The scope of OT holy war

Here's an exegetical article by an evangelical OT scholar who argues that the scope of the holy war passages has been traditionally misinterpreted:

https://www.godawa.com/chronicles_of_the_nephilim/Articles_By_Others/Hess%20-%20Jericho%20and%20Ai%20of%20Joshua.pdf

One may or may not agree with his conclusions, but it's carefully reasoned.

Text and History: Reassessing the Relationship between the Bible and Archaeological Findings

https://denverseminary.edu/resources/news-and-articles/text-and-history-reassessing-the-relationship-between-the-bible-and-archaeological-findings-a-review-essay/

This is basically a critique of secular biblical archeology. The primary value lies in the correctives provided by Hess rather than the book under review.

The formation of the OT canon

A possible model for the formation of the Hebrew canon may be suggested here in broad outline. Deut 31:26 records that the "book of the law" (presumably Deuteronomy or a text similar to it) was to be placed in the most holy place of the tabernacle. As the Word of God was being written, it continued to be collected and preserved in the Jerusalem temple, where it could be read and copied by others who were interested in its contents. By 586 BC copies would have been taken by the exiles out of the country, while other copies may have been hidden near Jerusalem. Even if copies were not already present at Jerusalem, Ezra returned with the books of the Law (the Pentateuch). He and others may have brought back various books of the Bible to Jerusalem. In any case, a collection in the temple allowed the priesthood to regulate what they considered as Scripture and what they did not. At some point prophecy was regarded as having ceased, and the final scrolls came into the collection [Thus 1 Macc 4:46, "Until a prophet should come," suggests the absence of prophecy]. After that, as far as the sources attest [1 & 2 Maccabees, as well as sources cited above that attest to major divisions and the number of books in the Hebrew Scriptures], no further scrolls were added to the Hebrew Bible as preserved in the Jerusalem temple. As noted above, these were the thirty-nine books that came to be known as the Old Testament. The rabbis recognized the authority of these texts after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. R. Hess, The Old Testament: A Historical, Theological, and Critical Introduction (Baker 2016), 8-9.

Is Genesis preexilic?

More recent studies have argued that these traditions played a significant role and may even have originated in the exilic and the postexilic periods. Israel was deported across the Euphrates and settled in the Babylonian Empire in 586 BC and was only permitted to return to the promised land after the establishment of the Persian Empire and the edicts allowing for their return (after 539 BC). Likewise, the writers of Genesis from that late period wished to portray Israel's ancestors as coming from the area of Babylon and establishing their claim to the promised land in Canaan. The Genesis stories were invented or developed from old traditions, it is claimed, to encourage Israel to become like its fictional ancestors and return and rebuild in the land of Canaan. This, combined with a Persian-period interest in codifying laws throughout their empire, led to the authorization of the composition of Genesis and the entire Pentateuch as now preserved.

This reconstruction fails to convince because there is little social and religious resemblance between the world of Gen 12-36 and that of the postexilic returnees. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their families get along with their Canaanite neighbors and make covenant rather than war with them (Gen 12,13,20,26, &c.). The postexilic world preached a policy of separation and described ongoing conflict with neighbors (cf. Nehemiah). Further, there is no awareness of religious conflict between the one God of Abram and his family other deities around Canaan. This is completely different from the separation of the postexilic community from the surrounding communities and their religious practices. Finally, Abraham and his successor sacrifice throughout the land of Canaan; they know nothing of practices such as Sabbath observance, priestly lines, temple worship, and distinctions between clean and unclean animals. All this formed an essential part of the postexilic community's worship at only one altar in the Jerusalem sanctuary. If postexilic writers were redacting (or creating) the tradations in Genesis to conform to and promote the interests of the ruling postexilic priesthood, they surely could have done a better job. R. Hess, The Old Testament: A Historical, Theological, and Critical Introduction (Baker, 2016), 35-36. 

Preexilic Bible manuscripts

The earliest manuscript of any recognizable part of the OT is a text of part of Num 6:24-26 found incised on two small silver scrolls discovered in 1979 during the excavation of Judean burial sites at Ketef Hinnom, immediately southwest of the city of David in Jerusalem. This text is too brief to make a definite connection with a particular tradition. However, it is a form of the blessing of Aaron as well as possibly Deut 7:9. Because biblical texts would have been written on perishable materials such as papyrus or vellum (animal skin), these silver-inscribed scrolls are the only ancient biblical texts preserved in the settled areas of Judah and Israel, thus the earliest such texts. Although they were discovered in a burial context that dates from the years immediately before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586BC, it is likely that the actual composition of these silver manuscripts should be assigned an early date, in the seventh century BC. R. Hess, The Old Testament: A Historical, Theological, and Critical Introduction (Baker, 2016), 10. 

Ancient Israel's history

http://www.denverseminary.edu/resources/news-and-articles/the-rbl-review-of-arnold-and-hess-ancient-israels-history/

The Seventy Sevens of Daniel 9: A Timetable for the Future?

https://www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/bbr21c02.pdf

The Seventy Sevens of Daniel 9: A Timetable for the Future?

https://www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/bbr21c02.pdf

A Review Article of Stephen L. Young, “Protective Strategies…”

http://www.denverseminary.edu/resources/news-and-articles/protective-strategies-here-and-there-a-review-article-of-stephen-l-young-protective-strategies-and-maximizing-literacy-as-a-protective-strategy/

Questions of Reading and Writing in Ancient Israel

https://www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/bbr19a01.pdf

Apologetic issues in the OT

http://biologos.org/blog/apologetic-issues-in-the-old-testament-part-1

http://biologos.org/blog/apologetic-issues-in-the-old-testament-part-2

http://biologos.org/blog/apologetic-issues-in-the-old-testament-part-3

"No magic bullet--Copan's insufficient answer to the slaughter of the Canaanites"

http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2014/08/no-magic-bullet-copans-insufficient.html

War in the Hebrew Bible

Richard Hess has an article titled "War in the Hebrew Bible: An Overview" that's worth checking out. (I mentioned the article in a previous post, but it's worth highlighting on its own.)

A transcript of Hess' response to Avalos

Richard Hess responds to Hector Avalos on his lecture in the Religion and Violence Series: "Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence." Hess' response starts around the 1:07:00 mark.
I've made a transcript of Hess' response to Avalos (below). I didn't bother to double check it or anything so I could have made some mistakes. It should serve well enough as a rough transcript at least.
I started transcribing around the 1:11:00 mark. Prior to this point, Hess spoke broadly about the scarcity of resources, and I just took notes on this bit. In other words, I basically transcribed most of Hess' response except for the first maybe two or three minutes where he talks about scarcity in more general terms.
I should say I agree with Hess' response overall. The main disagreement I'd have with Hess' response is his apparent pacifistic inclinations.

Rahab

In his essay on “The Jericho and Ai of the Book of Joshua,” Richard Hess has a section on Rahab, which he connects with his argument that Jericho was a fort. Cf. Critical Issues in Early Israelite History, 38-39.

I wonder if Rahab’s status as a prostitute doesn’t, itself, furnish a bit of supporting evidence for classifying Jericho as a fort. By that I mean, where we find military institutions, we generally find prostitutes nearby. When men are stationed far from home, they typically resort to prostitutes. Traditionally, armies on the march might have a traveling harem to service the troops.

The only moral restraint on that behavior is Judeo-Christian ethics. And, of course, the pagans of Jericho and Ai didn’t have those scruples.

So, within the general framework of his argument, isn’t her identity as an “innkeeper” a euphemism for a brothel? Might she not be more like a Madame?  

Chemosh

Some additional correspondence which Dr. Hess shared with me:

[In lines 11-12 of the Mesha stele] h-y-t implies a feminine subject, such as “city”.  A masculine subject would be “people” and, if singular, should have h-y-h as its verb.  Furthermore, the verb followed by a lamed preposition means “to belong to” and does not say anything about some sort of religious or cultic act of sacrifice.  The reason why Albright and others interpreted the phrase in the way they did was because they were misled to read r-y-t there in place of h-y-t.  R-y-t is a “hapax,” that is, it occurs only here and therefore its meaning is conjectural.  However, André Lemaire was the first epigraphist to go back to the squeeze that was taken before the inscription was smashed (soon after its discovery).  Lemaire read h-y-t there in place of the otherwise unknown r-y-t.  See André Lemaire, “’House of David’ Restored in Moabite Inscription,” Biblical Archaeology Review 20/3 (May-June 1994), pp. 31-37; and especially Lemaire, “New Photograph and ryt or hyt in Mesha,” Israel Exploration Journal 57 (2007) pp. 204-207.  Since that publication this has become the standard interpretation of the text.  Mr. Stark’s appeal to the earlier ANET and the translation of Albright from the 1960’s cites an authority who at the time did not have available the most accurate reading of the inscription.

The ‘olah or burnt offering is one of the most frequent types of offerings mentioned in the Bible.  It also occurs at Ugarit by the same name.  There the offerers could eat of this offering while in Israel it was unique in that the whole of the offering was burnt to God.  So the evidence we do have suggests it was a frequent offering and one that took on different meaning and practice in different cultures of the time.  However, Moab was culturally closer to Israel and Judah than to Ugarit, so my guess is that this is some sort of burning of the prince on the walls as a sacrifice of some sort.  Again, the point is that the text does not emphasize the god to whom it was dedicated or any deity or divine element.  Rather, the whole thing appears as a horrible act of propaganda to demoralize Edom and to turn them in anger against Israel so as to break up the alliance.

Rash vows

Dr. Richard Hess shared some email correspondence with me which, with his permission, I'm posting:

On what Mark S. Smith argues I have no problem.  I read him as indicating both that Deut 32 originally identified two different deities and as indicating that there was a myth tradition behind what Deut 32 purports to read.  Of course, I am not convinced of this but there are a good number of scholars who do follow it (as there are some who don’t). 

 

I am glad to see that Mr. Stark is citing the correct Dead Sea Scroll fragment, 4QDeutj (not 4QDeutq which does not preserve this reading; he should not cite it at all as it does not demonstrate his point of plural gods), although all of these fragments can be confusing sometimes.  Yes, it is possible to translate elohim as “gods,” but it is not the way it is usually translated nor is it to be preferred here.   The reason is because neither the Masoretic Hebrew text nor any of the Septuagint variants, nor any other ancient witness so translates it.  Of course the MT and most LXX manuscripts do read “sons of Israel.”  A few LXX witnesses read huion theou.  Since you have studied Greek, you will recognize that theou is the singular genitive.  So only one DSS fragment reads elohim and that does not require a plural interpretation.  It can be singular or plural.  Because of the common understanding of elohim as most frequently singular, and because the other ancient versions uniformly read a singular (“god” or “Israel”), Tov translates this phrase as “sons of God.”  Smith renders it “divine beings” in his Early History of God (2nd edition) p. 32.   And that is how I would translate it.

 

As to the antecedent in 2 Kings 3:26, I refer to the first explicitly identified 3rd person masc. sing. antecedent who is the Edomite king in 3:27.  That would be the first identified figure.  It is true that the “he” in “he took his first born son” refers to the king of Moab.  However, that is not the “first explicitly identified 3rd masc. sing. antecedent.  This occurs at the end of v. 36 and is the king of Edom.   It is an important point because it certainly does allow for the “his” in “his firstborn son” to refer to the King of Edom.  Let’s see, we have at the end of v. 26 and beginning of v. 27 sequentially in the Hebrew references of 3 masc. sing. figures: (1) king of Edom – (2) king of Moab - (3) his son (which I contend refers to the king of Edom’s son).  Compare this with Gen 4:26 where an identical syntactical construction can be found: “To Seth was born a son and he called his name”:  (Seth –) (1) son – (2) Seth – (3) his name.  Syntactically you have the same construction where the last referent (the “his X”) refers back to the first referent (king of Edom or Seth’s son), not to the second referent (king of Moab or Seth).   This is not customary English syntax but it does occur in Hebrew.

 

But as I say it is the context that remains the crux of the argument.  As to the question of reconstruction.  Indeed, everyone must reconstruct.  Human sacrifice to a god is a reconstruction.  Wrath coming from G/god is a reconstruction.  The question is not whether we need to reconstruct something, but what is most likely.

 

Mr. Stark writes:  “The answer to his question, “Where is there an example of this in the West Semitic world?” is, right here, 2 Kings 3” 

 

I can think of no finer example of a circular argument.  He assumes what he sets out to prove and does so in a single sentence. 

 

Mr. Start writes:  “Let’s put that question back to Hess: Where is there an example of a king offering an enemy prince as a burnt sacrifice in the West Semitic world? The answer is nowhere.” 

 

The question is a good one but the answer that Mr. Stark provides is not accurate.  Scholars such as Fales and Liverani have written much on the use of terror as a propaganda mechanism in ancient warfare and especially in the Neo-Assyrian annals, which just around the time of the events described in 2 Kings 3.  There was no greater proponent of calculated terror than Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 B.C.)  In the Habur and Middle Euphrates Valleys the leaders (kings and princes) of Beth-eden revolted while Ashurnasirpal was on campaign elsewhere.  He reversed his troops and marched on the rebels without warning.  He horribly mutilated the leaders before murdering them.  Hearing and seeing such atrocities, the Habur and Middle Euphrates never rebelled again during his reign.  You cannot read the Assyrian annals and especially those of Ashurnasirpal without noting the atrocities her perform, impaling enemies on stakes in front of their cities (e.g., ANET p. 276).  Nor was the ritual-like slaughter of leaders and military personnel (and others) limited to the events themselves.  They were recorded in written and pictorial form for others to read and fear.  From the time of Tiglath-pileser III (744-727 B.C.) plate 368 on pl28 of ANEP displays bodies of locals impaled on poles around the town of that the Assyrians were besieging.  While I can find no examples of such human sacrifice by a leader to turn divine wrath on the enemy, there are plenty of contemporary examples that fit the picture of a king brutally killing one of his opponents in order to discourage, dishearten, and strike fear into his enemy’s hearts.  The suggested scenario for 2 Kings 3 fits well into this overall picture.  Like the Assyrian propaganda, such killing was intended to demoralize the Edomites.

 

The example from Jephthah is indeed one of promising a sacrifice – a human sacrifice as it turns out – in order to fulfill a vow after a military victory.  God gives the victory and Jephthah follows through on his rash vow.  I am not sure what this is supposed to prove in regard to 2 Kings 3.  The point here is not a promise made in advance or even on the wall in the midst of the battle.  No such promise is mentioned.  Nor in the Jephthah story does the death of a human being occasion the “wrath” and the subsequent departure of the enemy.  That there were vows, even rash vows that could involve the sacrifice of one’s own family members, I will readily concede.  But that is not the scene on the wall of the Moabite king.  There is no mention of a vow.  There is no mention of a deity. There is no fulfillment of the promise after the victory.

 

Now I see you have just sent me another email with a question about lines 11-12 of the Mesha stele.  I understand human sacrifice as a specific ritual to a specific deity for a specific purpose.  While exterminating a town might be later described as done to or for a deity, it would not normally be considered human sacrifice.  However, the point is moot because lines 11-12 should be translated (here following Ahituv, Echoes from the Past, Carta, 2008, p. 394):  “…I took it and slew all the people [and] the city became the property of Chemosh and Moab.” 

 

This translation assumes that the form of the verb became (h-y-t) is a feminine and refers to the town/city, not to the people (in which case it would be masculine).  

Blomberg on "doctrinal conformity"

Craig Blomberg

June 23, 2011 at 12:48 pm

I wish you all could meet and get to know Rick [Hess]. He spent years teaching in universities that did not have doctrinal statements of faith. He came to his convictions not because anyone coerced him into them for the sake of a job. He came to us because he believed what he did; he did not believe what he does because he came to us. He is internationally respected by Christians, Jews, Muslims, and atheists. He has been invited by the Chinese government on more than one occasion to teach about religion at major Chinese universities. His books are used as textbooks in schools with no confessional leanings. He is as likely to correct fellow evangelicals whose views are too narrow or just factually mistaken than he is to correct others. Of everyone on our faculty, there is no one I can think of who more often does agree with people of very different backgrounds than his.

Doctrinal statements work in different ways in different institutions. In some contexts, notably Southern Baptist ones, they can be used as clubs to keep people in line. In other places, they are used more in the sense of truth in advertising–like saying, “if you come here, here is what our faculty stand for. We just wanted you to know what you’d be getting.” We’re definitely in the latter category. Does “without mental reservation” mean that we can have no doubts? Not at all. One can believe in the trustworthiness of Scripture and still be very puzzled by many interpretive questions but not be flummoxed by them, because in our finite and fallen humanity we shouldn’t expect to be able to figure everything out. We’ve watched answers emerge after patient study time and time again so that we can proceed with confidence that they will do so in the future as well. We could probably even remove that phrase “without mental reservation” from the document and almost no one would even notice or care. But there would be a dozen (I pick the number almost randomly) loyal elderly constituents who would be befuddled by the omission when they noticed it, so why ruffle their feathers?

I can understand why, as outsiders to our milieu, others could read our literature and imagine a very different environment than what it actually is. I can understand why some who have had quite different experiences with different confessional schools might be very sure they knew what our environment was like. But I’ve just finished serving twenty-five years at Denver Seminary and never once felt stifled by our doctrinal statement, asked tons of questions, have my own set of doubts, am free to air them all, and find it an amazingly healthy work environment. I invite anyone who doubts me to come for a campus visit and I’ll personally introduce you to as many of my friends as time permits, so you can judge for yourself. I can’t make anybody believe me, I realize, but I offer my own firsthand experience nevertheless. All the worst-case scenario suspicions so confidently affirmed in this blog and its responses are just flat-out wrong.

http://unreasonablefaith.com/2011/06/22/doctrinal-conformity/#comment-142294

The fine art of shoe-eating

With his permission, I'm posting some correspondence I had with Dr. Richard Hess today.

Dear Dr. Hess,

How do you interpret 2 Kings 3:27? I ask because some reviewers of Paul Copan's Is God/Yahweh a Moral Monster have been critical of how he handled this passage. Here are some concrete examples: