Readers Reply
What BR Means to One Reader
Today I realized with consternation and dismay that I have misplaced the
Oakland,
California
Thoughts on the December BR
The December issue is your best and the contents beg comment.
1. “The Assassination of Eglon,” BR 04:06—Halpern sparkles! This episode, a long time ago, gave me my first insight that the subject matter of the Scriptures is based on a very deep plane of reality called subjective history. A question that comes forth from the tale is one that is based on deduction. That is, the reader is clearly led to believe that God sanctioned the “hit” on Eglon; for it was Ehud who rallied the Israelites with: “Follow me, for YHWH has delivered your enemies, Moab, into your hand.” Question for those of theological bent (theology defined here as discerning the will of God): Would the assertive initiative of God, the Christ, have sanctioned such an assassination at a later time in history?
2. “Corinth & Ephesus,” BR 04:06—Dan P. Cole. Whatever Lake Forest College pays him in salary, they should double the amount. I don’t think it was a slip of Dan’s pen where it says, “… literally could spread his gospel more …,” the operative word being “his.” Indeed, who was chief in forming the primitive Christianity before there were the four Gospels? Christianity on the march, a Pauline invention and documented by writings which reveal profound psychological impacting after dramatic conversion syndrome experiences.
3. “Isaiah—The Impractical Prophet,” BR 04:06— Yehoshua Gitay, and “Two Master Portraits of Isaiah,” BR 04:06—Zefira Gitay. How one interprets Isaiah is much akin to how one would view the two paintings of the prophet. I take issue with Zefira’s analysis of the versions by Raphael and Michelangelo. Raphael’s portrayal is far more introspective, and for me, more meaningful. To correct one observation of Zefira’s concerning the Michelangelo version: The book is not completely closed. Isaiah’s finger is holding the page while the prophet receives his insight from outside of himself via the child-source.
Raphael’s Isaiah, on the other hand, is the personification of fathomless cogitation. It is my opinion that Isaiah ushered into the pages of the Scriptures, as we now know them, the openness of the mind in its attempt to accommodate the influence of God. My clue to all this was when I finally came to see and understand the one line of Isaiah’s first chapter that was omitted from Yehoshua Gitay’s quoting of Isaiah 1:18–20—“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord ….” For me, these are the most powerful words in the Scriptures. Judging by his portrayal of Isaiah, I am inclined to believe that perhaps the words may have had the same effect on Raphael.
Fayetteville,
New York
Of Homosexuals Catamites and Sodomites
In your December issue (“Corinth & Ephesus—Why Did Paul Spend Half His Journeys in Those Cities?” BR 04:06) Dan Cole places in the mouth of Paul the word “homosexuals.”
No currently knowledgeable scholar would fall into such an error anymore, if ever. Even the RSV scholars recanted and corrected their initial error. Paul, no matter how disturbed by any wasting of the male seed, could not have used any Hebrew or Greek word that could, by any chance, be translated into the English “homosexual.” Only 1,800 years later did our Creator God bring to humankind the knowledge, still resisted by the uninformed and bigots, of differing sexual orientations, one of which became identified by the English “homosexual,” taken from the original German “homosexualität.”
Homosexuals were simply unknown to any writer of a verse in the Bible. Paul’s translator no longer has to accept the colorless “effeminate” and “abusers of themselves” of the King James Version, Some may buy “catamites” and “sodomites” from the Jerusalem Bible. But even unrepentant bigots must recognize that no catamite or sodomite of Paul’s day was necessarily a homosexual in the current understanding of that term. Most catamites were slave boys and most sodomites were family men with more of the world’s goods than was good for them.
We should never again see in responsible journalism the English word “homosexual” as a correct translation of any Hebrew, Greek or Latin word in the Bible—anywhere. Editors of Bible Review are as guilty as Mr. Cole for permitting that falsely translated word to appear in print.
Honolulu,
Hawaii
Dan P. Cole replies:
It is quite clear from a reading of 1 Corinthians 6 (in any translation) that Paul is condemning as “unrighteous” a number of activities in which some people at Corinth had been engaging before they became Christians. The point I was making was simply that Corinth’s long-standing reputation for immorality and licentiousness was an important concern to Paul, and, in fact, that it may have presented a challenge that heightened the city’s appeal for him.
Mr. Methered is correct in pointing out that the Revised Standard Version’s use of “homosexuals” to identify one of the groups Paul lists in 1 Corinthians 6:9 is not literally accurate to the Greek text. The RSV translators themselves alert us that they have made a judgment call at this point by indicating in a footnote that “two Greek words are rendered by this expression.”
And what are the Greek words Paul uses?
In other words, the two Greek terms paul used both referred to men who engaged in activities which, in more recent times, would be associated with homosexuals. The terms do not, however, specify these men as necessarily having what Mr. Methered calls the “differing sexual orientation” connoted in the modern era by the term “homosexual” Mr. Methered is quite correct in noting that in the Greek and Roman cultures of Paul’s time many men whom we would define as heterosexuals also engaged in male-with-male sexual activities.
It is quite clear that Paul considered that kind of behavior to be sinful Even stronger than his language in 1 Corinthians 6 are his words in Romans 1:26–27:
“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”
The difference between speaking of those who engage in male-with-male sexual activity and using the label “homosexual” may seem to many to be merely a semantic distinction and not a real one, particularly in our own culture where male-with-male sexual acts more commonly are limited to those who hold a homosexual preference. In terms of historical and literary accuracy, however, I can appreciate Mr. Methered’s concern that we be more precise in our language, lest someone assume that Paul (or others of his time) used a term reflecting the modern understanding of homosexuality.
In addition, since we are dealing with statements in the Bible which some will consider to carry divine authority, I can appreciate why someone might consider it that much more important to clarify that in 1 Corinthians 6:9 Paul is not specifically condemning homosexuals as such. He is, however, condemning homosexual intercourse.
If Benjaminites Were Left-handed, Why Does Their Name Mean “Son of the Right”?
Baruch Halpern (“The Assassination of Eglon— The First locked-Room Murder Mystery,” BR 04:06, still leaves open questions about why the Benjaminites are left-handed. And why does “Benjamin” mean “son of the right hand”?
Berlin,
Pennsylvania
Baruch Halpern replies:
Mr. Ickes is correct that Benjamin means “son of the right,” which, if one faces east, is “son of the south, southerner.” The name reflects the tribe’s southernmost position in Cisjordanian Israel before Judah tribalized (as southern Benjaminites?) in the time between Deborah and David (Judah and Simeon are absent from Judges 5; significant Israelite occupation in Judah begins in the tenth century).
My father, Professor S. Halpern (who, with Professor A. Malamat, observed that the Ehud story had the qualities of a locked-room murder), has long suggested that Benjaminite left-handedness was general, and was a reflex of a distinctive social matrix that led to the great conflict of Judges 19–21. I prefer to view this left-handedness as an occasional, not a workaday, phenomenon, geared to warfare.
One thing is sure: though they are “sons of the right,” Benjaminites produce all those figures identified as using the lift hand in biblical literature.
Did Ehud Escape Through the Toilet?
Eglon’s assassination might be a murder mystery, but Baruch Halpern (“The Assassination of Eglon— The First locked-Room Murder Mystery,” BR 04:06) is certainly no Sherlock Holmes. His article is a conglomeration of conjecture, improbability, wanton disregard for the Biblical Hebrew idiom and some-times pure untruth, all wrapped up to make exciting reading but having little to do with reality.
Let’s first point out some of the many implausibles in Halpern’s treatment of Hebrew. ’Itter is derived from a root meaning “closed up” rather than “bound” as is clearly evident from its only other appearance in all of Scripture (Psalms 69:16). This removes his philological support for the theory of binding children’s right hands. Left-handedness is mentioned three times in the Bible, twice using ’itter and only once using masmil. Yet Halpern claims that masmil is the normal word for left-handedness! In fact, masmil might not mean “left-handed” at all since its meaning in all its other occurrences is “turning toward the left” and in 1 Chronicles it might mean “slinging toward (the right and) left.”
Misdaron is almost certainly derived from the root SDR meaning “to arrange in an orderly manner” as attested by its other three appearances (Job 10:22; 2 Kings 11:15; 1 Kings 6:9) and has nothing to do with blindness or hiding. This root has a similar meaning of orderly arrangement in Assyrian, Aramaic, Syriac and Arabic and, in our story, most probably means a portico of neatly arranged columns or a porch with similarly arranged potted palms for shade right outside the ‘aliya (which by the way would lend much support to the standard “cool upper chamber” translation which Halpern finds so difficult to accept).
Halpern’s treatment of the common Hebrew narrative sequence is literally preposterous. This pattern, unique to Hebrew, consists of clauses all the verbs of which are preceded by waw consecutive and indicates that each verb in the sequence is chronologically or logically consequent upon the preceding verb. Now when the Bible tells us, using this narrative sequence as it does in verse 23, that “Ehud went out to the misdaron and he closed the doors of the ‘aliya upon him, locking them,” it means without question that these events occurred in the chronological order in which they are presented, and not, as Halpern would have us believe, that the door closing had occurred previously when Ehud first entered, and was therefore the reason he had to leave through the misdaron. If that were the case our narrator would have either used the word ki (because) before the second clause, as he does in the preceding verse, or would have interrupted the narrative sequence by deleting waw consecutive as he does in the very next verse, there indicating that the reentering of Eglon’s men was not consequent upon them seeing Ehud leave, but where Halpern strangely enough in that verse insists that it was! (Cf. Genesis 38:14 as another example of the use of the narrative sequence and its necessary interruption by the word ki.) In verse 20, where Eglon albeit a heathen, gives honor to God by rising briskly to his feet at the mention of God’s name, Halpern, with similar contempt for the Hebrew idiom, has Eglon “struggling to stand in bewildered horror” at the sight of a dagger which according to the text has not yet even been drawn! Thus is the spiritually dramatic climax of our story reduced to grade B video scriptwriting by a well-known Bible “scholar.”
Halpern claims that the language of verse 23 militates against Ehud’s locking the door from the outside, yet in every other place were the verb sgr (locking in) is used with the singular ba‘ado appearing alone, the meaning is invariably locking someone in from the outside (see, for example, Genesis 16:7; 2 Kings 4:21).
Halpern’s notions of palace architecture and plumbing are even more fantastic. He would have the royal dung heap located in a large room on the main floor near the center of the palace with its door, secured only by a latch, opening right into the king’s audience hall. The king’s feces and urine would fall ten or so feet, splatter and splash every which way and, if things got really messy, the courtiers and dignitaries in the audience hall might be treated to the sight of it trickling out from under the door—not to mention the ever-present stench wafting through the palace … and the parade of “royal janitors” with their necessary paraphernalia passing through the audience hall trying to appear inconspicuous. Moreover, he would have the hero of our story rip up a 200–300 pound plastered-in stone toilet seat, fall ten or so feet into that previously described cesspool and emerge spotlessly clean and fresh-smelling, lest the courtiers in the antechamber suspect anything unusual. If, as Mr. Halpern contends, the architectural setting of the narrative has never been properly understood, it is certainly not understood by him.
Mr. Halpern tries to prove by default that Ehud did not use a key because the “painstaking” Biblical author would certainly have mentioned it. Yet he implies else-where that a good 95 percent of the original narrative was distilled out to fit a full evening’s entertainment into less than two minutes of reading. He dramatically describes how Ehud single-handedly fought off would-be robbers on the way to the palace, yet the story’s “painstaking” narrator never mentions this. He thinks nothing of fabricating a series of reconnoitering missions not hinted at in the slightest by the narrator, yet insists that Ehud could not possibly have used a key because the narrator didn’t mention it. It seems as if our narrator is painstaking only when he is needed to prove one of Halpern’s theories. At other times he becomes a master of deletion.
The list could continue but why belabor the point. There is hardly a paragraph in Mr. Halpern’s article devoid of proofless conjecture and/or inaccuracy. Familiarity with
According to Mr. Halpern this story is supposed to be humorous and that is why we still have the text today. Does he consider the hacked-to-pieces body of the concubine at Gibeah humorous? Or Amnon’s rape of his half-sister Tamar? How does our scholar explain why we have those texts today—or all the rest of the Bible? No. The story of Eglon, king of Moab, is a powerfully moving one. It is a story of transgression and resultant subjugation, of return to God and subsequent deliverance. It is a poignant story of a heathen king who must die a gruesome death for his wickedness, yet, right before that moment of truth, he gives honor to God and thereby reaps his eternal reward as his daughter Ruth the Moabitess becomes the progenitor of the Davidic dynasty.
The tale is no joke. But Baruch Halpern’s treatment of it most certainly is.
Flushing,
New York
Baruch Halpern replies:
There may not be humor in the Bible in the eyes of unreflective readers, but how did particulars stories reach the ears of the writers who furnished our texts? They were interesting, not dull, and in some cases—not all— amusing to those with a sense of humor. That this is so in the case of the Ehud story is a conclusion drawn from eight years of research predicated on the assumption that the architectural detail of the story was sufficient to orient its ancient audience. This assumption leads necessarily to a reconstruction of an elevated royal throne platform, and the story indicates that it was customary for the king to relieve himself there (though probably through a “Turkish” -type installation, like one found at Mari). Unlike Dr. Eisenberg, my historical imagination does not lead me to hypothesize that Eglon was prodigiously feculent or that the king was permitted to sit above an accumulating “cesspool.” It seems more likely that Janitors mucked out the space frequently. But that is a difference in the state of our imaginations.
Dr. Eisenberg supposes that edification and morality are incompatible with entertainment, and that history writing does not involve selection. What makes the Ehud Story historical is precisely its attempt to distill a longer story into a reconstruction of events. That it need not be emotionally emasculated in the process implies to me that it is good history, effective narration. Is Herodotus dull, polybius unexciting, Macaulay without art? Why should we read history, if it does not delight us? Yet has anyone ever read a history that was not a distillation, a selection of events?
Dr. Eisenberg’s more technical points are also a mixed bag:
1.
For simple left-handedness, another term appears in 1 Chronicles 12:2. Since no one specializes in slinging in a particular direction (humans having feet that turn), all commentators since the Septuagint interpret 1 Chronicles 12:2 as I do—that a single term should mean “go right” and “use the right hand” is hardly improbable. The availability of this other term, though, suggests that the “impeded right hand” of Judges 3:15 and 20:16 reflects a deliberate attempt to cultivate skill with the left hand.
2.
3. In Judges 3:23–24, the repetition, “Ehud went out … He went out” is used to signal that the action is not in chronological sequence. This device is frequent in narrative, including Genesis 37:36 and 39:1 (Joseph was brought to Egypt) with the story of Judah and Tamar in between (see Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Presentation of Synchroneity and Simultaneity in Biblical Narratives,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 8 [I978], pp. 9–26; Burke O. Long, “Framing Repetitions in Biblical Historiography,” Journal of Biblical literature 106 [1987], pp. 385–399). Nor is the verbal sequence in Judges 3:23–24 as Dr. Eisenberg describes, with one verb in the perfect (wn‘l), not the imperfect. And the imperfect can signal a pluperfect as in Judges 2:6, “Joshua dismissed the people, …” after Joshua’s death in Joshua 24:29; Judges 1:1. Here we must infer the meaning, “Joshua had dismissed the people.” The system of Hebrew past narration remains a subject of considerable debate, and there are no easy rules in the matter.
4. Verse 20. It is odd to surmise that “a hea-then” rose at the word “god” (not a name), when Israelite kings took it sitting down (as 1 Kings 22:10). Eglon rises because he senses danger, which makes Ehud’s blow easier to administer. Or does one rise for oracles, but sit for assassins?
5. sgr b‘d. The phrase means “close (the object of b‘d) inside (the door).” Dr. Eisenberg seems to think one could “close oneself inside” (Isaiah 26:20; Judges 9:51) if one were female, or male in the first or second person, or in the plural, but all males in the third person singular had to stand outside when shutting doors.
Finally, to the question of morality, whether murdering a Moabite (surely not Ruth’s father) who had been appointed by YHWH to oppress Israel is a triumph of morality, I leave it to Dr. Eisenberg to say, for whom, no doubt, all “heathens” are wicked. In this matter, however, I prefer modern sensibilities to primitive ones: Since the author of Judges framed the account into a homily about Israel, not Moab, we might do better to tolerate than to damn the “heathens” in it.
Identifying the “Way of the Sea”
In response to the article by Barry J. Beitzel in your October 1988 issue (“How to Draw Ancient Highways on Biblical Maps” BR 04:05), it is necessary to make the following observations. His identification of the Via Maris as a road connecting Capernaum with Acco is based solely on Burchard. No such road exists! A glance at any good topographical map will show that such a road would have had to go over extremely rough terrain to climb directly from the Sea of Galilee to the Valley of Beth-Kerem which leads to Acco. A glance at the Peutinger table accompanying Beitzel’s article shows plainly that there was no such road connecting Panaeas and Tyre in the Roman period!
The best way to identify the Via Maris, the Hebrew “Way of the Sea” mentioned in Isaiah 9:1 (Hebrew, 8:23) and Matthew 4:15–16, is to compare the campaign of Tiglath-pileser III in 733 B.C.E. as depicted in 2 Kings 15:29. The prophet Isaiah is evidently referring to that campaign in his geographical reference (see map below, top). Tiglath-pileser III came down from the Lebanese Beqa‘ Valley to ‘Ijon, Abel Beth-maacha, and then across Upper Galilee by way of a famous route leading to Tyre. There he took Janoah (overlooking Tyre) and then doubled back across the hills of Upper Galilee to the town of Kedesh. This secured his logistic and communications line with the seaport of Tyre where he had loyal Assyrian officers who would see to his supplies. He thus was taking measures against any possible harassment of his supply lines during the siege of Hazor which followed. Then his troops overran Lower Galilee and the Jezreel Plain and went on to Transjordan where they conquered Gilead.
The route from Abel Beth-maacha was in use until the British and French Mandates in 1922. The British Survey of Western Palestine in the 1870s recorded it very carefully. It was known in Roman times and marked by milestones, some of which have been discovered in modern times. Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, made reference to this road when he gave the distance of Israelite Dan from Panaeas, modern Banias. In fact, the official Roman road connected Panaeas with Tyre (see map below, bottom).
The “Way of the Sea” must be a way leading to the sea. The road from Banias to Tyre is just such a road. Thus, Isaiah must have been referring to Tiglath-pileser III’s campaign in Upper Galilee when he referred to the “Way of the Sea.” He also referred to the Jezreel Valley as the “Region (= Hebrew, gelil) of the Gentiles” (Galilee of the Nations) and to Gilead as “the land beyond Jordan.”
The reference by Matthew also fits. He is applying Isaiah’s prophecy to the public ministry of Jesus. Jesus is known to have visited “the territory of Tyre and Sidon” and to have encountered a “Syro-Phoenician” = “Canaanite” woman there. He also got to Caesarea Phillipi = Panaeas = Banias. On his travels to Jerusalem, he crossed the Jordan to Perea, then crossed back via Jericho to go up to Jerusalem.
The real “Way of the Sea” is thus the road from Banias to Tyre. Burchard was guessing, as he sometimes did. Mapmakers who followed him had no other documentation to go by. This was pointed out many years ago by Ze’ev Meshel.
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel
Barry Beitzel replies:
It is essential to differentiate sharply by content and importance between two separate issues contained in my BR article and in Professor Rainey’s response. The central issue in my article is whether or not the roadway alternately designated the “Way of the Sea” or the “Via Maris” should be equated with the international transportation artery that ultimately linked Egypt and Mesopotamia, intersecting Canaan along its course. Many and distinguished are the scholars who have embraced such an equation over the years; included among their influential ranks are names like F. Quaresmius (1639), C. Ritter (1866), G. Schumacher (1889), G. A. Smith (1894), R. Hartmann (1910), K. Baedeker (1912), G. B. Gray (1912), E. Forrer (1920), G. Dalman (1935), D. Baly (1957) and Y. Aharoni (1962). The equation has been perpetuated into our own decade through the writings of W. R. Garr (1985), V. Matthews (1988) and N. Sarna (1988). This is the equation that my essay seeks specifically to explode, and, interestingly enough, on this point Professor Rainey agrees (cf. Tel Aviv 8 [1981], pp. 146–151).
But having denied this equation, one comes to another distinct issue: Where then is the “Way of the Sea” or the “Via Maris” if not along the International Coastal Highway? Here is where Professor Rainey and I disagree. (A much fuller explanation of my views will be given at the Anaheim SBL meetings, and subsequently in print.) First, my identification of a road connecting Capernaum with Acco is based on a great deal more than the work of Burchard. Burchard’s sole reference to the “Way of the Sea” is found in a passage describing a Transjordanian road that passed by Gamla/Kedar, and his description of the land between Acco and Capernaum contains no reference of any kind to a road linking those two towns. Secondly, the 15 or so medieval maps I have uncovered so far in my research that actually delineate and label the “Via Maris,” reflect a rather wide variety of cartographic traditions other than Burchard. Rainey is quite incorrect that the medieval cartographers “had no other documentation to go by.” It is the tradition of Sanuto and Vesconte (not Burchard) that is most commonly identified among these specimens. Such an observation may be all the more pertinent in this discussion because, despite the absence of reference to the “Via Maris/Way of the Sea” by these two authors, Sanuto mistakenly listed Capernaum among the Decapolis cities and, even more arrestingly, he remarked that the “King’s Highway” ran through Capernaum. In any event, the medieval cartographers responsible for including the “Via Maris” on their maps appear in this case to have followed neither Burchard nor Sanuto.
As to the fact that the Peutinger map shows no such road between Acco and Capernaum (Rainey says “Tyre and Panaeas,” but I believe he must mean Acco and Capernaum, as indicated by his third paragraph, and by the fact that a road linking Tyre and panaeas [Cesa] does appear on the Peutinger map), it is well known that the Peutinger omitted numerous less-significant roadways within the Roman empire, especially those which lacked military or commercial value. But furthermore, I do not contend that a road demarcated on medieval maps was ever in existence during the Roman period.
And this leads to my next point. Rainey’s concern is to try to locate the “Way of the Sea” by attempting to place the biblical material into some kind of historical framework. On the other hand, my own efforts seek to explain how the “Via Maris/Way of the Sea” or equivalent expression, found only in the Bible (including the Septuagint and Vulgate) and in theological treatises on Isaiah or Matthew from the classical period, was resurrected in the post-Crusader periods and applied to a new phenomenon. Though this expression may have been biblical in its origin, it functioned in the later periods to guide pilgrims to the site of the headquarters of Jesus’ Galilean ministry. Accordingly, Rainey’s accurate assertion that my road would have gone over extremely rugged terrain is meaningless: post-Crusader pilgrim maps often show direction without precise regard for topography. Put in other terms, Professor Rainey is dealing with an Iron Age reality, whereas I am dealing with a post-Crusader reality. Moreover, it is my contention that these are two completely different realities and that neither corresponds to the International Coastal Highway.
Finally, Rainey appeals to Matthew to make his case. Now admittedly, the gospel traditions concerning the life of Christ are extremely difficult to unravel chronologically or in terms of the sequencing of events, and they surely do record visits to both Tyre/Sidon and Caesarea-Philippi. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the actual Matthean citation of the Isaiah passage has been woven precisely into a pericope that describes Jesus’ move to Capernaum by the sea.
The King James Version—The Only Accurate Bible
Somehow, I doubt you will read this letter, but if you don’t, then the responsibility of informing you of the contents will be on someone else’s shoulders.
Anyone with an eighth grade education, and for sure a college education, can simply weigh the evidence and see for themselves that the King James Version is the only accurate Bible.
I’d be interested in a response, but again: I doubt you’ll ever see this.
Milford, Michigan
I wonder what you’ll say when you read the article on “Coarse Language in the Bible,” in this issue. However, you may never read it. But if you don’t, the responsibility for your not reading it will be on someone else’s shoulders, not mine!—Ed.
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