Papers

At University House, Birmingham from Monday to Wednesday, 4-6 January 1999

Professor Robert Carroll (Glasgow): Beyond Kerygma and Kritik: A future for Hebrew Bible Studies in the Institutions of our Learning? (Presidential Paper)

Dr Stefan Reif (Cambridge): Jews, Hebraists and Old Testament Studies

Ms Johanna Stiebert (Lancaster): Shame and Prophecy: Approaches Past and Present

Revd Dr John Bowden (SCM Press): What about the Old Testament?

Professor George Steiner (Cambridge): Transitions

Dr Greg Glazov (Oxford): The Hand-on-the-Mouth gesture in Job 40:4 (Short paper)

Dr Heather McKay (Ormskirk): Clothing, Ornaments and Stylised Speech: SymbolicMarkers of Power and Negotiation in Biblical Texts (Short paper) 

Abstracts

Presidential Address: Professor Robert Carroll (Glasgow): ‘Beyond Kerygma and Kritik: A Future for Hebrew Bible Studies in the Institutions of Our Learning?’:

This represented an attempt to say something about the past of the discipline, especially in relation to the speaker’s experience of thirty years membership of the Society for Old Testament Study, and about the future prospects for its continued existence in the new century and millennium about to dawn. It was hoped that the discipline would be able to transcend its roots in the confessional beliefs of so many of its members (Kerygma) and the critical academic scrutiny of the Hebrew Bible (Kritik) in order to incorporate new developments in reading the Bible as well as more popular approaches to the Bible. Issues relating to pre-millennial tension (PMT) and post-modern theory (PMT) were also raised and discussed in relation to elements of fundamentalism/ evangelicalism inherent in current uses of the Bible in popular culture. Some points were made about the ‘feminization of the Guild’ and some specific written performances of powerful, intelligent women writing on the Rezeptionsgeschichte of the Bible were singled out for recommendation. A possible future for Hebrew Bible studies was seen in the ‘beyond Kerygma and Kritik’ dimension of treating the Bible as cultural literature. The address ended with a reminder of the appalling destructiveness of the twentieth century linked to a reception-history intertextual reading of Torah in the form of a recitation of Primo Levi’s poem ‘Shema’ (Deut. 6.4 adapted to the conditions of the Shoah).

Professor Stefan Reif (Cambridge): ‘Jews, Hebraists and “Old Testament” Studies’:

The object of the paper was to answer three basic questions: Are there aspects of Jewish literary culture that may be said to match, at least in some interesting and valuable, if critically limited ways, elements in the modern study of the Hebrew Bible? What have been the underlying attitudes to Jews, Judaism and Jewish literature on the part of Christian Hebraists over the past few centuries? To what extent may it be argued that there are still to be found in current Old Testament studies approaches to the subject that leave Jews feeling uneasy about full participation? In the discussion of the first question, attention was drawn to characteristics of Jewish biblical exegesis that were not widely familiar, or were simply misrepresented in the world of Old Testament scholarship. Examples were cited of midrashic interpretations that had solid, down-to-earth aspects; of early medieval interpretations that demonstrated sceptical and historical tendencies; and of comments by the classical Jewish exegetes of the Middle Ages that were closely paralleled in modern scientific treatments of scriptural texts. To answer the second question, comparisons and contrasts were made between the approaches of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The intellectual backgrounds to these approaches were traced to the Protestant Reformation and to German historical criticism. Literature was cited to demonstrate how negatively Christian scholars viewed rabbinic sources, Judaism, and the role of Jewish teachers of Hebrew. In the third part of the paper, the continuation of such negative attitudes was traced in the modern period and it was pointed out that numerous statements revealed a high degree of tendenz rather than a commitment to critical analysis. Some scholars were presenting what was in effect Christian theology in the guise of critical study, or what amounted to political bias as if it were historical analysis. Although there were encouraging signs of more pluralist and ecumenical trends on the part of non-Jews – and Jews were, for their part, developing critical biblical studies, especially in North America and Israel – there were still conservative Christian attitudes that left Jewish scholars singularly uncomfortable about participating fully in this field of study.

Ms Johanna Stiebert (Lancaster): ‘Shame and Prophecy: Approaches Past and Present’:

Shame is prominently discussed both in the literature of psychology (where it is contrasted with the emotion ‘guilt’) and of social anthropology (where it is associated particularly with women and with loss of status and where it stands in binary opposition with honour). In the last ten years the anthropological honour-shame model has been widely used as heuristic pattern for analysing biblical texts. With regard to the Hebrew Bible the focus has been primarily on the patriarchal narratives and Deuteronomistic history. The preponderance of shame vocabulary, however, occurs in the prophetic corpus. Here the honour-shame model proves to be ill-fitting. Among other reasons discussed with particular reference to the book of Isaiah, is that the honour-shame model tends to belong to static societies, whereas, insofar as social contexts are implied or described in the Major Prophets, these tend to be depicted as marked by turmoil and chaos attending the exile. In the absence of discussions using models constructed for the purposes of examining situations of upheaval (such as revolutions or millenarian eruptions) three new approaches were outlined and discussed with regard to the shame discourse of Ezekiel 16. The purpose was to probe their suitability for elucidating this baffling text with a view towards redressing the paucity of prophetic shame studies. The first approach examined antilanguages. Antilanguages are associated with so-called antisocieties which seek self-consciously to create a different society from that which has been or is dominant and are characterised by insistent use of metaphor (especially sexual metaphor), as well as by hyperbole and disjointedness. The second approach examined grotesque language, which is also characterised by exaggeration and excessiveness, particularly with reference to the body and bodily functions. The third approach considered the sociological phenomenon of deviance amplification.

Revd Dr John Bowden, Editor and Managing Director of SCM Press, ‘What about the Old Testament?’:

Dr Bowden described his involvement with the Old Testament, first as university teacher, then as publisher, over more than thirty years. He lamented the diminishing role of Old Testament studies in the wider theological scene, and drew attention to the disadvantages of the publication of books about the Old Testament by Old Testament scholars. He pointed to the lack of more generally accessible works and textbooks and asked whether it was a good thing for the discipline that John Bright’s History of Israel was still the flagship for its subject. He ended by asking whether the talents of the members of SOTS could not be better deployed in this more general direction.

Professor George Steiner (Cambridge): ‘Transitions’: Professor Steiner declined to provide an abstract.

Dr Greg Glazov (Oxford): ‘The Hand-on-the-Mouth Gesture in Job 40:4’:

There is a tendency among commentators to posit that the book of Job concludes with the silencing of Job, i.e. with Job’s hand remaining on his mouth in deference and submission to Yhwh. This impression is rationalized by telescoping Job 42:1-6 upon 40:1-5 which contains a vow not to speak again (e.g. as do Westermann and Muenchow). Job is therefore believed to retract, betray or repress his former complaints and law-suit. To rescue Job’s integrity, critics are led to interpret his hand-on-the-mouth gesture as a gesture of disgust and contempt for Yhwh (J. B. Curtis, Elie Wiesel, etc.). However, gesture studies and the study of non-verbal communication (Darwin, M. Gruber, etc.) will not allow the gesture at 40:4 to be interpreted as one of contempt. Analysis of this gesture (Gruber) shows that it should be interpreted from context. The context points to the importance of Job 9:20 which suggests that by putting his hand on his mouth, Job is “taking the fifth amendment” lest anything he might say will be taken as evidence against him. Consequently, Yhwh’s Behemoth-Leviathan speech is, as argued by a number of commentators (Habel, Brenner), aimed at releasing Job from his fear-inspired self-repression and opening him up to dialogue. This is indeed confirmed by Job’s second speech. Reference to gesture studies therefore help to confirm Habel’s argument against Westermann that the divine-human confrontation in Job, must be understood dialogically, and helps to establish the normal structure of such confrontations in Hebrew prophecy and apocalyptic.

Dr Heather McKay (Ormskirk): ‘Clothing, Ornaments and Stylised Speech: Symbolic Markers of Power and Negotiation in Biblical Texts’:

1. In all societies, dress – as a material form of human discourse common to both genders – provides a simple means of analysing the daily obedience of society members to their roles and social locations. And in the Hebrew Bible, the wearing of certain dress and insignia can be seen to operate as both an evidence, and an enforcer, of the social norms of the societies portrayed in the texts. 2. Cultural-anthropological studies provide clear examples of the forms of restrictions executed by dress upon stance and gesture and upon types and speeds of movement. By means of dress, gender and status differentiation are both internalised – as one dresses – and made manifest – as one is seen to move and operate in society. 3. In a small number of stories women characters effect vital changes in the behaviour of male leaders – sometimes by their words and sometimes by their actions. Sometimes the women characters behave in strange, inappropriate ways, but the actions they carry out – in the end – prompt the men to mend their ways and produce an honourable resolution to the story. Cross-gender dialogues provide the loci for the most intriguing, scandalous, or otherwise compelling conversations in the biblical texts. Their inherent asymmetry permits them to tackle awkward societal issues in a way that draws less attention to the origins of the difficulty because attention is focused on the sexual chemistry between the two protagonists. Various examples were given from biblical texts. 4. It was concluded that males have a clear, autonomous gender role that develops from child to patriarch. Women have the possible gender roles: virgin daughter, wife, widow and harlot – all distinguished by means of dress. All the adornments are given by men and demarcate powers, including symbolic items such as dialogue with the deity, power of action on the public domain, and the sexuality of females. On occasion, these seemingly fixed ‘rules’ are apparently overturned and the unexpected person succeeds and wins the day. Or do they? Are these stories no more than a crafty narrator’s skilful ploy?