1. I’m wrapping up some books tonight so that I can take them back to the library tomorrow. I’ll be replacing my daily reading of one of the books, not with another book, but rather with a daily reading of five book reviews of books that are on my comps syllabi. There is no way that I’ll be able to read all of the assigned books before I take my comps, so I want to get the gist of what many of them are about. I won’t be doing write-ups of all five book reviews each day, however, but I’ll comment on a point that stood out to me. That will be one of my items in my daily blog-post.
2. I finished Jacob Milgrom’s introduction to his commentary on Leviticus 1-16! He said that P tried to emphasize the piety of the worshipper by focusing on his (the worshipper’s) role in the ritual. That’s interesting because Leviticus is sometimes stereotyped as a manual for priests; actually, it’s about the worshipper. Milgrom also said that P sought to avoid anthropomorphic depictions of God. I think I may have mentioned this in my write-ups on Israel Knohl’s Sanctuary of Silence.
I was afraid because I thought that contradicted a recent paper I wrote for a class—on how the Deuteronomist has problems with the priestly notion that God lives in an earthly sanctuary. But I do recall that there was more nuance in my paper, for I discussed a third point-of-view: that God visits the sanctuary during worship, rather than permanently living there. As far as I can tell, that’s what Milgrom characterizes as P’s position. It’s not as anthropomorphic as the idea that God permanently dwelts in an earthly house, but it’s more anthropomorphic than the Deuteronomistic concept that the sanctuary is a house for God’s name, not God himself.
I like a comment that Milgrom makes on page 63 about medieval Jewish commentaries on Leviticus. Milgrom notes that most scholars have written these off because they’re “pre-critical”, but Milgrom believes that they “frequently anticipate the moderns and at many times even supercede them.”
This was a discussion that I often encountered at Harvard Divinity School: to what extent can scholars use “pre-critical” commentaries? Gary Anderson and Jon Levenson drew from them, perhaps because “pre-critical” exegesis illustrated what they believed the biblical text was trying to say, or because acknowledging the history of a text’s interpretation was a nod to the biblical writings’ function as texts for religious communities. In a “section” for my Hebrew Bible/Old Testament class, an Islamic student was appalled at any notion that we should throw away “pre-critical” commentaries, for she was a librarian, who believed that books of all ages were important.
I remember Paul Hanson taking issue with the label of “pre-critical”, for, in a sense, Origen was practicing biblical criticism, according to the tools that he had. John Townsend referred to Ibn-Ezra, who expressed doubts that Moses wrote all of the Pentateuch.
At Jewish Theological Seminary, David Sperling proposed an interesting usage of “pre-critical” commentaries: why not look at them to see their problems with the biblical text? When they try to explain a feature of the text (e.g., Abraham lying, Lot pushing out his daughters to the Sodomites, etc.), or explain it away, that sheds light on an aspect of the biblical text that confronts their (and often our) moral sensibilities.
As my readers may realize, I use ”pre-critical” commentaries. Some of it is for the reason that Sperling offers: they’re a window for me to notice the odd details of the Bible. Some of it has to do with my being kind of a romantic: I like stories, so I enjoy speculations about what the text can mean. Modernity can easily become stale and boring, whereas antiquity can be mysterious, cozy, and interesting! In some cases, I think that “pre-critical” exegesis offers ways of understanding the biblical text that strike me as reasonable, or it gives me a nugget that in itself is edifying, even if I may not agree that its nugget is what the biblical text actually means.
As a case-in-point, I’m trying to find the discussion between Emet and Ken Pulliam on Ken’s blog (www.formerfundy.blogspot.com). Emet refers to a Jewish source that attributes the wisdom of Asian religions to gifts that Abraham gave (or something like that), and Ken responds that Emet shouldn’t use those sources in his attempt to understand the biblical text, for they knew less than we do. It’s in the comments under a post, but I’m unsure which post it was. (Incidentally, what’s awesome about Ken’s blog is, not just his posts, but also the discussions that occur under them.) I like the idea that Emet refers to, whether or not that’s what the biblical text in question means. Maybe the idea offers something valuable for a discussion on God and various religions.
3. I finished my assigned reading of Hans Jonas’ The Gnostic Religion. I appreciate somewhat the Gnostics’ aversion to the natural world. The natural world has a lot of hurtful things: earthquakes, tornadoes, the suffering of animals, etc. Well, the Gnostics have an answer to that: the world was created by a sinister sub-deity, who is not even the true God. So we don’t have to blame God for the way that the world is—or excuse God for the flaws in nature. Rather, we should focus on the spiritual world.
But the Gnostics ended up throwing out the baby with the bath-water, for, if they are correct that nature is evil, then one conclusion that can be drawn from that is that we should become ascetics rather than enjoy the distractions of the flesh: good food, sex, etc. I can agree that we shouldn’t be complete hedonists, but can we live spiritual lives, while enjoying things that the natural world has to offer? But the Gnostics thought that preparation for the spiritual world entailed rejection of the flesh to focus on the spirit. And they held that there was a demon inside of us, which tried to pull us down. They took the Greco-Roman notion that we have a guardian demon, and viewed it in a negative sense. But, for the Gnostics, we also have a spiritual spark, which can give us a connection with the divine.
Another point: Irenaeus refers to one Gnostic view that had a peculiar interpretation of Luke 12:59, where Jesus says that you shall not depart from prison, until you have paid the last mite. This particular Gnostic view interpreted this verse to mean that we will be reincarnated until we have “committed every deed there is in the world”. This may have been the antinomian version of Gnosticism, which didn’t go with asceticism.
The idea intrigued me. Dispensing with the idea that we’ll be able to perform every act (which reminds me of Frank Schaeffer’s remark at the end of Crazy for God that everything happens in the universe at least once), suppose we apply this concept to another point: will we have future lives to pay off our debts that we’ve accrued for our sins? I’d like to think so, but I have to contend with Hebrews 9:27′s statement that we die once, and afterwards experience the judgment. So maybe I can’t believe in reincarnation and be a Christian in good standing. But, when Jesus says that people won’t leave prison until they have paid the last mite, I’d like to think this means that hell is temporary, not a place of unending torment. In my opinion, the doctrine of eternal torment makes God look cruel.
On that note, I want to post this quote by Cipher, who commented under Ken Pulliam’s post, Louis Berkhof’s Attempt to Justify Penal Substitution:
I’ve spent a fair amount of time hanging out with Tibetans. They’re no slouches when it comes to fire and brimstone, but their hells aren’t conceived of as being eternal. The idea of a higher being who could release everyone from hell, but chooses not to, is incomprehensible to them. As an old lama with whom I used to live once asked me, “Where is his compassion?”
But, yes, I know – they can’t be expected to know any better, as they aren’t the recipients of divine grace. The lowest, meanest Christian has a better understanding of God than does any heathen, including the Dalai Lama.
I’ve seen both theologies, and both communities. “You will know them by their fruits.” Yeah, I’ve seen the fruit. I have issues with Buddhism as well, but, between the two – I’ll take the latter.