Marvin A. Sweeney

Isaiah 1-39, with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature

1 Samuel is Volume VII of The Forms of the Old Testament Literature, a series that aims to present a form-critical analysis of every book and each unit in the Hebrew Bible. Fundamentally exegetical, the FOTL volumes examine the structure, genre, setting, and intention of the biblical literature in question. They also study the history behind the form-critical discussion of the material, attempt to bring consistency to the terminology for the genres and formulas of the biblical literature, and expose the exegetical process so as to enable students and pastors to engage in their own analysis and interpretation of the Old Testament texts. Antony Campbells valuable form-critical analysis of 1 Samuel highlights both the literary development of the text itself and its meanings for its audience. A skilled student of the Hebrew scriptures and their ancient context, Campbell shows modern readers the process of editing and reworking that shaped 1 Samuels final form. As Campbells study reveals, the tensions and contradictions that exist in the present text reflect a massive change in the way of life of ancient Israel. Samuel, the first prophet, here emerges to preside over the rise of Saul, Israels first king, to be the agent of Sauls rejection, and to anoint David as Israels next king and the first established head of a royal dynasty. The book of 1 Samuel captures the work of God within this interplay of sociopolitical forces, and Campbell fruitfully explores the text both as a repository of traditions of great significance for Israel and as a paradigm of Israels use of narrative for theological expression.

King Josiah of Judah : the lost messiah of Israel

Said to have lived from 640-609 BC, King Josiah of Judah is a figure of extraordinary importance for the history of Israel. Using synchronic and diachronic analyses of the Deuteronomistic History, Deuteronomy, and selected prophetic books, Marvin Sweeney reconstructs the ideological perspectives of King Josiahs program of religious and national restoration.

THE END OF ESCHATOLOGY IN DANIEL? THEOLOGICAL AND SOCIO-POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS OF THE CHANGING CONTEXTS OF INTERPRETATION

This paper attempts to reassess the political and nationalistic agenda of the book of Daniel in relation to post-Enlightenment biblical theologys affirmation of the perspectives and needs of the particular over against the universal. It calls for a unified reading of the two major parts of the book, the court tales in Daniel 1-6 and the visions in Daniel 7-12, in an effort to demonstrate three major points: 1) the political and religious aims of the Hasmonean revolt permeate the entire edited form of the book, not only the visions; 2) the use of mythological and symbolic language reflects the perspectives of the priesthood and the Jerusalem Temple that envision a correlation between the events of heaven and those of earth; and 3) in contrast to prophetic books, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, that identify the conquest and punishment of Israel/Judah as an expression of Yhwhs will, Daniel identifies Yhwh with the overthrow of foreign oppression. Although Daniel is an apocalyptic book, it is heavily concerned with the events of this world and represents an attempt to change it for the better.

A reassessment of the masoretic and Septuagint versions of the Jeroboam narratives in 1 Kings/3 Kingdoms 11-14

This paper takes up the debate concerning the interrelationships between the accounts of Jeroboams reign in the Masoretic text of 1 Kgs 11-14, the Septuagint text of 3 Kgdms 11-14, and the so-called alternative account of 3 Kgdms 12:24a-z. A careful literary and translationational study of each account demonstrates the interpretative character of both the Septuagint and alternative accounts. The rearranged order of the alternative account, the efforts to characterize the major figures of the narrative, and the introduction of new characters point to the midrashic character of the alternative account.

Dating Prophetic Texts

This paper considers non-linguistic criteria for dating prophetic texts. It examines texts from Isaiah (e.g., Isa 10:5-12:6), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 32-33), Ezekiel (Ezek 37:15-28), and the Book of the Twelve Prophets (Zephaniah 1) in an effort to determine their respective historical contexts. Criteria employed include formal characteristics, historical allusions, and intertextual citations or allusions. Although problematic, the paper argues that such criteria provide some basis for dating prophetic texts.

Israelite and Judean Religions

The religions of ancient Israel and Judah constitute the primary religious foundation for the development of the western monotheistic traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Ancient Israelite and Judean religions emerge in the land of Canaan during the late-second millennium bce . They are known primarily through the writings of the Hebrew Bible, which form the Tanakh, the foundational sacred scriptures of Judaism, and the Old Testament, the first portion of the sacred scriptures of Christianity. Archaeological remains and texts from ancient Israel and Judah and the surrounding cultures also supply considerable information. Israelite and Judean religious traditions focus on the worship of the deity, YHWH, and function especially as national or state religious traditions from the formation of the Israelite monarchy during the twelfth–tenth centuries bce through the subsequent history of the separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah (see Map 4). Although Israel and Judah share the same basic religious tradition based in the worship of YHWH, each appears to have distinctive conceptualizations of YHWH and the means by which YHWH should be represented and worshiped. Unfortunately, literary evidence concerning religion in northern Israel is limited, because most of the Hebrew Bible was written and transmitted by Judean writers and reflects distinctive Judean viewpoints. But the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrian Empire in 722/1 bce , the destruction of the southern kingdom of Judah by the Babylonian Empire in 587/6 bce , and the reconstitution of Judah as a Persian province in the late-sixth through the late-fourth centuries bce prompted the development of Judaism as a monotheistic religion practiced by Jews in the land of Israel itself and throughout the Persian and Greco-Roman world.

Micah's debate with Isaiah

This article observes the interrelationship between Isa. 2.2–4, 5 and Mic. 4.1–5, but it eschews previous attempts to reconstruct the original or common form of the composition. Based upon an analysis of the unique formulations of these passages in relation to their respective literary contexts in Isaiah and Micah, it argues that each serves a unique religio-political agenda. Whereas Isa. 2.2–4 looks forward to an idyllic period of world peace in which Israel/Judah will join the nations in acknowledging Yhwhs sovereignty as part of the larger Persian empire, Mic. 4.1–5 looks forward to an era of world peace in which a righteous Davidic monarch will arise to punish the nations prior to acknowledgement of Yhwhs sovereignty. The different agendas in these texts point to a debate within earlier Persian-period Judah concerning the character of the restoration and Judahs relationship to the Persian empire.

Collections, canons, and communities

What is the best way to refer to the collection of books treated in this volume? Answering that question is tricky, controversial, and revealing. Perhaps in no other discipline is there as much confusion and disagreement about what to call its own subject matter. Old Testament? Hebrew Bible? First Testament? Jewish Scripture? Tanakh? The profusion of proposed titles has resulted not only from a well-intentioned sensitivity to sociological diversity but also from an increased awareness of the fundamentally tradition-specific nature of this literature. Thus, the deeper question at stake in the current clash of titles is whose literature this collection is supposed to be. Because there is not simply one answer to this question, there is also not only one answer to the question of what to call it. Sometimes it is claimed that only with the “New” Testament did Jewish Scripture become “old.” Indeed, as far as can be determined, the term “Old Testament” first appears toward the end of the second century CE as a literary title. After receiving an inquiry about the proper scope of Jewish Scripture (c. 170 CE), Melito, Bishop of Sardis, describes how he journeyed eastward to learn more accurately “the books of the old covenant” ( ta tēs palaias diathēkēs biblia ). However, the terms “new covenant” and “old covenant” already appear in the Bible itself, although there they designate the divine-human relation more broadly, particularly with regard to legal obedience, and not exclusively a written document. The book of Jeremiah envisions a “new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah” in which the law will become so internalized that instruction is no longer necessary (Jer 31:31–4). This “new covenant” is treated in the New Testament as having been fulfilled in Christ (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25; Heb 8:8, 13; 9:15; 12:24). Correspondingly, the term “old covenant” appears in the New Testament as a designation for Jewish biblical law (2 Cor 3:14; Heb 9:1). Toward the end of the second century CE, Tertullian renders the Greek term “covenant” ( diathēkē ) by the Latin testamentum (“will”), a translation that reflects a growing association between “covenant” as a historical mode of divine-human interaction and “covenant” as a written record. So there is no reason to view the late second-century usage of “Old Testament” as representing any major innovation.

The history of Israelite religion

The “history of Israelite religion” may be provisionally defined as the attempt, by various means and methods, to reconstruct the religious thinking and practices of the ancient Israelite people during the periods reflected in or most directly pertinent to the biblical texts themselves – namely, the Late Bronze Age through the Persian Period/Iron Age III (1500–332 BCE). However, even this provisional definition faces immediate problems. First, the chronological range is extensive. Consequently, the amount of evidence available is massive, even for what is, comparatively speaking, a relatively small geographical region. Hence, the task of describing “Israelite religion” as a comprehensive phenomenon, not to mention its history – which would include matters of emergence, influence, development, and so forth – is herculean. Second, the provisional definition is complicated by additional challenges, including the nature of the sources available to us, the interpretation of nontextual material, and a host of specific questions pertaining to the biblical texts themselves, not the least of which is whether and how they ought to play a role in the study and definition of Israelite religion in the first place. Given the complexity inherent in the subject, this chapter cannot hope to address all these issues and questions, as important as they are. Instead, it will provide a brief overview of the history of the study of Israelite religion before discussing three important issues that have been the subject of significant recent (re)investigation. These issues, which concern the sources, locus, and content of Israelite religion, are critical ones that pertain to any endeavor to write the history of ancient Israelite religion. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE HISTORY OF ISRAELITE RELIGION Prior to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when artifacts from Mesopotamia and Egypt began to come to the attention of Western Europeans, discussions of Israelite religion were entirely dependent on the Bible and the few classical sources that existed that could shed light on the subject (e.g., Berossus, Manetho, Herodotus, Philo of Byblos, and Lucian). The classical texts were typically scrutinized, if not chastened, by the biblical evidence, which was, at this point in time, deemed superior a priori.

Texts, titles, and translations

The twenty-four books that now constitute the Hebrew (and Aramaic) Bible or Protestant Old Testament (in which they are counted as thirty-nine books) were written at various times during the last millennium BCE. Scholars debate when certain parts of the Hebrew Bible were written or compiled, but there is general agreement that the last book to be completed was Daniel in c. 165 BCE. No original manuscript of any scriptural book has survived to the present. The first section of this chapter will survey the extant textual evidence for the Hebrew Bible. TEXTS This first section will describe the witnesses that have been available and studied for centuries, while the second section will treat the evidence discovered during the twentieth century in the Judean wilderness. A. The traditional witnesses. The texts of all the books in the Hebrew Bible have long been known through two witnesses: the Masoretic Text (MT) and the Septuagint (LXX); the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) has offered another ancient witness to the first five books. In addition, some other early versions that were at least in part based on Hebrew models have also been considered of value for the preservation and study of the text. 1. The Masoretic Text (MT) . The traditional text of the Hebrew Bible is named the Masoretic Text because of the masora , or body of notes regarding its copying and reading, that was compiled to assist in transmitting it accurately. The MT consists of two parts: the consonantal component, which was the only element at first and which rests on much earlier manuscripts, and the vowels, accents, cantillation marks, and other notes that were added to the consonants by medieval Jewish experts called the Masoretes . The earliest copies of the MT or parts of it date from the ninth and tenth centuries CE or shortly after: the Cairo Codex of the Prophets was copied in 896 CE, the Aleppo Codex (about three-quarters of the Hebrew Bible is preserved in the damaged copy) in c. 925 CE, and the Leningrad Codex (the entire Bible) in 1009 CE. In other words, the very earliest manuscripts are a full 1000 years and more distant in time from when the last book of the Bible reached completion.