Lecture #1: The Hebrew Bible

COURSE: New Testament

Lecture #1: The Hebrew Bible

God's Call and the covenant with Israel

• Biblical religion is grounded upon the experience of God's presence which transforms the lives of the individual and the group.
• This encounter of people with a reality beyond themselves to which they are related and with which humans can communicate is the essence of biblical religion and constitutes the foundation of Judaism and Christianity.
• The Bible tells the nature and course of Israel's relationship to its god YHWH and how he chose a group of tribes to receive his revelation and how they responded to him.

The Covenant tradition

• YHWH revealed his name to Moses at the burning bush when he told Moses that he must free the people from the Egyptians.
• The name revealed was eh’yeh asher eh’yeh, which has been translated "I am who I am" meaning he is the being who will be eternally present to his people.
• The decision to enter into the covenantal relationship was the great decision of Israelite history, resulting in the emergence of a special religious consciousness. For the Jew, the Exodus from Egypt became the central event in religious history.
• The covenant is the central conception of the Bible. It formed the framework in which Israel understood its social constitution and historical meaning. At Sinai the clear will of YHWH had been revealed and the people had accepted it.
• The Bible presents the nation as founded in a religious event, and its rule as always to be religious law. The loose tribes were transformed into a people united by shared loyalty to YHWH and this covenant ordered the political and social realms as well as religious.
• Law became absolutely central in the religious life of Israel. later
• YHWH was the author of a code which governed the entire range of human life. His majesty and holiness were embodied in the Law which he had issued.
• Therefore it was incumbent upon every Israelite to hear the commandments, to learn them and to perform them. as Deut 6:4-7 says:

Hear O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children. .

• Because YHWH loved Israel he had chosen Israel to be special and to serve his special mission in the world.
• Israel must return his love in every generation by acting to fulfill the sacred obligations of the covenant. This is the clear imperative which is issued from the covenant relationship.
• Every person of the nation was able to understand and participate in the covenant and thereby share in realizing the divine life.
  
  
• The conception of a God who acted in history and who participated in an ongoing historical relationship with a community of people broke with the prevailing notions of deity, of nature, and of man in the ancient near east.
• The ancient Near east viewed the world of nature as being alive with divine forces which were of the same substance, and which experienced the same needs as people themselves.
• The gods as well as humans were born out of a primeval matter, subject to natural processes and were ultimately subordinate to the laws of nature or fate.
• It was because the gods and humans were of the same substance and subject to the same laws that humans could manipulate the gods thru magic and could actually become a god or demigod.
• In contrast to the mythological deity, YHWH was conceived by Israel as the absolutely transcendent Lord of the universe whose being was beyond nature and completely other than man. He was totally independent of natural processes and could not be controlled by magic.
• The notion was that if Israel fulfilled its side of the covenantal relationship, the progress of history towards its ultimate goal would be advanced. If Israel failed to uphold the covenant stipulations, the divine plan would be frustrated and God's instrument subject to chastisement and punishment.
• Biblical history is the record of successive fulfillments and defections, of faithfulness and waywardness, of social peace and social disorder.
• This idea of YHWH being the only transcendent Lord did not spring full-blown to Israel. It took many centuries to develop.
• Up until the time of Jeremiah and Ezekial (circe 620-587 B.C.E.) The Israelites were basically henotheistic– this meant that YHWH was seen as the god to whom the Israelites owed allegiance and yet they recognized that other gods existed and made claims on other people.
• For example, in Judges the judge Jephthah professed to follow YHWH but told the Moabites to possess the land which Chemosh their god gave them.
• At the time of Moses it was believed that YHWH had chosen Israel but he proved he was stronger than other gods by beating them thru the Israelite army.
• The land was an important part of the covenant because one's god needed a place to dwell.
• Thus Cyrus the Persian sent the Jews home in 538 B.C.E. because he believed that their god had been away from his land long enough.
• By this time, the Jews had come to understand God as one and over all.
• This happened with Ezekial's vision (BCE 587) of the Merkavah, the chariot throne, showing that God was not tied to Jerusalem as the throne was lifted from the temple in Jerusalem and flew to Babylon. This was a big step in understanding the nature of God.
• There is a second type of covenant found in the Heb. Scripture – besides that of law.. This is found in II Sam. 7 and Psalm 89 as well YHWH swears his allegiance to as with Abraham in Genesis 12. The concept here is not a covenant of law but of grace. David (and Abraham) regardless of what they have done only their allegiance.
• This understanding of the covenant is found in many of the prophets and also in the New Testament through Jesus and Paul.

The Prophets

• The prophets were YHWH's representatives sent to try to call the people back to the covenant.
• They battled against syncretism with foreign religions, economic oppression, social injustice, and international political involvement.
• The prophets called for inner change, for a revival of the covenant, and a regeneration of religious life.

• Amos an 8th cent. prophet, condemned this moral degeneration most thoroughly, findin Israel guilty of all manner of ethical behavior.

• The concept of Justice and the demand of YHWH for adherence to ethical norms came from Amos.
• Amos proclaimed that according to the religion of YHWH ethics was more significant than cult and that moral behavior would determine the national fate of Israel.
• This same proclamation was echoed by the later prophets such as the first Isaiah and Hosea.

• To Isaiah the worst of Israel's sins was pride, the self-assertion and self-confidence of man which inevitably led to rebellion against God.

• He proclaimed that history was controlled by YHWH and that human force did not determine its order. Trust in self was idolatry, a sin which Israel committed constantly. And punishment would come.
  
  
• According to the prophets, knowledge of God and knowledge of the covenant were absolutely essential if Israel were to realize its true national destiny, and yet it was just this knowledge which had been lost.

• Hosea: The great 8th cent northern prophet, Hosea believed and preached that Life without God had led to life without righteousness, life without truth, and life without mercy.

• To Hosea, loss of self implied loss of the relationship with YHWH and it was this sin of which Israel was guilty.

• Jeremiah was the solitary defender of the covenant from 617-586.

• In 622 a scroll was found in the temple and brought to the king, Josiah. He called for the Passover feast to be celebrated, which it had not been in many years.
• However, Jeremiah could see that the people were not changing within so he warned the king and the people of the doom to come, promising hope for the righteous few who would survive the holocaust.
• Of all the prophets, the fate of Jeremiah was the most tragic. He prayed for the people, tried to turn them from; destruction and was ignored. He was treated badly and in Jeremiah chap 15 he begins to curse the day he was born for he is miserable.
• Jeremiah predicted defeat upon the erring nation, but not complete doom. There would also be salvation
• Jeremiah had a vision of the new covenant which would herald salvation for Israel:

Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, .. for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jer. 31:31-34)

• Man had been unable to change himself, so that God had had
• to transform him inwardly. Christions, see this fulfilled Through The ministry of Jesus, but most especially the coming of the holy spirit.

• Ezekiel prophesied from Babylon trying to give comfort to the exiles.

• He had tremendous zeal and called on the captives to repent.
• First, he taught that God's actions were just, for the sins of Israel had merited the wrath he visited upon them.
• By justifying God's ways it enabled the exiles to recover the inner strength required for the reconstruction of a community dedicated to YHWH's service on foreign soil.
• From this time on, in fact, the main thought in Judaism came from Babylon, not Jerusalem.

• Second Isaiah, which begins with chapter 40, is close in style and spirit to the original Isaiah.

• He taught that YHWH had a plan for universal redemption, and it involved the special participation of his chosen people. Israel must spread the message of redemption and must demonstrate God's saving power to the nations.
• This task would be difficult, entailing suffering and humiliation.
• The suffering servant passages in Isaiah 42-53 are addressed by YHWH to an idealized figure, commissioned to perform the labor.
• no one would listen to him or notice him but in the future all would listen to him.
• Deutero-Isaiah's image of the servant became the model for Israel, which interpreted its suffering of the present as having redemptive value.
• Israel must become the servant bearing witness to YHWH.
• A great messianic hope arose at this time looking toward the time when all nations acknowledged YHWH as sovereign king and God.
• universal peace would reign, the cosmos would be transformed, Righteousness and peace would prevail among all creatures.
• The prophet conceived YHWH's plan to be the progressive revelation of himself to the nations through the special mission of Israel toward the end goal of universal knowledge and universal peace.

• Impact of the Babylonian Captivity:

• The destroyed national institutions of Jewish life were replaced in Babylonia by two key religious institutions, around which community life was ordered. These were the synagogue and the Torah.
• Without the temple, they now had to substitute for the official cult.
• Prayer in sanctuaries consecrated by the people, fasts, and the Sabbath celebration formed the core of the new worship.
• The religious and national unity of Israel had been gravely challenged by the destruction and exile, and the challenge was met by the resolution to remain loyal to YHWH and the religious values of the covenant tradition.
• The traditions telling of YHWH's acts and his relationship to Israel were gradually gathered together in Babylonia by the Priests. These men edited the various traditions inserting their own and compiled a history of the world from creation, preserved in ordered form the words of the prophets and formulated a priestly code of ritual laws grounded upon earlier cultic prescriptions.
• Acquiring knowledge of the past and fulfilling God's commandments became the most sacred activity in the religious life of the Jew.
• Israel interpreted their duty to remain holy as a duty to remain separate and distinctive.
• This meant to remain holy and distinctive in conditions of exile that legal prohibitions were imposed such as those against mixed marriage and dietary laws.
• the calendar of special religious observances separated Jews from non-Jews and symbolized the determined separate existence of Israel.
  
  
• When Cyrus the Great won victory over Babylonia he appeared as a messianic figure to many Jews who saw Isaiah's prophecy coming true.
• In 538 B. Cyrus issued an edict telling the Jews they could return home to Israel. It is certain that the initial response of the exiles was weak and in fact, few actually went back.
• Psalm 23 comes from this period trying to encourage the exiles to go home.
• Reestablishment was difficult though the temple was rebuilt in 515 B. after a 20 year struggle to obtain funds and labor.
  
  
• Ezra the scribe came from a priestly family. He brought with him to Palestine the code of the law of Moses, consisting either of the entire Pentateuch or large parts of it compiled by the priests in Babylonia. He proclaimed this code as the law of the land in the name of the King of Persia.
• He was very strict and the books of Ruth and Jonah were written at this time protesting the exclusiveness of the new attitude.
• During this time the Five books of the Law were finally canonized. This "Torah" was disseminated among the people.
• The Jew, no matter where he lived, was to be defined as one loyal to the Law of YHWH, one devoted to the ancient covenant

• THE PERSIAN PERIOD

• Local control and government by Satrapes
• The government was very good and religion was left alone as Cyrus believed he had been called by Marduk, His God, to set things right after the defeat of the Babalonian empire.
• The Jews that stayed in Babylon, and this was the majority, prospered in Egypt (where many exiles went including Jerimiah) and Judea, the priestly class became much more powerful

• Alexander the Great

• His father was assassinated when he was 20 at which time he set out on a dramatic military career in which he was victorious everywhere.
• he swept through Persia, Afghanistan and by 326 had reached the Indus River in present day Pakistan.
• According to legend, Alexander stood on the banks of the Indus river weeping because there were no more worlds to conquer. He had studied under the Greek Philosopher, Aristotle and thus was also interested in spreading Greek culture.
• The city of Alexandria, Egypt, which was named for him, became a monument to the Greek way of life: intellectual, athletic and artistic.

• Believing Greek culture was superior, he felt it his divine mission, (for he was honored as a god) to spread Greek art and manners everywhere.

• He did not live to see his dream fulfilled for he died in 323 at age 32.
• at his death his generals divided his empire
• Syria went to Seleucus and Egypt to Ptolemy and Palestine was caught in a struggle between the powers of the fertile crescent.
• Alexander's policy of spreading Greek culture thru the world was carried on by these leaders.
• Hellenization is the name applied to this process of bringing Greek culture. Gymnasiums, theaters, stadiums were found everywhere.
• Greek dress became fashionable, especially among the aristocrats, and koine Greek ie, the vernacular, became the spoken language of international business and political affairs in this time a revival caught fire and a group, mostly rural, known as the Hasidic or pious ones argued against Hellenization.
• these were the forerunners of the Pharisees of Jesus day
• Hellenism represents a synthesis of the Occident and Orient.
• Carthage became the only remaining center of Canaanite civilization.
• like the fall of Assyria in 609, Alexander's conquest fed the apocalyptic spirit of the age and had a great intellectual impact on all peoples.
• The Ptolemies built up a famous museum at Alexandria, with a huge library that would compare favorably with the best libraries of today
• Euclid, Archimedes, and others developed their ideas there. under Ptolemy II (285-246 ECE) Jewish scholars began translating the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek.
• this translation too many years but the Septuagint was produced which was read by most of the diaspora now that Greek was the language
• The Jews also produced a number of books including The Wisdom of Solomon which is in the Apocrypha, which were influenced by a Hellenistic world view.
• The Ptolemies ruled in Palestine for a long time after Alexander's death but in 198 BCE the Seleucid king won back Palestine from Egyptian control.
• Under the Ptolemies the Jews had no problems with their own religion but Antiochus the great was a strict upholder of Hellenism as was a successor, Antiochus IV. (175-163).
• He was known as Antiochus Epiphanes because he claimed to be god (Zeus) manifest. As a result, he ruled with absolute authority.
• He didn't object to people having other gods but the test of political loyalty was the worship of Zeus, and this meant submission to the absolute authority of the king--"god manifest".
• Needless to say, this caused real trouble in Palestine.
• When the office of high priest was auctioned off to the highest bidder, rioting took place.
• the fight between the two pretenders to the high priesthood, and the ensuing riots, brought Antiochus to Jerusalem with his army, put Menelaus into the high priests office and punished the
• populace by plundering the temple and shedding Jewish blood (II Macc 4-5)
• infuriated over the Jews stubborn defiance and a defeat he had suffered in an Egyptian campaign, he issued orders for the outlawing of Jewish religion and complete Hellenization of Jewish life.
• according to the edict, Jewish mothers who circumcised their children were to be put to death,
• copies of the Torah were to be burned and observance of the Sabbath and possession of a copy of the Torah were capital offenses.
  
  
• Abomination of Desecration in 168 BCE he marched his troops into Jerusalem and set up an altar to Zeus over the altar for burnt offerings in the temple court.
• he further defiled it by sacrificing a swine upon it--the most unclean animal of all, according to Jewish law (I Mace 1:54; see Dan 9:27; 11:31; 13:11; and Mk 13:14)
• pagan altars were built in the land and Jews were forced to make sacrifices to Zeus and eat swine's flesh, with troops policing to make sure the royal edict was obeyed.
  
  
• The Maccabean Revolt
• The revolt began in a town NW of Jerusalem when a Syrian officer demanded the local citizens comply and make a pagan sacrifice.
• Mattathias, a village priest, flatly refused and proceeded to kill a jew who was going to comply and the officer.
• He and his five sons fled to the hills and gathered a band of loyal Jews.
• Their battle cry was the shoult of Mattathias: "Let everybody who is zealous for the Law and stands by the covenant come out after me" (1 Macc 2:27)
• In 166 when he died, he commissioned his eldest son Judas to carry on.
• He won a surprising victory over Antiochus general and demanded a peace treaty.
• On the 25th day of the month of Kislev (December), 165 BCE.. he rebuilt the altar of the Temple and restored the service of Jewish worship
  
  
• This is the origin of Hanukkah (rededication) also called the feast of lights.
• the story is there was only enough oil to burn in the lamps needed for cleansing the temple for one night: but it burned for 8 days, i.e. a miracle. Thus, Hanukkah lasts 8 days.
• In 148 BCE the tower which Antiochus had built overlooking the temple, to keep an eye on the Jews, along with his Syrian and Greek troops, were cleared away through negotiations.
• Palestine essentially had independence for about a century until the Roman ruler Pompey came to Jerusalem in 63 BCE.

BONUS MATERIAL:

• The composite bow. – http://www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/gri/9bow.html
• The ancient Egyptians used several different types of bows. The two most common varieties were the self bow, made of one piece of wood, and the laminated composite bow.
• The composite bow was introduced to Egypt from Western Asia probably around 1700 BC. It was made of layers of different materials, such as wood, horn and sinew. It was superior to the self bow and could hit a target at a distance of some 250 m. The bow had a characteristic double-curve shape which became triangular when strung (the ends were bent back when the bow was being strung).
• A self bow (top) and five composite bows from the tomb of Tutankhamun. H. Burton photo. 484, copyright Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.