While riding home last week I caught an interesting interview on All Things Considered. Co-host Robert Siegel spoke at some length with Yoram Hazony, author of "The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture" (CUP 2011). (You can listen for yourself here or read a summary of the interview here. An entertaining pitch for the book by Hazony himself can be found on YouTube here.)
While I've not read his book, Hazony is certainly not a scholar in the Talmudic tradition; the post-Torah texts of Judges, Samuel, and Kings are equally valuable. Nor is he a conservative Jewish commentator like Umberto Cassuto; Hazony is firm believer in a early-late composition of the Tanakh (i.e., Jeremiah was the redactor). Nor is he a sociologist of religion; the Hebrew Scriptures actually count for something.
What, you ask? According to Hazony, the Hebrew Scriptures provide the spark of hope for human as individuals, and not as pawns of great imperial powers. Of particular interest is his development of the shepherd vs. farmer motif where shepherds represent those free from the capital-intensive economies of urban powers while farmers are part of the urban-agricultural-imperial complex. Today, Westerners generally think in terms an urban vs. suburban vs. rural trichotomy but that's not the way it was for thousands of years (nor, for that matter, is it an accurate understanding of contemporary American society). Agriculture developed historically only in conjunction with the establishment of cities and it was the shepherd--the hunter-gatherer--who stood outside urban control. Cities with their farmer dependents quickly developed into centralized political-military-religious complexes that demanded total allegiance. Wandering shepherds are, according to Hazony, presented in the Hebrew Scriptures as those free from urban-agricultural idolatry, and the trajectory of their historical narrative demonstrates the increasing corruption of the people of Israel as they succumb to the temptation of urban imperial pride, a corruption that culminates in the Exile.
There's more about this book that looks worthwhile. Consider this selection from Chapter 4 linked here:
The sheer quantity of such examples has led to the suggestion that the biblical authors in fact see God's commands as either supplementary to, or themselves expressions of, a fundamental moral law that derives from the nature of things; and that the biblical authors believe human beings should be able to discern this law, at least in its contours, even without explicit instructions from God. On this view, the ethics of the Bible is based, in the first instance, on a form of natural law.
I suspect even John Calvin might agree. (See my article God's Bridle: John Calvin's Application of Natural Law (abstract here) and Calvin's cameo in Hezony's YouTube piece.)
But let's also consider some questions about Hezony's approach (from, remember, one who hasn't read his book.) The positive emphasis of the Hebrew Scriptures on shepherd-wanderers-exiles-aliens over against city builders can hardly be gainsaid. Indeed, the New Testament Gospels and Epistles pick up this theme. Yet, the Christian Scriptures address themselves to an urbanized world: That's the way it was in the Greco-Roman world and here's how God wants you to live in it. Indeed, John's Apocalypse even ends with a vision of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, a sort of divine blessing on an eschatologically urban life.
Professor Pryor,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to read your thoughtful commentary. For a different perspective, you and your readers might want to take a look at the several reviews of Hazony's entire book, including (among others) Harvard professor Jon Levenson's in the Jewish Review of Books ( http://www.jewishreviewofbooks.com/publications/detail/category-error )and Aryeh Tepper's on Tablet, which actually strongly question or dismiss Hazony's construction of a shepherd versus farmer motif in the Tanakh (Old Testament) and Hazony's reading of the Tanakh/Old Testament in regard to natural law.
There are an increasing number of critiques of the book from Jewish scholars, but I'm hoping you and/or other Christian thinkers will also have time to read and respond to the book itself. Although in the Wall Street Journal article, Hazony states, "I will let Christians speak for their own sacred texts," large sections of his book are actually devoted to critiques of the New Testament and early Christian thinkers (particularly Tertullian). He dismisses the New Testament as being written in a "juridic" framework "far removed from the study of truths of a general nature--which is to say, from the study of philosophy" (p. 55)--and he includes ethics and moral philosophy in this definition of "philosophy". Further, he says that the New Testament "having been written by those who witnessed the miraculous events in question [sic], serve as testimony so that one may judge the claims being made by Jesus and on his behalf...If one can show that the witnesses are unreliable--that their testimony is inaccurate or internally contradictory...one has no grounds for belief" (p. 51).
Now, my understanding is that not only was most of the NT not written by those who actually witnessed the events, but that the writers don't claim to have personally witnesses those events (the beginning of Luke, for example, explicitly states that the writer is setting down what he's heard from others). It also seems to me that most of Hazony's argument is extraneous to a book on the philosophy of the Tanakh/Old Testament. (And then, there's Hazony's statement in the WSJ that he's leaving commentary on the NT to Christians, which is strangely at odds with the book itself).
A couple of Amazon reviews of the book point out factual errors and misquotes of the New Testament in Hazony's book, but I'd love to read analyses of his overall argument regarding the New Testament.
Thank you.
Thanks for the detailed response. Would love to read the book and comment on it directly but doubt that time will permit, at least in the near future.
ReplyDeleteToo bad but understandable of course--. Hope someone else will take this on, as the book's misunderstandings of the NT and Christianity seem pretty serious, especially in this time or rising anti-Christian sentiment and acts in Israel. I apologize for the typos in my previous post! I enjoy reading your blog...
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