Introduction to the Old Testament in 24 Lectures from Yale University

May 202013
 

Yale University offers some amazing free courses online, not the least of which is this one on the Old Testament. I’m adding this to the NC Necessary Books page (which, megalomaniac that I am, I am considering turning into a treasure trove of literary and cultural history). In any case, this lecture series is a brilliant introduction to the Old Testament. Christine Hayes, the lecturer, is the kind of person you could listen to all day and long into the night, sharp, amiable, clear and engaging. What she teaches is just surprise after surprise.

If you want to, you can also go to the Open Yale site and download audio files of all the lectures.

dg

1 The Parts of the Whole

2 The Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern Setting: Biblical Religion in Context

3 The Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern Setting: Genesis 1-4 in Context

4 Doublets and Contradictions, Seams and Sources: Genesis 5-11 and the Historical-Critical Method

5 Critical Approaches to the Bible: Introduction to Genesis 12-50

6 Biblical Narrative: The Stories of the Patriarchs (Genesis 12-36)

7 Israel in Egypt: Moses and the Beginning of Yahwism (Genesis 37- Exodus 4)

8 Exodus: From Egypt to Sinai (Exodus 5-24, 32; Numbers)

9 The Priestly Legacy: Cult and Sacrifice, Purity and Holiness in Leviticus and Numbers

10 Biblical Law: The Three Legal Corpora of JE (Exodus), P (Leviticus and Numbers) and D (Deuteronomy)

11 On the Steps of Moab: Deuteronomy

12 The Deuteronomistic History: Life in the Land (Joshua and Judges)

13 The Deuteronomistic History: Prophets and Kings (1 and 2 Samuel)

14 The Deuteronomistic History: Response to Catastrophe (1 and 2 Kings)

15 Hebrew Prophecy: The Non-Literary Prophets

16 Literary Prophecy: Amos

17 Literary Prophecy: Hosea and Isaiah

18 Literary Prophecy: Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum and Habbakuk

19 Literary Prophecy: Perspectives on the Exile (Jeremiah, Ezekiel and 2nd Isaiah)

20 Responses to Suffering and Evil: Lamentations and Wisdom Literature

21 Biblical Poetry: Psalms and Song of Songs

22 The Restoration: 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah

23 Visions of the End: Daniel and Apocalyptic Literature

24 Alternative Visions: Esther, Ruth, and Jonah

Jael and Sisera, or something about the wisdom of letting women play with hammers and nails

Nov 172010
 

Like many Bible readers, I come at the text from a blind spot created by Sunday school teaching and pulpit homilies and pop cultural sermonizing. The more I read it, the more fascinating it becomes—partly because it is never what I expect and not at all what I was taught. Part of me (the 15-year-old part, that is, about 90% of me) is still at the stage of being surprised and delighted by the moral waywardness of the characters, the shocking violence, and the prevalence of prostitutes and concubines. My Sunday school teacher, for example, did not dwell on the wonderful details of Ehud’s assassination of the fat king Eglon of Moab in the Book of Judges when the fat closes around the dagger and the shit gushes out of the wound (Ehud is kind of an Israelite Jason Bourne—the passage reads like that). [I realize I have posted about this story before—what does this tell you about me?]

003:015 But when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD
raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite,
a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a
present unto Eglon the king of Moab.

003:016 But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit
length; and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right
thigh.

003:017 And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab: and Eglon
was a very fat man.

003:018 And when he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away
the people that bare the present.

003:019 But he himself turned again from the quarries that were by
Gilgal, and said, I have a secret errand unto thee, O king:
who said, Keep silence. And all that stood by him went out
from him.

003:020 And Ehud came unto him; and he was sitting in a summer
parlour, which he had for himself alone. And Ehud said, I have
a message from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat.

003:021 And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his
right thigh, and thrust it into his belly:

003:022 And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed
upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of
his belly; and the dirt came out.

I turn from this to the equally shocking and delightful tale of Jael nailing Sisera’s head to the floor. Sisera is on the run after losing a battle to the Israelites. He asks Jael for a cup of water. She invites him into her tent and offers him a glass of milk instead. Exhausted, he falls asleep. Then she, um, drives a nail through his head. A kind of Home Depot-style biblical assassination. Here is the no-nonsense, stripped down account in Judges.

Continue reading »

Berserkers in the Bible

Oct 122010
 

Jonathan and his armour bearer climbing to attack the Philistines

In Samuel 1, 13 & 14, there is a fascinating little story about Saul’s son Jonathan. The Philistines are attacking and it is suddenly the case that there are no blacksmiths amongst the Israelites. The Israelites have to go to the Philistines even to get their axes, mattocks and ploughshares sharpened (didn’t anyone think about this ahead of time?). So Saul gathers his more or less weaponless army and hangs around wondering what to do. Jonathan, his son (who does have weapons), goes berserk (or a reasonable facsimile) and attacks the Philistine all by himself except for his faithful armour bearer who tags along. They climb a cliff to get to the Philistine host and fall upon it, killing twenty men right away.

014:011 And both of them discovered themselves unto the garrison of
the Philistines: and the Philistines said, Behold, the Hebrews
come forth out of the holes where they had hid themselves.

014:012 And the men of the garrison answered Jonathan and his
armourbearer, and said, Come up to us, and we will shew you a
thing. And Jonathan said unto his armourbearer, Come up after
me: for the LORD hath delivered them into the hand of Israel.

014:013 And Jonathan climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet, and
his armourbearer after him: and they fell before Jonathan; and
his armourbearer slew after him.

014:014 And that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armourbearer
made, was about twenty men, within as it were an half acre of
land, which a yoke of oxen might plow.

Continue reading »

Jephtha and his daughter, more collateral damage from the Book of Judges

May 162010
 

Another of the gorgeous Dore illustrations

In Judges 11 we find another fascinating little story. Jephtha is another one of the “judges” called to save errant Israel. He’s an interesting character in himself. Son of a prostitute, he has to live in exile in the land of Tob until the Ammonites attack Israel. This echoes several Bible stories including the early life of Moses who has to escape from Egypt for a while before coming back to save the Israelites from Pharoah. Any number of Biblical heroes have to live in exile or in the Wilderness before achieving greatness (echoing shamanic practice).

The Israelites promise Jephtha he can govern them if he helps them fight the Ammonites. So off he goes to whack some Ammonites after promising God to sacrifice the first thing that comes out of his front door when he returns home victorious (what was he thinking? what was home life like? what sort of innocuous thing wandered in and out of his front door? goats? puppy dogs?). As luck would have it, the first thing that comes through the door to greet him is his little daughter who dances out happily expecting big hugs and, maybe, souvenir t-shirts. She asks Jephtha why he looks grumpy and he tells her, well, now I have to offer you as a burnt offering to the Lord. She is, to my mind, justifiably dismayed, but she’s a good daughter. She says, okay, but let me go up into the mountains with my girlfriends to mourn my virginity for two months. Jephtha says okay to that (the text emphasizes that his daughter is an only child–think of it). And the girl and her friends spend two months camping and hiking in the mountains bewailing her virginity (have teenage girls changed since then; I mean, really?). Then she comes back and Jephtha burns her on the altar. The KJV translation here is absolutely gorgeous in its description of a sweet, real little girl on the cusp of womanhood.

Continue reading »

The Levite’s Concubine & other sentimental Bible stories

May 152010
 

Gustave Dore illustration

I have surged through Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and part of 1 Samuel (Kings), catching mistakes and misinterpretations from the last time I read through. The Bible seems more strange and alien than ever, fascinating in its fierce anarchy. (Might I just mention in passing the plague of hemorrhoids God sends to the Philistines and their attempt to make a Trespass Offering by fashioning five gold statues of their hemorrhoids. 1 Samuel 6:4 I went to bed last night trying to imagine what a golden hemorrhoid would look like.)

Briefly, since I’ve been trying to keep track of what I called the slaughter of the innocents (or collateral damage), I want to draw your attention to the horrific story of the Levite and his concubine (Judges 19). This follows a murky little bit of text about a man named Micah who seems to set up his own mixed religion with pagan images and Hebrew sacred items mixed and a Levite priest to conduct services–this is during one of those backsliding moments when the Israelites have fallen away from the truth faith. Judges 19 seems to start fresh, but it could be the same Levite priest. He takes a concubine (later she’s referred to as his wife as well), but she “plays the whore” with him and runs away to her father’s place. The Levite goes to get her and eventually starts home. They stop for the night at a place called Gibeah where a nice old gentleman invites them to stay at his place. During the night a crowd of party animals called “sons of Belial” surround the house and ask the old man to send the Levite out so they can have sex with him (this is a repetition of the Genesis 19 episode at Lot’s house in Sodom). The old man offers them his daughter and the concubine instead, but the rowdies want the Levite.

Finally, the Levite convinces them to take the concubine after all. The young gentlemen rape her through the night, and when they’re done, they turn her loose. She manages to crawl to the door of the old man’s house, manages to reach up and get her hands on the doorstep, and dies. In the morning, the Levite gets ready to leave and notices the concubine. He tries to rouse her, but she doesn’t respond. He packs her on his donkey and takes her home. And then he gets a knife and cuts her body up into 12 parts (including the bones) and sends the bits off the the far corners of Israel. His reasoning is that he wants to gather a horde to wreak vengeance on the men of Gibeah–and he does. (This part of the story refers forward to 1 Samuel 11:7 where Saul cuts up a yoke of oxen and sends the pieces to the corners of Israel to summon the hosts. Weird connection, yes? concubine=oxen?) But my mind is still back there with the concubine for whom things have not gone well. Not well at all.

Here is the climactic bit of the story (my emphasis).

019:021 So he brought him into his house, and gave provender unto the
asses: and they washed their feet, and did eat and drink.

019:022 Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of
the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about,
and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house,
the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine
house, that we may know him.

019:023 And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and
said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so
wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not
this folly.

019:024 Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them
I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them
what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a
thing.

019:025 But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his
concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her,
and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the
day began to spring, they let her go.

019:026 Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down
at the door of the man’s house where her lord was, till it was
light.

019:027 And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of
the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman
his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and
her hands were upon the threshold.

019:028 And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none
answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man
rose up, and gat him unto his place.

019:029 And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid
hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her
bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of
Israel.

dg

A new look at Rahab the harlot & a confusion of Judges

May 032010
 

Eglon, king of the Moabites, from Figures de la Bible (1728) Illustrated by Gerard Hoet (1648-1733), and others.

Procrastination has reached biblical proportions this packet round–on the other hand, not all my students got their packets here on time, so I have an excuse.

Over the weekend, I got through Joshua and part-way into Judges before I broke down. Joshua divides (like Caesar’s Gaul) into three parts. The first 12 chapters contain the dramatic crossing of the Jordan and the battles for Jericho and Ai (and various other places), also the stories of Rahab, Achan and the trickery of the Gibeonites. The next section is mostly an administrative  interlude in which the various tribes are assigned their allotments in the conquered land. And in the last section, Joshua dies. The first few chapters of Judges recapitulates Joshua, sometimes repeating chunks of text and story pretty much verbatim. And then we begin a series of cycles of backsliding (whoring after strange gods) by the Israelites (who, really, never seem to learn), punishment by God, and then rescue by a local hero who, for some reason, is called a judge. Some of the judges get a good deal of face time, their stories told in graphic detail (the Jael and Sisera story mentioned in an earlier post is part of the story of a female judge named Deborah).

The first time I read through all this material I came away with the impression that it was a kind of veiled history of the Israelites establishing themselves as a monotheistic community amidst a land teeming with polytheists. From Leviticus on, the emphasis seemed to be on establishing and maintaining cultural purity against contamination from the other regional communities. This seemed like a reasonable anthropological synthesis of what I was reading. Now, however, with my trusty Literary Guide beside me, I see greater complexity (and confusion). God makes a covenant with the patriarchs in Genesis to make their people prosper and bring them to the Promised Land. But as we read through the later books of the Pentateuch, we see God gradually introducing an override condition. At first the Israelites are the Chosen People, but then, it seems, they will be the Chosen People as long as they obey him. If they keep acting up (whoring after strange gods), he promises to obliterate them (and there is prophetic material that predicts just this). One of the conditions for God’s beneficence is that the Israelites completely eliminate (early ethnic cleansing) all the strange peoples who already live across the Jordan. God says specifically that they should not make any treaties or deals. Then Joshua goes across the Jordan and the very first thing that happens is that his scouts make a deal with Rahab the harlot which allows her and her family to live with the Israelites for always, thus breaking the covenant. The story of the Gibeonites involves a similar deal with the pagan Canaanites who are allowed to live among the Israelites–and the list goes on. Rather than expunging the polytheists, as they were meant to do, the Israelites keep them around, using them as labour, and then begin to intermarry with them, and so on.
Read the rest!