A fundamental problem: and three attempts at a solution

Doug at Metacatholic has published a provocative post, Deconstructing the Decalogue.

(For those who aren't familiar with the jargon, the "Decalogue" = the "Ten Commandments". Literally, the ten "words" (Gk. logoi):  see the ESV footnote to Deut. 4:13.)

I intend to use Doug's post to illustrate a fundamental problem in any attempt to understand the Bible. In a three-part series of posts, I will lay out three attempts at a solution to the problem. The first attempt at a solution, historical criticism, is described in this post.

Internal inconsistencies:

For ease of reference, I am going to attach a label to the problem that Doug illustrates so well:  internal inconsistencies. One biblical text often contradicts, or appears to be inconsistent with, another biblical text.

Very often, the sickness of modernity is diagnosed in different terms:  faith vs. science. In other words, individuals must choose between the competing claims of rival authorities. Naturally, Christians will choose to believe the Bible instead of "believing" the claims of modern science.

I submit that the problem is more fundamental than that. Christians cannot simply "believe the Bible" because the Bible comprises a range of viewpoints. Scripture is "multivocal" (my preferred summary term). A close reading of scripture does not pit faith against science, but one biblical "voice" against another — often even within a single book (e.g., Ecclesiastes).

Doug analyzes three Old Testament scriptures, which I am presenting side by side in tabular form. The first text, from Exodus 20, explicates the second commandment:  "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth" (Ex. 20:4).¹

Exodus 20:5-6	Deut. 7:9-10	Ezekiel 18:20
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.	Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.	The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

(1) The Decalogue asserts that God will punish three or four generations for the sins of the father. (2) Deuteronomy makes no mention of subsequent generations; rather, it focuses on the sinner himself. God will not be "slack" with the sinner (i.e., there will be no delay in punishment?), but will punish him to his face. (3) Ezekiel goes even further, flatly contradicting the Decalogue:

The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father. … The wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

Doug comments,

The words portrayed as belonging to God both in speech and writing seem to be up for conversation, criticism and dialogue. God in Ezekiel disagrees with God in Exodus, and even though the final redaction of Exodus most likely post-dates these prophecies the tensions and discordances are preserved in the text on its long journey towards canonicity.

What are the implications of this conclusion for exegesis? How can texts which are inconsistent with one another supply a coherent and authoritative guide to doctrine and practice?

Historical criticism:

The first attempt at a solution that I wish to consider is historical criticism.

The historical-critical method presupposes that Israel's understanding of God was contingent on its location in space and time. As the generations passed; as Israel encountered other nations with different religious ideas; as Israel's fortunes on the world stage rose and fell — Israel's doctrines and practices changed.

In my view, this is undoubtedly a biblical perspective. As Walter Brueggemann says, "Israel’s articulation itself would seem to stress the historical."² And indeed, traditional theology has been open to the notion of progressive revelation:

Different faith groups assign various meanings to the term "Progressive revelation." A common definition is the belief that God did not teach full theological, legal, moral, scientific, medical and other knowledge to humans in the beginning. Rather, God gradually revealed truths over a long interval, according to their needs, and at a rate slow enough that humans were capable of fully absorbing them.

But traditional theology was not open to the idea of irreconcilable contradictions in scripture. That Israel might actually change its mind, and conclude that the doctrines of an earlier era were in error — that was simply unthinkable.

In fact, historical criticism doesn't assume progressive revelation. Methodologically, earlier documents are preferred to later documents. The biblical historian assumes something like a degeneration from an original purity, rather than progress toward perfection.

As an example of the historical-critical method, consider Gerhard von Rad (whose views are here summarized by Walter Brueggemann). Von Rad proposed

that the recitals of Deut. 26:5–9, 6:20–24, and Josh. 24:1–13 constitute Israel’s earliest and most characteristic theological articulation. These highly studied recitals … narrate Israel's remembered "historical" experience of the decisive ways in which Yahweh, the God of Israel, has intervened and acted in the life of Israel. …

Von Rad was drawn to term these stylized recitals as credos, as bottom-line articulations of what is unquestioned and nonnegotiable in Israel’s faith.³

Thus von Rad employed the historical-critical method to isolate the earliest recitals of Israel's faith. He recognized that subsequent generations always circled back to the core material; they retold the stories in ways that were appropriate to new historical circumstances. But it was the most ancient stratum of the tradition that von Rad deemed normative and non-negotiable.

Were von Rad's conclusions warranted? Had he succeeded in isolating the earliest stratum of the tradition? Can the historical critical method solve the problem of internal inconsistencies for us?

In my second post, I will lay out some of the inadequacies of the historical-critical option. I will then direct our attention to a second attempt at a solution:  canonical criticism.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
¹Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

²Brueggemann, W. (1997). Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, dispute, advocacy, Fortress Press, p. 40.

³ibid., pp. 32-33.

James Kugel's provocative thoughts on the Torah; and the Jewish blogosphere

To be clear, the title refers to two different topics. James Kugel has not said anything provocative about the Jewish blogosphere.

Let me start with the second topic first. Christian bibliobloggers may be unaware that there is a thriving Jewish blogosphere (J-blogosphere) out there. The easiest point of access is Haveil havalim. The 138th roundup of what's going on in the J-blogosphere was hosted by Soccer Dad.

And that's all I wanted to say about that. Now, on to James Kugel's provocative thoughts on the place of the Torah in Judaism. Hat tip, Jewish Atheist.

Kugel has his own Web site here. He was recently asked the following question:

I have always avoided studying biblical criticism because, although I am primarily an orthoDOX Jew (daven 3 times a day, shomer shabbat/kashrut), I have somewhat of a cynical attitude to many aspects of our tradition despite my love for Judaism and my commitment to live a "religious life" and raise my children as observant Jews.

I feared that if I were to be convinced that the Torah is not a divine document, that the foundations of my faith (in halacha – not God) would be shaken and that I would not be able to take halacha seriously. Because if the foundational text that the entire halacha is based upon was not in fact divine — then chazal’s primary assumption no longer holds true. If Rabbi Akiva or Rav Ashi or Maimonides or Rav Feinstein all operated under the assumption of a divine Torah and that assumption is not valid (either in whole or part) - well.......

… I am actually not even quite sure what I am asking. I suppose I am writing to you to get your thoughts on how a religious person can maintain his/her faith and fealty in and to a rabbinic system that is so directly based on the belief of a Divine text and the "Four Assumptions"?

Here is an excerpt from Kugel's detailed response (which is certainly worth reading in its entirety):

Orthodox Jews (myself included) are, by definition, people who like to be told what to do. We accept eagerly the whole "prepared table" of Judaism. …

It is part of the whole posture of seeking to do God’s bidding that we absorb ourselves in the details of the traditional way of life, "davening three times a day" as you say, and kashrut and learning and Shabbat. We don’t take easily to going beyond this, looking up from those daily tasks to contemplate our Employer, that is to say, to think about the really basic issues of theology. In fact, to talk about such things even seems to us un-Jewish; it is neither a necessary nor a particularly comfortable activity for someone who has undertaken to live as an Orthodox Jew. …

When you actually consider Judaism as it is, the role of the Torah in it is really not what you say it is. Ultimately, Jews are not Torah-fundamentalists. On the contrary, our whole tradition is based on adding liberally to what the Torah says (despite Deut. 4:2), sometimes reading its words in a way out of keeping with their apparent meaning, and sometimes even distorting or disregarding its words entirely. (My book "The Bible As It Was" contains seven hundred pages of examples of how this all began.)

What’s more, as everyone knows, much of what makes up the daily fabric of Jewish life has only a tenuous connection, or no connection at all, with what is actually written in the Torah. I mentioned such things as saying the Amidah three times a day, the berakhot that we recite before eating and on other occasions, netilat yadayim, many aspects of kashrut [e.g. basar vehalav], many of the particulars in the way we keep Shabbat and holidays, studying the Babylonian Talmud, and so on and so forth. Isn’t this an awful lot of what it means to lead a halakhic life? On the other hand, one might also mention such practices as mekhirat hametz, which on the face of it seem in fact to contradict what is written in the Torah, in this case, the prohibitions of bal yera’eh ubal yimmatze. And all these are really only the tip of the iceberg; you yourself could go into much greater detail on this theme.

So someone looking at this situation from afar would probably be reluctant to accept your assertion that the whole system of halakhah depends on the words of the Torah and their divine inspiration. … No, this observer would say, it is simply not true that the whole system of halakhah depends on the words of the Torah. Those words were the starting-point, but what has truly proven determinative in them (indeed, what was recognized as such from the start) was the general direction that those words point in and embody, and whose trajectory was then carried forward through the Mishnah and Gemara and all later writings.

That "general direction" is the basic idea that Israel's connection to God is to be articulated through avodat H'. This is the whole substance of the Sinai revelation, and whether it took place at Sinai or somewhere else, biblical scholarship itself has highlighted the utter disconnectedness of this idea from all that preceded it. Before that moment, there was (for centuries) the God of Old, who appeared and disappeared; and there was the offering of sacrifices in the temple. Then, suddenly, the phrase la'avod 'et H' acquired a new meaning: it meant doing all these mitzvot. That changed forever the whole character of divine-human interaction, and it's that change that all later Judaism embodies.

… Time and again, it's not a matter of the specific words, at least not if you try to see the big picture. What really underlies everything — and what was the ongoing substance of the Sinai revelation — was the revelation of a new way of being connected to God.

In the light of all this, I hinted at the very end of the book at what is called in German a "thought experiment." What would happen if someone could demonstrate definitively that God had truly given only one commandment to Moshe at Mount Sinai, the one in Deuteronomy that says: "You shall serve the Lord your God with your whole heart and soul." Then He said to Moshe: "Okay, you and the zeqenim and their later successors can work out the details." Well, this is a somewhat jarring question, but please go along with it for a minute. In the end, I do not believe that this would, or could, invalidate our system of halakhah.

Of course I do believe in nevu’ah, in divine revelation, and I don’t think that Israel got only that one commandment from God. Theoretically, however, I think it would be enough if that were all, since that would provide the firm basis for everything that followed — Moshe's, or Rabbi Akiva's, elaboration of how this primal divine commandment is to be carried out. Because ultimately, any Jew must admit that at some point the divinely-given text leads to the human interpreter and the poseq, indeed, to this specific taqqanah and that specific gezerah shavah. And frankly, we don't really seem to all that aware of, or even care much about, where the dividing-line falls. This is our "prepared table," the work of many hands. If someone wants a different table, let him go ahead — but this is the Jewish table, the way Jews serve God. …

Understanding that avodat H' is the true foundation of our halakhah may not de-fang modern biblical scholarship; a lot of what it says will always be disturbing to Jews. But I think that modern scholarship does not, because it cannot, undermine the essence of Judaism or what Jews actually do in their lives; it cannot, as you suggest, cause the system to collapse.

… After all is said and done and Kugel is long gone, the problems raised for Orthodox Jews by modern biblical scholarship will remain. My hope is that the response I’ve outlined here, which is really what I said in somewhat different terms in my book, will also be around for a while, and that it may help people like yourself to look squarely at those problems and at what seems to me to be their only truthful resolution.

My response, in bullet form:

• I find Kugel's perspective on Judaism fascinating. (1) To talk about the really basic issues of theology is almost un-Jewish. (2) The whole Jewish tradition is based on adding liberally to what the Torah says … and sometimes even distorting or disregarding its words entirely.
  
  I presume that other Jews would take issue with Kugel on those points. But it certainly confirms the impression that Judaism makes on me, a Christian outsider. In the brief time that I spent exploring the J-blogosphere, I found that I was unable to relate to many of the topics of urgent importance to Jewish bloggers. Discussion mostly concerned the extra-biblical demands that Jews live under, and told me virtually nothing about how Jews interpret the biblical texts.


• The whole substance of the Sinai revelation [is this] … suddenly, the phrase la'avod 'et H' acquired a new meaning: it meant doing all these mitzvot. That changed forever the whole character of divine-human interaction, and it's that change that all later Judaism embodies.
  
  This statement highlights one of the fundamental differences between Christianity and Judaism (the observation is hardly original to me):  Judaism is grounded in observing the commandments in a way that Christianity simply is not.
  
  Jews will tell you that you can be an atheist and still be a Jew, as long as you continue to daven (pray), eat only kosher foods, and maintain the other practices of Judaism. For Protestant Christians, that is a very alien paradigm. For Protestants, what one believes about Jesus and the God and Father of Jesus is of primary importance. Praxis is also important, but definitely secondary.
  
  (Roman Catholics are perhaps closer to the Jewish model:  participation in the rites of the Church is regarded as salvific, and it seems to me that the rites operate somewhat independently of the individual's beliefs.)


• Ultimately, any Jew must admit that at some point the divinely-given text leads to the human interpreter and the poseq, indeed, to this specific taqqanah and that specific gezerah shavah.
  
  This is, in fact, the rationale for the extra-biblical tradition. We have the Tanakh, but it provides only a general guide. What does it mean, for example, "you shall do no work on the Sabbath"? How far can I walk before I violate the commandment? Such questions must be answered authoritatively, and that's what the extra-biblical tradition sets out to do.
  
  At the risk of riding my personal hobby-horse, I suggest that Brueggemann would agree with Kugel's pragmatic observation but go well beyond it.
  
  The divinely-given text leads inevitably to the human interpreter; and the human interpreter is not only fallible but inescapably trapped in a subjective perspective, conditioned by his or her location at a specific point in space and time. This inescapable reality has enormous implications for the claims we can make about our interpretations of scripture. As Brueggemann puts it, the best we can do is make an interpretation for now, knowing that we'll have to come back and do it all over again in future.


• What would happen if someone could demonstrate definitively that God had truly given only one commandment to Moshe at Mount Sinai, the one in Deuteronomy that says: "You shall serve the Lord your God with your whole heart and soul." Then He said to Moshe: "Okay, you and the zeqenim and their later successors can work out the details."
  
  Here we swing back in the direction of Christianity — almost, but not quite! Kugel and Jesus agree on the Great Commandment. And indeed, I think we are very close to Jesus' whole approach to religion at this point.

The problem is, Jews and Christians disagree fundamentally on "the details" that God left to the successors of Moses to work out!

At last, someone recognizes my "Genius"

This graphic is supposed to represent the results of a linguistic analysis of Emerging From Babel. But actually it's designed to multiply hidden links to a commercial site.

I have removed the following text from the code:

alt="cash advance" /></a><p><small><a href="http://www.cashadvance1500.com">Cash Advance</a>Loans</small></p>

It is such a pity, because the analysis was so right about the calibre of my blog!

My top ten verses of scripture, part 2

(Continued from the previous post.)

6. "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." (Ez. 36:26-27)
   
   I could never figure out why this verse isn't quoted in the New Testament. Anyway, it says several significant things:  (1) That we're a disobedient people in need of cleansing and regeneration; (2) That God isn't going to forsake us in our corrupt state — God is going to provide a solution for what ails us; and (3) That the solution necessarily involves the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit.


7. … whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness … so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Ro. 3:25-26)
   
   We are near to the heart of the Gospel here.
   
   Why was it necessary for Jesus to die? This question takes us into deep theological waters. Rather than supply a final answer to the question, I am content simply to point to Paul's language here:  Jesus died so that God could justify us without committing an injustice.
   
   God was determined to have mercy upon us; and yet it would have been unjust of God to "clear the guilty" without providing some sort of propitiation for sin. It may confound human understanding, but Jesus Christ is the solution to that otherwise insoluble dilemma.


8. "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" (Luke 24:34)
   
   The testimony of the Eleven to Cleopas and another, anonymous disciple.
   
   It isn't easy to select a single verse about the resurrection (raised for our justification? if Christ is not raised, we have believed in vain? Christ, the firstborn from among the dead?). But I love the resounding confidence of the assertion, "The Lord is risen indeed!"
   
   Sin, death, and the devil do not have the last word in scripture. Christ's resurrection provides sufficient ground for Christians to persist in hope — even in the face of terrible tragedy, if it comes to that.


9. He [Christ] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. (Heb. 1:3a)
   
   And here is the other great achievement of Jesus Christ:  he makes an otherwise dimly perceived God known to us.
   
   Jesus is God's Son in a unique sense. When we contemplate his words and deeds we gain insights into God's nature that are otherwise unavailable to us.


10. "There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." (Mark 7:15)
    
    This verse is perhaps an odd choice to make it into my top ten. However, the importance of the issue touched on here — whether Christians are obliged to be circumcised, abstain from pork, and observe other elements of the Law of Moses — is obvious from the trouble it stirred up in the early Church.
    
    The saying quoted above was interpreted expansively by Mark ("Thus he declared all foods clean," 7:19) and restrictively by Matthew ("To eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone", Mt. 15:20).
    
    It was the determination of this issue that set Jews and Christians on divergent paths. It opened up the church to Gentiles without requiring that they first convert to Judaism. This development made it possible for Christianity to be, at least in principle, a universal religion.


11. He has shown strength with his arm;
          he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of
          their hearts;
    he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
          and exalted those of humble estate;
    he has filled the hungry with good things,
          and the rich he has sent away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)
    
    This survey would not be complete without a reference to the social justice element of Jesus' ministry (in continuity with the prophets before him). Jesus befriended not only the poor, but those who were marginalized for whatever reason:  lepers, the demon-possessed, Samaritans, women, even those who were considered slack in their observance of the Law. Jesus joined them at the dinner table in an anticipation of the eschatological feast, which will take place when the kingdom of God is consummated.
    
    Note:  God not only exalts the humble, God also humbles the exalted. The finished work of Christ is the great leveler of society.
    
    But the completion of Christ's work awaits the arrival of the eschaton. Maranatha! — our Lord, come!

OK, I ended up with eleven verses in my "top ten"! Consider it a symbol of God's grace:  your cup has been filled to overflowing.

I can't help thinking of other verses I've left off my list. The Great Commandment, for example; and the Lord's prayer, and the words of institution of the Eucharist. Moreover, I'm aware that different verses could be substituted for the ones I have chosen, perhaps to better effect.

However, this survey represents the sweep of biblical teaching, from my perspective. I'll be curious to hear what essential pieces others think I've left out.

I think I'll tag James McGrath at Exploring Our Matrix to do this meme. It seems to me it's his sort of thing.

Finally:  for a very thought-provoking approach to this challenge, see John Hobbins's ten paradigmatic questions from the Bible.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
¹Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.