Blue Cord

One of the similarities between my vocation as a biblical scholar and my current job as a web designer is the fact that in both cases I am dealing with texts.  In the former I am interpreting a text, whereas in the latter I am writing texts.  A web page is, after all, a text, albeit a text that uses more than just words to get its message across.

An issue that is common to both fields is the question of how we read texts.  That is, how do people actually read the words that are put down on paper.  As an academic and an author, I like to think that people read every word I write and focus on every nuance.  In reality, I know better.  Even when writing a book, I know people are going to read it in different ways.  Few will do a deep reading, while some will scan it.  The majority lie somewhere in between.

On of the interesting things about the web, however, is that most pages on the web are scanned instead of read.  The majority of people spend about 2-3 seconds looking at the majority of the pages they come to.  The eye jumps to four or five spots on the page, and if those don’t capture the attention or contain the needed information, they move on.

This has major implications for the design of web pages, but more importantly it says something about how we get information.  Reading a book means (usually) reading all of the pages in a sequential order.  The author has a good deal of control over the information the reader receives, though little over what the reader agrees with or even remembers.  That kind of control is lost in web design.  You can lay out a well-balance and nutritious five-course meal on your page, but people will treat it like a buffet where they can take what they like and leave the rest.

The issue of how people read the text in ancient times is one that fortunately has also begun to receive attention in the field.  Because of our post-Gutenburg existence, we often make unwarranted assumptions about how a text was read in ancient Israel.  Texts were usually not wide-spread, which didn’t matter much in a society with perhaps 1-2% literacy.  The original readers, of course, we not readers at all.  They were hearers.

I think when talking about the original audience of the biblical text, we have to be very specific.  Are we talking about the general population?  If so, in what contexts did they encounter the text?  How large were the chunks they heard at any one time?  How often did they hear it?  For the people who were literate, we need to ask how they used the text.  Did they read it silently?  Aloud?  To whom?  Was it important for them to read it word for word, or did it merely serve as a reminder of the general outline of the story?  Were texts like Leviticus and Deuteronomy read at one sitting or used more as a reference work?

It is clear that we need to move beyond our simplistic concepts of what a reader is.

Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Proper 10 (theme reading)

The thematic OT reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for this coming Sunday is Deuteronomy 30:9-14. The series OT reading switches from 1 & 2 Kings, which it has been covering since Pentecost, to Amos. The readings from Amos only last this week and next. This post will focus on the reading from Deuteronomy.

The first thing to notice about the Deuteronomy reading is that it starts in the middle of the passage. Verse 9 is neither the beginning of a paragraph nor even the beginning of a sentence. If we read it as it stands, then it merely sounds like a promise that God will make the people of Israel prosper. The full message is actually much more involved than that.

To fully understand the passage, we need to go back to Deuteronomy 29, where this discourse begins. In that chapter, Moses is delivering a sermon to the people of Israel, who are gathered in Moab before entering the Promised Land. He lays out clearly that if the people of Israel do not follow the law, they will be sent into exile in a foreign land. Only when the people repent and return to the Lord will he forgive them and cause them to prosper. The reading for this Sunday picks up at this point. When the people are in a foreign land, realize that they have sinned, and return to obedience, then and only then will God do all of the things promised in Deuteronomy 30:9-14.

The placement of this sermon on the plains of Moab is not accidental, as it seems to indeed be intended as a sermon for Israelites who are about to enter the land. It is likely that this section of Deuteronomy was written towards the end of the Babylonian exile, when the people had repented and returned to God. The sermon is directed to them as they prepare to return to Judah. Notice the statement in 29:14-15, which extended the covenant beyond just those who were present in Moab. The sense that the people returning from exile were re-entering the covenant seems strong in this passage. Just as their ancestors had stood on the banks of the Jordan and made a covenant with God before entering the land, so do the Israelites returning from Babylon. It is now up to them to be obedient in the land, so the fate of their ancestors does not befall them as well.

One the questions in the history of the priesthood is the reference of Ezekiel 44:10, which presents the Levites as going after idols when Israel went astray. On the basis of this sin, Ezekiel states that the Levites must be given a lower status in the cult and may no longer serve at the altar.

A number of scholars have seen this as a reference to Levites participating in the worship at high places prior to the reforms of Josiah. This doesn’t make much sense to me. After all, it was Deuteronomy that argued against worship at high places, and Deuteronomy seems to come from Levitical circles. Besides, Ezekiel does not seem to be particularly influenced by Deuteronomy, and I find it unlikely that he would have approved of Josiah’s reforms. After all, Josiah allowed Levites to be priests in Jerusalem, which would have meant Ezekiel’s priestly group would be forced to share the temple service with others.

Steve Cook did a great deal to further the discussion when he recognized that Ezekiel 44 is making explicit reference to the Levitical rebellion in Numbers 16-18.¹ It seems to me that Ezekiel is reading the situation in late preexilic Judah (c.620-586 BCE) through the lens of Numbers 16-18. The people of Judah are going astray, and the Levites — who have been granted leadership positions by Josiah — are participating in this idolatry. The Zadokites, on the other hand, did not participate in the idolatry (Ezek. 44:15). For more on my thoughts on the relationship between Numbers 16-18 and Ezekiel, see my post from last summer.

While Ezekiel creates the situation that we see in the postexilic period, with Zadokites serving at the altar and other Levites (both Aaronide and non-Aaronide?) serving as temple servants, what I am more interested in at this point is what the situation was before the exile. It seems to me that they had three groups: Levites that had come from the north, Aaronides who had always been in Judah, and Zadokites who are perhaps a subset of Aaronides. The question is, what were the Aaronides doing when Israel went astray?

It is interesting to note that already in Ezekiel the Zadokites are referred to as the “sons of Levi.” What I would like to know is whether Ezekiel was the first to apply this to the Zadokites. Would they have considered themselves Levites prior to the exile? The Levites as a priestly group seem to have very ancient origins, perhaps even going back to the pre-monarchic period. Would it have been necessary for the Zadokites to claim Levitical descendancy in order to be priests? At what point would this have been necessary?

I have to wonder whether the Zadokites came to ascendency because they were the main priestly group that was deported. Jehozadak was a priest taken into exile, and the formation of his name suggests a connection with Zadok. His son Joshua is the first high priest of the exilic period. If those exiled to Babylon were principally from Jerusalem and not the surrounding countryside, this would mean that it was the central priesthood that was exiled. Joshua 21 presents the Aaronides as living in the rest of Judah, and they may have made up only a small part of the priests in exile. The Levites, on the other hand, would have been serving in Jerusalem and some of them would have gone into exile as well. But it is instructive to note that the Chronicler’s history mentions a large amount of Zadokites returning from exile accompanied by a much smaller group of Levites.

If the Zadokites were the predominant group in exile, it is easy to see how they would have gained prominence over those left in Judah. Jeremiah had stated that the exiles in Babylon were the future of Israel, while those left in Judah were the bad fruit (Jer. 24). This could have led the Zadokites to see themselves as the future of the priesthood, especially with Ezekiel saying that they had remained faithful while the other priests had gone astray with Israel.

1. Stephen L. Cook, “Innerbiblical Interpretation in Ezekiel 44 and the History of Israelite Priesthood,” JBL 114 (1995), 193-208. [back]

I have been thinking about the Levites in the northern kingdom of Israel and thought I would jot down a few notes.

As I have mentioned before, the list of Levitical cities in Joshua 21 says that the cities for the Aaronides were in Judah while the rest of the Levites had cities in Israel. This passage probably stems from HS and is therefore postexilic, reflecting a period when the Aaronides had been given a Levitical genealogy (if they didn’t have one from the start). But it also seems to recall a preexilic situation in which Levites were centered in Israel. This fits with what seems to be the very old tradition of Dan being a Levite sanctuary (Judg 18).

But although the Levites were active in the north, they were certainly not the only priests who were there. 1 Kings 12:31 indicates that Jeroboam installed priests who were not Levites. This might indicate that the Levites were marginalized, even in Israel. This would explain why DtrH is so negative of Jeroboam, if Deuteronomy originated in Levitical circles in the north (as seems likely). But it would also suggest that Deuteronomy was a minority opinion. It is generally accepted that Deuteronomy was accepted only by a few people in Judah prior to the exile (after which it gained general acceptance), but it may have initially been intended as a critique of the official priesthood in the north as well.

I was reading what Blenkinsopp has to say about the Aaronides, Bethel, and the golden calf episode in Exodus 32-34. Because I disagree with his idea that the Aaronides originated in Bethel, it got me thinking. What group would want to critique both the Aaronides and the practice of golden calves at Dan and Bethel. The obvious answer is the Levites. They had lost their power in the north and did not like the practices instituted by Jeroboam. At the same time, the Aaronides were a rival group.   It is interesting to note that the only mention of Aaron in Deuteronomy is in connection with the golden calf (Deut 9:20). This raises the further question of whether the golden calf story arose prior to the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE or afterwards when the Levites came south. I don’t have an answer to that question yet.