Watering the Garden: Studies in Honor of Deirdre Dempsey 9781463244941

Table of contents :
TABLE OF CONTENTS
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
INTRODUCTION
WATERING THE GARDEN: A TRIBUTE TO DEIRDRE DEMPSEY AS A TEACHER
RESTORING “JESUS” IN JUDE 5: WHAT CAN NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM LEARN FROM THE FATHERS?
FOR A HERMENEUTICS OF REFERENT: ON THE SINAI TRADITION AND A REINTERPRETATION OF “COVENANT”
TRAGEDY AND COMEDY IN SAUL’S ENCOUNTER AT ENDOR
RUN, MARY, RUN! THE FIGURE OF MARY MAGDALENE IN THE NEGRO SPIRITUALS
“THE SCHOLZ EFFECT” ON THE DEMPSEYS: EXPLORATIONS ON WRITING COMMENTARIES ON THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
“ALWAYS LOCAL AND FOREIGN TO ONE ANOTHER”: AN ESSAY ON DESIRE, DERRY GIRLS, AND THE GRACE OF FRIENDSHIP
PSALM 23, MODERN CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING, AND A BETTER ECONOMIC ORDER
BEHOLD, THE POWER OF TRANSFORMED HOLY WOMEN
WISDOM FOR ACADEMICS FROM AN ACADEMIC STUDYING WISDOM: THE THEOLOGICAL INSIGHTS OF A RELUCTANT BIBLICAL THEOLOGIAN
HAGAR AND THE GOD OF THE OPPRESSED: GEN 16:1-16 AS SEEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE “LOSERS”
ENFLESHING THE WORD: DIVINE REVELATION IN THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS
INSIGHT INTO CONTEXT: SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGICAL READING OF THE BIBLE IN AFRICA: THE CASE OF NIGERIA
ESCHATOLOGICAL CONSUMPTION OF LEVIATHAN AND BEHEMOTH AS REVELATION OF THE MESSIANIC TORAH
THE CONSOLATION OF DESOLATE LANDSCAPES: HIKING IN NEWFOUNDLAND DURING THE PANDEMIC
REDIRECTING OUR GAZE AND REWILDING OUR WORSHIP: HOW 1 ENOCH CAN HELP A CHURCH ADDRESS CLIMATE CRISIS
THE GOSPEL OF SHE: GEN 3:15 AS MILITANT QUEEN MOTHER OF THE BIBLE
TEACHING THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY WITH KEITH HARING’S UNTITLED, 1983 AT THE HAGGERTY MUSEUM OF ART

Citation preview

Watering the Garden

Biblical Intersections

19 Series Editor Robert Seesengood

6HULHV(GLWRULDO%RDUG Robert Seesengood, Albright College (Chair) Katie Edwards, University of Sheffield Laura Copier, Universiteit Utrecht Jay Twomey, University of Cincinnati James Crossley, St. Mary’s University, London Jorunn Økland, University of Oslo Rhiannon Graybill, Rhodes College

Biblical Intersections explores various topics beyond theological or exclusively historical exegetical studies, including the relationship of Hebrew and Christian scripture to philosophy, sociology, anthropology, economics, cultural studies, intertextuality and literary studies. Biblical Intersections seeks to be the leading publishing outlet of scholarship combining Biblical Studies and other professional fields, attending to both the ancient and modern cultural contexts of the text.

Watering the Garden

Studies in Honor of Deirdre Dempsey

Edited by

Andrei A. Orlov

gp 2022

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com 2022 Copyright © by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. ‫ܝܐ‬

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2022

ISBN 978-1-4632-4493-4

ISSN 1943-9377

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available at the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

Deirdre A. Dempsey

TABLE OF CONTENTS Notes on Contributors .............................................................. xi Introduction Andrei A. Orlov......................................................................... xv Watering the Garden: A Tribute to Deirdre Dempsey as a Teacher Amy E. Richter ........................................................................... 1 Restoring “Jesus” in Jude 5: What Can New Testament Textual Criticism Learn from the Fathers? Bogdan G. Bucur ........................................................................ 5 For a Hermeneutics of Referent: On the Sinai Tradition and a Reinterpretation of “Covenant” Silviu N. Bunta......................................................................... 23 Tragedy and Comedy in Saul’s Encounter at Endor Joshua Ezra Burns .................................................................... 47 Run, Mary, Run! The Figure of Mary Magdalene in the Negro Spirituals M. Shawn Copeland.................................................................. 67 “The Scholz Effect” on the Dempseys: Explorations on Writing Commentaries on the Book of Isaiah Carol J. Dempsey, OP ............................................................... 91

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“Always Local and Foreign to One Another”: An Essay on Desire, Derry Girls, and the Grace of Friendship Ryan G. Duns, SJ ................................................................... 115 Psalm 23, Modern Catholic Social Teaching, and a Better Economic Order Christine Firer Hinze ............................................................... 133 Behold, the Power of Transformed Holy Women Jennifer Henery...................................................................... 149 Wisdom for Academics from an Academic Studying Wisdom: The Theological Insights of a Reluctant Biblical Theologian Conor M. Kelly....................................................................... 167 Hagar and the God of the Oppressed: Gen 16:1-16 as Seen from the Perspective of the “Losers” Alexandre A. Martins ............................................................. 181 Enfleshing the Word: Divine Revelation in the Lives of the Saints Danielle Nussberger ................................................................ 201 Insight into Context: Systematic Theological Reading of the Bible in Africa: The Case of Nigeria Joseph Ogbonnaya.................................................................. 217 Eschatological Consumption of Leviathan and Behemoth as Revelation of the Messianic Torah Andrei A. Orlov...................................................................... 239 The Consolation of Desolate Landscapes: Hiking in Newfoundland During the Pandemic Joseph S. Pagano.................................................................... 287 Redirecting Our Gaze and Rewilding Our Worship: How 1 Enoch Can Help a Church Address Climate Crisis Amy E. Richter ....................................................................... 311 The Gospel of She: Gen 3:15 as Militant Queen Mother of the Bible Nathanael E. Schmiedicke ....................................................... 337

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Teaching Theological Anthropology with Keith Haring’s Untitled, 1983 at the Haggerty Museum of Art Kate Ward ............................................................................. 363

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Bogdan G. Bucur Associate Professor St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary Silviu N. Bunta Associate Professor University of Dayton Joshua Ezra Burns Associate Professor Department of Theology Marquette University M. Shawn Copeland Professor Emerita Boston College Carol J. Dempsey, OP Professor Department of Theology University of Portland Ryan G. Duns, SJ Associate Professor Department of Theology Marquette University

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Christine Firer Hinze Professor and Chair Department of Theology Fordham University Jennifer Henery Visiting Assistant Professor Department of Theology Marquette University Conor M. Kelly Associate Professor and Chair Department of Theology Marquette University Alexandre A. Martins Associate Professor Department of Theology Marquette University Danielle Nussberger Associate Professor Department of Theology Marquette University Joseph Ogbonnaya Associate Professor Department of Theology Marquette University Andrei A. Orlov Professor Department of Theology Marquette University

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Joseph S. Pagano Priest The Anglican Parish of Pasadena/Cormack Newfoundland, Canada Amy E. Richter Priest The Anglican Parish of Pasadena/Cormack Newfoundland, Canada Nathanael E. Schmiedicke Professor Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary Denton, Nebraska Kate Ward Associate Professor Department of Theology Marquette University

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INTRODUCTION ANDREI A. ORLOV This collection of essays is intended to honor Deirdre Dempsey, a distinguished biblical educator, translator, and scholar. Deirdre Ann Dempsey was born on April 2, 1956, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the now defunct Philadelphia Naval Hospital. The daughter of a Navy physician, John (Jack) Joseph Dempsey, and a Navy nurse, Barron Dempsey, Deirdre spent much of her childhood overseas (Guam, Egypt, Japan) with her parents, four siblings (Kathryn Ann Carpenter, John Mains Dempsey II, Moira Modzelewski, Leah Walker), and maternal grandmother, Mary (Mae) Ansylm Barron. When in the States, the family was usually stationed in the Portsmouth, Virginia area, in the shadow (sometimes literal, sometimes metaphorical) of the Navy Hospital there. Deirdre’s family has Irish roots on both sides of her family—the Dempseys hail from Coleraine, the Loftus and Barron families from County Donegal, the Gardiners from County Mayo. The Dempseys ended up in Philadelphia, along with the Gardiners, while the Loftus and Barron families became coal miners, pub owners, and domestic servants in Pennsylvania; no ancestors of much great political or social import are known, although Deirdre has a first cousin three times removed, James Boyle, who was one of the Molly Maguires executed in June 1877, convicted of the murder of Benjamin Yost. Jack Dempsey, Deirdre’s father, would often attribute Deirdre’s interest in archaeology to the many weekend excursions xv

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the family took to ancient sites, during their two years in Egypt. There is no doubt some truth in this. Deirdre herself attributes her passion for Semitic languages to the fact that she and her younger sister Moira were placed in a school that had, before the late 1950s, been run by French nuns, with instruction in French. After the Suez Crisis of 1956, the school was nationalized and the language of instruction became Arabic. In 1963, when Deirdre joined the second grade at this school, it was a situation of linguistic sink or swim, and Deirdre chose to swim. After graduation from Portsmouth Catholic High School (before its close in recent years, run by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul) in 1974, Dempsey started at Guilford College, a small liberal arts institution in Greensboro, North Carolina, founded in 1837 by the Society of Friends (Quakers). She majored in philosophy, receiving a BA in 1979. (A reoccurring academic nightmare, usually beginning right before each semester starts: Deirdre is teaching at Marquette University, in present day, when it becomes apparent that she never actually finished this BA. The dream is all about how she is now enrolled in an undergraduate class at MU, to make up the BA deficiency, but she can never seem to find the classroom. She just knows that the subject is Math.) Which reminds her of this: Deirdre’s senior thesis was on the existentialism of Albert Camus—it was, after all, the 1970s. (And at that time, French was Deirdre’s only modern research language.) Deirdre remains in contact with some dear friends from Guilford College days: Amy Steerman, now an attorney in Philadelphia, and Emi Matsumura (Tsuda), who returned to Tokyo after her years at a Quaker high school in Iowa and at Guilford College. Emi and Deirdre visited another Guilford College friend, Mickie Martin, now in Chicago, before Covid restrictions took place. Deirdre was taught by some excellent professors at Guilford College: John Stoneburner, in Religious Studies, who taught Deirdre how to pay attention to her students, Ann Deagon, in Classics, whose Latin classes helped Deirdre discern what direction she would take for further studies. Deirdre now wishes she had realized at that time what an accomplished poet Ann Deagon was.

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After a year as a VISTA volunteer in Williamson, West Virginia (“The Heart of the Billion Dollar Coal Field”), working as an assistant editor on a community newspaper, Deirdre began her decade-long relationship with the Catholic University of America. Initially just wanting to get the languages necessary for further study in archaeology, Deirdre quickly fell in love with Northwest Semitic languages and decided to focus on these and other Semitic languages for her PhD work. At the time, Deirdre was also under the (erroneous) impression that language study would be more clearcut, more prone to certainty, than her BA work in Philosophy. Deirdre received her MA in 1985 and her PhD in 1989, both in Northwest Semitic Languages. Although she focused on Hebrew and Aramaic, Deirdre also took classes in Akkadian, Arabic, Greek, and Ugaritic, as well as a couple of semesters of Middle Egyptian, with visiting professor Fr. Evasio De Marcellis, who trained down once a week from his Princeton Junction parish to tutor Egyptian languages at CUA. She also enjoyed classes with Sidney Griffith, ST, Joseph Fitzmyer, SJ, David Johnson, SJ, Aloysius Fitzgerald, FSC, Joseph Jensen, OSB, and Mark Futato. Five of those CUA years Deirdre worked as a live-in caretaker at the Joseph Kennedy Institute, in Northeast Washington, DC, close to CUA; she is eternally grateful to the Theological College seminarian who gave her the heads up on this job, which (along with financial support from CUA, the Catholic Biblical Association, and her parents) allowed her to enjoy a decade of graduate work with only a small student loan. She is sorry that she has forgotten the seminarian’s name. Because of the support of the CBA (CBA support for this first dig as well as others), Deirdre was able to begin her participation in the Tell Qarqur, Syria, excavations, for the first time in 1984; she has fond memories of that dig and its crew, as well as fond memories of the excavation at Tell Nimrin, in Jordan (the Jordanian dig unearthed a number of ostraca for Deirdre to work on and publish). Deirdre realized that her modern research languages (specifically German) needed some work, so she spent the summer of 1985 at the Goethe Institute in Iserlohn, (West)

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Germany; this was followed in 1986-1987 by a Fulbright year in Heidelberg, studying Aramaic with Klaus Beyer. After her return to Washington, DC, after the Fulbright year, Deirdre completed and defended her PhD dissertation, “The Verb Syntax of Second Isaiah and Deuteronomy Compared,” under the direction of Aloysius Fitzgerald, FSC, with Douglas Gropp and Sidney Griffith as dissertation board members. Dempsey’s dissertation was devoted to the in-depth exploration of biblical Hebrew verb syntax. Its goal was to demonstrate that despite marginal differences the biblical Hebrew verbal system operates in fundamentally the same way in both prose and poetry. (Deirdre comments here that readers of this biography who knew Br. Aloysius will recognize this subject as one of Brother’s favorites, along with the weather terminology in the Hebrew Bible.) Aloysius Fitzgerald remains for Deirdre a model of dedicated teaching and conscientious, careful dissertation direction. She remembers comparing notes with other students dissertating with Br. Aloysius—students writing dissertations in the mid to late 1980s had begun to use computers, of course, and Brother was baffled by how quickly students were getting drafts back to him, after he had drenched their initial drafts in red ink! In the late 1980s, the market for PhDs in Northwest Semitic Languages was not particularly hot—and Deirdre felt the need for a break, after the dissertation work. She received post-doctoral support from both the CBA and the DAAD (the German Academic Exchange Service), and spent two years back in Heidelberg, working on various Aramaic dialects, preparing some articles for publication, watching the Berlin Wall fall. After two years at Heidelberg (living in Mannheim), sufficiently recovered and after two years now insufficiently funded, Deirdre, with the help of Joseph Fitzmyer, SJ, found a job as a researcher with the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, at that time based at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, in Cincinnati, OH. The highpoint of this job was getting to know two great scholars and even better colleagues, Edward Cook and Jerome Lund. Most of Deirdre’s time at CAL was spent checking the input of Elephantine Aramaic texts and Nabatean graffiti in the database; Deirdre has only recently realized that she was involved with

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digital humanities scholarship before that was even much of a thing. She rejoices every time she and her Aramaic students turn to CAL for lexical help, and goes on at much too great a length about her contributions to the project. Although happy at CAL, Deirdre responded with alacrity when Br. Aloysius contacted her about a replacement Old Testament job at St. Mary’s Seminary, in Houston, TX. The OT professor had unexpectedly left teaching, so a one-year replacement job was available. Despite her reservations about how unbelievably humid and hot Houston was, when she arrived in May for an interview, Deirdre took the job. It was, Deirdre comments, a bit of a stretch: she had never taken any theology classes at CUA, focusing almost exclusively on languages. She remembers that Br. Aloysius, shortly before Deirdre defended her dissertation, asked her, “Did we ever have you take any theology classes?” The answer to this question was “no.” In other words, this position, with its emphasis on theology, defined “steep learning curve.” With the generous help of wonderful colleagues (Sandy Magee and Sandra Derby, along with the rector at the time, Chester Borski), Deirdre made it through a rough first year (she could tell you all about the verb syntax of Second Isaiah, but not much about the theology), and became permanent faculty. She stayed at St. Mary’s for another two years, teaching seminarians from (at that time) fourteen different dioceses. Just in the last couple of years she has discovered that at least two of her former students, Oscar Cantú and Michael Olson, are now bishops (she doubts that she can take credit for this, however. Having seen recent photos of these two, she wonders why they have aged when she has not). Although Deirdre enjoyed her time at St. Mary’s and learned a lot, she never got accustomed to the fact that the air conditioning would go on in February—so when Br. Aloysius contacted her in Spring of 1994 about a job at Marquette University, she was all ears. Since August of 1994, Deirdre has been a faculty member in the Department of Theology at Marquette University. Tenured and promoted in 2001, she has taught both undergraduate and graduate classes, on subjects ranging from Archaeology and the

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Bible to Theology and the Visual Arts to Syriac translations of Aristotle. Deirdre looks back with fondness on an independent study in Yiddish that she taught some years ago. Although she teaches in a department of theology, and she has become comfortable with teaching theology in her post-CUA years, Deirdre’s first love remains languages. For many years she has been involved with the revision of the New American Bible (NAB); she started on the revision committee that first met during the 1994 CBA annual meeting at Seattle University. She followed that revision through to the publication of the NABRE in 2011, a process that involved monthly meetings for a number of years, from 1994 through 2001. The Midwest Committee was made up of four members: Irene Nowell, OSB, Dale Launderville, OSB, Robert DiVito, and Deirdre, shepherded by Mary Sperry, of the USCCB. Working with this committee was a source of joy and intellectual growth for Deirdre, an experience that she considers essential to her development as a scholar. For the past few years, Deirdre has been on the committee that is doing a revision of the NABRE, for the immediate purpose of use in the revised lectionary, long term purpose a new revision. Among her other accomplished projects is the translation of Otto Hermann Pesch’s work on the Second Vatican Council (Second Vatican Council: Prehistory - Event - Results - Posthistory), published by Marquette University Press in 2015. At present, her long term project is a translation for the Christian Arabic Texts in Translation series, a translation of Ibn al-Tayyib’s Commentary on Genesis, with co-translator Safwat Marzouk, now at Union Seminary in Richmond, VA. Over her years at MU, Deirdre has directed or co-directed twelve dissertations—some of her dissertators have contributed to this volume, and she is very grateful to them! She has learned a great deal from all of her dissertators. Deirdre has served the Department of Theology in various administrative roles—Director of Undergraduate Students, Assistant Chair. At the present time, she is the Director of Graduate Studies, and very much enjoys her interactions with the outstanding graduate students in the Department. Deirdre has many happy memories of her first few years at Marquette University. She arrived in Milwaukee the same year as

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Shawn Copeland, and Deirdre credits Shawn with helping improve Deirdre’s teaching—she had never taught undergraduates before Marquette University! Deirdre and Shawn teamtaught a few times a course called “The Bible and the Black Religious Experience,” an invaluable lesson in good pedagogy for Deirdre. Friends like Shawn, Brad and Chris Hinze, Sharon Pace, and John Schmitt modelled good colleagueship to Deirdre, in her early years at Marquette University. Deirdre remembers fondly the open invitation she and Alexander Golitzin had, to have weekly dinner at Michel Barnes’s house and watch Babylon Five (which she learned was Augustinian, much to be preferred to the Pelagian Star Trek series). Bobbie Schmitt (the great niece of Archbishop O’Hara, instrumental in founding the CBA) became a fast friend. Marquette University has been a good place for Deirdre in many ways, and she is grateful to almost everyone she has met during her time here! Dempsey is known locally and nationally for her lectures at schools, churches, and museums on the topics of biblical archeology, the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient texts, and the reception of the Bible in visual arts. But her main interest of course remains the interaction between ancient languages and cultures. Looking at Dempsey’s scholarship which includes many articles in journals and edited volumes, one can see the prominence of philology which establishes the cornerstone of all her publications. Deirdre’s important contribution to the study of Semitic languages continues a longstanding tradition of her alma mater—the Catholic University of America. In the present volume, many of Deirdre Dempsey’s students, faculty associates, and professional colleagues have joined together to celebrate her distinguished contributions to scholarship, translation of the Scripture, and teaching. The editor wishes to express his appreciation to George Kiraz, Brice Jones, Tuomas Rasimus, and the Gorgias Press’ editorial team for bringing this volume to completion.

WATERING THE GARDEN: A TRIBUTE TO DEIRDRE DEMPSEY AS A TEACHER AMY E. RICHTER One of the Hebrew words used in the Bible for teach is also used for aiming or shooting (like an arrow), pointing (like a finger), watering (like the rain), and laying (as a cornerstone). The metaphors the word provides for teaching are rich. The variety of efforts described by the word speaks to those of us who have been blessed through being taught by Deirdre Dempsey. Studying with Dr. Dempsey isn’t like being shot with an arrow. Perhaps she wishes she could instill knowledge the way an arrow can in one well-aimed release reach its intended target and forever change it. But I never sensed any such impatience in Dr. Dempsey, much less the destructiveness that metaphor may imply. And closer to the sense one gets in her classroom, where would be the delight in that? Studying with Dr. Dempsey is more like being in the company of a master archer who wants others to fall in love with the skill. She shows how it’s done and explains how the machine and projectile work. Then she hands you the bow and arrow and says, “Okay, you try.” You discover joy in the possibilities when the arrow flies, even when it goes wide of the mark, and you have to try again and again to home in on the right tense, a better word order, a clearer translation, a more fitting interpretation, a more 1

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incisive response. Two sounds that resonate in my memory of her classroom are her refrain, Good, good (which we understood didn’t necessarily mean correct—it just as frequently meant something like, Close. Try again) and laughter, never at the expense of those sitting around the table, but helping us recognize the humor in the awkwardness of our Yoda-like word order, the absurdity of the phrase we had constructed, delight in something newly discovered, or sometimes at her own expense. If her teaching is like pointing a finger, it isn’t an accusatory motion. It’s the gesture of a guide who gives you the better vantage point to look from and directs your view. Over there. Do you see? And even more importantly she asks, What do you see? My fellow students and I benefited not only from her expertise, but also from Dr. Dempsey’s humility and generosity. Humility is, of course, the appropriate stance when studying theology. But to witness the humility of an expert is inspiring, demonstrating the vastness of the topic, the need for good company in the exploration, and the dedication required for continued growth in understanding. Dr. Dempsey’s generosity includes not only giving her students extensive time and energy, but also giving us a view into her own approach and thought processes in addressing a topic. Fellow student and contributor to this volume Nathan Schmiedicke recounts, “Deirdre was always approachable, helpful, honest, and, what I valued most, equally clear-sighted about her expertise as she was about her limitations. She once confided to me that she had decided on the study of ancient biblical languages because she had realized that almost every philosophical discussion ultimately went back to something theological, and that almost every theological discussion went back to something biblical, and that every biblical discussion went back to a discussion of what the words of Scripture actually meant—so she decided to study the biblical languages, because she thought that if certitude about these most important matters was to be found, it had to start there. She also confided that after studying the languages, she realized that, while that did answer many questions, it did not answer all questions, and frequently just opened new questions. She really knew her stuff when it

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came to languages, and she wasn’t shy about that, but she was also clear that her area of knowledge was only one little stream (albeit an important one) contributing to the great river of theological knowledge.” The teaching that is like the watering of a garden, the daily nurture of plants to encourage life and growth resonates with Dr. Dempsey’s students as well. Her generosity includes finding multiple ways to instruct her students. The engaging lecture, the fascinating discussion, the trip to the art museum, the comments on the paper that don’t simply demonstrate assessment but encouragement to continue exploration, all seem to come from her own delight in continued learning and her desire to nurture that in us as well. It’s no wonder that so many of her students choose teaching not just as a means to make use of what we’ve received from Dr. Dempsey, but also, we hope, to reflect in even a small way the blessings we have received through her. Bogdan Bucur relates, “After all these years, what I used to find amazing in some of the heavyweights impresses me less; while her super-competence allied with kindness, humility, and— above all—generosity shine more and more brightly. I wish I gave my students a fraction of what she gave us.” We hope the essays in this Festschrift show even a fraction of our gratitude to our teacher.

RESTORING “JESUS” IN JUDE 5: WHAT CAN NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM LEARN FROM THE FATHERS? BOGDAN G. BUCUR The Epistle of Jude, which at one point was called “the most neglected book in the New Testament,”1 is said to contain “one of the textually most difficult passages … in the whole NT”—namely Jude 5.2 Moreover, within this verse, the statement about the people of Israel being rescued from Egyptian slavery by either “the Lord,” “Jesus,” or “God” is “arguably the most difficult point of variation in the passage, mainly because of the presence of the difficult reading Ἰησοῦς, regarded by many commentators as virtually impossible.”3 It is, therefore, not surprising that much turmoil came about when the most distinguished assembly of scribes and Scripture scholars came together to decide on what is to be read in Jude 5, and how it is to be interpreted. The scholarly effort to determine whether the original reading is more likely “Jesus” or “the Lord” necessarily involves Douglas J. Rowston, “The Most Neglected Book in The New Testament,” New Testament Studies 21 (75): 554–63, at 554. 2 Tommy Wasserman, The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2006), 255. 3 Wasserman, The Epistle of Jude, 262. 1

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an investigation into the use of Jude 5 by early Christian writers. Yet no textual consensus can be found among the Fathers: some read “Jesus,” some read “Lord.” Irrespective of the word used, however, patristic authors are of one mind in taking Jude 5 as speaking straightforwardly—not in some typological way—about Christ. My thesis, therefore, is that a reception-historical approach to Jude 5 should not subordinate the patristic witness ad locum to the concerns of textual criticism, but strive to better understand the hermeneutical presupposition and theological vantage-point of the early Christian interpreters of Jude 5. In short: the focus should be not so much on “the right reading” as on “the right way of reading.”

THE LECTIO DIFFICILIOR IS TOO DAMN HARD !

The year 2012 saw the publication of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece in its 28th edition; two years later, in 2014, the UBS published its Greek New Testament’s fifth edition. Following the 2005 Editio Critica Maior of 2 and 3 John and Jude,4 NA 28 registered a major departure from the previous edition with respect to verse 5 of the Epistle of Jude. Instead of “the Lord saved the people out of Egypt,” which is what the Textus Receptus has and, therefore, also most—if not all—vernacular translations of the New Testament of the past five centuries, the new critical edition ascribes the saving act to Jesus: Ὑποµνῆσαι δὲ ὑµᾶς βούλοµαι, εἰδότας ὑµᾶς ἅπαξ πάντα ὅτι Ἰησοῦς λαὸν ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου σώσας τὸ δεύτερον τοὺς µὴ πιστεύσαντας ἀπώλεσεν. For the UBS Greek New Testament, this change is, in fact, a return, since their first edition (1966) printed “Lord,” the second (1974) “Jesus,” the third and fourth editions (1983, 1993) again “Lord.” It is noteworthy that all of these readings are given a D rating, which “occurs only rarely” and “indicates that the Committee had great difficulty in arriving at a decision”; more specifically, “none of the variant

Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior. Vol. IV/4: Catholic Letters: The Second and Third Letter of John. The Letter of Jude (ed. B. Aland, K. Aland†, G. Mink, H. Strutwolf, and K. Wachtel; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2005).

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readings commended itself as original, and therefore the only recourse was to print the least unsatisfactory reading.”5 That it was Jesus—not Joshua the son of Nun, but the firstcentury teacher, preacher, and healer from Nazareth—who led Israel out of Egypt is, indeed, what several manuscripts record (Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, and a good number of minuscules); this is also what the Vulgate offers, as well a number of Church Fathers (Origen, Didymus, Cyril, Jerome, Bede). Given the weighty attestation of the reading Ἰησοῦς and the fact that this represents, evidently, the lectio difficilior, it seems that this reading should be preferred to Κύριος. As one eminent scholar put it, “Westcott and Hort would have been acting in concert with their general principle if they had read Ἰησοῦς. … Certainly, no reason is found to necessitate a retreat from the principles of critical scholarship in favor of conjecture or a reading with less significant support.”6 In this respect, NA 28/ GNT 5 simply stands on firmer text-critical ground than the preceding NA 27/ GNT 4. One wonders, however, what may have led to the earlier decision of opting against this reading. Aside from reprising Westcott’s conjecture about an original ὅτι ὁ in uncial script !!!! or ὅτι ΙC !!!,7 Metzger’s Textual Commentary misread as either ὅτι KC Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition a Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (2 ed.; London; New York: UBS, 1994), 14. 6 Carroll D. Osburn, “The Text of Jude 5,” Biblica 62 (1981): 107–15 at 107, 115. 7 Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek (Cambridge / London: Macmillan, 1882), 106: “It seems probable that the original text had only ὁ, and ΟΤΙΟ was read as ΟΤΙΙC and perhaps as ΟΤΙΚC” (in uncial script), 106n. 5. Cf. Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary, Second Edition, prepared for the UBS 4 (657-658). This conjecture was embraced by the RSV, which translates accordingly: “he who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” Note the precisely opposite conjecture by Friedrich Spitta, Der zweite Brief des Petrus und der Brief des Judas: Eine geschichtliche Untersuchung (Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1885), 323-24: ΘΣ would have been the original reading, but one of the copies would have had an indistinct Θ, which then gave rise to erroneous guesses on the part of copyists, who supplied Ι or Χ for the illegible Θ; the article, in any case, is a later 5

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provides a stunning explanation: although “[c]ritical principles seem to require the adoption of Ἰησοῦς, which admittedly is the best attested reading among Greek and versional witnesses,” “a majority of the Committee was of the opinion that the reading was difficult to the point of impossibility” because of its “strange and unparalleled mention of Jesus in a statement about the redemption out of Egypt.”8 Or, as Daniel Wallace notes in a footnote ad locum in the apparatus of the NET Bible (alone, together with the ESV, in adopting the reading “Jesus”), “the reading ᾿Ιησοῦς is deemed too hard by several scholars, since it involves the notion of Jesus acting in the early history of the nation Israel.”9 At the risk of further traumatizing such sensitive theological consciences, it should be noted that a Christological reading of Jude 5 has even “harder” and “more difficult” implications than the Christological interpretation of the Exodus. The very same agent who leads Israel our of Egypt is said to have destroyed many of the Israelites (the grumblers, the unbelievers) during the desert wanderings; by implication, then, the same one is Moses’ interlocutor at the burning bush, the giver of manna and water from the rock, the Lawgiver at Sinai, and the one who appears atop the ark of the covenant in a cultic setting. Similarly, since Jude speaks explicitly about the same one destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, and, further back in biblical history, punishing the angels who had had illicit intercourse with earthly women, he implies that the same is also the one who manifested himself to the patriarchs and, surely, to all the prophets and seers of old. In short, the text implies that Jesus is YHWH, the LORD—and, in fact, some translators have understood the text in this manner.10 addition. More recently, Wasserman (The Epistle of Jude, 265-66) opines that “the ambiguous (ὁ) Κύριος … could explain all other readings, which may represent conscious alterations or else copying mistakes involving nomina sacra.” 8 Metzger, Textual Commentary, 657. 9 Daniel Wallace, footnote ad locum in the apparatus of the NET Bible (alone, together with the ESV, in adopting the reading “Jesus”). 10 Cf. the interesting speculation by George Howard (“The Tetragram and the New Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature 96 [1977]: 63–83, at 81-82) that Jude had put in the Tetragrammaton, and that the various Greek versions—God, Lord, Jesus—are best explained as renderings of

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Jude invokes the example of the Watchers and of the unfaithful Exodus generation as a warning to Christians against the temptation to deny Christ. As such, even though a “typological” reading of Jude 5-7 is not impossible (“do not deny Jesus Christ the way those ancient ones denied the Lord”), a straightforward Christological identification of the divine agent in all references is more likely.11 However theologically troubling the notion that “Jesus” led Israel out of Egypt may appear to some, it is not an isolated “blunder” (as Westcott and Hort put it),12 “strange and unparalleled” (Metzger, quoted above), but a small segment of a much larger, coherent, and theologically demanding construct: that Jesus is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord of Israel, the Lawgiver, is a widespread, robust, and adaptable fundamental tradition in the early Church, affirmed first in doxological and catechetical settings, adapted to a variety of polemical agendas (anti-Jewish, anti-dualistic, anti-modalistic, anti-subordinationistic), and eventually returned to the original context of worship in Byzantine hymnography and iconography.13 Osborn finds that Ιησοῦς was undoubtedly the original reading, while the reading Κύριος was more likely a subordinationist alteration forged in the third century, during “the heated controversies surrounding just such matters as are the Name. Incidentally, a “messianic Jewish” translation, the Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB), offers the following: “Now I wish to remind you, though you are fully informed, that Hashem, Who once saved a people from Eretz Mitzrayim, afterwards destroyed every Apikoros not having Emunah.” 11 See Osburn, “The Text of Jude 5,” 113: “Jude evidences his Christological understanding that it is precisely this pre-existent Jesus whom the τινες ἄνθρωποι reject who keeps the righteous (v. 1) and the fallen angels (v. 6) and who will certainly return in judgment upon the ἀσεβεῖς (vv. 1415) and who will effect the ultimate salvation of the faithful (v. 21). The reference in v. 5, then, is to be taken as a warning example … in which Jude’s readers are encouraged to avoid making the same mistake in rejecting Christ as was made in Numbers 14.” 12 Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, 106n. 5: “The best attested reading Ἰησοῦς can only be a blunder.” 13 See the detailed dossier of texts and authors in Bogdan G. Bucur, Scripture Re-envisioned: Christophanic Exegesis and the Making of a Christian Bible (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018).

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involved in the subject of ἀπώλεσεν in Jude 5.”14 It is interesting that Bart Ehrman did not fail to notice that the reading “Jesus” makes perfect sense in light of the widespread high Christology of the second, third, and fourth centuries.15 For him it is precisely the fact that this reading fits so well with later orthodoxy that is suspicious. Ehrman holds that the text variants ascribing divine action to “Jesus” in Jude 5 and 1 Cor 10:9 are instances of an orthodox corruption of the text: in short, the original reading “Lord,” in both Jude 5 and 1 Cor 10:9, was changed to “Jesus” and “Christ,” respectively by scribes whose intention it was to manufacture scriptural evidence to refute the view that Jesus was a “mere man” (psilos anthropos).16 This seems convincing in the case of Papyrus 72 (“God Christ” at Jude 5), but not in the case of manuscripts that use “God” at 1 Cor 10:9, and “Jesus” at Jude 5—most notably the Codex Alexandrinus. If one is to assume a polemical Christological agenda behind these changes, it would be a pretty incoherent and confused one. In what follows I argue that, from a reception-historical perspective, textual considerations such as those that divided the UBS Committee appear to have been significantly less important to early Christian thinkers and churchmen, whose understanding of Jude 5 was consistently Christological irrespective of the wording of the text. Osburn, “The Text of Jude 5,” 115. Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 87, 89–90: “One of the ways that proto-orthodox Christians of the second and third centuries expressed their understanding of Christ involved an ‘exchange of predicates,’ in which the attributes and activities of God were predicated of Christ”; “we know that most Christians had no difficulty at all in understanding how Christ could have been active in the affairs of the ancient Israelites. Most of them believed he was actively involved and red his involvement into Old Testament narratives on every possible occasion. … It is precisely this proclivity to Christianize the Old Testament, a Christianization that indeed had its roots in the earliest stages of the religion but that intensified with the passing of time, that makes the more commonly attested readings of 1 Cor 10:9 so suspect!” See also Osburn, “The Text of Jude 5,” 112. 16 Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of the Bible, 89–90. 14 15

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JUDE 5 IN RECEPTION-HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Considering the problem of Jude 5 from a reception-historical perspective, one discovers immediately that “the notion of Jesus acting in the early history of the nation Israel,” which so gravely scandalized the Committee, does not seem to have appeared particularly “hard” or “strange” to early Christians. There are some who use the reading Ἰησοῦς, others who express in other words the same view of Jesus leading Israel out of Egypt, and others still whose general take on Old Testament theophanies indicates that they would have understood Jude 5 in a Christological key. Patristic Witnesses to Ἰησοῦς

According to a marginal note to Jude 5 in Minuscule 1739, aimed at justifying the reading Ἰησοῦς, Origen quoted Jude 5 in his seventh homily on Deuteronomy, to prove that “this one”—Christ Jesus—“is the Lord our God who led us from the land of Egypt.”17 Origen’s strong conviction that Christ was, indeed, actively present in Israel’s desert wandering is, again, expressed in a 17

οὗτός ἐστιν κύριος ὁ θεὸς [κς ὁ θς] ἡµῶν ὁ ἐζαγαγὼν ἡµᾶς ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου Χριστός Ἰησοῦς [Χς Ις] δηλοῖ καὶ ἰούδας ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ λέγων ἅπαξ γὰρ Ἰησοῦς [Ις] λαὸν ἐκ γῆς αἰγύπτου σώσας τὸ δεύτερον τοὺς µὴ πιστεύσαντας ἀπώλεσεν. For the text, see Minuscule 1739, fol. 43v. (on Jude 5): https://www.loc.gov/resource/amedmonastery.00271051190-ma/?sp=48; the text was edited by Eduard von der Goltz, Eine textkritische Arbeit des zehnten bezw. sechsten Jahrhunderts, herausgegeben nach einem Kodex des Athosklosters Lawra (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 17.4; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899), 51. See the discussion in Osborn, “The Text of Jude 5,” 114; Wasserman, The Epistle of Jude, 265n, 129. The passages in Deuteronomy that Origen connects with Jude 5 might be, according to Goltz (Eine textkritische Arbeit, 52), Deut 1:27, 32 (“And ye murmured in your tents, and said, Because the Lord hated us, he has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us. … And in this matter ye believed not the Lord our God”); 4:20 (“But God took you and led you forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as at this day.”); 26:8 (“And the Lord brought us out of Egypt himself with his great strength, and his mighty hand, and his high arm, and with great visions, and with signs, and with wonders”).

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quotation from book 4 of his lost Stromata, in a marginal note to 1 Cor 10:9 (designed to support the reading µηδὲ ἐκπειράζωµεν τὸν Χριστόν, and adduced as irrefutable scriptural proof against those unwilling to admit Christ’s presence in Israel’s desert wanderings).18 Didymus the Blind highlights the deep consonance between Jude 5 (where he finds that “the Lord Jesus alone having saved the people from Egypt, utterly destroyed those who did not believe in him”) and 1 Cor 10:4, where “Paul teaches that Christ became their guide” by writing that the Israelites “drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”19 Cyril of Alexandria expands the Christological interpretation of the Exodus, which he finds in Jude 5, to the burning bush episode: “If ... Jesus has saved the people from Egypt, it follows that he is the same one who spoke to Moses the hierophant, ‘I am He Who is; hearing I heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, and I have come down to set them free.’”20 Jerome’s Commentary on Galatians

“The holy fathers, too, who deposed Paul the Samosatene, set forth the text in this form (οὕτως άνήνεγκαν τὴν χρῆσιν); and he [scil. Origen], in the fourth book of the Stromata, having quoted the text in this form (οὕτως προθεὶς τὴν χρῆσιν), adds it to these very words: ‘So also in the case of the rock allegorically interpreted as Christ, those unwilling [to admit that] it was Christ who administered those events will produce well-wrought arguments. But what will they say against this scripture? For some did tempt him—none other but Christ—and were therefore destroyed by serpents.’” For the text, see Minuscule 1739, fol. 59v. (on 1 Cor 10:9): https://www.loc.gov/resource/amedmonastery.00271051190ma/?sp=64&r=0.043,0.016,0.342,0.164,0; Goltz, Eine textkritische Arbeit, 66. See the discussion in Osborn, “The Text of Jude 5,” 114. 19 Didymus, Trin. 1.19.17–18 (PG 39:368 A): “Paul teaches that Christ became their guide. For they drank, he says, of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. Jude, too, wrote in agreement with this in his catholic epistle: for the Lord Jesus alone having saved the people from Egypt, utterly destroyed those who did not believe in him.” 20 Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus 302 (PG 75:513 C-D): “If, according to the aforementioned statement of the holy [apostle], Jesus has saved the people from Egypt, it follows that he is the same one who spoke to Moses the hierophant, ‘I am He Who is; hearing I heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, and I have come down to set them free.’ Now, if he truly is He Who Is, how could he also be created?” 18

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cites Jude 5 in the same way;21 moreover, in citing Jude 5 in full alongside John 8:56 and 12:41, Jerome joins the venerable and widespread exegetico-theological tradition that views Jesus as the Lord God of the patriarchs, of the Exodus, and of the prophetic visions in Zion.22 Without explicitly quoting or referring to Jude 5, Justin Martyr, in the mid-second century, articulates the Christian message to the Jewish Synagogue as follows: “we expect … Jesus, Jerome, Comm. Gal. 1.2.16 (PL 26:343–44; FaCh 121:112, trans. A. Cain): “Some say that if Paul is right to assert that no one is justified by the works of the Law but by faith in Jesus Christ, then the patriarchs, prophets, and saints who lived prior to Christ’s advent were lacking in something. We must remind these objectors that Paul is talking here about those who have not pursued righteousness and who believe that they can be justified only by works. The saints who lived long ago, however, were justified by faith in Christ. Abraham foresaw the day of Christ and rejoiced. ‘Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.’ Isaiah beheld the glory of Christ, as John the Evangelist notes. Jude speaks generally about all [the saints of old]: Although you already know all this, I want to remind you that Jesus delivered his people out of Egypt but later destroyed those who did not believe.” It can only count as an oversight on his part that Jerome at some point (Adv. Iov. 1.21) entertains the notion of “Jesus” in Jude 5 referring to Joshua the son of Nun: “I will pass to Joshua the Son of Nun, who was previously called Ause, or better, as in the Hebrew, Osee, that is, Savior. For he, according to the epistle of Jude, saved the people of Israel and led them forth out of Egypt, and brought them into the land of promise. As soon as this Joshua reached the Jordan, the waters of marriage, which had ever flowed in the land, dried up and stood in one heap; and the whole people, barefooted and on dry ground, crossed over, and came to Gilgal, and there was a second time circumcised.” 22 This view is nicely summarized at Comm. Gal. 2.3.19-20 (PL 26:366367; FaCh 121:147–48): “before he took on a human body, when he was with the Father in the beginning as God and was the Word to all the holy people (such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all the prophets whom Scripture mentions), he served as God’s mouthpiece to them and was only called a mediator although he had not yet assumed human nature.” On the continuation of Christophanic exegesis well into the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, see B. G. Bucur, “A Blind Spot in the Study of Fourth-Century Christian Theology: The Christological Exegesis of Theophanies,” Journal of Theological Studies 69 (2018): 588–610. 21

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who also led your fathers out of Egypt” (τὸν καὶ τοὺς πατέρας ὑµῶν ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐξαγαγόντα),”23 and “this crucified man was with Moses and Aaron, and spoke with them in the pillar of the cloud,” which implies that “he should be worshipped (προσκυνητὸν εἶναι).”24 Generally speaking, Justin views all theophanies in the Old Testament as manifestations of the same “rational power” begotten of the Father, which biblical texts call “now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos.”25 The same applies to Melito of Sardis, who says the following about Christ: He it was who led you into Egypt, and guarded you there and sustained you [Gen 46:3-4]. He it was who lit up your way with a pillar, and sheltered you with a cloud [Exod 13:21; Ps 77:14; 104:39]. He cut the Red Sea open and led you through [Exodus 14-15; Ps 135:13–14] and destroyed the enemy [Ps 135:15]. He it is who gave you manna from heaven [Exod 16:4–35], who gave you drink from a rock [Exod 17:4–7; Ps 135:16], who gave you the Law at Horeb.26

See Justin Martyr, Dial. 120.3 (Justin Martyr: Dialogue avec Tryphon [ed. and trans. Philippe Bobichon; 2 vols.; Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2003], 1:506; ANF): “He speaks therefore in the passage relating to Judah: ‘A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a ruler from his thighs, till that which is laid up for him come; and He shall be the expectation of the nations.’ And it is plain that this was spoken not of Judah, but of Christ. For all we out of all nations do expect not Judah, but Jesus, who led your fathers out of Egypt.” 24 Justin, Dial. 38.1 (Bobichon, 1:58; ANF): “It would be better for us, Trypho concluded, to have obeyed our teachers, who warned us not to listen to any of you, nor to converse with you on these subjects, for you have blasphemed many times in your attempt to convince us that this crucified man was with Moses and Aaron, and spoke with them in the pillar of the cloud; that he became man, was crucified, and ascended into heaven, and will return again to this earth; and that he should be worshipped.” 25 Justin, Dial. 61.1 (Bobichon, 1:346). 26 Melito, Peri Pascha 84–85 (SC 123: 108; trans. A. Stewart-Sykes, Melito of Sardis On Pascha and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2001), 61. On this passage, see Dragoș Andrei Giulea, Pre-Nicene Christology in Paschal Contexts: The Case of the Noetic Divine Anthropos (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 23–24: “This hermeneutical 23

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Patristic Witnesses to the Reading Κύριος

There are a number of patristic authors, however, who do not read “Jesus” in Jude 5. Clement of Alexandria quotes Jude 5 twice: once with “God,” in the Pedagogue27 and once with “Lord God” in the Adumbrationes28 (cf. theos kyrios in P 72; but we do not know if the translator, Cassiodorus, had recourse to a Latin NT or translated directly from Clement and perhaps had a hand in modifying what he found in Clement – as he confesses to have done in some instances).29 strategy is part of an early Christian exegetical method which may be called ‘Bible re-written through Christological lens,’ since Melito identifies Yahweh with Christ and interprets all the Old Testament narratives about Yahweh in Christological terms.” 27 Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 3.8.44.4 (SC 158:96): “For I would have you know, says Jude, that God, having once saved His people from the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed them that believed not … and the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He has reserved to the judgment of the great day, in everlasting chains under darkness of the savage angels. And a little after he sets forth, in a most instructive manner, representations of those that are judged: Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and run greedily after the error of Balaam, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. For those, who cannot attain the privilege of adoption, fear keeps them from growing insolent.” 28 Clement of Alexandria, Adumbrationes in epist. Judae (GCS 17:207): Quoniam dominus deus semel populum, inquit, de terra Aegypti liberans, deinceps eos, qui non crediderunt, perdidit, ut eos videlicet per supplicium erudiret. In praesenti quippe tempore puniti sunt et perierunt propter eos qui salvantur, donec convertantur ad dominum. … 8. Similiter quidem, inquit, et hi somniantes … dominationem autem spernunt, maiestatem autem blasphemant, hoc est solum dominum, qui vere dominus noster est Iesus Christus et solus laudabilis. Maiestatem, inquit, blasphemant, hoc est angelos (“For the Lord God,” he says, “who once delivered a people out of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not”; that is, that He might train them through punishment. For they were indeed punished, and they perished on account of those that are saved, until they turn to the Lord. … “Similarly to the same,” he says, “also those dreamers … despise dominion and speak evil of majesty”: that is, the only Lord, who is truly our Lord, Jesus Christ, and alone worthy of praise. They speak evil of majesty: that is, of the angels). 29 Cassiodorus candidly admits to have “purged” the Clementinian texts of certain doctrinal offendicula, just as he says to have purged other

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Generally speaking, it is not unusual for Clement to see the object of faith or rejection in the Old as well as in the New Testament as “the only Lord, who is truly our Lord, Jesus Christ,” as we see in this passage. In fact, he reads the entire Sinai complex in a Christological key: his Paedagogue speaks at length about “our pedagogue, the holy God Jesus” (ὁ δὲ ἡµέτερος παιδαγωγὸς ἅγιος θεὸς Ἰησοῦς) having led Israel out of Egypt (ὁ ἐξαγαγών σε ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου) and guided them (ἦγεν αὐτοὺς) through the desert, who gave the Law through Moses (Exod 20:2; Deut 32:10-12); it is “that hidden angel, Jesus” (ὁ µυστικὸς ἐκεῖνος ἄγγελος Ἰησοῦς) who also appeared to Abraham (Gen 17:1) and to Jacob on top of the ladder and in the nightly struggle (Gen 28; 32), who enjoined Israel to “fear God” (Deut 6:2), and who spoke to the prophets, in the course of such theophanies as Isaiah 6 and Jeremiah 1.30 In the passage that discusses Jude 5, Clement’s understanding of the “God” or “Lord God” is clearly Christological: it is none other than Christ, “the All-seeing Word (ὁ παντεπόπτης λόγος. Cf. Esther 5.1; 3 Mac 2:21), “the unsleeping guardian of humankind” (ὁ ἄγρυπνος τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος φύλαξ. Cf. Ps 120:4) that destroyed the grumblers of the Exodus and the inhabitants of Sodom, and it is “the Word [who] through fear restrains from evil acts,” acting as a skilled pedagogue.31 Around the same time, Tertullian is similarly aware of and, in fact, a more enthusiastic supporter of this tradition of Christophanic exegesis, which he finds serviceable against pagans, against Marcion, and against the modalism of Praxeas. In his

“subtle” but “poisonous” writings: In epistolis autem canonicis Clemens Alexandrinus presbyter, qui et Stromatheus vocatur . . . quaedam Attico sermone declaravit; ubi multa quidem subtiliter, sed aliqua incaute locutus est. Quae nos ita transferri fecimus in Latinum, ut exclusis quibusdam offendiculis, purificata doctrina eius securior potuisset auriri (Div. litt. 1.8.4 [FC 39/1:160]). Cassiodorus also reports on his “purging” of Origen’s works and of a Pelagian commentary to Romans, whose “poisonous” words he also views as “most subtle” (subtilissimas … dictiones) (Div. litt. 1.8.4 [FC 39/1:158–60, 170]). 30 Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 1.7.56-57-1.7.60.1 (SC 70:210, 212, 214, 216). 31 Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 3.8.44.1–43.5 (SC 158:96).

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famous Against Marcion, he refutes the dualistic opposition between the Creator and Christ: When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, the Creator brought them forth laden with their spoils of gold and silver vessels, and with loads besides of raiment and unleavened dough; whereas Christ commanded His disciples not to carry even a staff for their journey. The former were thrust forth into a desert, but the latter were sent into cities.32

Tertullian’s reply is that, in spite of the different circumstances, one should understand that “it was one and the same power (unam et eandem potestatem) which arranged the mission of His people according to their poverty in the one case, and their plenty in the other.”33 Thus, the same one who “cut down their supplies when they could be replenished through the cities,” had previously “accumulated them when exposed to the scantiness of the desert.” The same one who send the disciples barefoot “was He under whose very protection the people wore not out a shoe (Deut 29:5).” Evidently, this sole agent is, for Tertullian, Christ, so that all manifestations in the Old and New Testaments come “from one and the same Lord of apostles and prophets, ab uno eodemque domino apostolorum et prophetarum.”34 Against dualists, Tertullian embraces the Irenaean interpretation of Sinai theophanies as manifestations of Christ and, against Valentinians, is concerned to distinguish the mode of Christ’s Old Testament manifestation (in aenigmate, in somnio, etc) and its ethereal materiality, to the fully carnal and permanent reality of the Incarnation. It is clear, at any rate, that Tertullian thinks of Christ as the God of the patriarchs, the Lord of Exodus, the Lawgiver on Sinai. However, he does not quote Jude 5—probably because he did not find the reading “Jesus” in either Greek or Latin. Byzantine Hymns and the Byzantine Text

Later Byzantine hymnography is an important witness, as it represents an exegetical and theological synthesis of the foregoing Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 4.24.1 (Evans, 390). Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 4.24.2 (Evans, 390). 34 Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 4.24.9 (Evans, 394). 32 33

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patristic literature and even more so because its liturgical embeddedness guaranteed a widespread popularity far exceeding that of any patristic writer. The Christophanic exegesis of the Exodus story is undisputable. I will simply let the texts speak for themselves. Now I have seen you, the truly existing one (τὸν ὄντως ὄντα)… you, who said on the mountain, I am He-Who-Is [Exod 3:14] [247.11-16; 248.1-2]. It was you that came down upon the bush [Exodus 3] of old and drowned the might of the Pharaoh in the depths [248.1415]. having traversed the darkness of the Law I have now seen this great vision [Exod 3:3], a vision truly great [250.9].35 He who rained manna down on the people in the wilderness is fed on milk from His Mother’s breast.36 [John the Baptist speaking to Jesus]: “Moses, when he came upon You, displayed the holy reverence that he felt: perceiving that it was Your voice that spoke from the bush, he forthwith turned away his gaze [Exod 3:6]. How then shall I behold You openly? How shall I lay my hand upon You?’”37 He who once spoke through symbols to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “I am He who is” [Exod 3:14] was transfigured today upon Mount Tabor before the disciples ... 38

In these sermons and hymns there is no quotation from and no mention of Jude 5. Moreover, it was not the Ἰησοῦς but the Κύριος reading that made it into the Ecclesiastical Constantinopolitan text. Nevertheless, these exegetical and liturgical productions affirmed,

Greek text in Antoine Guillou, “Le monastère de la Théotokos au Sinaï: Origines; épiclèse; mosaïque de la Transfiguration; homélie inédite d’Anastase le Sinaïte sur la Transfiguration (étude et texte critique),” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 67 (1955): 215–58, at 247.11-16; 248.1-2; 248.14-15; 250.9. 36 Ninth Royal Hour at the Eve of Nativity: Glory Sticheron (Menaion, 245–46). 37 First Canon of Theophany: Ode 4 Sticheron (Menaion, 370). 38 Great Vespers of Transfiguration, Apostichon (Menaion, 476). 35

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confirmed and emphasized the Christophanic exegesis of the Sinai texts—that is, the straightforwardly Christological interpretation of the burning bush theophany, the exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Law, and of the desert wanderings. In short, irrespective of whether he is named “Lord,” “Lord Jesus,” “Lord God,” or “God” at Jude 5, the theological framework and assumption is that Jesus, the Lord God of Exodus, had punished the angelic apostates and the Hebrew grumblers and deniers of old.

RESTORING THE RIGHT READING VS. RESTORING THE RIGHT W AY OF READING

What has kept the reading Ἰησοῦς in the footnotes and out of most translations for so many decades was a certain theological prejudice against the implications of that reading. It is my conviction that this prejudice is one of many poisoned fruits stemming from the gradual marginalization, obscuring, and eventual erasure of the most ancient and widespread tradition of “Christophanic exegesis.”39 To a large extent, the culprit is also to be found in the unfortunate separation of the academic fiefdoms of New Testament Studies, the Study of Christian Origins, and Early Christian Studies. In a richly documented study of Jude 5-7 published in 1987, Jarl Fossum produced abundant evidence that the reading “Jesus” at Jude 5 would have made perfect sense, as an organic— albeit original—development of exegetical and theological developments in Second Temple Jewish thought. Unfortunately, his conclusion that “weighing all the evidence, it would seem that Jude, some fifty years before Justin Martyr, was the first to use ‘Jesus’ as a name of the Son also in his preexistence,”40 did not 39 On this point, see B. G. Bucur, “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t: The Case of the Vanishing Theophanies in Patristic Scholarship,” in New Narratives for Old: The Historical Method of Reading Early Christian Theology. Essays in Honor of Michel Barnes (eds. A. Briggman and E. Scully; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2022) 329-346. 40 Jarl E. Fossum, “Kyrios Jesus as the Angel of the Lord in Jude 5–7,” New Testament Studies 33 (1987): 226–43), republished in Jarl E. Fossum, The Image of the Invisible God: Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism

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make much of an impact among students of Early Christianity. For Justin scholars it was an axiom that the Christological interpretation of theophanies was Justin’s innovation. It took the work of Larry Hurtado, the noted scholar of Christian Origins and representative of the new History-of-Religions School, to affirm and popularize the conclusion that Justin did not originate the basic idea that the preincarnate Jesus could be found active in certain Old Testament passages […] Justin was essentially building upon a line of Christological argument already available. He reflects an approach to the Old Testament that had been a feature of devotion to Jesus during the first decades of the Christian movement.41

Now that the principles of textual criticism have prevailed over theological hesitations, which have been shown to be unfounded and unreasonable, and the reading Ἰησοῦς is presented as the more likely one, it may seem that the fog of theological confusion has cleared. This is not yet so, I am afraid. I must confess that, in the early stages of writing about the “restoration” of the reading “Jesus” in Jude 5, my working hypothesis was that text critics had finally seen the light and come to restore the correct text of Jude 5. Indeed, as we have seen, many scholars assume that the various manuscript variants tell a pretty straightforward story, and that the application of strict text-critical principles leads us to conceive that the Jude 5 originally read “Jesus led a people out of Egypt.” In fact, however, matters are less clear. Even though the reading Ἰησοῦς is both the lectio difficilior and the version with the best manuscript support, the external evidence is nevertheless divided, as a result of an early (accidental or intentional) corruption of the text; Jude never uses Ἰησοῦς alone, but rather Ἰησοῦς Χριστός;42 and the hypothesis of an original Κύριος is quite

on Early Christology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 41–69 at 69. 41 Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 577 (emphasis added). 42 Metzger, Textual Commentary, 657.

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persuasive.43 As such, the agonizing series of switches between Ἰησοῦς and Κύριος in the UBS Greek New Testament reflect a more accurate and honest assessment of the reality. Certainly, a reception-historical perspective does, in fact, point to a Christological reading of this verse; this, however, is true regardless of the presence of “Jesus” or “Lord” in the text. Indeed, many early Christian thinkers read “Lord” and “God” in this verse, yet have no difficulty understanding who this “Lord” is: Jesus. Considered from a reception-historical perspective, therefore, restoring “Jesus” to Jude 5 is not a textual matter. As long as the paradigm within which such issues are discussed remains a textual one—arguing, for instance, whether the reading Ἰησοῦς is “too hard” or “not too hard”44—the theological vantagepoint and methodology of the Fathers is falsified by being flattened to match the narrow concerns of biblical research.

CONCLUSIONS

The dilemma before us—whether to favor “Jesus” or “Lord” in Jude 5—cannot be resolved with the available data. In the end, that the Committee was correct in assessing that “none of the variant readings commended itself as original” and its vacillation between equally unsatisfactory readings was fully justified. What is problematic is the way in which the witness of patristic writers is understood and used by biblical scholars. Rather than subordinating the evidence of what text this or that Father of the Church read at Jude 5 to a search for the “right reading,” the correct wording of the text, it is vastly more productive to learn from the Fathers something about the early Christian hermeneutics of appropriating theophanic texts of the Hebrew Bible as Christian scripture. In short, it is not so much a certain “right reading” that we can learn from patristic writers, but something about “the right way of reading.”

Wasserman, The Epistle of Judas, 266. For the latter assessment, see Philipp F. Bartholomä, “Did Jesus Save the People out of Egypt? A Re-examination of a Textual Problem in Jude 5,” Novum Testamentum 50 (2008): 143–58 at 157. 43 44

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RESTORING “JESUS” IN JUDE 5

Identifying the Lord God of the biblical narrative with the Lord Jesus of Christian worship is not a matter of “more correct” assessment of the textual object in front of us, but a rediscovery of the agenda of the sacred text—namely that of enticing the readers into a sort of spiritual contemporaneity with the realities of the text. For the Fathers, the Christophanic interpretation of the Exodus is thus not an account of Jesus’ excellent adventures in the distant past, but a mystagogical guide to participating in the Exodus and meeting the Lord of the Exodus—again, as if for the first time. The entire issue can perhaps be clarified in the light of a remarkable passage by Jerome (Ep. 46.7). Jerome begins by establishing, in good Origenian fashion, the city of Cain, Sodom, and Egypt as allegorical references to “this world, which the devil, that accuser of his brethren, that fratricide who is doomed to perish, has built of vice cemented with crime, and filled with iniquity.” Within this framework, the verse in Jude about Jesus saving the people out of the land of Egypt and destroying the unbelievers,” destroying Sodom, and punishing the apostate angels, does not refer to geographically and temporally distinct and distant events, but to this world and this moment—the reader’s very time and place.

FOR A HERMENEUTICS OF REFERENT: ON THE SINAI TRADITION AND A REINTERPRETATION OF “COVENANT” SILVIU N. BUNTA It is with extraordinary joy that I contribute this study to a volume dedicated to my Doktormutter. It has been my blessing to have studied with such an outstanding linguist. I learned from her more than from anyone else in my entire schooling to read a text with painstaking attention. I can only hope to do so with some of the care and expertise she herself puts into such endeavors. This article can only be a small token of gratitude for all her teaching and for the professor and adviser she is—kind, patient, and gentle. What do I mean by a “hermeneutics of referent”?1 Allow me to illustrate my point with a well known story and a bit of history. A first draft of this article was presented in September 2020 at the monthly seminar of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. I wish to thank the organizer of the seminar, Dr. Ionuț Alexandru Tudorie, and all those present on that occasion for their comments, suggestions, and questions. These have only sharpened the argument of this paper. I also owe a great debt of gratitude to the students in the M.Th. seminar I taught at St. Vladimir’s in the fall of 2020. They have had to bear with patience my interminable enthusiasm about the revelation at Sinai and about its permanence in our shared Orthodox tradition. Here I can only say to them: εἰσήλθατε καὶ ὑµεῖς εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν τὴν ἐρυθράν! 1

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First the story, which I need not repeat here: the parable of the good Samaritan. Although the expert in law (νοµικός) asks Christ about another identity (“who is my neighbor?” τίς ἐστίν µου πλησίον), the parable he is told sets him up to take on that identity. Once drawn into this trapping parable, he is asked the question back—”which one is the neighbor?” (10:36)—only to be told “do likewise yourself” (σὺ ποίει ὁµοίως)2 or, in other words, “be neighbor.” The expert in law, instead of being presented the “neighbor” as another, is asked to receive the identity of “neighbor.” Now the history bit. As some recent studies have elucidated, ancient Christian hermeneutics was driven by two related and overarching concerns: referent and usefulness.3 It is only later on that some Christian hermeneutics became driven by epistemology and then by method. In other words, the ancient questions of “what is this text saying about me?” and “how is it useful to me?” have been discarded for the questions “how does this read?” and respectively “what is the method to understand this?” We are assisting now at the unraveling of these latter developments. On the one hand, historical criticism is collapsing onto its unstoppable methodological fragmentation and its inescapable impracticality. On the other hand, intellectual interpretations overall have been unable to overcome their irrelevance. Therefore lately some scholarship on the Bible has asked questions which are not method based and objective, but rather referent based and subjective, questions which reverse the direction between text and reader: the reader is no longer targeting the text, but the reader offers himself up as the target of the text.4 Ironically 2 The Greek carries an emphasis on “you,” which seems to be best related with an intensive pronoun. 3 On the question of referent see particularly Frances Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 119–38, and on the question of usefulness see Manlio Simonetti, Lettera e/o allegoria: Un contributo alla storia dell’esegesi patristica (Rome: Institutum Patristicum “Augustinianum,” 1985), 79-80. 4 A major point in this line of research is marked by the publication of Jon D. Levenson’s Sinai and Zion. An Entry into the Jewish Bible (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1985). The book launches this approach of the Bible with the thought: “The great question for those of a modern case of mind who also desire to affirm the rabbinic tradition is: How can we

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enough, this new approach mirrors the hermeneutical attitude which historical-criticism tried very hard to put away. The ancient interpreters asked their two questions only because their universal assumption was that the text was written to them, for them, about them, and even by them, and received its ultimate fulfilment in them. This is what I call a “hermeneutics of referent,”5 which could be further sharpened with a hermeneutics of author. With this in mind, let us revisit the New Testament parable one last time. From the very beginning it is set up to make a hermeneutical point: Christ introduces it with the question “how do you read (πῶς ἀναγινώσκεις)?” The lack of a direct object is remarkable. The expert in law wants to read a text and inform himself from it. Christ responds to this attitude by offering a spoken text in which the expert is to find himself as the main protagonist and in which he is to discover his manner of life. His relationship with the text only exposes the manner in which he lives; reading is to be a reader. In other words, the expert inquires about a reality which he objectified—the text, Christ presents him with his manner of living. The direct object is turned into an fit the history as it is perceived and reconstructed by modern individuals into a theological (rather than humanistic) framework?... The question must be asked, however, whether the choice really lies between “belief in the historic actuality of the Revelation at Sinai” and a liberal humanism which substitutes man’s conscience for God’s word. Can it not be the case that the literary form of the Torah conveys a truth which is not historical in nature?” 5 In her book “And I Turned to See the Voice”: The Rhetoric of Vision in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), Edith Humphrey makes a convincing argument that details of certain visionreports in the New Testament are “open” features meant to generate what she calls a “hermeneutics of receptivity/reception” in the reader. This reading, she says, “is less like the subjective tracing of patterns in the clouds than it is like the inductive/deductive work necessary in performing (i.e., interpreting) a musical score.” My argument here goes further than hers. My point is not simply that the reader is to interpret the text through such receptivity, but rather that the interpreter is also to discover himself as the referent of the text. In other words—to use Humphrey’s analogy—the performer discovers that the musical score is about himself to begin with.

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adjective. (The fact that the main protagonist is a Samaritan only highlights this hermeneutical demand on a Jewish expert in law.) Therefore the spoken text is offered not only as a reading and actualization of law—or simply as law—but also as a law which targets the expert, a law of which he himself is the intended referent and which will reveal his inner self. Simply put, in this story the expert in law finds himself at Sinai.6 Based on this “hermeneutics of referent” ancient interpreters found particular features in the scriptural text which are not only open to such receptive reading, but even solicit it, as a sort of “features of permanence”: in presenting itself to every reader as his own descriptor, the text exists in a permanent state of newness. Is this an accurate reading of the scriptural texts? Is it possible that scriptural texts were written in such ways as to elicit a hermeneutics of referent and even prevent other, disjointed approaches? This paper is primarily after the answer to this general question. Yet, since I cannot do this in relation to all scriptural narratives, I will focus on a very contested narrative: the so-called “Sinai covenant.” Before I proceed to the actual biblical texts, let me say a few more things about the developments mentioned earlier.

A NEWER COVENANT

Even a cursory look at western intellectual history will lead to the conclusion that much of current Christian theology is the end product of major intellectual shifts (theological and otherwise)

The connections with “the Law” go deeper than what has been noted in scholarship to date. For one, the behavior of the Samaritan identity of the specialist in law mirrors one of the first divine gestures in the Book of the Law: the post-lapsarian clothing of Adam and Eve in Gen 3:21. The connection is illuminated by the positive readings of this Genesis verse in ancient Jewish literature. Furthermore, the same gospel book contains another story in which the same imagery of clothing is surrounded by language replete with Adamic imagery: the parable of the prodigal son. The father in this parable adorns the returned son in ways which recall the status of Adam in such texts as Ezekiel 28: the clothing, the ring, the splendor. 6

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attested no farther back than late antiquity and the Middle Ages.7 These shifts begin with the reinterpretation of the Old Testament in fifth century Latin theology, followed by the medieval rationalization of the Christian identity and scientization of theology,8 the transactualization and contractualization of law in the 11th through the 13th centuries, and culminating in the doctrinalization and pragmatization of faith in Protestantism. In front of the evidence provided by intellectual historians— evidence which I cannot review for lack of time—the initial temptation of one looking for the ancient Jewish covenant may be to replace these innovations with other, older concepts. Yet, ironically such response would itself be the product of these very shifts the historian of Jewish antiquity should wish to discard. This is because what these major shifts have ultimately supplanted is not theologies with other propositions, nor methods with other presuppositions, nor systems gravitating around different pivots, nor alternative conceptualizations, intellections, or practices, but what they have supplanted is a way of being, the ancient way of being, a simple and informal life (by which I do not mean life unexamined, but life undoubted). The renowned medievalist Johannes Fried summarizes this radical shift as follows: Over time, a growing acquaintance with Aristotle’s dialectics changed the way in which people related one thought to another, the order in which they posed questions, and the manner in which they weighed up each answer. . . A mode of thought began to spread that was no longer beholden to magic and God. Secularization became widespread, developing in leaps and bounds. The entire worldview—the way in which life

It may be worth pointing out that the dominance that the contractual covenant still has over the field is truly extraordinary, since paradoxically historical criticism, invented for the sake of generating a universally acceptable reading, is nothing else but the ultimate implosion of methodological and interpretive unity. 8 On this major shift of thought, which triggers so many of the ensuing theological shifts in the west, see the seminal and penetrating study of Marie-Dominique Chenu, La théologie comme science au XIIIe siècle (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1943). 7

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ON THE SINAI TRADITION AND “COVENANT” was organized; the interaction between the sexes; the economic means of production within the manorial system. . . etc.— became subject to the logical-dialectical process. Cosmology, the idea of man, ethics, and law came under corresponding pressure to redefine their terms of reference. Sooner or later, the whole of society, together with all its norms and values, was caught up in this rational, formal mode of thought and was transformed fundamentally.9

This particular shift in mentality provided the final disjoining of “the covenant” from living an inherited life—which, I will argue here, was its ancient meaning—and set it up, through the new logical-dialectical process, for being defined in rational and formal terms. Consequently much of the Christian theology of the last few centuries—beholden to these shifts—finds itself hermeneutically blinded to the “features of permanence” in the scriptural text and inevitably ends with disjointed and historical understandings of “covenant.”10 Therefore—and this is a central point—when such Christian theology looks back at the Jewish covenant, it does not read Judaism on its own terms, in the terms with which Judaism described itself and which it would recognize.11 Therefore, only once the logical-dialectical process Johannes Fried, The Middle Ages (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 330. 10 In our times we seem to write first and foremost in order to express ourselves. What I suggest here is that the “covenant” texts were written in order to express the readers. The argument can be made that this is what it meant to write in a sacred way. It seems to me that it is more accurate to think of textual holiness as authorial intention in these practical terms, and not by any objective categories. 11 Of primary relevance on this point is the Christian concept of “salvation history.” This post-patristic perspective reads the Old Testament as a sequence of events which builds up to the climactic point in Jesus. While ancient Judaism had a clear historical sense of itself, the two main features of salvation history are blatantly missing from it: the build-up to a climactic point and the supersessionism with which this climactic point (“salvation”) comes. This perspective, as I already intuited, was also foreign to the earliest mainstream Christian thought. For it the Old Testament not only was not superseded (it was simply “the Scriptures”), but it also presented itself as the ubiquitous mystery of Jesus. On the one hand, Judaism amasses—so to speak—the entire history in the perpetual 9

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and the other radical shifts standing between us and the ancients are set aside, can the ancient reality of covenant (and many other biblical realities) appear in an unadulterated light.

THE PERMANENCE OF THE SINAI “COVENANT” IN THE HEBREW BIBLE

Now let us go to our scriptural sources. It is not within the purview of this paper to look at the scriptural text in its diachronicity and to inquire of historical developments or source differences.12 Rather, given my interest in how the scriptural text may itself put forth a hermeneutics of referent, this paper looks at the text as is, or rather as it presents the Sinai covenant to its readers. Even though by now it is commonly accepted that the scriptural covenant language is somewhat connected to ancient near eastern treaty formulas—as it indeed seems to be— scriptural “covenants” depart from these formulas in radical ways. Not the least in the fact that the Lord cuts the covenant with the

actuality of its past through the continuous life of the covenant. Another way to word this is to say that history is fulfilled in the life of the covenant. On the other hand, early Christians amassed the entire history in Christ, who is the One who spoke and appeared throughout the “Old” Testament and also the One who is in every word of it. If anything, the New is only an opening and elucidation of the “Old.” Arguments such as the following have to be turned upside down: “In their supersessionist hermeneutics, both John [Chrysostom] and Gregory [the Theologian] take it for granted that Christ was already animating and enlightening the events described in the OT” (Johan Leemans and Anthony Dupont, “Scripture and Martyrdom,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation [ed. Paul M. Blowers and Peter W. Martens; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019], 417-438 at 425). In the spirit of patristic hermeneutics, the latter ubiquitous tradition, namely that Christ is present everywhere in the Old Testament, only makes the Old Testament permanent rather than discard it. 12 A scholarly consensus seems to have formed around the argument that a “covenant” vocabulary does not emerge in Judah until the seventh century BC or even later. It seems that Lothar Perlitt’s monograph Bundestheologie im Alten Testament (1969) has had the greatest impact on this conclusion, although its proposal has met initially with much resistance and opposition.

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people, rather than the king.13 Yet, an even more significant difference lies in the features of permanence. One such feature is best illustrated by 2 Kgs 23:3. In my more literal translation: The king stood by the pillar and cut the covenant (‫)את־הברית‬ before the Lord—to walk after the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His laws with all heart and all soul, to carry out (‫ )להקים‬the words of this covenant (‫ )הברית הזאת‬which were inscribed upon this scroll (‫)על־הספר הזה‬. And all the people took a stand on the covenant.14

The most impressive feature of this early covenant language lies in the equivalent use of the definite article “the” and of the demonstrative “this.” As Hindy Najman observed, Deuteronomic texts do not use such terms [“the” and “this”] from the point of view of a specified speaker—say, of Moses. Rather, they use such terms within anonymous third person descriptions of the speech and actions of Moses. That is to say, they use such terms from the point of the view of the text’s reader or listener. This is of great importance, for it follows that the unity of Torah, in the special sense of the Deuteronomist, is secured through the presence of tradition to those who read or hear the words of Torah.15

I would take Najman’s argument further and I would suggest that this language makes the covenant a manner of life which, first, the Deuteronomist claims as his own and which, second, he also expects to be the life of his readers. Furthermore, such language serves the obvious function of a self-destruct safety feature, This is without analogy in ancient Near Eastern treaty laws, according to C. Koch, Vertrag, Treueid und Bund: Studien zur Rezeption des altorientalischen Vertragsrechts im Deuteronomium und zur Ausbildung der Bundestheologie im Alten Testament (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 383; Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 252–264. 14 This and all ensuing translations are my own, unless noted otherwise. 15 Hindy Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period. Supplement Series 77; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 31-32 (her emphasis). 13

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because it is precisely this manner of writing that makes the whole text collapse, become nonsensical, in the hands of another life, or—to speak from our vantage point—in the hands of a disjointed, historical approach. In other words, the text is written in such ways that one cannot reach its meanings without sharing and actualizing its life. In light of this, Moses’ emphatic negative in Deut 5:3 is best understood not as a polemic against the Abrahamic covenant, but more precisely as a warning against any lifeless, static understandings of the covenant of the Lord with Israel.16 “Beyond the Jordan” (‫בעבר הירדן‬: Deut 1:1) Moses shouts to Israel the following words: It was not with our fathers that YHWH cut this covenant [at Horeb/Sinai] (‫)את־הברית הזאת‬, but with us, we these ( ‫כי אתנו‬ ‫ )אנחנו אלה‬here today (‫)היום‬, all of us living (‫)כלנו חיים‬.

The Masoretic text—fragmentarily attested at Qumran17—is even more striking than the Septuagint because it uses the personal pronoun three times (as opposed to only twice in the LXX) and once even accompanied by the demonstrative pronoun (missing in Greek): “us, we these here today, all of us living.” Yet, despite this extraordinary emphasis on the denial “not with our fathers,” Deut 1:35-40 makes it abundantly clear that the people whom Moses is addressing here were not at Sinai, but rather the people at Sinai were their fathers. All these peculiarities invest the shout with a lot of meaning. They point to a self-understanding in which tradition secures the covenant rather than the covenant, the tradition. The covenant so secured by tradition is always alive and current, never a past event. It is passed down from generation to generation as perpetually fresh. In the shout itself the experience of Sinai is taken away from the ones who were at Sinai and have died, and is given to their living descendants. Moreover, the transmission of the living covenant does not stop with this generation. In the act of reading the shout with its striking use of personal and demonstrative pronouns and of the adverbial ‫היום‬, See also the comments in Levenson, Sinai and Zion, 81. See Eugene Ulrich, ed., The Biblical Qumran Scrolls. Transcriptions and Textual Variants (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 183.

16 17

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the reader is to realize that the truthfulness of the shout is relinquished by Moses and the Israel who heard it to the writer, because it is only from the writer’s vantage point that Moses and Israel are “beyond the Jordan,” and furthermore that in turn it is relinquished by the writer to the reader himself, just as it was relinquished in the first place by “the fathers”—those at Sinai— to their descendants who heard the shout. In other words the text expects the living reader to claim the shout as his own and to reenliven the covenant in himself, and thus the shout is meant to subsume both the writer and Moses—together with the people at Sinai and their children—into the reader’s inherited identity, identity which at once both en-acts and de-textualizes the shout. Deut 5:3 is a text which sets itself up for being de-textualized and enlivened in the reader, or rather a text which expects a reader who would give it life by embodying it and thus de-textualizing or obliterating it. The text acts only as an intermediary between different actuations of the same live event, in the circular trajectory event-text-event. The Sinai tradition, even inscribed in a text, presents itself as always ultimately fulfilled beyond text, in the present reader.18

As a side note, I would suggest that this is what Peter is appealing to in Acts 3:25-26: “You are the sons of the prophets and of the testament (τῆς διαθήκης) which God made with your fathers when he said to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed.’ God raised up his servant and sent him first to you, blessing you by turning each of you from your evil ways.” I would also suggest that Jesus’ words to the Sadducees “God is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Mt 22:32) appeal to this strong sense of covenant as living tradition, because it is precisely this appeal that the Sadducees would have understood the best! This explains why the words have the effect of leaving the crowds literally “knocked-out” (ἐκπλήσσω, Mt 22:33)—and this is, I think, Sinai theophanic language--and the effect of “muzzling” (φιµόω) the Sadducees (Mt 22:34). Different verses of Deuteronomy have been read as a relativization of “covenant.” For example, as Marc Zvi Brettler notes, “The end of Deuteronomy says, in essence, that public revelation by God at Horeb was a bad idea—revelation through a prophet like Moses is a better idea.” M. Zvi Brettler, “‘Fire, Cloud and Deep Darkness’ (Deuteronomy 5:22): Deuteronomy’s Recasting of Revelation,” in The Significance of Sinai: Traditions about Sinai and Divine Revelation in 18

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Another striking example of this ever-presentness of history through the covenant comes from Joshua 24:6. Joshua passes the following words of God to the Israelites settled in Canaan: “I brought your fathers (‫ )אבותיכם‬out of Egypt, and you came (‫)ותבאו‬ to the sea and the Egyptians pursued your fathers (‫)אבותיכם‬.” The Septuagint version (vv. 5-6), although slightly different and making these Joshua’s own words, is peculiar in the same way: “He [the Lord] led you (ὑµᾶς) out of Egypt, and you entered (εἰσήλθατε) into the red sea, and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers (ὀπίσω τῶν πατέρων ὑµῶν).” It goes without saying that the people whom Joshua is addressing here—whether in God’s words or his own—were not literally at the sea; both versions also say that it was their fathers who were pursued by the Egyptians. Yet, the author understands the covenant as nurturing Israel into a life which transcends the sequence of space-time19 and in which later generations share in past events in the same way in which the actual participants did. This sense of tradition as actualization of the past is a primary frame of the Deuteronomist’s commandment language. Marc Zvi Brettler astutely observed: A significant phrase in Deuteronomy consists of the root to command (‫ צוה‬in the piel) alongside “today” (‫ )היום‬hayom— it is attested over 25 times. It makes a simple point—what Moses is commanding “today,” namely at the end of the period of wandering, is much more important than what was commanded then, at Horeb.20

Zvi Brettler’s argument can be slightly revised in light of the points already made in relation to Deut 5:3 and Joshua 24:6: what we have in the language of “commanding today” does not amount to a superseding of the previous commandments, but it is rather an insistence on their perpetual actuality. This seems to be possible because the substance of the covenant is not earthly and Judaism and Christianity (ed. H. Najman at al.; Leiden: Brill, 2008) 15-28 at 26. 19 Regarding the relation of the covenant to history, Levenson’s remarks in Sinai and Zion are still pertinent four decades later. 20 Brettler, “Fire, Cloud, and Deep Darkness,” 26.

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the covenant is not established on any social or ethical principles, but on holiness: “For I am YHWH your God; therefore consecrate yourselves, and be holy, for I am holy” (Lev 11:44). The commandments are grounded in how God is or rather they are descriptors of how God is. There is even more to be made of this verse. It is significant that the commandments of the covenant are justified with “for I am YHWH your God” more than with anything else (the formula is used in Leviticus 49 times). This justification also ties holiness with another imagery which the formula props: multiple times we are told that Israel’s life depends on obedience to the covenant (Lev 18:5; Deut 4:1,26; 5:33; 8:1 etc.). The sense of this imagery is generally clear: disobedience will lead to physical death (e.g., Deut 5:33). Yet, once, in a Leviticus verse of such significance as to be quoted in other scriptures,21 the grounding of life in the observance of the covenant is unusually worded: Therefore you will keep my statutes and my judgments, which, if a human does, he will live through them, for I am YHWH. (Lev 18:5)

‫שמרתם את־חקתי ואת־משפטי אשר יעשה אתם האדם וחי בהם אני יהוה‬ The first unusual feature is the sudden switch from the second to the third person in referring to Israel.22 The second is the use of the generic ‫ האדם‬in a commandment-based promise of life, which is without parallel in the entire Sinai tradition. These peculiarities of language, I would contend, are only here to build and support the consonance between ‫ וחי‬and the Name, which suggests that Ezek 20:11, 13, 21, and Neh 9:29. A. Hurvitz has made a compelling argument that the text is original to Lev 18:5 and that the other scriptures take it from here. Avi Hurvitz, A Linguistic Study of the Relationship between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel (Cahiers de la Revue Biblique 20; Paris: Gabalda, 1982), 46-48. 22 Whether or not this generic third person (‫ )האדם‬also includes the nonIsraelites is beside my argument on the nature of the covenant, since incontestably the non-Israelite would also enter in the covenant with YHWH. Jan Joosten, who otherwise misses the uniqueness of the use of ‫ האדם‬in this context, as well as the peculiarity of the switch in person, nevertheless comes to a similar conclusion. Jan Joosten, People and Land in the Holiness Code (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 77. 21

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the covenant and the human existence which depends on it are grounded in the life of God, or rather they exist in God as Life (cf. also Deut 8:3).23 The covenant—it could be said—is life in God. The most peculiar features of permanence do not appear in the Deuteronomic texts or in Leviticus. Ex 19:25 and 20:1 open and set up the entire Sinai covenant with two peculiarities, extant in both Hebrew and the Septuagint Greek: 19.25. So Moses went down to the people and said to them (‫ ;ויאמר אלהם‬καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς). 20.1. And God spoke all these words (‫וידבר אלהים את כל־‬ ‫ ;הדברים האלה‬καὶ ἐλάλησεν κύριος πάντας τοὺς λόγους τούτους), saying…

In both recensions the verbs used at the end of the first verse, ‫אמר‬ and εἶπον, introduce a direct object, usually a direct speech, but this is not the case here. In the entire Hebrew Bible Ex 19:25 is the only verse in which ‫ אמר‬lacks a direct object, stated or implied.24 In the next verse, 20:1, in which the use of the demonstrative pronoun ‫ אלה‬should also be noted, Benjamin Sommer explains another peculiarity: This sort of phrasing (namely, “God/Yhwh spoke/said . . . saying”) is exceedingly common; verses with the subject God or Yhwh and the waw-consecutive verb spoke (‫ )וידבר‬or said (‫ )ויאמר‬occur 339 times in the Bible. In every occurrence other than Exodus 20.1, the text uses the word ‫ אל‬or the particle – ‫ל‬ to tell us explicitly whom God addressed (thus, “Yhwh spoke to Moses, saying,” or “God said to Moses and Aaron, saying”). Only in the verse introducing the Decalogue in Exodus is there any doubt about the recipient of divine speech. This fact is jarring to an audience whose ears are familiar with the hundreds of cases of the normal form.25

The connections between Deut 8:3 and Genesis 2 are obvious. They are also supported by the appeal to creation in Deut 4:32. 24 On this see S. R. Driver, The Book of the Exodus in the Revised Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 168, 175. 25 Benjamin D. Sommer, Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015) 38. 23

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A further point should be added to Sommer’s observation: it is also peculiar that up to this verse God has addressed “the sons of Israel”—which, incidentally, does not usually mean the people present at the theophany, but their descendants—but here, after the unparalleled neglect of the indirect object, God gives the ensuing commandments in the second person singular (Exod 20:2-3, in both MT and LXX). Therefore, in Ex 19:25 and 20:1 we have two consecutive verses lacking a needed direct object and respectively a needed indirect object. Sommer and others have taken this situation as a problem to be solved, and Sommer himself finds a possible solution: 19:25 introduces 20:1 as Moses’ speech.26 Yet, as Sommer himself admits, 20:1 shows no markers of direct speech. On the contrary, Hebrew direct speech does not begin with a waw-consecutive, as this verse does. My contention is that the two verses need no fixing. Rather, the point is in their incompleteness. And this point can be gleaned not only from the texts analyzed above—and indeed many others—but also from how later Judaism understood the covenant: the text is only fulfilled in the reader, who is to hear it anew as his own and to complete it in his own experience of it.27 In such a tradition, things left unsaid receive the loudest voice. This second part of my paper—dedicated to the covenant in later Judaism—will have to be more summary, due to space constraints.

QUMRAN

In the Qumran community a similar self-understanding becomes obvious. Of particular significance is the fact that the community Ibid., 39. Although the anti-mystical tone needs qualification, the following cautionary note from Levenson stands: “The present generation makes history their story, but it is first history. They do not determine who they are by looking within, by plumbing the depths of the individual soul, by seeking a mystical light in the innermost reaches of the self. Rather, the direction is the opposite. What is public is made private. History is not only rendered contemporary; it is internalized. One’s people’s history becomes one’s personal history.” (Sinai and Zion, 38-39) 26 27

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sees itself participating in the Horeb covenant: “And you established a covenant with us on Ho[reb]” (4Q504 3.II.13). This is not surprising if one keeps in mind that the community sees the covenant as remembered and constantly renewed in a tradition that comes down all the way to the community itself.28 But I would suggest that the best entry point into the selfunderstanding of the community is the figure of the maskil. Convincing arguments have been made that the maskil acts as a medium of revelation precisely because he embodies the text.29 Similar arguments have been made about the figure of the prophet in Jubilees, to which I am turning now very briefly.

“You [God] have remembered your covenant. You established them, isolating them for yourself in order to make them holy among all the nations. And you have renewed your covenant with them in the vision of glory, and in the words of your holy [spirit], by the works of your hand.” (1Q34 3.ii.5-7). 29 Carol Newsom has argued convincingly that the materials concerning the role of the maskil in admission rituals (1QS IX, 12–XI, 22) “not only serve as a literary inclusion but also encourage one to see in the character of the Maskil the telos of the disciplines and teaching that the Serek haYahad has described.” Carol Newsom, Self as Symbolic Space (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 107. Judith Newman followed with: “There is no mediating role of scribal activity and writing mentioned in the Shirot, only the reception of revelation and visual and oral communication of divine knowledge. The connection between the tablets of Jubilees and the engraving of the Songs thus might best be understood if we think of the role of the angels/priests in the Shirot and the maskil (or angelic priests) in the Rule of the Community [as] the incarnated “medium” of the inscribed information, that is, as agents of divine revelation, though first through visual perception and oral transmission. In fact the use of the “engraved statute” on the mouth, tongue, and lips in the song of the maskil suggests precisely such an oral transmission of the “inscription,” thus understood as an oral teaching that issues from the mouth of the instructor based on internalized divine legal knowledge.” Judith H. Newman, “Priestly Prophets at Qumran: Summoning Sinai through the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,” in The Significance of Sinai: Traditions about Sinai and Divine Revelation in Judaism and Christianity (ed. H. Najman at al.; Leiden: Brill, 2008) 29-72 at 42-43. 28

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Jubilees

Jubilees 45:16 speaks of a tradition of successive renewals of the covenant: “He [Israel] gave all his books and the books of his fathers to his son Levi so that he could preserve them and renew them for his sons until today.”30 The renewal of the covenant extends not only to the writer of the book, but it also extends all the way to each of its readers, in every generation, as each is drawn into the renewed covenant with “until today.” This comes as no surprise—Jubilees 1:4-6 sets up the Sinai covenant in ways which exceed all spatial and temporal limitations: Moses remained on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights while the Lord showed him what (had happened) beforehand as well as what was to come. He related to him the divisions of the times for the law and for the testimony. He said to him: ‘Pay attention to all the words that I will tell you on this mountain. Write them in a book so that their generations may know that I have not abandoned them because of all the evil they have done in breaking the covenant between me and your children that I am making today on Mount Sinai for their offspring. So it will be that when all of these things befall them they will recognize that I have been more faithful than they in all their judgments and in all their curses. They will recognize that I have indeed been with them.31

Time is superseded in such ways that the one and same revelation is practiced, revealed, and transmitted in generational appropriations, transcending all temporal boundaries and all human limitations and transgressions. Philo

The text in Philo that has generated the long-held opinion that the Alexandrian has a supersessionist flare needs revisiting. This is how he describes Abraham: Translation from James C. VanderKam, Jubilees (2 vols.; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018), 2.1103. 31 VanderKam, Jubilees, 1:131. 30

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Moses adds this crowning saying [to Abraham’s praises] “that this man did the divine law and the divine commands.” He did them, not taught by written words, but unwritten nature gave him the zeal to follow where wholesome and untainted impulse led him. And when they have God’s promises before them what should men do but trust in them most firmly? Such was the life of the first, the founder of the nation, one who obeyed the law, some will say, but rather, as our discourse has shown, himself a law and an unwritten statute. (Abrah. 275-276)32

Abraham—Philo observes—is in the unique position to have no predecessor in the covenant and no written book. Remarkably, he becomes the book, embodies the covenant. When God speaks to him, the patriarch is already inscribed in the covenant. Philo points out that it is this embodiment of the book in the reader that is greater than the book. In light of all of the above, this is not supersessionist, but rather traditional covenant language. And more can be made of this if we remember the argument E. P. Sanders made in 1976 that Philo’s understanding of covenant is expressed, among other ways, in the language of being in the Jewish πολιτεία.33 Unfortunately for Sanders πολιτεία means “commonwealth, citizenship, or constitution.”34 But before the invention of politics in the Middle Ages35 and of nation in RomanText and translation in Philo (10 vols. with suppl.; ed. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker; Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988) 6.132-135. 33 Ed Parish Sanders, “The Covenant as a Soteriological Category and the Nature of Salvation in Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism,” in Jews, Greeks and Christians. Religious Cultures in Late Antiquity. Essays in Honor of William David Davies (ed. Robert Hamerton-Kelly and Robin Scroggs, Studies in Judaism and Late Antiquity 21; Leiden: Brill, 1976), 11-44 at 31-32. 34 Idem, “Covenantal Nomism Revisited,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 16 (2009): 25-55, here p. 29. 35 Fried makes the point in the clearest terms: “[Aristotle’s Politics] presented people with a completely unfamiliar image of humanity, which no longer placed the sinner, the person led astray, and the transgressor against divine commandments at the center of things, but chose instead to focus on man as a ‘communal animal’ or a ‘political entity’... Such a person ‘naturally’ hankered after social and political order. Questions of ‘laws’ and ‘statutes,’ in other words of justice, which had already been broached by the revival of jurisprudence, as well as the meaning of 32

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ticism,36 πολιτεία did not mean nationality or common law, but it meant a certain manner of living as the first and foremost marker of an ethnos or a group of people.37 The text Sanders references, On the Virtues 219, talks about the “conversion” (as it were) of the proselytes, for whom Abraham serves as the ultimate model, as a sojourn “to a πολιτεία truly living and animated, whose guardian and overseer is the truth” (πρὸς ἔµψυχον τῷ ὄντι καὶ ζώσαν πολιτείαν, ἧς ἔφορος καὶ ἐπίσκοπος ἀλήθεια).38 The language is blatantly mystical: the life-covenant which Abraham takes on is a sharing in the life of God Himself. A few lines before this text (Virt. 218) he describes Abraham as “striving for kinship with God and hasting to become his kinsman by every means” (τῆς πρὸς θεὸν συγγενείας ὀρεχθέντα καὶ σπουδάσαντα µηχανῇ πάσῃ γνώριµον αὐτῷ γενέσθαι).39 And here we draw closer to Philo’s thought: πολιτεία is set up on kinship (συγγένεια) and kinship ultimately comes down to oneness of life, far beyond blood, and this oneness of life is the very life of God. Adam is described as not “stepping in the virtues of his Father,” ‘equitable’ distribution of goods, could now be reviewed in a far broader context, on an anthropological plane, so to speak. A whole new style of thinking began to evolve; in particular, a ‘political’ mindset became widespread, and a new group of specialists came into being: the politici, or ‘political scientists’.” (The Middle Ages, 344-345) 36 See the essays in Balázs Trencsényi and Michal Kopeček, eds., National Romanticism: The Formation of National Movements. Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe (1770–1945) (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007). 37 This would have become apparent by the realization that Philo was not alone in preferring πολιτεία and that from the earliest times Christians identified their way, “faith,” as πολιτεία. Eph 2:12 already uses the term this way, just like Phil 3:20 uses πολίτευµα. See also Epistle to Diognetus 5.4-17; 1 Clement 2.8, 6.1, 44.6, 54.4; Polycarp, Epistle to Philippians 5.2. 38 My translation. 39 And, as Eric S. Gruen summarizes, Philo “asserts that, in truth, kinship is not measured by blood alone but by similarity of action and pursuit of the same goals (Virt. 195-196). . . Philo’s sense of kinship easily transcends family ties.” Eric S. Gruen, “Philo and Jewish Ethnicity,” in Strength to Strength: Essays in Honor of Shaye J.D. Cohen (ed. Michael L. Satlow; Brown Judaic Studies 363; Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2018), 179–96 at 186.

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who is God (ἐπακολουθήσαντα ταῖς τοῦ γεννήσαντος ἀρεταῖς; Virt. 205). The analogy Philo offers for what he means is the family (Virt. 192-197). In Virt. 79 Philo describes the entire nation at Sinai in the same terms of συγγένεια and πολιτεία. From the very beginning the people had a kinship with God, kinship which made the nation heir to the divine life itself.40 Many scholars have opined that Philo and Jubilees stand at the two ends of the spectralization of covenant in the second temple period; one is nationalistic, the other universalist; one is resistant to hellenization, the other seems to have thoroughly succumbed to it. Yet—and this is an essential point for my argument—neither one understands covenant in static or legalistic terms. On the contrary, in both Philo and Jubilees covenant comes down to traditional life, testamentary or generational. Due to time constraints I will not review more ancient Jewish evidence here. Suffice it to say that, when the Septuagint translates ‫ ברית‬with διαθήκη, it does not depart from the covenant tradition at all, but it rather places the emphasis precisely on the traditional elements of ‫ ברית‬on which emphasis seems due. Epistle to the Hebrews

I would like to close this short investigation of the post-scriptural history of the Sinai covenant with a Jewish-Christian text: the Epistle to the Hebrews. In light of the previous insights, what is immediately clear is that in Hebrews the function of a covenant is to be passed down, to become inheritance (κληρονοµία), as chapter 9 makes clear. The language in this chapter is overtly testamentary. A testament, we are told, requires death and blood: in order for a testament to take effect, in order for the inheritance to be passed down, the testamentor (διαθέµενος) must die (9:1617). Just like the second, “the first testament too was not refreshed without blood” (οὐδ’ ἡ πρώτη χωρὶς αἵµατος ἐγκεκαίνισται). “For Moses alone, as it seems, assuming that the whole nation had from the very first the most vital kinship with the divine things (τήν προς τά θεια. . . έχειν άναγκαιοτάτην συγγένειαν), a kinship much truer than that from blood, he declared it heir of all good things that human nature can contain (πάντων ἀγαθῶν ὧν δὴ ἀνθρωπίνη φύσις χωρεῖ κληρονόµον ἀπέφηνεν)” (Virt. 79).

40

42

ON THE SINAI TRADITION AND “COVENANT”

Hebrews uses here an inheritance language which is by now familiar: an inheritance is fulfilled in being passed down further. Every will has as its destination the next generation, so that the inheritance stays alive. The only passage in Hebrews which refers to the timing of Christ, namely 9:10, expresses this reality: “until the time of διόρθωσις” (µέχρι καιροῦ διορθώσεως). Διόρθωσις here has been understood in different ways, but in its most common use it denotes an amendment of a legal document. In other words, the sense is that the inheritance passed down from generation to generation is now amended (and the amendment seems to be the inclusion of the gentiles). The pressure on the author of Hebrews is then not—as we might think—to prove that the covenant renews or is passed down (this was a traditional core element of the “covenant” language, with which no Jewish hearers of Hebrews—or of the entire kerygma—would have taken issue, as I hope to have already shown here), but rather to explain why the renewal stops with Christ, as the use of ἐφάπαξ in 9:12 and 10:10 suggests. What we may misconstrue as the struggle to prove that a new covenant could exist is rather an argument that the renewals of it can come to an end. This explains why the arguments center on Christ as the end, rather than on the concept of covenant itself. It also seems to me that the language of “fulfilment in Christ” serves this particular function, of explaining first the possibility and second the fact that the renewal of the covenant ceases. But to cease from being renewed is not the same as not to be ongoing. The covenant, the one covenant, the old made new once and for all, continues to exist, but just in a non-renewable, fulfilled form. This also means that not only does the author not try to undo the traditional understanding of covenant, but rather that he presupposes it and relies on it. The language of Hebrews 9, in very traditional tones, sets up the new covenant as a matter of the old. The old not only points to the new, but presupposes the new and solicits the new, just like a shadow exists only due to the object whose shape it projects. Rather, the new testament is only an actualization of the one and only testament. The phrase “the living God” in 9:14, which reverberates with echoes going back to Deut 5:3 and Lev 18:5, points to this reality: God is living,

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therefore He is a god of living realities, not of dead ones. In 10:22 the “assurance of faith” (πληροφορίᾳ πίστεως), the faith of the Hebrews community, is the faith which comes with the covenant, as 11:1-12:2 would explain. The claim of Hebrews to the one covenant is made in the traditional and striking language of the Old Testament texts analyzed above. Just like the Deuteronomist, Hebrews uses the demonstrative pronoun in the most peculiar ways. Both 8:10 and 10:16 quote the same Jer 38:33 LXX/31:33 MT, verse in which the new covenant is called “this covenant” (“this [is] is the covenant” αὕτη ἡ διαθήκη).41 Moreover, the second quote is set up (in 10:15) by “the Holy Spirit bears witness to us too” (µαρτυρεῖ δὲ ἡµῖν καὶ τὸ Πνεῦµα τὸ Ἅγιον). The semantic choreography of the definite article, the conjunction καί, and the present tense is very complex; it expects the hearers of Hebrews to share the location and identity of the author of the letter which is revealed as none other than the location and identity of Jeremiah. Finally, once the hearers are with Jeremiah, they discover the whole process to have had the opposite direction: they are with Jeremiah through the author of the epistle only because Jeremiah is with them in the first place; the demonstrative pronoun belongs first to Jeremiah.42 Equally suggestive of the actuality of the covenant is the fact that that Hebrews also uses the same demonstrative pronoun in relation to the realities of the Jerusalem Temple (especially if the epistle was written after the destruction of the Temple, as it seems to be the case). “This/these” is/are in turn: everything of the temple in 9:6 (τούτων), the rituals in 9:23 (“cleansed with these” τούτοις καθαρίζεσθαι; “than these” παρὰ ταύτας), and the sacrifices in 10:3 (“in these” ἐν αὐταῖς). Even more significantly, in 7:1 Melchizedek is “this Melchizedek” (οὗτος ὁ Μελχισέδεκ), in 11:13 the patriarchs are “these all” (οὗτοι πάντες), and in 11:39 all the witnesses of faith—all the faithful men and women of Israel—are This is set up by other vocabulary: 8:8 has “days are coming” (ἡµέραι ἔρχονται). And also by different departures from the Hebrew and LXX texts of Jeremiah: see comments at places in Attridge. 42 Two more times old covenant texts are simply referred to by “these” (ταῦτα): Heb 4:5; 7:13. 41

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“all these” (οὗτοι πάντες). Yet, arguably the most striking use of the demonstrative pronoun is for Christ, who is twice referred simply as “this [one],” in 8:3 and 10:12 (τοῦτον and respectively οὗτος). The imagery that forms from all these elements is one in which not only are the “old” texts and “old” realities not superseded in the “new,” but the author of Hebrews claims for himself and expects his hearers to function in the space or life of these realities, with familiarity. In other words, the author of Hebrews writes in such ways that, in order for his hearers to even see how the old testament is transitioned into a new one, from the very beginning of this realization or rather as an essential condition for this transition to take place, the hearers have to fully participate or be integrated into the identity inherited from of old. Therefore the transition to the new is not a departure from the old (cf. 8:13), but a recalibration of it in light of Christ. The new covenant is written from within the old, not after it and not against it. Yet, Heb 12:18-23, with its warning that the community has not come forth to Sinai, seems to speak against such conclusions. I have argued elsewhere that the setting of this passage is liturgical, that throughout the letter the community sees its own worship as having access to the heavenly temple, and that 12:1823 expresses this liturgical experience.43 In my opinion, the passage is not about a dislocation from Sinai. The author calls the community to participate in Sinai only a few lines further down, in vv. 26-29. Also, when 13:11-12 describe the central-point of the liturgy of the community as a perennial Yom Kippur, the allusion is to Sinai.44 At the end of a close and exhaustive analysis “The Convergence of Adamic and Merkabah Traditions in the Christology of Hebrews,” in Craig A. Evans, Jeremiah J. Johnston, eds., Searching the Scriptures: Studies in Context and Intertextuality (London: T&T Clark 2015), 277-296. 44 This was noticed by Gabriella Gelardini, “Charting ‘Outside the Camp’ with Edward W. Soja: Critical Spatiality and Hebrews 13,” in Gabriella Gelardini and Harold Attridge, eds., Hebrews in Contexts (Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2016), 210-237 at 219: “Legislation for Yom Kippur was given to Moses by God not at some indeterminable place in the desert but 43

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of the Sinai language in Hebrews 13, Gabriella Gelardini calls Exodus 32-33 “the primary intertext” of the entire Hebrews 13 and I couldn’t agree more.45 Therefore, it seems to me that 12:1823 is excluding from the church experience not Sinai itself, but a specific shortcoming of Sinai: Sinai included no hearing of actual words, but only a voice. This is made clear in 12:25: “See that you do not beg off him who is speaking” at Sinai (who is Christ).46 Furthermore, the community’s liturgical experience reaches not only to Zion and Sinai—locations which the community claims to experience in the highest and fullest—but it goes even further back, all the way to Eden. The language of 6:7-8 describes the community in terms closely reminiscent of Paradise, as I argued elsewhere.47

CONCLUSIONS

Instead of conclusion, I would like to offer some final thoughts. Many modern frameworks for “covenant,”48 are now revealing specifically at Sinai, just as the arrival of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai is mentioned in Exod 19:1–2 and their departure from Sinai in Num 10:11–13.” 45 Gelardini, “Critical Spatiality and Hebrews 13,” 225ff. 46 And this shortcoming of Sinai is set up by the quotation of Ps 95 in 3:7-8, 3;15, and 4:7: “today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the desert.” 47 Bunta, “The Convergence of Adamic and Merkabah Traditions in the Christology of Hebrews,” 277-296. 48 For example the “covenantal nomism” advanced by Sanders. He summarizes his proposal as follows: “The distinctiveness of IV Ezra helps point up the degree to which the type of religion best called ‘covenantal nomism’ is common to Judaism as it appears in the literature considered here. The ‘pattern’ or ‘structure’ of covenantal nomism is this: (1) God has chosen Israel and (2) given the law. The law implies both (3) God’s promise to maintain the election and (4) the requirement to obey. (5) God rewards obedience and punishes transgression. (6) The law provides for means of atonement, and atonement results in (7) maintenance or reestablishment of the covenantal relationship. (8) All those who are maintained in the covenant by obedience, atonement and God’s mercy belong to the group which will be saved. An important interpretation of the first and last points is that election and ultimately salvation are considered to be by God’s mercy rather than human achievement.” Ed Parish Sanders,

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their weakness: they read the literature reviewed here through sensitivities and categories possible only after the post-ancient shifts with which I began this exploration, such as faith vs works, contractualism, atonement, individualism, election, or, in a few words, from within what Fried calls “the rational, formal mode of being.” Through the lens of these developments our authors seem to have produced and read concepts exactly in the way in which we produce and read concepts. But the language of our authors, from Deuteronomy to Hebrews, points to a radically different reality. In its covenant vocabulary (and other vocabularies also) ancient Judaism shows no such formal thought and understands covenant in terms of life. It also solicits a radically different reading practice—a sort of reading of informal life based on a hermeneutic of referent—and prevents other reading practices through self-destruct safety mechanisms. Simply put, the text is written in such ways as to receive its meaning only in the life of the reader. Yet, this says one more thing. If only a certain reading reaches the text, only certain readers can get it. And the covenant texts presented here seem to try actively to generate such readers; Philo would undoubtedly agree. In other words, tradition presents itself in such a way as to produce the reading and the reader. Finally, the readers/hearers are not only expected to hear and give meaning, but in this act of hearing they become the text itself. The only possible understanding of the text is from within. It follows then that one of the essential functions of the hearer is to en-act the text and thus to de-textualize it. In a way the text comes to die in the reader, die as a text precisely in order to continue as life.

Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London/Philadelphia: SCM Press/Fortress, 1977), 42.

TRAGEDY AND COMEDY IN SAUL’S ENCOUNTER AT ENDOR JOSHUA EZRA BURNS Reflecting on the propensity of some people for relentless selfdeprecation, the beloved storyteller Brendan Behan once quipped, “Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.”1 I am pleased to offer this study of a figure of our common birthright in tribute to my dear friend, colleague, and mentor, Deirdre Dempsey. Deirdre, I treasure your wit and your wisdom. Thank you for being you.2 King Saul is arguably the most tragic personality of the Hebrew Scriptures.3 Plucked from obscurity to preside over an idealistic young nation, Saul gets barely a chance to exercise his leadership before inadvertently and irredeemably offending God. The Brendan Behan, “Richard’s Cork Leg,” in The Complete Plays (ed. Alan Simpson; London: Eyre Methuen, 1978), 262. 2 In recognition of Deirdre’s contributions to the Revised Edition of the New American Bible (NABR), scriptural quotations and allusions adhere to its translation unless otherwise noted. 3 On Saul’s tragic character arc, see, e.g., J. Cheryl Exum, Tragedy and Biblical Narrative: Arrows of the Almighty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 16–44; David M. Gunn, The Fate of King Saul: An Interpretation of a Biblical Story (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series 14; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980), 23–31; W. Lee Humphreys, The Tragic Vision and the Hebraic Tradition (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 23–42. 1

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scuttled promise of Israel’s first sovereign figures in the book of 1 Samuel as a dramatic counterpoint to the rise of his successor, David, whose descendants would hold court in Jerusalem for generations to follow. Saul’s inevitable descent in the face of David’s ascent reaches its nadir in his penultimate scene, a clandestine nighttime visit to a medium, a practitioner of necromancy popularly known as the witch of Endor.4 Broken and desperate for relief from the Philistine army bearing down on him, the king asks the woman to summon the ghost of the prophet Samuel, who had parted ways with his erstwhile protégé upon God’s rejection of Saul. Yet Samuel offers no solace, merely affirming David’s right to the throne and Saul’s imminent demise. Saul’s turn to sorcery epitomizes his ineptitude as a servant of God and champion of Israel. The Laws of Moses condemn necromancy as an abomination, a ritual abhorrent to God. The story of Saul’s visit to Endor is therefore perplexing in its intimation that God deigned to answer Saul’s cry. That the medium seems to summon Samuel’s ghost, a feat unparalleled in the Hebrew Scriptures, raises questions extraneous to the demands of the scriptural narrative. Is the reader meant to understand that ghosts are real? Could necromancy actually work? Critical readers have labored to reconcile those distracting intimations with the story’s censure of Saul for hazarding to seek the medium’s sacrilegious services. My contention in this study is that the story exhibits no such tension. I submit that the account of Saul’s visit to Endor was meant not merely to indict the king for his latest sin but to ridicule a man driven to madness by his chronic error. Saul’s encounter with the ghost of Samuel is not meant to be understood as though it really happened. It is, rather, The prejudicial valence of the term “witch” discourages its application to a character ascribed no evil intention. The woman is described in 1 Sam 28:7 as ‫אוֹב‬-‫ֵאֶשׁת ַבֲּﬠַלת‬, literally “woman ghost mistress.” On that appellation, see Esther J. Hamori, Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 105–07. Hamori, ibid., 110, offers as translations “ghost-diviner,” “necromancer,” and “medium.” I prefer the NABR’s “medium” in the interest of brevity. 4

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a farce, a risible exhibition of the embattled king’s addled imagination. The incident thereby marks a darkly comic end to Saul’s tragic tale befitting his scriptural portrayal as a man fundamentally unfit to lead his people.

THE ENDOR STORY IN CONTEXT

The story of Saul’s encounter at Endor appears in 1 Sam 28:3–25 amid what scriptural researchers commonly know as the Deuteronomistic History. Comprising the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, the Deuteronomistic narrative recounts Israel’s past in view of the Babylonian conquest of Judah and its aftermath.5 It frequently evokes the ritual and ethical prescriptions articulated in Deuteronomy, in which Moses sets forth to his people the terms of God’s covenantal agreement with their descendants. The Deuteronomistic History employs the logic of the Deuteronomic covenant to explain the alternating fortunes of the fallen Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. When, its authors reasoned, their leaders adhered to the covenant, God rewarded their people with prosperity. When their leaders strayed from the covenant, God punished their people with suffering. The biography of Saul featured in the Deuteronomistic History exemplifies the work’s typical interpretive slant.6 At first, God’s chosen king successfully defends Israel’s territory against incursions by hostile neighbors (1 Sam 8–12). Yet he is soon The books in question were not conceived and integrated into a cohesive whole all at once. On the complex evolution of the Deuteronomistic History, see Thomas Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (London: T&T Clark, 2005), esp. 107–64 on its exilic edition. 6 On the Deuteronomistic stylings of Saul’s character arc, see, e.g., Yairah Amit, “The Delicate Balance in the Image of Saul and Its Place in the Deuteronomistic History,” in Saul in Story and Tradition (ed. Carl S. Ehrlich and Marsha C. White; Forschungen zum Alten Testament 47; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 71–79; Diana Vikander Edelman, King Saul in the Historiography of Judah (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series 121; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 27–36; John Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 250–64. 5

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undone by his rash leadership and inattention to God’s instructions (1 Sam 13–14). His breaking point arrives when Saul, having subdued the Amalekites, fails to obey God’s order to annihilate the last of Israel’s primordial enemy (1 Sam 15). Samuel articulates that divine directive in 1 Sam 15:1–3, clearly alluding to Deut 25:17–19.7 Saul’s decision to detain rather than kill Agag, the king of Amalek, and to take their best animals as spoils, results in his rejection by God and abandonment by his prophetic mentor Samuel. The king spends the rest of his life trying to reverse God’s decree though acts of righteousness rendered futile by his concomitant pursuit of David, whom he rightly suspects God has designated to succeed him (1 Sam 16–31). The Deuteronomistic aspect of the Endor story is unmistakable. The theological conceit that provides the Deuteronomistic History its characteristic narrative tendency is made painfully clear to Saul as Samuel cites the Amalek incident as the cause of the king’s looming downfall (1 Sam 28:18).8 Yet the very appearance of Samuel’s ghostly visage seems to defy the story’s Deuteronomistic character. Deuteronomy states that consulting a ֹ ‫)ִי ְדּ‬, among other divinatory ghost (‫ )אוֹב‬or familiar spirit (‫עִני‬ practices, is an effect of Canaanite culture anathematic to God (Deut 18:10–11).9 Its legislation appears to reflect an old, estabPace Fabrizio Foresti, The Rejection of Saul in the Perspective of the Deuteronomistic School: A Study of 1 Sm 15 and Related Texts (Studia theologica 5; Rome: Teresianum, 1984), 92–102, who reckons the Deuteronomic law a Deuteronomistic interpolation fashioned on the basis of 1 Sam 15. 8 See also 1 Sam 15:23, where Samuel likens rebellion against God to the sin of divination. Foresti, Saul, 130–36, and Van Seters, History, 261–64, plausibly assign the two stories to the same author. On the Endor story as a Deuteronomistic reckoning of Saul’s sin, see, e.g., Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Saul and the Mistress of the Spirits (1 Samuel 28.3–35),” in Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll (ed. Alistair G. Hunter and Philip R. Davies; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series 348; London: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 49–62; Edelman, King Saul, 241–51; Robert Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History, Part Two: 1 Samuel (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989), 217–21. 9 The legislation aligns with the abominable practices ascribed to King Manasseh in 2 Kgs 21:6 and the abolition of those practices ascribed to 7

JOSHUA EZRA BURNS

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lished taboo attested elsewhere in the Pentateuch.10 Isaiah supplies the law’s theological rationale, deriding necromancers for imputing godlike powers to the dead (Isa 8:19–20).11 The Deuteronomic prohibition figures prominently in the Endor story, which states that Saul had banished those who divined by ghosts ֹ ) or familiar spirits (‫עִנים‬ ֹ ‫ ) ִיּ ְדּ‬from his kingdom prior to the (‫אבוֹת‬ events it recounts (1 Sam 28:3).12 The apparent efficacy of her craft therefore seems incongruous both with the law and with the story’s tacit condemnation of Saul for yet another misguided covenantal transgression. Critical efforts to explain the seemingly paradoxical quality of the story have yielded largely unsatisfying results. Some scholars have sought to resolve the paradox by asserting that the very existence of the Deuteronomic legislation on necromancy presupposes its efficacy despite its denunciation by prophets and cultic legislators. The medium’s craft, therefore, though ostensibly offensive to God, is nevertheless consistent with the divine logic of its narrative setting.13 Others have argued that while the King Josiah in 2 Kgs 23:24, which raises the possibility that the Deuteronomic law is secondary to the Deuteronomistic History. See Graeme Auld, “Deuteronomy and the Older Royal Narrative: Some Core Questions,” in Deuteronomy in the Making: Studies in the Production of Debarim (ed. Diana Edelman et al.; Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 533; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021), 229–31. 10 Exod 22:18 records a generic denunciation of sorcery. Variations echoing the law’s Deuteronomy’s formulation appear in Lev 19:31; 20:6, 27, which may predate or postdate Deuteronomy depending on one’s assessment of the so-called Holiness Code. 11 See also Isa 19:3. Isaiah utilizes the same language as the Deuteronomic law, suggesting that his reasoning may inform the law. On the cultic context of Isaiah’s polemic, see Christopher B. Hays, Death in the Iron Age II and in First Isaiah (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 79; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 169–74. 12 The alignment of the highlighted terms in Deut 18:10 and 1 Sam 28:3 suffices to illustrate the relationship between the two passages. On the semantic ranges of the terms, see ‫ אוֹב‬I, DCH 1:148; ‫ִי ְדֹּעִני‬, DCH 4:113–14. On their functions in the Endor story, see Hamori, Women’s Divination, 105–10. 13 See esp. Yeḥezkel Kaufmann, “On the Story of the Medium (Hebrew),” in idem, Mi-kivshonah shel ha-yetsirah ha-mikraʾit: Kovets maʾamarim (Tel-

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medium’s ritual clearly offends Deuteronomistic sensibilities, its efficacy on the occasion of Saul’s visit is meant to be understood as a miracle, a singular intervention by God designed to ensnare the king in his debauchery.14 I find these arguments evasive. Rather than engage the logic of the Deuteronomistic History, they contort it to fit the terms of the story. That technique succeeds only in raising more unnecessary questions. Why would Deuteronomic legislators deem abhorrent to God a practice that, by their reasoning, can only be authorized by the same God? Why would God answer to an illicit ritual invocation on behalf of a man he deemed a reprobate sinner? I cannot imagine that a prudent Deuteronomistic author would tolerate these ambiguities. Where some have denied the story’s atavistic quality, others have confronted it. Many scholars have submitted the story as an old legend conceived before King Josiah’s Deuteronomic reform, when the popular practice of necromancy presumably was less of a theological liability than at the time of its incorporation into the Deuteronomistic History.15 By that reasoning, the medium’s Aviv: Dvir, 1966), 208–15. Recent treatments evoking Kaufmann’s include Reed Carlson, Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena, Ekstasis 9 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), 46–59; Miranda Vroon-van Vugt, “Divine Communication: God, a Prophet and a Woman. Conceptual Blending in 1Sam 28,3–25,” in The Books of Samuel: Stories, History, Reception History (ed. Walter Dietrich, Cynthia Edenburg, and Philippe Hugo; Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 284; Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 393–402. 14 See, e.g., Shaul Bar, “Saul and the ‘Witch of Endor’,” Hebrew Studies 62 (2021): 127; Blenkinsopp, “Saul,” 56; Moshe Garsiel, “Torn Between Prophet and Necromancer: Saul’s Despair (1 Sam 28,3-25),” Beit Mikra 46 (1996): 180–81. See also W.A.M. Beuken, “I Samuel 28: The Prophet as ‘Hammer of Witches,’” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 6 (1978): 3–17, who submits that it is not God but Samuel himself who heeds the medium’s call. 15 See, e.g., Mordechai Cogan, “The Road to En-dor,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 319– 26; Erasmus Gaß, “Saul in En-Dor (1Sam 28): Ein literarkritischer Versuch,” Die Welt des Orients 42 (2012): 153–85; Hamori, Women’s

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success summoning the ghost of Samuel is a literary relic that managed to resist Deuteronomistic censorship. Some have read the story as a postexilic addition to the Deuteronomistic History crafted by an author conditioned by Mesopotamian necromantic culture to entertain the possibility of its efficacy.16 By that reasoning, Samuel’s appearance owes to theologically regressive foreign influence and careless literary embellishment. The same reasoning applies to those who, though asserting the story’s Deuteronomistic provenance, assign its necromantic sensibilities to later scribal editors remiss in their development of an account that originally depicted Saul’s mission to Endor as an objective failure.17 Divination, 110–30; Theodore J. Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit (Harvard Semitic Monographs 39; Atlanta: Scholars, 1989), 104–17; P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary (Anchor Bible 8; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980), 421–23; Kerry M. Sonia, Caring for the Dead in Ancient Israel (Archaeology and Biblical Studies 27; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2020), 71–79; Josef Tropper, Nekromantie: Totenbefragung im Alten Orient und im Alten Testament (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 223; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989), 205–27. 16 Proponents of this approach read the Endor story as non-sequitur apology for prophecy or polemic against necromancy. See, e.g., KlausPeter Adam, “1 Sam 28: A Comment on Saul’s Destiny from a Late Prophetic Point of View,” Révue Biblique 116 (2009): 24–43; Daewook Kim, Prophetic Conflicts in the Deuteronomistic History (Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament 229; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2021), 29–49; Christophe L. Nihan, “1 Samuel 28 and the Condemnation of Necromancy in Persian Yehud,” in Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon (ed. Todd Klutz; Journal for the Study of the New Testament. Supplement Series 245; London: T&T Clark International, 2003), 23–54; Brian B. Schmidt, “The ‘Witch’ of En-Dor, 1 Samuel 28, and Ancient Near Eastern Necromancy,” in Ancient Magic and Ritual Power (ed. Marvin Meyer and Paul Mirecki; Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 129; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 111–29. 17 Proponents of this approach see Samuel’s implication in the séance as a prophetic apologetic applied to a story wherein Saul originally sought help reaching Yahweh or another deity. See, e.g., Walter Dietrich, David, Saul und die Propheten: Das Verhältnis von Religion und Politik nach den prophetischen Überlieferungen vom frühesten Königtum in Israel (Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament 7/2; Stuttgart:

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TRAGEDY AND COMEDY IN SAUL’S ENCOUNTER AT E NDOR

Although I find these source-critical interpretive strategies credible, I am not ready to acquit the Endor story of its expectation to abide by the rules of its received narrative setting. Regardless of when or by whose hand it acquired its seemingly paradoxical features, the episode is integral to the design of the Deuteronomistic History.18 Saul’s fateful exchange with Samuel convinces the king to take his own life rather than surrender to the Philistines. That decision allows David to claim the throne of Israel without having to exact violence against his predecessor and thereby risk undermining the legitimacy of his reign. The appearance of Samuel’s ghost was no editorial lapse. It had to happen to enable David’s accession. The question, to my mind, is whether the story’s author – by whom I mean the author of its received version – was willing to accept that it actually did happen. I contend that they were not. Rather, I submit that the author took care to depict Saul’s encounter with Samuel in terms its audience would find intelligible within the parameters of the narrative yet difficult to take seriously. Specifically, I believe that the author depicted the encounter as a projection of the king’s haunting memory of his previous meeting with the prophet. My interpretive strategy resembles that of Yairah Amit, who in a recent study likewise seeks to understand the story’s unexpected depiction of necromancy on its own terms.19 Amit likewise sees Saul’s encounter at Endor as a figment of his imagination. Anxious about his odds for victory in the looming battle with the Philistines, she argues, Saul turns to sorcery in a desperate attempt to obtain Kohlhammer, 1987), 25–36; Michael Kleiner, Saul in En-Dor: Wahrsagung oder Totenbeschwörung? Eine synchrone und diachrone Analyse von 1 Sam 28,3–25 (Erfurter theologische Studien 66; Leipzig: Benno, 1995), 168– 220; Timo Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie: David und die Entstehung seiner Dynastie nach der deuteronomistischen Darstellung (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Série B 193; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1975), 57–59. 18 For the following, see David G. Firth, “The Accession Narrative (1 Samuel 27–2 Samuel 1),” Tyndale Bulletin 58 (2005): 61–81. Though I do not share Firth’s skepticism about the Deuteronomistic provenance of the chapters he addresses, I agree with his assessment of their narrative coherence. 19 Yairah Amit, “Saul and the Necromancer (1 Samuel 28). A Different Interpretation (Hebrew),” Beit Mikra 66 (2021): 77–95.

JOSHUA EZRA BURNS

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divine assurance. Mindful, however, of Samuel’s past prediction of his downfall, the king manages only to fall deeper into his despair. Although I share Amit’s sense that the story depicts the encounter as a fiction, I differ in my sense of its dramatic function. Where Amit suggests that the reader is meant to feel compassion for Saul, I find the story’s author less charitable to the condemned king. To my mind, the author depicts Saul experiencing a psychotic delusion, a symptom of a wasting mental disease meant to be understood as just punishment for his sin. His depiction, moreover, is merciless, exploiting Saul’s indignity to perversely amusing effect.

SAUL’S PSYCHOSIS

Crucial to my understanding of Saul’s encounter at Endor is recognition of the king’s mental illness. The omniscient narrator of the Deuteronomistic History tells of Saul’s tragic turn following the Amalek incident in a somewhat maladroit fashion. God, they state, revoked the divine spirit he had set upon Saul following his anointment as king.20 God then dispatched in its place an evil spirit (1 Sam 16:13). The evil spirit proceeds to torments the king, stoking his fear of David and inciting him to eliminate his wouldbe successor (1 Sam 16:14–23; 18:10–11; 19:9–10). Saul’s murderous pursuit drives David from his court and, ultimately, into the company of the Philistines. Seizing the opportunity to capitalize on the instability of the Israelite monarchy, the Philistines invade Saul’s territory. The evil spirit thereby plays a determinative role in the sequence of events leading up to Saul’s visit to Endor. The contemporary reader will recognize Saul’s spirit possession as a theological etiology for his troubled psychological state.21 It is not an arbitrary diagnosis. The earliest surviving memorials to Saul preserved in the Deuteronomistic History recall See 1 Sam 6:6, 10; 11:6. The same spirit migrates to David in 1 Sam 16:13, briefly returning to Saul in 1 Sam 19:23 to distract the king from his pursuit of David. On the elusive nature of literary device, see Mareike Verena Blischke, Der Geist Gottes im Alten Testament (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2/112; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 10–24. 21 On Saul’s possession as a dissociative identity disorder, see Carlson, Unfamiliar Selves, 30–46; Madalina Vârtejanu-Joubert, Folie et société dans l’Israël antique (Théologie plurielle; Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004), 72–82. 20

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TRAGEDY AND COMEDY IN SAUL’S ENCOUNTER AT E NDOR

the king’s reputation for eccentric behavior, specifically his predilection for ecstatic prophesying (1 Sam 10:9–13).22 The exploitation of that character trait fits a Deuteronomistic literary pattern whereby the infirmities of Israel’s kings are construed as divine retribution for their sins.23 Thus, in the received account of his story, Saul’s penchant for delirious displays of religious fervor is developed into a highly corrosive psychological disorder. His self-destructive paranoia both warrants and accelerates the change in Israel’s leadership that Saul desperately dreads. By the time he reaches Endor, Saul is not well. He is, rather, a man at the end of his emotional rope. It is in view of his disturbed state of mind that I propose to read the story of Saul’s encounter with Samuel as a literary set piece carefully scripted to mock its protagonist for his inability to see the medium’s supposed séance for the hoax it really is.

SAUL’S DELUSION

The Endor story begins in 1 Sam 28:3 with a recapitulation of 1 Sam 25:1 noting Samuel’s death, burial, and mourning by all of Israel. This is followed by the aforementioned statement of Saul’s expulsion of mediums and diviners, a laudable cultic reform conspicuously not credited to the king earlier in the narrative. These non sequiturs set the scene to follow. Saul, surveying the Philistine encampment from Mount Gilboa, is struck by panic (1 Sam 28:4–5). He tries to call on God through various Mosaically sanctioned mantic means: dream visions, prophets, the Urim and Thummim (1 Sam 28:6).24 Finding no line to heaven, he asks his Presented in 1 Sam 10:12 and 19:24 as a familiar adage, the question “Is Saul also among the prophets?” alludes to the king’s participation in performances by prophets of dubious visionary skill. See Simon B. Parker, “Possession Trance and Prophecy in Pre-Exilic Israel,” Vetus Testamentum 28 (1978): 275–81; Vârtejanu-Joubert, Folie, 95–100. 23 On this motif, see Isabel Cranz, Royal Illness and Kingship Ideology in the Hebrew Bible (Society for Old Testament Study Monograph Series; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 31–59, with reference to Saul’s ailment, ibid., 34–44. 24 Saul’s turn to necromancy has been taken to denote the story’s function as a lesson about the right and wrong ways to communicate with God. See, e.g., Bill T. Arnold, “Necromancy and Cleromancy in 1 and 2 Samuel,” 22

JOSHUA EZRA BURNS

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servants to locate a female medium.25 They readily tell Saul of such a woman in the nearby town of Endor (1 Sam 28:7).26 Saul dons a disguise and sets out for Endor that evening along with two servants. Finding the woman with no apparent difficulty, he asks her to “divine” and “conjure” for him the ghost of an unnamed individual (1 Sam 28:8).27 The woman informs her visitor that Saul expelled mediums and diviners from his kingdom. She therefore accuses him of endangering her life (1 Sam 28:9). This exchange establishes the farcical tone of the scene. The woman

Catholic Biblical Quarterly 66 (2004): 199–213; Matthew Michael, “The Prophet, the Witch and the Ghost: Understanding the Parody of Saul as a ‘Prophet’ and the Purpose of Endor in the Deuteronomistic History,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 38 (2014): 315–46. I disagree. Saul clearly tries to reach God through cultically legitimate means. His resort to illegitimate means serves as a moral indictment of Saul consistent with his character development. An indictment of necromancy would be out of place at this juncture in the Deuteronomistic narrative. 25 Why Saul specifies the gender of the medium is unclear. Some have speculated that the medium’s craft involved gendered rituals or sexual manipulation. See, e.g., Blenkinsopp, “Saul,” 53; Pamela Tamarkin Reis, “Eating the Blood: Saul and the Witch of Endor,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 73 (2007): 3–23. Hamori, Women’s Divination, 110–14, persuasively deconstructs that interpretive premise. My sense is that the medium’s gender is meant to underscore the irony of her dominance of Saul, a comic trope seen in other scriptural tales of socially marginalized women (e.g., Rahab, Ruth). On this motif, see Melissa A. Jackson, Comedy and Feminist Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible: A Subversive Collaboration (Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 26 That his servants locate the medium with no trouble speaks to the inefficacy of Saul’s design to win back God’s favor. The Deuteronomistic History states that the Israelites failed to clear Endor of its indigenous population upon their settlement of Canaan (Josh 17:11–12). Although the medium identifies as an Israelite by way of recognizing Saul’s authority, she implicitly sustains an old local tradition resistant to Yahwistic cultural hegemony. 27 The term for divining, ‫ֶקֶסם‬, denotes an action forbidden in Deut 18:10. The term for conjuring, ‫ֵהֲﬠָלה‬, literally “to cause to go up,” corresponds with the action the medium offers to perform in v. 11. The duplicate verbiage may indicate a scribal clarification of the unlawful nature of the medium’s craft even as she avoids its performance.

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TRAGEDY AND COMEDY IN SAUL’S ENCOUNTER AT E NDOR

clearly recognizes the king.28 He is, after all, the tallest and most handsome man in Israel (1 Sam 9:2; 10:23). Moreover, she presumably saw his face at his coronation ceremonies, when all of Israel assembled to hail their new leader (1 Sam 10:20; 11:15). Saul’s change of clothes does not fool the woman. So, she tests him by feigning innocence to his game. Saul promptly fails the test, assuring his hostess that she will not be prosecuted for violating the king’s decree (1 Sam 28:10). Naturally, only the king can provide that assurance. Saul thereby unwittingly divulges his identity. As the king proceeds with his lame subterfuge, the medium finds herself in a precarious position. Saul seems to dare her to expose herself to prosecution by willfully violating his decree. But denying the dissembling king his request will imperil her just the same. The woman coolly asks whom Saul wants her to raise from the netherworld. He asks for Samuel (1 Sam 28:11). She senses an opportunity to let her visitor know that she knows who he is. That Samuel had been Saul’s mentor was no secret. The two had appeared together at Saul’s coronations. Disregarding the king’s request, the medium forgoes the illicit rituals of her trade and announces that Samuel’s apparition has surfaced at the mere mention of his name.29 And so, in a dramatic show of surprise, she informs Saul that he is, in fact, Saul (1 Sam 28:12).30 The medium’s ploy is transparent. Samuel was known to all of Israel (1 Sam 25:1; 28:3). Saul may well have countered that the king cannot be her only client who would seek the renowned prophet’s advice from beyond the grave. Yet Saul, fixated on his quest, registers no reaction to his discovery. He eagerly asks the Amit, “Saul,” 82–85, likewise recognizes the medium’s immediate detection of Saul’s identity. She interprets the woman’s adherence to her ritual as her design to assure the anxious king of her professionalism. 29 That the medium performs no ritual is noted by Hamori, Women’s Divination, 119, who nevertheless infers one. 30 Hamori, Women’s Divination, 120–21, discusses a history of inconclusive critical speculation as to how the woman recognizes Saul by virtue of Samuel’s appearance. She proposes to read the verse to indicate not that she saw (‫ )ֵתּ ֶרא‬Samuel but that she feared (‫ )ִתּ ָרא‬him upon Saul’s pronouncement of the prophet’s name, allowing for the defective spelling of the emended verb (ibid., 121–22). My reading obviates the problem. 28

JOSHUA EZRA BURNS

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medium to describe what she sees. She reports that she sees a god rising from the earth (1 Sam 28:13).31 Saul is not satisfied. Pressed for further detail, the medium says that the divine being has taken on the mortal likeness of an old man wearing a robe. The king immediately falls to the ground, casually violating yet another Deuteronomic statute as he bows in homage before what he believes to be the numinous presence of the deceased prophet (1 Sam 28:14; cf. Deut 5:9).32 Although the medium claims to observe Samuel’s spectral visage, what she actually sees is precisely what Saul sees: nothing. Insofar as one would expect Deuteronomistic sensibilities to govern the logic of the story, the woman is no true medium. She is a charlatan, a liar.33 Her industry is a sham and she knows it. The description she provides to establish Samuel’s identity is preposterously vague. Her account of an old man in a robe could describe any number of individuals living or dead.34 Yet the woman’s well-rehearsed shtick commands Saul’s attention. He is

The medium initially describes the ghost as ‫ֱאלִהים‬, the plural form of ‫ֱאלוֹ ַהּ‬, “god,” commonly used as an epithet for Yahweh. It seems to refer here to a nonspecific deity. For examples of like usage, see ‫ֱאלִהים‬, DCH 1:284–86. Some have read the term’s plural form as a trace of an earlier version of the story featuring multiple ghosts or deities. See, e.g., Carlson, Unfamiliar Selves, 54–55; Dietrich, David, 30; Manfred Hutter, “Religionsgeschichtliche Erwägungen zu ‫ אלהים‬in 1 Sam 28,1,” Biblische Notizen 21 (1983): 32–36; Kleiner, Saul, 134–35; Tropper, Nekromantie, 219–20. But the singular subject of Saul’s response in 1 Sam 28:14 (‫ָתֳּארוֹ‬-‫ַמה‬, “What does he look like?”) discourages that reading. 32 See also Exod 20:5. Saul’s “homage” evokes his groveling “worship” of God in 1 Sam 15:31 following Samuel’s condemnation of the king over the Amalek incident. Both verses use the term ‫ִהְשַׁתֲּח ָוה‬, “to bow” or “to prostrate oneself,” despite the divergent translations of the NABR. 33 Cf. 1 Kgdms 28:3 LXX et al., which render the medium a ventriloquist (ἐγγαστρίµυθος). Blenkinsopp, “Saul,” 55–56, proposes that the woman, practiced in throwing her voice, is shocked to see Samuel’s ghost precisely because she does not expect her phony ritual to work. 34 Scholars have posited that Samuel wears a robe typical of his prophetic office and/or the same robe torn following the Amalek incident (1 Sam 15:27–28). See, e.g., Beuken, “I Samuel,” 10; Edelman, King Saul, 245– 46; Polzin, Samuel, 218–19. The medium, however, assigns the robe no distinguishing features. 31

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TRAGEDY AND COMEDY IN SAUL’S ENCOUNTER AT E NDOR

desperate to believe that she can do what he asks of her. And so, the medium’s power of suggestion easily prevails over the king’s enfeebled mind.35 At this point, the narrative assumes Saul’s perspective. His face to the ground, the king imagines Samuel speaking to him. Samuel asks the king why he has disturbed him. Saul confesses his distress, lamenting that the Philistines are after him and God no longer answers his calls. He asks Samuel for guidance (1 Sam 28:15). Samuel rebuffs the king, asking Saul why he thinks God should help him now. The prophet affirms the fulfillment of God’s pledge following the Amalek incident to relieve Saul of his kingdom and give it to another, namely David (1 Sam 28:16–18). The prophet proceeds to tell Saul that God will deliver the king and his people into the hands of the Philistines.36 Finally, as though taunting Saul, Samuel promises that the king and his sons will join him in death the very next day (1 Sam 28:19). Saul collapses in terror, his fragile emotional state aggravated by physical weakness owing to hunger (1 Sam 28:20).37 Samuel tells Saul nothing he does not already know. The king knows that the enemy has him cornered. He knows that God will not come to his rescue. Still, overcome by his psychosis, he needs his estranged (and dead!) mentor to deliver the hard truths that he has refused to accept since their traumatic last exchange. The words ascribed to Samuel evoke his stern lecture to the king following the Amalek incident (1 Sam 15:17–19, 26–29). Ruefully Cf. Vârtejanu-Joubert, Folie, 124–28, who suggests that the medium manipulates Saul into partaking of her unholy ritual by exploiting his fraught mental state. Although I agree that Saul’s illness makes him especially susceptible to the woman’s deception, I discern no hostility in her treatment of the king. 36 That Samuel’s prediction later proves inaccurate is lost on commentators who construe his speech as a new prophetic oracle foretelling Saul’s fate. See, e.g., Arnold, “Necromancy,” 211; Beuken, “I Samuel,” 5; Garsiel, “Torn,” 178. Michael, “Prophet,” 325, conspicuously omits 1 Sam 28:19a in his account of the speech’s prophetic qualities. 37 That Saul has not eaten all day appears to relate to his prior attempt to induce a dream vision. Moses (Exod 34:28; Deut 9:9) and Elijah (1 Kgs 19:8) similarly are said to fast in preparation for divine encounters. For like considerations, see Carlson, Unfamiliar Selves, 57. 35

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remembering that day, Saul imagines the prophet confirming his longstanding suspicion of David’s royal intentions. His urgent fear of the Philistines likewise manifests itself in the king’s nightmare. In short, what Saul believes he hears from Samuel is entirely in the king’s head.38 Yet although Saul knows he is finished, he will not leave the stage. The medium, witnessing the king’s performance, is justifiably unnerved. His acquiescence to her act has shown him a dangerous fool. What she heard of his delusional exchange with Samuel was Saul’s frantic declaration that the Philistines assembled nearby are searching for him.39 The medium realizes that she is harboring a fugitive. Invoking his pledge that no harm will come to her, she pleads with Saul to take a bit of food and go away (1 Sam 28:21–22).40 Saul refuses. His servants join the woman, begging him to get up. Eventually, the king relents and takes a seat on a bed (1 Sam 28:23). Suddenly, Saul’s appetite returns to him. A bit of food will not do. He waits patiently as the

38 See Amit, “Saul,” 88–91, for a largely complementary assessment. As noted, Amit attributes Saul’s delusion not to his mental illness but to anxiety and despair over the coming battle with the Philistines. She nevertheless cites the attractive assessment of Isaac Abarbanel (1437– 1508) that Saul imagines the encounter, hearing what he thinks he hears because he is “defective and deranged” (‫ ;בעל מום וחסר השכל‬Abarbanel, Perush ‘al nevi’im rishonim [Jaffa and Jerusalem: Torah ve-Daat, 1955/1956], 296, cited in Amit, ibid., 89, n. 36). 39 That the medium does not respond to the words exchanged by Saul and Samuel has prompted some to speculate that she leaves the room after describing the ghost and returns upon hearing the king collapse. See, e.g., Amit, “Saul,” 88; Bar, “Saul,” 127; Garsiel, “Torn,” 181. Amit, ibid., 89, further contends that the entirety of the exchange is an internal discourse, none of it verbalized by the king. I find these arguments unnecessary. The medium’s sense that she is in danger is a reasonable response to Saul’s words. 40 The medium’s impetus to feed Saul has been taken as a formal conclusion to her necromantic ritual (Lewis, Cults, 117; Tropper, Nekromantie, 221–22), an attempt to reverse Saul’s fate (Beuken, “I Samuel,” 13), or an attempt secure his pledge of protection (Reis, “Eating,” 14–19), among other interpretations. I agree with Hamori, Women’s Divination, 122–23, that the woman means merely to give Saul the energy to get up and leave.

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woman prepares from scratch a meal of veal and bread plentiful enough to satiate the king and his men. Only after finishing their dinner do the three finally depart (1 Sam 28:24–25). Saul’s initial refusal to leave the medium’s home offers a caustic commentary on the irresponsible quality of his stewardship of Israel since the Amalek incident. The woman has no reason to fear the miserable mess of a man lying on her floor. She is worried about her safety should the Philistines track Saul to her home. The king, however, oblivious to the violence he has invited to her doorstep, will not deliver his defenseless subject from peril until his own needs are met. Saul’s childish disregard for the welfare of the medium erodes the last remaining measure of good will accrued to his once courageous character. As he faces his last stand, the erratic king does not deserve the reader’s compassion. He deserves nothing but contempt.

SAUL’S COMEUPPANCE

Previous accounts of the dramatic design of the scene at Endor have followed the tendency to plot Saul’s tale as an unqualified tragedy. It is, by that reasoning, a scene of heightened emotion. Saul is terrified by the fate that awaits him. The medium is terrified by Saul. Both are terrified by the ghost of Samuel.41 I acknowledge the dramatic tensions signaling those emotions at the story’s outset. Yet, I submit, the tensions dissipate as soon as the action gets under way. Saul reveals himself as a hypocritical buffoon. The medium establishes her intellectual dominance over Saul. What follows is a spectacle not of terror but of comic bathos. Saul, spellbound, cries out to a specter that no one can see and only he can hear. His hostess and servants serve as surrogates for the savvy audience, reacting not to the fearsome pronouncements of Samuel but to the bewildering monologue of a king bereft of his senses. So, what is the joke here? Efforts to find humor in the Hebrew Scriptures typically focus on tales featuring plucky protagonists and delightful reversals of fortune, the dripping sarcasm of the See, e.g., Exum, Tragedy, 22–25; Gunn, Fate, 108–09; Humphreys, Tragic Vision, 35–37. 41

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prophets as they satirize the sinful, and the droll reflections of the sages on the foibles of humanity.42 These motifs show the scriptural medium tolerant of mirthful surrender to God as a response to his inscrutable ways. The humor I discern in Saul’s delusion is not of that variety. Its essence is captured in the Psalm in which God is said to laugh at the vanities of the nations who plot against his people (Ps 2:4). The image of God reveling as he metes out retributive justice to those foolish enough to test his bond with Israel betrays a vicious comic sensibility allowing the faithful likewise to delight in the comeuppance of the wicked.43 Saul’s disturbing display at Endor would be pathetic were he a sympathetic character. But Saul is not a sympathetic character at this juncture in the Deuteronomistic narrative. His madness has disposed Saul of the heroic qualities once associated with his historical namesake. He is an antagonist to the valiant David, an incorrigible sinner, and a negligent leader of his people. Saul, in other words, is a caricature of himself, an exaggerated archetype of royal disobedience driven to villainy by the demands of the narrative. Even the king himself in his final scene before his visit to Endor agonizingly confesses that his senseless pursuit of David has made him a fool (1 Sam 26:21).44 It is that fool who soon finds See esp. J. William Whedbee, The Bible and the Comedic Vision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Other instructive studies include Jackson, Comedy; Thomas Jemielity, Satire and the Hebrew Prophets (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992); David Marcus, From Balaam to Jonah: Anti-Prophetic Satire in the Bible (Brown Judaic Studies 301; Atlanta: Scholars, 1995); Susan Niditch, Underdogs and Tricksters: A Prelude to Biblical Folklore (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987); Yehuda T. Radday and Athalya Brenner, eds., On Humor and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series 92; Sheffield: Almond, 1990). 43 See also Pss 37:13; 59:8. For like considerations, see Terry Lindvall, God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 14–15. The motif of violent, vindictive humor in the Deuteronomistic History deserves its own study. 44 See also 1 Sam 13:13, where Samuel calls Saul a fool. Exum, Tragedy, 30–31, reads these notices as signs of Saul’s tragic shortcomings. My reading, naturally, is less generous. 42

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himself on his knees humiliated before his subjects and pleading for a miracle. In another literary setting, Saul’s anguish would be tragic. Yet in its received setting, the image of a mighty warrior reduced to a sniveling coward by impulses beyond his control presents a wickedly funny lesson in divine justice.

CONCLUSIONS

The delusional nature of Saul’s exchange with Samuel is not comedic for the sake of comedy. It reminds the reader at a pivotal moment in his otherwise tragic character arc why Saul deserves the ignominious fate awaiting him on Mount Gilboa. The sham séance draws the king’s deceased moral retainer back into his story without violating the theological sensibilities of a narrative unwilling to condone the premise of communicating with the dead. The author’s subtle technique is lost on the reader inattentive to Saul’s psychological incapacitation and unsuspicious of the medium’s craft. To appreciate the reason for the king’s susceptibility to her trick is to find Saul’s encounter with Samuel not terrifying but absurd. Naturally, some may find it distasteful to laugh at a mentally ill man on the eve of his suicide. I doubt, however, that the audience for whom Saul’s tale was conceived would have shared that concern. Saul was an inconvenience for the authors of the Deuteronomistic History, a son of Benjamin who sat on a throne meant for the tribe of Judah. Their conviction that God must have willed his failure inevitably saddled the king with the reputation of a hopeless loser. And although his legend carried enough weight in Israel’s cultural memory to warrant its place in their annals, I doubt that anyone alive at the time of the composition of the Endor story was sufficiently sentimental about Saul’s nearly catastrophic reign to take offense at his ridicule.45 Contra Diana Edelman, “Did Saulide-Davidic Rivalry Resurface in Early Persian Yehud?,” in The Land that I Will Show You: Essays on the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Honour of J. Maxwell Miller (ed. J. Andrew Dearman and M. Patrick Graham; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series 343; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 69–91, who contends that the Deuteronomistic History’s positive notices about Saul prior to the Amalek incident signify

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Yet even if Saul’s psychosis was a literary affectation, the national psychosis it signified was real. The authors of the Deuteronomistic History and the survivors of Judah for whom they fashioned their work knew Saul’s pathos. After all, Saul’s story was their story, his triumph and tragedy portents of developments in store for Israel in the centuries to follow. The self-deprecating reflection on their abortive initial venture into sovereign statehood artfully inscribed in Saul’s Deuteronomistic biography would have provided its earliest readers a welcome outlet for comic relief as they pondered the uncertain future of their people.

the activity of postexilic movement to rehabilitate the king’s image and restore his royal line. I find that argument outlandish. See Nadav Naʾaman, “The Pre-Deuteronomistic Story of King Saul and Its Historical Significance,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 54 (1992): 638–58, who sensibly discerns traces of a preexilic biographical legend favorable to Saul.

RUN, MARY, RUN! THE FIGURE OF MARY MAGDALENE IN THE NEGRO SPIRITUALS M. SHAWN COPELAND Sister Mary came a runnin’ Jus befo de break o’ day, She brought de news f’om heaben, De stone done roll away . . . . The epigraph quoted at the head of this chapter comes from a Negro or African American spiritual that sings of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. This verse of the spiritual paints a picture of Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ disciples, running, breaking through not only the dawn but the gulf between heaven and earth to bring the news: ‘de stone done roll away! Jesus is risen!’ The horrific execution of the young Jewish rabbi was brutally real, and the enslaved singers recognized that brutal reality in their own anguish and pain. In one sorrow psalm, they cried out: They nail my Jesus down They put on him the crown of thorns, O see my Jesus hanging high! He look so pale and’ bleed so free: O don’t you think it was a shame, He hung three hours in dreadful pain?

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But death was not the end of the story: the Crucified One rose and enfleshed freedom. So those subjugated women and men sang: Weep no more, Mary, Jesus rises from de dead, Happy Morning.

The topic of my contribution to this volume regards the New Testament’s Mary Magdalene as depicted in select Negro spirituals. Perhaps, choice of a New Testament personage may seem curious or out of place in a Festschrift honoring Deirdre Dempsey who, after all, is a professor of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity. But, perhaps, the Jewish notion of midrash1 may function to bridge the distances between the Hebrew Bible or what Christians call the Old Testament, the New Testament or Christian Scriptures, and Negro spirituals. Technically, midrash is a style of rabbinic literature that compiles exegesis and commentary on biblical passages and events. If it is possible to extend this definition, then midrash might be perceived as a style of interpretation, of rewriting or recasting biblical passages or narratives in order to demonstrate the relevance of their implications for present circumstances.2 On this account, midrash “adds imaginative embellishments to the narrative to make it more vivid, ample, and edifying.”3 Of course, not every The word midrash (Heb. ‫)ִמ ְד ָרשׁ‬, writes Moshe David Herr, denotes “a particular genre of rabbinic literature containing anthologies and compilations of homilies, including both biblical exegesis and sermons delivered in public as well as aggadot [Aggadah or Haggadah] and sometimes halakhot [‘Jewish Law’] usually forming a running commentary on specific books of the Bible.” Moshe David Herr, “Midrash,” Encyclopaedia Judaica (ed. M. Berenbaum and F. Skolnik; 2nd ed.; Detroit: Macmillan, 2007), 14:182-5. 2 British critic and literary theorist Frank Kermode as a participant in a discussion on midrash at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem raised the issue of extending its definition. Kermode writes: “I was told right away, kindly but firmly, that midrash is literally incomparable. It is like nothing else whatever. Its combination of imaginative freedom and pious restraint, its variety, even its humor, are unique.” Frank Kermode, “The Midrash Mishmash,” The New York Review of Books (April 23, 1998): 45-48. 3 A. G. Wright, “Midrash,”, in New Catholic Encyclopedia (2nd ed.; Detroit, MI: Gale, 2003), 9.618-619. 1

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rewriting or embellishment qualifies as midrash. Merely referencing biblical texts or events in a new composition without careful attention to the original meanings does not equate to midrash. But, A. G. Wright proposes that sometimes the Biblical allusions and texts not only provide words and images for the new composition, but they do so in such a way that the finished product contributes to an understanding of the original texts. Such [interpretations] are midrashic.4

Through the spirituals, the enslaved poets make just such a contribution. These bards take into account the individual and collective experiences, feelings, suffering, yearnings, religious insights and visions of the enslaved people. Recalling and reconfiguring the ‘oral text’ (or the Bible as they knew it), they conflated and reshaped, embellished and elaborated characters and stories, parables and pericopes, events and miracles drawn from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The spirituals engage the ‘original texts’ in such a way as to deepen and extend their meanings, and, take on a midrashic quality. But if it is not possible to expand the definitional boundaries of midrash, the African American notion of conjure serves well. The Bible for the enslaved people, Theophus Smith explains, was “a magical formulary . . . a book of ritual prescriptions for reenvisioning and, therein, transforming history and culture.”5 In bringing about this transformation, the enslaved people combined “a remarkably efficacious use of biblical figures, with a historically transformative and therapeutic intent,”6 and, thereby conjured a culture, a meaning-world of their own making. Novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston asserts: “the Bible was made over to suit our vivid imagination.”7 Thus, as conjurational, the spirituals allow the enslaved people to testify Wright, “Midrash,” 618-619. Theophus H. Smith, Conjuring Culture: Formations of Black America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 3. 6 Smith, Conjuring Culture: Formations of Black America, 3. 7 Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1935), 5. 4 5

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that the God of Exodus is their God who will send them a Moses; that Jesus, beaten and tortured, abused and crucified shares their condition, is one of them; and that “When I feel discouraged and think my work in vain, then the Holy Spirit, revives my soul again. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole.” The spirituals conjure an afterlife or heaven that offers intimate reunion with mother or father, sister or brother, who had been sold away; and that makes available the deepest companionship in which they “argue wid de father and chatter wid de son.” Poet and historian Rachel Elizabeth Harding notes that musician, composer, civil rights activist, and Smithsonian curator Bernice Johnson Reagon “refer[red] to such intimacy with [the Divine] as a tendency in black religion to ‘get common with God,’ that is to relate to God almost as one would to a family member.”8 This chapter focuses on the figure of Mary Magdalene in the spirituals. The first section examines the historical and religiocultural contexts within which the spirituals were composed; the second, considers how, in spite of being forbidden by law and custom to attain literacy, the enslaved people encountered the Bible and re-framed it as an oral tex. The third section examines how the enslaved people came to make the spirituals––the preeminent window into their religious and aesthetic consciousness, experiences, and virtuosity. The fourth section regards Mary Magdalene as she has been presented in Christian tradition and the fifth attends to those spirituals that sing of her.

THE HISTORICAL AND RELIGIO-CULTURAL SETTING OF THE NEGRO SPIRITUAL

To borrow a phrase from John Lovell, the foremost scholar of the spirituals, the Negro or African American spiritual “was hammered out”9 on the anvil of chattel slavery. Having been sold or betrayed or kidnapped and force-marched to the Atlantic coast, various peoples of the continent of Africa found themselves Rachel Elizabeth Harding, “You Got a Right to the Tree of Life: African American Spirituals and Religions of the Diaspora,” Cross Currents 57.2 (2007): 266-280 at 278. 9 John Lovell, Black Song: The Forge and the Flame: How the Afro-American Spiritual Was Hammered Out (New York: Macmillan, 1972). 8

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chained in dark and foul dungeons, then, herded onto sailing ships and shackled below deck––bound for another and strange world. Once out on the ocean, children, youth, women, and men endured filth, handling, severe beatings, torture, sexual assault, and immeasurable psychic trauma. Statistics suggest that 15 to 30 percent of the captives died in the Middle Passage.10 “From Boston in New England to Montevideo in the Viceroyalty of La Plata,” writes Rachel Elizabeth Harding, the Africans found themselves scattered throughout the Americas in gold-mining towns in central Brazil; on sugar cane plantations in Jamaica and Cuba; in the coffee-producing hills of Venezuela; on cotton and indigo estates in the southern regions of the USA; and in homes, streets, rivers, fields and even small factories everywhere in between, Africans and their descendants, in generations of bondage, encountered and helped create the New World.11

Cut off from the category ‘human,’ deprived of personal liberty, denied political and legal rights, the enslaved people endured continual threat of psychological and bodily violation. The various forms of enslavement that they confronted aimed to control, possess, and dominate, and, just as often, sought to reduce incarnate spirit to mortgageable property, merchandise, fungible objects.12 Thus, the enslaved peoples had to wrestle with the tension between their commodified reduction and their own sense of who they actually were.13 To negotiate this tension, they re-configured their religio-cultural worldviews–– asserting their humanity in an inhuman situation. Philip Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 275. This rate varies in relation to the nation operating or backing the merchant slave ship. For example, Curtin notes that in the earliest years of the trade, the casualty rate suffered by Africans on Portuguese vessels was about 15 per cent, but after “nineteenth-century abolitionist pressure forced the slave-traders to take chances, the casualty rate rose to 25 to 30 per cent,” 276. 11 Harding, “You Got a Right to the Tree of Life,” 268-269. 12 See Page du Bois, Slaves and Other Objects (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003). 13 Harding, “You Got a Right to the Tree of Life,” 269. 10

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Historian of religions Charles H. Long explains that religion is entwined in the structure of human consciousness and all human beings possess a natural and innate tending toward transcendence, toward the Transcendent, toward God.14 For the peoples of the continent of Africa––whether Ashanti, BaKongo, Bini, Dahomean, Fante, Fulani, Igbo, Mende, Wolof, Yoruba, and many others––African Traditional or Indigenous Religions were distinctive and particular, yet these religions coalesce as innate tending toward transcendence. Thus, among these peoples, religion permeated every domain of human life, and the universe radiated and mediated powers and forces of the sacred––the supreme Deity, lesser divinities, and spirits.15 These peoples set no formal limits or rigid distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the spiritual and material domains of human living.16 The whole person and the whole of a person’s daily living were suffused with religious significance. African Traditional or Indigenous Religions neither proclaim nor exegete scriptures, neither require nor profess dogmas that demand assent and obedience. Rather, religion, this tending toward transcendence, is inscribed on peoples’ hearts and minds through oral histories, stories, poetry, song, ritual, dance, drumming, ceremonial practices, and religiously endowed personages.17 Thus, survivors of the Middle Passage did not meet the new world bereft of religion and tradition, history and culture, virtue and morality. Insofar as the enslaved peoples re-membered, recollected, fused, and improvised fragments of traditional practices and rituals, customs and mores, over time they 14 Charles H. Long, “The Religious Implications of Cultural Contact,” in Ellipsis: The Collected Writings of Charles H. Long (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), loc. 4330 of 13291, Kindle. 15 Africans distinguish quite clearly between one Supreme Deity and lesser divinities or gods. The notion of the existence of one supreme Deity and of lesser gods or divinities is common among many peoples of Africa. The supreme Deity is the source of power and authority within the pantheon of divinities or spirits. 16 John S. Mbiti, Concepts of God in Africa (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970), 2. 17 John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (2nd rev. ed.; Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1990), 5.

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developed ‘root paradigms’––cognitive and moral orientations, rites and rituals, aesthetic sensibilities and cultural mores. These were synthesized in order to ground a (collective and individual) religious consciousness that differed necessarily from their indigenous antecedents. These ‘root paradigms’ form the first stratum of a worldview that encounters and critically re-envisions Christian preaching and practice in the traumatizing experience of chattel slavery.

THE BIBLE AS “ORAL TEXT”

Prior to the First Great Awakening (roughly 1730-1755) and the evangelizing missions of the Baptists and Methodists, the enslaved people showed interest in Christianity. Because it was forbidden to enslave Christians, slaveholders initially were reluctant to baptize the enslaved Africans. But some slaveholders proposed that Baptism could shape enslaved people to docility, to acceptance of their fate as divinely ordained. To this end, the Bible was used to legitimate and to sacralize perpetual bondage.18 The ambiguity of slaveholders toward the religious of lives of their so-called ‘human property’ is well documented.19 Slaveholders attempted to control the enslaved people’s every gesture of personal or interpersonal or cultural independence, and many even monitored the people’s efforts at prayer and worship. On some plantations, the enslaved people attended white churchKatie Geneva Cannon argues that three ideological notions supported the exegetical strategies of slaveholding apologists: (1) the charge that the enslaved Africans were not human; (2) the claim that God had foreordained Black people to a life of subjugation and servitude to White people; and (3) the assumption that because the Bible does not expressly prohibit the buying and selling of human flesh, slavery was not a breach of divine law; see her, “Slave Ideology and Biblical Interpretation,” Semeia, vol. 49 (1989): 9-24; see also Peter Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619-1877 (New York: Hill and Want, 1973). 19 See, Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), Mechal Sobel, Trabelin’ On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979); and John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979). 18

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es, sitting or standing in designated areas; on other plantations, they were punished severely for praying and singing. On some plantations, a White minister was assigned to preach to the enslaved people, while on still other plantations they were permitted to hold unsupervised praise meetings that were sometimes led by an ‘enslaved’ preacher. In other situations, the people withdrew to woods, gullies, and thickets (called brush arbors or ‘hush arbors’) to pray and sing. Alice Sewell told her WPA (Works Project Administration) interviewer that many people in her area “used to slip off in de woods on Sunday evening way down in de swamps to sing and pray to our own liking.”20 In such tentative, but electric privacy, the enslaved peoples created spirituals, reconfigured African customs and spiritual practices of shouting, moaning, and dance; experienced spirit possession, and, not infrequently, prepared for escape and strategized rebellion. Not surprisingly, the enslaved people turned an unfavorable eye on Christianity as practiced by slaveholders, their agents, and collaborators. Slave narratives preserve the following account given to an interviewer by a formerly enslaved man: I often heard select portions of the Scriptures read. … On Sunday we always had one sermon prepared expressly for the coloured people. … So great was the similarity of texts that they are always fresh in memory: “Servants, be obedient to your masters, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers.” “He that knoweth his master’s will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes”; and [verses] of this [type]. … One very kind-hearted clergyman . . .was very popular with the coloured people. But after he had preached a sermon from the Bible that it was the will of Heaven from all eternity that we should be slaves, and our masters be our owners many of us left … considering, like the doubting disciple of old, “This is a hard saying, who can hear it.”21

Norman R. Yetman, ed., Voices from Slavery (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970), 263. 21 Martha Washington Creel, “Community Regulation and Cultural Specialization in Gullah Folk Religion,” in Africanisms in American Culture (ed. J. E. Holloway; Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), 51. 20

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The enslaved people were prohibited de jure and de facto from learning to read and/or to write. Those people who dared and were discovered reading or writing were whipped and sometimes mutilated by having a finger cut off.22 But, the people persisted, often with the help of an enslaved person who surreptitiously had learned to read or with the assistance of a free Black person or a White person willing to defy legislation and custom. With or without such help, the people took confidence in their own ingenuity and mnemonic skill: They listened intently during public readings of the Bible and sermons; some among them memorized chapters or portions of the Bible. These spoken fragments and passages became material for their meditation, reflection, sermonizing, and song. In this way, the enslaved people developed a tradition of African American interpretation. Hebrew Bible scholar Renita Weems argues that since slave communities were illiterate, they were, therefore, without allegiance to any official text, translation, or interpretation; hence once they heard biblical passages read and interpreted to them, they in turn were free to remember and repeat in accordance with their own interests and tastes. … [F]or those raised within an aural culture retelling the Bible became one hermeneutical strategy, and resistance to the Bible, or portions of it, would become another.23

The enslaved people, female and male, created from the written text of the King James Version of the Bible, what womanist theologian Delores Williams calls an “oral text.”24 The composition of this ‘oral text’ was a communal process: From among biblical texts preached in sermons or passages read aloud at (White) family prayers, members of the enslaved community See Lovell, Black Song, 257. Renita J. Weems, “Reading Her Way through the Struggle: African American Women and the Bible,” in Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation. 30th Anniversary Expanded Edition (ed. C. H. Felder; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021), 75; see also Allen D. Callahan, The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). 24 Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), 188. 22 23

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apprehended, evaluated, judged, and selected life-affirming texts. These passages or stories or sayings were memorized, repeated, reshaped, and purged of racist inferences. The people, Williams contends, “took from the Bible those things that assured them that they were under God’s care, that God would eventually bring justice to their cause. . . . This oral text was passed along from generation to generation of Black people in songs, tales, rhymes, stories, and sermons.” 25 The resulting oral text was judged to be the true word of God in the Bible. African American Christian faith came by hearing, by critical listening with the ear, the mind, and the heart. Indeed, biblical revelation provided the enslaved people with material for the singular mystical and political mediation of their condition— the spiritual.

THE SPIRITUAL

The poet and literary critic James Weldon Johnson held that many spirituals were the work of highly gifted individuals, whom, in a celebrated poem, he called “black and unknown bards.”26 Hurston maintained that the spirituals are “Negro religious songs, sung by a group, and a group bent on expression of feelings and not on sound effects.”27 In his magisterial study of the spirituals, Lovell traces 375 years of the existence of the spiritual, reckoning that the enslaved people probably composed roughly 6,000 songs including variants, although he refers to or cites directly more than 500. When asked about their method of composing their religious songs, formerly enslaved men and women often replied: “De Lord jes’ put hit en our mouf. … de Lord puts ebry word we says en our mouf.”28 One man recalled the making of a spiritual in this way:

Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, 188. James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson, The Books of American Negro Spirituals (2 vols.; New York: Da Capo Press, 1989), 11-12. 27 Hurston, The Sanctified Church (Berkeley, CA: Turtle Island, 1983), 80. 28 M. V. Bales, “Some Negro Folk Songs of Texas,” in Follow De Drinkin’ Gou’d (ed., James Dobie; Austin: Texas Folklore Society, 1928), 85. 25 26

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I’ll tell you; it’s dis way. My master call me up and order me a short peck of corn and a hundred lash. My friends see it and is sorry for me. When dey come to de praise meeting dat night dey sing about it. Some’s very good singers and know how; – –dey work it in, work it in, you know; till dey get it right; and dat’s de way.29

One formerly enslaved woman from Kentucky insisted that the spirituals were formed from the material of traditional African tunes and familiar songs. Here is her description of the process by which spirituals were made: Us ole head use ter make ‘em on de spurn of de moment, after we wressle wid de Spirit and come thoo. But the tunes was brung from Africa by our grandaddies. Dey was jis ‘miliar song . . . dey calls ‘em spirituals, case de Holy Spirit done revealed ‘em to ‘em. Some say [Master] Jesus taught ‘em, and I’s seed ‘em start in meetin’. We’d all be at the ‘prayer house’ de Lord’s Day and de white preacher he’d splain de word and read whar Ezekiel done say–– Dry bones gwine ter lib again. And, honey, de Lord would come a-shining thoo dem pages and revive dis ole [woman’s] heart, and I’d jump up dar and den and holler and shout and sing and pat, and dey would all cotch de words . . . dey’s all take it up and keep at it, and keep a-addin to it and den it would be a spiritual.30

What is a spiritual? A spiritual is sung or moaned utterance or chant of an enslaved African American in response to or about a given religious or ordinary or social experience that held communal and/or universal significance. In and through song, one woman’s or man’s experience of sorrow or shout of jubilation

Courtney Ebersohl, “Religion and Resistance in Enslaved Communities,” Virginia Center for Civil War Studies / Virginia Tech. https://civilwar.vt.edu/religion-and-resistance-in-enslavedcommunities/. 30 Jeanette Robinson Murphy, “The Survival of African Music in America,” Popular Science Monthly 55 (1899): 660-72, cited in Raboteau, Slave Religion, 244-45. 29

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became that of a group, of a people. But without a doubt, the spirituals are gifts of the Spirit. In creation and performance, these songs are marked by flexibility, spontaneity, and improvisation. A pattern of callresponse allowed for the rhythmic weaving or manipulation of time, text, and pitch; while, the response or repetitive chorus provided a recognizable and stable foundation for the extemporized lines of the soloist or leader.31 The vocabulary of the spirituals is intensely poetic and expressive, decorative and poignant, and characterized by vivid simile, personifications, creative and effective juxtaposition of images and metaphor.32 The spirituals may ‘sound’ simple, but they are not simplistic; they possess what African American Catholic liturgist and priest Clarence Joseph Rivers termed magnitude.33 With their dense mediation of unimaginable anguish and deep joy, thick melodic power, the songs control the singer who must bow to the flash of the Spirit. Spirituals provide a window on the religious, social, aesthetic, and psychological worldview of a people. At the same time, historian Vincent Harding encourages us: the spirituals are available to all persons who are prepared to open themselves to the unsettling, healing power that inhabits these marvelous songs of life. These songs were created out of deeply meaningful, archetypally human experiences, relevant not only to the specific circumstances of slavery but also to women and men struggling with issues of justice, freedom and spiritual wholeness in all times and places.34

The Negro or African American Spirituals challenge all humankind to openness, self-transcendence, and fidelity to Divine love; Portia K. Maultsby, “Africanisms in African-American Music,” in Africanisms in American Culture (ed. J. E. Holloway; Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), 193. 32 Dolan Hubbard and Bernard H. Sullivan, Jr., “‘Let My People Go’: A Spiritually Charged Mascon of Hope and Liberation,” The A. M. E. Zion Quarterly Review 97.3 (October 1985): 18. 33 Clarence Joseph Rivers, The Spirit in Worship (Cincinnati: Stimuli, 1978), 199. 34 Vincent Harding, “Foreword,” in Arthur C. Jones, Wade in the Water: The Wisdom of the Spirituals (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), xi. 31

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to eradication of injustice; to sowing seeds of the condition of the possibility of the Reign of God. The spirituals remind us that freedom and flourishing is the intention of the Divine for each creature, each human person. These sacred songs teach us that Christian living is inconsistent with powerlessness, dehumanization, hate, and deprivation. “Spirituals are vessels of the sacred––imbued with a dynamic, holy lifeforce that strengthens, blesses and animates being.”35 They are a gift to the whole of humanity from a people who, from their blood, want, and unyielding desire for freedom, conjured exquisite and wild and melancholy beauty. These sacred Black psalms form a powerful testimony to the creativity and spirituality, depth and complexity, generosity and goodness of the children, women, and men of the African Diaspora.

M ARY MAGDALENE IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION

Mary Magdalene appears thirteen (13) times in the New Testament. These passages record the fidelity of Mary’s discipleship: she follows Jesus as he preaches and teaches, stands at the site of his execution, surreptitiously observes his burial, mourns at his tomb, and is the ‘first witness’ to his resurrection.36 Long before before she became a subject of Negro spirituals, Mary from the town of Magdala held a complicated place in Christian literature: She was acknowledged for her singular witness to the resurrection, but treated ambivalently by the gospel writers and by Pope Gregory the Great, even as she was embraced by church leaders and theologians like Rabanus Maurus, Anselm of Canterbury, and Thomas Aquinas.37 Long before Mary Magdalene was welcomed into Negro spirituals, she was conflated and confused with other Marys in the gospels. First, consider that Mary or Miriam was a common Semitic female name. So it is not difficult to grasp that Mary MagHarding, “You Got a Right to the Tree of Life,” 267. Matthew 27:56-61, 71; 28:1-9; Mark 15:40, 47; 16:1, 9; Luke 8:2-3; 24:10; John 19:25; 20:1, 11, 18. 37 Arthur Roche, “Apostle of the Apostles,” https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/ articolo-roche-maddalena_en.pdf 35 36

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dalene may have been confused or conflated with Mary of Bethany, Mary the wife of Cleophas, or Mary the mother of James. Next, consider that Mary Magdalene often has been confused or conflated with the unnamed woman who carries an alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume into a room where Jesus has been invited to dine. This woman enters weeping, then, anoints his head or feet. When the host criticizes her, Jesus defends the woman and her actions.38 But the gospels do not identify this woman as Mary Magdalene. Although each of the four gospels records this incident with varying details, not a single one of them identifies this woman as Mary Magdalene. Finally, recall that Luke’s gospel presents Mary Magdalene as the one from whom seven demons had been driven (8:2); yet that same Mary Magdalene is named as one of the women who financially supported Jesus in his itinerant ministry (8:3).39 The early church held Mary Magdalene in regard, and as early as the third century she was recognized as ‘apostle of the apostles.’ The motivation for the shift from a portrait of Mary Magdalene as ‘apostle to the apostles’ to a portrait of her as a reformed prostitute freed from possession by sexual demons is not precisely clear. There is no evidence in the canonical gospels to warrant that accusation or the subsequent recasting of her image. But, in 594, Pope Gregory the Great preached a sermon that shaped the official position of the Roman Catholic Church for nearly fourteen hundred years: She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven demons were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven demons signify if not all the vices? … It is clear, brothers, that this woman previously used the unguent to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts. What she therefore displayed scandalously,

Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-8; Luke 7:36-47; John 12:1-8. Luke’s gospel does not name these women as disciples, although he states that “the Twelve were with him as well as some women” (8: 1-2). Still, his account in Acts of the Apostles about the spread and growth of the early Christian community explicitly identifies a woman, Tabitha (or Dorcas in Greek) as such (Acts 9:36).

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she was now offering to God in a more praiseworthy manner.40

Was this shift or recasting an intentional effort to erase the prominent role of a woman? Was it an intentional effort to protect and preserve male privilege and power? Or perhaps, this recasting was, writes Cynthia Bourgeault, “not so much conscious sabotage as unconscious projection. . . . [T]he work of the early church’s collective unconsciousness, the inevitable shadow side of its increasing obsession with celibacy and sexual purity.”41 The teaching that Mary Magdalene was a reformed prostitute was repealed only in 1969. On 3 June 2016, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments published a decree elevating and inscribing the celebration of Saint Mary Magdalene in the General Roman Calendar with the rank of Feast. This decree issued at the expressed request of Pope Francis declared that “Saint Mary Magdalene is an example of a true and authentic evangelizer, that is an evangelist who announces the central joyful message of Easter.”42

SINGING MARY M AGDALENE

On Lovell’s account, the enslaved poets and singers drew songpictures of twenty-four (24) characters named in the Hebrew Bible, three (3) of whom are women––Eve, Pharaoh’s daughter, and Delilah. Not counting Jesus, who is the heartbeat of the spirituals, fourteen (14) characters are included from the New Testament––four (4) of these are women––Miriam of Nazareth or Mary, the mother of Jesus; the sisters from Bethany, Mary and Martha; and Mary Magdalene.43 Gregory the Great, Homily 33, cited in Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2011), loc. 21 of 290, Kindle. 41 Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, loc. 22 of 290, Kindle. 42 Arthur Roche, “Apostle of the Apostles,” https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/ articolo-roche-maddalena_en.pdf 43 Lovell, Black Song, 262-263, 258-261. Sixty-three (63) spirituals were included in the first edition of Lead Me, Guide Me: The African American Catholic Hymnal (Chicago: G. I. A. Publications, 1987). 40

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The makers of the spirituals honor Mary Magdalene as the ‘first witness’ to the resurrection, the one whom Jesus sends (apostello) to announce his vindication to his other disciples and to direct them to meet him in Galilee. They ‘recall’ her walking with Jesus, following the ‘way’ he taught, for she was his disciple; they remind us of her proclamation of the resurrection, for she was an evangelist; and they emphasize her powerful love for Jesus. The following spirituals illustrate these characteristics: “Walk, Mary, Down de Lane,” “The Angel Rolled the Stone Away,” “He Arose,” “Mary Rolled the Stone Away,” and “Run, Mary, Run.” 1. “Walk, Mary, Down de Lane”

Although the canonical gospels provide no detailed account of Mary’s discipleship, they acknowledge that she was part of the company of men and women who traveled with Jesus, who followed him. “Walk, Mary, Down de Lane” suggest this walking. Three long nights, an’ three long days, / Jesus walkin’ down de lane Three long nights, an’ three long days, / Jesus walkin’ down de lane Walk, Mary, down de lane / Walk, Mary, down de lane Walk, Mary, down de lane / Walk, Mary, down de lane Jesus calls you, down de lane / Jesus calls you, down de lane Jesus calls you, down de lane / Jesus calls you, down de lane Walk, Mary, down de lane / Walk, Mary, down de lane Walk, Mary, down de lane / Walk, Mary, down de lane

Mary follows Jesus, she goes to him when he calls her. She walks the path that Jesus walks; she lives the ‘way’ that Jesus taught. Taking Mary as a model, the enslaved singer prays for strength and fortitude to walk in the path that Jesus walked, prays for endurance and courage to survive the physical and psychic abuse of enslavement. Alternatively, but without reducing the spirituals to coded communication, this song may function to alert enslaved people of a scheduled time and place for a meeting or for escape.

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2. “The Angel Rolled the Stone Away” Oh, the angel rolled the stone away! / The angel rolled the stone away! ‘Twas on a bright and shiney day, / When the trumpets began to play, The angel rolled the stone away! [Refrain] Sister Mary came a-running / Just about at break of day. She brought the news from heaven: / The angel rolled to stone away! [Refrain] Said the angel, “He is not here, He is risen as he said. Why do seek you the living, / Way down here among the dead?” [Refrain] Jesus said, “Don’t touch me, Mary, / But go on ahead of me. Go and tell all my disciples / To meet me in Galilee!” [Refrain]

In this spiritual, the enslaved poets assume that Mary has been in heaven, literally and metaphorically. “Sister Mary” comes running from heaven with the good news that the angel has rolled the stone away. Interpreting the song metaphorically, Lauri Ramey proposes two readings of this verse: first, that Mary may have felt as if she “were in a heavenly place” upon learning that Jesus had risen; and, alternatively, that Mary “actually might have gone to heaven, either in the body, ‘or out of the body,’ or in a dream state.”44 Both interpretations find support in biblical narratives and in the religious experiences of the enslaved people. Biblical examples include the dream in which Jacob climbs a ladder, higher and higher to heaven (Gen 28:12); or Paul’s confession of being “caught up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body” (2 Cor 12:2). Similar experiences are found in conversion narratives related by emancipated people who state quite factually that “God struck me dead with his power”45 or that at God’s command their souls have traveled to heaven or to hell. Indeed, “dream consciousness was believed by the [en]slaved community to be a metaphysical gift from God that had placed

Lauri Ramey, Slave Songs and the Birth of African American Poetry (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 74. 45 Clifton H. Johnson, ed., God Struck Me Dead: Voices of Ex-Slaves (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1993), 59–60. 44

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the one experiencing conversion outside of the temporal self” for the purpose of contemplation.”46 This spiritual resonates with the Johannine narrative of the resurrection (John 20: 1-18). Mary comes to the garden alone in the fading darkness carrying no materials with which to anoint the body of Jesus. She sees that the tomb is empty, then runs to Peter and the Beloved disciple. The gospel records that Mary speaks to the two Men: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20: 2). But neither Peter nor John speak to her. The men run to the tomb; they want to see for themselves. Finding only the linen wrappings and the cloth that had been placed on Jesus’ head, they go leave and returned to their homes (20: 4-10). But, Mary remains, weeping in the dawning light. She leans into the tomb and sees two angels sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying. They question her tears. In anguish, Mary turns to face a man whom she presumes to be the gardener. She does not recognize Jesus until he says her name; instinctively, she reaches out to touch him. New Testament scholar Allen Callahan states that “the correct rendering of John 20:17 is not ‘Don’t touch me’ but ‘Stop touching me.’ “47 Philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy suggests that the Greek phrase also may be translated to mean ‘to hold back, to stop.’ He argues that “Christ does not want to be held back, for he is leaving. He says it immediately: he has not yet returned to the Father, and he is going toward him. To touch him or to hold him back would be to adhere to immediate presence …”48 Mary, weeping in shock and joy, desires and attempts to hold onto Jesus. ‘Stop touching me,’ ‘Don’t hold me back,’ he says. Jesus has a mission for Mary; he sends her to his terrified comrades, hiding behind locked doors in a room in Jerusalem. Mary runs to the city and announces to the disciples: “I have seen the Lord” (20:18). Earl Riggins, Dark Symbols, Obscure Signs: God, Self, and Community in the Slave Mind (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), 53. 47 Allen Dwight Callahan, A Love Supreme: A History of the Johannine Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 93. 48 Jean-Luc Nancy, Noli Me Tangere: On the Rising of the Body (tr. S. Clift, P.-A. Brault, and M. Naas; New York: Fordham University Press, 2008). 46

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Callahan points out that African American women in the nineteenth century “recognized” Mary Magdalene as the first to proclaim the resurrection and claimed her as “the patron saint of their public voice.”49 In her autobiography, Jarena Lee, a freeborn Black woman, reflects upon and relates her religious experience– –awakening, conversion, commitment to prayer and growth in holiness. Then, Lee writes that one day she distinctly heard a voice instructing her to “Go preach the Gospel!” When she demurred, the voice insisted: “Preach the Gospel; I will put words in your mouth, and will turn your enemies to become your friends.”50 Lee approached Bishop Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and asked permission to preach. She framed her request by arguing, “Did not Mary first preach the risen Saviour, and is not the doctrine of the resurrection the very climax of Christianity––hangs not all our hope on this, as argued by St. Paul? Then did not Mary, a woman preach the gospel? for she preached the resurrection of the crucified Son of God.”51 Allen refused. But eight years later, Allen heard Lee give a spontaneous sermon when the scheduled preacher petered out. Immediately, Allen publicly admitted his error; he acknowledged and supported her call.52 In September 1833, Maria Stewart, a freeborn Black woman, addressed a crowded audience at the School Room on Belknap Street in Boston, Massachusetts. This was Stewart’s farewell to friends in the city.53 In this speech, she recalled the religious

49 Allen Dwight Callahan, “The Gospel of John,” in True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary (ed. B. L. Blount, et al.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 208. 50 Jarena Lee, “The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee, A Coloured Lady, Giving an Account of Her Call to Preach the Gospel,” in Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century (ed. W. L. Andrews; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 35. 51 Lee, “The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee,” 36. 52 Lee, “The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee,” 36. 53 Marilyn Richardson, ed., Maria Stewart: America’s First Black Woman Political Writer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 65-74. Maria Stewart, neé Miller, is the first US born woman of any race to speak

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experience that motivated her to “consecrate” her “soul and body, and all the powers of [her] mind” for the cause of God and her people.54 This experience invested her with a prophetic vocation: her religious vision grew out of and was shaped by the cultural, political, and economic situation in which she and her people– enslaved and free–found themselves. When her right as a woman to speak in public was challenged, Stewart appealed to Mary Magdalene as a precedent-setting example: “What if I am a woman, is not the God of ancient times the God of these modern days? Did he not raise up Deborah, to be a mother and a judge in Israel? Did not queen Esther save the lives of the Jews? And Mary Magdalene first declare the resurrection of Christ from the dead?”55 Like Mary Magdalene, Jarena Lee and Maria Stewart were inspired to proclaim a radical change in the existing order, to proclaim possibilities of new life and hope. Indeed, one variant of the spiritual “Run, Mary, Run,” insists “I know de udder worl’ is not like dis.” Lee and Stewart condemned slavery, tyranny, injustice, and ignorance; they too ran toward a better world. 3. “He Arose” He ‘rose, he ‘rose, he ‘rose from the dead, He ‘rose, he ‘rose, he ‘rose from the dead, He ‘rose, he ‘rose, he ‘rose from the dead, He ‘rose, he ‘rose, he ‘rose from the dead And the Lord shall bear my spirit home. [Refrain] They crucified my Savior / And nailed him to the cross (repeated twice) And the Lord will bear my spirit home. [Refrain] Joseph begged his body / And laid it in the tomb (repeated twice) And the Lord will bear my spirit home. [Refrain] Mary, she came running, / A-looking for my Lord (repeated twice) And the Lord will bear my spirit home. [Refrain] on political matters, and to do so before ‘promiscuous’ or mixed audiences—female and male, Black and White. 54 Richardson, Maria Stewart: America’s First Black Woman Political Writer, 66. 55 Richardson, Maria Stewart: America’s First Black Woman Political Writer, 68.

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This spiritual tells the resurrection story in a straightforward manner and correlates with accounts from the Synoptic Gospels, particularly those of Mark and Matthew. The spiritual reports miraculous action: “Down came an angel and rolled the stone away.”56 Then, Mary enters the scene weeping; she is seeking the body of Jesus. Rather than repeat the line “O Mary came aweeping her Savior for to see,” the enslaved poet introduces another idea: “The Lord had gone to Galilee.” Here, the spiritual concurs with the Synoptics on the “new” spatial location of the body of the risen Lord (Matt 28:10, 16; Mark 16:7; Luke 24:6). In the geography of the spirituals, Galilee most often refers to the ‘home’ country of Jesus, his disciples, his followers, and believers. The line “The Lord had gone to Galilee” may well suggest a space or place of new life and freedom, a refuge from the brutality of the plantation. Or, perhaps this line is a subtle warning or a signal for escape. Still, the singer repeats: “The Lord shall bear my spirit home.” The enslaved singer stands hopeful of freedom, of release from bondage. Ellen Butler, a formerly enslaved woman, stated that the enslaved people continually sang and prayed for freedom.57 Alice Sewell concurred, declaring that the enslaved people prayed “to God that if we don’t live to see [freedom], please let our children live to see a better day and be free.”58 4. “Mary Rolled the Stone Away” Mary rolled the stone away Early on an Easter Sunday morning Jes’ about the breaking of the day Angel came from heaven Mary Rolled the stone away

The Gullah-speaking people of the Sea Islands that extend along the coast of South Carolina exemplify and retain African 56 “Rarely,” writes Lovell, “does the angel of the spiritual work alone.” But this particular angel is “celebrated . . . because he rolled the stone away at some time between Good Friday evening and Easter sunrise.” Black Song, 238. 57 James Mellon, ed., Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember, An Oral History (New York: Avon Books, 1988), 190. 58 Yetman, ed., Voices from Slavery, 263.

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traditions of creativity in shaping, preserving, and transmitting their religio-cultural life. Their Moving Star Hall Singers, led by Ms. Janie Hunter, sing “Mary Rolled the Stone Away” in less concertized fashion than did Paul Robeson or Marian Anderson. Musician, composer, civil rights activist, and Smithsonian curator Bernice Johnson Reagon recalls the first time as a young college student that she heard their style of singing: “I had never heard or seen this song style before. … the singing sounded ancient and the shouting and rhythms more complex than anything I had ever attempted myself. …Every note had a wave to it, a curve of sound loaded with vocal power and emotion.”59 In the longer ending of Mark’s gospel (16:1-2), Mary of Magdala with Mary the mother of James, and Salome bring embalming paraphernalia to wash and treat the body of Jesus. As they walk, the women wonder aloud, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” Peering through the murky dawn, the women see that the stone has been rolled away (Mark 16:1-4). On the other hand, the spiritual credits Mary Magdalene with rolling away the stone; indeed, before the angel can arrive, Mary has taken care of business. Recall Jesus’ words: “Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you” (Mark 11: 23). In the imagination of the enslaved singer, Mary moves the stone through loving faith; she believes in Jesus and she loves him. Mary’s ardent and powerful love rolled the grave stone away. At great physical and psychic cost, enslaved women pitted Bernice Johnson Reagon, “Afterword,” in Ain’t You Got a Right to the Tree of Life: The People of Johns Island, South Carolina––Their Faces, their Words, and Their Songs (ed. G. Carawan and C. Carawan; Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1966/1989), 235-236. Reagon is a musician, composer, civil rights activist, a founder of the a cappella singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Smithsonian Curator. See also, Been in the Storm So Long: A Collection of Spirituals, Folk Tales and Children’s Games from Johns Island, South Carolina, Folkways Smithsonian, (1966-67; Audio CD January 1990); transcription from Sing Out, vol. 14, no. 2 (1965), 2. 59

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themselves against threats and obstacles for the sake of their children. An emancipated woman, Fannie Moore told her WPA interviewer that on the plantation where she was held, the overseer “hated [my] mother,” because she would fight with him whenever he beat her or her children (Fannie Moore’s siblings).60 Like Mary Magdalene, enslaved women moved obstacles, pushed aside stones of every sort that physically or mentally sought to hinder their objectives. These women did not wait for someone else to come along, but acted. Love moved them and out of love they moved and acted. 5. “Run, Mary, Run” Run, Mary, run Run, Mary, run I say Run, Mary, run You got a right to the tree of life. [Refrain] You got a right, you got a right / You got a right to the tree of life Little Mary, you got a right /You got a right to the tree of life Hebrew children got a right /You got a right to the tree of life [Refrain] Weeping Mary, you got a right /You got a right to the tree of life [Refrain] Cross is heavy, but you got a right /You got a right to the tree of life [Refrain] Come to tell you, you got a right /You got a right to the tree of life [Refrain] Children gone, but you got a right /You got a right to the tree of life [Refrain]

This spiritual conjures a range of meanings. Even if, “Run, Mary, Run” conflates Mary Magdalene and/or Miriam of Nazareth and/or Mary of Bethany––Mary must run! When enslaved Black women heard this song, they thought of the weeping mother of Jesus of Nazareth whose son was tortured and crucified or Mary weeping at the tomb of her brother Lazarus, or Mary weeping in shock at the empty tomb and the missing body of Jesus. Like all the Marys, enslaved Black women lived under an oppressive 60

Yetman, Voices from Slavery, 227.

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political and social system; like other subjugated women in the Roman empire, these Black women often were beaten, abused, and raped; and like those women who lost children to conscription or vile sexual enticement or slavery, enslaved Black women lost children and husbands and partners to sale in payment for a planter’s debts or sordid sexual coercion or death by brutal flogging. When these Black women heard this song, they may well may have heard or sensed a coded command to run–– run away, escape; don’t stop running until you reach freedom land; run to life, run for life. Run--children, husbands, partners, mothers, fathers, sisters sold and gone. Run, Mary, run I say; run to God. Run, you got a right to the tree of life. The spirituals, and this one in particular, mediate religion as an embodied experience. Reagon observes that the spirituals were a means of opening up a pathway to an-other and embodied way of knowing: “Running the songs through the body” she points out, offers a “different understanding,” opens a path to “an-other way of knowing who one is in the world.”61 Mary Magdalene may have surreptitiously trailed Joseph of Arimathea to ascertain the precise location of the garden tomb where the body of Jesus was laid, but she ran to announce her joyous encounter with the risen Lord! In the spirituals, Mary Magdalene runs a victory lap. The spirituals, “Walk, Mary, Down de Lane,” “The Angel Rolled the Stone Away,” “He Arose,” “Mary Rolled the Stone Away,” and “Run, Mary, Run,” sing Mary Magdalene, a woman whose love would not and could not be quenched or swept away. Mary Magdalene shows us that love is stronger than death; that love can push aside gravestones and that the flames of love are the fiercest of all fires––moving between earth and heaven (Song of Solomon 8:7), blazing a path to freedom and flourishing.

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Quoted in Harding, “You Got a Right to the Tree of Life,” 279.

“THE SCHOLZ EFFECT” ON THE DEMPSEYS: EXPLORATIONS ON WRITING COMMENTARIES ON THE BOOK OF ISAIAH CAROL J. DEMPSEY, OP “DEMPSEY” MEETS “DEMPSEY”: THE TALE OF TWO U NRELATED BIBLE SCHOLARS

In 1989-1994, I attended the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC and received my Ph.D. in Biblical Studies in 1994. One of my professors of Hebrew in the Semitics Department, located in the bowels of Mullen Library, was Brother Aloysius Fitzgerald, FSC. Although I never sat in class with Deirdre Dempsey, known to her friends as “Dede,” I felt her presence in every Hebrew class when Brother Aloysius would say to me, “Go ahead and translate the next text, Deirdre.” No matter how many times I told Fitzgerald that I was “Carol Dempsey,” it did not matter. To him, I was Deirdre, and he was always surprised at my translations because they were never as polished as Dede’s since she was in the Semitics department and I was in that “other” department, Biblical Studies. I often wondered, “Who is this person, Deirdre Dempsey?” But I never met her because she had graduated a few years before me. 91

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In 1994, I was on the job market. I applied to Marquette University and ironically, so did Dede. There we were, Carol Dempsey and Deirdre Dempsey, interviewing for the same position. Dede accepted the position at Marquette University, and I accepted a position at the University of Portland. Dede and I finally met as colleagues at a Catholic Biblical Association (CBA) meeting. We shared stories of our graduate-school days and soon became not only colleagues but also friends. Ever since we have laughed and worked together, most recently on a translation project, with an occasional beer at the CBA in between. Like my own area of interest, Dede also enjoys working with the book of Isaiah. She wrote her dissertation on Second Isaiah, and now I am writing a feminist commentary on Isaiah for the Wisdom Commentary Series. Dede is writing on 2 Samuel for the same series. Soon, two different commentaries by “Dempsey” and “Dempsey” will appear in print in the same series. As her colleague, I have always respected Deirdre’s keen linguistic sense, her precise and insightful translations, her patience with making sense out of corrupted texts, and her wonderful sense of humor that reminds all her colleagues never to take the biblical text or ourselves too seriously. Thus, with great delight, I offer this essay on Isaiah for her Festschrift. I celebrate with her the many years of collegiality and friendship. This essay is a “thank you” gift for you, Dede, with much gratitude for the dedicated scholar, professor, and colleague you have been, and for the work you have done throughout your career. The essay also serves as an incentive as you begin your new project, the writing of a feminist commentary on 2 Samuel, as I also commence my work on the book of Isaiah.

DEFINING BIBLE COMMENTARIES AND SETTING THE STAGE FOR NEW DIRECTIONS

As a genre, commentaries have a long and rich history. First produced by male scribes and scholars, the oldest commentaries are among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Habakkuk (1QpHab) is undoubtedly the best-known commentary, dating from around the 2nd-1st century BCE. The most famous of all commentators is Philo

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of Alexandria1 whose four books on Genesis and two on Exodus provide short verse-by-verse expositions. Since that time, Jewish and Christian scholars, and many others, have produced copious commentaries that focus on biblical texts and their imagined reconstructed allegorical and later on also historical worlds. Attempting to establish “the meaning of the text,” many commentators have aimed to determine authorship, as they have discerned authorial intention and deciphered textual variants. As a genre invented by male-identified scholars, most commentaries follow a verse-by-verse, unit-by-unit linear form of organization, and their content often reflects androcentric hegemonic, phallogocentric interests. This approach has shaped the field ever since. In an article on Bible commentaries entitled “Why Comment? Reflections on Bible Commentaries in General and Andrew Lincoln’s The Gospel According to Saint John in Particular,”2 contemporary Bible scholar Adele Reinhartz notes that commentaries should be comprehensive. Usually arranged in sections that feature verse by verse or unit by unit comments, they focus on the philological, textual, historical, and literary dimensions of the biblical texts. Reinhartz observes that some commentaries even remark on the interpretation history, providing various scholarly views in addition to those of the interpreter writing the commentary. Reinhartz also stresses that certain constraints, such as intended audiences, publishers’ and editors’ guidelines, and production costs, usually factor into the depth, breadth, and length of commentaries. Emphasizing that most commentaries function as reference resources with few readers reading commentaries sequentially or in their entirety, she states: As a university professor of Early Christianity, I utilize commentaries both for my teaching and my research. In preparing my course syllabi, I often include one or more comThe dates for Philo’s birth and death are unknown. Most likely he was born sometime between 20 and 10 BCE and died sometime after 41 CE. 2 For further discussion, see Adele Reinhartz, “Why Comment? Reflections on Bible Commentaries in General and Andrew Lincoln’s The Gospel According to Saint John in Particular,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 29 (2007): 333-342. 1

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THE “SCHOLZ EFFECT” ON THE DEMPSEYS mentaries either as core texts or as supplementary readings. To be included on my list, the commentary must have a comprehensive introduction that covers the traditional methodologies, but it must also present and value feminist, literary and social-scientific approaches.3

Reinhartz’s views and article position invites scholars to peruse the commentary landscape, especially for Isaiah, a poetic text that continues to capture Professor Deirdre Dempsey’s attention and interest since the days of her Second Isaiah dissertation. Thus, my question is the following: Do new possibilities exist for the ageold genre of commentaries? This essay explores this question with a focus on Isaiah. Investigating select Catholic and non-Catholic commentaries, my analysis determines if the commentaries perpetuate the androcentric convention of a verse-by-verse, unit-by-unit linear organization, if the commentaries reflect male hegemonic, phallogocentric interests, and if new possibilities exist for the age-old genre. The first section considers three Catholic commentaries: Isaiah by Thomas Aquinas,4 the Collegeville Bible Commentary on Isaiah by Leslie J. Hoppe,5 and the Isaiah Study Bible by Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch with Mark Giszczak.6 The second section explores three non-Catholic commentaries: the Smyth & Helwys Commentary on Isaiah 1-39 by Patricia K. Tull,7 the Hermeneia Commentary on Deutero-Isaiah by Klaus Baltzer,8 and the International Critical Commentary on Isaiah 56-66 by John Reinhartz, “Why Comment? Reflections on Bible Commentaries in General and Andrew Lincoln’s The Gospel According to Saint John in Particular,” 334-335. 4 Saint Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2021). 5 Leslie J. Hoppe, O.F.M., Isaiah (New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament 13; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012). This work also appears as a chapter in the single volume New Collegeville Bible Commentary (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017), 733-779. 6 Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch with Mark Giszczak, Isaiah (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible; San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2019). 7 Patricia Tull, Isaiah 1-39 (Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary; Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2010). 8 Klaus Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001). 3

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Goldingay.9 The third section discusses Susanne Scholz’s commentary on 1 Samuel that advances a new paradigm for the commentary genre in general and, in my view, for a commentary on Isaiah in particular. A conclusion summarizes salient points, also suggesting future directions for commentaries yet to be written.

PERUSING THE LANDSCAPE OF COMMENTARIES BY ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOLARS: THOMAS AQUINAS, LESLIE J. HOPPE, SCOTT HAHN, CURTIS M ITCH, AND M ARK GISZCZAK

Several recently published Catholic commentaries on Isaiah appeared in the last few years but three stand out. One of them is a new edition of Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on Isaiah. Aquinas, a philosopher and theologian whose influence on hegemonic Western Christianity and Roman Catholicism continues to be monumental, wrote this work in Latin sometime between 1256-1259 CE or 1269-1272 CE. Louis St. Hilaire translated it into English.10 The commentary is based on the Latin Vulgate11 and follows the sequential chapter organization of John Goldingay, Isaiah 56-66 (New York: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2014). 10 Louis St. Hilaire, an author, translator, and software engineer, specializes in digital tools for the study of Latin and the Catholic tradition. He works at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, founded by Scott Hahn, co-author of the Isaiah commentary commented on earlier in this essay. Emmaus Academic that published Aquinas’s commentary on Isaiah is the publishing arm of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology whose mission is to participate in the “renewal of Catholic theology” by publishing works that reflect “provocative thought that flows from a commitment to the truth revealed in Scripture and Tradition and interpreted by the Magisterium.” Scott Hahn is the editor-in-chief of Emmaus Academic. https://www.emmausacademic.com/ 11 The Vulgate was largely the work of Jerome Stridon who was commissioned in 382 CE by Pope Damascus I to revise the Vetus Latina Gospels used by the Roman Church. Jerome eventually revised and translated most of the books of the Bible. He translated the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. Eventually the Vulgate replaced the Vetus Latina, making the Vulgate the official Bible text within the Western Church. The Vulgate also contains a few books from the Vetus Latina that Jerome did not work on. In 1590 the Sixtine Vulgate became the Catholic 9

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Isaiah, beginning with chapter 1 and ending with chapter 66. Each chapter is subdivided into “lectures,” and comments on words, phrases, and sentences are numbered and appear consecutively, 1 through 1152. Focusing on the literal and authorial meaning, Aquinas employs an Islamo-Aristotelian philosophy and an early Christian lens to interpret the biblical texts from his Christian faith perspective. Consistent with most medieval readings, Aquinas appeals to patristic literature and other biblical texts as he reads Isaiah. Because of Aquinas’s theological and philosophical worldview of the Middle Ages, his social location, and his rootedness in scholasticism, the commentary is more reflective and theological than analytical. The work offers different interpretations for a verse and passage, but little adjudication among differing interpretations occurs. Cultural dynamics, particularly hegemonic masculinity, are thus evident in the interpretations. For example, in Isa. 3:1-7 the male deity appears as a royal commander-in-chief, a hypermasculine male who takes charge, threatening to annihilate all of Jerusalem’s and Judah’s male leaders, “the strong man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the diviner, and the ancient” (v. 2) because they allowed political and social chaos. Aquinas, offering no comment on the deity’s exercise of hegemonic power, affirms the deity’s actions and defines power in relation to leadership: Power is required in a leader or king for directing the wars of the people and for restraining insolence: seek not to be made a judge, unless thou have strength enough to extirpate iniquities (Sir 7:6). This power consists in three things, according to which the first part is divided into three parts, namely, in strength of body, which consists in three things, namely, in vigor of constitution . . . in strength of limbs . . . in plenty of food.

Church’s officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible, then 1592, the Clementine Vulgate, and finally in 1979, the Nova Vulgata. From around 400-1530 CE, the Vulgate was the most commonly used edition of the Bible, the most influential text in Western European society.

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Second, power consists in constancy of heart. . . . Third, it consists in the exercise of the art of war.12

To Aquinas, the needed power for leadership consists in having a manly body, being steadfast, and exercising warfare. Aquinas considers any male not exercising this type of power “effeminate,” “lustful and weak.”13 Thus, Aquinas upholds the image of the hegemonic male God, defines power according to “maleness,” labels effeminate males derogatorily, and ultimately affirms manly male power. In sum, the organizational arrangement of Aquinas’s commentary does not deviate from the traditional androcentric western commentary structure. Additionally, the commentary’s content also supports androcentric hegemonic power and phallogocentric related theological interests. The revived interest in Aquinas’s work, and especially his commentary on Isaiah by some Roman Catholic Bible scholars, perpetuates androcentric values and perspectives that continue to provide fertile ground for the exercise of hegemonic power in contemporary cultures. A second Catholic Bible scholar writing a commentary on the book of Isaiah is Leslie Hoppe. Part of the New Collegeville Bible Commentary series designed for preachers, teachers, Bible study participants, and all readers, Hoppe’s commentary also uses a traditional androcentric framework. Hoppe interprets Isaiah, chapter by chapter, unit by unit. Like Aquinas’s commentary, Hoppe’s volume reinforces hegemonic masculinity. Two examples are Isa 3:16-26 and Isa 47:1-15 which feature gendered metaphors. In Isa 3:16-26, Hoppe offers a condescending picture of Zion’s wealthy women. Privileging the message, voice, and thought of the prophet, Hoppe blames women for the crimes of men, accepts without comment the image of a deity debasing the women and inflicting pain upon them, and disregards the fact that the portrait of female characters in the Bible are the products of the male imagination. Thus, Hoppe excuses the embedded psychological, emotional, sexual, and physical violence in this and other texts and inadvertently supports male violence. In Isa 12 13

Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah, 70-71. Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah, 72.

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47:1-15 where Babylon, depicted as a woman, is subjected to insults, threats, and imaged as completely destroyed, Hoppe acknowledges that the woman is sexually harassed but does not characterize the violence as rape. Instead, he asserts class over the harassment when he comments: “Once an untouchable queen, she will be devastated and subject to sexual harassment like any commoner. . . .14 By not commenting on the violent and brute force embedded in this text, he succumbs to siding with the hegemonic voice of the prophet and deity, thus advancing the notion of hegemonic masculinity. In short, Hoppe’s commentary supports an androcentric agenda in both form and content. His linear organization of material and related content analysis yields narrow, malecentered interpretations guided by historical and literary methods used to serve hegemonic masculinity. In general, the commentary fails to interrogate hegemonic masculinity and the power structures it creates. The absence of critical comment on the gendered metaphors in Isa 3:16-26 and 47:1-15 serve to highlight how this commentary follows the traditional male-created commentary structure and an androcentric line of thought. A third group of Catholic Bible scholars writing a commentary on the book of Isaiah is Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch with Mark Giszczak. Part of the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible series intended for Catholic and non-Catholic educated laity, the commentary relies on the Revised Standard Version (RSV) originally published in 1946 and not the more recent 1989 version. Following the literary structure of the book of Isaiah as it appears in the Bible, the commentators arrange their comments in a chapter by chapter, verse by verse sequence. Said differently, the commentators organize their material according to a traditional male-created structure. Comments include patristic and medieval references, connections to Catholic doctrine, references to the New Testament, theological explanations interspersed with personal reflections, and statements about select persons, places, and events considered by Hahn, Mitch, and Giszczak to have historical or literary significance. These 14

Hoppe, O.F.M., Isaiah, 128.

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interpreters read Isaiah according to the four medieval strategies of the literal, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical senses of Scripture.15 Like Aquinas’s and Hoppe’s interpretations, Hahn, Mitch, and Giszczak’s interpretations reinscribe misogynist, phallogocentric meanings and hegemonic masculinity. One example is the Servant Songs (Isa 42:1-9. 49:1-7; 50:4-11; 52:13—53:12). Hahn, Mitch, and Giszczak privilege the male gender by underscoring the specialness of the male servant when they draw attention to the male deity’s phrases that describe the servant such as a “light to the nations” and “my chosen.” They also support an abusive hegemonic male deity when they do not comment on the servant’s loss of agency and subservience to this deity. By gendering the servant and accepting, without comment, the actions of the male deity, the commentary sustains hegemonic masculinity and supports the flawed notion that women are not chosen by God and therefore not capable of participating in the mission and certain tasks defined by the male deity. To emphasize further the servant’s specialness as male, Hahn, Mitch, and Giszczak link the servant figure to the male Jesus. In doing so, they embrace the Christian view that sees Jesus as the full embodiment of the servant and thus the fulfilment of the Servant Songs.16 To Hahn, Mitch, and Giszczak, the servant is biologically male even though biblical scholars acknowledge that the servant’s identity is unknown and might even be a literary construct.17 By gendering the servant as male, by superimposing a Christological reading onto the text, by construing this male character into a messianic figure with powers to save nations, this Isaiah commentary reinforces hegemonic masculinity. In other words, Hahn, Mitch, and Giszczak’s volume perpetuates a male structured commentary. Its content supports a See Hahn, Mitch, Giszczak, Isaiah, 8-9. Hahn, Mitch, Giszczak, Isaiah, 91. 17 See, e.g., Carol J. Dempsey, Isaiah: God’s Poet of Light (Missouri: Chalice Press, 2010), 143-48; Carol J. Dempsey, with Anthony J. Tambasco, “Isaiah 52:13-53:12: Unmasking the Mystery of the Suffering Servant,” in The Bible on Suffering (ed. Anthony J. Tambasco; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2001), 34-50. 15 16

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fundamentalist doctrinal reading of the Bible that neither advances critical intellectual thought nor addresses notions of phallogocentrism, kyriarchy, sexism, and hegemonic masculinity endemic to Roman Catholicism and its theological tradition. The commentary reinscribes these ideas into society, thereby advancing patriarchy and white male supremacy while contributing to the Catholic right’s ideas about gender and religion. Finally, having discussed Hahn, Mitch, and Giszczak’s commentary on Isaiah along with two commentaries written by male-identified Roman Catholic scholars, the next section explores Isaiah commentaries written by non-Catholic Bible scholars.

EXPLORING THE TERRAIN OF COMMENTARIES BY NONCATHOLIC SCHOLARS: PATRICIA K. TULL, KLAUS BALTZER, AND JOHN GOLDINGAY

Three commentaries on Isaiah written by non-Catholic Bible scholars include Isaiah 1-39 by Patricia K. Tull, Deutero-Isaiah by Klaus Baltzer, and Isaiah 56-66 by John Goldingay. Part of the Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary Series addressing “Christians and the larger church,”18 Tull’s commentary consists of thirty-two sub-divisions and uses the traditional sequential chapter-bychapter design, beginning with Isa. 1:1-31 and ending with Isa. 38:1—39:8. The commentary conforms to specific parameters of the series which aims to “encourage readers to gain a better understanding of the Bible”19 by focusing on “the biblical text itself.”20 In the “Introduction” to the Isaiah commentary, Tull defines the methodological approaches for examining texts: The commentary primarily utilizes rhetorical and literary tools, attending to the patterns and emphases of the language itself. I am interested in intratextual and intertextual relationships, that is, relationships among the various layers and themes within Isaiah as well as relationships between this book and other relevant writings of ancient Israel and, at times, other parts of the ancient Near East. Attention will be

Tull, Isaiah 1-39, xxii. Tull, Isaiah 1-39, xxii. 20 Tull, Isaiah 1-39, xxii. 18 19

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given to what can reasonably be discerned about historical moments and events from which the book arose and the redactional sequence that gave it shape.21

Analyses of biblical passages concentrate on the details of language, the history reflected in texts, and the texts’ literary forms. Attuned to the series’ parameters and aim, Tull’s concern in reading biblical texts is to explore “the theological issues presented by the Scripture passage.”22 One distinguishing feature of this Isaiah commentary are sections called “Connections.” Each of the sections presents ideas on how to apply exegetical insights to contemporary life, highlights issues relevant for teaching, identifies themes suitable for preaching, and makes suggestions for different approaches for preaching on the biblical text. Tull’s commentary on Isaiah is a text-centered, historical, literary, and theological work. It views Isaiah as a real, historical person, a prophet, who proclaims divinely inspired words meant to challenge listeners, to turn their world upside down, and to bring transformative change. Even though the commentary tries to deal with important topics such as class, gender, and theology, the approach to texts involves neither interrogation nor deconstruction and thus does not expose the power and cultural dynamics inscribed in various texts. For example, with respect to class, in interpreting Isa 3:1-4:1, Tull first cites Bible scholar Thomas L. Leclerc who comments on class warfare embedded in the text’s rhetoric. Then instead of expanding on Leclerc’s point or focusing critically on power, privilege, and greed used to create systemic disenfranchisement to keep certain groups of people in servitude, Tull simply adds a reflection: It is white-collar crime at it basest: not simply pilfering but using the legal system itself as an instrument of theft; using one’s authority to manipulate the law. Unfortunately, it continues to be a common complaint against national and local leaders who maneuver laws, courts, and customs to favor

21 22

Tull, Isaiah 1-39, 2. Tull, Isaiah 1-39, xxvi.

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THE “SCHOLZ EFFECT” ON THE DEMPSEYS themselves, their cronies, and their benefactors at the expense of those who have little public influence and much need.23

Although Tull’s interpretation links the biblical text to the text of life in general, her uncritical analysis does not deconstruct hegemonic political, social, and economic policies and systems that not only allow for and sustain injustice but also cultivate class warfare. With respect to gender, Tull’s interpretation of Isa 3:16—4:1 fails to recognize that women characters and their portraits are the products of the male imagination. Instead of commenting on the misogyny imbedded in the text, Tull raises points of wonderment as to why women are “far more harshly threatened than their male counterparts, and why in fact the ‘daughters of Zion’ and feminine city itself merge into one another as hardly distinguishable victims of violent war.”24 She benignly concludes that “in interpretation just as in war, those in power are most guilty, and those lacking influence suffer most acutely.”25 Elsewhere, Tull offers no critical assessment of the text’s gendered metaphorical language despite an interest in the text’s rhetorical and literary dimensions. For example, Tull’s interpretation of Isa 21:1-10 affirms gendered language when she states that “the analogy of warriors in a besieged city to women in the throes of labor pains is typical and widespread”26 after which she cites several biblical texts to support her point. Finally, even though Tull claims to be concerned about the theological issues presented by various biblical passages, the commentary falls short of critiquing God as a male hegemon (Isa. 21:1-17), a warlord (Isa. 13:17-22; 19:1-15), and an imperial ruler (Isaiah 13-23). Instead, interpretations summarize God’s actions, favoring the male prophet’s perspective, thus supporting God as a kyriarchal force in Isaiah and elsewhere in the Bible. How the book of Isaiah portrays the deity invites comment, yet

Tull, Isaiah 1-39, 104. Tull, Isaiah 1-39, 107-108. 25 Tull, Isaiah 1-39, 108. 26 Tull, Isaiah 1-39, 335. 23 24

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Tull’s commentary does not explore this topic despite the claim of being concerned about theological issues. Assessed as a whole, then, Tull’s commentary perpetuates a linear organizational format. Offering no cutting-edge thought or scholarship, the interpretations summarize biblical texts without providing critical analyses of gendered, ethnocentric, kyriarchal, or patriarchal language, foci, or images. Connections, reflections, and stories link Isaiah texts to contemporary world experiences and realities without addressing critically the cultural, sociogeopolitical forces and power dynamics at work in both Isaiah 139 and in the contemporary examples cited. Although one of the goals of the commentary is to encourage readers to gain a better understanding of the Bible, this volume does not interrogate critically the world of the text and the world in front of the text and thus, readers are left with comfortable but non-transformative, life-changing knowledge. A second non-Catholic Bible scholar writing on the book of Isaiah is Klaus Baltzer who produced a commentary entitled Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55). This commentary is part of the Hermeneia series “designed to be a critical and historical commentary to the Bible without arbitrary limits in size or scope.”27 Baltzer structures the Isaiah commentary to resemble a liturgical drama composed of six acts that are divided into scenes and framed by a prologue and epilogue. Although Baltzer organizes the content creatively, his structure also follows a conventional linear textual sequence. Like Tull’s commentary, Baltzer’s volume is also required to meet certain standards articulated by the Hermeneia series editors, Frank Moore Cross and Helmut Koester, who expect that “authors will struggle to lay bare the ancient meaning of a biblical work or pericope. In this way the text’s human relevance should become transparent, as is always the case in competent historical discourse.”28 In line with the series’ emphases, Baltzer employs an historical critical approach to reading and interpreting texts, focusing on the world See Frank Moore Cross and Helmut Koester, “Foreword,” in Klaus Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), xvii. 28 Cross and Koester, “Foreword,” in Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, xvii. 27

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behind and of the text, dating, authorial intent, the historical timeframes of the rise and fall of the Neo-Assyrian, NeoBabylonian, and Persian empires, the political and social situation of Deutero-Isaiah, and Deutero-Isaiah’s theology. After Baltzer provides his own modern translations of passages, which admittedly, he understands are interpretations like the ancient translations, he addresses philological and textual problems, examines linguistic elements, appeals to intertextuality, and wrestles with other commentators’ interpretations of Isaiah texts. Baltzer’s primary concern in this commentary is to establish the meaning of texts, specifically, texts’ “original” meanings. In sum, Balzer’s historical critical commentary on Isaiah is one more volume in a plethora of historical critical Bible commentaries. Although Baltzer’s commentary contributes to the field of Biblical Studies, the volume does not succeed fully in achieving the series editors’ expectation of having the text’s “human relevance” become transparent. Two reasons exist for this shortcoming. The first reason is that the commentary employs an historical-critical approach. This approach locks the interpretative task in the past, concentrating on a reconstructed but essentialized historical past, and so yields objectified, valueneutral interpretations of texts devoid of any critical engagement with contemporary issues. For example, in commenting on Isa 49:14-16, Baltzer makes the point that “contrary to all experience, the writer maintains that a mother is more likely to ‘forget’ her child than Yahweh is to forget Zion.”29 Baltzer offers no further comment on this gendered metaphorical language that passes judgment on a female character, specifically a mother, and pits a female human being against a male deity. Whether the biblical writer made this assumption remains speculative. Unsurprisingly, Baltzer does not comment on the misogyny inscribed in this text but affirms that women, especially mothers, are thoughtless, uncommitted, and incapable of embodying the loving qualities of God. Accordingly, Baltzer’s interpretation sets up the female character as an object of scorn, disdained by the male-identified deity who promises enduring fidelity and compassion. 29

See Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, 322.

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The second reason why the commentary does not achieve the series editors’ expectation of having the text’s “human relevance” become transparent is related to the first reason. Baltzer is a historical critic. Preoccupied with trying to discover the meaning of a text, he disregards two basic hermeneutical principles articulated by Old Testament Bible scholar Susanne Scholz, that “all sacred texts, including the Bible, are inherently flexible, elastic, and ambiguous”30 and that “readers, grounded in social locations, create (biblical) meanings.”31 Thus, Baltzer’s efforts to establish “the meaning of a text” or, as Cross and Koester state “laying bare the ancient meaning of a biblical work of pericope,”32 overshadow any effort to engage readers in creating meanings for texts that would intersect with present day realities. As a historical critic using historical criticism, Baltzer’s interpretations are severely limited in breadth, depth, and scope. Lacking in critical hermeneutical thought, the commentary offers only moralistic and pious reflections as an attempt to link biblical texts to contemporary realities. For example, in commenting on Isa 54:1-10, Baltzer draws attention to a barren woman, now in a position to rejoice because the deity is about to provide her with an abundance of children. Baltzer notes: For the OT, the miracle that a barren woman can have children becomes a fundamental experience that can be an illustration of the way in which God acts. Barrenness is a hard fate in a society where a woman’s dignity is bound up with children. Children, especially sons, guarantee the certainty of a legacy for the next generation. Since there is no social insurance, children are necessary as a provision for sickness and old age. Sons can appear for their mothers before a court of law. So when God enables the barren woman to become a mother, the miracle is of particular significance.33

See Susanne Scholz, The Bible as Political Artifact: On the Feminist Study of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), 180. 31 Scholz, The Bible as Political Artifact: On the Feminist Study of the Hebrew Bible, 180. 32 See Cross and Koester, “Foreword,” in Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, xvii. 33 See Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, 435. 30

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In other words, this commentator emphasizes that the male deity must be understood as someone having power over women’s reproductive organs/abilities. In attempting to make the text relevant for today’s readers, Baltzer theologizes the text by offering a phallogocentric assessment about the divinity. Yet by not interrogating critically both the cultural mores of biblical times and the biblical text, Baltzer’s comments sanction patriarchy and sexism inscribed into the text and imbedded in the ancient biblical culture. Thus, like Tull’s commentary, Baltzer’s commentary perpetuates a linear organizational format. Its interpretative approach and comments reinforce androcentric hegemonic interests and utilize scholarly insights from historical critics only. Although text focused, the commentary provides no critical hermeneutical analysis of Isaiah’s gendered language, metaphors, images, the portrait of women, and the depiction of the male deity. Because of these lacunae, the commentary does not make transparent the text’s relevance for readers today. Finally, this Isaiah commentary is one in a series of volumes devoid of critical hermeneutical and transformational thought. A third non-Catholic Bible scholar writing on the book of Isaiah is John Goldingay who wrote Isaiah 56-66 which is part of the International Critical Commentary Series. Accepting the traditional view that Isaiah 40-66 is one unit that divides into two unequal parts (Isaiah 40-55 and Isaiah 56-66), Goldingay arranges the text’s content concentrically, beginning with a Preface (Isa 56:1-8) and ending with a Postscript (Isa 66:18-24). To Goldingay, this outline “helps illuminate the nature of the chapters’ message”34 and “is a formal pointer towards the coherence and relative independence of Isaiah 56-66.”35 Like Tull and Baltzer, Goldingay also follows a conventional linear textual sequence to organize Isaiah 56-66 and focuses on the world of the text. In the “Introduction” to the commentary, Goldingay defines his reading strategy:

34 See John Goldingay, Isaiah 56-66 (New York: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2014), 2. 35 Goldingay, Isaiah 56-66, 3.

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The reading strategy I wish to adopt seeks to read with the grain of the material in the sense that it reads the text as it is. This needs not imply that one agrees with what one finds (though in the interests of full disclosure I acknowledge that I intend to do so). It does imply that one wants to discover what by their nature the chapters say and what sense the community that affirmed them might have made of them in light of their setting among other works that they affirmed. . . . Critical study has to be self-critical, and it is for this reason that it involves foreswearing reading strategies that clash with the nature of the material, and adopting reading strategies that correspond to it.36

Using this strategy, he employs several methods of approach to interpret Isaiah 56-66. These approaches include a redactionhistorical reading, a sociological reading, a textual reading, a poetic reading, a postcolonial reading, and an Islamic reading. Even though Goldingay uses a variety of approaches to interpret texts, because he reads with the grain of a text, thereby accepting the text as it is, his interpretations often reinforce hegemonic and systemic oppression. For example, when reading texts from a poetic perspective, the concern is only with a text’s prosaic nature and how the rhetorical devices enrich the prophet’s statements. No attention is given to hegemonic heterosexism imbedded in the prosaic metaphors and similes. In commenting on Isaiah 60-66, Goldingay does not interrogate the God-husband and daughter/mother Zion metaphorical language to expose the sexism and misogyny inscribed in these texts. When reading Isaiah 60-66 from a postcolonial perspective, the commentary provides no critique of colonization imbedded in the image of “the new Jerusalem,” the exalted city, to where all nations will be required, under threat of annihilation, to come and be subservient to the people of Jerusalem/Judah, to contribute monetarily to its restoration, and to pay homage to Israel’s God residing there. Finally, because of Goldingay’s particular reading strategy, the commentary does not feature engagement with the thought of contemporary postcolonial scholars such as Makhosazana K.

36

Goldingay, Isaiah 56-66, 29.

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Nzimande who offers an Imbokodo reading of the book of Isaiah in South Africa.37 Thus, like the other two commentaries written by non-Catholic commentators, Goldingay’s commentary uses the traditional male chapter-by-chapter, unit-by-unit, verse-by-verse structure for his work whose content supports male hegemonic interests. In sum, all six commentaries analyzed so far feature a linear arrangement of content. Thus, the structural framework has not changed from the earliest commentaries written by the earliest (Christian) commentators. Importantly, this structural arrangement continues to dominate commentaries written by both female and male Bible scholars in the field today. Historical-literary and doctrinal approaches also still dominate the field of biblical studies, with little concern for the world in front of the text and present-day readers. Interpretations, packaged as “the meaning of the text,” are imposed on readers without any regard for the inherent flexible, elastic, and ambiguous nature of all sacred texts and the role that readers play in creating (biblical) meanings, as Susanne Scholz explains in her recent hermeneutical work, The Bible as Political Artifact: On the Feminist Study of the Hebrew Bible. Both hermeneutical principles shape Scholz’s new commentary on 1 Samuel.38 This commentary, resisting the hegemonic structure, thought, and methodologies of traditional Bible commentaries, offers a framework that not only engages the minds, imaginations, and worlds of readers but also dismantles the interlocking structures of oppression inscribed in texts and reinscribed in the world today. The following section elaborates on Scholz’s conceptual framework for the commentary genre as a new venue for future Isaiah commentary writing.

See Makhosazana K. Nzimande, “Isaiah,” in The Africana Bible (ed. Hugh R. Page, Jr.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 136-146. 38 Susanne Scholz, 1 Samuel (Wisdom Commentary Series; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, forthcoming in 2023). 37

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OPENING WIDE THE HORIZONS OF THE MIND: CONCEPTUAL DESIGN, I NTERSECTIONALITY, AND THINKING ABOUT I SAIAH

The innovative conceptual design of Scholz’s framework does not follow the linear textual, verse-by-verse design of the conventional commentary genre. Yet I argue that this design could and should be productively employed for the interpretation of other biblical books, too, such as Isaiah. Unlike most commentaries that use a framework invented by some of the earliest commentators, Scholz’s commentary on 1 Samuel locates exegesis within a conceptual design. Why is a conceptual design to be preferred to a linear design? Recent research indicates that for systemic and structural transformational change to occur, thinking strategies beyond a linear level are needed.39 Conceptual thinking allows for intersectional and transdisciplinary thinking. Focusing on “the big picture,” conceptual thinking fosters the understanding of content at deep levels, making intellectual space to apply insights about the relationships among concepts to new scenarios that, in turn, lead to creative thinking and the envisioning of changes for a just and holistic world.40 Thus, to produce a commentary that has the potential to transform systems and structures, feminist scholar Susanne Scholz could use no other design than a conceptual one to challenge deep-seeded hegemonically colonized intellects and to showcase the powerful contributions that intersectional and creative thinking offers to systemic injustice. In my view, Scholz’s design should become a model for all

For further discussion, see Christina Chalmers, Merilyn Carter, Tom Cooper, and Rod Nason, “Implementing ‘Big Ideas’ to Advance the Teaching and Learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM),” International Journal of Science and Medicine 15 (2017): 25-43; Southwest Michigan Stewardship Coalition, “Getting the Big Idea: Concept-Based Teaching and Learning: Transforming Learning Environments through Global and STEM Education” https://semiscoalition.org/project/concept-based-teaching-learning/ 40 For further discussion on conceptual thinking, see Bryan Greetham, Thinking Skills for Professionals (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2010); Gregory L. Murphy, The Big Book of Concepts (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2002). 39

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commentaries, especially for the Wisdom Commentary Series published by Liturgical Press since 2015. All of the commentaries published in the Wisdom Commentary Series thus far follow a unit-by-unit linear framework with the exception of Scholz’s 1 Samuel commentary. As part of the Wisdom Commentary Series, Scholz’s volume on 1 Samuel is a feminist commentary that engages intersectionality, incorporates current feminist insights, and reads and interprets texts against “hegemonically defined conventions.”41 It focuses on the world in front of the text to shine a light on “the interrelatedness of all structures of domination.”42 Scholz emphasizes that “gender, misogyny, phallogocentrism and heteronormativity are always endemically linked to other categories of identity, such as various forms of masculinity, ethnocentrism, religion, or geopolitics.”43 The commentary is organized according to the following sections: Part I: Detailing the Geopolitics of Land and Gender (1:3; 4-7; 19:18-24; 20:1-22:23; 23-24; 27); Part II: Delineating the Masculinities of Major and Minor Male Characters (1-8; 9-11; 12-15; 16-22; 23; 24; 25:1; 26:5, 7, 14-15; 27; 28; 30; 31); Part III: Determining the Spooks of Monarchy at the End of Democracy (8-12; 15:10-34; 16:1-13, 14-23; 18:10-16; 25:1; 26; 31); Part IV: Decolonizing Foreskin Talk about the Nation and the Philistines (5:2; 13; 10:1-7; 14:1-23, 24-35, 47-52; 17; 18:1-9; 21:1-9, 10-15; 22:6-23; 23:1-14; 27:1-28:2; 29:1; 31); and Part V: Detecting the Erasure of Women and the Inscription of a Witch (1-2; 4:19-22; 18:17-30; 19:8-17; 22:19; 25:2-44; 27:9; 28:3-25). In the introduction, Scholz presents three arguments that substantiates why it matters to read 1 Samuel within a conceptual framework organized by the five areas listed above. First, the conceptual design “enables an intersectional feminist, genderqueer, and masculine-studies oriented interpretation of 1 Samuel.”44 Second, the conceptual design “enables the commentary to expand the feminist interpretation of 1 Samuel from Susanne Scholz, 1 Samuel (Wisdom Commentary Series; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023), forthcoming. 42 Scholz, 1 Samuel, forthcoming. 43 Scholz, 1 Samuel, forthcoming. 44 Scholz, 1 Samuel, forthcoming. 41

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an essentializing focus on ‘women’ to an intersectional framed investigation of variously defined gender issues,”45 thereby moving the commentary beyond a heterocentric framework. And third, the conceptual design lends a sense of unity of thought to an otherwise disjointed text whose storyline is fragmentary and incomplete. These three points of argument highlight the importance of using a conceptual design especially for a feminist commentary. Scholz, in her line of argument however, does not stress that a conceptual design advances the art of thinking, moving readers from a traditional critical linear way of thinking to more advanced and deep ways of analysis. A conceptually designed framework offers readers a cohesive reading experience while creating intellectual space for readers to engage the commentary’s content. This kind of conceptual thinking is necessary for cultural, political, religious, and social transformation. In this way, Scholz’s commentary design, complemented by her scholarly, provocative, creative, and perceptive feminist analysis, breaks new ground for biblical studies, advances education, contributes substantially to the life of the mind, and has challenged both Dempsey and Dempsey to reenvision and re-think how they will write their commentaries for the Wisdom Commentary Series. Scholz’s conceptual design, depth of analysis, and enlivening creativity has had a definite effect on Carol J. Dempsey, OP’s thinking about writing yet another commentary, this time for the Wisdom Commentary Series. Dempsey has written three commentaries on the book of Isaiah, using a linear textual, unitby-unit design of conventional commentary writing.46 Following Scholz’s lead, Dempsey now thinks about the book of Isaiah differently. She leaves behind the historical-literary-theological approach that reads “with the grain” to embrace a conceptualScholz, 1 Samuel, forthcoming. Carol J. Dempsey, OP, “Third Isaiah” in The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century (Third Fully Revised Edition; New York: T&T Clark, 2022), 862-874; idem, “Isaiah,” in The Paulist Bible Commentary (Mahwah, NY: Paulist Press, 2018), 604-666; idem, Isaiah: God’s Poet of Light (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2010). 45 46

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feminist approach that interrogates texts to deconstruct and expose oppressive ways of thinking about structural injustice. With this new approach, her next commentary on Isaiah will assume the same conceptual framework as Scholz’s 1 Samuel commentary and will deal with concepts such as empire, imperialism, gender, hegemonic masculinity, and heteronormativity. The new design will break with the traditional structure of First, Second, and Third Isaiah and grapple with “the big picture” to challenge readers to think about certain oppressive ideas, concepts, and issues culturally inscribed in this prophetic book which continue to be re-inscribed by scholars, preachers, teachers, and religious and political leaders into today’s world and its many cultures. Additionally, Scholz’s work has also effected positively Deirdre Dempsey’s thinking about the 2 Samuel commentary in progress for the Wisdom Commentary Series. Dempsey also uses a conceptual design to frame 2 Samuel, interrogating the text from a feminist perspective. Other Old Testament authors writing on Hosea, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah also contemplate Scholz’s design and ideas for their respective commentaries. Thus, Scholz’s feminist commentary makes a groundbreaking contribution, and its conceptual design paves the way for similar designs in the interpretation of other biblical books as it adopts different ways of thinking not only to transform the commentary genre but also the field of biblical studies.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR BIBLICAL COMMENTARIES

Having explored six commentaries on Isaiah, three by Catholic scholars Thomas Aquinas, Leslie J. Hoppe, Scott Hahn, Curtis Mitch, and Mark Giszczak, and three by non-Catholic scholars Patricia K. Tull, Klaus Baltzer, and John Goldingay, I conclude that most commentaries on Isaiah in particular, and the Bible in general, follow the linear textual, unit-by-unit or verse-by-verse design of the conventional commentary genre. Oftentimes the content reflects androcentric, phallogocentric, and hegemonic interests. The commentaries focus on the philological, textual, historical, and literary dimensions of the biblical texts, and only

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occasionally connect various biblical texts to global issues as in the case of Tull’s work. All of these commentaries fulfill Adele Reinhartz’s observations: they have comprehensive introductions and cover traditional methodologies, but they rarely engage newer feminist, literary and social-scientific approaches, and offer few comments on Isaiah from the perspective of the world in front of the text. None of the commentaries lend themselves to being read in their entirety. Instead, they fulfill a traditional function which is to support scholars in their research efforts as they seek to unpack a perceived “meaning of the text.” Unlike the six commentaries examined on Isaiah, Susanne Scholz’s commentary on 1 Samuel is an exception to most commentaries. This feminist commentary engages the world in front of the text, reads against the grain, uses a conceptual design to frame its content, appeals to higher order thinking skills, and advances learning. Serving as a model for twenty-first century commentaries, Scholz’s work offers new possibilities to an ageold genre and sets the stage for other scholars to write their works accordingly. If the genre of commentary writing is to move into the future, if it is to appeal to contemporary readers and learners who think and learn contextually, if it is to have any impact on helping to transform oppressive ways of thinking, then Bible scholars need to move beyond traditional ways of organizing and thinking about biblical texts. Because many oppressions are interlocking, no future commentaries should be devoid of intersectionality. Scholz’s critical, creative and expansive, intersectional, transdisciplinary, and conceptual thinking and the framework for the writing of biblical commentaries needs to become the norm for commentaries and not the exception.

“ALWAYS LOCAL AND FOREIGN TO ONE ANOTHER”: AN ESSAY ON DESIRE, DERRY GIRLS, AND THE GRACE OF FRIENDSHIP RYAN G. DUNS, SJ Unlike muscles that atrophy from underuse, words atrophy from overuse. Consider how “love” gets bandied about. “I love chocolate.” “I love my dog.” “I love my mom.” Surely, love is not univocal. For one may put oneself in harm’s way out of love for mom, but could one reasonably do the same for chocolate? Even children can detect and delight in the slippage. One exclaims, “I love my dog” and her friend retorts, “Then why don’t you marry it?” A word’s rehabilitation begins once its user recognizes its ambiguity and attempt to specify its meaning. When pressed, one may recast one’s love as a strong preference, love for a pet as deep affection, and love for mom as a non-possessive relationship of self-giving and receiving between equals. Love—like hope, trust, faith, grief, and joy—is a word that grows over time, a word formed and often deformed through its use. In Sorry For Your Troubles, a volume of poetry and prose reflecting his experiences working for reconciliation in Northern Ireland, the Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama describes how our words regularly fail to comprehend the reality toward which they gesture. A British comedian joked about “the troubles” in Northern Ireland. He asked the audience, “What are the troubles, 115

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then? Why do you people call it that? It sounds so twee. It sounds like a spot of bother.”1 Few were amused. Many had been affected by the trauma of the thirty-year conflict (1968-1998) that raged between Catholic republicans and Protestant loyalists. Ó Tuama concedes that referring to a conflict that claimed thousands of lives and traumatized a nation simply as “the troubles” opens the event to misinterpretation. Consider how “trouble” gets used. At dinner, “Can I trouble you for the salt?” At school, a student cheats and “gets into trouble.” A social worker “is troubled” by a client’s bruise. And in Ireland, one offers condolences by saying, “Sorry for your troubles.”2 One errs, therefore, in thinking “trouble” too univocally. Ó Tuama observes that, in the Irish language, “there isn’t a specific word for bereavement. In English, the word “bereave” means to deprive of, to despoil, to seize or rob. There isn’t a word for this in the Irish language. Our way of saying bereavement is trioblóid, which, anglicised, is troubled. To be bereaved is to be troubled by grief.”3 The comedian’s problem, it turns out, is that he didn’t know enough of the troubles’ meaning to be sufficiently troubled by it. So, far from twee, the troubles encapsulate a people’s experience of being convulsed by violence and enshrouded by grief. A grief felt individually and communally, a bereavement that shadows yet unites a nation. This is reflected in one of Ó Tuama’s prayers when he plays on the Irish word scáth’s double meaning: A prayer of shelter and shadow Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine. ~It is in the shelter of each other that the people live. ~It is in the shadow of each other that the people live. Sometimes we are in shadow, And sometimes we are surrounded by shelter.4

Pádraig Ó Tuama, Sorry for Your Troubles (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2013), 4–6. 2 Ibid., 5. See also Seamus Heaney, “Mid Term Break” in Poems 19651975 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980), 18. 3 Ibid., 5. 4 Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2017), 46. 1

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The scáth is inescapable. We are, all of us, forced to negotiate the space between alienation and communion, between enmity and amity. Shadowed by one another, sheltered by one another: we are, Ó Tuama suggests, perhaps “always local and foreign to one another.”5 My experience of and relationship with Deirdre Dempsey bespeaks the doubleness of scáth. As a mentee, I stand in her long shadow; as a friend, I shelter in her warmth, wit, and wisdom. More than any other colleague at Marquette University, she has guided me through the beginning of my career by tutoring me to discern the vagaries of the academy. As an expression of affection, I want to probe O’Tuama’s suggestion that we are “always local and foreign” to one another by offering some reflections on the British comedy, Derry Girls. Inspired by Deirdre’s hospitality, I do so by inviting René Girard to serve as a guide. During many walks and over many pints, Deirdre and I have discussed Girard’s thought and its relevance to theology. In this chapter, then, I put the fruits of our chats into print. I do this for two reasons. First, Deirdre and I share a love of Derry Girls and appreciate the way it functions as a comedy and, more broadly, as a commentary on the human condition. Girard’s mimetic theory can, I believe, deepen this appreciation by highlighting the way this show illuminatingly depicts the nature of human desire. Second, in comedic and tragic turns, Derry Girls encourages viewers to grow more aware of how we are forever shadowed and sheltered by one another. As I try to bring out in each section, this experience of shadowing and sheltering that renders the show so insightful is also the great grace of being a friend and colleague of Deirdre Dempsey. Denim and Mimetic Desire: “I’m not going to be an individual on my own!” ~ Clare Devlin

Set in 1990’s Derry, Northern Ireland, Lisa McGee’s Derry Girls follows the life and antics of Erin Quinn, her cousin Orla McCool, their friends Claire Devlin and Michelle Mallon, and Michelle’s cousin James Maguire who has been sent to live in Derry after his

5

Ó Tuama, Sorry for Your Troubles, 6.

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mother’s divorce. Due to the tensions between Britain and Ireland, there is concern that James’s English accent will make him a target among at an all-boys school. Thus is he forced to attend Our Lady Immaculate College, an all-girls school presided over by its Judo-practicing principal, Sister Michael. Over the course of each of its two seasons, the show treats and deepens an understanding of what it means to belong to one’s family and friends, one’s religion and culture, to one’s historical era. In treating both ways of belonging, Derry Girls proves doubly narrative. For it deftly probes the scáth (shelter) provided to characters in their belonging to each other as well as the scáth (shadow) cast by the troubles—of Northern Ireland and adolescence—over their lives. Few thinkers have reflected more intensively about the nature of human relationships than the French–American theorist, René Girard (1925-2015).6 Over the course of his career, Girard offered signal insights into mimetic desire, the phenomenon of scapegoating, and the revelatory power of the Judeo-Christian scriptures.7 Toward the end of his life, he manifested an increasing interest in apocalypticism.8 Spatial constraints allow us to focus only on a few elements of his thought: the nature of mimetic desire and the scapegoat phenomenon.

Several introductions to Girard’s thought are available. Michael Kirwan, Discovering Girard (Darton, Longman, and Todd: London, 2004); Scott Cowdell, René Girard and the Nonviolent God (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 2018); Cynthia Haven, Evolution of Desire (East Lansing: MSU Press, 2018); Gil Baile, Violence Unveiled (New York: Crossroad, 2002). 7 René Girard, Deceit, Desire & the Novel, trans. Yvonne Freccero (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1961); René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); René Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (trans. Stephen Bann and Michael Metteer; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978); René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (trans. James Williams; Maryknoll: New York, 2001). 8 René Girard, Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoit Chantre (trans. Mary Baker; Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2010) 6

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Girard’s understanding of mimetic or “imitative” desire puts him at odds with the commonsense understanding of human desire. We can contrast these views geometrically and anthropologically. A commonsense view of desire depicts it linearly and as emerging from a subject and extending toward the desired object (SàO). Anthropologically, desire appears to arise from an autonomous subject who evaluates options and independently makes choices.9 Yet, through his study of authors like Proust, Cervantes, and Shakespeare, Girard discerns a more complex pattern. Instead of object-focused and linear, Girard sees desire as triangular. His mimetic theory, “affirms that people’s desires are not really rooted in either desired objects or the subjects who desire those objects, but rather in a third party: the model or mediator of our desires.”10 Instead of moving linearly from Subject to Object, human desire is triangulated off and directed by another’s desire. The pattern here: Subject A desires an object because her Model—Subject B—desires it. Subject B’s desire “lights up” the object, giving it the patina of desirability that attracts Subject A to it. A formulation of this insight: “I desire according to the desire of another.” We, in effect, borrow our desires from others. Thus, anthropologically, Girard’s model depicts humans not as autonomous but as “interdividual” or interdependent subjects constituted in and through relationships with others.11 Who we are and how we desire are ineluctably bound to the communities to which we belong. A demonstration of Girard’s theory requires but a glance at the television. Consider marketing campaign to entice consumers to purchase Cola A instead of Cola B. Generally, the commercial

The importance of autonomy in modern thought finds expression in Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment’” (trans. H. B. Nisbet; New York: Penguin Books, 1991); more recently, Christine Korsgaard stresses the “self-constitution” of rational agency through which self-authorship occurs in Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), xi–xii. 10 Rene Girard, “Belonging,” trans. Rob Grayson, Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 23, no. 1 (2016): 1–12 at 5. 11 The neologism “interdividual” is treated in Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. 9

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will not provide abstract arguments or a chemical analysis of ingredients. Instead, the ad will show others—typically, attractive models—enjoying the product. From shoes to soda, multivitamins to Viagra, commercials attract consumers by suggesting how buying Product X offers them a share in the depicted reality. So, Justin Bieber models Calvin-Klein underwear; Oprah endorses Weight-Watchers; LeBron puts his name on sneakers. By using celebrities to model clothing and pitch products, marketers mine an insight Girard toiled for decades to understand. Human desire, never satisfied by this or that thing, reaches beyond objects. Faintly echoing Augustine’s “restless heart” that seeks repose in God, Girard similarly understands human desire’s insatiability and restlessness. “All desire,” he remarks, “is a desire for being.”12 Marketers do not sell discrete objects; they sell a promise: buy this car, this beer, these shoes, and the way of being—the ontology— of the model can be yours. Thus, Girard’s understanding of mimetic or imitative desire: we desire according to the desire of the other because we desire to be, or at least to share in the being, of the model. Two scenes at the beginning of Episode 1 of Derry Girls provide instances of mimetic desire at work. The shadow of the troubles falls across the series immediately, as news of a bomb planted on a bridge threatens to disrupt the beginning of the school year. Yet the specter of “troubles” common to teenagers looms as well. Erin Quinn, the main character, dons a denim jacket before leaving to catch the bus. Erin’s mother, Mary, notices and asks, “What do you think you’re playing at? Where is your blazer?” Erin’s mini soliloquy about her right to express her “individuality” is cut short by Mary’s threat to bring out the wooden spoon. The show cuts to Clare Devlin, wearing a denim jacket and awaiting her friends. Erin enters the frame with her cousin Orla wearing, not surprisingly, their blazers. An exasperated Clare reacts:

René Girard, When These Things Begin: Conversations with Michel Treguer (trans. Trevor Cribben Merrill; Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2014), 12.

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Clare: “What’s all this? I thought we were going to be individuals this year.” Erin: “I wanted to, Clare, but my Ma wouldn’t let me.” Clare, removing jacket: “Well, I’m not going to be an individual on my own.”

The exchange plays on the dynamics of interdividuality. Individuals are constituted both by those groups to whom one belongs—family, friends, religion, culture—and by those to whom one does not belong or opposes—other cultures, religions, enemies. Interdividuals incarnate those who shelter and those who shadow. This is humorously captured when, to escape the shadow of conformity imposed by wearing a uniform blazer, the girls try to be “individuals” by wearing denim jackets. But when Erin capitulates and dons her blazer, the fellowship falters. And, lacking a model to mediate her desire to wear a denim jacket and to be an individual, Clare’s desire dissipates and she retreats to the shelter of her uniformed friends. After a visit to a local shop, the girls make their way to the bus. Erin espies David Donnelly hanging posters on a fence. Clearly attracted to him, Erin orders the girls to “act normal.” Unaware that she is walking ahead of the group, she throws her head back and, with an exaggerated laugh, exclaims to no one, “No way! Are you serious?” Clare rushes to her, “What are you doing? Who are you talking to?” The viewer winces at Erin’s awkward—albeit mimetically sensitive—gaffe. For her laughter and boisterous exclamation mean to draw attention to her group and to communicate a levity enjoyed by her friends. The mimetic ploy: the fun and laughter of Erin’s group should entice David by arousing his desire to be a part of the circle. Enkindling his desire to be a part of the group should fan the ember of his desire for her. Unfortunately for Erin, her execution is a comic failure; she needs more practice in the art of mimetic marketing. Desire, Girard’s theory maintains, intends more than this or that object. Desire is for being, for an ontology or way of life, revealed and mediated by models. The humor of the opening scenes of Derry Girls flows from breaches within triangular desire. The threat of a wooden spoon and the awkwardness of Erin’s laugh expose rifts we, as mimetically attuned viewers, recognize.

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Elemental to the troubles associated adolescence is the drive to embrace one’s identity, an identity worked out in and through relationships with others. This interdividual identity is not prepackaged but, rather, achieved over time by negotiating the terrain between life’s shadows and shelters. What Girard’s theory enables us to appreciate more deeply is how one’s identity does not unfold apart but, rather, as a part of relationships. To be sure, this process is seldom without missteps, miscalculations, and conflicts. To better understand how the mimetic theory illuminates these group dynamics, let us turn to another episode of Derry Girls. Scapegoats and Solidarity: “I’ve had a calling. I’ve decided to follow in your footsteps.” ~ James Maguire

Episode 3 opens with a crestfallen Erin mourning the death of the family dog, Toto. Toto’s death does not, however, weigh as heavily on her friends. For they have spent an all-nighter cramming for a big history exam they are wholly unprepared to take. Although they are all in the same sinking boat, James’s complaint elicits a biting riposte from his cousin: James: “Well, I can’t tell my rebellions from my risings.” Michelle: “Whose fault’s that? If your lot had stopped invading us for five fucking minutes, there’d be a lot less for us to wade through. English prick.”

James is the consummate outsider. A British transplant to Irish soil, he is the only boy at an all-girls school, and everyone suspects him of being gay. When the teens come down for breakfast, Erin’s grandfather Joe McCool registers surprise when he learns James had stayed overnight. Joe (looking at Erin): “Look, love, I know the fella’s gay…” James: “I’m not gay.” Joe: “…but gay or not, he’s still a fella.” James (bewildered): “Who said I was gay?” Joe: “There’s a still a good chance that he’s a rapist. I mean no offense, son.”

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Although doing so with comedic panache, the humor of Derry Girls often draws sustenance from what Girard regarded as “stereotypes of persecution.”13 Let us learn to recognize these “stereotypes” before considering the way they are evidenced in Episode 3. Amid periods of extreme social disorder, like the troubles of Northern Ireland, divisions can appear that threaten to erode a community’s foundations and plunge it into chaos. When threatened by internal dissolution, what prevents the community’s collapse is, Girard contends, a “scapegoat mechanism” that re-establishes cohesion by galvanizing the many against a common enemy. In galvanizing the community against a single target, the many become one through the exclusion of one. Michael Kirwan describes scapegoating as A spontaneous and unconscious psychological mechanism, by which someone is falsely accused and victimized. Needless to say, although there is a degree of randomness as to who gets signaled out as the scapegoat, it transpires that the person or group is usually chosen because they are especially vulnerable or marginal to begin with. The “outsider” or stranger is a strong candidate, because he or she is less likely to have family or friends who can come to their defense.14

In The Scapegoat, Girard describes the signs or stereotypes that attract a community’s attention and provide a target for its animus. Thus, an attentive viewer of Derry Girls may recognize James as embodying several of these signs: James is a foreigner who exhibits difficulty adapting to life in Ireland and, especially, to being a boy in an all-girls school; without his mother or father he is, effectively, an orphan.15 Despite being Michele’s cousin, despite looking like just about any other teenage boy in Derry, James is marked out from the show’s beginning as other.

René Girard, The Scapegoat (trans. Yvonne Freccero; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 14 Michael Kirwan, Discovering Girard (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 2004), 49. 15 Girard, The Scapegoat, 18. 13

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As the teens head to school to face their exam, Erin glimpses a dog that looks very much like Toto. They give chase and follow the dog into a local church. Erin pursues the dog up a flight of stairs as the others offer a prayer before a statue of Mary. As they pray, they behold what they take to be a miracle: the statue appears to be weeping. Yet Erin is privy to the truth: the dog they were chasing had relieved itself just above the statue. Sensing that this “miraculous” occurrence might keep them from having to take their exam, Erin refrains from disclosing the truth. At school, a skeptical Sister Michael initiates an inquest into their claims. The church sends the dashing, albeit spiritually conflicted, Father Peter to investigate and the teens are taken by his appearance. James marvels at the priest’s coiffed hair. Attempting to get a sense of the context in which the alleged miracle took place, the priest continues: Peter: “Directly before the weeping, can you remember what you were doing, what you were talking about? Michele: “I remember that James was being a dick.” Sister Michael (sharply): “Miss Mallon.” Michele: “I don’t like to use that word, Sister, but it’s so hard to describe James any other way because he’s just such a dick.” Sister Michael silently assents. Peter: “I don’t think you’re a dick, James. And you know who else doesn’t think you’re a dick? Our Lord.” Sister Michael (Rolling her eyes): “For feck’s sake.”

Two things stand out here. First, Michele’s insults seem to gather a group over-and-against a single target. After initially protesting, Sister Michael gets drawn into the Michele’s orbit and agrees that James is “a dick.” Humorously, the normally unflappable and principled principal succumbs to her student’s scapegoating tactics. Sister Michael stands in solidarity not with the victim, as one might expect, but with the verbal stone-thrower. Amidst the troubles of teenage angst and political unrest, James is local and foreign: local enough to be a member of the group, yet marked with signs of the victim that make him other and foreign so that, when the group’s

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identity begins to crumble, scapegoating him for who and what he is can restore the group’s sense of who they are. Second, and more poignantly, the milk of human—and divine—kindness Peter expresses seems to transform James. When James later arrives at the Quinn’s house, his hair is saturated with mousse and he is wearing an all-black outfit with a rosary hung around his neck. When pressed about his changed appearance, he cites his “friendship” with Peter. “We have a lot in common,” he says, branding the rosary, “we’re both very spiritual.” And then, after a pause, “But mainly the fact that he doesn’t think I’m a dick, and neither do I.” Peter’s gesture of hospitality toward James, his assurance than neither he nor “Our Lord” regard James as “a dick,” directs James to desire according to Peter’s desire. Where his otherness serves to mark him as an easy target for scapegoating, Peter’s momentary invitation into a moment of communion opens for James another path and makes possible a new way of being. And so, in dress and demeanor, the audience watches James begin to desire to be Peter. The episode’s final scene is, well, revelatory. For Erin reveals to Peter that the weeping statue is a hoax. Peter, who had interpreted the statue as one of several divine “signs” confirming his decision to be a priest, is dumbstruck. Eager to draw near his model, James rushes to his side. James: “Peter, Peter, where are you going? Peter, wait. I’ve got the most amazing news. I’ve had a calling. I’ve decided to follow in your footsteps. I’ve decided to serve God.” Peter (acidly): “Don’t be such a dick, James.”

Even though James knows he has been part of a religious hoax, his impulse to imitate Peter has not waned. But just as James gives voice to his desire to follow in Peter’s footsteps, we witness the presence of Michelle’s contagion at work. Peter, who had earlier accepted and affirmed James, now turns on him and casts him away as Michelle had done earlier. While Peter had earlier liberated James from a cycle of scapegoating, he now succumbs to Michelle’s scapegoating logic and pushes James back into it by re-affirming, and rejecting, James’s otherness. The shelter James sought in Peter turns out to be but a shadow.

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Derry Girls may contain elements of mimetic mirth, but realworld occurrences are hardly laughing matters. Learned university faculty are hardly impervious to falling into escalating rivalries with one another. Whether competing for prestige or for endowed professorships, an abiding risk of rivalry and intradepartmental conflict remains. Here, I believe, Deirdre’s exceptional colleagueship proves the Girardian rule. In times of crisis, departments can be tempted to divide against one another, to rally against the chair, or to oppose the administration. The chaos of budgetary woes and personnel is often and easily resolved—even if only temporarily—by channeling the group’s wrath against a common foe. Deirdre expertly names and diffuses such attempts to scapegoat others. Instead of indulging the impulse to label-and-dismiss others, Deirdre keeps her focus on the humanity of the other. Whereas Michelle’s epithets contaminated her listeners and convinced them that James was a dick, Deirdre refuses to participate in gossip-mongering or obloquy. Instead of seeking scapegoats, she enjoins friends and colleagues to follow her in a form of self-critique that exposes the mechanisms we deceive ourselves. In so doing, she enables her colleagues to define themselves not by who they are against but by who they hope to be as a department. Academic departments would be far healthier were more faculty willing to identify colleagues like Deirdre Dempsey and say, “I’ve decided to follow in your footsteps.” As a teacher, mentor, scholar, and friend, she manifests equally what and who a junior faculty ought to aspire to become. With self-effacing humor and unfailing hospitality, she builds fellowship not by identifying common enemies but by calling others into communion. Hers is a rare capacity to perceive unity amidst difference. It is to a consideration of this ability—or, as lampooned in Derry, inability— that we must turn our attention in the next and final section. Shadow and Shelter: “Ok, so, this is just a little exercise…”

~ Father Peter

The first episode of Derry Girls season two takes place approximately one year after the events surrounding the weeping statue. Erin and her friends are excited to take part in a peace-

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building initiative that will bring the girls (and James) from Our Lady Immaculate College together with the students from the Londonderry Boys Academy. To Sister Michael’s chagrin, the mediator selected to facilitate a conversation between the Catholic girls and Protestant boys is none other than Father Peter, freshly returned from a yearlong “sabbatical” (a sabbatical ended when the hairdresser he was dating dumped him). Father Peter’s “little exercise” is to begin a conversation about things Catholics and Protestants have in common. The goal, it seems, is to assist the students in discovering that their commonalities far outnumber their differences. To cite from the song “There Were Roses,” by Tommy Sands, Father Peter intends to get the students to see that, whether Catholic or Protestant, the ground our fathers ploughed in, the soil, it is the same And the places where we say our prayers have just got different names.16

But as regular watchers of Derry Girls will expect, the priest’s intentions are comedically thwarted in ways that, yet again, reveals the salience of Girard’s theory. To “get the ball rolling,” Peter invites Erin to name something Catholics and Protestants have in common. As Erin fumbles to identify a commonality, the camera pans the room filled with white, Irish, teenagers wearing the same “Friends Across the Barricades” t-shirts. Unable to name anything, Peter moves on and calls one of boys who avers, “Protestants are British and Catholics are Irish.” Noting that this is a difference, he instructs Jenny to write it down on the board and continues to canvass for similarities. A chorus of differences erupts: “Protestants are richer.” “Catholics really buzz off statues and we don’t so much.” “Protestants like to march and Catholics like to walk.”

Peter tries to redirect the conversation and proffers several similarities: everyone feels, has hopes, cries, laughs, and dreams. He instructs Aisling to record these on the “Similarities” board, Tommy Sands, “There Were Roses,” track 1 on Singing of the Times, Green Linnet Records, 1989, compact disc. 16

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but only stares at him in incomprehension. Turning to the group, he prompts them once more to identify commonalities. And, of course, they resume the litany of differences: “Catholics watch RTE.” “Protestants are taller.” “Catholics have more freckles.” “Protestants hate ABBA.”

Finally, the camera turns to a completely filled-in board recording “Differences” while the “Similarities” board remains blank. In a desperate attempt to name a similarity, Peter asks, “Is there anything that we all want?” Sister Michael’s sardonic response, “For this to be over,” puts a stake in the heart of Peter’s exercise. To those with eyes to detect it, the show’s humor betrays a profound insight into mimetic desire. In The Scapegoat, Girard notes how “institutional collapse obliterates or telescopes hierarchical and functional differences, so that everything has the same monotonous and monstrous aspect.”17 In times of crisis, Girard thinks, the differences that set one group apart from another, the differences that undergird a group’s identity and mediate a sense of what it means to belong to this group, erode and gradually disappear. And it is the loss of difference that increases our proximity to one another and raises the likelihood that we will succumb to patterns of rivalry and violence. To many, this seems counterintuitive. Typically, we think animosity is a consequence of an intolerance to difference. Girard’s contention is the opposite: it is the loss of differences that allow individuals or groups to converge on and compete for the same objects. As a social order breaks down, the loss of differences creates disorder and confusion and precipitates conflicts aimed at restoring stability. So, even if arbitrary, the differences distinguishing my tribe from your tribe act as bulwarks that preserve social order by keeping our groups distinct. In common parlance, each group can “stay in its lane” and avoid competing with others. When these distinctions dissolve, however, conflict ensues. “No longer

17

Girard, The Scapegoat, 13.

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separated from one another by insurmountable barriers,” Girard writes, “groups and individuals frenetically imitate one another and acute conflicts—whether national, ethnic, economic, social, religious, etc.—are on the rise.”18 Hence the tragi-comic aspect mimetic desire highlight by Derry Girls. Comically: the students cling to outlandish and arbitrary “differences” as distinguishing them. Tragic: enshrouded by the troubles, it is as though the students cannot brings themselves to see how similar they are because, to do so, would threaten to undermine their group identity. In order to preserve who they are, they need to keep before their eyes who they are not. O’Tuama would appreciate the way the shadow (scáth) of the troubles drives the students to seek the shelter (scáth) found by belonging to a group. For the students, this shelter mediates to them an identity and security: We are not them. Yet, because he fails to account for the shadow thrown by the troubles, Peter’s exercise backfires and exacerbates the students’ sense of difference. Why? Because, in a milieu darkened by sectarian violence and terror, there is an impulse to reaffirm one’s sense of belonging to a group. Rooted in archaic religion, the easiest and most reliable way to establish in-group solidarity is by opposing one’s group against a common enemy. As Girard describes it, “relationships of belonging always reemerge from the crises that threaten to destroy them, through scapegoats against whom and then around whom communities beget or renovate their religious and ritualistic systems.”19 With comedic flare, viewers watch this unfold as the students try to establish their identities over-andagainst their religious “other,” they remain blind to the fact that the Catholics and Protestants share a foundation built on the scapegoat par excellence: Jesus Christ, the “stone rejected by builders” (Psalm 118) who has become the cornerstone.20 Not surprisingly, Derry Girls does not probe the theological foundations shared by Catholics and Protestants. Nor would one really expect a comedy to seek out ways the two religious groups

Girard, “Belonging,” 9. Girard, “Belonging,” 8. 20 Girard, I See Satan, 156. 18 19

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might take shelter together in their experience of Jesus Christ. What the show does, as it follows efforts to distinguish one group from another, is to highlight that despite depicting each other as alien and “foreign,” the students are more similar and “local” than they realize. They are so blinded by the long, dark shadow of the troubles that falls across their lives that they are prevented from seeing clearly what—or, religiously, who—unites them. Nevertheless, the show does manage to probe subtly the common ground that unites them. After a catastrophic outing that resulted in a melee between the students, the students’ parents are called in for a meeting. As the episode concludes, viewers watch as parents scold their children for their behavior. For Erin, this occasions an epiphany. She walks over to the still-empty “Similarities” board and uses chalk to write, “Parents.” A Protestant boy, Dee, nods knowingly and gives Erin an approving smile. Regardless of their religion, they know something and share an experience of their parents as the scáth: the shelter and support they provide, the shadow out from which every teen must step out from. More broadly, the show gives a glimpse of hope that even amidst the troubles—political and personal—a spark of recognition can illuminate the shared humanity and common experiences that unite us.

DEIRDRE DEMPSEY: A TRIBUTE TO OUR SCÁTH

I began this chapter by noting how words often lose strength through overuse. The way to rehabilitate words like love, or loyalty, or desire, is to meditate intensively on them. I have tried to show how Girard’s mimetic theory can transform and enrich our understanding of the word “desire” and how deeply we are creatures driven by it. I hope “viewing” a few snippets from Derry Girls through a Girardian lens has demonstrated the richness of his insights. Humans are not creatures who merely “have” transitory desires for this or that; beneath superficial wants, below the surface of our grasping at things, there is a drive to be. We negotiate this desire to be among others in community and, as Derry Girls ably depicts, the results can often be funny even when shadowed by the troubles.

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I have interspersed personal reflections on my friendship with Professor Deirdre Dempsey. During my time as her colleague, friend, mentee, and drinking buddy, my understanding of “friendship,” “scholarship,” and “service” have been transformed and strengthened. If Girard speaks truly, if all desire is a desire to be, then this is nowhere more evident than in the way Deirdre has touched and inspired so many in our community. In word and deed, through her encouragement and her example, she has been a model to students and colleagues of the consummate teacher-scholar. What so often gets divided and siloed—personal and professional life—Deirdre blends into a symphonic whole. Her presence in my life has been the greatest grace imaginable. I hasten to add that, by grace, I mean a word learned through theological study but only refined in the forge of friendship. Deirdre’s grace is nothing less than her self-offering that extends to others the hospitality and courage to be who they are called to be. There is no rivalry within, or arising between, Deirdre. There is only the revelry of a hospitable human heart who calls the best out of those she encounters. Students’ eyes regularly glaze over when the topic of grace is treated. How to talk about the ineffable, the abstract, and the speculative? Grace seems familiar--the priest opens the liturgy by saying, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of the God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14)—yet, when pressed to define it, words fail because grace bursts the bounds of language. Thus, I find it better to speak of grace in terms of friendship. Grace is not an ephemeral substance but, rather, a living and dynamic relationship offered from one person to another. Grace is the unearned gift of relationship, a gift offered not out of deficit but the surplus of love. Friendship is a grace because it the event where one person lovingly shares one’s very life with another. The grace of friendship, of being slowly grafted into another’s life as an act of love, is the best analogy I know for the grace of God offered by Jesus Christ through the Spirit. Just as the grace of friendship draws two hearts, two lives, together into the mystery of love so, too, does God’s grace draw those who receive it into the Mystery of love itself. I apologize if it makes her blush, but Deirdre is to

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so many friends and colleagues what through faith she has received: a sacrament of God’s friendship, a grace. As I conclude this chapter in a well-earned Festschrift, I cannot say if there are more pints of IPA before us or behind us. This is something known only to God. Thus, I raise my glass over and again in gratitude to my friend. Deirdre Dempsey, you are the blessed scáth of Marquette’s Theology Department. Your presence throws a long shadow, one we cannot hope to emulate, yet it is a shadow in which we find shelter. You have enriched the lives and careers of so many and your influence will continue to be felt for generations. I thank you for modeling the sort of teacher-scholar I desire to become and for being a most trusted companion. For all that you have done and for the gift of yourself, I can say nothing more than Thank You.

PSALM 23, MODERN CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING, AND A BETTER ECONOMIC ORDER CHRISTINE FIRER HINZE Many contributors to this volume have been fortunate to know Professor Deirdre A. Dempsey as a teacher, scholar, colleague, or friend. Professor Dempsey has earned our respect, admiration, and gratitude for her distinguished and wide-ranging work in ancient and modern languages and in biblical interpretation and commentary; and equally, for her generous, transformative work as a professor, mentor, and faculty leader at Marquette University and within her academic profession. Having had the privilege to be her Marquette colleague, and the even greater privilege to count her as a friend, it is a great joy to have been invited by Professor Andrei Orlov to participate in this Festschrift in Professor Dempsey’s honor. This very modest essay delves into what I have found to be an inspiring and fecund intersection between the wisdom literature that Professor Dempsey knows so well, and my own work in theological and social ethics. Specifically, I propose that one of those wisdom texts, the well-known and beloved twentythird Psalm, offers a prism through which to glimpse and appreciate the existential and spiritual orientations and dispositions that undergird and animate modern social Catholicism’s understandings of economy, work, and livelihood. Illuminating these 133

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deeper underpinnings is more than just an intriguing exercise: a Psalm-23 perspective on economic activity challenges fundamental assumptions that drive neoliberal economic orthodoxy, and points toward different economic orientations that people of faith, and people of good will, urgently need to cultivate if we to build the inclusive, sustainable economies that the twenty-first century demands. To elaborate this proposal, I will briefly sketch what modern Catholic social teaching has had to say about economy, work, and workers, highlighting the influential North American interpretation of that teaching by U.S. priest-economist, Msgr. John A. Ryan (1869-1945).1 I will then seek to draw connections, (albeit in a very preliminary way due to my non-expertise in scripture studies) between modern Catholic social thought on the aims of a good economy, and the spiritual dispositions and orientations that the twenty-third Psalm evokes. My overarching thesis is that both the vision of Psalm 23 and modern social Catholicism’s vision for economy and livelihood are anchored in, and speak to, primal human needs and desires for sufficiency, for security, and for status. These needs and desires have not only material, but psychological, relational, and spiritual aspects, and so do their fulfillment. Reflecting on work and economy through the lens of Psalm 23 helps clarify the centrality and power of these human necessities and aspirations; the multiple ways—from the mundane to the transcendent—that persons and communities seek to address them; and potentials for integrating them more meaningfully and realistically into our work and economic lives.2

1 “Modern Catholic social teaching” refers to a body of papal and episcopal encyclicals and statements dating from Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum, “On the Condition of Labor.” For more detailed treatments of Catholic social teaching on economy and work, see Christine Firer Hinze, Glass Ceilings and Dirt Floors: Women, Work, and the Global Economy (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2015). For more on the work of John A. Ryan, see Christine Firer Hinze, Radical Sufficiency: Work, Livelihood and a U.S. Catholic Economic Ethic (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2021), chs. 1, 2. 2 For recent, more developed treatments of this essay’s key themes, see Firer Hinze, Radical Sufficiency, esp. chs. 1, 7.

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MODERN CATHOLIC TEACHING ON ECONOMY AND WORK

As many readers will know, since the late nineteenth century, modern papal social teaching—and associated social thought and action—has represented a sustained effort by Catholic leadership to engage publicly with the pressing social, political, and economic issues of the contemporary world. In confronting complex and changing problems and circumstances, modern social Catholicism has been guided by a set of principles and priorities which include human dignity and sociality; justice and the common good; the dignity of work and rights of workers; civic rights and duties to participate within a free, multi-associational polity; subsidiarity and solidarity; an intentional option for/commitment to the poor and vulnerable; and stewardship of creation. Notably for our purposes here, this tradition’s treatment of work and economy differs in at least three key ways from the neoliberal market orthodoxy that so heavily influences contemporary U.S. and global economic thought and practice. First, versus the value-neutrality to which neoclassical economics aspires, modern Catholic social thought embraces a classically normative understanding of economy. On this view, a political economy’s primary function is to ensure access to participation and to provisioning for all its members. Inclusive livelihood, not the Gross Domestic Product, is thus the criterion by which an economy’s success is evaluated.3 An inclusive-livelihood metric assesses an economy’s health by asking questions such as: Is everyone, according to their capacity, able to participate, especially through freely undertaken, meaningful, and contributive labor? And is everyone able to access the resources to provide adequately for themselves and for their families or households? Second, social Catholicism refuses to limit its view of economy and work solely to the arenas of money, wage-earning, and finance. Instead, the informal household and formal waged economies are seen as interdependent, collaborating to serve personal and communal economic survival and welfare. Finally, while eschewing allegiance to any specific political-economic See, for example, Pope John Paul II, Laborem exercens; Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, ch. 6 (on work), ch. 7 (on economy). 3

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ideology or system, Catholic social thought bears the DNA of its roots in classical economic thought, and in early-modern European corporatist and solidarist economics.4 In contrast to contemporary mainstream economics, these alternative traditions operate with commitments to several premises that Catholic social teaching also embraces: humans’ basic dignity, sociality, and interdependence; economy’s inclusive, participative and provisioning purposes (which implies a priority concern for the economically vulnerable—first, the poor, but also that broad spectrum of people outside the upper-middle or upper tiers of wealth and income); and the special obligations of government, civil society, and those who are better-off to establish policies and adopt practices that ensure access to economic participation and provisioning for those lacking or at risk of losing them.

JOHN A. RYAN & A U.S. CATHOLIC AGENDA FOR WORK AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE

In the twentieth century, social Catholicism’s brief for economic and work justice found its most influential U.S. interpreter and spokesperson in priest-economist Monsignor John A. Ryan (18691945).5 Ryan, the Minnesota-born son of Irish immigrant farmers, was sent after ordination to study moral theology and economics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (later to be the site of Professor Dempsey’s own doctoral studies). After publishing his dissertation, A Living Wage, in 1906, Ryan went on to lead a distinguished career as a CUA professor, a public policy advocate, a charter member of the American Civil Liberties Union, the founding director of the U.S. Bishops’ Social Action Department, and an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A 4 A substantive treatment of this history is Mark G. Nixon, The Economic Foundation of Modern Catholic Social Teaching, Past, and Prospect (PhD diss., Fordham University, 2015). 5 See, e.g., Laura Murphy, “An ‘Indestructible Right’: John Ryan and the Catholic Origins of the U.S. Living Wage Movement, 1906-1938,” Labor Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas 6.1 (2009): 57-86; cf. Christine Firer Hinze, “John A. Ryan: Theological Ethics and Political Engagement,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 50 (1995): 174-91.

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prolific speaker and writer who published widely in both scholarly and popular presses, Ryan forcefully articulated a program for economic and work justice that was grounded in papal social teaching of the day, and whose centerpiece was the right of all workers and families to access to dignified work and a good livelihood marked by “sufficiency, security, and status.”6 Ryan was an indefatigable advocate for modern social Catholicism’s vision of economic justice and worker rights, and he dedicated his career to articulating and advancing that vision for the U.S. context in publicly-persuasive, intelligent, policy-focused terms. For Ryan, the words “sufficiency, security, and status” came to sum up the aims of a U.S. political-economic reform agenda that would deliver “complete worker justice” through living wages, social security, and voice and agency in the workplace. These three desiderata also comprise the criteria for judging not only the justice, but the proper functioning, of any economic system. In a properly operating economic regime, every worker and family has access to material sufficiency, normally through family-supporting living wages earned in dignified working conditions.1 More than simply keeping body and soul together, a “living” wage denotes pay at the rate that yields, at minimum, a “decent livelyhood,” marked by the material conditions of “modest comfort,” and “reasonable” living. In keeping with social Catholicism’s holistic understanding of human flourishing, reasonable living implies “the power to exercise one’s primary faculties, supply one’s essential needs, and develop one’s personality;”7 including one’s “higher,” spiritual faculties— See John A. Ryan, A Living Wage: Its Economic and Ethical Dimensions (New York: MacMillan, 1906, 1912); idem, Distributive Justice (New York: MacMillan, 1916, 1922, 1942). For Ryan’s depiction of “complete worker justice” as entailing “sufficiency, security, and status” see, e.g., John A. Ryan, A Better Economic Order (New York: Harper, 1935), ch. 7. 7 A decent livelihood here refers to “more than bare subsistence. It is as much of things needed for sustenance that will enable a person “to live in a manner worthy of a human being.” (DJ, 270-73) It includes “Food, clothing and housing sufficient in quantity and quality to maintain the worker in normal health, in elementary comfort, and in an environment suitable to the protection of morality and religion; sufficient provision for the future to bring elementary contentment, and security against sickness 6

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ultimately one’s ability to “know the best there is to be known, and love the best there is to be loved, namely, God, and his creatures in proportion to their likeness to Him.”8 In short, Ryan deemed “food, clothing, shelter, insurance, and mental and spiritual culture—all in a reasonable degree” as “essential conditions of a decent livelihood. Remuneration inadequate to secure all of these things to the laborer and his family falls below the level of a Living Wage.” 9 Besides sufficiency for the present, Ryan argued that employers and/or public policies must ensure workers and their families reasonable degrees of economic security against future difficulties such as accidents, illness, or old age. Security was to be provided either by means of wages high enough to allow families to set aside savings for these eventualities, by means of benefits such as medical insurance and pensions, or some combination of the two.110 But to be complete, this Catholic understanding of labor justice requires a third element: “a vastly improved status for workers.” To this end, Ryan advocated for conditions he called “industrial democracy,” wherein workers would be active participants in the business enterprise, with rights to a reasonable share not only in profits, but in management and ownership. . . . and sufficient opportunities of recreation, social interaction, education and church membership to conserve health and strength and to render possible the exercise of one’s higher faculties.” Ryan, A Living Wage,136. 8 Ryan, A Living Wage, 136. 9 From Ryan’s Catholic social-economic perspective, the logic here is indisputable: “To compel a man to work for less than a Living Wage is as truly an act of injustice as to pick his pocket. In a wide sense it also an attack upon his life.” Ryan, Living Wage, 301. This is the same vantagepoint from which Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum declares it a law of natural justice that wages ought to be “sufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved worker” (RN no. 45), and that to take advantage of destitute and vulnerable workers by paying less is a great crime which cries to the avenging anger of Heaven.” (RN no. 20), and this view has been upheld by all subsequent papal social teaching. 10 Ryan, A Living Wage, 157ff. In addition, Ryan advocated for profitsharing programs whereby workers could actively build a secure future through both savings and, ideally, modest property ownership.

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Since most participants in the modern market will remain employees rather than owners, Ryan reasons, it is imperative for “the development of human faculties and the maintenance of human dignity” that workers have opportunities in their jobs to practice and develop their “creative or directive capacities.”11 This means, he argues, developing avenues for employee profitsharing, for sharing in business ownership, and for workers’ active participation in the running of business concerns.12 In line with papal and episcopal teaching, Ryan championed workingman’s associations, labor unions, and occupational groups as vehicles for raising workers’ status by enabling them to collectively address conflicts and advance equitable cooperation among labor, management. and capital. To Ryan’s trio of sufficiency, security, and status, more recent Catholic economic teaching, beginning with Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) has added a fourth “S”—ecological sustainability. Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013) and Pope Francis (2013-) have focused on ecological responsibility repeatedly and at length, stressing the intimate relationships between natural and human ecologies, and the corresponding responsibilities of communities and economies to be accountable to both “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”13 Today this foursome distills the essential, compelling purposes that human economies and work are meant to serve. For this modern social tradition, these purposes cannot remain abstract ideals; they must be embodied in practical, transformative agendas Ryan, Questions of the Day (Boston: Stratford Company, 1931), 226-27. “The men and women who compose our industrial population have not been sharply divided by their Creator into two utterly different classes, one possessing all the managerial ability and the other having no capacity except to do what they are told.” Ibid. 12 Workers’ participation was, however, to be appropriately bounded; Ryan never completely eschewed the labor-management hierarchy. 13 Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ (2015), no. 49. “Today . . . a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” Ibid. Cf. Pope Benedict XVI, The Garden of God: Towards a Human Ecology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012); Pope Benedict XVI, “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation,” and especially, Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ (2015). 11

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for economic justice that are intelligently-formulated, economically and politically credible, and capable of engaging both religiously- and non-religiously-minded publics.14 But this is not the end of the story. In significant ways, the material sufficiency, social security, and worker status which economies exist to provide also connect to, and get intertwined with, more-than-material human needs and yearnings.15 From Christianity’s incarnational perspective, the mundane, embodied realities of work and economic life also bear deeper meanings linked to human beings’ holistic, God-given identities and destinies.16 Emotional, existential and spiritual energies attach to our yearnings for sufficiency, for security, and for status; when activated, these energies can lend a fierce intensity to our drives to attain or keep the “three S’s.” Succeeding in our efforts, we may experience some of the most satisfying moments of our lives. Conversely, our dread, our fears, and our anxieties about failing to attain or losing any one of them can prove so strong that, in order to prevent such eventualities, we will betray even cherished relationships, values and ethical standards. History and our own experience testify to how much conflict, division, violence, and oppression is fueled by real or perceived threats to the sufficiency, to the security, or to the status of some or groups in relation to some others. From a biblical, God-centered perspective, however, only a loving, sustaining, and forgiving God can fully and completely This trajectory continues in the work of such contemporary Catholic scholars as Daniel K. Finn, Gerald Beyer, (U.S); Stefano Zamagni and Leonardo Becchetti (Italy); and others. 15 Though the practically-focused Ryan did not dwell on this fact, his keen sense of the importance of this triumvirate of needs suggests that he recognized, at least implicitly, that drives to fulfill them operate and motivate people at visceral and subconscious, as well as rational and emotional levels. 16 Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of human needs confirms this from a psychological perspective: minimum degrees of material sufficiency, physical, emotional, and social security, and personal dignity, agency, and social status are indispensable to human survival and flourishing. See, e.g., Abraham H. Maslow, Motivation and Personality (New Delhi: Prabhat Books, 1984). 14

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meet humanity’s deepest needs and desires for deliverance from want in the present, deliverance from fear and anxiety about the future, and deliverance from marginalization, shame, and worthlessness. Here, I suggest, the wisdom of Psalm 23 offers a unique way into these deeper currents that flow within our everyday activities, including our our economic endeavors.

PSALM 23 AND A HOLISTICALLY-GROUNDED PERSPECTIVE ON WORK AND ECONOMY

In Hebrew Scriptures, the unadorned profundity of humans’ needs for sufficiency, security and status come through strikingly in the Book of Psalms, and perhaps quintessentially so in the words of the twenty-third psalm.17 Its familiar text reads: 1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; Sources for the following discussion include: Walter Brueggemann, “Trusting in the Water-Food-Oil Supply,” in The Threat of Life: Sermons on Pain, Power, and Weakness (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 90-96; Richard J. Clifford, Psalms 1-72 (ed. P. Miller; Abingdon Bible Commentaries; Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002), 130-133; Susan Gillingham, Psalms Through the Centuries, vol. 2: A Reception-History Commentary on Psalms 1-72 (Oxford: Wiley & Sons, 2018), 144-153; William L. Holladay, The Psalms Through Three Thousand Years (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996) ch 1, epilogue; Mark S. Smith, “Setting and Rhetoric in Psalm 23,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 41 (1988): 61-66; Ron Tappy, “Psalm 23: Symbolism and Structure,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 37 (1995): 255-280; Walter Brueggemann, Tenacious Solidarity: Biblical Provocations on Race, Religion, Climate, and the Economy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018), in particular ch. 17, “The Psalms: Tenacious Solidarity.” 17

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PSALM 23, MODERN CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.18

In the affirmations and images of this ancient poem-prayer—“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”—sufficiency beyond my own effort or desert, security amid and beyond my fears, and status as loved, cared-for and significant, are all trustingly anticipated as the gifts of a shepherding God, who in the New Testament becomes identified with Jesus, the Good Shepherd (John 10: 11-15).19 Not surprisingly, the scholarly and pastoral literature treating this particular psalm is exceedingly vast.20 Dipping just a toe into this sea of writings, one discovers several prominent interpretive currents. Scripture scholars often note the psalmist’s use of the first-person voice, which gives Psalm 23 a feeling of direct connection to the personal hopes and fears of the speaker or listener. Two distinctive images for God are also highlighted: God as good Shepherd who guides, provides for and protects every member of the flock; and God as gracious Host who welcomes the psalmist into God’s household, and showers this guest with honor and abundant hospitality.21 Many historical and modern interpreters of Psalm 23 have pondered its spiritual meanings. Yet, as Walter Brueggeman, NRSV. Cf. Clifford, Psalms 1-72, 130-133; Gillingham, Psalms Through the Centuries, 144-153. For an amplified version of this discussion, see Firer Hinze, Glass Ceilings and Dirt Floors, ch. 1. The fact that girls and women commonly labored as shepherds in ancient Israel adds further resonance to the imagery of YHWH as caring and protecting shepherd employed in Psalm 23. See, e.g., Oden Borowski, Every Living Thing: Daily Use of Animals in Ancient Israel (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira (Sage), 1998), 43-48. 20 I thank my Fordham University colleague and psalms expert, Harry Nasuti, for generous guidance and helpful reading suggestions. 21 Scholars also point out the fact that in ancient Israel, “shepherd” was an image commonly applied to the king; pointing to a vision of earthly governance as responsible for mirroring the provident intentions and actions of God that Psalm 23 describes. 18 19

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echoing many other scripture scholars, has emphasized, a purely spiritualizing reading of this psalm will not do. “Israel refuses to split the material and the spiritual.” The confident assertion, “I lack not,” he continues, affirms YHWH as “the satisfaction of all wants and needs,” not only religious ones. “The images of cup and table guard against spiritualizing, for they refer to real food and real drink.” 22 Scholars attentive to the text’s reception by communities undergoing economic or social precarity, exploitation, or deprivation also underscore Psalm 23’s forthright references to embodied and material safety and well-being. So, for instance, South African biblical scholar David T. Adamo reports that in African contexts, the psalm is chanted and prayed to invoke both God’s powerful protection, and in hopes of receiving material sustenance and economic prosperity.23 More broadly, considering Psalm 23 in with an eye toward its linkages of the material, the psychological/emotional, and the spiritual dimensions of human well-being sheds light on just how tightly these are intertwined for most of us, including in our economic lives. Psalm 23’s direct and personal voice, and its predominating images of God—as shepherd, protector, and guide, and as householder and generous host—all contribute to its power to communicate a Divine who is attentive to humans’ material, emotional, and spiritual needs, and who can be relied upon to wholly satisfy them. Considering this biblical text in relation to social Catholicism’s vision for economy and livelihood illuminates several further points. First, the care of the Divine Shepherd, and placing trust in that care, obliterates neither human neediness, nor the dangers, evils, and enemies that threaten the psalmist’s pursuit of sufficiency, security, and status. In traversing life’s dangers, toils, and snares, the presence of a shepherding God can, however, quell fears and restore souls. Not content to simply accompany me on my journey, God the Host welcomes me into his household, sets a rich table for me, anoints my head with oil, and fills my cup to overflowing. I am treated with dignity, as an Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1984), 155. 23 See David T. Adamo, “Reading Psalm 23 in African Context,” Verbum et Ecclesia 39.1 (2018): 1–8. 22

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honored, and abundantly-provided-for guest. In the realitygrounded, biblical worldview that the psalm encapsulates, the evils and enmities of life do not disappear. But their ability to do ultimate harm, the power of evil and death to have the last word, are staved off by YHWH’s presence, protection, and providence. Second, as life’s uncertain journey proceeds, the psalmist expresses confidence that “goodness and kindness (in Hebrew, hesed) will follow (the Hebrew word connotes “pursue”) me,” and that I will return to (in the Hebrew), or dwell in (in the Greek) God’s household “all the days of my life.” There, I will at last be, in the words of Isaac Watts’s famous hymn, “No more a stranger, nor a guest, but like a child at home.” Though today this psalm is frequently read in primarily spiritual and eschatological terms, biblical scholars like Brueggemann and Mark S. Smith insist that its this-worldly referents are always, also, in play. In the mundane precincts of daily living and working, this mysterious divine providing, protecting, and honoring is mediated—however partially and imperfectly—by people, communities and social institutions such as family, civil society, business, politics, and economy. Wherever any person or group is deprived of minimum levels of material, personal, or social sufficiency, security and status, a grave injustice calls out for redress. In sum, the modern Catholic social tradition assumes and affirms what the ancient psalmist recognized. The practical sufficiency, security, and status we seek in work and economic life reflect, connect to, and can only be fully realized in relation to our most fundamental identity and deepest longings as human beings: to be and to thrive in right relationships with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with God’s creation—to be pursued by goodness and mercy, and dwell in God’s household, God’s oikonomia, for the length of our days. Critically for the way we approach our economic lives, to embrace this spiritual and moral orientation is, simultaneously, to cease grasping for absolute or invulnerable sufficiency, security, or status through money or power. It is to reject and directly oppose neoliberal capitalism’s false but seductive promises to succor these basic human desires through endless working, spending,

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consuming, and accumulation. Cultivating a Psalm 23 perspective on work, economy, and our relationship to the earth will inevitably create friction with dominant economic thinking, attitudes and practices, and may diminish one’s standing in that dominant system. But it can also expand our freedom and power to see, judge, and act in ways that more effectively and authentically advance the concrete purpose of any economy—to enable and ensure a dignified livelihood for all its members. Before concluding, let me briefly address two objections that my proposal concerning the value of a Psalm 23-shaped approach economy is likely to evoke: First, Psalm 23 depicts human beings as vulnerable recipients of care, protection, and hospitality; but economic life must center action, agency, and striving. Second, while an economy that provides sufficiency, security, and status for all is appealing to envision, in the real world it is unrealistic and utopian. If these two objections are valid, efforts to concretely enact Catholic social teaching’s economic vision, at best, will be naïve and ineffectual. At worst, such efforts will threaten to undermine the successful functioning of real-life economies and the people for which they provide.24 Psalm 23 and Catholic economic teaching, therefore, ought to stay in their proper, religious lanes, and leave the spheres of work and economy to run as they run best—according to their own, practical and secular market logics. In response to the first objection: To embrace a posture and spirituality shaped by Psalm 23 as crucial for pursuing comprehensive economic and work justice does not entail replacing work, economics, and market logics with the passive praying of psalms. While a biblical vision of a God-given, complete and unerodable economic well-being can and does function eschatologically, from the perspective of Catholic social thought, this vision’s appropriate impact on the economic thinking and living of flesh-and-blood people and communities is not to promote passivity. It is, rather, to orient, spur, and ground practical and I engage this position at some length in Christine Firer Hinze, “Economic Recession, Work, and Solidarity,” Theological Studies 72 (2011) 150–169.

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intelligent efforts to advance sustainable economic well-being for all. Ryan’s work and Catholic social teaching on economic life both stand as examples of this radically-oriented yet practicallytransformative stance.25 Concerning the second objection: Far from obviating social scientists’ and policy makers’ efforts to accurately understand and respond to economic dynamics, or devaluing practical economic action, keeping in view the fuller existential and spiritual picture that Psalm 23 limns can enable more grounded, more realistic and thereby more fruitful approaches to both. A cultivated awareness of the way our quests for economic sufficiency, security, and status connect to our deeper hopes and fears, drives and desires—ultimately, to our desire for the Radical Sufficiency that is God—can animate a clearer-eyed understanding of economy and its workings, and can sustain dedication to the longhaul work of extending economic justice to all God’s children. Full-orbed socio-economic analysis and its wise application, wed to a sturdy commitment to justice: this is precisely what modern Catholic social teaching has sought to promote. It characterized John A. Ryan’s economic analysis and advocacy. And it continues to be a vital calling not just for faith communities, but for all people of good will in the present day. At this moment in history, building inclusive, sustainable economies requires ethical and spiritual supports that can bear the weight of the changes that these new priorities will entail. This means cultivating dispositions that place “being over having,” and placing acquisitive pursuits in service of deeper kinds of relatedness—interpersonal, communal, earth—and ultimately, our identity within the Great Economy of God’s oikonomia. By fostering trust in our membership in a larger household, a “Psalm 23” economic spirituality can help us to calm down, to unclench our minds and hearts, and to navigate more

See Firer Hinze, Radical Sufficiency, chs. 1, 2 for more on Ryan’s and official social teaching’s “radical-transformationist’ approach to economic justice. 25

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freely and wisely the uncertainties and insecurities of our particular economic circumstances.26 Individuals and communities who undertake work and do economics in the spirit of Catholic social thought and Psalm 23 will inevitably take on risks, and can expect to be asked to make sacrifices for the common good. As recent popes have written, this kind of economics involves participants not only in the logic of equal exchange or the logic of legal obligation, but also in the logic of gift.27 Prioritizing what evolutionary economists call our “bonding and meaning-making” drives over our “acquiring and defending” drives in economic life requires courage, for doing so inevitably heightens our vulnerability to suffering and loss. But taking up this economic direction also opens avenues to more just, authentically satisfying, and peaceful living. Once again we see that the material and the spiritual cannot be compartmentalized. For plying the arduous path toward sustainable, inclusive economies, cultivating our personal and communal capacities to perceive, to trust, and to rest in deeper non-material sources of sustenance, protection, and worthiness—to which the twenty-third psalm so beautifully attests—are foundational, empowering, and urgent tasks.28

Cf. Firer Hinze, Radical Sufficiency, ch. 7. Nonsectarian examples of this approach can be found in the works of Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben, and others. 27 These themes are developed by Pope Benedict XVI, in particular in his 2009 encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. 28 One final note: While writing this essay, I have been struck by the many ways that the life and work of the present volume’s honoree reflect personal and communal virtues depicted in Psalm 23 and in Catholic social teaching. In her teaching, mentoring, and support of her many students; in the generous hospitality—including many delicious, chili dinners!—and friendship she has extended to so many; and in her dedicated care for her family and for her wider community, those of us who are fortunate to know Professor Deirdre Dempsey have seen the attributes of “shepherd” and “host” imaged by the psalmist, and the relational, open-hearted and open-handed orientations to social and economic living forwarded by biblical and Christian teachings, gracefully, unassumingly, and truly refracted. 26

BEHOLD, THE POWER OF TRANSFORMED HOLY WOMEN JENNIFER HENERY In March of 2020 Italy was closed by a plague. The COVID-19 virus hit the Northern Regions particularly hard: the exact same region ravaged by the Bubonic plague four centuries ago. By 1631 over one-third of the population was killed by that virus. In thanksgiving for deliverance from the plague, Marco Marchetti, the priest in Este, commissioned Giovanni Battista Tiepolo to create an altarpiece for the Cathedral commemorating St. Thecla’s intercession for the liberation and healing of the city. In Tiepolo’s work, St. Thecla Liberating the City of Este from the Plague, Thecla is intensely immersed in prayer, her face beacons toward heaven, while the evil suffered surrounds her. At the base of the Euganean Hills in Este the dead are being carried to their burial and despairing families lament their dying loved ones. Young children cling to their pestilent parents and infants starve. And yet, Thecla intercedes, trusting and imploring God’s deliverance. The altar piece commemorates the cities deliverance through the prayer of Saint Thecla. Fortunately, a hundred years earlier, Pope Pius V, implementing a decree of the Council of Trent to create a calendar of saints to be honored in the liturgical year in the official Roman Rite, included the Feast of St. Thecla, virgin and martyr. While Pius V included Thecla and other virgin saints to highlight the place of the monastic life and the holy state of virginity over and 149

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against the Protestant rejection of the consecrated life, the people of Este turned to Thecla’s power of intercession and commemorated the healing power of her prayers. In 2019, the restored altar piece was revealed to the public and within the year the people of Este again turned to Thecla and her intercessions to rid them of a new pestilence. Unfortunately, Thecla, the ancient saint of Iconium, who had helped to deliver the city from the plague in 1631, had been removed from the General Roman Calendar and her feast day revoked in 1969 when Pope Paul VI issued a revised liturgical calendar because beyond the Acts of Paul and Thecla there was no evidence of her cult.1 Thecla was not alone in having her feast day revoked. St. Christopher and St. Nicholas were excised too. The reason for this reform of the General Roman Calendar initiated by The Second Vatican were detailed in the 1963 document Sacrosanctum Concillium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy): The saints have been traditionally honored in the Church, and their authentic relics and images held in veneration. For the feasts of the saints proclaim the wonderful works of Christ in his servants and offer to the faithful fitting examples for their imitation. Lest the feasts of the saints should take precedence over the feasts which commemorate the very mysteries of salvation, many of them should be left to be celebrated by a particular Church, or nation, or family of religious. Only those should be extended to the universal Church which commemorate saints who are truly of universal importance.2

And yet, regardless of Thecla’s demotion and the reason behind it, the people of Este gathered in prayer and implored Thecla to again intercede on their behalf.

Paul VI. “Mysterii Paschalis (February 14, 1969).” https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/motu_proprio/documents/ hf_p-vi_motu-proprio_19690214_mysterii-paschalis.html. 2 Paul VI. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 111 (December 4, 1963). https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/docu ments/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html. 1

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From the earliest Christian stories, the lives of holy saints were told and retold and became models for imitation. By imitating the lives of holy people, ordinary Christians believed that they could gain access to the transforming power of Christ manifest in the saint.3 Tales of exorcists, healers, martyrs, and patrons exemplified holiness. As Christianity spread, stories of holy faithful people spread, both in canonical and extra-canonical writings. Since at least the beginning of the third century, and the first recorded evidence of the story of Thecla’s holy life, Thecla’s transformation into holiness has invited imitation and intercession. Her story has also been condemned, controlled, and retold to direct her narrative and imitation. In the time of our modern plague, returning anew to Thecla’s story, will highlight her transformation to holiness and the power of her instinctive willingness to intercede directly for herself and on the behalf of others. Her model of interceding may just call us all to transformed lives and to beckon, “Holy Thecla, pray for us.” Thecla’s story appears as a chapter detailing Paul’s missionary trip to Iconium. When the story titled the Acts of Paul and Thecla4 was first told or first written is inconclusive. Some evidence could date the narrative all the way back to the time when the events were reported to have occurred, during Paul’s

3 Peter Brown, “The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity,” in Saints and Virtues (ed. J. S. Hawley; Berkley: University of California Press, 1987), 3-14; Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkley: University of California Press, 1991), 143; Peter Brown, “Arbiters of the Holy: The Christian Holy Man in Later Antiquity,” in idem, Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 55-78, 85-87. 4 Wilhelm Schneemelcher and Rodolphe Kasser, “The Acts of Paul,” in New Testament Apocrypha (2 vols; eds. E. Hennecke and W. Schneemelcher; tr. R. McLachlan Wilson; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 2.213-270. For the Greek of the text and an English translation see Jeremy W. Barrier, The Acts of Paul and Thecla: A Critical Introduction and Commentary (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009). The fullest critical edition is to be found in Richard A. Lipsius and Maximilian Bonnet, eds., Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1891).

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first missionary trip to Iconium.5 Most scholars, though, are more cautious with a later date of writing, perhaps about 160 AD. Scholars have concluded that the latest possible date for the writing of the Acts of Paul (and Thecla) is between 196 and 206 AD. This dating is dependent on the first external literary reference to the text which appears in Carthage in the early third century in the writings of Tertullian.6 It is here, at the first For architectural evidence that a Queen Tryphaena who is a relative of Caesar and who is mentioned in the Acts of Paul lived between 38 and 68 A.D., possibly in Iconium see Willy Rordorf, “Tradition and Composition in the Acts of Thecla: The State of the Question,” Semeia 38 (1986): 46. Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, “The Biographical Method of Jerome’s De viris illustribus,” Studia patristica 15.1 (1984): 55–68. Ceresa-Gastaldo has shown that Jerome’s “care for the chronology is constant and fundamental.” From this he was able to deduce from the De viri illustribus and Chronicon that the “History of Paul” (incorporating the earlier Acts of Paul and Thecla) was originally published between A.D. 68–98. Anthony Hilhorst, “Tertullian on the Acts of Paul,” in The Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla (ed. J. N. Bremmer; Kamen: Kok Pharos, 1996), 150-63. 6 Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus was born at Carthage around A.D. 160 to heathen parents and likely died during the second decade of the third century (around A.D. 220-225). He was the first Latin-writing Christian author whose works we still possess. For a more extensive overview of Tertullian’s life including his eventual turn to Montanism and further information on the disagreement over Tertullian’s background, see Timothy David Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical And Literary Study (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 57-84, 130-142; Geoffrey Dunn, Tertullian (New York: Routledge, 2004), 2-36; and Gerald Lewis Bray, Holiness And the Will Of God: Perspectives on the Theology of Tertullian (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1979), 33-65. A date of 160 A.D. is based on several arguments: a Roman inscription of a Pompeia Sosia Falconilla, who is suspected to be the daughter of Queen Tryphaena, referred to in the Acts of Paul; on the similarities of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles to the ancient novel that was popular at this later date; the argument that the Apocryphal Acts first existed as oral tales and then only later as written texts; and the argument that dating at an earlier date based on architectural evidence was flawed logic as the Apocryphal Acts were fictional. A date of 196-206 A.D. is based on the first external literary testimony for the Acts of Paul which appears in Tertullian’s treatise on baptism which was written in Carthage, North Africa between 196 and 206 A.D. Ernest Evans, ed. and trans., Tertullian’s Homily on Baptism (London: SPCK,1964), 36-37. For 5

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mention of Thecla’s story, that she is condemned. At the turn of the century, a female teacher from the Cainite sect,7 aggressively taught against the necessity of baptism.8 Tertullian writes a defense against this teacher and also writes to instruct those preparing for baptism and to those who had recently been baptized but who were not sufficiently prepared to defend against this heresy.9 In this treatise, On Baptism, Tertullian aggressively opposes a local appeal to the Acts of Paul and Thecla which permitted women to baptize and teach.10 Despite this first textual witness and the consequential exclusion of the Acts of Paul and Thecla from the canon of scripture and its repeated use to prohibit several translations of the relevant text see Hilhorst, “Tertullian on the Acts of Paul,” 150-53: Evans, Tertullian’s Homily on Baptism, 35-37, 97-101. There is a technical scholarly conversation about whether Tertullian was referring to the Acts of Paul as a complete work which included the Acts of Paul and Thecla. The reason for much of this argument is whether the Acts of Paul and Thecla was written by a woman or at least originated as oral tales told by and for a community of women. If Tertullian is referring to a presbyter from Asia Minor writing the whole of the Acts of Paul then the Acts of Paul and Thecla was not written by a woman for a community of women. If on the other hand, Tertullian was not referring to the whole of the Acts of Paul then this community of women could exist. For this discussion and those scholars arguing for specific female communities and authorship, see Steven L. Davies, The Revolt of the Widows: The Social World of the Apocryphal Acts (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), 104-09. See also, Steven L. Davies, “Women, Tertullian, and the Acts of Paul,” Semeia 38 (1986): 139-143; Steven L. Davies, The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 139-43; Dennis Ronald MacDonald, The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), 34-53; Virginia Burrus, Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of Apocryphal Acts (Studies in Women and Religion, 3; Lewiston/Queenston: Edwin Mellon Press, 1987), 67-8. 7 The Cainites opposed the God of the Old Testament as a malevolent deity who was inferior to the higher deity of Sophia. They honored those like Cain who were enemies of the Old Testament God. For a description of the sect see Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.31 (ANF 1:358); Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 301. 8 Evans, Tertullian’s Homily on Baptism, 1.2, 5. 9 Ibid., 1.1, 4. 10 Ibid., 17, 35-37.

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women from teaching and baptizing, Thecla’s story and her witness do not disappear.11 In fact, this extra-canonical story circulated both as an independent story called the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and as a part of a larger work called the Acts of Paul. While scholars have reconstructed the whole of the Acts of Paul from fragmentary evidence, the section of the Acts of Paul that records the conversion of Thecla is sometimes referred to as the Acts of Paul and Thecla, survived as a nearly complete manuscript because it circulated both as part of the Acts of Paul, and as an independent manuscript tradition that supported the cult of Saint Thecla that was centered in Asia Minor in the fourth and fifth century.12 Scholars have concluded that Greek was the original language in which the Acts of Paul were written. Quickly, though, the text was translated into Syriac, Coptic, and Latin and was known and used in at least Asia Minor, Rome, North Africa, Caesarea Maritima, and Alexandria by the beginning of the third century. The external evidence of the manuscript tradition, the textual history of reception of the Acts of Paul, and the external literary testimony of sources that discuss, refer to, or quote the Acts of Paul is prolific. Thecla was praised as an exemplary virgin throughout Italy, Gaul, Germany, Armenia, Cyprus, Palestine-Syria, and Egypt. Ambrose of Milan’s first treatise, De Virginibus, was written exclusively with the hope of recruiting Christian women to the ascetic life through the

Michael W. Holmes, “The Biblical Canon,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (eds. S. Ashbrook Harvey and D. G. Hunter; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 416. It is clear from general studies of the second century New Testament writings that though some books were being given increasing amounts of recognized authority, there was still not unanimity on which books should be canonical, yet there was by Tertullian’s time already a core of approximately 20 documents which were being used extensively as Christian Scripture (including the four Gospels, Acts, thirteen letters of Paul, 1 John, and 1 Peter). 12 Schneemelcher and Kasser, “The Acts of Paul,” 2.214-216. Steven J. Davis rehearses the reception history specifically of the Acts of Paul and Thecla and the development of the cult of St. Thecla in Stephen J. Davis, The Cult of St. Thecla: a Tradition of Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 11

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praise of female virgins. His call to imitation of Thecla’s virginity is emblematic of many Church fathers: Let, then, holy Mary instruct you in the discipline of life, and Thecla teach you how to be offered, for she, avoiding nuptial intercourse, and condemned through her husband’s rage, changed even the disposition of wild beasts by their reverence for virginity.13

Similarly, Gregory of Nyssa calls Thecla the apostle Paul’s virgin disciple and commends her story as one “of great importance among the virgins,” and even extols his sister, Macrina, as one who was secretly named Thecla.14 Exhorting imitation of Thecla, church Fathers commended their communities and especially women to lives of virginity.15 None of them, though, preached about or wrote about Thecla as a teacher or as an intercessor, as one who baptized or one who healed. While celebrating her holiness, they controlled her narrative. Fortunately, the text of the Acts of Paul and Thecla survived and as a part of her cult and pilgrim sites her story was shared, and people learned of her transformation into holiness and the power of her prayers. Architectural and archeological evidence witness to the growth of a shrine and pilgrimage site dedicated to Thecla and adaptations and expansion of Thecla’s legend illustrate the

Ambrose of Milan: De Virg., lib. II, 3.19-20 (PL 16.211); De virg. lib I, 7, 40 (PL 16.276); Epistle 63 ad Vercellens (PL 16.1198). 14 Gregory of Nyssa, In Cantica Canticorum Homily 14 (PG 44, 1068a); Vita Macrina 2 (PG 46, 961b). 15 Léonie Hayne, “Thecla and the Church Fathers,” Vigiliae christianae 48.3 (1994): 209-218; Tommasi Moreschini, “Thecla in the Latin Sources,” in Thecla: Paul’s Disciple and Saint in the East and West (eds. J. Barrier et al.; Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 69-105. Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. 87 (PG 78. 241D–244A) was written to Alexandrian female monks who embraced Thecla as a primary model for female piety. Rufinus, Apology 2.26; Zeno of Vernona, De timore (PL 11.32-5); Nicetas of Remesiana, De lapsu virg 3-4 (PL 16.385-6); Origen, De Principis 1.2.3 (ANF 4, 434); Origen, Comm. on John 20.12 (PG 14, 599); Augustine, Contra Faustum 30.4 (CSEL 25, 751-2); Ps-Maximus of Turin, Sermo 56 (PL 57.646); Epiphanius of Salamis, Pan 79.5 (PG 4.748). 13

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flourishing of the cult of Thecla from the fourth through the sixth century both in Seleucia in Asia Minor and in Egypt.16 Gregory of Nazianzus withdrew to Thecla’s shrine for 3 years to evade ordination.17 According to Gregory of Nazianzus, Athanasius visited there too and uses Thecla at length to encourage virgins under his charge. In 384 AD, a pilgrim named Egeria wrote a letter to her “sisters” back home and shared with them her visit to the shrine of Thecla in Seleucia. She writes that the shrine “which is very beautiful,” is surrounded by small monastic cells for pilgrims and monastics. There, she prayed and “read the whole Acts of holy Thekla.”18 One hundred years later, Evagrius writes in his Ecclesiastical History, that in the late 470’s in thanksgiving for a vision of the martyr and victory over Basiliscus, the emperor Zeno dedicated a “huge sanctuary of outstanding beauty and magnificence” at Thecla’s shrine which he adorned with “very many imperial dedications, which are preserved even in our time.”19 This account, seems to be the last reference to devotion at the pilgrim site. And yet there exist towns and cities, shrines, monasteries, and churches all over the world named for the holy Thecla. Who is this holy woman whose story has at the same time been widely used, widely read, and widely condemned? How can she help to rid us of this plague? From the canonical Acts of the Apostles we know that in 4748 AD. Paul and Barnabas travelled to central Turkey as a part of their first Missionary journey. In modern day Konya, or Iconium, they preached to Jews and Gentiles in the synagogue (Acts 14:15, 14:21). A couple of years later, Paul returned with Silas on a second missionary trip to Iconium (Acts 16:2). The Acts of Paul and Thecla also chronicle stories from one of Paul’s trips to Iconium where he preached in house churches. Within these Acts, Davis, The Cult of St. Thecla, 36-189. Gregory of Nazianzus, Concerning His Own Life, 548-549 (PG 37.1067). 18 Anne McGowan and Paul F. Bradshaw, eds. and trans., The Pilgrimage of Egeria: A New Translation of the Itinerarium Egeriae with Introduction and Commentary (Collegville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2018), 97. 19 Evagrius Scholasticus, The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius with the Scholia (eds. J. Bidez and L. Parmentier; Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1964), 107-108. 16 17

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there is a story of the conversion of Thecla, a young aristocratic woman who lived in Iconium. A summary of the Acts of Paul and Thecla will show that eschatology motivates enkrateia, both in the broader sense that includes dietary restrictions, voluntary poverty, and sexual renunciation, and the normally restricted sense of virginity and marital continence.20 Paul’s preaching on the resurrection and enkrateia motivates several individuals to choose to turn away from their current wealthy, married or betrothed lives. When they choose this new life their lives are transformed. This transformation is described through the use of imagery which reflects the eschatological state: when the characters choose the eschatological life and are motivated to enkrateia, they resemble angels; they become Christ; they become temples; and they change gender. Transformed, these holy men and women have the power to intercede and heal themselves and others. The Acts of Paul and Thecla begins in the local church in Iconium. As believers gathered together at the house of a married man named Onesiphorus, Paul breaks bread and proclaims the “word of God concerning self-control/enkrateia and resurrection/ anastasis.”21 The thirteen Beatitudes that Paul preaches present the eschatological motivation for enkrateia.22 In each Beatitude, Paul not only persuades the assembly to give up their previous ways of life and to adopt the ethics summarized in the Beatitudes, but he also offers the assurance of the consequential eschatological reward.23 These Beatitudes, like the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew, refer to a future eschatological reward,

The primary Greek definition of enkrateia is “self discipline” and “temperance” which extends beyond the sexual sphere. Even though Clement of Alexandria understood the broader meaning, early Christian writers normally restricted their conversation to issues of sexuality. 21 Schneemelcher and Kasser, “The Acts of Paul,” 2.239. 22 Paul’s message presents a series of beatitudes reminiscent of those found in Matthew 5 save their clearly ascetic emphasis. 23 Each of the beatitudes follows a similar grammatical pattern: “the blessed are those who,” the makarios ho that functions as an exhortation and the apodosis hoti which contains the promise of a future reward. 20

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but present recompense is not excluded.24 Thecla, a maiden of a good family in Iconium, is sitting entranced in the window of a neighboring house devoting herself to Paul’s teaching on the Beatitudes. For three days and three nights she neither eats nor drinks. So moved by Paul’s message, Thecla leaves her fiancé Thamyris to follow Paul. Distressed at her daughters bizarre behavior, Theocleia sends for Thamyris and tells him that Paul is upsetting the city of the Iconians, teaching all of the woman and young people that go in to him to “fear one single God only, and live chastely.”25 Thamyris runs into the streets and searches among those listening to Paul for someone to tell him about this teacher “who deceives the souls of young men and maidens, that they should not marry but remain as they are.”26 Stephen J. Davis, “A ‘Pauline’ Defense of Women’s Right to Baptize? Intertextuality and Apostolic Authority in the Acts of Paul,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 8.3 (2000): 453-459; Edward W. Glenny, “1 Corinthians 7:29-31 and the Teaching of Continence in The Acts of Paul and Thecla,” Grace Theological Journal 11.1 (1991): 53-70. “The beatitude series shows a clear connection with Paul’s teaching and some similarity to the beatitudes of Matthew 5 and Luke 6. The clearest similarity to I Cor 7 occurs in the beatitude “Blessed are those who have wives as if they had them not, for they shall inherit God.” The phrase …is a verbatim reproduction of I Cor 7:29b. Other similarities between Paul’s sermon in the Acts of Paul and Thecla and I Cor 7 reinforce this connection. In a later beatitude Paul declares “Blessed are they who through love of God have departed from the form of this world, for they shall judge the angels. The Greek word form occurs only twice in the NT, in I Cor 7.31 and Phil 2.7, and the occurrence in I Cor 7.31 warrants serious comparison with the Acts of Paul and Thecla since both texts employ form in the construction ‘form of this world’. Both the Corinthian and Theclan texts stress virginity and continence as key themes. This evidence supports Schneemelcher’s conclusion concerning the language in the Acts of Paul. He states: The authors language is uniform, and to a large extent that of the NT. In particular, the Pastorals and the Acts have been used, but so also have the Gospels and Pauls letters. Here, however, it is scarcely a question of exact quotations, but rather of linguistic and conceptual agreement on the basis of the knowledge of the NT literature.” (54) This essay in part argues against MacDonald’s argument that the Acts of Paul are closer to the epistles than the pastorals are to Paul’s teaching. 25 Schneemelcher and Kasser, “The Acts of Paul,” 2.240. 26 Schneemelcher and Kasser, “The Acts of Paul,” 2.241. 24

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Demas and Hermogenes, adversaries of Paul, deny knowing Paul but proclaim to Thamyris that Paul “deprives young men of wives and maidens of husbands, saying ‘Otherwise there is no resurrection for you, except ye remain chaste and do not defile the flesh, but keep it pure.’”27 Thecla’s mother and the jealous Thamyris are so enraged that they go to the governor and denounce the apostle as a magician who bewitches the young people of the city so that they no longer wish to marry. Paul is arrested at Thamyris’ insistence and the Proconsul demands that Paul explain who he is and what it is that he teaches. Paul proclaims, The living God, the God of vengeance, the jealous God, the God who has need of nothing, has sent me since he desires the salvation of men, that I may draw them away from corruption and impurity, all pleasure and death, that they may sin no more. For this cause God sent His own Son, whom I preach and teach that in him men have hope, who alone had compassion upon a world in error; that men may no longer be under judgment but have faith, and fear of God, and knowledge of propriety, and love of truth.28

Theocleia’s accusation, Demas and Hermogenes deception, and Paul’s confession succinctly summarize the teachings in the opening Beatitudes: the eschaton is the goal and the reward for those who keep themselves pure by practicing enkrateia. This preaching of the connection between resurrection and enkrateia is dominant in nearly every episode of the Acts of Paul and Thecla. Half of the Beatitudes explicitly highlight sexual continence and the consequential reward: Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are they who have kept the flesh pure, for they shall become a temple of God. Blessed are the continent, for to them will God speak.

27 28

Schneemelcher and Kasser, “The Acts of Paul.” Schneemelcher and Kasser, “The Acts of Paul,” 2.242.

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BEHOLD, THE POWER OF TRANSFORMED HOLY WOMEN Blessed are they who have wives as if they had them not, for they shall be heirs to God. Blessed are they who have kept their baptism secure, for they shall rest with the Father and Son. Blessed are the bodies of virgins, for they shall be well pleasing to God, and shall not lose the reward of their purity. For the word of the father shall be for them a work of salvation in the day of his Son, and they shall have rest for ever and ever. Blessed are they who have renounced this world, for they shall be well pleasing unto God.

The remaining Beatitudes teach fear and knowledge of God and their consequential reward: Blessed are they who have fear of God, for they shall become angels of God. Blessed are they who tremble at the words of God, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are they who have received the wisdom of Jesus Christ, for they shall be called Sons of the most high. Blessed are they who have laid hold upon the understanding of Jesus Christ, for they shall be in light. Blessed are they who through love of God have departed from the form of this world, for they judge angels and at the right hand of the Father they shall be blessed. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy, and shall not see the bitter day of judgment.29

The story of conversion to the virgin life and the reaping of the eschatological rewards of the Beatitudes is illustrated throughout the Acts of the Paul and Thecla. Paul arrives in Iconium with the “face of an angel.” There in Onesiphorus’s house, in the presence of Onesiphorus’s wife and children and a community gathered, Paul preaches the Beatitudes. In response Onesiphorus later leaves “the things of this world”30 and is portrayed as a model 29 30

Schneemelcher and Kasser, “The Acts of Paul,” 2.239-240. Schneemelcher and Kasser, “The Acts of Paul,” 2.243.

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Christian belonging to the category of the blessed (makarioi) who have wives as if they had none and therefore will be heirs of God. Thecla also renounces the things of this world. Bribing the guardsmen and jailers with gifts of bracelets and mirrors, Thecla steals away from her home and joins Paul at the prison by night. The next day Paul is scourged and cast out of the city. Theocleia, Thecla’s mother, begs the governor to have her daughter burned at the stake because she had abandoned her marriage and family, “in order that all the women that have been taught by this man may be afraid.”31 As Thecla is taken to the theatre to be burned, she “sought after Paul, as a lamb in the wilderness looks about for the shepherd. And when she looked upon the crowd, she saw the Lord sitting in the form of Paul.”32 Increasing in faith, Thecla reaps her first rewards of the Beatitudes: she is strengthened and comforted when she sees Jesus metamorphosed into Paul. The governor marvels at Thecla’s strength and power as she is brought naked into the arena to be burned. There she mounts the pyre of wood, offering prayer by making with her body the form of the cross. When the fire is lit and blazes up, God takes pity on Thecla and saves her by causing a cloud to overshadow the arena; this cloud extinguishes the fire with rain and hail.33 Spared from the amphitheater Thecla goes in search of Paul. When she finds him hiding in a tomb with Onesiphorus, Thecla cries out in Thanksgiving to God for being preserved from the fire. Thecla tells Paul that she will cut her hair short and follow him wherever he goes. To this Paul replies, “The season is unfavorable, and thou art comely. May no other temptation come upon thee worse than the first, and thou endure not and play the coward!” Thecla begs Paul to baptize her so that no temptation would fall upon her. Paul refuses, telling Thecla to have patience. Paul and Thecla next go to Antioch. As they enter the city, a Syrian official named Alexander is enthralled by Thecla’s beauty and thinking Paul and Thecla are together tries to entice Paul to give up Thecla by giving him money and gifts. When Paul denies Ibid., 2.242. Ibid. 33 Ibid., 2.243. 31 32

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being betrothed to Thecla, Alexander tries to embrace her. Outraged, she rips his cloak and tears off his crown. Condemned for sacrilege Thecla is bound to a lioness and led in the procession of the wild beasts. The crowds are amazed when the lioness’ licks Thecla’s feet, Typhaena, a widow of the royal family begs that she have Thecla in place of her own recently deceased daughter, Falconilla. For Falconilla appeared in a dream and and asks her mother to rescue Thecla so that she might intereed on her behalf and ask that she might be translated to a state of happiness and life eternal. Under Tryphaena’s protection Thecla’s request to remain pure until she fights the wild beasts is fulfilled. On the day of the games, Thecla is thrust into the arena before several wild beasts. There a lioness defends her against a bear before falling to a lion. As Thecla prays for Trypheana’s reward and her deliverance many beasts are let loose upon her yet no beast can do her harm. As she finishes her prayer she turns and sees a pit full of water. Believing that her last day has come, Thecla throws herself into this pit that is full of deadly seals and baptizes herself. The seals are killed by a lightening flash. The overshadowing cloud reminiscent of the cloud indicating God’s presence in the tabernacle and Temple,34 again protects Thecla and acts as a covering for her nakedness when she is thrown to the beasts: “And there was about (Thecla) a cloud of fire, so that neither could the beasts touch her nor could she be seen naked.”35 This self- baptism for Thecla was the seal of the commitment to chastity and a guarantee against temptation. Tryphaena, overwhelmed by the ferocious beasts attacking Thecla, faints and is thought dead. Confused by this tragedy, the governor releases Thecla asking her first what was protecting her. She replies, I am the handmaid of the living God. As to what I have about me, I have believed in him whom God is well pleased, His Son. For his sake not one of the beasts touched me. For he alone is

Jennifer Henery, Early Christian Sex Change. The Ascetical Context of Being Made Male in Early Christianity (Ph.D. diss., Marquette University, 2011), 214-251. 35 Schneemelcher and Kasser, “The Acts of Paul,” 2.245. 34

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the goal of salvation and the foundation of immortal life. To the storm tossed he is a refuge, to the oppressed relief, to the despairing shelter; in a word, whoever does not believe in him shall not live, but die forever.36

Challenged by this confession, the governor commands that clothes be brought to Thecla. Thecla rebuts, “He who clothed me when I was naked among the beasts shall clothe me with salvation in the day of judgment.”37 Clothed by God as the tabernacle was overshadowed,38 Thecla is released by the governor and returns to Tryphaena’s where she instructs the household “in the word of God.”39 Surrounded by young men and maidservants Thecla leaves, dressed in a “cloak after the fashion of men,” and travels to find Paul. In Myra she tells him of her journey. From there she returns to Iconium, supported by the riches of Trypheana, who has renounced the ways of the world. Framing the story, Thecla finally returns to Onesiphorus’s house where she prays, My God, and God of this house where the light shone upon me, Christ Jesus the Son of God, my helper in prison, my helper before governors, my helper in the fire, my helper among the beasts, thou art God, and to thee be the glory for ever. Amen.40

The story concludes with Thecla’s traveling to Seleucia where after bearing witness and enlightening many with the word of God, she slept a noble sleep. The Acts of Paul and Thecla clearly indicates that the motivation to a life of enkrateia is eschatological. Paul’s preaching highlighted in the opening beatitudes promises eschatological recompense for encratic behavior. Although these Beatitudes contain exhortation and promise of future reward, the Acts of Paul and Thecla uses transformational imagery to indicate the present reality of the eschaton. As an indication of her purity of heart, Thecla sees God: Jesus appears to her in the form of Paul. Keeping Ibid. Ibid., 2.246. 38 Exodus 40. 39 Schneemelcher and Kasser, “The Acts of Paul,” 2.246. 40 Ibid. 36 37

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her flesh pure, Thecla becomes a temple of God, and is overshadowed like the tabernacle. Renouncing the world, Thecla becomes pleasing to God. Onesiphorus and his wife practicing sexual abstinence in their earthly marriage become blessed, well pleasing to God. Fearing God, Paul is seen with the face of an angel. Eternal resting with the Father and Son is granted to Thecla and to Falconilla through Thecla’s intercession. Immanent eschatological experiences of hearing God speak, and being in the light, are also present in the Acts of Paul and Thecla. In spite of the elevation and demotion of Thecla from the roles of the saints and her being restrained as an exemplary virgin, those who read and those who heard this story, saw in Thecla a life so transformed that her intercessions were heard. Time and time again Thecla prayed for improbable and impossible things: she was freed from the fire, she was freed from the governor, she was freed from the beast, captives were released, sins were forgiven, and eternal life was granted. And through all of this Thecla taught and preached the Gospel. Sitting in the nave of St. Thecla’s Catholic Church in Este, one’s eyes would be drawn up from the altar to Holy Thecla praying for the impossible, deliverance from the plague. Between 1630 and 1631, in the Republic of Venice, where Este is located, 46,000 people out of 140,000 died.41 Four hundred years ago Este’s citizens knew Thecla’s power of prayer over impossible things. They prayed and asked for her intercessions that they might be freed from a plague. In the altar piece, Thecla is surrounded by plague victims and beseeches God to deliver the city. And God does. Thecla’s prayers are answered. Angels chase away the plague, represented by a satanic creature, and the city is healed. By March of 2022, there were 12,764,558 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 154,560 deaths in Este.42 Worldwide, there have

Jo N. Hays, Epidemics and Pandemics: Their Impacts on Human History (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005), 103. 42 “Este, Padua, Italy Coronavirus Information - Safety Updates, News and Tips - the Weather Channel.” The Weather Channel. Accessed January, 2022. 41

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been 437 million cases and 5.96 million deaths. Perhaps, we, like the citizens of Este, should behold the power of the transformed Thecla and be so called to imitate her life so that through our intercessions and hers, God might hear our cry: “From this deadly pestilence, Good Lord, deliver us.”

https://weather.com/coronavirus/l/Este+Padua+Italy?canonicalCityI d=67b5331c843a74866206f9b972d1b1aa333bc5d2ce34466528e9e91 a1593a46b.

WISDOM FOR ACADEMICS FROM AN ACADEMIC STUDYING WISDOM: THE THEOLOGICAL INSIGHTS OF A RELUCTANT BIBLICAL THEOLOGIAN CONOR M. KELLY As anyone who knows Deidre Dempsey professionally can attest, she prefers to shy away from being called a theologian. While one could perhaps interpret this resistance as a desire to avoid contamination by association (and I say this, with modest umbrage, as a theologian), I have come to appreciate that her resistance to this designation is actually driven by a profound respect for the field of theology. In this sense, I believe Dempsey’s preferred identification as a scholar of Semitic languages reflects the sort of honest self-assessment that embraces humility in its most fundamental sense, as “the virtue that helps us achieve accurate self-understanding in context” so that we neither overestimate our accomplishments nor underrate our capacities.1 Thus, every time Dempsey has corrected me for casually lumping her in with the theologians around her, she has appealed to her training as a linguist and suggested simply that she is not qualified to bear the mantle of “theologian.” Lisa A. Fullam, “Humility and Its Moral Epistemological Implications,” in Virtue: Readings in Moral Theology No. 16 (ed. Charles E. Curran and Lisa A. Fullam; New York: Paulist Press, 2011), 250–274 at 251. 1

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As much as I am loath to question such a humble selfassessment, I nevertheless think it is appropriate in this instance to acknowledge another insight from virtue ethics that would suggest those of us who have been chided for imagining Dempsey a theologian are not quite as off-base as she would have us believe. Specifically, I am thinking of the way virtue ethics, especially in the Catholic theological tradition, stresses habituation as an essential part of the cultivation of virtue. According to this interpretation, we are formed by what we do, in ways both intentional and not.2 With this conviction in mind, I would like to suggest that Deirdre Dempsey is indeed a theologian, even though she might refuse to admit it, because she has become one by a sort of habituation. She has dedicated so much energy to teaching theology that she has mastered the craft she claims she was never prepared to study at all. Likewise, she has spent so much time with the theologically rich texts of Sacred Scripture that she has come to embody and convey their theological insights, even though she would insist that she only ever encountered these texts as a linguist.3 For my contribution to this volume, then, I would like to offer some concrete support for my contention, highlighting a few of the lessons Dempsey has taught me to demonstrate that she has earned her place as a theologian and deserved this designation all along.4 To do so, I will explore two concrete pieces of advice For more on this process, see a succinct overview from our late Marquette colleague Lúcás Chan. Yiu Sing Lúcás Chan, The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes: Biblical Studies and Ethics for Real Life (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), 10–11. 3 Notably, these two habits are not mutually exclusive but rather collaboratively reinforcing. Dempsey’s own scholarly work showcases the fruit of these interactions between careful reading and thoughtful teaching. See, for example, Deirdre Dempsey, “Rûah Elohim: Wind, Breath, or Spirit?,” The Bible Today 57.4 (2019): 207–212. 4 It is also worth noting that Dempsey’s scholarship has rightly earned her this designation, despite her protestations, as she regularly offers richly theological lessons from biblical texts in her writings and not just in her mentoring of colleagues. My analysis of the lessons she has taught me is not, therefore, meant to be an exhaustive defense of the claim that she deserves to be called a theologian but simply a sufficient one. For 2

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Dempsey has offered to me during conversations over the years about how to navigate the academic life. The nature of these lessons has varied, as one was communicated explicitly and the other was taught more by example, but since teaching by example remains the finest pedagogical technique (why else do we have the saying do as I say and not as I do?), I feel justified in appealing to both experiences for evidence. Just as importantly, these lessons were all biblically informed because each one was clearly—though not always overtly—shaped by the rich theological wisdom that only comes from being truly immersed in the biblical texts and their worldview. In this way, these lessons reflect the kind of theological knowledge that comes from habitually working through the inspired meaning of an inspired text, a task that will turn even the strictest translator into a biblical theologian, however reluctantly. I therefore offer these lessons not only as proof of Dempsey’s theological bona fides, but also as true theological insights for the guild, because they are genuine pieces of wisdom for academics that have emerged from Dempsey’s own efforts to wrestle with the Wisdom books of the Christian Old Testament, and to teach the wisdom of the Christian New Testament, in the most academic sense.

“SHAKE THE DUST FROM YOUR FEET”: THE MISSION OF THE TWELVE AS PEDAGOGICAL REASSURANCE

When I arrived at Marquette, I was immediately introduced to one of the theology department’s best, albeit informal, traditions: the generous availability and mentorship of Deirdre Dempsey. A regular presence in our office suite, Dempsey had a habit of never turning anyone away whenever they were seeking a conversation. Add to this her well-established reputation as an exceptional teacher and it is no surprise that I would often check-in with her as I faced the struggles of running my classes for the first time in a new place. She provided excellent suggestions for crafting engaging assignments and for connecting with our most reluctant students, but the lesson I remember most from that starting one scholarly witness, see Deirdre Dempsey, “Abraham in Genesis,” The Bible Today 54.4 (2016): 233-240.

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semester was one that happened completely on the fly and yet spoke so precisely to the work of college teaching. I believe I had survived approximately half the semester when this incident happened, and generally I had been feeling good about my course. On the day in question, however, I returned to the office quite dejected, because I knew I had just come from a real stinker of a lesson (this is a technical pedagogical term that I am certain needs no explanation for fellow teachers). I cannot recall what we were talking about that day, but I knew almost from the start of the session that the students were not connecting with the content. The class went downhill from there. By the time I found myself walking back across campus to the theology department, I was tearing through a mental reconstruction of my lesson planning and classroom presentation, searching for the root cause of my instructional failures. Unsurprisingly, I had not discovered any epiphanies by the time I climbed the stairs to our office suite. Shortly after I arrived at my office, I had to make copies for another assignment, and I marched down the hall to the shared printer. By happenstance, Dempsey was printing something, so we had a quick chat. After the usual exchange of pleasantries, Dempsey asked me how the first semester of teaching was going, and I responded that I had just returned from a terrible class session. Dempsey listened patiently while I contrasted this lesson with my much more positive experience in the course overall. She also obliged my admission of confusion about the cause and tolerated my description of the fruitless search for an explanation in the aftermath. Finally, when I slowed enough to give her a chance to interject, she offered prudent words that helped me move forward with the class in the best way possible. Reassuring me that my experience was far from unusual, Dempsey insisted that no instructor hits all the right notes in every lesson. This was a natural, and appropriate, result of pedagogical experimentation, she added, which any good teacher needed to embrace if they wanted to teach the best classes. She did not use a baseball analogy, but I heard her saying that even the greatest hitters strike out. It is a logical corollary of swinging for the fences because no one hits a home run every time they

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step up to the plate. Rather than becoming a source of discontent, then, my frustrations that day could serve as proof that I was willing to explore different ways of reaching my students, even though some of those ways would fail, and this was a far better outcome than the steady dose of mediocrity I might manage if I assumed that avoiding even the smallest failures was supposed to be my chief goal. As much as I found solace in Dempsey’s thesis that poor classes might be a sign of good pedagogy rather than the harbinger of a doomed teaching career, the most important takeaway for me was actually her practical advice for how to cultivate a teaching disposition that could accept and learn from these failures instead of dwelling on them. In a fine display of scriptural sagacity, Dempsey said words to the effect of, “Sometimes you just have to shake the dust from your feet and move on to the next town.” In the time since, I have often pondered these words when I encounter struggles with a particular class in the middle of a roller-coaster semester. I have also regularly shared the sentiment with colleagues. Whenever I revisit Dempsey’s comments, I am quickly consoled, because I think she offered the perfect image for the way to deal with teaching failures in a productive fashion. The line, of course, contains a reference to Jesus’s advice to his Apostles in the synoptic Gospels (Matt 10:5-15; Mark 6:6-13; Luke 10:1-12). That advice, part of larger pericopes on “The Mission of the Twelve” (seventy in Luke) is effectively a call for Jesus’s followers to recalibrate their expectations of discipleship. To those who would imagine that sharing the good news of the Reign of God will be an easy sell, Jesus presents the more honest caveat that not everyone is going to hear this as good news. After all, a call to repentance simultaneously contains a pointed, if implicit, indictment, for those who have not transgressed have nothing of which to repent. Realizing the delicate nature of this mission, Jesus tries to prepare the Apostles by describing both ends of the spectrum of responses they will encounter. On one hand, some households will welcome you, he notes, in which case you can “let your peace come upon [them].” On the other hand, some households will reject you, and then, he explains to the

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Apostles, you will need to “let your peace return to you” (Matt 10:13). Whenever the latter occurs, though, the Apostles were not to stew in vengeance. Instead, Jesus advised, “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town” (Matt 10:14). As a teacher, it is easy to latch on to the “if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words” part of this passage, but this skews the pedagogical potential of this biblical allusion. The point is not to see one’s students as the source of the dust that needs to be shaken off. Rather, that which must be rejected is the poorly taught lesson itself. If we leave behind our students, we can never improve, but if we discard the last vestiges of a bad class session, we can move on to the next one with an openness to possibility that allows us to start over, renewed. Significantly, this latter interpretation is more in line with the emphases of the text itself, in two ways. First, biblical scholarship indicates that the rejected referent in the missionary discourse was not any individual who ignored the message but entire towns that were inhospitable overall.5 Thus, the most appropriate analogy links not to individual students but to something closer to a town that can be left behind. In the normal movement of a semester, this means thinking about class sessions rather than the class as a whole, for there is no way to “move on” from a group of students, no matter how ornery they may be, in the middle of an academic session. Second, Jesus’s instruction to shake off the dust from one’s feet involved a further allusion to the Israelite practice of literally shaking the dust and dirt off their sandals upon returning from trips to foreign lands. The idea was to physically separate oneself from these pagan places so that there would not even be a speck of errant dust brought back to the land of Israel. The act freed the travelers from unwanted attachments and allowed them to reenter the regular routines of Jewish life cleansed.6 I have no doubt George B. Caird, “Uncomfortable Words: Shake off the Dust from Your Feet (Mk 6:11),” The Expository Times 81.2 (1969): 40–43 at 41. 6 Samuel Tobias Lachs, A Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, 1987), 180; see also Caird, “Uncomfortable Words,” 41. 5

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that Dempsey, a scholar of ancient Hebrew language and culture, knew this allusion, and I am certain that her own biblical reference was meant to capture this practice and encourage its pedagogical parallel. By giving me the corresponding freedom to discard my negative associations with that rotten class session and to turn my focus to the next lesson with a clean slate, Dempsey allowed me to hear Jesus’s words as his original audience was meant to hear them. “For them at least,” George Caird explained, “the words were intended as comfort…. The disciples were warned that, if they should meet with rejection, they must not torture themselves with a nagging sense of guilt at their own failure.”7 Notably, this does not change the fact of that failure, it simply shifts how one responds to it, and for that reason I think it is perfect teaching advice. This strategy allows one to acknowledge that things went poorly while avoiding the damage that will accompany a continual wallowing in that lack of success. With this disposition in mind, a teacher can pivot to the future unencumbered by doubts about the past and thereby better serve their students as a result. I have personally embraced this strategy many times, summoning the memory of my quick conversation with Dempsey to both acknowledge my shortcomings when they occur and to leave them behind during the semester, so that I can remain the optimistic, experimental teacher my students need to succeed. Importantly, this has not meant ignoring those shortcomings altogether. I think it is essential that Jesus’s advice encouraged both an acknowledgment of failure and a firm determination to carry on. Failures, of course, provide their own lessons too, and no teacher should leave such valuable learning material unexamined. For me, then, admitting my pedagogical failures in a way that allows me to use them later has become an essential part of my practice of shaking the dust off my feet when teaching. I do this by keeping a separate copy of my course syllabus on my computer that I annotate regularly. I do not necessarily open the file after every class, but I definitely seek it out after each stinker. I enter a new line below the reading assignments for that day and 7

Caird, “Uncomfortable Words,” 42.

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use a new color (typically red font) to delineate that this is a note to self. Next, I type out the key takeaways that will help me improve the lesson for the next iteration of the course. “Not the right reading for this topic. Need something more accessible for students.” “This issue resonated, but the planned activity was not right. Try new group discussion topics.” And so on. Then, I shake the dust from my sandals and get ready for the next lesson, just days away. I cannot stress how liberating this teaching advice has been to me. The deeply incarnational image of someone shaking the dust off their feet so that they can leave the worst behind has truly allowed me to experiment as an instructor, making me a much more courageous teacher. Given the centrality of freedom and liberation to the mission of Jesus, there could hardly be a more theological impact to a piece of collegial advice. Applying the principle that “you will know them by their fruits” (Matt 7:16), I therefore offer this vignette as a foundational piece of evidence that Dempsey deserves to be identified as a theologian, for who else but a theologian could have presented such rich wisdom, with profound theological implications, off the cuff? Still, this is not the only testimony I can offer. To further strengthen my case, I therefore now turn to a second lesson that Dempsey has taught me, one that has similar, although more implicit, biblical allusion and theological import.

“DO NOT FIND FAULT”: THE WISDOM OF SIRACH FOR A CADEMIC L IFE

In addition to the myriad insights Dempsey has offered for classroom success, I have also seen her theological acumen on display in her judicious advice about another central aspect of the academic career. This sphere of academic life is, for most faculty, even more time consuming than teaching, and successfully navigating it is key not only to tenure and promotion but also to any hope a young scholar might have of a pleasant career posttenure and beyond. I am referring, of course, to the complicated task of maneuvering through departmental politics and thriving in an environment that inevitably seems to pit different colleagues and different units of the university against one another. This

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fraught area of academe can be perilous, not just professionally but also personally, for the temptation to (mis)interpret theoretical conflicts between abstract ideas as something more pointedly nefarious remains a constant threat for those engaged in a career field where the insecurities of “imposter syndrome” are “anecdotally ubiquitous.”8 Dempsey has routinely helped me to avoid this disastrous spiral of malicious assumptions, not by any one thing she ever said explicitly, but by the example of genuine collegiality she has set through her own interactions in our department. In this implicit lesson, I have found such clear echoes of the biblical Wisdom literature she has studied and taught that I refuse to let her abdicate the title of theologian so easily. On the contrary, I must insist that she has provided an embodied example of two valuable texts from the book of Sirach to such a complete extent that her own career has become a form of practical theology that can help us all appreciate how the Wisdom of the Bible can apply in a contemporary academic context.9 To begin, the first text I have seen on display in Dempsey’s approach to the peculiar challenges of academic politics is the exhortation from Sirach 11:7, which demands, “Do not find fault before you investigate; examine first, and then criticize.” The message is not so much about literal investigations—which, while not as rare as I would like them to be, are still required rather infrequently in academia—as it is about the kind of interrogating of ideas that academics must undertake on a regular basis. The lifeblood of the academy is the exchange, and testing, of new ideas, and while this rigorous evaluation can lead to novel and meaningful insights, it can also just as easily lead to alienation and a sense of rejection that is hard to hear as anything other than a personal slight. This downside is only exacerbated when misinterpretations go unnoticed or when pessimistic speculations about someone else’s intentions cloud our judgment. In such Yvette Taylor and Maddie Breeze, “All Imposters in the University? Striking (out) Claims on Academic Twitter,” Women’s Studies International Forum 81 (2020): 102367. 9 For more on the interactions between practical theology and scripture, see Christopher Rowland and Zoë Bennett, “‘Action is the Life of All’: The Bible and Practical Theology,” Contact 150 (2006): 8–17. 8

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instances, we invert the guidance of Sirach and start an investigation of someone else’s arguments expecting to find faults, and we end up pulling the rug out from underneath the free exchange of ideas on which higher education depends. When we slow down, however, and agree to examine before we criticize, the pathway to truth opens before us and a much more fruitful, and collegial, conversation can develop. On countless occasions, I have seen Dempsey epitomize this strategy. Whether it is a complicated curricular matter or a minor departmental disagreement that is getting testy, Dempsey has found a way to hold the natural tendency to find fault in one’s disagreeing interlocutors at bay. Instead, she has examined and analyzed the substance of the claims that have sparked contentiousness, often providing the voice of reason that allows everyone to see that a colleague has a valid point that deserves engaged consideration, even if the manner in which the point was presented would have otherwise undermined this observation. Due to her example, I have tried to channel this insight in my own work by taking the time to step back and examine my colleague’s claims with a little more objectivity and a little less prejudicial judgment. In the process, I have benefitted just as much as our department has, for the effort to embrace this wisdom has forced me to be a better person in my interactions with others. Of course, this development should not be surprising, for others have noted that Sirach is somewhat unique among the Wisdom books of the Old Testament in the explicitness with which it emphasizes formation and spells out “the way studying wisdom improves the moral character.”10 I suppose it is fitting, then, that I have found the fullest articulation of Dempsey’s implicit lessons on collegiality in the book of Sirach, for she has succeeded in transforming her colleagues into a more collegial bunch through the example she has set for us all. While the reminder to examine before criticizing has had a profound effect in my own life and in the life our department, there is a second lesson Dempsey has taught us about how to get John Barton, Ethics in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 162.

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along. This one also represents the enactment of a line from Sirach, this time the reminder, “Do not reproach one who is turning away from sin; remember that we all deserve punishment” (Sir 8:5). If the first lesson addressed how to get along with others in a fashion that would minimize conflict, this lesson lays out the tactics necessary to rediscover collegiality once things have deteriorated to the point that the first piece of advice can no longer apply. As much as I would like to say this has never happened in my experience, I do not think it is a black mark on my university to acknowledge that this type of disconnect has occurred on occasion. As the passage from Sirach indicates, this is an unavoidable feature of any situation in which large numbers of humans come into contact with one another, for we are all imperfect sinners at the end of the day. Given this insight into human nature, I have no doubt that Dempsey has faced her own share of interpersonal frustrations on the job, but what has continued to amaze me is the deference she has chosen to show to her colleagues throughout. For instance, Dempsey is one of the few people who has always managed to remain in contact with everyone in the department. Even when battle lines were being drawn over one dispute or another, Dempsey had a way of transcending the divisions so that she could reach out to each person and ensure no one was completely alienated. The reason she has been able to do this, I believe, emerges from her refusal to abide by a narrative of animosity and spite. Whereas many are temperamentally oriented to proclaiming, “You’re dead to me,” when someone does something they do not like, Dempsey has personified the alternative approach from Sirach, holding out hope for second chances. I suppose there could be numerous explanations for Dempsey’s hospitable approach to all her colleagues, but the one that makes the most sense to me is the one contained in Sirach. The reason she actively chooses to re-engage when others would prefer to be done for good is that she sees a profound equality with all her colleagues, not in everyone’s highest potential but in their lowest common denominator. Sirach’s description employs the language of punishment, but this is just a particular way of reiterating that none of us is perfect. I think Dempsey operates

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with this observation as her baseline, and thoughtfully places herself among the imperfect too. She knows as well as anyone that making mistakes is an intrinsic part of our human condition, and she therefore remembers instinctively that no one needs to be defined by their worst decision. On the contrary, she is open to seeing the best in people, even when they have chosen to show her their worst, because she knows they could dismiss her just as easily if perfection were the only standard by which a person could get a hearing. In this sense, her approach could be captured with another biblical allusion: “with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matt 7:2). Cognizant of the fact that she needs the benefit of the doubt herself from time to time, Dempsey has refused to hold a grudge even when she would have cause to begrudge another. She has exemplified the advice to not reproach one who is looking for a mulligan, because she has always been able to acknowledge that she could just as easily be in their shoes. In practice, then, Dempsey has provided a living enactment of two fine adages from Sirach. She has repeatedly shown how one can cautiously approach disagreements in a way that allows the issues to surface rather than the animosities, just as Sirach 11:7 commends. Likewise, she has applied an expansive hermeneutic of mercy to her colleagues, allowing them to come back into her good graces even when their actions have pushed her away, because, I believe, she appreciates not just the advice but also the insight at the heart of Sirach 8:5. As a result, her example has shown me and countless others how to be a colleague, teaching us all a practical lesson about what it means to get along with others even when they might not be quite ready to get along with us. In the ego-drenched world of academia, this lesson is not only invaluable, it is also all but inconceivable. Only a sage rich in wisdom could convey this instruction effectively to an academic audience, and so I offer her practical coaching on this point as an even fuller defense of my central claim that Dempsey has cultivated the wisdom of the books she has studied and thus merits the designation of being called a theologian as much, if not more than, those of us who happen to have an official doctorate in that field.

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The lessons I have cited as evidence of Dempsey’s theological qualifications may seem trivial an anecdotal, but I would insist that they have had a profound impact. My teaching has improved and my collegiality has grown as a result of being in a position to learn these lessons from Dempsey directly, and I think both these outcomes are noteworthy. (My students and my colleagues would definitely say the same!) More importantly, I am not alone in reaping these rewards. Dempsey’s wisdom is not jealously guarded but freely shared, as anyone who has contributed to this volume can readily attest. I may have offered but two limited illustrations of the contributions she has made to the academic work of theology, but these are nonetheless expressions of a pattern rather than glimpses of an anomaly. Time and space do not permit a full recounting here, but suffice it to say that her theological insights into teaching and the academic life are not exhausted by the examples I was able to articulate so far. Indeed, the consistency of her teaching—again, in both word and deed— speaks unambiguously to the claim at the heart of my chapter, for this constancy reflects the habituation that has made Dempsey a theologian in every sense of the word. When taken as representative fragments rather than exhaustive accounts, the central lessons described here provide, I hope, sufficient evidence of the ways Dempsey has turned her experience as an academic worker studying Wisdom into a new source of wisdom for academic work. By maintaining that these insights make Dempsey a veritable theologian, I am hoping to stress that she is indeed one who is able to say something (logos) about God (theos). Certainly, when I think about her lessons in theological terms, I can see a call to compassion, generosity, understanding, and hope, and these attributes are easily recognized, at least in a Christian context, as defining features of the divine. By embracing these values and touting their importance both explicitly and implicitly, Dempsey has shown how these divine attributes are not just abstract traits of an aloof God but are instead the living traits of a God whose “‘spirit’ in the sense of animating force” is an active part of everyday life that

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“changes people” to this day.11 To this point, she has shown how academics can embody these traits in their own work and served as an exemplar of how to do so. As a result, I would now like to take my central contention about Dempsey’s qualifications one step further, for her lessons do not simply demonstrate the competence of a theologian in general but also display the expertise of a theological ethicist more specifically, revealing how theological convictions can become a way of life. Dempsey might bristle at the assertion, but we theological ethicists would be lucky to have her, just as we theologians have all benefitted from her contributions to the academic journey. May we heed the wisdom she has to teach, this reluctant but exceptional biblical theologian.

11

Dempsey, “Rûah,” 210, 211.

HAGAR AND THE GOD OF THE OPPRESSED: GEN 16:1-16 AS SEEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE “LOSERS” ALEXANDRE A. MARTINS My first encounter with Deirdre Dempsey was to ask her for a favor. I was doctoral student at Marquette University who needed a professor, other than my adviser, to chair my qualifying exams. Dempsey was a biblical and linguistic scholar, while I was being trained to be a theological ethicist. Although the theology program at Marquette required doctoral students to take classes outside of their research interests, Dempsey and I did not cross each other’s paths during my time of course work. But I needed a chair for my exam board and a professor in the area of biblical studies to guide this section in the exams. My adviser and then dissertation director, theologian and ethicist, Bryan Massingale, recommended that I ask Dempsey to fill that role, saying “She is one of the best people you will meet on this campus, and you will love working with her.” He was completely right. This was the beginning of a relationship that would be full of caring, learning, and appreciation. Later, I was fortunate enough to return to Marquette as a colleague of Deirdre Dempsey, known by her students as the beloved Dr. Dempsey or simply as “D.” by her friends. She became my friend and mentor during my second passage at Marquette, and for that, I am forever thankful. 181

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When I was invited to contribute to this book honoring to Dr. Dempsey’s life and service, I initially felt like Abraham responding to God’s call, as described by Kierkegaard, with fear and trembling. Unlike Abraham, however, my fear and trembling only lasted for a few seconds. As I finished reading the email, I quickly was overcome by the joy of friendship, remembering the words of Simone Weil: Friendship is a miracle by which a person consents to view from a certain distance, and without coming any nearer, the very being who is necessary to him as food.... Pure friendship is an image of the original and perfect friendship that belongs to the Trinity and is the very essence of God. It is impossible for two human beings to be one while scrupulously respecting the distance that separates them, unless God is present in each of them.1

This miracle is a grace that explains the bonds of friendship without an explanation. In my experience, the friendship with Deirdre is a gratuitous joy that gave me the motivation to accept the invitation to contribute to this volume, without fearing what she would think of my text and with the joy of honoring her with an essay about a great woman of the Bible, in which I offer an interpretation of the narrative that may be questioned or criticized. Deirdre will not only be a recipient of this essay, but she also will exercise her friendship with me by saying that is okay to present a revolutionary interpretation of an Old Testament narrative, even if she does not agree with me from the perspective of exegetical analysis. I am not a biblical scholar, but I am a person who has been engaged in a popular reading of the Bible2 through my particiSimone Weil, “Forms of Implicit Love of God,” in Waiting for God (tr. E. Craufurd; New York: Harper and Row, 1951) 202. 2 Pablo Richard, “Lectura Popular de la Biblia en América Latina: Hermenéutica de la Liberación,” Revista de interpretación bíblica latinoamericana 1 (1988): 28-44. See also, text of Carlos Mesters and Francisco Orofino about the popular reading of the Bible as it is promoted by the CEBI – Centro de Estudos Bíblicos, a Brazilian center for biblical studies that promotes popular reading of the Bible and educates community leaders in this method: “Sobre a Leitura Popular da Bíblia” CEBI, 1

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pation in ecclesial communities in my home country of Brazil. Though spelled the same way in Portuguese, Spanish and English, and derived from the Latin noun populus, for those of us in Latin America, the term popular means “coming from the people.” For us, the poor and the oppressed are those who best represent the people, o povo, el pueblo. Therefore, a popular reading of the Bible is a reading done by the poor in a dramatic and creative process involving the creation and re-creation of meanings. Joaquim Severino Croatto, an Argentinian biblical scholar, says that this creativity is possible precisely because narratives, such those found in the Bible, have a reserve-of-meanings that have allowed communities throughout history to discover in these texts new meanings that challenge the contexts of those communities.3 Carlos Mesters, a Dutch-Brazilian biblical scholar, developed a method of popular reading the Bible that allows the poor to read biblical texts as a community exercise, by comparing and contrasting these narratives to their daily experiences of poverty and oppression. It is a method of confrontation that involves reading biblical texts, that is to say, confronting biblical passages with the realities and contexts of the community in a way that everyone has a voice and everybody does popular exegesis.4 During his classes that prepared community leaders to read the Bible with the people, Mesters used to say: “Reading the Bible needs to be easy, accessible, and relevant for the community without being superficial and fundamentalistic.” Developments in academic biblical studies and the contributions of biblical scholars must be considered by those who lead communities in popular readings of the Bible, but they cannot be used to marginalize the experiences, the interpretations, and the consequential liberating ethics of the communities that are reading the Bible from their contexts of oppression. Viewed from https://cebi.org.br/reflexao-do-evangelho/sobre-leitura-popular-dabiblia-parte-i/. 3 Joaquim Severino Croatto, Biblical Hermeneutics: Toward a Theory of Reading as the Production of Meaning (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987). 4 Carlos Mesters, “The Liberating Reading of the Bible,” SEDOS Bulletin 28 (1996): 164-170. See also Carlos Mesters, A Brisa Leve, Uma Nova Leitura da Bíblia, Flor Sem Defesa (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1983).

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this perspective developed in Latin America, the experience of the Exodus, understood as a historical liberation of an enslaved people whose God dwells among them, became the lens for popular readings of the Bible in the midst of oppressive and impoverished realities. I am aware that some Old Testament scholars strongly disagree with this perspective, such as Jon Levenson in his response to liberation theology and its approach to the Bible.5 However, entering into this discussion is not my intention. Rather, my objective is to present an interpretation of a narrative that pays attention to the significant role of Hagar, a great woman, who has been marginalized by some professional Jewish-Christian interpreters of Genesis as a secondary character. Though Hagar was not the legitime spouse of Abraham nor the mother of Isaac, the legitimate son whose descendants formed the people of Israel, she is not a secondary-passive character. We have much to learn from her story and the role she plays in the narrative. Though patriarchal and Israelite biases have been present in the ways the story has been told and interpreted throughout Western history, Hagar’s voice has not been totally silenced. The semantic force of the biblical narrative permits us to engage in an exercise that leads to the discovery of new meanings that shed light on Hagar and her relationship with God, offering a relevant message of liberation for communities experiencing oppression in our own times.

1. THE BOOK OF GENESIS AND HAGAR

“I am myself and my circumstance,” a phrase of José Ortega y Gasset, suggests that the contexts we are in and the environments around us influence who we are. Biblical writers were not immune from the influence of the circumstances of their realities and times. This is clear when one reads chapters 12-25 of Genesis, in which Abraham is the main character. These chapters are narratives marked by patriarchalism. Although these narratives focus on the relationship between the human and the divine, they Jon Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 127-159.

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were developed from within a patriarchal paradigm.6 Consequently, the roles of female characters are not given the same significance as the roles of male characters. In addition, male perspectives are supported by a unilateral interpretation of a dominant group that presents its version of history through stories that correspond to its interests. Some historians suggest that the version of most known history is the one that is told by those who were “victorious,” usually oppressors who dominated a new land, as was the case in Latin America.7 They wrote about facts and events according to their point of view as well as their power and interests. However, there are historians who believe that it is possible to recount facts from the perspective of those who are known as the “losers,” that is, those who come from below, from the oppressed.8 The “victorious” left a few elements in their versions that allow us to rethink events from the perspective of the oppressed. An exercise of interpreting texts from below using Old Testament’s narratives is possible for at least two reasons: first, several Old Testament texts originated from stories voiced by popular groups (or grassroots communities), considering their social context and relationship with God. Originally, these stories were oral tales and, eventually they became texts, creating opportunities for editorial work by groups with power to control the texts, such as priests and those who established the canon. Second, Old Testament texts and narratives represent an experience of the people with their God and this experience is not limited by class, gender, or ethnicity, even when these differences play a clear role in a text. Gen 16:1–16 offers details for us to rethink the story and the interpretation that became, for many, the “official version,” opening a space to understand this narrative from the perspective Daniel L. Hawk, “Cast Out and Cast Off: Hagar, Leah, and the God Who Sees,” Pricilla Papers 25.1 (2011): 9. 7 Tzvetan Todorov, La Conquista de América: El Problema del Otro (Madrid: Siglo Ventiuno Editores, 1998). 8 Eduardo Galeano, Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina (2nd ed.; Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 2015); Enrique Dussel, The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of the “Other” and the Myth of Modernity (New York, Continuum, 1995). 6

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of the oppressed. Therefore, the focus moves from an Abrahamic view to Hagar herself who, as Phyllis Trible suggests, is a symbol of oppression representing a class of people.9 The story of Hagar is presented in a small narrative that “absorbs and somewhat subverts the grand protagonist narrative of the Sarai-Abram cycle.”10 This narrative subverts the patriarchal paradigm and the view of a dominant class. Even considering the limitations of this narrative, possibly because of later editions that used Hagar to suit a patriarchal paradigm, it is still possible to see the perspective of the oppressed and the marginalized in Gen 16:1– 16. Hence, I offer a reading of this pericope from the perspective of oppressed groups, of which Hagar is a symbol. I argue that Gen 16:1–16 presents Yahweh as a God who hears the cry of the oppressed. Hence, I analyze this passage as a literary unity that represents two different social contexts. These contexts are temporally distinct because they reflect two separate periods, but both expose similar situations of oppression in which God hears the cry of the oppressed. It seems that Gen 16:1–16 is a text from the periphery, a late incorporation into the Hebrew Bible, only after being edited. It represents an encounter of many important traditions of Israel, such as God’s promises, the God who hears the cry of oppressed people and sets them free, and the God who reveals themself.11 Just like Abram, Hagar “received a promise of progeny. Like Israel she underwent an exodus towards freedom. Like Moses, she sees God.”12 People – minorities living in situations of oppression – shared Hagar’s story, close to a well, where they went to take water as slaves and/or as servants. At the well, they could freely talk and Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Reading of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 28. 10 Paul Edward Hughes, “Seeing Hagar Seeing God: Leitwort and Petite Narrative in Genesis 16:1–16,” Didaskalia 8.2 (1997): 43. 11 Every time that I need a pronoun to refer to God, I will use they, them, their because God is not limited to gender definitions, avoiding the use of he, him, his, masculine pronouns commonly used referring to God that trace an identification with patriarchal understandings of God. Exceptions occur when I quote a text of a scholar in order to respect his/her writing. 12 David Cotter, Genesis (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003), 106. 9

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experience God. The well became a place to conserve people’s memory, a space where the oppressed celebrated their experience of faith. Gen 16 is grounded on this memory,13 a memória popular, that is, a liturgical memorial of oppressed people. At the well, the oppressed experienced Yahweh as a God who hears their cry, not a God limited by the experience of Israelite people. Therefore, Yahweh is the God of Israel and, by extension, the God of all oppressed peoples. Hagar gives expression to the oppressive situations of minorities who exist with the larger conception of Hebrews or Israelites. Proper to a popular reading of the Bible, this finding guides a theological reflection about the relationship between God and the oppressed in our current time.

2. HAGAR AND THE GOD OF PROMISE AND L IBERATION

According to source criticism, the Pentateuch is the result of four sources known as Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), Priestly (P), and Deuteronomist (D). There are two narratives about Hagar in the Pentateuch: Gen 16: 1-16 and Gen 21: 9-21, but they have different sources. Gen 16 is a J text and Gen 21 is an E text. This essay focuses on Gen 16, with a few mentions to Gen 21 when a parallel is necessary for a better understanding of Hagar. Gen 16 is older than Gen 21 and was probably edited later by priestly hands, when they already had the E text. Gerhard Von Rad suggests that the Old Testament groups series of stories around themes, so that the Pentateuch would be series that are shaped by groups of pericopes.14 Mercedes Brancher affirms: “Gen 16 is a pericope within the Gen 12–25 series. The main themes that characterize these series are genealogy, journeys, promises, and narratives.”15 Even as a pericope, Brancher says that Gen 16 has more than one edition, at least two that occurred in different contexts. She argues that the original draft was written in the 10th century B.C. Then, it suffered its first Mercedes Brancher, “De los Ojos de Agar a los Ojos de Dios: Génesis 16,1-16,” Revista de Interpretácion Biblica Latinoamericana 25.3 (1996): 11-27. 14 Gerhard von Rad, Estudios sobre el Antiguo Testamento (Slamanca: Ediciones Sígueme, 1982), 11-40. 15 Brancher, “De los Ojos de Agar a los Ojos de Dios,” 13. 13

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editorial revision during Assyrian times (7 – 8th centuries), when verses 10 and 12 were added, and the second editing occurred in the post-exile (6 – 5th centuries) leading the text to gain the additional verses of 1a, 3, 9 and 15-16.16 Elsa Tamez affirms that Gen 16 is a J text17 from the 10th century B.C. and verses 1, 3 and 15 are P additions.18 Savina J. Teubal suggests that Gen 16 is a result of two separated stories. Verses 1–6 present a story of a conflict between Sarai and Hagar, both Abram’s wives. Verses 7–16 present a story about Hagar in the desert and her dialogue with God. According to Teubal, both tales are J’s stories, but priests edited them during the time of a united monarchy in Israel. She believes that J’s text had a female aspect that was changed by the priestly editorial work. Her argument relies on comparing Gen 16:7–16 and Gen 21:14–21. The latter is about Hagar in the desert, an Elohist text. J and E had contact with a previous source with the Hagar story, presenting a female perspective. According to Teubal, J respected the original perspective more than E, because J’s stories seem to have a tone that is more sensitive to women than E’s stories.19 It is evident that Gen 16:1–16 has two scenes. Paul E. Hughes suggests that Gen 16 has two panels of parallel lines, beginning with an introduction and ending with a conclusion. Below is his outline: v. 1 – Introduction

Scene 1: Sarai’s scheme v. 2a Sarai’s proposal v. 2b. Abram’s response vv. 3-3 Sarai’s action and Hagar reaction v.5 Sarai’s complaint v. 6a Abram’s response v. 6b. Sarai’s action and Hagar’s reaction

Brancher, “De los Ojos de Agar a los Ojos de Dios,” 16. As Elsa Tamez, many other Old Testament scholars affirm Gen 16 being a J text that was edited by P. See Elsa Tamez, “The Woman Who Complicated the History of Salvation,” Cross Currents 36.2 (1986): 129139. 18 Tamez, “The Woman Who Complicated the History of Salvation,” 130. 19 Savina J. Teubal, Ancient Sisterhood: The Lost Traditions of Hagar and Sarah (Athens, OH: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1997), 18-19. 16 17

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Scene 2: Hagar’s encounter with the angel v.7 Angel finds Hagar by well v.8 First speech by angel and Hagar’s reply v.9 Second speech by angel v.10 Third speech by angel v.11-13 Fourth speech by angel and Hagar’s reply v. 14 Name of the well

vv. 15-16 Conclusion20

Nevertheless, if we take out verses 7–14 and read only verses 1– 6b and 15–16, they seem to present a complete story in which Abram’s problem of not having a son was addressed by the birth of Ishmael. Verse 6b says Hagar fled from Sarai, but it does not mention that she went into the desert. We infer this because Hagar appears in the desert in verse 7. However, she could simply have run away from Sarai for a moment in time while things were still tense among both women, and remaining in Abram’s household, where she gave birth to Ishmael, would be difficult. Gen 16 combined two oral traditions. One is a patriarchal tradition that seeks to resolve Abram’s problem related to his lack of offspring. Another is a tradition connected to oppressed groups experiencing God within their suffering. Among these oppressed groups, there are slave-women oppressed by their mistresses. The well has a significant meaning in the narrative, once it is understood as a place of encounter with God. These two stories were combined into one as a single narrative. However, it is possible to interpret that Gen 16 was not two written stories and became one only in a later edition. Hence, this chapter was originally built as one narrative able to capture two different traditions. Additionally, when one reads this text – considering Hagar as the hermeneutical lens used to interpret the story and not the tradition around the figure of Abraham – it seems that the one who joined these two traditions was a member of an oppressed group, with close proximity, if not a slave herself, then to slave-women. This oppressed group subverted the patriarchal perspective in which the slave Hagar was transformed into a

20

Hughes, “Seeing Hagar Seeing God,” 44-45.

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symbol of a person (and a group) who cries out against oppression. At the same time, this woman becomes the liberator of a man, Abram, a symbol of patriarchalism, by giving him a son. In this reading, verse 9 is the most complex to understand because it contradicts a God who hears the cry of the oppressed. Why would God send Hagar back to her condition of slavery? Some scholars address this question by saying that verse 9 is a priestly addition.21 Phyllis Trible, for example, suggests that verse 9 needs to be understood in the light of the connection between verses 6b and 7a that are responsible for the transition from episode one to episode two. “And Sarai afflicted her. So she fled from her. But the messenger of the Lord found her (16: 6b–7a).”22 Trible highlights that the divine action of encountering Hagar “may either counter or confirm Sarai’s action.”23 This doubt might be solved in verse 9 itself when God confirms that “to be ‘of Sarai’ is to be ‘of the Lord’.”24 However, I think that verse 9 corresponds to the subversive aspect of Gen 16 which made Hagar a liberator like Moses. Just as Moses, who fled from Pharaoh and then went back to liberate the Hebrews, Hagar needed to go back to liberate Abram. Hence, verse 9 relates to verse 15: Hagar gave birth to a son whom Abram named Ishmael, the name that Hagar wanted because Yahweh had told her. If one considers that verse 9b as an addition because it stresses that Hagar needed to return and “submit thyself under her (Sarai) hands,” the difficulty with this verse is not totally addressed. In this case, one should consider that verse 9 lacks a clear link to the conclusion since Sarai simply disappears from the narrative. Sharon Pace Jeansonne notes that there is a silence about Sarai in the conclusion.25 Therefore, I think it makes more sense to understand verse 9 as part of the original text, and that its function is to show Hagar as a liberator, an aspect 21 James C. Okoye, “Sarah and Hagar: Genesis 16 and 21,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32.2 (2007): 166; Tamez, “The Woman Who Complicated the History of Salvation,” 130-131. 22 Phyllis Trible’s translation of Hebrew text in Trible, Texts of Terror, 14. 23 Trible, Texts of Terror, 14. 24 Trible, Texts of Terror, 16. 25 Sharon P. Jeansonne, The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Potiphar’s Wife (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 47.

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that oppressed communities engaging in popular reading realize when they read it in their context. One example of this reading is the experience of the Quilombolas communities of Brazil.26

3. HAGAR AND GOD’S PROMISES Gen 16 is also an encounter of two significant traditions of Israel: the tradition of God’s promises of descendants and land, and the Exodus tradition. Let’s now focus on these traditions, beginning with Hagar and God’s promises. Brazilian biblical scholar Milton Schwantes suggests that Gen 16 is a pivot which chapters 15 and 17 circle around. Gen 15 and 17 are theological narratives with messages of promises: Abram will have numerous descendants, they will be a people, and this people will have a land. Promises of a people and a land surround Gen 16. According to Schwantes, Gen 16 was shaped and edited to be between chapters 15 and 17.27 The Priestly edition of Gen 16 added verses 1, 3, 9, and 15-16 to arrange the story of Hagar according to Abram’s cycle of promises. Verse 1 exposes a problem: Sarai cannot have a child. Verse 3 says that Abram is already in the Promised Land, but there is the issue of inheritance. The owner of a land needs a child. In other words, the land requires a child, otherwise Abram will lose his land Quilombola communities are areas where groups of Afro-Brasilians live. They originated from Quilombo settlements created by African people and their descendants who escaped from slavery in Brazil during the colonial times under Portugal. Today, in these communities, residents live out their unique culture, faith, and social organization (e.g.: a communitarian ownership of the land), while they are still fighting for better socioeconomic conditions, national recognition, and against structural violence, such as racism. See a text published by the Center for Biblical Studies (CEBI, a center that promotes the popular reading of the Bible in Brazil) about an experience of reading Gen 16 in a Quilombola community written by a community leader: Sebastião Santana da Silva, “À margem da história: uma abordagem de Gn 16, 6b-15 na perspectiva negra,” (Jan. 28, 2021): https://www.cebipe.org/a-margem-da-historiauma-abordagem-de-gn-16-6b-15-na-perspectiva-negra/. 27 Milton Schwantes, “Palabras Junto a la Fuente. Lindas Palabras en Lugares Escondidos: Anotaciones Sobre Génesis 16, 1-27,” Revista de Interpretacíon Biblica Latinoamericana 39 (2001): 12. 26

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because he received this land with the proposal to give it to his child and his descendants. Schwantes stresses that verse 9 is rooted in Gen 15 and 17 because the child should be born in Abram’s household. Hagar must return, otherwise Abram would not have a child. Verse 9 also functions as a link between Gen 16 and Gen 21 which presents Hagar and her child playing with Isaac. Schwantes affirms: “It is clear, at the beginning (v. 1a), in the middle (vv. 3+9), and in the end (vv. 15-16), that our pivot provides a connection with wheels that revolve this narrative. Chapters 15 and 17 require chapter 16 to be read from the perspective of the Promise of Land.”28 In her dialogue with Yahweh, Hagar receives two promises, the same ones the patriarchs received. Yahweh promises Hagar that she will have innumerable descendants (verse 10) and uses the same word that the patriarchs heard (Gen 15: 5, 22: 17; 26; 4; 28: 3).29 The second promise is the birth announcement of a male child (verse 11). This means that Abram needs a son to continue in the Promised Land, a real sign that Abram will have an offspring. Jeansonne affirms: “God assuages Hagar’s suffering by promising that her offspring will be a great nation.”30 At the same time, Hagar ensures the land for Abram and his offspring, liberating him from the drama of a life without descendants. There is no consensus about the origin of verses 10–12. I think that these verses are part of the final proposal of the story: making Hagar a heroine with the same characteristics of Moses. However, some scholars argue that these verses are later additions used to shift the focus of the text from Hagar to Ishmael in order to make the son more important than the mother. Thomas Dozeman supports this thesis, affirming that verses 11 and 12 are “part of a larger reinterpretation of the Hagar story by Priestly writers.”31 Schwantes highlights that verses 10–12 are part of the Yahweh – Hagar dialogue in which God introduces themself as the one who hears the cry of the oppressed and supports Hagar’s Schwantes, “Palabras Junto a la Fuente,” 15. Trible, Texts of Terror, 16. 30 Jeansonne, The Women of Genesis, 46. 31 Thomas B. Dozeman, “The Wilderness and Salvation History in the Hagar Story,” Journal of Biblical Literature 117.1 (1998): 34. 28 29

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decision to flee from oppression. Hagar is a symbol of a people made up of rebels who revolt against slavery.32 These verses present three aspects related to a son who will be born within a paradoxical context of struggle against oppression and freedom. These aspects are about the relationship between the God of promises and a people that remembers the Transcendent. One observes these aspects in verse 10 – where an uncountable people becomes the promise of God – and verse 12 in which God affirms that this people will be an autonomous people of rebels. Verse 12 shows that Ishmael’s descendants will be a strong and unconquerable people. These people will be free and will fight against every man who tries to enslave them. Then, verse 11 links verses 10 and 12, functioning as a verse that remembers God (like a liturgical memory) as a God who is against every kind of oppression. Therefore, one finds in these verses the memory of a people whom God heard crying within the midst of oppression.33 The dialogue between Yahweh and Hagar has a tone of promises, something will happen in the future. They are not the promises to Abram, but rather a dialogue that reflects the reality of oppressed people (or a social, ethnical minority) who experienced God at the well. They will not be a people of rebels against slavery. They are a people who celebrates a liturgical memorial of God at the well. Yahweh, God has heard the cry of these people and has supported their rebellious action of fleeing from the house of slavery. Therefore, these people, represented by Hagar, are also worthy of God’s historical compassion to set Elsa Tamez affirms: “Hagar had rejected her slavery. She was not interested in trying to win Sarah’s good will by suffering the abuses in silence. Hagar preferred to die in the desert. There were only two alternatives left for Hagar: subject herself to the humiliation inflicted on her or die in the desert. She chose the second” Tamez, “The Woman Who Complicated the History of Salvation,” 133. Mercedes Brancher says that “Hagar is against violence in the patriarchal house and seeks for her emancipation and the child give her this emancipation that was supported by God. God confirms her action as correct because she ran from oppression to get her freedom.” Brancher, “De los ojos de Agar a los ojos de Dios,” 20. 33 Schwantes, “Palabras Junto a la Fuente,” 5. 32

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them free, as God liberated Israel from slavery in Egypt in order to make them recipients of God’s promises.

4. HAGAR AND THE GOD OF EXODUS According to Argentinian biblical scholar Joaquin Sererino Croatto, Exod 1–15 is the “center of a project of liberation, as a theological and kerygmatic center that irradiates ‘meaning’ upon the entire Pentateuch.”34 The language of Gen 16 is the same language used in the book of Exodus,35 but with a female aspect.36 The Exodus’ language of Gen 16 allows us to interpret the Hagar story from the perspective of a project of liberation in which Hagar is a symbol of a person who spoke with God and became a liberator like Moses in Exodus. The experiences of Hagar and Moses are very similar. This similarity did not happen by chance, but it was an intentional literary work. The writer (a person or a group) of Gen 16 had in her/his/their memory the foundational experience of Exodus and the central role of Moses.37 The writer presents Hagar as a liberator who spoke with God and returned to the house of slavery to promote liberation, just like Moses. The writer – probably a member of an oppressed group among the Israelites already living in the Promised Land (verse 3 shows that “Abram had lived in the land of Canaan for ten years”) – built this text as a cry for liberation. She/he/they knew the Exodus experience, and now reveals that the oppression experienced by Israel in Egypt is happening among the Israelites in the land of freedom. Therefore, Gen 16 is a cry for liberation and once again the God of Exodus hears the cry of the J. Severino Croatto, “Éxodos 1-15: Algunas Claves Literarias y Teológicas Para Entender el Pentateuco,” Estudios Bíblico 52 (1994): 169. 35 Hughes, “Seeing Hagar Seeing God,” 52. 36 Tuebal believes that Gen 16 has its origin in narratives told by women. J used these narratives, which might be texts or oral transmission, to write Gen 16. J preserved the female aspect of these narratives, but P changed this aspect and made Gen 16 to have a patriarchal bias. Teubal, Ancient Sisterhood, 18-19. 37 Nobody can know who exactly wrote Gen 16. However, there is a possibility – even though hypothetically – that Gen 16 was written by slave-women who shared a story from their experience of oppression. 34

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oppressed. In terms of its composition, the writer of Gen 16 probably used previous stories about Hagar – known through oral transmission or even fragments of texts38 – to transform her into a heroine, a new liberator as Moses was. This short text shows that Hagar had an experience similar to the one experienced by Moses. Consequently, she acted like him – in a different context with distinct proportions, but similar in terms of oppression – to promote liberation. Some scholars do not agree with this interpretation. They suggest understanding the shift in terms of order of events, suggesting that Hagar was the first one in the desert who experienced the God who heard the cry of the oppressed. In the desert, God revealed God’s self to her. Hence, the Moses story was written grounded on this previous experience.39 Although one could say that the Hagar story is a result of the writer’s creative mind, it is not a fiction per se, rather a creative piece based in real facts. Thus, this story reflects a social context. David Cotter stresses that the story is rooted “in the real world and reminds us readers that these people are not merely characters in a story and that the world described here is not merely a narrative construction.”40 There are two social contexts behind the Hagar story. One is the context in which the situation of domestic oppression of slavewomen occurred. Another is the context in which Gen 16 was written. Both social contexts have in common a condition of oppression and the memorial of a “God who sees” at the well. This results in a liturgical memorial of facts in which a slavewoman running away from oppression and talking with God, and an oppressed people in the land of Canaan (the promised land supposedly a place of freedom) express their objection against oppression while they experience a God who sees and hears them. Teubal, Ancient Sisterhood, 18-19. Hawk, “Cast Out and Cast Off,” 10. 40 Cotter, Genesis, 106. Savina Teubal also affirms that the Hagar story reflects social values of a historical context and period: “I think that the narrative about women describe events that actually happened to real people but were adjusted, by stage, to suit contemporary ideology.” Teubal, Ancient Sisterhood, 19. 38 39

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These people – probably a socio-ethnical minority among the Israelites – also knew the Exodus experience. The oppressed did not proclaim another God, rather they experienced the same Yahweh, the God who spoke with Moses after hearing the cry of Hebrews in their suffering. God hears the cry of all oppressed because Yahweh is the God of the oppressed and of liberation. Gen 16 is also a cry against oppression in the land of freedom. Therefore, the writer or writers rescued Israelite traditions of promises and liberation (the Exodus tradition) through a story of an outcast, asserting that the project of liberation is an ongoing historical endeavor that takes place whenever and wherever oppression exists. In the narrative, the outcast Hagar should be seen like Moses. The exercise of comparing the petit narrative of Hagar with the grand narrative of Moses shows clear similarities. The Hagar Story (Gen 16:1-16)

The Moses Story (Exod 1-3)

16:6 – Sarai afflicted Hagar

1:11-12 – therefore they did set over them taskmaster to afflict them (….) but they afflicted them… 1:14-15a – and it was told the king of Egypt that the people were fled … 2:25a – Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh 2:15a - Moses sat down by a well

16:6 Hagar fled from Sarai

16:7 – Hagar was by a spring of water in the desert 16:7 – The angel of Yahweh found her by a spring of water in the desert 16:9 - The angel of Yahweh said: go back to your mistress

3:1-2 – Moses was in the desert and the angel of Yahweh appeared unto him in a flame of fire 3:10 – Come now therefore, and I (Yahweh) will send thee unto Pharaoh…

The experience of Hagar’s oppression and the God who saw and heard her cry is similar to God’s historical revelation in the Exodus of seeing and hearing the cry of the oppressed in Egypt.

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Exod 2:23–25 presents Israel that cries out and God who heard, remembered its covenant, saw, and knew.41 The angel of Yahweh said to Hagar that God heard the cry. Then Hagar described her experience with God by giving a name to Yahweh: “God who sees me.” Then, she called the place of encounter: “The well for the living one whom I see” (verses 13a; 14). In the entire Bible, only Hagar names God after encountering them in the midst of her suffering and struggle for freedom. Sharon Jeansonne stresses: The narrator indicates that Hagar appropriated this experience and identified it by her unique naming of God… By recording Hagar’s action, the narrator has demonstrated that the God of Israel responds to a foreigner, is revealed to her, and is appropriately named by her. In addition, Hagar’s naming of God – “God of Seeing” – and the revelation itself have a permanent legacy for the people who live in the area of the well. It becomes known as Beerlahairoi – the Well of the One Who Lives and Sees Me.42

The name of the well reflects the experience of the oppressed who encounter a God who sees them. However, God does not only see them, but also talks, hears, and encourages them to continue struggling against oppression. Kirsten Nielsen sees a challenge with verse 13a because the Hebrew sentence has an ambiguity. According to her, the Hebrew text with the Masoretic vocalization is commonly translated into English as “you are the God who sees.” However, some suggest a different translation of the Hebrew: “you are the all-seeing God” that has the idea of “the God one is allowed to be seen.” There is the same issue in verve 13b (“have I really seen in this place seen God who sees me?” or “have I really looked here for one who sees me?”) and verse 14 (“the well for the living who sees me” or “the well for the living whom I see”).43 These verbs are well used to describe the experience of liberation in the book of Exodus. See also: the cry (3:7.9), heard (3: 7; 6:5), remembered (6:5), seen (3:7,9), and knows (3:7,19). Hughes, “Seeing Hagar Seeing God,” 52. 42 Jeansonne, The Women of Genesis, 47. 43 Kristen Nielsen, “To See and To Be Seen in Genesis 16 and Genesis 22,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 27.1 (2013): 23-25. See also 41

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This linguistic ambiguity – that concerns the relationship between God and Hagar and, by extension, all people who experience God – has theological implications. Does God see us or allow us to see It? Gen 16 points to both experiences. God sees the people, but the Transcendent also reveals themself to a people who can see them. The relationship between Hagar and Yahweh is characterized by reciprocity. Therefore, Gen 16 allows us to affirm that Yahweh is the God who is in a reciprocal relationship with human beings in their historical reality and struggle for liberation.

5. THE OPPRESSED AND THE GOD W HO SEES

I conclude with a short reflection about what we can learn from the Hagar story in Gen 16. Hagar is the only person in the Bible who directly names God after a theophany. As I said before, Hagar is a symbol of oppression. This story was told by oppressed minoritarian groups that experienced oppression in a land given to be a land of freedom. God heard these groups and joined them at the well – a popular place of encounter among servants and slaves – that is transformed into a place of memorial and hope. God is not far from the oppressed, but in the historical reality among them because they is a God “who sees” and “is seen,” in a relationship of reciprocity that leads to liberation. The Hagar story originated in a popular memorial of oppressed people gathering at a well, 44 a place of encounter and fraternity with God and fellow servants. God has not changed, and contemporary communities marked by poverty and oppression understand the historical presence of God. These communities identify with the experience of Hagar when they read this text. The same God was present there is present here and is still seeing the oppressed, inviting them to see their transcendence revealed in their historical challenges. God hears the cry of the oppressed of our contemporary, diverse, and socioeconomic contexts. We learn from Gen 16 and from the Th. Booij, “Hargar’s Words in Genesis XVI 13b,” Vetus Testamentum 30.1 (1980): 1-7; and Colette Briffard, “Gen 16, 13: Hagar a-t-elle vu Dieu?” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 122.2 (2010): 436-438. 44 Brancher, “De los ojos de Agar a los ojos de Dios,” 14.

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oppressed who wrote it that God is close to those who are suffering. God gives hope and supports them in their effort toward liberation. Gen 16 highlights the lowly situation of Hagar – poor, slave, foreign, and woman. She is for us today, particularly for oppressed communities, a symbol of those who suffer because of their social condition, ethnicity, and gender. Hagar is a modern figure of poor, black, and brown women. “Abandoned and desperate in the desert of our modern metropolises and rural areas, they are emblematic of the poor people of this world for whom God has special care, whose dignity is recognized by God, to whom God shows compassion in their distress.”45 Hagar is a symbol of God and God’s preferential option for the poor. God loves all from the side of the poor, an invitation for all who believe in embodying their faith through a preferential option for the poor and their struggle against poverty and oppression. In the Christian tradition, the God “who sees” became incarnate, revealing their human face and voice in Jesus of Nazareth, once again, with a clear message: God hears the cry of the oppressed and walks with them in the way of hope and liberation.

Thomas Michel, “Hagar: Mother of Faith in the Compassionate God,” Christian-Muslim Relations 16.2 (2005): 104. 45

ENFLESHING THE WORD: DIVINE REVELATION IN THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS 1

DANIELLE NUSSBERGER Identifying the origins of faith’s response to divine revelation, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) states, “To make this act of faith, the grace of God and the interior help of the Holy Spirit must precede and assist, moving the heart and turning it to God, opening the eyes of the mind...To bring about an ever deeper understanding of revelation the same Holy Spirit constantly brings faith to completion by his gifts” (Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum no. 5, Flannery).2 It also attests that the “Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the gospel resounds in the church, and through her, in the world, leads unto all truth those who believe and makes the word of God dwell abundantly in them (see Col. 3:16)” (Dei 1 The ideas presented here were originally part of a lecture I gave at the “Dei Verbum at 50: Clarifications on the Inspiration of Scripture” Conference at the University of Dayton in October 2012. I returned to them for this chapter celebrating the life and work of Dr. Deirdre Dempsey, because through her biblical scholarship, teaching, and service, she has enfleshed the word for countless colleagues and students. 2 Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, no. 5. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of conciliar documents are taken from Vatican Council II, vol. 1, The Conciliar and Postconciliar Documents (ed. Austin Flannery, OP; Northport, NY: Costello, 1996).

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Verbum no. 8). Finally, because ecclesial biblical hermeneutics requires the Spirit’s guidance, it concludes that “Sacred scripture must be read and interpreted in light of the same Spirit by whom it was written” (Dei Verbum no. 12). With this, Dei Verbum affirms that along with inspiring the writing of the sacred scriptures that contain those things revealed by God, the Holy Spirit endlessly inspires faith-filled biblical interpreters to understand revelation more and more deeply (Dei Verbum no. 11 and 12). These excerpts from Dei Verbum prompt us to attend to the significance of the Spirit’s perpetual inspiration of biblical interpretation, as the scriptures penetrate and act upon every member of the Body of Christ. To heed this prompting, we will reflect on the twentieth-century, Swiss Catholic theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar’s study of the Spirit’s use of scripture to mold Christian believers into saints, which yields four observations. First, when reading scripture, the saint sees Christ. Second, the saint desires to be one with Christ. Third, the saint is conformed to Christ through internal, spiritual conversion. Fourth, the saint’s internal conversion becomes externally visible through the enfleshment of the word. These four observations result in the following insight that challenges our role as observers. Those who observe the saints and are receptive to the Spirit’s inspiration therein, are themselves drawn by the saint’s performance of scripture into the biblical drama, and thenceforth begin their own saintly processes of perception of, union with, assimilation to, and enfleshment of the Word, Christ Jesus. In sum, we are never mere observers. We are always participants in the Spirit’s drama of inspiration that takes hold of faith-filled biblical interpreters to make them into saints. Let us now heighten our awareness of this, our participatory role in scripture’s contemporary dynamism, by employing Balthasar’s theo-aesthetic and dramatic accounting of the saints.

W HEN THE SAINTS READ SCRIPTURE, THEY SEE CHRIST

Balthasar’s Herrlichkeit, his theological aesthetics, shares Dei Verbum’s starting point, the primacy and efficacy of divine

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revelation.3 Divine revelation is God’s self-communication to human beings that began at the moment of their creation, continued in God’s faithful covenanting with Israel, and reached its fulfillment in the Incarnation of the Logos. In Christ, God communicates to human beings as a human being, walking among them, feeding them with his word of salvation, and restoring them to union with the divine through his death, resurrection and sending of the Spirit of truth and unity. God’s dialogue with humanity in the Incarnation is historical, particular, and concrete, through the blood, sweat, and tears of Christ’s body. Because of the startling physicality of God’s holy presence in Christ, Balthasar devotes the first part of his trilogy to a theological aesthetics of perceiving the visible beauty of the crucified and risen Lord. Louis Dupré explains, “At the center of this titanic enterprise [Balthasar’s Glory of the Lord] stands a simple idea. When God assumed human nature in the Incarnation, He transformed the very meaning of culture. Henceforth all forms would have to be measured by the supreme form of God in the flesh.”4 Balthasar’s theo-dramatics relies on his theological aesthetics as it relays the drama of salvation and its ongoing effects in history and culture. In his reckoning, the saints are the masters of spiritual apprehension of the Christ-form on the world stage: “…the saints are the authentic interpreters of theo-drama. Their knowledge, lived out in dramatic existence must be regarded as the standard of interpretation not only for the life-dramas of individuals but ultimately for the ‘history of freedom’ of all the nations and of all mankind.”5 They are Balthasar’s teachers for how to heed the Spirit’s direction in going forth to meet the God who is still See Balthasar’s view of divine revelation in his The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. 1, Seeing the Form (ed. Joseph Fessio S.J. and John Riches; trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982), 429-526. 4 Louis Dupré, “Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theology of Aesthetic Form,” Theological Studies 49 (1988): 300. 5 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, Volume 2, Dramatis Personae: Man in God (trans. Graham Harrison; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 14. 3

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tabernacling with God’s people at the table of word and sacrament.6 Just as Christ palpably gifts himself to his members in the Eucharist, he gives them tangible access to himself in the scriptures. Balthasar watches the saints read the scriptures as the Spirit’s work of art, communicating Christ to those who “take up and read” and endowing them with the spiritual sense organs to worshipfully absorb his presence (Augustine, Confessions, Bk 8, Ch. 12, Pusey).7 The saints encounter scripture and the Eucharist with the same theo-aesthetic sight that has the capacity to witness the overwhelming power of God’s grandeur by encompassing all our physical and spiritual senses, including hearing, touching, tasting, and of course, seeing. Balthasar observes, “God brings man back to a halt by confronting him through his Incarnation in the midst of the sphere of the senses. God confronts man as the neighbor that no one can avoid, and yet also as the Lord and Master before whom man must bow—precisely because man can see, touch, hear, and eat him.”8 Saints like Augustine hear the Spirit’s call of tolle lege; they open scripture’s pages and touch them with their See Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, no. 21. Dei Verbum affirms the liturgical context for the Church’s encounter with both word and sacrament that culminates with Christ’s presence offered to us in the Eucharist. This will be taken up again in the second part of the chapter. 7 The famous exhortation, tolle lege, take up and read is found in Book 8, Chapter 12 of Augustine’s Confessions. Augustine, The Confessions (trans. Edward P. Pusey, D.D.; n.p. [cited 26 February 2022]; online: https://ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confess/confess.ix.xii.html). 8 Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 1, 397. Scripture trains a faithfilled, theo-aesthetic sight that is simultaneously physical and spiritual, because the Christ we meet in the words we hear and see is coming to meet us now in the silence of our hearts. Stephen Fields expounds, “Balthasar readily admits that the dialectic between sensation and spirit needs to be resolved by a synthesis grounded in faith. If all knowledge is necessarily meditated through sensation, then it follows for the Christian that having faith in God presupposes a sensory perception of Christ. Accordingly, sensation must become ‘spiritualized’ since it must mediate a reality that transcends its intrinsic corporeality.” See Stephen Fields, “Balthasar and Rahner on the Spiritual Senses,” Theological Studies 57 (1996): 226. 6

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hands, minds, and hearts; they taste scripture’s words of nourishment, and they see the Christ who feeds them. What do they see? In Christ, they see the complete embodiment of covenantal relationship between God and human beings.9 As John’s gospel repeatedly emphasizes, Christ speaks the words of the Father, and he fulfills those words in perfect obedience unto sacrificing his life on the Cross (John 17:7-11). He is at once God in dialogue with humanity and humanity responding to God in humble and hopeful faith. In short, he is the Messiah who restores humanity to its divinely ordained communion with the Creator and Savior of the world. Scripture itself provides numerous instances of such saintly envisioning of Christ, the Messiah and Lord. Take, for example, Peter’s five discourses in Acts in which he cites scripture and sees the suffering and risen Christ in these passages. Peter quotes LXX Psalm 15:8-11 (Acts 2:25-28) and proclaims: God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he received the promise of the holy Spirit from the Father and poured it fourth, as you (both) see and hear. For David did not go up to heaven, but he himself said: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool’. Therefore, let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:3236 NABRE).

In the event of Pentecost, Peter reads the scriptures with the aid of the Spirit who inspires the saint to see the Godhead in Jesus, the crucified and suffering servant. The Spirit’s illumination of the Agreeing with Karl Barth’s articulation of the Incarnation’s covenantal character, Balthasar writes, “This relationship [between God and humanity in covenantal commitment] attains its final perfection in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, who is not only ‘God with us’ and ‘Man for God’ (55-71) [citing Barth’s Church Dogmatics III/2], but also ‘Man for other Men’ (203-222). In this archetypal ‘being-for’, Christ reveals the natural constitution given to man by God at creation which makes him ‘capable of entering into covenant with God’ (224) and which is ‘already presupposed’ for the partnership with God (223).” See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 1, 372.

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witnesses’ sense perception is paramount, because they could— and many did—easily miss Jesus’s true identity and consequently spurn him. As Beverly Roberts Gaventa notes, “Among the several things Peter’s speech claims about Jesus of Nazareth, then, is despite the fact that his deeds revealed him, residents of Jerusalem rejected that identification when they put him to death.”10 Roberts-Gaventa interprets Luke-Acts as a “process of learning and relearning Jesus’ identity” in which “Luke understands that perception, genuine sight, comes to human beings only as a result of God’s gift…”11 After curing the crippled man at the temple gate, witnessing to Jesus’ resurrection, and being thrown into prison (Acts 3—4:4), Peter is “filled with the holy Spirit” (Acts 4:8) and testifies to the Sanhedrin. This time, quoting LXX Psalm 117:22, he declares the difficulties that arise when Jesus is not perceived through the Spirit’s inspiration: “He [Jesus] is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone’” (Acts 4:11 NABRE). Luke Timothy Johnson points out how Luke highlights the apostles’ “boldness (parrēsia)” in Acts 4:13, demonstrating that “the prophetic Spirit…is even more powerfully at work in them because of the resurrection of Jesus.”12 Of course, prior to the resurrection, Peter knew all too well what it means to turn away from Jesus’ suffering and to reject him in the hour of darkness. The saintly vision of Christ is not automatic; it is, rather, gradually sharpened through repeated attempts to see more accurately, much like the blind man of Bethsaida in Mark 8:2226, whose eyes require two healing touches from the hands of Jesus before he can see things clearly. This Markan miracle story depicts the process of saintly sight that Peter undergoes when he first sees Christ as Messiah in Mark 10 Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “Learning and Relearning the Identity of Jesus from Luke-Acts,” in Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage (ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Richard B. Hays; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 151. 11 Gaventa, “Learning and Relearning the Identity of Jesus from LukeActs,” 164. 12 Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (Sacra Pagina 5; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), 81.

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8:27-33, only partially envisioning the nature of authentic Messiahship, because he denies Jesus’ predictions of his own suffering, rejection, and death. As C. M. Tuckett maintains: Whatever words, or title, Peter uses to describe Jesus [in Mark 8:29], the sequel [i.e., vv. 32–33] does make it clear that Peter has not understood the most important thing about Jesus— that he must suffer and die. There is much therefore to be said for the view that, in Mark’s eyes, Peter gets things only half right here. Peter is thus perhaps in the intermediate state of the blind man of 8:22–6. (bracketed citations added)13

It is only in the throes of Jesus’ suffering, that Peter remembers how Jesus understood his identity as Messiah (Mark 8:31; Mark 9:31; Mark 10:33-34) and how he predicted Peter’s threefold denial of him (Mark 14:30), and he repents of his blindness (Mark 15:72). It is only with the strength of the Spirit at Pentecost, that he preaches the gospel with such clarity and authority. The saint, like Peter, sees Christ in the scriptures, through the Spirit, who slowly opens the eyes of the blind.

THE SAINTS DESIRE U NION WITH CHRIST

Remembering how Balthasar observes the saints being drawn to word and sacrament to continually receive the Christ who comes to meet them, we find Dei Verbum affirming the same inherent relationship between sacred scripture and the Eucharist: “The church has always venerated the divine scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God’s word and of Christ’s body” (Dei Verbum, no. 21). The saints come back to the Eucharistic feast countless times so that the Spirit can unite them to Christ’s flesh and to his members who form one body in his name.14 Then they can say, with the apostle Paul, “…yet I live, no Christopher M. Tuckett, “Mark,” in The Oxford Bible Commentary (ed. John Barton and John Muddiman; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 902. 14 Balthasar reflects on the fourteenth century, German Dominican mystic Johannes Tauler’s eucharistic spirituality as one of self-surrender, “…of 13

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longer I, but Christ lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20 NABRE). Influenced by the French Catholic dramatist Paul Claudel’s Nos Sens et Dieu, Balthasar expresses it this way, “The Eucharist, in particular, is the adaptation of our being to God by the descent of the Word into our senses…Not only does Spirit speak to spirit, but Flesh speaks to flesh…Through the ‘sense of Christ’ (1 Cor 2:16) there is implanted in us the ‘sense for God’.”15 “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16 NABRE), because as Mark Miller states when interpreting Balthasar, “The triune God puts himself at our disposal to be taken and incorporated into human beings.”16 Similarly, once the saints have seen Christ in the scriptures, they desire to repeatedly open the sacred pages so that the Spirit who has given them the eyes to find him there, might also be the source of a bond between the saints and their Lord that cannot be broken. For example, Balthasar finds in the nineteenth-century Carmelite, Elizabeth of the Trinity a healthy letting go of the ego that opens her up to the Spirit’s guidance to read scripture with “the mind of God”: “Elizabeth wants to see Scripture read and contemplated with the ‘mind of God’, with a subjectively supernatural power of comprehension that alone would be capable of grasping God’s objectively supernatural, infinite mind. Each word of Scripture seems to overwhelm her, to surpass her greatest expectations, to compel her to bow in adoring silence.”17 Like Elizabeth, the saints are captivated by Christ to enter into lives of self-renunciation (or, purification), to strip away that which would impede the Spirit’s work of sharpening their vision letting God have his way, of letting him be born…It is a work which corresponds to the Eucharistic life of Jesus: to eat God and be eaten by God; God’s will as food, oneself as food for God.” See Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 5, The Realm of Metaphysics in the Modern Age (ed. Brian McNeil C.R.V. and John Riches; trans. Oliver Davies, Andrew Louth, Brian McNeil C.R.V., John Saward, and Rowan Williams; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 58. 15 Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 1, 392-393. 16 Mark Miller, “The Sacramental Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar,” Worship 64 (1990): 55-56. 17 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Two Sisters in the Spirit (trans. Donald Nichols, Anne Elizabeth Englund, and Dennis Martin; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 20.

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of God (or, illumination) in order that they might share in triune life by union with the Son and the Father through the Holy Spirit.18 Balthasar traces the saints’ biblical lectio in the writings of several Christian mystics, maintaining that Christian mystical prayer is dialogue with Christ motivated by the Spirit to strengthen the saint’s bond of relationship with him.19 Encounter with the Logos in the biblical word produces the knowledge of love. This love for Christ in the Spirit unites the saint to the Father by the grace of the Son’s redemptive act.20 Studying the writings of the fourteenth-century, Flemish mystic, Jan Van Ruysbroeck, Balthasar finds a compelling account of the saintly approach to the Christ of word and sacrament that reflects on Matthew 25 and the love for Jesus modelled by the five wise virgins who were ready to join him at the wedding feast. Balthasar summarizes Lawrence S. Cunningham and Keith J. Egan outline how Origen of Alexandria (and the saints and mystics who came after him), “…saw the spiritual life as passing through three stages by which we first of all purified our loves of sin in order, secondly, to be illumined by the grace of God, so that, thirdly and finally, we might find union with God. Characteristically enough, Origen roots that ascent in his understanding of how we penetrate into the mysteries of sacred scripture.” See Lawrence S. Cunningham and Keith J. Egan, Christian Spirituality: Themes from the Tradition (New York: Paulist Press, 1996). Kindle Edition: Kindle Locations 640-642. 19 In the section of The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 5, entitled, “The Metaphysics of the Saints,” Balthasar traces the development of saintly mystical thought as a dialogue with scripture, philosophy, and the theological tradition. He engages with the lives and writings of the Rhineland mystics, Angelo of Foligno, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, Pierre de Bérulle, and François Fénelon, among others. See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 5, 48-140. 20 This love for Christ born out of a biblically inspired, contemplative encounter with him is exemplified in Julian of Norwich’s visions of Christ crucified that bring the gospel passion accounts to life. Balthasar writes, “Julian sees everything in the perspective of the bleeding crucifix: ‘God is everything which is good, and the goodness which everything has is God’ [quotation from Julian’s Showings]. But this vision can only be attained if one recognizes that ‘he has made everything which is made for love, and through the same love is it preserved’ [quotation from Julian’s Showings].” See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 5, 86. 18

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Ruysbroeck’s, The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, as “…an exposition, in three stages, of the verse ‘Behold the bridegroom! Come out to meet him [Matt 25:6]’.21 The saint loses herself in her beloved, the Christ she meets in the sacred word, and she cannot bear to be parted from him. In her enthusiasm, she runs to him, is frustrated at times when she fails to find him and is illuminated by the Spirit to search for him again. She does this, because he is the divine Lover who brings her face-to-face with the Father, a sight of startling darkness that brings her to her knees in wonderment and praise. Saintly biblical interpretation is about personal and communal encounters with Christ, the Lord, the Son, the second person of the Trinity, incarnate, who passionately desires to be one with his beloved. The saints echo the words of John’s first epistle, “We love, because he first loved us” (1 John:19).

THE ROAD TO U NION E NTAILS CONVERSION

As suggested by the mystical moment of purification, communion with the Divine that results from Christ’s love for us embodied in cruciform kenosis, involves the saint’s constant conversion to Christic thinking, loving, and willing through Christ-like selfdenial.22 The Spirit uses scripture to vividly describe divine love’s self-emptying nature in a variety of ways depending upon the biblical text one reads. Luke’s infancy narrative depicts God’s condescension in the helpless babe, the Christ child, who rests in a manger among the barn animals (Luke 2:6-7). The Synoptics point to Christ’s ultimate self-offering in Jesus’ passion predictions and in the passion narratives themselves (Mark 8:31; Mark 14—15). They also present Jesus, the Rabbi, who teaches that the core of discipleship is loving self-sacrifice by carrying one’s cross Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 5, 71. Throughout his “Metaphysics of the Saints,” Balthasar identifies the experience of purification as one of self-surrender and abandonment (gelassenheit) in imitation of Jesus’ unrestricted obedience to the Father’s will. Balthasar understands Ignatian indifference (indiferencia) to be “…in direct continuity with the Christian apatheia of the Fathers and the Gelassenheit of the Rhineland mystics…” See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 5, 102-103. 21 22

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and by being the servant of all (Matthew 16:24-25; Mark 9:35). Paul exhorts the Philippians to “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5 NABRE), and then he paints a picture of this attitude with the unforgettable hymn of Christ’s kenotic obedience to the Father’s will that is the premise of the Incarnation and its climax in Christ’s crucifixion (Phil 2:6-11). This second chapter of Philippians heavily influences Balthasar’s Christology, a Christology that he further develops by gazing at the same Christ who compels the saints to conform themselves to him.23 Balthasar watches the saints’ assimilation to Christ that takes place along their painstaking journeys of conversion, beginning with prayerful readings of scripture and continuing through successive levels of self-denial that lead to an increase in their adoption of Christ’s attitude of self-giving love represented in the Philippians’ hymn.24 We can see this same pattern in the early ascetical figure Antony the Great (251-356 CE), model for the desert ammas and abbas, who answered Christ’s entreaty, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will find treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Matt 19:21 NABRE). Antony saw Christ in the scriptures, desired to be united with him, so he followed his words to the letter.25 He embarked on an ascetical, contemplative path that took him far away from civilization to a dark and empty tomb in the desert where he tangled with the demons of temptation who wanted to forcefully remove Christ from his mind. Antony had to stalwartly oppose the demons’ ambition by emptying himself of Three key Balthasarian readings of Philippians 2 and its influence on his Christology can be found in his: The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. 7, Theology: The New Covenant (ed. John Riches; trans. Brian McNeil C.R.V.; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 219-229; TheoDrama: Theological Dramatic Theory, Vol. 4, The Action (trans. Graham Harrison; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 317-332; and Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter (trans. Aidan Nichols, O.P.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 24-37. 24 Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 5, 48-140. 25 Athanasius, The Life of Antony and The Letter to Marcellinus (trans. Robert C. Gregg; New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 31. 23

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all desires, except for the passion to do God’s will. The enemy could only be defeated with constant immersion in the words of scripture that conveyed Christ’s everlasting presence that could never be denied; Antony had to cling to Christ’s cross. This, Antony did, invoking the name of Christ before the demons who could not survive in the light of his love.26 Antony was conformed to Christ, for he too “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8 NABRE). His solitude in the tombs prepared him to give of himself to the community he left behind, by sharing with them the wisdom he learned from the Spirit, his constant companion.27 Antony’s life, as interpreted by Athanasius, illustrates the saint’s inspired entrance into scripture during life’s incessant struggles that yields assimilation to Christ’s kenotic suffering and death and betokens an equal share in the abundant new life of Christ’s resurrection.

CONFORMITY TO CHRIST MEANS E NFLESHING THE WORD

We return once again to Dei Verbum, Article 21, dealing with the one table of the word of God and body of Christ that nourishes the faithful. When preaching about the unifying effects of the Eucharist, Augustine says: The bread that you see on the altar, after it is sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. The chalice, or rather, what the chalice contains, after it is sanctified by the word of God is the blood of Christ. It was through these elements (of bread and wine) that our Lord Christ willed to commit to us His own body and His blood which He shed for the remission of our sins. If you have received them worthily, you yourselves are what you have received. (Augustine, Sermon 272)28

Balthasar’s meditations upon the saints lead him to conclude that when receiving the body of Christ and when receiving the word of God, the saints are indeed what they have seen and received— Christ’s discernible presence in the world. As the Son became Athanasius, The Life of Antony, 37-39. Athanasius, The Life of Antony, 42-43. 28 Augustine, Sermon 272, in “An Instruction on the Eucharist,” Orate Fratres 24.7 (1950): 309. 26 27

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flesh to dwell among his people, in imitation of Christ through the Spirit’s instruction, the saints enflesh the word according to their unique vocations so that others may see Christ through the words and actions of their lives.29 Balthasar intricately weaves together the three parts of his trilogy—the theo-aesthetics, dramatics, and logic—with the theodramatic performance of Christ in scripture at the center.30 He does this, because he wants all eyes to be focused on the Spirit’s direction of the christological drama, driven by the Incarnation to involve all the Christian faithful who are already members of the communion of saints, to act out their divinely ordained roles that help perpetuate the Kingdom of God inaugurated by Christ.31 Those who fully enact their saintly potential are the seasoned players in the drama who pattern their performances after Christ, its leading actor. Each saint acts out her dramatic role within historical, social, and cultural contexts that necessitate specific types of scriptural embodiment to address them. Tradition holds that Peter’s circumstances led him to share in his master’s cruciform death quite literally. Antony enfleshed the word by sharing in Jesus’ temptations in the desert and by overcoming Satan through diligent obedience to the Father’s will. Jan van Ruysbroeck also imitated Christ with a life of withdrawal and contemplation, spiritually advising his fellow contemplatives at Groenendal. Reading the same scriptures and worshipping in the same liturgy, each saint discovers the key to embracing an unrepeatable form of Christic obedience and self-sacrificial love. This requires the kind of discernment supported by Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. The Exercises train one’s scriptural imagination to enter Balthasar, Theo-Drama, Vol. 2, 14. Balthasar, Theo-Drama, Vol. 4. 31 Reflecting on Ignatius of Loyola’s understanding of the saint’s role or mission, Balthasar writes, “…the true mystery of Christian revelation is this: the perfection of the kingdom of God (‘God all in all,’ ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’) can be pursued as the universal operation of God in the active co-operation of the creature—in abandonment, surrender, service.” See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 5, 105. 29 30

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the biblical narrative prayerfully and creatively to further form one’s Christ-like mind and heart.32 They also demand corresponding action, recognizing that contemplation (including seeing, desiring union with, and conforming to Christ) cannot exist without action (enfleshing the word), and vice versa. Balthasar embraces Ignatian indifference as simultaneously contemplative and active, “This co-operation can no longer remain at the level of indifference in the sense of merely letting things happen; no, the particular will of God, which is to be actively grasped and carried out, must also be actively pursued.”33 Ultimately, it is only by original action in the divine-human drama, by enfleshing the word in community with others who are doing the same, that the saints fully become like the Christ whom they see in word and sacrament and receive what they are—his continued presence in the world. Through their performance of the scriptures, the saints make sure that, “Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12 NABRE).

CONCLUSIONS

We have been guided by Hans Urs von Balthasar in an appreciation of the saints’ inspired readings of scripture that see Christ, desire union with him, conform to him through conversion to his self-giving love, and imitate him by enfleshing the word. For Balthasar, and for our purposes, the saints exemplify Dei Verbum’s most fundamental principle of biblical interpretation: “Sacred scripture must be read and interpreted in light of the same Spirit by whom it was written” (Dei Verbum no. 12). The For David L. Fleming, S.J., “Imaginative Ignatian prayer teaches us things about Jesus that we would not learn through scripture study or theological reflection. It allows the person of Christ to penetrate into places that the intellect does not touch. It brings Jesus into our hearts. It engages our feelings. It enflames us with ideals of generous service.” See David L. Fleming, S.J., What is Ignatian Spirituality? (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2008). Kindle Edition: Kindle Locations 397-398. 33 Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 5, 105. 32

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inspiration of scripture bears fruit in the understanding of the bible’s readers when they are likewise inspired to be fed by the word to communicate it to others and to live it out in a Christlike fashion. This does not preclude historical criticism and other scientific methods of biblical hermeneutics. On the contrary, it requires them, due to the historical particularity of the Incarnation and the historical specificity of all subsequent enfleshments of the word in conformity to Christ. However, these methodologies cannot be ends in themselves, but must rather contribute to the greater aspiration of allowing the word to transform persons and communities to become what they receive. As Dei Verbum specifies, this ultimate good is facilitated by “giving serious attention to the content and unity of the whole of scripture and by taking into account the living tradition of the whole church” (Dei Verbum no. 12). Balthasar affirms that the saints are a vital element of this living tradition. In Verbum Domini, Benedict XVI concurs, concluding his discussion of the Bible’s interpretation within the church’s tradition, by invoking the saints: “The interpretation of sacred scripture would remain incomplete were it not to include listening to those who have truly lived the word of God, namely the saints...The Holy Spirit who inspired the sacred authors is the same Spirit who impels the saints to offer their lives for the Gospel. In striving to learn from their example, we set out on the sure way towards a living and effective hermeneutic of the word of God” (Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, no. 48-49).34 Balthasar also suggests that the saints themselves—in their enfleshment of the word—are the Spirit’s instruments, inspiring those who watch them to do the same, to read the Bible with the same Spirit who inspired it. This sparks a recurring cycle of the Spirit using saints to inspire future saints who are all actors propelling the divinehuman drama forward to its eschatological fulfillment when Christ will come again. Abba Antony was inspired by Peter and the other apostles to forsake everything for a closer relationship Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, no. 48-49 (n.p. [cited 26 February 2022]; online: https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/doc uments/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini.html). 34

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with Christ forged by desert asceticism. Augustine was moved by Antony’s story to gratefully accept the lifelong road of selfsacrificial conversion. Ignatius of Loyola was convinced by the examples of the saints to abandon his military career and become a soldier for Christ. Elizabeth of the Trinity was encouraged by Thérèse of Lisieux’s bold, early entry into the Carmelite cloister. Each saint’s impact upon the next has untold consequences for countless men and women who have benefited from their Christlike self-abandonment throughout the ages. All of us are counted among those who are grateful recipients of the church’s rich tradition of holy women and men whose enfleshing of the word helps to transform the world into the Kingdom of God. Balthasar’s theo-dramatic interpretation of the saints has alerted us to our participation, with the saints, in the divine-human drama. From this standpoint, our own Spiritguided, ecclesial biblical interpretation will bear fruit when we acknowledge and allow the Spirit to daily fashion us into faithful followers of Christ who are living icons of the scriptural word that has formed us.

INSIGHT INTO CONTEXT: SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGICAL READING OF THE BIBLE IN AFRICA: THE CASE OF NIGERIA JOSEPH OGBONNAYA This chapter hopes to contribute to a contextual approach to the bible within a particular context of world Christianity. It takes for granted the imperative of context or situation as a prerequisite in reading a text, specifically the bible. And so, it is an exercise in inculturation hermeneutic. We will highlight the scholarly approaches to the Bible with emphasis on contextual inculturation culture dependent reading, and the liberative motif based on select biblical themes supportive of African liberation theology akin to Latin American liberation theology and the Black Liberation theology especially the South African liberation theology. Next, we will examine the varieties of the common people’s reading pointing to the different uses of the Bible in the daily lives of African peoples. Finally, we correlate this to Deirdre Dempsey’s work in both biblical translation and biblical exegesis.

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I NTRODUCTION

Africa has always been associated with the bible in some form.1 Even though not available in the vernacular in Precolonial Africa, especially Roman North Africa, the bible was accepted as the norm of Christian life with the Donatists being a vigorous example of a Christian group insisting on practical Christian life in accordance with the dictates of the bible. The Book of Rules of Tyconius2 Augustine mentioned in his treatise De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine)3 emerged from the Donatist dedication to the study of the Bible in North Africa. The bible became much more prominent and disseminated during the colonial period as it was propounded through the missionaries by the colonial governments especially the British, and the Foreign Bible Society which imbibed the Reformation mantra of “sola scriptura” by which knowledge of God is limited to textualization of the scripture. While it is not necessary to recount the history of the Bible during the colonial period especially the initial hesitance to translation because of distrust of other languages besides Latin and Greek to express the truths of God in the Bible, reading the Bible by common people was held in suspect. It is worthy of note that mass circulation and campaigns urging people to read the Bible in the vernacular originated with the Protestants. As aptly articulated by R. S. Surgitharajah, “the basic Protestant beliefs include acknowledgement of the sufficiency of scripture, assertion of its authority over tradition, treating it as the incorruptible Word against human error and encouraging private reading over institutional mediation.”4

See David T. Ngong, “Reading the Bible in Africa A Critique of Enchanted Bible Reading,” Exchange 43 (2014): 174-191 at 174; John S. Mbiti, Bible and Theology in African Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1986), 22. 2 F. Crawford Burkitt, The Book of Rules of Tyconius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1894). 3 Saint Augustine, On Christian Doctrine (tr. D. W. Roberston, Jr.; Indianapolis: The Liberal Arts Press, Inc., Bobb-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1958). 4 Rasiah S. Surgitharajah, The Bible and the Third World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 52. 1

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The colonialist hermeneutics takes the texture of the colonial sentiment even though it is distinct from the colonial governments. Western interpretation is considered as the interpretation proper while other interpretations from Africa, Asia or China are considered as contextual and called by name as African, Asian, Chinese, Latin American, etc. The missionary hermeneutic flowing from the colonial hermeneutic injected into the biblical hermeneutics elements of the divine with Christianity playing civilizing role to rescue the barbarian, primitive and disorderly people without culture. The impact of the bible is associated with the civilization, orderliness, cleanliness, and improved wellbeing under the salvific power of the Gospel. All that is meant is nothing but the inculcation of European lifestyle and values into the colonized peoples and the extrapolation of Christianity and the bible as the only vehicle for redemption and liberation from the powers of darkness which had held the people in bondage. The fact is that the imperialists subjugating the people now wear the garb of redeemers and liberators. Practically, as R. S. Surgitharajah informs us, the consequence is the alteration of Africa’s cultural values, the injection of foreign values, the outright condemnation of the patterns of life, and thought of Africans, burning of their cultural and religious artifacts, regarded as idols, as proof of conversion to Christianity and their substitution with the Bible. “Instead of discerning the revelation of God afresh for the time, colonial hermeneutic was unthinkingly content with concepts and formulations suitable for the people of the Mediterranean world nearly two thousand years earlier, and re-applied them to Asian, African and Latin American contexts without recognizing the cultural and theological differences between the two.”5 The sufferings of the people especially ones engendered by colonial government cruelty and exploitation were biblically interpreted as necessary for the salvation of the people, as the necessary evil to be preferred to the eternal damnation of hell fire. The implications of adopting textualization which the sola scriptura had in Africa was the insistence among the elite of the 5

Ibid., 65.

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historical-biblical criticism in vogue in Europe. Such elitist reading made no sense to Africans whose reading is primarily narratival and emotive. The consequences are the stark differences between the elitist reading and the reading of the bible by the common people which became much more prominent in post-colonial hermeneutics. Surgitharajah observes: When the Society made the Bible a readily accessible document, its aim was not to invite readers to discover the hitherto veiled meanings in the narratives but to make safe the essentials of orthodox Christianity… Colonial interpretation makes it abundantly clear that hermeneutical issues are not settled by simply referring to texts alone. They are decided largely by the interpretative concerns of those who employ them. Despite the declared reliance of Protestants on the Book alone, in the end, … Western cultural practices were invoked to arrive at or impose a particular meaning. This, in a way, inaugurated one of the critical questions for modern hermeneutics – the link between interpretation and power; and the related and equally important question – the interface between indigenous and imported knowledge.6

The picture painted thus far gives the impression that the colonized peoples of Africa simply acquiesced to the colonial hermeneutics. On the contrary, the invaded, subdued, and colonized Africa saw in the Bible a tool for subversion, agitation, preservation of identity from colonizing dehumanization and thus used the Bible against the very people who introduced the Bible as vehicle of European civilization. They read into the Bible stories of God’s liberation of the people of Israel as God’s promise of their own liberation. They quoted the Bible to remind the Europeans of the equality of humans and the evil of slave trade. They pricked the conscience of the Europeans to witness to the Gospel they pride their civilization on. The Bible became the tool of nationalists led by the narrative hermeneutics to apply the passages of the Bible allegorically to their situations under colonial imperialists. They saw themselves as biblical Moses, the prophets leading the people out of slavery to freedom. In the 6

Ibid., 72-73.

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churches, religious personnel, pastors, teachers, interpreters, catechists, etc., assimilated the Bible, reinterpreted it in the light of their various cultures, exposed the inadequacies of colonial and missionary hermeneutics and set up independent churches where the Bible was used to challenge the peculiar African problems especially with regards to the spirit world.

DISSEMINATION OF THE BIBLE

The Bible was made available to the people first through vernacular translations by various missionary activities in Africa. The translation of the Bible into Yoruba by the Church of England clergyman Samuel Ajayi Crowther of Sierra Leone in 1843-44 helped establish the use of Roman script for the writing of Yoruba instead of the Arabic ‘anjemi’ script used by the Yoruba Muslims.7 Its success recognized even by its critics led to the attempt at replication among the Igbos of Southeast Nigeria, resulting to the much-criticized Union Ibo Bible.8 Completed between 1906 and 1912 at Egbu, near Owerri, the handiwork of Archbishop Thomas Dennis and T. D. Anyaegbunam of the Church Missionary Society, the Union Igbo Bible was in circulation by 1913. Aimed at the unification of Igbo language, the translation supported by the British and Foreign Bible Society ended up with a mix of Igbo no one speaks. The production of the Union Igbo may be informed by the age long European interest in language as key to human identity and categorization of people. The Union Igbo came about because of the European missionaries’ conviction of the existence of an Igbo lingua franca.9 The Union Igbo Bible may have been 7 Isaac Adejoju Ogunbiyi, “The Search for a Yoruba Orthography Since the 1840s: Obstacles to the Choice of the Arabic Script,” Sudanic Africa: A Journal of Historical Sources 14 (2003): 77-102. 8 Ben Fulford’s “An Igbo Esperanto: A History of the Union Igbo Bible 1900-1950,” Journal of Religion in Africa 32.4 (2002): 457-501, chronicles such criticisms from scholars like the great novelist Prof. Chinua Achebe, eminent Igbo linguist Nolue Emenanjo, Igbo historian, Adiele Afigbo, who blamed loss of Igbo identity and culture to the activities of the Christian missionaries. 9 Demitiri van der Bersselaar, “Creating ‘Union Igbo’: Missionary and the Igbo Language,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 67.2 (1977): 273-295.

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rejected because of its attempt at unification of the Igbo language which had numerous and very diverse dialects. According to Prof. Lamin Sanneh the translation failed because it was an attempt to impose uniformity against translations of the Bible in local dialects.10 The Catholic church which preferred production of catechisms as summary of Christian faith and biblical teaching could not settle for the translation of the whole Bible despite its criticisms of the Union Igbo Bible11 until many years after the Second Vatican Council when in the year 2000, it produced Igbo Catholic Bible (ICB).12 Society of African Missions championed translation of the Bible into vernacular in Northern Nigeria. The Bible as the Word of God was disseminated through various agencies focused on the distribution of the Bible. Worthy of note is the Foreign Bible Society devoted to the publication and making available the Bible across the world.13 Next is the international and interdenominational organization, the Scripture Union formed in England sometime between 1867 and 1879. By 1890 SU (as its fondly called), was engaged in evangelism in West Africa, encouraging people to read the Bible and to live by it. According to Andrew Olu Igenoza, Scripture Union thrived by stamping evangelism with “indigenous authenticity through the process of contextualization.”14 Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), 185. Demitiri van der Bersselaar, “Creating ‘Union Igbo’: Missionary and the Igbo Language,” presents much more comprehensive reasons for the failure of the Union Igbo Bible. 11 Nicolas Omenka, “The Role of the Catholic Mission in the Development of the Vernacular Literature in Eastern Nigeria,” Journal of Religion in Africa 16.2 (1986): 121-137. 12 Uchenna Oyali, Bible Translation and Language Elaboration: The Igbo Experience, 2018. https://epub.uni-bayreuth.de/4298/1/Bible%20Translation%20and%2 0Language%20Elaboration%20%E2%80%93%20The%20Igbo%20Exper ience.pdf 13 A concise elaboration of the work of the work of the Bible Society can be found in Surgitharagah, The Bible and the Third World. 14 Andrew Olu Igenoza, “Contextual Balancing of Scripture with Scripture: Scripture Union in Nigeria and Ghana,” in Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube, eds., The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (Boston: Brill, 2001), 294. 10

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The Scripture Union believes that a biblical passage should be interpreted according to the author’s intention and in terms of its original context. One should therefore seek to understand the original vocabulary, style and background of the text. It believes that while an exhaustive knowledge of the context may be impossible, an adequate knowledge of it is not. Contextual interpretation also takes into account how the reader’s life-situation will affect his or her understanding of Scripture. This aspect embraces one’s worldview, culture, age group and history. The Union believes that the life and ministry of Jesus are the key events in God’s dealings with humanity and thus form the focus of God’s revelation in Scripture. In reading any Scriptural passage, therefore, one should consider how it relates to Christ.15

The historian Ogbu Kalu testifies to the impact of the Scripture Union towards the emergence of Charismatic Renewal Movements in Nigeria. According to him, “it (SU) was the interdenominational group that focused on Bible study, prayers, and hospital ministry and served as the character formation component of mission education.16 It focused on secondary schools, serving to inform students of the importance of reading, praying over, and reflecting on the Bible, it promoted grassroots evangelism. The outbreak of the Nigerian civil war (1968-70) brought it to limelight as Southeastern Nigerians disillusioned by the British government support for the Nigerian government shunned Western-style mainline churches for the African Independent Churches while other Christian religious movements were formed. When the Nigerian Biafra civil war ended in 1970, “vibrant SU branches spread in the secondary schools while the university students formed Christian Union branches as formidable interdenominational evangelistic groups.”17 “Initially these young evangelists stayed in their churches and met to share fellowship, but later, some founded churches specializing in

Ibid., 295. Ogbu Kalu, African Pentecostalism: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 89. 17 Ibid., 91. 15 16

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evangelism, deliverance, or intercession, while a few remained as ecumenical fellowships.”18

A FRICAN BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

The Bible is read and listened to by various people in much of Africa: members of the academy, the elite political class, the clergy and the religious, the wealthy and the middle-class civil servants, the members of the laity, different Christian denominations, people of other religions, the rest of the poor and common people, educated, semi-educated and the non-literate who listen to the stories of the Bible. With the Bible readily available, it is obvious that different meanings are read into the Bible, different means of interpretation are employed, the Bible is put to several uses. Some people read the Bible literally as historical facts, others read them allegorically, metaphorically and analogically. Some look only for the moral lessons while some employ the scientific method of historical biblical criticism, reading the Bible like any other piece of literature. Despite the different approaches to the Bible, it is obvious that majority of Africans read the Bible in the light of their various contexts, They look for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems including the ones considered to be spiritual resulting from encounters or inflicted by or through the world-in between (to use Emmanuel Milingo’s terminology), from witches and wizards and other cosmic related issues. Contextual reading of the Bible is considered the predominant reading and the most useful. This view is shared by most biblical scholars. This particular reading drawn from the intermingling of the Bible and the African worldview has given rise to the emergence of several indigenous African churches, including various forms of home-grown evangelistic movements, churches, and has entrenched Pentecostalism in Africa, as the Bible shapes African Christianity and theology. As aptly articulated by the foremost African theologian John S. Mbiti: As Christianity deepens its presence in Africa, two features among many stand out prominently to exert a strong impact 18

Ibid., 94.

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in that process. These are the use of the Bible, especially in African languages, and the integration of the African world (with its culture, world-view, mentality, spiritual awareness, creativity and modern challenges). These two features cannot be removed from the new African Christianity. One provides the dimension of freshness, newness, otherness, and of universal and ecumenical outreach. The other supplies the base, the roots, the stronghold, the depth of culture and history. The two features meet and enjoy a high degree of commonality which makes them enter into each other. So this interpenetration of biblical and African worlds is strongly represented and visible in African Christianity. It is a major source of strength, whatever issues it may precipitate as side effects.19

Contextual reading cognizant of the meaning making process of the people, their attitudes and values as well as their varying situations were brought to bear on the Bible as people understand the Bible read in their various languages and as they integrate their worlds and the biblical worlds giving birth to new values and reforming the old life patterns reshaped by the Bible. Thus various biblical hermeneutics emerged drawn from the Bible, the culture and the socio-political, economic, religious, educational, health challenges and the struggles with the riddles of life.

JUSTIN U KPONG’S I NCULTURATION HERMENEUTICS

Justin S. Ukpong, the doyen of Africa’s biblical scholarship indicates that contextual reading, that is, reading the Bible in the light of Africa’s experience, is Africa’s significant contribution to biblical scholarship. Contextualization is central not only to Third World theology but to theology generally. According to Ukpong, “The term ‘contextualisation’ is a neologism coined by the Theological Education Fund in 1972 to express the process and practice of relating the gospel message to the people’s concrete life situation.”20 Contextualization is carried out in young churchJohn S. Mbiti, Bible and Theology in African Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 228. 20 Justin S. Ukpong, “Contextualisation: A Historical Survey,” African Ecclesial Review 29.5 (1987): 278. 19

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es in different forms: in liturgy, ministry, in theology and culture and in liberation (political, economic, social, religious). As interaction between Christianity and the people’s culture should not just be religious but include the secular as well, Ukpong advocates for a holistic approach to inculturation that incorporates the African world-view and life experiences. This means that, “African traditional customs, contemporary political, economic, social and moral issues have also to be exposed to critical, pastoral and theological reflection in the light of Christianity.”21 While acknowledging the contribution of the philosophical approach to inculturation by foremost African theologians which anchors inculturation to African philosophy in line with the Eurocentric anchor of theology on philosophy, and the anthropological approach which emphasizes indigeneity and culture, Ukpong calls for a sociological-anthropological approach to contextualization, “to articulate the Christian faith within the socio-cultural context of Africa in such a way that it becomes good news in all aspects of the lives of Africans—religious, social, economic and political.”22 Since inculturation specifically is “an attempt to give African expression to the Christian faith within a theological framework,”23 Inculturation biblical hermeneutic is the application of the methodology of inculturation theology to biblical interpretation.24 “It is marked by a movement away from the context of the text and the text itself to the context of the readers.”25 Ukpong believes holistic approach accords with the integral nature of African worldview that emphasizes unitive view of reality instead of the Eurocentric dualistic worldview upon which classical theology is based.

Justin S. Ukpong, “Inculturation: A Major Challenge to the Church in Africa Today,” African Ecclesial Review 38.5 (1996): 259. 22 Justin S. Ukpong, “Towards A Holistic Approach to Inculturation Theology,” Mission Studies 16.2 (1999): 107. 23 Justin S. Ukpong, “Current Theology: The Emergence Of African Theologies,” Theological Studies 45 (1984): 501. 24 Justin S. Ukpong, “The Parable of the Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-13): An Essay in Inculturation Biblical Hermeneutic,” Semeia 73 (1996): 190. 25 Justin S. Ukpong, “New Testament Hermeneutics in Africa: Challenges and Possibilities,” Neotestamentica, 35.1-2 (2001): 147-167 at 148. 21

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Through inculturation, the Christian message must be made to bear upon the economic, socio-moral and political orders in society and elicit a Christian response from African Christians. It has to evoke a Christian commitment and action towards the eradication of all forms of political oppression, social and economic injustice, social discrimination and the moral decadence in the society. To eradicate this will involve drawing on the insights from the values of the traditional culture and the Gospel Message. It is not, however, uncommon to see Christians condone and even enforce unjust political, economic and social situations where they live and work. The starting point for inculturation, therefore, is to mobilize Christian consciousness against any unjust and inhuman situations in society.26

Thus, Ukpong advocates for a new way of reading the Bible in the light of inculturation that is distinct and differs from the Western context by focusing on the communities rather than on the context that produced the text. Ukpong notes the yearning of African Christians in the mainline Churches to experience in their churches the Jesus they read in the Bible who heals the sick, raised the dead, fed the hungry but which their churches claim were deeds of the past and no longer needed in contemporary Christianity. He regrets the inability of African biblical scholars who until recently had been unable to break away from the Eurocentric reading of the Bible they had been trained in limited as it is in applying the Bible to the life and experiences as well as the yearning of African Christians when they read of Jesus in the Bible. The consequence is discrepancy between the scholarly reading of the Bible and the ordinary African Christian reading of the Bible. According to Ukpong: One outcome of this has been a visible gap between this academic reading of the bible and the needs of ordinary African Christians. Another outcome has been the fact that in many ways African social and cultural concerns are not reflected in such reading. All this has happened in spite of the fact that African scholars do bring their own cultural Ukpong, “Inculturation: A Major Challenge to the Church in Africa Today,” 266.

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Realization of the importance of African context in the reading of the Bible has gathered a life of its own among African biblical scholars thus giving rise to the application of the Bible to the various socio-political, anthropological situations of Africa. Inculturation hermeneutic simply aim at applying the messages of the Bible to challenge contemporary society and life of individuals and to give meaning to African socio-cultural context. Inculturation hermeneutic, designates an approach to biblical interpretation which seeks to make the African, and for that matter any socio-cultural context the subject of interpretation. This is different from making another context the subject of interpretation and then applying the result in the African context. It is also different from reading the context into the biblical text. Interpreting a text is a complex process. It involves an interpreter in a certain context making meaning of a text using a specific conceptual framework and its procedure. Every interpretation process has the above five components of interpreter, context, text, conceptual framework and procedure. Making a particular socio-cultural context the subject of interpretation means that the conceptual framework, its methodology and the personal input of the interpreter are consciously informed by the worldview of, and the life experience within that culture.28

Context evolves differently in this reading. In “Developments in Biblical Interpretation in Africa: Historical and Hermeneutical Directions,” Ukpong divided the history of the development of biblical interpretation in Africa into three phases: Phase I (1930s70s): reactive and apologetic; Phase II (1970s): reactive-proactive; Phase III (1990S): proactive, recognition of the ordinary reader, African context as subject of biblical interpretation,

Justin S. Ukpong, “Rereading the Bible with African Eyes,” Journal of Theology for South Africa 91 (1995): 4. 28 Ibid., 5. 27

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dominated by liberation and inculturation methodologies.29 In the first phase characterized by comparative religious method, African context is compared to the Old Testament and their relationship is emphasized. Some even argued (although often disputed) view of the Israelite origin of African communities because of similarities of their cultural contexts. The comparative studies resulted to African traditional religious culture being considered as the preparation for the gospel.30 In the second phase, with its two approaches (Africa-in-the-Bible and Evaluative approach) African culture (context) is taken as the starting point for the reading of the Bible. The liberative paradigm of the third phase, emphasizes the liberation from bondage and oppression and are suspicious of the Bible even as they draw from the Bible to emphasize the God of the oppressed always on the side of those at the margins. “The liberation approach to biblical interpretation is expressed in liberation hermeneutics, black theology and feminist hermeneutics.”31 Inculturation motif aim at making Christianity relevant to African culture and as such should no longer be construed as foreign religion in Africa. Liberation motif also highlight Christianity’s involvement in the sociocultural, economic, and political development of the people. Inculturation (Africa-in-the-Bible) hermeneutics aim at correcting the negative impressions about Africans in the Bible, showing

Justin S. Ukpong, “Developments in Biblical Interpretation in Africa: Historical and Hermeneutical Directions,” in Gerald O. West & Musa W. Dube, The Bible in Africa (Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2001), 12 30 See Gerald West, “African Culture as Preparatio Evangelica: The Old Testament as Preparation of the African Post-Colonial,” in Ronald Boer, ed., Postcolonialism and the Hebrew Bible: The Next Step (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 193-220; Eric Anum, “Comparative Readings of the Bible in Africa: Some Concerns,” in Gerald O. West & Musa W. Dube, The Bible in Africa (Boston, Leiden: Brill. 2001), 457-473; Theo Witvliet, “Response to Lamin Sanneh, ‘Domesticating the Transcendent: The African Transformation of Christianity,” in Athalya Brenner and Jan Willem van Henten, eds., Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion (London, New York: Sheffield, 2002), 86-93. 31 Ukpong, “Developments in Biblical Interpretation in Africa: Historical and Hermeneutical Directions,” 14 (emphasis in the original). 29

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their presence in the Bible and their influence and role both in the history of salvation and on the world stage. The de-emphasis of the role of Africa comes in the form of excluding Egypt from Africa and including them as part of the Ancient Near East. Evaluative studies are focused on the encounter between African religion, culture, and the bible and their theological understanding. Its various approaches evaluate elements of African culture in the light of the biblical witness, look to the Bible in addressing the challenges of specific aspects of African culture, interprets biblical themes in the light of African culture, life and experience, shows continuity between African culture and Christianity as exemplified in the various formulations of African Christologies drawn from elements of African culture and tradition and finally studies the biblical text to discover biblical models and practice in Africa. Ukpong’s definition clarifies the scope of this methodology: An inculturation biblical hermeneutics is an approach that consciously and explicitly seeks to interpret the biblical text from socio-cultural perspectives of different people. This includes both their religious and secular culture as well as their social and historical experiences. This does not mean reading contemporary contexts into the biblical text; rather it means consciously and critically allowing different contemporary contexts to inform the interpretation positively and to influence the type of questions put to the text in the process of interpretation.32

Liberation hermeneutics of the reading of the bible, just like the Latin American liberation theology, looks to the bible ‘as a resource for struggle against oppression of any kind based on the biblical witness that God does not sanction oppression but rather always stands on the side of the oppressed to liberate them.”33 Black Theology of South Africa and the Womanist Theologies use hermeneutics of liberation. Often the Exodus account of the

Ukpong, “The Parable of the Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-13): An Essay in Inculturation Biblical Hermeneutic,” 191. 33 Ukpong, “Developments in Biblical Interpretation in Africa: Historical and Hermeneutical Directions,” 19. 32

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liberation of the people of Israel is used as a model of God’s liberative action for the oppressed. While the Bible is used for the political theology of liberation by the Black theology of South Africa in its fight against Apartheid regime’s oppressive segregationist system, another liberative approach points to the possible subversive oppressive elitist nature of the bible which allows for the hermeneutics of oppression exemplified by the Apartheid system’s misuse of the bible to support their segregationist agenda against the Blacks in South Africa. The womanist theologians critique the maleness of God both in Bible translations and in various hermeneutics of the Bible. They also attempt “a recovery of the forgotten and muted voices, the images and contributions of women in the biblical text.”34 Yet despite the different points of emphasis of these paradigms, it is clear as I emphasized elsewhere that inculturation and liberative readings are complementary. “Issues of Africanness, ethnicity, and culture cannot be separated from the complex matrix they share with issues of race, class, and gender.”35 Africans read the bible in the light of the daily challenges of their lives. This reading of the Bible presumes a particular attitude to the bible as the Word of God, as the documentation of God’s self-revelation. It sees the Bible as a non-ideological text, as the norm and guide of Christian life, and hence as above and corrective of culture. It is a dynamic rereading of the biblical text conscious of its historical past, in the light of today’s context. In the third phase, both the contextual method and inculturation hermeneutics recognize the ordinary African (non-biblical scholars) readers and integrate their perspective into the academic reading of the Bible. Through inculturation hermeneutics, the African context is made the subject of the interpretation of the Bible, and the various situations of African life become the subject of biblical interpretation in view of societal transformation envisaged through the Bible. Ukpong’s erudite interpretation of the parable of the shrewd manager in Luke 16: 1-13 that connects historical context of the text, other Ibid., 22 Joseph Ogbonnaya, “African Liberative Theologies,” in Miguel A. De La Torre, ed., Introducing Liberative Theologies (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015), 26-45. 34 35

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related texts on Luke’s treatment of Jesus attitude towards the rich, his textual analysis and finally application into the context of oppression of poor West African farmers is indicative of the inculturation biblical hermeneutics contextual reading centering on African context and connection with the present context of ordinary readers of the bible, (Christians) challenged “to work towards the reversal of oppressive structures of contemporary economic systems.”36 The procedure involves interaction between academic and ordinary readers of the bible such that the ordinary readers are helped to develop critical awareness and identify and use local critical resources in their reading of the bible. In developing the hermeneutics for this approach to bible reading, the resources of the people’s culture and historical life experience are used as complementary to conventional critical tools of biblical exegesis. This recognition, by the academic community, of the place of the ordinary reader’s in the scheme of things, regarding the appropriation of the biblical message, makes academic biblical scholarship relevant to the community of believers.37

Ukpong’s summary above debunks positions like Paul’s Gifford’s which attempt to diminish and reduce African reading of the Bible merely to the comparative approach of responding to European views about Africa.38 Ukpong’s contextual reading of the Bible is not just unique to Africa. It is not an exercise of comparative approach to Bible reading, as Gifford will have us believe. On the contrary, paying attention to context is universally important to interpretative process as a whole. Jonathan A. Draper argues that “to interpret a text without taking this [context] into account is to run a risk of self-deception… This is not because the Bible does not confront us with the Word of God’s revelation, but because we as readers and hearers of the Word are pre-disposed by our own Ukpong, “The Parable of the Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-13): An Essay in Inculturation Biblical Hermeneutic,” 207. 37 Ukpong, “Developments in Biblical Interpretation in Africa: Historical and Hermeneutical Directions,” 23. 38 Paul Gifford, “The Bible in Africa: A Novel Usage in Africa’s New Churches,” Bulletin of SOAS 71.2 (2008): 203-219. 36

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social, economic, political and cultural contexts to read in a certain way.”39 Contextual interpretation of biblical texts on sexual morality enables European and North American Christian denominations bless gay unions and marriages including “the 2003 decision by the U.S. Episcopal Church to ordain Gene Robinson¾a noncelibate homosexual¾as bishop of New Hampshire.”40 Applied to Africa, contextual reading in its various forms is “trying to understand in what way the text may contribute to our life and our faith as Africans in a hostile global environment.”41 Inculturation hermeneutics remains the most popular reading of the Bible in Africa today adopted by most scholars and relevant to non-biblical scholars as well. Despite his criticism of certain aspects of inculturation reading of the Bible, David T. Ngong affirmed its popularity: “Even though there are other influential methods of reading the Bible in Africa, inculturation biblical hermeneutics is perhaps currently the most influential because it has the support of mainstream scholars, preachers, and ordinary Christians, being a central method of interpretation, especially in the current Pentecostalization of African Christianity.”42 Even though ordinary non-biblical scholars read the bible differently from the purely biblically trained scholars, African academic scholarly approaches are integrating the ordinary people’s perspective into the academic study.

ORDINARY A FRICAN’S READING

I consider myself an ordinary reader of the Bible. I am trained as a systematic theologian and not a biblical scholar. In reading and teaching biblical texts, I have been reminded the biblical exegetical views I never would have thought of in relation to the Jonathan A. Draper, “Reading the Bible as Conversation: A Theory and Methodology for Contextual Interpretation of the Bible in Africa,” Grace and Truth 19.2 (2002): 13-24 at 16. 40 Philip Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 2. 41 Draper, “Reading the Bible as Conversation: A Theory and Methodology for Contextual Interpretation of the Bible in Africa,” 19. 42 David T. Ngong, “Reading the Bible in Africa: A Critique of Enchanted Bible Reading,” Exchange 43 (2014): 174-91 at 176. 39

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texts. This will be part of the meaning of ordinary reading, that is, the interpretation of biblical texts by people who are not trained as biblical scholars. There are other dimensions of the ordinary reading of the Bible by non-graduate readers, as well as by non-high school readers, including also the ‘reading’ by nonliterate persons who listen to the stories of the Bible and live by the morals of the stories. Ordinary person reads the bible presupposing it as the Word of God, as a book with authority of God’s self-revelation relevant to every aspect of contemporary life and societal challenges. In the global South generally, and also for some in the global North, “the Bible speaks to everyday, realworld issues of poverty and debt, famine and urban crisis, racial and gender oppression, state brutality and persecution.”43 Most ordinary reading is literalist, finding meaning in the text as it has been translated either in the local African languages, in English or in any of the colonial languages adopted as the lingua franca of the context. One makes sense of the text one is reading in the light of one’s worldview. As the bible contains stories of healing, exorcism, spirits and demons, God’s involvement in the freedom of the oppressed, one believes God’s continued involvement in the redemption of humanity from the forces of evil, darkness, witches and wizards, as the Bible’s stories remain relevant towards human travails. Field research carried out by Justin S. Ukpong on oral interpretation of the Bible across Christian denominations in Port Harcourt Nigeria under the auspices of the Bible in Africa project 1991-94 reveals the general attitude of Nigerians to the Bible. Their reading is different from the academic reading constructed in the post-Enlightenment frame where the bible is looked upon as any other ancient text, and is studied historically critically linguistically with focus on the literary methods. According to Ukpong’s findings: The research population exhibited a rather naïve and dogmatic approach to the bible. The bible is regarded literally as God’s own words divinely inspired and communicated to human beings. They maintain an attitude of reverence and Philip Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5.

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submission to it as if the words of the bible were directly communicated to humanity by God… We found that ordinary Africans in the study shared the same position irrespective of their denomination. Perhaps they are attracted to this position by the world-view of their African traditional society where authority, more so religious authority, is accepted without question. That the bible is divinely inspired is taken to imply that it has magical dimensions. The bible is used to ward off evil spirits, witchcraft and sorcery, it is placed under the pillow at night to ensure God’s protection against the devil, it is put in handbags and cars when travelling to ensure a safe journey, it is used in swearing to bring God’s wrath upon culprits.44

People read the Bible much more existentially, to get directions on how to live and relate to one another. The Bible is read to know the mind of God, to deepen love for God and to receive divine blessing, grace to live in right relationship with God. People do not read the biblical text to question or to seek and find contradictions or to critique the word of God. The bible is a book of devotion, of prayer and instruction for moral conduct and as aid as humans navigate the challenging challenges of life. The report continues: The reverence accorded to the bible as God’s word means that the bible is regarded entirely as a book of devotion, a rule of life and a norm for morality. It means too that the historical veracity of its content is not questioned as such questioning would detract from this reverence. These people do not therefore go to the bible with a questioning mind, but they go to learn. They are interested neither in the literary analysis of biblical texts nor in the history behind the text. They are interested in the theological message in the text and how that message might be useful to their lives. The bible is thus treated not as any other literature but as literature of a special category.45

Justin S. Ukpong, “Popular Readings of the Bible in Africa and Implications for Academic Readings,” in Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube, eds., The Bible in Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 587. 45 Ibid., 588. 44

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Analysis of the peoples responses to the various questions of the field research indicates that probably most of the people’s attitude to the Bible is influenced by what they have been told about the Bible and as well as their worldviews even though they may not acknowledge the influence of culture in their biblical interpretation. The use people make of the Bible as protection against evil forces and enemies is further indication of the influence of their worldview on the Bible. “Our culture does influence our attitude to the bible and the questions we put to the biblical text. The bible is both the word of God and a cultural product of the human communities that passed on this word to us. It is not a dictation from God. This is why culture can and does influence the interpretation of the bible.”46 While academic reading should learn from ordinary reading to read the bible existentially, in the light of contemporary society and various challenges in life, popular reading of the bible should also learn to move away from dogmatic reading of the bible to a critical reading. Ukpong concludes the report: “While academic readings of the bible should seek insights from ordinary readings, ordinary readers must be helped to overcome a naïve and dogmatic attitude to the bible, and to approach the bible with a critical mind.”47 Deirdre Dempsey’s explication of the Old Testament is an example of academic biblical scholarship dedicated to ordinary readers of the Bible. This comes out clearly first in her involvement in Bible translations which form the English biblical text used in Bible translation in English speaking Africa. Dempsey is on the USCCB NABRE Revision Committee. Their immediate job is to provide a revision of the NABRE for the new lectionary (out possibly in 2024). In the long run, it will be a revision of the NABRE. She is concerned with “understanding the text in the context of its original authors and audience.”48 Series of her writings aim specifically at answering questions about Old Testament texts whose stories baffle the ordinary reader of the Ibid., 593. Ibid. 48 Deirdre Dempsey, “Rûaḥ elohim: Wind, Breath, or Spirit?” Bible Today 57.4 (2019): 207-219 at 208. 46 47

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Bible. Why would Abraham prefer his personal safety introducing his wife as his sister, benefitting materially from such falsehood leading to God inflicting disease on Pharaoh’s household? Why did Abraham acquiesce to the demands of Sarah to send Hagar and Ishmael away? How about the test to sacrifice Isaac his son? Dempsey provides an academic scholars response understandable to the ordinary reader, combining critical study with contemporary appropriation of the Bible: So what have we learned by a careful reading of the Abraham stories in Genesis? Abraham stands out from the mass of humanity that has preceded him: they lacked faith, and this shows in their inclination to disobey. Abraham is flawed. His behavior is sometimes surprising for someone who earns the title “friend of God,” and he is not without his doubts, as several stories attest. But his faith, his trust in God, overcomes his doubts. This does not happen in a “once and for all” fashion; the struggle to have faith continues over time. More important than Abraham’s faithfulness to the covenant is God’s faithfulness to the covenant. Time and time again God is willing to overlook flaws and failures for the sake of the covenant made with Abraham, God’s friend.49

Dempsey’s Old Testament biblical exegesis compares and contrasts scriptural events in biblical narratives highlighting varying dimensions of inculturation exegesis exemplified in her comparison of Darius, Pharaoh, and Associates.50

Deirdre Dempsey, “Abraham in Genesis,” Bible Today 54.4 (2016): 233240 at 239. 50 Deirdre Dempsey and Sharon Pace, “A Comparison of Darius, Pharaoh, and Associates,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 43.2 (2016): 203-214. 49

ESCHATOLOGICAL CONSUMPTION OF LEVIATHAN AND BEHEMOTH AS REVELATION OF THE MESSIANIC TORAH ANDREI A. ORLOV Praised be He who permits the forbidden. - Sabbatai Ṡevi

The notion that the righteous would one day feast on Behemoth and Leviathan occupied a prominent place in early Jewish pseudepigraphical accounts, including testimonies found in the Book of the Similitudes, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch. Thus, from 1 Enoch 60:24 one learns that “two monsters, prepared according to the greatness of the Lord, will provide food for the chosen and righteous.”1 4 Ezra 6:52 claims that Behemoth and Leviathan have been kept in order “to be eaten by whom thou [God] wilt, and when thou wilt.”2 2 Bar. 29:4 also seems to demonstrate familiarity with the eschatological feast on the monsters, when it records that “Behemoth will be revealed from his place, and George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch. Chapters 37–82 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 233. 2 Michael Stone, Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 178-179. 1

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Leviathan will arise from the sea ... and then they will be food for all who remain.”3 Scholars often see these pseudepigraphical speculations as elaborations of earlier biblical traditions. Thus, for example, reflecting on 4 Ezra’s eschatological meal’s traditions, Michael Stone suggests that “this idea of the messianic banquet made by God for the righteous has biblical roots in Isa 25:6 and Ps 74:14.”4 Although much ink has been spilled in discussions about this eschatological feasting, scholars have often encountered difficulties in grasping various conceptual facets of this tradition, and, especially, its possible connection with the acquisition of esoteric knowledge. Yet, it is possible that such eschatological “nourishment on the monsters” was somehow understood as a revelation about the mysteries of Behemoth and Leviathan. 5

E SCHATOLOGICAL FEEDING ON THE MONSTERS IN BIBLICAL, PSEUDEPIGRAPHICAL, AND RABBINIC A CCOUNTS

The theme of the righteous’ eschatological nourishment on Leviathan and Behemoth received unprecedented attention in later rabbinic and Jewish mystical accounts. Yet, the roots of this tradition can be discerned already in biblical texts. Scholars often see the background of this motif in Ps 74:14, where the psalmist describes God as the one who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food (‫ )מאכל‬to the creatures of the wilderness.6 David M. Gurtner, Second Baruch: A Critical Edition of the Syriac Text. With Greek and Latin Fragments, English Translation, Introduction, and Concordances (Jewish and Christian Texts in Context and Related Studies 5; London: Continuum, 2009), 67. 4 Stone, Fourth Ezra, 188. 5 Later Jewish mystical testimonies often link the monsters’ flesh consumption with an apprehension of divine knowledge. Thus, some kabbalists believed that “the flesh of the Leviathan ... purifies the body, leading to the ultimate religious aim, apprehension of God in the purest sense.” Joel Hecker, Mystical Bodies, Mystical Meals: Eating and Embodiment in Medieval Kabbalah (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2005), 106. 6 It is interesting that the recipients of the meal (‫ )לעם לציים‬are rendered by Theodotion as “(λαῷ) τῷ ἐσχάτω.” Frederick Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quae Supersunt (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1875), 2.218. 3

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Indeed, the motif of God’s defeat of the monster followed by its consumption occupies a prominent place in later Jewish accounts, where Behemoth and Leviathan will be slayed by the deity immediately before the messianic meal. Ezek 29:3-5,7 Ezek 32:34,8 and Ezek 39:17-199 also narrate the demise of various antagonists and the consumption of their corpses after their defeat. As we have already witnessed in our study, some of these passages, like Ezekiel 29, will be used extensively by various Jewish interpreters in their speculations about Leviathan. Reflecting on these Ezekielian traditions, William Whitney points out that all of these texts are suggestive of the late motif of the consumption of Leviathan and Behemoth at the eschatological feast. In no case, however, do they provide a close parallel to it. Rather they represent a specific genre (“the carrion motif”) with the function of casting shame and dishonor upon a despised foe (either real or imaginary), by depicting that foe’s defeat in a way which does not anticipate, or even allow, the dignity of “proper burial.” The words which Ezekiel is

Ezek 29:3-5 reads: “Thus says the Lord God: I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon sprawling in the midst of its channels, saying, ‘My Nile is my own; I made it for myself.’ I will put hooks in your jaws, and make the fish of your channels stick to your scales. I will draw you up from your channels, with all the fish of your channels sticking to your scales. I will fling you into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your channels; you shall fall in the open field, and not be gathered and buried. To the animals of the earth and to the birds of the air I have given you as food.” 8 Ezek 32:3-4 reads: “I will throw my net over you; and I will haul you up in my dragnet. I will throw you on the ground, on the open field I will fling you, and will cause all the birds of the air to settle on you, and I will let the wild animals of the whole earth gorge themselves with you.” 9 Ezek 39:17-19 reads: “As for you, mortal, thus says the Lord God: Speak to the birds of every kind and to all the wild animals: Assemble and come, gather from all around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth – of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. You shall eat fat until you are filled, and drink blood until you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you.” 7

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Furthermore, later Jewish traditions often render the Hebrew expression ‫ יכרו עליו חברים‬found in Job 40:30(41:6E)11 as “(the scholarly) companions shall eat of him [Leviathan].”12 While the symbolism of the messianic feast on Leviathan and Behemoth is not present unambiguously in the biblical text, in the aforementioned pseudepigraphical passages found in the Book of the Similitudes, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch this motif receives a clear expression. Although the elaborations about the messianic meal on the primordial monsters are still rather terse and limited just to a few short references in the aforementioned biblical and pseudepigraphical accounts, this motif receives unprecedented elaboration in later rabbinic and Jewish mystical lore. One can find these traditions, for example, in the targumim, which expands on familiar biblical lines by adding some novel details about the eschatological feast. Such allusions are present, for example, in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Gen 1:21, where one learns that “God created the great sea monsters, Leviathan and his mate, that are designated for the day of consolation.”13 Reflecting on these targumic additions, Michael Maher suggests that Pseudo-Jonathan’s expansion on Leviathan and his mate demonstrates that its authors knew about “the traditions that are William Whitney, Jr., Two Strange Beasts: Leviathan and Behemoth in Second Temple and Early Rabbinic Judaism (Harvard Semitic Monographs 63; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 172. 11 NRSV translates Job 40:30(41:6E) as “will traders bargain over it [Leviathan]?” 12 On this, see Michael Fishbane, “Rabbinic Mythmaking and Tradition: The Great Dragon Drama in b. Baba Batra 74b–75a,” in Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg (ed. M. Cogan, B. L. Eichler and J. H. Tigay; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 273284 at 246. 13 Michael Maher, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis (The Aramaic Bible 1B; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), 19. 10

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recorded in the midrashic and apocalyptic texts.”14 Furthermore, some other Greek and Aramaic targums directly speak about the eschatological banquet. Although the theme of the righteous’ nourishment on Leviathan is not explicitly manifested in the original text of the Book of Job, or at least it is not reflected in modern translations of this book, it is possible that such a motif could be present in Job 40:30(41:6E), a passage which asks: “Will traders bargain over it? (‫)יכרו עליו חברים‬.” Interpreting this passage, b. Baba Batra 75a claims that “Rabba says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: In the future, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will make a feast for the righteous from the flesh of the leviathan, as it is stated: ‘The ḥabbarim will make a feast [yikhru] of him’ (Job 40:30). And kera means nothing other than a feast, as it is stated: ‘And he prepared [va’yikhreh] for them a great feast [kera]; and they ate and drank’ (2 Kings 6:23).” This interpretation is not a product of rabbinic “imagination,” but a tradition with ancient roots. Thus, already the Septuagint exhibits such an understanding of ‫ יכרו‬by adding a theme of “banquet” to its rendering of Job 40:30: “And do nations feed on it (ἐνσιτοῦνται δὲ ἐν αὐτῷ ἔθνη)?”15 One can find a similar exegetical move in Targum on Job 40:30 : “Will the companions, make a banquet (‫)שירותא‬ over him?”16 Targum on Psalm 104:25-26 also knows about the messianic meal: Maher, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis, 19, note 36. Joseph Ziegler, Iob: Septuaginta. Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum (XI/4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 402; Albert Pietersma et al., New English Translation of the Septuagint (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 695. 16 Céline Mangan, The Targum of Job (The Aramaic Bible, 15; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical/Edinburgh: Clark, 1991), 88. David M. Stec, The Text of the Targum of Job. An Introduction and Critical Edition (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 20; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 294. Sung Jin Park notes that “for ‫ כרה‬of MT, TgJob reads ‘to give a banquet,’ similar to the LXX rendering (ἐνσιτοῦνται).” Sung Jin Park, “The Text and Translations of Job: A Comparative Study on 11QtgJob with Other Versions in Light of Translation Techniques,” Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament 2.2 (2013): 165-190 at 173. 14 15

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CONSUMPTION OF LEVIATHAN AND BEHEMOTH This is the sea: great and wide of boundaries, where there are creeping things without number, beasts both small and great. There the ships go; (and as for) Leviathan that you created to sport at the banquet of the righteous (it is) his dwelling house. All of them look to you to give their food in due season.17

Targum of the Canticles 8:2 is also cognizant of the “feast of Leviathan ... prepared for the righteous in the Garden of Eden”: I will lead you, O King Messiah I will bring you up into my Temple, and you will teach me to fear the Lord, and to walk in His ways. There we will partake of the feast of Leviathan and we will drink [from] old wine which has been preserved in its grapes from the day that the world was created, and from pomegranates and fruits which are prepared for the righteous in the Garden of Eden.18

The tradition of the eschatological meal is also unfolded in both Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds. Thus, y. Megillah 1 conveys the following tradition: (Antolinus) [Antoninus] said to Rebbi, can I eat from the Leviathan in the World to Come? He said to him, yes. He told him, from the Passover lamb you would not let me eat, but from Leviathan you make me eat? He answered, what can we do for you since about the Passover lamb it is written that no uncircumcised man may eat from it. When he heard this, he went and circumcised.19

Here, the motif of the eschatological consumption of Leviathan appears in the midst of a discussion about the forbidden and permitted foods, an important concern that will be discussed later in our study. The version found in the Babylonian Talmud, in b. Baba Batra 75a, offers some additional details about the eschatological feasts on the primordial monsters: Stec, The Targum of Psalms, 189. Philip S. Alexander, The Targum of Canticles, Translated, with a Critical Introduction, Apparatus, and Notes (The Aramaic Bible 17a; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003), 190-191. 19 Heinrich W. Guggenheimer, The Jerusalem Talmud. Tractates Ta’aniot, Megillah, Hagigah and Mo’ed Qatan (Mašqin). Edition, Translation and Commentary (Studia Judaica 85; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015), 268. 17 18

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Rabbah said in the name of R. Johanan: The Holy One, blessed be He, will in time to come make a banquet for the righteous from the flesh of Leviathan; for it is said: Companions will make a banquet of it. Kerah must mean a banquet; for it is said: And he prepared for them a great banquet and they ate and drank. Companions must mean scholars; for it is said: Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken for thy voice; cause me to hear it. The rest [of Leviathan] will be distributed and sold out in the markets of Jerusalem; for it is said: They will part him among the Kena’anim, and Kena’anim must mean merchants, for it is said: As for kena’an the balances of deceit are in his hand, he loveth to oppress. And if you wish you may infer it from the following: Whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth.20

Certain midrashim also demonstrate knowledge of the eschatological meal motif. One can find references to this theme in Lev. Rab. 22:10,21 Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 11,22 Num. Rab. 21:18,23 20 Isidor Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud, Baba Batra (London: Soncino, 1935–1952), 75a. 21 “R. Menahma and R. Bebai, and R. Aha and R. Johanan in the name of R. Jonathan expounded: As recompense for what I have forbidden you, [says God], I have reserved something for you. As recompense for the prohibition of certain fish you will eat Leviathan, a clean fish; as recompense for the prohibition of certain fowls you shall eat Ziz, which is a clean fowl.” Midrash Rabbah (eds. Harry Freedman and Maurice Simon; 10 vols; London: Soncino, 1961), 4.289. 22 “The waters of the Jordan give him water to drink, for the waters of the Jordan surround all the earth, half thereof (flow) above the earth and the other half below the earth, as it is said, He is confident, though Jordan swell even to his mouth. This (creature) is destined for the day of sacrifice, for the great banquet of the righteous, as it is said, He only that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.” Gerald Friedlander, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (2nd ed.; New York: Hermon Press, 1965) 76. 23 “It was taught in the name of R. Meir: In the text, But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee, Ask now the beasts (behemoth) refers to Behemoth, And the fowls of the heaven’ refers to the Ziz of the field. Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee refers to the Garden of Eden, And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee refers to the Leviathan. Who knoweth not among all these, that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 6.846.

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Midrash on Psalms 18:2524 and 23:7,25 Pirke Mašiah,26 The Secrets of R. Šimon b. Yohai,27 and Midrash vaYosha.28 Various piyyutim are also familiar with this motif. It is found in Qallir,29 Akdamut Milin,30 Yose ben Yose’s Atah Konanta ʻOlam be-Rov Ḥesed31 and “My children, that in the time-to-come, a great banquet shall be prepared for you out of Leviathan’s flesh, out of Behemoth and out of Ziz of the field, as is said Ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied (Joel 2:26).” William G. Braude, The Midrash on Psalms (2 vols.; YJS, 13; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959), 255. 25 “Thou preparest a table before me (Ps. 23:5), a table upon which the flesh of Leviathan, of Behemoth, and Ziz of the field shall be set out.” Braude, Midrash on Psalms, 334. 26 “At that time the Holy One, blessed be He, will arrange tables, slaughter Behemoth, Leviathan, and the wild Ziz (‫)בהמות ולויתן ןזיז‬, and prepare a great banquet for the righteous. Each one of them will be seated (at the table) in accordance with their honor.” John Reeves, Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader (Resources for Biblical Study 45; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 165; Adolph Jellinek, Bet ha-Midrasch (6 vols.; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1967), 3.76. 27 “Israel will dwell in peace for two thousand years. They will feast upon Behemoth, Leviathan, and Ziz. They will slaughter Behemoth; Ziz shall rend Leviathan with its ankles; and Moses will come and slaughter the ‘wild Ziz’ (Ps 50:11; 80:14).” Reeves, Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic, 86. 28 “Israel shall dwell there for two thousand years, eating Leviathan.” Rachel S. Mikva, Midrash VaYosha. A Medieval Midrash on the Song at the Sea (Texts and Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism 28; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 241. 29 “Behemoth arches his horns, Leviathan rears his fins – but now He makes an end of the pair, to slaughter, prepare, and consecrate them. They shall be served up as a dish to the faithful people.” T. Carmi, Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 232. 30 “Leviathan contends with Behemoth; they are locked in combat with each other. Behemoth gores mightily with its horns; the sea-monster counters with potent fins. The Creator slays them with his great sword, and prepares a banquet for the righteous, who sit in rows at tables of precious stones, while before them there flow streams of balsam, and they indulge themselves and drink full cups of the precious old wine preserved in vats.” Philip Birnbaum, Daily Prayer Book. Ha-Siddur HaShalem (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1949), 654. 31 “You made, as a sign for those who know You, those who are clad with scales, and a fleeing serpent for the meal in eternity. Did you not make 24

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his Azkir Gevurot Elohah,32 and in the anonymous liturgical composition Az be-ʻEn Kol.33

A CQUISITION OF THE DIVINE MYSTERIES THROUGH FEEDING

For our study, it is important that the reception of the divine mysteries by the seer in various Jewish accounts is often described through the symbolism of nourishment. The formative biblical account found in Gen 3, for instance, connects the protoplasts’ acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil with their nourishment on the forbidden fruit from the infamous tree. Such an understanding of nourishment as the revelation of knowledge, and in particular, divine knowledge, becomes a popular topos in various ancient Jewish and Christian accounts, ranging from the tradition of Moses’ feeding on the luster of the Shekhinah during his encounter with God on Mount Sinai34 to the Apostle Paul’s understanding of the utmost divine mysteries as

out of the earth in great abundance cattle and crawling creatures and the beasts of the earth? You set signs to be known of edibility and purity and for the company of the righteous you made the Behemoth fit to eat. And when the world was built, in wisdom, and when the table was set, and its bounty, You resolved to invite a guest and to feed him your choice food.” Michael D. Swartz and Joseph Yahalom, Avodah: Ancient Poems for Yom Kippur (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), 296. 32 “There arose from the water the fugitives of the deep, and the sea serpent protected by scales and sharp arrows. fins He set some of them aside for an eternal feast, and prepared a prison in them for the deserting messenger.” Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 228. “He pastured the Behemoth with the produce of a thousand mountains, for on the day when it is slaughtered, He will put His sword to it.” Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 230. 33 “You appointed over them great chiefs: the elusive serpent and the twisting Leviathan.... The virtuous shall feast on him; the pious shall divide him up.” Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 120-122. 34 Exod 24:9-11: “Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; also they beheld God, and they ate and drank.”

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“solid food.”35 This motif can be found also in the Apocalypse of Abraham, where its hero, Abraham, talks about his nourishment on Yahoel’s revelations when he states that his vision of the great angel was his food and the angel’s words were his drink.36 In this context, Yahoel’s disclosure about Leviathan(s), which represents a part of Maʻase Bereshit esoteric lore, can also be seen as an element of Abraham’s supernatural feeding. This feeding, moreover, proleptically anticipates the final eschatological banquet when not only Abraham, but all the righteous of the world will be eventually nourished on the monsters’ mysteries. Yet, such an association cannot be established with certainty. What is clear, however, is that the tradition of supernatural nourishment found in the Apocalypse of Abraham is based on the established pattern of supernatural feeding, the roots of which can be traced to the biblical story of Moses. In light of these connections, we should now explore more closely the motif of nourishment as an acquisition of divine knowledge in the Mosaic lore. The sustenance of Moses on Mount Sinai, as a theme, has received unprecedented attention from later Jewish and Christian interpreters. One encounters a panoply of rabbinic witnesses, which link the theme of heavenly nourishment to the story of the great Israelite prophet. For our study, it is also important that in them, like in the formative biblical account, such nourishing routines coincide with the revelation of the utmost divine knowledge – the Torah. Thus, for example, Exod. Rab. 47:7 communicates that, during his reception of the Torah from the deity on Mount Sinai, Moses was satiated by a vision of the luminous divine form:

1 Cor 3:1-3: “And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh.” 36 Apoc. Ab. 12:2: “And I ate no bread and drank no water, because [my] food was to see the angel who was with me, and his speech with me was my drink.” Alexander Kulik, Retroverting Slavonic Pseudepigrapha: Toward the Original of the Apocalypse of Abraham (Text-Critical Studies 3; Atlanta: Scholars, 2004), 19. 35

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It was for the benefit of Moses that he fasted a hundred and twenty days, so that he might receive the Torah; and from whence did Moses receive nourishment? From the splendor of the Shekhinah, for it says, Thou preservest them all (Neh 9:6).37

Here, as in the Apocalypse of Abraham, the seer’s feeding on the celestial form presupposes his abstinence from human food.38 Exod. Rab. 47:5 even compares Moses’ celestial nourishment to the sustenance of the Living Creatures of the divine Throne: He did neither eat bread, nor drink water, that is, in this world; but in the World to Come he will eat of the bread of the Torah and drink of its waters. For this reason he did neither eat bread, etc. Whence did he derive his nourishment? From the lustre of God’s presence. Lest this seem surprising, then remember that the Hayyot who bear the Divine Throne are also nourished from the splendor of the Shekhinah.39

In this passage, the angelic creatures that hold the deity’s seat are said to be nurtured by the presence of the divine Form situated on the Merkavah. Exod. Rab. 47:5 thus may point to a connection between Moses’ supernatural nourishment and his angelic state. Furthermore, Exod. Rab. 47:5 makes a similar conceptual link even more explicitly by stating that the prophet’s supernatural sustenance emulates the condition of the celestial citizens.40 The angelic food often serves as an eschatological marker, which Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 3.542. Regarding the rabbinic traditions of Moses’ nourishment on the splendor of the Shekhinah, see Ira Chernus, Mysticism in Rabbinic Judaism: Studies in the History of Midrash (Studia Judaica 11; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1982), 74-87. 38 The visionary nourishment on the deity’s fiery form is also reminiscent of the tradition found in 4 Ezra 14:37-48, where the scribe is offered a fiery drink from the arms of the deity. Reflecting on this tradition, Michael Stone notes that in the ancient world “drinking and drunkenness were terms used for the experience of inspiration.” Stone, Fourth Ezra, 439. 39 Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 3.54-541. Cf. also b. Ber. 17a and Pesikta Rabbati 16.2. 40 “‘If thou goest into a city, thou must act according to its customs.’ When Moses ascended on high, where there is no eating or drinking, he emulated the heavenly example.” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 3.539. 37

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signals the seer’s transition to the original prelapsarian condition of the protoplast. Rabbinic materials have too often interpreted the heavenly nourishment not only as the habitual means for the sustenance of the angelic being41 but also as the means of nourishment for the protological and eschatological humankind.42 Thus, b. Ber. 17a reads: A favorite saying of Rab was: [The future world is not like this world.] In the future world there is no eating nor drinking nor propagation nor business nor jealousy nor hatred nor competition, but the righteous sit with their crowns on their heads feasting on the brightness of the divine presence, as it says, And they beheld God, and did eat and drink.43

See Gen. Rab. 2:2: “R. Abbahu said: ... The celestial beings [sc. the angels] and the terrestrial ones [sc. man] were created at the same time: yet the celestial beings are fed by the radiance of the Shekhinah, whereas the terrestrial beings, if they do not toil, do not eat. Strange it is indeed!’” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 1.15; Exod. Rab. 32:4: “The angels are sustained only by the splendour of the Shekhinah, as it says, And Thou preservest them all, and the host of heaven worships Thee (Neh 9:6).” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 1.15. 42 Cf. Zohar II.63a: “Rabbi El’azar taught, ‘From this manna the righteous are destined to eat in the world that is coming.’” Daniel C. Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition (12 vols.; Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003-2017), 4.342. 43 This idea of the humankind’s eschatological feeding is often juxtaposed, in the rabbinic materials, with the imagery the study of the Torah. Thus, b. Baba Batra 10a reads: “What is the meaning of the words, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness? R. Nahman b. Isaac said: This refers to the students of the Torah who banish sleep from their eyes in this world, and whom the Holy One, blessed be He, feasts with the resplendence of the Divine presence in the future world.” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Baba Batra, 10a. See, also, b. Sotah 49a: “R. Judah, son of R. Hiyya said: Any disciple of the Sages who occupies himself with Torah in poverty will have his prayer heard; as it is stated: For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; thou shalt weep no more; He will surely be gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when He shall hear, He will answer thee, and it continues, And the Lord will give you bread in adversity and water in affliction. R. Abbahu said: They also satisfy him from the lustre of the Shekhinah, as it is stated: Thine eyes shall see thy Teacher.” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Sotah, 49a. 41

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It is possible that these midrashic testimonies do not merely represent a later rabbinic invention but a topos with very ancient roots, possibly predating the Apocalypse of Abraham. The account of Abraham’s unconventional nourishment, found in the Apocalypse of Abraham, seems to point to the ancient roots of Moses’ feeding on the Shekhinah, since the theme of Abraham’s sustenance on Yahoel is situated within a cluster of distinctive Mosaic motifs. Other studies have noted the “Mosaic” flavor of the celestial feeding in the Apocalypse of Abraham, which suggests that the authors of the apocalypse were possibly drawing on these traditions. David Halperin, for example, reflecting on the tradition of the heavenly provision found in Apoc. Ab., suggested that, like Abraham, Moses also discovered that the divine presence is itself nourishment enough. That is why Exodus 24:11 says that Moses and his companions beheld God, and ate and drank. This means, one rabbi explained, that the sight of God was food and drink to them; for Scripture also says, In the light of the King’s face there is life ... We may assume that the author of the Apocalypse of Abraham had such midrashim in mind when he wrote that “my food was to see the angel who was with me, and his speech – that was my drink.”44

It is also evident that the Mosaic tradition of celestial nourishment has priority over the Abrahamic developments since this motif is deeply rooted in early biblical and extra-biblical Mosaic testimonies. As one might recall, Exod 24:11 already testifies that Moses and his associates “beheld God, and they ate and drank.” Such nourishment likely did not involve conventional human sustenance, since Deut 9:9 and 9:18 state that the prophet did not eat bread or drink water. Moreover, the prophet’s forty-day ordeal, when he was sustained by the food of the angels, has been set in parallel by early Jewish interpreters to another account of the supernatural feeding, namely, the story of the Israelites’ forty years of wandering in the Egyptian desert, during which the David Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot: Early Jewish Response to Ezekiel’s Vision (Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 16; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988), 111

44

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people of God were nourished on the food of angels, that is to say, the manna.45 The LXX version of Psalm 77(78):25 makes this connection explicit by identifying the manna of the wilderness as the bread of angels.46 Wisdom of Solomon 16:20 also affirms such a connection. In Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities, Moses himself tells the Israelites that they have eaten the bread of the angels for forty years.47 Later rabbinic sources also envision the manna as the angels’ food.48 An important feature of the aforementioned traditions of supernatural nourishment is their emphasis on the visionary nature of these experiences. This visionary dimension will play a crucial role also in the legends about the eschatological feast on Behemoth and Leviathan and the elect’s contemplation of the monsters’ fight. This understanding of supernatural nourishment as a visionary endeavor has ancient conceptual roots. Already, in Concerning the manna traditions, see Rudolph Meyer, “Manna,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (eds. G. Kittel and G. Friedrich; 10 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964-76), 4.462-66; Peder Borgen, Bread from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of John and the Writings of Philo (Supplements to Novum Testamentum 10; Leiden: Brill, 1965); Bruce J. Malina, The Palestinian Manna Tradition (Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 7; Leiden: Brill, 1968); P. Maiberger, Das Manna: Eine literarische, etymologische und naturkundliche Untersuchung (2 vols; Ägypten und Altes Testament 6.1-2; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983); Dan Merkur, The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible (Rochester: Park Street Press, 2000). 46 See David Goodman, “Do Angels Eat?” Journal of Jewish Studies 37 (1986): 160-175 at 161; Horace Hodges, Food as Synecdoche in John’s Gospel and Gnostic Texts (Ph.D. diss.; University of California at Berkeley, 1995), 308-309. 47 Pseudo-Philo, Bibl. Ant. 19:5 reads: “You know that you have eaten the bread of angels for forty years. And now behold I bless your tribes before my end comes. You know my toil that I have toiled for you from the time you went up from the land of Egypt.” Howard Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, with Latin Text and English Translation (2 vols.; Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 31; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 1.121. 48 Thus, b. Yoma 75b reads: “Our Rabbis taught: Man did eat the bread of the mighty, i.e., bread which ministering angels eat. This was the interpretation of R. Akiba.” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Yoma, 75b. 45

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the formative Genesis account, the protoplasts’ feeding on the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil coincides with the motif of their eyes being opened.49 Scholars have noted50 that Philo, in his Quaestiones et Solutiones in Exodum, underlines the visual nature of Moses’ celestial nourishment, calling his vision the food of souls. Quaestiones et Solutiones in Exodum, then, depicts Moses’ visionary experience in the following way: What is the meaning of the words, “they appeared to God in the place and they ate and drank?” Having attained to the face of the father, they do not remain in any mortal place at all, for all such places are profane and polluted, but they send and make a migration to a holy and divine place, which is called by another name, logos. Being in this place, through the steward, they see the master in a lofty and clear manner, envisioning God with the keen-sighted eyes of the mind. But this vision is the food of souls, and true partaking is the cause of a life of immortality. Wherefore, indeed, it is said, “they ate and drank.” For those who are indeed very hungry and thirsty did not fail to see God become clearly visible, but like those who, being famished, find an abundance of food, they satisfied their great desire.51

Andrea Lieber has proposed that, in this Philonic passage, Moses’ encounter on Mount Sinai is spiritualized in such a way that “the vision of the divine presence satiates, like the sacrificial meal.”52 Further, Lieber suggests that Philo appears influenced by the tradition, witnessed also in pseudepigraphical, rabbinic, and patristic literature, that there is no “eating” in heaven; angelic See Gen 3:6-7: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.” 50 Andrea Lieber, “I Set a Table before You: The Jewish Eschatological Character of Aseneth’s Conversion Meal,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 14 (2004): 63-77 at 69-70. 51 Ralph Marcus, Philo, Questions and Answers on Exodus (Cambridge/ London: Harvard University Press/Heinemann, 1949), 81-82. 52 Lieber, “I Set a Table before You,” 70. 49

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beings do not require food like humans, yet their “bodies” are nonetheless sustained by divine means.53 Furthermore, the supernatural feeding on God’s Glory by the angels and chosen human adepts is envisioned as a revelation of the divine mysteries, concentrated in the pivotal nexus of the divine theophany. The understanding of the supernatural nourishment as a revelation of divine secrets and a visionary encounter is found also in Joseph and Aseneth, another early Jewish pseudepigraphical text. There, Aseneth’s celestial revealer feeds the female seer with the honeycomb as a part of her initiation into the divine mysteries. In Joseph and Aseneth 16:14, the angels’ food is said to be made from the dew from God’s paradise: For this comb is (full of the) spirit of life. And the bees of the paradise of delight have made this from the dew of the roses of life that are in the paradise of God. And all the angels of God eat of it and all the chosen of God and all the sons of the Most High, because this is a comb of life, and everyone who eats of it will not die for ever (and) ever.54

Lieber, “I Set a Table before You,” 70. Christoph Burchard, “Joseph and Aseneth,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols.; ed. J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Doubleday, 1983-1985), 2.177–247 at 2.229. The parallelism between the dew and the manna is found also in 3 Bar. 8:9-11 (Greek version): “And I said, ‘Lord, what is this bird, and what is its name?’ And the angel told me, ‘His name is Phoenix.’ ‘And what does he eat?’ And he told me, ‘The manna of heaven and the dew of earth.’” Harry E. Gaylord, “3 (Greek Apocalypse of) Baruch,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols.; ed. J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Doubleday, 1983-1985), 1.653–79 at 1.671. Cf. also Zohar II.62b: “The holy tree was arranged with twelve boundaries on four sides of the world, fortified by seventy branches, all corresponding to the pattern above. At that moment, holy dew trickled from the Concealed Ancient One, filling the head of the Short-Tempered One, the place called Heaven. Some of that dew of supernal holy light flowed and descended below, and as it descended, it dispersed into frozen flakes congealing below, as is written: fine as frost on the ground (Exodus 16:4). All those scions of faith went out and gathered and blessed the supernal Name over it. That manna emitted a fragrance like all the spices of the Garden of Eden, since it had flowed through there in descending. Once they placed it in front of them, they tasted whatever taste they

53 54

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Scholars have noted that the honeycomb that Pentephres’ daughter consumes, from the angel’s hand, is reminiscent of the manna once sent from Heaven55 to the Israelites in the wilderness.56 In light of the aforementioned testimonies, it is possible that the eschatological meal in which the monsters were eaten could be more than just an ordinary meal; it could be a visionary apprehension of the eschatological mysteries.57 In this respect it

desired and blessed the supernal King.” Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, 4.338. 55 Ps 78:23-5 reads: “Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven; he rained down on them manna to eat, and gave them the grain of heaven. Mortals ate of the bread of angels; he sent them food in abundance.” 56 Regarding the identification of Aseneth’s honeycomb with the manna, see Victor Aptowitzer, “Asenath, the Wife of Joseph: A Haggadic Literary-Historical Survey,” Hebrew Union College Annual 1 (1924), 28283; Christoph Burchard, Untersuchungen zu Joseph und Aseneth: Überlieferung, Ortsbestimmung (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 8; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1965), 130; Marc Philonenko, “Initiation et mystère dans Joseph et Aséneth,” in Initiation (ed. C. J. Bleeker; Studies in the History of Religions 10; Leiden: Brill, 1965), 14753 at 152-53; Randall Chesnutt, “Perceptions of Oil in Early Judaism and the Meal Formula in Joseph and Aseneth,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 14 (2005): 113-132 at 117-118; Anathea E. PortierYoung, “Sweet Mercy Metropolis: Interpreting Aseneth’s Honeycomb,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 14 (2005): 133-157. With respect to connection between the manna and the dew, see PortierYoung, “Sweet Mercy Metropolis,” 142-43. Cf. also Zohar III.208a, in which the manna is identified both with the celestial dew and with the angelic food; it reads: “Come and see: The manna that descended for Israel in the desert–that manna came from dew on high, descending from the Ancient One, concealed of all concealed. As it descended, its light illumined all worlds, and the Apple Orchard and celestial angels were nourished by it.” Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, 9.458-459. 57 Consumption of the messianic agent’s body as revelation of mysteries comes to its fore in Christian tradition of the Eucharist. On the Eucharist as mysterion, see Donald A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 281ff.; José Granados, Introduction to Sacramental Theology: Signs of Christ in the Flesh (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2021), 72-73; Karl Prumm, “‘Mysterion’ von Paulus bis Origenes. Ein

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is noteworthy that, despite the plethora of statements anticipating this event, the depictions of the monsters’ actual consumption are strangely absent in pseudepigraphical or rabbinic literature. Whitney points out that accounts of the meal itself are remarkably silent concerning the creatures. When reference is made to the role of Leviathan and Behemoth in the meal, that reference is generally brief. When the description of the meal is more elaborate, interest focuses instead on other features.... Later descriptions of the banquet continue this trend. Leviathan and/or Behemoth are mentioned only briefly or not at all. Interest focuses instead on elaborate descriptions of the meal’s participants and their actions. ... These traditions focus less on the actual banqueting of the righteous and more on the events which bring the monsters to the eschatological dinner table. The traditions fall into two broad categories: those dealing with the primordial preservation of the creatures as food for the righteous; and those dealing with the eschatological battle which leads to their slaughter before the meal.58

Such scarcity of details about the actual physical consumption of the monster again points to the possibility that such an endeavor is not an ordinary dining but rather a revelatory and visionary effort.

M YSTERIES OF THE MONSTERS AND THE HEAVENLY M ANNA

The aforementioned traditions of eschatological nourishment are instructive for understanding the final feast on the monsters as a revelation of mysteries. Several details of Moses’ feeding on the Shekhinah correspond to similar developments found in the Leviathan lore. One of these details is that the interpretation of the celestial nourishment as manna and also the understanding of manna as a divine revelation are often associated with the Torah. These themes are relevant for our study of the monsters because the theme of the eschatological nourishment on Behemoth and

Bericht und ein Beitrag,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 61 (1937): 391-425. 58 Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 127-129.

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Leviathan in 2 Baruch coincides with the motif of the eschatonlogical manna. 2 Baruch 29:1-859 brings these two important motifs about nourishment together: And he answered and said to me, “Whatever will happen then will belong to the whole earth, so that all who live will experience (it). For at that time I will protect only those who are found in those very days in this land. And it will be that when all is accomplished that was to come to pass in those parts, that the Messiah will then begin to be revealed. And Behemoth will be revealed from his place, and Leviathan will arise from the sea; those two great monsters (tannīnē) which I created on the fifth day of creation, and will have kept until that time. And then they will be food for all who remain. The earth also will yield its fruit ten thousandfold, and on each vine there will be a thousand branches, and each branch will produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster will produce a thousand grapes, and each grape will produce a cor of wine. And those who have been hungry will rejoice; and also they will see wonders every day. For winds will go out from before me to bring every morning the fragrance of aromatic fruits, and at the end of the day clouds distilling the dew of health. And it will happen at that very time that the treasury of manna will again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years because these are they who have come to the completion of time.”60

Scholars have previously noted the curious parallelism between the release/consumption of Behemoth and Leviathan in the eschatological time and the release/consumption of the manna during the last days in 2 Bar. 29:4 and 2 Bar. 29:8. Thus, reflecting on the theme of nourishment in 2 Bar. 29:4-8, William Whitney points out that “the author has selected traditions for this unit which embody the ‘sustenance’ theme. Hence, he draws on Whitney suggests that 2 Bar. 29:4-8 “represents independent traditional material inserted into the larger unit of 2 Bar. 28:3-30:5.” Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 41. In another part of his study he reiterates this assumption by noting that “scholars generally agree that 2 Apoc. Bar. 29:4 is part of a unit beginning at 21:1 and ending at 34:1.” Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 39. 60 Gurtner, Second Baruch, 65-67. 59

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Leviathan and Behemoth material at this point precisely because of the tradition which sees the monsters as eschatological food for the righteous.”61 The parallelism between sustenance on the manna and nourishment on the monsters, then, receives further development in the rabbinic lore. Midrash Tanḥuma Buber, Beshallah 4 unambiguously links the motif of manna to the eschatological feast on Leviathan and Behemoth: The Holy One said: In this world you have eaten manna through the merit of your ancestors; but in the world to come I will feed you cattle, i.e., Ziz and Leviathan. You will eat through your own merit. Thus it is stated: Shall trade associates make a banquet of him? Shall they divide him up among merchants?62

Here again, similar to 2 Baruch, the monsters are envisioned as the “manna” of the last days. Scholars of these rabbinic developments have previously proposed that the eschatological nourishment on the monsters is related to the revelation of the divine knowledge since the manna is often linked with the revelation of the Torah to Israel in the wilderness.63 Thus, reflecting on a tradition found in Pesikta de Rav Kahana (Sup. II.5) which states that “everyone who has obeyed the command of going up to Jerusalem in pilgrimage come and partake of the Leviathan’s head, whose delicious taste is like the taste of the head of a fish from the Great Sea,”64 William Braude suggests that the Leviathan, like the manna provided for Israel in the wilderness, was one of God’s special creations, and, like Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 40. John T. Townsend, Midrash Tanḥuma: Translated into English with Introduction, Indices, and Brief Notes (S. Buber Recension) (3 vols.; Hoboken, NJ: KTAV, 1989), 2.94-95. 63 Zohar II.183b expresses this belief in the following way: “Therefore when the blessed Holy One gave Torah to Israel, He let them taste the supernal bread of that place, and from that bread they knew and perceived mysteries of Torah, so as to walk in the straight path.” Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, 6.30. 64 William G. Braude and Israel J. Kapstein, Pesikta de-Rab Kahana. R. Kahana’s Compilation of Discourses for Sabbaths and Festal Days (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1975), 470. 61 62

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manna, was intended by Him to serve a purpose beyond the bodily nourishment of Israel. The miraculous nature of manna was such that it was absorbed into all two hundred and fortyeight parts of the body: hence unhindered by the ordinary processes of digestion and excretion the people of Israel were ready to receive the revelation at Sinai (MTeh 78:3). In the days of the Messiah, the Leviathan’s head was to serve the same purpose as manna and thus prepare the people of Israel for instruction in Torah, instruction which God Himself was to impart.65

Elsewhere in his study, Braude adds that “with redemption and the coming of the Messiah, the righteous will receive their final reward: they will dwell in sukkahs of transcendent beauty made from the skin of Leviathan, and they will feast upon Leviathan’s head, the greatest of delicacies. This, like the manna which Israel

Braude and Kapstein, Pesikta de Rav Kahana, 470. It is also interesting that the Targum Neofiti and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Num 21:7-9 connect the manna motif with the serpents who do not lament about their food. Targum Neofiti on Numbers 21 reads: “The Bath Qol came forth from the earth and its voice was heard on high: ‘Come, see, all you creatures; and come, give ear, all you sons of the flesh: the serpent was cursed from the beginning and I said to it: ‘Dust shall be your food’ I brought my people up from the lands of Egypt and I had manna come down from heaven, and I made a well come up for them from the abyss, and I carried quail from the sea for them; and my people has turned to murmur before me concerning the manna, that its nourishment is little. The serpent which does not murmur concerning its food will come and rule over the people which has murmured concerning their food.’” Martin McNamara et al. Targum Neofiti 1 and Pseudo-Jonathan: Numbers (The Aramaic Bible 4; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), 115-116. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exod 21 reads: “A divine voice came from the heaven on high and so said: ‘Come, all mankind, see all the goodness that I have done to the people. I brought them up, redeemed, from Egypt. I sustained them with manna from the heaven, and so they turned and grumbled against me. But behold, the serpent about whom I decreed from the day of the beginning of the world that dust shall be its food does not grumble because of it, while my people grumbled against their food. Now, then, the serpents, which do not grumble against their food, shall come and bite the people who grumbled against their food.’” McNamara et al. Targum Neofiti 1 and Pseudo-Jonathan: Numbers, 247. 65

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ate in the wilderness, will give them the capacity to receive instruction in Torah from God Himself.”66 The earliest Christian accounts may also link the manna traditions to the eschatological nourishment on the monsters. In the story of feeding the 5,000, attested in all four canonical Gospels,67 and the account of feeding of the 4,000, attested in the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew,68 one finds a curious juxtaposition between the symbolism of manna, expressed through references to bread,69 and the symbolism of Leviathan expressed through references to the fish, which in the Gospels serve as ingredients of a proleptic eschatological meal offered by Jesus to his followers. Scholars have previously noted these connections.70 Reflecting on the aforementioned biblical passages, Davies and Allison note that “both bread (or manna)

Braude and Kapstein, Pesikta de Rav Kahana, xx. Mk 6:31-44, Matt 14:13-21, Luke 9:12-17, and John 6:1-14. 68 Mk 8:1-9 and Matt 15:32-39. 69 The association between bread and manna comes to its most forceful expression in the Gospel of John 6, where Jesus utters the following words after the episode of miraculous feeding: “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.” On associations between manna and bread in the Gospel stories of miraculous feeding, see Wayne Meeks, The Prophet-King. Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (Supplements to Novum Testamentum 14; Leiden: Brill, 1967) 91-98, 291; P.-B. Smit, Fellowship and Food in the Kingdom: Eschatological Meals and Scenes of Utopian Abundance in the New Testament (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.234; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 69-71. 70 Erwin R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (13 vols.; New York: Pantheon Books, 1953-68), 5.52, 6.3-61; Dennis E. Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Minneapolis, MI: Fortress, 2003), 168; Andrei G. Berman, “Farshirovannyj Leviafan: Eshatologicheskie motivy v evangel’skom sjuzhete ob umnozhenii hlebov (religovedcheskij etud),” in Dorozhnotransportnyj kompleks: Sostojanie, problemy i perspectivy razvitija. Sbornik materialov 5-oj nauchnoj konferencii 17 maja 2012 goda (Cheboksary: Madi, 2012), 162-165; Robin M. Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art (London: Routledge, 2013), 57. For criticism of such associations, see Smit, Fellowship and Food in the Kingdom, 72. 66 67

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and fish (or Leviathan) are associated with the messianic feast in many Jewish texts (cf. 2 Bar. 29:3–8; 4 Ezra 6:52).”71

E SCHATOLOGICAL BEHOLDING OF THE MONSTERS AS A REVELATION OF MYSTERIES

Later Jewish accounts narrate that before the eschatological feast, the chosen ones will be invited to behold the fight between Behemoth and Leviathan. This tradition of beholding the monsters alive in the battle, before consuming their dead bodies, may also be related to the revelation and acquisition of Behemoth and Leviathan’s mysteries. In this respect it is not coincidental that the early pseudepigraphical accounts that detail the traditions about the messianic feasting on Leviathan and Behemoth describe the monsters’ apparition in the messianic time as revelation.72 Thus, for example, 2 Bar 29:3-4 juxtaposes the appearance of the Messiah with the revelation of Behemoth and Leviathan.73 Although 2 Baruch does not mention the monsters’ William D. Davies and Dale Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (International Critical Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 2.481. 72 Whitney notes that 2 Bar. “29:4-8 thus represents three units of traditional material joined by the author of 2 Apoc. Bar. in order to describe the Messianic age. The author places the Leviathan-Behemoth tradition of 29:4 at the head of these traditions. Why? First, the word ‘be revealed’ (Syriac, netgle) in 29:3 is echoed one word later in the opening of 29:4. I believe that it served as a ‘catch-word’ which triggered the inclusion of the Leviathan and Behemoth materials as the first of the three traditions. This indicates the probable presence of the theme of ‘revealing’ in the Leviathan-Behemoth tradition as it was received by the author of 2 Apoc. Bar. The description of the monsters as ‘nourishment for all who are left’ at the end of the unit led, in its tum, to the choice of the catalogue of eschatological foods as the second tradition in the series. The transition to the third unit of material was more difficult and required the expedience of the less subtle thematic shift of 29:6, ‘And those who are hungry will enjoy themselves and they will, moreover, see marvels every day.’” Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 43. 73 “And it will be that when all is accomplished that was to come to pass in those parts, that the Messiah will then begin to be revealed. And Behemoth will be revealed from his place, and Leviathan will arise from 71

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fight, later Jewish traditions often suggest that at the end of times Behemoth and Leviathan will be revealed to the righteous in their battle with each other. In such an arrangement, a disclosure of eschatological secrets will take the form of a spectacle when the righteous are entertained by the fighting monsters. The traces of this motif can be found in various rabbinic corpora, including targumim, midrashim, and piyyutim. Thus, Targum on Psalms 104:25-26 states that God created Leviathan in order to sport at the banquet of the righteous.74 It is possible that here the tradition about God’s “sporting” with Leviathan is interpreted through the spectacles of the monsters’ eschatological fight. Reflecting on this connection, Mulder observes that the Targum on this verse connects this ‘sporting’ again with the banquet, as it is interpreted as a play to entertain those who are seated at the table of God’s dwelling place .... Related to this is the tradition that Behemoth and Leviathan will perform a kind of bullring fight for the righteous in the world to come. In the context of this midrash watching this fight is a reward, similar to the banquet motif comforting the righteous.75

Lev. Rab. 13:3 also portrays the righteous as spectators of “a wildbeast contest”: the sea; those two great monsters which I created on the fifth day of creation, and will have kept until that time.” Gurtner, Second Baruch, 6567. 74 “This is the sea: great and wide of boundaries, where there are creeping things without number, beasts both small and great. There the ships go; (and as for) Leviathan that you created to sport at the banquet of the righteous? (‫( )לויתן דין בריתא למיגחך בסעודת צדיקיא‬it is) his dwelling house. All of them look to you to give their food in due season.” Lois D. Merino, Targum de Salmos. Edición Príncipe del Ms. Villa-Amil n. 5 de Alfonso de Zamora (Biblia Poliglota Complutense. Tradición sefardí de la Biblia Aramea IV, 1; Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Instituto “Francisco Suárez,” 1982), 80; Stec, The Targum of Psalms, 189. 75 Michael Mulder, “Leviathan on the Menu of the Messianic Meal. The Use of Various Images of Leviathan in Early Jewish Tradition,” in Playing with Leviathan. Interpretation and Reception of Monsters from the Biblical World (ed. K. van Bekkum et al; Themes in Biblical Narrative 21; Leiden: Brill, 2017), 115-130 at 126, note 27.

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R. Judan b. R. Simeon said: Behemoth and Leviathan are to engage in a wild-beast contest before the righteous in the Time to Come, and whoever has not been a spectator at the wild-beast contests of the heathen nations in this world will be accorded the boon of seeing one in the World to Come. How will they be slaughtered? Behemoth will, with its horns, pull Leviathan down and rend it, and Leviathan will, with its fins, pull Behemoth down and pierce it through.76

An interesting detail of this passage is that this privilege will be granted only to the faithful ones who have not been spectators at the wild-beast contests during their earthly life. We will explore this detail more closely later in our study. Another important testimony to the tradition of the eschatological fight can be found in Pesikta de Rav Kahana (Sup. II.4) where it says God “will bring Behemoth to Leviathan, and they will engage in close combat with each other, as is said One is so close to the other, that no air (‫ )רוח‬can come between them (Job 41:8). ... What will the Holy One then do? He will signal to Leviathan, who thereupon will strike Behemoth with his fins and thus slaughter him; at the same time He will signal to Behemoth who will strike Leviathan with his tail and slay him.”77 Midrash Tanḥuma Yelammedenu78 and Aggadat Bereshit 7679 are Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 4.167. Braude and Kapstein, Pesikta de Rav Kahana, 462; Mandelbaum, Pesikta de Rav Kahana According to An Oxford Manuscript, 456. 78 Tanḥuma Yelammedenu, Shemini, §7 reads: “And where will they be ritually slaughtered? – They will attack each other, as it is said, ‘one is so near to the other’; Behemoth draws near to Leviathan, seizes him with his horns and rips him open, and Leviathan, on the other hand, brings about Behemoth’s death, for he smites him with his tail and slays him. And the Righteous go and take their portions.” Jefim Schirmann, “The Battle between Behemoth and Leviathan according to an Ancient Hebrew Piyyut,” in Ha-Aqademya ha-leummit ha-yisre’elit lemaddaim, Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Jerusalem: Academy, 1967), 327-355 at 339, note 25. 79 “This is what Scripture says: One is so near to another that no air can come between them (Job 41:16). Is it not like Behemoth will do to Leviathan? Behemoth fights against Leviathan with his horns, and Leviathan expels fire and defeats Behemoth, as is stated: Out of its nostrils comes smoke.” Lieve M. Teugels, Agadat Bereshit (Jewish and Christian Perspectives 4; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 225. 76 77

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also familiar with this motif.80 Yet, one of the most elaborate portrayals of the battle can be found in Qallir’s piyyut. The piyyut describes how at the end of times God will reveal to the righteous who will be gathered in the Garden of Eden81 three monsters: Ziz, Leviathan, and Behemoth.82 Then, Behemoth and Leviathan will be engaged in a combat that will lead to their final demise: Then, at this signal, the north wind and the south wind awake and blow in all directions. Behemoth girds himself with strength and, gaining courage, turns back to Leviathan, who is prepared for battle. He moves at him, tensed for the combat, and again they grapple with each other. Behemoth, mad with rage, encircles him with his horns like a master warrior; while the Fish, facing him, wheels to the right, whetting his fins again and again, as he tries to gash him. Behemoth arches his horns, Leviathan rears his fins – but now He makes an end of the pair, to slaughter, prepare, and consecrate them. They shall be served up as a dish to the faithful people. Seeing that Israel has not been forsaken, they shall say: “Blessed is the Steadfast One. For everything that he ordained long ago, he accomplishes now, at the end of time!”83

In Qallir’s piyyut, God ends the battle by delivering the final blow to the monsters84 and he is the one who will prepare the messianic

For a comprehensive survey of rabbinic and postrabbinic testimonies containing this motif, see Schirmann, “The Battle between Behemoth and Leviathan,” 327-355. 81 Schirmann notes that “the great duel ... is the ‘sport’ arranged in honour of the Garden Dwellers or the Holy Ones, who are the inhabitants of the Garden of Eden – the Righteous.” Schirmann, “The Battle between Behemoth and Leviathan,” 335-336. 82 “Then shall the gates of the garden of Eden be opened, and the seven preordained companies of righteous men shall be revealed within the garden .... Whereupon He shall show them the three rewards: Ziz, Leviathan, and Behemoth.” Carmi, Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, 227228. 83 Carmi, Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, 231-232. 84 Schirmann points out that “there is no way out but that God should intervene; He is compelled to enter the battle Himself, the details of which are not described.” Schirmann, “The Battle between Behemoth and Leviathan,” 335. 80

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meal from the dead bodies of Behemoth and Leviathan.85 Like the aforementioned Targum on Psalms 104:25-26, Qallir’s piyyut also understands the biblical tradition of God “sporting” with Leviathan as an activity which is related to this eschatological fight.86 The emphasis on the final battle between Leviathan and Behemoth as a show for the righteous ones further affirms the fact that this event is related to the process of disclosing the eschatological mysteries.

ONTOLOGICAL ACQUISITION OF THE DIVINE M YSTERIES AND A NCIENT EPISTEMOLOGY

It appears not to be coincidental that the righteous ones, in their acquisition of the mysteries of Leviathan and Behemoth, rely not merely on the conventional ways to transmit knowledge, which would include reading books or listening to instructions, but instead they directly “partake” in these mysteries through the physical routines of beholding and consumption. These epistemological settings appear not to be coincidental as they reflect an ancient understanding of the divine mysteries as an ontological reality. Indeed, the direct acquisition of esoteric knowledge via a vision or participation in the meal does not appear to be unusual since it is closely associated with the ancient understanding of divine knowledge itself, envisioned not merely as a product of

85 See also Akdamut Milin: “Leviathan contends with Behemoth; they are locked in combat with each other. Behemoth gores mightily with its horns; the sea-monster counters with potent fins. The Creator slays them with his great sword, and prepares a banquet for the righteous.” Birnbaum, Daily Prayer Book. Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem, 654. 86 “He reclines like a king on his couch, till the appointed day, on which God shall sport with him and reveal him to the companies of the pious.” Carmi, Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, 228. Schirmann also points to the phrase in Midrash Konen according to which the monsters “frolic” every day (‫ )ומשחקים בכל יום‬in the Garden of Eden before God. Schirmann, “The Battle between Behemoth and Leviathan,” 337, note 21; Jellinek, Bet haMidrasch, 2.26. On this tradition, see also Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 96, note 3.

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introspection but as a reality which is objectively present.87 In the context of the lore about Leviathan and Behemoth, the primordial monsters themselves appear to be understood as embodiments of the eschatological knowledge that have been kept by the Creator in his “hidden chambers” until the eschaton. Unfortunately, nowhere are the limits of our modern epistemological sensibilities manifested so clearly as in our misunderstanding of the ancient concept of divine knowledge and, more specifically, embodied divine knowledge.88 However, in an ancient epistemological framework, shared both by the Greco-Roman philosophical traditions and by the Near Eastern mythological milieus, the very source of any true knowledge, including divine knowledge, was always situated as an objective reality in its proper abode – the upper realm.89 This outlook appears in the dominating Platonic model, which postulated the existence of the noetic world of ideas, as well as in Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Greek myths about heavenly knowledge and its otherworldly revealers. It should be noted that there was no other religious epistemological model at the time when biblical and pseudepigraphical accounts were produced that construed the origin of knowledge without referring

On this, see Andrei A. Orlov, Embodiment of Divine Knowledge in Early Judaism (Routledge Studies in the Biblical World; London/New York: Routledge, 2021), 3-4. 88 Reflecting on these challenges, Zainab Bahrani notes that “in studying these cultures, our interpretive task is made all the more difficult since we are dealing with a system of thought, a worldview that existed long before ours, yet we have no means of approaching it from outside our own ontological system.” Zainab Bahrani, The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 122. 89 In this system of belief, even the ways in which knowledge is transmitted, such as through an alphabet or writing, originate from above. Reeves and Reed note that in this worldview “writing and the material technologies associated with its practice are not considered ... to be human inventions. They belong instead among a revelatory knowledge which originates from the supernal world.” John Reeves and Annette Y. Reed, Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Vol. 1. Sources from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 56. 87

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to the upper, divine realm.90 Michael Stone suggests that the authors of early Jewish accounts “claimed – and presumably they believed – that the teachings they propagated stemmed from the trans-mundane realm.”91 In early biblical and extra-biblical materials, divine knowledge was depicted as originating, as well as permanently and objectively existing in the heavenly realm in celestial tablets, books,92 or As Markus Bockmuehl mentions “for these writers, ‘mysteries’ subsist in heaven at present but a glimpse of their reality and relevance can be disclosed to select visionaries who pass on this information to the faithful few (the ‘wise,’ i.e. the righteous) to encourage them in waiting for the impending deliverance (1 Enoch 1:1-9, 37:1-5, etc.). At present the divine wisdom is known only through such revealed mysteries, since her abode is in heaven (1 Enoch 42:1-3; 48:1; 49:1).” Markus Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 36; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990), 31-32. 91 Michael E. Stone, “Pseudepigraphy Reconsidered,” RRJ 9 (2006) 1-15 at 11. Scott Noegel notes that “at the upper end of the scribal elite were the scholars, who referred to themselves as integral links in a chain of transmission originating from the gods.” Scott Noegel, “‘Literary’ Craft and Performative Power in the Ancient Near East: the Hebrew Bible in Context,” in Approaches to Literary Readings of Ancient Jewish Writings (eds. K. Smelik and K. Vermeulen; SSN, 62; Leiden: Brill, 2014), 21. 92 Robert Henry Charles argued that this concept can be “traced partly to Ps 139; Exod 25:9; Exod 26:30, where we find the idea that there exist in heaven divine archetypes of certain things on earth.” Robert Henry Charles, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch: Translated from the Editor’s Ethiopic Text (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912), 91. On heavenly books/tablets, see Leslie Baynes, The Heavenly Book Motif in Judeo-Christian Apocalypses 200 B.C.E. – 200 C.E. (Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period. Supplement Series 152; Leiden: Brill, 2012); Wilhelm Bousset and Hugo Gressmann, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter (Handbuch zum Neuen Testament 21; Tübingen: Mohr, 1926), 258ff.; Robert Eppel, “Les tables de la Loi et les tables célestes,” Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 17 (1937), 401–412; Florentino García Martínez, “The Heavenly Tablets in the Book of Jubilees,” in Studies in the Book of Jubilees (eds. M. Albani, J. Frey, and A. Lange; Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 65; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 244–60; Christoph Münchow, Ethik und Eschatologie: Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis der frühjüdischen Apokalyptik mit einem Ausblick auf das Neue Testament (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981) 44– 90

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patterns.93 These heavenly media were often understood not merely as “books” or “tablets” in their conventional sense, but also as attributes or parts of celestial organisms – forms, limbs, and garments of heavenly beings on which divine knowledge became permanently affixed or embodied.94 Indeed, various Jewish apocalyptic and mystical accounts portray the celestial knowledge

49; Friedrich Nötscher, “Himmlische Bücher und Schicksalsglaube in Qumran,” Revue de Qumrân 1/3 (1959): 405–411; Shalom M. Paul, “Heavenly Tablets and the Book of Life,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 5 (1973): 345–352; Ekhard Rau, Kosmologie, Eschatologie und Lehrautorität Henochs (Diss. Hamburg, 1974), 345–98; Paul Volz, Die Eschatologie der jüdischen Gemeinde im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (Tübingen: Mohr, 1934), 290–292, 303–304; Geo Widengren, The Ascension of the Apostle and the Heavenly Book (Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift 7; Uppsala: Lundequist, 1950). 93 Exod 25:8-9: “And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them. In accordance with all that I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and of all its furniture, so you shall make it.” Exod 25:40: “And see that you make them according to the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain.” Exod 26:30: “Then you shall erect the tabernacle according to the plan for it that you were shown on the mountain.” Exod 27:8: “You shall make it hollow, with boards. They shall be made just as you were shown on the mountain.” Num 8:4: “Now this was how the lampstand was made, out of hammered work of gold. From its base to its flowers, it was hammered work; according to the pattern that the Lord had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.” 94 These traditions were perpetuated in Jewish lore for millennia. Moshe Idel points to an example of this belief in a late midrash, ‘Aseret haDibberot, where the following tradition is found: “Before the creation of the world, skins for parchments were not in existence, that the Torah might be written on them, because the animals did not yet exist. So, on what was the Torah written? On the arm of the Holy One, blessed be He, by a black fire on [the surface of] a white fire.” Moshe Idel, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 47. See also Midrash Tanḥuma Yelammedenu: “How was the Torah written? It was written with letters of black fire on a surface of white fire, as is said: His locks are curled and black as a raven.” Samuel A. Berman, Midrash Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu. An English Translation of Genesis and Exodus (Hoboken, NJ: KTAV, 1996), 3. Idel suggests that in this passage the Torah is written on the “head of God, as the mention of the locks apparently implies.” Idel, Absorbing Perfections, 49.

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being inscribed on God’s palms,95 his throne,96 his celestial curtain,97 and his servants’ bodies and accoutrement.98 Like with any other Isa 49:16: “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.” 2 Bar. 4:2-6: “Or do you think that this is the city of which I said: On the palms of my hands I have carved you? It is not this building that is in your midst now; it is that which will be revealed, with me, that was already prepared from the moment that I decided to create Paradise. And I showed it to Adam before he sinned. But when he transgressed the commandment, it was taken away from him – as also Paradise. After these things I showed it to my servant Abraham in the night between the portions of the victims. And again I showed it also to Moses on Mount Sinai when I showed him the likeness of the tabernacle and all its vessels. Behold, now it is preserved with me – as also Paradise.” Albertus F. J. Klijn, “2 (Syriac Apocalypse of) Baruch,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols.; ed. J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Doubleday, 1983-1985), 1.615-652 at 1.622. 96 3 Enoch 41:1-3: “R. Ishmael said: Metatron said to me: Come and I will show you ... the letters by which wisdom and understanding, knowledge and intelligence, humility and rectitude were created, by which the whole world is sustained. I went with him and he took me by his hand, bore me up on his wings, and showed me those letters, engraved with a pen of flame upon the throne of glory, and sparks and lightnings shoot from them and cover all the chambers of Arabot.” Philip Alexander, “3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J. H. Charlesworth, 2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1983-1985), 1.223– 315 at 1.292. 97 3 Enoch 45:1-6: “R. Ishmael said: Metatron said to me: Come and I will show you the curtain of the Omnipresent One, which is spread before the Holy One, blessed be he, and on which are printed all the generations of the world and all their deeds, whether done or to be done, till the last generation. I went and he showed them to me with his fingers, like father teaching his son the letters of the Torah; and I saw: Each generation and its potentiates; each generation and its heads; each generation and its shepherds; each generation and its keepers…. And I saw: Adam and his generation, their deeds and their thoughts. … The Messiah the son of Joseph and his generation, and all that they will do to the gentiles.” Alexander, “3 Enoch,” 1.296-299. For the Pargod traditions in rabbinic literature, see also b. Yoma 77a; b. Ber. 18b; b. Hag. 15a-b; b. Sanh. 89b; b. Sotah 49a; Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 4:6; Zohar I.47a; II.149b-150a; Maseket Hekhalot 7. 98 For example, in 3 Enoch 13 God writes with his finger, “as with a pen of flame,” upon Metatron’s crown, “the letters by which heaven and earth were created.” 95

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celestial object, heavenly knowledge can also be written on celestial bodies instead of on paper and parchment. Furthermore, whole branches of celestial knowledge can be embodied or hypostasized in celestial beings. In some Jewish apocalyptic materials, various fields of heavenly knowledge receive their own angelic personifications. Early Jewish angelological lore reflected in the Book of the Watchers hints at the possibility of the embodiment of divine knowledge and divine secrets in the angelic figures. In this early Enochic text each fallen Watcher’s name reflects a particular field of celestial knowledge which this fallen angel illicitly transmitted to humankind, signifying his role as a personification or hypostasis of such knowledge.99 Joséf Milik argued that “the names of the twenty principal Watchers ... are for the most part derived from astronomical, meteorological, and geographical terms.”100 This reification of the divine knowledge in the fallen angels is relevant for our study since it illustrates that the celestial mysteries can be embodied not only in protagonists of the apocalyptic story but also in antagonistic characters such as Leviathan and Behemoth. The embodiment of the divine knowledge in otherworldly characters, of course, was not exclusively an invention of the Enochic authors. This concept was deeply rooted in Mesopotamian lore. Thus, already in Mesopotamian apkallus traditions, which some argue constitutes the background of the Enochic Watchers traditions, one can see similar conceptual constellations. Reflecting on these similarities, Amar Annus points out that the names of many antediluvian apkallus are fairly transparent titles or Sumerian incipits of learned scholarly compendia, or other cuneiform series. Giving to the antediluvian sages names resembling titles of scientific treatises served the purpose of establishing the explicit connection between conOn the correspondences between angelic names and areas of instruction, see Annette Y. Reed, “Heavenly Ascent, Angelic Descent, and the Transmission of Knowledge in 1 Enoch 6-16,” in Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (ed. R. S. Abusch and A. Y. Reed; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 47-66 at 55-56. 100 Józef T. Milik, The Books of Enoch. Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 29. 99

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temporary and primeval scholarship.... In comparison, the names of 20 principal Watchers in 1 Enoch 6:7 are for the most part derived from astronomical, meteorological and geographical terms, their names being related to their areas of expertise.101

Annus further suggests that “in both cases the names of the antediluvian experts present them as hypostases of learned, and presumably secret, corpora.”102 In this ancient epistemological framework, Leviathan and Behemoth appear also to be understood as “embodied mysteries” – the reified deposits of the divine knowledge which were “preserved” by God in his secret chambers in order to be revealed to the chosen ones in the last days.103 In this eschatological moment, the righteous of the world will no longer merely listen to or read about the stories of Behemoth and Leviathan from their liturgies or their sacred books – they will behold them and taste them in reality. Furthermore, these final disclosures of the primordial monsters are endowed with the utmost significance which were often reserved in other Jewish texts only for the ultimate divine revelation in the form of the Torah, and they appear to be understood as an introduction of the eschatological Law. We should now explore more closely this significant connection.

BEHOLDING OF AND FEEDING ON THE MONSTERS AS THE REVELATION OF THE E SCHATOLOGICAL TORAH

One puzzling aspect of the aforementioned eschatological routines of beholding and feeding on Leviathan and Behemoth is that these practices clearly contradict the Written and Oral Torah’s regulations. The Written Torah dictates that it is forbidden to eat animals who were not properly slaughtered but died in vicious circumstances when their flesh was pierced and

Amar Annus, “On the Origins of Watchers: A Comparative Study of the Antediluvian Wisdom in Mesopotamian and Jewish Traditions,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19 (2010): 277-320 at 287-88. 102 Annus, “On the Origin of Watchers,” 288. Italic is mine. 103 Cf. Shir-ha-Shirim Rabbah 1:28: “domains (‫ )חדרי‬of Behemoth and Leviathan.” 101

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torn,104 as would inevitably occur during the eschatological fight between Behemoth and Leviathan.105 Thus, according to Lev 17:15, “all persons, citizens or aliens, who eat what dies of itself or what has been torn by wild animals, shall wash their clothes, and bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the evening; then they shall be clean.” It, therefore, appears not to be surprising that several rabbinic passages directly or implicitly point to the fact that eating the monsters’ flesh at the eschatological feast may indeed represent a praxis forbidden by the Torah. One such example, for instance, can be found in y. Megillah 1: (Antolinus) [Antoninus] said to Rebbi, can I eat from Leviathan in the World to Come? He said to him, yes. He told him, from the Passover lamb you would not let me eat, but from Leviathan you make me eat? He answered, what can we do for you since about the Passover lamb it is written that no

104 Beal points out that “the problem lies in the method of killing, for Leviathan’s fins are serrated, and there fore something like a saw, which is one of the instruments not permitted for slaughtering animals.... Beyond that, it is fascinating to note that the reason given for prohibiting the use of these particular slaughtering instruments is that they cause undue pain. To be killed with one of these instruments would feel like being choked or clawed to death. Perhaps even a monster should not be slaughtered in such a cruel and unusual manner.” Timothy Beal, Religion and Its Monsters (London: Routledge, 2002), 67-68. Kiperwasser and Shapira also note that “it is very surprising that one beast, killed by another beast and thus strictly speaking, a treyfa (an animal forbidden for consumption), will be declared as permitted for consumption by God Himself, who appears in front of the astonished sages as Deus ex machina.” Reuven Kiperwasser and Dan D. Y. Shapira, “Irano-Talmudica II: Leviathan, Behemoth, and the ‘Domestication’ of Iranian Mythological Creatures in Eschatological Narratives in the Babylonian Talmud,” in Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman (ed. S. Secunda and S. Fine; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 203-235 at 225-226. 105 William D. Davies, Torah in the Messianic Age and/or the Age to Come (Journal of Biblical Literature Monograph Series 7; Philadelphia: SBL, 1952), 60-61.

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uncircumcised man may eat from it. When he heard this, he went and circumcised.106

Reflecting on this passage, Harry Sysling argues that this “dialogue between Antolinus (Antoninus) and Rabbi (Yehuda ha Nasi)” assumes that “Leviathan, although an unclean animal, serves as nourishment for the righteous in the world to come.”107 Despite the fact that some rabbinic passages postulate that Behemoth is a “clean beast”108 and Leviathan is a “clean fish,”109 a frequent labelling of the monsters’ eschatological consumption as a “recompense” for the prohibition of certain fish once again points to their problematic nature in relation to the Jewish dietary laws. The theme of “recompense,” for instance, looms large in Lev. Rab. 22:10: R. Menahma and R. Bebai, and R. Aha and R. Johanan in the name of R. Jonathan expounded: As recompense for what I have forbidden you, [says God], I have reserved something for you. As recompense for the prohibition of certain fish you will eat Leviathan, a clean fish; as recompense for the prohibition of certain fowls you shall eat Ziz, which is a clean fowl.110

Midrash on Psalms 18:25 again interprets the messianic meal of the monsters as a “recompense” for not eating forbidden foods in this life: R. Berechiah said in the name of R. Jacob: It is written Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself (Deut 14:21); neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field (Exod 22:30); and again The fat of that which dieth of itself, and the Guggenheimer, The Jerusalem Talmud. Tractates Ta’aniot, Megillah, Hagigah and Mo’ed Qatan (Mašqin), 268. 107 Sysling, Teḥiyyat Ha-Metim, 64. 108 Targum on Psalms 50:10 states that “for every animal of the forest is mine, and in the Garden of Eden (‫ )בגן עדן‬I designated for the righteous the clean beasts and the wild ox that grazes all day long (on) a thousand mountains.” Stec, The Targum of Psalms, 104; Merino, Targum de Salmos, 36. 109 Lev. Rab. 22:10: “As recompense for the prohibition of certain fish you will eat Leviathan, a clean fish (‫)דג טהור‬.” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 4.289. 110 Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 4.289. 106

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In the same vein, some rabbinic passages also suggest that watching the final fight of the monsters also represents a “recompense,” this time, for keeping the Oral Torah’s precepts for not attending animal fights.112 Y. Avodah Zarah 1, 7 warns that the one who sits in the stadium and watches animal fights is “a spiller of blood.”113 In the messianic time, however, these prohibitions will suddenly be abolished.114 Lev. Rab. 13:3 boldly announces this paradigm shift by revealing the following: “R. Judan b. R. Simeon said: Behemoth and Leviathan are to engage in a wild-beast contest before the righteous in the Time to Come, and whoever has not been a spectator at the wild-beast contests Braude, The Midrash on Psalms, 255. Regarding animal fights, Zeev Weiss points out that “the tannaim expressed an unequivocal disdain for Roman public spectacles, prohibiting any association with them whatsoever. Their staunch attitude is conveyed by words such as ‘forbidden,’ ‘not,’ and ‘no,’ which leave no room for doubt regarding their intention.... Mishna ‘Avodah Zarah 1, 7 remarks: ‘None may sell them bears or lions . . . none may help them build a basilica, scaffold, stadium or judges’ tribunal.’ In other words, Jews are not to sell beasts to non- Jews for animal performances, nor are they to facilitate the building of stadiums for such spectacles.” Zeev Weiss, Public Spectacles in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 201-202. 113 Heinrich W. Guggenheimer, The Jerusalem Talmud. Tractates Ševicit and c Avodah Zarah. Edition, Translation and Commentary (Studia Judaica 61; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), 237. 114 Beal points out that “just as the self-restraint of the righteous in refusing to participate in the Roman spectacles of human and animal contests means that they will enjoy a far more spectacular monster contest, so their self­restraint in refusing to eat torn animals in this world means that they will enjoy torn monster in the world to come.” Beal, Religion and Its Monsters, 68. 111 112

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of the heathen nations in this world will be accorded the boon of seeing one in the World to Come.”115 One can see that an important aspect of the aforementioned accounts is that the eschatological revelation about Leviathan and Behemoth is unfolded in the midst of another crucial revelation, namely, the Written and Oral Law’s precepts about unclean foods and forbidden animal spectacles. In these expositions, one can detect a certain tension and also parallelism between the old revelation, which prohibits certain foods and actions, and a new disclosure that suddenly and paradoxically abolishes such prohibitions, which previously were deemed to be so essential for Jewish religious life and identity. Since the ways in which Leviathan and Behemoth are slayed for the meal in the eschatological fight, when their flesh is pierced and torn by the fins and tails of their opponent, clearly contradict the Mosaic Torah’s regulations about animal slaughter, one can see in these novel developments an attempt to introduce a new eschatological Law.116 In light of these developments, it is possible that by beholding the monsters’ fight and by consuming their improperly slaughtered bodies – the actions which clearly were forbidden in the Torah given to Moses on Mount Sinai – the righteous of the world would become aware of a new set of rules for slaughter and consumption – the eschatological or messianic Torah. In his in-depth investigation of the concept of the messianic Torah in Judaism, Abraham Joshua Heschel points out that “many Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 4.167. Scholars argue that the designation of the eschatological battle between Leviathan and Behemoth as a “hunt” (kynegion) points to the wild beast hunts that were staged in the theaters in Rome. On this, see Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 68-81, Kiperwasser and Shapira, “Irano-Talmudica II: Leviathan, Behemoth, and the ‘Domestication’ of Iranian Mythological Creatures in Eschatological Narratives in the Babylonian Talmud,” 223-225; Mark R. Sneed, Taming the Beast: A Reception History of Behemoth and Leviathan (Studies of the Bible and Its Reception, 12; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2022), 144. 116 Beal notes that “this entirely novel case of slaughter calls for a novel interpretation of the pertinent law, one which will allow Leviathan’s slaughter of Behemoth with its saw-like fin to be kosher.” Beal, Religion and its Monsters, 68. 115

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Sages believed that in messianic days, when the earth will be filled with knowledge of God, humankind will merit hearing ‘the Messiah’s Torah,’ ‘the Messiah’s Teaching,’ even ‘Renewal of Torah.’”117 Heschel insists that although some rabbinic passages argue for the eternity of the Mosaic Torah regulations,118 other

117 Abraham J. Heschel, Heavenly Torah: As Refracted through the Generations (ed. G. Tucker and L. Levin; New York: Continuum, 2005), 684. Scholem points out that according to such beliefs “in the messianic age, with the tiqqun accomplished and the effects of sin undone, all things will be restored to their pristine spirituality, and the traditional type of ‘material’ practice and observance of the commandments will automatically pass away.” Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Ṡevi. The Mystical Messiah 1626-1676 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), 320. On the messianic Torah, see also Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken, 1971), 73-77. 118 See, for example, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Lev 27:34: “these are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses — and it is not possible to make any innovations in them — and he commanded them so that he would make them known to the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.” Martin McNamara et al., Targum Neofiti 1, Leviticus; Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Leviticus (The Aramaic Bible 3; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1994), 211; y. Sanh. 2:6 (20c): “Rebbi Simeon ben Iohai stated: The book Deuteronomy ascended, bowed down before the Holy One, praise to Him, and said to Him: Master of the Universe, You wrote in Your Torah that any disposition which is partially invalid is totally invalid, and now Solomon wants to uproot a yod from me! The Holy One, praise to Him, said to it: Solomon and a thousand like him will disappear but nothing from you will disappear.” The Jerusalem Talmud. Tractates Sanhedrin, Makkot, and Horaiot. Edition, Translation and Commentary (ed. Heinrich W. Guggenheimer; Studia Judaica 51; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010), 102; b. Baba Metzia 59b: “Said R. Jeremiah: That the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice....” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud, Baba Metzia, 59b; b. Shab. 104a: “These are the commandments, [teaching] that a prophet may henceforth [i.e., after Moses] make no innovations!” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud, Shabbath, 104a; In Maimonides’ 13 principles of Jewish faith, principle 9 states: “I believe by complete faith that this is the Torah, and it shall not be changed and it shall not be replaced with another from the Creator, blessed be His name.” Gen. Rab. 98:9 specifically stresses that there will not be any messianic “teaching”: “R. Hanin said: Israel will not require the teaching of the royal Messiah in

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passages postulate that the new Torah precepts will be revealed in the messianic time.119 Heschel also points out that “the desire for a renewal of Torah in messianic days was nourished by the sense that not all was revealed, and that not all that was revealed was sufficiently clear.”120 This observation is especially relevant for the revelation about Leviathan and Behemoth which was partially unveiled already in the first days of creation but will be fully manifested before the eyes of the righteous only in the last days. Some rabbinic passages devoted to Leviathan and Behemoth seem to suggest a similar course of events by juxtaposing the motifs of the eschatological fight of the monsters and consumption of their bodies with the pivotal statement from Isa 51:4, where God promises that the future “Torah (‫ )תורה‬will go forth from Me.” Such a juxtaposition can be found, for example, in Lev. Rab. 13:3: R. Judan b. R. Simeon said: Behemoth and Leviathan are to engage in a wild-beast contest before the righteous in the Time to Come, and whoever has not been a spectator at the wild-beast contests of the heathen nations in this world will be accorded the boon of seeing one in the World to Come. How will they be slaughtered? Behemoth will, with its horns, pull Leviathan down and rend it, and Leviathan will, with its fins, pull Behemoth down and pierce it through. The Sages the future, for it says, Unto him shall the nations seek (Isa 11:10), but not Israel.” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 2.957. 119 See, for example, Gen. Rab. 98:9: “He washeth his garments in wine, intimates that he [the Messiah] will compose for them words of Torah; And his vesture in the blood of grapes – that he will restore to them their errors.” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 2.957; Lev. Rab. 13:3: “R. Abin b. Kahana said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Instruction [Torah] shall go forth from Me (Isa 51:4), i.e. new interpretation of Torah will go forth from Me.” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 4.167. 120 Heschel, Heavenly Torah, 684. Midrash on Psalms 146:5 reads: “Who are the blind? Men of the present generation who go groping like blind men in the Torah, saying We wait for light, but behold obscurity, for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall life the blind (Isa 59:9-10). All of them read, but do not know what they read. All of them study, but do not know what they study. In the time to come, however, The eyes of the blind shall be opened.” Braude, Midrash on Psalms, 367.

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CONSUMPTION OF LEVIATHAN AND BEHEMOTH said: And is this a valid method of slaughter? Have we not learnt the following in a Mishnah: All may slaughter, and one may slaughter at all times [of the day], and with any instrument except with a scythe, or with a saw, or with teeth [in a jaw cut out of a dead animal], because they cause pain as if by choking, or with a nail [of a living body]? R. Abin b. Kahana said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Instruction [Torah] shall go forth from Me (Isa 51:4), i.e. new interpretation of Torah will go forth from Me. R. Berekiah said in the name of R. Isaac: In the Time to Come, the Holy One, blessed be He, will make a banquet for his righteous servants, and whoever has not eaten nebelah in this world will have the privilege of enjoying it in the World to Come. This is indicated by what is written, And the fat of that which dieth of itself (nebelah) and the fat of that which is torn of beasts (terefah), may be used for any other service, but eat it [ye shall] not, in order that you may eat it in the Time to Come.121

The significance of this passage is that the revelation about Behemoth and Leviathan in the last days is understood as a “new interpretation of the Torah” revealed by God in the eschatological time.122 A close look, however, reveals that it is not merely a new interpretation of the Law, but rather a new Law since it radically negates and abolishes the crucial precepts of the old one.123 Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 4.167. In his analysis of the tradition from Leviticus Rabbah, Timothy Beal points out that, in response to the question from the sages, “Abin ben Kahana explains that this is an exceptional case, and therefore these extraordinary methods of slaughter are permitted. He begins with a quotation, drawn from Isaiah 51:4, ‘a new law [tora ḥadashah] shall go forth from me,’ which he reads as, ‘a novel interpretation of the law [ḥiddush torah] will go forth from me.’ That is, this entirely novel case of slaughter calls for a novel interpretation of the pertinent law, one which will allow Leviathan’s slaughter of Behemoth with its saw-like fin to be kosher. The righteous will taste Behemoth.” Beal, Religion and Its Monsters, 68. 123 Some later interpreters attempt to resolve the paradox of the improper slaughter of Leviathan by arguing that the laws of slaughtering apply only to human slaughterers and ordinary animals. They point out that since the eschatological slaughter of Leviathan and Behemoth is performed by God and they represent not ordinary animals, but rather 121 122

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Reflecting on Lev. Rab. 13:3, William Davies suggests that it expresses “not merely the view that the Messianic Age would see changes in the Torah but also that it would bring with it a new Torah.”124 The eschatological abolishment of the old Torah and the introduction of a new one, hinted at in several rabbinic passages,125 have been proleptically rehearsed in some antinomiunique creatures, Torah’s laws of slaughter do not apply to them. Yet, the internal tensions found in Lev. Rab. 13:3 and other similar passages contradict these explanations. 124 Davies, Torah in the Messianic Age and/or the Age to Come, 59. 125 See, for example, b. Ber. 63a: “They have made void Thy Torah. Why? Because it is time to work for the Lord.” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Berachoth, 63a; b. Nid. 61b: “R. Joseph observed: This implies that the commandments will be abolished in the Hereafter.” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Niddah, 61b; b. Men. 99a-b: “Resh Lakish said: There are times when the suppression of the Torah may be the foundation of the Torah (‫)ביטולה של תורה זהו יסודה‬, for it is written, ‘Which thou didst break’: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, ‘Thou didst well to break!’” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Menachot, 99a-b; b. Sanh. 97a: “The Tanna debe Eliyyahu teaches: The world is to exist six thousand years. In the first two thousand there was desolation; two thousand years the Torah flourished; and the next two thousand years is the Messianic era.” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Sanhedrin, 97a; Midrash on Psalms 146: “The Lord will loose the bonds (Ps 146:7). What does the verse mean by the words loose the bonds? Some say that of every animal whose flesh it is forbidden to eat in this world, the Holy One, blessed be He, will declare in the time-to-come that the eating of its flesh is permitted... But why did God declare the flesh of some animals forbidden? In order to see who would accept His commandments and who would not accept them. In the time-to-come, however, God will again permit the eating of that flesh which He has forbidden.” Braude, Midrash on Psalms, 365-366. For discussion of these passages, see Yehuda Liebes, Studies in the Zohar (trs. A. Schwartz et al.; Albany: SUNY, 1993) 47-48; Shaul Magid, Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica/Radzin Hasidism (Modern Jewish Philosophy and Religion. Translations and Critical Studies; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 123-124, 308; Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1941), 317 and 421, note 65; Elliot R. Wolfson, Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 237; idem, “Hypernomian Piety and the Mystical Rationale of the Commandments in Nathan of Gaza’s Sefer Haberiya,” El Prezente: Journal for Sephardic Studies 12-13 (20182019): 90-153 at 93-95.

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an practices of various Jewish messianic movements,126 including the Sabbatian and Frankist communities.127 Yet, such praxis represents not merely an invention of these Jewish sectarian groups, but rather a phenomenon with ancient roots that are reflected, for example, in some foundational Christian rituals.128 Furthermore, the understanding of the antinomian practices as a revelation of divine mysteries appears to be implied in m. Hag. 2 where the sexual aberrations (‫ )דורשין בעריות‬are included in the list of subjects which are forbidden to reveal along with the secrets of Creation and the secrets of the Chariot.129 126 On antinomian practices in various Jewish messianic movements, see Ernst Bammel, “Nomos Christou,” Studia evangelica 3 (1964): 120-128; Andrew Chester, Messiah and Exaltation: Jewish Messianic and Visionary Traditions and New Testament Christology (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 207; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 499-450; Nathaniel Deutsch, The Maiden of Ludmir: A Jewish Holy Woman and Her World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 154-155; Alejandro Díez Macho, “¿Cesará la ‘Torá’ en la Edad Mesiánica?” Estudios bíblicos 12 (1953): 127-134; Pawel Maciejko, The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755-1816 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011); Jay Michaelson, “Conceptualizing Jewish Antinomianism in the Teachings of Jacob Frank,” Modern Judaism 37 (2017): 338-362; Peter Schäfer, “Die Torah der messianischen Zeit,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 65 (1974): 27–42; Scholem, Sabbatai Ṡevi, 393-403; Stephen Sharot, Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011), 123ff; Wolfson, Venturing Beyond, 237-238; idem, “Hypernomian Piety,” 93-95. 127 On this, see Wolfson, “Hypernomian Piety,” 99. In his other study, Wolfson points out that in these communities “abrogation of the law was perceived as the ultimate means to fulfill it.” Elliot R. Wolfson, “Coronation of the Sabbath Bride: Kabbalistic Myth and the Ritual of Androgynisation,” Journal of Jewish Though and Philosophy 6 (1997): 301343 at 301. 128 One can detect antinomian tendencies in relation to the Jewish dietary laws, for instance, in another messianic meal, the Eucharist, when the Torah’s prohibition “You shall not drink blood” became replaced by the eschatological ritual of the messiah’s blood consumption. 129 The motif of acquisition of the divine secrets through antinomian praxis may be present in the aforementioned Eucharist where the Christians are privy to the utmost mysteries of God through their consumption of the messiah’s blood. On this, see Andrea Lieber, “Jewish

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Midrash Tanḥuma reinterprets the Torah’s precepts about improperly slaughtered animals in light of the Behemoth and Leviathan traditions by postulating that, in the eschatological time, “there will be no ritual slaughter”: The Holy One (Blessed be He) said to Israel, “Be careful that you do not pollute yourselves with an unclean beast or an unclean creature.” Thus David says, “As for God, his way is perfect; the promise of the Lord is true” (Ps 18:31), in order to purify his creations. He said to him, “Rabbi, what does it matter to the Holy One (Blessed be He) whether Israel eats what is not properly slaughtered, whether Israel kills by piercing and eats, or slaughters at the throat or at the thigh?” You should know that these things were not commanded for this reason but rather for the purification of Israel, for in the age to come he will make a banquet for the righteous from Behemoth and Leviathan, and there will be no ritual slaughter there.130

and Christian Heavenly Meal Traditions,” in Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism (ed. April D. DeConick; SBL Symposium Series 11; Leiden: Brill; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), 313-339 at 335; David Biale, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 61. 130 Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 147. See also Midrash on Psalms 146:4: “The Lord will loose the bonds (Ps 146:7). What does the verse mean by the words loose the bonds? Some say that of every animal whose flesh it is forbidden to eat in this world, the Holy One, blessed be He, will declare in the time-to-come that the eating of its flesh is permitted. Thus in the verse That which hath been is that which shall be, and that which hath been given is that which shall be given (Eccl 1:9), the words that which hath been given refer to the animals that were given as food before the time of the sons of Noah, for God said: ‘Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all’ (Gen 9:3). That is to say, ‘As I give the green herb as food to all, so once I gave both beasts and cattle as food to all.’ But why did God declare the flesh of some animals forbidden? In order to see who would accept His commandments and who would not accept them. In the time-to-come, however, God will again permit the eating of that flesh which He has forbidden.” Braude, Midrash on Psalms, 365-366.

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One can see in this passage a curious reversal: the adept will be rewarded in the eschatological time with what he abstains from in this world.131 The eschatological transgression of the Torah’s precepts thus becomes a new legal norm.132 Lev. Rab. 13:3 effectively summarizes the gist of this legal revolution by stating that “whoever has not eaten nebelah in this world will have the privilege of enjoying it in the World to Come.”133 It pertains not Schirmann notes that “in other words, in the world to come the Righteous would be vouchsafed to see a ‘beast contest’ of abnormal proportions, because they were unwilling to watch a ‘beast contest’ in this world.” Schirmann, “The Battle between Behemoth and Leviathan,” 338. Similarly, Sneed points out that in such reversal “the Jews will finally get to eat unclean food (a carcass) in the world to come in compensation for their diligent Kosher observance during their earthly lives.” Sneed, Taming the Beast, 144. 132 Heschel notes that “it is commonly assumed that this idea concerning the voiding of mitzvot in the hereafter is an alien growth in the field of Jewish thought, a foundling of dubious parentage. All the more so is the reading of the verse ‘The Lord releases the bound’ as referring to permissions and prohibitions considered to be an unworthy exegesis, from which exudes an odor of heresy and frivolity. But note that already in the period of the Tannaim there was discussion concerning the continuation of certain mitzvot in the hereafter. Indeed, Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva themselves differed on the import of one explicit biblical text, which had the potential to support the idea of the voiding of certain mitzvot in the hereafter. For whoever argued that things currently forbidden are destined to be permitted by the Holy and Blessed One in the age to come would seek to demonstrate from a biblical verse that this permissiveness was from hoary antiquity; it was simply that something that the Holy and Blessed One forbade in a particular era He would once again permit in a subsequent era.” Heschel, Heavenly Torah, 687. 133 Although some rabbinic sources report that Leviathan is a clean fish (‫)דג טהור‬, it is clear that during combat with Behemoth, when his flesh will be torn by the other monster, he will become an impure fish. Thus, b. Hullin 67b concludes that Leviathan is a clean fish because he has scales and fins: “It was taught: R. Jose, son of the Damascene, says: The Leviathan is a clean fish (‫)לויתן דג טהור‬, for it is written: His scales are his pride, and it is also written: ‘Sharpest potsherds are under him.’ ‘Scales.’ these are the scales that cover him; ‘sharpest potsherds are under him.’ these are the fins wherewith he propels himself.” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 67b. 131

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only to the consumption of the monsters but also to the viewing of their fight. Whitney notes that “only those who have refrained from witnessing the spectacles of the arena in their lifetime will be allowed to witness the eschatological spectacle staged by God.”134 When one keeps in mind that the beholding of the monsters and their consumption constitute a revelation of mysteries, these actions can be interpreted as reenactments of a new Law that abolish the previous legal paradigm. What was evil and transgressive in the “old Law” suddenly becomes a new norm in a “new Torah” revealed by God by means of the monsters in the last days.135 This paradoxical reversal provides an important perspective in the role of evil and its significance in the divine economy of salvation and restoration. It is no secret that the eschatological meal on Behemoth and Leviathan has often puzzled exegetes precisely because it involves the creatures which are known in Jewish lore for their unpredictable and even evil nature. The rabbinic tradition supplies an unusual answer for this perplexing issue by pushing the envelope even further. For rabbinic authors, the righteous will not only feast on the evil creatures, this eschatological destruction of evil will also be mitigated via even more paradoxical means, some of which would involve the violation of the Torah’s commandments. These traditions provide a fresh outlook also on the mysteries of evil themselves. In this perspective, the adept’s acquisition of the Other Side’s secrets becomes not merely a trip to a library but instead a visionary journey into the mysteries of the eschatological Torah.

Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 144. Midrash Tanḥuma Yelammedenu, Shemini §7 reads: “And where will they be ritually slaughtered? – They will attack each other, as it is said, ‘one is so near to the other’; Behemoth draws near to Leviathan, seizes him with his horns and rips him open, and Leviathan, on the other hand, brings about Behemoth’s death, for he smites him with his tail and slays him. And the Righteous go and take their portions. From this it may be deduced that ritual slaughter was enjoined only to test and purify Israel.” Schirmann, “The Battle between Behemoth and Leviathan,” 339, note 25. 134 135

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In light of the aforementioned conceptual developments, it is possible that, in the ancient epistemological framework, Leviathan and Behemoth were understood as reified revelation – the new Torah, hidden by God until the last times in order to be unveiled to the righteous in a special “performative way” through the consumption of previously forbidden food and beholding previously forbidden animal contests. In this respect, it is not coincidental that the theme of the Torah appears in many rabbinic passages that speak about the messianic banquet. We have already witnessed a plethora of references to Torah’s dietary laws, many of which can be found in these passages. Yet, some accounts touch on the Torah’s other aspects. Thus, for example, a passage found in Pesikta de Rav Kahana (Sup. II.4) connects the eschatological feasting on Leviathan with study of Written and Oral Torah: Another comment: The associates–members of many, many different associations–make a banquet of him, some of the associations being concerned with study of Scripture, some with study of Mishnah, some with Talmud, some with Haggadah (‫יש בעלי מקרא יש בעלי משנה יש בעלי תלמוד יש בעלי‬ ‫)הגדה‬, some with deeds of charity, some with the proper performance of precepts; each and every association comes and takes its portion of Leviathan. Lest you suppose there is strife among the associations [over the various portions], the verse goes on to say, They shall part him as among merchants.136

This passage mentions the expertise of the participants in the messianic meal by portraying them as students both in the Written and Oral Law, which again solidifies the aforementioned understanding of the banquet as the revelation of the messianic legal code. By introspectively “devouring” the Torah in their previous lives, these chosen students of the Law now will be physically consuming a “body” of a new revelation through their

Braude and Kapstein, Pesikta de Rav Kahana, 470; Bernard Mandelbaum, Pesikta de Rav Kahana According to An Oxford Manuscript (2 vols.; New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962), 457.

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nourishment on the monster’s flesh.137 In this context, Leviathan’s physical form itself can be understood as the “body of the divine mysteries,” thus representing a sort of a zoomorphic “scroll” of the eschatological Torah. This process of the Torah’s reification in the form of an otherworldly being, in this case a monster, is a well-established tradition in various Jewish accounts.138 Moshe Idel reminds us that in Jewish lore, the Torah is often conceived of as an organism which has an anthropomorphic form.139

In light of this, the tradition about the preserved body of the female monsters which had been salted away or cooled in the protological time and stored for use at the eschaton receives a new significance. 138 On this, see Orlov, Embodiment of Divine Knowledge in Early Judaism, 6-7, 13-14. 139 Moshe Idel, “Concepts of Scripture in Jewish Mysticism,” in Jewish Concepts of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction (ed. B. D. Sommer; New York: New York University Press, 2012), 157–178 at 159. On this, see also Elliot Wolfson, “Iconicity of the Text: Reification of Torah and the Idolatrous Impulse of Zoharic Kabbalah,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 11 (2004): 215–242. 137

THE CONSOLATION OF DESOLATE LANDSCAPES: HIKING IN NEWFOUNDLAND DURING THE PANDEMIC1 JOSEPH S. PAGANO MOVEMENT

We arrive in Port aux Basque, Newfoundland in the midst of the pandemic. My eyes squint and blink in the early morning light as I drive our U-Haul out of the gaping ferry onto the quay. After a check of our travel documents, we head north on the TransCanada Highway, the Gulf of St. Lawrence sparkling and blue on our left, the Long Range Mountains scrubby and green to our right. Two and a half hours later, we turn into the Humber Valley. The Humber River, smooth and black, snakes through deep cuts in limestone and dolomite on its way to the Bay of Islands. We check our coordinates and pull up to the rectory of the Anglican Parish of Pasadena and Cormack. For the next two weeks we quarantine. This essay is dedicated to Deirdre Dempsey. At Marquette, I became a better reader of scripture and learned to pray in the tradition of Ignatius. I am grateful to Pan Conrad, Melinda Fowl, Steve Fowl, Rich Pagano, Michelle Rebidoux, and Amy Richter for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay.

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Amy and I had been living in South Africa. Sent by the Global Missions Office of The Episcopal Church, we taught theology to ordinands in the Anglican Church. We served at the College of Transfiguration in Makhanda and the University of Kwa ZuluNatal in Pietermaritzburg. We were two and a half years into a three-year commitment when the pandemic hit. The Global Missions Office decided to bring everyone home. We catch the last flight out of Pietermaritzburg and the second to last commercial flight out of Johannesburg before the country closes down. Back at home in North Carolina, Amy reads a notice that the Anglican Diocese of Western Newfoundland needs priests. We have a Zoom call with the bishop. They had vacancies. Could we serve? Yes. We pack our worldly possessions into a ten-foot moving truck and drive north. During quarantine, we can venture only as far as our yard. I walk laps, beating the bounds of our new home. Circling our house, my mind calculates, compares, contrasts. Our half-acre patch lies 49 degrees north of the equator. In South Africa we lived 33 degrees south of the equator. An 82 degree move north. In the night sky I no longer see the southern cross, but the big dipper. Caribou and moose roam the island, roughly the same sizes as the kudu and eland that graze in South Africa. There are no big cats in Newfoundland, only the small Canada Lynx. We trade the blocks and pinnacles of the Drakensberg mountains for the ridges and valleys of the northeastern arm of the Appalachians. Instead of fynbos, we are surrounded by boreal forest. The stark beauty of the karoo gives way to stark beauty of limestone barrens. Humpback whales that feed on krill in the Indian Ocean feed on capelin in the Atlantic. Bedrock practices that build up a parish clunk or grind to a halt during the pandemic. When allowed to gather for in-person worship, we wear masks, shout good news across empty pews, drop consecrated hosts into sanitized hands. At online bible studies, we unmute to share an insight or raise a question. I preach for hours to the cold eye of a video camera to create a tenminute homily. Necessary, but exhausting.

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With the non-essential closed and the essential curtailed, I find solace outdoors. The portable spirituality of Ignatius sustains me. As I walk the rugged coastlines and sturdy hills of Newfoundland, I am encouraged to find God in all things. Scriptural contemplation sharpens my imagination, hones my sensations to the feel, smell, sight and sound of the place. On lonely walks, I fall easily into intimate conversation with the Lord, who feels near. I find consolation in desolate landscapes. The geological history of Newfoundland is a story of movement. Memorial University geoscientist Harold Williams dubbed this the “Henry Hibbs Effect” after a well-known Newfoundland accordion player. Williams was a pioneer in the plate-tectonics revolution of the 1960s. The theory says that the earth’s crust is divided into approximately 20 segments known as plates. They are in constant motion, in different directions and at varying speeds. When plates collide, they produce mountains. When plates separate, they create oceans. Like the billows of an accordion, when squeezed they form mountain ridges, when pulled apart they flatten into ocean basin. In the accordion tune that formed Newfoundland, the first squeeze took place more than a billion years ago. The Uranus Ocean disappeared as the eastern edge of the North American plate collided with other plates creating the supercontinent Rodinia. Along the collision line, the Long Range Mountains rose in what is known as the Grenville Orogeny. Around 600 million years ago, the accordion bellows expanded, and Rodinia broke apart. The Iapetus Ocean formed as water flooded into the rift. About 450 million years ago, the accordion squeezed again. Continents collided, the Iapetus disappeared, and the new supercontinent Pangea assembled. During the new mountain building event, known as the Appalachian Orogeny, parts of the Iapetus’s crust and earth’s mantle were thrust upwards and emplaced on the eastern edge of the Canadian shield. This collision, along with scouring of glaciers in subsequent ice ages, shaped the landscape of Western Newfoundland. Approximately 250 million years ago, the squeeze box opened again. The Atlantic Ocean formed as supercontinent Pangea broke apart. It wasn’t a clean break along the previous

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collision line. A fragment of North Africa snapped off, forming what is now Eastern Newfoundland. The Atlantic Ocean is still expanding at the rate of 0.5 centimeters per year. I tend to think of mountains and oceans as steadfast markers of place. If you want to get your bearings in Western Newfoundland, look up. If you can see the gulf or mountains you can easily find your way. Geoscientists look at the same mountains and oceans and see markers of extraordinary movement. Rock that formed on tropical seafloors south of the equator now cap mountains in Newfoundland. Where will they be in another 500 million years? The accordion tune plays on. The God of Israel is a God of movement. Unlike many ancient near eastern deities, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not bound to place. God’s call uproots Abram from his homeland and guides him to new places, holding before him the promise of land, descendants, and blessing. God is like a shepherd who leads his flock; the ancestors are like adventurers, who, in response to God’s summons, step into the unknown. At the yearly festival of Shavuot Israel rehearses their family history saying, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous” (Deut 26:5). The Exodus from Egypt – the story of Israel’s deliverance from the yoke of Pharaoh, the crossing of the sea, the wandering through the wilderness – tells how God acts in history. It is also the way God creates a people. The mobile God of Israel creates a people on the go. The Song of the Sea praises the God who went before Israel in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. It tells of the miraculous deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian forces at the Reed Sea when God made a path through the waters. Israel was formed by passing through the sea. The waters of the sea were also in motion. Scholars are unclear on precisely where the Reed Sea is located. Probably somewhere north of the Red Sea. They are clear Yam Suph is not the Red Sea, a mistranslation of the Hebrew by the Septuagint. In geological terms the exact location of the Reed Sea doesn’t matter. Wherever Yam Suph may be, it still falls within the rift created by the African and Arabian plates drifting apart. The rift movement

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is ongoing at a rate of two centimeters per year. If we date the exodus to approximately 1,300 BCE that means the Reed Sea is now 6,640 centimeters wider. In modern terms that’s about three quarters the length of a football field. In biblical terms that’s approximately 144 cubits or 30 turns of a chariot wheel. The strong arm of the Lord is also mighty deft. After their deliverance, Israel wanders in the wilderness, first to Sinai, then to the promised land. These sojourn narratives are times of testing, rebelliousness and danger for the people. The wilderness in the Old Testament is harsh: a place of hunger and thirst, of thieves and madmen, of beasts and demons. And yet, it is also the place where God, despite Israel’s whining and rebelliousness, sustains and shows steadfast love to the people in their need. God gives his beloved a covenant on Sinai, water from a rock, manna and quail in the wilderness. Jeremiah and Hosea look back fondly to Israel’s wandering as a time of special closeness to God, despite Israel’s hardships. In the wilderness, Israel was forced to rely solely upon God and God proved steadfast, forgiving, generous beyond all imagining. It was a honeymoon period, albeit one with a complicated itinerary and quite a few spats. Nonetheless, in hard times, Hosea and Ezekiel call for a return to the wilderness for purification and renewal. After quarantine, we hike the Tablelands. The Tablelands are one the few places on the planet where you can walk on the earth’s mantle. When Pangea formed some 450 million years ago, part of the earth’s mantle that underlie the oceanic crust of the Iapetus was thrust over the eastern edge of the Canadian shield. Repeated scraping by glaciers exposed a portion of the mantle which usually lies 30-70 kilometers below the earth’s crust. Driving to the trailhead on a clear September morning, our vehicle cruises between two worlds. On the right, the greens of boreal forest dominate – spruce, fir and larch trees; moss, ferns and sheathed sedge. The occasional white slashes of birch trees provides some relief. On the left, the massive burnt orange block of the Tablelands towers 700 meters above sea level. They look otherworldly. More precisely, it is how the inner world of the earth’s mantle looks in the open air. The iron in the peridotite rusts when exposed to oxygen. Split the rock open and it has a

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dark, olivine interior. Other metals in peridotite - magnesium, chrome, cobalt, copper, aluminum and nickel – make it inhospitable to vegetation. The orange cliffs and eroded slopes shed rock into the barren valley. NASA and the Canadian Space Agency use the Tablelands as a Mars analogue site to prepare for future missions. I can see why. The Tablelands hike takes you into Winter House Brook Canyon, up the steep rock face of the escarpment, across a few miles of plateau, and then back down the northwest rim of The Bowl, a large basin caused by landslide. We walk southeast on an exposed piece of the earth’s mantle. It now forms part of the North American plate, which moves west at a rate of 0.5 centimeters per year, at a latitude that is spinning on the earth’s axis at approximately 1,045 kilometers per hour, orbiting the sun at around 108,000 kilometers per hour, circling the Milky Way at a rate of 777,000 kilometers per hour, in a universe that we are told is expanding at a rate somewhere between 67-82 kilometers per second. I feel lightheaded, and sit down on a peridotite boulder. I take a couple of sips of water, stand upright, check my balance, and walk into the canyon.

DEATH

On a gray September morning, we park in the lot of the Port au Choix National Historic Site. Our car shook in the gales as we drove across the isthmus in town and along the south coast of the Pointe Riche Peninsula to get here. I push hard to open the passenger door against the wind and struggle to stand upright. Turning around I hold the top of the car and push my rump into the door which the wind turns into a V-clamp that tries to chomp my body. I shimmy along the side of the car and let the door blow shut. A contortion dance follows as I put on jacket, hat and mittens in the wind. The temperature is around freezing, and damp gusts make my hands numb and clumsy. I manage to get my right arm into its sleeve while the rest of my jacket flaps and twists around my torso. I barrel role into the wind and get my left arm through the other sleeve. With my back hunched into the wind, I fumble with the zipper until it catches and pull the tab. I yank my toque down tight over my ears and tug mittens over my frozen hands.

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A walk on the limestone barrens of the Great Northern Peninsula seems fitting during the pandemic. The Dictionary of Newfoundland English defines “barrens” as “Uninhabited treeless stretches of wasteland, supporting low shrubs, mosses and wild animals,” and “Exposed, rocky areas incapable of supporting much vegetation.”2 In limestone barrens, the climate and lack of soil seem to conspire against life. My boots crunch on the gravel of the path. Here, I seek solace for – or perhaps escape from – the flashing tickers at the bottom of my screens that tally the deaths due to the virus. The dominant color of the barrens is gray. Today, the color of the sky and the color of limestone are the same. Gray on gray, with the steel gray of the gulf waters offering a hint of horizon. The path at the beginning of the Dorset Trail is hard to make out. As my eyes adjust, a route of gravel, crushed more finely by repeated footfall, becomes discernable, a chalky smudge meandering its way through the barrens. About 500 million years ago, the limestone of the Northern Peninsula formed on the tropical sea floor of the Iapetus Ocean. Over millions of years layer upon layer of animal and plant sediment accumulated. The weight eventually squeezed the water from the calcium rich mud, which hardened into limestone and dolomite. As the North American Plate drifted north and collided with other tectonic plates, the Iapetus Ocean disappeared and the sea floor was thrust up to become dry land. As we walk on clints and hop over grykes, fossils from the deep history of the limestone appear in gray relief: the squid-like tubes of nautiloids, the wavy ribs of tribolites, and the nautilus shell designs of marine snail. The harsh climate sculpted the appearance of the barrens today. Repeated periods of glaciation scraped plants, animals and soil from the land leaving the slabs, boulders and gravel of the coastal lowlands. As the glaciers retreated, the land, freed of its burden of ice, popped up in a process known as “post-glacial rebound” creating hundreds of feet of terraced coastline. Pack ice

George Morley Story et al, Dictionary of Newfoundland English (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 27.

2

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and the pounding surf carved the elevated limestone into crags and caves. Wind, rain, snow and ice continue to mold the landscape to remarkable effect. The annual cycles of freezing and thawing, crush and sort the limestone chips into elegant frost boils: speckled rock fields, striped stone slopes, and honeycombed plateaus. I delight in the power of water and ice to break boulders into smaller and smaller fragments that find their resting places in geometric mosaics of exquisite design. As we cut northward across the Pointe Riche Peninsula toward the Coastal Trail, we leave the barrens and enter a stunted tuckamore forest of black spruce and balsam fir bent and twisted by the wind. I am grateful for the wind break and wonder at all the peoples who have made a home on this barren land. Port au Choix was designated a national historic site because some of the most important archeological discoveries in North America were made here. The total size of the town of Port au Choix (the isthmus and the tied islands of the Pointe Riche Peninsula and the Port au Choix Peninsula) is less than 25 square kilometers. Yet archeological sites for Maritime Archaic People (5,500 to 3,300 years ago), Groswater People (2,900-1,900 years ago), Dorset People (2,000-1,000 years ago), and Recent Indigenous Peoples (2,150-660 years ago) are all found in this tiny area. Almost in defiance of the dictionary definition of “barrens” as “uninhabited wastelands,” the material culture bears witness to many peoples who lived in this place for thousands of years. Today, I am most interested in visiting the burial site of the Maritime Archaic People, so when we reach the Coastal Trail, we turn right and take a side trip back to town. In 1967, the digging of a basement for a movie theater uncovered a mass of human bones. In this instance, popular culture foundered on material culture. James Tuck of Memorial University in Newfoundland was called and with a crew of graduate students excavated three burial sites. Based upon his discoveries, Tuck identified a distinctive hunter-fisher society that stretched from Labrador in the north to Maine in the south which he named the Maritime Archaic Tradition.

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Archaic burial practices reveal the community’s way of life even as they equip the dead for the afterlife. After death, bodies were borne to the cemetery. The raised beach in Port au Choix must have been hallowed ground. The concentration and number of graves in the cemetery without any evidence of settlements in the area suggests a place set apart. We don’t know from how far bodies were brought to Port au Choix, or the means of transport. On biers over land? In the hulls of dugout canoes? We do know that the dead were not exposed to the elements or thrown into makeshift graves. Rather, dead bodies were prepared, carried to sacred burial ground, and laid to rest with ancestors. After arriving at the cemetery, a deep, broad, nearly round pit with gently sloping sides was dug. The floor of the grave was then leveled and sprinkled with red ochre. No one knows for sure why red ochre was used. Many speculate that it was thought to impart life to the dead, the red connoting the life giving power of blood. Biblical resonances come to mind. Blood is the seat of life’s power. When the Lord sees blood smeared on the doorposts and lintel of the Israelites, he does not permit the angel of death to enter the house and slay the first born. At the last supper Jesus said, “[T]his is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28). That Archaic People thought red ochre, used ritually to symbolize the power of blood, could impart life to the dead makes sense. Not in the same way as a sacramentally minded Anglican, to be sure, but we are living in the same universe. After graves were dug and sprinkled with red ochre, bodies were placed on the floor, children on their back in an extended position, adults on their side in a flexed, fetal position. Among the grave goods there are bone whistles and piles of small pebbles that may have been used in rattles. Perhaps music and chanting accompanied the burial. Grave offerings were placed on top or in front of the body. The dead were equipped with tools they would need in the afterlife. Grave goods found in the cemetery include whalebone lances for hunting caribou; toggling harpoons for hunting seal, walrus, and whale; bone and ivory daggers for dressing game; and

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barbed bone points for fishing. The hunting and fishing in the next life promised to be a lot like this life. Not all grave goods were quite so instrumental, at least, in anthropological terms. Quartz, garnet, and calcite crystals were found in many graves. Smooth white stones, roughly the size of hen’s eggs and often birdlike in shape, were placed near the head of the body. Small caches of shell beads; the teeth and claws of otter, seal, caribou, and bear; and the feet and beaks of gulls, loons, duck, and great auk suggest the decayed garments of the dead were richly adorned. Pendants inscribed with images of birds and bear hung near the hearts of the deceased. Anthropologists, who can’t understand these offerings except in relation to the exploitation of natural resources, shuffle them off to the realms of ornament or religion. Caribou incisors sewn into a coat makes you a successful hunter through contagious magic. An image of an auk hung around your neck is a charm that grants you the fishing skills of the great sea bird. Artifacts not easily classified, like an unusual whale bone, are almost always heaped on the pile of amulets and fetishes. I wonder. If we set aside modern notions of buffered selves confronting an external world of objects, and think of porous lives open to the influence, for good or for ill, of a spiritual world that is palpably present, then why wouldn’t getting equipped for a sacred hunt include a token of the prey or an image of an animal spirit as much as a sharpened dagger. Or, if we must use the language of magic, then perhaps we ought to think of the whole kit, including harpoons and lances, as charmed. Contagious magic or just being prepared? You pick. A magnificent carved stone killer whale was found on the chest of one skeleton. There is hardly a better animal to emulate in the seal hunt than killer whales who expertly prey on harp seal perched on pack ice. In tight formation, the whales charge the ice floes creating huge waves that crash over the ice, sweeping the seals into the sea, where they become easy picking. Killer whales have also been known to attack boats, so it was probably wise to stay on their good side. After the dead were adorned and equipped for the next life, more red ochre was spread on the offerings and the body, the red

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flakes now coating the departed with the power and hope of continued life. Then the grave was backfilled with soft sand and covered by small boulders in order to mark the site and to deter scavengers. Standing atop the cemetery, I turn and face east looking over the sheltered harbor known today as Back Arm. On clear days, the first rays of the rising sun fall on this slope. The raised burial grounds would have been visible from quite a distance to the archaic people who paddled dugout canoes up and down the coast. Looking up they would be reminded that this was the homeland of their ancestors. Perhaps they also found assurance in ancestors who watched over them, blessing them in the hunt for seal and caribou. I dig into my memory for any knowledge of mortuary practices from past studies of the Old Testament. There isn’t much, which may say more about my memory than the archeology. I have no recollection of grave goods that might have equipped Ancient Israelites for the afterlife. Perhaps some emblematic items were included, like the swords and shields of the warriors of old mentioned by Ezekiel (32:27), but these seem more honorific than preparatory. Isaiah’s mocking of the king of Babylon seems more to the point: his “pomp is brought down to Sheol,” where “maggots are the bed beneath you, and worms are your covering” (14:11). Sheol promised to be a lot less interesting than the Maritime Archaic People’s afterlife where there would be hunting and fishing in abundance. Israelites buried their dead. Exposing the body to the elements, vulnerable to scavengers, dishonored them. Bodies were prepared for burial, and if the New Testament is allowed to provide evidence, washed, anointed with aloes and spices, and wrapped in cloth. The dead were carried on wooden biers to the burial site accompanied by family, friends, and sometimes professional mourners, who filled the air with cries of sorrow. Bodies were interred in simple trench graves or caves or tombs cut from rock. The period of mourning varied, but the specification of seven days associated with the deaths of Jacob (Gen 50:10), Saul and his sons (1 Sam 31:13), and Job’ s children (Job 2:13) makes the lasting impression.

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That’s all I can remember about burial practices in the bible. Not much. The archaic burial site, however, calls to mind what seems most important about burials in the Old Testament: the desire to be laid to rest with one’s ancestors. The elderly Jacob tells his sons, “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my ancestors” (Gen 49:29), giving voice to the dying wishes of ancient Israelites. Family graves were common. To die was to “to sleep with one’s ancestors” (I Kings 2:10) and “to be gathered to one’s people” (Gen 25:8). Jesus’s saying about the poor man being carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham pops into my head and I begin to weep. I stand on sacred ground, made holy by the tangible acts of archaic people burying their dead. The prominent place of the ancestors resonates with biblical peoples’ desire to be gathered to their kin. One grave in Port au Choix contains the skeleton of a young adult woman cradling the skeleton of an infant in her arms. Something about the manifest care lavished upon the souls in this small, barren place, cracks my heart open to the enormity of lives lost in the pandemic. I say a silent prayer for all those whom we love but see no longer. I use the words from the burial rite in the Book of Common Prayer because I know them by heart: receive them into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. I recall the passage from Revelation that is read at so many funerals, where John sees “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne” (7:9). About the multitude John says, “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes”(7:16-17). I know the hope I have for the dead differs from many, certainly from archaic peoples. Yet, it is the small prayer I have to offer at the sacred site during this terrible pandemic. A strong wind blows hot tears from my face leaving cold streaks running down my cheeks.

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I turn toward Amy and say we should get back to the trail. The wind blows so hard that I doubt she hears me. She smiles indicating she caught the drift. We’ve got five kilometers along the Coastal Trail to reach the Pointe Riche Lighthouse and then another two kilometers along the road back to our car. Spending time at the Groswater and Dorset sites at Phillip’s Gardens will have to wait for another trip. Most especially, I want to return to the barrens when Fernald’s Braya is in bloom. All together, the limestone barrens comprise a fraction (0.04%) of Newfoundland’s topography. Yet, they are home to 115 of the 270 rare plant species that grow on the island. The barrens are neither arctic nor alpine, but the harsh climate makes them hospitable to a variety of colorful arcticalpine species including Purple Saxifrage, Moss Campion, Mountain Avens and Butterwort. Three plants, Fernald’s Braya, Long’s Braya, and the Barrens Willow grow nowhere else on the planet. Of these endemic plants, Fernald’s Braya is the only one found at Port au Choix. The Harvard botanist Merritt Lyndon Fernald is known as the Father of Newfoundland Botany. He made seven trips to Newfoundland and Labrador between 1910 and 1929, meticulously collecting, describing, and categorizing the flora. Fernald said of himself, “I belong to that almost extinct species, the old fashioned systematic botanist.”3 In 1925, Fernald and his team explored the limestone barrens from Flowers Cove to Burnt Cape, which he described as a “goldmine” for limestone plants. They traveled by boat, the main mode of transportation at the time on the Northern Peninsula, which would not see paved roads until the second half of the 20th century. On one occasion, however, some members of the team decided to walk because they were fed up with their boatman’s “annoying” habit of stopping at every cove along the way to visit relatives and catch up on gossip. Fernald stayed behind and did a little unscheduled collecting. When his boat finally arrived at the next destination, Fernald reports “[T]he race Arthur Stanley Pease, “Merritt Lyndon Fernald: 1873-1950,” Rhodora 53, no. 626 (Feb. 1951): 36. 3

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was over and the pedestrians had won by 20 hours!”4 During this trip, Fernald identified a variant of Braya Purpurascens that now bears his name. Fernald’s Braya is a diminutive perennial, rarely exceeding two centimeters in height, that seems to magically grow out of rock piles. It has long taproots that anchor the plant to the substrate, keeping it fast against the buffeting winds. It has purplish-green, spatula-shaped leaves and clusters of four-petaled flowers that are white, pink and purple. The flower petals are 24 millimeters long, smaller than a newborn’s fingernail. I hunch my shoulders into the wind and look out over the barrens and marvel at the thought of delicate flowers blooming in this desolate landscape.

I LLUMINATION

Gros Morne is a Creole phrase used to describe a large mountain that is set apart. It literally means “big sorrow” or “big dismal.” A large, lonely, sorrowful mountain. Gros Morne Mountain seems appropriate for a hike during the pandemic. Given the harsh climate of Newfoundland, it is easy to see why French fishermen gave the mountain its dreary name. But today, October 31, All Hallows’ Eve, the weather is exceptionally and unexpectedly clear. We check the revised mountain forecast. A treat! Sunny, highs around seven degrees, gentle breezes. We jump at the chance to climb Gros Morne before the snows cover the mountaintop (later that week as it turned out). I hastily fill water bottles, throw a handful of energy bars into a pack, toss the gear into our vehicle, and speed to the trailhead. Gros Morne pops up like a pink layer cake. The quartzite cap blushes and winks in the noonday sun. More than half a billion years ago, the top of Gros Morne was a tropical beach of quartzrich sand. Pressure and heat fused the sands together producing the hard pink quartzite now exposed on the mountaintop. The Merritt Lyndon Fernald, “Two summers of botanizing in Newfoundland. III. Noteworthy plants collected in Newfoundland, 1924 and 1925,” Rhodora 28, no. 328 (April 1926): 109. 4

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interior of the mountain is granite and gneiss, the oldest rock on the island, formed 1.2 billion years ago. In geological terms, this Precambrian filling is known as the “Grenville inlier” of the Appalachian orogeny. 250 million years of grating and palette work by glaciers and the elements set Gros Morne apart. Today the quartzite fondant sparkles pink against a sapphire sky. At 806 meters, Gros Morne is the tallest mountain in the park, and the second tallest on the island. The Cabox in the Lewis Hills Massif is 814 meters. The hike is a 16 kilometer loop that Parks Canada rates “difficult.” As we meander along the first few kilometers of the well-maintained trail I do not find it difficult. We gently gain elevation as we tramp alongside Crow Gulch Brook. Walking beside my love, along a gorgeous stream with splendid waterfalls feels more picturesque than sublime. There is no sense of wildness, as yet, to evoke the frisson of terror and pain that romantics seek in the mountains. Just a walk in the park. At about three kilometers the trail swings north. We step onto a 22-meter bridge that spans Crow Gulch Waterfall. Looking down at the crash of water on the boulders below, a pleasant vertiginous sensation mingles with the cool spay rising from the gorge. The trail arcs around the base of Crow Head Mountain and across Ferry Gulch until we reach the base of Gros Morne. A warning sign greets us. Caution! Do not proceed if you cannot see the top of Gros Morne or weather conditions are deteriorating. Reduced visibility may cause you to become disorientated, become separated from your party, fall over a cliff resulting in injury or death. The fun begins! I think of biblical mountaintop experiences. Most involve clouds and deteriorating weather conditions. Mount Sinai, when the Lord is present, is covered in thick cloud. The earth quakes, the wind blows, there is thunder and lightning, flashes of fire and the blast of trumpets. Scholars claim these phenomena are paraphernalia of theophanies. If I remember correctly, the manifestations of God on Sinai reveal an inscrutable Lord. Caution! The revelation of the Lord is paradoxically a hiding of God. The God revealed at Sinai is a God of the wilderness, of the forbidding wastelands between Egypt and the promised land,

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outside the control of state power or settled cult. The revealed Lord remains sovereign and free. At Sinai, Moses encounters God in the burning bush. God is present, but not visible; manifest, yet hidden. In fear, Moses hides his face and removes his sandals. However, the God of Sinai is not a vague numen, but the holy one of Israel, the God of the ancestors, the savior and redeemer of God’s people. God appears to Moses not to give him a mystical experience, but to give him a task: deliver my people from bondage in Egypt so that they can come to the mountain and worship me. Moses makes excuses for why he is not up to the task. For one thing, if Moses tells the Israelites that the God of their ancestors sent him, they might well ask for God’s name. What should he say? God reveals God’s inscrutable name: YHWH. I am who I am or I am what I am or I will be what I will be. The answer seems more evasive than forthright. The revealed Lord is the hidden Lord. The point is not a private unveiling of God’s identity on the mountaintop to a uniquely sensitive soul. Rather, the Lord will be known as the one who heard the cries of his people, who delivered them from bondage, who led them through the wilderness to Mount Sinai, where he made a covenant with them. But if you really need a name, tell them “I am” sent you. After their deliverance from Egypt and the sojourn in the wilderness, the Israelites arrive at Sinai. They camp at the base of the mountain for about fourteen months. During this time, Moses made several ascents, sometimes climbing solo, sometimes accompanied by a small team. The presence of the Lord is always shrouded in thick clouds. One time the Lord places Moses in the cleft of a rock and covers him with his hand as his glory passes by. When God removes his hand, Moses glimpses the back of the Lord. Even on the mountaintop, the presence of the Lord remains elusive and hidden. God did not bring the Israelites to Sinai so that Moses could have a mystical moment after completing a free solo. Rather, Sinai is the place where the Lord makes a covenant with his people. Exodus 19:3-6 introduces the entire revelation at Sinai: “Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and

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tell the Israelites: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.’” Sinai is the sealing of a holy covenant between the Lord and his beloved people. More important than going up, Moses came down from the mountain with God’s offer of betrothal. The sovereign Lord of heaven and earth chose Israel to be his treasured possession. Sinai is about love, and the way to remain united in bonds of love is to keep the commandments. The law is a gift from a lover to his beloved. The massive literary unit – from Exodus 19 though Numbers 10 – is the record of this gift. All of Israel was not summoned up the mountain in order to commune with God. Rather the Lord gave his Torah as the way in which his people could remain united to him forever. The exact location of Mount Sinai is unknown. Perhaps that is telling. Why return to the mountaintop, when the love of God came down in the law? “Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2). The God of Sinai remains elusive, wild, unknown. Yet, out of all the peoples of the earth, the sovereign Lord chose Israel to be his treasured possession. Love the Lord with all your heart and keep his commandments and you will be his treasure, a kingdom of priests, through whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Sinai is not so much about Moses going up, but about God’s love coming down. Chastened by the biblical narrative, I begin the ascent of Gros Morne. The sky is perfectly clear. No signs of impending theophanies. We can see the top of the mountain. Check. No outriders on the horizon of approaching storms. Check. Plenty of water. Check. The Gully or Boulder Chute is difficult climbing. In a little over a kilometer you ascend 500 meters. The path is a scree slope that falls down the west side of the mountain. I enjoy scrambling over chunks of quartzite. Using my hands, arms and torso to pull up while my legs drive forward gets me out of my head and into

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my body. Loose rocks clunk and grind underfoot. In some stretches, it’s two steps forward, one slide back. The occasional boulder kicks out tumbling several meters before finding a new resting place. About three quarters of the way up, I pause to catch my breath. I flop my pack on top of a protruding boulder and remove my fleece and mid-layer. The cool air on my sweat soaked t-shirt feels exquisite. My skin prickles in the wind. Wedging my rear end into the crevice in the rock, I turn and look out over the fjords and the gulf. My breathing slows. The thumping in my chest steadies. From the trailhead, several kilometers away, if discernable at all, I must appear as a speck in a gully on the slope of the mountain. The proportion is pleasing. The excess of Gros Morne right sizes me. I am here, indeed, sweating, panting, crawling up the side of a lonely mountain, and yet a piece of dust on the quartzite cap of a billion-year-old hunk of granite and gneiss. Fifty meters below, a bald eagle rides the thermals. From above, his head is a white delta and tail a splayed fan. He soars effortlessly on the air currents alongside the mountain. Isaiah said, “[T]hose who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (40:31). Feeling more goaded than consoled, I slip on my pack and trudge up the chute. At the summit, I remove my sopping t-shirt. The cold air and wind cool and dry my sweaty core. I spin around to take in the views. The top of Gros Morne is a big, bald head: mostly rock with some stunted vegetation. If it weren’t for the Parks Canada sign marking the spot, I wouldn’t know I was on the summit. Dried out and delightfully chilled, I put on mid layer, fleece and shell, stuff my wet t-shirt in my pack, and follow the trail north. Walking on the top of Gros Morne is easy. Sure-footed, head up, my eyes are free to scan, sweep, linger, and gaze. To my left, outlines of a half-dozen caribou appear on the rim of the mountain. Drawing nearer, I can see their mottled coats already turning white for the winter. Amy and I are the only people on the mountaintop. The caribou loll about, unaware or unconcern-

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ed. Soon they will migrate inland for the winter. They will return to the mountain in the spring to drop their calves. I think of the passage in Hosea, where God, assuming the Mosaic role of mediator, makes a new covenant not between Israel and himself, but between Israel and the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground. The entire created order will take part in the sacred remarriage of God and Israel. Mount Sinai becomes the symbol of cosmic harmony; the love of the Lord for Israel the model of a redeemed heaven and earth. God’s promise of peace flows through the covenant to include all of creation. We take a wide route around the area where the caribou graze and leave them be. We pause on the northside of the mountain to eat a Cliff Bar and enjoy the view over Ten Mile Pond. Ten Mile Pond is actually three miles long by a third of a mile wide. Altitude can distort as well as clarify vision. Ten Mile Pond is a landlocked fjord. A deep, narrow, Ushaped valley cut by a glacier curves around the north slope of Gros Morne. The steep drop from the mountaintop and the cliffs on the far side cast their intoxicating spell. From our perch, Ten Mile Pond, looks like a blue steel blade that winds its way around the mountain. When the glaciers retreated, the waters probably flowed all the way to the sea forming an inlet. The coastline, however, has since risen, and Ten Mile Pond now resolves into a rivulet that dead ends in Eastern Arm Pond. Romantic notions befuddle me on mountaintops. The ecstatic wonderment evoked by hoary hills and jagged peaks, the insight found in summit solitude, the inrush of lofty thoughts and high-minded sentiment seem like so many exercises in selfaggrandizement. Looking over Ten Mile Pond, I pray God to release me from this romantic witchery. During the pandemic, I desire the solace of desolate places that are indifferent to my feelings, sentiments, preening. I seek the dissolution of self, the consolation of oblivion. Several crucial events in Jesus’s life are set on mountains: the temptation, the sermon on the mount, the transfiguration, his arrest, the great commission. Echoes of Moses and the Sinai covenant reverberate in scriptural notches created by gospel

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peaks. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus appears as the new Moses. Yet, greater, much greater, more like the Lord revealed and hidden on Sinai. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus provides an authoritative interpretation of Torah. The Moses typology is unmistakable. Mountain. Revelation. Teaching. Indeed Jesus assures the crowd that he came not to destroy but to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. Not one letter or stroke of the Torah will pass away. Yet, Jesus is also unlike Moses. Moses is summoned to the mountaintop. Jesus takes the initiative and decides to go up the mountain. On the mountaintop, Moses receives the law from God and goes back down to deliver it to Israel. Jesus remains on the mountaintop where he gives his own teaching to the crowds. No smoking clouds, flashes of lightning, or thundering of trumpets. Just the lone figure of Jesus seated on the mountaintop, enthroned, and the clarity of his words descending upon the crowd. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth (Matt 5:3-5). During the pandemic these words rain down like manna in the wilderness. I pray comfort for all those who mourn the deaths of dear ones, near and far. I pray for the coming of the kingdom of heaven for the poor of this earth, who endure daily and deadly injustices exposed by a global disease. I pray for essential workers, in large part the meek and vulnerable, struggling heroically to keep things from coming apart at the seams. Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. On the mount of transfiguration, vision also gives way to hearing. After Jesus predicts his passion, death and resurrection, he leads Peter, James and John up a high mountain where he is transfigured before them. The veil lifts, and the glory that belongs to Jesus flashes forth, his face shining like the sun. Moses and Elijah also appear talking with Jesus. The one who will be stripped of his garments, is clothed in splendor; the one who will be crucified between two criminals, is flanked by Moses and Elijah; the one who will endure the shame of the cross, will be glorified in the fullness of the kingdom.

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For the disciples, however, apocalyptic vision leads to confusion. Bewildered, Peter suggests erecting three dwellings, shrinemonts, to prolong or memorialize the event. A heritage plaque of sorts commemorating the day our Lord blazed on the summit with two celebrated biblical mountaineers. Wrong! Despite the profusion of Sinai allusions in the transfiguration – the ascent after six days, the trio of companions accompanying Moses and Jesus, their shining faces – Peter forgets that the God revealed on the mountain remains elusive. Jesus just told the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, undergo great suffering, be killed and on the third day be raised. As Paul tells us, to the eyes of the wise and powerful, God’s self-disclosure in the crucified Lord is scandal, folly, hidden. Peter sees the transfigured Jesus, but doesn’t understand. He babbles about buildings. God cuts Peter off mid-sentence. While he is still speaking, a bright cloud overshadows them. Even Peter couldn’t miss this Sinaitic sign of God’s presence. Visibility deteriorates as God’s Shekinah enshrouds the mountaintop. God speaks out of the cloud: “This is my Son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matt 17:5). As vision falters, the encounter becomes auditory. The same words spoken at Jesus’s baptism identifying him as Son and beloved servant are spoken on the mount of transfiguration, but this time an emphatic “listen to him” is added. Hear, listen, follow. Don’t build a tent on the mountaintop that you can visit occasionally on a sunny day. Listen to the words of the Sermon on the Mount and do them. Listen to what he just told you about needing to go to Jerusalem to suffer, die, and rise again. Listen to what he said to would be followers, “[T]ake up your cross and follow me” (Matt 16:24). The vision on the mountaintop falters. The hearing and doing and following keeps us connected to Christ always. At the very end of Matthew’s Gospel, the risen Lord meets the disciples on a mountain in Galilee. He gives the great commission: go, make disciples, baptize. And, for the first time, Jesus commissions his disciples to teach. Teach them everything that I have commanded you. Teach them to hear, listen, follow.

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Then Jesus reminds them that he is with them always, even unto the end of the age. The mountaintop experiences in the gospels are not so much about disciples going up, but about God’s love coming down. Beatitudes descend upon the crowd. God’s Son, the beloved, must go down the mountain, to Jerusalem, where he will suffer, die and rise again. We do not need to go up the mountain to build a dwelling for Jesus. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. When the disciples hear the voice of the Lord on the mount of transfiguration, they fall to the ground. In fear and reverence they prostrate themselves before the Lord. It is then that Jesus comes to them, touches them and says, “Get up and do not be afraid” (Matt 17:7). The disciples look up and they saw no one except Jesus alone. On the top of Gros Morne, this is my pandemic prayer. That Jesus would come near and touch me. That I would hear his voice say, “Get up and do not be afraid.” That I would look up and see no one except Jesus alone. It is about three in the afternoon. We have only a few hours of daylight left to get back to our car before the sun sets. I pull the laces on my boots as tight as possible to prevent jamming my toes on the descent. I say a silent prayer that Jesus would keep us safe on the way down. I use words from Compline to pray for all those who suffer because of this terrible disease: “Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.” I cinch my pack tight, and we head down the mountain.

U NKNOWING

On snowshoes, Amy and I break trail on the way to Western Brook Pond. It’s a cold morning in early March, about five below. Sheets of stratocumulus clouds billow overhead. We clomp through the powdery snow that covers the path through the frozen peat bog. When the southerly winds blow, sprindrifts halo any rises in the terrain.

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Western Brook Pond is actually a 16 kilometer landlocked fjord. Glaciers cut a deep gorge in the Long Range Mountains, its mouth gaping on the mountains’ western face. Today, snow and ice cling to the steep cliffs rising from the pond. In the winter’s light, the rock appears black in contrast to the white of snow and the gray of sky. Massive icicles cascade down seams cut by tributaries and waterfalls. The glaciers sheered a textbook cross section of geologic time in the massive cliffs. The bulk of the rockface is granite, gneiss, and schist formed over a billion years ago when tectonic plates collided in the assembly of Rodinia. Slashing through the bedrock, however, are vertical seams of 600-million-year-old diabase. When Rodinia began to break apart, molten rock shot through the fissures in the earth’s crust and hardened into dykes. On one side of the seam, the billion-year-old granite, gneiss, and schist created at the birth of a supercontinent; on the other side, the 600-million-year-old diabase formed at its death. Commonplace tropes used to illustrate geologic time come to mind. Imagine the earth’s history in a single calendar year. The Precambrian runs from New Year’s Day until November, dinosaurs roam from mid-December to Boxing Day, and humans appear at two seconds to midnight on New Year’s Eve. Or spread wide your arms to represent all time on earth. The Precambrian stretches from the tip of the fingers of one hand to the wrist of the other, dinosaurs roam between the joints of your fingers, and human history appears as the edge of the nail on your longest finger. Take an emery board and give it a swipe. You have eradicated human history. These images are serviceable, but shopworn. For stomachflipping intimations of deep time, I’d rather stare at rocks. No literary artifice is necessary. They don’t build to a punchline about the imagined appearance of human beings. Just the slow rate of geological movement, measured in centimeters, continued for millions of years, producing the steep cliffs of Western Brook Pond. The voice from the whirlwind puts questions of deep time to Job. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? Have you

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entered the storehouses of the snow? (Job 38:4,8,22). The Lord gives Job a glimpse of the vast, unfathomable, deep history of the earth, and lays bare his ignorance. The voice continues. Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions? Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high? (Job 38:39, 39:1,27). Job covers his mouth with his hands. He had spoken of things he did not understand, things too wonderful for him. God reveals a natural world that is wild, beautiful, terrible. It has everything to do with God and nothing to do with Job. Job repents and is comforted to be dust in God’s universe. We return to the trailhead by the same route. Clomping on the broken trail is easier. My mind wanders to modern paraphrases of the voice’s questions. Where were you when the Long Range Mountains were formed? Who closed up the Iapetus Ocean? Can you hunt harp seal for the Killer Whale? Do you observe the calving of Caribou on Gros Morne? Is it at your command that the bald eagle rides the thermals? The wind picks up in the mid-afternoon. Breaks in the clouds appear. Gusts kick up snow devils on the peat bog, whirling in the distance. Sprindrift flows like a river over rocks in the field. A shaft of sunlight catches frozen water crystals hanging in the air. They sparkle like diamonds.

REDIRECTING OUR GAZE AND REWILDING OUR WORSHIP: HOW 1 ENOCH CAN HELP A CHURCH ADDRESS CLIMATE CRISIS1 AMY E. RICHTER Earth and its inhabitants are in trouble. All major indicators point to human activity as the culprit. From the climate crisis to environmental degradation, the effect of humans on the beyondhuman world is devastating. “The earth is on fire,” is an oftrepeated assessment of the situation. Those who feel the heat and watch the thermometer rise are scrambling to extinguish the blaze. They warn humans to stop playing with the matchbox of our everyday behaviors, assumptions, and policy decisions about how to live in this world. People sometimes look to religious literature either to douse or fan the flames. As a priest in The Episcopal Church, I’ve heard parishioners express the ambivalence of biblical texts as impetus for taking action or even having concern for non-human creation. God’s statement to humans in Gen 1:28 telling them to “subdue” the earth and “have dominion over” fish, birds, and every living, moving thing on the earth (NRSV), indicates to some divine This essay is dedicated to Deirdre Dempsey, who helped me become a better student of scripture, and so a better priest, and who modelled that an excellent teacher helps make the subject come alive for her students.

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sanction to use non-human creation as a resource with fulfillment of humans’ perceived needs as sole barometer of how we’re doing. To others, it’s a mandate to exercise careful stewardship for all of creation. God’s promise never again to destroy every living creature with a flood (Gen 9:21) means to some that concern about climate crisis and rising sea levels is delusional because God won’t let that happen again; to others that God has ceded such destructive power to humans. The biblical promise of new heavens and a new earth (Isa 65:17, 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13) signals the ultimate passing of this world, so why not let it burn? Or, it indicates God’s unquenchable love for this world, a love so fierce God intends renewal for the cosmos rather than escape routes from it for the righteous. People express similar conflicting interpretations of our liturgy. In the preface of Eucharistic Prayer D in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer,2 we state that we are “giving voice to every creature under heaven,” as we acclaim God and glorify God’s name. Is this a claim that human speech in praise of God is somehow superior to the cacophony of non-human noises or a call to be mindful of how we might gather up into our praise the coos, caws, and clacks of crows’ call, the moans and sighs of humpback whales, and the clatter and rustle of reed sweet grass? In 2013 the Anglican Church of Canada (where I currently serve) added a vow to the Baptismal Covenant, the statement of faith and descriptions of how we will live out our faith, made or renewed at every baptism. The addition elicits our promise to take action on behalf of our struggling planet: “Will you strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth?” “I will with God’s help” is our response.3 But when I say it, part of my heart sighs, “God’s going to have to do all the lifting on this one.” Many people I know think that any real help we will get for keeping this vow will come from outside the church; from research, studies, and observations with no ties to religious claims. A common assumption amongst The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Seabury, 1979), 372–76. Book of Alternative Services (revised 2013; Toronto: Anglican Church Centre, 1985), 159. Cited 7 December 2021. Online: https://www.anglican.ca/wp-content/uploads/BAS.pdf.

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parishioners is that if we have anything to contribute to creation care it’s going to be in spite of our identity as Christians, not because of it. I’ve heard and read a lot of Earth Day and Season of Creation sermons that sound more like presentations I could just as easily hear at my local library or Rotary club, where, honestly, those might be better done because there’s no rush to tack on some Bible passages and an “Amen” at the end. Isn’t there something we can draw on that speaks to and from who we are as people who “believe in God the Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth,” which we profess every week in the Nicene Creed, or who say that we join “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” as part of our prayer to consecrate our Eucharistic feast? My examples show a need for ongoing Bible study and understanding of our liturgy in light of ecological crisis, but a resource we would be wise to draw on for help is the book of 1 Enoch, a collection of apocalyptic texts written from about the late fourth century B.C.E. until the late first century B.C.E. Although this pseudepigraphical book is not part of the canon in The Episcopal Church, it has much to offer us and other Christians looking for ways to keep the promise linking our baptismal identity to our care for the whole earth. However, in its amazing regard for beyond-human creation and view of our place in the cosmos, 1 Enoch may first leave us awestruck and silent, preventing us from saying too blithely, “I will with God’s help.” The more fitting first response after some deep listening to this seer and gazing where his words point may be Enoch’s “And when I saw, I blessed—and I shall always bless—the Lord of glory, who has wrought great and glorious wonders . . .” (1 En. 36:6).4 This essay is an exploration of how 1 Enoch can help reorient our gaze and rewild our religious imaginations, particularly as we worship. Before proceeding, though, I want to identify the “our” of this rumination and why we might turn to a non-canonical (for us) book for help. I am thinking of the congregations I serve and

All quotations of 1 Enoch come from George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004). 4

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drawing on past experiences of using 1 Enoch in adult education and pastoral care. Reading 1 Enoch allows us to engage texts with familiar themes from our Bible, but with fresh eyes. We can ask questions of this text that parishioners are sometimes shy about asking of the Bible. We can respectfully discuss or even argue about matters of faith and practice that feel too dangerous or dear to tackle if we turn first to what is, for us, canonical scripture. We can have our assumptions about familiar texts shaken loose when we hear an unfamiliar take on them and find they enlighten our readings of the New Testament. In reading 1 Enoch we are also reminded that we have much to learn from sister and brother Christians who have a bigger Bible than we, whose canon includes these writings and whose world may be all the richer for it. I also know that multitudes of people live in a world that is not disenchanted and their worship needs no rewilding. By “rewilding” I mean a version of what people working in ecological conservation mean: restoring a healthy ecosystem by reintroducing creatures who used to live in a place, creatures crowded out or killed. In my use, related to our liturgy, it’s not that elements of the beyond-human world have in fact ceased to exist or been run out of a particular geography. I mean that some of us fail to acknowledge their presence in a meaningful way and that all of creation would benefit if humans would make room for them, or notice their presence around the altar. I appreciate the “wilding” part of re-wilding because 1 Enoch can help us recover the decentering aspect of worshiping in a world that we acknowledge is full of wonders beyond our ken or control. There are Christians who have no sense that angels and other beyondhuman creation must have gone extinct after the last book of the Bible was written. There are people whose faith traditions have not, as mine has, become impoverished by the relegation of angels to Christmas pageants, where they are often played by the younger Sunday School classes, parents holding their breaths to see if their darlings will keep tinsel haloes in place or refrain from jabbing another child with the tip of their cardboard wings. A comparison of catechisms illustrates the difference in outlook. Although much of the wording of most subjects is the same, the Catechism of the Prayer Book of the Anglican Church

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of the Province of Southern Africa (ACSA) has four questions and answers about angels (and a further two questions about demons and possession by evil spirits).5 The Catechism in the Book of Common Prayer of The Episcopal Church has no mention of angels, who, according to the ACSA Catechism, “are part of God’s great unseen world” (question 130) and “are important to us.” In part, they “remind us that we are part of a great spiritual world that is bound up with our material world” (question 131). The Episcopal Church’s “Outline of the Faith,” as the Catechism is called, names humans as “part of God’s creation,” but our overlooking of angels indicates, perhaps, that we are missing out on being able to see or sense other members of God’s exuberant creation all around us. And yet, we make claims, like I mentioned above, that we join with a heavenly chorus when we sing or say the Sanctus. We acknowledge that “countless throngs of angels stand before [God] to serve [God] night and day” (Prayer D). We promise to care for God’s creation. How might 1 Enoch sharpen our gaze to see whose presence we join in our worship and help us better keep our promises? I will look at two aspects of 1 Enoch that I believe can help. First, Enoch redirects our gaze. Although 1 Enoch contains revelations of future eschatological judgment, the seer directs us to look at non-human creation in this world, both that which is visible to us under normal circumstances as well as non-human creation not usually disclosed to human beings. Enoch’s visions enrich our perception of the beyond-human world and model a relationship with non-human nature that is not about non-human creation providing resources for human consumption or use. Second, Enoch rewilds our worship, decentering humans from our perception of our role in worship, helping us to better understand our participation in worship as a gift. Through both of these aspects—redirection and rewilding—we may learn to resist commodification, viewing non-human creation solely as a An Anglican Prayer Book 1989. Cited 3 March 2022. Online: https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/109008/Catechism-usedby-the-Anglican-Church-in-Southern-Africa.pdf. 5

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resource to be used by us (gently or otherwise), and doing our part to care for creation because we are people who worship God, not in spite of it. In the limited scope of this essay I will focus on excerpts from the section called the Book of the Watchers, consisting of 1 Enoch 1–36. In these chapters Enoch receives revelations of events in the primordial past, insight into various natural phenomena visible in this world, and a tour of the cosmos in which Enoch is shown how various natural phenomena occur, the heavenly realms, and places significant for the eschatological judgment. These visions show a created world in which humans figure relatively little. We see not a mirror, not a world of anthropomorphic creatures or human references writ large. We see natural phenomena we cannot experience or explain. We can’t replace or replicate these phenomena, but we can participate in their ruin. Or we can gaze, as the seer does, see what he sees and how it is interpreted, and join in worship. But first we have to notice.

I. REDIRECTING OUR GAZE

Writings of 1 Enoch can help us become better stewards of creation by redirecting our gaze to, first, observe non-human creation. Then, when we do look at nature, Enoch directs us away from regarding non-human creation as a resource we can use to enrich ourselves in some way or merely to see our own reflections staring back at us. Further, Enoch gives access to a view of creation that dethrones us from pretension to be the center of the universe. The functioning and beauty of the cosmos from the lower realms to the highest is revealed in 1 Enoch to be relatively human-free. As recipients of the visions of Enoch, we get a glimpse into a wonder-filled universe. However, human participation in unrighteousness threatens non-human creation. What Enoch shows us of the non-human world is meant to elicit a response, but it’s an informed response, formed by knowing the purposes and plans of God, conformed to expectations of righteousness, and transformed by participation in worship.

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A. Observe how all the trees appear . . . (1 En. 3:1)

Enoch receives visions that focus our gaze on non-human nature. Looking at nature may seem a self-evident first step in helping us appreciate it. However, that Enoch observes non-human natural phenomena is itself significant. It shows this apocalyptic text’s concern for the world as it is and not only for a world to come. As Simone Kotva and Eva-Charlotte Mebius state in their examination of environmentalism and 1 Enoch, “[A]pocalypse resists planet-destroying powers through a fine-grained study of the existing [emphasis original] relations between humans, plants, animals, planets and stars, in the teeming pluriformity of created life.”6 To Enoch is revealed non-human creation observable by humans generally. For example, he sees trees, the clouds and dew of winter, that the summer sun heats dust and rock making it impossible to walk on them (1 En. 2:1–5:3). He is also shown natural phenomena that are usually not accessible to human view. For example, Enoch is shown “the treasuries of the stars and of the thunders” (1 En. 17:3), “the fire of the west, which provides all the sunsets” (1 En. 17:4), and “the winds of heaven that turn and bring to (their) setting the disk of the sun and all the stars” (1 En. 18:4). He is shown gates of heaven from which the north winds emerge. “When they blow, (there is) cold and hail and hoarfrost and snow and dew and rain” (1 En. 34:2). While today’s reader could question or find quaint the descriptions of how these natural phenomena function in terms of our modern scientific understanding, what is undeniable is the book’s concern to reveal and revel in natural wonders of the present world. Near the end of the Book of the Watchers, for example, we see Enoch with the archangel Uriel who shows Enoch some of these marvels. Enoch reports, “He showed me and wrote down for me everything, and also he wrote down their names and their appointed times and their functions” (1 En. 33:4). The account establishes the authority of Enoch—he gets his Simone Kotva and Eva-Charlotte Mebius, “Rethinking Environmentalism and Apocalypse: Anamorphosis in The Book of Enoch and Climate Fiction,” Religions 12 (2021): 6 of 15. [cited 4 October 2021]. Online: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080620

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information straight from an archangel. But the effect of the narrative is also intimacy and care. We imagine the righteous seer next to one of the highest ranking angels who not only reveals but records details for Enoch. The intimacy and care is not just between human and angel but between angel and the multiplicity of non-human phenomena. Beasts and birds “differing (in) their appearance and their beauty and their voices” (33:1), gates of heaven and stars, all have an archangel who knows them and watches over them and their movements. Humans should get their names right, should know what they do. Through attention to what is readily apparent to humans in the world around us and through revelation of details normally hidden to us but watched over by angels, non-human beings are shown to be created, ordered, and dear to God. God is not bent on destroying this world or marking time until God can get to the new creation God will actually take pleasure in or show concern for. According to 1 Enoch non-human nature is worthy of our attention too. Directing our gaze toward nature has an effect on us or should. But what kind of effect, and how does this work? We’ll look next at how 1 Enoch redirects our gaze when we look at nature. It’s not enough just to look at the natural world. What one sees, what happens to the one who sees, and how one interprets what is viewed is crucial. Case in point: Enoch looks at trees and sees examples of righteousness, created beings doing what they were made for by God, honoring their divinely appointed roles. Others would look at the same grove and see kindling or the raw materials of cardboard boxes and toilet tissue. It’s not looking alone that can change our relationship to nonhuman nature. 1 Enoch redirects our gaze when we contemplate nature, away from some popular ideas people have today for how non-human nature is useful to us and towards a worthy goal. B. They all carry out his word. . . But you have not stood firm (1 En. 5:2, 4)

Encouraging people to contemplate nature is an ancient idea enjoying new popularity. The idea that observation of natural, non-human phenomena can enhance our understanding of the world and our place in it appears earlier than 1 Enoch, for

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example in the book of Job (sixth century B.C.E.), and may be familiar to Christians in Jesus’s exhortation to “Look at the birds of the air” and “Consider the lilies of the field” [Matt 6:26, 28, NRSV]. But to what end ought we to observe the non-human world? What do we expect will happen when we stop and smell the roses? From enriching our happiness7 and increasing our creativity8 to benefiting our health,9 spending time in natural environments shows promise for helping humans live better lives. That scientific studies supports these possibilities probably doesn’t surprise us and these benefits are all to the good. But for the purposes of this essay, let’s note that they are all still uses of non-human nature. Sure, they are kinder and gentler than strip-mining mountains or bottom trawling oceans, and, with attention and care, they may be reaped without significant impact on the non-human world. However, the title of one article expresses a theme frequently voiced by proponents of using nature as a resource for humans: “Seeing Ourselves Through Nature.”10 This representative article provides “a range of ideas to help you see your multilayered reflection in our magnificent natural world.”11 Nature in this view is merely a mirror. Even out of doors, we can feed our desire to

Nicole Mahabir, “How Natural Landscapes Can Enrich Your Happiness,” n. p. [cited 7 January 2022]. CBC Life, Feb 23, 2018. Online: https://www.cbc.ca/life/wellness/how-natural-landscapes-can-enrichyour-health-and-happiness-1.4549193 8 Ruth Ann Atchley, David L. Strayer, and Paul Atchley, PLOS One, December 12, 2012, n. p. [cited 7 January 2022] Online: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.00 51474 9 Jim Robbins, “Ecopsychology: How Immersion in Nature Benefits Your Health,” Yale Environment 360, Jan 9, 2020, n. p. [cited 7 January 2022] Online: https://e360.yale.edu/features/ecopsychology-how-immersion-innature-benefits-your-health 10 Margarita Tartakovsky, “Seeing Ourselves Through Nature,” Spirituality & Health, n. p. [cited 7 January 2021]. Online: https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/articles/2018/04/17/seeingourselves-through-nature 11 Ibid. 7

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see ourselves reflected back to ourselves. The natural world provides the means for contemplation of ourselves. We can use animals and objects, the writer suggests, to think more about our aspirations and needs. We can “[e]xplore the Animal Kingdom” and “reflect and respond to characteristics and qualities” of animals in order to better understand these same characteristics and qualities that “we see in ourselves or would like to develop.”12 We can “[p]ick up a natural object” and ask ourselves, “‘What does this symbolize?’ Think of it as ‘an invitation for your subconscious to give you a message that you might need in that moment.’”13 Animals and natural objects lead us to, well, us. Nature can also help us relax our expectations of ourselves. The expansiveness of nature can take us beyond “‘shoulds’—I should be a certain way [emphasis in the original] . . . we realize that the parts of ourselves that we judge—ever-so harshly—may actually be ‘understandable, even acceptable.’”14 The author here is making the point that like other living organisms, humans are complex. However, I can’t help but hear an important contrast with the results of the contemplation of nature in 1 Enoch. In Enoch’s visions we are admonished to contemplate nature, not in order to see a happier, more creative, healthier, more ethically relaxed version of ourselves gazing back—a selfie, albeit an improved version of us and in a pleasant setting. The majority of what Enoch is shown keeps its gaze focused on the non-human. When, after observing natural phenomena, we eventually are given a view of ourselves, we don’t see a mirror. We see a contrast, revealing, in fact, that humans actually “should be a certain way.” In 1 Enoch, the human gaze is turned toward nature with the result that humanity receives a view of the stark difference between natural phenomena and ourselves. In 1 En. 2:1–5:3 sinners are admonished to “contemplate” and “observe” several different non-human created phenomena: the works of heaven, Ibid. Ibid. 14 Ibid. 12 13

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luminaries, the earth, signs of summer and winter, trees that lose their leaves and those that do not, the seas and rivers. All of these faithfully play their divinely appointed roles. Especially when read against an article where nature serves humanity or reflects it in some way, the passage in 1 Enoch reads like a relentless and wonder-filled eye exam, where the optometrist provides all the answers. Not “What do you see?” but, “See here . . . and here . . . and here.” The ones ordered to look at non-human nature are not allowed to drop their gaze to their own navels or pause to consider how they are affected by what is before them. Contemplate all (his works), and observe the works of heaven ... Observe the earth, and contemplate the works that take place on it . . . Observe Contemplate and observe how all the trees appear withered and (how) all their leaves are stripped, except fourteen trees that are not stripped . . . Observe how, in like manner, the sea and the rivers . . . Contemplate all these works, and understand that he who lives for all the ages made all these works. . . (1 En. 2:1-3:1, 5:1b, 3).

Repeated throughout the passage is the claim that God made these things and gave them their orders from which they do not stray. The only mentions of humans in this passage are ones in which humans are passive (“all the works of God are manifest to you” 1 En. 2:2) and frail (“you seek shelter and shade from [the sun’s] presence, and the earth burns with scorching heat, and you are unable to tread on the dust or the rock because of the burning” 1 En. 4:1). Even the fruit of the trees is not “for food” for humans as in Gen 1:29. Rather, it is “for glorious honor” (1 En. 5:1). God made these things and they “all carry out their works for him” (1 En. 5:2). God is creator and referent of their obedience. None of this is hidden to humans, who can see what is before them; nor are humans described as the reason any of these things exist. In contrast to any human pretense to be in charge, to stride out in

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might upon the earth, we see humans scampering to seek shade, lest they burn their delicate feet. Where humans do come into focus is at the end of the section. Unlike non-human creation that carries out God’s “word,” sinful humans do not act according to “his commandments,” and more, have haughtily spoken “proud and hard words with your unclean mouth against his majesty” (1 En. 5:4). To gaze upon nature is to see how humans should be, but are not. This contemplation of nature leads not to happiness or stress relief. Rather, the verdict is, “Hard of heart! There will be no peace for you!” (1 En. 5:4). There are, in fact, shoulds associated with human life. Humans might prefer to remain observers, unaffected by what we see. But 1 Enoch also shows what can happen when the act of gazing upon nature is allowed to overwhelm and change us. C. I went off and sat by the waters of Dan (1 En. 13:7)

In 1 En. 13:7, we hear that Enoch “went off and sat by the waters of Dan in the land of Dan, which is south of Hermon to the west.” That is, Enoch is outdoors, in nature, by a river when he receives another series of visions. Much can be said about this particular location as an area of sacred activity and revelation15 and the similarity with Ezekiel by the river Chebar (Ezek 1:1) and Daniel standing on the bank of the Tigris (Dan 10:4) when they receive visions. However, what I wish to point out is that when Enoch goes outside and sits by a river near a mountain, he doesn’t go to better himself, increase his happiness, or lower his stress level. He goes to become a vessel. Enoch is active: he sits by the river and reads aloud a petition he has written to God until he falls asleep. The account makes it clear that Enoch is not manipulating the experience or fabricating it. He is a passive recipient of the visions he then narrates in subsequent chapters. He immerses himself in a natural setting and something happens to him. What is the nature of that “happening”? For example, see George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, Fortress, 2001), 239–47.

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That Enoch recites a petition to God while sitting by a river may indicate the seer’s engaging in some intentional practice in order to facilitate a revelatory experience.16 But perhaps, as we may also see in other places in 1 Enoch when Enoch looks at natural phenomena, what we see is an example of an experience of overwhelm that reorients us when we are in a natural environment and give our attention fully to a non-human entity. This experience isn’t limited to people in the past. We ourselves may have had such experiences of overwhelm. We watch waves pound the shore. We witness caribou browsing on the summit of the mountain. We stand in the river and watch salmon jump. We have no words. Our utterances are all vowels—ah, oh—or inhalations, exhalations. We are not reflected back to ourselves. We are held in the grasp of something other, or Other. How we ultimately interpret that experience makes the difference. Perhaps in Enoch’s accounts we witness, as Kotva and Mebius suggest, what Jean-Luc Marion describes as “an ‘anamorphosis’ of perception.”17 Through an experience of what he calls “saturated phenomenon,” one’s gaze is radically shifted, overturned, reoriented. “Where previously one looked at the world, attempting to grasp it with one’s gaze, one is now looked at by the world, receiving its presence in a state of radical openness and connectivity.”18 Marion doesn’t use non-human natural phenomena as examples of “saturated phenomena,” but Christina Gschwandtner makes a compelling case that natural phenomena function in the way that Marion describes.19 16 See, for example, the examination of Hekhalot texts in which water is used to facilitate visions by Geoffrey W. Dennis, “The Use of Water as a Medium for Altered States of Consciousness in Early Jewish Mysticism: A Cross-Disciplinary Analysis,” Anthropology of Consciousness 19:1 (2008): 84-106. 17 Kotva and Mebius, “Rethinking Environmentalism and Apocalypse,” 1 of 15. 18 Ibid., 9 of 15. 19 Christina E. Gschwandtner, “Might Nature Be Interpreted as a Saturated Phenomenon?” in Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics (ed. Forrest Clingerman, Brian Treanor, Martin Drenthen, and David Utsler; New York: Fordham University, 2013), 82.

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“Saturated phenomena” are “overwhelming and bedazzling. They cannot be grasped or controlled but blind us with their excess.”20 Despite the fact that the one who experiences such a phenomenon can never fully grasp it, “the recipient identifies and describes, makes choices in light of the phenomenon, and maybe even creates a great work of art.”21 Perhaps the recipient even writes an apocalypse. Indeed, as I am indebted to Kotva and Mebius for pointing out, Marion argues in his Gifford lectures, Givenness and Revelation, that “apocalypse, in its etymological sense of ‘unveiling,’ should be understood as a particular way of perceiving the world that elicits wonder, rather than as merely a prediction regarding the world’s future.”22 What we witness in Enoch’s account is an anamorphosis. By the river, Enoch is not a neutral bystander attempting “to possess the thing it perceives.”23 Rather than grasping, he is grasped. The seer is seen. Phenomena that can be viewed by humans now act upon him: “Look, clouds in the vision were summoning me, and mists were crying out to me; and shooting stars and lightning flashes were hastening me and speeding me along, and winds in my vision made me fly up and lifted me upward and brought me to heaven” (1 En. 14:8). Enoch does not, cannot, possess his experience. But later he can testify to it: “In this vision I saw in my dream what I now speak with a human tongue and with the breath of my mouth, which the Great One has given to humans, to speak with them and to understand with the heart” (1 En. 14:2). No longer a seer, he becomes a witness. It’s an understatement to say that Enoch’s experience of natural phemonena is different from using nature as a means to “see your multilayered reflection in our magnificent natural world.” Such self-oriented use of nature (and what would it be other than use if it’s self-oriented?) exemplifies Marion’s point that it is possible for someone to “remain at the center of a Ibid., 83. Ibid., 87. 22 Kotva and Mebius, “Rethinking Environmentalism and Apocalypse,” 9 of 15. 23 Ibid. 20 21

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spectacle that brings him [sic] only . . . invisible mirrors of his own solitary gaze.” However, in apocalypse anamorphosis occurs, overturning this “idolatrous perspective.” 24 Enoch receives and recounts rather than possessing or prevailing. He can point; he cannot exploit or employ. He is not the center, but he is part of the vast creation that he now sees anew and shows to us. Kotva and Mebius state, “For Marion what distinguishes apocalypse from other forms of theological discourse is less the content of the visions shown to the prophet, and more the ‘overturning’ of the ‘solitary gaze’ that makes the visions possible in the first place.”25 Marion’s view may help illuminate the form of apocalypse. However, the content of Enoch’s visions are of the utmost importance, not only for Enoch, but for us in our seeking for ways to recover a gaze of nature that doesn’t lead to desire, possession, or consumption. It makes a difference that Enoch in viewing trees sees creatures carrying out their appointed tasks, rather than raw materials for human purposes. It’s not just the way Enoch’s seeing functions—that he has an experience of overwhelm while viewing nature—that is important for redirecting our gaze. What he sees in his experience of radical reorientation, the content, can help us. The content, not just the form of apocalyptic redirects our gaze. It’s not enough to see as the seer sees. We need to see what the seer sees. And here’s where we may get nervous or bashful in reading apocalyptic or suggesting it as a resource. Emulating the seer by going out into nature—that’s something we can share with the neighbors. Saying we read the words of someone who looks at trees is one thing, but visions of “a great house built of hailstones” (1 En. 14:10) and a throne like ice with wheels like the sun on rivers of fire is another matter altogether. Maybe that’s why Kotva and Mebius emphasize the role of apocalypse as “the story of persons and readers learning to see the world differently as they become more aware of their environment.”26 Kotva and Mebius show the present-world orientation and the more

Ibid. Ibid. 26 Ibid., 13 of 15. 24 25

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mundane details in 1 Enoch very effectively. But they don’t include the less familiar, perhaps more fantastical details of Enoch’s visions. To do so doesn’t suit their purpose of next examining an example of “realist as well as speculative” British climate fiction.27 But some people would avoid such details in an attempt to make apocalyptic more approachable, more appealing, less bizarre. But what’s more absurd—visions of angels or policies and practices that deforest, drown, desiccate, and destroy the non-human creation that we are only beginning to understand? Enoch’s visions are intended to help his readers better understand the beyond-human world. The visions’ contents also help the reader realize we stand under a reality greater than what we can comprehend or imagine. This realization redirects our gaze away from self, from use and commodification, and toward righteousness, being in right relationship with the holy and nonhuman nature, practiced and experienced through worship. We will look at worship below, but first, I want to show another way that 1 Enoch addresses the subject of gaze, through it’s story of gaze gone wrong, perverted, that leads to environmental disaster. It’s the story of the fall of the watchers. D. Gaze Gone Wrong

The rebellion, or fall of the watchers is the subject of 1 En. 6–11, an interpretation of Genesis 6–9. Briefly put, angels called “watchers” gaze upon human women and see that the women are beautiful. They decide to descend and take the women and impregnate them to produce offspring for themselves. Here let’s note that the language of the text is spare and direct: “And the watchers, the sons of heaven, saw [the women] and desired them. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the daughters of men, and let us beget children for ourselves’” (1 En. 6:2). Once the watchers decides to make this their plan, they “took for themselves wives for themselves from among them such as they chose. And they began to go in to them . . .” (1 En. 7:1).

27

Ibid., 11 of 15.

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When discussing this text, it’s often politeness that makes people use language like “have sexual relations with” or even “take as sexual partners” to describe what the angels do to the women. But the connotations of “relations” of “relationship” may indicate a mutuality not warranted by the text and the women are in no way depicted as “partners.” Nor is it clear that the women become “wives” of the watchers.28 The women are seen, desired, selected, and impregnated. The description is closer to stalking and rape than courtship. Neither the women’s opinions of the events nor any mention of choice in the matter is recorded. Here, the women are seen, commodified, and used. Use of creatures to satisfy the desires of more powerful beings starts at the top, with angels in this story. From here, the devastating effects of the watchers’ grasping gaze will spread to include nonhuman creation as well. The women give birth to giants who have appetites that all the labor of humans cannot sate, so the giants devour people and “sin against the birds and beasts and creeping things and the fish, and to devour one another’s flesh. And they drank the blood” (1 En. 7:4–5). The offspring of the watchers are the ultimate consumers, literally devouring every kind of living thing. The world is further threatened because the watchers also reveal forbidden secrets to humans, teaching them technology for war and methods for manipulation and exerting power over others and the earth, how “to make swords of iron and weapons and shields and breastplates and every instrument of war” (1 En. 8:1), metallurgy, pharmacopeia, spells, sorcery, and astrology (1 En. 8:2–3). All of creation is imperiled by the insatiable giants and the harmful skills that were never supposed to be used by humans. The situation is unbearable, but besieged creation does not keep silent. Not only do “the spirits of the souls of the men who have died make suit” (1 En. 9:10), but the earth has a voice and uses it to lament: “Then the earth brought accusations against the Loren T. Stuckenbruck, “Words from the Book of Enoch on the Environment,” in The Blessing of Enoch: 1 Enoch and Contemporary Theology (ed. Philip F. Esler; Eugene: Cascade, 2017), 117. 28

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lawless ones” (1 En. 7:6). These cries are heard by archangels and by God, and Enoch is given a role to play in revealing the judgment and punishment meted out to the watchers and their offspring, the role of Noah and the flood through which the earth would be renovated, and the future final judgment and punishment of the watchers and all unrighteous humanity. Please note that the destruction of creation in this story originates with rebellious angels who are judged and punished for the devastation they wrought. The environmental devastation described here and God’s judgment on it is protological, situated in the past. God uses the flood to cleanse the earth, giving humans the opportunity to live in right relationship with the rest of creation. However, the way forward will be difficult, and faithfulness cannot be taken for granted. The spirits of the giants still live on the earth. They “, do violence, make desolate, and attack and wrestle and hurl upon the earth and cause illnesses” (1 En. 15:11). Humans still have the watchers’ forbidden secrets at their disposal. Hence the need for the revelations to righteous Enoch and his oracles to warn and instruct humans in how to live now so that someday all the earth will be tilled in righteousness and all of it will be tilled in righteousness, and all of it will be planted with trees and filled with blessing; and all the trees of joy will be planted on it (1 En. 10:18).

As Loren Stuckenbruck states, “Given the link between protology and eschatology, it would be strange were the Enochic text to envision anything else than the faithful as active contributors to the well-being of the natural world.”29 As the first readers of 1 Enoch would have recognized, the days when “the deeds of righteousness and truth will be planted forever with joy” (1 En. 10:16) lay as yet in the future. Environmental devastation was then, as now, a lived reality. Micah Kiel examines the Book of the Watchers set against the backdrop of Hellenistic warfare. He notes the ravages of war on soils, forests,

29

Ibid., 121–22.

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and animals.30 The original readers of 1 Enoch would have recognized in the rapacious giants and challenge to God’s sovereignty the threats to creation posed by war and violence and the kings who perpetrated them. Kiel writes, “This mythic description of the sins of the watchers comports well with local populations’ experience of warfare in the Hellenistic period. Devastated crops, billeting armies, and exploiting livestock—in sum, ill treatment of flora and fauna—pulse in the background of the Book of Watchers’ mythology.”31 We can add the abuse of women to the reality and methods of warfare. As with other apocalyptic texts, 1 Enoch is resistance literature, written to comfort the faithful, to urge them to rely “not on human ingenuity and technology, but on God’s providence and continued role as creator.”32 The distorted gaze that turns creatures into commodities to be used for the warped desires of the powerful is judged as wrong and in need of redirection. Even in this brief examination of the contents of 1 Enoch, we see that it’s not enough simply to view non-human nature, even if it results in an experience of anamorphosis. The content of what’s seen and the interpretation of the experience is of crucial importance. Enoch issues his challenge: will we see aright? A critical component in redirecting our gaze is worship. Like the ways in which Enoch redirects our gaze, when addressing worship, Enoch decenters and dethrones us. The view of worship we are given by Enoch shows little that is human, comprehensible by humans, or created for human experience or consumption.

II. REWILDING OUR W ORSHIP

I will briefly address three examples from 1 Enoch that can help rewild our worship in ways that recognize the presence of beyond-human creation in worship of the divine. The first two Micah D. Kiel, “Revelation’s Ancestors: An Ecological Alternative in the Context of Hellenistic War,” in idem, Apocalyptic Ecology: The Book of Revelation, the Earth, and the Future (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017), n. p. [cited 2 December 2021]. Online: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mun/detail.action?docID=4947139 31 Ibid., 12 of 19. 32 Ibid., 15 of 19. 30

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come from Enoch’s ascent to the throne of God (1 En. 14:8–23). First, Enoch’s journey into the presence of God takes him to a realm described with little reference to humans but fully represented by beyond-human creation. Second, what is described as existing in the presence of God is incomprehensible and impossible for humans. To get to view it all at all through Enoch’s revelations must be interpreted as an experience of grace. Third, Enoch shows the eschatological fulfilment of God’s providence as an act of worship. But that worship is participated in proleptically by Enoch whose revelations are punctuated by doxology. These examples may point out ways our liturgy is impoverished, lonely, lacking acknowledgment of the presence of the beyond-human world. Perhaps we may be encouraged and inspired to rethink the vastness of the company with whom we gather in worship and how we might “give voice to every creature under heaven.” If our worship is rewilded, our gaze may be made righteous, and our lives more respectful of all of God’s creation. We might see as Enoch did, that in this enchanted world, full of beings with their own stories to tell, their own relationship with God, their own roles separate from human beings, that the point of it all is worship of God. A. No human could look at him (1 En. 14:21)

According to 1 En. 14:8–23, the throne of God and all the way to it is surrounded by natural phenomena and is described in terms of natural phenomena. Save Enoch, no humans are present. The company of the Divine are all beyond-human creatures, natural and supernatural. This may seem a strange point to make, but it’s a striking picture. The way to the throne, the throne room, and the throne itself are vibrant, bountiful, exuberant, abundant nonhuman phenomena, with no humans in sight, few references to humans, save what will help Enoch communicate with his readers. Enoch is transported by means of natural phenomena. He is summoned by clouds and mists, hastened by shooting stars and lightning flashes. Winds lift him up and bring him to heaven (1 En. 14:8).

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Once there, he describes structures that are all comprised of natural phenomena. Enoch uses words shared with human experience, “house,” “walls,” “ceiling,” “doors,” “floor,” “throne,” (1 En. 14:9–13, 15, 17–19, 21). But the constitution of these objects defies human experience, turning the words into references for our benefit, indicating position and giving orientation, not referring in any way to us. For example, Enoch draws near to “a wall made of hailstones” encircled by “tongues of fire” (1 En. 14:9). He draws near to “a great house built of hailstones,” with walls and floor “of snow” (1 En. 14:10), a “ceiling like shooting stars and lightning flashes,” walls encircled by “flaming fire” and doors that “blazed with fire” (1 En. 14:11– 12). This is no human abode redecorated for heaven. This is something not constructed for humans at all. The effect on Enoch is understandably terrifying (1 En. 14:13). The dwelling place of God is not hospitable to humans. But absence of humans in the space does not make it devoid of creation and, except for the angels, things we can see on earth. B. No one among humans has seen as I saw (1 En. 19:3)

However, the natural phenomena familiar to humans is combined in a way incomprehensible to humans. Enoch can describe the sight of them and the fear they evoke in him, but they are, like doors made of fire and ceilings like shooting stars, things we can only imagine. And when we do imagine these combinations—a house “hot as fire and cold as snow” (1 En. 14:13), a throne “like ice, and its wheels like the shining sun, . . . and from beneath the throne issued rivers of flaming fire” (1 En. 14:18–19)—there is nowhere in our experience that they fit. They can only signal to us a glimpse into the realm of the holy Other. Add in the “voice of the cherubim” at the throne (1 En. 14:18), and the effect is even further beyond us. Humans have nothing to do with this. We cannot create it, harness it, fathom it. We can only find our place next to Enoch, lying prostrate (1 En. 14:14), and after taking in the sight, unable to see (1 En. 14:19). Despite the absence of humans or human-made things or references to human-centric reality, God does not appear to be lonely. Rather God is surrounded by phenomena from every

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season and climate on earth and by the ten thousand times ten thousand who stand before him (1 En. 14:22) and the “holy ones of the watchers” who did not leave God. The absence of humans is not a problem or lack for God. The results of this vision, in addition to a commission for Enoch, are a decentering of human perception of our place in the cosmos, and an elevation of the holiness of non-human creation. Once again, the revelation to Enoch exposes human pretense to being the center of the universe. The beyond-human world gets to be represented before the throne of God, but we do not. This sense of the purpose of beyond-human creation, separate from and not-dependent on or directed by humans is expanded as Enoch is taken on further tours of the world and still encounters no humans. He sees and smells fragrant trees (1 En. 24:3–5; 29:2; 31:3). He sees mountains, valleys, water, fire, precious stones, and elements. But no people. The closest thing to a person he sees is the spirit of slain Abel (1 En. 22:5–7) making lament. God has purposes for all of these natural phenomena, some of which will impact righteous and unrighteous people after the judgment. But their purposes are directed by God. They are not resources for humans. Many of them wouldn’t be visible to humans, if not for God’s revelation of them to Enoch. The effect of these revelations is an awareness of what can only be described as grace. Enoch may have been chosen for these revelations because he is righteous (1 En. 15:1), but, as mentioned above, he is described as the recipient of them, not the originator of them. As readers, we are put in the position of receiving what we would not otherwise receive, see what we otherwise could not see, have access to a realm—even the throne room of God—only because the experience is given. We have not qualified for it. But will we learn from it? Be changed by it? Will we let it form us into people who worship the God of all creation rather than seek to use or abuse or idolize what is not God? In a sermon on a eucharistic interpretation of 1 Peter 2:1–8, Catherine Pickstock describes a human problem that Enoch can help us address, especially through the subject of worship. She writes,

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Normally, when we organize the world around us, we imagine that certain elements are basic. We like to think that these things can be counted, one by one, separately and as if bounded . . . But how do we know when we have seized hold of a countable thing? . . . There can be pretenders to thingness. This is a human problem; our finite perspective is inclined to hold fast to things, shore them up, and enthrone the partial as if it were absolute.33

Isn’t this part of our problem as we regard the natural world? We regard non-human creation as something to count. We enthrone what is partial as if it were absolute. However, when we read Enoch’s visions, we see things familiar from the natural environment, but we see them anew, located beyond our ability to count them, to use them, to idolize them. Our new vision enables new possibilities: hailstones like walls on the way to the throne room of God, snow like a floor, lightning like a ceiling. Because, via Enoch’s vision, I have glimpsed the throne room of God, any ice I see now can give me a glimpse of “what lies beyond sight”34: the throne of God. Likewise when I see lightning, or hailstones, or fire, I can see a “vision of the invisible.”35 Through my experience of these natural phenomena, I am transported to the place where God is enthroned and worshipped, attended by “ten thousand times ten thousand who stand before him” (1 En. 14:22). When I see trees and mountains, I can remember that they have a purpose assigned by God, a purpose revealed only once the seer has prostrated himself and then has been lifted up, commissioned, and shown that purpose. In the context of God’s throne room and through the visions of Enoch the worshipper, I am reminded that non-human creation does not exist as something at my disposal, for my use. My life, and not just my worship, can become more fully liturgical. It may be fruitful to do more exploration than can be done here of 1 Enoch in light of the description Catherine Pickstock gives of the liturgical gift of peace, which “is not an ‘object’ which 33 Catherine Pickstock, “The Game of the Stone: A Sermon on 1 Peter 2.1–8,” Theology 115.3 (2012): 192. 34 Ibid., 191. 35 Ibid.

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we offer to each other: if peace is exchanged, then this really means that peace is the true character of a genuine flow and exchange of gift.”36 Enoch is not just a recipient. He participates in a flow of receiving and offering in which all of creation takes part. That peace is the gift may also show why the result for the unrighteous—those who turn aside, who put themselves apart, speaking against God’s majesty, who do not keep the commandments of God, or, we might say, those who do not participate in a liturgical life—is “no peace” (1 En. 5:4). C. And when I saw, I blessed—and I shall always bless— the Lord of glory (1 En. 36:4)

The eschatological fulfilment of God’s providence is an act of worship which will take place when the earth is purified and people are righteous (1 En. 10:20–21). But that worship is participated in proleptically by Enoch whose revelations are punctuated by doxology. At the conclusion of each of his journeys, he erupts in praise. “Then I blessed the Lord of glory and said, ‘Blessed is the judgment of righteousness and blessed are you, O Lord of majesty and righteousness, who are Lord of eternity” (1 En. 22:14). “Then I blessed the God of glory, the King of eternity . . .” (1 En. 25:7). “Then I blessed the Lord of glory . . . (1 En. 27:5). The Book of the Watchers concludes with the longest doxology, which expresses praise of God for God’s showing of God’s deeds to Enoch (“when I saw, I blessed”) and to angels and humans “so that they might see the work of his might and glorify the deeds of his hands and bless him forever” (1 En. 36:4). Enoch has seen what God has shown to him and to angels, and through him to others, so that all might join in worship forever. Worship will mark the fulfillment of God’s actions and should punctuate the journey all the way there. In 1 Enoch worship involves the beyond-human world which is shown to have a role and purpose from God that is separate from humans and is not described in terms of being resources for humans. Access to the presence of God for the human is by invitation, or more specifically, at the initiation of God. Enoch is Catherine Pickstock, After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 238.

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brought into the presence of the Holy One, and because of his role as visionary and righteous scribe, we gain access through his experience. Worship will be the culminating act of creation, and at that time, God will “open the storehouses of blessing that are in heaven, and make them descend upon the earth, upon the works and labor of the sons of men. And then truth and peace will be united together for all the days of eternity and for all the generations of humanity” (1 En. 11:1–2). But worship is engaged in along the way to this end and, for Enoch, is inspired by what is revealed to him of non-human creation, which has its own role to play in God’s providence.

CONCLUSIONS

This essay has explored some ways in which 1 Enoch might help us address the climate crisis from our identity as Christians, informed by scripture and liturgy, who understand ourselves as having a part to play in care for creation. Enoch’s visions provide a model for care and intention for how we view the non-human world. Enoch redirects our gaze, away from ourselves, away from seeing the rest of creation as a resource for our use. Enoch rewilds our worship by showing us a cosmos filled with wonders, beyondhuman created beings who have their own relationship with God, their own divinely-appointed purposes. To be in their presence in the throne room of God through Enoch’s visions is, as worship always is, a gift. Moving forward from here, I would like to explore these passages and others from 1 Enoch with members of the parish I serve to see what insights arise. It could be fruitful to read, for example, the passage of Enoch’s ascent to the throne room of God paired with some of the Psalms. Enoch’s vision takes us along with him on his ascent, putting us within the experience with him. Might we learn to pray some Psalms in that same way, particularly those extolling beyond-human creation, as experiences rather than information, seeing ourselves as participants in awe, rather than neutral bystanders reading a description? 1 Enoch can help us be mindful that in our worship we are not inviting God into our carefully constructed liturgies. If we worship at all, we join in with a liturgy already underway.

THE GOSPEL OF SHE: GEN 3:15 AS MILITANT QUEEN MOTHER OF THE BIBLE NATHANAEL E. SCHMIEDICKE I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. - Gen 3:15 RSV Jewish and Christian tradition concur that this malediction on the serpent is a protoevangelium—the “first gospel” God gave fallen humanity and the declaration of war driving salvation history toward the final victory of the Messiah—the Bible in a nutshell.1 From the Jewish tradition see Targum Onkelos on Gen 3:15: “He will always remember what you did to him in ancient times; and you will watch for him—to the end of time.” Israel Drazin et al., eds. Onkelos on the Torah: Genesis (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2006), 19. Targum Neofiti is even more explicit: “It will come about that when her sons observe the Law and do the commandments . . . they will smite you on the head and kill you. But when they forsake the commandments of the Law you will . . . bite him on his heel and make him ill. For her sons, however, there will be a remedy, since they are to make appeasement in the end, in the day of King Messiah.” Martin McNamara, Targum Neofiti: Genesis (Aramaic Bible, 1A; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), 61. From early Christianity see Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses (ed. Cyril C. Richardson; Library of Christian Classics, 1; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1953) 1

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Though some earlier modern scholars rejected such allencompassing implications for Gen 3:15,2 others reappropriated the traditional understanding in light of current discussions of biblical redaction and Davidic messianism. The Davidic monarchy and its role of crushing the enemies of God’s people (imaged as primordial monsters; Psalms 18, 89) were models for the figure of Adam-the-ruler and the militant male seed of the woman in Genesis, and eventually also of Christ as Davidic heir in the New Testament.3 This insight eventually expanded to include the Davidic institution of the gebirah, the queen Mother, for the portrayal of the woman of Genesis who becomes Eve, mother of all the living, and, in the New Testament, for Mary, the mother of Christ, and also the church.4 Although scholars associate the gebirah with various roles— mother, counsellor, viceregent, and people’s advocate for her son 390-391. From the Protestant tradition, Matthew Henry’s treatment of this passage in his popular Commentary on the Whole Bible, originally published in 1708, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1961), 10. Fr. Tiburtius Gallus’s work on the mariological interpretation of the protoevangelium likewise shows that Matthew Henry’s interpretation is in the mainstream of Protestant exegesis of this passage, going back to Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. Tiburtius Gallus, Der Nachkomme der Frau in der altlutheranishen Schriftauslegung. Ein betrag zur Geschicte der Exegese von Gen 3, 15 (vols 12; Klagenfurt: Carinthia, 1964, 1973). See also Stephano Manelli, All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed: Biblical Mariology (trans. P. D. Fehlner, F.F.I.; New Bedford, MA: Academy of the Immaculate, 2005), 23 n. 3. 2 Gerhard von Rad, Genesis (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961), 90; Claus Westermann, Genesis (Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament, 1/4; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchen Verlag, 1970), 355. 3 Walter Brueggemann, “From Dust to Kingship,” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 84 (1972): 1-18; Walter Wiffal, “Gen 3:15—A Protoevangelium?” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 36.3 (1974): 361365. 4 Edward Sri, Queen Mother: A Biblical Theology of Mary’s Queenship (Steubenville: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2005), 58-66. Sri adds his own support for this view as well as providing a thorough summary of relevant scholarship. See also his more recent Rethinking Mary in the New Testament: What the Bible Tells Us About the Mother of the Messiah (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2018), 73-81. Also, Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah (New York: Image, 2018), 71-89.

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the king5—this article considers the proto-evangelical and therefore whole-biblical implications of an aspect of her character that allies her more immediately with the role of her son as serpent-crusher and savior, namely, her militancy. Beyond birthing and serving the savior, the mother-figure also saves him, and thereby, everyone else. Bathsheba, for example, not only served in her son’s kingdom, but secured it for him, saved Solomon from death by doing so, and sent her son’s elder-brother-rival Adonijah to an early grave as a result (1 Kings 1-2). Eve likewise restores Abel the protomartyr from the murder perpetrated on him by his elder brother by her prophetic reinstatement of Seth as Abel redivivus: “The Lord has set for me another seed in place of Abel whom Cain slew” (Gen 4:25).6 If Bathsheba or other gebirah-figures are models for understanding the prototypical gebirah-figure in Genesis then what is the complete character portrait of the woman whom the Lord there sets at enmity with the serpent? Although her recent supporters generally limit her role to being mother and royal associate of the male seed—he who will subsequently crush the serpent’s head—the curse itself puts her in terms first martial, then maternal, a primacy which ought to affect the reading of the whole.7 When allowed to do so, it gives

Neils-Erik A. Andreasen, “The Role of the Queen Mother in Israelite Society,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 45.2 (1983): 179-194. 6 Jon Levenson, Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1993) focuses on the father–son relationship, but his insights could be fruitfully applied also to the mother-son relationship. The mother, like the father, in form or in fact, loses her son, but miraculously gets him back again alive. Tob 11:9 and 2 Macc 7:29 are especially clear examples of this paradigm, which Eve’s words in Gen 4:25 seem also to take as granted because of what the Lord said about her and her seed in 3:15. If her seed dies in the fight, she can be sure she will get him back again to continue the fight until the serpent’s head is crushed. 7 Sri, Queen Mother, 65, though cautious, is the strongest of her supporters in terms of her activity: “…Genesis 3:15 presents a mother figure placed within a dynastic context and associated with her kingly offspring in bringing about some type of royal victory over the enemy. Such a mother sounds somewhat like the queen mother in the Davidic kingdom. In fact, 5

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an iconography of the woman as gebirah more complete and consonant with a frequent feature of the biblical drama that flows from this declaration of war, namely, the character of the surprise woman who saves everyone. In standard Hebrew-poetic parallelism, the second line of the curse on the serpent specifies and intensifies the first8: in a world now ruled by death, the war is maternity; maternity means war. As a way into this newer insight, I wish to reopen a very old insight recorded most notably in the Vulgate’s portrayal of the serpent’s attacker in Gen 3:15b as feminine—“she [ipsa] shall crush your head”—with a view to bringing this aspect of “the Bible in a nutshell” to bear on the larger question of biblical redaction and, particularly, the final shape of the Catholic biblical canon. Because of the scope of this, what I am doing here will of necessity be more suggestive than conclusive. However, in terms of the broad outlines of the role of the militant queen mother figure, the influence of “she-shall-crush” as a basic mode of receiving, relaying, and organizing written revelation seems too ubiquitous and well-placed to be unplanned. I will first (I) review some of the signs that “she” functions as the general organizing principle of biblical drama from its widespread and careful placement, then (II) look more closely at the feminine potentials at work in the Hebrew text of Gen 3:15, then (III) examine several specific instances of “she” characters throughout the Bible who seem patterned on this understanding of Gen 3:15, before (IV) returning briefly to the question of the biblical canon, particularly in the Roman Church.

I. SHE: ORGANIZATIONAL I CON OF THE BIBLE?

Canonical studies necessarily focus on a number of criteria such as inspiration, ancient liturgical use, orthodoxy, authority, citation, and adaptability for understanding the complicated

it is also significant that the woman takes center stage in relation to the royal offspring—the man is left out.” 8 Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 3-26.

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question: how did the Bibles we have become what they are?9 One neglected criterion in this discussion is the aesthetic. Did biblical books end up as they did because they fit a form that exists (in the mind of God, if nowhere else), a form to which they contributed concrete shape and color? If the random colorful bits of a mosaic happened to fall into the order of a recognizable portrait, we would think that remarkable. But the underlying surprise is that there was such a thing as that order for those pieces to fall into in the first place, and that we were able to recognize that ordered form.10 If such a theo-aesthetic reality existed between the Bible and its pieces and its authors and its viewers, how could we see it? One way would be to attempt to comprehend the whole by looking at beginnings and endings. As any number of authors have noticed, woman at war with the serpent-dragon is both the first and the final great dramatic tension presented to readers of the Christian biblical epic beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation (Genesis 3; Revelation 12; cf. Isaiah 27:1; 37:22-30).11

Lee Martin McDonald, The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007), 401-421. 10 Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 285. In his perceptive chapter on questions concerning the canon today, Metzger considers the “fortuitous” character of the coming together of the NT canon to be best understood as a type of “divine overruling” making order out of the mess and contraries of human intention. While there is certainly something to this—Gen 50:20; John 11:50 even seem to support such a view—nevertheless, there is still the question of the thing itself being (over)ruled. Is it the kind of thing that could fittingly be divinely intended in another direction altogether than the human agents intended it? Had Caiaphas spoken gibberish, or had Reuben rescued Joseph, this might not have served the divine intention so well. The indication from these biblical accounts seems to be that God rules with and by means of human intention not merely against or over it. Though God can create good ex nihilo and even ex malo, nevertheless, the pattern the Bible itself indicates is that the economy of salvation does not merely overrule the economy of damnation by fiat, but overcomes it by being a fitting, even if surprising, match for it. 11 John the seer seems to have been the first to be concerned with making this connection explicit by means of his identification (in Rev 12:9) of 9

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Or again, just as the grand finale of creation in Genesis 2 is the woman, so the grand finale of God’s final Apocalypse is to reveal, surprisingly, not God, but God-in-the-bride.12 Significantly, these feminine bookends of biblical epic are fairly obvious no matter which translation one reads. The Greek extras to Daniel (though placed differently in the mss) regale us with a kind of inclusion of the whole work of God through Daniel, who, in his youth brings it about that the woman wins (Susanna) and, then in his maturity, that the dragon loses (Daniel 13, 14). Likewise, Tobit is the story of a demon defeated in answer to the prayer of Sarah, who then becomes Tobiah’s bride and an icon of restored Jerusalem (Tobit 13). Greek Esther makes it such that the victory over Haman’s head (Esther 9:25) is also a victory over a dragon (Esther 10, 11). The completed LXX, with its famous portrait of the triumphant Mother of the martyrs (2 Maccabees 7) also seems inclined to end on a feminine inclusio to the work of Eve: the first and last mothers offer their martyr sons as prelude to, and dramatic cause of, victory: the city of God is in the possession of the saints; the defeated head of the enemy is displayed in token of the triumph (2 Macc 15:35).13 If for no other reason than that the Lord’s reputation is on the line, since it was he who promised enmity between the serpent and the woman in the beginning, and a crushed serpent’s head at the end, it would make sense that she became a dramatic focus and an organizational principle of Scripture. And yet, even if these broad outlines are apparent, their relation to the details of gender and royal character portrayal in Gen 3:15 is less so. If the “seed” of the woman is the primary object of the serpent’s attack, this suggests a different picture than the dragon just seen (in Rev 12:3) with “the ancient serpent” of Genesis 3. 12 Rev 21:1-22:5, a pattern John shares with Isaiah; cf. Isa 7:14; 62:5; 66:6-13. 13 4 Maccabees is even more explicit regarding the enmity between the Mother and the serpent and the victory of “she”. In its closing fivechapter expansion of 2 Maccabees 7, the Mother reports: “…nor did the destroyer, the deceitful serpent, defile the purity of my virginity” (4 Macc 18:8).

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if the woman herself becomes the focus of the serpent’s efforts.14 Likewise, if the woman’s “seed” deals the deadly head-blow to the serpent, this expresses a different aspect of reality than if the woman herself is involved in doing so. How are we to read Gen 3:15 and its relation to reiterations elsewhere in the Bible? Part of the difficulty in answering this question is the inherent complexity in “seed” as both a singular and a collective, and as both grammatically masculine with an affixed feminine suffix.15 Furthermore, there is the broader anthropological and biblical symbolism by which one’s life and identity continue in one’s descendants, such that the enmity between the woman and the serpent is still really present in the enmity between her seed and the serpent’s seed. Looking ahead to the drama that follows, “her seed” contains as the reality signified by the word, every “living one,” masculine or feminine, who will come from the woman, who becomes “Life” (LXX Ζωή) and Mother of all living (Gen 3:20).

As she clearly does in both Genesis 3:1 and Rev 12:13-15, and differently, in Daniel 13, or again in 2 Macc 7; cf. Tobit, Judith, Esther, all of which also present the woman in danger of attack, who then becomes the narrative cause of reversal against the attacker. 15 ‫ ; ַז ְר ָ ֑ﬠהּ‬LXX = τοῦ σπέρµατος αὐτῆς “her-sperm/seed” appears only in LXX Gen 3:15 and Rev 12:17. Though Hagar and Rebecca are other examples from Genesis of feminine subjects whose “seed” (‫( ) ַז ְרֵ֔ﬠְך‬Gen 16:10; 24:60) is spoken of, neither of these are spoken of in the third person as in Gen 3:15 (‫ ) ַז ְר ָ ֑ﬠהּ‬which differs therefore not only in vocalization, but also in spelling from the very frequently used masculine (‫ ) ַז ְרֲﬠָ֧ך‬Gen 17:7. Jack P. Lewis’s “The Woman’s Seed (Gen 3:15),” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 34/3 (1991): 299-319, whose otherwise erudite article does not make this distinction, could also have benefited from observing that although the woman is not the addressee of the Lord’s curse on the serpent, the continuing narrative of Genesis requires the reader to make the very basic narrative harmonization that she overheard these words, and took them seriously, since she essentially quotes from the protoevangelium in naming Seth as the new seed that the Lord has “set” for her. The patristic readings, with which Lewis shows great familiarity (though less sympathy), are not guided only by words, but by the larger realities of the human and divine drama in the rest of Scripture, as well as the basic human ability to see not only words but scenes and images created by those words. 14

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Add to this the Lord’s insistence that the enmity is, surprisingly, not between the serpent and the man, but explicitly between the serpent and the woman, and only within that context, by that means, and for that purpose, is it also “between your seed and her seed.” One can begin to appreciate the complexity of the question: Is it, as most English translations render the subject of Gen 3:15b, “he” or “it” or “they” or “her seed” that crush the serpent’s head?16 Or, is there reason for thinking Jerome might have been on to something when he chose “she”? Once the question is posed17 one cannot help wondering which of the options is best, how we are supposed to see it, whether this question is even intended, and whether we can know. I suggest that it is intended, that we can know, and even, in a sense, that we already do know, from our reading of the rest of the Bible. Important to reiterate at the outset, though, is that I am not seeking to interject the she reading back into Gen 3:15 from later traditions so much as seeking to elucidate the Bible’s own consistent articulation of precisely that reading as something already understood. Though the macroscopic view may be the only one able to answer the question adequately, nevertheless, no flattening of the biblical text (of which biblical theology is sometimes justly accused) is necessary to make the point. Rather the reverse—the jagged details of the text are everything, and the microscopic view of the text of the protoevangelium is the doorway into the larger arena. What then, does the text of Gen 3:15 have to say for itself?

II. THE HEBREW TEXT

The answer, though clear enough, reveals several pertinent ambiguities. The Masoretic text points the pronoun in question as “he,” referring to the grammatically masculine seed of the woman. Marten H. Woudstra, “Recent Translations of Genesis 3:15,” Calvin Theological Journal 6.2 (1971): 194-203. Though I disagree with some of his conclusions, Woudstra provides an apt summary of lexical issues and demonstrable uncertainties within translations of this text. 17 In my case, by a lot of persistent seminarians in love with the Blessed Virgin Mary and traditional Roman Catholic devotion and liturgy, to whom I am grateful. 16

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The LXX does similarly, though with an individualistic and probably messianic twist.18 These masculine renderings taking the antecedent of the pronoun to be the seed of the woman set the tone for almost every other translation since,19 excepting the best manuscripts of Vulgate.20 In terms of consonantal manuscripts such as the LXX and Jerome would have had, however, Hebrew within the Pentateuch has the notable feature of not distinguishing in spelling between the masculine and feminine third person pronoun (he = ‫= הוא‬ she) which, isolated from other factors, could mean that the pronoun refers to the woman.21 Current research on this Raymond A. Martin, “The Earliest Messianic Interpretation of Genesis 3:15,” Journal of Biblical Literature 84.4 (1965): 425-427. Greek had the ability (unlike Hebrew) to choose a pronoun to refer to the naturally and grammatically neuter (in Greek) “seed”, but, in an entirely exceptional mode (compared with practice elsewhere in Genesis) chose instead αὐτός to refer to the “seed” of the woman as a definite masculine individual, thereby indicating a messianic understanding of this verse. 19 It is worth noting the occasional appearance of the feminine in the Latin tradition prior to Jerome (ipsa or illa) see Bonifatius Fischer, ed. Vetus Latina, Genesis (Freiburg: Herder, 1954), 68-69, which would seem to indicate some hesitancy regarding even the clearly masculine rendering of the LXX as we have it, since the Vetus Latina was based on the LXX. 20 The only translations retaining “she” in English are those based on the Vulgate--the Douay-Rheims and Knox. In his note on this text, however, Monsignor Knox defended his translation not on the authority of the Vulgate, but on the poetic and metrical parallelism of Gen 3:15 in Hebrew, which he thinks, when rendered with she “plainly gives a better balance to the passage.” The Holy Bible (trans. Ronald Knox; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956) Gen 3:15, n. 1. See also the structural analysis and its exoneration of the Vulgate in Stephano Manelli, “Genesis 3:15 and the Immaculate Coredemptrix,” in Mary at the Foot of the Cross – V: Acts of the International Symposium on Marian Coredemption (New Bedford, MA: Academy of the Immaculate, 2005), 315-320. 21 There are 11 exceptions where MT Pentateuch does distinguish (Gen 14:2; 20:5; 38:25; Lv 11:39; 13:10, 21; 16:31; 20:17; 21:9; Nm 5:13, 14). The recent work of Michael Graves on Jerome’s Hebrew philology makes it unlikely in the extreme that Jerome would have abandoned his commitment to “Hebrew verity” and his demonstrable independence of thought—even when Christian tradition (not to mention the LXX) was against him—to change Gen 3:15b: pronouns, verbs, suffixes and all, for 18

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Pentateuchal anomaly indicates two pertinent aspects of this phenomenon: First, and in general, the masculine pronoun in Hebrew is the default and gender inclusive pronoun, such that if there were a pronoun that could possibly do double service ambiguously, such as might be rendered awkwardly in English by “(s)He” then the 3ms would be the one to use, though that use would to my knowledge be exceptional. Second, that what we are dealing with in the unique Pentateuchal usage of the 3m/fs pronoun is either a gender-neutral pronoun from a pre-Monarchic (perhaps strictly literary?) dialect of Hebrew, or, a word which, though written identically, distinguished the gender by different vocal pronunciations, the distinctions being made by context.22 The immediate context, in the case of the pronoun in Gen 3:15, strongly favors the masculine, especially because the verb that follows this pronoun has the masculine ending. Even that, however, is not as straightforward as it appears at first because the third person singular verb, as Juöun points out, does exhibit a tendency to mismatch in gender with its subject with the default the sake of a Marian foothold that is already there in Gen 3:15a. Michael Graves, Jerome’s Hebrew Philology: A Study Based on his Commentary on Jeremiah (Vigiliae Christianae Supplements Series 90; Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007), 193-199. On the other hand, one wonders whether Jerome’s voluminous correspondence with and advice to consecrated Christian women might be a factor. See Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Second Series vol. 6 and his thirty-seven letters to women. 22 Steven E. Fassenburg, “The Kethiv/Qere ‫ִהוא‬, Diachrony and Dialectology,” in Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, (eds. C. L. Miller and Z. Zevit; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 171-181. Why was this item retained “as is” in the manuscript tradition for the Pentateuch despite later Hebrew’s explicit written distinction [she (‫ )ִהוא‬versus he (‫ ?])֚הוּא‬The standard explanation is that it was retained because the Torah had been imbrued with such traditional authority that, by the time of the copying of these manuscripts, it could not be changed. Although this is unsatisfying and does not help to explain the eleven exceptions in the Pentateuch, I do not have a better explanation than this educated guess, though I will have something more to say about it later—namely that there is a notable correlation between the existence of the consistent 3ms/3fs pronominal spelling distinction and the existence of stories showcasing women crushing enemies’ heads beginning just outside the Pentateuch.

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setting being the masculine.23 Nevertheless, Robert Holmstedt’s recent painstakingly detailed and cross-linguistic analysis of this phenomenon goes beyond Juöun to demonstrate that this mismatch happens only in certain well-defined circumstances— when the verb precedes the subject (which it does not in this case), and when the subject is a noun (never when it is a pronoun, as it is in this case).24 Also, even when the mismatch happens, all subsequent references to the subject exhibit complete gender agreement—in this case again leading to the masculine reading because the serpent will, as the masculine pronominal suffix of the following verb indicates, “strike him” (‫)ְתּשׁוֶּ֥פנּו‬. As a caveat, however, Jerome’s rendering of the verse with the feminine25 seems very free for a man who took advice from Rabbis and whose commitment to “Hebrew verity” led him to disregard even revered translations and interpretations in the Christian tradition in favor of what he saw as the Hebrew meaning.26 This is so surprising that it has led some to posit a Paul Juöun, S.J. and Tamitsu Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Rome, Editrice Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 2006), §150b. 24 Robert Holmstedt, (personal correspondence and his article:) “SoCalled ―First Conjunct Agreement in Biblical Hebrew,” in Charles G. Haberl, ed. Afroasiatic Studies in Honor of Robert Hetzron (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 105-129. 25 Ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo eius (Gen 3:15b Vulg.). Notably, Jerome might be choosing a Latin rendition of this attentive to what he saw as possibilities in the Hebrew. Technically his Latin could be rendered “she shall crush your head while you lie in wait for his heel” since eius in Latin covers all three grammatical genders. The picture would then be this: the Lord threatens the serpent that, while he is busy striking at the heel of the woman’s seed, the woman will come from behind, as it were, and strike the serpent’s head. On this reading, Jerome’s ipsa follows the potential feminine of the indistinguishable-by-spelling Hebrew pronoun, but his eius follows the clearly masculine suffix of the Hebrew verb. 26 See the famously hilarious example of the “ivy” versus “gourd” for Jonah 4:6 in Jerome’s Letter 112 to Augustine. Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Second Series vol. 6. See also Graves, Hebrew Philology, who notes among other aspects of Jerome’s qualities as a translator that he considered the absence of vowels in Hebrew itself to indicate that reading aloud is already interpretation (30), that the Greek mss served as Jerome’s baseline “lexicons” between Hebrew and Latin (121), but that for Jerome the ambiguity of the Hebrew is often to be preferred to the 23

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different Hebrew vorlage no longer extant except in Jerome’s translation, and a few other translations and allusions that precede him.27 Beyond this, one should add to the analysis of the Hebrew grammar of the passage that there are always exceptions to everything linguistic when poetry is involved, more especially when divine mysteries are involved, and most especially when both are involved, as they are here. Though the author of Genesis 2-3 is not exactly saying, “Grammar and etymology be damned” when he offers his explanations for various connections between words, names, and realities, he certainly has no insecurities about his poetic license. But, charging his frequent folk-etymologies or wordplays on similar sounds and spelling with error is tantamount to charging Shakespeare’s linguistic freedom and addiction to puns with being bad English. Rather, this free play is the mark of a master, and the implied reader is expected to appreciate the double-entendre as a medium of meaning. Our author’s exploiting the unique feature of Pentateuchal Hebrew’s “he” to mean also, or even especially, “she”—particularly when they are spelled the same anyway—would be small potatoes compared with some of his other stunts. But the small potatoes are a warning: “correctness” is irrelevant.28 Finally, if we allow the Author behind the author into the picture, that is, if we are really going to have the word of God in clarity of the LXX (38, n. 87), and was even considered in certain instances to be a kind of intentional artistry (49). Perhaps Jerome’s largest departure from his received tradition and training in grammar, though, according the Graves, was his turn away from “literary appreciation” of the style of the text in preference for the meaning of the text, precisely because it was Scripture (75). 27 Manelli, “Genesis 3:15,” 308, gives an inclusive list. The editors of the RSVCE proposed that an early copyist of the Vulgate must have interfered with Jerome’s Latin manuscript, but that his mistaken “she” is nevertheless capable of a true, Marian, interpretation. Unfortunately, the Qumran text of Genesis 3 breaks off right at Gen 3:15. 28 Refreshingly, Samuel A. Meir “Linguistic Clues on the Date and Canaanite Origin of Genesis 2:23-24,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 53.1 (1991): 19, accents this point, often, apparently, lost on serious scholars (perhaps because they are too serious?).

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human words, then realism necessitates expectation of supernatural complexity and therefore eccentricity.29 Rabbinic and Christian tradition agree on this issue too, voiced succinctly by Aquinas: “… since the author of Holy Writ is God, Who, by one act comprehends all things by His intellect, it is not unfitting, as Augustine says, if, even according to the literal sense, one word in Holy Writ should have several senses.”30 When Jesus weighed in on this topic rabbinically, he had already said the same thing, but more: “not one iota, not a dot shall pass from the law until all is accomplished” (Matt 5:18). When dealing with an excess of intelligibility in a single part or aspect of a word, one might have to be willing to allow the poet to speak as the Spirit moves, even at the expense of annoying the grammarian. In conclusion, “she” does seem to be the lectio difficilior in this case, which in itself ought to be enough to give her a fairer shake than she has sometimes had at the hands of scholars, translators, and textual critics.31 Nevertheless, it does really look like everything supports the more gender-inclusive of the two options, namely, “he”, and everything also points to the nonnecessity of bringing “she” into the picture at all for Gen 3:15b. Everything, that is, except for everything else. Cf. Jeremy Holmes, Cur Deus Verba: Why the Word Became Words (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2021), 168-172, and his discussion of how Scripture’s likeness and unlikeness to other human texts and the effect of this on what we mean by the literal sense. Pius XII, Providentissimus Deus (1945) accounts for this phenomenon as well: “The language of the Bible is employed to express… many things which are beyond the power and scope of the reason of man—that is to say, divine mysteries and all that is related to them. There is sometimes in such passages a fullness and a hidden depth of meaning which the letter hardly expresses and which the laws of interpretation hardly warrant” (§14). 30 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.1.10. 31 Rudolf Kittel’s BHK of 1905, for example, retains St. Jerome’s ipsa variant in the critical apparatus of Gen 3:15. By the 1929 edition it had been removed, and is also absent from the BHS. Thereafter it began to disappear from English Catholic Bibles also. The Catholic versions still frequently retain footnotes that explain why she is not a tenable translation but that also attempt to salvage she as a valid interpretation based perhaps on Gen 3:15a. Regardless, it seems an unwarranted and unnecessary text-critical exclusion. 29

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III. SHE IN THE REST OF THE BIBLE

Both in terms of its immediate and ultimate history, this text’s most consonant context is the Bible. What I wish to focus on now is the way in which the Bible outside of Gen 3:15 supports—one might almost say flaunts—the she reading repeatedly in plain pictures. Moreover, it does so most iconographically at just that point in the Bible when Hebrew had developed the consistent distinction in spelling between “he” and “she” just outside the Pentateuch.32 What, then, do the rest of the Scriptures tell us about this fundamental part (Gen 3:15)? Far too much to say shortly, so here I will only summarize and overview the most apparent phenomena.33 What begins in Joshua with Rahab (another woman who saves the men) and her surprise conversion to Israel, which leads to her household’s conversion, and then to the city of Gibeah’s conversion, reaches its final trajectory with the cosmos coming to a standstill at the word of Joshua so he can issue his ultimate command to the captains of Israel after the victory over the five kings: “Come near, put your feet upon the necks of these kings.” (Josh 10:24-25). Though it is the men with their feet on the necks of the enemy kings here, they are the straightforward narrative outcome of what Rahab started. Isaac Newton’s first law is not God’s first gospel, and Dante had it only partly right: the love that moves, or stops, the sun and the other stars is the protoevangelium. What ends with the head of the enemy crushed, must begin with she.

32 This is not to deny the presence of this woman-who-saves-the-savior icon within the Pentateuch. The savior-hero of that portion of the Bible, Moses, does little in the first eighty years of his life as reported in Exodus but get saved by his women: the midwives, his mother, Miriam, Pharao’s daughter, and later, Zipporah (Exodus 1-4). Jacob, likewise, is portrayed as gaining the blessing meant for Esau by the machinations of his mother who is unafraid of the dangerous curse on herself (Genesis 27). Even Abraham and Isaac, from their own perspective at least, are saved from almost certain death by a ruse that puts their women in grave danger instead (Gen 12:12; 20:2; 26:7). 33 For a fuller answer, see (forthcoming) Nathanael E. Schmiedicke, The Gospel of She: Why Woman is Mother of the Bible (and Death of the Devil).

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With this as a commencement, the Bible goes on to present numerous stories of women portrayed as God’s secret weapon, stories that consistently reveal a similar form: the enemy, in the very act of destroying the people of God, is himself destroyed, by the woman. Moreover, the woman reliably does so in one mode— she strikes at his head. Biblical men have many ways to kill, women have one. This feminine modality prevails so much that the head-striking shows up even when bad women, in a sort of serpentine parody of the Lord’s declared curse in Gen 3:15b, murder the good men who are their enemies. Though there are many lethal women, not one of them kills in a way other than some dramatic narrative contrivance that ends up involving this strange focus on or allusion to the enemy’s head.34 One might argue that these stories of women victorious over the enemy’s head spring naturally from whatever history or mythological background or imagery is involved in each—“It just happened that way”— which in itself is a remarkable testament from God’s providential poetics of history worth pondering, since repetition is the mother of learning. But the historical event does not of itself explain the re-telling of the event, and the similar form in which that artistic, pious, inspired formation of the history as story or image proceeds in each case. The historian’s and poet’s most important decision is editorial—to include or Two seeming exceptions—the unnamed mothers who eat the son during the siege of Samaria (2 Kgs 6:29), and queen Athaliah who “destroyed all the royal seed” in Jerusalem (it does not say how, 2 Kgs 11:1)—ultimately tend to prove the rule. To the woman who confesses her deed, the king responds in retaliation that since Elisha had allowed the Syrians now besieging Samaria to escape “May God do so to me and more also if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!” (2 Kgs 6:31). As for Athaliah’s murder of the “royal seed” in Jerusalem, in context this act is clearly revenge for Jehu’s having beheaded all the seventy sons of her father, king Ahab (2 Kgs 10:7), and thus, without saying so, strongly suggests beheading. Another seeming exception—Jezebel’s machinations to murder Naboth by stoning (1 Kgs 21:10)—rebounds upon her as the inverted gospel of she would demand: when she dies after being thrown out of an upper window, the dogs that eat her body significantly leave behind her skull in token of her defeat (2 Kgs 9:35).

34

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exclude details. For it to be accurate history, there was no absolute need to know that Jael dispatched Sisera with a tentspike through his head, or that Abimelech died from a millstone that a woman dropped on his head, or that Sheba’s head was removed from his shoulders at the instigation of a wise woman, or even that John the Baptist’s head ended up on a platter because of a female conspiracy.35 These details were kept and reported for some reason beyond mere curious fact-telling. The point for our purpose is not simply the historical dimension but the inspired literary artistry or historiography that shaped and presented received events and images as it did, and that these artfully presented histories were kept, written, codified, and canonized as they were into one collection we now know as the Bible. This cross-historical artful coherence necessitates some agent that transcends the particular historical moment of each story. I reverence the insight that would refer to this agent as divine providence, but the main instrument of divine providence in history is human beings, and the only means by which humans, at any rate, can transcend their particular location in history is tradition. The widespread presence of these stories, in history and in the canon of Scripture, plus their mutual coherence of form, looks much less like a coincidence and much more like a conspiracy, indicating the existence of just such a tradition. Once one has done the comparisons, a manifest aspect of this tradition is that it preferred the feminine reading of the protoevangelium. But here is the key: the guardians of this tradition preferred she not because these stories recorded in the rest of the Bible happened to convince them of that reading. Rather, it is the other way around: they recorded and canonized these stories in the way that they did in the first place because they were inspired to see in something that happened a confirmation and fulfillment of their already existing understanding of the feminine head-crusher encrypted in the Bible’s first gospel. To put it bluntly, God kept 35 Luke, for example, leaves the two women who martyr John the Baptist out of his story entirely, though both Matthew and Mark include them (Lk 9:9 and parallels), choosing instead to focus on two other women, who both bear martyr sons (Elizabeth and Mary).

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beating them (and their enemies) over the head with she. At some point early on, they got the picture and consistently wrote and organized Scripture that way. Thus, say what we may about the grammatical gender issues of Gen 3:15, this tradition, the major proof of which is these stories, predates by centuries anything Jerome and his Rabbis may have done with or discovered in their particular Hebrew manuscript of Genesis, and of which they may simply have served as yet another set of spokesmen. It predates the Septuagint’s inclusion in the canon of three other stories that fit the same pattern: Judith, Susanna, and the mother of the seven martyrs followed by Nicanor’s decapitation in 2 Maccabees.36 The stories of Jael, Abimelech’s bane, and the wise woman of Abel Beth Ma’acah (Judges 4-5; 9:53; 2 Sam 20:19-22) indicate that it even predates the final redaction of the Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint’s masculine rendering of Gen 3:15b makes it patent that another tradition existed, but Philo’s comment on Gen 3:15b makes it equally apparent that this masculine reading was not universally accepted: a highly educated Greek-speaking Alexandrian Jew thought it “a barbarism” and preferred she. 37 Ultimately, the Even Tobiah’s battle with the Tigris-monster-fish (culturally the symbol for Assyria, narratively the symbol for the demon afflicting his future bride Sarah) can be seen in this form—Raphael commands that he “take it” the only practical way to catch a fish being to do so, by the mouth or gill, that is, the head, a detail included in Jerome’s Aramaic version of the story (Vulg. Tob 6:4), cf. Isa 27:1; 37:22, 29 and Job 40:20, likewise depicting the sea monster Leviathan captured by the head. 37 Philo, Legum Allegoria III in Francis Henry Colson and George Herbert Whitaker, eds., Philo (10 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929–1964), 1.429. “The sentence, ‘He shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his heel’ is a barbarism, but has a perfectly correct meaning. It is addressed to the serpent concerning the woman, but the woman is not ‘he’ but rather ‘she.’” His offhand comment that the Greek rendering of this text in the masculine (autos) is “a barbarism” and ought to be “she” (aute) because it refers to the woman is particularly interesting, since he takes precisely the same track that many modern Catholic commentators on Jerome’s ipsa do, but with the opposite outcome. The Septuagint’s “he” is, according to Philo, technically a false translation, but it is nevertheless capable of a true interpretation, which he then proceeds to give in detail. From the Christian Greek tradition (though maintained only in a Latin 36

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variations are rooted in the inherent ambiguity of the text itself, regardless of language, and with Hebrew, in the ambiguity of the pronoun. Even so, LXX Gen 3:15 only serves to intensify the question regarding the Hebrew Bible’s inclusion of these stories, and the Septuagint’s eventual inclusion of (at least) three more of the same form. Why did they do it as they did? Supposing she were an original or early understood possibility with regard to the protoevangelium, such as, for example, would be the case if one were to mimic the Hebrew potential with English characters: “(s)He will strike you—head and you will strike him heel”? And what if the real point of this ambiguity was not only to conceal but to reveal? What if, both grammatically and materially, inside he was everything needed to make she, lacking only the special intervention of the divine intention and touch to bring her out? Or, to use the language of the LXX and John, what if the thing God ultimately wanted to reveal by all of this was that “in him was Zoe” (ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ; Jn 1:4; Gen 3:20) she who would be Life and Mother of all living, taken from his side (τὴν πλευράν; LXX Gen 2:22; Jn 19:34)? But then, of course, the Bible makes much of the fact that this is precisely what the Lord did do as the surprise final work of his material creation and redemption and revelation. But in the beginning the serpent wrecked her, so God promised her a crushing revenge. She was, after all, his daughter (Lk 3:38). Before he was a God who keeps his promises, he was a father who keeps his threats. What then, should we expect to find? Just what we do find—a litany of biblical fulfillment-stories portraying she as the victor over the enemy. Closer analysis of these texts reveal that their authors seem interested in something beyond mere preference for she. Rather, in the choices they make translation which uses “illa” rather than “ipsa”), St. John Chrysostom: “Illa tuum observavit caput, et tu observavis eius calcaneum.” He then goes on to clarify his feminine understanding of the passage by adding that this great war is between the woman and the serpent: Magnum inter mulierem et serpentem certamen attendo, magnum bellum…” Patrologia Latina Supplementum IV, 673: Collectio Escurialensis, Homilia 3: Sermo divi Ioannis Chrisostomi super illud Geneseos, “Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem.”

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as inspired authors, they work more in the mode of propaganda. Why? For the simple reason that in so doing, they were faithfully promulgating that a prophecy of hope—the Bible’s first and therefore most determinative—had been fulfilled. The Lord had kept his threat—again and again in the life of Israel and the Church. This thing we call “hope” did not exist prior to the protoevangelium, but now it did, and the form of hope revealed by God was feminine, and these authors had proof. To get some of the more apparent manifestos of this congregation for the doctrine of the feminine together in one place, we can refer to the following list: 1. Jael kills Sisera with a tent spike through his head (Judges 4-5) 2. A woman drops a millstone, crushing the traitor Abimelech’s skull (Judges 9) 3. Goliath’s head displayed victoriously outside the Mother-city, Jerusalem (1 Sam 17) 4. A wise woman saves David’s monarchy by beheading the rebel Sheba (2 Sam 20) 5. Judith beheads Holofernes with his own sword (Judith 13) 6. Esther brings about the death of Haman by hanging (Esther 7) 7. The sin of Susanna’s false accusers requited “upon their heads” (Daniel 13) 8. The Mother’s martyr-sons vs. Nicanor’s head set up in the Mother-city (2 Maccabees 7, 12) 9. Herodias/Salome behead John vs. Elizabeth/Mary’s martyr-sons (Mt 14:8 Mk 6:24; Lk 1-2) 10. The Mother of Jesus “standing” on “skull-place” (John 19:17, 25, 26) 11. Paul to the Roman church: “You will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20) 12. The “Great sign” of the woman with the moon “under her feet” (Revelation 12)

Though these are not the only texts involved in this preferential option for the feminine, they are the more apparent and militant ones. These stories and images are not idiosyncratic, but rather

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punctuate the biblical narrative at regular intervals. Neither are they always happy; this is war, as the inverted example of John the Baptist shows. After the primordial declaration in Genesis 3, we see the fulfillments during every major step of salvation history, in different forms, but recognizable.38 All of these and many other texts that belong to the litany, yield fruit under further scrutiny, but even a simple list suggests they are of a piece. In each one a woman (or that which is symbolized by a woman, i.e., the church) saves the people by striking the enemy’s head, or, in the case of Paul’s saying to the Roman church, by explicitly crushing Satan under her feet.39 Though some are more subtle, they work within the same framework of imagery and ideas offering developments on the same theme.40 These latter also provide an opportunity to see just how much the history has been molded by its telling so that it maintains and develops the feminine reading of Gen 3:15b.

Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Doubleday, 1981), 55-78. Everything Alter says regarding biblical type scenes would apply here, with this addition: the continued use of replicated forms within a canon mandates that the implied reader read epically because these are not merely like but linked realities—parts of a meta-narrative. This is essentially why the Rabbis could read Gen 3:15 as being about the Messiah or, more broadly, why the Fathers of the Church could do typology. But this requires an exegesis of the inspired text attentive to the fully human mode in which it was written, alert to figural, symbolic, dramatic, and pictorial realities (along with grammatical and historical) that is, an exegesis that has to be able to pass the “prove you are not a robot” test we have all become familiar with in recent years, which requires the viewer to see similarities between (at first glance) unlike things, or, to see the perfect form within an obscure or partial image. 39 Scott W. Hahn, Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017), 286. 40 For example, the punishment for Susanna’s false accusers would have been, according to the law, stoning (Deut 18:19; 22:22). The story puts it instead on the “head” of each of them and in the same verses famously puns upon their being cut or sawn in two (Dan 13:55, 59). The standard legal language of guilt being “upon the head” of the evildoer has been reappropriated to fit the biblical type-scene of the tested woman followed by the crushing of her enemies’ heads. 38

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Though they differ significantly in details and emphasis, each story has common features which could be listed sequentially thus: 1. Some larger group or whole within the people of God is in danger of death from . . . 2. Their enemy—generally a man or men, occasionally, a serpent or his symbolic correlative . . . 3. Who intends death (or worse) for God’s people. 4. Then, a surprising woman comes to the fore . . . 5. Who orchestrates and/or occasions a surprise counterattack against the enemy . . . 6. Whom she kills (or of whom she is the occasion of killing) . . . 7. Focused on the head.

So, (1) the people, (2) their enemy, (3) the threat of death, (4) a woman, (5) a surprise counter-attack, (6) the death of the enemy, (7) the head, to which we should add: (8) salvation. Having previewed their common features, it is also important to note that we are not dealing with the mere replication of a static image, nor the repetition of a literary form for its own sake. The function of this form is to publish and praise God’s fulfillment of the secret but essential “point” of His mysterious plan for the universe—declared in his own first gospel. These replicated forms methodically develop both the medium (the image-sign itself) and what the ultimate message of the victorious woman from the first gospel is. What begins with the first gospel and the first woman in the garden ends with the “great sign” of the woman surrounded by the cosmic signs who appears in Heaven. The stories in between progressively articulate the interpretation of that feminine overture and grand finale. The particular earthly incarnations of this battle have their ultimate exemplar in the deepest of cosmic and heavenly revelations and finally, the all-mysterious mind and will of God. The biblical authors’ inspired minds, like all finite minds, are a box with a certain shape. The inspired history they cognize will have to fit inside that box. But the truth of the matter seems to be that the shape of the box that God made their minds when he inspired them is consistently the shape of the box into which God

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willed to put them and everyone else since Eve, that is, the shape of she/Life/Mother.41 And this, as we come to find out from the wisdom tradition, is because she is also the shape of God’s mind concerning the material creation from before the beginning (Prv 8:22-31; Wisdom 7-8; Sirach 24), a fitting correlate of which is that she is the earth (Job 1:21). To be an author inspired by the God of the Bible is, by God’s prevenient will, to be created, then to hear, and then to write, de ipsa. The complete explicating of this biblically ubiquitous phenomenon would require the triple task of seeing (1) how these and cognate stories and images are alike, (2) how they are different, and (3) how both aspects together contribute to the meta-narrative epic that discloses the Bible’s own progressive, feminine elucidation of the protoevangelium. But as a way of keeping this manageable, I will only focus briefly on members of the above list that fit the form less clearly. For example, within the train of the capitally lethal women listed above are two men— David and Judas Maccabeus. But significantly, these two are the first and last saviors of a free mother-city (Jerusalem42) in the Old Testament, and both of them seem to be using the enemy’s head as a prophetic sign attributing victory to the Mother-city herself.43 The Jewish psychologist Karl Stern, for this reason, proposes “mother” as the most universal subconscious psychological symbol. Everybody inescapably comes into being inside: “in an intimate physical and mental fusion with another being”—his mother. Karl Stern, The Flight From Woman (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965), 18-21. The results of religious psychologist Antoine Vergote’s specialized tests support this point and complement it by reinforcing the father as symbol for that which comes from, relates to, and mediates the demands of the outside and otherness; The Parental Figures and the Representation of God: A Psychological and Cross-cultural Study (eds. Antoine Vergote and Alvero Tamayo; New York: Mouton, 1981), 185-215. From this point of view, it seems that on some level, to receive divine revelation would be to function in a feminine, even motherly, mode. 42 See John Schmidt, “The Virgin of Israel: Referent and Use of the Phrase in Amos and Jeremiah,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 53.3 (1991): 65-387, whose insights would also apply for virgin-mother Jerusalem in Ps 87:67; Isa 66:10; Gal 4:26; Rev 21:2-3, 9. 43 David is prophetically not only warning the Jebusites of their demise, but giving his present and future victories to the Mother city, in the 41

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Similarly, the woman with the moon “under her feet” is a feminized iconograph (with the messiah-child inside her!) of that usually portraying Christ with his enemies and all things temporal and angelic beneath his feet (Psa 110:1; 1 Cor 15:25, 27; Eph 1:22; Heb 2:8). Hence, she is, like Christ, absolutely victorious over whatever the moon signifies. One possibility would be its iteration in Gen 1:16 as “ruler of the night”. This would be consonant both with John’s frequent transformation of Genesis imagery as well as his explicit uniting of previously disparate but related symbols of serpent, devil, and Satan (Rev 12:9). Having the moon as night-ruler under her feet also fits with his idea that in the eschaton, and in the city which is a bride there is no night, no moon, and nothing unclean (Rev 21:23-27; 22:5; cf. Psa 121:6; Sir 27:12). This final image also fits with Paul’s usage, in which the church is feminine both in herself and as the body beneath the head which is Christ (Ephesians 5). Although Paul wrote to the Galatians with imagery similar to that used later by John that “the Jerusalem above . . . is our Mother” (Gal 4:26), nevertheless, he prophesied soon after in his letter to the Romans that their church would be the one on earth soon to crush Satan under her feet (Rom 16:20). What influence did this saying of Paul’s and his feminine imagery of the Church have on the shaping of the NT canon? Did his last image in his greatest letter early in the

mode, for example, in which God will later instruct Isaiah to tell Hezekiah in response to the Rabsheka of Sennacherib that “virgin daughter Zion despises you and shakes her head at you” as God sticks a hook in the head of Assyria and makes them go home. The victory is God’s of course, but he wants it to be she (Isaiah 37:22, 29). Likewise, Judas Maccabeus is the dramatic return of the seed of the womanmother-of-martyrs who wins over the head of the enemy. It may be significant that whereas 1 Maccabees is more focused on history and tells the story all the way to the death of the last of the three brothers—Judas, Jonathan and Simon, 2 Maccabees is more focused on the theology of the resurrection and offers an expansion of 1 Maccabees 1-7 ending not with death, but with the victory of Judas, and Nicanor’s head displayed “as a sign” with a noteworthy reference back to Esther’s similar victory (2 Macc 15:35-36).

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apostolic era have an effect on the “great sign” in what became the last book of the Bible (Revelation 12, 21)?44

IV THE (ROMAN) CANON

One sign that the Roman-Latin Church took Paul’s prophecy seriously comes from the early second century Passion of Perpetua and Felicity. Perpetua writes of her first vision: I beheld a ladder of bronze, marvelously great, reaching up to heaven . . . And there was right at the ladder’s foot a serpent lying, marvelously great, which lay in wait for those that would go up, and frightened them that they might not go up. . . And I said: It shall not hurt me in the name of Jesus Christ. And from beneath the ladder, as though it feared me, it softly put forth its head; and as though I trod on the first step I trod on its head.45

Notably, the ancient Roman Canon of the Mass (Eucharistic Prayer I) presents Felicity and Perpetua—the only two mothers in the intercessions beside the Virgin Mary—first in its list of female saints. Also notable from roughly the same period is that the earliest extant Marian hymn, the sub tuum praesidium, presents Mary not only as theotokos, but also as universal protectress from “danger”.46 This early Christian usage leaves us with a traceable line between the martial, prototypical gebirah of Gen 3:15, her biblical descendants in Judges—2 Maccabees, St. Paul’s prophecy 44 Metzger, Canon, 295, n. 1, proposes that the Apocalypse of John occupies the last place in the canon logically because it is about the last things. A greater specificity, however, would include that the last thing of the last things is Jerusalem as a bride (Revelation 21-22). He notes that Revelation in some mss follows immediately upon the Gospels, offering as explanation that it begins with “the words of the Heavenly Christ to the seven Churches.” An equally plausible explanation would be that the Bridegroom (John 3:29) is followed by the Bride (Rev 21:2). 45 The Passion of SS. Perpetua and Felicity (trans. W. H. Shewring; London: Sheed and Ward, 1931), 26. She uses the same imagery of the head of her “Egyptian” enemy in 3.2 and 6.1. It may be important to distinguish that although Perpetua was located in Carthage, she was thoroughly Roman by culture. 46 Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1999), 69-70, 79.

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regarding the Roman Church, the early Latin Church’s selfunderstanding of its mission to crush Satan under her feet, and the final formation of the NT canon ending with a version of the same image (Rev 12:1; 21:2). Another sign is Jerome himself. The Roman church, less than two centuries after Perpetua, elected Pope Damasus, who made it such that, from a cave in Bethlehem, there came forth the word of God proclaiming clearly in Latin for the next millennium, as the prevailing Bible of the Catholic west, that the litany of later feminine gospels throughout Scripture were consonant with God’s first gospel, the gospel of she (ipsa).

CONCLUSION

When the Bible presents us with the understanding that she is the earth (Job 1:21) and heaven (Rev 21:2) and the covenants (Gal 4:24) and Jerusalem (Gal 4:26) and the wisdom by whom God creates and saves (Proverbs 1, 8; Wisdom 10) and the one in whom all find their home (Psalm 87) and the Valiant Lady who governs the household of God (Proverbs 31) and the mother of the Lord (Lk 1:43), and the woman who defeats the enemy (Gen 3:15) and the Church (Ephesians 5) victorious over Satan (Rom 16:20) and the travailing woman birthing the One on the throne of God (Revelation 12), this is what revelation is: God’s plan in a nutshell is she. In the Bible anyway, she is not so much alone of all her sex as she is the divinely crafted icon, pregnant with infinite meaning (Jn 21:25), of everything that her sex signifies. Not by nature, but in God’s purpose, the one thing greater than God-in-se is God-in-she.47 If He-Who-is-All has anything at all to say, both what he says and how he says it, is this: inasmuch as nothing will be impossible for God, his will is that it was not well for God to be alone. And so, he filled with his grace a created allin-all, and set himself and his seed which is his word (Lk 8:11; Jn

Charles DeKonink, “Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom that is Mary,” in The Writings of Charles DeKoninck (trans., ed. Ralph McInerny; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), 2.1-48. Dekonink gives a cogent philosophical treatment of this question attentive to the biblical (and liturgical) data.

47

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1:14; 1 Pt 1:23) within her, sub tuum praesidium—under the protection of a woman, a mother, a queen, a warrior, she. 48

Though somewhat muted compared to the pre-conciliar liturgical expression DeKoninck treats, the “she” reading of Genesis 3:15 still appears in the Liturgy promulgated by Paul VI after the Vatican II council. For example, the antiphon for the Benedictus for the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (December 8th) has: “The Lord God said to the serpent: I will make you enemies, you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring; she will crush your head, alleluia.” The Liturgy of the Hours According to the Roman Rite (New York: Catholic Book Publishing, 1975), 1.1232. It goes without saying that the straightforward image of a woman standing on the head of a serpent in Marian devotional art among Roman Catholics is still so ubiquitous as to constitute its own indication of the sensus fidelium regarding the gender of the pronoun in Genesis 3:15b, all the more remarkable since Catholic Bibles stopped saying “she” just before the council. 48

TEACHING THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY WITH KEITH HARING’S UNTITLED, 1983 AT THE HAGGERTY MUSEUM OF ART KATE WARD I NTRODUCTION

In April of 1983, artist Keith Haring, on the brink of art-world stardom, created a giant work of art on the campus of Marquette University by painting the fence around the construction site for the Haggerty Museum of Art. Viscerally communicating the joy and excitement of this new Milwaukee museum, his mural’s import was apparent to the broader community from the moment of its creation. Despite the work’s continuing to serve as a construction fence in situ, outdoors on Marquette’s campus, vandals and graffiti artists left it untouched.1 With its monu-

Curtis L. Carter, “Revisiting the Keith Haring Mural at Marquette University,” in On the Fence: Keith Haring’s Mural for the Haggerty, 1983 (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University, 2005), 14–15, https://www.marquette.edu/haggerty-museum/documents/on_the_fence.pdf I would like to thank Lynne Shumow, Curator for Academic Engagement at the Haggerty Museum, for generously sharing her expertise throughout my research, and Jen Wotochek for comments on a draft of this essay. 1

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mental size and characteristic Haring motifs, Construction Fence, 1983 is a jewel in the Haggerty’s collection. One of my favorite works at the Haggerty is much more modest in size and ambition: a marker drawing on a piece of foam board, which Haring completed and donated to the museum during his visit. Untitled, 1983 is monochromatic where Construction Fence is neon; poster-size while the fence is vast; and for many reasons, might seem easy to overlook.2 But it expresses themes that would continue to resonate throughout Haring’s work as he completed his transition from downtown visual artist to powerful commentor on the human condition, themes which I invite my students to consider as a faculty member in theology at Marquette. Dr. Deirdre Dempsey is a pioneer in using the Haggerty’s impressive collections to enrich classroom teaching, both in her introductory theology courses and the technologically innovative course she developed, Theology and the Visual Arts.3 In honor of Deirdre, who introduced me to the tremendous opportunity of teaching with the Haggerty’s collections, I offer this essay on using Keith Haring’s Untitled, 1983 to teach about Catholic theological anthropology, or understanding of the human person. The privilege of teaching with art in a museum setting allows educators to use art not just as a content medium, but also to invite meta-reflection on the work of interpreting texts and the Keith Haring, Untitled, 1983, Ink on foamcore, 1983, Collection of the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, http://museum.marquette.edu/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterfac e&module=collection&objectId=1679&viewType=detailView The artwork can be viewed at this link or by visiting http://marquette.edu/haggerty-museum and searching the collection. 3 Deirdre Dempsey, “Marc Chagall, Jeremiah Receives the Gift of Prophecy from God, 1957,” in Perspectives on Art at the Haggerty Museum (ed. The Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University; Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2013), 46–47, https://epublications.marquette.edu/theo_fac/262; Deirdre Dempsey, “In Praise of Digital Scholarship Projects, Or: ‘Why I Feel (Somewhat) Prepared For the Next Big One,’” in On the Vocation of the Educator in This Moment (ed. Jennifer S. Maney and Melissa M. Shew; Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2021), 87–94. 2

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transformative power of spending time paying attention to them. Together with my students, I have come over the years to interpret Haring’s untitled work as suggesting a detail-rich view of humanity, plagued by competition and violence, capable of love and reconciliation, but perhaps incapable of achieving this redemption on our own. This view of humanity as flawed, loving and in need of grace is the one proposed by theological anthropology.

TEACHING WITH ART AT THE HAGGERTY MUSEUM

I integrate the art at the Haggerty Museum into my Honors Foundations in Theology class, a required class for Honors students that forms part of the Marquette Core Curriculum. Like a lot of introductory classes, this one favors breadth over depth, introducing students to key concepts in systematic theology and ethics. We engage with art at the Haggerty through in-class activities and writing assignments that offer students the opportunity to apply theological concepts they have learned. I use art at the Haggerty to teach through content, analogy, and process—showing artwork with religious content; introducing art interpretation as an analogy for the key theological skill of interpreting texts; and introducing reflective processes with the power to transform learners. Outside the classroom setting, I can step out of the role of “sage on the stage” to learn, reflect and experience the transformative power of art side by side with my students. One of the most common ways to teach with art in any course is to use art for content, to illustrate material and concepts from the course. I certainly do this in all my courses, not limited to artwork from the Haggerty—with online databases and a screen projector, engaging with artwork on theological themes is a reliable discussion starter.4 Reflecting on art is an effective way

The Art in the Christian Tradition database, maintained by Vanderbilt University, is an excellent resource for incorporating art into theology instruction. It allows users to search by Scripture reference as well as keywords and subject, and houses an array of art depicting divine figures with diverse human characteristics. Art in the Christian Tradition, © 4

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to teach about reading texts with care and from multiple perspectives, distinguishing between the creator’s intent, how communities have received the work, and the viewer’s own reaction to the work. These are skills students in a theology class will build as they engage with sources including the Bible, works in the Christian theological canon, and contemporary theological perspectives on the tradition. It is especially exciting to be able to expose students to artworks in person—a rare privilege available to us at Marquette, with the Haggerty right in the center of campus. This enables us to do a meditative and interpretive activity sometimes known as Slow Art, where the learning goals include reflection on the process of engaging with artwork. My classes do this activity in a format inspired by the Harvard art historian Jennifer L. Roberts. Roberts writes of assigning her students to view one single artwork for a time span “explicitly designed to seem excessive,” in the case of her course, three hours. While Roberts’ students at first resist this assignment, they come to appreciate her insight that “in any work of art there are details and orders and relationships that take time to perceive.”5 In Foundations in Theology, I prepare students for the Slow Art experience by displaying John Singleton Copley’s Boy with a Squirrel and reading from Roberts’ account of the insights she found in the painting by performing this exercise herself. It is important to practice this method in the gallery setting, where distractions are limited, so we travel to the Haggerty. I let students know that they will perform the Slow Art meditation for only 15 minutes (which I sometimes stretch to 20) and let them disperse to an artwork of their choosing while I time the reflection. I then invite students to share not only what they observed in their artwork, but also what they observed in their own interior experience while performing the Slow Art exercise.

Jean and Alexander Heard Library and the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, a division of the Heard Library, 2007; https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-search.pl . 5 Jennifer L. Roberts, “The Power of Patience,” Harvard Magazine, 15 October 2013, http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/11/the-power-of-patience.

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Slow Art is an excellent exercise to use in a theology class for several reasons. In a theology class, a Slow Art activity presents an analogy with the practice of lectio divina, an approach to meditating on biblical texts by reading and reflecting on the same short text over and over, slowly mining one text for new insight. Students see the act of reading written texts as something commonplace, beyond reflection, and may even have learned approaches to reading that are not useful for reading biblical or theological texts.6 They are less used to encountering a piece of art and reflecting on the meaning it conveys, so viewing art in person provides an excellent opportunity to teach by analogy about the many ways we can approach a text for meaning and insight. It is a type of meditation activity that stills our inner monologue by focusing our attention. Contrasted with assessment methods that simply expect students to rehearse material, Slow Art invites students to reflect on their own experience as one who learns, enjoys and reflects. One of the most exciting times I’ve done this was when the Haggerty displayed Rick Shaefer’s monumental Refugee Trilogy, whose vast size and density of detail provide an obvious reward for the time spent in reflection. But even when reflecting on works of more modest scale, students quickly discover the truth of Roberts’ observation that artworks contain information that takes time to discover. Slow Art, a practice some might regard as “wasting time,” presents an opportunity to grapple with our cultural understandings of human worth as tied up with busyness and productivity. Christian anthropology, in contrast with the dominant cultural view, sees that the human being’s value is not measured in their ability to work and produce. Rather, humans are created to enjoy the world God has created and give thanks for God’s gifts, including the gift of our own selves. This is why the Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper argued that the highest form of leisure is worshipping God. Despairing of what he called “the cult of total work” in contemporary society, Pieper urges us to combat it by

Skimming or speed-reading, for example, are not helpful ways to elucidate meaning from biblical texts, where meaning can be conveyed through narrative, analogy and other literary techniques which benefit from sustained attention.

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reacquainting people with practices like worship and celebration that, unlike work, have their purpose not in production but in the activity itself.7 Slow Art forces students, for a brief period, to cease existing in the productive mode and experience their own intrinsic worth as creatures in the world, enjoying its goodness. Reflecting on learning activities, including Slow Art, offers an opportunity to foster a growth mindset in students by interrogating how not just their store of knowledge, but their characteristics as a learner and person have grown and changed over time. Christian ethics suggests that moral qualities such as patience, awe and insight are virtuous qualities that can be cultivated through repeated actions, or, alternatively, left to wither in the person. Echoing this insight, Roberts suggests that faculty think about “patience itself as a skill to be learned,” “an active and positive cognitive state” that is all too difficult to acquire in our world engineered to remove delays.8 The opportunity to practice Slow Art and to reflect on our own experience of deliberate attention-paying is an opportunity to reflect on oneself as a subject in pursuit of the virtue of patience. To incorporate our experiences at the Haggerty into assessment of course content, I invite students to imagine they are employed by a theological publishing house putting together a new book on Christian anthropology which covers the main themes they learn about in our course. They must choose a work from the Haggerty and explain why it would or would not appropriately convey anthropological themes such as embodiment, relationality, unity in diversity, sin and need for grace.9 Among the most common artworks chosen by students to represent these key themes is Untitled, 1983, which conveys the realism about human failing and hope for human transcendence that are at the heart of Christian anthropology. Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture (trans. Gerald Malsbary; South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998). 8 Roberts, “The Power of Patience.” 9 Excellent introductory texts I have used in this course include Mary Doak, Divine Harmony: Seeking Community in a Broken World (New York: Paulist Press, 2017); and Michele Saracino, Christian Anthropology: An Introduction to the Human Person (New York: Paulist Press, 2015). 7

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THE HAGGERTY’S HARING DRAWING

The Haggerty’s Haring drawing is drawn on ordinary foam board with a marker, the same medium Haring used for the graffiti tags in New York’s subways that helped launch his fame.10 The artwork is a rectangle with the long edges at top and bottom. The illustrations fit tightly into the foam board and appear to be clearly divided into four horizontal lines, like comic strips or a page of text written in English. This has always invited me to view it sequentially from left to right and top to bottom, although other ways of encountering the image are certainly possible. The top row depicts eight human dancing figures, not touching each other, with short movement lines suggesting energy and motion. One dancer is spinning on their head, and in general their movements are characteristic of Haring’s breakdancing depictions.11 The second row includes three vignettes presented in squares, like comics panels, and one that is not in a square. Reading from left to right, in the first vignette, two figures run up opposite sides of a set of steps towards a stick-like object that is distinguished by “radiant” lines.12 In the second panel, one figure stabs the other with a stick as the stabbed one falls to the ground. In the third, a figure breaks the stick over their knee, our attention drawn to that action by motion lines and the panel’s close focus, which excludes the top of the figure’s head. The fourth vignette is not contained in a square but is in line and to John Gruen, Keith Haring: The Authorized Biography (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1991), 65. 11 Robert Farris Thompson, “Notes on the Art and Life of Keith Haring,” in Keith Haring: The Political Line (ed. Dieter Buchhart; New York: Prestel, 2014), 51–53. Distinguished from “radiant” lines (see note 11), movement lines follow the comic-book convention of indicating which part of a figure is moving. Dieter Buchhart and Elsy Lahner, “Keith Haring: The Alphabet” (Albertina, 15 June 2018), 10, https://www.albertina.at/site/assets/files/1799/presskit_keith_haring.pdf 12 Lines angled outwards, like those on a child’s drawing of the sun, around a figure that does not otherwise appear to be moving, can indicate spiritual power or importance for Haring. The most famous example is his symbol of the “radiant baby.” Natalie E. Phillips, “The Radiant (Christ) Child : Keith Haring and the Jesus Movement,” American Art 21.3 (2007): 54-73 at 59. 10

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scale with the other three. In this one, two figures embrace, surrounded by radiant lines.13 In the third line of images, a human figure runs to the left, away from a wiggling snake which enters from the right and takes up most of the horizontal width of the panel. The fourth and bottom line of images depict seven figures dancing with arms linked—an instance of Haring’s depiction of the “electric boogie” dancing of New York 1980s dance clubs.14 At the bottom right of the panel is the artist’s signature.

UNTITLED IN THE CONTEXT OF HARING’S WORK

Marquette curators believe Haring’s 1983 drawing expresses some religious themes he encountered in Marquette’s Catholic, Jesuit setting, and it is reasonable to interpret many aspects of the drawing this way, as I will show.15 However, the drawing is not often discussed in retrospectives of Haring’s work, even those

A similar depiction of two figures competing for a stick and one stabbing the other appear in an untitled work from 1980, although notably without any suggestion of repentance or resolution. In the 1980 drawing, Haring depicts the two figures with different skin colors. This may be a particular commentary on racist violence (the white figure stabs the black figure) while the similarity of the figures in the Haggerty artwork may suggest a generalized commentary on violence as a feature of the human condition. Keith Haring, Untitled, 1980, Black ink on poster board, December 5, 1980, https://www.haring.com/!/art-work/161. 14 “Electric boogie,” created by African-American dancers in New York nightclubs, “derived its name precisely from its exquisitely percussive parody of the animating powers of electricity, which it sited in the human body. Again and again at the Roxy in New York, early-’80s dancers mimed passing electrical charges, one to another. A dancer would begin an electric wave in his right arm, touching another dancer’s arm, which would vibrate with the received energy and then pass it on to as many dancers as could play this game of electronic calling-and-responding.” Robert Harris Thompson, “Requiem for the Degas of the B-Boys,” Artforum International 28.9 (1990): 135–41. Haring is quoted describing this dance style in Jeffrey Deitch, Suzanne Geiss, and Julia Gruen, Keith Haring (New York: Rizzoli, 2008), 236. 15 Lynne Shumow, “Keith Haring Untitled,” e-mail correspondence, 3 February 2022. 13

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with an explicitly religious focus.16 Curator David Galloway believed that “the impact of religion on [Haring’s] work can be overestimated,” taking as evidence the artist’s view that “most religions are so hopelessly outdated . . . that they have no power to provide liberation and freedom.”17 Theologians and scholars of religion might rejoin that criticizing religion when it falls short of its liberative potential is usually an acknowledgement, not a rejection, of its influence. Those like Haring who lament religion’s failure to address contemporary problems understand how powerful the voice of religious tradition can be, and see how the potential of that power could better be directed toward human liberation. Indeed, art historian Natalie Philips convincingly shows that Christian religious themes in general are pervasive throughout Haring’s work, and moreover, that his imagery was specifically impacted by the visual culture of the Jesus People movement, which Haring associated with in his youth.18 Haring himself said near the time of his death that “even now there are lots of religious images in my work.”19 A major posthumous exhibition examined the intermingling of dark and hopeful themes in Haring’s work, pushing back on an earlier, linear narrative which depicted the earlier work as appealing and childlike, with darker and more sophisticated themes appearing later in life around Haring’s AIDS diagnosis.20 Created in 1983, the Haggerty’s Untitled piece can be seen as an early, overlooked manifestation of this duality in Haring’s work. Deceptively joyful and optimistic, the piece also depicts a realistic account of human moral agency, one that encompasses human potential for love, care and moral improvement, as well as our capacity for exclusion and violence.

E.g. Götz Adriani, ed., Keith Haring: Heaven and Hell (Karlsruhe: Hatje Cantz, 2001); Dieter Buchhart, ed., Keith Haring: The Political Line; Deitch, Geiss, and Gruen, Keith Haring. 17 David Galloway, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” in Keith Haring: Heaven and Hell, ed. Götz Adriani (Karlsruhe: Hatje Cantz, 2001), 54. 18 Phillips, “The Radiant (Christ) Child.” 19 Phillips, “The Radiant (Christ) Child,” 57. 20 Adriani, Keith Haring, 53. 16

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A NALYSIS AND REFLECTION

Since the first time I saw Untitled, 1983, it has always struck me as unique and important, as if the whole drawing were distinguished by Haring’s “radiant” lines. Certainly there are many possible interpretations of an artwork which so generously invites engagement through its use of accessible materials, forms and figures. In my interpretation, two things make this artwork stand out. It is an excellent tool for teaching Christian theological anthropology, which demands a balance between realistic and hopeful understandings of human experience and potential that is difficult to capture visually. Critic Rene Ricard wrote that Haring’s work has a familiar-feeling quality that can make it appear deceptively simple: “It is the already-existing quality of his characters that deceives one into accepting them as already there without the intervention of an individual will . . . We can laugh at their involuntary couplings and tiny horrified runnings around because we see them as we cannot see, as the fish cannot see the water, ourselves.”21 As Ricard realizes, it is difficult to cast an eye on humanity, and difficult for my students to agree with the attempts Christian anthropology must make to say something universally true about human experience. Haring’s ability to depict human beings as at once graceful, playful, grotesque, culpable and forgivable shows how difficult the theologian’s task is by managing to pull it off beautifully. A second distinguishing feature of the untitled drawing is that, while Haring’s body of work often expresses the joy, the brokenness and the transcendent possibility of human experience, this is a relatively rare work that combines all three, permitting a commentary on human nature that is more complex than other works alone would afford. My interpretation of the work is informed by the reflections of my students in Honors Foundations in Theology for multiple years. When I teach students about Christian anthropology, a key feature of my interpretation of the work focuses on the narrative “The Radiant Child by Rene Ricard, Published in Artforum,” Judy Rifka, n.d., 42, https://www.judyrifka.com/texts/2017/10/10/the-radiant-child-byrene-ricard-published-in-artforum-1981. 21

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that appears to be presented in the second line of the drawing. (Narrative is a crucial way for Christian theology to make and convey meaning, including the narratives in the Bible, in the lives of the saints, and in the project of making one’s own life make sense.22) This line of images can be interpreted as a story of violence overcome by repentance and love. In the first panel, the two figures can be read as competing for the same shiny object. In the second panel, one figure does violence to the other, and the shiny object may even be the weapon used. In the third panel, a figure breaks a stick. It would be reasonable to read this as the person who stabbed the other repenting and either breaking the weapon, breaking the prize that no longer appears worthy of violent competition, or both.23 Following these three panels, the two figures embracing amid radiant lines suggest a reconciliation which the artist celebrates. “A story of violence overcome by repentance and love” is a good summary of the potential Christian theological anthropology sees in human lives, thanks to God’s sacrificial self-gift.24 Students commonly interpret this line of the drawing as having just such a meaning. Snakes are significant in Christian symbology and throughout Haring’s work as well. In Christian art, snakes are often identified with Satan, the personified principle of evil, due to a longstanding tradition which interprets the snake who tempts Adam and Even in Genesis 3:1 this way.25 Haring was trained in Paul J. Wadell, Happiness and the Christian Moral Life: An Introduction to Christian Ethics (3rd ed.; Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2016), chap. 2. 23 Haring described a similar stick as an “archetypal weapon” in his Ten Commandments painting series. Deitch, Geiss, and Gruen, Keith Haring, 378–79. 24 More Christological than anthropological, a beautifully articulated approach to this perspective which is not too technical for the undergraduate classroom is S. Mark Heim, “Saved by What Shouldn’t Happen: The Anti-Sacrificial Meaning of the Cross,” in Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 211–24. 25 Frank Leslie Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., “Devil,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 477-478. 22

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semiotics, the language of symbols, and uses the snake to connote evil and horror, with the Christian symbolism of moral failure never far behind.26 Christian anthropology understands vulnerability as a feature (not a failing) of human nature, and students often connect the snake to this anthropological constant in their assignments, suggesting that it highlights human vulnerability to sin.27 In its use of the snake symbol, Untitled, 1983 might be suggesting more optimism about the human capacity to resist evil and choose the good than some of Haring’s other works. Humans appear overcome by the snake in many other places where Haring’s snake appears, including a late self-portrait where a drawn snake binds and constrains Haring, appearing in a photo. In contrast, Untitled’s fleeing human has so far evaded the snake’s clutches.28 Psychologists and artists know that written language direction affects image interpretation; native readers of English, for example, are more likely to expect the “action” in an image to unfurl left to right, as our written language does.29 Thus, for viewers with left-to-right written language backgrounds, Haring’s snake “entering” from the right feels surprising or may invoke an uneasy, against-the-grain sensation. Perhaps Haring suggests that evil is a thing to be dreaded, and that we should be on guard against evil appearing when we least expect it. One student in my class suggested that the snake’s appearance after the apparent Buchhart and Lahner, “Keith Haring: The Alphabet,” 14; Heide Avelina Smith, David Booth, and Yinshi Lerman-Tan, “Keith Haring: The Political Line, School Curriculum” (deYoung Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2018), https://deyoung.famsf.org/files/haring_curriculum.pdf. 27 Saracino, Christian Anthropology, chap. 2. 28 An interesting example of humans overcoming a snake is in another religious context, Haring’s mural on the church of Sant’Antonio in Pisa, Italy, where a pair of human figures joins to make scissors which cut a snake in half. Gruen, Keith Haring, 489. 29 Sylvie Chokron and Maria De Agostini, “Reading Habits Influence Aesthetic Preference,” Cognitive Brain Research 10.1–2 (2000): 45–49; Christian Dobel, Gil Diesendruck, and Jens Bölte, “How Writing System and Age Influence Spatial Representations of Actions: A Developmental, Cross-Linguistic Study,” Psychological Science 18.6 (2007): 487–91. 26

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resolution of the violent narrative suggests that the person who broke the weapon failed to take responsibility for their own violent nature, and until we take responsibility, sin will continue to pursue us. The dancing figures at the top and bottom of the drawing evoke optimism, a trademark Haring emotion, about the human capacity for joy and relational connection. As I mentioned above, the two rows of figures are not exactly the same. On the top row, eight figures dance without touching one another, and on the bottom row, seven figures dance with arms linked. My students have offered multiple interpretations of these rows of dancing figures, and my own interpretation evolves as I continue to appreciate and learn from this artwork. A common student interpretation finds no meaningful distinction between the two rows; they both indicate human joy and connection. This is how I interpreted these two rows when I first encountered the drawing. In Christian anthropology, embodiment describes the principle that our bodies are vitally important on the human journey to connect with one another and with God. A student who saw these figures as communicating the principle of embodiment noted that since they have no facial features, they use their bodies to connect with one another and communicate emotions. Another student interpreted the linked dancing figures as communicating the joy of the communion of saints in the Kingdom of God. Unity-in-diversity is another key tenet of Christian anthropology; God delights in human difference and wants humans to work together across our differences.30 Difference is not a flaw in the human community but a gift to ensure our flourishing, in the way that the distinct parts of the body all work together to keep the body alive.31 The dancing figures in Untitled, 1983 are often cited in referencing unity-indiversity, but with contrasting interpretations. Students have pointed out that the Haring work perhaps offers a poor depiction of unity-in-diversity, because the joyfully united figures are

Doak, Divine Harmony, chap. 2. This image, foundational for the Christian understanding of unity-indiversity, comes from 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 (NAB). 30 31

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visually very similar in shape, size and color. On the other hand, others read the ambiguously gendered and raced figures as appropriate representations of all of humanity. An alternative interpretation of the dancing figures might see a significant difference in the relational behavior of the solo dancers at the top and the interconnected dancers at the bottom. Christian anthropology understands that people are created to be in relationship and decries individualistic views that believe we can flourish without one another.32 When students see the distinction between the styles of dance as significant, they might incorporate this into the longer narrative of the drawing, envisioning a story that begins with attempts to thrive individually, devolves into violence and a battle with personified evil, and resolves with genuine unity. It is possible to see Haring emphasizing the connection between the dancers on the bottom row with “radiant” lines giving positive emphasis at just the nexuses where their arms intersect, while the individual dancers up top are surrounded by what appear to be movement lines which separate them from one another. A final potential contrast between the dancing figures presented itself to me after I had been thinking about this image a long time. It was a student who first noted, after conducting her Slow Art reflection on Haring, that there is one fewer dancing figure on the bottom than on the top. Was this intentional on Haring’s part, and if so, what might it mean? When reading this image for Christian anthropological content, I have always taken both groups of dancers to represent the whole of humanity— either united in embodied joy on both top and bottom, or individualistic at the top and truly united at the bottom. But what if we pay attention to the missing dancer? If the missing dancer matters, it is possible to read the entire drawing as a narrative of scapegoating, a concept developed by philosopher Rene Girard (1923-2015) and brilliantly applied to Christian anthropology by theologian James Alison.33 A commuDoak, Divine Harmony, chap. 3. James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin through Easter Eyes (New York: Crossroad, 1998). A synthesis of the material covered in this 32 33

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nity appears happy (like the dancers at the top,) but all is not as it seems. Humans have an inveterate tendency to compare themselves with one another, and to feel inadequate when they do not achieve likeness to an admired individual. Girard calls this tendency mimesis and it could be depicted by the drawing panels depicting competition and violence. Rather than look inside ourselves and deal with our own feelings of inadequacy and shame, people within communities choose a member of the community to blame for these negative feelings. They create a scapegoat, often someone labeled as “other” or different. The community’s animosity against the scapegoat develops to the point that they violently expel the scapegoat from the community. (Haring’s figure being pursued “offscreen” by the snake could illustrate this moment, with the snake embodying the evil of such violence). The expulsion of the scapegoat brings about an apparent and illusory feeling of peace. However, the scapegoat’s expulsion does not eliminate people’s tendency to compete against each other and to feel inadequate when comparing themselves against one another, so the cycle of mimesis, scapegoating and violence lies in wait to recommence. By omitting one dancer from the bottom row, perhaps Haring is suggesting that the apparent unity of the bottom row is an illusory peace, and that only the community’s violent expulsion of one of its own made this fragile peace possible. This, too, can be read as a presentation of Christian anthropology, but one that focuses on the limited power of communities to overcome the pervasive human tendency to sin. For biblical scholars, “reading in” to what one wants to see in the text—eisegesis—is a cardinal sin of textual interpretation. Some might protest that the missing dancer in Untitled, 1983 carries no significance, and including this detail in any interpretive narrative is reading too far “into” Haring’s text. I am not so sure. Throughout his career, Haring had a clearly articulated vision of what his images were “about” and what each paragraph can be found in chapter 1. The denouement suggested by Alison, in which Jesus transforms the human desire to scapegoat by voluntarily becoming an innocent victim of violence, is not (in my view) depicted in Untitled, 1983.

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of his artistic choices was meant to symbolize. People who knew him throughout his career described him creating confidently and fearlessly: “The images came directly from his head. He never stopped to rethink the line; he never edited himself and never made corrections.”34 Describing why he eschewed drafts and guidelines when creating his work, Haring said, “One of the things I have been most interested in is the role of chance in situations – letting things happen by themselves. My drawings are never pre-planned.”35 Conveying a subtle meaning through the number of dancers is not outside the realm of possibility for an artist of such gifts.

THE MISSING DANCER AND THE SUPPORTING CAST

Reading Untitled, 1983 with attention to the missing dancer answers the call of biblical scholar Gina Hens-Piazza to read as a praxis of justice, attentive to the presence, import and dignity of the members of a story’s “supporting cast,” who do not usually receive our focus and attention. This is important for rich textual analysis and also because of its implications for our attention to overlooked persons in our own world. Hens-Piazza writes: All members of the supporting cast contribute to the story either explicitly or subtly and indirectly. Without each of them, the story would be less of a tale, a different tale, or perhaps not exist at all . . . They exist, derive recognition, and are worthy of attention only insofar as a reader grants them recognition. It is also true of their counterparts in our world. They are visible and deemed worthy of recognition and importance only insofar as each of us cultivates a vision to see

Loney Abrams, “Have You Seen All 5 of Keith Haring’s Murals in NYC?,” Artspace, 11 April 2018, http://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/have-you-seen-all-5-ofkeith-harings-murals-in-nyc. 35 Ted Gott, “Fragile Memories: Keith Haring and the Water Window Mural at the National Gallery of Victoria,” National Gallery of Victoria, 2 June 2014, https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/fragile-memories-keith-haring-andthe-water-window-mural-at-the-national-gallery-of-victoria/. 34

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and acknowledge the significance of such persons in our surroundings.36

Like Roberts’ way of viewing artwork, Hens-Piazza’s way of reading for supporting cast demands extra time and attention, promises rich interpretive insight, and holds out the possibility of transforming the interpreter as she reflects. Hens-Piazza enumerates four categories of “supporting cast” members in Biblical texts. Those in complementary roles and bit parts advance the story in significant ways that may be overlooked on a first read, but become apparent on further reflection. Even more thought-provoking for me are the two remaining categories, cameo appearances and implied presence. Cameo characters are mentioned in the text, but perhaps only as members of a group. For example, Hens-Piazza highlights the generosity and protection extended by “the reapers,” a supporting cast group, to the title character of the Book of Ruth.37 The final category includes those cast members whose presence is only implied in references to towns being destroyed or a sword being brought to the king (presumably by a servant who goes unmentioned.)38 Their presence is rich with meaning, inviting solidarity with people today who face exterminating violence or whose professional role places them in situations of moral culpability. Reading for the “supporting cast” is deeply resonant with Ignatian reflection which invites us to imagine ourselves into the biblical story. While taking imagination seriously as a theological tool, it still demands good training and exegesis to accurately imagine the material and social worlds of the Bible and give life to one’s imagining of the supporting cast. It is a feminist practice of interpretation, since so many of the Bible’s women are unnamed, grouped together or implied entirely. And as Hens-Piazza suggests, it reminds us to turn our own attention to those members of our

Gina Hens-Piazza, “Supporting Cast Versus Supporting Caste: Reading the Old Testament as Praxis of Justice,” in The Bible and Catholic Theological Ethics (ed. Yiu Sing Lucas Chan, James Keenan, and Ronaldo Zacharias; Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2017), 109–20. 37 Hens-Piazza, “Supporting Cast,” 116–17. 38 Hens-Piazza, “Supporting Cast,” 117–18. 36

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world who are treated as merely bit players in the story of more important others, if not overlooked or erased entirely. Interpreting Untitled for the supporting cast, it might be tempting to interpret the missing dancer as a reference to AIDS— a disease which devastated the young, exuberant communities of dancers who inspired Haring’s work, and which Haring addressed quite explicitly in his work of later years.39 However, I have been able to find no indication that Haring explicitly addressed AIDS in his work as early as 1983. He certainly knew of it at that stage: he discusses the death of singer Klaus Nomi, the first AIDS victim he knew personally, as a turning point in his awareness of its impact.40 But Nomi died in August 1983, after Haring created the Haggerty’s Untitled, and the most comprehensive volume on Haring dates his first work explicitly referencing AIDS to 1985.41 Perhaps the missing dancer refers to death in a more general way, evoking a sense of incompleteness or loss even at the moment Haring’s community of dancing beings is most deeply connected. Christian anthropology would agree with this elegiac insight: while the joys of human community and connection are real, under the shadow of death and the threat of loss, earthly happiness must always remain incomplete. Much like Biblical interpretation, interpreting artwork is best done in community, and my reflections on Haring’s drawing here have benefited from the insights of many students, colleagues and friends. However, I am not a Haring scholar and have no intention of proposing a final word on what we should take the drawing to mean. Rather, I have tried to show how encountering artwork in the museum setting and theological interpretation can proceed hand in hand. Both practices demand sustained attention, responsible exegesis, and a mind open to new insights. Among the many gifts we stand to gain is a new perspective on our human experience as we see our own joys, frustrations, or struggles with

Deitch, Geiss, and Gruen, Keith Haring, 344–51. Gruen, Keith Haring, 132; Deitch, Geiss, and Gruen, Keith Haring, 344. 41 Condé Nast, “The Curious Career of Klaus Nomi,” Pitchfork, 10 December 2015, https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/970-the-curious-career-of-klaus-nomi/. 39 40

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injustice reflected from a perspective, or even a time, very unlike our own.

CONCLUSION

To truly interpret what art has to show us, Jennifer Roberts suggests, we have to slow down. If we interpret well, Gina HensPiazza insists, we will notice the human on the margins, and transform our lives in response to the moral claim her story makes. The human life, Keith Haring proclaims, is never free from the threat of loss—and yet what joy there is in each of us, embracing in love, alive with exertion, warm in the beloved community of friends. I have been able to see these connections between theological scholarship, pedagogy, and art thanks to Deirdre Dempsey’s pioneering work connecting the Haggerty Museum’s collections to our work in Marquette’s theology department. Needy neighbors, students in chaos, and nervous junior colleagues find safe harbor in Deirdre’s wise counsel and generous hospitality. Taking time, attending to those on the margins, and nurturing communities—these are just a few of Deirdre’s many gifts.