The primacy of experience—or is it bankruptcy?

Current literacies are diffuse and irreverent. It is no longer a natural motion to turn to a book for oracular guidance. We distrust auctoritas—the commanding script or scripture, the core of the authoritarian in classical authorship—precisely because of immutability. We did not write the book. Even in our most intense penetrative encounter with it is experience at second hand. This is the crux. The legacy of romanticism is one of strenuous solipsism of the development of self out of immediacy. A single credo of vitalist spontaneity leads from Wordsworth’s assertion that ‘one impulse from a vernal wood’ outweighs the dusty sum of libraries to the slogan of radical students at the University of Frankfurt in 1968: ‘Let there be no more quotations.’ In both cases the polemic is that of the ‘life of life’ against the ‘life of the letter’, of the primacy of personal experience against the derivativeness of even the most deeply felt of literary emotions. To us, the phrase ‘the book of life’ is a sophistic antinomy or cliché. To Luther, who used it at a decisive point in his version of Revelation and, one suspects, to Chardin’s reader, it was a concrete verity.—George Steiner, No Passion Spent, pages 11–12

<idle musing>
And we are the poorer for it. We cast aside thousands of years of aggregate experience as recorded, however imperfectly and stumblingly, in books, scrolls, or tablets for the sake of our tiny little microsecond of experience. And then we wonder why things go awry? Fools we are! Why reinvent the wheel all the time; we might just as well be illiterate. Ah, but we are! We may know how to read, but we haven't a clue on what to read or how to read well. We skim and call it reading. We rarely actually read, but when we do, we call it "close reading" or "deep reading" so that people will think some amazing thing is happening. Our predecessors would laugh at us. Hopefully, if we have successors (which is looking less and less likely with each rise in temperature), they too will laugh at us. Heaven knows we deserve it!
</idle musing>

Do you read with a pencil in hand?

But the principal truth is this: latent in every act of complete reading is the compulsion to write a book in reply. The intellectual is, quite simply, a human being who has a pencil in his or her hand when reading a book.—George Steiner, No Passion Spent, page 8

<idle musing>
The person who loaned me this book always has a pencil behind his ear. Me, I always have a pen attached to the collar of my t-shirt—yes, always.
</idle musing>

Printing errors!

He who passes over printing errors without correcting them is no mere philistine: he is a perjurer of spirit and sense. It may well be that in a secular culture the best way to define a condition of grace is to say that it is one in which one leaves uncorrected neither literal nor substantive errata in the texts one reads and hands on to those who come after us.—George Steiner, No Passion Spent, page 7

Reading well

To read well is to answer the text, to be answerable to the text, ‘answerability’ comprising the crucial elements of response and of responsibility. To read well is to enter into answerable reciprocity with the book being read; it is to embark on total exchange (‘ripe for commerce’ says Geoffrey Hill). The dual compaction of light on the page and on the reader’s cheek enacts Chardin’s perception of the primal fact: to read well is to be read by that which we read. It is to be answerable to it. The obsolete word ‘responsion’, signifying, as it still does at Oxford, the process of examination and reply, may be used to shorthand the several and complex stages of active reading inherent in the quill.—George Steiner, No Passion Spent, page 6

The call of unread books

Even the most obsessed of bookmen can read only a minute fraction of the world’s totality of texts. He is no true reader, no philosophe lisant, who has not experienced the reproachful fascination of the great shelves of unread books, of the libraries at night of which Borges is the fabulist. He is no reader who has not heard, in his inward ear, the call of the hundreds of thousands, of the millions of volumes which stand in the stacks of the British Library or of Widener asking to be read. For there is in each book a gamble against oblivion, a wager against silence, which can be won only when the book is opened again (but in contrast to man, the book can wait centuries for the hazard of resurrection). Every authentic reader, in the sense of Chardin’s delineation, carries within him a nagging weight of omission, of the shelves he has hurried past, of the books whose spine his fingers have brushed across in blind haste.—George Steiner, No Passion Spent, pages 3–4

How about you? What's your fitness level?

Bicycling Magazine has a new article out about fitness and longevity. In it they link to a fun site, World FitnessLevel that estimates your fitness level and fitness age based on some questions. They also are conducting a study, so you can answer a long list of questions if you wish.

So, given that I ride (indoors in the winter) three times a week and walk three to six plus miles a day with a resting heart rate of about 45 (national average for my age is 72), they say my fitness age is:

What about you? How are you doing?

The enduring power of writing

Marble crumbles, bronze decays, but written words—seemingly the most fragile of media—survive.—No Passion Spent, page 3

Propaganda for whom?

Historiography in Israel was driven by the covenant, not by the king. In the rest of the ancient Near East, historiography had the function of promoting and legitimating the king. Divine sponsorship of the king was revealed in the activities of the gods in the human world, and historiography gave voice to that reality. Israelite historiography was more often negative toward the king and focused on divine faithfulness to the covenant (its blessings and curses). Historiography gave voice to that reality as it offered a divinely revealed interpretation of Yahweh’s activities.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 315

<idle musing>
That's the final excerpt from this book. I hope you enjoyed it. Personally, I think it is a vast improvement over the (already very good) previous edition. Monday we start an older book that a friend loaned me about two years back that I finally got around to reading recently. I think you'll enjoy it. It's a bit of a change of pace: George Steiner, No Passion Spent. It's a collection of his essays on literary criticism and other such things.
</idle musing>

The supernatural is real…

As many haye commented, necromancy was not forbidden in Israel on the premise that it did not work but because its efficacy was recognized and deemed illicit and contradictory to normative Yahwistic theology.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 306

Job and his friends

The procedure that Job’s friends were suggesting, rather than advising discovery divination, urges Job to appease God through a procedure of blanket confession, thus more in line with Shurpu than with Murshili’s procedure, though all show the importance of appeasement. In this aspect Job’s friends were representatives of a revered ancient Near Eastern wisdom tradition and also, unbeknown to them, the representatives for the case that the adversary was pressing. That is, if they had persuaded Job to follow their advice and make a blanket confession just to appease Deity and be restored to favor, the adversary’s contention would have been confirmed: righteousness was not the issue, only reward. Instead, the integrity that Job maintained (Job 27:1—6) was one that insisted that his righteous standing be considered rather than just his favor restored. If this interpretation is accurate, the book of Job argues pointedly against the theodicy philosophies in the ancient world and represents an Israelite modification. This modification, rather than offering a revised theodicy, seeks to reinterpret the justice of God from something that may be debated to something that is a given. In Yahweh’s speech it is not his justice that is defended but his wisdom. The inference to be drawn from this is that if it is determined that God is wise, then it can be accepted that he is just, even if not all the information to evaluate his justice is available.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 288

Let's drop this silly Christian stuff and go back to pure paganism!

Those of you who want to get back to the pure paganism of the pre-Christian world need to remember this about the gods:

The minds of the gods were not easily penetrated.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 287

<idle musing>
If you really want to get back to "pure" paganism, you need to drop those silly Christian ideas about justice. If you've been following this series at all, you have seen how the gods can be very capricious—and you certainly don't want to disagree with them! Unless of course you want to end up like Odysseus and wander for 10 years, lost at sea. Or, like Gilgamesh and Enkidu, fighting the bull of heaven. They won, but I doubt you would! And Enkidu ended up dying for their crimes.

No, pure paganism isn't bothered by the stupid, petty things that Christianity is. Power is what's important and of course using that power! And, of course staying on the good side of the gods! And, as the myths and history both show, that's a tough one. Search the stars, search the entrails, watch the flight of birds, watch for strange portents. our out libations before drinking or eating. Keep you personal god happy! And watch out for the other person who might just have a more powerful personal god than you do!

Me, I'll stick to Christianity. I might not comprehend all that God is doing, but I know he isn't capricious and his love conquers all evil—even the evil inside me!
</idle musing>

How do I get out of this mess?

Since the ancients typically believed that their suffering was the result of the god’s anger, they naturally sought to appease that anger. Appeasement could theoretically be accomplished by the identification of the offense and the offering of an appropriate sacrifice. A clear example of this procedure is found in the Hittite Plague Prayers of Murshili II. In response to the severe plague that decimated his kingdom over several decades, he asked the gods the reason for the disastrous conditions. The results of divinations eventually allowed him to identify offenses both in the cultic realm and in treaty violations by his father. His plea to the gods shows the appeasement mentality. “If the servant has incurred a guilt, but confesses his guilt to his master, his master may do with him as he likes. But because he has confessed..., his master’s heart is satisfied, and he will not punish that servant. I have now confessed ... the sin; ... restitution has been made twenty fold.... If you demand additional restitution from me, just tell me about it in a dream, and I will give it.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 287

And what does the LORD require of you?

[E]vil was associated with demons rather than with other gods. The gods could be vengeful or malicious (e.g., Ishtar’s response to Gilgamesh’s rejection of her, Erra’s destructive behavior), but the gods were not generally characterized in that way. The gods were interested in justice being maintained in the human realm, but they were not necessarily committed to doing justice themselves. Even so, the retribution principle goes beyond a god doing justice, because it also involves how righteous and wicked behavior that merits the deity’s response is defined. For the gods of the ancient Near East, social order was important, but human ethical or moral goodness was not as highly valued by the deity as cultic conscientiousness.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 286

<idle musing>
Pretty stark contrast to Micah 6:8: "He has shown you, O human, what is good. And what does LORD require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your god." But, it would seem that many who even bother to think about a god and what that god might require of them haven't moved beyond the do ut des (I give in order that you give) principle. In other words, I can do whatever ethically, but if I tick the correct boxes by giving money to the right things, or saying the correct things, nothing bad can happen to me and the god(s) will be fine with me.

I think we see that behavior among some christians, whether on the right or left, who will accept the shortcomings (sins isn't too strong a word here) of their favored candidate—as long as they say the correct things and do certain ritual things that fulfill whatever unwritten or written laws govern the subcommunity to which they belong. Or at least that's the only way I can figure that a certain occupant of a white house in Washington, DC, can continue to be morally corrupt in every imaginable way and still maintain a support base among a large group of christians.
</idle musing>

Divine right of kings

In Mesopotamia there was significantly more fretting about this [discerning the will of the gods] and more effort extended into the enterprise of learning the will of the gods. The gravity of the concern and the angst that surrounded it are reflected in the prominence of divination in the court and in the reports of the king’s advisors as they attempted to help him discern the will of the gods. If kings lost touch with deity, divine sponsorship could be forfeit and divine authority withdrawn. This system was governed by an agreement that existed between the king and the sponsoring god(s)—a kingship covenant of sorts.

He's not a tame lion

Passive deductive divination does not intrinsically imply beliefs about deity that are contrary_to Israelite theology. Communication by means of celestial or terrestrial omens is not beneath Yahweh's dignity, nor do the Israelites assume the existence of other gods or powers. But, of course, the system does not stop there. Mesopotamians also believed that rituals and incantations could reverse signs. This moves from the realm of knowledge being communicated to power being exercised. Here is where the theology breaks down and the differences emerge.

In passive deductive divination, then, the semiotic and hermeneutical principles mirror what we found for extispicy, and they provide the most likely explanation for why these divinatory practices were forbidden in lsrael. Yahweh could speak (inspired divination), he could choose (provoked simple binary deductive divination), but he did not ”write" his messages in the entrails of animals or in the movement of the heavenly bodies (provoked nonbinary or complex binary deductive divination, nonprovoked deductive divination). Israel believed that they could gain information about divine activity just as their ancient Near Eastern compatriots did, but the list of divinatory means they acknowledged semiotically/hermeneutically acceptable was much more limited.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 249

Look out! Here it comes! (Maybe)

Thus the king would also be careful to heed the warnings that divination offered. But just as a positive omen would not be understood as a guarantee of success, so a negative omen could often be reversed. “The gods send the signs; but what these signs announce is not unavoidable fate. A sign in a Babylonian text is not an absolute cause of a coming event, but a warning. By appropriate actions one can prevent the predicted event from _ happening. The idea of determinism is not inherent in this concept of sign.” [Hunger and Pingree, Astral Science, 5] Consequently, the evidence suggests that the function of divination was to provide divine endorsement or Warning concerning an action that the king had already undertaken or was contemplating in order to assure the king of the continuing support by the deity.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 245

Look around you

Divination produced the only divine revelation known in the ancient Near East. Through its mechanisms, the ancients believed not that they could know deity but that they could get a glimpse of the designs and will of deity. “The signs did not cause the future—the gods did—but they revealed what was to come, and the gods left them everywhere.” [Van de Mieroop, Philosophy before the Greeks, 89]—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 243

Read those entrails!

Deductive divination is no less initiated [than prophecy, etc.] from the divine realm, but its revelation is communicated through events and phenomena that can be observed. Note that in Israelite thinking that which is in the category of inspired divination is allowed—God speaks, but that which is in the category of deductive divination is forbidden—Yahweh does not write that way (e.g., on entrails). The latter type of divination is found in Mesopotamia as early as the third millennium.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 224

Imperialism takes many forms

It is clear, then, that sensitivity to the poetics of ancient historiography complicates both critical scholars’ dismissal of the validity of biblical historiography and confessional scholars’ apologetic approaches and doctrinal convictions. Critical scholarship needs to rethink its imperialistic and anachronistic imposition of modern standards and values on ancient texts. Confessional scholars need to rethink precisely what constitutes the truth of the text that they seek to defend in light of the text's own poetics and perspectives. In this light N. Winther-Nielsen sounds the death knell for the popular activities of proving and disproving the Bible that have prevailed in academia since the Enlightenment. "All current and past history writing will call on our hermeneutical trust, and the days of confessionalist, positivist, or minimalist absolute ’proof' are gone forever. [N. Winther-Nielsen, "Fact, Fiction, and Language Use" in Windows into Old Testament History]

No amount of empirical information is able to accomplish that end. The extent to which deity is involved in events or outcomes can never be either verified or falsified empirically. Our dogged empiricism betrays us. The texts offer a different sort of testimony that we must respect.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 209

How you read counts

We cannot read the Hebrew Bible as it it were journalistic or academic history such as might be written today. Such reading would compromise the intentions, presuppositions, values, and poetics of the literature and its authors. When we critique the literature, we should critique it in terms of its own guiding criteria rather than expecting it to reflect our own and dismissing it when it does not. When we critique the literature in terms of its emphasis on outcomes rather than events and precise details, it may help us to understand some of what may be considered the foibles of an author like the Chronicler, who, for instance, may have had neither the means nor the inclination to investigate the factual accuracy of some of his sources’ details. The precision of the numbers, for instance, is insignificant—though the general nature of the quantification is not without importance. The integrity of the text is linked to its interpretation of the outcome.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 208

Who is talking to whom?

Ancient Near Eastern historiography desired to reveal the king to the people and to the deity. Israelite historiography desired to reveal the Deity to the king and the people. Here we have an important reversal similar to that which has been noted in other chapters. In Israel the historiography purports to be communication from the Deity, whereas in the ancient Near East the royal inscriptions serve as communication to the deity. Consequently, the audience is neither future kings nor the gods——it is the people of the covenant: ”Then you will know that l, Yahweh, am God——there is no other.”—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 207

Facts? Who needs 'em?

The historiography of the ancient Near East, whether represented in royal inscriptions or chronicles, king lists or annals, has by all accounts a polemical agenda that is intended to reinforce the royal political ideology. As in the campaign speeches of our day, facts can be useful, but they are not central or essential. The intention of the preserved records is to serve not the reader but the king. The recorder is trying to provide answers to the question: “Why should you consider this king to be a good and successful king?” In most cases it cannot be determined whether concealment and/or disinformation are part of the strategy, but negative information is uniformly lacking. We do receive negative assessments of some kings, but, as we might expect, they come from later dynasties seeking to enhance their own reputations.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 203

Who needs historians anyway?

Not all cultures think about history the same way. In the ancient world it is difficult to find anyone who could legitimately be identified as a historian or journalist. Their cognitive environment had no need of such professions. In the ancient Near East visible events on earth were reflections of the activity of the gods. Consequently, rather than providing journalists who could seek out eyewitnesses, they needed experts who could interpret what deity was communicating through events (priests and palace officials) and those who could be part of building the documentation that would serve to elevate and legitimize the king (public relations departments for the palace).—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 196

Why humanity?

The roles assigned to humans bind them together in their common plight and bind them to the gods in servitude. Egyptian sources offer no explanation for the creation of humans. Sumerian and Akkadian sources consistently portray people as having been created to do the work of the gods—work that is es sential for the continuing existence of the gods, and work that the gods have tired of doing for themselves.

Enki and Ninmah: servants of the gods: “The corvée of the gods has been forced on it.”

KAR 4: “The corvée of the gods will be their corvée: They will fix the boundaries of the fields once and for all, and take in their hands hoes and baskets, to benefit the House of the great gods.”

Atrahasis: “Let him bear the yoke, the task of Enlil,let man assume the drudgery of god.”

Enuma Elish: To bear the gods’ burden that those may rest.“

In Israel people also believed that they had been created to serve God. The difference was that they saw humanity as having been given a priestly role in sacred space rather than as slave labor to meet the needs of deity. God planted the garden to provide food for people rather than people providing food for the gods.The explanation offered in KAR 4 shows that the priestly role of people was included in the profile, but still in terms of providing sustenance for the gods. The shared cognitive environment is evident in that all across the ancient world there was interest in exploring the divine component of humankind and the ontological relationship between the human and the divine. In Mesopotamia the cosmos functions for the gods and in relation to them. People are an afterthought, seen as just another part of the cosmos that helps the gods function. In Israel the cosmos functions for people and in relationship to them. God does not need the cosmos, but has determined to dwell in it, making it sacred space; it functions for people.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., pages 186–87

A different point of view

Every account of human origins seeks to address similar archetypal issues. They mirror what we already found in our discussion of cosmology—the accounts focus on functional issues rather than material ones. Order is established through identity. This may sound like an unusual statement to make since all of these accounts make specific references to the materials used for the creation of humans. But the materials mentioned serve to address archetypal issues (connectivity, relationships, roles) rather than to penetrate material ontology (let alone chemical composition). This is not to say that the ancients were speaking metaphorically rather than literally for this goes far beyond a literary or rhetorical device. The accounts address the topic by using archetypes, which express the most important realities in this cognitive environment. Materials are mentioned for their archetypal significance, not for their physical significance. Blood and flesh of the deity signify connection to deity. Clay or dust signifies connection to the land. The connections described by these archetypes offer information concerning the ancient corporate self-understanding.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 180

Just good managers

In the discussion of cosmology, it is important to observe that the control attributes are not initially set up, established, or invented by the gods. Rather, creation is the process of operating within the parameters of these control attributes, or even manipulating or assigning them. In Enuma Elish Marduk is said to “make his control attributes” (ubašimu parṣišu). This is the only occurrence of parsu as the object of one of the verbs of creation. The parallel in the previous phrase (“rites”) suggests, however, that it should be understood as referring to the control attributes of ritual procedures rather than of the cosmos. The control attributes are carried, gathered, exercised, held in the hand, granted, and organized by the gods, but not initiated by them.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 163

Does it exist?

As I noted when discussing the origins of the gods, in the ancient world something came into existence when it was separated out as a distinct entity, given a function, and given a name. For purposes of discussion I will label this approach to ontology as “function oriented.” This is in stark contrast to modern ontology, which is much more interested in what might be called the structure or substance of objects along with their physical properties. In modern popular thinking (as opposed to technical philosophical discussion), the existence of the world is perceived in physical, material terms. For discussion I will designate this approach to ontology as “substance oriented." In the ancient Near East, something did not necessarily exist just because it happened to occupy space. Tobin captures this distinction between a material definition of the cosmos and a functional one based on order. “When the Egyptians contemplated the created universe through their myths and rituals, they would have been aware that the world around them was not simply a collection of material things. The universe was for them an awesome system of living divine beings. . . . Egyptian creation myth emphasized the fact that there was order and continuity in all things and thus gave the optimistic assurance that the natural, social, and political order would remain stable and secure.”(Tobin, OEAE 2:471).—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., pages 148–49

Job's sufferings

One final consideration in this category that highlights a difference between Israel and the rest of the ancient Near East concerns the issue of disinterested righteousness. If ethical behavior has an exterior foundation, a person behaves ethically because of the consequences—rewards or punishments—that are built into the system, whether by society or by the gods. This is the “Great Symbiosis” that we have identified. Disinterested righteousness is precisely the opposite of the Great Symbiosis. The adversary’s question in Job asked whether Job served God for nothing. Though ]ob’s friends encourage him to take the Mesopotamian path of appeasement (confess anything to restore favor with deity), Job maintains his integrity (see his conclusion in Job 27:2–6); demonstrating that he did possess an abstract interiorized standard of righteousness apart from a system of consequences.

None of the Mesopotamian literature that deals with the pious sufferer shows this dimension of thinking. These individuals can only claim that they have done everything they know to do in terms of ritual and ethical responsibility. They have no basis to proclaim their innocence, only their ignorance and confusion. They make no attempt to call deity into legal disputation—they only plead for mercy. The book of Job therefore stands as stark testimony to the differences in perception between Israel and the ancient Near East as it seeks to demonstrate that there is such a thing as disinterested righteousness.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., pages 119, 126–27

Stop blaming the pedestrian or bicyclist!

Just read this about a bike/truck collision. I think the author is right on the money. Here's an excerpt:

News stories about drivers who hit cyclists often implicitly absolve the driver and blame the victim. First, there’s almost always a lack of agency coupled with the passive voice: it’s never “a driver hit a cyclist.” Instead, it’s usually something like “a cyclist was hit by a car.” (Yet you never read about how a shooting victim “collided with a bullet.” Go figure.) Then there’s generally some insinuation that it must have been the victim’s fault, often along the lines of “It’s unclear whether the victim was wearing a helmet.”

and a bit later on:

the story quoted above is under 200 words long. There’s not a single mention of the motorist; instead, the victims were “struck by a pickup truck,” as though it were somehow self-driving. The account also contains no fewer than five mentions of the word “helmet,” yet it doesn’t remind people to drive more carefully or cite relevant motor vehicle code, not even once. The helmet exhortation is especially vexing since the little girl only sustained minor injuries. So, what, are we supposed to believe that if she’d been wearing a helmet the driver wouldn’t have hit her in the first place? Or are we supposed to think a child’s bicycle helmet offers meaningful protection against a Tacoma and that the real mitigating factor isn’t the luck that just happened to be on her side?

It’s almost like, in our bizarre logistical and ethical framework, dying while wearing a helmet is preferable to surviving without one. (emphasis added)

Sabbath

In the ancient Near East the divine rest is achieved in part by the gods’ creation of people to work in their place and on their behalf. A. Millard recognized that the biblical viewpoint represented a stark contrast to this picture in that in the Old Testament the people work for their own benefit and provision rather than to meet the needs of God or to do his work for him. They are commanded to participate in the rest of God on the Sabbath, not to imitate it per se, but to keep it in order to recognize his work of bringing and maintaining order. His control is represented in his rest and is recognized by yielding for the day their own attempts to provide for themselves.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 124

Gods? What gods?

The first commandment is not just promoting monolatry; it is getting at metaphysical structures another way. Although it does not say explicitly that no other gods exist, it does remove them from the presence of Yahweh. (The Hebrew preposition "before” used in this verse generally refers to location when it has a person as its object. Therefore we should understand it to say "there will not be for you other gods in my presence.”) lf Yahweh does not share power, authority, or jurisdiction with them, they are not gods in any meaningful sense of the word. The first commandment does not insist that the other gods are nonexistent but that they are powerless; it disenfranchises them. It does not simply say that they should not be worshiped; it leaves them with no status worthy of worship.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 120

On the Song of Songs

If two allegorizers [of the Song of Songs] ever agree on the interpretation of a verse, it is only because one has copied from the other—Othmar Keel, Song of Songs, Continental Commentaries, p. 8

A personal god

Is it possible that Abraham's Perception of Yahweh/El Shaddai would have been similar to the typical Mesopotamian's perception of his personal deity? The way in which Abraham and his God interact would certainly suit the paradigm of relationship with a personal god in Mesopotamia. Yahweh provides for Abraham and protects him, while obedience and loyalty are given in return. One major difference, however, is that our clearest picture of the personal god in Mesopotamia comes from the many laments that are offered as individuals seek favors from deity or complain about his neglect of them. There is no hint of this in Abraham's approach to Yahweh. In the depiction in the text, Abraham maintains an elevated view of deity that is much more characteristic of the overall biblical view of deity than it is of the Mesopotamian perspective. On the whole, however, it is not impossible, and may even be likely, that Abraham's understanding of his relationship to Yahweh, in the beginning at least, was similar to the Mesopotamian idea of the personal god. In Mesopotamian language, Abraham would have been described as having ”acquired a god." That he was led to a new land and separated from his father's household would have effectively cut any ties with previous deities (located in city and family) and opened the way for Yahweh to be understood as the only deity to which Abraham had any obligation. By making a break with his land, his family, and his inheritance, Abraham was also breaking all of his religious ties. In his new land Abraham would have no territorial gods; as a new people he would bring no family gods; having left his country he would have no national or city gods; and it was Yahweh who filled this void, becoming "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” ”the God of the Fathers.“ But it is only in Israel, Jacobsen observes, that the idea of the personal god made the transition from the personal realm to the national realm. Van der Toorn adds, "Family religion was the ground from which national religion eventually sprang."—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 113

The uniqueness of YHWH

In the polytheistic religions of the ancient world it was not considered obligatory for individuals to worship the state gods. It might be to their advantage and coincide with their self—interests to do so, but the state god would hardly be offended by their worship of their local or ancestral deities. This observation brings considerable clarity to the centuries—long struggle of the Israelites to understand that Yahweh's status as state God excluded the worship of local gods, nature gods, or ancestral gods. Their native mentality would have seen no conflict. They could willingly acknowledge Yahweh as the national God and as the supreme God. but such conclusions would not require sole worship of Yahweh. State religion was an entirely different issue than family religion. The uniqueness of Israel is that here we can see an attempt to merge those two horizons. Every indication is that they were consistently syncretistic throughout the monarchy pergiod, though the prophets had high hopes that the people would repent of their syncretism and adopt covenant faithfulness to Yahweh wholeheartedly.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 104

The why of it all

The basic premise of this belief [that the gods have needs] was that the gods had existed for long ages prior to the creation of humans and with no plan to create such beings, Nevertheless, they needed food, clothing, and housing and, since they were gods, were accustomed to certain amenities. Various myths build different scenarios, but eventually the gods tired of providing for their own needs. The solution was the creation of humans to provide food (sacrifice), housing (temples), and clothing for the gods and to engage in activities that would pamper the gods. This was the religious obligation in the ancient world. As stated in šima milka, a piece of wisdom literature from the second millennium BC, “Do not mock a god whom you have not provided with provisions.“ By taking care of the needs of the gods, people had a role in enabling the gods to continue to bring order to the cosmos.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 98

We're all control freaks

The gods’ needs were not cared for just so that the people would be graced with good harvests. The temple was the control center for order in the cosmos, and that order had to be maintained. The deity needed to be cared for so that his or her energies could be focused on the important work of holding the forces of chaos at bay. The rituals, therefore, served not simply as gifts to the deity or mechanical liturgical words and actions. The rituals provided a means by which humans could play a role in maintaining order in the cosmos.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 90

Divine presence

We may conclude that the image functioned in the cult as a mediator of the divine presence. It was the means by which humans gained access to the presence of deity. As such it represented the mystical unity of transcendence and immanence, a theophany transubstantiated. Jacobsen therefore sees the functioning image as an act of the deity’s favor: “The image represented a favor granted by the god .thinsp;.thinsp;.thinsp;a sign of a benign and friendly attitude on the part of the community in which it stood.” Berlejung provides a useful summary of our study: “A cultic statue was never solely a religious picture, but was always an image imbued with a god, and, as such, it possessed the character of both earthly reality and divine presence.” From deity to people, the image mediated presence and revelation. From people to deity, the image mediated worship.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., pages76–77

Faithfulness? What's that?!

Faithfulness is one of the most frequently affirmed attributes of Yahweh because of his covenant relationship with Israel. In contrast, it is difficult to find any such affirmation for the gods of the ancient Near East. Words that convey loyalty are never used of the gods in that way. The gods have no agreements or promises to be faithful to and no obligations or commitments to fulfill.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 70

But is it right?

Believe in educators carrying weapons in school? Read this and weep.

The videos, instruction, and repetition play a trick on my mind, though. I start to think in terms of students and attackers, those I would protect and those I would kill. The latter are strangers— unnamed, faceless adversaries like the targets. My daydreams are no longer of classroom visits, sporting events, and kids making out in the halls. They are all adventure stories, and I am always the hero. An attacker is never one of my students. I never have to shoot one of my students.

The training encourages this result. Everything about its vocabulary is designed to dehumanize our aim. The instructors’ military language—“soft targets” and “areas of operation” for schools, “threats” for shooters, “tactical equipment” for guns—rubs off. On the final day, a pep talk analogizes students with lambs. We are the sheepdogs, charged with protecting them from the wolves.

I am aware that this is changing my way of thinking. I enjoy how I feel. It is a potent energy, a righteous virtue that seems completely earned. The training reassures me of my decision-making ability.

The other recruits are undergoing the same shift. During downtime we discuss guns: which we plan to buy next, what ammo our districts will provide us, and how that ammo impacts a body. We have become gun nuts almost overnight.

But, when an actual threat happens, it isn't whom they expect:

I drive home in a devastated silence. I thought I knew Jason well, but I had never imagined him perpetrating a threat, or owning weapons. It was like something from TV, where newscasters narrate the steps leading up to a school shooting, how everyone had missed the signs. I imagine the shoot-out it could have been.

Riding through the dense countryside, I finally face the question that I had avoided from the beginning: was this right?

My decision to be armed in school had been made in the aftermath of yet another high-profile school shooting, and I had thought, “This is how I can keep my kids safe.” The training had done its work on me, too, lifting me out of my habit of cynically questioning everything. I felt reassured that of course, this is righteous. But now it was no longer a theoretical question of protecting kids at any cost. The faceless target at the shooting range, so absurd in its proportions, had a face: Jason, whom I wanted so badly to help. (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
Sorry folks, but violence is never a righteous option. You can rationalize it all you want, but like this person, at some point it will stare you in the face and you have to decide whether to be honest with yourself (and God) or not.
</idle musing>

Are the gods good?

It is very rare for the gods of the ancient Near East to be described as good, though the hope is commonly expressed that the god will do good to the worshiper—that is, act favorably or for their benefit. This is an expression of favor rather than a sense of intrinsic goodness. More than any other attribute, goodness, in the abstract sense, implies correspondence to an independent standard of goodness. The existence of such a standard in the ancient Near East is arguable. Insofar as it exists, it may be different in different cultures, just as in the ancient world it may be considered differently than it would be today.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 69

Are the gods just? Is God just?

We can now identify several ways in which one might consider whether a deity is just:

1. Deity is just (inherent quality).
2. Deity administers justice consistently (though actions are sometimes opaque).
3. Deity intends to administer justice but does so imperfectly.
4. Deity is corrupt, with only a secondary interest in administering justice.

In Mesopotamia the discussion hovers between options two and three. In the Hebrew Bible the discussion hovers between options one and two. Yahweh is at times declared to be just. Job calls Yahweh’s justice into question based on his experience (Job 40:8), but the book exonerates Deity in the end.

Another aspect of justice concerns acts of judgment. In Israel much of the prophetic literature is taken up with oracles of judgment, and both in the covenant curses and in the historical literature we see Yahweh as proactive in punishing his wayward people. In Mesopotamia it is more common for the judgment of the gods to be seen in their abandonment of subjects. Loss of the care and protection of the deity would expose the city, king, or individual to evil forces, whose activities would constitute punishment. Nevertheless, many texts speak of the gods imposing punishment on people (often in the form of illness or disease).—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 68

Incomprehensible?

Indeed, as much continuity as Christian theologians have developed between the religious ideas of preexilic Israel and those of Christianity, there is probably not as much common ground between them as there was between the religious ideas of Israel and the religious ideas of Babylon. When we think of Old Testament religious concepts such as ritual sacrifice, sanctuaries/sacred space, priests and their role, creation, the nature of sin, communication with deity, and many other areas, we realize that the Babylonians would have found Israelite practice much more comprehensible than we do.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 13

The flashy and powerful

Like the Israelites who showed a preference for leaders like Jephthah and the later Gideon who used excessive force to battle the external enemies, we demonstrate a preference for the flashy and powerful leadership qualities that our culture prizes, rather than the courageous, servant leadership of the early Gideon who exposed and dismantled the enemy within the gates. If there’s one thing we learn from Gideon it is that messing with people’s idols is an unpopular and potentially life-threatening business! Are our leaders inspiring and equipping us toward a more faithful, undivided witness to the power of the gospel, or are they inadvertently setting up idols in our midst that all of God’s people “whore after” (8:27, 33) or themselves sacrificing family and other God-given gifts to further their own ends (11:39).—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

Not an even exchange

Israel’s rejection of Yahweh’s rule is not fundamentally an exchange of one divine rule (the rule of Yahweh) for another divine rule (the rule of one Canaanite god or another); rather, their allegiance to the foreign deities (and thus disloyalty to Yahweh) exposes their fundamental drive to chart their own course, realize their own destiny, and set the standard for their own conduct apart from God. Idolatry and autonomy, thus, are intricately intertwined, two sides of the same coin.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

Violence!

Our time and culture are no less violent than those of ancient Israel. On the one hand, we live in a culture that celebrates and consumes violence in film, video games, and sport. On the other hand, we lament the violence that plagues our city streets, hides behind the closed doors of our homes, enters our schools and claims our children, feeds on racism and other forms of prejudice, wreaks havoc on the global political stage, and dominates our media coverage. Violence breads violence and creates a culture of fear and anxiety; the cycle seems unbreakable. As valuable and worthwhile as they are, anger management seminars, violence awareness, counseling, and diplomatic peace talks cannot eradicate the violence that plagues a society like ours in which everyone does what is right in their own eyes. And like Israel in the settlement period, any hope for change must begin with the people of God, radically committed to the divine king and unswervingly motivated to live out his kingdom principles.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

It's not just personal, it's structural

In this fallen world, allegiance to God and King Jesus does not guarantee life and flourishing this side of eternity, but disloyalty that breeds sin will only in the long run produce disharmony, fear, oppression, misery, death—all those things that are opposed to life and flourishing. Accordingly, Judge’s full-orbed instruction on sin also implies something about the doctrine of salvation. Along with the thrust of the biblical story, Judges communicates (albeit as a subtext) a longing for deliverance that extends as wide and as deep as the pervasive spread of sin. Judges provides a stark and sobering picture of sin and its consequences, and thus stands as a vital source for a multidimensional doctrine of sin, but also implies a cosmic redemption that heals the ills of human immorality, institutional corruption, economic oppression, and societal breakdown—thus, it stands as a vital source for a multidimensional doctrine of salvation.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

The root of sin

At its root, then, sin is a disposition in the hearts of the people of God, and not specific acts that transgress a moral code. That is not to say that actions and behavior are irrelevant. In fact, this disposition of disloyalty to Yahweh manifests itself in actions that transgress Yahweh’s will.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming) (emphasis original)

The real cancer

The stranglehold of sin not only creates a context of widespread immorality, but also produces an environment of uncertainty, division, oppression (economic and other), fear, suspicion, false hospitality, cowardice, and familial and social brokenness. Sin is like a cancer that literally sucks the life out of its host. Not content to be confined or limited, sin, once taken root, spreads in such a way that it saps the energy and life that feeds cells and organs. The result is that the cancer (sin) thrives and grows while the host environment of the cancer deteriorates and eventually dies.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

Right in the eyes of whom?

In the context of the sins of Micah and the Danites, of the atrocity of Gibeah and the resulting disasters (chs. 17–21), the refrain “doing evil in the eyes of Yahweh” gives way to people “doing right in their own eyes.” The moral standard has shifted from divine to human, and the resulting moral relativism leads to chaos. As I have argued throughout this commentary, the people (individually and collectively) doing what seems good in their own eyes is bound up with their rejection of Yahweh as king (“There was no king in Israel”), so again these narratives underscore the connection between divine allegiance and sin.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

He exists—but what does that mean?

It is worth clarifying that we never encounter Israelites (individually or collectively) denying his [Yahweh] existence or alternatively acknowledging his existence but then consciously rejecting his divine authority. Instead, we have plenty of examples of a syncretistic blending of Israelite and Canaanite “religion.” This religious syncretism is quite evident at a number of places, not least in the example of Gideon’s patriarchal household and in Gideon himself. Gideon’s father maintained a shrine to Baal and Ashtoreth (6:25–32), and yet his father must have passed down something of the tradition and history of Israel because Gideon recalls some of them (6:13). Gideon himself rightly acknowledges the rule of Yahweh but then immediately fashions an idol and sets up a shrine that “all Israel whored after” and that “became a snare to Gideon and to his family.” When it comes to dividing divine loyalties, like father, like son. Indeed, according to the pervasive polytheistic cognitive environment of the ancient Near East, paying homage to Yahweh and also serving the local deities would be the most natural thing for the Israelites to do. And yet, Yahweh was unique among the gods of the nations and by virtue of his special relationship with them and his redemptive and preserving deeds on their behalf, Israel was called to be a unique people. Accordingly, there was to be no division of loyalties—service to foreign gods is implicitly a rejection of Yahweh.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

The gift of the Spirit

Gideon and Jephthah demonstrate that the endowment of Yahweh’s Spirit to achieve salvation can produce an enduring confidence that is self-serving and opposed to God’s will.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

Actions versus essence

When we read the hymnic and petitionary literature from the ancient Near East, we discover that the gods are praised for their majesty, glory, beauty, and splendor on the one hand, and for their power, authority, and deeds on the other. These are qualities manifested in exterior ways rather than interior attributes. It is no surprise then that we find little evidence in the ancient Near Eastern literature that the ancients consider their gods to be just, wise, good, faithful, gracious, and so on, though they often express hope that the gods will act in those ways.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 66

All gone astray, everyone…

Besides the bizarre nature of the events of chapters 19–21, another curiosity of these narratives is worth noting. With one notable exception, not a single individual in this long complex of stories is named. This anonymity serves a number of purposes, but most importantly it universalizes the experience and actions of the characters: “What better way to portray that every Levite, every father-in-law, every host, every single man with that society committed such barbaric atrocities ‘from Dan to Beersheba’ (20:1) than by allowing every perpetrator in the narrative to exist nameless?” [Hudson, “Living in a Land of Epithets,” 59] The one man doing right in his own eyes represents everyman doing right in his own eyes. [footnote: My use of “man” here is deliberate, as the events in chs. 19–21 portray men perpetrated death and destruction, specifically at the expense of women.]—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

And the conclusion of the matter is that

The series of Spirit-endowed judges concludes with Jephthah and Samson whose lives and behavior mirror the collapse of Israel. Despite their charismatic endowments, these judges are unable to control the wandering passions of Israel; in fact, they cannot even control themselves. At the end of Judges we are confronted with human frailty, and we are forced to cry out only to God for salvation, because, in the words of James Crenshaw, “he alone can deliver Israel once and for all time, for he does not sleep on Delilah’s knee” [Crenshaw, Samson, 135].—Lee Roy Martin, “Power to Save!? The Role of the Spirit of the Lord in the Book of Judges,” JPT 16 (2008): 50

Irony abounds

The irony here is astounding: Israel’s would-be deliverer is bound by the people he is meant to deliver, and they deliver him over to the oppressors from whom he is meant to deliver them. The hand motif emerges in 15:13, and it reinforces the sense of irony. Elsewhere in the book either Yahweh gives the Israelites into the hand of foreign enemies or gives foreign enemies into the hand of Israelite armies or often the judge/deliverer. Here the men of Judah express twice that they intend to bind Samson and give him “into the hands of the Philistines” (vv. 12a and 13a). Here in the final cycle is the first and only time in the book that Israelites deliver a fellow Israelite (let alone their chosen deliverer) into the hands of their enemies. Moreover, the Judahites’ assertion that the Philistines are ruling Israel should not come as a shock at this point, as the narrator expressed this in 14:4 using almost the exact phrasing as in 15:11. However, that Judah is so willing to accept this reality and will go so far as to deliver Samson to the Philistines to maintain Philistine rule is unthinkable and marks an all-time low in the book of Judges.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

About those fleeces that you put out…

The need for two signs of the fleece may point to Gideon’s ineptitude. According to the natural order of things, the wool fleece would have absorbed the moisture from the dew so that when the morning came the sun would have dried the ground, but the fleece would have naturally remained damp. No doubt realizing his blunder, Gideon requests a second sign that would require a miracle. Things are not boding well for Israel’s new leader. All of these subtleties of the text and the broader context should probably give contemporary readers pause before drawing in the fleecing test as a paradigm for discovering God’s will today.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

The inner life of the gods

Assuming that the perceptions of self as applied to the gods, as in every other area, mimicked humanity, we may then propose the following formula: If ontology were defined in relation to ones function and actions, and if “self” were defined as largely exterior, then personal attributes (whetber divine or human) could only be discerned at the level of one’s actions—that is, they would not necessarily be seen as abstractions.

If the formula holds, the description of a god as good or wise would signify only that the deity was acting in what were perceived to be good or wise ways rather than implying that the inherent essence or nature of the deity was to be good or wise. The affirmation or conviction that a deity consistently acted in good or wise ways, or the observation that goodness or wisdom persisted in all of the deity’s behavior, could suggest that such an abstraction might have been accurate but falls short of suggesting that the ancients would have been inclined to draw conclusions in the abstract realm.

If this assessment is accurate, we should ask whether there is any concept in the ancient world of an inherent essence of the deity—or can we only say that deity is as deity does? A thorough search of the literature suggests that the latter is the case. There is little interest expressed in penetrating the inner psyche of essential nature of any deity.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., pages 65–66

Be careful what you sing

I cannot help but agree with Gregory Wong that the role of Yahweh [in the Song of Deborah in Judges 5], although present, is indeed eclipsed by the role of the human agents. Is this the kind of identity-forming song that would arouse unswerving commitment to Yahweh and his covenant, or would it simply reinforce the ambivalence of God’s people to be the people he was calling them to be? If the rest of the book [of Judges] is any indication, we might be inclined to conclude that this song was of the latter kind. There may be enduring instruction here for contemporary people of faith about the kinds of worship songs we sing—are they theocentric songs that inspire commitment to God and a more faithful witness to him or are they anthropocentric songs that celebrate human achievement and leave us comfortable with the status quo?—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

Transcendent? Not really…

Cosmically bound. The cosmic gods were bound to particular cosmic phenomena and therefore had little jurisdiction over other cosmic phenomena. Gods who were not cosmic gods would have no jurisdiction in the cosmic realm. Beyond this level of categorization, the gods were also bound within the cosmos. They did not transcend the cosmos but operated only within it. We could perhaps think in terms of a company’s board of directors and CEO. They have a great deal of power within the company (= cosmos), but they have to operate within the national and global economic situation. They run the company, but they are within the economy and subject to its status.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 63

The gods

Divine Features

Anthropomorphic. The important aspect of anthropomorphism is not the physical shape but the presumed nature, character, and personality of a god. Many of the features in the rest of the list could easily be viewed as further defining what this entails. In short, in the literary portraits of the gods they were viewed as having all of the same qualities, good and bad, as humans but without as many limitations. They had more power and a longer span of existence than people. They were not better than people; they were simply stronger than people—all shared basic human traits.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 63

Don't sell people short

"The way you honour a human being is to ask of him an effort. In the hopeless popularization and down-marketing of our crafts we don’t honour the student. We condescend to him and that is a hideous contempt. You honour him by what you ask and demand."—Grammars of Creation, by George Steiner, available here

Power is seductive

Calypso, the nymph who keeps Odysseus locked up on her island for seven years, is making a comeback. As are some of the women in the Iliad and Odyssey. But, some feminists are raising a word of warning, see, most recently, this article Is Homer’s Calypso a Feminist Icon or a Rapist? The subtitle says is it all: "‘Odyssey’ translator Emily Wilson called her a ‘passionate model of female power,’ but not every powerful woman deserves praise." Here's the final paragraphs of this excellent article, which you really should take the time to read (otherwise you won't understand the reference to Odysseus):

o quote Mary Beard, “You cannot easily fit women into a structure that is already coded as male; you have to change the structure. That means thinking about power differently.” Calypso offers not a hopeful possibility for women but a warning to any woman who climbs the tiers of power without questioning or transforming the asymmetrical system that keeps women as a whole in check. If the structure is not changed, in can waltz Hermes, armed with Zeus’s authoritative command, to overpower you in turn. As long as it is built upon the oppression of others, the same hierarchy that at one moment works for you can now work against you. Unlike Odysseus, we can choose to really see ourselves in the disempowered and by doing so change who we are for the better. That is the challenge for anyone reading the Odyssey today.

While I wholeheartedly embrace the refashioning of myth’s female monsters as our own, I do not want to find feminist empowerment where it should not be, a new female face superimposed upon the same old tale. As much as I love these old Greek stories and always will, we all desperately deserve a new one.

<idle musing>
I would say that the new tale she is longing for is the Kingdom of God as manifested in Jesus. He had all the power in the universe at his fingertips, and he chose to be the servant of all. That's a real role model that we would do well to emulate—male or female. But especially the males!
</idle musing>

Sacred? Secular? Huh?

There is no such word as “religion” 1n the languages of the ancient Near East. Likewise, there is no dichotomy between sacred and secular, or even between natural and supernatural. The only suitable dichotomy is between spiritual and physical, though even that would be a less meaningful distinction to the people of the ancient Near East than it is to us. In the end, there is a distinction between the heavenly realm and the earthly one, but events in the two were often intertwined or parallel. It would be difficult to discuss with ancients the concept of divine intervention because in their worldview deity was too integrated into the cosmos to intervene in it. For the most part, deity is on the inside, not the outside. The world was suffused with the divine. All experience was religious experience; all law was spiritual in nature; all duties were duties to the gods; all events had deity as their cause. Life was religion and religion could not be compartmentalized within life.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 47

What we expect vs. what we see

The kind of society that we expect Israel to develop would, for example, care for the most vulnerable (widows, orphans, and foreigners), prize justice and mercy, cultivate and care for the land in sustainable ways, encourage equitable and responsible economic practice, promote hard work and revitalizing rest, and so on—all of these as tangible manifestations of Yahweh’s kingdom and his royal character. The result and ultimate aim of such a society would be blessing: the blessing of God’s people, the blessing of the land, and even the blessing of the foreign nations.

The reality on the ground, or more appropriately in the promised land, is something altogether different.—David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

<idle musing>
And that is also true of those who claim to be Christians. The biggest difference being that Christians have the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to make it happen. We are therefore "without excuse" for not making it happen : (
</idle musing>

Why?

When we consider similarities and differences between the ancient cultural river and our own, we must be alert to the dangers of maintaining an elevated View of our own superiority or sophistication as a contrast to the naïveté or primitiveness of others. Identification of differences should not imply ancient inferiority. Our rationality may not be their rationality, but that does not mean that they were irrational. Their ways of thinking should not be thought of as primitive or prehistorical. We seek to understand their texts and culture, not to make value judgments on them.—Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., page 7

<idle musing>
We're starting a new book today, John Walton's Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd edition. The first edition was very good, but this second edition is even better. If you an interest in the ANE backgrounds to the OT, then this is the book to get!

I hope you enjoy the extracts over the next couple of weeks. Oh, and special thanks to Jeremy Wells at Baker for giving me a copy!
</idle musing>

It's cold!

From today, at 8:00 AM CST:

And the forecast:

That's just crazy! 80ºF difference in less than a week!

Sidetracked

Basil’s primary interest is not in the events behind the text, and his understanding of the creation of humanity shows this. I have suggested that Basil is asking his listeners to be like Moses. This is synonymous with the restoration of humanity returning to paradise, which means a life “unenslaved to the passions of the flesh, free, intimate with God.”

Returning to paradise is the restoration and goal of the human life, and this is what the creation story ultimately shows. Consoling ourselves with material things keeps us from paradise. This is why the story of creation is “an education in human life” and why the story of creation should be read with an eye toward that end. The history behind the text does not concern Basil, but the theologia behind it does.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 324

<idle musing>
That's the final post from this book. If you've been following the posts, you'll have noticed that it is more how to read the church fathers in general than it is about Genesis 1. And it once again reinforces the idea that our questions are different from their questions. We are focused (as a culture) on the material and physical; they were more concerned with the spiritual, nonphysical side of things. And they knew those nonphysical things were just as real, if not more real, than the physical. I suspect we would do well to rediscover that truth! But that's just an
</idle musing>

Zombie nation?

Three generations from those foundational, identity-forming events of the Exodus from Egypt and the Sinai covenant, God’s people are in crisis. They have arrived in the promised land and are emerging as a nation, but the seeds of idolatry and injustice are in full bloom, strangling the image-bearing quality of the covenant people. The response to failure does not result in rooting out idolatry and injustice—in fact the people wrongly diagnose the problem (i.e., unstable political governance) and consequently propose the wrong solution (i.e., strong, perpetual leadership). We witness a seemingly unending cycle, in which the people of God are not dead, but they are by no means thriving and flourishing. Israel is a zombie nation!

In this way, Judges stands as a prophetic clarion call for the people of God today. To what extent have the seeds of idolatry taken root and choked out our call to bear the image of Christ in the context of the twenty-first century? Is our commitment to the idols of our day compromising our calling to be faithful witnesses to Jesus and his countercultural kingdom for the sake of the flourishing of all people? Are we looking for solutions in all the wrong places, retreating into pietistic isolationism, or putting our trust in the wrong things (e.g., authoritarian government)? It is possible that the church has become a community of zombies?—from the introduction of David J. H. Beldman, Judges, Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, forthcoming)

We're missing the point!

It is significant that the statement is made here, as it is in Homily 9, not in the context of explaining the creation of humanity proper but rather in the context of the Godhead: “It says, ‘Let us make,’ that you may recognize Father and Son and Holy Spirit.” In fact, it draws the hearers away from fixating on the “how” of creation and toward focusing on who is creating—the historia points to God. Basil sees it as a call to worship the Creator who creates as Trinity. This is a vital connection for Basil because “the prelude to our creation is true theology [theologia].”

The use of theologia here and in Homily 9 should not be understood as it is commonly used today. That is, today theology is a general term meant to indicate study about God. Basil does have this in mind, but there is more at work here than just a simple description like “the study of God.” He is using it in the context of a technical distinction from something called oikonomia. Theologia, as it was understood by fourth-century Christian writers like Basil, was used in a restrictive sense and concerned the divine nature (who God is). In Basil, it is a “mode of insight into the nature of God,” which is connected to seeing beyond material reality or the “material—sounding phraseology” of some passages in Scripture.”—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, pages317–18

Imago dei and St. Basil

Twice within the same paragraph in Homily 9 Basil uses a form of the word theologia. Noteworthy here is that, even though the context is one in which Basil has promised to speak of the origin of humanity, he focuses on the Father and the Son. Further, it is not on the works or actions of creating humanity but rather on the identity of the Father and Son. Thus, he asks his listeners to consider what “in our image" means. Since it is in reference to the divine, it cannot mean a bodily shape but a special reference to the Godhead. Citing various New Testament passages that refer to Christ as the image of the Father, he emphasizes that intimate connection.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 316

About that historical-critical method and the church fathers…

One would be very hard pressed to find in the earliest interpreters of sacred Scripture an approach that is intent only on finding direct one-to-one correspondence with strictly historical occurrences. Instead, one finds Scripture interpreted in a manner that emphasizes a call to a deeper spiritual life wherein the salvation of humankind and the ultimate goal of seeing God (contemplation) are overarching.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 303

Augustine on Answers in Genesis

In Homily 260c Augustine compares the promises of Isaiah 57:19, “peace upon peace,” with the sabbath day of rest that is contained "in this temporal round of days.” God rested on the seventh day in order to indicate the eternal rest of his saints. This is foretold in Job 5:19, “He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you." The reason Genesis does not indicate an evening on the seventh day is because it moves into the eighth of eternity. But the eighth day is not the only thing that should be an indicator of eternity for Augustine. He chides “lovers of this world” who do not consider the “symbolic meaning of the days.” Failure to do so shows that their focus "is not the rest of a spiritual sabbath, from which their thoughts could also be directed to the eternity of the eighth." Rather, they are "given over … to the round of temporal thoughts, unable to entertain any idea of the eternal."—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, pages 296–97

<idle musing>
Quite an indictment. I suspect Augustine would have these same words for those who are fixated on a scientific interpretation of the Genesis 1–2. Something to think about, at least, isn't it?

Just an
</idle musing>

Morning and evening as Augustine sees them

In the days we experience, light declines as we get closer to sunset and we call that evening. Also, light returns as we get closer to sunrise, and we call that morning. But since we have a “surer light,” we also have a “surer day” and, therefore, “both a truer evening and a truer morning.” It thus makes perfect sense to Augustine that a spiritual evening occurs when there is a turning away from contemplating the Creator, and a spiritual morning when there is a move from knowledge of the Creator to praise of him. For Augustine, this is actually a literal interpretation, not allegorical. He recognizes that some may not be satisfied with “the line which I have been able in my sma11 measure explore or trace.” He encourages those who disagree to find another explanation, but it must be “as a strict and proper account of the way the foundations of this creation were made." In other words, it must also be a literal interpretation.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, pages 285–86 (emphasis original)

Augustine had more sense that we do…

There is, he [Augustine] states, just one day, and it should not be understood in the same way we understand days that are measured and counted by the sun’s circuit. The day that was originally repeated three times before the creation of the sun and moon on the fourth repetition is not the same kind of day we experience. Thus, the night and day that God divided in Genesis 1:4 “are to be taken in quite a different sense from this night and day, between which he said that the lamps he created were to divide, when he said, And let them divide between day and night (Gen 1:14). The fourth day was when God fashioned the kind of day we know. But the day that was originally created had already gone through three repetitions before the lights were created on the fourth repetition.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 285 (italics in the original translation)

<idle musing>
And don't try to tell me he was influenced by Darwin and therefore compromised! He lived 1400 years before Darwin was around. And by the way, this was from his "literal" commentary.
</idle musing>

Does anybody who knows Greek proofread the covers?

I was checking a bibliographic reference yesterday and ran across this:

The accent in σὖν is impossible, and, besides, the word σύν makes no sense in the context. It should be οὖν. The worst of it is that it has ended up in OCLC, the database that drives interlibrary loan, as sun instead of oun—and that's how it ended up that way in the bibliography I was checking.

Children of the day

The knowledge of the angels being connected to evening and morning simply repeats itself in the days of creation. Morning indicates knowledge of their own spiritual “higher” order, albeit not what God is, while evening indicates a “lesser degree of knowledge”—that is, a knowledge of the lower order of creation. For Augustine, knowledge of a thing in the Word of God is “day,” while knowledge of its own specific nature is “evening.”—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 283

Even Augustine!

On the seventh day God rests from all his works and sanctifies that day. Augustine explains that just as the first six days are not to be understood in their literal sense, neither is the idea of God resting: “We are not to understand this in a childish way, as if God labored at his work.” Rather, God spoke and the heavens and earth were created (Ps 33:9; 148:5). In keeping with Augustine’s belief that this word was intelligible and eternal rather than audible, God’s rest signifies those who rest in God.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 275

St. Basil on the prowl

Basil points out various scientific theories about the shape of the earth and how each one overthrows the previous. He labels the purveyors of these theories as employing “foolish wisdom.” But his reason for this accusation is not because Moses' account trumps those scientific explanations. In fact, he concedes that Moses does not discuss them in Genesis because they are “useless for us, things in no Way pertaining to us.” [Basil, Hexaemeron 91] Scripture simply does not speak about these things in a scientific manner—this is not the architecture of Scripture. Basil claims value for “our version of creation” because they are the “words of the Spirit” that give us not scientific theories but “things . . . written for the edification and guidance of our souls.” He is critical of those who go beyond what Moses himself has written and give it a dignity on that basis. Scripture needs to be “understood as it has been written” because adding to it with translational allegory or scientific theories goes beyond its scope and intent.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, pages 198–99

Fourth–fifth century hermeneutics

“Their [the 4th–5th century fathers] understanding of biblical exegesis,” he explains, “remained that of the more ancient period, a more discontinuous, confessional, and event—centered typology on the Christ-event.”[McGuckin, "Patterns of Biblical Exegesis," 38] The determinative pattern for the Church’s reading of Scripture is found in Jesus himself, and the Christocentric principle that governs patristic exegesis for Basil and other Fathers is found, par excellence, in the narrative of the journey to Emmaus.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 195

Parachute drop!

Part of the point I am trying to make is that we cannot simply parachute into the context of the Fathers and disregard it by plucking out quotations that appear to support our conclusions. Great care is required to understand world into which we enter, and this entails addressing some foundational issues. When modern assumptions about biblical interpretation are projected onto the Fathers, we run the risk of making them champions of some idea or concept that they simply were not. To assume that the Fathers read “literally” in the same way we mean “literal” is a misrepresentation of their context.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 158

<idle musing>
How many of us are guilty of using the &rqquo;parachute drop“ version of hermeneutics? And not just with respect to the church fathers, either! The whole concept of proof-texting is based on a parachute drop hermeneutics!
</idle musing>

What then shall we say?

It is apparent that the traditional distinction between Antioch and Alexandria along the lines of literal/historical versus allegorical reading cannot be applied here, at least in the way it has been traditionally understood. Origen and Eustathius actually had some important things in common in their understandings of biblical interpretation. Both are convinced of Scripture’s inspiration by the Holy Spirit. They were also both convinced of Scripture’s contemporary relevance to the Christian. The difference between them lay in Eustathius’s challenge to Origen’s application of Scripture. From our perspective, both interpretations were anachronistic in the sense that they paid little attention to the author’s intended meaning. Since Scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit, he was seen as the true author, and this broke down the historical anchoring and distancing common in our modern approaches.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 153

Is this a legitimate reading?

Recall here John MacArthur’s condemnation of his very first sermon, based on the text “And the angel rolled the stone away,” in which he preached about the stone of doubt, the stone of fear, and the stone of anger.“ MacArthur condemned the sermon because he believes that in doing this he had betrayed the historical referent—“That is not what that verse is talking about; it’s talking about a real stone.” The emphasis on the “rea1 stone” has kept MacArthur anchored in the past, the horizontal plane, and thus maintains the distance and gaps that he emphasizes throughout his entire book. But a vertical reading seeks to eradicate those gaps by inviting the interpreter to be a participant. I dare say that the Alexandrians would have actually commended MacArthur’s reading of the text in his first sermon. Surely this example is not making the Bible into a fairy-tale book from which we get “all kinds of crazy interpretations."—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, pages 141–42

<idle musing>
What do you think? Is this a legitimate reading of the text? My seminary training tells me that it isn't. But, 1600 years of church tradition begs to differ with me. Have we lost something by throwing away more figurative readings of the text? Can we get more from a text by allowing what he calls the "vertical reading" back in?

I'm in the process of revisiting my hermeneutical assumptions, and I'm leaning toward allowing the vertical back in. I've always said that the Holy Spirit can take a text and make it real to a person in a way that isn't necessarily the "original author's intention." For that matter, the entire New Testament and early Christian literature is an exercise in that! As I recently heard Richard Hays say, "The New Testament writers would have flunked out of a seminary hermeneutics class!" Indeed, his books are an exercise in exploring the vertical reading of scripture, as is the Eisenbrauns series JTI Supplements, which I generally really like.
</idle musing>

Hidden in plain sight

Both [Antiochene and Alexandrian] expected a deeper sense, and neither was concerned with the reference to the events behind the text or the human author’s intended meaning. The Antiochene (ikonic) approach expects a mirroring or imaging of the deeper meaning in the text as a whole, while the Alexandrian (symbolic) approach was seen by the Antiochenes as destroying the story, or coherence, of the text because it involved using words as symbols or tokens. “What is different is the [Antiochene] assumption that the narrative provides a kind of ‘mirror’ which images the true understanding, rather than the words of the text providing a code to be cracked.” [Young, Biblical Exegesis, 123] The issue is much deeper than the simple conclusion that the Antiochene insistence on typology was the result of its historical anchoring in events, while Alexandrians preferred allegory because of their disdain for history.“ The fact is that all early Christian reading of Scripture is, in some sense, figural.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, pages 139-40

Anachronisms abound

Antiochene exegesis is anchored in rhetoric, and this makes any attempt to characterize it as the precursor to the modern critical approach problematic. To speak of any sort of grammatical-historical exegesis in antiquity is actually anachronistic, and equating the historia employed by Antiochenes with our modern understanding of history is equally so.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 137

Bedazzled by God

A very good post over at Catalyst Resources on being bedazzled by God (with a part 2 forthcoming). Good advice for all, not just seminary students. Here's the opening two paragraphs:

My second favorite line from Les Miserables is something Hugo writes about the bishop in the first fifty pages: “He did not study God; he was dazzled by him.” Great advice for all seminarians, theologians, and human beings.

In my experience, there are days it does not feel like this. There are days when it feels like you can’t see any higher than the stack of books piled up on your desk, all due tomorrow, along with that exegesis paper. There are days when it feels like Greek verb structures obscure your view. There may even be days when it feels like the Son is just too bright and you’ve been blinded rather than dazzled. Let me encourage you on those days to look through the page, over the shoulder of the author who is doing his best to point out the glory he sees. Let me encourage you on those days to blink and squint at the verbs until they form a window for you. Let me encourage you on those days to borrow some sunglasses from Gregory of Nyssa and keep on with it. Remember that God is dazzling.

<idle musing>
Great advice! There were definitely days in graduate school where just getting through the day seemed a struggle—let alone figuring out how it related to anything : ) But it was definitely worth the effort!
</idle musing>

What's really important?

Distinguishing between what the text meant (authors original meaning) and what the text means (application) was not a concern. Interest was more in the effect the text produced, which is why we cannot draw a straight line from this approach to grammatical-historical or even historical-critical methods of interpretation. Since the intent of criticism was to effect a response, ancient exegetes expected literature to be morally uplifting. This entailed the exercise of moral judgment (krisis), which included literary, or rhetorical, evaluation. Questions of authenticity, dating, and the like were raised here, but it was much less critical in our sense, and the moral search for virtue was predominant.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 133

Not for the reasons you thought

It is often thought that symbolic allegory, as practiced by philosophers, was the universal way of reading literature in the educational system of the ancient world. But this was not the approach taken by the grammar and rhetorical schools, which had more influence. The rhetorical approach was intent on deriving ethical models, useful instruction, and moral principles from the study of literature. The reaction to Alexandrian symbolic allegory by the Antiochenes was informed by this rhetorical approach rather than a concern for what we would call a GH [grammatical-historical] approach. The Antiochene exegetes had a rhetorical education and certainly would have been influenced by the ideals of that approach to reading literature.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, pages 128–29

The gap is huge

One problem With attributing the tension in the early church to a difference between a literal/historical and an allegorical approach to Scripture is that it assumes the literalism of the Antiochenes is the same as modem historicism. But as Frances Young states, “We can see how this historical emphasis was recognizably culturally specific to the modem world.” Antiochenes, Young explains, could not have even imagined

explicitly locating revelation not in the text of scripture but in the historicity of events behind the text, events to which we only have access by reconstructing them from texts, treating them as documents providing historical data. This is anachronistic, and obscures the proper background of the Antiochene’s protest [against allegory].

The proper background for understanding the tension between Alexandria and Antioch is the Greek education system, which was based on the study of literature and practical exercises in speech making. Christianity was inevitably affected by this educational system because of its significant influence on the society and culture into which the early Church was born.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, page 127

<idle musing>
Yes, the gap is huge, but it isn't between Alexandria and Antioch. It's between both of them and our obsession with historicity. Both schools of thought would flunk out of a basic hermeneutics class in our seminaries!
</idle musing>

About those easy dichotomies

For many years the prevailing conclusion was that Antiochenes rejected the Alexandrian approach to biblical interpretation because of their diametrically opposed view of allegory and concomitant emphasis on the literal/historical aspect that was believed to be reflected in typology, Allegory was thought to be poor interpretation because of its callous treatment of history, while typology was thought to be good interpretation because it takes history seriously. In the past half century or so, there has been a reassessment of the traditional antithesis between allegory and typology and its foundation in historical connection. The reassessment has concluded that Alexandria and Antioch represent complementary rather than contradictory or competitive viewpoints.

Reflecting this reassessment, Theodore Stylianopoulos bemoans any sharp distinction between the Alexandrian and Antiochene exegetical traditions. Rather than seeing these approaches as mutually exclusive, he avers that they are both “fundamentally metaphorical and symbolic.” The desire of both approaches in reading Scripture was spiritual edification. By the same token, neither had any desire to abandon the literal sense (as they understood it).

Similarly, Karlfried Froehlich explains that while there is little doubt the Antiochenes did have issues with the excesses of Alexandrian spir- itualism, he also warns that it is problematic to make a sharp dis- tinction between Alexandrian and Antiochene exegesis. To claim that only the Alexandrian fathers allegorized while the Antiochene fathers adhered only to the literal meaning of the text is incorrect.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, pages 125–26