The Nine Commandments: Uncovering a Hidden Pattern of Crime and Punishment in the Hebrew Bible - Softcover

Freedman, David Noel; Geoghegan, Jeffrey C.; Homan, Michael M.

 
9780385499873: The Nine Commandments: Uncovering a Hidden Pattern of Crime and Punishment in the Hebrew Bible
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0385499876 ISBN 13: 9780385499873
Verlag: Image Books, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

One of the great living biblical scholars revisits the Old Testament to identify radical new evidence of a previously unidentified and powerful message in the canon. Reprint.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

DAVID NOEL FREEDMAN has been General Editor and a contributing coauthor of the distinguished Anchor Bible series since its inception in 1956. He is currently a professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of California, San Diego, and lives in nearby La Jolla.

Aus dem Klappentext

controversial as Harold Bloom s The Book of J and Elaine Pagels s The Gnostic Gospels, David Noel Freedman delves into the Old Testament and reveals a pattern of defiance of the Covenant with God that inexorably led to the downfall of the nation of Israel, the destruction of the Temple, and the banishment of survivors from the Promised Land. Book by book, from Exodus to Kings, Freedman charts the violation of the first nine Commandments one by one from the sin of apostasy (the worship of the golden calf, Exodus 32) to murder (the death of a concubine, Judges 19:25 26) to false testimony (Jezebel s charges against her neighbor, Naboth, I Kings 21).

Because covetousness lies behind all the crimes committed, Freedman shows, each act implicitly breaks the Tenth Commandment as well. In a powerful and persuasive argument, Freedman asserts that this hidden trail of sins betrays the hand of a Master Weaver or Editor who has skillfully wove

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The First & Second Commandments

You shall have no other gods before me

You shall not make for yourself an idol

The first two of the Ten Commandments, like many of the others, are the subject of extensive discussion and debate among scholars. The aforementioned numbering problems (is this commandment one, two, or one and two?) have only been part of the controversy. Some of the most interesting discussions surround what it means to have no other gods before Yahweh. Does this mean that other deities could be tolerated as long as Yahweh was given priority (a belief system known as henotheism)? Or, while acknowledging there are other gods, is this a demand that Israel worship only Yahweh (a belief system known as monolatry)? Or are we to understand this command the way it has been traditionally understood, as denying the existence of all other gods except Yahweh (a belief system known as monotheism)?

While the traditional approach is often assumed to be the correct one, cross-cultural comparisons, as well as closer scrutiny of certain biblical passages, have called this understanding into question.

Whether we look at the religions of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, or even Canaan, we find many gods being worshiped. Even though an individual city or nation might have its chief deity, the cultures of the ancient Near East recognized and gave homage to a wide assortment of gods and goddesses. For example, Assyria's chief deity, and the one from whom the nation and capital derived its name, was Ashur. Nevertheless, Assyrian religion acknowledged a whole pantheon of deities and, on occasion, even incorporated new deities into their pantheon from their contact with (usually via conquest of) other nations. In light of this practice, could Yahweh be to Israel what Ashur was to Assyria--the "top god," but not the only god? And if so, did Yahweh always hold this position of priority in Israelite religion?

Did Israel Ever Have Other Gods Before Yahweh?

In a chance discovery in 1928, a Syrian farmer exposed an ancient tomb while plowing a field. What followed was the unearthing of a once bustling coastal city-state known in ancient times as Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra). Within the palace complex at Ugarit there was discovered a collection of sacred writings that give us a unique look into Canaanite religion and society of the fourteen and thirteen centuries b.c.e. While we already had glimpses of Canaanite culture from descriptions in the Bible (usually in the form of condemnatory remarks), the texts from Ugarit give us the perspective of the "other guys." These texts show that although only a small number of gods play an active role in their mythologies, god-lists found at Ugarit demonstrate that literally hundreds of gods were imagined to exist. With this in view, the first of the Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, if we are to interpret it as forbidding the acknowledgment or worship of any other god except Yahweh, would certainly go against the grain of what seems normative for the Canaanite culture that surrounded Israel. Yet, the texts from Ugarit, while giving us greater insight into ancient Canaanite religion, might shed light on the development of ancient Israelite religion as well.

Do Gods Grow Old and Retire?

A motif found in the mythological texts at Ugarit, as well as in other mythologies of the ancient Near East, is that of the senior, retiring god, who, while maintaining his formal position of authority, is largely displaced or, in some cases, completely supplanted by a younger, more energetic and active god. For example, at Ugarit, the senior god, El, usually serves as a backdrop for the exploits of the younger Canaanite storm-god, Baal. When the Canaanite pantheon is threatened by the deified Sea (Yamm) and later by Death (Mot), it is the self-asserting Baal who comes to the rescue. Similar scenarios are attested in the mythologies of ancient Mesopotamia. Both Marduk in Babylon and Ashur in Assyria gradually replace the Sumerian god Enlil as the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon. In Greece, Zeus, who, like Baal, is a storm-god, replaces the older Kronos. The reason for this "changing of the god" seems, in most cases, to be tied to changing political or social configurations within a region. For example, when a people or nation gained supremacy over another people or nation, so did their representative deity. In turn, these changes were reflected in the popular mythology. Thus, when Babylon gained control over all of Mesopotamia, Marduk became the chief hero of the Mesopotamian creation story, as well as the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon.

Some scholars have suggested that a parallel phenomenon may have occurred in the development of Israelite religion, that Yahweh in Israel, like Marduk in Babylon, eventually displaced an "older" regional god, in this case, the Canaanite god El. These scholars argue that while we would not expect to find a myth in the Bible explaining how Yahweh rose to eminence over an older, retiring god, since the prevailing monotheism of later (and perhaps earlier) periods would have seen to it that such a narrative did not make it into Israel's sacred text, there appear to be remnants in the biblical traditions that such a usurpation may have occurred.

What's in a Name?

Biblical epithets for the God of the Patriarchs include El Elyon (God Most High), El Olam (Eternal God) and El Shaddai (usually translated as God Almighty), among others. This would be expected from a people living in Canaan, since, as we have already observed, El was the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon. Yet, this very observation requires us to reconsider the translation of the above names. "El" is usually understood, at least in nearly all translations of the Bible, as a generic name for "God." Thus, El Shaddai is rendered as "God Almighty." However, the evidence from Ugarit suggests that the El of biblical tradition could be understood as a personal name for God. Thus, El Shaddai could be translated as "El the Almighty." Yet, is there any evidence in the Bible that El should be understood as the personal name of a deity rather than simply the generic word for "God"? And if so, should this be understood as representing an earlier phase in Israelite religion where El was the chief deity prior to the emergence of a deity named Yahweh? Let's look at the evidence.

God's Name Change

First of all, while the name Yahweh is used throughout Genesis, a passage in Exodus seems to indicate that its occurrence in these earlier narratives is anachronistic. In Exodus 6:3, Yahweh informs Moses,

I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh I was not known to them.

Yet, a cursory perusal of the patriarchal narratives shows that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all use the epithet Yahweh. In what sense, then, was the name Yahweh not known to the patriarchs?

It was such a question, along with others, that led scholars to postulate that different sources were used in constructing the "five books of Moses," at least one of which preserved a tradition that the name Yahweh did not come into use in ancient Israel until the time of Moses. Adding support to this theory was the observation that when the narrative strands employing different divine names are separated, many of the so-called "doublets" (stories that are very similar to one another) separate as well. For example, there are two narratives recounting the naming of Isaac. In one, Genesis 17, the divine names used are Elohim, the generic name for God, and El Shaddai. In the other, Genesis 18, only the name Yahweh is used.

The narrative strand that uses the divine name Elohim was referred to by these early scholars as "E." Similarly,...

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Verlag
Image Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0385499876
ISBN 13 
9780385499873
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
240
Herausgeber
Beck Astrid B.
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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