Afbeelding van de auteur.
16+ Werken 1,313 Leden 8 Besprekingen Favoriet van 1 leden

Over de Auteur

Jon D. Levenson is Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Werken van Jon D. Levenson

Gerelateerde werken

Tagged

Algemene kennis

Geslacht
male

Leden

Besprekingen

In Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible, Jon Levenson sets out to offer a theology of the Jewish Bible in a way that is true to the nature of history, which is diachronic, not synchronic. According to Levenson, the Christian Canon, which views the Old Testament largely with reference to its Christology, demands a uniform reading that obscures the pluriform nature of the text and flattens history (Levenson, 4). Levenson wants to take into account “the involvement of the Hebrew Bible in history and its character as imaginative literature and…not seek to deny this involvement and this character in the name of faith” (8). He does this by emphasizing human involvement in the writing of history rather than seeing it as one manifest plan of God. This means observing the changes throughout Israel’s history as evolutionary, not revolutionary (4). Levenson will endeavor to trace Israel’s history, or, rather, their theology of history, in light of the two greatest land markers of their religion, Sinai and Zion, attempting to show that their theology was not shaped by their history as much as their history was shaped by their theology.

The book is divided into three major sections. In the first section, “Sinai, the Mountain of the Covenant,” Levenson approaches Sinai and its covenant in its written form, not presuming upon the event itself, in order to begin discussing the numerous traditions concerning it (17). Sinai was the controlling metaphor for Israel’s relationship with YHWH, whose primary function was not to recount YHWH’s revelation to them in history, but to illustrate the type of relationship they shared with Him in the present (36, 43). According to Levenson, to be sure, the recitation of the Shma was “the rabbinic covenantal renewal ceremony…the portal to continuing life in covenant” (86). A theology of history was being established that provided a way of understanding their place in history and a way of engaging YHWH in the present. Thus, toward the end of the Jewish Bible, the prophets could look back and account for the adversity and privilege Israel and Judah had experienced throughout their history with reference to their disloyalty or loyalty to the covenant (55). Woven into this section is Levenson’s attempt to substantiate the evolutionary nature of Israel’s history. He begins by showing that YHWH seems to evolve as the people evolve, even arguing that in the beginning YHWH was the greatest God of the pantheon, suggesting that early Israelite tradition was polytheistic! YHWH as Suzerain won his kingship by humiliating the other gods, and thus Israel’s monotheism was “dynamic rather than static” (62). The groundwork has thus been laid for the continuity of Sinai and its covenant in Israel’s history. It was not merely an ancient relic, but the reality with which they were perpetually confronted, which served both as an interpretation of their past and a means of shaping their future.

In the second section, “Zion, the Mountain of the Temple,” Levenson shows that as Jewish tradition developed, Sinai was absorbed into a new mountain, Zion, a known hill in Jerusalem. No longer did YHWH reside “in an extraterritorial no man’s land, but within the borders of the Israelite community” (91). The Sinaitic covenant, which focused upon the changeability of humanity, is now supplemented by the Davidic covenant, which focused on the constancy of God (101). Levenson notes that the faith in this everlasting dynasty gives no credence to political history, the rise and fall of kingdoms, and was thus born out of something quite different from a mere meditation of history. This nonhistorical way of relating history was through myth, which is characterized primarily by symbols with “unlimited scope and import,” in this case Mount Zion (103). Zion was the cosmic mountain, whose most significant characteristic was that it was the meeting place of heaven, earth and hell (111, 122). Ordinary concepts of space and time are not adequate in describing the essence of Zion because it transcends both; it is qualitatively different from ordinary reality (127).

Furthermore, comparing the similar language of Zion with the Garden of Eden, Levenson concludes that Zion was the place “in which the primal perfection of Eden is…preserved” (129). Having established its relationship with creation, the temple thus serves as a picture of what creation and life were supposed to be, perfect and eternal (133). What is greatly significant in light of the meaning of Zion is that it was not confined by spatial limitation. Zion was not a “place in the world, but the world in essence…The temple…is a microcosm of which the world itself is the macrocosm” (139). Thus, YHWH’s being enthroned in Zion ultimately implicates His providential rule over his universal kingdom. This “cosmic significance” explains why even at the loss of Land and Temple the Jews did not lose their essential identity; the “Temple was more than a building” and the land was based on a covenant that is still in force. “The earthly Temple lay in ruins, but YHWH remained enthroned…” (181). Thus the mythical, rather than historical, nature of the Land and Temple allowed the Jews to survive in the absence of both.

Finally, in his last section, “Zion as the Heir to Sinai,” Levenson shows that Zion and the Davidic covenant did not replace Sinai and the Mosaic covenant, nor did Sinai survive in the Northern Kingdom while Zion displaced it in the Southern Kingdom. Rather, they were compounded into a holistic tradition, where Sinai represented the voice of God that was present at Zion, which represented the presence of God. This is illustrated in the feature of covenant renewals of the Sinaitic tradition–the indictment of the people for a breach of covenant–that survived into the Zionist tradition, e.g. Psalm 81 and 50. Hence, “The…Lord speaks and summons the earth…” (Ps 50:1, emphasis added). The voice spoken to Israel at Sinai has thus been amplified to the entire world at Zion. Levenson shows that this cooperation of Sinai and Zion is a necessary corrective one for the other, where both the disregard of Israel’s ethical status and the presumptuousness of the sacrificial cult are held to account. “Sinai demolishes the hubris of Zion…Zion demolishes the hubris of Sinai” (209, cf. Jer 7; Ps 50). As such, the messianic hope of the Davidic covenant should be located within the Sinaitic tradition (209). According to Levenson, whereas Judaism maintains the Mosaic and Davidic covenants necessarily in their pluriform nature, the New Testament has used the Davidic covenant to displace the Sinaitic covenant (216, 217). As such, “David is subordinated to Moses, and the restoration of Zion…is subordinated to the righteousness of the Jews…” (217). For Levenson, this does an injustice to the nature and trajectory of the Jewish Bible, which still looks for a righteousness generation of Jews to which the Messiah will come.

Although Levenson offers many wonderful insights to Old Testament studies, the entire book is somewhat undermined by his failure to qualify its premise that the changes in Israel’s history “seem more evolutionary than revolutionary” (4). In other words, the development of Jewish history does not reflect major historical events that changed the course of history. Rather, throughout Israel’s history their writings were shaped by the world in which they lived, in conjunction with a developing and changing theology. This inability to view the Old Testament stories as essentially historical, rather than merely a theological recasting of the past, leaves many unanswered questions and unqualified arguments. For example, Sandra Richter reads YHWH’s suzerain-vassal covenant with Israel as a means of communicating with the Hebrew people, who had been steeped in the polytheism of Egypt, in a language they would understand (Richter, 83). But Levenson interprets this as a natural development that reflects Ancient Near Eastern culture (though he doesn’t bother to explain why it reflects Hittite treaty patterns of the second millennium B.C., though it conflicts with his later dating of the text), not to mention early Jewish polytheism, and thus concludes, “How the idea of God as exclusive suzerain was born thus remains cloaked in mystery.” (70). He does not even consider that God intervened in history in the second millennium B.C. to rescue the Hebrew people from Egypt. Also, even if the Old Testament does lack the historicity that Levenson claims, he offers no explanation for the origin of such an unlikely emergence of an otherwise inept people. It seems necessary to offer a plausible explanation for the origins of the Jewish people if he’s going to dismiss their alleged history that explains such origins. The conclusions of his book seem to be almost entirely based on a “hermeneutic of suspicion” against the historicity of the Old Testament that is no longer readily accepted in Old Testament scholarship (Miller, CT, “Did the Exodus Never Happen”). The argument ultimately reduces to whether or not Levenson is justified in arguing for an evolutionary rather than revolutionary development of the Jewish Bible. Certainly, it would do an injustice to the Old Testament to blindly dismiss the way Israel’s theology affected their interpretation of history, but it is equally unjust to dismiss the history on which their theology is allegedly based. It seems that one can accept both historical plausibility and theological redaction within the Old Testament without contradiction. But the overemphasis of either seems like it will inevitably involve a blind dismissal of what should be its complementary counterpart.

In conclusion, it seems that at the heart of Sinai and Zion is a polemic against the New Testament interpretation of the Jewish Bible, which views the events and theology of Israel’s history as having their culmination in Jesus Christ. This is perhaps why discussions on the New Testament are the book ends of his work, creating the need and giving a conclusion (1, 2, 216, 217). It seems that by emphasizing the evolutionary development of Judaism, Levenson tried to establish a precedent for its indissoluble continuity, which, according to Levenson, is contradicted by the discontinuity evident within the NT, especially with reference to the Law. This gives occasion for the rejection of the NT (though I would argue that this discontinuity is anticipated in the Old Testament, e.g. Jer 31:31-34). His dismissal of the “revolutions” throughout Scripture allows him to recast the Old Testament into a natural progression of Judaistic literary history. By showing that the Temple and Land are unnecessary for the continuity of the Jewish tradition, he has established a way for Jews to understand their place in history today and furthermore has accomplished his goal of presenting Torah and Temple in a different perspective from that of the consensus (3). Despite this admirable accomplishment, it seems to me that he has undermined the very history on which Jewish faith is based and relies.
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
JDSpainhour | 2 andere besprekingen | Jan 23, 2023 |
This is an interesting book. Our author, Jon D. Levenson, is both a monotheist and a believer in God's Omnipotence.This is curious because omnipotence is not here conceived as mere fact but, as our author puts it, "... a dramatic enactment: the absolute power of God realizing itself in achievement and relationship." Omnipotence is not rejected by our author; it is just not always enacted by God. - For reasons that always remain inscrutable. Our author pointedly denies writing a theodicy in the 1994 preface. Why? In the Bible (the O.T.) Gods people want Him to Act, not explain. ...But theodicy is, above all, an explanation (of evil, suffering, etc.).
So, who or what is God acting upon (or against) when He Acts? Chaos! Thus "...the world is good; the chaos it replaces or suppresses is evil." Levenson maintains that the 'nothing' (in the biblical doctrine of creation out of nothing) is not mere void, absence, privation. No. It is "something - something negative." What? Our author states that for the Jews of those times "it seems more likely they identified 'nothing' with things like disorder, injustice, subjugation, disease and death." If you philosophically identify God with Perfect Being, its opposite is nothing. But the world of the Hebrew Bible did not contain philosophers...
Our author also maintains that the biblical understanding is that, "history, no less than nature, slips out of God's control and into the hands of obscure but potent forces of malignancy that oppose everything He is reputed to uphold." Why does this happen? Again, God's Will and Ways are Inscrutable and Mysterious. Yes, God entered into Covenant with His people. Why then are they so often forsaken? "The possibility of an interruption in His faithfulness is indeed troubling, and I repeat that I have ventured no explanation for it."
The God of the Philosophers, the All, the One, Knows no Other, except nothing (void). Levenson argues that this is not the God of Israel. While the God of the Philosophers seems to lead some commentators in the direction of an 'All is God' position, our author will have none of it. "The notion of the God who sustains all things, though derived from some common biblical affirmations, is difficult to reconcile with the old mythological image of the divine warrior at combat with the inimical forces."
When I picked up this book from Amazon I thought I was purchasing a theodicy. The 1994 preface, briefly considered above, disabused me of that. The preface was written to display what our author opposes:
"the residue of the static Aristotelian conception of deity as perfect, unchanging being; the uncritical tendency to affirm the constancy of divine action; and the conversion of biblical creation theology into the affirmation of the goodness of whatever is."
I was also surprised by his advocacy of a liturgical, indeed theurgical, understanding of the Hebrew Bible. Levenson argues that what is needed today, "is an appreciation of the theurgic character of religious acts in the Hebrew Bible, the way these affect God and move him from one stance to another."
I think, btw, that the position of Levenson, while strongly rejecting the Aristotelian conception of god, might have some affinity with the Platonic. Plato (in the Timaeus) taught that 'The God' created the world out of preexisting matter (Chaos). Plato, in his dialogues, also seems to indicate that Order is always imposed. I cannot think of anywhere that Plato displays the confidence in Natural Order that Aristotle does. It is the perfect 'unmoved Mover' of Aristotle who leads, eventually, to the philosophical conception of deity that Levenson here so strongly disputes.
God's Kampf with Chaos (Order versus Chaos) continues to this day. ...And the days to come. The argument of this book strikes a realistic note that more pollyannaish commentators and theologians do not. Four stars for a thoughtful presentation of a post-progressive theology. With the hopes that had been invested in secular universalism drying up in our wretched postmodern world, I expect to see more realistic and pessimistic theologies in the future.

A Note on Creatio and Theodicy
Now, there are several ways to think of the origin of the World. The first, and simplest, is that it (World, Cosmos, All-That-Is) has always existed and always will exist. One certainly avoids a great deal of theoretical problems with this conception! But if one denies this then one must believe the World came to be. But how?

In the various religious traditions, there are only three or four ways the world came into being:
1. Creatio ex Nihilo: out of nothing.
This is the way an omniscient, omnipotent God calls the world forth. - Our very familiar Aristotelianized (according to our author) understanding of Genesis. However, in Doing everything, this God comes to be thought of as Responsible for Everything - including Evil. In this book, Levenson wants us to read Genesis very differently.
2. Creatio ex Materia: out of some pre-existing material, typically co-eternal with the god.
As mentioned above, this is what is argued in Plato's Timaeus. Here,'The god' imposes Order on (an aleardy existing) Chaos. (And again, note that (imo) there is no natural Order anywhere in Plato. Order is always imposed. I consider this the fundamental difference between Plato and Aristotle.) Now, this Chaos is then thought to be 'responsible' (that is, it is the cause) of Evil in the World. Chaos is typically thought to be mindless and without will, so technically we say 'cause' instead of assigning 'responsibility' to it. But, in either case, 'The god's' hands are clean.
3. Creatio ex Deo: out of God.
This is the emanationism that we find, not only in neoplatonism, but in most gnostics too. Why do they say 'emanate'? Because the One (the Source) did not Will to Create! But this emanation (actually, series of emanations: One -> Nous -> World Soul -> world) is not an accident. Just the opposite! It is an Unwilled Necessity. It is the God's Nature to overflow. The theory of emanations means that even 'gross matter' cannot be evil since it too ultimately derives from the One.
4. ex Errore: our of error.
But what of Evil? It is certainly thought (save a few philosophers and mystics) to be undeniably Real. The Gnostics thought Evil was very real too. It is here, and only here, that we can speak of 'creatio ex errore'. For the gnostics, who are almost always emanationists, there were only two possible answers to the evil in the world. Either the god (i.e., demiurge) who created our material world was ignorant or evil. For the gnostics there are many Levels of Reality (i.e., of Emanations) and typically the gnostics will make the last emanation (the last 'god') in the chain of emanations either ignorant of the Source of All, or outright evil. If the former, the god is often called Sophia. If the latter, he is usually thought to be the old testament Jehovah. In both cases, 'the creator god' (as an emanation) of the gnostics is very distant from the Source, and it is this distance that is generally thought to be the cause of the ignorance or evil.

Our author can be said to be attempting to put some elements of the Creatio ex Nihilo tradition and some elements of the Creatio ex Materia position together. But of course his interpretation leans in a monotheist direction. Eventually, God will win.
It is not clear to me that this last must be an axiom of the Creatio ex Materia position.
… (meer)
1 stem
Gemarkeerd
pomonomo2003 | 1 andere bespreking | Jun 14, 2017 |
The firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me. –Exodus 22:29

Did Israel at one time offer child sacrifice to God? If so, when and how did they overcome this barbaric ritual?

Levenson takes seriously the hints throughout the Bible that Israelites once condoned child sacrifice to Yahweh, though he doubts its practice was widespread. The firstborn belonged to God, and the most pious parents considered the most appropriate means of giving him to God was in sacrifice. Levenson argues that the phrase “beloved son” (yahid) seems to have been, at least on occasion, a technical term for the son sacrificed as a burnt offering. This practice was roundly condemned by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and in time worshipers began to understand that God would accept animal sacrifice in place of one’s favored son. The story of Abraham and Isaac is a key example.

Sibling rivalry is a common Old Testament theme, reinforced often by the outward favoring by the parents of one son over another. One would imagine the “beloved son” to be the firstborn, with all the privileges that go with that station, but the Bible breaks the rules often. Abel over Cain, Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Joseph, David, the list goes on. The “beloved son” is not only favored by parents but God-chosen, and belongs to God … either in sacrifice or by atonement.

This theme of the sacrificial death of the beloved son was never purged from the Judaic mindset, even to the point of believing Abraham did put the knife to Isaac. Many midrashic interpretations of the sacrifice of Isaac refer to his blood being spilled. Perhaps all of his blood, depending upon which midrashic commentary you read.

Intelligent, deeply researched, and reasonable, this is a look at just about every “beloved son” in the Bible except the one you expect: Jesus. It goes without saying that Jesus is the ultimate beloved son, but he gets only a brief nod here and there. Still, this book will inevitably make you think differently about what the death of Jesus meant. There is a bit of New Testament theology thrown in, but the focus is really the development of a theme through the Old Testament … the theme of giving the one you love most to God.
… (meer)
1 stem
Gemarkeerd
DubiousDisciple | 1 andere bespreking | Feb 22, 2014 |
Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews reads with the suspense of a mystery novel as it pursues answers to the question of how we got to the current doctrine (considered orthodox by both Christians and Jews) of a bodily resurrection (not just an ephemeral life after death of some disembodied "soul") considering that the doctrine is not evident in the Hebrew Scriptures. Rather, in the earliest Scriptures, the reward for a holy life is offspring--eternal life through one's heirs. Sheol, commonly now understood as the underworld, was a state that could be experienced before actual death, when very ill or depressed. The most famous resurrection scene in the Old Testament, Ezekiel's vision of dry bones, is really about the nation of Israel as a whole, not about individuals. Yet the image is there, and so are God's promises, which He claims to be eternal. The choice to follow God is seen as the choice of life. All of these factors can only be reconciled by belief in physical resurrection. The God who created the world, can certainly recreate the parts He wishes. Humans are not fully themselves apart from their bodies and the Gnostics, who denied this, fought against the acceptance of Resurrection by the Christian inheritors of second temple Judaism. Madigan and Levenson see Christianity and rabbinic Judaism as siblings, both inheritors of Second Temple rabbinic teaching, which included then, as Orthodox Judaism continued to do (despite common perception to the contrary) of the doctrine that people would be restored to life, both bodies and souls.

In addition to showing the deeply intertwined nature of Judaism and Christianity, the book makes a strong case for acceptance of the traditional doctrine of bodily Resurrection for all who adhere to the Scriptures which depict one all powerful Creator.
… (meer)
1 stem
Gemarkeerd
robinamelia | Jun 13, 2011 |

Lijsten

Prijzen

Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk

Gerelateerde auteurs

Statistieken

Werken
16
Ook door
2
Leden
1,313
Populariteit
#19,560
Waardering
3.8
Besprekingen
8
ISBNs
34
Talen
1
Favoriet
1

Tabellen & Grafieken