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Sandauer, A. - Reading The Bible Backwards (1976)
Sandauer, A. - Reading The Bible Backwards (1976)
1
See Martin North, Geschichte Israels. Goettingen, 1963, p. 247 and following
regarding the attempts of Josiah, king of Judah, to recover after the fall of Assyria
at least part of the territory that had once belonged to Israel.
Let us begin with the author. The flat uninspired style and
the linear character of the narrative suggest the idea that these
are fragments of annals written by Hilkiah, the high priest of
the temple. The author’s identity is also borne out by the
nature of information offered (knowledge of the streets, the
inhabitants and the addresses) and by the narrator’s specific
bias.
The events described are even more baffling. King Josiah
sent Shaphan the scribe to see what progress had been made
on the reconstruction of the temple. The king forbade him,
mony. &dquo; Surely there was not holden such a passover, &dquo; the author
records with triumph, &dquo;from the days of the judges that judged
Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings
of Judah&dquo; ( II Kings 23 : 22 ).
When the opposition had been put down, the priests of Jerusa-
lem were able to exercise an unlimited control over Judah;
this domination was to survive not only Judah but also the
priests themselves; its final result was to be the Jewish nation.
Their spiritual dictatorship was to produce certain enduring
forms of existence which enabled the Jewish people to survive
the thousand years of the Diaspora and bondage. On the other
hand, the monstrous quantity of commandments and injunctions
they raised like a wall around the people was to lead in effect
to the petrification of culture.
The process of petrification, which might be called Deuterono-
mization after the work marking its beginning, extended in two
directions. In its forward extension it cut a gash through the
psyche of the subsequent generations and, in its backward ex-
tension, against the current of time, it adapted old tradition
to new exigencies. The priests of Jerusalem, as we have seen
in the example of Josiah’s reform, sought to produce the illu-
sion that they were not innovating but restoring, that every
upheaval was a reversion, that Judaism had been from the
first what it was now, that it had always been so. That explains
their arduous concentration on the revision of the old texts.
We cannot but admire what they accomplished: they had
preserved for posterity a treasure of incalculable value. Yet we
cannot help but regret that the original texts have not survived.
The control they exercised was autocratic, the sifting was con-
ducted with rigid scrupulousness. And so the legends that have
come down to us are deformed. It is not a concidence that the
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that was hated: Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which
he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son
of the hated."
8
These hypotheses are enumerated by K. Budde in the commentary Die
Buecher Samuel, 1902, p. 17.
14
15
10
The word " prophet " had a different meaning in the 10th century than it
had later. It did not denote " a man of God " but an ecstatic dervish (see scenes
from the life of Saul).
11
Written about the mid 4th century B.C., the work contains many earlier
data.
16
17
13" "
Ephraim " was one of two halves of Joseph’s tribe, the other was Ma-
nasseh ". The Manassites settled earlier, but the Ephraimites were numerically
stronger. This balance of power is expressed in the story where Joseph brings
his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, to be blessed by his father Jacob. He
places them in the order of their birth: Manasseh on the right and Ephraim on
the left. But Jacob deliberately guides his right hand so it rests on Ephraim’s
head and by this token Ephraim receives the birthright.
14
See I Samuel 17:12. This is the author’s hypothesis. Biblical scholars
assume that the word Ephrathite stands here for the inhabitant of Bethlehem
which is also called Ephratah in several places of the Bible. We feel that these
are additions made at a later date by authors who wished to impart meaning
to an epithet that they no longer understood.
18
15
The motif of infringement of the right of primogeniture appears also in
the story of Ephraim and Manasseh and in the story of the travail of Tamar.
Zarah put out his hand first but drew it back and Pharez, the younger of the
two, made the breach first. (Genesis 38: 28-30).
16
Even the sin of Reuben, who lay with Jacob’s concubine, has its archetype
in Absalom’s sin.
19
20
19
Budde (op. cit., p. 328) explains the condemnation of the numbering of
the people by the fact that " Yahweh, who gives and takes life, cannot abide
to have anyone count the souls," and by the fact that " the natural aversion of
the population for the census, which could mean new burdens, assumed the
character of a religious injunction."
20 "
The same story is repeated literally by the Chronicles ", written a few
centuries later. But here the instigation of Yahweh is replaced by that of Satan.
21
Written about the 4th century B.C.
21
22
The history of the falsification of old pagan names in the Bible remains to
be written. The name Eshbaal (man of Baal) is replaced in later texts by the
damning name Ishbosheth (a man of shame). The editors attempt to defend
the pagan name at times by giving it an appropriate interpretation. The name
Jerubaal actually means " fearful of Baal ". In Judges 6: 32 it is interpreted as
" the struggler against Baal ".
23
Reference is made here not to monotheism, which arose much later, but to
monolatry, according to which Yahweh is the only one of the many gods who
deserves to be worshiped.
22
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