tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39073219752363291682023-11-15T08:39:02.060-08:00IncipitmedDyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-61863071978416843252011-12-05T06:33:00.000-08:002013-10-13T19:33:41.724-07:00Abrahamica: Introduction "Abrahamica" addresses the three major faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, their origins, nature, and interaction. Collectively these are known as the Abrahamic religions. Of necessity this endeavor focuses on the canonical scriptures honored by the three: the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh; known to Christians as the Old Testament); the New Testament; and the Qur’an. In addition, there is some attention to noncanonical texts, such as the so-called Intertestamental Writings; Mishnah and Talmud; noncanonical gospels; and the Muslim Hadith collections.<br />
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The study highlights motifs (precepts, doctrines, personalities, and legends) connecting the scriptures of all three traditions (intertextuality).<br />
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In an inquiry of this kind, recourse to the critical-historical approach is indispensable. This method, which has gone from strength to strength over the last 150 years, has demonstrated that many truisms believers cherish about their faiths are undemonstrable, some being simply false.<br />
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Perhaps the most disturbing finding is the nexus linking monotheism, intolerance, and violence.<br />
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Optimistic proposals for reconciling the three faiths, such as Henry Corbin’s Harmonia Abrahamica project, have turned out to be naive and ill-founded. Still, one cannot simply throw the Abrahamic heritage out, bag and baggage, as the New Atheists would have us do. Abrahamic motifs have been--and still are--too important to Western civilization, as they are to every part of the modern world, except for East Asia and the Hindu-Buddhist realms of South and Southeast Asia.<br />
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For many years I emphasized the positive contributions of this religious heritage in my college classes in art history, a realm where its concerns and themes have nourished and helped to define countless works of art. Yet further research, conducted during the years of my retirement, has revealed how problematic the role of the Abrahamic faiths has been.<br /><br />The Abrahamic religions arose in decidedly
unpromising settings: tribal (Judaism and Islam) and urban-marginal
(Christianity). Why then do they still flourish--mightily so--in more
complex societies, including our own? Perhaps the following texts will offer some useful information in addressing this issue.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-38003073876653940932011-12-05T06:30:00.000-08:002014-01-05T09:37:40.183-08:00Abrahamica: Chapter One<b>METHODOLOGY </b><br />
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Who was Muhammad? Some recent scholarship posits that he was a military leader operating in northern Arabia in an area close to the Byzantine (Christian) Empire. Long considered secure, Muhammad’s role in the cities of Mecca and Medina is, according to these scholars, problematic.<br />
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Very different from the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the book associated with this figure, the “Holy Qur’an,” constitutes a mélange of disparate performance pieces known as suras. Some of the components of the Qur'an probably stem from the period before Muhammad’s purported encounters with the Archangel Gabriel, while others are considerably later. In all likelihood, editors assembled this hybrid at least 150 years after the death of the Prophet in 632 CE.<br />
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Far from being written in “pure classical Arabic,” the Qur’an is a linguistic and cultural amalgam abounding in imported Aramaic and Greek-Christian words and themes. Even though the contrast has long been commonplace, the distinction between the suras produced in Mecca and the ostensibly later ones composed in Medina is not sustainable. While the suras and other foundational documents frequently mention these cities, the connection is tenuous. As we have it, the Qur’an is a blend of fact and fiction.<br />
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The hadiths (reputed utterances of the Prophet) are mostly of dubious authenticity. The supposed early biographies of Muhammad are not trustworthy as historical sources.<br />
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All this is startling--and quite possibly true.<br />
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When the primary Muslim sources find themselves summoned before the bar of the historical-critical method, conclusions that challenge the traditional wisdom emerge. Over the last two centuries, biblical critics have perfected this method as a tool for cracking the secrets of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Every reputable scholar acknowledges the necessity of using this resource if we are to achieve an accurate understanding of the import of the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) and the Christian New Testament. Until recently, the Qur’an had eluded such scrutiny. Now it is the turn of this and the other revered foundational documents of Islam. And indeed the task is well under way.<br />
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Such critical work remains little known to the the Western public at large, but specialists are diligently addressing the task. Even today, though, this endeavor is far from receiving its due. In Islamic countries the blackout is almost complete. Very rarely does one detect even a hint of the results of the critical endeavor in those nations, where allegiance to the conventional wisdom is mandatory. Elsewhere the situation is better, but not by much. In the English-speaking world naive apologists like John Esposito (2002, 2004, 2010) and Karen Armstrong (1991, 2006) continue to parrot the litany as though it had never been challenged.<br />
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The main discussion of Islam is reserved for Chapter Six, where the appropriate references are cited.<br />
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This and the following chapters of this book deploy the historical-critical method to examine the major Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writings, hopefully without illusions and preconceptions. This approach is intended to bring us closer to the original meaning of these texts, stripping away the copious deposits that have come to disfigure them over the centuries. In this necessary task of debunking, the barnacles themselves merit attention.<br />
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How and why did they get there? In addition, this enterprise also affords revealing glimpses of the connections between the scriptures cherished by the three faiths--their intertextuality, as the relationiship is sometimes termed.<br />
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MODELS OF ABRAHAMIC KINSHIP<br />
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A venerable image of the kinship of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam stems from a medieval parable found in Giovanni Boccaccio’s <i>Decameron</i> (I, 3), a text written ca. 1350. The gist of the Tale of the Three Rings (as is called) is as follows. The great Muslim leader Saladin summoned Melchizedek, a wealthy Jew, to his palace. The sultan posed an alarming question: “Which of the three great religions is the truly authentic one--Judaism, Christianity, or Islam?" Melchizedek paused before he answered to this effect. "That is an excellent question, my lord. I can best explain my views on the subject with the following story. Once there was once a wealthy man whose most cherished possession was a precious ring. He bequeathed this ring to one of his sons, and with this talisman the latter took his place as the head of family. Succeeding generations followed this tradition, with the principal heir always inheriting the prized ring from his father. And yet the ring finally came into the possession of a man who had three sons, each the equal of the others in obedience, virtue, and worthiness. Unwilling to favor one son over the others, the father had a jeweler make two perfect copies of the valued ring, and he bequeathed a ring to each son. Following the father's death, each son laid claim to the deceased man's title and estate, proffering his ring as proof. Alas, a careful inspection of the three rings failed to reveal which was the authentic one, so the three sons' claims remain unresolved.”<br />
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The same is true, Melchizedek suggested, with the three great religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The adherents of each firmly believe themselves to be the sole legitimate heirs of God's truth. The question of which one is right must remain in abeyance.<br />
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It has been suggested that the ring parable derives from a Jewish source, but this has not been definitely proven. A remarkable feature of the parable is that it assumes that the three rival faiths are equal in dignity--at least in accordance with present knowledge. As a rule, adherents of each religion recognize the kinship only grudgingly, serving at best as a prelude to denigrating their rivals’ case. Over the centuries, Jews have tended to regard Christianity (and later Islam) as usurpers. Christians have remained confident that their own faith superseded its Judaic predecessor. For their part, Muslims believed in a dual supersessionism: hopelessly corrupted with the passage of time, both Judaism and Christianity could rank only as inadequate approximations of the true faith.<br />
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Our own later, global standpoint prompts one to recognize a further limitation, for the parable equates “religion” tout court with the three faiths in question. No other candidates need apply. The model implicitly ignores the claims of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Daoism, animism, and others. That is of course true. Yet because of the kinship and salience of the three religions this focus is not unwarranted, at least as a subject of scholarly investigation such as the one attempted here.<br />
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As has been indicated, the parable of the three rings goes back to the Middle Ages, when, of course, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam found themselves locked in deadly, though often unequal combat. In this violent era, it represented a rare ray of sunlight.<br />
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Yet another motif, also apparently of medieval origin, casts a very different light, negative one. This is the “equal-opportunity offender” notion of the three impostors, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. The motif’s locus classicus, as it were, is a Latin text that probably originated in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, “De Tribus Impostoribus.” The text found favor with a number of leading figures of the Enlightenment, notably Voltaire.<br />
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The kernel of the idea has been traced to Western Europe in the thirteenth century, when the Dominican Thomas of Cantimpré (1201-1272) mentioned it in his allegory “De Apibus” (On Bees). This author ascribed the blasphemy to canon Simon of Tournai (flourished 1184-1200), and in fact the notion may have enjoyed some broader circulation at the time. In 1239 Pope Gregory IX accused Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen of asserting that the world had been duped by the three impostors: Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Of course, this accusation does not prove that the emperor actually held this view, simply that it was a handy device for smear tactics. (Minois, 2009.)<br />
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Despite their intrinsic interest, neither the benign three-rings parable nor the disparaging three-impostors slogan had any lasting effect on the conceptualization of the kinship of the religious threesome. Awareness of the kinship has tended to linger, without much analysis, in the collective unconscious of our societies.<br />
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In recent times, however, the expression “Abrahamic religions” has taken hold. The expression Abrahamic religions (also known as Abrahamic faiths, Abrahamic traditions, and the religions of Abraham) designates the ostensibly monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, emphasizing their common origin and values. For more than 1300 years their histories and thought have been intertwined, linked to one another because of a '”family likeness” and certain theological commonalities. However, relationships among them have varied from time and place and have often been characterized by mistrust and hatred, even warfare and persecution. One need only recall the Crusades; the expulsion of the Jews and Moors from Christian Spain; the humiliations and penalties historically inflicted on Jews and Christians in Islamic countries (what is sometimes termed dhimmitude); the Arab-Israeli conflict; and today’s jihadism.<br />
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The idea of the Abrahamic religions reflects a term of Islamic origin, the Millat Ibrahim. Yet in Muslim usage the term is not ecumenical, because only Islam is seen as truly adhering to the "Faith of Abraham." In this usage the term embodies the Muslim claim to be returning to Abraham's monotheism, purging this heritage of accretions introduced by Jews and Christians. There is also a traditional assertion of Muhammad’s relationship to Abraham through the patriarch’s son Ishmael. While the Qur’an does not name the child whom Abraham was about to sacrifice, Muslims hold that it was Ishmael, while Jews and Christians retain the biblical view that the boy was Isaac. For his part, the apostle Paul referred to Abraham as a "father in faith” (Romans 4:11).<br />
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A pioneering advocate of the concept of the Abrahamic religions in the West was the French Orientalist and mystic Louis Massignon (1883-1962). While he remained a Catholic all his life, even taking holy orders towards the end, Massignon was strongly drawn to Islam. He composed a syncretistic work entitled <i>Les trois prières d'Abraham</i> (1930). Massignon’s labors became the precursor of a somewhat quixotic effort to merge the three faith, an endeavor that surfaces from time to time.<br />
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The book of Genesis depicts Abraham as the ancestor of the Israelites in a lineage that passed through his son Isaac, born to Sarah, just as Ishmael was born to his concubine Hagar. Challenging the traditional view, modern scholars have cast doubt on Abraham's very existence. However, this phantom status need not be an obstacle to the use of the term “Abrahamic religions.” For example, we refer to “Ossianic poetry,” even though no such person as the fabled Ossian ever actually existed.<br />
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There are other reasons why the Abrahamic designation is far from universal. Some observers object that the term is unhelpful because it exaggerates the degree of historical and theological continuity. Closer examination of the details reveals that any wholesale assumption of commonality is indeed problematic, for it elides many key differences. For example, the core Christian beliefs of the Incarnation, the Trinity, and Jesus’ Resurrection are decisively rejected by Judaism and Islam. Christians have discarded the Jewish dietary laws and the requirement for male circumcisions. For the most part Muslims retain these. Islam honors the Jewish prophets and Jesus, but holds that their teachings have been surpassed by the truths vouchsafed to Muhammad, the Messenger of God. Still, as will be seen at various points throughout this book, there is considerable overlap.<br />
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OTHER ABRAHAMIC FAITHS<br />
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Today the triad of the Abrahamic faiths has extended over much of the earth. Adhesion to one of the three, at least nominally, characterizes Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, much of Africa, and virtually all of the Americas. Only East Asia, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, and the Hindu parts of India and Nepal remain immune, or largely so.<br />
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However, a question remains. In an objective analysis, are we justified in confining our attention to the Big Three of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? Perhaps not, for there have been, and perhaps still are, other candidates for Abrahamic status. Here are three examples.<br />
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1) Manichaeism prospered during the period stretching from the third to the seventh centuries CE. Manichaean churches and scriptures proliferated in a vast territory stretching from the Roman Empire as far as China. Southern China seems to have been the last stronghold of the faith, which faded away after the fourteenth century,<br />
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Its founder Mani lived between 216 and 276 CE. His father Pattig was a member of the Syrian Christian sect of the Elcesaites. After experiencing mystical experiences, Mani underwent the influences of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, Indeed, one key tenet of the faith reflects the heritage of Zoroastrian dualism: its elaborate cosmology portraying the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness.<br />
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Mani was executed by the Parthian ruler Bahram I. Mani’s followers depicted his death as a crucifixion analogous to the death of Christ. Manichaeans claimed to be Christian, but it is clear that theirs was a composite faith. As such it may deserve recognition as an autonomous Abrahamic religion. If so, though, it is a dead one.<br />
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2) The Bahá'í faith is a monotheistic religion founded by the Persian Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892), who emphasized the spiritual unity of all humankind. The Bahá'í Faith understands religious history as having unfolded through a series of divine messengers. These messengers have included Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad and others--most recently Bahá’u’lláh. This idea of a succession of prophets recalls Islam, though Bahá’i adherents--and Muslims--strongly believe that the two are distinct. Today there are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world.<br />
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3) Mormonism (more properly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) stems from an 1820 vision in which two celestial personages appeared to Joseph Smith. The faith has its own scripture, the Book of Mormon, ostensibly translated by Smith. Mormons claim that they are Christians, though some Christians doubt this. Worldwide, there are more than thirteen million Mormons.<br />
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Further study of these and other Abrahamic faiths and offshoots would be rewarding. However, that task will not be attempted here. Our remit is to examine the historic record of the Big Three.<br />
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ALL RELIGIONS ARE ONE?<br />
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Before proceeding further one should note an approach that has some traction now among scholars of comparative religion. This is the conviction that, at bottom, all religions are one. This approach actually goes back to the Italian Renaissance when, for example Marsilio Ficino wrote of a "prisca theologia," a primordial ground that links all religions.<br />
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When one comes to details, though, the yield is meager. Life after death? Not all religions maintain that view. Absolute separation of good and evil? Some religions see the two as intermixed.<br />
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Sometimes we hear that observance of the Golden Rule is universal. The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity states either of the following: 1) One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. (positive form); or 2) One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated (negative form; also known as the Silver Rule This concept requires commitment to reciprocal, or "two-way," relationship between one's self and others that engages both sides equally and mutually.<br />
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Rushworth Kidder maintains that this concept figures prominently in many religions, including “Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and the rest of the world's major religions." Greg M. Epstein holds that “'do unto others' . . . is a concept that essentially no religion misses entirely." Simon Blackburn states that the Golden Rule can be "found in some form in almost every ethical tradition.” (Kidder, <i>How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living</i>, 2003. p. 159; Epstein, <i>Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe. </i>2010); Blackburn. <i>Ethics: A Very Short Introduction</i>, 2001, p. 101.)<br />
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All this must be taken with a grain of salt. As George Bernard Shaw once said, "the golden rule is that there are no golden rules." Shaw proposed an alternative principle: "Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same" (Maxims for Revolutionists, 1903). Along similar lines, Karl Popper wrote: "The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever reasonable, as they want to be done by" (The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945). One satirical version of the Golden Rule holds that"whoever has the gold, makes the rules."<br />
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More to the point, despite much massaging and stretching of the evidence, the Golden Rule has not in fact been found to be a religious universal.<br />
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SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES<br />
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This study addresses both sides of the Abrahamic coin: similarities--reflecting shared heritage and borrowings--as well as differences and conflicts. Put differently, there are both links and breaks. For this study, “Abrahamic” serves as a useful umbrella term. Properly used, the concept opens vistas affording many useful comparisons.<br />
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After these necessary caveats, we turn to some proposed common features. As F. E. Peters (1982) has observed, the three great faiths called Judaism, Christianity, and Islam trace their origins a legend that each remembers as a moment in history, when God appeared to a Bronze Age sheikh named Abram, binding him in a covenant forever. Abram is the later Abraham, the father of all believers. This legendary figure functions as the linchpin of the faith(s). To these remote origins, so it is thought, attaches the primordial theology from which the three communities of God's worshipers emerged. In the mainstream traditions of each faith the origins of monotheism are commonly, albeit implausibly, ascribed to the time of Abraham.<br />
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All three religions (players on the A-team, as it were) claim to be monotheistic, worshiping an exclusive God, though one known by different names, even in the foundational Hebrew scriptures, which alternate between Yahweh and Elohim. For all three, God is an activist figure: he creates, rules, reveals, loves, hates, judges, punishes, ponders, and forgives. The common ground seems impressive. Yet mainstream Christianity's doctrine of the Trinity clashes with the stricter Jewish and Muslim concepts of monotheism. Those faiths reject the Incarnation of God in Christ, a pivotal concept in the Christian religion. Although Christians maintain that they do not believe in three gods, but in three personalities in one God, the Trinity concept remains problematic, not to say repugnant, for the other two. In addition, recent scholarship has detected substantial residues of polytheism in the early history of Israel. For these reasons, Muslims have some justification in holding that theirs is the only pure monotheism.<br />
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According to tradition, Jerusalem became holy as a city to Judaism over three thousand years ago. (Archaeology has failed to confirm this early date, but it is held all the same.) Jews pray in the direction of the city; mention its name constantly in prayers; close the Passover service with the wistful aspiration "Next year in Jerusalem”; and recall the city in the blessing at the end of each meal. Today, Jerusalem ranks as the sole capital of a Jewish state, though this special role is challenged by Arab Muslims and Christians who continue to live there. The city is a central focus of both Christian and Muslim pilgrimage.<br />
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For several centuries during Late Antiquity, Palestine--with its profuse collection of holy sites associated with the Savior--was essentially a Christian country. There had been a continuous Christian presence there since the time of the Apostles. According to the New Testament, Jerusalem was the city to which Jesus was brought as a child to be presented at the Temple (Luke 2:22) and for the feast of the Passover (Luke 2:41). He preached and healed in Jerusalem; cleansed the Temple there; held the Last Supper in an upper room there; and was arrested in Gethsemane. The six parts making up Jesus’ trial—three stages in a religious court and three stages before a Roman court—all took place in Jerusalem. His crucifixion at Golgotha, his burial nearby and his resurrection, ascension, and prophecy of return--all are said to have occurred there.<br />
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In Galatians 4:21-31 we are told of two brides (Hagar and Sarah) who correspond to two cities: physical and heavenly Jerusalem. This contrast gave rise to a vast body of medieval allegory concerning the Heavenly Jerusalem.<br />
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In the course of the seventh century CE, Jerusalem (al Quds) became a holy place for Muslims, ranking third only after Mecca and Medina. This eminence was somewhat unexpected, for Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Qur'an and did not play the special role it was to enjoy in Islam until a considerable time after Muhammad's death. However, the first Muslims did not pray towards Mecca, but to Jerusalem. Since 691 the Dome of the Rock, built by Byzantine architects, has formed the centerpiece of the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. According to legend, this is the place where Muhammad ascended into heaven mounted on his steed Buraq.<br />
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In summary, Jerusalem has tended to divide as much as unite. In recent decades its role as a source of conflict among the three faiths has become acute.<br />
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A number of shared theological motifs permeate the Abrahamic faiths. All three religions affirm one eternal God, who is not an abstract force but an intensely personal being. Having created a contingent universe, this deity providentially rules history, occasionally dispatching prophetic and angelic messengers, and revealing the divine will through inspired Scriptures.<br />
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The concept of history all three observe is linear and teleological: history has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In no wise random, the sequence of historical development was set in motion by the deity, and it moves on a track that is constantly guided by his providence. While the details of things to come are somewhat murky and controversial--at least in terms of our limited human understanding--history is inexorably advancing towards an eschaton, or predetermined goal. Hence the use of the term eschatology for this concluding sequence. We may be assured that one day God will decisively intervene again in human history on the Day of Judgment. On that occasion--the end point of history as we know it--he will assign all human beings their eternal place in heaven or hell. (One should note, however, that some Jews dissent from these last claims.)<br />
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The theological continuity among the three A's is striking. By way of comparison, the great religions of South and East Asia, the dominant schools of Greek philosophy, modernity, and postmodernity--in short almost all other religious and philosophical systems--cannot claim this intensity of doctrinal overlap. Some would say that the autonomy of these other traditions counts to their advantage. However that may, be there are substantial elements of agreement among the three A’s. Abrahamic adherents assume as a matter of course that God has guided humanity’s path through revelation. Each religion recognizes that God revealed teachings up to and including those embodied in their own scriptures. By the same token, each decisively rejects revelations claimed by its successors. Jews hold, for example, that God guided Melchizedek, Abraham, and their successors, but recognize no prophets accepted by other religions after them. Christians honor the Hebrew prophets and scripture, but reject Islam's Prophet and scriptures. Islam grants that God provided guidance for Jews and Christians for a time. However, the precepts conveyed under this dispensation must be understood in the light of Islam’s own perceived revelations.<br />
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The three religions claim a common ethical orientation. All three stress the need for the believer to make a choice between good and evil, a choice governed by the demands of a single God and what is thought to be divine law.<br />
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All three religions make sharp distinctions between approved and prohibited conduct with regard to sex and the family. They concur in condemning homosexual conduct. In modern times, this agreement regarding same-sex behavior has given rise to the myth that condemnation of homosexuality is a cultural universal. That generalization is signal instance of projecting Abrahamic particularism onto the rest of the world.<br />
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A Semitic heritage is common to all. In so far as linguistic history can be reconstructed, it suggests that the languages that served to birth the Abrahamic religions stem from a single source tongue: proto-Semitic. While the New Testament is written in Greek (perhaps conceived in part in Aramaic), Christianity arose from Judaism, a quintessentially Semitic religion.<br />
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Since the time of Ernest Renan (1823-1892), the common heritage of the desert has been emphasized; hence the expression “desert monotheism.” However, several qualifications are in order. Recent scholarship denies the historicity of the exodus story as narrated in the Pentateuch. In this light, it may be that the image (or if you will, illusion) of the desert experience is more important for Judaism than its purported historical reality. Apart from John the Baptist, a somewhat puzzling precursor, Christianity first prospered mainly in the settled towns of Judea and Galilee and not in the desert. In addition, recent research has suggested that even Islam owes its vitality more to the fertile strip of northern Arabia than to the arid central regions of the peninsula.<br />
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As we have occasion to note, the overlaps are impressive. Yet the very significant differences must not be elided. Christian beliefs about Jesus Christ are incompatible with both Judaism and Islam. Without the Incarnation Christianity is meaningless. For Muslims and Jews the Christian belief in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and the Son of God, yet one with him, is alien and unacceptable. For their own part, Christians find Islamic and Jewish beliefs about Jesus stunted and insufficient, even heretical.<br />
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The points made in the preceding paragraphs will probably meet general acceptance among those who have adopted the comparative approach to the Abrahamic faiths. In keeping with much recent work, this survey has scanted the darker side. This must now be addressed.<br />
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First, is the factor that Jan Assmann has termed the “Mosaic Exception.” That is that the monotheism ostensibly introduced by Moses has been accompanied by a long, distressing history of intolerance and violence. Today commonly associated with Christians in the recent past and with Muslims in the present, these evils in fact found their origin in the world of the Hebrew bible. In different ways all three faiths show a disconcerting ability at various points of their history to seek to compel belief--their belief and none other. In the historical record their is discordance and concordance in the observance of the Mosaic Exception. Exterior circumstances have, from time to time, limited its application. Still, the connection of monotheism to intolerance and violence is part of the very DNA of the Abrahamic triad.<br />
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Another dark feature is the toleration of slavery that marred all three religions, not just at their inception but through much of their later history. To be sure, slavery characterized many, perhaps most ancient societies, including such paragons of civilization as ancient Greece and ancient China. Yet if the appearance of Yahweh-worship actually introduced a higher morality in the world shouldn’t it have banned slavery at the outset?<br />
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Then there the issue of the three scriptures themselves. Not only are they composite in the way that modern scholarship has shown, but each is a mixture of myth and historical data (with the latter often presented selectively and defectively). Yet the resulting mixtures are simply called Truth by those who say that they are following them. As the remainder of this chapter, and this book as a whole will show, the logical status of all of the Abrahamic scriptures has been gravely compromised--if not demolished--by scholarly advances on a variety of points.<br />
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All in all, the preceding account has been something of a seesaw alternating between concordance and discordance. While it may seem somewhat confusing, this duality must be constantly born in mind in reading the following sections and chapters of this book.<br />
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RECENT APPROACHES<br />
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We turn now briefly to some recent contributions touching on the Abrahamic threesome.<br />
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The beginning of the twenty-first century has seen the rise of a new militant form of atheism, very different in tone from the tradition launched by the urbane Baron d’Holbach in the eighteenth century. The implicit target of the New Atheists is the three Abrahamic religions--with other faiths such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Shintoism, etc. only noted in passing, if at all. A new militancy characterizes the bestsellers due to such authors as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, who seem surprised and dismayed at the persistence of theism. Vigorously worded, these volumes have achieved wide readership--at least among the intelligentsia in a society where the numbers of serious readers are regrettably declining. In my view, the New Atheist writers fail to provide the necessary close-grained analysis of the actual doctrines of the Abrahamic faiths. For his reason their work cannot constitute a platform for further study. One must either embrace their dismissal or reject it.<br />
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No aspersions of superficiality can be cast at the vast three-part fresco of Hans Küng (1992, 1994, 2007), a distinguished Roman Catholic professor of theology, now retired from the University of Tübingen. Challenging the common error that ascribes unchanging essences to religions, Küng espouses the device of successive paradigms as the key to tracing their evolution over time. (The paradigm gambit derives from the American philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn.) In the unfolding of Christendom, for example, Küng discerns 1) the Jewish apocalyptic paradigm of earliest Christianity; 2) the ecumenical Hellenistic paradigm of Christian antiquity; 3) the medieval Roman Catholic paradigm; 4) the Reformation Protestant paradigm; 5) the paradigm of modernity focused on reason and progress; and 6) the paradigm of a postmodern period which is taking shape.<br />
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The Swiss thinker’s magnum opus distills an enormous amount of reading and thinking, incorporating, to the best of his ability, much earlier work by others. Nonetheless, his inquiry responds to what he views as a contemporary imperative: to advance the cause of dialogue in the interests of world peace. As a guide, he offers the following mantra: “No peace among the nations without peace among the religions. No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions. No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the foundations of the religions.” (Küng, 2007, p. xxiii) . Somewhat grandiosely, he believes that the world is faced with a stark choice: we must either embrace his program of constructive dialogue or resign ourselves to endless discord and warfare.<br />
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Are there only two choices? Alas, human affairs are rarely so simple. Muddled though they may be from his perspective, there may be other, more likely paths.<br />
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Küng’s project is avowedly present-minded. As he states, “I am not writing this book as a cultural historian or a historian of religion, or as a historian of politics and law. I am writing it in order to help people to engage in dialogue in this decisive transitional phase [the early twenty-first century] towards a new relationship between the civilizations, religions and nations, so that whether they are Christian, Muslim or secular; politicians, business leaders or culture-makers; teachers, clergy or students, they may be able to assess the world situation and react to it better.” (Küng, 2007, p. xxvi).<br />
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Clearly this ambitious approach is a worthy one. One problem, though, is that Küng tends to give each religion the benefit of the doubt, seeing each as having a valid, even humanistic core, which we can readily separate from the exaggerations of fanatics, who do not represent the “true faith.” Thus the distinction that some observe between Christianity (good) and Christianism (bad); Islam (good) and Islamism (bad). This separation seems all-too-convenient. What if the views of the fanatics, some of them at least, are part of the core and not alien accretions belonging to the the periphery?<br />
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To be candid, the distinction between the beneficent core and the noxious accretions is redolent of Pollyannaism, perhaps even of the credulity of a Candide. To understand all, the French proverb tells us, is to forgive all. This is nonsense. I would point out that there can be no progress, no rest in the quest for truth, until the adherents of all three Abrahamic religions show a sustained commitment to ridding their heritage of the vast deposits of distortion and outright fabrication, of intolerance and fanaticism that have persistently riddled their endeavors from top to bottom. This blight is not just a matter of the past, but survives and is even being vigorously touted in many religious quarters today.<br />
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Sadly, there may be few grounds for optimism. Draining these vast swamps of filth and desolation is a mind-boggling task that may be beyond human capacity.<br />
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Also worthy of note is a less ponderous work of synthesis produced by an American independent scholar, Robert Wright. This engaging writer has done his homework by consulting some of the sophisticated products of contemporary scholarship (Wright, 2009). After some preliminary discussion of primitive religions (“animism” or as he prefers, “shamanism”), Wright turns to his main theme, the grand Abrahamic pageant. While he recognizes that religious beliefs must be examined in their own terms, he believes that their origins and development respond to changing circumstances in the real world, including economics, politics, and relations among peoples. His approach has a strong evolutionary bent, for he suggests that, like organisms, religions respond adaptively to their world. This process results in a gradual transformation of religion from its early crude beginnings to a steadily growing state of refinement. This process of improvement is what is meant by the “Evolution of God.”<br />
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Not unlike Küng, Wright believes that his findings can help to remove misunderstandings that are a source of contention among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. However, his effort to be agreeable, and to forge consensus by a display of reasonableness seems a little naive.<br />
<br />
THE SCOPE OF THE PRESENT BOOK<br />
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Many studies of religion emphasize the communal or performance dimension, including ritual and liturgy; hymns; and acts of praise of the deity and other holy figures. There are also private aspects, involving prayer and mystical exercises.<br />
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There is no doubt that these enactments--both public and private--are very important to believers, and there are many good studies of religion in practice. Yet this study is different. It concentrates on texts, what is conventionally known as Scripture. Each of the three religions is buttressed by a body of holy writings, commonly thought to be divinely inspired. Not only are these writings foundational, they are the usual vehicle for the mutual influences among the religions. They also serve to permit us to reconstruct earlier stages of the faiths. In the world today these scriptures continue to have resonance, even among nonbelievers.<br />
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Utilizing the tools of the historical-critical approach, a major aspect of this study is the effort to discern what the texts meant in their original context. This means labeling later accretions as just that--encumbrances that obscure the quest for original meanings.<br />
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Another major emphasis of this study is intertextuality. At first this term seems somewhat exotic; in fact it was imported from French structural analyses into English as recently as 1975. Some of the strangeness disappears when we acknowledge that intertextuality incorporates much of what traditional literary scholars are accustomed to terming allusion and influence.<br />
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However, the scope of the new term is broader. Intertextuality is the shaping of textual meanings by other texts. It is what might be termed their mutual interanimation. In an extended sense the concept of intertextuality also provides a method for examining the relation of works of art and music to other works in those media--and indeed in other media.<br />
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Some observers have complained that the ubiquity of the term "intertextuality" in postmodern criticism has crowded out related terms and important nuances. For example, Linda Hutcheon argues that excessive interest in intertextuality obscures the role of the author, because intertextuality can be found "in the eye of the beholder" and does not necessarily entail a communicator's intentions. Moreover, intertextualitity may embody types of playful allusion, irony, and parody that are alien to the relations among religious texts. While some intertextuality involves precise references to earlier texts, in other cases it is the general form and tone that are uppermost. For instances of the latter type some prefer the term interdiscursivity. It may be said that the Christian pairing of the Old Testament and the New Testament represents a massive instance of interdiscursivity.<br />
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At all events, every reader of the New Testament is aware of the way certain passages quote or allude to passages in the Hebrew Bible (which Christians term the “Old Testament,” in part because of this relationship). In quest of such parallels Christians heed the call to “search the scriptures.” In the Hebrew Bible itself, books such as Deuteronomy or the Prophets refer to events described in Exodus, to cite but one book that has been so targeted.<br />
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Moreover, this process of referencing continues down to later poems and plays, paintings and sculpture that depend on Biblical narratives, just as other productions in these media build networks around Greco-Roman history and mythology. Even a casual acquaintance with the Qur’an discloses significant motifs and stories that refer back to Jewish and Christian archetypes. Instances of this echoing are the narratives of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Mary, and Jesus.<br />
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ALLEGORICAL EXEGESIS<br />
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In all three faiths resourceful scholars, sometimes termed exegetes, have worked out sophisticated rules and theories for scriptural interpretation. For example, most exegetes distinguish been literal renderings and various forms of allegorical (or “spiritual”) interpretation. While such exercises may strike outsiders as arcane or fanciful, they are governed by an overarching theoretical structure known as hermeneutics (Grant and Tracy, 1988).<br />
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Now neglected, the traditions of medieval and early modern Christian exegesis nonetheless rank as a remarkable intellectual achievement. Dominated by various forms of allegory, this vast fresco constitutes the immediate background for the emergence in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries of the historical-critical approach. Modern scholars had to free themselves of this formidable legacy before they could proceed to create what we now recognize as a truer way of understanding the historical documents.<br />
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This relationship makes it is necessary to examine the precursor development in some detail. The following account looks first at the exegetical technique of typology and the Christocentric principle that is closely connected with it. Then we turn to fourfold exegesis, the full-fledged system of interpretation developed by the medieval exegetes.<br />
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In Christian Biblical exegesis, typology is a doctrine or theory focusing on a purported organic relationship linking the Old and New Testaments. Events and persons in the Old Testament--that is, the Hebrew Bible--are understood as prefiguring events and persons in the New Testament. In this perspective the later exemplar is the "antitype" corresponding to each type.<br />
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The Gospels provide several influential models. The Book of Numbers ascribes the creation of a bronze snake to Moses (Numbers 21:6). In Hebrew the object is known as the Nehustan, while Christians generally refer to it as the Brazen Serpent. Raised high up on a pole, the serpent had magical curative powers, for whenever a serpent bit someone the individual had only to look up at it and live.<br />
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In the Gospel of John Jesus compared himself to the Brazen Serpent. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). The comparison rests on two main factors, the lifting up and the promise of life. In this way the Brazen Serpent is a type of Christ.<br />
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Another example of typology is the story of Jonah and the great fish as told in the Book of Jonah. In the original story, Jonah authorized the men aboard the ship to sacrifice him by throwing him overboard. Jonah told them by taking his life, God’s wrath would pass and the sea would become calm. Subsequently Jonah then spent three days and nights in the belly of a great fish before he is spat up onto dry land. Typological interpretation of this story holds that it prefigures Christ's burial, the stomach of the fish being Christ's tomb. As Jonah was freed from the whale after three days, so did Christ rise from His tomb after three days. In the New Testament Jesus can be thought to invoke Jonah as a type: “As the crowds increased, Jesus said, ‘This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.’” (Luke 11:29-32; see also Matthew 12:38-42; 16:1-4). Jonah called the belly of the fish “She’ol,” the land of the dead (translated "the grave" in the NIV).<br />
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Thus, whenever one finds a depiction or allusion to Jonah in medieval art or medieval literature, it is usually an allegory for the burial and resurrection of Christ.<br />
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The previous two examples reflect the overlap between typology and Christocentrism. But the Christological emphasis need not be present, or may only appear by implication.<br />
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Places can also be types. Egypt was thought to represent a state of bondage such as holds the sinner prior to his conversion (Galatians 4:2; Romans 6:17; 1 Corinthians 10:lff). Jerusalem or Zion typifies the church and finally heaven (cf. Galatians 4:25, 26; Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 21:2), while Babylon, which held God’s people captive in the Old Testament, pictures the condition of an apostate church that has departed from the simplicity of the New Testament pattern (Revelation 11:8; 14:8; 16:19; 17:5; 18:2ff).<br />
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Events may also be significant. The flood of Noah’s day (Genesis 6-8) typified the sudden destruction of the world yet to come at the end (Matthew 24:37-39). The manna from heaven in the wilderness (Exodus 16:14-16) was a type of that spiritual bread who came down from heaven to nourish humanity (John 6:32).<br />
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Using these scriptural comparisons as models, medieval exegetes developed a vast repertoire of such comparisons whereby persons, places, and events under the Old Law were held to foreshadow persons, places, and events under the New Law.<br />
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In the fullest version of the typological theory, the later outcomes are seen as the actual reason why the Old Testament events occurred. Less commonly, typological relationships are detected within the Testaments. The theory of typology began in the the early Church, reaching the summit of its influence in the High Middle Ages, when it suffused Christian literature, art, and preaching. Even after the Reformation, typology continued to be popular, especially in Calvinism. With the rise of the historical-critical school, triumphing in the nineteenth century, the typological method faded, so that to all intents and purposes it has disappeared from the mainstream of exegesis. Occasionally, though, even today the ministering clergy revert to such connections for their edifying value.<br />
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Typology may be regarded as a form of symbolism or allegory. The Early Church also had recourse to allegory as a method for reconciling seeming disparities between the Old Testament (the Hebrew bible) and the New Testament. While both testaments were studied and seen as equally inspired by God, the Old Testament contained features that Christians found discordant, for example, the Jewish dietary laws and male circumcision. The Old Testament could therefore be seen in places not so much as a literal account, but as a symbolic. Of course, most theorists adhered (or claimed to adhere) to the literal truth of the Old Testament accounts, but regarded the events described as shaped by God to provide exemplars foreshadowing later developments--as we have just seen. Others inclined to the view (sometimes prudently declining to avow their stance) that some parts of the Bible are essentially allegorical.<br />
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This approach to the Bible stemmed ultimately from the thought-world of Hellenistic and early Roman Alexandria, where Philo and other Hellenized Jews had sought to present the Hebrew Bible in Platonic terms as essentially an allegory. In the third century Origen Christianized the system, yielding an approach widely influential in both the Greek East and the Latin West, where it was adopted by such figures as Saint Hilary and Saint Ambrose. Guided by Ambrose’s insistence that "the letter kills but the spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6), Saint Augustine became the most influential Latin proponent of the system, though he also insisted on retaining the literal historical truth of the Bible. The encyclopedist Isidore of Seville and Rabanus Maurus compiled popular works setting forth standardized interpretations of correspondences and their meanings.<br />
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In due course, this method was formalized in the hermeneutical technique of distinguishing four categories of interpretation. The first focuses on the literal understanding of the events in historical terms with no underlying meaning. Strictly speaking, this is not allegorical, though the other three are. The second approach, called typological, links the events of the Old Testament with the New Testament; in particular drawing allegorical connections between the events of Christ's life with the stories of the Old Testament. The third is moral (or tropological), serving to determine how one should act in the present; it provides the "moral of the story." The fourth category, also allegorical, is the anagogical, dealing with the spiritual or mystical as it relates to future events of Christian history, heaven, hell, the Last Judgment; it concentrates on prophecies.<br />
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In summary, the four categories of allegory deal with past events (literal), the connection of past events with the present (typology), present events (moral), and the future (anagogical).<br />
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The allegorical method served not only to interpret the bible, but to generate new creations. The High and Late Middle Ages saw the appearance of major allegorical works deploying sophisticated techniques of exposition. Perhaps the most important literary monuments of this type were the French Roman de la Rose; Dante’s Divine Comedy; Langland’s Piers Plowman; and the English Pearl Poem.<br />
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These developments, which have only been lightly sketched here, show how pervasive the allegorical trend had become by the high and later middle ages. This popularity would make it hard to dislodge. In due course, this was done. Before turning to this development, we must cite a parallel Jewish exegetical endeavor.<br />
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JEWISH INTERPRETATION<br />
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As we have seen, the first steps to the allegorical approach to the Bible were taken by an Alexandrian Jew, Philo. For a long time, however, Philo’s influence was felt mainly among Christians. As recorded in Mishnah and Talmud, the early medieval rabbis were chiefly concerned with the literal interpretation of Scripture (however fanciful this may seem in some instancesto outsiders).<br />
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This conservative approach did not last. Some thousand years after Philo and the early Christians had made their fateful venture into the realm of allegorical interpretation, some Western (Ashkenazi) rabbis began to emulate them. During the High Middle Ages in Western Europe Judaism created the exegetical technique of the Pardes, setting forth four approaches to Torah study. The term, sometimes also spelled PaRDeS, is an acronym reflecting the initials of the names of these four approaches, which are 1) Peshat — "plain" ("simple") or the direct meaning. 2) Remez — "hints" or the deep (allegoric) meaning beyond just the literal sense. 3) Derash -- from Hebrew darsh: inquire (“seek”): the comparative (midrashic meaning, as given through similar occurrences. 4) Sod -- “secret” (“mystery”), or the mystical meaning, as given through inspiration or revelation.<br />
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Types 2-4 of Pardes interpretation examine some aspect of the presumed extended meaning of a text. In principle, the extended meaning never contradicts the base meaning. Overlap sometimes occurs. as when legal understandings of a verse are influenced by mystical interpretations or when a "hint" is determined by comparing a word with other instances of the same word.<br />
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While the details vary, it is evident that Pardes is an adaptation or mimicry of Christian fourfold interpretation, which had assumed its mature form centuries before. Evidently, the rabbis did not want to be left behind in the exegesis race. The kinship is shown by the fact that both systems begin with the literal meaning, and then add three allegorical ones as a kind of superstructure. Of course, the content of the latter three had to be adjusted to suit Jewish purposes. This borrowing was facilitated by geographical contiguity: the fact that Catholic Christians and Ashkenazi Jews shared much the same living space. It is significant that the method did not develop among Jews living in Islamic lands, or for the most part in Orthodox Christian countries.<br />
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ISLAMIC INTERPRETATION<br />
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The Islamic exegetical tradition is quite different from the two previously discussed. Each verse in the Qur’an can be interpreted as a sign (ayah; plural ayat). There are two types of ayat: 1) verses that are Mukhamaat (clear in essence and law, provided one makes sure to pronounce and grammatically construct them properly); and 2) those that are Mutashabihaat (passages that can be understood in more than one way, yielding what may appear to be ambiguous, confusing, or multiple interpretations. In this way the basic Muslim distinction is not between literal and allegorical meaning, but reflects a recognition that there are different degrees of difficulty in interpretation.<br />
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Unlike Christianity, which was confronted with the necessity of harmonizing two inspired scriptures (the Old and New Testament), Islam had only one, the Holy Qur’an. This reliance on a single source exempted Muslims from the sort of intellectual fancy-foot work that Christian exegetes felt compelled to undertake. It is true that they needed to confront the hadiths, extra-Qur’anic utterances ascribed to the Prophet. However important these are as aids to interpretation, they are not on the same plane as the divinely inspired Qur’an, which in the view of some pious believers had existed from the beginning of Creation, being merely transcribed in Muhammad’s time.<br />
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In addition, in the Islamic world jurists tended to play a more important role than theologians. For this reason Muslim interpretation is sometimes said to be more about orthopraxis (right conduct) than orthodoxy (right belief). To a considerable extent, this generalization also applies to most varieties of Judaism where, however, the rabbis perform both the exegetical and the juridical role. For its part, Christianity seems to be unique in its emphasis on creeds and doctrinal rigor. Arguably, it was in Christianity that allegorical extravagance was most florid. This is one reason why, eventually, a correction became imperative. In fact, of the three religions, only Christendom came forward initially to challenge the interpretive excesses that had come to encumber Holy Writ. It did so with the rise of the historical-critical approach, discussed in the following pages.<br />
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This was an astonishing reversal. While the older approaches survive here and there in Christendom, any objective judgment must conclude that the victory of the historical-critical method has been complete. Many obscurities linger in the Bible, yet we have come vastly closer to an understanding of the original meaning and circumstances of composition of the texts. By contrast, rabbinical Judaism still lags behind; Islamic orthodoxy even more so.<br />
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THE HISTORICAL-CRITICAL APPROACH TO THE BIBLE<br />
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Several developments favored the rise of the historical-critical method in Western Europe during the sixteenth century. The first was the spread of the printed book, Gutenberg’s fifteenth-century invention that make them more affordable, thereby facilitating communication among scholars. Beginning with Martin Luther’s posting of his theses in Wittenberg in 1517, Protestantism opened paths for diverse interpretations. With respect to Scriptural interpretation these departures were at first somewhat limited, even timid, but an important step towards independence from the repressive apparatus of the Roman Catholic church had been taken. Protestantism also encouraged lay people to practice private reading of the Bible in the vernacular. At the other end of the erudition scale, the humanistic interest in classical languages increased the corps of trained scholars who could read Greek and Hebrew. In this way they were no longer dependent on the faulty renderings that tainted the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome.<br />
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Yet it was only in the nineteenth century that the full flowering of this scholarly movement occurred. Profiting from earlier research, that period embraced a distinction between the Higher and the Lower Criticism, somewhat to the disparagement of the latter. Ostensibly, Lower Criticism concentrates on the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts. Ancient scribes made mistakes--not to speak of deliberate alterations--when copying manuscripts by hand: the critic must endeavor to correct these by comparison of several manuscripts. By contrast, Higher Criticism embodies the effort to establish the authorship, date, place of composition, and true essence of the original text.<br />
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What were the first stirrings of the tendency? In fact, the so-called Lower Criticism came first. Profiting from advances in the criticism of classical Latin and Greek manuscripts, this demanding discipline laid the foundation for all that was to come after. We turn first to the revolution of New Testament studies, then to a similar effect in the study of the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament as it was still generally termed).<br />
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APPLICATION OF CRITICAL TECHNIQUES TO THE NEW TESTAMENT<br />
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The Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus published the first printed edition (the “editio princeps”) of the Greek New Testament in 1515. Up to that point most scholars in Western Europe had been limited to Jerome’s Latin Vulgate rendering, which was not the original source. Unfortunately, Erasmus has only a few, relatively late Greek originals at his disposal. Nonetheless, he was able to remove some errors and additions. The most important accretion was the so-called Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7-8), the only explicit acknowledgment of the doctrine of the Trinity in the entire Bible. In the Vulgate this reads: “There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one; and there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, the water and the blood, and these three are one.” (trans. by Ehrman, 2005, p. 81 ). In his Greek manuscripts Erasmus did not find the words referring to “the Father, the Word, and the Spirit.” Accordingly, he omitted these words.<br />
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As the contemporary biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman remarks, “[w]ithout this verse, the doctrine of the Trinity must be inferred from a range of passages combined to show that Christ is God, as is the Spirit and the Father, and that there is, nonetheless, only one God.” (Ehrman, loc. cit.) In other words, the New Testament itself contains no unambiguous assertion of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.<br />
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Erasmus’ omission caused an uproar. Somehow, the Dutch scholar would have to be made to back down. Eventually, a spurious Greek manuscript was produced, containing a translation into Greek from the Latin text. After seeing this, Erasmus yielded, agreeing to restore the traditional wording, which he did in later printings.<br />
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Many, perhaps most textual corrections are minor. In some instances, though, as in this one, textual emendation can have serious theological consequences. Regrettably, the results of Erasmus’ initial discovery have still not been assimilated by most mainstream Christian denominations. Chapter Five will show how the doctrine of the Trinity now so enshrined in Christian doctrine and worship was not the belief of the first Christians, including those who composed the New Testament.<br />
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Despite Erasmus’ valiant efforts, his Greek New Testament, even in its revised editions, contained many disfiguring errors and imperfections. Yet for generations this text was accepted as standard (the “textus receptus’). “Warts and all,” it formed the basis for pioneering English translations of William Tyndale (ca. 1494-1536). Much of Tyndale’s work found its way into the King James Version of 1613, which is actually an amalgam of earlier renderings. Much loved, that version is radically unreliable, and in fact many parts of it are nowadays incomprehensible to lay readers.<br />
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While some minor tinkering occurred, confidence in the basic accuracy of Erasmus’ New Testament text continued for some two-hundred years. In 1707, however, John Mills, a scholar at Queens College, Oxford, published his Novum Testamentum Graecum, cum lectionibus variantibus MSS (Oxford, 1707). After some thirty years of painstaking labor requiring the scrutiny of some one-hundred Greek manuscripts, the English scholar was able to pinpoint an amazing 30,000 discrepancies. Some of these were minor, but a significant number were in fact consequential. As Bart D. Ehrman pertinently asks, “[i]f one did not know which words were original in the Greek New Testament, how could one use these words in deciding correct Christian doctrine and teaching?” (Ehrman, 2005, p. 84).<br />
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Following John Mill’s example, other scholars in England, France, and Germany adduced other manuscripts, disclosing further discrepancies. Gradually, scholars became aware of broader problems, in the context of what later came to be termed the Higher Criticism.<br />
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In the study of the Four Gospels, this endeavor focused initially on the Synoptic Problem: the question of how best to account for the differences and similarities among the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke (Sanders and Davies, 1989). The answer has implications for the order in which the three were composed, and the sources on which their authors drew. Any solution to the synoptic problem needs to account for two features:<br />
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1) The "triple tradition." The three gospels frequently share both wording and arrangement of pericopes (identifiable segments displaying incidents or stories). This substantial sharing accounts for the label "synoptic” (seeing-together). Where they do not concur across the board, Mark and Luke will agree over against Matthew, or Mark and Matthew will agree against Luke, but very rarely will Mark be the odd one out. Matthew's and Luke's versions of shared passages usually turn out to be shorter than Mark's.<br />
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2) The "double tradition." Not infrequently, Matthew and Luke share material which is not present in Mark. In these cases Matthew and Luke sometimes parallel each other closely, but at other times are widely divergent.<br />
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So much can be learned from careful scrutiny and comparison of the texts themselves. But how can one account for this complex situation?<br />
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The solution that has usually been adopted is the Two-Source Hypothesis (or 2SH), which the posits that Matthew and Luke were based on Mark, and on a lost, hypothetical sayings collection often called Q. The Two-Source Hypothesis was first articulated in 1838 by Christian Hermann Weisse, but it did not gain wide acceptance among German critics until Heinrich Julius Holtzmann endorsed it in 1863. Prior to Holtzmann, most Catholic scholars subscribed to the Augustinian hypothesis (Matthew → Mark → Luke), while Protestant biblical critics favored the Griesbach hypothesis (Matthew → Luke → Mark). The Two-Source Hypothesis crossed the channel into Britain in the 1880s, primarily through the efforts of William Sanday, culminating in B. H. Streeter’s definitive statement of the case in 1924. Streeter further argued that additional sources, referred to as M and L, lie behind the material in Matthew and Luke respectively.<br />
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The strength of the Two-Source Hypothesis stems from its explanatory power regarding the shared and non-shared material in the three gospels; its weaknesses lie in the exceptions to those patterns, and in the hypothetical nature of its proposed collection of Jesus sayings. Later scholars have advanced numerous elaborations and variations on the basic hypothesis, and even completely alternative hypotheses. Nevertheless, the Two-Source Hypothesis still today commands the support of most biblical critics from all continents and denominations.<br />
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THE HISTORICAL-CRITICAL APPROACH AND THE HEBREW BIBLE<br />
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We turn now to the emergence of the historical-critical approach regarding the Old Testament. Nowadays, this vast and disparate collection of texts is properly designated the Hebrew Bible; here, however, we retain the traditional Christian designation, since almost all the significant advances in the study of the text and its composition have been made by Christian scholars.<br />
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Because of the size of the text, and the fact that the New Testament was long of primary interest to theologians, detailed criticisms of the Old Testament were somewhat slow to emerge. Some see the origins of this endeavor in such seventeenth-century philosophers and theologians as Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza, and Richard Simon. (The independent Jewish scholar Spinoza is of course an exception to the generally valid observation that these advances were due to Christian scholars). These writers began to ask questions about the origin of the biblical text, especially the Pentateuch. Having detected contradictions and inconsistencies in the text, they began to question the traditional idea that they were all written uniformly by Moses. But lacking a specific method they could go no further.<br />
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The first significant step in this direction was taken by a French physician, Jean Astruc. In 1753 Astruc published (anonymously) his <i>Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux, dont il paraît que Moïse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse </i>("Conjectures on the original accounts of which it appears Moses availed himself in composing the Book of Genesis"). He applied to Genesis the tools of literary analysis which classical philologists had developed for such texts as the Iliad to sift variant traditions and arrive at what they believed was the most authentic text. Astruc began by identifying two markers which served to tag consistent variations: the use of "Elohim" or "YHWH" (Yahweh) as the name for God, and the appearance of doublets, such as the two narratives of the Creation in the first and second chapters of Genesis and the two accounts of Sarah and a foreign king (Gen.12 and Gen. 20). He displayed the results in columns, assigning verses to these, the "Elohim" verses in one column, the "YHWH" verses in another, and the members of the doublets in their own columns beside these. The parallel columns thus constructed contained two long narratives, each dealing with the same incidents. Astruc suggested that these were the original documents used by Moses, and that Genesis as composed by Moses had looked just like this, parallel accounts meant to be read separately. Jean Astruc then surmised that a later editor had combined the columns into a single narrative, creating the confusions and repetitions previously noted.<br />
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The tools Astruc tentatively proffered for biblical source criticism were enormously refined and improved by subsequent scholars, most of them German. From 1780 onwards Johann Gottfried Eichhorn extended Astruc's analysis beyond Genesis to the entire Pentateuch, and by 1823 he had concluded that Moses had had no part in writing any of it. In 1805 Wilhelm de Wette proposed that Deuteronomy represented a third independent source (D), apart from J (Yahwist) and E (Elohist). About 1822 Friedrich Bleek identified the book of Joshua as a continuation of the Pentateuch via Deuteronomy, while others detected signs of the Deuteronomist in Judges, Samuel, and Kings. In 1853 Hermann Hupfeld suggested that the Elohist material (E) was really two sources, which should be split, thus isolating the Priestly source. Hupfeld also emphasized the importance of the Redactor, or final editor, in producing the Torah by fusing the four sources. However, not all the Pentateuch could be traced to one or other of the four sources: several smaller sections were identified, such as the Holiness Code comprising Leviticus17-26.<br />
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Biblical critics also attempted to identify the sequence and dates of the four sources, and to propose who might have produced them, and why. In 1805 Wilhelm de Wette had concluded that none of the Pentateuch was composed before the time of David. Since Spinoza, D had been connected with the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem during the reign of Josiah in 621 BCE. Beyond this, scholars argued variously for composition in the order PEJD, or EJDP, or JEDP: the subject was far from settled.<br />
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In 1876-77 Julius Wellhausen published his landmark monograph <i>Die Composition des Hexateuch</i> ("The Composition of the Hexateuch,” i.e. the Pentateuch plus Joshua), in which he perfected the four-source concept of Pentateuchal origins; this work was followed in 1878 by his Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels ("Prolegomena to the History of Israel"), a study which traced the religious evolution of the ancient Israelites from an entirely secular, non-supernatural standpoint. In reality, Wellhausen was more a consolidator than an innovator. He sifted and combined the achievements of a century of scholarship to produce a coherent, comprehensive theory on the origins of the Hebrew Bible and of ancient Judaism, one so persuasive that it has dominated scholarly debate on the subject ever since.<br />
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Wellhausen's criteria for distinguishing between sources were those developed by his predecessors over the previous century: style (focusing on the choice of vocabulary, though not exclusively); divine names; doublets; and occasionally triplets. In Wellhausen’s view, J gloried in a rich narrative style, while E was somewhat less eloquent. P's language was dry and legalistic. Vocabulary items such as the names of God, or the use of Horeb (E and D) or Sinai (J and P) to designate God's mountain; ritual objects such as the ark, mentioned frequently in J but never in E; the status of judges (never mentioned in P) and prophets (mentioned only in E and D); the means of communication between God and humanity (J's God meets in person with Adam and Abraham, E's God communicates through dreams, P's can only be approached through the priesthood)--all these criteria and more formed the toolkit for discriminating between sources and allocating verses to them. This matter must seem rather technical, but it remains foundational for the study of the Hebrew Bible.<br />
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Wellhausen's starting point for dating the sources was the event described in 2 Kings 22:8–20: a "scroll of Torah" (which can be translated "instruction" or "law"). Ostensibly, the High Priest Hilkiah discovered this document in the Temple in Jerusalem in the eighteenth year of king Josiah (traditionally, ca. 623 BCE). What Josiah read there triggered a drastic campaign of religious reform, as the king destroyed all altars except that in the Temple, banned all sacrifice except at the Temple, and insisted on the exclusive worship of Yahweh. In the fourth century CE Jerome had already speculated that the scroll might have been Deuteronomy; de Wette in 1805 suggested that it might have been only the law-code at Deuteronomy 12-26 that Hilkiah found, and that he might have written it himself, alone or in collaboration with Josiah.<br />
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With D anchored in history--at least to his own satisfaction (and those of many others following him)-- Wellhausen proceeded to arrange the remaining sources around the body of material. He accepted Karl Heinrich Graf’s conclusion that the sources were written in the order J-E-D-P. This sequence went against the general opinion of scholars at the time, who regarded P as the earliest of the sources. Wellhausen's sustained argument for a late P was the chief novelty of the Prolegomena. J and E he ascribed to the early monarchy, approximately 950 BCE for J and 850 BCE for E; P he placed in the early Persian post-Exilic period, around 500 BCE.<br />
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The four were combined by a series of Redactors (editors), first J with E to form a combined JE, then JE with D to form a JED text, and finally JED with P to form JEDP, the final Torah. Taking up a scholarly tradition stretching back to Spinoza and Hobbes, Wellhausen pinpointed Ezra, the post-Exilic leader who re-established the Jewish community in Jerusalem at the behest of the Persian king Artaxerxes I in 458 BCE, as the final redactor.<br />
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Wellhausen wrought well. Still today, his reconstruction constitutes the framework within which the origins of the Pentateuch must be discussed (Nicolson, 2003).<br />
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The triumph of the historical-critical school has been more general. Even the Vatican has adopted the view that "light derived from recent research" must not be neglected by Catholic scholars, urging them especially to pay attention to "the sources written or oral" and "the forms of expression" used by the "sacred writer.” Up to this point, Catholics had played little role in advancing this research, which was largely the work of German Protestants.<br />
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Up to this point we have focused on internal evidence, conclusions that could be drawn from comparison of the various components of the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible. Alongside these advances great changes were taking place in our understanding of the world we live, expecially those put forth by the natural sciences. These advances inevitably eroded confidence in the Biblical world-view, which can be retained, many would say, only by disregarding such findings.<br />
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FINDINGS OF NATURAL SCIENCE<br />
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Famously, Archbishop James Usher (1581-1656) calculated that the universe had begun in 4004 BCE. The Bible tells us so. Other calculations differed somewhat, but all agreed that the earth--and the rest of Creation--had existed for less than 6000 years.<br />
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This compressed time-scale was to be drastically revised as a result of two major scientific advances: the geological chronology deduced from the study of fossils, and the Darwinian theory of evolution.<br />
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GEOLOGY<br />
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In classical antiquity Aristotle recognized that fossil seashells from rocks were similar to those found on the beach, deducing that the fossils were once part of living animals. He reasoned that the positions of land and sea had changed over long periods of time. Much later the principles underlying geological time scales were later laid down by the Dane Nicholas Steno 1638-1686). Steno argued that rock layers (or strata) are laid down in succession, and that each represents a "slice" of time. He also formulated the law of superposition, which states that any given stratum is probably older than those above it and younger than those below it. It took some time for the full implications of this finding to be realized (Toulmin and Goodfield, 1965; Gillispie, 1996). In fact the first serious attempts to formulate a geological time scale that could be applied anywhere on Earth were made in the late eighteenth century. The most influential of those early attempts (championed by Abraham Werner, among others) divided the rocks of the Earth's crust into four types: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary. According to the theory, each type of rock appeared during a specific period in earth history.<br />
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The Neptunist theories popular at this time proposed that all rocks had precipitated out of a single enormous flood. A major shift in thinking came when James Hutton presented a paper entitled Theory of the Earth; or, an Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land Upon the Globe before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March and April 1785. Hutton proposed that the interior of the Earth was hot, and that this heat was the engine which drove the creation of new rock: land was eroded by air and water and deposited as layers in the sea; heat then consolidated the sediment into stone, and uplifted it into new lands. This theory was dubbed "Plutonist" in contrast to the flood-oriented theory.<br />
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The identification of strata by the fossils they contained, pioneered by William Smith, Georges Cuvier, Jean d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Alexandre Brogniart in the early nineteenth century, allowed geologists to divide earth history more precisely. If two strata (however distant in space or different in composition) contained the same fossils, chances were good that they had been laid down at the same time.<br />
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When William Smith and Sir Charles Lyell first recognized that rock strata represented successive time periods, time scales could be estimated only very imprecisely since the various kinds of rates of change used in estimation were highly variable. Still, a set of decisive steps had been taken. While creationists reckoned in terms of thousands of years, geologists had ascertained that millions of years were needed for the unfolding of geologic periods.<br />
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Just how many millions remained for a long time in doubt. Lord Kelvin, for example, thought that 100 million years would be enough. Yet in 1898 Marie Curie discovered the phenomenon of radioactivity, and by 1904 Ernest Rutherford, a British physicist, realized that the process of radioactive decay could be harnessed to date rocks. At this point, enter Arthur Holmes (1890-1964) who won a scholarship to study physics at the Royal College of Science in London. There he developed the technique of dating rocks using the uranium-lead method and from the age of his oldest rock discovered that the Earth was at least 1.6 billion years old.<br />
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Some geologists thought this allocation of years was too generous, and for a considerable period the results remained controversial. Still, in the 1920s the age of the Earth crept up towards 3 billion years. Embarrassingly, this figure took it beyond the age of the universe itself, then thought to be only 1.8 billion years old. It was not until the 1950s that the age of the universe was finally revised and put safely beyond the origin of the Earth, which had at last reached its true age of 4.56 billion years.<br />
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Succeeding discoveries and refinements have proved this general conclusion--sometimes termed the “Deep Time” theory--to be correct beyond any reasonable possibility of doubt.<br />
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CHARLES DARWIN AND THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION<br />
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Imprecise as nineteenth-century estimates proved to be, they formed an essential platform for the advances of Charles Darwin and the evolutionists who followed him (Hodge and Radick, 2003). Darwin needed enormous amounts of time for the process of evolution to unfold. As Thomas Huxley, Darwin's chief advocate, remarked: '’Biology takes its time from Geology.”<br />
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As Donald Worster notes, “Darwin is surely the most influential scientist in modern times, not only as the founder of evolutionary biology and ecology but also as the inspirer of anthropologists, economists, psychologists, and philosophers. Despite the stubborn resistance of many religious people, his science has profoundly reshaped our modern world view–indeed, evolution is its very foundation. His book <i>On the Origin of Species</i>, published in 1859, argued that life has evolved by wholly natural processes, without any supernatural intervention.” (“Historians and Nature,” American Scholar, Spring 2010).<br />
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In 1858 Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace produced complementary versions of a new evolutionary theory, which was explained in detail in Darwin's<i> On the Origin of Species (</i>1859). Darwin advocated the principles of common descent and a branching tree of life. His theory was based on the idea of natural selection, and it synthesized a broad range of evidence from animal husbandry, biogeography, geology, morphology, and embryology.<br />
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In England the religious reaction to Darwin’s publication was quite mild, at least at first. The creationist idea that the world arose in six days as an act of God some few thousand years before had been pretty much driven from the field by the patient work of the geologists. For his part, Darwin wrote with great tact, even seeming to allow for some intervention of the divine principle in the course of the evolution. It was only in America in the 1920s that religious opposition to Darwin’s theory became white-hot.<br />
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At all events, the debate over Darwin's work led to the rapid acceptance among scientists of the general concept of evolution. Yet the specific mechanism he proposed, natural selection, was not widely accepted until it was confirmed by advances in biology that occurred during 1920s through the 1940s. Before that time most biologists assumed that other factors were responsible for evolution. The synthesis of natural selection with Mendelian genetics during the 1920s and 1930s yielded the new discipline of population genetics. In the course of the 1930s and 1940s, population genetics permeated other biological fields, resulting in a widely applicable theory of evolution that encompassed much of biology. The result is what is termed the modern evolutionary synthesis.<br />
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In recent years new schools of Creationism have sought to revive some aspects of the biblical view. This revival has attracted many traditional Christians, especially in the American heartland, and in some circles in other English-speaking countries such as Britain and Australia. It does not seem to be making much headway in the rest of the world--with the exception of some sectors of Islamic opinion, where a similar view is being cavased.<br />
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Notwithstanding this groundwell of resistance, the general consensus in the scientific community is that these efforts at rehabilitation have failed. The enormous advances over the last few centuries of research and thinking have dealt a blow to biblical theories of history from which they cannot recover.<br />
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Still is far to ask the following question. Is Darwinism incompatible with any and all forms of theism? In fact, some scientists working in this realm say that there is a zone where the two can coexist. Some biologists and paleontologists in fact affirm that they are believers. A careful look at the matter shows, however, that this compatibility is more limited than one might think.<br />
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The noted Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, who is of Jewish origin, has suggested that science and religion are “overlapping magisteria,” each valid in its own sphere. Most of us are aware that our makeup is a complex intermix of rational and emotional dimensions; in this light Gould’s epistemological dualism has a certain appeal. Yet when the magisteria overlap how is the contest to be decided? Do we simply flip a coin? The idea seems ludicrous. To be sure, there is a long history of dualistic theories of knowledge, going back at least to the Middle Ages. Nonetheless, when all is said and done the procedure seems intellectually unsatisfactory, for ultimately knowledge must be unitary, the result of the logical application of but one set of primary principles.<br />
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Another way of reconciling modern science with religion is what is sometimes termed the anthropic principle. In some ways this view is a reminiscent of the pantheism of earlier centuries. Common to both views, though, is the rejection of the idea of a personal God.<br />
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Finally, there is a recent notion called the “God of gaps.” This holds that God intervenes in the evolutionary process only at a few crucial points--when the transition from inanimate matter to life occurs, for example. There seems little doubt that further scientific advances will close this gap leaving God with even less to do. Somehow the idea that for aeons God contented himself with playing golf (or whatever the heavenly equivalent is), only deigning to interfere on those rare occasions when he might be needed, is radically at variance with the biblical view of God--he who controls the fall of every sparrow and numbers the hairs on our head.<br />
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IMPACT OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE NEAR EAST<br />
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Yet another source of critique of the biblical record stemmed from the decipherment (1851-57) of the cuneiform documents in the Akkadian language (Adkins, 2003). Since both Akkadian and Hebrew were Semitic tongues, scholars who were familiar with the latter made rapid progress with the newly discovered material, gradually assembling a large corpus of Mesopotamian literature from the third millennium onwards. It has been estimated that this corpus is now twenty times the size of the Hebrew Bible. Eventually, the documents in Sumerian, some of which were even older, were added to the store of ancient Mesopotamian writings.<br />
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Almost at the outset. it became evident that these venerable texts showed similarities with such key biblical motifs as the story of Creation, the Flood, and the law codes. In some instances, this early enthusiasm for comparison became excessive, and scholars began to caution against “paralleloomania.” There was also a tendency to focus exclusively on Mesopotamian material (“pan-Babylonianism”), neglecting the evidence from ancient Egypt, the Hiittite empire, and Canaan--all of them providing useful comparative material as well.<br />
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All in all, however, the similarities were numerous enough to undermine traditional beliefs in the narrative of the Hebrew bible, which came to take its place in a larger constellation of Middle Eastern texts. Traditional Bible scholars who would defend the uniqueness and exceptionalism of the doctrines, laws, and narratives found in the Hebrew Bible were faced with a very difficult, not to say impossible task.<br />
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All the while, archaeological excavations in Iraq and Syria produced more and more tablets, which were gradually deciphered, as well as other sorts of evidence for the actual tenor of life in ancient times, including significant works of art (Lloyd, 1980). The general public may now admire these works in such venues as the British Museum, the Louvre, the University Museum in Philadelphia, and (despite the recent losses) in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.<br />
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During the first half of the twentieth century, the work of the American Biblical archaeology school under William F. Albright concentrated on excavations in Palestine itself. These purported to confirm that even if Genesis and Exodus only received their final form in the first millennium BCE, they were still firmly grounded in the material reality of the second millennium. Unfortunately subsequent work has rendered these conclusions inoperative (see Chapter Three).<br />
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RETROSPECT<br />
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Looking back over the many topics canvassed in the preceding sections of this chapter, it is evident that the early modern period saw the beginning of a major transformation. There were three distinct components to this change. So significant are these features that they deserve to be termed the Great Upheavals.<br />
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The three major upheavals are as follows:<br />
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1) The textual transformation effected when the solvents of the historical-critical method were applied to the words and structure of the Bible. As we have seen, this change has affected both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.<br />
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2) The Scientific Revolution (geology and evolution), which showed the time scale presupposed by the Bible to be impossible.<br />
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3) Archaeology, which presents an entirely different picture of the ancient Near East than the one enshrined in the Bible.<br />
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Gradually but inexorably these three fundamental shifts stripped the Bible of all cognitive authority. Its logical status has been gravely compromised. To be sure, for some believers, the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures retain moral authority. But they can no longer be regarded as controlling forces in the advance of human knowledge. That role now belongs indisputably to the sciences, with their canons of experience, empiricism, and proof.<br />
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Today the regime of Truth is defined by the human and natural sciences, not by the Bible. In this radically altered context, the Bible must struggle to maintain itself in a world that either hostile or uncaring with regard to its claims. In due course, the Qur’an will find itself in a similar situation.<br />
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In these collisions, science prevailed over Holy Scripture. Textual studies and archaeological investigations are continuing, while at the same time biologists are coming closer to their goal of creating life ex nihilo. One should not underline the obvious, but they are unlikely to give any comfort to those who continue their increasingly quixotic effort to salvage the authority and reliability of the Bible.<br />
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We now return to issues grounded in the texts, with particular reference to the bible as understood by Christians.<br />
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THE QUESTS FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS<br />
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The quest for the historical Jesus is the attempt to use historical rather than religious methods to construct a reliable biography of Jesus (Schweitzer, 2001). As originally defined by Albert Schweitzer (1875-1966), the quest began with Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), culminating in the work of William Wrede (1859-1906). Retrospectively, the quest is commonly divided into stages, and it continues today among scholars such as the fellows of the Jesus Seminar.<br />
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Working courageously in virtual isolation, Reimarus composed a treatise rejecting miracles and charging Bible authors of fraud, but he prudently declined to publish his findings. However, Gotthold Lessing did so in the Wolfenbũttel fragments. Then David F. Strauss's biography of Jesus (1835-36) set Gospel criticism on its modern course. Strauss explained gospel miracles as natural events misunderstood and misrepresented. In France Ernest Renan was the first of many to portray Jesus simply as a human person.<br />
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Albert Ritschl expressed reservations about the quest approach, but it became central to liberal Protestantism in Germany and to the Social Gospel movement in America. For his part Martin Kähler protested that the true Christ is the one preached by the whole Bible, not a historical hypothesis. Finally, William Wrede questioned the historical reliability of the gospel of Mark. In his classic account of this scholarly trajectory, first published in 1906, Schweitzer showed how historical accounts of Jesus had reflected the historians' bias and place in their time. His own view emphasized eschatology. As far as could be determined, Schweitzer held, Jesus was a prophetic figure focused on apocalyptic thinking. Until recently, this view has been largely dominant. During the 1920s interest in the quest for the historical Jesus declined. The two most influential Protestant theologians of the time, Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann had very different interests. Still, the 1950s saw a brief groundswell in the New Quest movement.<br />
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Finally, in our own day, the Jesus Seminar initiated a Third Quest. The Jesus Seminar is a group of about 150 individuals, including scholars with advanced degrees in biblical studies, religious studies, and related fields, as well as published authors who are notable in the field of religion, founded in 1985 by the late Robert Funk under the auspices of the Westar Institute. The seminar adopted the method of voting with colored beads to decide their collective view of the authenticity of New Testament passages, specifically with respect to what Jesus may or may not have said and done as a historical figure. The members published their results in three volumes entitled The Five Gospels (1993),The Acts of Jesus (1998), and The Gospel of Jesus (1999).<br />
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The seminar's reconstruction of the historical Jesus portrays him as an itinerant Hellenistic Jewish sage who did not die as a substitute for sinners nor rise from the dead, but in fact preached a “social gospel” couched in striking parables and aphorisms. An iconoclast, Jesus broke with established Jewish theological doctrines and social conventions both in his teachings and behaviors, often by turning common-sense ideas upside down, confounding the expectations of his audience. He preached of "Heaven's imperial rule" (the Basilea, traditionally translated as “Kingdom of God”) as being already present but unseen; he depicted God as a loving father; and he chose to associate with outcasts and marginal folk, decrying the establishment.<br />
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The Seminar treats the gospels as historical artifacts, transmitting some of Jesus' actual words and deeds, while mingling them with the inventions and elaborations of the early Christian community and of the gospel authors. The fellows placed the burden of proof on those who advocate any passage's historicity. Freely crossing canonical boundaries, they have controversially suggested that the Gospel of Thomas (not one of the four) may have more authentic material than the Gospel of John.<br />
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While analyzing the gospels as fallible human creations is a standard feature of the historical-critical method, the Seminar's premise that Jesus did not hold an apocalyptic world view remains controversial. Rather than revealing an apocalyptic eschatology, which instructs his disciples to prepare for the end of the world, the fellows argue that the authentic words of Jesus indicate that he preached a sapiential eschatology, which encourages all of God's children to join in repairing the world.<br />
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Many scholars and laymen--some conservative but not all--have questioned the methodology, assumptions, and intent of the Jesus Seminar. The following are the main points of the critique. The Seminar creates a kind of abstract Jesus who is separated from both his cultural setting and his followers. The voting system--with its red/pink/grey/black categories, is seriously flawed. The exclusion of apocalytic material from Jesus’ ministry is arbitrary and unjustified. The Jesus Seminar tends to treat canonical accounts of Jesus in a hypercritical fashion, while credulously welcoming late extracanonical documents. The composition of the Seminar is odd; according to one critic only about 14 of the fellows rank as leading figures in the world of New Testament scholarship, Even these, it is alleged, have introduced their own biases into the discussion.<br />
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To their credit, members of the Seminar have sought to address and refute these criticisms. However, the work of the Seminar has now ended, and its conclusions remain in doubt.<br />
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LEXICA AND SEMANTICS<br />
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No one can quarrel with the need to study the foundational texts of the Abrahamic faiths in the original languages instead of simply relying, as most observant people do out of necessity on vernacular translations. In addition to the fact that a multitude of nuances, some actually quite important, are lost in this process, all translations are products of their time, often importing anachronistic concerns into the text. For example, a number of recent translations import contemporary concerns with gender-neutrality, even going so far as to write “our father and mother,” when the original text speaks only of a male creator God.<br />
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In practical terms this attention to the original texts means proficiency in four languages: three Semitic (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic) and one Indo-European (koine Greek). A few early texts are preserved only in Armenian and Ethiopian versions; for these even the most resourceful linguists may be pardoned for consulting translations. Sometimes the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome offers help in interpreting difficult passages in the Hebrew Bible, though clearly such comparisons must be treated with caution.<br />
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Over the years scholars have assembled a formidable body of comparative linguistic usage to assist interpretation. Naturally, this material is most abundant in Greek, though allowance must be made for shifts from classical Greek, the form most familiar to philologists, and the koine Greek in which the New Testament is actually written.<br />
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Until recently, the situation with Hebrew has been less satisfactory. One cannot be confident in utilizing rabbinical usage because this form of Hebrew stems from hundreds of years after the closure of the canon of the Tanakh. Early Hebrew inscriptions found in Israel and neighboring countries are a help. However, the greatest addition to the classical Hebrew stock stems from the Dead Sea Scrolls, many of which are versions of individual Bible books. In some cases the texts differ markedly from the textus receptus. Help is also afforded by comparative studies of other Semitic languages, most notably from the the Canaanite documents from Ras Shamra, which precede the redaction of the Hebrew Bible by hundreds of years.<br />
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Study of the vocabulary of the Qur’an is complex and controversial. Clearly there are many borrowings from Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, though the scope of these is disputed.<br />
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Fortunately, a series of specialized dictionaries has appeared seeking to incorporate these growing bodies of lexical material. The first landmark is due to Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842), a major German orientalist and Biblical critic. Gesenius strove, with considerable success, to free Semitic philology from the trammels of theological intervention, inaugurating the scientific and comparative method that has since largely prevailed (Miller. 1927). In 1810 he brought out the first volume of the Hebräisches und Chaldäisches Handwörterbuch, which he completed in 1812. Revised editions of this fundamental dictionary of Hebrew and Aramaic have appeared periodically in Germany. The latest version, incorporating the latest discoveries, is still in course of publication.<br />
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The publication of an English-language adaptation was started in 1892 under the editorship of Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs,now well known as the Brown Driver Briggs lexicon or BDB for short. Despite its age, this Hebrew and English Lexicon (now equipped with several additional features) is still in common use in Britain and America.<br />
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Note that the most important foundational studies of Hebrew have been achieved by German and English Protestants. For a long time Jewish scholars lagged behind, hobbled their allegiance to the often fantastical elucidations of the rabbis of late antiquity and medieval times.<br />
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In the study of New Testament Greek, Walter Bauer occupies a place similar to that of Gesenius for Hebrew, though he worked at a later period. The origin may be traced to <i>Preuschen's Vollständiges griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testament und der übrigen Urchristlichen Literatur </i>(1910). Bauer extensively revised this work, publishing the result as Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen Urchristlichen Literatur. In 1957 William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich published their translation of the fourth German edition (1949-52) into English. Arndt died that same year, to be replaced by Frederick Danker, with whom Gingrich prepared the second English edition published in 1979.<br />
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Kurt Aland, with Barbara Aland and Viktor Reichmann, published a sixth German edition following Bauer's death in 1960. Gingrich died in 1993, leaving Danker to complete the third English edition, incorporating substantial work of his own. New Testament scholars commonly refer revised English-language edition by the acronym "BAGD." Danker brought out the third English edition in 2000. In view of the extensive improvements in this edition (said to include over 15,000 new citations), it is now known as "BDAG," or sometimes "The Bauer-Danker Lexicon."<br />
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These lexicons are of great practical value. During the early and middle decades of the twentieth century, however, a more ambitious approach to Biblical words arose, drawing upon recent advances in the linguistic discipline of semantics. A monument to this approach is the multivolume work by the controversial German biblical scholar Gerhard Kittel (1888-1948). In 1933 he took over the task of producing a new edition of the dictionary of Hermann Cremer and Julius Kögel. The first volume of this work, the <i>Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament </i>(ThWNT), appeared in Stuttgart in 1933 under the auspices of the W. Kohlhammer Verlag. There is a complete English translation by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (<i>Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,</i> 1964ff.).<br />
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Seeking to mediate between ordinary lexicography and the specific task of exposition the various authors represented in Kittel’s ThWNT treat more that 2,300 theologically significant New Testament words, including the more important prepositions and numbers as well as many proper names from the Hebrew.<br />
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Presenting the words in the order of the Greek alphabet, the Kittel work discusses the following topics for each word: its secular Greek background, its role in the Hebrew Bible, its use in extrabiblical Jewish literature, and its varied uses in the New Testament.<br />
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Broadly speaking, the approach espoused by Kittel and his collaborators is based on the history of ideas. The more ambitious entries treat the word as the springboard for a wide-ranging, sometimes speculative essay on a particular theological concept. As a result there is a tendency to obscure the fact that Bible word are in fact simply words (Barr, 1961).<br />
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Still the approach had wide appeal for a time. The effect may be illustrated by an influential book by the Alsatian theologian Oscar Cullmann. In his 1946 monograph <i>Christus und die Zeit</i> (Christ and Time), Cullmann asserted that the Greeks had two very different words to expresss the concept of time. One is chronos, the steady measurable procession that is tracked by human instruments and that we recognized as built into the structure of the cosmos. Contrasting with this, Cullmann held was the tern kairos, which designates the special character of a particular moment. When we are advised to “seize the time,” kairos is what is meant. Yet as the Scottish theologian James Barr showed, the Greek language shows no absolute contrast between the two (Barr, 1962). Language, at least, offers no warrant for Cullmann’s interesting dichotomy.<br />
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THE HEBREW BIBLE ONCE MORE<br />
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In the study of the Hebrew Bible, the twentieth century saw significant modifications of the Documentary Hypothesis, notably in the work of German scholars Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth, who argued for the oral transmission of ancient core beliefs: guidance out of Egypt, conquest of the Promised Land, covenants, revelation at Sinai/Horeb, and so forth.<br />
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The overall effect of such refinements was to aid the wider acceptance of the basic hypothesis by reassuring believers that even if the final form of the Pentateuch was late and not due to Moses himself, it was nevertheless possible to recover a credible picture of the period of Moses and of the patriarchal age. While this confidence eventually waned, it served for a time to reassure those who were uneasy about the Documentary Hypothesis, so that by the mid-twentieth century it had gained wide acceptance, at least by progressive Christian scholars and those without institutional affiliation.<br />
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After showing some initial interest in the latter part of the nineteenth century, rabbinical Judaism turned against the Documentary Hypothesis. A few traditional Jewish writers, like Umberto Cassuto, rejected it outright. However, the majority thought that it was simply irrelevant to the pastoral and communitarian tasks of the Synagogue.<br />
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In my view, the ostrich approach is unwise. To be sure, some contemporary Jewish scholars who are not active as rabbis, such as Richard Elliott Friedman and Israel Shanks, have accepted the Documentary Hypothesis, though with reservations.<br />
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At all events, for most unbiased scholars the traditional views of the origins of the Hebrew Bible simply cannot be sustained. The documentary hypothesis continues to be affirmed and refined. For example, William H. Propp has completed a two-volume translation and commentary on Exodus for the prestigious Anchor Bible Series relying on the DH framework, and Antony F. Campbell and Mark A. O’Brien have published a "Sources of the Pentateuch" presenting the Torah sorted into continuous sources following the divisions of Martin Noth.<br />
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Today the choice is not between the traditional view and the DH, but between the DH and more radical advances. These have duly come forth with the so-called minimalists. The most radical contemporary proposal has come from Thomas L. Thompson, who suggests that the final redaction of the Tanakh occurred as late as the early Hasmonean monarchy, that is, in the second century BCE. I defer the main discussion of the minimalist group until Chapter Three.<br />
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I have presented the findings of the historical-critical school at some length because they undergird the entire discussion that follows. Although it is less developed in some areas, the method is just as valid for Jewish and Muslim documents as for Christian ones.<br />
<br />
Assuming this method as a given, it will be possible to uncover the original meanings and circumstances of production of countless passages, some of them quite influential in the respective Jewish, Christian, and Islamic civilizations. For better or worse, this heritage has lingered until today.<br />
<br />
With these tools we will also be able to observe intertextual relations that link the three sets of scriptures. HIstorical vicissitudes have dictated that in the event they were not propagated in isolation, but became entangled in a complex web of mutual influence.<br />
<br />
THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE?<br />
<br />
So what is the Hebrew Bible to mean to us now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century? An answer that occurs frequently these days is that it is literature, to be studied and admired as such. But how much of this very big book is literature? I would hazard a guess that only Genesis, some passages from the prophets, most of the Psalms, and the three wisdom books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes qualify for this. Most of the Hebrew Bible is not literature. It is true that Mary Douglas, an innovative scholar, has written a book entitled “Leviticus as Literature.” In the New Testament one might single out the Gospel of John and some eloquent passages in Paul’s letters. Again this is a meager yield.<br />
<br />
Part of the trouble with the Bible-as-literature movement is that it exempts one from the hard work of mastering existing scholarship. It is all just a seamless narrative, so why bother with this technical stuff? Then too the literary approach can cause one to overlook the baleful influence of such passages as the prohibition of male homosexuality in Leviticus 18 and 20, of which the second specifies the death penalty. Still, it cannot be denied that the course of the last half-century or so, the English-speaking world has seen the rise of a trend to study the Bible simply as literature. If this approach involves study of particular literary techniques, common to all literature, such as plot and genre, metaphor and synecdoche, there can be no objection. In the course of reading these often tedious documents, it is occasionally useful to pause and examine the beauty of particular passages. Yet surely these qualities are merely ancillary, mere ploys if you will, chosen by the many authors of Scripture to put across their message. It is the message, or rather the messages, of the texts that are the point.<br />
<br />
The primary reason why the Bible has gained the sway that it has over the Western world is that it is held to contain instruction about human history, about right conduct, and about things to avoid. As James Kugel has remarked if we were to chose between say the literary merits of the bible, on the one hand, and the literary merits of, say, Dante and Shakespeare on the other, there would be no contest. The “Bible as literature” approach is also unsatisfactory because the bible is not, unlike the writings of Dante and Shakespeare just mentioned, the product of a single author. There were multiple authors writing at different times and purposes.<br />
<br />
Finally, the approach offers a convenient--all too convenient--compromise between secularists who still seek to find value in these old writings, on the one hand, and the religious or formerly religious who can shield themselves from doubt by adopting this view.<br />
<br />
Needless to say, the approach to the Bible as literature is not the one followed in this book. For that one must turn elsewhere.<br />
<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
<br />
It is time to summarize the main topics canvassed in this opening chapter.<br />
<br />
While there have been different ways of describing the link, the kinship of the three Abrahamics has been recognized for many centuries. Despite many differences--contrasts in terms of both origins and development--it is undeniable that the three show a fundamental family resemblance. The Abrahamic family differs from, say, the Indic family, embracing Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and other branches, all of which are alive and well. It also differs from Mediterranean polytheism, as seen in the extinct religions of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome.<br />
<br />
As Muslim tradition acknowledges, the three Abrahamic faiths are all “religions of the book.” For this reason this presentation takes as its central focus the analysis of the foundational documents--or Scriptures in Bible terminology--of all three. We seek to examine the original import of the texts, separating this historical core from later accretions. However, these enhancements need to be studied for their own sake because they have been instrumental in the dialogue among the three. This dialogue, affirming the kinship in its own way, is also of central concern.<br />
<br />
We have seen how all three--but Christians especially--developed symbolic or allegorical ways of explaining Holy Scripture. The enthusiasm for allegory reached its full flower during the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Yet it was there too that the great countermovement, the historical-critical method, began its rise in the sixteenth century. This method addressed both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. Only recently (as Chapter Six will show) has this approach been applied to the Qur’an.<br />
<br />
The historical-critical method operates within a specific sphere--a closed one, if you will. By carefully examining various clues and subjecting the texts to lexical and structural analysis, the approach seeks to discover the original import of the texts. Working with great tenacity, biblical critics have made extraordinary progress in their realm, bringing into question most of the traditional beliefs that have grown to encrust the Scriptures over the centuries.<br />
<br />
As if these seismic shocks were not sufficient, traditional religion has had to face external challenges. Here the most decisive contributions have come from geology and biology, together with archaeology, especially as practiced in the Middle East.<br />
<br />
As the concluding sections have noted, textual analysis of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament continues. For its part, the Qur’an has also come under the microscope, and this tendency is sure to increase.<br />
<br />
All in all, however, the results are much more than preliminary; they are overwhelming. Never very plausible, the claim that the Holy Scriptures rank as incomparable repositories of truth has been demolished. What remains to be determined is the possible role that such texts - with their teeming factual deficiencies and inconsistencies, their exaltation of cruelty and ethnocentrism - may retain, even intermittently, as spiritual and moral guides.<br />
<br />
<br />
REFERENCES<br />
<br />
Adkins, Lesley. Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2003.<br />
<br />
Anderson, Irvine. Biblical Interpretation and Middle East Policy: The Promised Land, America, and Israel, 1917-2002. Tallahassee: University Press of Florida, 2005.<br />
<br />
Armstrong, Karen. Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991.<br />
<br />
---. Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.<br />
<br />
Assmann, Jan. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.<br />
<br />
---. The Price of Monotheism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.<br />
<br />
Barr, James. The Semantics of Biblical Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 1961.<br />
<br />
---. Biblical Words for Time. London: SCM Press,1962.<br />
<br />
Bauer, Walter. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testa- ment and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
Becking, Bob, Marjo C. A. Korpel, Karel J. Meindert Dijkstra, and H. Vriezen, eds. One God?: Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Boman, Thorleif. Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek. New York: Norton, 1970.<br />
<br />
Cullmann, Oscar. Christ and Time. London: SCM, 1966.<br />
<br />
Davies, W D. The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.<br />
<br />
Destremau, Christian, and Jean Moncelon, Louis Massignon. Paris: Plon, 1994.<br />
<br />
Ehrman, Bart D. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005.<br />
<br />
Esposito, John L. What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
--- Islam: The Straight Path. Third ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.<br />
<br />
--- The Future of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.<br />
<br />
Esposito, John L., ed. The Oxford History of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.<br />
<br />
Gillispie, Charles C. Genesis and Geology: A Study of the Relations of Scientific Thought, Natural Theology, and Social Opinion in Great Britain, 1790-1850. (Harvard Historical Studies, vol. 58.) New ed. with preface by Nicolaas Rupke. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1996.<br />
<br />
Grant, Robert M., and David Tracy. A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1988.<br />
<br />
Harpigny, Guy. Islam et christianisme selon Louis Massignon. Louvain-la-Neuve: Université Catholique de Louvain, 1981.<br />
<br />
Hodge, Jonathan, and Gregory Radick, eds.. The Cambridge Companion to Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.<br />
<br />
Ibn Warraq, ed. The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1998.<br />
<br />
---. The Quest for the Historical Muhammad. Amherst, N.Y. Prometheus Books, 2000.<br />
<br />
---. What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commentary. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2002.<br />
<br />
Jeffery, Arthur. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an (Texts and Studies on the Quran). New ed. Leiden: Brill, 2006.<br />
<br />
Kittel, Gerhard (with Gerhard Friedrich). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Ten vols. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1964-76.<br />
<br />
Küng, Hans. Judaism: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow. New York: Crossroad, 1992.<br />
<br />
---. Christianity: Essence, History, and Future. New York: Continuum, 1994.<br />
<br />
---. Islam: Past, Present, and Future. Oxford: Oneworld, 2007.<br />
<br />
Lloyd, Seton. Foundations in the Dust: The Story of Mesopotamian Exploration. Second ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980.<br />
<br />
McDonald, Lee Martin, and James A. Sanders. The Canon Debate. Gaithersburg, MD: Hendrickson Publishing, 2002.<br />
<br />
Miller, Edward. The Influence of Gesenius on Hebrew Lexicography. New York: Columbia University Press, 1927.<br />
<br />
Minois, Georges, Le traité des trois imposteurs: histoire d'un livre blasphématoire qui n'existait pas. Paris: Albin Michel, 2009.<br />
<br />
Nevo, Yehuda D., and Judith Koren. Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2004.<br />
<br />
Nicolson, Ernest. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.<br />
<br />
Ohlig, Karl-Heinz, and Gerd R.-Puin, eds. The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research Into Its Early History. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2010.<br />
<br />
Paper, Jordan. The Deities Are Many: A Polytheistic Theology (S U N Y Series in Religious Studies). Binghamton: State University of New York Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Parrinder, Geoffrey. Jesus in the Qur’an. Oxford: One World, 1995.<br />
<br />
Penchansky, David. Twilight of the Gods: Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005.<br />
<br />
Peters, Francis E. The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.<br />
<br />
Prothero, Stephen. God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter. NewYork: Harper, 2010.<br />
<br />
Reynolds, Gabriel Said, ed. The Qur’an in Its Historical Context. London: Routledge, 2007.<br />
<br />
---. The Qur’an and Its Biblical Subtext. London: Routledge, 2010.<br />
<br />
Sand, Shlomo. The Invention of the Jewish People. London: Verso, 2009.<br />
<br />
Sanders, E. P., and Margaret Davies. Studying the Synoptic Gospels. London: SCM Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Spencer, Robert, ed. The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005.<br />
<br />
Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. New edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001 [following the revised German edition of 1913].<br />
<br />
Silbermann, Neil Asher, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York: Free Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Smith, Mark S. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
---. The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. New ed. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2002.<br />
<br />
Stavrakopoulou, Francesca. Land of Our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies). Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 2010.<br />
<br />
Thompson, Thomas L. The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past. London. 1999.<br />
<br />
---. The Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Sources. Leiden and New York: Brill, 1992.<br />
<br />
---. The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel. New York: Basic Books, 1999.<br />
<br />
Toulmin, Stephen, and June Goodfield. The Discovery of Time. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Van Seters, John. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.<br />
<br />
Weiss, Johannes. Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985.<br />
<br />
Wright, Robert. The Evolution of God. New York: Little, Brown, 2009. Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-55896744565213367582011-12-05T06:26:00.001-08:002014-03-19T08:15:52.920-07:00Abrahamica: Chapter Two<b>THE NEAR EAST AND ANCIENT ISRAEL’S PLACE WITHIN IT </b><br />
<br />
<br />
Consulting the map might suggest that ancient Israel was the very pivot of the ancient Near East. Yet the centrality is strictly geographical, for in reality the little land of the Israelites, confined to the uplands of Palestine, was little more than the plaything of the major powers that surrounded it.<br />
<br />
Sometimes these powers occupied Palestine. During other periods they satisfied themselves with exacting tribute and deference. But these powerful neighbors never subscribed to the grandiose claims of Yahwism. Acknowledgment of uch claims was restricted to the modest tribal context that gave them rise.<br />
<br />
BASIC DISTINCTIONS<br />
<br />
The ancient Near East is a broad concept embracing a number of early civilizations that flourished within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East. The major components were Mesopotamia (corresponding to modern Iraq and northeast Syria), Egypt, Iran (with Elam, Media, and Persia), Armenia, Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Levant (most of modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan), and the large offshore island of Cyprus. For some periods and concepts, the scope of this geocultural concept extended to the Aegean and continental Greece.<br />
<br />
Two regions accomplished the leap forward that gave this region epochal significance--Sumer (in lower Mesopotamia) in the fourth millennium BCE; and Egypt, which followed almost immediately after (some say simultaneously) in the Nile Valley. These two regions share joint honors as the cradle of Western civilization. Building on earlier advances in agriculture during the neolithic period, Mesopotamia and Egypt created advanced urban societies controlled by bureaucracies and centralized governments. They gave the ancient world its first writing systems; invented the potter’s wheel, and then the vehicular wheel and the mill wheel; created the first legal systems and empires; and introduced social stratification (class differentiation), slavery, and organized warfare.<br />
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Both of these foundational civilizations made major contributions to the fields of astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Well-wrought poems of all sorts, from hymns and epics to practical ditties and secular love songs, were carefully recorded in writing.<br />
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Finally, Mesopotamia and Egypt generated complex religious systems and imposing pantheons of gods, both of which had a huge, though often unacknowledged influence over ancient Israel.<br />
<br />
At their best, these two great traditions--embodied in the empires of Babylon and Assyria in Mesopotamia, and Egypt of the pharaohs--served as the kindly godparents hovering over ancient Israel. Sometimes, though, they behaved more like evil stepmothers.<br />
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In keeping with the normal human propensity for complaint, emphasis on the aggressive, repressive role of such overlords is the rule in the Hebrew Bible. Yet there is plenty of evidence for positive contributions as well. In fact, these were indispensable. Ancient Israel could not have become what it did without these massive infusions of cultural lend-lease.<br />
<br />
ISRAEL’S DEBT TO THE MAJOR CIVILIZATIONS OF THE NEAR EAST<br />
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From the large store of Near Eastern creativity in the sphere of religion and mythology it suffices to note a few telling examples.<br />
<br />
THE DELUGE<br />
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The story of the Flood ranks as a major contribution from Mesopotamia. The earliest extant flood legend appears in the fragmentary Sumerian Eridu Genesis, recorded on a cuneiform tablet from Nippur datable by its script to the eighteenth or seventeenth century BCE. The German scholar Arno Poebel deciphered and published the tablet in 1914; it has figured prominently in religious studies ever since. Two later Akkadian versions, Atrahasis and the Gilgamesh epic, supply some missing details.<br />
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Here is the gist. The gods An, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursanga create the Sumerians (the "black-headed people") and the animals. Then kingship descends from heaven and the first cities appear: Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larsa, Sippar, and Shuruppak.<br />
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After a gap in the record, the story resumes, indicating that the gods have decided to send a flood to destroy humankind. King Ziudsura learns of this impending disaster, ordering the construction of an ark. Then there is another gap. When the tablet’s narrative starts up again it is describing the flood. A terrible storm rocks the huge boat for seven days and seven nights; then Utu (the Sun god) appears and Ziudsura creates an opening in the boat, prostrates himself, and sacrifices oxen and sheep.<br />
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After yet another break the text starts up again. With the flood apparently over, the animals disembark and Ziudsura prostrates himself before An (the sky god) and Enlil (chief of the gods), who give him eternal life, taking him to dwell in the fabled land of Dilmun as a reward for "preserving the animals and the seed of mankind.”<br />
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There are a number of Mesopotamian successor texts, notably a section towards the end of the famous Epic of Gilgamesh where the hero is a man named Utnapishtim.<br />
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All the stories share a number of general features, which constitute the deep structure of the myth. Deities (or a deity) create the animals and human beings, but people anger the god(s), so they decide to destroy most of the people and animals with a flood. A divine being warns one pious person of the impending flood and tells him to build a big boat, and with it he preserves humankind, and usually the animals, from extinction. In the end the god(s) reward him for his actions.<br />
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The similarities with the well-known story in Genesis 6-9 are startling. Among them are the following motifs. In both the Genesis and Mesopotamian stories, mankind had become obnoxious to the god(s): in the Bible they were hopelessly sinful and wicked, in the Babylonian story, they were too numerous and noisy. As a result the god(s) decided to send a worldwide flood. This disaster would drown men, women, children, babies and infants, as well as eliminate all of the land animals and birds. The god(s) knew of one righteous man, Ziudsura/Utnapishtim or Noah. The god(s) ordered the hero to build a multistory wooden ark, which would be sealed with pitch. The ark would have with many internal compartments, and a single door. It would have at least one window. The ark was duly built and loaded with the hero, a few other human beings, and samples from all species of other land animals.<br />
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Then a great rain covered the land with water. The ark landed on a mountain in the Near East. The hero sent out birds at regular intervals to find if any dry land had emerged. The first two birds returned to the ark. The third bird apparently found dry land because it did not return. The hero and his family left the ark, ritually killed an animal, offered it as a sacrifice. The god(s) smelled the roasted meat of the sacrifice, and the hero was blessed.<br />
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The Mesopotamian gods seemed genuinely sorry for the havoc that they had inflicted. The god of Noah appears to have regretted his destructive actions as well, because he promised never to do it again.<br />
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Recently, a hitherto little known tablet (the "Ark Tablet), now on deposit in the British Museum, was deciphered and translated by the cuneiform expert Irving Finkel. Three aspects are notable. First, the words "two by two" characterizes the entry of the animals into the ark; this phrase is prominent in the biblical story (Gen. 7-9). Second, the detailed instructions for building an ark show that it was not to be boat-shaped with a pointed bow as traditionally understood, but instead was envisaged as a huge circular structure like a coracle, made of wooden ribs and coiled-reed rope, the whole consolidated with bitumen. Finally, the tablet offers no detailed narrative. Instead, it is a kind of "talking points" memorandum of the sort that one might use in making a speech, <br />
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As the Ark Tablet shows, the fertile Mesopotamian tradition generated a number of differences of detail. It is not surprising then that the Israelite version should show other variants. For example Noah’s ark was three stories high, while the Babylonian one generally had six stories. Noah's ark landed on Mount Ararat; Utnapishtim's at on Mount Nisir; these locations are both in the Middle East. Noah released a raven once and a dove twice; Utnapishtim sent out three birds: a dove, swallow, and raven. In Genesis the rains from above persisted for forty days and nights; in the Babylonian account the inundation lasted only six days.<br />
<br />
Some believers have sought to make much of such differences, most of which are, however, the result of an understandable process of migration of the myth from one culture to another.<br />
<br />
The monotheism of the biblical account has been emphasized. However, recent research in early Israelite religion shows that originally Yahweh functioned as the president of a council of the gods. In other words the society was effectively polytheistic. Accordingly, this difference is minimal.<br />
<br />
Chronologically, the Mesopotamian accounts are earlier. Moreover, the story makes sense in the alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, where floods are common. It is much less suited to the highlands of Palestine.<br />
<br />
The evidence overwhelmingly points to the conclusion that the biblical story of the Flood was purloined from the mythological storehouse of the more highly developed Mesopotamian civilizations. To put the matter candidly, it ranks as a plagiarism. Comparative studies of this kind, the inevitable result of the advancing frontiers of scholarship, have severely undermined the case for the authority and uniqueness of the Hebrew bible.<br />
<br />
OTHER MESOPOTAMIAN PARALLELS<br />
<br />
Here are a few further parallels, by way of example.<br />
<br />
Sargon of Agade, who reigned from 2334 to 2279 BCE, forged an empire that annexed Sumeria to the Semitic realm of Akkad. The ensuing centuries confirmed Sargon’s status as a major culture hero of ancient Mesopotamia. With varying degrees of plausibility, many legends surround the birth and upbringing of Sargon. While the identity of his father is not clearly known, his mother was supposed to have been a temple priestess. Giving birth to him in secret and setting him in a basket to float, she abandoned him to the Euphrates river. Akki, a gardener, rescued him from the river and raised him. After working as a gardener for Akki, Sargon rose to the position of cup-bearer to Ur-Zababa, the king of Kish. Such details recall the early life of Moses (Exodus 1:22-4:26), another major culture hero. Moses’ biography was evidently fashioned so as to absorb some of the features of the Sargon legend.<br />
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Mesopotamia and the neighboring regions in Asia Minor display a rich tradition of law collections, of which the Laws of Hammurabi (king of Babylon, 1792-1750) is the most famous example. The collections that have come down to us are compilations, varying in legal and literary sophistication. They were recorded by scribes in the schools and the royal centers of ancient Mesopotamia and Asia Minor from the end of the third millennium through the middle of the first millennium BCE. The languages of the texts are Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hittite. Some of the collections, like the famous Laws of Hammurabi, achieved wide circulation; others, like the Laws about Rented Oxen, were scribal exercises restricted to a local school center. All, however, reflected contemporary legal practice in the scribes' recordings of contracts, administrative documents, and court cases. They also provide historians with evidence of a process of distillation of legal rules from specific cases (Roth, 1997).<br />
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Strictly speaking, the collections are not “codes” in the modern sense of marshaling laws systematically according to category, but simply gatherings in which some recurrent themes are evident, but--as far as can be determined--no overall plan. Much the same is true of the ancient Israelite collections, which clearly stem from this same broad legal culture. Accordiing to the conventional terminology, these collections include the so-called Covenant Code (Exodus 21-23), the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26), and the Deuteronomic Code (Deuteronomy 12-26). Further discussion, including some nuances, occurs below, in Chapter Three.<br />
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Some works of Mesopotamian literature recall the troubled history of its various city states. One example is the “Lament for the Fall of Ur,” which foreshadows the later Israelite lamentations for the fall of Jerusalem. as seen in the books of Lamentations, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Psalms (especially Psalm 137).<br />
<br />
EGYPTIAN PARALLELS<br />
<br />
An Egyptian papyrus in the British Museum (10183) contains The Tale of Two Brothers, Anubis and Bata. Anubis' wife falsely accused Bata of beating her when she refused his advances, although she was really the one who tried to seduce him (Lichteim, vol. II), 1976, 203-11). This Middle Egyptian story, or something like it, must be the source of the story ascribed to Joseph in Genesis (39). Potiphar's wife tried to seduce Joseph. When Joseph rebuffed her advances, she falsely accused him of rape.<br />
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The Egyptians created a genre of wisdom literature in which a sage records advice for younger persons and later generations. An important landmark of the genre is the Instructions of Amenope, composed about 1100 BCE in the New Kingdom. This text continued to enjoy popularity in later centuries. The author advocates a life of devotion to moral conduct and public service, grounded in religious belief. A key passage in the book of Proverbs (22:17- 24:22) was directly purloined from this Egyptian text. More than copying was involved. At 22:20 the biblical writer’s “[h]ave I not written for you thirty sayings of admonition and knowledge” derives its ethos from the Instructions of Amenope (Lichtheim, vol. II, 1976, 146-63).<br />
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Consisting of only 117 verses, the Song of Songs is one of the shortest books in the Hebrew Bible. It is also known as the Song of Solomon, Solomon's Song of Songs, or as Canticles, The protagonists of the Song of Songs are a woman (identified in one verse as "the Shulamite") and a man,; the poem suggests movement from courtship to consummation. For instance, the man proclaims: "As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters." The woman answers: "As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste." In addition, the Song includes a chorus, the "daughters of Jerusalem."<br />
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Since there is no explicitly religious content, interpreters have struggled to reframe the Song as an allegorical representation of the relationship of God and Israel, or for Christians, God and the Church, or Christ and the human soul. Clearly strained, these efforts are now generally disregarded. It is clear that this fascinating book is nothing other than a collection of secular, erotic poetry.<br />
<br />
The ascription of the authorship to king Solomon is now generally abandoned also, as incompatible with the type of language used. In reality, the Song of Songs offers a literary refashioning of the everyday post-exilic vernacular. It contains loan words from languages with which Hebrew had contact in post-exilic times, including Persian, Greek, and Aramaic. The book displays numerous items of vocabulary and syntax that are otherwise unknown in biblical Hebrew but are attested from Rabbinic Hebrew. These expressions give the impression of being part of a living language and not the result of an archaic or artificial style.<br />
<br />
For some time it has been recognized that the love lyrics of ancient Egypt provide an atmosphere in which this work can best be understood (cf. Pritchard, 467-69). It is not that there is any direct dependence of the Hebrew Bible songs upon the Egyptian lyrics, but there is a similar approach within a common topic—love between the sexes. In the Hebrew work “the song of the dove is heard in our land,” and spring is the time for love (2:12-13); similarly, in the Egyptian poems the voice of a swallow invites the Egyptian maiden to contemplate the beauty of the countryside. Moreover, true love brooks no obstacles: “deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away” (8:7). Neither can the Egyptian lover be put off—even by crocodiles in the stream that separates them—from his beloved (Pritchard, 468). The Egyptian poetry uses the same term, “sister,”to designate the beloved as does the Song of Songs (4:9-10; 4:12; 5:1-2). <br />
<br />
AKHENATEN AND MONOTHEISM<br />
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In the early years of his reign, the pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten; ruled ca, 1353-1336) lived at the upper Egyptian capital of Thebes with his consort Nefertiti and his six daughters. He was a religious reformer of towering ambitions. Initially, Amenhotep IV tolerated worship of Egypt's traditional deities, but adjacent to the Temple of Karnak (Amun-Re's great cult center), he erected several temples to the Aten or sun disk--a portent of things to come. Later his successors demolished these buildings, using the the materials as infill for new constructions in the Temple of Karnak. When in turn archaeologists dismantled the later structures, they recovered some 36,000 decorated blocks from the original Aten building. Fortunately, these blocks preserve many elements of the original relief scenes and inscriptions.<br />
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Gradually, the relationship between Amenhotep and the powerful priests of Amun-Re deteriorated. In Year 5 of his reign, Amenhotep took decisive steps to establish the Aten as the exclusive, monotheistic god of Egypt. With stunning ruthlessness, the pharaoh disbanded the priesthoods of all the other gods, diverting the income from the traditional cults to support Aten worship. This step suggests that his religious reform may have worked in tandem with economic motives. In this way he could secure the support of the bureaucracy and the military, where concern was felt about the stranglehold that the old priests seemed to be gaining over the nation.<br />
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To symbolize his new allegiance, the king officially changed his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaten, or “Servant of the Aten.” Some scholars have detected a kind of latent solarism running through Egyptian religion in the New Kingdom. This theme had become stronger in the reign of the reformer’s father Amenhotep III, the “dazzling son.” Thus Akhenaten’s so-called “heresy” had real roots.<br />
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Still, there is no doubting the genuinely revolutionary character of Akhenaten’s new faith, which was, in essence, a “founded” religion, and not one that had simply evolved like all previous belief systems. It was genuinely monotheistic. As such, it proclaimed a dichotomous standard of truth and falsehood, seen as absolutely opposed (Assmann, 2009). As promulgated by Akhenaten, Atenism was both aniconic (permitting no anthropomorphic or animal representations) and iconoclastic (undertaking the destruction of images of rival gods). In all these respects, it forecasts later forms of monotheism.<br />
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As seen in the Great Hymn (possibly composed by Akhenaten himself) the new faith presented many appealing aspects. The supremacy of the sun, the source of all life, was thought to foster both human diversity (what we would term multiculturalism) and human solidarity (the sun shines equally on all lands). The Hymn is mirrored in Psalm 104 of the Hebrew Bible. It may be, of course, that both texts ultimately derive from a common fount of Near Eastern wisdom recitations and literature.<br />
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As if founding this new religion was not enough, Akhenaten made two other innovations: his new capital at Tell el-Amarna, and his new realistic style (or styles) of art. Soon after his death, however, this whole structure--the religion, the capital, and the art--faced abandonment, as Egypt turned with relief back to its traditional ways.<br />
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Because of their common monotheism, many have sought to forge a connection between Akhenaten and the biblical Moses. The most famous of these efforts is that of Sigmund Freud in his late monograph entitled Moses and Monotheism. Jan Assmann has produced a thorough, critical account of these claims (Assmann, 1997). Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest forced to flee Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten's death. Finally, on the threshold of the Promised Land, Moses was able to establish what had eluded his Egyptian master, a stable and permanent monotheism. Following the example of the Egyptologist Arthur Weigall, Freud thought that there was a connection linking Adonai, the Egyptian Aten, and the Syrian Adonis. Yet the argument is groundless as Aten and Adonai are not, in fact, linguistically related.<br />
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At all events, current scholarship doubts the historicity of the Exodus and of Moses himself. Assuming that, in some shape or form, the Exodus did take place, it must have occurred hundreds of years after the time of Akhenaten. Moses and Akhenaten could not have been contemporaries. Moreover, abundant display of the Aten disk was central to Akhenaten’s monotheism, while such imagery is absent early Israelite culture. Archaeology has failed to show any significant similarities between the two cults.<br />
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Nonetheless, in the wake of Freud’s book the connection assumed a place in popular consciousness. A genre of popular research and speculation, much of it regrettably implausible and amateurish, began to thrive, as can sometimes be witnessed on television today.<br />
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Akhenaten died about 1336 BCE, while Israel first appeared in the archaeological record more than two centuries later in the Merneptah stele, dated 1213-1203 BCE. There are other disconnects. Abundant visual imagery of the Aten disk was central to Atenism, while such imagery is lacking in early Israelite culture. All the same, Akhenaten’s monotheism and that of ancient Israel rank as the first two such instances in world culture. Present knowledge suggests that they were in essence two independent inventions, though some folk memory of Akhenaten’s innovation may have lingered in Egypt and its colonies in the Levant.<br />
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Some observers have gone so far as to liken Akhenaten's relationship with the Aten to the relationship, in Christian tradition, of Jesus Christ with God the Father (Yahweh). Donald B. Redford has noted that some have viewed Akhenaten as a harbinger of Jesus. "After all, Akhenaten did call himself the son of the sole god, “thine only son that came forth from thy body” (Redford, 1987). Arthur Weigall perceived him as a failed precursor of Christ and novelist Thomas Mann saw him "as right on the way and yet not the right one for the way.” After surveying the various theories, Redford concluded: “Before much of the archaeological evidence from Thebes and from Tell el-Amarna became available, wishful thinking sometimes turned Akhenaten into a humane teacher of the true God, a mentor of Moses, a Christlike figure, a philosopher before his time. But these imaginary creatures are now fading away one by one as the historical reality gradually emerges. There is little or no evidence to support the notion that Akhenaten was a progenitor of the full-blown monotheism that we find in the Bible. The monotheism of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament had its own separate development—one that began more than half a millennium after the pharaoh’s death.”<br />
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UGARIT<br />
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Ugarit (Ras Shamra) was an ancient port city on the coast of Syria. Its Canaanite civilization flourished during the period 1450-1200 BCE. A French team under the leadership of Claude Schaeffer began excavations on the site in 1929. The northeast quarter of the site’s walled enclosure was found to hold three notable buildings: the temples of Baal and Dagon, and the library (sometimes referred to as the high priest's house). The remains of these structures have yielded invaluable texts of various kinds.<br />
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Apart from royal correspondence with neighboring Bronze Age monarchs, Ugaritic literature includes mythological texts written in narrative verse, letters, legal documents such as land transfers, international treaties, and a number of administrative lists. Fragments of several poetic works have been identified, including the "Legend of Kirtu" and the "Legend of Danil.” The Baal cycle depicts great god’s destruction of Yam (the sea monster), demonstrating the affinity of the Canaanite version of the Chaoskampf (struggle with chaos) with those of Mesopotamia and the Aegean. In this narrative a warrior god rises up as the hero of the new pantheon to defeat chaos and bring order. All these texts are written in a West Semitic language akin to Hebrew.<br />
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The recovery of the Ugaritic archives has been of signal importance for biblical scholarship, as these archives permitted for the first time a detailed understanding of Canaanite religious beliefs during the period directly preceding the rise of ancient Israel. These texts show significant parallels to biblical Hebrew literature, particularly in the areas of divine imagery and poetic form. Ugaritic poetry presents many features that recur in later Hebrew poetry, including parallelisms, as well as specific meters, and rhythms. Tellingly, the discoveries at Ugarit give evidence of a lively pantheon of deities, suggesting that polytheism was the original heritage shared by the Canaanites and the ancient Israelites.<br />
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Indisputably, the cult(s) of Baal in the Levant influenced later Israelite beliefs. For example,Yahweh sometimes assumes the Chaoskampf role of Baal in his struggle with the unruly sea. Still It would be incorrect simply to conflate Canaanite religion and that of early Israel. As noted above, the earliest point at which we can pinpoint a people known as Israel in southern Canaan is marked by the Egyptian Merneptah Stele (1213-1203 BCE); it would be at least two hundred years more before this people achieved some sort of monarchic state.<br />
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While we know El to have been the chief of the Canaanite pantheon, he receives little attention in the cultic and mythological texts. This reticence is in fact common of Middle to Late Bronze Age mythology, where the high god recedes into the background as new warrior deities advance to center stage. In Ugarit and much of the Levant this warrior deity is Baal, for the Shasu (or Shosu) nomads and the later Israelites it is Yahweh and his consort, and in Mesopotamia it is Marduk. These warrior-god mythologies show remarkable points of contact and are most likely reflections of the same primordial myth.<br />
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There are also more modest connections For example, in the Story of Aqhat the human couple Danil and Danatiya are unable to have a son until Baal intervenes to help them. The barren-wife motif finds parallels in Genesis (15:1-4; 16:1-15; 18:9-15; 28:9-5; 25:21; and 30:1-4), Judges (13:2-3); 1 Samuel 1:2-17), and 2 Kings (4:8-17).<br />
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Modern scholars came to understand the significance of the Ugaritic texts only gradually. An early pioneer in this regard was Frank Moore Cross, whose 1973 monograph <i>Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic </i>is still in print. In some ways this book has become dated. It assumes, for example, the presence of monolatry (the precursor of monotheism) in Israel as early as the premonarchic period, arguing that later prophetic polemics and reforms were directed against "syncretism." Yet we now know that most of the gods condemned as "foreign" by the prophets and Deuteronomists---Asherah, Astarte, Baal, and the Heavenly Host--were simply West Semitic deities that Israel had inherited from its Canaanite ancestors. Cross's book carefully examines a wide variety of biblical and extrabiblical texts, early and late, flagging many continuities between Israelite and Canaanite beliefs and modes of worship. The two cultures shared poetics, mythical narratives, theophanic language, and many other features. The only real difference being that Israel's public religion was overwhelmingly focused on a single deity--though not, as Cross assumes, completely excluding others, at least until the late monarchy, when the “Yahweh alone” ideology was finally rigorously applied.<br />
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Later studies accept the reality of a kind of pan-Levantine religious consensus of the West Semitic peoples, from which ancient Israel gradually, though incompletely separated itself.<br />
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PERSIA<br />
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The contribution of Persian Zoroastrianism to the mind of ancient Israel is not generally well appreciated. This influence, which was substantial, became significant only after 597, when the Babylonians commenced their deportations of Israelites to the East, to Mesopotamia and adjoining areas of Persia. Since, according to contemporary scholars, the Hebrew Bible was not composed until well after that date, the influx of such material is fully understandable.<br />
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Among the Zoroastrian contributions are the following: angelology and demonology, emphasizing the intervention of these intermediate beings in human affairs; the apocalyptic conception of life after death; and such dualistic concepts as the Two Ages and the Two Spirits. Substantial traces of such ideas appear in the late Book of Daniel (probably written ca. 167-164 BCE), an apocalypse infused with Persian motifs (Russell, 1964).<br />
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It may be also that the prohibitions of male homosexuality found in Leviticus 18 and 20 also probably stem from Zoroastrian tradition, where similar strictures are found in a moralistic text, the Vendidad (or Videvdat).<br />
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METHODOLOGICAL NOTE<br />
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The material surveyed in the preceding pages is of the utmost importance, because it goes to the question of the authority of the scriptures honored by both Jews and Christians. To put it bluntly, it makes any attempt to restore that authority on traditional ground very difficult, if not impossible.<br />
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Because of the number of languages concerned, and problems arising from the decipherment, editing and interpretation of the texts, even seasoned scholars find it hard to achieve an overall view. Fortunately, there are a number of resources accessible to laypeople who wish to form their own conclusions. For a long time, the field was dominated by a work first published precisely in the middle of the twentieth century. James D. Pritchard, ed. <i>Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament [ANET]</i>, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, third ed., 1969. Recently this work has been replaced by Eilliam W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr., <i>The Context of Scripture </i>[COS], 3 vols., Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003 (“Scripture Index,” vol. 3, pp. 335-57). COS is twice as long as ANET, and presents many improved texts edited by leading scholars: it now represents the state of the art.<br />
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In a curious irony, both ANET and COS suffer from the limitations of their very intention, laudable though it is in principle. That is the fact that it is centered on a people who only played a secondary role in the international context of the time, the ancient Israelites. It is as if one were to consult a history of modern Europe written with the Czechs as the fulcrum; this would be valuable if one were a Czech person, but an odd perspective for others. In order to restore balance it is best to consult some up-to-date works offering texts from the great civilizations of the Near East in their own right.<br />
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In my view, the most useful of the text collections are as follows. For Mesopotamia, see Jeremy Black, Graham Cunningham, Eleanor Robinson, and Gábor Zólnomi, <i>The Literature of Ancient Sumer</i>, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; Benjamin R. Foster,<i> Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature</i>, third ed., Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2005; and Martha T. Roth, ed., <i>Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor</i>, Second ed. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997.<br />
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For Egypt, still the most scholarly resource remains Miriam Lichtheim, <i>Ancient Egyptian Literature</i>, 3 vols., Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975-80.<br />
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There seems to be no comprehensive, readily accessible edition of the West Semitic documents from Ugarit. See, however, Dennis Pardee, <i>Ritual and Cult at Ugarit,</i> Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002.<br />
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THE HEBREW BIBLE IN A NUTSHELL<br />
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As the preceding sketch has shown, modern scholarship has provided invaluable source material for evaluating the contexts from which the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, emerged. It emulated these foreign texts far more than the average believer is prepared to concede. Before proceeding further with this necessary task of deconstruction, though, it will be useful to outline the conventional approach.<br />
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We must take a closer look at the amalgam known as the Hebrew Bible, which Jews often designate as the Tanakh (known to Christians as the Old Testament). As a rule, it is best to use the term Torah with care, because of its ambiguity; “Torah” can refer restrictively to the first five books (the Pentateuch); to the entire Tanakh; and even, in its most inclusive fashion, to the whole body of Jewish writings, including the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and the two Talmuds (the latter four being honored as repositories of the so-called Oral Torah).<br />
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The Hebrew Bible is not a single book but rather a collection of texts, most of them anonymous or pseudonymous, and most of them the product of more or less extensive editing prior to reaching their modern form. These texts are in many different genres, but three distinct blocks seemingly approximating modern narrative history can be made out, namely the Deuteronomic history; the Chronicler's History, comprising Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah; and, preceding these in the order in which it is now read, the narrative parts of the Pentateuch (or Torah tout court), made up of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The following short summary of the overall narrative presented in the Hebrew Bible will serve as a convenient guide. Modern scholars have increasingly emphasized that, as we now know them, this set of documents offers an imaginative construction, and not history in the strict sense. Instead, it is a story, one of several that could be told. To be sure, traditionalists cling to the pious notion that it is simply history, a view that is no longer tenable. Here is the <i>Cliff’s Notes</i> version, if you will.<br />
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GENESIS TO DEUTERONOMY<br />
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God creates the world, In fact, there are two contradictory creation stories. In the first (Genesis 1-2:3) human beings were created after the animals, and the first man and woman were created simultaneously. In the second story (Genesis 2:4-25) the man was created first, then the animals, then the woman from the man's rib. The work of two different authors has simply been collaged together. As we know from many other pieces of evidence, the Pentateuch cannot have been the result of the work of a single author (Moses), but combines the writings of at least four anonymous authors.<br />
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The Genesis creation stories show a general affinity with the Egyptian stories of creation by Ptah and Amun, as well as with the Babylonian Enuma Elish which describes the rise of the divine assembly out of a chaos of water and darkness.<br />
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Eventually the world becomes corrupted with violence, so that God destroys it in a great flood. As we have seen, the Deluge story was basically plagiarized from Mesopotamian archetypes.<br />
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God selects Abraham to inherit the land of Canaan (i.e., Palestine). He destroys Sodom and Gomorrah in a rain of fire and brimstone. The children of Israel (Jacob), Abraham's grandson, go into Egypt, where their descendants are enslaved. The Israelites are led out of Egypt by Moses and receive the laws of God, who renews the promise of the land of Canaan. Modern scholars have established that this whole story of the enslavement in Egypt and the Exodus are simply myth. As far as we can determine the Israelites had always lived in Palestine.<br />
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DEUTERONOMIC HISTORY: JOSHUA TO 2 KINGS<br />
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Continuing the mythical account, the Israelites conquer the land of Canaan under Joshua, successor to Moses. Under the Judges (in reality, minor chieftains) they live in a state of constant conflict and insecurity, until the prophet Samuel anoints Saul as king over them. Saul proves unworthy, and God chooses David as his successor. Under David the Israelites are united and conquer their enemies, and under Solomon his son they live in peace and prosperity. As yet archeologists have uncovered no conclusive evidence that any of these worthies ever lived.<br />
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The kingdom (in reality a minor principality) is divided under Solomon's successors, with Israel in the north and Judah in the south. The kings of Israel fall away from God and eventually outsiders take the people of the north into captivity in Mesopotamia. Judah, unlike Israel, has some kings who follow God, but others do not, and eventually it too is taken into captivity. Solomon’s Temple is destroyed.<br />
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The continuity of this narrative has been established by modern scholars, who ascribe it to a single anonymous author, the Deuteronomist. His work was then taken up by the Chronicler.<br />
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THE CHRONICLER’S HISTORY: CHRONICLES AND EZRA-NEHEMIAH<br />
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Recalling the doubling of the story of creation, Chronicles begins by reprising the history of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic history, with some differences over details. It introduces new material following the account of the fall of Jerusalem, the event that concludes the Deuteronomic history.<br />
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The so-called Babylonian captivity lasted for more than fifty years (597-538 BCE). During this eastern sojourn the captive Israelites encountered the venerable dualistic religion of the Persians, Zoroastrianism. Some important ideas, such as the contest of good and evil for control of the world, the role of angels and demons, and possibly the prohibition of male homosexuality, derive from this source. The incorporation of such foreign elements into the Hebrew Bible is one of the reasons for thinking that its composition was essentially postexilic.<br />
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As a result of these experiences the Israelites began to speak a new language, Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Persian empire. Spoken Hebrew became a dead language, not to be revived until over two thousand years later.<br />
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In due course, the Babylonians, who had destroyed the Temple and taken the people into captivity, were themselves defeated by the Persians under king Cyrus (538 BCE). Cyrus encouraged the Israelite exiles to return to Jerusalem, where the Temple was rebuilt, initiating the Second Temple Period. Nonetheless, some Israelites continued to live in Mesopotamia, where their descendants eventually created the Babylonian Talmud (third-seventh century CE).<br />
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OTHER BIBLICAL BOOKS<br />
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Several other books of the Hebrew Bible are set in a historical context or otherwise give information which can be regarded as semihistorical, although these books do not present themselves as histories.<br />
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The prophets Amos and Hosea tell of events during the eighth-century kingdom of Israel; the prophet Jeremiah writes of events preceding and following the fall of Judah; Ezekiel limns events during and preceding the exile in Babylon. Other prophets similarly touch on various periods, usually those in which they write--or so we are led to believe.<br />
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Several books fall outside the accepted canon of the Hebrew Bible, but are still significant. They are sometimes termed deuterocanonical. Among these, Maccabees is a historical narrative that treats of the events of the second century BCE. Others are not historical in orientation but are set in historical contexts or reprise earlier histories, such as Enoch, an apocalyptic work of the second century BCE.<br />
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The above account, focusing on narrative, omits poetic and imaginative books, such as the Psalms, Song of Songs, and Proverbs. These of course have their own intrinsic interest--and pose their own textual problems.<br />
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THE BELEAGUERED HISTORICITY OF THE HEBREW BIBLE<br />
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Until the eighteenth century, the general belief in Christendom was that the earth was created some 4,000 thousand years before the birth of Christ, and that the Garden of Eden, the Flood and the Tower of Babel, Abraham and the Exodus, and all subsequent narrative, were real history. Then the growth of science in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries--notably geology and the theory of evolution--threw the first few chapters of Genesis into doubt, and by the end of the nineteenth century the view that the first eleven chapters of Genesis represented actual historical events was being widely questioned. The general opinion among non-creationist bible scholars today is that Genesis 1–11, taking in the cycle of stories from the Creation to the "generations of Terah," is a highly stylized literary work that reflects theology rather than history. If this is so, one must ask, up to what point does the mythical and legendary material prevail? To this question the minimalist scholars have given a radical answer: almost to the end.<br />
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During the earlier decades of the twentieth century, there was much hope that archaeology, especially of the school of William Albright, would confirm the essential outlines of the history the Hebrew Bible purports to offer. Yet during the second half of the century there came a growing recognition that archaeology did not in fact support the extravagant claims made by Albright and his followers, Today, while a minority of ultra-conservative scholars continue to work within the old framework, the mainstream views Albright's views as problematic, seeing the Pentateuch as a product of the latter half of the first millennium BCE, perhaps even as late as the third or second century.<br />
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The scholarly history of the Deuteronomic history parallels that of the Pentateuch: the European school argued that the information provided was untrustworthy and could not be used to construct a narrative history, while the American biblical archaeology school held that it could when tested against the archaeological record. Of crucial importance was the book of Joshua and its account of a rapid, destructive conquest of the Canaanite cities. By the 1960s it had become clear that the archaeological record did not, in fact, support the account of the conquest given in the book of Joshua: the cities which the bible records as having been destroyed by the Israelites were either uninhabited at the time, or, if destroyed, were destroyed at widely different times, not in one brief period.<br />
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Thomas L. Thompson, a leading minimalist scholar for example has written:<br />
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"There is no evidence of a United Monarchy, no evidence of a capital in Jerusalem or of any coherent, unified political force that dominated western Palestine, let alone an empire of the size the legends describe. We do not have evidence for the existence of kings named Saul, David or Solomon; nor do we have evidence for any temple at Jerusalem in this early period. What we do know of Israel and Judah of the tenth century does not allow us to interpret this lack of evidence as a gap in our knowledge and information about the past, a result merely of the accidental nature of archeology. There is neither room nor context, no artifact or archive that points to such historical realities in Palestine's tenth century. One cannot speak historically of a state without a population. Nor can one speak of a capital without a town. Stories are not enough." (Thompson, xxx)<br />
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Proponents of this view also point to the fact that the division of the land into two entities, centered at Jerusalem and Shechem, goes back to the Egyptian rule of Israel in the New Kingdom. Solomon's empire is said to have stretched from the Euphrates in the north to the Red Sea in the south; it would have required a large commitment of men and arms and a high level of organization to conquer, subdue, and govern this area. But there is no conclusive archaeological evidence of Jerusalem being a sufficiently large city in the tenth century BCE, and Judah seems to be sparsely settled in that time period. Since Jerusalem has been destroyed and then subsequently rebuilt approximately fifteen to twenty times since the time when David and Solomon purportedly ruled, some have argued that the evidence could have been erased. Still, one cannot prove a negative.<br />
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The conquests of David and Solomon are also not mentioned in the abundant contemporary histories of neighboring peoples. Culturally, the Bronze Age collapse--something that archaeology does attest--points in a very different direction, indicating a period of general cultural impoverishment of the whole Levantine region. This dismal situation makes it difficult to entertain the existence of any large territorial unit such as the Davidic kingdom, whose general features seem to resemble the later kingdom of Hezekiah or Josiah rather than the political and economic conditions of the eleventh century. Moreover the Biblical account makes no claim that the Davidic kings directly governed the areas included in their empires.<br />
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Since the discovery of a possibly ninth-century BCE inscription at Tel Dan at the north of Israel, referring to the "house of David" as a monarchic dynasty, some have argued that David was in fact a real historical figure. However, the term “house of David” (assuming that the inscription is translated correctly) could be a merely conventional name; there is no indication that it refers to THE David. This matter is still hotly disputed. With so much uncertainty, many scholars feel compelled to question whether the united monarchy, the vast empire of King Solomon, and the rebellion of Jeroboam ever existed, or whether they are a late fabrication.<br />
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Once again there is a problem here with the sources for this period of history. There are no contemporary independent documents other than the claimed accounts of the Books of Samuel, which clearly shows too many anachronisms to have been a contemporary account. For example there is mention of coined money (1 Samuel 13:21), armor of a late type (1 Samuel 17:4–7, 38–39; 25:13), use of camels (1 Samuel 30:17) and cavalry (as distinct from chariotry: 1 Samuel 13:5, 2 Samuel 1:6), iron picks and axes (as though they were common: 2 Samuel 12:31), and sophisticated siege techniques (2 Samuel 20:15). There is a huge army (2 Samuel 17:1), and a battle with 20,000 casualties (2 Samuel 18:7). These last texts refer to Kushite paramilitary units and servants, clearly giving evidence of a date in which Kushites were common, after the twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, that is, the last quarter of the eighth century BCE.<br />
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For the later material the outlook is more promising--at last. It is generally assumed that the biblical account of the history of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, as presented in the Books of Kings, contains elements of historical truth, even if not uncolored by bias and parti pris. To some extent, chronologies of neighboring countries have corroborated the general picture presented in the bible, although not every detail. For example, the existence of King Ahab is attested in Assyrian texts, where he is mentioned as having participated in the Battle of Karkar. King Omri of Israel is mentioned in the ninth-century Mesha Stele, which is Moabite. The Biblical account says nothing of Mesha's revolt, while Mesha in his turn says nothing of the campaign described in 2 Kings 3. Neither document implies that the events described in the other did not occur; the two are written from two different points of view. Some later kings who paid tribute to Assyria are mentioned in Assyrian records, although these same records claim Jehu was a king of the House of Omri, suggesting that he may have been related in some way to Ahab.<br />
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The brief account above is merely an indication of the host of problems that arise from material that blends history with legend and special pleading. Almost invariably, the authors selected the events to be described in accordance with their underlying purposes. This general principle must be bone constantly in mind.<br />
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Bearing the necessary caveats in mind, we return to the traditional history. The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pilesar attacked the northern kingdom of Israel, driving the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh in Gilead out of the desert outposts of Jetur, Naphish and Nodab and conquering their territories. People from these tribes, including the Reubenite leader, were taken captive and resettled in the region of the Habor river system. Tiglath-Pilesar also captured the territory of Naphtali and the city of Janoah in Ephraim, placing an Assyrian governor over the region of Naphtali.<br />
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The remainder of the northern kingdom fell to the armies of Sargon II, who captured the capital city Samaria in the territory of Ephraim. Reputedly, he took 27,290 people captive from the city of Samaria resettling some with the Israelites in the Habor region and the rest in the land of the Medes thus establishing Israelite communities in Ecbatana and Rages, far to the east.<br />
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In addition, the Book of Tobit notes that Sargon had taken other captives from the northern kingdom to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, in particular Tobit from the town of Thisbe in Naphtali.<br />
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In the world of medieval Rabbinic fable, the concept of the ten tribes who were taken away from the House of David (whose descendants continued the rule of the southern kingdom of Judah) became confused with accounts of the Assyrian deportations, leading to the myth of the "Ten Lost Tribes." The recorded history exposes this fabrication: no record exists of the Assyrians having exiled people from Dan, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, or western Manasseh. Descriptions of the deportation of people from Reuben, Gad, Manasseh in Gilead, Ephraim, and Naphtali indicate that only a portion of these tribes were deported, and the places to which they were deported are known locations given in the accounts. The deported communities are mentioned as still existing at the time of the composition of the books of Kings and Chronicles; they did not disappear by assimilation. A passage in 2 Chronicles (30:1-11) explicitly mentions northern Israelites who had been spared by the Assyrians, in particular the people of Dan, Ephraim, Manasseh, Asher, and Zebulun, and how members of the latter three tribes returned to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah.<br />
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With the Kingdom of Judah remaining as the sole Israelite kingdom, the term Yehudi (Jew), originally the adjective of the name Yehudah (Judah), came to include all the Israelite people.<br />
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In 597 BCE the Babylonian king Nebuchanezzar sacked Jerusalem, reputedly exiled 3,023 Jews to Babylon (Jeremiah 52:28). He also seized many non-Jewish workers, taking a total of around 10,000 people captive (2 Kings 24:14).<br />
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In 586 BCE Nebuchadnezzar overran the southern kingdom, deposed the king, destroyed the Temple, and left Jerusalem in ruins. He took a further 832 Jews captive from Jerusalem (Jeremiah 52:29). Although extinguishing the kingdom, he allowed Judah a measure of self rule, appointing Gedaliah as Jewish governor of the region.<br />
<br />
The exiles were allowed to return in 538 BCE, after the fall of Babylon to the Persians and Medes. Substantial returns of descendants of exiles took place in 444 BCE under Nehemiah and in c. 400 BCE under Ezra. As a result of the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions most Israelites lost written records tracing their ancestry. Those who could still lay a claim to establish their ancestry included Levites, Aaronite kohanim, Nethinim including Avdei Shlomo and members of clans that had been part of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.<br />
<br />
TERMINOLOGY<br />
<br />
In English the term “Israelites,” which the King James Bible prefers, serves to describe the ancient people reputedly descended from the patriarch Jacob (who was renamed “Israel”; Genesis 32:29). It is an adaptation of the Hebrew Bnei Yisrael (literally "Sons of Israel" or "Children of Israel"). Similarly, the singular "Israelite" reflects the adjective Yisraeli, which in biblical Hebrew refers to a member of the Bnei Yisrael (e.g. Leviticus 24:10). Other terms used to refer to this biblical stock include "House of Jacob," "House of Israel," or simply "Israel.” As used in the Bible, "Israelites" embraces all the descendants of Jacob, whether they followed religion of Yahweh or turned to other faiths. In contrast the term Jew is used in English (though not necessarily by a Jew for self-identification) to refer to an individual who subscribes to the Jewish faith, regardless of the historical period or ancestry. Needless to say, today many persons of Jewish heritage are atheists, agnostics, or without religious connection.<br />
<br />
Stemming from the period of the Mishnah (ca. 200 CE; but probably used before that period) the term Yisraeli acquired an additional narrower meaning of Jews of legitimate birth, as distinct from those with special status, the Levites and Aaronite priests (kohanims). In modern Hebrew, the term Yisraeli refers to a citizen of the modern State of Israel, regardless of religion or ethnicity and is translated into English as "Israeli."<br />
<br />
Another expression sometimes used to refer to Jews is Hebrews--deriving from a term first used to refer to the Jews (and probably other peoples as well) by the ancient Egyptians. The word continues to be used at times to refer to Jews or things associated with them, such as the Hebrew Bible.<br />
<br />
CONCLUSION: TROY AND THE ILIAD<br />
<br />
The course of thinking about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible has an interesting parallel in the vicissitudes of the historicity of the Iliad, one of the foundational documents of Hellenic civilization. The historicity of Homer’s Iliad has been debated for some time, though most intensely in the last 150 years. In the classical era (the fifth and fourth centuries BCE), educated Greeks generally accepted the truth of the human story depicted in the Iliad, even as philosophical skepticism was undermining traditional views of divine intervention in human affairs. Geographers like Strabo (63/64 BCE-ca. 24 CE) confidently discussed the identity of sites mentioned by Homer.<br />
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This confidence suffered no erosion with the Christianization of Greco-Roman culture. In the early fourth century the patristic writer Eusebius of Caesarea reduced universal history reduced to a kind of timeline. In this scheme Troy received the same historical weight as Abraham, with whom Eusebius' Chronologia began. Eusebius placed the Argives and Mycenaeans among the kingdoms ranged in vertical columns, offering biblical history on the left (verso), and secular history of the kingdoms on the right (recto). Jerome’s Chronicon followed Eusebius, and medieval chroniclers routinely began with summaries of the universal history of Jerome. In this way presumed certainties regarding early Greek history reinforced presumed certainties about ancient Israel.<br />
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With the support of these authorities, the historic nature of Troy and the events of the Trojan War continued to be accepted at face value by post-Roman Europeans. In twelfth-century England Geoffrey of Monmouth's genealogy posited a Trojan origin for royal Britons in his <i>Historia Regum Britanniae.</i><br />
<br />
The new approach to history pioneered by the Renaissance sowed the seeds of doubt. According to Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), for example, "Homer wrote a romance, for nobody supposes that Troy and Agamemnon existed any more than the apples of the Hesperides. He had no intention to write history, but only to amuse us."<br />
<br />
Heinrich Schliemann’s (1822-1890) archaeological discoveries at Hisarlik in northwestern Turkey reopened the question in modern terms, and recent discoveries have triggered more discussion across several disciplines. When all is said and done, it is hard to avoid the following conclusion. The events described in Homer's Iliad, even if based on historical events that preceded its composition by some 450 years, will never be completely identifiable with historical or archaeological facts, even if there was a Bronze Age city on the site now called Troy, and even if that city was destroyed by fire or war at about the same time as the time postulated for the Trojan War.<br />
<br />
No text or artifact has been found on site itself which clearly identifies the Bronze Age site by name. The effort is hampered by the fundamental alteration of the former hill fort during the construction of Hellenistic Ilium (Troy IX), destroying the parts that most likely contained the city archives . A single seal of a Luwian scribe has been found in one of the houses, proving the presence of written correspondence in the city, but not a single continuous text.<br />
<br />
The modern dispute over the historicity of the Iliad has sometimes been heated. Among the skeptics is Sir Moses Finley. In his book <i>The World of Odysseus</i>, Finley dismissed the question, maintaining that “the narrative is a collection of fictions from beginning to end.”<br />
<br />
The quest for a demonstrable historicity for Homer's Troy faces hurdles that are analogous to the search for the historical basis for King Arthur and Camelot. Even murkier is Plato's Atlantis, where the myth has been manipulated (or simply created) as a vehicle for philosophical generalizations. Such cases rest on an ancient body of culturally agreed-upon "facts" embodied in a crystallizing "classic" narrative version. Of course, it may be possible to establish some connections between the story and real places and events, but these must always remain tenuous because of the risk of selection bias.<br />
<br />
In recent years a consensus seems to have emerged that the Homeric stories comprised a synthesis of many old stories of various Bronze Age sieges and expeditions, fused together in the Greek memory during the "dark ages" which followed the fall of the Mycenean civilization. It may be that no historical city of Troy existed anywhere: the name derives from a people called the Troies, who probably lived in central Greece. In this view the identification of the hill at Hisarlık as Troy is a late development, following the Greek colonization of Asia Minor in the eighth century BCE.<br />
<br />
Middle Eastern parallels have become evident, so that one may compare the details of the Iliad story to those of older Mesopotamian literature-- most notably, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Names, set scenes, and even major parts of the story, are strikingly similar. Most scholars believe that writing first came to Greek shores from the east, via traders, and these older poems may have bolstered the case for the value of the alphabet.<br />
<br />
As this Hellenic example shows, the Bible is not the only ancient set of documents to have come under the microscope of critical scrutiny. The same basic principles apply elsewhere, with no particular documents occupying a special place that is beyond critique.<br />
<br />
<br />
REFERENCES<br />
<br />
Adkins, Lesley. Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2003.<br />
<br />
Alt, Albrecht, “Die Ursprünge des israelitischen Rechts” (1934); available in English translation in his book Essays on Old Testament History and Religion. New York: Doubleday, 1968, pp. 101-71.<br />
<br />
Anderson, Irvine. Biblical Interpretation and Middle East Policy: The Promised Land, America, and Israel, 1917-2002. Tallahassee: University Press of Florida, 2005.<br />
<br />
Assmann, Jan. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.<br />
<br />
---. The Price of Monotheism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.<br />
<br />
Biran, Avraham. "'David' Found at Dan." Biblical Archaeology Review, 20:2 (1994): 26-39.<br />
<br />
Black, Jeremy, Graham Cunningham, Eleanor Robinson, and Gábor Zólnomi. The Literature of Ancient Sumer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.<br />
<br />
Cohen, H. Hirsch. The Drunkenness of Noah. University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1974.<br />
<br />
Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973.<br />
<br />
Dever, William G. Dever. Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2005.<br />
<br />
---. What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2001.<br />
<br />
----. Who Were the Israelites and Where Did They Come From? Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2003.<br />
<br />
Foster, Benjamin R. Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature. Third ed., Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Finkel, Irving. The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2014. <br />
<br />
Finkelstein, Israel, and Silberman, Neil A. The Bible Unearthed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001.<br />
<br />
Fox, Michael V. The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.<br />
<br />
Gillispie, Charles C. Genesis and Geology: A Study of the Relations of Scientific Thought, Natural Theology, and Social Opinion in Great Britain, 1790-1850. (Harvard Historical Studies, vol. 58.) New ed. with preface by Nicolaas Rupke. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.<br />
<br />
Grant, Robert M., and David Tracy. A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1988.<br />
<br />
Hallo, William W., and K. Lawson Younger, Jr. eds. The Context of Scripture [COS]. 3 vols. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003.<br />
<br />
Hodge, Jonathan, and Gregory Radick, eds.. The Cambridge Companion to Darwin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.<br />
<br />
Keel, Othmar, and Christoph Uelinger. Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Kirsch, Jonathan. God against the Gods: The History of the War between Monotheism and Polytheism. New York: Viking, 2004.<br />
<br />
Lemche, Niels P. The Israelites in History and Tradition. London: SPCK; and Louisville, Ky. : Westminster John Knox Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature. 3 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975-80.<br />
<br />
Lloyd, Seton. Foundations in the Dust: The Story of Mesopotamian Exploration. Second ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980.<br />
<br />
Noth, Martin, Ueberlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien, 1943; English translation as The Deuteronomistic History, Sheffield, 1981, and The Chronicler's History, Sheffield, 1987.<br />
<br />
Paper, Jordan. The Deities Are Many: A Polytheistic Theology (S U N Y Series in Religious Studies). Binghamton: State University of New York Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Pardee, Dennis. Ritual and Cult at Ugarit. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002.<br />
<br />
Patai, Raphael. Family, Love and the Bible. London: McGibbon and Kee, 1960.<br />
<br />
---. The Hebrew Goddess. New York: KTAV, 1967.<br />
<br />
Penchansky, David. Twilight of the Gods: Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005.<br />
<br />
Pritchard, James D., ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament [ANET], Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, third ed., 1969.<br />
<br />
Redford, Donald B. "The Monotheism of the Heretic Pharaoh: Precursor of Mosaic Monotheism or Egyptian Anomaly?" Biblical Archaeology Review, May-June, 1987<br />
<br />
Roth, Martha T. Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor by Martha T. Roth ; with a contribution by Harry A. Hoffner, Jr. Second ed. Atlanta Scholars Press, 1997.<br />
<br />
Schwartz, Regina. The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.<br />
<br />
Silbermann, Neil Asher, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York: Free Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Smith, Mark S. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
---. The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. New ed. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2002.<br />
<br />
Stavrakopoulou, Francesca. Land of Our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies). Edinburgh: T and T. Clark, 2010.<br />
.<br />
Thompson, Thomas L. The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past. London. 1999.<br />
<br />
---. The Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Sources. Leiden and New York: Brill, 1992.<br />
<br />
---. The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel. New York: Basic Books, 1999.<br />
<br />
Toulmin, Stephen, and June Goodfield. The Discovery of Time. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1965.<br />
<br />
Trachtenberg, Joshua. Jewish Magic and Superstition. New ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.<br />
<br />
van de Mieroop, Marc. The Ancient Mesopotamian City. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.<br />
<br />
Van Seters, John. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.<br />
Wright, Robert. The Evolution of God. New York: Little, Brown, 2009.<br />
<br />
West, Martin L. The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth, Oxford: Clarenden Press, 1997. <br />
<br />
Zevit, Ziony. The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallel Approaches. London and New York: Continuum, 2001.<br />
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<br />
<br />Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-23380474189670608582011-12-05T06:22:00.000-08:002014-05-15T06:43:14.489-07:00Abrahamica: Chapter Three<b>ANCIENT ISRAEL IN THE HEBREW BIBLE</b><br />
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This chapter addresses issues raised by the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh. By and large, the chapter does not deal with the history of later Judaism, the subject of Chapter Four.<br />
<br />
THE MINIMALIST REVOLUTION IN TANAKH SCHOLARSHIP<br />
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For some years news has been seeping out about the iconoclastic work of the minimalist scholars concerning the historicity of the Hebrew Bible. While the term “minimalist” was not chosen by these researchers, it has taken hold as a convenient way of designating their approach. Boldly, these scholars question the reality of several key elements, including the Exodus story, the Patriarchs, and the so-called United Kingdom of Saul, David, and Solomon. Some doubt that the last three persons ever existed.<br />
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The new view offers the following insights. From at least as early as the first half of the fourteenth century BCE, Palestine’s central highlands were home to the Apiru, a marginal group made up of runaway serfs and others from the small city-states in the plains and valleys of Palestine. In these redoubts they lived as outlaw bands of freebooters. As new settlements appeared in the highlands over a century later, at the start of the Iron Age, they embodied new political structures emerging among those same groups. These Iron I settlements attest a return by those groups to a settled, agricultural lifestyle, and the start of a retribalization process. Ancient Israel was the end-product of this flight and reconstitution.<br />
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Some minimalists hold that the Hebrew Bible as we know it was written as late as the Persian or Hellenistic periods. For example, the Danish scholar Niels Peter Lemche argues that in its present form the Hebrew is a Jewish-Rabbinic amalgam that was put together no earlier than the second century BCE. This conclusion challenges the traditional early chronology, which fixes the culmination of the composition process in the sixth century, when the editors incorporated prior versions or traditions that were even earlier, ostensibly dating from as far back as the tenth century.<br />
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What was the origin and purpose of the Hebrew sacred texts? The Bible stories may be compared to, say, Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar.” The play is based in real history, but was not written to provide a complete or authoritative account that history; instead, it is an composite that fuses bits of historical truth with invented or imaginative adjuncts. This comparison suggests that the Bible narrative is more akin to literature rather than to history as the term is usually understood. Yet while literature is designed to achieve an aesthetic purpose, for the most part the Bible has no such intention. Its plot and set of characters serve a theological theme concerning the purported covenant between the people of Israel and their God. It is a kind of spiritual propaganda. In this light, minimalism treats "biblical Israel" as an ideological construction rather than an objective presentation of reality.<br />
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Among the leading scholars of the minimalist trend are Philip R. Davies (University of Sheffield), Niels Peter Lemche (University of Copenhagen), Thomas L. Thompson (University of Copenhagen), and Keith W. Whitelam (University of Sheffield).<br />
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Somewhat similar are the views of the archaeologist Israel Finkelstein (Tel Aviv University), who is critical of the claims of earlier generations of investigators, with their assertions that excavations confirmed the biblical narratives of settlement, conquest, and empire. He has demoted the Jerusalem of the tenth century--reputedly the time of David and Solomon--to the status of a mere village or tribal center. Still, Finkelstein parts company with the hard-core minimalist chronology that places the composition of the Tanakh in the Persian or Greek period; instead, he argues that much of the Hebrew Bible was indeed written during the period from the seventh through the fifth century BCE.<br />
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How did the minimalists reach their conclusions? A revealing example is Thomas L. Thompson’s experience. Having undertaken graduate work at a major German university in the nineteen-sixties when that country was still the main center of Bible scholarship, Thompson was disconcerted to find that his doctoral dissertation had been rejected, even though it was a solid piece of work.<br />
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A setback of this type should cause alarm bells to go off. Kept out of a teaching job, for a time Thompson had to make his living as a house painter. German Bible scholars were scarcely fundamentalists, as they came from a school that had dare to question many assumptions cherished by Christian denominations (see Chapter One, above). What was it that Thompson said that was so frightening to the Old Testament establishment? Perhaps they had reason to be scared, as their views were in fact under threat. Today in fact the old guard seems to be fading away, squeezed as it is in the middle between two extremes. What is left are the adepts of inerrancy and Creationism, on the one hand, and the minimalists, on the other.<br />
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Thompson’s book <i>The Mythic Past</i> (1991) presents the findings of the new school to a lay audience. The following paragraphs summarize his approach and that of his minimalist colleagues.<br />
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The standpoint has roots in the nineteenth century. At the same time as the findings of the Higher Criticism were coming into view, major discoveries were arriving from the Middle East. Champollion deciphered hieroglyphics and the cuneiform documents could at last be read. From this material it developed that there were three major empires—Egypt of the Pharaohs; the Assyrians; and the Hittites. This triad had come to dominate the Middle East during the time to which the Biblical patriarchs were thought to have flourished. After all, the Exodus story purports to tell of the relationship between the children of Israel and one of these empires. Following the occupation of Canaan it seems that the Israelites established a polity of their own, the United Monarch of Saul, David, and Solomon. Covering a large territory--or so we are told--this state could boast of cultural achievements seemingly on a par with the others. Among these accomplishments were Solomon’s imposing Temple and the earlier parts of the Hebrew Bible.<br />
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There followed a search for archaeological evidence to flesh out these assumptions. Excavations took place at a number of historic sites; archaeologists worked out stratification sequences; and masses of pottery, amulets, and other items of material culture came to light. While this material is indeed tangible, prior to the seventh century none of it can be directly correlated with the narrative of the Hebrew Bible. As a result, in the areas when its help would have been most useful the discipline of Biblical Archeology has not delivered. In particular, it has failed to turn up evidence for the supposed great state of the United Monarchy. No one has found the archives and monumental inscriptions, the bureaucratic directives, and diplomatic correspondence, that one would expect. Yet these appurtenances were standard equipment, even for such middling states as Mari and Ugarit. So it looks as if the United Monarchy of ancient Israel is a phantom.<br />
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The larger context is as follows. In the eyes of scholars, the Hebrew Bible went from being the inspired word of God to mere amalgam of the contributions of a number of differing religious writers. What is it now? Some would still say that Scripture retains fundamental value. To be sure some parts, e.g. the ethical admonitions of the prophets, the poetry of Psalms and the Song of Songs, and the skeptical insights of Job and Ecclesiastes, may have this quality. For the most part, however, the Hebrew Bible is, with all due respect, a chauvinistic compilation designed to advance the interests of a particular people. Call it the Higher Madison Avenue.<br />
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Many Christian exegetes, of course, continue to hold that the Old Testament (as they term it) is a teleological construction forecasting the coming of the Messiah, known as Jesus Christ. In reality there is nothing to support this assumption. The Hebrew Bible is a Jewish book--nothing more, nothing less. Of course it has come to mean much to non-Jews, but in like fashion the Buddhist and Confucian writings been influential among those who are not Indian and Chinese. To understand the Israelite writings, we need to acknowledge their national setting. Even so, the Hebrew Bible differs from those Asian texts in that it does not merely arise from an ethnicity, it strives to <i>establish</i> an ethnicity.<br />
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The previous paragraphs have offered a preliminary sketch of the work of the minimalist scholars. Their demolition of early Israelite history as narrated in the Hebrew Bible finds increasing acceptance among mainstream scholars—even if the latter do tend to drag their feet on some aspects. Such resistance is to be expected.<br />
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Powerful as the work of the minimalists has been, we are not obliged to follow them in every respect. As we have them, the texts may not be in fact as late as the second century BCE. That late dating is probably too radical. It suffices to demonstrate that the texts are appreciably later than has been generally claimed, presenting a mythical fabrication rather than a faithful historical image.<br />
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The crucial finding is that the account presented in the historical books of the Hebrew Bible is an ideological artifact, probably assembled after the return from captivity in 539 BCE. That means that the accounts of the exodus, conquest, and settlement presented in the Pentateuch, the Book of Joshua, and the book of Judges are highly unreliable. Moreover, in a thorough review of the evidence, the Egyptologist D.B. Redford has found no evidence at all for the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt (Redford, 1992).<br />
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Television is still peddling these Bible fables for a gullible public. Yet in all likelihood these events never happened in the way that we are told. The beginnings of Israelite history lie in what may be termed Greater Canaan, an area most of the protagonists never left.<br />
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The results are drastic, for almost of millennium of Biblical history--from ca. 1400 to 539 BCE--has been essentially erased. This period spans the Late Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the so-called Monarchy period. In all likelihood, the First Temple era . . . wasn’t. Or rather the Second Temple era, after 539, was the First Temple era.<br />
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In 1999 the Israeli archaeologist, Ze’ev Herzog observed: “This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai. Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish people--and who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story --now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people's emergence are radically different from what that story tells.” <br />
<br />
CANAAN RESURGENT<br />
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The vacuum in our knowledge has fostered a search for other sources of information. This quest has borne fruit through a new study of the Ugaritic evidence recovered at Ras Shamra on the coast of Syria, beginning in 1928.<br />
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Unlike the Hebrew Bible texts--known only from later copies in perishable materials--the Ugaritic documents are primary texts preserved just as they were composed in the second millennium BCE. Written on tablets of clay, these documents have come down to us just as they were left, so that there is no need to reconstruct a pedigree or chain of custody for them. To be sure, deciphering the tablets has posed serious challenges, but the task is not beyond human ingenuity.<br />
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Spanning a range of genres--from administrative and cultic documents to poetic and mythological narratives--the Ugaritic texts present a vivid picture of West Semitic polytheism, ritual religious observance, and governmental activity. As the language in them is close to Hebrew, specialists read them with some ease, noting the many parallels with their Israelite counterparts, which turn out not to be unique after all. There is one major difference, though, for the Ugaritic texts belong to the second millennium, while the books of the Hebrew Bible, long regarded as primordial, do not.<br />
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Another body of material that has been summoned to fill the vacuum consists of nontextual archaeological finds, remnants of cult sites and home shrines. There are also what appear to be images of deities. Unlike William G. Dever and Ziony Zevit, two leading researchers in this era, I am less confident of our ability to sort out the meaning of these finds. For example, Dever and others suggest that the masses of female figurines represent the goddess Asherah—or even the mythical "Great Mother." But why must these little pieces be deities at all? Archaeologists have concluded that many of the similar figurines from prehistoric Europe and Crete are not necessarily deities. They may depict worshipers. Some may even have been dolls for children. Other finds are clearly the equipment of household shrines and cult sites in the "high places." Worship was going on there, but it is rarely clear which particular deities were honored. In short, archaeological data are not mute, as some skeptics claim, but their voices are muffled.<br />
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All this material, though, suggests a religious koine, a common set of practices and symbols that prevailed throughout the northeastern Semitic area, embracing Ebla, Ugarit, the Amonites, Moab, and the ancient Israelites. In this context Israelite religion is emerging as a subcategory of a larger whole.<br />
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What are we to conclude?<br />
<br />
First, the Israelites did not start with an untrammeled monotheism vouchsafed from Sinai under the auspices of Moses. This purportedly pure monotheism was not the later "corrupted" by polytheistic intrusions as various passages in the Hebrew Bible suggest Allegedly this regression fostered a cascade of deviations--luckily foiled by the timely intervention of inspired prophets and just rulers. Instead, there were centuries of coexistence of a number of deities, Yahweh among them. The victory of the Yahweh-Alone party was only achieved after 539, when such exclusivity helped to restore the fragile unity of a much-troubled people.<br />
<br />
RESIDUES OF PRIMORDIAL POLYTHEISM IN EARLY ISRAEL<br />
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The Hebrew Bible contains many names of God or Gods. Today, Orthodox Jews maintain that every name refers to the same God, except those terms which designate the false deities of other religions. Some of the approved names, however, are strikingly similar to the names of gods from the polytheistic religions surrounding ancient Israel.<br />
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As noted in the previous section, a major turning point was the uncovering of religious documents in Ugarit (Ras Shamra), an ancient city on the coast of Syria. At the summit of Ugaritic religion stood the chief god, Ilu or El, the "father of mankind," and "the creator of the creation." The Court of El or Ilu was referred to as the 'lhm. The most important of the other great gods were Hadad, the king of Heaven, Athirat or Asherah (familiar to readers of the Bible), Yam (Sea, the god of primordial chaos, tempests, and mass-destruction) and Mot (Death). Other gods honored at Ugarit were Dagon (Grain), Tirosch, Horon, Resheph (Healing), the craftsman Kothar-and-Khasis (Skilled and Clever), Shahar (Dawn), and Shalim (Dusk). As this enumeration suggests, Ugaritic texts offer a wealth of material on the religion of the Canaanites and its connections with that of the ancient Israelites. Professor Mark S. Smith of New York University has provided a cogent analysis of this link in several books, including his <i>The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts </i>(Smith, 2001).<br />
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Let us note some obvious parallels. In the Hebrew bible God is often designated as El, recalling the chief God of the Canaanite pantheon. Furthermore, the term Elohim, which is now thought of as merely another name of God, was in Canaanite religion a term for the whole court of El. (The original Hebrew texts not having vowels, Elohim in Hebrew is basically the same as 'lhm.) Some of the other Gods featured in the Ugaritic texts are also mentioned in the Bible, not as synonymous with the Jewish God, but rather as "other gods," which are now (by Orthodox Jews) thought to mean "idols" or false gods. For example, Asherah is mentioned in 2 Kings 18.8: “He removed the high places, and broke the images, and cut down the grove (Asherah), and broke in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for in those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.”<br />
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Asherah figured prominently in the Canaanite pantheon, where she ranked as the consort of El, and the mother of his seventy sons. Scholars believe that Asherah was worshiped by many in ancient Israel and Judah; in fact, Jeremiah refers to her as "the Queen of Heaven." Jeremiah 7.18 reads as follows: “The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead [their] dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.”<br />
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Another major Canaanite deity was Ba'al, who is mentioned in the Hebrew bible. Today, Orthodox Jews understand Ba'al to be a false god -- or several false gods -- yet the figure was evidently quite popular in Jeremiah's time.<br />
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In the Hebrew bible Yahweh is assimilated to El. But Yahweh may have started out in Canaanite religion as one of the seventy sons of El. The Dead Sea Scrolls fragment of Deutoronomy 32.8-9, agreeing with the Septuagint, reads as follows: “When the Most High ('Elyon) allotted peoples for inheritance, When He divided up the sons of man, He fixed the boundaries for peoples, According to the number of the sons of El But Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob His own inheritance.”<br />
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The argument for the original polytheistic context presiding at Judaism's birth is bolstered by the name "Elohim." Grammatically, "Elohim" has the form of a plural masculine noun, and indeed is often used that way in the Hebrew bible when used to refer to "other gods." (Needless to say, the belief found among some Christians that Elohim is a reference to the Trinity is extremely unlikely.) However, the term is often treated as a singular noun, as in Genesis 1.1. Some scholars hold that the plural form of "Elohim" reflects early Judaic polytheism. They argue that it originally meant 'the gods,” or the “sons of El,” the supreme being. They suggest that the word may have been recast as a singular noun by later monotheist priests who sought to erase evidence of worship of the many gods of the Judaean pantheon, replacing them with their own special patron god Yahweh. This is the Yahweh-alone gambit. As we have seen, however, the erasure was incomplete.<br />
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On several occasions the Pentateuch mentions El Shaddai, usually translated in English-speaking Bibles as “God Almighty.” The expression may mean "God of the mountains," referring to a Mesopotamian sacred concept. In Exodus 6:3 the term was one of the patriarchal names for the tribal god of the Mesopotamians.<br />
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As a toponym, Shaddai was a late Bronze Ages Amorite city on the banks of the Euphrates river in northern Syria. It has been conjectured that El Shaddai was therefore the "god of Shaddai.” Since there are associations with the Abraham legend, the name may have been imported into Israel in that connection. At all events the later effort to assimilate El Shaddai to Yahweh is simplistic, for why would Yahweh need such an alias?<br />
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Acknowledging the polytheist substratum helps us to understand why there are four distinct words built on the same stem: El, Elohim, Eloah, and El Shaddai. El, the father god, has many divine sons, who are known by the plural of his name, Elohim, or Els. Eloah, might then serve to differentiate each of the lesser gods from El himself. As we have noted, El Shaddai may have been an imported cult.<br />
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This hypothesis casts light on the Elohim saying "Let US make Man in OUR image, in OUR likeness,” as well as Yahweh’s commandment to Israel, "worship no other gods [Hebrew: Elohim] before me." The fact that one can worship other gods acknowledges that they exist.<br />
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In his book <i>The Hebrew Goddess</i>, Raphael Patai collected various types of evidence for a feminine divine (or semidivine) principle in Judaism, culminating in the Hokma (personification of Wisdom, or Sophia) of Proverbs and several deuterocanonical books, expanded by the rabbis into the notion of the Shekhina, the feminine side of the High God (Patai, 1967). These elaborations demonstrate that polytheistic straying was not limited to the period of the formation of Judaism. It has recurred.<br />
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To be sure, the religion of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, evolved, like any other human institution. As with similar movements, adepts were unable to resist the temptation of retrojecting later convictions back into earlier centuries. So it is with Yahweh-exclusivity.<br />
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Matters were not always thus, especially as regards the ideas that formed the Torah in the strict sense (a.k.a. the Chumash, the Five Books of Moses, the Pentateuch). That set of books is laced with polytheistic remnants, as we have seen. One can say that the true religion of Judaism is the evolved version, the ostensibly pure monotheistic form of the Later Prophets. But that is not what the rabbis (beginning with the Mishnah, ca. 200 CE) have uniformly held. For them the Torah in the strict sense of the Five Books of Moses is supreme. And it is totally monotheistic--or so the tale goes.<br />
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Unfortunately, one cannot have it both ways. One must choose either Torah-supremacy or monotheism-supremacy.<br />
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The passages cited above suffice to show the polytheistic entanglements of the religion of ancient Israel. Later revisers and exegetes never completely succeeded in erasing this element. Inconveniently for the champions of the pure-monotheistic thesis, the taint of religious pluralism lingers in the received text of the Tanakh, popping up there with disconcerting frequency.<br />
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While early Israel was, so to speak, infected by polytheism, it had a somewhat skimpy cohort of deities--a kind of basic pantheon. As we know from the Ugaritic documents, the Canaanites acknowledged over 200 deities. Ancient Israelites had to content themselves with seven main ones: El, Baal, Asherah, Yahweh, and the sun, moon, and stars. Frugal as it is in comparative perspective, that heptad suffices to demonstrate polytheism, not monotheism. Moreover, with further archaeological work, the presence of other deities may come to light.<br />
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A side point is that not all the deities recognized in the slimmed-down Israelite pantheon are rooted in Canaan. Yahweh himself probably stems from a source in the south, in Edom and the Midianite region. Moreover, even if gods like Baal were hated and despised (not members of the approved pantheon), they were still widely accepted as <i>gods</i>. Theophoric names, such as Jezebel and Beelzebub attest this status.<br />
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Another finding of recent scholarship is the demolition of old idea of Canaanite religion as a licentious fertility cult. This notion has elicited a certain prurient interest, but its main function has been to contrast the self-indulgent Canaanites with the noble, self-denying Israelites, who bequeathed to us the supreme gift of ethical monotheism. As Dennis Pardee remarks: "The fertility cult so dear to the heart of the older generation of Hebrew and Ugaritic scholars shows up clearly in neither corpus; the sexual depravity that some have claimed to be characteristic of the Canaanite cult in general has left no trace in any of the Ugaritic texts" (Pardee, 2002).<br />
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ANDROGYNY AT THE OUTSET?<br />
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In examining the Tanakh texts of any period one must constantly bear in mind the distinction between pure myth and legend. In Genesis the realm of myth predominates; in the four Books of Kings, legend. At all events there is no history in any consistent sense in these religious writings. Nonetheless, the veneration bestowed on these texts over the centuries requires that some receive special attention.<br />
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One verse that calls for analysis is Genesis 1:27: “So God created humankind in his image,/in the image of God he created them;/male and female he created them.” The concluding six words are generally--unthinkingly one might say--understood as presenting a binary contrast.<br />
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That is to say, gender dimorphism, the absolute contrast of male and female, is divinely ordained in this verse. Not necessarily so: it may say just the opposite. First, as the Hebrew word order allows, the phrase “male and female” may apply to every created human being. Fantastic! one may say. The previous section of the verse says that all of humankind must be created “in the image of God.” God, then must be either beyond gender or comprise both. Why not also the beings he created?<br />
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Speculation about the androgynous implications of this passage goes back to the beginnings of rabbinical Judaism. For example, Mishnah Bikkurim (ch. 4) discusses the androginos, about whom it says: “There are [legal] ways he is [treated] like men, there are ways he is like women. There are ways in which he is like men and women. There are ways he is like neither men nor women.” (M. Moers Wenig, in G. Drinkwater et al., 2009, p. 15).<br />
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Such ideas found resonance among the medieval rabbis (in general, see L. Ginzberg, 1968). However, they do not seem to address the question of how such beings became gender differentiated, as modern human beings are. Perhaps the first pair were both androgynous and gender-dimorphous.<br />
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Is this passage at least not genderqueer, to use a contemporary expression? At all events, this conundrum is a good example of the rewards of the principle of estrangement: looking at familiar passages in a new, possibly unsettling way.<br />
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THE SIN OF HAM<br />
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There has been much discussion of the proper interpretation of the strange episode in Genesis 9:20-27, where we learn that Ham "saw his father's nakedness" because of drunkenness in Noah's tent. (“And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.”)<br />
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As a result of this transgression Noah pronounced the Curse of Ham (also called the curse of Canaan) upon Ham's son Canaan. The curse seems excessive for a mere act of voyeurism. In fact the transgression was surely more than that. The phrase "exposing or uncovering nakedness" appears several times elsewhere in the Pentateuch as a euphemism for having sexual relations. In Leviticus 18:6-19, for example, this expression occurs in connection with a variety of women in the family—one's mother, stepmother, sister, half sister, granddaughter, aunt, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law—as well as in certain specific circumstances (sex during her menstrual period, sleeping with a mother and daughter, and so forth.)<br />
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In its present state, the Noah-Ham text is cryptic, yet there is a possibility that the language conceals a report that Ham sodomized or castrated his father. In fact, Rashi, a major medieval Torah commentator, explains the harshness of the curse in this way: "Some say Ham saw his father naked and either sodomized or castrated him. His thought was ‘Perhaps my father's drunkenness will lead to intercourse with our mother and I will have to share the inheritance of the world with another brother! I will prevent this by taking his manhood from him!’ When Noah awoke, and he realized what Ham had done, he said, ‘Because you prevented me from having a fourth son, your fourth son, Canaan, shall forever be a slave to his brothers, who showed respect to me!’"<br />
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In addition, there may be a remote connection with the Greek story of Cronus and Uranus, as recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony. Cronus (identified with Saturn by the Romans) envied the power of his father, Uranus, the ruler of the universe. Incited by his mother, Gaia, Cronus attacked his father with a sickle, cutting off his genitals and casting them into the sea.<br />
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Returning to the biblical context, the curse of Ham figures as an example of the unpleasant biblical doctrine that children are burdened with disabilities based not on their personal failings, but deriving from something that has been done by a parent or some ancestor. This motif is sometimes known as the ‘”sins of the fathers.” See for example, "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me." (The text, Exodus 20:5, is part of the Ten Commandments; cf. also Deuteronomy 5:9; and Exodus 34:6-7).<br />
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For Christian theologians the prime example of the consequences of the sin of the fathers is Adam’s fall, the effects of which purportedly attach to all subsequent humanity. "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15:22) This theme was to become a major component of the doctrine of Original Sin. As the New England Primer (1784 edition) puts it: “In Adam’s Fall/we sinned all.”<br />
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That the notion of the concatenation of sin is not unique to the Judaeo-Christian tradition is shown by a line from Euripides (ca. 485-406 BCE): "The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children." (Phrixus, fragment 970)<br />
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One function of the curse of Canaan story was to serve as an early Israelite rationalization for Israel’s conquest and enslavement of the Canaanites, presumed to descend from Canaan. More broadly, some Christians have cited Ham’s transgression to justify racism and the enslavement of black people, who were believed to be descendants of Ham. Sometimes termed Hamites, they were thought to have descended from Ham’s son Canaan or his older brothers. This racist theory was popular among interested parties--slave-holders and their allies--during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.<br />
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In fact, the racial interpretation seems to stem from Jewish tradition. According to Numbers 12, Moses married a Cushite, one of the reputed descendants of Ham. Cush has sometimes been interpreted as located in Nubia, in black Africa. In consequence. a number of early Jewish writers interpreted the Biblical narrative of Ham in a racial way. The Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b states "Our Rabbis taught: Three copulated in the ark, and they were all punished — the dog, the raven, and Ham. The dog was doomed to be tied, the raven expectorates [his seed into his mate's mouth], and Ham was smitten in his skin." (Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 108b) The nature of Ham's "smitten" skin is unexplained, but later commentaries described this as a darkening of the pigment. In fact, a later note to the text states that the "smitten" skin referred to the blackness of descendants, and a later comment by rabbis in the Bereshit Rabbah asserts that Ham himself emerged from the ark black-skinned. The Zohar states that Ham's son Canaan "darkened the faces of mankind."<br />
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Some premodern Christian sources discuss the curse of Ham in connection with race and slavery. For example, Origen (ca. 185-ca. 254) stated: “For the Egyptians are prone to a degenerate life and quickly sink to every slavery of the vices. Look at the origin of the race and you will discover that their father Ham, who had laughed at his father’s nakedness, deserved a judgment of this kind, that his son Canaan should be a servant to his brothers, in which case the condition of bondage would prove the wickedness of his conduct. Not without merit, therefore, does the discolored posterity imitate the ignobility of the race.” (Homilies on Genesis 16.1)<br />
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This view, not infrequent in early Christian and medieval opinion, persisted into modern times. According to the German Catholic mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), "I saw the curse pronounced by Noah upon Ham moving toward the latter like a black cloud and obscuring him. His skin lost its whiteness, he grew darker. His sin was the sin of sacrilege, the sin of one who would forcibly enter the Ark of the Covenant. I saw a most corrupt race descend from Ham and sink deeper and deeper in darkness. I see that the black, idolatrous, stupid nations are the descendants of Ham. Their color is due, not to the rays of the sun, but to the dark source whence those degraded races sprang.”<br />
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The story of the Drunkenness of Noah (and Ham’s transgression) figures as the concluding panel of the nine great scenes from Genesis illustrated by Michelangelo on the Sistine Ceiling (1508). No one has satisfactorily explained why the artist chose to conclude his cycle with this disquieting episode.<br />
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(For a wide-ranging study, see David M. Goldenberg, <i>The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam</i>, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. See also, H. Hirsch Cohen, <i>The Drunkenness of Noah.</i> University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1974.)<br />
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SODOM AND GOMORRAH<br />
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These legendary cities have been traditionally located in the Dead Sea area, where they constituted two members of a pentapolis, the Cities of the Plain. According to the account in Genesis 14, 18, and 19, God overthrew four of the five cities in a rain of brimstone and fire. Over the centuries, the names of Sodom and Gomorrah, especially the former, have become proverbial. Echoes of the story recur elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and in the Qur’an, as well as in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic exegetical and homiletic writings.<br />
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A number of main features of the Sodom legend emerge from the central passages and fragmentary allusions in the Tanakh. Used with care, one can adduce also certain indications found in the Pseudepigrapha, together with the midrashic writings of later centuries.<br />
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As Warren Johansson notes in his article in the <i>Encyclopedia of Homosexuality</i> (W. Dynes, ed., 1990), “the geographical legend that sought to explain the peculiarly barren terrain around the shores of the Dead Sea. The ancient world's rudimentary science of geology correctly related this barrenness to the circumstance that the water level of the Dead Sea had in prehistoric times been far higher; the sinking of the water level had exposed the previously inundated, now strikingly arid and sterile region to the gaze of the traveler.”<br />
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Johansson goes on to observe that “the theme of sterility by which the ancient mind sought to explain the origins of this condition; to the Bedouin living east and south of the Dead Sea it suggested the etiological inference that at one time the area surrounding this salinized body of water had been a fruitful garden belt. Yet the inhabitants of the cities of the plain had even in the midst of their abundance and prosperity denied hospitality to the poverty-stricken and the wayfarer, while the luxury in which they wallowed led them inevitably into effeminacy and vice (the parallel in the Hellenistic world was the city of Sybaris, whose proverbial self-indulgence gave the English language the word sybaritic). For this reason they were punished by the destruction of their cities and the conversion of the whole area into a lifeless desert.”<br />
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Johansson surmises that underlying the story is “a Bedouin folk tale on the perils of city life, of which Lot is the hero who must be rescued again and again by the intervention of others. In Genesis 14:12 Lot is taken captive when Sodom is conquered by the four kings who have allied themselves against the Cities of the Plain; Abraham saves him by military intervention in the manner of a tribal sheikh with his retinue of 318 warriors. In 19:4 - 9 the Sodomites threaten Lot's guests with gang rape, but are miraculously blinded and repelled, and in 19:13, 15 the angelic visitors warn Lot of the imminent destruction of the city so that he and his family can leave just in time to escape the rain of brimstone and fire. This underlying motif explains why Lot later ‘feared to dwell in Zoar; (19:30), even though God has spared the place as a reward for his model hospitality toward the two visitors. Over the centuries Sodom and Gomorrah, along with the Babylon of the Book of Revelation, came to symbolize the corruption and depravity of the big city as contrasted with the virtue and innocence of the countryside, a notion cherished by those who idealized rural life and is still present, though fading in twentieth-century America.”<br />
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Some gay and lesbian apologists have sought to discount the homophobic implications of the demand to “know” the two strangers, emphasizing the more general themes of inhospitality and corruption. It seems likely, however, that the motif of homosexual rape is an exemplification of those larger sins. As such. it cannot be discounted,<br />
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THE BINDING OF ISAAC (AKEDAH)<br />
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The Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-24) is a story in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. In Hebrew the narration is called the Akedah or Akedat Yitzhak; in Arabic, the Dhabih.<br />
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Abraham is prepared to obey God's command without questioning. After Isaac is bound to an altar, the angel of God stops Abraham at the last minute, at which point Abraham conveniently discovers a ram caught in some nearby bushes. The patriarch then sacrifices the ram in Isaac's stead.<br />
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While it is often assumed that Isaac was a mere child at the time, some traditional sources treat him as an adult, because in Judaism one reaches majority at the age of thirteen. Departing from the Genesis account, some Talmudic sages taught that Isaac was actually thirty-seven, a calculation probably reflecting the ensuing Biblical story, which tells of Sarah's death at 127 (she was ninety when Isaac was born).<br />
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Genesis 22:14 states that the event occurred at "the mount of the Lord." In 2 Chronicles 3:1; Psalm 24:3; Isaiah 2:3 & 30:29; and Zechariah 8:3, the Tanakh seems to place the location of this event on the hill on which Solomon later built the Temple, now known as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.<br />
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With the murderous outcome narrowly averted, a key problem remains: Abraham’s alacrity in preparing to carry out the atrocity. The majority of Jewish commentators hold that God was actually testing Abraham’s loyalty to see if he would actually kill his own son.<br />
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A number of Jewish commentators from the medieval era, followed by some in modern times, have challenged this view. For example, the early rabbinic midrash known as Genesis Rabbah portrays God as saying "I never considered telling Abraham to slaughter Isaac” (using the Hebrew root letters for "slaughter," not "sacrifice). Rabbi Yona Ibn Janach (Spain, eleventh century) held that God required only a symbolic sacrifice. Rabbi Yosef Ibn Caspi (Spain, early fourteenth century) wrote that Abraham's "imagination" led him astray, making him believe that he had been commanded to sacrifice his son. Speaking for many others, Ibn Caspi asks "[h]ow could God command such a revolting thing?"<br />
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Another key issue is the connection with infant sacrifice among the West Semitic peoples. According to Rabbi J. H. Hertz (who served as Chief Rabbi of the British Empire), child sacrifice was "rife among the Semitic peoples." This authority suggests that "in that age, it was astounding that Abraham's God should have interposed to prevent the sacrifice, not that He should have asked for it." Hertz interprets the Akedah as demonstrating to the Jews that human sacrifice is abhorrent. "Unlike the cruel heathen deities, it was the spiritual surrender alone that God required." In Jeremiah 32:35, God states that, with regard to the practice of child sacrifice to the deity Moloch, it "had [never] entered My mind that they should do this abomination."<br />
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Some later Jewish writers, notably the Hasidic masters, reject the divine-test theology is rejected, regarding the sacrifice of Isaac as a punishment for Abraham's earlier mistreatment of Ishmael, his elder son, whom he expelled from his household at the behest of his wife, Sarah . According to this view, Abraham failed to show compassion for his son, so God responded by ostensibly failing to show compassion for Abraham's other son. This is a somewhat flawed theory, however, since the Bible says that God agreed with Sarah, and it was only at his insistence that Abraham actually had Ishmael leave. In <i>The Last Trial</i>, Shalom Spiegel controversially maintains that these commentators had a subtext, transforming the Biblical story into an implicit rebuke against Christianity's claim that God would sacrifice His own son (Spiegel, 1967).<br />
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In the New Testament, the book of Hebrews adduces the Binding of Isaac as one of a number of acts of faith recorded in the Old Law (Hebrews 11:17-19). The anonymous author (not Paul, as is traditionally held) considers Abraham's faith in God to be so great that he felt confident that if he were to perform the task requested, God would resurrect the slain Isaac, in order that his prophecy (Genesis 21:12) might be fulfilled. Such faith in God's word and in his promise have caused many Christians to regard the Binding story as exemplary.<br />
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Patristic commentators saw Isaac as a type of the "Word of God" who prefigured Christ (Origen, Homilies on Genesis 11–13). Gradually a consensus emerged that this whole episode ranks as an outstanding instance of the way that God works; the Binding was seen as prefiguring God's plan to have his own son, Jesus, die on the cross as a substitute for humanity, much like the ram God provided for Abraham. And Abraham's willingness to give up his own son Isaac is seen, in this view, as foreshadowing the willingness of God the Father to sacrifice his Son. Another theme is the parallel of Isaac's submission with Christ's, the two choosing to lay down their own lives in order for the will of God to be accomplished. Indeed, both stories portray the participants carrying the wood for their own sacrifice up a mountain. For Christians this similarity “closes the deal” (though not of course for Jews).<br />
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Christian artists have often chosen to represent the Sacrifice of Isaac. A famous occasion was the 1401 competition of Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti, who produced plaques of the subject to determine which artist would execute the bronze doors of the Baptistery of Florence. Ghiberti won.<br />
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Muslim tradition holds that it was Ishmael rather than Isaac whom Abraham was told to sacrifice. Some say that God would not have asked for the sacrifice after he has foretold Abraham and Sarah the glad tidings of Isaac and his offspring (Qur’an 11:71; 15:53; 37:112). Others note that Genesis 22:2, despite specifying Isaac, states that Abraham was told to sacrifice his only son, so they believe the event took place with Ishmael before Isaac was born, and that the name of Ishmael was later replaced by Isaac.<br />
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Muslims consider that visions experienced by prophets are revelations from God, and as such it was a divine order to Abraham. The entire episode of the sacrifice is regarded as a trial of God for Abraham and his son, and both are seen as having passed the test by submitting to God and showing their awareness that God is the Owner and Giver of all that we have and cherish, including life and offspring. Muslims commemorate the submission of Abraham and his son during the days of Eid al-Adha. During the festival, those who can afford it sacrifice a ram, cow, sheep or a camel. The members of the household eat part of the sacrifice meat, distributing the remaining portions to neighbors and to the poor. The festival occurs during the pilgrimage (hajj) season. The site of Marwah, familiar to Muslims, is identified with the biblical Moriah in Genesis 22:2. The belief of Muslims in the sacrifice of Ishmael and not Isaac is strengthened by the Qur’anic assertion God gave joyous tidings to Abraham of another son after his steadfastness in subjugating himself to God's will.<br />
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Modern philologists generally assign the Binding story to the biblical source E, since it generally uses the expression Elohim for the deity.<br />
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In <i>Fear and Trembling </i>(1843), Søren Kierkegaard offers four retellings of the story of Abraham’s Sacrifice. The Danish writer holds that the killing of Isaac is ethically wrong but religiously right. Abraham could have been resigned to kill Isaac simply because God told him to do so and because he knew that God was always right. However, Kierkegaard claims that Abraham did not act out of a resignation that God must always be obeyed but rather out of faith that God would not require something that was ethically wrong. Still, the tension between the demands of ethics and the requirements of faith made Abraham anxious. Kierkegaard argues that his retellings of the story of Abraham demonstrate the importance of a “teleological suspension of the ethical.”<br />
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In recent years several American synagogues have staged mock trials in which Abraham is arraigned for planning the death of his son.<br />
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The French poststructuralist Jacques Derrida also considered the story of Abraham’s sacrifice in his book <i>The Gift of Death </i>(Derrida, 2008). In a daring extrapolation, the French thinker connected religious injunctions of sacrifice to the "monotonous complacency" of modern society, which allows tens of millions of children to die of hunger and disease.<br />
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The Binding of Isaac also plays an important role in Erich Auerbach’s literary tour de force <i>Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature</i> (Auerbach, 1953). In the opening chapter of the book, the German writer pairs the Binding with Homer's description of Odysseus's scar, presenting them as two paradigms for the representation of reality in Western literature. Auerbach contrasts the Bible’s sparse account with Homer's almost obsessive attention to detail and foregrounding of the spatial, historical, and personal contexts. The Biblical account is very different: the almost cryptic concision of the story-telling keeps the context in the background or omits it entirely. As Auerbach observes, this narrative strategy virtually compels readers to add their own interpretations to the text. In this way, the reader becomes a kind of coauthor, as (s)he is not in Homer’s more explicit text.<br />
<br />
POLYGAMY<br />
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Many societies in the ancient world practiced polygamy, or more accurately polygyny, since it was usually men who had several wives, rather than men who had several husbands (polyandry, much less common).<br />
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The Hebrew Bible indicates that polygyny was commonly practiced by the ancient Hebrews. It was probably class-based, in that only men of a certain wealth and social status could afford to have several wives. Still, polygyny was not particularly unusual and was certainly not prohibited or discouraged by the Bible. The Bible mentions approximately forty polygynists, including such prominent figures as Abraham, Jacob, Esau, David and King Solomon. The texts offer little or no further remark on their polygyny as such: it was taken for granted. Many have raised an eyebrow at the exaggerated claim that Solomon had 1000 wives, but the practice of having a number of wives occasioned no particular disapproval.<br />
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The Pentateuch includes a few specific regulations on the practice of polygyny. Exodus 21:10 states that multiple marriages are not to diminish the status of the first wife, while Deuteronomy 21:15-17 states that a man must award the inheritance due to a first-born son to the son who was actually born first, even if he hates that son's mother and prefers another wife. Somewhat quixotically, Deuteronomy 17:17 states that the king shall not have too many wives. (How many is too many?).<br />
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Since the eleventh century, Ashkenazi Jews have generally followed Rabbenu Gershom's ban on polygyny. In all likelihood, this change reflects the influence of Christian monogamy. The situation has been quite different for Sephardic Jews, some of whom have retained the practice of taking plural wives down to the present.<br />
<br />
THE HOLINESS CODE IN LEVITICUS AND THE PROHIBITION OF MALE HOMOSEXUALITY<br />
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The Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26) is so called due to its repeated use of the word Holy. Modern biblical scholarship has isolated it as a distinct unit, noting that the style differs markedly from that of the main body of Leviticus. In contrast to the rest of Leviticus, the many laws of the Holiness Code tumble forth in a closely packed mass.<br />
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According to the Documentary Hypothesis, the Holiness Code represents an earlier text that the editors shoe-horned into the priestly source material (P) of the Pentateuch. Leviticus 26 strongly resembles the conclusion of a law code, despite the dangling presence of further laws afterward, giving the Holiness Code all the earmarks of a single distinct unit.<br />
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A key issue among evangelical Christians is how much of this biblical material might be binding today, as the Levitical priesthood and animal sacrifices ended with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. Some of these groups see all these laws regarding sexuality as being applicable today; some of them are reiterated elsewhere in the Bible, notably in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. For their part, Orthodox Jews continue to observe many of the practices, generally regarding precepts not in current use as being in temporary abeyance until a Third Temple can be built and the observances restored.<br />
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Figuring among the many laws pertaining to sexual ethics are two that have been particularly significant in shaping Jewish and Christian attitudes to male homosexuality. These are “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” (18:22); and “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death.” (20:13; NRSV).<br />
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These two religious carbuncles have proved particularly troublesome to observant gay and lesbian Jews and Christians. Various devices have been employed in the effort to detoxify them, with (in my view) scant success. Sometimes we hear that the prohibition of same-sex relations is of only transient significance, recalling the ban on wearing clothing made up of two different materials or eating shellfish. Yet this kind of mockery misses its target, because the second prohibition (in Leviticus 20) has the unique distinction of being both an abomination (to’ebah) and a capital crime.<br />
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Sometimes we hear that the prohibition applies only to the Canaanites, who were thought to be guilty of particularly licentious erotic practices. With the more careful interpretation of the Ugaritic documents that has recently taken place, this caricature of the Canaanites no longer passes muster. At all events there is no mention of that people in the passages in question. They are clearly directed at the ancient Israelites themselves.<br />
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It has been suggested that the passage refers only to anal penetration. In this view, a gay Orthodox Jew could have homosexual relations provided that they did not go beyond the oral stage. However, it may be that the implicit reference to anal behavior is only exempli gratia, a signal instance pointing to a larger complex of misbehavior (as with the Sodom story). As Mary Douglas has emphasized, many of the prohibitions in the Holiness Code have to do with boundary crossing, a purported confusion of realms (Douglas, 1966).<br />
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A further consideration has to do with one possible origin of the prohibition, which may implicate Zoroastrianism. Once powerful, today the religion of Zoroaster survives mainly among the small Parsi community in India, counting also a tiny remnant in Iran, where persecution continues.<br />
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Although it reached its apogee during the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550-330 BCE), the roots of Zoroastrianism reach much further back into Persian religious traditions relating to nature worship and good and evil spirits, and beyond these to primordial Indo-European mythology with its division of celestial beings into two warring classes. The prophet Zoroaster (from a Greek version of Zarathustra) is commonly believed to have lived about 630-550 BCE, though quite possibly earlier.<br />
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Zoroastrians were encouraged to seek piety by leading pure lives and doing good works. This would lead to a victory of good over evil in their personal lives and in the world. This dualistic world view, which can be detected as early as the sixth century BCE, influenced Judaism (especially as seen the Essenes), the Greek and Roman Stoics, the early Christian gnostics, the Manichaeans, and the Mithraists, a hero cult which competed with early Christianity. It has even been argued that the emphasis on sexual purity in early Christianity may stem ultimately from this Iranian source.<br />
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Under Cyrus the Great (d. 529 BCE), the Achaemenid family established the Persian Empire, which conquered most of western Asia, including Judea, homeland of the Jews. Darius I (d. 486 BCE), the first Persian ruler certain to have been a Zoroastrian, placed Jews in positions of power and encouraged the restoration of their destroyed main Temple and the adoption of a statute book to govern their reorganized community. Significantly, this document may have included the Holiness Code subsequently incorporated into Leviticus.<br />
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The result is striking if we compare Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 with the following passage from the Zoroastrian Scriptures: "Who is the man who is a Daeva [evil spirit]? . . . Ahura Mazda answered: 'The man that lies with mankind as man lies with womankind, or as a woman lies with mankind, is the man that is a Daeva, this one ... is a female paramour of the Daevas, that is a she-Daeva.'" (Vendidad, Fargard, V:31-32). As Tom Horner remarks, “[n]oteworthy here is the equal guilt of both parties, unusual for the ancient world, and the ascription of femininity to the guilty. The same chapter prescribes 800 stripes for involuntary emission of semen. Elsewhere in Zoroastrian tradition permission is given for the killing of a homosexual man caught in the act (Commentary on Fargard, VIII, VD3:74).” (T. Horner, in W. Dynes, ed., Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, 1990).<br />
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While the possibility is intriguing. this Persian derivation of the Israelite taboo on male homosexuality must still be regarded as speculative. It is a truism that texts do not migrate of their own accord. Someone, for some reason must bring them from one tradition into another. So the question remains: why would the ancient Israelites should wish to adopt such a drastic prohibition of male homosexuality?<br />
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VIOLENCE AND MONOTHEISM<br />
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With increasing clarity scholars of history and religion are coming to perceive a disturbing trifecta--a bond that links monotheism, intolerance, and violence. Today the Islamic jihadists are the leading exponents of this noxious triad. As will be seen below, however, the narrative of the Hebrew Bible is where it all started.<br />
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To be sure, violence is a human universal. To take an extreme example, consider the wars waged by the Aztecs to procure victims for their rituals of human sacrifice. These conflicts were bloody, but they were not undertaken to maintain and extend an intolerant monotheistic faith. The Aztecs were quite content to leave the polytheistic beliefs of their neighbors, just as they were. After all, they were polytheists themselves.<br />
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Matters were different among the ancient Israelites. As the Egyptologist Jan Assmann notes: “[t]he accounts of the Exodus from Egypt, violently forced upon Pharaoh by God-sent plagues--and even more so the conquest in Canaan--depict the birth of the Israelite nation and the rise of monotheism (these two being aspects of the same process) in terms of extreme violence.” (Assmann, 2010). The prominent place of these motifs in the historical memory of the people who created the Hebrew Bible makes them highly significant. In addition to the glorification of violence, these narratives demonize the Egyptians and the Canaanites. And demonization is often a prelude to aggression.<br />
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Violence also figured as a technique for internal control, among the Israelite population itself. In the aftermath of the Golden Calf episode, some 3000 individuals were slain, or so we are told (“each man kill his brother, and each man his fellow, and each man his kin”; Exodus 32:27-28). In another passage death is prescribed for those who might dare even to suggest a return to idolatry: “you shall strike him and he shall die, for he thought to thrust you away from the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 13:10).<br />
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Violence is also visited on those who would fraternize with neighboring people. For the crime of associating with Moabites and Midianites, 24,000 were purportedly slain (Numbers 25 1-11).<br />
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Extreme violence marked the campaign against the cities of Canaan, where nothing was to be left alive. The ancient Israelites invented ethnic cleansing.<br />
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All in all, scholars have identified some 600 passages linking violence with the origin and propagation of Israelite monotheism. As we have noted above, minimalists and others have questioned the historicity of of these accounts. To cite a recent essay by Niels Peter Lemche: “The exodus has a long time ago passed from history into fiction. It never happened. Neither did the conquest ever happen. Several biblical scholars including myself have made this clear. From an historical point of view, the Israelites could not have conquered Canaan by destroying Canaanite forces, for the simple reason that the Egyptians still ruled Canaan when Joshua is supposed to have arrived, i.e. shortly before 1200 BCE. Secondly, there is no trace of foreign immigration, and thirdly, even the biblical account about the conquest is contradictory (compare Joshua with Judges 1).” (Lemche, 1998).<br />
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Granting (as I think we must) these points, there remains this question: why would any people seek proudly to remember the atrocities I have just cited--and many others--parading them seriatim in their most sacred text, the Torah? And of course, some details of the accounts are likely to have been true. For the victims it looks very much as if the Torah scrolls were the scrolls of agony.<br />
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The conclusion is inescapable. This tangle of violence, intolerance, and monotheism bears a clear stamp of origin: Made in Ancient Israel. Some seek to mitigate this harsh judgment by observing that after the rise of Christianity and Islam--the hyperpowers of monotheism as it unfolded in the course of history--Jews did not engage in these types of repression. Just so. But was it because they wouldn’t, or because they couldn’t?<br />
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Now Jews do have power in the state of Israel, and it is a very powerful state indeed. The Israeli government has been drawing on the ancient prototypes, by practicing violence and ethnic cleansing on the Palestinians. Ethnic cleansing? Well, what else can one call the massive land grab in the West Bank? To be fair, Israeli peace groups have been at the forefront of documenting and opposing this misbehavior. They represent the best aspects of the prophetic movement that has also radiated throughout the Abrahamic traditions. But the fons et origo of the trifecta is clear.<br />
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One must also acknowledge that today secular Jewish scholars are at the forefront in exposing the sorry record of monotheism in these realms. An outstanding work is the book of Professor Regina M. Schwartz, <i>The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism</i> (University of Chicago Press, 1997). This hard-hitting monograph stems from a question posed to Schwartz when she was teaching the Bible to undergraduates: "What about the Canaanites?" In her view, biblical narrative has been a singularly powerful form of social memory. Too much theological reflection, Schwartz believes seeks simply to close the “old monotheistic” book, and leave things as they are. After all, we are told, the Bible is the word of God. (“What kind of God?” is of course a question too rarely asked.) In a positive message, Schwartz seeks to open the scriptures to the possibility of multiplicity so that, as she puts it, "new books may be fruitful and multiply." Hers is an invitation to an ethic of possibility, plenitude, and generosity, a welcome antidote to violence. In this way her study is as important for its insights into memory, identity, and place as for its criticism of monotheism's violent legacy. Jonathan Kirsch, an attorney and book columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has written <i>God against the Gods: The History of the War between Monotheism and Polytheism</i> (Viking 2004). In this wide-ranging survey Kirsch points out, correctly, that the earliest impulses toward monotheism can be found in Egypt with pharaoh Akhenaten's forceful attempt to move the nation to the worship of one god, the Aten. Yet this reform lasted at most seventeen years, and efforts to connect it with Moses remain problematic. In fact, Akhenaten’s religion left no progeny; the Israelite project definitely did.<br />
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After reviewing the evidence from the Hebrew Bible, Kirsch demonstrates that monotheism gained momentum with the development of Christianity which became dominant in the Roman empire under the emperor Constantine. Interestingly, Kirsch shows that the conflict between the worship of many gods and the worship of one true god never disappeared from the lives of Israelites, Jews, or Christians, despite many historians' claims to the contrary.<br />
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Conventionally and obsessively, monotheists decry polytheism (“paganism,” “heathendom”). One reason for such dismissals may be that in some ways polytheism is more reasonable, making it a dangerous rival. "At the heart of polytheism is an open-minded and easygoing approach to religious belief and practice," he asserts, the opposite of monotheism's dangerous "tendency to regard one's own rituals and practices as the only proper way to worship the one true god." (Kirsch, 2004). Kirsch’s comparison is perhaps overdrawn, but it is worth pondering.<br />
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While he does not claim originality for his research, Kirsch clearly shows that monotheistic religions have too often used the worship of one god as a pretext to persecute those who do not share such beliefs. He demonstrates the ways in which this conflict gave rise to the tensions that ravage monotheistic religions today.<br />
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SACRED PROSTITUTION<br />
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Sacred prostitution or temple prostitution is the practice of engaging in sexual intercourse with clients for a religious or sacred purpose. As with secular prostitution, a fee is usually charged, though in this instance a portion is remitted to the temple or to the religious authorities. A person engaged in such behavior is sometimes called a hierodule. Given the religious and cultic significance of the practice, modern connotations of the term prostitute may or may not be appropriate.<br />
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Various forms of temple prostitution have been found in ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Israel, ancient Greece, pre-Columbian America, modern India, and elsewhere. Because of the importance of the Bible in our civilization, the following discussion takes as its primary focus the references embedded in the Tanakh.<br />
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We begin with the Qedeshim or Kedeshim, the male hierodules that figure in the Hebrew bible--so often neglected in favor of their better-known female counterparts.<br />
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Let us review the facts that have been generally accepted, at least until recent years. Qadesh (pl. qedeshim) is a Hebrew term that literally means "holy or consecrated one." Formerly rendered "sodomite" (as in the King James Version), it is more accurately translated as "male cult prostitute" in modern translations of the scriptures. It is a key term for understanding a major aspect of same-sex behavior in ancient Israel. The word occurs as a common noun at least six times (Deuteronomy 23:18, I Kings 14:24, 15:12 and 22:46, II Kings 23:7, Job 36:14). According to Warren Johansson (whose analysis in the <i>Encyclopedia of Homosexuality</i> I follow in the succeeding paragraphs), it can also be restored on the basis of textual criticism in II Kings 23:24 (= Septuagint of II Chronicles 35:19a) and in Hosea 11:12. These passages all ostensibly designate foreigners (non-Israelites) who served as sacred prostitutes in the Kingdom of Judah, specifically within the precincts of the first Temple (ca. 950-622 B.C.).<br />
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That these men had sexual relations with other males and not with women is proven by Hosea 4:14, which castigates the males exclusively for "spending their manhood" in drunken orgies with hierodules, while their wives remained at home, alone and unsatisfied, and by the reading of Isaiah 65:3 in the Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls) manuscript: "And they (m. pl.) sucked their phalli upon the stones."<br />
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Their involvement in Canaanite polytheism, an obvious rival of the monotheistic Yahweh religion, fostered the biblical equation of homosexuality with idolatry and paganism and the exclusion of the individual engaging in homosexual activity from the "congregation of Israel," an exclusion persisting in the fundamentalist condemnation of all homosexual expression to this day.<br />
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To understand that the condemnation of the qadesh was a cultic prohibition and the self-definition of a religious community, not a moral judgment on other acts taking place outside the sphere of the sacral, it is necessary to place the qadesh or male hierodule (with the qedishah as his female counterpart) in his historical and cultural setting, as a part of West Semitic religion as it developed on the territory of the Kingdom of Judah down to the reforms of King Josiah (622 B.C.). The commandments forbidding male same-sex activity on pain of death in the Holiness Code (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13) were, in all likelihood, added only in the Persian period (specifically, the first half of the fifth century BCE). Critical scholarship generally dates the Holiness Code to the beginning of that period, but Martin Noth in his influential commentary on Leviticus (Noth, 1965) ascribes this part of Leviticus to a time slightly after 520 BCE, when the new and reformed Jewish religion set about throwing off all the associations believed responsible for the catastrophe of 586, the destruction of the first Temple and the exile of the bulk of the population of Judah to Babylon. The proof of the later origin of the verses indicated above is the prophetic reading ("haphtarah") for the portion of the Torah including Leviticus 18, namely Ezekiel 22:10-11, a comparison of which shows that Ezekiel was alluding to a text which in the final years of the First Commonwealth began with Leviticus 18:7 and ended with 18:20, as if to say "You have committed every sexual sin in the book."<br />
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Derrick Sherwin Bailey, in his <i>Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition </i>(London, 1955), argued that the qedeshim "served the female worshipper.” However, it is unlikely that women were admitted to the Temple, then or later, and all parallels from the religious life of antiquity, from Cyprus to Mesopotamia, involve male homosexual connection. Designations for the male prostitute in Hebrew and Phoenician are "dog" {kelebh) and "puppy" (gar), notably in Deuteronomy 23:17, where the kelebh is set in parallel to the zonah "(female) prostitute." In Isaiah 3:4 the word ta'alullm is rendered effeminati by St. Jerome; it means "males who are sexually abused by others. Another likely reference is Isaiah 2:6, the closing hemistich of which Jerome translated et pueris alienis adhaeserunt, while the Aramaic pseudo-Jonathan Targum euphemistically renders the text "And they walked in the ways of the gentiles," in which the Hebrew verb has an Arabic cognate that means "they loved tenderly." In Hosea 11:12 a slight emendation, together with comparison again of the Arabic meaning of the verb in the first half of the parallel, yields the meaning "And Judah is still untrue to God/but faithful to kedeshlm."<br />
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The preceding analysis, deriving from the careful scholarship of Warren Johansson, is somewhat technical. Yet Johansson goes on to pose some more general questions.<br />
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“How could male prostitutes fit into the scheme of Northwest Semitic--specifically Canaanite--religion during the First Commonwealth? Foreign as the notion is to the modem religious consciousness, the worship of Ishtar and Tammuz was a fertility cult in which union with the hierodule consecrated to the service of the goddess was thought to have magical functions and powers. Such hierodules could be either male or female, and the singular qadesh in I Kings 14:24 is to be taken as a collective, meaning ‘hierodules as a professional caste’ who were ‘in the land,’ practicing their foreign rites. The males may even have been eunuchs, though the context of Job 36:14 ‘Their soul dieth in youth, and their life at the hierodules' age’ suggests that they were adolescent prostitutes [not unlike] the bar or street hustler of today. Furthermore, place names containing the element Kadesh, such as the one in Genesis 14:7, which also was called Enmishpat "Spring of Judgment" indicate the locales of shrines whose personnel had both erotic and mantic functions. This is independently confirmed by the glosses on the Septuagint renderings of qadesh and qedeshah in Deuteronomy 23:18.”<br />
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I turn now to the broader context, which is succinctly detailed in the Hebrew Bible itself. Deuteronomy 23:17-18 warns: “None of the daughters of Israel shall be a kedeshah, nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a kadesh. You shall not bring the hire of a prostitute (zonah) or the wages of a dog (keleb) into the house of the Lord your God to pay a vow, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.”<br />
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Here the two sacred prostitutes, male and female, are brought into parallel. Similarly, with their secular counterparts. Diagrammatically, the whole forms a perfect chiastic square.<br />
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In my view, nothing could be clearer. Nonetheless, during the last few decades several schools of revisionism have arisen that strive to deny the historicity of sacred prostitution in the ancient Middle East.<br />
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Robert A. Oden (<i>The Bible without Theology</i>, Urbana, 1999) maintains that the concept of sacred prostitution is an invention, a kind of slander without foundation, designed to embarrass the Israelites' neighbors. This claim recalls the controversial assertion of William Arens (The Man-Eating Myth, 1980) that the ascription of cannibalism to tribal and early historical peoples is simply a manifestation of prejudice. In his view, there is no evidence supporting the widespread belief that cannibalism has been a socially accepted practice in certain cultures. Let us not mince words. Arens' claim is clearly absurd. As the years have gone by, archaeologists and anthropologists have presented masses of evidence that has surfaced showing that all around the world there have been societies in which cannibalism has been a commonplace ritual practice. Arens’s denialism seems to have been motivated by a kind of political correctness, one that seeks to reject any aspersions that might be cast on cultures that were formerly thought to be savage, but are now hailed as paragons of third-world virtue. Similar motivations seem to lie behind the denial of the reality of sacred prostitution in ancient Israel.<br />
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The most massive assault on the idea so far stems from the classical scholar Stephanie Lynn Budin in her book <i>The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity</i> (Cambridge, 2008). On page one she states her thesis in peremptory fashion: "Sacred prostitution never existed in the ancient Near East or Mediterranean.”<br />
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Most reviewers are inclined to accept Budin’s contention that some of the of the classical (Greek and Roman) texts commonly cited as referring to sacred prostitution actually do not do so. These texts may have something to do with prostitution, but not the special form of it being considered here. That is the case, it seems, with texts by Pindar, Strabo, Klearkhos, Justinus, Valerius Maximus, which Budin parses in great detail.<br />
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But so what? These texts stem from classical antiquity, where sacred prostitution has never been held to be of central importance. The key area is the ancient Middle East, and here Budin falls down. She relies on the renderings in Pritchard’s <i>Ancient Near Eastern Texts</i> (revised ed. published in 1969) as a point of reference. Yet this outdated publication has been replaced by other, more accurate translations, which she seems not to have consulted. She does use the standard Sumerian and Akkadian dictionaries, but cherry-picks the evidence so as to omit judgments by other scholars that terms in those languages do in fact refer to sacred prostitution.<br />
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There are more general problems. Budin narrowly defines sacred prostitution as always requiring a direct quid-pro-quo: a specified portion of the money received must be rendered to the deity. However, sacred prostitution has not always worked this way, as evidence from modern India suggests. One observer reports, for example, having encountered a male prostitute who frequented the precinct of a Hindu temple at Khajaraho. This man suggested that, because of the setting, sexual congress with him would partake of the sacred, but there was no question of his tithing to the temple.<br />
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Another dubious technique Budin employs is the argumentum e silentio. Because excavations and other research have not found uncontrovertible evidence, she thinks that the practice did not exist. This claim is hardly persuasive: no archaeological evidence has been found to confirm or deny the existence of Saul, David, and Solomon but most laypeople--and quite a few scholars--stubbornly continue to believe in their existence. In fact archaeology does not respond to questions of this kind.<br />
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Space does not permit further review of these revisionist arguments, which are proliferating. Ir is my view that, as regards the Hebrew Bible, they fail completely.<br />
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However, let us play devil's advocate. If sacred prostitution was a myth, why was it invented? The Early Christians did indeed have a motive to cast aspersions on pagan decadence. However, the revisionists (taking their cue from Edward Said) ascribe the main element in the supposed invention to nineteenth-century Orientalism, which ascribes strange erotic practices to the Middle Eastern “Other.”<br />
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One may acknowledge that such prejudices played some role. However. they must be set aside in a dispassionate examination of the issue. For their part, the revisionists have not done this.<br />
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What, one may ask, are the reasons underlying the insistent denial of today’s revisionists in this field? One, I suspect, is simple prudery. It is much nicer to regard the qedeshot and qedeshim (female and male hierodules)as harmless functionaries and bureaucrats than to acknowledge their profession as sex workers remitting a portion of their earnings to the temple. Feminist concerns also seem to play an important role. Sex-trafficking is an ugly reality in the world today. It should be stamped out. But nothing is gained in this cause by denying historical realities.<br />
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THE RISE AND FALL OF BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY<br />
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A friend used to make his living partly by delivering talks on Bible animals to church groups. At the Anglican Cathedral of New York, near my home, there is a charming garden displaying Biblical plants. Such efforts reveal a widely felt wish to visualize the world of the Scriptures.<br />
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Since the fourth century CE, Christians have been undertaking pilgrimages to the Holy Land in order to see the places where the Lord and others stood. Jews go them one better by actually immigrating to Israel. One of the motives is to witness in person the major sites of the Bible.<br />
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This practice responds to a sense that pondering the texts, together with engaging in prayer and religious ritual, are not enough. One must seek to forge a tangible link with the revered figures and events. Ultimately, this meant visiting the loca sancta, the places where the revered figures actually walked and lived in the Middle East. For Christians (who during the Middle Ages and afterwards could not easily make the pilgrimage to the Holy Land), relics fulfilled a similar purpose.<br />
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In the nineteenth century, as the Ottoman Empire drew to a close, undertaking visits became more practical and inviting. At the sites, one could obtain guidance from dragomans and cicerones, who would sometimes offer embroidered accounts. Thus assuaged, but only partially, the desire grew to learn more. This thirst for knowledge could be addressed by going beneath the surface, through excavation. Hence, the appearance of Biblical Archaeology.<br />
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In fact this approach had roots outside the Middle East. Towards the end of the sixteenth century the catacombs became accessible in the city of Rome. Under the patronage of the popes, much was done to recover objects that had been lost to view for a thousand years or more. This was done under the umbrella of Christian Archaeology. In some ways this was not an objective discipline, as it was conducted with the aim of documenting Catholic claims, especially those that pertained to the presumed apostolic foundation of the church.<br />
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In the nineteenth century, excavations at sites of Biblical interest began in the Middle East began in earnest. Sponsored by several types of institutions, these were the special preserve of any particular confessional allegiance, as the Roman ones were. Yet another subtext intruded, a political one. We know that the excavations of Sir Leonard Woolley, T. E. Lawrence, and others in the Middle East served as a cover for British imperial reconnaissance. With this background it is not surprising that subtexts should intrude in excavations that more specifically targeted Palestine.<br />
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In many ways the emergent discipline of Biblical Archaeology came to be personified by William Foxwell Albright (1891-1971), an energetic American protestant scholar. As editor of the <i>Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research </i>between 1931 and 1968, Albright exercised deep influence over both biblical scholarship and Palestinian archaeology, an influence greatly advanced by his prolific writing and publishing (over 1,100 books and articles). His lead was followed by his students George Ernest Wright, Frank Moore Cross, and David Noel Freedman. That the latter was Jewish seemed a happy augury that the Albrightian program would be a broad, objective one.<br />
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Alas, this impression is incorrect, and Albright’s conclusions, especially those relating to biblical archaeology, have been overturned by developments after his death. While William F. Albright was not a Biblical literalist, in many ways his views seem naive today. He saw the archaeologist's task as being "to illuminate, to understand, and, in effect, to ‘prove’ the bible." In this approach Albright's American Evangelical upbringing--he was the son of two missionaries-- was clearly apparent. He insisted, for example, that "as a whole, the picture in Genesis is historical, and there is no reason to doubt the general accuracy of the biographical details" (that is, of figures such as Abraham and Melchizedek). Similarly he claimed that archaeology had proved the essential historicity of the book of Exodus, and the conquest of Canaan as described in the book of Joshua and the book of Judges. Nothing today is left of this approach amongst mainstream archaeologists. As one observer noted, "[h]is central theses have all been overturned, partly by further advances in Biblical criticism, but mostly by the continuing archaeological research of younger Americans and Israelis to whom he himself gave encouragement and momentum. . . The irony is that, in the long run, it will have been the newer "secular" archaeology that contributed the most to Biblical studies, not ‘Biblical archaeology’."<br />
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The Albrightian consensus collapsed in the 1970s. Fieldwork, notably Kathleen Kenyon's excavations at Jericho, had failed to support the conclusions the devout archaeologists had drawn, with the result that central theories squaring the biblical narrative with archaeological finds, such as Albright's reconstruction of Abraham as an Amorite donkey caravaneer, faced rejection by the archaeological community. The challenge reached its climax with the publication of two major studies. In 1974 Thomas L. Thompson's The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives reexamined the record of biblical archaeology in relation to the Patriarchal narratives in Genesis and concluded that "not only has archaeology not proven a single event of the Patriarchal narratives to be historical, it has not shown any of the traditions to be likely." In 1975 John Van Seters' <i>Abraham in History and Tradition </i>reached a similar conclusion about the usefulness of tradition history: "A vague presupposition about the antiquity of the tradition based upon a consensus approval of such arguments should no longer be used as a warrant for proposing a history of the tradition related to early premonarchic times."<br />
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At the same time a new generation of archaeologists, notably William G. Dever, had begun to criticize the older generation for failing to take note of the revolution in archaeology known as processualism, which saw the discipline as a scientific one allied to anthropology, rather than a part of the corpus of the humanities linked to history and theology. Biblical archaeology, Dever said, remained "altogether too narrowly within a theological angle of vision.” He held that it must be abandoned, to be replaced by a regional Syro-Palestinian archaeology operating within a processual framework.<br />
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Dever was broadly successful. Arguably most archaeologists working in the world of the Bible today do so within a processual or post-processual framework, even though few explicitly so describe themselves. The reasons for the retention of the old nomenclature are complex, but are connected with the link between excavators (especially American ones) and the denominational institutions and benefactors who employ and support them. Repeatedly, the link between the Bible and archaeology has been shown to be tenuous at best, yet few seem willing to explicitly disavow it. Such frankness could be a career-destroying move.<br />
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In 1956 Albright and his associates launched the Anchor Bible Commentary Series. Although a range of views is presented, the center of gravity of the series is Albright’s views, which have been basically reaffirmed by the editorship of his disciple David Noel Freedman, the general editor. Now consisting of some 80 volumes, it is unfortunate that this series represents the most advanced scholarship in the eyes of the unsuspecting. (I gave away most of my volumes.)<br />
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Today the Biblical Archaeology Review conveys much useful information to the general public. The editors have not retained the outdated approach of Albright. Sometimes reading between the lines, we learn that archaeology has not “proved” that the Bible was right, but actively undermined its credibility. To their credit the BAR editors have given a place to the radically corrosive findings of the so-called minimalists, whose views are become increasingly mainstream.<br />
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SUMMARY OF MATERIAL EVIDENCE<br />
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After several generations of intense archaeological investigation, the hard evidence for the early Israelites remains very sparse. Notable are the absence of any sign of royal archives or remains of monumental buildings, such as the original Temple of Jerusalem. Significantly, the steles discussed below were not erected by the ancient Israelites themselves. They all stem from Israel’s enemies: Egypt, to the south; Moab, close by in the east; Assyria, northeast; and (probably) Damascus, to the north. Of these states, only tiny Moab, occupying a small strip of land in what is now Jordan, felt any threat from Israel--also apparently quite tiny.<br />
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These stone monuments represent the only evidence we have in these centuries paralleling the much-edited text of the Hebrew Bible itself. As such, they offer only the most limited corroboration, tending to support the strictures of the Minimalist scholars concerning early Israel.<br />
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1. The Merneptah Stele is an inscription by the Egyptian king Merneptah (r. 1213-1203 BCE), which appears on the reverse side of a granite slab erected by an earlier king, Amenhotep III. Flinders Petrie discovered it at Thebes in 1896. The stele has become famous for being the only Ancient Egyptian document generally accepted as mentioning "Isrir" or "Israel." It is also, by far, the earliest known attestation of the term Israel as the name of a people (ethnonym).<br />
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The mention of Israel and Canaan is brief, for most of the stele concerns Merneptah's campaign against the Libyans. The final two lines of the inscription note a prior military campaign in Palestine (Canaan) in which Merneptah boasts that he defeated Ashkelon, Gezer, Yanoam, and Israel among others. This is what the text says: “Canaan is captive with all woe, Ashkelon is conquered, Gezer seized, Yanoam made nonexistent; Israel is wasted, bare of seed.”<br />
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The Merneptah stele provides no evidence of an actual sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt--a claim scholars increasingly discount--but simply of Egyptian military activity in Palestine.<br />
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2, The Mesha Stele (sometimes known as the "Moabite Stone") is a black basalt slab bearing an inscription by the ninth-century ruler Mesha of Moab. The inscription was set up about 840 BCE to commemorate Mesha's victories over "Omri king of Israel" and his son, who had been "oppressing" Moab. It bears the earliest known reference to the Hebrew God Yahweh.<br />
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3. The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (a king of Assyria who reigned from ca. 858 to 824 BCE) dates from 825 BCE. Scholars believe that the obelisk depicts either Jehu son of Omri (a king of Israel mentioned in 2 Kings), or Jehu's ambassador, paying homage to the Assyrian ruler. The depiction ranks as an early, possibly the earliest, surviving picture of an ancient Israelite. The inscription identifies "the tribute of Jehu, son of Omri: I received from him silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden vase with pointed bottom, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king [and] spears." The obelisk is now kept in the British Museum in London.<br />
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4. The Tel Dan Stele is a black basalt slab discovered in 1993-94 during excavations in northern Israel. Erected by an Aramaean king, the Tel Dan stele contains an Aramaic inscription commemorating victories over local ancient peoples including “Israel” and what seems to be interpretable as the “House of David. Its author is unknown, but may have been a king of Damascus, Hazael, or one of his sons.<br />
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The discovery of the inscription generated excitement among biblical scholars and archaeologists because the letters 'ביתדוד' seem to correspond to the Hebrew for “house of David”--even though the stele is written in Aramaic. If these letters do indeed refer to the Davidic line then this is the first time the name “David” has been found at any archaeological site.<br />
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The inscription has been dated to the ninth or eighth centuries BCE. The eighth-century limit is determined by a destruction layer identified with a well-documented Assyrian conquest in 733/732 BCE.<br />
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If the inscription was created as late as 800 BCE--as seems likely--it would date from almost two centuries after the presumed lifetime of king David (traditionally he died ca. 970). The text would not attest his actual existence, but only the fact that at that time some believed that Israel was ruled by descendants of the legendary David. Compare the ancient Greek expression “the House of Atreus”; this conventional expression offers no assurance that Atreus actually lived. Another comparison is with the Tudor kings of England, who claimed descent from king Arthur. The claim is dubious, and Arthur, like David, may never have existed.<br />
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TWO “PALACES OF DAVID”?<br />
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On August 4, 2005 the Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar announced the discovery of a building she believes to be the remains of King David’s palace as recorded in the Book of Samuel. The Large Stone Structure, as it is commonly known, is a big public building located south of the Old City. Artifacts found at the site suggest that it belongs to the tenth or ninth century BCE, but no definitive evidence has been obtained to link it definitively with King David. To put the matter bluntly, Mazar seems to have been the victim of wishful thinking.<br />
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In 2013 a team of Israeli archaeologists claimed to have discovered the ruins of another palace belonging to King David, but other Israeli experts dispute the claim. "Khirbet Qeiyafa is the best example exposed to date of a fortified city from the time of King David," said Yossi Garfinkel, a Hebrew University archaeologist, suggesting that David himself would have used the site. Garfinkel led the seven-year dig with Saar Ganor of Israel's Antiquities Authority.<br />
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Garfinkel said his team found cultic objects typically used by Judeans, the subjects of King David, and saw no trace of pig remains. Pork is forbidden under Jewish dietary laws. Clues like these, he asserted, were "unequivocal evidence" that David and his descendants had ruled at the site. In fact this is quite a stretch.<br />
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Critics said the site could have belonged to other kingdoms of the area. For example, the archaeologist Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University conceded that Khirbet Qeiyafa is an "elaborate" and "well-fortified" 10th century B.C. site, but said it could have been built by Philistines, Canaanites or other peoples in the area.<br />
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The consensus among most scholars is that no definitive physical proof of the existence of King David has been found.<br />
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UNCERTAIN EVIDENCE FROM POTTERY<br />
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The previous segments have shown the failure of “Biblical archaeology” to support the traditional understanding of Israelite origins. In the early, optimistic days it was thought that these investigations would “close the sale.” The bible was right after all! Alas, things did not turn out that way.<br />
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While some of the artifacts and architectural forms recovered in digs in Israel and nearby countries have a modest intrinsic interest, their larger impact is minimal. Such bric-à-bric provides a backdrop, and a very partial one at best. Archaeological discoveries have failed to provide any confirmation of the biblical narratives themselves. Unsupported by any concurrent outside evidence, our venerable scriptures are being increasingly exposed as a series of mythical constructs rife with later interests and assumptions. They are simply not history in any meaningful sense of the term.<br />
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Despite much earnest searching, no evidence has emerged thus far for the existence of a great empire under David and Solomon. In fact there is no inscriptional documentation that would affirm that either of these worthies actually existed. (As has been noted above, there is one text that has been claimed to refer to David, but probably does not).<br />
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Yet hope springs eternal. According to Matti Friedman, an Associated Press writer, “[a]n Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he believes is the oldest known Hebrew inscription on a 3,000-year-old pottery shard--a find that suggests Biblical accounts of the ancient Israelite kingdom of David could have been based on written texts.<br />
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“A teenage volunteer discovered the curved shard bearing five lines of faded characters in July in the ruins of an ancient town on a hilltop south of Jerusalem. Yossi Garfinkel, the Israeli archaeologist leading the excavations at Hirbet Qeiyafa, released his conclusions about the writing Thursday after months of study.<br />
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“He said the relic is strong evidence that the ancient Israelites were literate and could chronicle events centuries before the Bible was written.”<br />
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Note the use of the modal construction “could.” As the text has not yet been fully deciphered, no one knows what events it might hypothetically chronicle.<br />
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There are several steps in a chain of wishful thinking. A single pot sherd, written by who knows whom, demonstrates that the ancient Israelites were literate. How many of them were? And how many of these were engaged in “chronicling events” in formulations that made their way eventually into the Hebrew Bible? It is all a texture of coulds, woulds, and ifs. What is revealing about this speculation is its role in contemporary political discourse, serving to reinforce, however dubiously, the claims of the current regime to control “Eretz Israel.”<br />
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Although we are told that the find is the earliest Hebrew inscription, it is in fact written in characters known as proto-Canaanite, not in Hebrew letters. Since many other Canaanite documents are known from the earlier Ugaritic finds, the writing on this shard would scarcely be unique.<br />
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In responding to the find, prominent Biblical archaeologists have been warning against jumping to conclusions, and rightly so. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar noted that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. "The differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear," he said.<br />
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While the find may add another small item to the historical record, archaeologist Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University said that the enthusiastic claims being made about it went beyond the strict canons of science. Finkelstein warned against what he said was a "revival in the belief that what's written in the Bible is accurate like a newspaper." [I remark that in that case the bar is not very high.]<br />
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In short, the inscription may turn out to have some epigraphic and philological interest, but there is no way--based on what we have learned at present--that it could serve to bolster the pseudo-historical narratives found in the Hebrew Bible.<br />
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LAW IN THE TANAKH<br />
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We sometimes hear religious conservatives proclaiming that the “Ten Commandments are the basis of our law.” This assertion is factually incorrect. The basis for legal system in the United States is the English Common Law as modified by the Constitution and the legal enactments of our Congress. Many other countries observe Civil Law traditions, deriving ultimately from the Roman codification of law. Neither of these stems from the Ten Commandments (otherwise known as the Decalogue), or indeed from any of the collections of laws and precepts found in various books of the Hebrew Bible.<br />
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What is the nature of the laws that appear in that Bible? Before proceeding further, one must set aside the common extension of the term “law” to cover the entire Pentateuch, or Torah in the strict sense. This umbrella approach is frequent among Jewish scholars, who write grandly of the “Laws of Moses” (a person who almost certainly did not exist). To be sure, laws are prominent in the Pentateuch, but so is much other matter--including myth, legend, folk tales, poetry, and pseudo-science.<br />
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Many believers, Jewish and Christian alike, regard the law passages of the Hebrew Bible as sui generis. They are, after all, the word of God, are they not? If so, God was rather busy in this sphere in ancient times, for modern scholarship has shown that the Israelite laws are part of a vast cultural and legal landscape of the ancient Near East.<br />
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This broader contextual approach, which is essential, depends on the decipherment of the cuneiform script. Here the decisive step was taken by Sir Henry Rawlinson, a British army officer, who published his interpretation of the Behistun inscription in 1851. Not unlike the Rosetta Stone, this monument was trilingual: Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian. Gradually, other languages, including Sumerian, Urartian, Hittite, and Ugaritic, were deciphered.<br />
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Sometimes the term Cuneiform Law is used to refer to any of the legal compilations (commonly, but inaccurately known as “codes”) written in cuneiform script,that were developed and used throughout the ancient Middle East among the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Elamites, Hurrians, Kassites, and Hittites. Why are these documents not codes in the true sense of the word? The answer is that they lack the comprehensive scope and systematic arrangement that characterize such later achievements as the Justinian Code (sixth century CE) and the Napoleonic Code (nineteenth century). Instead, these Near Eastern legal corpora are florilegia, that is, compilations that probably grew gradually by accretion, but never extended to embrace the full range of prevailing law, much of which remained oral. As such, this type of law was transitional between the informal law customs of tribal peoples, of necessity oral because of lack of literacy, and our own comprehensive systems of written law.<br />
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That being said, the so-called Code of Hammurabi is the best known of the cuneiform laws. Discovered in December 1901, it contains over 282 paragraphs of text, not including the prologue and epilogue. As with the Flood story, and other Near Eastern motifs, striking similarities were discerned with similar material embedded in the Pentateuch. However, these one-to-one similarities must not be exaggerated, for it is important to situate Israelite law (as we know it) in the broader context of Near Eastern law and jurisprudence.<br />
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In 1934 the German biblical scholar Albrecht Alt took a decisive step forward. In a paper published in that year he distinguished between two types of laws found in the Pentateuch. The first, or Casuistic type, is characterized by the formulas “If such, then ...”, “When such, then .. , or “Supposing, then. ...” These laws are of frequent occurrence in the so-called Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20:22 - 23:33), situated immediately following one of the redactions of the Ten Commandments. Here are two examples pertaining to livestock. “If someone’s ox hurts the ox of another, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide the price of it; and the dead animal they shall also divide.” “When someone steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters or sells it, the thief shall pay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.” (Both NRSV). Formulated in this way, such laws are well suited to the actual operations of a court, because the fulfillment of the opening condition triggers the application of the law. Absent the condition, there is no cause of action, as contemporary lawyers say.<br />
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The second type of law, in Alt’s classification, consists of Apodictic laws. These dispense with the opening clause, flatly forbidding or commanding a certain sort of behavior. We are familiar with one category of these in utterances of the “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not” type. An example, which has crept into the Book of Covenant noted above, is the notorious “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (KJV; Exodus 22:18).<br />
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Alt held that only the second type was distinctly Israelite, while the legal precepts of the first type were borrowed from the Semitic environment, specifically (he conjectured) from Canaanite law. Later scholars have offered some refinements, noting that the formal distinction of the two types is less clear cut than the German scholar had assumed.<br />
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There are also difficulties--and this is a key point--in localizing the sources of the two laws. Although major discoveries of Canaanite texts (the Ras Shamra finds) were being made at the very time that Alt was writing, no actual body of Canaanite law has been found. In all likelihood, the Casuistic laws were derived from several Near Eastern sources.<br />
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There remains the problem of the origin of the Apodictic laws. It is tempting to regard these as a distinctive hallmark of early Israelite culture, items that were hammered out in the harsh school of the desert. Yet since the whole exodus story is nowadays generally discounted, these laws were most likely created in the territory of ancient Israelite itself, as those who became Israelites gradually enucleated themselves from the Canaanite environment in which they had been originally embedded. It may be observed that one can easily obtain an Apodictic law by lopping off the opening conditional clause of a Casuistic law. Apodictic laws are then simply condensed, or (if you will) mutilated forms of Casuistic originals. I confess that I do not know how Biblical scholars would respond to this hypothesis.<br />
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At all events, a further question intrudes. Are the Apodictic pronouncements (including the Ten Commandments) actually laws? In fact they are better regarded as simply formulations of taboo, intended more for the observant than for the courts. As such, they are precursors of the vast compilation of 613 obligatory precepts developed by the rabbis. A harsh judgment would be that taken as a whole, such adjurations are a manifestation of a collective and transhistorical case of the Obsessive-Compulsive Syndrome.<br />
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At all events, the idea that is currently fashionable among Christian evangelicals and other conservatives--namely, that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of our secular law--is untenable. It does not correspond to what we know of the history of the common law and statute law in this country. Moreover, the Ten Commandments could not be a source of law, because they are not laws at all, but a list of demands and prohibitions.<br />
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POSTSCRIPT. Here are some examples of law collections from the ancient Near East:<br />
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* ca. 2350 BCE - Reforms of Urukagina of Lagash - not extant, but known through other sources<br />
* ca. 2060 BCE - Code of Ur-Nammu (or Shulgi?) of Ur - Neo-Sumerian (Ur-III). Earliest legal florilegium of which fragments have been discovered<br />
* ca. 1934-1924 BCE - Code of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin - With a typical epilogue and prologue, the law deals with penalties, the rights of man, right of kings, marriages, and more.<br />
* ca. 1800 BCE - Laws of the city of Eshnunna (sometimes ascribed to king Bilalama)<br />
* ca. 1758 BCE - Code of Hammurabi<br />
* ca. 1500-1300 BCE - Assyrian law <br />
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WISDOM LITERATURE<br />
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I asked a well-informed friend to say, off the cuff, what the expression “wisdom literature” suggested to him. He responded that it would include things like Plato, Aristotle, Dante and so forth. In other words, the great books. In an era in which the classics are struggling for survival, this seems as good a definition as any. We read these perennial works because we hope to find wisdom in them. And if one persists, one is rarely disappointed.<br />
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Yet the actual nature of the genre of wisdom literature, as the term is employed by historians of literature and religion, is more modest. The works in this category tend to be relatively short and as a rule do not aspire to any great literary heights. Nor do they posit any highly developed philosophical system, though some have a distinct religious tincture. These writings are nonetheless significant as distillations of guiding principles and motifs that may be discerned in daily life. The category of wisdom literature is in fact very ancient, going back to the roots of our civilization in pharaonic Egypt and the ancient Middle East.<br />
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The concept of wisdom literature is something of a loose, baggy monster. Still, we may hazard some general principles. Standing over against the Euclidean ideal of systematic presentation that progresses from the simple to the complex, the arrangement tends to be casual, almost random. As in life itself, contradictions may occur now and then. The individual items are generally short and pithy. Some maxims comprise a distillation of experience, while others are precepts proffering advice. The aim is to help the individual to live better (or at least more honestly), and to avoid pitfalls along the way.<br />
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By far the most important repository of ancient wisdom literature stems from Egypt of the pharaohs. These texts, which seek to inform, teach or persuade, were called sebayt or "instruction." The genre includes maxims, such as Ptahhotep’s; complaints, such as the Eloquent Peasant; laments, such as Ipuwer; prophecies, such as that of Neferti; and testaments; such as that of King Amenemhet.<br />
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Texts of wisdom literature come from all periods of ancient Egypt; in fact, more compositions of this type have been recovered than any other form of Egyptian secular writing. The crucial period, however, was the Middle Kingdom (2055-1650), when intellectuals began to reflect on the disasters that had befallen the country during the preceding First Intermediate Period.<br />
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Some texts were popular as school texts; others were copied by scribes for their own pleasure. In this way earlier texts continued to be prosper as classics down through the centuries.<br />
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A major subcategory consists of maxims and advice for living. Sometimes the author (e.g. Ptahhotep) records his counsel to his son as to how lead a proper and successful life. The maxims proffer a range of advice, from correct behavior in social situations to proper conduct toward superior and subordinates. Their overarching purpose is the transmission of Ma’at, justice, including right and proper behavior, both for its own sake and as the key to a happy and successful life. The individual who follows this path is often described as "the still man" or "the silent man" – that is, the calm and effacing person – or the knowledgeable man, as opposed to the fool. The opposite of the "silent man" is the "heated man." The silent man is not so much taciturn as thoughtful, temperate, and judicious, one who insists upon taking a moment or more to reflect upon the situation before responding to the words and actions of the hothead who confronts him.<br />
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One of the most significant landmarks of the genre is the Instructions of Amenope, composed in the New Kingdom. The author advocates a life of devotion to moral conduct and public service, grounded in religious belief. One section admonishes, "Something else of value in the heart of god is to stop and think before speaking… The hot-headed man … may you be restrained before him. Leave him to himself, and god will know how to answer him." A key passage in the book of Proverbs (22:17- 24:22) is purloined from this Egyptian text, vividly demonstrating the general indebtedness of the Hebrew bible’s wisdom literature from this ancient Egyptian genre.<br />
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In the Hebrew Bible,several books rank, as a whole or in part, as wisdom literature: Job, Proverbs, Qohelet (Ecclesiastes), Psalms, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, and Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus). The latter two are deuterocanonical and generally omitted from Jewish and Protestant Bibles.<br />
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In both tone and content, these texts are markedly different from the Yahweh-saturated portions of the Hebrew Bible. Instead, they acknowledge the plethora and instability of human emotions as we experience them in daily life. Avoiding any facile discouragement of the interplay of such emotions, wisdom texts highlight these human responses to life. The task of reconciling them with divine providence is not always easy, as the book of Job famously demonstrates. While the wisdom writers treat the miracles of the ancient times as historical facts, they say nothing about a miraculous element in the lives of their own time. In fact the authors of these texts regard God as standing outside the world of physical nature and man, so that he is to a significant degree hidden and inscrutable. This sense of distance has given rise to a modern notion that these texts are religiously skeptical. They are not, but they are questioning.<br />
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For a fuller analysis, I turn now to one of the shorter books of this genre, Qohelet or Ecclesiastes. The main speaker in the book, identified by the name or title Qohelet (“the one who assembles”), introduces himself as "son of David, and king in Jerusalem." The work includes some personal or autobiographic matter, at times expressed in aphorisms and maxims set forth in terse paragraphs with reflections on the meaning of life and the best way of life. While Qohelet clearly endorses wisdom as a means for achieving a well-lived earthly life, he is unable to ascribe a transcendental significance to it. In the light of the overarching senselessness, he suggests that one should enjoy the simple pleasures of daily life, such as eating, drinking, and taking enjoyment in one's work, which are gifts from the hand of God.<br />
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Modern scholars have established that the work has no possible connection with King Solomon. Since it contains Persian loan words, it must date from after the return from the Babylonian captivity, that is after 539 BCE. The language of Qohelet is a late form of biblical Hebrew, coming close to postbiblical Mishnaic Hebrew. Accordingly, most critical scholars today assign the book’s composition to between 300 and 200 BCE--to the Hellenistic Period.<br />
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The book has always sat somewhat uneasily in the canon of the Hebrew bible, though it is generally accepted by Jews--and by Christians following them. During the first century CE its standing was challenged. Arguments against the inclusion of Qohelet were alleged opposition to statements in Psalms, internal incoherence, and heresy (supposed Epicureanism). However, those who favored its candidacy eventually prevailed.<br />
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Illustrating the commonplace that “the bible is full of quotations,” Qohelet includes a number of set pieces that have sunk deep roots in our culture. At 1:2, for example, we find: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" (KJV).<br />
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In accord with the general purposes of wisdom literature, Qohelet's stated goal is to find out how to ensure one's benefits in life. For Qohelet, the inevitability of death necessarily overshadows any such quest. Pessimistically, Qohelet concludes that life (and indeed everything) is senseless. But we must not despair, for Qoheleth advises his audience to make the most of life, to seize the day, for there is no reliable means of securing favorable outcomes in the future.<br />
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The word conventionally rendered as vanity may be more accurately translated as “senseless.” In the Hebrew this word is hevel, הבל, which literally means vapor or breath. Clearly, Qohelet uses the expression metaphorically, and its precise meaning has been extensively debated. As has been noted, older English translations often render it vanity. Because in modern usage this word has often come to mean "self-pride," losing its Latinate connotation of emptiness, some translators have abandoned the word. Other translations include empty, futile, meaningless, absurd, fleeting, evanescent, or senseless. Some versions prefer the literal rendering vapor of vapors, leaving further interpretation to the reader.<br />
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Another famous set piece is the passage that “everything has its time (ch. 3): “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die,” and so forth (NRSV).<br />
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Verse five contains the earliest known metaphor for sexual release that is characterized as “getting one’s rocks off.” There is, the texts informs us, “a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together.” The sexual interpretation of this verse has been denied, but in my view it is clearly present.<br />
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Reading the bible offers all sorts of unexpected satisfactions.<br />
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“HEBREW THOUGHT’<br />
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We have seen abundant evidence that what has come to be known as the Hebrew bible is a very heterogeneous collection of documents. While scholars disagree about the dates to be assigned to the individual books and parts of books, it is clear that they must have originated over a period of several centuries, reflecting changing political and social circumstances. In addition, some texts bear the stamp of intensely local concerns, while others are meant to have a broader import.<br />
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Moreover, the ensemble known as the Hebrew bible shows a remarkable range of genres, including mythopeia, epic, legendary history, law codes, diatribes, and poetry (including erotic poetry). See Otto Eissfeldt, <i>The Old Testament: An Introduction</i> (New York, 1966) for an comprehensive account.<br />
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There are also many differences in theological perspective. One attempt to show this diversity has been made recently by Jack Miles in his tour de force entitled <i>God: A Biography</i> (New York, 1996). This writer holds that the sequence of the books as found in the Hebrew canon or Tanakh was designed to show an evolution of the idea of the godhead. However this may be, his account is one useful way of looking at the complexity of the texts. The overall pattern, Miles believes, is one of a gradual waning of God's direct involvement in the world. Yet there is no waning at the outset, where the deity appears as brutal, direct, and inescapable--a hoodlum, in short. [Hoodlum? Yet how else can one describe a capo who tried to kill his most faithful follower, Moses, as he slept? (Exodus 4:24)] After this not-so-heroic phase, though, God gradually matures and “grows up,” but he also becomes more aloof.<br />
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Beginning with the early anthropomorphic accounts of God walking through the garden in the cool of the evening, we read many stories of God having intimate, personal dialogue with the great figures of Israelite history. Genesis portrays God in his most basic roles: Creator, Destroyer (via the Flood,) and "Friend of the Family" (the personal god of Abraham and his biological descendants).<br />
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Miles then expands on God's role as Liberator, Lawgiver, and Liege Lord as told in the remainder of the Pentateuch. Then with the story of the conquest and settlement of Canaan, one glimpses God's manifestations as Conqueror, Father (to David and his line) and Arbiter. The book of Isaiah presents two opposing faces of God: Executioner, and forgiving, restoring Holy One.<br />
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Miles regards Job as the climactic book of the Tanakh. After Job, God becomes less imposing and more ordinary, even to the point of seeming absent (the Deus Absconditus of later theology), as we see in the sequence of Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and most strikingly, Esther, where the name of God never occurs. To be sure, the book of Daniel offers a final vision of a high, distant, and receding figure called the Ancient of Days.<br />
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As I have suggested, this is only one reading of the complexity that resides in the Hebrew bible as we know it. On the one hand, Miles’ view is somewhat conventional, for the texts are interpreted as literature, so to speak, without delving overly much into the findings of the historical-critical school. On the other hand, it is almost a polytheistic reading, since the roles God assumes are so diverse. Although he insists, perhaps too much, on monotheism, Miles does allow for some lingering of the actual heritage of Canaanite polytheism in the world of ancient Israel. The persistence of this heritage would account for some of the major differences in God’s personae.<br />
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Miles’ bravura account ranks as a signal instance of a number of such readings. Other, more sober observers, have come to similar conclusions. For example, the American theologian Rolf P. Knierim stresses that the Hebrew bible contains not one but several different theologies (Knierim, <i>The Task of Old Testament Theology</i>, Grand Rapids, MI, 1995). Some of these theologies complement each other, but others are contradictory, even within the same book.<br />
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In short, the books of Hebrew bible show diversity in date and origin, in genre, and in theological emphasis. Nonetheless, some observers have claimed to detect a common ethos, a mind-set or mentality, that suffuses the whole. The concept is akin to the modern notion of national character as a defining element in major cultural achievements. Thus, the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner wrote a book entitled <i>The Englishness of English Art</i> (London, 1951).<br />
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Is there then a Hebrewness in the Hebrew bible?<br />
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Some have maintained such a view. The years immediately following World War II saw the rise in theological circles of a current of discourse about “Hebrew thought.” The Scottish biblical scholar James Barr has ably summarized this notion, beginning with the standard comparison with Greek thought. “The Greek mind is abstract, contemplative, static or harmonic, impersonal; it is dominated by certain distinctions--matter and form, one and many, individual and collective, time and timelessnes, appearance and reality. The Hebrew mind is active, concrete, dynamic, intensely personal, formed upon wholeness and not upon distinctions. Thus it is able to rise above, or to escape, the great distinctions which lie across Greek thought. Greek thought is unhistorical, timeless,based on logic and system. Hebrew thought is historical, centred in time and movement, based in life.” (Barr, <i>Old and New in Interpretation</i>, London, 1966, p. 34).<br />
<br />
This contrast was popular in Christian theological seminaries, where it was assumed that the positive features of “Hebrew thought,” thus conceived, found their natural continuation in Christianity. Yet as Barr (a critic of the view) tartly observes, “the function of the contrast has not been the description of the ancient world but an analysis of different elements within modern culture.”<br />
<br />
The locus classicus of the notion is a book by a Norwegian theologian, Thorleif Boman,<i> Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek</i> (English trans., London, 1960). Boman advances arguments based on linguistic features of Hebrew, including verbs and the system of tenses. A strand in European thought that goes back at least as far as Friedrich Max Müller in the middle of the nineteenth century holds there is a petrified philosophy within language. The corollary of this view is that each people or nation has its own unique social psyche, and this will be reflected in the language they employ. This approach is sometimes termed linguistic idealism. For his part, Boman claims to deduce the social psyche from the linguistic evidence; yet it seems clear that he started with a set of generalizations, and then attempted to support them with linguistic evidence.<br />
<br />
At all events, as Barr has shown in his critique, it is impossible to demonstrate a word view simply from lexical and grammatical features alone (<i>Semantics of Biblical Language</i>, London, 1961). For example, French and Hungarian have very different linguistic structures; however, both peoples share essentially the same world view, which is Western European.<br />
<br />
By and large, approaches like Boman’s have found little favor in Jewish circles. Perhaps the reason is that adherence to Judaism is more a matter of orthopraxy than orthodoxy. That is to say, the defining element lies in the realm of behavior, practice, and observance rather than in creed. For this reason Jews have integrated well into American society: they do not possess a distinctive “Hebrew world view” and so are free to subscribe to the American world view.<br />
<br />
However, there are exceptions to this seeming indifference to the concept of Hebrew thought. Professor Menachem Alexenberg, who has served as a professor of art and education at several major universities, has indicated his adhesion to the idea. In earlier years, the Italian Jewish art historian Bruno Zevi has applied the concepts to modern architecture, seeing, somewhat curiously, Frank Lloyd Wright as an exemplar of the Hebrew mode. More recently, a talented amateur, Jeff A. Benner, who seems to be Jewish, has been conducting a charming and informative website under the auspices of his American Hebrew Research Center (www.ancient-hebrew.org). I have nothing but praise for Mr. Benner’s efforts to help readers learn Hebrew. However, I am not persuaded by his endorsement of Boman’s work.<br />
<br />
Other attempts to establish a distinctive world view within the Hebrew bible have to do with the nature of time. As Augustine famously suggested, the subject of time is alluring, but maddeningly elusive. At all events, there is supposed to be a fundamental contrast between cyclical and linear time. Some learned writers, such as Oscar Cullmann and John Marsh, affirm that Greek thought is cyclical. In this view of time its course leads back around to the end, when the cycle starts all over again. The opposite of cyclical time is linear time. It would seem to follow that Hebrew thought is linear. However, more detailed studies have shown that much Greek thought is not cyclical and not all Hebrew thought is linear. The contrast, if it exists at all, is blurred.<br />
<br />
That being said, I believe that Cullmann has made an important contribution to the Christian (not Jewish) concept of time by highlighting the achievement of Dionysius Exiguus, a sixth-century Scythian monk who first established the conventional distinction between BC and AD. Chiristian thinking about time thus establishes an axial point with negative numbers used to calculate the BC years before the Incarnation. This seems to be the first calendrical system of this kind, and it is one that has enjoyed a phenomenal success throughout the world. In no way are its Christian origins effaced by the current fashion for replacing BC and AD with BCE and CE.<br />
<br />
I turn now to a very different theme. “Corporate personality” is a term employed in the English common law. It refers to the fact that a group or body can be regarded as legally as an individual, possessing the rights and duties of such status.<br />
<br />
In 1911 the English theologian H. Wheeler Robinson introduced the term corporate personality into biblical interpretation. In the Hebrew bible the concept was applied to where the relationships between individuals and the groups that they were part of were treated. For example, in some interpretations of the text Achan's family was collectively punished for a sin that is viewed as primarily Achan's alone. The penalty of Ham’s sin with his father Noah was passed down to his descendants.<br />
<br />
The notion of Old Testament corporate personality encompasses four features: 1) Identification. Individuals are never considered in isolation from the groups they belong to, and are commonly treated as representatives for, or even as wholly identified with, those groups; 2) Extension. The boundaries of the individual are extended to encompass other persons who belong to that individual. This extension can be both in space, as from a king to a kingdom, and in time, as from a parent to his descendants. Examples of extension include Achan (who has just been noted), Korah (Izhar's son), and David, where a leader is dealt with by punishing or rewarding those whom he leads. 3) Realism. The relationship between the group and the individual is a real one. 4) Oscillation. There exists an oscillation back and forth between the group and the individual.<br />
<br />
Not surprisingly, in view of its Christian origins, the concept of corporate personality has been applied to the New Testament as well. However, in Pauline theology, the notion of corporate personality is largely restricted to its representational aspect. Paul's comparison between Jesus Christ and Adam is viewed, by those theologians that adhere to the concept, as an identification of Christ as the king and those people in the kingdom that he leads. Similarly, in his Epistle to the Galatians, Paul speaks of Gentiles being blessed both "in" Abraham and also "with" him. In the latter case, though, there are some difficulties in rendering the Greek. In thee" is the is the King James translation of the Greek. More recent versions use the English translation "through you" for "ἐν σοι," on the basis that Paul is directly quoting the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3, whose original Hebrew preposition "be" (which was translated to "ἐν" in the Septuagint) is more accurately rendered in the instrumental sense of "by means of." Hence "through" rather than "in.”<br />
<br />
It may be questioned whether in its origins the idea of corporate personality is unique to the ancient Israelites, who presumably passed it on to their Christian successors. Many observers have concluded that in a number of East Asian societies the collective is more important than the individual. Certainly this idea was prominent in the former Soviet Union, whose leaders violently rejected the heritage of Judaism and Christianity. In fact the notion has since fallen out of favor with theologians.<br />
<br />
In summary, it appears that attempts to detect a unitary world view informing the Hebrew Bible have failed. We are left with a sense of its irreducible pluralism.<br />
<br />
<br />
REFERENCES<br />
<br />
Alt, Albrecht. “Die Ursprünge des israelitischen Rechts” (1934); available in English translation in his book Essays on Old Testament History and Religion. New York: Doubleday, 1968, pp. 101-71.<br />
<br />
Anderson, Irvine. Biblical Interpretation and Middle East Policy: The Promised Land, America, and Israel, 1917-2002. Tallahassee: University Press of Florida, 2005.<br />
<br />
Assmann, Jan. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.<br />
<br />
---. The Price of Monotheism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.<br />
<br />
Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953. <br />
<br />
Avalos, Hector. Fighting Words: The Origins Of Religious Violence. Buffalo: Prometheus, 2005.<br />
<br />
Bailey, D. S. Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition. London: Longmans, 1955.<br />
<br />
Barr, James. The Semantics of Biblical Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 1961.<br />
<br />
---. Biblical Words for Time. London: SCM Press,1962.<br />
<br />
Becking, Bob, Marjo C. A. Korpel, Karel J. Meindert Dijkstra, and H. Vriezen, eds. One God?: Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Biran, Avraham."'David' Found at Dan," Biblical Archaeology Review, 20:2 (1994): 26-39.<br />
<br />
Boman, Thorleif. Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek. New York: Norton, 1970.<br />
<br />
Brenner, Athalya, ed. A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies. London: Routledge, 2001.<br />
<br />
Budin, Stephanie Lynn. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.<br />
<br />
Cohen, H. Hirsch. The Drunkenness of Noah. University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1974.<br />
<br />
Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973.<br />
<br />
Dever, William G. Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2005.<br />
<br />
---. What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2001.<br />
<br />
---. Who Were the Israelites and Where Did They Come From? Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2003.<br />
<br />
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge, 1963.<br />
<br />
Drinkwater, Gregg, Joshua Lessser, and David Shneer, eds. Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. New York: New York University Press, 2009.<br />
<br />
Dynes, Wayne R., ed. Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. 2 vols. New York: Garland: 1990. <br />
<br />
Eissfeldt, Otto. The Old Testament: An Introduction. New York: Harper and Row, 1967.<br />
<br />
Fernández Marcos, Natalio. The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible. Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2001.<br />
<br />
Finkelstein, Israel, and Silberman, Neil A. The Bible Unearthed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001.<br />
<br />
Fox, Michael V. The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.<br />
<br />
Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. Vol. 1. New ed. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968.<br />
<br />
Girard, René, Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.<br />
<br />
Goldenberg, David M. The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.<br />
<br />
Goodman, James. Where is the Lamb? New York: Schocken, 2013. <br />
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
James
Goodman's "But Where Is the Lamb? Imagining the Story of Abraham and
Isaac" - See more at: http://hnn.us/article/153228#sthash.QI51N8OP.dpuf</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
James
Goodman's "But Where Is the Lamb? Imagining the Story of Abraham and
Isaac" - See more at: http://hnn.us/article/153228#sthash.QI51N8OP.dpuf</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
James
Goodman's "But Where Is the Lamb? Imagining the Story of Abraham and
Isaac" - See more at: http://hnn.us/article/153228#sthash.QI51N8OP.dpuf</div>
<br />
Grant, Robert M., and David Tracy. A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1988.<br />
<br />
Greenberg, Steven. Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Guest, Daryn, Robert E. Goss, Mona West, and Thomas Bohache, eds. The Queer Bible Commentary. London: SCM, 2006.<br />
<br />
Hendel, Ronald. The Book of Genesis: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. <br />
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<br />
Hoffmann, R. Joseph. The Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006.<br />
<br />
Horner, Tom. Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978..<br />
<br />
Keel, Othmar, and Christoph Uelinger. Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.<br />
<br />
Kirsch, Jonathan. God against the Gods: The History of the War between Monotheism and Polytheism. New York: Viking, 2004.<br />
<br />
Küng, Hans. Judaism: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow. New York: Crossroad, 1992.<br />
<br />
Lemche, Niels P. The Israelites in History and Tradition. London: SPCK; and Louisville, Ky. : Westminster John Knox Press, 1988.<br />
<br />
Lloyd, Seton. Foundations in the Dust: The Story of Mesopotamian Exploration. Second ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980.<br />
<br />
Martin, Dale B. Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville: Westmister John Knox, 2006.<br />
<br />
McDonald, Lee Martin, and James A. Sanders. The Canon Debate. Gaithersburg, MD: Hendrickson Publishing, 2002.<br />
<br />
Miles, Jack. God: A Biography. New York: Vintage, 1996. <br />
<br />
Newsom, Carol A., and Sharon H. Ringe, eds. The Women's Bible Commentary. Second ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998.<br />
<br />
Nicolson, Ernest. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.<br />
<br />
Nissinen, Martti. Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1998.<br />
<br />
Oden Robert A.<i> </i>The Bible without Theology Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999 <br />
<br />
Paper, Jordan. The Deities Are Many: A Polytheistic Theology (S U N Y Series in Religious Studies). Binghamton: State University of New York Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Pardee, Dennis. Ritual and Cult at Ugarit. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002.<br />
<br />
Patai, Raphael. Family, Love and the Bible. London: McGibbon and Kee, 1960.<br />
<br />
---. The Hebrew Goddess. New York: KTAV, 1967.<br />
<br />
Penchansky, David. Twilight of the Gods: Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005.<br />
<br />
Pritchard, James D., ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament [ANET], Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, third ed., 1969.<br />
<br />
Redford, Donald B. "The Monotheism of the Heretic Pharaoh: Precursor of Mosaic Monotheism or Egyptian Anomaly?" Biblical Archaeology Review, May-June, 1987.<br />
<br />
---. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1992. <br />
<br />
Roth, Martha T. Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor by Martha T. Roth ; with a contribution by Harry A. Hoffner, Jr. Second ed. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997.<br />
<br />
Russell, D. S. The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic. London: SCM, 1964.<br />
<br />
Schwartz, Regina. The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.<br />
<br />
Silbermann, Neil Asher, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York: Free Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Smith, Mark S. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.<br />
<br />
---. The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. New ed. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2002.<br />
<br />
Sperling, S. David, The Original Torah: Political Intent of the Bible's Writers, New York: NYU Press, 2003.<br />
<br />
Spiegel, Shalom. The Last Trial. New York: Schocken, 1967. <br />
<br />
Stavrakopoulou, Francesca, Land of Our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies). Edinburgh: T and T. Clark, 2010.<br />
<br />
Thompson, Thomas L. The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past. London. 1999.<br />
<br />
---. The Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Sources. Leiden and New York: Brill, 1992.<br />
<br />
---. The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel. New York: Basic Books, 1999.<br />
<br />
Van Seters, John. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.<br />
<br />
Wright, Robert. The Evolution of God. New York: Little, Brown, 2009.<br />
<br />
Zevit, Ziony, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallel Approaches. London and New York: Continuum, 2001.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-51305457726446887032011-12-05T06:17:00.000-08:002014-05-15T06:47:03.624-07:00Abrahamica: Chapter Four<b>LATER JUDAISM </b><br />
<br />
<br />
According to the traditional view, the canon of the Hebrew Bible comprises works written before ca. 400 BCE. An exception is the book of Daniel, which internal evidence indicates was written between 167 and 164 BCE. Moreover, recent scholarship suggests that the corpus underwent significant reshaping during the Hellenistic period, perhaps as late as the second century BCE.<br />
<br />
In the broader world of the ancient Mediterranean, the fourth century was pivotal, because of the conquests of Alexander the Great, who died in 323 BCE. Many significant changes ensued, including the inception of Hellenistic Judaism, evidently an age of transition for followers of Yahweh. That development points backwards and forwards. Here we are mostly concerned with the forwards, that is to say, the history of later Judaism from its origins to the present.<br />
<br />
HELLENISTIC JUDAISM<br />
<br />
The first stage of the complex sequence of developments that define the later stages of Judaism is what is termed Hellenistic Judaism (HJ), roughly 323 BCE-79 CE. Here one must distinguish two different phenomena; 1) HJ as a chronological designation; 2) a period of cultural transformation that witnessed the penetration of powerful Greek elements, especially in the diaspora communities. Still, Greek influence did not account for all the changes in mentality and practice during this era, for indigenous features and imported Persian elements remained strong.<br />
<br />
The age did indeed witness a movement that sought to establish a Hebraic-Jewish religious tradition that was capable of flourishing within the culture of Hellenism. The great monument of this effort is the Septuagint, the Greek rendering of the whole text of the Hebrew Bible.<br />
<br />
The conquests of Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BCE and the ensuing foundation of the Hellenistic kingdoms imposed Greek culture and colonization in non-Greek lands, including the Levant and Egypt. The most striking aspect of this process was the great city of Alexandria in Egypt. The city has not always enjoyed a positive reputation, as seen in the expression "Alexandrianism," a term that posits, rightly or wrongly, the perceived belatedness and derivative character of Hellenistic cosmopolitanism.<br />
<br />
During this period, new cities arose, composed of colonists stemming from different parts of the Greek world, and not from a specific "mother city.” Typically these cities were laid out in the Hippodamean gridiron plan, contrasting with the more random street pattern of older cities and towns. A fascinating example is the town of Dura Europos (which thrived until 256 CE in Syria), whose synagogue has yielded a remarkable series of murals.<br />
<br />
While Hellenistic culture sought to preserve and transmit the positive features of the Greek classical achievement, some admixture of local styles and preferences was inevitable. The hybrid Hellenistic culture had a profound impact on the customs and practices of Jews, both in Palestine and in the Diaspora.<br />
<br />
The new situation required a series of adjustments. Emblematic are the writings of an Alexandrian Jewish sage, Philo Judaeus. In the eyes of many Hellenized Jews, Philo was a major cultural ambassador. He presented Judaism as a tradition of venerable antiquity that, far from being merely a barbarian cult cherished by an outlandish nomadic tribe, enjoyed the signal distinction of anticipating important elements of Greek philosophy. Customs of Judaism that struck urban Hellenistic society as barbaric or exotic, such as circumcision and the dietary laws, Philo could treat as metaphor, writing of a "circumcision of the heart" in the pursuit of virtue.<br />
<br />
Over time, however, there was a general deterioration in relations between Hellenistic Jews and other their neighbors, leading the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes to prohibit certain Jewish religious rites and traditions. Observant Jews responded by revolting against their Greek overlords. The upshot was the formation of an independent Jewish kingdom, known as the Hasmonaean Dynasty, which lasted from 165 BCE to 63 BCE. The Hasmonean regime, compromised by expedient accommodations with Hellenic culture, eventually became wracked by a civil war. The local Jewish people, wary of being governed by a Hellenized dynasty, appealed to distant Rome for intervention, leading to the Roman conquest of Palestine and de-facto annexation of the country.<br />
<br />
Not all Jewish intellectual productions of the era were concerned with the encounter between Judaism and Hellenism. Many texts addressed distinctive Jewish concerns, though Greek admixtures were not lacking. These writings comprise the so-called apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, including the Assumption of Moses, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Book of Baruch, and the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch. In older scholarship, these abundant literary productions were sometimes termed the Intertestamental Literature. While it persists in some quarters, this label is inappropriate, because it suggests that the texts were merely a bridge to Christianity. Too often neglected, these writings deserve attention for their own sake.<br />
<br />
In addition to the Greek and Jewish (or indigenous) strands, Persian elements are evident. The Iranian connection was maintained by the so-called Babylonian Jewry, consisting of prosperous communities that had remained in Mesopotamia after the nominal end of the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century BCE. Among the themes ascribed to Persian (especially Zoroastrian) influence are angels and demons; the sharp contrast of good and evil (dualism); and eschatology, the preoccupation with the Last Things. Some scholars think that the prohibition of male homosexuality found in Leviticus 18 and 20 copies a similar Zoroastrian ban, documented in a book known as the Videvdat (or Vendidad). The origins of the doctrine of the resurrection of body, which seems to have emerged in the second century BCE, are obscure, though Persian origin has been claimed for this belief also.<br />
<br />
Much of this heritage, including dualism and the idea of bodily resurrection after death, passed to Christianity. Even today, Christianity remains in many respects the truest surviving representative of the amalgam of Jewish, Greek, and Persian elements that characterized this creative era.<br />
<br />
During the first century CE, Judaism was extremely diverse. Sources mention several Jewish sects, including the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes. Originating as a Jewish sect, Christianity belongs to this pluralistic mix.<br />
<br />
CATASTROPHE AND RECONSTRUCTION<br />
<br />
This complex, though relatively stable situation collapsed in the face of a series of hammer blows. In 70 CE the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. The nativist Bar Kokhba revolt failed in 135. Then, in the course of the fourth century, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, further marginalizing Judaism.<br />
<br />
A final blow occurred with the suppression of the office of the Jewish patriarch in 429. The background is as follows. The last of the line seems to have been the aristocratic Gamaliel VI, who took office about the year 400. On October 17, 415, an edict issued by the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius II deposed him as Jewish patriarch. because he had ostensibly disregarded an earlier imperial decree imposing a ban on the building of new synagogues. He had also transgressed by adjudicating disputes between Jews and Christians. Gamaliel probably died in 425. The Codex Theodosianus mentions an edict from the year 426, which diverted the patriarch's tax revenues into the imperial coffers after the death of the patriarch. Declining to appoint a successor, Theodosius abolished the Jewish patriarchate in 429. Not only was this suppression an offense to Jewish dignity, it ended an important source of the community’s revenue.<br />
<br />
The Jews did not despair, however, for these reverses generated countermeasures. One was the fixing of the canon of Hebrew scriptures, which is generally thought to have taken place at Jamnia not long after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. In this way Judaism was reoriented away from its geographical heart in Jerusalem towards the Torah, focusing on a set of scrolls which could be carried anywhere. Signaling a decisive break with Hellenistic Judaism, the Jewish authorities banned the Septuagint (which, however, continued to serve Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians). Representational art, which had flourished in the synagogues of Palestine and Syria, was gradually phased out.<br />
<br />
THE RISE OF RABBINICAL JUDAISM<br />
<br />
The most momentous element in these changes was the emergence of rabbinical Judaism, which may trace its origins to the sect of the Pharisees, at least in some measure. As such, however, rabbinical Judaism emerged in the Mishnah (about 200 CE), the Tosefta, and the two Talmuds (the Palestinian and Babylonian versions). The Talmuds constitute a vast body of commentary on and expansion of the Mishnah.<br />
<br />
In effect the Mishnah is a florilegium or anthology, collecting many opinions--including quotations, or apparent quotations--from earlier authorities dating back to the time of Jesus and even before. Approximately 120 Tannaim, or sages, are mentioned or quoted in the Mishnah. One of the most eminent figures was Hillel the Elder, a somewhat older contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth. A famous saying of Hillel appears in the Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), one of the tractates of the Mishnah. The saying goes as follows: "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?" This is a remarkable precept. Yet does it really go back to Hillel? If so, did he devise it or was he quoting someone else? Because these things are unknowable, it is impossible to reconstruct the historical development of the thought of the Tannaim. The views represented in the Mishnah are presented topically rather than historically. The subtext of the citations--the governing principles of their selection--is the redactors’ views, which must always elude precise determination.<br />
<br />
In the absence of other evidence--and there is virtually none--these apparent quotations and opinions cannot be taken at face value as a faithful portrayal of the overall mindset of mainstream Judaism in the early Roman period. We have no way of knowing what has been filtered out. Other things may have been projected back to an era earlier than the one in which they actually originated.<br />
<br />
Purportedly, the Mishnah is not the development of new laws, but simply the gathering of existing traditions. This last claim reflects the pious belief a seamless web joins the original Judaism of the faith of the Tanakh, on the one hand, and rabbinical Judaism, on the other. Yet even a cursory glance at the tractates included in the Mishnah shows that, by comparison with the Hebrew Bible, they are entirely different in tone, atmosphere, detail, and doctrine. Despite, or perhaps because of these differences, the Mishnah quickly attained the status of an indispensable book.<br />
<br />
Also to be reckoned with is the Tosefta, a secondary compilation dating from the period of the Mishnah or not long after. This subsidiary work closely conforms in structure to the Mishnah, with the same divisions for sedarim ("orders") and masekhot ("tractates"). It was written mainly written in Mishnaic Hebrew, with some Aramaic traits. At times the text of the Tosefta agrees nearly verbatim with the Mishnah, but not always. Sometimes the Tosefta differs from the Mishnah in the formulation of halakha (“Jewish law”). The Tosefta attributes precepts that are anonymous in the Mishnah to named Tannaim or sages. It also augments the Mishnah with additional glosses and discussions.<br />
<br />
Commentaries created over the next three centuries in the wake of these writings are generically termed the Gemara. In fact, Most of this material was marshaled into the two Talmuds.<br />
<br />
The Jerusalem Talmud, also known as the Palestinian Talmud, is a compilation of teachings of the schools of Tiberias, Sepphoris, and Caesarea. This Talmud reflects the expansion and analysis of the Mishnah that was developed over the course of nearly 200 years by the Jewish academies in Palestine. Traditionally, this Talmud was thought to have been redacted in about the year 350 CE by Rav Muna and Rav Yossi. Nonetheless, further additions and editorial work were performed, and the final date of closure cannot be fixed with certainty. Some think that it was virtually complete by 429 CE when the Christian emperor Theodosius II tried to put an end to formal Jewish scholarship. Nonetheless, additional work probably continued afterwards, perhaps until about 600 CE.<br />
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The Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli) was transmitted orally for several centuries prior to its compilation by Jewish scholars in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) in the fifth century CE. Since the Exile to Babylonia in 586 BCE, there had been Jewish communities living in Mesopotamia as well as in Judea, as some of the captives never returned home, even after they were free to do so. Incorporating the Mishnah, the Babylonian Talmud draws upon the Babylonian Gemara, the analysis that had flourished orally in the Babylonian Academies. Tradition ascribes the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud in its present form to two Mesopotamian sages, Rav Ashi and Ravina, Accordingly, traditionalists argue that Ravina’s death in 499 CE is the latest possible date for the completion of the redaction of the Talmud. Clearly, though, it incorporates some later material. For this reason, some modern scholars have concluded that it did not reach its final form until about 700.<br />
<br />
RESISTING THE HISTORICAL-CRITICAL APPROACH<br />
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Nowadays few serious scholars, Christian and secular alike, would think of approaching the Bible without reference to the findings of the critical-historical endeavor, the product of generations of careful scholarship and insight (see Chapter One). This approach is only now being extended to the Qur’an and the other foundational documents of Islam. In fact, the method has long been available to Jews--after all, the first model of the approach was the four-stream analysis of the Pentateuch--yet modern rabbinical Judaism has sought, by and large, to circumvent this challenge. In effect it has immunized itself--or so it would seem.<br />
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As Karl Popper emphasized, such immunization efforts may give satisfaction to adepts: that is why the ploy is attractive. In the end, though, scientific hypotheses must be formulated in such a way as to submit to the criterion of refutability. The Dual Torah doctrine, as discussed in these pages, seeks to short-circuit this necessary procedure. Yet it provides only the appealing, but ultimately unavailing consolation of pseudo-protection. This resistance borders on bad faith.<br />
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Ultimately, the origins of the historical-critical method lay with the protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century. These thinkers held that the canonical texts of the Old and New Testaments, and only those texts, should determine what a Christian must believe. This restriction is sometimes known as the sola scriptura principle. The focus on Scripture led, among other things, to the admonition that each Christian believer must read the Bible for him or herself, so that translations into the vernacular were required.<br />
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For our purposes, however, the most important consequence was the sweeping away of a mass of medieval accretions, enshrined in commentaries and the traditions maintained by the Roman Catholic church. In this way, the sola scriptura principle was able to function as an efficient Occam’s razor, serving to excise Purgatory, papal supremacy, indulgences, magical powers of relics, clerical celibacy, and a mass of other parasitic intruders.<br />
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For the Reformers and the immediately succeeding generations in Protestant Europe, the canon of Scripture remained inviolate. The roster of books included was fixed and their text was assumed to have been conclusively established by the labors of Desiderius Erasmus (ca. 1466-1536) and others.<br />
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In due course, however, the textual solvents devised by classical philologists began to impinge upon Bible interpretation. As a result of this work, rents in the fabric became apparent. A major first step was the discovery by the French scholar Jean Astruc that there were two distinct strands in the book of Genesis, marked by the preference for either Yahweh (as the name came later to be transcribed) or Elohim.<br />
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It was in nineteenth-century Germany, however, that the decisive steps were taken to the dismantling of what might be termed the myth of Biblical integrity. Building on the work of several predecessors, Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) distinguished four distinct strands, conventionally known as J, E. D, and P in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Pentateuch. This finding, and the underlying principle, came to be known as the Documentary Hypothesis. Today the term hypothesis is in fact obsolete. Outside of the world of Judaism--and some Christian conservatives--most serious Bible scholars acknowledge that, as far as such matters can ever be conclusively demonstrated, this dissolution of the purported unity of the Pentateuch is a certainty. Jewish scholars and sages resisted. As S. David Sperling remarks, “[p]articularly odious to the faithful was the Documentary Hypothesis.” (Sperling, 2003). In the twentieth century, Biblical scholars such as Umberto Cassuto and Moses Segal rejected it completely. They have simply been in denial. A few, like the noted Israeli scholar Yehezkel Kaufmann, made some concessions, but basically as feints serving them to continue the resistance.<br />
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Mainstream Protestant scholars have their own faults that derive from doctrinal allegiances, notably the erroneous notion that the Hebrew Bible exists to prepare the way for the New Testament. Still, these Christian interpreters will generally admit, however grudgingly, that the Documentary Hypothesis is correct. By contrast, very few Jewish scholars have embraced the finding. This obstinacy does not reflect favorably on their general reliability.<br />
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In fact, the method exemplified by the Documentary Hypothesis proved a fertile one. In the 1940s the German scholar Martin Noth proposed that a follower of the creator of D, whom he termed the Deuteromistic Historian, had been responsible for the historical narrative that starts with Joshua and ends with the conclusion of the Second Book of Kings. Today this view is generally accepted.<br />
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A consensus now holds that the Book of Isaiah consists of three separate parts, melded together in a kind of shotgun wedding. The three distinct parts are chs. 1-35; chs. 36-39 (purloined from other parts of the Tanakh); and chs. 40-66 (“Trito-Isaiah”). This triad is another product of the historical-critical approach.<br />
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These, and other discoveries, demonstrated that Scripture was not what it seemed. Traditional claims of authorship, such as the ascription of the Pentateuch to Moses, were false. Moreover, the presumed unity of the texts dissolved into distinct strata representing concerns active at the time of composition or editing. German scholars sought to clarify these contexts by determining the “Sitz im Leben,” the life situation that governed the creation of the different strands of Scripture.<br />
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Other solvents stemmed from the increasing amount of comparative material that was recovered from the Middle East, beginning with the major decipherments of the nineteenth century. The motif of the Flood clearly migrated from Mesopotamia, where it is found much earlier. The Code of Hammurabi and other Near Eastern legal collections clearly influenced the legal sections embedded in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. Yet other texts seem to have Egyptian origins.<br />
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All of these issues have contributed to a more nuanced understanding of Scripture. Scholars in conservative Christian seminaries disagree with their liberal colleagues about these conclusions. Clinging to their doctrine of inerrancy, evangelicals oppose source-analysis of Scripture. And even some mainstream Protestant exegetes (who generally have the best record in biting this particular bullet), still seek to backtrack by alleging some core unity of the Bible.<br />
<br />
THE ORAL TORAH <br />
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If anything, the resistance of modern Judaism has been more determined. By and large the new approach has been rejected or disregarded.<br />
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Modern Judaism has availed itself of a special resource in fighting the implications of the historical critical-method, as embodied in the Documentary Hypothesis and the discoveries of modern archaeology. This approach stems from the concept of the Oral Torah.<br />
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What is the Oral Torah? First, it is not simply a “synonym for the Mishnah and the Talmud” (as the glossary in the Jewish Study Bible suggests), though to be sure those texts are major vectors of it. Nor is it the “authoritative interpretation of [Written] Torah” (idem). This last is a concept derived from Christian hermeneutics.<br />
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Perhaps the best short definition derives from David Stern (in the Jewish Study Bible). “[T]he Rabbis believed that the Bible--or what they called the Written Torah--was only one of two revelations God had given to the children of Israel on Mt. Sinai. Alongside the Written Torah, they believed, God had also revealed to the Israelites an Oral Torah, which as its name indicates, was delivered and transmitted orally. Precisely how to define the Oral Torah is one of the great debates among Jewish scholars. For our present purposes we may say that it comprises everything that the Rabbis believed was ‘Judaism’ that is not explicitly written in the Torah; admittedly, this is a vast and heterogeneous body of material that encompasses everything from the many laws not spelled out in the Bible to the Rabbis’ own beliefs and theology as well as all their folk wisdom and lore.” As the last point reveals, this is an ocean without bounds. Almost anything said by a rabbi, at any time or place, could in principle be part of the Oral Torah.<br />
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Of course, some would take a more restrictive view, holding that the Oral Torah was essentially complete by ca. 600-700 CE, when the canon of the two Talmuds was closed. Yet no one is compelled to adopt this minimalist view. And it remains the case that, in the Jewish view, the Mishnah and the Talmuds, despite their lofty status as examples of wisdom and scholarship, are in the end merely vectors of the Oral Torah. They are, as it were, lodging places for a phenomenon of much greater extent. According to the traditional view, it starts with Moses, Indeed, as delivered to him, it was complete then. Yet full disclosure of its manifold contents may not have achieved even now. There is nothing to prevent an opinion expressed in 2008 by a rabbi in Grand Rapids or Toulouse, let us say, from ranking as an authentic manifestation of some component of the Oral Torah.<br />
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In principle, the Oral Torah and the Written Torah cannot be in conflict. What happens, though, if they appear to disagree with one another? Then supposedly the Written Torah would be supreme. This is the way things should be, but (as James L. Kugel concedes; Kugel, 2007) in reality the Oral Torah usually wins out. Accordingly, the reverence accorded the Torah scrolls in Jewish worship is something of a scam. The Scriptures are constantly subject to discipline and correction (to put the matter plainly) through the agency of the unseen presence of the Oral Torah.<br />
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In his book <i>How to Read the Bible </i>(2007; pp. 680-81), Kugel puts the matter this way. “Judaism has at its heart a great secret. It endlessly lavishes praise on the written Torah, exalting its role as a divinely given guidebook, and probing lovingly the tiniest details of its wording and even spelling. Every sabbath the Torah is, quite literally, held up above the heads of the worshippers in synagogue, kissed and bowed to and touched in gestures of absolute submission. . . . Yet on inspection Judaism turns out to be quite the opposite of fundamentalism. The written text alone is not all-powerful; in fact, it rarely stands on its own. Its true significance usually lies not in the plain sense of the words but in what the Oral Torah has made of those words; this is its definite and final interpretation.”<br />
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An egregious, foundational example is the notion that the Ten Commandments, as vouchsafed to Moses in tablet form, were a mere table of contents. Each one designates a kind of file cabinet. These ten big items accommodate the 613 mitzvot or obligations, grouped according to theme in relation to the appropriate Commandment. The 613 (or 611 according to some accounts), obviously compiled much later, were, according to this fable, delivered to Moses in toto during the Mt. Sinai experience. Thus a whole mass of diverse material, much of it of dubious relevance, was shoehorned into the earlier texts. In this fashion--and countless others could be cited--the Oral Torah has in effect seized the Written Torah in a parasitical, controlling invasion.<br />
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There are then two myths of the Oral Torah. The first, an obvious fabrication, is the idea that in its entirety it was given to Moses on Mount Sinai. The second myth is the idea that the Oral Torah--a potentially infinite body of opinion, legend, and interpretation--is coequal with the Written Torah. As we have noted, though, to all intents and purposes the Oral Torah supersedes its sibling.<br />
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As far as the written record shows, the elements of this second, or Oral Torah emerge only with the Mishnah, around 200 CE. To be sure, the Mishnah contains citations from rabbis who lived in earlier generations, some in late Hellenistic and early Roman times. But the principles of selection are those devised by the sages who compiled the Mishnah some eighteen hundred years ago. In turn, the Mishnah served as the basis for the elaborations of the two Talmuds. As this process shows, Judaism, as we now know it, is younger than Christianity.<br />
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One of the reasons for the elaboration of the Oral Torah is that it resolves “apparent” contradictions residing in the received text of the Tanakh. Moreover, the Oral Torah, despite its supposed Mosaic origin, was of great help in dealing with the disappearance of Temple-centered Judaism after 70 CE, and its replacement by a new set of interpretations intended to cope with the changed circumstances of living in exile, among peoples who were often hostile, or at best uncomprehending.<br />
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The way in which the Oral Torah works recalls the function of the Tradition cherished by the Roman Catholic church. There Scripture is supplemented and, to all intents and purposes, overridden when necessary, by this body of doctrine, whose stability is assured by the Roman pontiff, sometimes assisted by the Councils. Judaism, however, has not and never has had an equivalent of the pope. Today, to cite one example, Benedict XVI is considering discarding the doctrine of Limbo. Perhaps, with his approval or that of one of his successors, this excision will be performed. In Judaism, however, there is no controlling body to establish criteria that would allow for such doctrinal purging. As a result there are no limits to the expansion of the Oral Torah, which grows vaster than empires. The whole body of opinions and commentaries stemming from rabbis of any period is susceptible to admission into the precincts of the Oral Torah.<br />
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There is another interesting similarity, and difference with Roman Catholicism. That Christian denomination religion boasts several large bodies of commentary. Perhaps the most important are the Patristic writers (including such figures as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Augustine and Jerome) and the Scholastics (with Thomas Aquinas at their head). Superficially, these bodies of commentary are similar to the Oral Torah--but only superficially. In the end the writings of an Augustine and an Aquinas are ancillary. They do not pretend to have a hotline to what God told Moses on Mount Sinai. In Jewish terms the writings of Clement, Augustine and the rest would take their place as midrash, a homoletic procedure that interprets biblical stories expansively, going beyond any simple distillation of religious, legal or moral teachings. It seeks to fills in perceived gaps in the biblical narrative. For its part, the Oral Torah claims a much more exalted status.<br />
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The distortions that were the inevitable result of the capture of the Written Torah by the Oral Torah extend to Hebrew philology. Few rabbis acknowledge the point that the Hebrew language, like all languages, evolved, with meanings changing according to circumstances. The rabbis also anachronistically project back later meanings of words onto earlier contexts where they are not appropriate--again in obedience to the controlling material in the Oral Torah. In fact most advances in the critical study of Hebrew philology have been made by German and English Protestants, who have produced authoritative versions of the texts. For all these reasons, the conventional wisdom that recommends “consulting a rabbi” for the understanding of Hebrew texts is unsound. Of course, the rabbis can read Hebrew, but in doing so they habitually incorporate anachronisms derived from later beliefs and practices. These anachronisms make them unreliable guides in the matter of philology.<br />
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We return now to the historical-critical method. Here the Oral Torah provides, or seems to provide, and impregnable bulwark. We can be assured, so the argument goes, that the solvents of the historical-critical method do not apply, because the Oral Torah, not within the purview of this method, overrides them.<br />
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As noted above, some Jewish scholars have indeed sought to grapple with the challenge provided by the historical-critical method. James L. Kugel, a lucid scholar who taught at Harvard University and who happens to be an orthodox Jew, does so--with disturbing results: “modern biblical scholarship and traditional Judaism are and must always remain completely irreconcilable.” (Kugel, 2007).<br />
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Kugel, though, turns out to be a mugwump. He seeks to negotiate the matter by a kind of “dual-magisterium” approach. There is one set of truths, those elicited by the application of the historical-critical method, and another produced by Jewish tradition, beginning (in his view) in the three centuries immediately preceding the beginning of the Christian era.<br />
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This schizophrenia also flourishes among conservative Christian scholars. Nonetheless, it simply will not do. In the end, knowledge must be unitary.<br />
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Notwithstanding the diversity of Judaism in many areas, the concept of the Dual Torah has never, it would seem, been explicitly renounced by any significant branch of modern Judaism. That is the “great secret” noted above. There are of course modernist versions of Judaism that reduce the role of the supernatural and other things that are now difficult to accept. Yet these trends, too, depend on the body of commentary that constitutes the Oral Torah.<br />
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Rarely discussed outside of Jewish circles, the Oral Torah is truly the elephant in the room. Today we hear much about how Islam needs a Reformation. That may be. Judaism also needs a Reformation in which the historic role of the Oral Torah would be placed under close scrutiny. Unfortunately, neither of these salutary Reformations is likely to happen in the foreseeable future.<br />
<br />
RABBINICAL EXEGESIS: PURLOINING FROM CHRISTIANITY<br />
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This section addresses one of the ways in which medieval and modern Judaism have silently purloined from Christianity. In this instance, the borrowing has to do with hermeneutics, the principles that govern interpreting the sacred texts.<br />
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In today’s Jewish exegesis, the Pardes typology describes four different approaches to Biblical interpretation. The term, sometimes also rendered PaRDeS, is an acronym formed from the name initials of these four approaches, which are: Peshat (פְּשָׁט) — "plain" ("simple"), or the straightforward meaning of a verse or passage; Remez (רֶמֶז) — "hints," or the deep meaning beyond the literal sense; Derash (דְּרַשׁ) — from Hebrew darash - "to inquire" or "to seek,” the comparative meaning; unraveling the midrashic meaning by comparing words and forms in a passage to similar occurrences elsewhere; Sod (סוֹד) — "secret" ("mystery") meaning of passage, as given through inspiration or revelation.<br />
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Levels two, three, and four of the Pardes method examine the extended meaning of a text. As a general rule, the extended meaning never contradicts the base or literal meaning. In summary, Peshat means the literal interpretation. Remez is the allegorical meaning. Derash includes the metaphorical meaning, while Sod represents the hidden meaning. There is often considerable overlap, for example when legal understandings of a verse are influenced by mystical interpretations, or when a "hint" is elicited by comparing a word with other instances of the same word.<br />
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Coinciding with the acronym, the Hebrew noun "Pardes" is cognate with our word “paradise.” Both terms derive from the Old Persian language.<br />
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Similarities with the earlier Christian fourfold system are too numerous to be a coincidence. In fact the Christian Middle Ages recognized four types of allegorical interpretation, a method which had originated with the Bible commentators of the early Christian era. As in the later Jewish system, the first level is simply the literal interpretation of the events of the story for historical purposes with no underlying meaning. The second level, the typological links the events of the Old Testament to the New Testament, for example, by drawing allegorical connections between the events of Christ's life with the stories of the Old Testament. The third level is the moral (or tropological), focusing on how one should act in the present--pointing up, as it were, the "moral of the story.” The fourth level is anagogical, dealing with the spiritual or mystical dimension as it relates to future events of Christian history, heaven, hell, the last judgment; it deals with prophecies.<br />
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Thus the four types of allegory treat past events (literal), the connection of past events with the later ones (typology), present realities (moral), and the future (anagogical).<br />
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A well known exposition of the four levels of interpretation stems from Dante Alighieri, in his epistle to Can Grande della Scala (early fourteenth century). However, as Henri de Lubac has shown in great detail, the method goes back to early Christian times.<br />
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The first influential model of multiple levels in the interpretation of Scripture stems from the prolific patristic writer Origen of Caesarea of the third century. Origen maintained that the Bible discloses three levels of meaning, corresponding to the threefold Pauline (and Platonic) division of a person into body, soul and spirit. The bodily level of Scripture, the bare letter, is helpful as it stands to meet the needs of the more simple. Great care must be taken before even considering whether to discard it. However, the other two levels are essential. The psychic level, corresponding to the soul, assists progress in perfection. Finally, the spiritual interpretation deals with “ineffable mysteries” so as to make humanity a “partaker of all the doctrines of the Spirit's counsel.”<br />
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Later exegetes improved on Origen’s typology in two ways. First, they held that the literal interpretation may not be set aside; instead, one must assume a harmony with the others. In addition, they expanded the number of levels from three to four, as noted above.<br />
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Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. If so, the Pardes system represents a clear homage to the developed fourfold system of modern Christian exegesis. Let us look at the parallels in more detail. Both systems agree in placing the literal sense first. Christian Typology, examining correspondences linking different parts of the canon of Scripture, broadly corresponds to Derash. Less close, perhaps, is the simllarity of the moral level to Remez. The mystical or anagogical level is similar to Sod. Since the rabbis do not recognize the authority of the New Testament, some modification was required. But purloining unmistakably took place.<br />
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It is not known exactly when this appropriation took place. However, a version of the Pardes typology appears in the Tolaat Yaakov, a kabbalistic text stemming from the early sixteenth century. This would situate the borrowing in the later Middle Ages, the very period in which Christian fourfold exegesis reached its height of popularity among exegetes.<br />
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This is but one of the many ways in which evolving Judaism has borrowed from Christianity--usually without acknowledgment, as in this case. A hundred and fifty years ago, the Christian allegorical method, with its four levels, withered under the impact of the Higher Criticism. Few Christian pastors or exegetes would resort to the outdated method nowadays. Dwelling in the past tense, it belongs to the arcana of intellectual history. The situation is different in the eclectic world of Neo-Judaism, where this creaky mechanism is alive and well. What Christianity has wisely shed, Judaism has kept.<br />
<br />
THE MAGIC 613<br />
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The writer A. J. Jacobs has produced an entertaining book, “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.” This volume has proved to be a very popular item, though possibly not in Orthodox Jewish circles, where it would seem redundant. Those folks believe that they are already living biblically, each single day.<br />
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To this end Orthodox Jews adhere to the 613 Mitzvot (“commandments”), sometimes known as the “Law of Moses” or simply “the Law.” These injunctions are part of the Torah, we are told. Where then are they enumerated there?<br />
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That turns out to be a serious problem. Some hold that they are all present in “hidden form” in the Ten Commandments. If so they seem well hidden. In fact, a kind of “treasure hunt” is required, looking for bits in various scattered places in Scripture.<br />
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It is something of a surprise to find that there is no universally recognized list of the Mitzvot. The earliest known version, a bare-bones listing, stems from Saadia Gaon (ca. 882-942). Nowadays many follow a different list drawn up by Maimonides (1135-1204), but there are yet other compilations that differ in content.<br />
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At all events, Saadia Gaon and Maimonides lived long after the closing of the canon of the Talmud. Why does the Talmud itself not offer a definitive enumeration of the 613? Could it be that the Talmudic sages knew the list, but neglected to write it down, as they took it for granted? If so, though, why do subsequent lists differ in content? In all candor, these supposedly canonical lists are something of a Johnny-come-lately phenomenon. They are a product of medieval, and not of classical and post-classical Judaism.<br />
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Some commandments in Maimonides’ list now seem barbaric in their anachronism, for example, 513. The master must not sell his maidservant; and 514. Canaanite slaves must work forever unless injured in one of their limbs. Nos. 545-49 apply to capital cases, stipulating the the courts must carry out the penalties of stoning, burning, execution by the sword, strangulation, and hanging. Moreover (552), the court must not suffer a witch to live. Two items that nowadays are definitely honored more in the breach than the observance are 534. Not to lend with interest; and 535. Not to borrow with interest.<br />
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Here, in rough outline, is how these lists seem to have come into being. Imagine someone with a new notebook, numbering the lines of the blank sheets from one to 613. Then one would have to decide what to write on those lines. Why 613? Well, according to the deliverances of the numerological technique known as gematria, the Hebrew numerical value of the word "Torah" is 611. To reach the desired total of 613, one must add the two commandments received directly from God to the main group of 611, so laboriously compiled. Using this fudging, the desired magic quantity was attained.<br />
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Nor did the numerological obsession stop there. Some authorities hold that there are 365 negative commandments, reflecting the number of days in a solar year, and 248 positive commandments, corresponding to the presumed number of bones and significant organs in the human body. In practice, many of the mitzvot cannot be observed following the destruction of the Second Temple in CE 70. This obligation will ostensibly return with the building of a Third Temple at some future date.<br />
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According to one reckoning, there are 77 negative and 194 positive commandments that must be observed today--a total that is far from the canonical 613. Moreover, there are 26 admonitions that apply only within the Land of Israel. There are some commandments from which women are exempt (examples include those pertaining to shofar, sukkah, lulav, tzitzit, and tefillim). Some depend on the particular status of a person in Judaism (such as being a Kohen), while others apply only to men and others only to women.<br />
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The difficulties were endless. In seeking to compile a definitive list of the 613 commandments, the rabbis encountered other problems. Which statements were to be counted as commandments? Does this mean every command by God to any individual? Or only commandments to the entire people of Israel? Moreover, would an order from God be counted as a commandment for the purposes of such a list if it could only be complied with in one place and time? Or, would such an order only count as a commandment if it could --at least in theory--be universal, to be followed at all times? Further, how does one accommodate a single verse which lays down multiple prohibitions? Should each prohibition rank as a single commandment, or does the entire set constitute one commandment?<br />
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Rabbinic adhesion to 613 has not been automatic. Moreover, even as the mysterious number gained acceptance, difficulties arose in fleshing out the list, as we have seen. Some rabbis held that this count was not an authentic tradition, or that it was not logically possible to come up with a systematic roster. In fact, no early work of Jewish biblical commentary depended on the system of 613, and no early expositions of Jewish principles of faith made the acceptance of such a list binding. It is evident that the confidence shown by some that the whole sequence was conveyed to Moses at Mount Sinai requires a considerable suspension of disbelief. If the list was conveyed to Moses, no one now knows what it was.<br />
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Ultimately, though, the concept of 613 commandments became a kind of talisman in the Jewish community. Today, eventhose who do not literally accept it feel they must offer lip service to the "613 commandments.” It sounds so precise.<br />
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In reality the 613 commandments do not form an essential part of halakhic law. This is so despite the sobriquets noted at the top: the “Law of Moses” or simply “the Law.” In the strict sense, observing them is elective. In other words, they are a resource for those who choose to structure their lives around an elaborate series of do’s and don’ts. This impulse looks very much like a version of the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), identified by psychiatrists. In fact, there seems to a heightened incidence of clinical OCD among the Orthodox. That is to say, having internalized the 613, some individuals go on a hunt, seeking still other injunctions and taboos to observe.<br />
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These findings reinforce the conclusion that the views of Orthodox Jewry, and of much of modern Judaism in general, have only a tangential relationship to the faith found in the Hebrew Bible. In fact we are dealing with two religions--one piggy-backing upon the other, to be sure--but essentially two religions. For this reason, the assertions of modern Judaism faithfully to reflect the “faith of our fathers” must be taken with more than a grain of salt.<br />
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Why is it important to utter these strictures? Must one be rude? Would it not be more tactful to abstain from such comments? I don’t think that one can do this, though. The reason is that the older faith--Judaism One, if you will--has played, through its influence on the New Testament and the Qur’an, a major role in later civilizations. To understand our cultural history, it is essential to reconstruct the intertextual relations prevailing among the original document-complexes. Such is not the case, however, with Judaism Two, which is the support system of an enclave, a separatist culture. As we have noted, it came about as a creative effort to cope with two disasters that devastated the Jewish world--the destruction of the Second Temple and the triumph of Christianity. It never gained any sort of broad resonance, nor was it intended to do so. And so it has come about, as the influence of Judaism Two has been pretty much limited to its own adherents.<br />
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What beliefs and practices prevail within this enclave is a matter that by definition must be determined by the observant persons who find their place within it. It is not the business of any outsider to say what these beliefs and practices should be. But one need not simply endorse these things either, Some observations are in order, and I have sought to make them above. In this light, the effort to pass off medieval and modern folklore as “living biblically” or “in accord with Torah” must not go without challenge. To shirk this duty would be to burke the larger enterprise of interpreting the interaction of the three primary Abrahamic religions.<br />
<br />
THE KARAITES<br />
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Were I ever to convert to Judaism, I might become a Karaite. Sometimes falsely charged with being heretical, Karaites rightly insist that they are Jews. In Israel, where most of them live, they are so regarded. Their marriages are accepted as valid by the state, while those of Conservative and Reform rabbis are not.<br />
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Of all the branches of Judaism that exist today, the Karaites strike me as by far the most faithful to the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible. Bravely independent, they scoff at that Supreme Fiction, the Oral Law, and its lumbering, egregious vehicles the Mishnah and the Talmud. They feel no need to assume the huge burden of allegorical interpretation generated by rabbinical sciolism, often conducted in covert imitation of Christian hermeneutics, that has been imposed on Jewish life.<br />
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Karaites staunchly reject the authority of the rabbis, and view many aspects of rabbinic Halakha as contradictory to the plain meaning of the Torah. When interpreting the Tanakh, Karaites strive to adhere to the plain meaning (p'shat) of the text. This approach stands in stark contrast to rabbinical Judaism, which employs a fourfold menu of p'shat, remez (“implication” or “clue”), drash ("deep interpretation," based on breaking down individual words) and sod ("secret," the deeper meaning of the text, drawing on the Kabbalah). As I have shown above, this baroque exegetical quartet stems from a similar Christian foursome invented some centuries earlier.<br />
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Eventually, in the course of the nineteenth century, Christian exegetes had sense enough to discard this nonsense. The Karaites, however, were way ahead of them, as they had never accepted these devices in the first place.<br />
<br />
Such baroque complexities long served to enhance the mystique of the rabbis. The Karaites thought differently. Instead of relying on a rabbi, one should read and interpret Scripture for oneself. How refreshing!<br />
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Of course some people are more learned than others, and there is no reason for not talking to them about Scripture. We are, after all, social beings. In fact, Karaite authorities recommend that one should consult with as many people as possible where there is a question of uncertainty. Today, the Internet makes that practice much easier than heretofore.] One can take the advice of a hacham (an especially learned member of the community), but that advice is not binding and the hacham has to be able to prove his or her view from the Torah.<br />
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"There are three main concepts that Karaite practice is based on," explains Rabbi Moshe Firrouz of the Karaite synagogue in Beersheba. "There is the written word of the Bible, logical interpretation, and tradition."<br />
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Firrouz stresses that one is not allowed to make any sort of rule that contradicts the Torah, and if one gives an explanation for one of the passages, that explanation must not contradict any other part of the Torah.<br />
<br />
Such interpretive methods foster practices that raise eyebrows among rabbinic Jews. For example, Karaites decline to wear tefillin. (Tefillin, also called phylacteries, are a pair of black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with biblical verses.) Karaites read the biblical passage from which that commandment is derived metaphorically, and consider the actual wearing of tefillin to be an "over-literalization" on the part of the rabbis. Karaites also have no problem eating milk and meat together (as long as both the milk and the meat are kosher), for they reason that the passage that commands Jews "not to boil a kid in its mother's milk" is an explicit prohibition against a pagan fertility ritual practiced by the Canaanites, and not a law enjoining a universally applicable dietary practice.<br />
<br />
Historically, Karaites flourished especially during the classical age of Islam, when it is estimated that about ten percent of Jews belonged to this group. Their actual origins are disputed, but clearly they split off not long after 200 CE, when rabbinic Judaism began its career of reshaping Judaism. Regrettably, there are but few Karaites in the world today--at most, 30,000. (They are not to be confused with the Samaritans, who have a different Bible from the one Karaites and rabbinic Jews use.)<br />
<br />
The Israeli Karaite scholar Nehemia Gordon maintains an English-language Web site, www.karaite-korner.com, where he provides detailed explanations for Karaite beliefs and links to other resources.<br />
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So why, one may ask, if the Karaites actually descend from an unbroken chain of true Scriptural observance established in early times, are their numbers so much lower those of rabbinic Jews? "How many followers you have has nothing to with how right you are," declares Rabbi Firrouz. "[If you follow that logic], then you might come to the conclusion that the Chinese are the real chosen people of the world."<br />
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The question remains: how is it that rabbinic Judaism, with its many absurdities and accretions, triumphed, while the right-thinking Karaites were left behind? All I can say is that the ways of the Lord are inscrutable.<br />
<br />
MATRILINY AND MONOGAMY<br />
<br />
It is generally acknowledged that the people of the Hebrew Bible were both patrilineal and polygamous. They reckoned identity and inheritance by the male line; and men--at least prominent men--commonly had several wives. Eventually the Jews abandoned these two principles. This abandonment is one of numerous ways in which modern Judaism is essentially a new faith, related only generically to its Biblical prototype.<br />
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Patriliny (also known as patrilineality or agnatic kinship) is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage; it generally involves the inheritance of property, names, or titles through the male line as well.<br />
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A patriline is a line of descent from a male ancestor to a descendant (of either sex) in which the individuals in all intervening generations are male. In a patrilineal descent system, an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group same as his or her father. This principle contrasts with the less common pattern of matrilineal descent.<br />
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In the world of the Hebrew Bible, the line of descent for monarchs and leading personalities was almost exclusively through the male. Tribal descent, such as whether one is a kohen or a Levite, is still inherited patrilineally in Judaism, as is communal identity as a Sephardi or Ashkenazi Jew. Of course the connection is acknowledged in surnames beginning “ben-” or ending in -sohn.<br />
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Not surprisingly, Christianity maintained the norm of patriliny, as seen in the genealogies of Jesus, which emphasize his Davidic descent.<br />
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This situation contrasts with the rule for inheritance of Jewish status in the rabbinical Neo-Judaism of the Talmud, which is matrilineal.<br />
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The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b), in a stratum probably dating from the fourth-fifth centuries CE, claims that the law of matrilineal descent derives from the Torah. The Torah passage (Deuteronomy 7:3-4) reads: "Thy daughter thou shalt not give to his son, nor shalt thou take his daughter to thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods." This interpretation of the Deuteronomy passage is arbitrary and contestable. Still, the rabbinical view was anticipated in the Mishna (Kiddushin 3:12), where it is stated that, to be a Jew, one must be either the child of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism. However, this interpretation did not become general until somewhat later. Despite the claim of Scriptural support, this stipulation of matriliny is an innovation that stands in stark contrast to the patriliny that pervades the Tanakh.<br />
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Thus, by the time of the emperor Justinian (ruled 527-565), the rabbis had come to believe the fantasy that Scripture supported a innovative custom in which they were invested, namely matriliny. This view has yielded the common perception that “Jewish law” requires that a Jewish person be born of a Jewish mother.<br />
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Some scholars believe that this stipulation of matrilineal descent was enacted in response to intermarriage. Others say that the frequent cases of Jewish women being raped by non-Jews led to the law; how could a raped Jewish woman's child be considered non-Jewish by the Jewish community in which he or she would be raised? That would be inhumane.<br />
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During the Middle Ages a minority strand of rabbinic opinion argued in theoretical terms for a rule that, to be Jewish by descent, both one's parents must be Jewish. In practical terms, however, the matrilineal rule remained unchallenged from Talmudic times until the twentieth century (Cohen, 1999).<br />
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We turn now to the other reversal, the abandonment of polygamy. Strictly speaking, polygamy means that one can have more than one spouse--in the case of women, more than one husband. In historical research, however, the term polygamy is generally employed to designate what is more properly termed polygyny, that is, the practice of plural wives. For convenience, however, the traditional terminology will be followed here.<br />
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Scriptural evidence indicates that polygamy among the ancient Hebrews, though not extremely common, was not particularly unusual and was certainly not prohibited or discouraged. The Hebrew scriptures document approximately forty polygamists, including such prominent figures as Abraham, Jacob, Esau, and David. Their having several wives was a matter of course, requiring little comment.<br />
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Polygamy continued to be permitted in Judaism well into the Middle Ages. Yet there are indications of disapproval among Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe as early as the tenth century. Since the eleventh century, Ashkenazi Jews have followed the ban of Rabbenu Gershom. Since then monogamy has been the norm for them.<br />
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Why was this change instituted? Christian pressure undoubtedly had much to do with it, particularly since, under the impact of the Gregorian reforms, the Catholic clergy was insisting on more thorough adherence to sexual and family norms among the flock. The ban on polygamy among the Jews of Eastern Europe may also have reflected the relative scarcity of Jewish women. One could not allow a few alpha males to monopolize the supply of available mates, especially in view of the rulings, a half-millennium before, that having a Jewish mother was a prerequisite for Jewishness.<br />
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The disapproval of polygamy was slow to penetrate among Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews. Those of Yemen and Iran discontinued the custom quite recently, as they emigrated to countries where it was forbidden. The ban on polygamy may have entered the Mediterranean Jewish world through the French regime in Algeria. There, a law of 1870 made the local Jews French citizens, requiring that they follow the civil law of the French Republic, which does not recognize polygamy. For their part, Algerian Muslims retained their own laws and customs.<br />
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As we know, polygamy was the norm in classical Islam, at least for those who could afford it. While this custom may in part reflect Jewish precedent, it probably derives from the general prevalence of polygamy in the Middle East.<br />
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The situation was different in Early Christianity. Or was it? Most of the apostles had wives. Could some have had more than one? In all probability, this speculation is unwarranted, and the likelihood is that the circle of Jesus adhered to the official Roman preference for monogamy.<br />
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In the nominally Christian Germanic kingdoms of western Europe, a kind of informal polygamy survived for a time, at least among the elite. Charlemagne had four wives and four concubines. Cohabitation with the wives apparently did not overlap, but with the concubines it almost certainly did.<br />
<br />
A DISTURBING BOOK<br />
<br />
The following remarks pertain to a recent volume by the Israeli scholar Israel Jacob Yuval, <i>Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages</i> (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006; an English translation of a Hebrew original of 2000). The central theme of this important book is a challenge to the common perception that Christianity is the daughter of Judaism. Instead, Yuval maintains, both arose in response to historical circumstances: the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 and the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE. As we know them, the two faiths are siblings.<br />
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In keeping with the dominant trend of modern scholarship, Yuval holds that the rabbinical Judaism that took shape in the Mishnah (after 200) and the two Talmuds was essentially a new creation--as was Christianity. More controversially, the Israeli scholar holds that when there are similarities between Christianity and rabbinical Judaism--and they are much more numerous than is commonly admitted--the parallels are most likely the result of Jewish borrowing from Christianity. This is what one might expect in the relationship of a minority culture and a majority one, a reality that became evident with the emperor Constantine’s sponsorship of Christianity in the early fourth century: “minority cultures tend to adopt the agenda of the majority culture,” The “one-way influence of Christianity on Judaism” is Yuval's working hypothesis.<br />
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With all the recent hoopla about “ethnicity” in contemporary America it is easy to lose sight of this fundamental dynamic. Let us take Mexican Americans in California and Puerto Ricans in New York. In both cases, the Anglo host culture produces overwhelming pressures for assimilation. By the third (or even the second generation), knowledge of Spanish is minimal and sthe influence of North American popular culture is pervasive. Doubtless Yuval has observed a similar process of assimilation in today’s Israel.<br />
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In fact, the first indications of acculturation in the Jewish world date back to the closing centuries of the Second Temple period, when the attractions of Hellenism loomed increasingly large. Many Jews--and not just in the diaspora--adopted Greek names and customs. Philo of Alexandria, the greatest Jewish thinker of the period, wrote exclusively in Greek.<br />
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To set the scene for his assertions, Yuval employs a somewhat complicated parable chosen from the bible itself. He holds that the Jacob–Esau typology (Gen. 24–32) has been of major importance for Jews’ and Christians’ perception of themselves and each other (as “other”) from antiquity until today. Both Jews and Christians identified themselves with Jacob as the chosen one. For Jews, Esau was Edom (= Rome), and eventually the Christian-Byzantine empire. Christians perceived Esau quite differently: he was ”the archetype of the Jew,” who had allegedly lost his birthright to his younger brother, the Church. In this way Judaism and Christianity came to adopt diametrically opposed interpretations of the same biblical story. The identification with Jacob also entailed the claim to ownership of the Land of Israel on a divine promise, which Christians sought to fulfill in the First Crusade by freeing Jerusalem from Muslim domination. In keeping with his overall methodology, Yuval assumes that both interpretations emerged at the same time, after the destruction of the Second Temple, and that the Jewish exegesis embodied in rabbinic Midrash drew upon the Christian one: “the Jewish position is reactive and defensive,” showing apologetic traits.<br />
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Yuval maintains that the rabbinic notion of Oral Torah was developed because rabbis feared that otherwise their teachings—like the Written Torah—could be appropriated by Christians and universalized; “[t]he Oral Torah is, in the deepest sense, a Jewish answer to the Christian Torah, the New Testament.” It is true that Christians have never shown any interest in the highly problematic notion of the Oral Torah as the copartner of the Written Torah, but indifference on their part does not exclude the possibility of its adoption by the rabbis as a defensive bulwark.<br />
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Yuval highlights significant similarities between Passover and Easter in Jewish and Christian tradition and practice. In particular, he links the theme of redemption to some of the symbolic foodstuffs of the seder table. In his discussion of the Jewish–Christian controversy in the Middle Ages (chapters 3–6), the author develops the argument that Christian accusations against Jews were based on a misinterpretation and representation of actual Jewish practices and beliefs. Not only was the roasting of the Passover sacrifice associated with the annihilation of Esau/Christianity, but the burning of the leaven could be seen as a desecration of the Host. The theme of vengeful redemption, which was already part of the Passover rite, was seen by Christians as an expression of Jewish hatred of humankind in general and of Christianity and its messiah in particular. Yuval regards the afikoman matzah at the end of the Passover seder as a symbol of messianic redemption, as “a kind of Jewish Host,” the outcome of a “Jewish internalization of Christian ritual language.” Thus there flourished a covert dialogue among symbols, gestures, and ceremonies--a dialogue suffused with polemics, hostility, and feelings of superiority over the respective “Other.” For this reason, “the inner context of the ceremonies is completely different in each religion. “<br />
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The second main part of the book concentrates on Ashkenazic Jewry, the field of Yuval’s particular expertise. “How did medieval Jewish apologetics deal with Christianity’s standing as the dominant and successful religion? What religious formulation enabled the Jews to adhere to their faith in the election of Israel despite the political reality that every day seemed to demonstrate that God had hidden his face from them? These questions must be understood in the broad context of the connections and interrelations between Jews and Christians. . . .<br />
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“Gerson Cohen . . . noted the ‘blatant contrast between the election of Israel and their subjection on earth,’ a contradiction aggravated in times of religious persecution. To explain this, Jews interpreted the harsh political reality as temporary, postponing its resolution until the messianic era. Hence, the events anticipated in the messianic era serve as the key to understanding Jewish apologetics in the present. How did the Jews portray the long-awaited victory over Christianity? How did they envision the future routing of the Gentiles?”<br />
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Yuval points out that much historical scholarship has been devoted to studying the expressions of Christian hatred for Jews, but relatively little to its Jewish counterpart. For example, he cites texts incorporated in the Morning Prayer of Yom Kippur. “These are texts that demonstrate the abyss of hostility and hatred felt by medieval Jews towards Christians. And we have here not only hatred, but an appeal to God to kill indiscriminately and ruthlessly, alongside a vivid description of the anticipated horrors to be brought down upon the Gentiles. These pleas are formulated in a series of verbs--’swallow them, shoot them, lop them off, make them bleed, crush them, strike them down’ and so forth.” One might expect such strong language as a response to persecution, but as Yuval points out such invective goes back to late antiquity, and is a constant, even in periods of relative peace between Christians and Jews.<br />
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This material is disturbing. Yet there is more, for Yuval suggests that the Christian blood libel of the Middle Ages may be based on Jewish martyrs’ killing of their own children. The Jewish martyrdom chronicles of 1096 present self-sacrifice and the sacrifice of one’s loved ones to avoid apostasy as Kiddush ha-Shem (sanctification of God). Christians who heard of such acts were horrified by them, citing them as evidence that Jews were a murderous people. Yuval sees these tragic events as the source of the blood libel and the accusation of ritual murder that was most widespread from the twelfth century onward. The blood libel represented the distorted Christian view of Jewish martyrdom: according to the Christian version, Jews would kill Christian children, when in reality they killed their own. The dissemination of the blood libel in the years after the First Crusade may thus reflect Christian knowledge of the Jewish martyrdom acts—or rather rumors about Jews sacrificing their own children for the purposes of vengeful redemption.<br />
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In the final chapter, Yuval seeks to show how Jewish messianic ideas associated with the “end of the millennium” (the Christian year 1240 corresponds to the year 5000 in the Jewish calendar) had an impact on the Christian world. France and Germany were the centers of messianic ferment at that time, and calculations similar to the Jewish ones are found in Christian sources, though the chronology suggests that the influence traveled from Christian writers to Jewish ones. Jewish apocalyptic recapitulates three features of Christian Joachimism: the idea of the millennium, the conception of history of the Six Days of Creation, and the tripartite division of history. As Norman Cohn has shown, all these ideas have deep Christian roots (Cohn, 1962).<br />
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To be sure, the Jewish messianic idea was connected with the hope for Jewish resettlement of the land of Israel, whereas Christians sought to appropriate the Holy Land for themselves, undertaking the Crusades for that purpose. The different messianic expectations show a “tragic asymmetry”: Jews anticipated the destruction of Christianity while Christians expected the conversion of Jews to their own religion: “the Jewish Messiah is the Christian Antichrist, and vice versa.”<br />
<br />
JESUS IN THE TALMUD<br />
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The following remarks stem from the recent book by Peter Schäfer, <i>Jesus in the Talmud </i>(Schäfer, 2007). To reach his conclusions Schäfer, Director of Judaic Studies at Princeton University, has collated dozens of Talmud editions and manuscripts.<br />
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In recent years the conventional wisdom has been that that appearances of Jesus and Christianity in the Talmud were limited to "a few oblique references." This in essence was the thesis of Johann Maier’s German monograph of 1978 ("Jesus von Nazareth in der talmudischen Überlieferung"), which enjoyed the status of a standard work. Schäfer reexamines all of the available references to Jesu in the manuscripts and texts of the Babylonian Talmud. Opposing Maier’s earlier minimalizing approach, he nonetheless acknowledges that the rabbinic presentation of Jesus adds nothing to our knowledge of the actual life of Jesus. Indeed, how could it? By the same token, however, this material is not mere persiflage; instead, it is of eminent importance for understanding the Jewish intellectual elite’s response to the triumphant church of late antiquity. Comparable material in the Jerusalem Talmud, compiled mainly under circumstances of Christian domination, is relatively sparse. Only from the distance and security of the Mesopotamian diaspora, where the Persians were the supreme authority, could a direct and fierce assault on Christian claims to Jesus’ authority and divinity be launched.<br />
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Through careful sifting of all of the relevant source materials, Schäfer reveals the rabbinic texts’ actual force as “polemical counternarratives that parody the New Testament stories.” These passages clearly seek to subvert Christian claims to Jesus’ Davidic origin, authority as a teacher and healer, execution by representatives of the Roman government, resurrection, and ascent to heaven.<br />
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In his book Schäfer does not limit himself to explicit references to the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. He also traces the code words employed in the Talmud editions expurgated and sanitized for gentile consumption. The Princeton scholar shows how "Balaam," "that man," "the carpenter," "ben Pandera" (son of Pandera), the blank spaces and the rest of the code words refer to Jesus. As has so many times been recognized by those who care to look at the evidence, the Talmud teaches that Jesus was a "mamzer" (bastard) conceived adulterously in "niddah" (menstrual filth) by a Roman soldier named Pandera [Kallah 51a] of a whore [Sanhedrin 106a].<br />
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Pandera is evidently an Aramaic variation on the surname Pantera (the Latin form of Pantheras, meaning “Panther”). For example, a first-century Roman tombstone in Bingerbrück, Germany, has an inscription which reads: “Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera of Sidon, aged 62, a soldier of 40 years' service, of the first cohort of archers, lies here." The ascription of Jesus’ paternity to Pantera can be traced back to the pagan anti-Christian polemicist Celsus, writing ca. 180 CE. Presumably Celsus derived the name from oral tradition.<br />
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The Talmud assures us that Jesus is now in Hell, boiling in excrement. In some renderings Jesus is portrayed as boiling in semen as punishment for sexual perversion [Gittin 57a].<br />
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There is much more, including the Talmud claim that the Sanhedrin justly executed Jesus because he was an idolater [Sanhedrin 43a] who worshipped a brick [Sanhedrin 67a], even boasting that the Sanhedrin overcame Roman opposition to the execution of Jesus [Sanhedrin 43a].<br />
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Schäfer’s monograph conclusively establishes that references to Jesus in the Talmud are more than scattered and coincidental. Still, one may question his suggestion that the texts constitute a “counter-Gospel” to the New Testament, especially the Gospel of John.<br />
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Lying outside of Schäfer’s remit is a strange late medieval book, the Toledot Yeshu (“Story of Jesus”), which retells many of the hostile motifs of the Babylonian Talmud, adding others. In one version, preserved in a manuscript in Strasbourg, Mary was seduced by a soldier called Ben Pandera. The miracle-working powers of Jesus derive from his having stolen the Name of God from the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus goes to Galilee, where he brings clay birds to life and makes a millstone float. Jesus is thus a sorcerer. Judas Iscariot learns the Divine Name as well, and Jesus and Judas fly through the sky engaged in aerial combat. As the winner, Judas sodomizes Jesus, whereupon both fall to the ground. The now powerless Jesus is arrested and put to death by being hung upon a carob tree, and buried. The body is taken away and his ascension is claimed by his apostles on the basis of the empty tomb. But Jesus's body is found hidden in a garden and is dragged back to Jerusalem and shown to Queen Helena.<br />
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The Toledot Yeshu is thus truly a counter-Gospel, offering a continuous narrative of the life of Jesus. This vile book shows that the belittlement and mockery found in the Talmud are not confined to that locus. In fact, the Talmud and the Toledot Yeshu represent two landmarks in a long history of Jewish disparagement of Christianity. This strand in Jewish thought continues to this day. In all likelihood it reflects perplexity at what must strike many Jews as a conundrum. How is it that Western civilization, under whose aegis most modern Jews live, was founded and nourished by Christians? Why is it that, in this signal instance, the Chosen People were not chosen?<br />
<br />
Through his careful scholarship Schäfer has dispelled the myth that the Jews always responded to Christian attacks with quiet forbearance, declining to descend to the level of their adversaries. The scurrilous material in the Babylonian Talmud, together with its later avatars, shows that this is not so.<br />
<br />
This evidence has a disturbing relevance today. As David Novak remarks, “at the most troubling level, Schäfer’s work might encourage those Jews who would be happy to learn that there were times when Jews were able to ‘get even’ with their Christian enemies: a kind of schadenfreude. In this way Schäfer’s work might hinder the emergence of a more positive Jewish-Christian relationship. . . . Such people could use his work to encourage Jews to speak similarly again, now that Christians are much weaker than they have been in the past. But it is naive to think that self-respecting Christians will simply sit back and not answer their Jewish critics in kind, which would easily revive all the old animosity against Jews and Judaism. Taken this way, Schäfer’s work could also encourage Christian ‘hard-liners’ to insist again that an animosity to Christians and Christianity is ubiquitous in Judaism and endemic to it, and that it cannot be overcome by the Jews. Why should Christians be any better when speaking of Jews and Judaism than Jews have been when speaking of Christians and Christianity?<br />
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“Many Jews like to dwell on the tradition of Christian anti-Judaism in all its ugly rhetoric, implying that the Jews have largely kept themselves above any such ugliness. . . . Schäfer demonstrates just the opposite. One might even speculate that had Jews gained the same kind of political power over Christians that Christians gained over Jews, Jews might well have translated their polemical rhetoric against Christianity (which, after all, posed a tremendous threat to the legitimacy of Judaism) into the political persecution of Christians, much the same way that Christians translated their polemical rhetoric against Judaism into the political persecution of Jews. Victimization does not confer sainthood. The Jews lacked the opportunity, but perhaps not the motive or the will, to practice the type of intolerance that they experienced at the hands of the Christians.”<br />
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By way of addendum, one should note a reinterpretation of the Mamzer allegation that comes from an unexpected quarter. Bruce Chilton is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College and an ordained Christian minister. His book <i>Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Portrait </i>is yet another attempt to depict Jesus as a first-century Jew, and as such not notably original--except in one respect. Chilton believes that the definition of Mamzerut (the status of being a Mamzer) was broader than is generally recognized.<br />
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In John’s Gospel opponents appear to taunt Jesus with being born of "fornication" (porneia; John 8:41), a slur not endorsed by any other New Testament writer--and of course not by John either, since he is simply reporting the allegation. On this slender foundation, however, Chilton builds his argument that the young Jesus suffered from being stigmatized as a Mamzer. Perhaps the situation was not unlike fag-baiting today.<br />
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The ensuing social isolation gave Jesus a sense of apartness, permitting him to develop a new, “outsider” view of contemporary Jewish society and its traditions. “At base, a mamzer was the product of a union that was forbidden because the couple was not permitted to marry and procreate according to the Torah. Whatever became of the man and the woman as the result of their sexual contact, their offspring was what we may call a changeling or mixling (terms which perhaps better convey the sense of mamzer than "bastard" or "mongrel," the traditional translations). The sense of abhorrence involved, at the mixture of lines which should never be mixed, was such that the stricture of mamzerut could also be applied to the offspring of a woman whose sexual partner was not categorically identifiable and therefore was not known to have been permitted to her.”<br />
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In short, the broader application of the term would loosely correspond to the Hindu idea of chandala, referring to an individual in the lower strata of the caste system or one who is born of the (ostensibly illicit) union of members of two different castes. Put differently--very differently--Jesus would have been a kind of Barack Obama avant la lettre.<br />
<br />
The problem is that the citations Chilton offers for his definition of Mamzerut are all later--from the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and the Talmud. There is no certainty that these definitions prevailed in Jesus’ time, or indeed that he was actually called a Mamzer, or some equivalent, in that period. As we noted above, Celsus is the first to report the slur that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier with whom Mary had an adulterous affair. If this allegation had any basis, it would double Jesus’ mamzerut: “he is the product of adultery (and therefore a mamzer according to the definition of the Mishnah) and the offspring of a non-Israelite father (and therefore a mamzer according to the definition which later emerged in the Talmud).” However, Celsus wrote some 150 years after the death of Jesus. As opponents of Christianity, neither Celsus or the rabbinical writers have credibility in this regard. Not disinterested observers, their aim is to disparage Jesus and Christianity with any means at their disposal.<br />
<br />
Moreover, this broad definition would make every child today who is born of a “mixed marriage" a mamzer. While mixed marriages encounter some disapproval in Jewish circles these days, few if any rabbis would countenance labeling an innocent child in this manner.<br />
<br />
THE KHAZAR QUESTION<br />
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The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic peoplel ruling the Pontic steppe and the North Caucasus from the seventh to the tenth century. The name "Khazar" seems to stem from a Turkic verb form meaning "wandering.”<br />
<br />
In the seventh century the Khazars founded an independent kingdom in the Northern Caucasus along the Caspian Sea. Although the Khazars were initially shamanists worshipping the sky deity Tengri and several subordinate figures, many drifted into one or the other of the Abrahamic faiths through contact with the Christian Byzantine Empire and successive Islamic caliphates. During the eighth or ninth century, however, an extraordinary development occurred: the Khazar nation officially adopted Judaism as the state religion. At the heigh of their power, the Khazars and their tributaries controlled much of what is today southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, large portions of the Northern Caucasus (including Circassia, Dagestan, and Chechnya), parts of Georgia, and the Crimea.<br />
<br />
Between 965 and 969, their sovereignty was broken by Sviatoslav I of Kiev so that they became subject to the sovereignty of the Kievan Rus’ Gradually displaced by the Rus’, the KIpchaks, and later the conquering Mongols, the Khazars largely disappeared as a culturally distinct people.<br />
<br />
The ethnoc origins of the Khazars are unclear, though some have connected them with the Uyghurs, others with the Huns. Unfortunately, no Khazar writings have been found; we are dependent on texts from Russians, Georgians, Armenians, and other neighboring peoples.<br />
<br />
Jewish communities had existed in the Greek cities of the Black Sea coast since late classical times. Jews fled from Byzantium to Khazaria as a consequence of persecution under Heraclius and other emperors. These were joined by other Jews fleeing from Sassanid Persia and, later, the Islamic world. Jewish merchants regularly traded in Khazar territory, and may have wielded significant economic and political influence. Though their origins and history are somewhat unclear, the Mountain Jews also lived in or near Khazar territory and may have been allied with or subject to Khazar overlordship; it is conceivable that they too played a role in the conversion.<br />
<br />
At some point in the last decades of the eighth century or the early ninth century, the Khazar royalty and nobility converted to Judaism, and part of the general population followed. The extent of the conversion is debated. In the tenth century, the Persian geographer Ibn al-Faqih asserted that "all the Khazars are Jews." This statement notwithstanding, some scholars believe that only the upper classes converted to Judaism. However, analysis of recent archaeological evidence that the sudden shift in funerary customs, with the abandonment of pagan-style burial with grave goods and the adoption of simple shroud burials during the mid-800s suggests a more widespread conversion<br />
<br />
According to Schechter letter (a communication from an unknown Khazar to a Jewish dignatary) early Khazar Judaism centered on a tabernacle similar to that mentioned in the Book of Exodus. The Khazars enjoyed close relations with the Jews of the Levant and Persia. The Persian Jews, for example, hoped that the Khazars might succeed in conquering the Caliphate. There is evidence that the Khazars sought to protect Jews living in other lands.<br />
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The theory that all or most Ashkenazi (eastern European) Jews might be descended from Khazars (rather than Semitic groups in the Middle East) stems from racial studies of late nineteenth-century Europe. Given the nature of such thinking in that era, it is not surprising that these earlier formulations were tinged with racial bias. Yet that alone should not be enough to discredit the theory.<br />
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The theory gained further support when the Arthur Koestler addressed the topic in his book <i>The Thirteenth Tribe </i>(1976). Of course, Koestler was not a historian or scientist, and his book must be regarded as suggestive only. Of Jewish background himself, Koestler was pro-Zionist based on secular grounds, and did not see alleged Khazar ancestry as diminishing the claim of Jews to Israel.<br />
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At all events, the advance of science has made it possible to adduce DNA evidence, which ought to help settle the matter. So far it has not, though preliminary results are promising. At present, though, the evidence secured is fragmentary, and its intepretation is contentious. Since the arguments are highly technical, only a general sense of them can be given here. Moreover, the samples so far involve relatively small numbers of individuals.<br />
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Yet a 2003 study of the Y-chromosome by Behar et al. found that among Ashkenazi Levites, who comprise approximately 4% of Ashkenazi Jews, the prevalence of Haplogroup R1a1 was over 50%. This haplogroup is uncommon in other Jewish groups, and is not typically associated with the Middle East. This result points either to eastern European connections, or Central Asian (Khazar) ones.<br />
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Combining these results with other findings, it is possible to conclude that as much of 12% of the present-day Ashkenazim descend from the Khazars. This figure is far from a majority, but it is not insignificant either.<br />
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THE MYTH OF MOORISH SPAIN AS A JEWISH PARADISE<br />
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The Moorish conquest of Spain began when North African Muslim groups crossed the straights in 711, ostensibly with the collusion of the traitorous Count Julian. There the new Muslim overlords found Jewish communities that had survived from Roman times, together with the Christian majority. Under Muslim rule, both Jews and Christians existed in state of dhimmitude, subject to the poll tax (jizya) and other burdens.<br />
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During the nineteenth century some Central European Jewish scholars promoted the myth that the conditions for Jews in Muslim Spain were perfect or almost. This fabrication served as a contrast with their own situation in a Europe that was only gradually emancipating the Jews. In some writers this idealization went so far as to portray Islamic-Jewish relations as utter harmony, a veritable “interfaith utopia.” The claim of Islamic tolerance has more recently been taken up by Arabs and pro-Arab western writers, who blame Zionism for undermining the harmony of the past.<br />
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Recently, this idealization of Jewish life under Moorish rule has merged with a larger claim, the notion of “convivencia,” a kind of earthly paradise in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived peaceably and productively in Spain under a benevolent Muslim rule. This view is essentially an illusion.<br />
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At times, it must be acknowledged, Jewish culture did flourish in Muslim Spain, but the pattern was much more varied than has usually been assumed.<br />
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The attachment of al-Andalus (Moorish Spain) to the larger world of Islam facilitated the contact of Spanish Jews (the Sephardim) with the larger world of Middle Eastern Jewry. For its part, Arab culture also made a lasting impact on Sephardic cultural development. General reevaluation of scripture was prompted by Muslim anti-Jewish polemics and the spread of rationalism. In adopting the Arabic language, as had the Babylonian geonim (the heads of Mesopotamian rabbinic academies), not only were the cultural and intellectual achievements of Arabic culture opened up to the educated Jew, but much of the scientific and philosophical speculation of Greek culture, which had been best preserved by Arab scholars, was as well. The punctilious attention which the Arabs showed for grammar and style also had the effect of stimulating Hebrew philology. Arabic came to be the dominant language of Sephardic science, philosophy, and everyday business. From the second half of the ninth century most Jewish prose in al-Andalus in Arabic.<br />
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Jew scholars were also active in such fields as astronomy, medicine, logic, and mathematics, not least because these disciplines were regarded as foundations of divine knowledge. In addition to training the mind in abstract reasoning, the study of the natural world--the direct study of the work of the Creator--was thought to offer a path to better understand and become closer to God.<br />
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The Sephardim were active as translators. Greek texts were rendered into Arabic, Arabic into Hebrew, Hebrew and Arabic into Latin.<br />
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In the early eleventh century, centralized authority based at Córdoba broke down following the Berber invasion and the ousting of the Umayyads. In its stead arose the independent taifa principalities under the rule of local Arab, or Berber chieftains. In some ways, the ensuing decentralization expanded the opportunities to Jewish and other professionals. The services of Jewish scientists, doctors, traders, poets, and scholars generally found favor with Christian as well as Muslim rulers of regional centers.<br />
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Several prominent Jews served as viziers in the Moorish principalities. However, the vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela was murdered in the Granada massacre of 1066, together with about 4,000 other Granada Jews. As a result of the spread of puritanical Muslim sects, the era of Jewish efflorescence ended well before the completion of the Christian Reconquista in 1492. These repressive sects, the Almoravides and Almohads, stemmed from North Africa.<br />
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Following the fall of Toledo to Christians in 1085, the ruler of Seville sought relief from the Almoravides. This ascetic Muslim group abhorred the liberality of the Islamic culture of al-Andalus, including the position of authority that some dhimmis, Jews and Christians, held over Muslims. In addition to battling the Christians, who were gaining ground, the Almoravides implemented numerous repressive measures intended to bring al-Andalus more in line with their notion of proper Islam. Despite large-scale forcible conversions, Sephardic culture managed to survive.<br />
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Wars with tribes in North Africa eventually forced the Almoravides to withdraw their forces from Iberia. As the Christian armies advanced, Iberian Muslims again appealed to their brethren to the south, this time to those who had displaced the Almoravides in North Africa. The Almohads, who had taken control of much of Islamic Iberia by 1172, far surpassed the Almoravides in the rigors of their fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. A series of harsh measures lead to the expulsion of many Jews and Christians from Morocco and Islamic Spain. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, many Jews emigrated. Some, such as the family of Maimonides, fled south and east to more tolerant Moslem lands, while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.<br />
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The complex situation is aptly symbolized by the career of Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra (or Abenezra; 1089-1164). He seems to have been born in Tudela when it was under the rule of the Muslim emirs of Saragossa. One of the most distinguished Jewish men of letters of the Middle Ages, Rabbi ibn Ezra contributed to philosophy; astronomy and astrology; poetry; linguistics; and Biblical exegesis.<br />
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Settling for a time in Moorish Andalusia, he left Spain before 1140 to escape persecution of the Jews by the fanatical Almohads. He led a life of restless wandering, which took him to North Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Italy, France, and England. Through his travels he was able to bring the rich tradition of Sephardic learning to the then-less-developed Jewish communities of Western Europe.<br />
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Taking advantage of Muslim disarray, Christian rule continued and expanded in the north and center of the country. By the early twelfth century, conditions for some Jews in the emerging Christian kingdoms became increasingly favorable. As had happened during the reconstruction of towns following the breakdown of the central authority under the Umayyads, Christian leaders increasingly drew upon the services of Jews. Their acquaintance with the language and culture of the enemy, their skills as diplomats and professionals, as well as their desire for relief from intolerable conditions--all these things rendered their services of great value to the Christians during the Reconquista. Ironically, these were the same strengths that they had proved useful to the Arabs in the early stages of the Moslem invasion. Thus, as conditions in Islamic Iberia worsened, immigration to the Christian states increased.<br />
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At first the situation in Christian Spain seemed relatively promising to the Jews. But this was not to last. Gradually, hostility to Jews increased, culminating in their expulsion from Spain in 1492.<br />
<br />
KABBALAH<br />
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Kabbalah (Hebrew: “receiving") is a discipline and school of thought addressing the mystical aspect of Judaism. A complex set of esoteric teachings, it seeks to explain the relationship between an eternal Creator and the mortal and finite universe he has created. While it is heavily used by some branches of Judaism (and recently by some non-Jews) it is not a distinct branch of the religion. The Kabbalah relies on a set of set of instructional writings that exist outside the canon of the scriptures.<br />
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Kabbalah seeks to define the nature of the universe and the human being, the nature and purpose of existence, and various other ontological questions. It provides methods to aid understanding of these concepts and to thereby attain spiritual realization. Kabbalah originally developed entirely within the realm of Jewish thought and constantly uses classical Jewish sources to explain and demonstrate its esoteric teachings. These teachings are thus held by kabbalists to define the inner meaning of both the Hebrew Bible and traditional rabbinic literature, as well as to explain the deeper purpose of Jewish religious observances.<br />
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Adepts regard the Kabbalah as a necessary part of the study of Torah. However, some Jews have rejected these teachings as heretical and antithetical to the true spirit of Judaism. The Kabbalah developed during the Middle Ages, reaching a culmination with the sixteenth-century synthesis. Then it declined for a considerable period. During the twentieth century the tireless advocacy of Gershom Scholem restored it to prominence. Today the Kabbalah is both the subject of academic study and popular enthusiasm.<br />
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The origins of the term Kabbalah are uncertain. Sometimes it is ascribed to the Jewish philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021–1058), sometimes tos the thirteenth-century Spanish adept Bahya ben Asher. While other terms appear in various religious documents from the second century CE up to the present, the term Kabbalah has become the standard descriptor of Jewish esoteric knowledge and practices.<br />
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Life in the diaspora made it seem prudent to conceal certain aspects of Jewish thought from the surrounding host society. For this reason Kabbalistic beliefs are diffuse and hard to characterize.<br />
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Still, there are certain constants. In Kabbalah all creation unfolds from divine reality. Starting from this truism, Kabbalah has elaborated a metaphysical structure of emanations from God. In the Kabbalistic scheme, God is neither matter nor spirit, but is the source of both. Kabbalists envision two aspects of God: (a) God Himself, who is ultimately unknowable, and (b) the revealed aspect of God that created the universe, preserves the universe, and interacts with mankind. Kabbalists speak of the first aspect of God as Ein Sof, which may be rendered as "the infinite," "endless," or "that which has no limits." In this view--sometimes termed the apophatic approach--nothing can be said about the essence of God. This aspect of God is impersonal.<br />
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By contrast, the second aspect, consisting of divine emanations, is at least partially accessible to human thought. Kabbalists believe that these two aspects are not contradictory but, through the mechanism of progressive emanation, complement one another. The structure of these emanations may be characterized in various ways: Sephirot (Divine attributes) and Partzulim (Divine "faces"); Four Worlds Creation in a Descending Chain of realms (Azilut, Beriyah, Yitzirah, and Asiyah); the Biblical vision by Ezekiel of the Merkabah (angelic chariot). Subsequent Kabbalistic systematization undertook the task of harmonizing these options. The central metaphor of Ohr ("Light") helps to understand these divine emanations.<br />
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Medieval Kabbalists believed that all things are linked to God through these emanations, making all levels in creation part of one great, gradually descending chain of being. Through this ordering any lower element finds a link between its particular characteristics and Supernal Divinity. Sixteenth- century Cordoveran Kabbalah sought to synthesize these components. This metaphysical explanation gave cosmic significance to the deeds of man, as the downward flow of the Divine "Light" that creates our reality, is opened or restricted according to the merits of each individual. Divine sustenance in creation must be maintained by the traditional mitzvah observances of Judaism. The subsequent Kabbalah of Isaac Luria ascribes a radical origin to this depiction, where creation unfolds from transcendent imbalance in Godliness, and the purpose of life is the Messianic rectification of Divinity by man. Once each person has completed his part of the rectification, the Messianic Era will begin. In this way, the mitzvot redeem the supernal Divine Sparks in existence.<br />
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The Sephirot (singular Sephirah) are the ten emanations and attributes of God whereby he continually maintains the existence of the universe. The word "sefirah" literally means "counting," but early Kabbalists considered a number of other etymological possibilities including: sefer (book), sippur (story), sappir (sapphire, brilliance, luminary), separ (boundary), and safra (scribe).<br />
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The term sephirah thus resonates in a complex way within Kabbalah. The central metaphor of Man's soul is used to describe the Sephirot. This incorporates masculine and feminine aspects, after Genesis 1:27 ("God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them"). Corresponding to the last Sephirah in Creation is the indwelling Shekhina (Feminine Divine Presence). In the Sephirot, performance of the mitzvot (traditional Jewish observances) unites the masculine and feminine aspects of supernal Divinity, and brings harmony to Creation. The description of Divine manifestation through the ten Sephirot ranks as a defining feature of medieval Kabbalah, alongside their male and female aspects, and the concept of downward flow of Divine Light through the chain of creation. The Sephirot correspond to the Four Worlds of this spiritual descent: Atziluth, Beri’ah, Yetzirah, and Assiah.<br />
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According to Lurianic cosmology, the Sephirot correspond to various levels of creation (ten sephirot in each of the Four Worlds, and four worlds within each of the larger four worlds, each containing ten sephirot, which themselves contain ten sephirot--a nesting process that leads to an infinite number of possibilities.<br />
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The Sephirot are considered revelations of the Creator's will. They must not be understood as ten different "gods," but as ten different ways the one God reveals his will through the emanations. It is not God who changes but the ability to perceive God that changes.<br />
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The conventional listing of the Sephirot comprises eleven components. However Keter and Daat are unconscious and conscious dimensions of one principle, so that the whole consists of ten items. In descending order, the names of the Sephirot are: Keter (supernal crown, representing super-conscious will); Chochmah (the highest principle of thought); Binah (the understanding of potential); Daat (knowledge); Chesed (loving-kindness); Gevurah (severity or strength); Rachamim--also known as Tiphereth (mercy); Netzach (victory or eternity); Hod (glory or splendor); Yesod (foundation); Malkuth (kingdom).<br />
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Tzimtzum (“contraction” or “constriction”) is the primordial cosmic act whereby God "contracted" his infinite light, leaving a "void" into which the light of existence was poured. This new doctrine of Isaac Luria in the sixteenth century reformulated the previous Second-Temple and medieval Kabbalistic concepts of angelic hierarchies and descending worlds. In Lurianic Kabbalah the primal emanation after the Tzimtzum led to an initial catastrophy called "Tohu" (Chaos). This was reformed into “Tikkun” (Rectification) of our spiritual realms. The Tzimtzum reconciles the infinite simplicity of the Ein Sof with the finite plurality of Creation.<br />
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In addition, Kabbalah teaches that every Hebrew letter, word, number, even the diacritical marks on words of the Hebrew Bible contain a hidden sense; and it teaches the methods of interpretation for ascertaining these meanings. One method for recovering these meanings is gematria. Each letter in Hebrew also represents a number; Hebrew, unlike many other languages, never developed a separate numerical alphabet. By converting letters to numbers, Kabbalists were able to detect a hidden meaning in each word.<br />
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Appropriately enough Kabbalistic scholarship reached its culmination in the Holy Land itself. During the sixteenth century an important school emerged at Safed in the Galilee region of Ottoman Palestine. There were two major figures, Moses Cordero and Isaac Luria.<br />
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Moses ben Cordovero (1522–1570) is sometimes known by the acronym the Ramak. Following in the medieval footsteps of the group centered around the Zohar, a key text, attempts were made to develop its theology into a complete intellectual system. Moses ben Cordovero was the first sto accomplish this feat. The rational school of Cordoveran Kabbalah he inspired represents one of the pivotal developments in the historical evolution of Kabbalah.<br />
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Immediately after him in Safed, Isaac Luria (1534-572) articulated his own paradigm for Kabbalistic theology, with new revealed doctrines and organization of previous Kabbalistic thought. Luria’s followers regarded Lurianic Kabbalah as harmonious with the Zohar and the system of Moses ben Cordero, though it offered a deeper interpretation of them. Both articulations gave Kabbalah an intellectual completion to rival the more established Jewish philosophy ("Hakira"). Guided by the esoteric elaboration of mystical thought in sixteenth-century Safed, Kabbalah effectively supplanted Hakira as the fundamental theology of Judaism, both in scholarly circles and in the popular imagination<br />
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The Kabbalah has not passed without criticism in Jewish circles. Although Kabbalah maintains the Unity of God, one of the most serious and sustained criticisms is that it may lead away from monotheism, promoting dualism instead--in the sense that there is a supernatural counterpart to God. Some dualistic systems, such as that of Zoroatrianism, hold that there is a good power versus an evil power. Neo-platonism holds that the universe knew a primordial harmony, but that a cosmic disruption yielded a second, evil, dimension to reality. This second model influenced the cosmology of the Kabbalah.<br />
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Later Kabbalistic works, including the Zohar, do appear to affirm dualism, as they ascribe all evil to a supernatural force known as the Sitra Achra ("the other side") that emanates from God. The "left side" of divine emanation is a negative mirror image of the "side of holiness" with which it was locked in combat. While this malign aspect exists within the divine structure of the Sephirot, the Zohar teaches that the Sitra Ahra has no power over Ein Sof, and only exists as a necessary aspect of the creation of God to give man free choice, and that evil is the consequence of this choice. It is not a supernatural force opposed to God, but a reflection of the inner moral combat within mankind between the dictates of morality and the surrender to one's basic instincts.<br />
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Some have even said that the system of ten Sephirot is actually polytheistic, so that the Kabbala is compatible with the Christian Trinity--in fact even richer because it acknowledges eleven deities (God plus the ten Sephirot). This interpretation received some support, because some believers began practices of praying to individual Sephirot. However, the charge of polytheism is rejected by most observers, both those within and without the the Kabbalistic movement,<br />
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Beginning in the eighteenth century, the Kabbala encountered another criticism. Since all forms of reform or liberal Judaism are rooted in the Enlightenment and share the assumptions of European modernity, Kabbalah tended to be rejected by most Jews in the Conservative and Reform movements, though its influence was not completely eliminated. Many western Jews insisted that their future and their freedom required shedding what they perceived as parochial orientalism. They fashioned a Judaism that was dignified and strictly rational (according to nineteenth-century European criteria), disparaging Kabbalah as backward, superstitious, and marginal. However, the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have seen a revival in interest in Kabbalah that has percolated through liberal Judaism. Today most Rabbinical seminaries now include the Kabbalah in their curricula as a matter of course.<br />
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OFFSHOOTS OF THE KABBALAH<br />
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The Renaissance saw the birth of the Christian Cabbala. Some adventurous Christian scholars directed their attention to the mystical dimension of the Jewish Kabbala, perceiving affinities with Christian mysticism, together with ideas associated with Hermes Trismegistus and Neoplatonism. The Christian Cabbala was thus eclectic, an approach rationalized by the inference that ultimately these mystical disciplines reflected a primordial unity.<br />
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As a consequence of the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in the fifteenth century, refugee scholars brought Neoplatonic documents to Italy, where some were translated into Latin. Of course Plato, assisted by some translations made in Moorish Spain, had had some impact on thirteenth-century Scholasticism. However, the new texts that made their way West were more wide ranging. Since the Jewish Kabbalah had a debt (largely unacknowledged) to Neoplatonism, a family resemblance was discernible.<br />
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Eventually the Christian Cabbala merged into the larger trend of Hermetic thought, a trend that for the most part faded away with the rise of modern science in the seventeenth century. In the following century the tendency received a new lease on life as it merged with occultism. By contrast with the Renaissance thinkers who embraced the Christian Cabbala, occultism was essentially relegated to a marginal status.<br />
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During the Renaissance the reception of the Jewish Cabbala benefited from translations by Christian Hebraists, some of them converts from Judaism. The invention of the printing press played its part in the spread of these texts.<br />
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Among the first to promote Kabbala knowledge beyond exclusively Jewish circles was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), a student of Marsilio Ficino at his Florentine Academy. Pico’s syncretic world-view combined Platonism, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, Hermeticism, and Kabbalah--a heady brew.<br />
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Pico’s pioneering work on Kabbalah received further advancement at the hands of Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), a Jesuit priest, hermeticist and polymath. Working within the Christian tradition, the two scholars shared a syncretic approach.<br />
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Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), was a German humanist who mastered both Greek and Hebrew. Having consulted with Pico della Mirandola in Italy, he later studied Hebrew with a Jewish physician, Jakob ben Jehiel Loans, producing thereafter De Arte Cabbalistica in 1517.<br />
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Balthasar Walter (1558-before 1630), was a Silesian physician. In 1598-1599, Walther undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in order to learn the intricacies of the Kabbala and Jewish mysticism from groups residing in Safed and elsewhere, including amongst the followers of Isaac Luria. Despite his claim to have spent six years in these travels, it appears that he only made short trips. Nonetheless, his life demonstrated a direct link between the adepts of the Christian Cabbala and their Jewish predecessors and contemporaries. Walther himself did not author any significant Cabbal works, but maintained a voluminous manuscript collection of magical and kabbalistic works. His significance for the history of Christian Kabbalah is that his ideas and doctrines exercised a profound influence on the works of the celebrated German mystic, Jacob Böhme, author of Forty Questions on the Soul (ca. 1621).<br />
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A curious aftermath of these traditions is the modern Hermetic Qabalah (written with a ‘Q’ so as to distinguish it from its predecessors). An aspect of Western esoteric and mystical thinking, it figures as the underlying philosophy and framework for magical societies such as the Golden Dawn, Thelemic order, such societies as the Builders of the Adytum and the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. It may also be regarded as a precursor to Neopagan, Wiccan, and New Age movements. The Hermetic Qabalah is the basis for Qliphothic Qabala as studied by left-hand path orders, such as the Temple of Black Light, the Typhonian Order and the Dragon Rouge.<br />
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Hermetic Qabalah draws on a dizzying range of sources, including Jewish Kabbalah, Western astrology, alchemy, pagan religions (especially Egyptian and Greco-Roman), neoplatonism, gnosticism, the Enochian system of angelic magic propounded by John Dee and Edward Kelley, rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, tantra, Theosophy, and the symbolism of the Tarot.<br />
<br />
HASIDISM<br />
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Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism (from the Hebrew Hasidus meaning “piety”--literally “loving kindness”) is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that seeks to promote spirituality through a popular version of Jewish mysticism. It traces its origins to an eighteenth-century rabbi known as the Baal Shem Tov, who reacted against what he perceived as Jewish formalism and legalism. By contrast, Hasidic teachings cherished the sincerity and concealed holiness of the unlettered common folk, and their equality with the scholarly elite. The emphasis on the Divine presence in everything gave new value to prayer and deeds of kindness, alongside Rabbinic exaltation of studyCommunal gatherings celebrated soulful song and storytelling as forms of mystical devotion.<br />
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Today, Hasidism comprises part of contemporary Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, which flourishes alongside the previous Talmudic Lithuanian-Yeshiva approach and the Oriental Sephardi tradition. Its charismatic mysticism has inspired non-Orthodox thinkers and influenced wider ranges of modern Jewish denomination, while its ethos and practice have attracted contemporary academic study.<br />
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There are approximately 30 larger Hasidic groups, and several hundred minor groups. Though there is no one version of Hasidism, individual Hasidic groups often share with each other underlying philosophy, worship practices, dress and songs.<br />
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The founder of Hasidism, Israel ben Eliezer (1698–1760), became known as the "Master of the Good Name" (the “Baal Shem Tov,” abbreviated as the "Besht"). Following on from the earlier communal tradition of Baal Shem, his fame as a healer spread not only among the Jews, but also among the non-Jewish peasants and the Polish nobles. Most of the information we have about him stems from at least a generation after his death, and some details are disputed. The stories emphasize his spiritual powers and knowledge, miracle working, and ability to predict the future. In turn, these notions were passed on to his pious successors, shapiing the Hasidic doctrine of the Tzaddik or Rebbe (righteous leader who channels Divine substenance to his followers). The Hasidic concept of a Rebbe also combines their role as a teacher of Judaism and as a charismatic spiritual example.<br />
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Early on, a serious division appeared between the Hasidic and non-Hasidic Jews. Those European Jews who rejected the Hasidic movement dubbed themselves mitnagdim (literally, "opponents"). The critics offered several objections. They decried the apparently novle Hasidic emphasis on different aspects of Jewish law. In addition, they were turned off by the exuberance of Hasidic worship, which struck them as indecorous. Finally, they expressed concern that Hasidism might evolve into a deviant messianic. Over the course of time these differences came to seem less important<br />
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The Nazi invasion into the interior of European Russia in 1941 destroyed the remaining Hasidic communities in the former Pale of Settlement under the first mass destruction of the Holocaust. The Hasidic communities were therefore disproportionately decimated. Subsequently, the Hasidim of Central Europe were transported to the Nazi death camps in occupied Poland. Most survivors moved eventually to Israel or to North America and established new centers of Hasidic Judaism modeled after their original communities. Today, there are probably close to half a million Hasidic Jews worldwide.<br />
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Within the Hasidic world, one can distinguish different Hasidic groups by subtle differences in dress. Some details of their dress are shared by non-Hasidic Orthodox. Much of Hasidic dress was historically the clothing of all Eastern-European Jews, but Hasidim have preserved more of these styles. Furthermore, Hasidim ascribe religious origins to specific Hasidic items of clothing.<br />
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Hasidic men most commonly wear dark (black or navy) jackets and trousers and white shirts. They will usually also wear black shoes. The preference for black comes from a decree made by community rabbis in the eighteenth century stipulating that black outer garments be worn on the Sabbath and Jewish Holy Days out of the home, as opposed to the colorful kaftans that were worn prior to that time. Ostensibly, the rabbis thought that brightly colored garments might arouse resentment amongst non-Jews, which could lead to violence.<br />
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Following a Biblical commandment not to shave the sides of one's face, male members of most Hasidic groups wear long, uncut sideburns called payot (known as peyes in Yiddish). Many Hasidim shave off the rest of their hair.<br />
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The white threads dangling at the waists of Hasidim and other Orthodox Jewish males are called tzitzit. Supposedly, the requirement to wear fringes comes from the Pentateuch: "Speak to the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes on the borders of their garments throughout their generations" (Numbers 15:38). In order to fulfill this commandment, Orthodox males wear a tallit katan, a square white garment with the fringes at the corners.<br />
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The majority of Hasidic women, being Orthodox, wear clothing adhering to the principles of modest dress in Jewish law. This includes long, conservative skirts and sleeves past the elbow. Women often crop their hair, covering the head with a sheitel (wig).<br />
<br />
THE JEWISH ENLIGHTENMENT<br />
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The Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, was an intellectual movement in Europe that flourished from approximately 1770 to 1900. The Haskalah was inspired by the European Enlightenment (or Aufklärung), but sought to adapt it to Jewish circumstances. The term derives from the Hebrew word sekhel, meaning “reason” or “intellect.” The movement encouraged Jews to study secular knowledge, to learn both the European and Hebrew languages, and to practice the crafts, professions such as medicine and law, and the arts. Some maskilim (Haskalah adepts) also advocated manual labor, including agriculture, because they felt that it taught morality. In short, the maskilim sought to assimilate into European society in dress, language, manners, and loyalty to the political regimes in which the found themselves. In due course, the Haskalah influenced the rise of both the Reform movement in Judaism and Zionism.<br />
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As early as the middle of the eighteenth century, many German Jews, together with some individual Polish and Lithuanian Jews, evinced a desire for secular education. Some members of the Jewish elite began to be proficient in European languages. Some individuals of this type found that they could advance by serving the absolutist regimes of their countries, becoming “Court Jews.” Protected, at least for the most part, by the rulers, the Court Jews assimilated into European society. In this they were not entirely welcomed, and the interface between the assimilated Jews and the host society gave rise to anti-Semitism. At a lower social level, Jewish peddlers habitually interacted with non-Jews, bringing outside ideas into their communities.<br />
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All of these developments tended to erode the dominance of halakhah (Jewish law).<br />
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The Haskalah began in Germany and Austria (including Austrian Galicia) spreading to the Pale of Settlement and Lithuanian, under Russian administration, Proponents of the Haskalah were not indifferent to earlier Jewish precedent. Some appealed to the authority of Maimonides, the Jewish thinker and physician of medieval Spain.<br />
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The Prussian-Jewish intellectual Moses Mendelssohn (1726-1789) ranks as the father of the Haskalah. Protected by Frederick the Great, he wrote in scholarly German. He presented Judaism as a non-dogmatic rational faith open to modernity and change. He called for a revival of the Hebrew language and literature. By contrast, he thought that Yiddish was "ridiculous, ungrammatical, and a cause of moral corruption." Mendelssohn initiated a translation of the Hebrew Bible into German, with a text written in Hebrew characters. The Biur, or grammatical commentary, prepared under Mendelssohn's supervision, was designed to supplant traditional rabbinical methods of exegesis. Together with the translation, it became, as it were, the primer of the Haskalah.<br />
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In keeping with their secularist ideals, the Maskilim sought to remove the Talmud from its central place in Jewish education. While they did not exclude Jewish studies, they emphasized secular knowledge, modern languages, and practical training in the crafts. Overall, they fostered the social integration of the Jewish communities.<br />
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Haskalah followers advocated "coming out of ghetto" not just physically but also mentally and spiritually in order to assimilate amongst Gentile nations. The process is sometimes termed disemboguement. a metaphor that suggests coming forth from a closed setting. The success of this project depended on the continuing progress of Jewish emancipation, which had begun with Napoleon in France and spread to Central and Eastern Europe.<br />
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In some ways, the aims of the Haskalah movement meshed with the conceerns of the absolutist rulers of the time. For example, in the 1780s emperor Joseph II issued an edict that applied to the Jews of Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, and Galicia. He decreed that the Jews must either establish “normal” schools, or else sent their children to state schools. Jews were admitted to general secondary schools and universities, marriage was prohibited without a certificate of school attendance, and anyone who studied Talmud before completing the secular school curriculum was subject to imprisonment (at least theoretically).<br />
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The growth of the Haskalah fostered the rise of the Reform movement, whose founders such as Israel Jacobson and Leopold Zunz rejected those aspects of Jewish law which they regarded as merely ritual, as opposed to moral or ethical. Even within orthodoxy the effects of Haskalah were felt through the appearance of the Mussar Movement in Lithuania and Torah im Derech Eretz in Germany. Enlightened Jews sided with Gentile governments in plans to increase secular education among the Jewish masses, bringing them into acute conflict with the orthodox who believed this process threatened Jewish life.<br />
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An important offshoot of the Haskalah was the Wissenschaft des Judentums ("the science of Judaism"), a nineteenth-century scholarly movement premised on the critical investigation of Jewish literature and culture, including rabbinic literature, mobilizing scientific methods to analyze the origins of Jewish traditions.<br />
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The first organized attempt at developing and disseminating Wissenschaft des Judentums was the Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden (Society for Jewish Culture and Knowledge), founded around 1819 by Eduard Gans (a pupil of the Gentile philosopher Hegel), and his associates. The Society sought to devise a rationale for the Jews as a Volk or people in their own right, independent of their religious traditions. As such it sought to validate their secular cultural traditions as being on an equal footing with those adduced by Johann Gottfried Herder and his followers for Germans and other peoples. As such, the Verein was not a success, a failure attributable largely to the far greater attraction, amongst German Jews, of German culture. This was followed by the conversion to Christianity of many of its leading figures, including Gans and Heine.<br />
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Still, the broader aim persisted. Proponents of Wissenschaft des Judentums strove to elevate Jewish culture to a level on par with Western European civilization, endeavoring to have Jewish Studies introduced into the university curriculum as a respectable area of study. In this way, they could free the field from the prevailing bias that regarded Judaism as an inferior precursor to Christianity.<br />
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Leopold Zunz (1794–1886), one of the movement's leading figures, devoted much of his work to rabbinic literature. At the time, Christian thinkers maintained that the Jews' contribution ended with the Bible, and Zunz began to publish in the area of post-biblical rabbinic literature. His essays "Etwas über die rabbinische Literatur" and "Zur Geschichte und Literatur" addressed this issue.<br />
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Despite his scholarly concerns, Zunz felt the need to confront the possibility that Judaism had come to an end. In this context it was the task of Wissenschaft des Judentums to provide a judicious accounting of the varied and rich contributions which Judaism had made to civilization. One of Zunz’ followers is said to have quipped that Wissenschaft des Judentums seeks to ensure that Judaism will receive a proper burial, in which scholarship amounts to an extended obituary.<br />
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In fact, the writings of many Wissenschaft scholars display not only an intense love of learning for its own sake, but also a genuine affinity for the rabbis and scholars of former times, whose works they found themselves documenting, editing, publishing, analyzing, and critiquing. Indeed, far from disparaging or despising the Jewish religion and its many generations of rabbinical scholars, the majority of Wissenschaft practitioners were eager to take ownership of the Jewish scholarly tradition. They saw themselves as the rightful heirs and successors to such sages as Saadia and Rashi, Hillel and ibn Ezra. While this enthusiasm is admirable, it may have contained an element of projection that elided the differences between the modern trend and the earlier ones.<br />
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In the Wissenschaft approach to scholarship, then, the earlier generations of scholars become "de-sanctified" and "re-humanized," that is, normalized. Wissenschaft scholars felt free to pass judgment on the intellectual and scholarly capacities of earlier scholars, evaluating their originality, competence, and credibility, at the same time signaling their failures and limitations. The Wissenschaft scholars, while respectful of their predecessors, have no patience for a concept such as yeridat ha-dorot, the idea that later scholars are necessarily inferior to earlier ones. For them, the classical authorities are no more beyond dispute and critique than are contemporary scholars; the opinions of Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-1164) and Moritz Steinscheider (1816-1907) may consort in the same sentence without any sense of impropriety. No doubt this normalization of the Jewish luminaries provided further grist for the opponents of the movement.<br />
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From its very beginnings, the Wissenschaft movement drew criticism from traditional elements in the Jewish community, who regarded it as sterile at best, and at worst damaging to the religious community. Nonetheless, the legacy of the Wissenschaft movement persists, and its influence still resonates in Jewish Studies departments in universities in many parts of the world. Still, the publication of the <i>Jewish Encyclopedia</i> in 1901–1906 probably marked the end of the original tradition. The choice of English over German as the language of this major work demonstrated that the hegemony of German scholarship in this field was drawing to a close.<br />
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TWO RABBIS, TWO PATHS<br />
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Earlier portions of this chapter have noted the resistance pervading most Jewish religious circles as to receiving the findings of the Higher Criticism, as well as to the persistence of allegorical readings of the scriptures that stem from the Middle Ages. This resistance is rooted in the uniquely Jewish concept of the Oral Torah, an entity that ranks with the Written Torah (that is, the Hebrew Bible as we have it) as an equal partner.<br />
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The Higher Criticism, otherwise known as the historical-critical approach, emerged full blown in mid-nineteenth century Germany. It is in that time and place that we would expect to find the formative stages of the Jewish confrontation with these findings of modern biblical criticism.<br />
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In this context two figures were of exemplary importance: Abraham Geiger and Samson Raphael Hirsch, both rabbis.<br />
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Abraham Geiger (1810–1874) is credited with laying the foundations of Reform Judaism. He sought to remove all nationalistic elements (particularly the "Chosen People" doctrine) from Judaism, stressing it as an evolving and changing religion. His studies of classical philology and oriental languages at the Universities of Heidelberg, Bonn, and Marburg eroded his faith in the traditional Judaism in which he had been raised. This experience induced a simmering crisis, leading eventually to his conversion to reformist ideas.<br />
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Geiger’s doctoral dissertation concerned the incorporation of Jewish elements in the Koran. In this way he heralded the enterprise of examining the interaction of the foundational documents of the three Abrahamic religions. I honor his example, because in my own way I have sought to pursue this comparativist path.<br />
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As a rabbi in Wiesbaden, Geiger began his program of religious reforms, chiefly in the synagogue liturgy. For example, he abolished the prayers of mourning for the Temple, believing that, as German citizens, such prayers would appear to be disloyal to the ruling power and could possibly spark Anti-Semitism. Rather than create a new religious orientation, Geiger’s goal was to change Judaism from within. His work found reinforcement in the work of other reformers, such as Samuel Holdheim, Israel Jacobson, and Leopold Zunz.<br />
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Geiger also took up the study of the New Testament, maintaining that Jesus was a Pharisee teaching Judaism. While this particular view is no longer tenable, he nonetheless ranks as “the first Jew to subject Christian texts to detailed historical analysis from an explicitly Jewish perspective” (Susannah Heschel, <i>Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus</i>, 1994, p. 2). The Wiesbaden rabbi was a forerunner of today’s Jewish scholars who have offered their own interpretation of the New Testament (see my posting “Jesus the Jew”).<br />
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In keeping with the dominant trend of nineteenth-century historiography, Geiger emphasized the narrative of Judaism as an unfolding reality--as a story of progress in short. Yet his investigations of Jesus and his times led him to conclude that Judaism reached a kind of perfection towards the end of the Second Temple period, that is, in the time of Jesus. This seems contradictory.<br />
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The liberal Jewish scholar held that the rabbinical writings found in the Mishna and the two Talmuds represent a kind of ossification, one partly shaped by Christian pressure. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, these writings were not an ornament to Judaism. By and large, most later rabbinical scholarship has not followed him in this denigration, for it continues to regard those early rabbinical collections as the foundation for the Oral Torah, and thus on a plane with (if not superior to) the Written Torah.<br />
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We turn now to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888). When they were university students Hirsch was a friend of Geiger’s. Later they diverged sharply.<br />
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In 1830 Hirsch was elected chief rabbi of the principality of Oldenburg. During this period he wrote his <i>Neunzehn Briefe über Judenthum</i> (Nineteen Letters on Judaism), which were published in 1836. This work made a strong impression in German Jewish circles because it was a forthright defense of Orthodox Judaism in classic German, supporting all its traditional institutions and ordinances. Other publications critiqued the nascent Reform trend.<br />
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Hirsch’s approach to the hermeneutics of Jewish religious documents is of particular interest. In contrast to the historical-critical approach, he emphasized the symbolic interpretation of many Torah commandments and passages. Hirsch sought to defend the traditional understanding of the Written and Oral Law against the rising tide of historicist criticism (see his Commentary on the Pentateuch, 1867-78). He held that the Oral Law was revealed before the Written Law and is not dependent on it; the Written Law (the Bible as we know it) is merely a summary of the Oral Law--a kind of set of Cliff’s Notes, as it were. In Hirsch’s view, there can be no true understanding of the essence of Judaism without marshaling the full resources of the Oral Law. Its looming presence must always be acknowledged in any interpretation of Scripture.<br />
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In his extreme view, Hirsch held that the origins of the Oral Torah preceded the Written Torah in time, so that it takes logical precedence. This exaltation of the Oral Torah (which is in fact a purely human contrivance assembled for the most part from Mishna and Talmud) finds many echoes in Orthodox circles today. Even those who do not accept the primacy of the Oral Law tend to accept the component material as essential. That is, they reject Abraham Geiger’s critical view that these texts are secondary and in some respects distorting. Rather they view the Oral Law, as embodied in Mishna and Talmud, as the indispensable corollary and perfection of the Judaism of the Tanakh. That is, after all, what being a Talmudic scholar means.<br />
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It is a truism that Judaism is a text-based religion. But which texts? I have never attended classes at a Jewish theological seminary, but clearly Mishnah and Talmud--the basic ingredients of the Oral Torah--would figure prominently in the curriculum. Many, perhaps most instructors in these schools of rabbinical training would hesitate to adopt the extreme view of Rabbi Hirsch that the Oral Torah precedes and therefore controls the Tanakh. By the same token, however, few would seek to reduce Mishnah and Talmud to the role of mere commentaries.<br />
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For a moderate view of the role of these post-Biblical texts, one may turn to the book of a Jewish layman MIchael S. Berger, <i>Rabbinic Authority</i> (New York, 1998). Setting aside, as he does, the “totalitarian” claims for Talmudic authority., Berger asks why one should still follow the rabbis of the first several centuries after the destruction of the Temple. The reason is, he argues, because rabbinic authority has become central to Jews' way of life--a way of life that "can provide a sense of overall purpose to one's activities; it can create or deeper feelings of community with other Jews; it can offer guidelines for behavior and a relative certitude with respect to moral and other sorts of dilemmas; and it can supply a person with a connection or rootedness in a millennia-long tradition." One writer has pointed out that Berger's conception is analogous to the legal argument for the principle of stare decisis (that is, that a judicial decision or set of such decisions has become so ingrained in the legal system that it should not be overturned).<br />
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Michael S. Berger acknowledges that rabbinic authority means different things for different communities. For most traditionally observant Jews, rabbinic authority entails complete obedience to the halakhic tradition first put in writing by the Sages of Mishnah and Talmud. Yet even the least traditional Jews defer to rabbinic authority to some extent, for otherwise Reform Jews would not honor rabbinically ordained holidays such as Hanukah and Purim.<br />
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Hanukkah, from the Hebrew word for "dedication" or "consecration," marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration by the forces of Antiochus IV in 167 BCE and commemorates the "miracle of the container of oil." These events lie outside the canon of the Hebrew Bible, and in consequence the festival cannot be derived from that text. Hanukkah is mentioned in the deuterocanonical books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees. It was the Talmud, however, that established the special significance of Hanukkah, laying the foundations for the modern commemoration.<br />
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Purim commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people of the Persian Empire from Haman’s plot to annihilate them. While the events are recorded in the book of Esther, which is recognized by Jews as a canonical book, the celebration of the festival is not noted in the Hebrew Bible itself. As with Hanukkah, Purim owes its status to the interpretations of the rabbis, as Berger points out.<br />
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Thus even for Reform Jews there is no easy way of renouncing the injunctions of the Sages in the Mishnah and the two Talmuds. Over time the textual basis of Judaism has come to embrace these documents. Moreover, once one acknowledges this incorporation, as most authorities within Judaism do, there is no way of avoiding some descent down the slippery slope. At the base of that slope awaits the Leviathan of the Oral Torah.<br />
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Contrast the case with Christians who are, many of them at least, free to say “Forget about Augustine and Thomas Aquinas; forget about Luther and Calvin. I will go by the words of Holy Scripture alone.” To be sure, this is not an option that is universally exercised. It is mainly Protestants who do so, while Catholics are still bound by papal authority. The point is that recourse to the Sola Scriptura principle is possible for many Christians. By contrast, for observant Jews such a focus (the Sola Scriptura model) is not available. It is not an option because the inspired words of the Sages are not simply commentary in the sense honored by classical and Christian hermeneutics. Instead, Mishna and Talmud are in fact Scripture. The exalted status these writings have attained makes it functionally impossible, within the bounds of Jewish tradition, to separate the Bible from the accretions that have attached themselves to it. This means that subscribing to these principles precludes an independent and unprejudiced effort to try to discover what the Hebrew Bible really means. The reason is that one always has the Sages looking over one’s shoulder. It may seem paradoxical, but for some centuries now significant progress in understanding the Hebrew Bible has been made chiefly by non-Jews. Since the Protestant Reformation it is been possible to isolate the Scriptures from their accretions and (eventually) to examine them according to the principles of the Higher Criticism. These achievements, accomplished essentially by Protestants, are Christian resources that observant Jews have found it difficult to emulate.<br />
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Seeking to protect the integrity of the Jewish tradition, Samson Raphael Hirsch and the rabbis who allied themselves with him heralded the rejectionism maintained today by many rabbis. They believe that the adoption of the historical-critical method would erode the historical foundations of Judaism--possibly leading to its destruction.<br />
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To be sure, prominent lay Jewish scholars, such as Richard Elliott Friedman and Hershel Shanks, fully recognize the findings of modern scholarship. By and large, though, the same is not true of rabbis, who even if they privately accept some of the findings of the historical-critical school are not eager to share these views with their congregations. Some even speak mockingly of the “alphabet soup” of the J, E, D, and P analysis of the Pentateuch. Theirs is a serious case of denial.<br />
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Unfortunately, these antiquated views circulate today not only among the Orthodox, but also among Conservative and Reform rabbis. To all intents and purposes, the continued flourishing of the Hirsch approach to hermeneutics works to isolate official Judaism from modern currents of biblical scholarship, which are proceeding apace in other quarters. This outdated view also serves as a barrier to the acceptance of modern findings regarding the actual history and faith of the people who wrote the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible. Finally, the approach hinders the attempt to understand the interaction of all three sets of Abrahamic texts, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim--the task that underlies this book.<br />
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HOLY FELLATIO<br />
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The New York Times for Friday, Aug. 26, 2005 contains a disturbing report. “A circumcision ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews alarmed [New York] City health officials, who say it may have led to three cases of herpes—one of them fatal—in infants. The practice is known as oral suction, or in Hebrew, metzitzah b'peh: after removing the foreskin of the penis, the practitioner, or mohel, sucks the blood from the wound to clean it.” Here are some further details. According to one authority, "[t]he method to be adopted is laid down thus: 'One excises the foreskin, (that is) the entire skin covering the glans, so that the corona is laid bare. Afterwards, one tears with the finger-nail the soft membrane underneath the skin, turning it to the sides until the flesh of the glans appears. Thereafter, one sucks the membrane until the blood is extracted from the (more) remote places, so that no danger (to the infant) may ensue; and any circumciser who does not carry out the sucking procedure is to be removed (from his office).”<br />
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Why is the penis sucked? Some physicians contend that it serves to stop bleeding. Not only is there little evidence for this theory, but it was also a largely ineffective method. Furthermore, even in antiquity, surgeons had better methods to stop bleeding, such as pressure, instruments, and medication.<br />
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After centuries in which the metzitah b’peh was standard practice, a reform of the rite, involving the application of the lips of the mohel to a glass straw rather than directly to the penis, was first recommended in the Haskalah era (late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries), by Moses Schreiber, but it was implemented only by a segment of the modern Orthodox movement. Yet many Judaic authorities both medical and rabbinic, continue to uphold the traditional practice of performing fellatio on the infant male. As Henry C Romberg asserts: "[t]he traditional practice of metzitzah b'peh, which has its roots in the earliest history of the Jewish people and has survived unchanged to the present time, should be viewed with great respect. It is spoken of very positively in the Jewish literature on circumcision both as an essential part of the ritual and as a health measure which prevents infection and promotes healing."<br />
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In fact, dozens of ultra-Orthodox rabbis signed a full-page Hebrew advertisement that ran in the February 25, 2005 issue of Yated Ne'eman, defending the practice. Rabbi Gerald Chirnomas from Boonton, N.J., a prominent mohel in the Greater New York region, asserted that the practice of orally suctioning blood was the norm for centuries .... Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for Agudath Israel ... said that ... it is a religious tradition of many generations ... Another rabbinic organization, the Central Rabbinical Council, and at least two Orthodox newspapers, Yated Ne'eman (in a statement issued by Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz in the February 18, 2005 edition) also defends metzitzah b'peh.<br />
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After the New York Times story appeared, some Jewish organizations hastened with assurances that the practice is rare and not typical of Jewish circumcision rituals. Many of the mohels, it seems, now extract the blood with a tube. However, on March 1, 2005 the Rabbinical Council of America stated: “Bris Milah (ritual circumcision of Jewish males, performed on the 8th day after birth unless there are health contraindications) is a fundamental cornerstone of Jewish life and Biblical law. An important element of every Bris Milah is Metzitzah be'Peh, the extracting of blood from the wound and/or surrounding tissue using the mouth as the source of suction. This practice has been prevalent in all Jewish communities worldwide for thousands of years.”<br />
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Yet the Council then goes on to assert: “ Based upon a careful study of the available Halachic and scientific literature, as well as a review of sanctioned practice by numerous reliable Torah authorities past and present, it is the position of the RCA that the requirement of Metzitzah is fulfilled completely and unambiguously by the use of oral suctioning through a tube, as practiced by many Mohalim in our communities. Therefore, according to this viewpoint, the use of such a tube is not only permissible, but is preferred (instead of direct oral contact) to eliminate any unintentional communication of infectious diseases. This protects both the Mohel and the newly circumcised child.” This view is simply a concession to modern, secular views, and not in accordance with traditional Jewish practice.<br />
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Since time immemorial oral suction has been the norm. The Mishnah in Masechet Shabbat (133a) records the practice of metzitzah as an essential aspect of the circumcision process, and states that metzitzah must be performed at the end of the circumcision. “They [the mohalim] may perform on the Sabbath all things needful for circumcision: excision, tearing, sucking [the wound] and putting thereon a bandage and cummin.” (H. Dabney trans., p. 116).<br />
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In addition, the Gemara explains (ibid, 133b) that refraining from performing metzitzah endangers the baby. The commentators elaborate that metzitzah is performed in order to hasten the healing of the wound.<br />
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Modern commentators claim that that metzitzah functions as a medical procedure and not a religious one. Of course is not a medical procedure, but one that endangers the health of the infant, as we have seen.<br />
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There are also legal considerations. In an era when there is great concern about sexual molestation of children, many may wonder how an adult can legally put his mouth on a child's genitals. However, the courts often allow exemptions to general laws for religious practices--especially when they are espoused by Orthodox Jewry.<br />
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FROM AKHENATEN TO BUBER<br />
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Anyone seriously concerned with ancient Egypt must ponder the astonishing religious innovations of pharaoh Akhenaten (reigned 1353-1337) of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Ever since the recovery a century ago of art works and documents of this pharaoh, it has been recognized that Akhenaten introduced true monotheism--the worship of a single deity in the form of the Aten, visualized as a sun disk. The reforming pharaoh did not tolerate other deities, and required that their images be smashed. The similarities between Akhenaten’s ideas and those ascribed to Moses are so close that some--famously Sigmund Freud--have been tempted to posit a direct connection between the two phenomena. However, the chronological gap between the two forms of monotheism is too great. One must assume that the Israelite development was an independent invention, and not an instance of diffusion.<br />
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At all events, in discussing the bas reliefs of Akhenaten adoring the Aten one notices that they exhibit a reciprocity that is rare in ancient Egyptian religious art, and indeed anywhere in ancient art. That is, the deity responds vigorously to the king’s adoration by emitting a virtual shower of rays, each terminating in a tiny hand.<br />
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In the course of some recent lectures on ancient Egypt it occurred to me that this phenomenon of reciprocity might be an example of the famous “I-thou” nexus advanced by the Jewish thinker Martin Buber (1878-1965). After all, I reasoned, Buber was working in the context of Jewish monotheism, which as we noted, shows striking affinities with the monotheism of Akhenaten, even though it was not derived from the ancient Egyptian prototype.<br />
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After the lecture I got out my old copy of “I and Thou,” and reread this wonderful text, which surely ranks as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century literature. To my surprise, I found very little that is overtly Jewish. To be sure, scholars have detected two or three veiled allusions to the Hebrew text of Exodus. By contrast, there are several direct references to the Upanishads and to Buddhism. Jesus, the Gospels, and Christian mystics receive favorable, explicit attention. In short, if the text had been published anonymously, one would not detect that its author was a famous authority on the Hasidism. In fact, for much of its life--<i>I and Thou </i>was first published in German in 1923--the book was admired mainly by protestants.<br />
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Even more startling, however, is the fact that the book is not primarily about religion, but about deepening our human interaction with the world by observing the distinction between “I-thou” and “I-It.” The former manifests deep empathy; the latter instrumentalizes the world, reducing it to a mere convenience.<br />
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Buber’s book is laced with many references to Goethe. This was more or less obligatory in German scholarly writing of the time, but Buber seemed to have responded in a genuine way to the great writer’s humanism. Ultimately, however, <i>I and Thou</i> seems to be based on a cardinal principle of the ethics of Immanuel Kant, who requires that we treat others as ends not means. To take a familiar example, sexual objectification reduces the other person to a mere convenience--a means--for the satisfaction of the individual. By contrast, genuine love treats the beloved as an end, someone to be honored and treasured for his or her self. Indeed, Buber sometimes speaks of the man-and-wife relation as an example of “I-thou.”<br />
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In addition, Buber’s masterpiece was a child of its time, Weimar Germany. Its rhapsodic, sometimes obscure style shows notable similarities with the contemporary work of Martin Heidegger and Hermann Hesse. I also detect a more remote connection with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early masterpiece of concision, the <i>Tractatus</i>.<br />
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Examining the details of Martin Buber’s life, it is not difficult to discern the origins of his knowledge of Christian traditions. His dissertation dealt with the Christian mystics Nicholas of Cusa and Jacob Boehme [Zur Geschichte des Individuationsproblem (Nicolaus von Cusa und Jakob Boehme), University of Vienna, 1904]. For a long time the manuscript has remained unpublished in Buber‘s papers in Tel Aviv. I have not been able to examine the first installment of the new collected edition (planned for 21 volumes) of the writer’s German-language writings, but it seems that that this early formative text was not included therein. Perhaps it will appear in a later volume. Still, some periodical articles published by Buber at the time of his studies offer a glimpse of its contents. Guided in part by the nineteenth-century Christian theologian, Ludwig Feuerbach, Buber contextualized his subjects by also discussing Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Weigel.<br />
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Another interesting point--though it is a sidelight--is that after obtaining his Ph.D. Buber went for a time to Florence to study art history, with a view to teaching that subject. Had he persevered, he might have become one of my teachers in graduate school at New York University.<br />
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As far as I know, Buber never contemplated conversion to Christianity, but clearly his allegiance was to European and indeed to world culture. In this light, it is ironic that he is now known mainly to American Jews by his collections of the Hasidic tales associated with the eighteenth-century Ashkenazic sage Baal Shem Tov, also known as the Besht. In the eyes of today’s enthusiasts, the Besht ranks as a kind of protohippy. Discarding conventions and doctrinal restraints, he freely roamed the fields, all the while singing away. Since this archetypal Hasid wrote almost nothing and was limned by followers only some fifty years after his death, it is hard to establish the truth of these claims. Skeptics have doubted whether the Baal Shen Tov ever existed, though surely this goes too far, as some contemporary documents have been found. At all events recent popular accounts are poorly sources and redolent of anachronism. For a demythologized view of this much-extolled figure, see the sober monograph of Moshe Rosman, <i>Founder of Hasidism</i>, 1996.<br />
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When he first engaged with this material, just over a hundred years ago, Buber seems to have viewed Hasidism as an exemplary source of Jewish cultural renewal, citing examples from the Hasidic tradition that emphasized community, interpersonal life, and the meaning that dwells in humble, everyday activities (for example, a worker's relation to his tools). According to Buber, the Hasidic ideal emphasized a life conducted in the unconditional presence of God, where there was no separation between daily life and religious experience.<br />
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Martin Buber has been criticized for presenting the tales in such a way as to illustrate his own philosophy of life, while omitting the overarching theology that was uncongenial to him. He has also, perhaps inadvertently, contributed to the cloying sentimentality that has come to envelop the vanished shtetl culture of Eastern Europe--what might be termed the “Fiddler on the Roof” syndrome.<br />
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In this vein, an element of wishful thinking has been noted in Buber's recasting of the Hasidic tradition. In the introduction to his edition of <i>Tales of the Hasidim</i>, Chaim Potok maintains that Buber overlooked Hasidism's "charlatanism, obscurantism, internecine quarrels, its heavy freight of folk superstition and pietistic excesses, its zaddik worship, its vulgarized and attenuated reading of Lurianic Kabbalah."<br />
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For their part, traditionalists have charged that Buber deemphasized the importance of Jewish Law in Hasidism. Yet Buber would have probably have replied that that was precisely his point. A commitment to a genuinely religious life is reflected in one’s daily conduct, not in adherence to a rigid set of beliefs.<br />
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A 2008 book by Martina Urban, <i>Aesthetics of Renewal: Martin Buber’s Early Representation of Hasidism as Kulturkritik</i>, links this interest on Buber’s part with his Zionism. Well, yes and no, for one of the key points of early Zionism was to begin a new life in Palestine, discarding the baggage of the old ways. Moreover, Buber’s freeform interpretation of Hasidism retains more than a few residues of his formative studies of the Christian antinomian mystics Nicholas of Cusa and Jacob Boehme.<br />
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ZIONISM REVISITED<br />
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A new monograph by the Israeli scholar Shlomo Sand challenges the Zionist VIEW of the “return” of the Jewish people to Eretz Israel. First published in Hebrew in Israel, where it was a best seller, this book is <i>The Invention of the Jewish People</i> (2010). The author is a professor of history at Tel Aviv University. In its French version, Sand's book has been honored with France's Aujourd'hui Award, given by leading journalists to the best non-fiction political or historical work.<br />
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Shlomo Sand begins with a review of the literature on the formation of nations. Broadly speaking, those who have addressed this problem fall into two schools: the primordialists and the constructionists. The former view--widely, though incorrectly assumed to be simply common sense--assumes that ethnic essences have existed “since the mists of antiquity.” To shape this primordial heritage into a modern nation two things are necessary: an awakening of ethnic consciousness among the people, and removal of foreign domination--the latter being perceived as the key obstacle to the “organic” realization of nationhood.<br />
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This view has long attracted skeptics, who point out that reconstructions of primordial national histories are all too often laced with myth and wishful thinking.<br />
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The best-known exponent of the constructionist view (or “modernist,” as it is sometimes termed) is the British historian Benedict Anderson, who holds that a nation is a community that is socially constructed, that is to say imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group. Anderson's influential book, <i>Imagined Communities,</i> in which he expounds explains the concept, was published in 1983. According to this view, most modern nations are not simply the concretization of long-occulted realities, but deliberate fabrications. An imagined community differs from an actual community because it is not based on everyday face-to-face interaction between its members. Instead, members hold in their minds a mental image of their affinity. Nowadays, the media play a major role in creating and sustaining imagined communities, through targeting a mass audience or generalizing and addressing citizens as the public. These communities are understood as both limited (through the maintenance of national boundaries) and sovereign (in the perspective of populism).<br />
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Shlomo Sand’s book opposes the Zionist version of the primordialist view of the history of the Jewish people--and its presumed culmination cum restoration in the state of Israel. Conversely, he advances powerful reasons for adopting the constructionist approach.<br />
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According to Sand, the description of the Jews as a migratory and self-isolating nation of exiles, "who wandered across seas and continents, reached the ends of the earth and finally, with the advent of Zionism, reversed course, and returned en masse to their orphaned homeland," is nothing but "national mythology." Like other national movements in Europe, which sought out a splendid Golden Age as the embodiment of a heroic past --for example, ancient Rome for the Italian risorgimento or the Teutonic tribes for Germany--to prove they have existed since the beginnings of history, "so, too, the first buds of Jewish nationalism blossomed in the direction of the strong light that has its source in the mythical Kingdom of David."<br />
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More particularly, Sand shows that the idea of a “history of the Jewish people” is a relatively recent product encapsulating a series of acts of imagination. Medieval and early modern Christianity created numerous world histories coming down to the time of the writers. Islam offers something similar. Yet, as far as we know, no medieval or early modern rabbi ever attempted such a thing. For the rabbis the Bible, always glimpsed through the lenses of Mishnah and Talmud, was mainly a repository of do’s and don’ts. As such it was the foundation of Halakha, loosely translated as “Jewish law.”<br />
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In fact the first writer to attempt a full-scale history was a French protestant Jacques Basnage, whose <i>Histoire de la religion des juifs</i> appeared at The Hague in 1706-07. Only in 1820-28 did a German Jewish scholar Isaak Markus Jost follow suit. According to Sand, Jost was a German patriot who portrayed the Jews as simply loyal citizens of the countries in which they reside. With the massive work of Heinrich Graetz (1853-76) this historiographic enterprise takes a proto-Zionist turn, in that Graetz thinks of the Jewish people as a perennial and supranational entity. With the addition of the territorial component--return to Eretz Israel--this view became the foundation of the official histories that emerged in Mandate Palestine and its successor, the state of Israel. With the formation of the state of Israel many of its intellectual defenders sought to root its existence in the biblical record. Ostensibly they were supported by archaeology, though this supposed foundation has turned out to be chimerical.<br />
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After exploring the background, Sand turns to his major thesis, that the Jewish people is a composite and not an organic entity. The author holds that the Jews now living in Israel and other places in the world are not simply descendants of the ancient people who inhabited the Kingdom of Judea during the First and Second Temple period. In Sand’s view, their origins lie in the varied peoples that converted to Judaism during the course of history, in different corners of the Mediterranean Basin and the adjacent regions. Not only are the North African Jews for the most part descendants of pagans who converted to Judaism, but so are the Jews of Yemen (remnants of the Himyar Kingdom in the Arab Peninsula, who converted to Judaism in the fourth century) and the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe (many of them refugees from the Central Asian kingdom of the Khazars, who converted in the eighth century).<br />
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Many readers of Sand’s book have taken a fancy to Dahia al-Kahina, a leader of the Berbers in the Aurės Mountains. Although she was a proud Jewish woman, few Israelis had ever heard the name of this warrior-queen who, in the seventh century CE, united a number of Berber tribes and pushed back the Muslim army that invaded North Africa. Kahina, a kind of Jewish Boadicea, belonged to a Berber tribe that had converted to Judaism, apparently several generations before she was born, sometime around the sixth century CE. Sand believes that the Jews of al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) stemmed mainly from these Berber converts.<br />
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If the Kahina discovery has proved enchanting, not so the renewed emphasis on the Khazars. The information concerning their kingdom has long been known, in part through a popular book by Arthur Koestler, but this news has been slow to penetrate in the state of Israel. This is so, notwithstanding the recent arrival of some 500,000 Jews and wannabes from the nations of the former Soviet Union, who may well represent this Khazar heritage.<br />
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In fact, Sand holds that the most crucial demographic addition to the Jewish population of the world came in the wake of the conversion of the kingdom of Khazaria, a huge empire that arose in the Middle Ages on the steppes along the Volga River, which at its height ruled over an area that stretched from the Republic of Georgia of today to Kiev. In the eighth century, the Khazars rulers adopted the Jewish religion and made Hebrew the written language of the kingdom. Beginning in the tenth century the kingdom weakened; in the thirteenth century is was utterly defeated by Mongol invaders, and its Jewish inhabitants were dispersed.<br />
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Sand subscribes to the hypothesis, which was already proposed by historians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, according to which the Judaized Khazars constituted the main demographic source of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.<br />
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"At the beginning of the twentieth century there is a tremendous concentration of Jews in Eastern Europe, three million Jews in Poland alone," he says. "The Zionist historiography claims that their origins are in the earlier Jewish community in Germany, but they do not succeed in explaining how a small number of Jews who came from Mainz and Worms could have founded the Yiddish people of Eastern Europe. The Jews of Eastern Europe are a mixture of Khazars and Slavs who were pushed eastward."<br />
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If this is so, one may ask: if the Jews of Eastern Europe did not come from Germany, why did they speak Yiddish, a Germanic language?<br />
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"The Jews were a class of people dependent on the German bourgeoisie in the East, and thus they adopted German words. Here I base myself on the research of linguist Paul Wechsler of Tel Aviv University, who has demonstrated that there is no etymological connection between the German Jewish language of the Middle Ages and Yiddish. As far back as 1828, the Ribal (Rabbi Isaac Ber Levinson) said that the ancient language of the Jews was not Yiddish. Even Ben Zion Dinur, the father of Israeli historiography, was not hesitant about describing the Khazars as the origin of the Jews in Eastern Europe, and describes Khazaria as 'the mother of the diasporas' in Eastern Europe. But more or less since 1967, anyone who talks about the Khazars as the ancestors of the Jews of Eastern Europe is considered naive and moonstruck."<br />
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In an interview published in the Israeli daily Haaretz, a journalist asked Sand why the idea of the Khazar origins is so threatening?<br />
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"It is clear that the fear is of an undermining of the historic right to the land. The revelation that the Jews are not from Judea would ostensibly knock the legitimacy for our being here out from under us. Since the beginning of the period of decolonization, settlers have no longer been able to say simply: 'We came, we won and now we are here' the way the Americans, the whites in South Africa and the Australians said. There is a very deep fear that doubt will be cast on our right to exist."<br />
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It is appropriate to ask: is there no justification for this fear?<br />
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"No. I don't think that the historical myth of the exile and the wanderings is the source of the legitimization for me being here, and therefore I don't mind believing that I am Khazar in my origins. I am not afraid of the undermining of our existence, because I think that the character of the State of Israel undermines it in a much more serious way. What would constitute the basis for our existence here is not mythological historical right, but rather would be for us to start to establish an open society here of all Israeli citizens."<br />
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The implication, it seems, is that there is no such thing as a Jewish people.<br />
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"I don't recognize an international people. I recognize 'the Yiddish people' that existed in Eastern Europe, which though it is not a nation can be seen as a Yiddishist civilization with a modern popular culture. I think that Jewish nationalism grew up in the context of this 'Yiddish people.' I also recognize the existence of an Israeli people, and do not deny its right to sovereignty. But Zionism and also Arab nationalism over the years are not prepared to recognize it.”<br />
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With further regard to Jewish diversity, Shlomo Sand points out that in antiquity, culminating in the Hasmonean kingdom, there were a number of major incorporations of surrounding peoples into the Judaic nucleus. Moreover, there were no major expulsions as a result of the sack of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the repression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135. Before and after, of course, there had been considerable voluntary immigration to various parts of the Roman Empire, accompanied by conversions from the surrounding gentile population. Accordingly, the myth of exile at this time is just that: myth.<br />
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"The supreme paradigm of exile was needed in order to construct a long-range memory in which an imagined and exiled nation-race was posited as the direct continuation of 'the people of the Bible' that preceded it," Sand explains. Agreeing with other historians who have treated the same issue in recent years, he argues that the exile of the Jewish people began as a Christian myth that depicted that event as divine punishment imposed on the Jews for having rejected the Christian gospel.<br />
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From all that we can learn from the historical record, most of the Jews residing in Roman Judaea remained there. What then became of them? After 324 many converted to Christianity; their descendants, most at least, in turn became Muslim. Genetically speaking, today’s Palestinians are Jews. Curiously, this view was maintained by no less a figure that David Ben Gurion in the 1920s. After the Arab uprising in 1929, however, Ben Gurion and his colleague Yitzhak Ben-Zvi abandoned the idea for political reasons.<br />
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Does Sand think that in fact the real descendants of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah are the Palestinians?<br />
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"No population remains pure over a period of thousands of years. But the chances that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient Judaic people are much greater than the chances that you or I [his Israeli interviewer] are its descendants. The first Zionists, up until the Arab Revolt [1936-9], knew that there had been no exiling, and that the Palestinians were descended from the inhabitants of the land. They knew that farmers don't leave until they are expelled. Even Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the second president of the state of Israel, wrote in 1929 that, 'the vast majority of the peasant farmers do not have their origins in the Arab conquerors, but rather, before then, in the Jewish farmers who were numerous and a majority in the building of the land.'"<br />
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One might think that Shlomo Sand would welcome the information stemming from DNA evidence as reinforcement for his views regarding the composite nature of the Jewish people. Yet he does not, pointing to the often contradictory and ideological nature of the findings as they are reported in the press. It is true that some unlikely claims have been made, including the hailing of the so-called “Aaronic gene.” a component that has been found not only among the Palestinians, but also among Greeks and Kurds! One finding, though, is of interest to his thesis. While the genes of the Kohanim (the Cohens) prove to be largely derived from the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, the genes of Ashkenazic Levites, the other major priestly group, have a strong Central Asian component. This finding would tend to reinforce the Khazar thesis.<br />
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As Sand points out, the Y chromosome, which is usually the focus of these studies, serves only to follow the male line, since only males have this chromosome. Historical evidence suggests that at various stages of Jewish history--for example the formative years of the Ashkenazim--foreign women were involved in small numbers. The absence of evidence from the female line is embarrassing, since one’s Jewish status is determined, according to the rabbis, by whether one has a Jewish mother or not.<br />
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Sand does admit the value of genetic research in helping to detect and combat inherited disorders, such as Tay-Sachs Disease. In all likelihood, the quality of genetic research will improve. As it does, the results are likely to reinforce Shlomo Sand’s persuasive conclusions deriving from his attentive study of the historical record.<br />
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Sand’s vision stretches forwards as well as backwards. “If Israel does not develop and become an open, multicultural society we will have a Kosovo in the Galilee. The consciousness concerning the right to this place must be more flexible and varied, and if I have contributed with my book to the likelihood that I and my children will be able to live with the others here in this country in a more egalitarian situation, I will have done my bit.<br />
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"We must begin to work hard to transform our place into an Israeli republic where ethnic origin, as well as faith, will not be relevant in the eyes of the law. Anyone who is acquainted with the young elites of the Israeli Arab community can see that they will not agree to live in a country that declares it is not theirs. If I were a Palestinian I would rebel against a state like that, but even as an Israeli I am rebelling against it."<br />
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CONCLUSIONS<br />
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Over some thirty-five years of my college career I reveled in my teaching assignments in the fields of medieval and Renaissance art. These courses encompassed a vast array of beautiful and moving works, reflecting important themes of Western civilization. As with all representational art, the objects present a fusion of form and content. The overwhelming majority were religious; and the greater part of these were based on the Bible. In this classroom endeavor, then, I registered the enriching potential of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Even secular students seemed to appreciate this contribution--a historical reality that brooks no denial.<br />
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I was always aware, though, that this seminal contribution constituted only one side of the medal. The other side had to do with the intolerance and violence that suffuse these ostensibly sacred texts. Given that it provides some four-fifths of the whole, the Hebrew Bible is naturally abundant in its embrace of this depressing material.<br />
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Of course the interpretation of the New Testament presents many problems, but I decided to set these aside for the most part. One reason is that recent scholarship has registered much significant progress in the study of the Hebrew Bible. By contrast, New Testament studies seem mainly concerned with refining previous findings and positions.<br />
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In my work on the Hebrew Bible I first turned to the school of modern scholars familiarly known as Minimalists. I became convinced that they had conclusively shown that most of the texts amalgamated into the Hebrew scriptures were not historical, but mythical. For this reason we must study them as records of ideology and not history. The legacy of that ideology--with its xenophobia and ethnic cleansing; intolerance; and celebration of violence--has placed a heavy burden on Western civilization.<br />
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My second theme was the untenability of most of the characteristic interpretations proffered by the rabbis, as seen in the Mishnah and Talmud. Far from being faithful stewards of the biblical texts, as is commonly assumed, the rabbis commandeered them for their own project. This innovative endeavor yielded a vast, fanciful superstructure of collective neurosis that has little to do with the beliefs and observances of the ancient Israelites. It speaks volumes for the resilience of the Jewish people that they persevered, while tolerating this burden for so long.<br />
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Implicit in my investigations was the connection between the ancient texts and the aggressive policies of the state of Israel today. This connection emerges anew in the obssessive preoccupation with the emblematic figure of Amalek. Here is a portion of a recent report by the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg: “I recently asked one of his [Netanyahu's] advisers to gauge for me the depth of Mr. Netanyahu’s anxiety about Iran. His answer: “Think Amalek.” “Amalek,” in essence, is Hebrew for “existential threat.” Tradition holds that the Amalekites are the undying enemy of the Jews. They appear in Deuteronomy, attacking the rear columns of the Israelites on their escape from Egypt. The rabbis teach that successive generations of Jews have been forced to confront the Amalekites: Nebuchadnezzar, the Crusaders, Torquemada, Hitler and Stalin are all manifestations of Amalek’s malevolent spirit. If Iran’s nuclear program is, metaphorically, Amalek’s arsenal, then an Israeli prime minister is bound by Jewish history to seek its destruction, regardless of what his allies think.” (Goldberg, op-ed, New York Times, May 16, 2009).<br />
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On his blog, The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan, to whom I am indebted for some important insights, commented the following day as follows: “But the story of Amalek is an unfortunate one for Netanyahu. It is unfortunate because the bulk of the literature in the Jewish scriptures points to massive Jewish over-reaction to the Amalekites - to the point of religiously commanded genocide. In fact, the existential threat in legend is from the Israelites against the Amalekites, not the other way round. . . . Legend and scripture have it, so far as I can glean, that the Amalekites - originating near Mecca - harassed and killed Jews cruelly and indiscriminately as they fled Egypt. But the response of the Israelites was "a sacred war of extermination." The Amalekites were deemed so dangerous they had to be annihilated entirely.<br />
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Yahweh commanded Saul as follows: “Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. (1 Samuel 15:3).<br />
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The command to use horrendous, genocidal force against the Amalekites--to kill every single one of them, including children--was categorical. Failing to be ruthless against the enemy, Saul was shamed for it.<br />
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Still, according to Goldberg and others, there is no reason to worry. The commandment was never meant to be carried out.<br />
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NOT SO, for according to scripture, it was carried out, by David: " Now David and his men went up and made raids against the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites, for these were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as far as Shur, to the land of Egypt. And David would strike the land and would leave neither man nor woman alive, but would take away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the garments, and come back to Achish."<br />
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He spared the farm animals because he stole them. Relentlessly,Yahweh deplored any sign of moderation. The historian Josephus writes: "[David] betook himself to slay the women and the children, and thought he did not act therein either barbarously or inhumanly; first, because they were enemies whom he thus treated, and, in the next place, because it was done by the command of God, whom it was dangerous not to obey." (Jewish Antiquities, VI:7).<br />
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At first sight, it might seem, Maimonides took a more nuanced approach, explaining that the commandment of killing the nation of Amalek requires the Jewish people to demand that they adopt the the Noachide laws and pay a tax to the Jewish kingdom. Only if they refuse is the full rigor of the commandment applicable.<br />
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The Amalekites have a simple choice: submission or genocide. What then does Netanyahu intend? Is it beyond the realm of possibility that he is seeking to follow Maimonides? That is, the Arabs and Iranians--the modern Amalekites--can survive only if they accept a state of vassalage, with the state of Israel as their sovereign.<br />
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Here is Andrew Sullivan again: “The invocation of scripture to justify war has infected the US military and is obviously the main force behind global Jihad. But it is also a dangerous element in Israeli politics and culture. After all, the West Bank settlements are often a function of religious zeal, and often defended for religious reasons, and Netanyahu is far more indebted to his religious nut-jobs than even Bush was to his. You cannot avoid a religious war by invoking a religious genocide to explain your intentions. Not if you hope to win friends and sustain alliances.”<br />
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Invocation of the Bible, both the Jewish and Christian parts, has been intertwined with various historical catastrophes. We can only hope that we are now emerging from this pattern.<br />
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REFERENCES<br />
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Bauckham, Richard, James R. Davila, and Alexander Panayotov, eds. Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures. Grand Rapids, MI: Eeerdmans, 2013.<br />
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Becker, Adam H., and Annette Yoshiko Reed, eds. The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.<br />
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Berger, Michael S. Rabbinic Authority. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.<br />
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Beinart, Haim. The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2002.<br />
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Berlin, Adele, and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds. The Jewish Study Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. <br />
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Charlesworth, James H., ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1983.<br />
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Cohen, Shaye J. D. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.<br />
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Collins, John J., and Daniel C. Harlow, eds. The Eeerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism. Grand Rapids, MI: Eeerdmans, 2010.<br />
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Drinkwater, Gregg, Joshua Lessser, and David Shneer, eds. Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. New York: New York University Press, 2009..<br />
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Fernández Marcos, Natalio. The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible. Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2001.<br />
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Fine, Stephen. Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.<br />
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Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. 7 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909-38.<br />
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Girard, René, Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.<br />
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Glick, Leonard B. Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.<br />
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Goodenough, Erwin R. Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period. 13 vols. New York: Pantheon, 1953-68.<br />
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Greenberg, Steven. Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005.<br />
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Horowitz, Elliott. Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.<br />
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Kirsch, Jonathan. God against the Gods: The History of the War between Monotheism and Polytheism. New York: Viking, 2004.<br />
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Kugel, James L. The Bible As It Was. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.<br />
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---. How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now. New York: Free Press, 2007. <br />
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Lasker, Daniel J. Jewish Philosophical Polemics Against Christianity in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007.<br />
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Lim, Timothy M. The Formation of the Jewish Canon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.<br />
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Muller, Jerry Z. Capitalism and the Jews. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.<br />
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Neusner, Jacob. The Reader's Guide to the Talmud. Leiden: Brill, 2001.<br />
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Pappe, Ilan. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.<br />
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Patai, Raphael. The Hebrew Goddess. New York: KTAV, 1967.<br />
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Prothero, Stephen. God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter. NewYork: Harper, 2010.<br />
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Richards, Jeffrey. Sex, Dissidence and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages. London and New York: Routledge, 1990.<br />
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Rossman, Moshe. Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Ba'al Shem Tov. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1996, <br />
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Russell, D. S. The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic. London: SCM, 1964.<br />
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Sand, Shlomo. The Invention of the Jewish People. London: Verso, 2009.<br />
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Schäfer, Peter. Jesus in the Talmud. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.<br />
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---. The Origins of Jewish Mysticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. <br />
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Schwartz, Regina. The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.<br />
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Soler, Jean. La violence monothéiste. Paris: Editions de Fallois, 2008.<br />
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Sperling, S. David. The Original Torah: The Political Intent if the Bible's Writers, New York: New York University Press, 2003. <br />
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Trachtenberg, Joshua. Jewish Magic and Superstition. New ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.<br />
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Wright, Robert. The Evolution of God. New York: Little, Brown, 2009.<br />
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Yuval, Israel Jacob. Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006 (English translation of a Hebrew original of 2000). Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-65870962189328249012011-12-05T06:14:00.000-08:002014-05-15T06:41:58.786-07:00Abrahamica: Chapter Five<b>CHRISTIANITY</b><br />
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INTRODUCTION<br />
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Mainstream Christianity stands apart from the other two major Abrahamic faiths through its claim that Jesus Christ is God the Son, who was Incarnated some two-thousand years ago. Most Christians affirm a triune God, consisting of three unified but distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.<br />
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Throughout its history Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have engendered many distinct churches and denominations. Today, the chief branches are the Roman Catholic Church, headed by the pope in the Vatican; Eastern Orthodoxy; and the various Protestant denominations.<br />
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Starting from Galilee and Jerusalem, Christianity spread to the rest of Palestine, to Syria, Anatolia, and Egypt. Eventually it encompassed most of the Near East, becoming the state religion of Armenia in either 301 or 314; of Aksum (Ethiopia) in 325 or 328; of Georgia in 337; and then, most momentously, the state religion of the Roman Empire in 380. Having achieved dominance in Europe during the Middle Ages, Christianity spread throughout the world during the Age of Exploration, starting in 1492.<br />
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The first Christians were either ethnically Jewish or converts to Judaism. Jesus preached primarily to the Jewish people, and from them he chose his first disciples. Although the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) specifically applies to "all nations," an early difficulty arose concerning gentile (non-Jewish) converts. How Jewish must they become in order to turn Christian? Key issues were circumcision and adherence to the dietary laws (kashrut). While Judaizers (forming the ecclesia ex circumcisione) continued to honor these requirements, most pagans, especially the Greeks, found circumcision repulsive. Moreover, gentile converts regarded adherence to the dietary rules as unnecessary. As the church grew, the need to address the concerns of Christians who were not of Jewish origin became paramount.<br />
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Growing differences led to the separation of Christianity from the synagogue. In this way Christianity acquired an identity distinct from rabbinic Judaism. For its part, though, the Roman state was slow to grasp the distinction between the two.<br />
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In 313 the emperor Constantine the Great brought the sequence of periodic persecution of Christians to an end. Then in 325 he summoned the First Council of Nicaea to cement church unity. The result was the opposite of what was expected: failing to solve doctrinal problems, this gathering launched a period of vigorous contention regarding the official beliefs of the Church.<br />
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Most were convinced that their own solutions were correct. In fact fervent insistence on separating “true belief” (orthodoxy) from heresy is a hallmark of historical Christianity. To the bishops of the early Church fell the task of promulgating truth at they saw it, repudiating any deviation therefrom. As differing opinions continued to bubble to the surface among the laity--and even among some bishops--the task of defining orthodoxy became ever more urgent.<br />
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In this endeavor the appeal to Scripture was obligatory, even though consulting these texts did not necessarily yield uniform results. The Scriptural canon comprises the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired. Though the Early Church adopted the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) in its Septuagint (Greek) version, the apostles did not posit a set of new scriptures. Only gradually did the canon of the New Testament crystalize.<br />
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A number of writings ascribed to the apostles circulated among the earliest Christian communities, not all of them finding a place in what became the New Testament. In the early second century, Justin Martyr mentions the "memoirs of the apostles," which Christians called "gospels" and which were regarded as standing on par with the Old Testament. A four-gospel canon (the Tetramorph) was in place by the time of Irenaeus of Lyon, about 160. By the early third century, Origen may have been using the same 27 books as in the modern New Testament, though disputes lingered over the canonicity of Hebrews, James, II Peter, II and III John, and Revelation.<br />
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In his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, gave the earliest known complete list of the books that would form the New Testament canon. In 393 the North African Synod of Hippo approved the New Testament, as it stands today, together with the Septuagint books, a decision that was reaffirmed by Councils of Carthage. Leading church authorities, such as Augustine, pope Damasus, and Pope Innocent I endorsed these decisions. Thus, by the late fourth century the West had settled on the New Testament canon; the East followed not long after. Only with regard to the Book of Revelation did uncertainty persist in some quarters.<br />
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When bishops and councils spoke on such matters they asserted that they were not defining something new, claiming instead that were simply affirming what was always there. This tendency to minimize change is a characteristic feature of Christianity--as it is probably of all organized religions. For its part, however, scholarly investigation must frankly acknowledge change when it occurs.<br />
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The authority of the bishop (episcopus, "overseer") is a feature not anticipated by the earliest Christians.<br />
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The same is true of the institution of monasticism. Monasticism is a form of asceticism whereby one renounces worldly pursuits so as to concentrate solely on spiritual pursuits, especially by the virtues humility, poverty, and chastity. It began early in the Church as a cluster of similar traditions, modeled upon scriptural examples and ideals, and with roots in certain strands of Judaism (e.g., the Essenes).<br />
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From the outset there were two forms of monasticism. Eremetic monks, or hermits, live in solitude, whereas cenobitics dwell in communities, generally in a monastery under a rule (or code of practice), and are governed by an abbot. Organized monasticism began its spectacular rise in the Egyptian desert, spreading gradually to the rest of the Roman empire, and even beyond (as in Ireland and Scotland). Prior to the rise of the universities in the eleventh century, monasteries enjoyed a monopoly of Christian learning. They were also major centers of architecture and art, especially metalwork and manuscript illumination.<br />
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We turn now to some fundamental problems of Christian origins.<br />
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DID JESUS ACTUALLY EXIST?<br />
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Contemporary biblical scholarship has established that there is no conclusive evidence that such worthies as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Moses, Aaron, and Joshua actually lived. They belong exclusively to the realm of myth.<br />
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So much for the historicity--or more accurately, the nonhistoricity--of the figures who populate the Pentateuch. Gradually, it seems (as we read on in the story and the generations roll by), the world of the Hebrew Bible becomes less mythical and more historical. But when does it do so? It is a startling fact that no real evidence has emerged for the existence of David and Solomon. To be sure, there is one doubtful inscription supposedly pertaining to the former, but the interpretation of the name David is disputed. Where are the commemorative steles and other monuments we would expect to find as evidence for a great Middle Eastern empire, as Solomon’s was reputed to be? What became of the polity’s archives? It is becoming increasingly evident that if David and Solomon ruled over anything it was a petty chieftainship, too minor to merit notice in the annals of the great kingdoms of the Middle East.<br />
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So there is abundant room for doubt. Why though should the Hebrew Bible be the exclusive target of this well-merited skepticism? The New Testament deserves close scrutiny in it own right.<br />
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The idea that Jesus never existed as a historical figure goes back more than 200 years. To the best of our knowledge, the first writer to argue this was the French savant Charles François Dupuis (1742-1809). Trained as a lawyer, Dupuis developed a passion for astronomy. Oddly enough, this interest informs his magnum opus <i>Origine de tous les Cultes, ou la Réligion Universelle,</i> which appeared in 12 volumes in Paris in 1795. In this vast work, the French scholar held that religious myths of all nations adhered to common principles, which derived from nature. Chapter Nine of this gargantuan work bears the title of “An explanation of the fable in which the Sun is worshiped under the name of Christ.”<br />
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Late in life, the American founder John Adams (1735-1826) obtained a full set of Dupuis’ work of synthesis. Reading it carefully, he became convinced of the nonhistoricity of Jesus by (a fact not mentioned, I believe, in the recent television series on the life of Adams). In this way, Adams was “one up” on his correspondent Thomas Jefferson, who had kept his belief in the real existence of Jesus as a wise teacher of moral truths.<br />
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Dupuis’s rejection of the historicity of Jesus resurfaced in the more popular work of his contemporary Constantin François Volney (1757-1820), entitled <i>Les Ruines, ou méditation sur les révolutions des empires</i>. Although this work appeared earlier than Dupuis’ (in 1791), Volney probably depended on his older colleague for his opinion about Jesus.<br />
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On a different basis, these doubts resurfaced in the work of the German theologian and philosopher Bruno Bauer (1809-1882). Starting in 1840, he began to publish a series of controversial works arguing that Jesus was a myth, a second-century fusion of Jewish, Greek, and Roman theology. Bauer’s arguments were based on his deconstructive analysis of the text of Mark, which by his time had come to be generally recognized as the earliest of the gospels.<br />
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Then the baton was taken up by the Dutch radical theologians, who denied the authenticity of the Pauline epistles. Most of these scholars retained some sense that there was an authentic core, however, exiguous, that could be retrieved about the historical Jesus. A few, such as Systra Hoekstra, Allard Pierson, and Samuel Adrian Naber went further, denying that the Gospels contained any authentic information. In their view we possessed no reliable information that would affirm the actual existence of Jesus.<br />
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From time to time these questionings of the historicity of Jesus have surfaced again, most recently in The Jesus Project, an outgrowth of the earlier Jesus Seminar.<br />
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First, a step back: what was the Jesus Seminar? The Jesus Seminar, founded in 1985 by the late Robert Funk of the University of Montana, was a serious enterprise, even though it met criticism on various grounds—its voting method (marbles), the grandstanding of some of its members, the public style of its meetings, not to mention its openly defiant stance regarding the claims of miracles in the Gospel (including the resurrection of Jesus). Except for the use of the voting marbles, none of this was new. No one should be especially startled by such features. By contrast, the deployment of additional sources, such as gnostic and apocryphal gospels, to create a fuller picture of the Jesus tradition and the focus on context were innovative. And yet, it is fair to say, the Jesus who emerged from these travails was very much diminished, so much so that few could muster any enthusiasm for the result.<br />
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As they neared the end of their labors in 2000, the Seminar members had pared the authentic sayings of Jesus down to 18 percent of those ascribed to him in the New Testament. From this minimalist kit they pictured him as a wandering teacher of wisdom who preached in riddles and parables about a God of love who preferred sinners to the wealthy, comfortable, and wise of the world. Gone, by and large, was the eschatological prophet who preached the end of the world and never expected to found a church—much less a seminar—in his name.<br />
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What the Jesus Seminar had tacitly affirmed--without exactly trumpeting the result-- is that over 80 percent of the utterances of “Jesus” had been fabricated by the Gospel writers. That is to say that, if we are to judge a man’s accomplishments by his purported sayings, the greater portion of the literary artifacts known as the Gospels is fictional.<br />
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If we are to judge by deeds and events, then what actions survived historical criticism? Not the virgin birth, or the Transfiguration, or the healing of the sick, or such purely magical feats such as Cana, or the multiplication of loaves and fishes. The Resurrection had quietly been dumped by theologians in the nineteenth century. In fact, by and large, the deeds—except, perhaps, the attack on the Temple (Mark 11:15–19)—had preceded the words to the dustbin years before: yet some scholars continued to insisted that the historical figure remained untouched. Only faith could explain this seeming invulnerability.<br />
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In January 2007 (convening at the University of California, Davis), the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) asked the question that had hung fire for over two hundred years: Did Jesus exist? The CSER fellows, invited guests, present and former members of the Jesus Seminar, and a wide variety of interested parties attended three days of lectures and discussions on the subject—appropriately dubbed “Scripture and Skepticism.” The Jesus Project, as CSER has named the new effort, sought to achieve the first truly neutral approach to the question of Jesus’ historical existence. Such at least is their ambitious claim.<br />
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Reasonably enough, the Project members held that the history and culture of the times provide many significant clues about the character of figures similar to Jesus. They rejected the mixing of theological motives and historical inquiry as impermissible. They maintained that previous attempts to rule the question out of court constitute vestiges of a time when the churches controlled the boundaries of permissible inquiry into their sacred books. More crucially, perhaps, they regarded the question of the historical Jesus as a testable hypothesis; they were committed to no prior conclusions about the outcome of our inquiry.<br />
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The Jesus Project was to run for five years, with its first session scheduled for December 2007. Unlike the Seminar, the Project members did not vote with marbles, and would not expand membership elastically: the Project was to be limited to fifty scholars with credentials in biblical studies as well as in the allied disciplines of ancient history, mythography, archaeology, classical studies, anthropology, and social history.<br />
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Unfortunately, the project was halted in June 2009 when the convener, R. Joseph Hoffmann concluded that the project was not productive; accordingly, its funding was suspended.
He had issues with the adherents to the Christ Myth Theory, who held that Jesus did not exist. These skeptics had asked to be allowed to set up a separate section
of the project, which seemed to suggest that the matter, for them at least, was already settled in the negative. Hoffmann was also concerned that the
media was sensationalizing the project, with the only newsworthy
conclusion being that Jesus had not existed, a judgment that in his view most
participants would not have accepted.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Hoffmann_2-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Project#cite_note-Hoffmann-2"></a></sup> He also argued that New Testament documents, particularly the
gospels, were composed at a time when the line between natural and
supernatural was not clearly drawn. Hoffmann thought that attempting further
historical research was not realistic. "No quantum of material
discovered since the 1940’s, in the absence of canonical material, would
support the existence of an historical founder," he wrote. "No material
regarded as canonical and no church doctrine built upon it in the
history of the church would cause us to deny it. Whether the New
Testament runs from Christ to Jesus or Jesus to Christ is not a question
we can answer."<br />
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There remain, though, the findings of the predecessor endeavor, the Jesus Seminar. With the loss of over 80% of his body weight, the Jesus of the earlier endeavor is a very thin man indeed--but he hasn’t yet blown away. One who thinks otherwise is Robert M. Price in his <i>The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition</i>? (Prometheus Books, 2003). Price is an alumnus of the Jesus Seminar.<br />
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The author has sought to collect and analyze all the relevant information about Jesus--his birth, childhood, baptism, miracles, sayings, and so forth--primarily using the New Testament as we have it, but also employing some Gnostic source material. Unlike some of his predecessors, who have not benefited from seminary training, Price’s analysis is thoroughly grounded in the texts, and for this “warp-and-woof” approach he is to be commended. He has analyzed this data to understand what we know for certain about Jesus. Price concludes that this amounts to very little, if anything.<br />
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The writer utilizes three main critical criteria. The first is “whenever we can compare a more and a less extravagant version of the same claim or story, the more modest has the greater claim to authenticity.” Price gives the example of walking on water. In Mark only Jesus walks on water. In this the evangelist is followed by John. Yet Matthew adds Peter to the aqueous adventure. Since we know that Mark is the earliest of the surviving gospels, it seems likely that his version (followed by John’s) is correct; while Matthew’s is an embellishment. So far, so good. However, there may be other reasons for simplicity. Many medieval commentators thought that Mark was not the earliest gospel but the latest; that is, it was a kind of abridgment. On this account, for the reasons of brevity he may have preferred the short (Johannine) version to the Matthaean one.<br />
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Yet there is another reason for omissions which goes to the heart of the matter. In looking back over a past occurrence, such as the Easter Uprising of 1916 or the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, some observers like to assert that “X was not there,” even though he almost certainly was. The reason is personal dislike, or a disapproval of the tendency that X belonged to. Thus someone who held that Peter was getting too much power in the nascent church organization may have wanted to “cut him down to size” in this manner. In this particular instance I am inclined to accept Price’s reconstruction. But the methodological principle he adduces is not necessarily one that is universally valid.<br />
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From his work in the Jesus Seminar Price takes over the criterion of dissimilarity. That is, if Jesus says or does something that is unique to him (as far as we can tell), then it is likely to be authentic. If not, not. Is it really plausible, though, that the “real Jesus” was constantly innovating 24/7? In the course of my graduate education I been privileged to attend a number of dazzlingly brilliant lectures. There was not one professor, however, who did not occasionally utter some platitude, such as “silence is golden” or “the last mile’s the hardest.” The reason for this is not simple laziness. If one wants to attract a following, as Jesus is represented as wishing, one has to begin by building on what people know--or think they know. Someone who was original all the time might be a forerunner of André Breton and the Surrealists--but he could not lay the foundations for the religion that is currently the most populous on the planet.<br />
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Finally, Price offers parallels with other stories, especially those from classical antiquity. He cites Pythagoras, Plato, Alexander, and Apollonius of Tyana (among others) as individuals who are thought to have come into the world through some miraculous birth. The themes of the Incarnation and Nativity may indeed have been embellished by the Christian writers with such detail--but so what?<br />
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Here is a personal aside. The Jeffersonian concept of Jesus as a wise, but fallible teacher--a rabbi in the sense common in his time--but not a supernatural being still seems viable. Indeed this view, rather than the orthodox doctrine that the founder of Christianity was a member of some nonexistent “Holy Trinity” strikes me as the most plausible solution.<br />
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Continuing in the comparative vein, the story of Jesus counting 153 fishes and how this was part of the Pythagorean legend is a little known fact, and a good example of how Price uses this approach to deconstruct many of the New Testament's assertions regarding the life of Jesus. Still, there are times where Mr. Price seems to be stretching to find matching similarities. Indeed, there are limitations to this method. As a French scholar said in a different context: comparaison n’est pas raison.<br />
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It is hard to suppress the suspicion that Price has adopted a kind of kitchen-sink approach, throwing in anything that occurs to him. Thus he says that Jesus cannot have entered any synagogue in Galilee, because archaeologists have not found them there in this period. There are indeed many spectacular finds in Middle Eastern synagogue architecture during the Roman period, but it is clear that the record remains incomplete. For example, not a single synagogue has been excavated in Mesopotamia (Iraq); yet we know from the Babylonian Talmud that this country was a particularly flourishing center of Jewish life and scholarship during the period. On these grounds, an argument from silence (no known synagogues), are we to conclude that the Babylonian Talmud is a falsification?<br />
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Some sources that Price throws into the pot are dubious at best. For example, he cites a British occultist, G. R. S. Mead, writing a hundred years ago, as a source for the improbable claim that Jesus actually lived around 100 B.C.<br />
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Recent years have seen a groundswell of advocacy of the idea that Jesus is a myth, represented by such writers as Earl Doherty, Thomas Thompson and Frank Zindler. For information on these figures see Bart D. Ehrman, <i>Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth </i>(New York, 2012). Professor Ehrman, a prolific New Testament scholar, argues that Jesus did actually exist. <br />
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There is one final consideration, to my mind the most significant of all. By modern standards, few figures from Greco-Roman antiquity are well documented. For most ancient philosophers, for example, we have (to all intents and purposes) only the data recorded by Diogenes Laertius. Yet few doubt that Heraclitus or Democritus actually lived. In her book <i>Lives of the Greek Poets,</i>"Mary Lefkowitz points out that "virtually all the material in the lives is fiction."<br />
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The information we have on the majority of the ancient Greek philosophers and poets is exiguous at best. That being so, why is the historicity of these figures not challenged? The reason is that there no motive for such doubt, even though they are less well attested than Jesus.<br />
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Occasionally, though, these figures can be zones of contestation. The Greek archaic poet Sappho has become an icon for modern feminists--a sort of Sappho Christa. Action produces reaction, and so some scholars have begun to doubt whether she existed. As has been noted, though, such challenges are rare for these figures.<br />
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A major problem with sorting out the facts, however uncertain they may be, concerning the life of Jesus stems from the situation that we have too many sources, not too few. In addition to the four canonical gospels, the texts of at least sixteen others are known. Other data stem from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, not to mention such early writers as Marcion, Clement of Alexandria, and Irenaeus of Lyon. The situation is closer to that of Socrates and Alexander, well attested but with numerous contradictions, than it is to that of Heraclitus and Anacreon, two somewhat mysterious figures. I am inclined to think that the argument that Jesus did not exist is ideologically motivated. It is based on special pleading--a one-sided presentation of the evidence that highlights every contradiction and dubious assertion, refusing to countenance any other evidence.<br />
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It is useful to recall the legal principle of neutrality of result. For example, legislation barring excessively high rates of interest should not be crafted so that the prohibition applies to some banks but not to others. Of course, there are disputed cases. Some would argue, I think correctly, that marriage should not be construed so as only to apply to opposite-sex instances ("traditional marriage"), but should cover same-sex ones as well. Others may disagree.<br />
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Still, it is a good plan to follow the principle of neutrality of outcomes. Yet that principle is conspicuously ignored by the Jesus-didn't-exist crowd, because they decline to apply their stringent criteria to analogous cases. Take, for example, the case of Jesus' older contemporary, Rabbi Hillel the Elder, after whom many Jewish student groups are named. He looks like a good candidate for erasure, because the evidence for his existence is considerably more skimpy than that for Jesus. Yet I know of no detailed argument for the nonhistoricity of Hillel. Nor is one needed.<br />
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When all is said and done, Jesus probably did actually exist - not the divine Jesus of the innovative “Holy Trinity,” but the relatively modest teacher admired by Thomas Jefferson. Still, it is sobering to remind oneself than in trying to understand a society that flourished 2000 years before our own, we are generally restricted to probabilities, not certainties.<br />
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JESUS THE JEW<br />
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The previous section concluded by rejecting the nonhistoricity of Jesus. Absolute skepticism is not warranted, even though it is true that we know far less about him than we would like to. Yet whether Jesus was real or merely legendary, it is clear that this individual was a Jew.<br />
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I can hear some irreverent reader exclaiming: “No sh-t, Sherlock. When did you get the first clue?” In recent memory, of course, there have been various forms of denial. Fortunately, the blond Aryan Jesus, propagated by the anti-Semite Houston Stewart Chamberlain and by implication in some Hollywood blockbusters, is no more. A more subtle version, still cherished in various Christian quarters, holds that Jesus’ critique of Judaism was so radical that to all intents and purposes he became an apostate, who departed from his ancestral faith. In other words Jesus, ceasing to be a Jew, was the first Christian. Most New Testament scholars today, however, believe that many features of organized Christianity as we know it reflect a process of transformation that took place only after Jesus’ death. The apostle Paul is usually regarded as the prime culprit in this enhancement, though this view probably overpersonalizes the process. As far as we can determine, several different grouplets in the Jesus movement, including some strongly influenced by the pagan environment, were involved in the rebranding of Jesus as a god.<br />
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What then is the evidence that Jesus was a Jew? In fact the four canonical gospels make this status perfectly clear. From his birth Jesus was raised a Jew. He was circumcised on the eighth day (Luke 2.21) and bore a common Jewish name, Yeshua, “he [God] saves” (Matthew 1.21). In fact, scholars have determined that Yeshua was the fifth most common male Jewish name of the time. Joseph was the second most common male name and Mary the most common among women. As the English scholar Jonathan Went notes: “this in itself is sufficient evidence to throw doubt on the recently found tomb of 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' as it is like finding the gravestone of Mr and Mrs John Smith!” The child Jesus was presented to the Lord in the Jerusalem temple (Luke 2.22; cf. Deuteronomy 18.4; Exodus 13.2,12,15) according to Mary's period of uncleanness (Leviticus 12.2-8). A sacrifice was offered for him, a pair of doves and 2 young pigeons, indicating that his family were not wealthy (Leviticus 12.2,6,8; Luke 2.22-24). Thus Jesus was raised according to the Law (Luke 2.39).<br />
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After this point, however, matters become murky, owing to the neglect of the “missing years” in the four canonical Gospels. Attempts to fill this gap in with the apocryphal gospels are unconvincing because of the late date of their origin . Jesus’ family, and indeed most of his associates, were what we would nowadays call “working class.” Jesus’ father was either a carpenter or (less likely) a stone-mason. It is therefore improbable that Jesus could have received an elite Jewish education, starting with the reading of the written Torah at the age of five. In fact, it is not certain that he could read Hebrew, though he probably had some proficiency in written Aramaic and perhaps some Greek. The citations he makes (or is said to have made) from the Hebrew Scriptures, which are not always quoted accurately, most likely derive from oral sources. This is what is meant, I think, by the information that by the age of twelve he was found in the temple precincts "both listening and asking questions" (Luke 2.46). The fact that the authorities there “were astonished at his understanding and answers" may reflect surprise that someone of his underprivileged background could show such aptitude.<br />
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These examples suffice to prove the point: yes, Jesus was indeed a Jew. To be sure, one must be wary of anachronism, imagining the visible Jesus on the model of some pious Hasidic resident of Brooklyn, with all of the distinctive clothing and hair style such a figure evokes. To be sure, modern Judaism in America is capacious and varied, with four major divisions: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist. Yet the historical Jesus does not map onto any of these. For his part, returning to earth Jesus would probably feel uncomfortable in any contemporary American synagogue--though surely even more so in one of our Christian churches.<br />
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The reality is that Jesus was a man of Jewish Galilee in the early Roman era, with all of the qualities and limitations that that status implies.<br />
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To be sure, there are significant contemporary scholars in Jesus studies who happen to be Jewish, including Paula Fredriksen, Joseph Klausner, Samuel Sandmel, my old schoolmate David H. Stern, and Geza Vermes.<br />
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The case of Geza Vermes is particularly interesting. He was born in Makó, Hungary, in 1924 to Jewish parents. When he was seven, all three were baptized as Roman Catholics. His mother and journalist father died in the Holocaust. After World War II, the young Vermes became a priest. He studied first in Budapest and then at the Collège St Albert and the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where he read Near Eastern history and languages. In 1953 he obtained a doctorate in theology. He left the Catholic church in 1957, reasserting his Jewish identity. Vermes moved to Britain, and took up a teaching post at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1965 he joined the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University, rising to become the first professor of Jewish Studies there before his retirement in 1991.<br />
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Vermes was one of the first scholars to examine the Dead Sea Scrolls after their discovery in 1947, and is the author of the standard translation into English. He has been one of the more influential scholars in urging the study of Jewish cultural and religious milieu in order to understand Jesus.<br />
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<i>Jesus the Jew</i> (1973) is the first of three books that Geza Vermes has published on the historical Jesus. He argues that Jesus was a Hasid, a type of charismatic miracle worker active in first-century Galilee.<br />
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This approach presents several problems. Vermes' claim that Jesus was a type of Galilean charismatic Jew rests on slim evidence. His two comparative examples are Honi the Circle Drawer (first century BCE) and Hanina ben Dosa (first century CE). While there are some similarities between Jesus and these two, Honi was not Galilean and Hanina's Galilean origin is far from certain. More problematically, Vermes relies on later traditions, some stemming from the Mishnah,compiled under rabbical auspices some two centuries after the death of Jesus, and others as late as the eighth or ninth centuries CE.<br />
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Moreover, Vermes employs an inconsistent methodology. He trawls through Mark's gospel to find evidence for a more primitive Jesus tradition consistent with his Hasid theory. Yet he ignores other Markan evidence that doesn't support it. Even in Mark's gospel we see Jesus forgiving sins, preaching the Kingdom, and predicting his death. His assertion that Jesus’ forgiving sins was not remarkable is hard to accept in light of the reactions reported in the gospels. All this puts Jesus in a different category than Honi and Hanina ben Dosa, Vermes’ two paragons.<br />
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In my view, the basic problem of Vermes’ reconstruction of Jesus’ Judaism is that it is anachronistic, because it relies too much on incipient rabbinical motifs that are two or more centuries later. Some of these accounts may have been assembled as an explicit challenge to Christianity. While Vermes’ later books attempt to address these problems, the results are inconclusive.<br />
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Post-Exilic and Hellenistic Judaism saw the rise of a new genre of religious writing: the apocalyptic tradition. These texts, generally of pseudonymous authorship, include the Apocalypse of Abraham, The Apocalypse of Elijah, 1, 2, and 3 Enoch, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs and many others. One may consult the comprehensive set of translations edited by James H. Charlesworth, <i>The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha</i> (2 vols., 1983).<br />
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The prophets of the Hebrew Bible concentrated on preaching repentance and righteousness so that the nation would escape judgment. By contrast, the message of the apocalyptic writers was one of patience and trust--for deliverance and reward were sure to come. The typical apocalyptic writer despairs of the present, directing his hopes absolutely to the future, to a new world standing in essential opposition to the present. The underlying dualistic principle may ultimately stem from Persian (Zoroastrian) sources, When Jesus speaks of the future coming of the Basileia or Kingdom he clearly has this apocalyptic perspective in mind. The natural corollary of such a belief is an uncompromising asceticism. One who would live to prosper in the next world must shun this. Visions are vouchsafed only to those who have added fasting to prayer.<br />
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In New Testament studies the apocalyptic or eschatological approach became dominant about a hundred years ago, through the work of Albert Schweitzer and others. While it is currently discounted by the members of the Jesus Seminar, clearly the apocalyptic strand, with its visions of Armageddon and the Last Judgment, was paramount for the early followers of Jesus.<br />
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A contrary view holds that Jesus’ critique was directly primarily to the iniquities of the present world, and that he was a Zealot, a kind of Jewish revolutionary. The Zealots were a religious-political faction, who thrived for a period of about 70 years or possibly more, in the first century CE. In their theology the Zealots were relatively close to the Pharisees, but their doctrines strongly focused on the necessities of violent actions against the enemies of Judaism. In their time they were a Jewish Defense League.<br />
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According to Luke 6:15, Simon, one of Jesus' disciples, was a Zealot. It was also in a climate of tension that their agitation and violence had aggravated that Jesus was executed. Was Jesus a subversive of this kind? A clue to the puzzle was his execution on a cross, a punishment the Roman authorities preferred for political rebels. Another indicator is the cleansing of the Temple depicted in Mark 11, a text that aligns with the Zealot ideology. A third indicator is that at least a few of the disciples carried weapons (Mark 14:47), either all the time or under certain dangerous circumstances.<br />
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Nonetheless, other evidence points away from this theory, for Jesus was not a “standard-issue” Jew, which Zealotry required. He did not teach strict adherence to the Law, and he associated with sinners and people outside the Law. The fact that Jesus may have been perceived as a Zealot does not mean that he actually was one.<br />
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There is another possible connection that is worth exploring. The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) comprise almost 1,000 documents, discovered between 1947 and 1979 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The texts include the only known surviving copies of Hebrew Scriptural documents made before 100 CE. There are also original treatises. Most scholars believe that this sacred library constituted the intellectual capital of an ascetic sect, the Essenes.<br />
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The general public first became aware of the importance of the scrolls as the result of a series of sensational articles by the literary critic Edmund Wilson in <i>The New Yorker </i>in1955. Wilson argued that the interpretation of these texts would drastically alter our knowledge of the origins of Christianity, forcing major revisions of Christian theology. Others went so far as to assert that Jesus was himself an Essene, living within the community’s precincts for much of his life. These claims are now seen to be overblown. (An interesting, perhaps arcane fact is that the idea that Jesus was an Essene was first advanced by a French Jewish scholar, Joseph Salvador, in 1828, long before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.)<br />
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After an initial flurry of publication, the release of the scroll texts came virtually to a halt. This hiatus fueled conspiracy theories that the unpublished texts contained explosive material that was being deliberately withheld. In the wake of the massive release of the original documents in 1991, these claims were shown to be unfounded.<br />
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As more sober voices prevailed, it became possible to offer a more plausible assessment of the relationship of the scrolls, if any, to Jesus of Nazareth. The case has been summed up by the Princeton scholar James H. Charlesworth (<i>Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls</i>, 1991). Charlesworth enumerates 24 links. On closer examination, however, most of these turn out to be inconclusive. We learn that both Jesus and the Qumran Community believed in one God and appealed to the Scriptures as a repository of authority. Whoop-de-do! so have most Jews throughout the ages. Other motifs, such as the importance of water and the two-age theory, were common beliefs at the time. Moreover, as Charlesworth acknowledges, there are a number of significant differences between the isolated community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls and the public Jesus movement. In short, Jesus may have been influenced in some respects by the religious currents documented in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but if so, these were merely one of a number of significant sources. The evidence suggests that Jesus was not an Essene.<br />
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The late Morton Smith is best known for his purported discovery of the Secret Mark (discussed more fully below). In 1978 Smith published another controversial book, entitled <i>Jesus the Magician</i>. He argues that, among other roles, Jesus was a magician in the sense that the word was understood in the ancient world. In this capacity he functioned as a village medicine man, a kind of curadero, traveling through Galilee and healing people with folk remedies.<br />
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The monumental work of John Dominic Crossan, <i>The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant</i> (1993) seeks to depict Jesus in almost anthropological terms, as a product of his time and milieu. Crossan's erudition brings together otherwise disparate pieces of ancient history and literature, biblical and secular, to create a detailed and consistent portrait.<br />
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His method has elicited some criticisms. The two most significant sources for his attempt to reconstruct the "first layer" of the Jesus tradition are the "Sayings Gospel" Q and the extracanonical Gospel of Thomas. While many swear by it, it is uncertain, first, whether such a document as Q actually existed, and second (and much more controversially), whether different layers of its sedimentation can be reliably ascertained. Crossan eccentrically dates the Gospel of Thomas to the 50s CE (even before the canonical Mark, which he holds did not appear until the early 70s). Most scholars would agree with John Meier, who in the first volume of his <i>A Marginal Jew </i>series argues for the the later origin of Thomas, which he sees as dependent on the synoptic gospels.<br />
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John Dominic Crossan is often criticized for classifying Jesus as a sort of Jewish Cynic in the philosophical sense, Still, this view may be worth pondering. In his 1993 volume The Lost Gospel Burton L. Mack (a member of the Jesus Seminar) goes so far as assert that the earliest stratum of Q “enjoins a practical ethic of the times widely known as Cynic” *(p. 114). Mack further notes that “New Testament scholars have often remarked on the Cynic parallels to much of the material in Q1.” This ascription will strike many as improbable, as the world of the Cynics seems far from the rigors of the Hebrew prophetic tradition. Moreover, in common parlance the word cynic (with a lower-case c) has come to have an unsavory connotation of disengaged negativity. Yet this view is not historically accurate, for the ancient Cynics were popular philosophers who traveled about imparting the truths of Hellenic wisdom. If circumstances required it, they were capable of bluntness, of “speaking truth to power.” In these respects they were not unlike Jesus in his public life. It is uncertain, though, whether the parallel is more than an analogy.<br />
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The above account is by no means exhaustive. There are a number of variants of these views, and nowadays a proliferating set of popular accounts. Still, one is struck by the lack of consensus as to what the expression “Jesus the Jew” really means. Striving (as we must) to avoid anachronism, the picture of Jesus as a first-century Jew remains murky. In part this unclarity reflects the ongoing difficulty, despite the work of the Q scholars, of determining a plausible sequencing of the earliest Christian beliefs and practices.<br />
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When all is said and done, it is likely that Jesus was a kind of bricoleur or eclectic. He combined mainstream Jewish views with others that were oppositional. Some of these latter stemmed from heterodox Jewish sources (such as the apocalyptic literature), while other motifs were Greek in origin.<br />
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<i>Postscript.</i> I recently had occasion to go back to the 1965 book of Hugh Schonfield, <i>The Passover Plot</i>. Among other things, this book is an early contribution to the discussion of the Jewish Jesus. Despite the controversy it aroused--largely because of the author's speculative (Docetic) account of the Crucifixion--I find that this is an eminently fair-minded book. It is also highly readable--even charming, a rare quality in this supercharged field.<br />
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A Scottish scholar of Jewish origin, Schonfield emphasizes that he had no intention of denigrating Jesus, but rather of displaying his true greatness by stripping away the layers of later theological accretion. Notwithstanding his admiration for the Jesus of the Gospels, Schonfield remained a proud Jew. He certainly was not a "Jew for Jesus" as we now understand the term. Given his standpoint, his book is pioneering contribution to the nowadays wrongly-despised realm of Judaeo-Christian studies. Despite its age, I recommend <i>The Passover Plot </i>as a splendid example of how to accomplish this kind of thing.<br />
<br />
MARY. MOTHER OF JESUS<br />
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Over the centuries the Virgin Mary has become a portentous figure in Christian ritual, art, music, and literature. In the perspective of Salvation History, she ranks as the Counter-Eve, the supremely good woman whose role it was to end the reign of woe unleashed by her predecessor, the First Mother. She is accounted as preeminent among the saints. As the Intercessor, Mary is the object of countless Christian prayers.<br />
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It comes, then, as something of a surprise to find that her role in the New Testament is relatively modest. Of course, she figures in the birth stories of Matthew (1-2) and Luke (1-2). While Mary is mentioned several times during the public ministry of Jesus, she remains largely in the background. According to the fourth Gospel, she appears at the foot of the Cross (John 19:25). She was in the Upper Room in Jerusalem to witness the emergence of the Christian community (Acts 1:40).<br />
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The Gospels assert both Mary’s maternity and virginity. The belief in the Virgin Birth ostensibly finds support in Isaiah (7:14): “behold, a virgin shall conceive.” Yet this familiar phrase does not reflect the wording of the Hebrew Bible, but stems from the Greek Septuagint version, where the word parthenos is used. The Greek word <i>parthenos</i> can mean either a young woman or a virgin; for this reason the word parthenos can be found in the Septuagint referring to someone who is not a virgin. For example, in Genesis 34:2-4, Shechem raped Dinah, the daughter of the patriarch Jacob, yet the Septuagint refers to her as a parthenos after she had been defiled. The Bible reports that after Shechem had violated her, his heart desired Dinah, and he loved the damsel (Septuagint: parthenos) and he spoke tenderly to the damsel (Septuagint: parthenos). Clearly, Dinah was not a virgin after having been raped, and yet she was designated a parthenos, the same word the Septuagint used to translate the Hebrew word alma in Isaiah 7:14.<br />
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Some modern scholars have surmised that the doctrine of Mary’s virginity has been imposed on the infancy narrative in order to give the appearance of fulfilling an Old Testament prophecy - at least in its Hellenic (Septuagint) version. In early times, however, only a few obscure sects, including the Psilanthropists and the Adoptionists, doubted the idea of the Virgin Birth. The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds affirm it. In 432 the Council of Ephesis defined the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God (Theotokos).<br />
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Comparative mythology suggests some interesting parallels. Legendary heroes and kings sometimes figure as offspring of gods. Both Egyptian pharaohs and Roman Emperors were accorded divine status, though the latter achieved divinization in Rome only after death.<br />
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Extra-biblical birth narratives typically involve sexual intercourse, sometimes involving rape or deceit, by a god in human or animal form—for example, the stories of Leda, Europa, or the birth of Hercules. Reputedly, the mother of Alexander the Great was impregnated by a snake. However bestial, these tales are about copulation. Yet an example of a story where the woman's physical virginity is explicitly maintained by the god who impregnates her by artificial insemination is found in the vast Hindu epic the Mahabharata. "The sun-god said: O beautiful Pṛthā, your meeting with the demigods cannot be fruitless. Therefore, let me place my seed in your womb so that you may bear a son. I shall arrange to keep your virginity intact, since you are still an unmarried girl." Zoroastrianism also holds that the end-of-time Saoshyant (“Savior”) will be miraculously conceived by a virgin who has swum in the lake where Zoroaster’s seed is preserved.<br />
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The birth narratives of Jesus are distinctive in that they speak of the Holy Spirit, not of male seed, as the active agent in his conception (Matthew 1:21; Luke 1:35). The historicity of this account may be doubted. As regards the actual circumstances of Mary’s impregnation, it is a truism that “no one knows.” For some, the bizarre nature of the posited event precludes its actually happening. Yet for the believing Christian it is precisely this implausibilty that assures the Virgin Birth its status as one of the supreme mysteries of the faith.<br />
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Over the centuries mainstream Christianity has come to cherish an exalted notion of the Mary the mother of Jesus. Some went even further. Collyridianism was an obscure early Christian sect whose adherents seem to have worshipped Mary as a goddess. According to our main source, Epiphanius of Salamis (writing about 375 CE), certain women in then largely-pagan Arabia combined indigenous beliefs with the worship of Mary, offering little cakes or bread rolls (Greek kollyris) to her.<br />
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In his book <i>The Virgin</i>, Geoffey Ashe proposes that the Collyridians constituted a separate Marian religion rivaling Christianity. Founded by first-generation followers of the Virgin Mary, some their doctrines were takenup by the Council of Ephesis in 432--a landmark in Mariology. Today, some women interested in feminist spirituality claim the Collyridians as precursors.<br />
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The Collyridians also figure in some recent discussions of the Qur’anic concept of the Christian Trinity. Certain verses in the Qur’an (5:73; 5:75; and 5:116) have been taken to imply that Muhammad believed that Christians considered Mary part of the Trinity. She would take the place of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity. Of course, this idea has never been part of mainstream Christian doctrine, but there has been some modern speculation that Muhammad might have confused heretical Collyridian beliefs with those of orthodox Christianity.<br />
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If Mary was a Virgin prior to her encounter with the angel Gabriel, and if the Virgin Birth was truly virginal, what was the sexual status of Mary afterwards. It would seem that her special role in the Incarnation had been fulfilled, and that she could go on to conceive and birth other children in the normal way. Indeed, the gospels refer to Jesus’ brothers and sisters.<br />
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Some early Christians--and many other believers after them--have maintained a belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary. This view, or something like it, surfaces in the Protoevangelion of James, a noncanonical gospel, probably dating to the latter part of the second century CE. The text recounts how a test confirms Mary’s virginity before birth. Then the absence of labor pains, and a midwife’s examination, demonstrate Mary’s virginity during birth. The work also asserts that Jesus' "brothers" and "sisters" are Joseph’s children from a marriage previous to his union with Mary. This text does not explicitly assert Mary's perpetual virginity after the birth of Jesus. But another book, The History of Joseph the Carpenter, presents Jesus as speaking, at the death of Joseph, of Mary as "my mother, virgin undefiled".<br />
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The idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary spread rapidly in the Near East, beginning in the third century. Today it is part of the teaching of Roman Catholicism, as well as Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, as expressed in their liturgies. Mary was ever-virgin (Greek ἀειπάρθενος, aeiparthenos) throughout her life, making Jesus her only biological offpring. This tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary is one element in the well-established theology regarding the Theotokos, [Mary as] Mother of God.<br />
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From the fifth century to relatively modern times, little opposition to the doctrine arose in either East or West. Even Martin Luther maintained that Mary had no other children and did not have marital relations with Joseph. However, many subsequent Protestant authorities have thought otherwise, and so too do most unaffiliated students of the New Testament.<br />
<br />
JESUS’ TWIN BROTHER?<br />
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Recent scholarship has emphasized the importance of the so-called gnostic Gospel of Thomas, which some regard as a fifth such text, on a par with the canonical set of four.<br />
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The gospel is ascribed to the apostle Thomas, one of the twelve. What in fact do we know of this this Thomas? His full name was Didymus Judas Thomas. That is to say, Judas was his proper name, while the additions Didymus and Thomas (Te’omas) are descriptive adjuncts. Both mean “twin,” one in Greek and the other in Aramaic. This disciple then was a twin of someone. But of whom?<br />
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The apocryphal Acts of Thomas, apparently written in Syria in the third century, is the source of the legend that this disciple became a missionary in India. The text also asserts that Thomas was the brother of Jesus. Likwise, this claim appears in one of the gnostic Nag Hammadi documents.<br />
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For a long time, Catholics and others, eager to defend their notion of the perpetual virginity of Mary, have claimed that Jesus’ brothers were not truly uterine siblings, born of the womb of Mary, but cousins perhaps, or children of Joseph by another mother.<br />
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The New Testament texts do not offer support for these speculations. Instead, they speak directly of Jesus’ having brothers (and sisters as well, though they are not named). The fullest list of brothers (not necessarily exhaustive) is given in Matthew 13:55, where four are mentioned: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. It is unlikely that the last is the disciple who betrayed Jesus, as he is never identified as Jesus’ brother. This person could be the Jude to whom an epistle is ascribed in the New Testament. Yet there is a real possibility that the last brother named in Matthew’s list is our Didymus Judas Thomas.<br />
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On this interpretation Jesus had a twin brother, also born of Mary. One child was divine, the other an ordinary human being. This seems bizarre, yet the situation is not without precedent--at least in classical mythology. One parallel concerns the supreme Greek hero Heracles (Hercules), who had a mortal twin named Iphicles. According to the story, Alcmene had conceived a child with her husband, Amphitryon. Then she attracted the amorous attentions of Zeus, who made love to her in human form--in the guise of her husband Amphitryon. As a result of these couplings two children grew in her womb, one the son of a mortal, the other the son of a god.<br />
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Let us review the facts as presented in the legend. First came the “normal” impregnation: male human to female human. Then there occurred the extraordinary fertilization of the woman with the sperm of a god. The result of the first act was the mortal Iphicles. Herakles, whose heroic stature approached but did not quite attain the status of a god, resulted from Alcmene’s second coupling.<br />
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In the case of Mary we would need to reverse the order. First she was impregnated by the Holy Spirit, while still a virgin. Not long thereafter, Joseph (or some other man) impregnated her with the child who was to become Didymus Judas Thomas, Jesus’ twin brother. As the Trinity could not become a quaternity, Thomas was denied divine status.<br />
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Recent scholarship has explored many fascinating bypaths of Early Christianity. To the best of my knowledge, though, Bart Ehrman (in his book <i>Lost Christianities</i>) is the only one to have discussed frankly this extraordinary possibility--that Jesus had a twin brother. However, he declines to explore the implications further.<br />
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Did Thomas acquire special knowledge of divine truths while still in the womb? Was it uncomfortable for him, having to share the cramped space with a divine being? Did Thomas receive any of the gifts of the magi? What was his role in Joseph’s carpentry shop? And so forth.<br />
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These questions may seem far-fetched. But the theological implications of this twinship, if it was the case, are enormous. They literally boggle the mind.<br />
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THE PROBLEM OF Q<br />
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The modern critical approach to the biblical texts began some 150 years ago in Germany. Sometimes termed the Higher Criticism, this approach stresses that things are not what they seem. The Pentateuch, for example, was not written by Moses or dictated to him by Yahweh. Moreover, according to the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, which further research has abundantly confirmed, that foundational text breaks down into four main streams, known by the initials J, E, D. and P. These do not correspond to the traditional ordering of the five books, but afford a glimpse into the stratigraphy, as it were, of the Pentateuch--the stages of its formation. Each stream is dominated by a particular theological concern.<br />
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Other scholars began to deploy a similar approach to the New Testament, especially the four canonical gospels. Since the publication of Johann Griesbach in 1776, it has come to be generally agreed that the Gospel of John stands apart. In fact, it has long been recognized that the the Gospel of John differs significantly from the other three canonical gospels in theme, content, time duration, order of events, and style. Some 1800 years ago, Clement of Alexandria famously summarized the unique character of the the Gospel of John by stating "John last of all, conscious that the 'bodily' facts had been set forth in those [earlier] Gospels ... composed a 'spiritual' Gospel."<br />
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Our focus here lies elsewhere, with the other three, ascribed to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Known as the synoptic gospels, these form a set. The synoptic gospels display an enormous range of parallels among them. About 80% of the verses in Mark have parallels in both Matthew and Luke. Since this material in common to all three gospels, it is sometimes known as the Triple Tradition. The Triple Tradition is largely narrative but contains some sayings material.<br />
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Once their kinship is granted, what of the relations among the three synoptics? During the Middle Ages, the relatively short Gospel of Mark was thought to be a summary or epitome of the others. In 1838, however, Christian Wilke established the priority of the Mark, now generally accepted as the earliest of the four.<br />
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Mark is the shortest of the gospels, suggesting that the longer gospels took Mark as a source, adding additional material to it (as opposed to Mark taking longer gospels but deleting substantial chunks of material). Mark's diction and grammar are less sophisticated than those found in Matthew and Luke. It would appear that Matthew and Luke improved Mark's wording (as opposed to Mark intentionally "dumbing down" more sophisticated language). Mark regularly included fragments in Aramaic (translating them into Greek), whereas Matthew and Luke do not.<br />
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Another finding is extremely important. Matthew and Luke share a large amount of material that is not found in Mark. In fact, more than 200 verses in the two later Synoptics are common to both. Technical analysis suggests that neither copied the other, so that the material derived from yet another fund of technical material.<br />
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This recognition has led to what is termed the “two-source” theory for Matthew and Luke; they came about through merging the Markan component with the other body of material. Nowadays, this other body of material is commonly termed Q (Q standing for the German word Quelle, “source”). It has also been shown to underly about a third of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.<br />
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It is possible to deduce that the Q document, in the form that Matthew and Luke had access to, was written in Greek. Were Matthew and Luke consulting a document that had been written in some other language (for example, Aramaic), it is unlikely that two independent renderings produced by Matthew and Luke would have the same wording.<br />
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Strictly speaking Q is not a gospel--that is, a narrative biography of Jesus--but a collection of sayings (or logia). Begining in the 1980s several scholars presented reconstructions of Q.<br />
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This burst of interest fostered increasingly more sophisticated literary and redactional reconstructions of Q, as seen the work of John S. Kloppenborg. Focussing on certain literary phenomena, Kloppenborg argued that Q was composed in three stages. The earliest stage featured a collection of wisdom sayings involving such issues as poverty and discipleship. This nucleus was expanded by including a layer of judgmental sayings directed against "this generation.” The final stage included the Temptation of Jesus.<br />
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Although Kloppenborg cautioned against assuming that the composition history of Q is the same as the history of the Jesus tradition (i.e. that the oldest layer of Q is necessarily the oldest and pure-layer Jesus tradition), some recent seekers of the Historical Jesus, including the members of the Jesus Seminar, have done just that. Basing their reconstructions primarily on the Gospel of Thomas and the oldest layer of Q, they propose that Jesus functioned as a wisdom sage, rather than a Jewish rabbi, One commentator, Bruce Griffin, characterizes the Kloppenborg hypothesis as follows: “This division of Q has received extensive support from some scholars specializing in Q. But it has received serious criticism from others, and outside the circle of Q specialists it has frequently been seen as evidence that some Q specialists have lost touch with essential scholarly rigor. The idea that we can reconstruct the history of a text which does not exist, and that must itself be reconstructed from Matthew and Luke, comes across as something other than cautious scholarship. But the most serious objection to the proposed revisions of Q is that any attempt to trace the history of revisions of Q undermines the credibility of the whole Q hypothesis itself. For despite the fact that we can identify numerous sayings that Matthew and Luke have in common, we cannot prove that these sayings come from a single unified source; Q may be nothing but a convenient term for a variety of sources shared by Matthew and Luke. Therefore any evidence of revision of Q counts as evidence for disunity in Q, and hence for a variety of sources used by Matthew and Luke. Conversely, any evidence for unity in Q - which must be established in order to see Q as a single document - counts as evidence against the proposed revisions. In order to hold to a threefold revision of Q, one must pull off an intellectual tight-rope act: one must imagine both that there is enough unity to establish a single document and that there is enough disunity to establish revisions. In the absence of any independent attestation of Q, it is an illusion to believe that scholars can walk this tightrope without falling off.”<br />
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Setting aside this controversy over the purported layering to be found in Q, the roster of motifs thought to have originated therein is striking. These include:<br />
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* The Beatitudes<br />
* Love your enemies<br />
* The Golden Rule<br />
* Judge not, lest ye be judged<br />
* The Test of a Good Person<br />
* The Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Builders<br />
* The Parable of the Lost Sheep<br />
* The Parable of the Wedding Feast<br />
* The Parable of the Talents<br />
* The Parable of the Leaven<br />
* The Parable of the blind leading the blind<br />
* The Lord's Prayer<br />
* Expounding of the Law<br />
* The Birds of Heaven and The Lilies in the Field <br />
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As I write, a group of scholars is seeking to produce a definitive edition of Q under the auspices of the International Q Project and the Q Project of the Society of Biblical Literature. These scholars are working under the direction of James Robinson at the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at Claremont College in California. While awaiting their results, one may consult Burton L. Mack, <i>The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins</i> (1993) and Marcus J. Borg et al., eds. <i>The Lost Gospel of Q: The Original Sayings of Jesus</i> (1999).<br />
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Looking back over the history of research, it is evident that for a long time, the Q hypothesis was pursued simply as a solution to the synoptic problem; hence the major publications of Bultmann and Streeter (1921 and 1924 respectively).<br />
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The grounds for the recent interest in Q are quite different. Once the text is properly reconstructed, it will serve, it is held, to throw light on the beliefs and practices of the earliest followers of Jesus. For some time, now, the conventional wisdom has maintained that the apostle Paul altered and enlarged the message of the earliest followers of Jesus. Yet because some of the Pauline Epistles (at least four) are the earliest surviving documents we have, peering into the pre-Pauline stage has been hazardous and often subjective. If, however, we can rely on the Q to document this phase, the problem is solved--or at least very substantially addressed.<br />
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Notwithstanding the enthusiasm it has been eliciting of late, some problems remain with the Q claim, the hypothesis of the recovery of a “lost gospel.” For example, we now have the texts--in their physical embodiment--of at least sixteen “noncanonical” gospels (that is, those in addition to the traditional four). As far as I know, no tangible physical evidence, not even a few slivers of papyrus, has come to light of Q. All we have is material in other documents that is assumed reliably to have derived from Q. Thus the situation is not unlike some planet that is not actually observed, but assumed to exist because of its effect on other celestial bodies.<br />
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One possible solution to the intangibility issue is to hypothesize that the Q document was not written down as such, but circulated in oral form. Studies of various cultures have shown that such transmission can occur. However, because of the so-called “telephone effect” oral documents change with each retelling, no matter how careful the tellers are to preserve the wording. As found in Matthew, Luke, and Thomas, however, the texts are stable, suggesting access to a written archetype.<br />
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A second problem concerns the completeness, or incompleteness of the Q material, as it has been deduced from survivals in the gospels ascribed to Matthew, Luke, and Thomas. The idea that the 225 or so verses recovered in this way constitute an organic whole seems to be tacitly accepted without argument. In the light of this assumption it is assumed that the absence of certain motifs, such as the doctrine of the Trinity, shows that they were not held by the earliest followers of Jesus. Instead, they are mythical accretions, many stemming from the surrounding pagan world. But what if such motifs were found in other portions of Q, which have not happened to survive?<br />
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A further question involves the order of the contents of Q. As noted above, there is no overarching narrative structure. Instead, we have a series of atomic fragments, sometimes loosely related, but in many instances simply following one on another. Contemporary scholars assume that the order preferred by the author of Luke is the original one. Yet how can one be sure?<br />
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Recent work has shown that the Q problem poses two distinct issues. The first concerns its deployment in support of the two-source assumption, that is, Matthew and Luke as two products of the conflation of Mark and Q. Is is still not possible, though, that the Q material was originally generated by the author of Luke (and not borrowed)? Once established, this Lukan material could migrate into Matthew and Thomas. Or the current could go in a reverse direction, following an old view found in St. Augustine that gives priority to Matthew.<br />
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These intricate questions can be pursued in the specialist literature. When all is said and done, though, it seems that the two-source theory, confidently assumed by many New Testament scholars, is not quite nailed down. This is so, even after more than two hundred years of carefully argued analysis.<br />
<br />
THE DELAYED PAROUSIA<br />
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In the apocalyptic discourse of Matthew 24-25, Jesus describes in stark terms the forthcoming crisis, a testing time in which the present dispensation will pass away, to be replaced by a New Age. The key event will be the Savior’s own Second Coming (Parousia), when he will return in glory to judge the living and the dead and to establish his Kingdom (Basileia). Some thought that the Kingdom would last one thousand years, and this belief has, over time, periodically inspired charismatic movements that are part of a general trend called Millenarianism.<br />
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Yet there was a big problem with the scenario Jesus outlined, for he seems to have regarded the inception of these eschatological events as imminent. “Truly I tell you, this generation shall not pass away until all these things have taken place.” (Matthew 24:34). Note also Mark 1:15: “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come in power.”<br />
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Of course these things did not take place on schedule; indeed--unless most of us have missed something very important--they still have not. Why did the Messiah tarry? The “delayed parousia” was a major problem for the early church, which needed to engineer a fundamental reorientation of its world view and priorities, building institutions for the long haul instead of just preparing for imminent catastrophe and transformation. Jesus’ predictions were falsified, but the Christian church needed to stay in business. Such at any rate, is the analysis advanced by Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer somewhat over a century ago.<br />
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Johannes Weiss (1863-1914) saw Jesus not just as a great ethical teacher--the common view when Weiss wrote--but as the proclaimer of a new era, the Kingdom of God. Jesus believed he stood at a critical juncture in history and expected the beginning of the Kingdom, which would be accomplished not through gradual ethical progress, but as "the breaking out of an overpowering storm of God which destroys and renews, . . . bringing in a lasting order of things" (Weiss: 5). Although at first Jesus did not think he would have to die to usher in the Kingdom, he eventually came to that realization, believing (as we have seen) that some persons in the generation then living would witness its coming.<br />
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Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) went beyond Weiss's emphasis on Jesus' proclamation of the imminent kingdom to contend that Jesus' entire life was dominated by the vision of this apocalyptic transformation. Confident that the realization of the Kingdom was so close it could almost be said to be present, Jesus sent out the disciples out to give the "lost sheep of the house of Israel" one final chance to repent (Matthew 10). On the basis of Matthew 10:23, where Jesus tells his disciples, "You will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes," Schweitzer concluded that Jesus had originally expected the end of the Age to occur before the disciples had concluded their preaching tour. When this transformation failed to occur, Jesus quietly concluded he had been mistaken. Now believing he himself must suffer the messianic woes that would constitute the birth pangs of the new dispensation, Jesus prepared to go to Jerusalem to die so as to usher in the Kingdom.<br />
<br />
THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY<br />
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The foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity is commonly--though I think erroneously--detected in certain New Testament passages linking the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Two such passages are the so-called “Great Commission" of Matthew: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19); and Paul’s: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (2 Corinthians 13:14). A few other passages exhibit similar wording.<br />
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One of these is certainly spurious. The King James Version states, as 1 John 5:7, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." Yet this Comma Johanneum, to use its technical designation, is now generally recognized as a parasitic addition to the Gospel text. Appearing in a few early Latin manuscripts, it is absent from the more authoritative Greek manuscripts--except for a few late examples, where the passage appears to have been back-translated from the Latin. Desiderius Erasmus, the editor of the Textus Receptus on which the King James Version was based, noticed that the passage was not found in any of the Greek manuscripts at his disposal. In the first edition of his Greek New Testament he took the principled step of refusing to include it, as he rightly suspected that it was a spurious intrusion. Later, he yielded to pressure to change his mind.<br />
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Erasmus was right in the first place. Not now considered to have been part of the original text, the Comma Johanneum has vanished from modern translations of the Bible, even from the revision of the Vulgate that ranks as the official Latin text of the Roman Catholic Church.<br />
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With more than their usual dexterity, medieval theologians even affected to detect “prefigurations” of the Holy Trinity in the Hebrew Bible. One example of this exegetical strong-arming is the so-called “Old Testament Trinity” of the three strangers who visited Abraham (Genesis 18) . Artists have often chosen to employ this subject to illustrate the doctrine, which is otherwise hard to visualize. (In my opinion, it is even harder to conceive in the mind, but that has not been the view of countless credulous Christians, who believe what they are told.)<br />
<br />
Returning to the New Testament, what we find there is simply a rhetorical formula of “Father/Son/Holy Spirit.” A moment’s reflection will show that one can habitually connect three things verbally without implying that they share a common essence. For example, the expression “Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe” refers to the fact that these three disparate towns were linked by a railroad. (Imagine, if you will, purchasing a vacation plan for Santa Fe, only to have the travel agent disclose that one has been redirected to Topeka: "after all, they're the same place.") In fact the familiar railroad nomenclature advances no claim of organic similarity, not to speak of the bizarre notion that the communities are somehow the same: “triune” as it were. Yet we are asked to believe something much grander than that on the basis of a few fragments of New Testament rhetoric.<br />
<br />
Thinking in threes has enjoyed currency in many cultures. Ancient Egyptian religion honored several sets of three deities, including the triad of Osiris (husband), Isis (wife), and Horus (son); local triads like the Theban triad of Amun, Mut and Khonsu; as well as the Memphite triad of Ptah, Sekhmet and Nefertem, These divine triads show family relationships, but not identity. The Egyptians also held that there were three seasons in the year, not four. For its part, later Chinese civilization honored three great systems of thought: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.<br />
<br />
The approach is also common in folklore (three wishes, three guesses, three little pigs, three bears, three billy goats gruff, and so forth). In medieval Europe, sorcerers would reputedly sacrifice three black animals when attempting to conjure up demons. On the other hand, a three-colored cat was a protective spirit. In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606–07) there are three witches, and their spell begins, “Thrice the brindled cat hath mewed,” reflecting this bit of folklore. Even today, common parlance distinguishes among the animal, vegetable, and mineral realms.<br />
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This being said, the number three seems to have enjoyed particular prominence in Greek thought. For example, the Greek language has three genders. By contrast, Hebrew (like the Romance languages) has only two. Three was an important number for the Pythagoreans. Plato regarded three as being symbolic of the triangle, the simplest spatial shape, and considered the world to have been built from triangles. There were three major tragedians: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Later Greek thought conceived of the soul as having three parts.<br />
<br />
This profusion, contrasting with the relative unimportance of the number three in Hebrew thought, suggests that the concept of the Holy Trinity is of Hellenic origin. And indeed most of the Christian theologians who addressed this issue had a Greek education and wrote in that language. Significantly, the Greek word "Trias," which these writers employed for the Holy Trinity, does not occur in this sense in the New Testament. All this evidence suggests that the concept, like the word, was an alien intruder.<br />
<br />
If the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a Greek intrusion into the original Semitic base of earliest Christianity, when did it first penetrate.? It is impossible to say for sure. Some scholars claim to have found adumbrations of the doctrine of the Trinity in writers of the sub-Apostolic age. An early, though typically problematic example of this claim occurs in the Church father Ignatius (d. CE 107), who exhorts the Magnesians to "prosper . . . in the Son, and in the Father, and in the Spirit." As we have noted, though, such triadic formulae are scarcely conclusive. In his letter to the Ephesians, Ignatius maintains that "our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost." Here Jesus is thought of as God, but the Holy Spirit seems a mere agent acting at the behest of God the Father. Ignatius does not say that the Spirit was "consubstantial, coequal, and coeternal" with the other two, as later orthodoxy claimed. This text presumes no explicit Trinitarian doctrine of the equality of all three.<br />
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One thing, however, is clear. Crucial shifts in thinking began at a time when everyone who had known Jesus personally was dead. No one would have been alive to contradict the changes.<br />
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What did Ignatius really have in mind? He seems to be professing bitheism (sometimes termed "binitarianism"), a belief in two equally powerful gods with complementary or antonymous properties. In contrast to ditheism, which implies rivalry and opposition (as between Good and Evil), bitheism posits two divine figures acting in perfect harmony. (A curious sidelight appears in the Marcionites, an early Christian sect which held that the Old and New Testaments were the work of two opposing gods: both were First Principles, but of different religions.)<br />
<br />
Setting aside later elaborations, one must take Ignatius' bitheistic concept on its own terms. Doctrinal development might have stopped right there, and the Christian mainstream might have become Ignatian. Bitheism affirms the divinity of Christ, who is coequal with the Father. That is all that the doctrine of the Incarnation really requires.<br />
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Methodologically, the key point is this: one must resolutely abandon the common assumption (fetish, really) of the Holy Trinity as the starting point. Instead, we must understand the doctrine as a point of arrival, not necessarily an inevitable one. The reader must look elsewhere for further details of this gradual process (Carpenter, 2005). By the way, popular writers like Dan Brown are mistaken in suggesting that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity just popped up, as it were out of nowhere, at the Council of Nicaea. Such major changes in consciousness do not occur suddenly.<br />
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At all events, the doctrine of the Trinity does come into clearer focus as a result of the deliberations of the Council of Nicea, convened by the emperor Constantine in 325. The Council adopted a term for the relationship between the Son and the Father that stood from then on as the hallmark of orthodoxy; it declared that the Son is "of the same substance" (ὁμοούσιος) as the Father. This notion was further developed into the formula "three persons, one substance." In a paradox that has proved enduring, the answer to the question "What is God?" indicates the one-ness of the divine nature, while the answer to the question "Who is God?" indicates the three-ness of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Or so it seems.<br />
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Athanasius, a participant in the Council of Nicaea, stated that the bishops were compelled to use this terminology, which is not found in Scripture, because the Biblical phrases that they would have preferred were appropriated by the Arians, who doubted that Christ enjoyed the same status as God the Father. They therefore glommed onto the non-scriptural term homoousios (“of one substance”) in order--so they believed--to safeguard the essential relation of the Son to the Father that had been denied by Arius.<br />
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The Holy Spirit was now definitively in the picture, though Council of Nicaea said little about it. The doctrine of the divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit was developed by Athanasius (ca. 293-373) in the last decades of his life. He both defended and refined the Nicene formula. By the end of the fourth century, under the leadership of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus (the Cappadocian Fathers), the doctrine had reached substantially its current form. <br />
Here and there, resistance lingered in orthodox quarters. It seems that the early work
of Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260-ca. 340) shows evidence of
binitarianism (V, H, Drecoll, 1996). <br />
<br />
Othere challenges came from sources regarded as heretical. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity was challenged by the Arians and others, while the Socinians, founders of Unitarianism, began a more sustained attack in the sixteenth century.<br />
<br />
My conclusion is that there is no certain evidence that the writers of the New Testament documents adhered to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. In all likelihood this innovation seeped into post-Apostolic Christianity from Greek sources. Through sheer legerdemain, it was read back into the canonical texts. This tempting, but dubious exegetical technique foreshadowed the later efforts by the rabbis to impose their own fancies on the Hebrew Bible, as we have seen in the previous Chapter.<br />
<br />
TRADITION, SEMANTICS, AND TEXTS<br />
<br />
The Trinitarians could avail themselves of a further line of defense. In modern times, Roman Catholic apologists have maintained that Christian doctrine has two sources: text and tradition. The doctrine of the Trinity stems from the second source. I note parenthetically that it is a little hard to understand why such an important belief as the Trinity would not have been boldly proclaimed in the New Testament itself. Instead, we must rely on later witnesses, trusting (not too wisely, it turns out) that they have faithfully transmitted the original teaching. That is the fatal flaw, for this claim blithely ignores a key feature of oral tradition. That is the fact that, consciously or unconsciously, each participant in the chain tends to alter the formulation of what has been heard. Some of these changes are slight, while others are substantial.<br />
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This point can easily be grasped by recalling the parlor game known as “telephone.” A group of people form a line, and the person at the start whispers a phrase into the ear of his or her neighbor, who does the same, and so on. By the time the message has reached the end of the line it is completely distorted.<br />
<br />
Oh, but this objection does not apply in the case of Early Christian doctrines, say the apologists. The messages have a truly faithful guarantor in the form of the Catholic Church. One of the sterling characteristics of that institution is that it is unchanging--the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. At this point, most would be compelled to say, we have broached, if not actually entered the realm of fantasy.<br />
<br />
The idea of Church Unchanging is particularly problematic during the first three centuries, when periodic Roman persecutions and the dissensions that the winning side sought to stigmatize as "heresies" wracked the emergent Christian congregations. Viewed in a different perspective, what now seems “heresy” could easily be deemed “orthodoxy,” and vice versa.<br />
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Some mischief stems from the translation, standard in English-language Bibles, of the Greek noun ekklesia as “church,” instead of “assembly” or “congregation." In modern English the word church has several meanings, including: 1) a building for public Christian worship; 2) the world body of Christian believers; Christendom; 3) a Christian denomination; 4) a Christian congregation; 5) organized religion in general, as distinguished from the state. As is always the case with language, there has been much semantic evolution, a fact that the choice of words tends to mask. While the words stay the same, the reality they seek to describe changes.<br />
<br />
The Greek word “ekklesia” appears in 115 places in the received text of the New Testament. Almost invariably the English translations render it as “church,” instead of assembly, which would be more accurate. In classical Greek city states the ekklesia was a public assembly of citizens summoned by the crier; the group functioned as a legislative body. In the koine Greek of the New Testament the term refers to a groups of persons assembled together for a particular purpose. The meaning was never confined to a religious meeting or group.<br />
<br />
The word church which appears in our English bibles derives from the Greek “kyriakon,” not “ekklesia.” The Greek word kyriakon is not found in the New Testament. Its English counterpart "church" came into common use only in the sixteenth century.<br />
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This brief summary suffices to indicate the philological background. Let us now turn to the history of institutions. Reading the book of Acts and the Epistles ascribed to Paul, it is clear that the “churches” established in various parts of the Roman empire must be understood in sense no. 4 above; that is, they are congregations, and not limbs of some highly disciplined superorganism of the sort that Roman Catholicism represents today. This particularism is shown by the expression “seven churches [ekklesiai] in Asia.” The term easily leant itself to plural usage because that was the concrete situation.<br />
<br />
In the light of these observations it is difficult to support the conclusion, common in Roman Catholic apologetic circles of yore, that Jesus founded THE CHURCH, an institution that is, to all intents and purposes, identical to the Roman Catholic Church today. In view of its unchanging adherence to primordial Christian doctrines (so we are told) we can rely with the utmost confidence on the Vatican as the faithful custodian of those doctrines--including the formerly unwritten body known as “tradition.”<br />
<br />
These claims are vulnerable on a number of grounds. Even retaining (as convenience suggests) the conventional rendering of ekklesia as “church,” it is crystal clear that that institution was quite different prior to 313, when Constantine intervenes, to what came after. In fact the two are opposed by almost 180 degrees.<br />
<br />
This change may be illustrated by the shift of meaning of another term. As the etymology suggests, “episkopoi” (“bishops”) were originally simply overseers or straw bosses. They possessed none of the trappings of magisterium they were later to acquire under the aegis of Constantine and his successors.<br />
<br />
With the ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 everything changed, and three patriarchates, in effect, were confirmed to stand at the pinnacle of the hierarchy. One must be careful not to retroject Nicene norms back onto the previous era.<br />
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As far as I can see, Adolph von Harnack’s fundamental contrast between Urchristentum (comprising the Apostolic and Subapostolic eras; and the age of the Martyrs), on the one hand, and Early Catholicism, on the other, remains valid. Only the transition to the latter created the Christian Church as we know it. This was a slow, often literally agonizing process that reached its term only with Constantine.<br />
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I turn now to the matter of texts. Between ca. 160 CE and ca. 220 a grass-roots consensus gradually emerged in several centers as to what the “New Testament” should look like. We have evidence of this complicated process from, e.g., Irenaeus of Lyons, the Muratorian Canon, and Origen of Caesarea.<br />
<br />
In no case that I know of did people of this kind actually concoct scriptures. They merely sorted out what they found.<br />
<br />
So one cannot seriously maintain that the Church was prior to the the New Testament, which it created. One might as well say that the Synagogue created the Hebrew Bible. Of course, rabbis associated with synagogues (plural) MAY have established some sort of canon at Jamnia ca. 90. But that is a far cry from their being progenitors of those documents. Even the most radical Minimalists do not make such a claim.<br />
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The actual origins of the texts remain obscure. It is unlikely, for example, that any of the Four Gospels was actually written by the “evangelist” whose name it now bears. One thing is sure, though. Since there was no such thing as THE CHURCH in those days, it could not have been the progenitor of these texts. We must reiterate another point. Never having existed, this phantom institution would not have been in a position to conserve a uniform body of “tradition” which it later "infallibly" drew upon.<br />
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The texts are the only evidence we have, and Roman Catholic efforts to trace such such patent fabrications as Purgatory and the Immaculate Conception to some primordial oral tradition must be regarded as rubbish, pure and simple. That conclusion is, I would think, a no-brainer.<br />
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The same goes, I believe, for that perennial hobgobblin known as "Holy Trinity." If we wish to understand Christian origins we must set it aside.<br />
<br />
THE GOSPELS AND HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR<br />
<br />
We commonly hear that “Jesus said nothing about homosexuality.” It is true that the four gospels record Jesus as making no statement focusing explicitly on homosexual behavior or rendered a judgment in favor of either the Jewish or the Hellenic attitude toward it. Yet the omission of this particular area of sexual morality does not mean that he had no moral judgment on such matters. His statements on adultery and divorce (Matthew 5:27-32) and on that which "defileth the man: . .. adulteries, fornications... lasciviousness" (Mark 7:20-23) imply no weakening or abrogation of the code of sexual morality recognized by both Palestinian and Hellenistic Jewry. One might even conclude that Jesus was more rigorous in his moralism than his Judaic predecessors, for he seems to have insisted on what he regarded as an even higher standard of morality. It is not just overt acts, but even thoughts and intentions that must be banished from consciousness.<br />
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This being said, Warren Johansson (in the <i>Encyclopedia of Homosexuality,</i> 1990, and elsewhere) has pointed to some neglected evidence from Matthew 5:22, where the mysterious word racha appears. Johansson surmises that this may be a vulgar loan word (from Hebrew rakh) in Hellenistic Greek signifying the passive-effeminate homosexual whom both Jew and Gentile held in contempt. The import of the passage would then be that not simply physical aggression and violence, but even verbal insults directed at the masculinity of the addressee are forbidden by the higher morality of the new faith. In other words, the passage forbids fag-baiting.<br />
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Outside of the gospels, there are explicit references to the morality of homosexual acts in Romans 1:26-27,1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and I Timothy 1:9-10. The first is often mistakenly understood as the sole reference to lesbianism in the Bible, but is in all likelihood a reinterpretation of the sin of the "daughters of men" who had intercourse with the "sons of God" (= fallen angels) in Genesis 6:1-2,4, as echoed in the noncanonical Testament of Naphtali 3:5, an intertestamental writing. The opening statement that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven" (Romans 1:18) suggests that the whole passage is an allusion the Deluge and the destruction of Sodom, in both of which Paul sees retribution for violations of the natural order.<br />
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The passage in I Corinthians 6:9-10 assumes the Ten Commandments as its model. Those who depart from the proper path will find themselves excluded from the Kingdom of God. The words malakoi, "effeminate," and arsenokoitai, "abusers of themselves with mankind," signify the passive and active partners in male homosexual relations respectively, rephrasing the explicit condemnation of both in Leviticus 20:13, which Philo Judaeus and Flavius Josephus alike show to have been generally upheld in the Judaism of the first century CE. The reference in Timothy parallels the one in Corinthians, with a similar catalogue of evil-doers who are deserving of ostracism and punishment.<br />
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For Evangelical opponents of homosexuality, this set of three short texts is conclusive. They sometimes designate them, almost gleefully, as the “clobber passages.” Gay and lesbian interpreters have labored to diminish their force. In my view these interventions have not been successful.<br />
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An intriguing episode is the story of the Centurion's servant in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10. Donald Mader and others have argued that this implies a pederastic relationship, since the servant "who was dear [entimos] unto him" may have been both a valet and a bed partner. The "beloved disciple" in the Gospel of John alone is sometimes, usually not in a pious vein, asserted to have been a youth for whom Jesus' love was tantamount to a Greek pederastic attachment of the mentor to his protege. This is commonly referred to the Apostle John, but the beloved disciple may have been Lazarus or someone else.<br />
<br />
Discussed elsewhere in these pages is an eighteenth-century manuscript discovered and published by Morton Smith that includes a passage that refers to the "young man having a linen cloth cast about his naked body," amplifying Mark 14:51-52, with the innuendo that Jesus had an homoerotic relationship with this otherwise mysterious disciple as well.<br />
<br />
These observations are of continuing interest. Yet most commentators, whether gay-friendly or not, have focused on the three texts from Romans, Corinthians, and Timothy noted above. For several decades progay scholars such as Canon D.S. Bailey and John Boswell have been laboring to erase the antihomosexual connotations of the scriptural passages noted above. If there contentions were correct, we would expect that the Patristic Writers, commonly called "fathers of the church," would take a benign or at least neutral view of same-sex conduct. However, that is not the case at all, for none of the fathers wrote positively about same-sex preferences or same-sex acts--quite the reverse. In retrospect, their role in the history of same-sex love was to appropriate, accentuate, and help perpetuate currents of hostility to homoeroticism in existing thought. As such, they lent their voices to strengthen the prohibitions of Leviticus and Paul. They went beyond borrowing and accentuation, revealing themselves to be enthusiastic inventors.<br />
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Writing in the first decade of the fourth century, Lactantius (ca. 240-ca. 320) offered a standard Christian explanation of why same-sex acts are unnatural. "When God invented the plan of the two sexes, he endowed the bodies of men and women with a vehement carnal desire for each other. In the pleasurable union of the two sexes, a child is conceived, our mortality is overcome, and the race of living beings saved from extinction. The satisfaction of sexual desire is natural when it serves this purpose. But there are also men, inspired by the devil, who actually join themselves to other males (mares maribus) and practice abominable intercourse against nature and against the institute of God. Such men abuse their own sex. Yet among themselves, they regard these practices as peccadilloes and almost honorable."<br />
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The emerging Christian sexual ethic owed a great debt to a Greek philosophical doctrine known as procreationism. As Eugene Rice has emphasized, the idea may be traced to Pythagoras of Samos (ca 570-480 BCE), who emphasized sexual restraint and moderation. At Croton, a Greek colony in southern Italy, Pythagoras is reputed to have persuaded the men of the city to give up their concubines and adhere to strict monogamy.<br />
<br />
Pythagoras’ followers in the Hellenistic period made plainer the procreationist core of the Pythagorean sexual ethic: "The first postulate," wrote Ocellus in On the Nature of the Universe, "is that sexual intercourse should never occur for pleasure, but only for the procreation of children."<br />
<br />
A stricter version of the doctrine explicitly prohibited every sexual act committed outside of marriage, including "all unnatural connections, especially those attended with wanton insolence [e.g., pederasty]," thus linking the idea of what is natural in sex to a normative demand for procreation as its end.<br />
<br />
Both Jews and Christians accepted the procreationist mandate. "What are our laws about marriage?" asked Josephus (ca 37-ca 100 CE), historian of the Jews: "The Law [of Moses] allows no other union of the sexes but that which nature has appointed, of a man with his wife and this for the procreation of children only. And it abhors the intercourse of male with male, and if anyone do that, death is the punishment." Clement of Alexandria (ca 150-ca 215) offers an early Christian instance of the same doctrine. He insisted that marriage is a legal transaction between a man and a woman that exists for the sole purpose of procreating legitimate children in a reverent, disciplined act of will, not of desire. "To indulge in intercourse without intending children is to outrage nature, which we should take as our instructor."<br />
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In appropriating these precepts of moderation, Jewish and Christian apologists enveloped an essentially secular ethic of temperance and self-control in a divinely ordained envelope. These behavioral restrictions must be strictly observed because God wills it so.<br />
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During the fourth century St. John Chrysostom held that homosexual acts are worse than murder and so degrading that they constitute a kind of punishment in itself, and that enjoyment of such acts actually makes them worse, "for suppose I were to see a person running naked, with his body all besmeared with mire, and yet not covering himself, but exulting in it, I should not rejoice with him, but should rather bewail that he did not even perceive that he was doing shamefully."<br />
<br />
In addition the fathers discerned a connection between adultery and pederasty. The Constitution of the Apostles is a collection of ecclesiastical law compiled in the late fourth century incorporating earlier material. This text expands the sixth commandment in this way: "Do not commit adultery: for you divide one flesh into two: For . . . husband and wife are one by nature, concord, union, affection, life, and habit, and separated only by sex and number. Do not abuse boys (oude paidophthoréseis): for this vice is against nature and had its beginning in Sodom, a city consumed by fire sent down from Heaven. Let such a man be cursed and the whole people say: So be it, so be it."<br />
<br />
As the late Eugene Rice of Columbia University has pointed out, one innovation of the early Fathers of the church was to take the crucial step of labeling pederasty itself an abuse. So Greek Christians learned to say "boy abuse" (paidophthoria) instead of "boy love" (paiderastia), "abuser of boys" (paidophthoros) instead of "lover of boys" (paederastés, paidophilos), and "to abuse boys" (paidophthoreo) rather than to love them (paidophilein). The interpretation of the story of Sodom remains controversial. Because the citizens of the city were charged with so many vices it it hard to make out that same-lust was the offense that triggered their destruction. Still, by the time of Philo Judaeus the homoerotic aspects had become salient in Jewish circles. Early Christian writers ratified this view. By the end of the fourth century, the Latin fathers had decisively fixed in the mind of the West the links between male-male sex, the lewdness of Sodom, God's anger, and the city's incendiary punishment.<br />
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The male inhabitants of Sodom wrote St. Augustine (354-430), "burned with unspeakable lust for one another." Their offense was "abusive intercourse with males" (stuprum in masculos), and God punished them by raining fire from heaven on their sinful heads, a foretaste of the divine punishment to come. The crimes of the Sodomites are against nature (contra naturam) and must be everywhere and always hated and punished. The relationship we ought to have with God is violated when the nature of which He is the author is polluted by perverted desire.<br />
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Augustine's follower, the historian Orosius, held that the crime of the Sodomites was precisely their choice of male sexual partners. Sodom and Gomorrah were rich, entailing a chain of consequences. From abundance sprang luxury, and from luxury, sexual depravity, "males with males working shame" (cf. Romans 1:27). Mastered by overpowering lust, the citizens of Sodom were indifferent to any consideration of place (public or private), condition (free or slave, rich or poor), or age (adolescent or adult).<br />
<br />
The acceptance of the antihomoerotic connotations of the Sodom story spawned a new lexicon of disparagement in the Latin West, corresponding in meaning and intent with the paidophthoros family in the Greek East. With the sexual meaning that clings to the terms even today, the noun “sodomite” (sodomita), the adjective "sodomitical" (sodomiticus), the verbal phrase "to fornicate in the manner of a Sodomite" (more sodomitico) began to circulate in late antiquity. Their frequent attestation in the sixth century signaled the beginning of a new and ominous era in the history of antihomosexual invective.<br />
<br />
THE AGONY OF MORTON SMITH<br />
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Morton Smith ((1915-1991) was a professor of ancient history at Columbia University, where he specialized in Biblical scholarship. In all likelihood he was a closeted homosexual, a status that contributed to his (somewhat gingerly) preoccupation with the subject.<br />
<br />
He is now best known for his discovery of a text in the Mar Saba monastery in Palestine, and his controversial interpretation of it. The manuscript in question was fairly small, consisting of three pages of Greek manuscript bound in as end-papers to another book, an edition of the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch. Morton Smith photographed the three handwritten pages, returning the volume to its original place in the library. Subsequently, the pages in question have disappeared. Before this happened, they were photographed in color (with clear evidences of tears on one side of the pages).<br />
<br />
What are the contents of those pages? Ostensibly, the document was a previously unknown letter written by the early church father Clement of Alexandria. Moreover, it was a secret letter to his disciple Theodore. The letter congratulates Theodore on trouncing the gnostic Carpocratians, who were citing a libertine version of the Gospel of Mark. The bulk of the letter is spent conceding that there is indeed a "secret Gospel of Mark," but Clement's version of Mark is not the text the Carpocratians favored. Most interestingly, the letter quotes "Secret Mark" to the effect that Jesus had a practice of initiating his male followers into the "mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven." Yet Clement insists that "Secret Mark" does not include the verbiage "naked male with naked male."<br />
<br />
In 1973 Morton Smith published his findings in two different books. One was a rigorously constructed academic volume from Harvard University Press entitled<i> Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark</i>, while the second was a popular account entitled <i>The Secret Gospel.</i><br />
<br />
These two publications were a sensation in the scholarly world, though not always in the way Smith intended. While the attacks have recently been renewed, they are not new. In 1975 Quentin Quesnell published a lengthy article in the <i>Catholic Biblical Quarterly</i>, claiming that Smith had forged the document, and then photographed his alleged forgery. Smith issued a furious rebuttal, but the debate never progressed beyond these extremes. The unresolved questions lingered.<br />
<br />
Morton Smith reported that he found the manuscript in the Mar Saba monastery in 1958, photographed it carefully, and then left the book where he found it. When asked where the original manuscript was, he replied, "On the third floor of the library, where I found it." Four scholars located the manuscript there and saw it.<br />
<br />
Then the chief monk became involved, and transferred the book to the Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem. Supposedly, this was part of a project to move all the Mar Saba books to safer keeping. At some point, the librarian at the Patriarchal Library removed the text pages from the end-papers of the book where Smith had found them, and had more photographs taken. Bizarrely, the current stance of the Greek Orthodox Church is that they “cannot find it."<br />
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As of early 2008 there are at least three books in print addressing the allegations of forgery: Scott G. Brown's <i>Mark's Other Gospel</i>, Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2005; Stephen C. Carlson's The Gospel Hoax, Baylor University Press, 2005; and Peter Jeffery's <i>The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled,</i> Yale University Press, 2006.<br />
<br />
Two preliminary points must be made. First, some resistance to Smith’s discovery and his interpretation of it stems from traditionalists who cannot abide the possibility of Jesus being a libertine. This consideration tells one more about the psychology of the writer than the facts--in so far as they are knowable. At the opposite extreme are those, gay and otherwise, who are seeking to find just this kind of “libertine” in the person of the founder of Christianity. Again, the arguments redound on the arguer.<br />
<br />
There are, of course, more objective arguments. Only a few of these will be touched on here.<br />
<br />
What are the contributions of the three current authors? First, the case for the defense has been presented by Scott G. Brown, a Canadian scholar.<br />
<br />
1) Brown wrote the first doctoral dissertation on the “secret” Gospel of Mark (University of Toronto, 1999). He teaches courses on Christian origins in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto.<br />
<br />
In his book Mark's Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith's Controversial Discovery, Brown concludes that forty-five years of investigation, much of it cursory, have yielded five mutually exclusive paradigms, abundant confusion, and rumors of forgery. Strangely, one of the few things upon which most investigators agree is that the letter's own explanation of the origin and purpose of this longer gospel need not be taken seriously.<br />
<br />
For his own part, Brown seeks to demonstrate that the gospel excerpts not only sound like Mark, but also employ Mark's distinctive literary techniques, deepening this gospel’s theology and elucidating puzzling aspects of its narrative.<br />
<br />
More specifically, Brown's holds that Secret Mark was part of a longer version of the gospel of Mark, written by the same author, but for advanced readers who might be seeking a gnostic understanding of the first version. Longer Mark elaborates themes of discipleship and Christology already in place, especially elements neglected in the shorter version--the one we know--such as the mystery of the kingdom of God (Mk 4:11) and the appearance and flight of the young man in Gethsemane (14:51-52). Brown goes so far as to suggest that Secret Mark is an actual parable of the kingdom: "As an enacted parable of the kingdom, the raising of the young man...illustrates the paradox that one must undergo death in order to defeat it. The private explanation of this parable [where the young man spends the night with Jesus] expounds this insight by using baptismal imagery of death and rebirth [naked under the linen]... Baptism imagery is used here to interpret the salvific dimension of the young man's rising according to the analogy of dying (drowning in water) and rising again, though the baptism by which the transformation is attained is not the rite itself, but a metaphorical immersion in literal suffering and death." (p 206)<br />
<br />
Brown’s work is the product of a resourceful defender of his hero, and the book deserves to be read alongside Smith’s original. However, he seems blind to clues that might suggest forgery, including some alleged instances of humor on Smith’s part.<br />
<br />
2) Stephen C. Carlson is an independent scholar who maintains several web sites, including one on the synoptic gospels. Carlson, who had read Brown’s book, takes issue with four or five sentences in Brown's book and dismisses the rest of it with a footnote.<br />
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Carlson detects tell-tale slips, or perhaps sly jokes, inserted by Smith to permit the truth to emerge, if only the reader is diligent enough. These have been summarized by one reviewer as follows -- The author of Secret Mark seems to have read James Hunter's 1940 novel, The Mystery of Mar Saba. We owe our knowledge of this connection to Philip Jenkins, who first made this connection in 2001. The novel concerns about a forgery at the Mar Saba library, exactly where Smith "discovered" Clement's letter. Furthermore, as Carlson notes, both Secret Mark and the novel's fictional discovery reinterpret a resurrection account from the gospels in naturalistic terms. -- The letter to Theodore sounds hyper-Clementine, as if someone went out of his way to mimic Clement. (This point was argued at length by Andrew Criddle in 1995). -- The letter goes out of its way to authenticate Secret Mark, identifying the author Clement, who in turn vouches for Secret Mark's authenticity; and his full citation of Secret Mark is unnecessary and gratuitous for the concerns he is supposedly addressing. (These points were made by Robert Murgia in 1976). -- Shortly before his discovery of Secret Mark, Smith published a paper in which he connected both Clement of Alexandria and "the mystery of the kingdom of God" (in Mk 4:11) to sexual immorality (in T. Hagigah 2:1). Carlson seems to be the first to have observed this. -- Smith planted three sly hints, revealing himself as the author of Clement's letter: (1) M. Madiotes -- the "bald swindler". (2) Morton Salt -- the company which invented the kind of salt presupposed in Clement's letter. (3) Jesus' gay affair -- with the young man later seen in Gethsemane, where Jesus was arrested, thus evoking the cultural milieu of America in the 1950s, where police were cracking down on gay men meeting in public parks and gardens.<br />
<br />
Identifying these last disclosures constitutes the bulk of this book. Taken in conjunction with the rest of the evidence, they do seem substantially to weaken Smith’s case.<br />
<br />
Other points, such as handwriting analysis, would appear to be moot.<br />
<br />
3) The third book is by Peter Jeffery, a musicologist who teaches at Princeton University. Like Carlson, Jeffery reaches conclusions damaging to Morton Smith’s credibility.<br />
<br />
Jeffery also detects slips, or deliberate insertions, that imply modern authorship. In his view the three features of Secret Mark's initiation rite--resurrection symbolism, a period of teaching followed by a night vigil, and the wearing of a white cloth--reflect the Anglican Paschal liturgy prior to the liturgical renewal movement of the 1960s. Moreover, Clement and the Alexandrian church maintained a theology of baptism based not on the easter event of Jesus' resurrection, but on the epiphany event of Jesus' baptism by John. Secret Mark should thus have Epiphany motifs (such as creation, the heavens opening with light, the descent of the Holy Spirit and fire, the seal of priestly and messianic anointings) rather than Easter motifs (i.e. Pauline associations between baptism and resurrection).<br />
<br />
More generally, Jeffery holds that homoeroticism found in Secret Mark makes no sense in an ancient context. It seems anachronistic. Secret Mark was evidently written by a modern person who assumed that ancient homosexuality would have followed Plato's model of an older teacher with a young disciple, but who did not fully understand how the roles played out.<br />
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Strikingly, Jeffery finds that Clement's letter is riddled with allusions to Oscar Wilde's nineteenth-century play, Salome. In the play Salome does the "dance of the seven veils," which is echoed by Smith's Clement, who evokes "the truth hidden by seven veils.”<br />
<br />
Jeffery notes Smith's brief career as an Anglican priest, citing his harsh judgments on homosexuals in a 1949 article, quite severe by Anglican standards at the time. It would seem that Smith was going through his own sexual crisis, a crisis that caused him to leave the priesthood a year later. Interestingly, in the same 1949 article, Smith alluded to a nineteenth-century debate between Catholics and Protestants over whether Clement of Alexandria believed that lying was justified if it served the causes of the church.<br />
<br />
As one reviewer noted, Jeffery expresses sorrow and contempt. Smith "became what he opposed: a hypocritical Clement who condoned lying for the sake of a fundamentalist sexology"; "a man in great personal pain," who didn't even understand himself despite pretensions to a superior gnosticism; a bitter academic, whose hoax stands as "the most grandiose and reticulated 'F--- You' ever perpetuated in the long and vituperative history of scholarship.” Maybe so, but whether Smith wrote his hoax more as a playful experiment or an angry act of revenge remains unclear.<br />
<br />
The result of the vote then is two against one, Carlson and Jeffery against Brown. However, such crude score keeping does not tell the whole story, for Brown’s defense is a meticulous one.<br />
<br />
Recently, the philosopher Bernard McGinn has sought to create a School of Mysterians, those who acknowledge that some puzzles can never be solved. Ho hum, one might say, didn’t the ancient Skeptics hold that view? And, of course, Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness principle cut the ground out from under--in advance--any ambitions to create a Final Theory of the universe.<br />
<br />
It has been thirty-four years since Morton Smith published his two books. Today, we seem no closer than every to knowing the truth about those fascinating pages. We may simply have to leave the matter at that.<br />
<br />
IMITATIO CHRISTI, OR GETTING NAKED FOR JESUS’ SAKE!<br />
<br />
The previous section noted that in 1973 Professor Morton Smith, a distinguished biblical scholar, published two books analyzing a remarkable text he claimed to have discovered at Mar Saba, a Greek Orthodox monastery in the Judean wilderness. Ostensibly, the document contains a missing portion of the Gospel of Mark, which orthodox editors had excluded because of its anomalous character.<br />
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After meeting a woman of Bethany Jesus reluctantly agrees to visit the garden where the woman’s brother was entombed. “And approaching, Jesus rolled the stone from the door of the tomb, and going in immediately to where the young man was, he stretched out his hand and raised him, taking hold of his hand. But the young man, having looked upon him, loved him and began to entreat him to be with him. And going out from the tomb they went into the house of the young man; for he was rich. And after six days Jesus commanded him; and when it was evening the young man came to him wearing a linen sheet about his naked body, and he remained with him that night; for Jesus was teaching him the mystery of the kingdom of God. Then arising, he returned from there to the other side of the Jordan.”<br />
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Marshaling elaborate textual arguments, Morton Smith maintained that the text was an authentic portion of the gospel of Mark, one that had been censored from the version we know. The text contains Jesus’ original initiation rite. This tradition, he further argued, continued to be honored in antiquity by the Carpocratian sect, while the Orthodox rejected it.<br />
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Since the implication of homosexual conduct is inescapable, it would seem that Jesus was gay, and promoted this behavior among his disciples. Jesus never married, so that he was, in effect, a Kinsey Six—a person whose sexual practice was only with his own gender. I doubt, though, that Smith would have gone that far. And we do not know for certain whether Jesus married or not.<br />
<br />
The find has been accepted by a number of scholars, while others continue to doubt its authenticity. My own sense is that it is a forgery, whether by Smith or someone else.<br />
<br />
PURPORTED HEROIZATION OF JUDAS<br />
<br />
Scholars have long recognized that the four “canonical” gospels ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John are not the only ones we have. This hallowed quartet represents a mere selection from a much larger body of available gospels and memoirs of the life of Jesus. No one knows--or can ever know given the losses of fragile papyrus--how many members of this special company once existed. Yet today at least sixteen noncanonicals are extant. The texts of most of these can be read in translation, as for example in the book edited by J. K. Elliott, <i>The Apocryphal New Testament </i>(Oxford University Press, 1993). In fact scholars have been pouring over these texts for the better part of two centuries.<br />
<br />
During the 1970s a leather-bound Coptic papyrus was discovered near Beni Masah in Egypt. The codex comprises four parts: the Letter of Peter to Philip, already known from the Nag Hammadi Library; the First Apocalypse of James, also known from the Nag Hammadi Library; the first few pages of a work related to, but not the same as, the Nag Hammadi work Allogenes; and the Gospel of Judas. About a third of the codex is currently illegible. Since the other three texts were previously known, interest has focused on the last, the Gospel of Judas. Purportedly, this document was not written by Judas himself, but rather by Gnostic followers of Jesus.<br />
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After many vicissitudes, this intriguing relic came into the possession of the National Geographic Society, which sponsored a 2006 translation of the Coptic text (a translation that has proved defective in some respects). The Gospel is an esoteric account of an arrangement between Jesus and Judas, who in this telling are Gnostic enlightened beings, with Jesus asking Judas to turn him in to the Romans in order to allow Jesus finish his appointed task from God.<br />
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As has been noted, currently the text is extant in only one manuscript, a late-third or fourth-century Coptic compilation sometimes known as the Codex Tchacos, which surfaced in the 1970s, after languishing some sixteen centuries in the desert of Egypt. (Rumors that another version resides in the Vatican Library have not been substantiated.) The existing manuscript has been dated "between the third and fourth century," according to Timothy Jull, a radiocarbon-dating expert at the University of Arizona's physics centre. That means, of course, that the present text was written some 250 years after the death of Jesus. It is generally assumed that it is the Coptic rendering of a Greek original, but there is no way of determining the date of that.<br />
<br />
Some scholars detect a possible clue to the origin of the Greek original in a reference to a “Gospel of Judas” by the early Christian writer Irenaeus of Lyons, who, in arguing against Gnosticism about 180 CE, called the text a "fictitious history" (Refutation of Gnosticism, 1:31). Still, it is not certain that the text Irenaeus mentioned is in fact the same text as the Coptic “Gospel of Judas,” which in its present form must be at least a century later. Thus there remains no solid evidence for an early Greek-language prototype.<br />
<br />
Unlike the four canonical gospels, which employ narrative accounts of the last year of life of Jesus (in the case of John, three years) and of his birth (in the case of Luke and Matthew), the Gospel of Judas takes the form of dialogues between Jesus and Judas, and Jesus and the twelve disciples, without embedding these in any narrative framework or working them into any overt philosophical or rhetorical context. Such "dialogue gospels" were popular during the early decades of Christianity, and indeed the four canonical gospels are the only surviving gospels in narrative form. The New Testament apocrypha contain several examples of the dialogue form, an example being the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.<br />
<br />
Poorly treated after its exhumation, today the Codex Tchacos lies shattered into over a thousand pieces, with many sections missing. For some passages, there are only scattered words; for others, many lines. According to Rodolphe Kasser, the codex originally contained 31 pages, with writing on front and back; when it came to the market in 1999, only 13 pages remained. It is thought that individual pages had been removed and sold.<br />
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According to the canonical Gospels of the New Testament, Judas betrayed Jesus to Jerusalem's Temple authorities, who handed Jesus over to the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate for crucifixion. Yet he Gospel of Judas portrays Judas in a very different light, for the newly recovered text seems to present Judas's act not as betrayal, but rather as an act of obedience to the instructions of Jesus. It seems that Jesus required an agent to set in motion a course of events which he had planned. In that way Judas acted as a catalyst. The action of Judas, then, constituted a critical juncture, triggering a series of pre-orchestrated events.<br />
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This depiction chimes in with a notion current in some forms of Gnosticism, that is, that the human body is a kind of prison of the spirit. In this view Judas served Christ by helping to release Christ's spirit from its corporeal bondage. The action of Judas allowed him to do that which he could not do directly. The Gospel of Judas does not claim that the other disciples knew Gnostic teachings. In fact, the text implies that Judas was the only one of Jesus’ followers fully to understand the Gnostic teachings: "Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him: Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the Kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. For someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve disciples may again come to completion with their God."<br />
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Moreover, the Gospel of Judas shows Jesus in various instances criticizing the other disciples for their ignorance and their followers of immorality.<br />
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When they tell Jesus about a vision, he points out its true meaning as follows: "Those you have seen receiving the offerings at the altar—that is who you are. That is the God you serve, and you are those twelve men you have seen. The cattle you saw brought for sacrifice are the many people you lead astray before that altar. (. ..) will stand and make use of my name in this way, and generations of the pious will remain loyal to Him."<br />
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The early conclusions stemming from the find have not gone unchallenged. April D. DeConick, a professor of Biblical studies at Rice University, has emerged as a major critic of the translation sponsored by the National Geographic Society. She maintains that this version is faulty in many substantial respects. Based on a corrected translation, Judas was actually a demon, truly betraying Jesus, rather than following his orders.<br />
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Having retranslating the text, DeConick published <i>The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says</i> (2007, 2009) to assert that Judas was not a daimon in the Greek sense, but that "the universally accepted word for “spirit” is “pneuma ”--in Gnostic literature “daimon” is always taken to mean “demon”, as she wrote in The New York Times, December 1, 2007. "Judas is not set apart 'for' the holy generation, as the National Geographic translation says." Instead, DeConick asserted, "he is separated 'from' it." A negative that was dropped from a crucial sentence, an error National Geographic admits, changes the import.. "Were they genuine errors or was something more deliberate going on?" DeConick asked in the Op-Ed page of the Times.<br />
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In the first edition of her book, DeConick challenged the idea that the Gospel of Judas presented the traditionally infamous disciple in a favorable light, as the scholars who published the edition sponsored by the National Geographic maintained. DeConick has concluded that the recently recovered gospel was, in fact, “an ancient Gnostic parody.” The publisher’s website quotes her as saying: “I didn’t find the sublime Judas, at least not in Coptic. What I found were a series of English translation choices made by the National Geographic team, choices that permitted a different Judas to emerge in the English translation than in the Coptic original. Judas was not only not sublime, he was far more demonic than any Judas I know in any other piece of early Christian literature, Gnostic or otherwise.”<br />
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For the second edition, DeConick reports in a personal post: “I revised this book substantially, including two new chapters - one on Judas and astrology (my paper from the Codex Judas Congress) and another on Judas and ancient magic (I cover the magic gem that I think is related to the ideology put forth in the Gospel of Judas). I also have a new preface, covering what has been happening with the Gospel of Judas since its initial release, and I added a section on Thomasine church in the chapter on early Christianity.”<br />
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In short, DeConick has clearly established herself as one of the leading proponents of the “Judas as villain” position. The matter is still disputed, but it is no longer possible simply to maintain the hero view--especially since it seems to be based in part on mistranslation and wishful thinking. Thus the purported heroization of Judas seems to have ground to a halt.<br />
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Another issue concerns salvation. The first commentators held that the Gospel of Judas teaches that access to the Kingdom will be widely available. Later consideration, however, shows that this boon will be accorded only to a select few.<br />
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Stung by these criticisms the National Geographic editors have seen fit to issue a second edition of their version. This text corrects some, but not all the errors.<br />
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In an insightful piece, “Betrayal" (in <i>The New Yorker, </i>August 3, 2007), Joan Acocella asks why this battered papyrus book should have generated so much excitement. She sees the interest as reflecting a concern about the persistence of evangelical and fundamentalist views. I would go somewhat further. For some time now a group of dissident Christian intellectuals, with Elaine Pagels at their head, has been seeking to construct a kind of Christianity II from the surviving body of material that did not make it into the New Testament. This new (or they would say old) version of Christianity would be tolerant, pluralistic, proerotic, and feminist (perhaps even progay).<br />
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A good example of this selectivity is the purported feminism of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. At the end of this text, however, it says that a woman must become a man in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Another instance comes from the Gospel of Judas itself, where Jesus denounces the priests of the Temple for the sins of murder and homosexuality (“lying with males").<br />
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In a nutshell, the problem with this hopeful project is that it is a modern fabrication, not a convincing reconstruction of a lost ancient faith. Granted that the orthodox view embodied in the now-canonical Christian scriptures is the result of a process of selection, why would a different selection enjoy any authority? There could be many such creations. The fact that the current amalgam is modern-friendly would seem to count against it, since one of the enduring characteristics of ancient documents is that they are, in many respects, profoundly alien from our own way of thinking.<br />
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My sense is that the Gospel of Judas has proved something of a dead end. Still, the figure of Judas continues to fascinate. As Acocella points out, one reason is that he became a focus for Christian anti-Semitism. Acocella also notes a new book by the feminist scholar Susan Gubar, which attempts to trace the evolution of the Judas figure in Western culture. Apparently, <i>Judas: A Biography</i> offers some interesting observations about works of art.<br />
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Not having read Gubar's book, I cannot say whether her survey includes the following scabrous episode from a late medieval Jewish work, the Toledot Jesu. According to this account, the miracle-working powers of Jesus derive from his having stolen the Name of God from the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus goes to Galilee, where he brings clay birds to life and makes a millstone float. Jesus is thus a sorcerer. Nefariously, Judas Iscariot learns the Divine Name as well, and so Jesus and Judas fly through the sky engaged in aerial combat. As the winner, Judas sodomizes Jesus, whereupon both fall to the ground. The now-powerless Jesus is arrested and put to death by being hung upon a carob tree, and then buried.<br />
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The past yields many curious sidelights. A passage from Gubar’s book reveals the far shores onto which this kind of speculation can lead, even in these latter days: “A male Eve, Judas—rejecting or accepting, promoting or curtailing Jesus’ potency—inhabits a decidedly queer place in the Western imaginary. To the extent that Judas stands for the poser or passer—a person who is not what he seems to be—he reflects anxieties about all sorts of banned or ostracized groups, not just Jews. An apostle in an all-male circle, associated with anality and with the disclosure of secrets, Judas retains his masculinity. . . . At other times and in diverse contexts, though, Judas represents a range of quite various and variously stigmatized populations—criminals, heretics, foreigners, Africans, dissidents, the disabled, the suicidal, the insane, the incurably ill, the agnostic. Members of these groups, too, have been faulted for posing or passing as (alien) insiders. Potentially convertible, all such outcasts might be thought to be using camouflaging techniques to infiltrate, hide out, assimilate, and thereby turn a treacherous trick.<br />
<br />
THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTMAS<br />
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A seemingly inescapable feature of December of each year is the rerun of the myth that the observance of Christmas is nothing more than a continuation of the rowdy Roman rites of the Saturnalia. Many otherwise judicious writers endorse this specious derivation. As we shall see, the argument for it does not hold up.<br />
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The reasons for yielding to the Saturnalia temptation are several. One is a legitimate wish to learn why the birthday of Christ should have come to be celebrated on December 25. After all, the New Testament gives no indication of when Christ was born, and Early Christian writers opt for various dates, reflecting the fact that different customs prevailed in different parts of the Empire. In addition to this natural curiosity, however, some advocates of the Saturnalia theory seem to want to “stick it to Christians” by uncovering the somewhat sordid origins of one of their major festivals.<br />
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What then was the Saturnalia? Saturnalia was the festival by which the Romans the commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn, a somewhat ambiguous figure who has given us the adjective “saturnine.” Originally celebrated for a day, on December 17, it grew it to week-long extravaganza, ending on the 23rd. Efforts to shorten the length of these festivities were unsuccessful. The emperor Augustus tried to reduce it to three days, and Caligula to five. If the available reports are to be believed, Saturnalia was marked by tomfoolery and reversal of social roles, in which slaves and masters switched places. Temporarily, slaves were exempt from punishment, and treated their masters with a pretense of disrespect. The slaves celebrated a banquet served by the masters. Yet the reversal of the social order was superficial, for the slaves had to do the work of actually preparing the banquet. Saturnalia was, or appeared to be, what sociologists call a “zone of licence.” Yet the license was confined within carefully defined boundaries: it reversed the social order without subverting it.<br />
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What can we conclude from the time of the festival’s observance, December 17 to 23? First, by advancing into December, it came to encompass the Winter Solstice. We customarily mark that event (after which the days become longer) on December 21. However, an astronomer of my acquaintance indicates that actual observation is somewhat less precise, and can range from December 20 to 23.<br />
<br />
Note that even its expanded form, Saturnalia, ending on the 23rd, did not overlap Christmas as we currently observe it. Nor does that Christian festival fall within the range of dates for the Winter Solstice.<br />
<br />
The real parallel is this. The observance on the 25th of December corresponds to the Roman feast of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun. The exchanging of gifts was originally associated with January 6, Epiphany, when the visit of the Three Magi was commemorated; hence the traditional “Twelve Days of Christmas.” Of course no one knows even the season when Jesus was born, or the precise year. Various preferences for the day of the Nativity were found in different areas of the Roman empire. About 200 CE Clement of Alexandria that a group in Egypt celebrated the nativity on Paschon 25, corresponding to January 6, now observed as Epiphany, or Three King’s Day. Tertullian (d. 220) does not mention Christmas as a feast day in the church of Roman Africa. In his “Chronographia,” a compilation issued in 221, Sextus Julius Africanus suggested that Jesus was conceived on the Spring Equinox. The Equinox was March 25 on the Roman calendar, so this implied a birth in December. “De Pascha Computus,” a calendar of feasts produced in 243, gives March 28 as the date of the Nativity. Others rejected the whole principle. In 245 the theologian Origen of Alexandria stated that, "only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod" celebrated their birthdays. In 303 the Christian writer Arnobius ridiculed the idea of celebrating the birthdays of gods, suggesting that for some Christmas was not yet a feast at this time.<br />
<br />
In view of this diversity, the success of December 25 was not preordained in any obvious way. Yet its coincidence with the Sol Invictus observance was probably the decisive factor, because of the concept of Christ as the "sun of righteousness" prophesied in Malachi 4:2. Indeed, in the eighteenth century, some secular scholars proposed that Christ himself had never lived, but was simply a personification of the solar principle. In the broadest sense, this connection goes back to Egypt of the Pharaohs. Not only was the sun worshipped there under various guises, Re or Ra, Re-Horakhte, Amun-Re, but the first monotheist, Akhenaten, devised the first form of monotheism based on the sun as supreme deity (the Aten).<br />
<br />
To be sure, once the custom became established, many Christian writers accepted as a matter of course that Christmas was the actual date on which Jesus was born. However, in the early eighteenth century, some scholars began proposing alternative explanations. Isaac Newton seems to have been the first to argue, incorrectly, that the date of Christmas was selected to correspond with the winter solstice, However, in 1743 the German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski reached the correct solution: Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, and therefore represented a Christian purloining of a pagan custom.<br />
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The historical record indicates that in 274 CE, during the time of troubles in the Roman Empire, Aurelian stipulated December 25 as the date of the celebration of "Birth of the Unconquered Sun." Aurelian's empire seemed near collapse. As politicians so often find, when practical measures fail propaganda fills the gap. Accordingly, his festival proclaimed imperial and pagan rejuvenation. As we have noted, December 25 falls AFTER the range assigned to the Winter Solstice itself. Instead, it marks the confirmation of the period in which daylight begins to lengthen.<br />
<br />
Recently, William Tighe, a Church historian at Pennsylvania's Muhlenberg College, has proposed a different theory. Tighe acknowledges that the first hard evidence of Christmas occurring on December 25 is not found until 336 CE and that the date only became a fixed festival in Constantinople in 379.<br />
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However, a reference occurs in the "Chronicle" written by Hippolytus of Rome three decades before Aurelian launched his festival. Hippolytus held that Jesus' birth "took place eight days before the kalends of January," that is, December 25. However, Aurelian did not make up his observance out of whole cloth. In fact, the title Sol Invictus embraced several established solar deities, allowing them to be honored collectively. These include Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god; the older Greek deities Helios and Apollo, and Mithras, a soldiers’ god of Persian origin. In his own way the eccentric emperor Elagabalus (218–222), who was a priest of Elah-Gabal, observed the festival. Aurelian merely confirmed it as an empire-wide holiday.<br />
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Tighe’s citation of Hippolytus seems a slender reed on which to hang a revisionist theory, as there is every reason to believe that December 25 would be significant for sun worshippers, but not, in the first instance, for Christians. As we have noted, sun worship had prevailed for millennia in the ancient Mediterranean. Consequently, the origins of Christmas illustrate one of the major sources of religion: reverence for cosmic forces, in this case the sun.<br />
<br />
LESBIAN LOVE IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN<br />
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[This section originally appeared in different form in the<i> Journal of Homosexuality,</i> Vol. 36, No. 1 (1998), pp. 114-126.]<br />
<br />
Bernadette J. Brooten is Kraft-Hiatt Professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University. A key passage in Paul's Epistle to the Romans (1:18-32) has for a number of years served as a touchstone for her research. Yet the design of her book radiates far beyond the bounds of conventional scriptural exegesis. Her work throws light on the understanding of ancient lesbianism, the status of women in Roman times, and attitudes toward same-sex love in general.<br />
<br />
In fact, <i>Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism</i> (University of Chicago Press, 1996. 412 pp.) ranks as one of the most important books ever to appear on ancient Mediterranean sexuality. Working with almost superhuman diligence, Professor Brooten has laid bare a surprising wealth of information on lesbian behavior in areas where evidence was previously thought to be scant. Her monograph has important implications for male homosexuality as well. Moreover, despite the subtitle, the very substantial first part of the book (pp. 29-189) deals with attitudes and practice in the Hellenistic and early Romans worlds.<br />
<br />
Unlike some who would appear to be seeking to redress the misogyny of our culture by downplaying its instances, Brooten does not shrink from dealing with unpleasant matters. She records the disdain and condemnation of ancient writers, both pagan and Christian, for female-female relations. Fearlessly, she challenges earlier authorities, such as John Boswell and Michel Foucault, whose writings now pass in some quarters as virtually canonical.<br />
<br />
Not only does Brooten command the modern scholarly literature, she is at home with original documents written in at least four of the older tongues: Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic. While she scrupulously cites the latest secondary literature and the original sources, her erudition is carefully disciplined. The extensive reference notes appear at the bottom of the page where they belong, enabling scholars to check every significant point. Only in a few instances, dealing with controversies in the contemporary conceptualization of same-sex behavior, do the notes seem overlong.<br />
<br />
Brooten provides a wealth of material on the condition, status, and behavior of women in Roman and Early Christian times: In this realm there is no substitute for reading her book. The scope of the following remarks is more modest: the bearing of her findings for sexual orientation in general, including that of men.<br />
<br />
After first reviewing the familiar texts from Greek and Latin elite authors, including Lucian, Plautus, Ovid, and Martial, Brooten turns to four categories of evidence that have been neglected. The harvest is surprising.<br />
<br />
The first area of her original studies is magical spells from Egypt commissioned by the love-sick to elicit compliance from a desired partner. While these have been collected for almost a century from papyri, scholars have been slow to assess the significance of the nonheterosexual ones. Three have so far been published that seek to bind a woman sexually to another woman. The language of these spells is direct, sometimes even violent, affording us a glimpse of the feelings of ordinary people.<br />
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The second realm is the astrological literature. The ancients believed that the stars could determine many aspects of the personality, including sexual orientation. While the effects could be quite complex, they show that there could be lifelong sexual orientations, involving several types of male homosexual and lesbian attraction. In the view of these writers such inclinations were not mere preferences to be adopted or discarded at will, but they were even cosmically ordained. Such views posed a problem for some ancient writers who thought that such attractions were "against nature" (para physin). Here, Brooten's findings significantly contradict those of Foucault and his followers who believe that the concept of sexual orientation came into existence only in the nineteenth century.<br />
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The third category is the medical. Some handbooks in this field held that same sex behavior, especially that of the female, could be a disease. Again Foucault and his associates are mistaken in their claim that "medicalization" of same-sex behavior took place only in the nineteenth century.<br />
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Finally there is the sphere of dream interpretation, especially as seen in the treatise by Artemidorus. Although here the yield is sparser, Brooten makes interesting contrasts between the views of the ancients and modern dream interpretation belonging to the schools of Freud and Jung.<br />
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In agreement with most other scholars in the field of ancient Mediterranean sexuality, Brooten sees sexual relations as governed by normative asymmetry in which one partner (the "active" inserter) is superior, the other (the "passive" receptive) inferior. This principle combines with an androcentric one in which the male is superior to the female. In this view no stigma necessarily attaches to male homosexuality because the penetrator maintains the principle of superiority; moreover the male partners, as adolescents or slaves, may be fulfilling the appropriate role as inferior. In this light, however, female-female relations are always suspect, because in accordance with the asymmetry principle one partner should be inferior, the other superior. But women are never supposed to be superior.<br />
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This set of principles leads her to conclude that among pagans of the early Roman period, which are her focus in the first part of the book, lesbian relations were reproved. For this she finds considerable evidence. "Monstrous, lawless, licentious, unnatural, and shameful — with these terms male authors throughout the Roman Empire expressed their disgust for sexual love between women" (p. 29). If these principles prevailed during this period, however, they must have appeared earlier, in classical Greece, for example. Why did dislike of lesbian behavior apparently increase in the concluding centuries of the pre-Christian era?<br />
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"Brooten provides a wealth of material on the condition, status, and behavior of women in Roman and Early Christian times. Our way of reading is not necessarily the way ancient authors and their audiences would interpret ... Romans 1:26-27. Roman society strongly disapproved of lesbianism, while remaining relatively tolerant of male homosexuality. The scriptural tradition took an opposite approach."<br />
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We now turn to the passage from Paul's Epistle to the Romans, which Brooten addresses only after her assemblage of the highly significant background materials reviewed above. The core of the Roman's passage is the following (1:26-27) in the rendering supplied by Brooten which, in my judgment, follows the Greek closely: "[a] For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. [b] Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural. [c] And in the same way [homoios] also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameful acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error." [punctuation slightly altered]<br />
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It is clear that [a] represents the topical sentence. Instances illustrative of the general principle so stated, two of them, follow. As the second example [c] is more explicit than the first [b], and as modern interpreters are likely to perceive lesbian behavior as the almost inevitable counterpart of male homosexual behavior, it is difficult to resist the impulse to read the content of [c] back into [b] which is then interpreted as a condemnation of lesbianism. We tend to see lesbianism and male homosexuality as paired — as does Brooten in this instance. However, elsewhere she produces evidence that ancient writers were capable of pairing male homosexuality with female promiscuity, including prostitution.<br />
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Thus our way of reading is not necessarily the way ancient authors and their audiences would interpret the sequence of argument in Roman 1:26-27. For one thing, given the general androcentrism of the era, why would Paul mention women first? Possibly, there is another reason for the order, that this is a temporal sequence: first the women transgressed in some way, and then later the men.<br />
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More direct light is afforded on this passage in a short section of the Testament of Naphtali, belonging to a category of ancient writings that Brooten, exceptionally, did not exploit sufficiently. This text belongs to the so-called Intertestamental writings, a body of texts originating in Jewish circles during the period of the Second Temple (ca. 500 B.C.E to 70 C.E,). The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs were probably written in the period 150-100 B.C.E. and thus available to Paul. The writer is elaborating on a text in First Enoch, another Intertestamental writing, which has to do with the Watchers, the sons of God who mated with human women in the time before the flood. In Hellenistic Judaism they were increasingly identified with the fallen angels and their offspring with demons, the source of evil.<br />
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"Sun, moon, and stars do not alter their order. The gentiles, because they have wandered astray and forsook the Lord, have changed the order. ... But you, my children, shall not be like that. ... [D]o not become like Sodom which departed from the order of nature. Likewise the Watchers departed from nature's order" [Testament of Naphtali, 3; ed. J.H. Charlesworth, p. 812].<br />
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Several assertions anticipate the animadversions of the Romans passage. First is the central idea of the order of nature, against which we transgress at our peril. The notion of nature is wholly Greek and is foreign to the Old Testament. While the Greek word physis does occur in 3 and 4 Maccabees and in the Book of Wisdom, these text were originally written in Greek and are not currently accepted as part of the canon of the Hebrew Bible. Accordingly, the idea of nature as a cosmic norm is part of the Greek heritage that insinuated itself into Jewish thought during the Hellenistic period. Violations of nature, of course, need not be sexual. However, in a late work, The Laws, the philosopher Plato specifically stigmatized both male and female homosexuality as "against nature" — para physin, the same expression used in Paul's text. In effect, works of Hellenistic Jewish provenance, such as the Testament of Naphtali, "predigested" the Greek material for the use of interpreters like Paul.<br />
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Elsewhere in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs we learn that women scheme treacherously to entice men. Because of this proclivity they seduced the Watchers (equivalent to the Nephilim of Genesis 6), who were induced to mate with them before the Flood. Ever since the birth of the Giants from these unions, the earth has been visited by two types of spirits: the spirits of truth and the spirits of error. In this view, the tendency of women to seductiveness caused disaster at a particular point of human history; it continues to this day. Hence the need to call attention to the capacity of women for misdeeds.<br />
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Although both the Sodomites and the Watchers were guilty of various errors, the pairing of them in this passage reflects types of sexual activity which would violate the order of nature. The sodomites sought forcible homosexual relations with angels who were the guests of Lot, while the Watchers actually mated with the daughters of men, producing the Giants. Note that in this passage the express "likewise," homoios, links two different sexual transgressions, one (in our terms) homosexual, the other heterosexual. What they have in common is that they risk God's wrath.<br />
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In discussing the work of another scholar, James Miller, Brooten briefly mentions the role of the Watchers in the Testament of Naphtali. As she aptly remarks, "[i]ntercourse between the Watchers, who were sons of God, and human women transgressed the order of nature by crossing the boundary between the human and the divine" (note to p. 249). However, she does not seem to see how well this notion fits with Paul's condemnation in Romans 1:26. In fact if one adopts the Watcher interpretation, Paul's offers a spectrum of sexual misdeeds, from those with partners that are too different, extraterrestrial, to acts with partners that are not different enough, same-sex persons, Sexual orthodoxy requires that which is in between: male-female relations.<br />
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To return to the Romans passage, in the interpretation offered here, Paul refers first to the historical misdeeds of human women in offering themselves to the extraterrestrial beings. These acts would have been a kind of upwardly mobile counterpart of bestiality since they involve sexual behavior that crosses species lines. Then a modern instance of challenge to the natural order is offered, that of male homosexuality. Of course, it could be objected that this interpretation is only probably, but then the same is true of Brooten's. At the very least, one must conclude, despite Brooten's impressive gathering of materials, that Paul — as distinct from some later interpreters — did not certainly have lesbian activity in mind in Romans 1:26.<br />
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Even if Brooten's interpretation is accepted, this would remain, as she acknowledges, the only possible mention of lesbian sexuality in the entire body of scriptures. Mainstream biblical criticism generally agrees that male homosexuality is reproved in a number of passages (Genesis 19; Leviticus 18 and 20; Romans 1:27; and I Corinthians 6:9 — to cite only the most salient ones). While it is true that some modern homosexuals and homosexual-friendly writers, including Canon Bailey and John Boswell, have sought to mitigate the force of a number of these passages, Brooten — in my view soundly — seems to accept them.<br />
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It is true that much of the later interpretation of the Romans passage is doubly homophobic. As Brooten correctly remarks, "whether or not Western people have ever heard of Paul's Letter to the Romans, it affects their lives" (p. 196). Thus, in the present writer's view, the Romans passage, though not originally lesbiphobic, became so, because of the understandable tendency to take the particulars of verse 27 and apply them retrospectively to the preceding verse, which is less clear.<br />
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Unfortunately, this expansive interpretation was destined long to flourish; as such, it has been one of our afflictions. But if we look backward toward the complex of ideas that dominated the Hellenistic Judaism in which Paul was trained, we see something different. Man-crazy women, who are even willing to sleep with extraterrestrial beings, parallel man-crazy men, who wish to sleep with other members of their own sex.<br />
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Stated briefly, the picture that emerges is this. Roman society strongly disapproved of lesbianism, while remaining relatively tolerant of male homosexuality. The scriptural tradition, certainly of the Old Testament and probably that of the New Testament as well, ignores lesbianism while severely castigating male homosexuality. In expanding its hegemony over a once-pagan Mediterranean environment, Early Christian and medieval tradition imposed a Jewish tradition of strongly disapproving of male homosexuals, while adopting, possibly from Roman sources, a less salient, but still significant disapproval of lesbian conduct.<br />
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Since the Protestant Reformation, Christians have been advised to look at Scripture without regard to later commentaries and accretions. If my conclusions are correct regarding the exclusion of lesbian conduct from the sphere of condemnation, a striking asymmetry emerges. To take only the most salient passages (Lev. 18:22, and 20:13; Romans, 1:26-27; and I Cor. 6:9), the Bible condemns male same-sex behavior. Nowhere does it unequivocally forbid lesbian relations. Those who regard the Bible as a coherent guide to ethics and behavior (and not simply a disparate collection of remarkable ancient documents) must explain this inconsistency.<br />
<br />
THE CULT OF RELICS<br />
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In Christianity a relic is a portion of the body of a saint or some item of clothing and the like that has been in intimate contact with the holy person. By extension the concept extends to earth, oil, and water from holy places. For many believers, relics are held to have an almost magical efficacy, capable of warding off danger and contributing to the general well-being of those who come in contact with them.<br />
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Analogous practices have been found in Buddhism, Islam, and other religions. Nowhere, however, has the cult of relics been so pervasive as in early Christian and medieval times.<br />
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Jewish prototypes are scanty. However, one of the earliest texts that purports to show the efficacy of relics is found in 2 Kings 13:20-21: “Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.” (NIV)<br />
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The underlying claim is that God can perform miracles through the bodies of his servants, or objects associated with them. An early Christian attestation is the veneration of relics recorded in the Martydom of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (written ca.150–160 CE) . After the martyrdom Christians "took up his bones which are more valuable than refined gold and laid them in a suitable place where, the Lord willing, ...we may gather together in gladness and celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom."<br />
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From its inception, the cult of the relics was criticized by purists who regarded it as pagan. In a dispute with St Jerome, Vigilantius condemned the veneration of all inanimate objects such as the bodies of saints. Jerome responded by saying that the relics themselves were not worshipped but were an aid to the veneration of martyrs of undoubted holiness whose lives were a model to later generations.<br />
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Despite continuing uneasiness on the part of Christian intellectuals, relics enjoyed vast popularity among the faithful. Beginning in the early centuries of the church tales of miracles and other marvels were attributed to relics. These tales appear in books of hagiography, such as the Golden Legend of Jacobus of Voragine and the works of Caesar of Heisterbach.<br />
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By definition, it would seem, there are no bodily relics of Jesus, who ascended whole into Heaven. Well, not quite. He left behind his foreskin, of which several fragments are said to be preserved in European churches.<br />
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Among the external relics controversially attributed to Jesus is the Shroud of Turin, said to be the burial shroud of the Savior. In reality it probably dates from the fourteenth century. Pieces of the True Cross were one of the most highly sought-after relics.<br />
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In modern terms the saints might be termed radioactive, though presumably in a good way. In rare cases they could speak to the worshipper, demanding, for example, that they be housed in a more imposing shrine. Some relics functioned as palladia, protecting cities from being conquered, or so it was thought.<br />
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In due course the traffic in relics became big business. Unscrupulous individuals took to stealing them from relic-rich countries, such as Italy, and selling them in places where there were relatively few saints. Famous relics had an enormous monetary value, and could be pawned if there was a need for ready cash. They were often housed in lavish containers called reliquaries, which can be admired in museums today.<br />
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The pilgrim saw the purchase of a relic as a means of bringing the essence of the shrine back with him or her upon returning home. Instead of having to travel hundreds of miles to become near to a venerated personage, one could venerate the relics of the saint within his or her own home.<br />
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Beginning in the sixteenth century, the Reformers severely criticized the cult of relics as superstition. In some instances they arranged bonfires of them, challenging the holy items to intervene so as to avert their threatened combustion. Needless to say, they failed to do so.<br />
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Nonetheless, relics continue to play a part in the Roman Catholic church. For valid consecration, an altar is supposed to contain a relic. The examination of the relics is an important step in the glorification (canonization) of new saints. In some cases, one of the signs of sanctification is the condition of the relics of the saint. Some saints’ bodies will be found to be incorrupt, meaning that their remains do not decay under conditions when they normally would. Sometimes even when the flesh does decay the bones themselves will manifest signs of sanctity. They may be honey-colored or give off a sweet aroma. Some relics will exude myrrh. The absence of such manifestations is not necessarily a sign that the person is not a Saint.<br />
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Some superstitions, it seems, will always be with us.<br />
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IMAGES AND ICONOCLASM<br />
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Distrust of images goes back to the Hebrew Bible. Here is the text of the Second Commandment. “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, of that is in the water under the earth.” (NRSV; the texts in Exodus 20:4 and Deuteronomy 5:8 are identical). The word here rendered idol is probably more familiar in the King James rendering “graven image.” In Hebrew the word is “pesel,” derived from “pasal,” to hew, hew into shape. This certainly implies that the banned objects are three-dimensional, opening the way for the exception, honored in various times and place, allowed for flat images. These might indeed be “kosher.”<br />
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The ban was not observed consistently. A prominent instance is the cherubim. Two sculptural cherubim overlaid with gold with outstretched wings were placed facing one another on the cover of the Ark in the Tabernacle (Exodus 25:18-20). In addition, figures of cherubim were embroidered on the veil and the curtains of the Tabernacle (Exodus 26:1, 31). In Solomon's Temple the two gilded cherubim were not attached to the Ark, as in the Tabernacle, but took their place as freestanding figures each 10 cubits high in front of the Ark (I Kings 6:27-8). <br />
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The record of Christian figural art is extensive and, it is fair to say, glorious. Yet the earliest Christians seem to have hung back. No datable art is known before at least 200 CE--corresponding more or less in time to the inception of the synagogue material just discussed.<br />
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The first substantial body of Christian monumental art is found in the catacombs of Rome. These underground cemeteries are adorned with paintings representing holy figures. the earliest probably date from around 220 CE.<br />
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The adoption of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine and his successors fostered the building of numerous imposing churches and religious structures. Some surviving examples, such as Santa Maria Maggiore (Rome), Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, and San Vitale (all in Ravenna, Italy) retain remarkable figural mosaic cycles.<br />
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Another important theme was the emergence of the icon, usually in the form of a relatively small portable panel painting. What was the nature of the early icons? These survive only in territories beyond the reach of the imperial writ. The monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai (founded by Justinian) has the largest cache, 36 examples. About 30 come from Egypt, while the city of Rome supplies a select quartet of Marian icons. In fact this body of icons (all made before 726) constitute the foundation of all later European panel painting, including (e.g.) Giotto's Ognissanti Madonna, Duccio's Maesta', and the Ghent Altarpiece of the brother's Van Eyck.<br />
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As the research of Ernst Kitzinger has shown, the later sixth century, a time of growing insecurity, saw an increase in magical associations surrounding icons. The faithful were (it was charged) worshiping the icon rather than the holy figures depicted therein. Icons were held to be able to save cities and armies, and to protect individuals (they were readily portable). Some examples were to be held to be acheiropoetai, not made by human hands. The apprehensions these superstitions caused contributed to the rise of iconoclasm in the following century.<br />
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Byzantine iconoclasm--image smashing--occurred two periods in history when Emperors, backed by imperially-appointed leaders and councils of the Christian church, imposed a ban on religious images. The "First Iconoclasm", as it is sometimes called, lasted between about 730 and 787, when a change on the throne reversed the ban. The "Second Iconoclasm" was between 814 and 842.<br />
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The two serious outbreaks of iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire during the eighth and ninth centuries were unusual in that the use of images was the main issue in the dispute, rather than a by-product of wider concerns. While the actions of the iconoclasts resulted in the destruction of countless works of art, it is undeniable that the intensity of the conflict attests that both sides took art very seriously.The rise of the Protestant Reformation in Western Europe reopened the image question. Some territories that became Protestant stopped producing religious art. A few took more drastic action. A second great outburst of iconoclasm occurred in the 1560s in the Low Countries, stoked by Calvinist rigorism. Thus the only truly major works that survive by Hieronymus Bosch did so because they were secure in Catholic Spain and Portugal.<br />
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Apart from isolated outbreaks of vandalism, iconoclasm disappeared in Western Europe after that time. However, Stalin's Russia, officially atheistic, saw the destruction of many religious buildings and works of art. After 1989 a number of churches, prominent symbols of Orthodoxy, were rebuilt.<br />
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CLERICAL HOMOSEXUALITY<br />
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For centuries many in the serving clergy of Catholicism have had common-law wives, commandments to celibacy notwithstanding. For their part, Protestantism and Eastern orthodoxy have always permitted married clergy. Today, of course, there are and probably always have been homosexual Catholic priests, monks, and nuns.<br />
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The main site, or so one would expect, for genital same-sex conduct in religious institutions would be monasteries and nunneries. Conditions in Egypt, where monasteries began, were particularly rigorous, involving drastic reductions of food and sleep--and of course no sex. Nonetheless, accounts of the lives of the desert fathers indicate that the capacity for erotic response had been muted but not eliminated. The tribulations of St. Anthony include a hallucination in which he is tempted by a seductive black boy.<br />
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The first monastic Rule, a set of regulations governing the monks’ behavior, is credited to St. Pachomius (292-343). Several provisions indicate the need to guard against relations deemed improper among the monks. For example, “No one will be allowed to shower or anoint a brother without being told to do that; don’t let anyone talk to their brother in darkness; do not let any brother sleep with another brother on the same door mat; and let no one hold another’s hand.”<br />
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Saint Basil of Caesarea, the fourth-century Church Father who wrote the most influential Rule of the monks of the East, made the following stipulation: “The cleric or monk who molests youths or boys or is caught kissing or committing some turpitude, let him be whipped in public, deprived of his crown [tonsure] and, after having his head shaved, let his face be covered with spittle; and [let him be] bound in iron chains, condemned to six months in prison, reduced to eating rye bread once a day in the evening three times per week. After these six months living in a separate cell under the custody of a wise elder with great spiritual experience, let him be subjected to prayers, vigils and manual work, always under the guard of two spiritual brothers, without being allowed to have any relationship . . . with young people."<br />
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These cautions were recycled in the various monastic Rules of Western Europe. The famous Plan of St. Gall from the ninth century shows how beds must be arranged to avoid any occasion for sin, especially with young novices. Such provisions were often unavailing. In a capitulary of 802, Charlemagne remarks: “a most pernicious rumor has come to our ears that many in the monasteries have already been detected in abomination and uncleanness. . . . Some of the monks are understood to be sodomites.”<br />
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However, there are indications that the prohibitions were often breeched. Our best evidence for this come from the penitentials, confessional manuals whose origins can be traced as far back as the sixth century, and which were in common use until the twelfth century. The purpose of the penitentials was to aid the spiritual guide by providing descriptions of various sins and prescribing appropriate penances. Many of the manuals go far beyond mere lists of sins and penances, containing introductions and conclusions for the instruction of the confessor that remind him of his role as spiritual healer and urge him to appreciate the subjective mentality of the patient. (P. J. Payer, 1984).<br />
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Evidence of the felt need for repression indicates, of course, that the activity was going on. We have little evidence from the side of those who were practicing the behavior and presumably enjoying it. There is, however, a poignant poem from the ninth century, “O admirabile Veneris Ydolum,” in which a cleric laments the loss of a beautiful lad who has been taken from him. (Curtius, 1953, p. 114). In the eleventh and twelfth century clerical gay poetry becomes more common. From Marbod, Bishop of Rennes (d. 1123), for example, we have a poem about a boy “whose face was so lovely he could easily have been a girl, whose hair fell in waves against his ivory neck, whose forehead was white as snow and his eyes black as pitch, whose soft cheeks were full of delicious sweetness . . . [He possesses] an exterior formed in measure to match his mind.” The last observation shows that the admiration was not purely physical. (Stehliing, 1984).<br />
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Much of this literature, however, records “particular friendships,” sentimental pair-bonding between monks that was not necessarily genitally expressed. The Cistercian abbot St. Aelred of Rievaulx (ca. 1110-1167) is the author of a treatise on spiritual friendship that has become celebrated among modern gay men. Aelred’s writings on friendship distinguished three kinds: carnal, worldly, and spiritual friendship. Carnal friendship, of course, he rejects as a mutual harmony in vice. His comments, however, indicate that was familiar with the practice of it. Sometimes prompted by monetary considerations, worldly friendship is governed by the principle of utility.<br />
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It is spiritual kinship, Aelred holds. is the truest friendship. It is grounded in Christ and, like chastity, is a gift of God's grace. The Cistertian makes it clear that he is not speaking merely theoretically. He regularly cultivated spiritual friendships with the younger monks of Rievaulx Abbey. For example, Aelred was about twenty-four when an attractive youth named Simon entered the monastery. About fourteen years of age, Simon was frail and remarkably beautiful. Aelred called Simon "my gentlest friend," "my beloved brother," and "the one-in-heart with me." When the boy died young, the older man was broken-hearted.<br />
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Medieval monastic history, then, offers a record of two forces, samesex lust and love, on the one hand, and the continuing efforts to repress these behaviors. During the late Middle Ages, the homoerotic subculture of the monasteries, so flourishing in the time of Aelred seems to have declined. We have evidence of this from the process of suppression of the monasteries under Henry VIII in England.<br />
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The background is as follows. Having failed to receive his desired annulment from the Pope, Henry had himself declared Supreme Head of the Church in England in February 1531. Some orders, such as the London Carthusians and the Observant Friars; their houses were confiscated. Henry then moved to a more thoroughgoing suppression of the monasteries. In 1534 Thomas Cromwell was authorized to set up a commission to “visit” all the monasteries. The commissioners were instructed to ascertain the quality of religious life being maintained in religious houses; to assess the prevalence of “superstitious” religious observances such as the veneration of relics: and to gather evidence of moral laxity, especially of a sexual nature. In fact, monastic life, both in terms of numbers and rigor of religious observance, had been in decline for some time. Yet the reports proved somewhat less than satisfactory from Henry’s point of view. Despite strenuous efforts relatively few cases of sodomy were found, though a fair amount of masturbation. Nonetheless, Henry’s ministers proceeded with the suppression.<br />
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At all events, by the mid-sixteenth century the great days of the monasteries were long over. Protestant reformers and monarchs greedy to confiscate their wealth, found them easy targets for their charges of idleness, superstition, and vice, including fornication, masturbation, and sodomy. For the most part abbeys and nunneries survived only in Catholic and Orthodox countries. Even in Catholic Europe, the consequences of the French Revolution brought them under attack by secularists. Many of the houses were pillaged and brought under the power of the state. Similar results occurred in the Soviet Union after 1917.<br />
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Nonetheless, the link between religious mysticism and eroticism was inadvertently brought out in the vivid imagery of the Spanish mystics St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) and St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582). In an unusual, sensational case (1619-23), the lesbian sister Benedetta Carlini of Pescia, near Florence, created a complex visionary world of magic in which she enveloped her lovers. La Religieuse, a posthumously published novel by Denis Diderot (1713-1784), portrays graphically, even melodramatically, the distress of a nun at the hands of a lesbian prioress.<br />
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After the end of the Old Regime this work was followed by a large class of exposé literature created by the anti-clerical movement at the close of the nineteenth century, and designed to flay the Catholic church as a redoubt of hypocrisy and depravity. This trend inspired Hitler’s 1937 attack on the Catholic church.<br />
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This history, which has only been sketched here, provides a background to the current sexual-abuse scandals in the Catholic church. This is a complex matter, so that it may be helpful to focus on one particular order.<br />
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The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a world-wide Catholic order with a special concern for the evangelization and education of youth. Their first school was opened in Waterford, Ireland, in 1802. In more recent years they have been tainted with quite a different reputation. The sexual abuse scandal in the Congregation of Christian Brothers ranks as a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex-abuse cases in various Western jurisdictions.<br />
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At Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland, maintained by the Christian Brothers, more than 300 former pupils have alleged physical and sexual abuse. When allegations began to surface in the late 1980s, the government, police, and local church leaders conspired in an unsuccessful cover-up. Eventually the allegations led to the formation of a royal commission (the Hughes Inquiry); further investigations followed into allegations at other institutions across Canada. In January 1993 the Christian Brothers reached a financial settlement totaling $23 million with 700 former students who alleged abuse.<br />
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During the latter part of the twentieth century, Christian brothers schools in Ireland were noted for brutal and frequent resort corporal punishment. Sexual abuse was rife. At one institution a number of Brothers were repeatedly cited for “embracing and fondling” boys. Rapes occurred. Yet the accused Brothers were invariably excused, lightly admonished or, typically, moved to other institutions where they were free to continue abusing children for decades.<br />
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The order resisted any efforts to bring the truth to light. In 2004 the order successfully sued the Irish Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse to prevent the publication of the names of any members, dead or alive, who would otherwise have been named in the Commission's report. In its Report, finally issued in May 2009, the Commission found that thousands of Irish children at Christian Brothers institutions were abused. The commissioners concluded that more allegations had been made against the Irish Christian Brothers than against all other male religious orders combined.<br />
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In Australia, there were allegations that during the 1970s sexual abuses were rampant at the junior campus of St Patricks College and St Alipius Primary School (now closed) in Ballarat in the state of Victoria. Three Brothers were convicted of sex crimes. Two others were later transferred to another campus, where they continued to offend. This misbehavior was particularly prevalent where English children who had been forcibly shipped of to Australia came under the control of the Christian Brothers.<br />
<br />
A LEGEND THAT IS NOT GOLDEN<br />
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Following in the footsteps of its Jewish predecessor, Christianity developed a whole range of homophobic motifs. One of the strangest goes back to the thirteenth century, when an Italian prelate Jacobus of Voragine (ca. 1230-1298) compiled a book of edifying Christian stories called the <i>Legenda Aurea</i> (the Golden Legend). Section 6 is entitled “The Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to the Flesh.” There we encounter the following extraordinary claim: “[a]nd even the sodomites gave witness by being exterminated wherever they were in the world on that night, as Jerome says ‘a light rose over them so bright that all who practiced this vice were wiped out; and Christ did this in order that no such uncleanness might be found in the nature he had assumed.’ For as Augustine says, God, seeing that a vice contrary to nature was rife in human nature, hesitated to become incarnate.” (W. G. Ryan, trans., 1993, p. 41).<br />
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No such passage has been found in the authentic writings of Jerome or Augustine, though the claim could have appeared in some texts that are simply ascribed to those early Christian writers. In all likelihood, however, the notion arose in the high Middle Ages, perhaps by some scholastic thinker whom Jacobus purloined.<br />
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At all events, this murderous legend enjoyed considerable popularity in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages. For example, the Flores Temporum a chronicle of the world’s history compiled by a Swabian Franciscan, Hermannus Gigas, records several portents foretelling the coming of Christ, such as the appearance of a spring of olive oil in Rome, the death of all sodomites, and the rising of three suns in the East which merge into one.<br />
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The motif recurs in the fifteenth-century Caxton translation of the Golden Legend. “And it happed this nyght, that all the sodomytes that dyde synne ayenst nature were deed and extynct, for god hated so moche this synne, that he myght not suffre that nature humayne whiche he had taken, were delywerd to so grete shame. Wherof saint Austin saith, that it lackyd but lyttl, that god would not become man for that synne.”<br />
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The notion of the death of the Sodomites on the first Christmas Eve began to fade in the early eighteenth century--but has not yet disappeared entirely. As recently as 2004 a Greek Orthodox priest pronounced that homosexual conduct was very dangerous. The proof was that the sodomites had to die on Christmas Eve for the Incarnation to take place.<br />
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PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS AND HOMOSEXUALITY<br />
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In modern times, the Church of England (Anglican) ranks as the first protestant denomination to have fostered a serious and sustained reexamination of the status of homosexuality within the church. The worldwide Anglican communion has followed suit, though with mixed results. Similar efforts have taken place in most other mainstream protestant denominations. As with the Anglicans, the disputes have been often heated and the results inconclusive. By and large official circles within the Catholic and Orthodox churches have not encouraged this discussion, though some lay people in these communions have done so.<br />
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As has been suggested, it is best to begin with the Church of England, and the worldwide Anglican Communion allied with it. At the outset it is well to recall the work of Derrick Sherwin Bailey (1910-1984), a British theologian and historian, who served as Canon Residentiary of Wells Cathedral from 1962 onwards. After World War II Bailey joined a small group of Anglican clergymen and physicians to study homosexuality. Their findings were published in a 1954 Report entitled "The Problem of Homosexuality" produced for the Church of England Moral Welfare Council by the Church Information Board.<br />
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As part of this task Bailey completed a separate historical study, <i>Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition</i> (London: Longmans, 1955). Although this monograph has been criticized for tending to exculpate the Christian church from blame in the persecution and defamation of homosexuals, it ranks as a landmark in the history of the subject, combining scrutiny of the Biblical evidence with a survey account of subsequent history. Bailey's book drew attention to a number of neglected subjects, including the intertestamental literature, the legislation of the Christian emperors, the penitentials, and the link between heresy and sodomy.<br />
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While it is contestable, the author's interpretation of Genesis 19, where he treats the Sodom story as essentially nonsexual--an instance of violation of hospitality--has served as a benchmark for later efforts. Following Bailey’s example, gay-friendly exegetes have been proceeding with their own plans for detoxifying the notorious “clobber passages” that condemn, or appear to condemn, same-sex conduct in the Bible. The results of this enterprise are summed up in a large tome entitled The Queer Bible Commentary.<br />
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Opinion on the success of this effort has been divided, with many gay and lesbian Christians hailing the results--and even claiming, improbably, that the Bible is a gay-friendly book--while mainstream Christian opinion has not generally been accommodating. Even if we accept the maximum claims of the detoxifiers, one must recognize that the venom of the most egregious texts, such as the prohibitions in Leviticus 18 and 20 and the “unnatural” allegation in Romans 1:26-27, has not been drawn. That poison remain obstinately in place.<br />
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At the time, however, the work of Bailey and his colleagues had a salutary impact on social policy. Their work prepared the way for the progressive Wolfenden Report (1957), which was followed a decade later by Parliament's decriminalization of homosexual conduct between consenting adults in England and Wales.<br />
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These developments were for a time a source of hope, not only in Britain and in English-speaking countries in general, but also within the world-wide Anglican communion. Yet in recent years Anglicanism has witnessed a backlash that has cast earlier progress in doubt.<br />
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The thirteenth Lambeth Conference in England 1998 approved, by a vote of 526 to 70, a resolution stating that homosexual acts are "incompatible with Scripture," There was also some soothing language about the need to combat irrational fear of homosexuality, and an admonition to listen to the experience of homosexual persons. The Lambeth Conference is not an executive which imposes doctrine or discipline but a forum for the exchange of views. Still, the sting of the assertion that Scripture could not be reconciled with approval of homosexual behavior was patent.<br />
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In 2003 the Church of England announced the appointment of Jeffrey John, a priest living in a celibate domestic partnership with another man, as the Suffragan Bishop of Reading. Many Anglican traditionalists reacted strongly and John eventually succumbed to pressure from the Archbishop of Canterbury (who had initially supported the appointment) and others to withdraw before he had been formally elected. John was later appointed as the Dean of St Albans instead. A number of Anglican provinces took a positive stand on the ordination of gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions.<br />
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In 2003, amid a climate of controversy, the Episcopal Church in the USA consecrated Gene Robinson, a gay man, as the Bishop of New Hampshire.<br />
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Responding to these developments, many provinces, primarily from sub-Saharan Africa but also some in Asia, America and Australia—representing about half of the 80 million practicing Anglicans worldwide—declared a state of impaired communion with their counterparts. Minority groups in Western provinces, dismayed by what they consider unscriptural actions by the Churches of England, Canada, Australia, and in the United States, have withdrawn their affiliation and realigned themselves with African provinces such as the Churches of Uganda and Rwanda.<br />
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In 2006 the Anglican Church of Nigeria issued a statement affirming "our commitment to the total rejection of the evil of homosexuality which is a perversion of human dignity" and encouraging the National Assembly to ratify a Bill prohibiting the legality of homosexuality.<br />
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While the controversy is continuing, it would seem that the lines are drawn. The leading circles of advanced industrial countries maintain their support for a more progressive policy regarding homosexuality--though with some notable holdouts. What is termed the “global South” of the Anglican churches (corresponding to what is generally called the Third World) has generally been lining up against any change of the traditional policies regarding same-sex behavior. In fact, some spokespeople wish to heighten the restrictions. Regrettably, this opposition is spilling over into secular legislation, as seen now in Uganda.<br />
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Modern Judaism shows similar conflicts, though debate has been less vehement. Summarizing the American context in broad terms, Reform Judaism is generally open to change with regard to same-sex love, and a number of ordained gay and lesbian rabbis now lead congregations. Orthodox Judaism is generally opposed, while Conservative Judaism seeks to chart a middle course. Unfortunately Reform Judaism does not have much influence outside North America.<br />
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While there are a number of Muslim gay and lesbian organizations and spokespeople, very little progress has been made in official Islamic circles, where the ulema (consensus of scholars) remains adamantly opposed.<br />
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The following negative conclusion seems inescapable. The prohibition of same-sex conduct found in all three Abrahamic faiths will be hard to change, very hard. As I have noted in other contexts, though, these are not our only choices in the religion field. One might recommend Buddhism where there is no deeply rooted homophobic tradition,<br />
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Of course, the "clobber passages" in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur'an are relatively few--as we keep hearing. However, they are part and parcel with a fundamental concern in all three religions. That concern--which amounts to a group neurosis, in my view--is to establish clear boundaries of what is acceptable, indeed required in the realm of the family and sexual behavior vs. that which is taboo (to'ebah, abomination, haram).<br />
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All societies, even the most rudimentary ones, are concerned with the family in some way or other, for the reason that is essential to keep the male connected with the female after offspring are born. That in itself says nothing about the permissibility of same-sex behavior as such. In India it is a common pattern for a gay man to get married, sire children, and then have male lovers.<br />
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Because of the way in which the prohibition has been integrated into the larger parameters of the sexual ethic in all three Abrahamic faiths, uprooting it has proved problematic.<br />
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THE RETREAT OF AMERICAN CATHOLICISM<br />
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The recent visit of Benedict XVI to these shores served in no way to disguise the fact that the Catholic church in America has been losing ground for decades. Long ago the Legion of Decency and its sisters in Comstockery lost their ability to deter the faithful from attending certain movies. As for the Index of Prohibited Books, does it even exist? If it does, it would best serve as a list of good reading along the lines of the Chicago Great Books.<br />
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Most significantly a large segment of American Catholics have become protestants to all intents and purposes. They no longer pay attention to the hierarchy when it comes to such matters as contraception, abortion, and homosexuality. The recent attempts by some clerical neanderthals to deny communion to John Kerry because of his independence on these issues were widely derided.<br />
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And one mustn’t forget the clerical pederasty scandals. The problem was not simply the abuse itself but the coverup by the church authorities. My own view is that these hypocrites should be prosecuted under the RICO statute.<br />
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Things were very different in the fifties when it almost seemed as if the country was turning Catholic. Today it is hard to imagine the appeal of this trend, seemingly a kind of last-ditch attempt to stop modernity in its tracks. By the beginning of the 1950s it was clear that a prolonged conflict with the Communist powers (the Cold War) would be inescapable. Many saw the Marxist ideology, in some respects comparable to a religion, as a great source of strength for the other side. How could we respond? The usual answer was democracy, but this seemed too diffuse, and anyway the Communist states claimed to be “peoples democracies.” For some, only a return to Christianity could arm us sufficiently to wage this war of ideas. And it must be maximum strength Christianity, that is Catholicism. Too be sure, anti-Catholicism lingered in some parts of the country, especially in the South. If one could see beyond this, it appeared that Neo-Thomism, the official philosophy of the Roman church, offered a coherent world view--in fact the only form of Christianity that could stand up to godless Marxism. Among the neo-Thomists Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson had a significant following among the intellectuals, while Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen purveyed Catholicism for the masses in the new medium of television.<br />
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The roots of the modern Catholic revival go back to Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815. At that point Europe’s resurgent traditionalists seized the opportunity to restore the alliance of throne and altar.<br />
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There were significant cultural consequences, seen above all in the cult of the Middle Ages. The Gothic Revival generated buildings throughout Europe, and not just churches, as the parliament buildings in London and Budapest attest. Writers like Chateaubriand and Victor Hugo, Walter Scott and Alfred Lord Tennyson profited from the new enthusiasm for the Middle Ages. Thinkers in various parts of Europe championed a revival of Scholasticism. To all intents and purpose, by the end of the century Thomas Aquinas had become the official philosopher of the Catholic church.<br />
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These indications were not exclusively Catholic, since in Germany and England some protestants joined in. However, the center of gravity lay in the Catholic church. Accordingly, when Pius IX issued his antimodernist Syllabus of Errors in 1864 a new tone set in. This led to what has been termed the Reactionary Revolution of the late nineteenth century in which writers like Léon Bloy and Joris-Karl Huysmans openly espoused anti-modernism.<br />
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Gradually, this first Catholic revival ran out of steam, although Charles Maurras (a proto-fascist) and Jacques Maritain (a political liberal) gave it some new impetus in France in the 1920s.<br />
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After World War II a new trend emerged. The five years of the domination of the European continent by National Socialism (1940-45) had left a void. Many felt that this void could only be filled by a revival of the human spirit, specifically in the form of Catholicism. It was no accident that the three politicians who emerged to craft a new Europe--Konrad Adenauer, Alcide de Gaspari, and Robert Schuman--were all believing Catholics. In the cultural realm the new trend shed its reactionary tradiionalism, as the chapels of Ronchamp and Vence showed. Le Corbusier and Henri Matisse, the creators of these impressive structures, were not believing Catholics, but that fact only underscored the power of the new orientation. In music Olivier Messiaen created an impressive, if eclectic modernism with mystical overtones. In the English-speaking world the novelists Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh explored Catholic themes. Among the intellectuals, T. S. Eliot and Arnold J. Toynbee exercised a vast sway. The last two were nominally Protestants, but they went a long way in the direction of embracing the Roman faith.<br />
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As I have noted, the Catholic revival after 1945 was intended to replace the despair and spiritual emptiness left in the wake of Nazism with real content. It also served as a bulwark against Communism. It was this aspect that struck a chord in America, where many felt that we needed a “strong” ideology to oppose the enemy. As the so-called loss of China in 1949 showed, Communism was on the march, massively so.<br />
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In Cold War America the importance of Catholicism was demonstrated by an impressive roster of converts, including Mortimer Adler, editor of the Great Books series; the playwright Claire Booth Luce; the musician Dave Brubeck; Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement; the mathematician John von Neumann; the novelist Walker Percy; and John Wayne, the actor.<br />
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During the ‘fifties the prestige of Catholicism was pervasive enough to become seductive, even among those who ought to have known better. Of course, there were personal factors as well. My own circumstances were somewhat unusual. As members of a far-left sect, my parents were atheists and they raised me to be one too. Except for the occasion of my grandmother’s funeral, I was never taken to a house of worship. When I finally read the Bible at the age of twenty I had the usual reaction of such late-comers: “What a lot of quotations.”<br />
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During my teen-age atheist phase I sent for some literature from an old-line organization founded by Colonel Ingersoll. Going through this packet of material, I was struck by how impoverished the arguments were. The simplistic mantras of the atheist propagandists seemed simply to reflect the dogmatism of Christian apologists in a kind of mirror reversal. Another thing that struck me was the fact that so many intelligent people could be believers. I remember reading Dante’s Divine Comedy and thinking, “wow this guy is so smart, surely he must have written the book as a satire.” Christianity with its cathedrals and sung masses (not to mention old Dante) has been immensely fertile culturally; atheism has not been. It is an arid creed. The writings of Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens are sometimes eloquent and sometimes persuasive. But reading them has not altered my view that there is not much to this stuff.<br />
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Still, these conclusions were not enough to induce positive belief. Not very originally, perhaps, I came up with the following formulation. There is no certainty that Christianity is true. By the same token, there is no certainty that it is false. We can therefore accept Christianity in a tentative way, because it COULD be true.<br />
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So I found my way to a respect, at the very least, for Christianity. In college I majored in art history where a knowledge of the Bible narrative and of the saints is essential for understanding many works of art.<br />
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But why Catholicism? I think my idea was that if you are drawn to a particular ideology, you should adopt the full-strength version. I may have been unconsciously influenced by my parents’ who scorned “wishy washy” social democracy which they held could not compare in rigor with true Marxism. Rigor, that was the thing. Similarly, many who have taken up psychiatry insist on the Freudian version, rather than some watered down “humanistic” nostrum.<br />
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Some of my Christian friends were reading Kierkegaard. I tried a little of it, but found that the Danish thinker usually worked best for those who were already protestants. I did not want to become a protestant. Had I discovered the penetrating texts of Karl Barth at that time, I suppose protestant neo-Orthodoxy might have won me over. Sometimes I think that Barth, unlike puny Maritain and Gilson, had the answer to everything. Sorry Sam and Christopher. At all events, that was a road not taken.<br />
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Despite my view about the superiority of the Roman church, I never converted. And that is just as well, because later would have come, almost certainly, the complex process of “divorce.” I did influence my best friend Chuck M. to convert, though doubtless he did this of his own volition. One of our friends, a scientist, became a monk.<br />
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Did my hesitation to convert reflect the fact that formal adoption of the religion would get in the way of my being a practicing homosexual? I don’t think so, for this was a kind of cognitive dissonance I didn’t confront. Religion I saw as mainly an intellectual affair, a matter of the head. Sexuality was a matter of the heart.<br />
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At all events, I took evasive action. For me matters took an aesthetic turn, and I became a specialist in medieval art. Together with many others, I detected formal similarities between medieval and modern art, in that both tended to disregard the naturalism of the Renaissance tradition. In this way my medievalism, I believed, transcended historical nostalgia.<br />
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The Catholic decline is very obvious in France. Sixty years ago, the intellectual and cultural life of French Catholicism was rich, as such names as Mauriac, Bernanos, Claudel, Marcel, Maritain, Gilson, Daniélou, and de Lubac remind us. Today, it is hard to think of a single French writer or thinker of their stature who is Catholic.<br />
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The decline is also evident in much of the rest of Europe. Recently the NY Times reported that the whole of Ireland ordained just nine priests last year, with only one ordination in the archdiocese of Dublin. The Church's future, such as it will be, seems clearly to belong to the Third World. This relocation, as it were, will in all likelihood cause even further alienation in the advanced, Western world. Perhaps China, where religion is reviving, will achieve a synthesis of a sort. Maybe the the Jesuits who sought to evangelize the country beginning in the sixteenth century will finally get their due. Or perhaps not.<br />
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Be that as it may, what was the main reason for the decline of Catholicism in America since its brief high-water mark in the ‘fifties? To some extent it reflects the process of cultural fading. In a society perpetually questing for something new, Catholicism came to seem old hat. To be sure, with the vernacular mass and other reforms the religion took on a new face in the wake of Vatican II. But not enough to compete effectively with other trends of the era.<br />
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The principal reason, I believe, for the retreat of Catholicism in North America lay in a momentous change in American culture that undergirded the shift from the ‘fifties to the ‘sixties. Put in its most basic terms, this was the change from the culture of conformity to the culture of expressivity. Only to a limited extent could Catholicism address the fever for “doing one’s own thing.” It decidedly did not endorse the idea of “different strokes for different folks.” While not strictly incompatible, Catholicism was not really in synch with the Counter-culture. It was done in by the availability of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Such at least was the experience of Jack Kerouac, who abandoned Catholicism for home-brew Buddhism. Few would endorse the song lyrics “Shakespeare’s a hack; we read Kerouac.” All the same, the author of <i>On the Road</i> beats Jacques Maritain every time.<br />
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BENEDICT SIXTEEN<br />
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The elevation of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger to the papacy (as Benedict XVI) elicited a muted, but still growing sense of apprehension in Western Europe and North America. Gays have particular reason for concern. It was Ratzinger, as prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who issued the 1986 document characterizing homosexuality as an "intrinsic moral evil." Women’s ordination came to seem very unlikely, though there may be some expansion of the role of married priests, who in fact already exist within the Church. In my view the most serious disappointment will be the continuing attempt to ban contraception (a ban most American Catholics wisely ignore). The Roman Catholic church is opposed to abortion, yet by seeking to block access to birth control the institution makes more abortions inevitable.<br />
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Let us look at the matter in a somewhat different light. Twentieth-century theology has been dominated by a serious of penetrating, tireless writers whose native language is German. The names of Rudolf Bultmann, Karl Barth, and Jürgen Moltmann come immediately to mind. These are all Protestants.<br />
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Yet they have Roman Catholic counterparts in Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner, and Hans Küng. Küng in particular has served as a bridge to Karl Barth, who although a Reform theologian has been particularly influential in Catholic circles. It is oversimple to label Barth as neo-orthodox, as is sometimes done, but there is no doubt that he set an example of uncompromising rigor that has been hostile to ecclesiastical liberalism.<br />
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What do these figures, von Balthasar, Rahner, and Küng, have in common? First, they show a combination of erudition in many languages and unceasing productivity. Theologically they reject what might be termed the dead hand of Thomism (for so long the "official" system of thought in the RC Church) in favor of resourcing, that is, a return to previously neglected patristic sources such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria. These scholars are familiar with the flood of new and newly discovered documents from the ancient Near East. In addition there is an affinity with modern existential thought, as seen in the work of Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. They seem to share a predilection for playing Mozart on the piano.<br />
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The group is not monolithic. When, in his role as theological watchdog, Ratzinger found that Küng had strayed from the reservation, he disciplined him. Despite their conflict, however, Küng has just opined that his old adversary should be given a chance.<br />
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While some celebrate his theological acumen, it is probably fair to say that Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict XVI, did not quite attain the stature of the leading members of the German-speaking group. It is perhaps in that sense that he is humble. Yet the new pontiff was still able to access the deep learning and analytical sharpness that is the common storehouse of the group.<br />
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Despite criticism in Western Europe and North America, Ratzinger’s elevation made a good deal of sense at the time. His views with regard to the “silent apostasy” that has produced so many empty churches in Europe were forthright. Instead of trying to ignore this erosion, as was mostly the case with his predecessor, Benedict XVI was prepared to shrink the Church in those prosperous but demographically declining countries. For the foreseeable future there would be no attempt at reevangelization among the errant flocks. Instead, the center of gravity of the Church must settle even more decisively in the Third World, where an increasing proportion of Catholics live and where Benedict’s theological conservatism was welcome. His emphasis on the perennial teachings of the Church would be reassuring to those in this camp. And indeed many have concluded that the accommodation to the modern world, so much commended by secular intellectuals, has been counterproductive, as people shun the "enlightened" denominations of liberal Protestantism in favor of denominations of stricter observance.<br />
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Much has changed since 1968, that tumultuous year which ostensibly marked an epochal change. It did help to produce Liberation Theology. In retrospect Ratzinger’s reservations about that ephemeral movement seem prescient.<br />
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But, but, but—readers will say. Is there really any future in Benedict’s obstinate rejection of modernism and relativism? This intransigence would seem to recall Pius IX with his Syllabus of Errors—or even King Canute’s legendary attempt to turn back the waves.<br />
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It is a dismaying thought, but the twenty-first century--globalization and all--may not turn out to be an unalloyed triumph for modernism, at least in the social realm. Even among non-Christian faiths, fundamentalism and traditionalism are on the march. I take no pleasure in this prospect, but it needs to be faced. <br />
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BENEDICT XVI AND PEDOPHILIA<br />
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The heading does not refer to current events, but to a little known episode that occurred when Joseph Ratzinger was nine years old.<br />
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In July 1933 the Vatican (represented by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII) signed a Concordat with the Nazi government. Distrust persisted, however, as Catholics reacted to the neo-pagan aspects of the regime, while Hitler disliked the political side of Catholicism (the Center Party) as an independent power center, and potential site of resistance to his regime. Catholics objected to Nazi euthanasia, on right-to-life grounds. Matters came to a head early in 1936 with the "Immorality" Trials, in which hundreds of priests, monks, lay brothers, and nuns were accused of "perverted and immoral lifestyles," code words for homosexuality and pedophilia. Parents were urged to withdraw their children from Catholic schools lest they be molested.<br />
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For a long time I thought these charges were just trumped up. To be sure, the Nazis engaged in some entrapment and other chicanery. However, as recent experience in Massachusetts and other states has shown, there may have been something to the accusations.<br />
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At any rate this background probably explains the anti-Nazi views of Ratzinger's father, who resented the attack on the Church. The memory may linger today in the son. It could help to account for the pope's evident ambivalence on the matter of priestly pedophilia. In 1997 Cardinal Ratzinger received credible evidence concerning pedophile behavior on the part of a Mexican youth leader, Father Marcial Maciel. John Paul II, it appears, wouldn't hear of investigating such a fine priest. So the matter was quashed. Now, however, Benedict XVI is reopening the case.<br />
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A historical irony is that the original base of Nazism was in south Germany and Austria. The Beer Hall Putsch was in Bavaria. But Catholic opposition initially prevented Hitler's triumph. It was only after Protestant north Germany went over to him that he was able to become chancellor in January 1933. Hitler had reason to resent Catholics.<br />
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Towards the end of 2009 evidence began to surface that Cardinal Rat had been negligent in his treatment of pedophile priests. This story has not yet been concluded.<br />
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THE “GOD IS LOVE” ENCYCLICAL<br />
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Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) is the first encyclical written by Pope Benedict XVI. Comprising almost 16,000 words, it was promulgated on January 25, 2006 in Latin and in several translations, including English. Reportedly, Benedict wrote the first half in German, his native tongue. The second half stems from an unfinished text left by his predecessor, John Paul II. The encyclical is thus a collaboration, though final responsibility rests with the present pontiff. The Latin title of the encyclical is a quotation from the First Letter of St. John, 4:16, translated from the original Greek "ho theos agape estin." In most contemporary English translations the expression reads "God is love." The exposition pivots on the concepts of eros (possessive, often sexual, love), agape (unconditional, self-sacrificing love), logos (the word), and their relationship with the teachings of Jesus.<br />
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In view of the severe reputation attaching to the prepontifical Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, some were surprised that his first encyclical should focus on such a positive, apparently worldly theme, including a positive role for sexual expression. The emphasis is still on sex within marriage, and only within marriage. The novelty—a departure I think from Augustinian thinking—is that carnal sex can be approved in that situation, providing it serves as a bridge to spiritual love. In addition, there is a kind of cosmic dimension, as love, understood as agape, is supposed to inhere in Christ and in this way radiate throughout the world. While indications of mellowing are indeed welcoming, one should not be too carried away. There is no indication that the pope looks with any favor on sexual love conducted outside the marriage context, and then of course it must follow guidelines supplied by the Church.<br />
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The topic of love has been much discussed since the ancient Greeks (and even before), without much progress towards a final definition. Some would throw up their hands and say that this is a hopelessly confused concept. In <i>Ulysses</i> James Joyce hesitated, then decided not to utter the word. But too many sensitive individuals have seen it as richly interconnected and indeed central to human existence.<br />
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Clearly the pope thinks that love is more than a four-letter word.<br />
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Benedict’s encyclical is liberally sprinkled with scriptural references, but in fact depends crucially on two non-Catholic, heretical sources. The first stems from the Lutheran bishop of Lund, Anders Nygren (1890-1978). In his book known in English as <i>Eros and Agape</i> (Swedish original 1930), Nygren sought to ground in the New Testament a fundamental contrast between eros and agape. Eros is the more carnal, "biological" form of love, agape is its spiritual sublimation. While Benedict purloins Nygren’s two key terms, the opinion that eros is inherently good departs from Nygren’s view that agape is the only truly Christian kind of love, and that eros is an expression of the individual's selfish desires, turning us away from God.<br />
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In fact the New Testament does not use the contrast of eros and agape to state such a fundamental conceptual contrast. As Benedict concedes, the word eros occurs nowhere in the New Testament. Koine Greek had in fact replaced eros with agape--the meaning is essentially the same--as part of normal linguistic evolution, much in the way that in everyday English "to cry" has supplanted "to weep" (though the meaning of the latter is still recognized). By the same token one could evolve a sophisticated contrast between crying and weeping, but it is not inherent in the use of the words. Note that Dante managed perfectly well with "amore" alone. (Yes, as the song goes, "it's amore.")<br />
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Discarding Nygren's misleading philology, one may still argue that there is a difference between lust and spiritual love, however phrased. The former may enjoy some aura of toleration if it is recognized that it may lead to the latter. This formulation, however, takes us in an even more dangerous direction as it stems from Plato. And Plato famously believed that it was erotic attraction to boys that constituted the first step on this ladder of progression to beatitude.<br />
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This approach reflects the myth Plato ascribes to Aristophanes in the Symposium, to wit, that the primal ancestors of human beings were originally three types of double-beings, one male-male, the second female-female, and the third male-female. After the gods separated us, we eternally long to return to our mate, male (like ourselves in the first case), female (like ourselves in the second), and finally of the opposite sex (in the third case). Among other things this myth is (I believe) the origin of the expression "better half." A variant of it may have survived in the Genesis expression "they became one flesh." Plato's myth is almost certainly of Middle Eastern origin.<br />
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Theologically Ratzinger attached himself to a movement called "resourcement," with its center in France. Theologians like Henri de Lubac and Jean Daniélou sought to return to Origen and the other Greek patristic thinkers, and above all to St. Augustine. Part of this landscape was a shadowy figure known as Plato Christianus, a Christianized Plato.<br />
<br />
Two other surprising sources may be briefly noted. In considering eros, Benedict refers to a line from Vergil's Eclogues, X, 69, "Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori" ("Love conquers all, let us also yield to love"). This is an odd borrowing, since the second poem in Vergil’s cycle extols the passionate homosexual love of the shepherd Corydon. The pontiff also duly notes (though without approval) the opinion of Friedrich Nietzsche that Christianity has poisoned eros, turning it into a vice.<br />
<br />
As this brief analysis shows, the encyclical is a composite reflecting various sources. Perhaps this is true of most intellectual creations of this kind. Still, in the light of the text’s heterogeneity, it is hard to see it as simply an unalloyed reflection of abiding truths as preserved in Scripture and maintained, without alteration, by Holy Church.<br />
<br />
LIBERATION THEOLOGY<br />
<br />
Liberation theology began as a movement within the Catholic Church in Latin America in the 1950s and ‘60s. The movement arose as an ethical response to the poverty prevalent in that region. The term liberation theology was coined in 1971 by the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, who wrote one of the movement's most influential books, <i>A Theology of Liberation</i>. Other noted exponents are Leonardo Boff of Brazil, Jon Sobrino of Spain, Óscar Romero of El Salvador, and Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay.<br />
<br />
A controversial aspect of the trend is Christian communism is the strong element of Marxism. Whether Marxism is simply an ancillary or instead a central element in the movement is much debated. At all events, liberation theology was frowned upon by the Vatican, with Pope Paul VI seeking to slow the movement as part of the general trend away from the findings of the Second Vatican Council. (1962-65). A major source of official opposition was the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith headed by then Cardinal Ratzinger (the former Pope Benedict XVI). This disapproval had the effect of stunting further growth, though liberation theology has retained support, both among clergymen and the general population,<br />
<br />
Some see the elevation of the Argentinian bishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, to the papacy as Francis I, as a sign that liberation theology has returned to favor in the church’s higher circles - or at least some of them. The choice of the name Francis, after the historic apostle of poverty, seems significant in this regard. One of the new pontiff’s first acts was to telephone the 85-year-old Father Gustavo Gutiérrez of Lima, Peru, to invite him to Rome for a conversation. Gutiérrez’s 1968 paper, “Toward a Theology of Liberation,” ranks as the foundational document of liberation theology.<br />
<br />
During his prepapal career Bergoglio’s attitude had been ambivalent. He had never joined in the attack on liberation theology—but he was never a forceful defender of it either. As pope he seems more sympathetic. Yet the indications are that he will chart a course towards his own view of the social gospel, supporting many of the aims of the movement without embracing the name.<br />
.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
REFERENCES<br />
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Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land. New York: Ecco Press, 2010.<br />
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Avalos, Hector. Fighting Words: The Origins Of Religious Violence. Buffalo: Prometheus, 2005.<br />
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Bailey, D. S. Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition. London: Longmans, 1955.<br />
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Barber, Charles. Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.<br />
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Barnstone, Willis, ed. The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas. New York: Norton, 2009.<br />
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Barr, James. The Semantics of Biblical Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 1961.<br />
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---. Biblical Words for Time. London: SCM Press,1962.<br />
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Bauer, Walter. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
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Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.<br />
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Berman, Harold J. Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983.<br />
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---. Law and Revolution II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformation on the Western Legal Tradition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.<br />
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Bernstein, Alan E. The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993.<br />
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Besançon, Alain. The Hidden Image. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.<br />
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Boyer, Paul. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.<br />
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Brenner, Athalya, ed. A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies. London: Routledge, 2001.<br />
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Brooten, Bernadette. J. Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.<br />
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Brown, Scott G. Mark's Other Gospel. Waterloo, Ont. Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2005.<br />
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Bryer, Anthony, and Judith Herrin, eds. Iconoclasm. Birmingham: Centre for Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, 1977.<br />
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Buckley, Susan L. Teachings on Usury in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Lewiston, ME: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.<br />
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Camille, Michael. The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.<br />
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Carlson, Stephen C. The Gospel Hoax. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2005.<br />
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Carpenter, Mark. "A Synopsis of the Development of Trinitarian Thought From the First Century Church Fathers to the Second Century Apologists," Trinity Journal, 26.2 (Fall 2005): 293-319.<br />
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Chilton, Bruce. Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Portrait. New York: Doubleday, 2000.<br />
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Cohn, Norman. Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Messianism in Medieval and Reformation Europe and Its Bearing on Modern Totalitarian Movements. London: Macmillan, 1957.<br />
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Coriden, James A. An Introduction to Canon Law. Revised ed. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2004.<br />
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Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,<br />
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Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediteranean Jewish Peasant. San Francisco: Harper, 1991.<br />
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Cullmann, Oscar. Christ and Time. London: SCM, 1966.<br />
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Davies, W D. The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doctrine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.<br />
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DeConick, April D. The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says. London: Continuum, 2007 [1st ed.]; 2009 [rev. ed.]).<br />
<br />
Drecoll, Volker Henning. "How Binitarian/Trinitarian Was Eusebius?" in Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations, eds. Aaron Johnson and Jeremy Scott, Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2013, pp. 285-309. <br />
<br />
Ehrman, Bart D. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005.<br />
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---. Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. New York: HarperCollins, 2012. <br />
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Ehrman, Bart D., and Zlatko Plese, eds. The Apocryphal Gospels, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.<br />
<br />
Eire, Carlos. War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.<br />
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Elliott, J. K. The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.<br />
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Emerson, Richard K. and Bernard McGinn, eds. The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.<br />
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Ferguson, Everett. Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2009.<br />
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Fernández Marcos, Natalio. The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible. Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2001.<br />
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Fernández-Morera, Dario. “The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise,” Intercollegiate Review (Fall 2006), 23-31.<br />
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Freedberg, David. Iconoclasts and Their Motives. Maarsen: Gary Schwartz, 1985.<br />
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---. The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.<br />
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Freeman, Charles. Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe. New Have: Yale University Press, 2011. <br />
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Funk, Robert, ed. The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. San Francisco: Harper, 1999.<br />
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Gamboni, Dario. The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution. London: Reaktion Books, 2007.<br />
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Girard, René, Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.<br />
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Glick, Leonard B. Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.<br />
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Grabar, André. L’iconoclasme byzantin: le dossier archéologique. New ed. Paris: Flammarion, 1984.<br />
<br />
Grant, Robert M., and David Tracy. A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1988.<br />
<br />
Guest, Daryn, Robert E. Goss, Mona West, and Thomas Bohache, eds. The Queer Bible Commentary. London: SCM, 2006.<br />
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Harpigny, Guy. Islam et christianisme selon Louis Massignon. Louvain-la-Neuve: Université Catholique de Louvain, 1981.<br />
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Hoffmann, R. Joseph. The Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006.<br />
<br />
Hopper, Vincent Foster. Medieval Number Symbolism: Its Sources, Meaning, and Influence on Thought and Expression. New York: Columbia University Press, 1938.<br />
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Horner, Tom. Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978.<br />
<br />
Jeffery, Peter. The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled, Yale University Press, 2006.<br />
<br />
Jones, David W. Reforming the Morality of Usury: A Study of Differences That Separated the Protestant Reformers. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004.<br />
<br />
Kirsch, Jonathan. God against the Gods: The History of the War between Monotheism and Polytheism. New York: Viking, 2004.<br />
<br />
Kitzinger, Ernst. “The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 8 (1954), 85-150.<br />
<br />
Kittel, Gerhard (with Gerhard Friedrich). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Ten vols. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1964-76.<br />
<br />
Küng, Hans. Christianity: Essence, History, and Future. New York: Continuum, 1994.<br />
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Landes, Richard, Andrew Gow, and David Van Meter. The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change, 950-1050. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.<br />
<br />
Le Goff, Jacques. The Birth of Purgatory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.<br />
<br />
---. Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages. Translated by Patricia Ranum. New York: Zone Books, 1988.<br />
<br />
Mack, Burton L. The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins. San Francisco: Harper, 1993.<br />
<br />
Martin, Dale B. Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville: Westmister John Knox, 2006.<br />
<br />
McDonald, Lee Martin, and James A. Sanders. The Canon Debate. Gaithersburg, MD: Hendrickson Publishing, 2002.<br />
<br />
McGinn, Bernard. Anti-Christ: Two Thousand Years of Human Fascination with Evil. San Francisco: Harper, 1994.<br />
<br />
McGinn, Bernard, ed.. Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.<br />
<br />
McNeill, John J. The Church and the Homosexual. Kansas City, KN: Sheed, Andrews and McMeel, 1976.<br />
<br />
Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. 4 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991-2009.<br />
<br />
Meyer, Marvin, ed. The Nag Hammadi Scriptures. New York: Harper, 2009.<br />
<br />
Nelson, Benjamin. The Idea of Usury: From Tribal Brotherhood to Universal Otherhood. Second ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969<br />
<br />
Newsom, Carol A., and Sharon H. Ringe, eds. The Women's Bible Commentary. Second ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998.<br />
<br />
Nissinen, Martti. Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1998.<br />
<br />
Noonan, John T. A Church That Can and Cannot Change. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
---. The Scholastic Analysis of Usury. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957, <br />
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Paper, Jordan. The Deities Are Many: A Polytheistic Theology (S U N Y Series in Religious Studies). Binghamton: State University of New York Press, 2005.<br />
<br />
Price, Robert M. The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003.<br />
<br />
Prothero, Stephen. God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter. NewYork: Harper, 2010.<br />
<br />
Richards, Jeffrey. Sex, Dissidence and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages. London and New York: Routledge, 1990.<br />
<br />
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.<br />
<br />
Rowland, Christopher. The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity. London: SPCK, 1982. Jr. Second ed. Atlanta Scholars Press, 1997.<br />
<br />
Runciman, Sir Steven. A History of the Crusades. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951-54.<br />
<br />
Sanders, E. P., and Margaret Davies. Studying the Synoptic Gospels. London: SCM Press, 1989.<br />
<br />
Schäfer, Peter. Jesus in the Talmud. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.<br />
<br />
Schwartz, Regina. The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.<br />
<br />
Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. New edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001 [following the revised German edition of 1913].<br />
<br />
Scroggs, Robin. The New Testament and Homosexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983.<br />
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Segal, Alan F. Life after Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion. New York: Doubleday, 2004.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Soler, Jean. La violence monothéiste. Paris: Editions de Fallois, 2008.<br />
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Sora, Steven. Treasures from Heaven: Relics From Noah's Ark to the Shroud of Turin. New York: Wiley, 2005.<br />
<br />
Stehling, Thomas, trans., Medieval Poems of Male Love and Friendship. New York: Garland, 1984.<br />
<br />
Thompson, Thomas L. The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past. London. 1999.<br />
<br />
Torrance, Thomas F. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988.<br />
<br />
---. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996.<br />
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Wainwright, Arthur F. The Trinity in the New Testament, London: SPCK, 1962.<br />
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Walker, D. P. The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964.<br />
<br />
Warnke, Martin, ed. Bildersturm: Die Zerstörung des Kunstwerks. Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1973.<br />
<br />
Webb, Diana. Medieval European Pilgrimage, C. 700 - C. 1500. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.<br />
<br />
Weiss, Johannes. Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985.<br />
<br />
Wright, Robert. The Evolution of God. New York: Little, Brown, 2009.<br />
<br />
Yuval, Israel Jacob. Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006 (English translation of Hebrew original of 2000).Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-18991016259431089712011-12-05T05:42:00.000-08:002013-10-14T07:20:39.465-07:00Abrahamica: Chapter Six<b>ISLAM</b><br />
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<br />
INTRODUCTION<br />
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In the Abrahamic sequence, Islam ranks as the third major actor. Originally a common noun, the Arabic word “islam” means “submission” (to God). The chief elements of the faith reside in the sacred scriptures known as the Qur’an (“recitation”), regarded as the word of God as dictated to his Messenger, the Prophet Muhammad. The word Muslim, an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the Arabic verb of which the word islam is the infinitive.<br />
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Muslims regard their religion as the final and universal version of a primordial monotheism, a set of beliefs revealed at many times and places before, notably to the prophets Abraham, Moses, and Jesus of Nazareth. Over time, according to the Islamic view, previous revelations and teachings have undergone a process of blurring and corruption. Islam repairs these defects.<br />
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Central to the religious practice of Islam as a world religion are the Five Pillars, obligations that every believer must faithfully observe. These duties are Shahadah (profession of faith), Salat (prayers), Sawm (fasting), Zakat (giving of alms) and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). In addition, religious law has long been of central importance, encompassing as it does virtually every aspect of behavior and society, from dietary habits and warfare to banking and charity. Muslims do not recognize any distinction between sacred and civil law. Nor do they have any equivalent of the principle of separation of church and state.<br />
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The majority of Muslims belong to one of two major denominations, the Sunni and Shi’a. Today, Islam predominates in the Middle East, North Africa, and large parts of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. While Islam is typically perceived as a specifically Arab phenomenon (as it was at the beginning), today only about 20% of Muslims are Arabs. About 13% of the total live in Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country.<br />
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With approximately 1.57 billion Muslims, Islam ranks as the second largest religion in the world, after Christianity. According to one calculation, however, Islam is growing 33 percent faster than Christianity, largely because of high birth rates in the Third World countries in which it thrives. Over the last century Islam’s numbers have skyrocketed, going from 12 percent of the world’s population to at least 22 percent today (<a href="http://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/">http://www.worldreligiondatabase.org</a>).<br />
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These days we hear much of the differences in Islam between the militants, termed Islamists or jihadists, and the moderates, the mainstream Muslims. Yet both groups subscribe to a single narrative of the origins of the faith. The basic toolkit includes the following assertions: that the historical Muhammad was born near Mecca ca. 570 CE of the Arab tribe of Quraysh; that he made his hijra, or flight to Medina in the year 622; that he reconquered Mecca in 630; and he had won all of Arabia to his beliefs by his death in 632.<br />
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As a rule, Western scholars have docilely followed their Muslim counterparts in accepting this standard account. Nonetheless, several forms of revisionism have arisen, challenging most of these supposedly secure findings.<br />
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At the risk of some simplification one can classify the revisionist endeavors in two main efforts. According to the earlier set of revisionist findings (1.0, so to speak), which goes back to the early twentieth century, the historical Muhammad was a military leader operating in the borderlands of northern Arabia, which had long been a cultural interface between Byzantine Christianity and Arabia proper (Ibn Warraq, 2000). Only gradually, in the generations after the death of this individual, was the movement pan-Arabized by being recentering it on the Hijaz, with its two major cities of Mecca and Medina.<br />
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The second, more recent version (2.0) holds that it is useless to search for a precise identity for “Muhammad” (Ohlig et al., 2010). In fact, the term muhammad is a common noun meaning “the praiseworthy one.” Since the meaning is close to the Greek christos (“the anointed one”), the accolade can even be applied to Jesus.<br />
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The complex of ideas that later came to form the the nucleus of the Qur’an originated in the hybrid milieu of northern Arabia, specifically in the zone next to, and overlapping with southern Iraq. These Arabs had, many of them, adopted Christianity, but of a non-Trinitarian variety: hence the insistence on monotheism in the Qur’an and other Islamic documents. While these people were Arabic-speaking, they had derived their religious ideas from Syrians, so that their liturgical language was originally Syriac, a Semitic language related to Arabic and Hebrew. Abundant traces, or so it seems, of Syriac words and thought patterns have survived in the Qur’an where they provide tell-tale evidence of this origin. As the Syriac material was adapted to the new Arabic Scripture, where it fused with older Arabic elements, uncertainties arose, leading to the fact that some 20-25% of the Qur’an is in fact unintelligible--though this amount greatly decreases if the Syriac component is restored. Looking at the text through a Syriac lens solves many problems of detail. Accomplishing this task, of course, requires formidable philological skills, which only a few seasoned scholars can muster.<br />
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According to this second, truly radical version, what we have come to know as Islam crystalized only some 150 years after the traditional date for the death of the Prophet (632 CE). Only then, about 780 CE, did the divorce between the original base of non-Trinitarian Christianity and the the new religious formation become apparent. The estrangement took place in the context of the consolidation of Nicene Trinitarianism in the Byzantine Empire and Western Europe, triggering a counteremphasis on monotheism in emergent Islam. Even today, however, some descendants of the Arabs who had professed Christianity continue to live in the Middle East; they are the Arab Christians of those lands.<br />
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In a nutshell. the first version, 1.0, concentrates on north Arabia and the neighboring regions of Syria and Iraq as the primordial home or Urheimat of Islam. Somewhat surprisingly, the second version, 2.0 makes a small concession to the traditional view in granting an ancillary role to Mecca and Medina. As we have seen, the second version displays its true radicality in questioning the very existence of the historical Muhammad. Nonetheless, there is considerable overlap between the two approaches. Together they make up the historical-critical school of early Islamic studies.<br />
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While some nuances exist between versions 1.0 and 2.0, they basically agree in their comprehensive challenge to the received account.<br />
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Up to now defenders of the received account have dodged the bullet, but concessions are beginning to appear here and there. In the long run this resistance is unlikely to prevail. The time is coming when all reasonable observers, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, must come to grips with the questions raised by the new scholarship. Yet as things are too many establishment scholars have chosen to ignore the problem, at best treating it with the utmost brevity so as to return the secure terraine of the conventional wisdom. This chapter contends that this approach, reminiscent of the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand, is no longer viable.<br />
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Here is the basic contrast in a nutshell.<br />
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<br />
TRADITIONAL VIEW (a) vs. THE HISTORICAL-CRITICAL VIEW (b)<br />
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1a. The facts regarding the life of Muhammad, the Messenger of God, are well-established, as described in the later biographies and the more reliable Hadith collections. <i>versus</i>:<br />
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1b. The historicity of Muhammad is murky. His personality, in so far as we can grasp it, is probably a composite, augmented with invented legendary details. In fact, this individual may not have existed at all.<br />
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2a. The intellectual foundations of the Prophet and his message reside firmly in his native Hijaz, especially the cities of Mecca and Medina. <i>versus:</i><br />
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2b. A significant, perhaps the major element in the early Islamic movement stems from northern Arabia, where it overlaps Syria. The Syriac Christian contribution is very significant.<br />
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3a. As we have it, the Qur’an is a unitary document that faithfully records Muhammad’s recitals over a period of twenty-years in Mecca and Medina. Within broad limits, the individual surahs can be pinpointed to specific periods. <i>versus</i>.<br />
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3b. The Qur’an is an amalgam, consisting of at least three strata: 1) a pre-Islamic formation, possibly a Syriac lectionary, with Arabic folkloric admixtures; 2) a secondary body of material, perhaps elaborated by Muhammad at Mecca and Medina; and 3) a layer of accretions, folded in over a period of some 150 years. Subtractions must also be allowed for.<br />
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4a. The textus receptus, as we read it in the influential Cairo edition of 1923, and the texts following it, faithfully copies the standard text approved and diffused by Uthman. <i>versus</i><br />
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4b. As we have it, the text of the Qur’an is radically defective, with many passages that are nearly, or completely unintelligible. It is an amalgam of various components, some quite early and others originating after the time of Uthman.<br />
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<br />
TWO TRUTHS?<br />
<br />
Sociologists have explored the problem of cognitive dissonance, whereby a group or a single individual entertains two contradictory views at the same time. To the extent that we are conscious of such inconsistencies we tend to seek to eliminate them, following the Aristotelian principle of Non-Contradiction. Mathematics provides many familiar examples, as when we determine that, faced with the propositions 2 + 2 + 4 and 2 + 2 = 5, we acknowledge that only one can be true.<br />
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Nonetheless, some have held that in more complex matters, sometimes we must work, at least provisionally, with two incompatible theories. To this day, for example, physicists have been unable to resolve the contradictions between quantum physics and relativity theory.<br />
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According to one distinguished scientist there are fundamental conflicts in which such resolution is unattainable. Stephen Jay Gould, the noted paleontologist and evolutionary theorist, has proposed that there are two “magisteria,” one scientific and the other religious. We must be content with accepting that each rules within its own sphere. This doctrine, sometimes known as the “two truths,” has been traced back to the thirteenth-century Christian thinker Siger of Brabant, who was seeking to grapple with contradictions posed by the effort to reconcile Aristotle with the Christian faith.<br />
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Both sides in the dispute concerning Islamic origins are dead set against compromise. For their part, pious Muslims maintain that the Qur’an, being divinely inspired, is “beyond critique.” At the opposite pole, the critical-historical scholars maintain that nothing must be sacred, dwelling in some special realm beyond the reach of inquiry. Everything is on the table: one should, and indeed must interrogate every element of the traditional litany of Muhammad and the origins of the Qur’an. To be sure, a few Western scholars allied with the traditional approach--Fred Donner of the University of Chicago is a case in point--have rather delicately sought to acknowledge a few critical corrections, while sticking to the basic framework of the established account.<br />
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In my view, such gingerly compromises will prove unsatisfactory. Instead one must grapple with the full force of the historical-critical approach, following the facts wherever they may lead.<br />
<br />
THE HISTORICAL-CRITICAL SCHOOL<br />
<br />
How have the results outlined above, so seemingly iconoclastic, been achieved? Scholars working along these lines, who mostly reside outside Islamic countries, have taken the logical step of seeking to apply the principles of the Higher Criticism systematically to the Islamic documents. This approach, which attained maturity with Julius Wellhausen and others in nineteenth-century Germany, laid the foundations for all subsequent serious study of the body of Judeo-Christian scriptures known as the Bible. (See Chapters One, Two, and Three, above.)<br />
<br />
A useful point of entry is the collection of relevant scholarly essays, classical and contemporary, contained in the volume <i>The Quest of the Historical Muhammad</i>, edited by Ibn Warraq (2000). The book is aptly titled, for the task these scholars have addressed really does resemble the quest for the historical Jesus, as conducted by Albert Schweitzer and others, while at the same time applying themselves to the specific circumstances of Muslim historiography. In fact the questioning of the received view of Muhammad goes back to the work of Henri Lammens a hundred years ago.<br />
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Some contemporary scholars go so far in their radicalism as to assert that there is no reliable evidence connecting Muhammad with either Mecca or Medina. In this view, the association with Mecca was forged in order to connect the faith with the cult of the Kaaba, the sacred meteorite housed in that city. Instead, these scholars have concluded, the evidence suggests that the historical Muhammad was a military leader active on the northern border of Arabia, where he came into contact with sophisticated Christian and Jewish ideas. As any reader must acknowledge the Qur’an reverts, almost compulsively, to many events and personalities recorded in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, endowing them of course with its own “spin.”<br />
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Another finding is that the individual suras (segments of the Qur’anic text) are a varied lot (Ibn Warraq, 1998, 2002). The Qur’an is not a unitary text, but an amalgam pieced together from various components that originated at different times. They may have assumed their present “canonical” form as late as two hundred years after the death of Muhammad. Thus the text we have can in no sense be regarded as an organic whole. The pious notion that it was dictated by the Archangel Gabriel in accord with an archetype laid up in heaven simply serves to conceal this diversity.<br />
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The Qur’an combines precepts that purport to be of universal validity with references to contingent events and persons. As a rule, however, these historical sidelights are unconfirmed by other sources, and thus of questionable authenticity.<br />
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To be sure, the conventional wisdom is quite different. In the nineteenth century Ernest Renan maintained that “in place of the mystery under which the other religions have covered their origins, [Islam] was born in the full light of history” (Ibn Warraq, 2000.) Although widely accepted, this view is mistaken. Many adjustments, alterations, and inventions characterized the gradual birth of Islam. In consequence the accepted account comes close to ranking as a “just so” story—if you will, a tale out of the Arabian Nights.<br />
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Modifying Renan, we may say that there are two types of religion. Organic faiths (e.g. Judaism and Hinduism) developed gradually from time immemorial. Contrasting with this pattern is the historical type, exemplified by Manichaeism (third century) and Mormonism (nineteenth century). For a long time Islam, its historical foundations securely anchored, seemed to belong to the latter type. One can no longer have confidence in this claim. The origins of the religion now reside in uncertain territory, with each aspect requiring careful weighing as to its historicity.<br />
<br />
PROBLEMS HINDERING THE RECOGNITION OF THE FINDINGS REPORTED HEREIN<br />
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In Islamic countries, where apostasy may be punished by death, it is not healthy to espouse these revisionist views in Islamic countries today. One need only recall the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie. But slowly the results of the historical-critical examination are trickling through, with the Internet giving a big boost. Reception of these challenges is gradually progressing in the West. Not so in the Muslim world, though. One day, perhaps, a Reformation—so often noted as the missing element in the saga of Islam—will occur. This change would foster a thoroughgoing reexamination of the conventional wisdom regarding the faith. At present this reexamination is not possible there; the questioning is limited to scholars working in the West. <br />
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Even in Western countries, the situation is not altogether conducive to free inquiry about the origins of Islam. Demographic changes in Western Europe have helped fuel the aggressiveness of Islamic militants in those countries. Through violent acts these zealots seek to overturn established Western values of tolerance and free speech. In the face of this assault we are urged to be patient, while honoring Islam as a "religion of peace."<br />
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Regrettably, Islam is not a religion of peace because it divides the world into two parts, the Abode of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the Abode of Warfare (Dar al-Harb). It is the task of Believers to reduce the latter to the condition of the former, employing whatever measures may be required. This view spells constant strife in those parts of the world that have not yet submitted to Islam. Islamic militants are simply making this underlying situation clear. In this respect, they are not an aberration.<br />
<br />
ISLAMIC ORIGINS: THE LITANY CHALLENGED<br />
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My concern with Islam--its texts, origins, and character--stems from my overall project of uncovering the intertextual relations linking the three Abrahamic faiths. I would point out that if an outsider like myself can readily assemble the materials making up the main elements of the new critical approach to Islam, Muhammad, and the Qur’an, then other writers--such as the highly regarded Robert Wright and Karen Armstrong--can assimilate this material as well. As to why they have not attempted to do this, I cannot say.<br />
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As has been noted above, the conventional account offers a number of ostensibly well-established facts marking the origins of Islam. Muhammad was born in the year 570 CE in a locality close to Mecca, a city in the western part of the Arabian Peninsula. Strategically located, Mecca owed its prosperity to trade. It was also religiously significant because of the polytheistic cults centered on the Ka’ba or sacred stone. For these reasons, we are told, it is not surprising that city would go on to play a prominent role in the rapid spread of Islam. Orphaned at an early age, Muhammad was raised by an uncle and other relatives. The young Muhammad went to work for Khadija, a wealthy widow who owned a prosperous international trading company. In due course, he had the good fortune of marrying this woman, an event that dramatically bettered his fiscal position and social standing. In connection with business matters he traveled with caravans to north Arabia and Syria, where he encountered sophisticated Jewish and Christian ideas.<br />
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In the year 610 CE when he was forty years old, Muhammad--or so he believed--began to receive messages from God, a transmission that would continue throughout his life. Conveyed by Jibril (the archangel Gabriel), these messages confirmed the Meccan merchant’s status as God’s Ultimate Prophet, the bearer of God’s final word to mankind. Never claiming divinity himself, Muhammad did maintain that God was speaking through him; he was the human conduit for God’s final and perfect instructions to man.<br />
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Unfortunately, these initial messages from God threatened the interests of Mecca’s ruling elite, so that the new dispensation was summarily rejected. Muhammad’s position Mecca became untenable. In 622 CE he went to Medina (Yathrib), a town that was more receptive to his message. There Muhammad established the first Muslim community. Having consolidated his position in Medina, he was able to return to Mecca, where he succeeded, by an large, in converting the inhabitants to Islam.<br />
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By the time of his death in 632 CE Muhammad and his followers had conquered the entire Arabian peninsula, previously the domain of quarreling pagan tribes. By the turn of the eighth century, Muhammad’s followers had subdued a vast realm stretching from Spain to the boundaries of India, a dazzling feat.<br />
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For the pious Muslim this stupendous conquest seems only logical, Prophet Muhammad had received and transmitted the final and perfect word of God. Empowered with God’s support and direction, Muhammad established the Islamic state and spread the word of God as commanded by Him. Under the leadership of the four Rashidun, the “rightly-guided” caliphs--Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al Khattab, Uthman ibn Affan, and Ali ibn Abi Talib--Muhammad’s achievement was consolidated and extended.<br />
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Today, Muslims affirm this account of the origins of their religion without question, relying on these seemingly well-established facts as the cornerstone of their faith. Pious Muslims hold that Muhammad’s many revelations from God were memorized, recorded, and ultimately canonized in the body of the Qur’an during the first few decades following his death in 632. According to the story, the third caliph Uthman employed the scholar Zaid ibn Thabit to compile the “true” Qur’an and to destroy all other remaining copies, establishing the Uthman version as the final and perfect word of God as received and transmitted by the Prophet. According to the received account, the final, codified version of the Qur’an, seemingly identical with that we have today, was canonized and formalized no later than 650 CE. This scripture is an authentic source of history as evidenced by the fact that is a perfect literary creation. As such it could only have been only produced by God.<br />
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Except for the feature of divine inspiration, Western scholars have generally endorsed this account. At least they have dome so up to recent decades, when a new school of critical scholars has challenged these seemingly solid findings. These scholars, most of whom reside outside Islamic countries, base their case on the application of the principles of the Higher Criticism to Islamic documents.<br />
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A few revisionists have gone so far as to assert that Muhammad never lived. This claim probably goes too far. Still, the connection with Mecca and Medina is less substantial than is generally supposed. While it probably reposes on a small core of historical fact, the account was probably extended and embroidered in order to emphasize the connection with the cult of the sacred meteorite housed in that city, the Kaaba. The Mecca-Medina connection needs to be balanced with another that leads to northern Arabia, a borderland region strongly imbued with Christian ideas. The many reminiscences of Biblical persons and ideas found in the Qur’an surely stem mainly from this northern source.<br />
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The first cryptic mentions of the name of Muhammad begin to appear no earlier than two generations after his death. From the later biographical sketches many sought to retroject the basic facts of his career into the Qur’an. Yet even a brief examination of that book reveals that it bears no comparison with the Christian gospels, which are lives of Jesus. The Qur’an was never intended to be a biography of Muhammad, and in view of the probable late date of its compilation we cannot cannot take on face value the few details of the prophet’s life that appear there.<br />
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The earliest surviving biographies of the Prophet are the two recensions of Ibn Ishaq's (d. 768) Life of the Apostle of God compiled by Ibn Hisham (d. 834) and Yunus b. Bukayr (d.814-815). The original text has not survived. According to Ibn Hisham, Ibn Ishaq wrote his biography some 120 to 130 years after Muhammad's death. After Ibn Ishaq, the most widely used biographies of Muhammad are al-Waqidi's (d. 822) and then Ibn Sa'd's (d. 844-5). While many scholars accept the basic reliability of these late-blooming biographies, the details of their accuracy cannot in fact be ascertained. Even Muslim scholars are not in accord as to the reliability of these texts; Al-Waqidi is often targeted by Muslim writers who claim that that author is unreliable.<br />
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These accounts are hardly biographies in the modern sense. The writers did not seek to create an objective account of the life of Muhammad, but rather to describe Muhammad's military expeditions and to preserve stories about Muhammad, his sayings, and the traditional interpretations of verses of the Qur'an.<br />
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There are also the Hadith collections, which include accounts of the verbal and physical traditions pertaining to Muhammad. Muslim tradition informs us that many thousands of sayings and accounts of deeds of Muhammad were transmitted from the seventh century.<br />
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As with the “biographies” (Sira) just discussed, these often cryptic items are late, recounting earlier events long after their purported occurrence. For example, the compilation considered most authentic, that prepared by the scholar Al-Bukhari, was not organized, compiled, and ultimately endowed with canonical status until the early ninth century. Criteria for authentication have proved very elusive. At the turn of the ninth century there may have been as many as 600,000 Hadith in circulation. Many of these were blatantly false and contradictory. In fact, Al-Bukhari ultimately rejected 98% of the original 600,000.<br />
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In addition to being subject to the scrutiny of Muslim scholars, who have generally accepted al-Bukhari’s reduced canon, Hadiths have also attracted critical analysis on the part of western historians. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Hungarian scholar Ignaz Goldziher completed a fundamental study of the Hadith and the Muslim principles for certifying authenticity. Even in the privileged group, consisting of supposedly authenticated items, Goldziher concluded that the vast majority were unsubstantiated forgeries that sorely lacked corroboration. He held that the Muslim compilers derived the vast majority of their Hadith material from collections compiled around 800 (or later) and not from documents originating in the seventh century.<br />
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Several decades later, the legal scholar Joseph Schacht, based at Columbia University, undertook additional Hadith scrutiny. Schacht concluded that early ninth-century schools of law sought to buttress their own biased agenda by ascribing their own doctrines to Muhammad and his companions. Patricia Crone, in her own research on the authenticity of the remaining (canonized) Hadith has similarly rejected the "grain of truth" argument asserted by many Muslim historians. This rejection has been made on basis of the later date of the Muslim sources, together with the evident bias of those proffering them. Simply put, and contrary to Muslim assertions, Hadith can not be relied on as authentic source material.<br />
<br />
QUR’ANIC PROBLEMS<br />
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We return to the Qur’an itself. In fact there is no critical edition of the Qur’an, and currently accepted versions rely upon a text published in Cairo in 1923. Finally, in 2007, a team of researchers at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences began preparing the first installment of Corpus Coranicum, purporting to be nothing less than the first critically evaluated text of the Qur'an ever to be produced. Headed by Professor Angelika Neuwirth of the Free University of Berlin, the German research team is in the process of analysing and transcribing some 12,000 slides of Qur'an manuscripts that have survived from the first six centuries of Islam. This material stems from photographs collected before World War II by Gotthelf Bergsträsser and Otto Pretzl. The project is currently funded till 2025, but could well take longer to complete.<br />
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Once that task has been completed, the way will be open--in principle--to producing a reliable text that notes and correlates the variants found in the early manuscripts. Such a project must needs encounter pressures, and there are indications that some bending to the demands of established Islamic opinion has already occurred. In this light some skepticism is warranted as to whether the aims of the ambitious Berlin-Brandenburg project will be fully attained.<br />
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At all events, interpretation of the work presents many difficulties. As is typical of early texts in Semitic languages, the oldest versions of the Qur'an offer only the consonantal skeleton of the text. Not only are no vowels marked, some consonants can be read in a number of ways due to the absence of diacritical marks.<br />
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It is claimed that we can rely on the stability of the oral tradition to supply us with the correct reading. Comparative studies suggest, however, that oral traditions are anything but stable. They are unreliable because of the so-called “telephone effect,” in which each reciter tends to introduce, whether consciously or unconsciously, subtle changes that are in turn passed on to the next reciter. Nowadays this problem is obviated by the control of a standardized text, but this not available in the early decades. We are told that Muhammad was illiterate, and so too must have been many of his followers. In this way a good deal of variation must have crept in between the time of the original recitations and the final emergence of a standard text. Pious Muslims, who hold that the Qur’an is beyond critique, deny that such corruptions could have taken place. However, objective scholarship must not bow before such taboos. One must go in whatever direction the evidence takes.<br />
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As we have it, the Qur'an is often highly obscure. The style is allusive, and the text employs expressions unfamiliar even to the earliest exegetes, or words that do not seem to fit. Some passages seem to present fragments wrested from a larger context that is no longer available. It has been estimated that about 20-25% of the text of the Qur’an is opaque or simply unintelligible.<br />
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One explanation that has been advanced for these hermetic features would be that the Prophet formulated his message in the liturgical language current in the religious communities with which he was acquainted, descanting upon revered texts such as hymns, lectionaries, and prayers, many of theme derived from Syriac, another Semitic language.<br />
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One scholar, Gerd Puin, has termed the Qur’an a “cocktail of texts.” If one assumes that the individual segments were produced individually over many generations--some perhaps originating a hundred years before Muhammad, and others appearing after his death--the heterogeneity of these scriptures becomes understandable, even if one cannot adequately analyze the component liqueurs, as it were, that make up the cocktail.<br />
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A continuing source of difficulty is the geographical problem. Byzantine and Persian writers focused on the northern and the southern ends of the Arabian peninsula, regions that provide considerable ancillary inscriptional evidence. The country’s midriff, where the Islamic tradition places Mohammed's career, was essentially a blank. Everything that we know, or think we know, that was going on there stems from Islamic tradition, which seems to have been quite malleable.<br />
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As Patricia Crone remarks, “[it] is difficult not to suspect that the tradition places the prophet's career in Mecca for the same reason that it insists that he was illiterate: the only way he could have acquired his knowledge of all the things that God had previously told the Jews and the Christians was by revelation from God himself. Mecca was virgin territory; it had neither Jewish nor Christian communities.” (Crone, 1987).<br />
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THE ECOLOGICAL PROBLEM<br />
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The environment presumed by the Qur’an shows a number of disconnects with the sparse setting of the Hijaz. Muhammad’s local adversaries were agriculturalists who cultivated wheat, grapes, olives, and date palms. Yet wheat, grapes, and olives are three staples of the Mediterranean. Date palms flourished further southwards. However, the Mecca region was inhospitable to any kind of settled agriculture, and olives could not have been produced there.<br />
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There are also indications of the human landscape that are at variance with conditions in the Hejaz. The Qur'an describes the opponents of the new movement as dwelling at the the site of a vanished people--a town destroyed by God for its sins. Northwest Arabia contains many such sites, unlike the Hijaz. The prophet emphasizes their fate, remarking ominously, with reference to the remains of Lot's people, that "you pass by them in the morning and in the evening." This allusion to the destruction of Sodom takes us to the Dead Sea region. Muhammad and his associates could have seen such ruins in the course of their travels. Yet the only way one can see them habitually is actually to spend time in that area.<br />
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Evidence of this kind suggests that we must shift our attention from Arabia Deserta, where later Muslim orthodoxy situates the origins of Islam, to northern Arabia, with its lively intellectual and religious traditions fostered by contact with Syria and Byzantium. Whether this puzzle authorizes us to conclude that Muhammad was a resident of northern Arabia who never saw Mecca and Medina--as some critical scholars assert--cannot be resolved at present. But the evidence suffices to raise considerable suspicion.<br />
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Perhaps the answer is less peremptory. Nowadays in America we speak of scholars and creative people as being “bi-coastal,” dividing their time between the East and the West Coasts. Perhaps, by the same token, the historical Muhammad was “bi-Arabian,” with roots in both northern and central Arabia.<br />
<br />
ORALISM<br />
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How could Muhammad, or someone else of similar characteristics, have actually composed the Qur’an? For a possible answer we turn to Oral Theory, or Oralism.<br />
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As a field of study, oral theory traces its origins to the pioneering work of the Serbian scholar Vuk Stefanić Karadžić (1787-1864), a contemporary and friend of the Brothers Grimm, the German folklorists. Concerned about the possible disappearance of folk culture, Karadžić pursued a project of "salvage folklore" in the southern Slav regions which would later be gathered into Yugoslavia. Somewhat later, the turcologist Vasily Radlov (1837-1918) studied the songs of the Kara-Kirghiz people in remote territories of imperial Russia.<br />
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A remarkable creative use for such materials was devised by Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884). Trained as a physician, his true passion was the Finnish language. In the course of his duties as a country doctor he collected folk materials from reciters in Finland, Lapland, and Russian Karelia. Lönnrot wove these together in his <i>Kalevala </i>(1835-49). Although this work ranks as the Finnish national epic, it is in fact a clever compilation of disparate folk materials.<br />
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The matter took a more objective and scientific turn in the work of the American scholars Milman Parry and Albert Lord. While pursuing a degree in Classics at the University of California, Berkeley, Milman Parry (1902-1935) began to grapple with problems arising from the Homeric poems. Later Parry's work under the noted comparativist Antoine Meillet at the Sorbonne in Paris yielded his crucial insight into role of the "formula," which he originally defined as "a group of words which is regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea." Parry’s work focused on specifics. In Homeric verse, for example, phrases like eos rhododaktylos ("rosy-fingered dawn") or oinops pontos ("wine-dark sea") occupy a certain metrical pattern that fits, in modular fashion, into the six-colon Greek hexameter, and aids the aioidos or bard in extempore composition. Moreover, phrases of this type would invite internal substitutions and adaptations, permitting flexibility in response to narrative and grammatical needs.<br />
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Parry held that formulas were not idiosyncratic devices of particular artists, but the shared inheritance of a tradition of singers. They were easily remembered, making it possible for the singer to execute an improvisational composition--in performance. The performance aspect is crucial. Some scholars, more traditionally oriented, opined that Parry’s findings diminished Homer’s genius by treating him as a mere amalgamator, however gifted in that role, who stitched together material that he had purloined from other reciters.<br />
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In fact, Parry’s proposal encountered immediate resistance, because it seemed to reduce the two founts of Western literature, the Iliad and the Odyssey, to a tangle of clichés. Nonetheless, the approach accounted for such otherwise inexplicable features of the Homeric poems as gross anachronisms (revealed by advances in historical and archaeological knowledge); the coexistence of incompatible Greek dialects; and the almost compulsive recourse to standardized epithets that clashed with the actual context (such as "blameless Aigisthos" for the murderer of Agamemnon, or the incongruous label of "swift-footed Achilles” for the hero when he was portrayed in conspicuously sedentary moments).<br />
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Milman Parry’s student Albert Lord (1912-1999) continued the work after Parry's premature death in 1935. Lord took advantage of the thousands of hours of oral performance the two scholars had recorded of epic poetry in Yugoslavia. Lord's later work, especially his 1960 volume<i> The Singer of Tales</i>, kick-started oral poetics as an entire new subdiscipline in literature and anthropology. Because of their use of the comparative method, the work of Parry and Lord offers a useful tool for the broad, cross-cultural study of oral creativity.<br />
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What is the bearing of these discoveries on Muhammad and the origins of the Qur’an? The rawi (Arabic: “reciter”) was a professional reciter of poetry in early Arabia. Bearers of an oral culture, the rawis preserved pre-Islamic poetry in oral tradition until it was written down in the eighth century.<br />
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One or more rawis attached themselves to a particular poet and learned his works by heart. They then recited and explained the poet’s verse before a wider audience. Such an attachment often became an apprenticeship, and, after mastering the poetic technique, some rāwīs became poets in their own right. The rawis, renowned for their phenomenal memories, eventually came to form an independent class.<br />
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Since Muhammad was not concerned with poetry as such, he cannot be termed a rawi in the strict sense. Still during the journeys that characterized his early career, he must have looked forward to quiet evenings when the rahis entertained the caravaneers before they sought their night’s rest. Their performances resembled those of today’s jazz improvisationalists, who take up existing melodies and give them their own particular stamp.<br />
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In this way Muhammad would have become familiar with a long-standing model. It is not too much of a stretch, I believe, to surmise that Muhammad might have adapted the rawi technique to his own sacred recitals. After all, qu’ran means “recital.” He would then have riffed off existing compositions, enhancing them with inspirations of his own. Then, after his death, other sacred reciters took up the models supplied by Muhammad, adding their own extensions and glosses.<br />
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The Qur’an has frequent recourse to standard epithets for Allah, including the Compassionate, the Exalted, the Compeller, the Avenger, the Fashioner, and the Generous. The Qur’an is also notable for its self-referential quality, the way in which the text almost stands outside itself in scrutinizing its own content. This last is also a feature of medieval Christian Arthurian literature, where the writers often use the expression “the story tells,” indicating that they are following an earlier model.<br />
<br />
“ISLAMIC CORRECTNESS” AND HISTORICAL TRUTH<br />
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At this late date, unprejudiced examination of these matters more needed than ever. Yet in many countries, ones in which the relevant linguistic and theological expertise is concentrated, such inquiry is taboo. In most Muslim-majority nations law and public opinion combine to place limits on any unfettered scholarship regarding the origins of the faith. Even in Western countries the situation is not much better. A visit to an academic bookshop in the United States and Western Europe will show that the store stocks mainly books that echo the conventional wisdom regarding the origins of Islam. Such will be the experience of the ordinary observer. With the demands on one’s time nowadays, it is hard to advance beyond this status with regard to an intricate and controversial subject.<br />
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Why have so many Western scholars, even those equipped to question the official account, gone along with the traditional view? Some are repelled by what they regard as Islamophobia, and are therefore less willing than they otherwise might be to criticize. Then there is the formidable pull of groupthink, what seems to be the consensus. While there is, in principle, much admiration for those who “march to a different drummer,” few in fact have the inclination to do so.<br />
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As has been suggested above, the real story is probably very different from the pious fabrication we are offered. A critical review of the meager Muslim sources deployed to explain the events of the seventh century makes it apparent that we must look beyond them. It is essential to examine other, external sources for the truth. Fortunately, in addition to the Islamic sources relied upon by the traditional Muslim arguments to account for the seventh-century developments, we also have several non-Muslim sources that individually and collectively shed significant light on the origins of Islam in the seventh century. Muslim scholars have often deemed these sources hostile and seek to place them out of bounds. Nonetheless, the testimony of these sources has yet to be refuted. In fact, they add much to the unbiased historical reconstruction of the seventh century. These sources have much to say about the authenticity of the Koran and whether we can rely on it as a source for the history of the seventh century.<br />
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To start with, we have two contemporary sources that directly undermine the Qur’an’s position regarding early relations between Arabs and Jews. According to the Qur’an, the Arabs and the Jews (living primarily in Medina) experienced a split between the years 622 and 624, that is, immediately after Muhammad’s flight to Medina. Yet two non-Muslim sources provide a significantly different picture regarding relations between the Jews and the Arabs. The<i> Doctrina Iacobi</i>, a Greek anti-Jewish tract that was written between 634 and 640, ranks as the earliest external testimony regarding Muhammad and his movement in the early seventh century. This text warns of a group comprised of both Jews and Saracens (as the Arabs were then called), citing the perils of falling into the hands of this dangerous combine. This view suggests that the two groups, Jews and Arab Muslims--far from being at loggerheads--were actually in cahoots.<br />
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Yet another contemporary source, the Chronicle written by Sebeos in 660 also discusses relations between Arabs and Jews during the early years of the seventh century. This non-Muslim source asserts that Muhammad established a community comprised of both Ishmaelites (his own people) and Jews, arguing that that they were united by a common lineage linking them to Abraham (Ishmael and Isaac), a birthright claim on the Holy Land, and a monotheistic commitment.<br />
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These contemporary sources paint a very different picture from the one offered by the Qur’an. Instead of a split between the Arabs and the Jews, the two groups are presented as a unit, whose two components were working harmoniously together towards common goals. Of course, the Qur’an, ostensibly the perfect word of God, tells us otherwise.<br />
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In addition to the apparent demographic inconsistency between the Qur’an and other contemporary sources, there is another tradition that may be doubted. The original Hijra may not have been directed to Mecca; instead, it may have been focused towards the city of Jerusalem. This finding is indeed startling, for the Hijra narrative (622) is so central to traditional Islam that it forms the starting point of the calendar. Yet two Nestorian ecclesiastical documents from 676 CE and 680 CE respectively tell us that the emigration of the Arabs at the early part of the seventh century didn’t start at Mecca and end at Medina (as the Muslim story goes) but was headed to what was deemed the promised land--Jerusalem. Under the leadership of Muhammad, the exiles may not have made it that far--Medina is on the road to Jerusalem--but the possibility is sobering. We have of course the legend that Muhammad did travel miraculously to Jerusalem on his death bed, where he mounted on a magical steed to heaven.<br />
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Yet another significant piece of the traditional Islamic narrative has been weakened recent archaeological investigations done on ancient mosques in present-day Iraq and Egypt. According to these studies, which examined the structures and contents of six structures from the seventh century, the prayer rooms were built such that the direction of prayer could not possibly have been towards Mecca, contradicting later Islamic doctrine. Further corroboration of this assertion is provided by Jacob of Edessa, a contemporary Christian writer who wrote a letter in 705 noting that the Arabs prayed toward the east. This evidence undermines the Koranic instruction that the direction of prayer (qibla) to be towards Mecca, a preference that was (according to Muslim tradition) established no later than 624. The focus eastwards--orientation--is a typical practice in Christian churches.<br />
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The combined effect of these pieces of information is to question whether Mecca in fact enjoyed the significance that later tradition has so lavishly accorded it. For defenders of the traditional view, the following conclusion must come as a shock. There is not a single piece of non-Muslim evidence that points to and corroborates this claim for such prominence during the seventh century. In fact, the earliest substantiated external reference to Mecca is in the <i>Continuatio Byzantina-Arabica</i>. a source from early in the reign of the caliph Hisham, who ruled between 724 and 743, one hundred years after the life of Muhammad.<br />
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When challenged with this lack of evidence, Muslim historians turn to the second-century Alexandrian geographer Ptolemy and his reference to a city called "Makoraba." The argument is that by Makaroba Ptolemy meant Mecca. However, the Greek writer’s mention was brief and cursory, and, according to several scholars, Makaroba may be assigned to a number of non-Meccan locations. Other than this early, doubtful reference, we simply have no mention of seventh-century Mecca independent of Muslim sources.<br />
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Flanked by complex and literate polities--the Byzantine and Persian Empires--it is hard to imagine that Mecca was as influential and significant as claimed. If so, surely there would not be such a dearth of evidence. It is not simply that it is not portrayed as a major center--it is not portrayed at all. Educated seventh-century Greeks and Persians had never heard of a place called Mecca. How then could it have been so prominent? Granted that it probably existed, Mecca was probably just a hick town.<br />
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Further diminishing the salience of Mecca as described by Islamic sources is evidence suggesting that the Muslim description of Mecca as a city at the center of trading routes in the seventh century is seriously misleading. In fact seventh-century Mecca was tucked away at a remote part of a huge and desolate peninsula. It requires a lot of special pleading to secure its status as a natural crossroads between a major north-south route and an east-west one. A more natural travel itinerary would have been along the western ridge, skipping a 100-mile detour to barren Mecca. In short, Mecca was not a mecca in those days.<br />
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What were the goods that were supposed to have passed through this entrepot? In all likelihood, it was not spices or incense as Muslim historians have claimed. At best, the items traded were humble items of leather and clothing. This trade would not have supported the thriving metropolis of later Muslim legend. In late antiquity Arabia was simply not a major center of international trade. There is no reason it should have been. After the first century, trade between the Gulf of Aqaba and India was entirely maritime. Why would traders go across the land when an easier and cheaper water route was available?<br />
<br />
One last category of external, non-Muslim evidence further undermines the traditional Muslim picture of seventh-century conditions. The archaeologist Yehuda Nevo has published a detailed study analyzing numerous rock inscriptions and coins dated to the seventh century found on rocks discovered primarily in the Syro-Jordanian desert (Nevo, 2004). In this material, the earliest reference to Muhammad was found on an Arab-Sassanian coin of Khalid Abdallah dated 690 CE.<br />
<br />
Nevo did indeed conclude that there was "religious content" on some of the earlier stone inscriptions recovered and that several of the early seventh century inscriptions did contain "a message of monotheism related to a body of sectarian literature with developed Judeo-Christian conceptions." However, he failed to find a single inscription with a reference to Muhammad, allegedly the most prominent religious figure of the century, concluding that "in all the Arab religious institutions during the Sufyani period (661-684) there is not one reference to Muhammad.” It is hard to imagine that not a single stone inscription attesting to Muhammad’s influence would come to light--unless, of course, the traditional description of Muhammad during the seventh century was simply not accurate. How else to explain this absence of reference to one of the (if not the most) influential and significant characters of the seventh century?<br />
<br />
The most prominent monumental inscription in the early Islamic tradition appears on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem; it provides further evidence that undermines the Islamic narrative. The Dome was built as an "Islamic" sanctuary by Abd-al-Malik in 691. It is not a mosque. Muslim tradition holds that it was built to commemorate the night that Muhammad traveled to heaven to meet with Moses and Allah regarding the number of prayers required of believers (the Mi’raj). This traditional claim not withstanding, the inscriptions say nothing of this event at all. Instead, the inscriptions refer to the messianic status of Jesus, the acceptance of the prophets, and Muhammad’s revelations. More telling is the fact that the inscriptions on the Dome--built sixty years after Muhammad’s death--are the earliest references that we have (outside of Islamic sources) that actually include the terms "Islam" and "Muslim." If Islam had been such a prominent and influential seventh-century religious movement that had been formally canonized forty years before the Dome was constructed, how is it possible that the words Islam and Muslim are not mentioned before that time?<br />
<br />
Clearly, we need to take a close, critical look at the seventh century and the origins of Islam. What must one conclude from the silence and unreliabiity of the Islamic sources coupled with the telling evidence offered by external sources? To begin with, we simply don’t know exactly what happened during the seventh century. We do know that a group of Arab warriors successfully conquered vast territories within and well beyond the Peninsula, certainly a significant feat. However, apart from their own sources, appropriately identified as "salvation history" and not objective narrative,we don’t know how the development of Islam related to these invasions.<br />
<br />
It is reasonable to conclude, supported by the arguments of several revisionist historians, is that Islam as we know it today did not begin to truly "crystallize" until the beginning of the eighth century. At that time, the conquerors realized that they needed a distinctively Arab deity and a system of law to rule a large and diverse group of recently conquered peoples.<br />
<br />
Hence the literary creation of Islam. What better means for a small numerical minority to govern a large, diverse, recently conquered territory than with the power of divine direction? Viewed in this light, Muhammad was not the vessel of the final word of God but a political and military leader who unified the Arab tribes and urged them to conquer in the name of their deity. There is much work to be done towards figuring out the historical events of the seventh century. In the view of the critical-historical school,the first step must be to look beyond the biased and inadequate Islamic sources.<br />
<br />
CAN THE GAP BE BRIDGED?<br />
<br />
Seeking to bring together representatives from several perspectives, Professor Gabriel Said Reynolds, a leading scholar in the field, has organized two international conferences at Notre Dame University in Indiana. The first was held in 2005, the second in 2009. The proceedings of both gatherings have been published.<br />
<br />
The 2005 conference dealt with “The Qur’an in Its Historical Context” (Reynolds, 2007). To judge from the printed volume, this conference combined surveys of existing scholarship with more detailed studies, some exploring the Christian and Jewish background.<br />
<br />
The second conference, “The Qur’an and Its Biblical Subtext,” received extensive press coverage. As with the previous conference, the newer revisionist perspectives were represented, but in a limited way, in what appears to be a concession to established views.<br />
<br />
In keeping with this cautionary note, most of the papers address particular passages or motifs--minutiae in short. Still some general considerations appeared. One of these is this: to what extent does the world view of the Koran continue that of Jewish and Christian sources, especially as expressed in the Syriac (or Aramaic) language? In his recent book Christoph Luxenberg (pseud.) forcefully argues this point. Luxenberg holds that the language of the early compositions found in the Qur'an was not exclusively Arabic, as asserted by the classical commentators, but rather is rooted in the Syro-Aramaic dialect of the seventh-century Meccan Quraysh tribe. Luxenberg’s premise is that the Aramaic tongue--a lingua franca prevalent throughout the Middle East in Late Antiquity and during the early period of Islam--was the language of culture and of the Christian liturgy. As such, it had a profound influence on the scriptural composition and meaning of the contents of the Koran. Luxenberg, who is thought to be a Christian Arab teaching in Germany, has chosen his pseudonym “for safety.” A paper contributed by this scholar was read at the conference (he did not appear in person).<br />
<br />
A second question concerns the unity of the text. To be sure, a scrappy impression must inevitably emerge from perusing the received text, as the Suras are arranged by length. Yet even if the texts are rearranged, as by presumed order of composition for example, the sense of disunity persists. One speaker at the conference argued that each Sura is to be taken as a separate discourse. Following this line of thought, it is vain to try to rule on any matter based on the meme “the Qur’an says.” This approach reinforces the conclusion of recent critical scholars that the Qur’an was put together with scissors and paste, so to speak, and not delivered by the angel Gabriel in accordance with some predetermined unity.<br />
<br />
An example of how one can be diverted by trivia is the one thing that most people interested in the question know about the research of Christoph Luxenberg. He has suggested that the gathering of the “houri” (white ones) promised to martyrs when they reach Heaven doesn’t actually refer to “virgins.” He argues that instead it means “grapes,” perhaps a metonymic evocation of the bounteousness of Paradise.<br />
<br />
On April 22, 2009 the conference was the subject of an oped piece on April 22 in the New York Times (<i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23kristof.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23kristof.html</a>)</i>. Nicholas Kristof writes: “One of the scholars at the Notre Dame conference whom I particularly admire is Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, an Egyptian Muslim who argues eloquently that if the Koran is interpreted sensibly in context then it carries a strong message of social justice and women’s rights.<br />
<br />
“Dr. Abu Zayd’s own career [Kristof continues] underscores the challenges that scholars face in the Muslim world. When he declared that keeping slave girls and taxing non-Muslims were contrary to Islam, he infuriated conservative judges. An Egyptian court declared that he couldn’t be a real Muslim and thus divorced him from his wife (who, as a Muslim woman, was not eligible to be married to a non-Muslim). The couple fled to Europe. . .<br />
<br />
“’The Islamic reformation started as early as the 19th century,’ notes Dr. Abu Zayd, and, of course, it has even earlier roots as well. One important school of Koranic scholarship, Mutazilism, held 1,000 years ago that the Koran need not be interpreted literally, and even today Iranian scholars are surprisingly open to critical scholarship and interpretations.<br />
<br />
“If the Islamic world is going to enjoy a revival, if fundamentalists are to be tamed, if women are to be employed more productively, then moderate interpretations of the Koran will have to gain ascendancy. There are signs of that, including a brand of ‘feminist Islam’ that cites verses and traditions suggesting that the Prophet Muhammad favored women’s rights.”<br />
<br />
Thus Kristof.<br />
<br />
Abu Zayd’s fate shows the perils of embarking on any criticism of Islam and the Qur’an from within the Islamic world. After noting that point, Kristof veers into Polyanna-land. Feminist Islam? Lots of luck.<br />
<br />
The conference and the ensuing book demonstrates the overaraching problem: one can go some ways in this direction, but prudence urges caution. At Notre Dame some critical points were made, but they were drenched in a dense cloud of minutiae. The persistence of such cautionary camouflage is something that must be noted.<br />
<br />
Still, the conference may be a promising start--even though it draws upon research that has been available for decades. As for further developments, we will have to wait and see.<br />
<br />
SOME ASPECTS OF THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD<br />
<br />
As has been noted, the Qur’an provides only a few scattered pieces of information about the life of Muhammad in Mecca and Medina. The later biographies are a mixture of fact and fiction, with no way of telling for certain which is which. Nonetheless there are certain commonly accepted events and characteristics which tell us something of the way Muslims have chosen to remember the Prophet. They therefore tell us something about Islam itself.<br />
<br />
Towards the beginning of this chapter, we rehearsed the basic outline of the life of Muhammad as it is commonly understood, from his birth about 570, the beginning of the revelations when he was about forty years old, the Hijra in 622, and Muhammad’s death in Medina ten years later.<br />
<br />
In what follows we focus on some personal details of Muhammad’s life and character.<br />
<br />
First, like Joseph Smith of the Mormons and David Koresh of the Branch Davidians, Muhammad had well-developed sexual appetites, and he found religious sanction for giving the free reign. As is well known, according to the Qur’an, Muslims are allowed a total of four wives. Yet Muhammad had eleven or thirteen wives, depending on the source that is followed. Conveniently enough, a revelation gave him a special dispensation to have so many. Reputedly, he moved about in the night, satisfying one after the other. The Prophet had no need of Viagra!<br />
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Moreover, one of his brides was extraordinarily young. The Holy Prophet married Aisha when she was six years old, and consummated his marriage with her when she was nine, when he deflowered her. He was then fifty-four years old.<br />
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Abu Bakr, Aisha’s father, and Muhammad had pledged to each other to be brothers. According to the customs prevailing at the time Aisha was supposed enjoy the status of a niece to the Holy Prophet. Yet that did not deter him from asking her hand even when she was only six years old. He consummated the relationship when his bride was nine. The Prophet felt free to disregard the rules whenever they stood between him and the satisfaction of his appetites.<br />
<br />
Some commentators have questioned Aisha’s age as given in the Hadith accounts. Yet it is generally acknowledged that taking child brides (though not a niece, or one regarded as such) was an established custom in primitive Arabia. Perhaps so, but Muhammad is supposed to have introduced a higher standard of morality. Not in this matter, though.<br />
<br />
Muhammad’s lack of ethical scruples is also evident in his relations with local Jews. Muhammad’s relations with the Jews of the Hijaz were complex. From them he learned important details of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish legend. Since he was illiterate, he could not consult written texts, and had to rely on oral report. However, he was deeply disappointed when the Jews of Arabia declined to convert to the supposedly purer monotheism of Islam. Nonetheless, Muhammad married two Jewish woman, Safiyya bint Huyayy, a captive from the Banu Nadir, and Rayhana bint Zayd.<br />
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After his move from Mecca to Medina, he established an understanding known as the Constitution of Medina, intended to reconcile the major Medinan factions, including the Jewish tribes of the Banu Qaynuqa, the Banu Nadir, and the Banu Qurayza. The rights of Jews were ostensibly guaranteed as long as they remained supportive. However, Muhammad used their supposed infractions of the agreement as an excuse to harass and persecute these Jewish groups. After each major battle with opponents, there were accusations of Jewish tribal treachery for aiding the enemies of the community in violation of the Constitution of Medina. After two such battles, the Banu Quaynuqa and the Banu Nadir were expelled "with their families and possessions" from Medina.<br />
<br />
After the Battle of the Trench (627), the Banu Qurayza Jews were accused of conspiring with the Meccans. The Qurayza were were attacked and defeated in battle. They agreed to the appointment of an arbitrator to decide their punishment. Muhammad suggested Sa’d ibn Mua’dh, a leading figure among the Aws, a Jewish tribe that converted to Islam, whom they believed would judge in their favor. However, the arbitrator decreed an execution sentence against the Qurayza; 600-900 Qurayza men were beheaded (except for the few who chose to convert to Islam). All the women and children were enslaved, and their properties divided up among Muhammad’s followers.<br />
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Reputedly, Muhammad met his death at the hands of a Jewish woman, following the conquest of a town called Khaibar, where he took Safiyah, as a wife, and ordered the torture and beheading of her husband Kinnana, the chief of the Jews at Khaibar.<br />
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According to the Sahih Bukhari, as narrated by Anas bin Malik, the Jewish woman brought a poisoned (cooked) sheep for the Prophet who ate from it. The effect of the poison killed the prophet. When the woman was asked why she had done it, she replied that if he were a true prophet God would have spared him. He did not.<br />
<br />
Some doubt has been cast on the accuracy of these reports of violent hostility between Muhammad and the local Jews. It may be that some of the reports are exaggerated, but surely there is some truth in them. It is true that Muhammad was willing to welcome Jews if they converted. This fact may lend substance to the reports by Christian observers a little later that there was a de facto fusion between Muslims and Jews.<br />
<br />
THE “SATANIC VERSES”<br />
<br />
Salman Rushdie got into a great deal of trouble when he published his novel <i>The Satanic Verses</i> in 1988. Rushdie did not invent the notion embodied by his title. It stems, if we are to believe the accounts, from a particularly low point in Muhammad’s career in Mecca.<br />
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Even a cursory reading of the Qur’an will show the it strenuously supports absolute monotheism, strongly opposing what it calls “associating,” the idea that some other figure, whether Jesus, Zeus, or Isis can share in the attributes of the divine. “There is no God but God.” (passim). “He begot no one, nor was he begotten.” (Sura 112).<br />
<br />
Nonetheless, the Qur’an mentions several non-Allah deities in the Qur’an, among them three female deities: al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. Each goddess had a shrine of her own in places not far from Mecca. They enjoyed the exalted rank of daughters of God.<br />
<br />
As it now reads, the Qur'an--as one would expect--rejects these deities. Yet did the Qur'an and Muhammad always reject them?<br />
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During Muhammad’s years in Mecca (until 622), his followers were few. His movement grew slowly and as it did attitudes became sharply polarized. The Prophet felt the pain of estrangement from his tribe. According to the standard biographical and historical accounts (such as the writings of at-Tabari and Ibn Sa’d), Muhammad longed for better relations and reconciliation with his community. God proved accommodating, revealing Sura 53 to Muhammad. This text includes two crucial verses:<br />
<br />
“Have ye thought upon al-Lat and al-Uzza And Manat, the third, the other?” (53:19,20) In the original text two more verses followed (the “Satanic verses”): “These are the exalted cranes (intermediaries) /Whose intercession is to be hoped for.”<br />
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The cranes whose intercession was sought were, of course, the three goddesses. Once this ukase was proclaimed, Muhammad, his followers, and the pagan Arabs all prostrated themselves in unison. Tensions eased, and there was a sense of general satisfaction. So at least we are told.<br />
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But the Prophet soon regretted what had happened. How to account for it? Jibril (Gabriel), the angel of revelation, appeared with distressing news: Satan had cunningly exploited Muhammad's desire for reconciliation with the pagan leaders by feeding him the satanic verses. In this way the “interceding cranes” shamelessly flew onto their perches pitched in the very revelation of God.<br />
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They were not destined to reside there permanently, though, Not long after, the two offending verses disappeared. As it now reads the sura continues: “Are yours the males and His the females? That indeed were an unfair division!” (53:21,22)<br />
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The sense appears to be this. By custom the Arabs favor male offspring over females, Yet the traditional polytheistic view seems to contradict this principle, for the high God, most unpatriarchally, seems to prefer daughters (the goddesses). Surely this cannot be right. Conclusion? The three goddesses are false.<br />
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Two other passages from the Qur'an deal with the compromise between Muhammad and the traditionalists, concluding with Muhammad's eventual rejection of it.<br />
<br />
The first reads: “And they indeed strove to beguile thee (Muhammad) away from that wherewith We (God) have inspired thee, that thou shouldst invent other than it against Us; and then would they have accepted thee as a friend. And if We had not made thee wholly firm thou mightest almost have inclined unto them a little. Then had We made thee taste a double (punishment) of living and a double (punishment) of dying, then hadst thou found no helper against Us.” (17:73-75)<br />
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The second passage seeks to comfort Muhammad: “Never sent We a messenger or a prophet before thee but when He recited (the message) Satan proposed (opposition) in respect of that which he recited thereof. But Allah abolisheth that which Satan proposeth. Then Allah establisheth His revelations. Allah is Knower, Wise; “That He may make that which the devil proposeth a temptation for those in whose hearts is a disease, and those whose hearts are hardened – Lo! the evil-doers are in open schism.” (22:52-53)<br />
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These verses substantiate the satanic-verses conundrum. Whether these events actually happened as described remains, like much in seventh-century Arabia, obscure. But the account was honored by Muslims over many generations. Astoundingly, they affected to believe that Satan had the power to insert subversive verses into the message from God, in the Holy Qur'an itself. Satan suborned the Prophet, making him recite his demonic words as God's words!<br />
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In due course God took corrective action. He authorized a 2.0 version, purged of the satanic input.<br />
<br />
Satan or no Satan, it seems that like some modern writer, God could edit himself. He could delete an awkward verse or two, replacing them with what hindsight showed was better content: “Such of Our revelations as We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that Allah is able to do all things?” (2:106 ;cf. 16:101).<br />
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This is the doctrine of Naskh, or abrogation. which employs the logic of chronology and progressive revelation. Different situations require different strategies, and the newer approach supplants the previous one. A familiar example is the contrast between the relatively peaceful verses ascribed to the Meccan period and the more warlike ones of the subsequent Medina era. The latter abrogate the former. For this reason the familiar apologetic gambit of citing verses from the earlier phase of development to suggest that Islam is a religion of peace is not persuasive. These pacific texts have been superseded by belllicose ones.<br />
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The Naskh principle was acknowledged by Muslim theologians of later centuries, who carefully sorted out which Quranic passages were abrogating and which were abrogated.<br />
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Today, many Muslims disingenuously seek to deny this principle, rejecting the very possibility that God could cancel out or change his word in any way or form. Unlike mere mortals, God does not change his mind. In their damage-control efforts, they sometimes limit the applicability of Qur'an 2:106 (cited above) to the Qur'an’s abrogation of the previous Scriptures of Moses and Jesus—even though the Qur'an clearly teaches that these Scriptures are also the Word of God. As such they are presumably unchangeable.<br />
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Today, the pious tend to resist the idea (once firmly believed) the satanic verses formerly disgraced the Holy Qur'an. Many modern Muslims find it simply inconceivable that Muhammad, even under the severest pressures, would be so weak as to compromise with his Meccan enemies by making concessions to pagan polytheism. Even more insidious is the notion that Satan could somehow "whisper" his thoughts into the substance of God's holy Word, the Qur'an. For if Satan managed this once, could he not have done so on other occasions, yielding other satanic blather that actually lingers in the Holy Book?<br />
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If the matter were not so scandalous, this recognition could pave the way for a genuine renewal of Islam, by purging it of inhumane (“satanic”) survivals from the primitive tribal society of early medieval Arabia. Unfortunately, such a project would not enjoy much credit.<br />
<br />
Our information about the satanic verses and the circumstances surrounding their revelation stems from the later Muslim accounts of at-Tabari and Ibn Sa’d. As we have noted, critical study suggeststhat these sources are not altogether trustworthy. In this instance, could they not simply have been mistaken? No one can know for sure, but on the microlevel, it seems hard to believe that someone could have come along and invented two spurious verses which fit seamlessly into the texts.<br />
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There is a broader issue. Modern Muslims who simply dismiss the account of the early biographers as fabricated and unhistorical must still cope with the scandal that lingers--why was this ludicrous story so long accepted by pious believers?<br />
<br />
WAR AND VIOLENCE<br />
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Islam is a “religion of peace.” So says president George W. Bush in an opinion shared by numerous admirers of Islam, both Muslim and non-Muslim.<br />
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This view is simply false. The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers. Here are a few examples.<br />
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"They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks." (Qur’an 4:89)<br />
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"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement." (Qur’an 5:33).<br />
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"I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them." (Qur’an 8:12).<br />
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"And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip (Allah's Purpose). Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy." (Qur’an 8:59-60).<br />
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"Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! That is best for you if ye but knew." (Qur’an 9:41).<br />
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"O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness." (Qur’an 9:23).<br />
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"Surely Allah loves those who fight in His way." (Qur’an 61:41).<br />
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Apologists for Islam seek to balance these verses with others supporting peace and compromise. Muslim apologists speak of the "risks" of trying to interpret the Qur'an without their assistance. This assistance is usually special pleading.<br />
<br />
The key point is this. The relatively peaceful verses all stem from the earlier “Meccan” group according to the traditional reckoning. According to the doctrine of Abrogation, they are superseded by the later, warlike verses that stem from the Medina period. So the “peaceful” verses are null and void.<br />
<br />
The matter is summed up by the notorious “sword verse.” “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity [zakat], then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Qur’an 9:5). Unbelievers have two choices: either to suffer continual harassment, and possible death; or to convert to Islam (repent”).<br />
<br />
Until recently, substantial minorities of Christians and Jews remained in Islamic countries. However, they were only permitted to live there if they payed a special tax called the jizya. The act of paying this tax was accompanied by harsh humiliation rituals. Other disabilities were imposed as well.<br />
<br />
This tolerance, if such it may be termed, is reserved for the “peoples of the book,” Christians and Jews. Other groups have faced a much harsher fate.<br />
<br />
For five centuries, beginning about 1000 CE Hindus suffered the brutal slaughter of tens of millions, including the massacre of those who defending their temples from destruction. Buddhists escaped a similar fate only because by that time most of them lived outside the Indian subcontinent. Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Persia, is a particular object of hatred; it barely survives in modern Iran.<br />
<br />
Islam never gives up what it conquers, be it religion, culture, or language. Smugly convinced of its own perfection, it shuns self-examination and represses criticism.<br />
<br />
These beliefs are shored up by Islam's dualistic world view that pits Dar al-Islam (the "realm of submission," i.e., the Islamic world), against Dar al-Harb (the "realm of war," i.e., the non-Islamic world). While these struggles are violent, ultimately they will cease--when the latter is swallowed up by the former. This is the real meaning of jihad.<br />
<br />
The concept of struggle is highlighted by the following example. Based on the ten-year treaty of Hudaibiya (628), ratified between Muhammad and his Quraysh opponents in Mecca, ten years is, theoretically, the maximum amount of time Muslims can be at peace with infidels. Based on Muhammad's example of breaking the treaty after two years (by citing a sole infraction), the sole function of the "peace treaty" (or hudna) is to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup before going on the offensive once more. In this way oath-breaking and dissimulation became standard practice in dealing with Unbelievers. In the campaign to reduce them to obedience no holds are barred.<br />
<br />
Regrettably, human beings, especially men, are subject to an inborn tendency to aggression and violence. Most ethical traditions, and the advance of civilization itself, have sought to curb this proclivity. Yet Islam, given Muhammad's own martial legacy, aggravates and exalts this tendency to hostility.<br />
<br />
And there is more. In Islamic law, the penalty for apostasy is death. Since Islam is conceived as a community and not an aggregation of individuals, it follows that apostasy is treason. The four Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence, in concert with Shi’a scholars, concur in their conclusion that a sane adult male apostate must be executed. A female apostate may be put to death, according to the majority view, or imprisoned until she repents, according to others.<br />
<br />
Some apologists have suggested that such harsh penalties are characteristic only of a bygone age, that of primitive Islam. As societies have progressed, they have been discarded. This claim is belied by recent evidence. Over and over again, radical elements of Islam issue accusations of apostasy and demands that it be punished.<br />
<br />
Today of 57 Islamic countries, six make apostasy from Islam a crime punishable by death: Afghanistan, Saudia Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, and Somalia. According the US State Department, there have been no reports any executions carried out for this crime by the government of Saudi Arabia for several years. However, this absence may simply reflect the severity of the regime. No Saudi would even dare think of declaring himself an apostate, and in any case there are no churches or synagogues there for such a person to join. In Pakistan, however, vigilante attacks against alleged apostates are common.<br />
<br />
In Afghanistan, the recent case of Abdul Rahman has achieved particular notoriety. In early 2006, Rahman was arrested and held by Afghan authorities on charges that he converted from Islam to Christianity, a capital offense. Muslim clerics in the country pushed for a death sentence, but after international pressure, he was released and secretly conveyed to Italy, where he was given asylum.<br />
<br />
In 1993, an Egyptian Muslim professor named Nasr Abu Zayd was divorced from his wife by an Egyptian court on the grounds that his controversial writings about the Qur'an demonstrated his apostasy. He subsequently fled to Europe with his wife. Another Egyptian professor, Farag Foda, was killed in 1992 by masked men after criticizing Muslim fundamentalists and announcing plans to form a new movement for Egyptians of all religions.<br />
<br />
The case of the British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie has had enormous international resonance. His fourth novel, <i>The Satanic Verses</i> (1988), ignited a major controversy because of a supposedly disrespectful portrait of Muhammad. (Rushdie’s heritage is Muslim.) The novel drew protests in a number of countries, some of them violent. In February 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him. For his own safety Rushdie had to go into hiding for a number of years.<br />
<br />
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch intellectual and writer. An apostate, she is a prominent critic of Islam, and her screenplay for Theo Van Gogh’s film Submission led to death threats. Hirsi Ali currently serves as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. Even in the United States she can move about only under the protection of armed guards.<br />
<br />
ZAKAT AND TAXATION<br />
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In Islam, zakat, or the obligatory giving of alms, is the Third of the five pillars of Islam. Various rules attach to the practice, but in general terms, a Muslims is required to give donate 2.5% of ones savings and business revenue, as well as 5-10% of ones harvest. In principle, the recipients include the destitute, the working poor, those who are unable to pay off their own debts, stranded travelers, and others who need help. "The alms are only for the poor and the needy, and those who collect them, and those whose hearts are to be reconciled, and to free the captives and the debtors, and for the cause of Allah, and (for) the wayfarers; a duty imposed by Allah. Allah is knower, Wise." (Qur'an 9:60). A pious person may also give as much as he or she pleases as sadaqa, and does so preferably in secret.<br />
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This charity is one of the proudest traditions of Islam. However, only Muslims are eligible for this assistance.<br />
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Zakat is not to be paid to a non-Muslim ruler. Today those Muslims who live in a non-Muslim country such as the United States and the United Kingdom, do not pay zakat to the government of that country. Instead they pay their share as charity to Muslim organizations like CAIR in the US or the Al Mujahiroun in UK. In practice it has proved difficult to cordon off these funds from those that are allocated financing global terrorism. Other charitable funds are devoted to madrassas, which often teach extremist views.<br />
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Muslim ideas about taxation are very different from those that prevail in Western democracies. The American Revolution relied on the principle “no taxation without representation,” with the idea that constitutional equality was a precondition for the sovereign exercise of levying taxes.<br />
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In Western countries taxes are levied without regard for one's communal origins. The tax one pays grants the payer entitlement to the full protection of the state, and thus full and equal citizenship. The goal of the tax is the same with everyone: it permits the state to provide for the security and well being of all its citizens.<br />
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This is not the case under dhimmitude, the subordinate status imposed on non-Muslims who dwell in the Dar al-Islam, the “house of submission.” Dhimmis were required to pay a special tax, the jizya. This practice has its origins in Sura 9:29 of the Qur’an, where it is explicitly revealed as a mark of the subjugation of conquered non-Muslims. The tax was levied annually, and special rites of humiliation, including striking and physical harassment, prevailed.<br />
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Islamic law makes it clear that the jizya is punitive. As a symbol of subjection, the jizya delivers the message that the state is not the common property of all its permanent residents: it belongs only to Muslims. As conquered outsiders, dhimmis must be regularly reminded of their inferior condition. The tax also punishes them for their disbelief in Islam.<br />
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In an Islamic State, the non-Muslims are in a worse situation than prisoners out on parole, since they are still being punished, and will continue to be so all long as they do not convert to the True Faith. However exemplary their conduct, they do not rank as “good, law-abiding citizens. Their crime is their faith.<br />
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The jizya tax has a unique status. Unlike Western taxes, payment does not grant equality and liberty to the payee, but rather merely temporary permission to survive for another tax period. Failure to pay may result in death.<br />
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The term dhimmitude was coined by the British scholar Bat Ye’or in 1983 to characterize the legal and social conditions of Jews and Christians subject to Muslim rule. The expression comes from dhimmi, an Arabic word meaning "protected". Dhimmi was the name applied by the Arab-Muslim conquerors to indigenous non-Muslim populations who surrendered by a treaty (dhimma) to Muslim domination. Islamic conquests expanded over vast territories in Africa, Europe and Asia, for over a millennium (638-1683), leading to the acquisition of ever-new territories in which the principles of dhimmitude applied.<br />
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Dhimmitude is a broad term, encompassing the relationship of Muslims and non-Muslims at the theological, social, political and economical levels. It also incorporates the relationship between the numerous ethno-religious dhimmi groups and the culture of oppression that they have necessarily developed to cope with an inferior status that lasted for centuries. The effects persist in Muslim countries today, leading to a large emigration of Christians and Jews form those nations.<br />
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Dhimmitude is a comprehensive, integrated system, based on Islamic theology. Its nature cannot be gauged merely by examining the specific position of any one community at a given time and in a given place. Dhimmitude must be appraised according to its overall laws and customs, irrespective of circumstances and political contingencies.<br />
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ABRAHAM (IBRAHIM) IN MUSLIM TRADITION<br />
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According to Muslim belief, Ibrahim (the biblical patriarch Abraham) is a major prophet. He was the son of Azar and the father of Ismail (Ishmael)—his first born son—and Is'haq (Isaac), his second born, both of whom rank as prophets in Islamic tradition. Ismail is considered the father of some of the Arabs—specifically Father of the Arabized Arabs, peoples who became Arab—and Isaac is considered the Father of the Hebrews<br />
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As the first of the line, Ibrahim/Abraham enjoys an exalted status as the Father of the Prophets. He is also commonly termed Khalil Allah, or “Friend of God.” Ostensibly, Ibrahim is the person who gave Muslims that name (“those who submit to God”). He is considered the archetype of a hanif, that is a faithful monotheist. Abraham is discussed or mentioned in 25 of the Qur’an’s 114 suras, more than any other hallowed individual, with the exception of Moses.<br />
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For Jews, Abraham figures as the founder of Judaism. Christians essentially agree, though regarding Abraham as the initiator of a religious evolution that would eventually achieve its triumphal completion in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. For Muslims the matter is entirely different. Abraham/Ibrahim founded a pure monotheism, which gradually became corrupted. After many centuries of error and confusion, the unalloyed monotheism he championed was restored. thanks the the revelations vouched to the Messenger of God, Muhammad.<br />
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As discussed in Chapter One, the people who follow the faith of Abraham--ostensibly the same as that of Islam--are called Millat Ibrahim.<br />
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The importance of Abraham in Islamic tradition transpires in the five daily prayers of Muslims. Apart from Muhammad, Abraham, is the only other prophet of God who is mentioned by name four times in each of the five daily prayers that Muslims perform. This is done during the Durood recitation of the prayer where Muslims send their blessings to Muhammad.<br />
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The Qur'an treats Abraham as the spiritual father of all the believers. He is mentioned as an upright person who was neither a polytheist nor a Christian nor a Jew (Qur’an 3:67). According to the Qur'an, Abraham reached the conclusion that anything subject to disappearance could not be worthy of worship, and thus became a monotheist (Qur’an 6:76-83). Some Sunni Muslims believe that Azar the idol-maker was the father of Abraham, while other Sunnis and Shias hold that Tarakh was his father and Azar was Abraham's uncle.<br />
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Echoing a Jewish legend, Abraham is alleged to have broken Azar's idols, calling on his community to worship the true God instead. The Qur’an also mentions a confrontation between a king, not mentioned by name, and Abraham (2:258). Following Jewish sources, Muslim commentators identify Nimrod as the king. In Abraham's confrontation with his royal adversary, the prophet maintains that God is the one who gives life and gives death. The king responds by bringing out two people sentenced to death. He releases one and kills the other in a rather gross attempt to make the point that he also brings life and death. Abraham refutes this claim by asserting that God brings the Sun out from the east, and so he asks the king to bring it from the west. The wicked king is then perplexed and angered.<br />
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This tale was evidently culled from a rich deposit of Jewish legend. First, it should be noted that according to the Hebrew Bible there is a gap of seven generations between them, Nimrod being Noah’s great grandson while Abraham was ten generations removed from Noah. Nevertheless, later Jewish tradition brings the two of them together in a cataclysmic collision, a potent symbol of the cosmic confrontation between Good and Evil, and specifically of monotheism against paganism and idolatry.<br />
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This tradition first appears in the writings of Pseudo-Philo, continues in the Talmud, passing through later rabbinical writings in the Middle Ages. In some versions, as in Josephus), Nimrod is a man who sets his will against that of God. In others, he proclaims himself a god and is worshipped as such by his subjects, sometimes with his consort Semiramis honored as a goddess at his side.<br />
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A celestial portent tells tells Nimrod and his astrologers of the impending birth of Abraham, who would put an end to idolatry. Nimrod therefore orders the killing of all newborn babies. However, Abraham's mother escapes into the fields and gives birth secretly (in some accounts, the baby Abraham is placed in a manger). At a young age Abraham recognizes God and starts worshipping Him. He confronts Nimrod, advising him face-to-face to cease his idolatry, whereupon Nimrod orders him burned at the stake. In some versions, Nimrod has his subjects gather wood for four whole years, so as to burn Abraham in the biggest bonfire the world had seen (a story possibly inspired or confused with Nimrod's building of the Tower of Babel). Yet once the fire is lit, Abraham walks out unscathed, recalling the escape of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the three men from the fiery furnace (Daniel, chapter one).<br />
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Such are the Jewish legends which provided a quarry of sources for this and other Qur’an accounts of worthies of earlier times. Borrowings of this kind raise serious questions about the originality and authority of the Qur’an. At all events, the well-known but non-canonical Qisas al-Anbiya (“Stories of the Prophets”) by Ibn Kathir records other purported details of Abraham’s life.<br />
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Abraham has an important role in the Hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. Abraham's footprint is displayed outside the Kaaba, where it is protected and guarded by the Saudi Arabian Mutawa (Religious Police). The annual Hajj, the fifth Pillar of Islam, ostensibly retraces Abraham's, Hagar's, and Ismail's journey to the sacred site of the Kaaba. Islamic tradition narrates that Abraham's subsequent visits, after leaving Ismail and Hagar to reside in Arabia, were not only to visit his son Ismail but also to construct the first house of worship for God in conjunction with the Kaaba in fulfillment of God's command.<br />
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A principal aspect of the Hajj is remembering God's test of Abraham where he was asked to sacrifice his first-born son Ismail. Also commemorated is his path to the altar where Iblis (the Devil) attempted to dissuade him three times. Those places where Satan appeared are marked with three symbolic pillars where pilgrims throw stones. Moreover a part of the Hajj is a commemoration of the sacrifice and efforts of Abraham’s wife Hagar to find water in the desert for her son Ismail, when he was near death with thirst. She ran between two hills, Al-Safa and Al-Marwa, seven times in search of help. This ritual, known as Saaee in Arabic (which means seeking or searching), is mandatory for all pilgrims to Mecca. Finally, on Mount Marwa, Hagar saw the angel Jibreel (Gabriel) sheltering her son Ismail from the sun as a spring of water emerged from beneath his feet. That spring became the basis of founding the city of Mecca, since fresh water was scarce in that barren land. The water from the spring, known to Muslims as Zam Zam, is still running, as it has been for thousands of years, purportedly since this event took place.<br />
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The Qur'an states that Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son. The son is not however named in the Qur'an (e.g., 37:102–113). Early Islamic days saw a dispute over the identity of the son. However, Some Muslim scholars came to endorse that it was Ismail but some others--notably Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, one of the first exegetes of the Qur’an--held that it was clearly Isaac and not Ishmael. Eventually, it was generally agreed that Ismail was the son whom God wished Abraham to sacrifice.<br />
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The whole episode of the sacrifice is regarded as a trial that Abraham had to face from God. As such it is celebrated by Muslims on the day of Eid al-Adha, or “festival of sacrifice.” <br />
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THE ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE: HOW GOLDEN WAS IT?<br />
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Most observers of the violence perpetrated by today’s Islamic extremists would agree that this turbulence is in part a response to a series of ongoing frustrations. Among them are a sense of humiliation engendered by the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq; the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli struggle; the grievances (justified or not) of the Muslim diaspora in Western Europe; and the corruption and incompetence of their own governments.<br />
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Yet a proper appreciation of the disturbances requires a much longer time frame. In a nutshell that is as follows. Today the West is powerful; Islam is nearly powerless (and would be completely so, if it were not for petroleum). This is not the way things were supposed to work. Supplanting Judaism and Christianity and taking its place as the final, perfected version of the Abrahamic religious tradition, Islam must also foster the most advanced society.<br />
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That conclusion would seem logical. Why have things not turned out that way?<br />
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The centuries following the Islamic conquests beginning in the seventh century saw the prevalence of an easy superiority—or so we are told. Islam led the world in the arts and sciences and overall quality of life. Then something mysterious happened. Islam was knocked off its throne, and the West usurped its place. In this way, to use crude language, Islam went from being a "top" to a "bottom," while the West ceased to be a bottom and became a top. This is quite a reversal.<br />
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This metamorphosis has elicited various explanations. The geographical situation of the West turned out to be more advantageous, especially with regard to colonizing the New World. The challenges of a cold climate and a relatively undeveloped agriculture caused Westerners to rise to the challenge, in a way that the more easy-going situation of a semitropical environment did not. Islam became increasingly the prey of civil disturbances and foreign incursions, especially by the Mongols and Turks. Or perhaps the answer lies in the realm of ideas. The West experienced the Reformation, ushering in an age of religious pluralism. By contrast, Islam has never had a Reformation.<br />
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My own answer is that the question is largely a pseudo-problem. Islam was never so advantageously seated with regard to the West as is commonly believed. By the year 1300 the population of Europe attained, demographers have estimated, one hundred million people. Reliable estimates are hard to find in the far-flung realms of Islam, but I suspect that core Muslim lands, much of them desert, also held about one hundred million people.<br />
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Unaccountably absent in this balance sheet is China. The population of Song and Yuan China was in fact more than one hundred million, and Sinic society had achieved countless technological advances, from printing and ceramics to gun powder and large seagoing vessels guided by the compass. China had successfully exported its civilization to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Today this heritage forms the basis of he mighty engines of the East Asian economies. So it is not just the West that has shown up the pretensions of Islamic triumphalism, but even more the East, which, being for the most part neither Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim, had no benefit of the Abrahamic heritage.<br />
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In short it is important to bear in mind that there were <i>three </i>major players in the Old World—China and Far Eastern civilization; Islam; and the Christian West. The Crusaders had tried their hand at overthrowing Islam, and eventually failed. But the East succeeded, through the fury of the Mongols. When Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad in 1258, it was clear that religious superiority, presumed or real, was no magic talisman, protecting Islam from unbelievers. Today, many think, it is East Asia, not Islam, that will supplant the West. The jihadists and Muslim supremacists may defeat the West, but then they will have to reckon with an even more formidable rival in East Asia, one which does not present the "soft underbelly" of compliant liberal institutions.<br />
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Here is the picture in a nutshell. In the high middle ages the three societies were roughly equal. Then the West became dominant. In the event, Islam turned out to an "also ran," poor marks for the True Faith.<br />
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Viewed as it is in a cracked mirror, this world-historical disappointment fuels much of the rage of the Muslims. The rage will continue, but the imbalance is not likely to be addressed. There is no way of generating prosperity and intellectual freedom where the conditions of these are lacking.<br />
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Let us look more closely at the supposed triumphs of medieval Islam, when it was supposedly on top (though in reality probably China was). We must address the myth of the Islamic Golden Age.<br />
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Medieval Islamic science is thought to be its crown jewel. The essential prerequisite for this accomplishment was the great translation movement in starting in the eighth century. Most of the translators were Christians and Jews who were bilingual (Greek and Arabic) or trilingual (Greek, Syriac, and Arabic). A few translators, responsible for transmitting Indian science were Persians, working with Pahlevi works rendering Indic originals.<br />
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In this way, Islamic science was always eclectic. The relationship with the Qur’an was always problematic. It has been said, with some justification, that Islamic science triumphed despite Islam. Or perhaps more accurately, that it operated in a situation that was compartmented so as to separate itself from the privileged realm of religion.<br />
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At all events for several centuries production was intense, producing literally thousands of manuscripts, most of which remain unpublished (Dallal, 2010). The institutional setting for this flowering remains unclear. In fact, the popular notion of great universities in medieval Islamic countries is a myth. What did exist were madrasas or religious colleges. However, as George Makdisi remarks, “[n]neither the madrasa nor its cognate institutions harbored any but the religious sciences and their ancillary subjects.” (Makdisi, 1981). This situation contrasts with the early European universities; from the start, places like Salerno and Padua offered advanced studies in such fields as medicine and law.<br />
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Islamic science seems to have enjoyed some patronage from individual rulers and grandees. What made it vital, however, was networking. Sometimes the investigators traveled, impelled by curiosity and desire to avoid local turmoil. Mostly, however, they communicated by commerce, making their working processes a kind of Internet, but in slow motion.<br />
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Probably the greatest triumphs of Islam were in mathematics, including algebra and trigonometry. Even here they erected their edifice on foreign foundations. Geometry, systematized by Euclid, was Greek. Moreover, the "Arabic" numbers were originally Indian. It was the Indians who invented the all-important concept of zero. Significantly, math is the field of study least likely to collide with established religion.<br />
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In astronomy the Muslim scientists were never able to free themselves from the dominance of Ptolemy’s Almagest, with its geocentric concept of the universe. (The notion that Copernicus borrowed directly from Islamic sources is a myth.) Of course there was progress in detail, and Islamic toponymics has left significant traces in the star map: Aldbeberan, Betelgeuse, Rigel.<br />
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What is usually termed Islamic philosophy consisted mainly of footnotes to the Greek thinkers. Philosophy always had a precarious situation, threatened by the perception of any encroachment on religious orthodoxy. Restrictions on freedom of thought are summed up by the concept of the "closing of the gate of Ijtihad." Somewhat loosely, one can render ijtihad as "freedom of thought." In the light of this event, which may have occurred as long as a thousand years ago, there is no longer any room for debate on many key questions. Today the Muslim intelligentsia, the ulema, is extraordinarily diffuse in its distribution. Yet the melancholy truth is that this body of thinkers has achieved uniformity on such subjects as homosexuality, the status of women, and the lending of money for interest. For a long time, there has been no room for debate on these matters.<br />
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But what about those accounts of Western scholars traveling to Moorish Spain to study and translate Islamic versions of the Greek scientific classics? Such reports are true, but in due course Europe learned that there were better versions of these texts, in the original Greek, housed in the libraries of Byzantium.<br />
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And what about those numerous, well-stocked libraries of Andalusia that we hear about? Once again, this claim is misleading. By and large the "libraries" consisted of locked cabinets in madrasas containing a few battered Korans and commentaries thereupon. Moorish civilization was in fact a condominium, established on both sides of the straits. Morocco, not ravaged by the Catholic kings, had a similar culture and similar wealth. If there were great libraries they should have flourished in Morocco as well as in al-Andalus. Where are Morocco’s great libraries?<br />
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In art the flourishing craft traditions fostered the creation of many beguiling objects in metalwork, pottery, illuminated manuscripts. Yet Islam created no Giotto or Raphael; no Rembrandt or Rubens. This was not because of a supposed ban on images—there are plenty of images in illuminated manuscripts, but because painting as such never developed as a major art.<br />
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So the fabled Golden Age of Islam is a mixed bag. But what about the West? Wasn’t it shrouded in darkness, dependent on cultural imports from Islam? Not very much. Gothic architecture, one of the most splendid achievements of Europe’s "Dark Age,"was not originally "Saracen." Scholars have long exploded that claim. And the intricate rhymes and strophe patterns of Provençal poetry, so far from being derived from Islam, served in fact as the model for Arabic works of similar character in Andalusia. Paper, it is true, came to us from Islamic lands, but the Muslims had purloined the technique from the Chinese.<br />
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In the theory and practice of politics, Islam never developed any tradition of representative government or a doctrine of the separation of powers. Religious and secular authority were inextricably mixed in Islam. In Islamic tradition the concept of the rule of law as we know it is absent, as this requires a powerful tradition of secular law. With its mixture of Roman law and the common law, the West successfully forged such an instrument. Islam only created Shari’a law, which, bizarrely, its adepts wish to impose on Western Europe. Until the recent controversial insistence on introducing this religious law, the Western tradition of jurisprudence remained the norm throughout the world, including such countries as Turkey, India, and Japan.<br />
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Perhaps the least known accomplishment of the West lies in its ability to bridge science, on the one hand, and daily life on the other. Wind mills and water mills were already known in ancient times. Yet they proliferated only after 1000 in Western Europe. Experiments with their gears and drives led to the creation of a host of other machines. In a development that culminated in the Industrial Revolution, Europe became a culture of machines. Burdened by a fatuous sense of its own superiority, Islam was very slow to accept Western technology.<br />
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Why did the West become so mechanically conscious? The answer lies in large measure in social structure. Although there were large serf populations, slavery as such died out in Western Europe (unlike Islam, where reputedly the peculiar institution survives until this day). Absence of slaves (yielding a labor shortage, abetted eventually by the Black Death), required substitutes of a nonhuman variety. To tend these machines a new class of artisans arose, outside of the normal triad of clergy, nobles, and serfs.<br />
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Eventually the advance of the interests of the artisans and the cultivation of machines became inseparable.<br />
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Such was the accomplishment of "Dark Age" Europe.<br />
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The earlier part of this section places the idea of the Islamic Golden Age under the microscope. This field of study has a long history of embellishment. Beginning with the European Enlightenment, it became conventional wisdom to laud Islam’s splendor in contrast to the West’s squalor.<br />
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Whence did the complementary notion of Europe’s Dark Ages arise? Historians of ideas have traced it back to the Renaissance, whose adepts sought to differentiate themselves in this manner from the preceding Gothic period. However, the notion of the Dark Ages only really came into its own in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, when writers like Edward Gibbon and Voltaire sought to exalt Islam (Golden Age myth and all) as a counterweight to Christianity.<br />
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Nineteenth-century Romantics shifted attention to Moorish Spain, viewed in its full pathos as one of history’s great lost causes. A well-known American example is the Tales of the Alhambra (1832) by Washington Irving. To be sure, the expulsion of the Moors, following that of the Jews, served to impoverish the cultural life of the Peninsula, as Germán Arciniegas and others have emphasized. What is often forgotten, however, is that starting in the eleventh century much of the brilliance of Moorish civilization had been extinguished by two puritanical Berber groups, the Almoravids and Almohads.<br />
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For different reasons, then, Westerners and Muslims alike have had an interest in promoting the myth of Golden Age Islam. The former were seeking to castigate certain trends in their own society; the latter to recover a glorious past. It is time, though, to take off the rose-colored glasses.<br />
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Let us resume the main points. 1) The European Middle Ages were not simply a horrible nightmare of barbarism and ignorance, as the Enlightenment would have it. Its achievements, particularly in the realm of technology, were extraordinary. 2) The accomplishments of the Islamic Golden age were also substantial. But they were not suit generis. 3) The record has been distorted by the omission of a third major player, China. Kenneth Pomeranz (<i>The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy,</i> 2000) has argued, convincingly I think, that that the Song Dynasty (960-1279) was the most advanced of its day, outpacing both Islam and Europe. Those who extol medieval Islam charge doubters with ethnocentrism. They themselves are guilty of this fault, because they regularly omit China.<br />
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SOME OVERARCHING CONSIDERATIONS<br />
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In various ways, the above text has sought to trace the effects of the effort, currently ongoing, to subject the founding texts and traditions of Islam to the solvents of the Higher Criticism. These inquiries are, it is fair to say, taboo throughout the Islam world. Some of the scholars who are conducting them have found it prudent to hide their names under pseudonyms.<br />
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Still, these findings cannot be kept bottled up forever. Eventually the critiques must spread wider, at first among some circles of the Muslim diaspora, then into the Abode of Islam itself. Moderate Muslims must ask themselves what position is appropriate to assume about these matters, affecting beliefs they profess to be of central importance to them. The orthodox will respond with fury. At the very least the controversy will give the West some breathing room. It may even spark the long-desired Islamic Reformation, though this outcome is a long shot.<br />
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Regrettably, the discussion of fundamentals will not contribute much one way or the other to the spread of democracy in the Islamic world. Under present circumstances that is largely a fantasy in certain circles in the West. On the other side, we have the essentialist notion of the "Arab mind," monolithic and unchanging. The Arabs, and Muslims more generally, do change, but not usually in the ways we would desire.<br />
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Nor will the controversy do much to dissipate the historical belief in the world dichotomy between the Abode of Islam, the territories that have submitted, and the Abode of Warfare, where we have the misfortune to live. This dichotomy makes problematic the "can’t we all just get along" line of argument. Yes, we can get along, provided we agree to Muslim rule.<br />
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Looking at the matter in the most general perspective, there are two problems with Islam. The first has to do with the concern that growing Muslim populations in Western Europe will erode the traditions of tolerance and liberalism that have won at great cost there over the centuries. If we are not careful, the pessimists tell us, Europe will be transformed into Eurabia. I will not seek to assess this present-minded literature here.<br />
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The second problem has to do with the nature of Islam, the character it assumed at the time of its formation and in the course of the first conquests in the Middle East.<br />
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Responses to this question belong to two factions, which I tentatively dub the Rodney King School (he of “can’t we all just get along”); and the I’m from Missouri School, which challenges the claim that Islam is fundamentally a religion of peace and tolerance. Members of the first school run the risk of being dubbed cheer-leaders and naive apologists, while those of the latter persuasion can seem grim, prosecutorial, and relentless. As we shall see, the latter group is also commonly termed “right-wing.”<br />
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By common consent, the dean of the pro-Islamic faction is John (Louis) Esposito (born 1940), who is a professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, where he is also the director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Esposito also works as a Senior Scientist at the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, where he co-authored “Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think,” published in March 2008. His establishment status has been confirmed by his service as editor-in-chief of a number of Oxford University Press reference works, including <i>The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World,</i> <i>The Oxford History of Islam, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam</i>, and the five-volume <i>Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World.</i><br />
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Critics allege that Esposito’s career tracks Edward Said’s ideas, as seen in the fashionable, but flawed book <i>Orientalism</i> of 1978. Disregarding recent critical scholarship, Esposito swallows whole the official account of the origins of Islam, even though many of its claims cannot possibly be true. He also tends to construe the nature of Islam as peaceful, tolerant, malleable, and accommodating, downplaying many textual and historical evidences to the contrary. He believes that Western fears of Islamic extremism and terrorism are exaggerated. For example, Esposito claimed in 2001 that "focusing on Usama bin Laden risks catapulting one of the many sources of terrorism to center stage, distorting both the diverse international sources and the relevance of one man." His overall vision is one of cooperation and even fusion of Islam and the West.<br />
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Esposito’s polar opposite is Bat Ye’or (Hebrew for “daughter of the Nile”), the nom de plume of Gisèle Littman, née Orebi, a British independent scholar. Born in Cairo into a middle-class Jewish family, she and her parents were forced to leave Egypt in 1957 after the Suez Canal War, arriving in London as stateless refugees. She attended University College, London, and the University of Geneva. There is no doubt that her difficult personal narrative, and her grief at the destruction of the venerable Jewish community in Egypt, have shaped her point of view.<br />
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In 1971 she published her first historical study (writing under the Arabic pen name. "Yahudiya Masriya," meaning "Egyptian Jewish woman"), <i>The Jews of Egypt,</i> in which she chronicled the history of the Jewish community in that country.<br />
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Bat Ye’or is best known for two coinages: “dhimmitude” and “Eurabia.” In a series of books beginning in 1980 she provided extensive documentation of the theological and legal texts regulating the state of inferiority to which non-Muslims have been relentlessly subjected in Islamic lands. These facts incontrovertibly expose the fable of Islamic tolerance as just that.<br />
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Bat Ye'or has characterized dhimmitude as the "state of fear and insecurity" that is the lot of non-Muslims in Islamic countries, who are labeled infidels and required to "accept a condition of humiliation." She holds that "the dhimmi condition can only be understood in the context of Jihad." The jihad policy, she argues, "was fomented around the 8th century by Muslim theologians after the death of Muhammad and led to the conquest of large swathes of three continents over the course of a long history." She states: “Dhimmitude is the direct consequence of jihad. It embodie[s] all the Islamic laws and customs applied over a millennium on the vanquished population, Jews and Christians, living in the countries conquered by jihad and therefore Islamized. [We can observe a] return of the jihad ideology since the 1960s, and of some dhimmitude practices in Muslim countries applying the sharia law, or inspired by it. I stress ... the incompatibility between the concept . . . expressed by the jihad-dhimmitude ideology, and the concept of human rights based on the equality of all human beings and the inalienability of their rights.” In this way, Bat Ye’or views jihad and dhimmitude as complementary and inseparable.<br />
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While the historical record is clear, many would question her claim that there is a serious danger of Muslim clerics and their supporters imposing dhimmitude on Western Europe today. Bat Ye’or’s recent book “Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis” explored the history of the relationship from the 1970s onwards between the European Union and the Arab states, tracing what she saw as connections between radical Arabs and Muslims, on the one hand, and fascists, socialists, and neo-Nazis, on the other, in what she perceives as a growing influence of Islam over European culture and politics. While she did not invent the term “Eurabia,” she has popularized it as part of her campaign to raise the alarm about growing Islamization (as she sees it) in Europe.<br />
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Among those who have aligned themselves with Bat Ye’or are the historian Robert Spencer; the gay scholar and activist Bruce Bawer; Steven Emerson (author of <i>Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the US</i>); the late Italian journalist Orianna Fallaci; and, most imposingly, Ibn Warraq, who has written and edited a number of probing volumes on the history and nature of Islam. I strongly recommend the books of Ibn Warraq, whom it was my pleasure to hear speak recently at Columbia University<br />
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Moorish Spain is a venerable touchstone of the “romance of Islam.” This rosy view informs a new book by David Levering Lewis <i>God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215</i>. Lewis has been previously known mainly as the biographer of the black leader W.E.B. Dubois and a scholar of the Harlem Renaissance. The historical background of the culture extolled by Lewis may be briefly stated. Beginning in 636 CE the Arab armies marched against the Eastern Empire of Byzantium, and shortly thereafter against the Persian Empire, which they annihilated. After other Muslim conquests had crested, Tariq ibn-Ziyad guided his small but highly disciplined force to land at Gibraltar in 711. Western Europe seemed doomed to fall under the Islamic yoke--to be reduced, in short, to dhimmitude. And indeed most of Visigothic Spain (renamed al-Andalus) fell to the invaders. Yet when they sought to extend their dominion into France, the Moorish armies were defeated by Charles Martel at the battle of Tours (or Poitiers) in 732.<br />
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Despite this repulse, Lewis insists that the Islamic culture of al-Andalus decisively shaped that of Western Europe, very much for the better. In fact, David Levering Lewis has attempted something very ambitious: an alternative history of medieval Europe. While Charles Martel and Charlemagne figure as founders of the oppressive class structure of feudalism, Abd al-Rahman emerges as the ruler of a tolerant, multiethnic realm which mentored Europe’s intellectual flowering in the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance.<br />
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While such raptures may seem extreme, they mesh with a current trend to hail Muslim Spain as the domain of “convivencia,” a Spanish word that Lewis glosses as the “cultural and civic collaboration among Muslims, Jews and Christians in al-Andalus.” Again we hear the old refrain of “Islamic tolerance.” In reality, Christians and Jews were required to pay a special tax or jizya. Other religions, such as that of the pagans surviving in remote areas, were not allowed at all.<br />
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And of course “convivencia,” such as it was, did not last. The warlord known as al-Mansur marched against the surviving Christian enclaves, sacking the holy city of Santiago de Compostela in 997. The Christian Reconquista, which eventually ensued, was a response to the violent Islamic implementation of jihad. In the meantime, of course, al-Andalus had fallen victim to the Islamic fundamentalist regimes of the Almoravids and Almohads.<br />
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Truncating this later history, which is inconvenient to his purpose, Lewis makes bold to compare the brief Moorish “Golden Age” to Christian Europe. “The new Carolingian order,” he writes, “was religiously intolerant, intellectually impoverished, socially calcified, and economically primitive. Measured by these same vectors of religion, culture, class and prosperity, Abd al-Rahman’s Muslim Iberia was at least four centuries more advanced than Western Christendom in 800 CE.”<br />
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Then why did it fall behind? This problem is a subset of the larger issue of Islamic decline by comparison with a supposedly far-inferior Christian Europe. As I have noted above, this is a pseudo-problem, induced by Wunschbilder of Islam’s splendor, combined with unwarranted disparagement of the genuine accomplishments of medieval Europe.<br />
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Still, Lewis is enthralled by his counterfactual fantasy that Europe’s fate would have been a better one had the Moors triumphed at Tours/Poitiers in 732. In his view, the actual outcome was a sad portent, whereby “the peoples of the West were obliged to accept the governance, protection, exploitation, and militant creed of a warrior class and clerical enforcers, an overlordship sustained by a powerful military machine and an omnipresent ecclesiastical apparatus. The European shape of things to come was set for dismal centuries following one upon the other until the Commercial Revolution and the Enlightenment molded new contours.”<br />
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This conclusion is wildly overstated. The concept of feudalism has been subjected to keen analysis by historians. It is not unproblematic. To the extent that the notion of feudalism is valid, the institution may be detected in many cultures, from medieval Japan to contemporary Islamic states themselves. Surely Lewis is not trying to maintain that contemporary Islamic feudalism is an import from the West.<br />
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Medieval Western Europe was much more vibrant and creative than Lewis admits. Despite the supposedly crushing hegemony of “feudalism,” it was Western Europe that created the basis for a civil society that is governed by a balance of powers and the rule of law. Where is the Islamic equivalent of the Magna Carta of 1215? Of course there is none. Arab states today are still struggling to escape the burden of tyranny. Despite a considerable program of translations from Greek, Aristotle’s “Politics” was never rendered into Arabic until modern times. This neglect is unfortunate, as that foundational text would definitely have helped.<br />
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Quite soon Western technology took the lead, entering into paths where Islam could not follow. As late at the seventeenth century, as Bernard Lewis (no relation to David Levering Lewis) has noted, Muslims were puzzled by Western mechanical clocks. They saw no need for such devices. In fact, as historians of technology such as Jean Gimpel and Lynn Whyte have shown, the achievements of medieval mechanics are the indispensable precursors of the Industrial Revolution.<br />
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Eyeglasses were invented in Venice about 1300 CE. This discovery created the basis for two further inventions: the telescope and the microscope. We owe them much of our knowledge about the cosmos. These creations were not bequeathed us by Islam.<br />
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The antidote to Lewis’ fantasies has now appeared. It is a brilliant French-language book by Sylvain Gouguenheim, <i>Aristote au Mont Saint-Michel: Les racines grecques de l’Europe Chrétienne</i> (Paris, Seuil, 2008). A professor at Lyon, Gouguenheim directly confronts the hoary cliché of an enlightened Islam, transmitting westward the knowledge of the ancient Greeks through Arab translators and opening the path in Europe to mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and philosophy. "This thesis has basically nothing scandalous about it, if it were true," Gouguenheim writes. "In spite of the appearances, it has more to do with taking ideological sides than scientific analysis."<br />
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His book boldly challenges the notion that we in the West owe a vast debt to the “Arabo-Muslim world” dating from the year 750. This claim ascribes to Islam an essential part of Europe’s identity. (While the view is currently fashionable, as we have seen with Lewis’ book, it has roots that go back to the 18th-century Enlightenment, when the idea was floated as a device for the disparagement of Christianity.)<br />
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Rejecting the broader claim that there is an ongoing clash of civilizations, Gouguenheim holds that Islam was impermeable to much of Greek thought, By and large Arabs never learned Greek, utilizing translations that were mostly the work of Arabic-speaking Syrian Christians. With refreshing and convincing originality, the French scholar demonstrates that a wave of translations of Aristotle began at the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel in France fifty years before the Latin versions of the same texts appeared in Moorish Spain. These renderings were conducted under the leadership of James of Venice, an accomplished Greek scholar.<br />
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Gouguenheim attacks the thesis of the West's indebtedness advanced by such historians as Edward Said, Alain de Libera, and Mohammed Arkoun. He says that it replaces formerly dominant notions of cultural superiority professed by Western orientalists with "a new ethnocentrism, oriental this time" that sets off an "enlightened, refined, and spiritual Islam" against a brutal West.<br />
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At the hands of our own apologists of Islam, contemporary Europe has been plunged into a sea of self-denigration. Yet as another writer (E. de Brague) notes, “curiosity about the Other is a typically European attitude, rare outside of Europe, and exceptional in Islam.”<br />
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Gouguenheim also exposes the falsity of the legend of the “great Islamic universities” of the Middle Ages. He notes that the scope of the Bayt al-Hikma, or the House of Wisdom, said to be created by the Abassids in the 9th century, was limited to the study of Koranic studies, excluding philosophy, physics and mathematics, as understood in the speculative context of Greek thought.<br />
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He asserts that much of Aristotle's work was disregarded or unknown to the Muslim world, being basically incompatible with the Koran. Europeans, he says, "became aware of the Greek texts because they went hunting for them, not because they were brought to them."<br />
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Gouguenheim terms the Mont Saint-Michel monastery, where the Hellenic texts were translated into Latin, "the missing link in the passage from the Greek to the Latin world of Aristotelian philosophy." Apart from a few exceptional thinkers--Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Abu Ma'shar, and Averroes--Gougenheim avers that the "masters of the Middle East" retained from Greek teaching only what did not contradict Koranic doctrine.<br />
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Needless to say, Gouguenheim’s arguments do not sit well with Western enthusiasts for Islam, who accuse him of right-wing leanings. His appendix, however, preemptively blunts that accusation. He offers his book as an antidote to the approach to Islam's medieval relations to the West exemplified by the late Sigrid Hunke, a German polemicist, who has been described as a former Nazi and friend of Heinrich Himmler. Fawningly, Hunke evokes a pioneering, civilizing Islam to which "the West owes everything." In his telling analysis, Gouguenheim asserts that her slapdash work from the 1960s continues as a hidden reference point that unfortunately still "shapes the spirit of the moment."<br />
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As with Bat Ye’or’s findings, an effort is being made to reject Gouguenheim’s book because it supposedly aids the Right. Instead of hurling such ad feminam/ad hominem charges, these critics need to look more carefully at the evidence. Are these two insurgent scholars right? My considered conclusion is that in the main they are.<br />
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HOMOSEXUALITY IN ISLAM TODAY<br />
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By law seven Islamic countries today stipulate the death penalty for homosexual behavior: Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Nigeria (capital punishment applies to the twelve northern provinces that observe sharia law).<br />
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Other evidence points in a different direction. In parts of Muslim Central Asia and Afghanistan the traditional practice of Basha Bazi (“boy play”) still survives. A bacha, typically an adolescent of twelve to sixteen, is a dancer trained in the performance of erotic songs and suggestive dancing. Wearing resplendent clothes and makeup, the dancing boys are appreciated for their androgynous beauty but was also available for sexual services. The boys are generally taken, sometimes by force from the lower classes. Each one is generally attached to one wealthy man, their owner. Once their beard begins to grow they are dismissed. Occasionally the boy will marry his lover's daughter when he comes of age, but most must endure a humbler fate.<br />
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Soviet rule had considerable success in eliminating the practice in Central Asia, but it thrives in northern Afghanistan, where many men keep the boys as status symbols. In that country the authorities are attempting to crack down on the practice as "un-Islamic and immoral," but such efforts are impeded by the fact that many of the men are powerful and well-armed military commanders. In early 2010 the PBS program Frontline aired a documentary about the Afghan boy-love practice by Najibullah Quraishi.<br />
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How can these two things be reconciled--the death penalty and the cult of dancing boys? The answer is that adult-adult homosexuality has always been forbidden in Islamic law, without exception. By contrast, Islam has seen, at some times and places, a de facto toleration of pederasty, a type of relationship in which one of the participants is a boy. Nonetheless, the status of pederasty is itself precarious and has been coming under increasing restriction through most of the Islamic world.<br />
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The most notorious country for executions of homosexual men is the Islamic Republic of Iran. From 1979, the year of the revolution, to 1990, there have been at least 107 executions on homosexual charges, according to the Boroumand Foundation. According to Amnesty International, at least five people convicted of "homosexual tendencies," three men and two women, were executed in January 1990.<br />
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There are several instances in which perceived religious unorthodoxy seems to have played a role in securing convictions. In April 1992 Dr. Ali Mozafarian, a Sunni Muslim leader in Fars province, was executed in Shiraz after being convicted on charges of espionage, adultery, and sodomy. In November 1995 Mehdi Barazandeh, otherwise known as Safa Ali Shah Hamadani, was condemned to death. Ostensibly, Barazandeh's crimes were repeated acts of adultery and "the obscene act of sodomy." The court's judgment was carried out by stoning.Barazandeh. Barazandeh belonged to the Khaksarieh Sect of Dervishes (Sufis).<br />
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In July 2005 the Iranian Student News Agency covered the execution of Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni in Mashahd, and event that drew international attention when disturbing photos of the hanging were widely distributed. Somewhat bizarrely the human rights community was divided as to whether the executions were a gay issue. However, there was general agreement in condemning the hangings on the grounds that they were for crimes allegedly committed when the boys were minors. The initial report from the ISNA, a government press agency, had stated that they were hanged for homosexuality; after the international outcry, the Iranian government alleged that the hangings were primarily for raping a boy.<br />
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The roster goes on and on. In November 22005 two men were hanged publicly in the northern town for homosexual acts. in November 2005. In July 2006 two youths were hanged for homosexuality in northeastern Iran. On November 16, 2006, the state-run news agency reported the public execution of man convicted of sodomy in the western city of Kermanshah. According to the Iranian gay and lesbian rights group Homan, the Iranian government has put to death an estimated 4,000 homosexuals since the Islamic revolution of 1979.<br />
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There is a strange exception to this savagery, an exception of a sort. Since the mid-1980s the Iranian government has legalized the practice of sex-change operations, with medical approval, and the subsequent changing of all legal documents. The basis for this policy stems from a fatwa by the leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ayatolla Ruhollah Khomeini, declaring sex changes permissible for "diagnosed" transsexuals. Some Iranian gay and bisexual men are being pressured to undergo a sex change operation and live as women in order to avoid legal and social sanctions. Is this an example of “Islam, the merciful?”<br />
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HOMOSEXUALITY: LEGAL AND HISTORICAL ASPECTS<br />
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Islamic Sharia law stems from both the Qur'an and hadiths. Islamic legal scholars expand upon the principles they detect therein, which are regarded as the laws of Allah. In this tradition homosexual conduct is not only a sin, but a “crime against God.” There are some differences in interpretation among the four mainstream legal schools, but they all agree that homosexual behavior must be severely sanctioned. In the Hanafi school of thought, the homosexual is first punished through harsh beating; if he or she repeats the act, the death penalty is to be applied. In the Shafi`i school of thought, the homosexual receives the same punishment as adultery (if he or she is married) or fornication (if not married). This means that if the person accused of homosexual behavior is married, he or she is stoned to death; if single, he or she is whipped 100 times. In this way the Shafi`i approach compares the punishment applied in the case of homosexuality with that of adultery and fornication, while the Hanafi tradition differentiates between the two acts because in homosexuality, anal sex--prohibited, regardless of orientation-- typically occurs, while in adultery and fornication, penis-vagina contact (reproductive parts) are involved. Some scholars based on the Qur'an and various hadith hold the opinion that the homosexual should be thrown from a high building or stoned to death as punishment, while others believe that they should receive a life sentence. Another view that in the case of two males, the active partner is to be lashed a hundred times if he is unmarried, and killed if he is married; whereas the passive partner must be executed regardless of his marital status.<br />
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Some apologists have attempted to blame the importation of Western disapproval of homosexuality for these harsh measures. This claim is preposterous.<br />
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As with the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, whenever the Qur’an explicitly mentions homosexuality it is condemnatory.<br />
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Central to many of these imprecations is the story of Lot and Sodom, as narrated in the book of Genesis. However, the Muslim interpretation of the story more clearly focuses on its same-sex aspect than does the original telling.<br />
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“We also (sent) Lut: He said to his people: ‘Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation (ever) committed before you? For ye practise your lusts on men in preference to women : ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds.’ And his people gave no answer but this: they said, ‘Drive them out of your city: these are indeed men who want to be clean and pure!’ But we saved him and his family, except his wife: she was of those who legged behind. And we rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): Then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime!” (Qur’an 7:80).<br />
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"’Of all the creatures in the world, will ye approach males, And leave those whom Allah has created for you to be your mates? Nay, ye are a people transgressing (all limits)!’ They said: ‘If thou desist not, O Lut! thou wilt assuredly be cast out!" He said: "I do detest your doings. O my Lord! deliver me and my family from such things as they do!" So We delivered him and his family,- all Except an old woman who lingered behind. Then afterward We destroyed the others. We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)!” (Qur’an 26:165).<br />
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“(We also sent) Lut (as a messenger): behold, He said to his people, ‘Do ye do what is shameful though ye see (its iniquity)? Would ye really approach men in your lusts rather than women? Nay, ye are a people (grossly) ignorant!; But his people gave no other answer but this: they said, ‘Drive out the followers of Lut from your city: these are indeed men who want to be clean and pure!’ Then We saved him and his household save his wife; We destined her to be of those who stayed behind. And We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)!” (Qur’an 27:54).”<br />
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“And (remember) Lut: behold, he said to his people: ‘Ye do commit lewdness, such as no people in Creation (ever) committed before you. Do ye indeed approach men, and cut off the highway?- and practice wickedness (even) in your councils?’ But his people gave no answer but this: they said: "Bring us the Wrath of Allah if thou tellest the truth.’ He said: ‘O my Lord! help Thou me against people who do mischief!’ When Our Messengers came to Abraham with the good news, they said: ‘We are indeed going to destroy the people of this township: for truly they are (addicted to) crime.’” (Qur’an 29:28).<br />
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There is also this more general commandment. “If two men among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, Leave them alone; for Allah is Oft-returning, Most Merciful.” (Qur’an 4:16).<br />
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Although the Qur’an is ambiguous about the exact punishment for same-sex conduct, the death penalty may be inferred (see also 26:165-173).<br />
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An uncertain theme in the Qur’an is that of the Ghilman, adolescent boys who serve the faithful in the afterlife. For example, “round about them will serve boys of perpetual freshness” (56:17; see also 52:24 and 76:19). While at first sight these young men would appear to be counterparts of the maidens (houris), mainstream Muslim opinion holds that they are merely servants; they do not bestow sexual favors.<br />
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The Hadith are much more explicit about what should be done. Here are a few examples:<br />
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Narrated by Ibn 'Abbas: “The Prophet cursed effeminate men; those men who are in the similitude (assume the manners of women) and those women who assume the manners of men, and he said, ‘Turn them out of your houses.’ The Prophet turned out such-and-such man, and 'Umar turned out such-and-such woman.’” (Sahih Bukhari 7:72:774; repeated at 8:82:820)).<br />
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Narated by Abdullah ibn Abbas: “The Prophet said: If you find anyone doing as Lot's people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done.” (Abu Dawud 38:4447).<br />
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Narated by Abdullah ibn Abbas: “If a man who is not married is seized committing sodomy, he will be stoned to death.”<br />
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Narrated by Abu Sa'id al-Khudri: “The Prophet said: A man should not look at the private parts of another man, and a woman should not look at the private parts of another woman. A man should not lie with another man without wearing lower garment under one cover; and a woman should not be lie with another woman without wearing lower garment under one cover.” (Abu Dawud 31:4007).<br />
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Narrated by Abu Hurayrah: “The Prophet said: A man should not lie with another man and a woman should not lie with another woman without covering their private parts except a child or a father.” (Abu Dawud 31:4008).<br />
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“Whoever is found conducting himself in the manner of the people of Lot, kill the doer and the receiver.” (Tirmidhi 1:152). Narrated by Jaabir: "The Prophet said: 'There is nothing I fear for my ummah [commmunity] more than the deed of the people of Lot.'" (Tirmidhi 1:457).<br />
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Nor were these admonitions purely theoretical. The Qur’anic condemnation of homosexuality was naturally adopted by Muhammad’s later successors. Abu Bakr, the father of Aisha, had a wall thrown down upon suspected sodomites, a punishment that is being reprised in the Middle East today. Ali, the fourth caliph, had sodomites burned.<br />
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What then of the seemingly flourishing pederastic subculture of the Islamic Middle Ages. Is this simply a myth? No it is not, but the phenomenon is mainly a matter of particular sectors, often those that stand apart from the Sunni mainstream.<br />
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More generally, the de facto toleration of pederasty is linked to the Islamic tendency to the seclusion of women, leading to their removal from public life. Another factor, though one that is hard to assess, is survival of the traditions of Greek pederasty. This trend may account for the use of the wine boy (saqi) as a symbol of homoerotic passion.<br />
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Persia may also have made a contribution. Certainly in Islamic times Persian poetry has served as a major vehicle for declarations of pederastic attraction. Even in that realm, though, the practice was not without its critics, such as the poet Sanai of Ghazni who mocked the pederastic practices of his time, embodied in the doings of the Khvaja of Herat, who is depicted as resorting to a mosque for a bit of sub rosa action with a boy:<br />
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Not finding shelter he became perturbed, The mosque, he reasoned, would be undisturbed.<br />
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But he is discovered by a devout man, who, in his revulsion, echoes a traditional attack on same-sex relations:<br />
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"These sinful ways of yours," —that was his shout— Have ruined all the crops and caused the drought!<br />
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This exchange is interesting for its evocation of the motif, traceable back to Justinian in the sixth century CE, that homosexual acts bring on natural disasters.<br />
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Some of the poems discuss the contrasting merits of truly beardless boys and downy-cheeked youths. One the beard had begun to grow, however, the individual was off limits, however attractive he might have seemed previously.<br />
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The connection with Sufism is ambiguous. Such attractions are commonly regarded as chaste, finding their place in Islamic mysticism in a meditation known in Arabic as nazar ill’al-murd, "contemplation of the beardless," or Shahed-bazi, "witness play" in Persian. This fascination is rationalized as an act of worship intended to help one ascend to the absolute beauty that is God through the relative beauty that is a boy (quite possibly a reminiscence of Plato).<br />
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To be sure, not all Sufi adepts followed the teachings to the letter. Some observers suspected the motives of dervishes who professed to love only the appearance of the boys. For their part, conservative Muslim theologians condemned the custom of contemplating the beauty of young boys. Their suspicions may have been justified, as some dervishes boasted of enjoying far more than "glances", or even kisses. Thus Ibn Tamiyya (1263-1328) complained: "They kiss a slave boy and claim to have seen God!"<br />
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In contradiction to these currents, mainstream hatred of homosexuality has continued in Islam down to the present. Even among “moderate” Muslims residing in Western countries, homosexuality is generally condemned as something that is vile and unacceptable. For example, a Gallup survey carried out in early 2009 found that British Muslims have zero tolerance for homosexual behavior. Not a single British Muslim interviewed for the survey was willing to grant that homosexual acts were morally acceptable. According to a Zogby International poll of American Muslims taken in November and December of 2001, a massive 71 percent opposed "allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally." Another worrying statistic to be found among Muslims in the UK: although they comprise just 2% of the total British population, they commit 25% of all anti-homosexual crimes (gay bashing).<br />
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So, with the rise of Islam in the the United Kingdom, Western Europe and other non-Islamic countries, we witness an appalling return to the primitive moral concepts of seventh-century Arabia, with Muslim gangs roaming the streets of England and the Netherlands, carrying out violent attacks on gays. For their part, mosques labeled as “moderate” calling for the murder of homosexuals at the hands of their congregation.<br />
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Even in secular Indonesia, we see that owing to pressure from the growing conservative Muslim communities some local jurisdictions are now adopting Islamic legal principles, criminalizing homosexual behavior. In India, with its Hindu majority, attempts to abrogate the old British sodomy law so as to decriminalize homosexuality are being hindered by Muslim clerics, who assert that homosexuality is an offence under Sharia Law and “haram (prohibited) in Islam." Bizarrely, these self-righteous South Asian representatives of an intruder culture claim that decriminalization of homosexual behavior is somehow an attack on Indian religious and moral values. As we have seen with the career of Mohandas Ghandhi, Indian steadfastness has had a worldwide effect. What would these bigoted Muslims know about Indian religious and moral values?<br />
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In fact, intolerant pronouncements can be found emanating from all sorts of Muslim organizations, government and apologists. Here are three contemporary examples, one from a Muslim expert in the United State; the second active in Canada; and the third in Pakistan.<br />
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“Homosexuality is a moral disorder. It is a moral disease, a sin and corruption.” Homosexuality “is utterly contrary to every natural law of human and animal life.” “Homosexuality is unlawful in Islam. It is neither accepted by the state nor by the Islamic Society. Qu’ran clearly states that it is unjust, unnatural, transgression, ignorant, criminal and corrupt. [...] Muslim jurists agree that, if proven of guilt, both of them should be killed.”<br />
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With the widespread acceptance of such expressions of hatred it is little wonder that life can be grim--and short--for homosexuals in Muslim countries.<br />
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CARTOON FUROR<br />
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In 2005, seemingly out of the blue, came the furor unleashed by a dozen cartoons depicting Islam’s Prophet. The basic facts are these. The Danish Muhammad cartoons controversy began after twelve editorial cartoons, most of which depicted Muhammad, were published in the newspaper <i>Jyllands-Posten</i> on September 30, 2005. The newspaper indicated that this publication was meant as a contribution to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and the question of censorship.<br />
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Danish Muslim organizations reacted furiously with public protests. In whole or in part, the cartoons were reproduced in more than fifty other countries, aggravating the controversy. This led to protests across the Muslim world, some of which escalated into violence with police firing on the crowds (resulting in a total of more than 100 deaths). Danish embassies in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran were attacked, and Muslim boycots of Danish products were initiated. As a countermeasure, some groups in Western countries launched “Buy Danish” campaigns as displays of support.<br />
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Critics of the cartoons labeled them Islamophobic and racist. For their part, supporters of the right to publish the cartoons hold that they illustrate an important point in a period that has witnessed the rise of Islamic terrorism. They argue that their publication was a legitimate exercise in the right of free speech. They question the assertion that images of Muhammad per se are offensive to Muslims, in as much as thousands of illustrations of Muhammad have appeared in books by and for Muslims.<br />
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The matter might have been of lesser significance if it had not been magnified by other issues that have been festering in the longer term. 1) There is increasing tension between large Muslim minorities and the host societies in Western Europe. The Muslims are perceived as wanting the host society to adopt their standards, rather than vice versa—the general pattern of immigrants who, the logic of the situation suggests, must assimilate the core values of their new countries. Until recently, European intellectuals and the authorities in those nations have tended to look the other way, even when the oppression of women and homophobia were involved. Implicated in this neglect are political correctness, ethical relativism, and simple cowardice and laziness. Now the mood seems to be changing: hence the cartoons. 2) The other underlying factor is the perception among Muslims that the main purpose of the Iraq war is to weaken Islam. Polls have shown this view to be prevalent from Morocco to Indonesia, and it is clearly shared by many Muslims in Western Europe as well. These two factors created a tinderbox in which an otherwise somewhat trivial set of drawings created a furor that ricocheted from one country to another.<br />
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A common view is the following: under Islamic teachings, any depiction of Muhammad is blasphemy; that is so even if the depictions are not negative. Such claims are historically unfounded, as Islamic illuminated manuscripts, whose orthodoxy has never been questioned, offer a plethora of portraits of the Prophet. In passively accepting such generalizations proffered by poorly informed Muslim informants the press is not doing its job.<br />
<br />
Readers can verify the truth of my assertions by acquiring a handsome book. I was delighted to see that a wonderful facsimile is still available from Amazon at an advantageous price. It is <i>The Miraculous Journey of Mahomet,</i> published by Braziller, with an essay by Marie-Rose Seguy. Made in Herat, Afghanistan, in 1436, the original, a text of the Miraj Nameh, is one of the most beautiful illuminated manuscripts of all time, with much use of gold and a ravishing ultramarine blue. The Prophet is shown no less than 56 times, sometimes in the company of various other worthies, including, Adam, David and Solomon, and John the Baptist. Contrasting with some other depictions, Muhammad's face appears unveiled in every scene.<br />
<br />
“ISLAMOFASCISM”<br />
<br />
Recent controversies have brought a new portmanteau term to the fore: Islamofascism. The equation of the two is not convincing.<br />
<br />
Historically the fascist regimes have shown the following characteristics. A single maximum leader rules over a unified territory and people, the Volk. This group is regarded as racially superior to all others. Only one political party is permitted, and the media are strictly controlled.<br />
<br />
Obviously these characteristics do not prevail today. Currently there are twenty-two members of the Arab League. Other sometimes-troublesome Muslim states, such as Iran and Pakistan, are not Arab. Within the Arab league is a range of polities, from traditional monarchy as in Saudi Arabia and Morocco to a (slowly) modernizing authoritarianism, as in Egypt and Syria. Libya remains unclassifiable. There is no single political party. In fact, with the collapse of the Baath, there is no party that operates outside the bounds of a single nation-state. With competing television channels, and newspapers published in London and elsewhere, there is a good deal of media diversity. The Internet makes it impossible for any regime to exercise total control over the media. Moreover, Islam is not limited to Arabs, but has been adopted by members of many ethnic groups.<br />
<br />
In short, Castro’s Cuba much more clearly resembles the historical profile of a fascist state. It has one maximum leader for life, ruling through a single party over a single territory populated by a single people. The Cuban media are strictly controlled.<br />
<br />
Twenty years ago, I encountered students who suggested that I was a fascist for insisting on required reading and scheduling regular examinations. The epithet fascist was a left-anarchist maid of all work. For its part, Islamofascism seems to be more in vogue among neoconservative circles, together with the ineffable Christopher Hitchens. So much then for the slogan of Islamofascism, which is completely without merit.<br />
<br />
Recently the columns of various conservative publications have been filled with exhortations against Islamic totalitarianism. For the reasons given above, contemporary Islam is not totalitarian either. The purpose of this expression seems to be to imply that we are locked in a struggle similar to that against the Soviet Union, which was indeed totalitarian. But the Arab and Islamic states are not at all like the old Soviet Union.<br />
<br />
What we are confronted with is a murderous nationalist conspiracy, working to gain its ends as the Irish Republican Army and the Basque ETA terrorists have. These are, we are told, fringe groups. Yet in Spain the Basque Assembly has voted, in principle at least, for independence. So the danger is not a monolithic opponent that stands against us in unified fashion. Rather we are dealing with fanatical minorities, whose cause may nonetheless prove infectious.<br />
<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
<br />
Even though it was the last to appear in the sequence, Islam retains more archaic traits than do its sister religions of Judaism and Christianity. This archaism stems the circumstances of its origin in a marginal, quasi-primitive region of dying antiquity. As a result Muslim adjustment to the challenges of the modern world has been problematic. <br />
<br />
Despite these handicaps, Islam is suffused with supersessionism: the view that through Muslim purity and dedication Judaism and Christianity have been definitively surpassed. The only role these two precursor faiths deserve to enjoy is to be preserved as museum pieces attesting, willy nilly, to the superiority of Islam.<br />
<br />
Yet the longings of the faithful remain unfulfilled. Christians and Jews, adherents of religions that are supposedly obsolete, are prospering, mightily so, while Muslim-majority societies linger in backwardness. Absent oil deposits, there is little hope of their attaining anything else.<br />
<br />
This cognitive dissonance lies at the root of today’s jihadist violence. Because the ideal and the reality are so different, the anger and violence will not soon abate.<br />
<br />
<br />
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Kirsch, Jonathan. God against the Gods: The History of the War between Monotheism and Polytheism. New York: Viking, 2004.<br />
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Kissinger, Ernst. “The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 8 (1954), 85-150.<br />
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Kittel, Gerhard (with Gerhard Friedrich). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Ten vols. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1964-76.Sanders, E. P., and Margaret Davies. Studying the Synoptic Gospels. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1989.<br />
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Whitaker, Brian. Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2006.<br />
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Wright, Robert. The Evolution of God. New York: Little, Brown, 2009.<br />
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Zevit, Ziony. The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallel Approaches. London and New York: Continuum, 2001.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-46939253943235975082007-12-11T05:49:00.000-08:002010-08-26T15:15:34.744-07:00Summary of Lecture ThirteenAt the outset we returned to the Reims School of illumination, with two undoubted masterworks, the Ebbo Gospels and the Utrecht Psalter.<br /><br />Together with much other useful work, writing and illumination was performed mainly within the confines of the monasteries. Charlemagne and his counselors understood that a more rigorous application of the Rule of St. Benedict was needed to counteract the laxness and corruption that had set in. <br /><br />One product of this reform effort was the remarkable St. Gall plan. After many years of study, Walter Horn of Berkeley was able to interpret the detailed instructions on the plan to realize a three-dimensional version. (An ideal prescription, the plan was never realized as such in Carolingian times.) Combining the holy office with productive, educational, and hospitality functions, the monastery was designed to be as self-sufficient as possible.<br /><br />In s larger sense the plan belongs to the overarching history of utopian thinking inaugurated by Plato and continuing into our own day with intentional communities.<br /><br />The final hour dealt briefly with the Ottonian period. Two creations of Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim were considered: the church of St. Michael and the bronze doors. The latter, a remarkable technical achievement, represent a new application of the earlier belief that the Old and New Testaments were organically linked.<br /><br />Ultimately, the most influential creation of the Ottonian era was the revival of monumental sculpture, as seen in the Essen Madonna and the Gero Crucifix in Cologne.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-74041630336855245392007-12-01T07:46:00.000-08:002007-12-01T08:34:59.038-08:00Summary of Lecture TwelveAs a mnemonic we alluded to the old triple sequence of archaic/classic/baroque. In a rough sort of way the sequence of the books of Durrow, Lindisfarne, and Kells accords with this scheme. As a footnote to the last lecture, we examined some striking images from the Echternach Gospels, a work that falls between Durrow and Lindisfarne. As posited by O.-K. Werckmeister, the image of the man seem to incorporate a numerological allusion pertaining to the word Adam. The Echternach image of the lion is possibly the ultimate masterpiece of Insular illumination.<br /><br />By way of introduction to the Carolingian era, the Pirenne thesis was discussed. The noted Belgian historian expounded this concept in his late book, titled "Mohammed and Charlemagne." Weighing in on the perennial problem of the Fall of Rome, Pirenne held that the status quo largely prevailed through the sixth century, as the barbarian rulers sought to maintain the amenities of civilized Romsn life. It was the Islamic conquests in the seventh century that effected fundamental change, isolating Western Europe in a "natural" economy dependent on barter. The change forced the West back on its own resources, reorienting its fundamental axis to the northwest, with the great rivers of the Loire, the Seine, the Meuse, the Rhine, and the Elbe as the new "highways."<br /><br />While some erosion of detail has occurred, essentially the Pirenne thesis seems to have held. This means that there is a basic disconnect between the revivalist ideology of Charlemagne's brains trust and the reality on the ground. (Needless to say, this was not to be the first time in which geopolitical reality clashed with ideological aspiration.)<br /><br />In many respects, Charlemagne's court was peripatetic, in order to take advantage of local tribute and also to fight his numerous frontier wars. Yet a capital of a sort arose at Aachen on the western fringe of Germany. Here the palace chapel of 805 survives (then part of a larger complex, including the throne hall). The plan and elevation stem from San Vitale in Ravenna, with simplifications.<br /><br />The gate house at Lorsch is a variation on a Roman triumphal arch, with a strong northern input in the chromaticism of the geometrical surface patterns. <br /><br />Insight into the transition from Merovingian art to Carolingian is afforded by the two covers of the Lindau Gospels (Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum). The lower cover is dominated by barbarian lacertines, possibly with an apotropaic purpose. The upper cover, with its delicate figures in relief, is a superb example of Carolingian goldsmiths work.<br /><br />We then focused on three illuminated manuscripts, representatives (as it were) of the archaic, classic, and baroque phases of Carolingian art. The images in the Godescalc Gospels (completed in 783) are somewhat awkward, also showing traces of insular influence. The full-page frontal image of Christ is virtually an icon, reflecting Charlemagne's policy of resistance to Byzantine iconoclasm.<br /><br />The Coronation Gospels in Vienna is a purple manuscript, showing a strong classical influence. <br /><br />Finally, the Ebbo Gospels (of the Reims school) exhibits a powerful expressionism. The deliberate distortions of the figure of Matthew are echoed by the "animation" of the landscape. The whole is a vivid depiction of the ecstasy of sacred inspiration.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-20064638682782708132007-11-22T06:26:00.000-08:002007-11-22T06:49:54.772-08:00Summary of Lecture ElevenThe gravamen of the lecture concerned four works (or groups of works) stemming from the Hiberno-Saxon or Insular orbit during the period ca. 625-820.<br /><br />In the Hiberno-Saxon enterprise, the Irish (converted, some of them at least, by St. Patrick prior to 493) were the senior partners. Irish monasticism was a distinctive adaptation of the Egyptian model, whereby remote islands served as hermitages. The severe conditions toughened the monks, making possible the beginnings of their wanderings. These migrations took them, in the first instance, to northern England, especially Northumbria. There the English converts proved apt pupils, matching or even surpassing the accomplishments of their Hibernian teachers.<br /><br />The Sutton Hoo treasure is the first monument of English art. The instructor briefly traced and critiqued the history of the more extreme claims of English exceptionalism, while recognizing the connection with the people who first spoke the English language.<br /><br />The Sutton Hoo finds from East Anglia belong to a distinctive moment of transition between paganism and Christianity. The coins found in the purse were probably meant to pay the phantom rowers who would take the king to the afterworld. <br /><br />The two most remarkable objects in the treasure (now in the British Museum) are probably the gold buckle and the purse. The buckle demonstrates an intricate pattern of lacertines and interlace, probably with apotropaic intent. The purse has a remarkable set of appliques, showing the virtuosity of the goldsmiths of the time.<br /><br />The Book of Durrow (ca. 675; Trinity College, Dublin) was briefly noted in the previous lecture. Here we focused on the carpet pages (three survive), which probably had an apotropaic intent.<br /><br />The Book of Lindisfarne (ca. 725; British Library) is also a gospel book, in this instance certainly made in Northumbria by English scribes. Larger and more lavish than its Durrow predecessor, this book replaces the evangelist symbols with full-page portraits of these authors. While these are of Mediterranean derivation, they clearly, almost relentlessly, translate the motifs into the linear northern style. <br /><br />The Book of Kells (ca. 820) is the most extravant of the three Insular gospel books examined. It ranks with the Tres Riches Heures of the Limbourg brothers as one of the two most towering masterpieces of medieval illumination. There are carpet pages, evangelist portraits, narrative scenes and much else. The most elaborate text page is devoted to a presentation of the Chi-Rho theme.<br /><br />Taken as a whole, these works document the remarkable Anglo-Irish partnership, yielding works that were unique in sophistication during the era. A recent book is entitled "How the Irish Saved Western Civilization." It should have been entitled "How the Irish and the English Saved Western Civilization."Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-63201415232473895802007-11-18T05:56:00.000-08:002007-11-18T06:26:13.066-08:00Summary of Lecture TenOur attention shifted to the Western Middle Ages. Although this realm gave the appearance of being the unfavored sibling of the two heirs of the Roman Empire, it turned into a Cinderella, as Western Europe was eventually to generate many of the key institutions that were to characterize the modern world.<br /><br />The differing barbarian groups left their imprint on the emerging nation states of Western Europe (ethnogenesis). There were two contrasting pairs. In England and Germany. the language and culture of the intruders became dominant. In Spain and Italy--despite the heritage of the Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Lombards--the original romance culture predominated. France saw a mixed system, as Germanic (Frankish) elements played a key role. This form of hybridity helped to assure the hegemony of France through much of the Middle Ages.<br /><br />An excursus dealt with the written assignment. While religious art dominated, the Middle Ages (as a hierarchical society) saw a significant production of political imagery We suggested that an initial approach to the problem involves an enumeration of all the realms in which such imagery was likely to be found. These include coins (see Internet for examples), luxury items, buildings and monuments, mosaics and frescoes, and illuminated manuscripts. <br /><br />An initial comparison of the Constantine coin documenting the 312 victory in Rome and the Missorium of Theodosius revealed significant similarities and contrasts. The path indicated by the Missorium might lead to the David plates from the Cyprus treasure (ca. 628), while the coin discloses many possibilities of follow up. Sometimes such objects are interesting for what they <span style="font-style:italic;">do not</span> show--e.g. the absence of Christian imagery in the Missorium, and the lack of "Frankish" themes in the Charlemagne coin, with its "renaissance" orientation to the Roman imperial past.<br /><br />Then we returned to the main theme of the lecture. Heretofore we have considered only two legs of our tripod: the classical and the Middle Eastern. Now we can access the Northern, or "barbarian" contribution. This had two components: the older Celtic stratum, going back to before the Roman conquest, and the newer Germanic strain.<br /><br />In a previous lecture we discussed the consequences of the shift from papyrus and scroll to parchment and codex. In this lecture we sought to document the appearance of a third revolutionary contribution: new forms of writing and decoration in the Merovingian period. There were two main conmponents: the animated initial, and the binary typographical system of majuscule and minuscule. The latter has continued to be normative in our printed books (and even out computers, such as the one I am writing on).<br /><br />In conclusion we briefly considered, via the Book of Durrow, the alternative system that developed in the Hiberno-Saxon realm. Adducing significant earlier "barbarian" decorative accoutrements, including such bling as spirals and interlace, the insular books also adopted a decrescendo method as a transition from the initial to the main text.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-50506022292715783022007-11-10T07:19:00.000-08:002007-11-10T07:35:14.133-08:00Summary of Lecture NineBroadly speaking, the period stretching from 565 (death of Justinian) to 843 (conclusive settlement of the icononoclastic controversy) was a time of troubles in the Byzantine Empire. Major territorial subtractions occurred: Italy (lost to the Lombards), the central-southern Balkans (occupied by the pagan Slavs), and Syria and Egypt (Muslim).<br /><br />In addition, the Persians invaded, only being defeated with great effort by Heraclius in 628. <br /><br />Two contrasting examples of art in the time of Heraclius were examined: the Cyprus Plate in the Met of David Fighting Goliath (intensely classicizing) and the mosaic of St. Demetrios (frontal and "Middle Eastern"). This contrast shows that the dichotomy of style, while it was minimized in the time of Justinian, persisted all the same. The classicizing current was to recur throughout later Byzantium, as seen in the Paris Psalter (also showing, inter alii, David).<br /><br />The early sixth century witnessed a chill in the status of images. The first response, the Jewish one, was the mildest: they simply stopped making images in synagogues. The Muslims had always disapproved of images in mosques. In 721 the Caliph Yazid issued an edict commanding the destruction of such images in Christian churches. Laxly enforced, this step nonetheless was a major step.<br /><br />In 726, apparently, Leo the Isaurian took the first step of iconoclasm, by destroying a favorite image over the great gate of the Palace in Constantinople. His son Constantine V was especially rigorous. Neither was against images as such, since secular ones appeared, but against religious images, held to be an invitation to idolatry.<br /><br />The dispute was not finally settled until 843. The iconodules had won--but at a price. No religious figures in the round were allowed. Reverence for icons was supposed to be directed solely at the prototype (the holy figure)--not at the material object.<br /><br />Beginning apparently in 867, Hagia Sophia was reequipped with images, some of which were seen in class. The Catholicon at Hosios Lukas, a cross-in-square church, demonstrates the hierarchical principle of allocation of mosaics, with Christ in the dome, the Virgin in the main apse, and the other scenes and figures distributed according to rank.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-91612727058534102852007-11-04T07:47:00.000-08:002007-11-04T08:07:50.529-08:00Summary of Lecture EightThe class concerned the invention of the book, especially the illustrated book, as we know it during the late-antique period. The previous standard had been set by the Egyptians, who developed papyrus as a support for writing. They then glued the papyrus sheets together to form scrolls. This method was used by the Greeks and during the earlier Roman period. Papyrus is friable, a weakness abetted by frequent unrolling of the scrolls.<br /><br />Parchment made from skins of animals emerged as a more durable support material. By the fourth century the codex became dominant replacing the scroll. This technique posed the issue of dual composition, verso and recto, at each opening--a potential not always well realized (as we saw with the Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux).<br /><br />The pictorial material commonly employs the device of continuous narrative, seen in the reliefs of the Column of Trajan and (almost a millennium later) in the Bayeux Tapestry.<br /><br />To permit some conclusions about the origins of the illustrated book, we examined three examples from the Hebrew Bible and three from the New Testament. Because of its poor condition, the Quedlinburg Itala leaf is hard to assess (but see the illustration in Nees). It is unique in showing four closely related scenes from the Book of Samuel. Flaking of the pigment discloses instructions to the illustrator: "Here paint this." <br /><br />There are basically two schools concerning the origin and development of pictorial cycles. The first, headed by Kurt Weitzmann, holds that the artists were essentially conservative and that the pictorial recensions lead back to a single archetype, presumably an illustrated Septuagint.<br /><br />However, supporting evidence has not emerged, and another school (supported e.g. by Lawrence Nees) holds that the artists were more creative, and that there is no single archetype. The instructions in the Quedlinburg leaf would seem to support the Nees position.<br /><br />Badly burned in 1731, the fragments of th3e Cotton Genesis nonetheless attest a very rich cycle in this manuscript. Also rich is the imagery of the well-preserved Vienna Genesis, a purple manuscript of the sixth century. Here the scene of Rebecca and Eliezar is a notable example of continuous narration.<br /><br />The Rossano Gospels is purple manuscript of the New Testament. Two elaborate scenes of Christ before Pilate suggest derivation from monumental frescoes or mosaics.<br /><br />The Rabbula Gospels of 586 is an elaborate Syriac manuscript, with notable full-page scenes of the Crucifixion and the Ascension. The canon tables illustrate the architectural principle of the great arch embracing lesser ones, suggesting the concept of hierarchy.<br /><br />St. Augustine's Gospel in Cambridge is a fragment of Luke. In addition to the narrative scenes, there is a large portrait of the evangelist, accompanied by his symbol, a winged bull.<br /><br />These vari0us scenes are important because they mark the inception of a system of iconography, which (with various permutations) lasted until the time of the French Revolution.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-4605290742113891002007-10-27T07:27:00.000-07:002007-10-27T07:51:21.087-07:00Summary of Lecture SevenOn several occasions the term "Byzantine" has come up. It is not easy to delineate a boundary between late-antique/early Christian, on the one hand, and Byzantine, on the other. The shift has something to do with the affirmation of the hegemony of Constantinople. It may also reflect a new maturity, as the contradictions of the earlier mode become fused (by and large) into a new unity.<br /><br />Three helpful books were noted: A. Grabar, The Golden Age of Justinian; E. Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making; and R. Cormack, Byzantine Art (Oxford History of Art series).<br /><br />The personality and accomplishments of Justinian are pivotal in the establishment of the First Golden Age of Byzantine Art. Of unknown ethnicity, the peasant Justinian owed his fortune to his uncle Justin (ruled 518-27). After assuming the sole emperorship, Justinian faced opposition, culminating in the Nika riot, which destroyed the original building of Hagia Sophia.<br /><br />His most enduring achievement was the Corpus Iuris Civilis, which underlies the legal systems of most countries in the world (though not the English-speaking ones). This work, commonly known as the Justinian Code, is a mixed bag. Created under the guidance of Tribonian, the Code does harmonize and organize a vast mass of earlier Roman law and legal opinion. However, it sought to enforce religious uniformity and morals, leaving a dubious legacy. Examined closely, the Code provides evidence, supported by other sources, for the growth of a magical world view. This shift away from rationality is symbolized by Justinian's closing of the philosophical schools of Athens in 529.<br /><br />The confusion of realms (politics and religion), as we might term it, evidences the Byzantine principle of Caesaropapism, whereby the emperor felt empowered to interfere in religious matters. This doctrine may be reflected in Justinian's appearance (by means of mosaic) in the sanctuary of San Vitale.<br /><br />The great church of Hagia Sophia is a great engineering and decorative achievement. It is hard to describe the plan, but it reflects an effort to fuse the centralizing and longitudinal principles. It also relies on the late-Roman constructional device of the pendentive to effect the transition between the foundational square and the dome above. The original decoration, or most of it, was largely abstract, relying on a principle of surface flow, what might almost be termed viscosity.<br /><br />In addition to great buildings (duly chronicled by Procopius), the era saw a remarkable production in the minor arts, as seen in the ivory angel (British Museum) and the Riha Paten (Dumbarton Oaks Collection).<br /><br />The final section of the lecture was devoted to icons of the pre-Iconoclast period. The most important cache of these (some 36 items) resides in the monastery of St. Catherine's at Mount Sinai. We examined the Peter icon, the Marian one, and the Christ icon. Other early icons have been preserved in Egypt (some 30), and the city of Rome (four). The icons represent the beginning of many centuries of European panel painting. At the time, however, they evoked disquiet as foci of idolatry. This problem was to lead to the outbreak of Iconoclasm in 726.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-68037167729677678142007-10-19T06:23:00.000-07:002007-10-19T06:48:53.245-07:00Summary of Lecture SixWe briefly returned to the subject matter of Lecture Four, which attempted the difficult task of documenting the rise of monumental Christian architecture in 4th-century Rome. The Eternal City's character as a palimpsest complicates the task, as we saw with the three main levels of St. Peter's.<br /><br />Restabilization of the empire under Diocletian created new prosperity (as seen in such provinces as Britain, North Africa, and Syria). The return of cash flows from taxation made the Constantinian building boom possible.<br /><br />Early Christian monumental architecture (of the petrification stage) purloined the two major Roman templates: longitudinal (Basilica Ulpia) and central-plan (the Pantheon). While this is not primarily a course in architecture, some knowledge is required to understand the structural environment in which mosaics and other decorative features dwell. The Richard Krautheimer book in the Pelican series was recommended.<br /><br />The chief theme of the lecture was architecture and mosaics of Ravenna during the period 402-565 (including the twin city of Classe). A former Roman naval station, Ravenna became the Western capital (replacing Milan) for security reasons in 402.<br /><br />We looked at five major buildings. <br /><br />The cruciform Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (about 425) shows the typical contrast between outer austerity and inner splendor. The mosaics show a blend of older iconography (the Good Shepherd) and the new imagery of the martyrs (St. Lawrence). The starry sky connotes the idea of the dome of heaven.<br /><br />Of the two baptisteries. the Orthodox one (mainly 450s) is the more impressive (the Arian Baptistery was used by the barbarian rulers, who tended to be of that sect). The octagonal plan suggests two rationales. The first is the idea of Harmony, deriving ultimately from the Pythagorean discovery of the physical basis of the musical octave. The other, complimentary idea, is the sense of the eighth day as a symbol of renewal after the seven days of Creation.<br /><br />S. Apollinare Nuovo was originally an Arian basilica dedicated to Christ the Redeemer. Later the mosaics were slightly altered, mainly by excising the figures of Theodoric and his courtiers from the Palatium scene. The holy martyrs, female and male, illustrate the visual principle of seriation. High up on the walls are the 26 scenes of the Public Life of Christ and his Passion. One set shows the youthful, beardless Jesus, the other the bearded type. To the best of my knowledge no convincing theological explanation has been offered for this distinction (the latter type becomes standard).<br /><br />Probably the most remarkable of the Early Christian monuments of Ravenna is S. Vitale (consecrated in 549 or thereabouts), on an octagonal plan. The structure was commanded and paid for by the Emperor Justinian, though he never physically visited the city, appearing only in his mosaic portrait in the sanctuary. This building shows the adaptation of a central-plan scheme as a congregational church, a device that was to become standard in the East (while the West basically clung to the longitudinal plan).<br /><br />S. Apollinare in Classe, the sole survivor of a once flourishing group in that former port city, also belongs to the Justinianic era. The nave shows a rare type of wind-blown capitals. The effect is dominated by the apse area, with its gigantic mosaic in the half-dome. Here the iconography is complex (as it were, overdetermined), including the orans figure of the saint enacting the sheep allegory. a giant cross (reflecting the veneration of the True Cross, ostensibly discovered by St. Helena), the Transfiguration, and possibly (as a member of the class suggested) the eucharistic wafer.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-21393010213085962342007-10-12T14:05:00.000-07:002007-10-12T14:06:43.349-07:00{Lecture Five]Lecture Five was a guest presentation concerning artistic relations between Ireland and Italy in the earlier Middle Ages. Regular class meetings will recommence with Lecture Six on the following ThursdayDyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-50706171849675418192007-10-05T06:37:00.000-07:002007-10-05T07:04:32.995-07:00Summary of Lecture FourThe instructor briefly reemphasized the importance of the Dura Synagogue and its paintings. The plan is of the relatively rare broadhouse type, which seems to have been deliberately chosen to serve as (among other things) a kind of art gallery. When new, the effect of the 100-plus frescoes on all four walls must have been dazzling. At all events, the ensemble attests the Jewish invention of Biblical narrative in painting, a resource accessed at about this time by Christians (as we saw in the catacombs). In appropriating this material, Christians shifted the emphasis, employing a typological subtext that seems foreign to the original cycles. Typology, linking otherwise remote events and persons, is a key element in the repertoire of allegorical exegesis. An example is the link between the Brazen Serpent and the Crucifixion.<br /><br />Constantine's unification of the Roman empire was the resolution of some 18 years of civil war following the failure of Diocletian's ingenious but unworkable tetrarchic system. He effected the "merger" of the Roman state with the Christian church. <br /><br />For his most monumental church buildings Constantine drew upon the Roman tradition of the secular basilica, exemplified by the Basilica Ulpia In Trajan's Forum. The key elements of this structural type are the nave, the aisles, the apse, and the clerestory. Old St. Peter's (which has two additional side aisles) has a kind of invisible vertical axis linking the subterranean shrine of the Apostle to the high altar of the visible church. In this way the link between the catacombs and the new official art of the church was made plain.<br /><br />St. Peters and its Roman oompanion, St. John Lateran, have been altered beyond recognition (though old prints and drawings make reconstructions possible). The interior of S. Maria Maggiore (432-440) gives an idea of the overall effect.<br /><br />In addition to the longitudinal (basilica) paradigm, the fourth century advanced the central-plan type, seen at S. Costanza, originally a mausoleum of one of Constantine's daughters. These two types, longitudinal and central-plan, were to be canonical in church architecture for centuries.<br /><br />The Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (359) is the most lavish of these stone coffins to survive. Its anterior panels show a mingling of themes from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The side walls present the allegory of the grape harvest, alluding to the eucharist.<br /><br />The Projecta Casket, with its almost insouciant mixture of secular, pagan, and Christian motifs, is characteristic of the emergent miniaturization trend, in this case employing goldsmiths work of the highest quality.<br /><br />Two examples of ivory carving were also seen.<br /><br />A closer look at the mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore took us into the fifth century, when Rome, under the leadership of the popes, was struggling to recover from the sack of 410. The dedication of the building alludes to the newly-proclaimed doctrine of Mary as Theotokos, mother of God. The triumphal arch mosaics reflect this doctrine. In the nave, the subjects are narratives from the Hebrew Bible. We saw three examples from life of Abraham, evidently selected to reflect the typological inflection Christians gave to these narrative scenes.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-87801697926140432282007-09-25T05:47:00.000-07:002007-09-25T12:52:10.571-07:00CorrectionThere was a typo in the version of the First Assignment provided electronically. The number of the Ktisis mosaic in the Muesum in 2825, as in the handout. (The electronic version has been corrected.)<br /><br />Technical difficulties, some expected, some not, have occurred. We are addressing these.<br /><br />At all events, you can't miss the Ktisis mosaic. Just go the Museum gallery and examine it directly.<br /><br />The final for this course will be on December 20 at 7 PM. The last class will be on Monday December 17.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-67805484090962237112007-09-22T06:07:00.000-07:002007-09-24T04:49:19.994-07:00Summary of Lecture ThreeThe main part of the discussion concerned two significant instances of "underground" art, one from the center of empire, the outskirts of Rome; the other from a frontier town in the Middle East.<br /><br />Over the years a number of myths have grown up about the Roman catacombs. Although martyrs were buring there these underground cemeteries never served as places of refuge. The paintings--major evidence for the emergence of early Christian iconography--do not date from the Apostolic period, but only from the time after ca. 200 CE.<br /><br />The ceiling painting at the catacomb of SS. Peter and Marcellinus shows two types of imagery--symbolic and narrative. The central figure of the Good Shepherd represents an appropriation of an old personification of Philanthropia--compassion for humanity--reinterpreted in accord with New Testament references. The orans (praying) figures at t he corners suggest contemporary worshippers, and more generally the love of God. The narrative scenes of the life of Jonah were understood typologically, with Jonah as a precursor of Jesus--but also in terms of the aspirations for resurrection of the ordinary believer.<br /><br />Much of the imagery stems from the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament for Christians, suggesting dependence on earlier Jewish imagery.<br /><br />The catacombs also contain images of Hercules, Orpheus and other classical themes. These figures were also understood typologically--and in terms of the preparatio evangelica, the aspects of truth that the Creator vouchsafed to worthy pagans. These appropriations constitute the first stage of the Christian adoption of classical mythology, a trend that was to last through the Middle Ages, becoming most prominent in the Italian Renaissance. The mosica of Christ as the solar principle reflects the "compromise" principle of the Sol Invictus, honored on December 23.<br /><br />On the west bank of the Euphrates River, the city of Dura Europos was founded in 303 BCE and destroyed by the Persians in 256/7. The remained undisturbed until its 1920 rediscovery and subsequent excavation. The shrines of Dura show a "delicious confusion" of religions. In addition to the official cult of Zeus, one could visit the Mithraeum, the Temple of the Palmyrene Gods, and others.<br /><br />While not unique, the paintings of the Synagogue are the most extsnsive and impressive ensemble to have survived. They are kept in the National Museum of Damascus. Most of the scenes are narratives stemming from various books of the Hebrew Bible. Attempts to find a single, overarching theme have not (to my knowledge) proved successful. It is probably best to regard them as reminders of the history of the Jewish people, as recorded in Scriptures.<br /><br />As flat objects, the paintings did not--at this time--come under special scrutiny as idolatry. The frescoes show a number of "anticlassical" devices, including flatness, stacking to indicate depth, reverse perspective, and attenuation of cast shadows. The combination of Greco-Roman and Persian costume illustrates the principle of hybridity.<br /><br />The Christian Building at Dura is modest. It is simply a typical courtyard house, retrofitted for a new purpose. The main rooms are the assembly hall and the baptistery. The latter contained some paintings, since removed to Yale University. The Good Shepherd backs the font area in the baptistery. In this composition we noted a typological "footnote" in the little figures of Adam and Eve at the lower left (Jesus was regarded as the New Adam.)<br /><br />Examples of sculpture from Palmyra, Coptic Egypt, Carthage, and Adamklisse (Bulgaria) illustrate Middle Eastern principles in the broad sense. It is probably these principles that came to the fore in the new reliefs of the Arch of Constantine--rather than any metropolitan development.<br /><br /><br />READING. To learn more about this material, the instructor recommends the following books:<br /><br /><br />R. Bianchi-Bandinelli, Rome: The Late Empire, NY, 1970.<br /><br />A. Grabar, Early Christian Art, NY 1968.<br /><br />R. Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, rev. ed., Harmondsworth, 1987.<br /><br />L. J. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First 1000 Years, second ed., New Haven, 2005.<br /><br />T. F. Mathews, The Clash of Gods, rev. ed., Princeton, 1999.<br /><br />W. F. Volbach, Early Christian Art, NY, 1962 [excellent photos; text negligeable]<br /><br />K. Weitxmann, Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination, NY, 1977.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-740496176502386542007-09-17T10:52:00.001-07:002007-09-17T10:54:08.129-07:00The Early Medieval TriadTHE EARLY MEDIEVAL TRIAD W. R. Dynes 23/02/03<br /><br />As a rule triadic schemes are subtler and more revealing than dichotomies (“binaries”), a methodological principle brilliantly theorized by the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. Yet C. R. Morey’s scheme trichotomizing the sources of medieval art requires much adaptation and updating; as it is, it will not serve.<br /><br />Clearly the racial explanation fails. If, in pharaonic Egypt, the collective DNA (so to speak) dictated the convention of fractional representation (in which heads appear in profile), how could a very similar DNA pool generate the opposite practice: heads presented frontally? In a different part of the world, scholarly attempts (e.g. by N. Pevsner) to stipulate regularities governing the volatile record of English art (“Englishness”) have failed, even though the population pool has changed very little. <br /><br />Setting aside improbable theories of racial constants, we are on firmer ground with language and religion. In the ancient Middle East most of the dominant languages were Afro-Asiatic, as distinct from the Indo-European tongues of Greece and Rome. This difference tended to set those speakers apart from the Greco-Roman ruling circles. In the Early Christian period another contrast emerged, as the Syrians became Nestorians and the Egyptian Copts Monophysite, while Greek and Roman speakers remained orthodox Catholics. Yet what is the connection between these three elements—language, religion, and art? Taking a leaf from the study of modern ethnic groups, some contemporary historians have posited that these elements fused synergetically to make up a pattern of resistance. “Deviant” cultural expression served as a marker for group solidarity. Compare the role of hip-hop in today’s African American culture. Of course such phenomena are always subject to coopting, but that propensity helps to explain the spread of Middle Eastern artistic conventions through the whole panoply of medieval lands.<br /><br />In examining our data, the form of the objects demands the closest scrutiny. We must dust off that often disparaged tool of study—style analysis. A side glance at modern youth, with its preferences for distinctive clothing and music, shows that for the participants style does indeed matter. It is style that sets “our crowd” off from the others, whether they be “lames” or “the man.”<br /><br />In our situation, style analysis requires a constantly available fund of mental images—what is termed visual literacy. Thus a reference to the Junius Bassus sarcophagus or the mosaics of San Vitale in Ravenna should conjure up a reliable image. Without this store of visual knowledge, one cannot travel very far.<br /><br />FIRST COMPONENT: CLASSICISM<br /><br />At first glance it would seem that the adoption of Christianity obliterated Classicism for a thousand years. The Middle Ages was the anticlassical age par excellence, and Classicism, so long suppressed, revived only with the coming of the Italian Renaissance. This stereotype is much too simple<br /><br />A closer look at representative monuments of the Late Antique period shows that Classicism was indeed menaced in the later 3d century and the early 4th (reliefs of the Arch of Constantine; 315). In ensuing decades, though, it revived, showing a vigorous, but somewhat coarse exuberance in the Junius Bassus sarcophagus, followed by a kind of dreamy elegance during the Theodosian period. There were of course many periods where a countertrend surged, latterly in the major works of Justinian’s maturity, such as the mosaics of San Vitale of ca. 547.<br /><br />What are the grounds for this ebb and flow? Some have thought that the alternation might correlate with war and peace: the anticlassical trend comes to the fore in eras of turbulence, and the calmer classical mode resurge in peacetime. Be that as it may, what was the source of the countercurrent that challenged Classical hegemony? Undoubtedly it was mainly Middle Eastern, though that factor had become generalized, even cropping up in Roman Britain in what Ernst Kitzinger has termed the “subantique.” In the case of the Arch of Constantine reliefs some argue (especially R. Bianchi Bandinelli) that it drew upon a background of Plebeian Art in Roman Italy, a kind of “primitive” counterpoint to the idealistic official art. In this explanation class trumps ethnicity.<br /><br />Resurgent classicism found a literary counterpart in the Latin writings of the pagan Claudian and the Christian Ausonius, among others.<br /><br />With the age of Justinian (527-65) the first cycle, the continuing evolution of Late-Antique Classicism, characterized by a systole and diastole of prominence and recession, concluded. But that was not the end of the story. Scholars typically handle recurrences by positing a series of “renascences”: those of the Heraclian, Carolingian, 12th-century, Gothic, and trecento periods. (See Panofsky’s monograph on this topic. <br /><br />The Middle Byzantine period (after the resolution of the iconoclastic controversy in 843) became a major reservoir of revived Classicism, bequeathing much to the West (see Demus monograph).<br /><br />What are the major episodes of Classicism in Western Europe after 1000?<br />1) Reiner of Huy and the ensuing Mosan art, seen especially in manuscript illuminations;<br />2) Early Gothic sculpture as seen at Chartres and Paris, probably stimulated by Byzantine ivories.<br />3) The somewhat isolated case of the Reims Visitation.<br />4) Nicola Pisano and his nude Hercules; possible Giotto’s frescoes.<br /><br />SECOND COMPONENT: MIDDLE EASTERN<br /><br />The geographical definition of the expression Middle Eastern is somewhat fluid. The core consists of Western Asia plus Egypt. Many though would annex the Maghreb (western North Africa). Older books use “Near Eastern,” and older ones still simply call it the Orient—hence the Orientalism castigated by Edward Said.<br /><br />Major foci of development during the later Roman Empire and the late antique period were the “caravan cities,” border towns in the Syrian desert such as Hatra, Palmyra, and especially Dura, with its harvest of religious monuments. Some would extend the purview into Sassanian Persia. Coptic Egypt (the source of monasticism) was certainly a prime contributor. The Roman army, attracting many followers of Mithra, seems to have extended this manner to far-flung areas, such as Roman Britain (which witnessed bonding with native Celtic and Pictish trends).<br /><br />In a nutshell, frontality, free manipulation of proportions, “stacking” instead of perspectival recession, erosion of the figure-ground contrast, and a tendency towards overall pattern characterize the Middle Eastern trend. Idealization and illusionism (a la Grec) went out. “In” were pattern, stylization, expressivity, and symbolism. These features have struck many observers as proto-medieval. Was there, though, a direct causal link, or simply a similarity of ethos based on a worldview centering on religion? Various salvational religious competed with Christianity in the Middle East, including Judaism, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, and Manicheanism, and their followers sought a distinctive art as the vehicle of their faith.<br /><br />Eventually this Middle Eastern current struck up a certain coexistence with Classicism, as seen in the Mary Icon of Mt. Sinai, with its two illusionistic angels hovering in the background. The inherent capacity for blending and hybridization—metissage as some term it—was crucial for the creatively impure art of the later Middle Ages.<br /><br />THIRD COMPONENT: “BARBARIAN” (MIGRATIONS) ART’<br /><br />Concordant analysis by a number of specialists suggests a vast fund of art originating in the Eurasian steppes; this enormous zone stretches from the Ordos at China’s Mongolian frontier across the Urals to Ukraine with the Scythians and Sarmatians. Sometimes this art of nomads is termed the “Animal Style.” It is not so much a style as a preference—human figures are rare and animals (generally stylized in intricate patterns) are supreme. This art first came onto the radar screen with the Siberian treasury assembled by Peter the Great almost 300 years ago. This art and others like it stem from a nomadic (or “Migrations”) lifestyle, preferring small, precious objects because of their portability.<br /><br />In this light, the Germanic, Viking, and Hiberno-Saxon arts (more familiar to us than the ones mentioned) represent offshoots of the great cauldron of creativity whose locus is in Inner Asia and Eastern Europe. Be that as it may, much scholarship has been devoted to deciphering characteristic motifs, such as the interlace, the lacertine, and the spiral-and- trumpet. Originally at home in pagan milieus, these Northern style components make their way into Christian art through Hiberno-Saxon manuscript illustration (the famous Books of Durrow and Kells), and then, especially on the continent, through metalwork (as in the lower cover of the Lindau gospels in the Morgan Library). Hiberno-Saxon art has engaged the attention of such scholars as Francoise Henry, and R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford. Continental Migrations art has been the province of Scandinavian (E. Salin) and German researchers.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-11197230322542210222007-09-10T05:56:00.000-07:002007-09-11T12:40:43.142-07:00Summary of Lecture Two[NOTE: There will be no class on September 13, in accordance with the college calendar.]<br /><br /><br />As the matrix out of which the first phase of medieval art arose, the Roman Empire merits special attention. The "afterglow" of the Roman Empire was indeed tremendows. We need only think of the "Byzanatines" as we term them), in their own eyes, the "Romaioi/" In the West the Holy Roman Empire maintained an existence of a sort for a milkennium, from 800 to 1806. <br /><br />Rome played an inspirational role in the earlier history of the United States, as seen in the Capitol in Washington, housing as it does the US Senate. At one time knowledge of Latin was de rigueur for an educated person, and the values inculcated by Cicero and Vergil were taken very seriously.<br /><br />All this has changed with the popular culture of recent decades, where the Romans are portrayed, in tabloid fashion as self-indulgent and cruel. Serious scholars debate the question :"Was Rome doomed" and "Are we destined to suffer the same fate (see books by Paul Kennedy and Cullen Murphy).<br /><br />The murder of Julius Caesar in 44 started things off. In the ensuinc turmoil, Octavian aka Augustus (Julius' great nephew) emerged victorious in 30 BCE. Mindful of the fate of his great uncle Augustuus avoided any monarchical trappeings, but assembled enormous power with the acquiescence of a supine Senate. Augustus conrrolled the legions, a superb fighting forcel, and that was all that mattered.<br /><br />We examined the Gemma Augustea in Vienna as a document of Augustus' claims, and more generally as an exemplar of the "Roman language of art." We noted the personifcation of Roma.<br /><br />The peace brought by Augustus and his successor (not to speak of heavy taxes) yielded many public works: roads and acqueducts, temples and basilicas. These were funded either by the public fisc or by wealthy patrons.<br /><br />In the view of many historians the palmy days ended in 180, when Marcus Aurelius was succeeded by his dissolute son Commodus. Septimius Severus attempted a restoration, but things went to dogs agin under his son Caracalla (note the superb bust of the latter at the end of the new Greco-Roman galleries at the Met). <br /><br />In 384 Diocletian put things back together again with his Tetrarchic system. This did not last, though, and Constantine brought things back together. With his Edict of Milan of 313 Costantine end3d the persecution of Christiany, signifying by later acts his personal sympathy. He fopunded Constantinople in 330. (The Arch of Constantine marks, though contestably, the start of medieval art.)<br /><br />Justinian (527-565) sought to restore the Roman Empire in the West. He also was a prodigious builder and law reformer (the Code Justinian). Yet in the 630s the expansion of Islam largely nullified Justinian's efforts.<br /><br />Finally, Charlemagne created his own version of empire in Western Europe (coronation of 800).Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3907321975236329168.post-24859110803462639052007-09-08T06:02:00.000-07:002007-09-08T06:27:32.285-07:00Summary of Lecture OneLasting until about 1000 CE, the earlier medieval period displays distinctive characteristics, especially in Western Europe. Its launching, the so-called Fall of Rome, poses the larger question of the fragility of civilization. Recently, historians and sociologists have placed the issue of the collapse of civilizations in comparative perspective, adducing instances ranging from the ancient Maya to the Soviet Union.<br /><br />It is a mistake to dismiss the earlier Middle Ages as simply the "Dark Ages." The era witnessed the creative process of ethnogenesis, including the emergence of such modern nations as France and England, with their distinctive (and indeed glorious) languages. Old French appears for the first time in a written document of 843, Old English (Anglo-Saxon) somewhat earlier. Moreover, in the realm of art a modest economy does not necessarily spell artistic inferiority, witness the many brilliant manifestations of the Primal (or Tribal) Arts.<br /><br />The following features are significant in our period.<br /><br />A. The emergence of three constituent art streams, followed by their gradual admixture (hybridity): 1) The Greco-Roman stem, wherein the Roman element is itself composite, juxtaposing highm and low featuress. 2) The Middle Eastern contribution, generated in the resurgent cultures of Egypt, Syria, Armenia, and Persia. 3) The northern "barbarian" contribution: Celtic, Germanic, Scandinavian.<br /><br />B. While the Roman Empire fialed in the West, it survived in the East, where Byzantine civilization came to form the basis for Eastern European distinctiveness, anchored by the Orthodox church.<br /><br />C. Religion plays an important role. The late antique period is not just a simple handover from Greco-Roman polytheism to Christianity, for there was a jostling of "New Age" faiths, those of Mithras, Isis, Cybele, Mani and so forth. Moreover, as contemporary scholars working with gnostic documents and newly found gospels have shown, early Christianity was more diverse than is usually assumed.<br /><br />D. In art some genres, including monumental sculpture, did indeed fade away. Yet there was rioch compensation in the new sophistication of ivory carving, manuscript illumination, enamel, and goldsmiths' work. With some justice it has been remarked that the minor arts were the major arts of the earlier Middle Ages.Dyneslineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17557372978936806884noreply@blogger.com0