530 - The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters

The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters
Edited by Douglas A. Knight and Gene M. Tucker
Philadelphia, Fortress, and Chico, Scholars Press, 1985. 516 pp. $29.95.

To mark its centennial in 1980, the Society of Biblical Literature commissioned a series of volumes intended to explore the history of biblical scholarship and the place of the Bible in North American culture. The current volume, which is a part of that series, comprises essays by fifteen different authors, each reviewing an aspect of research in, or related to, the Hebrew Bible. The volume concentrates on research since 1945, and is thus primarily a review of work done since World War II. While it is in the nature of an anthology to be uneven, it can be said that the reviews of scholarship undertaken in this volume are (with exceptions) superb, and that readers with some background in the field will find this to be a very useful volume. For scholars, it will be indispensable.

The areas covered by the various authors can be somewhat artificially divided into three categories: (1) areas of research, (2) methodologies, and (3) biblical literature. In the first category are essays on "Israelite History" by J. Maxwell Miller, "The Ancient Near Eastern Environment" by J. J. M. Roberts, "Israelite Religion" by Patrick D. Miller, and "Theology of the Hebrew Bible" by George Coats. The second, methodological area includes essays on "Syro-Palestinian and Biblical Archaeology" by William G. Dever, "Criticism of Literary Features, Form, Tradition and Redaction Criticism" by Rolf Knierim, and "Exploring New Directions" by Robert C. Culley. The third category is the largest. Here are included essays by Douglas A. Knight on "The Pentateuch," Peter R. Ackroyd on "The Historical Literature," Gene M. Tucker on "Prophecy and the Prophetic Literature," James L. Crenshaw on "The Wisdom Literature," Erhard S. Gerstenberger on "The Lyrical Literature" (Psalms, Lamentations, Song of Songs), Susan Niditch on "Legends of Wise Heroes and Heroines' ' ' (Esther, Ruth, Daniel 1-6), and Paul D. Hanson on "Apocalyptic Literature." Falling somewhat outside these categories is the concluding essay by Walter Harrelson on "The Hebrew Bible and Modern Culture."

There is among these essays considerable variety in the way the authors have conducted their reviews of research. Some, such as J. M. Miller and Douglas Knight, give dispassionate summaries of scholarly positions, indicating the principal problems remaining. Others, such as W. G. Dever and Rolf Knierim, also chart (relatively) new courses. In many of the essays, various scholarly positions are merely noted, while in others, they are subjected to (occasionally harsh) critique. Each of the essays is followed by a bibliography; they range from the comprehensive (Roberts) to the inadequate (Coats). The essay by Patrick D. Miller is

531 - The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters

unique in its lively combination of a review of past research with a constructive discussion of substantive issues and evidence. It is, in my judgment, the best in the book.

It is impossible, of course, to summarize or evaluate the contributions of fifteen authors writing in various disciplines and covering a wide variety of biblical and Near Eastern literature. Nor is it possible, given that same diversity, to summarize where we are, in light of these contributions, in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. In fact, what becomes clear is that there is no agreement on how interpretation should proceed, nor on what, in fact, we are interpreting-texts, religion, history, or ancient culture and society. Most of the authors assume (or argue) that proper interpretation of the Hebrew Bible involves a combination of all these "objects," but there is no agreement upon and little argument concerning how this combination should be construed. This can be illustrated by the comments of P. D. Miller, that failure to attend to the history of religions background in exegesis is "not to deal with the Old Testament as we have it but only a postulated Old Testament," and of J. J. M. Roberts, that to treat covenant (for example) from "a narrowly biblical base" is "a false step, an attempt to gain a bogus security in the constricted womb of pure Old Testament studies." These comments assume conclusions regarding what is being interpreted and what constitutes interpretation. In other words, the questions of what "the Old Testament as we have it" is, and what our interests in it are, have to be answered before such judgments about what constitutes a "false step" can be adequately evaluated. Both of these questions are controversial.

Unfortunately, while this volume, which surveys a host of "interpreters," deals with various interpretive procedures (Knierim, Culley), it contains no chapter devoted to theoretical issues of interpretation. It consistently, and inappropriately, restricts hermeneutics to theology-to the question of the Hebrew Bible's contemporary religious appropriation. Consequently, these issues remain at the level of assumptions in the respective essays, some of which seem as a result to plead for the recognition of their particular method or discipline or body of texts as centrally important.

There are other matters that are not given systematic treatment. For example, the volume lacks a chapter devoted to textual criticism. While Roberts gives superb coverage to much of the extra-biblical literature from outside Israel, and P. D. Miller makes instructive use of some inscriptional evidence in his essay, a fuller treatment of the Hebrew, Phoenician, and Aramaic inscriptions would have been helpful. And there are occasionally misleading statements, such as Paul Hanson's that "the hasidic background" of Daniel is an established theory. Contrast the judgment of John J. Collins: "The book of Daniel … cannot be ascribed to the militant Hasidim" (The Apocalyptic Imagination, p. 62).

Despite these mildly critical observations, I repeat my conviction that

532 - The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters

this volume makes a substantial contribution to our knowledge of contemporary Old Testament studies. The field-if it can be thought of as one field-has become so vast that no one can keep fully abreast of its various dimensions. I cannot imagine that a student or teacher of Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) would want to be without this book.

In his editorial "Introduction" to a similar review of research published in 1951, H. H. Rowley found laughable the comment of a British scholar twenty-five years earlier "that he intended to turn his attention in the future to studies outside the Hebrew and Old Testament field, since there was nothing more to be done within that field" (The Old Testament and Modern Study, xv). If there was work left to be done in 1951, the book under review leaves the impression that virtually everything remains to be done today. There are other interesting comparisons to be made. In 1951, Rowley claimed that the changes in Old Testament study between the 1930s and the 1950s could better be described as progress than as revolution. The present volume suggests the opposite. In at least some of the areas of research, the change has been revolutionary-this seems clear even though the coverage of research extends only to around 1980. There is, unfortunately perhaps, one exception to this generalization. In 1951, Norman Porteous began his essay- on Old Testament theology by lamenting that "there is no general agreement as to what a theology of the Old Testament should aim at providing." George Coats begins his essay in the current volume by asking, "What, in the final analysis, will count as a theology of the Hebrew Bible?" The disagreement noted by Porteous persists, and the question posed by Coats remains open.

Ben C. Ollenburger
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey