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Brevard Childs and the treasures of darkness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2018

Collin Cornell
Collin Cornell*
Affiliation:
The University of the South, Sewanee, TN [email protected]
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Abstract

Contemporary biblical studies is populated by ‘comparativists’ and ‘theological interpreters’: scholars who read the Bible in the context of ancient artefacts, and scholars who read it in the context of Christian theology, respectively. These camps relate to one another mostly by feuding – or by mutual avoidance. The Old Testament theologian Brevard Childs is usually taken as a champion in the cause of theological interpretation, and so also as reinforcing one side of the disciplinary division. But under certain conditions, Childs also authorised the use of ancient artefacts (‘the treasures of darkness’) for reading scripture theologically. This article reactivates the latter possibility within Childs’ interpretive programme, especially through two cases studies: the first by Childs himself, when he uses the Sargon Legend to interpret Exodus 2; and the second a reprise of Childs’ procedure, using the Mesha Inscription to interpret 1 Kings 22.

Keywords

ancient Near EastBrevard Childscomparisondoctrine of scripturetheological interpretation
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 33 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 Hays, Christopher B., ‘Bard Called the Tune: Whither Theological Exegesis in the Post-Childs Era?’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 4/1 (2010), p. 140 Google Scholar. Cf. the simile of Iain Provan, according to which Childs ‘reconcile[s] two sovereign nations’ (‘Canons to the Left of Him: Brevard Childs, his Critics, and the Future of Old Testament Theology’, Scottish Journal of Theology 50/1 (1997), p. 28).

2 Some organs of the contemporary movement for ‘theological interpretation of scripture’ include the Journal of Theological Interpretation (Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, IN); the Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer and Craig G. Bartholomew (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005); and two commentary series: the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI) and the Two Horizons Commentary (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI). See also now Bartholomew, Craig G. and Thomas, Heath A. (eds), A Manifesto for Theological Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016)Google Scholar; and note discussion in the International Journal of Systematic Theology 12/2 (2010). For an introduction to comparative scholarship, see Strawn, Brent A., ‘Comparative Approaches: History, Theory, and the Image of God’, in LeMon, Joel M. and Harold Richards, Kent (eds), Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David L. Peterson, SBLRBS 56 (Atlanta: SBL, 2009), pp. 117–42Google Scholar.

3 Helpful introductions to Childs’ interpretive programme can be found in Seitz, Christopher R., The Character of Christian Scripture: The Significance of a Two-Testament Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), pp. 27–91 Google Scholar; Sumpter, Philip, ‘Brevard Childs as Critical and Faithful Exegete’, Princeton Theological Review 14/1 (2008), pp. 95–116 Google Scholar; Sumpter, The Substance of Psalm 24: An Attempt to Read Scripture after Brevard S. Childs, LHBOTS 600 (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 7–56; Sumpter, ‘The Trinity and the Canonical Process’, Theology Today 72/4 (2016), pp. 379–97; Olson, Dennis T., ‘Zigzagging through Deep Waters: A Guide to Brevard Childs's Canonical Exegesis’, Word and World 29/4 (2009), pp. 348–56Google Scholar; Chapman, Stephen B., The Law and the Prophets: A Study in Old Testament Canon Formation, FAT 27 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), pp. 71–110 Google Scholar. See also Childs’ own works, especially Introduction to the Old Testament as Christian Scripture [hereafter IOTS] (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context [hereafter OTTCC] (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), and Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible [hereafter BTONT] (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1992).

4 See, inter alia, Barr, James, The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1999), pp. 38, 429–38Google Scholar. On the influence of Barr's criticisms, see Driver, Daniel R., Brevard Childs, Biblical Theologian: For the Church's One Bible, FAT II/46 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), pp. 41–60 Google Scholar.

5 Smith, Mark S., Untold Stories: The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001), p. 154 Google Scholar.

6 On Childs’ development, see Driver, Brevard Childs, pp. 14–21, 134–6; and Philip Sumpter, ‘Comparison of Childs's Exodus and Isaiah Commentaries: Continuity and Development’ (paper presented at the 2014 International Meeting of SBL, Vienna). One need also only consult Childs’ ‘works cited’ in earlier versus later publications to see that he put increasingly less interpretive stock in artefacts from the ancient world.

7 See, above all, Don Collet, ‘Hermeneutics in Context: Comparative Method and Contemporary Evangelical Scholarship’ (forthcoming); also, Sumpter, ‘Brevard Childs as Critical and Faithful Exegete’, pp. 114–15.

8 This article thus moves in a quite opposite direction from that of Iain Provan, who sought to ‘follow Childs’ logic further than he himself has been prepared to do’ – i.e. by decreasing the importance of historical and comparative data within Childs’ approach (‘Canons to the Left of Him’, p. 34). This article represents that ‘canon to the left of him’.

9 The phrase is the title of a classic work by the great Harvard Assyriologist, Jacobsen, Thorkild, quoting Isa 45:3: The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976)Google Scholar.

10 On Childs’ relation to Barth (and to dialectical theology more broadly), see Scalise, Charles J., ‘Canonical Hermeneutics: Childs and Barth’, Scottish Journal of Theology 47/1 (1994), pp. 61–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Driver, Brevard Childs, pp. 89–93, 235–7; and, more critically, Barr, Concept of Biblical Theology, pp. 401–16. See also Childs’ own reminiscences in his ‘Karl Barth and the Future of Theology’, in Dickerman, David L. (ed.), Karl Barth and the Future of Theology: A Memorial Colloquium Held at Yale Divinity School January 28, 1969 (New Haven: Yale Divinity School Association, 1969), pp. 30–9Google Scholar.

11 The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary [hereafter Exodus] (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1974), p. xv. In his late commentary on Isaiah, Childs writes that the label ‘canonical’ has ‘engendered major confusion’, not least through its elasticity: Isaiah: A Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), p. xii. For this reason the present article avoids the term wherever possible.

12 Seitz, Character of Christian Scripture, pp. 49–53.

13 Webster, John, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 10 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Ibid., p. 29.

15 Ibid., p. 26.

16 BTONT, p. 105.

17 Webster, Holy Scripture, p. 19.

18 This is a theological redeployment of William Dever's well-known description of the Hebrew Bible as a ‘curated artifact’: Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990), p. 9.

19 BTONT, p. 97 (emphasis added).

20 For this criticism, see Moberly, R. W. L., ‘What is Theological Interpretation of Scripture?’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 3/2 (2009), p. 170 Google Scholar.

21 Seitz writes that ‘later hands have a greater historical perspective, due to the sheer range of their awareness of the past, which is still unfolding at the time of early tradition-levels’ (Character of Christian Scripture, p. 51).

22 Strawn, Brent A., ‘What Would (or Should) Old Testament Theology Look Like If Recent Reconstructions of Israelite Religion were True?’ in Miller, Robert (ed.), Between Israelite Religion and Biblical Theology: Essays on Archaeology, History, and Hermeneutics, CBET (Louvain: Peeters, 2016), p. 146 Google Scholar.

23 IOTS, pp. 75, 76.

24 BTONT, pp. 104–6, here p. 104.

25 Of course, it is hard to know in advance what comparative work will or will not prove fruitful for illuminating the final form of scripture. Arguably, some historical scholarship undertaken with no intention of clarifying the theological achievement of scripture's final form has, in fact, under skilful interpreters, done just that, e.g. Benjamin D. Sommer's exegetical application of historical research on ancient Near Eastern cult statuary in his The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

26 Exodus, p. xv (emphasis added).

27 OTTCC, p. 11.

28 BTONT, pp. 102–3.

29 Ibid., p. 102.

30 Ibid., pp. 351–2.

31 Ibid., p. 102. Schmidt, Werner, The Faith of the Old Testament: A History, trans. Sturdy, John (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), pp. 136–43Google Scholar.

32 Driver, Brevard Childs, p. 15.

33 Childs’ early writings include Myth and Reality in the Old Testament, SBT 27 (London: SCM, 1960), Memory and Tradition in Israel, SBT 37 (London: SCM, 1962), Isaiah and the Assyrian Crisis, SBT 2/3 (London: SCM, 1967), ‘The Enemy from the North and the Chaos Tradition’, Journal of Biblical Literature 78/3 (1959), pp. 187–98, etc. These works read like a veritable catalogue of comparative materials.

34 IOTS, p. 73.

35 Jay Epp, Eldon, ‘It's All about the Variants: A Variant-Conscious Approach to New Testament Textual Criticism’, Harvard Theological Review 100/3 (2007), pp. 275–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Tov, Emmanuel, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd edn (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2012), pp. 301–3Google Scholar.

37 See Exodus, pp. 4–26, based on Childs, Brevard S., ‘The Birth of Moses’, Journal of Biblical Literature 84/2 (1965), pp. 109–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Childs uses ‘transformation’ in his section heading: ‘The Transformation of the Tradition’ (Exodus, p. 11). Philip Sumpter describes this process of transformation as Sachkritik; ‘the final form of scripture mediates a “truer” witness to a reality more fragmentarily attested to at an earlier stage’ (Substance of Psalm 24, p. 25). This term and Sumpter's analysis of it are helpful, but the accent of the present article is less on the human process of receiving (and reconfiguring) the word of God than on the role of that word in God's saving economy.

39 For other, contrasting accounts of God's self-disclosure to Israel within its ancient Near Eastern contexts, panentheising rather than particularist, see Miller, Patrick D. Jr., ‘God and the Gods: History of Religion as an Approach and Context for Bible and Theology’, in Israelite Religion and Biblical Theology: Collected Essays, JSOTSup 267 (Sheffield: Sheffield, 2000), pp. 365–96Google Scholar; Schlimm, Matthew R., ‘Wrestling with Marduk: Old Testament Parallels and Prevenient Grace’, Wesleyan Theological Journal 48/2 (2013), pp. 181–92Google Scholar; and Othmar Keel, Kanaan – Israel – Christentum: Plädoyer für eine ‘vertikale’ Ökumene, Franz-Delitzsch-Vorlesung 2001 (Münster: Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum, 2002).

40 Lewis, Brian, The Sargon Legend: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero who was Exposed at Birth, ASOR 4 (Cambridge: ASOR, 1980), p. 3Google Scholar.

41 Childs, ‘The Birth of Moses’, p. 110, pointing to Hugo Gressmann, Mose und Seine Zeit: Ein Kommentar zu den Mose-sagen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913).

42 Seitz, Character of Christian Scripture, pp. 85–91 and passim.

43 On its genre, see Lewis, The Sargon Legend, pp. 87–123, and on dating, pp. 97–101.

44 My translation.

45 ‘The Birth of Moses’, p. 111; Exodus, p. 10.

46 ‘The Birth of Moses’, pp. 110–15. The other comparative data are bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian legal texts known as ana ittišu.

47 Exodus, p. 12. Childs writes of the Moses birth story that its ascription of Levitical descent to Moses compensates for the fact ‘that it was unthinkable to speak of Moses as a foundling with unknown parentage’.

48 ‘The Birth of Moses’, pp. 109–10, 116–18; Exodus, p. 10.

49 Including Lewis, The Sargon Legend, p. 266.

50 Exodus, p. 12.

51 Ibid., p. 11. Childs criticises the biblical theology movement for ‘concentrate[ing] on the elements of demonstrable distinctiveness’ as ‘a form of modern apologetic’ – and yet his valuation of the newer and non-conventional (over the older and inherited) tends in the same direction: Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), p. 77.

52 Exodus, p. 12.

53 Lewis, Sargon Legend, pp. 101–9.

54 Exodus, p. 14.

55 Ibid., pp. 12, 19.

56 IOTS, p. 178, in opposition to the ‘quest for the historical Moses’.

57 OTTCC, p. 109. Cf. Levenson, Jon D., ‘The Eighth Principle of Judaism and the Literary Simultaneity of Scripture’, in The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1993), pp. 62–81 Google Scholar.

58 Seitz, Christopher R., ‘Isaiah and the Search for a New Paradigm’, in Word without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), p. 125 Google Scholar.

59 Patrick Graham, M., ‘The Discovery and Reconstruction of the Mesha‘ Inscription’, in Dearman, Andrew J. (ed.), Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab, ASOR/SBL 2 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989), pp. 41–92 Google Scholar.

60 The same Moabite king, Mesha, whose voice MI records, does appear in the Bible (2 Kings 3), but in no way is the biblical chapter based on MI, and in fact the relation between the two texts is debated and fraught (e.g. Smelik, Klaas A. D., Converting the Past: Studies in Ancient Israelite and Moabite Historiography, OS 28 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), pp. 59–92)Google Scholar.

61 See, respectively, Jonathon Stökl's discussion of royal prophecy in the Iron Age Levant (Prophecy in the Ancient Near East: A Philological and Sociological Comparison, CHANE 56 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 21–3); and André Lemaire, ‘Oracles, politique et littérature dans les royaumes araméens et transjordaniens (IXe–VIIIe s. av. n.è.)’, in Heintz, Jean-Georges (ed.), Oracles et Prophéties dans l'Antiquité: Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg, 15–17 Juin 1995, TCRPOG 15 (Paris: De Boccard, 1997), pp. 183, 185Google Scholar.

62 Nissinen, Martti, Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, WAW 12 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 97–177 Google Scholar.

63 Nissinen, Martti, ‘Das kritische Potential in der altorientalischen Propheti’, in Köckert, Matthias and Nissinen, Martti (eds), Propheten in Mari, Assyrien, and Israel, FRLANT 201 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2003), pp. 1–32 Google Scholar.

64 See Kratz, Reinhard G., The Prophets of Israel, trans. Hagedorn, Anselm C. and MacDonald, Nathan, CSHB 2 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), pp. 11–26 Google Scholar; also Becker, Uwe, ‘Die Wiederentdeckung des Prophetenbuches: Tendenzen und Aufgaben der gegenwärtigen Prophetenforschung’, BTZ 21 (2004), pp. 30–60 Google Scholar. Against this, see Blum, Erhard, ‘Israels Prophetie im altorientalischen Kontext: Anmerkungen zu neueren religionsgeschichtlichen Thesen’, in Cornelius, Izak and Jonker, Louis (eds), ‘ From Ebla to Stellenbosch’: Syro-Palestinian Religions and the Hebrew Bible, ADPV 37 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz in Kommission, 2008), pp. 81–115 Google Scholar; and Williamson, H. G. M., ‘Isaiah: Prophet of Weal or Woe?’, in Gordon, Robert P. and Barstad, Hans M. (eds), ‘ Thus Speaks Ishtar of Arbela’: Prophecy in Israel, Assyria, and Egypt in the Neo-Assyrian Period (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), pp. 273–300 Google Scholar.

65 Several commentators suggest that the 400 are not, in fact, false prophets, since YHWH deputised the ‘lying spirit’ by which they receive their oracle and the oracle itself is delphic, e.g. Gressmann, Hugo, Die älteste Geschichtsschreibung und Prophetie Israels, 2nd edn (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1921), p. 280 Google Scholar; Sommer, Benjamin D., ‘Prophecy as Translation: Ancient Israelite Conceptions of the Human Factor in Prophecy’, in Kravitz, Kathryn F. and Sharon, Diane M. (eds), Bringing the Hidden to Light: Studies in Honor of Stephen A. Geller (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), pp. 280–3Google Scholar. But cf. von Rad, Gerhard, ‘Die falschen Propheten’, Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 51 (1933), pp. 109–20Google Scholar, and Childs’ remarks below on 1 Kings 13.

66 Cross-referencing Micaiah's oracle further indicates that it is a latecomer relative to pre-exilic prophecy: the exact phrase in 1 Kings 22, ‘sheep without a shepherd’ (הער םהל־ןיא רׁשא ןאצ), only occurs elsewhere in Num 27:17, a likely post-exilic text. A similar phrase (ץבקמ ןיאו ןאצ) occurs in Isa 13:14, also post-exilic. Other references to a ‘scattered flock’ (ןאצ + צופ) crop up in prophets of the exile or restoration (Jer 23:1; Ezek 34:6, 12; Zech 13:7; cf. also Jer 10:21). Nahum 3:18 is perhaps the closest analogue to Micaiah's prophecy, addressed to Assyria and clearly describing the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian kingship: ‘Your shepherds have fallen asleep, king of Assyria! / Your officials are lying down / your people are scattered across the mountains (םירהה־לע ךמע וׁשפנ)/ there is no one to gather them’ (ץבקמ ןיאו) (CEB). Nahum dates to the seventh century (or later), at least two centuries after Ahab.

67 See Moberly, R. W. L., ‘Does God Lie to His Prophets? The Story of Micaiah ben Imlah as a Test Case’, Harvard Theological Review 96/1 (2003), pp. 16–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68 Cf. Thelle, Rannfrid, ‘Reflections of Ancient Israelite Divination in the Former Prophets’, in Jacobs, Mignon R. and Person, Raymond F. Jr. (eds), Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation of a History, AIL 14 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2013), pp. 7–33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Kratz, The Prophets of Israel, p. 19.

70 Exodus, p. 12.

71 BTONT, p. 414. The two most important passages for understanding Childs’ rejection of Wellhausen are BTONT, pp. 413–20, and OTTCC, pp. 145–53.

72 BTONT, p. 414. Consider the royal psalms, some of which preserve oracles of military victory (like the 400’s) once spoken to Davidic kings, e.g. Ps 2:9, 110:1–3. Childs recognises that national defeat had falsified the immediate, historical sense of such promises: the tent of David lay fallen (Amos 9:11). In view of this historical disconfirmation, the royal psalms, like the oracles of the court prophets, stood in need of supplementation; only for them, it took a quite different form, prospective rather than retrospective, writing assurance into the future rather than doom into the past. Per Childs, the royal psalms were given ‘an eschatological ring’. Their truthfulness was deferred to an ultimate, future ruler of David's line. ‘[A]t the time of the final redaction’, Childs writes, ‘when the institution of kingship had long since been destroyed, what earthly king would come to mind other than God's Messiah?’ (IOTS, p. 516).

73 BTONT, p. 158; IOTS, p. 289.

74 von Rad, Gerhard, ‘The Deuteronomistic Theology of History in I and II Kings’, in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays, trans. Trueman Dicken, E. W. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), pp. 205–21Google Scholar.

75 E.g. the initially compliant and so lying Micaiah (1 Kings 22:16), as well as the disobedient Judean man of God and the lying Bethel prophet (1 Kings 13).

76 OTTCC, p. 143. The Chronicler's expansion of the Micaiah story (2 Chron. 19:1–3) confirms the thematic parallelism of these two prophetic stories (1 Kings 13 and 22). There the Judean king Jehoshaphat, like the Judean man of God in 1 Kings 13, receives prophetic censure for associating with wicked northerners.

77 OTTCC, p. 12.

78 My thanks to Philip Sumpter for teaching me much of what I know about Brevard Childs, as well as for commenting on (and vigorously critiquing) multiple drafts of the present essay; thanks also to Don Collett and Brent A. Strawn for their feedback and insight, and to Claudia Kern for her wise comments and inspiration.