TWO ESSAYS

John McDermott Reading 'The Pentateuch' and Jeffery Morrow 'The Politics of Biblical Interpretation'

John McDermott Reading 'The Pentateuch' and Jeffery Morrow 'The Politics of Biblical Interpretation'

Introduction

Religious history and archaeology, rather than theology, have been concluding that the Pentateuch was greatly influenced by Ancient Near Eastern religion and did not evolve in a cultural vacuum, Reading the Pentateuch straight through reveals many of these aspects and it also reveals an aspect rarely discussed amongst many biblical scholars: the laws of the Pentateuch develop over time. However, this is contradictory to the commonly accepted doctrine of Christianity and Judaism that God is immutable and eternal. If God does not change and always is who It is and will be, then why does it take centuries for It to reveal Its laws to Its people, and why do they change over time? The results of this study argue that these laws are developing over time, show they are not being given to the Israelites from an immutable and eternal God, and are developing because of humanistic reasons.

Description of the Essays

In this volume, McDermott sets out to answer whether the Pentateuch records actual historical events or not, and then to answer what difference it makes if it does or not. In reality, these questions only frame the book's discussion, which centers more on identifying ancient Near Eastern customs that shed light on the Pentateuch's stories and on describing the history of composition of the stories.

In examining the historicity of the Pentateuch's stories, McD. takes a fairly skeptical stance. He does admit that the texts "accurately preserve some customs and details" even from the early second millennium, but he is often dismissive without providing evidence for his opinion. Thus, on Abraham and Isaac, he says, "It is unlikely they were father and son”. Similarly, regarding the account of the golden calf, he says, "This story is clearly not something that happened to a group in the desert before the beginning of Israel". McD. quickly drops consideration of ancient Near Eastern practices that can elucidate the history communicated by the text.

McDermott's view is that the stories are rarely historical and that this does not make much difference. Therefore, he believes the best method to use in discovering what the Pentateuch teaches is to look at the historical setting of the composition of the narratives. Although he presents varying views on the date of the composition of texts (e.g., Deuteronomy 33 dates to the early monarchy, or earlier), for the most part he accepts the late dating of scholars such as John Van Seters and Thomas Thompson (e.g., on the date of the Yahwist). McD's ultimate purpose is to uncover the meaning of the texts on the basis of the historical context of the hypothetical author: "The episodes about the beginning of Isaac's life and the end of the lives of Abraham and Sarah are used to strengthen the identity of the exilic Jews" (p. 55); the Book of Numbers is about "the concerns of postexilic Judaism" ...