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Reading the Bible Backwards
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
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In the traditional approach, the Bible is treated as revelation, and later as the product of history. But neither the first nor the second can satisfy the modern reader—the first is too naive, the second is too learned. Although the reader no longer believes that the Bible represents the infallible word of God, he nevertheless stands at a loss before an edition which distinguishes its different layers by four different kinds of type. Since he can neither read nor study it, his only alternative is to put it aside.
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- Copyright © 1976 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1 See Martin North, Geschichte Israels. Goettingen, 1963, p. 247 and following regarding the attempts of Josiah, king of Judah, to recover after the fall of Assyria at least part of the territory that had once belonged to Israel.
2 Plundering the old cemeteries, Josiah spared " the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah ", and proclaimed these things that he had done. This is a reference to I Kings 13 where a man of God comes to Jeroboam, king of Israel in the 9th century B.C., to prophesy Josiah's reform. The prophesy or " vaticiuium ex eventu " is obviously an addition made by Hilkiah who in this fashion wishes to legalize ex post his actions.
3 See Otto Eissfeldt, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, Tübingen, 1956, p. 278.
4 Notably I Samuel 9 to 20. Chapters 21 to 24 are unanimously considered by the Biblists as later additions.
5 Geschichte des Altertums, 1931, Vol. II, 2, p. 285.
6 The Scriptures remain silent regarding the fate of the remaining brothers.
7 This was to be formulated later in Deuteronomy 21: 15, 16 " If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated… and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated."
8 These hypotheses are enumerated by K. Budde in the commentary Die Buecher Samuel, 1902, p. 17.
9 This is an allusion to Absalom's sexual prowess. He was to possess ten of his father's concubines on the palace roof to the accompaniment of applause of the enthusiastic mob.
10 The word " prophet " had a different meaning in the 10th century than it had later. It did not denote " a man of God " but an ecstatic dervish (see scenes from the life of Saul).
11 Written about the mid 4th century B.C., the work contains many earlier data.
12 Elias Auerbach, Wüste und heiliges Land, Berlin, 1932. Auerbach believes that Abiathar is identical with the "Yahwehist " author of " The Memoirs ".
13 " Ephraim " was one of two halves of Joseph's tribe, the other was " Ma nasseh ". The Manassites settled earlier, but the Ephraimites were numerically stronger. This balance of power is expressed in the story where Joseph brings his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, to be blessed by his father Jacob. He places them in the order of their birth: Manasseh on the right and Ephraim on the left. But Jacob deliberately guides his right hand so it rests on Ephraim's head and by this token Ephraim receives the birthright.
14 See I Samuel 17:12. This is the author's hypothesis. Biblical scholars assume that the word Ephrathite stands here for the inhabitant of Bethlehem which is also called Ephratah in several places of the Bible. We feel that these are additions made at a later date by authors who wished to impart meaning to an epithet that they no longer understood.
15 The motif of infringement of the right of primogeniture appears also in the story of Ephraim and Manasseh and in the story of the travail of Tamar. Zarah put out his hand first but drew it back and Pharez, the younger of the two, made the breach first. (Genesis 38: 28-30).
16 Even the sin of Reuben, who lay with Jacob's concubine, has its archetype in Absalom's sin.
17 " According to Aristotle the space of the whole universe is finite… " Werner Heisenberg writes, " It exists thanks to the existence of tensile bodies… There is no space where there are no bodies." (Physics and Philosophy). On the whole, classical antiquity, although the term limitless space appears in it from time to time, concentrated its attention on objects and phenomena. This was also a characteristic of ancient art which had not yet developed the concept of infinite space behind the objects.
18 " … the man has become as one of us " (my emphasis) (Genesis 3:22).
19 Budde (op. cit., p. 328) explains the condemnation of the numbering of the people by the fact that " Yahweh, who gives and takes life, cannot abide to have anyone count the souls," and by the fact that " the natural aversion of the population for the census, which could mean new burdens, assumed the character of a religious injunction."
20 The same story is repeated literally by the " Chronicles ", written a few centuries later. But here the instigation of Yahweh is replaced by that of Satan.
21 Written about the 4th century B.C.
22 The history of the falsification of old pagan names in the Bible remains to be written. The name Eshbaal (man of Baal) is replaced in later texts by the damning name Ishbosheth (a man of shame). The editors attempt to defend the pagan name at times by giving it an appropriate interpretation. The name Jerubaal actually means " fearful of Baal ". In Judges 6: 32 it is interpreted as " the struggler against Baal ".
23 Reference is made here not to monotheism, which arose much later, but to monolatry, according to which Yahweh is the only one of the many gods who deserves to be worshiped.
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