Queries & Comments

014

Prefers the Editor’s Wife

To the Editor:

I enjoyed the short article by Judith W. Shanks, “A Plea for the Bedoul Bedouin of Petra,” BAR 07:02. It was a refreshing personal article that took me back to my many years in the Middle East. It’s a pity that her husband, Hershel, cannot write half as refreshingly and interestingly as Judith.

Petra Article Causes Thrills and Chills

To the Editor:

Philip Hammond’s “New Light on the Nabataeans,” BAR 07:02, was extremely interesting to one who has visited Petra as an ordinary uninformed tourist.

It would have been even more helpful if it had included a rough sketch or map of the entire area.

To the Editor:

Thrills and chills! Thrilled to have a copy of BAR dealing with Petra—superb! Chills—my subscription had run out and I came close to missing this fine issue.

Hammond’s Corrections to “New Light on the Nabataeans”

To the Editor:

I should like to note and take full responsibility for not having corrected the proofs on some points in my article “New Light on the Nabataeans,” BAR 07:02. The second endnote should have included 2 Maccabees 4:26, 5:5–9, which really should have appeared at the end of the paragraph as a general guide for readers interested in the problem.

Note 3 likewise should read Josephus, Antiquities XIII, xiii, 3.

Paragraph 3 should read “around 70 B.C., the Nabataeans joined forces with Hyrcannus and Antipater, an Idumaean Jew, who claimed entitlement to the office of high priest in Jerusalem.”

I appreciate the readers who have called these errors to my attention and hope these corrections will both clarify sources and unscramble the people involved.

Reactions to “The Infancy Narratives”

To the Editor:

It appears to me that you must have been hard pressed for solid material when you permitted your pages to be cluttered up with M. Robert Mulholland’s supposedly “serious” review of “Raymond E. Brown’s monumental (sic) ‘The Birth of the Messiah’” in your March/April issue (“The Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke—Of History, Theology and Literature,” BAR 07:02)!

It reminds me very much of the supposedly “serious” reviews which one sees occasionally of formless blobs of color which pass in some quarters today as “art”!

If this is a sample of “modern scholarship,” it is a very poor show indeed!

Really, now!

To the Editor:

Raymond E. Brown’s theory of the origins of the Infancy Narratives contained in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke is fantastic! Sheer fantasy! He should try his hand at science fiction.

In considering possible origins, why not take Luke’s word for it when he says that he is recording eyewitness accounts (Luke 1:2). It’s entirely possible that Luke asked Mary about the birth of her Son. It could be that he (Luke) asked some of the people from around Bethlehem and Jerusalem about the birth of Jesus.

Brown worked a whole lot harder to arrive at a highly speculative conclusion than he needed to. He could have read the Bible.

To the Editor:

It may interest you to find out, in case you don’t already know, that the position that your writer took in regard to Father Brown’s The Birth of the Messiah (“While the post-resurrection experience was crucial and central in understanding the birth and infancy of Jesus, the object of understanding was historical and the method of conveying understanding was literary,” “The Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke—Of History, Theology and Literature,” BAR 07:02) was the one that the late Vatican Council took in its “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation,” Dei Verbum in section 19.

For those of you who don’t have a copy of Dei Verbum handy, here’s section 19 from the Flannery edition:

“Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy maintained and continues to maintain, that the four Gospels just named, whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day he was taken up (cf. Acts 1:1–2). For, after the ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of truth (cf. John 14:26; 16:13), now enjoyed (John 2:22; 12:16; cf. 14:26; 16:12–13; 7:39). The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form, others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus (cf. the Instructional Sacra 015Mater Ecclesia of the Pontifical Biblical Commission: AAS 56 [1964], p. 715). Whether they relied on their own memory and recollections or on the testimony of those who ‘from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word,’ their purpose in writing was that we might know the ‘truth’ concerning the things of which we have been informed (cf. Luke 1:24).”

To the Editor:

I protest the use of fourteen prime archaeological pages for an overblown book review. Fortunately, you took the sting out of this waste with the excellent illustrated article on Petra.

To the Editor:

The most serious flaw with Brown’s reconstruction of Luke’s (or the Lukan redactor’s) literary activity is that in starting with Luke 1:5, Brown (and Mulholland, to a lesser degree) ignores Luke’s own testimony to his historiographical activity in Luke 1:1–4, including such statements as “having investigated everything carefully” and “(I) write it out for you in consecutive order.” In other words, Luke says, “I investigated the historical facts,” and Brown says “the census described in Luke 2:1–5 is a Lukan device without historical basis,” and, in Mulholland’s words, “This (i.e., a powerful literary presentation of a theological perspective), not history, is their purpose.” Either Luke or Brown is wrong, as Luke’s purpose could not have been both to inscribe accurate history and to ignore history utterly in an attempt at a written kerygma.

The evangelists’ own testimony is that while they do theologize (John 20:30–31), they do so not by reconstructing history to fit their needs, but rather by picking and choosing which historical events they will include in their writings (John 20:30, 21:25; Luke 1:1–4). This explains both why the gospels are true history, and also why they do not give a complete account of the events of the first half of the first century.

To the Editor:

Robert Mulholland’s review of Raymond Brown’s The Birth of the Messiah is seriously flawed by a fault common in writings about the Bible: the failure to discriminate between what can be proven on evidence and what must be taken on faith. Unfortunately, Professor Mulholland’s arguments are superficially plausible, and their publication in your pages lends them undeserved authority.

Prof. Mulholland argues that the Christian community could have corrected the “partial and confused understandings of Jesus” in the post-resurrection period “guided by the indwelling Holy Spirit.” Hence, according to Mulholland, there may be more historical fact in the gospel stories about Jesus’ life than Brown will allow. True. But to say that this could have happened is a long way from saying that it did happen.

Whatever one may think of this easy movement from “could” to “did” (within six lines in his concluding paragraph we find “implicit historicity” turning into “a reliable historical matrix”), it is certainly unfair of him to invoke the Holy Spirit, an agency visible only to the eye of faith, in the technical analysis of literary documents. If scholars are allowed to do this, then of course anything at all can be proven and we may as well all pack up and go home.

I am not arguing for or against a given view of the Gospels: I am deploring tendentiousness masquerading as free inquiry.

M. Robert Mulholland Jr. replies:

Eleven of the thirteen columns reviewing Brown’s Birth of the Messiah contain an attempt to report concisely, accurately, and fairly Brown’s position. Tendentiousness would have sought to intrude my views into this major portion of the review. I placed my critique in a separate series of statements at the end. The space allowed in the review was limited, making a full statement of the rationale for my own suggestions impossible.

The charge that a common fault in Biblical studies is “the failure to discriminate between what can be proven on evidence and what must be taken on faith” is itself flawed by a yet deeper failure—the failure to realize that every approach to “evidence” has its origins in a “faith posture.” We bring to every inquiry a structure of deeply rooted perceptual and conceptual presuppositions which we unquestioning assume to be valid.

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These presuppositions not only condition our approach to “evidence” but also highly shape what we prove from the “evidence.” For instance, Brown presumes that the historical element in the Infancy Narratives is subordinate to the theological and literary activity of the early Christian community. As a consequence he sees the evidence primarily as theological literature and “explains away” historical problems as the consequence of a theological literary activity which “creates” or “reorders” history to advance its own perspective. On the other hand, one who presumes that the historical elements in the Infancy Narratives were the subject matter of the theological and literary activity of the early Christian community views the evidence primarily as the theological perception of historical events conveyed in contemporary literary forms. Thus the real issue for the interpretation of evidence is which scholarly “faith posture” most closely approximates the perceptual and conceptual perspective of the material being studied. My “unfair invocation” of the Holy Spirit was not an attempt to utilize “an agency visible only to the eye of faith in the technical analysis of literary documents.” It was an attempt to establish from the evidence itself (cf. footnote 10 [n.b. “3:7”] should read “13:7”) the perceptual and conceptual perspective of the literary documents as a means of better comprehending the dynamics of how the early Christian community theologized about historical events in the life of Jesus.

Finally, by “implicit historicity” I meant that the Infancy Narratives contain unreserved, unquestioning (as in implicit obedience) references to historical parameters. Since some of these references can be reliably substantiated (kingship and character of Herod and Archelaus, courses and duties of Jewish priests, and even, with Brown, the unusual circumstances of Jesus’ conception) there would appear to be a reliable (though, as I noted, not unquestionable) historical matrix within which the events of the Infancy Narratives took place.

On the Importance of Choosing the Right Parents

To the Editor:

I have enrolled in BAS because of my interest in archaeology. I am writing to see if you could help me. I am consistently finding that to go on archaeological digs I have to be 18 years old or older. Being only 12, I have a problem. Why is it that there is an age limit? I realize that perhaps twelve is not considered a mature age, but I assure you, I will be well behaved and work as hard as everyone else. Is there any way that I can remedy my situation? I want desperately to go on a dig and I am saving up my money little by little. Is there any way that I can go on a dig without having 058to wait six years?

P.S. I loved your article entitled “New Light on the Nabataeans,” BAR 07:02.

The only way that I know for a 12-year-old to go on a Near Eastern dig is to choose dirt archaeologists for parents. (See the experience of one underage archaeologist in “BAR Jr.: Young Archaeologist Strikes Pay Dirt,” in this issue.)

I guess it is too late for you to do that now, so all you can do is wait—and learn in the meantime. Keep up your wonderful enthusiasm.—Ed.

Amidst Criticism, Some Praise

To the Editor:

I went on one of the BAR tours to Israel. To my delighted surprise, it really was as good (even better!) than advertised. After I don’t know how many years, BAR is still the magazine, out of all I subscribe to, that I devour as soon as it arrives.

BAR Helps Dead Sea Scrolls Project

To the Editor:

Please accept my sincere appreciation for the generous statement in BARlines, BAR 07:01, about the Dead Sea Scrolls Project here at the School of Theology at Claremont. My BAR arrived January 6, and on January 8 a flood of mail began to appear. I have been swamped ever since!

After our supply of scroll facsimiles was gone, we ordered more from Germany, but discovered the cost rise and postage was so much that we must now ask for a larger contribution, so henceforth a contribution of $50.00 or more will be needed to supply a scroll. But this has not stopped the responses.

These contributions will now enable me to begin arrangements for publication of a companion volume to the costly color volume, Scrolls from Qumran Cave I. I hope to make this volume a sort of introduction to the whole series of Dead Sea Scroll volumes with many additional color photos that ought to be preserved for posterity, as the first volume has done.

But BAR’s coverage has done more for the Project than simply help distribute facsimile scrolls. The slide lectures are now circulating almost continuously, and other resources offered by the Project are being requested.

So, thanks to BAR and many interested persons, the Dead Sea Scrolls Project is buzzing with activity. We here at the School of Theology are deeply grateful for this service aspect of BAR.

Preserving Man

To the Editor:

I just read “Animals of the Bible,” BAR 07:01.

The restoration and preservation of “original” wild life to Israel is a noble cause. Yet it seems ludicrous for a country that is bleeding inside and around it to expend energy and 059wealth on trying to recreate the past. Israel has enough problems just to preserve the animal called “man.”

To the Editor:

Now that we’ve had an article on animals of the Bible, how about one on plants of the Bible?

Patience. In the meantime, see “Living Plants as Archaeological Artifacts,” BAR 01:04; “Plants as Biblical Metaphors,” BAR 05:03; and “The Rose of Jericho,” BAR 06:05.—Ed.

We’re Sorry

To the Editor:

Probably my only chance—ever—to be a great literary success (“The Other Side of the Tell,” BAR 07:03)—and you spelled my name wrong—how could you!!??

Prefers the Editor’s Wife

To the Editor: