David J. A. Clines On The Way To The Postmodern Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998. Volume I JSOT Supplement Series 1998 PDF

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
292
Editors
David J. A. Clines
Philip R. Davies
Executive Editor
John Jarick
Editorial Board
Robert P. Carroll, Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum,
John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald,
Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller
Sheffield Academic Press
This page intentionally left blank
On the Way to the

Postmodern
Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998
Volume I
David J.A. Clines
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Supplement Series 292
Copyright 1998 Sheffield Academic Press

Published by
Sheffield Academic Press Ltd
Mansion House
19KingfieldRoad
Sheffield SI 1 9AS
England
Typeset by Sheffield Academic Press

and
Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain
by Bookcraft Ltd
Midsomer Norton, Bath
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Vol. 1
Vol. 2
ISBN 1-85075-901-4
ISBN 1-85075-983-9
CONTENTS
Volume 1
Abbreviations
Introduction
x
xv
METHOD
1
Reading Esther from Left to Right:

Contemporary Strategies for Reading a Biblical Text
Methods in Old Testament Study
23
Possibilities and Priorities of Biblical Interpretation

in an International Perspective
46
Beyond Synchronic/Diachronic
68
Nehemiah 10 as an Example of Early Jewish Biblical Exegesis 88
Ethics as Deconstruction, and, The Ethics of Deconstruction
Varieties of Indeterminacy
126
The Pyramid and the Net:

The Postmodern Adventure in Biblical Studies
138
From Salamanca to Cracow:

What Has (and Has Not) Happened at
SBL International Meetings
158
10 From Copenhagen to Oslo:

What Has (and Has Not) Happened at
Congresses of the IOSOT
194
95
vi
On the Way to the Postmodern
LITERATURE
11 Story and Poem:
The Old Testament as Literature and as Scripture
225
12 X,XbenY,benY:
Personal Names in Hebrew Narrative Style
240
13 Form, Occasion and Redaction in Jeremiah 20

(with David M. Gunn)
263
14 'You tried to persuade me' and 'Violence! Outrage!'

in Jeremiah 20.7-8
285
15 Hosea 2: Structure and Interpretation
293
16 The Parallelism of Greater Precision:

Notes from Isaiah 40 for a Theory of Hebrew Poetry
314
17 The Significance of the 'Sons of God' Episode (Genesis 6.1-4)

in the Context of the 'Primaeval History' (Genesis 1-11)
337
18 The Force of the Text:
A Response to Tamara C. Eskenazi's
'Ezra-Nehemiah: From Text to Actuality'
351
HISTORY
19 The Evidence for an Autumnal New Year in
Pre-exilic Israel Reconsidered
371
20 Regnal Year Reckoning

in the Last Years of the Kingdom of Judah
395
21 New Year
426
22 In Quest of the Historical Mordecai
436
Contents
vii
Volume 2
Abbreviations
x
THEOLOGY
23 Humanity as the Image of God
447
24 Yahweh and the God of Christian Theology
498
25 The Theology of the Flood Narrative
508
26 Predestination in the Old Testament
524
27 Sacred Space, Holy Places and Suchlike
542
28 Sin and Maturity
555
LANGUAGE
29 The Etymology of Hebrew Selem
577
30 Was There an 'bl II 'be dry' in Classical Hebrew?
585
31 Krtlll-114(Iiii7-10):
Gatherers of Wood and Drawers of Water
595
32 The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew
602
33 Philology and Power
613
34 Squares and Streets:

The Distinction of nirn 'Square' and ITbrn 'Streets'
631
viii
PSALMS
35 Psalm Research since 1955:1. The Psalms and the Cult
639
36 Psalm Research since 1955: II. The Literary Genres
665
37 The Psalms and the King
687
38 Universal Dominion in Psalm 2?
701
39 The Tree of Knowledge and the Law of Yahweh (Psalm 19)
708
JOB
40 The Arguments of Job's Three Friends
719
41 False Naivety in the Prologue to Job
735
42 Job 4.13: A Byronic Suggestion
745
43 Verb Modality and the Interpretation of Job 4.20-21
748
44 Job 5.1 -8: A New Exegesis
752
45 Belief, Desire and Wish in Job 19.23-27:

Clues for the Identity of Job's 'Redeemer'
762
46 In Search of the Indian Job
770
47 Those Golden Days: Job and the Perils of Nostalgia
792
48 Quarter Days Gone:

Job 24 and the Absence of God
801
Contents
ix
DIVERTIMENTI
49 The History of Bo-Peep:

An Agricultural Worker's Tragedy in
Contemporary Literary Perspective
823
50 New Directions in Pooh Studies:

Uberlieferungs- und traditionsgeschichtliche Studien
zum Pu-Buch
830
B ibliography of David J. A. Clines
841
Index of Biblical References

Index of Authors
Index of Subjects
855
873
884
ABBREVIATIONS
AB
ABD
AcOr
AfO
AHw
AJBA
ALBO
ANET
AnOr
AOS
APOT
ASTI
AID
AUSS
AV
BA
BASOR
BASORSup
BDB
BeO
BETL
BEvT
BH
BHS
BHT
Bib
BibLeb
BibOr
BJRL
BKAT
BM
BNTC
BO
Anchor Bible
David Noel Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New
York: Doubleday, 1992)
Acta orientalia
Archivfiir Orientforschung
Wolfram von Soden, Akkadisches Handworterbuch (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 1959-81)
Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology
Analecta lovaniensia biblica et orientalia
James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to
the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1950)
Analecta orientalia
American Oriental Series
R.H. Charles (ed.), Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Testament in English (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1913)
Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute
Das Alte Testament Deutsch
Andrews University Seminary Studies
Authorized Version
Biblical Archaeologist
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Supplements
Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and
English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1907)
Bibbia e oriente
Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium
Beitrage zur evangelischen Theologie
Biblica hebraica
Biblia hebraica stuttgartensia
Beitrage zur historischen Theologie
Biblica
Bibel und Leben
Biblica et orientalia
Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester
Biblischer Kommentar: Altes Testament
British Museum
Black's New Testament Commentaries
Bibliotheca orientalis
Abbreviations
BibRes
BSac
BTB
BWANT
BZ
BZAW
BZNW
CAD
CAT
CBQ
CQR
DCH
DBSup
DID
DOTT
DTT
EBib
ETL
EvT
ExpTim
FOIL
FRLANT
HALAT
HAT
HibJ
HR
HSM
HUCA
IB
ICC
IDE
IEJ
Int
ISBE
JAAR
JANES
JAOS
XI
Biblical Research
Bibliotheca Sacra
Biblical Theology Bulletin
Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alien und Neuen Testament
Biblische Zeitschrift
BeiheftezurZAW
Beihefte zur ZNW
Ignace I. Gelb et al. (eds.), The Assyrian Dictionary of the
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Chicago:
Oriental Institute, 1964-)
Commentaire de 1' Ancien Testament
Catholic Biblical Quarterly
Church Quarterly Review
David J.A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993-)
Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplement
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
D. Winton Thomas (ed.), Documents from Old Testament Times
(London: Nelson, 1958)
Dansk teologisk tidsskrift
Etudes bibliques
Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses
Evangelische Theologie
Expository Times
The Forms of the Old Testament Literature
Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen
Testaments
Ludwig Koehler et al. (eds.), Hebrdisches und aramdisches
Lexikon zum Alten Testament (5 vols.; Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1967-95)
Handbuch zum Alten Testament
Hibbert Journal
History of Religions
Harvard Semitic Monographs
Hebrew Union College Annual
Interpreter's Bible
International Critical Commentary
George Arthur Buttrick (ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary of the
Bible (4 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962)
Israel Exploration Journal
Interpretation
Geoffrey Bromiley (ed.), The International Standard Bible
Encyclopedia(4 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, rev. edn,
1979-88)
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society (Columbia University)
Journal of the American Oriental Society
Xll
JB
JBL
JBR
JEOL
JHS
JJS
JNES
JNSL
JQR
JQRSup
JR
JSOT
JSOTSup
JSS
JTC
JTS
KAT
KB
KHAT
KJV
LD
NAB
NCB
NEB
NICOT
NIV
NJB
NJPS
NorTT
NovT
NRSV
NRT
NIL
NTS
Numen
Or
OTL
OTS
PEQ
PTMS
RB
REB
RGG
RHPR
RSR
RSV
RTR

Jerusalem Bible
Journal of Biblical Literature
Journal of Bible and Religion
Jaarbericht . . . ex oriente lux
Journal of Hellenic Studies
Journal of Jewish Studies
Journal of Near Eastern Studies
Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages
Jewish Quarterly Review
Jewish Quarterly Review, Supplement
Journal of Religion
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series
Journal of Semitic Studies
Journal for Theology and the Church
Journal of Theological Studies
Kommentar zum Alien Testament
Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner (eds.), Lexicon in
Veteris Testamenti libros (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1953)
Kurzer Hand-Kommentar zum Alten Testament
King James Version
Lectio divina
New American Bible
New Century Bible
New English Bible
New International Commentary on the Old Testament
New International Version
New Jerusalem Bible
New Jewish Publication Society Translation
Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift
Novum Testamentum
New Revised Standard Version
La nouvelle revue theologique
New Testament Library
New Testament Studies
Numen: International Review for the History of Religions
Orientalia
Old Testament Library
Oudtestamentische Studien
Palestine Exploration Quarterly
Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series
Revue biblique
Revised English Bible
Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart
Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses
Recherches de science religieuse
Revised Standard Version
Reformed Theological Review
Abbreviations
SBL
SBLDS
SBOT
SET
SJT
SNTSMS
SR
ST
TBii
TDNT
TDOT
TGI
THAT
ThWAT
TLZ
TNTC
TOB
TOTC
TQ
TRu
TS
TSK
TT
TTZ
TWNT
TWOT
TynBul
TNTC
TOTC
7Z
UF
UT
VCaro
VD
Xlll
Society of Biblical Literature

SBL Dissertation Series
Sacred Books of the Old Testament
Studies in Biblical Theology
Scottish Journal of Theology
Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses
Studia theologica
Theologische Biicherei
Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; 10
vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964-76)
G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren (eds.), Theological
Dictionary of the Old Testament (trans. John T. Willis,
Geoffrey W. Bromiley and David E. Green; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1974-)
Theologie und Glaube
Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann (eds.), Theologisches Handworterbuch zum Alien Testament (Munich: Chr. Kaiser,
1971-76)
G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren (eds.), Theologisches Worterbuch zum Alten Testament (Stuttgart: W.
Kohlhammer, 1970-)
Theologische Literaturzeitung
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
Traduction oecumenique de la Bible
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries
Theologische Quartalschrift
Theologische Rundschau
Theological Studies
Theologische Studien und Kritiken
Teologisk Tidsskrift
Trierer theologische Zeitschrift
Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich (eds.), Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament (11 vols.; Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 1932-79)
R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Jr and Bruce K. Waltke (eds.),
Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (2 vols.;
Chicago: Moody Press, 1980)
Tyndale Bulletin
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries
Theologische Zeitschrift
Ugarit-Forschungen
Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook (Analecta orientalia, 38;
Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute Press, 1965)
Verbum caro
Verbum domini
xiv
VF
VT
VTSup
WBC
WMANT
WTJ
ZAW
ZDMG
ZDPV
ZKT
ZNW
ZTK

Verkundigung und Forschung
Vetus Testamentun
Vetus Testamentum, Supplements
Word Biblical Commentary
Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament
Westminster Theological Journal
Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenldndischen Gesellschaft
Zeitschrift des deutschen Paldstina-Vereins
Zeitschrift fur katholische Theologie
Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche
INTRODUCTION
Humans are myth-making animals. We like to tell stories, especially
the ones we make up for ourselves, and especially those we invent
about ourselves. Most of us have been creating a mythos, or story,
about our lives for years, so for me it was rather inevitable that when I
came to look back over my career (so far) as a scholar and teacher of
the Old Testament across more than thirty years I found myself shaping
a story along lines that seem very familiar to me now, even though the
story is only one of several that might be told. I decided that my story
had better be told as the story of a journey, a progress. I preferred that
greatly to a story of rather non-purposive wandering, led from one sidetrack to another, following what had taken my fancy and what had
excited my enthusiasm at one moment after anotherthough there
would be quite a lot of truth in such a story too. I preferred, I must say,
a story that made it look as if I had got somewhere in the end, even a
story that gave the impression that I knew where I had been going all
the timethough I could not truthfully claim that.
I created this myth of a journey also because I am very conscious that
I have changed quite a lot over these years. Because the changes have
usually been gradual and incremental it seemed that the metaphor of a
path was what I wanted. Putting one foot after another is a pleasant
enough way of spending an afternoon and not a very dramatic undertaking. But even if you are not conscious of walking in any particular
direction, in the course of an afternoon you can easily find yourself in a
completely new landscape or at a new vantage point over your old
familiar landscapeas if some rather serious and profound change had
come over you. You look back down the path you had followed, and
realize that it was of course bound to come out where you are now,
though you never quite realized it while you were on the way.
Now I would not be telling this story if I had not at some time in the
last decade come to the (belated) realization that many of the ideas that
were falling into place for me were known outside the world of Hebrew
Bible studies under the name of the postmodern. I had never been much
of a theoretician, but I had always wanted to know the name for what I
was doingso that I would not just be busy doing but also be watching
xvi
myself at work. Now I felt I knew what it was that had been intriguing
me; it was not just that I learned a new word, it was that postmodernism
networked together a whole range of ideas I could not previously
connect, especially about meaning.
So the postmodern is where I am at now, whatever that means, and
whatever postmodern means. In the essay called 'The Pyramid and the
Net: The Postmodern Adventure in Biblical Studies' (pp. 138-57 below), I have developed the image of the net as symbol of the postmodern, decentred and flexible and polymorphous and multifunctional.
It is different in so many ways from the pyramid, which for me has
been the symbol of the modern, stable and unitary and totalizing and
impressive, like the structure of Western intellectual thought. I try to
stress in that essay that I do not see the postmodern as displacing the
modern, nor yet as being only a supplement to it. I see the postmodern
as a quizzical re-evaluation of the values of the modern, and I suggest
how the practice of biblical studies in the coming century could be
transformed by a series of postmodern reappraisals.
In another paper, 'Varieties of Indeterminacy' (pp. 126-37), I fasten
upon a central issue for postmodernismthe indeterminacy of texts
and the plurality of meaningsand worry over my own practice across
a variety of scholarly enterprises I am engaged in, testing the strength
of my adherence to the vision of postmodernism. Readers of that essay
will see why I keep stressing that the postmodern includes the modern,
for I cannot, truth to tell, easily give up all the habits of mind, not to
speak of the projects I am embarked upon, that must still mark me as a
practising modernist.
A third key paper for the postmodernism I now avow is 'Ethics as
Deconstruction, and, The Ethics of Deconstruction' (pp. 95-125). Recognizing that discourse in general, and our biblical texts in particular,
are open to deconstruction, which means to say that they never wholly
succeed in maintaining the fundamental sets of oppositions on which
they rely, is another way in which I can bring to the surface as a practical exegete the effect of a postmodern approach to biblical interpretation. In that paper I take four biblical passages on ethical subjects and
suggest that their force may lie in how they suggest deconstructive
reading. I argue, for example, that the text in Genesis 9 that authorizes
capital punishment for the crime of murder shoots itself in the foot, so
to speak, by referring to the avenger of blood in the same terms as the
murderer, thus deconstructing the opposition between legal and illegal
Introduction
xvii
killing and thereby implicitly calling into question the ethics of capital
punishment.
Now the fact that I have been, across these three decadesas my
story has it'on the way to the postmodern' implies that I have not
always been where I am now. And the reader will find very much in
these volumes that could not be called postmodern by any stretch of the
imagination. What interests me, however, and it probably interests me
much more than it will interest anyone else, is how and where the
postmodern was foreshadowed in these papers, some of them from a
period long before most of us had become familiar with the word. I
mention just three examples.
I find, for example, in the essay 'Story and Poem: The Old Testament
as Literature and as Scripture', which I wrote for the journal Interpretation in 1980, that I was suggesting that the search for a single message in the book of Jonah might be incompatible with a 'literary' view
of the book, that the story might be thought of as a field not so much for
conflicting arguments but for interpenetrating visions (p. 230 below). I
was writing too of the poem of Hosea 2 that it 'does not allow us to
choose definitively between [the] various readings' that I had sketched,
and had urged that we 'be alert to all reasonable readings' of it (p. 238).
That was hardly a programmatic postmodernist utterance, but it showed
what was beginning to become important to me.
Even in 1969,1 am surprised to discover, in a survey article on recent
research on the Psalms, I was expressing interest in the new movement
that went under the banner of 'reinterpretation', highlighting how the
Psalms had been altered, expanded and newly understood in the course
of their transmission. I commented that 'An earlier age of criticism, in
its quest for chimerical "originals" of the biblical texts, tended to dismiss such alterations of an earlier text as mere "glosses" of secondary
importance, if not entirely worthless' (p. 681), and was plainly very
attracted to an approach that was attributing significance to the work of
the editors, glossators and redactors to whom we owe the biblical text. I
find now that it was much the same point that I was making in 1996
about a programme for a postmodern textual criticism, as I wrote that
'the quest for an author's original can be an utter chimaera', even
invoking the same mythological image without realizing it.
Definitionally, I am saying now that 'an interest in originals is a
modern interest; an interest in copies [and glosses, reinterpretations and
secondary usages] is a postmodern interest. Or rather, it is a post-
xviii
modern perception that the distinction between original and copy is

problematic and one that needs wrestling with and not taking for
granted' (p. 147).
It was an embryonic postmodern impulse too, I think, that led David
Gunn and myself to the project of our paper on Jeremiah 20 published
in 1976 (pp. 263-87). There we systematically examined how every
element in this famous 'confession' of Jeremiah meant different things
depending on whether we read it in the context of its 'original intention
and occasion (Sitz im Leben Jeremias)' or its 'function in its present
context (Sitz im Buchy. This programmatic attention to 'different levels
of meaning the material has had at different stages in the course of its
redaction' (p. 263) was a rather conventional one for biblical studies at
the time, as its acceptance by the Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche
Wissensschaft might already suggest. But its interest in multiple meanings may turn out, in hindsight, to have been another marker on the way
to the postmodern, a harbinger of the idea of the indeterminacy of
meaning that is now almost commonplace among exegetes of a postmodern disposition.
Finally, to a paper that could not possibly have a whiff of the postmodern about it, 'In Search of the Indian Job' (pp. 770-91). I had often
been coming across references in the commentaries and Old Testament
Introductions to Indian parallels to, perhaps even origins, of the story of
Job. For my own commentary I wanted to be certain that I knew what
these parallels were, and so I embarked on what must be called a
quintessentially 'modern' quest for the origins and development of this
scholarly tradition. Many long and delightful hours in the British
Library in London and the rare books room of Cambridge University
Library, honing my bibliographical skills and relishing the role of the
amateur detective, brought me to the conclusion that the whole idea of
an Indian Job was a vast mistake, perpetuated from one scholarly generation to the next through the neglect of one of the most elementary of
Enlightenment precepts: verify your sources! When I presented the
paper to the Society for Old Testament Study, one very distinguished
member told me that it was the best paper he had ever heardwhich
cannot have been true, since its chief conclusion was no more adventurous than that 'the habitual form of reference to the source of the
Indian parallel cites the wrong author, the wrong title, and the wrong
page number' (p. 778). If it was the best paper he had ever heard, it can
only mean that he had come to adopt a particularly limiting vision of
Introduction
xix
the modernist enterprise, one that esteemed above everything else a

successful quest for origins and imagined that debunking myths and
setting the record straight were the core of the kind of scholarship we
should all be aspiring to.
Looking back on that paper (1980, published in 1983) from my postmodern perspective (and I so wish I could get that picture of The Traveller by Caspar David Friedrich out of my head), I can now see so well
how the research, which I then knew no way of framing except as a
quest for origins, could have been turned to postmodern account. What
is so evident now is how the creation of the myth of the Indian Job (and
I mean the whole scholarly industry surrounding it) was the product of
desire. Scholars got what they wanted, what they went looking forin
this case the confirmation of an audacious thesis, that all the religions
of the world were descended from the religion Hebrews. What I see
now is that the whole Indian Job myth was constructedconstructed,
not at all dishonestly or cynically, because of the predisposing intellectual climate in which the scholarly protagonists found themselves,
and perpetuated by later scholars who had been trained to look for
influences on the Old Testament from other cultures and who had
personally committed years of their life to the study of oriental languages in obedience to the prevailing dictate that detailed knowledge of
the East was indispensable for unlocking the secrets of the Hebrew
Bible. The myth of the Indian Job, which my paper treated only in a
'modernist' style, stands in need of a postmodern revision, I see now,
one that fully factors into the story its scholarly tradents, their predispositions and their own constructedness, which is to say, their desire.
I should say a word here about what is in this collection. It is a selection of articles that is intended to exclude both the hopelessly dated and
the frankly embarrassing. It does not include papers I have already
reprinted in What Does Eve Do to Help ? and Other Readerly Questions
to the Old Testament (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, 94; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990) and in Interested
Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible
(Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, 205;
Gender, Culture, Theory, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995).
And I have left out a series of recent papers on masculinity, which I am
saving for a projected volume with the (provisional) title Play the Man!
Biblical Imperatives to Masculinity. The collection does not contain
(with one exception) articles written for encyclopaedias and the like, or
xx
papers written for a non-scholarly audience.

The collection is organized in seven main sections, representing, I
suppose, the main areas of my scholarly writing over the years:
Method, Literature, History, Theology, Language, Psalms and Jobto
which I have appended, by way of light relief, a couple of pieces under
the heading of Divertimenti. This thematic structure is not very postmodern, I admit, and a more random assortment might have generated
some intriguing juxtapositions. What I knew I could not do, I am afraid,
was to arrange the papers in some developmental sequence, as if the
milestones on my way to the postmodern could be identified. Speaking
postmodernly, I would have to say that there is no reason why a particular paper should belong to one phase rather than another, since the
meanings of all them are, I suppose, in some way or another indeterminatedespite, at times, my best endeavours.
In these volumes there are ten papers not previously published
(depending somewhat on what exactly counts as a paper and what
exactly published means). The others have been lightly revised. My
chief alteration has been over the matter of inclusive language, which
the earlier essays were of course innocent of. One paper had to be
retitled (to Humanity as the Image of God), and hundreds of minor
revisions undertaken in many of the older articles. I took the opportunity to correct obvious mistakes, improve the punctuation and wording
at times, occasionally even adding a sentence or taking one out. But I
tried not to disturb the footnote numbers. The other major set of
changes resulted from the fact that, these days, it seems to be good
practice to give more bibliographical information in footnotes than has
always been the case over the last thirty years; so I have done what I
could to provide authors' names in the form that they themselves have
used (rather than reducing everyone's forenames to bare initials), to
give the publishers' names as well as place of publication for books,
and to cite the full page references for articles as well as the page number that is being referred to. I am sorry to have found that I could not
entirely fulfil my ambition on this front without expending disproportionate labour on locating rarer materials.
I am grateful to Alison Dorey for reading the initial proofs of the
entire work and filling many of the bibliographical gaps. Steve Barganski at Sheffield Academic Press efficiently organized the retyping of the
older materials, and Iain Beswick carefully typeset and made up all the
pages. To all these people I extend my thanks.
METHOD
1
READING ESTHER FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
CONTEMPORARY STRATEGIES FOR READING A BIBLICAL TEXT
The first episode of the biblical book of Esther concerns Vashti, the
Persian queen who (to speak briefly) refused to come to the king's banquet when bidden, and was subsequently deposed. Those are the barest
bones of her story, and there are no two ways about reading it. But
when the bone structure is fleshed out with the language, focalization,
characterization and pacing of the biblical narrative, varieties of readings become possible, and readers have to begin adopting strategies for
how they will read, that is, how they will approach, grasp, and handle
the episode as a whole.
Reading the story of Vashti from right to left, reading in classical
Hebrew, that is to say, and reading according to the social and sexual
conventions of the time, we are likely to read Vashti's story as a whole
as a satire on the Persian king. He is, in Vashti's story, a monarch of
absolute power, a showy entertainer, and a sovereign in masterful controlon every front but the domestic. To be unable to command his
queen's obedience makes him an object of fun to the first Jewish readers of the book; and Vashti, for her part, owes both her presence and
her significance in the story to little other than the way she holds the
king up to ridicule.
Reading the story from left to right, however, not just in English but
in our own cultural context, we cannot help seeing Vashti not just as a
Persian queen but even more as a woman. As a woman she becomes a
character in her own right, not just a foil to Ahasuerus, and as a woman
she earns our applause for resisting the king's intention to display her
as a sex object before his drunken cronies. Since she is regarded by the
male as significant only for her body, and since she depends on no
Originally published in The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of
Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield (ed. David J.A. Clines,
Stephen E. Fowl and Stanley E. Porter; JSOTSup, 87; Sheffield: JSOT Press,
1990), pp. 22-42.
argument or principle or precedent to excuse her non-compliance to his

sexist demands, but simply asserts her human right to say no, we find
ourselves hailing her as the first (perhaps the only) radical feminist in
the Bible.
Now Vashti the Persian queen and Vashti the woman are the same
Vashti, and we do the story no violence by insisting on reading it in our
context, not only its, or hers. Living as and when we do, we are bound
to read from left to right, bound to resist the author's intention as the
only possible meaning, and bound to enrich the story by reading it in
different modes, or dimensions, or contexts.
The Vashti story in its double significance I take to be paradigmatic
for reading any part of the Bible today. It remains open to us, of course,
to read forever reconstructively, reading our way toward a determinate
goal of discovering the author's meaning or hypothesizing how the
work was heard in its own timeand resting content with that. But
alternatively (or, as well), we may approach the text with the reading
strategies of our own time, not indeed to corrupt the text into saying
whatever it is we want it to say but to hear whatever it may have to say
on matters we are, out of our own convictions and interests, concerned
about.
In this paper I will explore how adopting some of the reading strategies available to readers of our own age can prove fruitful for understanding a familiar ancient text. I shall approach the text from the
standpoints of five different strategies, formalism, structuralism, feminism, materialism and deconstruction.
1. Formalism
It is perhaps arguable whether formalism constitutes a reading strategyat least in the same sense that feminism, materialism and deconstruction certainly do, and that structuralism most probably doesin
that with formalism there is no overt philosophical foundation or commitment from which the strategy draws its strength. Nevertheless,
because it is a way of approaching reading that scholars and readers of
a former age did not have available to them, at least not explicitly, I
think it is appropriate to regard it as one of the resources, and thus
strategies, contemporary readers can avail themselves of. There is also
a practical value in beginning this essay with a formalist consideration
of the text, in that it compels us to focus upon the shape of the work as
1. Reading Esther from Left to Right
a whole before we engage in more self-regarding readings.

Among the range of formalist concerns over which one might spend
time,1 I choose here only one: plot, its structure and development.
Esther has, structurally speaking, a conventional plot, with beginning, middle, and end clearly marked out
begining
12-2
end
middle
3-8
9-10
8.2
Exposition
Complication
8.17
Resolution
If we analyse plots as typically consisting of exposition, complication,

resolution, and coda, in the Book of Esther chs. 1-2 are evidently Exposition. These chapters enclose seven distinct scenes portraying circumstances anterior to the plot proper. The Complication begins only in
ch. 3, with Mordecai's refusal of obeisance to the newly elevated
Haman, and with Haman's reaction. That is the point at which the
destruction of the Jews is determined upon, which decision constitutes
the base-point for two arcs of tension that will reach as far as the Resolution. At the end of ch. 8, at the point when the second imperial decree
is issued, we know the moment of Resolution has arrived, for the Jews
can relax and make holiday. Thereafter, the last two chapters, at least
from 9.20 onward, form a Coda projecting the discourse beyond the
time-frame of the narrative proper.2
Two points of interest emerge from this analysis. The first is that the
Exposition is unusually long, suggesting that the story is not so naive as
its simple style might tempt us to think. What is being delivered in the
Exposition is not the mere details of time, place and personages of the
1. See for example Ann Jefferson, 'Russian Formalism', in Ann Jefferson and
David Robey (eds.), Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction (London: B.T. Batsford, 1982), p. 22.
2. See William Labov, Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black
English Vernacular (Conduct and Communication, 36; Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1972), used by Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of
Biblical Narrative (Bible and Literature Series, 9; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1983),
pp. 101-102, 107-109.
storywhich is all an Exposition needs. Rather, we are presented with

a mass of background, on the symbolism of power, the character of the
king, the battle of the sexes, and the relationship of Esther and Mordecai, which all must be held in mind in the course of the subsequent narrative and cross-fertilized with the matter of the action. So, for example, when we read the response of Ahasuerus to Haman in 3.11, 'do
with them as seems good to you'which may sound, taken by itself,
like a brisk imperial efficiencywe are obliged to recall, on the contrary, that we know from the Exposition that this king is a man who can
make no decision of his own accord, like how to handle the disobedience of Vashti or what to do when he finds he is missing her, but has
always to rely on the advice of his courtiers. When someone comes to
him with a concrete proposal like the extermination of an anonymous
race of deviants, the king is only too glad to have someone else to do
the troublesome business of decision-making for him and cheerfully
consigns the people to Haman to do with them as he likes.
The second point concerns the resolution of the tension. At first sight
the Resolution is the death of Haman (7.10), author of the decree for
the extermination of the Jews. But to stay with that perspective is to
have failed to notice that the moment of complication of the plot is not
precisely the threat of 3.13 against the Jewish people, but the fact that
the threat has the form of a law of the Persians and Medes (which the
Exposition in 1.19 has forewarned us is unalterable). So it will be no
final resolution of the plot when Haman is unmasked as involving even
the queen in his scheduled genocide, or when he is hoist on his own
stake (to the height of 75 feet), or even when Mordecai the Jew is made
vizier in Haman's place (8.2). For even when those resolutions have
come about, the Complication is not yet resolved, for the unalterable
law that has decreed the Jews' destruction still standsas the king
reminds Esther when she begs for the decree to be revoked (8.8). The
intellectual problem of how to alter the unalterable is solved, and the
tension of the plot therewith resolved, only by Mordecai's brilliant idea
of a supplementary law of the Persian and Medes requiring the Jews to
defend themselves against any attempt at genocide (8.11-12). Since the
first law had thoughtlessly failed to require any particular persons to
carry out the genocide, no one, in the event, could be blamed for failing
to obey it; and clearly Jews and non-Jews alike throughout the empire
read the situation as a (bloodless) victory for the Jews (8.15-17), without a whiff of criticism for the doctrine of the Persian law's unchange-
ability. As against that resolution, the bloodletting of 9.5-6 is a concretization of the new-found Jewish supremacy; it purges the empire of
and-Jewish elements, which is good news for the future. But it does not
resolve anything, for there is nothing still needing to be resolved.
Mordecai's drafting of the second edict has already done that. So to
analyse the plot, even along the quite unsophisticated lines here
sketched, is not simply to perceive the subtlety of the narrator's art but
to touch base already with the narrative's own specific attitudes to
power, violence, law.
2. Structuralism
In using a structuralist strategy for reading, we are explicitly seeking
below the surface of the textrelationships, especially of opposition
and contrast, that manifest themselves on the level of the text. In the
discipline of literary structuralism there are several different procedures
that stand ready-made as grids on which the narrative may be laid out.
Two of these may be of service here, an actantial and a semantic
analysis.
a. Actantial analysis
An analysis of the actants in the Esther narrative is quite straightforward, but it reveals two interesting realities. The actantial pattern, in
the style of A.J. Greimas,3 may be set out thus:
9
SENDER
deliverance
OBJECT
Jews
RECEIVER
Mordecai, king
HELPER
Esther
SUBJECT
Haman, king
OPPONENT
The first interesting aspect of this analysis is that, if we designate the

Object as deliverance for the Receiver, the Jews, we are left with a
question as to the identity of the Sender. The Sender is the person or
circumstance that endeavours to communicate the Object to the
Receiver. Now the Sender in any narrative (or, performance, in
3. For an introduction to this method, see Daniel Patte, What Is Structural
Exegesis? (Guides to Biblical Scholarship; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976).
Greimasian language) can of course be, faute de mieux, the Story itself,
or Fate; but in this particular narrative, in its biblical context, we are
tempted to designate the sender as God, even though God does not
actually appear in the story as a character nor is any allusion made to
him. Outside the Hebrew Bible, other versions of the Esther Story
such as the elaboration it receives in the Greek Biblemake it entirely
explicit that the story is essentially a narrative of God's action. The
crucial coincidences of the plot (e.g. the presence of a Jewish woman
on the Persian throne, the reading of the chronicle of Mordecai's deliverance of the king's life at the very moment when Mordecai's own
enemy has arrived to seek his life) unmistakably point to the hand
of God, despite the absencefor whatever reasonof God from the
explicit action. A structural analysis, then, dealing solely with the
evidence of the text, registers the text's lack of identification of the
Sender as a crucial distinctive of the story.
Secondly, we observe that the position of the king in the actantial
grid is ambiguous. Inasmuch as he authorizes the plan of Haman, he
belongs with him as Opponent; but inasmuch as he commands
Haman's death and signs Mordecai's edict bringing deliverance to the
Jews he is Helper. This ambiguity in the role of the Persian king, which
the actantial analysis reflects, corresponds with the ambiguity of the
book's stance towards the Persian government, which is experienced by
the Jews both as threat and as protectionan experience consequently
inscribed in the book.
b. Semantic analysis
Another tactic from the structuralist strategy that can be profitably
employed for Esther is a semantic analysis of codes, the groupings of
terms distinctive of our text.4 The result of such an analysis will be that
each of the several codes we examine here will turn out to be a
manifestation of the theme of power, a central concern of the writing.
We can look first at the alimentary code. There is a good deal of data
relating to this code, for there are nine banquets (mishteh, lit. drinkingparty) in the book. The first and second are displays of the king's
wealth and munificence (1.1-4, 5-8). The third is Vashti's all-female
counterpart to the king's all-male banquet (1.9), and the fourth is
4. A paradigm for the present study is provided by David Jobling, The Sense of
Biblical Narrative: Three Structural Analyses in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 7;
Sheffield: JSOT Press, 2nd edn, 1986), I, pp. 26-62.
Esther's, given by the king to celebrate Esther's accession to the throne

(2.18). Fifth is the drinking of the king and Haman when the plot
against the Jews has been hatched (3.15). Sixth and seventh are
Esther's banquets at which Haman is unmasked (5.5-8; 7.1-8). Eighth is
the banquet held by the Jews in every city after the twenty-third day of
the third month, celebrating the arrival of the edict of Mordecai (8.17),
and ninth are the empire-wide Jewish banquets of the fourteenth and
fifteenth of the twelfth month, celebrating the 'rest' achieved by the
pogroms of anti-Semites on the previous day(s) (9.17-19).
Since banquets celebrate success, it is appropriate that the first five
should be Persian banquets, and the last four Jewish banquets, for the
story represents the movement of power from Persians to Jews. The
first pair, given by the king in a vulgar display of wealth and power,
contrasts with the last pair, which celebrates, by contrast, survival and
honour (though they, of course, may be not so very different, albeit in
another key, from wealth and power!). The third and fourth, given by
and for the Persian queens (Vashti and Esther), contrast with the sixth
and seventh, given by the Jewish-Persian queen (Esther). The fifth and
central banquet is shared by the Persian Ahasuerus and his supporter
Haman the Agagite: in celebrating the decree that has been just now
issued against the Jews it marks the point at which Persian success will
begin to be overshadowed by Jewish success.
Beside the banquets, there is a negative mode of feastingwhich is
fasting. Persian power, as expressed in the first edict, is responded to by
the spontaneous Jewish fasting of 4.3, a symbol of powerlessness.
Esther's further demand for a fast of unparalleled severity, no food or
water for three days or nights (4.16), conveys how absolute is Jewish
powerlessness. She herself, ironically, while maintaining this extreme
Jewish fast with her maids, has been preparing a Persian-style banquet
for the king (5.4, on the third day; cf. 4.15 and 5.1). She is the only Jew
who is in the position to do anything about the edict, because she is the
Jew who is also a Persian. She must fast and feast simultaneously
therefore, bravely preparing her victory banquet in the very moment of
experiencing intense powerlessness.
The code of clothing is significant also. There are distinctions here
between normal and deformed clothing, between workaday clothes and
celebratory clothing, between the clothes of the powerless and the
clothes of the powerful. The issuance of the edict against the Jews
has its effect in Mordecai's tearing his usual clothes and putting on
10
charmless sackcloth (4.1)as if he were already dead and enfeebled

like the inhabitants of the underworld, wearing clothes for no more than
decency's sake in a world where aesthetic sensibilities no longer apply.
Esther, who does not yet know of the edict, sends out replacement
normal garments to Mordecai 'so that he might take off his sackcloth'
(for she knows of nothing to mourn about), but he sends them back to
her (4.4). She herself, even when she hears of the edict, cannot of
course wear sackcloth within the palace (cf. 4.2), though she can fast.
For the sake of the Jews in sackcloth this Jew must show herself a
Persian, dressed in her 'royal robes' (5.1) for the king's presence.
Clothing will become conspicuous ultimately when Mordecai leaves
the king's presence in royal robes of blue and white, fine linen and
purple (colours and materials all recalling the imperial colours of the
pavilion hangings in 1.6). That will proclaim his identity as Persianas
Persian as it is possible for a Jew to be. He has already had a foretaste
of that identity in his temporary elevation as 'the man whom the king
delights to honour' (6.7-11), paraded through the city in 'royal robes
which the king himself has worn' (6.8). Clothing then is a conspicuous
code signalling where one stands on the power axis.
The topographical code is another coding for power; its significance
bcomes transparent in the manner in which it relates to areas of power.
There is in the narrative a simple disjunction between inside and outside, in which Jews begin by being outside (Mordecai walking daily
outside the harem, 2.11; sitting at the king's gate, 2.19, 3.2; unable to
enter the king's gate in sackcloth, 4.2). It is fundamental to the narrative that acts of power originate in the inside and are despatched outwards (3.12-13; 8.9-10). Esther is an outsider who gains power when
she becomes an insider (ch. 4); she is an unusual figure in that she does
not loosen her links with the outside world even when she is in the
court. Haman, who is to begin with very much of an insider, after the
first banquet prepared by Esther innocently 'goes out' of the king's
presence and 'goes home' (5.9, 10); but we know that this exit from the
centre of power is symbolically unwise. For when he comes again in
the morning he has been displaced by Mordecai (6.6). And when he
goes home the second time it is only to have his outsider status
confirmed by his wife (6.13). Now that he has become an outsider, even
when he enters the king's presence once more (ch. 7) he comes as a
disempowered person who will hear at the centre of power nothing to
his own advantage but only the pronouncement of his own death sen-
11
tence; and he exits directly from the royal court to the gallows (7.9-10).
The disjunction between inside and outside, constitutive of the story,
and fatal to Haman, but privately circumvented by Esther, is ultimately
abolished in the appointment of Mordecai: in going out of the king's
presence clad in royal robes, he manifests the truth that the imperial
power is now no longer located within the throne-room, but is concentrated in his person. His co-religionists, whose welfare he seeks (10.3),
are therefore no longer to be regarded as outsiders; in ch. 9, any town
where they may happen to find themselves, and especially any place
where they are 'gathered' in a show of solidarity, becomes a centre of
power that no one can resist (9.2).
There is also a further disjunction within the 'inside' sphere, that is,
between the king's presence and the rest of the palace: the king's presence is so 'inside' that even the rest of the palace is 'outside' by comparison. This disjunction is manifested in the law, known not just in the
palace but throughout the whole empire, that to enter the king's presence unbidden is to risk death (4.11). The king's presence, as the focus
of the greatest power, is evidently the most dangerous place. And that
is true not just in an obvious sense. For Vashti has discovered that not
to enter it when bidden is nearly as dangerous as entering it unbidden
(1.11-12, 19).
These codes signal the narrative's concern with power, where it is
located, and whether and how it can be withstood or manipulated by
others.
3. Feminism
A feminist criticism is concerned with 'the way the hypothesis of a
female reader changes our apprehension of a given text, awakening us
to the significance of its sexual codes'.5
The feminist issue in the Book of Esther is, it may be suggested,
whether power truly resides in the males, as the conventional wisdom
both Persian and Jewish would have it. In the case of the Vashti
episode, we are being invited to consider the question, Where does
power truly lie? Is it with the king, who has well-nigh universal power,
but of whose power it becomes plain at the first opportunity that it is
5. Elaine Showalter, Towards a Feminist Poetics', in Mary Jacobus (ed.),
Women Writing and Writing about Women (London: Croom Helm, 1979), pp. 2241 (25).
12
always open to resistance? Or does it not rather lie with Vashti, who
knows how to take the power she needs for her own self-determinationwhich is to say, all the power that matters? He can be thwarted;
she, however, provided she stands her ground, cannot. Her power is all
the more evident when we ask, What exactly is Vashti resisting? It is
not, apparently, any demands of Ahasuerus that she appear naked,
adorned by nothing more than her crown (though some rabbinic commentators thought so, reading 1.11). Nor is it his drunkenness, even
though it is true that his 'heart is merry with wine' (1.10). It is simply
his demand. And the strength of her resistance lies in the very absence
of a reason for refusing his demand. She doesn't need to have a reason,
for she is under no obligation. Her power lies in her freedom to choose
for herself.
As if to underline the fact that the issue is not one of legality but of
power, the king's response is simply one of anger; that can only mean
that she has done nothing illegal but has only made him lose face (cf.
7.7). His appeal to his wise men to tell him what, 'according to the
law', is to be done to her for her disobedience (1.15) conspicuously
fails to elicit any existing law, though they can invent an edict intended,
post eventum, to punish her (1.19). But in this they seem to wrongfoot
themselves, since the punishment they prescribe (not to come before
the king) is evidently, and ironically, Vashti's dearest wish (it was
'coming before the king' that she had declined in 1.11-12). The issue of
power, that is to say, is still in the forefront: even when the king and
princes believe they are exercising power over her, by preventing her
entering the king's presence, they are achieving no more than what she
herself has desired.
The issue of power in sexual politics is further explored in the
response of the princes of Persia to the news of Vashti's disobedience.
They unhesitatingly assume that throughout the empire it will be the
signal for wives, long suppressed, to start rising in rebellion against
their husbands, and that 'there will be contempt [on the wives' part]
and wrath [on the husbands' part] in plenty' (1.18). This truly hysterical
assumption can only mean that the men feel threatened, and that male
supremacy is being depicted as resting on the flimsiest of foundations.
It can only be ironical that their recipe for maintaining the sexual hierarchy is to spread the news of Vashti's recalcitrance throughout the
empire, and it can only be satire on males that a multilingual decree
needs to be issued throughout the 127 provinces asserting that every
13
man should be master in his own house (1.22). It should be observed,

incidentally, that this satire is, no doubt, from the author's perspective,
at the expense of the Persian king and his courtiers, not of males generally. It corresponds to the critique of Persian power that is characteristic of the book as a whole. But because the princes fear the consequences of Vashti's defiance upon 'all women' and foresee not political
dangers but purely domestic difficulties we are bound to read in this
scene not only that, but, even more tellingly, a satire against any male
power that apes the Persian style.
The issue of power underlies the portrayal of Esther also, even if less
obviously. Esther is an altogether different type of woman from Vashti,
a 'traditional' woman and no radical feminist but a beauty queen, a
charmer. In the narrative about Esther herself there is not the open
satire we have met with in ch. 1. But we are not supposed to forget that
her king is a shallow and nervous male chauvinist and that it is he who
sets the style for the relation between the sexes in Persia. The regimen
of twelve months' beauty preparation for potential bedfellows of the
king (2.12) is a rather unpleasant sample of male psychology, as though
there were something distasteful about women in their natural state.
The king of course needs no such preparation himself; he must be
beautiful and fragrant enough already. The text itself subverts the Persian theory about female beauty when we find that Esther's success
with the king apparently results in large measure from her rejection of
all the artificial beauty aids that his palace administrators have devised
(2.15). Nevertheless, the fact remains that she owes her place on the
Persian throne to nothing but her good looks, her only other great asset
being her cookery. She herself falls in with the prevailing sexual politics when she does not hesitate to use her female charm as a bargaining
counter. For when in ch. 8 she pleads for the decree against the Jews to
be revoked, her last and climactic argument is her own sexual attractiveness: 'If I be pleasing in his [the king's] eyes' (8.5) is the argument
she thinks will linger most efficaciously with him.
So Esther is a conventional beauty queen who wins favour and status
both in the harem and with the king on the basis of her charm (2.9, 15,
17). Equally conventionally, she is also the dutiful adopted daughter,
who does everything Mordecai tells her to: she does not divulge her
ancestry because Mordecai has charged her not to (2.10, 20); and even
in the palace she 'obeyed Mordecai just as when she was brought up by
him' (2.20).
14
Yet there is another dimension to the image of Esther. The scene

between her and Mordecai in ch. 4, in which they communicate across
the boundary between the inside and the outside, is crucial in establishing her as the central figure through whom deliverance for the Jews
must come if it is to come at all. Mordecai in this chapter treats her for
the first time as an adult in a sentence that in the same moment underlines her alienation from her people and her identity with them: 'Think
not that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other
Jews' (4.13). She is indefeasibly an outsider, but with a chance to
operate as an insider, that is, with power. Esther rises to the occasion,
and the narrator signals, with the scene's concluding sentence, that
Esther has taken charge: 'Mordecai went away and did everything as
Esther had ordered him' (4.17), so reversing the language of 2.10 and
2.20.
Thereafter, though weighty matters like the fate of her people and the
disposal of half of the kingdom or Raman's life are in the king's gift,
Esther is the one who is in confident command: her ingenious play with
the two banquets proves that. For she does not blurt out at once or at
the first banquet what she wants, since it may be dangerous to take your
sovereign's masterful 'half of the kingdom' au pied de la lettre when it
is the head of his prime minister you want (who knows whether that
might be more than is on offer?); it is safer to make the king's
acceptance of the second invitation a pledge to do whatever Esther
wants without quantifying fractions, and at the same time to represent
her own request as nothing other than 'doing what the king has said'
(5.8).
There is another aspect to Esther's role that a feminist perspective
alerts us to. If we ask how the danger to the Jews comes about, the
answer is plainly: through Mordecai's intransigence. And how is the
danger averted? Mordecai has no hand in that, except to alert Esther to
the facts and to put pressure on her. It is she who makes all the running,
and picks up the pieces that male honour has threatened to make of her
people. Mordecai, to be sure, solves the intellectual puzzle in ch. 8
neatly enough, but he has not had the wit to protect himself in the fight
for power that constitutes life at the Persian court. Esther represents
effective action over against Mordecai's somewhat gauche integrity.
The book as a whole purports to portray a triumph for a woman. For
its name is Esther's, and it is the story of her success as a powerful
woman over her upbringing as a traditional woman and over the expec-
15
tations of her as a woman at the Persian court. Even so, the ending of
the book raises some doubts about how thorough a success hers is. For
some sexual-political struggle between the figures of Esther and
Mordecai seems to be going on in ch. 9. We observe that it is Mordecai
who writes the letter to the Jews throughout the empire enjoining
observance of the fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar as days of celebration in commemoration of the victory achieved (9.20-22). And the Jews
do what Mordecai has written to them (9.23). But in 9.29 'Esther the
Queen' is writing 'with full authority this second letter about Purim in
order to make its observance obligatory', because her power needs to
be safeguarded literarily. The struggle is not yet over, however, for subsequently, it seems, some scribe, breaking grammatical concord,6 finds
it necessary to add 'and Mordecai' because he (it must be a man) does
not care for the flavour of the politics. And then finally Esther is lost
sight of altogether, and the book itself peters out with wishy-washy
generalities about Mordecai (10.1-3), for all the world as if the story
had really been about him all the time.7
The ultimate victory in the sexual politics of the Book of Esther
comes not in the Hebrew book, however, but in the Greek version with
its expansions. Here the whole story becomes framed by narratives of
the dream of Mordecai and its interpretation (A 1-11=11.2-12; F 110=10.4-11.1). The whole chain of events is thus represented as
divinely foreseen and foreordained, and, more to the present purpose,
as portraying the conflict of the narrative as a struggle between Mordecai and Hainan. We know that the male has finally edged Esther out of
her triumph when in 2 Maccabees we hear the day of celebration
(which had come into being primarily through Esther's courage and
shrewdness) being referred to as 'Mordecai's Day' (15.36).8
4. Materialism
A materialist criticism approaches the text in terms of the material, i.e.
6. The verb nrom is feminine singular, but the subject in the text as it stands is
both Esther and Mordecai.
7. For details see David J.[A.] Clines, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (NCB; London:
Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1984), pp. 329-30.
8. See further David J.A. Clines, 'The Additions to Esther', Harper's Bible
Commentary (ed. James L. Mays; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 81519.
16
socio-economic, conditions that produce it, especially the condition of

antagonistic social classes.
The book of Esther professes itself the product of an oppressed
group; and the Jews of the time it depicts are unquestionably a subject
people. Their story satirizes the Persian claim to absolute power, and
claims power for themselves. The Jews cannot of course deny that the
king possesses the powerthe wealth, the provincial organization, the
military force (cf. 1.3; 8.11), and the means of communication (the
imperial postal system, 3.13-14 and 8.9-14). They find power exercised
against them (and the other subject peoples), for example, when the
king can appoint officers in all the imperial provinces to gather all
beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa (2.3). But what it really
means to be subject or oppressed becomes evident chiefly in the fact
that the ultimate power, over life and death, is firmly in the hands of the
Persians, who are in the position to formulate decrees, not just for individuals' deaths, but for genocide.
Yet this story, however sincerely it represents the position of a subject race, self-evidently does not originate from the masses. However
much they too may be affected by the imperial edict, this is a court-tale,
told by habitues of the seat of power, reflecting the intrigue typical of
the palace and the harem. For this reason the narrative must be
described as reactionary rather than progressive. For it tolerates Persian
power in every respect except in the ultimate area, that is, over life and
death, and it commends co-operation rather than resistance. In accord
with such a stance, the ideal state of affairs for the Jews of the book of
Esther is not that the Persian government should be overthrown, but
that a co-religionist of theirs should be 'next in rank' to the king (10.3)
and should wield the 'power and might' of the Persian empire (10.2).
The important thing is not that Persian power should be eliminated but
that Mordecai the Jew should grow 'more and more powerful' (9.4).
Infiltration of the Persian court by a Jewish woman is not for the sake
of sabotaging the power base of an alien authority but in order to swing
Persian power behind a Jewish cause at a time of need. And once the
Jews become influential at the Persian court, they are not shy of pressing the imperial means of maintaining control (the means of communication) into the service of the Jewish deliverance (8.9-14).
Moreover, as if to prove how reactionary they can be, once the Jews
have thrown in their lot with the Persian system, they adopt some of the
less charming manners of the Persian court: they set about exterminat-
17
ing those who seek their hurt (9.2), doing 'as they pleased to those who
hated them' (9.5)that 'as they pleased' being elsewhere the sign of
godless licence (as in Dan. 8.4), and, already in this very book, the
principle on which Haman has been plotting their extermination (3.11).
They seek no change in the structure of society; it is accepted as given,
as itself one of the 'laws of the Persians and the Medes'. The Jewish
ambition is solely to position themselves at the centre of power in that
society. Having once decided that if you can't beat them you should
join them, they now determine as well to have their cake and eat it.
They want to be Persian citizens and cultural outsiders at the same
time. They support the government but they support Jewishness no less.
Such a blurring of identities and shovelling underground of the ultimate divergence of interests of Jews and Persians is pragmatic rather
than principled. A materialist perspective points up the fragility of the
stance toward power adopted by the book. Some might call it realist, of
course, but the underlying tension is too strong for the compromise
position to last.
5. Deconstruction
'To deconstruct a discourse', says Jonathan Culler 'is to show how it
undermines the philosophy it asserts, or the hierarchical oppositions on
which it relies.'9 I see two points at which the narrative of Esther is
open to deconstruction in these terms.
The first is the issue of identity. It can be taken for granted that it is
quintessential to the standpoint of the narrative that Jews should maintain their racial identity. It is true that, until the edict against them, they
are, at least from the official point of view, a group without strong
coherence: they are 'a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed
among the peoples in all the provinces' (3.8), many of them exiles cut
off from their homeland, carried away from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (2.6). But once the edict for their annihilation is delivered, we
see the reality of Jewish solidarity: they act only and everywhere in
concert. 'In every province, wherever the king's command and his
decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting
and weeping and lamenting' (4.3); all the Jews in Susa gather themselves at Esther's command for a communal fast (4.16); and when the
9. Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), p. 86.
18
second edict arrives, 'in every province and in every city, wherever the
king's command and his edict came, there was gladness and joy among
the Jews, a feast and a holiday' (8.17). In ch. 9 also the Jews of the
empire act unitedly on the fateful thirteenth of Adar. And once the hostility has been eliminated, they pledge themselves to perpetuate the
memory of their common action: 'they ordained and took it upon themselves and their descendants that without fail they would keep these
days, that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every
generation, in every family, province, and city, and that these days
should never fall into disuse among their descendants' (9.27-28, abbreviated). All of which is to say that the narrative sees itself as promoting
racial identity, stressing collective action, experience and memory.
What it celebrates, however, is a deliverance achieved through denying one's Jewishness. Esther not only contracts a marriage with a
Gentilewhich is the quickest and surest way of denying one's Jewishnessbut keeps secret her ancestry, deliberately, in response to her
guardian's injunction (2.10, 20). Of course she does reveal her racial
identity when it will be advantageous, but we cannot get over the fact
that it is only by denying it that she can use it profitably. And, as if to
reinforce the idea that Jewish identity has its drawbacks, the narrative
reminds us that the threat of genocide against the Jews arises only
because Mordecai divulges his Jewishness (3.4) and acts on Jewish
principle so rigorously as to deny his superior the conventional courtesies (3.2). Which is to say: the Jewish people find themselves under a
death sentence because one Jew acts like a Jew and tells his people he
is a Jew; they escape through the good offices of another Jew who has
pretended she is not a Jew. If being Jewish is being Esther-like no
tragedy need be expected; if it is being Mordecai-like, no saviour in
high places can be counted on. This is a very confusing message from a
narrative that purports to sustain Jewish identity.
The second issue is the function of writing. In this narrative, realityfrom the Persian point of viewalways tends towards inscripturation, and attains its true quality only when it is written down. Only
what is written is valid and permanent. We have first been alerted to the
value of writing in Persian eyes at 1.19 where it is not enough that the
recalcitrant Vashti be deposed; her loss of office only becomes a reality
when it is 'written among the laws of the Persians and Medes'. Next,
the social order of 'each man master in his own house' can only be
assured by 'letters to all royal provinces, to every province in its own
19
script and every people in its own language' (1.22). Then, the deepest
reality about the plan for Jewish annihilation is not that Haman wills it
or the king assents to it, but that it stands written. Writing is what
makes the threat real to every Jew, that ferrets them out in every corner
of the empire and confronts them with their fate; it is wherever this
royal edict comesthe written text, that isthat there is great mourning among the Jews (4.3). The writing itself, and not just its content, is
the threat.
Between chs. 4 and 7 there is (of course) no writing, because nothing
there is settled or finalized. Only when the flux of dialoguing, negotiating and executing has come to an end will the secretaries be summoned
again (8.9) and the imperial pleasure be set down in the diverse scripts
of the empire. The very act of writingquite apart from the fact that it
is irreversible Persian law that is being writtenmakes matters certain
and makes royal decrees everywhere effectual. The deliverance itself is
depicted as the result of the writing: 'in every province and in every
city, wherever the king's command and his edict came, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a feast and a holiday' (8.17).
Now there are two moments of disequilibrium or deconstruction over
this matter of writing. The first deconstruction manifests itself in the
Jewish adoption of Persian writing. It is one thing to use the imperial
chancellery and the royal post for dispatching the second edict; that is a
matter of convenience, and clearly advantageous to the Jewish people.
It is another matter that the upshot of the whole sequence of events
should be that Mordecai 'recorded these things, and sent letters to all
the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus' (9.20). For
that means to say that the story of Esther and Mordecai is now written
into the Persian record (as indeed was the story of Mordecai's discovery of the eunuchs' plot, 2.23), as well as being circulated in written
form to his kinsfolk. Jews as well as Persians apparently need to have
the realities of the Haman affair permanently enshrined in written form.
This is, in its own small but deeply symbolic way, a crisis for Jewish
identity, though the narrative does not perceive it. Persian writing is a
symbol of Persian bureaucracy, which is a manifestation of empire with
its conglomerate of 127 provinces and who knows how many ethnic
groups. But Jews, though dispersed, are 'one people' (3.8), with one
language and possessed of a folk memory. In the terms of this narrative,
they should not need writing. It is a betrayal of ethnicity to adopt the
administrative machinery of an alien empire in the hope of preserving
20
the national memory. Are the threat of genocide and the amazing deliverance from it so impotent, have they stirred the Jewish imagination so
little, that the only way of retaining the memory of them is to give them
the Persian treatment, recording them in chronicles of such dismal
banality that they will be read only to put people to sleep (6.1)?
We see in 9.24-25 what the Persian treatment of the events would
look like. In this capsule entry for the imperial chronicles what we find
is the true story cruelly denatured, Esther written out of the record, and
no less than seven mistakes made about the course of events (including,
incidentally, the novel information that the king 'gave orders in writing'
for the death of Haman, which he certainly did not according to the
narrative).10 The Jewish story pays a high price for being abstracted
into the Persian chronicles.
And as the end of ch. 9 makes patent, in almost laughable fashion,
once the memory of the event has been committed to the scriptorium,
the paperwork never stops. Not only must Mordecai draft a minute for
the chronicles and a circular to Jews everywhere, but Esther too must
write to them a 'second letter' (9.29) supporting or extending the letter
of Mordecai. For, it appears, the Jewish people had instituted on their
own initiative a ritual of fasting and lamenting in commemoration of
the danger. But for that institution to attain full reality there needs to be
a 'command of Queen Esther' that 'fixed these practices' and was
'recorded in writing' (9.32). She has undeniably become the (Persian)
Queen Esther.
The second point of deconstruction concerns the validity of writing.
Writing in this book is primarily the writing of law, law that not only
has the authority of the king behind it but, in the society of the Medes
and Persians, is informed by its own tradition of irreversibility. This is
the law that the Jews in ch. 9 assimilate to themselves as a guarantor of
the memory of their deliverance and of the correct observance of its
rituals.
But what the narrative has also told us, sotto voce, is that the concept
of the irreversibility of Persian law is a myth. Everyone pretends that it
cannot be altered, but if you are determined enough, you can beat an
unmovable object over the head with an irresistible force. Mordecai
undid the effect of the first edict: that is the heart of the narrative.
Writing is thereby proclaimedagainst the grain of the whole narra10. For the details, see David J.A. Clines, The Esther Scroll: The Story of the
Story (JSOTSup, 30; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), pp. 52-53.
21
liveto be not permanent; its validity is challengeable. What price then

Jewish commitment to writings that concern them? What future is there
for the Book of Esther? Has it not become a self-consuming artifact?
A deconstructive reading removes certainties and dismembers dogmas. It casts a quizzical eye over what has been passing for truths. And
in so doing it draws our attention to the fact that texts are not transcripts
of the way the universe is, nor tape-recordings of what actually happened. It need make no mock of the sincerity of the text, not turn us
against the text as flimsy or fallible. If anything, it can sometimes
happen that a text shorn of the bogus claims of its reverers can become
more effectual, indeed attractive. Seeing the emperor has no clothes
might sometimes be the best way of recognizing what a fine figure of a
man he truly is.
Observations in Conclusion
1.1 am impressed in this study by the value of as many strategies as
possible for reading a text. As a critic of the text, I should hate to be
restricted by a methodological purism. What I have noticed is that different strategies confirm, complement or comment on other strategies,
and so help develop an integrated but polychromatic reading.
2.1 say as many strategies 'as possible' since there must be texts
where certain strategies are inappropriate. I did not, for example, see
what could be made of a psychoanalytical approach to this text
though I could see some interesting psychological angles to it.
3.1 did not see any methodological difficulties in reading an ancient
text, which is also a simple text, not to say a naive one, using contemporary strategies. The readings are inevitably not so coruscating as
readings of intricate and self-conscious texts such as are often chosen
by contemporary literary critics. No doubt that is largely my fault, but I
do think the text itself is in part the cause of the deficiency.
4.1 did not feel well served, as a critic, by current exponents of critical theories. I did not, for example, though I do not know the scholarly
literature very well, find any critic doingfor any textwhat I have
attempted to do here.11 And I found that those who wrote about strate11. Since this paper was first written, I have come across the volume Literary
Theory at Work: Three Texts (ed. Douglas Tallack; London: B.T. Batsford, 1987),
in which nine contributors read three works (Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness,
Henry James's In the Cage, and D.H. Lawrence's St Mawr) from their own theoret-
22
gies tended to be rather defensive, protective and uncritical of their own

favoured strategythough eager enough to polemicize. Among structuralists and deconstructionists, for example, I saw an unwillingness to
blow the whistle on members of the same guild with febrile imaginations and an inability to communicate.12 Why do theorists not realize
that they are not in show-business but in the business of persuasion!
But then, since Socrates at least, the sophist has often been mistaken for
the entertainer.
ical perspective. This is still not quite the same as having one critic perform different theoretical operations on the same text.
12. I know about the 'tyranny of lucidity', and accept that 'To challenge familiar assumptions and familiar values in a discourse which, in order to be easily readable, is compelled to reproduce these assumptions and values, is an impossibility'
(Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice [London: Methuen, 1980], pp. 4-5). I am talking about mystification.
METHODS IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDY

Methods are a means to an end; so before we speak of methods in academic Old Testament study, we must speak of goals in Old Testament
study. Many, perhaps most, people come to the study of the Bible with
religious goals in mind: they want to know more about the Bible
because they believe it will deepen their faith, communicate God's will
to them, and so on. They have a preconception about the nature of the
Bible; perhaps it is for them the word of God, the final authority in matters of faith and practice; or else perhaps they see it rather as the deposit
of the religious experiences of ancient Jews and Christians, a valuable
resource book for religious believers of today. Nevertheless, those who
have religious goals as their aim need to realize that biblical study of
itself will not reach those goals, though it would be surprising if it did
not have a great deal of religious pay-off (to put it crudely). The academic study of the Bible has been, and must be, one in which people of
any religious faith, or of none, can engage, and can co-operate. The
immediate goal of academic biblical study must be one that allows but
does not require religious preconceptions; for many, the immediate
goal may be only a stage on the way to an ultimate (religious) goal, but
for others it may be a sufficient goal in itself.
When I first wrote this chapter, I suggested that the primary goal in
biblical study should be understanding. Other goals people have in
studying the Old Testament, like learning Hebrew, or discovering the
facts about the history of Israel or passing examinations, even life goals
like deepening one's religious faith or becoming a wiser person, can
best be regarded as secondary goals in the academic study of the Old
Testament. For only some goal like 'understanding the texts' can be in
tune with the nature of academic study. Given that there is an Old Testament (or as we should perhaps rather call it, Hebrew Bible), what else
Originally published in Beginning Old Testament Study (ed. John Rogerson;
London: SPCK, new edn, 1998 [first edn, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982, and
London: SPCK, 1983]), pp. 25-48, and reprinted with permission.
24
can be done about it in an institution of higher education? It cannot be

preached, and it cannot be 'taught'as doctrine, that is, as what one
ought to believe; for a university or college is not the place for that. But
neither can it be used simply as a textbook for ancient history or as a
source for illustrating social customs in the ancient Near East; for it was
self-evidently not for these purposes that the Hebrew Bible was brought
together in the form that it has and it does not as a whole have the character of a history or a manual of social customs. Only some description
like 'the Scriptures of the Hebrew people', or 'the sacred writings of
the Jews which now also form part of the Christian Bible', can do justice to its essence. It is a strange combination of history and religion
and literature, and the most appropriate way of handling such a document in an academic setting would seem to be to attempt to understand
it.
Now that I come to prepare a revision of this chapter for the second
edition of the book, I have to say that I am not so sure that understanding should necessarily be the primary goal in biblical study. One might
well go on to ask what the purpose of such understanding is, what one
is going to do with one's understanding, what difference it may make to
you if you understand it, how understanding it may change you. Once
we ask questions of this kind we imply that there are goals beyond
understanding. A Marxist formulation has it is that the point is not to
understandthe world but tochangeitwhich means to say that if you
already regard the world as unjust, oppressive and the like, merely
going on understanding how unjust it is would be rather a waste of
time; what an unjust world needs is to be changed into something better. Or if we think of ills and evils like cancer or poverty, we might also
agree that to rest content with understanding them, their causes and
their nature, would be a rather inhuman thing to do; what we really
want is to prevent them or alleviate them. And if we think of goods and
benefits like happiness or job satisfaction, who would be satisfied with
merely understanding them and how they come about when it might be
possible to enhance people's lives by creating more of them?
So, when it comes to the Old Testament, what goals in the study of it
could there be beyond understanding! My answer is: evaluation or critique (on the basis of understanding, of course). I would not want the
academic study of the Bible to be an opportunity for people to express
their prejudices either for or against the Bible, but I would like to see
biblical scholars throw off some of their traditional reserve and their
2. Methods in Old Testament Study
25
stance of 'objectivity' and frankly say what it is about the Bible they
want to affirm (if anything) and what it is they cannot adhere to (if anything)that is, to express their own personal evaluation of the material
they are doing their best to understand. Otherwise I do not see that we
are being honest with ourselves and fair to our students.
It happens that the last fifteen years, the period since the first edition
of this book was published, have seen an upsurge of biblical study of
kinds that can be called critique or evaluation. I am referring to the
methods in criticism that go under the heading of 'poststructuralism', of
which feminist, ideological and materialist criticisms are perhaps the
most notable. I shall be dealing with them in the second section of this
chapter, as 'second-order methods' of Old Testament study. All that
needs to be said at this moment is that none of them can dispense with
understanding. Though understanding the Old Testament may not be
the only worthwhile thing to do with it, there is nothing academic we
can do with it at all if we do not make the utmost attempts at understanding it, the parts and the whole, in its own terms and for its own
sake.
There are other academic goals we can have in the study of the Old
Testament that are neither understanding or evaluation, properly speaking. These are goals we might have when our intention is to use the Old
Testament for some other academic purpose, such as, for example, to
reconstruct the history of ancient Israel, to establish what daily life in
ancient Israel was like, or to learn the classical Hebrew language. These
are all proper academic goals, and all of them will have something to
contribute to our understanding of the Hebrew Bible. But they are not
in themselves attempts at understanding or evaluation of the Old Testament, and so I will be referring to them in the third section of this chapter as 'third-order methods' of Old Testament study. They too require
understanding of the Hebrew Bible itself, and so modes of understanding will be the 'first-order methods' of biblical study and the first
section of this chapter.
1. First-Order Methods
Since we are speaking of understanding as the first of our goals in Old
Testament study, let us be clear about the terms we should use. When
we come to formulate any understanding we gain, whether of part or of
the whole of the Old Testament, we call that formulation or putting into
words an interpretation. Now, since it is probably impossible to under-
26
stand anything without putting it into words, at least in one's own

mind, one might as well say perhaps that it is 'interpretation' that
should be the first aim of Old Testament study. I prefer, however, to
say 'understanding', since that focuses on the processes by which one
comes to understand, rather than 'interpretation', which focuses on the
crystallization of that understanding. Nevertheless, using the term
'interpretation' is a useful reminder of what kind of writing about the
Old Testament is most appropriate to its nature. Those works that
illuminate the text by offering an interpretation, whether of a phrase or
a book, the meaning of a verse or the structure of a biblical author's
thought, are the most suited to its character. While not all commentaries
are illuminating, the commentary form is the quintessential mode of
biblical interpretation; but the essay on character, plot, or theology can
be equally valuable for the interpretation of larger passages.
One other term, frequently encountered in biblical studies, needs to
be introduced at this point, namely exegesis. 'Exegesis' is in fact nothing but interpretation, but the term is usually reserved for the kind of
interpretation that explains phrase by phrase or verse by verse the biblical passage; 'interpretation' may refer to a more discursive treatment of
longer stretches of biblical text.
Biblical interpretation has been going on for a long time, ever since
any part of the Bible was composed, in fact, for every hearer or reader
is an interpreter of what he or she hears or readsotherwise we do not
understand what we hear or read. Certain methods that have been
successful in biblical interpretation have acquired names familiar to
biblical scholarsthough they may be unfamiliar to many experts in
the interpretation of other literary texts. I will first discuss three of these
methods traditional in biblical scholarship, and then three other methods more familiar to students of other literatures. None of the methods
discussed in this chapter is wholly distinct from other methods; some
have fairly clear procedures, while others are more an approach or an
attitude to the text; there is no predetermined sequence in which these
methods can most fruitfully be applied, and no way of telling in
advance which will yield the best results; and in many cases a method
is not very different from common sense, so that one is not always
aware of using a particular method.
a. Traditional Methods in Biblical Scholarship
\. Historical-grammatical exegesis. This is in fact not so much a
27
method, but more a way of life to most biblical scholars. The term
refers to the endeavour to interpret any passage according to the natural
sense of the words ('grammatical') and according to the probable
meaning of the author in his or her own time ('historical'). As a method, it functions first as a warning against arbitrary or fanciful interpretations, such as were often (but not invariably) to be encountered in
pre-Reformation interpretation. Thus, while an allegorical interpretation
of the Old Testament often saw in the name Jerusalem a veiled reference to the pious Christian soul or to the heavenly city, the historicalgrammatical method insists that 'Jerusalem' in the Old Testament
always refers to the ancient city of that name, unless there is good
evidence to the contrary. Or, whereas the commentary on the prophecy
of Habakkuk composed by members of the Dead Sea scrolls community at Qumran apparently interpreted the 'righteous' and 'wicked'
referred to by Habakkuk (in the late seventh century BCE) as persons
contemporary with the Qumran community, in the first century BCE, the
historical-grammatical method insists that these words should refer to
those persons intended by the prophet. (In this case, it is clear that Hab.
1.4 refers to 'righteous' and 'wicked' men of Habakkuk's own time.)
Such an approach may seem obvious enough to us, but we may note
that it may lead to apparent loss of understanding rather than gain.
Thus, the statement of God in Gen. 1.26, 'Let us make humanity in our
image', was readily interpreted by early Christian scholars as an
address by God the Father to the other persons of the Trinity, since God
is speaking of 'us' in the plural. As exegetes of the historical-grammatical school, we ourselves would deny that the author of Genesis 1 knew
anything of the doctrine of the Trinity, since Genesis was written well
before the advent of Christianity and the formulation of the doctrine of
the Trinity; so we would deny that such can be the meaning. Nonetheless, we seem to be no better off than the early Christian scholars, for
though many suggestions have been made, no entirely convincing interpretation of the plural can be offered. In such cases, we can only plead
that to understand less is not necessarily to understand worse. Again,
the historical-grammatical method can create problems that do not exist
if its rigours are not applied. So references in the Psalms to the king,
especially to the king as God's son (Ps. 2.7), were traditionally interpreted by Christian scholars as references to the Messiah, Christ. If the
historical-grammatical method is followed, however, the king must be
seen as the contemporary Israelite king, and some explanation must be
28
found for references to him as God's son and for the address to him as
'God' (Ps. 45.6if that is what the Hebrew actually says).
Despite such problems, the historical-grammatical approach is universally accepted, principally because it offers a criterion for judging
between rival interpretations. It is not so clear to all scholars today,
however, as it was even a few decades ago, that the meaning of a passage should be restricted to 'the meaning intended by the author'. This
doubt arises partly because authors (especially poets) do not always
intend one meaning and one meaning only, and partly because re-applications of a prophet's words (for example) to later situationsa process that was going on already in the Old Testament period and that is
clearly evident in the New Testamentcan be argued to draw out fresh,
legitimate, meanings from those words which the prophet himself never
intended. Even more important, it is also commonly argued today that
the meaning of words is whatever they mean to readers and that authors
have no control over what their words are taken to mean. This is an
truly radical issue; but it is doubtful whether the historical-grammatical
approach can ever be dispensed with, and the meaning we presume the
author intended will always be an important constituent, though not the
sum total, no doubt, of our interpretation of a passage.
ii. Textual criticism. Historical-grammatical exegesis interprets the
texts; but what is the text? We do not have the original manuscripts of
any biblical book. The oldest Hebrew manuscripts come from the second century BCE, but they are mostly fragmentary; the oldest datable
complete Hebrew Bible is from the eleventh century CE. While all the
evidence shows that on the whole the original texts of the biblical
writings have been copied faithfully down through the centuries, in the
exact wording there are thousands of variations. It is impossible to
know with complete precision what the books of Amos or Job, for
example, originally said; but it is possible to reconstruct a 'better' text
than exists in any surviving manuscriptthat is, a text that is more
likely to be near the original text.
The discipline that strives to reach behind the mediaeval manuscripts
to the probable precise wording of the biblical books is known as textual criticism. In many respects it is a rigorously objective discipline,
with elaborate rules for the evaluation of any piece of textual evidence.
From another point of view, however, it is a form of interpretation,
since the ultimate arbiter of any textual evidence is the scholar's (or
29
scholars') judgment about its intelligibility. So the fact that all the
manuscripts and the ancient versions (in some cases centuries older
than our Hebrew manuscripts) agree on the wording of a verse does not
necessarily mean that the verse makes sense or that it reproduces what
the author originally wrote. In Amos 6.12, for example, the Hebrew and
the ancient versions have 'Does one plough with oxen?' in a sequence
of rhetorical questions that are meant to be answered 'No!' There
seems to be some mistake in the Hebrew, since this particular question
is one that we would answer with 'Yes!' An emendation (i.e. proposed
correction) of the Hebrew yields the sense 'Does one plough the sea
with oxen?' ('No!')which is just the absurd kind of question required
by the context; RSV, NEB and most modern versions translate accordingly, convinced that this is more probably what Amos said. (What is
involved is dividing one Hebrew word into two and supplying different
vowels, bbqr ym, pronounced bahbaqdr yam, instead of bbqrym,
pronounced babb'qarim.) Another situation arises when the ancient
versions agree in differing from the Hebrew text. A well-known
example occurs in Gen. 4.8, where the Hebrew manuscripts have 'Cain
said to Abel his brother' but do not tell us what he said (the Hebrew
verb does mean 'said' rather than 'spoke'). Several of the ancient
versions of the Bible, namely the Samaritan text of the Pentateuch, the
Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and two of the three Aramaic
Targums (paraphrasing translations), have Cain say to Abel something
like 'Let us go into the fields' (where Cain is intending to kill Abel).
Here the only rule a textual critic can offer by way of advice is not very
helpful: he or she will say, judiciously, that the Samaritan and the
Greek when agreeing against the Hebrew of Genesis are not necessarily
preferable. So in the end scholars must decide whether they think the
ancient versions have preserved a phrase accidentally omitted from the
Hebrew, or whether the ancient versions have made an addition to the
Hebrew because they were as puzzled by the Hebrew as we are. Among
modern translations, the RSV inserts the addition, explaining in a
footnote that the addition is based on the ancient versions, while the
NEB inserts it without explaining that it is an addition; the RV fudged
the issue by translating 'Cain told Abel his brother' (though the Hebrew
cannot mean 'told' rather than 'said'!).
It is often thought that textual criticism provides a foundation upon
which exegesis builds; the examples above show that while most of the
business of textual criticism (collecting evidence, generalizing about
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the tendencies of a version or the relationship of manuscripts) is not

exegesis and could be regarded as preparatory to it, the point of decision in a matter of textual criticism belongs to the work of interpretation. Establishing the text and interpreting the text are enterprises that
go hand in hand.
iii. Redaction criticism. A 'redactor' is the jargon in biblical studies for
what is usually called in other literary studies an 'editor'. The term
comes from the stage in biblical criticism when the authors of biblical
books (e.g. the Gospels) were regarded as essentially compilers or editors of sources rather than as authors in their own right. But today,
when authors of biblical books are increasingly seen as more than
merely editors, the rather misleading term 'redaction criticism' is still
applied to the search for the distinctive viewpoint, or intention, of the
biblical author that is expressed in the shape and organization of his
work, its contents, its principle of selection and omission, as well as in
express statements of intention by the author. English-speaking scholars have not adopted the German word sometimes used for such study,
Tendenz or 'tendency' criticism, though this is a more appropriate term.
An example of where 'redaction' or 'tendency' criticism can be
applied to good effect is the history work running from Joshua to
2 Kings, known as the 'Deuteronomistic History' because the style and
outlook of the author have much in common with the book of
Deuteronomy. A careful reader of this history will not imagine that it
was written simply to record the past, but will find in it clues to the
author's intention, purpose or bias. Some of the evidence is explicit, as
in his famous judgments upon the kings of Israel and Judah that they
'did evil [or occasionally, 'good'] in the eyes of the LORD'. Some of
the evidence is implicit, as in the fact that he included many narratives
of prophetic figures (e.g. Elijah and Elisha) and that he began his work
with Joshua and the judges and ended it with the fall of Jerusalem.
Putting all the evidence together, we may say that the author's purpose
was to establish that the monarchy was an institution fatal for Israel, or
that the destruction of Israel and Judah came about because they gave
too little heed to the prophets or because the worship of foreign gods
was tolerated in Israelor some more subtle blending of such statements. However we define the intention or 'tendency' of the work, in
doing so we are fashioning a major interpretative tool for the understanding of the whole work and each of its parts.
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Redaction criticism in the strictest sense is a study of how the author

used his sources. In the case of the Deuteronomistic History, the
sources are mostly hypothetical, though it is entirely reasonable to suppose that some parts were drawn from royal annals, some from a collection of stories, whether written or oral, about heroes ('judges'), some
from a series of tales about prophets. If the sources can be reconstructed with any degree of certainty and if the author's own shaping of
them (addition, deletion, compression, etc.) can be detected, we have
further evidence to put toward our comprehensive picture of his
'tendency'. In the study of the Gospels, if we can be sure that Matthew
used Mark as a written source, redaction criticism can be very finely
tuned to take into account minute deviations by the author from his
source. But more often than not, the same results can be obtained by
focusing upon the work itself and upon the interrelationship of its parts.
Redaction criticism, however it is understood, is an aspect of the
historical-grammatical approach, and not really another method to be
ranked alongside it. Its concern, however, is more with the meaning of
the writing as a whole than with the small parts that exegesis is devoted
to. And its prominence in recent decades is symptomatic of current
interest in larger wholes rather than verse-by-verse detailsbut both
the wholes and the parts have to be studied in careful balance.
b. Methods in Literary Criticism
i. Rhetorical Criticism. Rhetorical criticism concerns itself with the
way the language of texts is deployed to convey meaning. Its interests
are in the devices of writing, in metaphor and parallelism, in narrative
and poetic structures, in stylistic figures. In principle, it is also interested in the original situation of the composition and promulgation of
ancient texts and in their intended effect upon their audience. But its
primary focus is upon the texts and the way they hang together and the
way they work rather then upon their historical setting. In English literature studies, what biblical critics call 'rhetorical criticism' is often
known as 'close reading', a minute attention to the words and images of
the text.
Poetry is often a more immediately rewarding subject for rhetorical
criticism or close reading than is prose. A biblical example that lends
itself well to close reading is Hosea's fine poem about Yahweh and his
adulterous wife Israel (Hos. 2.2-23). If we concentrate upon the primary
image of the poem, that of the relationship, we sense the dominance of
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indicators of belonging: my wife, her husband, her children, their mother, my lovers, my wool, my flax, my oil, my drink, and many other such
phrases. If we see that this is a poem about belonging, we have not
tamed it or pigeonholed it, but we have sharpened our perception of it.
We can go on to consider what kinds of belonging exist in the poem:
there is right belonging ('my husband', v. 16), and negation of belonging ('not my wife', v. 2) and wrong belonging ('my lovers', v. 5). The
whole poem, it turns out, explores this triple possibility in belonging.
The acts of movement (coming, going, returning), of gift (giving, withholding, taking), of thought (remembering, forgetting, remembering
wrongly), and of speech (responding, not responding, responding
wrongly) are all developments of the fundamental three-way division in
the primary image. The more these connections and resemblances are
dwelt on and savoured, the more the poem manifests its unity of conception, and the deeper, consequently, the reader's understanding of it.
The rhetorical criticism of a passage (a poem perhaps, or a whole
book), while it requires wholehearted concentration upon that text, does
not demand that all other texts should be expunged from one's mind (as
if that were possible!), though some critics of 'close reading' have supposed that it does. For obviously one's general knowledge of life and
particular knowledge of other works of the same author, or in the case
of the Old Testament, other Old Testament books, contributeoften
unconsciouslyto one's understanding of a passage; the commentaries
draw explicit attention to all kinds of such extraneous data. There is
another type of extraneous knowledge, however, that can be very valuable even though it may be knowledge of what may not exist (!). That
is to say, every text has a countertext, or rather, many countertexts,
things that could have been said but weren't. What is actually spoken or
written is always selected, consciously or not, from the countless possibilities inherent in the language known to the speaker or writer. Every
sentence spoken or written has unexpressed and rejected counterparts
lurking in the background. By conjuring up some of these countertexts,
the reality, individuality, and lack of inevitability of the text before us
can be reinforced. We call up such a countertext when we read in Isa.
53.2 that the servant of Yahweh 'grew up before him like a young
plant, like a plant rooted in dry ground', and remark that the last phrase
is hardly what we would expect; for the righteous in the Old Testament
are generally not weedy and underdeveloped, and if they are like plants,
they are like plants by streams of water whose leaf does not wither
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(Ps. 1.3). To the servant of Yahweh is attributed a history contrary to

expectation (hence the astonishment of onlookers, Isa. 52.15), and the
countertext, which in this case exists in the background and which we
are at least vaguely aware of, focuses our attention on something peculiar and unique about Isaiah 53 and so enriches our understanding.
ii. The idea of the 'literary work of art'. Whatever else the Old Testament is, it is beyond question a literary work. There are some parts of
it, indeed, that could hardly be called 'literature' (e.g. the genealogies at
the beginning of 1 Chronicles), except perhaps on a minimalist definition of literature as merely 'something written'. But the great majority
is literaturechiefly of the types story and poemof varying degrees
of quality. The best-suited approaches in studying it are therefore not
surprisingly those that are effective in literature studies more generally.
One such approach is the stress in literature studies of the last halfcentury especially on the idea of the 'literary work of art'. This phrase
stands for two distinct emphases: (i) that the literary work should be
primarily considered as a whole; (ii) that the literary work should be
studied for what it is in itself, with relatively minor concentration on
the historical circumstances of its composition.
(i) The first emphasis is one that has emerged in biblical studies in
the development of redaction criticism (see above). In literary criticism,
it balances the stress on close reading, which without the constraint of
the total view can easily lead to atomistic interpretation. The holistic,
total view, while always open to revision in the light of the merest
detail, must have the last word in interpretation. In the quest for the historical-grammatical meaning, the essence, message, function, purpose
(some terms are at times more appropriate than others) of the work as a
whole is our ultimate ambition. We shall ask how the parts fit together,
how the parts succeed in producing the whole, and whether the whole is
supported by the parts. But at the end of the day it is the whole
(whether a psalm or the book of Job or the Pentateuch), in the articulation of its parts, and in its manifold variety, that should be the object of
our quest.
This principle has been frequently neglected or positively negated in
much biblical criticism. It is still hailed as something of a tour deforce,
for example, if a scholar offers an interpretation of the book of Job that
takes into account all its parts. So many chapters of the book (the poem
on wisdom, ch. 28; the Elihu speeches, chs. 32-37; the first or second
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divine speeches, chs. 38-41; the epilogue, 42.7-17) have been regarded
by one scholar or another as secondary (i.e. not part of the original
book), that the majority of interpretations of the book ignore the doubtful chapters or, indeed, interpret them in a sense at variance with the
remainder of the book. The principle of the 'literary work of art', however, operates upon the fact that the book of Job, in all its 42 chapters,
is the book that exists, and must therefore be the primary object of our
interpretative scrutiny. If some parts seem hard to reconcile with other
parts, we need not jump to the conclusion that the book is fundamentally at cross purposes with itself (though that is a possible conclusion,
to be reached only at the end of a long and tiring road), but must seek to
understand what a book so seemingly at variance with itself could
possibly signify when taken as a whole.
If the thrust of the 'literary work of art' is toward 'whole' meanings
rather than meanings of the parts, the dangers of the verse-by-verse
interpretation, such as is followed in many commentaries and much
classroom teaching, become all too clear. Unless one moves constantly
between the part and the whole, the particular and the general, what
appears to be a worthily thorough and detailed interpretation may in
fact be a steadfast and systematic refusal to confront the primary questions of meaning.
(ii) The second emphasis of the 'literary work of art' approach, that
the work should be studied primarily for what it is in itself, is common
ground for a majority of critics of English literature, for example, but
fairly revolutionary in biblical studies. More commonly Old Testament
scholars have insisted that an Old Testament writing can only be interpreted in the light of history, and have gone on from there to demand
the most minute historical reconstruction as a prerequisite of interpretation. Some literary critics have gone to the opposite extreme, and
argued for the complete 'autonomy' of the literary work of art, which is
to say that external information about the authors, their historical and
social setting, their sources and the influences upon them are all irrelevant to meaning. But a moderate statement of the issue would be more
widely accepted, that while as interpreters we need all the help we can
get from the historian, the text has to be read for itself and in itself.
While every scrap of external information is potentially valuable for
interpretation of the Old Testament, the surprising thing is how little is
in reality significant. To understand Amos or Micah well, a paragraph
or two of historical and social background probably suffices (and much
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more is largely guesswork); to interpret Jonah or Job it can hardly be

necessary to learn about the historical origin of these books (valid
though such an enquiry may be in itself), since we have no kind of certainty about such matters. To seek the 'author's intention', indeed, can
lead us no deeper into the meaning of these works than to ask directly
about meaning, disregarding almost entirely questions of date and
authorship except on the broadest scale. The vast bulk of the data we
need for interpretation is contained in the works themselves.
iii. Engagement. The best interpreters of literary works are not usually
those who lay claim to cool passionless detachment (which often means
only the suppression of their more superficial prejudices) but those who
care about the significance their interpretative work may have. Such
engagement with the text does not imply any particular belief about
whether the text is 'true' (whatever that may mean from time to time),
but it implies concern with the question of its truth and a willingness
and endeavour to reach a personal judgment. Students of Shakespeare,
even at an elementary level, are called upon to discuss the character of
Falstaff, the freedom or otherwise of Macbeth, the sincerity of Mark
Antony, and in so doing they engage with the content of the text and
with its 'truth'. And just as we may say, in engaging with a fictional
narrative, that it is 'true' or 'false' (or something in between), the same
kind of judgments may be made of the biblical textnot indeed, with
the claim of making a definitive assessment of the reality of the matter,
but mainly in order to express one's own judgment of what is true or
false. Genuine understanding requires evaluation; the interpreter's subjectivity is a proper element in the process of understanding, provided it
does not dominate the process, and provided it allows itself to be open
to correction or adjustment by the reality of the text.
The function of engagement and the process of developing understanding can be seen in any discussion of the ethics of the book of
Proverbs. Suppose the question to be put is, whether the proverbs are
fundamentally prudential or fundamentally religiousthat is to say, are
the readers of the book encouraged to follow its advice because they
will benefit from it, or because its advice is God's will? It is not necessary to believe in the existence of God to engage with the question
indeed it is possible that a non-believer will argue the 'religious' interpretation while a believer will argue the 'prudential' interpretation (for,
from a Christian point of view, for example, the religious element in
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Proverbs may seem decidedly weak). Engagement means that it matters

to the interpreter how the issue is resolved in that he or she has a personal stake in the issue. Prejudice would mean that we are concerned
that the work be interpreted to suit the opinion we held before our work
of interpretation began; engagement means that we are personally concerned with the content of the work and for that reason are concerned
for its proper interpretationat the very least, to know whether the
work is a friend or a foe. Academic 'objectivity', as sometimes portrayed, would require rejection or suppression of one's legitimate interests and beliefs, and demand a concern only that the academic task be
done well; engagement, which is no less steadfastly opposed to pure
subjectivity and prejudice than is 'objectivity', takes seriously the
human interpreter as part of the interpreting process and sets up the
business of understanding as a humanizing enterprise.
2. Second-Order Methods
In this section of the chapter I will be considering a set of methods in
Old Testament study that focus not upon texts in themselves but upon
texts in relation to another intellectual or political issues; their concern
is not so much with understanding the biblical texts as with evaluating
them from the standpoint of another commitment. Such an interest
seems in principle to be perfectly legitimate; those with strong ethical
views, for example about the equality of men and women, should be
entitled to ask of the biblical texts how they measure up to the standards and values of our own age.
i. Feminist Criticism. Feminist criticism can be seen as a paradigm for
or exemplar of these evaluative criticisms. The starting point of feminist biblical criticism is of course not the biblical texts themselves but
the issues and concerns of feminism as a worldview and as a political
enterprise. We may describe feminism in general as the recognition that
in the history of civilization women have been marginalized by men
and have been denied access both to social positions of authority and
influence and to symbolic production (the creation of symbol systems,
such as the making of texts, that influence ideas and behaviour). A
feminist biblical criticism will therefore be concerned with exposing
means or strategies by which women's subordination has been
inscribed in and justified by those texts.
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It is characteristic of feminist criticism to use a variety of approaches

to literary texts and to encourage multiple readings. The idea that there
is a 'proper' way to read texts is seen as a typical expression of traditional male control of texts and traditional male control of reading.
Feminist biblical criticism sometimes concentrates on analysing from
the evidence of the biblical texts how women's lives and voices in
ancient Israel have in fact been suppressed by the texts, noticing how
even women who are named in the Old Testament are so rarely allowed
to speak. At other times, feminist biblical criticism searches for traces
of female interests in the biblical texts, which are on the whole, if not
totally, androcentric. Some feminist biblical scholars think it is possible
to discover within the Old Testament texts, male-authored and malecentred as they are, much writing that is in fact pro-women and serviceable for feminists of today. Others are much less sanguine and
think it their duty to expose the deep-seated sexism of the texts in the
hope that women and men of our time may not automatically adopt the
outlook of the Bible on gender issues even if they are otherwise
favourably disposed to the teachings of the Bible in general.
It can hardly be denied that the Old Testament gives many messages
to women, often subliminally, about what their ideals should be and
how they should behave. Typically, the Old Testament recognizes only
two kinds of women, the good mother and the wicked seducer. Women
exist principally to produce children, especially male children; they are
for the most part entirely subordinate to their menfolk. Even though
they may have real power within the family context, they owe whatever
authority they exercise to their fathers and husbands, and their place is
firmly within the home. Women of today, if they read the Bible, have to
be on their guard, so a feminist criticism claims, against adopting the
women of the Bible as their role models.
In short, feminist biblical criticism, in whatever form it takes, adopts
a stance toward the biblical texts that goes beyond mere understanding.
While it is of course deeply concerned to understand what it is the
Bible says about women and how in fact they are portrayed, its interest
is rather more in evaluating, from a general feminist perspective, the
biblical texts.
ii. Materialist or Political Criticism. In materialist criticism, texts are
viewed not primarily as expressions of ideas but principally as productions, as objects created, like other physical products, at a certain
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historical moment and within a particular social and economic setting.

What is more, the biblical texts we read today are not just fortunate
survivors from the past that happen to be still available; rather, they
have been kept alive by certain specific readerships, whether religious
or literary, as well as by a publishing industry that finds it profitable to
promote the book that is, after all, the world's best seller.
When it conies to the analysis of the biblical texts, what materialist
criticism is interested in is the ways the texts served in the past and still
serve today as vehicles for the use of power and in the interests of certain class or sectional groups. In ancient societies like Israel, as also in
our own, there were rich and poor, people with power and those without; and materialist criticism seeks to identify whose interests a text
served.
An example that can be taken of a materialist interpretation of a biblical text is that of the Ten Commandments. This text has usually been
understood purely theologically, that is, as representing the will of God
for human behaviour. A materialist criticism says that, whether or not
that is the case, the Ten Commandments must have been promoted by
some group in ancient Israelite society, for their own interests, and tries
to identify who that group would have been. It is clear that those who
need a law against theft are those with property to steal, and so on; and
in fact, once we ask the question, Who is addressed in the commandments?, it is not at all difficult to answer it in terms of class and gender.
The Ten Commandments are evidently addressed to males, who are old
enough to have sons and daughters and young enough to have living
parents, who are men of property with houses and oxen and asses, who
are men of standing in their community who can give true or false testimony in a law court, and so on. Other persons in the society, such as
the young, the disabled, the foreign residents and women, are referred
to but are not the subject of the laws; though some of the laws may
benefit them, it is not for their sake that the laws have been created, but
to sustain those who framed the laws in the positions of power they
have become accustomed to.
Like feminist criticism, materialist criticism cannot do without a
thorough understanding of the Hebrew Bible, but understanding is not
its purpose. Its tendency or intention is to show that the biblical texts
represent sectional interests and are not equally beneficial to all segments of Hebrew society. In so doing, materialist criticism tends to relativize the authority and continuing validity of the biblical texts, in
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stressing their human, and often, all too human, origins.

iii. Reader-Response Criticism. The outlook of this method or approach
in biblical study is that it is the reader who is the creator of, or at the
very least, an important contributor to, the meaning of texts. Readerresponse critics do not think of 'meaning' as something that texts
'have', whether put there by an author (as in traditional historical criticism) or somehow existing intrinsically in the shape, structure and
wording of the texts (as in rhetorical criticism). Rather, reader-response
criticism regards meaning as coming into being at the meeting point of
text and readeror, in a more extreme form, as being actually created
by readers in the act of reading.
It follows from this position that reader-response critics cannot speak
of a text as having a meaning, a single, determinate meaning that we
should as interpreters of the text be seeking to discover. 'Meaning' is
what readers find in texts, what comes into readers' heads when they
are reading texts. A text means whatever it means to its readers, no
matter how strange or unacceptable some meanings may seem to other
readers.
And if there is no single 'right' meaning of a text, no determinate
meaning, it follows also that there are no intrinsically right or wrong
interpretations. If the author cannot give validation to meanings and if
the text itself is mute, the only source for validity in interpretation has
to lie in 'interpretative communities'groups that authorize certain
meanings and disallow others. Such a group may be an academic community, which establishes norms by which it will allow certain interpretations and disallow others. Or it may be a church community, which
will decide on what kinds of interpretations are suitable for its own
purposes. Validity in interpretation is then recognized as relative to the
group that authorizes it.
As an example of reader-response criticism we may take the story of
the Flood. If we are reading it within the context of a community of
religious belief, we may well want to regard it as a story of God's
deliverance of the human race from a universal disasterthat is, as one
of the mighty acts of God. But in another context, we might be able to
read the story as a critique of God, whose creation of humans has
apparently been so misguided that before very long he feels it necessary
to wipe out the whole of humanity. Very few readers belong to just one
reading community, of course, and what is most interesting about
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reader-response criticism is the interplay between different reading

positions we can take up in the course of our study of the biblical texts.
iv. Deconstruction. The 'common sense' assumption about texts and
their meanings is that texts have more or less clear meanings and manage more or less successfully to convey those meanings to readers. That
is, after all, the basis on which we read newspapers and novels and
examination papers. But the philosophy of deconstruction is that, however true that may be in a practical sense, words and texts are ultimately
inadequate for the tasks we put upon them, and inevitably undermine
themselves, usually in a way that calls into question the ideas that the
texts apparently exist to express. A text typically has a thesis to defend
or a point of view to espouse; but inevitably texts falter and let slip evidence against their own cause. A text typically sets forth or takes for
granted some set of oppositions, one term being privileged over its
partner; but in so doing it cannot help allowing glimpses of the impossibility of sustaining those oppositions.
Here is an example of a self-deconstructing text. In Genesis 9, after
the Flood is over, God gives to Noah a new set of commands for the
age that will follow. Among them is the sentence, 'Whoever sheds the
blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed' (v. 6).
At its face value, this is an authorization of capital punishment for the
crime of murder and it is no doubt, at the same time, the severest of
warnings against committing the crime of murder. But in permitting or
authorizing or demanding (whatever it is precisely that the verse does)
that an act of murder be followed by an act of capital punishment, the
command allows what it also prohibits: shedding the blood of another
human. The text deconstructs itself by setting up an opposition between
murder (bad) and capital punishment (good) and then undermining that
distinction by giving the same name to the two acts: 'shedding the
blood of a human'. If the two acts are the same, why should one be
good and one be bad? The very way the text is formulated makes us
wonder whether we would want to uphold the distinction between murder and capital punishment or whether we would want to call them both
acts of murder, differing perhaps only in the fact that one is illegal
(socially disapproved) and the other is legal (socially approved).
Deconstruction, according to its practitioners, is not so much a
method that can be applied to texts but an observation we can make
about texts. Though a scholar may write a deconstructive essay about a
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text, it would be more correct to say that the scholar is showing how the
text deconstructs itself than that the scholar has performed a deconstruction of the text. Deconstruction is an especially powerful tool in
biblical study, in that it relativizes the authority attributed to biblical
texts, and makes it evident that much of the power that is felt to lie in
the texts is really the power of the community that supports them and
sanctions them.
3. Third-Order Methods
The three methods to be discussed under this heading are usually put on
the same footing as those I have called 'first-order' methods. But the
way I would distinguish the two groups is that the third-order methods
principally use the biblical text for purposes beyond the text. This does
not mean (i) that they do not incidentally shed valuable light on the text
and so assist our interpretation of it, or (ii) that they are not legitimate
subjects of study in their own right.
i. Historical criticism. A good deal of the Old Testament is narrative of
events; it is therefore a natural undertaking to examine how the narrated
events correspond to what actually happened in history. Especially
because much of the narrative concerns a nation and not just individuals, historians rightly regard the books of Samuel and Kings, for example, as providing the raw material for a reconstruction of Israel's history. And since the scholars best equipped to pursue such investigations
are usually those who have been trained in biblical study and in Old
Testament interpretation, the impression is often given that historical
study is a primary form of Old Testament interpretation.
The term 'historical criticism' refers to this enterprise of reconstructing the events lying behind the biblical narratives. But precisely
because its focus is events and historical processes, its focus is not the
biblical text and its goal cannot be the interpretation of the biblical text.
Of course, everyone with an historical bent would like to know as well
as possible what actually happened and would like to understand the
factors behind the movements of history. But in that quest the Old
Testament becomes a source-book for the history; it is used as a tool,
sometimes the best and sometimes only one among several, for reconstructing the past. In so far as historical criticism uses the biblical text,
it is of course biblical study; but its contribution to biblical interpretation is usually indirect.
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This is not to say that indirect contributions may not be very valuable. For example, every student of the Old Testament who visits Israel
and Jordan and travels through the land of the Bible finds that he or she
has acquired an almost indelible perspective from which to read the Old
Testament. The gain is not quantifiable, and one's first-hand knowledge
of topography is not likely to alter any Old Testament interpretations
(though it may help to preserve one from some errors). Historical
reconstruction and synthesis will have a similar type of value. No doubt
the story of the conflict between twelve young warriors of David and
twelve of Ishbosheth at the pool in Gibeon (2 Sam. 2.12-17) is illuminated if one knows that such a pool existed, and more so if one has
stood by it oneself; but the meaning of the story is hardly touched by
the historical reality. Or, to take a more significant example: suppose
that historical research can show, as some contemporary historians
believe, that the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes was really an
uprising of Canaanite peasants (perhaps incited by a small band of
incoming Hebrews); what difference would that make to the understanding and interpretation of the biblical narratives of the 'conquest' ?
In one sense, a fundamental difference, in that these narratives would
be shown to be only loosely connected with historical events; in other
senses, none at all, since these narratives would continue to be tales
about Israel's success when obedient to God, about Israel's unity, about
leadership, about conflicts within and without a group, about religious
war, and so on.
So while the results of historical criticism can be fed back into biblical study and determine one dimension of the biblical texts (their relationship to what happened), they do not generally have a decisive
weight in their interpretation.
ii. Source criticism. This method seeks to reconstruct, not the events
that lie behind the Old Testament texts, but the sources that lie behind
their contents. Such sources were both written and oral, but the term
'source criticism' generally refers to the reconstruction of written
sources. There can be no doubt that many of the biblical texts, especially narratives and laws, were derived or adapted from previously
existing sources. Biblical writings very occasionally acknowledge their
sources, as when a short poem on the 'standing still' of the sun in
Joshua's time is followed by the comment, 'Is this not written in the
Book of Jashar?' (Josh. 10.12-13; cf. Num. 21.14). More frequently,
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especially in Kings, reference is made to older books, now lost, where

fuller detail was given (e.g. 1 Kings 11.41, 'Now the rest of the acts of
Solomon... are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon?');
it is a fair presumption that this was the source from which the author
of Kings drew his material on Solomon. In the case of the Pentateuch,
though there is no specific allusion to any of its major sources, it seems
necessary to suppose a complicated history of older and younger
sources from which the highly variegated complex of narrative, law and
poetry was drawn.
It is sometimes supposed that the purpose of source criticism is to
illuminate the final author's purpose by examining how he used his
sources, what he omitted and what he retained, what he expanded or
abbreviated, how he arranged the material available to him. But such
studies, which we would today call redaction criticism, are rather rare
compared with studies of the sources for their own sake, that is, in
order to discover what the sources were, and to arrange them in some
sort of historical sequence, deciding which was the oldest and which
drew upon which. And studies of the author's use of his sources can
only be effective to the extent with which we have sure knowledge of
the contents of his sources. Thus within biblical studies generally the
most successful application of source criticism to interpretation has
been in the Synoptic Gospelsso long, that is, as it has been widely
accepted that Mark was a source of Matthew and Luke. In the Old
Testament, the postulated four major sources of the Pentateuch, J E D
P, are (unlike Mark) not extant, though to many scholars' satisfaction
they can be reconstructed with detailed accuracy. Surprisingly, however, very few scholars have used this reconstruction of the sources as a
means for interpreting the text that now stands. Generally speaking, the
goal of source criticism has been the sources themselves, their contents,
historical settings, purposes and interrelationships.
If we imagine the direction of source criticism changing, or of source
criticism being absorbed into redaction criticism, we can conceive how
source criticism could be deployed in the service of interpreting the literary works we now have. But even so, it needs to be said that many of
the certainties among former generations of source critics are now
increasingly called into question; and if we cannot now find agreement
on the profiles of J E D and P, we are so much further from using them
to interpret the Pentateuch in its final form.
Perhaps the most satisfying application of source criticism in Old
44
Testament studies has been in the discrimination between source material and editorial material in the Deuteronomistic History. Here it is not
so much the detection of the historian's sources that is valuable for
interpreting his work, but the isolation of those passages in which he is
not following any source but freely composing and therefore expressing
his own ideas and theological outlook.
iii. Form criticism. While historical criticism attempts to reach behind
the biblical text to reconstruct the history of Israel, form criticism
reaches back to the oral folk literature of Israel. Its principles are these:
that embedded in the written literature of a people are samples of their
earlier oral literature, and that many literary forms (legends, hymns,
laments, and so on) had in the oral stage a particular function in the life
of the people (a life-setting; German Sitz im Leberi). In gospel studies,
form criticism sought to recover the early Christian preaching in which
the narratives of Jesus' sayings and acts were recounted and took on
fixed shapes. In Old Testament studies, form criticism was fruitfully
applied to the Psalms, each type of psalm (thanksgiving by an individual, hymn of praise, appeal by the community, etc.) being shown to
belong to a certain type of occasion in Israelite worship. Narratives
were also designated as 'aetiological saga' (a tale purporting to account
for the origins of a custom or a place), 'legend' (a tale about a holy
man, holy place or sacred custom that points a moral), and so on.
Form criticism performs a valuable service in its concern with classifying types of literature within the biblical texts (e.g. prose and poetry
and their subdivisions). By enquiring after the typical it highlights what
is individual in any piece of literature, and by identifying the type or
genre of the passage in question (as hymn, prophetic speech, instruction, family saga, for example) it offers a major interpretative key to the
passage. (We would be hard pressed to interpret the story in Judg. 9.815 about the trees' attempt to anoint a king over them until we recognized that it was a 'fable'!) But in that it attempts to reconstruct the
roles the Old Testament literature played in the life of Israel, its goal is
not the interpretation as such of the biblical text.
It is as well to bear in mind also the provisional (not to say speculative) nature of much form criticism, as well as of much source criticism. This is no objection to these disciplines as such, but merely a
reminder that in the field of the humanities knowledge does not have
the precision that some scholars give the air of having achieved. In part
45
our lack of precision is a defect due largely to the rather fragmentary

nature of our subject matter; in part, however, it is a blessing, in that it
gives room for individual perception, accords insight a higher value
than labour, and engages the interpreter, whether novice or expert, as a
person in the process of interpretation.
Throughout, this chapter has not been purely descriptive of the methods employed in Old Testament studies but has attempted also to be
partly prescriptive. The arrangement of the chapter, and especially the
division into 'first-order', 'second-order' and 'third-order' methods,
reflects a deliberate re-evaluation of current methods. Students, beginning and more advanced, may find it of interest to consider to what
extent their own courses of study appear to reflect the hierarchy of
methods outlined in this chapter.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
General
John Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study (London: Darton,
Longman & Todd, 1984).
Terence J. Keegan, Interpreting the Bible: A Popular Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics (New York: Paulist Press, 1985).
J. Cheryl Exum and David J.A. Clines (eds.), The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew
Bible (JSOTSup, 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993).
Specific
Norman C. Habel, Literary Criticism of the Old Testament (Guides to Biblical Scholarship;
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971).
J. Cheryl Exum, Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives
(JSOTSup, 163; Sheffield, JSOT Press, 1993).
David J.A. Clines, What Does Eve Do to Help? and Other Readerly Questions to the Old
Testament (JSOTSup, 94; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990).
Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup,
205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995).
POSSIBILITIES AND PRIORITIES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

IN AN INTERNATIONALPERSPECTIVE
In January 1992, the Foundation for Theological and Religious

Research in the Netherlands (STEGON, Stichting theologisch en godsdienstwetenschappelijk onderzoek in Nederland) organized a colloquium of Dutch scholars on the theme 'Possibilities and Priorities of
Theological Research in an International Perspective', and invited four
scholars, three from outside the Netherlands, to present their reflections
on the theme. Being one of those invited, but being no more a theologian than I am an exegete or a Hebraist or a historian or a literary critic,
I spoke not of theological research in general but simply of my vision
of the future of biblical studies, or rather, of Old Testament or Hebrew
Bible studies.
At that very time, the firm of E.J. Brill in Leiden, not an hour away
from the Stegon colloquium in Utrecht, was laying its plans for the
launching in the following January of a new international journal in
biblical interpretation, conscious perhaps not only of a market niche but
also of the question of the internationalization of the scholarly communities it has served with distinction for so long. By a turn of fate that
in hindsight seems almost inevitable, my paper on possibilities and
priorities fell into the hands of the editors of Biblical Interpretation,
and I was honoured with the invitation to allow it to appear in the first
issue of what promises to be an imaginative and much needed journal,
one in which the priorities in biblical interpretationto say nothing
indeed of its very possibilitywill no doubt be endlessly debated.
Among the questions set out in the briefing document for the Stegon
colloquium were the following (and the reader perhaps needs to know
of them in order to follow the twists of the argument): 1. What obstacles do you see for the internationalization of theological research? Are
they connected with general conditions in the scientific, cultural or
Originally published in Biblical Interpretation. A Journal of Contemporary
Approaches 1 (1993), pp. 67-87, and reprinted with the permission of E.J. Brill.
3. Possibilities and Priorities of Biblical Interpretation
47
political environment, or do they stem from a more specifically theological origin? To what extent is theological research thrown back on to
the genius loci, i.e. the concrete context in which it is done? 2. What
are the consequences of changing international relations, e.g. the contribution of the Third World, the changing balance between East and
West, the growing interchange with the USA? 3. If the study of religion
with its suggestion of pluralism is the horizon within which any theological question is to be put nowadays, what are the consequences for
the usual orientation of theological research towards one single religious and/or cultural tradition? 4. What are the growing points in your
own field of theological research? What trends are developing in your
own discipline, and what will be their impact on the other theological
disciplines?
These are not questions such as we biblical scholars are accustomed
to being asked, or even asking ourselves. There was no relevant scholarly literature in the professional journals I could turn to for answers or
suggestions, no biblical sub-discipline with a tradition of exploring the
contexts in which our scholarly work is done, contexts that impinge
more pressingly upon us, it seems, from year to year. So I found the
task of addressing these questions challenging, but also frightening. My
answers, I am afraid, are too impressionistic, too personal, too eccentric, even.
1. My Own Context
Because my specialism is Old Testament studies, and I teach in a
department of biblicalstudies (without any adjoining departments of
theology or religious studies), my horizon is necessarily somewhat
limited, and I can speak most intelligently about biblical research in
particular rather than about theological research in general. But because
biblical research has traditionally been a quintessential part of the theological curriculum, I would be very surprised if what I can say about
biblical studies in particular did not have its parallels in the broader
field of theology generally.
Another determinative feature of my context is that I was educated in
state-supported and secular universities (in Australia and England), and
have always taught in such institutions, except for one year when I
taught in a theological seminary in the USA. This context makes me
more alert than many other biblical scholars (apparently) to issues of
48
the impact of confessional standards upon biblical scholarship. It is a

daily task for meindeed, an hourly task in every classto question
the assumptions of most biblical scholarship: that is to say, that the
kinds of scholarship we are engaged in are self-evidently worthwhile
and necessary, that the kinds of questions we have been asking in the
past still need to be asked, and that the kinds of commitments that keep
us scholars active in the subject are shared by all our colleagues and our
students.
A third key feature in my personal formation is that some of my best
friends and conversation-partners are atheists.1 This fact does not often
make me worry about whether I want to go on being a Christian or
whether I still believe in God (though it does sometimes, as I think it
should); the more usual effect is to make me conscious of the need to
speak an inclusive language, and to be aware of the impoliteness or
unfriendliness of making theological assumptions that may not be
shared by the people I am speaking withto say nothing of the lack of
critical distance scholars ought to have (I think) from the subject matter
of their scholarship.
2. The Internationalization of Biblical Research
This was a subject raised by the Stegon colloquium that I think could
be relevant for the journal Biblical Interpretation. It wants to project
itself as an 'international' journal of biblical studies; but what does
'international' mean? Does it simply mean that scholars from any
country in the world should feel free to send their articles to the editors,
or does it mean something programmatic, does it imply something
about the value of international exchange, even of the necessity, perhaps, of global intercommunication? Does it mean that it doesn't matter
where you come from, or that it does matter where you come from?
Not knowing what the editors or publishers of the journal intend by
'international' (or, for that matter, whether their intention has anything
much to do with the matter), and not having known either what
'internationalization' in Utrecht was a good or a bad thing, I thought it
1. It was very interesting to me that in a report of the Stegon colloquium published the following day in Trouw, a national newspaper, this was one of the points
in my paper highlighted by the reporter. It proved my point, that it was thought not
a little shocking that an 'Engelse bijbelgeleerde' should locate his biblical scholarship outside the church and outside the theological faculties.
49
could do no harm to consider 1. what 'internationalization' in this context would mean, 2. whether we can discern any tendencies recently to
'internationalization', and 3. whether such 'internationalization' is
desirable or not.
1.1 take talk of the 'internationalization' of biblical research
whether it is seen to be happening, or whether it is regarded as a desirable aimto presuppose that as things are, or as they have been,
research in different countries has been focused in different areas or
undertaken according to different methodologies.
Is this indeed the case? Are there indeed national characteristics in
scholarship? When I discuss this question with others, I generally find a
tension between a cautious desire not to succumb to superficial stereotypes and a healthy recognition that all groups of humans differ in some
ways from all other groups. It would not be very scholarly to adopt
the comic stereotypes of our neighbours. But when we recognize the
influence of particular languages, social structures, educational policies
and ideals, political systems and suchlike on the habits of mind of
scholars in one country compared to another, it is not at all remarkable
that we should be able to distinguish German Old Testament scholarship from American, French from British, Dutch from Danish. Perhaps
the strongest determinant of all has not been national characteristics in
themselves, or even the distinctive intellectual climates of the various
countries, but rather the particular interests of individual leading and
charismatic scholars in previous generations who have shaped the formation of their pupils in their own country. So what French biblical
scholars, for example, have in common, I would suggest, is not so
much some 'Gallic temperament' (though I believe in that a little), nor
the French language (though I believe in that a lot), nor the ideals of the
French educational system (though I believe that has a very distinctive
effect on their work), but the influence of half a dozen or a dozen
scholars who have served as role models for successive generations,
and whose personal skills and predilections (which were perhaps rather
arbitrarily chosen in the first place) have become almost normative for
their successors.
In this context, internationalization would have to mean the abolition
or minimizing of such national characteristics. Before we consider
whether such internationalization may be desirable or not, we should
ask whether we can discern any evidence of a tendency towards it.
2. Have there been in recent years or decades any tendencies towards
50
the 'internationalization' of research?

If we were to expand our horizon much beyond our own times and to
compare our present situation with that of Renaissance Europe, we
surely see a greater degree of fragmentation today. Not only has each
nation state developed its own educational systems and experienced its
own distinctive intellectual history, but, with the development of the
European vernaculars and the demise of Latin, the common language of
scholarship has disappeared, while the free exchange of pupils and
teachers across Europe is almost unknown. You could say that the
Erasmus programme of the European Community to facilitate the
mobility of university students across national boundaries is, in name as
well as in intention, an attempt to return to a Renaissance ideal, and at
the same time a clear signal that as things stand we have comparatively
little awareness of the international character of teaching and scholarship.
The differences between researchers in different countries do not
seem to have lessened as the world has become a global village. The
mere availability of access to the scholarship of other cultures does not
ensure that we will read the work of scholars if we do not find their outlook congenial. I can see in the Elenchus Bibliographicus Biblicus a
complete list of all books and articles published in the year on biblical
subjects, whether in English, Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese or Catalan
or in any language under heaven. When I was a beginner in research, I
used to think it my duty to read everything anyone had written on my
text; but now I will not even send on inter-library loan for an article if I
suspect that the author is not interested in my questions or if I have reason to believe that the national conditions under which that author
operates will make it likely that he or she will be dancing to a formcritical tune, for example, when I am setting about a feminist interpretation or experimenting with a deconstruction. The difference is that in
the olden days I thought we were all doing the same thing, historicalcritical scholarship with the goal of arriving at some objectively determinable meaning of the text; today I know that we are not all doing the
same thing and that we do not necessarily have scholarly goals in
common.
Now these are differences that are not necessarily national. But it is
surprisingly easy, however unfair it may be to individual scholars, to
typecast scholarly proclivities and characteristics on the basis of
national identity. I maintain that, with a certain training, you can even
51
tell the difference between a Danish and a Norwegian scholarly paper

(in English)!
What of the effect of international travel and the phenomenon of the
international scholarly conference? Have these been tending to break
down national and methodological differences, or have they perhaps
been tending to reinforce them? If I think of the annual meetings of the
American Society of Biblical Literature, or of the international meetings of the same society, usually held in Europe in the summer, or of
the triennial meetings of the International Organization for the Study of
the Old Testament, I feel that, while they may do something to broaden
the horizons of younger scholars who are still impressionable, on the
whole they allow scholars to fraternize with others of their own kind
and to insulate themselves against scholars who are divided from them
on national or methodological grounds. Because the programme is
often organized according to a principle of method (e.g. feminist interpretation, sociological approaches), major scholarly differences become
institutionalized and inscribed in the formal structures of the society
and there is consequently little systematic or institutional incentive for
an individual scholar to participate in subject areas or methods that are
unfamiliar.
3. Is the 'internationalization' of theological research a desirable
aim? The answer I would want to give has to be both yes and no. If
internationalization means communication, human interchange, and the
breaking down of barriers, it is hard to be opposed to it. But even so, I
could only give a qualified 'yes' to this question. For if 'communication' means receiving more letters from more scholars, more requests to
give an opinion on someone else's work, more publications, more conferences and more lectures, I am personally not very enthusiastic. If
'communication' means something like fax and E-mail, I become rather
resistant to the idea because that makes me and my scholarly activity
ever more available to intrusion by other people's demands, by other
people, that is, who are demanding an even faster reply than would
have been possible by the old-fashioned postal system.2 And, to tell the
truth, if internationalization means the breaking down of barriers, I
have to admit that there are barriers I am quite happy to keep. I do not
really want to talk with most redaction criticsabout their work, that
2. Equally interesting was the fact that this was the second point picked up by
Trouw's reporter; I felt reproved as an old fogey who had turned his back against
technological advance.
52
isbecause I do not think what they are doing is very plausible. And I
presume that they don't, for the most part, want to talk with me about
deconstruction, let us say, for much the same reason. So if it happens,
to take one example, that most German Old Testament scholars are
historical critics and I am not, what is the point of internationalization?
I would be very happy to convince them that what I am doing is
worthwhile, but (to be honest) I do not particularly want to hear them
try to convince me that what they are doing is worthwhilepartly
because I think I know their reasoning and partly because I do not have
very much confidence in it. The 'yes' to internationalization has to be
spoken, does it not, when there are convergent lines of approach, and
when we can genuinely believe that something fruitful can emerge and
that we will not find ourselves yet again wasting time in some sterile
debate about methodology (not that all such debates are sterile). There
is no point in professing oneself in favour of internationalization in
principle; in itself it is neither good nor bad.
But as for the 'no' to internationalization, I feel compelled to utter a
firm 'no' to any moves that reduce the diversity of human distinctiveness. For example, even at the cost of some personal inconvenience, I
would be very unhappy if English were to become the standard medium
of scholarly communication in biblical studies. It is not that I believe
you can say things in German or French that you cannot in English, but
that I think the identity of researchers is being in some way negated if
they are not free to write in their native language. In the interests of
communication pure and simple I would be in favour of scholars publishing their work in English, but in the interests of contextualization I
am in favour of the opposite; and the second interest in my opinion
outweighs the first. What I would be most in favour of is of scholars
whose language is a 'minority' one publishing both in their own language and in an 'international' one.
This question of language is only an example. It would be equally
unfortunate if the distinctive ethos of biblical study in any country were
to be subjected to some universal standard. As far as we Europeans are
concerned, at any rate, the whole matter of the internationalization of
biblical studies begins to look like a question that cannot be considered
these days without reference to the political issues of federalism and
national distinctiveness; and I guess that inevitably our opinions on the
internationalization of theology will bear some relation to our political
views about the future of Europe.
53
3. The Location of the Researcher

Under this heading I am considering 1. whether the location of the
researcher has an influence on the nature of the research; 2. whether the
location of the researcher should have an influence on the nature of the
research; and 3. whether the present situation is changing.
1. I do not think that the national or geographical location of
researchers is as important as their methodological location. But I do
not believe that the two kinds of location can be easily distinguished;
for the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that the
national characteristics of biblical scholarship at the present time can be
expressed primarily in terms of the methodological orientation of scholars in different countries. If national or geographical location is mainly
a 'front' or a 'cover' for methodological location, a symptom or 'presenting cause' of it, as I suspect it may be, it might be a little superficial
to discuss the 'internationalization' of theological research when the
real boundaries lie not on maps of the world, and not between the
various disciplines within theology generally, but between ways of
proceeding and ultimate scholarly aims.
2. So it is no longer debatable whether context affects the interpretation. But what is still debated is whether it should. That is to say,
should we say, It doesn't matter what prejudices or presuppositions you
bring to the text, so long as you candidly acknowledge them? Or should
we say, The aim in recognizing our prejudices and presuppositions is to
be able to suppress them, as far as we can, in the interest of an interpretation that can be as objective (and as mutually acceptable) as possible
(even though we know it cannot be entirely so)?
My own decided preference is to say, My own set of distinctive
beliefscultural, ethnic and religious commitments and inheritances
are what make me an individual. Call them my prejudices and presuppositions if you must, though I would rather call them the components
from which I construct my identity. My integrity as a person lies in the
way I balance these competing drives and desires. I can suppress them
only at the cost of loss of personal integrity. I do not mean that my personal identity must be on show, in evidence, at every moment; when I
go to pay for my petrol at the garage I conduct a formal transaction
where I don't strongly feel a need to act as a human being with a distinctive identity. But in doing theology, or developing a literary interpretation of my texts, much more of my self is involved, and I cannot
54
so casually screen out my identity.

This all means that I, for my part want to know all I can (within reason) about the location (social, gender, cultural, racial, geographical) of
other researchers, those whose work I am reading. The idea of the
'blind' review of papers submitted to a journal for publication seems to
me to belong to an older, less pluralist, decade (though I have to admit
that I am still in favour of 'anonymous marking' of examinations; is
this because the idea of examinations continues to imply some sort of
objective standard that we are assessing our students by?). And I find
that the location of the researcher, Kansas or Yale, Germany or Singapore, makes some kind of difference to my reaction to their work. No
doubt there is a kind of snobbery in play here, even if it is an inverse
snobbery that esteems Wichita above Harvard, but snobbery happens
anyway. In fact, under the old system when the identity of the
researcher was not supposed to matter because it was only what was
being argued that was of any account, what actually happened is that
there was 'name-droppping': we got told about the researcher when it
was thought that the information would impress us, when 'he' could be
'the distinguished New Testament scholar', or 'X of Oxford, or Tubingen' ; but items of information that did not immediately convey connotations of power were suppressed. The situation of women scholars is a
particularly acute one: do they want to be recognized as women or do
they not? Clearly, the old convention (was it a convention anywhere
outside Britain, I wonder), by which male scholars were known by their
initials and female scholars by their first names (as children, or as
deviants from the norm), had to change.3 Do we now have the opportunity for everyone to determine how they want to be known, even at
the risk of being referred to with a personal pronoun of the wrong gender? If someone does not want to disclose their identity (gender or otherwise) there can be no compulsion about it; but I have become convinced that knowing a few key facts about a researcher's 'location'
(short of knowing them personally) can have beneficial effects on how I
read their work.
3. Have things been changing? In the last decades, I might suggest,
we have been witnessing the fragmentation of the theological disciplines
3. I am rather proud of having convinced my own university, only this year,
that the practice of listing the names of university teachers by this convention had
to be abandoned; in our Calendar everyone now has initials onlywhich has its
practical disadvantages, I have to admit!
55
in the name of that kind of 'location' or what is known theologically as

'contextualization'. In biblical studies, the ways I see this happening
are (a) through the growth of alternative centres of power that have
toppled the unitary German-dominated Bibelwissenschaft; (b) through
the changing hermeneutic climate that is less willing to search for
determinate meanings in texts; (c) through the impact of the 'global
village' (cheap air travel, foreign holidays, international conferences,
satellite newscasts, fax, electronic mail), which (perhaps unexpectedly)
does not necessarily lead to uniformity but is perpetually confronting us
with differences between ourselves and our fellows and relativizing our
own personal contexts.
Will things continue to change? I think so. The two factors that will
ensure this are (a) the growth of methodological diversity, and (b) the
increase in the number of contexts, national, geographical and ideological, in which theological research is being done.
a. It seems to me that we have become much more aware methodologically speaking than we were thirty years ago. Things have always
been different in Europe, and in America; but in Britain, with its empirical tradition, methodological questions were, in biblical studies at
least, either ignored or scorned. And even in Europe, the full impact of
the contemporary break with the Cartesian categories has still to register with biblical scholarship; most active scholars appear to write as if
they were still engaged in a quest for objectively determinable meanings and objectively verifiable history. The shifting of the ground
brought about by the philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer or the
deconstructive philosophy of Derrida is bound to bring questions of
method to the forefront in biblical and theological studies. It was very
instructive, if also shocking, to observe at the recent meeting of the
International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament in Paris,
July, 1992, not one of the invited speakers ever referred to Roland
Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, or Jacques Lacanfour
Parisians who have radically changed the agenda, I thought, for the
ways we think about texts.
b. The number of theological institutions in the world is increasing,
not decreasing. Even if there are fewer theological students in the
Netherlands and Germany, the centres of theological study in the
developing world are becoming rapidly more numerous. These institutions are producing professional theologians, but we will wait to the
next generation before we see much of a genuine indigenization of
56
theological research from the third world, in my opinion. In India and

south-east Asia the European norms still prevail in the journals of theology, and it is perhaps in Latin America that we are seeing the most
urgent and interesting diversification of theological method. By the
year 2000, I am told, there will be more Christians in the southern
hemisphere than in the north; and while the impact of these fast-growing Christian communities on the practice of academic biblical study
will not be immediate, these communities cannot fail within twenty
years or so to produce not only independent biblical scholars of their
own responsive to their own social, political and cultural contexts, but
also major figures with whom biblical scholars of the west will need to
be in dialogue in order to maintain their own 'street credibility'. And I
speak at this point only of the impact on biblical studies of the probable
development of Christianity.
4. The Pluralist Context of Theological Research
I have referred already to my own personal context. It is not as pluralist
as it might be, of course. I am not situated in a department of religious
studies, where the role and the extent of the study of the Bible would
need to be argued for and justified. But on the other hand, my academic
context has no connections whatsoever with the church. I am not
employed in order to train students for the Christian ministry, and no
ecclesiastical authority plays any role in the appointment of lecturers in
my department.
So it is not surprising that what I want to affirm is that the Bible is a
cultural artifact in our society, and not just an ecclesiastical object.
There are many other ways I could argue this position, of course. For
example, you can buy a Bible in almost any bookshop, even in a postChristian country like England where only 1 in 10 of the population
goes to church. You cannot buy vestments or a rosary or a prayerbook
in a British high street bookshop, but you can buy the Bible in several
different versions. You find a Bible in every hotel bedroom. The
Raiders of the Lost Ark, the action-filled 'family adventure' film,
depended on some knowledge by the audience of the Ten Commandments, their role and importance. The Speaker of the House of Commons appealed in the course of parliamentary debate to Genesis 1 in
defence of his vegetarianism, while the Minister for Agriculture countered with a quotation from Genesis 9. The media and advertising are
57
riddled with intertextual reference to biblical texts and images; the

manufacturers of a British cider called Autumn Gold, for example,
were presumably not only addressing biblical scholars (or even churchgoers) when they launched their current advertising campaign under the
slogan 'If only they had waited for Autumn' and depicted the torsos of
a naked human couple with cider cans in place of the traditional figleaves. The great British public can apparently be relied on to identify
Adam and Eve, to make the connection between cider and apples and
the garden of Eden, and to share a common cultural 'if only' wistfulness about a lost golden age.
Given then that the Bible is not the preserve of the church or the synagogue, but is an item of common cultural property, biblical interpretation should, I think, be always conscious of the religious and ideological plurality of the society. How to appreciate and promote the confessional interests of some of its 'customers' while at the same time not
alienating the non-confessional interests of others can be a perennially
exacting and absorbing concern both in teaching and research.
I have to admit, of course, that even though the church does not
'own' the Bible, that biblical research would probably not existcertainly not in the form or to the degree that it does at present)if it were
not for the church. And I allow that there is, whether we like it or not
(and some of us do and some of us do not), a symbiotic relation between the academic study of the Bible and the religious communities
who esteem the Bible. But it is an uneasy relationship. The academics
want to resist the church's agenda, and the church wants to resist the
academy's conclusions.
I think this tension is a creative one. It is right for the academy to be
made aware of the needs and interests of its 'end-users', some of whom
will inevitably be in the churcheven though the academy is not
explicitly serving or addressing the church. British universities, to
speak only of my own experience, are being compelled both by economic necessity and by government policy to be increasingly aware of
the 'market' for the research they undertake and the teaching they offer,
and, although this tendency is in direct conflict to the emphasis on
'pure' research with which I was brought up, I can't say that I disapprove. I do think that the impact of our subject on the society, and the
reception it receives from the society that pays for it, ought to be part of
the subject matter of the discipline itself. But of course it is also right
for the academy to resist the imposition of agendas from outside itself.
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For the academics who are professionally concerned with the subject,
academic freedom has to meannot a freedom to research their subject
in isolation from the impact their work has on anyone except their fellow academics, butfreedom to choose their own priorities and goals,
freedom to resist the magisterium of anyonechurch leaders, politicians, and also the senior scholars who distribute research grants,
freedom to resist the imposition of the agendas of anyone at all.
On the side of the religious communities, they are involved in a creative tension with the academy whenever they find themselves threatened by the values of the academy. For myself, I think the church has
more power than the academy, and I cannot help thinking it a good
thing when a powerful institution feels itself challenged by a less powerful. It is especially gratifying when the academy can deliver to the
church something useful that the church doesn't know it needs or
wants. I am thinking about biblical criticism in general. The church
doesn't really know, I think, how much it needs to be liberated from the
shackles of fundamentalism, or how much it needs to abandon the use
of the Bible as a tool for social control. I am thinking, for example, of
the church's record on matters of sexual ethics, whether homosexuality
or birth control, where the Bible has served essentially as an instrument
for controlling the faithful. The academy's biblical criticism inevitably
relativizes the authority of the Bible, and the church can only benefit
from such a humanizing of the Bible.
In sum, I am suggesting that a pluralist approach is not only forced
upon us by the realities of our contemporary world, but is also potentially beneficial to 'end-users' who do not as yet realize that their distinctive appropriation of the Bible has nothing to fear or to lose from a
non-exclusive and pluralist approach.
5. An End-User Theory of Interpretation
In this section I want to propose a model for biblical interpretation that
accepts the realities of our pluralist context. I call it by various names: a
goal-oriented hermeneutic, an end-user theory of interpretation, a market philosophy of interpretation, or a discipline of 'comparative interpretation'. This framework has two axes, 1. the indeterminacy of meaning; 2. the authority of the interpretative community.
1. First comes the recognition that texts do not have determinate
meanings. Whatever a text may mean in one context, it is almost bound
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to mean something different in a different context. 'Bus stop' will mean

one thing when attached to a pole at the side of the road, another thing
when shouted by an anxious parent to a child about to dash into that
road. We may go further. Nowadays we are recognizing that texts not
only do not have determinate meanings, they do not 'have' meanings at
all. More and more, we are coming to appreciate the role of the reader,
or the hearer, in the making of meaning, and recognizing that, without a
reader or a hearer, there is not a lot of 'meaning' to any text. The text
means whatever it means to its various readers, and if their contexts are
different, it is likely that it will mean different things to different readers. There is no one authentic meaning that we must all try to discover,
no matter who we are or where we happen to be standing.
2. The second axis for my framework is provided by the idea of
interpretative communities. If we ask who it is that authorizes or legitimates an interpretation, who it is that says something may count as an
interpretation and not be ruled out of court, the answer can only be:
some group, some community, some collective that is in the business of
counting and that holds court, ruling interpretations in or out. Solipsistic interpretations may be fun for their inventors, but if there is no
group who will accept them, they don't survive. Some interpretations
are authorized by our professional societies, some by the ecclesiastical
community, but most by little sub-groups within these communities, the
Intertextuality in Christian Apocrypha Seminar in the Society of Biblical Literature, or some working party of the World Council of Churches. The market for interpretations is getting to be very fragmented
these days, and I sometimes count myself lucky if I can sell an interpretation to six people!
What we call legitimacy in interpretation is really a matter of
whether an interpretation can win approval by some community or
other. There is no objective standard by which we can know whether
one interpretation or other is right; we can only tell whether it has been
accepted. What the academic community today decides counts as a reasonable interpretation of a text is a reasonable interpretation, and until
my community decides that my interpretation is acceptable, it isn't
acceptable. There are no determinate meanings and there are no universally agreed upon legitimate interpretations.
What are biblical scholars then to be doing with themselves? To
whom shall they appeal for their authorization, from where shall they
gain approval for their activities, and above all, who will pay them?
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The simplest answer for academics has long been that we will seek the
approval of no one other than our fellow academics. If our papers get
accepted by Vetus Testamentum and New Testament Studiesor, better
still, by Biblical Interpretationthey are valid, and if they don't they're
not.
This safe answer has started to fall apart, though. We are beginning
to realize that what counts as a valid interpretation in Cambridge
(England or Massachusetts) does not necessarily do so in Guatemala
City or Jakarta or Seouland certainly not vice versa. The erstwhile
homogeneity of the 'scholarly world' is proving fissiparous, and many
smaller interest groups are taking the place of a totalitarian Bibelwissenschaft. More and more scholars are seeking their legitimation
from communities that are not purely academic.
Where does that leave biblical researchers?
If there are no 'right' interpretations, and no validity in interpretation
beyond the assent of various interest groups, biblical interpreters have
to give up the goal of determinate and universally acceptable interpretations, and devote themselves to producing interpretations they can
sellin whatever mode is called for by the communities they choose to
serve.
This is what I call 'customized' interpretation. Like the 'bespoke'
tailor, who fashions from the roll of cloth a suit to the measurements
and the pocket of the customer, a suit individually ordered or bespoken,
the bespoke interpreter has a professional skill in tailoring interpretations to the needs of the various communities who are in the market for
interpretations. There are some views of biblical texts that the church
will 'buy' and 'wear', and others that only paid-up deconstructionists,
footloose academics and other deviants will even try on for size.
There is nothing unethical (or novel) in cutting your garment not
only according to your cloth but also according to your customer's
shape. Even in a market economy, no one will compel you to violate
your conscience, though it may cost you to stick to your principles. As
a bespoke interpreter responding to the needs of the market, I will be
interested, not so much in the truth, not at all in universally acceptable
meanings, but in identifying shoddy interpretations that are badly
stitched together and have no durability, and I will be giving my energies to producing attractive interpretations that represent good value for
money.
In such a task interpreters of today do not have to start from scratch.
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For this programme has a green angle too. It is ecologically sound,

because it envisages the recycling of old waste interpretations that have
been discarded because they have been thought to have been superseded. In this task of tailoring to the needs of the various interpretative
communities, interpreters can be aided by the array of interpretations
that have already been offered in the course of the history of the interpretation of the Bible. In fact, what has usually been called the 'history
of interpretation' is ripe for being reconceived as a discipline of
'comparative interpretation', providing raw materials, methods, critiques and samples for the work of designing intelligible and creative
interpretations for end-users. For too long the interpretations of the past
have been lumped together under the heading of the 'history' of interpretation, with the unspoken assumption that what is old in interpretation is out of date and probably rotten and the hidden implication that
what is new is best. Why not rather imagine that what has been happening in the history of interpretation is that we have been stocking the
shelves of the interpretational supermarket? Fashion being what it is,
some day the interpretations of the past will come again into their own.
I foresee, for example, a new lease of life for christological interpretations of the Old Testament, not pre-critical any longer (for we can't
turn the clock back), but post-critically serving the piety of the new
Christian communities.
The biblical interpreter, in short, is in the business of serving some
community or other, of meeting the needs of some group who will pay
for the services biblical criticism can offer. Customers will not always
know what they want, what serves their best interests, or how what they
want can be correlated with what they know. Providers of a service are
often in a better position than customers to make recommendations,
because they know what services and facilities are available. But in the
end it is the customer who will determine whether the service and the
goods are acceptable or not. Those who pay the piper get to call the
tune. And biblical interpreters are, from this point of view, no more
than pipers, playing their tunes in the service of some community or
other that authorizes their work and signs their salary cheques. Whether
these biblical interpreters are state officials, preparing their students to
take up their roles and duties in a capitalist society, or servants of the
church, ultimately answerable to their religious community for their
views and teachings, and sackable if they do not conform with the
expectations of their community, they are all working to order. Happy
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are those interpreters who can think what they like and say what they
please and have found a publisher who doesn't care about the market.
But what a rare breed they are!
I suggest that this approach, an end-user philosophy of interpretation,
can lead towards an answer to the question raised by religious pluralism. In the briefing outline for the Stegon colloquium it was asked: 'If
the study of religion with its suggestion of pluralism is the horizon
within which any theological question is to be put nowadays, what are
the consequences for the usual orientation of theological research
towards one single religious and/or cultural tradition?' The answer, to
my mind, is that there is nothing necessary, nothing already given,
about the orientation of biblical research: it is in the hands of the
researchers, who are themselves responsible to those who fund them to
do their research. So the orientation will be whatever those interested
parties will negotiate it to be. And it will not be the same for all
researchers, far from it. It is all to the good if biblical research shows
diverse orientations; it will only enrich the study of the Bible if different researchers are pursuing different goals (even though you might
want to call this fragmentation and bewail the resultant difficulties of
communication).
6. Future Trends in Biblical Interpretation
In my view the most important single trend that has developedand is
still in its early floweringin the field of biblical studies since the
middle of this century has been the asking of 'literary' questions. That
has taken the form, first, of a concentration upon the text itself, 'the
final form of the text', the text as a work of art. The text was focused on
as the object of interpretation rather than as a means for the reconstruction of historical actualities that lie outside the text. Some described it
as a move from interest in the background of the text to interest in the
foreground of the text. The second concentration was upon the reader,
the role of the reader in the construction of meaning, the effect of the
differences between readers on the interpretation of texts, and the function of communities of interpreters. The third area of concentration has
been upon the nature and the processes of interpretation, the nature of
texts, of language. And the coming into being of this journal, Biblical
Interpretation, is evidence of this major change of orientation in biblical scholarship. Biblical interpretation was what we all thought we
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were doing all along, but we used to think that, however many difficulties there were in our texts, the act of interpretation itself was quite
straightforward; we didn't problematize it. Now the meaning of meaning has ceased to be the esoteric concern of philosophers and has
become a question for the practical workaday biblical exegete.
I would not say that this change of emphasis to literary issues has
become dominant in Anglo-American biblical criticism, which is what
I know most about. I am not even sure I want to say it has become
prominent, because most course curricula for students and most published research still reflect largely the concerns of the traditional historical-critical methods. But I think I can say that it has become legitimate, and that it is accorded at the least a grudging respect by more
traditionally oriented scholars. And it seems clear that this new style of
criticism is especially favoured by students and younger scholars, to the
extent that within a generation from now I expect that we shall begin to
see 'literary' criticism becoming the new orthodoxy in biblical studies.
A major reason why literary studies have gained acceptance is
because they do not presuppose the traditional technicalities of biblical
scholarship. This is evident in the classroom. When I was first a teacher
of the Old Testament in the early 60s, I did not expect an undergraduate
student to have any ideas of their own, but only to be able to comprehend and organize the materials of the standard debates current among
the scholars (on the cultic background to the Psalms, the place of wisdom within Old Testament theology, the historical questions about the
origins of Israel). Today, on the other hand, I am not even surprised
when students in their first term of biblical studies propose original and
interesting interpretations that are new to me and that I would call
'publishable'. This new state of affairs must have something to do with
our current educational philosophy that sees the goal of education in the
acquisition of skills rather than of knowledge. I recognize that there is a
problem over whether 'literary' criticism is post-historical or a-historical (or even anti-historical); in practical terms I myself have to face the
question each year whether I should go on teaching my students about
Wellhausen's Pentateuchal source criticism and Gunkel's Psalm Gattungen or whether I should immediately plunge into rhetorical criticism
or feminist criticism or deconstruction or whatever contemporary strategy I happen to be practising at the time. But whether we take a moderate or a doctrinaire approach to the new literary methods, merely
making room for them alongside the traditional methods or setting the
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conflict of interpretations at the very centre of our curricula4the fact

seems to be that this is a major direction in which biblical study is now
set.
I mention only two particular examples of the new 'literary* criticism
that seem to me to hold great promise (or, challenge) for biblical
interpretation, as well also for the other theological disciplines.
First is feminist criticism. This is a particularly powerful critical
method to apply to biblical texts because it raises the question of biblical authority and normativitymuch more sharply than the traditional
historical-critical methods ever did, no matter how 'radical' its conclusions. Feminist literary criticism in general has for two decades at least
been undermining the notion of the accepted canon of literature as the
appropriate object of study in our universities, as well as exposing the
inscriptions of male orientations in our classic texts. But in reference to
the biblical corpus in particular, the implications of feminist criticism
are even more severe. For as soon as it becomes evident that the Bible
as a whole is a patriarchal text, its use in theology and in the church
becomes systematically problematic for anyone who does not want to
maintain its patriarchal orientation. And it is not only in fundamentalist
churches or among conservative theologians that the Bible is assigned
some kind of normative status. I see constantly in the work of biblical
critics of all complexions (not excluding non-believers) some drive to
be 'faithful' to the Bible, to be in dialogue with it, to represent its structures as in some way in harmony with the critic's own personal values.
The second approach is ideological criticism. Arising perhaps from
the questions of a materialist (Marxist) criticism in the first place, but
without subscribing necessarily to any particular political or philosophical position, ideological criticism, as I see it, asks about the ideological
interests inscribed in the texts. That is to say, it does not view the texts
primarily as historical documents that can yield materials for the
researcher intent upon reconstructing the past, nor as theological documents that can provide the raw materials for a theological programme
or some statement about the ways things 'really are' sub specie aeternitatis, nor as purely literary texts with the status of works of art, but as
ideological documents that serve some particular or group interest. This
orientation to the texts has both a historical and an ahistorical dimen4. For the two options, see Gerald Graff, 'The Future of Theory in the Teaching of Literature', in Ralph Cohen (ed.), The Future of Literary Theory (New York
and London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 250-67.
65
sion, and so may represent a new alliance between the historical and the
literary approaches to biblical studies. In the historical dimension, the
ideological questions aim at identifying the groups whose interests
brought the text into being and the groups whose interests ensured the
preservation of th^ text. In the ahistorical dimension, the ideological
questions aim at detecting the impact the texts have upon groups who
are currently using them, at discerning the support the texts give to the
special interest groups who keep the texts in print. Of each of our texts,
an ideological criticism would ask, 'Why is there a book of X, and what
does it do to you if you read it?'
The net effect of the ideological approach is to relativize the biblical
text, and make it less malleable to theological reconstruction. For while
historical criticism relativized the Bible to some extent, by locating it in
an cultural context alien to our own, it did not ever defamiliarize most
of its theological ideas (witness the persistence in current theological
discourse of ideas of retribution, covenant, sin, the maleness of God,
metaphors of the king and warrior for the divine). But if we now ask,
not who held these ideas in ancient Israel and how the ideas developed
(historical questions), but in whose interest these ideas came into being
and which groups stood to benefit from them (ideological questions),
we take a further step toward relativizing the authority of the Bible. If
we then go on to ask the further ideological question about how the
ideology of the Bible is being used by modern society and especially by
the church to promote the interests of particular groups, we become
even more aware of the relativity of the Bible's authority to the power
of the groups that promote it and profess to be governed by it. I do not
mean that we necessarily encounter anything illicit, but we do set the
Bible and its effects within a framework that is given by our pluralist
society.
I illustrate the approach I have described by reference to a recent
paper of my own, 'The Ten Commandments, Reading from Left to
Right', where I address such questions to a biblical text that has long
been accepted both by society generally and by Christian and Jewish
religious communities as normative and beyond the reach of any reductionist criticism ('reading from left to right' is my slogan for resisting the ideology of the text and insisting on addressing my own questions to it).
The Ten Commandments exist, I argue, because it is in someone's
interest for them to exist. Since societies are not homogeneous, I ask, In
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which group's interest are these commandments? And since groups are
usually in some kind of conflict with other groups, I ask, What kind of
social conflict is alluded to, or repressed, by this text? And since it is
usually the victors in any social conflict whose texts get preserved, I
look carefully at elites and powerholders in Israelite society for the
matrix of these laws.
The outcome of this study was that the standard questions asked in
the scholarly literature, Are the Ten Commandments Mosaic?, What
did they originally mean?, How were they reinterpreted in later Israelite
literature?, were seen to have evaded the question of their ideological
significance and thus of their value to communities (like our own) that
do not share the material and ideological stance of their authors. And it
was very noticeable how the most sophisticated of historical scholars
and redaction critics have entertained the most appallingly uncritical
views about the ideological and ethical status of the Ten Commandments. The text was ripe for this kind of demythologization, which an
ideological criticism enabled.
In my opinion 'ideology' is going to be the catchword of the 1990s in
biblical criticism, just as 'the reader' was of the 1980s, 'the text' was of
the 1970s, and 'the author' was of previous decades of critical scholarship. When the partisan character of the biblical texts is more extensively uncoverednot just in its historical dimension, about which we
know a lot already, but in the effect that its 'interested' character has
upon its 'truth'theology is going to have to come to terms with a
Bible far different from the confessional document preserved by
'believing communities' and then by the church, far different also from
the charmingly antique (but essentially value-free and above all harmless) document lovingly restored by historical scholarship. It is going to
have to busy itself with a tendentious document that says what it says
not because it is true but because it paid to say so. And the Bible may
become, under those conditions, what it always should have beenthe
objectof theological (or, ideological) scrutiny rather than, in some
sense, its source or guide.
But there is one further aspect of these examples of the new literary
criticism that is especially relevant for the journal Biblical Interpretation. It is the question whether feminist criticism and ideological criticism are, properly speaking, interpretational at all. Perhaps we should
be sharply distinguishing between the acts of interpretation, which seek
only to represent the text, to exegete it and explicate it, to rehearse it in
67
words other than its own, to understand itbut not to critique or evaluate itand, on the other hand, acts of criticism, which judge the text
by a norm outside itself. If a feminist or some other ideological criticism takes its point of departure from an ethical or intellectual position
that lies outside the text, one that may indeed be deeply hostile to the
text, its goal cannot be mere understanding, mere interpretation. To do
that would be for the critic to negate one's own personal commitments
and values. If we are not all the time making judgments on what we
read and what we see, what claim can we have to be intellectual or
ethical? Perhaps in fact the almost unchallenged assumption that the
task of biblical scholars is essentially to interpret the text represents a
systematic repression of our ethical instincts. Is it then not already too
late in the day to be founding a journal of biblical interpretation! Will
not the most interesting prospects for biblical studies lie precisely in
reading against the grain of the texts, in bringing to bear on our texts
our own cultural and historical and personal positions, and in evaluating the texts against the hundred and one yardsticks that the pluralist
world of international biblical scholarship will inevitably suggest? I
think so, but I support Biblical Interpretation all the same, so long as
the term itself can be challengedand even subverted now and then
by its contents. After all, if Vetus Testamentum can continue its success
when many of its readers feel unhappy about the Christian ideology
implicit in its title, when the Journal of Biblical Literature enters its
second century despite its minority of papers on literary subjects, and
when medical science, for that matter, with its all its technological profusion, is still represented by The Lancet, Biblical Interpretation should
go to press each quarter confident of a long and distinguished future.
Addendum
See also the responses in the same issue of Biblical Interpretation by
Pheme Perkins, 'Canon, Paradigms and Progress? Reflections on the
Essays by Rendtorff, Sugirtharajah and Clines' (pp. 88-95), and by
Davi Jobling, 'Globalization in Biblical Studies / Biblical Studies in
Globalization' (pp. 96-110).
The paper on the Ten Commandments referred to above is published
in my Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the
Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1995), pp. 26-45.
BEYOND SYNCHRONIC/DIACHRONIC
The moment I heard of the topic for this conference, Synchronic or

Diachronic?, I knew the title of the paper I wanted to propose for it.
Ungraciously perhaps, it was a title that called into question the theme
of the conference, perhaps the conference itself. But at the same time, it
was a title that was parasitic upon the theme of the conference, that
could not have been invented had it not been for the existence of the
opposition synchronic/diachronic that had given rise to the conference,
and moreover, would, in all probability, not have been invented had the
conference itself not been arranged. So while I want to question,
perhaps subvert or deconstruct the theme of the conference, I also want
to thank its organizers for the stimulus of the theme, for posing the
topic as a debate, and for accepting my sachkritisch paper for it.
There were two reasons why I felt inclined to question the theme of
the conference. The first is a general view I now have of oppositional
categories as such, especially binary oppositions, which I have come
latterly to recognize as (1) an especially male, and therefore partisan
and sectional, way of construing reality, and (2) a standing invitation to
embark on a programme of deconstruction, that is, a testing to destruction of the adequacy of the logical coherence of the categories.
The second reason why I wanted to pose the possibility of a world
'beyond synchronic/diachronic' was a more practical conclusion I have
come to: I have increasingly found that in exegesis and literary theory
alike the distinction is, for me, constantly breaking down, that everything I most want to do myself is neither synchronic nor diachronic,
neither one thing nor the other, but an indeterminate mixture of the two.
Originally published in Synchronic or Diachronic? A Debate on Method in Old
Testament Exegesis (ed. Johannes C. de Moor; Oudtestamentische Studien, 34;
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), pp. 52-71, and reprinted with the publisher's permission.
The conference at which the paper was given was held in Kampen, The Netherlands, as the Ninth Joint Meeting of the Dutch-Flemish Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap and the Society for Old Testament Study, in August 1994.
4. Beyond Synchronic/Diachronic
69
Of course, the distinction could not possibly be 'breaking down' or

'open to question' or even 'deconstructable' if there was nothing in it in
the first placethat is to say, if it did not name certain apperceptions
that are shared among us, certain working practices that have grown up
among us, certain political parties and pressure groups indeed that earn
their living and justify themselves to themselves on the basis of that
very distinction. So I am far from denying the distinction or even arguing that it is a bad one. The worst I will say of it is that it is not good
enough, and the most radical thing I will say about it is that it might be
better to think of synchronic and diachronic as names for segments of a
spectrum rather than the labels on the only two pigeonholes (or wastebaskets, if you prefer) for all that goes in the name of biblical scholarship.
1. The Concept of a Workshop
When the organizers of the conference asked me to transform my projected paper into the theme of a workshop, I agreed before giving it
much thought, since I knew that it would be a quite difficult undertaking and the more I thought about the colder my feet would become. It
was rather later that I also realized that the paper I could prepare for
publication would need to be very different from a normal paper for a
scholarly journal. This paper therefore has three elements in it: it is a
brief account of the author's opinions on the subject (which you have
now already read), a sketch of the principles and method of presentation
used in the Kampen congress, and a report on the responses of
participants.
In everyday teaching I make a distinction among four models of
'delivery' of a course. The models are: the lecture, the tutorial, the seminar and the workshop. Some of the definitions are by no means universally accepted, and in particular, my understanding of a 'seminar'
seems to differ from that of most European colleagues; so I shall ask
for the reader's patience while I spell them out.
In a lecture, I am doing the talking. Perhaps I will accept comments
and questions from the class, but if there are more than 50 or so students in the class I will not, because the chances of a really useful
question, that is, useful to the class as a whole, is not very high, and I
am not happy wasting the time of the whole class in order to solve the
difficulty of an individual member of it.
70
In a tutorial, I expect to have from 5 to 10 students, on a theme that

has been announced to them and for which they have done some preparation. I will expect to interrogate them about their understanding and
to try to develop their own knowledge and skills through interacting
with them, mainly on a Socratic model of question and answer, drawing
out the implications and logical consequences of their responses. I will
count on a great deal of student participation, but I will have goals of
my own I will be trying to meet during the course of the hour.
In a seminar, I will be hearing a presentation from a student, a paper
of ten minutes or an hour, which will at its conclusion be open for discussion and criticism from the classand from me. The presenter will
be 'sowing' (hence the term 'seminar') ideas in the class's mind and
they, like good soil, will be growing those ideas. I for my part will be
sleeping silentlywhich is what men do while wheat and weeds are
growing (Matt. 13.25), and at the harvest, at the end of the paper,
will be encouraging the class as a whole to gather the weeds and bind
them in bundles to be burned, but to gather the wheat into the barn.
In a workshop, which I understand on the model of the workshops of
the great painters, I will be attempting to have my pupils engage in the
same activities as I their teacher am undertaking. They will be acquiring
skills rather than knowledge, and the outcome of the workshop will be
pieces of work, of similar design to those of the master, recognizably
from the master's school even if not exactly of the master's quality.
In our scholarly congresses, the model of the lecture, which I suppose
is the most ancient model of formal teaching, still prevails. Often
indeed it seems as if the model of the lecture has been supplanted by
that of the article for the learned journal, and the idea that one is
making an oral presentation to a living audience seems not to have
crossed the paper-reader's mind. However, the model of the lecture is
followed in that the presenter has the lion's share of the time, and only
one question, or peradventure a supplementary, is allowed from any
member of the audience.
The model of the lecture of course assumes a great disparity between
the lecturer and the audience in ability and knowledge, which is unrealistic, if not also a little offensive, at a congress of scholars. So I greatly
welcome the movement towards the democratization of the scholarly
meetingfor that is what it isthat is enshrined in this word 'workshop'. The workshop with other scholars must be, of course, very much
more egalitarian than the workshops I set up with my pupils, for none
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of the colleagues at the Kampen meeting is remotely a pupil of mine.

So the key undertaking of this workshop, the location of methods in
biblical criticism on a synchronic/diachronic grid (see Handout 4
below), is conceived as essentially a collaborative enterpriseone that
I conceptualized, indeed, so perhaps to that extent I am the 'master',
but one that I forswore even attempting myself by way of practice before the meeting, so that I might experience the difficulties of the task
at the same time as colleagues.
2. The Workshops
In the original form of this paper, I set down my intentions and ambitions for the workshops before the meeting itself. Now that they have
taken place, I have added short reports on the various elements of the
programme.
The workshops are focused on several handouts, which put data in
the hands of the participants, and enable all the participants to be on an
equal footing, everyone in charge of their own learning.
a. The Notion of Workshop
I suspect that there are several different views around on what constitutes a workshop, and that my conception outlined above may be a
novelty to some colleagues. So I am putting in their hands a handout
with three items: 1. A quotation from a popular art-history book about
the workshops of Renaissance artists; 2. A quotation from a more
scholarly book about Florentine artists' workshops; 3. The article
'workshop' in the Oxford English Dictionary, which distinguishes the
meaning 'room in which manual or industrial work is carried on' from
the meaning 'a meeting for discussion, study', and provides numerous
quotations from texts ranging from 1582 to 1984 CE.
Handout 1Workshops
Please list three respects in which workshops described and referred to
below might be parallel to what we can do in this workshop on synchrony/diachrony, and three respects in which they would differ.
72
An artist of the Renaissance who was well known and had more commissions than
he could carry out alone would normally have a workshop of assistants to help him.
They would prepare the surfaces and mix the colours; and sometimes, if they performed well, they might be allotted minor parts of a work to do or a design to execute... Assistants would often graduate into pupils, who did more independent
work reflecting that of their teacher. And in due course they would go out from the
studio and set up on their own, producing work that was individual in style and
more clearly distinguishable from that of their master.
Mark Roskill, What is Art History? (London: Thames & Hudson, 1976), p. 55.
The rule for artistic practice in the Renaissanceand for the most part still in the
Baroquewas a workshop organization corresponding to the artist's general position in the social and economic sphere of the artisan class. It appears most closely
comparable to production procedure, work allocation, and work organization as we
still meet with them today in any small artisan's workshop. The master, directing
and producing the main work, is at the head, with two, three, or more apprentices
and assistants who help him out and thus for their part undergo their gradually progressing training (p. 310).
[E]ven the great and famous master was still at the same time a craftsman, like all
the more or less inferior colleagues who participated along with him as well as they
could in the same artistic field. Sometimes...many parts of the picture execution... were also taken over from the master by the staff of pupils and assistants
present in almost every workshop. Thus his personal achievement was confined to
the truly essential and centered in the design process, the allocation and supervision
of the assistants' work, the final retouching, and the finishing of the whole (p. 324).
Martin Wackernagel, The World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist:
Projects and Patrons, Workshop and Art Market (trans. Alison Luchs;
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981 [original, 1938]).
workshop [f. WORK n. + SHOP n. 3.] 1.
a. A room, apartment, or building in
which manual or industrial work is carried on.
1582 T. WATSON Centurie of Love
Ep. Ded. (Arb.) 25 Alexander the Great,
passing on a time by the workeshop of
Apelles, curiouslie surueyed some of
his doinges. 1775 JOHNSON West. Isl.
132 (Ostig) Supreme beauty is seldom
found in cottages or work shops. 1813
CLARKSONMem. W. Penn xviii. 335
All prisons were to be considered as
workshops. 1865 DICKENS Mut. Fr. i.

ii, What was observable in the furniture,
was observable in the Veneeringsthe

surface smelt a little too much of the
workshop and was a trifle sticky. 1901
Act 1 Edw. VII, c. 22 149 The expression 'workshop' means...any premises,
room or place, not being a factory, in
which...or within the close or curtilage

or precincts of which...any manual
labour is exercised.
b. transf. and fig.
1562 T. NORTON Calvin's Inst. Table
s.v. Supper of Lord, The constitution
which toke away from lay men the cup
of the Lorde, came out of the deuells
workshop. 1781 GIBBON Decl. & F.
xvii. II. 62 note, Two accurate treatises,
which come from the workshop of the
Benedictines. 1814 SCOTT Wav. Hi, Fergus's brain was a perpetual workshop of
scheme and intrigue. 1838 DISRAELI
Sp. 15 Mar. in Hansard's Parl. Debates
XLI. 939/2 To suppose that...the continent would suffer England to be the
workshop for the world. 1878 GURNEY
Crystallogr. 8 The workshop of Nature.
1900 W.P. KER Ess. Dry den Introd.
p. xxi, If he cannot explain the secrets
of the dramatic workshop.
c. attrib.
1869 J.G. WINTON (title) Modern
Workshop Practice as applied to marine, land, and locomotive engines. 1873
SPON (title) Workshop Receipts, for the
use of manufacturers, mechanics, and
scientific amateurs. 1902 Daily Chron.
29 Apr. 3/5 The workshop system answers because the master works with his
men, and gets the best out of them.
2. a. A meeting for discussion, study,
experiment, etc., orig. in education or
the arts, but now in any field; an organization or group established for this purpose.
1937 N.Y. Times 1 Aug. vi. 5/3 The
major requirement for admission to this
Summer workshop is an approved project for which the applicant seeks aid
and advice. 1938 L. MACNEICE Mod.
Poetry xi. 200 The communist poet,
Maiakovski, established a 'word workshop'... to supply all revolutionaries
with 'any quantity of poetry desired'.
1952 L. ROSS Picture (1953) 21 The elder Reinhardt...came to Hollywood in
1934... For the next five years, he ran a
Hollywood school known as Max Rein-
73
hardt's Workshop. 1959 Ottawa Citizen

14 Sept. 6/1 At a conference or 'workshop' on road safety sponsored by the
Ontario Department of Transport recently, there was general agreement that
much more must be done to improve
driving standards. 1961 in B.B.C.
Handbk. (1962) 36, I want to see a
Television Workshopa regular period
in which everyone feels he can have a
go without having to mind too much
whether he is successful straight off.
1967 P. MCGIRR Murder is Absurd ii.
33 In college Kenny joined the... drama
workshop and began work on a play.
1972 Computers & HumanitiesVII. 96
The participants then divided into four
workshops and, after five intensive
meetings, reconvened to present their
findings at the fourth and final plenary
session. 1984 Times 17 Mar. 15/8 Priority bookings for their tastings, wine
workshops and special dinners.
b. attrib.
1937 N.Y. Times 1 Aug. vi. 5/4 The
importance of the workshop idea to
American education. 1968 Globe &
Mail (Toronto) 3 Feb. b 2/3 Local residents considered... 17 consumer protection items suggested by workshop
groups conducted on Thursday. 1976 S.
BRETT So much Blood ii. 25 The Masonic Hall was not free for Charles to
rehearse in...Michael Vanderzee had
just started a workshop session...
Charles... had no objection to ... workshop techniques. They were useful exercises for actors. 1983 National Trust
Spring 24/1 In the morning, group discussions were led by the Company's
seven actor/teachers in a 'workshop'
atmosphere concentrating on the social
history of the early eighteenth century.
Oxford English Dictionary
74
Report. Members of the groups noted as points of similarity with our

intentions for our workshops the stress on production of a tangible
result, the sense of co-operation and collaboration, the idea that a
workshop is an occasion when 'everyone feels he [sic] can have a go
without having to mind too much whether he is successful straight off'
(the BBC manual), and the consciousness that, as Samuel Johnson put
it, 'Supreme beauty is seldom found in cottages or work shops'
meaning that a workshop deals with imperfect and unfinished objects
(as distinct from the more finished and polished character of a scholarly paper, for example). Some members especially noted the 'word
work-shop' of Maiakovsky, reported on by Louis MacNeice, the intention of which was to supply all revolutionaries with 'any quantity of
poetry desired'; but we did not feel that our workshops were necessarily 'revolutionary' or that their aim should focus on quantity!
Among the dissimilarities that were noted was the relation of the
master to the pupils, especially in the Florentine artists' workshops,
and the obvious economic aspects of the workshops of artisans. On the
other hand, by attending a workshop even a scholar in some sense puts
himself or herself in the position of a learner, and submits for the time
being to the authority and instruction of a 'master' (no less than if one
attends the reading of a learned paper). And although our Kampen
workshops did not have an economic goal in view, it would be unfortunate if scholarship never had regard to the financial and socially useful
aspects of its 'productions'. Finally, someone wondered aloud whether,
since all prisons, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, are to be
considered workshops, it might also be true that all workshops are to
be considered prisons.
b. Constraints on Learning
It is widely recognized among teachers and educationalists that the
learning process can easily be hindered by emotional factors, both in
the learner and in the learning context. Individuals' capacity and speed
of learning is not simply a reflex of their intellectual ability, but is to
some extent determined by their readiness or otherwise for a learning
experience.
My suspicion is that the topic 'synchrony/diachrony' carries, for
some people at least, quite a lot of emotional freight, since it has been
constructed as a set of oppositions that encode differing scholarly practices. People even define themselves as making methods enshrining one
75
or other of these outlooks their life's work. So inevitably, very much

personal investment attaches to any discussion of the topic.
Not much can be done in the context of a single collaborative session
to allay fears, to dispel tensions, to reduce conflict, and so on; but one
thing that can be done is to enable participants to recognize that they do
have a prior personal and emotional relationship with the subject-matter
(if they do) quite apart from, and underlying, the intellectual issues that
are to be discussed. The hope is that by at least acknowledging to ourselves the non-cognitive aspects to the discussion they will have less
power to intrude themselves into the discussion where they do not
belong (no doubt they do belong in it at some points) and especially
will not cripple the intellectual responses of participants.
In an attempt to uncover the feelings associated with this subject, I
compiled a simple word-association test.
Handout 2 Word Associations
Which words, if any, do you associate with the term synchronic?
rigorous
easy
rigid
loose
novel
free
dangerous
exciting
cautious
controlled
authentic
orderly
modern
legitimate
penetrating
anxious
fresh
confrontational
welcome
cumbersome
trendy
unnecessary
traditional
primary
subjective
uninteresting
pacifying
left
right
old-fashioned
On the opposite side of the sheet, the list is repeated, but the rubric is
different. It reads, 'Which words, if any, do you associate with the term
diachronicT
Participants in the workshop are asked to review these lists privately,
and tick any words that came into their minds as they thought of the
concepts 'synchronic' and 'diachronic'. I told them that at the end of
76
their review they would be told how to score their answers.

Report. The workshop members were remarkably docile in submitting to this exercise, which might not have seemed very 'scholarly'. I
told them at the end that they should count the number of ticks they had
written on each side of the sheet, and should add the two scores
together. The scoring system was simple, I said. Any score higher than
zero showed that one had an emotional relationship with the topic of
the conference, and not just an intellectual interest in it. Their emotional investment in 'synchrony'/diachrony' would almost certainly hinder their ability to deal with the subject intellectually. But it was too
late, now that the congress had begun, to do anything much about it,
since handling emotional conflicts and tensions can be a long process.
All that could be done at this stage was to recognize the non-cognitive
element in their approach to the subject.
My announcement of the meaning of the scores was greeted with
much surprise and mirth, but no one seemed to deny the force of the
exercise!
c. Synchrony/Diachrony in Linguistics
Since the terms, and their opposition, were first developed by Ferdinand de Saussure in his work on language, I thought it would be helpful
to consider the original senses of the terms. This is not because I think
that original senses should be determinative for how the terms are later
used (and we are now of course more than a hundred years on from
Saussure's coinage). Nor do I think that a historical structure to a study
or a lecture or a workshop is necessarily a good one. It is just that I
thought it would be interesting in the present context to resurrect Saussure, and let him speak in his own words.
Handout 3 Synchronic/diachronic in Saussure's Linguistics
The aim of general synchronic linguistics is to set up the fundamental principles of any idiosyncratic system, the
constituents of any language state...
To synchrony belongs everything
called 'general grammar', for it is only
through language-states that the different relations which are the province of
grammar are established...

The study of static linguistics is
generally much more difficult than the
study of historical linguistics. Evolutionary facts are more concrete and
striking; their observable relations tie
together successive terms that are easily grasped; it is easy, often even amus-
ing, to follow a series of changes. But
the linguistics that penetrates values
and coexisting relations presents much
greater difficulties.
In practice a language-state is not a
point but rather a certain span of time
during which the sum of the modifications that have supervened is minimal... (p. 101).
[O]f all comparisons [to the distinction
between synchrony and diachrony] that
might be imagined, the most fruitful is
the one that might be drawn between
the functioning of language and a game
of chess...
First, a state of the set of chessmen
corresponds closely to a state of language. The respective value of the
pieces depends on their position on the
chessboard just as each linguistic term
derives its value from its opposition to
all the other terms.
In the second place, the system is
always momentary; it varies from one
position to the next...
Finally, to pass from one state of
equilibrium to the next, or according
to our terminologyfrom one syn-
77
chrony to the next, only one chesspiece

has to be moved; there is no general
rummage...
In a game of chess any particular
position has the unique characteristic
of being freed from all antecedent positions; the route used in arriving there
makes absolutely no difference; one
who has followed the entire match has
no advantage over the curious party
who comes up a critical moment to
inspect the state of the game; to
describe this arrangement, it is perfectly useless to recall what had just
happened ten seconds previously. All
this is equally applicable to language
and sharpens the radical distinction
between diachrony and synchrony (pp.
88-89).
What diachronic linguistics studies is
not relations between co-existing terms
of a language-state but relations between successive terms that are substituted for each other in time...
Phoneticsand all of phoneticsis
the prime object of diachronic linguistics... (p. 140).
Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics

(Introduction by Jonathan Culler; ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye;
trans. Wade Baskin; Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, 1974 [original edition, 1915]).
Participants in the workshop are asked to have a question in mind as

they read Saussure: If Saussure's concern is language, and ours is the
Hebrew Bible, what is it in our field that corresponds to his field? They
should also note any points at which they predict that the Saussurean
model will be especially relevant to Hebrew Bible studies, and any at
which it may not be.
Report. / did not give much time for the discussion of this handout,
but used it mainly to highlight the point that when we speak of
'synchrony/diachrony' in biblical studies, we are using Saussure's
78
terminology in a transferred or metaphorical sense. And it is not selfevident what it is in our subject that corresponds to the synchronic
state of a language in his usage. Perhaps we should say: it is a text that
should be regarded as constituting a system, and any study of a text as
a system is synchronic. Then study of the structure of the text, or of its
narrative shape, or of its logic or its ideas or its theology as a system
would count as synchronic. It is not implicit in the concept 'synchronic'
that the result of such study must be that the text is a unity; a synchronic approachthat is, regarding the text as a systemcould well
lead to the conclusion that the text is poorly organized and does not
constitute a coherent system but manifests unevennesses, contradictions
and tensions.
If then we seek an explanation for such oddities in a text (though we
are not obliged to seek explanations, which are almost certainly going
to be hypothetical), we might have recourse to diachrony. It might be
that the reason for a text's incoherence is that has evolved over time
without a strong unifying shaping. But this is by no means the only, or
even the most natural, way of accounting for unevennesses in a text. A
text may well be a literary unity in the sense of having been composed
by one person at one time, and yet manifest disorder and contradictions
to some extent (student essays and even papers submitted for scholarly
journals have been known to have such a character). But, as a matter
of fact, diachronic studies in biblical criticism often seem to have taken
their rise from observed deficiencies in texts as systemsso much so
that a plausible case can be made for saying that synchronic study
always comes first, whether logically or in practice.
As for 'diachronic' in itself, a purist view might be that, since
'synchronic' studies systems at a given point in time, 'diachronic'
should compare systems across time. But it is very hard to envisage
how this could be done, whether we are speaking of language systems
or of texts. Saussure's formulation, that 'What diachronic linguistics
studies is not relations between co-existing terms of a language-state
but relations between successive terms that are substituted for each
other in time', helpfully excuses us from the necessity of comparing
states or systems and authorizes a focus on termsthat is, elements
within systems that have undergone change over time. That is in fact
how diachronic studies in biblical criticism have been carried out.
79
d. A Synchronic/Diachronic Grid for Methods in Biblical Studies

The next, and major, element of the workshop is designed to test the
extent to which synchronic and diachronic procedures are implicit in
current methods in biblical criticism. Participants are provided with a
grid, having 'diachronic' and 'synchronic' as the two axes:
The task here is to plot several critical methods and practices on this
grid according to the degree of importance diachronic aspects and synchronic aspects are thought to have. Participants should consider both
the logical structure of a method or procedure such as textual criticism
or source criticism and the praxis of those who work with such methods
and procedures. Participants will work in groups of three for this exercise, allowing themselves a few minutes to reach a verdict on each
method they review.
A checklist of critical methods and practices is provided with the
grid. It reads:
Methods and Practices
source criticism
redaction criticism
rhetorical criticism
historiography
archaeology
lexicography
textual criticism
stylistics
new criticism
structuralism
feminist criticism
materialist criticism
psychoanalytic criticism
reader response
deconstruction
theology
other?
Handout 4 The Synchronic/Diachronic Grid

SYNCHRONY AND DIACHRONY IN METHODS IN BIBLICAL
CRITICISM
80
Since some colleagues may not feel entirely conversant with some of
the methods in this list, and since the scope of some of them may be
controversial, I have provided a handout offering brief descriptions of
some of the more recent methods in biblical criticism. These descriptions have of course no authority beyond that of the authors of the text
on the handout, but it would be desirable for colleagues in the workshop to accept the definitions more or less at face value for the sake of
the present exercise. Otherwise, the time of the workshop could be
spent on agreeing a definition of 'reader-response criticism', for examplewhich is not the purpose of the present workshop.
Handout 5 Methods in Biblical Criticism
Literary Criticisms No Longer 'New'
New Criticism
New criticism stands for an attitude to
texts that sees them as works of art in
their own right, rather than as representations of the sensibilities of their
authors. Against the romantic view of
texts as giving immediate access to the
ideas and feelings of great minds, the
new criticism regards texts as coherent
intelligible wholes more or less independent of their authors, creating meaning through the integration of their
elements. And against a more positivistic scholarship of the historical-critical
kind, new criticism emphasizes the literariness of literary texts and tries to identify the characteristics of literary writing
In biblical studies the term 'new criticism' has been rarely used, but most
work that is known as 'literary'
whether it studies structure, themes,
character, and the like, or whether it
approaches the texts as unified wholes
rather than the amalgam of sources, or
whether it describes itself as 'synchronic' rather than 'diachronic', dealing with the text as it stands rather than
with its prehistorycan properly be regarded as participating in this approach.

Rhetorical Criticism
Rhetorical criticism, sharing the outlook
of new criticism about the primacy of
the text in itself, and often operating
under the banner of 'the final form of
the text', concerns itself with the way
the language of texts is deployed to convey meaning. Its interests are in the
devices of writing, in metaphor and parallelism, in narrative and poetic structures, in stylistic figures. In principle,
but not often in practice in Hebrew
Bible studies, it has regard to the
rhetorical situation of the composition
and promulgation of ancient texts and to
their intended effect upon their audience. But, like new criticism, its primary focus is upon the texts and their
own internal articulation rather then
upon their historical setting.
Structuralism
Structuralist theory concerns itself with
patterns of human organization and
thought. In the social sciences, structuralism analyses the structures that
underlie social and cultural phenomena,
identifying basic mental patterns,
especially the tendency to construct the
world in terms of binary oppositions, as
forming models for social behaviour. In
literary criticism likewise, structuralism
looks beneath the phenomena, in this
81
case the texts, for the underlying patterns of thought that come to expression
in them. Structuralism proper shades off
on one side into semiotics and the
structural relations of signs, and on the
other into narratology and the systems
of construction that underlie both traditional and literary narratives
The New Literary Criticisms

Feminist Criticism
Feminist criticism can be seen as a
paradigm for the new literary criticisms.
For its focus is not upon texts in themselves but upon texts in relation to
another intellectual or political issue;
and that could be said to be true of all
the literary criticisms represented in this
volume. The starting point of feminist
criticism is of course not the given texts
but the issues and concerns of feminism
as a world view and as a political enterprise. If we may characterize feminism
in general as recognizing that in the
history of civilization women have been
marginalized by men and have been
denied access both to social positions of
authority and influence and to symbolic
production (the creation of symbol systems, such as the making of texts), then
a feminist literary criticism will be concerned with exposing strategies by
which women's subordination is inscribed in and justified by texts. Feminist criticism uses a variety of approachesand encourages multiple
readings, rejecting the notion that there
is a 'proper way' to read a text as but
another expression of male control of
texts and male control of reading. It
may concentrate on analysing the evidence contained in literary texts, and
showing in detail the ways in which
women's lives and voices have in fact

been suppressed by texts. Or it may ask
how, if at all, a woman's voice can be
discovered in, or read into, an androcentric text. Or it may deploy those texts,
with their evidence of the marginalization of women, in the service of a feminist agenda, with the hope that the exposing of male control of literature will
in itself subvert the hierarchy that has
dominated not only readers but also
culture itself.
Materialist or Political Criticism
In a materialist criticism, texts are
viewed principally as productions, as
objects created, like other physical
products, at a certain historical juncture
within a social and economic matrix
and existing still within definite ambits
constituted by the politics and the economics of book production and of
readerships. More narrowly, materialist
criticism analyses texts in terms of their
representation of power, especially as
they represent, allude to or repress the
conflicts of different social classes that
stand behind their composition and
reception.
Psychoanalytic Criticism
A psychoanalytic criticism can take as
its focus the authors of texts, the texts
82
themselves, or the readers of the texts.

Since authors serve their own psychological needs and drives in writing texts,
their own psyches are legitimate subjects of study. It is not often we have
access to the psyche of a dead author,
but even if little can be said about the
interior life of real authors, there is
plenty to be inferred about the psyches
of the authors implied by the texts. Just
as psychoanalytic theory has shown the
power of the unconscious in human
beings, so literary critics search for the
unconscious drives embedded within
texts. We can view texts as symptoms
the meeting point of text and reader

or, in a more extreme form, as being
creaated by readers in the act of reading.
An obvious implication of a reader

response position is that any quest for
determinate meanings is invalidated; the

idea of 'the' meaning of a text dis-
appears and meaning becomes denned

relative to the various readers who de-
velop their own meanings. A text means

whatever it means to its readers, no
matter how strange or unacceptable
some meanings may seem to other
readers.
Reader response criticism further
of narrative neuroses, treat them as
raises the question of validity in inter-
overdetermined, and speak of their repressions, displacements, conflicts and

desires. Alternatively, we can uncover
the psychology of characters and their
relationships within the texts, and ask
what it is about the human condition in
general that these texts reflect, psychologically speaking. Or we can turn our
focus upon empirical readers, and examine the non-cognitive effects that
reading our texts have upon them, and
construct theoretical models of the nature of the reading process.
pretation. If there are no determinate

meanings, no intrinsically right or
wrong interpretations, if the author or
Reader Response
The critical strategies that may be
grouped under the heading of reader
response share a common focus on the
reader as the creator of, or at the very
least, an important contributor to, the
meaning of texts. Rather than seeing
'meaning' as a property inherent in
texts, whether put there by an author (as
in traditional historical criticism) or
somehow existing intrinsically in the
shape, structure and wording of the
texts (as in new criticism and rhetorical
the text cannot give validation to
meanings, the only source for validity in

interpretation has to lie in 'interpretative
communities'groups that authorize
certain meanings and disallow others.
Validity in interpretation is then recognized as relative to the group that authorizes it.
Deconstruction
Deconstruction of a text signifies the
identifying of the Achilles heel of texts,
of their weak point that lets them down.
As against the 'common sense' assumption that texts have more or less clear
meanings and manage more or less successfully to convey those meanings to
readers, deconstruction is an enterprise
that exposes the inadequacies of texts,
and shows how inexorably they undermine themselves. A text typically has a
thesis to defend or a point of view to
espouse; but inevitably texts falter and
let slip evidence against their own
criticism), reader response criticism re-
cause. A text typically sets forth or
gards meaning as coming into being at
takes for granted some set of opposi-
tions, one term being privileged over its
partner; but in so doing it cannot help
allowing glimpses of the impossibility
of sustaining those oppositions. In
deconstruction it is not a matter of
reversing the oppositions, of privileging
the unprivileged and vice versa, but of
83
rewriting, reinscribing, the structures

that have previously been constructed,
The deconstruction of texts relativizes
the authority attributed to them, and
makes it evident that much of the power
that is felt to lie in texts is really the
power of their sanctioning community.
David J.A. Clines and J. Cheryl Exum, The New Literary Criticism', in
J. Cheryl Exum and David J.A. Clines (eds.),
The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible
(JSOTSup, 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), pp. 15-20.
Report. This exercise, although somewhat artificial, proved both interesting and useful; working in groups of three or four was crucial to the
success of this element of the workshop. Colleagues were at times surprised to find elements of the synchronic in procedures they typified as
diachronic, and vice versa. One group, for example, had quickly designated 'archaeology' as 100% diachronic, but on reflection recognized
that studying Hazor Stratum VII, the disposition of its buildings, its
water system and the like, can be a clearly synchronic activity. Another
group found it interesting to consider in what sense textual criticism,
which in principle seems to be a strongly diachronic procedure, could
be said to be synchronic, in that it could be said to take its rise from a
synchronic state of affairs in which there are many texts of the same
work, differing from one another in varying degrees. One group could
not decide whether historiography was wholly diachronic or wholly
synchronic. Others wondered if there was any method or procedure in
biblical studies that was neither synchronic nor diachronic.
I had not realized before the workshops that the method of scoring
needed some further refinement. What was the difference between scoring a method as (a) 5 on the synchronic axis and 5 on the diachronic
and (b) 10 synchronic and 10 diachronic? We managed to convince
ourselves that (a) means that half of the work in the method is synchronic and half diachronic, while (b) means that everything done in
the method is both synchronic and diachronic.
All in all, I think that the exercise established the point I had set out
to make, that a great deal of what we all do in biblical criticism has
something of both diachronic and synchronic in it, and that consequently the idea of methodological tension in this regard is not a little
false.
84
e. Synchrony/Diachrony as a Binary Opposition

Having now reviewed the functioning of the categories 'synchronic'
and 'diachronic' in the methodology and praxis of Hebrew Bible scholarship, and having found (as I think we must) that most of what we do
in biblical criticism has something of both elements in it, we next turn
to the question whether synchrony/diachrony has been constructed (i.e.
shaped in the scholarly consciousness) as a 'binary opposition' and
whether we should approach such an opposition with the tools of a
deconstructive criticism.
The next handout therefore offers some summary definitions of
deconstruction, together with a checklist of some of the primary binary
oppositions that have come in for scrutiny by deconstructive critics. By
this stage in the workshop, some light relief is long overdue, so the
handout concludes with some lines from the brilliant and amusing book
by the novelist Malcolm Bradbury, My Strange Quest for Mensonge,
where the concerns of poststructuralist and deconstructive criticism are
guyed in an affectionate (?) manner.
Handout 6 Synchrony/Diachrony and Deconstruction
Does synchrony/diachrony need deconstructing ?
To deconstruct a discourse is to show how it undermines the philosophy it asserts, or the hierarchical oppositions on which it relies.
J. Culler, On Deconstruction. Theory and Criticism after Structuralism
(London: Routledge, 1983), p. 86.
[DJeconstruction is a dismantling of 'the binary oppositions of metaphysics' ... Of course, all oppositions are not created equal. 'Each pair
operates with very different stakes in the world', as Barbara Johnson
has observed.
Stephen D. Moore, Poststructuralism and the New Testament:
Derrida and Foucault at the Foot of the Cross
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1994), p. 45.
In a classical philosophical opposition we are not dealing with the

peaceful coexistence of a vis-a-vis but rather with a violent hierarchy.
One of the two terms governs the other... or has the upper hand.
Jacques Derrida, Positions (trans. Alan Bass;
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 41.
85
Some classical binary oppositions

mind/body
necessary/contingent
essence/accident
objective/subjective
reason/emotion
literal/metaphorical
precise/fuzzy
history/fiction
content/form
central/marginal
positive/negative
object/representation
text/interpretation
original/copy
text/context
conscious/unconscious
transcendent/immanent
presence/absence
male/female
white/black
Has synchronic/diachronic been 'constructed' as a binary opposition?

There can be no doubt that any bright student or intellectually active person of the
1980s who is at all alert to the major development in the humanities, philosophy
and the social sciences, or is just getting more and more worried why so many wayout mint-flavoured green vegetables are showing up in a salad these days, is going
sooner or later, and far better sooner than later, to have to come to terms with a pair
of thought-movements that are making all the contemporary running...Structuralism and Deconstruction...
[Tjhis radical new spirit in intellectual life touches on every aspect of existence,
social and cultural, literary and artistic, linguistic and anthropological. Indeed it has
been so successful that it is capitalizing its resources and spreading out into totally
new areas, including cheap home-loans and cut-price airlines. We all have colleagues in academic life...who have tried to ignore the whole issue, keeping their
heads in the sand and their noses high in the air... [T]hey have chosen to believe
that the whole issue will in due course disappear, and we will soon be back in the
safety of empirical common sense again. I have to tell these people.. .that they will
have to think again... As Franois Mitterand was heard to say the other day,
teasing at a shrimp vol-au-vent at some Quai d'Orsay reception to do with either the
building or the cancellation of the Channel Tunnel: 'Aujourd'hui, mes amis, et
aussi les anglais, nous sommes tous de necessite structuralistes'.
Malcolm Bradbury, My Strange Quest for Mensonge:
Structuralism's Hidden Hero (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987), pp. 1, 3, 4.
Report. Like the handout on Saussure, this collection of texts was

intended to raise questions rather than to lead to a solution. There was
a prima facie case for regarding synchrony/diachrony as a classical
binary opposition, since for many people the opposition is a strict one,
and one of the terms is privileged. On the other hand, synchrony/
86
diachrony is unlike many of the binary oppositions mentioned above, in

that it is by no means evident which is the privileged term in the dominant culture.
Nevertheless, the effect of our attempts to locate synchrony/
diachrony on a grid (e above) has certainly been to 'undermine the
hierarchical oppositions on which it [the critical discourse in biblical
studies] relies', in Jonathan Culler's terms, and so it appears that the
procedure of the workshop has been deconstructive in the formal sense.
f. Review of the Workshop: Task and Process
On the understanding that a cycle of learning is not complete until
teachers and learners have reviewed what has taken place, participants
are finally asked to consider the experience of the workshop with the
categories of 'task' and 'process', and then to record their own initial
evaluation of the workshop.
The following handout outlines the structure of this element of the
workshop:
Handout 7 Task and Process
Task and Process
The learning cycle is not complete until the whole activity is reviewed.
For such a review, it can be helpful to distinguish task from process.
Task
What is the purpose of the 'debate' synchrony/diachrony?
What is the problem we were seeking a solution for in a workshop called 'beyond
synchrony/diachrony' ?
What conclusions could you say you have reached? In what ways have you
performed the 'task'?
Process
What has been going on in this session apart from the achieving of the task?
Note three things that have happened to (or within) you or the group / three
experiences you or the group have hadapart from working on the topic.
Evaluation
Please write any evaluative comments, positive or negative, on this workshop.
87
Report. Members of the workshops seemed very open to the proposal

that we should consider and evaluate the process as well as the task we
had been engaged upon. Among the elements in the process that were
identified were: the participation of all the members of the workshops
(and not primarily of the older men, which is what generally happens in
scholarly interchange); the cross-cultural work and relationships that
resulted from the presence in each group of both Oudtestamentische
Werkgezelschap and Society for Old Testament Study members; the
experience of group work which some found thought-provoking in the
context of their own pedagogy; the sense of fun and the experience of
laughter within a session of work (which seemed unfamiliar to some!).
NEHEMIAH 10 AS AN EXAMPLE OF EARLY JEWISH BIBLICAL

EXEGESIS
Nehemiah 10, despite its forbidding portal of 27 verses of proper

names, is in reality a small treasure house of postexilic interpretations
of earlier Israelite law.1
As far as I know, it has not previously been looked at closely from
the perspective of its interpretations of older texts;2 if in this respect the
present paper has something novel about it, in respect of its Gattung it
is a conventional study of 'inner-biblical exegesis' not unfamiliar in
current scholarship. However, compared with many such studies, for
example of reinterpretation of older material within the texts of Isaiah
or Jeremiah, the present text offers us a peculiar advantage: it is an
entity independent of the texts it is commenting on, and does not need
to be first peeled off as a younger layer from an apparently unitary text.
1. Character of the Document
The document contained in this chapter consists of the following:
heading (10.1),3 list of signatories (10.2-28), pledge to keep 'God's
law' in general (10.29-30), followed by a pledge to keep a set of particular laws (10.31-40). The document does not record a bi-lateral berit
(it is not a 'covenant', as RSV of 10.1 [EVV 9.38] has it), nor is it a collection of priestly torot. It is, ostensibly, a unilateral pledge by the
whole community, priests, Levites and people (as represented by family
1. This paper was originally read as a Short Communication at the Tenth
Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, in
Vienna, 24-29 August, 1980. The article was first published in Journal for the
Study of the Old Testament 21 (1981), pp. 111-17.
2. Y. Kaufmann's discussion is probably the most thorough to date: History of
the Religion of Israel (Hebrew), IV (Jerusalem: Ktav Publishing House, 1972), pp.
331-38; he identifies 18 separate stipulations in this chapter.
3. References throughout are to the Hebrew numeration of the verses; in
Nehemiah 10 the numeration in English versions is one less than the Hebrew.
5. Nehemiah 10 as Early Jewish Biblical Exegesis
89
heads). Less obviously, it is a set of halakot probably devised by

priestly or levitical lawyers and thereafter assented to by the populace.
After the general agreement to 'walk in God's law' (v. 30), particular
halakot follow. Every halakah here has something novel about it, I
would argue, but at the same time it represents the result of exegetical
work upon previously existing laws.
2. Historical Setting
As for the historical setting of this document, three factors are presupposed in the interpretation here set out, though they cannot be argued in
detail at this time:
(a) That before the time of Nehemiah 10 Ezra had appointed magistrates and judges, as he had been required to do by the firman of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7.25), and that such a bet midraS as is depicted in Neh.
8.13-15 was in existence.
(b) That the activity of Nehemiah's so-called second governorship
(Neh. 13) preceded the making of the pledge of Nehemiah 10.
(c) That, on the subjects dealt with in this chapter, laws identical with
the Pentateuch as we now have it were known in Judaea (or, if one
prefers to think so, the Pentateuch itself was already in existence).
These assumptions seem to me to make the best sense of the origin,
contents and detail of this pledge document of Nehemiah 10, but only
the third is necessary to the argument of this paper: namely that Pentateuchal laws form the basis of the exegesis that is developed in this
chapter.
3. Types of Legal Development
Five different types of legal development may be traced in the stipulations of this pledge document:
(a) Creation of facilitating law, i.e. establishment of machinery for
carrying out a prescription; thus 10.35, with arrangements for the collection and transport of wood, enables the law of Lev. 6.1-6, that the
fire should burn continually on the altar, to be carried out.
(b) Revision of facilitating law, i.e. machinery for carrying out a prescription. One such example may be seen in 10.39 ('it is the Levites
who collect'); if authentic, this phrase makes it easier for the tithe law
90
to be carried out by substituting the collection of tithes by Levites at

depots in rural towns for the earlier responsibility of citizens to bring
their tithes to the temple themselves (cf. 13.5; Deut. 14.23-26; Mai.
3.10). The presence of a priest at the receipt of the levitical tithe (10.39)
is a similar revision.
(c) Creation of a new prescription from a precedent in Pentateuchal
law: thus what had been in Exod. 30.11-16 an occasional levy for the
sanctuary becomes here an annual temple tax (10.33).
(d) Redefinition of categories, always in the direction of greater
comprehensiveness: thus first-fruits is defined for the first time as
including the fruit of trees (v. 36; Deut. 26.2 speaks only of the first of
the produce of all the ground); work prohibited on the sabbath includes
for the first time the business of buying (v. 32); and foreigners prohibited from marriage with Israelites include for the first time all Palestinians ('amme ha'ares, v. 31).
(e) Integration of distinct and therefore potentially competing prescriptions: thus, while it could have been argued that the various taxes
in the Pentateuch were to be viewed as alternative methods of raising
revenue, 10.36-30 specifies that all the Pentateuchal taxes are cumulative: first-fruits, prime produce (re'sif), and tithes are taxes that must be
added together; and the function of the present pledge is not only to
ensure that taxes will be paid, but also to guarantee that the laws about
taxes will be interpreted in this way. Similarly, the fallow-year law of
Exod. 23.10-11 is not to be replaced by the remission-year law of Deut.
15.1-8which was a theoretically possible way of handling the two
'seven-year' lawsbut it is to be observed in conjunction with it. In
both cases it is likely that the law had only been partially observed prior
to this time.
4. Exegetical Principles
The exegetical principles guiding (or, permitting) these developments
are capable of various types of analyses. The following are some of the
more obvious:
(a) The Pentateuchal (or if one prefers to say simply, the existing)
law is a relatively closed system; nothing in Nehemiah 10 is radically
new; every halakah has some connection with a Pentateuchal prescription.
91
(b) On the other hand, Pentateuchal (or, existing) law is partially

open: extension or reapplication is possible, even to the extent, for
example, of bypassing the letter of the law for the sake of its spirit.
(c) Pentateuchal law requires ancillary law in order to be effectual.
(d) Pentateuchal law is regarded as essentially harmonious; apparent
tensions tend to be solved by a principle of addition rather than by mediation or compromise.
5. Observations on the Exegetical Principles
Three observations upon these exegetical principles may be made:
(a) The principle of addition as an exegetical method to deal with
tensions tends, in the realm of law, to greater rigour. This is illustrated
by the tax laws, which by this pledge were probably made more onerous than ever before.
(b) The principle of the necessity of ancillary or facilitating law may
or may not create greater rigour. For such law may be only the regularization of what is already customary or the specification of what is
already assumed. Thus, on the one hand, the specification of the fruit of
trees among first-fruits probably prescribes no change from existing
custom; whereas, on the other hand, the inclusion of buying in the
definition of work prohibited on the sabbath seems to be a new extension of the law generated by the events described in Nehemiah 13.
(c) The exegetical work lying behind this pledge is unsystematic
both in coverage and in method. There can be little doubt, despite
Jepsen and Kellermann,4 that these halakot are ad hoc responses to
problems encountered by Nehemiah in his so-called second governorship; for all the items except the sabbatical and remission year correspond to elements of Nehemiah 13and the seventh year issue had no
doubt come under scrutiny because of the crisis portrayed in Neh. 5.113. The halakot here may therefore be properly described as devised to
meet contemporary exigencies, and the exegetical activity they presuppose is therefore quite different from a systematic consideration of and
commentary on the Pentateuchal law.
4. A. Jepsen, 'Nehemia 10', ZAW66 (1954), pp. 87-106 (97-101); U. Kellermann, Nehemia: Quellen, Uberlieferung und Geschichte (BZAW, 102; Berlin:
A. Topelmann, 1967), pp. 37-41.
92

6. Nehemiah 10 and Earlier Law: Two Examples
Lastly, in several cases the halakot of Nehemiah 10 form the final link
in a chain of legal development, throughout the biblical period (a
development that of course continued in post-biblical times). Two
examples only fall to be considered here:
(a) In the case of sabbath laws, what appears to be the oldest Pentateuchal law (Exod. 34.21) prohibits only male occupational work,
ploughing and harvesting being mentioned as two examples or limiting
cases. Later legal collections extend the law into the domestic sphere
(Exod. 35.3 [P] 'you shall kindle no fire in all your dwellings') and
broaden its application to include all members of the community (Exod.
20.10). The scope of the term 'work' is further extended in Jer. 17.21
where carrying burdens, no doubt produce for market, is declared contrary to the sabbath law. Against this background, Neh. 10.32 yet further extends the definition of work to include buying. For while it was
already clear that selling was prohibited (cf. Amos 8.5), since that was
occupational work, a new situation had arisen in Nehemiah's time with
the setting up of sabbath markets outside Jerusalem. The traders were
non-Jews, but the purchasers were Jews. The question was this: was
non-occupational, occasional buying to be reckoned as 'work' and thus
to be considered contrary to the law? (In England today, by way of parallel, certain Sunday traders risk prosecution, but those who buy from
them do not.) Following Nehemiah's vigorous denunciation of buying
as a 'profanation' of the sabbath, the halakah of Neh. 10.32 prohibits
this particular activity. It is particularly interesting that the other, and
more serious, breaches of sabbath law witnessed by Nehemiah (Neh.
13.15) are not so much as mentioned in this pledge; the reason can only
be that it was clear in those cases what the law was, whereas in the case
of buying the question of its inclusion within the category of 'work'
had not been previously resolved.
(b) In the case of the laws on intermarriage, the oldest law is most
probably Exod. 34.11-16. Though this passage has often been thought
to be largely a Deuteronomistic expansion of v. 11 a, Brekelmans has
argued convincingly that it contains pre- or proto-Deuteronomic material.5 The law here specifies the traditional group of Canaanite nations
5. C. Brekelmans, 'Die sogenannten deuteronomistischen Elemente in Genesis
bis Numeri: Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Deuteronomiums', Volume du Con-
93
(Amorites, Girgashites, et a/.), and forbids marriage with their 'daughters'. In the next phase, Deut. 7.1-3, the same list of prohibited nations
appears, but the law is extended by the prohibition of the marriage of
Israelite women to 'sons' of these nations. In Neh. 10.31, marriage both
of Israelite 'daughters' and of Israelite 'sons' is again the subject of the
law, but here the traditional list of the Canaanite nations is abandoned,
and the prohibited nations are subsumed under the category 'peoples of
the land'which clearly means contemporary Palestinians and includes
the Ashdodites, Ammonites and Moabites with whom, as Nehemiah
had seen (13.23), mixed marriages had been contracted.
Revision, or rather updating, of the law was long overdue. In Ezra's
time, concerned citizens had been obliged to complain to Ezra (9.1-2)
that Jews had intermarried with Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites and
Jebusites, among otherssomething that it had in fact been impossible
for anyone to do for several centuries, since most of these races had
long died out or in some way wholly lost their identity. But in order to
bring marriages with contemporary non-Jewish races within the scope
of the law, appeal had to be made, rather anachronistically, to a law that
did not explicitly mention the nations with which marriages had been
contracted by Jews of Ezra's time. The new category employed in the
pledge of Nehemiah 10 to describe aliens with whom marriage was
forbidden, viz. 'peoples of the land', was less time-conditioned, even if
less specific than the Pentateuchal laws had been. Nehemiah himself
had, characteristically, not beaten about the bush when confronted with
marriages with Ashdodites, Ammonites and Moabites (10.23-24); but
Nehemiah's impulsive response of cursing, beating, and pulling out the
hair of those who had not accepted his interpretation of the law as
including these races within the forbidden category obviously had to be
followed up by the more permanent step of re-wording the law in order
to avoid further dispute.
It is a curious fact that the spirit of the law can be more rigorous than
the letter. A more literalistic interpretation of the Pentateuchal law
would have allowed marriages with Ashdodites, Ammonites and
Moabitesfor they are not explicitly mentioned among the prohibited
nations. Ezra, Nehemiah, and the scholars of the Nehemian age adopted
an interpretation according to the spirit (as we might say), since plainly
gres Geneve, 1965 (VTSup, 15; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1966), pp. 90-96 (93-93); cf.
also F. Langlamet, 'Israel et Thabitant du pays'", RB 76 (1969), pp. 321-50, 481507.
94
the intention of the Pentateuchal laws was to forbid marriage with

nearby foreigners (Canaanites, Palestinians). But if the letter of the law
is not always unambiguous, the spirit of the law may be even more
open to debate. Deuteronomy 7 itself in fact probably advanced a quite
different interpretation of the older law, on the principle of 'according
to the spirit'. In Deuteronomy the law against intermarriage is set in the
context of the holy war, which can hardly have been of contemporary
validity at whatever reasonable date we put upon Deuteronomy. Both
the command to exterminate the inhabitants of the land and the command not to intermarry with them function as rhetorical support for the
call to purity of worship, which is the basic purpose of the holy war
material in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy's intermarriage law is more an
appeal for the rejection of foreign cults than a regulation about marriage, since the only nations specified were most probably no longer in
existence by the time the Deuteronomic law was set forth. But in using
the older law with its conventional list of the seven Canaanite nations
as a vehicle for a purely religious appeal, the Deuteronomic law left
itself open to the less 'spiritual' and more literalistic interpretation of
the Nehemian community. In this case, the spirit 'killed', so to speak,
while the letter would have 'given life'.
6
ETHICS AS DECONSTRUCTION, AND,
THE ETHICS OF DECONSTRUCTION
There are two parts to this paper, an exegetical part, Ethics as Deconstruction, and a more theoretical part, The Ethics of Deconstruction.
What I hope they have in common is to show that literary and philosophical deconstruction has more ethical effect than is commonly
supposed.
1. Ethics as Deconstruction
In this part of the paper, I shall look at some biblical texts where an
ethical idea or prescription or hint seems to be founded on a deconstruction. Rather than attempt to explain what I mean by that in abstract
terms, I shall take up my first example.
a. Deuteronomy 23.15-16
You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his
master to you; he shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place which
he shall choose within one of your towns, where it pleases him best; you
shall not oppress him.
In Hebrew society, there was a clear distinction, most will allow,

between slave and free. A person could become a slave as a captive in
war, through being kidnapped, carried off and sold, through being sold
as a child by parents, though selling oneself voluntarily into slavery
through hunger of debt, or, involuntarily, through defaulting on a debt.
No matter how the individual had become a slave, the same basic rules
seem to have applied.
The slave was a chattel of the master, and had no rights of his or her
Originally published in The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium (ed.
John W. Rogerson, Margaret Davies and M. Daniel Carroll R.; Journal for the
Study of the Old Testament Supplement, 207; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1995), pp. 77-106.
96
own. A slave was 'a commodity that could be sold, bought, leased,
exchanged, or inherited'.1 In the ancient Near East generally, and presumably also in Israel, any injury done to a slave required compensation to the master. There is only one case in the Bible that illustrates
this principle, but there is no reason to doubt that it was at the foundation of the institution of slavery: if a slave is killed by a goring ox, the
owner of the ox must compensate the master by a payment of thirty
shekels of silver (Exod. 21.32)just as a father must also be compensated for the death of a son or daughter.2
Various kinds of manumission were available to a slave. I. Mendelsohn has enumerated them as follows: 1. A Hebrew slave is to be
released after six years of service (Exod. 21.2-4; Deut. 15.12); 2. a
Hebrew who has made himself a voluntary slave is to be freed in the
year of jubilee (Lev. 25.39-43, 47-55); 3. a Hebrew girl sold by her
father with a view to marriage is to be released if the master does not
wish to marry her when she is of age (Exod. 21.7-11); 4. a slave permanently maimed by his master is to be freed (Exod. 21.26-27).3
What is amazing about the law of the fugitive slave in Deuteronomy
23 is that it enables a slave to acquire his or her own freedomby the
relatively simple expedient of running away. A slave can choose not to
be a slave.
And that leaves us in a classic deconstructive situation. Classically, a
deconstruction takes hold of a pair of binary oppositions that have been
passing as valid currency, exposes the faults in the distinctions that are
drawn between them, the definitions that claim to separate them, and
shows how, to some extent, each is implied in the other. For practical
purposes it may well serve to continue employing the concept of an
oppositional pair, but the deconstructive enterprise has pointed out the
fragility, and perhaps the ultimate futility, of the distinction.
In this case, the opposition slave-free is deconstructed if it can be
shown that 'slave' includes 'free' (it would be a different move to show
1. I. Mendelsohn, 'Slavery in the Old Testament', IDE, IV, pp. 383-91
(Mendelsohn is sometimes speaking of slavery in the ancient Near East as a whole,
so one cannot be sure that there is Israelite evidence for all the practices mentioned
above).
2. Another case in which injury to a slave must be compensated for is not
strictly analogous, since the payment must be made to the sanctuary and not to the
master. It is the case of a man having intercourse with a betrothed slave woman
(Lev. 19.20-22).
3. Mendelsohn, 'Slavery in the Old Testament', pp. 387-88.
6. Ethics as Deconstruction, and, The Ethics of Deconstruction 97

how the concept 'free' in ancient Israel implied 'slave'in an economic sense, perhaps). The point here is that if a slave can choose not
to be a slave, the concept slavery does not exist as it once was thought
to exist, and the simple, commonsensical distinction between slave and
free collapses.
This deconstructive collapse has of course not only linguistic and
conceptual significance, but also social and ethical significanceand
that is what makes it so interesting. What kind of a society can it be in
which it is possible for slaves to become free by a mere act of will; it is
as strange as a society in which poor could become richby a mere act
of will. That is the measure of the social significance of the deconstruction. But it is also an ethical issue, forby our standards at leastthere
is an ethical issue involved in the institution of slavery. To our mind at
least, slavery is a bad thing, and its abolition is to be desired and celebrated.4 The Hebrew Bible does not report the abolition of slavery as a
real social phenomenon, but it does announce a conceptuality according
to which traditional slavery is, strictly speaking, inconceivable. If slavery were to be defined, as it is in Deuteronomy 23, as no more than a
matter of a choice that slaves make, the ethical problem of slavery has
well nigh disappeared.
Not surprisingly, the deconstructive force of Deuteronomy 23 has
been resisted by interpreters. It has been urged, in a commonsensical
way, that the law is unrealistic and not serious. 'If this law literally
applied to any slave who had run away from his master, it certainly was
unrealistic, for if put to practical use, it would have resulted in the
immediate abolition of slavery.'5 It is often pointed out that other
ancient Near Eastern societies had no such law. The Laws of Eshnunna,
for example, explicitly impose a fine for harbouring a runaway slave
(12-13), while the Code of Hammurabi makes it a capital offence
(15-16). In the Alalakh tablets from Syria we have evidence of a
reward being paid to a person for apprehending a runaway slave.6 On
4. It is not the only evil, though I would hesitate to say as roundly as Timothy
John Turnham, 'Male and Female Slaves in the Sabbath Year Laws of Exodus
21.1-11', Society of Biblical Literature 1987 Seminar Papers (ed. Kent Harold
Richards; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), pp. 545-49 (549) that in Israel 'slavery,
while an undesirable state, is preferable to poverty'.
5. Mendelsohn, 'Slavery in the Old Testament', p. 389.
6. See D.J. Wiseman, The Alalakh Tablets (London: British Institute of
Archaeology, 1953); cf. also the Hittite Code, 22-23 (ANET, p. 190a).
98
these grounds it is urged that the biblical law cannot refer to any slave
who escapes from his or her master, but to 'a fugitive slave from a foreign country seeking asylum in Palestine'.7 Needless to say, there is not
the faintest evidence in the text for such an interpretation, and the
speculation witnesses only to the embarrassment of the scholar with the
text.
I am of course not arguing that the abolition of slavery was the intention of the framers of this law; but simply that the wording itself
stealthily undermines (which is to say, deconstructs) the concept of
slaverywhich is as good a way as any of abolishing it. Even if it does
not lead immediately to a change in the social institutionand we have
no evidence that it didit remains on the statute book as an ethical
principle whose time is yet to come.
There is another biblical text that points in the same direction, and
here there can be no question of the slave being a foreigner. For in
Exod. 21.2-6, we find:
When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go
out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If
his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the
wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out alone. But
if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I
will not go out free', then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall
bring him to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear
through with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.
Here there is a concept of voluntary slavery, which is deconstructive in

7. Mendelsohn, 'Slavery in the Old Testament', p. 389; similarly A.D.H.
Mayes, Deuteronomy (NCB; London: Oliphants, 1979), p. 319 (it is a 'fugitive
slave who escapes to the land of Israel'); P.C. Craigie, Deuteronomy (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), p. 300, who argues that to extradite a runaway slave
from another country would imply a pre-existing treaty with a foreign country,
'undermining thereby the total commitment required of Israel by the covenant with
the Lord'; Eduard Kb'nig, Das Deuteronomium (KAT, 3; Leipzig: A. Deichert,
1917), p. 162, arguing that since all Israel is addressed it must be a foreign slave
(!); H. Wheeler Robinson, Deuteronomy and Joshua (Century Bible; Edinburgh:
T.C. & E.G. Jack, n.d., c. 1901), p. 174, claiming that 'within one of thy gates'
implies that he is a foreign slave. M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 272 n. 5, on the other hand, has
no recourse to that explanation; he simply thinks that 'slaves who were well treated
did not flee from thefir] masters'as if that were all that need be said.

the alternate mode. For if Deuteronomy 23 showed that 'slave' could
include 'free', Exodus 21 shows that 'free' can include 'slave'. For in
this case the Hebrew slave has served his time, and is a free man. But
unlike the commonality of slaveshe chooses to be a slave. There is
indeed a kind of necessity upon him to become (remain) a slave, for he
does not want to abandon his master or his family. But it is not the
same kind of necessity that we have considered earlier, that makes a
debtor voluntarily sell himself into slavery. There is a real choice here
(however constrained), and the man who makes the choice to submit
himself to slavery is a free man when he makes it.8 And that action
redefines slavery, and therewith also the relation between slave and
free. Slavery is in a sense abolished when it ceases to be a state a person is forced into against their will. It still survives as a social institution, indeed, but in that the line of distinction between slave and free
has been blurred, it has lost its conceptual force.
You cannot found a social institution on a deconstructable conceptualization. But what I am principally arguing here is that the deconstructive uncertainty opens a space for an ethical decision.
b. Genesis 9.5-6
For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning; of every beast I will
require it and of man; of every man's brother I will require the life of
man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed;
for God made man in his own image.
This text is ostensibly a prohibition of murder.9 It threatens the wouldbe murderer that his life is in danger: if he sheds the blood of a human
being, his blood also will be shed.10 It is a gnomic text, especially its
core: ^jEffir to D1K3 D"Tn D1 JZtti 'who sheds human blood shall
have his blood shed by a human'. It is a divine sentence, and it gives all
the appearance of comprehensive law.11
8. The delicate balance between freedom and slavehood has been well brought
out by Turnham, 'Male and Female Slaves ', p. 547.
9. Glaus Westermann for one calls it a 'prohibition of homicide' (Genesis 111: A Commentary (trans. John J. Scullion; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984 [original,
1974], p. 466).
10. I am assuming, rightly or wrongly, that the murderer envisaged is a male.
11. I do not mean this term form-critically, for there has been a discussion
whether the phrase is formally a judicial formula (of an apodeictic type), a proverb
or a prophetic admonition (see Westermann, Genesis 1-11, p. 467).
100
The prohibition is expressed as a prediction: if X happens, then Y

will happen. Or perhaps it is not a simple prediction, for the Hebrew
'imperfect' can be used in modal senses. It could mean, 'by a human
his blood must be shed', or, 'by a human his blood should be shed', or
'by a human his blood may be shed'.12 That is an unsettling situation of
indeterminacy. Perhaps the sentence is not a warning directed toward
the would-be murderer, but an authorization to the community that
capital punishment for murder is required. Or perhaps it means that
capital punishment is not required but desirable? Or not desirable but
permissible?
At this point the usual exegetical move is to ask, Which of these
various possibilities is the correct one? Which makes best sense of the
rationale given in v. 6b, which is best supported by the context, which
would best cohere with the realities of legal and social life in ancient
Israel, which can we parallel in other Israelite laws? Perhaps there is an
answer to these questions, and one exegesis may be demonstrated to be
the best, though it will always be a matter of probabilities.13 But even if
there is a best exegesis, that does not make it the correct one. Perhaps
there is no correct exegesis, and all the meanings have to be kept open.
They may well not be all equally 'good' exegeses. So long as they fall
within the bounds of possibility (whatever they are), the text means
whatever they all, severally or collectively, mean.
Now, this is a text about ethics. It professes to dissuade people from
murder or else to authorize communities to carry out capital punishment of murderersor something like that. So it claims to give authoritative guidance on an ethical issue.14 But it deconstructs itself in that
12. On the modal uses of the 'imperfect', see Paul Joiion, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (trans, and rev. T. Muraoka; Subsidia Biblica, 14.2; Rome: Pontifical
Biblical Institute, 1991), II, pp. 370-72 ( 113 1-n). The modal sense of 'want' is
inapplicable here, as it would generally be with a passive verb. By the way, this
knowledge about modal uses of the verb is not new; it is to be found, for example,
in Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (ed. E. Kautzsch; rev. A.E. Cowley; Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2nd edn, 1910), pp. 316-19 (107 m-w). But judging by the commentaries and translations, the possibility of invoking it in the present connection
has been suppressedbecause (I guess) it would be too uncomfortably indeterminate to bring it to consciousness.
13. Our versions uniformly translate ^SEi' by the simple future, 'shall be shed'.
14. That, at any rate, is how all the commentaries read it. For example, '[T]he
demand for life taken is a demand made by God' (Westermann, Genesis 1-11,
p. 468).

in what it says-it does not do any such thing. For from the text itself
we cannot tell if
(a) it is saying to would-be murderers, Don't do that, because
(i) you will certainly be executed if you do, or
(ii) you run a risk of being executed if you do
or
(b) it is saying to a community,
(i) all murderers must be executed, or
(ii) you ought to execute murderers, but you need not, or
(iii) you can execute a murderer if you like.
This does not sound like a text with a determinate meaning. There is no
doubt that this text regards murder as a bad thing, but there is plenty of
doubt about what it thinks should be done about it. Indeterminacy of
course does not itself amount to a deconstruction. What makes the text
self-deconstructive is that its claim is undermined by its content.
But this is not the end of the deconstructability of the text. The first
case emerged from observing the tension between the form of the saying and its content, the second pair of deconstructions from an interrogation of the concept of killing ('shedding blood' in the terms of the
text). The text professes to be against killing, but in fact it authorizes
killing. Apparently it says, Do not kill, but in reality its message is,
Kill! It even seems to be less interested in the killing that occurs
(whenever, by whomever) than in the killing it itself sanctions. Humans
no doubt go on killing, it says, but what you need to know is that you
are required (or, permitted) to do killing yourself. In shifting the focus
from the initial act of murder to the act of punishment or vengeance it
becomes not so much a prohibition of killing as an incitement to it.
This is a strange deconstructive situation for an ethical text to find itself
in, is it not?
The text does not disguise that the execution of a murderer is itself
a killing. It uses exactly the same language for the murder and the
judicial execution: the murderer sheds blood, his blood is shed. So the
executioner is himself a shedder of blood, and there is nothing to distinThe theological underpinning of the text, 'for in the image of God he made
humanity' (v. 6b) is often taken as a reason why God must be demanding a death
penalty for murder: that is, if murder is an assault on the divine image, it can only
be punished capitally. It does not apparently occur to commentators to ask themselves, if they themselves do not demand the death penalty for every insult to their
own honour, why should God?
102
guish him from the murderernot in the language at any rate, and if
not in the language, then where? This is not a linear sentence, then, this
^jSttT iEH DltJQ D1Tn Dl ^JSfeJ; it is a circle, for every time that the sentence is completed it resumes, putting the implied subject of the second
verb ('it shall be shed') in the position of the subject of the first
('whoever sheds'). To begin with, the executioner is hidden in the
shadow of the passive voice, lurking at the end of the sentence, when
he does his deed; but once it is done, the sentence begins to roll again,
and this time the executioner is foregrounded; he is now the ^Dfij, the
shedder of blood, and the sentence concerns him. He is authorized to
kill, but only at the cost of his own life.15
And there is the ethical hint. If blood revenge is permitted (or even
required), but only at the cost of labelling it 'murder'is it permitted?
Somewhere, I mean to say, in among the words of a text that professes
to authorize capital punishment is the undoing of that authorization, at
the very least its problematization. You can see from this case why I am
beginning to wonder whether ethical initiatives might not originate at
the points of deconstructability of traditional ethics.16
c. John 8.3-11
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in
adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, 'Teacher, this
woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses
commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?' This they
said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they
continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, 'Let him who is
without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her'. And once
more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. But when
15. Westermann rightly recognizes that 'The death penalty carried out by the
organs of state can also be murder', but he also claims that 'A community is only
justified in executing the death penalty insofar as it respects the unique right of God
over life and death and insofar as it respects the inviolability of human life that follows therefrom' (Genesis 1-11, p. 469). Is this an authorization of capital punishment, I ask myself, or is it not rather, deconstructively, a statement of the impossibility of offering a plausible ethical justification for it?
16. And also what I think of the statement of Luther's cited by Dillmann:
'Inasmuch as no human society is conceivable unless human life be regarded as
sacred, it may be said with truth that the foundation is here laid for the social organisation of man' (A. Dillmann, Genesis, Critically and Exegetically Expounded
[Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1897], I, p. 295).

they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and
Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus looked
up and said to her, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned
you?' She said, 'No one, Lord'. And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn
you; go, and do not sin again'.
My next examples are from narratives about Jesus, whom I regard as an

arch-deconstructor. I had better apologize (in the sense of defend
myself) for even referring to, let alone beginning with, a text that our
editions and translations tell us most severely is not a text, not a text
that has anything to do with the Gospel of John, not a text that is a part
of the New Testament, not a biblical text at all in fact. In case we have
not got the message, many commentators rub it in by reserving their
commentary on these verses to the very end of their work,17 or omitting
to comment on it altogether.18 Modern English translations express
their disapproval by relegating the text to a footnote (so RSV), putting it
in square brackets (NAB, GNB, Moffatt), setting it off from the rest of
the text with a line above and below (NIV), or printing it at the end of
the Gospel (NEB, who head it 'An Incident in the Temple'so that we
should not recognize it?).
'[MJissing from the best early Greek MSS'19 is held to be a damning
criticism. 'Present in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts' is not a
phrase one encounters in the commentaries (though it is the truth); nor
is it commonly remarked that this text is to be found in almost every
copy of the New Testament ever printed.20 These facts do not count
17. So, for example, C.K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text (London: SPCK, 1967), pp.
90-93; J.N. Sanders, A Commentary on The Gospel according to St John (ed. and
completed by B.A. Mastin; London: A. & C. Black, 1968), pp. 458-66.
18. So, for example, John Marsh, Saint John (The Pelican Gospel Commentaries; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968); Ernst Haenchen, John, 2: A Commentary
on the Gospel of John, Chapters 7-27 (trans. Robert W. Funk; Hermeneia; Fortress
Press: Philadelphia, 1984), p. 22 (his editor writes: 'The author did not consider the
pericope.. .to be an original part of the Fourth Gospel').
19. New American Bible, in loc.
20. The NAB, sponsored by the Bishops' Committee of the Confraternity of
Christian Doctrine and translated by members of the Catholic Biblical Association
of America remarks that 'The Catholic Church accepts it as inspired Scripture', but
manages, in the same footnote, to say five bad things about it (missing from the
best early Greek manuscripts; found in different places in different manuscripts,
many non-Johannine features of language; many doubtful readings; certainly out of
place here).
104
against the current (but historically conditioned) supremacy of the text

critics. They of course have their own, perfectly legitimate, programme
to carry out (deciding what the earliest text was), but there is no reason
why that should include decisions about what is and what is not a biblical text. From the standpoint of the history of the text or of the physical
reality of actual Bibles, it would be more correct to say a propos of this
pericope, The best early Greek manuscripts are defective at this
point'and to force text critics to utter that sentence once a day for
their presumption.21
It would not be seemly to cast doubt on the scholarly tradition of the
inauthenticity of this pericope. But I notice that it is a rare scholar who
spares a moment to wonder whether there might not be a reason why
the pericope is missing from the 'best' (? most authoritative, ? most
authorized) manuscripts. A hermeneutic of suspicion is not, as it turns
out, a merely modern affectation; Augustine put two and two together
for himself when he roundly declared:
Some of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, I suppose from a
fear lest their wives should gain impunity in sin, removed from their
manuscripts the Lord's act of indulgence to the adulteress.22
Was the passage missing, or was it excluded? Did it fall, or was it

pushed?
No matter. It is enough for my purpose that this narrative, whether or
not 'original' or 'authentic' (whatever those terms might mean),
'represents the character and method of Jesus as they are revealed
elsewhere', as C.K. Barrett puts it.23 For I want to argue that the
'method' of Jesus, especially in ethical matters, is a deconstructive one.
The essence of the story, from this point of view, is that express
permission is given to execute the woman, but in such a form that it
cannot be carried out. Jesus believes the woman is guilty as charged,
for he tells her to 'go and sin no more' (v. 11). He believes the Mosaic
law is applicable to her, and he upholds that law. Jesus is not against
Moses, he is not against stoning. As far as Jesus is concerned, if one
faultless man had stood there, he would have been entitled to stone her,
21. Barnabas Lindars was something of an exception in beginning his commentary on the pericope on an upbeat note: 'By a happy chance this fragment from an
unknown work has been preserved in the MS. tradition of John' (The Gospel of
John [NCB; London: Oliphants, 1972], p. 305).
22. De Conj. Adult. 2.6.
23. Barrett, John, p. 491.

and the others could then have joined in the stoning (could they not?),
even though they themselves were not without sin. For Jesus says, 'Let
him that is blameless (avauapTnroc;) among you cast the first stone'
but he does not say who should cast the second and the third.
But equally clearly, Jesus does not intend that the woman should be
executed. If he does not condemn (KaTccKptvco) her himself, even when
he is in a position to do so, he cannot really want others to condemn her
and carry out a sentence of death. Indeed, it is hard to see why the
woman is brought to Jesus in the first place unless her accusers know
that Jesus is not going to agree to her execution.24 They know that, but
they also know that Jesus upholds the Mosaic law25enough, that is, to
make them eager to discover that in some respect he does not.26 We
readers too cannot imagine the Jesus of the Gospels consenting to the
death of a woman for adultery.27
Jesus' response to the situation is to deconstruct the Mosaic law.
Moses' law, like any law, relies on a distinction between wrongdoers
and law-enforcers. Law-enforcers punish wrongdoers, criminals are
punished by judges. As long as that binary opposition stands, societies
can function as they have got into the habit of functioning. But suppose
that there is something faulty about the opposition, and that lawenforcers are themselves wrongdoers. Suppose, that is, that the category
'judge', instead of being oppositionally related to the category
'criminal', is included within it. Then you have a classic deconstruction
of the categories presupposed by a text. What follows, when the demarcation collapses, is that judges can no longer function as judges, not
24. There are of course, 'historical' reconstructions (speculations is perhaps a
better term) for why Jesus is being 'tested' by the Pharisees. J. Jeremias, for example, opined that it was illegal for Jews to carry out a death sentence at that time, and
that agreeing to it would make him a revolutionary against Rome ('Zur Geschichtlichkeit des Verhors Jesu vor dem Hohen Rat', ZNW 43 [1950-51], pp. 145-50
[148-49]). But the text gives no hint of such a background.
25. If Jesus was notorious for his disregard of the Mosaic law, no one would be
'testing' (rceipd^cov) him to find out if he did in fact disregard it.
26. 'It brings into the open an existing conflict between the known teaching of
Jesus and the requirements of the law' (Lindars, StJohn, p. 310).
27. '[I]t is unlikely', writes Mastin, 'that all that is involved here is an attempt
by Jesus' enemies (who knew his merciful attitude toward sinners) to obtain a
judgement from him which will enable them to accuse him as a transgressor of the
Law' (in Sanders, John, p. 464), citing E.G. Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel (ed. F.N.
Davey; London: Faber & Faber, 1947), p. 569.
106
when they realize that they arecriminals!

Well, at least, that is the dramatic consequence. It is not the 'real life'
consequence, for the judicial system in Judaea did not break down the
moment Jesus performed his miracle of deconstruction. That real-life
(non)-consequence is typical of deconstruction, of course, for the
deconstruction of a binary opposition does not 'destroy' or 'abolish' or
'negate' or 'remove' the opposition. It only exposes its fragility, it only
problematizes it, it only renders it unsafe and questionable, it only
invites flexibility, it only encourages new arrangements, new conceptualizations. In the story world, the judges flee the scene, unable to lift a
pebble; though they entered the story as a united block, they leave one
by one, in a dissolve.28 In the real world, on the other hand, all things
continue as they have since the creationexcept that an ethical doubt
has been inserted into the structure of the administration of justice, its
Achilles heel has been exposed.
We are not done yet with the deconstructive possibilities of this text,
though. It is not just a matter of how the character Jesus within the narrative deconstructs the law that he is confronted by, but also of how the
narrative itself deconstructs itself.
A minor respect in which the text offers itself up to deconstruction is
over the distinction guilty/righteous. In a word, the story hangs upon
the Pharisees being both guilty and righteouswhich is to say, upon
the deconstructability of the opposition guilty/righteous. If they had not
all been guilty, the woman would have died; it needed only one blameless man, and she would have been stoned to death. But on the other
hand, if they had not all been righteousrighteous in the sense of
acknowledging their sin publicly, of telling the truth about their guiltiness, of not pretending they were blameless, indeed of not disregarding
the authority of Jesus (what rights does he have in the matter?, we
wonder)the woman would equally have been put to death. Just one
man who would not confess his sin would have been enough to start the
hail of stones. So, dramatically speaking at least, the woman's life
depends upon the honesty of her accusers, upon their 'conscience'
(<jwei8r|ai<;) and their ability to be 'convicted' (eX;y%co) by it.
This deconstruction rubs against the grain of the text, no doubt. For it
is in the interest of the text to show that Jesus is in the right, and that,
ergo, his opponents are in the wrong. Indeed, Jesus always wins con28. Cf. Thomas Wieser, 'CommunityIts Unity, Diversity and Universality',
Semeia 33 (1985), pp. 83-95 (86).

troversies with Pharisees. But here that clear-cut opposition between
Jesus and Pharisees breaks down somewhat, as the text lets it slip that
the woman's life, which Jesus is concerned to preserve, hangs less upon
any action of his than it does upon the honest shamefaced confessions
of the Pharisees. Jesus risks her life on their honesty. The Pharisees are
still the villains of the piece, but they are not dyed in the wool villains.
If they are not blameless (dvauapTTycoq), neither are they blackguards.
The text does not explicitly acknowledge any goodness in the Pharisees, but it undermines itself secretly by its storyline.
A final deconstructive aspect of the narrative is of more moment. It is
the deconstruction of Jesus' own deconstruction, and it goes like this.
Jesus, I have argued, does not deny the woman's guilt or the applicability of the Mosaic law, but he saves her from stoning by deconstructing the opposition judge/criminal. But the narrative does not include
him within the category of the criminal-judge, the Pharisee-sinner. Ex
hypothesi, Jesus is the one dvajidptriToc, on the scene. If, by his own
profession, the one without sin should cast the first stone, then let him
cast it! Is he free to rescind the law of Mosesand his own acknowledgment that it is indeed applicable in this caseon humanitarian
grounds? Surely not! Or rather, if he is not going to support the law of
Moses and carry it out by executing the woman, why did he not say so
in the first place? If he resists the commandment of Moses, and does
not believe adulterers should be stoned to death, why does he not reject
the law rather than problematize it? Deconstructing the law of Moses
does not render it invalid; it only gives one furiously to think. If he will
not cast a stone, he must regard the law as invalid; and it is a waste of
time to deconstruct a text that you have written off.
Which is to say, while the pericope professes to concern itself with
the right of humans who are themselves sinful to execute judgment
upon other humans, the issue turns out to be a quite different one:
namely, the authority of Jesus vis-a-vis that of Moses, the question of
whose word goes. Is it Moses, who says, 'Stone her', or is it Jesus, who
says, 'Neither do I condemn you'? The course of the narrative deconstructs its punchline, and vice versa.
The last point is not, I think, an ethical one, but purely an issue of
the status and authority of Jesus; but the first point, about the judgecriminal, is certainly an ethical matter. What a deconstructive impulsewhich I ascribe to the character Jesusdoes in the matter of
ethics is to call into question conventional ethics, especially those built
108
into the fabric of society, and to hint at an ethic beyond ethics.

d. Matthew 22.16-21 //Mark 12.13-17//Luke 20.20-26
Then the Pharisees went and took counsel how to entangle him in his
talk. And they sent -their disciples to him, along with the Herodians,
saying, Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God
truthfully, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of
men. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or
not?' But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, 'Why put me to the test, you
hypocrites? Show me the money for the tax.' And they brought him a
coin. And Jesus said to them, 'Whose likeness and inscription is this?'
They said, 'Caesar's'. Then he said to them, 'Render therefore to Caesar
the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's'. When
they heard it, they marvelled; and they left him and went away.
And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians,
to entrap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, Teacher, we
know that you are true, and care for no man; for you do not regard the
position of men, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes
to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?' But knowing
their hypocrisy, he said to them, 'Why put me to the test? Bring me a
coin, and let me look at it.' And they brought one. And he said to them,
'Whose likeness and inscription is this?' They said to him, 'Caesar's'.
Jesus said to them, 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to
God the things that are God's'. And they were amazed at him. The
scribes and the chief priests tried to lay hands on him at that very hour,
but they feared the people; for they perceived that he had told this parable against them.
So they watched him, and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that
they might take hold of what he said, so as to deliver him up to the
authority and jurisdiction of the governor. They asked him, Teacher, we
know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly
teach the way of God. Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or
not?' But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them, 'Show me a
coin. Whose likeness and inscription has it?' They said, 'Caesar's'. He
said to them, Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to
God the things that are God's'. And they were not able in the presence
of the people to catch him by what he said; but marvelling at his answer
they were silent.
Here is Jesus again in deconstructive mode. He is presented with a

binary opposition: God or Caesar. He responds in language that gives
lip-service to the opposition, but that calls it into question nevertheless.
His audience react with 'amazement' (6a\)|id^co, Mt. 22.22; eicGcm-

|o,dcG, Mk 12.17; 0ai)|idcG, Lk. 20.26)which is the signal that a
deconstruction has been performed upon them. Jesus' own deconstructive reply is, however, itself open to deconstruction, so I shall argue.
The presenting form of the binary pair is the question: Is it lawful or
not to pay taxes to Caesar? Are we to give or are we not to give? But
these are not themselves the terms of the opposition. The question, Is it
lawful? (e,e<m), is not a real question, and it obscures the real question. For eêcm ought to mean: '[I]s it warranted by anything in the
Law or the scribal tradition?'29 But the Law and the scribal tradition (as
far as I know) have nothing to say about Caesar, or about paying taxes
to foreign rulers. At least, I can find no references in the commentaries
to Jewish discussions of this theme.30 Jesus and his opponents must
both know that paying tax is not forbidden, and therefore it is not
'unlawful'. There is thus a dishonesty in pretending that that is the
issue.
The Gospel narrators, for their part, want to alert readers to the deviousness of the question, and they do so in five ways. They tell us that
Jesus' interlocutors are out to 'entangle' (7iayi8e'uco, Mt. 22.15) or
'entrap' (dypevco, Mk 12.13) him. They say that his opponents are
spies pretending to be honest (evKaOexoix; \moKpivo|ievot><; eamoix;
5iKaio\)s, Lk. 20.20). They have the opponents of Jesus address him
insincerely and sycophantically: they call him Teacher, they say that he
is 'true' (dXr|0r|<;, Mt. 22.16; Mk 12.14) or 'speaks rightly' (opGcoc;
Xeyeiq, Lk. 20.21), that he teaches the way of God truthfully, that he
29. A.H. McNeile, The Gospel according to St Matthew (London: Macmillan,
1915), p. 319.
30. Why is the matter not raised?, I wonder. I can learn from the commentaries
much more than I need to know about where and when the poll tax was collected,
and I am suffering from a numismatic overdose (cf., for example, H.StJ. Hart, The
Coin of "Render unto Caesar" (A Note on Some Aspects of Mk 12.13-17; Matt
22.15-22; Lk 20.20-26)', in Jesus and the Politics of his Day [ed. E. Bammel and
C.F.D. Moule; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984], pp. 241-48). But on
the question, Is it lawful or not?not a word. Not in a commentary, at any rate, but
in a recent journal article, I do find an attempt to locate a biblical text that addresses
the issue: David T. Owen-Ball, 'Rabbinic Rhetoric and the Tribute Passage (Mt.
22.15-22; Mk. 12.13-17; Lk. 20.20-26)', NovT35 (1993), pp. 1-14, adduces Deut.
8.17-19 as 'Moses' warning against the use of one's wealth to serve other gods'.
Quite apart from the fact that the divinity of the Roman emperor does not seem to
be in the issue in the tribute texts (and that Tiberius in any case declined divine
honours), there is no connection in the Deuteronomy passage between wealth and
serving other gods that I can see, so the alleged prooftext falls to the ground.
110
shows no partiality. They have Jesus evaluate his opponents' attitude as

'wickedness' (uovripia, Mt. 22.18; Ttavovpyia, Lk. 20.23) or 'hypocrisy' (UTtOKpian;, Mk 12.15). They have Jesus address his interlocutors as 'hypocrites' (wiOKpitai, Mt. 22.18). These are all tokens that
the question presented is not the real questionwhich is to say, the
opposition lawful/unlawful is not the issue.
Beneath the surface form of the question, beneath the presenting
opposition lawful/unlawful there is a more substantive opposition, and
it is that opposition that Jesus will deconstruct. As Lohmeyer puts it,
The question already hints at the distinction between a human and a
divine order, a political and a religious command'.31 The presupposition of the question, that is to say, is a disjunction between the rule of
God and the rule of Caesar, an implication that obedience to the one
implies disobedience to the other.
When a binary opposition is set up, and especially when it is a long
established distinction that has been inherited from the past, it is very
difficult to ignore it, to challenge the terms of the debate. Jesus' opponents are looking for a yes/no answer, in the terms they have chosen
(perhaps, to be fair, that have been chosen for them). Jesus offers them
a both-and answer, and in so doing both accepts and negates the terms
of the oppositional pair. He accepts the conceptualization God/Caesar,
but he denies that the two terms are in opposition. It is right to pay
taxes to Caesar and it is right to pay taxes to God. Paying tax to Caesar
is not in opposition to the divine rule; giving God the things that are
God's robs Caesar of nothing.
I do not know if other people would be happy to call a dislocation of
a binary opposition such as this a deconstruction. But if a deconstruction is a 'teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text'32
then that seems a good enough description of what Jesus is doing with
the text of his opponents' questions. He is not doing a lot of 'teasing
out' in patient philosophical mode, of course, for the Gospel narratives
use the language of drama and rhetoric and debate; but the warring
forces of signification are certainly his goal. With his 'both-and', he
31. Ernst Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus, ubersetzt und erkldrt
(Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar iiber das Neue Testament, 1.2; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 17th edn, 1967), p. 252.
32. Barbara Johnson, The Critical Difference (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980); quoted by her in Literary Theory Today(ed. Peter Collier and
Helga Geyer-Ryan; Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), p. 18.

makes the lion to lie down with the lamb, even though, as the quip has
it, the lamb will have an uncomfortable night of it.
His deconstruction of the (unspoken) terms of the binary opposition
reduces his interlocutors to silence (Lk. 20.26); they walk away and
abandon the conversation (Mt. 22.22). That is quintessentially the outcome of a deconstruction, for the rug is pulled from under your feet
when the structure of your thought has been sabotaged (or even just
problematized!); there is nothing more to say, and you might as well
leave the room. There is an amazement too, if your arguments meet, not
with a point by point refutation or even a global resistance, but with a
riposte that, in a trice, changes the rules of debate. It is very interesting,
and not at all surprising, that each of the gospels concludes the pericope
on the note of the amazement of his opponents.33
But, as 1 said, Jesus' own deconstruction is itself open to deconstruction. Though he has displaced the presenting opposition (lawful/unlawful), and then dislocated the resulting binary pair (God/Caesar) by
rearranging their relationship from either/or to both-and, he still operates with a binary pair. And that in itself provokes deconstructionist
suspicions.
Let us put those suspicions in the terms of the text. If Jesus' audience
should render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's,
then they have divided the world into two spheres. What belongs to
Caesar does not belong to God; what is God's is not Caesar's.34 That
33. Commentators frequently remark on this testimonial to Jesus' cleverness,
but not of course to his deconstructionism.
34. The commentators fall over backwards to avoid this conclusion. Vincent
Taylor, for instance, says that Jesus' reply 'does not mean that the worlds of politics and religion are separate spheres' and that 'Jesus held that the claims of God
are all embracing' but that 'obligations due to the State are within the divine order'
(The Gospel according to St Mark [London: Macmillan, 2nd edn, 1966], p. 480);
but he does very much want Jesus to agree with Paul over the proper Christian attitude to the State, and he has a personal investment in the issue in that he believes
that submitting to Caesar's authority was in fact 'justified by the peace, justice and
tolerance given to the world' by the Roman Empire. Hugh Anderson writes:
'Neither in this nor in his other sayings does Jesus give any indication that he considered the secular realm to have its own separate governing principles, so there is
little to commend the view that he is here drawing a rigid line of division between
the political and the religious spheres' (The Gospel of Mark [NCB; London: Marshal], Morgan & Scott, 1976], p. 275). It is not difficult to see how what the commentator wants to be true about the teaching of Jesus in general obscures the evidence of the text before his eyes.
112
seems to make everything clear and straightforward. But what if Caesar

himself belongs to God? What indeed? For if one of the elements in a
binary opposition can be shown to be in some sense included in the
other, the opposition is thereby deconstructed.
Does Caesar belong to God? We could try answering that from first
principles, which would make it pretty obvious that Caesar as a human
being is as much a creature of God as anyone. Or we could answer it
intertextually, by citing a text like Ps. 24.1, 'The earth is the LORD'S
and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein'a text
that would be familiar to all the characters in the gospel narrative. Or
we could try answering it from the narrative itself and its implicatures.
If Caesar's image on the coin is the proof of his ownership of it, what is
the proof of God's ownership? Is it not the 'image of God' stamped
upon humanity?35 Then is Caesar made in the image of God, or is he
not? If he is, he is God's.
Whichever way we look at it, Caesar owns nothing that God does not
also own; perhaps we could even say, to which God does not have better title. And once we observe that Caesar belongs to God, the conceptualization of the two spheres collapses. If Caesar belongs to God, what
of Caesar's possessions? Do they not also belong to God? And if Caesar owns nothing that God does not own, does Caesar own anything?36
How then can anyone render to Caesar what is 'his'? Nothing is 'his'.37
The binary opposition, that is to say, is very unstable. So unstable, in
35. So McNeile, for example, suggested (p. 320). Similarly Charles Homer
Giblin, SJ, "The Things of God" in the Question concerning Tribute to Caesar (Lk
20.25; Mk 12.17; Mt 22.21)', CBQ 33 (1971), pp. 510-27 (521-22); Owen-Ball,
'Rabbinic Rhetoric', p. 10. Giblin relates the 'inscription' (emYpa<|>f|) to Isa. 44.5
(where 'I am God's' is inscribed on the hand) ("The Things of God'", pp. 523-24),
and Owen-Ball to Exod. 13.9 (where the law is a sign on the hand and a memorial
between the eyes).
36. Others too have asked this question. For example, Owen-Ball asks, '[W]hat
can be said to belong to Caesar when one's entire life belongs to God?' But he
responds lamely, 'Christians ought not to respond to civil issues without considering, first and foremost, their religious duty in the matter' (p. 14). Cf. also Michael
Bunker, '"Gebt dem Kaiser, was des Kaisers ist!"Aber, Was ist des Kaisers?:
Uberlegungen zur Perikope von der Kaisersteuer', Kairos 29 (1987), pp. 85-98.
37. There is another way of performing (I would say prestidigitating except that
my OED does not acknowledge the verb) the deconstruction. If Marx is right, that
religion is to be viewed as part of the ideological superstructure of the state, then it
is Caesar that owns everything that is God's. This is equally a collapse of the two
spheres conceptualization.

fact, that we may well wonder whether the character Jesus, who is a
dab hand at deconstructing oppositional pairs, does not set up this
opposition precisely in order to watch it falling apart in the hands the
moment anyone tries to work with it. S.G.F. Brandon, in fact, thought
that in this saying Jesus, who would have regarded everything as God's
by right, was absolutely prohibiting the payment of taxes to Caesar.381
think it is more subtle than that, as befits a truly deconstructive situation. The deconstruction does not settle the matter, as if it could shift us
from one state of certainty to another. Deconstruction just exposes
fragility, and leaves things more open to question. In this case, the
deconstructability of the oppositional pair God/Caesar leaves us, I
think, with the following result: if you are looking for a text to authorize the payment of taxes, this is your text; if you are looking for a text
to prohibit the payment of taxes, this is your text.
There are yet further deconstructions to which these texts lay themselves open. The first arises from my observation that everyone commenting on this pericope seems to accept its assumption that Caesar
'owns' the coins on which his image appears. 'According to ancient
ideas', says Dennis Nineham, 'coins were ultimately the private property of the ruler who issued them.' 39 1 find that very difficult to believe,
though I can well believe in rulers wanting to put such an idea about. If
anyone were to tell me that Caesar 'owned' coins with his picture on, I
would find myself wanting to say, Not if they're in my pocket, he
doesn't! Social and commercial life in the ancient world took no
account whatever of such a theory, and even the business of paying
taxes was discharged by most citizens, we may believe, without a nod
to a principle of ultimate ownership. The narrative deconstructs itself
which is to say, opens itself up to undermining questionsby conducting its whole discussion without a glance in the direction of the real
ownership of real money, and the evident fact that Caesar has only a
38. S.G.F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1967), pp. 345ff. (I owe this reference to Anderson, The Gospel of Mark
p. 275.)
39. D.E. Nineham, The Gospel of St Mark (Pelican Gospel Commentaries;
London: Penguin, 1992), p. 315. Nineham picked this idea up from A.E.J. Rawlinson [cited in C. Montefiore, Rabbinic Literature and Gospel Teachings [Hoboken,
NY: Ktav, 1970], pp. 277-78]: 'According to the ancient way of thinking, the
authority of a ruler was co-extensive with the circulation of his money... and coins
were regarded as being ultimately the private property of the sovereign whose
image they bore'.
114
claim to taxes, not a right of possession of other people's money.

Next there is the language about payment. When Jesus is asked about
the tribute, the question is whether it is lawful to 'give' tax to Caesar
(8i5cGui, in all three Gospels). But when he replies, he speaks of 'rendering', 'repaying', 'restoring' to Caesar what is his (coi;o8i8cGUi, in all
three Gospels). Is Caesar, according to Jesus, not to be 'given' anything
but to be paid only what is he is 'owed'? That then raises the question,
And what is he owed? Does Palestine benefit at all from the taxes it
pays? Some commentators feel obliged to think of some benefit that
accrues from the taxes, so that Caesar can somehow 'earn' his taxes.
'The obligation to pay to Caesar some of his own coinage in return for
the amenities his rule provided is affirmed', says Cranfield.40 What
'amenities' could Jesus have been thinking of?, we ask. Gymnasia? Or
perhaps there were no amenities and no benefits accruing to the Jewish
people from the taxes they paid, and Jesus means that it is simply and
intrinsically 'just to demand payment from subject states as a general
principle'41as Leaney puts it; that is, emperors are 'owed' taxes
because they are emperors. I would be surprised if Jesus held that as a
general principle, and even more surprised if he thought it was 'just'
that the Jewish people should be subject to the Romans. Now if the text
says that Caesar should be paid what he is owed, but gives no hint
about whether he is in fact owed anything, the text faces two ways,
undermining the confidence it projects.
Finally (for now) there is the problem that the text authorizes too
much. If the reason why tribute should be paid to Caesar is because the
coins have his image on them, why stop at the tribute? If every coin
'belongs' to Caesar, had they not all better be handed back to him
forthwith? If I may keep one coin with Caesar's head on it in my
pocket, why should I turn another, identical, coin over to him as his
right? It begins to seem as if having Caesar's image and inscription on
the coin has nothing whatever to do with the question of whether one
should pay taxesexcept in a suggestive, associative, symbolic, perhaps whimsical, satiric, even bitter, exasperated, hostile kind of way. A
40. C.E.B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to Saint Mark: An Introduction and
Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), p. 372; similarly
Taylor regards the tax as 'justified by the peace, justice and tolerance given to the
world' by the Roman Empire (St Mark, p. 480).
41. A.R.C. Leaney, A Commentary on the Gospel according to St Luke (BNTC;
London: A. & C. Black, 1958), p. 252.

text that professes to give a reason for paying taxes but does not deliver
on its promise is a deconstructive text. Perhaps texts in general are constitutionally incapable of delivering on their promises, and that is why
deconstructability is a feature of textuality in general, and not just of
some texts. But all I wanted to argue at the moment was that this particular text is deconstructable in these particular ways, and that there is
something specially interesting about ethical texts that deconstruct
themselves.
This is of course a text that is 'about' far more than the payment of
taxes. It is a rich ethical text, of almost infinite range. But it is an amazingly unstable text, which does not offer clear moral guidance. Its
deconstructability disenables it for incorporation into an ethical system;
it will not serve as an ethical principle, not unless you are willing to
entertain principles that face two ways, principles that lie down and roll
over at a word, Mobius strips of principles, in which the outside is
always already the inside...
Where deconstruction touches upon ethics, I am concluding, it serves
to render venerable verities shaky, to preclude systems, and to muddy
the waters. But at the same time, the problematization of ethical foundations does not imply the abandonment of them; rather, in making
ethics more of a problem, it makes it more of a problem for you and
mewhich is to say, it tends to locate ethics in praxis, to remove it
from the realm of ideas to the realm of lived experience, to make it the
product of the human subject, to disaggregate it from the commonality,
to foreground personal responsibility.
2. The Ethics of Deconstruction
It is so commonly alleged against deconstruction that it is itself unethical, or at least not interested in ethics, that a paper on ethics and
deconstruction should perhaps address that question directly. I will
review in turn some of the allegations that have been made against
deconstruction on this issue, and some of the responses made by deconstractionists, and will conclude with four theses of my own which will
(I hope) eventually tie the second half of this paper in with the first.
a. Allegations
I collect here a number of allegations against deconstruction on the
ethical front:
116
1. It is said that deconstruction is nihilistic, in that it

removes all grounds of certainty or authority in literary interpretation ... assert[ing] that the reader, teacher or critic is free to make the text
anything he wants it to mean... [T]his is immoral because it annihilates
the traditional use of the great texts of our culture from Homer and the
Bible on down as the foundation and embodiment, the means of preserving and transmitting, the basic humanistic values of our culture.42
2. It is dehumanizing, in that it does not treat the text as a human

document. It proclaims the death of the author, and it abandons the idea
of reading as an engagement of a human reader with a human author in
favour of the 'text-as-such'. It 'denies access to the inexhaustible variety of literature as a determinably meaningful text by, for, and about
human beings'.43
3. It fails to acknowledge the difference between right and wrong,
between reason and unreason,44 being 'hostile to the very principles of
Western thought' ,45
4. It is particularly hostile to religious ideas and people:
The radical indeterminacy of deconstructive criticism, which denies to
any text a fixed and stable meaning, is scarcely compatible with the
ways religious communities use their scriptures as a norm... Whether
this style will flourish in biblical interpretation, or help unite and build
42. J. Hillis Miller, The Ethics of Reading: Kant, de Man, Eliot, Trollope,
James, and Benjamin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), p. 9 (this is of
course not Hillis Miller's own view). See in this connection also Walter Jackson
Bate, The Crisis in English Studies', Harvard Magazine 85/12 (1982), pp. 46-53;
Rene Wellek, 'Destroying Literary Studies', The New Criterion (December, 1983),
pp. 1-8; E.D. Hirsch, Aims of Interpretation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1976), pp. 11-13, 146-58.
43. M.H. Abrams, 'How to Do Things with Texts', Partisan Review 44 (1979),
pp. 566-88; cf. his Doing Things with Texts: Essays in Criticism and Critical
Theory (ed. Michael Fisher; New York: Norton, 1991), p. 332; and 'The Deconstructive Angel', Critical Inquiry 3/3 (Spring, 1977), pp. 425-88 (= Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader [ed. David Lodge; London: Longman, 1988], pp. 26576).
44. Rene Wellek, The Attack on Literature and Other Essays (Brighton: Harvester, 1981), p. 99, speaking of the 'new apocalyptic irrationalism'.
45. Newsweek (15 February, 1988), cited by Barbara Johnson, 'The Surprise of
Otherness: A Note on the Wartime Writings of Paul de Man', in Peter Collier and
Helga Geyer-Ryan (eds.), Literary Theory Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990),
pp. 13-22(18).
6. Ethics as Deconstruction, and, The Ethics of Deconstruction117

up a religious community, is doubtful. Christian theology has certain
metaphysical commitments which cannot easily be reconciled with these
latest intellectual fashions. 46
5. Deconstruction is atheistical, 'virulently anti-Christian, with its

assault on the Logos-idea and its insistence that there is a great gulf
fixed between language and reality'.47 There is 'nihilism and skepticism
behind most deconstructionism'.48
6. It offers no hope. Its vision of life is
critically astute but morally impoverished. Metaphysics, epistemology,
and ethics [are] dead topics, and philosophy and literature...nothing
more than conversations to be carried on within the rotting corpse of
Western belief... [T]he bad news is that there is no good news, and the
good news is, surprisingly, that there has never been any good news. So
we are liberated by knowing that we have no right to lament the loss of
49
something we never had.
7. The lives of certain prominent deconstructionists have called into

question the moral value of deconstruction:
Moral questions have arisen because of widely publicized scandals
involving the political affairs of post-modern philosopher Martin Heidegger and deconstructionist Paul de Man, both of whom have been
linked to pro-Nazi, anti-Jewish, anti-humanist fascism. Their political
involvements before and during the Second World War have raised serious moral questions not only about themselves but also about the political implications of their postmodern philosophies. 50
46. Robert Morgan with John Barton, Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1988), pp. 256-57.
47. D.S. Greenwood, 'Poststructuralism and Biblical Studies: Frank Kermode's
The Genesis of Secrecy', in Gospel Perspectives, III: Studies in Midrash and Historiography (ed. R.T. France and David Wenham; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983),
pp. 263-88 (278).
48. William S. Kurz, 'Narrative Approaches to Luke-Acts', Bib 68 (1987), pp.
195-220(196).
49. Roger Lundin, 'Deconstructive Therapy', The Reformed Journal 36 (1986),
pp. 15-20(15).
50. Lloyd Steffen, 'A Postmodern Ethic? The Case of Deconstruction', Religious Humanism27 (1993), pp. 3-10 (6). On the de Man affair, see Barbara Johnson, 'A Note on the Wartime Writings of Paul de Man', preface to the paperback
edition of A World of Difference (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989
[original edition, 1987]), pp. xi-xviii (= Literary Theory Today [ed. Peter Collier
and Helga Geyer-Ryan; Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990], pp. 13-22).
118
8. As a philosophical enterprise, its guiding principles leave no room

for ethics or at least call ethics very seriously into question:
The relationship between deconstruction and ethics is necessarily
uneasy... Humanistic values... are grounded in what Derrida calls the
framework of logocentric metaphysics, which deconstruction insistently
calls into question... Deconstruction points to the inherent instability in
the very idea of 'ethics'. 51
9. Deconstruction is often represented as play, and play is not serious, so deconstruction is not ethical. In his famous 1966 paper, which
introduced the United States to his deconstructionism, Derrida opposed
to the 'saddened, negative, nostalgic, guilty, Rousseauistic' way of
thinking a Nietzschean way that is
the joyous affirmation of the play of the world and of the innocence of
becoming, the affirmation of a world of signs without fault, without
truth, and without origin which is offered to an active interpretation. This
affirmation then determines the noncenter otherwise than as loss of the
center. And it plays without security.52
10. Deconstructive critics are dishonest: they claim that all language
is indeterminate, but the moment they speak they expect to be heard as
having determinate things to say.53
11. There are no references to ethics in the indexes of standard books
on deconstruction.54
b. Responses
To these charges of an unethical orientation of deconstructionism there
51. Lisa D. Campolo, 'Derrida and Heidegger: The Critique of Technology and
the Call to Care', JAAR 53 (1985), pp. 431-48 (431).
52. Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference (trans. Alan Bass; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 292 (= 'Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences', in David Lodge [ed.], Modern Criticism and
Theory: A Reader [London: Longman, 1988], pp. 108-23 [121]).
53. Thus M.H. Abrams about J. Hillis Miller, in his 'The Deconstructive
Angel', Critical Inquiry 3/3 (Spring, 1977), pp. 425-88 (= Modern Criticism and
Theory: A Reader [ed. David Lodge; London: Longman, 1988], p. 274).
54. For example, Christopher Butler, Interpretation, Deconstruction and Ideology: An Introduction to Some Current Issues in Literary Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after
Structuralism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983); Art Berman, From the
New Criticism to Deconstruction: The Reception of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988).

have of course been several responses.
1. The first is the move of J. Hillis Miller, who wants to claim that
deconstruction is 'nothing more or less than good reading as such'.55
Good reading attends to the ethics of reading. And the ethics of reading
is not a matter of discovering the ethical principles embodied in texts;
rather, the ethical moment in reading is the ethical conviction one feels
compelled to while reading, an ethical conviction that manifests itself
in action, whether social or political.56
With the beginning of this argument I am in agreement. My difficulty
with Hillis Miller's position as a whole is that I am not sure that I know
what it is, since he does not write very well. For example,
It is not because stories contain the thematic dramatization of ethical situations, choices, and judgments that they are especially appropriate for
my topic [the ethics of reading], but for a reverse reason, that is, because
ethics itself has a peculiar relation to that form of language we call narrative. The thematic dramatizations of ethical topics in narratives are the
oblique allegorization of this linguistic necessity.
I feel sure it must be possible to make the point more lucidly without
losing any of the subtlety; I also feel sure that if I cannot understand
something after I have read it five times the fault is probably not mine.
2. The second is the move of Gary Phillips.57 He argues that
deconstructive reading calls for a certain kind of critical accountability
on the part of readers to the Bible and enables a critical, destabilizing
intervention within dominant critical practices, disciplines, interpretativ
traditions and institutions.58
He calls deconstruction's contribution to ethics an 'invigorating' of the

ethical question by searching for 'subtler understanding of the ways
texts refer, represent and bring about a different opening onto the
world', but above all by demanding a 'hands-on, face-to-face encounter
with the text' that stands as other to readers and their interests. Decon55. Miller, The Ethics of Reading, p. 10.
56. Miller, The Ethics of Reading, pp. 1-11 (Chapter 1: 'Reading Doing
Reading').
57. Gary A. Phillips, 'The Ethics of Reading Deconstructively, or Speaking
Face-to Face: The Samaritan Woman Meets Derrida at the Well', in The New Literary Criticism and the New Testament (ed. Elizabeth Struthers Malbon and Edgar
V. McKnight; JSNTSup, 109; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), pp. 283325.
58. Phillips, 'The Ethics of Reading Deconstructively', pp. 283-84.
120
structive reading does not allow us to keep a safe distance from the
text,59 but rather requires us to 'take responsibility for the text' by
'marking' the text with our own interventions, thus confusing the conventional boundary between author and reader. Deconstruction, as an
engagement that is both affirming and analytic, is a response to 'the
Other that lies beyond the Bible'; and the Other, which is the goal of
deconstruction, is the name for that which 'escapes human control,
grounding or anticipation'. The deconstructive process lays an ethical
obligation upon readers to respond to the Other.
By underscoring the radical 'otherness' of the Biblemarked in various
ways by alternative meanings, readers, interpretative traditions, communities, practices, and so ondeconstruction works prophetically for a
different kind of reading and writing position in the world. It does so by
embracing the twin ethical aim characterized as a responsibility to otherness and a responsibility to act.60
I share Phillips's opinion that deconstruction 'invigorates' ethical

questions (though not 'the ethical question'). But the difficulties I have
with his approach are two: I do not care for his hypostatization of the
Other, especially when it attains the status of capitalization.61 No doubt
there is plenty that escapes human control, plenty of diversity witnessed
to by alternative meanings and interpretative traditions, but I can
believe in nothing (= not a Thing) that can be denominated Otherness
or the Other. The other difficulty I find in Phillips is in knowing
whether the Bible is supposed to be differentfrom other texts in this
regard. Is the 'Other that lies beyond the Bible', the 'radical "otherness" of the Bible' the same sort of other or otherness that lies beyond
all texts? And is the 'prophetic' work of deconstruction special to
deconstructive reading of biblical texts, or is deconstruction 'prophetic'
everywhere it casts its beady eye? I am nervous, in other words, that a
religious agenda has slipped in under the covers.
59. Cf. Derrida's sentence that to read deconstructively you must be ' "formed",
"trained", instructed, constructed, even engendered, let's say inventedby the work'
(in Acts of Literature [ed. Derek Attridge and Jacques Derrida; New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1992], p. 74).
60. Phillips, The Ethics of Reading Deconstructively', p. 315.
61. Like Caputo, I do not find myself at home 'in the land where there are all
and only Capitals, in the world where German nouns come true' (John D. Caputo,
Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference
to Deconstruction [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993], p. 33).

3. A third approach is that made by Peter Kemp, who advocates a
'poetics of commitment' as a fix for the absence of an ethical dimension in the work of deconstructionists like Derrida. An ethic consistent
with deconstruction would adopt a 'nevertheless' position: despite the
deconstructive enterprise, we should never give up hope, even in the
face of suffering and evil, he says.62 A commitment to ethical values
does not imply a knowledge of any universal truth; it is a way of living
with the deconstruction of 'all forms of object cultivation'.63 Although
there seems to be no real space for ethics in philosophical deconstructionism, in that deconstruction, according to Derrida, operates on a preethical plane, one could argue that that very affirmation implies an ethical justification of its own (why should we give priority to thought over
action, regarding thought as 'pre-ethical'?). Furthermore, it could be
suggested that Derrida himself, in foregrounding death as an issue in
philosophy, implicitly invokes ethical questions. For him, the concept
of 'presence'which he categorizes as the hallmark of Western philosophyrests on a suppression of the reality of death;64 and he of
course wants to reinscribe death in the philosophical vocabulary, making Freud's death principle the fundamental principle for understanding
life. Is he not in so doing making space for ethics within his philosophy
of deconstruction?
4. In response to Peter Kemp, Lisa Campolo argues that the absence
of ethics he perceives in Derrida's work is just the kind of 'lack' that
deconstruction adopts as its target, just the kind of 'alienated longing
for full presence' that Derrida would call into question.65 Rather,
deconstruction, at least in the person of Derrida, suspends and problematizes the traditional meanings of the terms 'ethical' and 'nihilistic'.
Derrida has no intention to disregard or destroy humanistic values just
because he wants to interrogate them. He believes we have a responsibility to the principles of reason and truth, and he affirms the hope of a
new enlightenment.66 This is not a positive ethical programme, but it is
62. Peter Kemp, 'Death and Gift', JAAR 50 (1982), pp. 459-71 (470).
63. Kemp, 'Death and Gift', p. 469.
64. The relationship with my death (my disappearance in general) lurks in this
determination of being as presence' (Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena and
Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs [trans. David B. Allison; Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1973], p. 56).
65. Campolo, 'Derrida and Heidegger', p. 432.
66. Campolo, 'Derrida and Heidegger', p. 446.
122
not hostile to ethics nor indifferent to it. In putting ethical signs sous
rature, under the marks of erasure, Derrida both effaces them and
leaves them visible67and that is perhaps the best we can do these days
with ethical signs.
5. Mark C. Taylor has spoken of an 'ethic of resistance' as the ethical
stance of deconstruction.68 What deconstruction entails is an insistence
on the alterity that stands opposed to and resistant to structures. It is
a way of coming to terms with the impossibility of liberation. The kingdom never arrives, there is no salvation; there never was wholeness,
there never will be wholeness. The problem becomes, how does one
linger with the wound, how does one linger with the negative without
negating it? How does one carry on when there's no hope of overcoming
in any kind of final way?69
That is to say, if I understand him correctly, that the ethical position the
deconstructive enterprise engenders is that in ethics, as in theology and
philosophy, the traditional fixed points of reference themselves become
the objects of scrutiny rather than the guideposts to further ethical decisions.
c. My reflections
Here are my own responses to: Is there an ethics of deconstruction?
1. If texts are indeed capable of deconstruction, and if, for example,
the oppositions on which they rely are open to question, then I want to
know about thatand I think that wanting to know is not just idle intellectual curiosity, but a kind of ethical courage, like wanting to know the
worst from my doctor. I cannot bear to be kept in the dark about something that is the case, and I think it my duty to let other people in on
secretsespecially secrets that important people would like to stay
secret.
I do not particularly wish to prejudge whether such and such a text is
deconstructable, or deconstructable in such and such a way; but if I
have convinced myself that it is, that is the way it isfor me. And I
67. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak;
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), p. 23: That mark of deletion is
not...a "merely negative symbol"... Under its strokes the presence of a transcendental signified is effaced while still remaining legible.'
68. As reported by Lloyd Steffen, 'A Postmodern Ethic? The Case of Deconstruction', Religious Humanism 27 (1993), pp. 3-10.
69. Steffen, 'A Postmodern Ethic?', pp. 8-9.

cannot imagine that pretending that that is not the case can be an ethical
way of being.
I also observe that once I have seen how a text can be deconstructed,
I find it very hard to forget the deconstruction. The deconstruction
seems to be less something that one has done to the text than something
the text has done to itself. The deconstruction is then an aspect of the
text, something that one knows about the text, as one knows about its
language and its rhetoric and its context and so on. Once I have noticed,
for example, that the care of the shepherd for the sheep in Psalm 23
extends right up to the point where the sheep enters the 'house of the
Lord'and we all know what happens to sheep when they go to the
house of the LordI have a new outlook on the image of the
'shepherd' which cannot be wished away.70 If any of that is right, it is
ethically wrong to ignore it.
I do not count it an especial intellectual virtue to demonstrate the
deconstructability of a certain text, and I should like to believe that
there are often more interesting and more important things to say about
texts than that they are deconstructable. But if it can be shown successfully to a reasonable number of people that a text deconstructs itself,
that is for me a fact (by which I mean a mutually agreed perception),
and I think of it as an ethical duty not to ignore facts. (Of course, if it is
your fact and not mine, then it is not a fact for me, so I have rather less
compunction about resisting and ignoring.)
2. What I find deconstruction does in the realm of ethics is to problematize traditional categories and distinctions. And what such problematization does is to weaken the authority of traditional ethics. And
what such weakening does is to turn more ethical issues over to the
decision of individuals. And what the taking charge of one's own ethical decisions does is to make one more of an ethical person.71
I would not want to say that to obey a law because it is a law cannot
be an ethical act. But I do know that obeying a law can sometimes be
70. I have considered some other ramifications of this deconstruction in my
paper, 'Varieties of Indeterminacy', in Robert C. Culley and Robert B. Robinson
(eds.), Textual Indeterminacy, Part Two (= Semeia 63 [1995]) (reprinted in this
volume).
71. I am much taken by the argument of John D. Caputo, Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference to Deconstruction
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), who replaces the systemic term
'ethics' with the personal term 'obligation'.
124
an immoral thing to do, and sometimes it can be a way of avoiding an

ethical decision of one's own. Being responsible for my own ethical
decisions does not necessarily make me a better person, but it does
make me more aware of ethical matters, and it does compel me to
invest myself in ethical questions. The less I can rely on traditional decisions about ethical questions the more effort I have to spend on making my own. I argue therefore that deconstruction promotes ethical
enquiry and ethical responsibility.
Of course, as I have observed before, to deconstruct a set of categories does not abolish those categories. Just because the distinction
between right and wrong, between slave and free, between killing and
executing, is hazier than people have thought, it does not mean that
there is nothing 'in' those distinctions. Not necessarily. Whether I will
go on operating with a set of traditional categories for the most part, or
whether I will feel compelled to abandon them forthwith so soon as I
have seen how grossly they deconstruct each other, is a matter that I
will have decide in each case on its own merits.
3. Deconstruction is the deconstruction of something. Without categories, oppositions, assertions there can be no deconstruction. Deconstruction is parasitic on traditional structures. It is not the same as
making things up from scratch, and it is certainly not the same as
working things out from first principles.
Deconstruction, in other words, starts from the way things are. It
respects the historical formulation of ideas in systems of thought and in
texts, and it honours the staying power of ancient and universal sets of
ideas. It works with traditions, and even if its results are radical, its
starting point is the given.72
In the realm of ethics, deconstruction pays tribute to the force of traditional ethics, and functions primarily to decentre ethics rather than to
abolish it. That is to say, I see deconstruction as re-centring ethics
around ourselves as decision-makers (fallible, inconsistent, committed),
rather than around a system that is orderly, comprehensive and coherent.
4. Deconstruction invites a style of ethics that is both in change and
that leads to change. As we have seen in some of the examples from
biblical texts, the openness of texts to deconstruction connotes the vulnerability of ethical systems to their own formulations. Ethical systems
must change, must perhaps change into something other than ethical
72. As, for example, with Nietzsche's 're-evaluation of all values'.
6. Ethics as Deconstmction, and, The Ethics of Deconstruction 125

systems, precisely because they must be expressed in deconstructable
language. But since, at the same time, ethical systems are the construct
of power-holders in society, societies too open themselves to change
whenever they devise an ethical system that expresses itself in
(necessarily) deconstructable language. We saw that happening in the
case of the runaway slave in Deuteronomy 23 and of the shedder of
blood in Genesis 9. The moment the ethic is said (written), at that
moment it becomes deconstructable, at that moment an agent for ethical
and social change has been released into the community.
VARIETIES OF INDETERMINACY
Nothing that I can write here is going to make much difference to the
grand theoretical issue of textual indeterminacy. What I can offer is,
rather, an account of the experiences of a practical exegete and textual
scholar alert to the question of meaning, and not a little surprised, at
times, by the apparent mismatch between what I hold as theory and
what I find myself doing by way of 'good practice'.
The main intention of this paper then will be to explore the indeterminacies I find myself involved in across several different areas of my
scholarly work. I will be concluding that I encounter varieties of indeterminacy, an indeterminacy of indeterminacies, and I will be suggesting possible reasons for my apparent yearning for determinate meanings in one project and my abandonment to multiple and indeterminate
meanings in another.
1. Principles
But I should say first where I stand (or think I stand) theoretically,
which is to say, when I am thinking about the principles I consciously
hold to rather than analysing the principles I find in hindsight that I
have been employing (for that is the stuff, and not the preface, of this
paper). In principle, in short, I think I believe that meaning does not
reside in texts but that readers create meaning when they read texts. To
tell the truth, I have no clarity on the large question of the extent to
which texts are responsible for the meanings that readers create. But I
do not feel I have to be able to rightly apportion the responsibility
between text and readers in order to affirm that the differencesbetween
meaningswhich is what is interesting to me, and which is the subject
we are speaking of, indeterminacyare the effect of the plurality of
readers rather than the effect of some property in the text. That means
Originally published in Textual Indeterminacy, Part Two (ed. Robert C. Culley and
Robert B. Robinson) = Semeia 63 (1995), pp. 17-27, and reprinted with the permission of Scholars Press.
7. Varieties of Indeterminacy
127
to say, I suppose, that I do not hold in any strict sense with the idea of
textual indeterminacy, for that would imply that it is texts that have
meaning, determinate or otherwise. It must be the various meanings
that readers come up with when reading texts that create the impression
that it was the text itself that was indeterminate. In fact, I think the text
is neither determinate or indeterminate; but, once again, practically
speaking, it makes little difference where the responsibility lies. For if
the result of reading texts is multiple meanings, it matters little whether
it was some property of the text that engendered the multiplicity, something in the text that different readers were responding to differently, or
whether it was simply different readers reading the one text differently.
The outcome is the same: the situation of indeterminacy exists.
So, in the end, speaking about texts 'meaning' does not need to be
proscribed, not in everyday language at least. If readers mean something by texts, it is no great crime to say that texts mean. It's no crime;
it's just not true, properly speaking, that's all.
2. Indeterminacy and the Practical Theorist
Here I want to deal with the question of indeterminacy in a general and,
I suppose, somewhat theoretical way. But since I usually feel more
comfortable thinking theoretically if I can deal with some concrete
example at the same time, I call my endeavours in this direction the
work of a 'practical theorist'.
I spoke of the 'situation of indeterminacy' that is our given. I mean to
begin with the practical and empirical situation that different readers do
in fact understand a given text differently. This is of course not just a
fact of life for practical exegetes. It is also the cause of extreme anxiety
for many. So to address the 'situation of indeterminacy' is not just an
intellectual challenge. It is also, in some cases, an existential imperative.
My preference is to confront the question in its most acute form, the
anxious phrasing used by those troubled by the idea of indeterminacy:
'Can a text mean anything at all, anything a reader wants it to mean?'
My first line of reply has been, What is this word 'can'? If there are
no meanings without readers, 'can' is not a property of texts but a
potentiality of readers. And who can know the mind of readers? All we
know is what readers have done, do do. And, short of infinity, it seems
that readers are indeed capable of any interpretation.
128
So I conclude that 'can' in such a question is probably a cipher for

something other than mere capability. It is a displacement of 'may' or
'should'. The question invokes the question of legitimacy, of whether
such and such an interpretation is to be allowed. And that is a real
questiona political question and a psychological one. Allowing and
disallowing is the very business of people with power, and we can be
sure that powerholders will have some very firm views about the propriety of others submitting to their power. It is a question too about the
psychological needs of the questioner who wants someone else to be
taking the responsibility for outlawing interpretations that they themselves do not feel comfortable about. But these are not the questions of
this paper.
My second line of reply has been to work with an example. Rather
than attempt to answer in general whether any text can mean anything
at all, I try to ask, can one particular text not mean something in particular? Here is an experiment I once tried. What, I asked, can Psalm 23
not mean? What would be a statement that could not be an interpretation of 'The Lord is my shepherd'?
I thought I had succeeded, that I had found an 'impossible' meaning
of the text, when I found myself saying, 'Two and two make four'.
Surely no one would say that that is what 'The Lord is my shepherd'
means? But pretty soon I realized that it was not so simple. For what
does 'Two and two make four' itself 'mean' except something like: all
is in order, the world is trustworthy, everything in the garden is lovely?
Yet is not that what 'The Lord is my shepherd' 'means'? Lying down
by still waters and having your cup run over sounds very similar to
living in a regular and safely ordered universe where you can count on
two and two adding to four.
But then, it occurred to me, if 'The Lord is my shepherd' 'means'
'two and two make four', surely what it cannot mean is: 'two and two
do not make four'? Perhaps that is the 'impossible' meaning of the
text? But not so fast!, I cautioned myself. For what happens to the
sheep who has the Lord as its shepherd is that once it has been led from
green pastures through dark valleys it is guided, eventually, up to the
house of the Lord. And we all know why sheep go the house of the
Lord. Now, it might be a sheep's highest ambition to end up as a holocaust on a sacrificial altar rather than lamb chops in the butcher's shop.
But nothing like that is in the sheep's mind when it pronounces 'the
Lord is my shepherd'. Indeed, must we not say that everything is not in
129
order in a world in which sheep feel protected by a kindly shepherd, at

the very moment when his intention is to slaughter them in sacrifice?
For the sheep of Psalm 23, must we not say, one of the meanings of
having the Lord as its shepherd is that the universe is dangerous and
life-threatening, that two and two do not make four.
Surely, however, there is one thing that The Lord is my shepherd'
cannot mean. Good shepherd or bad shepherd, surely what The Lord is
my shepherd' cannot mean is: The Lord is not my shepherd'? But of
course. Unless perhaps the psalmist actually is a sheep (which I doubt),
the psalmist has no shepherd, for humans are not sheep and so cannot
have shepherds. Shepherds shepherd sheep, not psalmists. Ergo, the one
thing that Psalm 23 can mean, must mean, whatever else it means, is
that the Lord is not my shepherd.
Now, that is only one example, and I dare say that a moderately
intelligent respondent could easily enough think of an interpretation of
a text that I myself could not defend as a 'possible' interpretation. But,
if I could not, I would be tempted to blame the resilience of my own
imagination sooner than confess that my interlocutor had hit upon a
truly 'impossible' interpretation. My experience with Psalm 23 was
enough to convince me that 'possible' and 'impossible' are not categories to be applied to interpretations, that, as far as I could see, a text
can mean anything at all, and that I myself was (? oxymoronically) an
absolute indeterminist.
3. Indeterminacy and the Lexicographer
It comes as something of a surprise to others, as also to myself, given
the inclinations I have just voiced, that I am also engaged in the preparation of The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew,1 which must seem to be
nothing but an enormous monument to the determinacy of meaning.
Page after page tell the earnest reader that this word means 'terebinth',
this 'cubit', this 'gecko', and so on. What are these if not determinate
meanings? One reviewer indeed, has complained of the 'peremptory'
tone of the Dictionary (unlike, are we to understand, the geniality of the
OED, the conspiratorial air of the Berlitz Engelsk-Svensk Ordbok, or
the whimsicality of Arndt-Gingrich?). I cannot deny it, I admit the fair
1. David J.A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, I-IV

(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993-1998).
130
impeachment. That is how it looks. But I shall try to wriggle my way

out of it, all the same.
I can confess that when we first mooted the idea of the Dictionary,
more than ten years ago, my vision of it was as a 'handbook of exegetical decisions', in which the best, the most correct, interpretation of
every word in all of its contexts was registered in the appropriate place
as a modest but authoritative guide for the perplexed. I imagined that
under the verb 'amar, for example, it might be possible to determine
the places where it meant 'promise', 'think', or 'answer' as distinct
from just simply 'say'. I thought, again for example, that it was our
business to decide when 'eres meant 'land' and when it meant 'earth'
determining, that is to say, what the words mean, as precisely as possible, in context after context.
There is a sense in which it is rather obvious that many Hebrew
words, 'eres, for example, are rather indeterminate. One could easily
argue that a word that could mean either the land of Israel or the whole
earth has to be acknowledged as far from determinate. One could say
too that if 'ah can mean either 'brother' or 'kinsman' or 'fellow-member of the whole nation' its meaning also must be described as indeterminate. But the degree of indeterminacy in such cases was rather
severely controlled. We were never inclined to suggest that 'eres might
sometimes mean 'brother' and 'ah might sometimes mean 'land'. So
there seemed to be a degree of determinacy and a degree of indeterminacy.
In practice, we usually found ourselves operating with a concept of
determinate meanings. We divided up all the 696 occurrences of 'ah
into seven categories of meaning, and assigned to each occurrence one
or other meaning. With 'eres, we divided all the occurrences we mentioned into one of the three senses, 'land', 'world', or 'ground'. With
'dkal, we distinguished in every use between meaning 1, 'eat food or
ingredients of food' and meaning 2, 'destroy, devour'. Although we
noted that the distinction between the two senses is not always clear,
we regarded that as a difficulty we had with individual texts rather than
a structural feature of the language or a truth about language in general.
Nonetheless, the idea of a handbook of exegetical decisions and the
prominence of the concept of determinate meanings receded as the
work progressed. In the first place, the 'gloss' or English translation
that immediately followed the Hebrew headword I came to think of as
merely indexial, as essentially and in principle a way of distinguishing,
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for example, between 'zl I 'go' and 'z/II 'weave', between 'zn I 'hear'
and 'zn II 'weigh'. I did not mean to say, This Hebrew word 'means'
this English word. In the second place, I came to feel that the structure
of the articles served to downplay the idea of determinate meanings, for
the stress in articles as wholes was upon the kinds of contexts in which
words were used rather than upon some specification by the Dictionary
team of what the words meant. So although we listed the occurrences of
'eres under the three senses I have mentioned above, the bulk of the
article is devoted, not to discussing the correct meaning of the word in
each of its several contexts, but to showing which verbs and nouns can
be associated with the word. So the reader learns that an 'eres in the
sense of a land can be full, be peaceful, stink, mourn, perish, flow, and
so on, and that one can find references to a land of desire, of delight, of
distance, of gloom, of saltiness, and so on. There is no discussion of
what constitutes a land, and, I think it can be said, the direction of the
article is in general against specification and determinacy. This is of
course a fault in the eyes of traditional lexicographers who operate, or
try to operate, with determinate meanings all the time, the more determinate the better.
I even had the nerve to suggest in the Introduction to the Dictionary
that a dictionary at the end of the twentieth century should reflect
something of the spirit of the age and be as best it could postmodern in
orientation, 'resisting concepts of authority, determinate meanings and
the like, and...emphasizing instead the perpetual deferral of meaning
as well as the plurality and historical conditionedness of scholarly values ... short on authority and prescription and long on reader-involvement, open-endedness and uncertainty'. 2 It is a hard task for a lexiconof all thingsby anyone's standards. The question in the present
context must be whether it is even possible.
4. Indeterminacy and the Exegete
Now I am turning to think about indeterminacy in the context of my
work as a verse by verse exegete, especially in my commentary on
Job.3 My daily task, I must admit, I conceive of as a moving toward
closure on every matter that the text raises, on every verse, its text and
2.
3.
Clines, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, I, p. 26.

David J.A. Clines, Job 1-20 (WBC, 17; Dallas: Word Books, 1990).
132
its translation. There is not much room for indeterminacy in the way I
have been working.
On my desk there are, as well as my Hebrew Bible, 15 or so English
translations, 20 or so commentaries and a heap of photocopies of journal articles on the chapter in question. On my Mac there is an enormous
bibliography of publications on Job from two thousand years of exegesis, and the wall behind me is shelved with more commentaries, books
on Hebrew poetry, Hebrew grammars and dictionaries, Bible encyclopaedias. Within a few square feet I have about me all the makings of
a thoroughgoingly indeterminate exegesis of the book of Job. Indeterminacy is not only possible, it seems almost inevitable.
What then do I do, surrounded by this cornucopia of multiple meanings? The fact is, unhappy fact if you prefer to call it so, that I strive
toward reducing everything toward order, towards eliminating every
meaning for a text except one, the one that I will adopt, the one that I
choose. When, for example, Job recalls the days of his prime (29.4-6)
and the commentators want to specify, each in his own way, what the
essence of Job's happiness was, I want to contradict them and have it
my own way. They insist in saying things like 'Naturally the first element in Job's happiness... was the presence of his children... The second, though a less, element of his happiness was his overflowing abundance.'4 Or, 'The sum of his happiness had been his sure untroubled
sense of the divine presence... The second element of his happiness
had been his domestic gladness.'5 But I say, Not so; 'Job simply puts
side by side various memories of the past, without categorizing or prioritizing them. Even if he thinks it, he does not want to say that any one
of them is the key or the source of the happiness; he is not in the business of accounting.'6 I cannot accept that these commentators can be
right and I can be right at the same time.
Or when Bildad asks, 'How can a mortal be righteous before God?'
(25.4), I find myself writing, tetchily perhaps, but firmly and determinately certainly: 'The issue for Bildad is not, of course, whether
humans can be declared innocent by God, but whether they can in fact
4. A.B. Davidson, The Book of Job, with Notes, Introduction and Appendix
(Cambridge Bible: Cambridge: Cambrindge University Press, 1884), ad he.
5. James Strahan, The Book of Job Interpreted (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1913), p. 241.
6. David J.A. Clines, Job 21^2 (WBC, 18; Dallas: Word Books, forthcoming), in loc.
133
be so. So it is not a matter of whether one can "be in the right before
God"7 or "be cleared of guilt" (NJPS) or "How can a man be justified in
God's sight?" (NEB). Nor is it a matter of "having a righteousness independent of God's".'8 It is simply whether in comparison with God's
standards any mortal can in any degree be 'righteous'.
The same goes for the philology. Faced with the vast variety of suggestions for new meanings for the Hebrew words and of never-ending
proposals for emendation, I buckle up my courage with the thought that
only one reading can be right, the original text must have had just one
reading, and I define my task as establishing that reading. Of course I
know that I am as fallible as the next, or last, commentator, but what
else am I to do?
I also have my readers in mind. What, I worry all the time, do they
really want? Do they want a blessed indeterminacy on every verse, a
smorgasbord of possible meanings (and where would the choice stop?),
or do they want me to make sense (rather than make senses) of one
verse after another? My guess is that they are reading me for my
answers to the problems of interpretation, and that they will be checking me out for coherence and consistency.
I also have the book as a whole in mind as I go. Rightly or wrongly, I
think the book as a whole has a logical sense, that the characters in the
book have points to make, that we can distinguish Bildad's position
from Eliphaz's, that Job changes his perspective from one speech to the
next but his speeches as a whole have a dramatic coherence, and the
like. I think that every verse contributes to the meaning of the book as a
whole, and I want to identify that contribution and signal it clearly to
my readers.
In short, as an exegete, I behave for all the world as if the indeterminacy of texts had never been heard of. I even believe so much in
determinacy of meaning that I find myself saying, Most of everything
that has ever been written in Job is wrong; if X's reading is right,
everyone else's is wrong. And I approach the latest article in the
learned journals with a highly sceptical reckoning of the chances of its
esteemed author being right. I am not proud of being so unrecon7. Samuel L. Terrien, Job (CAT; Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestle, 1963), pp.
180-81.
8. S.R. Driver, in Samuel Rolles Driver and George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Job together with a New Translation (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1921), p. 216.
134
structed an advocate of determinate meanings, and especially of being

inconsistent with the self that wrote the beginning of this article
which inconsistency is (so I am told) the greater sin. I do not expect
that mere confession will cure my soul.
5. Indeterminacy and the Critic
There is another aspect of my work, however, that I think I should also
speak of in connection with indeterminacy. I call this 'criticism', by
which I mean critique or evaluation. My opinion is that this is a separate undertaking from what is generally done in the name of biblical
studies, which is interpretation. I think that in interpretation scholars
are essentially the servants of the text (as I am when I am writing my
commentary on Job). It is our business in that role to unfold, explain,
represent, annotate, rehearse the text, thinking the authors' thoughts
after them, so to speak. In critique, on the other hand, the scholar is
measuring the text by a standard outside the text. Feminist criticism, for
example, and all other ideological criticisms, are judging the text from
an ethical or intellectual position that lies outside the text; they are
reading against the grain of the text.
My point here is that the moment we allow that there are other standpoints apart from that inscribed in the text from which we may read a
text we have committed ourselves to indeterminacy of meaning. For the
meaning of a text is thereafter relative to the position of interest from
which the evaluation is made. Indeed, the very issue of 'meaning' may
fall off the agenda. If, for example, we lived under the slogan that the
point is not to understand reality but to change it, 'meaning', indeterminate or otherwise, has a hard time earning its keep.
This is where I think the future of biblical studies lies, in the evaluation of the biblical corpus according to the norms that various real
readers have for themselves. Needless to say, such a future will be
chock full of indeterminacy, since every interest group will have its
own evaluation to offer. I give a sample of one such offering I have
been attempting with Psalm 2, under the title 'Psalm 2 and the MLF
(Moabite Liberation Front)'9 Obviously, this is a political reading of the
9. For a fuller account, see my 'Psalm 2 and the MLF (Moabite Liberation
Front)', in The Bible in Human Society: Essays in Honour of John Rogerson (ed.
M. Daniel Carroll R., David J.A. Clines and Philip R. Davies; JSOTSup, 200;
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 158-85; a revised version was pub-
135
text, and it leads to a critical evaluation of the psalm such as has not, I
believe, previously been offered (in print).
It is a well-known feature of polemic that opponents are denied a
recognition of their own identity, as human beings in their own right.
Here also, in Psalm 2, those on one side of the conflict bear the names
of Yahweh, his anointed, his king, his son, and they are located at a
particular location on the face of the globe. Their opponents, on the
other hand, are called only by the most general of terms, nations, peoples, kings and rulers, and they are to be found at no particular place on
earth but, indeterminately, over the earth in general. I name these opponents of Yahweh and his anointed Israelite king 'Moabites'not that I
think for a moment that the rebellious people spoken of in the psalm are
actually and precisely Moabite. Rather, 'Moabite' serves as a symbolic
name for people who found themselves in bondage to an Israelite king
and who desired liberation from their overlord.
In this psalm, the Israelite king as the holder of power and the Israelite poet as his propagandist refuse to countenance for a moment the
'Moabite' claim or to acknowledge that 'Moabites' have any right to
self-determination or political autonomy. I myself happen to disapprove
of such an attitude to 'Moabites', and I think it my duty as a commentator on the text to say so. But I also think the Hebrew Bible itself might
disapprove of such an attitude, if only it knew what it was doing. For
whereas in most parts of the Hebrew Bible Israel is very happy to have
been liberated itself, this psalm does not want anyone else to be liberatedand that seems to undermine the value Israel put on national
freedom, and to render its attitude to freedom ambivalent and incoherent. Its national story was of itself as a body of slaves escaped from
Egypt. In refusing a similar history to others, it implicitly denies the
value of its own liberation.
Now that is a critique of the text, not exactly an interpretation. Perhaps someone will call it a 'reading', but I will not thank them for that,
for I would prefer to think of it as an agenda or a judgment. At the same
time, I realize that once I have taken up the cudgels on behalf of
Moabites I am into a conflictual situation, and there will be others who
will arm themselves on behalf of the other interests reflected in the text.
Everything begins in religion and ends in politics. And even if the relilished in my Interested Parties; The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the
Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup, 205; GCT, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995),
pp. 244-75.
136
gion makes pretences to determinacy, the politics hardly can. If this is

the way biblical studies is moving, then, like futures everywhere, the
future for biblical texts seems indeterminate through and through.
6. Conclusions?
Trying to make sense of the ambivalences toward indeterminacy in my
own work, I have come up with three theorems.
1. The more text, the more indeterminacy. Perhaps some simple
arithmetic is all that we need in order to accept this theorem. If one
word can mean ten things, then would not two words mean a hundred
things, and three words a thousand things, and a whole sentence near
enough to infinity? That would explain why I am so determinate when I
am doing lexicography, and so indeterminate when I am deconstructing
the whole book of Job, for example. But it will not explain why I think
that 'the Lord is my shepherd' can mean anything at all, but insist that
every verse I comment on in Job means one thing and one thing only.
2. No one can determine your indeterminacy for you. It seemed to me
that I myself had some choice about how determinate or indeterminate I
let my readings be. While I can easily see how readers could make
multiple meanings out of a text like 'the Lord is my shepherd', I do not
feel obliged to devise multiple meanings whenever I am doing interpretation, and sometimes I want to argue vigorously for my, determinate
meaning. Even if someone came up with another meaning that they
wanted to hold, indeterminately, alongside mine and not as a replacement of it, I might still maintain my meaning as the best or the most
correct meaning. For most of the time, I am sorry to say that I am in the
business of defending my determinate meanings against other people's
determinate meanings, and though we may not agree on the meaning
we are usually in agreement on one thing, that we cannot both be right;
if my meaning is correct, theirs cannot be, and vice versa. And I do not
see that state of affairs going away for a long time.
3. Indeterminacy is not a private matter. I can determine the degree
of my indeterminacy for all I am worth, but what does it benefit me if I
cannot get others to agree? Enter the interpretative community, which
authorizes all that I do by way of interpretationor critique, for that
matter. I am free to interpret as I will, but no one will pay me to interpret outside the norms of some community or other. So in the classroom for translation of Hebrew prose texts there is little room for
137
independence of judgment or creative exegesis. In that setting, you find

me defending the traditional and most determinate norms of the
academic guild by insisting to wilful or wayward students that 'ah
means 'brother', or some such, and not 'sister' or 'gecko' or some such.
In a different, and more postmodern, environment I may be at liberty to
dazzle the audience with the fecundity of my indeterminacy. But, even
there, if no one will listen to my political critiques of the Psalms, reading against their grain, I shall have to shut up shop. My notion of
indeterminate readings can only be sustained if it is bought by an
interpretative community.
In a word, the varieties of indeterminacy (ranging from lots to none
at all) I find myself practising are context-dependent and so, and rightly
so, indeterminate.
THE PYRAMID AND THE NET:

THE POSTMODERN ADVENTURE IN BIBLICAL STUDIES
I have called this paper The Pyramid and the Net, using the definite
articles in a generic sense, not in reference to any particular pyramid, or
to any particular net, but to the idea of pyramids, and of netsto the
symbolic value of the two images. I want to understand our present
moment in Old Testament criticism in terms of these two images, to
argue that they are in tension with one another, to argue that the pyramid is being supplanted by the net and at the same time that the net is
no substitute for the pyramid.
Let me not be so cryptic, but say straight out how I want to use these
images. For me, the pyramid is the model for a style of scholarship,
indeed a worldview in general, that is being overtaken by another style,
another worldview, that both subverts and enshrines the values of the
pyramid model. I will call the pyramid the model of the Modern, and
the net the model of the Postmodern. I recognize, of course, that the
style and values of something as vast as a worldview can hardly be
comprehended and summed up by a single simple image. But in reaching after a pair of striking visual images, I found nothing that suited my
purposes better than these two.
The original version of this paper was delivered as the Presidential Address to the
Society of Old Testament Study, in Birmingham, January 1996. An abbreviated
version has been published in Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield
Department of Biblical Studies (ed. David J.A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1998), pp. 276-91, in Australasian Pentecostal Studies 1 (March
1998), pp. 41-54, and in The Interpretation of the Bible: The International Symposium in Slovenia (ed. Joze Krasovec; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Supplement Series, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).
8. The Pyramid and the Net: The Postmodern Adventure
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1. The Pyramid
The pyramid is an extremely stable structure, one of the hardest of all
structures to overturn. It is a superb image for the edifice of western
intellectual thought, the house of knowledge in which we all live. In
this paper I want to let it stand for scientific knowledge, the Enlightenment project, the spirit of the Modern. Above it sits enthroned Reason,
its guiding principlerepresented by the knowing eye that reigns
above the pyramid on the dollar bill.
The modern period has seen the construction of a pyramid of knowledge, knowledge about science, the physical universe, society, economics and the psyche. We are all richer, all more enlightened, and on
average longer-lived, as a result. No one in their right mind is going to
say it has been a mistake. The only mistake about it has been to imagine that the pyramid project has been the only worthwhile one in existence, that its values are universally subscribed to, that its ideology is
unproblematic.
There are other virtues in pyramids. A pyramid is a co-operative project. No one built a pyramid single-handed, and the end achievements
of the Enlightenment project are not its only triumph: there is also the
way in which the tiny contributions of countless individuals have been
successfully co-opted into an enterprise vastly larger than anyone can
comprehend. This is doubtless how most of us feel about Old Testament studies. None of us may have done anything particularly earthshattering in itself, but we feel that we have all been engaged in a
common enterprise that, collectively, has had a quite considerable success. When we compare the present state of affairs, for example, with
where we were at the beginning of this century, we are perfectly
justified in crowing, Haven't we done well?
The symbolic pyramid is not only collaborative, but also incremental.
Even if sometimes it has seemed that we have had to retrace our steps
in order to make progress, it has been more of a reculer pour mieux
sauter than an admission of defeat. We are always able to tell the story
of Old Testament studies as a progress, a gradual unveiling of mysteries, a cumulation of insights and results. If we can see further than our
ancestors, it is because, we can say modestly, we (pygmies) have been
standing on the shoulders of giants. But we can see further, and deeper,
and, with all due humility, we do want to affirm that we are at a higher
level of understanding than our ancestors.
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The pyramid stands too for unity, coherence, totalization. Everything

has a place, and everything is in its place. There are no excrescences on
pyramids, no blocks left over because they would not fit in, no alternative pyramids that challenge the traditional pyramid. The pyramid is a
theory of absolutely everything, and a very comforting one it is too. A
pyramid has great explanatory power, because it has everything in it.
You can see a long way from the apex of a pyramid, and you feel you
have really mastered your subject if you conceive of it as a pyramid.
2. The Net
The net, like the pyramid in this paper, is not a real net but a symbolic
one, the idea of a net. Let me draw out some of the significances of the
net.
The first is that the net is diverse or multivalent. Unlike the pyramid,
of which it could well be said that when you have seen one you have
seen them all, there is no end to the shapes a net can take, no end to the
purposes for which it can be employed. Usually, you might think, nets
exist to stop things going through: we have safety nets under trapeze
artists and under state-funded universities in the United Kingdom
(another set of high-wire performers), we have tennis court nets to stop
balls going through, and bird netting to stop birds getting at our strawberries.
Here is a sample of the kinds of nets you can buy, those made by the
Carron Net Company in Two Rivers, Wisconsin (I found them when I
went surfing on the Internet for nets):
Sport Nets
Industrial Nets
Volleyball nets
Basketball nets
Tennis nets
Soccer & goal sport nets
Baseball batting cage nets
Backstop & foul ball nets
Golf practice & range nets
Custom made to order nets
Nets to enclose athletic courts
Nets to enclose soccer fields
Stadium, gym and arena nets
Gymnasium divider curtains
Rack guard nets

Truck cover nets
Nets under conveyors
Storage area nets
Decorative nets
Pallet rack nets
Material handling nets
Protective netting
Debris nets
Retail display nets
Stringline
Bird netting
141
Almost all of these nets are impermeable or impenetrable nets. But

think of the net we call a sieve, which is equally designed to stop some
things falling through and to allow other things to fall through. The
Carron Net Company itself manufactures 'retail display nets', presumably nets from which you can easily hang things, without any question
of falling though or not falling through. That is a different symbolism.
And once we begin to think of nets as networks we have yet another
conceptuality. Then the net is a symbol of connectedness, as when we
think of the circulation of the blood being effected through a network
of veins and capillaries, or when we think of the London street system
as a net of intercommunicating thoroughfares or of an airline's route
map as expressing the connectedness of Durham, NC, with, let's say,
Albuquerque, New Mexico. Nets express relationship. The net may,
from one point of view, consist mostly of holes, but if we focus on the
material from which it is made, we form the image of connectedness.
Every point in the net is connected to every other point, whether
directly or indirectly. Node speaks to node. As on the London street
map, every point is always already connected to every other point.
Nets can also be flexible objects, like fishing nets or fishnet tights or
mosquito nets. No one admires pyramids for their flexibility, but you
can use a net to hold your delicate washing or to sling around a car to
lower it into the hold of a ship or to string from tree to tree as a hammock.
Unlike pyramids, which draw the eye to the apex as the central point,
nets generally have no centre. If every square in a net is the same shape
as every other square, then a pebble can fall through one hole in a net as
well as another; if the strength of a net is more or less the same all over
its surface, then a net is not a totalizing symbol, not an icon for the
privileges centres have over peripheries. There is no centre to a net; it is
a symbol of the decentred. And yet that does not mean that it has nothing that could be called a centre; rather that it has many junctures that
can be conceived of as centres. The points at which the ropes twist
about one another, the corners of the holes, are each of them centres,
nodes, points of strength. It is a model of the distribution of power.
The net, then, has many values. It is flexible, relational, decentred,
and multivalent. The pyramid is a superb design if what you are after is
stability, solidity, permanence, hierarchical organization, coherence,
totalization. But it is not so good if you are wanting something that is
flexible, adaptable, relational, open. For that, you need a net.
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The net is, for me, a symbol of the postmodernthe postmodern as a

worldview, and the postmodern as a style in scholarship. The postmodern position is that the world we now live in has more in common
with the net than with the pyramid, that to live in the world requires
adaptability more than coherence, flexible relationships more than
established hierarchies, multivalence more than unitary totalizations.
Clearly, I regard the net and the postmodern as more apropos to our
present position than the pyramid or the modern; but, as throughout this
paper, I do not principally want to set up the net and the pyramid as
oppositional pairs, or to claim that the pyramid has lost its value.
Rather, I want to argue that the relation between the pyramid and the
net, that is, between the modern and the postmodern, is indefeasibly
contestable, and a perpetual source of interesting conflicts. A little later
on, when I am discussing the postmodern as such, I shall return to this
theme.
3. The Internet as Instantiation of the Net
Now the net as a symbol, the net with a lowercase n as I have defined
it, is in no way the same thing as the Net with a capital N, that is, the
Internet, the Information Superhighway. But I do think that the Internet
is a prime illustration of or exemplification of the net as symbol, and
my next endeavour is to elaborate on the net as symbol by exploring the
Net as a manifestation of the net.
When I first delivered this paperin real time, as they sayI began,
not with description, but with praxis. Which means, I took my audience
on a live tour of the Internet, showing them what the Net has become,
and what it could do to them. I showed them some of the resources
available to biblical scholars on the Net. From a lecture theatre in
Birmingham, England, we took a look at the library catalogue of University College, Cardiff, Wales, to see what our guest speaker
(Catherine Belsey) had in her own university library. We visited the
TELA site in Atlanta, Georgia, on the campus of Emory University,
which functions as a nub for a wide range of sources of data interesting
to biblical scholars. We viewed Egyptian artifacts, Akkadian texts,
Dead Sea Scrolls, and even a White House document, a transcript of a
conversation between the President of the United States and the Prime
Minister of Israel. What was a novelty in 1996 to most of the audience
is now too familiar to bear mentioning these days, and I know from
143
experience that websites of 1996 will not necessarily still be in existence today. But the Net itself has not gone away. It impinges upon our
daily lives and our scholarly activity with ever-increasing urgency, and
some reflection on its quiddity are perhaps still in order.
To speak pragmatically first: in 1996 I could say that the Net is the
electronic connection of 25 million computers world-wide, all capable
of communicating with one another. Since computers hold great
amounts of information in very small spacesmy ageing laptop, for
example, holds the equivalent of 500 booksand can communicate
with one another almost instantaneously it is virtually impossible to
conceive of the amount of information available today to the user of the
Net. The number of connections to the Net grows at an enormous pace.
And the traffic on the Net is increasing exponentially. At the end of
1995 I was told, Last Thursday there was more traffic on the Net than
in the whole of 1994.
But what the Net represents, what it stands for, what its symbolic
value is, is to my mind even more interesting than its physical and
electronic reality.
A central feature of the Net is that no one controls it; there is no
governmental or academic control over what information can be provided, there is no censorship or evaluation. Anyone can become an
'information provider', as the term is. That is to say, the issue of validity and legitimation is bypassed, and users take the responsibility for
the quality of the information they acquire. Marginal and sectional
interests can be as easily represented on the Net as can authoritative
governmental documents, and trivia is as easily accessible as fundamental knowledge.
The Net also expresses, very dramatically, the fragmentation of
knowledge. The reality is that in one place in the world the evidence of
seismic movements under Los Angeles is of life and death importance,
so it is LA we visit to find the earthquake record. An entirely different
site has the best collection of Impressionist paintings, so we go to the
Louvre to look at them. Ortsgebundenheit is what it would be called if
the Germans had got to the idea first. No place on earth can contain the
sum of human knowledge, so there is no adequate library anywhere. No
one can know what they will next need to know. But if you know where
you can go to find it, and especially, if you can go there instantly without leaving your chair, there are no limits. But on the way, you are being reminded of fragmentariness, of the absence of a totalizing whole.
144
Yet another aspect of the Net is that it is invisible, yet it is everywhere. In this respect the Net can seem inescapable and sinister, and a
certain type of journalism plays on the fears of the computer illiterate.
Writers are constantly speaking of the Net in this kind of apocalyptic
language. It is a phenomenon that lends itself so easily to interpretation
that there is a perpetual blurring of the Net as thing and the Net as sign.
It is hard to disagree that it is the symbol par excellence of the postmodern.
4. What Is the Postmodern?
And what is the postmodern? The postmodern is the name of the age
that is now dawning. It is not the kingdom of heaven, but neither is it
the dominion of Belial. It is the moment to which the modern has been
tending, the outcome of the Enlightenment project initiated by Renaissance and Reformation. It is the overturning of the values in which we
all have been educated, and yet, in another light, it is nothing but the
self-conscious evaluation and critical assessment of those values. It is
the spirit of the age, yet it is parasitic upon the past. If we are the modernin our formation, our education and our shared quest for truth and
knowledge, then the postmodern is nothing other than ourselves
sceptical about ourselves, ourselves not taking ourselves for granted
which is to say, the modern conscious of itself.
In a word, the postmodern is the quizzical re-evaluation of the standards and assumptions of traditional intellectual enquiry and scholarship. In biblical studies, it is, as Nietzsche would have put it, the reevaluation of all valuesnot so as to negate all values but so as to
expose the partiality and self-deceptions in the values we have come to
take for granted. It is an adventure for us in biblical studies because we
do not know where it will take us. It is an adventure because it is risky.
But it is also an adventure because it is adventitiousthat is, because
the moment is ripe, because it is unavoidable, because it is the next step
in our exploration of what it means to be humans, to be intellectuals,
and to be students of the biblical texts.
145
If there is one thing the postmodern is, it is not one thing.

The postmodern is the modern conscious of itself.
The postmodern is the opposite of the modern.
The postmodern is the natural successor of the modern.
The postmodern includes the modern.
The modern already included the postmodern.
WHAT IS THE POSTMODERN?
I have found especially useful the formulation that the postmodern is

the modern conscious of itself. This is how Zygmunt Baumann puts it:
Postmodernity is no more (but no less either) than the modern mind
taking a long, attentive and sober look at itself, at its conditions and its
past works, not fully liking what it sees and sensing the urge to change.
Postmodernity is modernity coming of age: modernity looking at itself at
a distance rather than from inside, making a full inventory of its gains
and losses, psychoanalysing itself, discovering the intentions it never
before spelled out, finding them mutually canceling and incongruous.
Postmodernity is modernity coming to terms with its own impossibility:
a self-monitoring modernity, one that consciously discards what it was
once unconsciously doing.1
Another index of the postmodern has been framed by Robert Fowler:

reading and interpretation is always interested, never disinterested;
always significantly subjective, never completely objective; always
committed and therefore always political, never uncommitted and apolitical; always historically-bound, never ahistorical. The modernist dream
of disinterested, objective, distanced, abstract truth is fading rapidly.2
To some observers, the most striking thing is the strong disjunction

between the modern and the postmodern. In some ways it seems like a
negation of the modern. Take the postmodern turn in physics for example:
1. Zygmunt Baumann, Modernity and Ambivalence (Ithaca: Cornell University

Press, 1991), p. 272.
2. Robert Fowler, 'Post-Modern Biblical Criticism: The Criticism of PreModern Texts in a Post-Critical, Post-Modern, Post-Literate Era', Forum 5 (1989),
pp. 3-30.
146

In the New Physics there are...
no solids
no continuous surfaces
no straight lines
no things
only waves
only energy events
only behaviours
only relationships
(Ihab Hassan)
IN THE NEW PHYSICS...
That is to say, with the postmodern, 'common sense' is subverted, our

traditional, inherited, even 'scientific' world-view is called into question. Or, to turn from physics to philosophy, take the way our conception of the human subject has changed. In the postmodern age, we are
not the people were once were, not the autonomous individuals, Cartesian knowing subjects. In a postmodern perspective we are constituted
by so many structures, our subject positions are so complex, that the
old notion of human subjectivity seems to have changed for good.
On the other hand, some observers want to stress the lines of continuity between the modern and the postmodern, emphasizing that the
project of modernity is not sabotaged, not even threatened, by postmodernity. Somehow we need to accommodate in our vision of the
postmodern both change and continuity, both disruption and reaffirmation.
5. The Postmodern and Biblical Studies
If that is the postmodern, where stands biblical criticism? I should like
in what follows to sketch a postmodern style for several areas of biblical studies: text criticism, theology, lexicography, history, exegesis,
pedagogy, epistemology.
a. Postmodern Text Criticism
The quest for a definitive text
The notion of manuscripts as copies,
versus manuscripts as texts
THE POSTMODERN DECONSTRUCTS ORIGINAL/COPY
147
I begin with the case of text criticism. In its classic formulation, the
task of textual criticism has been a quintessential project of modernity:
its aim has been to reconstruct the authentic original text, starting from
the secondary, derivative, defective manuscripts that actually exist.
This is an honourable and often very successful undertaking, but it is
'modern' in its quest for a determinate and definitive text. To this
undertaking a postmodern approach addresses two questions:
1. Was there ever, in fact, a definitive original text? Take an early
modern text like Shakespeare, for example, and we find that the quest
for an author's original can be an utter chimaera, especially if the
author has been personally involved in the process of copying and
transmitting the text. What is the original text that we hope to reconstruct by means of textual criticism? Is it the text the playwright wrote
or the text that the amanuensis wrote or the fair copy or first printed
proof that the author corrected, or the last edition that the author authorized? There is no one correct answer. There is no one definitive text.
Once upon a time, textual criticism was a simple matter of cleansing
the text from the corruptions it has acquired over the ages, and restoring
the original to its pristine purity. But those very termspurity, cleansing, corruptionare terms that show how value-laden the enterprise
was, how fixated upon a notion of an original, a determinate text it was.
The postmodern turn in textual criticism is the modern becoming conscious of itself.
2. The second postmodern question in textual criticism is that of the
significance of the manuscripts, and their texts, that are not the original
textwhich means, in biblical textual criticism, of all the manuscripts
that now exist and all the texts they contain. The old textual criticism
was devoted to marginalizingand ultimately to ignoringall its
actual evidence, which is to say, all the existing manuscripts, in favour
of and in the quest for the presumed but never glimpsed original. A
postmodern textual criticism invites us to a new adventure with
manuscripts, to consider the extant manuscripts and their texts in and of
themselvesfor what they witness to, whether the conditions of their
own production or the purposes for which they were produced. In a
word, an interest in originals is a modern interest; an interest in copies
is a postmodern interest. Or rather, it is a postmodern perception that
the distinction between original and copy is problematic and one that
needs wrestling with and not taking for granted.3
3.
See Jerome J. McGann, A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism (Charlottes-
148
b. Postmodern Biblical Theology

a decentred theology
a comparative theology
THE POSTMODERN REFUSES TOTALIZATION
A classic modern concern in Old Testament theology (I speak now only

of the Old Testament) has been the quest for the theological 'centre'
(Mitte) of the Old Testament. This quest self-evidently belongs to a
totalizing perspective on the Old Testament. The Old Testament must
be about something, so the argument runs. It must be about one thing,
about one thing principally if not exclusively. So, what is that thing?
Perhaps it is covenant, perhaps tradition, perhaps history, perhaps even
God, but, to be sure, one central idea.
Now the postmodern project does not pour scorn on such projects,
but it wants to lay bare what the projects are. The modern self-conscious of itself, that is to say, the postmodern, must ask, Why should
we suppose that the Old Testament has a centre at all, or at least one
centre rather than several centres, that it itself is more like a pyramid
than a net? Why not suppose that the Old Testament is not a unity, that
each writing in the Old Testament speaks in its own voice, whether
explicitly or implicitly in dissent from or contradiction to the other
writings? Why not imagine a theology of the Old Testament that does
not attempt to describe what the various writings have in common
which might amount to no more than their lowest common denominatorbut rather focuses on what it is that keeps them apartwhat it is,
that is, that constitutes them as separate writings, why it is that they
should all need to exist?
A postmodern theology of the Old Testament would be a decentring
theology. It would not give primacy to history, to salvation history, to
traditions, to wisdom, or to a single theological concept, but would
endeavour to locate various centres of theological power, different key
theological concepts that are partly in conflict, partly under negotiation,
within the Old Testament. A postmodern theology of the Old Testament would be an adventure in framing a comparative 'theology' of the
Old Testament. You might conceive of a postmodern Old Testament
ville: University Press of Virginia, 1992 [Chicago: University of Chicago Press
orig. edn, 1983]), with Foreword by D.C. Greetham, from which some phrases in
my exposition have been borrowed (especially from pp. x-xiii).
149
theology as a conversation among differing, sometimes conflicting,

points of view. This is in fact how I structure the course I have given
for some years on Old Testament theology, with each writing that we
examine being laid alongside each other writing in order to bring out
their distinctive voices. A typical examination question for that course
is, 'Compare and contrast Genesis and Proverbs'; and that, I think, is in
the spirit of a postmodern Old Testament theology (and it is certainly
different from the question, Compare and contrast Eichrodt and von
Rad).
c. Postmodern Old Testament Lexicography
the social function of dictionaries
the problem of polysemy
the problem of homonymy
IN A POSTMODERN AGE,
EVEN THE DICTIONARY IS INDETERMINATE
It is hard to think of anything more determinateand thus more

'modern'than a dictionary. Dictionaries tell us what is a word and
what is not a word, and they tell us what words mean. They are the
court of appeal in any dispute about the meaning of a word. When you
are having an argument over the proper meaning of 'aftermath' or
'decimate' or 'refute', the dictionary will confirm that you are right and
the rest of your family is wrong. That is the common sense view of
dictionaries, and it is not at all false, because dictionaries are indeed
used in that way, they perform such social functions.
But a common sense view does not tell us what dictionaries should
be, or what they must be and what they cannot help being in a postmodern world, given the nature of language. It is not that the rules
about dictionaries have changed now that the postmodern has dawned;
it is rather that the postmodern questions about determinacy and
authority have shown up dictionaries for what they always were. They
were always, first and foremost, commodities, manufactured to be sold
in the market place, and so more akin to toasters and CD-players than
to judges or schoolmasters. Any publisher who has a mind to it can
publish a dictionary, and their dictionary will have no more authority
than its public gives it. Dictionaries are ideological texts, like other
texts, and they perform certain services for social cohesion and conformity; they are essentially conservative. A postmodern dictionary-
150
maker, on the other hand, that is to say, one who is conscious of the
social functions of dictionaries, may decide to subvert some of these
functions, and show how the security that traditional dictionaries
inspire depends on their suppression of the uncertainty and the conflict
that surrounds lexicography.
I mean, for example: typically, a modern dictionary will tell us that a
given word is capable of, let's say, three senses. In the entry, that looks
neat and tidy. The senses are labelled and numbered; they are distinguished from one another with all the care of the lexicographer's art.
The article is complete and categorical. The reader experiences the
sense of security that comes from a totalizing event. But the reality of
language is not like that. In natural language, words do not come
labelled and numbered, and the multiplicity of senses puts the speaker
and hearer and reader constantly on the qui vive, into a process of perpetual decision-making that is ameliorated only by the routinization of
most daily communications.
Things are even worse in Hebrew lexicographyI mean, more indeterminate than anyone is letting on. For not only do we have the usual
problems of polysemy that we encounter in all languagesof a single
word being used in more than one sense; we also have in classical Hebrew an extreme situation of homonymyof words that look alike being actually different words. To get the measure of the problem, recall
that in the vocabulary of classical Hebrew there are about 10,000
words. It is an open secret that in about 1500 cases there are well-recognized homonyms, like g'l I 'defile' and g'l II 'redeem'. What no one
has done is to count the number of 'new' homonyms that have been
proposed in the present century. By my reckoning it is about 3000.
Now of course not all these proposals are very probable; perhaps few of
them arethough it must be said that most of them have been published in respectable academic journals like the Journal of Theological
Studies and Vetus Testamentum and Biblica and other peer-reviewed
publications. Not a few of them cancel one another out and are mutually exclusive. Nonetheless, adding together the long-recognized and
the relatively new proposals, we find that almost half the Hebrew
vocabulary is potentially indeterminate. That means, concretely, that
the reader of a biblical Hebrew sentence who has been using a postmodern Hebrew dictionary must pause, however momentarily, at every
other word to be sure that it is the word he or she first thought it was. It
is not quite as bad as that in practice, for experience has taught us to
151
believe that when we read wydbr followed by a person's name it is

going to mean, 'and X spoke'. But our experience will sometimes lead
us astray, since sometimes, perhaps, dbr will not mean 'speak' but
'drive out', 'destroy', 'have descendants' or whatever.
The issue is, of course, the issue between the modern and the postmodern. It is whether texts are determinate or not. It is not whether we
can manage in general with the language, whether we will be able to
offer exegeses that will be pronounced 'convincing' by people who
have been educated according to the same norms as ourselves, whether
we will be able to engineer enough of a consensus to make a translation
of the Bible. It is rather whether we can say with our hands on our
hearts that the text has this meaning and this meaning only. The modern
aims at doing just that; the postmodern knows it cannot be done.
d. Postmodern Israelite History
there is no history, only historiography
history is an amorphous body of texts
history is not the background to literature
distinction between history A literature collapses
humans are not autonomous causes of history
but constructs of social A historical circumstances
so too the historian, a product of subjectification
HISTORY IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS, IT IS WHAT IS REMEMBERED
The key move in a postmodern view of history is to collapse the distinction between history and historiography. 'Instead of a body of
indisputable, retrievable facts, history becomes textualized; that is, it
becomes a group of linguistic traces that can be recalled, but which are
always mediated through the historian/interpreter.'4 There is no history,
or at least no history accessible to us, that is not already history-writing.
And every attempt at a history of Israel, for example, is the creation of
a literary text. The history of Israel is not the background to the literature of the Old Testament, but the name for a type of literature of our
own time.
In the new historicism, which is the term for a postmodern history, it
has become crucial to recognize that historians are themselves part of
4. Joseph Childers and Gary Hentzi (eds.), The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995),
p. 207 (s.v. 'New Historicism', pp. 206-209).
152
history, as much the subject of history as the events of the past. Historians are the product of a complex process of subjectification of their
own; that is, they have been constructed by their own social and historical formation. They are not objective observers standing outside the
framework of some external reality they are trying to describe, but
interested parties with some personal or institutional ideological
investment in the business of reconstructing the past.
All this is so counter to the classical Enlightenment project of
'discovering' the past 'as it actually was', even in its more refined
modern forms such as social history, that at this point the postmodern
seems more like a replacement of the modern than its natural successor.
e. Postmodern Biblical Exegesis
What is exegesis for?
What are we to do with texts
apart from understanding them?
THE POSTMODERN TURN: FROM HERMENEUTICS TO ETHICS
Exegesis is one of the triumphs of modernity. Explication de texte is

one of the projects of autonomous Enlightenment rationality. The premodern view of texts saw them as functionalobjects, whether for
polemic or the discovery of truth, whether they were the speeches of
Cicero or Augustine's City of God. Over against that view, the modern
view of texts has been of objects that are there to be understood. So we
have devoted ourselves, as commentators in the modern period, to
patient and probing reconstruction of what the author's intention is
likely to have been, what the audience's reaction can have beenor
what, in a more recent rewriting of the modern project, the texts themselves, shorn of their historical roots, presumed or known, are capable
of meaning.
No one doubts the value and the importance of exegesis, of wrestling
with texts, of striving to understand them. But there is more to be done
with texts than understand them, and there is more that texts do than
offer themselves for interpretation. Beside the modern project of exegesis there is coming into being a corresponding, or, supplanting, project,
which asks, What is exegesis/or?, and, as well, What are we to do with
texts, apart from understand them?
If the modern is interested in what texts say, the postmodern is inter-
153
ested in what texts do not say. It is their silences, their repressions, their
unexpressed interests, the social, religious and political ambitions that
they screen from us, that we are concerned with in a postmodern age.
We do not discount the project of exegesis; we might even sometimes,
though not on principle, regard it as foundational. But it is the point of
departure for more grown up questions about texts, for questions that
go beyond mere meaning. The trouble with meaning as the goal for the
study of texts is that it restricts the scholar to recapitulating the message
of the text. You do not find scholars of a 'modern' persuasion saying,
This is what my text means, and personally I do not believe a word if it.
Mostly they think their job is done when they have said again, in their
own words, what their text has already said. But in my opinion, any
scholar who has ambitions of being a real human being cannot let it go
at that, but has to involve herself or himself with the text, and not take
refuge in critical distance (however necessary critical distance might be
as a heuristic device). At the very least, the critic in a postmodern age
will need to be asking, What does this text do to me if I read it? What
ethical responsibility do I carry if I go on helping this text to stay alive?
f. A Postmodern Pedagogy
1.
... to teach students

not the Bible
2.
... to teach them nothing

they can forget
A POSTMODERN LECTURE IS AN IMPOSSIBILITY

THIS IS NOT A POSTMODERN LECTURE
A postmodern age also calls for a postmodern pedagogy. About this I

can speak only in autobiography. I have not read anything at all on this
subject, but I can tell you of four 'revelatory' moments in my experience as a teacher that I would like to believe were the inrushing of the
postmodern.
The first was in Salamanca in 1983 when I visited the classroom of
Fray Luis de Leon, where he delivered his lectures on the Song of
Songs, resuming them after four years in prison at the hands of the
Inquisition with the immortal words, 'As I was saying yesterday'. It
was a very romantic moment, but the deepest impression his classroom
made on me was that it waswith the exception of the hideously
154
uncomfortable benchesall too reminiscent of my own, four centuries

on, with the teacher at his lectern and the students in uniform serried
rows. I began to worry. The second was when I was external examiner
for (may I call it?) a distinguished mediaeval university, and discovered
that all the questions in the examination paper on Old Testament Theology were of the form, Discuss von Rad's concept of Heilsgeschichte
with special reference to the criticisms of Eichrodt. No knowledge of
the Old Testament itself was called for in any question. I worried some
more about what this subject Old Testament studies was that I was
professingwhether it was the study of the actual Old Testament in
any way or whether it was the study of some Old Testament scholars
and their books. The third moment was when I awoke one morning
from a dream of the classroom and announced to myself, From today I
shall abandon teaching the Old Testament and begin teaching my
students.
From then on I stopped worrying. I knew what I had to do. My duty
was no longer to the subjectto represent it fairly, to be entirely up to
date, to pass on the tradition, to fill my students' heads with the latest
and most brilliant scholarship. My duty was to ensure that each of my
students advanced from the place where they were in Old Testament
studies to the place they were capable of achieving. I had to discover
what they knew and what they didn'tand I was amazed, after half a
career as a university teacher, not how ignorant they were, but how
ignorant I was, of them.
I am calling this a postmodern discovery. It is the recognition of the
social location of the student as interpreter of the texts. What divides
my students from one another, what makes them individuals and not a
classroom of undifferentiated 'students' is especially: gender, age, and
religious beliefs. The Old Testament as subject matter touches each one
of them differently, so I cannot lecture to them, I cannot tell them anything they all need to know at one and the same point in time. It is the
class, collectively or individually, and its relation to the Old Testament,
that is the focusand not the Old Testament as an object from which
all are equally equidistant.
Oh, the fourth moment in my pedagogical conversion out of
modernity was the vow, quite a recent one, I have to confess: To teach
my students nothing they can forget. It was not always so. I have in my
files lectures they did well to forget, lectures on things that never
existed, that were nothing more substantial than the fashion of the day,
155
lectures on the amphictyonic system, on the Solomonic Enlightenment,

on the theology of the Elohist, on Solomon's stables at Megiddo, on the
New Year festival. I have many more lectures in my files that I still
believe in, and which were dutifully delivered to generations of studentsbut which have all been forgotten, or almost so. I found I could
not go on simply being rueful about that fact. Thinking of my mortality,
I pondered on the significance of a life spent telling people things they
have subsequently forgotten. There was more satisfaction to be had,
more added value, perhaps even more intrinsic worth, I came to think,
in teaching students things they could not forget. I remembered teaching my children to ride a bicycle, to make bread, to use a computer
skills they could never forget. And vowed I would henceforth make
that my goal in teaching undergraduates. So in my class on the Psalms
they learn how to read a psalm for themselves, how to identify the
speaking voice, how to recognize its strophic structure, how to critique
a psalm theologically, even how to write a psalm of their own. But not
a word about Gunkel or Mowinckel or Kraus.
Is this postmodern?, you are asking. What I am preaching in my pedagogy is the fragmentariness of knowledge, the impossibility of organizing knowledge into a coherent whole, the non-existence of a proper
starting point, the questionability of every authority, the inconclusiveness of academic research, the inappropriateness of the terms 'right'
and 'wrong' for most of the questions we entertain in our academic
work. And that is postmodern.
g. A Postmodern Epistemology
This brings us finally to an issue that overarches all the others, one that
has to be raised, but one where, I must admit, I am very soon out of my
depth. It is the question of epistemology, of what understanding is, and
of how in the postmodern world, as never before, that question has
become a question of ethics. In the most simplistic sentences I am
capable of, I have constructed the difference between the modern and
the postmodern on this issue in these terms:
The Modern asks...
What is knowledge? How do I kno
The Postmodern asks...
Why knowledge? What is its value?
THE POSTMODERN IS THE MODERN CONSCIOUS OF ITSELF
156
Once we ask the question we have never before been obliged to ask
Why are we doing all this? What is the function of our scholarship? To
what end is it, and whose interests does it serve?we are in the realm
of the ethical. The most insistent epistemological question of our day is
not How do I know?, but Why should I know? The question was
always there, and it was always a political question and an ethical
question. But it was never on the agenda, and we just got on with our
form criticism or our rhetorical criticism, and thought it was none of
our business to reason why. In a postmodern age we realize that it is
everyone's business to be able to give an account of the faith (read:
values) that is in them, and to ignore the question of interests and the
ethical is itself a moral fault.
In her justly esteemed presidential address to the Society of Biblical
Literature in 1987, Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza put it like this:
If scriptural texts have served not only noble causes but also to legitimate war, to nurture anti-Judaism and misogynism, to justify the
exploitation of slavery, and to promote colonial dehumanization... then
the responsibility of the biblical scholar cannot be restricted to giving the
readers of our time clear access to the original intentions of the biblical
writers. It must also include the elucidation of the ethical consequences
and political functions of biblical texts in their historical as well as in
their contemporary sociopolitical contexts.5
I entirely agree, though I put it in my language of a turn from interpretation to critique, from understanding to evaluation, from hermeneutics
to ethics. If there is one place that biblical studies needs to move to in
the coming century, it isas I see itfrom the essentially antiquarian
question of original meaning to questions of our own existence, to the
question of the effects of the texts we are so devotedly preserving, to
the question of our complicity with their unlovelinesses as well as with
their values, to the question of the ethics of biblical scholars like ourselves taking money from the state or the church for doing biblical
scholarship.
6. Conclusion
In this paper I have been trying to think aloud strategically about biblical studies in the coming century. In my view, it will be the end of bib5. Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza, 'The Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: Decentering Biblical Scholarship', JBL 107 (1988), pp. 3-17 (15).
157
lical studies as an intellectual discipline if we do not interact with the

intellectual currents of thought of our time, and if we pretend that going
on doing the same things as we have for a century or more, with
refinements and improvements, is addressing our contemporary cultural
and intellectual situation in the slightest. If we dismiss postmodernism
as a fashion, a fetish, an aberration, we doom our own subject to
extinction. We do not have to agree that postmodernism is a good
thing, or even that it exists (whatever that might mean), but we do have
to take it seriously (whatever that might mean).
I do not mean to sayand I have been trying to emphasize this point
throughoutthat I believe that the postmodern simply supplants the
modern, rendering it obsolete, or that all we have been doing in biblical
scholarship in the past century is a waste of time, and that nothing like
it should ever be done in the future. I have been saying that modernism
and postmodernism are not to be set up as an oppositional pairor, if
they are, only as part of a wider argument in which they are also shown
to interpenetrate one another, implying one another at the same time as
they exclude one another.
Nor am I wishing to say that everyone in biblical studies should be
doing the same things, and all equally devoted to the cause of postmodernism. Of course, I myself can hardly believe that anyone given
the chance of 'understanding' postmodernism (whatever that might
mean) would turn their backs on it, and carry on with the same kind of
scholarship that they practised in another, earlier world. But also of
course I know that that will happen, and I am reconciled to acknowledging the good faith and scholarly excellence of work that recks nothing of the postmodern. But if we all do that, or even if most of us do it,
we are all doomedwe, our subject and our jobs. It is perfectly all
right if some biblical scholars never learn to use word processors, but if
none ever did, or if the word got around that in biblical circles it was
thought trendy and merely fashionable to use word processors, there
would be something seriously wrong with the discipline. It is the same
with the postmodern. The postmodern is an adventure for biblical
studiesan adventure it will be more perilous to refuse than to embark
upon.
9
FROM SALAMANCA TO CRACOW:
WHAT HAS (AND HAS NOT) HAPPENED
AT SBL INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS
As we slide toward the end of the millennium, the telos ton aionon, we
encounter the millennial bug. It is not only a hazard for everyone's
computer; it is also a fin de siecle virus that urges harmless lexicographical drudges like myself to grand reflections on the meaning of
scholarly life as we have known it and to assessments of where we have
all been going all these yearsas well as to Salamanca and Cracow and
numerous intervening places. Having written a few months ago my
survey of the history of my Department of Biblical Studies over the last
50 years,1 I was evidently in the mood for this kind of work. The International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), now that
it has 15 years behind it, is surely ripe for assessment and review, not
least because it serves both as a thermometer (identifying what are the
hottest topics among biblical scholars) and as a barometer (giving
warning of what weather we may expect).
When I proposed What Has (And Has Not) Happened at SBL International Meetings as a paper for this Cracow congress, I had nothing
more pretentious in mind than a 20-minute paper jostling for a hearing
among real works of scholarship. But Kent Richards, ever the impresario, saw the potential in this paper for an address that could perhaps
appeal to a wider audience than those sated with redaction criticism
some sleepy afternoon, an address that might even provoke a little discussion, if not controversyso here I am.
This paper was the address to the opening Convocation of the International Meeting
of the Society of Biblical Literature in Cracow, Poland, in July 1998.
1. David J.A. Clines, The Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies: An Intellectual Biography', in Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of
Biblical Studies (ed. David J.A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore; Journal for the
Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, 269; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1998), pp. 14-89.
9. From Salamanca to Cracow: SBL International Meetings
159
I began by gathering all the data I could find about the 1666 papers
from International Meetings of the Society, incorporating at the last
minute the data for the Meeting at which this paper was to be read. I
built a database, in my favourite database program, Helix Express 4.0,
of all the people who have read a paper, the name of their institution,
the country they were from, the title of their paper and the language in
which it was given.
I should say at the beginning that I decided to believe what was
printed in the programme books rather than what I knew had actually
happened at meetings. Sometimes I had noted in my programmes when
an advertised paper had not been given, or another had been substituted,
but often I had not, and I thought it would be more systematic if I
simply reported what I found in textual form. In so doing, I was delighted to find, for example, a withdrawn paper of my own that I had
forgotten all about. Not only had it not been given, it had not even been
written. Looking back on the abstract, I decided it must have been the
best paper I had never written.
And finally, to begin with, let me say that I do not for a moment
think that all that has been happening at SBL International Meetings
has happened in the lecture room. What has happened in corridors and
bars and restaurants and bedrooms might even be more important than
the papers we have given and heard. But it is the papers that are in the
record, and it is all you will hear of here.
1. What Has Been Happening
a. The Meetings
For the sake of the record, here is a list of the SBL International Meetings (with the countries in which they have taken place, labelled
according to the international system for car numberplates):
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
Salamanca
Strasbourg
Amsterdam
Jerusalem
Heidelberg
Sheffield
Copenhagen
Vienna
Rome
Melbourne
E
F
NL
IL
D
GB
OK
A
I
AUS
160

1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
Miinster
Leuven
Budapest
Dublin
Lausanne
Cracow
D
B
H
IRL
CH
PL
There have been 16 in all. But what has been happening, and what can
we discover about biblical studies generally in these last 16 years from
the events of these congresses? Let us look first at the development of
the meetings themselves. Each numbered heading below, centred and in
small capitals, refers to a chart located at the end of this paper:
1. NUMBER OF PAPERS AT EACH MEETING

Something significant happened in 1990. Up to then there had not been
more than 80 papers at any meeting, but from Vienna in 1990 onward
there were never fewer than 120, and some meetings had up to 180.
Was the dramatic increase anything to do with the fall of the Berlin
Wall and the opening up of Eastern Europe? It was not that the meetings were suddenly inundated by participants from Eastern Europe, but
perhaps many of us felt that Europe had become a more interesting and
multicultural place than we had previously experienced. Perhaps the
development of the European Community had an effect even on biblical scholars.
b. The Paper Readers
Who have these people been who have been reading at the SBL International Meetings? I analysed first their gender, and discovered that
16% of those reading papers have been womenwhich means to say,
of course, that there have been more than five times as many men as
women. I suspect that the figure of 16% is similar to that of the number
of women in the profession as biblical scholars. It is comparable to the
figures in the membership of the SBL as a whole, and I happen to know
that it is roughly the proportion of women members of the (British)
Society for the Study of the Old Testament. In the case of the SBL
International Meetings, since one has the impression that most papers
offered are accepted, we can be pretty sure that women scholars find no
hindrance in appearing on the programmethough there have no doubt
been over many years numerous social and cultural hindrances that
have restricted the presence of women to a mere 16% of participants.
161
2. PARTICIPATION OF MALE AND FEMALE SCHOLARS, BY YEAR

The numbers of women reading papers has clearly increased significantly over the years, as this chart shows; when we look at their participation as a percentage of the total number of papers read over the years,
3. WOMEN SCHOLARS AS PARTICIPANTS (PERCENTAGE)

we find a marked trend. From the 8% at the Strasbourg meeting in 1984
to the record-breaking figure of 23.5% at the meeting in Cracow in
1998. the proportion of women speakers has risen sharply. There has to
be some significance in the fact that the lowest percentages of women,
after Strasbourg, have been at Heidelberg, Vienna, Miinster and
Leuvenbut I shall leave it to someone other than myself to suggest
what these locations have in common!
An encouraging statistic is offered by looking at the number of new
paper readers who have read in recent years. I selected just four meetings, at Leuven, Budapest, Lausanne and Cracow, to see how many of
those reading had never read before at a SBL International Meeting.
4. PARTICIPATION BY NEW AND FORMER PARTICIPANTS

It is surely a healthy sign when nearly half of those reading are new to
the experience of the SBL International Meeting.
And where do these paper readers come from? Some people outside
the SBL are under the misapprehension that the SBL International
Meetings are a largely US operation, and a prevailing myth is that the
International Meeting was only invented by the SBL to enable Americans to enjoy a summer holiday in Europe at the expense of their institutions. This is plainly an area where we need to see the facts:
5. PAPER READERS, BY COUNTRY

The SBL International Meetings by this reckoning are truly international gatherings, with over 40% of participants coming from Europe,
35% from the USA, and about a quarter from the rest of the world. The
4% from Eastern Europe is already a noticeable segment (roughly
equivalent to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland together), considering how recently the possibility of travel for members from that
region has opened up. The comparatively large percentage of 5% from
Australasia is accounted for by the meeting in Melbourne in 1992,
where 68 Australasian members read papers.
162
To see how the proportion of members from different countries has

changed over the years, we should look at
6. PAPER READERS BY COUNTRY GROUP

Here we see, for each meeting, three overlapping columns showing the
percentage of paper readers from Europe, the USA and the rest of the
world. It is true that in the early years the proportion of US participants
was higher, at 60% and more in Jerusalem in 1986 and Heidelberg in
1987. But since then the proportion of US readers has shrunk to a third
or less of all participants, and at nine meetings in the last decade there
have been more Europeans than Americans (even excluding Israel from
Europe, as I have done for these statistics, though I have the promoters
of the Eurovision Song Contest against me on this issue). In case you
would like to see the details, there are two tables of readers and their
countries here:
7. PAPER READERS BY COUNTRY AND YEAR

8. PAPER READERS BY COUNTRY AND YEAR (PERCENTAGES)
These figures put paid to the myth about American domination of the
meetings, and in my view it is only natural that in a truly international
gathering there should be a quite high representation from the USA. To
tell the truth, though, and dearly though I love Americans, I would be
happier still if the participation rate of US members fell to about 20%
or 25%though not through the attendance of fewer people from the
USA but through the participation of more from Europe and elsewhere.
In that way, we would enjoy the experience of a yet wider range of
ideas and personalities than we have had so far from the 51 countries
represented at the SBL International Meetings:
9. COUNTRIES OF PAPER READERS

In our field, a continuing sign of internationalization is the presence
of languages other than English on the programme. A chart shows the
languages in which papers have been read:
10. LANGUAGES OF PAPERS

It is a mixed blessing, frankly, in thaton the one handwe all want
the national identity of participants to be preserved and believe that
members should be free to read papers in their own language, buton
the other handwe know that the presence of languages other than
English is something of a hindrance to communication, even among
163
scholars, and even among scholars who read one another's language
happily but cannot hear or write with the same facility. Still, an increase in the numbers of papers in languages other than English would
be welcome, I dare say. Perhaps one could even suggest a compromise,
in which a scholar reading in German, for example, would from time to
time give a key sentence in English so as to encourage hearers less
proficient in German to attend, knowing that they would not become
hopelessly lost. In return, or revenge, English-speaking scholars might
offer topic sentences or summaries in another language?
I wondered whether languages in which papers had been read had
changed much over the years, and so prepared this chart:
11. LANGUAGE OF PAPERS, BY YEAR

But the only deduction I can make from it is that, unsurprisingly, there
were more papers in German at Miinster and more in French at Lausanne than anywhere else. I would not have guessed, nonetheless, that
there were so many not in English: nearly half as many in German as in
English at Miinster and a quarter as many in French as in English at
Lausanne.
c. The Fields of Biblical Studies
My next undertaking was to investigate the content of the papers that
have been read over the years at the SBL International Meetings. I categorized each of the papers by field.
12. FIELDS
As you see, I divided the whole of biblical studies into five areas: the
two Testaments, the Intertestamental and the Post-Biblical, and the
Bible generally. I was not very surprised to see that there had been 50%
more papers on the Old Testament than on the New Testament, for that
was my impression from attendance at many meetings. But I still cannot explain why that should be so. I know that the Old Testament is
twice as long as the New Testament, but surely there must be many
more scholars working in New Testament? Where are they? Why are
they not at International Meetings of the SBL? It cannot be the existence of the SNTS, since, I would suppose, there are rather more New
Testament scholars who are not members of that distinguished body
than there are members. If SNTS has kept Neutestamentler away from
SBL each year, would you not have expected IOSOT to have kept
Alttestamentler away in the years it was meeting?
164
13. OLD TESTAMENT / NEW TESTAMENT, BY YEARS

Perhaps it has. Look at the proportion of Old Testament to New Testament papers in the years when the IOSOT was meeting, in 1998 and
1995 and 1992 and 1989 and 1986. 1998, 1995 and 1992 were the only
three years when there have been more New Testament than Old Testament papers at the International SBL. But the difference is marginal,
and it did not seem to affect things in 1989. 1986 was different again,
since both the SBL and the IOSOT were in Jerusalem; and in 1983 both
congresses were in Salamanca.
In the absence of external explanations for the under-representation
of New Testament scholars, we are driven (are we not?) to seek internal, psychological explanations. I have some of my own, but I am a little shy of psychoanalysing colleagues in public, even if they are working in the wrong Testament. I look forward to hearing the views of
others on the matter.
There is one significant result in this chart. It is that the proportion of
New Testament papers has been increasing in recent years, and at three
meetings in this decade (Melbourne, 1992, Budapest, 1995 and Cracow, 1998) there were even more New Testament than Old Testament
papers. For myself, I can only welcome the greater participation of
New Testament scholars.
If we look now at the focus of interest in the two Testaments, the
results are quite interesting:
14. OLD TESTAMENT, BY AREA

Of the four main sections of the Hebrew Bible, Pentateuch had 19% of
the Old Testament papers devoted to specific books, (Latter) Prophets
had 15%, and Writings had 20%, while the Historical Books (Former
Prophets) had only 10%. Another way of representing the comparative
degree of interest in the various parts of the Hebrew Bible is shown in
this chart:
15. NUMBER OFOT PAPERS / LENGTH OF TEXT

Here I have compared the number of papers given with the size of each
section of the Hebrew Bible, and have found that while three sections
of the Hebrew Bible have received more than their fair share of attention the Historical Books have received only about half of what we
might have expected. There is plainly a great opportunity here for
young scholars searching for an uncrowded field to work in.
165
Among the Old Testament books, the surprise comes in the number
of papers devoted to Genesis:
16. TOP OLD TESTAMENT BOOKS

What that chart shows is that over the years at SBL International
Meetings, nearly 100 papers (which is to say, one paper in 17, or nearly
one in eight of papers on the Old Testament), have been devoted to the
Book of Genesis! No other book of the Bible has had half that amount
of attention (except for Psalms, which has had a little more than half).
Now that is a fact deserving an explanation.
As for the New Testament, when we look at the distribution of
papers,
17. NEW TESTAMENT, BY AREA

it is quite predictable that the Gospels should have the lion's share, with
41% of the papers, and that Paul should be in second place, with 20%.
Comparing now the number of papers with the length of each portion
of the Greek New Testament,
18. NUMBER OF NT PAPERS / LENGTH OF TEXT
it is evident that while the Gospels and Acts have had their due share of
attention, Acts and the non-Pauline epistles have certainly notwhich
may serve as an impulse for New Testament scholars looking for a new
project.
Finally on the New Testament, let's look at how some of the key
books fared:
19. TOP NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS

I would not have guessed that there had been fewer papers on Romans
than on Revelation, and, seeing this chart, if I were a Gospels scholar, I
would very rapidly develop an interest in working more on Matthew, I
feel sure.
These global figures can hide quite a lot of variation from year to
year, of course, as this sample chart showing how prominent papers on
the Gospels have been:
20. GOSPELS AS PERCENTAGE OF ALL PAPERS

As you can see from this chart, in some years, papers on the Gospels
have been as many as one in five of all papers; other years, as few as
one in ten.
166
d. The Methods of Biblical Studies

My final task was to analyse the papers read according to their
methodand this, as you will quickly observe, took me out of the
realm of facts into a much more subjective area. It had not been too difficult to decide whether a paper was about Genesis or John, or about the
Pentateuch or the Gospels, but to decide which methodwhich one
methodit was using (and remember, I had abstracts for fewer than
half of the papers), that was a different matter. However, I decided that
if a thing is worth doing it is worth doing badly (as G.K. Chesterton
would say)rather than not at all, and if my analysis stands in need of
further refinement it is someone else who can do that for me, please.
21. METHODS
Everything here depends on how I have characterized the papers, and I
know that others would have done things differently. What surprised
me as I concluded my analysis were two things: (1) how dominant the
historical-critical methods continue to be (54% of the papers read),
ranging from text criticism to sociological study, and (2) how many
papers fall into the category of hermeneutics (12%), that is, either discussing interpretational theory or else deliberately reading the biblical
text from a perspective other than its own. Some people are saying that
we are all literary critics these days (in the newer and not the Literarkritik sense, that is), and it is probably correct that literary perspectives
have influenced, even influenced strongly, many of the papers I have
typified as historical-critical; yet only 22% could be called principally
literary in orientation. In the same way, theological dimensions enter
into many exegetical papers, which also I have classified as literarycritical, so the 13% for theological papers may be a little misleading.
But you will sympathize with me, I hope, for counting as theological a
paper entitled The Role of Apocalyptic in Paul's Theology, and as literary another called Characterization in Mark. It is papers like that go
to make up the categories on the chart.
But we can fine tune the analysis a little:
22. METHODS IN DETAIL

As you will see, I have counted as historical-critical the studies of language and textual criticism (8%), comparative studies with the world of
the ancient Near East and the Graeco-Roman world (6%), exegetical
studies devoted to a small unit of text (9%), historical and archaeologi-
167
cal studies (9%) and sociological studies (7%)as well as historicalcritical study in a narrower sense (sources, redaction, dating, authorship
and the like) (14%). No doubt it is wrong to call the historical-critical
approach a method, and certainly it is not a single method, but I found
the results of this fairly crude analysis quite revealing and well worth
the effort.
How have things been changing over the years? Strange to say, not a
lot:
23. MAIN METHODS, BY YEAR (PERCENTAGES)
Reverting to the simple fourfold division by method, I analysed each of

the meetings. The Melbourne meeting in 1992 stands out for its comparative lack of emphasis on the historical-critical and for the greater
emphasis on each of the other three areas, each of which received a
higher percentage of attention than at any other meeting (except only
the theological at Salamanca in 1983 and the hermeneutical at Cracow
in 1984). Apart from that, the last years show the continued dominance
of the historical-critical method, which at Lausanne in 1997 accounted
for nearly 70% of the papers. Then again, if we arrange the meetings in
descending order of emphasis on historical-critical issues,
1987
1997
1989
1985
1988
1993
1991
1994
1990
1996
1986
1995
1984
1998
1992
1983
Heidelberg
Lausanne
Copenhagen
Amsterdam
Sheffield
Miinster
Rome
Leuven
Vienna
Dublin
Jerusalem
Budapest
Strasbourg
Cracow
Melbourne
Salamanca
77
67
62
58
57
56
55
54
54
54
52
51
49
45
37
36
Percentages of Historical-Critical Papers
we see that at the most recent meeting, in Cracow in 1998, the percentage of papers in this area was among the lowest. So perhaps things are
changing after allor perhaps rather it is a matter of where the meeting
168
is held and who therefore form the natural constituency from whom the
paper readers are drawn.
2. What Has Not Been Happening
The strongest impression I have taken away with me from my review
of the 1666 papers read at these meetings, to be candid, is how little in
touch they have been, on the whole, with intellectual movements of our
time. I will not rush to pass judgment on this fact, if it is a fact, for it is
not impossible that some of the intellectual movements of our time are
merely fashionable and others are of the nature of a dog chasing its tail.
There is something to be said for waiting until the dust settles. Living
as a private person, subject to few external influences, is a good way of
being human, and it makes for intensity, coherence and stability.
Biblical studies has lived a very private life, to judge by these meetings. There has not been a heady rush to the latest ideas, no cavalier
disregard of the traditional. Bibs has lived contentedly at home, doing
the washing up and putting in long hours navel-gazing. It is true that in
recent years it has got out more, shopping in the sociological and literary supermarkets, though picking up not a few items that, frankly, are
past their sell-by date. All the same, Bibs could hardly be called a party
animal, dashing from the latest vogue to the fashion of the moment, and
chatting up exotic and esoteric partners. Bibs, let us be honest, is not
chic. It is not cool. In a word, or three, it is not French, it is not gay, it is
not postmodern.
How to be French? From where I stand, French thinkers have been
recreating our world, and it will be just as hard to live in the twentyfirst century without Derrida, Foucault and the rest as it would have
been in the twentieth century without Freud. As with Freud, a very
great deal of what they say will later be exposed as wrongheaded, and
perhaps they are not all very nice people. But for those of us concerned
with language, history and societywhich is to say, almost all of us
they have unsettled all our learned convictions. I mean, about the indeterminacy of meaning, the constructedness of identity, the inescapable ideologies that infect the scholars as well as the objects of their
scholarship. If biblical studies were truly in the modern world, one
might expect to find a French theorist's ghostly presence in almost
every paper given at congresses such as these.
How to be gay? You do not have to problematize your sexual orien-
169
tation to recognize that the theory of gayness, queer theory, is challenging all that we hold dear about our personal and scholarly identities.
When we begin to redraw the alterity map, the boundaries between
same and different, between identity and otherness, we lose our familiar
locations and find ourselves having to think through everything, and not
just sexuality, from scratch. In the Modern Languages Association
(MLA) six years ago queer theory swept the boards;2 but unless there
are some surprises lurking behind drab papers on the Deuteronomist,
queer theory has yet to show its face at the SBL.
How to be postmodern? It is not obligatory to give up the values of
modernism, of the Enlightenment project, as the idiom has it. We need
not abandon the quest for understanding, the compulsion to scrupulous
scholarship, the urge to honesty. We do not have to believe that one
idea is as good as another. But we do have to admit that the absolute is
a chimaera, that we are not all playing the same game, and that disinterested scholarship does not exist.
There is, I think, one other gap in our biblical studies as represented
by our SBL International Meetings. It is the awareness of a social context in which we do our scholarly work, of the ethical and political
implications of being a biblical scholar, of the responsibilities to the
wider society we take on when we engage with and keep alive these
ancient texts that are both ideologically charged and personally compelling.
At this point I find myself reverting to some sentences of Elisabeth
Schiissler Fiorenza, in her presidential address to the Society of Biblical
Literature in 1987:
If scriptural texts have served not only noble causes but also to legitimate war, to nurture anti-Judaism and misogynism, to justify the
exploitation of slavery, and to promote colonial dehumanization . . . then
2. My colleague Stephen Moore gives a delightful account of the MLA meeting I refer to in his paper, 'Que(e)rying Paul: Preliminary Questions', in Auguries
(n. 1 above), pp. 250-74 (250-53).
3 Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza, 'The Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: Decentering Biblical Scholarship', JBL 107 (1988), pp. 3-17 (15).
170
I entirely agree, though I put it in my own language of a turn from

interpretation to critique, from understanding to evaluation, from
hermeneutics to ethics. If there is one place that biblical studies needs
to move to in the coming century, it isas I see itfrom the essentially antiquarian question of original meaning to questions of our own
existence, to the question of the effects of the texts we are so devotedly
preserving, to the question of our complicity with their unlovelinesses
as well as with their values, to the question of the ethics of biblical
scholars like ourselves taking money from the state or the church for
doing biblical scholarship.
The SBL International Meetings are what we need. If they did not
exist, it would be necessary to invent them. All they lack, may I suggest, is a programme and a wider vision. But meetings are not responsible for the scholars who frequent them. What has not been happening
at the SBL is what has not been happening in the world of biblical
scholarship. Our meetings give us an opportunity, every year as a special treat better than a holiday, to focus our minds afresh and to update
our assessment of what is going on in the name of the discipline that is
our meat and drink. Long may they continue!
EPi^l*/^! :j 3 i^t] J ;/.^ j ^ L^>y^ J ^-TH F^l ^ ^l IIZM

Ml s/il 111 H i SM ![]?fr^WAT^l1y_l^l J J =f^TJ I *H S [*J W
5BL International Meetings
4. PARTICIPATION BY NEW AND FORMER PARTICIPANTS
6. PAPER REAPERS BY COUNTRY CROUP

(percentage of all readers at each meeting)
7. PAPER READERS BY COUNTRY AND YEAR
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
UK
Germ
EUP
1
2
2
3
10
4
10
12
8
12
16
20
19
10
14
1
8
6
1
4
9
9
17
12
2
42
22
18
17
14
28
3
12
7
3
2
7
5
17
35
4
22
31
17
18
29
9
143
210
221
Salamanca
Strasbourg
Amsterdam
Jerusalem
Heidelberg
Sheffield
Copenhagen
Vienna
Rome
Melbourne
Munster
Leuven
Budapest
Dublin
Lausanne
Cracow
Isr
Asia
Aust
1
5
3
2
2
5
3
14
10
1
2
US
Amers
Afr
5
5
27
1
3
20
5
1
1
1
2
9
8
8
1
8
4
3
3
2
7
8
13
22
25
30
37
26
42
58
33
55
44
58
35
48
35
2
2
1
1
2
2
4
5
4
5
4
2
2
5
3
4
2
1
3
2
3
5
9
17
8
20
8
20
8
4
9
11
6
17
6
9
4
1
1
1
2
8
5
6
4
4
1
1
68
63
569
48
119
98
35
E Eur N Eur
1
3
3
3
1
1
2
1
5
68
3
3
1
1
92
8. PAPER REAPERS BY COUNTRY AND YEAR (PERCENTAGES)

UK
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
Salamanca
Strasbourg
Amsterdam
Jerusalem
Heidelberg
Sheffield
Copenhagen
Vienna
Rome
Melbourne
Miinster
Leuven
Budapest
Dublin
Lausanne
Cracow
Germ
Eur
E Eur N Eur
US
Amers
Afr
Isr
Asia
Aust
0.0
5.9
17.6
0.0
0.0
47.1
11.8
0.0
5.9
5.9
5.9
2.0
16.0
24.0
0.0
10.0
26.0
4.0
4.0
10.0
0.0
4.0
4.7
14.0
16.3
0.0
2.3
51.2
2.3
2.3
7.0
0.0
0.0
4.9
2.4
7.3
0.0
2.4
61.0
2.4
7.3
4.9
0.0
7.3
6.4
8.5
4.3
0.0
2.1
63.8
4.3
4.3
4.3
0.0
2.1
12.8
11.5
9.0
1.3
2.6
47.4
2.6
3.8
6.4
1.3
1.3
5.9
13.2
7.4
0.0
13.2
38.2
5.9
7.4
4.4
1.5
2.9
7.9
13.4
13.4
2.4
6.3
33.1
3.9
7.1
11.0
0.8
0.8
7.2
7.2
21.1
1.8
4.8
34.9
2.4
10.2
6.0
1.2
3.0
5.8
1.5
2.9
0.0
0.7
24.1
3.6
5.8
0.0
5.8
49.6
6.5
22.8
12.0
2.7
4.3
29.9
2.2
10.9
6.0
2.7
0.0
10.9
15.0
21.1
3.4
2.7
29.9
1.4
5.4
4.1
4.1
2.0
10.6
9.5
9.0
14.3
1.6
30.7
1.1
10.6
9.0
2.1
1.6
16.4
14.7
15.5
0.9
2.6
30.2
4.3
6.9
5.2
3.4
0.0
8.1
11.3
23.4
2.4
1.6
38.7
2.4
3.2
7.3
0.8
0.8
10.6
21.2
6.8
15.2
5.3
26.5
3.0
6.8
3.0
0.8
0.8

Western Europe
107 England
30 Scotland
3 Wales
4 Northern Ireland
2 Ireland
5 Spain
1 Portugal
17
31
73
24
France
Switzerland
The Netherlands
Belgium
Eastern Europe
21 Hungary
24 Poland
4 Slovenia
2 Romania
8 Bulgaria
5 Russia
3 Ukraine
1 Georgia
Americas
568 USA
45 Canada
2 Mexico
1 Peru
Africa
Asia
98 Israel
1 Jordan
2 India
3 Philippines
6 Hong Kong
4 Korea
4 Indonesia
15 Japan
3 Ethiopia
1 Kenya
2 Malawi
211 Germany
Northern Europe
3 Namibia
26 Austria
28 Denmark
5 Nigeria
38 Italy
1 Iceland
3 Malta
9 Sweden
10 Norway
16 Finland
96 South Africa
7 Swaziland
1 Zaire
Australasia
80 Australia
1 1 New Zealan
1 Tonga
10. LANCUACES OF PAPERS
11. LAN6UACE OF PAPERS. BY YEAR
12. FIELDS
5BL International Meetings
13. OLD TESTAMENT/NEW TESTAMENT, BY YEARS
14. OLD TESTAMENT, BY AREA

15. NUMBER OF PAPERS / LENGTH OF TEXT
17. NEW TESTAMENT, BY AREA
18. NUMBER OF NT PAPERS / LENGTH OF TEXT
19. TOP NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS
20. OOSPELS AS PERCENTAGE OF ALL PAPERS
21. METHODS
13. MAIN METHODS, BY YEAR (PERCENTAGES)
10
FROM COPENHAGEN TO OSLO
WHAT HAS (AND HAS NOT) HAPPENED
AT CONGRESSES OF THE IOSOT
Now that the millennium is almost upon us, and not just the fin de
siecle but the^w d'une vingtaine de siecles, it must be time for us to be
reflecting on what we have been doing with ourselves in Old Testament/
Hebrew Bible studies all these years since 1953, and where we have
been goingin addition to Copenhagen and Oslo and various other
European sites of touristic interest.
This paper analyses and reports on all the 321 main papers given at
the 16 Congresses of the International Organization for the Study of the
Old Testament (IOSOT) since the first meeting in 1953 (the Organization was actually founded in 1950). Many other things have of course
happened at these meetings in addition to the reading of those main
papers. Perhaps the most important has been the creation of a meeting
place for European scholars whose interchange has twice in this century
been paralysed by wars. And there have been a myriad of personal encounters that have injected a more human dimension into our ostensibly
objective scholarship. In recent years, there have been also very many
shorter papers delivered as a kind of fringe event. And the book displays are almost vaut le voyage in themselves. Nevertheless, what has
been published as the report of each congress, and what is described in
some at least of the congress handbooks as the 'main programme' has
been the group of invited papers, no more than 20 or 25 at each meeting, and it is these papers that I will analyse for what they reveal about
the emphases and directions of Old Testament study in the second half
of our century. First for the facts: what has happened; and then for the
opinions: what has not happened. The paper itself is supplemented by a
series of charts, to which the numbered points, centred and in small
capitals, refer.
This paper was read as a Short Communication to the Sixteenth Congress of the
International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, in Oslo, August
1998.
10. From Copenhagen to Oslo: IOSOT Congresses
195
1. What Has Happened

a. Number of Paper Readers
I began by surveying the number of people who have been invited to
read main papers at the IOSOT Congresses. I included those who
appeared on the programme in Oslo in 1998 as panellists, since it
turned out that they too had come with prepared papers. The noticeable
feature about this chart,
is of course that there has been no significant increase in the number of

main papers over the 45 years of the Congresses. Leaving aside the
smaller numbers of the first two Congresses, 15 and 14 at Copenhagen
and Strasbourg in 1953 and 1956 respectively, the number of main
speakers at the other Congresses has ranged consistently between 17
and 25.
b. Countries of Paper Readers
My next thought was to ask where the people are from who have been
invited to read papers at IOSOT Meetings:
2. PAPER READERS, BY REGION

The chart shows that the IOSOT is evidently a European organization,
with almost 80% of its paper readers being from Europe (if we include
Israel as being part of Europe). It is international then in the sense of
transcending national boundaries, not in the sense of being globally
representative.
For some more detail:

What a more representatively international participation might look
like is shown by a comparison with the participants in the Society of
Biblical Literature (SBL) International Meetings, of which there have
been as many as there have been IOSOT Congresses (though they have
been annual meetings, while the IOSOT has met every three years):
4. PAPER READERS, BY REGION (IOSOT AND SBL)

Here fewer than half were from Europe, while the USA and the rest of
the world were more adequately represented.
196
I thought next that it would be interesting to compare the number of

speakers with the size of the countries they come from:
5. PAPERS READERS AND COUNTRY POPULATION

In this chart I compared the number of paper readers over the years
with the population of the countries from which they came. No doubt
there are other criteria by which we could measure the participation of
groups of scholars, but these figures were at least easily obtainable. The
most striking things shown by the chart are, by this criterion at least,
the comparative under-representation of scholars from the USA and the
comparative over-representation of scholars from Germany and Israel.
We might next ask whether there has been any siginifcant change in
the representation of countries over the years. I first analysed the
readers by their regionEurope, USA and Other.
6. PAPER READERS BY REGION, BY YEAR

The strongly European flavour has remained pretty constant over the
years, it would seem, though the last two Congresses, in Cambridge
and Oslo, might suggest a dilution of the European representation.
Certainly there has been a broader representation after Uppsala in 1971,
where more than 90% of the main speakers were from Europe. The
Rome congress in 1968 remains remarkable for the comparative wealth
of non-European speakers (more than 40%).
It might be interesting to look at how these larger regions break down
into finer detail, so in the next chart I show also the detail of the percentages of main papers given by speakers from the United Kingdom,
Germany, Israel and the rest of Europe.
7. PAPER READERS BY COUJTRY GROUP, BY YEAR

While there have been some noticeable differences from year to year, it
is hard to detect any significant pattern of change. There were more
from Germany at Uppsala and Gottingen than anywhere else, not
surprisingly, and more from Israel in Jerusalem than anywhere else.
Only in Bonn in 1962, Rome in 1968 and Cambridge in 1995 were
there more Americans than Germans, while the percentage of those
from outside Europe has remained pretty constant over the years.
Finally, a checklist of the 28 countries from which speakers have
come over the years will no doubt be of interest:
197
b. Languages of Papers
My next task was to consider what were the languages of papers, and
whether there have there been any changes over the years on this front.
9. LANGUAGES OF PAPERS
It is no doubt a remarkable statistic that only half of the papers at these
international congresses have been in English. Despite the increasing
prevalence of English at scholarly congresses in most disiciplines, the
IOSOT has maintained a very strong presence for two other European
languages.
10. LANGUAGE OF PAPERS, BY YEARS

Looking at the table as a whole, we may detect a slight trend towards
English as the preferred language. But there have been notable
exceptions to any such trend, particularly that there were more papers
in German than either English or French at five of the 16 congresses:
Bonn, Geneva, Uppsala, Gottingen and Vienna. There were more
papers in French at Strasbourg and in Paris than at other meetings,
while the Jerusalem congress was remarkable for the percentage of
papers in English, exceeding, at 90%, the proportion even at Edinburgh
and Cambridge, as well as that in Oslo (which was in second place).
c. Sex of Paper Readers
Here a simple comparison of the statistics for the IOSOT and the SBL
International Meetings as a whole do not tell the whole story, for they
conceal a signficant change that has taken place in recent Congresses of
the IOSOT. If we look at the global figures for all the meetings,
11. WOMEN AND MEN PARTICIPANTS

it appears that only 14 women scholars have been invited to read papers
in the 45 years of the IOSOT's existence, and at 12 of the 16
congresses there has been no paper from a woman scholar. Perhaps
15% to 20% of Old Testament scholars in the world are women, so the
less than 5% participation rate at IOSOT congresses has been a serious
under-representation. It should be noted, however, that at the last two
congresses, in Cambridge and Oslo in 1995 and 1998, the participation
rate by women scholars rose to some 25%, a comparable figure to that
of the most recent SBL International Meeting in Cracow in 1998. The
recent recognition of women scholars is shown rather dramatically in
this chart:
198
12. WOMEN SCHOLARS AS PARTICIPANTS (PERCENTAGE), BY YEAR

Nonetheless, the fact remains that, speaking generally, male Old Testament scholars have dominated the scene at IOSOT Congresses.
d. Fields of Papers
My next interest was in the areas of Old Testament / Hebrew Bible
studies that had attracted attention.
13. FIELDS
The unexpected feature here, to my way of thinking at least, was that so
many of the papers, a half of the total, concerned themselves with the
Hebrew Bible as a whole, while only a half were devoted to some area,
whether, for example, the prophets in general, one particular prophet or
a passage in a prophetic book.
I found it interesting to compare this with the SBL International
Meetings,
14. OLD TESTAMENT AREAS

where far fewer were on more general topics, perhaps because of the
different lengths of time allotted for the papers at the two series of
congresses. We might note also that at the SBL Meetings the Pentateuch had the majority of specific papers (19%), as opposed to the
Prophets at IOSOT (16%), and that the Writings were given much more
attention than the Prophets compared with IOSOT (17% and 15% at
SBL, compared with 10% and 16% at IOSOT). I am not sure that I
know what the meaning of these differences is, and I do not suggest
that one result is better than another, but I do believe there must be
some significance in such a discrepancy.
If we compare now the numbers of papers read on specific topics
with the length of the biblical text,

we find that at both series of meetings the historical books were underrepresented, while the Prophets were much over-represented at the
IOSOT (by as much as 50%) and the Writings were under-represented
at the IOSOT.
Which were the most popular Old Testament books?
199
Here too the heavy emphasis of the IOSOT on the prophetic books is
evident; the striking over-representation of Genesis that is noticeable in
the figures for the SBL International Meetings is not repeated at the
IOSOT Congresses.
e. Methods of Papers
My final statistics show the critical methods that have been employed.
Everything here depends on how I have characterized each paper, and I
know that others would have done things differently. But what I tried to
do was identify the principal method used in each paper. This is how
things turned out:
17. METHODS
Plainly, the range of historical-critical methods still rules the day in
Hebrew Bible studies, and perhaps the percentage should be still
greater if I had included theological among the historical-critical
category. Here is the division in more detail:

Once again, a comparison with the SBL International Meetings may be
interesting:
19. METHODS: IOSOT AND SBL COMPARED
All in all, what has been happening at IOSOT meetings is that most
things continue as they have since the creation. The founding fathers of
the IOSOT, one suspects, would not feel out of place at one of our
Congresses in the 90s. The same countries are represented, the same
methods are being used, and, as in most parts of academia, males
continue to dominate. In a period of the most extraordinary rapid global
changes, both social and intellectual, IOSOT has remained, for the most
part, a fixed point in a chaotic world.
2. What Has Not Happened

To my mind, the most significant event at the IOSOT has been the
absence of papers connecting the world of biblical scholarship with the
intellectual movements of our day. There have been few if any papers
given that could not have been given, from a methodological of view,
at the first congress in 1953.1 refer to the invisibility of the whole range
of methodological approaches that go under the title of poststructuralist.
200
And I take feminist criticism as my first example.

As far as I can see, there has not been a feminist paper at the IOSOT
among the invited papers. The importance of feminist criticism for
biblical studies is not only that it represents the interests of 53% of the
world's population, but that also it has been the first criticism to
impinge on biblical studies with questions and a programme from
outside the ideology of the biblical texts. As such, it has been the
harbinger of all kinds of ideological criticism, for example gender
criticism, which has been taking seriously for the first time that fact that
the Bible is a male text and that biblical scholarship has been essentially a male activity. The political and social ideology of the text and
its interpreters is also being focused on as another arena in which
questions of our own time, especially ethical questions, are being
addressed to the biblical texts instead of allowing the texts to set the
agenda for our scholarly work.
My second example is the widespread emphasis in current intellectual debate on the nature of textuality, in which concepts like the
indeterminacy of language, the deconstructability of texts and the constructedness of discourse are key phrases. Whether or not one holds to
such ideas, there is little denying their importance in the modern, or
rather, the postmodern world. It is a matter for regret that the principal
speakers at Congresses of the IOSOT have given the impression that
they care nothing for these movements of thought, as was all too evident at the Paris meeting, for example, when the four great Parisian
names of our time, Derrida, Foucault, Kristeva and Lacan, were never
mentioned (I believe).
A third absence is a recognition of the role of the reader in the
making of meaning. Hebrew Bible studies is still largely conducted, to
judge by the main papers given at the Congresses, as an objective study,
in which scholars as knowing subjects interrogate the texts as passive
objects in an external world. Most of our colleagues in the humanities,
and some also in the hard sciences, have ceased to think about the task
of researchers in such terms. Incresingly, so it seems to me, meaning is
being seen as, at the very least, the result of a collaboration between
text and reader. Some are even speaking of the reader as the maker of
meaning. Either way, reader-response criticism, which foregrounds the
interests of readers, ancient and modern, and diverts attention from
authors and presumed original meanings, has taken centre stage in
many studies of literary texts. Old Testament studies, on the other hand,
201
to judge by the papers analysed here, remains a monument to modernist

nineteenth-century rationality, while the readers of the textswhich is
to say, ourselvesremain hidden behind a smokescreen of objectivity,
for the most part.
A fourth lack is the absence of a sense of social value and purpose in
our academic study. I quote some sentences from Elisabeth Schiissler
Fiorenza, in her presidential address to the Society of Biblical
Literature in 1987:
If scriptural texts have served not only noble causes but also to
legitimate war, to nurture anti-Judaism and misogynism, to justify the
exploitation of slavery, and to promote colonial dehumanization... then
Even elucidation may not go far enough. What is being called for in
our time is an engagement in a critique of the biblical texts according to
the values we ourselves are personally committed to. The Bible is being
used a very great deal in our contemporary world, for good and ill. So
long as we stay bound in the ancient world, the world of the biblical
authors, so long as we regard a knowledge and a critique of how the
Bible is being used as beneath our scholarly dignity, and so long as we
continue to give the impression that our texts are beyond criticism, we
wrong our students and our public. It is time that the role of a biblical
scholar is reconceived as a critique and not a recapitulation of the
Bible.
It is perhaps not unfair to conclude that the IOSOT has been in its 45
years of history an agent for tradition and not for change in scholarship.
One wonders whether, if it is to be effective in the twenty-first century,
in a postmodern age with ideals very alien to those of conventional
biblical scholarship, and if it is to promote Hebrew Bible scholarship
within a wider circle of intellectual adventure, it will not have to
rethink itself radically. There are those who are urging that it will need
a more transparent governance, a still greater recognition of the role of
women scholars in our academic community, a more egalitarian and
consumer-led programme of meetings, and a commitment to a true
1. Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza, The Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: Decentering Biblical Scholarship', JBL 107 (1988), pp. 3-17 (15).
202
interdisciplinarity of ideasand I cannot say I dissent from that view.

The IOSOT may also do well to consider whether it should build the
infrastructure of a scholarly society, with a membership and an executive that is sensitive to the needs of the membership and capable of
strategic thinking about the progress of the discipline. It needs also to
decide, given the location of its principal speakers over the years,
whether to rename itself the European Organization for the Study of the
Hebrew Bible or to take steps to become what its name suggests, a
more representatively international organization.
IOSOT Congresses
IOSOT Congresses
2. PAPER READERS, BY RECION
IOSOT Congresses
IOSOT Congresses
4. PAPER READERS, BY RE6ION (IOSOT AND SBL)
IO5OT Congresses
kfl a j d d *1 ITh î> i []?!] J<liJ^h I Ll I fl

(columns show over- or under-representation compared with population)
IO5OT Congresses
6. PAPER READERS BY REGION, BY YEAR
IOSOT Congresses
7. PAPER READERS BY COUNTRY CROUP, BY YEAR

(percentage of main papers at each meeting)
IO50T Congresses

Western Erope
22 England
10 scotland
2 wales
1 Ireland
5 spain
25 france
Eastern Europe
1 Hungry
2 Poland
Americas
47 USA
7 canada
1 Brazuil
3 Czech Rep
Northern Europe
6 Denmark
Asia
37 Israel
15 Switzerland
8 Sweden
3 Jordan
14 The Netherlands
4 Norway
9 Belgium
64 Germany
3 Finland
1 Lebanon
4 Japan
3 Austria
19 Italy
Africa
3 South Africa
Australia
1 Australisia
IOSOT Congresses
9. LANCUACES OF PAPERS
IOSOT Congresses
10. LANCUACE OF PAPERS, BY YEAR

(columns represent percentage in each year)
11. WOMEN AND MEN PARTICIPANTS

IOSOT meetings
SBL Intenational Meetings
IOSOT Congresses
13. FIELDS
IOSOT Congresses
14. OLD TESTAMENT AREAS

IOSOT Congresses
IOSOT Meetings

IOSOT and SBL International Meetings Compared
IOSOT Meetings

IOSOT and SBL International Meetings Compared
IOSOT
SBL
IOSOT Congresses
17. METHODS
IOSOT Congresses
IOSOT Congresses
19. METHODS: IOSOT AND 5BL COMPARED

IOSOT
LITERATURE
11
STORY AND POEM:
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS LITERATURE AND AS SCRIPTURE
I am persuaded that without knowledge of literature pure theology cannot at all endure, just as heretofore, when letters have declined and lain
prostrate, theology too has wretchedly fallen and lain prostrate; nay, I
see that there has never been a great revelation of the Word of God
unless He has first prepared the way by the rise and prosperity of languages and letters, as though they were John the Baptists... Certainly it
is my desire that there shall be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible, because I see that by these studies, as by no other means, people are
wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it
skillfully and happily... Therefore I beg of you that at my request (if
that has any weight) you will urge your young people to be diligent in
the study of poetry and rhetoric.1
Luther's encouragement seems to have had little effect on biblical studies since his time. With some important exceptions,2 Old Testament
studies in particular have been obsessed with philological and historical
questions. And where biblical 'poetry and rhetoric' have been attended
to, the focus has very often been upon the devices or mechanics of biblical literature3 rather than upon broader issues of the literary character
Originally published in Interpretation34 (1980), pp. 115-27, and reprinted with
permission.
1. Preserved Smith and C.M. Jacobs (eds.), Luther's Correspondence (Philadelphia: United Lutheran Publication House, 1918), II, pp. 176-77.
2. E.g. Johann Gottfried von Herder, Vom Geist der ebrdische Poesie: Eine
Anleitung filr die Liebhaben derselben und der dltesten Geschichte des menschlichen Geistes (Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta, 1827 [trans. J. Marsh as The Spirit of
Hebrew Poetry, 2 vols.; Burlington: Edward Smith, 1833]). From the nineteenth
and early twentieth century we could mention George Gilfillan, The Bards of the
Bible (London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., 1850), Richard Green Moulton, The Literary Study of the Bible: An Acount of the Leading Forms by Literature Represented in the Sacred Writings; Intended for English Readers (Boston: D.C. Heath,
2nd edn, 1899), and John Hayes Gardiner, The Bible as English Literature
(London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1906).
3. So, e.g., Eduard Konig, Stilistik, Rhetorik, Poetik in Bezug aufdie biblische
226
of the Bible or, most importantly, what it signifies that the Bible (scripture) exists as literature.
The decade of the seventies has seen changes, though not always
great advances. Two years ago in Interpretation John Dominic Crossan
gave a useful sketch of the trends of that decade in literary approaches
to biblical texts: structuralism, the genre parable, narrative syntax, the
genres tragedy and comedy.4 He omitted mention of the work of James
Muilenburg, of which his well-known Society of Biblical Literature
Presidential address of 1968 was only a sample; his call for a movement 'beyond form criticism'5 generated a proliferation of studies,
some sensitive and some mechanistic, under the banner of 'rhetorical
criticism'.6 More influential, however, in the English-speaking world at
least, has been the heady development of schools of religious studies in
secular universities; the Bible has been taught in these schools not for
the reasons that have accorded it prominence in the seminaries and
divinity schools. It has not even always been taught by professional
biblical scholars, but by professors of English for the sake of acquainting their students with what is arguably the greatest and certainly the
most influential literary work of world civilization.7
Those who have been quick to applaud this movement as a restoration of the Bible to its rightful place in education had perhaps better
restrain themselves for the time being; for it is by no means determined
Litteratur (Leipzig: Weicher, 1900).
4. John Dominic Crossan, 'Waking the Bible: Biblical Hermeneutic and Literary Imagination', Int 32 (1978), pp. 269-85.
5. James Muilenburg, 'Form Criticism and Beyond', JBL 88 (1969), pp. 1-18.
6. See Jared J. Jackson and Martin Kessler (eds.), Rhetorical Criticism: Essays
in Honor of James Muilenburg (PTMS, 1; Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1974). For
two excellent surveys of the field, see M. Kessler, 'A Methodological Setting for
Rhetorical Criticism', Semitics 4 (1974), pp. 22-36; and Isaac M. Kikawada, 'Some
Proposals for the Definition of Rhetorical Criticism', Semitics 5 (1977), pp. 67-91.
Cf. also D. Greenwood, 'Rhetorical Criticism and Formgeschichte: Some Methodological Considerations', JBL 89 (1970), pp. 418-26; R.F. Melugin, 'Muilenburg,
Form Criticism, and Theological Exegesis', in Martin J. Buss (ed.), Encounter with
the Text: Form and History in the Hebrew Bible (Semeia Supplements, 8; Philadelphia: Fortress Press; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979), pp. 91-100.
7. Perhaps the finest in the collection of Literary Interpretations of Biblical
Narratives (ed. Kenneth R.R. Gros Louis, with James S. Ackerman and Thayer S.
Warshaw; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1974), was the essay by one such literary
critic, D.F. Rauber, originally published as 'Literary Values in the Book of Ruth',
JBL 89 (1970), pp. 27-37.
11. Story and Poem: The OT as Literature and Scripture
227
in advance that when the Bible is studied in the context of comparative

literature it must emerge at the apogee of humanistic or even religious
texts.8 But much more serious than the possibility that the Bible will
not retain or regain a position of lordship over its rivals, peers, or congeners when considered as literature is the sociological problem now
becoming apparent. That is, that there is a danger that particular contexts of reading and studying the Bible will tend to dictate particular
ways in which the Bible is approached. In the church and the seminary
the Bible will be heard as scripture; in the university and the world it
will be heard, when it is heard, as literature. It would be painful if at
this moment, when theologians and literary critics have so much to
learn from one another, such a distinction should become institutionalized.
It would be doubly distressing if such should come about since the
distinction between the Bible as literature and the Bible as scripture is
largely artificial. Indeed, it is my contention here that the church can
properly hear its Bible as Scripture only when it reads it as literature.
Even the 'authority' of the Bible as Scripture is experienced in no different ways from that in which the 'authority' of any great literary work
is felt. Ontologically there may be a world of difference between the
Bible and the Shakespearean or Dostoyevskian canons, but the way in
which they impose themselves upon their readers, impel them to reexamine their values, and win for themselves lodgement in those
recesses of the mind where behaviour is determined, is one and the
same.9
If one cannot, or should not, read the Bible as Scripture except as literatureand the proposition has yet to be defendedmay one read the
Bible as literature and not as Scripture at all? Yes, and this is why the
distinction between 'as literature' and 'as scripture' is not wholly artificial. But whenever the values of the Bible are assented to, whenever
indeed they are seriously engaged with and not dismissed as, for
example, primitive or anti-humanistic, the line of demarcation between
'literature' and 'scripture' becomes somewhat blurred. Nevertheless,
my primary concern here is to explore, not the way biblical literature
8. See e.g. David A. Robertson, The Old Testament and the Literary Critic
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977).
9. In rooting the authority of the Bible in its 'function', I am more sanguine
about the value of that concept than is James Barr, The Bible in the Modern World
(London: SCM Press, 1973).
228
may function as Scripture, but the way Scripture must be allowed to

function as literature.10
The literature of the Old Testament is essentially story or poem.
Whether we take the historical books, wisdom, prophecy, or psalmody,
it is only some genealogical lists, land allocations, prose sermons, and
laws (all of them set within a narrative framework) that escape the net
of these two literary forms.11 The two genres are not, of course, mutually exclusive. It so happens, however, that examples of blends of story
and poem (narrative poetry, ballads, epics) are rare, if not nonexistent,
in Old Testament literature. Even the Song of Deborah (Judg. 5), the
nearest approach the Old Testament makes to ballad, is set in the framework of a hymn and so functions as a song of praise to Yahweh rather
than as a narrative poem.12 Further, it must be acknowledged that each
of these principal genres, story and poem, is by no means homogeneous. But the fact that the Old Testament consists very largely of
two types of imaginative literature and only to a minor degree of
straightforward 'referential' or 'non-literary' literature, makes one
think. It means that so long as we regard the Old Testament as essentially conveying information about theological truth or historical truth
we make a serious category mistake. No matter how reliable its information on such matters is, to imagine that we can move with any kind
of speed or assurance from the face value of the Old Testament text to
such information is to deceive ourselves.13 The Dogmatic Constitution
on Divine Revelation of Vatican II accords on this point with Luther's
concern for the activity of 'poets and rhetoricians' in handling the biblical texts:
10. See Barr, Bible in the Modern World, pp. 53-74; 'Reading the Bible as Literature', BJRL 56 (1973-74), pp. 10-33. As far as Brevard S. Childs's Introduction
to the Old Testament as Scripture (London: SCM Press, 1979) is concerned, I
should comment that while for him the Old Testament is Scripture, whether it is
recognized as such or not, I am not engaging with that position; I am arguing that
whether or not the Old Testament is Scripture, it is literature.
11. Cf. J. Barr, 'Story and History in Biblical Theology', JR 56 (1977), pp. 1-17
(5): 'The long narrative corpus of the Old Testament seems to me, as a body of literature, to merit the title of story rather than of history'.
12. J. Blenkinsopp, 'Ballad Style and Psalm Style in the Song of Deborah', Bib
42(1961), pp. 61-76.
13. Cf. Barr, Bible in the Modern World, p. 142; David H. Kelsey, The Uses of
Scripture in Recent Theology (London: SCM Press, 1975).
229
Those who search out the intention of the sacred writers must... have
regard for 'literary forms'. For truth is proposed and expressed in a
variety of ways, depending on whether a text is history of one kind or
another, or whether its form is that of prophecy, poetry, or some other
type of speech... For the correct understanding of what the sacred
writer wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and
characteristic styles of perceiving, speaking, and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer.14
Overarching the multiplicity of literary forms (Gattungeri) discovered within the Old Testament literature are these two catch-all forms
of story and poem. To manifestations of each of these and to some
comments on their significance I now turn.
1. Story
To observe the effect of taking the Old Testament narrative primarily as
story, we shall have to consider a few selected examples.
In the case of the book of Jonah, we note first that we are relieved of
the need to decide whether, or to what extent, the narrative recounts
events that actually happened. Most readers of this article will find no
need to be relieved of that decision, since they have already decided
that Jonah was not swallowed by a 'great fish' (though they may not be
certain whether the Jonah of the story was an historical personage or
whether Nineveh ever repented). But very many readers of the book of
Jonah itself, I suppose, do not doubt that it tells of what in fact happened, and have not seen any need to make a decision about its
historicity. If we come to the story as story, both kinds of readers can
enjoy the story, value the story, and engage in potentially fruitful discussion with each other about the meaning(s) of the story. It is not
necessary to disbelieve, or to believe, in the story's historicity in order
to understand it. The question of historicity does not have to be swept
under the carpet, but neither does it have to be the piece de resistance.
Next, if the book is viewed as story, we can sit looser to the idea that
we should search for the message or point or kerygma of the book.
When it is regarded primarily as Scripture, we are perhaps more likely
to ask what it has to say, teach, affirm, assert, deny. When it is regarded
14. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, III. 12 (= Walter M. Abbott
[ed.], Joseph Gallagher [trans, and ed.], The Documents of Vatican II [New York:
The American Press, 1966], p. 120).
230
primarily as literature, we are more inclined to say, I think: The simplicity of this book is only superficial; what it has to say is not likely to
be simple. The history of recent scholarship confirms this presumption.15 For the conventional view has been that the book is 'a tract
against particularistic intolerance and arrogance'.16 By some the implication of such polemic has been thought to be a call to mission to the
heathen. Some have seen its purpose as a demonstration of the possibility of repentance. Others have found in it a statement about true and
false prophecy, about the relation between conditional and unconditional prophecy, or about the problem of the non-fulfilment of prophecy
against the nations. Yet again, the message of the book may be
regarded as essentially a statement about God, whether in a positive
vein, that he is willing to override his prophetic word for the sake of the
nations' salvation; or in a more negative vein, that God's capacity for
change of mind can destroy the credibility of his prophets and be in any
case ultimately ineffectual in converting the heathen. Even the old allegorical interpretation in which Jonah represents the people of Israel
swallowed up in exile by the world powers is still advocated.
Most of these interpretations of the thrust of the book of Jonah have
so much for them and against them in the book, that we can seriously
question whether the search for a message is not, in this case at least,
incompatible with a 'literary' view of the book. May not Jonah have
nothing in particular to 'teach' but be an imaginative story (traditional
or not) in which various serious concerns of the author are lightly and
teasingly sketched? The delicate echoing ironies of the book and the
tantalizing note on which it ends would tempt us to believe so. This
story, a literary critic might say, is a field not so much for conflicting
arguments but for interpenetrating visions.17
If we turn now to the David story, we can see, not how the quest for a
single theological message or 'kerygma' can disintegrate when the
15. See Childs, Introduction, pp. 419-21, 425; R.E. Clements, The Purpose of
the Book of Jonah', Congress Volume, Edinburgh (VTSup, 28; Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1975), pp. 16-28.
16. Georg Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament (trans. David Green; London: SPCK, 1970), p. 433, referring to Artur Weiser, An Introduction to the Old
Testament (trans. Dorothea M. Barton; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961),
p. 250.
17. The formulation is Northrop Frye's (cited by M. Kessler, SBL Proceedings,
1972, II, p. 525).
231
dimensions of the text as literature are explored, but how a ruling historical-critical consensus about the purpose of the work, which lacks
any significant theological spin-off, can be overcome by a literary
approach that liberates the work to function theologically and humanistically. The story of David as king (2 Sam. 9-20; 1 Kgs 1-2) has long
been recognized as a unity in virtue of the 'succession' motif: The
thread that binds the story together is the suspenseful question, Who is
to succeed David? In other words, the work has been seen as political
propaganda for Solomon's place on the Davidic throne.18
Against this view is the rather obvious fact that the succession motif
is not strongly enough marked to function as the integrating theme. It
will not account for the focus of the story of David, the man, the king
and the father. One relatively straightforward reconceptualization of the
material is to envisage a distinction between 2 Samuel 2-5 where
David is 'under the blessing' and 2 Samuel 9-24 where he is 'under the
curse', the pivotal point being the knot of David's misdeeds in the
Bathsheba episode (2 Sam. II). 19 Since David is evidently not always
under the curse through chs. 9-24, a more subtle and more persuasive
approach to the story is one that explores various levels in the characterization of David and in his relationships with other persons in the
story.20 There is a tension between David as king and David as man
(husband, father), a tension that defeats David at times; for example,
when his son Absalom, who ought to belong to the private family
sphere, moves over into the political sphere and becomes David's
enemy militarily. At another level the story of David can be read in
terms of the paradigm of 'giving' and 'grasping', both in his private
and public life. When David is content to be given to (2 Sam. 2-5) or to
give (2 Sam. 15-18) he is at his finest. Grasping, as portrayed quintessentially in the seizure of Bathsheba, is always destructive; it boils
over into the sorry story of the family and the state with the rape of
18. Leonhard Rost, Die Uberlieferung von der Thronnachfolge Davids
(BWANT, 3.6; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1926) (= Das kleine Credo und andere
Studien zum Alten Testament [Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1965], pp. 119-253);
R.N. Whybray, The Succession Narrative: A Study of II Samuel 9-20,1 Kings 1 and
2 (SET, 2.9; London: SCM Press, 1968).
19. R.A. Carlson, David, the Chosen King: A Traditio-Historical Approach to
the Second Book of Samuel (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1964).
20. David M. Gunn, 'David and the Gift of the Kingdom', Semeia 3 (1975),
pp. 14-45; The Story of King David: Genre and Interpretation (JSOTSup, 6;
Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978).
232
Tamar, the killing of Amnon, and the rebellion of Absalom following

in rapid succession.
In this narrative there is
no simple Tendenz or moralizing but rather a picture of the rich variety
of life that is comic or ironic in its contrasting perspectives and conflicting norms. Not that the author is amoral or immoral; but his judgement is tempered by his sense of the intricacy and ambivalence of the
situations that confront his charactersa sense, also, that is not without
significance for his treatment of Providence in the story.21
Those who would read the David story as Scripture will not neglect,
indeed, the narrative's indications of the rather mysterious but also
rather infrequent incursions of Yahweh into the tale; but they will sap
the life out of the story if they search primarily for religious or moral
truths or lessons. They will hear it best as the 'things . . . written aforetime ... for our learning' (Rom. 15.4) if they engage with the story in its
irony and ambiguity and find themselves witnesses of a story about a
man's strengths and weaknesses.
Yet even where Yahweh is wholly absent from an Old Testament
story, as in the case of Esther, the story is not precluded from having
any theological 'pay-off. For it has been precisely through a literary
study of this tale that a most satisfying account of the book's religious
significance has been given.22 Mordecai's words in 4.13-14, 'If you
keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will arise for
the Jews from another quarter', are to be recognized as the structural
centre of the book, artistically considered. From this perspective, rather
than by decoding the term 'another quarter' as a cipher for 'God', we
can discern the storyteller's belief in a 'hidden causality' that lies
beneath the events of history. Like the Joseph story, the Esther tale
evinces no visible activity of God; unlike the Joseph story, the Esther
tale does not even allow at the end that all that has happened has in
reality been God's doing (as Gen. 45.5, 7-8; 50.20). In Esther, no theologoumenon breaks the spell of the story; but the fact that Esther is in
a position of power 'at such a time as this' and that, even if she will not
speak out on behalf of her people, 'help' from some quarter or other
can be confidently expected bespeaks an assurance that history is neither random nor directed exclusively by human forces. The whole story
21. Gunn, The Story of King David, p. 111.
22. See Sandra Beth Berg, The Book of Esther: Motifs, Themes and Structure
(SBLDS, 44; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979).
233
speaks, though always obliquely, of a hidden presence of Yahweh in

the world. The storyteller 'mirrors the nature of history in his method of
narration',23 and as an artist makes Yahweh conspicuous by his
absence.
There is another unexpressed theologoumenon that is mouthed rather
than spoken by the tale: 'the preservation of the Jewish people is in
itself a religious obligation of the first magnitude'.24 Nothing in the
book says so, but the institution of Purim as the perpetual sequel to the
story and the presence of the story within both Jewish and Christian
Scripture testify to a consummate art in storytelling that broadcasts its
fundamental worldviews by saying nothing, apparently, about them.
A further benefit to be gained from approaching the Old Testament
as literature appears when we consider the Pentateuch. A truly literary
approach will hardly hesitate to regard the Pentateuch as a unitary
work, largely because it has been Torah to Jews and the 'fivefold volume' to Christians for many centuries. Moreover, it is chronologically
sequential and, with the exception of Genesis, which could no more be
separated from what follows than could Exodus be separated from what
precedes, its beginning, middle, and end correspond with the life story
of a single dominant individual. A wise literary critic cannot afford to
ignore the vast investment of scholarly effort in analysis of the prehistory of the Pentateuchal text, but in the end we have to take our
stand with the text that won out, and not with the sources JEDP or
whatever.
Two important consequences result.25 First, a single unifying theme
in the Pentateuch may be sought (though perhaps not necessarily
found). I would locate it in the triple promise (formulated variously in
Genesis) of descendants, land and relationship with Godand in the
(partial) fulfilment of those promises. Secondly, the point at which the
Pentateuch concludes is a powerful determinant of the meaning of the
Pentateuch as a whole: Israel's canon within its canon speaks not of the
realization of the divine promises, except in part and proleptically, but
of the simple existence and continuing reaffirmation of the promises.
23. Berg, Esther, p. 178.
24. R. Gordis, Megillat Esther (New York: The Rabbinical Assembly, 1972), p.
13; cf. Childs, Introduction, p. 606: The strongest canonical warrant... for the
religious significance of the Jewish people in an ethnic sense'.
25. See David J.A. Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch (JSOTSup, 10;
Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978; 2nd edn, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997).
234
Israel is left by this literary work with the future, which can be an
occasion for hope or despair, for trust in the God of the promise or
doubt in his capability.
When this Scripture is read as story, no unambiguous kerygma
asserts itself; but the hearers expand their experience of what life under
a promise can be like and ask themselves serious questions about how
long they can go on living in expectation, with hope deferred, and with
their heart sick.
These stories are, according to one influential analysis, 'world-establishing' myths.26 But they need not be comforting assurances just for
that reason; they can be every bit as much 'world-subverting' as the
highly acclaimed 'parable' form. If Georg Btichner rightly depicted
literature as a Moglichkeit des Daseins, 'a rehearsal of the possibilities
of being in the world... not a confirmation of what one is but a proposal to be something different' ,27 all these stories are potentially subversive and have the capacity to function as a literature critical of any
worldview brought to it by the preunderstanding of its readers.
2. Poem
A first example may be taken from Psalm 42-43, where a single dominating image seems to offer the best insight into the poem.28 In the first
strophe the image is that of water as life; in the second, of water as
death. In the first strophe, water is life for the thirsty hart in the desert;
the psalmist's anxious desire for God is the instinctual drive of the desperate animal for self-preservation; it is a search for the one who is his
water, his life. In the second strophe, however, the psalmist knows himself to be overwhelmed by hostile water which, like the water he
craves, also comes from God: 'Your torrents and your breakers have
engulfed me' (42.7). In seeking water, he finds it; but it is not the lifegiving water that he finds. Does this not mean that 'God, who was to
26. Cf. John Dominic Crossan, The Dark Interval (Niles: Argus, 1975), pp. 5762.
27. Cited by J.P. Stern, The Times Higher Education Supplement (June 4,
1976), p. 11.
28. See L. Alonso Schokel, The Poetic Structure of Psalm 42-43', JSOT 1
(1976), pp. 4-11 (first published as 'Estructura Poetica del Salmo 42-43', in Wort,
Lied und Gottesspruch: Festschrift fiir Joseph Ziegler [Wiirzburg: Echter Verlag,
1972]).
235
have been the life of the psalmist, has become his death; he has become
an elemental force, oceanic, irresistible'?29 The poem is projecting the
tension in the mind of the psalmist between his contrary experiences of
God: God is at once his joy and fate.30 This tension expresses itself also
in the dialogue within the psalmist himself: 'Why are you cast down, O
my soul... Hope in God; for I shall again praise him' (42.5, 11; 43.5).
Here is the polarity of the psalmist's experience: 'At one level of consciousness nostalgia and dismay predominate; at a deeper level
confidence and hope emerge and grow'.31
What does this poem teach us about God? That God may be experienced negatively as well as positively? Certainly. That God is both
comforting and hostile? Possibly. But does this poem exist in order to
teach? Does it not exist in order to be sungor chanted or read? Will
not the polarity in the psalmist's experience of Godto speak only of
this aspect of the poembe felt and heard differently by its hearers in
their differing circumstances? Of course, as we all know; a psalm that
makes one person weep can rejoice another. When the psalm works in
this variegated manner, it is functioning as literature. To acknowledge
it as Scripture in addition is to say no more than the community of faith
welcomes, and is sustained by, the possibilities that it opens up.
Next, the Song of Songs may be chosen as an illustration of the role
of a sustained cluster of metaphor in Old Testament poetry. Country
(with its flocks, vineyards, sun, flowers, hills, fields and villages) and
court (with its king, chambers, curtains, maidens, jewels, couches,
perfumes, banquets, streets and squares) function as a brilliant but
transparent metaphoric system for the disjunction of the lovers that is
always striving towards union. The imagery is everywhere sensuous,
with fragrances, breezes, natural beauty, delights of food and wine; and
the emotional language is highly pitched, with ravishment of heart,
lovesickness, desperate longing, exultation, and its images of animal
energy and grace (gazelle, stag, goats, raven, doves, fawns). Again, the
imagery of enclosed gardens, walls, doors, of absence and presence, of
losing and finding, pervades the poem with the tension of sexual desire,
frustration, and fulfilment. It is not the explicit reference to breasts and
kissing that creates the erotic quality of this poem, but the consistent
29. Alonso Schokel, 'Poetic Structure', p. 7.
30. The phrase is from the eleventh-century mystic Jewish poet, Solomon ben
Judah ibn Gabirol.
31. Alonso Schokel, 'Poetic Structure', p. 8.
236
play of metaphor. The language is rarely direct and explicit (hence the
difficulties in reconstructing a drama from the poem, or even in some
places of assigning speeches); rather it is 'subtle and seductive, leaving
many things unspoken but nonetheless present'.32 The poem does not
allow love to evaporate into a philosophical abstraction, for it persistently makes physical attraction and excitement of feeling the chief
ingredient in romantic love; but on the other hand, its emphatic sexuality is not expressed in physical terms and it makes no appeal to the
voyeuristic instinct.33
The metaphoric systems pervading the poem exist, in the first place,
to be savoured and appreciated. The beginning of literary criticism lies
in the recognition [that]... the work of art... exists not to be used but
to be understood and enjoyed.'34 It does not exist in order to 'teach' or
'affirm' the value of sexual love. It does not even 'celebrate' it in any
self-conscious way. It is true that the Song has been appropriated for
Scripture, but that only means that its horizon of reference has been
broadened so that it can function as teaching (wisdom) if need be. Certainly it may be used in protest against distorting and limiting views of
human sexuality. But when it is no longer time for protest or battle or
the restoring of balances, the Song comes into its own again not as
some 'useful' artifact but as an invitation to delight in the mysterious
reality of joyful physical love.
For a third example of Old Testament poetry, we may consider
Hosea 2 and the function of structure in poetry.35 Though not a narrative poem in any usual sense of that term, this poem of Yahweh and his
wife is structured in two shapes (at least). It first appears in linear or
sequential shape, that is, as a plotted poem. We can make out seven
acts in its plot, one earlier act being presupposed by the poem. What is
going on in the poem, we may say, is this:
32. R.E. Murphy, 'Interpreting the Song of Songs', BTB 9 (1979), pp. 99-105
(104).
33. Cf. Leland Ryken, The Literature of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1974), pp. 217-30.
34. Helen Gardner, The Business of Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1959), p. 15.
35. Cf. D.J.A. Clines, 'Hosea 2: Structure and Interpretation', in Studia Biblica
1978. I. Papers on Old Testament and Related Themes. Sixth International Congress on Biblical Studies (ed. E.A. Livingstone; JSOTSup, 11; Sheffield: JSOT
Press, 1979), pp. 83-103 (reprinted below).

0.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
237
Yahweh and Israel have related harmoniously to each other as

husband and wife [this is presupposed as the past state of
affairs].
Israel has begun to love the Baalim, but that cannot be combined with love for Yahweh. So although Yahweh still wishes
to be husband to Israel, Israel has blocked that relationship
('she is no wife to me' [v. 2a]).
The result is that Yahweh abandons his normal marital relationship with Israel, so that there is a blockage on his side as
well as hers ('I am not her husband', viz. 'I can be no husband
to her' [v. 2a]).
The next move in the plot is not a response, but an initiative,
by Yahweh: he sets up a blockage (thorn hedge, wall) between
Israel and the Baalim (v. 6), which denies her access to them
but does not remove her longing for them (5b, 7a).
In the next step, Israel contemplates a return to Yahweh
(v. 7b), but she finds that that route also is blocked because
she does not 'know' Yahweh and his gifts (v. 8).
The result is stalemate. The three personae at the corners of
the triangle remain, but Israel's lines of communication both
to Yahweh and to the Baalim stay blocked; she is trapped.
The only way out of stalemate is for Yahweh to remove the
blockage between himself and Israel; this he does in removing
Israel from the sphere of the Baalim's influence by taking her
into the desert (v. 14).
Finally, the reciprocal relationship between Yahweh and Israel
that existed before the poem began is restored: Yahweh speaks
and Israel answers (vv. 14-15). The Baalim are remembered
only to be forgotten (v. 17)!
The poem plainly lends itself to being read in this linear fashion. But
it also contains another structure which permits a different reading.
This second structure emerges from the function of the triple laken
('therefore') in the poem:
Appeal to Israel to abandon her harlotry (vv. 2-5).
1.
[Because she has played the harlot]

Therefore (Idkeri)I will bar her way (v. 6a)
(viz. I will end her harlotry) (vv. 6-7)
But she does not acknowledge me as giver (v. 8a).
238
2.
3.
[Because she does not acknowledge me as giver]

Therefore (taken) I will take back my gifts (v. 9a)
(viz. I will end her enjoyment of them) (vv. 9-13)
But me she has forgotten (v. 13b).
[Because she has forgotten me]
Therefore (Idken)I will persuade her... woo her (v. 16)
(viz. I will cause her to remember me and [by implication] to
abandon her harlotry) (vv. 16-17).
Each 'therefore' (taken) strophe is grounded upon a misdeed of

Israel's mentioned at the end of the previous strophe. So there is a
sequential air to the poem. Yet each of Israel's misdeeds have taken
place at the same time: to have played the harlot with the Baalim, to
have failed to acknowledge Yahweh as her benefactor, to have forgotten Yahwehthey are all the same sin. So the poem can be read not as
a sequence of actions that Yahweh proposes to take in response to a
sequence of misdeeds, but as a set of options he opens himself up to, a
range of possibilities that he passes in review. The mood of the poem
is, on this reading, one of divine bafflement, of God's struggling with
himself (cf. 6.14; 11.8).36 Does he dismiss the first two options in
favour of the third, or does he take a yet further alternative of forging a
wholeness out of all three available options? His options arise from
deep feeling (both resentment of Israel and a craving for her companionship), and any decision that attempts to ignore something that is real
to him will reduce (will it not?) the wholeness of his being.37
The poem does not allow us to choose definitively between these
various readings. It permits itself to be read horizontally as well as vertically, that is, as presenting impulses that exist simultaneously within
Yahweh as well as a sequence of actions he plans to carry out. It permits itself to be read as the coming to a decision out of a conflict of
competing feelings, or as one total response to the reality of Israel's
infidelity. We may lean to one reading or another, but we will be good
readers of this intense and finely wrought piece of scriptural literature if
we can be alert to all reasonable readings of it.
36. Cf. Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1974), p. 119.
37. See J.G. Janzen, 'Metaphor and Reality in Hosea 11', SBL 1976 Seminar
Papers (ed. G. MacRae; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976), pp. 413-45.
239
Story and poem are alike enough to allow a common set of reflections
on their significance in Old Testament literature.
1. Story and poem are oblique modes of communication. Neither
Genesis nor the Song of Songs sets out to tell us what to do or to convey a 'message' to us. Indeed, it would be excessively doctrinaire to
assert that a literary work has no meaning beyond itself ('A poem
should not mean, but be'38), but almost equally doctrinaire to claim to
nail down the 'kerygma' of a literary work. A literary approach to the
Old Testament lowers our expectations for clear messages and general
truths or for proof texts to equip arsenals for theological warfare. But it
heightens our sensitivities to being moved, amused, elated, angered,
persuaded. And when the literature provokes in us the kinds of reaction
it has the capacity to createwhat more could one ask of a scripture!
2. Old Testament story and poem reach us as texts. Texts are monuments; they signal the presence of what is dead but 'survives' and can
be awakened.39 We cannot hear these stories and poems as their first
hearers heard them, recreating the world of the teller of tales or willing
ourselves back into the audience of an Amos. But the texts themselves
still exist, endlessly replicated. They are given to springing to life and
taking even casual readers by surprise. We do not make the leap into the
past, we do not have to devise some scheme for bridging the gap between the 'then' of the text and the 'now' of the hearer. Any literature
worth the name jumps the time-gap of its own accord. For this reason,
the church is entitled to regard its scripture as 'lively oracles'.
3. What is happening in imaginative literature such as story and
poem is the creation of worlds alternative to our own present reality.
Though they bear a resemblance to our everyday world, we are aware
that things are done differently there, values we recognize are differently esteemed, and our own personal security may be troubled as we
realize that our way is not the only way for humans to be. If we are
fascinated into acknowledging the alternative world as part, at least, of
what we want to have as our own real world, two horizons merge: that
of our prior world and that of the alternative world. In religious language, this is called 'hearing' Scripture. If the Old Testament as literature wins this kind of assent from us, has it not become our Scripture?
38. A. MacLeish, 'Ars Poetica', in Streets in the Moon (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1926).
39. Cf. W.J. Ong, 'Maranatha: Death and Life in the Text of the Book', JAAR
45 (1977), pp. 419-49.
12
X, X BEN Y, BEN Y:
PERSONAL NAMES IN HEBREW NARRATIVE STYLE
\.TheXbenYForm
Abner is sometimes called Abner, sometimes Abner b. Ner; Jeroboam
appears both as Jeroboam and as Jeroboam b. Nebat; Gideon is usually
Gideon or Jerubbaal, except for three places where he is called Jerubbaal b. Joash. Shimei is four times Shimei b. Gera, and fourteen times
simply Shimei, but Sheba is invariably Sheba b. Bichri on the eight
occasions he is mentioned by name. Similar variations occur in the
names of other personages in the historical books. Judging by the lack
of attention this phenomenon receives in the commentaries one must
assume that the choice of the name-forms 'X' or 'X ben Y' is generally
thought to be arbitrary.
This view may be questioned, however. While it is impossible to be
certain that one has correctly identified the reason for the use of one of
the name-forms in a particular passage, it will become clear from the
present study that a number of factors that influence the narrator's
choice of name-form may be distinguished. That is, when both 'X' and
'X ben Y' are in use for an individual, it can be observed that the long
form 'X ben Y' is used:
a.
b.
for clarity, to distinguish, e.g., X ben Y from X ben Z

for reasons of narrative form
(i) to introduce a new character into a narrative1
(ii) to introduce a new scene in which the character
appears
Originally published in Vetus Testamentum 22 (1972), pp. 266-87, and reprinted

with the permission of E.J. Brill.
1. This, the most obvious reason for the full name-form, is the only one recognized even by Irene Lande in her valuable Formelhafte Wendungen der
Umgangssprache imAlten Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1949), p. 80.
12. X, X ben Y, ben Y: Personal Names in Narrative Style
c.
d.
241
(iii) when a speaker mentions a character for the first

time (an extension of [i] and [ii])
(iv) in initial or concluding summaries
for formality
(i) in legal formulations
(ii) in prophetic oracles
(iii) in other formal and official phrases
(iv) in stereotyped formulas, e.g. royal synchronisms
for contextual significance
(i) where the relationship (of X to Y) is meaningful in the
context
(ii) where the name Y has some significance for the
narrative.
Each of these offers a quite natural occasion for the use of the long
form, and most could be readily paralleled in modern English usage.
What is noteworthy is that the use of the 'X ben Y' form can be
reduced to so small a set of contexts. It is of course obvious that a clear
distinction between the uses mentioned above cannot always be maintained: thus it could well be argued that the 'X ben Y' form in legal
formulations is motivated by a need for clarity rather than for formality,
but the analysis will, it is hoped, prove useful practically.
It needs to be remarked that the long form 'X ben Y' is not always
employed when one of the situations analysed above arises; one can
only hope to show why 'X ben Y' is used when it is used, and one cannot usually speculate about why it is not used.
The reasons for the use of one name-form rather than the other
become clear primarily through an examination of names in their setting, so it is proposed to trace certain names throughout the narratives
in which they occur. The names studied are arranged in the order of
their first occurrence in the Bible.
Ehud. The use of the 'X ben Y' (hereafter 'XbY') form in Ehud's
case is a simple example of type b i. In Judg. 3.15 'Yahweh raised up a
deliverer, Ehud b. Gera, a Benjaminite', the hero of the narrative is first
introduced with the long name-form. Thereafter throughout the story he
appears simply as Ehud (vv. 16, 18, 20, etc.).
Barak at his first mention is 'Barak b. Abinoam' (Judg. 4.6), while
his town and tribal affiliation are also noted, though integrally with the
narrative ('Deborah called Barak b. Abinoam from Kadesh Naphtali')
rather than, as is more usual, merely appended to the name (cf. Ehud).
242
Throughout the narrative we have 'Barak' simply, except in one place

(v. 12): 'And they (indefinite) told Sisera: Barak b. Abinoam has gone
up to Mount Tabor'. This sudden reversal to the 'XbY' form is not
arbitrary but can be explained as a vivid trick of style whereby the narrator reproduces not only the direct speech of the spies of Sisera but
even the name-form they would have used (assuming they spoke
Hebrew), for from their perspective Barak is a new character in the
action. So this is type b iii.2
In v. 1 the heading of the poetic version of the battle introduces a
new scene: after the battle Deborah and 'Barak b. Abinoam' (type b ii)
sang. In the poem itself Barak is simply 'Barak', except in v. 12 where
'son of Abinoam' ('ben Y' form, see below) is a parallel to 'Barak'.
Gideon is usually referred to as Gideon or Jerubbaal (the variation
between the two X-form names does not concern us here), but in five
places the 'XbY' form is used. He is not introduced with the 'XbY'
form, since the opening sentence of the Gideon story proper (Judg.
6.11) happens to mention Gideon's father Joash first, and so it would be
unnecessary to say 'Gideon b. Joash'. Still, a surrogate for the 'XbY'
form, namely 'X his son', is used. The long form 'XbY' first appears in
Judg. 6.29, where the men of the town, having investigated the crime of
the deposed Baal altar, say 'Gideon b. Joash has done this thing'. This
may be the vivid narrative technique of perspective reporting (type b
iii); it is the first time the men of the town mention Gideon. But in view
of the legal phrasing of the sentence 'has done this thing',3 we may
suppose that the long form is used for formality's sake (type c i).
In 7.14 the Midianite's dream of the barley loaf is interpreted by his
comrade: 'This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon b. Joash, a man
of Israel'. The narrative type b iii is the most obvious explanation, but
there is also an element of formality present (cf. type c iii), as the
phrase 'a man of Israel' also shows.
8.13 'Then Gideon b. Joash returned from the battle by the ascent of
Heres'. This is certainly not an introduction to Gideon, but it does mark
a new phase or scene in the narrative (type b ii). The 'XbY' form adds
no new information but acted as a paragraph divider in a long chain of
waw consecutives.
8.29 'Jerubbaal b. Joash went and dwelt in his own house' may be
2. On 'perspective reporting', cf. below, n. 12.
3. Cf. Hans Jochen Boecker, Redeformen des Rechtslebens im Alten Testament
(Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1964), pp. 26-34.
243
viewed as either a concluding formula (type b iv) or as initiating a new

paragraph (b ii).
8.32 'Gideon b. Joash died... and was buried in the tomb of Joash
his father'. The 'XbY' form is otiose in view of 'Joash his father' in the
same sentence, but may be explained as a concluding formula (type b
iv; cf. 3.11 Then Othniel b. Kenaz died'; 12.15 Then Abdon b. Hillel
the Pirathonite died').
Abimelech is a much simpler case. He is introduced in Judg. 9.1 as
'Abimelech b. Jerubbaal' (type b i), and thereafter is simply 'Abimelech' (36 times) except for one place where he is referred to as 'the
son of Jerubbaal' (v. 28), the 'ben Y' form about which more will be
said later.
The case of Gaol b. Ebed, the opponent of Abimelech, is an interesting one. Not only is he introduced as Gaal b. Ebed (Judg. 9.26), but the
narrative continues with the 'XbY' form.
9.28 'And Gaal b. Ebed said: Who is Abimelech?'
9.30 'When Zebul the ruler of the city heard the words of Gaal b.
Ebed his anger was kindled'. Here, even in an oblique case, where the
sentence focuses attention on another character, Gaal is given the full
form.
9.31 'He sent messengers to Abimelech... saying, Behold, Gaal b.
Ebed and his kinsmen have come to Shechem'. This could be type b iii,
but a comprehensive explanation of all the occurrences is preferable.
9.35 'And Gaal b. Ebed went out and stood in the entrance of the
gate of the city'. This could perhaps be an example of type b ii, but we
could hardly claim there has been a significant change of scene.
Hereafter, however, in 9.36, 37, 39, 41, it is surprising that only the
short form Gaal is used.
It may be that the reason for the repeated use of the full form is that
the name of this villain is regarded as significant (type d ii): it is ironical, perhaps the narrator implies, that a Gaal b. Ebed (? 'loathing, son
of a slave'), should be sneering, 'Who is Abimelech?', when Abimelech
has the dignity of a son of an Israelite judge who is virtually a king in
his own right (8.29-30). Gaal b. Ebed may in fact be a deliberate perversion4 of a quite unexceptionable name Goal5 b. Obed.6 If this expla4. So G.F. Moore, Judges (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1895), p. 256; John
Gray, Joshua, Judges and Ruth (NCB; London: Nelson, 1967), p. 322.
5. go'al 'loathing' (cf. Josephus's rdX,r|<;, Ant. 5.7.3-4.).
6. So LXX Ia>pr|X, a common error for Icfl|3r|6 (Moore, Judges, p. 256).
244
nation of the continuation of the long name-form is correct, the eventual abandonment of it in favour of the short form must be accounted
for by the quickening pace of the narrative.
Michal. The name-forms used for Michal, daughter of Saul and wife
of David, are particularly instructive:
1 Sam. 14.49 'The names of (Saul's) two daughters were these:
Merab the first-born and Michal the younger' (genealogical, contextually clarified, hence 'X' form).
18.20 'Michal daughter of Saul loved David'. This is doubly significant: on the one hand, David has been cheated of Merab, the elder
daughter (v. 19), but now looks likely to succeed with the other
daughter of Saul; and on the other hand, ch. 18 has been concerned
with Saul's growing disenchantment with David, and in that setting it is
dramatically promising that David falls in love withthe daughter of
Saul. So this is type d i.
18.27 'Saul gave him his daughter Michal for a wife'; to 'Michal'
there is added the determinative 'his daughter' because the relationship
is significant. 'Daughter of Saul' is obviously impossible because
'Saul' already appears in the sentence.
18.28 'Saul saw and knew that Yahweh was with David, and that the
daughter of Saul loved him, and Saul became yet more afraid of
David'. 'Daughter of Saul' in a sentence of which 'Saul' is the subject
would appear to annul the last observation made on the previous verse.
But it is virtually certain that 'TIKETPQ ^Ql is here an orthographical
error for ^"ICT'^D "O1,7 for the MT presents the following difficulties:
Saul already knew that Michal loved David (v. 20), and Michal has
done nothing more to prove her love for him (though it could be argued
that David's double bride-price proved his love for her), so nothing can
be inferred from the emphatic 'saw and knew' (PT1 KT1); why should
Michal's love for David make Saul afraid of David? It could have been
a further ground for his hating him, but Saul obviously fears a threat to
his throne. Verse 28 emended in fact summarizes the material of ch. 18
7. Cf. LXX Kai rcdq Iapat|A, riydrca amov. So Henry Preserved Smith, The
Books of Samuel (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1899), p. 175; Paul Dhorme, Les
Livres de Samuel (Etudes bibliques; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1910), p. 166; S.R. Driver,
Notes on the Hebrew Text... of the Books of Samuel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2nd
edn, 1913), p. 155. Remarkably, BH 3 , NEB, Hans Wilhelm Hertzberg, I and II
Samuel (London: SCM Press, 1964), p. 159, and J. Mauchline, 1 and 2 Samuel
(NCB; London: Oliphants, 1971), p. 141, appear to have no difficulty with the MT.
245
in reverse order: 'Yahweh was with David' recapitulates v. 14 (and

perhaps also David's success with the Philistines, v. 27), while 'all
Israel loved him' recapitulates vv. 6-8.
19.11 'Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him that he
might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, told him
Here at the beginning of a new episode Michal is introduced in the
form usual for mentioning a married woman: 'X wife of Y' (cf. e.g.
'Deborah wife of Lappidoth', Judg. 4.4; 'Abigail, wife of Nabal',
1 Sam. 25.14). Thus we have an analogy to type b ii. However, it may
be significant in the light of 2 Sam. 6, to be discussed below, that when
Michal is attempting to defend David from Saul she is called 'wife of
David' (thus possibly a further example of d i. In any case, the narrative
19.11-17 continues with just 'Michal'.
25.44 'Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Palti b.
Laish'. The relationships indicated by both long forms (which are
functionally equivalent to 'XbY') are relevant to the story (type d i).
2 Sam. 3.13, 14 David agrees to make a covenant with Abner on
condition that Abner brings 'Michal daughter of Saul' with him. David
then sends messengers to Ishbosheth to say: 'Give me my wife Michal'.
Why does he call her 'daughter of Saul' when speaking to Abner
(through his messengers), but 'my wife' when speaking to Ishbosheth?
For these reasons: he has no quarrel to pick with Abner and so avoids
the technical legal question of whether Michal is the wife of David or
Paltiel. It is a purely business arrangement between David and Abner,
so David uses a neutral, and not an emotive, term for Michal. That may
be sufficient explanation of the fact that he does not refer to her as 'my
wife', but it may be asked: why does he call her 'daughter of Saul'?
Surely Abner does not need to have spelled out for him who the Michal
is whom David has an interest in! She is after all Abner's cousin's (or
nephew's) daughter. The long form is not for clarity (type d). Conceivably, the sentence has the formality of a legal contract (type c i), or,
perhaps, this is a simple case of the use of the long form when a person
is first mentioned in conversation (b iii). But most probably this is a
further instance of type d i: David will know that Abner has turned his
back on Ishbosheth for good when he brings with him Saul's daughter,
that will prove that Abner assents to David succeeding to Saul's throne.
In v. 14, on the other hand, David is saying in effect to Ishbosheth:
she is my wife, not Paltiel's, and the responsibility for her being now
with Paltiel is yours, since you are son and heir of your father who gave
246
her to Paltiel (1 Sam. 25.44). (This explains, incidentally, why Ishbosheth is here called 'Ishbosheth son of Saul' [type d i] while elsewhere in the chapter he is simply 'Ishbosheth' [vv. 7, 8, 11, 15].)
'Michal daughter of Saul' would be ludicrous in this context, and
'Michal' alone would not beg the question so emphatically as David's
well-chosen phrase does.
6.16 'Michal the daughter of Saul saw King David leaping and dancing before Yahweh, and she despised him in her heart'.
6.20 'David returned to bless his household, and Michal the daughter
of Saul came out to meet David, and said: How the king of Israel honoured himself today...!'
6.21 'And David said to Michal: It was before Yahweh...'
6.23 'And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her
death'.
Here the normal pattern of name use is broken in two ways: first,
Michal is called 'daughter of Saul' rather than 'wife of David', which
one would expect for a married woman, especially since the episode
concerns an altercation between man and wife; and secondly, the
'XbY' form is used three times, contrary to the usual practice of beginning a narrative with 'XbY' and continuing with 'X'. The reason for
both these abnormalities is clear: Michal is not behaving as David's
wife (contrast 1 Sam. 19) but as his opponent: she is acting like a true
daughter of Saul,8 and the narrator has spelled this out by writing
'Michal daughter of Saul' in the two places where her criticism of
David is expressed (vv. 16, 20). Verse 23 presumably means 'Here is
the punishment for an opponent of David the divinely chosen king',
and perhaps also: 'So David fails to legitimize his succession to Saul's
throne through Michal'.
If it is correct that Michal's relationship with Saul is being emphasized by the use of the 'XbY' form (type d i), one may well wonder
8. Older commentators occasionally saw that some explanation of the full
name-form is called for, though their explanations were beside the point; for
example, 'Michalis expressly calledSaul's daughter,not thereby to characterize
her as lacking in true-hearted piety (Keil), but to distinguish her in comparison with
David's other wives, as highest in position' (C.F.D. Erdmann, The Books of Samuel
[ed. C.H. Toy and J.A. Brooks; New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1877],
p. 419); or, 'as king's daughter, she valued her royal dignity' (R. Payne Smith, II
Samuel [Pulpit Commentary, 9; London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.,
1888], p. 147).
247
why it is not employed also in v. 21. The answer can only be that
purely literary factors outweigh the significative value of 'XbY', for
example, one may sense that the narrative here gathers pace, which the
long form would slow down, or perhaps preferably that attention now
focuses on David, who is the subject of the sentence, and that it is
therefore beside the point to stress the role that Michal is playing.
21.8 The reference here to Michal daughter of Saul as having borne
five sons is almost universally agreed to be an error (cf. 6.23) for Merab
(so LXXL).9
Abner. Abner is first met with at 1 Sam. 14.50, in a passage concerning the relatives of Saul: 'The name of his army commander was Abner
b. Ner, Saul's uncle'. This is not a narrative passage but an archivaltype list where the details of relationship are significant. It is analogous
to type d i in narrative style.
Abner is not introduced with the 'XbY' form when he first appears in
the narrative at 17.55, presumably because it is not he but Saul and
David who are the protagonists there, and because Abner is more
appropriately described in the context as 'army commander'.
In the narratives in which Abner is involved he is of course usually
just 'Abner', but the eight places where he is 'Abner b. Ner' require
explanation.
In ch. 26, Abner, though a figure of subordinate interest to David and
Saul, steps further into the foreground, and engages in an altercation
with David. So in this episode it is not strange that Abner is first spoken
of as 'Abner b. Ner' (v. 5) (type b ii).
26.14 is odd: 'David called to the army and to Abner b. Ner, saying,
Will you not answer, Abner?' This is hardly a new episode (type b ii).
But if we reconstruct the scene, it is immediately obvious that 'Will
you not answer, Abner?' cannot be the opening gambit of the conversation! David will have already called "irp "I32K KrJJQti10 or nnNn
"irp ")]HN HT 11 or some such thing, the full 'XbY' name-form being
appropriate when addressing a person for the first time (cf. type b iii).
9. Cf., e.g., Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text, p. 352; Mauchline, 1 and 2
Samuel, p. 302. J.J. Gliick, 'Merab or Michal', ZAW77 (1965), pp. 72-81, alone
retains 'Michal' at the cost of an unconvincing emendation of 'Adriel b. Barzillai
the Meholathite' to 'Paltiel b. Laish'.
10. Cf. Gen. 37.6 WIJJQti (Joseph to his brothers); 1 Sam. 22.7 WIJOO (Saul to
his servants); Judg. 9.7 ^N 1DQ2J (Jotham to the men of Shechem).
11. Cf. 2 Sam. 2.20 (Abner to Asahel); 1 Kgs 18.7 (Obadiah to Elijah).
248
But to speed up the story, the narrator embodies David's first question
in his narrative, along with the name-form that would have been
employed in direct speech.12 It is to be noted incidentally that this compression, which may have occurred at the time of writing down a longer
oral text, results in an awkward juxtaposition ('David called to the people and to Abner b. Ner'? at the same time) which some versions
have been uneasy with and have attempted to smooth out by inserting
another verb.13
At 2 Sam. 2.8 the 'XbY' form is easily explicable as introducing a
new episode (type b ii); note the position of tQine? ~0~p "|]3N before
the verb, serving the same function.
2.12, though not far from v. 8, plainly introduces a new pericope
(vv. 10-11, a chronological note, breaks up the narrative), which is
marked by the 'XbY' form for both Abner and Ishbosheth (type b ii).
Through 2 Sam. 2-3 Abner is consistently 'Abner', until 3.23 'It was
told to Joab, Abner b. Ner has come to the king', a clear example of
type b iii.
In 3.25 our analysis brings to light an interesting nuance. Joab
12. This is therefore an example of 'perspective reporting' narrative technique,
in which the narrator tells the story from within the perspective of one of his characters. This technique is discussed by M. Weiss ('Einiges iiber die Bauformen des
Erzahlens in der Bibel', VT 13 [1963], pp. 456-75) under the rubric 'erlebte Rede'.
An alternative interpretation of our text is suggested by Lande, Formelhafte
Wendungen der Umgangssprache im Alien Testament, p. 20, who sees David's
address of Abner by the simple name-form as a sign of disrespect. This is difficult
to establish since there are no exact parallels: Joram's neglect of the courteous 'my
brother' when crying 'Treachery, Ahaziah' (2 Kgs 9.23) is hardly disrespectful, and
from 2 Kgs 9.5 when a messenger addresses Jehu with 'I have a message for thee,
O commander ("15OT)', we do not learn whether one can say, 'O commander Jehu
("IC?n Kin1). Other examples (cf. Lande, Formelhafte Wendungen der Umgangssprache im Alten Testament, p. 28, and add 2 Kgs 9.31) are of a superior addressing
an inferior, and are irrelevant here. David can hardly address Abner as 'my brother'
(TIN) or 'my lord' (TIN), and as far as we know he would have to call out either
"l&H (which might produce some other "150; cf. 2 Kgs 9.5), or prp) "038, regardless of how respectful or unrespectful he wanted to appear. If he really wanted to be
ill-mannered, he could always say simply ~Q~p (cf. on ben Y below). Finally, note
that Lande does not explain why the long name-form appears in our text.
13. LXX TipoaeKaXeaaTO Aa\)ei5 TOY X,aov, KOI T<B Apevvip eA,dXnaev Xeycav.
Cf. NEB 'David shouted across to the army and hailed Abner'. The problem is
further complicated by Abner's reply 'Who art thou who callest to the king1?'
("I^QiT^K omitted by LXX, BH3, JB), but this does not concern us here.
249
reproaches David for having welcomed Abner: 'What have you done?
Behold Abner has come to you... You know that Abner b. Ner came to
deceive y o u . . . ' Why does Joab first call him 'Abner', and then 'Abner
b. Ner'? Plainly for no purely formal reason (types b, c). Rather, 'Abner
b. Ner' in this context draws attention to the relationship of son to
father (type d i). Joab means, 'You ought to realize that a relative
(uncle or cousin) of Saul must be an opponent of yours'. He has first
spoken of Abner, the man who is in his own right both David's and
Joab's enemy (2 Sam. 2.12-32), and he is astounded that David has not
held him captive: 'Why (HTTIQ^, emphatic accusatory14 particle) have
you let him go?'15 'He has got clean away!' (NEB). But secondly, he
reinforces his reproach with 'Surely you know who Abner is! He is a
kinsman of Saul. You can only expect treachery from that quarter'. The
MT to -]nns'7 O "irp 1D-n nirr should indeed be translated with
NEB 'You know Abner son of Ner: he came meaning to deceive you',
rather than with RSV 'You know that Abner the son of Ner came to
deceive you'.
Abner's death is then narrated, the 'X' form being used twice,
whereupon David says:
3.28 'I and my kingdom are innocent of the blood of Abner b. Ner'.
This sounds like a formal or legal phrase (type c i) in which the use of
the full name-form lends weight to the exculpation.
Finally, after several uses of the 'X' form in the narrative of Abner's
burial, we find
3.37 'And all the people and all Israel knew on that day that it had
not been the king's will ("[^QHQ) to slay Abner b. Ner'. It is hard to
pinpoint the reason for the 'XbY' form here, but at this resting-point of
14. Cf. Boecker, Redeformen des Rechtslebens, p. 30.
15. 'Why' questions of reproach are commonly supplemented by "O or N^H
clauses, e.g. 1 Sam 26.18 CD); 1 Sam. 17.8 (N^H), and probably vbr\ should be
restored at the beginning of v. 25 (cf. LXX). But LXX is rather free at this point,
running (24) ct7ieXr|X'u6ev ev eipfivrj (25) ri OVK oi5as ii\v Kaidav A(3evvr|p...
for MT ~mtrn njJT qftn "p^. One should not succumb to LXX and read "['n
DIÊD (so K. Budde, Die Biicher Samuel [KHAT; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1902],
p. 212; BH3), since that is clearly an assimilation to the ending of vv. 22-23. and
Driver (Notes on the Hebrew Text, p. 249) rightly sees that 'while the narrator, and
reporters, use the common Dl'pED ~Jt?rl, Joab characteristically expresses himself
with greater energy ~[l^n "[^l. Nor should we read "1338 nm~nN in v. 25 (so
Budde, Die Biicher Samuel, p. 212), since LXX is only smoothing, though not
improving, the Hebrew.
250
the narrative where the burial of the warrior and the mourning until
sunset halts the flow of events and the attention is turned backwards to
the question of responsibility before focusing again on David in the
circle of his intimates, the formality of 'Abner son of Ner' is entirely
appropriate (? type b iv, c iii).
Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth's name at its first occurrence (2 Sam.
4.4) needs no 'XbY' form since the one-verse episode begins 'Jonathan
b. Saul had a son...' and concludes 'and his name was Mephibosheth'.
In ch. 9, the story of David's kindness, Mephibosheth is introduced
as 'Mephibosheth b. Jonathan b. Saul' (v. 6) since he is the one person
'left of the house of Saul' to whom David can 'shown kindness for
Jonathan's sake' (v. 1). The ancestry of Mephibosheth is fundamental
to the narrative, so naturally the long form (here actually 'XbYbZ') is
used (type d i). In the rest of the story Mephibosheth is regularly called
by the 'X' form.
Mephibosheth is referred to in ch. 16, but there it is 'Ziba the servant
of Mephibosheth' who is the protagonist, and for that reason, it seems,
Mephibosheth is not introduced with the 'XbY' form (16.1, 4).16
In ch. 19 there is another Mephibosheth episode, which begins (v. 24;
MT 25) not only with the full 'XbY' form (type b ii), but also with the
subject preceding the verb.17 As usual, we find the 'X' form elsewhere
in the narrative (19.25, 30; MT 26, 31).
The final reference to Mephibosheth, though it occurs in a summarizing sentence (21.7) is not an example of type b iv, but plainly of d i:
'The king spared Mephibosheth b. Jonathan b. Saul because of the
oath... between David and Jonathan b. Saul'.
Shimei. In only four of the eighteen places where Shimei is mentioned is the 'XbY' form used of him. Three of the four cases are easily
explained; in
2 Sam. 16.5 Shimei is first met with and introduced as 'a man from
the phratry (nnDtfJQ) to which the house of Saul belonged, and his name
was Shimei b. Gera'. In the continuation of the episode, he is just
'Shimei' (vv. 7, 13).
In 19.16 (MT 17), in a new episode (type b ii), he is first introduced
as 'Shimei b. Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim', emphasizing that
this eager monarchist is none other than the stone-throwing reviler of
ch. 16.
16. Cf. on Abner (1 Sam. 17.55).
17. Cf. on Abner (2 Sam. 2.8).
251
Again, in 1 Kgs 2.8, Shimei is introduced into David's farewell

speech as 'Shimei b. Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim', in the very
formal context of a king's injunctions to his successor (type c i or iii);
cf. the use of 'XbY' forms in v. 5 (Joab b. Zeruiah, Abner b. Ner,
Amasa b. Jether).
Only in 2 Sam. 19.18 (MT 19) is there an apparent exception to our
rules; here, only two verses after the 'XbY' form has been used, Shimei
is again called 'Shimei b. Gera'. Remarkably, however, at this point the
subject is placed before the verb, probably to mark the reversion18 to
the story of Shimei after the parenthetical reference to Ziba (vv. 17b18a; MT 18a(M9a), and the function of the full 'XbY' name-form can
be explained similarly as indicating the refocusing of attention on
Shimei (type b ii).
Sheba. The episode of Sheba b. Bichri's revolt against David is
confined to one chapter (2 Sam. 20), but contrary to the normal narrative usage of 'XbY' followed by 'X', in this chapter Sheba is invariably
called Sheba b. Bichri (8 times). This persistence of the 'XbY' form
throughout a short self-contained narrative cannot be explained as
required by a need for clarity (type a); the name Sheba is otherwise met
with in the Old Testament only in one place (1 Chron. 5.13) as a Gadite
clan name. By working through the range of possibilities analysed
above, it becomes apparent that an explanation should be sought within
type d, that is, that the name Bichri has contextual significance.
We may consider first whether some play is being made with the
popular (?) etymology of the clan name Bichri (type d ii). It sounds
related to ~1D3 'young camel',19 with fern. H1D3 (Jer. 2.23; Isa. 60.6),
and the implication could perhaps be that Sheba is a true son of a ""OH,
stubborn, rebellious, and self-willed. It may be more than coincidental
that in Isa. 60.6 Sheba is referred to as a region of camels (~D3). Of
course there is no real connection between the place name NH2J and the
personal name 1732?, but it is not impossible that a link between the
18. The inversion of verb and subject is not here due to dischronologization of
the narrative, as is sometimes the case (see, e.g., S.R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use
of the Tenses in Hebrew [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2nd edn, 1881], pp. 102, 22930).
19. Attested in the Old Testament only as a proper name (Num. 26.35; Gen.
46.21; 1 Chron. 7.6, 8), but cf. Akk. bakru 'young of a camel of donkey' (CAD, B,
p. 35), Arab, bakr 'a youthful he-camel, one in a state of youthful vigour' (Lane, I,
p. 240b).
252
refractory Sheba son of ~DH and a well-known home of the ~D3 was
intended by the story-teller, who referred invariably to 'Sheba b. Bichri'
in order to reinforce his view of Sheba's character, which he blackens
at the very beginning with the epithet 'son of Belial'20 (20.1).
An alternative explanation of the repeated 'XbY' form is of type d i,
viz. that it is significant for the narrative that David's opponent is of the
Bichri clan, and the narrator does not allow us to forget how significant
Sheba's kinship affinity is. Already in 1896 J. Marquart21 suggested
that Saul himself came from the Benjaminite family of "OH, so that
Sheba's rebellion may be understood as the last attempt by the Bichrite
clan to regain the lost kingship.22 If this was so, it is easy to see why the
narrator stresses that it is a Bichrite who opposes David. Such a suggestion of course assumes that the narrator's audience could be
expected to know that Saul was a Bichrite, which is an assumption that
20. 'Sons of Belial' are those who break loose from accepted standards of
morality or order (cf. V. Maag, 'Belija'alim Alten Testament', TZ 21 [1965],
pp. 287-99). The parallel with the uncontrollable ITDD of Jer. 2.23 is plain; 'such a
young camel never takes more than about three steps in any direction. To this day
the young camel provides a dramatic illustration for anything unreliable' (K.F.
Bailey and W.L. Holladay, 'The "Young Camel" and "Wild Ass" in Jer. ii 23-25',
VT 18 [1968], pp. 256-60 [258-59]). Bailey and Holladay have shown emendation
of the MT ~a~tQ Ifcb N~ID (v. 24) to be unnecessary, since a different animal is
referred to in this verse, but the sense is unaffected even if one of the usual emendations is adopted: to "13"TQi? HKHS 'breaking forth into the desert' (L. Koehler,
ZAW 29 [1909], pp. 35-36, followed by BH3, W. Rudolph, Jeremia [HAT; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 3rd edn, 1968], p. 20), or to ~\S1^ H^DO (G.R. Driver, JQR 28
[1937-38], pp. 98-99; followed by NEB).
21. J. Marquart, Fundamente israelitischer und judischer Geschichte (1896),
pp. 14-15, reading ~l?3, for DTDS in the genealogy of Saul in 1 Sam. 9.1 (cf. ~D3
among the sons of Benjamin, Gen. 46.21; and I"p3 (if not an error for i"O5, cf.
BH3) among the descendants of Saul in 1 Chron. 8.38; 9.44). A difficulty with this
view is that 2 Sam. 16.5 refers to Shimei b. Gera as being of the nnstEQ (phratry) to
which the SNTPD (extended family) of Saul belonged; for we know that Gera was,
like Becher (Bichri), a clan of the Benjamin tribe, and it would be surprising to find
a Gera in the Becher clan. A less serious difficulty is that in 1 Sam. 11.21 Saul is
said to be of the nnDKJQ of Matri C"lt3Q), but since the name Matri is nowhere
attested as a Benjaminite name, we have doubtless to do with an error in transmission. Indeed, "HCOQ may itself be witness to an original '"DD; 3 and Q are easily confused both in the palaeoscript and in square Hebrew (cf. respectively B. Margulis,
ZAW 82 [1970], pp. 409-42 (421, 426); F. Delitzsch, Die Lese- und Schreibfehler
im Alten Testament [Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1920], pp. 113-14).
22. Cf. Budde, Die Bucher Samuel, p. 296.
253
is difficult to test. Though both these explanations may fail to be

entirely convincing through lack of evidence, it can still be argued that
some such explanation is preferable to assuming that the narrator's
choice of the 'XbY' form is completely arbitrary.
Jeroboam is first introduced, formally, in 1 Kgs 11.26 as 'Jeroboam
b. Nebat, an Ephrathite from Zaredah' (type b i). Thereafter throughout
the episode of Jeroboam's revolt (1 Kgs 11) he is called 'Jeroboam'
simply. The next scene, the rejection of Rehoboam at Shechem, begins
with 'Jeroboam b. Nebat' (type b ii) (12.2), but then continues down to
the death of Jeroboam (14.20) using simply 'Jeroboam'. There is only
one exception, at
12.15 The king did not hearken to the people; for it was a turn of
events brought about by Yahweh that he might fulfil his word, which
Yahweh spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam b. Nebat'. Here we
may have an instance of the 'XbY' form used in a summary (type b iv)
to found off a narrative. The context of prophetic discourse in which
the name occurs, however, suggests the possibility that the formal style
of prophetic utterance (type c ii) has had an influence here; it is true that
'XbY' does not here actually occur within an oracle, but the solemnity
which makes it appropriate to speak of 'Ahijah the Shilonite' (cf. 11.29
'the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite'; 11.30, 31 'Ahijah') may also
account for the full form 'Jeroboam b. Nebat'.23 In any case, it should
23. It is obvious that v. 15b is a Deuteronomic aside (cf. M. Noth, Konige
[BKAT; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968], I, p. 276), but that fact in itself
cannot explain this use of 'XbY' which is out of line with the use of 'X' throughout
1 Kgs 12-14, for the Deuteronomic historian must for the present purpose be
regarded as the primary author, and it is largely his narrative usage that we are
examining. It could, however, perhaps be suggested that either the whole clause 'to
establish his word which Yahweh spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam b.
Nebat' (so James A. Montgomery and Henry Snyder Gehman, The Books of Kings
(ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1951], p. 250) or, preferably, the last phrase, 'to
Jeroboam b. Nebat', is a secondary, scribal (i.e. not narrator's), addition and consequently does not employ the same narrative technique as the Deuteronomic author.
The reading of LXX A - B rcepi (= "?!?) lepopoafi wos Napat, which is certainly a
difficilior lectio than MT "^N, since the previous chapter plainly relates how Ahijah
delivered his prophecy to Jeroboam (11.31), points to the phrase having been a
marginal gloss and so no part of the Deuteronomic narrative (cf. 15.29). If this were
so, it would remove the necessity of seeking a reason for the employment of the
'XbY' form within the terms of the analysis offered above. It might be pointed out
that the unnecessary (note its absence in LXX A - B) use of 'Yahweh' in the last
clause (after 'Yahweh' has already appeared in the main clause and has been taken
254
be observed that this exception to the general rule that we have established ('XbY' at the beginning, 'X' in the continuation) is to be
accounted for as editorial and not really narrative.
Jeroboam is mentioned after his death almost as often as before it. In
15.1 'In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam b. Nebat', the long
name-form typical of synchronisms (type c iv) occurs, and thereafter
down to 16.19 the plain 'Jeroboam' is found (even in the synchronism
at 15.9), except for
16.2 'I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam b. Nebat',
where the formal prophetic style is used (type c ii).24
The name-forms used for Jeroboam in the Deuteronomic judgments
of the Israelite kings are particularly interesting. So long as we are
within a generation of Jeroboam, we read simply of 'Jeroboam':
15.30 Baasha destroyed the house of Jeroboam; 'it was for the sins of
Jeroboam which he sinned and which he made Israel to sin'.
15.34 Baasha 'walked in the way of Jeroboam (LXX + b. Nebat) and
in his sin which he made Israel to sin'.
15.7 The word of Yahweh came against Baasha 'for being like the
house of Jeroboam'.
16.19 Zimri died 'because of his sins..., walking in the way of Jeroboam,25 and because of his sin which he committed in making Israel
to sin'.
It is only when we come to Omri that the full 'XbY' form is used of
Jeroboam in these assessments:
16.25-26 'And Omri did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and
he did evil more than all who had preceded him. And he walked in all
up by 'his word' just before this last clause) is a further ground for suspicion of the
clause; such repetitiousness is not normal, though it can be paralleled: in 2 Kgs
10.10, as here, 'Yahweh' is not the subject of the main clause.
24. Surprisingly the oracle has already referred (v. 2) to Jeroboamby the short
form, quite contrary to normal narrative style. This is not of course narrative form,
but a speech form of an authoritative type where a climactic statement is natural.
The oracle could in fact be easily arranged in metric form:
3+3
3+ 3 +2
2+2
2+2
25. LXX adds 'son of Nebat', on whichBH3 comments 'frt recte', though it ha
not suggested following the same LXX addition in 15.34.
255
the way of Jeroboam b. Nebat and in his sin which he made Israel sin'.
It may be argued that it is not coincidental that just at the point where
the Deuteronomic narrator wishes to stress the superlative enormity of a
king's sin ('more than all who had preceded him'; 'all the way of Jeroboam') he uses the 'XbY' form. Is this use then perhaps not principally an instance of type b iv (concluding summary), but used to convey, along with the other emphatic words in the summary, the intensity
of the narrator's distaste for Omri (type c iii)? However we explain it,
the long form now persists throughout all the summaries of Israelite
kings, for example:
16.30-31 'And Ahab b. Omri [type b iv, initial summary]26 did what
was evil in the sight of Yahweh more than all who had preceded him.
And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam b. Nebat, he took as wife Jezebel
22.52 Ahaziah 'did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh and
walked... In the way of Jeroboam b. Nebat who made Israel to sin'.
Similarly 2 Kgs 3.3; 10.29; 12.2, 11; 14.24; 15.9, 18, 24, 28. By the
time we reach 2 Kgs 13 we meet with another Jeroboam, Jeroboam II,
b. Joash; and in later references the specification of patronym in the
case of Jeroboam b. Nebat is plainly necessary to distinguish him from
his later namesake. Nevertheless, it does not seem that the necessity to
distinguish XbY from XbZ (type a) is the primary reason for the use of
the long form in these passages since it is already used well before
there is any danger of confusion with Jeroboam II. Of course the narrator stood closer in time to Jeroboam II than to Jeroboam I, but apparently it was not his perspective that determined which form he used, for
he could use the short form in his summaries of Baasha and Zimri.
Once the long form 'Jeroboam b. Nebat' sets in at 1 Kgs 16.26, the
short form appears only when Jeroboam needs to be mentioned in close
proximity to a use of 'Jeroboam b. Nebat'. Thus in 10.31, following
10.29; 13.6, following 13.2;27 17.21b, 22, following 17.21a. Otherwise
the 'XbY' form is used, both in prophetic oracles:
1 Kgs 21.22 'I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam b.
Nebat and like the house of Baasha b. Ahijah' (type c ii); and similarly
2 Kgs 9.9.
26. So 'ben Omri' need not be deleted with LXX andBH3.
27. Though 13.6 may be a post-Deuteronomic addition, and so no part of the
narrative style (cf. John Gray, / and II Kings [London: SCM Press, 2nd edn, 1970],
p. 592, regarding vv. 4-6 as a 'Deuteronomistic afterthought').
256
and in narrative references:

2 Kgs 17.21 'When he had torn Israel from the house of David they
made Jeroboam b. Nebat king' (Jeroboam not previously mentioned in
this historical precis, so type b i; thereafter, in vv. 21b, 22 he is just
'Jeroboam').
23.15 'Moreover the altar at Bethel, the high place built by Jeroboam
b. Nebat who made Israel to sin, also that altar and the high place
[Josiah] pulled down'. Since this is in the period after Jeroboam II, the
particular Jeroboam in question must be specified (type a); though the
addition of the words 'who made Israel to sin', which are not necessary
to the sense here, makes one wonder whether the whole phrase
'Jeroboam b. Nebat who made Israel to sin' is not simply a stock
phrase, in which case the 'XbY' form would have to be explained as
derivative from type b iv (summary).
The following table provides an index to passages discussed as well
as an indication of the relative frequency of the types of reason for the
use of the 'XbY' form.
Type
a
b (i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
d (i)
(ii)
? 2 Kgs 13; ? 23.15 (Jeroboam)

Judg. 3.15 (Ehud); 4.6 (Barak); 9.9 (Abimelech); 9.26 (Gaal);
2 Sam. 16.5 (Shimei); 1 Kgs 11.26; 2 Kgs 17.21 (Jeroboam)
Judg. 5.1 (Barak); 8.13, ? 29 (Gideon); cf. 1 Sam. 19.11
(Michal); 2 Sam. 19.16, 18 (Shimei); 1 Kgs 12.2 (Jeroboam);
1 Sam. 26.5; 2 Sam. 2.8, 12 (Abner); 19.24 (Mephibosheth)
Judg. 4.6 (Barak); ? 6.29; 7.14 (Gideon); ? 9.35 (Gaal); ?
2 Sam. 3.13 (Michal); cf. 1 Sam. 26.14; 2 Sam. 3.23 (Abner)
Judg. 8.29, 32 (Gideon); ? 9.31 (Gaal); ? 1 Kgs 12.15; 16.2526; ? 23.15 (Jeroboam); 16.30-31 (Ahab sub Jeroboam); ?
2 Sam. 3.37 (Abner)
Judg. 6.29, 32 (Gideon); 2 Sam. 3.13 (Michal); 3.28 (Abner);
? 1 Kgs 2.8 (Shimei)
? 1 Kgs 12.15; 16.2; 21.22 (Jeroboam)
? 1 Kgs 2.8 (Shimei); ? 16.25-26 (Jeroboam); ? 2 Sam. 3.37
(Abner)
1 Kgs 15.1 (Jeroboam)
1 Sam. 18.20; cf. 25.44; 2 Sam. 3.13; 6.16, 20, 23 (Michal);
3.14 (Ishbosheth sub Michal); ? 20 (Sheba); cf. 1 Sam. 14.50;
2 Sam. 3.25 (Abner); 2 Sam. 9.6; 21.7 (Mephibosheth)
Judg. 9.28, 30, 31, 35 (Gaal); ? 2 Sam. 20 (Sheba)
257
2. The ben Y Form

The function of the 'ben Y' name-form, in which the person is referred
to only as the son of his father (or mother), has already been remarked
upon by a number of authors, but it is still not universally recognized.
The Oxford Lexicon28 notes the use of p without a personal name,
'often with implication of contempt', in 17 places, without specifying
in which passages the 'ben Y' form is used contemptuously. The lexicon of Siegfried and Stade referred to Isa. 7.4-6; 8.6 as instances of a
'disparaging' (herabsetzend) sense of p with father's name alone,29
while J. Fuerst spoke of the omission in prose of the proper name
before p due to 'disinclination to the name itself (1 Sam. 10.11;
20.27, 31; 22.7, 8, 9; 25.10).30 Koehler notes the 'derogatory' (geringschatzig} idiom 'son of Y', instead of a personal name, adducing 1
Sam. 20.30-31 as an illustration.31 Irene Lande32 also has seen the
omission of the proper name of a person as an insulting form of speech,
and has pointed to 1 Sam. 20.27, 30, 31; 22.7, 8, 12, 13; 25.10; 2 Sam.
3.39; 19.23; 1 Kgs 14.6 as examples. But modern commentaries on the
books of Samuel,33 within which most of the examples of 'bY' occur,
make no reference to this idiom, and even the observant Budde notes it
only in connection with 1 Sam. 20.27, 30-31; and even so his explication is capable of some refinement.34
28. Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English
Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909, corr. r.p. 1955),
p. 120b.
29. C. Siegfried and B. Stade, Hebraisches Worterbuch zum Alien Testamente
(Leipzig: Veil, 1893), p. 93.
30. Julius Fuerst, A Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament (trans.
S. Davidson; Leipzig: B. Tauchnitz, 1871), p. 215.
31. Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, Hebraisches und aramdisches
Lexicon zumAlten Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 3rd edn, 1967), p. 132b.
32. Lande, Formelhafte Wendungen der Umgangssprache im Alien Testament,
pp. 35, 82.
33. Mauchline, 1 and 2 Samuel; William McKane, / and II Samuel (Torch
Commentary; London: SCM Press, 1963); Hertzberg, / and II Samuel; Driver,
Notes on the Hebrew Text; H.P. Smith, The Books of Samuel.
34. Budde, Die Biicher Samuel, p. 144: 'ein Emporkommling wird mit den
Vaternamen verachtlich benannt'; but does Saul mean to brand David an 'upstart'
(Emporkommling)?
258
To establish the 'derogatory' nuance of the 'bY' form, it is necessary

to show that it is pertinent on all the occasions when this name-form
occurs. The clearest examples would seem to be:
1 Sam. 20.27 Saul: 'Why has b. Jesse not come to the meal?'
20.30-31 Saul to Jonathan: 'You have made friends with (NEB)35 b.
Jesse... As long as b. Jesse lives... neither you nor your kingdom
shall be established.'
22.7-8 Saul to Benjaminites: 'Will b. Jesse give you all fields and
vineyards?... No one informs me when my son makes a pact with b.
Jesse.'
22.9 Doeg to Saul: 'I saw b. Jesse coming to Nob'.
22.12-13 Saul to Ahimelech: 'Hear now, b. Ahitub 36 ... why have
you and b. Jesse conspired against me?'
Isa. 7.4-5, 9 'Do not fear.. .the anger of Rezin and Aram and b.
Remaliah... Aram with Ephraim and b. Remaliah have devised
evil 37 ... The head of Samaria is b. Remaliah.'
7.6 'Let us set up as king in the midst [of Jerusalem] b. Tabeel'.
8.638 'This people... rejoices (?) in Rezin and b. Remaliah'.39
There is an exegetical tradition among commentators on Isaiah to
remark on the contemptuous note in the names 'b. Remaliah', 'b.
Tabeel',40 but it remains uncertain whether this name-form is contemptuous because the person is a homo novus, who does not care to have it
recalled that his father was a nobody,41 or because it is implied that the
son is himself a nobody, so unmemorable and insignificant that he
35. Reading ~qn (so BH3; cf. LXX fietoxos el) for MT ~irp.
36. This example is not noted by BDB, p. 120b.
37. The references to b. Remaliah in vv. 4-5, though not that in v. 9, possibly
form part of a gloss (cf. Hans Wildberger, Jesaja [BKAT; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1972], pp. 264-66).
38. Wrongly cited in BDB, p. 120b, as 8.16.
39. The phrase 'Rezin and b. Remaliah' is perhaps not original here (cf. BHS).
40. So, e.g., George Buchanan Gray, The Book of Isaiah (ICC; Edinburgh: T. &
T. Clark, 1912), p. 118; B. Duhm, Das Buck Jesaia (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 4th edn, 1922), p. 72.
41. Karl Marti, Das Buck Jesaja (KHAT; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul
Siebeck], 1900), p. 73: 'Heisst der israelitische Kb'nig... nicht Pekach, sondern
verachtlicn, um seine niedere Herkunft hervorzuheben, nur Sohn Remaljas'. John
Skinner, Isaiah I-XXXIX (Cambridge Bible; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, rev. edn, 1915), p. 55: 'Pekah was a usurper, a novus homo, and Isaiah never
condescends to utter his name'. Cf. Wildberger, Jesaja, p. 281.
259
deserves to be mentioned only because he is the son of his father.42 The

latter is more probable in the light of Saul's use of the 'bY' form when
addressing David: it is not that Saul despises Jesse (who is after all the
grandson of the wealthy landowner Boaz; Ruth 4.17, 22; 1 Chron.
2.12), but that he regards David as a mere stripling, not yet a 'name' in
his own right. David has first become known to Saul, not as David, but
as 'b. Jesse': in 1 Sam. 17 Saul asks not for the name of the giant-killer,
but for the name of his father (-|J?3n nHD'p, v. 55; cf. vv. 56, 58).
Thereafter, the narrator seems to be saying, Saul finds it hard to accept
that David is something more than a ~1I?3, a mere 'ben Y'. Saul is
prepared to call David 'my son David' when David has him at his
mercy (1 Sam. 24.16 [MT 17]; 26.17, 21, 25), and refers to 'David'
when he is playing the part of the magnanimous father-in-law (18.22,
25), and when he is hunting David but not yet openly (19.22), and of
course when he is addressing Jesse (16.19, 22), but elsewhere David is
for Saul merely the 'son of Jesse'.43 Doeg (22.9) simply echoes the attitude of Saul.
In the light of Saul's use of 'bY' in reference to David, we may suggest that while there is nothing derogatory in calling or referring to a
young man as 'bY' (Saul is not being depreciatory or even patronizing
in 17.55-58, and in 20.27 he is not being derogatory), it is derogatory to
call a man who is important in his own right merely by the name of his
father. Thus to call the priest Ahimelech, who is old enough to have a
grown son (22.20), simply 'b. Ahitub' (22.12) is plainly offensive, as it
is to refer to a king of Israel as simply 'b. Remaliah' (Isa. 7.4-5, 9).
This leaves for consideration some rather more difficult passages.
1 Sam. 10.11 'When all who knew him before saw how [Saul]
prophesied, they said... What has happened to b. Kish? Is Saul also
among the prophets?' Whatever the precise sense of the last sentence,44
plainly the men of Gibeah were at the least disapproving of Saul's
42. Georg Fohrer, Das Buck Jesaja (Ziircher Bibelkommentare; Ziirich:

Zwingli, 2nd edn, 1966), I, pp. 107-108: '[Jesaja] verachtet den israelitischen
Konig, den er als Sohn eines gewissen Remalja bezeichnet. Er 1st ein Mann ohne
eigenen Namen und gepragtes Wesen, ein vom Leben des Vaters zehrendes Etwas,
das durch Mord auf den Thron gelangt 1st!'
43. 1 Sam. 22.17 is an exception; we would expect 'b. Jesse' there (cf. vv. 8,
13).
44. See J. Sturdy, The Original Meaning of "Is Saul also among the prophets?'", VT20 (1970), pp. 206-13.
260
prophesying. But it would be incorrect to see the name-form 'b. Kish'

as a token of their disparagement; it is simply that the citizens of a town
know a young man primarily as the son of his father.
Similarly, a married woman is known primarily as the wife of her
husband; thus it is doubtless not offensive45 when Ahijah says to the
wife of Jeroboam:
1 Kgs 14.6 'Come in, wife of Jeroboam'. Although the prophet has a
painful message for her, he is no more disparaging towards her than is
the narrator who also uses 'wife of Jeroboam' (vv. 2, 4, 17; cf. 5).
Judg. 5.12 'Arise, Barak, parade46 your captives, O son of Abinoam'.
The 'bY' form in poetry is readily explained as due to the break-up of
the stereotype 'XbY',47 and even in a context of disparagement of the
person referred to the same explanation should be adopted. So, in
2 Sam. 20.1 'We have no portion in David, we have no inheritance in
b. Jesse' (parallels in 1 Kgs 12.16; 2 Chron. 10.16), the 'bY' form in itself is not depreciatory.48 This is confirmed by
1 Chron. 12.18 (MT 19) 'We are yours, O David, and with you, b.
Jesse', where the same break-up occurs in a favourable context. This
poetic device makes us hesitate when confronted by
1 Sam. 25.10 Nabal to David's messengers: 'Who is David, and who
is b. Jesse?'. Nabal is as disparaging as possible about David ('There
are many servants nowadays who are breaking away from their masters'), but we can hardly claim that the 'bY' name-form strengthens his
expression of contempt. It seems rather that the break-up of stereotype
phrases is a (prose) rhetorical device as well as a poetic device. What
then of
45. Contra Lande, Formelhafte Wendungen der Umgangssprache im Alien

Testament, pp. 35, 82, who regards such an address as an insult. Certainly when the
plural form "03 is used in an address it cannot be held to be disparaging; the reason
for David's use of mix '33 for Joab and Abishai (2 Sam. 3.39; 19.23 [MT 22]) and
for the regular use of t?K~l&'t 'D is the same: it is inconvenient to enumerate all the
members of the group!
46. Cf. Gray, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, p. 284.
47. Cf. E.Z. Melamed, 'Break-up of Stereotype Phrases as an Artistic Device in
Biblical Poetry', in Studies in the Bible (ed. Chaim Rabin; Scripta Hierosolymitana,
8; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961), pp. 115-53; G. Braulik, 'Aufbrechen von
gepragten Wortverbindungen und Zusammenfassung von stereotypen Ausdrucken
in der alttestamentliche Kunstprosa', Semitics 1 (1970), pp. 7-11.
48. Contra E.R. Dalglish, 'Jesse', IDE, II, p. 868.
261
Judg. 9.28 Gaal b. Ebed to the men of Shechem: 'Who is Abimelech,

and who is Shechem that we should serve him? Is he not the son of
Jerubbaal and Zebul his deputy?'49 This text is hardly intelligible as it
stands, and the most recent attempt to restore it is unconvincing.50 But
it is clear that 'Abimelech' and 'b. Jerubbaal' are parallel, so we have
here a further example of the break-up of the stereotyped name-form as
a rhetorical device. Further, if we are to follow LXXA> B and restore p
before DDttJ in the first clause, the name Zebul b. Shechem also is broken up, but in reverse order. In neither case, though the speaker has no
time for either of them, does the 'bY' form in itself express his distaste.
It is hard to say whether the use of the 'bY' name-form may explain
the textual oddity in
2 Sam. 4.1-2 'And b. Saul heard that Abner was dead... and b. Saul
had51 two captains of raiding bands'. Although purely orthographical
explanations for the omission of the name of Ishbosheth (ntfD~CTN or
înEJN52) are unconvincing, and a deliberate excision of the offensive
name is to be presumed, it is uncertain whether the resultant 'bY' form
in itself was intended to express contempt. Certainly the 'bY' form in
vv. 1-2 can hardly be original53 because of the ambiguity that would
have been created with the immediately following reference to
'Jonathan b. Saul' (v. 4).
Finally the nuance of D"Wp in Ezekiel (2.1; etc.) may be illumined
from our study: the phrase is not contemptuous, but it does indicate the
comparative insignificance of the one who is addressed not by his
proper name, but only by the name of his 'father'. As well as being
49. This example is not cited by BDB, p. 120b.

50. R.G. Boling, ' "And who is S-K-MT (Judges ix 28)', VT 13 (1963), pp. 47982, suggests 'Who is Abimelech, and who the Shechemite [read skmy, or else [Sar]
Sekem; cf. v. 30], that we should serve him? Is this not Jerubbaal's son? And Zebul
is his deputy.' That is, 'Gaal is... complaining that the Shechemite paqid is subordinate to a merely half-Shechemite melek' (p. 481). But if Abimelech and skm
are contrasted, 'that we should serve him' is out of place.
51. Reading "TIKto <]3*?> Til.
52. One may doubt that 'das urspriingliche bmtDK vor ^185033 leicht iibersehen
werden' (Budde, Die Bticher Samuel, pp. 214-15), and the suggestion that confusion has occurred between ntOEPN and DQ2T1 (see Driver, Notes on the Hebrew
Text, p. 252) could explain only the first omission.
53. Contra Smith, The Books of Samuel, p. 284, on v. 1.
262
'mere man' as contrasted with God, it is implied that the prophet is also
in himself an unremarkable example of humanity.54
54. I am indebted to my colleague D.M. Gunn for many helpful suggestions on

particular passages, especially from the books of Samuel, studied in this paper.
13
FORM, OCCASION AND REDACTION IN JEREMIAH 20
Jeremiah 20.7-18, commonly referred to as one of the 'confessions' of

Jeremiah, is misunderstood if it is read in its present context in the book
of Jeremiah simply as a transcript of the prophet's emotions.1 The
alternative to such a naive understanding is not, however, a one-sidedly
form-critical interpretation that sees here no Jeremiah at all except
by way of redactional application.2 A satisfactory interpretation will
(a) give full weight both to the stereotyped form and language, behind
which indeed the author's feelings and thought inevitably lie hidden to
some extent, and to indications that Jeremiah has impressed upon the
conventional form and language something of his own prophetic experience; and (b) recognize different levels of meaning the material has
had at different stages in the course of its redaction.
Our first endeavour (section I) is to identify the original units from
which 20.7-18 has been composed. We find here, mainly by form-critical study, two units, which account for all the material: a psalmlike
poem of the 'individual lament' form (vv. 7-13), and a self-curse
(vv. 14-18). Then we examine in turn the psalm (section II) and the
curse (section III), and in reference to each ask: (i) What was the original intention and occasion (Sitz im Leben Jeremias)!, and (ii) What is
its meaning and function in its present context (Sitz im Buch)l
Originally published in Zeitschriftfiir die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 88 (1976),

pp. 390-409, and reprinted with the agreement of David M. Gunn and the permission of Walter de Gruyter.
1. Cf., e.g., John Skinner, Prophecy and Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1922), pp. 201-30; Wilhelm Rudolph, Jeremia (HAT, 1.12;
Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 3rd edn, 1968), pp. 129-34.
2. Cf. A.H.J. Gunneweg, 'Konfession oder Interpretation im Jeremiabuch',
ZTK61(\910), pp. 395-416.
264
1. The Units of Jeremiah 20.7-18

Of major importance in any discussion of the composition of Jer. 20.718 has been the question whether vv. 14-18 was originally an independent unit. In addition there have been attempts to discriminate between
vv. 7-9 and vv. 10-13, while some scholars have been inclined to regard
v. 12 and/or v. 13 as secondary accretions.
1. Were vv. 14-18 Originally an Independent Unit?
The question of the unity of vv. 7-18 has usually been posed in terms of
the transition in mood from lament (vv. 7-10) to confidence (vv. 11-18)
and back to despair (vv. 14-18). Do these different moods fit well with
one another? W. Rudolph notes that most scholars deny that vv. 14-18
can be the direct continuation of the preceding verses, on the ground
that, psychologically speaking, such an outburst of despair could not
follow the expression of confidence in vv. 11-13.3 Against this view he
suggests that the passage is intelligible as a whole if it is seen as depicting Jeremiah's spiritual oscillation between trust and doubt.4 Yet he
concedes that the question touches the innermost personality of the
prophet so deeply that what might or might not have been psychologically possible for Jeremiah cannot now be asserted with any authority.
This concession is significant, for it illustrates well the inadequacy of
psychological criteria for settling questions of literary unity.5
A more objective approach is that of form criticism. W. Baumgartner
many years ago recognized in this confession both formal and linguistic
3. Rudolph, Jeremia, p. 130.

4. Rudolph, Jeremia, p. 130: 'konnte Jer nicht eben seinen Seelenkampf
schildern wollen, das Hin- und Herwogen "vom Rand der Verzweiflung zum Jubel
iiber Gottes Nahe und wieder hinab in die tiefste Nacht der Trostlosigkeit"
(Koberle, vgl. Keil)?' A.S. Peake, Jeremiah, I (Century Bible, 16; Edinburgh: T.C.
& E.G. Jack, 1910), p. 244 speaks of 'the psychological truth of "these violent
surges and alternations of feeling" in "high-strung impressionable natures"'
(quoting George G. Findlay, The Books of the Prophets, III [London: Kelly, 1900],
p. 201).
5. The psychological criterion may not always be explicit, as, for example,
when J.P. Hyatt, 'Jeremiah', IB, V, p. 972, argues that the bitter outcry of vv. 14-18
'does not follow logically the vivid expression of trust in God'; likewise he settles
the question of the integrity of v. 13 on the ground of 'mood'.
13. Form, Occasion and Redaction in Jeremiah 20
265
parallels with the psalms of individual lament;6 recently there has been
a renewed interest in the significance of these observations for determining the original units of composition.7
The constituent parts of the individual lament are generally recognized to be: (i) address (call to Yahweh), (ii) lament, (iii) confession of
trust, or certainty of being heard, (iv) petition, and often (v) praise.8 Jer.
20.7-13 lends itself admirably to analysis in these terms:
v. 7aa
7-10
11 act
11 ap-11 bp
12a
12ba
address
lament
confession of trust9
certainty of being heard
confession of trust
petition10
6. Walter Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte des Jeremia (Giessen: A. Topelmann, 1917), pp. 48-51, 63-67.
7. Cf. Artur Weiser, Das Buck Jeremia (ATD, 20; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 5th edn, 1966), pp. 167-76; Gunneweg, 'Konfession oder Interpretation',
pp. 409-12; John Maclennan Berridge, Prophet, People, and the Word of Yahweh
(Zurich: EVZ Verlag, 1970), pp. 151-55; J. Bright, 'Jeremiah's Complaints:
Liturgy or Expressions of Personal Distress?', in John I. Durham and J.R. Porter
(eds.), Proclamation and Presence (London: SCM Press, 1970), pp. 189-213 (21213); S.B. Frost, 'The Book of Jeremiah', in Charles M. Laymon (ed.), The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible (London: Collins, 1972), p. 386;
Ernest W. Nicholson, Jeremiah 1-25 (Cambridge Bible Commentary; London:
Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 169.
8. See Claus Westermann, The Praise of God in the Psalms (trans. Keith R.
Crim; Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1965, and London: Epworth Press, 1966),
pp. 64-81; cf. Pius Drijvers, The Psalms: Their Structure and Meaning (Freiburg:
Herder, 1965), pp. 104-45, 240-47. Westermann closely associates with the petition
an element of 'motivation' (p. 64), but this is often indistinguishable from the
'confession of trust' (cf. his analysis of Ps. 102 [pp. 66-67]). Probably confession
of trust and certainty of being heard should be viewed as always potentially
'motivation' or 'argument' (cf. Drijvers, The Psalms, pp. 122-23, 240-47).
9. 'But Yahweh is with m e . . . ' ; on the characteristic waw adversative introducing confession of trust after lamentation, see further Westermann, The Praise of
God, pp. 70-75. Note also the alternation between the form of addressing God in
the second person (vv. 7, 12) and narration in the third person (vv. 11, 18; cf. v. 9),
again a characteristic of the psalms of individual lament (Artur Weiser, The Psalms
[trans. Herbert Hartwell; OTL; London: SCM Press, 1962], p. 69).
10. Although it is more usual to find petition preceding certainty of being heard,
the order of the constituent parts is subject to considerable variation (see Westermann, The Praise of God, p. 64; and cf. Pss. 54.5-7; 59.7-14); moreover, there is in
266

12b(3
13
confession of trust
praise
The element of praise, which usually in the individual lament takes the
form of a vow (e.g. Ps. 13.6), is here an imperative, characteristic rather
of the psalm of praise (cf. 4.35; 5.45; etc.) than of the lament. Nevertheless, (a) the imperative does occur in an individual lament at Ps. 22.24
where it stands parallel to the vow, (b) the sequence praiseexplanation
(Jer. 20.13) can readily be paralleled in the individual laments (cf. Ps.
22.25; 13.6),11 and (c) the language of the explanatory clause is highly
characteristic of the individual lament and not at all of the hymn of
praise.12
The material of vv. 14-18, on the other hand, cannot be formally

paralleled in the individual laments. Although v. 18 exhibits links with
such psalmsit has some characteristic vocabulary13 and the formal
element of the 'why' question, commonly found in the laments (for
example, Ps. 10.1; 22.2; 42.10)14the piece as a whole is a self-curse,
the certainty of being heard an element of motivation or argument linking it closely
with confession of trust (see above, n. 8) which regularly precedes petition. It is
therefore unnecessary to locate v. 12 before v. 11 (Weiser), or to interpret v. 12b as
certainty of being heard (Gunneweg). The latter procedure suffers an added serious
disadvantage in that it necessitates postulating Jer. 20.7-18 as a psalm of individual
lament with no petition.
11. Cf. Westermann, The Praise of God, p. 79.
12. ^3 (hiphil) occurs a total of 42 times in the Psalms, 27 times in individual
laments, but only once in a psalm of praise; for ]V3N the figures are, respectively,
22, 10 and 1, and for D^mo (the singular does not appear in the Psalms), 9, 7 and 0;
the ratio of psalms of individual lament to those of praise is approximately 5:2.
While not disputing the authenticity of v. 13, we find little reason to accept that
W.L. Holladay's argument that the language is distinctively Jeremianic ('Style,
Irony, and Authenticity in Jeremiah', JBL 81 [1962], pp 44-54 [52]; followed by
G.P. Couturier, in Raymond E. Brown et al. [eds.], The Jerome Biblical Commentary [London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1968], p. 319); for (i) the phrase TO *3 (hiphil)
is not confined to Jeremiah as Holladay claims (cf. e.g. Pss. 31.16; 82.4; 97.10;
etc.); (ii) although Q'jnQ TO does appear only in Jeremiah, the phrase is hardly
striking in view of the use of DÎQ and such stock phrases as "Q'tf TO or TQ
D'JflZh in the psalms of individual lament (e.g. Pss. 31.16; 97.10; and cf. D^JTl TO
and peril? TO in Jer. 15.21 and 21.12, respectively).
13. Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte, p. 67 lists ^Qtf, ]ir and HQ^; to these
should be added rto (in the qal), which occurs frequently in the Psalms, especially
the individual laments (cf. 31.11; 102.4), and fWQ, (cf. 44.16; 69.20).
14. But Willi Schottroff, Der altisraelitische Fluchspruch (Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener Verlag, 1969), p. 76, has shown some reason for denying a connec-
267
and this forms no part of the lament Gattung as we know it.15 On formcritical grounds, therefore, we would argue that vv. 14-18 was originally independent of vv. 7-13.16
2. Were vv. 7-9 and vv. 10-13 Originally Independent Units?
In arguing for the original independence of vv. 14-18 we have taken the
view that vv. 7-13 was itself a unit in the form of an individual lament.
It is possible, however, to reach the same conclusion about vv. 14-18
while maintaining that only in vv. 10-13 is the 'lament' to be found,
vv. 7-9 forming yet another poem.17 The secondary question therefore
arises: were vv. 7-9 and vv. 10-13 originally independent units?
There are two possible approaches to this question, the first (a) formcritical, the second (b) thematic. Both lead us to affirm the original
unity of vv. 7-13.
(a) W. Baumgartner argued on form-critical grounds that vv. 7-9 is to
be distinguished from vv. 10-13. The individual lament proper, he
argued, is contained only in vv. 10-13, while vv. 7-9 is an independent
poem (Lied)which, though it is to be associated in some ways with the
tion here with the lament psalms and for associating the 'why' question rather with
a series of a shorter non-cultic cries expressing the futility of the speaker's life
(Gen. 25.22; 27.46; Tob. 3.15; 1 Mace. 2.7, 13; 4 Ezra 5.35); cf. Glaus Westermann, Forschung am Alten Testament: Gesammelte Studien (TBii, 24; Munchen:
Chr. Kaiser, 1964), pp. 291-92.
15. Admittedly, if we define 'curse' as broadly as does S.H. Blank, 'The Curse,
the Blasphemy, the Spell, the Oath', HUCA 23 (1950-51), pp. 73-95, to include
wishes for the destruction of one's enemies, there are formal parallels in the individual lament psalms to the 'curse' as following the confidence of a hearing (e.g.
Ps. 7.10-11). But not only is it questionable whether Ps. 7.11 is a curse (it is certainly not in the ~n~IN form), it is plain that to curse oneself after expressing the
confidence of being heard is a far different thing from cursing one's enemies after
being assured that God will help one.
16. Similarly Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte, p. 67; Weiser, Jeremia, pp. 16869; Gunneweg, 'Konfession oder Interpretation', pp. 409, 411.
17. Such a division was first urged by Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte, pp. 6566; it has been accepted more recently by, e.g., H.J. Stoebe, 'Seelsorge und Mitleiden bei Jeremia', Wort und Dienst 4 (1955), pp. 116-34 (119), and Berridge,
Prophet, People and the Word of Yahweh, p. 114 n. 1. While Rudolph, Jeremia,
p. 130, expresses reservations about the division, it remains an influential factor in
his analysis of the passage; so also with S. Marrow, 'Hamas ("violentia") in Jer.
20.8', VD 43 (1965), pp. 241-55, but his explanation (in terms of the lament genre)
for an 'abrupt transition' from vv. 7-9 to 10-13 confuses form and content.
268
individual lament, is not itself truly representative of that Gattung. His

reasons were twofold: first, vv. 7-9 forms a 'connected narrative', and
this element, while typical of the individual thanksgiving, is not to be
found in the lament; secondly, the affinities of vocabulary and content
with the lament are less pronounced in vv. 7-9 than in vv. 10-13. Neither argument, however, is compelling.
(i) The first, in fact, may be simply contradicted, inasmuch as if
vv. 7-9 is to be classed as 'connected narrative', there is no lack of
comparable material in the psalms of lament where the account of present distress often takes shape through an account of past or present
experience. Both formally and functionally there is no difference
between vv. 7-9 and, for example, Ps. 31.11-14 or 35.11-16.18
(ii) The second argument depends largely upon the observation that
central to the thought of vv. 7-9 is a primarily prophetic activity,
namely, speaking the word of Yahweh (v. 8; and cf. 'speak in his
name', v. 9), while vv. 10-13, by comparison, lacks such a distinctively
prophetic element and is more obviously composed in the style of the
lament. In pressing this distinction, however, W. Baumgartner understated the degree to which elements of the lament style pervade the
whole composition. His characterization of vv. 10-13 as 'lament' is not
in question.19 But in the case of vv. 7-9, while he correctly noted many,
though not all,20 of the verbal similarities with the lament style, he
failed to observe how closely parallel is the thought world of these
verses to the individual laments.
In vv. 7-8 Yahweh is cast in the role of the traditional 'enemy' of the
psalmist. Jeremiah's complaint, Thou art stronger (pTFI) than I / and
thou hast prevailed (^D1*)', exemplifies the classical theme of the powerful persecutor that one meets, for example, in Ps. 35.10 ('Thou
[Yahweh] dost deliver the weak / from him who is too strong [pTPI] for
him') or Ps. 13.4-5 ('Answer me, O Yahweh my God... lest my enemy
say, I have prevailed [^D"1] over him'). But Yahweh, to whom the
psalmist in his weakness conventionally appeals against the powerful
18. Cf. Weiser, Jeremia, p. 169.
19. Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte, pp. 48-51; cf. Bright, 'Jeremiah's Complaints', p. 212; Weiser, Jeremia, pp. 169-70.
20. Apart from pin and ^D" (discussed below), DTH ^D should be noted. More
than a third of its 42 occurrences in the OT are in psalms of individual lament,
where it is normally used in connection with either the aggression of the 'enemies'
(e.g. Ps. 38.7, 13; cf. 44.16) or the praise offered up to Yahweh for the psalmist's
deliverance from such aggression (e.g. 35.28).
269
persecutor, has ironically become in Jeremiah's experience the very one

who has ruthlessly used his strength against frailty. 21 Similarly,
'Violence, outrage!' (1271 CO!) is not only a cry of distress addressed to
Yahweh, but also, ironically, a cry of protest against Yahweh22 who has
behaved towards Jeremiah in the manner of the 'enemies' of, for example, Ps. 27.12 ('Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; / for false
witnesses have risen against me, / and they breathe out violence
toon]').23
This picture of the psalmist in conflict is filled out with other traditional elements from the laments. Jeremiah becomes a laughingstock
(pnti: cf. Ps. 37.13; 59.9); everyone mocks him (aifa cf. Ps. 22.8; 35.16;
59.9); he is subject to reproach (*pn: cf. Ps. 22.7; 31.12; 39.9; 42.11;
etc.) and derision (O^p: cf. Ps. 44.14; 79.4).24 Even the idea that the
reproach and derision may in some way be due to Yahweh can be paralleled in the laments: for example, in Ps. 22 the psalmist's public commitment to Yahweh brings him into derision (cf. vv. 7-9), while in 69.8
the sufferer cries, 'It is for thy sake that I have borne reproach' (cf.
vv. 11-13). Further, the image of the inner fire in the bones (v. 9) is
21. In view of such parallels in the Psalms it is a mistake, in our judgment, to

find in v. 7 specific imagery relating to either sexual seduction (so e.g. Berridge,
Prophet, People and the Word of Yahweh, pp. 151-52, and many others, especially
in connection with nns) or wrestling (so e.g. Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte,
p. 64, or Rudolph, Jeremia, p. 131 on pin); see further D.J.A. Clines and D.M.
Gunn, ' "You tried to persuade me" and "Violence! Outrage!" in Jer xx 7-8', VT2S
(1978), pp. 20-27.
22. So Berridge, Prophet, People and the Word of Yahweh, p. 154, S. Marrow,
'Hamas ("violentia")', p. 255; cf. Clines and Gunn, ' "You Tried to Persuade Me" '.
23. Don occurs 10 times in individual laments (e.g. Pss. 7.17; 18.40; 25.19;
27.12; 35.11), mostly to describe the behaviour of the psalmist's enemies. "12?, on
the other hand, is found mainly in prophetic literature (only at 12.6 in the Psalms)
and several times in the present phrase, 12J1 OQPF (Amos 3.10; Ezek. 45.9; also Jer.
6.7; cf. Isa. 59.6, 7; 60.18; Hab. 1.8; 2.17). Even if the phrase as a whole is borrowed primarily from prophetic discourse, its intrusion into a predominantly
psalmic context is undoubtedly smoothed by the fact that DQF1 is at home in the
individual lament.
Note also that nns (v. 7), though not found in the psalms of lament, occurs in
several contexts (Prov. 1.10; 16.29; 24.28) that suggest it may have had some
association in the wisdom literature with the 'man of violence' or the malicious
witness, who figures also as the 'enemy' of the psalmist.
24. These terms in the laments mostly describe the enemies' treatment of the
psalmist, or Yahweh's treatment of the enemies, paying them back in their own
coin. Pss. 44 and 79 are both communal laments with close verbal associations with
the individual laments as well as with the present passage; cf. especially 44.14-17.
270

closely paralleled in Ps. 102.4 and 39.4,25 both individual laments, while
in general the description of a state of mind in terms of one's bones is
typical of the Psalms (15 times; 13 times in Job).
We would maintain, therefore, that vv. 7-13 as a whole exemplifies

the style of the individual lament. To be sure, the piece is by no means
wholly conventional or stereotyped,26 and we would agree with W.
Baumgartner that in vv. 7-9 the distinctive life situation of the prophet
(that is, his struggle with the word of Yahweh) emerges more conspicuously than in the remainder of vv. 7-13. But this is no reason for separating vv. 7-9 from vv. 10-13; rather it is only to be expected that in an
individual lament any details of the psalmist's particular situation of
distress should occur within the lament element proper.
(b) A quite different argument that may be urged against a division of
vv. 7-13 is based on the internal thematic and logical connections
between the constituent parts. To account for the association of the two
poems that he discerned here and that he believed were originally separate, W. Baumgartner was obliged to regard ^D"1 and ilDD, which occur
in both vv. 7-9 and vv. 10-13, as linking 'catchwords'.27 It is better,
however, to see the repetition of these terms as having deliberate structural significance.
^D% in fact, is a key term in vv. 7-13, for the notion of 'prevailing' of
'having power' lies at the heart of the poem. It epitomizes the prophet's
complaint: Yahweh who has prevailed over him (^D\ v. 7) has compelling power, the prophet has not (^DIN fc^, v. 9); on the other hand,
this very 'enemy'-like quality of Yahweh becomes in turn the source of
the prophet's confidence: while his enemies imagine that they will prevail over him (^D\ v. 10), Jeremiah knows that with Yahweh on his
side they cannot succeed (iTZP K1?, v. II). 28
It is precisely because in the prophet's own experience Yahweh is an
25. Note that in Ps. 39.4, like Jer. 20.9, the inner fire is due to the psalmist's
silence; and in both cases 'speaking' will involve a complaint against Yahweh.
26. Cf. Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology (trans. D.M.G. Stalker;
Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1965), II, p. 201: 'It is... quite fascinating to watch the
way in which... Jeremiah interpenetrated the conventional usage of the old cultic
form with his own concerns as a prophet, and transformed it'. On Gunneweg's
claim that there was originally no prophetic element in this psalm, see below, Section II.
27. Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte, p. 49.
28. Cf. Marrow, 'Hamas ("violentia")', pp. 143-44.
271
oppressive and irresistible God, who is stronger than his victim, prevails over him and commits violence and outrage against him (vv. 7-8),
that he may be called on in turn to become the irresistible divine
oppressor of the prophet's human oppressors (v. 11). The irony is
strikingly captured in the phrase, 'But Yahweh is with me as a dread
warrior Cp"IU "1132)': he is both 'mightily heroic' ("1133, a term of
approbation,29 found often in Psalms, but rarely in a psalm of lament)
and 'terribly ruthless' (flU, normally applied to the wicked 'enemies'
or 'men of violence'; all occurrences in Psalms are in individual
laments [cf. 37.35; 54.5; 86.14]).
The repetition of ilflS, moreover, underlines this fundamental parallelism between Yahweh and the persecutors:30 in v. 7 the prophet cries
that he has been 'persuaded' (HDD) and that Yahweh has overcome him
('7D''); in v. 10 the enemies hope that Jeremiah will be 'persuaded'
(iins)31 and that they will overcome him ('PD1').
In sum, we would maintain that these internal connections, linking
vv. 7-11 at least, are fundamental to the structure of the original poem.
3. Are v. 12 and v. 13 Secondary Accretions to vv. 7-13?
(a) Verse 12. The omission of v. 12 by some critics appears to be
grounded on the similarity of the verse to 11.20, coupled usually with
some suggestion that ch. 11 provides a more suitable context for such
an appeal. Thus W. Baumgartner asserts that 'it fits badly after v. 11',
while more recently J.P. Hyatt has argued that it probably does not
belong to ch. 20 since it is 'more of a prayer than an affirmation'.32
Three points need to be made, (i) The verse is not precisely the same
as 11.20, as is often claimed, so that attempts to excise it as a gloss
from 11.20 lack conviction unless accompanied by a reason for its
inclusion in the present context and an explanation for the variation in
29. Against Bernhard Duhm, Das Buck Jeremla (KHAT, 11; Tubingen: J.C.B.
Mohr [P. Siebeck], 1901), p. 166, who misses the irony of the phrase.
30. Cf. Norman C. Habel, Jeremiah, Lamentations (Concordia Commentary; St
Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1968), p. 169: 'Jeremiah had accused God (in
v. 7) of doing what his persecutors were planning. God had apparently become his
enemy.'
31. If it is understood that Jeremiah is to be 'persuaded' (nDS) by the adversaries themselves (to say something patently false, perhaps), the parallel between
their role here and Yahweh's in v. 7 is even closer.
32. Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte, p. 48; Hyatt, 'Jeremiah', p. 973. Cf. also
Rudolph, Jeremia, p. 133; Marrow, 'Hamas ("violentia")', p. 242.
272
the wording, (ii) Verse 11 and v. 12 are both linked thematically to

v. 10. We have seen above how the speech of the 'enemies' mirrors the
situation of v. 7a; but now we can observe that it is also related to the
verses that follow. If the prophet's enemies think to overcome him
(~)^} and take their revenge upon him (Dp3), what is more appropriate
than that the prophet in his turn should look forward to the day of their
stumbling when they will fail to overcome him ("to"1 $b, v. 11) and
should invoke Yahweh's vengeance (Dp], v. 12) on theml Such a
developed pattern of thought can hardly have resulted from a scribal
insertion, (iii) If, as we have argued, vv. 7-13 is an individual lament,
then the verse is clearly an integral part of such a psalm.
(b) Verse 13. Objections to the authenticity of v. 13 have usually
been based on 'the psalm-like character of the verse',33 and, in the case
of those who have taken vv. 7-18 as the original unit, on the interruption it causes to the flow of the piece.34 But if vv. 14-18 is a separate
unit, as we have argued, the latter objection disappears, while the former has force only if one ignores the highly psalm-like character of the
rest of vv. 7-13 and denies the form-critical designation of the passage
as an individual lament, in which Gattung praise, especially at the conclusion, is a frequent element.35
We conclude that there are two independent units in vv. 7-18, namely
vv. 7-13 and vv. 14-18. Against those who have treated vv. 7-13 as a
composite piece, we would point not only to its unity of form and style
(individual lament), but also to important thematic connections, which
are explicable only if vv. 7-13 was originally a single poem.
2. The Psalm of Jeremiah 20.7-13
1. Vv. 7-13 in its Original Setting
Now that we have shown reason for regarding vv. 7-13 as originally a
single unit, independent from the self-curse of vv. 14-18,36 we must
33. Cf. Holladay, 'Style, Irony, and Authenticity in Jeremiah', pp. 52-53, for
references.
34. Cf. Habel, Jeremiah, Lamentations, p. 170: 'A short hymn of praise interrupts the prophet's cries of spiritual torment'.
35. See further S.B. Frost, 'Asseveration by Thanksgiving', VT 8 (1958), pp.
380-90 (382-86).
36. Its independence from the narrative of vv. 1-6 is discussed below, section
II.2.
273
ask: What was its intention and occasion when it stood alone?
The foregoing study (section I) has attempted to establish that from
the point of view of form vv. 7-13 is a regular individual lament. That
conclusion is the most crucial factor in assessing the original intention
of vv. 7-13, for it suggests prima facie that the thrust of vv. 7-13 will be
identical to that of a typical individual lament.37 Now the intention of a
lament (Klage), we would wish to affirm, is not a bewailing of distress,
nor a protest against unjust suffering, nor an accusation against God,
though all those elements may be included within a lament. Its intention and basic meaning lie in the fact that it is an appeal, which almost
invariably includes a note of confidence.38 'Lament' is a quite inappropriate term for the form, in fact, and we would probably do better to
speak of psalms of 'petition' (Bitte).39
These observations may now be applied to Jer. 20.7-18. It follows
from the form of the poem that, unless there are indications that in this
case form and function do not coincide,40 the point of the poem is not
that the psalmist is in rebellion against God (vv. 7-9), nor that he is
oscillating between rebellion (vv. 7-9) and trust (vv. 10-18), but that he
is moving, or has moved, from a situation of distress and rebellion to
one of confidence. It is the conventionally phrased v. 12, corresponding
as it does to the petition element in the individual lament, that forms the
centre of gravity of the poem, not the outrageously unconventional, and
therefore attractively 'modern', protest against Yahweh of v. 7a. Verse
13 is the climax of the poem, and not just its conclusion; for what is
truly remarkable about such a poem (which is to say, what is its peculiarity, its essence), is that while it begins with the poet's sense of
oppression both by God and his human enemies, it ends with his assurance that God has delivered him.
Given that such was the thrust of the poem, what was its occasion?41
Until a decade ago, almost all scholars believed that the so-called
37. Cf. also Weiser, Jeremia, p. 169.
38. Westermann, The Praise of God, pp. 74-75.
39. Cf. Westermann, The Praise of God, pp. 33-34; Drijvers, The Psalms,
pp. 120-21.
40. Clearly they do not always coincide; cf. G. Fohrer, 'Form und Funktion in
der Hiobdichtung', in Studien zum Buche Hiob (Giitersloh: G. Mohn, 1963), pp. 6886; H.W. Hoffmann, 'FormFunktionIntention', ZAWS2(1970), pp. 341-46.
But the presumption is that they do.
41. The term does not mean precise historical occasion, but typical occasion; in
section II.2 below a possible historical occasion for the psalm is discussed.
274
'confessions' were originally private literature,42 even to the extent of

claiming that they formed 'part of a personal diary which he may have
kept during the years of seclusion (608-598 BC), when he was hiding
from Jehoiakim's police'.43 But the more the significance of the similarities between the 'confessions' and the psalmic individual laments
has been appreciated, the less obvious that simple view has appeared.
In recent years form-critical study has produced several different views
of the occasion of vv. 7-13, which have in common only a conviction
that a personalistic and psychological understanding of the 'confessions' is inadequate.
A. Weiser44 regards the psalm as uttered by Jeremiah in the presence
of the cult community45 once it had proved that his enemies' attacks had
been thwarted by Yahweh. However, it can be objected that the call to
praise (v. 13a) need not presuppose a cultic setting for the delivery of the
poem, as Weiser thinks, so rendering the description of distress in vv. 710 merely 'emotion recollected in tranquillity' (W. Wordsworth); rather,
it is better understood as simply reflecting the public orientation of an
utterance whose function is not primarily to summon a congregation to
praise but rather to assert before a doubtless sceptical audience the
authenticity and authority of the oracles that Jeremiah delivers as Yahweh's prophet.
H. Graf Reventlow also sees the 'confessions' as composed by
Jeremiah for a cultic occasion, but he denies that they furnish any insight
into the personal experiences of the prophet, since the T who speaks in
them is simply an official representative of the people. Reventlow's
approach is open to a number of criticisms,47 not least the objection that
42. Cf., e.g., Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction (trans. Peter R.
Ackroyd; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), p. 357; Artur Weiser, Introduction to the
Old Testament (trans. Dorothea M. Barton; London: Darton, Longman & Todd,
1961), p. 213; Georg Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament (trans. David Green;
London: SPCK, 1970), p. 395; John Bright, Jeremiah (AB; Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1965), p. Ixvi: 'heard only by the prophet's inmost circle of friends'.
43. J.L. Mihelic, 'Dialogue with God: A Study of Some of Jeremiah's Confessions', Int 14 (1960), pp. 43-51 (43), following Robert H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to
the Old Testament (London: A. & C. Black, 1952), p. 497.
44. Weiser, Jeremia, pp. 169-70, 173.
45. Cf. also J.J. Stamm, 'Die Bekenntnisse des Jeremia', Kirchenblatt fur die
reformierte Schweiz 111 (1955), pp. 354-57, 370-75.
46. Henning Graf Reventlow, Liturgie und prophetisches Ich bei Jeremia
(Gutersloh: J.C.B. Mohr, 1963).
47. See especially Berridge, Prophet, People and the Word of Yahweh, and
Bright, 'Jeremiah's Complaints'.
275
the 'confessions' belong to the individuallament form, and not to the

communal lament form.48 In any case, it is not clear that Reventlow
himself would interpret vv. 7-13 along these lines, since he does not deal
specifically with this passage.
E. Gerstenberger, in a study of Jer. 15.10-21,49 has removed himself
one stage further from the common opinion by denying that 'confession'
to Jeremiah altogether, and by viewing it as a highly composite piece
structured on cultic patterns by Deuteronomistic redactors. The 'occasions' of this piece would thus range from a cultic setting in which a
priestly oracle of assurance (15.10-11) was delivered, to an apparently
literary activity of reinterpretation of the history of the suffering
Jeremiah in terms of the suffering of the exilic community. Though Gerstenberger poses the question whether 'the other individual complaints
in Jer [can] also be explained as compositive elements in some larger
textual unit', 50 it is doubtful whether anything is to be gained by
attempting to peel off redactional layers from a piece like 20.7-13 which
so clearly forms a literary unit. And it is not certain that Gerstenberger
would want to deny a genuine Jeremianic nucleus (with an 'occasion' in
Jeremiah's life) in 20.7-18.
A.H.J. Gunneweg51 has more recently developed a rather similar thesis that all the 'confessions', far from offering any biographical information about Jeremiah or insight into the prophet's psychology, are interpretations of Jeremiah's preaching and person. They portray Jeremiah as
the righteous sufferer who is an exemplar for the community of the
period in which they were incorporated into the Jeremiah material. They
do not seriously distort our picture of the historical Jeremiah, who is rep52
resented as broadly such a figure in the authentic Jeremiah traditions,
but their occasion is to be sought outside the life and ministry of
Jeremiah himself.
The occasion of 20.7-18 is, according to Gunneweg, a cultic lament of
a worshipper who believes himself deceived (nns, v. 7) by a promise of
Yahweh that has not been fulfilled. The 'word of Yahweh' that has
brought him mockery and persecution is not a proclaimed prophetic
word, but the word that he has received by way of promise from Yahweh. In the original form of the poem, before it was applied to Jeremiah,
the psalmist resolves (v. 9a) that he will no more 'call upon' (N~lpN,
replaced by "DTK in the redacted text) Yahweh in the cult, but finds
himself unable to restrain the compulsion within him to appeal to
48. Cf. Gunneweg, 'Konfession oder Interpretation', p. 399.
49. E. Gerstenberger, 'Jeremiah's Complaints: Observations on Jer. 15:10-21',
JBL 82 (1963), pp. 393-408.
50. Gerstenberger, 'Jeremiah's Complaints', p. 408.
51. Gunneweg, 'Konfession oder Interpretation', pp. 395-416.
52. Gunneweg, 'Konfession oder Interpretation', p. 413.
276

Yahweh (v. 9b), The redactor's application of the poem to Jeremiah
necessitated only one verbal change (v. 9a), but it brought about also the
reinterpretation of vv. 8-9 to fit the context of the prophetic experience.
The objections to Gunneweg's understanding of the original occasion
of the poem are these: (i) Among all the laments of the individual that
we have in the Psalter, there is none in which the psalmist's complaint is
that he has been misled by a 'nicht betreffendes Orakel. (ii) The 'word
of Yahweh' occurs only rarely in the individual laments,54 and then
never as the cause of the psalmist's misfortunes, (iii) The thematic
structure of vv. 7-9 is ignored if v. 7a is seen as the complaint to Yahweh about deception, v. 8a as appeal to Yahweh against enemies, and
v. 9 as resolve not to call upon Yahweh; it is better to see v. 7a, 8a and 9
as all expressing the theme of Yahweh's compulsion of a prophet, (iv)
The parallelism of v. 8a and 8b suggests that what the psalmist 'speaks'
is the 'word of Yahweh'. (v) There are no grounds for supposing that
v. 9 originally had N~!pK instead of ~Q"I8; only if ^D1 is defined as 'im
Kult anrufen' 56 can it be claimed that K~lpN forms a better parallel with
"?D' than does ~Q"1N, but Gunneweg offers no evidence that ^D' means
'to call upon (in the cult)'.
The implication of these points is that there is in fact prophetic material in this poem, most clearly in the characteristically prophetic phrases
'word of Yahweh' and 'speak in (his) name'. 57 If this is so, there
remains no reason to deny that vv. 7-13 is from Jeremiah.
In view of the objections that may be raised to the foregoing

approaches, we would offer the suggestion that the occasion of Jer.
20.7-13 should be sought in the public ministry of Jeremiah.58 If, as we
have argued, the thrust of the poem is Jeremiah's confident appeal to
Yahweh as his deliverer from mockery and persecution, and if the par53. Gunneweg, 'Konfession oder Interpretation', p. 410.
54. Cf. Pss. 17.4; 56.5, 11; 130.5.
55. See further Clines and Gunn, ' "You Tried to Persuade Me" '.
56. Gunneweg, 'Konfession oder Interpretation', p. 411.
57. So Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte, pp. 64-65. DtZQ "131, though relatively
rare in the OT, is characteristic of Jeremiah (cf. 26.16; 29.23; 44.16; note also the
parallel expression, to 'prophesy in Yahweh's name', e.g. 11.21; 14.14; 23.25).
58. Cf. also Berridge, Prophet, People and the Word of Yahweh, pp. 155-57, on
'The Lamentation as a Form of Prophetic Proclamation'; 'Jeremiah's "confessions"
were undoubtedly spoken in public, constituting a part of his proclamation'
(p. 157). Berridge, however, restricts his attention to vv. 7-9 (p. 160), and it is not
clear how far he sees the proclamatory aspect of the 'confessions' simply in their
symbolic portrayal, in Jeremiah's own personal anguish, of the coming doom of the
nation (cf. p. 155). His view seems unnecessarily complex.
277
ticular content of the poem is his sense of compulsion to convey Yahweh's word, then it is not difficult to see what function the poem could
have had in a public setting. We would suggest that Jeremiah is publicly affirming in this poem that the word that he speaks is not his but
Yahweh's, that he has no choice about whether he should deliver it
because Yahweh has compelled him to be his prophet, and that he is
confident that Yahweh's word cannot ultimately be received with
mockery.59
Such a setting does not remove the element of 'spiritual struggle'
(Seelenkampfe)60 from the poem, for it is undeniable that Jeremiah is
engaged in controversy with Yahweh in vv. 7-9. But it does alter the
focus of the poem from a psychologically appealing interior crisis of
faith to a public confrontation of the prophet with his people. Our suggestion is analogous to the view that prophetic call narratives are not to
be understood simply as biography but as elements in controversy concerning the authenticity of the prophet's message (cf. Amos 7.14).61
2. Vv. 7-13 in its Present Setting
A preliminary question must be whether the time at which vv. 7-13 was
composed was the occasion narrated in vv. 1-6. At first sight, there
appears to be a number of links between the two units: (i) The phrase
'Terror on every side' (v. 10), put by Jeremiah in the mouth of his
opponents, is the very name by which he has surnamed Pashhur (v. 3)
in the episode of the stocks.62 (ii) The prophet's complaint that whenever he speaks he cries out 'Violence! Outrage!' (v. 8) could naturally
59. The poem is thus to be located in a setting of confrontation, and not in a
period after the attack on Jeremiah has proved ineffectual (as Weiser, Jeremia, pp.
169-70). It is, however, uncertain whether a setting for the poem is to be sought in a
public trial of Jeremiah's genuineness such as F.-L. Hossfeld and I. Meyer, 'Der
Prophet vor dem Tribunal. Neuer Auslegungsversuch von Jer 26', ZAW 86 (1974),
pp. 30-50, have recently attempted to establish from Jer. 26.
60. Rudolph, Jeremia, p. 129. Cf. Bright, 'Jeremiah's Complaints', pp. 189214.
61. Cf. N.C. Habel, The Form and Significance of the Call Narratives', ZAW
77 (1965), pp. 297-323 (306): call narratives are 'traumatic public proclamation'; or
Berridge, Prophet, People and the Word of Yahweh, p. 30: the call form is
'designed to be preached or read'.
62. On the meaning of T30D TWO, see W.L. Holladay, The Covenant with the
Patriarchs Overturned: Jeremiah's Intention in "Terror on Every Side" (Jer 20:16)', JBL 91 (1972), pp. 305-20.
278
be understood as referring to his message of doom contained in vv. 3-6.

(iii) The persecutors (v. 11) and evildoers (v. 13) who are troubling
Jeremiah could well be Pashhur and his friends (v. 4). (iv) The mockery
Jeremiah is suffering (vv. 7b, 8b) could well be what he experiences in
the stocks, though admittedly nothing is said in vv. 1-6 of popular
reaction to Jeremiah's fate, (v) The fact that vv. 7-13 directly follows
vv. 1-6 is prima facie evidence that the psalm belongs to the same
occasion as that depicted in vv. 1-6.
These arguments are not in fact very strong, and most scholars are
rightly hesitant, we believe, to see any identity between the situations
of vv. 1-6 and vv. 7-13,63 though the question rarely receives detailed
treatment, (i) 'Terror on every side' (zrnOQ 1120) is a phrase found
elsewhere in Jeremiah (6.25; 46.5; 49.29), so its occurrence twice in
this chapter need not be significant; moreover, the difficulty of interpreting the phrase in the context of v. 1064 suggests that it may actually
be a redactional insertion there.65 (ii) It is very unlikely, as we have
pointed out elsewhere,66 that 'Violence! Outrage!' refers to the content
of Jeremiah's message, for it is introduced by the verb pUT, a technical
term for the cry of justice from the oppressed. 'Violence! Outrage!' is
Jeremiah's protest against Yahweh because he has compelled him to be
his prophet. There is consequently no link between this cry and the
oracle of vv. 3b-6. (iii) and (iv) The terminology belongs to the stereotyped language of the individual lament, and no inferences about actual
oppressors or mockers can safely be drawn, (v) It is generally agreed
63. E.g. Rudolph, Jeremia, p. 129; Bright, Jeremiah, p. 134. Among the few
exceptions are C.F. Whitley, The Date of Jeremiah's Call', VT 14 (1964), pp. 46783 (476), who simply assumes the connection, and Weiser, Jeremia, p. 168, who
regards the connection as 'not excluded, and also quite intelligible psychologically'
(though strangely he does not accept Rudolph's psychological explanation of the
interrelation of the elements of vv. 7-18 on the grounds that it is 'probably too
modernized').
64. Is it Jeremiah's description of his circumstances (so A.W. Streane, Jeremiah
[Cambridge Bible; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913], p. 145; Duhm,
Jeremia, p. 165; RSV) or his adversaries' mocking use of one of his characteristi
phrases (Rudolph, Jeremia, p. 131; Weiser, Jeremia, p. 172; JB) as a nickname for
him (Bright, Jeremiah, pp. 132-33; Holladay, 'The Covenant with the Patriarchs
Overturned: Jeremiah's Intention', p. 318)?
65. See W. Thiel, 'Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jeremiah 1-25', ZAW
83 (1971), p. 228 n. 26, for a statement of views; NEB actually omits the phrase.
66. See Clines and Gunn, ' "You Tried to Persuade Me" '.
279
that the prose and poetry in Jeremiah were transmitted in separate collections prior to the composition of the book (or at least, of its larger
units67). If this is so, vv. 1-6 and vv. 7-13 will have reached the redactor
without any clue that they were related; it would be remarkable if in
juxtaposing them he accidentally reconstructed a single historical situation correctly.
It can therefore be concluded that the relationship between vv. 1-6
and vv. 7-13 is purely due to redactional activity. Two questions then
remain: (i) Why were these units placed in juxtaposition by the redactor? (ii) What is the effect of such juxtaposition on the meaning of each
passage?
(i) We have already seen some reasons why the situation described in
vv. 1-6 may have seemed to a redactor an appropriate setting for the
psalm of vv. 7-13. If 'Terror on every side' was original in v. 10,
plainly the catchword principle was in operation. The experience of
persecution and mockery, if read as the personal experience of the
prophet rather than as the convention of the individual lament form,
obviously suits the episode of vv. 1-6 well. Possibly also the redactor
himself took 'violence, outrage' to be Jeremiah's account of his message and so linked vv. 7-13 with a message of doom.68
There may also be other, larger structural reasons why the redactor
used vv. 7-13 in this place. W. Thiel69 has pointed out that the structure
of chs. 19-20 is identical to that of ch. 18: symbolic act and speech;
scenic comment; persecution of the prophet; lament. From three different sources (T-narrative; 'He'-narrative; laments) the Deuteronomistic
editor has shaped a narrative of a single situation to depict a stylized
scene in the preaching of Jeremiah, representing his typical preaching
and the typical reaction of his audience. The lament may then have
been deliberately inserted at this point to fill out a pattern which the editor was creating in order to offer a stereoscopic picture of Jeremiah.
67. Even if vv. 4-6 has underlying it a poetic oracle, as Holladay, The
Covenant with the Patriarchs Overturned: Jeremiah's Intention', pp. 307-308,
argues, it is clear that it was in prose that the material was being transmitted immediately prior to the final redaction of the book of Jeremiah (or of chs. 1-24 or even
chs. 18-20, if we follow the view of Claus Rietzschel, Das Problem der Urrolle
[Giitersloh: Gutersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1966], that the poetry and prose
were redacted into relatively short units before the final composition of the book).
68. Or perhaps the redactor understood 'Violence! Outrage' as Jeremiah's cry
to Yahweh for deliverance from Pashhur's persecution.
69. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, pp. 219-29.
280
(ii) The effect of the juxtaposition of the passages is twofold. On the

one hand, it increases the specificity of the poem (vv. 7-13), and on the
other it heightens the emotional intensity of the narrative.
As far as the poem (vv. 7-13) is concerned, there had been a certain
loss of particularity once it had been sundered from the historical situation in which it was originally uttered and had been taken into a collection of undated and unspecific Jeremianic oracles. In its present setting
in ch. 20, however, it regains specificity (even though the situation of
vv. 1-6 is in all probability not its original occasion). The poem, which
might otherwise have come to be seen only in terms of Jeremiah's
perennial wrestling with 'daily doubt'70 (as indeed it has been seen by
modern commentators who have denied any link with vv. 1-6), must
now be read as an accusation against God springing from a particular
humiliation and as appeal for deliverance from that crisis. However little we may be convinced that the Pashhur episode was the occasion of
the psalm, the redactor obviously intends us to read it in that connection
and to understand it as reflecting a crucial moment in Jeremiah's life,
rather than his perpetual experience.
The effect on the narrative (vv. 1-6) of the attachment of the psalm is
quite different. This third-person narrative of a crucial juncture in
Jeremiah's life is totally unemotional, and even Jeremiah's oracle, apart
from the !T3Ca TUB element, is prosaic. What vv. 7-13 adds to the narrative is, in effect, another level of report, which presents the subjective
reaction of Jeremiah to the situation described objectively in vv. 1-6.
To read the pericope of vv. 1-6 with vv. 7-13 in mind, as the redactor
intends us to, obviously offers another dimension to the story and supplies an emotional element which the narrative as biography clearly
calls for.71
70. Cf. Frost, The Book of Jeremiah', p. 386: Jeremiah 'had to wrestle with
doubt daily'.
71. The human interest motive is not the only factor in the preservation and
redaction of the Jeremiah material, but it should not be disregarded. For example,
Thiel's more kerygmatic statement of the meaning of chs. 19-20 (Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, p. 229), that it offers a theological explanation of the exile
in terms of the people's rejection of Jeremiah's word, is valuable, but it cannot
satisfactorily account for the inclusion of the lament element in 20.7-18.
281
3. The Self-Curse of Jeremiah 20.14-18

1. Vv. 14-18 in its Original Setting
If vv. 14-18 may be detached from its present context and considered as
a separate unit originally, the question of course must be considered:
what did vv. 14-18 originally mean? If it was originally attached neither to the episode of Jeremiah's humiliation in the stocks (vv. 1-6) nor
to the psalm of appeal (vv. 7-13), the way is open to consider whether it
necessarily has anything to do with the prophet's inner reaction to the
non-fulfilment of his prophecies and to his psychological turmoil.
The major element in vv. 14-18 is apparently the virtual self-curse72
of vv. 14-17. Yet in understanding vv. 14-18 the greatest weight should
be placed upon v. 18, since only there do we find any motivation for the
curse. That motivation, which is what gives the curse its meaning, is the
fact that the prophet 'sees toil (^QIJ) and sorrow (fir)' and that his days
are 'consumed in shame (HUD)'. It need not be assumed automatically
that he is referring to the miseries of his own personal existence; it
would be better first to see in what contexts these terms are used elsewhere in Jeremiah.
^QU does not occur again in Jeremiah. ]ir in 8.18 is the sorrow of the
prophet over the approaching doom of Judah; in 31.13 it is the sorrow
of exile turned into gladness by the restoration, DED is (a) objectively,
the shameful fate of the people (2.26; [?] 7.19); (b) objectively, the
shameful behaviour of the people (3.25);73 (c) objectively, the shameful
object of non-Yahwistic worship (3.24; 11.13). In no case does Dtzn
denote the prophet's own subjective feeling of shame.74 It is therefore
worth considering whether Jeremiah's fir here is not his sorrow over
72. It is not formally a curse on himself, but on the day of his birth and on the
man who announced his birth. It is unnecessary to see the curse as a surrogate for a
curse on one's parents which in turn would be equivalent to a curse on oneself (as
Blank, The Curse, the Blasphemy, the Spell, the Oath', p. 85 n. 44).
73. There may be also a subjective element here. It is not always possible to
distinguish clearly between objective and subjective senses of till, but not so
difficult as is claimed by F. Stolz, in THAT, I, 1971, 270b: 'Nur in wenigen Fallen
laBt sich der subjektive oder der objective Aspekt isolieren'.
74. This is true also of the verb 2JH in Jeremiah (note, e.g., 9.19; 15.9 in reference to Israel). When Jeremiah uses the word of himself, praying that he will not be
'put to shame' (17.18), it is objective shame, exactly parallel to that which he calls
down on the head of his persecutors (17.18a).
282
his people's fate, and whether the H2D in which his days are consumed
is not the objective situation of his people, which may be either a situation of religious disloyalty or of humiliating exile.75 It is not being
argued that the terms |ir and D2D themselves necessarily bear such a
connotation, but that when Jeremiah speaks in this fashion it is quite
likely that he has in mind the distress of his people rather than a private
anguish of his own.
Yet even if it is granted that v. 18 is susceptible of such an interpretation it may be objected that the curse of vv. 14-18 must surely express
the prophet's personal experience of despair. But that also would be too
rash a conclusion to reach, for the curse seems to some extent at least
formalized and stereotyped.76 The existence of a parallel curse in Job
3.2-10 suggests (unless we make the unlikely supposition that Job 3 is
literarily dependent on Jer. 20.14-1777) that it would be naive to read
Jer. 20.14-17 as a direct transcript of the prophet's feelings. The consciously artistic features of the reversal of the convention of 'reward for
bringing good news'78 in v. 10 and of the veiled allusion to Sodom and
Gomorrah (v. 16a) point in the same direction. The self-curse in fact
may perhaps be best understood as having an affinity with the conventional description of dismay at the hearing of bad news which D.R.
Millers has identified in Ugaritic and Hebrew literature.79 Though the
self-curse is not verbally analogous to those descriptions of dismay that
we find in Jer. 6.22-23; 49.23; Isa. 13.7-8; 50.43 and so on, it may well
have a similar function, namely to portray vividly the fact of bad news
in the one case80 or the fact of the shameful plight of the people in the
other. Millers's warning that such passages 'must be used much more
cautiously in discussing prophetic psychology' seems very appropriate
75. For this as the reference of H2J3, 2TQ in the pre-exilic prophets generally,
and in Jeremiah, see H. Seebass, '#13', TDOT, II, pp. 50-60 (52-56).
76. Cf. Schottroff, Der altisraelitische Fluchspruch, p. 77; Frost, The Book of
Jeremiah', p. 386: 'a fine example of a widely esteemed art form'.
77. So, e.g., Bright, 'Jeremiah's Complaints', p. 213 n. 61: 'The two texts certainly reflect a common tradition; but it is probably futile to talk of literary dependence, one way or the other'. Cf. Schottroff, Der altisraelitische Fluchspruch,
p. 77, n. 6.
78. Cf. 2 Sam. 4.10; 18.22.
79. D.R. Millers, 'A Convention in Hebrew Literature: The Reaction to Bad
News', ZAW11 (1965), pp. 86-90.
80. Killers, 'A Convention', p. 89 n. 11: 'Recast in unemotional terms, [the
prophet's] words mean: "Yahweh's word is very bad news indeed"'.
283
to 20.14-17 also. As he says, The poet's use of traditional literary formulae prevents us from drawing any conclusions as to his individual
psychology'. Such passages do not describe the prophet's reaction to
the message he is bringing per se, but the distressing content of his
proclamation.81
We suggest, therefore, that the form and function of the unit 20.14-18
should be distinguished and that these verses did not originally express
the prophet's private emotions of despair at some personal calamity
(such as disappointment in his prophetic ministry), but was a conventional utterance of distress accompanying a judgment-speech or woeoracle.82
2. Vv. 14-18 in its Present Setting
What, however, is the meaning of the unit now that it has been incorporated into its present context in Jeremiah 20 (that is, the question is now
of the Sitz im Buck)! We must consider both (a) the setting of vv. 14-18
as the sequel to vv. 7-13, and (b) its setting as the prelude to chs. 2123.
(a) By linking the curse (vv. 14-18) with the appeal (vv. 7-13), and so
with the Pashhur story (vv. 1-6),83 the redactor has achieved a twofold
effect. The overall meanings of both vv. 14-18 and vv. 7-13 are
modified by the juxtaposition. As we have seen in the case of the latter
passage, once the redactor has located it at a precise moment in the life
81. We might compare also a set of lamentations of Jeremiah (4.19-22; 8.18;
10.19-20; 23.9) that preface announcements of doom.
82. Gunneweg's argument ('Konfession oder Interpretation', p. 411), that
vv. 14-17 is a wisdom piece is singularly unconvincing. One parallel of form and
three of thought in wisdom literature do not stamp the piece as wisdom, and it is
irrelevant that in Jer. 17 also there is a combination of prophetic threat, confession
and wisdom utterance; are we to imagine a redactor deliberately composing units
from such diverse sources as a sustained working method? It is even less probable
that the use of a supposedly 'wisdom' passage involves the depiction of Jeremiah
as a wise man (p. 412).
83. It is being assumed that the same redactor added vv. 14-18 to vv. 1-6 (or
rather, to 19.1-20.6); in other words, the units vv. 7-13 and vv. 14-18 were independent until their redaction into the present context. The assumption of only one
redactional stage may be an oversimplification; perhaps vv. 14-18 was joined to
vv. 7-13 before vv. 7-18 was joined to 19.1-20.6. Or perhaps vv. 14-18 was joined
to 19.1-20.6 aftervv. 7-13 was joined to 19.1-20.6. However, our analysis above
of meanings resulting from the juxtapositions is not affected by the chronological
order in which the juxtapositions were effected.
284
of the prophet, he has in fact specified the hermeneutical framework

within which the passage must be read. The effect upon the meaning of
vv. 14-18 is that it is now to be read as an expression of the prophet's
own personal emotion occasioned by his bitter experience in 20.1-6.
'Toil', 'sorrow', and 'shame' have now become primarily what he
experienced at the hands of Pashhur, though that was perhaps not the
whole horizon of the passage in the eyes of the redactor. But the effect
upon the meaning of vv. 7-18 is even more profound: here the movement towards a climax in confident appeal and praise is reversed and
the dominant mood84 of the whole composition (vv. 7-18) becomes tha
of distress and lament.85
(b) Yet the curse of vv. 14-18 is not only the sequel to vv. 7-13; it is
also the preface to chs. 21-24, a collection of judgment-speeches
against Judah. Read in this context, the self-curse and the 'why' question (v. 18) are naturally understood as representing the prophet's personal reaction to impending destruction that he will share with his people. In this way the passage now recovers something of what we have
suggested was its original import, though on this level, read as it is in
conjunction with vv. 7-13, it is doubtless to be understood as more the
prophetic emotion than the rather conventional distress that we
attempted to identify as its original intention.
In sum, then, the unit vv. 14-18 in its present context is ambivalent:
in retrospect it establishes the note of bitter personal anguish as the key
to ch. 20; in prospect it broadens the horizon from the individual
prophet to his people and their fate, forming a transition from the personal experiences of the prophet (chs. 19-20) to the collective experience of the people (chs. 21-24),86 in which he too will be implicated.
84. On this level of interpretation, 'mood' becomes an important hermeneutical
tool, which is too often neglected for fear of 'subjectivity'. At an earlier stage
(section I) 'mood' was rejected as a criterion for the isolation of original units, but
at the stage of interpretation of the 'final form' of the text it becomes valid.
85. How effectively the attachment of the curse to the psalm of appeal and
confidence has transformed the total impact of that psalm is apparent in the current
scholarly consensus that vv. 7-18 as a whole is lament; so strongly does the mood
of lament stand out in vv. 7-18 that the tendency is to ignoreif not to excisethe
note of appeal and confidence. So, e.g., Couturier, The Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 319 heads vv. 7-18: 'Jeremiah's despair'.
86. It is perhaps not accidental that Jer. 21.1-7 represents Yahweh as the enemy
of Israel (cf. H. Weippert, 'Jahwekrieg und Bundesfluch in Jer. 21.1-7', ZAW82
[1970] pp. 396-409), just as Jer. 20.7-9 represents him as the enemy of the prophet.
14
'YOU TRIED TO PERSUADE ME' AND 'VIOLENCE! OUTRAGE!'
IN JEREMIAH 20.7-8
I
One of the most striking of Jeremiah's so-called 'confessions' (20.7131) begins with the words:
pittitani Yhwh wa'eppathazaqtamwattukal
Pitta is commonly translated as 'deceive', 'dupe';2 its use in connection
with the seduction of a young woman (Exod. 22.15) is often said to
indicate its proper meaning in Jer. 20.7, and in fact it is sometimes
translated 'seduce' (verfuhren).3This understanding of pitta is, however, open to three criticisms: 1. There is no good reason to suppose
that (sexual) seduction is the basic meaning of pitta or that overtones of
that sense are present in Jer. 20.7. 2. Pitta does not necessarily denote
deception. 3. It is likely that pitta describes an attempted act rather than
a successful one.
Originally published as D.J.A. Clines and D.M. Gunn, ' "You tried to persuade me"
and "Violence! Outrage!" in Jeremiah xx 7-8', Veins Testamentum 28 (1978), pp.
20-27, and and reprinted with the agreement of David M. Gunn and the permission
of EJ. Brill.
1. On the nature and interpretation of this passage see further D.J.A. Clines
and D.M. Gunn, 'Form, Occasion and Redaction in Jeremiah 20', TAW 88 (1976),
pp. 390-409 (reprinted above).
2. For example, in 20.7, 10 we find 'deceive' (RSV), 'dupe', 'trick' (NEB),
'dupe', 'trap' (NAB).
3. E.g. JB; John Bright, Jeremiah (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965),
p. 132; Wilhelm Rudolph, Jeremia (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 3rd edn, 1968), p. 131;
A.H.J. Gunneweg, 'Konfession oder Interpretation im Jeremiabuch', ZTK 67
(1970), pp. 395-416 (409-10). Andre Aeschimann, Le Prophete Jeremie (Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestle, 1959), p. 129, finds seduire insufficiently direct, 'car
il y a de bonnes et de mauvaises seductions. Le terme hebreu est le meme que dans
Ex. 22.16 ou il designe 1'acte d'un homme qui debauche une jeune fille'; he would
translate, Tu m'as "eu", et je me suis laisse avoir'.
286
1. It is commonly asserted that pitta has a sexual overtone and may

best be translated 'seduce'. Indeed, J.M. Berridge4 has recently argued,
folowing A.J. Heschel,5 that the imagery of seduction continues
throughout 20.7-8: pitta is 'seduce', hazaq has overtones of sexual
assault, and hamas wdSod is the cry of a raped young woman. Hazaq
and hamas wdSod can, however, obviously refer to other kinds of violence,6 while the view that pitta refers specifically to seduction is based
upon only one passage (Exod. 22.15). To suppose that such a contextually determined usage carries overtones into other passages is to commit the error of 'illegitimate totality transfer' ;7 one might as well claim
that 'and 'humiliate' carries with it in its various uses sexual overtones
because it is sometimes used specifically of rape. There are in fact
many occurrences of pitta (e.g. Prov. 24.28; 1 Kgs 22.20-22) where any
sexual overtone is far from probable.
2. It seems unlikely that pitta denotes deception. Preferable to translations such as 'deceive', 'trick', 'dupe', would be a more neutral translation like 'persuade' (or, to be more precise, 'attempt to persuade'; see
[3] below). The fact that pitta is often used in a 'bad' context (of persuading someone against one's will or by using deceit) does not itself
prove that the verb involves deception.
One clear case where Yahweh is said, without any hint of criticism,
to be about to pitta Israel (Hos. 2.16) might be thought to be enough to
show that the verb has no automatic connotation of duplicity. But there
are several other equally clear examples. In Prov. 1.10, 'My son, if sinners pitta you, do not go [or, perhaps, consent]; if they say, Come, let
us lie in wait to shed blood [or, for the honest man] ...', there is no
question of deceit, since those who pitta make no bones about what
they are doing. In Prov. 24.28,
4. John Maclennan Berridge, Prophet, People, and the Word of Yahweh

(Zurich: EVZ Verlag, 1970), pp. 151-55.
5. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Die Prophetie (Krakow: Nakladem Polskiej Akademji Umiejetnosci, 1936), pp. 92-93; cf. his The Prophets (New York: Harper &
Row, 1969), pp. 113-14: 'O Lord, Thou hast seduced me, / And I am seduced; /
Thou hast raped me, / And I am overcome'.
6. Cf. S. Marrow, 'Hamas ("violentia") in Jer. 20, 8', VD 43 (1965), pp. 24155 (249-55).
7. James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 218.
14. 'You Tried to Persuade Me' and 'Violence! Outrage!'
287
Be not a witness against your neighbour without cause,

[and] will you pitta with your lips?
Do not say, I will do to him as he has done to me,
I will pay the man back for what he has done,
we do not have the case of a lying witness who attempts to deceive the
judge, but of the informer or the spiteful, revengeful witness who gives
testimony unnecessarily (hinndm), and speaks up in order to persuade
the judge against someone with whom he has a score to settle).8 In
Prov. 25.15, where the pual of pth occurs, 'be persuaded' is again a
rather more likely rendering than 'be deceived': 'By patience is a ruler
pitta'd, and a soft tongue will break a bone'.
Again, in Job 31.9, 'If my heart has beenp/ffrf d [niphal] in the matter of a woman', the context makes clear that it is a matter of choice,
not deception. As for Exod. 22.15, 'If a man should pitta a young
woman who is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall give the marriage present for her, and make her his wife', it is improbable that the
law applies only when it is by deception that a man has intercourse with
an unbetrothed young woman. Pitta should therefore be understood as
having a meaning like 'entice', 'cajole', not 'deceive'. In Ps. 77.36,
where pitta occurs in parallelism with kdzab 'to lie',
They pitta'd [God] with their mouths,
they lied (kazab) to him with their tongues,
pitta might at first sight seem to mean 'deceive'. On the contrary, however, this passage shows that pitta cannot mean 'deceive', since
humans cannot in fact deceive Yahweh.9 Pitta is not, therefore, an exact
synonym of kdzab. In other cases (2 Sam. 3.25;10 Judg. 14.15; 16.5;11
Prov. 16.29; Ezek. 14.912) either 'persuade' or 'deceive' would be suit8. So William McKane, Proverbs (OIL; London: SCM Press, 1970), p. 574;
but, we argue, it is unnecessary to add: 'In order to achieve his ends he is prepared
to commit perjury'.
9. Hence translations such as 'flatter' (RSV, JB NAB) or 'beguile' (NEB). Note
A.A. Anderson, Psalms (NCB; London: Oliphants, 1972), I, p. 570: 'they tried to
deceive God' (our italics).
10. This verse could of course, mean 'Abner has come to deceive you and to
find out...all that you are doing', but it could equally well mean 'Abner has come
to win you over [cf. 3.12] and (at the same time) to find out
11. In neither passage in Judges is any deceit employed by Samson's wife or
Delilah; 'coax (NEB) or 'cajole' (JB) is more appropriate.
12. Nothing in this context indicates that the prophet who is pitta'd into delivering an oracle is deceived; rather he 'lets himself be induced by the wish to please or
288
able, so the connotation of the verb cannot be inferred from these

instances.
As far as Jer. 20.7 is concerned, it is obvious that Jeremiah is protesting against Yahweh's pittd'ing, but not, we suggest, because to pitta
involves deception, but because Yahweh's pittd'ing has led to Jeremiah's being overpowered (hazaqtam). We might translate:
You tried to persuade me [to be a prophet], and I was persuaded;
You [i.e. your arguments] proved too strong for me, and you
overpowered me.
3. It appears likely that pitta does not describe an act carried through
to a successful conclusion, but an attempted act. That is, it seems to be
more like our verbs 'urge', 'advise', 'attempt', than like 'convince',
'induce', 'compel'. The distinction between these two types of verb
corresponds to that recognised in the philosophy of language between
'illocutionary' statements (which describe the performance of an act in
saying something) and 'perlocutionary' statements (which describe the
performance of an act by saying something, i.e. the production of consequential effects on the feelings, thought, or actions of the audience).13
Of course, a verb that is illocutionary in the active may well be perlocutionary in the passive (cf. 'coax', 'cajole'), and it would seem that pitta
is of this type, signifying something like 'attempt to persuade' (active)
and 'be persuaded' (passive).
One passage in which the illocutionary nature of pitta is plain is
1 Kgs 22.20-22 (// 2 Chron. 18.19-21). Here, when Yahweh asks, 'Who
will pitta Ahab so that he will go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead?', one
of the spirits (haruah) volunteers to pitta Ahab, and is thereupon
assured by Yahweh, 'You will pitta, and also you will succeed (wegamtukdiy. If pitta meant 'persuade', that is, 'be successful in persuading',
wegam-tukdl would be unnecessary.
by a calculated compromise' (Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel: A Commentary [OTL;
London: SCM Press, 1970], p. 183 = Der Prophet Hesekiel. Kap. 1-18 [Gottingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959], p. 105). The 'coaxing' of the prophet is, according to this verse, ultimately Yahweh's 'inducing' (pitta).
13. See J.L. Austin, How to do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1962), pp. 99-103. Two of his examples are:
1.
Illocution: He urged me to shoot her.

Perlocution: He persuaded me to shoot her.
2.
Illocution: He protested against my doing it.

Perlocution: He pulled me up, checked me.
289
Another case is Prov. 1.10, mentioned above: 'My son, if sinners

pitta you, do not go'. Here pitta must mean 'attempt to persuade', for if
sinners were to succeed in persuading (that is, if pitta were perlocutionary) there would be no point in saying, 'Do not go'. Likewise in Ps.
78.6 the Israelites' pittd'ing of God will not have been successful (cf.
RSV 'flattered'), so here too pitta must be illocutionary.
In all other passages where pitta occurs in the active (Exod. 22.15;
Judg. 14.15; 16.5; 2 Sam. 3.25; Prov. 16.29; 24.28; Ezek. 14.9; Hos.
2.16) an illocutionary sense is appropriate, though the contexts are not
specific enough to allow a decisive case to be made.
II
Why does Jeremiah claim that whenever he speaks he cries out hdmds
waSod (20.8)? And whom is he addressing when he cries out these
words? Three answers have usually been given:
1. These are his accusations of injustice against rich oppressors of the
poor.14 However, it is hard to see why accusations of injustice should
make him a 'laughing-stock' (v. 7), or in what way such a reaction to
his message should lead him to protest that Yahweh has 'overpowered'
him (v. 7).
2. These are threats of doom announced against the nation.15 In this
case, the 'confession' of 20.7-13 fits well with the preceding narratives,
in which evil is threatened against Jerusalem and its villages (19.15),
and the captivity of Judah is announced (20.4-6). Jeremiah would be
saying that whenever he utters an oracle, it is a word of doom; he is
becoming a laughing-stock (20.7b, 8b) because the doom he announces
is not actually coming about.
This interpretation, however, has a major flaw in common with the
first interpretation: zd'aq is not an appropriate term for introducing
either a judgment-speech or an oracle of doom; rather, it is virtually a
technical term for a cry of appeal made by an innocent sufferer against
unjust oppressors.
3. These are the conventional words of a cry for help; that is,
14. So e.g. J. Bright, 'Jeremiah's Complaints: Liturgy, or Expressions of Personal Disaster?', in J.I. Durham and J.R. Porter (eds.), Proclamation and Presence
(London: SCM Press, 1970), pp. 189-214 (212).
15. So e.g. NEB, NAB, Sheldon H. Blank, Jeremiah, Man and Prophet (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1961), pp. 125, 134.
290
Jeremiah appeals to Yahweh for deliverance from denouncers and persecutors (20.10-II).16 This interpretation, by which full weight may be
given to the verb za'aq, may be applied in two different ways to the
verse: Jeremiah could be saying:
(i) 'Whenever I open my mouth, I find I am crying to Yahweh for
deliverance from oppressors, for I am being persecuted incessantly.
This can hardly be correct, for what Jeremiah is saying when he
'speaks' ('"dabber) is specifically a 'word of Yahweh' (debar Yhwh), as
the parallelism of vv. 8a and 8b suggests; it is not that whenever he
speaks, all that he ever says is 'Violence! outrage!'17
(ii) 'When I speak the word of Yahweh, I am at the same time
appealing for future help against persecutors, who will, I know, be
attacking me for what I have said.' It is difficult, however, to see why
the prophet's cry for help should be uttered when he speaks his oracles
rather than when his enemies denounce him or persecute him. Hamas
waSod is not normally a cry uttered in anticipation of attack, but is a
cry for assistance from a person who is being attacked or for vengeance
from one who has been attacked.
It is plain therefore that another understanding of this cry must be
sought. S. Marrow, followed by J.M. Berridge, has recently made the
valuable suggestion that 'Violence! outrage!' should be seen here not
only as a cry of distress addressed to Yahweh but also as a cry of
protest against Yahweh.18
This fourth interpretation can take on two forms.
(i) The first is to see the cry as an accusation against Yahweh because
he has committed an 'outrage' against Jeremiah by failing to protect his
prophet and by breaking his promise of 15.20.19 What is unsatisfactory
16. So e.g. Bernhard Duhm, Das Buck Jeremia (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr
[P. Siebeck], 1901), p. 165; Walter Baumgartner, Die Klagedichte des Jeremia
(BZAW, 32; Giessen: A. Topelmann, 1917), p. 64; Rudolph, Jeremia, p. 120; cf.
Gunneweg, 'Konfession oder Interpretation', p. 409. That the cry is taken as
addressed to Yahweh is, in most cases, only implied by scholars. Few spell out
precisely their exegesis of this phrase. On hamas as a cry for deliverance, see H.J.
Stoebe, ThWAT, cols. 584-85.
17. The situation in Hab. 1.3 is different: there the prophet's cry of hamds to
Yahweh does not accompany his utterance of a 'word of Yahweh'. The prophet is
simply identifying himself with the oppressed of his people.
18. Marrow, 'Hamas ("violentia")', p. 255; Berridge, Prophet, People, and the
Word of Yahweh, pp. 153-55.
19. Marrow, 'Hamas ("violentia")', p. 248. Cf. Gunneweg's understanding of
291
about this view, however, is that hamas, 'violence', hardly seems the
appropriate word for the breaking of a promise, and, more importantly,
there is no reason to connect the outcry of 20.8 with the promise of
15.20. Not only are the two passages undatable, and therefore impossible to relate chronologically, but also they have quite probably been
transmitted at some stage in separate tradition units,20 and cannot therefore have been intended even by the redactors to be related to one
another.
(ii) A second form of this interpretation is more plausible. It is that
Jeremiah's protest is against Yahweh's compelling him to speak
prophetic words.21 Ironically, however, the only one to whom he may
cry for help is Yahweh.22 Thus he means, we suggest:23
Whenever I speak [a prophetic word]
I cry for help [to Yahweh],
I call out, 'Violence! outrage!' [by Yahweh against me].
His cry to Yahweh is at the same time his protest against him, for it is
Yahweh who compels him, with outrageous violence, to speak his
word.
On this understanding, the connection of thought in vv. 7-9 becomes
plain. The three outcries
You were too strong for me and you prevailed
I cry, 'Violence! outrage!'
I am incapable [of withholding the fire in my heart]
are all expressions of the prophet's sense of being compelled to prophesy.

pitta in the context of a worshipper who complains that Yahweh has not fulfilled
his promise delivered through an oracle ('Konfession oder Interpretation', pp. 40910).
20. See Claus Rietzschel, Das Problem der Urrolle (Giitersloh: Gutersloher
Verlagshaus GerdMohn, 1966), p. 125.
21. This is more precise than Berridge's observation that 'Jeremiah bitterly
laments the nature of his prophetic ministry, drawing attention to the full control
which Yahweh exercises over his life' (Prophet, People, and the Word of Yahweh,
p. 155).
22. Marrow, 'Hamas ("violentia")', p. 255, also notes the irony here, though he
is arguing that the protest is directed against a broken promise.
23. This is a conceptual analysis, following the syntax of the line. The mechanics of the parallelism in the line do not correspond completely to its logical structure.
292
The structure of vv. 9-10 is also clarified on this view. If we may call
the theme 'Yahweh compels me to prophesy' A, and the theme 'My
prophesying makes me an object of persecution and derision' B, the
structure is:
7a
A
7b
B
8a
A
8b
B
9
A
10
B
Finally, when it is realized that vv. 7a, 8a and 9 are all making essentially the same point, the thrust of Jeremiah's address to God is better
understood. This 'confession' is not primarily a complaint that God has
'persuaded' him, much less that he has 'deceived' him; that first word
(pitta) is not the keynote. The persuasion has only been God's means to
the end of achieving domination (tukal) over the prophet, and it is
against that domination that Jeremiah is protesting. This theme of
domination or power runs through the poem:24 Jeremiah finds himself
utterly powerless (Id' 'ukdl, v. 9) in the face of Yahweh's strength; his
enemies too hope to exert their power over him (nukeldId,v. 10); but
the prophet's own experience of Yahweh's power becomes the source
of his confident expectation of vindication: Yahweh is a 'fearsome
mighty man' (gibbor 'aris, v. 11), and Jeremiah will not fall ultimately
into the power of his enemies (Id' yukalu, v. 11).
24. As is recognized also by Berridge, Prophet, People, and the Word of Yahweh, p. 155.
15
HOSEA 2: STRUCTURE AND INTERPRETATION
The structure of Hosea 2 is approached in this paper from three aspects.

The first is that of formal structure; in particular I treat the question of
the proper sequence of verses in the chapterand therewith its logic.
The second is that of the conceptual structure of the chapter: I argue
that a single dominating set of relationships comes to expression in various conceptual modes. The third is that of the plot or narrative structure of the chapter: inasmuch as the poem presents a narrative, analysis
of its relatively simple structure illuminates the meaning of the text.1
In the first section I am concerned solely with the unit vv. 4-17, since
the question of sequence within that section is unaffected by the
remainder of the chapter. In the second and third sections, however, I
deal with the whole unit vv. 4-25, which clearly now forms an integrated poem,2 no matter whether vv. 18-25 originally was attached to
Originally published in Studio. Biblica 1978. I. Old Testament and Related Themes.
Sixth International Congress on Biblical Studies, Oxford, 3-7 April, 1978 (ed. E.A.
Livingstone; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement, 11;
Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1979), pp. 83-103.
1. Other structural aspects have been dealt with by E. Galbiati, 'La struttura
sintetica di Osea 2', in Studi sull' Oriente e la Bibbia offerti a P. Giovanni Rinaldi
nel 60 compleanno da allievi, colleghi, amid (Genoa: Studio e vita, 1967), pp. 31720, who discovers a symmetrical pattern in the poem, by H. Krszyna, 'Literarische
Struktur von Os 2,4-17', BZ 13 (1969), pp. 41-59, with similar interests, especially
in evidences of inclusio and the larger and smaller structures in the poem, and by an
unnamed writer in Foi et Vie, who offers a structuralist approach to the poem
('Osee 2,4-17. Proposition d'un plan de travail', Foi et Vie 74 [1975], pp. 59-65).
These studies are very valuable, but deserve detailed discussion beyond the
confines of this paper; their concerns and approaches do not overlap significantly
with those I have taken up in the present study.
2. The decision to print vv. 18-25 as prose (so e.g. Procksch in BH, 3rd edn;
RSV; NEB) presumably results from a judgment that they are secondary. Many,
however, recognize these verses as poetical: thus, for example, JB; James Luther
Mays, Hosea. A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press, 1969), p. 45; Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Hosea (Hermeneia;
294
vv. 4-17 or not.3 The Masoretic verse numbering is used throughout; in

most English versions4 any particular verse is numbered 2 less than in
the MT.
1. Sequence
The current tendency is to regard at least vv. 4-17 of Hosea 2 as a unity,
even if not originally a literary unity but a redacted, 'kerygmatic',
unity.5 Arguments for its stylistic and thematic coherence have now
been frequently presented, and do not need to be rehearsed here.6 But
there is one crucial point over which commentators remain divided,
namely, the correct position of vv. 8-9. In its present position this passage creates two problems:
(i) It breaks what would otherwise be a striking juxtaposition of
belief and reality in vv. 7c and lOa:
7c
10a
7c
[My lovers] who give me my food and my water,

my wool and my flax,
my oil and my drink.
lOa
But she does not know

that it is I who have given her
the grain and the wine and the oil.
Israel attributes the gifts of fertility to her 'lovers' (the Baalim)but

mistakenly, for it is Yahweh who is the source of fertility.
(ii) The link between v. 15 and v. 16 is unclear, for the introductory
p1? ('therefore') of v. 16, which usually initiates a judgment speech7
such as would be appropriate after the last words of v. 15,
rone? TIKI ('and me she has forgotten')in fact leads into a speech
by Yahweh that is the very opposite of a judgment speech
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974; trans. G. Stansell from Dodekapropheton:
Hosea [BKAT XIV/1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2nd edn, 1965]),
pp. 46-47; BHS.
3. For discussion, see Wolff, Hosea, p. 47.
4. Not NAB.
5. So Wolff, Hosea, p. 32.
6. Cf. Wolff, Hosea, p. 12; Mays, Hosea, p. 36.
7. See e.g. Claus Westermann, Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech (trans. H.C.
White; London: Lutterworth, 1967), p. 49.
15. Hosea 2: Structure and Interpretation
295
(m^ Û TI"Q~n ... rrriBQ "O3K: 'I will persuade her... and speak wooing
words to her', v. 16).8
Consequently, many commentators have followed the lead of
H. Oort's 1989 paper9 and have transferred vv. 8-9 to follow v. 15.10
Most recently this view has been strongly urged by W. Rudolph, who
argues that Israel's movement toward repentance in v. 9b, however
self-regarding it may be, cannot be ignored by Hosea's God (as it is in
the present form of the chapter) and certainly could not precede
Yahweh's claim in v. 15b ('Me she has forgotten'). The translations of
Moffatt, the Jerusalem Bible, and the New American Bible also have
adopted this view and have inserted vv. 8-9 between v. 15 and v. 16.
Others have continued to maintain the secondary character of vv. 89,11 thus effectively setting aside the problem of sequential logic within
the chapter.
However, H.W. Wolff has maintained, correctly in my opinion, that
the MT order is still the most satisfactory one. His first argument, that
the transition from v. 9 to v. 16if the suggested re-arrangement is
adoptedis 'difficult',12 is hard to understand. But his second argument, that the wording of Israel's speech in v. 9b is deliberately antithetical to her speech in v. 7b is persuasive:
7b
9b
7b
9b
She said: I will go after my lovers.

And she will say: I will go and return to my first husband.
8. On the translation of ilPD, see D.J.A. Clines and D.M. Gunn, '"You tried to
persuade me" and "Violence! Outrage!" in Jeremiah xx 7-8', VT28 (1978), pp. 2027 (20-23).
9. H. Oort, 'Hozea', TT 24 (1890), pp. 345-64,480-505 (352-53).
10. So A. Condamin, 'Interpolations ou transpositions?', RB 11 (1902),
pp. 389ff. (369-70); Procksch, BH3; Ernst Sellin, Die Zwolfprophetenbuch (KAT
XII/1; Leipzig: Deichert, 1929), p. 29; K. Budde, 'Der Abschnitt Hosea 1-3 und
seine grundlegende religionsgeschichtliche Bedeutung', TSK 96-97 (1925), pp. 189 (36, 41); P. Humbert, 'La logique de la perspective nomade chez Osee et 1'unite
d'Osee 2,4-22', in Vom Alien Testament (Festschrift Karl Marti; ed. Karl Budde;
BZAW, 41; Giessen: A. Topelmann, 1925), pp. 158-66 (164).
11. So William Rainey Harper, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Amos
and Hosea (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1905), pp. 236-37; Martin J. Buss, The
Prophetic Word of Hosea: A Morphological Study (BZAW, 111; Berlin: A. Topelmann, 1969), p. 34.
12. Wolff, Hosea, p. 35.
296
Rudolph's riposte, that vv. 8-9 were later transposed from their original
position following v. 15 because of the stronger formal connections
between v. 7b and v. 9b than between v. 9b and v. 16,13 will persuade
only those who are already convinced of the correctness of Rudolph's
position, for it effectively concedes Wolff's argument about the significance of the relationship between v. 7b and v. 9b.
Now, however, a further and perhaps stronger argument for the
Masoretic arrangement of the chapter may be developed from the total
structure of vv. 4-17, if the significance of the triple p*7 ('therefore') is
properly appreciated. The structure is:
Appeal to Israel to abandon her harlotry
For CD) (she) has played the harlot,
For ("3) she has said, I will go after my lovers...
1.
2.
3.
vv. 4-6
7a
7b
[Because she has played the harlot]

Therefore(p1?) I will bar [her] way
[viz, I will prevent her harlotry happening again]
But she (NTTI) does not acknowledge...
[viz. that I am the giver of her gifts]
[Because she does not recognize me as the giver]
Therefore (p1?) I will take back [my gifts]
[viz. I will prevent her from enjoying
what she has been enjoying]
But me (TIKI) she has forgotten.
8a
8-9
1 Oa
1 la
11-15
15b
[Because she has forgotten me (in the enjoyment of my gifts)]

Therefore (p1?) I will persuade her... woo her
16
[viz. I will cause her to remember me
16-17
and (by implication) to abandon her harlotry].
The p*7 ('therefore') sentences introduce the three movements in

Yahweh's treatment of Israel: first, he will prevent her harlotry occurring again (by barring her way, v. 8); secondly, he will remove his gifts
of grain, wine, and oil (so that Israel may recognize that she is dependent on him, not on the Baalim); thirdly, he will resume his exclusive
relationship with her, and restore his gifts to her. In the first judgment
speech she is deprived of access to what she believes to be the source of
her well-being; in the second, she is deprived of the well-being itself;
and in the third (remarkably) she has her well-being restored by the one
who is its true source.
13. Rudolph, Hosea (KAT Xffl/1; Gutersloh: Mohn, 1966), p. 69.
297
This developing movement is destroyed if we adopt the re-arrangement of vv. 7-8 to follow v. 15. The 'therefore' (p1?) of v. 8a does not
follow naturally upon 'me she has forgotten' of v. 15b, nor is the barring of her way to her lovers a natural sequel to the deprivations of
vv. 1-14.
Two major exegetical decisions hang upon a recognition of the
sequential structure of the poem:
(i) The third ]lh ('therefore') speech is entirely out of character: it is
not a judgment speech at all, and must be seen as a delightful reversal
of the expected, a bold rejection of the causal nexus between sin and
punishment. Indeed, some have seen in the reference to Israel's being
taken into the wilderness ("Q"IQn nTlD^m, v. 16) a punishment, specifically of exile,14 but even so the 'punishment' can only be the first step
in the process of renewal. And in fact the reference to the 'wilderness'
seems to be less an indication of place than of 'a time and situation in
which the pristine relation between God and people was untarnished
and Israel depended utterly on Yahweh (cf. 13.4f.)'.15 Thus vv. 16-17
are entirely unexpectedand illogical, given the nexus of sin and punishment, or even the impossibility of unliving the past. Yahweh's
answer to Israel's ignoring him will be to turn the clock back and let
her begin her history with him all over again.
We have here more than an ironic or novel use of the traditional language of the judgment speech (Gerichtsrede). It is a theologically creative and profound move that in effect negates the validity or effectiveness of punishment as a response to sin. In this non-judgmental
'judgment' speech (i.e. judgment in form but not in content) Yahweh
announces that he will love Israel out of her unfaithfulness, and in
response to her harlotry will woo her to himself and renew his gifts to
her.
If, then, this speech of vv. 16-17 is both the climax of the divine
speeches of vv. 4-17 and so much out of character with the preceding
judgment speeches of vv. 8-10 and vv. 11-15, one may wonder whether
the prophet (or redactor) saw these three decisions on the part of Yahweh as a sequence of actions God planned to take so much as a set of
options he opened himself up to. Could the mood of this poem, then, be
14. Cf. T.K. Cheyne, The Book of Hosea (Cambridge Bible, 26; Cambridge
University Press, 1884), p. 53; Edmond Jacob, Osee (CAT, l l a (Neuchatel:
Delachaux & Niestle, 1965), p. 30.
15. Mays, Hosea, p. 44.
298
one of divine indecisionwhich issues in an unexpected and unconditioned act of grace? One would hardly imagine so were it not for the
other glimpses Hosea gives us of God 'struggling with himself (6.4;
11.8).16 To be sure, in the narrative of ch. 3, Hosea's symbolic marriage
clearly develops through sequential stages of deprivation and renewal
of relationship; but that same sequence need not be followed in ch. 2
except formally. Chapter 2 lends itself to a reading that can dispense
with sequence on the historical plane, and present the judgments of
imprisonment (vv. 8-10) and deprivation (vv. 11-15) as a sequence of
possibilities that Yahweh passes in review, only to decide against them
and for the third possibility: restoration (vv. 16-17).
(ii) The speech of Israel in v. 9b, 'I will go and return to my former
husband,17 for it was better for me then than now' (rTDICifO HD'ptf
nn^n TK ^ ma O pctfton BTK'^K), is not to be regarded as a speech of
repentance or even 'semblance of repentance',18 but as a quite amoral
decision on Israel's part, in which only her well-being plays a part
('better for me'). There is no expression of sorrow or sense of
unfaithfulness in this speech; as is clear in v. 10, she does not even
attribute her former (TN) well-being to Yahweh; but only recalls that
by some coincidence, as it appears to hershe was 'better off with
him' (NEB) then than she is now.
Most commentators, indeed, have seen Israel's speech as indicative
of a genuine sense of repentance, however shallow. Rudolph, for
example, uses this admission on Israel's part as grounds for removing
vv. 8-9 to follow v. 14; it would then be answered by Yahweh's
encouragement in vv. 15-16. However, if we leave the Masoretic order
undisturbed, the truly noteworthy fact is that Yahweh does not respond
to this so-called profession of repentanceexcept to say, implicitly,
that it is no repentance at all since Israel does not acknowledge that her
previous well-being was his gift: 'she does not acknowledge that it is I
who gave her the grain and the wine and the oil' (v. 10). Perhaps it is
17. I pass over here the question of whether the poem envisages a real divorce
in v. 4 (which I doubt; cf. Mays, Hosea, pp. 37-38; contra, Wolff, Hosea, p. 36),
and consequently whether jl&SOn 'BTN really means 'my former husband' or simply 'my husband' (cf. NEB).
18. T.C. Vriezen, Hosea: profeet en cultuur (Groningen: Wolters, 1941), p. 9;
cf. Harper, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Amos and Hosea, p. 237:
This is no genuine repentance (cf. 6.1-3), but only a desire for change, because
change is expected to bring relief.
299
significant that the decision to 'return' to Yahweh comes as easily and

unthinkingly to her as does the similarly worded decision to 'go after'
her lovers whom she has just previously regarded as the source of her
well-being (v. 7b).
Wolff takes an unusual position in regarding the repentance, or at
least the 'desire to return', as genuine enough, but the words of Yahweh
in v. 10 as neither the response to nor the sequel of v. 9. For him, v. 11
with its introductory p1? ('therefore') resumes at the same point as v. 8,
which is also introduced by p1?. If the suggestion made above is correct, that the three p1? speeches represent alternative decisions that
Yahweh contemplates making, it would be appropriate to view the
three JD^ speeches as each beginning afresh from the point reached at
the end of v. 7; so to that extent my view would be in accord with that
of Wolff. But if indeed Israel's speech in v. 9b is evaluated positively
by the prophet, it is improbable that Yahweh does not act upon it; so in
this respect I cannot agree with Wolff. Israel's speech was, I believe,
rightly characterized by Cheyne as 'not so much the expression of
penitence, as of a longing to escape from the sense of misery'19 (or
perhaps rather, frustration).
2. Conceptual Pattern
If now we turn to explore the conceptual structure of the whole poem
(vv. 4-25), we come upon a delicate network of ideas, closely integrated but worked out with subtle variations both on the surface of the
text and just beneath it.
The most fundamental concept in the poem, as it seems to me, is that
of belonging; to that are related the opposites of not-belonging and
belonging wrongly. In this text, belonging is expressed, obviously, in
the legal language of marriage, with its opposites of (marital) separation and adultery. But it also realized in the language of several other
conceptual spheres. In the verbal sphere, belonging takes the form of
response (speaking and answering), with its opposites of speaking
(without answering) and speaking wrongly. In the mental sphere,
belonging is signified by remembering, its opposites being forgetting or
mis-remembering (remembering wrongly). In the spatial sphere,
belonging is seen as being with, coming and returning, and its opposite
as going, that is going away, and related terminology. In the sphere of
19. Cheyne, The Book of Hosea, p. 50.
300
action, belonging is expressed chiefly by giving, its opposites being

withholding and removing or taking. In the sphere of affects, belonging
is expressed by loving, its opposites being not loving, or loving
wrongly.
For some readers a tabular presentation may be more effective. Thus
we have:
belonging
not-belonging
wrongly
or belonging
marital
marriage
separation
adultery
verbal
response
(speaking &
answering)
no response
(speaking
without answering)
wrong speaking
mental
remembering
misremembering
forgetting
spatial
being with, coming

returning
going
going away
going wrong
actional
giving
withholding
removing
false 'giving'
taking
affective
loving
not loving
loving wrongly
All of these conceptual structures are in evidence in Hosea 2, many

of them expressis verbis in the text; and in sum they account for virtually the whole material of the poem.
Belonging is the crucial datum of the poem: Israel belongs to Yahweh, Yahweh belongs to Israel. But the poem begins at a point where
the relationship of belonging has been negated: Israel has behaved as if
she were no wife to Yahweh (TNito $b KYI, v. 4a), and Yahweh is consequently20 unable to act as husband to Israel (iliZTK "? 'D3R1, v. 4a). To
be more exact, he can still exercise husbandly functions of authority
over her, to the extent of stripping her of his gifts (vv. 5a, 11), or invoking legal processes against her.21 But this is not what Yahweh expects
of marriage: he intends by marriage a 'speaking to the heart' of Israel
(fl^b bl) TmTl, v. 16), and a loving response (H3I7, v. 17b) from her, an
intimate address with the term 'my husband' ("2TR) rather than a
20. Rudolph, Hosea, p. 65 and n. 8, correctly observes that the two phrases are
not in parallelism, but the second is a consequence of the first.
21. No actual law-suit is not entered upon by the TH ('accusation') of v. 4
words of divorce are not spoken (cf. Rudolph, Hosea, p. 65)but the use of legal
language makes the possibility of a formal divorce explicit.
301
respectful address with the term 'my lord' C'PIO, v. 18), and a permanent 'espousal' (cf. NAB)22 Cprtntfl, vv. 21 bis, 22) in which he wil
guarantee as bride-price23 integrity (JB) or salvation (Wolff),24 justice,
unfailing devotion (NEB), love, and fidelity (NEB). Israel (or its offspring)25 is intended to belong to Yahweh as 'sown by God' (Jezreel),
the beloved one (reversal of Lo-ruhamah), and 'my people, my kin'
COW) (vv. 24-25).
But as it is, we learn first (v. 4a) that the belonging (of marriage to
Yahweh) is negated, secondly that Israel has created for herself other
forms of belonging (harlotry, adultery, v. 4b), and thirdly, that she now
regards herself as belonging to her 'lovers' (vv. 7b, 9a, 12, 14b, 17
namely the Baalim (cf. vv. lOb, 15a, 19). There is not only a negation
of right belonging, but a misdirection of belonging. If some distinction
exists in Biblical Hebrew between *]tf] 'to commit adultery' and !"!]? 'to
act as a harlot', 26 Israel has not only broken faith with Yahweh (cf.
iTSISfcC [v. 4b], probably 'the ornaments gained through her adulterous
behaviour') but has also become a common prostitute (cf. mitt [v. 4a]
probably 'the gifts gained from her harlotry'). It is not simply that she
has attached herself to someone other than Yahweh, but that by consorting with the Baalim (plural) she has become promiscuous. Thus the
concept of belonging has been first negated, then misdirected and
finally effectively done away with: in belonging to gods all and sundry,
she belongs to none in particular.
In the verbal sphere mutual belonging comes to expression in dialogue, speech and response, question and answer. Here in Hosea 2 the
status of the belonging relationship is strikingly reflected in several
facets of the speaking. Throughout vv. 4-15, it is effectively Yahweh
alone who speaks. Israel speaks briefly three times, but never by way of
response to Yahweh: once it is to express her abandonment to her
lovers (v. 7b), a second time to gloat over the gifts she believes she ha
had from them (v. 14), a third to wish, with the same degree of
22. Wolffs translation, '1 will make you my own' (Hosea, p. 46), brings out
well the concept of belonging as it appears in this marital language.
23. The beth of D'amm 10ml QEXOKQ1 pi:$3 and riJICNm is to be taken as beth
pretii (Wolff, Hosea, p. 52; Rudolph, Hosea, pp. 80-81).
25. It is unnecessary to distinguish between the people itself and Hosea's children, whose names symbolically represent Israel (cf. Mays, Hosea, p. 53).
26. *]] is regularly used of breaches of the marriage relationship; H3T for prostitution.
302
selfishness, that she were back with her husband where she was 'better
off than she is now (v. 9b).27
Then we might observe that throughout vv. 4-17 Yahweh never
speaks directly (in the second person) to Israel.28 This is on his part an
alienating device, or at least a signal of his own sense of alienation
from Israel. Only in v. 16, in the unexpected speech of non-judgment,
does he declare his intention of speaking to her (HflS, ^7 ^ ~n~I:
'persuade', 'woo'), while his expectation that she will respond (rt]#)
comes in the next verse (v. 17b). Even so, it is not until the set of three
vignettes of the time of restoration (vv. 18-19, 20-22, 23-25) that he
addresses Israel directly: 'you will call me "my husband"' (v. 18), 'I
will espouse you to me for ever' (vv. 21-22). The climax of responsiveness is reached, after a depiction of a virtual orgy of responsiveness
on the part of the entire creation (see 'answer' [H]I7] in vv. 23-24), when
the simple words are exchanged between Yahweh and Israel: 'You
are my people', 'my God' (TDK nnfcT Kim nn-Qi? 'niTK1^ 'niQNl,
v. 25b). The role of speaking in the poem, then, is entirely consonant
with the movement in belonging-ness, and so reinforces and bears out
the major concept of the poem.
With one aspect of the role of speaking in the poem, however, a
difficulty arises, Israel's children are in v. 4 addressed directly by Yahweh and told to 'protest against' (NAB) 29 their mother Israel; thus
27. Of course these are words put into Israel's mouth by Yahweh and so by the
prophet; but it makes no difference that Israel does not actually say such things.
What matters is that in a poem about belonging and not-belonging there is no converse between the partners.
28. Except for v. 8a: 'I will bar your way' (~p~lTTlK). Even if we do not follow
LXX, Peshitta and modern versions and emend to 'her way' (HDTT), which is
undeniably the easier reading, the MT reading would be an exception that proves the
rule.
29. I suggest that this is the best translation of "D"1") here. Since the formal language of the law court is not actually being used, but only reflected, the legal term
'accuse' (Wolff, Hosea, pp. 30, 35; Mays, Hosea, pp. 14, 37) seems out of place
(similarly 'faites un proces' [Jacob, Osee, p. 26]). 'Please my cause with' (NEB) is a
translation that pushes the children very much into the foreground, as if they are to
be Yahweh's mediators; but of course they play no such role in the poem. 'Plead'
(James Merrill Ward, Hosea. A Theological Commentary [New York: Harper &
Row, 1966], p. 21) by itself suggests a begging or appealing approach, which is far
from what 1T~l means. Ward makes clear in his notes (p. 24) that "D1""] suggests
judicial argument'; but 'plead' tout court does not convey that atmosphere.
'Denounce' (JB) is, I think, satisfactory.
303
although Israel is not herself addressed, her children are. But they never
do protest against their mother! Why is this? Because they have nothing
to say their very existence is itself a protest against their mother, for
they are 'children of harlotry' (D"']!]? ""H, v. 6). It is for this reason that
they disappear entirely from the main part of the poem. In that they, as
Israel's children, are distinct from Israel,30 they can be called upon to
protest against Israel, but their inherited nature, and alsoif this is
meanttheir bastard status,31 tie them so closely to their mother Israel
that they cannot speak against her. Put another way, inasmuch as
Israel's children are Israel itself in its capacity to criticize itself, they do
not speak since Israel is morally incapable of criticizing itself. Only in
the final scene of restoration (vv. 23-25) do Israel's children reappear.
But here they are no longer a symbol of protest against Israel; here they
symbolize its reintegration with the divine will. Thus Yahweh will
show love for Unloved (Lo-ruhamah, v. 25b), as against his declaration
in v. 6a, 'Her children I will not love' (Dm ^ rraTIK). The reversal
effected by the play on the name Lo-ruhamah makes it imperative to
see in the Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi of vv. 24-25 the children
of Hosea in their role as symbols of all Israel.32 Thus although the poem
began with an address to unspecified, anonymous, children of Israel, at
its end it can be understood only by reference outside itself to the children of Hosea in ch. I.33 Here, as there, the children do not differentiate
30. Who the children are intended to be is of course open to debate. 'The allegory contains many possibilities of interpretation', Wolff rightly notes (Hosea,
p. 33). But I would argue that it is inappropriate to look for some group or object
whether closely defined or ill-defined, within Israel (individuals, the youth, the
morally superior [cf. Rudolph, Hosea, pp. 64-65], a remnant, the land [cf. Wolff,
Hosea, p. 33]). The fact that the children fade out of the poem so quicklyor
rather, merge their identity with Israel so soonsuggests that they are from the
beginning Israel itself (albeit perhaps in some aspect). See Mays, Hosea, pp. 37, 39,
for an argument for some flexibility in the allegory because of individual and collective ways of thinking.
31. So, e.g., Mays, Hosea, p. 39.
32. This is not to say that I regard ch. 2 (especially vv. 4-9) as in any way an
account of the relationship between Hosea and Gomer; Rudolph, Hosea, p. 60,
among others, satisfactorily disposes of that view.
33. This is still the case if we adopt Ward's interesting suggestion (Hosea,
p. 26) that v. 3, reading the plural 'brothers' and 'sisters' as MT (DDT!N,D:>TnnK),
should be regarded as an integral part of the poem. I would, however, dispute
Ward's transference of v. 3 (preceded by 1.10-11) to a position following v. 25,
and, as I have indicated above, I do not wholly concur that it is an 'unwarranted
304
Israel from Israel, or one group in Israel from another group; each symbolizes the relation between Yahweh and all Israel.
The relationship of belonging comes to expression in this poem also
in what we could call for convenience the mental sphere, in the form of
remembering. It is the language of remembering and not remembering
that comes to the surface at the critical moment of the poem: the transition from the second judgment speech to the third (non-) judgment
speech. All that Yahweh holds against Israel is blurted out in the one
brief, potent utterance that is explicitly designated a 'word of Yahweh'
(mm n]):34 'me she has forgotten' (nrotB TIR, v. 15b). Mays writes
well when he says of that word that it 'mingles anger and anguish,
accusation and appeal; it summarizes in a word the guilt of Israel and
the problem of Yahweh'.35 More than that, it expresses the essence of
not-belonging. Israel has not only forgotten the memories she shares
with Yahweh; she has forgotten the husband who created those memories. All she remembers of him is that she was 'better off then (v. 9b).
What she does remember is what she misremembers'. her vines and figtrees she remembers as the payment from her lovers (v. 14): the days of
festival for the Baalim have not been forgotten (cf. vv. 13, 15), but
were they not supposed to be festivals for Yahweh (note the presence of
the sabbath, v. 13)?
The reinstitution of belonging is markedeven, it may be, accomplishedby a remembering, a calling to remembrance: Israel will be
led through an experience that will recall 'the days of her youth'
(mil;] TP, v. 17), 'the day she went up from the land of Egypt'
(D'lSQ'flNQ nrfry DV, v. 17). Along with that renewal of memory will
go a forcible forgetting, a blocking out of the memory of those to
whom Israel has wrongly belonged: 'I will remove the names of the
Baalim from her mouth and they will be remembered ("TOP) by name
no more' (v. 19).36 Even the word 'baal' ('lord') is to be expunged
assumption' to suppose that 'the dramatic personae of chapter 1 are carried over
into chapter 2'.
34. That is, within vv. 4-17; the phrase also occurs in vv. 18 and 22.
35. Mays, Hosea, p. 43.
36. The act of 'remembering [a deity] by name' is of course more than mental
activity; it is an invocation of the deity (cf. e.g. Wolff, Hosea, p. 50). But it is at
least a mental activity, and it may be that its correlative 1132) 'to forget' (v. 13)
equally signifies 'to fail to invoke'.
305
from the vocabulary of marriage (v. 18), lest the memory of the Baalim
should present itself before Israel again.
A further clear marker of the relationship of belonging/not belonging
is in this poem the spatial terminology. Going (away) is the sign of
severance of belonging: Israel has announced 'I will go after my lovers'
OanKQ "HriK ro'PK, v. 7). Her going is thoroughly determined. She will
chase after (^ll) them (v. 9). This is not only a sign of her unusual persistence as a prostitute, running after her lovers instead of waiting for
them to come to her.37 It is also a symbol of her deliberate alienation
from her husband. His attempt to put an end to her wrong belonging
naturally then takes the form of barring her 'way' ("pi) with a thornhedge, or building a stone wall before her so that her 'paths' (nTTQTI3)
to her lovers are blocked (v. 8).38 Israel's casual and unaccomplished
wish for her former privileges is a desire to 'go and return'
(rOTOl HD'PK, v. 9), to Yahweh, i.e. to 'set off and return' to him.
Being with her lovers is a being away from Yahweh.
Yahweh also uses the spatial terminology when he announces his
restoration of Israel: 'I will bring her' (iTfD^n) to the wilderness, 'and
I will speak wooingly to her' (H^ *?B Trail, v. 16). riTlD^n, as the
hiphil of "J^n, may not at first appear to signify a bringing near, but in
fact it is used regularly for leading or bringing.39 In any case the
wilderness is plainly the place where Yahweh will be: it is there that he
will 'speak to her heart' (m1? ^ Trail, v. 16), 'from there' that she
will receive from him his gift of the restoration of her vineyards
(D&Q iTQ-DTIN n1? T1HD1, v. 17a), and 'there' that she will respond to
him (nDB nn^, v. 17b). That last 'there' (lit. 'thither') itself signifies
movement towards Yahweh, a coming to Yahweh: a verb of motion is
probably implied by the constructio praegnans of the syntactic connection of 'answer' (iiri]^l) and 'thither' (!~IQi).40 Movement along with
Yahweh also underlies the reminiscence of the day of Israel's 'coming
up' from Egypt (DniSQ'pNa T\rbu DV, v. 17b), which will be lived
through again at the time of Israel's rehabilitation. Likewise she will
38. WQn is probably best translated 'she cannot reach' (cf. Ug. ms'; Willibald
Kuhnigk, Nordwestsemitische Studien zum Hoseabuch [BibOr, 27; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1974], p. 16); cf. NEB 'she can no longer follow her own
ways'.
39. See BOB, p. 236b.
40. Wolff, Hosea, p. 43. For a contrary view, cf. Harper, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Amos and Hosea, p. 241; Rudolph, Hosea, pp. 73-74.
306
come along with him into Yahweh's land through the traditional point
of entry into the land, the valley of Achor leading up into the hillcountry from Jericho; this time Israel will move not into a valley of
'trouble' (Achor, "I'D!?, v. 17a; cf. Jos. 7.24-26) but through a 'gateway
of hope' (mpD nns, v. 17a). Israel's final destiny is to be firmly planted
in Yahweh's land: in the phrase 'I will sow her for myself in the land'
QHN3 ^ iTnirin, v. 25), the reversal of movement away fromYahweh
initiated by Israel's passion for the Baalim has come to a full stop.
Israel no longer suffers the self-cancelling and ineffectual motion of
going and coming, and now comes to rest in a place where she will put
down rootsso the imagery impliesand where her planted-ness will
announce her belonging-ness: 'I will sow herfor myself C^)'.
If we now analyse the actions that take place in the poem, we discover thatexcept for those that have already been dealt withmost
actions involve giving or withholding. Giving appears both as 'false' (or
wrongly attributed) giving (which turns out to be taking) and as true
giving. Giving is also negated as withholding or removing. The triple
pattern of belonging/not belonging/belonging wrongly is again worked
outhere on the level of what is done for (given to) or not done for
(given to) Israel. It is only natural that the ownership implicit in Israel's
belonging to Yahweh or to the Baalim should express itself in gifts
made by the superior to the inferior, by the owner to the owned. (Only
twice does the owned appear to 'give' to the owner; see the comment
on vv. lOb, 15a below.)
Yahweh, as Israel's husband, has in fact 'given to her' (n^ TTI] "O]tf)
her grain, wine and oil, and has 'lavished upon her' (rh> TPD~in) silver
(v. 10). This motif of gift as a token of Yahweh's ownership (and so of
Israel's belonging) appears frequently, though often beneath the surface
of the text (that is, explicit words for 'giving' are not always used). So,
for example, in v. 1 Ib the syntax of the line, literally 'and I will snatch
away my wool and my flax to cover her nakedness' (~IQ2 Tl^m
nrmirnN mOD1? TUBS'!) implies the existence of a prior gift: Peshitta
and Targum and several modern versions have inserted some reference
to the gift in order to make sense.41 Thus NEB, for instance, has 'I wil
41. By not recognizing that a gift is implied, LXX had to understand DIDD1?('to
cover') as a purpose clause, and therewith, for the sake of sense, to introduce a
negative: TOV u,f| KctA/UTtTeiv. The reading of 4QpHos PIDD^D, 'so as not to cover'
(for the text, see J.M. Allegro, 'A Recently Discovered Fragment of a Commentary
on Hosea from Qumran's Fourth Cave', JBL 78 [1959], pp. 142-48 [146]), which
307
take away the wool and the flax which I gave her42 to cover her naked
body'. Similarly, the clothing that Yahweh has provided her with as
part of his husbandly responsibilities (cf. Exod. 21.10) is not even
mentioned explicitly (v. 5a), but is implicitly regarded as a gift from
Yahweh. The fertility of her land (or, of Israel as land) is, again, not
explicitly said in v. 5b to be Yahweh's gift, but such is meant to be
understood by the reference in v. 10 to the grain, new wine and olive
oil as given by Yahweh, or by the references in v. 11 to 'my grain, my
wine, my wool, my flax'. Even what Yahweh himself speaks of as her
possessions, 'her vines and her fig trees' (nfOKm il]S3, v. 14a) are
plainly only hers as gift. So it can be said at the time of restoration 'I
will give her.. .her vineyards' (!TQ~O~nK 7h TTITl, v. 17a); she has, and
will have, nothing but what she has received. As gift, and thus as a
further sign of her belonging, she is to receive the transformation of the
'Valley of Trouble' into the 'Gate of Hope'; the valley, if it is rightly
identified as the Wadi en-Nuwe'ime,43 is in itself and literally a place of
fertility, but is equally and symbolically a foretaste and ccppafkov of the
fertility of the restored land as a whole.
The relationship of belonging is to be fully reinstituted by the plentifulness of giving that is the particular theme of the second of the 'in
that day' vignettes (vv. 20-22). First of Yahweh's gifts is the 'covenant'
that Yahweh will make for them (PP~Q DH^ TTD1, v. 20a) with animals
and birds; that is, he is the covenant mediator who establishes harmony
between Israel and the creatures that are potential enemies of the people, their crops and their vineyards. This covenant forms a protection
conveys a similar sense, is judged by Rudolph, Hosea, p. 63, on the ground of its
use of ~^Q as a negation of an infinitive, to be a sign of later Hebrew, and therefore
not the original text. M. Dahood, 'Hebrew-Ugaritic Lexicography III', Bib 46
(1965), pp. 311-32 (330), following M. Bogaert, has argued that HDD itself as a privative pi'el means to 'uncover', but the immediately following threat, 'And now I
will uncover her genitals' (nrtamtf n^3K nni)1, v. 12) would be greatly weakened
if the same threat had already been made here in v. l i b (cf. Rudolph, Hosea,
pp. 63-64).
42. My italics. Similarly AV; Mays, Hosea, p. 35. There are of course other
ways of translating the verse without using the word 'give' (e.g. RSV 'my wool and
my flax which were to cover her nakedness'; JB 'that were intended to cover her
nakedness'), but the concept of gift is nonetheless implied. The intentionality
expressed by the ^ of mOD^ is lost in the translation of Ward, Hosea, p. 22: 'which
cover her nakedness'; Rudolph, Hosea, p. 62: 'womit sie ihre blosse bedeckt'.
43. See Wolff, Hosea, pp. 42-43.
308
for the products of the earth's fertility. Israel's well-being is further

safeguarded by Yahweh's abolition of war (v. 20b) and gift of security:
'And I shall make them lie down in safety' (nui^ DTODtiiT), v. 20b). O
surely greater significance still are the gifts Yahweh makes by way of
his bride-price for Israel. The allegory is necessarily defective at this
point, in that Israel has no father to whom the bride-price can be paid.
Yet precisely for this reason Yahweh's gifts become more effective, for
it is clearly Israel itself that will receive integrity, justice, unfailing
devotion, love and fidelity (pis, UD&n, 1DH, D'Qm, miQK, vv. 21-22).
These gifts do not, I think, merely denote qualities of Yahweh's relationship to Israel, but aspects of behaviour that Israel itself will internalize. The inconstant, faithless Israel will become Yahweh's faithful
wife again, and Yahweh will find in her those qualities he has a right to
expect from his people (cf. 4.1).
Giving thus appears throughout the chapters as clear marker of the
relationship or belonging. But equally pervasive is the equation of
withholding or removing with Israel's not-belonging to Yahweh. Yah
weh's first appeal to Israel is that she should 'remove' ("I0m, v. 4b).
from her person the tokens of her not-belonging to him (the 'signs' of
her adultery or harlotry); should she not voluntarily remove the symbols of her not-belonging he will remove the symbols of her belonging:
'I will strip her naked (HQ~1P n^tODK)', and 'set her (i.e. expose,44
exhibit45 her) as on the day she was born (Hl'Pin DV3 nTflim)' (v. 5a).
The same motif recurs in vv. 11-12: because Israel as spent Yahweh's
gifts upon Baal (^JH1? 1(01? Dnn... r ]DZ), v. lOb), misappropriating the
symbols of her belonging to Yahweh to strengthen her relation of
belonging to the Baal, Yahweh will remove the raw materials for her
clothing in order to demonstrate that she no longer belongs to him. That
is, directly following upon Israel's defection to Baal (~?ff^~} "WU, v. lOb),
the second judgment speech announces: 'Therefore...! will snatch
away my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness (n^KHl
(nm-lirnK niOD1? sn&JSl no*)' (v. 11), and 'Now I will expose her
shame in the sight of her lovers (rrnnKD TS^ nrtoTIK rfat* nnJT))'
(v. 12). To be removed also, by forced cessation (TOZJm), are her 'plea
sures' (n&l&Q), 'her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her
appointed festivals' (v. 13). Yahweh will also remove, by devastation
(TlQ2Jm), 'her vines and her fig trees' (v. 14). Yet finally, at the time of
44. JB.
45. BOB, p. 426b.
309
restoration, Yahweh's renewal of his relationship will take place by a

removal: a removal from her mouth of the names of the Baalim
(rPSD D>L?mn mnernK s mom, v. 19; cf. "lOm, v. 4a), a removal also,
by destruction ("113278), of the weapons of war46 from the land (v. 20c),
so that all disharmony can be resolved in security (ntDD, v. 20c) and in
responsiveness (cf. !"[]#, vv. 23-24).
As for those to whom Israel belongs wrongly, the Baalim, it is noteworthy that Israel regards her relationship with them as cemented by
gifts from them. She speaks of them as those who 'give me my bread
and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink' (?ftrh ^H]
'YlptOl ']Q27 TIBJS1 nns 'irm, v. 7b). She speaks too of her vines and fig
trees as what 'my lovers have given me' ("OH8Q "^"IDfO "1278, v. 14b).
Yet, as we hear in v. 10, this is a false attribution: not only is it Yahweh
who has given Israel her well-being, but the Baalim have given her
nothing. They have only taken. Her vines and fig-trees are in fact no
gift: even Israel recognizes that they are wages, her 'hire' (n]f!8)47 as a
prostitute (v. 14a). What is more, the natural resources of the land, far
from being the gift of the Baalim, have in fact been spent upon the
Baalim: 'Silver and gold I lavished upon her, but they made it over to
(or, into48) the Baal' frvzbItDU 3HT1 n1? ^mnn *]DD1) (v. 10b).49For
them Israel burns incense and decks herself out with rings and jewellery (nrp^m HOT] l^m Dn^ TCDpn, v. 15), at her own expense, presumably. Even while Israel remains devoted to the Baalim, she recognizes that she is 'worse off with them than with Yahweh (v. 9b).
Everywhere the Baalim are represented as being on the receiving end
of Israel's possessions and of her affection (vv. 7b, 9a); and, when
Yahweh steps in as Israel's enemy,50 the Baalim are nowhere to be
found: 'there is no one to deliver her from my hand' (i"I]'T2r~8t7 2T81
'TQ,v. 12; cf. 5.14).
Finally, the relationship of belonging/not belonging/belonging
wrongly is worked out in the sphere of affective language. Right
46. nQrf?Q is perhaps to be taken as 'a collective concept for weapons' (Wolff,
Hosea, p. 46).
47. Not apparently connected with ]H3 'give', but with HID or ]nn 'hire' (BDB,
pp. 1071b, 1072b).
48. 'Spent on' (NEB); 'made into' (JB).
49. Contra Wolff, Hosea, p. 37 and others, bin4? itoi? need not be regarded as a
gloss, despite the unparalleled use of the plural in the poem and the singular ^JH;
see Rudolph, Hosea, p. 63.
50. On the imagery, see Buss, The Prophetic Word of Hosea, p. 85.
310
belonging is expressed throughout this chapter with the root Dm, traditionally translated 'have pity on' but probably to be understood as
'love'. The verb Hiltf, 'love', is reserved for the illicit love of the
Baalim. Yahweh's idea of marriage is of a permanent espousal in 'love'
(D <t am...D I ni; i 7, v. 21), to 'love the unloved' (nom K^'PIK TlQrm,
v. 25). But so long as Israel remains bound to her 'lovers' (JTHnKQ,
antfQ, vv. 7b, 9a, 12a, 14b, 15b), Yahweh will have no love for Israel
(strictly speaking, for her children: Dn~lK $b iTinTlN'l, v. 6). Israel's
movement from commitment to her 'lovers' to commitment to her husband is brought about through his affection: his persuasive speech
(nTIDQ51) and wooing words (m^ *?y Trail, v. 16). Yet again the
triple category loving/not-loving/loving-wrongly expresses the essential
conceptual pattern of the poem.
What exegetical results does this study of the conceptual patterns in
Hosea 2 yield? Like most structural studies, the foregoing cannot be
claimed to produce large-scale exegetical gains. Such are won generally
from the lexicon, the concordance, the history of interpretation, the
contribution of extrabiblical studies: that is, by not concentrating so
narrow-mindedly upon a single chapter. The gains that arise from a
closer focus, which are gains one hopes to have acquired from this
study, are these: (i) Observation of the conceptual pattern that is common to both vv. 4-17 and vv. 18-25 makes it clear that the whole is an
integrated work. No matter whether it has been such ab initio, nor
whether all of the chapter is genuinely Hosean, the integrity of the
piece as it has been demonstrated above makes it impossible to interpret its elements in isolation from one another. This is a literary gain
that can have exegetical significance, (ii) Our detailed exploration of
the concept of belonging is a way of experiencing the almost obsessional quality of the prophet's concern with Israel's relationship to its
God. No new factual or exegetical information may have been
acquired, but 'close reading' of a powerful text like this poem exposes
the reader to its force. This is an aesthetic gain that brings the reader
closer to the world of the poet (or else, perhaps, alienates the reader); in
either case the poem can come to life, whether to attract or antagonize
the reader. When it does, it may not produce 'exegetical' results, but
one of its potentialities is released: and that is surely an aspect
of interpretation, (iii) Preoccupation with the conceptual system that
structures the poem can lead to hermeneuticwhich is not the same
51. See n. 8 above.
311
thing as exegesis (at least in its atomistic ICC sense) but which is the
goal of exegesis. 'Exegesis considers the text as a "closed system" of
signs... Hermeneutic prolongs the discourse of the text into a new discourse ... what the text means for the modern interpreter and the people
of the culture.'52
3. Plot
Earlier I have suggested that the p*7 speeches need not perhaps be read
sequentially, but are open to being understood as a series of options
Yahweh passes in review. Even if this is correct, the poem presents
itself in a linear formin a narrative shape, that isand only teasingly
allows us to play with the possibility that it may be read horizontally as
well as vertically. This short section of my paper is an attempt to analyse the movement of the poem in narrative (sequential, linear, vertical)
form.
Again, a tabular presentation may simplify the discussion:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
4aa
4bb
8-9a
9b
14
16
17b+
Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh
(T)
Israel
Israel
Israel
Israel
Israel
Israel
Israel
Israel
('she')
Baal(im)
Baal(im)
Baal(im)
Baal(im)
Baal(im)
('they')
The plot-schema is to be read thus: Preceding the action of the narrative/poem, Yahweh and Israel relate reciprocally (line 1). As the poem
opens, we find that Israel has begun to relate to the Baal(im)which is
impossible to combine with the relationship with Yahweh. So although
Yahweh still wishes to be husband to Israel. Israel has blocked that
relationship ('she is not my wife', v. 4aa, line 2). This results (line 3) in
Yahweh's abandoning a normal marital relationship with Israel, so that
there is blockage on his side as well as hers ('I am not her husband',
v. 4ab). Meanwhile Israel remains tied to the Baal(im) (line 3). (Note
that Israel's relationship to the Baal(im) is always a one-way traffic system; there is nothing reciprocal here.) The next move in the plot is
52. Daniel Patte, What is Structural Exegesisl (Guides to Biblical Scholarship;
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), pp. 6, 3.
312
instigated by Yahweh: he sets up a blockage between Israel and the

Baal(im) (line 4). Although Israel is still determined to go after her
lovers (vv. 7b, 9a), her path to them is blocked (v. 8). In the next
movement (line 5), Israel contemplates a return to Yahweh (v. 9b), but
finds that route also remains blocked because she does not 'know'
Yahweh and his gifts (v. 10). The result is stalemate (line 6). The three
personae remain, but the lines of communication between them stay
blocked: Israel is trapped. The only way out of stalemate is for Yahweh
to act by removing the blockage between himself and Israel (line 7);
this he does by his initiative in v. 16. The Baal(im) disappear from the
scene, though the barrier erected by Yahweh between Israel and them
still remains, in that he removes Israel entirely from the sphere of their
influence by taking her into the desert (v. 16). Finally (line 8), the
reciprocal relationship between Yahweh and Israel is restored: Yahweh
speaks and Israel answers (vv. 16-17). The Baal(im) are remembered
only to be forgotten (!, v. 19), so that the barrier between Israel, and
them may for all intents and purposes be ignored, though no doubt it
still exists. The state of harmony presupposed, by the poem has, at its
end, been restored (cf. lines 1, 8).
What significance does this analysis of the plot of Hosea 2 have for
the interpretation of the poem? Obviously, insofar as this is a narrative
poem, analysis of plot lays bare the essentials of what is going on in the
narrative, and so serves as orientation to our reading of the poem. It
brings to the forefront of attention the fact that this poem is not a
description or perception of the way things are, but is a literary work
with a dynamic that moves the way things are toward a resolution.
Once we are alerted to the dynamic of the poem we cannot be contented with the methods that are usually thought to be adequate for
interpretation: textual criticism, philology, atomistic exegesis, formcriticism, rhetorical criticism, or even the structural approaches
employed in this study. Even my foregoing analysis of the conceptual
structure of the poem, in concentrating attention upon the way the
poem is, leaves almost entirely out of account this further element of
the way the poem moves.
But what, finally, if the poem is to be read, as I have suggested earlier, not as a purely sequential narrative, but as a set of options that
Yahweh passes in review? Then analysis of plot actually demonstrates
why Yahweh must refuse the first two options (introduced by the p1?
sentences of v. 8 and v. 11) and decide in favour of the p*7 of v. 16. It
313
is because the first two options lead nowhere, or at least, lead only to a
fixation of the unacceptable state of affairs that has called forth the initial 'protest' ('D'H) of the poem. The first option blocks Israel's path to
her lovers but does not restore her to Yahweh. The second option leads
only to destruction and punishment, and perhaps to the elimination of
Israel itself; this option tends to the removal of the very possibility of
reconciliation. The third option, on the other hand, in restoring the
relationship of Yahweh and Israel, does not issue in a cul de sac of a
future, but opens up the way for a movement that will continue long
after the poem is over.53
53. Cf. Anon, 'Osee 2,4-17. Proposition d'un plan de travail', Foi et Vie 74
(1975), pp. 59-65(65).
16
THE PARALLELISM OF GREATER PRECISION
NOTES FROM ISAIAH 40 FOR A THEORY OF HEBREW POETRY
The purpose of this paper1 is to draw attention to a hitherto generally

unobserved feature2 of the parallelistic couplet in Hebrew poetry, a feature which may offer a point de depart for a revised perception of the
nature of the parallelistic couplet as such.
The feature in question is that the second half of a parallelistic couplet (line B) is often more precise or specific than the first half (line A).
In the first section of this paper (1)1 will present some examples from
Isaiah 40, which will enable me to construct a tentative theoretical
statement about it (section 2). I will then examine some further couplets
from Isaiah 40, with a view to judging the usefulness of the concept,
'the parallelism of greater precision', for exegetical work (section 3). In
Originally published in New Directions in Hebrew Poetry (ed. Elaine R. FoIIis;
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement, 40; Sheffield: JSOT Press,
1987), pp. 77-100.
1. A draft of the present paper was read to the Hebrew Poetry Section of the
Society for Biblical Literature at its Annual Meeting in Chicago, on December 11,
1984.1 am grateful to colleagues at that session for several helpful comments.
2. This paper was in proof when there came into my hands the article of Adele
Berlin, 'Shared Rhetorical Features in Biblical and Sumerian Literature', JANES 10
(1978), pp. 35-42. The unspecific title of her paper disguises the fact, which I
gladly acknowledge, that my initial observation was anticipated by Dr Berlin in her
discussion (pp. 35-39) of the 'particularizing parallelism', as she calls it. She cites a
number of Sumerian examples, such as this triplet from Dumuzi's Dream, lines 1-3:
His heart was filled with tears, he went out to the plain;
The ladhis heart was filled with tears, he went out to the plain;
Dumuzihis heart was filled with tears, he went out to the plain.
From the Hebrew Bible, she notes Pss. 29.5; 89.4; Deut. 32.9;3 and others. It
should be pointed out, however, that she is concerned only with cases of particularizing words and almost exclusively with cases where 'the first member of the pair is
a general term and the second is a proper, or geographical name' (p. 37). It will be
observed that the present paper extends the area of consideration in several new
directions.
16. The Parallelism of Greater Precision
315
section 4 some similar features of the parallelistic couplet, previously

recognized and named, will be examined by way of contrast and
comparison. The final section (5) will raise the question whether any
new insights into the nature of Hebrew poetry may be developed from
the identification of the parallelism of greater precision.
1. Examples from Isaiah 40
a. Isa. 40.16
And Lebanon is not enough to burn
and its animals not enough for a burnt offering.
Line A taken by itself raises the question, Why should anyone want to
burn Lebanon? Lebanon is not elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible usually
connected with burning3 and while it is natural enougheven while we
are still in line Ato suppose that it is the trees of Lebanon that are for
burning, even though they are typically used for building, it is impossible to discern from line A what purpose is in view in burning
Lebanon's trees, and thus why Lebanon's trees are insufficient for
burning. Not to know that is to be ignorant of the whole point of the
affirmation. Only with line B, and with its last word, is it made clear
that the image of the whole couplet is of sacrifice; the burning of line A
must be of wood upon the sacrificial altar. We are confirmed in our
impression that line A is not perspicuous by the fact that a modern version like the NIV finds it necessary to offer an expanded rendering:
'Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires' (my italics).
We may say, then, that line A is less precise, less specific than line B.
Line A is not swallowed up in line B, however; it is not the case that
once we have line B we can dispense with line A. Rather, line B provides the clue or the context within which the uncertainty of line A is
resolved. Line B drives us back to read line A again in the light of what
line B has added to line A.
b. Isa. 40.22
who stretches out the heavens like a thin thing,
and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
3. Zech. 11.1 seems to be the only other place: 'Open your doors, O Lebanon,
that the fire may devour your cedars'.
316
In reading line A we may well ask, What, precisely, are the heavens
like that God stretches out? The problem is not primarily that pi is a
hapax legomenon, for there can be little uncertainty that it means
'something thin' (from ppl 'crush'). Even if we knew from a multiplicity of attestations that the thinness in question was specifically a
thin curtain or veil or gauze,4 we would still not know what precisely
the image was, for a curtain could be vertical or horizontal, it could be
used to divide or screen or cover, it could serve the one who spreads it
out, or someone else for whom it is spread out. Line B, however, disambiguates line A. From line B we learn that the 'thin thing' is a 'tent
for dwelling in', i.e. a tent from the viewpoint of its occupants, a curtain that is both horizontal and vertical, and spread out not to hide the
one who spreads it but to serve as a covering for those under it. The
blurred and indefinite image of the line A is brought into focus in line
B. The 'parallelism' of pT and ^HK is a parallelism of increasing precision.
c. Isa. 40.3
In the wilderness prepare the way of Yahweh,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
The imprecision of line A, as compared with line B, lies in the meaning

of ~p~l, 'way', in the genitival relation m!T ~[~n, 'the way of Yahweh',
and in the connection between 'prepare' (133) and 'make straight'
(risr). ~[~n, of course, may mean not only 'way, road, path' in a literal
sense, but also 'way, manner, habit; way of life, moral behaviour'. In
genitival relation with a personal name it can be taken for granted that
~p~I has a metaphorical meaning, e.g. 'the way of Jeroboam' (1 Kgs
15.34; 16.2), 'the way of David' (2 Kgs 22.2).5 When -pi is linked
with miT, as it is frequently, the usages can be analysed, with BDB, as
4. BDB renders 'veil', and HALATgives Flor (gauze).

5. Isa. 62.10 (DUn "["11, 'the way of the people') is an evident exception, especially as the immediate context makes clear that it is a physical road that is envisaged, which is to be 'built up' O^D) and 'cleared of stones' (]3NQ l^pO). The phrase
Di?H ~|~n 1]3 may indeed be modelled upon the text at present under discussion.
R.N. Whybray, in denying that it is a highway and affirming that it is the ' "way" of
life of devotion to Yahweh which the inhabitants of Jerusalem must lead1 fails to
distinguish between the concrete image and its metaphorical function (Isaiah 40-66
[NCB; London: Oliphants, 1975]), p. 251.
317
meaning (i) his creative activity (Job 26.14), (ii) his moral administration (Exod. 33.13; Deut. 32.4), (iii) his commandments (Gen. 18.19, 'to
keep the way of the Lord'; and often). Even if this analysis is open to
question at some points, it cannot be doubted that some such
metaphorical sense is the most natural one (within the same writing as
our text, Yahweh's 'ways' are clearly his 'way of life' or 'moral administration' at Isa. 55.8, 9). Natural or not, however, such an understanding of the present text would be wrong; for the parallel term n^DQ,
'highway', is certainly used in a literal sense. Indeed it is used, in 26 of
its 27 occurrences, literally; in the other case, 'The highway of the
upright is to depart from evil' (Prov. 16.17), we have the impression
that the metaphor is freshly minted for the occasion, and there can be
little question that n'PDQ is typically a literal road.
What line B also makes precise is the relation of the 'road' to God
The construct chain in line A is open to many interpretations, but the
phrase 'a highway for our God' in line B is unambiguous: it must mean
a road for Yahweh to walk alongjust as a 'highway for the remnant
of his people' (ID^ "INEJ1? ilÔQ) in Isa. 11.16, and a 'way for the redeemed to pass over' (D^lbO "QI/7 "]~n) in 51.10, are paths for Israel
to walk on. Here, the 'way of Yahweh' (line A) has meaning in the
sense of 'a highway for our God' (line B); line B then specifies line A.
Furthermore, we may perhaps see in 'make smooth, straight' ("ntZT) a
greater precision than in 'prepare' (IB). 1]D in line A is properly 'clear
away', i.e. 'remove any obstacles', which could apply to an already
existing roadwhich might be what is meant by 'the way of Yahweh'.
Line B, however, in specifying that the 'clearing' is a matter of 'making
smooth, or straight' a highway for God, more evidently envisages the
building of a new road. 1]D 'clear' is to be understood in the sense of
"ntT 'make smooth, straight'. The obstacles to be cleared away are not
just boulders or other debris lying on the road (which ~[~11 IDS could
refer to) but are the natural features (v. 4 will mention them as mountains and valleys) that are to be overcome and eliminated in the construction of an entirely new road.
d. Isa. 40.6
All flesh is grass
and all its loyalty is like the flower of the field.
The metaphor in line A is open to various understandings. Grass is

indeed a symbol of what is short-lived, and is sometimes used of
318
humankind's transitoriness. So we find, for example, that mortals are

like grass renewed in the morning but withered by the time of evening
(Ps. 90.5); their days are like grass which is gone when the wind flm,
as here) passes over it (103.15-16); the 'mortal who is made like grass'
Qnr T2*n Dltrp) is parallel to the 'human who dies' (Isa. 51.12). It is
in a rather different sense that it is said of the wicked that they will
soon fade like the grass (Ps. 37.2), for there is not an inbuilt weakness
of the human constitution that accounts for the imminent death of the
wicked, but a fate peculiar to wrongdoers. In other passages, however,
the symbolism of grass is completely different: in Isa. 44.4, though the
text is open to doubt,6 the redeemed are to spring up like grass (KCTF),
and in Job 5.25 Eliphaz promises Job that his descendants will be many
and his offspring like (i.e. as plentiful as) the grass (3CJJJ) of the earth.
The image of grass is therefore ambivalent, and nothing in the lines
preceding our present text has conditioned its readers to interpret the
image of line A in the way that line B requires. Indeed, the previous
reference to 'all flesh' in v. 5 as being about to see the glory of Yahweh
could have created an expectation that the image in v. 6 will be positive
rather than negative. At best, any reading of line A is bound to be provisional; the precise sense of the 'grass' imagethat it is grass in its
aspect of impermanence (absence of Ton)awaits a reading of line B.
Q.Isa. 40.17
All nations are as nothing beside him;
less than nothing and emptiness they are reckoned
by him.
What line A leaves open and what is further specified by line B is the
question: in whose estimation are the nations as nothing beside him?
Without line B, we might reasonably conclude that this evaluation is
the poet's judgment, just as we would suppose for the preceding verses,
15-16 (though the presence of 1350113 in v. 15 may give us second
thoughts). What line B specifies is that the reckoning is God's: the I1?
indicates 'the efficient cause (or personal agent)' with the passive
6. "PHP! ]'D3 is indeed very improbable, but the usual emendation to ^HD, 'as if
among', though somewhat awkward, is satisfactory (^DD is supported by lQIsa,
LXX and Targums). The emendation recommended by BHS, to Tten Îp 'like a
poplar of Razor', is weak. It is doubtful moreover whether we should identify here
a T^n 'reed', separate from Tl>n 'grass' (so HALAT, s.v.).
319
(GKC, 121f). Line B makes clear that the perspective upon the nations
and their significance in comparison with God (113], line A) is God's
own.
There may be further precision in line B's phrase inm 02NQ by comparison with line A's "ptO. Being literal-minded about it, we might say
that "pfcO means only 'about nothing', 'roughly nothing', whereas ODNQ
means, to be precise, 'less than nothing'. But it is not at all certain that
the ]Q signifies 'less than'7 rather than 'consisting of, made from', 8 and
there is also the possibility that the text should read DSfcO (so lQIsa).9
No doubt inm 'and emptiness' adds a further precision or perhaps
elaboration to the "pR of line A; that is to say, to the idea of ignorable
non-existence is added that of chaotic absence of form. But the most
significant precision in line B is that which I have mentioned first: the
speculation of the standard or judgment that gives value and significance to the comparison p) contained within line A.
f. Isa. 40.21
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told to you 'from beginning'?
Have you not understood from the foundation
of the earth?
This tricolon displays a double specificity. Line B adds precision to line

A, and line C to line B. What is not specified in line A is when Israel's
coming to know and hearing is supposed to have taken place. In line B
it is more specifically said to be 'from beginning' ($K"ID), but that also
raises a question: the beginning of what? Line C explicates B by its
phrase 'from the foundation of the earth' (jHNn HID^Q, emended text);10
the 'beginning' in question is the beginning of the earth. There is cer7. So RSV; it must be admitted that 'in point of language the comparative
sense of the Hebrew preposition...is quite admissible' (O.C. Whitehouse, Isaiah
XL-LXVI[Century Bible; Edinburgh: T.C. & B.C. Jack, 1908], p. 57).
8. So e.g. Bernhard Duhm, Das Buck Jesaja (HAT, 3/1; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 3rd edn, 1914), p. 269 ('"aus dem Nichts", ohne Kern und
Wesenheit'); Karl Marti, Das Buck Jesaja (KHAT, 10; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr
[Paul Siebeck], 1900), p. 274 (partitive ]Q).
9. Thus, e.g., Karl Elliger, Deuterojesaja (BKAT, 11/1; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), p. 42.
10. So BHS and many moderns; MT rfnpiQ 'foundations' can hardly be the
object of Dnrnn.
320
tainly a difficulty in understanding how Israel can be expected to have

known anything from primaeval times,11 when it did not exist, but there
is no doubt that we have here a parallelism of increasing precision.
2. A Theorem
In the parallelism of greater precision, line B specifies line A or some
element of line A. There are different functions which precision or
specification may serve:
1. B may disambiguate A (as in examples a, b, c, and d above). In
these cases A is to a greater or lesser extent unclear, ambiguous. It is
not incomplete, but it is vague or question-provoking, especially when
compared with B or with the total effect of A plus B.
2. B may explicate A (as in examples e and/above). In these cases
there is no ambiguity or uncertainty about A, but it is patient of further
elaboration, in directions that it does not perhaps explicitly state, but
which can be seenespecially on reflection after reading Bto be
latent in it.
Further Comments
1. The movement towards greater precision is characteristically from A
to B. This does not mean that A cannot contain more than B, but that
when there is a relation of greater precision between A and B, it is B
that typically exhibits that greater precision. Some examples of where
A contains more that B but is not more precise may be noted.
a. Isa. 40.27
Why do you say, Jacob,
and speak, Israel?
A contains HQ^, 'Why', a surplus to B. But just because B follows A,

HQ^ is implied in B, and B is therefore no less precise than A.
11. The phrase probably means simply 'from ancient times', says Whybray
(Isaiah 40-66, p. 55). It is perhaps better to see the temporal expressions as relating
to the 'telling' rather to the 'hearing', 'knowing', or 'understanding'. Duhm
(Jesaja, pp. 271-72) argued that the 5>N~l was the beginning of Israel's history, and
that the 'foundation of the earth' does not refer to the time of the earth's creation
but to the fact of its creation; Israel should have discerned the existence of a creator
God from the existence of the world of nature. But it seems much more probable
that a temporal reference is made in both lines.
321
b.Isa. 40.18
And to whom will you liken to God,
and what image/likeness will you compare to him?
Let us suppose for the sake of the discussion that 'liken God' and
'compare a likeness to him' are strictly synonymous, or else strictly
separate (i.e. that line A refers to a deity and line B to an image of that
deity). Let us suppose, that is to say, that B is not more precise than A.
Then, we may ask, is A more precise than B? It contains 'God' &$)
whereas B contains only '(to) him' (1*7). A is indeed more precise, but
only in a trivial sense, for 1*7 in B does present us with the same referent as *?$ in A. If, on the other hand, the lines changed places, so that
we read:
nd what image/likeness will you compare to him,
and to whom will you liken to God?
or even if just the noun and pronoun changed places:

And to whom will you liken him,
and what image/likeness will you compare to God?
B would be more precise than A, for in A we should not know who was
being spoken of ('him') but in B should find it stated ('God').
2. Not all parallelistic couplets, of course, exhibit the parallelism of
greater precision. And because the comparison is between sense-units
and not just words, there is often enough room for debate over whether
a particular B-Iine is more precise than its A-line. But I would argue
that in Isaiah 40 slightly more than half the parallelistic couplets exhibit
it. In Psalm 21, almost every verse is an example of this parallelism. In
short, the parallelism of greater precision is a common enough feature
of Hebrew poetry to make it worth asking of every parallelistic couplet
whether any gain in understanding may result from applying the present concept to it.
3. Exegetical Applications
Under this heading I am examining some texts in Isaiah 40 for which
the possibility of an analysis such as the parallelism of greater precision
may have some exegetical value.
322
a. Isa. 40.26
who brings out by number their host,
to all of them by name he calls.
This is a textbook example of a parallelistic couplet, with a mirror chiasmus. 12 K'^D is parallel to N~ip\ and DN^ to D^D1?. Those parallelisms are syntactic rather than morphological, whereas with "ISDDH //
EOT 'by number' // 'by name' we have a strict morphological parallelism as well (preposition plus noun).13
Such an analysis is accurate as far as it goes, but when we consider
the sense of the lines it is quite misleading.14 For 'by number' is not a
method of summoning the stars that is parallel to 'by name'. Each star
has a name, but each does not have a number. ~IDDQH in fact does not
mean 'by number' at all but 'in number' (cf. 1 Chr. 9.25). As far the
sense goes, we would be better to say that line B specifies the way in
which God brings the army of the stars out in full number: it is by
summoning each one of them by name. Line A acquires its specific
meaning in the light of line B. It is not so rewarding to ask which terms
of A correspond to which terms of B, as to ask whether, and in what
way, line B specifies line A.
b. Isa. 40.31
Those who wait for Yahweh will gain new
strength;
they will put forth (?) plumage like eagles.
Here the parallelism of greater precision may help to solve a longstanding exegetical problem. Is *by qal or hiphil? Do they 'rise up (on)
wings like eagles'15 or 'put forth,16 or grow, wings (or, plumage) like
12. M. O'Connor finds no example of this mirror chiasm in his selected texts
(Hebrew Verse Structure [WinonaLake: Eisenbrauns, 1980], p. 394). Wilfred G.E.
Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to its Techniques (JSOTSup, 25;
Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), pp. 202-203 reserves the term 'mirror chiasmus' for
cases of exact repetition of terms, calling cases such as the present 'complete chiasmus' (abc//c'bV).
13. For the terminology, cf. Adele Berlin, 'Grammatical Aspects of Biblical
Parallelism', HUCA 50 (1979), pp. 17-43.
14. It should be noted that Berlin is of course quite aware that grammatical
analysis does not permit semantic conclusions ('Grammatical Aspects', pp. 42-43).
15. SoRSV.
16. So Elliger, Deuterojesaja, p. 101; Whybray, Isaiah 40-66, pp. 55-56.
323
eagles'?17 In favour of the former is the use of n'Pi? qal with D"H5EO in
Jer. 49.22, and 'soaring' is undoubtedly an obvious thing for eagles to
do. But in favour of the latter is the awkwardness of the absence of a
preposition before ~QN, the LXX rendering 7rcepO())i)riooi)oiv, 'they will
grow wings', and the Targum's wythdtwn I'wlymwthwn ksymwh dslyq 'I
gdpy nSryn 'and they will be renewed in their youth like the sprouting
(of plumage) that rises up upon the wings of eagles'.
If line B may be more specific than line A, we can ask, In what way
can the somewhat vague language of A, rD ID^rP, 'they will change,
substitute, renew (their) strength', be specified further by B? Going up
on wings in no way specifies 'changing strength' but putting forth new
wings or new plumage is indeed a sign of new strength, whether or not
there is an allusion to a belief that in old age eagles grow new wings.18
The exiles would then substitute new strength for old strength, and
'change' their strength in the sense that old eagles 'change' theirs.
c. Isa. 40.27
My way is hidden from Yahweh,
and from my God my right is disregarded.
A further example of the parallelism of greater precision may be found

here, though commentators do not generally see the connection of
thought between the two lines. The A-line taken by itself is open to
more than one interpretation. For Israel's way to be hidden ]Q Yahweh
could mean that God cannot see Israel's way, or will not see Israel's
way, or has caused Israel not to be able to see its own way. 'Way' itself
can mean here 'course of life' (BDB, s.v., 5), perhaps with the sense
of 'destiny', 'fate'19 (NEB 'plight') or its 'direction' in some metaphorical sense.
The B-line however makes everything plain, not without some help
17. 'Put forth' or 'grow' are acceptable senses of n^D hi. (HALAT, p. 785b),
contra Duhm, Jesaja, p. 274; Marti, Jesaja, p. 277; Reuben Levy, Deutero-Isaiah
(London: Oxford University Press, 1925), p. 128, who suppose a different verb rh$
'to grow' (cf. n^l? 'leaf'). Similar uses are found in Jer. 30.17; 33.6; Ezek. 37.6.
18. Some commentators find such an allusion 'doubtful' (Whybray, Isaiah 4066, p. 60) or even 'fanciful' (Christopher R. North, The Second Isaiah: Introduction, Translation and Commentary to Chapters 40-55 [Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1964], p. 89).
19. So North, The Second Isaiah, p. 89.
324
from the A-line. CDS2JQ is itself not very precise (RV 'judgement', RSV
'right', NEB 'cause'). But fora UBtOQ to~nu can only mean that a 'right'
(which perhaps already became a legal 'cause' or 'case') has 'vanished', sc. from the notice of the one to whom it ought to be a matter of
concern. In such a light, the A-line most probably means that Israel's
'course of life' or 'state' (or 'plight', since it is a bad state) is hidden
from God (A) in the sense that its claim to restitution has failed to
attract his attention (B). And Israel only knows that its 'way is hidden
from Yahweh' (A) in that its cause is ignored, it does not receive its
rights (B). The resulting interpretation of the couplet is no spectacular
advance on the appropriate sense many readers attain very quickly; but
our investigation has built a surer foundation for the validity of the
interpretation.
We should also note that the principle of the parallelism of greater
precision concerns primarily the relation between the two lines of a
couplet; it does not focus on the relationship between the members of
the two lines, either grammatically or semantically. In the present case,
for example, we have an example of a complete or 'mirror' chiasmus
(as in 40.26, discussed above), but that is of no significance for the relation of the lines. It is likewise unimportant whether ~[T7 is a good parallel to tDSOQ or not, both because the relation of the lines does not
depend upon the relation between the terms that are 'in parallel' (as we
say), and because the notion that an ideal parallelism is a truly synonymous parallelism has been exploded by the principle of the parallelism
of greater precision. Duhm found the parallelism here 'rather feeble'
(etwas armliche)which is indeed the case if the ideal is synonymity,
but not at all the case if other relationships between the lines of a couplet can exist.
The foregoing examples yield evidence of the value of having the
model of the parallelism of greater precision in mind when approaching
the exegesis of an individual text. I conclude this section with an
exegetical example of where the parallelism of greater precision is a
'false friend' and potentially misleading.
d. Isa. 40.28
God of eternity/the world is Yahweh,
Creator of the ends of the earth.
To anyone approaching this verse with a background in rabbinic or

mediaeval Hebrew, the A-line is quite ambiguous: is D'JIV 'eternity' or
325
'the world, universe'? The parallelism of greater precision would seem

to set the matter beyond doubt: 'the ends of the earth' must surely
function as specification of the ambiguous D'TIU. It is generally agreed,
however, that the meaning 'world' of DÎU is a postbiblical development,20 and a mere possibility in the relationship of parallelistic lines
('greater precision') cannot be set against a linguistic certainty.
The couplet exhibits the parallelism of greater precision neverthelessin another respect. For if we ask, In what respect is the 'eternity'
of Yahweh significant in the present context?, it is in the sense of line
B, that he was in distant times (D^l^) creator of the earth; and it is his
creative power that lies behind the subsequent lines (vv. 28c-31).
4. Some Similar Aspects of the Parallelistic Couplet
It is perhaps unlikely that at this stage in the history of research into
Hebrew poetry any completely new observations can be made. There
are indeed several points at which the parallelism of greater precision
corresponds to features that have previously been noted. But no one, I
think, has focused upon the matter of 'greater precision' as an important definition of the relation of the lines of the parallelistic couplet.
To take the last point first, it is true that several scholars have
observed that 'specification' is a function of the B-line of a couplet.
James Kugel, for example, has recently remarked that
there are quite a few lines in which B is clearly a continuation of A, or a
going beyond A in force or specificity.21
But his principal concern is to affirm that the relationship of A to B is

only in a minority of cases an exact repetition, or a saying of the same
thing in different words. Kugel's emphasis is on the additive or
emphatic aspects of the B-line: 'A is so, and what's more, B is so'. He
portrays the B-line as a continuing, seconding, emphatic carrying further, echoing, reiterative statement. All of that may be true of various
couplets of Hebrew poetry, but it is quite other than what is being urged
in this paper.
To similar effect James Muilenburg remarked that
20. HALAT, p. 755b; Ernst Jenni, 'DîU '61am Ewigkeit', THWAT, II, cols. 22843 (242-43).
21. James L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and its History
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 8.
326

parallelism is in reality very seldom precisely synonymous. The parallel
line does not simply repeat what has been said, but enriches it, deepens
it, transforms it by adding fresh nuances and bringing in new elements,
rendering it more concrete and vivid and telling. 22
More 'concrete', yes; but he said nothing about more specific, more
precise.
Other aspects of parallelism fall now to be compared to and contrasted with the parallelism of greater precision.
a. Staircase parallelism
This feature of the parallelistic couplet, otherwise known as 'climactic'
or 'repetitive' parallelism, or the 'expanded colon', has long been recognized.23 Wilfred Watson notes some forty examples,24 including Jer.
31.21:
Return, O virgin Israel,
Return to these your cities.
From a formal perspective, the description 'staircase' is apt, but from a

more semantic perspective it is easily seen that such a form is an
instance of the parallelism of greater precision. In the example quoted,
the first line leaves unstated the place to which Israel is to return; the Bline specifies the full significance of 'return' in A. It is true of course
that it is not only that the B-line is more specific than the A-line but
also that the A is more specific than the B. Such cases do not negate the
parallelism of greater precision; they are a subset of the examples of
our feature.
b. Number parallelism
Examples of number parallelism can be divided into two categories:
those with itemization and those without.
i. Itemized number parallelism. The best known example is Prov.
30.18-20:
22. James Muilenburg, 'A Study in Hebrew Rhetoric: Repetition and Style',
Congress Volume Copenhagen, 1953 (VTSup, 1; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1953), pp. 97111 (98).
23. S.E. Loewenstamm, The Expanded Colon in Ugaritic and Biblical Verse',
JSS 14 (1969), pp. 176-96; Loewenstamm, The Expanded Colon Reconsidered',
UF1 (1975), pp. 261-64; Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, pp. 150-56.
24. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, p. 151 n. 106, and pp. 152-55.
327
There are three things too wonderful for me,

and four I do not understand:
(1) the way of a vulture in the sky;
(2) the way of a serpent on a rock;
(3) the way of a ship in the middle of the sea;
(4) and the way of a man with a maiden.
The itemization makes it plain that it is precisely four things that the
speaker does not understand. Line A contains the approximate number
('three'), line B the precise number. In all cases of itemization the precise number is the second one mentioned.25 It is true that 'three' is in
itself just as precise as 'four', but in this context, where 'four' is the
precise number intended, 'three' is imprecise. M. Haran has listed
twelve instances of itemized number parallelism, six from the Old
Testament,26 five from Ben Sira, and one from the Babylonian Talmud
citing Ben Sira. All of these, we may now say, exhibit parallelism of
greater precision.
The recurring couplet in Amos, through it is not usually followed by
an itemization, fits here best:
For three transgressions of X,
And for four, I will not revoke it (Amos 1.3, 6,
9, 11, 13; 2.1, 4, 6).
In these cases (except perhaps in 2.6-8) it is only the fourth transgression that is specified, almost certainly because the fourth is so climactic
that the others may be left out of consideration.27 It is because of the
fact that they total to four, and so include the fourth, climactic one, that
Yahweh's punishment falls. So again the B-line of the couplet is the
more precise or specific.
ii. Unitemized number parallelism. Most such instances display ordinary 'synonymous' parallelism, though of course no number is ever
25. Cf. Menahem Haran, 'The Graded Numerical Sequence and the Phenomenon of "Automatism" in Biblical Poetry', Congress Volume Uppsala, 1971
(VTSup, 22; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972), pp. 238-67 (256).
26. Prov. 6.16; 30.15b, 18, 21, 29; Job 5.19.
27. Cf. Haran, 'Graded Numerical Sequence', p. 266; Y. Zakovitch, 'For
Three... and for Four' (Jerusalem: Makor, 1979), ch. 3 (Hebrew). I am not convinced by the argument of M. Weiss, 'The Pattern of Numerical Sequence in Amos
1-2', JBL 86 (1967), pp. 416-23, that there are seven transgressions (he argues that
'three' and 'four' are the break-up of a stereotyped phrase).
328
strictly synonymous with another.28 For example, Mic. 5.4:

Then we will raise against him seven shepherds,
and eight chiefs of men.
We cannot say that 'eight' is more precise, in the context, than 'seven'
(nor vice versa). Haran has suggested however that in a few cases 'the
intended number is the first of the two'; 29 but in Job 33.14 and Ps.
62.12, which he cites, it can be maintained much more convincingly
that it is the second number that is 'intended' or the more precise. This
category of graded numerical sayings thus yields two more examples of
the parallelism of greater precision, but on the whole it does not display
the feature under consideration here.
c. Automatism
The phenomenon of 'automatism' as set forth by Haran30 involves the
use of one element of a word-pair solely for balance between the lines,
and not at all for its semantic significance. An example that is adduced
is Prov. 24.30:
I passed by the field of a sluggard,
and by the vineyard of a man without sense.
The argument is that miO and Q~O form a fixed pair, corresponding to
other pairs like bread and wine, threshing-floor (]~U) and wine-vat
(Up"1), corn (p~l) and new wine (tDTVn), farmers (D'HDK) and vintners
(CPa~D). But in the context only the vineyard is really meant, for the
following verse refers to 'it' as having a stone fencewhich points to a
single parcel of ground, and that a vineyard, not a field. 'Field' is not
'intended' at all.
If such is the case, the line that contains the 'intended' word is inevitably more precise than the one with the 'automatic' variant. So for
those cases where the 'automatic' variant occurs in line A,31 we would
have the parallelism of greater precision.32 However, the existence of
28. For a possible exception, see Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, p. 144
n. 84.
29. Haran, 'Graded Numerical Sequence', p. 253. He is followed by Watson,
Classical Hebrew Poetry, p. 148.
30. Haran, 'Graded Numerical Sequence', pp. 243-53.
31. Haran adduces Prov. 24.30; Amos 6.1; Ps. 81.4 (pp. 243-47).
32. It is true that Haran also finds four examples where the automatism is in line
B (Prov. 4.3; 1.8 [similarly 6.20]; 23.22).
329
such automatism is, in my opinion, open to question.

In the example above, it is entirely probable the m25, 'field', is a
more general term that includes 'vineyard'as is amply attested by
Judg. 9.27, 'they went out into the field (illto) and harvested their vineyards (DID)'. So it is not true that the place the wisdom poet saw 'can
be either a field or a vineyard, but not both' ,33 The relationship between
A and B is not one of 'automatic' word-pairing but of what is here
being referred to as greater precision: the rn& in question is a DID.
As for cases where it is claimed that the A line contains the more
specific term, here also the existence of 'automatism' may be doubted.
Haran cites Prov. 4.3 as an example:
For I was a son to my father,
tender and alone before my mother.
He comments, 'Only the father is actually kept in the poet's mind,

while the mother is mentioned because of a mere automatic adherence
to the verbal pattern'.34 Indeed, the succeeding lines do refer exclusively to the father: 'and he taught me, and he said to me, "Let your
heart hold fast my words...'" So it is quite true that it is the father that
is principally in focus; but that does not necessarily mean that 'mother'
is only there by accident. For if we suppose, quite reasonably, that the
sense of the couplet is distributed across the two lines,35 we have a perfectly satisfactory meaning, viz. 'When I was a young only child with
my parents... '36 This is certainly not an example of automatic writing.
33. Haran, p. 244.
34. Haran, p. 247.
35. The language, as Kugel reminds us, goes back to Theodore of Mopsuestia
(using the term Siatpeaiq 'dividing in two'; the corresponding term in Latin
rhetoric was distributio (The Idea of Biblical Poetry, pp. 40-42, 156-57).
36. Some would speak of this as the break-up of the stereotyped phrase 'fathermother'. On the principle, see E.Z. Melamed, 'Break-up of Stereotype Phrases as
an Artistic Device in Biblical Poetry', Scripta Hierosolymitana 8 (1961), pp. 11553; Georg Braulik, 'Aufbrechen von gepragten Wortverbindungen und Zusammenfassen von stereotypen Ausdriicken in der alttestamentlichen Kunstprosa', Semitics
1 (1970), pp. 7-11; Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, pp. 328-32. C.F. Whitley
has, however, urged some important objections against both the concept and the
detailed exemplifications of the break-up of stereotype phrases ('Some Aspects of
Hebrew Poetic Diction', UF1 [1975], pp. 493-502 [493-99]). It would indeed be
better if we could avoid thinking of an 'ideal' or 'original' or 'simple' thought
being 'broken up' or 'distributed' into separate lines. Yet lines A and B are not
separate and independent, but yield their meaning up only as a differentiated unity.
330
My conclusion is, though I have not reviewed here all the examples
adduced for the phenomenon of 'automatism', that the phenomenon
does not exist in the Hebrew Bible,37 and that some supposed examples
of it really exibit the parallelism of greater precision, while other examples contain other types of parallelistic relationships.
d. Ballast variants
A ballast variant is defined by W.G.E. Watson as 'simply & filler, its
function being to fill out a line of poetry that would otherwise be too
short'.38 As an example he cites Judg. 5.28:
Why is his chariot so slow in coming?
Why does the clatter of his war-wagons tarry so?
On this he comments: 'Since labo' (or its equivalent in meaning) does

not reappear in the second colon, the longer expression pa'ame
markebotdyw is used instead of simply one word (e.g. markebotdyw //
rikbdy. No doubt a major question is begged here, viz. which comes
first, the over-shortness of the line or its filling? Since it is unanswerable, the terms of the discussion are probably inappropriate. And the
premise of the whole concept of 'ballast' or 'filling' depends on the
'isocolic principle' that the two lines of a parallelistic couplet should
balancewhich is open to question.39
37. A much less clear-cut example (more difficult because of the rarity of its
words) adduced by Haran may be discussed by way of illustrating that Haran's theory is less than persuasive. Judg. 5.25 has
Water he asked, and she gave milk;
in a lordly bowl she presented curds.
Curds, says Haran (p. 250), are only mentioned for the sake of the parallelism (as in
Gen. 18.8 and Deut. 32.14; but, unlike here, in both places ilKOn 'curds' is the A
word). Milk is what she gave him, as the prose narrative says (4.19), and that in a
'bowl' (^20), elsewhere a vessel for liquids (6.38). ilNOn, by contrast, is something
one eats (2 Sam. 17.29; Isa. 7.15, 22); it is not a drink. Against these arguments we
can assert: nothing is said in the poem (which is all that counts for this purpose) of
drinking; a vessel which, in the one other place where the term is used, could be
filled with the water wrung from a fleece (Judg. 6.38) does not thereby become
reserved exclusively for liquids. Prov. 30.33 makes clear that nNQn is a milk-product, which is to say that it is a specific kind of milk. Is this not more probably a case
of the parallelism of greater precision?
38. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, p. 344.
39. M. O'Connor is perhaps extreme in asserting that the principle that all lines
331
The language of 'compensation', long ago introduced by G.B. Gray,

falls under the same criticism,40 and so perhaps the use of 'expletive'
by R. Austerlitz.41 But there can be no doubt that some such terminology is needed for this feature of the parallelistic line.
Another conceptualization of the same phenomenon uses the language of 'gapping', which refers to the absence in the B-line of the verb
or some other term of the A-line. This conceptualization, no different
intrinsically from that of 'filling', has been used with discretion in the
systematic analysis of M. O'Connor.42 His primary example is Num.
23.7:
Balak brought me from Aram,
the king of Moab from the Eastern Hills.
'Gapping' refers to the absence of anything equivalent to ]nr in line B.

It is not clear what corresponding term O'Connor would use to describe
the relationship of 'Aram' to 'the Eastern Hills' and of 'Balak' to 'the
king of Moab'. He does indeed regard the latter case as a splitting of
the name 'Balak, king of Moab' across two lines43 (he calls it 'binominated'), but that cannot be said of the former case.
My present description of the parallelism of greater precision of
course prescinds from questions of causes or poetic psychology and
even from issues of grammatical relationship, and it cuts across distinctions that have previously been made. That is to say, in some cases,
perhaps many, of ballasting, filling, expletives or gapping, the parallelism of greater precision can be seen; but in other cases, different
parallelistic relationships occur.
A consideration of Num. 23.7, just quoted, which certainly contains
parallelism of greater precision, leads to a closer definition of 'greater
tend to be the same length is 'so far from being true that it is useless' (Hebrew
Verse Structure [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1980], p. 136). Cf. also Kugel, The
Idea of Biblical Poetry, pp. 45-48, who however is ready to speak of a general balance of poetic lines (p. 71).
40. George Buchanan Gray, The Forms of Hebrew Poetry (London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1915), pp. 76-83, 94; his term was 'incomplete parallelism with compensation'.
41. Robert Austerlitz, Ob-Ugric Metrics (Folklore Fellows Communications,
174/8; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1958), pp. 64-65, 101. This work is
known to me only from Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, pp. 344, 348.
42. O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure, pp. 123-29.
43. O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure, p. 113.
332
precision'. It could well be argued that both 'Balak' and 'Aram' in line
A are more specific or precise than their counterparts in line B, 'the
king of Moab' and 'the Eastern Hills', because they use proper names
for identification. Yet, on the other hand, it could just as well be argued
that while many people may be called Balak, it is 'king of Moab' that
specifies which one is meant. In reality, such a debate misses the point
of the parallelism: the question is not whether, taken in isolation, B is
more precise than A, but whether 'king of Moab' in B adds any precisions to what we already have in A. Unquestionably it does; however,
we must admit that in the case of 'Aram' // 'the Eastern Hills' we cannot say that B adds precision to A (unless perhaps the poet knows
something that we do not).
In brief, so-called 'ballast variants' are prima facie candidates for the
parallelism of greater precision, but a roughly synonymous parallelistic
relationship is also quite possible.
e.Word-pairs
This very frequently discussed feature of Hebrew poetry needs to be
mentioned here primarily in order to distinguish it from the subject of
this paper. At its most conventional, the use of word-pairs is a substitute for creative poetic activity, whereas the parallelism of greater precision is a subtle relationship between or among the lines of poetry that
can only be designed in by a relatively sophisticated artist.
In a recent analysis building upon psycholinguistic studies, Adele
Berlin has argued persuasively that pairing of words is a manifestation
of a common linguistic phenomenon of word association.44 Two principal types of word associates can be denominated paradigmatic (e.g.
goodbad, fathermother, descendascend) and syntagmatic
(ZionJerusalem, mercytruth, heavensearth [as a merismus]). The
phenomenon of fixed word-pairs, which has been a primary focus of
attention in Hebrew poetry especially since the discovery of Ugaritic
poetry, is only a subset of the broader category of word-pairing. It may
indeed be possible to regard the present subject of study as yet another
type of word-pairingexcept of course that the 'greater precision' may
be a function of the whole line in relation to the previous line, and not
just one word in relation to another word.
My principal concern here, however, is to observe that the
44. Adele Berlin, 'Parallel Word-Pairs: A Linguistic Explanation', UF 15
(1983), pp. 7-16.
333
phenomenon of the fixed word-pair is a contra-indication of the

parallelism of greater precisionat least as far as those words are
concerned. It is indeed true that in word-pairs the B-word is often less
frequently attested, more poetic, more esoteric than the A word.45 But it
is not typically more specific than the A-word; indeed, whether the pair
is classified as paradigmatic or syntagmatic,46 or as 'synonymous',
'antonymous' or 'correlative',47 there is usually a parallelistic relationship of balance, in which there is no question of progress from word A
to wordB.
Things may be different, however, if we adopt a more flexible
definition of 'word-pair', as is advocated by several recent authors.
Adele Berlin, for example, affirms that 'there is no qualitative difference between the so-called "fixed" pairs and pairs that have not so been
labelled. The only difference is that fixed pairs are attested more often
than non-fixed pairs.'48 M. O'Connor writes that 'any single word in a
language can be paired with another', a process he terms 'dyading'.49
And William R. Watters uses throughout his study, Formula Criticism
and the Poetry of the Old Testament, a concept of word-pairs that can
incorporate almost any kind of associative relationship.50 In such cases
the 'word-pair' may exhibit a parallelism of greater precisionor any
of the other kinds of parallelistic relationship.
It may finally noted that the presence of a 'synonymous' word-pair
within a parallelistic couplet may not necessarily form an obstacle to
the parallelism of greater specificity. For example, Ps. 7.17:
May his sin redound upon his head,
and upon his pate may his violence descend.
Here 'head' (2?K~l) and 'pate' (lp"Tp) are the pair, and are perhaps completely synonymous (though the latter could reasonably be thought
more specific or 'concrete' than the former). But there is nevertheless a
45. Cf. e.g. Robert G. Boling, ' "Synonymous" Parallelism in the Psalms', JSS
5 (1960), pp. 221-55 (223-24); Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, p. 129.
46. Cf. Berlin (see note 42 above). The conceptualization she employs is not
free from difficulties; see, briefly, Stephen A. Geller, Parallelism in Early Biblical
Poetry (HSM, 20; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979), pp. 32-32.
47. So Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, pp. 131-32.
48. Berlin, 'Parallel Word-Pairs', p. 8.
49. O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure, pp. 96-97.
50. William R. Watters, Formula Criticism and the Poetry of the Old Testament
(BZAW, 138; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976); see, for example, pp. 102-103.
334
greater precision in line B, since "1000 'his violence' specifies the kind
of 'sin' or 'trouble' (I^DU) that the A-line speaks of.
5. Towards a (Somewhat) New Theory of Hebrew Poetry
The new feature that has emerged from this study of the parallelistic
couplet is not as much the identification of a particular relationship of
the lines of the couplet (greater precision) as a movement towards a
statement of relationships within the poetic couplet. Within the couplets
that we have examined here, we can affirm, the relationship of the two
lines is unpredictable. What is predictable about Hebrew poetry generally is its structure as couplets (or triplets, i.e. extended couplets). What
is unpredictable is how the lines of that couplet (or triplet) will turn out
to relate to one another. Will they be synonymously parallel, will they
exhibit the parallelism of greater precision, or staircase parallelism or
synonymous-sequential parallelism,51 or some other parallelistic relationor no parallelism at all?52
This unpredictability is encountered by the reader at the beginning,
middle and end of the poetic couplet. At the beginning, before we start
to read a couplet, we are aware that it is a couplet (whether through
modern conventions of typography, or through our familiarity with the
poetic convention itself); we can see that it will end after a snatch of
words of between four and about ten, and we can expect that the couplet will constitute a complete sense-unit. But we do not know how that
self-contained unity will present itself to us. We have some patterns of
expectation available to us, indeed, but we are at the mercy of the poet
for which of those patterns may lie ahead of us. At the end of the first
line (colon) when we pause momentarily for processing the sense so
far, we make a provisional judgment on the completeness or otherwise,
the self-sufficiency or open-endedness, of the sense-unit thus far read or
heard. But here also we cannot predict how the couplet will proceed;
not only do we not yet know the grammatical or syntactical pattern of
the next line, or its lexical contents, but, more importantly, we do not
know what kind of a relationship what we have read will bear to what
51. See Patrick D. Miller, 'Synonymous-Sequential Parallelism in the Psalms',
Bib 61 (1980), pp. 256-60.
52. The frequently encountered statement that parallelism is 'characteristic' of
Hebrew poetry (e.g. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, p. 114) must be taken to
mean that it is not universally found (cf. Watson, p. 12).
335
we have yet to read. (Many popular expositions of parallelism, formulaic poetry, word-pairs and the like implicitly encourage us to believe
that we do.) The unpredictability remains even when we have read to
the end of the couplet. For even when we have processed both lines of
the couplet, our understanding will not be complete until we have gone
back over the lines from the viewpoint of their relationship. And what
that relationship will be is not securely indicated by any surface clues
(like grammatical morphology or the presence of a fixed word-pair). It
is often not difficult to determine that relationship, but the point about it
is that it is not given but must be figured out by every reader.5*
James Kugel was entirely right in asserting, as against a crude popularization of Lowthian parallelism, that 'Biblical parallelism is of one
sort... or a hundred sorts; but it is not three',54 But I believe he is wrong
to describe the 'one sort' as a matter of 'A, and what's more, B', since
that restricts the relationship of the lines to those of emphasis, repetition, seconding, and so on. The relationships of A and B are so diverse
that only some statement such as 'A is related to B' will serve as a valid
statement about all parallelistic couplets. And such a statement is
equally valid for non-parallelistic lines. Biblical poetry in general is
overwhelmingly composed of couplets (or triplets, extended couplets),
and of such couplets we could state that they are of one sort (A is
related to B) or of a hundred, but not of three or four or five.
Our study of the parallelism of greater precision has alerted us to
something that is true of Hebrew poetry generally. The meaning of the
couplet does not reside in A nor in B; nor is it in A+B (if they are
regarded as capable of being added like 2+2 or 3+2). It is in the whole
couplet of A and B in which A is affected by its juxtaposition with B,
and B by its juxtaposition with A. The whole is different from the sum
53. The remarks of P.A. Boodberg on parallelistic couplets in Chinese poetry
may be aptly cited: the function of the second line of a couplet is, he argues, 'to
give us the clue for the construction of the first'; 'parallelism is not merely a stylistic device of formularistic syntactical duplication; it is intended to achieve a result
reminiscent of binocular vision, the super-imposition of two syntactical images in
order to endow them with solidity and depth, the repetition of the pattern having the
effect of binding together syntagms that appear at first rather loosely aligned' ('On
Crypto-Parallelism in Chinese Poetry' and 'Syntactical Metaplasia in Stereoscopic
Parallelism', Cedules from a Berkeley Workshop in Asiatic Philology, nos. 001540701 and 017-541210 [Berkeley, 1954-55] [cited by R. Jackson, 'Grammatical
Parallelism and its Russian Facet', Language 42 (1966), pp. 399-429 (402)]).
54. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry, p. 58.
336
of its parts because the parts influence or contaminate each other.55 A

has its meaning within the couplet only in the light, or sense, of B, and
B in the light, or sense, of A. In the case of Isa. 40.3, for instance, the
couplet does not mean B, even if B is more precise than A. It means (i)
prepare Yahweh's way in the sense of making straight a highway, and it
means (ii) make straight the highway as an act of preparing a way for
Yahweh, and it means both of these things concurrently.
Because the relationship of the two lines within the couplets is not
predetermined, the reader is more fully engaged in the process of
interpretation, a more active participant in the construction of meaning,
than when a text presents itself in more straightforward linear fashion.
Edward Greenstein has reminded us of Marshall McLuhan's distinction
between 'hot' and 'cool' media, 'hot' media presenting a complete pattern of stimuli, 'cool' presenting an incomplete pattern and therefore
requiring greater processing and hence a higher level of engagement on
the reader's part.56 Such engagement, I would suggest, is systematically
demanded by the nature of the Hebrew poetic couplet. The reader is
constantly involved in the delicate and tantalizing57 question of the
relation of the parts and the product of their inter-relationship. That
relation, as we have seen in the study of the parallelism of greater precision, is a dynamic one which cannot be mechanically delineated, but
which often yields itself only to patient exegetical probing, each couplet in its own right. Any future theoretical study of such phenomena as
that discussed in the present paper will have the converging resources
of philosophical hermeneutics, current literary theory (especially
reader-response criticism and reception theory), and psycholinguistics
to draw upon.
55. Cf. the sentence of Menahem b. Saruch (c. 960 CE), 'One half of the line
teaches about the other' (cited by Walters, Formula Criticism,p. 92).
56. Edward L. Greenstein, 'How Does Parallelism Mean?', in Stephen A.
Geller, Edward L. Greenstein and Adele Berlin, A Sense of Text: The Art of Language in the Study of Biblical Literature (JQRSup; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,
1982), pp. 41-70 (54).
57. I am reminded of D.S. Brewer's remark a propos the opening of Chaucer's
Parlement of Foulys that the rhetorical devices are so deployed that the reader's
mind is 'led forward by a combination of information and mild mystification,
which arouses both expectation itself and pleasure in its ingenuity' (The Parlemen
of Foulys, ed. D.S. Brewer [Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1972],
P- 49).
17
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
'SONS OF GOD' EPISODE (GENESIS 6.1-4)
IN THE CONTEXT OF THE 'PRIMAEVAL HISTORY' (GENESIS 1-11)
Most studies of the 'Sons of God' pericope (Gen. 6.1-4) have busied
themselves with the narrower exegetical problems within the pericope
itself as an independent, not to say intrusive, piece of 'heathen mythology'1 or as a partly demythologized 'foreign particle'2 within the biblical text. My purpose here is to examine, via the exegetical problem of
the identity of the 'sons of God' and via the backward and forward
links between the material and its surroundings, the function of the
pericope within the larger whole of the 'Primaeval History'. Without
calling into question the consensus of opinion that the material of the
piece derives from a pre-Israelite myth, I am concerned here essentially
with the 'final form of the text'.3
1. The Identity of the 'Sons of God'
Concentration on this particular interpretational crux can, I think, point
us to a solution of the larger problem of the function of the whole pericope within its present setting.
Three chief interpretations of the identity of the 'sons of God' have
been advanced:
Originally published in Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 13 (1979), pp.
33-46, having been written in early 1972.
1. H. Holzinger, Genesis (KHAT I, 1; Freiburg: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck],
1898), p. 64.
2. Brevard S. Childs, Myth and Reality in the Old Testament (SET, 17; London: SCM Press, 2nd edn, 1962), pp. 57-59.
3. See J.F.A. Sawyer, 'The Meaning of D'H^N Dto ("In the Image of God")
in Genesis i-xi', JTS NS 25 (1974), pp. 418-26 (418-19); 'The "Original Meaning
of the Text" and Other Legitimate Subjects for Semantic Description', BETL 33
(1974), pp. 63-70; David J.A. Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch (JSOTSup, 10;
Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978), esp. pp. 10-11, 82.
338
(i) The 'sons of God' are the Sethites (cf. 5.1, 3), while the 'daughters of men' are from the Cainite line.4 In favour of this view is the
division of the human race into two lines of descent in the previous
chapters (4.17-5.32), but against it are the arguments that since
'humanity' (DINi!) is used in v. 1 of humankind generally, it is unlikely
to mean only one section of humanity in v. 2,5 and that 'sons of God'
does not appear as a collective term for the Sethites, either in these
chapters or elsewhere.
(ii) The 'sons of God' are heavenly beings,6 who mate with earthly
women. In favour of this interpretation is the regular use of the term
'sons of God' for the heavenly court that surrounds Yahweh (e.g. Ps.
29.1; 89.7; Job 1.6). There is &prima facie case for supposing that both
the Nephilim and 'mighty men' (D'~a:) of v. 4 are to be regarded as the
offspring of such unions, though it has been argued that the structure of
v. 4 deliberately affirms the existence of the Nephilim before the unions
of v. 2.7 We may leave aside, however, the problem of the origin of the
Nephilim, and note that the majority of scholarly opinion supports the
identification of the 'sons of God' as heavenly beings.8 The principal
objection to this identification is that it is far from clear in the present
context why humankind as a whole should be subjected to the divine
4. The origins of this view, supported by many Fathers and Reformers, are
adequately dealt with by P.S. Alexander, The Targumim and Early Exegesis of the
"Sons of God" in Genesis 6', JJS 23 (1972), pp. 60-71; and L.R. Wickham, 'The
Sons of God and the Daughters of Men. Genesis vi 2 in Early Christian Exegesis',
O7S 19 (1974), pp. 135-47.
5. For the view that this is not an overwhelming objection, see M.G. Kline,
'Divine Kingship and Genesis 6:1-4', WTJ24(1962), pp. 189-90.
6. Frequently understood as 'angels' (cf. Jan Holman's review of Stun, der
Gottersohne oder Engel vor der Sintflut? Versuch ernes Neuverstdndnisses von
Genesis 6,2-4 unter Berucksichtigung der religionsvergleichenden und exegesegeschichtlichen Methode [Weiner Beitrage zur Theologie, 13; Wien: Herder,
1966], by Ferdinand Dexinger, in Bib 49 [1968], pp. 292-95 [293-94]); but see
Claus Westermann, Genesis (BKAT, 1.1; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1976),
pp. 493-94, 501-503.
7. E.g. Gerhard von Rad, Genesis (trans. John H. Marks; OTL; London: SCM
Press, 2nd edn, 1963), p. 115.
8. For example, Hermann Gunkel, Genesis (Gottinger Handkommentar zum
Alten Testament; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 3rd edn, 1910), pp. 55-56;
John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (ICC; Edinburgh:
T. & T. Clark, 2nd edn, 1930), pp. 141-42; von Rad, Genesis, p. 110; G. Cooke,
The Sons of (the) God(s)', ZAW76 (1964), pp. 22-47 (23-24).
17. The Significance of the 'Sons of God' Episode (Gen. 6.1-4) 339
threat of v. 3 for the sin of such non-human beings; the 'daughters of
humans' can hardly have been regarded as culpable (though their
beauty [v. 2] was the antecedent condition,9 since they were taken by
force).
(iii) The 'sons of God' are dynastic rulers who, as oriental despots,
established royal harems by force10 or practised indiscriminate rape.
This view has the merit of taking seriously the phrase 'and they took
for themselves wives from all whom they chose (*?DQ D^] Di"!1? inp'H
linn ~I2?N)'. It also makes intelligible the divine punishment upon
humanity as a whole because of the sin of these despots; for in oriental
ideology it is not uncommon to find the fate of the people at large
bound up with the fate of the king. Nevertheless, the identification of
the 'sons of God' simply as human rulers has the weakness that it is
rarely if ever attested in the ancient Near East as a term for kings in
general. Though kings in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaan and Israel were
frequently spoken to as 'son of God', such language seems to have
been reserved in the main for courtly rhetoric and poetic adulation, and
is not to be met with, in the Old Testament at least, in straightforward
narrative style with such a signification.11
Westermann appears to feel no difficulty at this point. Though he
seems not to know of the paper of M.G. Kline, he regards the term
DTI^N ^n as the only one available to the narrator (J) of Gen. 6.1-4 to
designate a class of beings superior to humans; for in the 'Primaeval
History' humanity is otherwise undifferentiated and undivided socially
and politically. Since the pericope concerns essentially the power of
9. Cf. Westermann, Genesis, pp. 495-96, 503-504.

10. So Kline, 'Divine Kingship and Genesis 6:1-4', pp. 187-204; followed by
A.R. Millard, 'A New Babylonian "Genesis" Story (Epic of Atrahasis)', TynBul 18
(1967), pp. 3-18 (12). Similarly also Ferdinand Dexinger, Sturz der Gottersohne
oder Engel vor der Sintflut? Versuch eines Neuverstdndnisses von Genesis 6,2-4
unter Berucksichtigung der religionsvergleichenden and exegesegeschichtlichen
Methode (Wiener Beitrage zur Theologie, 13; Vienna: Herder, 1966). This view
was adumbrated by some Jewish interpreters who saw in the 'sons of God' rulers
and in the 'daughters of men' women of lower rank (see Dexinger, Gottersohne,
pp. 122-24, 129-20; Alexander, Targumim and Early Exegesis', pp. 61, 64-66).
11. Both Dexinger, Gottersohne, pp. 37-39, and Kline, 'Divine Kingship',
p. 192, lay weight upon the description of King Krt in the Ugaritic tale as bn il 'son
of God'. The criticisms of R. de Vaux, RB 74 (1967), pp. 114-15, and Holman, Bib
49 (1968), pp. 292-95, should be taken into account.
340
one group over another, only the polarity of 'sons of God' and '(daughters of) humans' is open to him.12
It is perhaps no contradiction of Westermann's position, but rather a
development of it, to make the new suggestion that the author of Gen.
6.1 -4 in its present form did not work with a system of closed categories in which 'sons of God' must be either human or non-human.13
Are the D'H^SH ^"2 here then both divine beings and antediluvian
rulers? The use of the term may indeed be inherited from earlier formulations of the pericope in which the 'sons of God' may have been
divine beings tout court, but it is not improbable that the author of this
text in its final form should have understood it in reference to rulers of
the primaeval period who had belonged in part to the divine world. In
this connection we may observe the appearance of divine names in the
Babylonian lists of antediluvian kings, notably the identification of several rulers with the god Dumuzi or Tammuz.14 Strictly speaking, of
course, Gen. 6.1-4 represents the 'sons of God' as the generation prior
to the Nephilim and the 'mighty men' (D'~1D3),15 so that a simple identification of 'sons of God' with the other terms is inappropriate.16 But the
intercourse of 'sons of God' with 'daughters of humans' is not envisaged as occurring at only one definite periodthe imperfect verb in
v. 4 should probably be translated as a frequentative, viz. 'Whenever
12. Westermann, Genesis, p. 496: 'Der Erzahler meint mit den DTlbS '3D den
Menschen schlechthin iiberlegene Klasse: Manner, die so machtig sind, daB es fur
ihr Begehren der Schonheit einer Frau die Grenzen, die hier fur gewohnliche Sterbliche bestehen, nicht gibt'.
13. Cf. Patrick D. Miller, Genesis 1-11: Studies in Structure and Theme
(JSOTSup, 8; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978), pp. 25-26: 'In the stories of the origin
and beginnings of "man" or the human creature it is not surprising that there is
some attempt to define the relation of 'adam beings to 'elohim beings and wrestle
with the extent and limitation of that relationship. At one point in the story [Gen.
3.22] the relationship is seen to be very close and the human creatures are like the
divine ones. But the story goes on to say that these two worlds are nevertheless distinct and that it is possible to overstep the bounds and seek to blend the two into
one.'
14. Millard, 'A New Babylonian "Genesis" Story', p. 12 n. 28, cites the Akkadian god-list in Cuneiform Texts, XXIV, pi. 19, K4338b; XXV, pi. 7, K7663 +
11035.
15. Construing the complex sentence thus: 'There were in those days the
Nephilim, whom whenever the sons of God went in unto the daughters of men they
(the latter) bore to them (the former)'.
16. So Dexinger, Gottersohne, pp. 44-46.
the sons of God went in unto the daughters of humans'17, so that it is
perhaps unnecessary to distinguish too sharply between kings who were
'sons of God' in the strict sense, and kings who were only sons of the
'sons of God', part-human and part-divine.
Such a 'son of God' has his portrait sketched in Akkadian literature,
the hero Gilgamesh:
Two-thirds of him is god, [one-third of him is human]...
The nobles of Uruk are gloomy in their chambers:
'Gilgamesh leaves not the son to his father;
Day and night is unbridled his arrogance...
Gilgamesh leaves not the maid to her mother,
The warrior's daughter, the noble's spouse...
The onslaught of his weapons verily has no equal.'18
That Gilgamesh was regarded in the epic as a historical human personage is beyond question; the belief in his divine or semi-divine origins
explains his significance and the survival of the story of his deeds from
ancient times, as well as his titles and entitlements; it does not mean
that the epic poet conceives of him as any more than a human, and a
mortal human at that.
The same outlook is credible in the biblical pericope: that the 'sons
of God' were both regarded as rulers of ancient times, and traditionally
ascribed divine or semi-divine origins. On this interpretation, the 'sons
of God' pericope is no alien intrusion into the story of primaeval humanity, since it concernsfrom first to lasthumans; but neither is it
simply an episode in the catalogue of human sinfulness, since it also
concerns the relationship between the divine and the human world that
is displayed in the actions of these 'sons of God'. Connections with the
surrounding material will become apparent in the ensuing motif analysis.
2. Motif Analysis
(a) The motif of 'breaking the bounds', which recurs in every major
episode of the 'Primaeval History', appears here in two forms, if the
17. So LXX cbc; av eiaeTiopeTJOVCo; cf. Skinner, Genesis, p. 146.
18. Gilgamesh I.ii.l, 11-13, 16-17, 21 (ANET, pp. 73b-74). It is perhaps also
significant that like the 'sons of God' who find their life expectancy greatly
reduced, Gilgamesh, since 'he too is flesh' (cf. Gen. 6.3), even though only onethird human, is oppressed by the thought of death and he searches for immortality,
only to find it eludes him at the end.
342
foregoing solution to the question of the identity of the 'sons of God' is

accepted.
First, there is in the union of 'sons of God' with 'daughters of
humans' a breach of the primal boundary between the divine and the
human worlds. The attempt of humanity in Genesis 3 at self-divinizationand the at least partially successful attempt (cf. 3.22) to merge
the spheres of the human and the divineis here taken up afresh from
the other direction in the attempt of divine beings to join the world of
humanity. Their attempt also is only partially successful, in that 'sons
of God' (D'H^K ''H), or at least their offspring, inasmuch as they have
breached the bounds between the divine and the human, have forfeited
the immortality that is a token of their divinity and have become (like
Gilgamesh) subject to death (v. 3).
Secondly, there is clearly another form of 'breaking the bounds' present in the violent and polygamous lust of the 'sons of God'. Westermann19 has pointed to the formal similarity between this story and those
of Gen. 12.10-20 (and parallels) and 2 Samuel 11, where the beauty of
a woman is alleged by some commentators to lead a man to break the
bounds of accepted morality. We may observe further backward links
within the 'Primaeval History' that highlight the significance of the
sons of God 'taking wives of all whom they chose'. The monogamous
order established by God (2.24)in which, incidentally, it is not the
man but God who chooses the wife for the manhas in the course of
human decline been casually abandoned by the tyrant Lamech of whom
it is first noted (? in emphatic position) that he 'took two wives'.20 The
glimpse in Gen. 6.2 of 'titan promiscuity'21 reveals the ultimate stage in
the development of a society that has produced a Lamech. The 'sons of
God' are intelligible therefore in the present context as the royal successors of Lamech, taking for themselves (Dn'?) wives of as many
women as they chose.22 Bonhoeffer was not far from the mark when he
spoke of the unrestrained sexuality here depicted as 'avid, impotent will
19. Westermann, Genesis, pp. 494-97.
20. It is hard to agree with Skinner that 'no judgment is passed on Lamech's
bigamy, and probably none was intended. The notice may be due simply to the fact
that the names of the wives happened to be preserved in the song afterwards quoted' (Genesis, p. 118). If the latter is the case, it is all the more probable that by
drawing attention to the fact the narrator is implying a judgment.
21. Joseph Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch (London: Sheed & Ward, 1971), p. 40.
22. Kline, 'Divine Kingship', pp. 195-96, E.G. Kraeling, The Origin and
Significance of Gen. 6:1-4', JNES 6 (1947), pp. 193-208 (197).
for unity in the divided world' [note the link with Gen. 11]; 'it desires
the destruction of the other person as creature; it robs him of his
creatureliness, violates him as well as his limit... [It]
... is therefore destruction par excellence. Thus it is an insane acceleration of the Fall; it is self-affirmation to the point of destruction.'23
(b) In the 'Primaeval History' the relation of the divine to the human
comes to expression not only in the concept of a boundary between the
two spheres, but also in the concept of communication, or communion,
between the two spheres. Thus, in Genesis 2, though God is creator and
the man is a creature, the man is infused with the divine breath (2.7),
and God walks in the garden that the man tends (3.8). To the same
effect is the concept of human creation in the image of God (1.26),
whatever precisely that may mean; in some sense, at least, the boundary
between the divine and the human is not absolute, and humanity can
represent God on earth (1.28). In 6.1-4, on the contrary, we find a
satanic parody of the idea of the image of God in humanity. Far from
God being present on earth in the person of humans as his kingly representatives exercising benign dominion over the lower orders of creation,24 we now have the presence of the divine on earth in a form that
utterly misrepresents God through its exercise of royal violence and
despotic authority over other humans.
(c) A further link between 6.1-4 and the surrounding material lies in
the concept of the possession of 'name'. The Nephilim, here identified,
it appears,25 with the 'mighty men who were of old' ("ICON DHUn
D'TUJft), were the men of renown, lit. 'men of name' (DCD'H SC93K) of
ancient times. The striving for a 'name', a permanent memorial in one's
descendants, belongs to the dynastic ambitions of these antediluvian
rulers. Earlier in the 'Primaeval History', Cain, in a sense the spiritual
23. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall: A Theological Interpretation of
Genesis 1-3 (trans. John C. Fletcher; London: SCM Press, 1959), p. 80.
24. See further, D.J.A. Clines, 'The Image of God in Man', TynBul19 (1968),
pp. 53-103, reprinted in this volume as 'Humanity as the Image of God'; J. Barr,
'Man and NatureThe Ecological Controversy and the Old Testament', BJRL 55
(1972-73), pp. 9-32(21-23).
25. I assume that the phrase pîriN D21, whether a later interpolation (Holzinger, Genesis, p. 66; Childs, Myth and Reality, p. 55) or not, does not distinguish
between the Nephilim and the DHH3 by suggesting that the Nephilim were already
in existence before the 'sons of God' cohabited with the daughters of humans, but
is intended as a note of the continued existence of the Nephilim far beyond
primaeval times, and into the period represented, for example, by Num. 13.33.
344
though not the physical ancestor of the heroes of 6.4 (here the old
patristic identification of the 'sons of God' is not entirely beside the
mark), is represented as having the same dynastic ambition: he strives
to perpetuate a family name, calling the name of his city by the name of
his son Enoch (4.17).26 Similarly the self-sufficient builders of Babel
set about building their city and tower with the explicit purpose of
making a 'name' for themselves. This desire to make a name for oneself is more than arrogance; just as their tower whose top reaches to the
sky may be seen as an assault on heaven, so their ambition for 'name'
is an attack on the prerogative of God, who himself makes his own
name great or glorious (2 Sam. 7.23; Jer. 32.20; Isa. 63.12, 14) and who
is the true source of 'name' (cf. Zeph. 3.19-20). While it is ironically
true that the builders of Babel succeeded in making a name for themselves, it was only a name of derogatory significance, Babel,
'confusion'.27
While the line of 'name'-seekers is scattered, there has already come
into being a man of 'name', Shem (DC?, 9.18), ancestor of the 'Semitic'
nations, whose name is 'probably intended to be deliberately allusive,
providing a contrast to the illegitimate attempt by humans to achieve a
name for themselves (11.4; cf. 6.4), and anticipating the great name to
be accorded to Abraham... (12.1-3)':28 ~[QC7 rftTIK'), 12.2; cf. also the
prophetic word to David, 'I will make for you a great name, like the
name of the great ones (D^TJH) of the earth' (2 Sam. 7.9).29
(d) A final motif with interesting connections in the preceding and
following chapters is that of the multiplication of humanity. Its appearance in the 'sons of God' episode is interesting not so much for the fact
of its presence, but more for the sake of its irrelevance. Throughout the
'Primaeval History' the multiplication of humanity is enjoined, furthered and blessed by God. The first command to humankind in
Genesis 1 is: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth' (1.28). In
Genesis 4 Eve bears Cain 'with the help of Yahweh (mrPTIN, 4.2), and
26. That is, if Enoch himself is not the builder of the city and himself the perpetuator of his own name (cf. Umberto Cassuto, Commentary on Genesis [trans.
Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961], I, p. 230).
27. Cassuto, Genesis, II, p. 242.
28. A.K. Jenkins, 'A Great Name: Genesis 12:2 and the Editing of the Pentateuch', JSOT 10 (1978), pp. 41-57 (45).
29. On the connection between Gen. 12.2 and 2 Sam. 7.9 see H.W. Wolff, The
Kerygma of the Yahwist', Int 20 (1966), pp. 131-58 (141-42).
God 'appoints' (D2J, 4.25) another child, Seth, instead of Abel. After the
Flood, the first divine command to surviving humanity is a repetition of
1.28: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth'. I have argued elsewhere30 that the position of the Table of Nations (Gen. 10) beforethe
Babel episode (Gen. 11) compels us to regard the dispersal of the
nations not only as a mark of judgment following upon Babel, but also
as a fulfilment of the divine injunctions to multiply the race.
Against that background, it is remarkable that the multiplication of
humanity in 6.1 is viewed entirely neutrally, and has no real relevance
to the narrative that proceeds from it. C. Westermann, it is true, argues
that the increase of humankind, which is indeed an appropriate consequence of the primal blessing, begins to create negative possibilities:
the sheer size of humanity creates danger-points for the relation
between humans and God (or the gods).31 From the point of view of the
form of the pericope, which is Westermann's starting-point, it does
indeed appear that the introductory clause will be of great moment for
the development of the narrative. That is not in fact the case, for the
narrative would have the same significance if the phrase 'when humans
began to multiply on the face of the ground' were absent. To be sure,
some multiplication of the human race from the primaeval pair of Genesis 2 must have occurred for the events of 6.1-4 to be possible, but
such a multiplication has already been adequately attested by the
genealogies of the Cainites (4.17-22) and the Sethites (Gen. 5).
The reference in 6.1, then, to the multiplication of humankind has
narrative significance only if the tale is told differently, with the multiplication of humanity a reason or cause for the ensuing events. For the
second time in this study, therefore, we are compelled to designate an
item 'traditional'. (I should stress that I do not regard an overriding
concern for the 'final form' of the text as precluding acceptance of the
possibility that some, if not much, of the material, has been incorporated into the final form largely because it has become traditional. We
do not have to suppose final authors of our texts being actively engaged
in the precise wording or arrangement of every part of their material;
'final form' criticismif it may be so designatedmakes only the
assumption of authorial intention in the end-redactors, and authors
obviously have many different styles of handling their material. In the
present case, I would argue that it makes effectively no difference
30. Clines, Theme of the Pentateuch, pp. 68-69.
31. Westermann, Genesis, p. 500.
346
whether the clause is present or not, so that its presence falls beneath
the level of the author's intention.)
Have we then any evidence that the tale may have been told differently, especially in relation to the multiplication motif? Yes, in the
Atrahasis epic, the story of the Deluge is prefaced by the lines:
Twelve hundred years had not yet passed
When the land extended and the peoples multiplied.
The land was bellowing like a bull.32
Here the growth of humankind results in such clamour that it disturbs

the sleep of the high god, Enlil:
The noise of mankind has become too intense for me,
With their uproar I am deprived of sleep.'33
The Flood is sent as the final, and successful, attempt, to halt the
unlimited growth of humankind. And following the drastic reduction in
the size of humanity brought about by the Flood, measures are taken to
ensure that henceforth the size of the human population will be controlled: there are to be sterile women as well as fertile women, various
orders of religious women who will not marry, and a demon of infant
mortality to 'snatch the baby from the lap of her who bore it'.34
The story of the Flood, therefore, with the near extinction of humankind, may be told as a story about the problem of 'over-population',
while the multiplication motif presents the reason for the problem and
thus effectively accounts for the origin of death. This explanation for
the institution of death figures in many myths.35 'Earth becomes overcrowded, some check has to be put on mankind increasing to an alarming extent. Thus the only solution is Death.'36
Two aspects of the Biblical pericope are particularly instructive
against this background. First, the multiplication of humankind, though
still forming the backdrop of the 'Sons of God' pericope, is not the
cause of the introduction of death. Even though in the pericope a limitation of the human life-span (or, the onset of the death-dealing Flood
32. Atrahasis II.i.2-3 (Lambert and Millard, pp. 72-73).
33. Atrahasis II.i.7-8 (Lambert and Millard, pp. 72-73).
34. Atrahasis III.vii.1-8 (Lambert and Millard, pp. 102-103); cf. W.L. Moran,
'Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood', Bib 52 (1971), pp. 51-61 (56).
35. See H. Schwarzbaum, The Overcrowded Earth', Numen 4 (1957), pp. 5974.
36. Schwarzbaum, The Overcrowded Earth', p. 60.
(7.21-22) after only a brief period of respiteif that is what the 120
years of v. 3 points to) is decreed, the grounds for it are certainly not
the over-population but the purely ethical grounds of the sin of the
'Sons of God', however that sin is understood precisely. The origin of
death in the 'Primaeval History' has of course already occurred, even
more evidently as a result of human wrongdoing. The mere multiplication of humankind, therefore, is no cause for catastrophe in Genesis 111 as it is in the Atrahasis epic;37 sheer numbers and the clamour of
teeming life are no threat to the cosmos of divine orderbut sin is.
Secondlyand this must be tentativeit is possible that the Hebrew
text of v. 3 contains a relic of the old idea of the clamour of humankind
being the immediate cause of the Flood. The unparalleled conjunction
D22O, usually translated 'because' or 'in that', is a notorious difficulty.38
Not only is "C? not attested in the Pentateuch as an abbreviation for ")$N,
and not only is the D3 difficult to make sense of, but the logic of the
divine sentence is hard to decipher. We would expect, as Westermann
observes, that the decree should be based on an act rather than on a
state of affairs. Is it too far-fetched an explanation to suggest that Q3CD
was earlier the preposition "2 with a noun cognate with the Assyrian
root Sagdmu 'to bellow, howl'?39 The text would then have read: 'My
spirit will not abide in humanity forever because of the clamour of
flesh'.40 If that was the case, it is clearly no longer the case, and the sentence, though not crystal-clear, is generally intelligible. It would be
strangely appropriate if the 'clamour' of the Mesopotamian myth
should have faded in the biblical text into a mere conjunction in a
divine speech.
The multiplication motif, along with that of the clamour of humankind, could have provided a rationale for the sending of the Flood.
Though the former motif survives, and the latter is possibly present in
disguise, neither of them functions significantly in the pericope. And
that is what is significant about these motifs in the context of the
37. Moran, 'Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood', p. 61, goes so far as
to say, 'Gen. 9, Iff. (be fruitful and multiply) looks like a conscious rejection of the
Atrahasis Epic'.
38. See e.g. Westermann, Genesis, p. 507.
39. W. von Soden, Akkadisches Handworterbuch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
1965-), I, pp. 112-13.1 am grateful to Mr A.R. Millard for pointing out to me this
possible connection.
40. Kin 'he', in the present text is admittedly unintelligible on this interpretation.
348
'Primaeval History': the fundamental sin-punishmentpattern41has

been stamped upon this doubtless ancient and variously recounted tale
of the 'sons of God'.
3. Relation to the Flood Narrative
Enough has been said to show that the 'Sons of God' pericope is well
anchored in its present position in the 'Primaeval History' by motif
connections with preceding and following material.42 One specific
point, however, needs to be dealt with separately in order to clarify the
connection between the pericope and the succeeding narrative of the
Flood. The question is whether the 120 years of 6.3 has a specific reference to the coming of the Flood. In other words, is the 120 year period
intended as the normal life-span of humans, or as a period of respite
before the Flood descends?
In favour of the view that 120 years represents the maximum span of
life, it may be argued first, negatively, that the figure 120 has no necessary or symbolic connection with a period of grace or respite,43 whereas, positively, there is some evidence that 120 years was considered the
ideal lifetime. Moses lives the full 120 years (Deut. 31.2; 34.7), while
Herodotus reports that the Ethiopians habitually lived to the age of
120.M In Egypt, 110 years was apparently regarded as the ideal span of
life;45 Joseph and Joshua, significantly, each live to 110 (Gen. 50.22;
41. Whether seen as a developing 'spread of sin' (as von Rad, Genesis, pp. 15253) or as simply a portrayal of the variety of sinfulness (so Westermann, Genesis,
p. 498).
42. As against, for example, Gunkel, Genesis, p. 59 (it had nothing to do with
the Flood originally, but was used by J to depict the antediluvian state of humankind); August Dillmann, Genesis Critically and Exegetically Expounded (trans.
Wm. B. Stevenson; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1897), I, pp. 230-31; S.R. Driver,
Genesis (London: Methuen, 12th edn, 1926), p. 82; Skinner, Genesis, p. 141;
Cassuto, Genesis, I, pp. 290-301.
43. I have not had access to the article of Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, 'Die Zahl
40 im Glauben, Brauch und Schrifttum der Semiten', Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Classe der Kdniglichen Sachsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (1909), mentioned by Kraeling, 'The Origin and Significance of Gen. 6:14', p. 201 n. 32, as containing evidence for the use of 40, which is 120 when
trebled, as a period of respite in Hebrew and other Semitic literatures.
44. Herodotus, Hist. 3.23; in Hist. 1.163 he mentions a ruler of Tartessus who
lived to 120.
45. Cf. Jozef Vergote, Joseph en Egypte: Genese Chap. 37-50, a la lumiere des
Jos. 24.29). Elsewhere in the Old Testament, it is true, 80 years is
regarded as a normal maximum lifetime (Ps. 90.10; cf. 2 Sam. 19.3435). It is true, moreover, that the ages of the post-diluvians are not
immediately reduced to 120 years;46 but that could be accounted for as
a mitigation of the penalty, just as the sentence 'in the day you eat of it
you shall surely die' (2.17) only slowly begins to take effect. Some
have indeed warned against imposing the Priestly system of decreasing
ages arbitrarily on the Yahwist account,47 while others have claimed to
find here polemic against the Babylonian tradition (and, one might have
thought, the Hebrew Priestly tradition) of primaeval kings who are said
to have lived extraordinarily long lives.48 In either case, we should ask
how the redactor of J and P reconciled to himself the J figure of 120
years with the P data of the life-spans of the post-diluviansunless
perhaps the redactor no longer saw the 120 years as a life-span. No
insuperable problem remains against the view that the 120 years is the
limitation or bounding of life-span as punishment in kind (so to speak)
of the bound-breaking by the sons of God.49
Nevertheless, it seems more probable that in the present setting the
threat of the withdrawal of the divine spirit refers to some event that is
about to occur. Since, if we assume that the 'spirit' (im) of Yahweh is
equivalent to his 'breath' (HQ^]) breathed into the man at his creation
(2.7),50 the Flood brings about the destruction of everything in whose
nostrils is 'the breath of the spirit of life' (D"n mTnDB?], 7.22), the
relation of the decree of 6.3 to the destruction of 7.22 appears to be that
of cause and effect. Of course, it may be argued that humankind is not
in fact entirely destroyed and that the spirit of Yahweh remains in
humanity even after the Flood; but it is an adequate rejoinder that 6.3 is
in the nature of a threat, and it is just as appropriate to speak of the
Flood as the destruction of humankind as to describe it as the salvation
etudes egyptologiqu.es recentes (Orientalia et Biblica Louvanensia, 3; Louvain:
Publications Universitaires, 1959), pp. 200-201.
46. Given by P, while 6.1-4 is (possibly) J; though cf. Martin Noth, A History of
Pentateuchal Traditions (trans. Bernhard W. Anderson; Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1972), p. 28 n. 83; Dexinger, Gotterersohne, pp. 56-57, reckons it
to P.
47. So Childs, Myth and Reality, p. 54.
48. Kraeling, 'Origin and Significance', p. 201.
49. So Westermann, Genesis, p. 508.
50. So already Dillmann, Genesis, I, p. 236. For parallels between FTP and rotf],
cf. Job 32.8; 33.4.
350
by God of the human race from total annihilation.51

Some further support for the view of the 120 years as a period of
respite comes again from the Atrahasis epic, where periods of 1200
years intervene between the catastrophes that are climaxed by the
Flood.52 The figures 120 and 1200 clearly originate from the Babylonian sexagesimal system,53 and it is therefore possible that the prehistory of this item in the biblical pericope points to its significance from
the beginning as a period of respite. The clinching argument seems to
me to be the existence of the Atrahasis epic as a unified sequence of
creation, multiplication of humankind, and Flood. Since the biblical
'Primaeval History' is built on the same pattern, it is plausible to regard
the 120 years as always having had the same kind of function as the
1200 years of the Atrahasis epic, viz. a period of remission or respite.54
If this admittedly somewhat distant parallel is not cogent enough, I
would fall back on the position of B.S. Childs: 'Regardless of what the
original meaning of the one hundred and twenty years was, in its present position one cannot help seeing some connexion with a period of
grace before the coming catastrophe'.55
51. The 'all' of 7.4, 21-22 is to be taken as seriously as the exceptions to the
all'in 7.1-2, 23b.
52. Twelve hundred years had not passed when...' (Atrahasis 1.352; Il.i.l;
Lambert and Millard, pp. 66-67, 72-73).
53. Cf. Millard, 'A New Babylonian "Genesis" Story', p. 13.
54. Millard, 'A New Babylonian "Genesis" Story', p. 12; W.G. Lambert, 'New
Light on the Babylonian Flood', JSS 5 (1960), pp. 113-23. Similarly Kraeling
argued that the pericope was designed from the beginning as the introduction to a
flood story ('The Origin and Significance of Gen. 6:1-4', p. 195).
55. Childs, Myth and Reality, p. 58.
18
THE FORCE OFTHETEXT:
A RESPONSETOTAMARA C. ESKENAZI'S
'EZRA-NEHEMIAH: FROM TEXT TO ACTUALITY'
1. The Written as Generator of the Actual

1.1. There can be no doubt that Tamara Eskenazi has made her principal case cogently, with enviable lucidity and force. Which is: in EzraNehemiah written documents are decisive for the flow of the narrative
and for the life of the community whose life is depicted by that narrative (1.6). Her paper is a focused literary reading of an unprepossessing text, which few would have thought a 'literary' text. She professes
herself surprised that Ezra-Nehemiah has not previously attracted this
kind of reading (2.1), but perhaps it is a surprise that is more justifiable after than before one has seen a demonstration of how valid such a
reading can be.
1.2. Eskenazi's view of the significance of the written as the generator
of the actual holds good for all the main sections of Ezra-Nehemiah.
1.21. In the opening sentences of the book, a written documentwhich
is not only referred to but brought within the narrative as it is quoted
is the authorization for all the action down to the end of Ezra 6. Within
this narrative of the building of the temple 'documents precipitate and
guide action' (7.42); what transpires in the narrative 'is essentially the
actualization of the written word' (7.43). In this section of EzraNehemiah the documents are mainly Persian decrees, but one other
foundational text is 'the law of Moses' (Ezra 3.2) which determines the
fashion of the building of the altar; this, be it noted, is the 'written' law,
and not an oral commandment.
Originally published in Signs and Wonders: Biblical Texts in Literary Focus (ed
J. Cheryl Exum; Semeia Studies; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), pp. 199-215, and
reprinted with the permission of Scholars Press.
352
1.211. 'Past and present documents work together' (7.51). I would

like as well to see in this observation about the function of documents a
hint of the interlacing of times: time prior to the point reached by the
narrative is being interwoven with the time of the narrative. We might
add that even, on occasion, time future to the narrative can be brought
into relation to the narrative through a document. Thus the letter of the
officials of Samaria (Ezra 4.8-16) is itself of a later date than the narrative context in which it is embedded, but at the same time manages to
refer back to memoranda of Babylonian kings written long before the
narrative of Ezra begins. So in its interlacing of times it can affirm that
Artaxerxes will find, from investigating the past history of Jerusalem,
that it is a rebellious city, and will, if he allows the past to have
influence on the present, properly protect his future (Ezra 4.15-16).
1.22. In the second section (Eskenazi: 'movement') of Ezra-Nehemiah
(Ezra 7-10), it is again texts that are determinative. The one is the book
of Torah that authorizes and empowers Ezra's functions as 'a scribe
skilled in the law of Moses' (Ezra 7.6). And the other is the firman of
Artaxerxes (Ezra 7.12-26) authorizing the imposition of the law of
Moses as the only law for Jews of the province and thus initiating the
whole flow of the narrative of the section.
1.221. I would observe a second interlacing here, between the two
texts. While the law of Moses recks nothing of Persians, the Persian
law's principal concern is that very law of Moses! 'Artaxerxes' letter
positions the law of Ezra's God as an authoritative document together
with the law of the king' (7.73). But it is more than that 'together
with'. Artaxerxes' authority is on the face of it the primary authority: it
is his letter that gets Ezra moving from Babylonia to Judah. But we
soon discover that his authority in reality does no more than make
space for the authority of the law of Ezra's God: it is not Artaxerxes'
law that will rule in Judah but 'the law of the God of heaven' (Ezra
7.21). Artaxerxes makes a law that it is someone else's law that must be
obeyed! The interlacing of the texts carries with it an irony both gentle
and grave.
1.23. The third section of Ezra-Nehemiah concerns the building activities of Nehemiah (Neh. 1-7). It is here not so evident that texts have an
initiative function, and perhaps Eskenazi's global claim (1.6; see 1.1
I S . The Force of the Text
353
above) needs to be modulated somewhat. Certainly, the section begins

and ends with references to texts: at 1.1 we are informed that we are to
embark upon a document, 'the words of Nehemiah'; at 7.5 we
encounter 'the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first',
reproduced in extenso in 7.6-73. A written text with a distinct
significance in advancing the action is met with at 2.7-8 where
Nehemiah receives 'letters' from the king to allow him safe passage to
Judah and to provide him with timber for his building operations in
Jerusalem. These are a kind of low-key parallel to Ezra's royal mandate, and if they do not exactly determine the sequel of the narrative,
they are certainly highly useful for it.
1.231. Here too there is an interlacing of texts. For the 'words' of
Nehemiah (1.1)which means to say, his 'chronicles' (iTQn] "HTl like
the DÔTT "H31)are not just the account of his deeds but include
within themselves a text from the past, from before his time (Neh. 7.5),
that dictates his course of action (Eskenazi: 'Previous generations
become partners in present events through the text', 7.9). The written
text is interlaced with the current events, and action on the basis of a
text becomes in its turn a text.
1.3. In the fourth section (Neh. 8-13) the authority of the written text is
'articulate[d] through a formal structure organized around documents'
(8.1). The book of the Torah, read aloud on three occasions (Neh. 8.112; 8.13-14; 9.3), becomes the directive of the people's actions. The
ultimate response to the reading of the text is the production of a new
text, the pledge of Nehemiah 10.
1.31. There is, I would say, a new kind of interlacing of texts here. In
two ways. First, the text is not only referred to (as it is in Ezra 4-5, for
example) but read aloud, not just read but read out (British English).
No doubt all reading in the ancient world was reading aloud, to some
extent, but here the text speaks explicitly of a public reading. The nearest we have come to this in Ezra-Nehemiah has been when a letter
from Artaxerxes is read 'before Rehum and Shimshai the scribe and
their associates' in Samaria (Ezra 4.23)which letter also incidentally
includes a report of a reading of the previous letter from the Samarians
in the presence of the king (4.18). These have been reading of correspondence to the persons to whom the letters have been addressed; it is
354
different here in Nehemiah where a text addressed to no one in particular, an undated, previously available, tradition, is read to an assembly
convened purposely in order to hear it read (Neh. 8.1-3). Text becomes
actuality through being read aloud.
1.32. Secondly, the effect of reading a text becomes the production of
another text. This is true, of course, of all the texts contained within
Ezra-Nehemiah: all the texts mentioned in these books end up in these
books, by name or in full. It is something more, though, when a text
within the narrative generates another text that will be within the narrative. The nearest we have come to this before has been when a letter
generates another letter in response, as when the letter of Rehum and
the Samarians (Ezra 4.11-16) generates the rescript of Artaxerxes
(4.17-22), or when the letter of Tattenai and the officials of the satrapy
Abar-nahara (5.7-17) explicitly calls for (5.17) and generates the
rescript of Darius (6.2-12). But these cases of response to a previously
existing text fall within a conventional and predictable pattern. It is
something different when in Nehemiah 10 (the pledge document) we
find an unsolicited, unpredictable writing responding to and generated
by the reading of the law in Nehemiah 8.1 Here then we have a step
beyond Eskenazi's 'text to actuality': the fuller pattern is 'text to actuality to text'. And, since text, the text of Ezra-Nehemiah, is the end
product of all the actuality, had we not better use that fuller formulation
not just for the particular production of the text of the pledge of
Nehemiah 10 but for the work as a whole?
1.4. The 'force' of the text is generally taken to be its meaning. Eskenazi's paper encourages us to think of it also as the effect a text has
upon realitywhich is, in another idiom, its meaning, since texts are
not just words upon the page.
2. One Narrative or Three?
2.1. A secondary contention of Eskenazi's paper seems to me less well
founded. It is that Ezra-Nehemiah as a whole forms a single narrative
1. Perhaps we should say that it is generated at second hand by the law-reading, for the prayer of Nehemiah 9 has intervened; the prayer is generated by the
law-reading and the pledge by the law-reading as it has led the people to a prayer of
confession.
18. The Force of the Text
355
whose parts are related to one another as the parts of a simple story.
She organizes the total content of Ezra-Nehemiah according to the
structural schema for narrative proposed by Claude Bremond: potentiality, actualization and success. Thus the first four verses of Ezra,
narrating the decree to the community to rebuild the house of God, is
potentiality (objective defined), the bulk of the entire work (Ezra 1.5Neh. 7.72) is actualization, and the last six chapters of Nehemiah (chs.
8-13) is success (objective reached) (4.1-4.2). Eskenazi sees in the
opening lines of Ezra the goal of the whole work Ezra-Nehemiah,
namely the building of the house of God (Ezra 1.3) (4.4), and she
finds in Ezra 6.13, narrating the completion of the building of that
temple, the 'linchpin' of the work as a whole.
2.2. I grant that we may reasonably look for the plot of the work as a
whole, this being a narrative work. But there is no reason why the plot
of the work should be divulged by the first statement of intent that we
encounter in the work. The fact that the book of Ezra opens with the
command of Cyrus to 'rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of
Israel' need not mean that we are now in touch with the theme of EzraNehemiah as a whole. The issue can only be settled by asking whether
the theme 'building of the house of the LORD' is germane to all the
material of Ezra-Nehemiah. Since the completion of the temple itself is
narrated as early as Ezra 6.14, Eskenazi is obliged to claim that the
'house of the LORD' is extended in meaning in Ezra-Nehemiah from
the temple to the city (1.4); she can thus entitle the central section of
the work as a whole (Ezra 1.5-Neh. 7.72) 'the community builds the
house of God according to decree' (4.2). But there is no textual warrant for supposing this transferred sense of 'house'.2 Everywhere in
Ezra-Nehemiah the 'house' is the temple, and the city is the city, and
the people are neither the house nor the city. If we were to argue that
the building of the wall was analogous to the building of the temple,
that would be a different matter. But then we would have two (or more)
analogous stories, not one overarching story.
2.3. There is indeed one text that Eskenazi can call in aid of her view
that 'Ezra-Nehemiah expands the concept of the house of God from
temple to city' (1.4). Ezra 6.14 says that 'they finished their building
2. 'House' sometimes of course means 'family', as in Ezra 2.36, 59; Neh. 1.6,
or someone's private house, as in Neh. 2.7; 3.10; etc.
356
by command of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius

and Artaxerxes king of Persia'. Since the completion of the temple is
here dated to the sixth year of Darius, which is 515 BCE, the reference
to Artaxerxes, who did not begin to reign until more than half a century
after the completion of the temple (his dates are 464-423 BCE), has
seemed out of place to. previous scholars. The usual explanation given
for this reference to Artaxerxes is that a glossator has had in mind the
service done to the temple in Jerusalem by Artaxerxes in the next chapter: in 7.15-22 he sends gifts of silver and gold and of temple vessels
for the maintenance of sacrifice there and promises future funds from
the income of the satrapy. This is not, of course, assistance with building the temple, so the gloss (if that is what it is3) is inappropriate. Its
status as a gloss is further confirmed, in the eyes of most, by its inclusion of the phrase 'the king of Persia'; since both Cyrus and Darius are
also equally kings of Persia, it is hard to believe that a single author
would have used the title for one, and denied it to the other two.
2.4. Eskenazi has an original explanation of the text. The singular form,
'king of Persia', she says, 'applies to all three kings as a single unit, as
if they spoke with one voice', and the singular 'decree' of the three
kings signifies their acting in unison. She concludes that 'actual completion' of the building of the house of God 'must await the execution
of the decree of Artaxerxes' (7.51).
2.41. However, the more natural interpretation of the singular word
translated 'decree' (Aram. D^Q with the variant orthography DPCD when
used of God's 'decree') in this context is that it means 'order,
command': the temple building is finished 'by order of the Persian
kings. There is no explicit reference here to the formal 'decrees' of the
Persians, any more than there is to any 'decree' of the God of Israel,
since in the narrative of the book God has not issued a 'decree' or anything like it. So there is nothing deeply meaningful about the singular
term DJ?B.
3. H.G.M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (WBC; Waco, TX: Word Books,

1985), pp. 83-84, thinks it not impossible that the original author used the phrase in
'anticipation of Artaxerxes' support for the temple and its services', but does not
explain how such an author could have understood the contribution of Artaxerxes
as part of the building of the temple.
357
2.42. And as against the inference that the presence of Artaxerxes'

name in the verse signifies the extension of the building of the house of
God into his reignand thus the extension of the significance of the
term 'house of God'we have to take with equal weight the statement
of the following verse (6.15) that 'this house was finished' on a particular day in the sixth year of Darius. The matter of fact reportorial language does not in my opinion admit of the subtlety that the 'house' was
both completed and incomplete.
2.43. There is perhaps a hidden assumption in Eskenazi's paper that a
'literary' reading of a text must work (? exclusively) with 'the final
form of the text', the text we are reading being the only text we have,
glosses and all. For myself, while I can see some merit in a principled
attempt to make sense of everything in the text, and in asking, for
example, what the effect of any presumed gloss may be on the work as
a whole, I cannot see the value in allowing mere scribal errors or simple
misapprehensions of a text that has already been effectively finalized to
be determinative of the overall structure and meaning of the work I am
considering. We have plenty of evidence for the corruption of the text
of Ezra-Nehemiah, especially in lists of proper names, so the assumption of a gloss is nothing extraordinary. If one insists on identifying the
Masoretic text, with its various undeniable faults, as the final form of
the text, I will ask whether there is not an even more final form of the
text that I should be concerned with, such as the RSVwhich is the
form in which the text has come down to me.
2.5. If Ezra 6.14 does not project the work on the 'house of God'
beyond the reign of Darius, then it becomes impossible to regard the
building of the house as the theme of Ezra-Nehemiah as a whole, as
Eskenazi argues. But her analysis of 'three different stories', each with
its own beginning, middle, and end still stands (7.2). The question that
remains is whether one can discern any other overall structure to the
books.
2.6. It is not too difficult to see that the restoration of the temple, the
city, and obedience to the law are the subject matter or the theme of
Ezra-Nehemiah. But this does not mean that this theme is realized in
one sweep of plot. Nor does it imply that the theme is ever explicitly
stated. The theme-element of restoration of the temple is very explicit
358
in the opening sentences of Ezra; the theme-element of restoration of

obedience to the law is presaged in the reference to Ezra as 'a scribe
skilled in the law of Moses which the LORD the God of Israel had
given' (7.6) and explicit in the king's authorization of Ezra's law (7.2526); the theme-element of restoration of the city is hinted at in the
report that 'Jerusalem is broken down' in the third verse of Nehemiah 1
and becomes explicit in Nehemiah's request to be sent to Jerusalem
'that I may rebuild it' (2.5). The different elements of the theme are
handled differently from a narrative point of view: the first element
comes to a conclusion in Ezra 6 before the other elements are embarked
upon, but the two other elements are somewhat interwoven. Thus the
theme-element of obedience to the law first becomes apparent in Ezra
7-10, and then in Nehemiah 8-10, and finally in Nehemiah 13, while
the theme-element of the restoration of the city is interwoven with it in
Nehemiah 1-7 and again in Nehemiah 11-12. An analysis of the shape
of the books of Ezra-Nehemiah as if they were one single and simple
story is therefore inappropriate.
3. The Pledge and the Reforms: Relative Priority
3.1.1 readily agree that Eskenazi has the better of me in her discussion
of the relative positions of Nehemiah 10 and Nehemiah 13 (8.528.85). For in my commentary4 I considered only the question of the
historical relationship of the events narrated in those two chapters, and I
failed to draw conclusions about the significance of their literary
placement. On the strictly historical issue, I still feel confident that the
pledge of Nehemiah 10 must have been a result of the provisional and
sometimes hasty reforms of Nehemiah in Nehemiah 13, and Eskenazi
does not dispute this view. But she rightly asks the further question: but
what does it mean that Nehemiah 10 precedes Nehemiah 13 in the text?
3.2. Her answer is that the present arrangement of the materials
'ascribes these forms to the community as a whole, making Nehemiah's
activities essentially the administering of communally ordained regulations' (8.85). The measures that Nehemiah 'energetically imposes' in
ch. 13 are 'obligations [that] have been assumed by the community in
the earlier pledge' of ch. 10 (8.82).
4. David J.[A.] Clines, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, and London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1984), pp. 199-200.
359
3.3. This is a good answer, and one that fits well with the evident stress
in Ezra-Nehemiah on the movement of authority from individual leaders to the community as a whole. It is not, however, the only answer
that can be given. Williamson, for example, believes that the presence
of ch. 13 derives from an editor sympathetic to Nehemiah's work, who
'felt obliged to include these additions to the [Nehemiah] memoir in
order to ensure that Nehemiah's contribution to the cultic reforms was
not overlooked; indeed, he gave them a certain prominence by concluding his work with them'.5 So does the focus in the end come to rest
upon Nehemiah or upon the people?
3.4. Whatever answer we are tempted to give is further complicated by
a textual item that Eskenazi refers to but does not make much of. It is
the chronological notation 'before this' ('DS'? HTQ) in Neh. 13.4. Obviously the narrative intends us to understand that these reforms of
Nehemiah took place before the activities of the 'ideal community'
narrated in 12.44-13.3. But how long before? Before the dedication of
the wall (12.27-43)? Before the resettlement of inhabitants of Jerusalem
(11.1-2)? Before the pledge-making (9.38-10.39)?
3.41. The chronological indicators throughout the book of Nehemiah
are in fact very tantalizing. The narrative begins in 'the twentieth year'
(1.1). We presume that is of Artaxerxes, noting that in 2.1 we are
explicitly in 'the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes'. But already we
are confused, because the events of ch. 2, which logically follow the
events of ch. 1, are dated to the first month of that year whereas the
events of ch. 1 were dated to the ninth month.6 The next chronological
indication we have is that Nehemiah will be governor of Judah from the
20th to the 32nd year of Artaxerxes (5.14), and the next dated event is
the finishing of the wall in the sixth month (Elul), no doubt of that same
20th year of Artaxerxes (6.15). Thereafter the seventh month arrives at
the beginning of ch. 8, and assemblies are held on the first, the second,
the eighth, and the twenty-fourth of that month (8.2, 13, 18; 9.1). The
'we' who are praying a penitential prayer in ch. 9 are evidently the
same people who are immediately thereafter and 'because of all this'
(9.38) signing their names to the pledge of ch. 10. The next event is the
5. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah, p. 383.
6. For further details, see Clines, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, pp. 136-37;
Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah, pp. 169-70.
360
repopulation of Jerusalem (11.1), how much later we do not know; but

it cannot be very much later because thereafter we are reading about the
dedication of the wall (12.27-43) which cannot have been long postponed after its completion. To our surprise, however, once the events of
'that day' (12.44; 13.1) have been dealt with (appointment of storehouse officials and exclusion of foreigners, 12.44 -13.3), we find the
narrative of a temple scandal that happened 'before this' (13.4). So
somewhere in the quite tightly organized sequence of the first 12 chapters of Nehemiah we must find space for the events of ch. 13. But that
is not the worst of it for the reader; for when we reach vv. 6-7 we discover that even though these events of ch. 13 belong chronologically
somewhere earlier in the book of Nehemiah, they comenot from the
20th year of Artaxerxes, which has been our framework hitherto, but
from some time after the 32nd (!) year of Artaxerxes. The narrative
loops back on itself with all the consistency of a drawing by Escher.
These events of ch. 13, from the 32nd year (at the earliest), have
nowhere to go.
3.42. One can easily think of several readerly ploys for neutralizing the
chronological disorder. For example, we might take refuge in a loose
interpretation of 'on that day' in 12.44 and 13.1, supposing it to mean
rather 'in that general period'; indeed, I have claimed myself that the
phrase 'that day' means 'the whole period from Zerubbabel to
Nehemiah' !7 The difficulty with that is that it produces no particular
event to which the 'before this' of 13.4 can refer, and the scandal at the
temple can hardly have taken place before the days of Zerubbabel.
Alternatively, we might suppose that since ch. 8 does not name the year
in which these assemblies of the seventh month were held we might at
that point have moved ahead to the 32nd year; in that case the lawreading, the prayer and the pledge would all have followed the ad hoc
responses of Nehemiah to abuses he found prevalent in the province on
his return from the royal court for his second tour of duty. The problem
here is that in that case the dedication of the wall would have been
delayed more than 12 years beyond the actual completion of the building, for no apparent reason.
3.43. In brief, there seems to be no really satisfactory way of resolving
the chronological intentions of the text. The reader is left with uncer7.
Clines, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, p. 234.
361
tainty about the relation of Nehemiah's reforms in ch. 13 to everything

else in the book. The one thing we know as readers of the book is that
the story the book sets out to relate (its sujef)didnotend with the
events of ch. 13; we know that they are before something else, even if
we do not know what they are before. The result of this uncertainty, as
far as it impinges on Eskenazi's essay, is that the reader cannot know
that 'Nehemiah's activities [are] essentially the administering of communally ordained regulations' (8.85). So in the end, the literary shape
of the book drives us in the same direction as our attempts at historical
reconstruction did; as a matter of historical fact, it is probable that
Nehemiah's reforms preceded the community's pledge, and the
chronology intrinsic to the book itself suggests the same thing.
3.5. I find that I have been operating in this discussion with a concept
of two readers, a casual and a curious one. Perhaps there is some technical nomenclature for them and their varying competences, but will it
be better just because it is Stanley Fish's or whoever's? The casual
reader may well think that what is narrated later happens later, that the
structure of Ezra-Nehemiah makes '[Nehemiah's] reforms appear to be
the result of that earlier [pledge] document' (8.85). The curious
reader, on the other hand, will worry about the little details of the text,
try to sort things out, attempt reconstructions of the sujetnarrated by
the fabulaof the text. Since there are likely to be more casual readers
than curious readers of any text, perhaps Eskenazi is in the end right, or
right enough, or mostly right, about the effect of the relationship of
Nehemiah 10 and Nehemiah 13. But it is not an effect on everyone, and
it is not an intrinsic property of the text.
4. Writing Not an Inevitably Good Thing
4.1. There is in Eskenazi's paper an unmistakable appreciation of, and
enthusiasm for, writing, prose-writing, and the influence of writing on
actuality. Ezra-Nehemiah is a book written 'in and for an age of prose',
which is not at all inferior to an age of poetry; rather, Ezra-Nehemiah
'sanctifies the prosaic, the concrete, and the common' (1.2). 'In its
own prosaic fashion, Ezra-Nehemiah has moved step by step to implement and actualize the vision of a holy people in a holy city... EzraNehemiah's quietistic way supersedes the dazzling splendor of the
Davidic monarchy, providing an enduring model, a way of life' (9.5).
362
The point is well taken and well made. My only question is whether
that is all that is to be said about writing in Ezra-Nehemiah.
4.2. My first observation concerns how we know Ezra-Nehemiah is
prose, and how we value it once we know it is prose. If prose is the
only medium we know, we do not know it is prose. M. Jourdain in
Moliere's Le Bourgeois gentilhomtne is astonished to find that he has
been speaking prose for forty years without realizing it (il y a plus de
quarante ans que je dis de la prose sans que j'en susse rien). Prose is
only definable by way of distinction from poetry. So the identity of
prose is parasitic on the existence of both modes, and poetry is necessary for the existence of prose. It is very interesting, but also almost
inevitable, that Eskenazi's valuation of the significance of prose should
stem from a poet's vision: it is the poet Adrienne Rich, and not some
prosaic Adrienne Rich, who can see the 'prose-bound, routine remembering' as a 'putting together, inch by inch the starry worlds. From all
the lost collections.' It is the poem that 'sanctifies the prosaic', just as it
is the poem that forms the epigraph to Eskenazi's paper. Things are not
half so exciting, and meanings are not half so profound, down among
'the dailiness of placing stone upon stone' (1.2); the prosaic know.s
nothing about itself, certainly nothing about how to 'sanctify' itself.
4.3. Secondly, much has been said in Eskenazi's paper about the
movement from text to actuality, but not so much, I think, about the
ways in which texts can restrain actuality. In Ezra 1-6, for example,
Eskenazi rightly observes that 'documents precipitate and guide the
action' (7.42), and that 'what transpires is essentially the actualization
of the written word' (7.43). But the action is quite often inaction. The
written not infrequently functions as an inhibitor of action, especially of
desirable and desired action. A mere scrap of text from a local official
can generate paperwork that will put hundreds of temple builders out of
work and prevent the execution even of the plans of God.
4.4. Thirdly, texts are not the only initiators of action; for sometimes
heroes, prophets even, prove more potent than texts, and even stimulate
action that runs contrary to texts. Thus in Ezra 5.1-2, after work on the
temple has been abandoned for nearly twenty years (all because of
hostile documents, it seems, at least if you are a casual reader of Ezra
4), what prompts the resumption of work is no document but the proph-
363
esying of Haggai and Zechariah and the 'arising' of Zerubbabel and

Jeshua. So 'text-free' is this phase of the temple building that even
when the Jews are invited to produce the documentary authority they
have for their building (5.3), they have no recourse to it, even though it
exists.
4.41. Even when it seems that it is 'the written text which carries
weight' (3.2), there are often other factors equally weighty. There can
be little doubt, for instance, that it is the edict of Cyrus that begins the
action of the books of Ezra-Nehemiah, but the edict does not stand by
itself. Quite apart from the fact that Cyrus would not be making his
proclamation at all without the Lord's 'stirring up' his spirit (Ezra 1.1),
the narrative insists that Cyrus's decree would have been a dead letter
without the further intervention of God: the only Jews who returned to
the land were those 'whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the
house of the LORD' (1.5). In the finishing of the building, likewise,
there is indeed the written 'decree' of Cyrus and Darius, but also the
unwritten 'decree' (never actually formulated as a decree) of the God of
Israel (6.14).
4.42. Or again, the impulse to rebuild the city walls comes not from
some imperial decree, but from the oral report of visitors from
Jerusalem (Neh. 1.1-3), which prompts Nehemiah not to write a memo
to the king, not even to approach him with a formal request, but simply
to wear a pained expression as he serves the king his wine (2.1-2).
Authorization for the rebuilding of the city does not cometo be
precisein the form of documents, and not even as explicit permission.
The way really important things are done by really important people is
the way it happens in Nehemiah: the courtier asks primarily for leave of
absence from the court, so that he can visit, with due filial piety, the
city of his fathers' sepulchres, and almost coincidentally rebuild the
city in his spare time. The king cares nothing about the cost, the logistics or the politics of rebuilding a city in an outlying province, and does
not even stop to inquire what may be the name of this derelict city; his
only concern is 'How long will you be gone, and when will you
return?' Everything is dealt with on a personal basis, the 'queen sitting
beside him' obviously being dragged into the narrative to emphasize
the cosy domesticityif not to drop the hint that it will be she rather
than he who most misses Nehemiah. Only after the real authorization
364
has been given do the scribes get busy with the paperwork, preparing a
passport for Nehemiahto ensure he is treated regally enough by each
of the provincial governors he encountersand requisition orders for
building timbers for the city. We are not really surprised to discover,
much later, that what was really happening in that innocent and sentimental exchange between Nehemiah and the king was that Nehemiah
was being appointed governor of the sub-province of Judah, where he
is still comfortably installed twelve years later, picking up the tab out of
his own pocket, to be sure, but plainly having the wherewithal to feed
150 retainers plus sundry visiting dignitaries (Neh. 5.14-18). If documents were what made Nehemiah's world go round, there would have
been a lot less high living at the governor's place in Jerusalem.
4.5. Fourthly, texts take longer to produce than actuality can sometimes
afford to waitor be bothered to. The Jews can blithely carry on with
their building for all the time it takes for 'a report [to] reach Darius and
then answer be returned by letter concerning it' (Neh. 5.5). And the
'open letter' of Sanballat charging Nehemiah with treason (6.5-7),
together with Tobiah' s poison pen letters sent to frighten Nehemiah off
his city wall building (Neh. 6.19), are texts that never need answering
and become totally inefficacious once the 52 days are up and Nehemiah's wall is completed. The daily placing of stone on stone continues
while the mail is on its way.
4.6. Fifthly, texts do not only precipitate action; they can also be true or
false, and their truth or falsity will always have some effect on the
reader, if not on the action. At one end of the scale of veracity are the
prophecy of Jeremiah (Ezra 1.1) and the authorizing decrees of the
Persian kings, of Cyrus in Ezra 1 or Artaxerxes in Ezra 8, for example.
At the other end of the scale is the (presumably) totally untrue letter of
the Persian governor of Samaria that Nehemiah's wall-building is the
first sign of a rebellion of the Jews and that Nehemiah has set up
prophets in Jerusalem to proclaim him king (Neh. 6.5-7). In between
are texts that contain both truth and falsehood, as with the letter of
Rehum and Shimshai to Artaxerxes (Ezra 4.8-16). This letter says, truly
enough, that Jerusalem is notorious in history as a rebellious city and
'that was why this city was laid waste' (4.15); but it also claims that 'if
this city is rebuilt and the walls finished, they will not pay tribute, custom, or toll, and the royal revenue will be impaired' (4.13).
365
4.61. The effect of this last letter on the action is the same whether it is
true or false: the king responds with a prohibition on further work on
the temple. The truth in it that can be tested, from search in the records,
lends verisimilitude to the falsity in it that cannot be tested. Readers, on
the other hand, unless perhaps they are Persian kings receiving the letter of Rehum and Shimshai, are not inclined to believe everything they
read. Even if they are disposed to believe everything the narrator tells
them, they begin to operate in a critical mode again when the narrator
quotes someone else, especially if the someone else is not a compatriot.
So readers tend to have a different relationship to texts within the text
than they have to the text. Texts within the text are open to the
hermeneutic of suspicion, even if the text as a whole is beyond suspicion. But this of course spells trouble for the text as a whole. For once a
space is opened for the hermeneutic of suspicion, who can tell where it
will stop? Can we be so sure, for example, that Sanballat's charge
against Nehemiah was totally without foundation?
4.7. Sixthly, living in a world where texts generate actions can seriously damage one's health. It seems perfectly reasonable to have a
written list of Pilgrim Fathers (as in Ezra 2), but in the end the existence
of such a list does almost as much harm to the people whose ancestors
are recorded there as to those who aren't (the reader is invited to
consider whether she would prefer to be, or not to be, a Daughter of the
American Revolution). But Ezra 2 authorizes us to consider the cruelty
of such lists from the standpoint of those excluded. Six hundred and
fifty-two heads of families 'could not prove' their genealogy (2.59-60),
and if that perhaps meant only that they could not prove it orally, Ezra
2 puts their incapacity into writing; it is tough when you have a text
against you. It is much worse for the priests, of course; for although
they desperately 'sought their registration among those enrolled in the
genealogies... they were not found there, and so they were excluded
from the priesthood as unclean'. Uncleanness is bad enough, but of
course exclusion from the priesthood means as well loss of a livelihood. Not surprisingly (since living by documents is something of a
Persian custom), it is the 'Governor' (NTOnn), a Persian official or else
a Jew acting as a Persian official, who spells out what that exclusion
means: they were 'not to partake of the most holy food' (2.63). From
the standpoint of the defrocked priests, the period of their exclusion,
'until there should be a priest to consult Urim and Thumrnim', must
366
have seemed pretty eschatological (where were Urim and Thummim

those days)?, and the Talmudic interpretation of the phrase would have
sounded exactly right: 'until the dead rise and the Messiah, the son of
David, comes' (b. Sotah 48b). To discover later in Ezra that one at least
of these excluded priestly families had indeed, despite the continuing
absence of Urim and Thummim, managed to prove its ancestry
(Meremoth ben Uriah of the Hakkoz family is a recognized priest in
8.33) makes things worse, not better. For it means that they were legitimate priests all along but had documents against them: first their
genealogical documents had gone missing, whereupon the document
incorporated in Ezra 2 had put that fact in writing.
4.71. Having the list of Pilgrim Fathers survive the best part of a century into the age of Nehemiah proves to be not an unmixed blessing for
those families whose names are enrolled in it. For while it may save
some time for Nehemiah to have a genealogical list available for his
census (Ezra 2 being reproduced in Neh. 7), what it will mean for those
mentioned in it is that one tenth of them will be compulsorily resettled
from their homes throughout Judea to the newly rebuilt Jerusalem.
While 'the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in
Jerusalem', as the euphemism had it for having oneself willy-nilly chosen by lot to repeople the city (11.2), we may be sure that the last thing
their families were thinking of was blessing them! Lists are usually
compiled for the benefit of the compiler rather than the people on them
(let the recipient of junk mail understand); being named in someone
else's document presages trouble.
4.72. It is true that having documentary authorization for what one is
doing can save a lot of difficulty. If one does not happen to like one's
neighbours, for example, one can always fend off their kindly offers of
assistance by pointing out that their names are not mentioned in one's
building permit. No doubt when Zerubbabel and Jeshua administered
their classic rebuff to the 'people of the land' everything was more
complicated than anyone was making out. But for them to say, 'You
have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone
will build to the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of
Persia has commanded us' (Ezra 4.3), is to take their stand on a textual
technicality and to sweep under the carpet an important human relations problem that was to keep recurring throughout the narrative of
367
Ezra-Nehemiah. Cyrus would not have been offended in the least, and
his will would not have been one whit threatened, if the people of the
land had co-operated in the temple building. But, with a document in
their hand, a royal document to boot (the repeated word 'king' shows
how they are thinking), the Jews fall to behaving like petty bureaucrats.
For the right people in the right place, and especially if the Lord is stirring people's spirits at the same time, a document can be a great energizing; but if one is at all a legalist a document one can wave at others
can destroy both creativity and civility. Could this perhaps be true of
larger documents also, like, let us suppose, Ezra-Nehemiah itself?
HISTORY
19
THE EVIDENCE FOR AN AUTUMNAL NEW YEAR IN PRE-EXILIC
ISRAEL RECONSIDERED
A much debated question in the study of the calendar in pre-exilic

Israel and Judah concerns the point at which the new year was reckoned
to begin. The prevailing scholarly opinion appears to be that expressed
in a typical encyclopaedia article: 'There is abundant indication that a
new year in the fall was standard during the monarchical period'.1
Within this general view there has been room for a number of varying
qualifications. Some have believed that at a time before the Judaean
exile the Assyrian and Babylonian spring calendar came into use in
Judah.2 Others have thought that it was only in Judah that autumnal
1. S.J. De Vries, 'Calendar', IDE, I, pp. 483-86 (484-85). So also, e.g., Julius
Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (trans. J. Sutherland
Black and Allan Menzies; Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1885; repr., Cleveland:
World, 1957), pp. 108-109; K. Marti, 'Year', Encylopaedia biblica (ed. T.K.
Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black; London: A. & C. Black, 1899-1903), IV, col.
5365; S. Mowinckel, 'Die Chronologic der israelitischen und jtidischen Konige',
AcOr 10 (1932), pp. 161-277 (174-76); and others mentioned in notes 2 and 3
below.
2. Opinions vary about the date of the introduction of the spring calendar into
Israel. They may be analysed as follows:
(i) In the eighth century: E. Kutsch, RGG^, I, p. 1812; followed by Hans-Joachim
Kraus, Worship in Israel: A Cultic History of the Old Testament (trans. Geoffrey
Buswell; Oxford: Blackwell, rev. edn, 1966), p. 45; similarly W.F. Albright, review
of Robert North, Sociology of the Biblical Jubilee (Analecta Biblica, 4; Rome:
Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1954), in Bib 37 (1956), pp. 488-90 (489); Alfred
Jepsen, 'Zur Chronologic der Konige von Israel und Juda', in Alfred Jepsen and
Robert Hanhart, Untersuchungen zur israelitisch-jiidischen Chronologic (BZAW,
88; Berlin: A. Topelmann, 1964), pp. 28, 37.
(ii) In the reign of Manasseh: K.T. Andersen, 'Die Chronologic der Konige von
Israel und Juda', 5723 (1969), pp. 69-114 (108-109); and V. Pavlovsty and
E. Vogt, 'Die Jahre der Konige von Juda und Israel', Bib 45 (1964), pp. 321-47
(346), who believe that spring reckoning was used in Judah also in the reigns of
372
reckoning was employed, whereas northern Israel adopted a spring year

at the time of the division of the Solomonic Kingdom.3 Only a handful
of scholars have dissented from the prevailing opinion and have maintained that in both Israel and Judah throughout the monarchy the year
was reckoned from the spring.4 It is the purpose of this paper to open
Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah (848-835 BCE) (p. 327), and was again introduced
in 604 BCE (see [vi] below).
(iii) In the reign of Josiah: M. Vogelstein, Biblical Chronology. I. The Chronology ofHezekiah and his Successors (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1944). He
believed that Hezekiah also had introduced a spring calendar, for which Manaessh
substituted an autumn calendar.
(iv) Before 620 BCE: Joachim Begrich, Die Chronologic der Konige von Israel
und Juda und Quellen des Rahmens der Konigsbiicher (BHT, 3; Tubingen: J.C.B.
Mohr, 1929), pp. 69-90.
(v) In the reign of Jehoiakim: Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (trans. John McHugh; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2nd edn, 1965),
p. 192.
(vi) In 604 BCE: E. Auerbach, 'Die babylonische Datierung im Pentateuch und
das Alter des Priester-Kodex', VT 2 (1952), pp. 334-42 (336); 'Der Wechsel des
Jahres-Anfangs in Juda im Lichte des neugefundenen babylonischen Chronik', VT
9 (1959), pp. 113-21; 'Die Umschaltung vom judaischen auf den babylonischen
Kalendar', VT 10 (1960), pp. 69-70; 'Wann eroberte Nebukadnezar Jerusalem?',
VT 11 (1961), pp. 128-36; followed by De Vries, 'Chronology of the OT', IDB, I,
pp. 580-99 (584-85); Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 202-203. So also Pavlovsk^ and Vogt, 'Die
Jahre der Konige von Juda und Israel', p. 346 (see [ii] above).
(vii) About 600 BCE: E. Konig, 'Kalendarfragen in althebraischen Schrifttum',
ZDMG 60 (1906), pp. 605-44.
3. So principally Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew
Kings: A Reconstruction of the Chronology of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 1965); largely followed by De Vries, 'Chronology of the OT', pp. 580-99; K.A. Kitchen, 'Chronology of the Old Testament', in
J.D. Douglas (ed.), New Bible Dictionary (London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship,
1962), pp. 212-23; S.H. Horn, The Babylonian Chronicle and the Ancient Calendar of the Kingdom of Judah', AUSS 5 (1967), pp. 12-27 (16); R.K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (London: Tyndale Press, 1970), pp. 181-92. Some
others, who postulate the adoption of a spring calendar in Judah late in the
monarchy, hold with Thiele that Israel followed a spring calendar; so Pavlovsky
and Vogt, and Vogelstein (see n. 2 above).
4. G.V. Schiaparelli, Astronomy in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1905), pp. 115-16; F.A. Herzog, Die Chronologie der beiden Konigsbiicher
(Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen, 1/5; Munster i.W.; Aschendorff, 1909), pp. 2933; E. Mahler, Handbuch der jiidischen Chronologie (Leipzig: Fock, 1916; repr.
19. Autumnal New Year in Pre-Exilic Israel
373
up the question again and to test the arguments that have been
advanced for the view that during the greater part of the monarchical
period the year began in the autumn.
1. Evidence for an Autumnal (Tishri) New Year
In setting out the evidence for an autumnal (Tishri) new year in preexilic times, we may leave aside the question whether the general custom of an autumnal beginning to the year was perhaps preceded by an
observance of a spring new year, as has been suggested by a few scholars.5 The main pieces of evidence for an autumnal new year are as
follows:
(1) The autumn festival of ingathering ('asip) is said in the oldest
liturgical calendars of Israel (Exod. 23.14-17; 34.18-23) to occur at the
'going out' (se'f) of the year (23.16) and the 'turn' (tequpd)of the year
(34.22). The implication is that the new year begins at this season.6
(2) The time of year when 'kings7 take the field', which is generally
agreed to be the spring, is called in 2 Sam. 11.1 // 1 Chron. 20.1 and in
1 Kgs 20.22, 26 te$ubat haSSand, 'the return of the year', that is, as
R. de Vaux puts it, 'the time when the year was half over, and beginning to return from winter to summer... This again presumes an
autumnal year.'8
(3) The sabbatical year and jubilee year began in the autumn (Exod.
23.10-11; Lev. 25.1-22).9
(4) The building of Solomon's temple is said (1 Kgs 6.38) to have
Hildesheim: Olms, 1967), pp. 210-20; Franz Xaver Kugler, Von Moses bis Paulus:
Forschungen zur Geschichte Israels (Minister i.W.: Aschendorff, 1922), pp. 13450; L.I. Pap, Das israelitische Neujahrsfest (Kampen: Kok, 1933), pp. 18-33.
5. Vogelstein, Biblical Chronology, pp. 17, 31 n. 99; W.F. Albright, 'The
Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel', BASOR 100 (1945), pp. 16-22 (20
n. 13); review in Bib 37 (1956), p. 489 (see n. 2 [i] above); D.N. Freedman, 'Old
Testament Chronology', in G. Ernest Wright (ed.), The Bible and the Ancient Near
East (London: Routlege & Kegan Paul, 1961), pp. 203-14; De Vries, 'Chronology
of the OT, p. 484.
6. 'These definitions of the oldest legislation are so clear and distinct as to
make further proof unnecessary' (Marti, 'Year', p. 5365)
7. Reading, with most moderns, Qere (mlakim) for Kethib(mlkyni).
8. De Vaux, Ancient Israel, p. 190; similarly Begrich, Chronologie, p. 88.
9. The argument is used, for example, by De Vries, 'Chronology of the OT',
p. 484.
374
taken seven years, but it is also said to have begun in the second month
(Ziv) of the fourth year of Solomon (6.1, 37) and been completed in the
eighth month (Bui) of the eleventh year of Solomon. If it is agreed that
'reckoning was according to the inclusive system, whereby the first and
last units or fractions of units of a group were included as full units in
the total of the group',10 then an autumn new year reckoning must have
been in force. For on a spring (Nisan to Nisan) system the building of
the temple would have taken eight years; only on an autumn (Tishri to
Tishri) system could it be reckoned as occupying seven years.
(5) In 2 Kings 22-23, the account of the reforms of Josiah, the discovery of the law book that precipitated those reforms is dated to the
'the eighteenth year of King Josiah' (22.3), while the passover that
concludes the account is also said to have been celebrated 'in the eighteenth year of King Josiah' (23.23). If the year began in the spring (on
the first of the month, I.I), there is not enough time available before the
date of the passover (the fourteenth of the first month, 14.1) to contain
all the events that are said to have occurred between 22.3 and 23.23.u
Only an autumnal new year reckoning allows sufficient time between
the finding of the book and the celebration of the passover for the
events of Josiah's reform.12
(6) In Jer. 36.1 Jeremiah is commanded, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, to write his prophecies in a scroll. When he has done so, he orders
Baruch to read the scroll in the temple on a feast day, which Baruch
does in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, in the ninth month (36.9), which is
plainly a winter month since the king is sitting by his brazier (36.22).
The narrative reads as if all these events occurred within the space of a
few months, if not weeks; and this could be the case if we suppose an
autumnal new year. The sequence of events could be: late in Jehoiakim's fourth year, say in September, Jeremiah is bidden to write his
scroll, and Baruch gives a public reading in December (Kislev, the
ninth month) of the fifth year. This would seem a more likely course of
events than that which would have occurred if a spring new year system
were in use; such a system would imply that a period of nine months at
least, or 21 months at the most, intervened between the writing and the
10. Thiele, Mysterious Numbers, p. 28 (see pp. 28-29 for the full argument).
11. For example, Auerbach ('Wechsel des Jahres-Anfangs', pp. 117-18) catalogues ten such events.
12. This argument is advanced, for example, by Wellhausen, Prolegomena,
p. 108; Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, p. 203.
375
reading of the scroll. For on a spring new year reckoning the scroll
must have been written before the spring of the year, and not read until
the following winter.13
Further support for the postulate of a Tishri new year reckoning in
this instance is that one can offer an explanation why Jeremiah was
constrained to write his prophecies in a scroll rather than deliver them
orally. 'The Babylonian army's departure from Babylon in May/June
604 B.C., throws the kings of southern Palestine into a panic. Jeremiah,
being considered a subversive...is forbidden to go the temple, i.e., to
speak in public.'14
(7) Even after the exile, it appears that Nehemiah reckoned the reign
of Artaxerxes I on the basis of an autumnal new year. For while news
of the destruction of Jerusalem's wall reached him 'in the month Kislev
in the twentieth year' (Neh. 1.1), i.e. in the ninth month, reckoning
from the spring, his resultant distress was noticed by the king 'in the
month Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes' (2.1), i.e. in the
first month of a year beginning in spring. Only if Nehemiah was using
an autumn to autumn reckoning could Kislev preceede Nisan in the
same year. Since it is agreed that the regular Persian and Jewish practice of this time was to reckon from a spring new year, Nehemiah's
system can be explained only as a reversion to an older Hebrew custom.15
(8) The instruction in the P source that Abib (= Nisan) in the spring is
to be the first month of the year (Exod. 12.2) is evidence that it had not
always been so. 'The announcement in this form and in this place
makes sense only if it was to replace an earlier and different counting
of the months and beginning of the year.'16
(9) A number of reconstructions of the chronology of the monarchic
period rest on the assumption that for some periods in Israel or Judah
the regnal or civil year began in the autumn, on Tishri 1. So, for exam13. For the argument, see J. Morgenstern, The New Year for Kings', Occident
and Orient (Caster Anniversary Volume; ed. Bruno Schindler; London: Taylor's
Foreign Press, 1936), pp. 439-56.
14. K.S. Freedy and D.B. Redford, 'The Dates in Ezekiel in Relation to Biblical, Babylonian and Egyptian Sources', JAOS 90 (1970), pp. 462-85.
15. This argument is put forward, for example, by Thiele, Mysterious Numbers,
p. 30.
16. H. Kosmala, VT 14 (1964), pp. 505-506; cf. Martin Noth, Exodus: A Commentary (London: SCM Press, 1962), p. 94.
376
pie, the system of E.R. Thiele depends entirely upon the presupposition
that regnal years in Judah were reckoned from Tishri to Tishri (though
in Israel a Nisan to Nisan system was used). While Thiele mentions
some of the arguments in favour of an autumnal new year outlined
above, he claims that 'perhaps the strongest argument for the use of a
Tishri-to-Tishri regnal year in Judah is that this method works, giving
us a harmonious pattern of the regnal years and synchronisms, while
with a Nisan-to-Nisan regnal year the old discrepancies would be
retained'.17
(10) A final argument, from extra-biblical evidence, is that the Gezer
calendar, dating from the period of the early monarchy, attests a year
beginning in the autumn. Israel is likely to have adopted the usual
Palestinian calendar, it is argued.18
2. Arguments against an Autumnal (Tishri) New Year
Against these arguments the following objections may be raised:
Ad (1) It is first necessary to affirm, with E. Kutsch in a recent
study,19 that bese't haSSand (Exod. 23.16) must mean 'at the end of the
year,' and not, as several have tried to prove, 'at the beginning of the
17. Thiele, Mysterious Numbers, p. 20. Thiele's view was partially anticipated
by Vogelstein (Biblical Chronology), who postulated a Nisan new year in Israel
and variation between Nisan and Tishri new years in Judah.
18. I leave aside the argument that used to be advanced in favour of an autumnal new year (see, e.g., Marti, 'Year', p. 5365; e contra, Pap, Das israelitische
Neujahrsfest,pp. 27-29), that only a Tishri reckoning in Judah can allow the reference in Jeremiah to the battle of Carchemish (46.2) to be synchronized with the first
year of Jehoiakim (25.1). For it is plain since the publication of the neo-Babylonian
chronicles that the evidence is prima facie in favour of a Nisan reckoning. The battle occurred, according the Chronicle, before the death of Nabopolassar on Ab 8,
which can be synchronized with Jehoiakim's fourth year only on a Nisan basis. For
further details, see my article, 'Regnal Year Reckoning in the Last Years of the
Kingdom of Judah', in Essays in Honour of E.C.B. MacLaurin (ed. A.D. Crown
and E. Stockton; Sydney: Devonshire Press, 1973 [=AJBA 2 (1972), pp. 9-34 (2829)]) (reprinted in ths volume).
19. E. Kutsch, '"...am Ende des Jahres." Zur Datierung des israelitischen
Herbstfestes in Ex 23, 16', ZAW 83 (1971), pp. 15-21. So already KOnig,
'Kalendarfragen', p. 624 n. 3; Norman H. Snaith, The Jewish New Year Festival
(London: SPCK, 1947), pp. 58-61; Aubrey R. Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient
Israel (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2nd edn, 1967), p. 56 n. 4.
377
year'.20 For the fact that yasa' can refer to the appearance of the sun or
the stars (e.g. Gen. 19.23; Neh. 4.15 [Eng. 21]), and thus to the beginning of the day or the night, proves nothing about the meaning of the
verb itself but only shows that the Israelites envisaged the appearance
of the heavenly bodies as an exit from their 'house'. The correlative to
yasa', 'to go out, appear,' is bo', 'to come in, disappear', and the conception is obviously patterned on the familiar daily routine of work.
The idea of the yasa' of the year is quite different; in this connection
yasa' means 'to go out and away'. The correlative of yasa' in this context is not bo' but Sub, for we find corresponding to the yasa' of the year
in the autumn the t'Subat of the year in the spring (see below, ad 2).
But the important question is whether 'at the end of the year' must
mean 'at the end of the calendar year'.21 The festivals are in these passages plainly regulated by the agricultural seasons, not by the lunisolar
calendar,22 so it is a natural supposition that it is the end of the agricultural year that is meant. E. Mahler has with justice observed that the
final words of Exod. 23.16 bf'ospekd'et-ma"*seka min-hass'adeh, 'when
you gather in your produce from the field,' clearly refer to the agricultural year:23 the year is the year of sowing, harvest, and gathering in.24
20. W. Riedel, 'Miscellen. 6:TOEintlKlO', ZAW20 (1900), pp. 329-32; George
Buchanan Gray, Sacrifice in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925),
pp. 300-301; Begrich, Chronologic, pp. 80-81; Sigmund Mowinckel, Zum israelitischen Neujahr and zur Deutung der Thronbesteigungspsalmen(Oslo: Dybwad,
1952), pp. 12-14; Psalms in Israel's Worship, I, pp. 233-34; de Vaux, Ancient
Israel, p. 190; Kraus, Worship in Israel, p. 17 n. 2.
21. So A. Dillmann, 'Uber das Kalendarwesen der Israeliten vor dem babylonischen Exil', Monatsberichte der koniglich-preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1882), pp. 914-35.
22. With the one exception that the month Abib appears in these lists, on which
see below, section III.
23. Mahler, Handbuch der jiidischen Chronologie, pp. 211-12; similarly Pap,
Das israelitische Neujahrsfest, p. 21.
24. It is open to question whether the beginning of a new agricultural year was
thought to succeed immediately the 'going out' of the old year. According to
Johannes Pedersen, 'When the last harvest is completed, and life dies away, then
the year "runs out" (Exod 23,16). But it only revives in spring time, when life once
more begins its growth. That time is called "the return of the year" (2 Sam 11,1; 1
Kgs 20,22.26). How the old Israelites looked upon the interval, we do not know.
They presumably considered it a dead time, seeing that the old year slumbered
before the new year was born' (Israel: Its Life and Culture [London: Oxford University Press, 1926], I-II, pp. 489-90). Even though ideas of the death and rebirth of
378
There is nothing implausible in postulating two or more systems of

years (cf. our fiscal year, academic year, calendar year),25 and since it is
clear that the 'end of the year' referred to in the 'festival calendars'
indicates the agricultural years of the seasons, there is no good reason
for claiming that Exod. 23.16 refers to a calendar year ending in the
autumn.
Even clearer is the evidence of the term tequpd, the 'turn' of the year,
in Exod. 34.22. What is referred to here is a point in the course of the
seasonal year, and not a point in a calendaric system. True, 'we must
not introduce into those ancient texts the notion of solstice and equinox
which later Judaism gave to fqupff,26 but that meaning is not a totally
new signification; it is only a closer definition of a term that in biblical
Hebrew meant 'turning point' ,27 This sense of fqupa is well illustrated
by Ps. 19.7, though the context has nothing to do with the calendar:
miqseh hasSdmayim mosa'd I ufqupato 'al-qesotam, 'at (one) end of the
sky is his exit / and his turning point is at its (other) end'. What is 'a/28
the western horizon is not the circuit of the sun but the furthest point it
reaches in its circuit, the turning point at which it begins its (subterranean) return to the east.29 Sir. 43.7 contains another occurrence of
t'qupd. Though the verse is obscure, tequpd appears to refer to a point
in the cycle of the moon's waxing and waning: whpsw '..h btqptw, 'and
it wanes at its turning point', LXX ^coarfip u^totiuevoi; em auvteXeia^
the year would be more at home in northern European folk culture, Pedersen is
surely correct in attempting to attribute some significance to the terminology of
autumn 'departure' and spring 'return' of the year. Further, is it not significant that
the festal calendars begin with the spring festival?
25. And clearly at some periods of Israelite-Jewish history, e.g. in the postexilic
community, a spring new year was observed alongside these festal 'calendars'.
Begrich's objections to the distinction between calendar year and agricultural year
(Chronologic, pp. 77-79) are unconvincing because he does not see that the distinction postulated is between a system of counting months and a system of enumerating the seasons.
26. De Vaux, Ancient Israel, p. 190. De Vaux does not hesitate, however, to
define the t'Subat haSMndas the spring equinox.
27. So too Vogelstein, Biblical Chronology, p. 21. It is not the 'revolution' of
the year, much less 'the end of this revolution' (de Vaux, Ancient Israel, p. 190).
28. Not 'ad (as 18 MSS and the LXX have it [Biblia hebraica (ed. R. Kittel;
Stuttgart: Priviligierte Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1937), p. 990]).
29. Cf. Begrich, Chronologic, p. 80 n. 4.
30. Presumably from hps II, 'bend down' (BOB, p. 343b), and not from hps I,
'delight in' (as R.H. Charles, APOT, I, p. 475) has it.
379
'a light waning at its completion'. The tequpd of the moon would seem
to either parallel to or the opposite of the moon's change bhStnwtw in v.
8. Thus we may take the fqupa of the year in Exod. 34.22 as the
turning point in a seasonal sense, the time of transition from summer to
winter.
Another passage where the tequpdof the year possibly refers to the
turning from summer to winter31 is 1 Sam. 1.19-21. The MT has it that
after returning from his pilgrimage to Shiloh, 'Elkanah knew Hannah
his wife, and Yahweh remembered her, and it came to pass lit'qupat
hayyamim that Hannah conceived and bore a son'. Several scholars
have suggested that the phrase way'hi lifqupat hayyamim is textually
misplaced32 and should be removed to the beginning of v. 21 as a
marker of the time of Elkanah's visit to Shiloh for the harvest festival.
The tequpat^ hayyamim would thus be equivalent to the fqupat
haSSand of Exod. 34.22. A similar conclusion is reached by deleting
wattahar hannd from v. 20;34 it is the birth of the child that is then said
to occur 'at the turn of the year', twelve months after Hannah's prayer
and shortly before Elkanah's second pilgrimage to Shiloh (v. 21). In
either case the use of tequpd is linked with the timing of the festival,
which is based upon the agricultural year; so the passage has no relevance to the question of the beginning of the calendar year.
Before leaving 1 Sam. 1.19-21, it may be worth considering the possibility that tequpat hayyamim is not equivalent to tequpat haSSdnd and
simply means 'the turn of the days', i.e. the midsummer solstice, when
the days start getting shorter. If this is so, the story gains in vividness,
for it means that the hitherto barren Hannah conceived her child immediately after her return from Shiloh and gave birth to him just nine
months later.35 While an accurate fixing of the date of the solstice
31. 'There are no spring and autumn seasons, properly speaking, but merely
transitional periods. The "former and the latter rain" [viz. October-November;
April-early May] are the first and last showers of the rainy season of winter'
(R.B.Y. Scott, 'Palestine, Climate of, IDB, II, pp. 621-26).
32. So Biblia hebraica (ed. R. Kittel), p. 406.
33. Most adopt the reading of 6 MSS (t'qupai) instead of the usual fqupot of the
MT.
34. So, e.g., Karl Budde, Die Biicher Samuel (KHAT, 8; Tubingen: J.C.B.
Mohr, 1902), p. 10.
35. This suggestion implies that we should either delete wattahar hannd from
v. 20 or transpose the phrase to the end of v. 19 (so S.R. Driver, Notes on the
Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel [Oxford: Clarendon
380
demands some fairly sophisticated observations that were perhaps not

possible in ancient Israel, all that is required for this interpretation is the
assumption that the lengthening and shortening of the days was a phenomenon known in pre-exilic Israel. If this explanation is correct, the
passage has even less to do with questions concerning the calendar than
in other interpretations.
A final passage where the tequpat ha$$and seems clearly to refer to a
seasonal turning-point is 2 Chron. 24.23, where, however, it is a question not of the transition from summer to winter but from winter to
summer. Here we read that litequpat haSSdndthe army of the Syrians
came up against Joash; almost all agree that the time of year in question
must be the spring,36 since that is the season for the commencement of
military campagins (2 Sam. 11.1 = 1 Chron. 20.1; 1 Kgs 20.22, 26).37
This reference to the tequpd of the year in the spring has often been
explained as a reflection of the Nisan calendar system in use in the time
of the Chronicler;38 tequpd is understood as referring to the beginning of
the calendar year. But it is more natural to understand tequpat Havana
in reference to the seasonal year, for military campaigns were not
mounted according to the calendar date but according to the season. It
was when the year 'turned' or changed after the spring rains from the
wet season to the dry that armies set forth; and it is this transition, not
a change of calendar date, that is referred to also by the term te$ubd
Press, 2nd edn, 1913], p. 16; Begrich, Chronologic, pp. 79-80; similarly the LXX,
which omits hannd.
36. So, e.g., Wilhelm Rudolph, Chronikbucher (HAT, 1.21; Tubingen: J.C.B.
Mohr, 1955), p. 276; Jacob M. Myers, II Chronicles (AB, 13; Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1965), p. 136.
37. 'Almost all the Assyrian campaigns whose dates are known with precision
began between April and June' (de Vaux, Ancient Israel, p. 251). In Neo-Babylonian times, however, campaigns could be continued into the autumn and winter (cf.
D.J. Wiseman, Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626-556 B.C.) [London: British
Museum, 1958], p. 95), and there are some examples of campaigns beginning in the
winter (cf. M. Noth, 'Die Einnahme von Jerusalem im Jahre 597 v. Chr.', ZDPV14
[1958], pp. 133-57 [= Aufsatze zur biblischen Landes- und Altertumskunde
(Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1971), I, pp. 111-32]). J. Lewy claimed
that the custom of beginning campaigns in the spring left its mark in the Assyrian
names of two of the spring months: sib'im and nisani mean respectively 'month of
numbering of the host' and 'month of the standard' ('The Assyrian Calendar', ArOr
11 [1939], p. 39).
38. So Rudolph, Chronikbucher, p. 276; he follows Begrich, Chronologic, pp.
79-81, 156-58.
381
(1 Sam. 11.1). Nevertheless, if this interpretation of 2 Chron. 24.23 is

not accepted, and it is still maintained that the reference is to the
calendar year, this passage is no evidence that the fqupal haSSdnd in
Exod. 34.22 must also refer to a calendar year.
It may be concluded that reference to the 'end' (se'f) or the 'turn'
(tequpd)of the year in the autumn invariably have to do with the cycle
of the agricultural year or of the festival calendar insofar as it is based
on the agricultural seasons, and therefore they are irrelevant to the
question of the beginning of the calendar year of months.
Ad (2) The t'subat haSsdnd is generally accepted without question as
being in the spring of the year, on the basis of the references to the
beginning of military campaigns at that time. N.H. Snaith, however, has
dissented from this view, arguing that in Palestine 'no war could possibly begin before the harvest was complete' in the autumn and that the
'return of the year' must mean the late summer.39 But the references he
cites (Judg. 6.4, 11; 1 Sam. 23.1), which refer to forays of Midianites
and Philistines at harvest time, are no evidence for the time of year at
which military expeditions could begin.40 Against his argument that a
peasant economy would make warfare impossible before the completion of the harvest, it could well be argued that the round of the agricultural year would make it equally impossible before the completion of
sowing in January/February (cf. the Gezer calendar: 'two months are
planting, two months are late planting'). In fact, the dating of the
teMbat haSSdnd in the spring, at least in the Chronicler's usage, has
been put beyond reasonable doubt by the synchronism between 2
Chron. 36.10 and the Babylonian Chronicle: the biblical text records
the taking of Jehoiachin to Babylon lit'Subat haSSand, and the Babylonian text dates the appointment of the new king Zedekiah at the beginning of Adar, the month preceding Nisan,41 thus clearly in the spring.42
39. Snaith, Jewish New Year Festival, pp. 32-36. J. Mauchline (7 and 2 Samuel
[NCB; London: Oliphants, 1971], p. 48) also takes 'the return of the year' as the
autumn, but inconsistently with his comment on 2 Sam. 11.1 (p. 247), where he
correlates it with the spring.
40. See also Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel, p. 56 n. 5.
41. See Wiseman, Chronicles ofChaldaean Kings, pp. 48, 72-73.
42. So t'subat hasSand cannot mean the midpoint of the calendar year (as, e.g.,
Begrich [Chronologic, p. 88] thought), since the Chronicler both reckoned the year
from the spring in the Babylonian-Persian manner and referred to the spring as
t'subat haSMnd. Begrich attempted to avoid this criticism by suggesting that t'subat
382
If te$ubat Havana has anything to do with the calendar, it is just as

natural to presume that it refers to the beginning of a new year as to the
midpoint of the calendar year.43 But in fact, as de Vaux's definition
already implies, the 'return of the year' is a description of seasonal
change, and therefore concerns an agricultural year rather than a calendar year.
Ad (3) The sabbatical and jubilee years are also agricultural years and
not calendar years of months and days. Naturally they begin after the
harvest of the old year has been gathered in, but nothing is thereby
implied about the beginning of the calendar year. In the priestly legislation, in fact, the beginning of the sabbatical year does not coincide
with the beginning of a postulated autumn new year, but falls on the
tenth day of Tishri (Lev. 25.9), not on the first. It should also be observed that the sabbatical year is attested after the exile in a period
when a spring new year was in force (Neh. 10.32 [Eng. 31]), thus
confirming that no inferences about the beginning of the calendar year
can be made from the date of the commencement of the sabbatical year.
Ad (4) This seems at first a very strong argument for autumnal new
year reckoning. But its assumptions need to be examined.
First, it may be doubted whether the inclusive system of reckoning,
however normal for single figures,44 is being employed here. It is crucial in this case that the figure 7 in 1 Kgs 6.38 forms part of a total:45
according to 9.10, by the end of 20 years (half his reign, 11.42)
Solomon had built the two houses, the temple and the palace, spending
seven years on the temple (6.38), and thirteen on the palace (7.1). Now
inclusive 7 + inclusive 13 make (inclusive) 19; only exclusive 7 +
haSSand had become by the Chronicler's time a technical term for the season of the
year. But if it were such in the Chronicler's time, it may well have been so also in
earlier times.
43. So Schiaparelli (Astronomy in the Old Testament, p. 116) argued from
2 Sam. 11.1 that a change to a spring new year must have occurred in the time of
Solomon.
44. See Thiele (Mysterious Numbers, p. 28 n. 12) for examples.
45. Totals must be reckoned exclusively; so, for example, for regnal years,
whether on the accession- or non-accession-year system. A similar example is provided in French: 'Quinze jours' is a fortnight, but 'trois quinzaines' is not 45 days;
the single figure may be reckoned inclusively, but a total has to be reckoned exclusively.
383
exclusive 13 make (exclusive) 20. It does not matter, at this point,

whether or not the figures are authentic; what is being suggested is that
the author responsible for employing them was using an exclusive system of reckoning.
Secondly, are the figures authentic? Here it is reasonable to distinguish between two series of figures. Series A contains the items: 'in the
fourth year, in the month (yerah) Ziv'; 'in the eleventh year, in the
month (yerah)Bui'. 46Series B contains the items: seven years in
building the temple; thirteen years in building the palace; twenty years
in building both; forty years' reign. Now series A dates are, assuming
there are no scribal errors, as authentic as anything in the Solomon narratives: they are the only dates given for events of Solomon's reign,47
and they presumably derive from temple archives; they also employ the
old Canaanite nomenclature.48 Series B dates, on the other hand, are
quite clearly stylized and symbolic: Solomon reigns a round forty
years, half of which are spent in building; in those twenty years he
spends twice as much time on his own house as on Yahweh's,49 and the
temple is built in the suitably sacred period of seven years. In other
words, the 'seven years' of 6.38 are not to be traced to a temple archive
document reckoning up the years of temple building, but are to be
attributed to the deviser of the schematic Solomonic chronology.
A further ground for the separation of the seven-year figure from the
regnal year dates of series A is the awkwardness of the last clause of
46. One should eliminate hu' hahodeS hasSeni from 6.1 and hu' hahodeS
haWmirii from 6.38 as a glossator's additions, though their presence does not affect
the argument. The proposal in Kittel's Biblia hebraica (p. 513) to remove hodeS
ziw hu' from 6.1 rests on a misreporting of the LXX evidence and is in itself implausible.
47. We should also include in this series the festival in Ethanim (8.2), though
the regnal year is not explicitly mentioned at that point.
48. 'The rare archaic names for the months are evidence of the originality of the
document' (James A. Montgomery and Henry Snyder Gehman, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Kings [ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1951], p. 144).
49. Other hints of a negative attitude to Solomon in the Solomonic narratives
may be seen in the narratives about the means by which he gains the throne (1 Kgs
1), and of the adversaries brought against him because of his worship of foreign
gods (1 Kgs 11). See also L. Delekat, 'Tendenz und Theologie der David-SolomoErzahlung', Das feme and nahe Wort: Festschrift Leonhard Rost (BZAW, 105;
Berlin: A. Topelmann, 1967), pp. 23-26.
384
6.38, wayyibnehu Seba' Sanim, where the implied subject (Solomon) is

not the subject of the preceding verb, and where a strict construction of
the waw consecutive puts the building (wayyibnehu) after the completing (kala);50 also, the clause is missing in the LXX, though that does not
prove a great deal. It is indeed likely that the figure of seven years was
derived from the regnal year dates of 6.38a; but it is suggested here that
the reason why the chronologer reckoned seven rather than eight years
for the temple building has nothing to with a Tishri new year system,
but is due to the significance of the number seven. The figure of thirteen years for the building of the palace is not apparently derived from
any written source, but is simply the result of subtraction of seven from
twenty.51
In conclusion, it may be said that the two assumptions of this argument, that an inclusive system of reckoning is employed, and that the
figure of seven years for the building of the temple is an independent
piece of evidence and not the result of some stylized reckoning, are
both shown to be ill founded. A Tishri new year reckoning is not ruled
out, but it is not positively confirmed by the evidence.52
50. It can hardly be maintained that wayyibnehu is a pluperfect; see the discussion in S.R. Driver (A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew [Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2nd edn, 1881], pp. 102-107), where the use of the imperfect with
waw consecutive to express a pluperfect sense is shown to be 'certainly not the
usual idiom chosen by Hebrew writers', and in fact to be probably non-existitent.
51. So also Martin Noth, Konige (BKAT, 9.1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener
Verlag, 1968), p. 134.
52. A Nisan new year reckoning is perhaps marginally to be preferred. For it
appears that the temple building is said to have taken, on a Nisan reckoning, seven
years and five months, which can easily be rounded down to seven years, but on a
Tishri reckoning six years and five months, which can hardly be rounded up to
seven years (inclusive reckoning is not being used, it has been argued above). The
five months surplus over the number of full years is accounted for by understanding
the month of its 'completion', the eighth month (1 Kgs 6.38) to be the month when
no work remained to be done. Similarly in Gen. 2.2 kala means not 'to complete'
but 'to have finished'. So here it may be assumed that work was concluded in the
sixth month, the temple was dedicated in the seventh month, and building was all
over in the eighth month. More complicated, and less satisfactory solutions are
called for if this significance of kala is not recognized; for a catalogue of solutions,
see, e.g., Montgomery and Gehman, The Books of Kings, p. 187; and S. Talmon,
'Divergences in Calendar-Reckoning in Ephraim and Judah', VT 8 (1958), pp. 4874, where it is claimed that two different calendars are being employed.
385
Ad (5) In discussing the chronology of 2 Kings 22-23, we must distinguish between the likely course of events in Josiah' s reign (as we are
able to reconstruct them) and what the deuteronomistic historian
believed to have occurred.
In the first place there is now a large measure of agreement that the
reforms described in 2 Kings 22-23 as occurring in the eighteenth year
of Josiah were in fact spread over a considerable number of years, both
before and after that year of the finding of the book of the law. There
are, indeed, too many events to fit not only into a fortnight, but even
into six months (the period between an autumn new year and passover).
They include, for example, defiling the high places from Geba to Beersheba, bringing all the priests out of the cities of Judah, visiting Bethel,
slaying all the priests of the high places in the cities of Samaria (23.8,
15, 20). So on the grounds of historical plausibility, further supported
by the evidence of 2 Chronicles 34 which attributes some of the events
of 2 Kings 22-23 to the twelfth year of Josiah,53 and by studies of the
literary prehistory of the narratives of 2 Kings 22-23,54 it can be
justifiably claimed that not all the events recounted between 2 Kgs 22.3
and 23.23 took place in the eighteenth year of Josiah, and that therefore
no inference about the month in which that year began can be drawn.
Still, it could be argued that what matters for the interpretation of the
calendaric references is not what actually happened, but what the
deuteronomistic historian thought happened. Does his account not perhaps presume an autumn new year reckoning? Here several possibilities
open up: (i) He thought that all the events between 22.3 and 23.23
occurred within a fortnight (spring new year reckoning); (ii) He thought
they all occurred within six months (autumn new reckoning); (iii) He
did not think about this question at all, but for purely schematic reasons
arranged all his information about Josiah's reforms in a consecutive
narrative bounded by the finding of the law-book and the celebration of
passover.55 If he thought (ii) was possible, it is hard to see why he could
not as easily have thought (i) was possible, for there are no explicit
53. See Ernest W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell,
1967), pp. 7-15.
54. See, e.g., N. Lohfink, 'Die Bundesurkunde des Konigs Josias (Eine Frage
an die Deuteronomiumsforschung)', Bib 44 (1963), pp. 261-88, 461-98.
55. That is, 'the traditionist deliberately ignores chronology in his ordering of
the material', as M. Kessler says in another connection ('Form Critical Suggestions
on Jer. 36', CBQ 28 [1966], pp. 389-401).
386
indications of the passage of time in the narrative, and there would have
been no physical impossibility in Josiah's doing all he is said to have
done in a fortnight if the word of a king is thought as good as a deed.
So it is quite plausible to suggest that the Deuteronomist could have
imagined that all these events occurred within the fortnight. In that
case, the dates of 22.3 and 23.23 have no evidential value for the question of the beginning of the year. Nevertheless, much more plausible
than (i) or (ii) is possibility (iii). Without entering more deeply into
questions of the traditions available to the Deuteronomist and their relation to the Chronicler's sources, it needs only to be accepted as a reasonable probability that the date in either 22.3 or 23.23 is artificial for
2 Kings 22-23 to be eliminated as evidence for an autumnal new year.
Ad (6) Not many scholars have relied upon this argument for an
autumnal new year, since it has been widely agreed that the numbering
of the months from the spring as employed in Jer. 36.9 proves that the
spring calendar had been introduced into Judah by this time.56 But this
has not proved to be an overwhelming objection to the argument, since
some advocates of the autumn new year claim that the year was still
regarded as beginning in the autumn even when the months were numbered from the spring.57
But if it is difficult to explain why Jeremiah waited nine months or
more before having his book read in the temple, it must be remembered
that it is no less difficult to explain why he waited three months, as he
must have done if the regnal years were reckoned from Tishri. Why did
he not have Baruch read in at one of the assemblies during the seventh
month? E. Auerbach remarks apropos of E. Vogt's statement58 that the
56. So, e.g., Begrich, Chronologic, pp. 71-72; de Vaux, Ancient Israel, p. 185;
Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, p. 203; Wilhelm Rudolph, Jeremia
(HAT, 1.12; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 3rd edn, 1968), p. 233.
57. So Thiele, Mysterious Numbers, p. 28; A. Malamat, 'A New Record of
Nebuchadrezzar's Palestian Campaigns', IEJ 6 (1956), pp. 246-56; De Vries,
'Chronology of the OT', p. 484. Other instances of the counting of months from the
spring, adduced by Begrich (Chronologic, pp. 70-73), likewise fail to convince
advocates of an autumn new year. It is true that the beginning of months and the
beginning of the year do not necessarily coincide (as in the modern Jewish calendar), but the origins of such a system raise an interesting problem which will be
considered below (section III.3).
58. E. Vogt, 'Die neubabylonische Chronik iiber die Schlacht bei Karkemisch
und die Einnahme von Jerusalem', Volume du Congres Strasbourg, 1956 (VTSup,
387
book was probably written in March 604: 'Eine Bombe wie die
Buchrolle legt der Prophet nicht fur 9-10 Monate auf Eis!'59 But neither does he keep it on ice for three monthsunless he was prepared to
wait until there had developed the kind of situation that had come about
by December 604.60 If Jeremiah could wait three months, he could wait
nine months. All that is demanded is the postulation of an appropriate
historical stimulus for the writing of the book, and such is provided by
the events of 605 as well as by those of mid-604. While advocates of an
autumn new year can see such a stimulus in news of the setting out the
Babylonian army for the Hatti-land in the early summer of 604 (in
Jehoiakim's fourth year on a Tishri reckoning), an equally convincing
historical occasion for the writing down of the prophecies is provided
by the battle of Carchemish and the accession of Nebuchadrezzar in the
previous year (Jehoiakim's fourth year on a Nisan reckoning).61
Ad (7) It would certainly be remarkable if Nehemiah in composing
his memoirs c. 430 BCE had persisted in painfully translating the legal
dates of the beneficent Persian ruler62 into a Judaean system that most
agree had been abandoned by the end of the seventh century in Judah
and was not employed by the deuteronomistic historian, Ezekiel, P, the
postexilic prophets, or the Chronicler.63 Thiele thinks that Nehemiah's
usage of the Tishri new year system is an expression of a 'spirit of
intense nationalism' ,64 but he does not explain how Nehemiah happens
to be alone among the intense nationalists of the exilic and postexilic
ages in expressing his patriotism in this fashion.65
4; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1957), pp. 67-96.
59. Auerbach, "Wechsel des Jahres-Anfangs', p. 116.
60. So H. Tadmor, 'Chronology of the Last Kings of Judah', JNES 15 (1956),
pp. 226-30 (227 n. 10). The date Kislev 603 there is probably a mistake for Kislev
604 (see p. 229).
61. So also Auerbach, 'Wechsel des Jahres-Anfangs', p. 179.
62. As Tadmor puts it ('Chronology', p. 227 n. 10).
63. See Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, pp. 210-13.
64. Thiele, Mysterious Numbers, p. 30; 'fanatic nationalism', according to
Morgenstern ('New Year for Kings', p. 442).
65. The theory of a resumption of autumnal reckoning after the exile does not
appear well founded. S.H. Horn and L.H. Wood (The Fifth Century Jewish Calendar at Elephantine', JNES 13 [1954], pp. 1-20) claimed such a system was in operation at Elephantine, on the basis of the double dating of some of the Aramaic
papyri according to Egyptian and Jewish reckoning. But R.A. Parker ('Some Con-
388
In fact the text of Neh. 1.1 is not above suspicion. It is strange that
the name of the king whose twentieth year it is remains unmentioned
until we reach 2.1. Yet although the text does seem defective, it must
be admitted that none of the emendations or interpretations of it is particularly convincing. Some have suggested that 1.1 originally mentioned the 'nineteenth' year, not the twentieth;66 but a simple scribal
error of 'esrim for te$a' 'esreh seems rather unlikely, and even a sophisticated reconstruction like that of W. Rudolph is little less arbitrary.67 If
it is supposed that the memoirs of Nehemiah did not originally begin
with a date and that an editor has transferred the year-date of 2.1 to the
beginning of the narrative without noticing the chronological problems
that were thereby created,68 we would want to ask whence the editor
derived the month date, and if he invented it, why he bothered to do so.
An even less probable suggestion is that the date in 2.1 was originally
'twenty-fifth',69 which, indeed, Josephus reckoned to be the year of
Nehemiah's arrival in Jerusalem,70 since Neh. 5.14 confirms that
Nehemiah was appointed governor in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes
(cf. also 13.6). Implausible also is the suggestion that the twentieth year
was the twentieth year since Hanani's departure from Susa.71 Perhaps
the most reasonable solution, though it too leaves unexplained the
siderations on the Nature of the Fifth-Century Jewish Calendar at Elephantine',
JNES14 [1955], pp. 271-74) showed that such a system is presupposed by only one
document, and argued persuasively for the possibility of a scribal error in the date
contained therein. See also Bezalel Porten, Archives from Elephantine (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1968), p. 197. Horn, however, seems unconvinced
by Parker's proposal (see 'The Babylonian Chronicle', p. 16), as does Thiele
(Mysterious Numbers, p. 30).
66. So, e.g., Kugler, Von Moses bis Paulus, p. 194 n. 1.
67. He supposes that 1.1 originally read "pan KnBtfnmR1? mtiJ? Jfltfn rutf V?OD,
that the similarity of the two final letters of "frOD to those of ~pftT\ brought about the
omission of the intervening words, and that subsequently an editor filled the gap
mechanically with the date of 2.1 (Esra undNehemia[HAT, 1.20; Tubingen: J.C.B.
Mohr, 1949], p. 102). But why did the editor not also mention that it was the twentieth year of Artaxerxesl
68. Cf. L.H. Brockington, Ezra, Nehemia and Esther (NCB; London: Nelson,
1969), p. 127; de Vaux, Ancient Israel, p. 192.
69. Cf. Tadmor, 'Chronology', p. 227 n. 10.
70. Josephus, Ant. 11.5, 7 168.
71. G. da Deliceto, 'Epoca della partenza di Hanani per Gerusalemme e anno
della petizione di Neemia ad Artaserse', Laurentianum 4 (1963), pp. 431-68 (cf.
J.A. Soggin's review of the above in ZAW16[1964], p. 347).
389
omission of the king's name in 1.1, is that an original 'nineteenth year'

was altered to 'twentieth year' by an editor of the Greek period used to
reckoning royal years on the Seleucid system of an autumn new year;72
to wait from the Kislev of the nineteenth to the Nisan of the twentieth
year, a period of fifteen months on autumnal reckoning, may have
seemed to an editor an incredible tax on Nehemiah's patience.
Thus, although no perfectly satisfactory alternative to the date in
Neh. 1.1 can be proffered, it is clear that to base upon it an argument
about when Nehemiah reckoned the new year began and hence when
the pre-exilic new year began, is risky in the extreme. Once again a
verdict of non liquet must be returned upon a passage that has at times
been confidently used to support the theory of an autumn new year.
Ad (8) On the usual dating of P, this interpretation of Exod. 12.2
implies that the date of the new year was still a debated question a
century or more later than the time of the adoption of a spring new year
in late pre-exilic times,73 as is most generally agreed. This seems rather
implausible. If P is to be dated earlier than the exile, the same objection
does not apply. But the fundamental problem that remains, whatever
the date of Exod. 12.2, is that there is no evidence for interpreting it as
a polemical defence of a new calendar. It can with no less justice be
regarded as a natural attribution to Moses of a significant Israelite institution, the calendar. Its place at the head of the passover law is perfectly intelligible, for just as the passover marks the beginning of the
people of Israel, so the month in which it is celebrated marks the
beginning of the year. There are, therefore, no grounds for finding here
evidence for an autumn new year.
Ad (9) This is not the place to embark upon a full-scale examination
of the merits of the competing chronologies of the kings of Israel and
Judah that have been offered,74 nor to test Thiele's claim that only on
72. So H. Schneider, Die Biicher Esra und Nehemia (Die heilige Schrift des
Alten Testamentes, 4.2; Bonn: Hanstein, 1959), p. 163.
73. It is noteworthy that Mowinckel finds it necessary to speak of 'the
(comparatively) new thing enforced here' (Psalms in Israel's Worship, II, p. 234).
74. E.g. Begrich, Chronologic (1929); Mowinckel, 'Chronologic' (1932);
Albright, 'The Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel', pp. 16-22;
Pavlovsky and Vogt, 'Die Jahre der Konige von Juda und Israel' (1964); Jepsen,
'Zur Chronologic der Konige von Israel und Juda' (1964); Andersen, 'Chronologic'
390
the supposition of Tishri new year reckoning in Judah will the chronological data and synchronisms 'work'. Here only some theoretical
observations can be made, together with a report on a sample probe of
the evidence relating to one circumscribed period that I have undertaken.
First, it may be observed that when there are at the disposal of the
scholar principles such as co-regency, alternation of accession- and
non-accession-year systems, and variant dates for the new year, which
are fundamentally arbitrary (i.e. can be called upon when the researcher
needs them in the interest of the theory), it is possible that actual scribal
errors in the text could be covered up with resultant errors in the
chronology.
Secondly, it is remarkable that virtually no scribal errors have,
according to Thiele's reconstruction, occurred in the many relevant
figures found in the text. A text like Ezra 1 // Nehemiah 7, preserved in
parallel transmission, shows that a significant number of scribal errors
are likely to have occurred.75
Thirdly, the fact, assuming that it is a fact, that regnal years and synchronisms 'work' on the basis of a Tishri new year in Judah does not
preclude the possibility that also on a Nisan system the figures, or most
of them, will 'work'.76 What is required before the Nisan system is
ruled out altogether is a testing of all the possibilities using the full
range of variables (co-regency, interregnum, calendar and new year
reckoning), with certain given and pre-determined data (regnal year,
internal and external synchronisms, plausible upper limit of scribal
errors,77 plausible age of a king at the birth of his first child,78 etc.).
(1969). For a comparative table, see Thiele, Mysterious Numbers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1st edn, 1951), pp. 254-55.
75. A point already made by Albright (The Chronology of the Divided
Monarchy of Israel', p. 17) but perhaps exploited too freely by him (note the table
of Albright's emendations provided by Thiele, Mysterious Numbers[1st edn],
p. 245)
76. It is instructive to notice that Mowinckel supported his different chronological system (autumn new year in Judah and Israel right through the monarchy) with
exactly the same argument as Thiele: it works! ('Chronologic', p. 176).
77. If there are too many, attempts at reconstruction of a chronology are a waste
of time. Some scholars have, in fact, argued that the data do not permit a precise
reconstruction of the chronology; so Freedman, 'Old Testament Chronology',
p. 209; M.D. Johnson, The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies with Special
Reference to the Genealogies of Jesus (SNTSMS, 8; Cambridge: Cambridge
391
Fourthly, even if the synchronisms break down on the supposition of

a Nisan new year in Israel and Judah, a Tishri new year is not the only
alternative. S. Talmon, for example, has maintained that in Israel the
year began one month later than in Judah, and has explained discrepancies in the biblical dates on that basis.79
Fifthly, an investigation of the chronological data relating to the
years 609-587/6 BCE with a view to determining whether a Nisan or a
Tishri system of reckoning was in operation has shown that all the data,
comprising material from 2 Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Babylonian Chronicle can best be harmonized on the supposition of the Nisan
new year reckoning.80 Most of the arguments advanced in favour of an
autumnal new year are inconclusive, and only Dan. 1.1, a verse that
contains problems of its own, demands a Tishri system. On the other
hand, the date of the battle of Carchemish given in Jer. 46.2, which we
know from the Babylonian Chronicle occurred before Ab 8, can be
synchronized with Jehoiakim's fourth year only on a Nisan reckoning.
Further, a calculation of the probable date of Jehoiakim's accession to
the throne makes it more likely than not that his regnal years were
reckoned from Nisan. These results prove nothing about the reckoning
of years earlier than 609, but at least they show that during the period
examined it is the Nisan rather than the Tishri system that 'works'.
It may be that in the end Thiele' s system will prove to be correct. If it
is, what should be pointed out here is that it is the only surviving evidence for a Tishri new year in pre-exilic Judah. That is in itself no
argument against Thiele's chronology, but it is as well to know on what
grounds the almost universally accepted view of an autumn new year
may be sustained.
Ad (10) The difficulty with this argument is that it proves too much.
For the Gezer calendar does not simply attest a year beginning in the
autumn; it attests a year beginning with 'ingathering' ('sp) which is the
final element in the ancient Israelite festival calendar. Unless we are to
University Press, 1969), p. 260.
78. Cf. the role of the acceptable limit for such a duration in the discussion by
W.R. Wifall (The Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel', ZA W 80 [1968],
pp. 319-37).
79. Talmon, 'Divergences in Calendar Reckoning in Ephraim and Judah', VT 8
(1958), pp. 48-74.
80. Clines, 'Regnal Year Reckoning', pp. 9-34.
392
postulate two variant systems of autumnal new year reckoning, it seems

necessary to maintain that neither the Gezer calendar nor the festival
calendars are calendars in the strict sense of the word. A calendar is a
list of months (and days) in which the distinction between the first
month and the twelfth is clearly marked; obviously, it must begin with
the first month. A list of seasons, on the other hand, which the Gezer
calendar plainly is, does not need to begin at a particular point in the
year, although, of course, in the Palestinian context it is likely to begin
about the time of autumn, the most conspicuous transitional point in the
seasonal year. The structure of the Gezer calendar, which is arranged
according the activities of the farmer's year and not integrated with
month names or even divided into twelve periods, makes it unlikely
that it is an official calendar,81 and unlikely also that it should be
regarded as a calendar at all in the sense that an inference about the
beginning of the civil year can be made from it.
3. Evidence for a Spring (Nisan) New Year
Finally we may consider whether there is any evidence in favour of a
spring new year in pre-exilic times. Here it must be said that if the data
for an autumn new year have proved inconclusive, the evidence for a
spring new year is also far from cogent. Three arguments may be
advanced:
(1) The four lists of festivals (the so-called festal calendars contained
in Exod. 23.34, Deuteronomy 16, and Leviticus 23), which range in
date, according to the conventional analysis, from the pre-monarchic to
the postexilic period, are at one in beginning the enumeration of festivals with the spring festival of passover. This would be strange if the
only year known in pre-exilic Israel began in autumn. It would be more
natural if that were the case for the autumn festival to head the list. This
implication could be evaded only if the phrase 'at the end of the year'
in Exod. 23.16 is interpreted narrowly to mean that the new year began
81. As recently S. Talmon, The Gezer Calendar and the Seasonal Cycle of
Ancient Canaan', JAOS 83 (1963), pp. 177-87. De Vaux's view, that it is 'a concordance table between twelve lunations (the months of the official year, listed here
without their proper names) and the periods of the agricultural year' (Ancient
Israel, p. 184), is open to the objection that it is precisely the absence of month
names that shows that it cannot be such a concordance.
393
after the end of the autumn festival82 (contrary, of course, to the priestly
calendar). But many scholars claim that 'the end of the year' is a vague
term and affirm that the autumn festival celebrated both the end of the
old year and the beginning of the new.83 It that were so, would the
autumn festival not be expected to hold first place in the list?
But the argument so far begs one question: Have the seasons of the
festivals anything to do with the calendar year? I have argued above (ad
1) that as agricultural festivals they are related in the very early lists of
Exodus 23 and 34 to the agricultural, not the calendar, year, as they
have been by the time of priestly law of Leviticus 23. The one exception to this claim is the specification of the month Abib as the date of
the festival of unleavened bread (Exod. 23.15; 34.18; cf. Deut. 16.1). It
does not matter for our present purpose whether or not the reference to
Abib is original in the text of Exodus 23 or 34: it is enough that it
appears in a form of the festival law that dates from some period in the
monarchy. Now the month Abib is surely not specified in order to prevent unleavened bread or passover from being celebrated at some other
time in the year, for the same need to specify the month is not felt in the
case of the other festivals. Can it be that Abib is specified because it is
a more significant month than the months in which the harvest and
ingathering festivals fall, that is, because it is the first month of the year
of months? Little weight can, indeed, be placed on this argument, but
some explanation of the mention of this month alone seems to be called
for.
(2) A certain amount of evidence has been produced for characterizing the spring festival, passover, as a new year festival. J.B. Segal has
most recently presented an impressive range of parallels in ritual and
ideology between new year festivals in other ancient near eastern cultures and the passover in Israel and has concluded that 'to the Hebrews
the Passover...was primarily a New Year Festival'.84 But quite apart
from the dubiety of the assumptions inherent in any patternist
82. So, e.g., Auerbach/Wechsel des Jahres-Anfangs', p. 113 n. 1, arguing that

the year began on Marheswan 1, after the autumn festival.
83. So, e.g., Mowinckel, Psalms in Israel's Worship, II, p. 234.
84. J.B. Segal, The Hebrew Passover (London: Oxford University Press,
1963), ch. 4 (esp. p. 117). So previously S.H. Hooke, The Origins of Early Semitic
Ritual (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), pp. 48-50; I. Engnell, 'PcesahMassot and the Problems of "Patternism"', Orientalia suecana 1 (1952), pp. 39-50.
394
approach85 (of which Segal's work must be acknowledged as one of the

most cautious examples), his case is largely undermined by the fact that
equally remarkable parallels may be drawn between the autumn festival
of tabernacles and new year themes;86 and Segal himself does not deny
that tabernacles was also a new year festival.87
(3) The numbering of months from the spring is prima facie evidence
of a spring new year. This argument can be countered by postulating
the adoption of the Babylonian spring calendar earlier than the first reference to the numbering of months (Jer. 36.9, if the references in 1 Kgs
6.1, 38 are removed as glosses). It is most improbable, however, that
the months should be numbered from spring by a society that not only
still used an autumn calendar but had always had an autumn calendar.
To that extent the argument of Thiele and others, that autumn new year
reckoning persisted throughout the monarchy even when the months
were plainly being counted from the spring,88 seems quite implausible.
The conclusion of this study is that, while there are no data that categorically exclude autumnal reckoning of the calendar year prior to c.
605 BCE, there are no data that support it, not even cumulatively. On
the other hand, there is one piece of evidence (the reference to Abib in
the festival 'calendars') that may suggest spring new year reckoning,
but that admittedly does not amount to a strong argument in favour of
such reckoning. What can be claimed, however, is that it can no longer
be confidently affirmed that in pre-exilic Israel the calendar year began
in the autumn, nor can it be said with confidence that the Babylonian
calendar was adopted c. 605 BCE, nor can it be assumed that the reckoning of months according to a spring new year can be used as a criterion for dating a document in which it occurs.
85. See the review by H. Kosmala, VT 14 (1964), pp. 504-509.

86. Cf. especially Mowinckel, Psalms in Israel's Worship, I, pp. 119-20; II, pp.
233-34.
87. Segal, Hebrew Passover, p. 117.
88. See n. 57 above.
20
REGNAL YEAR RECKONING
IN THE LAST YEARS OF THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH
A long-debated question in studies of the Israelite calendar and of preexilic chronology is this: Was the calendar year in Israel and Judah
reckoned from the spring or the autumn? The majority verdict has come
to be that throughout most of the monarchical period an autumnal
calendar was employed for civil, religious and royal purposes. Several
variations on this view have been advanced. Some have thought that
the spring reckoning, which we find attested in the postexilic period,
came into operation only during the exile,1 but many have maintained
that the usual autumnal calendar gave way in pre-exilic Judah to a
spring calendar as used by Assyrians and Babylonians.2
Originally published in The Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology 2 (1972)
(Essays in Honour ofE.C.B. MacLaurin on his Sixtieth Birthday}, pp. 9-34.
1. So e.g. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel
(trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies; Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1885,
repr. Cleveland: World, 1957), pp. 108-109; K. Marti, 'Year', Encyclopaedia biblica (ed. T.K. Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black; London: Watts, 1907), IV, col.
5365; S. Mowinckel, 'Die Chronologie der israelitischen und jiidischen Konige',
AcOr 10 (1932), pp. 161-277 (174-76).
2. (i) In the eighth century according to E. Kutsch, Das Herbstfest in Israel
(Dissertation, Mainz, 1955), p. 68; RGG, I (3rd edn, 1957), col. 1812; followed by
Hans-Joachim Kraus, Worship in Israel: A Cultic History of the Old Testament
(trans. Geoffrey Buswell; Oxford: Blackwell, rev. edn, 1966), p. 45; similarly W.F.
Albright, review of Sociology of the Biblical Jubilee (Analecta Biblica, 4; Rome:
Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1954), by Robert North, in Bib 37 (1956), pp. 488-90
(489); Alfred Jepsen, 'Zur Chronologie der Konige von Israel und Juda', in Alfred
Jepsen and Robert Hanhart, Untersuchungen zur israelitisch-jiidischen Chronologie
(BZAW, 88; Berlin: A. Topelmann, 1964), pp. 28, 37.
(ii) In the reign of Manasseh: K.T. Andersen, 'Die Chronologie der Konige von
Israel und Juda', ST 23 (1969), pp. 69-114 (108-109); and V. Pavlovsky and
E. Vogt, 'Die Jahre der Konige von Juda und Israel', Bib 45 (1964), pp. 321-47
(346), who believe that spring reckoning was also used in Judah in the reigns of
Jehoram, Ahaziah and Athaliah (848-835 BCE) (p. 327), and was again introduced
in 604 BCE (see [vi] below).
396
Some have believed that even when a spring calendar was adopted in
Judah for civil purposes, regnal years continued to be reckoned from
the autumn.3 Several scholars have claimed that in any case it was only
in Judah that the autumnal reckoning was employed, northern Israel
having adopted a spring new year at the time of the division of the
Solomonic kingdom.4 The minority view on the whole question has
been that calendar and regnal years in both Israel and Judah were
(iii) In the reign of Josiah: M. Vogelstein, Biblical Chronology. I. The Chronology of Hezekiah and his Successors (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1944),
p. 7, who believed that Hezekiah also had introduced a spring calendar, for which
Manasseh substituted an autumn calendar.
(iv) Before 620 BCE: Joachim Begrich,Die Chronologic der Konige von Israe
und Juda und Quellen des Rahmens der Konigsbiicher (BHT, 3; Tubingen: J.C.B.
Mohr, 1929), pp. 69-90.
(v) In the reign of Jehoiakim: Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (trans. John McHugh; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2nd edn, 1965),
p. 192.
(vi) In 604 BCE: E. Auerbach, 'Die babylonische Datierung im Pentateuch und
das Alter des Priester-Kodex', VT 2 (1952), pp. 334-42 (336); 'Der Wechsel des
Jahres-Anfangs in Juda im Lichte der neugefundenen babylonischen Chronik', VT
9 (1959), pp. 113-21; 'Die Umschaltung vom judaischen auf den babylonischen
Kalendar', VT 10 (1960), pp. 69-70; 'Wenn eroberte Nebukadnezar Jerusalem?',
VT 11 (1961), pp. 128-36; followed by Simon J. De Vries, 'Chronology of the OT,
IDE, I, pp. 584-85; Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology: Principles of
Time Reckoning in the Ancient World and Problems of Chronology in the Bible
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 202-203. So also Pavlovsk^ and
Vogt, 'Die Jahre der Konige von Juda und Israel', p. 346.
(vii) About 600 BCE; E. Konig, 'Kalendarfragen in althebraischen Schrifttum'
ZDMG 60 (1906), pp. 605-44 (636).
3. E.g. A. Malamat, 'A New Record of Nebuchadrezzar's Palestinian Campaigns', IEJ 6 (1956), pp. 246-56 (252 n. 19).
4. So principally Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew
Kings: A Reconstruction of the Chronology of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951; Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2nd
edn, 1965); largely followed by De Vries, IDB, I, pp. 580-99; K.A. Kitchen,
'Chronology of the Old Testament', in New Bible Dictionary (ed. J.D. Douglas;
London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1962), pp. 212-23; S.H. Horn, The Babylonian
Chronicle and the Ancient Calendar of the Kingdom of Judah', AUSS 5 (1967),
pp. 12-27 (16); R.K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (London: Tyndale
Press, 1970), pp. 181-92. Some others, who postulate the adoption of a spring calendar in Judah late in the monarchy, hold with Thiele that Israel followed a spring
calendar; so Pavlovsk^ and Vogt, and Vogelstein (see n. 2 above).
20. Regnal Year Reckoning
397
reckoned from the spring throughout the monarchy.5 In a paper published elsewhere6 I have examined the biblical data usually advanced in
favour of an autumnal new year, and have concluded that positive
direct evidence for such a calendaric system in pre-exilic Israel and
Judah is entirely lacking.
The purpose of the present article is to approach the problem rather
more indirectly by subjecting to examination, not some isolated biblical
passages that have been thought to be relevant to the question, but a set
of chronological data, both biblical and extrabiblical, relating to a comparatively brief span of pre-exilic history, in the hope that either the
spring or the autumn reckoning may prove to satisfy the exigencies of
the data. For this purpose the closing decades of the kingdom of Judah
are among the most promising for investigation, since we have for the
period 609-587/6 BCE not only several precise biblical year and month
dates, but also, for the greater part of that period, the Babylonian
Chronicle texts7 containing many exact datings. The present study is
thus a fragmentary contribution to exploring the relationship between
archaeological discovery and the biblical texts, and as such is presented
to the recipient of this volume with the respect and appreciation of the
author.
1. Arguments for an Autumn New Year
The arguments that may be advanced in favour of an autumn (that is,
Tishrif new year reckoning9 are these:
5. G. Schiaparelli, Astronomy in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press
1905), pp. 115-16; F.A. Herzog, Die Chronologic der beiden Konigbiicher (Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen, 1.5; Miinster i.W.: Aschendorff, 1909), pp. 29-33;
Eduard Mahler, Handbuch der judischen Chronologic (Leipzig: Fock, 1916; repr.
Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1967), pp. 210-20; Franz Xavier Kugler, Von Moses bis
Paulus: Forschungen zur Geschichte Israels (Miinster i.W.: Aschendorff, 1922),
pp. 134-50; L.I. Pap, Das israelitische Neujahrsfest(Kampen: Kok, 1933), pp. 1833.
6. David J.A. Clines, 'The Evidence for an Autumnal New Year in Pre-exilic
Israel Reconsidered', JBL 93 (1974), pp. 22-40 (reprinted in this volume).
7. DJ. Wiseman, Chronicles of Chaldean Kings (626-556 B.C.) in the British
Museum (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1956).
8. It makes no difference to the argument if one believes with Auerbach, 'Die
babylonische Datierung im Pentateuch', that the autumn new year began on
Marhewan 1 rather than Tishri 1.
9. So E.R. Thiele, 'New Evidence on the Chronology of the Last Years of
398
1. The dates given in 2 Kgs 25.8 and Jer. 52.12 for the fall of Jerusalem may be synchronized, it is said, only if Judaean regnal years are
reckoned from Tishri I.10 These passages date the destruction of the
temple, the breaching of the walls, and the captivity to 7/1 O.V.I I 11 of
Zedekiah, which is also said to be the 19th year of Nebuchadrezzar.
The 19th year of Nebuchadrezzar began in Nisan 586, when Zedekiah's
llth year, reckoned from Tishri, was still in progress, but when his
11th year if reckoned from Nisan was over (according to the most usual
chronologies; see Table, columns II and VIII).
There are, however, three possible methods of avoiding this inference short of supposing that 'nineteenth' in the parallel passages in
2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 52 is a transmissional or computational error.
(a) First, it is possible that while standard Babylonian reckoning of
Nebuchadrezzar's regnal years began his year 1 with Nisan 604 BCE
(the 7 months from his accession on Elul 1 to Nisan 1 being reckoned,
according to the normal practice, as his accession year), in the west
Nebuchadrezzar's reign was reckoned as beginning with Nisan 60512
Judah', BASOR 143 (1956), pp. 22-27; E. Vogt, 'Nova chronica babylonica de
pugna apud KarkemiS et expugnatione lerusalem', Bib 37 (1956), pp. 389-97;
Malamat, 'A New Record of Nebuchadrezzar's Palestinian Campaigns', IEJ 6
(1956), pp. 246-56; 'The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem: An Historical-Chronological Study', IEJ 18 (1968), pp. 137-56; Horn, 'The Babylonian
Chronicle and the Ancient Calendar of the Kingdom of Judah', pp. 12-27; K.S.
Freedy and D.B. Redford, 'The Dates in Ezekiel in Relation to Biblical, Babylonian
and Egyptian Sources', JAOS 90 (1970), pp. 462-85 (465).
10. So Thiele, 'New Evidence on the Chronology of the Last Years of Judah',
p. 26. Thiele's total explanation of the discrepant synchronisms is rightly rejected
by Malamat, 'The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 146 n. 20, as
unnecessarily complex: viz. that in Kings Nebuchadrezzar's years are reckoned
from Tishri, and in Jeremiah Judaean regnal years are reckoned from Nisan except
in parallels with Kings. Horn's view ('The Babylonian Chronicle and the Ancient
Calendar of the Kingdom of Judah', pp. 24-26) that Nebuchadrezzar's years are
always reckoned from his first Tishri (except in Jer. 52.28-30) is not open to the
same objection, but it fails to explain Jer. 46.2 (see 2.1 below) and it offers no
more solutions of the synchronisms than do the systems examined here.
11. The day is seventh in 2 Kgs 25.8, tenth in Jer. 52.12. For the year, see 2 Kgs
25.2; Jer. 52.5.
12. So Albright, The Nebuchadnezzar and Neriglissar Chronicles', BASOR 143
(1956), pp. 28-33 (32); followed by Thiele, 'New Evidence on the Chronology of
the Last Years of Judah', p. 24; D.N. Freedman, 'The Babylonian Chronicle', BA
19 (1956), pp. 50-60(57); M. Noth, 'Die Einnahme von Jerusalem', pp. 133-57
399
since he had by that time already taken his father Nabopolassar's place
as commander of the armed forces.13
According to this view, this was the system that was normally followed in the references to Nebuchadrezzar's regnal years in 2 Kings
and Jeremiah; only in Jer. 52.28-30 was the standard Babylonian reckoning employed.14 Thus the 8th year of Nebuchadrezzar in 2 Kgs 24.12
is the same as the 7th year in Jer. 52.28, and the 19th year in 2 Kgs 25.8
and Jer. 52.12 is the same as the 18th year in 52.29.15
(155) (= Aufsatze zur biblischen Landes- und Altertumskunde [Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener Verlag, 1971], I, pp. 111-32). Albright compares a similar 'difference
of a year in two methods of reckoning the reign of Sennacherib' (see J. Lewy, The
Chronology of Sennacherib's Accession', AnOr 12 [1935], pp. 225-31 [228-29]).
Malamat, 'The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 148, does not
appear to represent Albright's view correctly when he describes it as 'a sort of
antedating, non-accession-year method' (similarly Horn, 'The Babylonian Chronicle and the Ancient Calendar of the Kingdom of Judah', p. 23). Albright's view
seems rather to be that in the West Nebuchadrezzar was regarded as having
assumed the kingship before Nisan 605, and that the year beginning in that month
was regarded as Nebuchadrezzar's first on the regular Babylonian accession-year
system. See further for this interpretation of Albright's view, Freedman, 'The
Babylonian Chronicle', p. 57, who also remarks that the reference in Jer. 46.2 to
Nebuchadrezzar as 'king of Babylon' at the time of the battle of Carchemish may
not be a minor anachronism but a reflection of a western reckoning of Nebuchadrezzar's reign. Albright is followed by J. Bright, A History of Israel (OTL; London:
SCM Press, 1960), p. 305 n. 48.
13. 'In the twenty-first year [sc. of Nabopolassar, beginning Nisan 605] the king
of Akkad stayed in his own land. Nebuchadrezzar his eldest son, the crown prince,
mustered (the Babylonian army) and... marched to Carchemish' (BM 21946, Obv.
1, 2; Wiseman, Chronicles, pp. 66-67).
14. Jer. 52.28-30 is obviously derived from another source from the rest of Jer.
52 (cf. e.g. Thiele, 'New Evidence on the Chronology of the Last Years of Judah',
p. 25; Albright, The Nebuchadnezzar and Neriglissar Chronicles', p. 32): it is
missing in the Septuagint, it may have been added in Babylonia, and the precision
of its figures (contrast the round numbers of 2 Kgs 24.14-16) perhaps point to a
derivation from a Babylonian source (cf. Freedman, The Babylonian Chronicle',
p. 57 n. 29).
15. Other synchronisms with Nebuchadrezzar's reign also fit this pattern: 10th
of Zedekiah = 18th of Nebuchadrezzar (Jer. 32.1), but 19th on Babylonian reckoning; 4th of Jehoiakim = 1st of Nebuchadrezzar (Jer. 25.1), but accession year on
Babylonian reckoning (haSSdnd hdri'Sonot need not mean 'accession year', as is
commonly thought, but 'first regnal year'); Jehoiachin's captivity in Nebuchadrezzar's 8th year (2 Kgs 24.12) = 7th year in Babylonian Chronicle (BM 21946,
Rev. 11-12; Wiseman, Chronicles, pp. 72-73).
400
(b) Secondly, it can be claimed that the captivity in the 19th year of
Nebuchadrezzar is not identical with the captivity said elsewhere to
have occurred in the 18th year of Nebuchadrezzar (Jer. 52.29),16 and
that therefore the date of the burning of Jerusalem and the captivity by
Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, 7/10.V. 19 of Nebuchadrezzar
(2 Kgs 25.8//Jer. 52.12), need not be synchronized with the 11th year of
Zedekiah. On this view the destruction of the city by Nebuzaradan
occurred 13 months later than the taking of the city on 9.IV. 11 of
Zedekiah, that is, in the 18th year of Zedekiah.17
The difficulty with this view is that it conflicts with the natural
sequence of events in Jeremiah 52: the walls are breached on 9.IV. 11 of
Zedekiah (vv. 6-7), and on 10.V, presumably of the same year, Nebuzaradan burned the city and took away captives (vv. 12-15).
(c) Thirdly, the 11th year of Zedekiah (reckoned from Nisan) and the
19th of Nebuchadrezzar may be synchronized by postulating that
Zedekiah acceded to the throne some time after Nisan 1, 597 BCE.18 In
that case, his first regnal year would have begun in Nisan 596, and his
11th year in Nisan 586, the beginning of Nebuchadrezzar's 19th year.
16. Thiele, 'New Evidence on the Chronology of the Last Years of Judah',
p. 25, noting the discrepancy between the mere 832 said to have been taken captive
in Nebuchadrezzar's 18th year (Jer. 52.29) and the 'rest of the people left in the
city, fugitives, and the rest of the multitude' said to have been taken captive in
Nebuchadrezzar's 19th year (2 Kgs 25.11). Similarly Horn, 'The Babylonian
Chronicle and the Ancient Calendar of the Kingdom of Judah', pp. 26-27. A double
deportation in 597, in Nebuchadrezzar's 7th and 8th years, also seems likely
according to Malamat ('A New Record of Nebuchadrezzar's Palestinian Campaigns', pp. 253-54).
17. Malamat also posits captivities in both the 18th and 19th years of Nebuchadrezzar (Malamat, The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 154),
but he does not adopt this dating of the destruction by Nebuzaradan since he adopts
a Tishri reckoning, which fixes 9.IV.11 of Zedekiah in the 19th year of Nebuchadrezzar.
18. So Thiele, Mysterious Numbers, p. 168; H. Tadmor, 'Chronology of the
Last Kings of Judah', JNES 15 (1956), pp. 226-30 (230); Vogt, 'Die neubabylonische Chronik iiber die Schlacht bei Karkemisch und die Einnahme von Jerusalem', in Volume du Congres Strasbourg, 1956 (VTSup, 4; Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1957), pp. 67-96 (95-96); Auerbach, 'Die Umschaltung vom judaischen auf den
babylonischen Kalendar', pp. 69-70; 'Wenn eroberte Nebukadnezar Jerusalem?',
pp. 129-33 (with many arguments of varying weight, other than those presented
here); Schedl, 'Nochmals das Jahr der Zerstorung Jerusalems, 587 oder 586 v.
Chr.', ZAW74 (1962), pp. 209-13 (210-11).
401
The more common view is that within days of the fall of Jerusalem to
the Babylonians on Adar 2 (March 16), 597, Nebuchadrezzar personally installed Zedekiah as his own appointee, and that Zedekiah's first
regnal year therefore began in a few weeks' time, in Nisan 1, 597. This
more usual view has rested on two supports: (i) that 2 Chron. 36.10,
'Nebuchadrezzar sent and brought Jehoiachin to Babylon', shows that
Nebuchadrezzar was no longer in Judah at the time of Jehoiachin's
deportation on Nisan 10,19 and that he must therefore have installed
Zedekiah as king before the beginning of Nisan; (ii) that the appointment of Zedekiah is assigned to the 7th year of Nebuchadrezzar in the
Babylonian Chronicle,20 and thus occurred before Nisan 1, 597.
These arguments are not strong. Against (i) it may be remarked that,
if inferences may be drawn from 2 Chron. 36.10, it may also be significant that the appointment of Zedekiah is mentioned after the exile of
Jehoiachin to Babylon; and against (ii) it may be observed that if
Zedekiah were actually appointed shortly after the beginning of Nebuchadrezzar's 8th year we might still expect the event to be recorded in
the context of the king's dealings with Judah in his 7th year, since the
appointment of Zedekiah was simply the last event of a series.21
Accordingly, the way is open for a reconsideration of the possibility
that Zedekiah acceded after Nisan 1, 597 BCE.22
19. So Malamat, 'The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 145.
Cf. Noth, 'Die Einnahme von Jerusalem', ZDPV74 [1958], pp. 133-57 (152), following Vogt, 'Die neubabylonische Chronik iiber die Schlacht bei Karkemisch und
die Einnahme von Jerusalem', p. 94 in supposing that Nebuchadrezzar left Judah in
time to celebrate the new year festival in Babylon in Nisan.
20. BM 21946, Rev. 12-13; Wiseman, Chronicles, pp. 72-73.
21. This argument is somewhat undermined by the suggestion of A.R. Millard,
'Another Babylonian Chronicle Text', Iraq 26 (2964), pp. 14-35 (34), that in
Assyria the chronicle for the past year was written up on Nisan 7 each year, a day
of reckoning immediately before the festival of Nabu during which the fates for the
coming year were decreed. If this were the case also in Babylonia, which is by no
means clear, events later than Nisan 7 could hardly appear in the chronicle for the
previous year.
22. Noth's argument ('Die Einnahme von Jerusalem', pp. 152-53) is doubtless
correct that the purpose of Nebuchadrezzar's expedition against Jerusalem was precisely to replace the pro-Egyptian Jehoiachin, and that consequently Jehoiachin's
reign cannot have extended beyond the turn of the year (as, e.g., Vogt, 'Die neubabylonische Chronik iiber die Schlacht bei Karkemisch und die Einnahme von
Jerusalem', p. 94 thought). But Noth does not take sufficiently seriously the
possibility that Nebuchadrezzar was not able to replace Jehoiachin immediately,
402
In favour of dating the accession of Zedekiah after Nisan 1, 597 BCE

there are two points: (i) The synchronisms of Ezek. 40.1 are satisfied.
Here the fall of Jerusalem, which we know occurred on 9.IV. 11 of
Zedekiah (2 Kgs 25.2-3; Jer. 29.2; 52.5-7), is apparently fixed in 586
BCE; and 586 is Zedekiah's 11th Nisan year only if his first regnal year
began in Nisan 596, that is, if he acceded to the throne after Nisan 1,
597. (ii) Jeremiah's oracle concerning Elam (49.34-39), dated 'in the
beginning of the reign of Zedekiah' (bere'Sit malktit sidqiyya), finds a
more appropriate setting on this supposition. The Babylonian Chronicle
for Nebuchadrezzar's ninth year (beginning in Nisan 596) records a
confrontation between Nebuchadrezzar and the king of Elam in that
year, the king of Elam retreating in panic before Nebuchadrezzar had
come within a day's march of him.23 On the usual reckoning of Zedekiah's years, Nebuchadrezzar's 9th year paralleled Zedekiah's 2nd
(reckoned from Nisan), so the prophecy may be presumed to have been
uttered in Zedekiah's first year, or even early in his 2nd, which the
phrase bere'$it malkut can refer to only in a very general sense. But if
Zedekiah's first regnal year did not begin until Nisan 596, then the
prophecy against Elam could naturally fall in the accession year of
Zedekiah, that is, the bere'$it malkut sidqiyyain a strict sense.24
But against these two points it may be observed: (i) that another
interpretation of Ezek. 40.1, which is expounded below (under 1.2),
does not lead to the date 586 for the fall of Jerusalem, and that it is
therefore of no advantage to have Zedekiah's llth year begin in 586;
and (ii) that it is uncertain whether bere'$it malkut is a technical term
for 'accession year'; even if it is, it is far from impossible that Jeremiah's oracle against Elam should have been spoken in March, 597
(Zedekiah's accession year, on the usual reckoning) though Nebuchadrezzar did not conduct a campaign against Elam until a year later.
The arguments thus far considered are therefore rather inconclusive.
A more significant objection to the theory of an accession of
that is, that there was an interregnum.
23. BM 21946, Rev. 16-20 (Wiseman, Chronicles, pp. 72-73). The name Elam
is not fully preserved in either of its two occurrences in these lines, but Wiseman's
restoration is generally accepted.
24. Noth, 'Die Einnahme von Jerusalem', p. 153, denies that the Jeremianic
date and the Babylonian Chronicle date can be synchronized in this way, but only
because he apparently does not believe the Jeremiah oracle could be anything but a
vaticinium ex eventu.
403
Zedekiah after Nisan 1, 597 is the following: Ezek. 24.1 dates the
beginning of the siege to 10.X.9 (sc. of the captivity of Jehoiachiri),
while 2 Kgs 25.1, Jer. 39.1 (the day is lacking) and 52.4 date it to
10.X.9 of Zedekiah.25 We know that Jehoiachin's captivity began in
Nisan 59726 (Ezek. 40.1 with 2 Kgs 24.12). So it seems clear that
Zedekiah's year 1 must also have begun in that year, and not in 596.27
This difficulty may be met, however, by supposing that the years of
Jehoiachin's captivity were reckoned on a postdating principle like the
accession-year system, that is, that year 1 of the captivity of Jehoiachin
began only on Nisan 1 of the year following the captivity of Jehoiachin
on Nisan 10, 597. The 'fourteenth year after the city was conquered' in
Ezek. 40.1 must on this view also be calculated in the same way; that
is, the 'first year after the fall of the city' begin on Nisan 1 of the year
following its fall on 9.IV. 11 of Zedekiah (= 19 of Nebuchadrezzar),
586 BCE. This method of reckoning, though lacking any established
25. No explanation of this objection to his theory can be offered by Vogt, 'Die
neubabylonische Chronik tiber die Schlacht bei Karkemisch und die Einnahme von
Jerusalem', p. 96 n. 2.
26. At least, that is agreed by almost all; Ernst Kutsch, 'Zur Chronologic der
letzen judaischen Konige (Josia bis Zedekia)', ZAW 71 (1959), pp. 270-74 (27374), dates it to Nisan 598, and Schedl, 'Nochmals das Jahr der Zerstorung
Jerusalems, 587 oder 586 v. Chr.', to Nisan 596.
27. That is, if Ezek. 24.1 is really a captivity-year date, and not a Zedekiah regnal-year date later inserted into the Ezekiel passage from 2 Kgs 25.1. The latter has
been suggested by, for example, Gustav Holscher, Hesekiel, der Dichter und sein
Buch: Eine literarkritische Untersuchung (BZAW, 39; Giessen: A. Topelmann,
1924), p. 11; John W. Wevers, Ezekiel (NCB; London: Nelson, 1969), pp. 189-90;
Walther Zimmerli, Ezechiel (BKAT, 13; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969),
p. 995; and Freedy and Redford, 'The Dates in Ezekiel', p. 468. These writers note
that the form in which the date is written is unparalleled elsewhere in Ezekiel.
G. Fohrer, Die Hauptprobleme des Buches Ezechiel (BZAW, 72; Berlin: A.
Topelmann, 1952), pp. 116-19; Ezechiel (HAT, 1.13; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr,
1955), pp. 139-40, believes that the process occurred in the reverse direction: the
date, originally the date of the fast-day in the 10th month (cf. Zech. 8.19), was
transferred from its setting in Ezekiel to 2 Kgs 25.1, thence to Jer. 52.4, and thence
to Jer. 39.1. That is perhaps less likely in view of the deviation of the form of the
date from the form usually found in Ezekiel.
If either of these views is correct, the objection to an accession of Zedekiah after
Nisan 1, 597 disappears, since the correlation of Zedekiah years with captivity
years would be only factitious.
404
parallels other than the regnal year system, cannot easily be dismissed.
If it is natural to call the 'first year' of a king the first calendar year that
begins during his reign, it is not unnatural to call the 'first year of the
captivity' the first calendar year that begins after that event, and the
'first year after the fall of the city' the first year that begins after that
event.
Finally, in order to test thoroughly this proposal to date Zedekiah's
years from Nisan 596 rather than Nisan 597, it is necessary to examine
the other dates in Ezekiel that are reckoned from the captivity of
Jehoiachin; for it has just been argued that to date Zedekiah's years
from 596 requires also the dating of the years of Jehoiachin's captivity
from 596.
On the remaining dates in Ezekiel, 24.1 and 40.1 having already been
considered, it is clear that some are not integrated with known historical events and are therefore irrelevant to the question of the base point
for the years of the captivity. This is the case with the dates in 1.1-2;
8.1; 20.1; and 32.1, 17. But with regard to those dates that may be
associated with known historical events, the following observations
may be made:
(i) Ezek. 26.1 dates an oracle against Tyre, in which the fall of
Jerusalem is presupposed (26.2), to the 11th year of the captivity. This
date has seemed too early to many, since if the city fell in 586 BCE the
12th year of the captivity had already begun. Accordingly some have
claimed that the date of 26.1 is applicable not to the oracle of 26.2-6,
but to the subsequent oracle about the siege of Tyre (26.7-14).28 Others
have attempted to solve the problem by reading with LXXA 'in the
twelfth year'.29 But if the present proposal, that year 1 of the captivity
began in Nisan 596, is followed, the 11th year of the captivity began in
586, and the date of Ezekiel's oracle may be in order. The month is not
given, but if it were later than the 10th month, in which Ezekiel
received news of the fall of the city (33.21), it would make good
sense.30 It would also fit well with the received opinion, following
28. So Wevers, Ezekiel, p. 200; Freedy and Redford, The Dates in Ezekiel',
p. 469.
29. So G.A. Cooke, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of
Ezekiel (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936), p. 288; Fohrer, Ezechiel, p. 149.
30. W.F. Albright, 'The Seal of Eliakim and the Latest Preexilic History of
Judah, with Some Observations on Ezekiel', JBL 51 (1932), pp. 77-106 (93), proposed to supply '11th' or perhaps '12th' month in this date in 26.1.
405
Josephus,31 that Nebuchadrezzar's siege of Tyre began in 586 BCE.

(ii) Ezek. 29.1, from 12.X.10 (26 January, 586, on the present proposal),32 and 30.20, from I.I. 11 (20 April, 586), both threaten the defeat
of Egypt, that is, of Egyptian troops who had come to the relief of the
siege of Jerusalem (Jer. 37.5). The arrival of this Egyptian assistance
has been recently dated to the early months of 587,33 but there is no
reason why it should not have come only a few months before the fall
of the city in mid-July 586 (cf. also Jer. 32.1-2).
(iii) Ezek. 31.1, from 1.III. 11 (11 June, 586), depicts the defeat of the
Egyptian relief as already accomplished. This again makes good sense
a month before the final fall of the city.
(iv) Ezek. 29.17, from 1.1.27 (26 March, 570), presupposes the end of
the siege of Tyre, which we know from Josephus concluded in 573 or
perhaps 572 BCE.34 The usual reckoning of the years of the captivity
has year 27 beginning in 571; but if the oracle is dated a year later, that
is neither here nor there. If in fact the recent suggestion is accepted, that
29.17 contains a reference to the preparations for a Babylonian offensive against Egypt in 568,35 the slightly later date of 570 would provide
an even more likely setting for the oracle than the usual dating.
Thus, since the usual arguments against the supposition that Zedekiah's reign began after Nisan 1, 597 can be shown to have little weight,
and the most substantial objection to it can be met by a plausible suggestion, it may be concluded that the present proposal is worthy of serious consideration as a method of synchronizing the llth year of
Zedekiah with the 19th of Nebuchadrezzar on a Nisan basis.
The evidence on this point may be summarized thus: three explanations of the discrepancies between the regnal years of Nebuchadrezzar
and Zedekiah may be offered, making recourse to a Tishri system of
reckoning unnecessary. The explanations are mutually exclusive, and it
31. Ant. 10.1 \.\\Apion 1.21.
32. Julian dates according to Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein,
Babylonian Chronology 626 BC-AD 45 (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization,
24; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2nd edn, 1946).
33. Freedy and Redford, The Dates in Ezekiel', pp. 471-72.
34. This date is accepted by most, for example, Fohrer, Ezechiel, p. 148; but
according to Jepsen, Untersuchungen, p. 23, the date was 572, following E. Unger,
ZAW44 (1926), p. 316. Albright, The Seal of Eliakim and the Latest Preexilic
History of Judah, with Some Observations on Ezekiel', p. 94 n. 48 favoured the
date 575/4.
35. Freedy and Redford, The Dates in Ezekiel', p. 483.
406
is hard to choose even between the two most plausible of them, the first
and the third. But either of these provides a satisfactory account of the
chronology in terms of a Nisan new year.
2. Some dates in Ezekiel appear to support the 586 BCE dating of the
fall of Jerusalem. The significance of that date for the fall of the city is
that in the opinion of most scholars it would imply that Zedekiah's regnal years were reckoned on a Tishri basis, since the siege is said to have
ended in the 4th month of his llth year (2 Kgs 25.2; Jer. 52.5), which
would have fallen in 587 if a Nisan reckoning were employed. We have
already considered an argument that would exclude the necessity for
linking a 586 date with a Tishri new year,36 but it is as well to consider
the present evidence separately.
Ezek. 40.1 dates a prophecy of Ezekiel's to the 25th anniversary of
Jehoiachin's exile on the 10th day of the first month.37 The date of that
prophecy is also said to be in the 14th year after the destruction of the
city. 'In accord with these data the fall of the city would have taken
place in the twelfth year of Jehoiachin's exile, and that is the year when
an escapee brought word to Babylon of the city's fall (Eze. 33:21).'38
Ezekiel, it is generally agreed, used the Babylonian reckoning of the
year from Nisan. Whether he reckoned 1 Nisan or 10 Nisan (the actual
date of Jehoiachin's exile) as the first day of the year is of no consequence for the present argument.
Now, according to the dates in Ezekiel, year 1 of captivity begins
36. See 1.1 (c) above.
37. Not all have agreed that this is what Ezek. 40.1 means. Some have thought
that 'the beginning of the year' (ro'S haSSdnd) must be either a technical term for
new year's day on 10.VII (in the autumn) or at least a reference to a beginning of
the year in the autumn (so, e.g., Alfred Bertholet, Das Buck Hesekiel (KHAT;
Freiburg i.B.: J.C.B. Mohr, 1897), p. 195; Kurt Galling in Alfred Bertholet, Hesekiel (HAT, 1.13; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1936), p. 135; Cooke, Ezekiel, p. 429;
Zimmerli, Ezechiel, n, p. 995. But it is difficult to see how this view can be maintained now that the Babylonian Chronicle has fixed the date of the fall of Jerusalem
as 2.XII (Adar).7 of Nebuchadrezzar (March 16, 597 BCE). It is unlikely that
Jehoiachin's captivity should have been delayed as long as the following Tishri, 7
months later. Most recent studies accept that a spring new year is reckoned with
here; so, e.g., Kurt Galling in Fohrer, Ezechiel, p. 222; Wevers, Ezekiel, p. 298;
Freedy and Redford, 'The Dates in Ezekiel', p. 469. LXX already took this view,
translating bero'S haSSdnd as ev tco Ttporccp \ir\vi.
38. Thiele, 'New Evidence on the Chronology of the Last Years of Judah',
p. 26; similarly Malamat, 'The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem',
p. 149.
407
Nisan 597,39 so year 12 of captivity begins Nisan 586, that is, in the
year in which the fugitive arrived in the 10th month, bringing news of
the fall of Jerusalem (Ezek. 33.21). It would be perverse not to agree
that the city must have fallen in the same year (in the 4th month) as
news reached Ezekiel in the 10th. Also, year 25 of captivity begins
Nisan 573, which is the 14th year (Ezek. 40.1) after the fall of Jerusalem only when that event is dated in 586.
There thus seems to be a sound case for claiming that the dates in
Ezekiel demand the date 586 for the fall of Jerusalem, which date in
turn is said to demand a Tishri reckoning of Judaean regnal years.
An alternative interpretation, yielding a 587 date for the fall of
Jerusalem, must be considered, however. First, there is sufficient textual evidence for treating 'llth year of our exile' in Ezek. 33.21 as a
serious alternative to the reading '12th year of our exile',40 A corruption from 'llth' to '12th' could be accounted for as due to the appearance of '12th year' already in 32.1, 17, so that it may have seemed to a
scribe implausible that the next dated oracle should belong to the llth
year. The reason for the break in chronological sequence is not far to
seek, however; oracles about Egypt, dating from 12.X.10 (29.1-16),
7.1.11 (30.20-26), 1.III. 11 (31.1-18), 1.XII. 12 (32.1-16), 15!(?).12
(32.17-32), have been collected together; but the oracle of 33.21-22 has
nothing to do with Egypt, and its date is consequently not in series with
the dates of the Egyptian oracles. Secondly, it may be questioned
whether 'in the 14th year after the city was conquered' (40.1) must
refer to a calendar year beginning with Nisan (whether Nisan 1 or 10).
It may well be that Ezekiel reckons the exact anniversaries of the fall of
the city, just as he does the exact anniversaries of the captivity of
39. E. Kutsch's argument ('Zur Chronologic der letzen judaischen Konige
[Josia bis Zedekia]', pp. 273-74) that the first captivity must have occurred before
Nisan 597 contradicts the plain sense of Ezek. 40.1.
40. The written and oral difference between biSte and b"aSte is slight. Eight
Hebrew MSS, the Lucianic recension of LXX, and the Syriac read 'eleventh'. Thi
constitutes rather more evidence than 'only dubious MS and Versional support', as
Freedy and Redford describe it ('The Dates in Ezekiel', p. 466 n. 25). Among those
who adopt this emendation may be mentioned: Fohrer, Ezechiel, p. 187; Eichrodt,
Hesekiel, p. 317; Zimmerli, Ezechiel, p. 810; J.B. Taylor, Ezekiel: An Introduction
and Commentary (TOTC; London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1969), p. 216. It should be
noted that Ezek. 26.2, apparently dated (see on n. 28 above) to the 11th year of the
captivity, presupposes the fall of the city. One or other of these dates must be
wrong.
408
Jehoiachin (and cf. 24.2 'this very day')- In fact, the 10.1.25 year of
exile, Nisan 10 of 573 BCE, falls three months before the fifteenth
anniversary of a fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, and so in the 14th year
after that event. Reckoning of years from the fall of Jerusalem was not
a normal method of expressing the date and in fact the only other
occurrence of such a reckoning seems to be a literary reminiscence of
this verse.41 This further suggests that the reference concerns the
anniversary years after that famous event, and is not an alternative
nomenclature for the calendar year.
In summarizing the evidence on this point it may be said that
although some dates in Ezekiel apparently point to the date 586 BCE for
the fall of Jerusalem and are thus at first sight evidence for Tishri reckoning, closer examination of the evidence makes it equally possible that
the dates in Ezekiel are consonant with a dating of the fall of Jerusalem
in 587 BCE.
3. Dan. 1.1 refers to a siege of Jerusalem by 'Nebuchadnezzar king
of Babylon' and the captivity of some of the people in the 3rd year of
Jehoiakim. Only on a Tishri reckoning of Jehoiakim's regnal years can
a siege by Nebuchadrezzar have occurred in Jehoiakim's 3rd year (see
Table).
Some kind of an attack upon Jerusalem during the reign of Jehoiakim
is demanded by the evidence of 2 Chron. 36.6-7, which recounts that
Nebuchadrezzar took Jehoiakim in fetters to Babylon, and also carried
off some of the temple vessels. This cannot have happened at the time
of the siege of Jerusalem in early 597 BCE, since Jehoiakim died on
December 7, 598, just before the Babylonian troops set out for
Jerusalem.42 So if the biblical Chronicles tradition is sound, it is reasonable to suppose that at some time during his reign 'Jehoiakim took
part of the temple treasure [to Babylon] as a qatre-offering or as biltu
('tribute') to buy off the Babylonians'.43 2 Kgs 24.1, 'Nebuchadnezzar
41. 2 Esd. 1.1 (cf. R.H. Charles [ed.], The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of
the Old Testament, with Introductions and Critical and Explanatory Notes to the
Several Books [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913], II, p. 561).
42. Wiseman, Chronicles, p. 33.
43. D.J. Wiseman, 'Some Historical Problems in the Book of Daniel', in D.J.
Wiseman et al., Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel (London: Tyndale
Press, 1965), pp. 9-18 (18).
409
came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years', may in turn be
related to the same circumstances.
Now the Babylonian Chronicle makes no mention of a siege of
Jerusalem before 598-597 BCE, but it may reasonably be asked whether
such a siege could be fitted into the record of Nebuchadrezzar's campaigns in about the 3rd year of Jehoiakim.
Several dates have been suggested for such a siege of Jerusalem:
(a) In Nebuchadrezzar's first year, in Dec. 604-Jan. 603, between the
sack of Ashkelon in Kislev (Dec.) 604 and Nebuchadrezzar's return to
Babylon in Sebat (Feb.) 603.44 If this was Jehoiakim's initial act of
submission to the Babylonians, the three years of his vassaldom (2 Kgs
24.1) will have run until Kislev 601 (Nebuchadrezzar's 4th year). That
is exactly the date of the near-defeat inflicted by the Egyptians upon the
Babylonians45a setback severe enough to keep Nebuchadrezzar at
home the next year (his 5th), 'gathering together his horses and chariots
in great numbers'.46 The apparent turning of the tide in favour of the
Egyptians will then explain why at this moment Jehoiakim 'rebelled
against' Nebuchadrezzar (2 Kgs 24.1).47
The objection to this view is that on no system of reckoning does
Dec. 604-Jan. 603 fall in Jehoiakim's 3rd year.
(b) In Nebuchadrezzar's 2nd year when, it is said, he set out for the
Hatti-land with a 'powerful army' for a campaign in which he
employed 'great siege-towers'.48 The lacuna in the Chronicle of this
year's events 'most likely contained a report of specific conquests, parallel to that for the campaign to Ashkelon in his first year. This may
well have been the conquest of Jerusalem, and its date would then fall
during the autumn or winter of 603 BCE.'49 Such a date corresponds
44. So Vogt, 'Nova chronica babylonica', p. 395; Malamat, 'A New Record of
Nebuchadrezzar's Palestinian Campaigns', p. 251. The relevant passage in the
Babylonian Chronicle is BM 21946, Obv. 18-20 (Wiseman, Chronicles, pp. 68-69).
45. Cf. Freedman, The Babylonian Chronicle', p. 54.
46. BM 21946, Rev. 8 (Wiseman, Chronicles, pp. 68-69).
47. Cf. J.P. Hyatt, 'New Light on Nebuchadrezzar and Judaean History', JBL
75 (1956), pp. 277-84 (280).
48. BM 21946, Obv. 21-23 (Wiseman, Chronicles, pp. 70-71).
49. Malamat, The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 142, hav
ing abandoned his previous suggestion (n. 44 above). Vogt also changed his mind
in favour of Nebuchadrezzar's 2nd year ('Die Jahre der Konige von Juda und
Israel', pp. 345-46). A similar conclusion was reached before the publication of the
Babylonian Chronicle, by J.T. Nelis, 'Note sur la date de la sujetion de Joiaqim par
410
with the 6th year of Jehoiakim, which may, it is suggested, be what is

intended in Dan. 1.1; a slight emendation, of MloS 'three' to $e$ 'six',50
would yield the meaning: 'In the sixth year of the reign of Jehoiakim
king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and
besieged it'.
The objections to this suggestion are twofold: (i) If the events of
Dan. 1.1-2 occur in Nebuchadrezzar's 2nd year, the events of Daniel 2,
three years later, cannot also occur in his '2nd year' (2.1). Thus if the
date in Dan. 1.1 (emended) is correct, the date in 2.1 is incorrect,
(ii) There is no direct evidence that Nebuchadrezzar campaigned in the
Hatti-land in his 2nd year. All indications of the locations of that year's
campaign are missing from the Chronicle, and it is only by inference
from the campaigns of other years that the editor has supplied a reference to the Hatti-land.51 It is true that in his accession year, 1st, 3rd,
4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th and llth years, Nebuchadrezzar campaigned in
the Hatti-land, but it is perfectly possible that in his 2nd year his attention was directed elsewhere, as was the case in his 9th year (expedition
against Elam).52
(c) In Nebuchadrezzar's accession year (7 Sept. 605-1 Mar. 604),
during which, we are told, he 'went back again to the Hatti-land and
until the month of Sebat [Feb.] marched unopposed53 through the Hattiland' ,54 A siege of Jerusalem could have occurred during this period,55
but it is impossible that it could have taken place before the end of
Jehoiakim's 3rd year; for that ended (on a Tishri reckoning) merely a
month after Nebuchadrezzar acceded to the throne in Babylon, which
Nabuchodonosor', RB 61 (1954), pp. 387-91.
50. So Malamat, The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 142
n. 10.
51. Wiseman, Chronicles, p. 71, supplies in line 21 'marched to the land of
Haiti', and in line 23 'he marched about unopposed in the land of Hatti' (on the
basis of line 16 above).
52. Thus Malamat, 'The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 142,
is too incautious in taking it for granted that in his 2nd year Nebuchadrezzar set off
'to the west'.
53. Or 'victoriously', as SaltdniSis translated by Albright, 'The Nebuchadnezzar
and Neriglissar Chronicles', p. 31.
55. So G. Larsson, 'When Did the Babylonian Captivity Begin?', JTS NS 18
(1967), pp. 417-32, who finds an exact period of 70 lunar years between this captivity and the return of the exiles.
411
would not allow enough time for Nebuchadrezzar to reach Jerusalem,

let alone reduce it, even if he had left Babylon on the day after his
accession.
(d) Before Nebuchadrezzar's accession to the throne, between the
battle of Carchemish (605 BCE, probably May-June)56 and Nebuchadrezzar's return to Babylon shortly after news reached him of his
father's death on Ab 8 (August 15).57 The Babylonian Chronicle in fact
records that after the battle of Carchemish 'Nebuchadrezzar conquered
the whole area of the Hatti-country',58 and 2 Kgs 24.7 notes that 'the
king of Babylon took all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the
Brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates'.59 But can this be in the 3rd year
of Jehoiakim? Only if it can be assumed that (i) the 'third year' in Dan.
1.1 was reckoned on a Tishri new year, accession-year system, while
(ii) the 'fourth year' of Jehoiakim, which is said to be the year of the
battle of Carchemish in Jer. 46.2, was reckoned on a non-accessionyear system.60
Against this suggestion, the following objections can be made:
(i) It may be seriously doubted that a non-accession-year system (in
which the months between a king's accession and his first new year are
counted as his year 1) was in operation at this time in Judah. The best
attested evidence for non-accession-year reckoning in Judah is associated with only a few decades in the ninth century BCE,61 and it is almost
57. So now Wiseman, in Notes on Daniel, pp. 17-18.
58. BM 21946, Obv. 8 (Wiseman, Chronicles, pp. 68-69).
59. Nebuchadrezzar can at this time (before Sept. 7, 605) be called 'king' only
proleptically, but that is no serious objection to the hypothesis (cf. Robert Dick
Wilson, Studies in the Book of Daniel: A Discussion of the Historical Questions
[New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1917], pp. 87-95, for parallels).
60. Or that the '4th year' in Jer. 46.2 is erroneous (so Malamat, 'A New Record
of Nebuchadrezzar's Palestinian Campaigns', p. 250).
61. Wiseman, in Notes on Daniel, p. 17, claims that the 'usual Palestinian-Jewish' system was an antedating one (that is, ignoring accession years) but his source
(Thiele, Mysterious Numbers, p. 151 [error for 41?]), does not support this view; on
the contrary, Thiele maintains that Judah employed an accession-year reckoning
from the beginning of the eighth century to the end of the monarchy (p. 41). On the
other hand, Hyatt ('New Light on Nebuchadrezzar and Judaean History', p. 278)
supposed that the Jeremianic tradition used an accession-year system while 2 Kings
used a non-accession-year system; this was to harmonize the eighth year of Nebuchadrezzar in 2 Kgs 24.12 with his 7th year in Jer. 52.28. But more satisfactory
explanations of this discrepancy have been offered above (under 1.1). C.F.
412
universally agreed that accession-year reckoning must be presumed

throughout the period under consideration here. A particular advantage
of postulating accession-year reckoning in Jeremiah is that it enables a
plausible synchronism to be established between Jeremiah 36 and the
Babylonian Chronicle. For Jer. 36.9 records a national fast in Judah in
the 9th month of Jehoiakim's 5th year; on accession-year reckoning
that was the month (Kislev, 604 BCE) in which the Babylonian army
was proceeding to the sack of Ashkelon.62 A convincing historical setting is thus provided for the reading of the scroll of Jeremiah's prophecies, written (or at least ordered to be written) sometime between 9 and
21 months previously, and stored up for such an occasion as this.63
(ii) It involves the interposition of a Babylonian march to Jerusalem
from Hamath (no place further south is mentioned in the Babylonian
Chronicle) and a siege of the city in the short interval between MayJune (Carchemish) and c. August 25 (news of Nabopolassar's death).
Very little time, if any, would be available for the siege itself, when the
days spent in marching are reckoned up (see below, under 2.2). We do
not know where Nebuchadrezzar was when he received news of his
father's death, but it must be recalled that only three weeks elapsed
between Nabopolassar's death and Nebuchadrezzar's arrival in Babylon.
(iii) It requires the dating of Jeremiah's speech in Jeremiah 25 to a
rather unsuitable time. For if the '4th year of Jehoiakim' (Jer. 25.1) is
reckoned on a non-accession-year system,64 it overlaps Nebuchadrezzar's accession year by only one month (Elul)65 (see Table); therefore
Whitley, 'Carchemish and Jeremiah', ZAW 80 (1968), pp. 38-49 (30), thought that
the biblical sources reckoned the regnal years of both Judaean and Babylonian
kings directly from the date of accession; but such a system is unattested (cf.
Freedy and Redford, 'The Dates in Ezekiel', p. 465 n. 17).
63. A more thorough discussion of the chronology presupposed by Jer. 36 will
be found in my article, The Evidence for an Autumnal New Year in Pre-Exilic
Israel Reconsidered'.
64. As Wiseman presumably argues, though the verse reference in Notes on
Daniel, p. 17, is incorrect.
65. The 'first year' (haSSana hari'Soriit) of Nebuchadrezzar (Jer. 25.1) must of
course be understood as the accession year, since his first regnal year proper does
not overlap with the 3rd year of Jehoiakim on any reckoning that has been proposed
(it could theoretically overlap on the unlikely conjunction of assumptions that
Albright is right about the reckoning of Nebuchadrezzar's years in the west (cf.
413
Jeremiah's speech must be dated only two months or less after a successful siege by Nebuchadrezzar. Yet in it Jeremiah makes no allusion
to that catastrophic event of a few weeks earlier, nor to the king who
must have been at this time still absent in Babylon whither he 'may
have been personally required to go... to take part in the victory celebrations as a conquered and vassal king'66 (in fetters, if 2 Chron. 36.6 is
relevant here; and cf. Manasseh, 2 Chron. 33.11). Rather, Jeremiah
speaks as if Jerusalem's encounter with Nebuchadrezzar lies still in the
future (cf. 25.8-9 especially). We may conclude that although the
speech fits well into the months after Carchemish when Judah was
growing complacent again, it would be a rather anomalous speech had
Carchemish been swiftly followed by such a siege as that depicted in
Dan. l.l. 67
(iv) Likewise, if the '5th year of Jehoiakim' (Jer. 36.9) is reckoned
on a non-accession-year system (with Tishri new year), the reading of
Baruch's scroll at the fast of the ninth month would have taken place in
Kislev (Dec.) 605, less than 6 months after the siege of Jerusalem
referred to in Dan. 1.1. Again, the narrative (Jer. 36) does not read as if
such events had just taken place; the 'word of the Lord' to Jeremiah
after Jehoiakim's burning of the scroll (36.28-31) makes no allusion to
any recent humiliation of the king at the hands of the Babylonians, but,
like ch. 25, speaks as if Jehoiakim has yet to encounter Nebuchadrezzar.
(v) Further, it may be urged that the dates in Daniel are not self-consistent, and that it is not worth attempting to justify the date in Dan. 1.1.
If Daniel was taken to Babylon c. June-July 605, and immediately
began his three-year education (1.5), he cannot have completed his
education before the end of the '2nd year of Nebuchadnezzar' (ended 9
April, 602) in which the king had his dream (2.1) and Daniel, already
graduated (1.18-20), gave its interpretation. This conclusion could be
under 1.1 [a] above) and that Judah was still using a Tishri calendar (see Table).
66. Wiseman, in Notes on Daniel, p. 18. It is not, however, quite clear in Dan.
1.1 whether Jehoiakim himself, or only the temple booty, was transported to
Babylon at this time (as Wiseman notes, p. 18 n. 58).
67. This argument is of course cogent only to the extent to which an essentially
authentic content of the Jer. 25 speech is allowed; for a more negative view, cf.,
e.g., E.W. Nicholson, Preaching to the Exiles: A Study of the Prose Tradition in the
Book of Jeremiah (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970); Auerbach, 'Der Wechsel des JahresAnfangs in Juda', p. 115.
414
avoided only if it were maintained that the 'three years' of 1.15 are
counted inclusively; but against that must be set the evidence for a
fixed period of 3 full years' education, at least in the Persian court.68
The conclusion of our discussion of this point is this: Dan. 1.1 is the
only piece of biblical data that demands a Tishri reckoning of regnal
years. But there are several difficulties and implausibilities involved in
the acceptance of Dan. 1.1 at face value. Hence, while the event mentioned in Dan. 1.1 may be authenticated by other biblical references, the
date given must be viewed with reserve.
2. Arguments for a Spring New Year
The arguments in favour of a spring (that is, Nisan) new year in Judah
at this time69 are these:
1. The battle of Carchemish is said in Jer. 46.2 to have taken place in
the 4th year of Jehoiakim. The Babylonian Chronicle shows that the
battle occurred before the death of Nabopolassar on Ab 8, which can be
synchronized with Jehoiakim's 4th year only on a Nisan reckoning70
(see Table). On a Tishri new year basis the date in Jer. 46.2 must be
corrected to 'third year of Jehoiakim'.71
The only means of evading this conclusion are: (a) To suppose that a
non-accession reckoning is employed in Jer. 46.2. But the improbability
68. See James A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Book of Daniel (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1927), p. 122.
69. In addition to those listed above in notes 2 and 5, advocates of a Nisan system of reckoning at this time include: W.F. Albright, The Nebuchadnezzar and
Neriglissar Chronicles', pp. 28-33; Freedman, 'The Babylonian Chronicle', p. 53
n. 13 (in his 'Old Testament Chronology', in The Bible and the Ancient Near East:
Essays in Honour of William Foxwell Albright [ed. G. Ernest Wright; London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961], pp. 203-14 [208-209, 212-13], he is not so certain
of a Nisan system); Tadmor, 'Chronology of the Last Kings of Judah', pp. 226-30;
Noth, 'Die Einnahme von Jerusalem', p. 150; S. Talmon, VT 8 (1958), p. 65;
C. Schedl, 'Nochmals das Jahr der Zerstorung Jerusalems, 587 oder 586 v. Chr.'
70. So already Noth, 'Die Einnahme von Jerusalem', pp. 151-52. The cogency
of this argument is acknowledged by Thiele, 'New Evidence on the Chronology of
the Last Years of Judah', p. 24, who is unable to explain this date on a Tishri reckoning. His earlier view, that Carchemish occurred in 604 (Mysterious Numbers,
pp. 160-61), is of course abandoned by him in the light of the Babylonian Chronicle
(BASOR 132, p. 24 n. 3; Mysterious Numbers, 2nd edn, pp. 161, 163).
71. So, e.g., Malamat, 'A New Record of Nebuchadrezzar's Palestinian Campaigns', p. 250; 'The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 147 n. 21.
415
of this supposition has been pointed out above (under 1.3). (b) To
suppose that Jehoiakim ascended the throne before Tishri 1, 609 BCE.
But this view, when all the data are considered, rather supports a Nisan
new year (see below, under 2.2). Or (c) to suppose that the date 'in the
4th year' belongs to the prophecy and not to the battle.72 But this entails
the postulation of a very large parenthesis in the text, contrary to the
plain sense.73
Jer. 46.2 provides in fact the clearest piece of chronological data
relevant to this period, and its witness to a Nisan system of reckoning
can hardly be challenged.
2. Examination of the date of Jehoiakim's accession to the throne
makes it more likely than not that his regnal years were reckoned from
Nisan, not Tishri. Most scholars agree that Jehoiakim came to the
throne afterTishri 1, 609; if so, the eleven years of his reign (2 Kgs
23.36; 2 Chron. 36.5), which ended on Marheswan 22 (December 7),
598,74 may have been reckoned either on a Tishri or a Nisan basis.75
But if it can be shown to be likely that he ascended the throne before
Tishri 1, 609,76 he reigned 11 years only on a Nisan reckoning (it would
have been 12 on a Tishri reckoning).
72. So Horn, 'The Babylonian Chronicle and the Ancient Calendar of the Kingdom of Judah', p. 25 n. 33, punctuating Jer. 46.1-2 thus: 'The word of Yahweh
which came to Jeremiah the prophet, against the nations; about Egypt: against the
army of Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt (which had been at the river Euphrates at
Carchemish and which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had defeated) in the fourth
year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah'. This interpretation was already
suggested by B. Alfrink, 'Die Gadd'sche Chronik und die Heilige Schrift', Bib 8
(1927), pp. 385-417 (398-99) (not mentioned by Horn).
73. Malamat believes that this suggestion has 'possibly overcome' ('The Last
Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 147 n. 21) the difficulty of Jer. 46.2
for a Tishri system.
75. Malamat, 'The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 141,
rightly notes that Jehoiakim's accession after Tishri 1, 609 BCE is essential to his
system based on a Tishri new year.
76. So Noth, 'Die Einnahme von Jerusalem', p. 151, with brief argumentation;
Pavlovsky and Vogt, 'Die Jahre der Konige von Juda und Israel', p. 346, and
Kutsch, 'Zur Chronologic der letzen judaischen Konige (Josia bis Zedekia)',
p. 272, without discussion. Similarly Auerbach, 'Der Wechsel des Jahres-Anfangs
in Juda', p. 119; 'Die Umschaltung vom judaischen auf den babylonischen Kalendar', pp. 69-70, though according to him Marheswan 1 is the crucial date, and the
implication of a pre-Marheswan date is evaded by his theory of calendar change.
416
In determining the date of his accession, the events that must be

brought into relationship are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Battle of Megiddo, death of Josiah, accession of Jehoahaz.

March of Egyptians from Megiddo to Euphrates.
Egyptian crossing of Euphrates for attack on Harran.77
Capture of Jehoahaz and accession of Jehoiakim.
The chronological data are twofold:

a.
b.
No. 3 occurred in Tammuz (25 June-23 July), 609 (BM

21901, Rev. 66-67).78
'Three months' intervened between No. 1 and No. 4 (2 Kgs
23.31; 2 Chron. 36.2).
The question is this: Is No. 4 likely to have occurred before Tishri 1

(21 September), 609?
Two major uncertainties are: (i) How long precisely were the '3
months' of the reign of Jehoahaz? And (ii) how long did the Egyptian
march (No. 2) take?
On (i), we have solid evidence that a 'three months' reign could actually be significantly longer: Jehoiachim is said in 2 Kgs 24.8 to have
reigned 3 months, but in 2 Chron. 36.9 to have reigned 3 months and 10
days. We can presume that a period up to almost 3^ months could be
rounded down to 3 months. On the other hand, it is equally possible
that '3 months' could be a rounding up from 2^ months, or even, if we
may postulate an inclusive system or reckoning, from 2 months 1 day.
The last suggestion is unlikely; for inclusive reckoning was not usually
employed in reckoning lengths of reign, since it complicated the
computation of accurate totals. So it may be concluded that the '3
months' of Jehoahaz's reign could have been between 2\ and 3j months.
On (ii), it may be estimated that the Egyptians' march from Megiddo
to Carchemish on the Euphrates took about 4 weeks. According to
77. I assume, as do most, that it was the same Egyptian force under Neco that
defeated Josiah and that crossed the Euphrates. Horn ('The Babylonian Chronicle
and the Ancient Calendar of the Kingdom of Judah', pp. 19-20) alone speculates
that Neco was unable to reach his contingents permanently stationed at Carchemish
before the Haran campaign began, and even that 'the late arrival of Neco and his
army was the reason for the failure of the campaign against Haran'.
78. Wiseman, Chronicles, pp. 62-63.
417
A. Malamat,79 the Egyptians would have travelled 35 km a day, 'or

even more (remembering that this took place during the long summer
days)' and so could have covered the 500+ km, as he reckons it,
between Megiddo and Carchemish in about two weeks. But in fact the
distance must be more like 650 km (400 miles).80 And an average rate
of 35 km (22 miles) a day seems rather high, even assuming, as
Malamat does, that the statement attributed to Neco in 2 Chron. 35.21,
'God has commanded me to make haste', can count as historical
evidence for the speed of the Egyptian advance. References to rates of
march in Assyrian and Egyptian texts suggest that rather lower
averages, between 10 and 15 miles per day, were more usual.81 Even
allowing the rate of 35 km a day to be reasonable, the distance would
have required some 19 days, without taking account of rest days.
Whether the 'long summer days' would improve or retard an army's
performance is open to question, and it ought also to be recalled that
with a force of any considerable size some hours per day are spent in
getting the column moving,82 and in setting up the camp.83 Forced
79. Malamat, The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem', p. 139.
80. Vogt, 'Die neubabylonische Chronik liber die Schlacht bei Karkemisch und
die Einnahme von Jerusalem', p. 94 n. 2, states the distance as 504 km, and Horn,
The Babylonian Chronicle and the Ancient Calendar of the Kingdom of Judah',
p. 18, as c. 340 miles (c. 540 km). But the distance from Megiddo to Carchemish in
a straight line is 520 km if measured on Lucas H. Grollenberg's Shorter Atlas of
the Bible (trans. Joyce M.H. Reid; London: Nelson, 1965), p. 29or, remarkably,
540 km measured on Yohanan Aharoni and Michael Avi-Yonah's The Macmillan
Bible Atlas (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1968), Map 9 (though 490 km according
to map 159!). It would not seem excessive to reckon the actual distance on the
ground as at least 650 km (406 miles), that is, with an extra 25% allowance for the
realities of winding roads. An illuminating calculation may be made on the basis of
Map 2 in Wiseman's Chronicles, p. 22: from Damascus to Carchemish the direct
distance is 250 miles, but by road (Damascus-Riblah-Hamath-Aleppo-Carchemish)
it is 310 miles, an extra 24%; but the latter is still only a calculation on the basis of
a small-scale map, and the actual distance must be considerably greater.
81. For a discussion, see the Appendix.
82. So for example on the day before the battle of Megiddo in 1468 BCE the van
of Thutmosis Ill's army reached the plain of Megiddo 7 hours before the rear of the
army (so J.A. Wilson, ANET, p. 236 nn. 30, 31). Cf. also Harry Pratt Judson, Caesar's Army: A Study of the Military Art of the Romans in the Last Days of the
Republic (Boston: Ginn, 1902), pp. 50-52.
83. Cf. the Abu Simbel reliefs of the camp of Rameses II at Kadesh (Yigael
Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Discov-
418
marches were not of course unknown in antiquity, the most famous

example in classical times being a march of 7 days and 7 nights by
Antigonus I in 310 BCE, in which he moved an army of 50,000 men
almost 300 miles at a speed of 40 miles a day.84 But surprise was of the
essence of Antigonus's march, and this does not seem to have been a
factor in the advance of Neco's army. The fastest realistic speed we can
assume for the Egyptian army over such a distance is about 15 miles a
day; so we should allow at least 27 days for the 400 miles.85
If we adopt mean figures for (i) the days occupied by the march from
Megiddo to the Euphrates, (ii) the date in Tammuz on which the Egyptian army crossed the Euphrates, (iii) the length of reign of Jehoahaz,
we can propose the following dates for the four key events:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Death of Josiah
Egyptian march
Crossing Euphrates
Accession of Jehoiakim
8 June
4 wks
8 July
8 September
3
mo
Now September 8, 609 BCE is a fortnight earlier than Tishri 1 (September 21). The significance of using a mean figure is that it shows that
an accession of Jehoiakim beforeTishri 1 is more likely than not on the
basis of our available evidence.86 The reign of Jehoahaz need only have
ery [London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1963], pp. 236-37).
84. Cf. F.E. Adcock, The Greek and Macedonian Art of War (Sather Classical
Lectures, 30; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), p. 78. An Assyrian
example of a surprise attack which followed a night march of 6 beru (c. 60 km, 37j
miles) by Ashurbanipal is plainly an exception; it presumably did not require the
moving of any baggage (ANET, p. 299b; ARAB, II, 825). The 50 beru travelled in
one day by Gilgamesh and the boatman Urshanabi (Gilgamesh 11.301-302; ANET,
p. 97a), is of course an element of saga.
85. Horn, The Babylonian Chronicle and the Ancient Calendar of the Kingdom
of Judah', p. 18, similarly thinks the distance from Megiddo to Carchemish must
have taken the Egyptian army nearly a month.
86. Even Malamat, for whose chronology it is indispensable to date No. 4 after
Tishri 1, will allow that the death of Josiah occurred 'sometime between early
Sivan and early Tammuz' (The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem',
p. 139), which actually makes the accession of Jehoiakim before Tishri 1 more
likely than not. There is no evidence for supposing, as does Malamat (p. 141),
significant time-lapses between the reigns of Josiah and Jehoahaz, and between
those of Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim.
419
lasted 3 months and 1 week and the crossing of the Euphrates have
taken place a week later in Tammuz, for the tables to be turned; but the
likelihood of these being the case is no greater than that of the opposite
possibilities: Jehoahaz may have reigned less than 3 months, the
Euphrates may have been crossed earlier in Tammuz.
The point may be put another way: if Jehoiakim ascended the throne
afterTishri 1, as is generally thought to have been the case, Jehoahaz
more probably than not ascended the throne after Tammuz 1, 3 months
earlier. Therefore the Egyptian army must have arrived at the Euphrates
in the same month (Tammuz) in which they fought Josiah at Megiddo.
That seems, in the light of the foregoing discussion, to be rather
unlikely; equally unlikely therefore is the original hypothesis, that
Jehoiakim ascended the throne after Tishri 1.
If Jehoiakim's accession occurred before Tishri 1, 609, how is a
Tishri new year hypothesis affected? On an accession-year system, the
weeks between his accession and Tishri 1 would count as his accession
year, and his year 1 would run from Tishri 1, 609. Thus, by the time of
his death in Marheswan 598, he would be in his 12th regnal year, a
conflict with the '11 years' of 2 Kgs 23.36 and 2 Chron. 36.5.87 On a
non-accession-year system (improbable in Judah at this time in any
case),88 he would die in his 13th regnal year!
On the other hand, a Nisan new year reckoning would create no
conflict with the biblical data:89 Jehoiakim's year 1 (accession-year
reckoning) would begin on Nisan 1, 608, Carchemish would occur in
his 4th year (Jer. 46.2) = Nebuchadrezzar's 4th (605 BCE), and
Jehoiakim would die in his 11th regnal year (late 598 BCE).
This argument does not provide conclusive evidence for a Nisan new
87. The only way of evading this conclusion is to make the further supposition
that at some point in the reign of Jehoiakim the calendar reckoning was changed
from a year beginning with Tishri to one beginning with Nisan (so Auerbach, 'Der
Wechsel des Jahres-Anfangs in Juda', pp. 118-20; Pavlovsk^ and Vogt, 'Die Jahre
der Konige von Juda und Israel', p. 346, arguing that Jehoiakim's 4th year began in
Tishri 604, his 7th in Nisan 602). There seems, however, to be no compelling
reason why a change of calendar would necessitate one year of 18 months (17 on
Auerbach's reckoning) rather than of 6 months (as, for example, postulated by
Andersen, ST23 [1969], pp. 108-109, for a calendar change in 697/6 BCE). Cf. also
the criticisms of Jepsen, Untersuchungen, p. 28.
88. See above, under 1.3.
89. Except for Dan. 1.1, a problem in its own right that is discussed above
(under 1.3).
420
year, since it rests upon an estimation of probabilities, but within its

limitations it is a sound reason for claiming that Nisan reckoning was
employed during this period in Judah.
The conclusion reached in this study is this: the balance of evidence
points towards the use of Nisan reckoning of regnal years in the closing
decades of the kingdom of Judah. Of the three arguments in favour of
Tishri reckoning, two (1.1, 2) have been shown to be inconclusive,
since the date they rest upon is susceptible of reasonable explanation in
a Nisan system; the third argument (1.3) uses a date which requires
Tishri reckoning but which also carries with it several improbable
corollaries. Of the two arguments in favour of Nisan reckoning, the first
(2.1) is clear evidence for a Nisan system, and the second (2.2) suggests that a Nisan system is more probable than not. The whole argument therefore depends largely on the respective weight of the data in
Dan. 1.1 and Jer. 46.2. Most scholars would give more weight to Jer.
46.2 than to Dan. 1.1 even if Dan. 1.1 were free of problems, and the
argument presented in 2.2 (the accession of Jehoiakim) offers further
support for the claim that Judaean regnal years were reckoned from
Nisan.
APPENDIX
Esarhaddon's army in an Egyptian campaign marched (they were not mounted on
camels, as A.T. Olmstead, History of Assyria [New York: C. Scribner's Sons,
1923], p. 382, thought!) 20 beru in 15 days, 4 beru in 2 days (3 times), 15 beru in 8
days (ANET, p. 292b = ARAB, II, 558). A beru is 'over 10 kms' (CAD, B, p. 208),
or more precisely, according to F. Thureau-Dangin, JA (10th series) 13 (1909),
p. 98 (cf. E. Weidner, AfO 16 [1952-53], p. 20 n. 138), 10.692 km. Thutmosis m's
army in Palestine is reckoned to have marched 'at the respectable rate of 150 miles
in 9 or 10 days' and about 80 miles in 11 or 12 days (J.A. Wilson, ANET, p. 235
nn. 16, 18). Rameses II marched the 400 miles from Sile on the Egyptian frontier to
Kadesh on the Orontes in exactly one month (ANET, pp. 255b-256a), that is, at the
rate of 13.5 miles a day. See on the subject of the rate of march of Egyptian armies,
E. Edel, 'Die Stelen Amenophis' II aus Karnak und Memphis mit dem Bericht tiber
die asiatischen Feldzuge des Konigs', ZDPV69(1953), pp. 97-176 (152-53).
In Old Babylonian times a daily rate of travel of 25-30 km (as the crow flies) is
attested, for example, in the Larsa-Emar itinerary; cf. W.W. Hallo, The Road to
Emar', JCS 18 (1964), pp. 57-88 (63, 66, 72, 75, 77). But this figure does not take
rest days into account, some of the journey appears to have been made by boat (cf.
p. 69), and above all it is most unlikely that this itinerary relates to the large-scale
movement of troops, since only one night was spent at the final destination (Emar)
421
before the homeward journey was begun (cf. p. 85). An army would do remarkably
well, judging by this standard, to march an average of 20 km a day, rest days
included.
Another set of data, relating to the Babylonian advance to Jerusalem in 598/7
BCE, offers the possibility of a rough calculation of the rate of march, though the
data are not precise enough to be really helpful. Malamat calculates that the army
covered the 1600 km (c. 1000 miles) from Babylon in about two months at an average daily rate of 30 km (18.6 miles) 'during the short and rainy winter days' (IEJ
18 [1968], p. 144; similarly Noth, ZDPV 74 [1958], p. 137). We know that the
army was mustered and set out in Kislev (18 Dec. 598-15 Jan. 597), and that its
siege of Jerusalem ended on Adar 2(16 March), 597. If we make two quite plausible assumptions, that they set out early in Kislev and that the siege of Jerusalem
lasted only a few days (so Malamat; cf. Noth, ZDPV 74 [1958], p. 138), they had
nearly three months for the journey and so need not have covered more than 12
miles a day. But it is in fact impossible to determine whether this speed or that
given by Malamat is closer to the reality. Certainly it seems unlikely that the march
could have been accomplished in a month (so Wiseman, Chronicles, p. 33), at a
rate of 33 miles a day, or even in six weeks (Vogt, VTS 4 [1957], p. 93) at a rate of
24 miles a day. Any calculations are further complicated by the possibility that
Nebuchadrezzar's troops were marched not from Babylon but from some garrison
town near the borders of Hatti-land (cf. Noth, ZDPV 14 [1958], p. 137).
It has been calculated that Roman armies marched between 14.6 and 19.5 miles a
day; but since a day of rest followed each two or three days of marching, an average of more than 15 miles a day over some weeks would have been exceptional
(see Harry Pratt Judson, Caesar's Army: A Study of the Military Art of the Romans
in the Last Days of the Republic [Boston: Ginn, 1902], pp. 52-53). It is true that the
Roman army spent a great part of the day in constructing a camp, a practice that
was perhaps not taken to such lengths during the route marches of ancient Near
Eastern infantry, but against this waste of time must be set the fact that Roman
soldiers covered their daily itinera on roads built especially for marching.
Synchronistic Table
II
I
I
I
IV
VI
VII
VIII
JULIAN
BABYLONIAN
BABYLONIAN in WEST
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
January
Nisan
Nisan
Tishri
Marheshwan -> Nisan
Tishri - Nisan
Nisan
Nisan
Wiseman
Albright
Malamat
Auerbach
Pavlovsky- Vogt
Tadmor
Noth, Kutsch,
Jepsen
Josiah
609
Nabopolassar 17 Nabopolassar
17
Jeh'baTiaz
Jehoiakim
31 Josiah
0 Jeh'oahaz
i Teh'b'TaKim
0
31 Josiah
0 Jehoahaz
0' Te'hoTaKirn
608
607
606
20
Jehoiakim 0 Jehoiakim
/i
d(J
Nebuchad.
0
3
21
0
31
0
19
19
Nebuchad.
Josiah
31 Josiah
0 Jehoahaz 0 Jehoahaz
0
lo
18
605
31
I
JULIAN
January
II
I
I
I
IV
VI
VII
VIII
BABYLONIAN
BABYLONIAN in WEST
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
Nisan
Nisan
Tishri
AAarheshwan -> Nisan
Tishri -> Nisan
Nisan
Wiseman
Albright
Malamat
Auerbach
Pavlovsky- Vogt
Tadmor
Nebuchad.
0 Nebuchad.
0 Jehoiakim
4 Jehoiakim
Jehoiakim
Jehoiakim
Nisan
Noth, Kutsch,
Jepsen
4 Jehoiakim
604
1
2
5
603
2
3
6
602
3
10
10
10
10
601
4
5
8
600
5
6
9
599
6
10
I
JULIAN
January
598
II
I
I
I
IV
VI
VII
VIII
BABYLONIAN
BABYLONIAN in WEST
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
Nisan
Nisan
Tishri
Marheshwan -> Nisan
Tishri -> Nisan
Nisan
Nisan
Wiseman
Albright
Malamat
Auerbach
Pavlovsky- Vogt
Tadmor
Noth, Kutsch,
Jepsen
Nebuch.
7 Nebuch.
8 Jehoiakim 10 Jehoiakim
597
11 Jehoiakim
11 Jehoiakin 11 Jehoiakin
11
0
0
Jehoiachin
11
0 Jehoiachin
0 Jehoiachin
Jehoiakin
0 Jehoiachin 0 Zedekiah
Zedekiah
0 Zedekiah
i
0 Zedekiah
i
0 Zedekiah
i
0
1
9
1
596
10
595
10
11
3
594
11
12
4
593
12
13
I
JULIAN
January
592
I
I
I
I
I
IV
VI
VII
VIII
BABYLONIAN
BABYLONIAN in WEST
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
JUDAEAN
Nisan
Nisan
Tishri
Marheshwan -> Nisan
Tishri -> Nisan
Nisan
Wiseman
Albright
Malamat
Auerbach
Pavlovsky- Vogt
Tadmor
Nebuchad.
13 Nebuchad.
14 Zedekiah
5 Zedekiah
Nisan
5 Zedekiah
Noth, Kutsch,
Jepsen
5 Zedekiah
10
10
10
10
11
11
11
11
5 Zedekiah
591
14
15
7
590
15
16
8
589
16
17
9
588
17
18
10
587
18
19
11
586
19
20
21
NEW YEAR
New Year is taken to mean here both New Year's day and the season of
New Year. The date of New Year in Israel naturally depended on the
calendar employed from time to time. It is clear that in postbiblical
times a festival of New Year was in existence; the character of that festival is well attested in the rabbinic sources. But the nature and even the
existence of such a festival in pre-exilic times remains hypothetical.
1. In the Ancient Near East
Most Near Eastern civilizations observed New Year celebrations.
a. Babylonia
In Babylon a New Year festival (the Akitu festival) was celebrated in
the spring, on Nisan 1-11. A ritual text for days 2-4 survives (ANET,
pp. 331-34), but it is not comprehensive since it concerns only the role
of the leading priest. Moreover it is not always reliable evidence for
Babylonian practice of Israelite times, since it comes from the Seleucid
period (third and second centuries BCE). However, from it and other
references to the festival, we know that the celebration included the
following: recitation of the Babylonian Creation Epic to the statue of
Marduk; purification of the temple; ceremony of renewal of the king's
authorityincluding a ritual humiliation of the king; procession to the
Akitu house outside the city; probably a ritual drama there depicting
Marduk's primordial victory over Tiamat, the chaos monster; upon
return to the city, a ritual marriage (hieros gamos) of Marduk in the
temple Esagila. It is doubtful that the king played the role of the god in
these ceremonies, as is sometimes claimed, and it is almost certainly
incorrect that the festival included a celebration of Marduk's death and
Originally published in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. Supplementary
Volume (ed. K. Crim et a/.; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1976), pp. 625-29, and
reprinted with permission.
21. New Year
427
resurrection. Elsewhere in Babylonia there is evidence also of autumn

Akitu festivals.
b. Assyria
The celebrations were similar to those at Babylon, with some exceptions: the festival lasted about twenty days; there is no evidence of a
ritual humiliation of the king; and a sacred banquet of the gods
(tdkultu)may have been a feature of the rites. References also exist to
Akitu festivals in other months of the year, so it is unwise to regard all
the details of Akitu rituals as proper to New Year celebrations.
c. Egypt
New Year rituals are best known from the late (second-century BCE)
inscriptions of the temple of Edfu. Prominent among the rituals was the
bringing forth of the statue of Horus from his temple to be exposed to
the rays of the sun, a reuniting of the soul of the god with his body.
d. Canaan
The autumn harvest festival played an important, and probably the most
important, role in the religious life of the Canaanites. But it has not yet
been convincingly shown that the Canaanites celebrated that festival as
a festival of New Year. It is far from certain that the Baal myth, telling
of the building of a temple for Baal as a symbol of his kingship and of
his resurrection and victory over Mot, the god of death, has a special
connection with the autumn festival or with a celebration of New Year.
2. In Israel and Judah
a. The Date of New Year
The prevailing view distinguishesoften tacitlythe regnal New Year
and the liturgical or agricultural New Year. The regnal New Year, by
which the reigns of kings were reckoned, is usually believed to have
begun in the month of Nisan (spring) in Israel, and in Tishri (autumn)
in Judah throughout the greater part of the monarchical period. Many
think, however, that the Assyrian spring calendar was adopted by Judah
in the eighth or seventh century BCE. The liturgical year corresponded
more closely to the cycle of the agricultural year, which is thought to
have begun in the autumn. None of the above statements has gone unchallenged, however.
i. The Regnal New Year, (a) Solomon's temple was begun in the sec-
428
ond month of his fourth year and completed in the eighth month of his
eleventh year (1 Kgs 6.1, 37-38), but 1 Kgs 6.38 also says that he spent
seven years in building it. If the usual inclusive manner of counting is
employedwhereby the fractions of years at beginning and end are
counted as full years'seven years' makes sense only if his regnal
years were reckoned from Tishri, the seventh month, while the years
during which the work was carried out were reckoned from Nisan.
However, it seems that the 'seven years' are not inclusive, since they
form part of a total of Solomon's reign (see 1 Kgs 9.10; 11.42), and inclusive reckoning is not employed when adding figures. Moreover, the
'seven years' may be a schematic and symbolic figure.
(b) In the account of Josiah's reforms (2 Kgs 22-23), the discovery
of the book of the law occurred 'in the eighteenth year' of Josiah
(22.3), while the Passover that concluded his reforms also occurred 'in
the eighteenth year' (23.23). On Nisan reckoning, all the events of these
chapters must have occurred in the improbably short time of two
weeks; a Tishri reckoning allows six months. Yet it is clear from
2 Chronicles 34 that not all the events of 2 Kings 22-23 occurred in the
eighteenth year, and again the figures seem to be too schematic for sure
chronological inferences to be drawn.
(c) Jeremiah wrote prophecies in a scroll in the fourth year of
Jehoiakim, and had them read in the temple in the fifth year, in the
ninth month (Jer. 36.1, 9). Clearly the months are numbered from the
spring, for the ninth month is wintry (cf. 36.22). But if the regnal year
was reckoned from the spring, Jeremiah must have waited at least nine
months for the public reading of his scroll. It might seem more likely
that a Tishri reckoning was in force, involving an interval of only three
months. But even so, why did Baruch not read the scroll on the fast day
in the seventh month? If a three-month interval is hard to explain, a
nine-month interval is perhaps no less likely.
ii. The Agricultural and Religious New Year, (a) The autumn Festival
of Ingathering occurred, according to the ancient festival calendars, at
the 'going out' (nK2i).or the 'turn' (naipH) of the year (Exod. 23.16;
34.22). Whether these terms signify not only that the agricultural year
ended with the last harvest festival but also that the next year began
immediately thereafter, as is usually assumed, is open to question. For
the correlative of the 'going out' of the year is the 'return' (rmttfn) of
the year in the spring (2 Sam. 11.1; 1 Kgs 20.22, 26; 1 Chron. 20.1),
and the 'turn' of the year probably means simply the transition from
21. New Year
429
summer to winter, for it is used also for the vernal transition from winter to summer (2 Chron. 36.10).
(b) The Gezer calendar, which lists the chief agricultural activities of
the year, begins in the autumn. But it is noteworthy that it begins with
two months of 'ingathering', which is the final element in the Israelite
festival calendars (Exod. 23.14-17; 34.18-23). So if the Gezer calendar
represents the beginning of the agricultural year, it is out of step with
the Israelite religious year. It is more probable, however, that the Gezer
calendar, written rather crudely as it is, has no normative status for
establishing the time of the year Israelite peasants regarded as the
beginning of the year.
(c) The festival calendars (Exod. 23.14-17; 34.18-23) stress that the
Festival of Unleavened Bread is to be kept in the month Abib (later
called Nisan). It is hard to see why the month of observance should be
mentioned in the case of this festival alone unless the month has some
special significance, for example, as the first month. Exod. 12.2, indeed,
specifically requires Israel to count Abib as the first month of the year,
but many scholars regard this passage as postexilic and therefore of no
evidential value for the pre-exilic period. Others believe that premonarchic Israel observed a spring New Year. What is clear, however,
is that the festival calendars enumerate three chief festivals beginning
in the spring, which would be strange if pre-exilic Israel usually began
its religious New Year at the time of the autumn festival. But because
the current view is that Israel reckoned at least its religious New Year
from the autumn, it is now necessary to examine the evidence for that
view.
b. A New Year's Day?
Tishri 1, the first day of the 'seventh' monthmonths always being
numbered from the springis often thought to have been regarded as
New Year's day in pre-exilic Israel, as it was in postbiblical times.
Though the first day of every month, the New Moon day, was a religious festival (cf. Hos. 2.11 [Heb. 13]; Amos 8.5), the first day of the
seventh month was observed with more impressive ritual (Lev. 23.2325; Num. 29.1-6). Work was forbidden, a cultic assembly was held, and
sacrifices additional to those prescribed for the other new moon days
were offered. These Priestly texts probably embody pre-exilic practice,
though many scholars still believe they were first reduced to writing in
the exilic or postexilic period. But there is no suggestion that the sig-
430
nificance of this day lay in its being the New Year's day; it was rather
that it introduced the month of two most solemn observations, the day
of Atonement on the tenth, and the Festival of Tabernacles on the
fifteenth to the twenty-first or twenty-second.
Tishri 1 was also the date of Ezra's reading of the Law (Neh. 8.2),
but since that was a unique occasion, it is somewhat speculative to infer
that the day was chosen because it was New Year's day.
The term 'beginning of the year' (H]^n (27N~1) occurs only in Ezek.
40.1, where it probably designates not New Year's day, but the season
of the year. Comparison of the chronology with the Babylonian
Chronicles shows that a spring date is here intended.
c. A New Year Festivall
If no New Year's day is attested, may there have been celebrations for
the season of New Year? Those who have identified a New Year festival in pre-exilic Israel have by no means claimed that they had discovered a hitherto unknown festival additional to the well-attested festivals
of the liturgical yearPassover, Weeks, and Booths. They have rather
insisted that the New Year celebrations are only one aspect (albeit, for
most scholars of this opinion, the most important aspect) of the regular
autumn Festival of Ingathering, or, in one or two opinions, of the spring
Festival of Passover. They are therefore freed of the necessity of
demonstrating the existence of the festival; they have only to show that
the rituals and ideology of the festival signify that it bore the character
of New Year celebrations. Here the New Year rituals of the ancient
Near East are given greater or less weight by different scholars, and the
degree to which an Israelite festival may have modified non-Israelite
practices is variously assessed. An Israelite New Year festival has been
understood in various ways.
i. A Festival of Yahweh's Enthronement. This view, propounded
principally by Mowinckel and accepted in many circles of biblical
scholarship, holds that the New Year festival was primarily a celebration of an enthronement of Yahweh. Many of the Psalms, especially
those concerned specifically with Yahweh's kingship (e.g. Pss. 47, 93,
96, 97, 99), are assigned to the liturgy of this festival. The frequent
phrase "J^Q miT in these psalms would mean: 'Yahweh has become
king' (in the cultic ritual just performed). This need not mean that
Yahweh ever ceased to be king; indeed Ps. 93.2 affirms that the kingship that Yahweh has just now entered upon has been his 'from of old'.
21. New Year
431
Crucial to this understanding is the conception of cult as creative

drama, which not only brings reality into being, but also is a representation of primordial reality. Thus the enthronement of Yahweh that is
celebrated and made a present reality at the New Year festival is his
entering upon kingship at the time of creation, when he stilled the unruly waters of chaos (cf., e.g., Ps. 93.3-4). The New Year is therefore
the time when Yahweh re-creates and makes all things new. The most
prominent ritual of the festival was a procession of the ark, re-enacting
the ark's removal to Jerusalem by David and dramatizing Yahweh's
entry into his palace. Other features of the ritual included the reconsecration of the temple (cf. Ps. 93.5) and the communal acclamation of
Yahweh as king (Ps. 47.1-2 [Heb. 2-3]).
Some have emphasized rather more strongly the dramatic character
of the ritual and have found it possible to reconstruct from a number of
psalms a liturgical cycle such as would have been employed at the festival. Thus Johnson finds evidence for a ritual battle between the forces
of light, led by the Davidic king, and the forces of darkness, chaos, and
death. Ps. 89.38-35 [Heb. 39-46] presents then the ritual humiliation
and defeat of the king, Psalm 101 his protestation of loyalty and righteousness, Psalm 18 his thanksgiving after deliverance from the forces
of death, and Psalms 2 and 110 his re-enthronement as the climax of
the ritual drama. The outcome of the drama portrays at the same time
Yahweh's primordial defeat of chaos and darkness and his own enthronement as king.
Nevertheless, while Yahweh's kingship was undoubtedly celebrated
in the cultquite possibly by means of ritual and dramatic actions
there is no clear link between celebration of Yahweh's kingship and the
autumn Festival of Ingathering. One late postexilic text (Zech. 14.16)
indeed mentions both together, but even if their conjunction is more
than accidental, it does not prove that in the pre-exilic period the festival was largely concerned with that theme. Some have argued that the
psalms of Yahweh's kingship were more probably used as sabbath
psalms than as psalms for the autumn festival (Snaith), but perhaps it
would be wiser to acknowledge that we do not know the occasion on
which such psalms were sung, or indeed whether they were intended
for one particular occasion. It can also be persuasively argued that the
phrase "['PQ iTliT does not mean 'Yahweh has become king', but rather
'It is Yahweh who is king', focusing attention on the fact that it is
432
Yahweh, and not Baal nor even the human king, who fully deserves
that title.
ii. A Typical Near Eastern New Year Festival. This view, not so
influential as that previously mentioned, is associated chiefly with
adherents of the myth and ritual school (e.g. Engnell and Hooke). They
believed it possible to identify traces in the Old Testament of a New
Year festival identical in many respects to those of the rest of the
ancient Near East. In addition to the elements of the re-enthronement of
Yahweh and the ritual battle, the liturgy of the festival will have
included: a period of chaos in which law and order are abolished and
roles are reversed, with the king being humiliated and deposed and the
god depicted as descending into the underworld; the cultic portrayal of
the god in his death and resurrection by the king; a celebration of the
hieros gamos, 'sacred marriage', by the king and his consort, symbolizing and creating fertility and prosperity; the fixing of the destinies for
the ensuing year; and the recitation of creation myths as a means of
ensuring the renewal of creation. A variant upon this view portrays the
king in the role of the resurrected sun-god on New Year's day, the
autumn equinox.
Two principal objections can be raised against this hypothesis:
(a) The ritual pattern it invokes is much more fragmentary than has
been claimed. Recent studies in Near Eastern religions emphasize the
differences in ritual and belief between cultures, and the scarcity of
information about the rituals and especially about their significance.
Hence there is no fixed Near Eastern pattern from which gaps in our
knowledge about Israelite religion can be filled. The question remains
whether New Year observances in the Near East exhibit sufficient unity
to enable us to reconstruct such observances in Israelwhen little
specific Old Testament evidence exists.
(b) The relation between mythological texts and rituals is complex.
Myth is not simply the spoken accompaniment of ritual. Near Eastern
myths are often essentially literary productions, with only distant connections to particular ritual acts. Even when they were recited during a
ritualas was the case with the Babylonian Creation Epicthe ritual
activities cannot be safely reconstructed from the myths. Equally hazardous are inferences about Israelite festivals based on Old Testament
Psalm texts.
iii. An Agricultural New Year Festival. The autumn festival, whatever else it was, was primarily a harvest festival. In the earliest Old
21. New Year
433
Testament references, it is called the 'feast of ingathering' (Exod.

34.22; 23.16). It has been arguednotably by Snaiththat a festival
that marks the end of one agricultural year will also mark the beginning
of the next. While it commemorates the blessings of the past, it must
also invoke blessings for the coming year. In that sense the autumn festival in Israel will have had the character of a festival of the New Year.
Principal among its concerns will have been anxiety for the coming of
the rains, especially the Early Rain, which is expected in October, that
is, within a few weeks of the autumn festival. It is not surprising that
prayers for rain figure in the later Jewish liturgy for New Year (see 3
below).
Though there is no direct biblical evidence for such an element in the
celebration of the autumn festival, it is quite probable that the major
festival of the year did not pass without prayers for the future, and, to
be more specific, for the ensuing new agricultural year. Whether that
probability constitutes sufficient grounds for calling the Festival of
Ingathering or Booths a New Year festival is, however, open to
doubtespecially because the biblical sources never refer to the festival in such terms.
It may be concluded that even if pre-exilic Israel and Judah did
reckon their liturgical year from the autumnand that it is by no means
self-evident, as we have seen abovethe evidence that they celebrated
the autumn festival as a New Year festival is far from compelling,
however attractive and imaginative some of the resultant interpretations
of Old Testament texts may be.
3. In Postbiblical Judaism
For reasons as yet unclear, the beginning of the year, reckoned from the
spring by the early postexilic community, came to be celebrated in the
autumn in Judaism. The sounding of the ram's horn ("1312?) figured
prominently in the ritual of the festival, held on Tishri 1-2, while the
liturgy emphasized the themes of judgment, God's kingship, and
creation.
Nisan 1 continued to be recognized as New Year's day for the reckoning of the reigns of Jewish kings and for festivals. Thus, although the
calendar year began with Tishri 1, Passover was regarded as the first
festival of the year. Of minor significance were the New Year's days on
Elul 1 and Shebat 1, for the tithing of cattle and for trees respectively.
434

BIBLIOGRAPHY
General
Frankfort, H., The Problem of Similarity in Ancient Near Eastern Religions (The
Frazer Lecture, 1950; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951).
Gaster, T.H., Thespis: Ritual, Myth and Drama in the Ancient Near East (New
York: Harper & Row, rev. edn, 1961).
Hooke, S.H. (ed.), Myth and Ritual: Essays on the Myth and Ritual of the Hebrews
in Relation to the Culture Pattern of the Ancient East (London: Oxford University Press, 1933).
The Origins of Early Semitic Ritual (The Schweich Lectures, 1935; London:
Oxford University Press, 1938).
In Israel
Gazelles, H., 'Nouvel an (fete du). IV. Le nouvel an en Israel', DBSup, VI (1960),
cols. 620-45.
Engnell, I., A Rigid Scrutiny: Critical Essays on the Old Testament (trans. John T.
Willis and Helmer Ringgren; Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969),
pp. 180-84.
Mowinckel, Sigmund, Psalmenstudien, II (Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter, 2; Kristiania: J. Dybwad, 1922).
The Psalms in Israel's Worship (trans. D.R. Ap-Thomas; Oxford: Blackwell,
1962), I, ch. 5.
Johnson, Aubrey R., Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel (Cardiff: Wales University
Press, 2nd edn, 1967).
Ringgren, H., Israelite Religion (trans. David Green; London: SPCK, 1966), pp.
185-200.
Schmidt, H., Die Thronfahrt Jahves am Fest der Jahreswende im alten Israel
(Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1927).
Snaith, Norman H., The Jewish New Year Festival: Its Origins and Development
(London: SPCK, 1947).
Volz, Paul, Das Neujahrsfest Jahwes; Laubhiittenfest (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr,
1912).
Widengren, George, Sakrales Konigtum im Alten Testament und im Judentum
(Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1955), esp. pp. 62-79.
Less sympathetic to the autumn New Year
Fohrer, Georg, History of Israelite Religion (trans. David E. Green; Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1972), pp. 142-45.
Kraus, H.-J., Worship in Israel: A Cultic History of the Old Testament (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1966), pp. 61-68.
Segal, J.B., The Hebrew Passover: From the Earliest Times to AD 70 (London
Oriental Series, 12; London: Oxford University Press, 1963).
Vaux, Roland de, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (trans. John McHugh;
London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961), pp. 502-506.
21. New Year
435
Date
Clines, David J.A., The Evidence for an Autumnal New Year in Pre-exilic Israel
Reconsidered', JBL 93 (1974), pp. 22-40.
'Regnal Year Reckoning in the Last Years of the Kingdom of Judah', AJBA 2
(1972), pp. 9-34.
Finegan, Jack, Handbook of Biblical Chronology: Principles of Time Reckoning in
the Ancient World and Problems of Chronology in the Bible (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 33-37.
Thiele, Edwin R., The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, rev. edn, 1965).
In Judaism
Jacobs, L., 'Rosh Ha-Shanah', EncJud, XIV (1971), cols. 305-10.
Michel, A., 'Nouvel an (fete du), III. Dans le Judaisme', DBSup, VI (1960), cols.
597-620.
Mishnah, Tractate Rosh Hashanah.
In the Ancient Near East
Drioton, E., and R. Largement, 'Nouvel an (fete du). I. Dans 1'Egypte ancienne. II.
Dans la religion sumero-akkadienne', DBSup, VI (1960), cols. 556-97.
Falkenstein, A., 'akiti-Fest und akiti-Festhaus', in Festschrift Johannes Friedrich
zum 65. Geburtstag am 27. August 1958 gewidmet (ed. R. von Kienle et al.;
Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1959), pp. 147-82.
Lambert, W.G., 'The Great Battle of the Mesopotamian Religious Year: The
Conflict in the Akitu House', Iraq 25 (1963), pp. 189-90
Driel, G. van, The Cult ofASSur(Assen: van Gorcum, 1969), pp. 139-69.
Moor, Johannes C. de, New Year with Canaanites and Israelites, 2 vols. (Kampen
Cahiers, 21; Kampen: Kok, 1972).
Pallis, S.A., The Babylonian Akitu Festival(Dansk videns-kabernes selskab historisk-filologiske meddelelser, 12; Copenhagen: Bianco Lunos Bogtrykkeri,
1926).
Ringgren, Helmer, Religions of the Ancient Near East (Philadelphia: Westminster
Press, 1973), esp. pp. 83-89.
Thureau-Dangin, F., Les rituels accadiens (Paris: Leroux, 1921).
22
IN QUEST OF THE HISTORICAL MORDECAI

I
In the standard works, commentaries, encyclopaedias and monographs,
wherever the historicity of the Book of Esther is discussed, there is
usually to be found some reference to the possible extra-biblical evidence for Mordecai. Here is an extract from a typical encyclopaedia
article in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible:
Reference must be made to a single undated cuneiform document from
the Persian period, found at Borsippa, which refers to a certain Marduka
who was a finance officer of some sort in the Persian court at Susa during the reign of Xerxes I. While a connection between such an individual
and the Mordecai of the book of Esther is in no sense established, the
possibility of such a historical event as is related in Esther cannot be
dismissed out of hand.1
Carey A. Moore, the author of the Anchor Bible commentary on

Esther, is a little more positive about the implications of the reference
to Marduka. This official, who 'served as an accountant on an inspection tour from Susa', could be, he suggests, 'the biblical Mordecai
because, in all likelihood, Mordecai was an official of the king prior to
his being invested in [Est.] 8.2 with the powers previously conferred on
Haman'. To Moore, 'at first glance all of this seems rather persuasive,
if not conclusive'. While he is indeed careful to point out the uncertainties that surround the identification of Marduka with Mordecai, he
nevertheless concludes that
since the epigraphic evidence concerning Marduka certainly prevents us
from categorically ruling out as pure fiction the Mordecai episodes in the
Book of Esther, it is safest for us to conclude that the story of
Mo[r]decai may very well have to it a kernel of truth.2
Originally published in Vetus Testamentum 41 (1991), pp. 129-36, and reprinted
with the permission of E.J. Brill.
1. Bruce T. Dahlberg, 'Mordecai', IDE, III, pp. 437-38 (437).
2. Carey A. Moore, 'Archaeology and the Book of Esther', BA 38 (1975), pp.
62-79 (74).
22. In Quest of the Historical Mordecai
437
Robert Gordis, rather more boldly, appears to have no reservations

whatever about the identification of Mordecai with Marduka. For him,
the attestation of the names Marduka and Mrdk3 is 'the strongest support thus far for the historical character of the book'.4 He writes:
A Persian text dating from the last years of Darius I or the early years of
Xerxes I mentions a government official in Susa named Marduka, who
served as an inspector on an official tour... [T]he phrase yoseb besa'ar
hammelekh, 'sitting in the king's gate,' which is applied to Mordecai
repeatedly in the book, indicates his role as a judge or a minor official in
the Persian court before his elevation to the viziership.
The conclusion to be drawn is rather obvious:

That there were two officials with the same name at the same time in the
same place is scarcely likely.5
From Edwin M. Yamauchi we even gain the impression that the

identification of Marduka with Mordecai has now become the consensus scholarly view:
Marduka is listed as a sipir ('an accountant') who makes an inspection
tour of Susa during the last years of Darius or early years of Xerxes. It is
Ungnad's conviction that 'it is improbable that there were two Mardukas
serving as high officials in Susa.' He therefore concludes that this individual is none other than Esther's uncle. This conclusion has been
widely accepted.6
3. For details of the attestation of the Aramaic form of the name, see G.R.
Driver, Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
abridged and rev. edn, 1957), pp. 27-28, 56; for some Babylonian attestations, cf.
George Glenn Cameron, Persepolis Treasury Tablets (The University of Chicago
Oriental Institute Publications, 65; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948),
p. 84.
4. Robert Gordis, Megillat Esther: The Masoretic Text with Introduction, New
Translation and Commentary (New York: Rabbinical Assembly, 1972), p. 6.
5. Robert Gordis, 'Religion, Wisdom and History in the Book of EstherA
New Solution to an Ancient Crux', JBL 100 (1981), pp. 359-88 (384). The argument is exactly that of Arthur Ungnad (see notes 14, 24). Gordis had already put
forward his view of 'sitting in the gate' in his 'Studies in the Esther Narrative', JBL
95 (1976), pp. 43-58 (47-48).
6. Edwin M. Yamauchi, 'The Archaeological Background of Esther: Archaeological Backgrounds of the Exilic and Postexilic Era', BSac 127 (1980), pp. 99-117
(107). In support of his last sentence he cites S.H. Horn (see next footnote), Sandra
Beth Berg, The Book of Esther: Motifs, Themes and Structure (SBLDS, 44; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978), p. 20; Carey A. Moore, Esther: Introduction, Transla-
438
Siegfried H. Horn concurs:

The result of this disco[c]very has been a more favorable attitude toward
the historicity of the book of Esther in recent years, as attested by several
Bible dictionaries and commentaries published during the last decade.7
So secure is the identification of Mordecai with Marduka in his eyes

that he can even invite us to reconstruct the personal history of Mordecai on the basis of what we know about Marduka:
It is quite obvious that Mordecai, before he became gatekeeper of the
palace, must already have had a history of civil service in which he had
proved himself to be a trusted official...the trusted councillor of [t]he
o
mighty satrap Ustannu, whom he accompanied on his official journeys.
We ourselves are bound to ask, if such far-reaching inferences are

going to be drawn, How well-justified is the identification of Mordecai
with this Marduka?
II
There is a more general question to be raised here about what constitutes historical evidence, in addition to a set of more particular historical questions.
In the first place, it appears to be necessary to insist that evidence for
a Persian official at Susa named Marduka, if that is really what we
have, is next to useless in any debate about a historical Mordecai. For if
on other grounds it seems probable that the book of Esther is a romance
tion, and Notes (AB, 7B; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971), p. 1; Moore,
'Archaeology and the Book of Esther', in note 2 above. Perhaps we should also add
to this list Bernhard W. Anderson, who wrote of the 'revolutionary announcement'
of the Marduka text, which 'definitely administers a coup de grace to any mythological interpretation of the book' ('Esther', IB, III, pp. 821-74 [826]). But
Anderson wisely qualified his enthusiasm about Ungnad's discovery by adding, 'If
it is true', and it should be noted that his concern was not to affirm the historicity of
the book of Esther, which he regarded as a 'historical novel', but to resist the
mythological interpretation which saw the name Mordecai as a cipher for Marduk.
For Anderson, the importance of Ungnad's evidence was that it showed, for the
first time, that Mordecai could be attested extra-biblically as a human personal
name.
7. Siegfried H. Horn,'Mordecai, a Historical Problem', BibRes 9 (1964), pp.
14-25 (22).
8. Horn, 'Mordecai, a Historical Problem', p. 21.
439
and not a historical record, it is quite irrelevant to the larger question of

the historicity of the writing to discover that one of its characters bears
a name attested for a historical person. Fictitious characters usually do.
While it is wise not to 'dismiss out of hand', as Bruce T. Dahlberg puts
it,9 the possibility of such a historical event as is related in Esther, it is
not the existence of a Persian official named Marduka that makes it
unwise. It is just reasonable scholarly caution. Similarly, it is simply
untrue that it is the epigraphic evidence concerning Marduka that
'certainly prevents us from categorically ruling out as pure fiction the
Mordecai episodes in the Book of Esther', as Moore claims;10 they may
be fiction, or they may be not, but the presence of a Marduka at the
court of Xerxes, if that is really what is attested, is not relevantunless
they are in fact the same person. And Moore for one is not willing to
identify the two persons without serious reservations. Furthermore, it
certainly does not follow that because there was a historical Marduka it
'is safest for us to conclude that the story of Mo[r]decai may very well
have to it a kernel of truth', since it is safer still to follow one's best
judgment about the nature of the work as a whole. The theoretical possibility that the two names denote the one person does not translate into
a probability that the story itself may very well have a kernel of truth.
For what, we may ask, would a kernel of truth look like? Would there
be a kernel of truth to the story if there was a Persian official named
Mordecai at Xerxes' court, but he was not Jewish, not the cousin of the
queen, and did not become vizier? Or, what would the significance of a
'kernel' of truth be if the kernel was that Mordecai was a historical personage, but that there was no threat of genocide against the Jews, and
none of the remarkable coincidences of the Book of Esther actually
took place? Would the Mordecai of the Book of Esther in that case be a
historical personage or a fictional character? It is a nice question.
Secondly, and more importantly, the evidence of the Marduka text
needs to be re-examined. In view of their comments on the text, it is
hard to believe that many of those referring to it have actually consulted
the original publications.
The text,11 one of the collection of cuneiform tablets formerly in the
9. Dahlberg, 'Mordecai', IDE, III, p. 437.
10. Moore, 'Archaeology and the Book of Esther', p. 74.
11. There is only one text in question, the reference by D.J. Wiseman (in The
Illustrated Bible Dictionary [ed. J.D. Douglas; Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press,
1980], III, pp. 1024-25) to 'texts' being a misunderstanding of the fact that Ungnad
440
possession of Lord Amherst of Hackney at Didlington Hall, Norfolk,

was first noticed by Theophilus G. Pinches in a communication to the
Congress of Orientalists in Hamburg in 1902,12 though he made no reference to the official named Marduka. When, after Lord Amherst's
death, the tablets were bought by the Vorderasiatische Museum in
Berlin, the Assyriologist Arthur Ungnad noted the possible significance
of the Marduka reference for the Old Testament, and wrote a paragraph
about it in an article in the Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaftfor 1940-41.13In the following volume the editor printed
some lines from a personal letter of Ungnad to him, in which Ungnad
developed a little further his view of the significance of the reference to
Marduka.14 The text of the tablet (Amherst 258) was not published
during Ungnad's lifetime, but appeared, along with six others of the 36
neo-Babylonian Amherst tablets, in the Archiv fur Orientforschungfor
1959-60.15
The facts about the tablet are these: 1. Unlike several other tablets in
the collection, no place of composition is mentioned; but according to
Ungnad, it is probably Borsippa near Babylon,16 as is the case with the
first referred to the text in 1940 and published it only in 1959-60.
12. T.G. Pinches, 'Notes upon a Small Collection of Tablets from the Birs Nim
roud Belonging to Lord Amherst of Hackney', Verhandlungen des XIII. Internationalen Orientalisten-Kongresses: Hamburg, September 1902 (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1904), pp. 267-70 (269-70). One should perhaps say that it was apparently noticed
by Pinches, for Pinches described the text only very briefly, and most of the neoBabylonian texts from the collection have never been published. We have only
Ungnad's word that Amherst 258 is the text Pinches was referring to, and there is a
rather disturbing discrepancy between Pinches's account and Ungnad's (see note 19
below).
13. A. Ungnad, 'Keilinschriftliche Beitrage zum Buch Esra und Ester', ZAW5S
(1940-41), pp. 24044. It is interesting to note that in that year he dared to com
ment that Mordecai's official position at the Persian court showed that 'Xerxes
selbst fehlte jedes arische RassebewuBtsein'.
14. A. Ungnad, 'Mitteilungen. 4. Zu ZAW 1940/1 S. 240ff.', ZAW 59 (194243), p. 219: 'Augenscheinlich sind die Perser, die der Text erwahnt, auf einer
Inspektionsreise aus der Residenz Susa in Barsipa eingetroffen. Das wurde zu Ester
113 (deuterok.) gut passen. Es ist unwahrscheinlich, daB es zwei Marduka als hohe
Beamte in Susa gegeben hat.'
15. A. Ungnad, 'Neubabylonische Privaturkunden aus der Sammlung Amherst',
AfO19 (1959-60), pp. 74-82. Yamauchi incorrectly states that Ungnad 'published'
the text in 1942 (p. 107).
16. Ungnad, 'Keilinschriftliche Beitrage', p. 244.
441
other tablets. 2. Unlike many of the other tablets, it bears no date; but
judging from the persons mentioned it must come from the last years of
Darius I17 or the early years of Xerxes.18 3. Its contents are a list of
payments, both in silver and in kind, made to Persian officials and their
retainers.19 4. Among them is one Marduka, who is referred to as the
sipir of Ushtannu (line 9; in line 14 he is 'the sipir Marduka'). While
Ungnad argued that sipir meant specifically 'accountant', the term
(preferably to be written sepiru or sepiru) is agreed to have simply a
more general meaning of 'scribe' or 'administrative functionary';20 but
the matter is of little consequence for the present purpose.21 5. Ushtannu is well known as the satrap of the province of Babylon and
Beyond the River (Abar Nahara).22 6. There is a reference at the very
end of the tablet (line 26) to 'the land of Susa': 'Altogether 29 and 1/2
minas. Of which 5 minas 56 shekels the portion of Nabu-ittannu, apart
from 5 shekels of silver from the land of Susa (mat Su-Sd-an-nay.
The following assertions and inferences were made by Ungnad:
1. The Persian officials were probably in Borsippa on a tour of inspection from the palace in Susa.23 2. It is improbable that there should have
17. So Pinches, 'Notes upon a Small Collection of Tablets', pp. 269-70. He so

dated it because he saw in it the date 'the thirtieth year', which he thought must
point to the reign of Darius. Ungnad says that Pinches erred in his dating, but
strangely does not tell us how Pinches had done worse than 'err': he had seen a
phrase in the text that apparently is not there.
18. So Ungnad, 'Neubabylonische Privaturkunden', p. 81. In 'Mitteilungen. 4.
Zu ZAW 1940/1 S. 240ff.', p. 219, he had written: 'Zeit: Ende des Darius I. oder
Anfang Xerxes'.
19. Ungnad wrote that Pinches had drawn attention to this document containing
many Persian names ('Schon Pinches... hat auf die Bedeutung dieser, viele Persernamen enthaltenden Urkunde aufmerksam gemacht'). Horn, who must have read
only Ungnad and not Pinches, then informs us that the tablet 'had attracted
[Pinches's] attention because of the large number of Persian names occurring in
this text' (p. 20). Pinches actually says nothing of Persian names, and the observation that the document is 'viele Persernamen enthaltenden' is Ungnad's.
20. So The Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), XV, pp. 225-26; Wolfram von Soden,
AHw, Lieferung 11 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1972), p. 1036.
21. Except that it is quite outdated to be referring to him as 'a finance officer'
(Dahlberg), an 'accountant' (Moore, Yamauchi, Horn), or an 'inspector' (Gordis).
22. On which see Anson F. Rainey, The Satrapy "Beyond the River'", AJBA 1
(1969), pp. 51-78.
23. Ungnad, 'Mitteilungen', p. 219; 'Neubabylonische Privaturkunden', p. 81b.
442
been two high officials by the name of Marduka in Susa.24 3. Marduka

is therefore certainly (gewiss)the Mordecai known from the Book of
Esther, Esther's uncle.25
It should be pointed out that the foregoing are nothing but assertions.
There is in fact no evidence in the text that Marduka or anyone else had
come from Susa to Borsippa, nor that there was any tour of inspection
of anything. Some silver had come from Susa, it is true, but we have no
way of knowing when, or whether it had been brought by the persons
named in the document. There are indeed a number of Persian names in
this document, but that does not prove, or even suggest, that we are
dealing here with inhabitants of Susa rather than of Borsippa. People
with Persian names are to be found, not surprisingly, in many corners
of the Persian empire.
What is of even greater importance for the supposed identity of Marduka with Mordecaiand the fact has not generally been recognized
is that Marduka is some kind of official in the entourage of the satrap
Ushtannu. Since the headquarters of the satrap are of necessity in the
principal city of his satrapy, Marduka is, in the absence of countervailing evidence, to be located there also. This means that what we can
affirm with a high degree of probability is that Marduka is not a resident of Susa.
It is therefore incorrect to say that Marduka was an official in the
court at Susa (Dahlberg, Horn), or was a government official in Susa
(Gordis, Eissfeldt26), or was an accountant from Susa (Berg), or to state
as a fact that he came on an inspection tour from Susa (Moore27), still
24. Ungnad, 'Mitteilungen', p. 219. The argument, which Moore also thinks to
be 'probably justified', and which Gordis and Yamauchi also use, leaves a lot to be
desired. For 1. it begs the question whether Mordecai was indeed an official in
Susa, or no more than a fictional character; 2. it asserts the intrinsically unprovabl
(that the existence of two Mardukas is unlikely); and 3. it distorts the evidence by
affirming that Mordecai was a 'high' official (of whom there were presumably
fewer than 'low' officials and so a lesser likelihood that there could be two Mardukas among them), though of course we have no way of telling whether Mordecai
was 'high' or 'low'even assuming that he was an official at all.
25. Ungnad, 'Neubabylonische Privaturkunden', p. 8la.
26. Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction (trans. Peter R. Ackroyd; Oxford: Blackwell, 1966), p. 508 n. 6 (= Einleitung in das Alte Testament
[Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 3rd edn, 1964], p. 688 n. 1).
27. F.W. Bush, 'Mordecai', in Geoffrey Bromiley (ed.), International Standard
443
less that he made an inspection tour of Susa (Yamauchi) or in Susa

(Gordis28)! And it should not be claimed that 'the discovery of the
Marduka tablet has given at least Mordecai historical respectability'
(Horn29), since it has no relevance whatsoever to the figure of Mordecai
depicted in the Book of Esther.
The substantive question, whether or not there was a historical
Mordecai, is very much more difficult to answer than those who have
appealed to the Marduka tablet have allowed. For the curious thing
about the Book of Esther is that, although it has all the hallmarks of a
romance, with its string of coincidences, its artfully told narrative, and
its engaging characterizations, it can at no point be unequivocally
faulted on historical grounds (which cannot, incidentally, be said in the
least of the Greek Book of Esther). Much of its historical detail can in
fact be substantiated, and the supposed errors it contains can be quite
satisfactorily explained.30 On the other hand, its story-line is a string of
improbable coincidences. Historians are compelled in such circumstances to trust their own judgment of the kind of literature that lies
before them, in the absence of any specific data that settle the question
one way or the other.
Bible Encyclopaedia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, rev. edn, 1986), III, p. 412, at least
says 'apparently...'
28. Gordis, Megillat Esther, p. 6.
29. Horn, 'Mordecai, a Historical Problem', p. 25.
30. See for details, David J.[A.] Clines, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (NCB; London:
Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1984), pp. 256-61.

David J. A. Clines On The Way To The Postmodern Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998. Volume I JSOT Supplement Series 1998 PDF

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David J. A. Clines On The Way To The Postmodern Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998. Volume I JSOT Supplement Series 1998 PDF

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JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Sheffield Academic Press

This page intentionally left blank

On the Way to the

David J.A. Clines

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Copyright 1998 Sheffield Academic Press

Typeset by Sheffield Academic Press

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Reading Esther from Left to Right:

Methods in Old Testament Study

Possibilities and Priorities of Biblical Interpretation

Nehemiah 10 as an Example of Early Jewish Biblical Exegesis 88

Ethics as Deconstruction, and, The Ethics of Deconstruction

The Pyramid and the Net:

From Salamanca to Cracow:

10 From Copenhagen to Oslo:

On the Way to the Postmodern

13 Form, Occasion and Redaction in Jeremiah 20

14 'You tried to persuade me' and 'Violence! Outrage!'

15 Hosea 2: Structure and Interpretation

16 The Parallelism of Greater Precision:

17 The Significance of the 'Sons of God' Episode (Genesis 6.1-4)

20 Regnal Year Reckoning

22 In Quest of the Historical Mordecai

23 Humanity as the Image of God

24 Yahweh and the God of Christian Theology

25 The Theology of the Flood Narrative

26 Predestination in the Old Testament

27 Sacred Space, Holy Places and Suchlike

28 Sin and Maturity

29 The Etymology of Hebrew Selem

30 Was There an 'bl II 'be dry' in Classical Hebrew?

32 The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew

33 Philology and Power

34 Squares and Streets:

On the Way to the Postmodern

35 Psalm Research since 1955:1. The Psalms and the Cult

36 Psalm Research since 1955: II. The Literary Genres

37 The Psalms and the King

38 Universal Dominion in Psalm 2?

39 The Tree of Knowledge and the Law of Yahweh (Psalm 19)

40 The Arguments of Job's Three Friends

41 False Naivety in the Prologue to Job

42 Job 4.13: A Byronic Suggestion

43 Verb Modality and the Interpretation of Job 4.20-21

44 Job 5.1 -8: A New Exegesis

45 Belief, Desire and Wish in Job 19.23-27:

46 In Search of the Indian Job

47 Those Golden Days: Job and the Perils of Nostalgia

48 Quarter Days Gone:

49 The History of Bo-Peep:

50 New Directions in Pooh Studies:

B ibliography of David J. A. Clines

Index of Biblical References

On the Way to the Postmodern

Society of Biblical Literature

On the Way to the Postmodern

On the Way to the Postmodern

On the Way to the Postmodern

modern perception that the distinction between original and copy is

the modernist enterprise, one that esteemed above everything else a

On the Way to the Postmodern