Archaic Hebrew Poetry in the Torah

Tania Notarius has an interesting discussion here regarding possible remnants of archaic Hebrew poetry in the Torah.

The Samaritan Pentateuch

The Samaritan Pentateuch: An English Translation with a Parallel Annotated Hebrew Text by Moshe Florentin and Abraham Tal is available for free via open access here.

HT: Steven Fine

The Day of Atonment and the Eden Narrative

L. Michael Morales makes a thought-provoking observation linking the Day of Atonement with the Garden of Eden with the former providing a ritual reversal of the expulsion from Eden. Part of the move made by Morales is to highlight the parallel between Adam and the high priest and Eden and the tabernacle. Here he states,

"Not only is Adam's job description, best translated as "to worship and obey" (Genesis 2:15), used elsewhere only to describe the work of the Levites at the tabernacle (Numbers 3:7-8) but even Yahweh's clothing of Adam and the woman reappears later in the description of Moses' clothing of the priests (Genesis 3:21; Leviticus 8:13). While it is accurate enough to call Eden an archetypal sanctuary and Adam as an archetypal high priest, the theological message of the Pentateuch seems rather to focus on how the tabernacle, with the holy of holies, comprised an architectural Eden, with a garden, and how Aaron's priesthood functioned as renewed humanity, the high priest serving fundamentally as a new Adam figure. The Eden narrative of Genesis served to explain the logic of Israel's cult, providing God's people with a narrative backdrop for understanding their divinely ordained liturgy."

L. Michael Morales, Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (Downers Grove, InterVarsity, 2020), 100.

Leviticus as a Continuation of Exodus

L. Michael Morales's volume, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus, is chock full of insights. Consider the following

The wayyiqtol form with which the book [Leviticus], and from which it derives its Hebrew title, sets the following legislation within a narrative context. Thematically, the opening wayyiqrā’ (And-he-called) sets the entire book of Leviticus within the development of God’s redemptive dealings, as the following chart illustrates.

YHWH God called to Adam [in the garden of Eden]    Genesis 3:9
God called to him [Moses] from within the bush          Exodus 3:4
YHWH called to him [Moses] from the mountain         Exodus 19:3
YHWH called to Moses from within the cloud              Exodus 24:16
YHWH called to Moses and spoke to him from the     Leviticus 1:1
tent of meeting   

More particularly for our purposes, the wayyiqtol links Leviticus to the narrative context of the ending of Exodus, as a continuation of it. We may, therefore, turn to the close of Exodus in order to position the legislation leading up to the inauguration of the tabernacle cultus (Lev. 1–10).

L. Michael Morales, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus, New Studies in Biblical Theology 37. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2015), 112.

Free eBook: Deuteronomy: Law and Covenant

Wipf and Stock is offering a free eBook copy of Deuteronomy: Law and Covenant by Jack Lundbom. The offer is only available until February 15. Here are the instructions to get your copy.

1. Click on this link.
2. Click "ADD TO CART" on the eBook option.
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Slavery in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy

Zev Farber has a good discussion here of the different laws related to slaves in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. I would not hold to many of his conclusions but Farber does a pretty good job of laying out the data.

Top Deuteronomy Commentaries

Sandy Richter lists and annotates her top six commentaries on Deuteronomy at Nijay Gupta's blog here.

“Torah” in Second Temple Texts

The term "torah" is usually glossed as "Law" by many Bible students. While that is not entirely incorrect, it can lack precision at best and misleading or wrong at worst. It really is better understood as instruction or "teaching." Molly Zahn does a good job here showing how the term torah really had a broader range of meaning than "law" or a reference to Pentateuch during the Second Temple period (516 BC - AD 70).

Why Didn’t the Israelites Circumcise in the Wilderness?

David Frankel attempts to answer the question here. I don't agree with Frankel's conclusion which requires a fair amount of redaction and depends on a view of the authorship of Torah that I do not hold but the discussion is interesting nonetheless.

Genesis 1 to Exodus 40 as Prelude to Leviticus

L. Michael Morales’ biblical theology of Leviticus is an interesting read. The following quote sets up where Morales sees Leviticus going.

As the fiery glory of YHWH fills the tabernacle at the end of the book of Exodus, the drama of redemptive history thus far comes to a culminating pinnacle. There is even a sense in where one could read Genesis 1 to Exodus 40 as a complete narrative, a story about being expelled from God’s Presence in Eden, then, finally being brought back into that Presence through the tabernacle cultus – a story about Paradise lost and regained. Fittingly, the tabernacle and its furnishings are pervaded in the Edenic imagery. The tabernacle narrative crowning Exodus 40, then, not only forms a bookend with the creation accounts of Genesis 1 – 3, both pertaining to life in the Presence of God, but, further still, the tabernacle cultus is presented as a mediated resolution to the crisis introduced in Genesis 3 with humanity’s expulsion from Eden.

L. Michael Morales, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? A Biblical Theology of Leviticus, New Studies in Biblical Theology 37, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2015), 75.

Finding the Big Idea in the Pentateuch

Here is another quote from John Sailhamer’s The Meaning of the Pentateuch. Here he discusses how to identify the big idea of the Pentateuch (p. 151).

“How then, do we find the big idea of a large text such as the Pentateuch? How do we formulate a big idea to help us make sense of the Pentateuch? The answer is surprisingly simple. We find the big idea by reading and rereading the text in its parts and as a whole. As we read the text, we begin to formulate a sense of what the text is about (subject matter), and where the author is going with it (compositional strategy). Most of the time, we do this unconsciously, but as we reread the text, we should also do this consciously and intentionally. We should look for where the author is taking us in the Pentateuch. What kind of topics and events are important to him? What is he writing about? What is he saying? Those questions help us get a sense of what the Pentateuch is about.”

Resources for Preaching the Pentateuch

Here is a list of recommended resources from Peter Vogt for preaching the Pentateuch. It looks like a pretty solid list to me.

Gibson, Scott M., ed. Preaching the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006.

Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. Preaching and Teaching from the Old Testament: A Guide for the Church. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2003.

Larsen, David L. Telling the Old, Old Story: The Art of Narrative Preaching. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1995.

Robinson, Haddon W. Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2001.

Peter T. Vogt, Interpreting the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009), 178.

Preaching and Teaching Narrative Passages in the Pentateuch

Peter Vogt provides the following “strategies for communication” in preaching and teaching narratives in the Pentateuch.

• Let the story speak for itself
• Tie in contemporary parallels to the biblical story
• Communicate literary artistry
• Allow for ambiguity

Peter T. Vogt, Interpreting the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009), 172–78.

Preaching and Teaching Law Passages

Peter Vogt provides the following “strategies for communication” in preaching and teaching the Law passages in the Pentateuch to a contemporary audience.

• Address the cultural connotations of the Law (e.g., for Americans, laws are about rules, for OT Israelites the Law was about mandated righteousness)
• Note the purpose of the Law in its original setting
• Discuss the implications of Jesus’ ministry for the Law’s relevance
• Address the applicability of the Law in a contemporary setting

Peter T. Vogt, Interpreting the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009), 165–172.

The Coherence of the Old Testament

"Part of the challenge of communicating the Old Testament message is that many people are unaware of its coherence (and the entire Bible's, for that matter). That is, many people are unaware of how the sections and books of the Old Testament, though written by different authors in very different contexts, nevertheless show remarkable consistency in themes, theology, and worldview . . . the Old Testament presents a coherent metanarrative. Part of communicating the message of the pentateuchal texts includes demonstrating how the text in question contributes to and advances that metanarrative."

Peter T. Vogt, Interpreting the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009), 164.

The Pentateuch as a Painting

In John Sailhamer's The Meaning of the Pentateuch, he compares interpreting the Pentateuch to interpreting a Rembrandt painting (p. 150). Here is his paragraph.

Since the biblical narratives are like an artist’s painting, in order to understand a painting, we must look at what the artist has painted on the canvas. We would not attempt to understand a Rembrandt painting by taking a photograph of his model and using it to fill in places in the painting that are not clear or are cast in the shadows. That may help us see or understand the people and places Rembrandt painted, that is, his subject matter, but it would not help us understand the painting itself. To understand a Rembrandt painting, one must look at it and see its colors, shapes and textures. One must understand what he meant to do with each brushstroke. In the same way, to understand the Pentateuch, one must look at it and the words of its author.”

The Pentateuch and Pipes

I am still slowly making my way through John Sailhamer's The Meaning of the Pentateuch. Here is some food for thought from his fourth chapter entitled "Finding the Big Idea in the Final Composition of the Text" (p. 149).

"I have argues that when speaking of the meaning of the ‘words’ (verba) of the Pentateuch, we should be careful to distinguish between the author’s meaning and the ‘things’ to which his words point, which as such have a meaning of their own. The Pentateuch is about real events, and its words point (literally or figuratively) to things in real life. One must keep in mind that the author’s words are not the things themselves. The words only point to those things. You cannot smoke the word pipe. The thing to which that word points, however, you can smoke.

"To illustrate a similar point, the Belgium artist Rent Magritte painted a realistic picture of a pipe. A caption on the painting reads, ‘This is not a pipe.’ Magritte’s point, of course, was that the pipe was a painting of a pipe and not the pipe itself.

When the Bible describes ‘things’ in the outside world, like pipes, it does so with words. The biblical authors did not draw pictures. They ‘wrote’ pictures using words, much like an artist uses paint and brush strokes. Each word is an author’s brush stroke. The Pentateuch is thus much like a verbal painting of historical events. Its words point to real events, and they tell us about those events. To experience the events, all we need to do is read the Bible. It is the next thing to being there. It is the closest we have to being there. To experience the biblical events as the author intended, one must keep a close eye on the author’s words. We would miss his point if we tried to find out about these events apart from his words.”

Interpreting Law Passages

Peter Vogt, Interpreting the Pentateuch: An Exegetical Handbook (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009), 136-46, offers the following guidelines which I have summarized for interpreting the Law passages:

Determine the contexts of the passage

Identify the kind of law(s) involved

Determine the nature of the legal requirement

Describe the purpose of the Law in Israel
-What kind of situation was this law designed to prevent or promote?
-Who would have benefited from this law, and why?
-Is this law designed to restrict someone's power? How? Why?
-What values or moral principles may be seen as underlying this law?
-What vision of society is being promoted or pursued in the inclusion of this law?
-What penalty (if any) is prescribed for violating this law?
-What does the penalty show about the seriousness of the law and its objectives?

Identify the applicability of the purpose in a contemporary context.

Finding the Big Idea in the Penteteuch

"How do we find the big idea of the Pentateuch? The answer to that question is simple: we read it. As we read the Pentateuch, we begin to formulate in our minds a sense of what it is about. Once we begin to get a sense of what the Pentateuch is about, we can test our ideas against what we actually find in the Pentateuch. Does our understanding of the Pentateuch's big idea fit with what we find in the text itself? As one reads the Pentateuch, these are the kinds of questions one should ask: Am I forcing my ideas on the Pentateuch? Does my understanding of the big idea need some adjustments? Is my understanding totally wrong and in of need being replaced?"

John Sailhamer, The Meaning of the Pentateuch:Revelation, Composition and Interpretation (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2009), 20.

Sailhamer's The Meaning of the Pentateuch

John Sailhamer has added to his published works on the Pentateuch with the recent release of The Meaning of the Pentateuch: Revelation, Composition, and Interpretation.

According to the publisher:

The Pentateuch is the foundation for understanding the Old Testament and the Bible as a whole. Yet through the centuries it has been probed and dissected, weighed and examined, its text peeled back for its underlying history, its discourse analyzed and its words weighed. Could there be any stone in Sinai yet unturned?

Surprisingly, there is. From a career of study, John Sailhamer sums up his perspective on the Pentateuch by first settling the hermeneutical question of where we should set our attention. Rather than focus on the history behind the text, Sailhamer is convinced that it is the text itself that should be our primary focus. Along the way he demonstrates that this was in fact the focus of many interpreters in the precritical era.

Persuaded of the singular vision of the Pentateuch, Sailhamer searches out clues left by the author and the later editor of the Pentateuch that will disclose the meaning of this great work. By paying particular attention to the poetic seams in the text, he rediscovers a message that surprisingly brings us to the threshold of the New Testament gospel. The

Table of Contents:

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction

Part One: Approaching the Text as Revelation
1 Understanding the Nature and Goal of Old Testament Theology
2 Finding the Author's Verbal Meaning
3 What Is the "Historical Meaning" of Biblical Texts?
4 Finding the Big Idea in the Final Composition of the Text

Part Two: Rediscovering the Composition of the Pentateuch Within the Tanak
5 Textual Strategies Within the Tanak
6 The Composition of the Pentateuch
7 Exploring the Composition of Legal Material in the Pentateuch

Part Three: Interpreting the Theology of the Pentateuch
8 The Nature of Covenant and Blessing in the Pentateuch
9 Is There a "Biblical Jesus" of the Pentateuch?
10 The Purpose of Mosaic Law in the Pentateuch
11 The Theme of Salvation in the Pentateuch

Conclusion
Author Index
Subject Index
Scripture Index

You can read a pdf of the book’s introduction here.

Thanks to Adrianna Wright for the review copy.