A Historical Theology of the Hebrew Bible

Konrad Schmid

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781467457095
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Critica e interpretazione biblica

In this meticulously researched study, Konrad Schmid offers a historical clarification of the concept of "theology." He then examines the theologies of the three constituent parts of the Hebrew Bible—the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings— before tracing how these theological concepts developed throughout the history of ancient Israel and early Judaism.

Schmid not only explores the theology of the biblical books in isolation, but he also offers unifying principles and links between the distinct units that make up the Hebrew Bible. By focusing on both the theology of the whole Hebrew Bible as well as its individual pieces, A Historical Theology of the Hebrew Bible provides a comprehensive discussion of theological work within the Hebrew Bible.

H.Themes in the Theology of the Hebrew Bible

THE PROBLEM OF SYSTEMIZATION Contrary to the tradition inaugurated by von Rad, a theology of the Hebrew Bible cannot refrain from a certain systematization of its topics. This is, it should be noted, not predominately called for by the Hebrew Bible itself (though this question is not completely foreign to it), but is primarily a question posed by theology. Just as with a presentation of Plato’s philosophy, a theology of the Hebrew Bible requires both an analytical and a synthetic approach. However, “the choice and arrangement of the topics should not arise from conventional systematic-theological schemas, but from the material itself.”¹ If one approaches the question of the thematic arrangement of the Hebrew Bible in this way, then—measured against the later reception in Judaism and Christianity (cf. below Part I)—either the foreignness or the familiarity of the themes is emphasized, or rather a whole spectrum between the two poles can be chosen. The following discussion opts for a middle road, which is justified by the fact that the later receptions and prioritizations can be interpreted not only as distortions, but each in their own way also as functional vanishing points that emanate from the Bible.

SELECTION AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE THEMES The subsequent selection and arrangement is one of many possibilities. It roughly follows the canonical sequence of Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim, thus it follows the Hebrew Bible more than the Old Testament. It unavoidably lays a certain focus on the beginning of the Hebrew Bible (the Pentateuch), for on the one hand, the most important themes of the Bible are illuminated here, and on the other, the Pentateuch as the Torah also has historical primacy among the books of the Bible. Therefore, weighty themes that are actually attested more prominently in prophecy or in wisdom literature are already addressed comparatively early—namely where the Pentateuch already alludes to them—so that the order of the canon and the content overlap with one another.

HISTORY OF SCHOLARSHIP Added to the discussion of each theme is a section introducing the history of scholarship. It primarily serves the purpose of indicating the dramatic change in scholarship over the past thirty or forty years, which led to massive shifts in the perception and interpretation of each theme in recent Hebrew Bible scholarship. In keeping with the genre of textbooks, it cannot provide a detailed report on scholarship, but instead serves to highlight the dynamics and logic inherent to scholarly development and its importance for the understanding of current issues.

§29Literary Genres and Forms of Theological Statements in the Hebrew Bible

Rainer Albertz, “Die Theologisierung des Rechts im Alten Israel,” in Geschichte und Theologie: Studien zur Exegese des Alten Testaments und zur Religionsgeschichte Israels, BZAW 326 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 187–207 ◆ John J. Collins, “Changing Scriptures,” in Changing Scriptures: Rewriting and Interpretating Authoritative Traditions in the Second Temple Period, ed. Hanne von Weissenberg et al., BZAW 419 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 23–45 ◆ Michael Fishbane, “Inner-Biblical Exegesis,“ in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, ed. Magne Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 1.1:33–38 ◆ Jan C. Gertz, “Schriftauslegung in alttestamentlicher Perspektive,” in Schriftauslegung, ed. Friederike Nüssel, TdT 8 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 9–41 ◆ Jörg Jeremias, “Das Proprium der alttestamentlichen Prophetie,” in Hosea und Amos: Studien zu den Anfängen des Dodekapropheten, FAT 13 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1996), 20–33 ◆ Melanie Köhlmoos, “Weisheit/Weisheitsliteratur II,” TRE 35:486–97 ◆ Reinhard G. Kratz, “Innerbiblische Exegese und Redaktionsgeschichte im Lichte empirischer Evidenz,” in Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne: Beiträge des Symposiums “Das Alte Testament und die Kultur Moderne” anlasslich des 100. Geburtstags Gerhard von Rads 1901-1971: Heidelberg, 18-21. Oktober 2001, ed. Manfred Oeming et al., Altes Testament und Moderne 8 (Münster: LIT, 2004), 37–69 ◆ Thomas Krüger, Kritische Weisheit (Zurich: Pano, 1997) ◆ Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) ◆ Hindy Najman, “The Vitality of Scripture within and beyond the ‘Canon,’ ” JSJ 43 (2012): 497–518 ◆ Eckart Otto, “Die biblische Rechtsgeschichte im Horizont des altorientalischen Rechts,” in Altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte: Gesammelte Studien, BZABR 8 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 56–82 ◆ Markus Saur, Einführung in die alttestamentliche Weisheitsliteratur (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2012) ◆ Konrad Schmid, Schriftgelehrte Traditionsliteratur: Fallstudien zur innerbiblischen Schriftauslegung im Alten Testament, FAT 77 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011) ◆ Konrad Schmid, “Prognosen und Postgnosen in der biblischen Prophetie,” EvT 74 (2014): 462–76 ◆ Hermann Spieckermann, “Der Mythos Heilsgeschichte: Veränderte Perspektiven in der alttestamentlichen Theologie,” in Arbeit am Mythos: Leistung und Grenze des Mythos in Antike und Gegenwart, ed. Reinhard G. Kratz and Annette Zgoll (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 145–66 ◆ Odil H. Steck, Gott in der Zeit entdecken: Die Prophetenbücher des Alten Testaments als Vorbild für Theologie und Kirche, Biblisch-theologische Studien 42 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2001) ◆ Hermann Timm, “Das Alte Testament—ein Geschichtsbuch? Zu Gerhard von Rads Unionslektüren des Alten Testaments,” ZTK 99 (2002): 147–61 ◆ Ernst-Joachim Waschke, “Mythos als Strukturelement und Denkkategorie biblischer Urgeschichte,” in Der Gesalbte: Studien zur alttestamentlichen Theologie, BZAW 306 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001), 189–205

A theological approach to the Hebrew Bible is well advised to begin by clarifying what the Hebrew Bible itself understands literally with regard to “theology”—the speaking of God. Which forms have the texts and writings of the Hebrew Bible selected in order to speak of God, and what theological decisions are hidden behind such choices?² As is so often the case, the Hebrew Bible does not provide explicit reflection on these processes; instead its implicit logic must be deduced and interpreted.

WORD OF GOD AND WORD OF HUMANS A general principle on speaking about God in the Hebrew Bible should be stipulated: while the Hebrew Bible contains numerous passages of text marked by divine speech—this is the case for the historical books, the prophetic books, and also the Psalms as well as the wisdom literature; all of these are embedded as the words of God presented as declarations in interpretive contexts, which mark the divine speech as mediated divine speech—the Hebrew Bible does not attest to divine speech outside of human words.³ Yes, it appears in the narrative of Moses’s smashing of the two tablets “written with the finger of God,” but only to reflect consciously on the fact that his writings do not possess a “divinely written” quality. According to the narrated world of the Hebrew Bible, there was only one time when there was a divine autograph, and that was long ago and only for a short time. This was the first edition of the Ten Commandments (Exod 32:16). However, this autograph was shattered by Moses shortly after he received them on Mount Sinai (Exod 32:19). Moses himself then wrote the second edition (Exod 34:27–28).

THE BOOK OF ESTHER NEVER NAMES GOD The book of Esther presents a singularity in that it never mentions God.⁴ However, it still belongs to the biblical canon. It remains silent about God, but it is read as a writing that is perceived and understood as indirectly witnessing about God.

THE BEGINNING OF THE BIBLE IS NOT GOD’S SELF-REPORT Characteristic in this regard is the fact that the creation narrative of the Bible in Gen 1 from the very beginning consistently reports of God in the third person, and not in the first person, which would generally have been conceivable.⁵ The Hebrew Bible is itself, then, also a self-testimony that it is not simply identical with God’s word. It instead understands itself—where this even becomes a topic—as a witness, interpretation, and transmission thereof. Accordingly, various literary genres are used or developed in order to speak of “God,” which will be presented in what follows. The list is not comprehensive, but representative.

STEREOMETRY One peculiarity already mentioned in §9 should be recalled here once again. A whole range of theological conceptions in the Hebrew Bible were not named explicitly in the first place, but rather rise stereometrically above the surface of the texts. Complex interrelated statements put forward a perspective of the meaning by means of the dynamic of reception they initiate for the audience that is not, however, condensed textually. This is an exceptionally remarkable manner by which to carry out theology, and it is also of great importance for addressing the question of how theology can be inspired by the Bible.

1.Narratives

In beginning to read the Hebrew Bible, initially the form of its texts as narrative holds sway. In the canon of the Hebrew Bible, this formal imprint carries through from Genesis to the end of 2 Kings, such that the Bible is introduced by a large and essentially continual (and therefore coherently readable) narrative from the creation of the world to the demise of Judah and Jerusalem that functions as Israel’s founding story. In addition, the Hebrew Bible offers a second, structurally similar founding story in the books of Chronicles (together with Ezra–Nehemiah), which reaches from the first human (1 Chr 1) to the Edict of Cyrus (2 Chr 36), or rather to the restoration of Judah (Ezra–Nehemiah), which, however, stresses very different accents.

SOCIO-POLITICAL DIMENSION The thematic narrative orientation of Genesis–2 Kings has, in the first place, a socio-political nature. Just the fact that this large narrative ends with the loss of the monarchy, state, and temple grounds Israel’s existence as an entity that in a political sense is “exilic.” Genesis–2 Kings explains why Israel is not a people with its own land, ruler, and locally anchored cult. Why then is Israel nevertheless Israel? In order to answer this question, the actual theological substance of Genesis–2 Kings should be taken into account. The founding story offered in Genesis–2 Kings does not limit itself to a description of the development of specific political, social, or cultic regulations and institutions in the course of Israel’s history, but it simultaneously if not predominantly narrates how God on the one hand in active, and on the other hand also in reactive manner became the God of Israel who, in a very complexly presented manner, is both the one responsible for Israel’s exilic existence and also for Israel’s exilic existence. The shared denominator of these declarations is the reciprocal relationship between God and Israel, which is the remaining central factor, together with Israel’s genealogical cohesion, for its identity after the loss of the monarchy, state, and temple.

FUNCTIONAL MYTHIC STRUCTURE Why can narratives, especially in the prominent manner of Genesis–2 Kings, even come to be understood as forms of speaking about God? This question first took shape in the modern period. It never would have arisen in antiquity, primarily for two reasons. The first is that a theoretical approach to God was basically foreign to the ancient Near Eastern world; they speak of God in view of his actions and his experience. The second is that ancient literature generally uses mythical categories for fundamental questions, treating questions of existence as questions of origins, calling for narrative forms of presentation.⁶

Considering Genesis–2 Kings from this perspective, one recognizes that this narrative depiction treats and overlays with considerable complexity the questions of the universality and particularity of divine action, God’s care and obligation, divine beneficence and human effort. It has been known for at least a quarter of a millennium that these overlapping phenomena are conditioned by the composition history, but only recent scholarship has developed perspectives that make these overlays comprehensible as inner-biblical interpretations.

Therefore, Genesis–2 Kings as a whole, for example, is readable as a comprehensive etiology for Israel in its diaspora existence, as an entity that maintains cohesion without monarchy, state, and temple—according to the information of Genesis–2 Kings, not in the least because of the history narrated there.

On a small scale, the narratives of the Primeval History in particular can be mentioned. The so-called paradise or Garden of Eden narrative in Gen 2–3 gives reasons for why huma...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• A. Introduction
• B. The Use of the Concept of Theology in Relation to the Bible
• C. Hebrew Bible and Old Testament
• D. Methodological Reflections
• E. Theologies of Extant Hebrew Bibles and Old Testaments
• F. Theologies of the Three Parts of the Canon and Their Collections
• G. The Principal Theological Guidelines in the Literary History of the Hebrew Bible
• H. Themes in the Theology of the Hebrew Bible
• I. The Question of a Jewish Theology of the Hebrew Bible or a Christian Theology of the Old Testament
• Index of Authors
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Scripture