Introducing the Bible
to the
21st Century Reader
Dieter Tieman
Introducing the Bible
to the 21st Century Reader
by Dieter Tieman,
COPACABANA NSW 2251
Copyright © Dieter Tieman, 2005
This is an edited version of a series of lectures
given at
during the first half of 2004.
ISBN 0-9579940-1-X
Tieman Publishing 2005
CONTENTS
Page
Foreword 7
Preface 9
Part One Introducing the Old Testament 11
1. Who is this Hebrew God? 13
2. The Bible 17
Interpretation
Authority of the Bible
3. Introduction to the Oral Period 21
Dating and
Authorship of the Old Testament
The Four Sources
theory for the whole Pentateuch
Genesis after its
final edition
4. Historical Books or
“The Lesser Prophets” 30
History in the Biblical sense
Joshua
Judges
Samuel, and the rise of the Prophetic Movement
Kings
5. Prophets from the Pre-Exile
period 36
Introduction to
Prophetic Movement
Nathan
Elijah
Elisha
Amos
Hosea
Isaiah 1
Micah
Zephaniah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Summary on
Pre-Exile Prophets
6. Prophets from the Exile
period and after 44
Jeremiah (627-586? bce.)
Lamentations
Habakkuk
(contemporary of Jeremiah)
Ezekiel
Obadiah,
(servant of YHWH)
Isaiah
2 or Deutero Isaiah (chapters 40-55) - still in Exile
Isaiah
3 (chapters
56-66) - After Exile, back in
Haggai (probably born
in exile)
Zechariah,
(a contemporary of Haggai),
Malachi (name means:
"My Messenger")
Chronicles
Ezra,
Nehemiah,
Joel (The name means
"Yahweh is God")
Daniel (The latest
book of the O.T.)
Summary
of the Prophetic movement:
7. Poetry and Wisdom Literature 52
Psalms,
Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes,
Song
of Songs,
Esther,
Summary of Wisdom Literature.
The Protesters (so called
by Spong p.64) 54
Job,
Ruth,
Jonah
Canon
of Scripture
Summary
of the O.T. course
Part Two Introducing the New Testament 58
8. Introduction to the New Testament 59
A new
approach to Interpreting the N.T.
Three
Stages in the Formation of the N.T.
The Foundation of the
Christian Faith
Christology
Introduction to the
Gospels
9. Paul’s Writings 69
Introduction
Interpreting Paul’s
Writings
1 and 2 Thessalonians
1 and 2 Corinthians
Galatians
Romans
Philippians
Philemon and Colossians
10. Mark’s Gospel 76
Spong’s Lectionary
Theory
11. Matthew’s Gospel 82
Introduction to Matthew
Comparing Matthew with
Mark
Theological Development
in Matthew
Writing the Gospel as
Lectionary Material
12. Luke-Acts 90
Luke-Acts - About the
Author
The story of Jesus told
against the Order of Torah
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus and
Deuteronomy
13. The Book of Acts 99
The Book of Acts
Jesus and Peter
paralleled
Jesus and Paul Paralleled
14. John’s
Gospel 104
15. Other
Letters and Writings in the New Testament 110
Ephesians
1 + 2 Timothy; Titus
Hebrews
James; 1 + 2 Peter; Jude;
1, 2 + 3 John
Revelation
History of The
New Testament Canon
Summary
Bibliography 118
Appendix 120
Mark’s
Easter Vigil
Jewish
Pentecost Vigil
Mathew’s
Pentecost Vigil
Comments
of Jewish Feasts
Chart: The Jewish Calendar
and the Liturgical Year 123
Foreword
What
are we to make of the many and diverse stories and writings contained in that
library of thought called the Bible?
Many
church folk have grown up with the belief that this is God’s book, and the
events noted therein, really happened.
Others are not that sure, but still feel it is an important book with
equally important messages about God in the world, but need interpretation. Still others claim it is not God’s word but a
valuable collection of stories and recollections by various people who share a
common search for meaning and spirituality.
With
these and other opinions, Dieter Tieman has put together a series of group studies,
expanded them, and now offers them as a resource to others who are ‘on a
journey of discovery’.
He
weaves some of the suggestions of the leading progressive theological thinkers
of our day with his own, to present a thorough and honest book. To use the current in-phrase - he has done
his deconstruction well! But he doesn¹t
just leave it there. He invites his
readers to also share in the process of reconstruction. And that is a very important invitation.
There
is much in the biblical accounts with which we can no longer relate. Our world views are very different in
important ways. But there is also much
wisdom and re-imagining.
So
I hope this book will be a helpful guide to all those who wish to continue
their journey from a pre-critical belief to a 21st century ‘thinking’ and
‘living’ faith. Because
thinking theologically means more than just interpreting our given ‘orthodox’
biblical tradition and creedal statements. It also means being willing to think
differently now, than we have in the past.
Rex A E Hunt
Director
The Centre for
Progressive Religious Thought
Easter
2005.
Preface
I wish to express my
gratitude to all participants of the course at
I am not an expert on the Bible, in particular with reference to the Old
Testament. I did not study Hebrew.
A Chinese pastor once said:
'Reading the Old Testament is like eating a large crab; it turns out to be
mostly shell with very little meat in it'.
(Davidson p.11). Is this how you see it? I like crabs, even if it is mostly
shell! I hope that you too will like and
value the Old Testament as much as the New, for we must remember,
if we didn't have the Old Testament, there would be no New. In fact, if we don’t understand the Old
Testament, we won’t be able to fully understand the New, let alone be able to
follow Spong and other modern theologians who are trying to make sense of the
Bible for us in the 21st century.
Spong said, after he had
published his book Living in Sin:
"Sex drove me to the Bible." (p.1) In a strange way
this applies also to us, particularly in the
Meanwhile, our
"It
is time for the church to move on beyond the present impasse towards fresh ways
of valuing, using and interpreting the Bible. While scholars have a role to
play in this process, such a breakthrough must grow organically over many years
from within the life of a church reclaiming and befriending the Scriptures as a
life-giving, transformative and faith building gift of God to the Church"
(Task Group 4.2.7).
Let us keep the last sentence as our motto for this booklet:
"To reclaim and befriend the Bible as a life-giving,
transformative and faith building gift of God to us."
Copacabana, April
2005
D.T.
Part One
Introducing the Old Testament
Chapter One
Who is this Hebrew God?
Quoting from the Task Group Report
we said the Bible is "God's gift to us." Before we look at the gift, let us look at the giver. The name theology
really means ‘God Talk’. If we look at
all the different types of theologies, we may discover that people have talked
about God in so many different ways, that some people are confused. “Which is the right way to talk about
God”? they may ask.
Let me say from the outset, there is no right way, not one person
has all the answers, but many people had a profound spiritual insight, or experience
of God, which they shared with others.
In the course of human history, we may be able to observe, what we might
call an evolution of thought about God over the centuries or millennia. Each theologian built on the foundation of
others, and new theologies evolved, almost like the evolution of the
species. This evolution is never
finished. It must also be said that God
should never be taken for granted, neither by the church, nor by
individuals. Only if and when we’ve
become aware of the spiritual side of life, which may have given us a new
direction or a new purpose in life, can we really speak about God. Such speaking comes from those who are not
impartial observers, but convinced participants. This prompted Schofield to write: "The
whole Bible is propaganda", (p.9) and the purpose of this 'propaganda' in
the Old Testament is, to tell us something about this Hebrew "God".
Who is this Hebrew God? We may need to let our imagination help us
first to answer the question, how did the idea of "God" start in the
first place? When homo sapiens still lived in caves, we
could imagine that the ‘awareness of the divine' may have dawned on them, like
the following story illustrates:
A
group of homo sapiens have found shelter in a cave,
when a fierce storm approached. They
were terrified by the lightening and thunder outside. Although they didn’t know what it was, they
thought that there was someone who wanted to kill them with fire, and that
terrible noise was caused by that someone’s footsteps. Who could that someone be? They all huddle together and the most
experienced among them said: “It can’t be someone like us. It must be someone much, much bigger, with a
terrible power. It could be his voice
and his fire. And they may have called
that power Thor (the Scandinavian god of thunder). When they experienced earthquakes, they found
another name for it. Eventually they had
a name for many terrifying experiences in their life. When they started to till the land, they gave
names for the one who sent the rain, who gave them good harvests, for the sun
and moon. So not only the powers they
feared were so named, but also those that were beneficial to them.
All these were life experiences they
could not understand. To early humans
these were caused by powers from beyond.
They called these powers gods.
When things went wrong for them, like the harvest washed away, or there
was no crop because of a drought, they would say: "the gods are
angry". They might then try to
‘bribe’ them to make them change their mind.
So they gave them something they themselves valued, and called it sacrifice.
Eventually, a cult grew around these gods. They developed elaborate worship. The worthy among them were appointed priests
to officiate at these sacrifices and functions.
(Here ends our imagined story).
Turning now to the question:
“who is this Hebrew God”? we might get some answers
from ancient History:
One of the earliest cults
developed in
The king later
changed his name to Akhenaten as it was believed that
one’s name described the person's being.
Amenhotep meant ‘Amon
is content’, i.e. his allegiance was to Amon, whereas
Akhenaten
meant ‘It pleases Aten’ i.e. a subject of Aten. His wife was Nefertete.
He built the city of
After only 17 years on the
throne, the king died, with no male to succeed him. One of his daughters married Tut-ankh-Amon, who became king.
As his name tells us, he returned to the worship of Amon,
and there is evidence that the priests of Aten were
persecuted. Is it possible that a
remnant of the followers of Aten survived and under
the leadership of Moses fled during these persecutions? We don’t know, but we do know that Moses
promoted a monotheistic God (there is only one god). He could have been influenced by Akhenaten. Mose means
'child' in Egyptian, and we believe that he was brought up in the royal
household, as described in chapter two of Exodus, and later became the leader
of the refugees.
In the
For the next two to three
hundred years, these stories about Moses, the time in
"Most
of his religious ideas can be linked with the dawning universalism of a most
unusual Pharaoh ... Akhenaten. Yet some of the ideas attributed to Moses are
anything but universal, caught as they are in tribal patterns. Were there really two persons who have been
subsumed under the name of Moses in the memory of
.....Was the original Moses killed in the wilderness in one of the many
rebellions against this leader that the biblical narrative speaks of? And was he replaced with a Hebrew whose
warlike tribal experience reflected a God who was conceived of as a warlike
tribal deity? In time, were these two
figures merged into a single person with a continuous, although not always
compatible, narrative in the folklore around the camp fires?"
Whatever it was, the story of
the Exodus has become the history of the formation of
“O
God, when you led your people, when you marched across the desert, the earth
shook, and the sky poured down rain, because of the coming of the God of
Sinai” (Ps.68:7-8).
This story had become for the
people, God's guidance for any event in the future. And so it was passed on from mouth to mouth,
from one generation to the next, in the form that God had initiated the Exodus,
and that God had acted decisively. This
story became the cult of
To put this against a modern theologian, let me quote a couple of paragraphs from Spong's book: "Beyond Moralism". They are important for us to consider:
"God
can be experienced but not explained.
Words can point to God, but they cannot contain God. Creeds tell true stories of faith, but creeds
can never exhaust the ongoing stories.
God is beyond and more than any human system of thought. Countless times we have fallen into heresy by
forging our small and partial truths into religious clubs to beat into
submission anyone who did not agree - and always in the name of God.
There are those who seem to be convinced that God is a member of their worship tradition. God is not a Baptist, Anglican, Roman Catholic, [or Uniting] .... God does not prefer the King James Bible or the Book of Common Prayer, but we trust, all participate in and point to who God is, but God cannot be adequately described by those human constructions.
No nation or race captures the whole truth of God. God is not American (etc) ... God is not white, black or oriental. God is not a he. Yet each of these ways of describing God does share in the divine truth. We are simply limited by language, imagination, and finitude.
No faith system can claim identity with God. God is not a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Buddhist. Until we accept the partiality of all religious systems, our religious arrogance will violate God's word against bearing false witness"- (e.g. the Ninth Commandment, Ex.20:16)
Christians are not settlers, but pilgrims. Settlers circle their wagons and prepare to guard their turf against the enemy. But as pilgrims, Christians are always moving, always widening their circle of experience to gather new acquaintances who tell God-bearing tales of lives lived differently from their own. Unchanging conviction stops pilgrims in their tracks and puts an end to story-telling and therefore an end to living faith." (Beyond Moralism, p.128)
These are challenging words indeed!
How would we describe “God” at
this point? What is your own concept of
God, or what does "God" mean to you?
Each person has, of course, a valid answer for him- or her-self at a
given time. My own version is at this
moment:
"God
is a universal energy that enables each person to respond with awe and
admiration to the universe, and so reach out to others to share all that which
is good, loving and life affirming".
In
this chapter we looked at the Giver. Our next one will be dealing with God’s gift, the Bible.
Chapter Two
The Bible
Referring again to the Task Group
Report, this section will deal with God’s gift,
the Bible, or often referred to as ‘The Word of God’.
As far as the Old Testament is concerned, there are actually two versions of it:
1. The Protestant Old Testament canon, or
rule, of Jamnia (now Jabneh,
south of Tel Aviv), written in Hebrew and agreed to at the end of the first
century ce.
2. The Catholic Old Testament, which
includes the Apocrypha, meaning that which is hidden, written in Greek, dating
from about 300 bce. This is known as the Septuagint. It was used in Jesus' days
in Greek speaking Synagogues.
The Old Testament contains a collection of many books. The earliest written material comes probably
from
As mentioned earlier, many
stories go back to oral tradition, especially the Torah, as the first
five books of the Bible are also called.
As in the evolution of the species, where many species became extinct,
so in the evolution of the Bible too, many stories were forgotten, but those
that sustained the people as a community, which were necessary for life, those
were remembered and eventually written down.
How the Old
Testament came about to be written is, of course, obscure. No one knows for certain. But most scholars would agree today, that the
theory originally proposed by the 19th century German theologians Graf and Wellhausen, is by and large still valid today. Their theory
is called ‘the four-document theory’, which will be dealt with in chapter
three.
Since there is such a long gap
between the events and the written record, and since the Bible is ‘propaganda’
(see p.13), and the aim has always been to tell us something about this Hebrew
God, we need to interpret the text: not only from the original text to modern
English (translation), but also from an ancient world view (a three-decker
universe) to our days of space travel, from ancient concepts like demon
possession and exorcism to present day insights of psychiatry etc. Jews and Christians have always looked for a
deeper meaning than the literal one.
Therefore, both consider most of these stories as being inspired. The Jews call this interpretation midrash. Our next task then is, to look at what is
involved when we interpret the Bible.
Interpretation
As the originals were written in Hebrew or Greek, (only few in Aramaic, the
language Jesus spoke), they had to be made accessible by scholars through
translations. There are many versions,
like the King James translation, RSV, Good News and many others. The stories are told in a thought form which
is far removed from ours. We need to
consult, therefore, history, archaeology, anthropology and other
disciplines. We need to know something
about the cult, religion and customs of ancient times, and about the
development of science, and to be informed about our present world view.
It was mentioned earlier, that
God in the Bible is described in many different ways: on the one hand the writers thought that
there were many gods (Poly-theism), then that God was like an absolute king or
despot, but also God was seen like a shepherd. Some saw him as a powerful universal creator,
whereas Spong sees God as Love, Life, and Being.
A debate on Compass (a religious
programme on the ABC) not long ago showed two atheists or rationalists, (Philip
Adams was one of them), and two people who claimed to be spiritual (‘they
claimed to have faith’). Geraldine Dougue did her very best to keep both sides in opposition
for the sake of the debate, I guess. On
the one side you had ‘reason’, on the other ‘faith’. This seemed absurd to me, as I have always
understood that faith goes together with reason or understanding. For me it is not rationalism versus
spiritualism, as it was presented!
Firstly, as God has given us all
a mind with which to think, a blind faith would not be satisfying for most of
us. Spong has a famous saying: He doesn't want to leave his brains at the
church door! Secondly, we need to
nurture our faith with understanding. In
other words, our faith needs to make sense.
St.Anselm of
Because we are all made
differently, not only in looks, but understanding, education, back-ground etc.,
there are many different approaches to the Bible. You will find representatives from the whole
spectrum of theology; from those who believe that the Bible was dictated by God
and that every word of the Bible is literally true, to those who think the Old
Testament has been superseded by the New and is therefore no longer needed. (see: "Diverse Approaches to the Bible" in Task
Group, 4:3) Most of us would find
themselves somewhere in the middle between these two extremes.
The
Task Group urged all: [3.3] "There exists a wide range of approaches to
the Bible" and asked that we "emphasise the importance of respecting
differences of approach both to the Bible and to theological issues
generally". We (Task Force) have had the privilege of journeying together
and learning from each other. We ask the
"Discussion about how we
might interpret the Scriptures faithfully will only be fruitful in an
atmosphere of trust, a quality easily lost in times of conflict. There has
never been uniformity in the Church regarding the right interpretation of the
Bible. Dr. Ian Breward reminded the task group in a
paper on ‘The Use of the Bible from 500 – 1600’ that “Differences in biblical
interpretation are as old as Christianity. There has never been a period when
everything was really settled. Schism, excommunications and anathemas partly
solved the problems in different regions, but that set of 'solution' is not
desirable or practicable in our world where contested ideas cannot be excluded.
We are challenged to find unity within diversity." (Task Group 4.2.3)
This reminds us that
we have started to "reclaim and befriend the Scriptures as a life-giving,
transformative and faith building gift from God to us."
Authority of the Bible
In which sense can we speak about the Old Testament as ‘The Word of
God’? or, what is the authority of the Old Testament?
There are several kinds of
authority: Absolute authority
(authoritarian) - the law is laid down and people must follow; delegated authority
(like in the church or government); collective authority (by vote, either
consensus or majority); internal authority (where we respond to our conscience,
or where we respond in gratitude, completely voluntarily). The latter is known in the Bible as covenant.
Who gave such authority to the
Old Testament? Were they Priests,
Scribes, or the Church? The Canon had
actually been voted on, either by consensus or by a majority. Since then it has been fixed. The Task Group writes in 4.2.5:
(a) The Bible grew out of the life of the early
church and the church remains the proper home of the Bible, the “community of
interpretation” within which the Scriptures find their proper context. But the
church does not “possess” the Scriptures. The church lives under the authority
of Scripture and of the risen Christ to whom the Scriptures bear witness.
(b) The Old Testament tells of God’s call to a
people and of their attempts to live in covenant partnership with God,
embodying his liberating love in their social life and expressing their
devotion in prayer, in moral living and in hope. The Hebrew Scriptures are
those documents which helped the early church understand Jesus and what God was
doing through him.
(c) As we enter the biblical story, allowing it
to become our story, as we open our lives to wisdom and guidance beyond what is
in our own minds and experience, over and over we find ourselves addressed,
summoned, graced by the same divine presence as is witnessed to in Scripture.
..... It is this continuously
experienced capacity within the Scriptures, Old and New Testaments alike, to
mediate to the community of faith a fresh grasp of the saving work of God in
Christ, which marks them as authoritative. The Scriptures point us to God in
Christ who alone has true authority in the church. The Bible is thus, an
indispensable means rather than an end.
Spong thinks that once we have escaped the strictures of a literal
approach to the Bible, we see so much more of its truth and beauty:
"We
hear that Word in creation, where this God proclaimed that everything divinely
created was good and that male and female had both been created in God's
image. That "Word of God"
fuelled every human movement for justice from the fight to end slavery and
segregation to the feminist movement to the peace movement to the gay and
lesbian rights movement. That Word of
God challenges the prejudice that grows out of our limited knowledge, our
tribal identities, our economic systems, and our sexual fears." (Resc. p.75).
But not all parts of the Bible do that, neither
is the Bible read in its totality at worship services. Large parts are totally ignored. This is evidence of a natural selection of
the evolution of theology.
In our next chapter we shall be
looking at the different authors of the
Pentateuch,
and the dates these were written.
Chapter Three
The Oral Period
The first five books of the Old Testament are called the Pentateuch, Torah, Law, or sometimes: The Five Books
of Moses. Some of the events described
happened a long time before they were written down. The Hebrews looked on these as the supreme
rule to govern themselves and for personal guidance
and devotion. For us in the 21st
century, however, we can no longer read these books as they have been passed on
to us. Even the Jews in the time of
Jesus had to face the question how to bring scripture up to date. They called this process midrash, an interpretation to
bring out the meaning of a passage.
To help us sift through “the
shells to get at the meat of the crab”, as mentioned in chapter one, we need to
do what commentators do, namely to find out in what period certain passages
were written, their historic background, who wrote them, and what certain words
meant then and what they mean today.
This is often forgotten by most ‘literalists’. Also, some of the writers, especially the
Prophets, were convinced that God prompted them to write a particular
message. So they wrote: “God said”. In some churches even today the words are
said: “hear the Word of God” before a scripture reading. This is to indicate that many passages are
‘inspired', that they have still a message for us all today.
For this reason, our question
must always be: 'what does a passage or a story mean' to us, and not ‘is this
true’? Why did the writer tell us the
story in this particular way? What
spiritual experience lies behind it? In
other words, we try to capture the mood, the conviction of the writers, and so
look behind their stories and sayings. Above
all, the Old Testament is, of course, the whole Bible of the Jews. They call it 'the Law', 'the Prophets' and
'the Writings'. For them, like for us,
it is a divinely revealed and sacred literature, where Law means guidance, direction, or instruction, rather than what we
mean in our legal sense. Right from the
beginning, this Law was presented
through interpreters, like Priests, scribes etc. These priests said that the Prophets and the
Writings explained the Law. It was the practice of Jewish priests and
scribes, to use 'proof-texts' , or quotes from the
Torah, to bring home their point.
When this practice was taken up
by the priests in the Christian church, in time it gave more and more power to
the hierarchy and they eventually preserved the right to be the sole
interpreters of sacred Scripture. This
is when some thinkers clashed with the authority of the church.
Spong illustrates this point by
telling the story of Galileo, (1564-1642) who was a
mathematician/scientist. In 1610,
through his own observations, Galileo confirmed the theory of Copernicus, the
father of modern astronomy and a contemporary of Luther, who stated that the
sun is the centre of our solar system, not the earth, contradicting the
teaching of the church, which had based its theology on Joshua 10:12-13 and
others.
Galileo taught in
It has been
established that science and faith need to be held together in tension. Faith cannot tell us anything, for instance,
about the origins of this world, whereas science does. But science cannot tell us anything about the
spiritual longings of us humans, whereas the Bible does.
The Pentateuch is
considered to be
With an extreme
literalist point of view, the world would have begun about 4004 bce, yet we
know from science that homo sapiens appeared about 500,000 years
ago, or much earlier, and that the Planet Earth is something like 4-5 billion
years old. Therefore, when we talk about
Creation, we need to distinguish
between the ‘origin’ of this world and the ‘development of our faith’. One is science, the other theology.
So what does the
story of creation say to us
today? If we look at both accounts in
Genesis, (on this later) we see a three-decker universe, but they both tell us
about a world created by God. To me this
means that we do not look at this world as a scientist, but as a feeling human
being, who sees the beauty of this world.
It has such an affect on me that I often stand in awe and wonder before
it, that I am reminded of that spiritual dimension of my life, which I want to
call God. Like a sun-set; a view; or
perhaps a spectacular lightening at night.
I have a feeling about nature which lifts me beyond my known world into
the sphere of the Spirit. This gives me
a feeling of gratitude deep within that gives my life meaning. It is a religious response which cannot be
scientifically analysed or explained.
Dating and Authorship
of the Old Testament
Schofield said in his Introducing
Old Testament Theology, that "a wall should always be dated by its
mortar (i.e. when it was built), not by the date when the stones were
formed."(p.23).
If we apply this to the Pentateuch, we see the stones as the stories that go way back
into the distant past, and the wall as the book that was written down. The past is irretrievable, so we can only
look at the date when these books were written down. A wonderful tool to determine the dates is
called the four documents theory of
Graf and Wellhausen, which we had mentioned earlier.
Yahwist or “J” Document
The first and oldest is the Yahwist writer, or
commonly known as “J” (Germans spell it Jahweh). The name indicates that the writer’s name for
God is Yahweh (Ex.3:14). It was written
around 960 - 920 bce. during the early reign of King
Solomon. The story begins with the
second creation story in Gen.2:4-4:26.
It is an epic story about the nation of
Although some may consider the
writer’s view of God to be primitive or too human or earthy, there is evidence
of a remarkable depth and insight not paralleled elsewhere. For instance, the story of Moses’ call at the
burning bush, where God’s name is revealed as: I am who I am,
we have here a concept of pure being, taken up by none other than Spong. Another gem remarked upon by Spong is found
in Ex.33:18-23, where Moses asked to see the face of God. But he is given only to see the back of God,
which can be interpreted as we can only see God where God has been, a truth
that we still experience today.
“J” is
"fresh, colourful, and full of power; clearly the work of a single great
mind. He does not whitewash his
heroes..." This writer "recorded the genius of
His main purpose is to tell the
story of the Exodus, and his hero was Moses.
A people who came from slavery in
King and priests were God's
anointed and ruled by divine right. "Thus the first strand of
The third Covenant, the Ten
Commandments or Decalogue, is given:
"I now make a covenant with the people of
There are three different versions of the Decalogue, Ex.34:14-26,
Ex.20:1-17, and Deut.5:1-22. The Ex.34
version seems to be in its original form, where no editing took place. Spong comments:
"In
this version of the Ten Commandments (Ex.34) there is no reference to God having
rested on the seventh day as the justification for the observance of
Sabbath. The reason for this omission is
because the seven-day creation story of Gen.1:1-2:4 had not yet been written. It was a much later work of art."
(Resc.p.46)
The situation in
"Following
the death of Solomon, there was a rebellion and a civil war in the Hebrew
nation, and the land was split into a northern kingdom, called
The Elohist or “E” Document
It’s author lived around
850 bce. in
"E" is less universal
than “Y” and more nationalistic. He
begins with Abraham, who according to Spong (Resc.p.47) is not coming from
It is not accurate history, but
"an attempt to explain history of the present moment by shaping the
folklore of the past that could have been at least one thousand years
old". (Resc.p.48)
"E" linked the
patriarchs Abraham with the shrine of
When the capital
The Deuteronomist or “D” Document
The word Deuteronomy means:
‘second giving or repetition of the Law’.
The dating is somewhat problematic, but it is generally assumed that
Josiah’s reform in 621 bce. in
It contains great material,
together with that of limited value. It
affirms the love of God, which calls us to respond with love and
obedience.
In time Deuteronomy was added to
the Jahwist/Elohist combination and the merged text
was edited again, in the light of new insights.
When in 596 bce.
Spong comments that Deuteronomy:
"was a book that summarizes Jewish history. If the Jews could be said to have a catechism
(teaching their faith) it would be Deuteronomy.
This book rehearsed the law and the history of the Jews and commended it
to the next generation. So the custom
developed, of using Deuteronomy to prepare converts." (Lib. p.74)
In the Jewish liturgy this was done before the celebration of the
Passover. We will return to this book
and this custom when we deal with the New Testament. During the exile, this sacred Scripture would
get its final editing and revision.
The Priests or “P”
Document
This document was probably
compiled by the priests in Exile, after 596 bce. The Babylonians had hoped that the Jews would
lose their national identity in exile, but together with their sacred
Scriptures, they did not succumb to that.
Priests like Ezekiel and much later Nehemiah and Ezra, met this national
crisis:
"in a way no captive people had ever done. They did it primarily by asserting the power
of the religious tradition of the Jews over the total life of the people. In the process they also edited and re-wrote
massive parts of their sacred story." (Resc.
p.53)
Jews had to be different. Their
distinguishing marks were circumcision, the Sabbath law, and kosher diet. Many of the Psalms were written in that
period. The seven-day Creation story was
written (Gen.1:1ff); and Synagogues were built for worship, as the temple in
The main part of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers were re-written, and the Combination J, E, + D were thoroughly edited by "P". For instance, the story of Noah was altered (seven pairs of clean animals, and one pair of unclean in Gen.7:1-10). The collection of manna in the wilderness was twice the daily ration on the sixth day, (Ex.16:4). The rational for the Sabbath was added to Ex.20 9 in the Ten Commandments. Furthermore, circumcision was added to Abraham's story, and kosher food was incorporated. "A history of every ritual observed in Jewish worship entered the sacred story," (Resc.p.54) Moses was said to command the Sabbath day, Abraham the practice of circumcision etc.
Many textual contradictions in
our Bible today come from the amalgamation of the four documents into its final
form as we have it today in the Pentateuch.
The book of Genesis has a special place in the Old Testament. It describes the beginning of time, and the founding of the Hebrew clan. Exodus describes the formation of the Hebrew faith. These books, as they appear in their final form, will be discussed briefly in the next section.
Genesis
The first Book in the Old Testament has been given the name Genesis, which means origin. During the Oral Period, the message was passed
on by filtering it through "subject after subject, until it was either
forgotten or took its place in tribal folklore to be repeated generation after
generation". (Resc.p.37). The first 11 chapters of Genesis form
one section of it. The writer or writers
try to explain what in those days was un-known, like the origin of the planet,
first humans, sin and the variety of different languages, just to name a few.
The second creation story (Gen.2:4ff) is the older one, also called “The
Garden of Eden”, which comes from the “J” source. Man was created first, then the plants, the
animals, and finally Woman. The problem
of sin is explained in terms of Man’s disobedience to God’s command. This seems arbitrary to the 21st
century reader. Spong thinks we all
started with a survival instinct as a baby, which becomes selfishness as we
grow up. The 'fall' is not due to
anything in particular our ancestor (Adam) could have done, but simply that we
have advanced from clan, to tribe, to nation, and now to a global community,
where the extreme selfishness of individuals and nations can lead to the
destruction of us all.
"Do not those very qualities that
once served our need to survive now threaten to annihilate us as we struggle to
be the keeper of our brothers and sisters in a shrinking, overpopulated world
that can no longer absorb the garbage we selfish Homo sapiens create in our
quest for individual pleasure?" (Resc.p.35)
Already in 1967 Bishop J.A.T. Robinson, taking Sydney Carter’s quote for
the title of his book: But that I can’t believe. Carter’s verse goes like this (Robinson
p.11):
You can blame it on
to Adam,
you can blame it on to Eve,
you can blame it on the apple,
but that I can’t believe.
Apart from sin, the problem of guilt (tree of knowledge of good and
evil), and death (tree of life) is dealt with in a most imaginative way, but to
take these stories literally, would be nonsense for us in the 21st
century. The overall purpose of
"J" seems to be, to re-assure the readers that God was and is in charge
of the whole world and of each individual.
Then
“J” deals with the perception of God’s anger over the ever-present
transgression of people, as described in the story of the Flood. But the seed of God's love is also evident,
as described in the first contract (or Covenant) made with Noah
(Gen.9:1-17): "never again will
all living beings be destroyed by a flood" (
The
final issue in the first section is trying to explain the great variety of
languages in the world with the story of the
From Genesis
chapter 12 we enter a new section, which deals with the Patriarchs. This is still pre-history, and belongs to the
oral period. We meet first with Abraham,
the Father of the Jews, Christians and Muslims, the three great monotheistic
religions.
We learn about the Second
Covenant with Abraham (Gen.15:18-21): - God's pledge of a son to Abraham: Isaac
(15:4), that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars (15:5), "I
promise to give your descendants all this land from the border of
The story
of Isaac’s son Jacob is a brilliant one of deception and counter deception, a
story of real life and one of the favourites around camp-fires. They are so vivid. We hear of Jacob's twelve children,
representing the twelve tribes of
With
Joseph coming on the scene, the story of
Exodus
Several generations of Josephs Hebrew tribes have lived and died in
With regard to the Levites, Spong wants to know:
"were they also connected to the original Moses as a priestly group whose
roots were likewise Egyptian? Are they
the ones who kept the original Egyptian Moses and his ideas alive in
The other books of the Pentateuch are Leviticus, Numbers and
Deuteronomy. Leviticus describes how the
priests were left in charge of worship and with upholding the law, Numbers
describing the experience of the Hebrews in the wilderness, and Deuteronomy,
summarising the other four books, as was mentioned before. But what link there is between Moses, and how
the Israelites were forged into a nation during the time in the wilderness is a
question scholars will still have to answer.
In
summarising the Pentateuch I would like to quote from a statement by Chris Budden, the General Secretary of the
Chapter Four
Historical Books
The books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are called by the Jews
“The Lesser Prophets”.
I have always loved history when
I went to school. I learnt dates by heart, names of kings, their battles fought,
and I was fascinated by the heroes and great men of history. Little did I realise then that this type of
history was only partial. It left out
much about the ordinary people, those who had to make a living in times of war,
who were often persecuted and oppressed.
I did not learn much about their religion, what they thought, what they
felt.
When
we turn to the Old Testament's so-called historical
books, we have in a way a more complete history, which also deals with
these issues. However, one thing we
won't find in the Bible is a western concept of accurate history, with facts and dates etc. Schofield puts it this way, (p.16) what we
have in the Old Testament is "not history lectures, but prophetic
sermons." History is being used to
tell what God had done. As the Law is concerned with God's guidance and
is not a textbook for general science, we must remember that the Historical
Books are religious works, always pointing to God, the Lord of history. This is the Jewish way of writing sacred history. They had a fairly unique sense of
history. Other nations, like
This
could only take place because there was the conviction that things happened
with a purpose. That purpose was to
learn about this Hebrew God, who had led them out of
When editors at a later period dovetailed the material before them, they altered it, not to present a more accurate history of what had happened, but rather to re-interpret the tradition so that it spoke to a given present situation. (Bowden p.46)
So to ask: 'is it true' in a literal sense, is the wrong question. We need to ask, how did the writer see God in all this? Has there been a new insight, a growth or a further step in the evolution of their understanding of God? As the Old Testament editors were concerned that the message of previous writers should remain alive for their age, they sometimes left the text and added their new understanding, or they altered the text, not because they thought the previous authors were wrong, but so that the message would be remembered in the new situation. That was good old Hebrew tradition.
They used what is known as 'midrash Haggadah', a method of
explaining a theological truth by telling a story. They could thus add tales, parables and the
like, or use a story of the past, to explain current experiences. "This style is not concerned with
historic accuracy. It is concerned with meaning and understanding."
(Lib.p.36)
The writers were speaking with an internal authority or conviction, so that they could proclaim: "God said", or "Thus says the Lord". It was not a voice from somewhere, audible to others, but their insight into a current situation enabled them to criticise kings, priests, institutions or certain customs. Their message was in line with God's teachings, with God's law, and that gave their message a divine authority.
Our theologians today don't proclaim ‘Thus says the Lord', but through their studies they often share new insights, which may bring them to different conclusions than their predecessors or colleagues. And there is no reason to get upset, if one doesn't agree with the one or the other. As Gamaliel said in the Sanhedrin in Acts 5:38, when the apostles were accused before the Council, that they had spread a wrong teaching: "If it is of human origin, it will disappear, if it comes from God" it will survive. In this sense our Theologians are Prophets of the present age.
Joshua
The first book in the historical section is the Book of Joshua. The
Bible describes Joshua as Moses' successor.
After the death of Moses we read in Deut.34:9: "Joshua, son of Nun,
was filled with wisdom, because Moses had appointed him to be his successor". To re-enforce his conviction, that God was
present in Joshua as God was with Moses, the writer uses a prophetic device. As Moses
parted the sea in Ex.14, so Joshua causes the water of the
God
had appointed Joshua the leader over all the people of
There are two versions of this event:
The first is in chapters 1-12, which tells of a united people accepting
Joshua's leadership, and recounts the swift conquest completed within a short
period of time. The conquest described
was ruthless, bloody, and no mercy shown to women and children. It is most likely that this version is from
the “P”-document.
Alongside
this, the Old Testament presents another picture of the occupation (Judg.
chapter 1, also Josh.13:1-6,
These
two versions were eventually blended together.
It is a comment on the interpretation of
Judges
The Judges were apparently tribal leaders, 'raised up by YHWH', to
proclaim and adjudicate God's Torah. Could these have been the fore-runners of the
'prophets' we meet later? The
development of this 'office' may go back to their early experience in the
occupied land. Once in
These
leaders (Judges) realised that their only way out was to emphasise their common
faith in YHWH. They encouraged the
Tribes to come together on a regular basis to worship YHWH, first at Shechem, then
Samuel - and the Rise of the Prophetic Movement.
The first book ascribed to a prophet in the Old Testament is Samuel, a
sign of the great
esteem he was held in. It is most likely
a composite work of several authors. Beginning with this book we have before us a
more continuous story, narratives with far more detailed descriptions. However, it is not History in our sense. It is likely that some written records
existed from this period, before they were collected and written up in the “J”-
document, at the beginning of King Solomon's reign.
Samuel
trained under Eli (the last Judge/Priest).
He brought a spiritual revival and political unity among the tribes, and
probably saved them from certain disintegration. Samuel could be said to have started the
prophetic movement, which had such a profound influence on the life of
God
was seen to rule directly. The Prophets
were considered to be a go-between, an intermediary. The Philistines, who had entered
Some
time after 1050 bce, when
When Samuel eventually agreed to take part in the election of Saul as King, it was in response to popular demand, voiced by the tribal elders (1 Sam.8:4-22). "It is quite certain that Samuel, whatever his initial feelings, soon broke with Saul and became his bitter foe." (Bright, p.167)
The
theological issue here is a perceived rivalry between God and King. Other nations around
The second king dealt with in Samuel is David (1000 - 961 bce). The war of succession was fierce. David was seen as a rival of Saul. In the end David won, Saul was killed in battle with the Philistines (together with three of his sons). David, a military hero, was elected king, like Saul before him, but his rise to power involved certain novel features.
He
owed his success to his loyal troops, like a feudal leader, and he became the
king over
This
is where the seeds for rivalry between
For example 2 Sam.11-12 tells
the story of Nathan, the
prophet, criticising David's behaviour with his affair with Bathsheba.
A
new covenant is described in 2 Sam.7.
This bound YHWH to David and
But
had the fear of a monarchy disappeared, because David was so successful? Whatever it was, as we shall see later, the
northern kingdom never accepted this point of view. Out of this ideal king grew later the hope for a coming king, a coming Messiah, a son of David, who would make the Jews once again a strong
nation. An interesting section in 2
Sam.24f tells us of David ordering a census of all men capable of military
service. The result: 800,000 in
Kings
This book continues with the history of the
The story unfolds: Solomon prays for wisdom, not for riches or a long life. (1 Kings 3:1-15) Solomon builds the temple. (1 Kg.6:1-14) By skilful diplomacy and vigorous commercial enterprise he enriched his kingdom (Davidson p.22). Thus he was a successful king, and mostly popular with those who benefited from his reign.
On
the other hand, though, his extravagant tastes, heavy taxation and a policy of
forced labour, alienated him from most other people. Not surprisingly, on his death, the kingdom
split into two, the northern kingdom of
It
is thought that the reason for this lay in the constant opposition of prophets
and priests against monarchical or dynastic succession. This was evident until 721 bce, the Assyrian
conquest. Whilst dealing with the kings
of
In the next chapter we meet the Prophets Elijah, Elisha, and Isaiah, as we further discuss the Prophetic Movement
Chapter Five
Prophets from the Pre-Exile
period
Introduction to the Prophetic Movement
The prophetic movement, beginning with Amos and Hosea, continued for
some three centuries. The classical
prophets represent a new phenomenon for
They
were not so much innovators with new theological insight, with some exceptions,
but more 'reformers', who reminded the people and the leaders of what they
already knew. They adapted the tradition to new situations. Quite early
material shows that
"The
prophetic movement was a Jewish gift to the world. It was in touch with the Elohist
mentality that placed all things, including the temple and royal family, under
the judgment of the living God" (Resc. p.58)
The traditional view represented in the Old Testament is that prophets
predicted the Future. In the sense that
they warned their people that unless they changed their way, the future would
look bleak for them, this is correct, (or as someone said, they brought bad
news in good times). But Spong takes
issue with those who think that the Old Testament is there to point to and be
fulfilled by the New Testament. He says: "The prophets were thought to be
something like fortune-tellers, who served as the divine predictors of future
events". (Lib. p.31)
This is not how the Hebrews saw it. According to them, they were interpreters of present situations. They used a story or borrowed a concept of the past and applied it to their new situation. We will meet this when we come to the New Testament, where the writers were looking to the Old Testament, to interpret the death of Jesus, for instance. Spong asks:
"Did
the writer predict the events of the cross, or did the Gospel writers pattern
their story of the cross after the very familiar Psalm"? (Resc.p.58)
Another view of the Prophetic Movement is expressed by Bright:
"They
(the prophets) were men from every walk of life who had felt the compulsion of
Yahweh's word and who often came to their vocation through some experience of
call. They took issue with the state and
continually tried to influence its policies, but they never took part in any
revolutionary activity." (Bright p.246)
They were telling people that YHWH demanded righteous living and that he
alone should be worshipped. As YHWH had
once come to the people through his spirit-chosen leaders, so he came now to
them through his prophets.
In the 8th century bce. the state
of
Nathan
The first prophet to appear in the Old Testament was Nathan (see
2Sam.11:1-12:15). He was famous for
criticising David's affair with Bathsheba, and the subsequent 'murder' of her
husband Uriah.
The extraordinary thing is that David repented, and after this event
Nathan became David's closest adviser.
There is not much more to say on Nathan.
Elijah
He appears first in 1 Kings 17 - 19.
(v.1) "A prophet named Elijah, from Tishbe
in
Elijah
belonged to the strictest tradition of Yahwism in
One day he had to flee from Jezebel's supporters across the border
to
Elijah,
of course, also opposed King Ahab, e.g. in the familiar story of Naboth’s vineyard, described in Chapter 21: Elijah was also told to anoint Hazael as king of Syria, and Jehu
king of Israel, in opposition to Ahab, to show Israel that God did not approve
of him. This was seen as treason, a very
dangerous act. Elijah also anointed Elisha as his successor, as the chief prophet of
There is no book named after Elijah, but he was regarded in highest esteem. In Jesus' days the Jews thought of Elijah as the prophet of all prophets. This is reflected in the story of the transfiguration in Mark 9:2-13, where Moses represents The Law and Elijah The Prophets.
Elisha
He is Elijah's successor, who carried forward the aims of his
master. Opposition to the king continued
to mount. Elisha
resisted the policy of the state with the help of other prophets loyal to the Yahwists. The Yahwist writer reports more miracles and does his best for Elisha not to be overshadowed by Elijah.
All the above three prophets are considered most important to the Jewish faith, but none of them had a book that was named after them. The prophets with a name to their writing first appeared in the 8th Century bce.
Amos (about 750 bce)
He is the first prophet whose message was recorded at length. Although he came from Judah (Tekoa, on the fringe of the Judean wilderness) (1:1), he
preached mainly to the people of
2:6-7:
'The Lord says: "The people of
Famine brought those who struggled to ruin. Their property was foreclosed and they were
evicted, because of the greed of the wealthy. (4:6-9) He spoke against the tampering with
the weights and measures (2:6-8). Judges
did not deal fairly with the people. (
Hosea - followed Amos.
He also prophesied in
The
covenant bond is like a marriage - YHWH is like
The
practice of overt pagan fertility cults with debasing rites were evident
everywhere and sternly condemned by Hosea.
But in spite of all that unfaithfulness, God still loved his people (
Isaiah 1 (chapters 1-39) (around 742 bce to 690 bce)
These chapters are considered by most scholars as having a different
author than the rest of the book.
Chapter 39 seems to be an editor’s note to combine Isaiah 1 with Isaiah
2. One can notice a different style and
a different time all-together. (see also the next chapter).
Isaiah
1 began his ministry in
It
was no surprise then, that
In
reply to Ahaz's doubting, Isaiah told him that God
himself would give him a sign that all will be well: "A young woman who is
pregnant will have a son and will name him 'Immanuel', i.e. God will again be
with
Hezekiah,
Ahaz's son (715-687bce), seemed a stronger man than Ahaz. He followed
the prophets' call for reform, and the more conservative
"The
sinful people of
The longing grew for a better king, an ideal David, who would establish
justice and peace in
“His royal power will continue to grow; his kingdom will always be at
peace. He will rule as King David’s
successor, basing his power on right and justice, from now until the end of
time.” (9:7)
Chapters 36-39 are almost identical copies of 2 Kings 18-20:19. It is not known who copied whom, or whether
Isaiah 1 wrote the passage in Kings, or even, if an editor of Isaiah added this
passage to link it up with Isaiah 2, beginning with chapter 40.
Micah is a contemporary of
Isaiah. He lived around 750 to 687 bce.
(straddling the reigns of Jotham,
Ahaz and Hezekiah).
He
was probably of humble origin, denouncing the rich landlords, who were
exploiting the poor farmers.(2:1-10) Micah could not see any redemption of Judah
and so proclaimed total doom for the nation and also the destruction of
His primary message was, like Amos, against abuse of power by the wealthy over the poor. How much Micah influenced King Hezekiah's reform described in 2 Kings 18:3-6 is not clear, but it can be assumed that such preaching encouraged the king, not only to reform religious practices, but also social and economic ones. Taking David as his hero/example, Hezekiah's ultimate aim was to re-unite the northern and southern kingdoms like in David's time, but external politics, like the conquest by Assyria, and the people of Samaria themselves, were not ready for it.
Micah also preached against religious exploitation by the priests, who were asking for ever higher offerings of sacrifice:
"Will
the Lord be pleased if I bring him thousands of sheep
or endless streams of olive oil? Shall I
offer him my first-born child to pay for my sins? No, the Lord has told us what is good. What he requires of us is this: to do what is
just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our
God." (6:7-8)
Micah shows an extraordinary insight into true spirituality. For him the whole practice of
Zephaniah lived in
He
denounced the religious and ethical sins of Manasseh's policy, which he
interpreted as prideful rebellion against YHWH. (1:4-6) Zephaniah believed that "a great
day of the Lord" (1:7, 14) would come and destroy all of
Nahum lived around the middle of the 7th century bce. He witnessed or anticipated the fall of
God's
justice will reign against all odds, including the power of the Assyrians. Not even
Deuteronomy
The lawbook found in the
During his reign a religious revival and a revision of sacred scripture took place. Spong comments on the found scroll:
"This
text was, not surprisingly, completely responsive to the prophetic tradition of
Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, Micah and especially Jeremiah, who was alive and at work
when this new book was ‘discovered’.
This book called for the kind of religious reform the prophets had been
calling for and it rekindled a kind of national pride that helped to keep this
soon-to-be-conquered nation intact through the period of exile." (Resc. p.50)
Worship was purified, all foreign rites were purged, and
"By
the time the deuteronomists had finished their work,
they had coloured the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 + 2 Samuel, and 1 + 2
Kings. They had supplied their nation
with a philosophy of history, and they had touched up the books of the
prophets. They had taught the Jewish
people to see the past through their eyes." (Resc.
p.51)
Summary
The Prophetic Movement had greatly influenced the fate of the Jewish
people. It had laid the foundation of
their 'Jewishness', which during Exile developed into
an exclusive religion that would distinguish them from any other religions and
indeed from any other peoples. Their
theology fostered a strongly critical stance against the monarchy, but also
evoked nationalistic feelings among its people.
In Micah we have seen a move away from the formal religion, as practiced
in the temple with its elaborate sacrifices, towards a more internal
spirituality. This will be developed
further in the next chapter.
Chapter Six
Prophets from the period of Exile
and after
On a global scale, the period we are dealing with here, has seen
enormous change taking place. Lloyd Geering, in his book “Is Christianity going anywhere?”
writes:
“Looking
at the totality of human cultures, we find that the year 500 bce. marks the approximate centre of a time of radical cultural
change, now labelled the Axial Period.
The term “axial” was chosen because it seemed as if the evolution of
human cultures was taking a giant turn on its axis and moving in another
direction…. It was in this period that
the Judeo-Christian tradition came to birth.” (p.12)
Whatever it was that brought about change, the influence of the Exile on
Judaism was profound. Their return portrayed
another 'Exodus' which would eventually form the people and their religion into
what we find in
In this chapter we are going to look at the prophets who lived and operated roughly from the period in Exile until approximately 150 bce.
Jeremiah (627-586? bce.)
Jeremiah stood in the tradition of Hosea, who went back to the Mosaic
covenant itself. He used a scribe to
write down his oracles, whose name was Baruch.
He lived in a time of far reaching change, pre-Exile and Exile. He savagely attacked the idolatry of the
land. Borrowing from Hosea, he called
Judah an "adulterous wife who will surely be divorced" if she does
not repent. (3:12-14 etc.) This message
must have been received with sympathy and also influenced Josiah’s reform. Into this ferment of resurgent nationalism
and religious reform came the discovery of the Book of the Law in the
The old Assyrian empire had
become weak,
Jeremiah
remained at first in
"The
Lord says 'the time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the people
of
This new covenant,
replacing the Law with the Holy Spirit, had to wait till New Testament times,
but it is significant that the seeds for this development have been planted
here by Jeremiah. It was not readily
accepted, of course, and so he was taken eventually against his will to
Lamentations
Traditionally it was thought that Jeremiah wrote this book, but there is
no evidence of this. Cunliffe-Jones
thinks it is a “product of many hands, differs
markedly in style and content from Jeremiah’s own thinking, and because it
comes from a later time, was originally not included among the prophets. It only became part of the third section of
the Hebrew Canon, the Writings”. (p.37)
"The five poems which make up Lamentations, all describe the
response of faith in the catastrophic event of 586 bce." (Davidson
p.32)
The
writers state time and again, that it is Yahweh who had determined the fate of
Habakkuk was a contemporary of Jeremiah
Most likely his evil men in 1:4 are either the rich who exploit
the poor or the threat of the up and coming power of
The
question Habakkuk is trying to answer is stated in
Ezekiel was a younger contemporary of Jeremiah, a priest, called to the prophetic
office in 593, and preached for twenty years, to 573 bce.
He
played a key part in keeping the nation of
Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel forged a new interpretation of the old covenant. "It enabled the formation of a new community, based on individual decision, which could survive the wreckage of the old." (Bright p.317)
Obadiah The name means ‘servant of YHWH’.
This is the shortest book in the Old Testament, probably written after
the return of the Jews from Exile in 539 bce.
He resented the infiltration of foreign peoples on
Isaiah 2 or Deutero Isaiah (chapters 40-55), was written about 150
years after Isaiah 1, around 540 bce.
Cyrus became King of Persia,
present-day
“Creator
of the first and largest multicultural society in the history of humankind;
ruled with respect for human dignity and justice based on the universal
righteous order; issued the first declaration of human rights in 538 bce.;
liberated Jews and others from captivity in Babylon; granted religious,
linguistic and cultural freedom to all peoples, and established the first
Federal System based on the autonomy of all States.”
With such an enlightened king it is not surprising that Isaiah 2 saw God
using Cyrus for his purposes. He calls
him saviour who would deliver the
Israelites from
Cyrus
defeated all of
Is.41:8-9
are the key verses to understand the Servant songs of Isaiah2: "But you,
The
unexpected happened. "The people
reply: (i.e. it is their own response to the sufferings they had endured) "Who would
have believed what we now report?" (53:1) Whilst people thought that the
sufferings endured by
Isaiah
2 sees that
"saw
Isaiah 3 (chapters 56-66) is believed to be from the same writer, or the same
school, but many scholars think it is different in style, and therefore give it
the name Isaiah 3. It is written after
the return of the people to
The
people are not observing the Law and this disobedience is
condemned by Isaiah. Yet he sees a
glorious future for
"The Sovereign Lord
has filled me with his spirit. He has
chosen me and sent me to bring good news to the poor, to heal the
broken-hearted, to announce release to captives and freedom to those in
prison. He has sent me to proclaim that
the time has come when the Lord will save his people." (61:1-2) (see also
Lk
What follows is a vision of a new era, one in which God's will would be
done. This will be a "new
creation". (65:17)
The new Jerusalem will be "full of joy and her people will
be happy". (65:18) "Wolves
and lambs will eat together, lions will eat straw as
cattle do, and snakes will no longer be dangerous. On
Haggai was probably born in exile. He wrote
during the early period after the exile back in
It
was a difficult time of poor harvests, real hardships and frustrations for the
returnees. The Jews had started to rebuild
their
Zechariah, a contemporary of
Haggai, also encouraged the Jews to finish the temple. It was eventually dedicated in 515 bce. He came from a priestly family. He expressed his prophetic words in forms of
visions, 8 in all.
Zechariah explained the meaning of these visions. He said that God is concerned for the welfare of everyone. God is concerned for the future greatness of the Jewish community. God will soon remove all evil in the land. God's messengers (angels) gave him the words of prophecy. Not only people can oppose God, but also heavenly beings (satan). Ultimately God would rule the nation, and gradually this came to pass in the person of the high priest.
Chapters
9-14 are thought to belong to a different author, because of a different style
and language. For instance the word "oracle" is used in 9:1 and other
places. A different time/period is
evident, like contact with Greek military forces in
Malachi The name means My Messenger, who was to prepare the way
of the Lord. He was a Jew living in
This
prophet saw the exile as punishment for the people's laxity in their observance
of the law. Priests offered sick and
injured animals to Yahweh, (1:6-14) Sabbath was neglected, and tithes were
abandoned. (3:7-10)
The attitude prevailed that there was no profit in being loyal to
the faith. (
He
tried to purge
Chronicles was written between 400 and 340
bce. In its original form it was joint with Ezra/Nehemiah, and in the Hebrew Bible this is
the last book of the Old Testament. It
is assumed that it was written so that the post-exilic community could
understand how it had come into existence, and that it represented a
continuation of its history. God's gift,
the temple, had been entrusted to them.
The Jews were great in re-telling their history, but the author's main
concern was to portray
Ezra
was written around the fourth century bce. as
a sequel of Chronicles. As it stands
now, its beginning is a repetition of the end of Chronicles. Ezra is a priest and received his commission
from Artaxerxes I (465-424) around 450 bce. to go to
Nehemiah a contemporary of Ezra, sent by Artaxerxes 1 as
governor of
Nehemiah
re-introduced the festivals, such as Shelters/Sukkot. He kept or even expanded the exclusive nature
of the Jewish faith, which had been essential to preserve their minority in
Joel The name means "Yahweh is God"
There is very little known about him.
Also there are no clear indications as to when he wrote. It is thought that he could be among the last
of the Prophets. The picture of a future
conflict between God and his foes is looming. (3:9-15) This would be The Day of the Lord where he will judge all the world. His message:
"The day of the Lord is coming soon. (2:1) Repent - then God will restore
Daniel is the latest of the Old Testament books, written after the desecration of
the
Daniel serves as an example of loyalty to Yahweh's law. Antiochus was called Nebuchadnezzar. Jews who read it would have got the message. Daniel faced the lion's den rather than pray to the king (ch.6), and the three youths preferred a fiery furnace rather than worship the king's idol, which was the golden statue of Zeus placed in the temple, as described in chapter 3. It is encouraging the Jews to political resistance. It was to support the oppressed and persecuted Jews, to stand firm, God would triumph in the end. Daniel's vision described in chapters 7-12 are also written in apocalyptic style. The "beast" is slain. God's intervention is at hand. God would give the eternal kingdom to one who looked like a man "like a son of man", who came from the clouds and "his kingdom would never end".(7:14) This concept of Son of Man who would come again on the clouds, became a useful tool to describe later who Jesus was to the eye of faith. The concept of life after death became gradually accepted during that time, a rather late development in the evolution of theology:
"That some would pay for their loyalty with
their lives Daniel did not doubt. But
these and their loved ones could comfort themselves with the assurance that God
would raise them to everlasting life (12:1-4)". (Bright p.409)
It seems that crisis
situations bring forth new insights. It
is therefore not surprising, that reflecting on the fate of heroic martyrs, the
belief in life beyond the grave became firmly established in Judaism only in that
period, relatively late, considering that it became the foundation stone for
the Christian faith.
Summary of the
Prophetic movement:
The prophetic movement had become formative for the Jewish faith and its
future. It always held the love and
justice of God before the people, especially at times of political prosperity,
but spiritual decline. Prophets called
people back to repentance, keeping the good of the whole community in mind. It held on to the belief that God wants
justice done by everyone, not through force, but through a changed heart, which
responds to God’s love.
Unfortunately, though, this noble inspiration became swamped by a
theological trend from about the 4th century bce. to
the 19th century ce. The
building of a just society had moved into the background and made place for a
more individualistic faith with a 'pie in the sky when I die' attitude. If we wish to reclaim the Bible for the 21st
century we need to re-emphasise the ancient prophets' concerns for social
justice and ethical living, and if we divorce social concern from its religious
roots we are not faithful to the teachings of the Bible.
Chapter Seven
Poetry and Wisdom Literature
Psalms
Perhaps the best known part of the Old Testament, known
as Wisdom Literature, are the Psalms.
They were written for worship services, either to be sung or read during
the liturgy.
Some psalms are based on
material that goes back to the third millennium bce., to Egypt and Canaan; some
may have been composed by David (2; 16; 18; 20, 21, 29; 45, 68; 72, 82; 108,
110); the vast majority, however, were written during the exile or soon after
the exile, composed for worship in the new temple. They served the same purpose as our modern
hymns today. Other psalms also used at
worship services, which were not so popular, have long since been forgotten.
It is mainly in the royal psalms
that we find YHWH promising David a dynasty that would reign for ever, and
would triumph over all its foes. (2:4-11; 72:8-11, etc.)
For the pious Jew, religion was
a deeply internal experience. The latter
psalms are filled with humble confessions of sin, with a longing for God's
mercy and pardon, a desire for cleanness of heart in his sight. They express patience in trouble, an unshakeable
confidence in God's deliverance, and gratitude for God's mercies. In this respect, the Psalms are still
meaningful to us today, and can be used during worship services.
However, as Bright points out,
(p.425-428) a gradual shift is noticeable in the later Psalms, and other
writings of that period, away from seeing the Law in the light of the Covenant,
where grace always comes before works.
In the later Psalms a more externalising righteousness is evident, where
the Law is made absolute. Slowly,
Judaism had become so rigid and extreme, that a reform did not seem to be
possible.
Proverbs
Another book
belonging to this genre is the Book of Proverbs. They are well-constructed
maxims, that probably go back to
The king best known for his wisdom
was of course King Solomon (
"hard
work, high morals, moderation, kindness to the less fortunate, loving ones
family and home, sincerity, modesty, self-control, chastity, a willingness to
live and learn, an attitude of forgiveness and even being kind to
animals." (Resc.p.66)
Rewards for a good life were meted out before a person died. During the flowering of wisdom literature, a
concept of life after death had not yet evolved in Jewish theology. Wisdom was open to all, and those who did not
possess it were blamed for refusing to 'learn'.
So, "if they were poor and afflicted, they deserved it." (Resc.p.67) It was thought
that everyone began life from an equal starting point, which we, of course,
know is not so. To the Jew the
sum of all righteousness was to keep the law.
In the wisdom literature, wisdom ultimately came to mean the same as the
law.
Ecclesiastes or Qoheleth (the preacher).
This dates in its final form in the third century bce. The writer is undoubtedly influenced by the
inquiring Greek mind. At that time an
ever growing philosophical inquiry into the meaning of this life was pursued,
however, there is no evidence for a belief in a life after death yet.
(2:15-18).
This writer states that the ways
of God are beyond understanding (
"the questioning, godless quality of Ecclesiastes led to much
dispute among Jewish scholars as to whether it should have been included in the
canon." (Resc.p.63)
Esther
Esther was written to provide some material for the festival of
Purim. It describes the situation at the
Persian court, but its date and authorship is unknown, probably third century
bce. It shows a fervent patriotism but God is never mentioned.
Song of Songs
This book in its present form, written around the second century bce., is a “poem which celebrates human love in all its
physical dimensions”. (Charp.p.87) Some commentators believe that it takes up several beautiful
love poems of ancient times, used for weddings.
When it was read at worship services, it was mostly interpreted to
describe God’s love for his people. Charpentier observes:
“At
a time when women were men’s slaves, these songs in which a couple love each
other equally, in the freshness of a tenderness which does not ignore
difficulties, are quite extraordinary compositions.” (p.87)
Summary of Wisdom Literature.
During the Exile, Synagogue worship had developed, because the Jews had
no
Ezra's reform, begun in Exile,
helped to form and to define a new nation.
After the Exile the priests saw
to it that a Jewish Bible was formed.
They had to decide, which books to include in the Canon, and which
not. After 300 bce.
the Torah
and most other books had been translated for the Greek-speaking Jews into their
own language, and probably also for the Ptolemy King Philadelphus, (285-246
bce.) who wanted a copy for his famous Alexandrian library. This version of the
Old Testament is known today as the Septuagint.
Bright (p.418f) writes in his
History regarding the growth of a Canon of Scripture: "Of the greatest importance
is the fact that the Jewish community was constituted on the basis of a written
law."
In this canon, the Torah or Pentateuch held a special
status. It was accepted also by the
Northern states (
The Protesters
The old tradition to
explain Scripture with another text from Scripture was continued in a more
deliberate way by the authors of the books Spong calls the Protesters. The books of Job, Ruth, and Jonah come under
this heading. (Resc.p.64) He argues that they provide a counterpoint to
prevailing attitudes, hence ‘protesters’.
None of the people after whom the books are named are considered to be
historical figures.
Job was written fairly late in Hebrew history, however its roots go back
perhaps to 1100 to 500 bce. It is a
literary master-piece from which Goethe borrowed the ‘Prologue’ for his
greatest literary work: ‘Faust’.
The issue is the suffering of a
righteous man. It is assumed that he
must have done something evil, for God is always just. It is a protest against this view, which had
been developed in Proverbs, namely that suffering is due to sin of the
individual. Our society today, with its
extreme individualism, would do well to learn from Job. Before this individualism captured the minds
of the people, the tribe was seen as the basic unit of life.
"A
tribe was a corporate singularity, not a collection of individuals. One stood before God as a people, not as
individuals. The people of the tribe
were interrelated, interdependent, and mutually responsible. It was their destiny to thrive or to perish
together. When evil was in their midst,
the whole of the people suffered. When
faithfulness marked their common life, the whole of the people were
blessed." (Resc.p.65)
An example of this can be found in Ex.20:4-6 which says that the sins of
the fathers will be punished to the third and fourth generation.
Job wrestled with the old
concept of 'tribal sin' as against Wisdom’s emphasis on individual sin, and its
consequences. Even the first Jewish
messianic thought was corporate rather than individual: "through the
descendants of Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed"
(Gen.12:3). Particularly in Isaiah, we
see the whole people of
From the time Ezekiel wrote
"the soul that sins shall die", (Ez.18:46) individualism gradually
evolved. It grew in prominence and
became fully expressed in the Wisdom literature. For the writer of Job this became a
problem. He recognised that life was not
always fair. Is this why the concept of
heaven and hell was thought of transferring reward and punishment to the
here-after? Was this to make sense of
evil?
Job's answer is: Although God is always just and deals with
sin decisively, God is not forced to do so.
This leaves room for God’s grace and love which we will meet more fully developed
in the New Testament.
Ruth and Jonah is a protest against
narrow-minded religious bigotry of that time. We would call it today racism.
Jews themselves believed to be God's 'elect' or 'chosen'. (To which Spong somewhat facetiously
responds, whether the others were to be seen as the specially 'unchosen'
ones) They believed, that a narrow
keeping of the 'Law' was the only way to improve life here and now - developing
into an extreme legalism, as we meet them in the ‘scribes’ of the New
Testament. Some saw this to be
impossible to achieve, so they saw the good life returning through ethnic
purity. A scapegoat had been found for
their calamity - the foreigners! This, as we have seen in our days, is a very
dangerous theology indeed!
Under Ezra and Nehemiah racist
laws were created to exclude any non-Jew, even half-casts or quarter
casts. The writers of Jonah and Ruth
created the stories in protest to this view.
Jonah represented the racists view, not wanting to follow God's order to
preach forgiveness to
The seer madness of racism is
exposed by Spong when he writes: "Ruth and Boaz had a son named Obed. He had a son
named Jesse, and his son was the greatest king in the history of
Summarising the Protest Literature, Spong writes: "Literalism would
be a serious block to meeting, confronting, and understanding the Word of God
in these wonderful books of protest." (p.74) Although we may
assume that Jesus took these books literally, the lesson learnt from them was
deeply ingrained in his own life and teaching, a life of tolerance and love
towards foreigners.
Summary of Part One
At the beginning of
this part we said that the Old Testament contains 'the living word of
God'. It has timeless and universal
values. It deals with issues the world
had to face time and again, until today.
Over the millennium
it took to be written, many ideas evolved.
By theological evolution, those with universal values were kept and
developed, others, which may have just appeared as a theological fad, were
discarded.
When new ideas or new teachings
emerged, the old was not always discarded as worthless, but often it was put
side by side with the new. This could
have been a device to guide the readers from one stage of spiritual development
to the next, to help people grow in their faith until they had reached the
level to which current thinking had developed.
No one stage can therefore claim any form of absolutism.
When communalism faded very much
into the background in the 21st Century, for example, it seems to have totally
replaced it with an extreme form of individualism. Modern psychologists tell us now that many of
our mental illnesses grow out of such an extreme individualism, even the high
crime rate and anti-social behaviour is due in some parts to this.
We started this introduction by
asking: "Who is this Hebrew God?"
We hope that these notes for the Old Testament will have given the
reader some answers to this question.
We also asked the reader for a
definition of God on p.15. If you wrote
another one now, what would it be? How
does that compare with your first definition?
I would like to leave Spong to
have the last word for this first part:
"There is so much more biblical truth and
biblical beauty once we escape the strictures of a
literalistic approach to the Bible. If
we could be assured of this possibility, we might be able to surrender our
concept of biblical inerrancy. But to
surrender biblical inerrancy is not to surrender the Word of God! For if we mean by "the Word of God"
that we can discern the hand of a transcendent deity underneath these literal
words, we have taken a major step forward.
Then we can lift that transcendent presence out of its ancient context
and place it with integrity inside our own spiritual journeys as a
resource. Surely then we can proclaim
with great joy that in this sacred book we can meet and know the Word of God
and that this living Word can be for us a source of life even 2000 years
removed.
“We hear that
Word in creation, where this God proclaimed that everything divinely created
was good and that male and female had both been created in God's image. That "Word of God" fuelled every
human movement for justice from the fight to end slavery and segregation to the
feminist movement to the peace movement to the gay and lesbian rights
movement. That Word of God challenges
the prejudice that grows out of our limited knowledge, our tribal identities,
our economic systems, and our sexual fears." (Resc.p.74/5)