Readers Reply
BR or BC?
When you get some real theologians on your staff then call me. For the time being, honesty would demand that your magazine be called BC for Bible Critic, like all the other unbelievers.
Garden City, Michigan
Good for Your Health
As an academic I firmly believe that a little scholarly debate is healthy, and I look forward to the cross-section of articles and the blend of columns in BR. I find them thoughtful, and I appreciate that they sometimes provide fresh perspectives on a wide range of subjects. It does sadden me when I see letters from readers who vent their anger over some idea that is inconsistent with their firmly entrenched belief system, and then demand that you cancel their subscription immediately. Please do not take the angry letters personally.
Burlington, Vermont
Bible Translations
Young Woman
In his very helpful article,
This is not correct. The first one, so far as can be ascertained, was the so-called “Baptist Bible” (because it was translated by Baptist scholars), published in 1912 by the American Baptist Publication Society. It translated Isaiah 7:14: “Behold a young woman will conceive, and bear a son.” The footnote read: “The Hebrew means ‘a young woman of marriageable age,’ and it implies nothing one way or the other as to virginity.” The Moffatt Bible (1924) and the American Translation (1935) also have “young woman.”
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Leonard J. Greenspoon responds:
Bob Bratcher, a distinguished Bible translator (he has been involved in Bible translation projects of the American Bible Society and the United Bible Societies) and scholar of the Bible (see, for example, A History of Bible Translation and the North American Contribution, which he wrote with Harry M. Orlinsky), is correct. I suppose that I had in mind the Revised Standard Version as the earliest version within the broad King James “family.” Certainly, Moffatt and the American Translation are important translations that should not on any account be slighted. At the same time, it is worth mentioning that there are several other English-language translations with “young woman” that are as old or even older than these. I have in mind the Jewish Publication Society version of 1917, Isaac Leeser’s translation from the mid-1800s and earlier Anglo-Jewish texts from the late 18th century on.
Big Differences
I was troubled by Leonard Greenspoon’s article
Greenspoon states that the New American Standard Bible (NASB) “tends toward the literal representation of the Hebrew and Greek originals.” That gives the false impression that there are Hebrew and Greek originals (the “originals” have long been lost), and that it is not even worth mentioning which of the many Greek and Hebrew sources the translators used. The King James Version relies on the Greek textus receptus, a text that is largely based on Erasmus’s Greek New Testament, while the NASB mostly uses the 23rd edition of the Nestlé Greek New Testament. Some Bibles rely on the Hebrew textus receptus, the Masoretic text, some rely on the Septuagint (an ancient Greek translation) for the Hebrew portion, and some are informed by the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are whole verses that are in some texts, but not in others.
The choice of the rather harmless text from Genesis 1:1–2 glosses over the other significant fact that different Bible versions say substantially different things—not just in the way of vocabulary and style. The reader might have been better served by comparing the wide-ranging translations of John 2:4, such as the NASB’s: “And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come.’” And the Contemporary English Version’s: “Jesus replied, ‘Mother, my time hasn’t yet come! You must not tell me what to do.’” Or compare Jeremiah 7:22 in the King James (and most other versions): “For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices” with the New International Version: “For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
The reader needs to be aware that what they are reading might be God’s Word or it might be some scribe’s or translator’s theological agenda. “How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us,’ when the false pen of the scribes has altered the text and made it into a lie?” (Jeremiah 8:8, New Revised Standard Version).
Piedmont, South Carolina
Leonard J. Greenspoon responds:
Davidson bemoans the fact that I made scant reference to modern Bible versions’ use of different base texts in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. My initial reaction, which plays on an expression I often hear, is “from your mouth to the BR editors’ ears.” It would be most productive to explore the issues Davidson raises in a future article for BR (I know the editors are listening!). As for my choice of Genesis 1 (why Davidson characterizes it as “harmless,” I don’t really know), I needed to select a passage from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, since my survey includes Jewish as well as Christian versions. This passage is well known and exemplifies the issues and elements I chose to emphasize in this article. Another article (or even a similar article by another author) would surely highlight other passages.
J, E, P & D
Best of the Best
Although I am an avid reader of all three of your publications, I like BR the best. Even so, rarely do I find such an intriguing article as Richard Elliott Friedman’s
Hoboken, New Jersey
Sheol
I was extremely delighted when I read the Fall 2005 BR to find such a wide variety of very well-written and informative articles. I hope this is the start of a trend.
I especially enjoyed Richard Elliott Friedman’s article
Naples, Florida
Richard Elliott Friedman responds:
You are right. The situation was incorrectly stated in the article because of its brevity. It should have said that the term Sheol in prose is limited to the J source. (The Deuteronomy 32 occurrence is in poetry and is not from any of the main prose sources of the Torah.) This is explained more fully and correctly in my The Hidden Book in the Bible (pp. 14 and 380). I apologize for the lack of precision here.
Two Questions
I have two questions for Richard Elliott Friedman. First, in his article, he writes, “In D it says about Moses, ‘a prophet did not rise again in Israel like Moses.’ The Book of Kings says about Josiah, ‘after him none rose like him’ (2 Kings 23:25). This expression, ‘none rose like him,’ is applied to no one else in the Hebrew Bible.”
How about 2 Kings 18:5, concerning King Hezekiah? That reads, “He trusted in the Lord the God of Israel; so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him, or among those who were before him.” Since this cannot literally be true of both Hezekiah and Josiah, this statement must be a hyperbole, something like our saying “He is the best ever!”
Second, I understand that some scholars think that the sources behind the Torah may have been oral traditions rather than documents. What does Dr. Friedman think about that?
Youngstown, New York
Richard Elliott Friedman responds:
The point is precisely that the Hezekiah passage does not use the Deuteronomistic formula “none rose like him.” And the famous contradiction between the Hezekiah and Josiah passages is due to the fact that the Hezekiah passage was not written by the Deuteronomistic historian. It was part of one of the sources that the historian used in his history. That source-text contained the story of Judah’s kings from Solomon to Hezekiah. The account of the kings after Hezekiah (including Josiah) was written by the Deuteronomistic historian himself.
I know of no evidence at all that the sources were originally oral. On the contrary, they show the marks of written composition.
Wonderful
Mr. Richard Elliott Friedman’s article is one of the best and briefest descriptions for the multiple source theory of Bible development. I have been sharing these insights in my Bible classes for years, but it is wonderful to find a scholarly exposition that is so clear, complete and short.
Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church
Tuscon, Arizona
Ezra’s Role
A key criterion of the author Richard Elliott Friedman is that “when we separate the sources, the Hebrew of each source fits consistently with what we know of the Hebrew in each period.” My question to Prof. Friedman has to do with this final step in the process, namely, the compilation of the Pentateuch in its final stage. Given that its text consists entirely of classical Hebrew (of different dialects, it is true), it seems untenable that the editor of the final compilation would be the scribe Ezra. The earliest date that Ezra could have performed this service was at least 70 years after Cyrus the Great had given his decree, allowing the Judahites to return to their original homeland. By the time of Ezra’s public work, however, many Aramaisms had infiltrated into the Hebrew language, but (and here I rely on secondhand information) there are no Aramaisms in the Pentateuch.
Therefore, Ezra’s role would have been far more limited. He could have made very minor editorial changes, and changed the script from the old Paleo-Hebrew into a form substantially closer to modern Hebrew. Major editorial work, however, would have been beyond his scope.
Belleville, Illinois
Richard Elliott Friedman responds:
The final editor was a literary genius, a master of text and language. I see no reason why he would have been unable to write the relatively few lines attributed to him without being careful enough to avoid an Aramaism. And the proof is before our eyes that he accomplished just that: The linguistic studies (especially of Avi Hurvitz) have shown that the Hebrew of these passages is in fact from the post-Exilic period, and it is done without Aramaisms.
Better Models
Thank you, Prof. Richard Elliott Friedman, for the article about the formation of the Primary History (Genesis to Kings). Thank you for remaining steadfast amidst the professional wrestling hoopla that now defines so much of biblical scholarship. I do however have two points of contention to raise.
First, you make the traditional claim that the E narrative begins in Genesis 20 with the story of the patriarchs and that it is absent from the so-called primeval section. It would not have been politically viable for the northern kingdom of Israel to begin its sacred narrative with the story of Abraham the shepherd (=king) who settles in Hebron. Everyone in the audience would have automatically thought the story was about David regardless of what the author intended. More likely the J and E Creation stories were identical except for the name of the deity, and when they were combined the redactor used J as the default narrative and only included what E had that J didn’t exactly have. A more appropriate model for the development of this text is the creation stories of the Babylonians and the Assyrians, where the only significant difference is the name of the deity in the story—otherwise they are the same.
Second, you must not ignore the political perspective. In your color-coded example of Exodus 14 (Paul Haupt lives!), you assign some portions of the text to the tenth century, the time of Solomon, Jeroboam and Rehoboam, and some to the seventh century, the time of Hezekiah. All of these leaders were involved in geopolitical machinations with Egypt during periods of military threat and invasion. These were not the times to invent the story of the Exodus; these were times to retell the story to reflect the current situation just as Americans constantly retell the story of the American Revolution. Josephus is probably a better model for these writers of the biblical texts than an ivory tower scholar. These writers were players in the game of power politics and not graduate students compiling source documents for their dissertation.
Institute of History, Archaeology, and Education
Purchase, New York
Richard Elliott Friedman responds:
First: What I said was that the E source begins in the middle of the Abraham story. It does. We all recognize that the beginning of the E text is missing from the Torah. Where that story began is unknown. Maybe it included a Creation account, maybe not. That is pure speculation.
Second: Well, this is the first time that I’ve been thought to ignore political perspective. Perhaps the writer of this letter is unfamiliar with my work on this subject. I suggest that you start with Who Wrote the Bible? I think you’ll find what you’re looking for there. Good luck and best wishes.
Overall: I’m blessed to have such thoughtful readers. Thank you all.
Creation
Which Tree?
The conclusion underlying Professor Sasson’s very readable analysis concerning which of the fruits of the two trees in Eden the Earthling and the Woman ingested in
Niskayuna, New York
Jack M. Sasson responds:
As we all know, this is a very rich narrative that bears repeated and diverse analyses, my own being one of many. I have argued that the couple did not need access to the Tree of Knowledge because, even before partaking of any fruit, each of them had at separate occasions displayed a capacity to ration and choose: Adam in refusing to identify a mate among the animals paraded before him; Eve by methodically thinking about the advantage of the tree before her, whether or not she correctly recognized it as the Tree of Life. Please go back to the article to read my comments on 3:22, about the status of the pair “being [not becoming] one of us.”
The point about posting the cherub at the Tree of Life is to prevent the brood of the sentient pair from individually partaking of it and so frustrating God’s decision to impose death as a normal part of life.
Canaan, Not Ham
Jack Sasson quotes Genesis 9:20–27 and assumes that Ham sinned against Noah. The account (verse 24) specifies that the youngest son committed the sin. Genesis 10:1 reveals that Ham was not Noah’s youngest son while verse 6 reveals that Canaan was Ham’s youngest son. Canaan was cursed because he was the one who sinned against Noah.
Prineville, Oregon
Jack M. Sasson responds:
In citing Genesis 9:20–27, I was only reporting that in Hebrew literature nudity can attract disrespect. I had nothing to say about the consequences of Noah’s drunkenness and certainly did not assume that Ham either sinned or was cursed. These issues merit their own full-fledged presentations.
Who Lived in Nod?
After Cain slew Abel, he was exiled to another land. He was fearful that the inhabitants of that land would harm him. The question I have is, Who were these inhabitants and where did they come from? They were not children of Adam and Eve. They did have other unnamed children, but they were born after Seth (Genesis 5:4).
Apple Valley, California
Jack M. Sasson responds:
Ah … an old debate, one slightly less argued than whom did Cain marry. What you raise, however, is not a philological issue, so it cannot be satisfactorily answered by grammatical or historical research. The general academic response to it is that Scripture does not always observe the strict chronological or narrative logic we would wish it to have. Others say that, given his long life span, Cain is looking fearfully ahead to the time when his own descendants no longer fear or respect their ancestors, a condition that unfortunately is not beyond plausibility.
Potpourri
Was Jesus a Peasant?
May I ask Stephen Patterson (author of
Craig, Colorado
Stephen Patterson responds:
The claim that Jesus was a peasant, or even ranking below peasant status, derives from a cultural-anthropological analysis of the evidence the reader mentions: Jesus was either a handworker, or the son of a handworker (textual variants make the claim slightly unclear). The cultural anthropologist Gerhard Lenski, whose work has become influential among New Testament scholars, offers a helpful analysis of social strata in ancient agrarian empires, of which Rome is perhaps the best example. In Jesus’ social world, there was no middle class, only a very small number of ruling elites and a vast body of peasants—roughly 90 percent of people lived at or below subsistence. Of those, 15 percent or so might be classified as the “unclean and degraded classes” or “expendables.” The difference between the peasant and the expendable was land: Peasants were still “landed,” expendables were not. Jesus probably existed on the thin line dividing these two stations. He was a hand worker, which probably meant that his family had been dispossessed of land sometime in the recent past. This makes him a landless peasant, clinging to a viable living by a very thin thread. This doesn’t make him stupid. In a world where 90 percent of people live at a subsistence level, most of the smart people are poor. (By the way, when Luke portrays Jesus sparring with scholars in the Temple, note that the point is not that he was educated, but that he was extraordinarily gifted.) These issues are worked out most thoroughly by John Dominic Crossan in his book, The Historical Jesus. The arguments for this point of view may be assessed there.
Bible and Constitution
Whatever fault one may find with Prof. Leith’s constitutional analysis in
For example, I suggested in “‘The Liberal Agenda’: Biblical Values and the First Amendment,” Touro Law Review 14 (1997), that the concept of constitutionalism as a limitation on the power of the sovereign may be traced to the Bible. In the story of Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard in 1 Kings 21, King Ahab did not seize the property even after his offer of fair compensation was refused. Nor did his evil Queen Jezebel. She resorted to the law, albeit with fraudulent testimony, to have Naboth convicted so that his vineyard would pass to the king. Why did they not grab the property as absolute monarchs are prone to do? In my view, it was understood that royal power was limited to ensure justice, and Prophet Elijah—performing the role now exercised by the U.S. Supreme Court—pronounced judgment of conviction for violating the fundamental right of the individual. That is the essence of a constitution!
Director, Israel Program
Temple University School of Law
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
BR or BC?
When you get some real theologians on your staff then call me. For the time being, honesty would demand that your magazine be called BC for Bible Critic, like all the other unbelievers.
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