Blue Cord

Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch by Jean-Louis Ska is the second book I have read that I purchased at the SBL. I have been looking forward to this one ever since I saw an advertisement for it a few months ago. It is a translation of the French version, which itself is a translation of the Italian original.

At first, I was a little puzzled by the title. After all, what else can you do with the Pentateuch except read it? Would we expect a book on Introduction to Cooking the Pentateuch or Introduction to Throwing the Pentateuch? Reading is what we do with it. Obviously, Introduction to Living the Pentateuch might make sense as well, although this book is hardly focused on the modern use of the text. As it turns out, Introduction to the Development of the Pentateuch would be a better title.

Although the book’s title suggests that it is a general introduction to the Pentateuch, it focuses primarily on how the Pentateuch reached the form that we now possess. As such, it really is two books in one. The first half of the book would serve well as an introductory text. Questions of content and structure are covered (chaps.1-2), as well as some of the problems that lead to the development of source critical theories (chaps.3-5). The second half of the book, though, moves into a more detailed discussion of the history of Pentateuchal research (chap.6) and the current state of the question (chap.7), including Ska’s own ideas (chaps.8-10).

Because of this divide, I am not sure that the book would serve as an introductory text. The first part is basic enough, although I would like to see some more detail there. The second half, however, is more on the level of an intermediate work. There are some sections with which I can see a beginning student having a great amoung of difficulty. He moves beyond introductory ideas to a fairly complete overview of the current state of the field. Due to the lack of consensus in the field, this section is complex.

But if one approaches the book as a resource for more advanced work, the second half of the book is a wonderful read. Ska presents a good overview of the current state of the field. But beyond a simple survey, he also engages in a critique of these ideas. The numberous notes and bibliography will be useful to those interested in getting up to speed in the field, while those of us who follow this discipline will find some new insights. His chapter entitled “Reference Points for Reading the Pentateuch” is especially helpful. He also ends by discussing the two most recent ideas of the Pentateuch as official, sanctioned Persian law and the Pentateuch as a document produced by those centered on the temple in Post-exilic Yehud. He finds the second hypothesis to be more convicing, while offering some helpful critiques of the first.

Unfortunately, the blurbs on the back of the book are not that helpful when it comes to deciding whether to buy the book. One of them, for instance, speaks of Ska’s balancing of diachronic and synchronic readings, something that Ska hardly does. While he does briefly speak of synchronic readings, he is mainly focused on the diachronic aspects (which is fine with me, since I prefer diachronic readings as well). Other blurbs point to the fact that Ska provides a survey of European scholarship on the Pentateuch, and this is certainly the case. Ska, however, is conversant with both European and North American scholarship, and is not confined to one particular school.

Overall, it will be a helpful book for those in the field, although I am not sure that it would serve well as an introductory text, at least not for an undergraduate class. Those in the field will find it quite accessible and repleate with copious notes.

As usual, I have returned from the SBL meeting and find myself wanting to spend all my time doing research. No teaching, no administration, just research. I have just finished reading the first of the books I purchased at the conference, so I thought I would provide a review.

The book is Making Wise the Simple: The Torah in Christian Faith and Practice, by Johanna van Wijk-Bos. She is a scholar in the Reformed tradition, currently teaching at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. She grew up in Belgium during World War II.

Making Wise the Simple is a reading of the Pentateuch within the Christian faith. It is not truly an introduction to the Torah, as it does not cover enough background material to fulfill that role. The book would, however, serve quite well as a secondary book in an introductory class on the Pentateuch or as a good second book to read after having taken such a class. Because she does not always follow the text in a sequential order, having a good understanding of the shape of the Pentateuch and some familiarity with the stories would be helpful in following her discussion.

Van Wijk-Bos structures her reading around the Torah’s concern for the stranger (Heb. ger), as well as widows, orphans, and any other disadvantaged group. She does an excellent job of tracing this thread through the text. She is very sensitive to listen to marginalized voices within the Torah. She is also careful to deconstruct the anti-Jewish attitudes with which Christians often approach the Pentateuch.

One of the strongest parts of the book is that she covers almost all aspects of the Pentateuch. While I do not mean to suggest that all texts are discussed, she at least manages to cover most of the topics. Whereas many Christian studies focus only on the narrative, she devotes sections to the law (the Covenant Code and Holiness Code are both given treatment) as well as to sections of Exodus where the construction of the tabernacle is detailed. If there is any one section that gets short shrift, it is Deuteronomy, although she does use it as a foil for other texts on occasion and she does deal with the question of genocide against the Canaanites.

The criticisms I have of the book are minor, although not insignificant. Van Wijk-Bos uses her own translation of the text, which at times can be quite idiosyncratic. She preserves Hebrew word order to show the rhythm of the text, but this comes out awkwardly at times. She also divides the texts into strophes, even in prose passages. In some cases, she also emends the text to support her reading. The most egregious case of this is when she changes Exodus 23:3 to read “You must not privilege the great” when the Hebrew reads “You must not privilege the poor.”¹ There is no textual evidence for such an emendation, although she cites the same wording in Leviticus 19:15. While I agree with her that showing favoritism to the great is more likely than showing it to the poor, there is no a priori reason to rule out a prohibition of showing favoritism to the poor, since favoritism in either direction is problematic (cf. Jam.2:9). Van Wijk-Bos also overstates that extent to which love for the stranger and marginalized is the central them of the Torah. While I certainly agree it is a theme, it seems to me that there are other themes that are just as strong.

Despite these problems, Making Wise the Simple is an enjoyable reading of the Torah. The author manages to produce a reading that is sensitive to women’s issues in the text without coming off as anti-male. She places the Torah firmly within the context of the covenant, something that is far too often overlooked in Christian readings of the Pentateuch.

1. Van Wijk-Bos, Making Wise, 189. [back]

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday on a train, a bus, an airplane, a tram, two more airplanes, a taxi, another bus, and a second taxi. After 29 hours, I am finally back in Lithuania. Fortunately, the morning started with a two hour committee meeting, so I got a chance to catch up on my sleep.

Fellow biblioblogger and now personal acquaintance Chris Brady decided to list the books he picked up at the SBL, so I thought I would do the same. The links below will take you to the book’s page in my blog’s library (powered by the Now Reading plug-in). From there you can find the book at Amazon.com if you wish.

The first category of books is connected with my research on the Pentateuch. Because I don’t have access to a research library, I have to buy these books if I am going to get any research done while I am here.

• Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos, Making Wise the Simple: The Torah in Christian Faith and Practice.
• Thomas B. Dozeman and Konrad Schmid, eds., A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation.
• Jean-Louis Ska, Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch.
• John van Seters, The Edited Bible: The Curious History of the “Editor” in Biblical Criticism.
• Martin Noth, Numbers. This is obviously an older book, but one I needed. Fortunately, it is now in paperback.
• All seven Pentateuch commentaries in the Word Biblical Commentary series. This was possible because they finally got around to making smaller collections available in electronic format using Libronix, the same platform that powers the Logos Bible Software.

A second category is books I needed for classes I am teaching next semester. I am doing two upper level classes, one on the historical books of the Old Testament (DtrH and the Chroniclers history) and the other on the latter prophets. Some of the books listed here will be used by the students, while others are for me.

• Richard D. Nelson, The Historical Books (Interpreting Biblical Texts series).
• Anthony F. Campbell, SJ, Joshua to Chronicles: An Introduction.
• David L. Petersen, The Prophetic Literature: An Introduction.
• Sara Japhet, From the Rivers of Babylon to the Highlands of Judah: Collected Studies on the Restoration Period.
• Isaac Kalimi, The Reshaping of Ancient Israelite History in Chronicles.

I also picked up two historical studies.

• Alice Hunt, Missing Priests: The Zadokites in Tradition and History.
• Paolo Sacchi, The History of the Second Temple Period.

Finally, I got one book on hermeneutics.

• A.K.M. Adam, Stephen E. Fowl, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and Francis Watson, Reading Scripture with the Church: Toward a Hermeneutic for Theological Interpretation.

These should keep me busy for a while.

Today began with an interview, which means I missed the morning sessions. The interview went well, so giving up a session in favor of a possible job is an easy trade off.

After lunch with a good friend who teaches at Perkins School of Theology, I was off to the afternoon sessions. I first went to the Computer Assisted Research Group session to hear Tim Bulkeley’s talk about the Hypertext Bible Dictionary. Tim is best known for his Amos: A Hypertext Commentary. When we had talked the day before, Tim said one of the things that took the most time in writing the commentary was developing the dictionary entries. So, he has shifted to first completing a good on-line Bible dictionary first, so that those who write future commentaries in the series will have an easier time.

Obviously, there are similarities between what time is doing and my own Blue Cord Bible Dictionary. We discussed this on Sunday at the bibliobloggers meeting. Our hope is to be able to find some way that the two projects can complement each other instead of being competitors. One possibility is that articles written on Blue Cord could be sent to Tim once they reach a certain level of completeness. They could then be peer-reviewed and added to his dictionary. At this point, the text would become stable in his dictionary, while people could continue to add to and up date the entries in the Blue Cord Bible Dictionary.

The second session of the afternoon found me at the Pentateuch section. Only three papers were given in this session, as one of the presenters had to cancel. but all were good papers (which is unusual for one session). One by Jeffrey R. Stackert was entitled “Does the Covenant Collection Have a Fallow Law?: Clarifying the Grammatical and Lexical Ambiguity in Exodus 23:10-11.” He argues that Exodus 23:10-11 does not say that the land should be fallow in the seventh year but that the ground should be planted and harvested as usual, but that the produce should be left for the poor and animals. The interpretation turns on the question of the 3fs suffix on the verbs at the beginning of v.11. Stackert thinks they refer to “produce” in v.10, and I found his argument convincing. It implies an even greater responsibility on the part of the Israelites to care for the poor, since it means they don’t passively leave the aftergrowth for the poor but actively work to provide them with food.

Another paper was by James W. Watts on “Rhetoric of Ritual Narrative in Leviticus 10.” Since I am writing a paper that deals in part with this passage, I was interested in hearing what he had to say. He focused mostly on the rhetorical impact of this passage. He argues that the repetition of “as the Lord commanded,” which occurs thirteen times in chaps.8-10, draws those chapters into a unity. What is startling is the beginning of chap.10, where the opposite phrase is found. Aaron’s two sons did what the Lord did not command. He concludes that the overall effect of the passage was to show that the work of the priests was dangerous and they should not be begrudged the benefits that they received from their position.

Because I had no interviews today, I was free to attend more sessions. I started the morning with a Pentateuch section. The best paper (to my mind) was Baruch Schwartz paper entitled “The Priestly Narrative of Israel’s Descent into Egypt.” Schwartz points out that there are two models of the Priestly document. One sees P as an independent document that developed in reaction to J (non-P) while the other sees it as a redaction of J. He points out that there is a third model which postulates P as an independent document that had no familiarity with J. As an example, he worked through his reconstruction of P’s narrative of the descent into Egypt at the end of Genesis. Like most of the P stories, it is much smaller than the J story. It knows nothing of Joseph being sold into slavery or a famine in Egypt.

Since I view P as being an earlier work that J, I have automatically viewed P as an independent document with no knowledge of J. I see P and J as redacted by H. With all deference to John van Seters (whose The Edited Bible I just bought), I think there were redactors, although I agree with him that they did just as much creative work as authors.

In the afternoon I got together with other bibliobloggers. The august assembly comprised Tyler Williams, Christian Brady, Stephen Cook, and Tim Bulkeley. We had a good conversation, and Chris Brady recorded about an hours worth of our conversation, which he will be editing into a podcast. We talked about everything from blogging to teaching to current research. If you would like to hear the conversation, it can be found at Targuman.

In the evening, I went to the Yale and Johns Hopkins receptions. It was good to see friends and former professors.