Blue Cord

At the SBL meeting in 2006 I picked up Alice Hunt’s book Missing Priests: The Zadokites in Tradition and History. I wrote a review of it on this blog a couple of months later. While the book does make some good points, I ultimately did not agree with the conclusions. Hunt argues that there are no Zadokites until the Hasmonean period because she sees no stress on Zadokites prior to that, while I would say they were around in the preexilic period, but because of their position of power they did not need to justify their position.

This month’s Review of Biblical Literature has a review of Missing Priests by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer. Tiemeyer has a slightly more positive view of the book, so if you are looking for a review with a different take on the book, check it out.

As part of my writing for International Biblical Studies Writing Month (held over for a second month due to popular demand), I am writing an exegetical essay on Isaiah 65:17-25 for the Feasting on the Word lectionary series. I came across an interesting aspect of the passage that I thought I would discuss.

It is widely recognized that Isaiah 65:25 alludes to Isaiah 11:6-9. Isaiah 65:25a states:

The wolf and the lamb will graze together; the lion will eat straw like the ox; and the serpent will have dust for its food.¹

It occurs to me that this is a rather odd statement. The first two phrases quoted above envision a return to the conditions of the Garden of Eden. The imagery is right at home in this passage, which envisions God creating a new heavens and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17). It also matches the heavenly vision of Isaiah 11:6-9.

But what is going on with the serpent? In Isaiah 11:8, the child will play with the asp and the adder without being hurt. This would make us think that the serpent eating dust is in contrast to its previous predilection. But Genesis 3:14 (which was probably known to Third Isaiah) states that eating dust is the serpent’s punishment. This would suggest that while the other animals are returning to the peaceful existence of the Garden of Eden, the serpent still bears its punishment. This doesn’t match with the thrust of the verse or with the material to which it alludes in Isaiah 11:6-9.

Blenkinsopp offers the following suggestion:

[The author] was apparently convinced that, having been cursed from the very beginning, snakes are the one exception to this ideal scene of harmony in the animal world. The snake is therefore excluded from this transformation of the natural world, this return to the first creation, in which humans and animals are to live in harmony and none will kill for food.²

This explanation leaves me less than satisfied. After all, nothing states that the serpent is not going to live in harmony. It won’t be killing for food, since it will eat dust. And the main animosity in Genesis 3 is between the serpent and humans, not between serpents and other animals.

But I still don’t have a satisfactory explanation for what is going on with the serpent. Does Isaiah 65:25 see this as a positive or negative for the serpent? Is the serpent going to eat dust instead of attacking humans? Or is the serpents fate contrasted with the fate of the other animals through a reiteration of the curse in Genesis 3:14? What is going on?

Anyone have any ideas?

1. My translation. [back]
2. Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 55-66, Anchor Bible 19B (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 290. [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.

Steve Cook and John Hobbins both replied to my post on H in Genesis. I wanted to address their comments.

Steve is right, of course, in pointing out that Knohl does not completely reject the idea of H in Genesis. In addition to p.103, n.150, which Steve notes, Knohl also says on p.60 that parts of Genesis 17 may belong to HS. This is a far cry, however, from attributing large amounts of narrative to H as John and Jim Getz have done.

John asks how I explain Ezekiel when I date H to the post–exilic period. The answer is that I see a development of tradition from PT, through Ezekiel, to HS. Ezekiel is, in effect, writing Torah, especially in Ezekiel 40-48. But according to the authors of the Pentateuch, all Torah is given at Sinai. This leads to HS taking many of the ideas of Ezekiel and writing them into the Pentateuch. For one example of this, see my post on P in the book of Numbers.

John also criticizes van Seters for seeing J as entirely post–D, but I don’t think this is an entirely accurate reading of van Seters. J the author certainly worked post–D according to van Seters, but I am sure he doesn’t deny that J drew upon older traditions (and even if van Seters denies this, I don’t). Although I am not directly familiar with Blum’s work on the Jacob stories, I would have no problem seeing a pre–exilic version of this story. It probably had several versions, some that are oral and some that are written. This does not change the fact that J as an author is post–D.

Finally, John thanked me for keeping this topic going, but I wanted to thank those who have responded (and hopefully will continue to respond) to this thread. As you know, I am currently not working in academics, so my only colleagues are those in the biblioblogosphere. Thanks to all of you for providing the intellectual stimuli I need to challenge my thinking on this topic.

While I was continuing to work my way through From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch last night, something occurred to me.

As I pointed out in a previous post, Nihan argues that Pg ends somewhere in Leviticus (I haven’t gotten far enough in his book to know where he thinks it ends). Others argue that it ends with the instructions to build the tabernacle in Exodus 25-31 or the completion of the tabernacle in Exodus 40. All of these make sense from a narrative perspective.

But this raises a new question for my own research. I am currently working on a paper that deals with the relationship of PT, Ezekiel, and HS. I started this paper in the summer of 2006, but put it aside to work on some other projects. In short, the paper sees a PT layers in Numbers 16-18 that Ezekiel re-interprets in Ezekiel 44.  HS takes Ezekiel’s reading and edits Numbers 16-18 to bring it into line with Ezekiel.

The problem, obviously, is that if Pg ends in Exodus or Leviticus, it doesn’t continue into Numbers. The question then becomes, what was Ezekiel reading when he came across the story in Numbers 16-18? Was it a priestly document that was not a part of Pg? Given the similarity in vocabulary and terminology between Numbers 16-18 and Ezekiel 44, I find it hard to believe that it was not a written document. So what was it?