400 - The Bible Without Theology: The Theological Tradition and Alternatives To It

The Bible Without Theology: The Theological Tradition and Alternatives To It
By Robert A. Oden, Jr.
New York, Harper & Row, 1987.198 pp. $18.95.

The dust jacket says that Robert Oden's new book is "revolutionary." It is hardly that, but it is as provocative as the title suggests. Oden argues that the study of the Bible-the Hebrew Bible, in this case-has been dominated by what he calls "the theological tradition," which is suited to seminaries but not to university departments of religion. Oden, who is Professor of Religion at Dartmouth, also argues that this different institutional and intellectual context requires alternative approaches to biblical study. None of this seems controversial, except for the rather striking claim that there is a particular theological tradition governing biblical studies in seminaries or elsewhere. What is this theological tradition and what are the alternatives to it?

Oden admits at the outset that he means various things by "the theological tradition" and that it usually serves as "a shorthand reference to a distinctive mode of argumentation." The mode of argumentation he has in mind is that of an apologetic historiography that is out of

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touch with contemporary methodological developments, makes unwarranted assumptions about Israel's religious uniqueness, and uses the divine as an explanatory category. It explains the problematic by appeal to the inexplicable. In the book's first chapter ("Historical Understanding and Understanding the Religion of Israel"), Oden tries to show that the origins of his historicist and apologetic mode of argumentation lie in nineteenth century German idealist historiography, exemplified by Droysen, Ranke, and Humboldt, which decisively influenced such biblical scholars as Wellhausen and Gunkel. Their influence persists, he says, in contemporary biblical studies.

The historical survey is interesting and instructive, but it leaves unclarified why Oden speaks of "the theological tradition," except that he seems to consider apologetics to be particularly at home in seminaries and theology to be fundamentally apologetic. This will come as a shock to most theologians, but it is no less startling to see people as diverse as Umberto Cassuto, J. G. Frazer, and Mircea Eliade grouped within the theological tradition or its influence. On the other hand, given the diversity of methods currently employed among biblical scholars, including precisely those Oden poses as alternatives to the theological tradition, and the persistent criticisms of German idealism by theologians, Oden's characterization of "the theological tradition" seems very much like, well, apologetics.

The alternatives Oden poses to the theological tradition, or to apologetic historicism, are comparative and anthropological studies of religion that are "in keeping with methods employed elsewhere in the modern university." He demonstrates these alternative approaches in studies of Genesis 3:21 ("Grace or Status? Yahweh's Clothing of the First Humans"), the patriarchal genealogies ("The Patriarchal Narratives as Myth: The Case of Jacob"), and texts that accuse other religions of sacred prostitution ("Religious Identity and the Sacred Prostitution Accusation"). These studies are uniformly excellent and worthy of everyone's attention, even though they do not offer methodological alternatives to a putative tradition. Oden does what biblical scholars in seminaries and universities normally do. He corrects previous interpretations on the basis of better evidence, evidence more carefully considered, or different methodological considerations. On the basis of biblical and Mesopotamian texts, Oden concludes that in Genesis 3:21 God's clothing of Adam and Eve is a mark of status and not an act of grace. Drawing on anthropological studies of kinship, he suggests that Jacob's "cross-cousin and avunculate relationships" explain why he became Israel. From critical studies of classical and Mesopotamian texts, he concludes that there is no proof of sacred prostitution in the ancient Near East, despite what the Old Testament and Herodotus may have said. In each of the studies, Oden makes a good case for his conclusions, but in none of them is he persuasive that the judgments of previous scholars were due to the unconscious influence of the theological tradition stemming, as Oden suggests with respect to Genesis 3:21, from

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a combination of John Calvin and John Milton. In fact, I find Oden's reading of this text to be more promising theologically than those he ascribes to theological influence.

Intervening between the first chapter and these biblical studies is a chapter on "Interpreting Biblical Myths." At first glance, it seems not to fit with the rest of the book. It offers only a tentative proposal about structuralist interpretation of myth and seems intended simply to show that biblical scholars have not kept up with discussions of myth in other academic regions. That, however, is the point of the book. In each of his quite diverse chapters, Oden concludes that biblical scholarship has followed traditional lines of inquiry and has either failed to employ superior methods available in other university departments or has ignored academic critiques of the prevailing model of historical understanding.

In my judgment, Oden has failed to make his point. He is worried that the theological tradition threatens to "restrict the range of questions considered appropriate to raise of texts and themes in the Bible." But while some historians may find Oden's questions inappropriate to their interests, I see no reason why theologians should want to restrict them, nor any evidence that they have, unless disagreement constitutes restriction. Oden does offer alternatives to an intellectually moribund historiography, but in more or less equating "the theological tradition" with this historiography and its invidious influence, Oden's major premise merely begs the question. That is unfortunate, because his biblical scholarship is solid and because criticisms of idealism should always be welcomed, especially by theologians.

Ben C. Ollenburger

Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries
Elkhart, Indiana