Bible Books

014

In a Different Voice

The Women’s Bible Commentary

Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, editors
(London and Louisville, Kentucky: SPCK and John Knox Press, 1992) 415 pp., $19.95

The insights of feminist biblical scholarship are now widely accessible, thanks to The Women’s Bible Commentary. The book’s guiding rationale is the need for women, who have read the Bible for generations, to read self-consciously as women. This agenda continues the work begun by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who gathered a group of collaborators in the 1890s to produce The Woman’s Bible, which sought to expose the male bias that had distorted the interpretation of the Bible and the, misogynism inherent in the text itself.^a

The Women’s Bible Commentary shares Stanton’s collaborative approach as the co-editors have solicited contributions not only from well-established scholars, but also from newer voices emerging in the field. These scholars, moreover, speak from a variety of religious denominations (although none represents the perspective of fundamentalism). Their collective voice also echoes Stanton’s desire to speak beyond the academy to the larger community of women who read the Bible. The shift in title, however, from Stanton’s singular, iconic “Woman” to the plural “Women” signals a contemporary appreciation for the diversity among women—that there can be no single “woman’s perspective.”

In its method, too, The Women’s Bible Commentary reflects Stanton’s vision. Rather than offering a complete gloss on each biblical book, a general overview of the book’s concerns is followed by a selective commentary on passages particularly relevant to women. This includes analyses of female characters and symbols as well as social, economic and political conditions affecting women in general. The Women’s Bible Commentary also contains articles on the daily life of women in the biblical and early Christian periods, together with an essay on feminist hermeneutics.

In their introduction, co-editors Carol A. Newsom, associate professor of Old Testament at Candler School of Theology, and Sharon H. Ringe, professor of New Testament at Wesley Theological Seminary, note the ambiguous gift the Bible has been to women: Although it has often been invoked to justify the subordination of women, the Bible has also been the source of empowering strength. And indeed this tension is the salient feature of The Women’s Bible Commentary as the essays on the prophetic books illustrate.

The prophets, notably Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea and Habakkuk, depict the unfaithfulness of Israel to God in term’s of a wife’s sexual infidelity and they describe God’s righteous anger in terms of a wronged husband. Women must find such usage, which seems to sanction domestic Violence, insidious and deeply reprehensible. Particularly devastating are metaphors of divine rape, with their seeming support of the ongoing victimization of women (Jeremiah 13:22, Nahum 3:5–6). Yet the contributors to The Women’s Bible Commentary insist that from the prophets women may learn positive lessons: a boldness of self-presentation before God and the world despite the rejection by religious authorities (Jeremiah) and a deepened awareness of how multiple factors interact to corrupt a society (Amos). The tension inherent in the biblical texts allows offensive passages to be seen not as potential 016for the censor’s pen, but as invitations “to confront and think through important questions,” as Katheryn Pfisterer Darr says at the end of her essay on Ezekiel (p. 190).

Pleasant surprises await the reader of The Women’s Bible Commentary: We discover that Yahweh may have had a consort; that prophecy, scribal activity and even masonry were vocations open to women (see 2 Kings 22; Ezra 2:55; Nehemiah 3:12); and that women held positions of recognized ministry and leadership in the early church. In the course of these revelations we also learn much about scholarly prejudices. For example, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi cites Nehemiah’s list of those who helped rebuild the walls of Jerusalem after the return from the Babylonian Exile, a list that includes “Shallum … and his daughters” (Nehemiah 3:12). Although this is grammatical, the phrase “and his daughters” seemed, in the past, to violate gender roles unacceptably. This, in turn, led either to ingenious scholarly theories, as when L. W. Batten opined in 1913 that “daughters” must refer to the hamlets that grow up around a city, or to simple dismissal, as when Alfred Bertholet declared that the meaning of “daughters” in this passage was unknown.

Interestingly, it is precisely where the biblical material seems most intractable to feminist analysis that broader questions are engaged. Thus Zephaniah offers a place for reflection on the appropriateness for women of the prophetic call to humility; women might better “hear a call from God to give up their low self-esteem and dependence,” as Judith E. Sanderson writes in her essay on the prophet (p. 226), So, too, the book of Job, where the only time a woman speaks she is silenced with the criticism that she talks like a fool, is described by Newsom as teaching “the significance of personal experience as the source of religious insight, the importance and difficulty of solidarity among those who are oppressed, a critique of traditional models of God and the relationship between human existence and the whole of creation” (pp, 130, 134).

Some redundancies inevitably arise from the parcelling out of the work. Such repetitiveness, however, is appropriate in a commentary, which is usually consulted selectively and at intervals. And while such an ambitious project cannot be wholly free from errors, The Women’s Bible Commentary as a whole makes for delightful and informative reading, despite the demanding double-column format. Its witty feminist style is neatly caught in Dana Nolan Fewell’s pithy observation on the fate of Delilah, who “disappears from the story, financially secure for life” (p. 74).

The Anchor Bible Dictionary

David Noel Freedman, Editor in Chief
(New York: Doubleday, 1992) Six Volumes, 7,284 pp., $360

The April issue of Bible Review featured several reviews of articles related to the Hebrew Bible in the recently published Anchor Bible Dictionary. We now conclude our assessment of this major new reference work by evaluating how it treats New Testament topics.

Gospel Literature

The lay reader seeking help in studying the gospels will find a wealth of material here. The relevant articles are written by eminent scholars and present balanced treatments of the issues in modern gospel study. The contributors have produced significant monographs on the subjects about which they write and they exhibit the even-handedness of mature scholars who argue for their own viewpoint even as they survey other opinions in the field.

Each of the essays on the canonical Gospels treats introductory questions such as authorship date place of writing purpose and major theological and christological themes. Paul J. Achtemeier’s essay on the Gospel of Mark, for example, opens with a thorough discussion of its origin, including a careful response to the second-century assertion of Papias, bishop of Hieropolis in Asia Minor, that the Gospel was written by a certain Mark who was an interpreter of Peter’s preaching. Rather than dismiss Papias’ view as historically useless, as is often done, Achtemeier addresses each of its claims with evidence from the text of Mark and leads the reader to conclude with him that, although the Gospel is anonymous, the author does not leave us without some general information about himself (or even herself, Achtemeier concedes!). So also, rather than simply asserting a scholarly consensus about the date and circumstances of the Gospel of Mark’s composition, Achtemeier builds a compelling case for that scholarly consensus (about 70 C.E., in a Christian community outside of Palestine in need of clarity 017about Jesus’ identity and its meaning for their lives).

In the same manner, John P. Meier’s treatment of Matthew, Luke T. Johnson’s essay on Luke-Acts and Robert Kysar’s discussion of John make cogent arguments from the Gospel texts rather than merely report the results of scholarship. Consequently, the reader becomes engaged in the search for answers rather than passively submitting to answers offered by experts.

Kysar, in his treatment of John, includes a section on “Sources and Composition,” discussing the vexing problem of the pre-history of the Fourth Gospel. Given that John shares some stories and sayings with the Synoptic Gospels, how likely is it that the author knew or used those documents in composing his own? We learn in a later entry on “Signs” that Kysar is not particularly persuaded by theories that Matthew, Mark and Luke served as literary sources for John, and rather suspects that oral traditions common to John and the Synoptics best explain the similarities. In an additional section labeled “Value,” Kysar addresses both the Fourth Gospel’s usefulness for investigating the historical Jesus (more than is often claimed, in his view) and its theological invitation by example to interpret and reinterpret Christian tradition in new situations of the Church.

Meier includes a discussion of the ethnic heritage of Matthew’s author, offering a cogent (if minority) argument that the evangelist is a gentile. Johnson’s article on Luke diverges from the pattern of the other three entries in that he treats the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles together, which allows him to examine “Literary-Religious Themes,” “Literary Aspects” and other issues common to these two volumes of what is generally considered a single work.

These four articles provide a good general introduction to the study of the Gospels, and a perceptive overview of the major scholarly debates about each. The reader is advised, however, to look beyond these articles to the numerous others that address related topics, some of which are cross-referenced in the articles on the Gospels. Robert T. Fortna, for example, in his essay on “Signs Source,” is much more optimistic about the possibility of a “Signs Source” behind the Fourth Gospel than is Kysar; and George W. E. Nickelsburg’s entry on “Son of Man” inquires at greater length than Achtemeier on Mark into the background of the phrase “son of man” in wisdom literature and its usage in Mark’s Gospel.

Other relevant articles, however, are not cross-referenced in the four primary essays. Readers will want to consult the articles on the non-canonical gospels, such as “Thomas, Gospel of” and “Ebionites, Gospel of,” although a good beginning to the study of these non-biblical works might well be the essay on “Gospel, Apocryphal.” Other relevant entries are those on the relationships among the Gospels, such as “Q (Gospel Source)” (strangely this essay makes no mention of the three strata or editions of Q, referred to as Q¹, Q² and Q³), “Synoptic Problem” and “Two-Source Hypothesis”; on the sections common to all the canonical Gospels, such as “Passion Narratives” or “Miracle (NT)”; and on aspects of Jesus’ life and teaching, such as “Parable,” “Jesus, Teaching of,” “Jesus, Actual Words of,” “Trial of Jesus,” “Sermon on the Mount/Plain” and “Kingdom of God.”

Looking still more broadly, the reader will find relevant material on the Gospels in numerous other entries, such as “Ethics (NT)” and “Christology.” To examine the Gospels in the context of the Greco-Ro-man world, the reader will find helpful the articles on “Gospel, Genre of,” “Biography, Ancient,” and “Early Christian Literature.” For further study readers can refer to the bibliographies at the end of each entry, which are longer than in many dictionaries and generally quite inclusive of diverse viewpoints.

Epistolary Literature

The material in the New Testament attributed to Paul is covered in the Anchor Bible Dictionary by Hans Dieter Betz (“Paul,” “1 and 2 Corinthians,” “Galatians”), Charles Myers (“Romans”), Victor Paul Furnish (“Ephesians” and “Colossians”), John T. Fitzgerald (“Philippians”), Edgar Krentz (“1 and 2 Thessalonians”), S. Scott Bartchy (“Philemon”) and the late Jerome Quinn (“1 and 2 Timothy and Titus”). They present us with relatively brief but thorough articles indicating the present state of research, together with up-to-date bibliographies.

The articles are somewhat uneven in structure and focus, as illustrated for instance by the particular emphasis on rhetorical analysis by Betz, for whom such interests are long-standing (rhetorical analysis examines the letters of the New Testament from the perspective of the 052rhetorical handbooks of the ancient world, seeking to understand a passage’s purpose by its argumentative structure). On disputed questions, particularly on reconstructions of literary history, most of the articles ably present conclusions provisionally. An exception is the article on 2 Corinthians in which Betz assumes without argument a six-fold fragment theory—which alleges that the epistle is a patchwork composition of six independent letters, in contrast to the opinion of most scholars, who see in it three or four sources—and refers the reader to other works for his methodology and analyses.

Editor Gary Herion admits in is introduction that the ABD, as any other Bible dictionary, is “a product of its own time” insofar as it is also an exhibit of “the field of biblical studies itself.” The ABD reveals a discipline that is not only increasingly specialized and technical, but also less theologically interested and more concerned with studying the New Testament epistles in the context of early Christianity rather than in the context of the canon.

For example, in the impressive articles under the entry “Letters” no separate treatment is accorded to letters in the New Testament. Similarly, no subsection on letters in the New Testament is included in the article on “Greek and Latin Letters”; instead, references to New Testament letters are scattered throughout the article. Given that the ABD is a Bible dictionary, a summary of the most important implications of the study of Greco-Roman letters for the interpretation of New Testament epistolary literature would have been appropriate.

Betz’s discussion of Paul’s theology is insightful and helpful; but his conclusion, that the one constant in Paul’s thought is justification by faith, seems rather meager. Charles Myers’ article on Romans is a significant exception to the purely technical and historical interest in the biblical world reflected elsewhere in this set. After dealing with the usual questions about the epistolary form, the occasion of the letter and its argument, he concludes by considering three “problem texts” that have social, political and moral implications for today: Romans 1:26–27, on homosexuality; Romans 13:1–7, on the state; and Romans 16:1–7, on women.

The specialized and technical character of recent biblical studies means that the ABD will be somewhat inaccessible to a general readership. Those not well acquainted with the discipline may need a 053handbook of biblical criticism for help with numerous technical terms as they read. Indeed, there are entries on “Diatribe,” “Virtue/Vice Lists,” and “Household Codes,” which a non-technical reader might consult to help translate passages in other essays, but no articles are included on parenesis (moral exhortation) or peristasis catalogues (conventional lists of hardships), terms that are also used throughout the ABD.

The unevenness of the ABD reflects the preoccupations of current research. For the uninitiated, the ABD might have, at a minimum, included entries on technical terms that point the reader to larger articles that discuss them to a greater extent. The ABD does not, therefore, replace the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (IDB), the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament or the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. The result for many readers may be analogous to using a library that is in the midst of a data-base transfer to computer: One must consult both the computer and the card catalogue.

Finally, some minor objections—the unconventional abbreviation Plmn for Philemon, inconsistent and occasionally inadequate cross-referencing and unnecessary overlap (entries for both Haustafeln and Household Codes, although the latter is simply the English term for the German former and the two essays do not differ radically from each other)—might be explained by the record time in which the ABD project moved from conception to publication. Such minor points are nearly inconsequential when one acknowledges the overriding value of the ABD in providing an up-to-date resource for scholars and students.

New Testament History

The most notable feature of the Anchor Bible Dictionary’s essays devoted to historical (as distinct from literary or textual) matters is their consideration of the proper time-frame for understanding New Testament history. Rather than limiting themselves to questions raised by the canonical books or even to the time period during which they were composed, the editors have included essays on events and figures from the third and fourth centuries of the Common Era.

This historical Perspective, which sees the New Testament as one product of the growth of early Christianity rather than as the sole focus of interest, is manifested in the inclusion of an essay on Hegesippus (a late second-century Christian writer) and the Allogenes (a gnostic apocalypse from the third century), along With expected treatments of Mary the mother of Jesus, the Apostle Paul, Roman religion and Judaism in the first century. The essays devoted to specific books of the New Testament and to features of those books are consistently ruled by historical questions more than by theological ones.

This trend toward viewing the New Testament within the broadest possible historical parameters is of course welcome, but it reflects an increasing distance between those who read the Bible for the light it sheds on the ancient world and those who read it for the nurture of faith. The phenomenon of that distance is certainly not new, but the ABD demonstrates a heightened contrast between the interests of scholars, on the one hand, and churchpeople, on the other, at the end of the 20th century.

For the non-technical reader there is nevertheless much in which to revel in the ABD: More than one might know to ask about the coinage of the Greco-Roman world, about Jewish food customs and Hellenistic hospitality, about Jewish and pagan burial customs and about the current state of archaeological investigation of Palestine and the Mediterranean cities frequented by Paul and his fellow travelers. Even the substantial essay on Jesus (including sections: by Ben F. Meyer on “Jesus Christ,” N. T. Wright on “Quest for the Historical Jesus,” John Riches on “The Actual Words of Jesus,” Marcus J. Borg on “The Teaching of Jesus” and Richard Bauckham on “The Worship of Jesus”) dances neatly among highly controverted scholarly issues without entirely excluding the layperson from the conversation.

I wished often for greater cross-referencing, since the six volumes are so massive as to daunt any but the most determined (or scholarly) searcher. So, too, did I sometimes wish for an occasional brief translation of a technical or foreign-language term that would not have interrupted the flow of an argument but would, rather, have allowed a non-specialist to follow along. Would that the price of this gem were not prohibitive for many church libraries, since its addition would be a valuable aid to Bible study—and will be for those who consult it.

054

The Unity of the Hebrew Bible

David Noel Freedman
(Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1991) 133 pp., $22.95

This slim volume swims against the tide of recent scholarship. While most scholars attribute the final form of the Hebrew Bible to several authorial strands that were collected and merged with each other over a period of centuries, the three lectures contained here argue that the biblical text betrays numerous signs that a single editor or editorial committee shaped it into its present form sometime in the late fifth century B.C.E.

David Noel Freedman, one of the most distinguished biblical scholars of our time, needs little introduction to BR readers. He edits the Anchor Bible Series and was Editor in Chief of the Anchor Bible Dictionary; he also serves on BR’s Editorial Advisory Board. Indeed, he presented the gist of his thesis regarding the composition of the Hebrew Bible in these pages.^b

The opening lecture in The Unity of the Hebrew Bible deals with the Primary History (Genesis through Deuteronomy and Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings), which contains almost exactly one-half of the Hebrew text of the Bible. Freedman maintains that the final editor shows in Genesis 1–11 that he knows how the story will end (with the Babylonian captivity) and that he has tied the Primary History together around the first nine commandments in the Decalogue (the tenth—the injunction against coveting—concerns a thought, not an act). By showing that each of the commandments in order, one for each of the nine books, was violated to the peril of the nation, the editor documents the justice of God in finally exiling his disobedient people.

Lecture Two focuses on the Latter Prophets (Isaiah through Malachi), whose contents interlock with the end of the Primary History and bring the story to the rebuilding of the Temple. Freedman isolates elements that connect each of the great prophets with a historical work—Jeremiah with the Deuteronomistic material, Ezekiel with the Priestly work and Isaiah with the Chronicler’s composition. In addition, Freedman finds that the Minor Prophets are consciously ordered, are related in a loose chronological sense with Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and like the great prophets are centered about the destruction of Jerusalem.

Freedman’s final lecture treats the last section of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Writings. He prefers the order in the Leningrad and Aleppo codices, in which Chronicles comes first and Ezra-Nehemiah last. In this way the Chronicler’s work envelopes the other books in the Writings and shares themes with them (for example, the importance of David). Freedman notes that the Torah, or Five Books of Moses, and the Writings are nearly equal in length; Similarly the two halves of the prophetic canon—from Joshua through Kings and from Isaiah through Malachi—have virtually the same number of words 055(Daniel, a much later and different kind of book, has been left out of these calculations). All of these connections, interlinkings and arrangements lead freedman to conclude that the whole of the Hebrew Bible has been shaped according to an overriding plan.

Freedman’s approach to the Hebrew Bible is refreshing and novel. At times connections he spots are forced or loose (such as some of the commandment violations or the ties between Isaiah and Chronicler), but these lectures are an intriguing exercise in looking at the big picture and not getting lost in the myriad details of redactors, editions and revisions.

Graphic Concordance to the Dead Sea Scrolls

James H. Charlesworth, et al., eds.
(Tübingen/Louisville,: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Sieback]/Westminster-John Knox Press, 1991) xxxi + 529 pp., $150

Concordances are among the unsung heroes of scholarship. A concordance is a list of all the words found in a given text or body of literature, usually arranged alphabetically by root, and within root by grammatical form. Modern concordances frequently give as much context as possible for each citation and are referred to as key-word-in-context concordances. These, of course, are much more valuable than a concordance that merely lists the occurrences of a root with a minimum citation. In biblical scholarship, scholars frequently employ concordances of the Hebrew or Greek texts, as well as of English and other translations. For those of us with less than prodigious memories, concordances help us recall many of those parallel passages that often decorate our learned footnotes.

The volume under review, the first publication of the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project, is a concordance of the published Hebrew and Aramaic texts from Qumran, but it is not a standard concordance. Rather than being arranged by root, and within root by form, it is a graphic concordance, ordered 056alphabetically according to each graphic unit—even an isolated letter or partial words—attested in the documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Thus forms beginning with the article h are concorded under h, and those beginning with conjunctive w under w; graphically identical forms such as rbd, dibber, “he spoke” and rbd, davar, “word, thing,” are listed together without distinction; letters that survive in fragments and not as part of clearly identifiable words are concorded as they appear.

There may be virtues to such an arrangement, particularly the fact that the words appear as they do in the original documents, unanalyzed by grammar or prejudiced by the reading of any scholar, but such virtues are probably outweighed by the inability to find with ease all occurrences of a given root in the published corpus. The editors of the Graphic Concordance do promise a standard analytical concordance after the new editions of the texts that are to be published in the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scroll Project appear. It was certainly far easier to produce a graphic concordance than a standard one, but the latter would have been far more utilitarian to almost all students of the Qumran scrolls.

The last concordance of the Qumran corpus was published by K.G. Kuhn in 1960 (with a supplement a few years later in Revue de Qumran), but many texts have appeared since then and many others have been re-read with greater accuracy. In the absence of any other sort of concordance for the enlarged corpus, the Graphic Concordance can be employed with a limited effectiveness. Of course, in addition, to its peculiar arrangement, this concordance still does not contain the entire Qumran corpus, but only the texts published to date. Any scholar who needs to check the complete Qumran usage of any word must consult the privately published and circulated concordance, from which Ben Zion Wacholder and Martin Abegg were able to reconstruct the hitherto unpublished texts. [The first two fascicles of Wacholder and Abegg’s reconstructed texts have been published by the Biblical Archaeology Society—Ed.]

The interests of economy (note the price!) have also had an impact on the concordance. In the effort to present two columns of key-word-in-context on each 6″ x 9″ page, the number of words that precede and follow the keyword is kept to minimum, and the size of the type is small. It does not make for an attractive or easy-to-read page, and I have found it necessary to employ a magnifying glass for continuous use. Even at the same number of pages, a small increase in the size of the page would have made reading the concordance much easier.

There is also an annoying inconsistency in the way texts are referred to—some by cave number and document number, and others by cave number and familiar document title. There should have at least been a complete consecutive listing by document number, as well as a separate listing of familiar titles with corresponding numbers, at the beginning of the concordance so that users are not forced to switch continually back and forth between systems of numeration. Too many texts have no document number at all recorded in the listing at the beginning, and this prevents efficient use of the concordance.

This is not a work that even under the best of circumstances, would be employed by or even be of interest to the average reader of BR. It can and will be utilized by scholars who will find ways to work around its inconveniences in order to take advantage of the rich data contained within it.

In a Different Voice

The Women’s Bible Commentary