DrJim

I'm all for secular biblical studies to make a clean break with its theological counterparts. The SBL itself is the premier organization and is kind of wishy-washy. The other main organization, the American Academy of Religion, while being 'home' to folks who study Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Ritual Theory etc., is becoming more and more of a venue for "interfaith dialogue" than anything. I just got their periodoical, "Religious Studies News", and most of it may was well be the newspaper of the "American Academy of Theology".

I've just sent a manuscript off to a publisher arguing that the book of Amos (like the rest of the prophetic corpus) is an example of uniquely Israelite/Judean mythological genre, I've called the "Myth of the (ignored) Ancient Prophet", in which themes of cosmic creation, restoration and so forth are written against quasi-historical periods as spoken by prophets of old whose own experiences as culture heroes are another layer of mythology in their own right. We will see what the reviewers have to say. I got really frustrated with introductions to the bible and prophetic literature that basically adopted the perspective of the book itself in reconstructing the history of the document, an dtry to sound academic but are really excercises in homiletics. I spell out in my preface that the book is specifically intended for secular readers: hopefully intermediate or senior undergrads could understand it--I've used transliteration instead of hebrew, etc.

I think one of the most "dangerous" things to the kind of Biblical Studies Avelos dispairs of would be a distinctly "secular", if not outright "minimalist" introduction to the Bible.

I also want to start a "Society for Secular Biblical Criticism". We could fund it by taking back the empty beer bottles from the previous meetings...

Chris Weimer

For reiteration, they don't give a damn about "maintaining the illusion that the Bible is still relevant in today's world".

DrJim

One thing I tell my classes (teach Religious Studies in a university in southern Alberta) is that it is a theologians job to make the Bible familiar. My job is to make it foreign and weird.
I don't get than many protests in class but the course evaluations often comment on my 'opinions'.

I think Hebrew Bible scholars have done a tremendous amount of good work in relating the HB to other ANE literature. One should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. On the other hand, the theological agenda still leads many to defend the Bible as some kind of great advancement in human thought. It is a unique collection in terms of the kinds of writings fournd within, etc., but the Ras Shamra texts are also unique, as are the Egyptian, Babylonian, etc.

One thing I have noticed, is that students who are interested in Biblical Studies, or Church history, etc. are not particularly interested in studying Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and so forth. On the other hand, many folks concentrating on the 'Eastern' traditions, wouldn't be caught dead in a course on the Bible or Christianity unless it was specified for their degree.
To my mind, study of the Bible at a secular university has more to do with the secular study of the Qur'an, Vedas and Analects than it does with 'biblical theologies of [insert modern issue] for today's world', that a lot of commentaries and papers that are always mixed in with the academic stuff at conferences and book displays.

Jim

spin

I usually get queezy when people throw around the M word. I would have much preferred the "Trope of the (ignored) Ancient Prophet", but then it's your title, so I've got to live with it. I think I know its little brother, the "Trope of the (hidden) Ancient Prophet", but I think they have basically the same aim. Enoch for example was a hidden prophet. The hidden prophet talks cryptically about a time in the future, about the time the book was written and it has only now been revealed so readers can understand it in context. Daniel is another example. So would be Solomon's Psalms. The revelation usually makes dating the text relatively easy. What interests me though is, with the "(ignored) Ancient Prophet", can the writing context be as easily reclaimed? As the prophet has been "(ignored)", I would seem that we are also ostensibly some time after the writing of that text. How do you see it working?


spin

DrJim

I'm using the M word a little rhetorically, to drive home the idea that the ancient Judeans who put together the (now-) biblical texts were not fundamentally different critters than the writers of the Baal myths, Enuma Elish etc. I also wanted to make a statement about the quest for the "historical prophet".


Less polemically, I'm using "myth" to refer what I think was for them a new kind of literature: collections of prophetic oracles attributed to great prophets. I think these prophets are comparable to mythic 'culture heroes'. Stories about them are not often contained in the books named after them, however. Tehy are usually given a bit of a historical setting, however (Joel being one exception).

I considered employing other terms than "myth" but in the end I thought that the notion of ancient prophets bringing divine revelation through the centuries, illustrating the how and why of "exile" etc., was so important that it became more than a trope or motif, but an oft-repeated kind of myth in its own right. That being said, other mythic tropes --i.e., Yahweh's defeat of the sea, various other enemies, creation, etc. --are often embeded in the prohetic materials. The prophetic texts become a vehicle for discussion age-old mythic ideas in the guise of 'ancient' revelations around which a new mythology develops.

I'm not sure how much of a direct link there need be between political or environmental realites in the authors' times and the actual books of, say, Amos or Hosea. This is certainy possible for much of the canonical prophetic corpus and, with Enoch or some of the other apocalypses, this is the most likely explanation. I think the anceint prophets were also available for ruminations of a more general or personal nature: on theodicy, the nature of being a 'broker of divine knowledge' as Ehud Ben Zvi sometimes calls Judah's scribes, or just showing off literary skills by weaving poetry around sacred themes and great names of the past.

I think the work of Nissennin (sp.?) and others on comparative prophetic materials is very helpful. The Assyrians collected and edited oracles for later reading and presumably edification, but they never produced the long and complex collections like Isaiah, Jeremiah and the 12. It is suggested that the Assyrian materials may show the first steps towards the highly literary Judean prophetic corpus. That means that while some of the stuff may be very old (monarchic, perhaps), it has been supplemented, changed around and turned into 'literature' instead of archival material. That means the 'original' context is lost and the question of the contexts of the 'final' or 'next-to-final' forms is very difficult, too, if not impossible.

My work is usually directed towards the poetics of the material agianst a more or less loosely defined historical context of the Persian period. My recent work on Amos contrasts the portrayal of the natural and human world against conception of heavenly prototype of the temple. I trace how in Amos these two worlds are brought together through frequent word-plays, ambiguity, strategically placed theophanic hymns and the transporting of Amos into the macrocosmic temple at the start of Amos 9 for the final vision. This leads to the destruction of the temple, humanity and the upheaval of the cosmos before a final restoration of paradise.

Anyway, I thought I would throw it agianst the wall and see if it sticks...


Jim

Clouseau

'The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.'
Gal 5:22-24 NIV

Until now.

Vorkosigan

Wow! The second post and right to the Nazis. C'mon Roger. It's impossible to take that comment seriously.

On a more serious note, I doubt there is even a single thing in there that many Bible scholars haven't said publicly and over and over again, in different ways.

Michael

Roger Pearse

It's a bit odd to try to suggest that certain comments should not be made, rather than deal with them.

You perhaps didn't know that the words were, almost verbatim, the remarks of a Nazi official in the 1930's, calling for the removal of the OT and the revision of the NT in accordance with National Socialist principles.

The point, of course, is that demanding that "modern times" be taken as a standard is absurd, since these change radically and indeed, oftentimes are disgusting.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Joan of Bark

I don't see where Avalos is promoting "modern times" as a standard; just that the Bible is not relevent. Besides, he's not arguing that we should change the Bible, just spend less time on it.

spin

For me it usually comes across as such a pejorative patronizing word. We've tended to belittle religious views that no longer have support. I can appreciate that you want to show that what you are looking at in early Judaism is perhaps strongly analogous to similar content in other ancient religions, but it would be better to raise the status of those other religions, than to use what might be considered using the same debasing language on biblical material and in effect lowering the bar there as well, though that is not what interested you.

Do you think you could unpack that for me, I mean 'the quest for the "historical prophet"'? The search for a single original entity by the name of the prophet? Whatever is behind the name?

It's been too long since I trawled through the prophets in any systematic way.

Heroes tend to be popular amongst all strata of the society though I'd think, whereas a prophet certainly wouldn't be. The heroes was kept alive in the society through legend and oral tradition (beside the written tradition), and so diffused throughout the society. The prophets seemed to be a literary tradition from extremely early in the process and therefore the property of the priests and their scribes.

Jewish traditions had their heroes, Jacob, Samson, Gideon, etc. (Abraham's obviously a much later literary development and so not folk tradition at all, I don't think.) These are a hodge-podge of folk materials over which a semblance of order is imposed in the literature, while I'd guess that the prophets are fulfilling more organized polemical tasks.

I'd see it as a means of delivering the discourse, not as part of the central issues, a communications channel. The how, not the what. That's probably why myth still doesn't reach me on the topic. You've got the "Why are these people so stubborn they won't listen?" means of expression. There's "Everyone's against me except you god... god?" "Aren't we lucky god's here." Then we move on to content, though the tropes that you mention are signs for the content rather than the content itself -- but I guess that's what tropes are.

I'm of the mind that texts are written in unique times: they somehow represent the times in which they are written -- then someone probably comes along and rewrites them for another unique time and the original content is at best clouded and at worst totally lost.

What is difficult to understand is the reworking of historical fragments as can clearly be seen in Ezekiel which yokes references from various times into the Gog invasion in Ezek 38, Gog from Magog, ie Gugu Mat-Gugu, ie Gyges of Lydia circa 650 BCE. He was defeated by the Cimmerians ("Gomer"), but Beth-Togarmah was an earlier, post-Hittite statelet along with Tubal, ie Tabal, around the time of the Phrygian movements. Then we get the mention of Persia, which didn't come onto the scene until over 50 years later. All happily paraded as contemporaries. An obvious terminus post quem of the rise of the Persians, but more likely much later with such an ahistorical cocktail.

I don't know the work, but the notion of looking at the more tangible aspects of other religions for comparison should be a fruitful direction of study. I've read some work on sacrifice in various religions from Assyria to Greece and there are interesting similarities throughout the area. So it's not surprising that other religions' prophecy proves enlightening for Judaism. It's good that you've had the opportunity to dig into it.

Yeah. Perhaps I should have read your full post before making one of the comments I did above, as you are making the same point.

You've got me interested in going back and rereading Amos, if I had the time. I might try to find the time. I've got a bible on my Palm, that I could fire up...

Macrocosmic temple sounds like heavenly temple, which brings me to DSS and Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifices, in which the temple is idealized into the heavenly version. Such an idea suggests rather late, unless SSS is merely reworking an old trope, but it doesn't strike me as all that common, at least not until late in the peace.


spin