Chapter 2 – The Method

In this chapter, Balentine lays out the method of his approach. Since studies on prayer in the Hebrew Bible tend to focus on Israelite liturgy, predominantly (though not exclusively) on the Psalms, Balentine chooses to explore the prose prayers of the Hebrew Bible. His study is to be largely synchronic, and as such he is not providing a history of prayer. He does aim to provide observations regarding the function of prayers in narrative texts, how these prayers portray God, and the ideological portrayal of both God and the human partner. Balentine briefly addresses how one might define prayer, and he chooses to follow E. Staudt who sees prayer as “explicit,” or as Balentine tweaks it, “intentional” communication with God. He locates intentionality in prayer through both prayer vocabulary and simply dialogue.

Chapter 3 – In The Beginning God

Beginning with the observation that God himself is the most basic confession of all prayers (whether lament or praise), Balentine moves to reflect on the most basic characteristic of God implied by human prayer–”What is it in the nature and character of God that both summons forth and enables the response to prayer?” (34). Reserving a future chapter for discussing how God is characterized in prayers, this chapter discusses how God is characterized by prayer as a religious phenomenon. The language of prayer is immersed in anthropomorphic metaphor for God. Such language underscores God’s own relatedness to the world, particularly to humanity.Some of this language is characteristically monarchical–God as King and humanity as his subjects–while other language is convenantal. Either way, the language serves to emphasize that God is “powerful to effect change in the world and accessible within the world to personal appeal” (47).

Links to the other posts in which I review this book can be found here.

In the most recent volume of Horizens in Biblical Theology, an article by James Metzger came out entitled “Where Has Yahweh Gone?: Reclaiming Unsavory Images of God in New Testament Studies.” Using the Parable of the Reticent Friend (Luke 11:5-13) and the Parable of the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8), Metzger shows how interpreters often begin by assuming an omnibenevolent, just, compassionate deity is the subject of such parables before asking how this imagery affects our understanding of God. There is nothing inherently wrong with this hermeneutical activity, but what Metzger demonstrates is how new hermeneutical options will present themselves if we do not assume that all divine imagery will be flattering. This is nothing new for Old Testament studies, but Metzger feels that the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible in all his unflattering glory is often lost to the omnibenevolent, just, compassionate deity of the New Testament. He proposes that the recovery of unflattering divine imagery in the New Testament would be advantageous for reasons he goes on to explain. It is particularly a paragraph from the conclusion that I would like to highlight here:

For persons in the Jewish and Christian traditions, these unsavory portraits of God are a salient feature of these inheritances, one which cannot so easily be dubbed the Bible’s “minority report” on God and sloughed off, for they suffuse the pages of both testaments. While most ignore or even condemn them as unfit for enlightened, progressive faith communities committed to justice, tolerance, and dignity for all, I believe we possess an invaluable resource that remains largely untapped but nevertheless might assist us in giving voice to the truly tragic in human existence as well as to our evolving conceptions of ourselves and our world in a post-Darwin, post-Holocaust age. Indeed, for many a personal encounter with chronic pain or disability and/or extended reflection upon the magnitude and variety of gratuitous suffering prohibits belief in the idealized deity of traditional and quasi-theisms so that the only remaining options are to expand metaphors for God or simply to drop god-talk altogether. For those for whom traditional portrayals do not resonate, God may be conceived as both friend and fiend; as a generative, benevolent presence as well as a capricious, savage, hostile force; as one who orders and sustains (Gen 1:1-2:4b) but also as one who nurtures (even celebrates) the chaotic and destructive in creation (Job 38-41). Experienced both as powers that bear down upon and sustain, as both creative and destructive, God may be one we have to learn how to love–if such love can be mustered at all.

No doubt many will take issue with some of Metzger’s more provocative views, but I believe that he makes some very sound hermeneutical observations that people of faith can consider and implement. I recommend the article for those interested in hermeneutics, in New Testament/Biblical theology (particularly marginalized conceptions of God), and in the intersection of science and faith.

2. Inerrancy cannot be proven, only confessed.

I believe this to be an important observation regarding inerrancy, given that inerrancy is so often used as “proof” of the Bible’s divine origins. This might be true (heavy emphasis on the word “might”) if it were possible to prove that Scripture was inerrant, but this is simply not the case. Now let it be clear that I am not positing the Bible is void of any true material, merely that as a whole, Scripture cannot be proven to be inerrant.

Inerrantists are not unaware of this predicament. They know well that not every assertion made in the Bible has been proven. Their approach has often been to recognize biblical material, the veracity of which it is possible to prove, and on that basis they assert that all future inquiries into the veracity of the Bible will follow suit. This is largely Kenneth Kitchen’s approach in his book, The Reliability of the Old Testament. Now his book does not aim at proving the Bible is inerrant, merely that it is “reliable.” Thus, his earlier chapters focus on those areas of the Bible where we have the greatest archaeological support for the historical claims made by the Bible (i.e. lists of kings during the period of the divided monarchy), and concludes with those areas where their is the least amount of archeological data supporting the Bible’s historical reliability (i.e. the primeval history). On the basis of the former, Kitchen would have us trust the latter. But what Kitchen ultimately ends up writing is a book about the plausability of the Old Testament, based on the veracity of a few select texts.

As it pertains to inerrancy, the same can be said. If the Bible proves to be inerrant at one point, this does not guarantee that it will be inerrant throughout. This might help support that other passages are inerrant, particularly when there are few or no external means of concluding so, but it does not provide the empirical data necessary to conclude the whole of Scripture is inerrant. Indeed, there are many assertions made in Scripture that can never be proven. Consider for example Judges 21:12 where it is said that 400 young virgins were found in Jabesh-Gilead. This is an unprovable assertion. These women have long since died, and even if we were to find some of their remains today, it is doubtful they remained virgins seeing as they were given over to the male Benjaminites as wives. Now let me pose a question: How did Israel know these 400 virgins were virgins? Did they line all the women up and point to them one at a time, waiting for a voice from the sky to declare “virgin” or “not”? They certainly didn’t first identify these women by subjecting them to the test of virginity elsewhere discussed in the Bible (c.f. Deut 22:13-17). Moreover, we know today that such a test is not itself infallible. Perhaps there were cultural signs of their virginity, but this then assumes that none of them were lying. Perhaps these were 400 women believed to be virgins, though that is not what the text claims. And we could also inquire as to whether the number 400 is a round figure or a precise figure.

These are inquiries that we will never be capable of answering. It is admittedly an absurd example, but I think it helps to demonstrate the absurdity of claiming that the assertion in Judges 21:12 is inerrant. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Maybe there were really 407 virgins, not 400. Maybe 15 of the 400 women were raped by their fathers but still donned the cultural signs of a virgin. Does is really matter? I doubt it does, and I imagine there are some inerrantists who would agree. And for those that would agree, they would suggest a definition of inerrancy which would allow for this type of discrepancy (something I will address in a future post). My point here is to state that inerrancy, as it applies to Scripture as a whole, is a confession of faith and not an empirical observation.

Of course, I have yet to state why inerrancy, understood as a confession as opposed to an empirical observation, serves as a reason for why I am not an inerrantist. Simply put, I have yet to find a compelling reason to make this confession. I was not raised in a Christian tradition that greatly valued Christian tradition (with a few outstanding exceptions), so the fact that inerrancy is understood by some to be a central confession of a historically orthodox Christianity will not serve as a “compelling reason” for me. Of course, I recognize that Christian tradition cannot be avoided when it comes to thinking about Scripture (the issue of canon would be a perfect example of why), but for this confession, I would need something more substantial than Christian tradition. Since I see other factors working against this confession (see my previous post and posts to come), I am simply unwilling to make it.

Before I close out  this post, let me reflect on how I began. Many Christians refer to inerrancy as empirical proof of the Bible’s divine origins. This is ridiculous and absurd! If we can recognize the confessional nature of the claim that Scripture is inerrant, than we should altogether cease speaking of the Bible’s inerrancy as a proof of God, Christianity, or the Bible’s divine origins. One final remark, I have avoided in this post discussing the “alleged” discrepancies of the Bible. I will address this in a future post.

I am sure that there were many of you, like myself, who were a little disappointed that the monthly Biblioblog rankings were going to be discontinued.  I thought that it would be  nice if we saw at least one final monthly ranking to bring us to the end of 2009. So I have done the arduous labor of plugging in all the Biblioblogs into the Alexa ranking website and plugging their rankings into the chart below. Enjoy!

There have been a few blogs lately discussing the topic of inerrancy, so it has encouraged me to produce on a post I have been working over in my mind. This was originally going to be a single post much in the spirit of Chris Heard’s Why I am Not a Creationist, but I have come to realize that such a post would be entirely too long. Thus, I commence a new series of posts on the subject of Scripture and inerrancy.

1. Inerrancy presumes a textual witness that does not exist. Insofar as inerrancy is a quality or characteristic that a text can possess, to state “Scripture is inerrant” assumes the existence of a well defined textual witness to which the word “Scripture” applies. This raises two particular problems in relation to a Christian conception of Scripture: textual tradition and canon.

Christians do not posses a textual tradition that has avoided the invasion of “error” in the process of transmission. Most articulations of inerrancy of which I am aware tend to focus on the autographs (KJV-only proponents aside), those texts produced by the human agents responsible for the human activity of putting God’s words into written form. This appeal to the autographs helps to escape the obvious error that occurred during transmission as well as the complexity behind identifying which textual tradition is the inerrant one. What this fails to acknowledge, in my opinion, is that the Bible does not purport to have one autographical tradition. Given that the book of Jeremiah testifies to multiple autographs (Jer 36:27-28), it is reasonable to conjecture that the multiple Jeremiah traditions in existence today could be traced back to do different autographs (more on this below).

Of course, the term “autograph” itself begs an important question: What is an autograph? Given the near universal recognition among scholars that the texts of Scripture betray different recensions, is an autograph the final recension of a text, or would it not also cover the original source(s) from which the final text was produced? Insofar as we are able to detect these editorial editions, are we to think of the revisions as expansions of an inerrant source or revisions of an errant one, or both? In the case of the book of Jeremiah, who’s to say that Jeremiah and Baruch did not ensure an event like the one cited above did not occur a second time by producing multiple copies, copies which in time produced two different Jeremiah traditions. Assuming both traditions go back to the pen of Baruch, what makes the Jeremiah in our Bibles (MT) an inerrant text and the Jeremiah in the LXX not an inerrant text, or might it be? Honestly, if the LXX Jeremiah were in our Bibles and the MT Jeremiah not, I suspect that the only real change that would be going on in this discussion would be the text that we consider inerrant. This suggests to me that inerrancy is more about feeling confidence in our own Scriptural tradition than a quality that tradition possess.

The issue of canon is another sticky point for those who argue inerrancy. There has never been a point in history where Christendom at large has subscribed to the same canon of literature. The mentality is often polemical–only one of these traditions is right. Maybe this is so, but it seems to me that this is more often an assumed conclusion, not a reasoned one. Why has there never been a clearly defined conception of canon and how should we allow that to affect our doctrine of Scripture? I think this question to be an important one because it demonstrates that inerrancy is not as much about a quality of the texts as the evangelical tradition (or other traditions subscribing to inerrancy) suggest. Why can the many traditions of Christendom not sort this mess out by using inerrancy as a guide to canon conception? Why not use inerrancy as the standard that determines the canonicity of any purported “Scriptural” book. What this actually shows us is that inerrancy is not as helpful as our Bible teachers growing up suggested.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that Scripture’s own understanding of Scripture is not as narrowly defined as inerrantists would have it (i.e. the purest “Scripture” is the autographical tradition). NT authors quote the LXX and call it Scripture even when it conveys a drastically different sense of the MT. Short of arguing that the LXX in these places is closer to the autograph, this presents a real problem to an evangelical doctrine of Scripture that is focused on the autographs.

As I see it, inerrancy simply assumes we have a canon and textual tradition that we do not have. Stay tuned for more!

Chapter 1 – The Subject and the Interpreter

I am persuaded that at least the church of my experience has engaged in a conspiracy of silence–a tacit agreement among those responsible for steering the worship and educational emphases of the church to be optimistic in their outlook of the world, sometimes to the extent of denying radical evil; to be hopefull in expectation of redemption and deliverance, often to the point of denying the possibility of the tragic; and to embrace and encourage probes, wonderments, and questions about life’s purpose, and about God, only within contexts carefully calculated not to leave the answer in doubt. (5)

To introduce the subject of his book, Prayer in the Hebrew Bible: The Drama of Divine-Human Dialog, Samuel Balentine devotes his first chapter to describing how his “own life’s circumstances have prepared [him] to hear [the text] in particular ways” (12). He tells a story from his youth when the Vietnam war  “thrust me, and a whole generation of idealistic youth, into a world of questions for which no one had prepared us” (3). Finding a “biblical precedent” for both action and non-action, Balentine describes the counsel of his minister and his reactions to that counsel:

“Sam, you must not question God; you must simply obey.” it was a comment I suppose I should have anticipated, given the nature of the worship, including the prayers, in which I had been nurtured since my childhood. I had never heard anyone question God, so far as I could remember. Certainly no one had ever been encouraged to question God. As long as my life was relatively stable, it has never occurred to me to do so either. But with stability swept away, the situation was quite different, and somehow, although I did not know why, I knew that minister has to be wrong.  (4)

Balentine describes how the academy of biblical studies in his day shared a similar vision of prayer to that of the church. He briefly addresses how “Protestant bias” has played a role in both the avoidance and general misunderstanding of the subject of prayer among the academic community. His own academic interests in the subject were born out of his dissertation work, eventually published in The Hidden God: The Hiding of the Face of God in the Old Testament. His study ultimately aims to challenge the way the minister from his youth and the academy of his day envisioned prayer.

The critique he wages, particularly against the church’s understanding of prayer, is still very relevant. In my life experience, prayers in church are used to praise attributes of God, many of which I find to be theologically problematic, and to ask God to “heal the sick,” though any charismatic connotations should be stricken from the mentality behind such a statement. While many profess in the “power of prayer,” the theology of the prayers suggests very little power need be involved.  Moreover, prayers in the tradition of Moses or Abraham rarely surface. The recovery of a biblical theology of prayer has the potential to affect many aspects of Christianity, and for that reason I have decided to thoroughly review Balentine’s work.

Links to the other posts in which I review this book can be found here.

In the Torah’s vision of Sinai’s covenant liturgy, this affirmation takes center stage. Moses neither yields to God’s instructions to remain silent nor accepts God’s decision to move into the future without these people. Instead, he dares to believe that at this critical juncture between the judgment announced and its actualization, faith requires that he challenge God with a “loyal opposition.” Moses will not give up on the people God has entrusted to his leadership, even though their sinfulness deserves divine judgement. Instead, he stands before God as an advocate for those who have clearly failed to live up to God’s expectations. He will not simply accept that God’s decision to judge the people is unalterable and impervious to challenge or change. Instead, he questionsGod, believing that in a genuine covenant relationship, even divine decisions can be reimagined, rethought, recalculated. He will not believe that the future of a people called by God is recalculated. He will not believe that the future of a people called by God is determined exclusively by human weakness and incapacity. Instead, he prays in the firm conviction that the future remains ever open to God’s relentless commitment to love the unlovable, to forgive theundeserving, and to create out of human failure new possibilities for realizing ultimate objectives. (146)

Theological articulations such as this have increased since the publication of Terence Fretheim’s Suffering of God, where this model of God was articulated so forcefully and persuasively. This quote is not altogether unique to most modern discussions of Exodus 32, I admit. What was new to me in reading Balentine here was the connection he made between this event in Exodus and that attribution of Psalm 90 to Moses.

At this critical juncture–when the Davidic monarchy seems to have failed, the steadfast love of God to have waned, and the future of Israel to hang in the balance [Book Three of the Psalter; cf. Ps 89.46, 49]–the Psalter’s Book IV (Psalms 90-106) summons the community of faith back to the memory of Moses. The superscription of Psalm 90 is the only one that bears the name of Moses, and seven of the eight references to Moses in the Psalms occur in Book IV. IT is this “Moses-book” that constitutes the “theological heart” of the Psalter. The pivotal memory of Psalm 90 is Moses’ intercession with God at Sinai (Exod. 32:11-14), its nucleus recalled in verse 13: “Turn O LORD! How long? Repent concerning your servants!” This plea–not the expressions of God’s consuming wrath thatpreceded it (Ps. 90:7, 9, 11)–provides the foundation for the petition in verse 14 that the future of this fragile people be secured by God’s relentless love (hesed). In the Psalter’s final ordering of the prayers of Israel, the memory of Moses’ daring petition at Sinai instructs the faithful to believe and to live as if the future does indeed belong to the Lord who “reigns” (cf. Pss. 93, 95-99), even in a sinful and conflicted world. (147)

When I first began blogging, I hinted that I might explore the significance behind the title of my blog (pronounced kol-ha-adam for those less familiar with Hebrew). I figure I am long overdue for an explanation, so here it is. But before I begin, let me correct a simple homophonic mistake. My blog is entitled כל־האדם, (roughly) “all of man” or “every man,” not קל־האדם, the “voice of Adam.” The latter name I admit is much cooler, which is probably why I did not think of it when creating this blog. Kudos to Jim West who pointed this out to me at SBL.

The phrase כל־האדם occurs 12 times in 11 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Some of these function in a narrative context similar to our English word “everyone” (e.g. Exod 9:19; Num 16:32; Jos 11:14; Zech 8:10). Other uses tend to speak more abstractly about humanity. Take for example, the Psalmists assertion כל־האדם כזב “All mankind are liars” (116:11). The verses that employ the phrase in this way are the ones that have captured my attention and led me to deep reflection. What can be said that that can apply to כל־האדם? The psalmist would say “falsehood.” This is an assertion that I doubt the biblical sage Qohelet would have challenged, as he is not shy when it comes to identifying the moral failings of “everyone” (c.f. Eccl 7:20, 29). Interestingly enough Qohelet does make use of this phrase, though it is not in places where his speech is characteristically negative of humanity. Rather, Qohelet uses the phrase constructively:

ידעתי כי אין טוב בם כי אם־לשׁמוח ולעשׂות טוב בחייו׃

וגם כל־האדם שׁיאצל ושׁתה וראה טוב בכל־עמלו מתת אלהים היא׃

I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and do good in their life;
moreover, that everyone should eat, drink, and find good in all their toil–this is a divine gift! (Eccl 3:12-13)

הנה אשׁר־ראיתי אני טוב אשׁר־יפה לאצול־ולשׁתות ולראות טובה בכל־עמלו שׁיעמל תחת־השׁמשׁ מספר ימי־חיו אשׁר־נתן־לו האלהים כצי־הוא חלקו׃

גם כל־האדם אשׁר נתן־לו האלהים עשׁר ונכסים והשׁליטו לאצל ממנו ולשׂאת את־חלקו ולשׂמח בעמלו זה מתת אלהים היא ׃

See! This I have seen is good and beautiful—to eat, drink, and to see good in all one’s toil which he toils under the sun during the days which God gives to him. This is his dividend. Moreover, all to whom God has given wealth and possessions and to whom he grants the opportunity to enjoy them, and to accept their dividend and to enjoy their toil– this is the gift of God. (Eccl 5:18-19 [Heb 17-18])

טוב ללצת אל־הית־אבל מלכת אל־בית משׁתה באשׁר הוא סוף כל־האדם והחי יתן אל־לבו ׃

It is better to go attend the house of mourning than to attend the house of feasting, for this is the end of every man and the living will take this to heart. (Eccl 7:2)

It is significant to Qohelet that death, above all, will ultimately interrupt and foil our attempts to produce an enduring significance (יתרון) from the toil of our lives, and as the latter verse suggests, Qohelet believes this is something that should be grappled with (c.f. Num 16:39; Jer 31:30). Instead of our toil producing enduring significance, we must be satisfied with our portion (חלק)–eating, drinking, actually enjoying our work–all of which he identifies as a divine gift. As those familiar with the ancient Near East might expect, this is not actually unique to Qohelet. Take for example the advice of Šiduri the alewife to Gilgameš:

You, Gilgameš, let your belly be full,

keep enjoying yourself, day and night!

Every day make merry,

dance and play day and night!

Let your clothes be clean!

Let you head be washed, may you be bathed in water!

Gaze on the little one who holds your hand!

Let a wife enjoy your repeated embrace!

Such is the  destiny [of mortal men,]

(Gilg. OB BA+BM iii, 6-14)

This advice reflects the kind of advice that Qohelet offers throughout the book of Ecclesiastes (2:24-26; 3:12-13; 3:22; 5:18-19; 8:15; 9:7-9; 11:8-10). In particular, I find the final line to reflect the use of כל־האדם in the book of Ecclesiastes. Šiduri’s advice is, at least in her mind, what constitutes the כל־האדם. But too much has been made of the correspondence between the Epic of Gilgameš and the book of Ecclesiastes (I may address this in a future post). This type of advice can be found throughout the ancient Near East. Take for example the Poem of Early Rulers as recorded in a text from Emar:

How is life without joy superior to death?

Man, I will truly . . . let you know your god.

Overthrow and drive out grief! Despise gloom!

As a substitute for a single day’s happiness can one pass 36,000 years in days of silence?

Like a . . . young man, Siraš is your pride and pleasure!

This is the true rule of mankind. (Lambert, 39-40)

Notice again the emphasis in the final line echoing the כל־האדם motif. The advice in this text relates to drinking (Siraš is a beer deity), advice that is not uncommon to Qohelet. In a Sumerian version of the Poem of Early Rulers, the parallel with Qohelet’s reflections about death is most striking:

Though one may seek life like (!) [Zi'usudra, death] is the lot of mankind. (Lambert, 40)

All of this is very interesting and should bear significantly on our understanding of Qohelet as an ancient Near Easter sage. But it is not Qohelet’s use of this after which the title of my blog is named. If anything, it is named after the challenge that the book of Ecclesiastes presents to people of faith in ascertaining what truly constitutes the כל־האדם. The epilogist, in spite of the fact that he finds Qohelet to be “wise” and to have written “uprightly, words of truth” (Eccl 12:9-10), reflects on Qohelet’s instruction and does completely agree with what Qohelet has concluded regarding this matter. He has the final word (סוף דברי), and his conclusion is thus:

את־האלהים ירא ואת־מצותיו שׁמור כי־זה כל־האדם׃

Fear God and keep his commandments. Indeed, this, is the כל־האדם. (Eccl 12:13)

(This translation comes from Peter Enns who first shaped my understanding of this concept; see reference below). What is interesting is that the Hebrew Bible does not actually provide a definitive answer as to what the כל־האדם ultimately is. Many interpreters, like myself, will be inclined to lean heavily toward the epilogist. For some, the epilogist completely trumps Qohelet’s message (i.e. Longman, 1997). But canonically this is not the case. While the epilogist is given pride of place, Qohelet is given greater space. Moreover, the way in which the wisdom of Israel (and certainly other traditions as well) appropriates wisdom (and other material) from the ancient Near East makes me hesitant to reject the idea that Qohelet’s more characteristically ancient Near Eastern wisdom could not be God’s wisdom revealed to nations outside of Israel. Ultimately, the canonical witness is variegated, and I believe it can be healthy for us to allow this tension to continue to exist.  Both Qohelet and the epilogist encourage us to reflect on the significance of human existence, and each provides a challenging yet constructive path forward.

If I have learned anything in my studies thus far, it is that challenging questions are often more valuable than simple answers, and that is the legacy of Ecclesiastes. It challenges me to think deeply about one of the most significant questions humanity faces. What is the כל־האדם? And it is here, in part, where I explore the answers to this question.

References

Enns, Peter. “כל־האדם and the Evaluation of Qohelet’s Wisdom in Qoh 12:13 or The ‘A is so, and What’s More, B’ Theology of Ecclesiastes.” In In The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel, edited by Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman, 125-37. Boston: Brill, 2004.

George, A. R. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Lambert, W. T. “Some New Babylonian Wisdom Literature.” In Wisdom in Ancient Israel: Essays in Honour of J. A. Emerton, edited by John Day, Robert P. Gordon, and H. G. M. Williamson, 30-42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Longman, Tremper. The Book of Ecclesiastes NICOT, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997

Mark Smith has written a compelling piece on what has become the most well known and revered expression of creation faith in the Hebrew Bible, the creation account in Genesis 1 (though he is careful to point out that this is not the only creation story contained within the Hebrew Bible). Building off the scholarly consensus that Genesis 1 is a creation text of the sixth century written from a priestly perspective, Smith explores the significance that lies behind this priestly vision and how it functions as a part of the larger biblical witness to the creative activity of God. This volume is both an enlightening read and a helpful resource for the scholarly discussion on Genesis 1.

Because Genesis 1 does not exist in a vacuum but rather in a canon that  is replete with creation imagery, Smith begins his discussion on the “Three Models of Creation in the Bible.” He surveys the many creation texts of the Hebrew Bible and categorizes them by the most dominant feature he observes in the text: divine power, wisdom, or presence. It is the conclusion of this chapter in particular that I found most valuable. Beyond simply categorizing these different models and observing their distinct emphases, Smith explores the ways in which these models prove to be theologically advantageous, while also addressing their limitations or potential for abuse. This chapter serves as the background of Smith’s work, using the material here to help sharpen our focus of the  distinctiveness of the priestly vision of Genesis 1.

The discussion of the text of Genesis 1 is divided into two chapters (Part 1), the first addressing questions commonly asked or issues that typically arise concerning the first day of creation, the second focusing broadly on the whole week and highlighting the priestly features of the text. Smith asks the following questions in the first of these two chapters: “Does Genesis 1:1 begin in “the” Beginning?” (43-9); “Did God Make Creation from Nothing in Genesis 1:1-2?” (49-59); “Does Genesis 1 Explain the Origins of Good and Evil?” (59-64); “What is the Significance of Divine Speech in Genesis 1:3?” (64-71);  “Was the Light on Day One in Genesis 1:3 Created?” (71-9); “Why are Divine Sight, Separation, and Speech in Genesis 1:4-5 Important?” (79-82);  “Who is the Audience for the Divine Speech and Light in Genesis 1?” (82-5). These questions are not unfamiliar to pastors, parents, and Bible class teachers, and though Smith’s answers will not necessarily satisfy inquisitive minds, they will certainly provoke deep thought and reflection. In the second of these two chapters, Smith addresses the topics of time, space, humanity, and blessing before synthesizing this material and summarizing this “priestly vision.” In doing this, Smith manages to paint the big picture in a way that scholars often fail to do. Scholarly discussion around Genesis 1 is often aimed at deconstructing naïve readings of the text. What Smith provides is a thoroughly constructive theologically sensitive reading of this priestly vision of creation.

In Part 2 of his book, Smith explores some literary issues concerning Genesis 1. The first chapter in this section addresses the placement of Genesis 1 at the front of the book of Genesis and of the Hebrew Bible at large. After a brief discussion of scribal activity in the ancient world, he argues that Genesis 1 serves as both a prologue to the Pentateuch and commentary of Genesis 2 (though he is careful to qualify how the word “commentary” is to be understood given its connotations in our modern context). He understands Genesis 1 to extend the creation tradition in Israel and in certain places to transform it. In the second chapter of this section, Smith wrestles with the difficulties surrounding the classification of myth in general, and the classification of Genesis 1 as myth in particular. He reviews the scholarly discussion, those texts or characteristics generally recognized as myth or mythic, and proposes reasons both for and against classifying Genesis 1 as myth. He recognizes that how one defines myth is the primary factor in whether one is willing to so classify Genesis 1, and concludes that this issue “may ultimately depend on what credence readers are prepared to give to either the Bible or to ancient Near Eastern literature in their descriptions of reality” (159).

The book also contains an appendix, “A Very Brief Introduction to Modern Scholarly Approaches to Genesis 1.” This appendix contains a concentrated dose of names, methods, and general information that will likely prove too technical for the average reader. Smith does a relatively good job as relegating the technical aspects of the discussion to the endnotes in order to provide a smoother reading experience for those less familiar or interested in the technical issues that occupy the scholarly community. He aims for this book to be useful for both scholars and lay readers alike. For this reason, it is understandable why endnotes were chosen instead of footnotes. However, Smith’s book is 300 pages long, and 100 of these pages contain endnotes; those interested in the footnotes will wear themselves out constantly flipping back and forth. Another frustrating feature for some will be the absence of a bibliography. I understand the desire to cut costs and save space, but I do not understand why in our present digital age the publishers or authors of these books are not making the bibliographies available online. On a much different note, the overall quality of the book is very good. The spine is solid, the pages open wide, and they remain open when sat flat on a desk.

In conclusion, this was an enjoyable read (though I will confess to having not paid too much attention to the footnotes). If you are even remotely interested in Genesis 1, you owe it to yourself to make time in your schedule and room on your shelf for this book.

While discussing the provenance of the canonical shape of the Torah and the role that the Persian Government played in the development of these texts, Samuel Balentine, in his Torah’s Vision of Worship, writes,

As a religious center, the temple provided the imperial government with the opportunity to use it’s own perception of reality to shape the “ritual world” celebrated in Yehud. Not only could the government require that sacrifices and prayers for the imperial rulers be incorporated into the liturgy (cf. Ezra 6:10), but its funding of the temple enterprises meant that every religious act had a potential political dividend. This is because ritual, as Berquist [Judaism in Persia's Shadow] notes, builds a sense of solidarity and consensus that is based more on emotional ardor than on intellectual assent. Each time the community gathered in worship, therefore, it recognized at least tacitly its debt of gratitude to its Persian benefactors. The devotion offered to God would not necessarily interfere with obedience to, or at least compliance with, Persian objectives. Indeed, it might encourage them. The ritual of sabbath observance for example, provided opportunity for worshipers to offer thanks to God and (implicitly) to the Persian authorities who permitted scheduled times of rest from the normal routines of work. (54)

This paragraph struck me in light of how churches in our modern context so often feel a debt of gratitude to our government for “religious freedom.” Many churches today fly American flags, endorse political parties/candidates, and even pray for America’s success in her military endeavors! It is one thing to appreciate what the government has made possible for people of faith and to pray for the well-being of men and women (whether they be soldiers, emperors, etc.), but we completely cross the line when the church believes it owes something to the government for the “freedoms” it experiences (c.f. Rom 13:1b). If churches, rather than implicitly (if not explicitly) endorsing the government, were to provide a continual stream of prophetic critique against its sins, one wonders how long the government would continue to provide this “freedom.” And if such “freedom” is so easily withdrawn, one must ask how free such “freedom” really is?

Then another angel, a third, followed them, crying with a loud voice, “Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands, they will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. (Rev 14:9-10)

Refrences

Balentine, Samuel E. The Torah’s Vision of Worship. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.