God in the Ancient Near East

I started Michael Fishbane's Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) today. Here are two points that stood out to me:

1. On page 33, Fishbane cites an article by Morton Smith entitled "The Common Theology of the Ancient Near East," which appeared in the Journal of Biblical Literature 71 (1952) 135-147. You can read it here.

Citing sources from the ancient Near East (e.g., Egypt, Mesopotamia, areas that produced Ugaritic literature, etc.), Smith contends that people in the ANE worshipped gods who had compassion for the poor, executed justice on their patron nation and other countries, healed the sick, forgave sins, received sacrifices for atonement, heard the prayers of the righteous rather than the wicked, and exhorted people to return good for evil. Even when a god was low in the pantheon, Smith claims, people who worshipped him would flatter him as the supreme god, the god who created the other gods, even the only true god. And there are statements in ancient Near Eastern literature that predict a righteous king who will arise to set things right.

This sounds a lot like the God of Israel, who has compassion for the poor and the oppressed, executes justice against Israel and other nations (e.g., Egypt, Assyria, etc.), heals the sick, forgives sin, receives sacrifices, and honors the righteous. My assumption is that the Israelites actually did regard their God as the supreme God and creator, not that they merely said that stuff to flatter him. But I'm not sure if I can prove my assumption. Lying to a god out of flattery doesn't make much sense to me, to tell you the truth!

In an attempt to demonstrate the superiority of the religion that God gave to Israel, people have noted differences between Israelite religion and that of the surrounding nations. The Bible itself does that, for it asserts that the other nations practice child sacrifice (Deuteronomy 12:31), worship idols, and tolerate abominable sexual acts (Leviticus 18). Scholars have contrasted the Torah with the Code of Hammurapi: whereas the Torah largely treats Israelites as equal (except perhaps in Exodus 21:31-32), the Code of Hammurapi honors the upper classes over the lower ones.

I believe that God revealed himself to many nations, but does that mean that all the gods are interchangeable, meaning I can worship any god and regard him as a manifestation of the true one? Although the Letter of Aristeas (second century B.C.E.) claims that the Jews worship Zeus under a different name (see Greco-Roman Monotheism, Biblical Intolerance), the Bible doesn't exactly go that route, for it criticizes the Israelites' worship of gods whom they did not know (Deuteronomy 29:26; Jeremiah 44:3), holds that the God of Israel is the only true God (Deuteronomy, Second Isaiah), or regards the gods of the other nations as demons (I Corinthians 10:20-21). Throughout the Hebrew God, God's aim is to demonstrate to the nations that he is the LORD, that the God of Israel is the most powerful god. Why would he try to do this, if he were interchangeable with the gods of the other nations?

Can one say that God did reveal himself to the other nations, but more fully to Israel?

2. On page 33, Fishbane discusses the earliest evidence for the ancient Near Eastern motif of a god fighting a sea dragon or serpent. A Mesopotamian cylinder seal from the Akkad dynasty (c. 2400 B.C.E.) presents two gods fighting a seven-headed monster, four of whose heads are slain, while three remain aggressive. A Ugaritic myth refers to Baal slaying the mighty Lotan of the seven heads.

Revelation 12, 13, and 17 likewise refer to a monster with seven heads. Revelation 12 is about Satan (the dragon), whereas chapters 13 and 17 concern the Beast. Revelation 17:10 applies the seven heads to specific kings, but Revelation may still be drawing from an ancient legend, in which a good guy god defeats an evil seven-headed monster. Or maybe God clued people in early on about the ultimate battle between good and evil. As C.S. Lewis liked to say, the good thing about being a Christian is that we get to believe the myths are real!

Justice and Mercy, The Suffering Father

Stephen Fraade, "Sifre Deuteronomy (Ad Deut. 3:23): How Conscious the Composition?", Hebrew Union College Annual 54 (1983) 245-302.

I'm not going to interact with specific passages here, but I'll mention two points in this article that stood out to me.

1. Moses and David sinned, and their sins are recorded in Scripture. According to Sifre Deuteronomy (first-fifth centuries C.E., maybe later), Moses wanted his sin to be recorded, whereas David initially did not but changed his mind.

Moses desired that God record his sin in Scripture in order to uphold the authority of the Torah: against critics who'd say that Moses compiled the Torah out of impure motives, the presence of Moses' sin in the book would demonstrate Moses' honesty and accuracy in communicating God's will. Moses also wanted the sin to be recorded so people wouldn't think that God excluded him from the Promised Land as punishment for a worse sin. David had the same sort of motivation---he didn't want people to think that God punished him for multiple sins. Moreover, God sought to include David's sin in Scripture to show that God fairly punishes sin, even when they're committed by his favorites.

Add to this Sifre Deuteronomy's point that Moses and David approached God as beggars when they sought God's forgiveness.

An issue that's come to my mind through some Facebook interactions is that of fairness. In a discussion about the death penalty, I said that I didn't believe in frying all convicted murderers, for our criminal justice system should have justice mingled with mercy and compassion. Yet, I was reluctant to take the death penalty completely off the table, since there are some deeds so outrageous that only the death penalty can pay for them. I had in mind serial killers like Charles Manson.

I was wondering as I brushed my teeth that night how biblical my position is. The death penalty clearly exists in the Torah. When the land is defiled by bloodshed, it can only be cleansed through the death of the murderer, as executed by the governing authorities (Numbers 35:33), no ifs, ands, or buts, no special treatment for some murderers and not for others. After all, against my view that serial killers should get the death penalty but other killers should not, isn't taking one life serious, as is taking many lives?

Yet, God did not put Cain to death (Genesis 4). David had the authority to pardon a woman of Tekoah's only son, who had killed his brother in a field (II Samuel 14). God punished David for killing Uriah, but God did not put him to death (II Samuel 12). Did God or the governing authority allow the land to remain stained with blood on some occasions? Apparently so. There's such a thing as strict justice in the Bible, but there's also a certain amount of mercy: lessening the penalty of those who show signs of genuine remorse, considering the criminal's family, etc.

I'm reminded of something Michael Westmoreland-White wrote in his post, Why the Attacks on Empathy?:

When I was a teen, my Sunday School teacher was a crusty old man who happened to be judge in the Duval County Florida Circuit (i.e, felony) court. He and I often disagreed since he was a Republican and I was, even then, a liberal Democrat in my sympathies. He was known as a tough trial judge and I can attest to that since I later worked in his court as a bailiff while trying to discern whether my own path should be toward theology or law. His reputation did NOT include showing much mercy or compassion from the bench, but this part of his reputation I would dispute. I saw this judge show compassion and mercy for all sides from the bench–while running a very strict courtroom. While trying to discern my future path I asked him what quality a judge most needed. He didn’t hesitate: “The same thing a minister most needs, Michael, empathy–a feel for the human condition both in the large picture and in individual cases. The most brilliant legal mind without empathy would be a horror.”

Somehow, both justice and mercy need to exist in our criminal justice system. An absence of justice trivializes the hurt and the loss that the criminal causes, yet an absence of mercy seems inconsistent with the character of God, who (in the narrative of Scripture) values even the guilty and continually offers them a chance to repent, patiently enduring their possible recalcitrance.

2. Another point that stood out to me was the part of Sifre Deuteronomy in which God mourns Moses' death. That's what I like about rabbinic literature: it has a God with emotions. One rabbinic tradition states that God actually wrote the Book of Lamentations: that's not Jeremiah mourning the fall of Jerusalem, according to this tradition, but rather a reflection of God's broken emotional state over the suffering of his people.

On ex-fundamentalist Ken Pulliam's blog, there is a post in which Ken shares an interaction he had with a young fundamentalist on penal substitution. The young fundamentalist said that the Father suffered when Jesus was dying on the cross, and Ken replied, "if you say the Father suffered, how do you avoid the charge of Patripassianism?" (see My Answers to a Defender of PST).

I've rarely interacted with this strand of the evangelical sub-culture, the type that's afraid of falling into heresy. "Oh please don't call me a modalist, or a Pelagian, or a Patripassianist!" is the attitude of many in this group. But I never realized that some believe it's heresy to think that the Father can suffer. I've been to conservative churches that say that the Father was actually in emotional pain when Jesus was on that cross. But there may be elements of the evangelical sub-culture that have a different idea, maintaining that God is above all suffering. In my opinion, such a notion does not reflect the Bible, but rather Greek philosophy. The rabbis didn't feel beholden to that, and, quite frankly, neither do I! My God has a consistent character throughout the ages, but he also reacts to his creation and has emotion. Why would anyone want God to be otherwise?

Last Post on Tov's Textual Criticism

Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 344-345, 348, 364.

I finished Tov today. I'm not sure what book to start tomorrow, but we'll see!

I had a hard time focusing on my Tov reading today, but here are some points:

1. As I said in my post, Tov the Destabilizer, Tov maintains that there were earlier formulations of biblical books that circulated before the books were even finished (169). In today's reading, I got to see what he meant by that. According to many biblical scholars, the Deuteronomist added stuff to the biblical text. Apparently, there are passages in particular manuscripts that lack certain Deuteronomistic additions.

For example, Judges 6:7-10 is considered Deuteronomistic, and it's absent from 2QJudgA. Here's the passage (NRSV), with vv 7-10 in italics:

⁶Thus Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian; and the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help. 7 When the Israelites cried to the Lord on account of the Midianites, ⁸the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites; and he said to them, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of slavery; ⁹and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians, and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you, and gave you their land; ¹⁰and I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; you shall not pay reverence to the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.” But you have not given heed to my voice.’ 11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites.

For Tov, 2QJudgA preserves the version of that passage that existed before the Deuteronomist added vv 7-10.

Another example is I Kings 16:34, which many view as Deuteronomistic and discontinuous from its surrounding verses:

"In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho; he laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua son of Nun."

According to Tov, this verse is absent from the Lucianic version of the Septuagint.

I have one question: Do 2QJudgA and the Lucianic version of the Septuagint lack all Deuteronomistic additions? Something tells me "no," but Tov may say that they were drawing from manuscripts that lacked the Dtr contribution for specific passages, but not all of them.

2. Tov mentions H.L. Ginsberg in his chapter on emendations. H.L. Ginsberg loved to emend the text! One of my professors at Jewish Theological Seminary actually defended Ginsberg on this: "You know, people like to say that emending the text is speculative. Well, accepting the text as written is speculative, too!" After all, how do we know that the text before us is not corrupt, while the emendation reflects the earlier reading?

I can't really prove that statement wrong, but if you can't go with the written text, what can you go with?

And that concludes my reading of Tov's Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible.

Doug Ward on Casinos

Cincinnati is voting today on whether or not to have a casino. I indicated that I voted “yes” because of all the revenue it will generate, though I’m not sure if I made the right decision. On my blogger blog, Doug Ward commented on his opposition to casinos, and I think what he says deserves serious consideration from voters:

I like the title of your post. I often struggle with which way to vote myself.

But one issue I didn’t struggle with this time was the casino issue. I’m passionately opposed, and I want to explain why (in case there are any other Ohio readers who haven’t voted yet).

The money brought in by casinos isn’t some sort of magical free money. What would that money be used for if it weren’t going to casinos? Maybe it would go to a child’s college fund, or someone’s retirement fund, or be invested in a business, or help pay the bills or feed a family. Whatever place that money would go, it would do more to grow the economy and promote social stability if it weren’t going to a casino.

Not enough is said about the social costs of casinos. There’s an excellent article about this in the current issue of _First Things_. When a casino opens up someplace, the number of people addicted to gambling doubles, crime increases, the number of suicides increases, there are more divorces…..

The article gets into how the slot machines are designed to be incredibly addictive. It turns out that a very large percentage of casino revenues come from people with gambling problems–people who wouldn’t necessarily have gambling problems if the casino weren’t there. While those people are sitting at the slot machines, what’s happening to their kids?

A Hard Election

I just voted. I can’t say that I’m totally happy with every vote I cast, but voting is often weighing the options and going with an imperfect package.

For me, this election is a first. In past elections, I voted straight Republican. In my research, I’d identify the Republicans running for city council, the school board, and the judicial benches, and I’d vote for them. I voted against all tax levies, whatever they were for (e.g., jails, schools, mental health hospitals, the zoo). I also went with privatization rather than government control of facilities.

This time around, I crossed party lines, and I wasn’t as bound by a political ideology. I voted for some tax levies, and I voted against others. I voted for Republicans, and also for Democrats. I also voted against making the water company for-profit (or something like that).

For the mayor’s race, I voted for the Democratic incumbent. I liked some of what the Republican had to say—about compassion, about training people in prison for the work force, and about fiscal responsibility—but, in my opinion, he did not mount a sufficient case against the Democratic mayor’s record, whether the issue was crime, the economy, or the city budget. I watched their debate last night (which I had taped from weeks before), and, on one occasion, the Democrat simply looked into the camera and told us to check the police department’s web site if we don’t think crime is down. You can’t argue with that!

On the tax levies, I voted for some of them. All of them amounted to less than a cent for every $100 of property value. That doesn’t strike me as too much, yet I have to keep in mind something a friend of mine once told me: those tax levies add up! I voted for the levies for the family health and hospitalization services and the programs for people with developmental disabilities, since I wanted to be compassionate. I definitely supported the levy for public libraries, an issue that has been close to my heart this past year. But I voted against the levy for public schools, one reason being that many of the school board candidates talked about fiscal responsibility, indicating fiscal irresponsibility may be a problem. Plus, I think many of the bureaucrats’ salaries should be cut before we think about keeping a tax levy!

I voted against rail transportation. This was a tough choice. The Democratic mayor said rail transportation could provide people with jobs and get money into the local economy. The Republican candidate said it was unnecessary because of other forms of public transportation, and that taxpayers would have to support it for years to come. I went with the Republican on this one. I don’t like the government to spend money when it doesn’t have to. That’s a conservative impulse that I have, and it’s one that both Democrats and Republicans in my city claim to share.

Another issue with which I struggled was the casino. I don’t like casinos, for there are times when they hurt the poor. I also know a person who goes to Gamblers Anonymous. But casinos bring in lots of revenue, which the city desperately needs. I don’t like tax increases, and if we don’t have those, then we need to raise the revenue somehow. While I’ve not heard much about casinos bringing social problems into the areas that have them, I have heard about the casinos bringing in revenue, which helps the areas. And so I voted for the casino, even though I may have been wrong.

I voted to keep the water company not-for-profit. People seem to be satisfied with their current rates, which would go up if it became for-profit. Privatization often amounts to higher rates. Republicans like to blow off about the crushing impact of the tax burden. Well, how’s that different from having to pay high water rates, or electricity rates, or health insurance premiums?

For the school board, I voted for Republicans and Democrats. Those who talked about holding schools to standards got my vote. Those who talked about compassion for the poor got my vote. I also voted for a flamboyant candidate, who was a member of an African-American organization, yet opposed the popular year-round school plan. Might as well add him to the mix! And the one who said we should cut the bureaucrats’ salaries before going after other school programs got my vote as well. If we’re going to cut, why not cut the actual fat rather than things the students need?

For city council, I also was bipartisan. I went with a flamboyant Republican who voted against aid to the homeless, but I also voted for a liberal council member whom she despises. I voted for a Democrat who wants to help people keep their homes, yet supposedly has a fascistic view on the police. Yet I also voted for people from African-American organizations, who may have a different perspective on the excesses of law enforcement. So I was aiming for some balance. I want compassion, but I also want a watchdog to make sure that our tax money isn’t being spent unnecessarily or frivolously. I support law enforcement, but I don’t want it to be unfair. Maybe I voted for balance, or maybe my vote will result in gridlock, if it’s successful. I hope something good comes out of it.

Tov's Critique of Common Text Critical Approaches

Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 300-303.

Tov discusses and critiques common text critical approaches to the Hebrew Bible. Here are three:

1. One approach is to deem original the readings that are broadly attested. Tov quotes Barthelemy: If a form of the text occurs in only one tradition, for example, the Targum, Syriac, or Vulgate, one is less inclined to regard it as original than if it occurs in more than one such tradition.

The problems Tov sees with this approach are (1.) the similarities may be due to coincidence, as different traditions follow a common interpretive tendency, and (2.) the versions can be interdependent, for the Septuagint, Symmachus, Aquila, and Theodotion influenced the Vulgate, and the Septuagint influenced the Syriac Peshitta. If creators of the versions knew of each other’s work, then it’s not surprising that they have common similarities. That doesn’t mean all of their similarities reflect the original text, though.

2. The second approach is to say that the earlier versions are better than the later ones. Tov quotes Walton as saying that “the older one is likely to have been less exposed to textual corruption than the younger one.”

But Tov denies that older is always better, citing the example of the later Masoretic Text and the earlier Qumran texts: For example, the community which transmitted [the Masoretic Text] has left the biblical text virtually unchanged for some two thousand years, whereas the Qumran scribes modernized and changed the orthography, morphology, and content of the text already in the Second Temple period within a relatively short period of textual activity. Thus 1QIsaA, dating from the first century BCE, is further removed from the Urtext [(original text)] of Isaiah than a Masoretic manuscript written in the tenth century CE.

Newer versions can come from a community that really preserves texts, whereas older versions may be from scribes who felt free to innovate. Which would you trust to be closer to the original text? Moreover, as Tov said regarding Samuel and Chronicles, Chronicles is a later book than Samuel, yet it’s Chronicles that has the old name, “Meribaal,” whereas Samuel has the later “Mephibosheth” (see Latin Mass on Saints and Health Care; Mephibosheth/Meribaal). Newer versions can have older stuff.

3. The third approach is to go with the difficult reading rather than the easier one, whenever there is textual variation. The reason is that scholars can envision a scribe correcting a difficult passage to make it easier, but why would the scribe want to make an easy passage more difficult? Therefore, for many critics, the difficult reading is closer to the original.

But, as Tov points out, there are times when a textual difficulty is the result of a scribal error. If something in the text makes little sense and doesn’t fit into its context, maybe it’s not original, but rather the result of a scribal error. Many critics assume this in their work.

I’ll be interested to see Tov’s criteria of text criticism as I continue reading. I don’t know that much about the King James Version-only debates, but one argument I vaguely recall from the “anti” side is that the Alexandrian texts (the ones behind the NIV and many other non-KJV versions) are earliest and great in number, so they must be the most authentic. Tov doesn’t throw that kind of criteria totally out of the window, but he does show that it’s not always reliable.

Latin Mass on Saints and Health Care; Mephibosheth/Meribaal

This will be a compound post, in which I combine two posts into one. The first one is my regular post about my Latin mass for the week. The second concerns my scholarly reading.

1. For Latin mass this morning, we had love-priest, and, to be honest, I don't remember much of what he said. It was probably because I couldn't sleep this morning and got up at 5 A.M., so I was a little dazed at church. The priest was talking about saints, since today is All Saints' Day. One of our readings was from the Book of Revelation: it was the passage about the 144,000. The priest said this doesn't mean there can only be 144,000 saints.

What is a saint in Catholicism? I know that Catholics believe saints are in heaven interceding for people, and that they usually had to live a pretty remarkable life to be declared saints by the church. There are patron saints, many of whom are in the Catholic books of saints. Yet, Catholicism also refers to the communion of saints, which implies that all Christians have that label.

In our bulletin, sainthood seemed to be presented as something all of us can have. As the saints behold the face of God, so will everyone who believes in Jesus. But those who believe also need to live a holy life, as the bulletin affirms: "Jesus clearly tells us what we must do to be counted among the saints. We must be poor in spirit, hungry for holiness, merciful, singlehearted, and peacemakers. Then we, too, will see the face of God." Yet, we're not to be discouraged if we're imperfect: "And while the days and our hearts may be dark, the readings today are bright with the light of faith."

Another topic that came up in the service was abortion and the health care debate. In our bulletin, there was a piece of paper urging us to lobby for amendments proposed in Congress that would bar federal funding for abortion and support conscience clauses. The priest spoke some about this from the pulpit. He said that the church is for health care reform but wants it to respect all life. I may call my elected officials this week about this. President Obama says that the health care package doesn't support abortion. Okay. Fine. We might as well back that up with amendments. And it's better to add amendments than to kill all health care reform over the abortion issue.

2. Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 267-268.

Tov talks about the substitution of "Bosheth" ("shame") for "Baal" ("lord") in the Hebrew Bible. I'll use the example of Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan.

According to many biblical scholars, many Israelite figures in the Bible had the word "Baal" in their name. Meribaal (Mephibosheth). Jerubbaal (another name for Gideon). Ishbaal, the son of Saul. At that point in time, Baal wasn't a bad word to the Israelites. It just meant "lord," and it could have been referring to the LORD God of Israel (see Hosea 2:16). Later, however, the name Baal became associated in Israelite minds with the pagan storm god, and so religious scribes didn't care for heroic characters carrying around that name. So they substituted "Bosheth" for "Baal." Tov points out that the two words appear in parallel in Jeremiah 11:13.

How do we know that such a substitution was made? According to Tov, we see the "Baal" names in the Chronicles passages that parallel I-II Samuel. As Tov states, "Even though Chronicles was composed after Samuel, in this particular case its manuscripts preserve earlier textual traditions." The substitution of "Bosheth" for "Baal" probably occurred at least in the first few centuries B.C.E., since the LXX for II Samuel doesn't have "Meribaal," but has "Mephibosthe."

Rabbinic literature seems to assume that Mephibosheth's name really was Mephibosheth, and it got changed to "Meribaal." According to Babylonian Talmud Erubim 53b, "Mephibosheth" in Hebrew means "from my mouth, humiliation" ("Me"---"from"; "phi"---"my mouth"; "bosheth"---"shame, humiliation"). Mephibosheth was called that because he was such a good scholar that he humiliated David when he expounded upon his learning. When Mephibosheth opened his mouth to teach or advise, David felt ashamed!

According to B.T. Shabbat 56b, Mephibosheth's name got changed to "Meribaal" when David was returning to Jerusalem after the defeat of Absalom. Mephibosheth's servant Ziba ditched Mephibosheth and slandered him to King David, so David gave Ziba Mephibosheth's estate. Later, Mephibosheth tells David that Ziba was lying about him, so David divides up the land between Mephibosheth and Ziba. In II Samuel 19, Mephibosheth lets Ziba keep the land, for he's just happy that David has returned safely. In B.T. Shabbat 56b, however, Mephibosheth initially complains about having to share his property with someone who slandered him. The text says (according to the translation on my Judaic Classics Library): I prayed, when wilt thou return In peace? Yet thou treatest me so. Not against thee have I resentment, but against Him who restored thee in peace! Hence it is written, And the son of Jonathan was Meribbaal: was then his name Merib-baal? Surely it was Mephibosheth? But because he raised a quarrel [meribah] with his Master, a Heavenly Echo went forth and rebuked him, Thou man of strife, [and] the son of a man of strife!

According to this text, Mephibosheth was striving against David and God for bringing David back safely, only for David to divide up Mephibosheth's land. And so Mephibosheth got the name Meribaal, which echoes a Hebrew word for "strife" (meribah).

Rabbinic literature often acknowledges that translators and scribes altered the text of Scripture in accordance with their religious sensibilities (see Theological Correction). In the case of Mephibosheth/Meribaal, however, it doesn't see any scribal alteration for a pious purpose. Rather than saying that the scribes changed "Meribaal" to "Mephibosheth" to expurgate the name of Baal, it says Mephibosheth was a name of honor, and it was replaced with "Meribaal" (which Rabbi Samuel in B.T. Shabbat 56b associates with strife) on account of Mephibosheth's complaining against David and his God.