Blue Cord

Scott Langston has an interesting article in this month’s SBL Forum entitled “What Makes the Bible Meaningful/Useful: The Ten Commandments and American Ideals.” Langston focuses on the reception history of the Ten Commandments and their use in politics during the Gilded Age of America.

Langston’s essay is well worth a read, particularly for those interested in how the Bible is used in politics. He notes that prior to the Civil War, the Ten Commandments were usually applied individually to address particular issues. In the Gilded Age, however, politicians began to refer to them as a whole as a text that expressed what it meant to be American. It is interesting to note that many of the uses of the Ten Commandments during that era were by progressives, which contrasts with the current situation where the Ten Commandments are more likely to be evoked by conservatives.

One of my favorite uses was by William Jennings Bryant, who accused the Republican’s of wanting to rewrite the Ten Commandments to say, “Thou shalt not steal on a small scale.” This sounds a lot like contemporary Republican rhetoric about revisionist history¹ and Democrats wanting to remove the Ten Commandments from public life.

Langston begins his essay by talking about recent controversies surrounding the use of the Ten Commandments, in particular their placement in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building by Justice Roy Moore. Moore had done this to call America back to its moral foundation.

One of the arguments that is sometimes made by those who are advocating a return to biblical law is that the Ten Commandments are the basis for American law. While I would agree that American morality has traditionally been based in part on the Ten Commandments, the idea that the Ten Commandments underlie American law is demonstrably false. Nevertheless, it continues to be believed by a fidimplicitary portion of the voting public.

When I teach the Ten Commandments in my intro classes, I always have my students put this assertion to the test. We write the Ten Commandments on the board and then mark out the ones that are not American laws. Here is how it comes out:

1. No other Gods before Yahweh - Article I of the U.S. Constitution prohibits this from being an American law.
2. No idols - American law does not ban the making of graven images.
3. Do not take the Lord’s name in vain - The use of God’s name as profanity is not illegal, even on television. The FCC has ruled that while it may be offensive to some, it is not a violation of indecency laws.
4. Observe the Sabbath - We used to have Blue Laws on the books that prohibited some work on Sunday (if we pretend Sunday is the Sabbath for a second), but most of those laws are no longer in effect.
5. Honor your father and mother - There is no requirement in American law that we must honor our parents.
6. Do not murder - This is a part of American law.
7. Do not commit adultery - While not a federal law, some states do have laws against adultery. In Maryland, for instance, adultery is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of $10. Such laws are rarely enforced.
8. Do not steal - This is a part of American law.
9. Do not bear false witness - This is a part of American law.
10. Do not covet - American law does not forbid this. If it did, most commercials would suddenly be illegal.

In other words, only the prohibitions against murder, theft, and perjury are unquestionably a part of American law. Of course, you would be hard pressed to find a legal system anywhere in the world that doesn’t include laws against these three things, even in societies that have never heard of the Ten Commandments. And even if we add ##3, 4, and 7 (which were the basis for laws in times past), that still means that only six out of ten of the Commandments are a part of American law.

Those are hardly grounds for claiming that the Ten Commandments are the basis for the U.S. legal system.

1. As if there were such a thing as a non-revisionist history. [back]

The connection between the story of the golden calf episode in Exodus 32 and the setting up of the golden calves by Jeroboam in 1 Kings 12:25-33 is well-known. One of the stories is dependent on the other, although the direction of dependence is still debated. The problem has been discussed in a number of places, but I wanted to draw out some implications of these stories for the history of the priesthood in ancient Israel.

There are three elements of the Exodus 32 story that bear on the priesthood. One is the anti-Aaron story that forms a main element of the story. It is unclear whether there was an original form of this story that did not include Aaron,¹ but in the story as it is currently found he is an inseparable part of the narrative. The second element of the story that bears on the priesthood is the pro-Levite story in Exodus 32:25-29. This story is an etiology for the service of the Levites as priests.² Noth judged this story to be a secondary addition to the original J narrative.³

It seems likely that these two elements came together at a time when there were two priestly factions vying for control. Obviously, that does not narrow the time frame that much. Opposition between the Aaronides and the Levites seems to have begun at least as early in the monarchy, Eli may also have been an Aaronide. The Aaronides, who were probably a sub-set of the Levites, rose to a position of prominence in Jerusalem and soon became the only priests who were allowed to serve in the Jerusalem temple.⁴ The rest of the Levites were left serving in other cities. This would mean that all the priests in the northern kingdom of Israel were Levities, at least originally.

We are told in 1 Kings 12:31 that Jeroboam appointed non-Levitical priests to serve at his shrines in Dan and Bethel. This pulls in the third element of the Exodus 32 story that bears on the history of the priesthood: the critique of the golden calf.  If we are looking for pro-Levite / anti-Aaronide authors who would have reason to critique golden calves, then the Levites in the north are the obvious choice. From their point of view, the story scores points against multiple adversaries: it critiques the religious practices of Jeroboam while painting the Aaronides in a negative light.

This means this story in its present form must have originated between 930-722 BCE. Some of the traditions are probably older, and this phase of the development of Exodus 32 may have been oral instead of textual. But to me these three elements indicate that the story in Exodus 32 is of northern origin and is based at least in part on the reforms of Jeroboam. It provides a brief but tantalizing glimpse into the development of the priesthood in the 9th-8th centuries BCE.

1. Aaron is barely mentioned in the parallel account in Deuteronomy 9:8-21. He shows up only in v.20 and his sin is unclear. [back]
2. Why Durham says that this story does not justify the Levites ordination as priests is unclear. John I. Durham, Exodus, Word Biblical Commentary 3 (Dallas: Word, 2002), 432. [back]
3. Martin Noth, Exodus, trans. J.S. Bowden, Westminster Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 245. [back]
4. Zadok and Abiathar were both Aaronides, although Abiathar and his descendants were banished from Jerusalem for supporting Adonijah against Solomon in 1 Kings 2:26-27. [back]

By the lack of power vested in him, Chris Brady at Targuman declared January to be International Biblical Studies Writing Month. Bibliobloggers have been announcing what they will be writing about during this month–long burst of writing energy, so I thought I would do the same.

I am a contributor to the new lectionary series put out by Westminster John Knox Press entitled Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary.  For those unfamiliar with this series, it provides commentary on each of the four assigned readings from the Revised Common Lectionary for every Sunday in the three year cycle. The commentary for each reading consists of an exegetical essay, a theological essay, a homiletic essay, and a pastoral essay. I have been asked to contribute the exegetical essays for three readings from Year C:

• Exodus 14:10-31, 15:20-21
• Isaiah 65:17-25
• Acts 5:27-32

Why I have been asked to write the commentary for a passage from Acts is unclear, but I will happily accept the $0.08 per word for writing it.

So, in the spirit of International Biblical Studies Writing Month, I hereby vow to have this assignment finished by the end of the month.

I was printing out my syllabi for the classes I am teaching here at Wartburg College this semester, when I noticed a sign taped to the wall above the copier. Under the heading “What Would Yahweh Do?”, it asked whether God would print single– or double–sided documents. It offered the following passage in favor of double–sided printing:

Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain, carrying the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, tablets that were written on both sides, written on the front and on the back. ¹⁶The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets. (Exodus 32:15-16)

Of course, it is easy to see why God used double–sided printing. Rocks are much harder to recycle than paper.

I am almost finished with chapter two of From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch. In this chapter, Nihan moves from source criticism to a discussion of the structure of Leviticus. He critiques prior ideas about its outline. Among these are several theories that see Leviticus structured in a ring centering on Leviticus 16, such as that proposed by Mary Douglas in Leviticus as Literature. Personally, I have never found such ring theories to be particularly convincing for Leviticus, as I have trouble imagining the authors and redactors working this way, especially given the amount of complexity some scholars have seen in the ring structure.

Nihan does not like the ring structure either. Instead, he proposes a threefold division into chapters 1-10, 11-16, and 17-27. This is nothing particularly new. What is new, however, is his discussion of the narrative logic that lies behind this division.

Nihan points out that Exodus ends with an unresolved issue: the gap between God and the people of Israel. As Nihan puts it,

After the completion of Israel’s sanctuary . . . Moses is not allowed inside the tent specifically because the latter is filled with the divine presence . . . . In other words, although he is present among his people as promised in 25:8 and 29:45, Yahweh cannot be approached, even by Moses, and the gap between God and man remains insuperable. [emphasis original]¹

Leviticus begins with this gap in place, but God begins to speak to Moses from within the tabernacle for the first time. Leviticus 1-7 give the rules for approaching God with sacrifices, and this culminates in Moses and Aaron being admitted to the tabernacle in Leviticus 8-9.

A similar problem is raised by Leviticus 10, namely the unauthorized sacrifice of Nadab and Abihu. Their offerings pollute the tabernacle, both because they offer unholy fire and because their corpses are found within the confines of the sacred space. Leviticus 11-16 provides the solution for this. It contains laws that are intended to prevent the contamination of the tabernacle (and later the temple), and it ends with the ritual that cleanses the temple from any defilement that may occur.

Finally, Nihan points to an interesting theological move that Leviticus makes. In Exodus, God appears on Mt. Sinai at times of God’s choosing, and then only Moses may approach (at least in P). With Leviticus 16, however, this changes:

[F]inally, Aaron is permitted inside the inner–sanctum (16:13ff.), where Yahweh appears to him inside the cloud (cf.16:2b?, ?), thus recalling the previous encounter between God and Moses on the mountain in Ex 24:15-18. — except that Aaron has now replaced Moses in the role of the communities mediator, and that this encounter is no longer unique but part of a yearly ritual (cf.16:29, 34a). [emphasis original]²

This is a remarkable reading of Leviticus, and it casts a wonderful light on P’s theology concerning the role of priests within the community of Israel.

1. Nihan, Priestly Torah, 90. [back]
2. Nihan, Priestly Torah, 105. [back]