Abnormal Interests

Duane,

When you say “Of course, I agree,” you are playing the game because you agree with one group against the other. The problem is, that to me and to many Christians, the matter is much more than just a game.

Faith in God does not require proof or evidence; otherwise it would not be faith. However, the claims of Christianity are based on the historicity of Jesus’ life, ministry, and resurrection. And the New Testament is based on the historical realities of the Hebrew Bible. If we say that the biblical narratives are invented, that they are ideological constructions invented to support a narrow political program of reconstruction, then this view affects the way we understand the Bible.

Some people may not have faith and that is their personal decision. But for those who believe, certain things about faith become very important. This was the aim of my criticism of Liverany’s book

Claude Mariottini

Duane, I think you did a crackerjack job of deconstructing the game. Too funny. You had me in stitches several times.

But there are certain historical realities the Hebrew Bible takes for granted which, if they had no basis at all in facts, would call into the question the narrative itself. For example, if it were shown that the carriers of the biblical tradition were misguided in thinking that in part at least their origins were extra-autochthonous, it wouldn't, I suppose, prove that the carriers' theology is wrong (that's a separate issue), but I for one would then put biblical Yahwism in the same basket as I do Scientology.

But everyone knows the Yahwists' origins were in part extra-autochthonous. The only debate is whether they can count as their ancestors wandering Arameans and escaped Egyptian slaves, or only people like Ezra and Nehemiah who "returned" to a land they thought was theirs for God knows why.

The pivot of the biblical narrative is the destruction of the temple and the end of the monarchy in the 6th cent. BCE. The Yahwists, rather than losing faith in their God on account of these events, purified it. There is overwhelming evidence for this turning point in the literature of the Bible and archaeology. Now if it could be shown that instead the destruction was a non-event, and had no far-reaching consequences in the history of the religion of Israel, the whole biblical narrative would fall apart at the seams. Jim West might go on and sing, "You ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart!" all the same, but I for one would be non-plussed.

On the essentials, therefore, I agree with Claude, though I am far from being a maximalist.

I suppose I should make a disclaimer. Mario Liverani was the correlatore for my thesis on imperialism as a theological problem in First Isaiah. I have a lot of respect for Liverani's scholarship, though I think the book in question is his least best. Much of his best work, and I include his early work, is available only in Italian or French.

If you haven't read what Liverani's written in the field of Ugaritic studies, you are in for a treat.

Claude,

I'm slightly confused about your response. In my delusion, I though Jim West might be more upset by my comments than you. To be sure, I don't share your faith, but I thought my tongue in cheek remarks might be understood somewhat differently. I though, for example, that you would see my swipe at "you can't prove a negative" as somewhat supportive of your position. The fact that we know Moses' name is evidence for such a person. How strong that evidence is a reasonable matter of debate. What, beyond his name and, through it, an association with Egypt, we can know is to me even more debatable. Now, you may view this as a minimalist position. But, I think there are minimalist that would deny even the possibility that the name Moses is evidence for there being a person called Moses. While I could devise an evidence based agreement that this name is contrived, after all we can be fairly sure that there are contrived names in the Hebrew Bible (I think of Hosea's Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi), and the name Moses maybe a name fragment rather than a compete name, I think the evidence that the name is contrived is weaker than the evidence that the name represents a real person however little we may actually know of him beyond his name. Without getting into too much detail, Exodus 2:1-10 seems to me to provide an explanation as to how a guy with a Egyptian name came to be the leader of (some of [?]) the Hebrews rather than a justification for a contrived name. I'm not saying the account is necessarily historical, I'm only saying it tends, in my view, to support the idea that there was indeed some old account of a person of that name known to the author (J ?) of the passage. I think asking someone to give compelling counter evidence is a reasonable request.

Also, notice that I say, “Of course, I agree” to both parties when they claim theological irrelevancy. I intended that as a joke, perhaps a bad joke but still a joke. I hope that it is obvious that I think the minimalist-maximalist structure of the debate about Israel's history is unhelpful and that it is more a theological debate than a debate over history. I think both positions get in the way of maximizing what we can actually know and of clearly defining what we cannot know. My own view is that both the minimalists and the maximalists prevent rational discussion of many interesting, even important, issues because of dogmatic commitments that have little or nothing to do with the Hebrew Bible or the Christian New Testament for that matter.

John,

I'm glad you enjoyed my little gamesmanship. While I lack your concern about putting "biblical Yahwism in the same basket as" Scientology, I do agree that it is abnormally interesting or just plan abnormal that some Yahwists would interpret a seeming unmitigated historical calamity as somehow a good thing and that they could get a host of others to agree with them. That, in addition, this drove the canon as we know it and gave reason for much of the Biblical narrative is nearly unquestionable. In some ways I find myself better disposed towards maximalist interests, in so far as they are historical interests, in understanding the history but also better disposed towards minimalist view of the evidence for that history.

To say that I was familiar with Liverani work would be stretching the point. I suppose I need to spend some time both with the book Claude reviewed but with Liverani's work on economic and other issues at Ugarit. I feel like long ago I met Liverani but the memory is so vague that I can't assign a when or where to him. During the late 60s and early 70's just about every prominent Ugaritologist dropped by Claremont on one occasion or another. By the way, you might want to fix up Liverani's bio on Wikipedia. It is very incomplete.

Duane,

I did not intend my statement to be an attack on what you wrote. I thought what you wrote was very good and to the point. Maybe I did not get your joke but what I was trying to convey was that Liverani’s and Jim’s criticism on the biblical narratives should be taken very seriously. With that kind of criticism, Liverani’s practically destroys the moorings of the New Testament, and to me, that is not acceptable.

I agree with you that the mention of the name of Moses indicates that he probably was a real person. We may not know much about him or what he did, but to say that he was an invented character in the biblical story is to remove the possibility of studying the history and archaeology of Egypt to discover who he was. If he never existed, however, there is then no incentive to try to know more about him.

You and I may disagree on many issues, but I always learn something new by reading your blog. Thank you for your work.

Claude Mariottini

I recall one of my professors many years, ago quoting someone else whom I can't recall, saying, "If Moses didn't exist, then someone else named Moses did, and did the same things."

Delightful!