tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58361471978779198272024-02-22T11:10:51.419-05:00Jack Townsend BlogThis is a Blog for various musings I may have that are not posted elsewhere (on other Blogs, Facebook, etc.)Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-35367014173367408752023-12-05T12:00:00.000-05:002023-12-05T12:00:15.193-05:00On the Bible and Poetry (12/5/23)<p>Many years ago, I taught a course on poetry in the Hebrew Bible. The course was inspired by Jim Kugel's <u>The Great Poems of the Bible: A Reader's Companion with New Translations</u> (Free Press 2012), Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Great-Poems-Bible-Companion-Translations-ebook/dp/B00710P1E2/">here</a>, but I drew on other sources as well.</p><p>For those who may be interested, I refer readers to Michael Edwards, <u>The Bible and Poetry</u> (The Paris Review 6/12/23), <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2023/06/12/the-bible-and-poetry/">here</a>, where the author discusses poetry in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible (consisting of the Old Testament which is close to the Hebrew Bible, although interpreted differently, and the New Testament). </p><p>First of all, a caveat, that the following quote may indicate a Christian bias: "There are fewer poems in the New Testament, but they give even more food for thought."</p><p>With that caveat, here are some good excerpts that may whet readers' appetite to read the whole article:</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is true that the border between verse and a cadenced prose is not easy to determine in either the Hebrew of the Old Testament or the Greek of the New: translators judge it differently. It may also be that the poems spoken by Jacob, Simeon, and many others come not from them but from the authors of the books in which they appear. The result is the same. We find ourselves constantly in the presence of writings that invite us into the joy of words, into a well-shaped language, in a form that demands from us the attention that we give to poetry and awakens us to expectation.</p><p><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Certain scholars of the Bible have long known that the poetry is not there simply to add a dash of nobility, or sublimity, or emotive force to what the author could have said in prose. They learned from literary critics what the critics had learned from poets: poetry is in itself a way of thinking and of imagining the world; it discovers with precision what it had to say only by saying it; the meaning of a poem awaits us in its manner of being, and meaning in the customary sense of the word is not what is most important about it.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Should we not ask ourselves if the presence of so many poems changes not only the way in which the Bible speaks to us, but also the kind of message, announcement, or call that it conveys? How must faith perceive biblical speech? What does this continual turn to poetry imply about the very nature of Christianity?</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="white-space: normal;"></span></p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-31558569916705560742022-07-15T22:13:00.004-04:002023-06-21T20:31:57.002-04:00Balaam and the Talking Donkey - a Lesson for Us (7/15/22)<p>We covered the story of Balaam and the talking donkey last week in Torah Study. (The Balaam and talking donkey episode is in Numbers 22, <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Numbers.22?lang=bi&aliyot=0">here</a>. A Torah.com offering, <u>Do Animals Feel Pain? Balaam’s Donkey vs. Descartes</u> (thetorah.com <a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/do-animals-feel-pain-balaams-donkey-vs-descartes">here</a>) is wonderful midrash (in an expansive sense) on that story. Remember that Balaam rebukes the donkey for no appropriate reason. Then, according to this midrash, <b>The Angel Sides with the Donkey</b>, <a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/do-animals-feel-pain-balaams-donkey-vs-descartes">here</a>. That is a comforting thought for all of us metaphorical and real donkeys. Some snippets.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Just how appropriately it [the donkey] has behaved and spoken is confirmed when the angel rebukes Balaam. First, he repeats the animal’s complaint, in the same words the donkey uses, thereby validating it (v. 32).</p><p>Second, he makes Balaam aware that everything the donkey has done was for his own good and that he owes the animal his life (vv. 32–33).</p><p>Balaam is forced to apologize and admit his sinful behavior, pleading that the reason he erred was because, unlike his donkey, he did not know the angel was there (לֹא יָדַעְתִּי כִּי אַתָּה נִצָּב לִקְרָאתִי).</p></blockquote><p>How often do we act inappropriate when we do not recognize that the Angel or God is there?</p><p>Also,</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Animal Suffering in the Torah</p><p>The story of Balaam’s donkey is an extreme instance of something we see elsewhere in the Torah, that animals have feelings and it is incumbent upon humans to take this into consideration. In contrast to Descartes’ notion, which circulated widely and had a detrimental influence on the treatment of animals (as can be seen in Solomon Maimon’s story),[6] the Torah never doubts that animals feel pain and that a goat is most certainly not a drum.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>A wonderful lesson.</p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-84349469285008794742021-08-02T12:39:00.002-04:002021-11-02T18:19:30.295-04:00More on Midrash - On Pharaoh and Egyptians as God's Creatures Too (8/2/21)<p>In my Torah Study Book Study group, we are currently reading (finishing this week), Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's <u>Moses: A Human Life</u>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Moses-Human-Life-Jewish-Lives/dp/0300251882/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1CJNMPV0RK4JC&dchild=1&keywords=avivah+zornberg&qid=1627921555&sprefix=avivah+zorn%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-1">here</a>. Zornberg has a particularly interest in midrash, and continues that interest in this book. I have other postings on midrash on this blog, so those wanting more on midrash can click the link at the bottom of this blog entry.</p><p>I recently sent this email to our group:</p><p>You may be interested in this offering from TheTorah.com: Prof.Edward L. Greenstein, Where Are God’s Tears in Lamentations?, <a href=" https://www.thetorah.com/article/where-are-gods-tears-in-lamentations">here</a>:</p><p>The opening sets it up nicely:</p><p></p><blockquote>Tears abound in Lamentations: the poet cries, the people cry, even the city cries, but God does not. In contrast, the gods and goddesses of ancient Near Eastern city laments, cry along with their people. Midrash Eichah Rabbah, seemingly uncomfortable with such a callous depiction of God, rereads Lamentations to include God weeping.</blockquote><p></p><p>That is just the opening. A really good read.</p><p>This reminds me of the midrash I mentioned that I got from Avivah Zornberg about God rebuking the angels who were celebrating the death of the Egyptians by drowning. I originally heard this in a Krista Tippett interview of Zornberg back in 2005. The audio and transcript of that interview, titled The Transformation of Pharaoh, Moses, and God, is <a href="https://onbeing.org/programs/avivah-zornberg-the-transformation-of-pharaoh-moses-and-god/">here</a>. Here is the relevant excerpt:<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>DR. ZORNBERG: * * * * What you find in the midrashic versions, many multiple narratives, is an emphasis on the complexity of the Israelite experience and the fact that, immediately they land on the other side, they begin to complain and sin, essentially to doubt the whole story of redemption. In other words, nothing is absolute. And the fact that the Israelites are witnessing the deaths of the Egyptians, that is something, according to a very famous and beautiful midrash, that means that the angels in heaven are not allowed to sing a song of praise. God stops them singing, because ‘the creatures of My hand, the work of My hands, are dying in the sea. How can you be singing a song of praise?’</p><p>MS. TIPPETT:And God is speaking of the Egyptians.</p><p>DR. ZORNBERG:He’s speaking of the Egyptians, at least in certain versions of the midrash. In other versions, He’s speaking of the Israelites, who are also on the edge. So there is a sense here of the pathos of the human condition. And the Israelites are very aware of that. Their song and their dance — the women play a special role, again, in this story; they sing separately — has to do with the kind of faith that is required to live in a condition in which rapture doesn’t usually come unalloyed. It comes with a sadness and a tension involved in it. So “The Particulars of Rapture,” that wonderful line from a poem by Wallace Stevens, I had in mind the subtleties and the complexities of all the many stories, like the stories that are hidden within the apparent grand narrative.</p><p>There is the grand narrative which can be told very simply, and you could say it’s a kind of children’s story, and then there are all the details, which really make the experience, even the details that one isn’t totally aware of oneself and which emerge sometimes only on retelling.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>I love this about midrash (and rabbinic interpretation to extent it differs from midrash) which permits us to go beyond the ancient and cryptic text to understand God, as the community evolves, in ways not necessarily apparent from the text.</p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-80142768448217344192021-05-23T08:48:00.001-04:002021-05-23T08:48:19.842-04:00Midrash Similar to Jesus’ Separation of Sheep from Goats in Matthew (5/23/21)<p>The WPC community will undoubtedly recall the Jesus statement quote in Matthew 25:31-46, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A31-46&version=NRSV">here</a>, about how he separates the sheep from the goats—by determining who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, etc. This episode says, in effect, the separation will be made by what a person did in life. Significantly, what is not stated in this episode is any role for "belief" whatever exactly that is.</p><p>I think this is a very Jewish way of thinking. That should not be surprising because Jesus was a Jew.</p><p>A similar story is told in the Jewish tradition by midrash. Back in 2007, I found this offering in Reform Judaism’s Ten Minutes of Torah. Unfortunately, I could not find the link today but I had copied the text of the offering and therefore offer it here:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>April 12, 2007 </p></blockquote><blockquote><p>Week 177, Day 4</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>24 Nisan 5767 </p><p>Life after Death: Open the Gates of Righteousness </p><p>Midrash, Thillim Rabbah 118:19 </p><p>Text: </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At the time of judgment in the future world everyone will be asked, What was your occupation? If the person answers, I used to feed the hungry, they will say to him, This is Gods gate; you who fed the hungry many enter. I used to give water to those who were thirsty-they will say to him, This is Gods gate; you who gave water to those who were thirsty may enter. I used to clothe the naked-they will say to him, This is Gods gate; you who clothed the naked may enter and similarly with those who raised orphans, and who performed the mitzvah of tzedakah, and who performed acts of caring, loving-kindness. </p><p>Interpretation:<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This midrash is based on a verse in the Book of Psalms that says open for me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter to praise God (Psalm 118:19). Although the plain meaning of the text likely refers to the gates of the Jerusalem Temple, where it was believed that Gods Presence resided, the midrash understands it in terms of the future world. Thus the gates of righteousness are understood to be the gates leading into the world-to-come. There was a rabbinic belief that when a person dies, that person will be brought before the heavenly court for judgment and asked a series of questions. The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) delineates the following four questions: Did you conduct your business affairs with honesty? Did you set aside regular time for Torah study? Did you work at having children? Did you look forward to the worlds redemption? These questions clearly demonstrate that ethics is at Judaisms core.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The midrash based on the Book of Psalms also demonstrates Gods concern for how a person lives his or her life and whether a person left the world a better place for others. Such a person, deemed a righteous one, is allowed entrance into the gates of righteousness.</p></blockquote>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-29226382537644241562021-05-23T07:36:00.003-04:002021-05-23T08:11:08.111-04:00Kugel on Biblical Interpretation by the Ancient Interpreters and Current Jewish and Christian Interpretation (5/23/21)<p>In the book forming the basis for the WPC series (Jill
Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, <u>The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and
Christians Read the Same Stories Differently</u>), the authors offer (pp. 24-25) Professor
James’ Kugel’s “four principles of ancient Jewish exegesis.” I thought I would offer just a little more on
that from the Kugel’s <u>How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now</u>. Kugel says that these principles are “Four
Assumptions” that ancient interpreters brought to interpreting the Hebrew Bible.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kugel has a special expertise in interpretations of the
Hebrew Bible (including Christian interpretations )of the Hebrew Bible and has
placed particular focus on interpretations of the Hebrew Bible when the Jewish
community canonized the text over many years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He argues that the key interpretations were not what the original
author(s) (or redactors) may have intended but the interpretations when the
Jewish community accepted the text as interpreted as canon for their religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Thus, Song of Songs (Song of Solomon in the Christian Bible) is a love poem between woman and man. By a process of interpretation, the Jewish community and then the Christian community made it about the love of God and community. </span>This interpretive process starts and then
does not end.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Here is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>how Kugel illustrates
his focus on ancient interpreters (pp. 10-17, footnotes and endnotes omitted and bold-face supplied by JAT):<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Ancient Interpreters at Work</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Who
were the interpreters of these ancient writings? n14 For the most part, their
names are unknown. From their writings and from their whole approach to
interpreting Scripture, it would appear that most of them were teachers or
professional sages of sorts; n15 is some were probably independently wealthy
men (and, possibly, women) who had the leisure to pursue their subject. n16
Indeed, we know that a few, like the second-century BCE sage Ben Sira, belonged
to the ruling class and were close to the political leadership (Sir. 39:4; 50:1-24);
such figures no doubt strengthened the connection between reading Scripture and
determining how community affairs were to be run in their own day. Their ideas
about how Scripture is to be interpreted have survived in a number of texts
belonging to the end of the biblical period—texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the biblical apocrypha and pseudepigraphas as well as in somewhat later
writings such as those of early Christians and the founders of rabbinic
Judaism.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[11]</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The manner
in which ancient interpreters read and explained Scripture is at first likely
to strike modern readers as a bit strange. They did not go about the job of
interpreting the way we do nowadays. Take, for example, the famous biblical
story of how God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on an altar:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">And it came to pass, after these things, that God tested
Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" and he answered, "Here I
am." He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and
go to the land of Moriah. Then sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one
of the mountains that I will show you." So Abraham got up early in the
morning and saddled his donkey. He took two of his servants with him, along
with his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering and then set out for
the place that God had told him about. On the third day, Abraham looked up and
saw the place from afar. Abraham told his servants, "You stay here with
the donkey while the boy and I go up there, so that we can worship and then
come back to you."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Abraham
took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac; then he took
the fire and the knife, and the two of them walked together. But Isaac said to
his father Abraham, "Father?" and he said, "Here I am, my
son." And he said, "Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb
for the burnt offering?" Abraham said, "God Himself will provide the
lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them walked together.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When they
came to the place that God had told him about, Abraham built an altar and
arranged the wood on it. He then tied up his son Isaac and put him on the altar
on top of the wood. Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son. But an angel
of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!"
And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not harm the boy or do
anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld
your son, your only son, from me." And Abraham looked up and saw a ram
caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and sacrificed
it as a burnt offering instead of his son.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>Gen.
22:1-13</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The story
itself is quite disturbing to modern readers — as it was to ancient readers.
How could God, even as a test, order someone to kill his own son? And why would
God ever need to test Abraham in this way? After all, God is supposed to know
everything: presumably, He knew how the test would come out before it took
place, and He certainly already knew that Abraham was one who "feared
God," as the angel says after the test is over. Equally disturbing is the way
Abraham deceives his son Isaac. He does not tell him<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[12] what God has told him to do; Isaac is
kept in the dark until the last minute. In fact, when Isaac asks the obvious
question—I see all the accoutrements for the sacrifice, but where is the animal
we're going to sacrifice? — Abraham gives him an evasive answer: "God
Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." This
actually turns out to be true; God does provide a sacrificial animal — but
Abraham had no way of knowing it at the time.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Modern
readers generally take these things at face value and then either wrestle with
their implications or else just shrug their shoulders: "Well, I guess
that's just the way things were back then." But ancient interpreters
instead set out to give the text the most favorable reading they could and, in
some cases, to try to get it to say what they thought it really meant to say,
or at least ought to say. They did this by combining an extremely meticulous
examination of its words with an interpretive freedom that sometimes bordered
on the wildly inventive.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Thus, in
the case at hand, they noticed that the first sentence began, "And it came
to pass, after these things." Such phrases are often used in the Bible to
mark a transition; they generally signal a break, "The previous story is
over and now we are going on to something new." But the word
"things" in Hebrew also means "words." So the transitional
phrase here could equally well be understood as asserting that some words had
been spoken, and that "it came to pass, after these words, that God tested
Abraham." What words? The Bible did not say, but if some words had indeed
been spoken, then interpreters felt free to try to figure out what the words in
question might have been.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At this
point, some ancient interpreter — we have no idea who — thought of another part
of the Bible quite unrelated to Abraham, the book of Job. That book begins by
reporting that Satan once challenged God to test His servant Job. Since the
story of Abraham and Isaac is also a divine test, interpreters theorized that
the words mentioned in the opening sentence of our passage might have been, as
in the book of Job, a challenge spoken by Satan to God: "Put Abraham to
the test and see whether he is indeed obedient enough even to sacrifice his own
son." If one reads the opening sentence with this in mind, "And it
came to pass, after these words, that God tested Abraham," then the
problem of why God should have tested Abraham disappears. Of course God knew
that Abraham would pass the test—but if He nevertheless went on to test
Abraham, it was because some words had been spoken by Satan challenging God to
prove Abraham's worthiness.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As for
Abraham hiding his intentions from Isaac—well, again it all depends how you
read the text. Ancient interpreters noticed that the passage contains a slight
repetition:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on
his son Isaac; then he took the fire and the knife, and the two of them walked
together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[13]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Isaac said to his father Abraham,
"Father?" and he said, "Here I am, my son." And he said,
"Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt
offering?" Abraham said, "God Himself will provide the lamb for the
burnt offering, my son." And the two of them walked together.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Repetition
is not necessarily a bad thing, but ancient interpreters generally felt that
the Bible would not repeat itself without purpose. Between the two occurrences
of "and the two of them walked together" is the brief exchange in
which Abraham apparently hides his true intentions from Isaac. But Abraham's
words were, at least potentially, ambiguous. Since biblical Hebrew was
originally written without punctuation marks or even capital letters marking
the beginnings of sentences, Abraham's answer to Isaac could actually be read
as two sentences: "God Himself will provide. The lamb for the burnt
offering [is] my son." Read in this way, Abraham's answer to Isaac was
not an evasion but the brutal truth: you're the sacrifice. If, following that,
the text adds, "And the two of them walked together," this would not
be a needless repetition at all: Abraham told Isaac that he was to be the
sacrifice and Isaac agreed; then the two of them "walked together" in
the sense that they were now of one mind to carry out God's fearsome command.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By
interpreting the story in this fashion, ancient interpreters solved two of the
major problems raised by this account, God's apparent ignorance of how the test
would turn out and Abraham's apparent callousness and evasiveness vis-a-vis
Isaac. But did these interpreters actually believe their own interpretations?
Didn't they know they were playing fast and loose with the text's real meaning?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is
always a difficult question. I personally believe that, at least at first,
ancient interpreters were sometimes quite well aware that they were distorting
the straightforward meaning of the text. But with time, that awareness began to
dim. Biblical interpretation soon became an institution in ancient Israel; one
generation's interpretations were passed on to the next generation, and
eventually they acquired the authority that time and tradition always grant.
Midrash, as this body of interpretation came to be called, simply became what
the text had always been intended to communicate. Along with the
interpretations themselves, the interpreters' very modus operandi acquired its
own authority: this was how the Bible was to be interpreted, period. Moreover,
since the midrashic method of searching the text carefully for hidden implica-
[14] tions seemed to solve so many problems in the Bible that otherwise had no
solution, this indicated that the interpreters were going about things
correctly. As time went on, new interpretations were created on the model of
older ones, until soon every chapter of the Bible came accompanied by a host of
clever explanations that accounted for any perceived difficulty in its words.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Four Assumptions</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Readers
always approach texts with certain assumptions, and the assumptions change
depending on what they are reading; not every text is thought to mean in the
same way. Thus, when we read a poem in which the poet says to his beloved,
"I faint! I die!" we know he's not really dying; likewise, when he
says he's wallowing in love in the same way that a cooked fish is wallowed in
galantine sauce, well . . . we know this isn't really intended as an exact
description of his emotional state. And it is not just poems. Novels and short
stories, form letters and radio commercials and last wills and testaments—all
sorts of different compositions come with their own conventions, and we as
readers are aware of those conventions and interpret the texts accordingly. We
expect to be amused by a stand-up comedian's recitation of his woes, and so we
laugh in all the right places; yet if a somewhat similar monologue is spoken by
a patient at his group therapy session, people will probably not laugh, in part
because they bring an entirely different set of expectations to his
"text." (Also, they don't want to hurt his feelings.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is a
striking fact that all ancient interpreters seem to have shared very much the
same set of expectations about the biblical text. No one ever sat down and
formulated these assumptions for them—they were simply assumed, just like our
present-day assumptions about how we are to understand texts uttered by poets
and group-therapy patients. However, looking over the vast body of ancient
interpretations of different parts of the Bible, we can gain a rather clear
picture of what their authors were assuming about the biblical text—and what
emerges is that, despite the geographic and cultural distance separating some
of these interpreters from others, they all seem to have assumed the same four
basic things about how the Bible was to be read:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>1. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They assumed that the Bible was a
fundamentally cryptic text: that is, when it said A, often it might really mean
B. Thus, when it said, "And it came to pass after these things," even
though that might look like the familiar transitional phrase, what it might really
mean was "after these words." Indeed, this text, they felt, was so
cryptic that it did not even say what the words were—it had left it to the
interpreters themselves to remember the book of Job and so figure out the rest.
Similarly, when the Bible repeated "and the two of them walked
together,"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[15]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the second occurrence of this phrase had a
hidden meaning: Abraham and Isaac had agreed and now proceeded as if of one
mind.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Interpreters also assumed that the Bible
was a book of lessons directed to readers in their own day. It may seem to talk
about the past, but it is not fundamentally history. It is instruction, telling
us what to do: be obedient to God just as Abraham was and you will be rewarded,
just as he was. Ancient interpreters assumed this not only about narratives
like the Abraham story but about every part of the Bible. For example, Isaiah's
prophecies about the Assyrian crisis contained, interpreters believed, a
message for people in their own time (five or six centuries later). Likewise,
when the book of Nahum had referred metaphorically to a "raging
lion," the text was not talking about some enemy in Nahum's own day, but
about Demetrius III, who was the king of Syria six hundred years later, in the
time of the ancient interpreters. n17 Similarly, the Bible's laws were
understood as being intended for people to obey in the interpreters' own time,
even though they had been promulgated in a very different society many
centuries earlier.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>3. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Interpreters also assumed that the Bible
contained no contradictions or mistakes. It is perfectly harmonious, despite
its being an anthology; in fact, they also believed that everything that the
Bible says ought to be in accord with the interpreters' own religious beliefs
and practices (since they believed these to have been ordained by God). Thus,
if the Bible seemed to imply that God was not all-knowing or that Abraham had
been callous and deceitful with his son, interpreters would not say that this
story reflected beliefs about God or basic morality that had changed since
ancient times. Instead, they stoutly insisted that there must be some way of
understanding the Bible's words so as to remove any such implications: that cannot
be what the Bible really intended! And of course the Bible ought not to
contradict itself or even seem to repeat itself needlessly, so that if it said
"and the two of them walked together" twice, the second occurrence
cannot be merely repetitive; it must mean something different from the first.
In short, the Bible, they felt, is an utterly consistent, seamless, perfect
book.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>4. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Lastly, they believed that the entire
Bible is essentially a divinely given text, a book in which God speaks directly
or through His prophets. There could be little doubt about those parts of the
Bible that openly identify the speaker as God: "And the LORD spoke to
Moses, say-<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[16]<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>ing . . ." "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel .
." But interpreters believed that this was also true of the story of
Abraham and the other stories in Genesis, even though the text itself never
actually said there that God was the author of these stories. And it was held
to be true of the rest of the Bible too—even of the book of Psalms, although the
psalms themselves are prayers and songs addressed to God and thus ought
logically not to have come from God. Nevertheless, most interpreters held the
psalms to be in some sense of divine origin, written under divine inspiration
or guidance or even directly dictated to David, their traditional author. n18<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>How these
assumptions came into existence is hard to say for sure, and in any case that
question need not detain us here;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>n19
the fact is, they did come into existence, even before Israel's ancient library
of sacred texts began to be called the Bible, in fact, even before its precise
table of contents had been determined.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What are
modern readers to make of these assumptions? Many readers will balk at the
ancient interpretation of the Abraham and Isaac story given above, indeed, at
many of the interpretations mentioned in this book. But it is simply in the
nature of assumptions in general that they are assumed, not consciously
adopted. Once biblical interpretation had started along the path of these Four
Assumptions, it developed a logic, and a momentum, of its own. This was simply
how the Bible was to be understood. The power and persuasiveness of these
assumptions may be clearer if one considers that, to a remarkable degree, they
continue to color the way people read the Bible right down to the present day
(even if nowadays they may lead to somewhat different conclusions from those
advanced by the ancient interpreters). Thus, many modern-day Jews and
Christians continue to look to the Bible as a guidebook for daily life
(Assumption 2); they do not read it as if it were just a relic from the ancient
past. In fact, a significant number of contemporary Jews and Christians seek to
act on a daily basis in accordance with the Bible's specific exhortations and
laws, and many view the Bible's prophecies as being fulfilled in the events of
today's world (another aspect of Assumption 2). Without quite saying so, quite
a few readers also generally assume that the Bible has some sort of coherent
message to communicate and that it does not contradict itself or contain
mistakes (Assumption 3). Many also believe that the Bible's meaning is not
always obvious (Assumption 1)—it even seems deliberately cryptic sometimes,
they say. And the idea of divine inspiration, in fact, the conception of the
Bible as a whole as the word of God (Assumption 4), is an article of faith in a
great many denominations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Thus,
whatever one thinks of the Four Assumptions, there is no denying their staying
power. What is more, some of the interpretations they gave rise to have
demonstrated a comparable durability: to a degree not generally recognized,
these interpretations are still with us and have actually succeeded in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[17]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>changing the meaning of quite a few biblical stories. As will be seen
presently, the story of Adam and Eve only became "the Fall of Man"
thanks to these ancient interpretive assumptions; the book of Genesis says
nothing of the kind. The same is true of many other things that people have
always believed the Bible says—that Abraham was the one who discovered that
there is only one God, that David was a pious king who wrote the book of
Psalms, or that the Song of Solomon speaks of God's love for His people. The
Bible says these things only if it is read in accordance with the Four
Assumptions. That is why, even today, trampling on these assumptions can get
people's hackles up— <b>Charles A. Briggs was neither the first nor the last
modern scholar to learn that lesson</b>.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-2263175662674423932021-05-22T20:39:00.003-04:002021-05-22T20:39:38.093-04:00Presbyterian Excommunication for Heresy as a Preface to Biblical Criticism (5/22/21)<p>Those who have read my blog posts here note that I am quite enamored
of Professor <a href="https://www.jameskugel.com/">James Kugel</a>. I have quoted
from his book, <u>How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now</u> (Free
Press 2007 ed.). That book was about
modern scholarship and traditional interpretations (including Christian
interpretations) of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible / Old Testament; in this post I
will call it the Hebrew Bible). The book
rocked my boat when I first read it (still does), bringing to the task of reading
my past in the Christian tradition.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I was surprised that Professor Kugel opened the book
(Chapter 1, titled "Rise of Modern Biblical Scholarship") with a picture of
Professor Charles Augustus Briggs. I had never heard of Briggs before but I
turned the page anyway and quickly found out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Briggs’ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Augustus_Briggs">Wikipedia page</a> starts off by saying that he was “American
Presbyterian (and later Episcopalian) scholar and theologian.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kugel’s bookends the opening and closing of
Chapter 1 with Briggs' story. As a professor at Union Theological Seminary
in New York City, Briggs gave a speech on his specialty, the Hebrew Bible / Old
Testament, laying out the best scholarship on the Hebrew Bible at the time (the
1890s).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For that, the Presbyterian Church
excommunicated Briggs for heresy (although his scholarship in the speech has stood the test of time). The excommunication came after
a long and well-publicized trial in Washington D.C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many knew that the Presbyterians
excommunicated?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I have asked a few Presbyterians and few knew about the episode. </span>I always thought excommunication was a Catholic thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(When I first read
the book, I was a Baptist and, as such, just suspected that the Presbyterians had hung onto that vestige of Catholicism.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I offer below the opening and closing related of Chapter 1 excerpts related to Charles
Augustus Briggs (I put page numbers in brackets) (and for those wanting to know
what is between the opening and closing (it’s great), please email me <a href="mailto:jack@tjtaxlaw.com">jack@tjtaxlaw.com</a>. I omit footnotes (mostly scholarly) and bold-face certain parts that might be of particular interest to WPC members:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">[2]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On a warm
May afternoon in 1893, a man stood on trial for heresy in Washington, D.C. This
circumstance might in itself appear surprising. The defendant was being tried
by the Presbyterian Church, which had always prided itself on its tradition of
intellectualism and an educated clergy. While disagreements about church
teachings were not rare in the denomination, going as far as putting a man on
trial for his beliefs was certainly an extreme step. n1 Such a trial might also
appear ill-suited to the end of the nineteenth century, a time of great
openness to new ideas. Darwin's Origin of Species had been published a full
three decades earlier, and Einstein's first writings on the theory of
relativity were only twelve years away. America itself was a country of
electric-powered machines and newfangled telephones, a rising economic and
political center with its own burgeoning literary and intellectual avant-garde.
Across the Atlantic, Sigmund Freud was working out his ideas on sexuality and
the unconscious; Pablo Picasso was twelve years old, James Joyce was eleven,
and D. H. Lawrence was eight. Heresy?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Still more
surprising was the man in the dock; Charles Augustus Briggs hardly seemed
fitted to the role of heretic. In his youth, he had been an altogether
traditional Presbyterian, distinguished only by the fervor of his belief. In
his sophomore year at the <b>University of Virginia</b>, he presented himself for
formal membership at the <b>First Presbyterian Church of Charlottesville</b>, and
thereafter he became a committed evangelical Christian. n2 The tone of his
faith in those early years is well captured by a letter he wrote to his sister
Millie:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>I trust you feel that you are a sinner. I trust that you
know that Christ is your Savior, and I want to entreat you to go to him in
prayer. I know by experience that Christ is precious, and that I would not give
him up for the world... . Do you want to be separated from your brother and
sister when they shall be with Jesus? Are you willing to be with the Devil in
torment? You can decide the question in a moment. n3</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So great
was Briggs's sense of calling that he soon abandoned plans to go into his
father's highly prosperous business—Alanson Briggs, known as the "barrel
king," owned and operated the largest barrel factory in the United
States—in order to devote himself entirely to a life of Christian preaching and
teaching.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[3]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Briggs
proved to be a gifted student of biblical Hebrew and ancient history, and he
was soon ordained a Presbyterian minister. After having served as pastor to a
small congregation in New Jersey for a time, he accepted a teaching post at one
of the mainline seminaries of his day, the Union Theological Seminary in New
York, where he lectured on Hebrew grammar and various biblical themes. He
became, by all accounts, a highly respected scholar, acclaimed at a relatively
young age as already belonging to "the foremost rank among the scholars of
his day."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>n4 Today, a century
later, one of Briggs's books is still in print (a rare feat among academics!),
a dictionary of biblical Hebrew that he coauthored with Francis Brown and S. R.
Driver in 1906. Indeed, "BDB," as this dictionary is commonly known
(for the initials of its three authors' last names), is still a required
purchase for any graduate student undertaking serious work on the Hebrew Bible.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What, then,
was this son of the Establishment, an expert in Hebrew lexicography and
biblical theology, doing on trial? It all had to do with a speech he had made
two years earlier, on the occasion of his being named to a prestigious new
chair at Union Seminary. Briggs's inaugural address, delivered on the evening
of January 20, 1891, went on for well more than an hour. It began innocently
enough; as required of all such appointees at Presbyterian seminaries, he
opened with a public declaration of his faith in the Bible and the church's system
of governance:<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>I believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be
the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice; and I do now,
in the presence of God and the Directors of this Seminary, solemnly and
sincerely receive and adopt the Westminster Confession of Faith [that is, the
Presbyterian charter], as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy
Scriptures. I do also, in like manner, approve of the Presbyterian Form of
Government; and I do solemnly promise that I will not teach or inculcate
anything which shall appear to me to be subversive of the said system of
doctrines, or of the principles of said Form of Government, so long as I shall
continue to be a Professor in the Seminary.</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But as
Briggs went on, he touched on some of the more controversial issues facing
Presbyterians in his day, particularly those matters having to do with his
specialty, the Hebrew Bible. What he had to say—new, disturbing ideas about how
the Bible came to be written, and the nature of its authority, as well as its
place in the life of the church—shocked some of his listeners. He said that,
contrary to what was claimed by many of his coreligionists, the Bible was not
verbally inspired—that is, there was no reason to think that each and every word
of it came from God. In fact, he said, it was obvious that the Bible contained
numerous errors. n5 What is more, he stated that it was now quite certain that
the supposed authors of various books of the Bible—Moses and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[*4] David and Solomon and Ezra and the
others—did not, in fact, write them; these books were the work of people whose
true names would never be known. n6 He asserted that the things described as
miracles in the Old and New Testaments could not actually have "violate[d]
the laws of nature or disturb[ed] its harmonies"—thus they were not, at
least in the usual sense, miracles at all. In particular, he suggested, the
supposedly miraculous acts of healing recounted in the Old and New Testaments
might merely have been the result of "mind cure, or hypnotism, or [some]
other occult power." n7 Finally, he pointed out that while the Bible's
prophets frequently announced what God was to do in the future, many of their
predictions had failed to come true; in fact, he said (a most surprising assertion
for a Christian), most of the things predicted in the Old Testament about the
coming of a Messiah had "not only never been fulfilled, but cannot now be
fulfilled, for the reason that [their] own time has passed forever." n8<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What
happened to Charles A. Briggs to cause him to say such things? The short answer
is: he had become acquainted with modern biblical scholarship. Following his
initial calling to the ministry, Briggs began to study the Bible in earnest,
first in the United States and later in Germany, which was then the very center
of modern biblical science. Once back in the United States, he had continued
the line of his teachers' research with his own; during his years as a
professor and scholar, he had published widely on various topics connected with
the Hebrew Bible and biblical theology. Many of the things Briggs proclaimed
out loud in his inaugural address were thus not altogether new—they had been
building up over decades of intensive research and publication.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Still, that
hardly made Briggs's assertions acceptable to everyone in the audience on that
evening. Some of his listeners resented the confident, often aggressive tone of
his remarks, and they liked even less his apparent endorsement of these new
ideas. Despite the orthodox cast of his opening confession of faith, they found
that most of his speech was anything but orthodox. Briggs seemed, they felt,
out to undermine the Bible's place as the very heart of Protestant belief and
practice.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The evening
ended with handshakes and congratulations, but as news of Briggs's speech
spread throughout the Presbyterian Church, his conservative opponents felt
called upon to take action. They instituted formal proceedings within the
church to have him suspended as a minister and removed from the academic chair
to which he had just been appointed. No one who said such things could be
considered a proper teacher for future Presbyterian ministers! The ensuing
deliberations were long and complicated, moving from one judicial instance to
the next. At first Briggs had been hopeful, believing that he could count on
support from within the liberal wing of American Presby- [5]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>terians; but he had underestimated the
strength and determination of his opponents. They pressed forward, and it was
thus that Charles A. Briggs eventually found himself a defendant at the
church's 1893 General Assembly in Washington, D.C., his future in the hands of
the more than five hundred delegates gathered there.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The heresy
trial was headline news across the country, closely followed by Americans of
all faiths. (Indeed, according to one press report, a clergyman visiting India
in 1892 was greeted with the query, "What is the latest phase of the
Briggs case?")<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>n9 Charles A. Briggs
may have been the immediate defendant in the proceeding, but in a larger sense
it was the Bible itself that stood accused. What was it, really? Was it a
special book unlike any other, the very word of God? Or was it, as Briggs
seemed to suggest, principally (though not exclusively) the product of human
industry, indeed, the work of men who lived in a time and place far removed
from our own? Are its stories really true? If they are, was not even
questioning their accuracy a sacrilege—a heresy, as Briggs's accusers charged?
Or was it perfectly proper for biblical scholars, like all other
university-trained researchers, to pursue their theories untrammeled, looking
deeply into every aspect of the Bible and letting the chips fall where they
may?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As the
delegates rose one by one to cast their votes at the General Assembly, many of
them must have felt that they were taking a stand on the Bible's own future.
What are we to believe about it from now on? And how had it happened that this
basically decent man, a professing Protestant deeply committed to his church,
ended up espousing beliefs that so profoundly clashed with traditional faith?
The two questions are actually intertwined and a useful point of introduction
to this book, since a full answer to both must begin with a look back to the
time of the Bible's own origins, more than three thousand years earlier.</p></blockquote><p>[Kugel covers a number of topics, including the fact that the serious Bible scholarship was being done in Germany]</p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Education of Charles Augustus Briggs</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To learn
more about such theories, Charles A. Briggs, who had begun his studies at Union
Theological Seminary with some of the leading American scholars of the day,
sailed to Germany in the summer of 1866, accompanied by his young wife, Julie.
The place he had selected for further study was the University of Berlin, the
same institution at which his teacher and close advisor at Union, Henry Boynton
Smith, had pursued his doctoral studies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At almost
precisely the same moment, a young German divinity student, Julius Wellhausen,
was beginning his studies at the University of Gottingen with one of the
leading biblical scholars of the day, Heinrich Ewald (1802-75). Wellhausen and
Briggs were thus close contemporaries (Briggs was three years older), and they
were destined to play somewhat similar roles in their native lands. Both were
eloquent spokesmen for the new, "historical" approach to
understanding the Bible and its process of creation, and both succeeded in
large measure in convincing their fellow scholars of the correctness of this
approach (although neither managed to bring many of their conservative
coreligionists to accept the new ideas). Both were also hailed as great
scholars in their own right—indeed, in this respect, Julius Wellhausen was even
more successful than Charles A. Briggs. Wellhausen is largely considered one of
the founders—the founder, some would say—of contemporary biblical scholarship.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Wellhausen's
reputation rests largely on his wide-ranging study Prole-<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[41]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>gomena to the History of Israel (1883 ).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>n71 Among the topics covered in this work was the puzzle of the Pentateuch.
Building on the work of predecessors (notably K. H. Graf), Wellhausen put
forward a fourfold Documentary Hypothesis to explain the authorship of the
Pentateuch. According to his scheme, the Pentateuch had been composed in
sequence. The priestly source (P), previously thought by some scholars to be
the earliest source, was actually the latest, he said; before it came D, still
earlier E, and before all of these, J. (The J source belonged, however,
centuries after the time of the real Moses.) Wellhausen's claim was not only
that these different sources existed, but that they in turn bore witness to the
gradual evolution of Israel's religion. n72 At the time when the J texts were
written, Wellhausen believed, Israel was still a naïve and unsophisticated
people, not very different from its Canaanite neighbors. J thus demonstrates a
rather "primitive," corporeal conception of God, and J's world is an
altogether polytheistic (or even animistic) one. The E source, though also
early, "breathes the air of the prophets" and bears witness to the
first signs of a more advanced theology in Israel! n73 Nevertheless, the
religion of both J and E is closely tied to the natural world and the
agricultural cycle: to hear J and E tell it, the sole purpose of Israel's major
festivals was to celebrate God's bounty at harvest time. Theirs is also an
easygoing, spontaneous, and unencumbered faith; for example, there is as yet no
fixed, hereditary priesthood. By the time D comes along, all this has changed.
D's presentation of God is far more abstract, and his attention is turned from
the natural world to that of law and history; the annual festivals have begun
to be explained as celebrating events from Israel's past, and keeping God's
more and more elaborate laws (including those of an established priesthood)
becomes a central religious concern. Finally, in P, Israel's religion has
become a thing of priestly ceremonies utterly divorced from the natural world
and even from the common people, and the process of historicizing attested in D
is far more pronounced.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Wellhausen's
scheme, apart from the detailed support its author marshaled from every part of
the Bible, appealed to his readers because the very idea of development—that
more complex things evolve out of simpler forms—was much in vogue in Europe at
the time. Today, we tend to take this idea for granted, but it had become a
moving force and model for understanding history only in the nineteenth
century. It was particularly characteristic of the Romantic movement in literature
n 74 and put its stamp on European thought particularly through the writings of
the philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831). Israel's religious conceptions,
in Wellhausen's view, could be shown to fit quite well with Hegel's ideas of
historical development.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But is any
of this true? Today, more than a century after Wellhausen wrote, many people of
traditional religious faith — Christians and Jews —<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>reject his claims and continue to maintain
that Moses was the sole author of the Pentateuch. Any appearance of different
documents or historical develop-<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>[42]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ment is an illusion, they
say. Indeed, a glance at the history recited above, they would point out, will
show just how speculative the whole thing is: the theories keep changing—P is
early, P is late; there are three sources; no, four; no, five; no, more! Thus,
on the Internet today are numerous sites devoted to arguing against the
Documentary Hypothesis: Wellhausen's theories are just that, they say, theories
for which no absolute, scientific proof can ever exist. Indeed, a number of
trained university scholars have endorsed some version of this position over
the past century. But today, it must be conceded, the majority of biblical
scholars in American and European universities are convinced by the idea of the
Pentateuch's multiple authorship. Even if no absolute proof exists, they say,
some theory of different authors is the most logical and parsimonious n75 way
to make sense of the evidence. As will be seen on the following pages, some
elements of Wellhausen's approach have been modified over time, n76 and of late
a serious challenge has been mounted to its chronological ordering of things,
n77 but the basic idea of the Documentary Hypothesis has nonetheless survived
the sustained scrutiny of scholars over the last century.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Documentary Hypothesis is only one issue among many in which current university
scholarship is pitted against traditional religious belief. But at the end of
the nineteenth century, it was a particularly emotional and symbolic one. Books
and museums and Bibles themselves were full of pictures of the old, bearded
Moses bringing God's sacred laws to the people of Israel. Could it be that this
was all fiction, that in place of Moses stood four or more faceless figures who
wrote at different times in Israel's history and whose overall ideas—about God
as well as about the particulars of Israel's religion— were quite at odds with
one another?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Briggs Heresy</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In Berlin,
Briggs studied the ideas of Wellhausen's immediate predecessors and teachers,
and they had an electric effect on the young evangelist's faith. He did not
reject them—on the contrary, they came to Briggs (who had long been studying
the Bible in Hebrew and knew it well) with the force of divine revelation.
Describing his first six months of study at Berlin, Briggs wrote to his uncle
Marvin in January of 1867:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>When a new light dawns from above, most men cling to the old
and can't believe any new light possible. But the world needs new views of the
truth. The old doctrines are good but insufficient. . . . Let us seek more
light under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I cannot doubt but that I have
been blessed with a new divine light. I feel a different man from what I was a
few months ago. The Bible is lit up with a new light. n78</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[43]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Briggs followed that "new light" with the
enthusiasm of a proselyte. Back in the United States, he soon began his
professional life of teaching and writing and made it his personal mission to
promote the new biblical scholarship to his colleagues and students, all the
while contributing mightily to it in his own research. What he was out to
discover was nothing less than the truth, "what really happened," as
German scholars like to put it. n79 Surely there could be nothing bad about the
truth. It might jostle some long-held notions, Briggs felt, but in the end it
had to be beneficial; indeed, it would reveal the unadulterated, pristine basis
of Christian faith.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He did not
pursue this mission unopposed; from the beginning, many of his coreligionists
resisted the new ideas of German scholars and their American exponents. But
when it came to these opponents—particularly old- guard ministers who were in
the habit of using the Bible to support their own, dogmatic views—Briggs did
not pull any punches:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>The real reason these men are battling us is because their
kind of Bible is being attacked. Destroy their kind of Bible and you destroy
them. The Dogmaticians must therefore do battle with Higher Criticism [that is,
the efforts of Wellhausen and others to discover how Scripture came to be]
because Higher Criticism is taking away their very bread and butter. For it is
destroying their prooftexts, which is the very stuff of their sermons. n80</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Such
combativeness, along with the substance of Briggs's ideas, are what ultimately
got him in trouble with his denomination. In his famous inaugural address,
Briggs denounced the "dead wood, dry and brittle stubble, and noxious
weeds" of current teaching. n81 The old ways of thinking needed to go, not
just with regard to biblical interpretation, but with fundamental matters of
church teachings and its day-to-day policies. "Criticism is at work with
knife and fire," he said that night. "Let us cut down everything that
is dead and harmful, every kind of dead orthodoxy."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>n82<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In spite of
his critics, Briggs forged ahead with his mission. Today, he is considered a
hero of—and something of a martyr to—the cause of modern biblical scholarship.
His trial did not turn out as he had hoped. When the votes were counted the
next day in Washington, D.C., a hefty majority of the delegates were found to
have voted against him. A formal statement was prepared following the vote,
declaring that<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>this General Assembly finds that Charles A. Briggs has
uttered, taught and propagated views, doctrines and teachings as set forth in
the said charges contrary to the essential doctrine of Holy Scripture and the
Standards, and in violation of his ordination vow.... Wherefore this General
Assembly does hereby suspend Charles A. Briggs, the said appellee, from the
office of minister in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[44]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To be sure, unlike convicted heretics in an earlier age,
Briggs was not burned at the stake. In fact, he was even able to stay on at
<b>Union Theological Seminary, which voted to sever its connection with the
Presbyterian Church in order to keep Briggs in his new chair.</b> (After a while,
he also received a new ordination, this time as a priest of the Protestant
Episcopal Church.) But he was certainly jarred, and scarred, by the trial.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Despite his
tribulations, Briggs continued his mission to slash away the "dead
wood" (a goal he pursued in connection with another of his longstanding
causes, doctrinal reform and Christian unity). Indeed, in a particularly
stirring passage from one of his later books, Briggs switched metaphors,
comparing the modern scholar's work not to pruning and clearing an overgrown
field but to the clearing done by a modern archaeologist digging down into an
ancient site:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>Ancient Jerusalem lies buried beneath the rubbish of more
than eighteen centuries. It is covered over by the blood-stained dust of
myriads of warriors, who have battled heroically under its walls and in its
towers and streets. Its valleys are filled with the debris of palaces, churches,
and temples. But the Holy Place of three great religions is still there, and
thither countless multitudes turn in holy reverence and pious pilgrimage. In
recent times this rubbish has in a measure been explored; and by digging to the
rock-bed and the ancient foundations bearing the marks of the Phoenician
workmen, the ancient city of the holy times has been recovered, and may now be
constructed in our minds by the artist and the historian with essential
accuracy.</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Just so the
Holy Scripture, as given by divine inspiration to holy prophets, lies buried
beneath the rubbish of centuries. It is covered over with the debris of the
traditional interpretations of the multitudinous schools and sects. . . . The
valleys of biblical truth have been filled up with the debris of human dogmas,
ecclesiastical institutions, liturgical formulas, priestly ceremonies, and
casuistic practices. Historical criticism is digging through this mass of
rubbish. Historical criticism is searching for the rock- bed of the Divine word,
in order to recover the real Bible. Historical criticism is sifting all this
rubbish. It will gather out every precious stone. Nothing will escape its keen
eye.</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This passage might, in some respects, be seen as prophetic.
Written almost exactly a hundred years ago, it foretells the twentieth
century's concerted effort to uncover some of the Bible's deepest secrets, as
will be documented in the chapters that follow. Briggs could only sense some of
the changes that the new century would inaugurate: the flowering of archaeology
as a science, bringing with it a new accuracy in the dating of ancient sites
and a wealth of information about how biblical Israelites lived and even what
they really<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[45]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>believed; the decipherment of literally
thousands of ancient texts written by Israel's neighbors, which offer fresh
insights into the history and culture of the ancient Near East; and a far more
sophisticated understanding of the biblical text itself, shedding new light on
the historical background of different biblical books as well as revealing the
meaning of previously misunderstood words and verses and whole chapters. Yet
along with its vision of the future, the above passage reveals Briggs's blind
spot—one that he shared with the rest of his own and the next two or three
generations of biblical critics. The "real Bible" he spoke of has
proven to be a far more elusive item than he or they ever imagined. Indeed, as
I hope to show, finding that real Bible may ultimately have something to do
with all those traditional interpretations for which Briggs had only
contempt—the "rubbish" or "debris" that he wished to sweep
away in his search for the "rock-bed of the Divine word." The
following chapters will attempt to tell that story too.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-82286710522017474272021-05-21T11:02:00.003-04:002021-05-21T11:06:20.098-04:00Further on Midrash - Having Our Bible and Criticizing It Too (5/21/21)<p>I previously offered a post titled "On Midrash (5/3/21)." In that post, I offered some discussion by Professor James Kugel. Professor Kugel has an offering today on "Having Our Bible and Criticizing It Too", <a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/having-our-bible-and-criticizing-it-too?fbclid=IwAR3GkA-aq5o1Mc8wz5SIoku9hTwGVT0qeSlcacCxHr7W_i7YQCnbeFtICOA">here</a>. In it, he offers some discussion of midrash. I quote the ending (the punch-line, so to speak):</p><p></p><blockquote><p>My talk concerned the well-known midrash about Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, according to which Joseph was indeed tempted to sin, until at the last minute he had a vision of his father’s face and immediately desisted. My talk was about how this midrash had come into existence.</p><p>When it came time for questions, her hand shot up. I tried looking the other way, but finally I gave in and called on her. “I’m from Byalishtok [Białystok],” she said—and indeed, she had a rather heavy Yiddish accent—and this medrash you’re talking, the father’s face—everyone in Byalishtok knew about this medrash. You didn’t say anything new.</p><p>In fact, there was a boy in Byalishtok, Shmulik his name, and he…” at this point she paused, staring at me with a look that combined equal measures of pity and disdain. “Do you know what is beis boishes?” (A brothel.) “Yes,” I said weakly. “Well, this Shmulik, he goes into the beis boishes, but after a minute he comes rushing out. “What happened?” his friends ask him. “Maybe you see your father’s face, like Yoisef ha-Tzaddik?” “No,” Shmulik said, “just his galoshes.”</p><p></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-52482044824604921372021-05-15T20:15:00.002-04:002021-05-15T20:15:34.554-04:00Isaiah 7:14 - Virgin or Young Woman? (5/14/21)<p>Among the verses we will discuss at the second session, on 5/16, is Isaiah 7:14. The known key “facts” are as follows: (1) The biblical Hebrew for the verse refers to a “young woman” meaning just that, young woman, without necessarily being a virgin; (2) in translating Isaiah 7:14 into Greek for the Septuagint, the translator(s) used the Greek word Parthenos which did mean virgin; and (3) the Christian tradition took their “Old Testament” from translations influenced by the Septuagint. Hence, Matthew and Luke anchor their narratives in a virgin birth prophesied by Isaiah.</p><p><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah+7%3A14-16&version=NRSV">Isaiah 7:14 (NRSV)</a> says (emphasis supplied): </p><p></p><blockquote><p>Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the <b>young woman</b>[a] is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.</p><p>[a] Isaiah 7:14 Gk the virgin</p></blockquote><p></p><p><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah+7%3A14-16&version=KJV">Isaiah 7:14 (KJV)</a> says (emphasis supplied):</p><p></p><blockquote>Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, <b>a virgin</b> shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.</blockquote><p>The NRSV has gone back to the best translation of the Biblical Hebrew. </p><p></p><p>Kugel (pp. 539-552) addresses this verse as follows after translating the Biblical Hebrew verse as follows (emphasis supplied):</p><p></p><blockquote>Suppose a certain <b>young woman</b> gets pregnant and gives birth to a son; she should give him the name “God-amidst-us” [Hebrew: ‘Immanu-’el].</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p></p><blockquote>* * * * </blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p><b>Immanuel </b></p><p>The exact identity and nature of the “certain young woman” who gets pregnant in Isaiah’s above-cited oracle is somewhat controversial: was she a real person, or merely hypothetical? * * * * The next word, ha-‘almah, translated as “a certain young woman,” might also be rendered simply as “the young woman.” Some scholars have in fact suggested that the definite article here implies a known individual—perhaps Ahaz’s own wife, or Isaiah’s. * * * * However, biblical Hebrew sometimes also uses definite articles and even demonstratives in an indefinite sense, in the same way that an English speaker might say, “This guy came up to me and started talking French,” where “this guy” really means “an undefined person, someone I never met before.” Considering this ambiguity, “a certain young woman” seems to preserve better the vagueness of the Hebrew: she might be known or might not be. As for “young woman,” that is how ‘almah is usually translated nowadays; the word does not necessarily tell us whether she is married or not.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>It is interesting, however, that when the Bible was translated into Greek, starting in the third century BCE, Isaiah’s “young woman” was translated as parthenos, which probably did mean “virgin” to the translators. (It seems unlikely, however, that in so translating they meant to imply an actual parthenogenesis or virgin birth; more likely, they simply meant that a virgin would get married, become pregnant in the usual way, and then give birth.) Since, at least in Greek, the Bible now specified that the young woman was a virgin, this verse was cited by the Gospel of Matthew in connection with its account of the virgin birth of Jesus:</p><p></p><blockquote>When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly. But just when he had decided to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Immanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son, and he named him Jesus. </blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote> Matt. 1:18–25</blockquote><p></p><p>The name to be given to this child thus came to acquire a new meaning: “God-amidst-us” referred not to God’s presence in the Jerusalem temple, but to God’s presence in the midst of Israel in the person of Jesus. Once again, the Old Testament seemed to early Christians to have predicted the events of the New. For that reason, the precise meaning of Isaiah’s words apparently became a much-discussed item in the early debates between Jews and Christians: </p><p></p><blockquote>Also the words “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son” were spoken in advance of him [Jesus] . . . But you [Justin’s Jewish interlocutor Trypho] dare to pervert the translations which your own elders [the translators of the Septuagint] made at the court of King Ptolemy of Egypt and say that the text does not have the meaning as they translated it but “Behold, the young woman shall conceive”—as if something of importance were being signified by a young woman giving birth after human intercourse, which all young women do, save for the infertile, and even these God can, if He will, cause to give birth. </blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote> Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 84</blockquote><p></p></blockquote>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-62893617096310534002021-05-13T12:28:00.007-04:002021-10-02T11:43:59.231-04:00Written Torah and Oral Torah in the Jewish Tradition (5/13/21; 5/22/21)<p>Last week, in the Sunday School class we briefly discussed
the Oral Torah and its relationship to the Written Torah (first five books of
the Hebrew Bible and of the Old Testament).
Today, I was reading James Kugel's Blog entry for May 17, <a href="https://www.jameskugel.com/weekly-torah-reading-shavuot-may-17-2021/">here</a>, titled
Word of Mouth. I won’t get into the details of the blog entry, but the ending
was this after discussing a hidden message: “At its heart is the idea that the
words of the Written Torah tell only half the story.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That thought inspired me to offer more on Oral Torah for participants
in the class and others who are not familiar with Jewish concepts. Kugel offers
this discussion from <u>How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now,</u> (pp. 679-681, footnotes and endnotes omitted and some text omitted):</p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">The founders of what was to become, after the first century
CE, the dominant form of Judaism (“rabbinic Judaism”) had always attributed
great importance to the Torah’s traditions of interpretation. In fact—for
various reasons that need not detain us here—those traditions were granted a
special status in Judaism: they were referred to collectively as the
Torah-that-was-transmitted-orally (or “Oral Torah” for short), and they were
sometimes asserted to go back all the way to the time of Moses himself, who had
received them at the same time that he received the written text of the
Pentateuch. If so, according to the exponents of rabbinic Judaism, then there
were really two Torahs, the written Pentateuch and the traditions of its proper
interpretation and application, which had been transmitted orally along with
it. In the terms that we have seen, this was a kind of canonization of the
idea that Abraham was a monotheist who underwent ten tests; that Jacob was a
learned student, while his brother Esau was a brutish lout; that the Israelites
heard only the first two of the Ten Commandments directly from God; that in
forbidding “work” on the sabbath, the Torah had in mind precisely thirty-nine
different types of work; that the Torah’s law of guardians distinguishes
between a paid and an unpaid guardian; that a water-giving rock followed the
Israelites in the desert; that the Shema is to be recited every morning and
evening; and so on and so forth. All such traditions were held to be of equal
authority with the written text, and this idea has remained a central tenet of
Judaism to this day.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The “Oral Torah,” it should be noted, consisted of more than
biblical interpretation alone—it also contained rules governing a number of
matters not covered in the Pentateuch (for example, prayers and blessings to be
recited on various occasions; agricultural laws; some torts and other areas of
civil law; matters connected with betrothal, marriage, and divorce; parts of
criminal law and judicial procedure; a detailed description of temple rites,
purity statutes, and so forth). It thus included a vast body of material, and
even though it continued to be called the “Oral Torah,” this material was
eventually committed to writing—it became the Mishnah and Tosefta and the two
Talmuds and various compilations of midrash in different genres. Thus, today,
Judaism has essentially two canons, the biblical one and the great corpus of
writings included under the Oral Torah.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Although these two bodies of writings were, and are, said to
be of equal authority, in practice, the Oral Torah always wins. The written
Torah may say “an eye for an eye,” but what these words mean is what the Oral
Torah says they mean, namely, monetary compensation for any such injury (b.
Baba Qamma 83b–84a). The written Torah may say that Jacob went to his father
“deceitfully,” but the Oral Torah explains that he really didn’t lie. And so on
and so forth for every apparent problem, every inconsistency or contradiction
or infelicity in the written text. The solutions produced by the Bible’s
ancient interpreters simply became what the text meant. So Judaism has at its
heart a great secret. It endlessly lavishes praise on the written Torah,
exalting its role as a divinely given guidebook and probing lovingly the
tiniest details of its wording and even spelling. Every sabbath the Torah is,
quite literally, held up above the heads of worshipers in synagogue, kissed and
bowed to and touched in gestures of fealty and absolute submission, some of
which may, incidentally, be traced all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia. Yet
upon inspection Judaism turns out to be quite the opposite of fundamentalism.
The written text alone is not all-powerful; in fact, it rarely stands on its
own. Its true significance usually lies not in the plain sense of its words but
in what the Oral Torah has made of those words; this is its definitive and
final interpretation.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a result, the whole approach of modern biblical
scholarship, which is predicated on disregarding the ancient interpretive
traditions of Judaism (and, for that matter, Christianity) and rejecting the
four fundamental assumptions that underlie them, must inevitably come into
conflict with traditional Jewish belief and practice. The modern program rules
out of bounds precisely that which is, for traditional Jews, the Torah’s
ultimate significance and its definitive interpretation. To insist on taking the
Torah’s words at face value, without regard to what the Oral Torah says about
them, is thus for a traditional Jew somewhat comparable to telling a Christian
that he or she must take the laws of the Old Testament at face value, without
regard for all that Paul has to say about them in the New Testament, as well as
about the new covenant of Christianity that has come to take their place. I do
not know any Christians who would accept such a proposition.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>* * * *<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[After discussing Song of Songs (Song of Solomon in the OT)
to illustrate that it was not what the original writer of the text meant (bawdy
love poem) but rather what the community interpreted it to mean (love of God for the community) when it was
made canonical; he further illustrates with a thought example using the song
She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain, a secular traditional song, that some hypothetical religious community reimagines as a
story of God’s love for the community and, once interpreted in this way, may
never mean the same again at least for that community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With that background
Kugel says:]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What made them the Bible, however, was their definitive
reinterpretation, along the lines of the Four Assumptions of the ancient
interpreters—a way of reading that was established in Judaism in the form of
the Oral Torah. Read the Bible in this way and you are reading it properly,
that is, in keeping with the understanding of those who made and canonized the
Bible. Read it any other way and you have drastically misconstrued the
intentions of the Bible’s framers. You are like someone who thinks Swift’s
satirical Modest Proposal was a serious program for ending the famine in
Ireland—or perhaps a better example from our discussion of the Song of Songs:
you are like someone who understands the words of “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the
Mountain” like a twelve-year-old camper. No one has ever told you about its
other meaning; that is to say, no one has explained to you why the adults are
singing it with religious fervor. Don’t tell me that original songwriter’s
intention is everything: when the grown-ups sing it, every word has the
messianic meaning I described. Now if it doesn’t for you (and if you’re not a
twelve-year-old camper), then why are you singing it at all? Similarly with the
Song of Songs and with all of Scripture: its true meaning is not the original
meaning of its constituent parts, but the meaning it had for the people who
first saw it as the Bible, God’s great book of instruction. If it doesn’t have
that meaning for you anymore—if all it is is etiological tales and priestly
polemics and political speeches—then why are you singing it?</p></blockquote><p>On the importance of the Oral Law, the following is from Amy Jill Levine, <u>The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus</u> (HarperSanFrancisco 2006):</p><p></p><blockquote><p>According to the rabbinic tradition, at the same time Moses received the written Torah, he received the "oral Torah" or "oral Law" as well; this tradition of interpretation Moses passed on to Joshua, who delivered it to his successors, and on to the rabbis and their heirs today. Pirke Avot, a tractate of the Mishnah, details the transmission of the tradition.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Because of oral Law, one cannot read a text from the written Torah and claim to know what Judaism teaches. A number of Christians believe, primarily because of Jesus's statement in the Sermon on the Mount, "You have heard that it said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer" (Matt. 5:38, citing Exod. 21:23-24; Lev. 24:19-20; Deut. 19:21; the next verse in Matthew speaks of turning the other cheek), that Judaism teaches justice without mercy and Jesus invented the mechanism to stop the retributive system. But Jewish tradition has its own gloss on that earlier legal material. The rabbis noted that there could never be certainty that the punishment was not worse than the crime, so they determined that, in the case of injury, the one causing the injury does not surrender a body part. Instead, they worked out a legal system that requires compensatory payment determined on the basis of damages, pain, medical expenses, loss of work due to injury, and anguish or. embarrassment.' Thereby, the rabbinic tradition also refuses to repay evil with evil, even as it prepares anyone who studies it for law school. </p><p>[*203] </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When it comes to the legal or paraenetic material in their respective canons, both Christian and Jewish communities claim the right of interpretation, just as today in the United States judges provide interpretations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Does the "right to bear arms" mean that one can carry a concealed gun into a church? Does the clause prohibiting Congress from establishing religion extend to the states? Is execution in the electric chair "cruel and unusual punishment"? The current debates over these issues show that interpretation of legal material is often both controversial and complicated.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For Jesus, interpretation of legal materials seems to have developed on an ad hoc basis. Someone would inquire about the legality of a particular issue, and he would offer a response. * * * * Jesus arrogated to himself the right to interpret Torah, and he did so in what the Gospels record was a remarkable way. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew states: "Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes" (7:28-29). That is, he spoke without citing his teachers and without always offering scriptural precedent or justification.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the Babylonian Talmud, the synagogue's arrogation to itself of the power to interpret Torah is discussed in a famous passage concerning the relatively mundane question of whether a particular oven is kosher. The protagonist, Rabbi Eliezer, argues that the oven is ritually pure, although his fellow rabbis disagree:</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Rabbi Eliezer related all the answers of the world and they were not accepted. Then he said, "Let this carob tree prove that the Halakhah agrees with me." Thereupon the carob tree was torn a hundred cubits out of its place (others affirm, four hundred cubits). They answered, "No proof can be brought from a carob tree:'</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Again he said to them: "Let the spring of water prove that the Halakhah prevails." Thereupon the stream of water flowed backwards. They answered, "No proof can be brought from a stream of water."</p><p>[*204]</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Again he said to them: "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the walls of the study house prove it," whereupon the walls were about to fall. But Rabbi Joshua rebuked them, saying: "When the sages of this study house are engaged in a Halakhic dispute, what (right) do You have to interfere?" They did not fall, in honor of Rabbi Joshua, nor did they resume the upright (position), in honor of Rabbi Eliezer; and they are still standing this way today.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Again he said to them: "Let it be announced by the heavens that the Halakhah prevails according to my statement!" A voice from heaven [bat qol, literally, "daughter of the voice"; the voice that speaks at Jesus's baptism is a bat qol] cried out: "Why do you dispute with Rabbi Eliezer, seeing that in all matters the Halakhah agrees with him?" But Rabbi Joshua arose and exclaimed: "The Torah is not in heaven.'' [See Deut. 30:12-14: "It is not in heaven, that you should say, `Who will go up to heaven for us and get it for us so that we may hear and observe it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, `Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us that we may hear it and observe it?' No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth, and in your heart for you to observe]</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Rabbi Jeremiah [explaining this comment] said, "The Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a voice from heaven [bat qol], because You have written that `one follows the majority" [Exod. 23:2].</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Rabbi Nathan met Elijah [the prophet] and asked him, "What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour?" He replied, "He laughed [with joy], saying, "My sons have defeated [or overruled] Me, My sons have defeated Me." (Baba Metzia 59a)</p></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The passage teaches that because God has given Israel the Torah, it is now Israel's role to interpret it; in so doing, Israel honors both the Scriptures and God. The passage also indicates the responsibility of the communal voice: neither miracles nor individual charismatic authority can drive community practice. For the rabbinic tradition, no matter how honored, wise, or holy the individual rabbi, the "sages," speaking for and as the community, make final determinations on legal matters.</p></blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-56928701178964094222021-05-13T11:01:00.002-04:002021-05-13T11:07:15.471-04:00Kugel on Christian Interpretation of the Binding of Isaac Story in Genesis (5/13/21)<p class="MsoNormal">This week’s session (5/16 at 9:30am) will include a
discussion of how Christians and Jews interpret the Binding of Isaac story in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+22%3A1-19&version=NRSV">Genesis
22:1-19</a> . Randy Scofield, will be leading
that discussion. I thought it might be helpful
to readers to have a different view of the Christian interpretation. This view is from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kugel">James Kugel</a>, an Orthodox Jew and a
noted Hebrew Bible scholar who has considered both Jewish and Christian interpretations
of the Hebrew Bible, as presented in his wonderful book, <u>How to Read the
Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now, Amazon</u> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-Guide-Scripture-ebook/dp/B007108SQK/ref=sr_1_3?crid=ZC88ZV98QXHU&dchild=1&keywords=kugel+how+to+read+the+bible&qid=1620917016&sprefix=kugel+how+to+read+%2Celectronics%2C141&sr=8-3">here</a>. In a subsection of his chapter 8 on the
Trials of Abraham, Kugel offers the following on Christian interpretation of
the Binding of Isaac story (footnotes and endnotes omitted):<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b></b></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Foreshadowing of the Crucifixion</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The typological approach to Scripture (see chapter 1) had
some Jewish antecedents, but it was essentially a very Christian way of
reading. According to this approach, early things foreshadow later ones; more
specifically, Christians came to believe that things contained in the Old
Testament are actually there as hints or allusions to events in the life of
Jesus or to elements of Christian belief and practice (the Trinity, the
Eucharist, baptism, and so forth). To put it another way: the Old Testament may
not seem like a Christian book, but its stories and laws and prophecies all
correspond to something in the New Testament or even in post–New Testament
Christianity.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The roots of this idea are not hard to find: as we shall
see, certain verses in the Psalms and the book of Isaiah were, from a very
early stage of Christianity, taken as prophecies of the events of the Gospels.
But after a while, the typologies began to suggest themselves at every turn:
Adam, Abel, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and other figures were all read as
foreshadowings or prefigurations (figurae they were called in Latin, “figures”)
of Jesus. So was Isaac. After all, his father offered him up to be killed as a
sacrifice—certainly anyone who thought of Jesus as the son of God could see the
parallel.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>If God is for us, then who is against us? He who did not
spare His own son but gave him up for us all, will He not also give us all
things along with him? </blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote> Rom. 8:31–32</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>[Jesus was the fulfillment of] that which was foreshadowed
in Isaac, who was offered upon the altar. </blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote> Letter of Barnabas 7:3<span><a name='more'></a></span> </blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Eventually, other elements were found to suggest further
correspondences between the story of Isaac and the crucifixion:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>And on this account Isaac carried the wood on which he was
to be offered up to the place of sacrifice, just as the Lord himself carried
his own cross. Finally, since Isaac himself was not killed—for his father had
been forbidden to kill him—who was that ram which was offered instead, and by
whose foreshadowing blood the sacrifice was accomplished? For when Abraham had
caught sight of him, he was caught by the horns in a thicket. Who then did he
represent but Jesus, who, before he was offered up, had been crowned with
thorns? </blockquote><p></p></blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote> Augustine, City of God 16:32</blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Such, in short, is the portrait of Abraham that first
emerged toward the end of the biblical period. Having been tested by God on
multiple occasions, Abraham never lost his faith; even when God demanded he
give up his beloved son, the biblical patriarch did not flinch. As for Isaac,
he was a willing victim, a would-be martyr to his own trust in God. For
Christians, the story of that great near-sacrifice was confirmation of the Old
Testament’s foreshadowing of the New—and hence, further proof that God had
arranged all in advance and according to His own plan. These interpretations,
created by the Bible’s ancient interpreters, were then lovingly passed down
from late antiquity through the Middle Ages and on to the present day.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Just a plug for Kugel’s book above. It is simply my go-to book for understanding
at least traditional interpretation and modern Jewish and Christian scholarship
on the Hebrew Bible. He has a parallel
offering in the Bible as it Was, but How to Read the Bible is the go-to book
for me. </p><p class="MsoNormal">By the way, I noted above that, in the excerpts I copy and pasted, I omitted footnotes and endnotes. It is a rare book indeed that has both footnotes and endnotes. Kugel uses endnotes for the scholar/reader but footnotes for the lay reader. I love footnotes and endnotes, even in the usual format of only offering footnotes or endnotes.</p><p class="MsoNormal">And, for those who are Wikipedia fans, here are the Wikipedia discussions of the two different views: Wikipedia – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac#Jewish_views">Jewish Views</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac#Christian_views">Christian Views</a></p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-80719696288687187982021-05-11T10:15:00.003-04:002021-05-11T10:20:28.520-04:00On Belief and Action (5/11/21)<p>In the book we are studying (<u>The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently</u>), Professors Levine and Brettler state the following (Kindle edition p. 33):</p><p></p><blockquote>In Judaism, orthopraxy, what one does, is more important than orthodoxy, what one believes. There are Jewish atheists; technically, however, “Christian atheist” would be an oxymoron.</blockquote><p></p><p>Somewhat on this theme, this morning I was reviewing an offering from Torah.com titled: <u><a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/torah-misinai-and-biblical-criticism-rising-to-the-full-challenge">Torah MiSinai and Biblical Criticism: Rising to the Full Challenge</a></u> by Dr. Rabbi Jeremy Rosen. Here are some excerpts from the beginning of a longer offering:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><b>Part 1</b></p><p><b>Tradition and Biblical Criticism: Describing Elements of Confrontation</b></p><p>Biblical Criticism challenges a traditional dogma that all the text of the Torah that we have in our possession today was written down by Moses on the instruction of God during one brief historical period over three thousand years ago. Does this mean that it is incompatible with the belief of <i>Torah Min Hashamayim</i> (Torah from Heaven)? Certainly, the Torah can be from heaven even if it is not from Moses. But what about <i>Torah MiSinai</i>? Does accepting the findings of academic biblical scholarship mean that it is necessarily incompatible with the idea of <i>Torah MiSinai</i>? This essay explores the possibility that the two worldviews are more complementary than many Jews seem to think</p><p><b>Emunah or Belief?<span></span></b></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>It has always struck me as significant that the Torah does not expressly command one “to believe.” The first of the Ten Commandments is a statement. It asserts that God is the ultimate authority and power. It assumes a total commitment; it is the basis and foundation of our religion. However, the verse does not actually say anywhere, as a command, “You must believe.” Indeed it is inaccurate to translate the biblical Hebrew word <i>emunah</i> as belief. Rather it means conviction, trust, which you might say, is far more significant than an abstract and unverifiable concept.</p><p>The term “belief” is open to too many cultural and theological nuances. The Torah uses belief much less theologically than practically. Belief is difficult to legislate. You can check on how people behave but how do you test what someone actually believes? Avraham is commanded to “walk before me and be sincere” (Genesis 17.1). This seems to me to characterize the essence of one’s relationship with the divine more than the abstraction of belief.</p><p>Part of the genius of Torah is that it does not try to specify any credo. It was not until medieval times that there was any such formulation in Judaism. The Torah, by not specifying the commands about God in detail thereby acknowledges that the human mind can be led but it cannot be constrained. The Torah tells little about the nature of God other than that God is unique, the Creator and cannot be “seen” by a living being. There are also the “Thirteen Qualities of God,” but they are not formulated as a religious creed, a much later development. Instead, each one of us must find the specific way we can relate to God and make sense of God’s world and God’s Torah. The Torah, in other words is a pre-philosophical text.</p></blockquote>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-29350346110815918552021-05-09T07:31:00.002-04:002021-05-09T07:31:50.452-04:00Different Perspectives; Different Stories; Better Picture (5/9/21)<p>At WPC, we are starting today a series <a href="https://jacktownsendmusings.blogspot.com/p/wpc-class-on-christian-and-jewish.html">On Christian and Jewish Readings of Biblical Text</a>. The difference is the lens through which the
faiths view the common bible heritage -- the Hebrew Bible/Old
Testament. I was reminded of a genre of story where, through cooperating by sharing our perspectives, we can get a more complete picture. The web
link for the story below is <a href="https://www.jewishlearningmatters.com/AC1-The-Story-Of-The-Six-Blind-Men-701.aspx">here</a>,
but I copy and paste here for easier reading:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>THE STORY OF THE SIX BLIND MEN </b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(An Indian fable, modernized and retold by Phil Shapiro.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived six blind
men. Each of them was very wise. Each of them had gone to school and read lots
of books in Braille. They knew so much of many things that people would often
come from miles around to get their advice. They were happy to share whatever
they knew with the people who asked them thoughtful questions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One day these six wise blind men went for a walk in the zoo.
That day the zookeeper was worrying about all of her many troubles. The night
before she had had an argument with her husband, and her children had been
misbehaving all day long. She had so much on her mind that she forgot to lock
the gate of the elephant cage as she was leaving it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now, elephants are naturally very curious animals. They
quickly tried to push the gate to the cage to see if it might open. To their
great surprise, the gate swung freely on its hinge. Two of the more daring
elephants walked over to the gate. They looked left and right, and then quietly
tip-toed out of the cage. Just at that moment the six blind men walked by. One
of them heard a twig snap, and went over to see what it was that was walking
by.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">"Hi there!" said the first blind man to the first
elephant. "Could you please tell us the way to the zoo restaurant?"
The elephant couldn't think of anything intelligent to say, so he sort of
shifted his weight from left to right to left to right.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first blind man walked over to see if this big silent
person needed any help. Then, with a big bump, he walked right into the side of
the elephant. He put out his arms to either side, but all he could feel was the
big body of the elephant. "Boy," said the first blind man. "I
think I must have walked into a wall."<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The second blind man was becoming more and more curious
about what was happening. He walked over to the front of the elephant and
grabbed hold of the animal's trunk.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He quickly let go and shouted, “This isn’t a wall. This is a
snake! We should step back in case it’s poisonous.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The third man quickly decided to find out what was going on
and to tell his friends what they had walked into. He walked over to the back
of the elephant and touched the animal's tail. "This is no wall, and this
is no snake. You are both wrong once again. I know for sure that this is a
rope."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The fourth man sighed as he knew how stubborn his friends
could be. The fourth blind man decided that someone should really get to the
bottom of this thing. So he crouched down on all fours and felt around the
elephant's legs. (Luckily for the fourth man, this elephant was very tame and
wouldn't think of stepping on a human being.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">"My dear friends," explained the fourth man.
"This is no wall and this is no snake. This is no rope either. What we
have here, gentlemen, is four tree trunks. That's it. Case closed."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The fifth blind man was not so quick to jump to conclusions.
He walked up to the front of the elephant and felt the animal's two long tusks.
"It seems to me that this object is made up of two swords," said the
fifth man. "What I am holding is long and curved and sharp at the end. I
am not sure what this could be, but maybe our sixth friend could help us."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The sixth blind man scratched his head and thought and
thought. He was the one who really was the wisest of all of them. He was the
one who really knew what he knew, and knew what he didn't know.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Just then the worried zookeeper walked by. "Hi there !
How are you enjoying the zoo today ?" she asked them all. "The zoo is
very nice," replied the sixth blind man. "Perhaps you could help us
figure out the answer to a question that's been puzzling us."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">"Sure thing," said the zookeeper, as she firmly
grabbed the elephant's collar.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">"My friends and I can't seem to figure out what this
thing in front of us is. One of us thinks it's a wall, one thinks it's a snake,
one thinks it's a rope, and one thinks it's four tree trunks. How can one thing
seem so different to five different people?"<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">"Well," said the zookeeper. "You are all
right. This elephant seems like something different to each one of you. And the
only way to know what this thing really is, is to do exactly what you have
done. Only by sharing what each of you knows can you possibly reach a true
understanding."<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The six wise men had to agree with the wisdom of the
zoo-keeper. The first five of them had been too quick to form an opinion
without listening to what the others had to say.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So they all went off to the zoo restaurant and had a really
hearty lunch.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Philip Shapiro, copyright 1995. The story may be freely
redistributed and reprinted for any nonprofit educational purpose. <o:p></o:p></p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-18996951648389955452021-05-03T20:55:00.006-04:002021-05-22T21:22:36.080-04:00On Midrash (5/3/21)<p>I was reading today in a book titled <u><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-bible-with-and-without-jesus-amy-jill-levinemarc-zvi-brettler?variant=32117339717666">The Bible With andWithout Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently</a></u>,
authored by Amy Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler who are prominent Jewish
professors at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Duke Center for Jewish Studies, respectively, working at the intersection of Christianity and Judaism. Chapter 3, titled "The Creation of the World" has as its first subheading "In the Beginning." Readers of this blog will probably recognize those words as the
famous King James Version opening of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=NRSV">Genesis</a>, the first chapter in the Christian
Old Testament. The Christian Old Testament
is basically the same as the Jewish Bible, also called the Tanakh (there are differences, but they are not important for present purposes). Genesis was written in Hebrew, so whether the reader of an English version gets to Genesis through the Jewish tradition or the Christian tradition it comes to
us mediated by the vagaries of translation from Biblical Hebrew.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Chapter 3 in the Levine-Brettler book with the subheading In
the Beginning starts with the quote from famous prologue to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+1-5&version=NRSV">John 1:1-5</a> (verse
numbers omitted).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into
being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come
into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.</blockquote><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Professors Levine and Brettler say that the quote “is a <b>midrash</b>, or elaboration,
on the opening verses of Genesis.” (Emphasis supplied.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As it happens, today I was working on midrash in connection
with preparing to lead a book study group connected with Torah Study at
Congregation Beth Israel in Houston.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
book is <u><a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300251883/moses">Moses: A Human Life</a></u> by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book is based significantly on midrash which,
in Jewish biblical interpretation, fills out cryptic biblical text that might puzzle
or even disturb the biblical reader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christian
interpreters also do a form of midrash, as Professors Levine and Brettler
note.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My first introduction to midrash was in a 2005 listening to an interview of
Zornberg by Krista Tippett (<a href="https://onbeing.org/programs/avivah-zornberg-the-transformation-of-pharaoh-moses-and-god/">here</a>). The midrash was on what happened after the
Israelites crossed the Red Sea and the waters closed over and drowned the
Egyptian troops pursuing them. The Israelites
on the safe side celebrated with the Song of the Sea and Miriam’s song. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2015%3A1-21&version=NIV">Exodus 15:1-21</a>. The midrash added that God stopped the angels
in heaven from singing to celebrate the Israelite’s deliverance by the killing
of the Egyptians; God rebuked the angels "the creatures of My hand, the work of My hands, are
dying in the sea. How can you be singing a song of praise?” I was stunned that Jewish tradition had added
the flourish that was not hinted in the biblical text (at least to a literal reader). The midrash extended and smoothed out what on its face was pretty harsh. (Of course, it does not explain why God had not
just made the Egyptians retreat without killing them, but that’s another story
or another midrash.)<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>I</o:p>n preparing my discussion submission to the book study
group, I spent some time trying to find a good relatively short discussion of
the concept of midrash. I thought I would
offer some of the fruits of that search here.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Zornberg in the book describes midrash:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>These [midrashic] texts, compiled mainly in Palestine from
the third to the tenth centuries, are amplifications of the biblical
narratives. Gaps are intuited, turbulences are palpated. Based on ancient
reading traditions, midrash arises out of the discussions and disagreements of
the House of Study; it often takes its origin in homiletical oral presentations
to the community. It carries authentic, even inevitable resonances of the
biblical words.</blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>As I said to the book study group:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>My distillation is that midrash (which, I think, was a
continuing process after the tenth century) offered Judaism the opportunity to
fill in the blanks of cryptic written text, in partnership with God and the biblical text, sometimes
with great imagination, to make the text meaningful to the evolving Jewish
community. Perhaps I stretch a bit and
quibble, but I think that midrash at least not only palpates
turbulences but in some cases calms turbulences.</blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another discussion of midrash from my favorite book on the Jewish
Bible, <u><a href="https://catalog.simonandschuster.com/TitleDetails/TitleDetails.aspx?cid=10897&pn=1&isbn=9780743235877&FilterBy=8&FilterVal=Paperback&FilterByName=Format&ob=0&ed=&showcart=N&camefrom=&find=&a=">How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now</a></u>, by James Kugel, offers the following on midrash after describing a midrash that added to and smoothed out turbulences in the cryptic biblical text in the Binding of Isaac story,
the Akedah:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">By interpreting the [Akedah] story in this fashion, ancient
interpreters solved two of the major problems raised by this account, God’s
apparent ignorance of how the test would turn out and Abraham’s apparent
callousness and evasiveness vis-à-vis Isaac. But did these interpreters actually
believe their own interpretations? Didn’t they know they were playing fast and
loose with the text’s real meaning?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is always a difficult question. I personally believe
that, at least at first, ancient interpreters were sometimes quite well aware
that they were distorting the straightforward meaning of the text. But with
time, that awareness began to dim. Biblical interpretation soon became an
institution in ancient Israel; one generation’s interpretations were passed on
to the next generation, and eventually they acquired the authority that time
and tradition always grant. Midrash, as this body of interpretation came to be
called, simply became what the text had always been intended to communicate.
Along with the interpretations themselves, the interpreters’ very modus
operandi acquired its own authority: this was how the Bible was to be
interpreted, period. Moreover, since the midrashic method of searching the text
carefully for hidden implications seemed to solve so many problems in the Bible
that otherwise had no solution, this indicated that the interpreters were going
about things correctly. As time went on, new interpretations were created on
the model of older ones, until soon every chapter of the Bible came accompanied
by a host of clever explanations that accounted for any perceived difficulty in
its words.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Midrash, in its ancient tradition and in its ongoing dialog
with the God of Israel, the text and the Jewish community does indeed solve many problems.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Finally, here is another midrash about Hadassah Levy, <u>Moses and the Oral Law</u> (Hadassah Levy, How did the Oral Law become part of the Torah? (Times of Israel 6/7/19), <a href="https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/how-did-the-oral-law-become-part-of-the-torah/">here</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">A famous midrash in Menachot 29b recounts a fantastical story about an interaction in heaven between Moses and God:</p><p class="MsoNormal">R. Yehuda said in the name of Rav:</p><p class="MsoNormal">When Moses ascended to the heavens, he saw God sitting and tying crowns to the letters [of the Torah].</p><p class="MsoNormal">Moses asked, “What’s the hold up [i.e., why can’t you give the Torah as is]?</p><p class="MsoNormal">God replied, “there’s a man who will be in the future, after many generations, named Akiva b. Yosef, who will find in every jot and tittle mounds of laws.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Moses said, “Master of the Universe, show him to me!”</p><p class="MsoNormal">God said, “Turn around”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Moses went and sat in the eighth row of students in R. Akiva’s class, and had no idea what they were saying. His strength deflated.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The class asked R. Akiba about a certain matter, “From whence to you know this?” He replied, “It is a Law transmitted to Moses at Sinai. Moses’ mind was put at ease.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"></p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5836147197877919827.post-27702801491627242802021-04-29T18:45:00.007-04:002021-04-30T09:19:10.053-04:00Lessons Learned Long Ago and Today (4/29/21)<p>I re-learned a valuable lesson today. The first time I learned the lesson was when a former student in a class on Real Estate Taxation at University of Houston Law School taught it to me. As I was pontificating (close but not the same as blustering or bluffing), a student asked a question. I said that I can’t answer that question, but she and I could walk through the steps to get to the right answer. (I was going to use it as a teaching experience for the student and myself.) Another student jumped in to say something to the effect that “Mr. Townsend, you don’t have to guess at the answer, it is right here in the book.” Oops. After that I repeated that anecdote to every class urging them to jump in at appropriate times to move the class along. (The student who called me out was one of my best ever, but claimed much later that he did not recall the incident; you can be sure that I did because it caused instant but temporary embarrassment which I got over.)</p><p>Earlier this week, a similar phenomenon occurred. I read another lawyer's blog on the starting date for measuring the statute of limitations for erroneous tax refund suits. (I know, yawn!) The blog discussed a case that made no sense to me. So, I responded with off-the-cuff, unresearched, reasoning that suggested the case was wrong and nonsensical. I offered no authority to support my claim. Today, I decided to explore that claim that I so off-handedly made. I worked through the cases and discovered after spending considerable time in writing my own blog (below) on that issue that my off-the-cuff comment was correct. And then, after completing my blog on the subject, I decided to check my own book on Federal Tax Procedure and found that I had nailed that issue before years ago in a footnote – footnote 1044 – in the book. Oops again. So, I did a mea culpa and comment in that new blog entry: <u>When Does the Statute of Limitations Start on the Erroneous Refund Suit?</u> (Federal Tax Procedure Blog 4/29/21), <a href="https://federaltaxprocedure.blogspot.com/2021/04/when-does-statute-of-limitations-start.html">here</a>.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>I am sure that is not the last time I will make the mistake of not checking my own writings either good or bad (in this case they were good, but if I don't have the discipline to check, I am sure in some cases it may be bad).</p>Jack Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14469823736335455874noreply@blogger.com0