Ancient Hebrew Poetry

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Genesis 3:14-19 and 4:6-12

The story of the serpent, the woman, and the man and the story of Cain and Abel mirror each other in a variety of ways. The two narratives also differ from each other from a number of points of view. I began to explore commonalities and differences in a previous post. Interpretation which concentrates on similarities but overlooks differences runs the risk of missing the point of a particular passage entirely.

In the first narrative, the man breaks faith with God, and the soil is cursed on his account. It now yields goodness by dint of pain and exertion, and thorn and thistle abound. In the second narrative, after Cain’s crime, pain and sweat are no longer sufficient to allow him to eke out a living from it. It gets worse from there. He is banished not only from God’s presence, but from the presence of his fellows. But that is not the most basic point of the story. A red thread runs through the book of Genesis, a buried lede if you will.

The War to end all Wars: Genesis 3:14-19 and 4:6-12

In a previous post, I began to explore features of Genesis 3:14-19. This post continues that exploration, and widens the horizon to include 4:6-12. As Simon Holloway noted in a comment to the previous post, the second passage is symmetrical to the first. The passages are also asymmetrical. Whilst it is standard procedure to note textual symmetries, it is no less important to notice asymmetries.

In 3:15, the battle between serpentkind (a personification of temptation) and womankind is described as one which will be perpetual. The emphasis is on serpentkind having the wherewithal to do but limited harm to womankind. In 4:7, the same battle is described again. The emphasis is placed on humanity having the wherewithal to dominate sin. Sin is described in utterly convincing phenomenological terms as a being which lurks at the door.

3:15 and 4:7 complement one another. In the battle with temptation and sin, God tilts the playing field in favor of humanity. Will humanity exploit the fact so as to master the situation? The drama lies therein. Here is the Hebrew:

Symmetry, Asymmetry, and Word Play in Genesis 3:14-19

Genesis 3:14-19 is a fascinating text. My purpose here is to demonstrate a principle of interpretation: textual symmetries and asymmetries interact with each other in the construction of meaning. It is standard procedure to note textual symmetries. But if the asymmetries go unnoticed, the sense of the whole goes unrecognized. Here is the Hebrew:

KJV vs. NRSV at Genesis 3:16-17: KJV Wins

In a delightful interview granted to Reform Judaism magazine, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, HUC-JIR Professor of Bible, makes an acute observation in which it becomes evident that NRSV messes up badly in its translation of Genesis 3:16-17:

Please give us an example of a biblical portion whose translation has had profound gender implications.

Take the story about the first woman and man. The best-known and oldest English translation of the Bible, the King James Version of 1611, translated Genesis 3:16–17 accurately: “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children...” (Genesis 3:16). “And unto Adam he said...cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it...” (Genesis 3:17). Later translations, however, intensified the hardship of the woman while toning down that of the man. Thus the New Revised Standard Version translation (1989) reads: “To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children,...’ And to the man he said, ‘...cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it....’” Using the words “pangs” and “pain” gives the impression that woman is meant to suffer, while translating the very same Hebrew word as “toil” when it comes to the man gives the impression that the man only has to work hard. Our commentary makes it clear that God’s pronouncements hold the woman and man equally responsible.

“Our commentary” is The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (URJ Press), of which Tamara Cohn Eskenazi is  editor.

The multi-authored work is due out in December of this year.  At last year's SBL Annual Meeting, a sample page was handed out.  I look forward to its publication.

In my next post, I will look at these verses in more detail.

Never Pay for a Photocopy Again

I’ve just started using a CanoScan LiDE 70 to make PDFs of things. I like the fact that it is lightweight, that it works off my plugged-in laptop, and that one can press a book down quite hard in order to ensure that double pages in thick books are legible on the inside margins. Here is an example. The pages are from the TOB, one of my favorite study Bibles.

I don’t like how noisy it is, and I wish it were faster. I wish I knew which portable scanner on the market is the fastest and quietest. That would be the one to get.

UPDATE: Iyov’s follow-up post to his comment below is well worth reading.

 

Nicholas of Lyra’s Postilla super totam Bibliam

I don’t know about yours, but my Sunday afternoons tend to be double- or triple-booked, so I missed this lecture about an important 14th-century Franciscan scholar's commentary on the entire Bible and his profound debt to precedent Jewish exegesis:

Wrestling with Rashi

Deeana Copeland Klepper

Sunday, August 26 at 3 pm

Asher Library, Spertus College

Chicago, llinois

As the lecture notice states, the most popular Christian Bible commentary in late medieval and early modern Europe was Nicholas of Lyra's Postilla Litteralis Super Totam Bibliam, a vast work that incorporated Jewish interpretation, especially that of Rashi, into commentary on the Hebrew Bible. (According to the notice, Nicholas also made use of Rashi in interpreting the New Testament, which may be true, but not something I’ve seen documented.)

To paraphrase a preview article by Martina Sheehan, 600 years ago, a Franciscan scholar from a small town in Normandy crouched over his Bible and peeled away a millennium’s worth of questionable interpretation in hopes of arriving at a truer, more literal understanding of God’s word.

I paraphrase rather than quote Sheehan, because she claims that Nicholas had a fundamentalist approach to Bible study, a manifest absurdity. If Nicholas was a fundamentalist, then so was Rashi, and please, give me more of that old-time religion.

Sheehan is right when she notes that Nicholas’s approach to the study of the Bible would change Christianity forever. De Lyra's commentary contributed to the rediscovery of the sensus litteralis of the Bible among Christians in the high Middle Ages, an indispensable foundation of Luther, Zwingli, Bucer, and Calvin’s 16th-century Reformation efforts. As the famous ditty goes:

Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset.

The occasion of Klepper’s lecture: the Asher Library and Newberry Library's joint acquisition of a rare 1481 edition of the Postilla, a thick leatherbound tome containing de Lyra’s commentary and literal interpretation along with illustrative diagrams of details of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. As Paul Saenger, the Newberry’s curator of rare books, emphasizes, the illustrations are based on the 11th-century Jewish scholar Rashi’s drawings, many of which have been lost in the Hebrew manuscript tradition. Very cool.

For images, go here. Here is the relevant page from the Newberry Library's site. For more samples of Nicholas’s work, go here, here, and here.

Klepper is well-qualified to broach the topic. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here goes.

She has just published a volume entitled The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the Later Middle Ages (Jewish Culture and Context Series; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). For more information, go here. Note also her essay entitled, “Nicholas of Lyra and Franciscan Interest in Hebrew Scholarship,” in Nicholas of Lyra: The Senses of Scripture (ed. Philip Krey and Lesley Smith; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 289-311.

Atheist Chic

That’s the title of a thoughtful review of The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins) by Steven Plaut. Written from the point of view of someone who lives and breathes the Israeli intellectual landscape, it is especially interesting for that reason. Plaut concludes by citing a phrase in Hebrew Isaac Newton wrote in his own hand on the original of one his scientific papers. I didn’t know that the great physicist knew Hebrew (prayerbook Hebrew, to be precise). You don’t say.

Go here.

Bloggers Presenting at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the AAR/SBL

I thought it’d be fun to compile a list of bloggers who will be presenting in one or more SBL sessions in San Diego in November. I have also included a few scholars who may not blog, but who have a strong presence online via sites they administer or contribute to.

A few preliminary comments.

The really smart people don’t present at SBL. They come to schmooze, buy books at a discount, and get another look at Jim West.

A big mistake is to submit two paper proposals in the hopes of getting one accepted, only to have them both be accepted. This has happened two years in a row in my case. It really isn’t necessary. Some of us just want to feel useful, I guess.

The following list is preliminary. Let me know if I overlooked you.

Why Hector Avalos is Full of It

How’s that for a title? I really believe he is, but not for the reasons I’ve heard so far.

What would Hector Avalos have us do, after all? Here is a choice quote from his latest book:

"Our purpose is to excise from modern life what little of the Bible is being used and also to eliminate the potential use of any sacred scripture in the modern world."

It’s nice to know that Avalos is an equal-opportunity despiser of sacred scriptures. Note the implied equivalences: modern life / modern world = advanced, evolved; Bible / any sacred scripture = retarded, dangerous.

I now propose to demonstrate how simple-minded Hector’s proposal is. One example will suffice.

The Best Study Bibles on the Market Today

The Bible can be read from a tradition-neutral point of view, at least in theory, but even those who attempt to do so will often also read the text from a point of view internal to a specific Jewish or Christian tradition. Students who wish to understand the Bible from the point of view of a specific tradition are well-advised to consider purchasing one or more of the following study Bibles [but see Iyov's comment below; I thank Iyov, E-S., and Doug Chaplin [check out his relevant comments] for their input; the original post has now been revised for the better]:

(1) The Jewish Study Bible. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors. Michael Fishbane, consulting editor. Jewish Publication Society tanakh translation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

(2) The Orthodox Study Bible. New Testament and Psalms. Joseph Allen, Michel Najim, Jack Norman Sparks, and Theodore Stylianopoulos, editors. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997. A complete Orthodox Study Bible is in preparation.

(3) The Catholic Study Bible. Second Edition. Donald Senior and John J. Collins, general editors. New American Bible translation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006 [first edition: 1990, Donald Senior, general editor. Mary Ann Getty, Carroll Stuhlmueller, and John J. Collins, associate editors].

(4) The New Jerusalem Bible. Study Edition. Henry Wansbrough, editor. New York: Doubleday, 1985. Catholic. So far I know, later editions lack the extensive notes and introductions.

(5) Zondervan NIV Study Bible. Kenneth L. Barker, general editor. Donald W. Burdick, John H. Stek, Walter W. Wessel, Ronald F. Youngblood, associate editors. New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004 [first edition: 1985]. Evangelical. The 2002 / 2004 editions represent an improvement over earlier editions. The notes to this Study Bible are translation-neutral to a large extent, insofar as they also grace the pages of a NASB study Bible. For further details, go here. Many other evangelical study Bibles are available, of a more confessional or of a more devotional nature.

The following study Bibles, all excellent, are written from a tradition-neutral point of view. In reality, it is probably better to speak of a tradition of another kind, that of historical-critical scholarship, whose methods are utilized by a large number of scholars of various religious persuasions or none: