From Text to Interpretation: How the Bible Came to Mean Some of the Strange Things It Means

this ucsd-tv program is presented by university of california television like what you learn visit our website or follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with the latest programs ancient Biblical interpretation but which I mean the way that the Bible used to be understood from late biblical times through the Middle Ages and beyond is everything that modern biblical scholarship has sought to correct and the work of these modern biblical scholars such as the one who introduced me has has been extraordinarily successful thanks to modern historical methods archaeology comparative Semitic s-- and other new disciplines we know an awful lot more about the Bible than we did before to begin with we know a great deal about the individual books that make up the Bible how they came into existence and when and in some cases why they were written archaeologists have uncovered the lost civilizations of ancient Israel's neighbors as well as a good portion of ancient Israel itself we now know a lot more about the political and social circumstances in which different biblical events arose we know previously unknown languages of the region ancient Egyptian Akkadian Hittite Ugaritic and others and these have helped us to understand Biblical Hebrew far better than before of course studying dead languages is difficult to undertaking but the wonderful thing about it is there's nobody around to correct your pronunciation anyway these interpreters had a different definite program a particular way of approaching the text the books that they were interpreting generally dealt with things that had happened long before their time the history of Israel's remotest ancestors Abraham Jacob King David and so forth or the laws that were given to Moses on Mount Sinai but these interpreters were determined to make those ancient writings relevant to their own day that was really their you know one of their main goals they look to the Bible for guidance in their own affairs and you know this probably sounds natural but it's in part because of these interpreters that does sound natural these were books about the distant past even in the days of these interpreters but they wanted to read them as if they were giving us guidance for today and that meant putting a certain spin on these books reading everything they could as if it were not just history not just about the past I think I can make this clearer if I mention a specific example and I suppose I like this one because almost everybody knows the story of Adam and Eve the Hebrew Bible begins by relating the story of Adam and Eve the first human beings created by God everyone today knows that this story is basically about the fall of man Adam and Eve were put in the Garden of Eden to lead a sinless immortal existence but then the devil in the form of a serpent tempted Eve to eat the apple and the pear was kicked out of the garden forever ever since then human beings have been sinful creatures punished with death but actually none of the things I just mentioned is in the Genesis story itself it makes no mention of any fall of man nor his life in the Garden of Eden ever described as a sinless existence it never says that Adam and Eve were supposed to be immortal there is no devil in the store very just a talking snake and in fact no Apple it's just called a fruit all of these elements were created by the ancient interpreters and they have been superimposed on the words of the biblical story ever since the story itself is actually rather puzzling to modern scholars some have suggested that it's really about a significant moment that many societies experience the transition from being a hunter-gatherer civilization in which people survive by eating whatever they happen to find growing on trees or running around in the wild to living in settled agricultural communities you know agriculture is not a natural event people have to discover agriculture in some ways it's kind of counterintuitive you take a seed that otherwise you could eat and you put it in the ground you know and and in place of that one seed you get a whole stalk of wheat on which there are lots of seeds and I guess that's how compound interest works in any case it was discovered and and that moment did happen in history at different points on the on the globe the ancient Near East was one of the first places in which it was practiced in part scholars say I'm some of you may know more about this than I do but in part because because chickpeas are native to the region and you know if you plant them you can have homeless and that in a little wheat will do you for centuries so so it did develop in the ancient Near East modern scholars don't think the biblical and in other places modern scholars don't think that the Bible actually preserves a historical memory of this transition to agriculture it happened long ago long before our most ancient texts were written rather the story in the Bible appears to be a kind of speculative recreation perhaps based on the reports of distant civilizations in which people had not yet made this transition but survived by hunting and gathering and wandering around in a shocking state of undress and and so at first Adam and Eve live in a marvelous garden where all their needs are supplied by picking fruit off the trees but then they become wise by eating from the forbidden tree and suddenly they know much more than before thereafter adam is punished in these terms in toil you shall eat all the days of your life you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread in other words Adam is condemned to become a farmer that wasn't the only thing that happened after Adam and Eve ate from that tree as a result it says their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked humanity at exactly the same period now acquired more and more sophisticated clothing so that looking back from that standpoint those earlier days in the marvelous garden seem childlike and primitive anyway that's basically how this text looks - at least some modern scholars as for the snake in the story seems to be just a snake snakes were worshiped in the ancient Near East perhaps the oldest Semitic inscription ever deciphered seems to speak of a mother snake figure and snakes were sometimes thought to be wise in any case the snake in the story is certainly not the devil there was no devil in ancient Israel until much later toward the end of the biblical period so how did this story become the Adam and Eve story that we know the first change I can't document it happened slowly it was a change in assumptions about the Bible maybe a willful change at least it moved forward dramatically by those interpreters that I mentioned but it began earlier perhaps around 500 or so before the Common Era people came to assume certain things about the Bible that the Bible itself didn't say in fact all of them contradict what we normally assume about a text the first is that as they approach the text they they seem to have naturally assumed that although it says X what it really means is y that you know it's a fundamentally cryptic document that is this this first assumption it's not to be taken literally it says X but what it really means is Y the second assumption is that these biblical texts are essentially a book of lessons it's not just history not just about the past but history was a purpose to tell us something to do or think today in that sense these biblical texts are fundamentally relevant that's the second assumption the third is that although and I suppose actually go back and stress that these are all kind of counterintuitive when you read a text any other text if it says X using it means X not Y and if you're reading something about the past you wouldn't feel that it's necessarily telling you what to do you can read Hammurabi's laws and say that's very interesting but I don't think you would say now let's go out and you know kill our slave or whatever it says but that was how people sought to read these texts they're about the past but they're telling us what to do the third assumption is that although these biblical texts clearly and nobody denied this came from different periods were written down by different people arose in different millio within the biblical world they were assumed to be perfectly consistent that is any particular work didn't contain contradictions was in itself but further than that even Isaiah for example the book of Isaiah agrees with a book of Deuteronomy or the book of Proverbs sheds light on the book of Genesis they're all assumed to be perfectly consistent and the fourth assumption is that all these all these books were somehow divinely given or divinely inspired or approved by God nobody ever doubted that about those verses that said and God spoke to Moses saying dot dot dot dot that dot was certainly taken to be a divine speech but at this point everything else also became divine speech even those words and the Lord spoke to Moses or to take the outstanding example the Book of Psalms which is a collection of songs of praise or prayers to God but they came to be understood as having been given by God David divinely inspired recited these words of Prayer well those were the four basic assumptions that were put forward by these ancient interpreters and in the case of the story of Adam and Eve they were crucial because especially the third because on the face of it this story has a few glaring contradictions when God instructs Adam about what to do and not to do in the garden he says as follows you may eat freely of every tree in the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for on the days that you eat of it you shall die well the problem that bothered ancient interpreters was that phrase on the day that you eat of it actually Adam doesn't die he gets kicked out of the garden but then he goes on to live to the age of 930 so why should the Bible say on the day this wasn't a big problem but still you could imagine that teachers would teach this text year after year copyists would copy it they must have wondered why did this story have God say on the day when that turned out not to be true you might think that God was the sort of divine parent of which I am a human copy you know sometimes parents make a vain threats they really don't intend to carry out but even if that were true why would you why would you put it in the Bible I mean it's bad enough that it happened but do you know so interpreters look for other solutions and one other solution was the idea that God's days are different from ours after all the Bible starts off by saying that the whole universe was created in six days it must have seemed to ancient interpreters that that was a rather short time to have made even for God to have made so much stuff not just the earth with all its seas and rivers and mountains and deserts and forests but also the sky and the stars and everything else what's more there was a verse in the Bible itself that suggested that time was different for God and for mankind Psalm 90 compares the fleeting human lifetime to God's eternity it says a thousand years in your that is God's sight are like yesterday well if you take that seriously perhaps what it meant was that there's an actual unit of time yesterday of God's or indeed a day of God's that lasts a thousand years this idea is made explicit in a number of ancient Jewish and Christian texts for example the New Testament second letter of Peter observes at one point but do not ignore this one fact beloved that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day similarly a Genesis Rabbah and early rabbinic text says one day of God's is a thousand years long as it says in the Psalms a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday so here was one possible solution when God says to Adam on the day that you eat of it you will die he was referring to one of God's dates and indeed Adam lives to the age of 930 which means he must have died sometime in the late afternoon of one of God's days but that still left unanswered the basic question why delay the punishment so long justice delayed is justice denied I think why didn't God kill Adam right away there was another possible explanation it understood you shall die not as you shall fall over dead but you shall become a person who dies you shall become mortal this explanation assumes that God originally created Adam and Eve to be immortal they would continue to live in the garden for ever and ever so long as they obeyed the rules I didn't mention this before but certainly there was another tree mentioned in the story called the Tree of Life its function is not at all clear in the original story it's only just mentioned but for champions of this interpretation it seemed to be in the garden to ensure Adam and Eve's immortality presumably all they had to do was take a hit off that tree every century or so and their continued existence was guaranteed so if on the day that you eat of it you shall die really mint you shall become mortal then the sentence was indeed carried out they turned into ordinary human beings and after a full rich life of nine hundred years or so ceased to exist this interpretation is also widely attested and early Ben Sira who lived at the beginning of the second century before the Common Era said from a woman's woman was sins beginning and because of her we all died the women part I'll maybe get back to in the questions but the important part here is that well you know that happened and because of that we all died similarly the book of force Ezra written in the first century before the of the Common Era says you set one commandment on Adam but he violated it as a result you establish death for him and his descendants but actually this wording brings up a another question and one that did bother ancient interpreters flying for Adam and Eve to have been pump punished with mortality they certainly deserved it but why punish me I didn't eat from that fruit well one possible answer is that mortality is hereditary after all heredity is a powerful force in life as they like to say at Harvard if your parents didn't have any children chances are you won't either so that might be what happened ancient Adam and Eve became mortal and this mortality was inherited by their descendants but ancient interpreters came up with a better idea it wasn't mortality per se that was hereditary but sinfulness Adam and Eve had something in them that led them to disregard God's commandment and ever afterwards human beings have been disobeying and sinning and being punished in the same way or an alternate version of this theme as if once they were kicked out of the garden Adam and Eve no longer had the possibility of living a sinless existence so now they and their descendants were condemned to die for ever and ever for people familiar with the New Testament this must sound familiar since the fall of man came to be a favorite Christian theme but it actually was a favorite Jewish theme in the first century of the Common Era here again is force Ezra he says for the first Adam burdened with an evil heart transgressed and was overcome thus the disease became permanent Oh Adam what have you done for though was you who sinned the fall was not yours alone but ours also who are your descendants this might be the first use of the term the fall of man anyway there's much more to say about this story and maybe we can return to it later but I hope I've given you an idea of how these interpreters worked they read the text very carefully with attention to each word but they also try to transform it in the way that I've described suddenly the story of Adam and Eve is no longer about the vention of agriculture or elaborate clothing but instead it is all about morality and mortality God's commandments and the disastrous effect of not obeying them quite consciously at least these interpreting interpreters said about reconfiguring as much as they could of these ancient texts to make them correspond to their own highly ideological god centered outlook the stories of Genesis all of them were as it were written anew not by changing any of the words but by changing the basic assumptions with which those words were approached as well as what those words were interpreted to mean so now with your permission I'd like to look at a few more examples of ancient biblical interpretations I wanted to start off with the story of Cain and Abel some of you know the basic story Adam and Eve had two sons Cain and Abel Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd and they decide at one point to bring the sacrifices to God and God prefers Abel's for reasons unknown and Cain is furious and his in his rage he kills Abel and God punishes him with exile well that's the basic story but the opening sentence of the story posed a problem for ancient interpreters and I have to say often maybe 90% of the time the starting point of these ancient interpretations is something that's a little bit tricky bothersome not logical in the biblical text or just something people can't really understand so that opening sentence reads now the man knew his wife Eve and she conceived and bore Cain saying I have acquired a man with the help of the Lord one of the things that's fun is to compare different translations and I you know usually end up translating things myself as a result but I remember seeing one you know people this isn't the point of what I'm going to say but I have acquired a man that sometimes translators I have created I saw a rather recent translation that says I have produced it sound very kind of businesslike but whatever I have acquired a man with and it says in most translations the help of the Lord well to begin with it doesn't say the help of the Lord says I've acquired a man with the Lord so ancient interpreters wonder why would a mother contemplating her newborn son say I have acquired or created or whatever a man with the Lord ancient Israelites didn't refer to babies as manchild or anything like that the word man in Hebrew it's ish means a fully grown man in fact sometimes it's an honorific title kind of nobleman also interestingly sometimes it's used to refer to angels Jacob fights with a man all night and Daniel sees a man so that was one question why I have acquired or whatever a man the second was the the rest of the phrase acquired a man with the Lord these were the questions this opening sentence raised and if you look at how they were translated in one of the ancient Aramaic Targums I should say a targum it is just the word for an Aramaic translation but translation is not always appropriate these these translations were often rather discursive as you'll see so item number two on the handout is a quote from one early Aramaic translation Adam knew about it and this is allegedly a translation of those same verses of verse that we read and Adam knew about his wife Eve that she had conceived by sama Elle's a wicked angel of the Lord and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain he resembled the upper ones that is the angels and not the lower ones humans and she said I have acquired a man indeed an angel of the Lord well how has this interpreter changed the text or how has he not changed the text everyone knows that the word no in the Bible sometimes refers to sexual relations the biblical no so in the biblical story Adam knows his wife and she becomes pregnant in this translation Adam knows in our sense of no he understands or finds out that his wife is pregnant from some other male namely the wicked angel Samael I did say that there was no devil yet in our sense at the time of the original story but by the time this Aramaic targum came along the devil was well on his way in some texts he is called sama el he's an early devil like figure so the scenario envisaged in this targum is a bit like Rosemary's Baby I you know I say this as students now look back at me and this what's that but some of you may remember that movie Eve sleeps with the devil or wicked angel and gives birth to an ish an angelic creature the phrase used in the bite and the biblical verse I've acquired a man or angel with the Lord is this being interpreted as with an angel of the Lord namely the wicked angel Samael so now it all makes sense not just fill a logical sense but theological sense as we'll see in a minute but first I want to mention another question arising out of the continuation of the biblical story and this is in passage 3 I assume it says next she bore his brother Abel now Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain a tiller of the ground the farmer in the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock their fat portions and the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering but for Cain and his offering he had no regard so Caine was very angry and his countenance fell then Cain said to his brother Abel and when they were in the field Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him so here's the question why should kind of been angry at Abel angry to the point of killing him shouldn't he have directed his anger at God after all God was the one who rejected his sacrifice so here is the targum answer this is passage number four after the incident of the sacrifices Cain said to his brother Abel come let us go out into the field and it came to pass when that they too had gone into the field that Cain cried out to Abel it is my view that the world was not created with divine love and is not arranged in keeping with people's good deeds but justice is corrupted for why else was your sacrifice accepted with favor and my not and then Abel said to Cain no my view is that the world was indeed created with divine love and is altogether arranged in keeping with people's good deeds but it was because my deeds have been better than yours that my sacrifice was accepted with favor and your sacrifice was not that what might have been a truthful answer but it was an unfortunate choice for Abel they end up in a kind of theological argument the wording is somewhat highfalutin in Aramaic but it boils down to Cain saying to Abel you know they could have just offered these sacrifices Cain's gets rejected and Cain walks out he says you know doesn't that just that's just so typical you know what goes on in this world is completely unpredictable it's random God doesn't care there's no justice and Abel unfortunately has an answer to Cain's complaint it's not random at all I've had a history of good deeds I'm basically a good guy and you don't have any good deeds he puts it this way but it was because my deeds have been better than yours that my sacrifice was accepted with favor and your sacrifice was not so now we understand why Cain's anger was turned against Abel it was a little too candid in explaining what had just happened so of course Cain is mad at him but now you might say well that's all well and good but there is no argument mentioned in the biblical story so you know this is an interpretation this is creative writing but if you were to say that to the author of this targum he would answer what all ancient biblical interpreters answer under such circumstances you're not reading the Bible carefully enough well what would he mean by that if you go back to the biblical passage number three on the handout you might notice that there's something missing in the second-to-last line it says then Cain said to his brother Abel but it doesn't say what he says it just says then Cain said to Abel and when they were in the field so from the ancient interpreter standpoint there's a hole in the text and this is actually an invitation at least that's how the interpreter sought for them to fill the void so he does and the targum it says Cain said to his brother Abel come let us both go out into the field but that's only the beginning excuse me then they get into this theological discussion that we so and that discussion is part of what's missing in the text it's what would have fit in that Hall this argument I should stress that however doubtful the methodology may strike readers today such interpretations were not the musings of one or two oddballs biblical interpreters in those days were not hapless academics they were respected members of the community sometimes even community leaders and they were the experts they were the ones who knew so what they said the Bible meant is what it meant their interpretations are echoed here and there in other writings from the same period in number five on the handout for example is a passage from the New Testament first letter of John and this is what he says we'll say well what has he been reading by this it may be seen who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil whoever does not do right is not of God nor he who does not love his brother for this is the message which you have heard from the beginning that is from the book of Genesis that we should love one another and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother so Cain here is one of the children of the devil that's the expression 1 Peter uses and he was of the evil one both phrases reflect the targum tradition of Rosemary's Baby but also 1 John says whoever does not do right is not of God and this seems to echo what Abel said to Cain in the targum you didn't have any good deeds you did not do right another reflection of his devilish origins the continuation of the biblical story presents another problem and this is in number 6 the Lord said to Cain where's your brother Abel he said I do not know am I my brother's keeper and the Lord said what have you done listen your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground and now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand it would seem from this passage that God had first had no idea what had happened to Abel Abel after all he has to ask Cain and Cain gives them an evasive answer am I my brother's keeper it's apparently only when God gets closer that he can hear Abel's brother's blood Abel's blood crying out from the ground and so he discovers the terrible truth that Abel has been murdered but of course this doesn't sit well with the whole idea of divine omniscience and here it should be said frankly that in the vast majority of biblical text divine omniscience is not something that is simply assumed or even stated outright in fact the opposite seems to be the case with a great many texts including this one but by the time of the ancient biblical interpreters it was simply assumed so they had to modify the apparent sense of this incident so here's how this story was retold by another ancient interpreter the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus Flavius this is a passage number 7 and I should say Josephus had a rather undistinguished career as a soldier before he became a historian but he wrote this a extraordinary history of the Jewish people starting in its first four books with a retelling of biblical history and of course he actually said this isn't of course he says at the beginning that he's just going to tell you what's written in our sacred books but at almost every turn he adds all sorts of things that are not in the Bible I'm not sure how conscious he was he had studied the Bible like most well born Jewish youths and he throws in these interpretations as many people did they really didn't know where the text began and the interpretation ended people rarely had actual copies of the books I think Josephus did but they kind of worked from memory so here's his retelling thereupon Cain incensed that God's preference for Abel killed his brother and in hid the corpse since he thought that the matter might just remain a secret but God aware of his deed came to Kane and asked him where his brother had gone since he had not seen him for many days although previously had always seen him together with Kane Kane was thus cast into a difficulty in finding nothing to reply to God it first said that he was likewise surprised at not seeing his brother but but then exasperated by God's persistent inquisitive meddling he finally said that he was not his brother's babysitter or bodyguard responsible for whatever happened to him at this God accused Kane of being his brother's murderer well Josephus states outright that God was aware of the deed he knows the problem it doesn't seem like God knows what happened so he just tells you right at the beginning God was aware of the deed so of course he knew what happened but then why did he ask Cain where Abel was apparently the purpose was to lead Cain to show his true feelings toward his brother God gets Cain to do this through what Josephus calls persistent inquisitive meddling but there is no such persistent meddling in the biblical text but once again if you were to ask the interpreter where he got this idea he would simply say that's obvious you just have to read the text a little more carefully than you're doing what would he mean by that well Josephus notices that God's question where is Abel actually causes Cain to give two different answers I don't know am I my brother's keeper if so Josephus imagines that there might have been a gap in time between these two answers at first - God says where's you know Abel and in cases I don't know and then God says you know that's funny I always used to see you two guys together Cain and Abel Cain and Abel now you know came you must know something you know so he he keeps on and then finally after such persistent inquisitive meddling came blurts out his true feeling am i his babysitter he asked he says in Greek of course he says mi is keeper but josephus like to you know in this case the he he stuck in the word the greek word pied Gorgos which is not a pedagogue although that's what it became in english but the pie de Gaga's was just the slave who brought the kids to the to school and sometimes helped with their homework but he you know it was a kind of a disparaging term so Josephus has cleverly answered the problem of divine omniscience that this story seem to pose God knew all along was just leading Kain on to get him to inculpate himself well I want to look next at the early life of Jacob the reputed ancestor of the people of Israel and the story of Jacob's birth is recounted in passage 8 when Rebecca's time came to give birth when Rebecca's time to give birth was at hand there were twins in her womb the first came out read all his body like a hairy mantle so they named him Esau afterwards his brother came out with his hand gripping Esau's heel so he was named Jacob Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them when the boys grew up Esau was a skillful hunter a man of the field while Jacob was a simple man living in tents Isaac loved Esau because he was fond of game but Rebekah loved Jacob well here there wasn't any specific problem associated with the wording of the biblical text it's just that Esau seems to come off too good and Jacob too bad what's wrong with that well Jacob is our founder he's the you know ancestor of the people of Israel and Esau on the other hand was the ancestor of the our southern neighbor and frequent enemy so here he says out hunting food for the family and Jacob is a stay at home a mama's boy loved by his mother while Esau is his father's favorite favorite what was Jacob doing all day it's interesting that a number of ancient interpreters suggest that Jacob wasn't lazing around at all he was studying this goes back to my favorite book the book of Jubilees written around 200 or so before the Common Era this is passage nine Rebecca bore to Isaac two sons Jacob and Esau and Jacob was a smooth and upright man and Esau was fierce a man of the field and Harry and Jacob dwelt in tents and the youths grew and Jacob learned to write but Esau did not learn for he was a man of the field and a hunter and he learned war and all his deeds were fierce and Abraham loved Jacob but Isaac loved excuse me Esau well here the author has done his best to improve the Bible's presentation of Jacob while at the same time diminishing Esau's image the fact that Esau as a hunter allows Jubilees to say that he was fierce a man of the field and he learned war but what about Jacob's learning to write where did that come from oddly enough it comes from that particular phrase in the Bible Jacob was a simple man living in tents why did the Bible say tents in the plural how many tents does one person need I guess if ancient biblical interpreters were out to besmirch his reputation they might have suggested that Jacob was something of a philanderer hopping from one tent to the other while the other men folk were out hunting but of course they didn't want to drag Jacob down but rather to exalt him so tents suggested that he had two tents one was his own in which he lived and the other belonged to his teacher the one who taught him how to read and write the same bit of ancient exegesis I'm not even sure if Jubilees originated or simply borrowed it from a still earlier source is found in another ancient Targum targum uncle is his passage number 10 and the two boys grew up in Esau was a skilled hunter a man who went out to the fields and jacob was a perfect man who frequented the schoolhouse you may have noticed that in the Jubilees passage there's another slight change at the end the Bible had said that Esau was his father's favorite because he liked to eat the meat of the animals Esau hunted while Rebekah liked her son Jacob best Jubilees changes this too and Abraham loved Jacob but Isaac loved Esau but how dare he do this actually Abraham's death had already been narrated in Genesis 25 8 well before the story of Esau and Jacob's birth but the author of Jubilees was a careful mathematician and he compared Abraham's age at the time of his death he died at the age of 175 with Isaac's age at the time of Esau's and Jacob's birth he was 60 when they were born now if Isaac had been born when Abraham was a hundred that would mean he was a hundred and sixty when these two boys were born so he still had plenty of time to express a preference about the two boys and of course the Bible didn't say what Abraham's opinion of his two grandsons was but the author of Jubilees knew that if he had been asked to express a preference he no doubt would have said Jacob speaking of Abraham he was certainly considered one of the great figures of the Bible in ancient times in part because for various reasons ancient biblical interpreters had promoted Abraham to being the first monotheists the first in the words of Josephus to proclaim openly that there is only one God so that if anything is done for human benefit in the world it is done strictly at this one gods behest actually there's nothing in the book of Genesis to support this contention that he was a the first monotheists but that is nothing we can go into it this time his monotheism apart perhaps the best-known and also the most troubling incident in Abraham's life occurs when God commands him to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice the narrative begins in passage number 11 after these things God tested Abraham he said to him Abraham and he said Here I am he said take your son your only son whom you love and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you so Abraham rose in the morning early in the morning saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac he cut the wood for the burnt offering and set out and went to the place in the day in the distance that God had shown him well you probably wouldn't guess what it was in these opening verses that bothered ancient interpreters it was really none of that Kierkegaard stuff you know how could God possibly order Abraham to kill his son or on the other hand how could a bruh ham possibly have set out to obey that order neither of these troubled ancient readers at all apparently the question that interpreters felt called upon to answer was why did God need to test Abraham after all God certainly knew how this test would turn out and he had according to ancient tradition already tested Abraham many times in the past so why do it once again you can see that this was on the mind of the author of Jubilees in his retelling of the story I should just say parenthetically and with no thought of profit or gain that I recently published a commentary on the book of Jubilees as you might have heard a walk through Jubilees it retails on Amazon for I'm glad you're sitting down two hundred and twenty dollars so I wouldn't recommend buying it but I could read the book itself that's much cheaper it this is how this story begins in Jubilees retelling of it in that year there were words in heaven regarding Abraham that he was faithful in everything that he had told him that the Lord loved him and that in every difficulty he was faithful then the satanic angel must aim ah that's kind of what the devil like figure in this book is called mastema really means loathing so he sort of the angel of loathing and the angel mastema came and said before God Abraham does indeed love his son Isaac and finds him more pleasing than anyone else tell him to offer him as a sacrifice on an altar then you will see whether he performs this order and will know whether he is faithful and everything through which you test him now the Lord was aware that Abraham was faithful in every difficulty which he had told him he himself did not grow impatient or was he slow to act for he was faithful and one who loved God the Lord said to him Abraham Abraham he replied yes he said to him take your son your dear one whom you love Isaac and go to a high land offer him on one of the mountains which I will show you so he got up early in the morning loaded his donkey and took with him two servants as well as his son Isaac what has the author of Jubilees done to explain God's action he created a confrontation between God and the wicked angel mastema it's actually like something that does occur in the beginning of the biblical book of Job there Satan challenges God to afflict the righteous job with all sorts of evil in order to see if he holds true to his faith so adopting that model the author of Jubilees has the Satanic Musti my issue a similar challenge with regard to Abraham you think Abraham so good tell him to sacrifice his son and then you'll see if he's really your faithful servant or not in other words God did not need to test Abraham of course he knew how the test would turn out he only did so in order to respond to mas de mas challenge well all that is well and good but we might ask the interpreter here the same sort of question we asked before there is no appearance of must a mile or Satan or any other wicked angel in this story so you're just making this stuff up to which again the author of Jubilees would give the same answer that the other ancient interpreters gave you're not reading the text carefully enough well what would he mean he would point to the opening words of this passage after these things now normally this phrase appears in the Bible to signify a transition from one subject to the next such-and-such an incident occurred and after these things the next the incident happened but by a happy coincidence the word things in Hebrew also means words so you could read this passage as if it began after these words God tested Abraham what words the Bible doesn't say but understanding devar 'm as words rather than things would lead one to conclude that the bible was hinting here's another little hole in the text a hinting at the fact that some actual words were spoken after which God called to Abraham to sacrifice his son what could these words have been perhaps some angel way up there in heaven at something had said something that caused God to demand of Abraham what he did in Jubilees retelling it begins with some good angels speaking words of praise of Abraham and that is what brings Satan to challenge God but I suspect that the original form of this motif might have been even simpler there were words in heaven spoken by Satan and after these words Satan challenged Abraham one way or another this recreation seemed to answer the basic question why should God have ordered Abraham to perform this terrible task and this was the answer or was it the end of the story seemed to raise the same question of divine foreknowledge for a second time in the story Abraham goes ahead as ordered but at the last minute an angel calls out to Abraham on God's behalf this is passage number 13 when they came to the place that God had shown him Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order he bound his son Isaac laid him on the altar on top of the wood and Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said Abraham Abraham and he said Here I am he said do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son your only son from me and Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in a thicket by its horns Abraham went and took the RAM and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son well I've indicated the problem here in italics the angel speaking on God's behalf says now I know that you fear God since you have not not withheld your son your only one from me now I know means I didn't know before so we're back at the same problem as before God apparently did not know how the test would end until after it had taken place but this was no problem for the author of Jubilee so let's look finally at the last passage number 14 Abraham built an altar and placed the wood on the altar then he tied up his son Isaac placed him on the wood which was on the altar and reached out his hand to take the knife in order to sacrifice his son Isaac then I the angelic narrator forgot to tell you that the book is narrated by a certain angel who occasionally inserts himself into the ner so he's the angel mentioned in the Bible then I the angelic narrator jubblies stood in front of him and in front of must Emma the devil like figure the Lord said tell him not to let his hand go down on the child and do nothing to him because I know that he is one who fears the Lord so I called to him from heaven and said Abraham Abraham he was startled and said yes I said to him do not lay your hands on the child and do not do anything to him because I know that now I know that you are one who fears the Lord you have not refused me your firstborn son the angel mastema was put to shame well the author of Jubilees whom I know really well after 20 years the author of Jubilees liked little subtleties and here he adds something that's not in the original biblical text namely God's precise instructions to his angel the books narrator as to what he is to say to Abraham God's words match those announced by the angel except for one little detail God doesn't say now I know he says I know I know I know because I've always known God knows everything but angels don't so it is the angel who adds the word now in transmitting God's message now I know the angel says what I didn't know before that Abraham is truly one who fears God and performs all that he is told to do so this is that apparent problem is now solved I hope that this brief look at ancient Biblical interpretation will have convinced you of what I said at the beginning of the hour there's nothing innocent or naive about the way these interpreters interpret the biblical text they were indeed out to create a revolution in the way in which the Bible was read and understood and it was a revolution that succeeded famously they're idealistic God centered approach is visible in nearly everything they wrote and they transformed nearly every text in the Bible not just the stories in Genesis and Exodus but the biblical laws that form the center of the Pentateuch as well as the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah and other prophets the understanding of the Psalms which were attributed to King David the wise sayings attributed to Solomon and so forth all these and much more were a truly transformational way of reading way of reading that rested firmly on the fore assumptions that I listed in keeping with these assumptions the story of Cain and Abel became what it never was in the Bible the story of a satanic man and the evil that he wrought as the Cain's motive it now appeared that he murdered his brother after a lofty see illogical argument about the nature of God's governance in the world and in Josephus is rendering of the story any doubt as to whether God did indeed know what Cain had done disappeared entirely of course he knew he was just toying with Cain when he asked him where his brother Abel had gone by similar maneuvers Jacob became a scholar and Abraham the first monotheists while God's foreknowledge of the outcome of his testing of Abraham was made secure I want to stress that this interpretation was very much the Bible people couldn't afford Bibles and ordinary people they simply heard the Bible expounded and where the text of the actual written words left off and the interpretation began was almost imperceptible this was true as much of Christians as of Jews indeed quoted from New Testament epistles among other sources but this way of reading is found throughout the Christian by a throughout Christian biblical interpreters in the Gospels and other early Christian texts and the writings of Jerome and Agustin and so forth onward into the Middle Ages and beyond indeed the four assumptions are very much with us today in both Judaism and Christianity certainly the interpretations have gone a lot of this stuff has long since forgotten but the basic idea that it's not to be taken literally and that it speaks to us today that it's a fundamentally relevant book that it has no contradictions within it and that it comes from from God these things are still very much with us of course a lot has changed as well and this is only natural archaeology Semitic linguistics our knowledge of the ancient Near East and Israel's neighbors all these have given us a different perspective on the Bible and its world but precisely for that reason I think that we are in a better position today to appreciate the great contribution of these ancient biblical interpretations and the revolution that they introduced in a very real sense they rewrote all of Scripture without changing a word in fact the very idea of Scripture owes a great deal to the work of these anonymous scholars thank you very much you

Channel: University of California Television (UCTV)

Views: 36,924

Rating: 4.6630669 out of 5

Keywords: God, bible, judaism, religion, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, devil, Satan, Hebrew, old testament

Id: f-rAFXbMGGg

Length: 58min 6sec (3486 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 13 2013