at this feature: no one can claim exclusiveness in murder or in suffering. 6. A narrator does not tell merely about actions by characters or about situations but also looks through the eyes of the characters and speaks through their mouths. The

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These are texts which present the mental awareness (perception, experience, cognition) of a character, but the words are the narrator's. These texts often occur after verbs of perceiving or knowing attributed to a character. In these cases the narrator is responsible for the words (which differs from direct speech, in which the character is responsible for the words), and the character is presented as responsible for the contents. These indirect narrator's texts are very influential in the guidance of the reader. Five indirect narrator's texts occur in Genesis 34. The first indirect narrator's text appears in v. 5, 'Jacob heard that he defiled Dinah, his daughter'. This verse presents the mental awareness of Jacob in the words of the narrator. It is the narrator who uses the word NQtD to describe Shechem's act. This verb in the qal means 'be or become cultically impure or unclean', the niphal 'defile oneself, the piel 'make impure, make unclean, defile, desecrate, always ritually' or 'declare cultically unclean'.7 In all these uses, this verb (and its cognate nouns) stands out against a cultic and ritual cognitive domain.8 In the piel, the form in which it occurs here, the verb is never characterized by the idea of 'defile' in the sense of 'dishonour' or 'sexual abuse' but rather by the concept of (un)cleanness, which is religiously defined and regulated according to ritual laws of purification and purgation. By using the word NQB as a description of what Jacob heard about Shechem, the narrator evaluates Shechem's acts in a socio-religious context. The second indirect narrator's text is presented in vv. 7d and 7e, where the narrator presents his own reflections to explain the Jacobites' feelings of anger: 'The men were very distressed and angry, for he had done a shocking thing in Israel by sleeping with Jacob's daughter; such a thing ought not to be done'. It is remarkable that this explanatory clause refers to 'Israel', which does not exist yet. This reference apparently functions as a trigger: it opens a new sub-world, a setting with its own temporal and narrator then surrenders the observation or narrative point of view to these characters in the narrative, so that the character's texts (or discourses) that are embedded in the narrator's text emerge. Both narrator's text and character's text (discourse) can be represented directly or indirectly so that a distinction can be made between (a) a direct narrator's text ('She was tired'); (b) an indirect narrator's text ('She felt tired'); (c) an indirectly represented discourse ('She said that she was tired'); and (d) a directly represented discourse ('She said, "I am tired"'). For an extensive description and application seevanWolde 1995. 7. See BDB, 379; DCH, IV, 67; Gesenius18, II, 424; NIDOTTE, II, 365-76. 8. A concentration of this verb occurs in Leviticus, esp. Lev. 10-16 and 18-20, which deals with ritual physical impurity and its religious consequences.

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spatial frame, which transgresses the borders of the text world of Genesis 34. In this sub-world, the behaviour of someone (an unnamed general subject) that is judged as unacceptable in Israel is linked by an infinitive 'sleep' to an object area only described as 'the daughter of Jacob'. Although the infinitive does not specify person, gender and number nor an explicit subject, it appears to imply Shechem as subject: Shechem's sleeping with the daughter of Jacob is thus presented as a specification of the general n bDD: it is shocking and absolutely intolerable. In this way, Shechem's act is transferred to the world as the Israelite reader knows it, and, in this setting, Shechem's act is evaluated as disgraceful and unacceptable. This transfer is presented as a pretext for the text to come. The third indirect narrator's text in which the narrator exerts explicit influence is v. 13. Shortly before Jacob's sons start to speak, the narrator says: 'They spoke of him who had defiled Dinah, their sister'. Verse 13b appears to lack syntactic cohesion and the use of "IKJN is rather unusual. This irregular linguistic structure shows that Jacob's sons do not use the verb NQC3, 'defile', but that the narrator presents it as part of their deliberations, providing it as a cause for their deceitful planning and delusive words. The words are the narrator's, but the awareness is the sons', as the reference to Dinah as 'their' sister indicates. Earlier, in v. 5, the narrator had called her Dinah in relationship to Jacob, and he used the term NDB, 'he defiled Dinah, his daughter', to describe Shechem's act. And in v. 13 the narrator uses her name in relationship to the sons of Jacob in connection with the verb 'defile'. By referring to Dinah as 'their sister' here, the act of defilement is directly linked to Jacob's sons, whereas in v. 5 this defilement was linked to Jacob. The fourth indirect narrator's text contains the verb NQD, 'defile', again: 'They plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister' (v. 27). This verse differs from the indirect narrator's text in v. 5 ('Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah, his daughter') where Jacob's perception was presented in the words of the narrator. Here in v. 27 the defilement is not explicitly presented as a perception of Jacob's sons, although it is implied by the narrator that it is the Jacobites' judgment. The plural form of the verb NQE is linked ungrammatically to the city (a singular noun), and semantically it is a coloured and even wrong evaluation, for previously only one man, Shechem, had had sexual intercourse with one woman, Dinah, which was evaluated by this cultic term for defilement. By using this very same verb in a plural form, the narrator expresses his own evaluation as that of the Jacobites in which all Shechemites are made responsible.


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The narrator's influence on the representation of the story is, therefore, substantial. The evaluative verb 'defile' is used three times by the narrator: when he tells us about Jacob's perception that Shechem defiled his daughter Dinah; as part of the deliberations of Jacob's sons, where he provided it as cause for their deceitful planning and delusive words; and, finally, at the moment they loot the city of Shechem. Thus both the use of the verb NOB and the moments of presentation are very selective indeed, grounding the feelings and the behaviour of the Jacobites. By the triple use of the term 'defile' the narrator places the Jacobites' mental awareness in a strong socio-religious condemnation of Shechem's behaviour. This is confirmed and emphasized by v. 7: 'for he had done a shocking thing in Israel by sleeping with Jacob's daughter; such a thing ought not be done', where the narrator presents his judgment openly and directly in a direct narrator's text (in which he is responsible for both the judgment/observation and the way it is phrased). In this way, Shechem's act is transferred to the world or setting of the Israelite reader and condemned in the severest terms possible: it is a disgrace. The narrator's contribution to the story is visible in aspects other than the indirect narrator's texts as well. Above, I indicated that v. 3d is an evaluative narrator's text, in which the narrator used the verb HDU, 'debase', as an evaluation of Shechem's behaviour. Hence, the reader was strongly guided not to read it as rape but as a degradation of the Jacob family. Because the narrator selected as he did and because he defined what Israel was supposed to do (v. 7), in addition to the way he described Shechem's acts as defilement, one might conclude that the narrator supports Jacob's sons' views. Perhaps he does not condone their massacre, although he seems to consider it irrelevant. Last but not least, the way the narrator opens and ends his storytelling is revealing indeed. He starts with 'Dinah went out': her leaving is foregrounded. Her intention to contact the daughters of the land is emphasized by the irregular use of the preposition H: her action links her with the daughters of the land. He finishes by placing the two sons' rhetorical question at the end of the story. The story ends in the middle of their directly represented speech. Thus, the reader is encouraged to share the sons' point of view. Their final words are 'our sister a whore'. They talk about leaving and cleaving: Dinah's leaving implies mixing with other people, and Shechem's cleaving might lead to becoming one people. The narrator defends Jacob's sons' mono-ethnic position and reinforces it by grounding it in an Israelite socio-religious framework.

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Reading from Right to Left Genesis 34 in the Context of Genesis 28-35

Why is this story presented in the book of Genesis? And what position does it take in the Jacob cycle? We have not heard of Dinah before, apart from the report of her birth in 30.21, and will not hear from her any more, so the focus point in Genesis surely is not Dinah. So, what is it focused upon? A short contextual study of Genesis 34 can elucidate this. In Gen 33.18-20, that is, in the verses immediately preceding ch. 34, it was reported that Jacob, on his way from Paddan-aram, 'came to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, encamped before the city and erected there an altar and called it "El Elohe Israel"'. These verses are the last lines of ch. 33, in which the family problems between Jacob and his brother Esau were resolved with Esau's brotherly kiss (33.4) and with Esau's acceptance of Jacob's blessing (33.10). The narrative tension previously built up in Genesis 25-33 has finally come to an end (cf. Blum 2001: 229), and Esau and Jacob go their own ways (33.12-16). Now a new episode begins and Jacob starts to live his own life in Canaan. At this very moment the text starts with a description of his return into Canaan (33.1820), in which reference is made to the time he left the country (28.10-20). The two texts have some characteristics in common: both texts (a) mention the flight to and return from Paddan-aram, (b) use the term 'safely' (01 ^tzn in 28.21 and D ÛJ in 33.18) and (c) describe the building of an altar. Therefore, the difference catches the eye: in Genesis 28, Jacob promised to build an altar in Bethel, and now in Genesis 33 he actually builds an altar in Shechem, which he calls 'El Elohe Israel'. In this context, the name Israel in Jacob's mouth can only refer to Jacob himself because he received this name in the Jabbok scene in Genesis 32: thus, the altar in Shechem is called 'El, the God of Israel'.9 Immediately following the story of Dinah and Shechem, Gen. 35.1 shows that God gives his command to Jacob to leave Shechem in order to go to Bethel and build an altar there. In response to God's exhortation to leave Shechem, Jacob orders his household to get rid of the foreign gods and to purify themselves, and he continues: 'Come, let us go up to Bethel, and I will build an altar there to the God who answered me when I was in distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone' (35.3). The narrator confirms that 'he buried them [the foreign gods] under the terebinth that is near Shechem' (35.4). Thus, Shechem is associated with foreign 9.

Blum (2001: 233) proposes to translate it as 'really a God is the God of Israel'.


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gods and idolatry. The altar built by Jacob in Shechem in Gen. 33.20 is replaced by the altar in Bethel in Gen. 35.7. 'El, the God of Israel' is now called 'El, the God of Bethel' (35.7). Both texts (Gen. 33.18-20 implicitly and Gen. 35.1-3 explicitly) refer back to Gen. 28.10-20, where Jacob's God was related to Bethel. The text of Gen. 28.10-20 is crucial indeed. In this brief story, concerning which I can point only to some elementary features, the word DlpQH, 'the place', has an important place. It is repeated six times. The first time is when Jacob left Beer-sheba and set out for Haran: DlpftH J^STI, 'he came upon the place' (v. 11). The definite article in 'the place' is remarkable because the definite article implies that the identity of the place is known at the moment of telling, whereas it has not been mentioned before. Only the following verses will identify the place. By using the verb U3S to indicate a spatial movement, although it has the connotation of a (personal) encounter, reference is made to this site as the place where Jacob and God will meet, an encounter that has not yet taken place at the moment of telling in 28.11. One might conclude that this clause in 28.11 a is a kind of summary of what will happen later on, and this is indicated by the definite article and by the use of the verb U33 with its connotation of 'encounter'. After this opening statement or caption at the beginning, 28.1 Ib continues with a twice-repeated reference to 'the place': 'He took one of the stones of the place and laid it down in this place'. Later on, in his reaction to YHWH'S discourse, Jacob says: 'Surely, YHWH is present in this place, and I did not know', and 'How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God (DTI^N mi), this is the gateway to heaven' (28.16-17). The narrator concludes: 'he called the name of this place Bethel (^NTTD)' (28.19). The story ends with Jacob's promise to build an altar in this place if he returns home safely. However, when he did get home safely from Paddan-aram, he built an altar in Shechem (33.20)! It is surprising indeed. And this is directly followed by the story of Dinah and Shechem in Genesis 34, with its discussion of mixed marriage and becoming one people. The analysis of the indirect narrator's texts showed that the narrator defended the mono-ethnic position of Jacob's sons and that he confirmed it by framing it in a socioreligious framework. This is now corroborated by the text in Genesis 35, where Shechem turns out to be the opposite of Bethel. Bethel, the place where Jacob met his God, represents the ideal of one place, one people and one God. It is opposed to the other place, Shechem, with alien people and alien gods, who have to be buried. The terminology is transparent: Jacob

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buries the alien gods and they are thus tied to the name of Shechem. Shechem does not only represent other people but also other gods. Consequently, the attack on the multiracial society is grounded in a monotheistic view: they should be buried in the same grave, both the alien Shechemites and the alien gods. In short, the multiracial society defended by the Shechemites in the love story of Dinah and Shechem and opposed by the Jacobites and by the narrator in Genesis 34 is buried forever in Genesis 35. Whereas Shechem represents a multiracial society, Bethel represents a mono-ethnic and monotheistic society. Shechem is attacked by the Jacobites and the narrator as strongly as Bethel and one God are defended by the narrator. This conclusion is confirmed by a comparative study of God's words in Gen. 28.13-14 and Gen. 35.11-12. Genesis 28.13-14

Genesis 35.11-12

1. God 1. God I am YHWH, the God of Abraham your father I am El Shaddai, and the God of Isaac.

2. The land The land on which you lie, to you I will give it and to your seed.

3. The land The land that I gave to Abraham and to Isaac, to you I will give it, and to your seed after you I will give the land.

3. Your seed 2. Your seed And your seed shall be like dust of the earth Be fruitful and multiply. and you shall burst forth to the west A nation, an assembly of nations and the east and the north and the south, shall stem from you, and kings shall come forth from your loins. 4. Other people—blessing And all the clans of the earth shall be blessed through you, and through your seed.

The transformation from Genesis 28 and Genesis 35 is brought about by many features. Jacob has become more powerful in the meantime: from a fugitive he has turned into a patriarch. From being powerless, he has become powerful. His God has changed accordingly: from YHWH, the God


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of Abraham and Isaac, he has transformed into El Shaddai, a name which defines God's power. The seed described in Genesis 28 as spreading throughout the earth is defined in Genesis 35 in national and powerful terms: nations and kings stemming from your loins. The land described in Genesis 28 as the place on which you lie is now defined as the land previously given to Abraham and Isaac. Last but not least: the blessing of other clans of the earth is missing in Genesis 35. Other clans are not blessed any more through Jacob, nor through his seed. The Shechemites can testify to that. The Dinah and Shechem story makes its contribution to this transformation. The context of peace and mutual understanding with the Canaanites is transformed in a mono-ethnic position embedded in a mono-religious position. In the context of the Jacob cycle, the story of Dinah is one building block in the defence of this position. A story that, on its own, might be read as a love story seen from the perspective of Shechem and Dinah, or as a story of hatred seen from the perspective of Jacob's sons, turns into a story about monotheism and mono-ethnicity when read in the context of the Jacob cycle as presented in Genesis. By placing Genesis 35 immediately after the story of Dinah and Shechem, inclusive religion is replaced by exclusive religion. Genesis 34 turns out to be the hinge in this transformation. Blessing is restricted to one's own people; the blessing of other people is not mentioned any more; the land is exclusively given to the Jacobites. This changes the perspective on God too: he is not referred to as the God of Abraham and Isaac any more, but as El Shaddai, a God of power. The land is no longer called 'the land in which you are staying', but 'the land given to the ancestors'. There is no mention of a blessing of Jacob's family including the other families of the world, but only of excluding the other families. The mono-ethnic position is thus grounded on a monotheistic position. In many commentaries, Genesis 34 is called an exceptional story in the Hebrew Bible. In a way it is. In another way it is not.10 It magnifies tendencies that are quite often submerged. It expresses the danger of monotheism when it is closely related to mono-ethnicity.

10. Cf. Keel and Uehlinger (1998: 409): 'Part of the tragic history of the JudeoChristian history of guilt is the fact that the people who later became the victims of the holocaust reported in a central passage in their own religious writings that a major preoccupation of theirs was the elimination of other groups in order to ensure the purity and sanctity of their own religious community (cf. Deut. 7.2-6, 16,24-26). Here all are called to humility and to change their ways.'

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Reading from Right to Left Bibliography

Alter, R. 1996 Amit, Y. 2000

Genesis: Translation and Commentary (New York and London: Norton). Hidden Polemics in Biblical Narrative (Biblical Interpretation Series, 25; Leiden: EJ. Brill).

Bechtel, L.M. 1994 'What If Dinah Is Not Raped? (Genesis 34)', JSOT62: 19-36. Bereishis-Genesis 1997 A New Translation with a Commentary Anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources (ArtScroll Tanach Series; New York: Mesorah Publishing). Blum, E. 2001 'Genesis 33, 12-20: Die Wege trennen sich', in J.-D. Macchi and T. Romer (eds.), Jacob: Commentaire dplusieurs voix de, Ein mehrstimmiger Kommentarzu, A Plural Commentary of Gen. 25-36. Melanges offeris a Albert de Pury (Geneva: Labor et Fides): 227-38. Brenner, A. 1997 The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and 'Sexuality' in the Hebrew Bible (Leiden: E.J. Brill). Even-Shoshan, A. 1997 A New Concordance to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books). Fewell, D.N., and D.M. Gunn 1991 ' Tipping the Balance: Stemberg' s Reader and the Rape of Dinah', JBL 110: 193-211. Freedman, D.N. 1990 'Dinah and Shechem: Tamar and Amnon', Austin Seminary Bulletin 105: 51-63. Frymer-Kinsky, T. 1992 In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York: The Free Press). Gesenius18 1987 H. Dormer, Wilhelm Gesenius Hebrdisches und aramdisches Handworterbuch uber das Alte Testament (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 18th edn, 1995). Gruber, M.I. 1999 'A Re-examination of the Charges against Shechem Son of Hamor', Bet Mikra\51: 119-27. Keel, O., and C. Uehlinger 1998 Gods, Goddesses and Images of God in Ancient Israel (trans. T.H. Trapp; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). Noble, P.A. 1991 'Balanced Reading of the Rape of Dinah: Some Exegetical and Methodological Observations', Biblnt 4: 173-204. Orlinsky, H. 1944 'The Hebrew Root 8KB', JBL 63: 19-44.

VAN WOLDE Love and Hatred in a Multiracial Society Sarna, N. 1989 Schmid, H.H. 1971 Scholz, S. 2000 Seebass, H. 1984 1992 Sternberg, M. 1985 van Wolde, E.J. 1995 2002 Wyatt, N. 1990

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The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society). 'np*r, THAT: I, 875-79. Rape Plots: A Feminist Cultural Study of Genesis xxxiv (Studies in Biblical Literature, 13; New York and Bern: Peter Lang). Tip1?*, ThWAT: IV, 588-94. TS]', ThWAT: V, 531-55. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 'Who Guides Whom? Embeddedness and Perspective in Biblical Hebrew and in 1 Kings 3:16-28', JBL 114: 623-42. 'Does 'innd Denote Rape? A Semantic Analysis of a Controversial Word', VT 52: 528-44. 'The Story of Dinah and Shechem', UF 22: 433-58.

PSALM 87: A CASE FOR IDEOLOGICAL CRITICISM? Erich Zenger

I

David J.A. Clines is probably right: the main problems for reading and interpreting biblical texts are the ideologies of both the writers who brought the text into being and the readers who are shaped by the text at the same time as they are shaping it in their own image (cf. Clines 1995). It is therefore a primary task of biblical scholarship to uncover these ideologies and to enable the reader to enter into a free and open discussion with the text, even to the extent of protesting against the text and its ideology. This task belongs to the project that Clines calls 'critique' and that must follow the project which he calls 'understanding': It is possible to believe that the scholarly study of the Bible has reached its goal when it has attained an 'understanding' of the texts. Most biblical scholars indeed regard it as the whole of their task to understand, exegete, explain, and comment on their texts. There is, however, yet another distinct project in which I think that we ought to be engaged as readers of the biblical texts: that of'critique' or evaluation. It is a measure of our commitment to our own standards and values that we register disappointment, dismay or disgust when we encounter in the texts of ancient Israel ideologies that we judge to be inferior to ours. And it is a measure of our open-mindedness and eagerness to learn and do better that we remark with pleasure, respect and envy values and ideologies within the biblical texts that we judge to be superior to our own. 'Critique' does not of course imply negative evaluation, but it does imply evaluation of the texts by a standard of reference outside themselves—which usually means, for practical purposes, by the standards to which we ourselves are committed (Clines 1995: 19-20).

Among the ten case studies collected in his book Interested Parties, two essays deal with Zion ideology, which Clines uncovers in Psalms 2 and 24 (1995: 172-86,244-75): it is the ideology about holiness and war and about God legitimating imperial despotism and scorning the right to self-determination. It seems that Zion theology per se needs ideological criticism,

ZENGER Psalm 87

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since its central idea—God fighting against the chaos in order to establish or to protect the cosmos—seems to produce violence and to authorize suppression 'in the name of God'. In this article I will briefly analyse another Zion Psalm and evaluate it with regard to the project of ideological criticism. I will conclude this evaluation with some general remarks about the project of ideological criticism itself. I hope that David Clines will enjoy this study, even though I am sure that he will not agree with me in every detail. II

Unless one is a political or religious Zionist, we are certainly, as modern people, offended in reading by the general tendencies to be found in Psalm 87. It seems as if Zion is presented not just as the most important local place in Israel (v. 2: Zion is loved by YHWH more than all the dwellings of Jacob) but rather as the centre of the entire world. Is it not pure ideology wherever and whenever Zion/Jerusalem is proclaimed as 'mother' of all humankind, cultures and religions? Even if one is inclined to read the psalm as a vision of the future, is it really permissible to hope for and desire this single confession by all people, people who belong to different religious confessions ('All my springs are in/from you [Zion]')? It should be made clear at this point that the psalm does not address nations that voluntarily accept YHWH, the God of Zion, as their God. Rather, this God declares them Zionists, and it is he who enters their names in his citizenship register without asking them. Does not Psalm 87 have to be read as a Jewish document that expresses an ideology of salvation in an absolutist manner? And does it not remind us of a certain well-known Christian slogan, extra ecclesiam nulla salus, a slogan that likewise expresses an exclusivist mentality? While allowing the nations to share in all the salvation which comes from Zion, does this psalm not assert Zion's insufferable superiority? When we call Zion 'the mother of all nations', is this not a metaphor that gives expression to an ideology that nowadays we should have to reject and even vehemently oppose? It seems that Psalm 87 is indeed an urgent case for ideological criticism. Nevertheless, serious ideological criticism should not begin with the associations that first occur to a modern person when reading or listening to a particular text. The text, which has to be allowed to express itself on its own terms, functions as the starting point. An outspoken Hermeneutik des Verdachts (hermeneutic of suspicion) follows only as the second stage.

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The first step—and here I am at one with C lines in his method outlined above—is the understanding of the text, to which I therefore turn in the next section of this article. Ill

Although the text of Psalm 87 seems to be very difficult, as indicated already by the divergences among the ancient versions1 and the differences among modern commentators,2 it nevertheless appears possible for the most part to preserve the traditionally transmitted Hebrew text. Once we free ourselves from the postulates of genre criticism, which hold that the psalm has to have a liturgical Sitz im Leben and be structured accordingly, an astonishingly artful structure emerges for the text and its images, as the following diagram shows.3 Psalm 87 la OftheKorahites. A Psalm. A Song. Ib Its foundation on holy mountains 2a is loved by YHWH, 2b the gates of Zion 2c more than all the dwellings of Jacob. 3 a Glorious things are said in/by you, 3b city of God. [Selah] 4a 'I list Rahab and Babylon among those who know me, 4b behold, Philistia also, and Tyre, along with Cush: 1. For a comparatively short psalm, the ancient Greek versions (Septuagint, Aquila, Theodotion and Symmachus) already exhibit an unusual number of differences that merit a separate discussion. The three most important are: (1) the versions use different time frames in connection with the theme of the psalm (a statement about the present? a vision of the future?); (2) the Septuagint (in which the psalm is Psalm 86) expressly reads in v. 5: VT\T(]p Iicov, ipei avSpcoTtos, 'Mother Zion, a person (= one) will say', from which many exegetes reconstruct a corresponding Hebrew text in which the title 'mother' is explicitly used: 'And to Zion one says, "Mother!"'. In the opinion of other exegetes, with whom I agree, the reading in the Septuagint is either an 'interpretation' of the text or else a later misreading of an original \IT\ rfj Iicov, epel; (3) in v. 7 the Greek versions read 'dwelling' (KCXTOIKIOC) instead of'springs' (Hebrew text). A short but good discussion is offered by Booij (1987); see also Schmuttermayr (1963). 2. See the compilation of positions by Booij (1987: 16n. 2) and the discussion of the divergent interpretations by Zenger (Hossfeld and Zenger 2000: 551-55). 3. On this structure, see Ravasi (1986: 796-97); Booij (1987:22-25, divided, it is true, 1-2, 3-5, 6-7); Smith (1988, divided 1-2, 3-7).

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4c this one was born there.' 5 a Yes, to Zion is said: 5b 'Every single one was born in/of it. 5c Yes, he has equipped it, the Most High'. 6a YHWH counts them off, 6b when he registers the nations: 6c 'This one was born there'. [Selah] 7a They sing and dance: 7b 'All my springs are in/from you1.

If one reads in accordance with the directions offered to the reader at its start, this psalm wants to make a poetic presentation of YHWH's special love for Zion.4 If that be the case, however, the controversial exegetical question about the identity of the speaker of the birth proclamations, whose direct speech is quoted in w. 4-6, has basically already been answered: it is YHWH himself, as is also made unmistakably clear in v. 6. Verses 4-6 are thus shown to be the central section of the psalm. It is organized concentrically, as indicated by two structural features: (1) The order of the three birth proclamations is organized according to an ABA pattern: A B A

This one Every single one This one

was born there (v. 4) was born in it (v. 5) was born there (v. 6).

(2) With respect to this motif, vv. 4 and 6 form a frame (inclusio); in both verses the image of YHWH who registers the nations stands in the background. Around this middle section there lie the two sections comprising w. Ib3b and 7. They are related to each other by the words 'in you' (w. 3a and 7b); by means of these words they are also interwoven with the centre of the psalm in v. 5b. This division of Psalm 87 into the three parts that I have sketched is also indicated and indeed confirmed by the verbal marker 'Selah' (H^D), which occurs at the end of w. 3 and 6. It may further be considered whether, within the first section itself, w. lb-2c are to be separated from a structural point of view from 3ab, given that v. 3 addresses the city of God in the second person whereas w. lb-2 speak about Zion in the third person. If so, then vv. lb-2 present the theme

4. There is a debate in the commentaries over whether one should read v. Ib as an independent noun clause ('Its foundation rests on holy mountains'); in that case, of course, the pronominal suffix is initially indefinite. I prefer to understand Ib as a casus pendens, so that the emphasis falls on the object standing first.

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of the psalm, and this is then developed in the actual body of the psalm, vv. 3-7. The two outer sections (vv. 1-3 and 7) share the pictorial and conceptual world typical of Zion theology. Zion is the city of God located on the 'holy mountain'. This is both the cosmic mountain and the mountain of paradise, where YHWH is enthroned and dwells as king of the world and as God of all-encompassing shalom. It belongs constitutively to this conception that the 'springs of life' gush forth in the midst of this city, or in the midst of the palace/temple of the God who dwells within it.5 When v. 2b mentions 'the gates of Zion', several connotations may be present. As demonstrated by ancient oriental iconography and many comparable texts, the gates are peculiar to a city, to whose features, in contrast to a village, the city wall, with its gate or gates, specifically belongs (cf. Uehlinger 1987). By metonymy 'the gates of Zion' may also, of course, call the Temple precincts to mind. The ordering of justice and life as established and proclaimed by YHWH is also connected with 'the gates' of the Temple.6 The two outer sections, then, sing about the significance of Zion as the location and source of universal righteousness. On the basis of the surface structure of the psalm alone it is hard to decide on the identity of the speaker in the first section (w. lb-3). The speaker of the quote in v. 7b, on the other hand, is 'the nations', who are also referred to in the middle section, vv. 4-6. The middle section (w. 4-6) is dominated by the image that YHWH confers citizenship in the city of God on the members of many nations by entering them in the 'citizenship register'. Whether the concept of the heavenly book of life and fate, attested elsewhere in the ancient Near East, stands in the background here (cf. Zenger 1972), or whether the registration of the members' names that occurs in connection with the institution of the citizen-temple-community7 gave rise to the idea (as seems more 5. Cf. especially Ps. 46.5; Ezek. 47.1-12; Joel 4.18; Zech. 13.1; 14.8; but also Gen. 2.10-14. Whether we have here an allusion to the early Jewish topos of Sinai/ Horeb as the 'fountainhead' of the Torah (cf. only Exod. 17.6) cannot be discussed further here. 6. On the Temple gates as 'gates of righteousness' and on 'conditions for entrance'/ 'entrance liturgies', see, among others, Steingrimmsson (1984: 134-39) and Beyerlin (1985: 90-97). 7. See on this Isa. 4.3 and Ezek. 13.9, but also Ezek. 32.32. The fundamental studies on the citizen-temple-community are the numerous works by Joel P. Weinberg; see especially Weinberg (1972, 1973, 1974).

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likely to me) is of secondary importance. More important is the determination that, in a legally binding way (with rights and obligations), YHWH here accords a personal connection with Zion to the two great traditional enemy powers, Egypt (Rahab) and Babylon, as well as to the lands of Philistia, Phoenicia and Cush. The enumeration of the five names is not meant to be taken as exclusive. Rather, the whole earth is in view, since Zion is proclaimed as its midpoint ('navel'). The names that are mentioned mark the four points of the compass: west (Egypt), east (Babylon), north (Philistia and Tyre) and south (Cush). From this geographical/spatial perspective Zion is a place. On the other hand, a thoroughly personal note is sounded in the middle of the psalm, where Zion is viewed as woman and mother. This multivalence of Zion as place and Zion as woman corresponds to the metamorphosis of Zion from territory to person, or from the city as place to the city as woman, in Isaiah.8 While Zion is depicted as the mother of the Israelites in Isa. 54.1-10 and 66.7-14, this metaphor is expanded here to Zion as the mother of the nations—not, of course, through 'natural' birth, but through YHWH'S own determination and election. On the basis of the themes stated in w. 1 2 it is important to note that YHWH gives the nations to Zion as 'children' because of his love for Zion. IV

If one intends to understand some text or other correctly, it is certainly important to grasp what that text says. It might be at least as helpful to appreciate what it does not say by the extent to which it surprises the reader or listener. We have nothing but the text of the psalm, and we cannot question its author regarding his picture of Zion, what he pointedly and voluntarily left out, or what he intended to say in a different way, measured by the yardstick of what his contemporaries would have expected of him. To this end let us use a simple methodological trick. It should be possible to compare the given psalm with other Psalms of Zion, to identify the significant differences between them—such as Leerstellen, those instances where certain things are never named or described—and to evaluate them.

8. Cf. Steck (1992: 133-44); on Zion as a mother who bears, raises and cares for children, see especially Isa. 49.22; 51.18; 54.1, as well as the entire textual context of Isa. 60-61 and the book of Lamentations. In my opinion, the topos of Zion as mother also lies in the background of Ps. 8.3 (cf. Hossfeld and Zenger 1993: 79).

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In this connection, a comparison with Psalms 46,47 and 48 may be helpful. This is all the more so in that these three psalms have several motifs and expressions in common with Psalm 87, as the following chart shows: 'on the holy mount' 'dwellings of Jacob' 'city of God' 'who know me' 'he has established' 'the Most High' 'my springs in you'

enp""nrQ Hpir mDDlQD DTl^n TJJ ""in11 *7 HDD1T Kim jv'w ~p TUQ

v. 1: cf. 48.2 v. 2b: cf. 46.5 v. 3b: cf. 46.5; 48.2, 9 v. 4a: cf. 46.11 v. 5b: cf. 48.9 v. 5b: cf. 46.5; 47.3 v. 7b: cf. 46.5

What are the most significant differences between Psalms 46-48 and 87? What part of the pre-exilic canonical programme in regard to a theology of Zion is pointedly and deliberately left out in Psalm 87? Where do we find new emphases? What is interpreted differently? A basic motif of the 'theology of Zion' as attested by Psalms 46-489 is God's royal residence on Mount Zion, from where he protects and shelters the inhabitants of his city together with those who are living in its surroundings, the 'citizens' of his kingdom. He saves them and keeps them safe in dangerous situations. Zion is a fount of life and happiness for its inhabitants as it is for its (Israelite) visitors. As a living symbol Zion stands for the paradisal garden of God. It is not only a centre from which its power reaches to the ends of the inhabited earth; Zion also has a cosmological stabilizing function. Fundamentally this God is the one who fights all varieties of chaos, not just historical chaos. As such, the God of Zion fights against all 'foreign' kings and subjugates them to his reign. Even more, he subjugates them to the Jerusalem king who is his representative. In fact, foreign kings and nations become slaves to God's sovereignty. It is only between Israel and its God that a special relationship exists. This special relationship becomes visible through Israel's presence in the audience hall of the God of Zion, situated as it is in the temple compound. That is where Israel honours God and offers sacrifice. It is also the place where Israel listens to God's commands and lives them out. This description may be considered as the basic pattern of Zion theology. Although several important elements of it are visible in Psalm 87— namely, Zion as the centre, Zion as fount of life and happiness, YHWH as the 'king' who fights chaos—nevertheless two elements of Zion theology

9. An excellent exposition of the Zionstheologie has now been provided by Janowski 2002.

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which are highly problematic in terms of ideological criticism are either completely left out or at least are given a new interpretation. First, according to Psalm 87 the God of Zion does not act as a God of war but as a God of creation. As the 'Most High' (v. 5) he communicates life; as king and God he awards citizenship. Second, according to Psalm 87 the nations are never subjugated to the king of Jerusalem, nor are they forced to serve Israel in any way. They do not bring tribute or offerings to Mount Zion; instead, it is there that they celebrate and feast (v. 7). This brief comparison of Psalm 87 with Psalms 46—48 makes clear that ideological criticism must not treat a single biblical text in isolation; rather, it must put that text into its context alongside other biblical texts that deal with the same topic. As a first step these texts have to be correlated with one another. The dialogue between these texts is the first stage of ideological criticism. Correlating these texts and establishing a dialogue between them helps prevent the reader from unconsciously, rashly or unnecessarily incorporating shifts and obscurities into the text that arise from the reader's own ideology. It prevents the reader from allowing his or her own ideology to come into play too early on, thereby forcing a personal ideology onto the text. The text is thereby saved from being given meanings that it does not have. V

Before resort is made to the method of ideological criticism, a text should be analysed in its textual context, exegeted within that context and evaluated by that context. By intentionally putting a certain text within a particular context, a biblical redactor might, in fact, have been giving clear guidance to the reader to read the text from a specific ideological-critical point of view. It is a methodological demand that is also valid for the exegesis of the psalms. At least, that is my opinion (see especially Zenger 2000). For a proper understanding of Psalm 87 it is indispensable to consider this psalm within the context of the other Korahite psalms that precede and follow it; that is to say, attention should be paid to the fact that it is an element within a Korahite composition that comprises Psalms 84-85 and 87-88. As regards their compositional sequence, the Korah Psalms 84-85 and 87-88 are orientated towards the subgroup comprising Psalms 42-49. This is a position which Eckart Otto, among others, has already advocated. He writes:

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Reading from Right to Left Psalms 84,85,87,88 repeat this structure. Psalm 84 presupposes Psalm 4243...and actualizes it for the pilgrimage situation. With Psalm 85, which corresponds to Psalm 44, there follows a thematically closely related community lament, while Psalm 87, a postexilic hymn of Zion, corresponds to Psalms 46 and 48. Psalm 88 corresponds to the death motif in Psalm 49 (Otto 1989: 1015).

This thesis has recently been supported by Mattias Millard with the following form-critical observations: Both groups of Korah psalms are divided into singular and plural psalms. The plural psalms form the core of the collections, while the singular psalms occupy.. .the framing position. The basic form-critical pattern of the plural psalms at the core of the two Korah psalm groups can be understood by analogy with the lament as a transition from lament to praise... Especially with respect to the second Korah psalm collection it can...be presumed that from the start this is laid out in imitation of the first and is also to be located originally in a wisdom/post-cultic context.10

Psalm 87 is the theological midpoint of the composition comprising 8485, 87-88. At the same time, it is closely tied up with the programme that is broadly developed in the Korah Psalms 45^8 which are themselves the midpoint of the composition comprising 42—49. The first two psalms of the subgroup, 84 and 85, form a compositional or redactional unity. Psalm 84, which is interspersed with hymnic motifs and is traditionally designated as a song of Zion, is a song of longing for the God of Zion and for the blessing that flows from him. The juxtaposition of Psalm 85 leads to precisely this motif of God blessing the people and the land from Zion being carried further and supplemented with an entire collage of technical theological concepts. The lament, barely suggested in Psalm 84, is intensified in Psalm 85 into a lament over the wrath of God. Psalm 85.9-14 is a section that is shaped in the style of a prophetic oracle that announces the comprehensive saving gift of peace for YHWH'S people. On the one hand it presents this salvation as cosmic renewal (vv. 12-13) and on the other hand it views it in terms of YHWH'S coming to Zion, as the allusions to the book of Isaiah suggest. This is appropriately followed 10. Millard 1994: 78-79. If this position is correct, the thesis formulated by Wanke (1966:3, and presupposed since by many without any hesitation) can no longer be maintained: 'We can...assume that Psalms 84, 85, 87, 88 were unknown to the "Elohistic" redactor; though they originally belonged to the Korah collection, they were separated from it at a later stage'.

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by Psalm 87 which at the level of composition is to be read as God's answer from Zion to the yearning lament of Psalms 84-85. This character as response emerges first from the two outer sections of the psalm, in which the city of God is lauded as the institution for which the God of Zion has a special love (w. lb-3) and as the source of all life (v. 7). These two outer sections are oriented towards Psalms 84-85 by several key words (for 'dwellings of Jacob' in 87.2, see 84.2; 85.2; for 'glorious' in 87.3, see 84.12; 85.10; for 'all springs' in 87.7, see 84.7). In the middle section (vv. 4-6) God's answer is repeatedly given in direct speech in which Zion, the city of God, assumes the form of the mother of the nations.

VI After these insights into the meaning of Psalm 87, are we still to think that the psalm is an urgent case for ideological criticism? With regard to my own opinion, I should prefer to put it like this: Psalm 87 is an important subject for ideological criticism as far as certain positions held by Jewish and Christian readers are concerned. Bibliography Beyerlin, Walter 1985 Weisheitlich-kultische Heilsordnung: Studien zum 15. Psalm (Biblischtheologische Studien, 9; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag). Booij, Thijs 1987 'Some Observations on Psalm Ixxxvii', FT 37: 16-25. Clines, David J.A. 1995 Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar, and Erich Zenger 1993 Die Psalmen I: Psalm 1-50 (Die Neue Echter Bibel, 29; Wiirzburg: Echter). 2000 Psalmen 51-100 (Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament; Freiburg: Herder [2000]). Janowski, Bernd 2002 'Die heilige Wohnung des Hochsten: Kosmologische Implikationen der Jerusalemer Tempeltheologie', in O. Keel and E. Zenger (eds.), Gottesstadt und Gottesgarten: Zur Geschichte und Theologie des Jerusalemer Tempels (Quaestiones disputatae, 191; Freiburg: Herder): 24-68. Millard, Mattias 1994 Die Komposition des Psalters: Bin formgeschichtlicher Ansatz (FAT, 9; Tubingen: Mohr). Otto, Eckart 1989 'ITS, sijjon\ ThWAT: VI, 994-1028.

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Ravasi, Gianfranco 1986 // libra dei Salmi: Commento e attualizazione (3 vols.; Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane). Schmuttermayr, Georg 1963 'Urn Psalm 87 (86), 5', 5ZNF 7: 104-10. Smith, Mark S. 1988 'The Structure of Psalm Ixxxvi', F7 38: 357-58. Steck, Odil Hannes 1992 Gottesknecht und Zion: Gesammelte Aufsdtze zu Deuterojesaja (FAT, 4; Tubingen: Mohr). Steingrimmsson, Sigurdur O. 1984 Tor der Gerechtigkeit: Eine literaturwissenschaftliche Untersuchung der sogenannten Einzugsliturgien im AT: Ps 15; 24.3-5 und Jes 33.14-16 (ATSAT, 22; St Ottilien: EOS). Uehlinger, Christoph 1987 ' "Zeichne eine Stadt.. .und belagere sie!" Bild und Wort in einer Zeichenhandlung Ezechiels gegen Jerusalem (Ez 4f)', in M. Kuchler and C. Uehlinger (eds.), Jerusalem: Texte—Bilder—Steine. Zum 100. Geburtstag von Hildi und Othmar Keel-Leu (NTOA, 6; Fribourg: Universitatsverlag; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht): 153-72. Wanke, Gunther 1966 Die Zionstheologie der Korachiten in ihrem traditionsgeschichtlichen Zusammenhang (BZAW, 97; Berlin: Topelmann). Weinberg, Joel P. 1972 'Demographische Notizen zur Geschichte der nachexilischen Gemeinde in Juda', Klio 54: 35-49. 1973 'Das Beit 'Abot im 6.-4. Jahrhundert v.u.Z.', VT23: 400-14. 1974 ' Die Agrarverhaltnisse in der Biirger-Tempel-Gemeinde der Achamenidenzeit',AAH22: 473-86. Zenger, Erich 1972 'Ps 87.6 und die Tafeln vom Sinai', in J. Schreiner (ed.), Wort, Lied und Gottesspruch: Beitrdge zu Psalmen und Propheten. Festschrift fur Joseph Ziegler, II (FzB, 2; Wiirzburg: Echter). 2000 'Psalmenforschung nach Hermann Gunkel und Sigmund Mowinckel', in A. Lemaire and M. Saeb0 (eds.), Congress Volume, Oslo 1998 (VTSup, 80; Leiden: EJ. Brill): 399-435.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DAVID J. A. CLINES 1959 'John and Ezekiel', Study (TEmmaus Bible School, Sydney) 1: 6-8. 1960 Translation (from Latin), Plautus, Rudens ('The Rope') (Sydney: Sydney University Classical Society), 43pp. 1965 'Women in the [New Testament] Church: A Survey of Recent Opinion', Christian Brethren Research Fellowship Journal 10: 33-40. Translation (from Latin), John a Lasco, 'The Abolition of Vestments', in I. Murray (ed.), The Reformation of the Church (London: Banner of Truth Trust): 63-69. 1967 'Psalm Research since 1955:1. The Psalms and the Cult', TynBul 18: 103-26; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1998): 639-64. 'The Churches Next Door', Christian Brethren Research Fellowship Papers (October 1967): 4-14. 'The Christian and Class', Christian Graduate 20: 9-13. 'The Biblical Idea of the Trinity', Inter-Varsity 36: 4-7. 'Liturgy without Prayerbook', Christian Brethren Research Fellowship Journal no. 15: 6-18; reprinted in Journal. Christian Brethren Research Fellowship (New Zealand) (October 1977): 11-22. 1968 'The Image of God in Man [in the Old Testament]', TynBul 19: 53-103; reprinted as 'Humanity as the Image of God', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 19681998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 447-97. 'Reply on Liturgy', Christian Brethren Research Fellowship Journal no. 18 (May 1968): 49-53. 'Do We Need Another Translation of the Bible?', Christian Graduate 21: 23-24. 1969 'Psalm Research since 1955: II. The Literary Genres', TynBul 20: 105-25; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 665-86. 'The Language of the New Testament', in G.C.D. Howley, F.F. Bruce and H.L. Ellison (eds.), A New Testament Commentary (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1969): 30-36; reprinted in

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G.C.D. Howley (ed.), A Bible Commentary for Today (London and Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis, 1979): 1076-82; a reworked version conforming to the New International Version English text in F.F. Bruce (ed.), The International Bible Commentary (Basingstoke, Hants.: Marshall Pickering, and Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986): 1012-18. 'The Second Letter to the Corinthians' [a commentary], in G.C.D. Howley, F.F. Bruce and H.L. Ellison (eds.), A New Testament Commentary (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1969): 41642; reprinted in G.C.D. Howley (ed.), A Bible Commentary for Today (London and Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis, 1979): 1462-88; a reworked version conforming to the New International Version English text in F.F. Bruce (ed.), The International Bible Commentary (Basingstoke, Hants.: Marshall Pickering, and Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986): 1389-1414. 'Predestination and Responsibility: A Biblical Perspective', Social Workers' Christian Fellowship Occasional Papers (1969), 10 pp.

1970 'The New English Bible', Evangelical Quarterly 42: 168-75. 'The New English Bible: Old Testament', Theological Students' Fellowship Bulletin no. 58: 69. 1972 'X, X ben Y, ben Y: Personal Names in Hebrew Narrative Style', FT22: 266-87; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 240-62. 'Regnal Year Reckoning in the Last Years of the Kingdom of Judah', The Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology 2 (= Essays in Honour of E.C.B. MacLaurin on his Sixtieth Birthday}: 9-34; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 395-425. 'A Biblical Doctrine of Man', Social Workers' Christian Fellowship Occasional Papers (1972), 31 pp.; reprinted in Christian Brethren Research Fellowship Journal no. 28 (1978): 9-28. 1973 'The Theology of the Flood Narrative', Faith and Thought: Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 100: 128-42; a revised and expanded version is reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 508-23. 'God in Human Form: A Theme in Biblical Theology', Christian Brethren Research Fellowship Journal no. 24: 24-40. 'Predestination in Biblical Thought', Theological Students' Fellowship Bulletin no. 66: 1-5. 'The Apocrypha', in D.S. and P. Alexander (eds.), The Lion Handbook to the Bible (Berkhamstead: Lion, 1973): 461-63 (2nd revised edition, 1983); reprinted in The Lion Concise Bible Handbook (Tring, Herts.: Lion, 1980): 251-54. 1974 'The Evidence for an Autumnal New Year in Pre-Exilic Israel Reconsidered', JBL 93: 22-40; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 371-94.

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'The Tree of Knowledge and the Law of Yahweh (Psalm xix)', FT 24: 8-14; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 708-15. 'The Etymology of Hebrew Selem', Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 3:19-25; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 577-84. 'The Oracles of Malachi', The Witness 104: 93-96.

1975 'The Psalms and the King', Theological Students' Fellowship Bulletin no. 71: 1-6; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 687-700. 'Predestination in the Old Testament', in C.H. Pinnock (ed.), Grace Unlimited (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1975): 110-26; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 524-41. 'Notes for an Old Testament Hermeneutic', Theology News and Notes [Fuller Theological Seminary] 21: 8-10. 'The Kingdom of God' [in the teaching of Jesus], The Witness 105: 43-45. 'The Psalm of a Man Who Listens (Psalm 19)', The Witness 105:245-47,25 preprinted in The Indian Christian 67 (1976): 15-19. 1976 /, He, We, and They: A Literary Approach to Isaiah 53 (JSOTSup, 1; Sheffield: Department of Biblical Studies; reprint edn, Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983), 65 pp. 'Theme in Genesis 1-11', Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38: 483-507. (with D.M. Gunn) 'Form, Occasion and Redaction in Jeremiah 20', ZA PF88: 390-409; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 263-84. 'Kit 111-114 (I iii 7-10): Gatherers of Wood and Drawers of Water', t/F8: 23-26; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 595-601. 'New Year', in Keith Crim et al. (ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. Supplementary Volume (Nashville: Abingdon, 1976): 625-29; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 426-35. 'Styles of Leadership in Ancient Israel', Evangelical Fellowship for Missionary Studies Bulletin 6: 1-15. 'On Being the Servant of the Lord', The Harvester 55: 194-97. 'Social Responsibility in the Old Testament', Christian Brethren Research Fellowship (New Zealand) no. 72 (Sept. 1976): 1-15; reprinted in Interchange 20 (1976): 194-207; published separately as Shaftesbury Project Papers, No. C.7 (1980). 'The Christian Use of the Old Testament: A Study in Attitude and Style', Journal of the Christian Brethren Research Fellowship (New Zealand) no. 71: 1-15. 'Sin and Maturity', Care and Counsel Symposium (June 1976): 15-32; a revision published in Journal of Psychology and Theology 5 (1977): 183-96; reprinted in ThirdWay 4/10 (Nov. 1980): 8-10; 4/11 (Dec.-Jan. 1980-81): 11-14; reprinted in J.Roland Fleck and John D. Carter (eds.), Psychology and Christianity: Integrative Readings (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1981): 124-3 9; reprinted in Onthe Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 555-73.

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'New Directions in Pooh Studies', Theolog Review 12: 2-10; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 830-39." Translation (from Spanish) (with P.R. Davies), L. Alonso Schokel, 'A Response to Ridderbos and Kessler', JSOT 1: 61-65.

1977 'Jonah: An Interpretation', Journal of the Christian Brethren Research Fellowship (New Zealand) no. 74: 1-10. Translation (from German), H.H. Schmid, 'In Search of New Approaches in Pentateuchal Research', JSOT3: 33-42. Translation (from German), Rolf Rendtorff, 'Pentateuchal Studies on the Move', JSOT3:43-45. Translation (from French), Pierre Auffret, The Literary Structure of Psalm 2 (JSOTSup, 2; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1977), 41 pp. 1978 The Theme of the Pentateuch (JSOTSup, 10; Sheffield: JSOT Press), 152 pp. (with David M. Gunn) '"You tried to persuade me" and "Violence! Outrage!" in Jeremiah xx 7-8', VT 28: 20-27; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 285-92. 'Isaiah 52.13-53.12', in J.H. Eaton (ed.), Readings in Biblical Hebrew (University Semitics Study Aids, 5; Birmingham: Department of Theology, University of Birmingham): 10512. 'Religion and Worship in the Bible', in P. Alexander (ed.), The Lion Encyclopedia of the Bible (Berkhamsted: Lion): 130-51; reprinted separately as Religion and Worship in the Bible (The Lion Encyclopedia of the Bible, Part 5) (Berkhamsted: Lion, 1980), 32 pp.; reprinted in The Lion Concise Bible Encyclopedia (Tring, Herts.: Lion Publishing, 1980): 29, 5758, 82-83, 95-97, 122, 142-44, 155-57, 159, 192, 198-99, 199-202, 206-209, 214-15, 218,228-29,229-33,236,253. 'The Books of the Old Testament', in J.I. Packer, L.C. Allen, D.[J.A.] Clines, A.E. Cundall, F.F. Bruce and D. Guthrie, Introduction to the Bible (London: Scripture Union): 17-27. 'Work: A Biblical and Theological Perspective', Shaftesbury Project Study Group on Work and Unemployment. Occasional Paper (October 1978). 1979 'Hosea 2: Structure and Interpretation', in E.A. Livingstone (ed.), Studio Biblica 1978.1. Old Testament and Related Themes. Sixth International Congress on Biblical Studies, Oxford, 3-7 April, 1978 (JSOTSup, 11; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 83-103; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 293-313. 'The Significance of the "Sons of God" Episode (Genesis 6:1-4) in the Context of the "Primeval History" (Genesis 1-11)', JSOT 13: 33-46; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 337-50. 'Introduction to the Pentateuch', in G.C.D. Howley (ed.), A Bible Commentary for Today (London and Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis): 97-103; a reworked version conforming to the New International Version English text in F.F. Bruce (ed.), The International Bible Commentary (Basingstoke, Hants.: Marshall Pickering, and Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986): 78-83.

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'Job' [a commentary], in G.C.D. Howley (ed.), A Bible Commentary for Today (London and Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis): 559-592; a reworked version conforming to the New International Version English text in F.F. Bruce (ed.), The International Bible Commentary (Basingstoke, Hants.: Marshall Pickering, and Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986): 520-51. 'Belshazzar', 'Cyrus', 'Darius', in G.W. Bromiley (ed.), The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, /(GrandRapids: Eerdmans): 455-56, 845-49, 867-68.

1980 'Story and Poem: The Old Testament as Literature and as Scripture', Interpretation 34: 11527; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 225-39. 'Verb Modality and the Interpretation of Job iv 20-21', FT 30: 354-57; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 748-51. 'Job 4.13: A Byronic Suggestion', ZAW92: 289-91; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 745-47. 'Yahweh and the God of Christian Theology', Theology 83: 323-30; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 498-507. ' Ahava', 'Ecbatana', 'Image', 'Magbish', 'Nehemiah, Book of, 'Tobiah', in J.D. Douglas et al. (eds.), The Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1980), I, 25, 407; II, 683-84, 930, 1070-74; III, 1574. 'Limited Paradise', Third Way 4/5 (May 1980), p. 21. Translation (from French), H. Gazelles, 'The Canonical Approach to Torah and Prophets', JSOT 16: 28-31. 1981

'Job 5,1-8: A New Exegesis', Bib 62: 185-94; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 752-61. 'Nehemiah 10 as an Example of Early Jewish Biblical Exegesis', JSOT 21: 111-17; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 88-94. 'Hermeneutics', Journal. Christian Brethren Research Fellowship (New Zealand) no. 88:3-11.

1982 Art and Meaning: Rhetoric in Biblical Literature (ed. David J.A. Clines, David M. Gunn and Alan J. Hauser; JSOTSup, 19; Sheffield: JSOT Press), 274 pp. 'The Arguments of Job's Three Friends', in David J.A. Clines, David M. Gunn and Alan J. Hauser (eds.), Art and Meaning: Rhetoric in Biblical Literature (JSOTSup, 19; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 199-214; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 719-34. 'Methods in Old Testament Study', in J.W. Rogerson (ed.), Beginning Old Testament Study (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982, and London: SPCK, 1983): 26-43. 'Biblical Hermeneutics in Theory and Practice', Christian Brethren Review nos. 30/31:65-77.

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1983 Midian, Moab andEdom: The History and Archaeology of Late Bronze andiron Age Jordan and North-West Arabia (ed. John F.A. Sawyer and David J.A. Clines; JSOTSup, 24; Sheffield: JSOT Press), 172 pp. 'In Search of the Indian Job', FT33: 398-418; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 770-91. Translation (from French) (with J.L Michaud and M. Bert), Pierre Auffret, 'The Literary Structure of Exodus 6.2-8', JSOT 27: 46-54. 1984 Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (New Century Bible; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 384 pp.; reprint, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. The Esther Scroll: The Story of the Story (JSOTSup, 30; Sheffield: JSOT Press), 260 pp. 1985 'False Naivety in the Prologue to Job', Hebrew Annual Review 9: 127-36 (= Reuben Ahroni [ed.], Biblical and Other Studies in Memory ofShelmo Dov Goitein); reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 735-44. 1986 'Biblical Thoughts on the Religious Professional', Christian Brethren Review 37: 57-64. 1987 'The Parallelism of Greater Precision. Notes from Isaiah 40 for a Theory of Hebrew Poetry', in Elaine R. Follis (ed.), New Directions in Hebrew Poetry (JSOTSup, 40; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 77-100; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968— 1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 314-36. Paragraphs on Abraham and Job in Brian Redhead and Frances Gumley, The Good Book: An Introduction to the Bible (London: Duckworth): 31, 33, 116-18. 1988 'Belief, Desire and Wish in Job 19:23-27. Clues for the Identity of Job's "Redeemer"', in M. Augustin and K.-D. Schunk (eds.), «Wiinschet Jerusalem Frieden.» Collected Communications to the XHth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Jerusalem 1986 (Beitrage zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken Judentums, 13; Frankfurt: Peter Lang): 363-70; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 762-69. 'Introduction to the Biblical Story: Genesis-Esther', in James L. Mays (ed.), Harper's Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper & Row): 74-84; a revised and expanded version was published in What Does Eve Do to Help? and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament (JSOTSup, 94; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990): 85-105. 'Esther', in James L. Mays (ed.), Harper's Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper & Row): 387-94. 'The Additions to Esther', in James L. Mays (ed.), Harper's Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper & Row): 815-19.

Bibliography of David J.A. dines

467

'Ruth', 'Lamentations', Guidelines 4/1 (January-April 1988): 3-5, 42-47. 'The Message of Proverbs', 'The Message of Ecclesiastes', in Robin Keeley (ed.), The Message of the Bible (Tring, Herts.: Lion): 86-90.

1989 Job 1-20 (Word Biblical Commentary, 17; Waco, TX: Word Books), cviii + 501 pp. 'The Force of the Text: A Response to Tamara C. Eskenazi's "Ezra-Nehemiah: From Text to Actuality"', in J. Cheryl Exum (ed.), Signs and Wonders: Biblical Texts in Literary Focus (Semeia Studies; Atlanta: Scholars Press): 199-215; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 351-67. 'The Wisdom Books', in Stephen Bigger (ed.), Creating the Old Testament: The Emergence of the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Basil Blackwell): 269-91. ' Job', in Bernhard W. Anderson (ed.), The Books of the Bible. I. The Old Testament/The Hebrew Bible (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons): 181-201. 'Lamentations: Proposal for the Handling of Grief, Harvester 68/3: 6-7; 68/4: 6-7. 'Job. I. Acceptance and Denial', Harvester 68/6: 6-7. 'Job. II. Beyond all Proportion', Harvester 68/7: 6-7. 'Job. III. Suffering is a Hippopotamus', Harvester 68/8: 6-7. 'Job. IV. Happily Ever After?', Harvester 68/9: 6-7. Translation (from French), Pierre Auffret, 'Note on the Literary Structure of Psalm 134', JSOT 45: 87-89. 1990 What Does Eve Do to Help? and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament (JSOTSup, 94; Sheffield: JSOT Press), 178 pp. The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield (ed. David J.A. Clines, Stephen E. Fowl and Stanley E. Porter; JSOTSup, 87; Sheffield: JSOT Press), 408 pp. 'Deconstructing the Book of Job', in Martin Warner (ed.), The Bible as Rhetoric: Studies in Biblical Persuasion and Credibility (Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature; London: Routledge): 65-80; reprinted in What Does Eve Do to Help? and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament (JSOTSup, 94; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990): 106-23. 'Reading Esther from Left to Right: Contemporary Strategies for Reading a Biblical Text', in David J.A. Clines, Stephen E. Fowl and Stanley E. Porter (eds.), The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield (JSOTSup,87; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 31-52; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 3-22. 'The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew', Zeitschrift fur Althebraistik 3: 73-80; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 602-12. 'Holistic Interpretation', in R.J. Coggins and J.L. Houlden (eds.), A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (London: SCM Press, and Philadelphia: Trinity Press International): 292-95. 1991 Telling Queen Michal 's Story: An Experiment in Comparative Interpretation (ed. David J.A. Clines and Tamara C. Eskenazi; JSOTSup, 119; Sheffield: JSOT Press), 301 pp.

468


'Michal Observed: An Introduction to Reading her Story', in David J.A. Clines and Tamara C. Eskenazi (eds.), Telling Queen Michal's Story: An Experiment in Comparative Interpretation (JSOTSup, 119; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 24-63. 'X, X ben Y, ben Y: Personal Names in Hebrew Narrative Style', in David J.A. Clines and Tamara C. Eskenazi (eds.), Telling Queen Michal's Story: An Experiment in Comparative Interpretation (JSOTSup, 119; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 124-28 (an excerpt reprinted from 1972 article). 'The Story of Michal, Wife of David, in its Sequential Unfolding', in David J.A. Clines and Tamara C. Eskenazi (eds.), Telling Queen Michal's Story: An Experiment in Comparative Interpretation (JSOTSup, 119; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 129-40. 'In Quest of the Historical Mordecai', FT 41: 129-36; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, I (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 436-43. 'Frederick Fyvie Bruce 1910-1990. In Memoriam', Journal. Christian Brethren Research Fellowship no. 123 (August 1991): 53-54. 'Lamentations', Guidelines 8/1 (January-April 1992): 90-96 (reprint of 1988 article).

1992 'Was There an 'bl II "be dry" in Classical Hebrew?', VT42: 1-10; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 585-94. 'The Shape and Argument of the Book of Job', in Sitting with Job: Selected Studies on the Book of Job (ed. Roy B. Zuck; Grand Rapids: Baker Book House): 125-40; reprinted from Job 1-20 (Word Biblical Commentary, 17; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1989): xxxiv-xlvii. 'A Brief Explanation of Job 1-3', in Roy B. Zuck (ed.), Sitting with Job: Selected Studies on the Book of Job (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House): 249-52; reprinted from Job 1-20: 65-66. 'A Brief Explanation of Job 12-14', in Roy B. Zuck (ed.), Sitting with Job: Selected Studies on the Book of Job (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House): 261 -64; reprinted from Job 1-20: 337-39. 'The Arguments of Job's Three Friends', in Roy B. Zuck (ed.), Sitting with Job: Selected Studies on the Book of Job (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House): 265-78; reprinted from Art and Meaning: Rhetoric in Biblical Literature (ed. David J.A. Clines, David M. Gunn and Alan J. Hauser; JSOTSup, 19; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1982): 199-214. 'Mordecai', in David Noel Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday): IV, 902-904. 'The New Dictionary of Classical Hebrew', in Klaus-Dietrich Schunk and Matthias Augustin (eds.), Goldene Apfel in silbernen Schalen. Collected Communications to the XIHth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Leuven 1989 (Beitrage zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken Judentums, 20; Frankfurt: Peter Lang): 169-79. 'God in the Pentateuch', in Robert L. Hubbard, Jr, Robert K. Johnston and Robert P. Meye (eds.), Studies in Old Testament Theology: Historical and Contemporary Images of God and God's People (Festschrift for David L. Hubbard; Dallas: Word Books): 79-98; a revised version was published as 'God in the Pentateuch: Reading against the Grain', in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 186-211.


469

'Story and Poem: The Old Testament as Literature and as Scripture', in Paul R. House (ed.), Beyond Form Criticism: Essays in Old Testament Literary Criticism (WinonaLake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992): 25-38; reprinted from Interpretation 34 (1980): 115-27.

1993 Among the Prophets: Imagery, Language and Structure in the Prophetic Writings (ed. Philip R. Davies and David J.A. Clines; JSOTSup, 144; Sheffield: JSOT Press), 212 pp. Of Prophets' Visions and the Wisdom of Sages: Essays in Honour ofR. Norman Whybray on his Seventieth Birthday (ed. Heather A. McKay and David J.A. Clines; JSOTSup, 162; Sheffield: JSOT Press), 335 pp. The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (ed. J. Cheryl Exum and David J! A. Clines; JSOTSup, 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press), 276 pp. The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. I. Aleph (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 475 pp. 'Preface', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. 1. Aleph: 7-13. 'Introduction', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. I. Aleph: 14-29. 'The Sources', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. I. Aleph: 30-66. ' Words Beginning with Aleph in Order of Frequency', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. I. Aleph: 67-88. 'Abbreviations and Signs', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. I. Aleph: 89-90. 'Metacommentating Amos', in Heather A. McKay and David J.A. Clines (eds.), Of Prophets' Visions and the Wisdom of Sages: Essays in Honour ofR. Norman Whybray on his Seventieth Birthday (JSOTSup, 162; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 142-60; reprinted in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 76-93. (with J. Cheryl Exum) 'What Is the New Literary Criticism?', in J. Cheryl Exum and David J.A. Clines (eds.), The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 11-25. 'A World Founded on Water (Psalm 24): Reader Response, Deconstruction and Bespoke Interpretation', in J. Cheryl Exum and David J.A. Clines (eds.), The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 79-90; a revised version was published in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 172-86. 'Ezra-Nehemiah', in Wayne A. Meeks et al. (eds.), The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books (London: HarperCollins): 699-735. '1 Esdras', in Wayne A. Meeks et al. (eds.), The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books (London: HarperCollins): 1723-45. 'Possibilities and Priorities of Biblical Interpretation in an International Perspective', Biblnt 1: 67-87; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 46-67. 'Haggai's Temple, Constructed, Deconstructed and Reconstructed', in Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards (eds.), Second Temple Studies (JSOTSup, 175; Sheffield: JSOT Press): 51-78. 'Haggai's Temple, Constructed, Deconstructed and Reconstructed', Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 1: 19-30; a revised version was published in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 46-75.

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'Pentateuch', in Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (eds.), The Oxford Companion to the Bible (New York: Oxford University Press): 579-82. 'Job', in Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (eds.), The Oxford Companion to the Bible (New York: Oxford University Press): 368-70. 'Image of God', in Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph P. Martin (eds.), Dictionary of Paul and his Letters (Downers Grove, IL and Leicester: InterVarsity Press): 426-28. 'Sacred Space, Holy Places and Suchlike', in Trinity Occasional Papers: Essays Presented in Honour of Revd Professors Han Spykeboer and Bruce Upham 12/2 (November 1993): 19-30; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 542-54.

1994 'Job', in D.A. Carson, R.T. France, J.A. Motyer and G.J. Wenham (eds.), New Bible Commentary Revised (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press; Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 21st Century Edition): 459-84. 'Why Is There a Song of Songs, and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?', Man Dao: A Journal of Bible and Theology 1: 3-27; a revised version was published in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press): 94-121. 'Why Is There a Book of Job, and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?', in W.A.M. Beuken (ed.), The Book of Job (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 114; Leuven: Leuven University Press and Peeters, 1994): 1-20; a revised version was published in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 122-44. 'The Message of Proverbs', in Robin Keeley and George Carey (eds.), The Bible for Everyday Life (Oxford: Lion Publishing): 102-104 [= Robin Keeley (ed.), The Message of the Bible (Tring, Herts.: Lion, 1988): 86-88]. 'The Message of Ecclesiastes', in Robin Keeley and George Carey (eds.), The Bible for Everyday Life (Oxford: Lion Publishing): 105-106 [= Robin Keeley (ed.), The Message of the Bible (Tring, Herts.: Lion, 1988): 89-90]. 'Theme in Genesis 1-11', in Richard S. Hess and David Toshio Tsumura (eds.), 'I Studied Inscriptions before the Flood' Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1-11 (Sources for Biblical and Theological Study, 4; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994): 285-309 (reprinted from Catholic Biblical Quarterly38 [1976]: 483-507). 1995 Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 296 pp. The Bible in Human Society: Essays in Honour of John Rogerson (ed. R. Daniel Carroll R., David J.A. Clines and Philip R. Davies; JSOTSup, 200; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 479 pp. The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. II. Beth-Waw (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 660 pp. 'Preface', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. \\.Beth-Waw: 7-8. 'Introduction', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. II. Beth-Waw. 9-14. 'Words Beginning with Beth, Gimel, Daleth, He and Waw in Order of Frequency', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. II. Beth-Waw: 36-78. 'Bibliography', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. II. Beth-Waw: 600-41.

Bibliography of David J.A. Clines

471

'Job and the Spirituality of the Reformers', in W.P. Stephens (ed.), TheBible, the Reformation and the Church: Essays in Honour of James Atkinson (JSNTSup, 105; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 49-72; reprinted in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (1995): 145-71. 'Deconstructing the Book of Job', Bible Review ll/2(April 1995): 30-35,43-44 (an abbreviation of the 1990 article). 'The Ten Commandments, Reading from Left to Right', in Jon Davies, Graham Harvey and Wilfred G.E. Watson (eds.), Words Remembered, Texts Renewed: Essays in Honour of JohnF.A. Sawyer (JSOTSup, 195; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 97-112; a revised version was published in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 26-45. 'Beyond Synchronic/Diachronic', in Johannes C. de Moor (ed.), Synchronic or Diachronic? A Debate on Method in Old Testament Exegesis (OTS, 34; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995): 5271; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 68-87. 'Psalm 2 and the MLF (Moabite Liberation Front)', in M. Daniel Carroll R., David J.A. Clines and Philip R. Davies (eds.), The Bible in Human Society: Essays in Honour of John Rogerson (JSOTSup, 200; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 158-85; a revised version was published in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 244-75. 'Ethics as Deconstruction, and, The Ethics of Deconstruction', in John W. Rogerson, Margaret Davies and M. Daniel Carroll R. (eds.), The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium (JSOTSup, 207; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 77-106; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 95-125. '[Reply to F.I. Andersen]', Australian Biblical Review 43: 72-74 (Andersen's review of The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, I, in pp. 51-71; Andersen's rejoinder: 74-75). 'Language as Event', in Robert P. Gordon (ed.), 'The place is too small for us.' The Israelite Prophets in Recent Scholarship (Sources for Biblical and Theological Study, 5; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995): 166-75 (reprint of/, He, We, and They [1976]: 53-56). 'The Book of Psalms, Where Men Are Men: On the Gender of Hebrew Piety', 7 pp.*

1996 The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. III. Zayin-Teth (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 424 pp. 'Preface', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. III. Zayin-Teth: 7-8. 'Introduction', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. III. Zayin-Teth: 9-10. 'Words Beginning with Zayin, Heth and Teth in Order of Frequency', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. III. Zayin-Teth: 33-66. 'The God of the Pentateuch' (shortened version of The Peake Memorial Lecture, June 1994), Epworth Review 23/1: 55-64. 'Varieties of Indeterminacy', in Robert C. Culley and Robert B. Robinson (eds.), Textual Indeterminacy, Part Two = Semeia 63 (1995): 17-27 [published 1996]; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 126-37. Review of Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner and Johann Jakob Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. I. Aleph-Heth (ed. and trans. M.E.J. Richardson), Journal of Semitic Studies 41: 137-42.

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'Loin-girding and Other Male Activities in the Book of Job', 12 pp.* 'Confessions of an Autodidact: Response to Carol Newsom's Review of Exum and Clines, The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible', 3 pp.* 'Books on the Net: A Publisher's View', 4 pp.* 'Does Hebrew 'adam Mean "Humanity"? A Response to James Barr, "Words and Meanings, This Century and Next'", 6 pp.* 'Gender and Hermeneutics: A Response to Hanna Stenstrom, "Revelation 14:1-5 and the Necessity and Limitations of Feminist Interpretation of the Bible'", 8 pp.*

1997 The Poetical Books: A Sheffield Reader (ed. David J.A. Clines; The Biblical Seminar, 41; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 370 pp. The Theme of the Pentateuch (JSOTSup, 10; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2nd edn), 176pp. The Sheffield Manual for Authors and Editors in Biblical Studies (Manuals, 12; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 200 pp. The Bible and the Modern World (The Biblical Seminar, 59; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 116 pp. Selections from/, He, We, They: A Literary Approach to Isaiah 53 [see 1976], in Stephen E. Fowl (ed.), The Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Blackwell Readings in Modern Theology; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996; Oxford: Blackwell, 1997): 210-18. 'Publishers: Who Needs Them?', 9 pp.* 'Dancing and Shining at Sinai: Playing the Man in Exodus 32-34', 10 pp.* 1998 The World of Genesis: Persons, Places, Perspectives (ed. Philip R. Davies and David J.A. Clines; JSOTSup, 257; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 179 pp. Auguries: The Jubilee Volume oj'the Sheffield Department of 'Biblical Studies (ed. David J.A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore; JSOTSup, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 332 pp. On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998 (2 vols.; JSOTSup, 292293; Sheffield: JSOT Press), xx, xiv, 897 pp. The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. IV. Yodh-Lamedh (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 642 pp. 'Preface', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. IV. Yodh-Lamedh: 7-9. 'Introduction', The Dictionary of 'Classical Hebrew. IV. Yodh-Lamedh: 10-13. 'Words Beginning with Yodh, Kaph and Lamedh in Order of Frequency', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. IV. Yodh-Lamedh: 30-66. 'Methods in Old Testament Study', in J.W. Rogerson (ed.), Beginning Old Testament Study (London: SPCK, new, revised edition, 1998): 25-48; revision of 1982 chapter; reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 23-45. 'The Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies: An Intellectual Biography', in David J.A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore (eds.), Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies (JSOTSup, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 14-89. 'The Postmodern Adventure in Biblical Studies', in David J.A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore (eds.), Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies


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(JSOTSup, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 276-91; a revised and expanded version is reprinted as 'The Pyramid and the Net: The Postmodern Adventure in Biblical Studies', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 19681998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 138-57. 'Research, Teaching and Learning in Sheffield: The Material Conditions of their Production', in David J. A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore (eds.), Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies (JSOTSup, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 294-302. 'The Postmodern Adventure in Biblical Studies', Australasian Pentecostal Studies 1 (March 1998): 41-54. 'The Postmodern Adventure in Biblical Studies', in Joze Krasovec (ed.), Interpretation of the Bible. International Symposium on the Interpretation of the Bible on the Occasion of the Publication of the New Slovenian Translation of the Bible (Ljubljana: The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 1998; JSOTSup, 289; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999): 1603-18. '"Ecce Vir", or, Gendering the Son of Man', in J. Cheryl Exum and Stephen D. Moore (eds.), Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium (JSOTSup, 266; Gender, Culture, Theory, 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 352-75. 'Quarter Days Gone: Job 24 and the Absence of God', in Tod Linafelt and Timothy Beal (eds.), God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1998); reprinted in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1968-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 801-19. 'Making Waves Gently: The Contribution of Norman Whybray to British Old Testament Study', 17pp.* 'Paul, the Invisible Man; or, The Full Apostolic Monty', 11 pp.* 'The Pyramid and the Net: The Postmodern Adventure in Biblical Studies', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 138-57. 'From Salamanca to Cracow: What Has (And Has Not) Happened at SBL International Meetings', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 158-93. 'From Copenhagen to Oslo: What Has (And Has Not) Happened at Congresses of the IOSOT', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998,1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 194-221. 'Philology and Power', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 613-30. 'Squares and Streets: The Distinction of DIPR "Square" and mum "Streets"', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 631-36. 'Universal Dominion in Psalm 2?', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 701-707. 'Those Golden Days: Job and the Perils of Nostalgia', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 792-800. 'The History of Bo Peep: An Agricultural Employee's Tragedy in Contemporary Literary Perspective', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 823-29.

474


'New Directions in Pooh Studies: Uberlieferungs- und religionsgeschichtliche Studien zum Pu-Buch', in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998, II (JSOTSup, 293; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 830-39. 1999 'The Future of Biblical Studies', Religious Studies News (November 1999). 'Introduction to the Biblical Story: Genesis-Esther', in James L. Mays (ed.), Harper's Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988; 2nd edition, 1999): 74-84; a revised and expanded version was publ ished in What Does Eve Do to Help ? and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament (JSOTSup, 94; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990): 85-105. 'Esther', in James L. Mays (ed.), Harper's Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988; 2nd edition, 1999): 387-94. 'The Additions to Esther', in James L. Mays (ed.), Harper's Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988; 2nd edition, 1999): 815-19.

2000 'Job's Fifth Friend: An Ethical Critique of the Book of Job', 14 pp.* 'He-Prophets: Masculinity as a Problem for the Hebrew Prophets and their Interpreters', 23 pp.* 'D1H, the Hebrew for "Human, Humanity": A Response to James Barr', 11 pp.* 'Esther and the Future of the Commentary', 13 pp.* 'Esther: A PolyCommentary Sample' (website).* 'Notes on the Preliminary Edition of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta (Fasciculus extra seriem: Librum Ruth praeparavit Jan de Waard [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1998])', 4 pp.* 'Lamentations', 29 pp.* 'Before We All Get Too Excited about Electronic Publishing ...', 10 pp.* 'The Disjoined Body: The Body and the Self in Hebrew Rhetoric', 10 pp.* 'Job: A Workshop', 5 pp.* 'Masculinity's Debt to Feminist Biblical Criticism' (PowerPoint presentation).* 'Psalms, The: A Module in Biblical Studies' (website).* 'Reading the Song of Songs as a Classic', 14 pp.* 'Teaching and Learning the Psalms, Inductively, or, Keeping Gunkel and Friends out of the Classroom', 9 pp.* 'The Prophetic Assessment Exercise (PAE)', 4 pp.* 'Of Viking and Parking', 2 pp.* 2001 The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. V. Mem-Nun (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 937pp. 'Preface', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. V. Mem-Nun: 7-10. 'Introduction', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. V. Mem-Nun: 11-13. 'Words Beginning with Mem and Nun in Order of Frequency', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. V. Mem-Nun: 32-92. 'Bibliography', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. V. Mem-Nun: 820-922. '"D [enclitic mem]', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. V. Mem-Nun: 96-102. 'TliJC I refuge', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. V. Mem-Nun: 384-85. 'T1I7Q II strength', The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. V. Mem-Nun: 385-86.


475

'The Disjoined Body: The Body and the Self in Hebrew Rhetoric', in G.A. van der Heever and S.W. van Heerden (eds.), Biblical Interpretation (University of South Africa, Pretoria, 2001): 148-57. 'The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, Vol. 5 Mem-Nun: Bibliography to Mem', 87 pp.* 'The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, Vol. 5 Mem-Nun: Bibliography to Nun', 47 pp.* '725 New Words Beginning with Mem or Nun', 16 pp.* '725 New Words Beginning with Mem or Nun: Handout with List of Words', 16 pp.* 'What Remains of the Old Testament? Its Text and Language in a Postmodern Age', 26 pp.*; published in 2002. 'Does the Book of Job Suggest that Suffering is Not a Problem?', 15 pp.*; published in 2002. 'Writing a Program for Alphabetizing Hebrew', 9 pp.* 'Foreword', in C.-S. Abraham Cheong, A Dialogic Reading of The Steward Parable (Luke 16:1-9) (Studies in Biblical Literature, 28; New York: Peter Lang, 2001): xiii-xv. 'The Poetic Achievement of the Book of Job', 7 pp.* 'Guide for (Somewhat) Advanced Users of Office 2001, Especially Word 2001', 11 pp.* 'All 2194 Words Beginning Mem and Nun', 63 pp.* 'All 2194 Words Beginning Mem and Nun, by Frequency', 60 pp.* 'All 1343 Common Nouns Beginning Mem and Nun', 37 pp.* 'All 1343 Common Nouns Beginning Mem and Nun, by Gender', 39 pp.* 'All 1451 Words Beginning Mem and Nun, in BDB', 42 pp.* 'All 1985 Words Beginning Mem and Nun in Biblical Hebrew', 54 pp.* 'All 725 New Words Beginning with Mem or Nun, by Corpus', 15 pp.* 'All 725 New Words in Classical Hebrew Beginning Mem and Nun by their First Proposer', 22pp.* 'All 534 New Words in Biblical Hebrew Beginning Mem and Nun, with their First Proposer', 15pp.* 'All 534 New Words in Biblical Hebrew Beginning Mem and Nun, with the Cognate Language They Depend On', 17 pp.* 'All 534 New Words in Biblical Hebrew Beginning Mem and Nun, with the Date They Were First Proposed', 18pp.* 'All 534 New Words in Biblical Hebrew Beginning Mem and Nun, with the Place of Publication and School of the Author', 21 pp.* 'All 51 New Words in Classical Hebrew Inscriptions Beginning Mem and Nun', 2 pp.* 'All 56 New Words in Classical Hebrew Beginning Mem and Nun Noted by KoehlerBaumgartner', 2 pp.* 'All 91 New Words in Classical Hebrew Beginning Mem and Nun Noted by D. Winton Thomas', 3 pp.* 2002 'What Remains of the Old Testament? Its Text and Language in a Postmodern Age', Studio Theologica 54: 76-95. 'He-Prophets: Masculinity as a Problem for the Hebrew Prophets and their Interpreters', in Alastair G. Hunter and Philip R. Davies (eds.), Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll (JSOTSup, 348; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002): 311-28. 'The fear of the Lord is wisdom' (Job 28.28): A Semantic and Contextual Study', 16 pp.* 'Putting Elihu in his Place: A Proposal for the Relocation of Job 32-37', 8 pp.* 'Accordance: A Basic Guide for Students of the English Bible', 4 pp.*

476


'Accordance: A Basic Guide for Students of Greek', 6 pp.* 'Accordance: A Basic Guide for Students of Hebrew', 6 pp.* 'Dictionary of Classical Hebrew: Addenda and Corrigenda, Version 1, December 2002', 27 pp.* 2003 Weisheit in Israel: Beitrage des Symposiums «Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne» anldsslich des 100. Geburtstags Gerhard von Rods (1901—1971) Heidelberg, 18.-21. Oktober 2001 (ed. David J.A. dines, Hermann Lichtenberger and Hans-Peter Miiller; Altes Testament und Moderne, 12; Minister: Lit Verlag, 2003), 205 pp. 'Does the Book of Job Suggest that Suffering is Not a Problem?', in David J.A. Clines, Hermann Lichtenberger and Hans-Peter Miiller (eds.), Weisheit in Israel (Altes Testament und Moderne, 12; Miinster: Lit Verlag, 2003): 93-110. ' "The Fear of the Lord is Wisdom" (Job 28:28): A Semantic and Contextual Study', in Ellen van Wolde (ed.), Job 28. Cognition in Context (Biblical Interpretation Series, 64; Leiden: EJ. Brill, 2003): 57-92. In Press 'Lamentations', in J. W. Rogerson and J.D.G. Dunn (eds.), Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003): 600-605. 'Paul, the Invisible Man', in Janice Capel Anderson and Stephen D. Moore (eds.), New Testament Masculinities (Semeia Studies; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature). 'Esther and the Future of the Commentary', in Leonard Greenspoon and Sidnie White Crawford (eds.), The Book of Esther in Modern Research (JSOTSup, 380; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003). '725 New Words Beginning with Mem or Nun', in Mathias Augustin (ed.), Communications to the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament Congress, Basel 2001. 'DTK, the Hebrew for "Human, Humanity": A Response to James Barr', VT. 'The Poetic Achievement of the Book of Job', for Luis Alonso Schokel Memorial Volume. 'Job's Fifth Friend: An Ethical Critique of the Book of Job', Biblnt. 'Making Waves Gently: The Contribution of Norman Whybray to British Old Testament Study', in Katherine Dell and Margaret Barker (eds.), 7 have taught you the way of wisdom' (Prov 4.11): Articles on Wisdom by R. Norman Whybray (Society for Old Testament Study Monograph Series; Aldershot, Hants.: Ashgate Publishing). 'Putting Elihu in his Place: A Proposal for the Relocation of Job 32-37', JSOT. In Preparation Job 21-42 (WBC, 18; Nashville: Thomas Nelson), c. ex + 700 pp. The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew: Samekh-Pe, VI (Sheffield: Hebrew Dictionary Ltd), c. 900 pp. Bibliography as at 30 June 2003. This Bibliography does not include book reviews, except for a few longer reviews, nor books of which D.J.A. Clines was the General Editor. An asterisk at the end of an item indicates a paper published on the Web, at www.sheffield.ac.uk/bibs/ DJACcurrres/Articles.html

INDEXES INDEX OF REFERENCES

BIBLE Old Testament Genesis 1-11 79-81,96, 328 1-3 133 1-2 85 1 280,322, 323,326 1.1-2.4 320 1.2 85 1.26 321,322 1.27 321 1.28 321 1.29-31 326 2-^ 327 2-3 67,72, 134, 135, 323,325 2 322 2.2-3 85 2.8 66 2.9 72 2.10-14 84,454 2.16 324 2.18 322 2.23 323 2.24 322 3-4 110,324 3 322 3.4 65 3.8 149 3.16 135 3.20 72

4 4.7 4.9 4.10 4.14 4.16 5 5.18 5.21-24 5.21 5.22 5.24 5.29 6.3 9.27 12 12.1-3 15.2 16 17.20 18.12 18.14 18.17 22 22.35 22.36 24.67 25-33 27.24 27.38 28-35 28

255 135,324 16 378 67 67 255 255-257 255,257 259 259 259 327 324 243 96 79,80 244 437 321 67 16 16 112-14 113 113 349,350 444 17 243 435,444 444,446, 447

28.10-20 28.11 28.12 28.13-14 28.16-17 28.19 28.21 30.21 31.43-54 32 33 33.4 33.10 33.12-16 33.18-20 33.18 33.20 34

34.2 34.3

34.4 34.5 34.7 34.8 34.9 34.12 34.13 34.14-15

444,445 445 349 446 445 445 444 444 437 444 444 444 444 444 444,445 444 445 219,435, 437, 44042,44447 436,437 437,438, 443 438 441,442 441,443 438 438 438 438,439, 442 439


478 Genesis (cont.) 34.16 438 34.21 438 34.25-26 440 34.26 436,438, 440 34.27 440,442 34.30-31 440 35 445-47 35.1-3 445 35.1 444 35.2 65 35.3 444 35.4 444 35.7 445 35.11-12 446 35.11 321 36.38-39 69 37.32-35 349 37.33-35 350 37.35 261 38.12-18 350 47 86 47.15 85 47.17 85 47.19 85 47.27 321 49 246 49.7 219 50.10 349 Exodus 1-16 1-15 1.1-15.21 1.7 3.12 6.23 7-11 7.20-25 12.13 12.23 14-15 15 15.1-21 15.1-18 15.18

86 83, 85, 86, 109 85 321 54 359 83 84 370 370 86 86,246 83 83 84,86

15.21 15.22-16.36 15.22-27 15.22-25 15.26 16-18 16 16.1-36 16.1-19 16.1-3 16.3 16.6

16.8 16.12 16.14 16.15 16.17 16.18 16.20 16.22-34 17.1-7 17 17.3 17.6 17.14 18 18.9 19.12

19.13 19.14-15 20 20.5-6 20.12 21.6 21.15 21.17 22.15-16 22.22-23 23.20-33 23.33 24 24.1-2 24.1 24.9-11 24.9 24.10 25 28.1

83 85 83,84 84 84 83,380 85,86 83 84 380 85,87 85 85 85 85 85 85 85 85 85 83,84 381 381 454 164 382 247,251 65 65 65 381 334 293,333 377 333 333 438 237 370 54 360 360 359 360 359 360 359 210,359

29.27 30.7 30.8 30.9 31.12-17 32 32.34 34.7 34.13 34.29 35.1-3 37.3 37.13 38.27 40.11 Leviticus 1-7 5.2 7.21 8 9 9.23-24 10-16 10 10.1-3 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.19 11.7 11.10-13 11.10 11.29 14.7 14.8-9 14.8 16 16.12-13 16.12 16.13 16.16 16.17 18-20 19.3 19.26-28 20.9

372 362 362 362 295 208 124 296 72 247 295 245 245 245 190

359,362 63 63,71 359 359 359 441 359,360, 363 359,360 362 360 363 16 69 63 63,71 69 66 65,66 65 361 362 360,361 361 361 361 441 295 72 333

479

Index of References 23 23.3 23.13 23.17 23.37 25 25.42-43

Numbers 3.4 6.25 8 8.7 8.8 8.21 10-16 11 11.22 11.26 12 13 13.32-33 14 14.18 15.32-36 16-17 16 16.6 16.7 16.17 16.18 16.22 16.30 16.33 16.35 16.46 17 17.5 17.6-15 17.11 17.13 20.23-28 21 21.1 24.6 24.17 24.19

362 295 362 362 362 387 387

362 191 207 66 66 65 380 382 19 190 208,382 383 383 383 296 295 360 360,363 360 360 360

360 16 261 261 360 361 212,361 362 361 361 361 210 380 243 66 187, 189, 190, 194 243

25.1-12 25.1 26.61 29-30

70 380 362 362

Deuteronomy 4.7 17 4.13 294,298, 299 4.32 85 4.40 292 5 290,295 5.6-22 290 5.6-16 296 5.6 290,294, 295 5.7-16 293,294 5.7 290,295 5.8 290,295 5.9 291,293, 295 5.10 291,295 5.11 291,295 5.12-15 295,296, 298 5.12 291,292 5.13 291,292 5.14 291,292 5.15 291 5.16 291-93, 295, 296, 298,333 5.17-21 293,294, 297 5.17 291,293 5.18 291,293 5.19 291 5.20 291 5.21 291,294 5.22 298,299 5.26 17 6-7 370 6.4 50 6.11 85 7.2-6 447 7.5 72 7.6 85 7.8 85

7.9 7.15 7.16 7.24-26 8.10 8.12 9 9.4 9.5 10.4 12.2 12.3 13.12-18 13.12 13.15 14.8 14.24 15 15.12-14 15.14 15.15 15.16-17 16.21 18 18.2-3 18.10-11 20.3 20.10-18 20.16-17 20.19-20 20.19 20.20 21.1-9 21.10-14 21.18-21 22.6-7 22.13-29 22.28-29 24.6 28.60 29.4 31.19-22 32-33 32 32.2 32.30 32.39 34.1-4

85 84 447 447 85 85 208 365,368 365,368 299 72 72 22 222 222 69 372 384,387 377 387 387 377 72 292 292 72 125 21 22 13, 17 16,18,19 14 378 22,437 332 21 437 438 21 84 85 164 17 246 169 17 44 305

480


Joshua 21.13-19 24.33

207 207

Judges 5.18 6.16 6.25-26 11.29-40 17-21 19-21 19 19.22-20.7 20 20.28

193 54 72 113 216 219,220 174,217 437 217,223 207

1 Samuel 1-3 1.2 1.20 2.25 3.6-11 4.8-5.1 6.1-18 10.10 11.2 12.6 12.8 14.29-30 14.45 16.4 16.5 18.10 22.2 22.7 28.13 31.13

9 178 408 332 178 178 69 185 17 207 207 332 332 17 66 185 336 17 70 349

2 Samuel 1.17-26 5.12 6.17 7 7.11-17 7.12-13 7.12 7.13-16 7.16

350 58 17 55,56,59 56 58 55,56 55 55,56,58

7.18-28 7.25-29 7.26 7.28-29 8.17 10.2 12.15-23 12.16 12.24 13 13.32 13.33 13.38-39 13.39 15.24-36 17.14 18.3 18.24-33 18.29 19.23 22.20

56 55 58 56 206 349 349 70 349,350 437 365,367, 368 365,368 349 349 206 332 54 53 17 54 206

/ Kings I 1.24 2.12 2.26-27 2.33 2.46 3 10 11-12 II 11.41 14.15 14.19 14.23 14.29 15.18 21 21.2 21.29 22.1-40

206 17 58 208 56 58 313,314 313 336 8 103 348 103 67,72 103 186 100 100 54 186

2 Kings 2.19-22 3.19

6.12 9-10 11 16.4 17.10 17.16-17 18.4 18.22 20.19 21.6-7 21.18 21.26 22.12 22.14 22.20 23.14-15 23.29 24.10 25.2 Isaiah 1-39

1 1.1 1.2-4 1.2 1.9-10 1.10-17 1.10 1.11-15 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16-17 1.16 1.17 1.18-23 1.20 1.21-26 1.21-25 1.21-23 1.21

84 22

1.22-23

2 336 336 67,72 67,72 72 54,72 67 53 72 2,69 69 69 69 54 72 186 14 14

3,51,57, 59, 60, 423 424,429 5 426 424, 428 426 285 428 426 362 43 393,426 426 390 426 431 424,428 423-25, 429,431 427,428, 431 425 424-26, 428-31 426

481

Index of References 1.22 1.23 1.24-26 1.24-25 1.24 1.25 1.26-27 1.26 1.27-31 1.27-28 1.27

1.28 1.29-30 1.29

1.30 1.31 2.3 2.5 3.4-5 3.6 3.16-24 3.16 3.24 3.25 4.1 4.2 4.3 5 5.8 5.13 5.14 5.16

5.25 5.26 5.29 5.30 6 6.3 6.9-10 7.3

429,431 424-26, 429-31 425 425,427, 430 425,428, 429,431 428,429, 431,432 426 424-31 63 425 263,26567, 284, 425 424-26 66 63, 67, 68, 71,425 54,71 424 44,286 392 330 431 431 431 431 430,431 431 431 454 396 385 126 125, 126 263,265, 267, 268 428 390 428 428 393,429 391 393 392

7.14

7.53 8.3 8.19-20 8.22 9.5-6 9.6 9.11 9.16 9.20 10.4 10.15 10.22 11.1 11.2 11.10 11.16 12.3 12.6 13-14 13.7 14.13 15-16 15.2 16.1 16.4-5 16.5 16.12 17 17.8 17.10-11 18 18.3 19 19.19-20 23.1-3 24.16 26.3 27.9 28.16 28.17 29.1-5 29.1 30.18

390,394, 396,398 398 391 70 192 57 58 428 428 428 428 16 263,265, 267 391 185,391 391 392 390,396 431 393 125 52 393 67 391 57 58 67 393 72 68 393 392 393 391 349,350 263,266, 267 394 72 391 263,26567 431 431 392

32.8 33 33.5 33.14 34-35 35.1 35.2 35.4 35.8 36-39 36-38 36.7 37.2 37.15 37.17 37.20 37.21 37.25 37.35 38.1 38.3 38.4 38.5 38.10 38.15-17 38.17 38.18-19 38.19 38.20 39-40 39 39.6 39.8-55.3-5 39.8 40-66

40-55 40.1-2 40.3 40.9 41.2 41.8-9 41.10 41.27 42.1-7

392 51 263,265, 267 283 51 391 391 391 427 52,53 53 67 53 53 53 53 53 396 58,59 53 54 53 59 53 53 54 54 54 53 51 52,58 54 59 52-60 57-60, 264, 391 51,263 351 392 391,392 263,266, 267 58 263,266, 267 392 60

482 Isaiah (cont.) 42.1 58,391 42.3 58 42.6 263,266, 267 42.21 263,266, 267 43.7 427 43.17 278 44.26 369 45.7 44 45.8 263-68, 391 45.9-10 333 45.13 263,266, 267 45.14 60 45.19 263,264, 266, 267 45.21 263,264, 266, 267 45.22 60 45.23 263,265, 267 45.24 263-65, 267 45.25 263,266, 267 46.12 125,263, 265,267 46.13 60,26365, 267, 391 47.8 52,67 48.1 427 48.2 427 48.18-19 58 48.18 263-65, 267 48.22 57 49.1 391 49.6 391 49.10 391 49.11 392 49.20 391 49.21 52 49.22-23 60 49.22 455

Reading from Right to Left 50.7 50.8

267 263,26567 50.9 265 51.1 263,266, 267 51.3 67 51.5 263-65, 267 51.6 263-65, 267 51.7 263,266, 267 51.8 263-65, 267 51.18 455 51.19 348 52-53 193 52.1 60 52.7 57 52.10 60 52.13-53.12 192 53 192,390 53.8 391 53.12 192, 193 54 58 54.1-10 455 54.1 455 54.7-8 340 54.10 58 54.13-14 58 54.13 60,264 54.14 58,263, 265, 267 54.17 60,265, 267 55 59 55.1-13 59 55.1-3 59 55.1 390,396 55.3-5 59,60 55.3 60 55.4-5 59 55.10 85 55.13 390 56-66 51,64, 263, 393 56.1-8 369

56.1-2 56.1 56.3-8 56.3-7 56.5 57.2 57.3-13

57.4 57.5 57.6 57.7 57.8 57.9 57.10 57.13 57.17-20 57.21 58.2 58.8

58.11 58.12 59.9 59.14 59.16 59.17 59.20-21 60-61 60.14

60.17 60.18 61.1 61.3 61.6 61.10 61.11 62.1

369 263-67 365,369 369 392 70 64,68-70, 72 69 70 68 70 70 70 70 70 58 57,58 263,26567 263,265, 267 66 427 263,26567 263,26567 263,264, 266, 267 263-65, 267 397 455 427 390 427 191,391 263,266, 267, 427 391 263,264, 266, 267 263,265, 267 263,264, 266, 267

483

Index of References 62.2

62.4

62.10 62.12 63.1

265,267, 427 427

66.18 66.19 66.24 66.51

392 427 263-65, 267 393 124 396 64 63,68,69, 71 63 395 393 66-70, 395 69,70 65 68,69 65 393 393 64 69 455 391 63 63,64, 67-69,7173 63 391 393 392

Jeremiah 1.7 2.2-3 2.5 2.10 2.20 3.6 3.12 3.13 3.16 3.17

365,368 83 333 16 72 72 340 70,72 10 427

63.13-15 63.14 65 65.1-12 65.1-7 65.2-5 65.2-3 65.2 65.3 65.4 65.5 65.7 65.11 65.13-14 66.1-5 66.3-4 66.3 66.7-14 66.7 66.15-16 66.17

3.25 4.23-28 7.18 8.22 9.26 11.20 12.6 14.13 14.20 16.7 17.2 18.16 19.13 20.7 23.3 26.17-19 26.22 29.5 29.28 31.12 31.15 33.6

333 385 362 19 337 333 330 54 333 349 72 348 362 123 10 54 69 66 66 66 54 54

33.16 44.15-19 46-51 48.10 51.46 52.5

427 68 393 222 125 14

Ezekiel 8.3 8.7-13 8.7 8.9 8.10 8.11 8.12 8.14-15 8.14 8.16 8.17 13.9 14.21-23 16.17 16.18 20 20.18 22.7

64 71 64 362 63,71 68,362 72 71 64 64 69 454 351 70 362 83 333 330

22.22 23.32 23.41 25-32 26.15-17 28.13 31.8-9 31.9 32.27 32.32 36-37 36.25 36.27 36.35 37 37.1-14 37.15-28 38-39

245 123 362 393 349,350 67 66,67 67 261 454 189 189 189 67 189 189 189 185,189, 190

38 38.8-9 38.21 39 39.4 39.11-12 39.23 39.25 39.28

189 189 190 190 190 190 187 187 187

39.29 40.46 43.19 44.10 44.15 47.1-12 48.11 48.35

185 207,213 207,213 212 207,212, 213 84,454 207,213 427

Hosea 1.1 4.16 7.2

5 17 365,368

Joel 1.4 2.1-17 2.3 2.20

384 188 67 188

484 Joel (cont.) 2.28-32 2.28

Reading from Right to Left 12.11

3.5 4.18

188 185, 188, 191 188 188 185,188, 191 188 454

Amos 1-2 2.16 4 8.14

393 125 384 70

2.32 3.1-5 3.1

Micah 1.15 4.14 6.4 7.5-6 7.18-20

336 336 207 330 44

Nahum 3.7

348

Zephaniah 3.18

191

Haggai 1.13

369

Zechariah 1.4-6 2.14-15 8.3 8.6 12 12.1-9 12.2-3 12.3 12.8 12.9 12.10

104 192 427 17 184, 188, 189 185, 189 185, 190 184 188 184, 185, 188, 190 184, 18691

13.1 14.2 14.8

184,186, 190, 191 454 188 454

Malachi 1.1 2.7 2.12 3.1-4 3.12 3.21 4.5

369 370 243 370 54 54 131

Psalms 2 2.4 4.2 5 5.8 5.9 7 7.10 7.12 7.18 8 8.3 9 9.5 9.9 11.7 15 18 18.44-51 19.2 19.5 19.10 22.32 23.3 24 24.1-6 24.1 24.2 24.3-6 24.3

450 122, 123 268,270 269 269 268,270 269 268,270 268,270 268,270 325 455 269 268,270 268-70 268,270 283-85 59,60 59 241 283 268-70 268,270 124,26870 275,276, 283,450 282 281 281 282 282

24.4 24.5 24.6 24.8 27.14 30.6 31.2 31.25 33.4 33.5 35.24 35.27 35.28 36.6 36.7 36.8 36.11 38.12 40.10 40.11 41.10 42-49 42-43 42 44 45^18 46-48

283-85 268-70, 282 285,286 277 125 340 268,270 125 269 268-70 268,270 268-70 268,270 269,270 268-70 269 268-70 330 268,270 268-70 330 457,458 458 179 458 458 456,457

46 46.5 46.11 47 47.3 48 48.2 48.9 48.11 49 50 50.6 51 51.4 51.6 51.16 59.9 63.9 65.6 69.28

456,458 454,456 456 456 456 456,458 456 456 268-70 458 269,270 268,270 269 65 268-70 268-70 123 437 268-70 268,270

485

Index of References 69.9 69.21 71.1 71.2 71.15 71.16 71.19 71.22 71.24 72 72.1 72.2 72.3

72.7 76.6 77.21 78.8 78.53 84-85 84 84.2 84.7 84.12 85 85.2 85.8 85.9-14 85.10 85.11 85.12-13 85.12 85.14 87_gg 87

87.1-3 87.1-2 87.1 87.2

87.3-7 87.3

330 348 268 268,270 268-70 268,270 268,270 269 268,270 56 269,270 268-70 56,26870 56,26870 125 124 333 124 457-59 458 459 459 459 458 459 269,459 458 269 268-70 458 268-70 268,270 457,458 451,452, 456-59 453,454, 459 453,455 452,453, 456 451,452, 454, 456, 459 454 452,453, 456,459

87.4-6 87.4 87.5 87.6 87.7

88 88.12 88.13 89

89.2 89.3 89.5 89.6-19 89.6 89.9 89.15

89.17 89.25 89.27 89.29 89.34 89.38 89.39-46 89.48 89.50 93.3 94.15 96.10 96.13 97.2 97.6 97.13 98.1 98.2 98.3 98.9 99.4 103 103.4 103.6 103.8

453,454, 459 452,453, 456 453,456, 457 453 453,454, 456, 457, 459 458 269 268,270 55, 56,59 270 269 58,269 58 270 55,269 55,269 55,26870 268,270 55,269 269 55 55,269 58 270 16 55,269 282 268-70 269 268-70 268-70 268-70 270 269 268-70 269 268-70 268-70

269 269 268-70 269

103.9 103.11 103.17 104 104.16-18 104.19-23 104.22-28 105.26 106 106.6 106.28 111.3 112.1-3 113.6-7 115.4 115.10 115.12 116.5 116.6 118.3 119.7 119.25 119.40 119.62 119.75 119.106 119.123 119.137 119.138 119.139 119.142 119.144 119.160 119.164 119.172 128 129.4 143.1 143.11 143.12 145.7 145.15-16 145.17 151.4

340 269 268-70 280,326, 327 326 326 84 208 83 333 70 268,270 54 372 54 208 208 268-70 269 208 268,270 437 268,270 268,270 268-70 268,270 268-70 268,270 268-70 270 268-70 268,270 268-70 268,270 268,270 54 268,270 268-70 268,270 269 268,270 84 268-70 370

Job 1-2

349

486 Job (cont.) 1.9 1.21 2.11 3-27 3 3.1 3.2 3.3-19 3.3-10 3.3-4 3.3 3.4-5 3.4

3.5 3.6-9 3.6 3.8 3.9

3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13-14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.20-26 3.20-22 3.20 3.22 3.23 3.24-26 3.24 3.25-26 4.6 5.2 5.23 5.25-27 6.12 7.19 9.24

Reading from Right to Left 16 354 348 348,351 251,351

242 244 249 249 247 248-50 249 243,246, 247, 249 243 249 243,24650 243 244,246, 248 244 244,246, 250 250 244 244,250 250 244,249, -250 244 249 249 244,249 244 244,245, 249 249 245,250 245,246 18 353 23 54 19 19 236

10.2-3 10.5 13.2 16.2 19.13-19 21.21 21.34 22.19 24 31.27 31.33 31.39 33 38-41 38.4 38.12 40.9 42 42.6 42.7-17 42.10-17 42.11-13 42.11 Proverbs 1-9

1.1-7 1.1 1.2-7 1.2-4 1.2 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.8-19 1.8-9 1.8

1.10 1.15 1.20-33 1.26 2.1-22

128 19 249 351 330 54 351 123 238 243 134 23 242 388 129 129 129 139 136,340 349 134 350 139,348

156, 157, 159-61, 163,165, 167, 168, 230 157,159 167 159 167 159,167 157,159 159,167 159,167, 168 157 159 155,156, 159,163 159 159 157 123 157,168

2.1-4 2.2 2.5-6 3.1-12 3.13-20 3.21-35 3.28 4.1-9 4.1-2 4.1 4.3-9 4.3 4.4-9 4.10-19 4.11 4.20-27 5.1-23 5.1 5.15-19 5.16 6.1-19 6.6-11 6.20-35 6.20 6.30 7.1-27 7.21 7.24 8.1-36 8.1-4 8.17 8.22 9.1-18 9.3-6 10-31 10-29 10.1-22.16 10.1 11.18 12.11 12.14 12.18 12.24 12.27 13.11 13.14

168 159 168 157 157 157 367 157 157 156,159 157 155, 156, 163 157 157 159 157 157 159 182 17 157 232 157 155, 156, 163 230 157 169 159 157 168 168 129 157 168 168,237 160,230 230,364 167 234 232 232 167 232 232 233 167

487

Index of References 13.23 13.25 14.3 14.6 14.20 14.21 14.31 15.2 15.7 16.10 16.14 16.21 16.23 16.26 16.31 17.5

234 234 167 168 235 236 236 167 167 231 231 169 167, 169 235 233 123,236

18.23 19.15 19.24 19.27 20.1 20.4 20.22

235 232 232 160 364 232 365

21.5 21.9 21.13 21.17 21.19 21.25 22.7 22.9 22.13 22.17-24.34 22.17-24.22 22.17-21 22.17 22.20 22.22-23 23.10-11 23.15 23.19

232 330 235,237 233 330 232 235 236 232 236 163,364 163 163, 167 163 236 236,237 160 160,163

23.22 23.26 24.13 24.21 24.23-34

163 160 160 160 160,364

24.23 24.29

167 365

24.30-34 24.33-34 24.34 25-29 25-27 25.1 25.2-27 25.6-7 25.24 26.4 26.7 26.9 26.13-14

232 160 160 230 154,364 167,231 154 231 330 364 167 167 231

26.13 26.14 26.15 26.16 27.1 27.2 27.11 27.15 28.15 28.19 28.27 29.13 30-31 30.1-9 30.2 31.3 31.26

232 232 232 232 364 364 160 330 235 232 236 236,239 159,161 155 160 70 155

Ruth 4

Song of Songs 1.2-2.7 1.5-6 1.5 1.6 1.7-8 2.1-2 2.3 2.5 2.7 2.8-3.5 2.8-17

100

145 181 179 139 181 148, 181 181 181 141,181 141, 142, 144, 147 141, 144, 145,147-

2.8-9

2.8

2.9 2.10-17 2.10-14 2.10-13 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13-14 2.13

2.14

2.15-17 2.15-16 2.15 2.16-17 2.16 2.17-3.1 2.17

3 3.1-5

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

3.5 3.6-11 4.1-2 4.5-6 4.5 4.6 4.9

51 144-46, 149 141, 142, 144, 145, 149 142 148 142, 144, 150 146, 182 142, 146, 147 142,147 142, 147 146,147 142, 146, 147 137, 142, 145,147, 148 148 149 143,145, 148 145 143,14850 144 141,14350 138 141, 144, 150,151, 181 141,143 143 143, 144 139, 143, 148 143, 145 179,181 134 150 150 150 132, 139, 181

488


Song of Songs (cont.) 4.12 66 4.13 66 4.15 66 5 138 5.1 132 5.2-6.3 141 5.2-8 181 5.2-6 149 5.2 132 5.8 181 5.9 137 5.11-12 134 5.15 132 6.1-3 181 6.2-3 148 6.10 283 7.10 135 8.1-3 181 8.6-7 181 8.6 133, 135, 177 8.7 139, 181 8.11-12 179 8.14 149,151 Ecclesiastes 2.5 3.19-21 3.21 4.13-14 4.17-5.6 5.1 5.5-6 5.5 7.10 8.12-13 11.9 12.1 12.9 12.10 12.12 12.13-14

66 370 371 372 370-72 370 372 369,370 366,369 373 373 373 164, 168 164 156 373

Lamentations 1.1

424

2.1

424

Esther 9.30

54

Daniel 9

261

Ezra 7.2 9.1-4 9.4

207 349 349

Nehemiah 11.11

207

1 Chronicles 5.29-41 6.35-38

207,213 207, 21L

213 7.20-23 7.22-23

349 350

10.12 14.2 14.17 17.11

349 58 58 55

17.23-24

55

17.26

56

22.9 22.10 23-26 24.3 24.6 28.7

56 58 207 207,213 207,213 58

2 Chronicles 1.9 55 2.3 362 6.17 55 9 313 12.8 54 14.2 72 15 27,33 15.1 25,26 15.8 25,26 16.14 70 26.16-21 207 28 27,33 28.4 72 28.9 25

29-31 30.10 31.10 31.20 32.1 34.4 34.7

54 123 207 56 56 72 72

35.24-25

186

36.15

370

Apocrypha Tobit 1.7

210

Judith 4.6 4.8 4.14 11.13 15.8 16.24

210 210 210,21 211 210 349

Ecclesiasticus 3.1 3.17 4.1 5.1-6 5.1 5.3 5.4-5

156 156 156 367 365 365 365

5.6 5.7 5.9 6.36 8.8

365 365 365 122, 12 169

11.23-25

367

11.23 11.24

365 365

15.11-20 15.11

367 365-67

15.12

365

16.17

365,36

18.29 22.12 31.12 31.31 33.18 34.12

169 349 367 367 160 365

489

Index of References 38.16-23 38.17-18 38.18 38.24 38.33 39.1-3 39.3 41.14 44-49 44.16 45.6-22 45.25 46.1 48.8 48.36 49.14 50 50.13 50.16 51.12 51.18 51.23 51.25

354 350 353 169,231 169 169 169 156 9 254 209 209 9 9 391 254 209 209 209 209,213 122,123 164 164

1 Maccabees 5 7.5-25 7.11-14 7.14 7.26-50

255 210 205 210,211 255

10.17-21

206

2 Maccabees 3.4 205 4.7-10 205 4.23-25 205 4.34 205 13.3-8 210 14.3 205 14.13 205 New Testament Matthew 1.14 212 10.34-36 330 15.24 43 27.25 393 Mark 3.5 6 6.30-51 6.30-44 6.45-46 6.47-51 6.52 8.17 8.24 10.5 16.14

87 86 86 86,87 86 86 86 87 22 87 87

Luke 3.23-31 4.31-37 5.31 6.1-11 12.51-53 24.44

212 44 45 42 330 5

John 19.21

69

Acts 7.40 23.8

212 370

Romans 10 11.26-27

395 397

Hebrews 5.4 7.11 9.4 13.12

212 212 212 194

Revelation 19.7 20.8-9

130 189

89.59-90.25 90.40 90.42 91-105 91.11-17 91.16-17 92.1 93.1-10 93.2 103.7-8

261 258 258 255 255 258 257,260 255 258 261

OTHER ANCIENT REFERENCES Pseudepigrapha 1 Enoch 1-36 255 6-16 254 12-16 259 17-36 259 23-36 254 72-90 254 72-82 255,256 72-75 256 73.4-8 256 74.2 256 74.3-9 256 76-79 256 80-82 257 81 258

81.6 82 82.2-3 83-90 83-84

258 256 257,260 255 258,260

83.2 83.3 83.6 83.7 85-90 85.2 85.3

255 258 258 258 258 258 255,258

85.9 89.18 89.31 89.37

258 209 209 209

Epistle ofAristeas 1 210 6 210 11 210 32 210

490


Epistle ofAristeas (cont.) 35 210 41 210 51 210 53 210 81 210 83 210 87 210 92 210 96 210 112 210 123 210 126 210 172-73 210 310 210 320 210 Greek Apocalypse of Ezra 3.12-13 330 Jubilees 1.4 1.5-7 1.8 4.15 4.16-25 4.16 4.17-22 4.17-19 4.17-18 4.17 4.18

4.19

4.20 4.21-22 4.21 4.22 4.23-25 4.24 5.1-10 6.20-38

7.20-39 7.29 7.38-39 7.39 8.1-4 10.1-17 10.17

259 260,261 259 257 259 259 257,259 61 259 210 210 210 255 255

40227 2.1-4 2.4-6

259 256

4Q415 2.2.1-9

155

4Q416 2.3.12-15

365

4Q534 1.1.4-5

260

4QMMT 10

5

212 212

11Q5 21.15

122

5.2 5.9

211 211

5.21-22

212

HQT 22.5 34.13 54.19-21

212 212 330

6.8 6.19 9.6-7

212 212 212

CD 3.21-4.6 20.33

212 125

IQS" 1.2 1.15 1.23 1.24 2.3 2.13

211,212 212 212 211,212 211,212 212

Targums Targ. Judg. 5.18

193

Targ. 1 Sam. 2.10

190

3.22

211

Targ. 2 Sam. 22.49

190

IQpHab 4.1-2 4.6

123 123

Targ. Ezek. 38-39

190

Targ. Cant. 4.5 7.13 8.4

190 189 189

21.10 30.18-20 31.11-17 32.8-9 34.2-9 37.1-38.14 Qumran 1QM 7.10 17.2

1QS 257 257 257 259 254,255 256 254,255, 259-61 256 255 256,257, 260 254,257, 258, 260, 261 254,255, 257, 258, 260, 261 255,259 255,259 255,259 255,257, 259 259 257 259 259

lQSh

4Q163 22.1.3

212

4Q174 16-17

212

491

Index of References Mishnah m. Ab. 2.4 4.8

365 365

Midrash Gen. R. 19.12

134

Derech Eretz Zutta 2.9 365 4.3 365 4.4 365

Lev. R.

Talmuds b. Ber. 28a

10 191

391

Mechitta D 'Rabi Isn 20 365

11.6

191

Sifra, Ahare Mot 13.11 365

Dent. R. 2.31

50

Sifra, Qedoshim 4.2 365

2.4

193

Josephus Ant. 3.101 5.11.5 8.1.3 12.9.7 12.10.6 12.11.2 20.10.2 20.10.3

Sifre, Debarim 16 365 48 365

298 211 211 205 205 205 211 205,211

Pseudo-Eupolemus 1 254

Num. R.

b. Hag.

14a

391

b. Meg.

3a

191

Lam. R.

b. M. Qat.

25b 28b b. Sank. lOla

186 186, 1!

177

b. Suk.

52a

191

j. Ta'an. 4.5

193

Tosefta t. Sank 3.8

365

Other Jewish Writings Abot deRabbi Nathan 2 365 3 365

Pseudo-Philo Liber antiquitatum Biblicarum 12.1-7 211 17.1-4 211 52.2 211 53.9 211

INDEX OF AUTHORS

Abrahams, I. 95 Abuel-Haj,N. 419 Ackerman, G. 312,317 Ackerman, S. 69,71,73 Adara,A.K.M. 301,317 Adams, B. 312,317 Aichele,G. 302,317 Albeck,H. 365,373 Albertz, R. 206, 208, 214, 331, 341, 373, 385,389 Albright, W.F. 93 Alexander, J.A. 54, 61 Allen, R.C. 312,317 Alster,B. 153, 154, 156, 162, 170 Alt, A. 93 Alter, R. 281,287,399,400,435,448 Amit, Y. 436,448 Andersen, F.I. 18,23 Anderson, G. 348-50,357 Andrae.W. 72,73 Assmann, J. 160,170 Auerbach, E. 119 Auffret, P. 281-85,287 Auld,A.G. 1-3,9-11,97, 105 Baltzer,K. 60,61 Barns, J.W.B. 155,170 Barr,J. 23,404-17,419 Barrick, W.B. 68,73 Barrow, J.D. 341 Barstad,H. 3, 10, 11 Barta, W. 329,342 Barth,H. 431,432 Barthelemy, D. 64, 73 Barth.es, R. 278,279,287 Bartlett, J.R. 208,214 Bartolocci, G. 400 Barton, G. 87,306,317

Barton,!. 79,406,419,423,428,432 Bauman,Z. 380,386,389,404,419 Baumgartner, W. 247, 251, 364, 369, 374 Beauchamp, E. 284-86, 288 Bechtel,L.M. 436,448 Becker, U. 429,430,432 Becking, B. 26,29,34 Bellefontaine, E. 332, 342 Benvenisti, M. 419 Benz,F.L. 31,34 Bercovitch, S. 304,307,308,317 Berger,K. 255,257,261 Berges,U. 51,61,429,432 Berkhofer, R.F. 417,420 Berlin, A. 245,251,383,389 Beuken, W.A.M. 60,61 Beyerlin,W. 454,459 Bhabha,H.K. 404,419 Bickel, S. 156, 170 Billerbeck, P. 187, 188, 195 Black, F.C. 278,288 Black, M. 26,32,34 Blenkinsopp, J. 58,61,68,73 Bloch,M. 409,419 Blum, E. 87, 430, 432, 444, 448 Blunt, A. 395,400 Boer, R. 302,317 Booij,T. 452,459 Bordreuil, P. 31,34 Borger, R. 335,342 Botha, P.J. 284,285,288 Box, G.H. 205,214,367,374 Brauner, R.A. 26,34 Brenner, A. 436,448 Bright,;. 408,419 Brooke, A.E. 93 Brooks, P. 144, 151 Brown, J.P. 118, 119

Index of Authors Bruce, F.F. 91 Brueggemann, W. 80, 87, 102, 105, 321, 323,328 Brunner, H. 153, 170 Buber,M. 267,271,273,274 Buber, S. 187, 194 Budde,K. 425,426,432 Bullinger, H. 220,227 Burden, T.L. 83, 87 Burgmann, H. 205,214 Burkert,W. 65,69,70,73 Cagni,L. 330,342 Camp, C.V. 154, 170 Carmichael, C. 21,23 Carpenter, E. 340,342 Carr,E.H. 418,419 Carrasco, D. 277,288 Carroll, R.P. 1,3,7, 11,91 Case, S. 222,223,227 Castelli,D. 369,374 Charles, R.H. 258,261 Charpin,D. 337,342 Cheyne,T.K. 71,73 Childs,B.S. 131,140 Chilton,B.D. 194 Chomsky, N. 414,419 Clements, R.E. 52 Clines, D.J.A. ix-xiv, 1, 4, 11, 38-40, 48, 49, 76, 78-80, 83, 86, 87, 90, 98, 99. 102, 104,105,107,117,120,13539, 151, 173, 178, 179, 183,238, 239, 242-51, 275, 276, 279, 280, 282, 284, 288, 340, 342, 352, 357, 404, 405, 407, 416-20, 450,459 Clinton, K. 66,73 Coats, G.W. 83, 88, 339, 342 Cody, A. 26, 34, 206, 207, 214 Coggins,R.J. 97, 101, 105 Cohen, M. 252 Conybeare, F.C. 156, 162, 170, 366, 374 Conrad,!. 331,342 Cook, A. 147, 151 Cooper, AJ. 286,288 Coote,R.B. 413,420 Crenshaw, J.L. 365,374 Cross, P.M. 206,214 Culhane,J. 309,317

493

Curtis,). 130, 140 Cushing, J. 222,227 D'Alario,V. 370,374 Dahood, M. 284,285,288 Dalman, G. 194 Davies, G.I. 25,34 Davies, P.R. 11, 120,211,214,277,288, 420 Davis, E. 324,328 Davis, L. 317 Davis, M. 307,317 Dayagi-Mendels, M. 26, 35 Deck, S. 426, 427, 429, 432 Degen,R. 27,30,31,34 DeHass, F.S. 306,317 Del Monte, G.F. 338,342 Delcor,M. 68,73 Delkurt,H. 104, 105 Delsman,W.C. 26,34 Derrida,J. 280,288 Desroches Noblecourt, C. 330, 342 Dever,W.G. 411,420 De Vries, S.J. 428,432 Diamond, A.R.P. 102, 105 Dietrich, M. 153, 156, 159, 170 Diez Macho, A. 20,23 Di Leila, A. 122,127 Dillmann, A. 71,73 Dion, E. 332,342 Dobbs-Allsopp, F.W. 425, 426, 432 Dogniez, C. 15,24 Dohmen, C. 362,363 Donner, H. 26,27,34 Driver, G.R. 91, 124, 127 Driver, S.R. 20, 24, 364, 374, 379, 389 Duhm, B. 50, 54, 61, 63, 73, 368, 374 Durand,J.-M. 331,342 Dwight,T. 307,318 Eco,U. 276,288 Ehrlich,A.B. 372,374 Eichrodt, W. 69, 73, 93, 94 Eissfeldt, O. 160, 170, 364, 374 Emerton,J.A. 64,73, 125-27 Engnell, I. 92,93 Ettlinger, H.S. 394,400 Ettlinger, L.D. 394,400

494


Evans, E. 40,49 Evans, R.J. 415,418,420 Even-Shoshan, A. 1997 Exum, J.C. 107, 112, 114, 120, 141, 142, 144, 147, 149, 152, 302, 318, 409, 420

Fales,F.M. 331,342 Falk, O.K. 205,214 Faragher, J.M. 308,318 Fechter, F. 329,343 Fensham, F.C. 67,74 Feucht, E. 331,334,343 Feuerstein, 51, 62 Feuillet,A. 146, 152 Fewell, D.N. 99, 106, 107, 277, 288,436, 448 Fey, R. 426,429,432 Field, F. 53,62 Filson,J. 308,318 Finkelstein, I. 413,420 Finkelstein, L. 365,374 Fischer, I. 59,62 Fischer-Elfert, H.-W. 337, 343 Fitzmyer, J.A. 26,34,210,214 Fletcher, J: 223, 225, 227 Fohrer, G. 249, 252, 428, 432 Fontaine, C.V. 153, 170 Foster, B.R. 153, 170, 330, 343 Fowler, J.D. 28,31,35 Fox, M.V. 143, 146, 150, 152, 155-57, 159, 166, 167, 170,231,239 Freedman, D.N. 436,448 Fretheim, I.E. 82-84, 88 Frymer-Kinsky, T. 436,448 Fuhs,H.F. 26,27,35 Gallagher, W.R. 336,343 Camper, A. 332,343 Garber,M. 406,420 Garcia Martinez, F. 122, 127, 256, 262 Gardiner, A.H. 162, 170 Garr, W.R. 31,35 Gerstenberger, E.S. 385, 389 Gesenius, W. 251,441 Gibson, J.C.L. 26,29,35 Ginsberg, H.L. 28, 31, 35, 365, 369, 374 Ginsburg, C.D. 371,374

Ginzberg, L. 393,400 Girard, M. 283, 284, 286, 288 Giveon,R. 337,343 Glatzer,N. 134, 140 Gleis, M. 68,74 Gogel, S.L. 25-27,35 Gomersall, R. 216, 217, 219, 221, 225, 227 Gordon, C.H. 93 Gordon, E.I. 366,374 Gordon, R.P. 11, 192, 194 Gorg, M. 56,62,300 Gottwald, N.K. 203 Gouder,T.C. 121, 123, 124, 127 Grabbe, L.L. 9, 10, 12, 96, 205, 206, 209, 214

Grayson, A.K. 331, 334-36, 343 Greenfield, J. 26, 29, 30, 33, 35 Grelot, P. 192, 194, 254, 260-62, 330, 343 Gressmann, H. 26, 35 Grisanti, M.A. 340,342 Groves, J.W. 429,432 Gruber, M.I. 245, 252, 436, 448 Grumach, I. 158, 170 Gunn, D.M. 99, 106, 107, 108, 120,409, 421,436,448 Gunneweg, A.H.J. 206,208,215 Habel, N. 352,357 Hammershaimb, E. 39, 49 Handelman, S.A. 399, 400 Hanhart, R. 205,214 Hanson, P.O. 427,433 Harby, C. 306,318 Hardmeier, C. 425, 429, 433 Harl,M. 15,24 Harnack, A. von 41,49 Harrington, DJ. 155, 171, 365, 366, 374, 376 Harris, J.R. 156, 162,366 Harris, R.A. 249,252,374 Hatch, E. 16,24 Hayes, J. 421 Heim, K. 154, 171 Heinemann, J. 192,194,195 Hermisson, H.-J. 161, 171, 423, 433 Herrmann, S. 408,421,423

Index of Authors Hestrin, R. 26,35 Heym, S. 408,421 Hieke,T. 369 Hoftijzer, J. 26, 29, 32, 35, 123, 124, 127 H0genhaven, J. 430, 431,433 Holladay, C.R. 254,262 Holloway,P. 352-55,357 Hornby, N. 173 Horovitz, H.S. 365,375 Hossfeld, F.-L. 452, 455, 459 Houlden,J.L. 105, 106 Houston, W.J. 229, 238, 239 Houtman,C. 331,343 Humfrey, P. 394,400 Humphreys, W.L. 120 Hurlbut,J.L. 306,307,318 Hurowitz, V.A. 164, 171 Hurvitz, A. 369,375 Hvidberg,F. 72,74,92 Irwin, W.H. 70,74 Janowski, B. 379, 389, 456, 459 Janssen, J.J. 331, 343 Janssen,R.M. 331,343 Janzen,W. 426,433 Japhet, S. 25, 35, 241-46, 249, 250, 252 Jeffers,A. 26,33,35 Jellinek,A. 241,252 Jenni, E. 24 Jensen, J. 423,433 Johnson, A. 93 Johnston, R.J. 404,421 Jones, D. 221,222,227 Jones, G.H. 56,62 Jongeling, K. 26, 29, 32, 35, 123, 124, 127 Joukowsky, M.S. 413,422 Jung,C.G. 128-32, 140 Kaiser, O. 426, 428, 430, 433 Kaiser, W.C., Jr. 59,62 Kappler, W. 205,215 Kasher,R. 184, 192, 195 Kassel,R. 353,357 Kaufman, S.A. 26,34 Keel, O. 282, 283, 288, 447, 448 Keller, C. 133, 140

495

Kent, C.F. 306,307,318 Kermode, F. 411,421 Kimhi, D. 171 King,R. 407,421 Kinnier Wilson, J.V. 337, 343 Kissane, E. 279,288 Kister,M. 365,375 Kitchen, K.A. 338-40, 343 Klawans,J. 283,288 Kleitz, D.R. 312,318 Knight, D.A. 77,88 Koenen,K. 427,433 Konkel, A.H. 53,62 Kooij, A. van der 331, 343 Koopmans, J.J. 26, 30, 36 Korpel, M.C.A. 333, 340, 344 Kovacs,B.W. 237,239 Krasovec,J. 263,274 Kratz, R.G. 380,389 Kraus, H.-J. 208, 215, 279, 281-86, 288 Krispenz,J. 154, 171 Kugel,J. 245,252,281 Kuschke,A. 233,234,239 LaCapra,D. 411,421 Lambert, W.G. 153, 171, 329, 344, 358, 366,375 Landow, G.P. 306,318 Landy, F. 131, 140, 151, 152 Lang, B. 292, 295, 299, 300 Langdon, S. 223,227 Lattes, D. 369,375 Lattimore, R. 352, 353, 358 Launderville, D. 203 Leeuwen, C. van 239 Lemaire, A. 27,30,36 Lemche,N.P. 10, 12 Le Roy Ladurie, E. 410,421 Levenson,J.D. 82, 88 Levey, S.H. 192, 195 Levi, C. 414,421 Levine, E. 195 Levine, S. 307,318 Levy,L. 370,375 Levy, I.E. 413,421 Lewis, A.S. 156, 162,366 Lewis, T.J. 70,74 Lichtheim, M. 153, 171, 366, 375

496


Lidzbarski, M. 26, 27, 30, 36 Lieberman, S. 93 Lim,T.H. 5, 12 Limet, H. 337,344 Lindblom, J. 92 Lindenberger, J.M. 365, 375 Lipihski, E. 26, 33, 36, 66, 74 Lockshin, M.L. 241,247,252 Lohfink,N. 283,286,289,321,328 Long,B.O. 301,318 Loprieno, A. 337, 344 Loretz,O. 331,333,344 Lowth, R. 71,74 Luckenbill, D.D. 337, 344 Luther, M. 266,273,274 Luzzatto, S.D. 369,375 Magonet, J. 399,400 Malamat, A. 331,344 Manning, C.E. 352,358 Mapu, A. 392 Maraqten, M. 31,36 Marbock,J. 365,375 Marcus, D. 114, 120,332,344 Marks, R.G. 193, 195 Marsman, H.J. 331,344 Marti, K. 71,74 Mason, L., Jr. 307,318 Mason, R. 25,36 Mathieu, B. 156, 170 Mattingly, G. 352,410,421 Mayes,A.D.H. 14,24,95, 106 Mazor, Y. 281,282,285,289 McCarter, P.K. 408,421 McConachie, B.A. 312,318 McKane, W. 54, 62, 364, 375 McLean, N. 93 McNutt,P. 104, 106 Meier, S.A. 53,62 Melammed, E.Z. 250,252 Melendy,M.R. 314,318 Merdler, R. 250,252 Micheel, R. 25,36 Mieder, W. 153, 171 Milano, A. 390, 393, 397, 400 Miles,!. 129, 131, 139, 140 Milik,J.T. 254-60,262 Millard, A.R. 26, 36, 67, 74

Millard,M. 458,459 Miller, J.M. 421 Miller, P.O. 81, 82, 84, 88, 281, 289, 320 328 Milton, J. 219-21,227 Mitchell, H.G. 17,24 Mitchell, S. 308,318,319 Moor, J.C. de 332-34, 336, 337, 339, 340 344 Moore, S.D. 302, 318, 405, 421 Moran, W.L. 331,344 Morris, P. 110, 120 Morrison, M.A. 307,319 Mosala,I.J. 229,239 Motyer, J.A. 54,61 Mowinckel, S. 93 Muller,H.-P. 121-23, 125, 127, 150, 152 Munro,J. 146, 147, 151, 152 Muraoka, T. 15,24 Murphy, R.E. 144,146,150,152,176, 177, 183,249,252,284,289 Murphy-O'Connor, J. 205, 215 Nasuti, H.P. 102, 106 Nebenzahl,K. 305,319 Nel, P.J. 364,375 Neu, E. 333,344 Nicholson, E. 77, 88 Nickelsburg, G.W.E. 254, 255, 257, 258, 260-62 Niditch, S. 164, 165, 171 Nineham, D.E. 103, 106 Nissinen, M. 67, 74 Noble, P.A. 436,448 N6ldeke,T. 32,36 Noll, M.A. 304,319 Norris, C. 279,289 Norton,?. 308,319 Noth, M. 26-29, 36, 77, 78, 83, 86, 88, 93,411,412,417,421 Novick, P. 417,418,421 Nurmela, R. 206-208,215 Nussbaum, M. I l l , 114, 120 O'Connor, K.M. 102, 105 Oded, B. 334,345 Oesterley, W.O.E. 205, 214, 367, 374 Olmo Lete, G. del 29, 36

Index of Authors Oppenheim, A.L. 334,345 Orlinsky,H. 437,448 Oswalt, J.N. 54,61 Otto,E. 331,332,345,457,458,459 Parker, S.B. 26,36 Parpola, S. 334,339,345 Peake, A.S. 95, 106 Pearson, B.W.R. 195 Pedersen,J. 22-24,93 Peels, H.G.L. 427,433 Penna, A. 54,61 Perdue, L. 132,140 Person, R.F., Jr. 52,62 Pfeiffer, R.H. 93 Pham,X.H.T. 349,358 Phillips, G.A. 277,288 Piccirillo, M. 306,319 Pippin,!. 302,317 Pleins, D. 203 Pleins,J.D. 232,233,239 Podella,T. 279,283,289 Pognon,H. 26,30-32,36 Pope,M. 348,358 Porteous,N. 91,93,94 Porter, B.N. 115, 120 Posener,G. 155, 157, 171 Prato,G.L. 365,375 Puech,E. 260,262 Quack, J.F. 153, 171 Quesnell, Q. 86,88 Rabin, LA. 365 Rad, G. von 77-83, 88, 93, 94, 364, 375 Ramlot, L. 27,37 Ramsey, G.W. 206,215 Ravasi, G. 452,460 Redford, S. 330,345 Redpath,H.A. 16,24 Reicke,B. 330,345 Reiner, E. 333,334,345 Reinhold, G.G.G. 26,37 Reinhold,M. 331,345 Renaud,B. 55,56,62 Rendtorff, R. 51, 62, 76, 77, 82, 88, 362, 363 Renfroe,F. 332,345 Reymond,P. 273,274

497

Rezetko, R. 9, 12 Ringgren, H. 3, 12 Robert, A. 146,152 Robertson, D. 107,109,110,118-20 Robertson, E. 430,433 Robinson, E. 306,319 Robinson, H.W. 93 Rocco,B. 121, 123,124, 127 Rofe, A. 365, 368, 370, 371, 375 Rogerson, J.W. 99, 106, 387, 389 Rollig, W. 26, 27, 34 Rooy, H.F. van 344 Rosenzweig, F. 267,271,273 Rosin, D. 241,247,250,252 Ross, J.F. 25, 26, 28, 29, 37 Rosso Ubigli, L. 371,376 Roth.C. 390,401 Rowley, H.H. 90,91,93,206,215 Rudolph, W. 25, 28, 37, 149, 150, 152, 368, 376 Saachi,P. 371,376 Sader,H.S. 27,37 Saeb0,M. 195 Saggs,H.W.F. 335,345 Said,E. 312,319 Sakenfeld, K.D. 100, 106 Salmasius [Claude de Saumaise] 227 Salters,R.B. 241,244,245,252 Sanders, J.A. 370,376 Sanders, J.T. 366,376 Sanders,?. 337,344 Sandoz, E. 228 Sanmartin, J. 26,29,36,37 Sarna,N. 436,449 Sawyer, D. 110, 120 Sawyer, J.F.A. 390-92, 401 Schafer, P. 193, 195 Schaper,J. 206-208,215 Schlesinger, A.C. 112,120 Schmid, H.H. 77, 82, 88, 436, 449 Schmidt, B.B. 70,74 Schmuttermayr, G. 452,460 Schniedewind, W.M. 55,62 Scholz, S. 436,449 Schottroff, W. 331,345 Scoralik,R. 154, 171 Seebass,H. 436,449

498


Seeligmann, I.L. 64, 74, 373, 376 Segal, M.H. 366,377 Segert, S. 31,37 Segovia, F.F. 406,421 Seidel,P. 171 Seow, C.L. 168, 169, 171 Seybold,K. 279,281,282,284,289 Sharkansky, I. 204 Shupak,N. 166, 167,171 Simian-Yofre, H. 348, 358 Skehan, P.W. 122, 127 Smalley, B. 93 Smith, A. 414,421 Smith, A.L. 156, 162,366,374 Smith, E. 306,319 Smith, M.S. 452,460 Smith, S. 345 Smith, W.R. 69,74 Smith-Rosenberg, C. 314,319 Sneed,M. 231,237,240 Spangenberg, I.J. 369, 376 Spencer, J.R. 207,215 Sperber, D. 365,376 Stager, L.E. 66, 74, 286, 289 Stansell,G. 425,433 Stark, J.K. 32,37 Steck, O.H. 65, 74, 455, 460 Steingrimmsson, S.O. 454, 460 Stendebach, F.J. 69,74 Stemberg, M. 436,449 Steudel, J.C.F. 385,389 Stol,M. 331,345 Stordalen, T. 66,72,75 Stork, L. 337, 345 Strack,H.L. 187, 188, 195 Strother, D.H. 307,319 Strugnell,J. 365,376 Stulman, L. 102, 105 Suys, E. 161, 171 Sweeney, J.G. 308,319 Sweeney, M.A. 425,433 Talshir,Z. 8,9,12 Taylor, C. 388,389 Taylor, P.J. 404,421 Thomas, J.D. 210,215 Thompson, E.P. 415,421 Thompson, J.A. 29,37

Thureau-Dangin, F. 338, 346 Tigay,J.H. 332,346 Tigchelaar, E.J.C. 122, 127, 256, 262 Toorn, K. van der 329, 331, 334, 346 Torczyner, 91 Torrey, C.C. 64,75 Tournay, R. 146, 152 Travers Herford, R. 365, 376 Trebolle Barrera, J. 5-7,12 Trible, P. 134, 135, 140, 323-25, 328 Trimmer, S. 216,221,225,226,228 Tropper, J. 330,346 Tsevat, M. 130, 140 Turner, B.S. 403,422 Tweed, T.A. 277,289 Uehlinger, C. 447, 448, 454, 460 Uffenheimer, B. 37 Van Leeuwen, R. 154,171,233 VanSeters, J. 76,88 VanderKam, J.C. 254-62 Vaux, R. de 68, 69, 75 Velde, H. te 337, 346 Vermeylen, J. 7, 12, 65, 75, 426, 429, 430, 433 Vickers, B. 115, 116, 120 Vleeming, S.P. 331,345 Vollmer,J. 426,433 Volz, P. 65, 70, 75 Wallace, H.N. 72,75 Walsh, C.E. 137, 140 Walzer, M. 204 Wanke, G. 458,460 Ward, W.A. 413,422 Watanabe,K. 339,345 Watson, W.G.E. 245,252 Watts, J.D. W. 54,61 Watts, M.J. 404,421 Weeks, B.C. 311,319 Weinberg, A.K. 319 Weinberg, J.P. 454,460 Weinfeld, M. 368,376 Weiser, A. 284,289 Weiss, R. 368 Weitzman, S. 172 Welker, M. 326,328

Index oj Authors Wellhausen, J. 206,215 Westenholz, J.G. 337, 346 Westermann, C. 24, 161, 172, 230, 231, 240, 369, 376, 425, 427, 433 Wevers,J.W. 368,376 Whedbee, J.W. 112,120,130,133,140 White, H. 410,422 Whitelam, K.W. 98,106,410,412,413, 420, 422 Whybray, R.N. 77,78,81,89,230,231, 240 Widengren, G. 92 Wiesel,E. 363 Wildberger, H. 424, 425, 428, 429, 434 Willi,T. 29,37 Williamson, H.G.M. 1, 12, 423, 434 Willis, J.T. 424,430,434 Wise,M.O. 205,215 Wiseman, D.J. 66, 75, 339, 346

499

Wolde, E.J. van 437, 449 Wolff, H.W. 79,80,82,89 Wright, G.E. 417,422 Wurthwein,E. 150, 152 Wyatt, N. 72, 75, 346, 436, 449 Wynn-Williams, D.J. 77 Yeats, W.B. 144, 145 Young, G.W. 86,89 Zeitlin, S. 370,376 Zenger, E. 287, 289, 452, 454, 455, 457, 459,460 Zevit, Z. 204 Zimmerli, W. 69, 75, 85, 89, 93, 364, 369, 376 Zinn,H. 415,422 Zobel, H.-J. 27, 32, 33, 37

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