Kevin P. Edgecomb at Biblicalia has posted his selection of the January posts for the Biblical Studies Carnival XXVI. Kevin has done an excellent job in preparing the Carnival.
I would like to emphasize three of the many issues and topics included in Kevin’s selection:
1. A lengthy presentation of a seminar discussing the Talpiot tomb, which some scholars have identified as the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.
2. The reading of a newly discovered seal excavated by Eilat Mazar and how she changed her views on the meaning of the seal.
3. The ongoing discussion among bibliobloggers of the maximalists versus minimalists controversy.
I hope you will visit Kevin’s blog and read the Biblical Studies Carnival XXVI.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tag: Biblical Studies Carnival
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Ruins of a Neolithic City Found in Egypt
AFP is reporting that the ruins of 7,000-year-old Neolithic city has been found in Egypt. AFP has released the following news report:
It is amazing what archaeologists can find buried in the sands of Egypt. I just have one question for some people: if the remains of this Neolithic city indicates that people were living in Egypt as early as 5,000 B.C., how about Ussher’s chronology that the world was created on October 23, 4004 B.C., 9:00 a.m.?
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Archaeology, Egypt
CAIRO, Jan 29, 2008 (AFP) - A team of US archaeologists has discovered the ruins of a city dating back to the period of the first farmers 7,000 years ago in Egypt's Fayyum oasis, the supreme council of antiquities said on Tuesday.
"An electromagnetic survey revealed the existence in the Karanis region of a network of walls and roads similar to those constructed during the Greco-Roman period," the council's chief Zahi Hawwas said.
The remnants of the city are "still buried beneath the sand and the details of this discovery will be revealed in due course," Hawwas said.
"The artefacts consist of the remains of walls and houses in terracotta or dressed limestone as well as a large quantity of pottery and the foundations of ovens and grain stores," he added.
The remains date back to the Neolithic period between 5,200 and 4,500 BC.
The local director of antiquities, Ahmed Abdel Alim, said the site was just seven kilometres (four miles) from Fayyum lake and would probably have lain at the water's edge at the time it was inhabited.
It is amazing what archaeologists can find buried in the sands of Egypt. I just have one question for some people: if the remains of this Neolithic city indicates that people were living in Egypt as early as 5,000 B.C., how about Ussher’s chronology that the world was created on October 23, 4004 B.C., 9:00 a.m.?
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Archaeology, Egypt
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
A Christian Mosaic
The National Geographic has announced that a 1,400-year-old glass mosaic glowing in gold that was found in an ancient palace in northern Israel has been restored. The Israel Antiquities Authority believes the mosaic is unique and its design reflects a Christian origin.
Read the news release by visiting The National Geographic.
Photo: National Geographic
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Christian Mosaic
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
The Rosetta Stone
Many of Egypt’s greatest treasures have ended up in foreign countries, including the Rosetta Stone, which unlocked the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Now Egypt wants the Rosetta Stone back.
Watch a video from The National Geographic about the Rosetta Stone.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tag: Rosetta Stone
Watch a video from The National Geographic about the Rosetta Stone.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tag: Rosetta Stone
Mario Liverani and the History of Israel
During the Christmas break I finished reading Mario Liverani’s Israel’s History and the History of Israel (London: Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2003). Last week I finished writing a review of the book that I will submit to a major journal for publication. The review is also part of the commitment I made to Chris Brady at Targuman to submit a scholarly work for publication during the Biblical Studies Academic Writing Month. The content of the present post is different from the review I wrote for publication and different from my previous post on Liverani’s book.
Liverani’s book is divided into three sections. In Part I, Liverani presents a description of the different archaeological periods of Israel’s history. In this section, which he calls “The Normal History,” Liverani studies the textual and archeological evidence that contribute to the proper understanding of what was actually happening in Israel and in the countries that form the land of the Bible during a time period that includes Palestine in the Late Bronze Age up to the Babylonian invasion and the exile of Judah in 587 BCE.
The second section is an Intermezzo, a section in which he discusses events that were happening in other parts of the world in the sixth century BCE, a time which he calls “The Axial Age.” In the Intermezzo, Liverani also discusses the diaspora and the myth of the empty land.
The third section, Part II of his book, Liverani discusses the “Invented History of Israel.” By invented history, Liverani means the ideological rereading and rewriting of the Deuteronomic history in order to undergird the political realities of post-exilic Judah. According to Liverani, the rewriting of Israel’s history served as a strategy to implement a program of national recovery that would provide political and religious legitimacy for the people who made a commitment to return and re-colonize Judah after the edict of Cyrus, king of Persia, allowed the exiles to return home.
Liverani makes a distinction between two groups of Jews in post-exilic Judah. Those Jews who were returning home from exile were the “returnees.” The returnees are also called “Zionists.” Those Jews who did not go into exile and remained in the land are called “the remainees.” The remainees are called “the people of the land” by the returnees. This pejorative term was used by those returning from exile to describe all those Jews who did not go into exile.
According to Liverani, the returnees needed a legal justification to take possession of the land that belonged to the remainees. Since the remainees occupied the land, the returnees needed an authoritative tradition assigning ownership of the land of Canaan to the tribes of Israel. This tradition needed to identify the returnees as the legitimate heirs of the land and declare that the remainees should be dispossessed of their land.
Thus, according to Liverani, those Jews returning from exile rewrote the Deuteronomic history and created a set of foundational myths that legitimized the claim of the returnees as the legitimate heirs of the promises of God.
The migration of Abraham from Babylon to Canaan and the promise of God to give Abraham the land of Canaan as an inheritance became the foundational myth to legitimize the returnees’ claim that God brought them from Babylon and gave them the land of Canaan. This idea is covered in Chapter 13: “Returnees and Remainees: The Invention of the Patriarch.”
Although the myth of the patriarchs gave the returnees a promise of the land, they needed another authoritative tradition that allowed them to actually take possession of the land. Thus, the foundational myth of the Exodus provided the returnees with the legitimation for a group of people from the outside to take possession of the land. The foundational myth of the Conquest provided the returnees with the legitimation to take the land from the remainees by force, if necessary. This idea is developed in Chapter 14: “Returnees and Aliens: The Invention of the Conquest.”
Thus, to Liverani, the history of Israel as presented in the biblical text is an invented history. He also deals with “The Invention of the Judges,” The Invention of the United Monarchy,” “The Invention of the Solomonic Temple,” and “The Invention of the Law.” In describing the aim of his work, Liverani wrote:
Liverani’s history of Israel is a typical example of a minimalist approach to the history of Israel. The minimalists deny this historicity of the biblical narratives. Biblical minimalists say that the history of the patriarchs, the exodus, the conquest, the giving of the law, together with the historicity of Moses and Joshua and the existence of a united monarchy under David and Solomon are post-exilic inventions that were created to justify the political and religious aspirations of a group of Zionists who desired to take possession of the land from of group of people who had lived in the land for almost a century. So, the minimalists feel “free to change the Biblical plot” in order to sustain their presuppositions.
To biblical minimalists, the biblical narratives reflect a rewriting of history that created an ideal past in order to justify the realities as they existed in the seventh and six centuries BCE. To many minimalists, these stories were first created by the people who were involved in the reforms of Josiah in the seventh century. Others believe that some of these stories were “invented” in the sixth and fifth centuries to provide political and religious legitimacy to the post-exilic community of Yehud.
However, if Abraham, Moses, and the patriarchs never existed and if these stories were “invented” in the sixth century, how can we explain the mention of the names of some of those invented people in the prophetic literature of the eighth century?
For instance, in the eighth century BCE, the prophet Micah mentions Moses, Aaron, and Miriam and the exodus from Egypt (Micah 6:4). The Exodus from Egypt is also mentioned by Amos (Amos 2:10; 3:1) and Hosea (11:1) in the eighth century. In addition, Amos speaks of Israel sojourning forty years in the wilderness (Amos 2:10). All the eighth century prophets, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, mention the patriarch Jacob.
In the Elijah narratives, a source most scholars believe to be independent from the Deuteronomist, when the prophet Elijah (ninth century BCE) seeks to go back to the source of Israelite religion, he goes back to Horeb, the Northern name for Mount Sinai (1 Kings 19:8).
If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never existed, then it is almost impossible to understand Jesus’ words when talking about the resurrection: “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:31-32). How can God be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and how can they be alive when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never existed?
The problem with the minimalists is that they use the same approach atheists use when they deny the existence of God. Atheists say to theists: “God does not exist. Now, prove to me that God exists.” Minimalists say that these stories are invented; now the burden of proof is with those who say that they are historical.
James Hoffmeier, in his book Israel in Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 10, talks about the insistence of minimalists that a claim made in the Bible must be corroborated before the statement can be considered historical. Hoffmeier wrote: “[The] assertion that the burden of proof does not rest on the critical (minimalist) historian has become the prevailing attitude in biblical scholarship for the past several decades.”
The matter of the historicity of the biblical text is what prompts the debate between those who are called maximalists and those who are called minimalists. The minimalists accuse the maximalists of accepting the historicity of the biblical text because they presuppose divine intervention in human affairs. They demand proof of the historicity of the events narrated by the text. On the other hand, the maximalists accuse the minimalists of being skeptics and radical ideologues. They say that the minimalists reject Israel’s understanding of its own religious traditions as irrelevant because their views are based primarily on a literary interpretation of the text.
I would like to put the burden of proof on the other side. For once, I would like to see the minimalists prove that Moses did not exist.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Abraham, Mario Liverani, Maximalists, Minimalists, Moses, Patriarchs
Liverani’s book is divided into three sections. In Part I, Liverani presents a description of the different archaeological periods of Israel’s history. In this section, which he calls “The Normal History,” Liverani studies the textual and archeological evidence that contribute to the proper understanding of what was actually happening in Israel and in the countries that form the land of the Bible during a time period that includes Palestine in the Late Bronze Age up to the Babylonian invasion and the exile of Judah in 587 BCE.
The second section is an Intermezzo, a section in which he discusses events that were happening in other parts of the world in the sixth century BCE, a time which he calls “The Axial Age.” In the Intermezzo, Liverani also discusses the diaspora and the myth of the empty land.
The third section, Part II of his book, Liverani discusses the “Invented History of Israel.” By invented history, Liverani means the ideological rereading and rewriting of the Deuteronomic history in order to undergird the political realities of post-exilic Judah. According to Liverani, the rewriting of Israel’s history served as a strategy to implement a program of national recovery that would provide political and religious legitimacy for the people who made a commitment to return and re-colonize Judah after the edict of Cyrus, king of Persia, allowed the exiles to return home.
Liverani makes a distinction between two groups of Jews in post-exilic Judah. Those Jews who were returning home from exile were the “returnees.” The returnees are also called “Zionists.” Those Jews who did not go into exile and remained in the land are called “the remainees.” The remainees are called “the people of the land” by the returnees. This pejorative term was used by those returning from exile to describe all those Jews who did not go into exile.
According to Liverani, the returnees needed a legal justification to take possession of the land that belonged to the remainees. Since the remainees occupied the land, the returnees needed an authoritative tradition assigning ownership of the land of Canaan to the tribes of Israel. This tradition needed to identify the returnees as the legitimate heirs of the land and declare that the remainees should be dispossessed of their land.
Thus, according to Liverani, those Jews returning from exile rewrote the Deuteronomic history and created a set of foundational myths that legitimized the claim of the returnees as the legitimate heirs of the promises of God.
The migration of Abraham from Babylon to Canaan and the promise of God to give Abraham the land of Canaan as an inheritance became the foundational myth to legitimize the returnees’ claim that God brought them from Babylon and gave them the land of Canaan. This idea is covered in Chapter 13: “Returnees and Remainees: The Invention of the Patriarch.”
Although the myth of the patriarchs gave the returnees a promise of the land, they needed another authoritative tradition that allowed them to actually take possession of the land. Thus, the foundational myth of the Exodus provided the returnees with the legitimation for a group of people from the outside to take possession of the land. The foundational myth of the Conquest provided the returnees with the legitimation to take the land from the remainees by force, if necessary. This idea is developed in Chapter 14: “Returnees and Aliens: The Invention of the Conquest.”
Thus, to Liverani, the history of Israel as presented in the biblical text is an invented history. He also deals with “The Invention of the Judges,” The Invention of the United Monarchy,” “The Invention of the Solomonic Temple,” and “The Invention of the Law.” In describing the aim of his work, Liverani wrote:
In the present work I have tried to write– at least in the form of a first draft–a new version of the history of Israel, starting from the results of textual and literary criticism as well as from data collected by archaeology and epigraphy. In doing so I felt free to change the Biblical plot, while keeping a properly historical approach.
Liverani’s history of Israel is a typical example of a minimalist approach to the history of Israel. The minimalists deny this historicity of the biblical narratives. Biblical minimalists say that the history of the patriarchs, the exodus, the conquest, the giving of the law, together with the historicity of Moses and Joshua and the existence of a united monarchy under David and Solomon are post-exilic inventions that were created to justify the political and religious aspirations of a group of Zionists who desired to take possession of the land from of group of people who had lived in the land for almost a century. So, the minimalists feel “free to change the Biblical plot” in order to sustain their presuppositions.
To biblical minimalists, the biblical narratives reflect a rewriting of history that created an ideal past in order to justify the realities as they existed in the seventh and six centuries BCE. To many minimalists, these stories were first created by the people who were involved in the reforms of Josiah in the seventh century. Others believe that some of these stories were “invented” in the sixth and fifth centuries to provide political and religious legitimacy to the post-exilic community of Yehud.
However, if Abraham, Moses, and the patriarchs never existed and if these stories were “invented” in the sixth century, how can we explain the mention of the names of some of those invented people in the prophetic literature of the eighth century?
For instance, in the eighth century BCE, the prophet Micah mentions Moses, Aaron, and Miriam and the exodus from Egypt (Micah 6:4). The Exodus from Egypt is also mentioned by Amos (Amos 2:10; 3:1) and Hosea (11:1) in the eighth century. In addition, Amos speaks of Israel sojourning forty years in the wilderness (Amos 2:10). All the eighth century prophets, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, mention the patriarch Jacob.
In the Elijah narratives, a source most scholars believe to be independent from the Deuteronomist, when the prophet Elijah (ninth century BCE) seeks to go back to the source of Israelite religion, he goes back to Horeb, the Northern name for Mount Sinai (1 Kings 19:8).
If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never existed, then it is almost impossible to understand Jesus’ words when talking about the resurrection: “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:31-32). How can God be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and how can they be alive when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never existed?
The problem with the minimalists is that they use the same approach atheists use when they deny the existence of God. Atheists say to theists: “God does not exist. Now, prove to me that God exists.” Minimalists say that these stories are invented; now the burden of proof is with those who say that they are historical.
James Hoffmeier, in his book Israel in Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 10, talks about the insistence of minimalists that a claim made in the Bible must be corroborated before the statement can be considered historical. Hoffmeier wrote: “[The] assertion that the burden of proof does not rest on the critical (minimalist) historian has become the prevailing attitude in biblical scholarship for the past several decades.”
The matter of the historicity of the biblical text is what prompts the debate between those who are called maximalists and those who are called minimalists. The minimalists accuse the maximalists of accepting the historicity of the biblical text because they presuppose divine intervention in human affairs. They demand proof of the historicity of the events narrated by the text. On the other hand, the maximalists accuse the minimalists of being skeptics and radical ideologues. They say that the minimalists reject Israel’s understanding of its own religious traditions as irrelevant because their views are based primarily on a literary interpretation of the text.
I would like to put the burden of proof on the other side. For once, I would like to see the minimalists prove that Moses did not exist.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Abraham, Mario Liverani, Maximalists, Minimalists, Moses, Patriarchs
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
God’s Promise To Abraham
When God called Abraham and told him to leave his country, his family, and his father’s house, God promised that he would give him a land in which he and his descendants would settle and become a great nation. The promise that God would give Abraham and his descendants the land of Canaan is one of the major themes of the Pentateuch. The promise of the giving of the land was made to Abraham and renewed to Isaac and Jacob.
God’s gift of the land to Abraham contains three elements: a promise, a covenant, and an oath. In addition, for Abraham to become a great nation, God also made another promise, the promise of progeny, that is, that Abraham’s own son would inherit the land.
The Promise
When God called Abraham to leave his country, God promised him that he and his descendants would become a great nation (Genesis 12:1-3). According to Walter Brueggemann (p. 106), “the promise is God’s power and will to create a new future sharply discontinuous with the past and the present. The promise is God’s resolve to form a new community wrought only by miracle and reliant only on God’s faithfulness.”
The promise that Abraham and his descendants would become a great nation contains implicit in it another promise, the promise that God would give him the land of Canaan, since a great nation cannot come into being without a land of its own. God’s promise to Abraham also implies that God would give Abraham an heir, a son who would carry his name and eventually inherit the land as the fulfillment of the divine promise.
But how could God’s promise to Abraham that he would become a great nation be accomplished when his wife Sarah was barren? The barrenness was a stumbling block to the fulfillment of the promise. How could an old man and an old woman be fruitful and become a source of blessings to many? Abraham trusted God’s promise and took God at his word: “I will bless you;” “You shall become a great nation.” God’s promise was enough for Abraham. He believed and in believing he was blessed. And in being blessed Abraham’s descendants became a great nation and his descendants received the promised land.
The Covenant
Believing in God’s promise, Abraham left Haran to go to Canaan. In Canaan Abraham was a stranger, a pilgrim in the land, sojourning from place to place, traveling through Shechem to the oak of Moreh and from there to Bethel and finally to the Negev (Genesis 12:6-9).
Abraham sojourned in Canaan waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promise that he would have a son and that through his son he would inherit the land that was promised to him. However, Sarah’s barrenness continued and Abraham remained childless and the fulfillment of the promise was in doubt.
In his anguish to have a son who would inherit the promise, and probably plagued by doubt of ever having an offspring, Abraham adopted Eliezer of Damascus, a servant and the steward of his house, as his heir. Abraham understood that the fulfillment of God’s promise required an heir, a son who was to be born from his family, in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And yet, Abraham was old and was about to die childless!
It is at this time that God appeared again to Abraham, telling him not to be afraid because his reward would be great (Genesis 15:1-2). The reward that God had promised to Abraham was the land, but for Abraham to receive his reward, he needed a son. And God again promised Abraham that he would have a son: “This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir” (Genesis 15:4).
To confirm to Abraham that his promise would be fulfilled, that there would be a future for Abraham in the land of promise, God renewed the promise of a son by establishing a covenant with Abraham: “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates’” (Genesis 15:18).
A covenant is an agreement enacted between two people in which one or both parties of the covenant make promises to perform a certain action. The Hebrew word berith, which in English is translated by the word “covenant,” comes from a root which means “to cut,” that is, the act of cutting or dividing of animals used in the covenant ceremony into two parts. As an act of establishing a covenant, the contracting parties pass between the two halves, thus ratifying the covenant.
The ritual, in which God passed between the two halves of the sacrificed animals, represents God’s unqualified intent to do what he had promised to Abraham. In the Ancient Near East, the passing between the two halves of the sacrificed animals meant the invocation of a curse. In one of his oracles, the prophet Jeremiah makes a passing reference to this ritual: “And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant which they made before me, I will make like the calf which they cut in two and passed between its parts” (Jeremiah 34:18).
In his covenant with Abraham, God is the only one who walks between the slain animals, signifying that God’s promise to give Abraham a son and the land of Canaan was binding on God as an eternal promise.
The Oath
God’s promise to Abraham was marked by the tension between promise and fulfillment. Twice God had made the promise to Abraham that his heir would inherit the promise. When Abraham left Haran he was seventy-five years old (Genesis 12:4). Twenty four years later, when Abraham was ninety-nine (Genesis 17:1), the promise that “your own son shall be your heir” (Genesis 15:4) had not yet been fulfilled. Sarah remained childless and the fulfillment of the promise was in jeopardy.
The reality of Sarah’s barrenness again brought anguish to Abraham. Would the promise God made while he was in Haran be kept? Would the promise God made at the time the covenant was established be fulfilled? Could God be trusted to fulfill his promise of an heir and of the giving of the land?
Hoping against hope, Abraham and Sarah took the initiative to work out the fulfillment of the promise by taking matters into their own hands. Instead of waiting on God to fulfill his promise, Sarah gave Hagar, her Egyptian servant, to Abraham as a wife. Although Sarah’s motive could be considered noble, the action itself was wrong because it came out of Abraham’s unwillingness to wait on God to fulfill his promise.
Out of this union Ishmael was born but Ishmael was not to be the heir of the promise. God appeared to Abraham to assure him that Sarah in her old age would become the mother of a son and that God’s everlasting covenant would be with Isaac and his descendants after him and not with Ishmael (Genesis 17:19).
The birth of Isaac marks the fulfillment of one of God’s promises to Abraham: the promise of an heir. Isaac had been the child of his parents’s many prayers and the fulfillment of a hope that for many years seemed beyond hope. But then, God came to Abraham and asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac.
God’s request appeared to be a denial of the promise. If God’s promise of the land would be fulfilled in Isaac, why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? Without a son there would be no descendants, no one to inherit the land, no future for Abraham. And yet, Abraham was willing to obey God one more time, believing that the God who gave him a son could also give him a future without a son.
Without hesitation Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son. Three days after the divine request, Abraham came to the place God had selected for the sacrifice. As Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, God intervened and stayed the sacrifice of Isaac. In light of Abraham’s loyalty, God swore an oath:
“I am taking an oath on my own name, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not refused to give me your son, your only son, I will certainly bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of their enemies' cities. Through your descendant all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me” (Genesis 22:16-18).
An oath is an appeal to divine authority to ratify the truth of an assertion. When the people of Israel wanted to establish the truth of a statement, they called on God to be a witness and to validate the truth of the statement. The oath that God made to Abraham in his own name was a sure guarantee that Abraham’s descendants would be numerous and that they would receive the land of Canaan as their inheritance, the land that God had promised to give to him because of his willingness to believe in God. God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants would receive the land included a covenant and an oath. God gave the descendants of Abraham the land of Canaan because God’s promises are faithful. God’s promise to Abraham was sealed by a covenant and affirmed by an oath. As the author of the book of Hebrews wrote:
“When people take oaths, they base their oaths on someone greater than themselves. Their oaths guarantee what they say and end all arguments. God wouldn't change his plan. He wanted to make this perfectly clear to those who would receive his promise, so he took an oath. God did this so that [they] would be encouraged. God cannot lie when he takes an oath or makes a promise” (Hebrews 6:16-18).
Reference: Walter Brueggemann, Genesis. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Abraham, Canaan, Covenant, Oath, Promised Land
God’s gift of the land to Abraham contains three elements: a promise, a covenant, and an oath. In addition, for Abraham to become a great nation, God also made another promise, the promise of progeny, that is, that Abraham’s own son would inherit the land.
The Promise
When God called Abraham to leave his country, God promised him that he and his descendants would become a great nation (Genesis 12:1-3). According to Walter Brueggemann (p. 106), “the promise is God’s power and will to create a new future sharply discontinuous with the past and the present. The promise is God’s resolve to form a new community wrought only by miracle and reliant only on God’s faithfulness.”
The promise that Abraham and his descendants would become a great nation contains implicit in it another promise, the promise that God would give him the land of Canaan, since a great nation cannot come into being without a land of its own. God’s promise to Abraham also implies that God would give Abraham an heir, a son who would carry his name and eventually inherit the land as the fulfillment of the divine promise.
But how could God’s promise to Abraham that he would become a great nation be accomplished when his wife Sarah was barren? The barrenness was a stumbling block to the fulfillment of the promise. How could an old man and an old woman be fruitful and become a source of blessings to many? Abraham trusted God’s promise and took God at his word: “I will bless you;” “You shall become a great nation.” God’s promise was enough for Abraham. He believed and in believing he was blessed. And in being blessed Abraham’s descendants became a great nation and his descendants received the promised land.
The Covenant
Believing in God’s promise, Abraham left Haran to go to Canaan. In Canaan Abraham was a stranger, a pilgrim in the land, sojourning from place to place, traveling through Shechem to the oak of Moreh and from there to Bethel and finally to the Negev (Genesis 12:6-9).
Abraham sojourned in Canaan waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promise that he would have a son and that through his son he would inherit the land that was promised to him. However, Sarah’s barrenness continued and Abraham remained childless and the fulfillment of the promise was in doubt.
In his anguish to have a son who would inherit the promise, and probably plagued by doubt of ever having an offspring, Abraham adopted Eliezer of Damascus, a servant and the steward of his house, as his heir. Abraham understood that the fulfillment of God’s promise required an heir, a son who was to be born from his family, in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And yet, Abraham was old and was about to die childless!
It is at this time that God appeared again to Abraham, telling him not to be afraid because his reward would be great (Genesis 15:1-2). The reward that God had promised to Abraham was the land, but for Abraham to receive his reward, he needed a son. And God again promised Abraham that he would have a son: “This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir” (Genesis 15:4).
To confirm to Abraham that his promise would be fulfilled, that there would be a future for Abraham in the land of promise, God renewed the promise of a son by establishing a covenant with Abraham: “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates’” (Genesis 15:18).
A covenant is an agreement enacted between two people in which one or both parties of the covenant make promises to perform a certain action. The Hebrew word berith, which in English is translated by the word “covenant,” comes from a root which means “to cut,” that is, the act of cutting or dividing of animals used in the covenant ceremony into two parts. As an act of establishing a covenant, the contracting parties pass between the two halves, thus ratifying the covenant.
The ritual, in which God passed between the two halves of the sacrificed animals, represents God’s unqualified intent to do what he had promised to Abraham. In the Ancient Near East, the passing between the two halves of the sacrificed animals meant the invocation of a curse. In one of his oracles, the prophet Jeremiah makes a passing reference to this ritual: “And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant which they made before me, I will make like the calf which they cut in two and passed between its parts” (Jeremiah 34:18).
In his covenant with Abraham, God is the only one who walks between the slain animals, signifying that God’s promise to give Abraham a son and the land of Canaan was binding on God as an eternal promise.
The Oath
God’s promise to Abraham was marked by the tension between promise and fulfillment. Twice God had made the promise to Abraham that his heir would inherit the promise. When Abraham left Haran he was seventy-five years old (Genesis 12:4). Twenty four years later, when Abraham was ninety-nine (Genesis 17:1), the promise that “your own son shall be your heir” (Genesis 15:4) had not yet been fulfilled. Sarah remained childless and the fulfillment of the promise was in jeopardy.
The reality of Sarah’s barrenness again brought anguish to Abraham. Would the promise God made while he was in Haran be kept? Would the promise God made at the time the covenant was established be fulfilled? Could God be trusted to fulfill his promise of an heir and of the giving of the land?
Hoping against hope, Abraham and Sarah took the initiative to work out the fulfillment of the promise by taking matters into their own hands. Instead of waiting on God to fulfill his promise, Sarah gave Hagar, her Egyptian servant, to Abraham as a wife. Although Sarah’s motive could be considered noble, the action itself was wrong because it came out of Abraham’s unwillingness to wait on God to fulfill his promise.
Out of this union Ishmael was born but Ishmael was not to be the heir of the promise. God appeared to Abraham to assure him that Sarah in her old age would become the mother of a son and that God’s everlasting covenant would be with Isaac and his descendants after him and not with Ishmael (Genesis 17:19).
The birth of Isaac marks the fulfillment of one of God’s promises to Abraham: the promise of an heir. Isaac had been the child of his parents’s many prayers and the fulfillment of a hope that for many years seemed beyond hope. But then, God came to Abraham and asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac.
God’s request appeared to be a denial of the promise. If God’s promise of the land would be fulfilled in Isaac, why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? Without a son there would be no descendants, no one to inherit the land, no future for Abraham. And yet, Abraham was willing to obey God one more time, believing that the God who gave him a son could also give him a future without a son.
Without hesitation Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son. Three days after the divine request, Abraham came to the place God had selected for the sacrifice. As Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, God intervened and stayed the sacrifice of Isaac. In light of Abraham’s loyalty, God swore an oath:
“I am taking an oath on my own name, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not refused to give me your son, your only son, I will certainly bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of their enemies' cities. Through your descendant all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me” (Genesis 22:16-18).
An oath is an appeal to divine authority to ratify the truth of an assertion. When the people of Israel wanted to establish the truth of a statement, they called on God to be a witness and to validate the truth of the statement. The oath that God made to Abraham in his own name was a sure guarantee that Abraham’s descendants would be numerous and that they would receive the land of Canaan as their inheritance, the land that God had promised to give to him because of his willingness to believe in God. God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants would receive the land included a covenant and an oath. God gave the descendants of Abraham the land of Canaan because God’s promises are faithful. God’s promise to Abraham was sealed by a covenant and affirmed by an oath. As the author of the book of Hebrews wrote:
“When people take oaths, they base their oaths on someone greater than themselves. Their oaths guarantee what they say and end all arguments. God wouldn't change his plan. He wanted to make this perfectly clear to those who would receive his promise, so he took an oath. God did this so that [they] would be encouraged. God cannot lie when he takes an oath or makes a promise” (Hebrews 6:16-18).
Reference: Walter Brueggemann, Genesis. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Abraham, Canaan, Covenant, Oath, Promised Land
Friday, January 11, 2008
Augustine and the Old Testament
In an address delivered in Vatican City on January 9, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI spoke how Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, came to appreciate the Old Testament. In his address, Benedict said:
If the use of typology helped Augustine develop a better appreciation for the Old Testament, maybe it can help Christians today understand the unity of the Bible and realize that the Old Testament is a book that speaks of God’s work in the world.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Augustine, Pope Benedict XVI, Typology
At first with the purpose of enriching his rhetorical repertoire, Augustine began attending the impressive lectures of Bishop Ambrose, who had been a representative of the emperor in Northern Italy; he was charmed by his words, not only because of their eloquence, but because they touched his heart. The main problem of the Old Testament -- the lack of oratory and philosophical elevation -- resolved itself in the lectures of St. Ambrose thanks to the typological interpretation of the Old Testament: Augustine understood that the Old Testament is a journey toward Jesus Christ. So he found the key to understanding the beauty, the philosophic depth of the Old Testament, and he understood the unity of the mystery of Christ in history, as well as the synthesis between philosophy, rationality and faith in the Logos, in Christ, the eternal Word that became flesh.Typology is a method of interpretation that sees patterns in the Old Testament that find fulfillment in the teachings of the New Testament. The use of correspondence of events, persons, and things between the two Testaments can be useful in understanding the Old Testament as both Gerhard von Rad and Walther Eichrodt have shown. However, one must be careful not to transform typology into allegories.
If the use of typology helped Augustine develop a better appreciation for the Old Testament, maybe it can help Christians today understand the unity of the Bible and realize that the Old Testament is a book that speaks of God’s work in the world.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Augustine, Pope Benedict XVI, Typology
Dinosaurs and Christian Faith
Doug Chaplin at MetaCatholic has written a post commenting on my post on Science, Evolution and Creationism. In his post, Doug wrote the following:
His experience reminded me of an incident that happened in the Fall of 1988. In 1988, the same year I came to Northern Baptist Seminary, the newly-elected president of Missouri Baptist College gave a news conference in which he introduced himself to the community in St. Louis, Missouri.
During the news conference, a reporter asked the newly-elected president: “Do you believe that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago?” In response to the reporter’s question, the president said that he did not believe that dinosaurs were millions of years old. He also said that God had put those bones on the ground to test the faith of believers. People who believed that those bones were millions of years old did not believe in God.
The question that many people ask today is whether one can believe that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago and still believe in God? Many people still believe that dinosaurs were created six thousand years ago.
The people who sponsor Answersingenesis.org believe in a young earth, that dinosaurs were created six thousand years ago, and that they perished in the flood. For instance, in one article, they write the following:
When asked to explain the fossils, they answer:
When asked whether dinosaurs are mentioned in the Bible, they answer:
When asked whether there were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark, they answer:
The people who sponsor Answersingenesis.org are good people and they mean well. However, I believe people can accept the fact that there are galaxies that are billions of light-years away from us, that the dinosaurs lived and died millions of years ago and still be a Christian and believe in God. I also believe that people can believe in evolution and still be committed Christians.
Some people may read the book Science, Evolution and Creationism and not believe one word of what is written there. Other people may read the book and realize that science is not a threat to faith. And this possibility, that people may learn that science is not a threat to faith, is the reason I wrote my post.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Creationism, Dinosaurs, Evolution, Science
My own experience is that this is nothing to do with valid arguments, far less with the evidence. Creationists are interested in neither. For them a valid argument is one that supports their position, however supremely silly it is, and however cavalier with the evidence.
I learnt this lesson years ago as an undergraduate, when listening to two fellow students arguing their respective cases. As the argument went on, I became more and more stupefied by the case the creationist was putting forward. Finally, unable to resist it any longer, I intervened with a deeply ironic reductio ad absurdum. (At least that’s what I thought.) I suggested earnestly that what scientists didn’t realise was that as God created the world, the devil followed behind planting fossils in the rocks to confuse and tempt humankind.
Unfortunately, while my scientifically-minded friend laughed, the creationist nodded earnestly and said that was exactly the sort of thing that could have happened.
His experience reminded me of an incident that happened in the Fall of 1988. In 1988, the same year I came to Northern Baptist Seminary, the newly-elected president of Missouri Baptist College gave a news conference in which he introduced himself to the community in St. Louis, Missouri.
During the news conference, a reporter asked the newly-elected president: “Do you believe that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago?” In response to the reporter’s question, the president said that he did not believe that dinosaurs were millions of years old. He also said that God had put those bones on the ground to test the faith of believers. People who believed that those bones were millions of years old did not believe in God.
The question that many people ask today is whether one can believe that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago and still believe in God? Many people still believe that dinosaurs were created six thousand years ago.
The people who sponsor Answersingenesis.org believe in a young earth, that dinosaurs were created six thousand years ago, and that they perished in the flood. For instance, in one article, they write the following:
We often hear that dinosaurs died out millions of years ago. But that’s not true. God’s Word, the Bible, tells us something totally different.
It’s NOT a big mystery. Dinosaurs were created about 6,000 years ago on Day 6 with the other land animals AND with people. Yes, dinosaurs and humans lived together (Genesis 1:20–25, 31).
When asked to explain the fossils, they answer:
The dinosaur fossils we find today formed during Noah’s Flood, or its after effects.
When asked whether dinosaurs are mentioned in the Bible, they answer:
Yes! The word “dragon” is used in the Bible, and it may describe dinosaurs. Look up Isaiah 27:1 & Malachi 1:3 (KJV).
When asked whether there were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark, they answer:
Yes! Dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark. God sent at least two of each air-breathing, land-dwelling animal (Genesis 7:2).
The people who sponsor Answersingenesis.org are good people and they mean well. However, I believe people can accept the fact that there are galaxies that are billions of light-years away from us, that the dinosaurs lived and died millions of years ago and still be a Christian and believe in God. I also believe that people can believe in evolution and still be committed Christians.
Some people may read the book Science, Evolution and Creationism and not believe one word of what is written there. Other people may read the book and realize that science is not a threat to faith. And this possibility, that people may learn that science is not a threat to faith, is the reason I wrote my post.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Creationism, Dinosaurs, Evolution, Science
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Science, Evolution, and Creationism
The National Academy of Sciences has published a book supporting the theory of evolution and arguing against the introduction of creationism or other religious alternatives in public school science classes.
The book, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, was written to help people who may not have a background in science to understand the differences between science and religion. The book seeks to provide “a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the current scientific understanding of evolution and its importance in the science classroom.” The book declares that by accepting the reality of evolution, Christians do not have to abandon their belief in God.
The book is available for free reading online. Chapter Three of the book deals with creationism and intelligent design. On intelligent design, the book provides several examples to demonstrate that intelligent design is not supported by scientific evidence.
On creationism, the books says:
People who teach creationism and intelligent design may not like the conclusions presented in this book. However, both creationism and intelligent design proponents should read the third chapter of the book and see whether the arguments presented by the scientists are valid.
Read the book online by clicking here.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science
The book, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, was written to help people who may not have a background in science to understand the differences between science and religion. The book seeks to provide “a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the current scientific understanding of evolution and its importance in the science classroom.” The book declares that by accepting the reality of evolution, Christians do not have to abandon their belief in God.
The book is available for free reading online. Chapter Three of the book deals with creationism and intelligent design. On intelligent design, the book provides several examples to demonstrate that intelligent design is not supported by scientific evidence.
On creationism, the books says:
“Creationists reject scientific facts in part because they do not accept evidence drawn from natural processes that they consider to be at odds with the Bible. But science cannot test supernatural possibilities. To young Earth creationists, no amount of empirical evidence that the Earth is billions of years old is likely to refute their claim that the world is actually young but that God simply made it appear to be old. Because such appeals to the supernatural are not testable using the rules and processes of scientific inquiry, they cannot be a part of science.”
People who teach creationism and intelligent design may not like the conclusions presented in this book. However, both creationism and intelligent design proponents should read the third chapter of the book and see whether the arguments presented by the scientists are valid.
Read the book online by clicking here.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
The Garden of Eden Has Been Found
The Macau Daily News is reporting that a mysterious circles of phallic-shaped carved stone figures, known as “The Ikom Monoliths,” have been identified as being the “remnants of a glorious civilization made up in equal parts of ancient Egypt and the Old Testament.” According to the report, archaeologists used carbon dating to date the stones and estimated the age of the monoliths to be 4,500 years old, “that is, roughly as old as the Egyptian pyramids.”
The report also says that according to a book about to be published on the Ikom Monoliths, the stones, which contain “a form of writing and a complex system of codified information,” give “evidence that the biblical Garden of Eden lay in what is now Nigeria,” and that Adam and Eve were Nigerians.
Nigerian bloggers have been writing about a “high technology civilization based in the present-day location of the Sahara desert.” According to the bloggers, this civilization, whose “hallmarks included the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Egypt,” was “decimated by the deluge.”
This news report is too good to be true. For years scholars have been looking for the location of the Garden of Eden in Mesopotamia and now we discover that it was located in Nigeria. The “out of Africa” movement continues to promote that Africa was the cradle of humanity. Notwithstanding the scientific model that declares that modern humans evolved relatively recently in Africa, migrated into Eurasia and became the dominant population, I believe that the Ikom Monoliths prove nothing.
To me, this story is similar to all the Nigerian scams that appear in your email box in the form of chain letters informing you that you are the beneficiary of millions of dollars left behind by a late millionaire. A word to the wise: caveat emptor. This is just another Nigerian scam.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Archeology, Garden of Eden, Ikom Monoliths
The report also says that according to a book about to be published on the Ikom Monoliths, the stones, which contain “a form of writing and a complex system of codified information,” give “evidence that the biblical Garden of Eden lay in what is now Nigeria,” and that Adam and Eve were Nigerians.
Nigerian bloggers have been writing about a “high technology civilization based in the present-day location of the Sahara desert.” According to the bloggers, this civilization, whose “hallmarks included the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Egypt,” was “decimated by the deluge.”
This news report is too good to be true. For years scholars have been looking for the location of the Garden of Eden in Mesopotamia and now we discover that it was located in Nigeria. The “out of Africa” movement continues to promote that Africa was the cradle of humanity. Notwithstanding the scientific model that declares that modern humans evolved relatively recently in Africa, migrated into Eurasia and became the dominant population, I believe that the Ikom Monoliths prove nothing.
To me, this story is similar to all the Nigerian scams that appear in your email box in the form of chain letters informing you that you are the beneficiary of millions of dollars left behind by a late millionaire. A word to the wise: caveat emptor. This is just another Nigerian scam.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Archeology, Garden of Eden, Ikom Monoliths
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Zephaniah and the Palestinians
In his post “Zephaniah Calls Canaan Palestine,” Jim West declared that Zephaniah identified Canaan with Palestine, that the Canaanites were called Philistines, and that they were the inhabitants of the central highlands. From his conclusions, Jim then declares that “the ‘Palestinian’ presence in the central highlands goes back at least as far as Zephaniah’s era.”
There are several statements in Jim’s post that need correction. The way Jim’s post was written, it can be interpreted as a political statement which advocates a Palestinian right to the land of Canaan, or in modern political understanding, the land of Israel. However, the proper exegesis of Zephaniah 2:4-5 will demonstrate that Jim’s view is based on a misinterpretation of the text.
1. The Old Testament never calls Canaan “Palestine.” The word “Palestine” appears in the King James Version of Joel 3:4: “Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine?” However, this translation is incorrect because the word in Hebrew should be translated “Philistia.” The word “Philistia” appears in all translations and it is used elsewhere in the King James Version (except, of course, in Joel 3:4).
2. Jim says that in his oracle Zephaniah is referring to two different people: “the coastal folks known as the Cherethites and the central highland’s inhabitants which he calls the Philistines.”
This interpretation that Jim proposes is not correct. What Zephaniah is using here is probably a parallelismus membrorum. In the parallelism, “the inhabitants of the sea-coast, the nation of the Cherethites” is the same as “Canaan, the land of the Philistines.”
To Zephaniah, the Cherethites and the Philistine are different names for the same people. Gesenius §131a calls this construction “apposition.” According to Gesenius, “apposition in the stricter sense is the collocation of two substantives in the same case in order to define more exactly the one by the other.”
It is easy to misinterpret synonymous parallelisms in the Old Testament because what appears to be two different items is in reality one idea. One example of synonymous parallelism is Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.”
In the Old Testament, the land of Canaan is never called the land of the Philistines, except in Zephaniah 2:5. To the contrary, in Joshua 13:3, the land of the Philistines is considered to be part of the Canaanite territory. The same idea also appears in Genesis 10:19 where it says that Canaanite territory extended as far as Gaza.
3. Jim wrote: “I can’t think of anyone who argues that the Canaanites lived elsewhere besides the central highlands-and hence the inhabitants of that area are called Philistines.”
This statement is also incorrect. The Canaanites lived in Sidon, Tyre, and other coastal cities, for the land of Canaan also included the coastal areas. The book of Joshua extends the land of Canaan “from the Shihor, which is east of Egypt, northward to the boundary of Ekron” (Joshua 13:3). In addition, the people who lived in the highlands were not called Philistines, although there was a Philistine presence in the highlands.
4. Jim wrote: “Therefore, the ‘Palestinian’ presence in the central highlands goes back at least as far as Zephaniah’s era.”
This statement is also incorrect. When the Philistines entered Canaan a few years after the Israelites, they gained control of the western part of Canaan, settling in five cities, commonly known as “The Philistine Pentapolis”: Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron (Joshua 13:3). After the battle of Aphek, when the Israelites were defeated by the Philistines (1 Samuel 4), the Philistines began to extend their presence in Canaan, moving into the central mountain range. It was this threat posed by the Philistines that forced the people of Israel to select Saul as a king who would unify the tribes and confront the Philistine threat. Thus, the Philistines were present in the central highlands as early as the days of Samuel.
What Jim fails to recognize in his post is what Zephaniah intended with his oracles against the Philistines.
Zephaniah addresses his oracles against four of the Philistine cities. In his oracle, Zephaniah mentioned Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron. Only the Philistine city of Gath is missing. The reason for its absence was that since the days of David, Gath had been under the control of Judah: “David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Gath and its villages out of the hand of the Philistines” (1 Chronicles 18:1).
After the Assyrian invasion of Canaan, the four cities mentioned by Zephaniah became vassals of Assyria and under Sargon II, they became an Assyrian province named Ashdod.
Zephaniah 2:5 must be understood in the context of Zephaniah’s oracle against the nations in Zephaniah 2:4-15. In verse 8 Zephaniah also mentions Moab and Ammon. In Zephaniah’s day, Philistia, Ammon, and Moab were Assyrian vassals. Zephaniah’s oracle is an anti-Assyria oracle that may reflect Josiah’s efforts at revolt against Assyrian control. This oracle indicates that Assyrian control was still present but the threat of reprisal against rebellious vassals was diminished because of the rise of Babylon.
Zephaniah’s oracle against the four Philistine cities declares that the cities will be punished with the loss of their inhabitants. Gaza will become a forsaken territory, Ashkelon will be devastated, Ashdod will be deported, and Ekron will be eradicated. The cry of lament, “Woe” (Hebrew hoy), when used in prophetic oracles indicates that the subject has entered the realm of judgment that will result in death.
What Zephaniah has done with this oracle is to take the political situation of the seventh century and couch his words in the language of the conquest of Canaan. The enemies of Judah are seen as Canaanites. Philistia is to receive the same fate of the Canaanites and lose its inhabitation by conquest and complete annihilation. The Philistines are present in the land promised to Israel but they do not belong there; so, like the Canaanites of old, they will be eradicated. The Philistine cities will be depleted of their residents and occupied by Judean shepherds (Zephaniah 2:6-7).
The words of Zephaniah found fulfillment with the Babylonian invasion of Canaan. As Kenneth A. Kitchen in his article, “The Philistines,” in People of Old Testament Times, ed. D. J. Wiseman (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1973), p. 67, wrote: “Ashkelon sought to resist the Neo-Babylon advance in 604 B.C.; Nebuchadrezzar II subdued it and exiled its king in Babylon, where his sons appear in the ration-tablets with Jehoiachin of Judah and his relations. These, with mentions of kings of Gaza and Ashdod at the Babylonian court, are the last traces of Philistia as an entity, before her final disappearance as a political unit.”
Thus, Zephaniah is not defending a Philistine right to the land. To the contrary; Zephaniah is saying that the Philistines do not belong there. The Palestinians are not the remnants of the Philistines. If anyone desires to use a biblical text to justify the Palestinian's right to the land, Zephaniah 2:5 is not the right text.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Canaan, Palestine, Palestinians, Philistines, Zephaniah
There are several statements in Jim’s post that need correction. The way Jim’s post was written, it can be interpreted as a political statement which advocates a Palestinian right to the land of Canaan, or in modern political understanding, the land of Israel. However, the proper exegesis of Zephaniah 2:4-5 will demonstrate that Jim’s view is based on a misinterpretation of the text.
1. The Old Testament never calls Canaan “Palestine.” The word “Palestine” appears in the King James Version of Joel 3:4: “Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine?” However, this translation is incorrect because the word in Hebrew should be translated “Philistia.” The word “Philistia” appears in all translations and it is used elsewhere in the King James Version (except, of course, in Joel 3:4).
2. Jim says that in his oracle Zephaniah is referring to two different people: “the coastal folks known as the Cherethites and the central highland’s inhabitants which he calls the Philistines.”
This interpretation that Jim proposes is not correct. What Zephaniah is using here is probably a parallelismus membrorum. In the parallelism, “the inhabitants of the sea-coast, the nation of the Cherethites” is the same as “Canaan, the land of the Philistines.”
To Zephaniah, the Cherethites and the Philistine are different names for the same people. Gesenius §131a calls this construction “apposition.” According to Gesenius, “apposition in the stricter sense is the collocation of two substantives in the same case in order to define more exactly the one by the other.”
It is easy to misinterpret synonymous parallelisms in the Old Testament because what appears to be two different items is in reality one idea. One example of synonymous parallelism is Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.”
In the Old Testament, the land of Canaan is never called the land of the Philistines, except in Zephaniah 2:5. To the contrary, in Joshua 13:3, the land of the Philistines is considered to be part of the Canaanite territory. The same idea also appears in Genesis 10:19 where it says that Canaanite territory extended as far as Gaza.
3. Jim wrote: “I can’t think of anyone who argues that the Canaanites lived elsewhere besides the central highlands-and hence the inhabitants of that area are called Philistines.”
This statement is also incorrect. The Canaanites lived in Sidon, Tyre, and other coastal cities, for the land of Canaan also included the coastal areas. The book of Joshua extends the land of Canaan “from the Shihor, which is east of Egypt, northward to the boundary of Ekron” (Joshua 13:3). In addition, the people who lived in the highlands were not called Philistines, although there was a Philistine presence in the highlands.
4. Jim wrote: “Therefore, the ‘Palestinian’ presence in the central highlands goes back at least as far as Zephaniah’s era.”
This statement is also incorrect. When the Philistines entered Canaan a few years after the Israelites, they gained control of the western part of Canaan, settling in five cities, commonly known as “The Philistine Pentapolis”: Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron (Joshua 13:3). After the battle of Aphek, when the Israelites were defeated by the Philistines (1 Samuel 4), the Philistines began to extend their presence in Canaan, moving into the central mountain range. It was this threat posed by the Philistines that forced the people of Israel to select Saul as a king who would unify the tribes and confront the Philistine threat. Thus, the Philistines were present in the central highlands as early as the days of Samuel.
What Jim fails to recognize in his post is what Zephaniah intended with his oracles against the Philistines.
Zephaniah addresses his oracles against four of the Philistine cities. In his oracle, Zephaniah mentioned Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron. Only the Philistine city of Gath is missing. The reason for its absence was that since the days of David, Gath had been under the control of Judah: “David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Gath and its villages out of the hand of the Philistines” (1 Chronicles 18:1).
After the Assyrian invasion of Canaan, the four cities mentioned by Zephaniah became vassals of Assyria and under Sargon II, they became an Assyrian province named Ashdod.
Zephaniah 2:5 must be understood in the context of Zephaniah’s oracle against the nations in Zephaniah 2:4-15. In verse 8 Zephaniah also mentions Moab and Ammon. In Zephaniah’s day, Philistia, Ammon, and Moab were Assyrian vassals. Zephaniah’s oracle is an anti-Assyria oracle that may reflect Josiah’s efforts at revolt against Assyrian control. This oracle indicates that Assyrian control was still present but the threat of reprisal against rebellious vassals was diminished because of the rise of Babylon.
Zephaniah’s oracle against the four Philistine cities declares that the cities will be punished with the loss of their inhabitants. Gaza will become a forsaken territory, Ashkelon will be devastated, Ashdod will be deported, and Ekron will be eradicated. The cry of lament, “Woe” (Hebrew hoy), when used in prophetic oracles indicates that the subject has entered the realm of judgment that will result in death.
What Zephaniah has done with this oracle is to take the political situation of the seventh century and couch his words in the language of the conquest of Canaan. The enemies of Judah are seen as Canaanites. Philistia is to receive the same fate of the Canaanites and lose its inhabitation by conquest and complete annihilation. The Philistines are present in the land promised to Israel but they do not belong there; so, like the Canaanites of old, they will be eradicated. The Philistine cities will be depleted of their residents and occupied by Judean shepherds (Zephaniah 2:6-7).
The words of Zephaniah found fulfillment with the Babylonian invasion of Canaan. As Kenneth A. Kitchen in his article, “The Philistines,” in People of Old Testament Times, ed. D. J. Wiseman (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1973), p. 67, wrote: “Ashkelon sought to resist the Neo-Babylon advance in 604 B.C.; Nebuchadrezzar II subdued it and exiled its king in Babylon, where his sons appear in the ration-tablets with Jehoiachin of Judah and his relations. These, with mentions of kings of Gaza and Ashdod at the Babylonian court, are the last traces of Philistia as an entity, before her final disappearance as a political unit.”
Thus, Zephaniah is not defending a Philistine right to the land. To the contrary; Zephaniah is saying that the Philistines do not belong there. The Palestinians are not the remnants of the Philistines. If anyone desires to use a biblical text to justify the Palestinian's right to the land, Zephaniah 2:5 is not the right text.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Canaan, Palestine, Palestinians, Philistines, Zephaniah
Monday, January 07, 2008
Richard Dawkins: How I Changed My Mind
In an article published in Townhall.com, Dinesh D’Souza asked a very interesting question: “Are Atheists Cultural Christians?” The reason for D’Souza’s question is because of an statement made by the famous atheist Richard Dawkins that he was a cultural Christian. The following is an excerpt from D’Souza’s article:
In response to Dawkins’ statement, D’Souza wrote:
Good question. I believe that one of the answers to D’Souza’s question may reflect where Dawkins is in his scale of atheism. In my review of Dawkins’ book, I wrote:
D’Souza’s article makes a good proposal for Dawkins and his new faith. D’Souza concludes his article by hoping that “perhaps eventually Dawkins will even reissue his book: Overcoming My Delusions: Confessions of a Cultural Christian.”
I hope so.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Atheism, Cultural Christian, Dinesh D’Souza, Richard Dawkins
Asked by a British member of Parliament if he is one of those atheists who wants to get rid of Christian symbols especially during the Christmas season, atheist Richard Dawkins replied that he is not. Dawkins said that he himself sings Christmas carols and that he considers himself a “cultural Christian.” Just as many Jews regard themselves as Jewish, defend Jewish interests and cherish Jewish culture while not participating in Jewish religious rituals, Dawkins says that he respects the fact that the history and traditions of the West are shaped by Christianity. Dawkins says he's not one of those who wants to purge the West of its Christian traditions. The main threat to Christian symbols, Dawkins argues, does not come from atheists like him but rather from Muslims and members of other faiths.
In response to Dawkins’ statement, D’Souza wrote:
Now this is quite remarkable. In The God Delusion, Dawkins portrayed the Christian God as a wicked, avaricious, capricious, genocidal maniac. Dawkins even blasted Jesus for such offenses as speaking harshly to his mother. Yet if the Jewish and Christian God was such a monster, what sense does it make for Dawkins to embrace the cultural influence of that deity?
Good question. I believe that one of the answers to D’Souza’s question may reflect where Dawkins is in his scale of atheism. In my review of Dawkins’ book, I wrote:
Even Dawkins may inadvertently have left a very small crack in the wall for himself, a very faint burning light that some day may be as bright as the midday sun. And that dimly lit light is found in his own words.After all those debates with Christians around the world, it is just possible that Dawkins came to the realization that the God of the Old and New Testaments is not that evil God so despised in atheist propaganda.
Dawkins develops a spectrum of probabilities about the existence of God. In this spectrum, there are seven levels of probability concerning the issue whether God exists. At one extreme is Level 1, where strong theists are. Those who are on Level 1 believe 100% that God exists. On the other extreme, Level 7 is where the strong atheists are. A strong atheist is the one who says for a fact that there is no God.
Dawkins places himself at Level 6. Those who are on Level 6 say that there is a very low probability that God exists. Those on Level 6 are the people who say they cannot know for sure but think that maybe God does not exist.
Ah! Level 6 may reflect a faint light that is still alive in the hearts of atheists. That very low probability that God exists may be the sign of a faintly burning wick that is still burning. It is that crack in the wall that may allow the water of a mighty river to flow through. This is what happened with Antony Flew, the famous British philosopher and atheist, who at the end of his life abandoned his atheistic beliefs and embraced theism.
In his book, Dawkins never said that God exists, but he also said that it is impossible to disprove the existence of God. Thus, it is possible that, for Dawkins, Level 6 may be the sign that a faintly burning wick is still burning, but so faint that it is about to be put out. If it is so, let us then remember the reassuring words of the prophet about the work of the Servant: “He will not let a faintly burning wick be put out” (Isaiah 42:3).
D’Souza’s article makes a good proposal for Dawkins and his new faith. D’Souza concludes his article by hoping that “perhaps eventually Dawkins will even reissue his book: Overcoming My Delusions: Confessions of a Cultural Christian.”
I hope so.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Atheism, Cultural Christian, Dinesh D’Souza, Richard Dawkins
Biblical Studies Academic Writing Month
Happy New Year.
I have not been blogging since before Christmas. One of the reasons for taking some time off from blogging is that I am on sabbatical. So, I decided to take the holidays off and do some catching up on a lot of stuff. But now, I am back and hope to blog on a regular basis.
I will be on sabbatical until September 2008. During my sabbatical I hope to write a book on Jeremiah. I love Jeremiah. My project is a study of Jeremiah’s ministry to the people of Judah and how Jeremiah’s ministry can serve as a paradigm for prophetic ministry in the twenty-first century.
Several days ago, Chris Brady at Targuman proclaimed the month of January 2008 to be Biblical Studies Academic Writing Month. In his proclamation, Chris asked Bibliobloggers and Theobloggers to write an article, a book review, or any material that is related to the Bible and that will be submitted for publication.
The challenge has been accepted by Tim Bulkeley at SansBlogue, by Chris Heard at Higgaion, by AKMA at Random Thoughts, and by Charles Halton at Awilum. Today, a little bit late, I also accept the challenge.
Although most of my sabbatical work will be focused on Jeremiah, I commit myself to three different projects to celebrate Biblical Studies Academic Writing Month. My projects will be as follow:
1. I will write a book review of Mario Liverani’s book, Israel’s History and the History of Israel. London: Equinox, 2003.
2. I will write a book review of Ann E. Killebrew’s book, Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel 1300-1100 B.C.E. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
3. I will complete an article on Asa, King of Judah and submit it for publication by the end of January.
This is a very ambitious project for one month’s work. However, I have already finished reading Liverani’s book; I just need to write the review. I have done some research on Asa and was planning to write the article later in the year but I will change my schedule and work on the article at the beginning of my sabbatical.
In February I will write another post and report whether the challenge has been met. I want to thank Chris for this challenge. Some of us may need a challenge like this to get things done.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Blogging, Writing
I have not been blogging since before Christmas. One of the reasons for taking some time off from blogging is that I am on sabbatical. So, I decided to take the holidays off and do some catching up on a lot of stuff. But now, I am back and hope to blog on a regular basis.
I will be on sabbatical until September 2008. During my sabbatical I hope to write a book on Jeremiah. I love Jeremiah. My project is a study of Jeremiah’s ministry to the people of Judah and how Jeremiah’s ministry can serve as a paradigm for prophetic ministry in the twenty-first century.
Several days ago, Chris Brady at Targuman proclaimed the month of January 2008 to be Biblical Studies Academic Writing Month. In his proclamation, Chris asked Bibliobloggers and Theobloggers to write an article, a book review, or any material that is related to the Bible and that will be submitted for publication.
The challenge has been accepted by Tim Bulkeley at SansBlogue, by Chris Heard at Higgaion, by AKMA at Random Thoughts, and by Charles Halton at Awilum. Today, a little bit late, I also accept the challenge.
Although most of my sabbatical work will be focused on Jeremiah, I commit myself to three different projects to celebrate Biblical Studies Academic Writing Month. My projects will be as follow:
1. I will write a book review of Mario Liverani’s book, Israel’s History and the History of Israel. London: Equinox, 2003.
2. I will write a book review of Ann E. Killebrew’s book, Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel 1300-1100 B.C.E. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
3. I will complete an article on Asa, King of Judah and submit it for publication by the end of January.
This is a very ambitious project for one month’s work. However, I have already finished reading Liverani’s book; I just need to write the review. I have done some research on Asa and was planning to write the article later in the year but I will change my schedule and work on the article at the beginning of my sabbatical.
In February I will write another post and report whether the challenge has been met. I want to thank Chris for this challenge. Some of us may need a challenge like this to get things done.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Tags: Blogging, Writing
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