Review of Prayer in the Hebrew Bible, Part One

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.

Samuel Balentine on God, Moses, and Openness

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)

Review of Chosen and Unchosen by Joel N. Lohr

Joel N. Lohr’s Chosen and Unchosen: Conceptions of Election in the Pentateuch and Jewish-Christian Interpretation is the second volume in a new series published by Eisenbrauns, Siphrut: Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures. My own interests in the book, indeed in the series as a whole, centers largely around contributions to our common understanding of the theology of the Hebrew Bible. In this respect, Lohr proved to be an exciting yet challenging read. The concept of election is very clearly embedded in both the sacred canons and secondary literature of the Jewish and Christian faiths, and a book such as this one demonstrates how dialogue between faith traditions and dialogue between texts and traditions helps us to build a more coherent understanding of the theology contained in Scripture.

The book is divided into two sections, the first of which addresses the concepts of election and non-election as they are understood in both Christian and Jewish traditions. The first chapter, a selective survey of Christian conceptions, begins by surveying material from theological dictionaries, lexicons, and encyclopedias before moving on to monographs and ending with contributions gleaned from Old Testament (or Biblical) theologies. Material by individuals such as Walther Eichrodt, Walter Brueggemann, and Charles Scobie is analyzed and a fairly consistent “Christian” picture emerges of election and non-election in the Hebrew Bible, primarily regarding it’s inherent inclusiveness.

The Jewish picture that emerges in the second chapter is drastically different; Lohr survey’s four major Jewish  thinkers (Joel Kaminsky, David Novak, Michael Wyschogrod, and Jon Levenson) who, though offering unique contributions to the discussion, interpret election as inherently exclusive. In this vein, the concept of election in the Hebrew Bible is not organically connected to a Pauline interpretation of the election passage in Genesis 12 (Gal 3:8). It becomes clear rather early in reading that Lohr, a Christian interpreter, finds more about which to commend the exclusive Jewish interpretation than the inclusive Christian one (particularly Kaminsky and Levenson). It  is to reinforcing this concept of election that Lohr dedicates the second section of his book.

Since the Pentateuch introduces the concept of election, and since it is around these texts that the conversation typically receives the most attention, Lohr examines four “test cases” from the Pentateuch in which our understanding of the concept of election can be enhanced. Missing from these test cases is a separate treatment of Genesis 12:1-3. While Lohr, primarily following Levenson and R. W. L. Moberly, another “rouge” Christian interpreter when it comes to election, believes that there are many reasons to interpret Genesis 12:1-3 exclusively on its own terms, he argues that what the Hebrew Bible (and especially the Pentateuch) does with this concept will ultimately determine the best reading of Genesis 12:1-3. (For Moberly’s own views on this passage, see his Theology of the Book of Genesis which I have reviewed here). Because this text is not treated separately, the reader unfamiliar with this interpretation will have to assemble a lot of data scattered throughout the book, and potentially chase down a few references in the footnotes in order to fully appreciate what Lohr is doing with this foundational text. Nevertheless, Lohr’s readings of Abraham and Abimelech, Moses and Pharaoh’s daughter, Israel and Balaam, and Deuteronomy (Israel and the nations) is very helpful in illustrating Lohr’s understanding of the chosen and the unchosen. The two appendices, “The Tendency to View Balaam as Sinner” and “Ḥerem in the Old Testament: An Overview,” help to address questions that arise from his discussion but that are less central to the argument as a whole.

While the book is constructive in many ways, Christian readers who view election as primarily inclusive of the nations, especially those readers not already familiar with the Jewish interpretation, will find this an eminently deconstructive book. It is unfortunate that being a Christian interpreter, Lohr did not offer a constructive reading of election in the Hebrew Bible and election according to Paul (specifically his reading of Genesis 12 in Galatians). Obviously, this was outside the more narrow purview of his study and that of the series to which he is contributing, but his argument will seem incomplete to certain Christians who value Paul’s hermeneutical genius. One wonders why this could not have been addressed in an additional appendix, given that other less central but important topics were so addressed.

That being said, this book provides a helpful starting point for those interested in how understanding Israel as the primary recipients of the blessings (and challenges) of being God’s elect people factors into the larger theological framework of the  Hebrew Bible.

Review of The Theology of the Book of Genesis by R. W. L. Moberly

I am not the first to review R. W. L. Moberly’s Theology of the Book of Genesis, the latest contribution to Cambridge University Press’ Old Testament Theology series. I find myself overwhelmingly in agreement with Ben’s assessment over at kilbabo, so I will attempt to avoid unnecessary repetition and explore a little further the uniqueness of this interesting yet frustrating book. Those who have not read Ben’s review are encouraged to read it in concert with my own.

Moberly, by his own admission, did not write a theology of the book of Genesis.

The discussion of the biblical text will necessarily be selective. . . . I am painfully aware of what is not included; for this I ask the reader’s indulgence (and forgiveness). What follows is a guide to, rather than a comprehensive coverage of, what theological understanding and appropriation of Genesis today may involve. (20)

Indeed, what Moberly demonstrates in this book is not simply what theological understanding and appropriation of Genesis today may involve, but what theological understanding and appropriation of any biblical text should involve. For this reason, the most valuable part of Moberly’s book is the introduction (though I hesitate to say that it is “worth the price of the book”). Moberly begins by briefly exploring the various ways in which the word “theology” has been understood historically, and asserts that one must “recover a more classic sense of theology, as an attempt to understand everything in the world in relation to God” (5), in order to truly arrive at a theology of Genesis.This is precisely what the book does.

Apart from his definition of “theology,” Moberly’s refusal to focus only on the text itself reflects his conviction that studying Genesis is not like studying other ancient texts. “Genesis is not a freestanding ancient text, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, but is part of the authoritative scriptures of synagogue and church, wherein there has been an unbroken history through the centuries of living with the text in a veriety of ways” (6). This admittedly confessional approach suggests that biblical theology cannot fail to account for the reader’s own context and how that context shapes the biblical text:

It follows from this that there is something intrinsically contextual and provisional about theological use of the biblical text. Theology is not a once-for-all exercise in finding the right words and/or deeds, but rather a continuing and ever-repeated attempt to articulate what a faithful understanding and use of the biblical text might look like in the changing circumstances of life. (19)

In a recent post, I include a quote from Mark Smith’s new book, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1 (review forthcoming), where I believes he does just this regarding the motif of God creating through violence. Moberly accomplishes this by focusing on specific texts and entering into dialogue with modern conversation partners regarding the issues raised by the text. For example, in his chapter “Genesis 1: Picturing the World,” Moberly engages in dialogue with Jon Levenson and the views he expresses in Creation and the Persistence of Evil, as well as Richard Dawkins and the views he expresses in River out of Eden: a Darwinian View of Life and The Blind Watchmaker: Why  the Evidence of Eveolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. Those interested in the intersection of faith and science will find this chapter to be a very exciting reading. As you can imagine, these encounters make Moberly’s book very relevant, but unfortunately, it does not help in shaping an overall theology of the book of Genesis.

It is worth mentioning for those interested in Genesis 12:1-3 that Moberly has proposed a reading that would challenge a long term consensus view of this passage. In summary:

The supposition that those who invoke Abraham in blessing actually receive the blessing invoked is a non sequitur that goes well beyond the meaning of the Genesis text. The textual concern is to assure Abraham that he really will be a great nation, and the measure of that greatness is that he will be invoked on the lips of others as  a model of desirability. The condition of othe rnations in their own right is not in view, beyond their having reason not to be hostile to Abraham. (155)

Overall, the book is well written, and it will certainly engage those who are interested in how the texts of Genesis treated in the book speak beyond their ancient horizon to our modern context. Moberly models an approach to Genesis, and the whole bible for that matter, that is engaging, relevant, and ultimately theological. While the book has a lot to offer, knowing that it is selective in what it addresses will help those who are interested in a comprehensive treatment of the theological message of Genesis not to get their hopes up.

Mark Smith on the Violent Imagery of God as Creator

In his powerful new book, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1, Mark Smith writes,

While we may be–and arguably should be–uncomfortable with the idea of a God who takes up violence to punish or test, such a way of looking at the world reminds us that God both cares about the world and cares enough that God is prepared to act. When we feel our discomfort at this side of God, we may also be forgetting the terrible violence of the ancient world in which Israel lived–and in which many people around the world live today. To my mind, the first model [of God creating by might and through conflict] acknowledges not only God’s power; it also calls us to resist human power and human structures in which our lives are intractably embedded. Moreover, I am often struck by the comfort that the first model [of God creating by might and through conflict] gives to people who themselves have little or no recourse in this world. While I recoil at the idea of the violent God, many people who take comfort in it are consoled not so much by the picture of divine violence, but by the sense of divine attention and care that it conveys to them for the possibility of overcoming terrible human power in the world. I may recoil perhaps in part because I can afford to; as a fairly privileged upper middle-class American, I suffer little from the world’s violence and thus far–thank God–it has not intruded much into my existence. But this is hardly the case for the vast number of people who look to the Bible for how it may speak to their lives. (32-3)

Theology, if it is worth anything, will recognize the context that gives it life. The violent imagery of God creating the world has profound implications, but these implications will vary in light of the worldview of those who encounter the imagery. Smith’s wariness of such imagery only makes sense in light of the many ways in which people both past and present act violently in the name of God, and yet his willingness to see this imagery through the eyes of those who “have little or no recourse in this world” offers a new perspective that breaths life into the text. However much our “enlightened” perspective on the world helps us to better understand the text of Scripture, it is just as likely to prove a hindrance to our understanding of the theology of Scripture.

References

Smith, Mark S. The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010.

In Whose Image is Humanity Made?

To those who regard Genesis as God’s Word, the question may at first seem obvious. In whose image is humanity made? Obviously, humanity is made in the image of God. But this does not really answer the question. As Fretheim writes:

To discern the kind of God portrayed . . . will decisively shape what it means for human beings to be in the image of God in the world (48).

This then leads us to ask, What is the kind of God portrayed that shapes our understanding of what it means for humanity to image God? At this point, a number of options are available, and none are immediately obvious as the solution. Could it be that, after having confronted all the passages about God in the Hebrew Bible (and if you are Christian, you can include the New Testament as well), we should then formulate a doctrine of God, and then from this systematic understanding consider how humanity does/should reflect this God?  Even should we conclude this to be a valid theological enterprise (should we?!?), it certainly expects too much out of the human pen involved in the production of Genesis 1:26-27. What is the image of God painted in the mind(s) of whoever is responsible for Genesis 1:26-27? Is it the God who is presented in the 25 verses preceding God’s statement that man should be made in God’s image? Fretheim develops his thoughts along these lines:

The content of this word God at this point in the text has fundamentally to do with God’s creative activity; so the human vocation to be in God’s image, at least as specified in this chapter (especially 1:28), is to be modeled on the creative words and actions of God. (48)

It is clear, however, that Fretheim has more in mind than only the creative words and actions of God in the previous verses of the text. In a footnote at the conclusion to the quotation above, he writes:

Or, more precisely, inasmuch as human being are created in ‘our’ image, the entire divine realm comes into view. The plural includes the divine council; human beings were created ‘to be a terrestrial counterpart to God’s heavenly entourage’ (s. Dean McBride Jr., ‘Divine Protocol: Genesis 1:1-2:3 as Prologue to the Pentateuch,” in Brown and McBride, God Who Creates, 16).

To turn to include the divine council is to build upon material that must be inferred from data not limited to the words of Genesis 1 (or the book of Genesis, for that matter). But God himself is a character whose existence and characteristics are largely taken for granted in the first chapter of Genesis. The narrator does not make any efforts to introduce us to this God. And thus we are brought right back around to asking what kind of God is humanity to image? The question is difficult, and does not lend itself to simplistic answers.

References:

Fretheim, Terence E. God And World In The Old Testament: A Relational Theology Of Creation. Abingdon Press, 2005.

Review of The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality, Part Four

Noah’s Ark: Time, Chronology and the Fall

The story of the flood may at first seem irrelevant for a book that focuses on the garden of Eden. For Barr, however, the flood story is integral to the discussion for two reasons. First, the flood story, as it appears in ancient Near Eastern literature, concerns immortality, what Barr argues the story of the Garden of Eden is all about. While the story as it exists may have less to do with immortality than its mesopotamian parallels, even Christian writers will use the flood story to reflect on resurrection (1 Peter 3:18-20). Second, “the world in which we live is a world that had its beginning with Noah and his times” (75). As a second creation story, the flood is helpful in addressing questions about the nature of humanity, for all humanity descend from Noah in the biblical narrative.

While Barr spends a brief amount of space discussion the chronology of the early chapters of Genesis with particular emphasis on the (gradually declining) life spans of the antediluvian patriarchs, the emphasis of this chapter falls on neither time or chronology, but with the (various) concept(s) of the Fall. While Christian interpretation, fueled by its reading of Paul, has typically turned to Genesis 3 as the answer for questions concerning the entrance of sin and death into an otherwise good world (understood as perfect), Barr sees Genesis 6 as the text which explains how a good world (understood with potential for greater or lesser goodness) was tainted by violence that made death (a natural aspect of life in the world God created) occur untimely and under improper circumstances. Barr reflects on how the gospels reflect on this aspect of Jesus’ death much more than on any other aspect of his life. Barr is critical of those who make death in abstract the enemy of God. As Barr understands it, “a death by violence, and in particular by enormous injustice, [is] exactly the conditions under which the Old Testament did see death as something like an ‘enmity to God’” (86).

Barr concludes by this chapter by reflecting on the concept of the/a Fall. He uses the debate between Ludwig Köhler and Emil Brunner as a launching point for addressing how the text of Genesis 3 should be approached. Köhler saw the text as an aetiological myth, “its purpose was to explain a series of contemporary phenomena” (87). Brunner (and Barr) found Köhler’s aetiologies unpersuasive. Brunner, because this led to the conclusion that Paul was “no better than a novice in biblical interpretation” (88). Barr goes on to explain, however, what he understands of Paul in this regard: “Paul was not interpreting the story in and for itself; he was really interpreting Christ through the uses of images from this story.” And this is where Barr differs significantly from Brunner, as he continues:

If the Old Testament text is to count as having some sort of authority in and for itself, then it must be free and able to utter a message of its own which may, at least in principle, be substantially different from the use which Paul made of certain selected and very limited elements within it, read through the perceptions and assumptions of a later and very different culture. It is useless to talk of the ‘authority’ of the Old Testament if in fact it is not allowed to say anything different from what Paul, or any other particular later interpreter, supposed it to be saying. (89)

Barr is unpersuaded by Köhler’s aetiologies because he see’s something more significant at work in the text; namely, immortality. “Immortality was the issue, and humanity ended up being (or remaining) mortal: Wisdom, followed by Paul, and later followed by the main theological traditions, rephrased this so as to say that the humans had been immortal but had lost this immortality. As I have put it, they never had it, but they had the chance of it, and lost that chance” (91). Thus, Barr concludes that man was never perfect or immortal, but was much like we are today.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

Ecclesiastes Introduction

I have been writing some short theological notes on Facebook as a way of representing the academic/vocational aspect of my life. Below is a note I posted recently on Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes is a much neglected book of theology. Apart from a few pop cultural references and the oft quoted conclusion, little is actually done with the book as a whole. This is unfortunate because the book asks many of the challenging existential questions of our own day (i.e. what good is all the work I do from day to day?). These challenging questions introduce themes that develop throughout the book and do not allow the type of piecemeal reading of the book that is more typical and appropriate of the book of Proverbs. We would do well to read the book holistically, considering carefully the inner musings of the book’s main character, Qohelet. “The Preacher/Teacher” as (s)he is often rendered in translations, Qohelet is introduced by an unnamed narrator who returns at the conclusion of the book (12:9-14) to offer a final evaluation of all that Qohelet has said. This frame-narrator is the one to whom we should attribute authorship of the work as a whole. Thus, the famous conclusion to “fear God and keep his commandments” is not to be attributed to whomever we may identify with Qohelet.

The identity of Qohelet is the subject of much debate. Too often it is assumed that Qohelet is to be identified unequivocally as Solomon (based solely on 1:12-2:19); this identification ultimately will not do justice to the book of Ecclesiastes as a whole or to the theology of the Old Testament. First, the name Solomon is never used of Qohelet. In fact, Qohelet is not a title as our translations suggest (i.e. The Preacher/Teacher), it is the character’s name (and the name is not Solomon!). The name is a feminine participle, “one who assembles,” and likely plays off the image of Lady Wisdom in the book of Proverbs who assembles people to instruct them (Pro 1:20-33; 8:1-36; 9:1-12; cf. Eccl 12:9). This does not necessarily mean Qohelet is a female, as both masculine and feminine verbs are used in reference to the character (1:2-masculine; 7:27-feminine). Second, the identification of Solomon simply cannot be maintained throughout the entirety of the text. While 1:12-2:19 is certainly intended to reflect the character of Solomon, other passages like 4:1 reflect sentiments never shared by the Solomon we read about in the narrative literature of Israel. Oppression was characteristic of Solomon’s reign (1 Ki 12:1-4) and thus clearly not something he would have been powerless to reverse. The unquestionable allusion to Solomon at the outset of the book is an intentional literary move on the part of the author best understood in light of the central aim of the book (more on this below).

The motivating question of the book is set forth in 1:3, “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” In my own words: Is what I do from day to day meaningful in any real sense? Qohelet finds that true meaning is threatened by what he identifies as hevel. Qohelet’s unique use of the word hevel makes it notoriously difficult to translate. Attempts by modern translations to capture its meaning by “vanity” or “meaningless” are not just insufficient, they are misleading and counterproductive. The word is best left untranslated and its meaning should be derived from the variety of ways in which Qohelet makes use of it. While no English word captures the phenomenon of which Qohelet laments, I believe the slang phrase “shit happens” captures the essence of this phenomenon. While Qohelet conclusions regarding hevel and meaning may not satisfy the idealists of the world (Qohelet is often touted as a cynical wisdom teacher), his somber judgments about taking advantage of today elicits a very down-to-earth (under the sun?) approach to the ethical, moral, and otherwise religious spheres of life (Eccl 9:7-10).

So what does this have to do with Solomon? First, Solomon represents the wisdom tradition of Israel. The appeal to Israel’s most exalted wisdom teacher, Solomon, is likely to lend credence to the book. Second, the book sets forth an ambitious agenda: “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? . . . And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with” (Eccl 1:3, 13). Who is suited for this investigation? Qohelet, as Solomon the king, has unlimited funds, resources, authority, and time to carry out this investigation. Qohelet, as Solomon the wise man, has unsurpassed wisdom to use in his investigation. If anyone could provide an answer to this question, certainly it would be Solomon!? But Qohelet goes where Solomon could never go, and experiences life on the other end of the social spectrum as the book progresses (4:1). In the words of the apostle Paul, Qohelet has “become all things to all people that by all means [he] might [persuade] some” (1 Cor 9:22).

The narrator finds himself persuaded by much of what Qohelet has said (12:10). He does, however, offer a slight critique to what Qohelet calls the “whole [duty?] of man” (3:13, 5:18; 7:2). In light of hevel’s grip on the world around us, the foremost concerns of mankind are to be understood theologically: “Fear God and keep his commandments, indeed, this is the whole [duty] of man! For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (12:13-14).

Review of The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality, Part Three

Chapter Three: Knowledge, Sexuality and Immortality

Barr begins this chapter by returning to an evaluation of the narrative of Genesis 2 and 3. His first object of discussion is the tree of life which fades into the background of the story following its introduction in Gen 2:9, only to resurface in 3:22. For Barr, the tree of life belongs to a separate story that was added later to the Garden narrative. However, its inclusion into the Garden narrative has “altere[d] very substantially the total general direction for the story,” making it “the sole express motivation for for the expulsion from the garden” (59). This means that Barr is “taking a ‘canonical’ approach, giving full value to the ‘final text’” (59). Based on God’s comments regarding its removal, Barr feels confident from a grammatical perspective that the couple had not yet previously eaten from it.

As for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Barr finds none of the current scholarly explanations regarding its significance very satisfying. “To me, it seems most likely that the power of rational and especially ethical discrimination is meant. This is something that belongs pre-eminently to deity, and particularly so in Israel. Before their disobedience the humans had no need for any such power. Their disobedience gives to them that power, but with it the perception of their own weakness and limitations” (62). Thus, Barr transitions from knowledge to sexuality.

Barr rejects the traditional Christian reading of this story whereby the nakedness is made to express the true feeling of guilt for the commission of a serious rebellious act against God. The knowledge gained by eating from the tree of knowledge brought about it the awareness of nakedness, and as a matter of propriety they hid themselves from God. Barr goes on, much as he did with the subject of death in chapter two, to evaluate nakedness in the Hebrew Bible. Among other things, he outlines the social impropriety of nakedness outside of a few exceptional contexts (marriage, prophecy) concluding that Adam and Eve were motivated to hide due to “a coming of consciousness of lines that must not be crossed, of rules that must be obeyed, and in this sense a discernment of ‘good and evil’” (64-5).

Before transitioning from nakedness to actual sexual activity, Barr entertains a tangential and speculative explanation of the origin of Eve, relating her name to Aramaic and Arabic cognates for ’snake, suggesting that Eve herself might have, in an earlier strata of the text, been some sort of “’serpent goddess’ who was perhaps, the goddess of life.” He admits that this is “perhaps incapable of proof,” but he does find it very attractive (65).

Barr spends a relatively large amount of space exploring the question of sexual activity, since many have interpreted this text as a story about the “achievement of awareness of sexuality” (66). Barr argues that the cultural assumptions of sexuality provide the most natural reading of the text. “Just as the natural cultural assumption was that humans were innately mortal, so it was the cultural assumption that they were sexually aware and active” (66). Among other considerations, Barr reflects on the exhortation for a man to “stick like glue” to his wife and to become “one flesh” earlier in the narrative, calling it “anticlima[ctic]” should they not actually become sexually involved until much later (69). Tying this in with the larger concerns of the narrative, Barr relates the knowledge offered by the cunning (ערום) snake with the new-found knowledge of their own nakedness (עירם), a knowledge that “reacts unpleasantly upon one’s own self-understanding” (69-70)

Barr also discusses technogony, but sees it differently than the text of Genesis 4. “Unlike the descendants of Cain later on, Adam and Eve do not learn anything technological. Covering themselves with leaves indicated the absence of technological improvement. Clothes, indeed, are now necessary for the humans, but it is God who makes them, not they themselves. . . . Civilization, if it means anything, means the making of distinctions, especially of ethical distinctions, and the consequent burden of differences, limitations and regulations” (70).

Finally, Barr briefly addresses the concept of the image of God (rejecting those who argue that this image was somehow defaced by a “fall”) before concluding this chapter:

The power of knowledge endows humans with a transcendence over the absolute limitations of their physical existence. The same knowledge, however, brings with it self-knowledge, and in particular self-consciousness plus the possible awareness of fault and shame. Moreover, the fact that man fails to add immortality to his knowledge only reinstates on another level his weaknesses and limitations. Knowledge may involve contact with the eternal, but sickness, mortality and other aspects of the human condition bring about another set of tragic weaknesses.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

Review of The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality, Part Two

Chapter Two – The Naturalness of Death, and the Path to Immortality

Barr’s second chapter addresses the two topics highlighted in his chapter title. He summarizes his own chapter well:

I do not suppose that in this chapter I have proved the immortality of the soul; it was not my purpose to do so. Nor has it been my purpose to argue that the immortality of the soul is a good thing, or a bad thing, for people to believe in. What I think I have shown is that, for much of the Hebrew Bible, death, so long as it was in proper time and in good circumstances, was both natural and proper in God’s eyes; that the Old Testament provides thoughts and aspects out of which ideas of the immortality of the soul could naturally and easily develop; and that the world on the basis of which much of the New Testament was written was a world in which the belief in that immortality was lively and strongly represented. (56)

Having argued in his previous chapter that Paul’s interpretation of Genesis 3 shares the concerns of Hellenistic thought rather than the concerns expressed in the actual text, he moves forward with his argument that death is portrayed throughout the Bible as something that is natural, not as something unnatural and opposed to God which Adam introduced when he sinned. His first line of argument is to survey a number of passages which implicitly assume or explicitly state that God is the author of both life and death, paying careful attention to those passages which might suggest otherwise. Building off this line of thinking he discusses the circumstances in which death is viewed as natural, namely when it bring about completion and fulfillment to a life well (or even poorly) lived, when it is followed by a proper burial, and when it is followed by a good name and offspring.

Barr then goes on to discuss the rather undefined concept of Sheol in the Old Testament. While the implicit assumption is that all the dead end up in Sheol, he observes that none of the most hallowed characters in the biblical narrative are said to end up there (but what of Samuel?). Sheol may be perceived as an undesirable destination for the dead, similar in ways to the New Testament conception of Hell. While Sheol is not strictly considered life after death, it does suggest a continuance of the person, and some headed to Sheol expressed their conviction that “the God of Israel has, potentially, presence in Sheol, power to control the destiny of his own ones who are there, but, must important, ability to hear their prayers and to have some sort of communion with them” (33). And if all this is true, might he not also have the “power to keep them out of Sheol and, if need be, to remove them thence” (33)? While Barr moves forward tentatively at this point, he expresses concern between the intersection of the meaning behind the word death as it is used by these authors and death as we mean it. Those familiar with his Semantics of Biblical Language will recognize Barr’s honed ability to criticize the meaning of a word in light of its various contexts.

If it is true that this correctly represents the language of the Bible (and I am still not sure that it does), all it seems to prove is that biblical materials framed in this language are not suitable for helping us with problems of what we call death. ‘Death’ in this poetic biblical sense may be a curse, may be opposition to God, may be a force that challenges him and opposes him, but that only proves that we are talking about something other than death. (34)

Barr then moves on to discuss the topic of the soul. He discusses the view that Hebrew thought conceived of the body and soul as a singular totality (living being, nephesh, נפשׂ), much like much modern thought considers man to be, body and mind, a psychosomatic unity. Wielding his semantic lightsaber, Barr penetrates the semantic differences occurring between body and soul in Hebrew thought. 1) People speak to their soul, “which is something like a superior companion or accompaniment to that totality” (39). 2) Body and soul are sometimes cast as oppositional terms. 3) The soul is mobile, sometimes leaving the body (and even returning on occasion). Thus, Barr concludes:

I submit, then, that it seems probably that in certain contexts the nephesh is not, as much present opinion favours, a unity of body and soul, a totality of personality comprising all these elements: it is rather, in these contexts, a superior controlling centre which accompanies, expresses and directs the existence of that totality, and one which, especially, provides the life to the whole. Because it is the life giving element, it is difficult to conceive that it itself will die. . . . With the recognition of this fact the gate to immortality lies open.” (42-3)

Barr goes on to discuss a few other topics–Later Hebrew thinking, The impact of ’sceptical’ Wisdom, Variety of thought on our subject, Martyrdom, and The Wisdom of Solomon–before concluding.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five