Bible Books
012
Dramas of Interpretation
Genesis: The Beginning of Desire
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995), 456 pp., $34.95
This book defies easy categorization. Neither biblical scholarship, nor literary criticism, nor philosophy nor psychoanalysis, it partakes of all these disciplines, resulting in a series of original, eclectic and occasionally astonishing meditations on each of the parshiyot, the Jewish weekly Torah-reading portions, in the book of Genesis.
Unlike most literary or biblical scholars, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg makes no attempt to offer a coherent thesis about the book of Genesis or to implement a critical methodology. “To create is precisely not to control,” writes Zornberg in an early discussion of free will and God’s creation of man—a statement that says much about her own highly creative and associative approach to biblical interpretation. More concerned with uncovering the poetry and mystery of this first book of the Pentateuch than with proving an overarching argument, Zornberg looks to “loosen the fixities” of classical readings, to “detect the intimations of disorder” within the seeming order of the Bible and its commentaries.
Fittingly, the beginning point of many of her interpretive searchings is the oft-quoted classical commentary of Rashi, an 11th-century French exegete, who based many of his own readings on works of midrash (a term derived from the Hebrew root “to seek out” or “inquire,” referring to rabbinic biblical interpretation, expansions and homily). Of course, hers is a very different sort of Rashi. To Zornberg, Rashi and his rabbinic precursors are like poets, restlessly and variously re-making the text, providing explanations and filling in narrative gaps in ways that evoke as many tensions and uncertainties about God and human life as they do resolutions.
Based on this understanding of the midrashic project, Zornberg herself becomes a midrashist/poet, strenuously and imaginatively re-inventing the text at every turn. Part of her project of dislodging and re-making is her persistent, dizzying and sometimes exasperating disregard for disciplinary boundaries and conventions. Rashi, Emerson, Nachmanides, Freud, Rav Hutner (a 20th-century talmudic scholar and commentator) and Wallace Stevens (whose “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction” provides the subtitle of the book) hang together on her pages like beads on a string, forming a loose pattern of associations. At once profoundly traditional and relentlessly modern, Zornberg refuses to acknowledge distinctions or contradictions between the religious and critical dispositions of her diverse sources. Everything is relevant and commensurate as long as it engages the mystery of the text, and of reading in general.
If there is one theme that unifies Zornberg’s meditations it is the issue of interpretation itself. Like many postmodern literary critics who read in order to learn about the operations of reading and language, Zornberg repeatedly interprets the stories of Genesis as dramas of interpretation. More than that—according to Zornberg’s renditions, the biblical protagonists often “read” the world the same way she reads texts, confronting and embracing mystery and ambiguity. Thus Abraham’s various trials enact a tension between “the incommensurate Otherness of God and the daring activity of [Abraham’s] own integrative mind”; Jacob’s departure from Canaan after stealing Esau’s birthright represents a necessary intellectual and personal “detachment from previous identities and fixities”; and the story of Joseph and his brothers is explained as a series of “bewilderments of interpretation.”
Zornberg frankly acknowledges the idiosyncratic nature of her readings, inviting us to eavesdrop on her private musings. At worst, we find ourselves spectators at a virtuoso interpretive performance, sitting in rapt but passive attention; at best, we are prodded to follow Zornberg’s lead and find our own ways to re-encounter these familiar stories.
013
The Gospel of Jesus: The Pastoral Relevance of the Synoptic Problem
William R. Farmer
(Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), 240 pages, $19.99, paperback
William Farmer has contended throughout his career that Matthew, not Mark, is the earliest Synoptic Gospel. With this book, Farmer, for the first time in a public document, spells out what he believes are the religious and theological implications of that contention.
Christians have known since the second century that some kind of literary relationship exists between the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, a relationship in which one or more of the writers used the other as a source for writing their books. Throughout most of the history of the church, Matthew was considered the earliest gospel, Mark second and Luke third. Since the middle of the 19th century, however, the most widely accepted scholarly theory has been that Mark was first and that Matthew and Luke independently used Mark and a hypothetical source called Q to compose their later gospels [see Eta Linnemann’s “Is There a Gospel of Q?”—Ed.]. There is so much common material in these books that some such explanation is necessary.
Farmer argues that we have not taken seriously enough the religious ramifications of choosing one or another of these theories of gospel priority. The Gospel of Jesus is fueled in part by Farmer’s dismay at the skeptical and ahistorical conclusions being reached by many scholars today, including BR columnist Helmut Koester, the widely publicized Jesus Seminar, and some proponents of Q and the Gospel of Thomas as alternative Christian foundation documents. Farmer sets out to show that much of the historical skepticism of these scholars stems from uncritical acceptance of the priority of Mark and of the existence of the Q document.
After a brief discussion of his thesis that Matthew is the foundation document of the Synoptic Gospels and was used by Luke, with Mark then using them both for his gospel, Farmer offers a series of chapters on specific topics he believes are better understood from the perspective of the priority of Matthew. He argues, unlike the Jesus Seminar, for the authenticity of the Lord’s Prayer. On the Lord’s Supper, he argues that Matthew and Paul are mutual witnesses to the original tradition upon which this crucial Christian sacrament is based.
After a review of the arguments that led to the theory of the priority of Mark, Farmer concludes with a chapter on what he calls “The Gospel of Jesus.” Here he relies heavily on the view that the identification of Jesus with the Suffering Servant of Second Isaiah was Jesus’ own view and that this is best supported by the recognition that the Gospel of Matthew is the earliest gospel.
With the current turmoil about who Jesus really was and where Christian theology is headed, this is an important book. The claim made so often today that the classical historical-critical study of the Bible is out of date, useless and irrelevant is refuted here even if the reader does not agree with the writer’s conclusions. Farmer shows decisively that judgments one makes about literary and historical questions have profound effects on one’s view of Jesus, the church and faith.
Farmer believes that rethinking the synoptic problem and understanding that Matthew is the first gospel makes the development of the church and of the New Testament canon more understandable. He seeks to lay to rest the current theory that there was an early Christianity that was not based on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Most of all, he believes that the priority of Matthew makes it far easier to reconstruct the historical Jesus and that Jesus will turn out to be more in harmony with traditional Christian faith than the pale shadows now emerging from scholarship based on the Mark-Q hypothesis.
As with any deliberately bold and provocative work, the reader is left with questions. While I agree with Farmer that Matthew is the earliest gospel and that there never was a Q or any first-century Christianity without the kerygmatic message of the death and resurrection of Jesus, it must also be said that many scholars who argue for Mark and Q also agree on the early Christian kerygma. Moreover, can the priority of Matthew do as much as Farmer claims to anchor theology and history? Even for the Matthean community, the reinterpretation of Jesus that was prompted by the cross/resurrection experience must have been profound. The post-Easter faith can never guarantee the Jesus of history; nor can the Jesus of history verify that faith.
The Gospel of Matthew is the product of a Christian thinker reapplying the gospel to his own day. Behind him probably lies a generation of Christian-Jewish tradition that preserved, molded and even created traditions about Jesus. Behind them stands Jesus, accessible to us only dimly and with great difficulty. But Farmer is probably correct that elements of the Mark-Q school have gone well off the track of credible reconstruction of either history or faith. He may be correct that their motives are secularist, 014anti-ecclesiastical and naive. Even if the priority of Matthew doesn’t solve all these problems, The Gospel of Jesus presents an impassioned view of Christian origins that deserves serious attention.
When Women Were Priests
Karen Jo Torjesen
(San Francisco: HarperSan Francisco, 1993), 278 pp. $22.00
Despite the catchy title, this book is less a study of women priests than a competent guide to attitudes toward women and sexuality in the Greco-Roman world. Author Karen Jo Torjesen begins by surveying the evidence for women’s public leadership in ancient synagogues and churches. There are, for instance, a good number of both Jewish and Christian funerary inscriptions that name deceased women with titles of leadership like deacon or presbyter. Modern authors frequently assume incorrectly, and without evidence, that when attributed to women these titles are purely honorary.
Torjesen next turns to the private sphere, where women had more influence and power. She considers women’s roles in household management, for example, in light of contemporary social ideals and male leadership in the public sphere. The author offers a helpful discussion of women’s active participation in the extensive patronage system. Little has previously been written on how women functioned in this social system, whereby the wealthy and powerful (women as well as men) exercised influence over social organizations and individual clients who depended on them for favors and social and political advancement. Then she explores the prevalent ideals of feminine virtue. Even women in public roles were cast as images of private virtue. For example, in the epitaph of Aurelia Leite of Paros, this patron of many public works is also praised for her domestic qualities as lover of husband and children. Torjesen then addresses the honor/shame system of traditional Mediterranean cultures. This system restricts the value of women to their private and particularly their sexual and reproductive roles, regardless of their actual social power.
After discussing women’s influential roles in the private sector, where the Christian church initially grew, Torjesen investigates the church’s extension into the male-dominated public sphere in the second and third centuries. She uses Tertullian as an example of the growing Christian consciousness of Christianity’s public nature, which contributed heavily to the elimination of women’s leadership roles.
In general Torjeson draws broad, sweeping lines that often require further elaboration. One very long chapter begins with Augustine’s sexual experiences and ends with the Reformation (the contempt for sexuality embedded in celibacy was replaced at this time by the subordination of women in marriage). A too brief and somewhat extraneous final chapter races from the goddesses of Old Europe to medieval mysticism in a search for feminine images of God. It concludes: “Christian churches need to return to their own authentic heritage, reject the patriarchal norms of the Greco-Roman gender system, and restore women to equal partnership.”
Careful readers will discover many gems along the way, especially in the notes. But be warned: Many details should be treated with caution. Statements about material outside the ancient world can be simplistic, and descriptions of some illustrations are poorly conceived and at times inaccurate. For example, a catacomb painting of a funerary meal conducted by women is interpreted, without sufficient grounds, as a eucharist, and the author alludes to 015depictions on an Attic drinking cup of “topless courtesans” who are clearly bottomless.
Despite errors such as these, the reader can learn a great deal about ancient Mediterranean women and about the social construction of gender in that society. Unhappily one learns more about why women did not have more prominent public roles—about why women weren’t priests—than about what they actually were.
God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism
Howard Eilberg-Schwartz
(Boston: Beacon, 1994), 312 pp., $27.50
Is God male? Is God beyond gender? Is our concept of God shaped by male-dominant biases of the Bible and ancient Israel? These questions have been debated vociferously in recent years by feminist scholars in the academy and by feminist theologians in the church and synagogue. No issue in modern religion raises tempers quite as much as these, as recent battles over gender language in Protestant and Catholic hymnals attests.
In God’s Phallus Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, an ordained rabbi and professor of religion at Stanford, offers a bold new theory on these issues that will no doubt intensify the debate. Eilberg-Schwartz is well informed in feminist theory, but he turns the usual critique of the male-dominated Bible on its ear by arguing that the concept of God in the Bible is a problem for men as well as women. He points out that the biblical God is male but is depicted as sexless. Whenever a biblical prophet sees God, his eyes are averted from God’s loins. Ezekiel, for example, sees God from the loins down as “something like fire” (Ezekiel 1). Similarly, Moses only sees God from behind (Exodus 33). As Eilberg-Schwartz notes, there is a “divine cover-up” in the Bible, for the sexuality of God is too problematic an issue. He speculates that the prohibition of images of God (the second commandment) derives from this uneasiness about God’s sexuality.
If male Israelites love a male God as a conventional obligation, does this not imply a degree of homoeroticism? Eilberg-Schwartz suggests that in loving God, Israelite men are feminized. This explains why Moses has to wear a veil when communing with God at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 34), since elsewhere only women wear veils. The un-manning of Israelite men in their loving relationship with God also explains why Israelite males are circumcised, as a sort of emasculation, when they enter into the divine covenant. God’s attack on Moses (Exodus 4), which somehow involves circumcision, and his attack on Jacob (Genesis 32), which involves an injury to Jacob’s loins, are interpreted similarly as part of the process of “unmanning Israel.”
How can a male God be imagined without a body? How can people be made in the image of God yet be commanded to “be fruitful and multiply,” that is, to have sex? Sex and the biblical God are in many ways conflicting notions. By exploring these conflicts embedded in Jewish and Christian male identities, Eilberg-Schwartz opens our eyes to their importance. He does not claim to solve the problems of men and monotheism, but he argues that “the use of both masculine and feminine images by both men and women opens up the possibility of various forms of intimate relations to the divine.” One does not need to agree with his many provocative interpretations of the Bible to see the validity of the basic insight and the importance of facing it without averting one’s gaze.
Dramas of Interpretation
Genesis: The Beginning of Desire
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