Literature and Theology of the Old Testament

• Lamentations is often placed after Jeremiah
• It is set in the period after the fall of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (586 - 587 BCE)
• The vividness of Lamentations leads one to believe that it is an eyewitness account but the poetry suggests otherwise
  • it follows an alphabetic acrostic
• Israel didn't exist as a name until the 12th/13th century BCE
• There was no nation called Israel until the 10th century BCE
• There was not a serious setup of Israel until the 8th/9th century BCE
• It is a form of protest --> draws attention to horrors that should not have happened
• The order of the acrostic is in contrast to the disorder of the pain
• Lady Zion is the personification of Jerusalem as a widow
• Chapter 2 --> focus on the falls of Jerusalem and God's wrath
• Chapter 3 --> draws language from other parts of the Old Testament - Psalms, Isaiah, and Job
  • if God is consistent enough to put His justice on evil then He is consistent enough to reward
    • Lamentations 3:38-39
• Chapter 4 --> the two year siege of Jerusalem
• Chapter 5 --> a communal prayer for God's mercy

• People were able to print longer than they were able to write
• 14th.15th century CE, printing becomes popular with the Reformation
• Only 1% literacy rate in the ancient world but in the Roman period this increased to 10%-15%
• The idea of Scripture wasn't introduced until later than the actual production of the texts
  • Isaiah went through serveral stages of growth and the original is not know to modern scholars
• These books are not mass productions
  • "Israelites view..." is the view expressed by some of the 1% elite

• law is a regulation with some official backing
• Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 both depict the 10 commandments
• Keeping the sabbath is impractical for the poorest in society and coveting is only an issue for the wealthy who have stuff to be coveted

Hammurabi and Babylon

• Hammurabi was a Babylonian king
• His laws were based on hypothetical situations
  • if x then y
• You show the quality of your society by the quality of your law
  • This law does not need to be followed but written down to be presented to the gods

• If we view the law as a written treaty or contract to be upheld by society, then the Jews signed this contract when they joined the covenant
  • In modern society, you sign the contract when you choose to live in a society
• The 10 commandments is the first known occasion of a God making laws for humans not humans making laws for gods

• Deuteronomy and Exodus are similar
  • Deuteronomy is supposed to replace Exodus
• The commandments in Exodus are on Mount Sinai but in Deuteronomy it is at Mount Horeb
• 586 BCE - the fall of Judah
• 721 - the fall of Jerusalem
• Around this time, the biggest army was the Assyrian (8th to 7th century BCE)
  • it fell apart from the inside
  • The Babylonians benefitted
• The area around Israel was essentially a power vacuum when Assyria withdrew
• Moses constantly reminds the Israelites about the 10 commandments and monotheism
• Chapter 12 -16 --> one temple for one god
• Chapters 16 - 18
  • God says he will send prophets who will be superior to kings, priests and elders
• Chapters 19 - 26
  • Civil laws and social justice --> more liberal than surrounding societies
• Chapters 27 - 31
  • Moses knew that the Israelites would rebel and be exiled but has hope for them to turn back to god
  • He talks about the circumcision of a hard heart
    • there is something fundamentally wrong with the human heart

• depicted as hosting religious reform
• Reforming Bethel - not his territory so not normal
• Megide - Judah and Israel were used like a corridor
• Corcemish - the boundary between Syria and Turkey; a battle led to the permanent destruction of the Assyrian Empire
• 2 Kingdoms - in the Bible this was orginally 1 kingdom then broke into 2
• Josiah finds a scrolls and realises they haven't been doing what they were supposed to
  • religious reform - closes cults
• Deuteronomy was not keen on kings
  • it was a religious movement not political but generated by the same things
• There is an ongoing idea of 1 kingdom, 1 God, 1 people

• Deuteronomy doesn't fit with the rest of the Pentateuch, but does with what follows
• Ruth is only place where it is in the Christian Bible because of its chronology
• The interests of the 4 Kingdoms are much like the interests of Deuteronomy
• Martin Noth - wondered whether there was something running through Deuteronomy to 2 Kings
• It is thought that Deuteronomy was originally just a law code embedded within a treaty and that the narrative was added to make it part of the Deuteronomistic History
• It is understood that Deuteronomy is either a free standing introduction or that it is part of the History
• The biggest modern challenge surrounds the story of Joshua and Judges
  • Judges is supposed to follow from Joshua but it doesn't flow as there are some unconquered lands
• 2 Kings raises the issue of when and for what purpose this historical book was created
  • perhaps it was to firm the idea of a single Israel
• If it was written in the reign of Josiah, it looks forward to the possibility of a unified Israel

• based around the idea of cycles and covenants
• Heilsgeschichte - history of salvation
  • history and the glorious embrace of God in the past
  • it is a way of thinking about Israel and its relationship with God
• Some people argued that Israel saw its religion in terms of its history
• Gerhard von Rad - some of these provlamations of God delivering the Israelites from salvation were creeds recited
  • "God brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt"
• Mesha - in his father's generation, the Moabites had angered their gods and were given into the hands of Israelites
• Good and bad was measured as an adherence to the covenant
• We don't know any other religions in which they found themselves bound to their god by a treaty
• The book of the law was lost between the building of the Temple and the reign of Josiah
• There would have been many Israelites who did not know about the covenant or even agreed with the laws in Deuteronomy
• it is a story of everything going wrong

• Joshua and Judges are the stories of Israel before the founding of the monarchy
• Joshua begins at the border of the Promised Land
• The first 5 chapters are preparatory
• Joshua 6-12 are the stories of conquest
• The violence of Samson leads on to the further destruction of Israel's unity
• "In those days, there was no king in Israel. Every man did what was right in his eyes."
• Joshua is about the fulfilment of the Promise
  • This is a story of extreme violence
• There is total annihilation in Joshua - herem
  • herem seems to siggest that this destruction is God's will
• There is a lot of Deuteronomistic theology in Joshua
  • Obedience is rewarded; disobedience is punished
• Joshua 12 gives a complete list of those conquered which seems to suggest that it is a complete conquest
• Joshua 13 speaks of unconquered land

• Joshua appears to be putting "herem" into practice
• Some translations have it as "put to death" and "destroy" but these don't capture the religious duty
• This seems to be part of the cultural background of Syrio-Palestine
  • Mesha, king of Moab, was commanded to do something similar

Conceptualizing Herem

• as God's portion (Niditch)
  • human life is so valuable it should be offered to God
• As God's justice (Niditch)
  • eradication of evil
• As 'culturemap category' (Nelson)
  • there are certain things in Israelite culture that are taken for granted such as the idea of purity and impurity
• As utopian law and history written in retrospect (Weinfeld)
  • speaks of what might have ideally happened but was never put into practice
• As theological metaphor (Moberly)
  • it is to express our duty and obedience

• Rahab (Joshua 2,6)
  • She is a Cananite who is obedient to the LORD
  • She and her family are saved
• Achan (Joshua 7)
  • He is an Israelite who is exterminated as he keeps some thing he wasn't supposed to keep
• The Gibeonites (Joshua 9)
  • They disguise themselves as foreigners as the Israelites are only to kill Canaanites
  • They are later found out and become slaves to the Israelites but are not killed

• those who are in relationship with the LORD do well (Rahab) and those who are not (Achan) do not do well
• The focus is on the relationship with the LORD rather than ethnicity

Samuel

• Samuel introduces us to the monarchy
• Saul is undermined from the outset as YHWH chose David to replace him
• 2 Samuel 5 -- David is anointed
• 2 Samuel 7 -- covenant with David
• There is a deuteronomical tension between choice and obedience
  • being chosen by God doesn't absolve from responsibility

• The Succession Narrative is thought to be the source of the Deuteronomic History
• If the Succession Narratives are about Solomon, why is he so absent in them?
• Attempts to explain the complex history of David's children
• In Kings 1, what David knows and doesn't is important
• Is this historical writing an attempt to describe the past? -- wealth of detail
• It is primarily interested in the relationship between David and his family not the wider political context

Political Propaganda

• written in order to put a spin on events that were well-known
• An apology to explain why David became king rather than Saul

Propaganda against the monarchy

• Solomon becomes the fall guy for his father's desire to destroy his enemies

Pro-Davidic but anti-Solomon

• Josiah is the first king after David to fulfil the promise
• Everything goes downhill after Solomon

Serious entertainment

• denounces engagement and challenges you
• written for the reader's pleasure