Ancient Hebrew Poetry

A passage to read in an election year: Isaiah 11:1-9

According to Isaiah 11:1, "A shoot shall grow out of the stump of Jesse, a twig shall sprout from his stock." This promise of redemption follows directly on the heels of threatened judgment upon Assyria (Isaiah 5:5-15, 27-34), whose oppression of Judah, so long as it lasted, made talk of redemption a pipe dream, nothing more.

But when the prophetic threat of judgment on Assyria began to become reality, that is, as the Assyrian juggernaut lost control of the West in the 640s, an 8 year old child named Josiah of the lineage of David was placed on the throne. It was a time of crisis. According to Marvin Sweeney, Isaiah 11:1-9 is best read in the first instance as an expression of the hopes and fears of King Josiah’s supporters. There is much to be said for this reconstruction. I discuss Sweeney’s thesis and aspects of the political theology of the book of Isaiah here, here, here, and here.

Who decides what war means?

Stephen, whose blog I highly recommend, remarks that he finds the notion of preemptive war “extremely objectionable.” Much as I might want to, I cannot follow him. If it is justifiable at all, war is more justifiable, not less, if it is preemptive in nature. You take on a Hitler, either as a private citizen – as did Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his friends – or as a state, not only or primarily in response to something he has already done, but in order to preempt something you have reason to believe he intends to do.

The larger question is, who decides what war means? Those who refuse to fight it, or those who do?

Print versus Electronic Journals: What the Future Holds

Many scholarly journals continue to be made available in print format only. There is growing evidence that such a policy is short-sighted.

Rashi’s Commentary on the Psalms: A Review

The Hebrew text of Rashi’s commentary on the Psalms, along with a translation, introduction, and notes by Mayer Gruber, has recently appeared in paperback at a reasonable price. Its appearance is a major event. There is no doubt that this volume belongs on the shelves of anyone who wishes to study the Psalms in the context of the canonical tradition of interpretation which Rashi summarized, adapted, and contributed to himself.

Law and Gospel: What I learned about gender while excavating at Tell Qarqur (Part Four)

Law and gospel are, in a generic sense, aspects of everyone's life. The story of a Syrian teenager that unfolded while excavating at Tell Qarqur may illustrate. This is the last of four posts in a series. For the others, go here, here, and here. 

Is the Decalogue addressed to men only? Why Polythress and Grudem are right and Plaskow and Brenner are wrong

In his “Notes: Gender-Related Changes to NJPS in The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Revised Edition,” David Stein remarks on the irony of the fact that feminists Judith Plaskow and Athalya Brenner – superb scholars, I might note – take the masculine singular form of address in the Decalogue as excluding women, whereas anti-feminists Vern Polythress and Wayne Grudem take it as inclusive (on Exodus 20:2; online here). Stein goes on to show why Plaskow and Brenner are wrong and Polythress and Grudem are right. Details below the fold.

Male-Gendered Language for God in the Torah: How to Handle It

According to David Stein, editor of The Contemporary Torah, all language referred to God is figurative to one degree or another. As he points out in an entry entitled “Male metaphors for God,” “The Torah expressed certain aspects of God’s being, and of Israel’s relationship with its patron deity, via [gender-specific, male] metaphors.” Nevertheless, “Such metaphors appear to point towards the roles that God plays, rather than making a statement about God’s gender” (p. 404).

When it comes to metaphors, it is dangerous to play fast and loose with gender-specific details. It is to Stein’s credit that he does not. To remain true to the Torah’s nuances, he employs gender-specific, male language wherever necessary to maintain the gist of the metaphors themselves.

When God is called “lord,” “father,” “king,” and “man of war,” the gendered nature of said terminology cannot be effaced without injuring the language’s ability to express a multifaceted concept in short compass.

Gender-Accurate Translation of Figures of Speech in the Hebrew Bible

The Contemporary Torah is not a gender-inclusive translation. It aims to be gender-accurate, which is something else. As already noted, a gender-accurate translation does not pass judgment on how the source text constructed gender, but seeks to be as gender-inclusive or as gender-specific as the source text is, no more, no less.

Translators today face issues that were relatively unknown in previous times and places. It used to be acceptable to render male-gendered Hebrew language the intent of which, it is clear from context, was gender-inclusive, by equally male English language capable of a gender-inclusive sense.

It isn’t any more.

A Gender-Sensitive Translation of the Torah

Under the editorship of David E. S. Stein, a gender-sensitive adaptation of the NJPS translation of the Torah[1] recently appeared. Entitled The Contemporary Torah, it is a thoughtful piece of work. In conjunction with the documentation Stein provides online, it will be treated as an inevitable point of departure in future discussions of gendered language used of human beings and God in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. More than anyone else before him, Stein tackles the issues faced in translating the gendered language of the Bible with sensitivity and verve.

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[1] The new Jewish Publication Society version of the Torah came out in 1962 and superseded the 1917 version. Revisions of the 1962 version were published in 1967, 1985, and 1999. For a splendid introduction to Harry Orlinsky, the general editor of NJPSV, see Iyov’s post here. Thanks to Iyov, Orlinsky’s extensive notes to his team’s translation of Genesis are available online (go here and note the index at the bottom). It is hoped that Iyov will post Orlinsky’s notes to the rest of the Torah. 

Coming of age: What I learned about gender while excavating at Tell Qarqur (Part Three)

    Gender construction is a phrase that sounds obtuse to many ears. Isn’t gender something you’re born with? That’s true, but only in part. There is also something we call culture. Culture is a code which channels biology and hormones, sets up boundaries, and shapes expectations.

    During excavations of the acropolis of Tell Qarqur in Syria, among my helpers from the nearby village, it was the youngest, 12 or 13 years of age that I cottoned to the most. She was an imp, and, being an imp myself, we enjoyed teasing each other. You don’t even need to have a common language to tease if that is who you are. One day, that all changed.