Exegesis is bringing meaning out of the text, not reading meaning into it; to exegete involves asking what the biblical text meant to the writer and his audience. What can help a student of Hebrew or Greek to exegete rather than eisegete? Black suggests that one needs to stand (figuratively speaking) above, within, and under the text (page 68). What are some ways this process can be accomplished?
To ascertain the meaning of biblical passages, the exegete must seek textual, lexical, syntactical, structural, rhetorical, and tradition-critical meaning. Black offers a more expansive view of what these steps entail.
The view "from above" entails historical and literary analysis: a historical question would be what situation faced the writer and readers of a book or letter. For instance, what were conditions like for the Hebrews? Or what about the writer of 1 Corinthians? What was his historical setting like?
Literary analysis asks how a given text contributes to a book. For example, how does 1 Corinthians 15:33 contribute to the first letter written to the Corinthians? I think such questions are beneficial and help to elucidate the text. The view "from within" equally asks what a text meant to ancient readers. What significance did Hebrews 6:1 have for the ancient Hebrews? Other questions that belong to the "from within" category (type of analysis) include, what did the original text say? What are the key words in the text? See Proverbs 13:20 as a case example or Proverbs 14:15.
Syntactical analysis asks how words relate to one another. See 1 John 4:8, which raises more than one syntactical question: other examples could be adduced including the first verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:1. Structural analysis seeks to understand how a writer arranged a text: numerous studies have been done on the structure of Hebrews and Revelation.
Two other "view within" questions are: what rhetorical forms/devices did the writer employ to communicate meaning? See https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2014/07/why-are-some-utterances-of-paul-hard-to.html
Something else to consider is, how did the writer use previous traditions in the text? These are the "from within" questions. In my next entry, I will discuss what Black calls the view "from under" the text.
43 comments:
I think much more can be said about these categories. When it comes to historical analysis, trying to find a text's "Sitz im Leben," I always like to look at the socio-economic/class dynamics that might help explain certain things, even just who is talking, and under what assumptions, but I also like to consider to cultural/ideological frameworks that I might be missing, to remind myself that the ancient world was not the disembedded, disenchanted world of modernity, but a world of spirits, cosmic structures, and social interconnectedness.
I recently read an essay in a book by anthropologists Michael Sahlins and David Graeber (the book is "on Kings), where Sahlins talks about how when considering the social structures of a society, one should include what the society itself includes, i.e. their gods/spirits, so he points out that what many would consider very egalitarian societies (certain tribal societies) are actually extremely hierarchical and even tyrannical, if you include their gods/spirits, and that these cosmological political structures are indispensible in understanding their "earthly" political structures (rather than only looking at it vice/versa, as some positivist historians like to do). I tend to agree, I think one should try and reduce historical context to something that makes sense "to us," but we should do our best to accept their framework for the sake of understanding their society.
At the same time, it's important to understand the reverse is also true, the Marxists (and formalists, and other more positivist forms of historeography) have a point in saying that earthly structures of economics and politics often shape cultural and religious structures.
I feel like I always have a Marx/Annales school historian and Karl Polanyi/substantivist school historian always arguing with each other whenever I'm thinking about or writing anything historical ... and I kind of think that's a good thing. I feel like once you go too far one direction you end up becoming a reductionist (in the context of the bible, it's all about theology, the history of ideas, etc etc, or the other way around, it's all just a matter of political struggles and economic dynamics), human beings are complicated.
Well, there's my rant for the day :).
Roman, these discussions about how we should approach a living text of a point and place in time seem generally devoid of two of the most important factors, ecology (not as a science but as an environmental reality) and for the periods covers by most of the bible, agronomy (two which most local gods must gravitate).
Thanks for the rant, Roman. :)
In all seriousness, I agree that what Black or I have said about the aforementioned categories do not come close to exhausting them, but my aim for now is to present what he writes regarding these categories and then add my brief input. Black has written a lot of works: his Greek & ministry book is short and designed for Greek students who minister or preach/exegete. He would probably concede that his observations just constitute the tip of the iceberg. I should have pointed this out, but one thing I like about blogging is that I receive much valuable feedback or input from you readers.
You're correct that we have to analyze/read texts from various levels and perspectives: the book I'm now finishing about the Lord's Supper (evening meal) uses sociology to shed light on the ancient text in 1 Corinthians 10 & 11; one of the most informative studies I've ever read about Gnosticism took a sociological approach to the subject: it is indeed beneficial to consider class dynamics and ideological frameworks. Have you read any Susan Niditch?
What you write also reminds me of what historians have said about the very project of doing history and reconstructing the past. The fact is that there's no one way to do history: how history should be conducted is a burning question among those who do history, historiography, and those writing about the philosophy of history. Personally, I like R.G. Collinwood's idea of history as "retelling," but it's one approach among many; G.W.F. Hegel's take on history is wrong IMO, but interesting.
To be honest, I'm not crazy about Mark but I like your point about historians being in dialogue with one another. Mikhail Bakhtin (the late Russian philosopher, semiotician, philologist, linguist and polymath) loved to promote the idea that different voices should be heard and they should dialogue with one another. Some technical terms from Bakhtin include heteroglossia and polyphony and chronotopes.
I'm going to end my reply by mentioning one historian whom I love reading: Moses Finley. His work about Graeco-Roman slavery is classic and he's written other enlightening works concerning the ancient world.
One problem, Duncan, is finding the specialist who can do such studies; secondly, how one practically applies ecology or agronomy to biblical studies and what they will yield in terms of textual illumination. I want to understand the ancient world and text better, to the best of my abilities, and I love the language part of the text. I'm not a specialist with agri- things and I have a mild interest where they're concerned. Furthermore, I wonder what the yield would be although I'm aware of studies that do include ecology in the sense you mention. As time goes along, I try to stay in my lane and not venture out into fields for which I'm not equipped to handle.
This is the main problem of reductionism and why it will never really work.
As an example, apply these fields to Deuteronomy 15:6. Lending what? And more importantly, when?
Duncan, I absolutely agree, there's a book I've read recently called "Times of Troubles" by Roland Boer and Christina Petterson, who were using a largely Marxist methodoloy to contruct a new economic framework for Christianity, the book itself is very hit and miss, and frankly, a little more miss, however, they spent a LOT of time on agronomy, and some time on ecology, which I felt was very refreshing.
Foster, I agree with you on Hegel, although I really like Hegel for his metaphysical insights (his science of logic is useful and a nice counter balance to the Platonic/Aristotliean frame that traditional theology uses), but his historical progressivism/optimism is, in my mind, completely untenable, as is his notion of a kind of deterministic move of history.
When it comes to Marx I don't like Marx inso far as he's an economic determinist and a strict historical materialist, I also think his historical optimism and his progressivism (every age is an improvement for Marx) is completely untenable; I also think Marx's "solution" to class struggle was at best completely naive and silly, and at worst destructive and sowed the seeds for the tyrannical Leninist regeims of the 20th century.
What I do like about Marx (more the Marxist historians that came after Marx) is the insistance on looking at economic dynamics and class dynamics, i.e. who control the means of production and resources, and who doesn't, and how does that shape ideas, communities, movement, religions, etc etc, I think that this is a good approach to ground historical analysis, keep it grounded in everyday realities, but I think Marx is only helpful in the same way potatoes help a meal, they make the meal filling and heavy, but you need the mean, sauce, and veggies to really have a full mean, people who who use a Marxian approach exclusively, or even primarily, will end up completely deficient, and with a false picture.
I haven't read Susan Niditch (I'm not to up on Ancient Israelite history, although I bought myself a Hebrew grammar book and hope to begin to work that direction soon), if I were to read her what would you recommend?
I've only dipped my toes into gnosticism, I've read a lot of the primary texts, and a lot of the Heresy Hunter's primary texts, but my reading of scholarly works dedicated to them is limited. One thing I have learned, is that like the term "apocalyptic" the term "gnostic" is contested, and sometimes not that helpful, and that gnosticism was a understandable outgrowth of Christianity, Judaism, Hermeticism, Platonism, and given the syncronistic era of the late first and second/third centuries, one shouldn't be suprised, but I would like to peek at that book you're talking about :).
Moses Finley, you've mentioned him before, and he's cited all over the place :), I gotta read him.
Cf. Deuteronomy 28:12-13
"to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands."
Okay, first I want to agree with you that understanding/interpreting texts requires a multipronged approach: so in that sense, reductionism will never work. I'm not going to expand on the next remark, but I'll just say that in some contexts, it's possible for reductionism to work, but not in biblical studies or theology.
I must admit that my traditional view of Deut. 15:6 has always been that money would be lent by Israel to non-Israelite nations. They experienced times of economic prosperity when they obeyed their God, Jehovah. We've discussed the reign of Solomon and Uzziah is another example of a king who enjoyed prosperity during his reign. However, I have not researched this passage in any detail.
Some have used the money lending as a theory for a late dating of Deuteronomy to the Persian period.
No mention of money at 1 Kings 4:20-28.
Also, 2 Chronicles 26:10
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/minchah_4503.htm
https://www.academia.edu/212026/Beetles_and_the_decline_of_the_Old_Kingdom_Climate_change_in_ancient_Egypt
This you should find interesting regarding rain and the lack thereof and also our previous discussion about scarabs.
WBC by Christensen: "The purpose of the legislation here is that 'there shall not be among you any poor.' This is an ideal goal, as v 11 below demonstrates—'the poor will not cease out of the land' ( ). In spite of the reality of the human condition that produces poverty, the law here is an attempt to alleviate the suffering of the poor."
See Deut. 15:1 for more of the context: Christensen does not identify the nations to whom Israel would lend money.
Also see Deuteronomy 15:14.
Roman,
I love reading Hegel and he should not be ignored by serious students of history or analytical thought: I've never been bored by Hegel but like you, I find his "triadic dialectic" problematic and his comments about Africa obviously dated.
Good example regarding Marxism :)
Leslie Stevenson's book, now called Thirteen Theories of Human Nature, helped me to see both sides of Marx and I've read some Marx too, but Stevenson argues that one disadvantage Marx had was living prior to the advent of child labor laws and other developments that altered the form of capitalism Marx witnessed. Not that I'm trying to exalat capitalism or say it's problem-free, but Marx could not know all that would succeed him, plus his materialistic determinism is problematic.
Concerning Niditch, her work War in the Hebrew Bible looks at the issue of violence through ideological frameworks. Not that I totally agree with Niditch; I just see her as a writer worth reading. Also see Oral World and the Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature.
The Gnosticism book, which I used when doing my Tertullian research about twenty years ago is The Economic and Social Origins of Gnosticism by H.A. Green.
Roman, I think you'd enjoy Finley: he was an accomplished historian.
Duncan, thanks for the linked article: I will visit the site soon. Tigay reminds us that the words of Deuteronomy 15 are contingent on obedience to Jehovah: if they did not obey, then the promise would not be fulfilled. But it's interesting how commentators try to explain the verse.
Tigay invokes Deut. 28:12 as you do above; I think that verse is contingent, and Tigay cites Deut. 28:44. The last verse would come into play if they failed to heed God's voice.
Exodus 23:24-26; Leviticus 26:14ff.
For Deuteronomy 15:14, see Deut. 15:12-13.
Keil-Delitzsch give an interesting explanation for Deut. 15:6--so does the Cambridge Bible, but I think Tigay's point about conditionality is well taken.
Note that the Cambridge Bible pushes out the lending to the diaspora. Either way, I don't think late dating can be demonstrated in this way.
G.J. Wenham examines both sides for the dating of Deuteronomy: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-date-of-deuteronomy-linch-pin-of-old-testament-criticism/
One of the things that I have come to realise is, the perceived value of Mammon as gold and jewel in these early periods is not well founded. It had its uses by royalty to demonstrate the power of acquisition, demonstrating the man power required to obtain it. Used in religious context because it was shiny, bearing in mind that in a number of cultures silver was considered more precious as the color of sun light.
But to the Am ha'aretz it would hold no real value (IMO, like modern art).
Food and seed in low energy societies would always be vital.
To offer gold in exchange for the seed for next season's crops would be a fools errand.
We also know this perception must return.
Ezekiel 7:19
These are interesting thoughts and certainly deserve careful consideration, and I'm sure there's a study somewhere about the subject.
Both gold and silver seem to be valuable in the pentateuchal setting and as depicted by Kings and Chronicles. Ezekiel 7:19 also had an application during the Babylonian seige and exile. Lastly, for ancient Greeks, love of money was love of silver too.
See the Insight entry for gold. Compare Zechariah 9:3.
Duncan, have you read debt the first 5000 years by David Graeber? If not I recommend it, it goes into the growth of bullion money, and early credit systems.
This is of a later period and demonstrates a harsh reality in a human settlement on a rock (I think thats what tyre means?). Currency has to be perceived as valuable when you do not have the ability to grow your own food. This has always been the nature of cities and probably why Jehovah warned against them. When the food supply stops people die very quickly. Through panic as much as starvation.
I cited Zechariah 9:3 as one example, but the Insight book states that man's love for gold started early. See the first reference in Genesis 2:11: gold is the first metal spoken about in the Bible: the gold collected for Solomon's temple was phenomenal and the way Solomon employed gold was stunning.
Not that I'm being dogmatic about when gold became important to humans, but it could have been early in our existence. If you have plenty of money (gold or silver, etc) and no way to buy food, it's relatively worthless, I agree.
IMO, cities are what one makes of them: Jerusalem was the city of the great king and could either praise Jah or reproach his name. See Psalm 127:1-2.
But the food supply is important as we see with ancient Jerusalewm when they forsake YHWH.
Then bible has many instances of anachronistic descriptions.
For Gen 2:11 the gold was clearly recognised after the fact, but when?
I have seen the Tutankhamun finds, so I know that Egyptians at that time treated it as the sun metal, the metal of gods and kings. The weight of the coffins alone is quite impressive.
https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/did-you-know-tutankhamun-was-buried-not-one-three-golden-sarcophagi-007543
But as a currency?
The gold stater (Egyptian: nfr-nb, "Nefer-nub", meaning "fine gold") was the first coin ever minted in ancient Egypt, around 360 BC during the reign of pharaoh Teos of the 30th Dynasty.
So I have no reason (at the moment) to think that both uses emerged at the same time.
Early currency was in the form of trust and tokens that had no intrinsic value. Shells, beads, possibly in pictographic form in the Indus, etc.
Jerusalem and it economic systems could only work because of the cancellation of debt. Any city state that does not recognize this is set to fail. Its a basic flaw in modern economics.
But since this teaching came from Jehovah it does not contradict your point.
Thanks Roman, the book you mention seems to be a standard text book as this - Debt: The First 5000 Years by Sulaiman Hakemy, was produced. I have a another book in this series - an analysis of Purity & Danger by Mary Douglas.
Unfortunately Mary Douglas was way off in here analysis of taboo when looking at Deuteronomy.
I see there is an updated version of first 5000. It might be a good fit with 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed: Revised.
I understand that Genesis 2:11 was written after the fact but Insight say humanity started valuing gold early in human history. However, that point would have to be substantiated by actual historical data, but it seems plausible to me.
Good question about the origin of gold currency. More later.
I checked to see when gold first became currency: the dates on the Internet wildly fluctuate between 1500 be to 700 to 550. I want to read a book or study before accepting any of those dates, but I don't have a hard time believing it was early.
I love the idea of debt forgiveness like they did in Israel. However, does not doing it mean economic failure?
I guess my point was also that cities are not intrinsically ungodly or bad. Salem existed before Jerusalem: it presumably was a good city.
I would be very interested in the where as much as the when for gold currency.
Debt cancellation would change the paradigm. No more loaning money into existence. Money today is not a trusted promissory note for goods. The lack of debt cancellation guarantees economic collapse. But it is never a crash as depicted. It is a transfer of goods from the many to a few. The dealer always wins, but it does not recognise the limits to real resources. This is why "limits to growth" is such an important study.
https://armstrongeconomics-wp.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/10/Debt-Cancellations.pdf
"Temple credit to the palace usually took the form of precious metals, including from Sumerian times the (removable) golden garments of the city-deities, which could be melted down."
pg.82
Isaiah 46:6-7
"Two Assyrian rulers from 1950-1900 BC - Ilushuma and his successor Erishum - have left building inscriptions commemorating debt cancellations. Ilushuma announces that "I have established the freedom (andurar) of the Akkadians and their children. I have washed their copper and established freedom" throughout southern Mesopotamia, from the Persian Gulf up to Ashur (Kraus 1984:103). The next recorded Assyrian debt cancellation is that of Erishum, who goes out of his way to be as comprehensive as possible: "I proclaimed a remission of debts payable in silver, gold, copper, tin, barley, wool, down to chaff" This would seem to cover the spectrum of whatever creditors might cite in an attempt to claim that their specific loan was exempt from the general debt remission. (There is some debate over whether this inscription refers to a debt cancellation or merely frees trade in these commodities. But in view of its context in a temple foundation, it certainly seems to be a Clean Slate.) "
pg.19
I'm not trying to get into the politics all, nor do I believe that most current societies will favor debt cancellation (especially not the USA), but ancient Israel did that kind of thing. So it's probably not a bad idea.
The IMF statement about debt cancellation also merits attention.
On gold, one article states:
"Gold was first used as coinage in the late 8th century BCE in Asia Minor. Irregular in shape and often with only one side stamped, the coins were usually made of electrum. The first pure gold coins with stamped images are credited to king Croesus of Lydia, 561-546 BCE and a contemporary gold refinery has been excavated at the capital, Sardis."
See https://www.worldhistory.org/gold/
Compare https://www2.lawrence.edu/dept/art/BUERGER/ESSAYS/PRODUCTION3.HTML
Not politics, Economic theory.
IMO copper was not used originally because it had practical uses, especially when combined with tin from Cornwall via the sea people's. The general need to reduce the energy audit (trees) led to it being replaced by Iron I a more general sense.
Croesus of Lydia, fits my theories. As the Greek islands and mainland had been seriously depleted of resources by that time, mainly due to the copper industry. Which would also have been the primary driver for conquest in the time of Alexander.
I agree with much of what you're saying and you're right that economics and politics are two different spheres although today's economists are heavily politicized and their work is largely speculative. Therefore, I don't take modern economics that seriously at all.
The whole move from one metal to another is interesting and has relevance for biblical studies too. However, I'm not in a position to affirm or deny your theory.
Duncan, the book I'm mentioning "Debt: the first 5000 years" by David Graeber argues that money only comes into existance through the development of militaries, and through that the development of taxation systems.
Most pre-state societies organize economically through a mix of kinship systems, top-down chiefdom distributions, and general mutual aid (informal credit systems), the problem is if you want to have a part of the population who is going to go around with swords killing people and perhaps being killed, it's difficult to keep them within those systems in a predictable way, so if a King pays the soldiers in bullion, and then demands the bullion back from his subjects in taxation, you then have basically his entire realm partially engaged in feeding and clothing his army (through trying to get the bullion to pay the tax), thus you have the development of money, and then markets. He marshalls evidence for this in archeology, and differentiates between more anciant tribal forms of tokens for marriage or religious rituals, and money as currency. He also marshalls evidence from anthropology that the barter-markets-credit myth from adam smith is completely ahistorical and false, and he also shows the development of modern property law from Roman slavery.
Eventually (Karl Polanyi is useful here) you have Capitalism which is when markets go from being a limited part of society, to being society itself.
The book has been made open access and is available here: http://libcom.org/library/debt-first-5000-years-david-graeber
To be honest, the more I read of anthropology, sociology, and history, the more the economics 101 I learned in school looks to me like bunk and borderline propeganda.
Some background:-
https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/82201/THESIS_%20Mycenaean%20Perception%20and%20Production%20of%20Bronze_3rdEd_752020.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
https://www.jstor.org/stable/529683
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/52925725.pdf
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ZQeAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Oxford+Handbook+of+the+Bronze+Age+Aegean&hl=el&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=cornwall&f=false
Thanks Roman, I will look at the book soon.
Its worth noting https://biblehub.com/text/2_samuel/11-1.htm
Even War had its season because an army cold not just be an army. They had to sow and reap a crop like everyone else in a low energy world.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ZQeAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Oxford+Handbook+of+the+Bronze+Age+Aegean&hl=el&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=cornwall&f=false
I do not think archaeologists have checked the molecular signature of Mycenaean bronze to learn from which mines the metals originated. I think this is a fairly simple procedure.
Note the 3 papers I listed. The final one says that Iron was more energy critical than copper, but I think they are neglecting bellow technology that increases smelt temperature considerably without the need for charcoal, or at least a reduction of charcoal.
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1348990/1/338121.pdf
Roman, in any given area an empire must always be larger in size then it predecessor, converting ecosystems into food as it goes (we have now reached the limits of expansion as empires have overlapped). Paying an army is just a symbolic representation of feeding it. Tax is part of it but tax does not require tokens. I mentioned the latest theories regarding Hadrian's walls to Edgar recently. They were not put in place to protect the empire form barbarians, but were a customs barrier. That all goods that passed through them were taxed and most of those liable did not have money, only goods. Tax was always in the collectors favour, so if the tax was 20% of goods but you only had to sheep then one was taken (50%). So at these locations Roman soldiers became tax collectors.
https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004353718/BP000016.xml
https://zeugma.packhum.org/pdfs/v3ch11.pdf
Thanks, Duncan. Some nice finds here.
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