Jürgen Ebach on the Formation of the Canon

    The most effective way to master German (or any language) for the purposes of research in biblical studies is, I’m convinced, by way of listening to lectures in the language until one understands every turn of phrase on first impact. Practice makes perfect. I heartily recommend a rich and wonderful lecture by Jürgen Ebach for this purpose: "Vielfalt ohne Beliebigkeit" - Jüdische Bibelauslegung und postmoderne Wahrheitsfrage, that is, “Diversity but not Anything Goes” – Jewish Interpretation of the Bible and Postmodern Concepts of Truth: transcript and audio here. Below the fold, two paragraphs from the lecture, with translation, commentary, and bibliographical footnotes.

Kanon und Widerspruch

    Wir sind damit wieder bei der Frage angekommen, welche Logik, welcher Wahrheitsanspruch im Kanon der Bibel steckt (ich beziehe mich im folgenden auf den Kanon der hebräischen Bibel, für das NT und damit die ganze christliche Bibel gilt durchaus Entsprechendes). In welchen Schritten, unter welchen Bedingungen, mit welchen Plausibilitäten kam es zur Ausbildung dieses Kanons? Ich beschränke mich auf eine wichtige Station, nämlich die Kanonisierung der Mosebücher, der Tora. Mehrere Autoren, auf deren Arbeiten ich mich beziehe (vor allem Frank Crüsemann, Rainer Albertz, Erich Zenger und Erhard Blum), haben den betreffenden Vorgang als Zusammenspiel innerisraelitischer Entwicklungen einerseits und eines von außen kommenden Anstoßes andererseits herausgearbeitet. Eine genaue Datierung dieses Vorgangs ist (wie meist im Blick auf die Bibel) schwer; gewiss ist, dass entscheidende Schritte in der Zeit gegangen wurden, die sich an das „Babylonische Exil“ Israels anschloss, d. h. in der langen Zeit der persischen Oberherrschaft im 6. bis 4. Jh. v. u. Z.

Canon and Contradiction

    We thus come back to the question of what logic, what truth-claims are expressed by the canon of the Bible (I refer hereinafter to the canon of the Hebrew Bible; corresponding claims apply to the NT and thus the entire Christian Bible). By what steps, under what conditions, in the context of what plausibility structures did the formation of this canon take place? I limit myself to one important station along the way, namely, the canonization of the books of Moses, the Torah. Several authors, to whose work I remand (especially Frank Crüsemann, Rainer Albertz, Erich Zenger and Erhard Blum), have identified the outcome as the result of a combination of internal developments within Israel on the one hand, along with a push from the outside on the other. As is usual in the case of the Bible, an exact dating of this process is difficult. It is certain that decisive steps were taken in the period following the "Babylonian Exile" of Israel, that is, during the long period of Persian supremacy in the 6^th to 4^th centuries before the current era.

Notes

    Ebach zeros in on the question of the canonization of the Pentateuch, and the history of composition which led to its final, singular form. The single text in question is the sawed-off front end of a larger narrative which follows a community of reference into exile in Babylon on the one hand and Egypt on the other (2 Kgs 24-25). The sawed-off version (still) begins with a cosmological treatise and a description of life in paradise before neglect of divine injunction results in expulsion (Gen 1-3); it continues with accounts of migration, exile, and redemption; and it culminates in a threefold giving of directives addressed to the nation entire: Lev 17-26 and Deut 1-30. The textual blocs in question, H and D, respectively, are designed to constitute a polity in the act of address (I remand on this topic to Seth Sanders). Blessings attach if the directives are fulfilled; curses follow if they are set aside; national restoration is promised in the aftermath of their neglect and the price paid for their neglect (Lev 26; Deut 28-30). Within the horizon of ca. 560 bce at the earliest – the temporal frame with which 2 Kgs concludes, during the period thereafter in which the Persian imperium is known to have promoted the reconstitution of national communities (520-420 bce), the Pentateuch makes sense as the first part of a National History (Genesis to 2 Kings) and as a stand-alone composition of constitutional tradition on the basis of which restoration efforts might be undertaken (as Römer and Brettler argue, the Hexateuch seems also well-suited to function along those lines). What needs emphasis, it seems to me, is that the final form of the National History in general and the Pentateuch in particular is composed from the point of view of a class of expat literati for whom the text in question was a sort of portable fatherland. To account for the fact that biblical literature as we know it was preserved and transmitted, if they were not named therein, we would have to invent personalities like Ezra and Nehemiah – individuals born and raised in expat communities, steeped in national tradition, individuals who return to the land to dedicate their energies to a project of restoration.

    Here is a bibliography of the scholarship to which Ebach remands:

Frank Crüsemann, “Israel in der Perserzeit. Eine Skizze in Auseinandersetzung mit Max Weber,” in Max Webers Sicht des antiken Christentums. Interpretation und Kritik (Wolfgang Schluchter, ed.; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985) 205–32; idem, “Le Pentateuque, Une Tora: Prolégomènes à l’Interprétation de sa Forme Finale,” in Le Pentateuque en Question (Albert de Pury, ed.; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1989) 345–54; Die Torah: Theologie und Sozialgeschichte des alttestamentlichen Gesetzes (München: Kaiser, 1992) 381-425 [ET The Torah: Theology and Social History of Old Testament Law (trans. W. Mahnke; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996)]; Rainer Albertz, Vom Exil bis zu den Makkabäern, vol. 2 of Religionsgeschichte in alttestamentlicher Zeit (ATD 8.2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992) 495-535 [ET From the Exile to the Maccabees, vol. 2 of A History of Religion in the Old Testament Period (trans. John Bowden; OTL; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994)]; Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990) 336–60; Erich Zenger, “Der Pentateuch als Tora und als Kanon,” in Die Tora als Kanon für Juden und Christen (HBS 10; Freiburg: Herder, 1996) 5-34; idem, “Die Bücher der Tora/des Pentateuch,” in Einleitung in das Alte Testament (3^rd ed.; E. Zenger, ed.; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1998 (1995) 81-84

        Here is additional bibliography of interest:

Joseph Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1992), 239–42; “Was the Pentateuch the Civic and Religious Constitution of the Jewish Ethnos in the Persian Period?,” in Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch (James W. Watts, ed.; Atlanta: SBL, 2001) 41-62; Jon L. Berquist, Judaism in Persia’s Shadow: A Social and Historical Approach (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 138–39; David M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1996) 324–33; Thomas C. Römer and Marc Z. Brettler, “Deuteronomy 34 and the Case for a Persian Hexateuch,” JBL 119 (2000) 401-419; Richard C. Steiner, “The MBQR at Qumran, The Episkopos in the Athenian Empire, and the Meaning of LBQR’ in Ezra 7:14: On the Relation of Ezra’s Mission to the Persian Legal Project,” JBL 120 (2001) 623-646; James W. Watts, Reading Law: The Rhetorical Shaping of the Pentateuch (Biblical Seminar 59; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999) 137–44.

    Zur Erklärung der Kanonisierung der Tora haben E. Blum und der Iranist Peter Frei die politischen und religionspolitischen Rahmenbedingungen ins Spiel gebracht, für die Frei den Begriff der „persischen Reichsautorisation“ prägte.¹ Die Zentralorganisation des (erstaunlich toleranten) persischen Reiches gewährte den verschiedenen Völkern des Großreiches eine vergleichsweise weitgehende Selbstverwaltung nebst jeweiligen kultischen und religiösen Eigenarten. Voraussetzung solcher Teilautonomie war die schriftliche Fixierung der von der Zentralgewalt zu autorisierenden Normen. Vermutlich gaben diese Rahmenbedingungen den Anlass, auch in Israel die einzelnen bereits normativen Texte in eine neue normative Gesamtform zu bringen. Die Trägerkreise der identitätsstiftenden Überlieferungen waren jedoch keineswegs homogen oder auch nur von gleichen Intentionen beseelt. Wie für die Zeit vor dem Exil ist auch für die nachexilische Zeit mit einem Neben- und Gegeneinander konkurrierender Parteien zu rechnen. Nationalkonservativen Gruppen standen Reformgruppen, priesterlichen Kreisen stand eine „Laienbewegung“ gegenüber. Um in dieser Lage zu einer gemeinsamen und verbindlichen Fassung der Überlieferungen zu kommen, bedurfte es der Ausbalancierung der widerstreitenden Interessen und Schwerpunktsetzungen. Das ist der Grund, warum in der Tora nicht nur unterschiedlich akzentuierte, sondern auch einander hart widersprechende, konkurrierende Linien verbunden sind. Man wird sich den Vorgang, in dem noch derart widerstreitende Linien in der einen Tora (im bekannten dialektischen Sinne des Wortes:) aufgehoben wurden, durchaus spannungs- und konfliktgeladen vorstellen müssen. Die genannten Forscher versehen ihn mit Begriffen wie „Diskurs“ (Albertz), „so etwas wie Toleranz“ (Crüsemann) oder „Tora als Kompromissdokument“ (Zenger).

    E. Blum and Iranist Peter Frei have put political and religio-political co-determinations in play in order to clarify the canonization of the Torah. Frei developed the concept of Persian imperial authorization.¹ The central organization of the (surprisingly tolerant) Persian Empire allowed the different ethnoi of the empire a comparatively large degree of autonomy alongside of ethno-specific religious practices and cult. A prerequisite of such partial autonomy was a written record of the norms to be authorized by the central government. Presumably, these co-determinations provided an occasion in Israel as well to offer the individual already normative texts in a newly normative comprehensive form. The circles of tradents of identity-bearing traditions were by no means uniform or inspired by the same intentions. As was the case before the exile, so also for the post-exilic period, one must allow for competing as well as cooperating factions. National conservative groups faced off against reform groups, priestly circles with "lay movements." In this situation, in order to arrive at a common and binding version of tradition, a balancing of conflicting interests and priorities was required. This is the reason why not only different but contradictory, competing approaches are accentuated and interconnected in the Torah. One must imagine a tension- and conflict-filled process in which still conflicting lines were transcended in a single Torah (in the known dialectical sense of the word). These investigators describe it with terms like "discourse" (Albertz), "something like tolerance" (Crüsemann) or "Torah as a compromise document" (Zenger).

¹ [provided by JFH, not Ebach] Peter Frei, “Zentralgewalt und Lokalautonomie im Achämenidenreich,” in Peter Frei and Klaus Koch, Reichsidee und Reichsorganisation im Perserreich (OBO 55; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 1984; 2d ed., 1996) 8–131; idem, “Die persische Reichsautorisation: Ein Überblick,” ZABR 1 (1995) 1–35 [ET (trans. James W. Watts) “Persian Imperial Authorization: A Summary,” in Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch (James W. Watts, ed.; Atlanta: SBL, 2001) 5-40]

Notes

    To be clear: even if the Torah as we have it was meant to be a “give peace a chance” or “can’t we all get along” document, doubtful propositions at best, there is no evidence that it served to pacify rival factions. More modestly, one might speculate that the multi-stranded Pentateuch gained currency among expats over several generations such that it could serve as a constitutional document under Ezra and Nehemiah without splitting the community in Jerusalem on that basis alone. Regardless, a canon which is to a large degree a complexio oppositorum or union of opposites does not put an end to conflict but is productive of conflict. In order to function as a constitution, the Torah requires strong readers, readers with the ability to take competing formulations into consideration and construct a synthesis which goes beyond the text.

    The canon is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts; the canon elicits wholes that are greater still. The synergy which issues from the juxtaposition of its parts is volatile, conducive of development, and forward-looking. Two thousand years later, in a moment in which a renewed commitment to the canonical valence of scripture gave birth to revolutions across Europe, a phrase was coined to express the dynamic the canon sets in motion: ecclesia semper reformanda est: the church, that is, the polity called into existence by the text, must always be reforming.

    That this was so ab antico is evident from the conflicts of which Ezra-Nehemiah is a witness. To be sure, how much or how little torah in the Torah is presupposed by the narratives; how much torah not in the Torah is presupposed, is not as clear as one might wish. Michael Fishbane’s classic “Legal Exegesis with Verbatim, Paraphrastic, or Pseudocitations in Historical Sources” (idem, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel [Oxford: Clarendon, 1985] 107-143), which analyzes these questions, is in need of an aggiornamento in light of subsequent research. The ideal time to take up the questions afresh will be in the wake of the still-forthcoming volume by Shimon Gesundheit. In the meantime, I would remand to the bibliography following, and the posts and comment threads here and here.

Bob Becking, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Construction of Early Jewish Identity (FAT; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011 [non vidi]); Simeon Chavel, “The Second Passover, Pilgrimage, and the Centralized Cult,” HTR 102 (2009) 1-24; Shimon Gesundheit, Three Times a Year: Festival Legislation in the Torah (FAT; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming); Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 53-97; idem, The Hermeneutics of Tradition in Deuteronomy: A Reply to J. G. McConville,” JBL 119 (2000) 269-86, reprinted in “The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation (FAT 54; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 256-75 (with essential bibliography in the footnotes) 

Comments

[Kyle Owenby]

Thank you for the link, as someone who is currently learning German in order to study Reformation theology that is very useful advice! I'll certainly listen to that lecture.

Sorry for the double post, I meant to sign in with Blogger.

[JohnFH]

Kyle,

Nice of you to stop by. I'm glad you found the post helpful.