History and Biblical Ancient Israel

Right now I'm reading Megan Moore's Philosophy and Practice in Writing a History of Ancient Israel, in which she examines the debates between so-called minimalists and maximalists when it comes to Ancient Israel and how to use the Old Testament for purposes of history. I guess I'd fit mostly in the minimalist camp, especially if I understood myself to be primarily a historian, which I don't. Certainly I don't regard the Old Testament as having a lot to tell us about the historical Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and certainly nothing that came before. We can also glean little or no information of what happened in the Babylonian or Persian periods (there's no history in Esther). Well, at least not if you want a history that contains events and personalities. You can, of course, do a history, or maybe better do a study of the religious ideas in the Old Testament how they reconstruct a variety of religious motifs and stories and how they construct a past in that process. You can also examine how those ideas and story worlds fit within the broader context of ancient Middle Eastern religions and you can look at how those ideas are taken up in subsequent texts too.

The reason I'm writing on this is because I discovered today that Michael Heiser's Two Powers in Heaven blog is, if not shutting down, then discontinuing. Thankfully it doesn't mean the blog is being closed because there's lots of good stuff there including a most fascinating essay that Michael Heiser has put up from the Journal of Biblical Literature in 1961. Titled 'The "Son of Man" of Daniel 7:13 f.: A New Interpretation' it's by Julian Morgenstern. In it he argued, that the Son of Man/Ancient of Days Daniel 7:13 f. is derived from the old solarised YHWH cult instituted by Solomon and derived from the solar cult of neighbouring Tyre. Morgenstern argues that just as the Tyrians worshipped the sun in two aspects, Baal Shamem and , so too in Solomon's Jerusalem God was worshipped, an elder Ancient of Days who went down to Sheol at the time of the autumnal equinox and a younger Yahweh, Son of Man, who rose from Sheol at the time of the vernal equinox and was embodied in the king.

Now late last week I was memed; I had to identify the five worst biblical studies books I've ever read. Now it was difficult because, as I said, I had to read a bit of crappy stuff in my undergrad days and then again during my PhD. Most of the crappy stuff was crappy because it attempted to present a history of Ancient Israel. But all it really ever achieved was a retelling of the Old Testament account. Refreshingly, despite its age, Morgenstern writes something interesting and something which anticipates where some of the discussion would be 50 years later. But back then he must have felt that he was out on the edge. Thing is there are still some worthwhile insights in his essay.

And I hope that Two Powers in Heaven will resume again one day.

From my blog roll

I just want to point folks to a couple of really intersting posts from my blog roll. Slacktivist is always worth a look not least for the weekly deconstructions of the execrable Left Behind series. I must admit to an almost pornographic fascination with things US evangelical and pentecostal. And the latest instalment on Slacktivist Left Behind really whets that fascination. Here we learn how Left Behind's characters refract the values of "evangelical courtship"

here we come to another reminder that the interpersonal events recounted here are every bit as strange, alien and inhuman as the international ones:

Chloe looked at [Buck] expectantly when she greeted him, yet she did not hug him, as Steele and Bruce Barnes had done. Her reticence was his fault, of course. They barely knew each other, but clearly there had been chemistry. They had given each other enough signals to begin a relationship, and in a note to Chloe, Buck had even admitted he was attracted to her.

Jerry Jenkins is well-served here by his habit of telling about things like this note without ever showing them to us, because such a note seems, if not quite impossible, at least unimaginable. "Dear Chloe. I admit I am attracted to you. Let us never speak of it again. Cordially, Cameron."

I appreciate that the target audience for these books includes readers in the hinterlands of the evangelical subculture where dating as it is practiced in most of the West remains a forbidden and largely unknown custom. LaHaye & Jenkins are writing for people who subscribe, instead, to the invented neo-Victorian practices of evangelical "courtship"

I suppose what really fascinates me is how people strive so hard to follow a supposedly 'biblically based' Christianity and end up with something that is so unrecognisable as Christian to so many Christians alive now and throughout history.

Meanwhile over at Two Powers in Heaven Mike Heiser has made available

Fifty-two pages of chunky pneumatological goodness, by Michel Rene Barnes. The paper is the first chapter in a monograph on the theology of the Holy Spirit until the time of Tertullian and Origen. Its thesis is that early Christian pneumatology continues and develops Jewish pneumatology.

I've read the paper and highly recommend it. I also discovered that the 2nd century Church Father, Theophilus of Antioch, in his work, To Autolychus, quotes from a Sibylline oracle in expounding a theology the Holy Spirit. He does so because, according to Barnes, "he considers (it) to be inspired by the Holy Spirit just like the Jewish prophets" (39).

Maybe the problems of 'biblically based' Christianity a la Left Behind relate to what Bible they use. For evangelicals and pentecostals it's pretty much a 19th century construct.

Finally, Mad Hatter has drawn attention to a post on Julie Redman's blog, "a brief but thoughtful note on the ways that the parables can be read." He sees there "a special value for studies of Pali Buddhism as the scriptures are replete with a variety of story-telling genres that require thoughtful and creative reading and interpretation." It's also set me a-thinking about parables and Jewish scriptures which I hope to put up as soon as exigencies of marking etc permit.