Readers Reply
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Missionary Ads
After mulling over several renewal notices for BR, I was all set to renew even though I find in it little of practical value and most of its writers appear to be “puffed up” over knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Nevertheless, I still find some of the articles interesting and thought-provoking.
However, I find it unconscionable that a magazine devoted to the Bible would accept advertising designed to discredit people who actually believe the Bible. I’m referring to the half-page ad in the December 1994 issue that markets “The Jewish Response to Missionaries.” Even though the Bible indicates that the Gospel is for “the Jew first,” I doubt that BR would accept an ad that has as its theme “Why Jewish People Need the Gospel.”
I realize that BR includes non-endorsement statements regarding advertising, but I believe it’s wrong for a publication that supposedly upholds both the Old and New Testaments to allow itself to be used by partisan religious leaders to foster and maintain division and ill-will. Therefore, I will not renew my subscription to BR.
Centerville, Tennessee
We do not accept ads that seek to convert people of one religion to another religion. The ad you refer to is specifically addressed to Jews.—Ed.
Strengthening Christian Faith
Your excellent articles on the Bible, its origins and authors, have helped me to understand and resolve some of the many ambiguities and discrepancies in the Bible and, thereby, helped to strengthen my own Christian faith.
Palm Harbor, Florida
Jonah
There’s Far More to Jonah
I just received my first copy of BR and noticed the article entitled “Staging Jonah,” BR 11:01. I read a few paragraphs and was totally disgusted. Such drivel. It is sacrilegious to treat God’s word in such a way. In no way is the book a satire. Granted, there is humor in what Jonah endures for his actions, but there is a far greater reason for the book than Wilcox envisions. I don’t want to waste my time reading such drivel. Cancel my subscription immediately!
Wilmington, Delaware
Kudos for Wilcox and Sharir
Thanks for “Staging Jonah,” in the February 1995 issue of BR. Lance Wilcox did a great job of keeping my interest, and the artistry of David Sharir added to the article. I have been involved in musical dramas based on biblical stories for a long time. Please put me in contact with Mr. Wilcox to see if he has any plays we could adapt for use in our church.
North St. Paul, Minnesota
We’re happy to. You can contact Professor Lance Wilcox at Elmhurst College, Depart-ment of English, 190 Prospect Ave., Elmhurst, Illinois 60126. David Sharir’s address is 5 Kikar Kdumim, Old City of Jaffa, Israel 68037.—Ed.
Jonah Was a God-wrestler
Lance Wilcox’s discussion and interpretation of the Jonah tale in your February issue (“Staging Jonah,” BR 11:01) revealed a basic misunderstanding of the Book of Jonah and a trivialization of the complex sensibility regarding justice and redemption that is its central theme.
The story of Jonah happens to be one of the fiercest and most tightly written tales of the Bible. Extremely laconic in its nar-rative, the style reflects the tension between stern, unswerving righteousness and the quality of mercy. It is by no means comic, as Mr. Wilcox seems to suggest. Nor does it end with any easy answers about the problem of evil in the world.
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At the start we are told that the will of God is spoken to Jonah, but he abruptly flees from God without even a word. The storyteller cleverly refrains from revealing any motivation for Jonah’s flight (for reasons of narrative suspense) until much later.
We are quickly informed of the futility of physical escape from God and we might even suspect some form of possible cowardice on the part of Jonah. But this seems doubtful, for he is a chosen prophet, and God’s prophets are not normally cowards. Indeed, when faced with the destruction of all on the ship, Jonah, with the courage of the most stoic soldier, tells the captain to cast him into the sea. He does not plead for mercy, although the sailors are so inclined.
By this time we are well aware that God does not choose his prophets as lightly as Mr. Wilcox would have it. While the motivation for fleeing is still unexplained, we sense Jonah is no common coward, as God would not deal with mediocrity in choosing the man who must carry the holy word. In truth, it is later revealed that Jonah is a moral hero, a contender with God, not a “yes” man.
Only much later, after the reader is led through the events that bring about the salvation of Nineveh, are we finally told the reason for Jonah’s original flight from God. He states it clearly and succinctly. Contrary to Mr. Wilcox’s view, God does not choose as prophets “petulant” children who justify themselves with false excuses. Jonah simply says to God—I knew that this (the salvation of Nineveh) would be the ultimate result of your command to me; that is why I refused! In other words, he has no room in his morality for the kind of bleeding-heart mercy that ignores the need for justice in the universe. For Jonah, evil simply deserves punishment.
Far from being weak, ordinary and comically pathetic (as Mr. Wilcox sees it), Jonah is a hero in the great tradition of ethical Jewish heroes from Abraham on; he is a wrestler with God himself. While in the more typical tales of the Bible, God appears more alienated from human weakness than his prophets, the ironic twist here is that the prophet Jonah is more alienated from humanity than God.
New York, New York
Seeing the Comic in Jonah’s Tale
At lunch today I was describing “Staging Jonah,” by Lance Wilcox to my wife, a dramatist, and suggested she read it.
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She excused herself for a minute and returned with a slim volume that she suggested I read. It was the Journey with Jonah, by Madeleine L’Engle, illustrated by Leonard Everett Fisher (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967). L’Engle had already won a Newberry Award and Fisher won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for painting. It is written as a play and includes production notes. My wife’s “StoryBook Players” had staged it many times before a variety of audiences.
This is not intended to detract in any way from Wilcox’s presentation, because both versions maintain the humor of the story along with the basic message. Wilcox introduces the character of Jonah’s wife, while L’Engle uses an Owl, a Jay, a Goose and so on, to help carry the story. It would be interesting to know how many others have seen the story of Jonah as a vehicle for a humorous play carrying an important message.
Jacksonville, Florida
He Knows Funny
“Staging Jonah,” BR 11:01, does not meet the usual high standards expected from BR or Biblical Archaeology Review, nor does Lance Wilcox appear to be a biblical scholar.
You have diluted the instructive value of the February 1995 issue by giving a lot of scarce space to this amateurish effort. I am not a biblical scholar, but even with my lack of expertise I would have no trouble writing several pages of criticism, pointing out example after example where Mr. Wilcox missed the point, misread the conversation, overlooked the obvious, misinterpreted the attitude, erred on the motive and completely failed to see the secure personal relationship between Jonah and God.
Since Mr. Wilcox is an assistant professor, he should know something about researching his subject. There are a number of instructive studies on Jonah available, and reading two or three might have permitted Mr. Wilcox to write something with a little depth instead of this shallow, silly thing.
Perhaps this was meant to be a work of art. If so, it is the same quality of art that has endangered Federal funding for the arts. It also endangers the quality of BR.
I know funny when I see it, and this article is not funny.
Little Rock, Arkansas
Paean to Wilcox
It’s about Jonah
Friends are wondering why
I am smiling All day!
Saint Mary Parish
Milton, Wisconsin
Judaisms
The People Around Jesus Were Not Christians
Gabriele Boccaccini (“Multiple Judaisms,” BR 11:01) summarizes the view of many scholars today as he describes the multiple faces of Judaism in the first century C.E. It is time we realize that Judaism in the time of Jesus was no more monolithic than Christianity is monolithic today.
I do take exception to one of Mr. Boccaccini’s conclusions, however. He states, “Jesus and his followers were entirely Jewish and…creators of a new religion.” Although Christianity is based upon belief in Jesus, there is no evidence that he or his followers had any intention of leaving the “plurality of groups” that formed the Judaism of their day, nor were they attempting to create a new religion within or outside of Judaism. Therefore, the use of the phrase “earliest Christianity” in the subtitle is misleading by applying this particular name to the Jesus group.
Christianity as a religion emerged on the heels, if not the teachings, of Paul, who was not, in reality, one of Jesus’ followers. Christianity was nourished in the womb of a western Greco-Roman eligious system that rejected Judaism and the Jewish people. We can be relatively sure that neither Jesus nor his followers ever heard, much less used, the word “Christianity.” If not for the Roman Emperor Constantine, those who followed the teachings of Jesus would have been nothing more than another group within plural Judaism.
Crystal River, Florida
Get Your Iconography Straight
I write about a sad lapse in theological and iconographic knowledge on your part, one that is most uncharacteristic of the high standards of your admirable magazine. My comment has to do with a caption on page 40 of the February 1995 issue (“Multiple Judaisms,” BR 11:01) , referring to 009the photograph of the figure of Synagogue on the previous page. I trust the caption was not written by Gabriele Boccaccini, author of the article “Multiple Judaisms,” for the passage reveals ignorance of medieval church belief about Judaism.
The figure of Synagogue in question is not portrayed as “wanton,” as the caption-writer states. Rather, the female figure from the great door of the cathedral at Strasbourg shows a defeated woman warrior, her spear (not staff, as the caption states) broken, her writ of authority shattered, her prophetic eyes blinded. The indication is that of authority and rule superseded by the matching figure of the militant church, standing at the matching doorpost of the facade. This motif is commonplace in medieval art. Synagogue is not seen as wanton by the Christian theology that lies behind the iconography. As a Christian theologian, I am ever conscious of Christian denigration of Judaism through the ages. Let us at least depict the shameful facts of the prejudice accurately.
Evanston, Illinois
Judaism & Christianity
Gabriele Boccaccini, in his “Multiple Judaisms,” asserts that rather than thinking of a parent-child relationship between Rabbinic Judaism (parent) and Christianity (child), we should think of the two as “fraternal twins.” “From the viewpoint of an historian of religion,” Boccaccini continues, “Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity are simply different outgrowths of ancient Judaism.”
Boccaccini should have added, of course, that Islam also has historical roots in ancient Judaism; but my principal quarrel with Boccaccini lies elsewhere.
Jesus, and the initial members of the Jesus movement, were clearly influenced by ancient Judaism (along with Greek Cynic philosophy and other currents flowing at the time). But by 100 C.E. numerous “Christian” groups had developed, so it is difficult to generalize about “Christianity.” Then, in 380 C.E. Theodosius made one of those Christianities the official religion of the Roman Empire.
That version of Christianity consisted (as Harvey Cox once put it) of Greek ideas housed within a Roman organizational structure. That is, the particular Christianity that became established in the Roman Empire in 380 C.E. was intellectually close to Greek philosophy and Greek mystery religions, but not at all close, intellectually, to ancient Judaism. Certainly it was much less close than was the Judaism of 380 C.E. It goes without saying, of course, that Christianity was but a distant relative of the religion of Jesus himself.
Greendale, Wisconsin
BR’s Columnists
Keep Politics Out of the Pulpit
I truly appreciated Bernhard Anderson’s column, “What Does God Require of Us?” BR 11:01. I have been troubled for some time about the use of the pulpit for political agendas. Seeing political candidates and office holders behind a pulpit diminishes its holiness. Yet liberal and conservatives alike want to get their pulpit time. Is this the role of preaching? Does one’s political party take on a sacramental nature along with the Eucharist and Baptism?
Anderson distilled the essence of the Bible into three ideas: do justice, love mercy and walk humbly.a I believe that if our churches spent more time preaching on these principles instead of on politics, which tends to divide us, the churches in America could unite and be a true force for righteousness.
Faith Church of the Nazarene
Burbank, California
Quintessential Religion
Never has the essence of religion been better expressed than in your February 1995 issue, where your columnists, Helmut Koester and Bernhard Anderson, speak of the radical message of Luke with regard to the poor and of the very simple message that God requires us to do justice and to walk humbly with Him.
Fairfax, Virginia
Books
God Wants Faith, Not Child Sacrifice
I was pleased to read Ronald Hendel’s review of Jon D. Levenson’s challenging book, The Death and Resurrection of the 010Beloved Son (Bible Books, February 1995).
I was disappointed, however, in Hendel’s failure to discuss more fully the story of Mesha, King of Moab, which seems on its face to support Levenson’s thesis. Mesha, desperate to reverse his impending defeat in a war with the Israelites, sacrifices his first-born son on the walls of his last redoubt. This act is apparently well received by God, because we read that, immediately thereafter, a great anger came over the Israelites (presumably God’s anger, because they had been unwilling to show the kind of subjugation to God that Mesha did); the Israelites lift their siege of Mesha and return home.
Does God really prefer man’s willingness to sacrifice his first-born, as this story suggests? Or do we have here a gnostic element in the Bible, depicting an evil God exercising His power over a more humane Israelite nation that refused to indulge in child sacrifice? Both of these theories run counter to the rabbinic attitude that governed the canonization of the Hebrew Bible: There is only one God, who abhors child sacrifice, and evil comes from man (in the exercise of his free will) and not from God. How then do we explain this text in the Bible?
I believe the story can be simply understood. Early in 2 Kings 3, where the Mesha story is told, the prophet Elisha predicts complete, easy victory for Israel over Moab. Until the very last incident we have been discussing, the prophecy has come true. But the Israelites, faced with the act of Churchillian defiance and determination exemplified by Mesha’s bold (but obscene) act of slaughtering his own child, became angry that the prophesied easy victory turned out to be a difficult one, with much loss of blood and life inevitable. Discouraged and frustrated, they decide that they have taught Mesha enough of a lesson (the war had started with his rebellion against Israelite rule), and so they decide to lift the siege and go home.
The lesson, if any, is not that God favors man’s willingness to sacrifice his beloved son, but that man can nullify a prophecy of blessing by refusing to accept that blessing. In this case, Israel nullified Elisha’s prophecy by being more impressed with Mesha’s show of zeal than they were by Elisha’s prophecy. God cannot help those who have no faith in Him, and who are unwilling to help themselves.
Glen Rock, New Jersey
Don’t Call It Anti-Semitic
Regarding Judith K. Applegate’s review of Kathleen E. Corley’s Private Women, Public Meals (Bible Books, BR 11:01): Perhaps a case can be made that Jesus’ “radical Christian movement” did not treat women in a way that was as novel as we have traditionally believed. But to say that Jesus did treat women with more equality than the Judaism of the time can hardly be construed as anti-Semitic. It is simply to make a point of comparison that stands or falls on its own merits without reference to intrusive ideologies (however commendable) from several centuries later.
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
Billings, Montana
Judith Applegate responds:
Private Women, Public Meals certainly does make an excellent case that Judaism in the time of Jesus was represented by diverse expressions of worship and treatment of women. For a discussion of the dangers of contrasting the first-century treatment of women by Jews versus Christians, see Judith Plaskow, “Blaming the Jews for the Birth of Patriarchy,” in E. Torten Beck, ed., Nice Jewish Girls (Persephone Press, 1982), and Bernadette Brooten, “Jewish Women’s History in the Roman Period: A Task for Christian Theology,” in George Nickelsburg and George MacRae, eds., Christians Among Jews and Gentiles (Fortress, 1986).
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English Philosopher Awarded $1 Million
The 1995 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion has been awarded to Paul Davies, a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Davies is a mathematical physicist who has written more than 20 books, many of them about links between theology and science. His most recent book is The Mind of God (Simon and Schuster, 1992).
Davies, 48, taught at King’s College at the University of London and the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In the 1970s, he worked with Stephen Hawking on the thermodynamic qualities of black holes.
“Most people think that as science advances, religion retreats. But the more we discover about the world, the more we find there’s a purpose or design behind it all,” Davies told the New York Times.
The Templeton Prize was established in 1973 by investor Sir John Templeton to recognize an individual who had creatively advanced the public understanding of God or spirituality. The prize always exceeds the value of the Nobel Prizes, which Templeton believed ignore religion. Previous winners include Mother Teresa, Reverend Billy Graham and Lord Jakobovits (former chief rabbi of Great Britain).
Davies intends to use the prize money to support his research into the origins of the universe and the philosophical arguments for God’s existence.
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