The N. T. Wrong Blog

Thomas Römer delivered a very good paper, which examined whether various divergent traditions about Moses in Persian and Hellenistic non-biblical sources might be reflected in the biblical texts. For example, he asked whether the “sign” of Moses’ leprous hand in Exodus 4.6-7 might be a “counter history” reacting against an important tradition recorded in Manetho, in which Moses was described as a man affected by leprosy. He gave the example of how many scholars now accept that Genesis 6.1-4 is a summary of 1 Enoch 6-11, rather than the reverse, and applied this to a number of Moses traditions as well.

Allan Cadwallader gave a paper about Greco-Roman slavery as a background to Philemon. He showed how Paul’s letter perpetuated the social stigma of slavery, while still referring to Onesimus as a “brother”.

I found a nice cafe for lunch:

Time to fly out, soon. It was good fun.

New Scientist No. 2658 ( May 31, 2008 ) offers what it calls an “interview” with Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein. It is much more of an article piece than a interview, though, as Israel Finkelstein’s comments are heavily edited by the article’s author, David Cohen.

The article describes Finkelstein as “something of a revolutionary” in the field of archaeology:

Over the past decade he has spearheaded a movement in biblical archaeology that flies in the face of the interpretation of the Bible as a largely historical document. He argues that the traditional dating of many archaeological finds relating to biblical events is out by up to one-and-a-half centuries. His conclusion is uncompromising: many famous biblical stories are probably pure fiction. The exodus of the Israelites from Egypt never happened, and Joshua never attacked Jericho, let alone brought its walls down. “There is no evidence that Jericho even had city walls at that time.” Finkelstein says. David and Solomon were not great kings who ruled over the ancient land of Canaan in the 10^th century BC from a palace in Jerusalem, as the Bible portrays; at best they were minor chieftains of some small-time tribe in that area. Their memory was later inflated and mythologised in the 7^th century BC to serve particular political and military agendas, he says.

After a bit about Finkelstein’s credentials, the article gets into the substantial content. The first shocking revelation from Israel Finkelstein is that he denies sleeping with William Dever. The article continues:

In this part of the World, where the ancient and the modem meet in everyday political discourse, his findings can be inflammatory – and, much to his annoyance, have been used by some as ammunition against the right of a Jewish state to exist in the area. Others dismiss his work as ideologically motivated. In one barbed attack, William Dever, a specialist in the region’s archaeology at the University of Arizona, accused him of being a fashion-led “Post-Zionist” who is caught up in a race to push the writing of the Bible into more recent times. This incensed Finkelstein “What does he know about me?” he says indignantly. “Is he with me and my wife in the bedroom? In the beginning I used to be furious when people made such accusations, now I’m only amused.”

Why the anger? Despite being firmly on the left of Israeli politics (“I am prepared to swap land for peace with the Palestinians”) Finkelstein considers himself to be “an oldguard, conservative Zionist, which means I strongly believe in the right of the Jewish people to have a state and homeland in the historic land of Israel”.

Mrs Humphrey Ward once wrote, “If the Gospels are not true in fact, as history, I cannot see how they are true at all, or of any value.” However, Israel Finkelstein rightly does not share her sentiment at all:

What really gets to him is the response from his own secular end of Israeli society. “It’s the beach bums in Tel Aviv who say ‘I always knew the Bible was not important, and now Finkelstein has proved it’ that make me depressed.’ As Finkelstein sees it, the Bible does not have to be a historically accurate document for its handed-down set of stories to be “the root of my identity”.

Finkelstein also notes that archaeology should be, but usually is not, done separately from one’s convictions about religion and nation. What a great idea!!

Finkelstein is about as Israeli as they come. Born in the small town of Petah Tikva dose to Tel Aviv, he can trace his family’s roots in the area back to 1850, almost a century before the foundation of the Jewish state. “My family arrived in the mid-19^th century from Grodno [in what is now Belarus] to Hebron. I don’t need any more legitimacy than that, nor does the state of Israel need the Bible to justify its right to exist,” he says. He has lived in the country all his life and counts himself a traditional Jew. “I’m not a believer, but we keep kosher at home, and I celebrate all the festivals.” Even the Passover festivaI, which celebrates the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and their journey to the promised land – biblical stories he believes are pure fiction. “Of course! Why not? This is my identity. I do it gladly.”

“Isn’t that a contradiction? “Not at all. I can separate my convictions about my culture and my identity on the one hand from my research on the other. I think this is critical for archaeology. If you cannot make this separation you are finished. Unfortunately, most people who work in biblical archaeology fail to make this separation. It’s a serious problem.”

The article ends with a few Indiana Jones-like episodes in Israel Finkelstein’s archaeological career, such as surviving bombs and mob attacks.

Terence E. Fretheim writes about ‘The God of the Flood Story and Natural Disasters’ in the April 2008 issue of the Calvin Theological Journal. The issue is dedicated to biblical and theological interpretations of Genesis, the subject of the 2007 conference at Calvin Theological Seminary. Fretheim begins with a provocative question:

“‘Noah and the Ark’ is often considered a classic children’s story, and it has found its way into the design of many a baby’s nursery and many a child’s toy. It is usually portrayed as a remarkably peaceful scene, as two by two the animals parade into the ark, and there is nary a cloud in the sky. A common assumption in these uses of the flood story seems to be that the child will accompany the animals onto the ark, cuddle down in their mangers, and safely ride out the storm. Rarely today are we shown images of those children who did not happen to be members of Noah’s family and who are swept away in the deluge, never to be heard from again. What if Noah, like Abraham, had argued with God on behalf of the children?”

Fretheim notes that natural disasters and risks were inherent in God’s creation even before humans “showed up” on earth:

“Indeed, such natural events as earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, destructive weather patterns, cell mutations, and even potentially deadly viruses were certainly an integral part of the creation before human beings showed up. In some sense then, such potentially destructive natural events are God-designed in the very ceation of things. Then, when human beings did show up, they were told to “subdue the earth” (Gen. 1.28 ) , which must mean that, for all its goodness, the world was not tranquil and perfect.”

Too true.

Fretheim also notes that some natural disasters have at least partial human causes (e.g. global warming’s possible effects on the severity of Hurricane Katrina). Fretheim uses this link to argue “it is difficult to deny an interpretation of such events at least partially in terms of God’s judgment, not least if one understands judgment as the effects of sin.” … well, it is only if one understands judgment as the effects of sin that one could make such a link.

In the remainder of the piece, Fretheim grapples with the justice of God and transcendence of God, ultimately choosing divine justice at the ‘expense’ of divine transcendence. He finds evidence of divine suffering in the story, in pursuing an implicitly Christological interpretation of Genesis 6-9. I got more out of Fretheim’s questions that from his interpretive solution.

Fretheim also provides a handy summary of the various critical interpretations of the story and the various purposes of the story which have been suggested.

I wondered about a comment by John J. Collins in his Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Collins notes that the Exodus story is legendary and folkloristic, but he still believes that it contains some historical memory. Collins’ reason is that it:

“is unlikely that a people would claim that it had experienced the shameful condition of slavery if there were no historical basis for it.” (p. 58, according to this review)

I was sure I had read something very similar in John Bright’s biblical paraphrase, which masquerades as a “history”, A History of Israel. And sure enough:

“Although there is no direct witness in Egyptian records to Israel’s presence in Egypt, the Biblical tradition a priori demands belief: it is not the sort of tradition any people would invent! Here is no heroic epic of migration, but the recollection of shameful servitude from which only the power of God brought deliverance.” (p. 121)

Bright’s reasoning is especially interesting. He begins with the argument that it would be too shameful to mention past Israelite slavery if it were not true. Then he attempts to bolster his argument by mirroring the ideology of Exodus itself - Israelite enslavement was only able to be overcome by ” the power of God”. But this argument actually undermines his earlier argument from the shame and stigma of slavery. For if Israelite slavery and subsequent freedom is presented in Exodus as being dependent on divine intervention, doesn’t this suggest that the ideological/theological rationale itself provides sufficient justification for presenting Israel as enslaved? Doesn’t the presentation of Israel as having been utterly dominated by Egypt fit squarely into the theological rationale of the biblical story? The so-called ”likelihood” of Israelite enslavement starts to look much less certain than Bright and Collins represent.

Also, I ask on what grounds do Bright and Collins judge the ‘likeliness’ of their argument from shame? If anything, it must involve a consideration of other nationalistic ancient histories. But this is the strange thing. Is it not in the very genre of such stories to present a people as overcoming adversity and insignificance to emerge as a powerful nation able to compete with other nations? Isn’t it instead ‘likely’ that an ancient national history will involve a rags-to-riches account of its remote origins?

But let’s see how the argument stands up for one of these other nationalistic ancient histories … ‘Of course there is some historical kernal behind the story of a wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. It is unlikely that a people would claim such lowly origins if there were no historical basis for it!’

Ah - no.

It’s not quite Fear and Trembling. But it manages to present the absurdity of the binding of Isaac, nonetheless.

“Responding to these developments, some secular scholars have claimed that archaeology actually disproves the Bible. Thankfully, it does not.”
- Finders of the Lost Ark?, Gordon Govier, Christianity Today, May 2008, Vol. 52, No. 5

It is often said that archaeology does not disprove the Bible. Some go even further, and claim that archaeology can not disprove the Bible.

Both claims are false. Archaeology can and does disprove “the Bible”.

But the phrase “disproves the Bible” is a very vague description. Archaeology discusses certain propositions, some of which overlap with the Bible’s own propositions. Given that the subject matter of archaeology and the Bible overlap in many areas, archaeology can and does disprove the Bible. The Bible deals both with the ‘what’ happened in the past, as well as the ‘why’ it happened. Much of the ‘what’ happened directly contradicts archaeological evidence (e.g. the biblical account of the Exodus, the biblical account of the Conquest, the biblical account of the united monarchy). And the Bible usually presents the ‘why’ as being intimately related to the ‘what’. So the ‘why’ questions that the Bible tries to answer aren’t immune from disproof from archaeology, either (although, the grounds for disproof are indirect).

For example, archaeology proves, according to the rules of argumentation and evidence of the game of archaeology, that there were only 3 million people in Egypt in the Late Bronze Age. The Bible’s own proposition is that some 600,000 fighting men, aged 20 and upwards, migrated out of Egypt during a period which may be correlated with the Late Bronze Age. When we add women, children and elderly, 600,000 fighting men implies some 2.5 to 3 million people who migrated from Egypt in the Late Bronze Age. However, the archaeological evidence shows no such thing at all. There is no such disruption to the archaeological record. In fact, Egypt generally grew in strength throughout this period.

So, the Bible’s proposition that 600,000 fighting men migrated out of Egypt in the Exodus is proved false by archaeology. The idea that God has called a certain people to him is also affected by this evidence. And, generally speaking, archaeology disproves this part of the Bible.

In 1974, the late Brev Childs compared two rather extreme approaches to correlating the biblical traditions and “extra-biblical” evidence:

There are two traditional approaches to this … problem, both of which, in my judgement, are inadequate. The first is the ’supernaturalistic’ viewpoint. According to this position the biblical witness is the normative, and therefore historically accurate, record of the event in accordance with which the extra-biblical evidence must be corrected and controlled. This position suffers in that it seeks to employ categories taken from outside the Bible, such as historicity, objectivity, and the like, and yet to retain without criticism the content of the canonical witness. It seeks to guarantee a reality testified to in the canon by means of dogmatic controls employed outside the area of faith. The second position, which is that of rationalism, represents the opposite extreme. It seeks to determine the truth of the biblical testimony on the basis of critical evaluation according to rational criteria, based on past human experience. It suffers from assuming that its criteria are adequate to test all reality, and it eliminates the basic theological issue by definition. In terms of the manna story, the supernaturalists claim that the exodus story is a historically accurate report of a unique miracle which is unrelated to any natural food of the desert. The rationalists conversely claim that the exodus story is an imaginary (or poetic) projection into the supernatural sphere of a natural phenomenon of the desert which can be fully described scientifically.”
- Brev Childs, The Book of Exodus 1974: 299, 300; cited by Philip Sumpter, Narrative and Ontology Blog

Childs identifies two opposite positions which can be taken. Both are distinctly modernist, but not in a properly self-reflective way. One tries to defend ancient ‘miracles’/'the supernatural’ in terms of the modern category of ‘history’. So, the bible is judged to be correct according to a misapplied modern criterion. The other position tries to explain ancient ‘miracles’/'the supernatural’ in terms of modern material monism. So, the bible is judged to be false, and is re-explained according to a modern criterion that should never be applied to a miracle story.

How do we avoid these two mistakes? I’ll suggest a couple of ways. First, we need to recognise that the particular mythistory done in the Bible is not the same genre as the mythistory done in modernity. The conceptions and boundaries of reality differ. So any criterion which unreflectingly imposes a modern distinction of ‘the supernatural’ and ‘historical’ (or ‘real’) is on dangerous gound. Second, we might realise that the modern standard of historiography, with its deliberate sifting of materials according to criteria and recognition of bias in cultural memory, has a significantly different focus from ancient historiography. We can write a modern history of Israel, or we can examine Israel’s history, but the two don’t usually greatly overlap. Hence the form of Mario Liverani’s Israel’s History and the History of Israel.

There’s some interesting reviews in the latest Review of Biblical Literature:

Alice Hunt, Missing Priests: The Zadokites in Tradition and History

As well as being the latest word on the Zadokites, apparently chapter three provides “a lucid discussion of historiography”.

“Hunt discusses the theories pertaining to the history of ancient Israel, with special focus on the dichotomy between the so-called ‘minimalists’ and ‘maximalists’ and on the various social-scientific approaches to history … “

William M. Schniedewind and Joel H. Hunt, A Primer on Ugaritic Language, Culture, and Literature

The first of its kind: an student’s introductory text to Ugaritic. A “good first step” for learning Ugaritic.

Also, for more advanced steps, the reviewer, Robert D. Holmstedt, recommends:
- Sivan, A Grammar of the Ugaritic Language (1997)
- Tropper, Ugaritische Grammatik (2000)
- Bordreuil/Pardee, Manuel d’Ougaritique (2004)

Adriane B. Leveen, Memory and Tradition in the Book of Numbers

The reviewer says this provides a good summary of the literature on memory and tradition, in the Halbwachs and Assmann sense. Sounds damn trendy.