As Daniel Bodi put it, “if one can show how insights gained from the study of newly discovered ancient Near Eastern texts have been anticipated by medieval rabbis who did not have access to these buried ancient Semitic documents, then the probability that one’s interpretation is plausible may be increased.”1 The principle goes back to Moshe Held, a scholar and teacher who was a competent reader of a wide range of texts spanning millennia in numerous languages including Akkadian and Hebrew.
The premier example of the Moshe Held principle involves the interpretation of the grammar of Gen 1:1-3: following the discovery of Enuma Elish (“When on high …”) and the Atrahasis Epic (“When the gods were like men …”), the interpretation of Gen 1:1-2 (“When God began to create”) as stage-setting for the first mainline event of Gen 1, “God said, ‘Let there be light’” (Gen 1:3), a view already advanced by Rashi, became more plausible.
A host of modern interpreters, with or without knowledge or dependence on the discoveries, and with or without knowledge of Rashi’s interpretation, construe likewise: among others, Heinrich Ewald, Max Geiger, Karl Budde, William Foxwell Albright, Otto Eissfeldt, Siegfried Herrmann, Harry M. Orlinsky, Ephraim A. Speiser, and Francis I. Andersen. I describe the “new-old” understanding of Gen 1:1-3, with which I concur, in a “Technical Note” here. Robert Holmstedt offers an analysis in terms of a type of relative clause: go here and here for online discussion.
For a discussion of rabbinic interpretations of the passage in question, see Peter Schäfer, “Berēšit bārā ‘Elōhīm. Zur Interpretation von Gen 1:1 in der rabbinischen Literatur,” JSJ 2 (1971) 161–66. On this view, Gen 1:1-3 finds its closest analogues in Gen 2:4b-7 and Hos 1:4. For variations on this understanding which however miss the fact that the wayyiqtol marks the matrix clause or mainline event, see Ibn Ezra and, among moderns, Paul Humbert, "Trois Notes sur Genèse I," Interpretationes ad Vetus Testamentum Pertinentes Sigmundo Mowinckel Septuagenario Missae ( = NTT 56 [1955]; Nils A. Dahl and Arvid S. Kapelrud, eds.; Olso: Forlaget Land og Kirche, 1955) 85-96 (ET here), repr. in idem, Opuscules d'un hébraïsant (Mémoires de l'université de Neuchâtel 26; Neuchâtel: Secrétariat de l'université; 1958) 193-203; idem, “Encore le premier mot de la Bible: à propos d'un article de M Walther Eichrodt,” ZAW 76 (1964) 121–31; and Walter Gross, “Syntaktische Erscheinungen am Anfang althebräischer Erzählungen: Hintergrund und Vordergrund,“ in Congress Volume: Vienna (John A. Emerton, ed.; VTSup 32; Leiden: Brill, 1981) 131-145. For the alternative view that Gen 1:1 represents an independent clause, see John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011) 123-127, and bibliography cited. I thank James Spinti for sending me a PDF of Walton’s important volume. If blog readers show interest in a review of Walton’s volume, I may very well oblige.
1 Daniel Bodi, The Demise of the Warlord: A New Look at the David Story (Hebrew Bible Monographs 26; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010) 4, cited by Jeremy Hutton in a review.
This is me, showing interest!
It's humbling in a certain way that with over two millennia of people relying of Genesis 1 to tell them who they are, who God is, and what this world is about, there still isn't agreement on what the first word means.
And then there also the question, if Boyarin is right, of whether John 1 starts with midrash advancing an entirely different understanding of bereshit. Certainly no end of fun to be had in Genesis.
Posted by: Mitchell Powell | May 10, 2012 at 11:01 PM
I argue elsewhere on this blog that the ex nihilo doctrine, though not found in Gen 1, is an excellent synthesis of the entire biblical witness on the subject, a synthesis that is greater than the sum of its parts:
http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/09/creatio-ex-nihilo-in-genesis-1.html
Midrash is a form of synthetic, canonical exegesis. That is, it interprets a single passage in light of others and in light of a metanarrative (a regula fidei in the language of the Fathers) that is itself drawn from Scripture. In the process, the plain sense of the single passage is left behind, though a return to that plain sense is not thereby forbidden.
On the contrary. The sensus plenior, the fuller sense of scripture, is a notion which implies the existence of a less than full sense which is nonetheless worthy of honor.
A biblical scholar seeks first of all to isolate and understand the less than full sense. From there it is worth going on to describe and understand the fuller sense. Michael Fishbane in his JPS commentary to the Haftarot takes this tack. His is a model of canonical and liturgical exegesis.
Posted by: John Hobbins | May 11, 2012 at 06:48 AM
I'll go read some Fishbane, then.
Posted by: Mitchell Powell | May 11, 2012 at 05:12 PM
I have not yet read John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011) but I would read a review of yours with interest.
Posted by: Thomas Renz | May 12, 2012 at 05:04 AM
Hi Thomas,
You are not the only one who has asked me to review Walton's volume. I will get around to it in June.
Posted by: John Hobbins | May 12, 2012 at 02:13 PM
Ditto—I would love to hear your comments of Walton's volume.
Posted by: Joshua E. Stewart | May 16, 2012 at 03:39 PM
I've now read Fishbane's Text and Texture. Good stuff! Any other recommendations on hermeneutics?
Posted by: Mitchell Powell | May 18, 2012 at 03:23 PM
Hi Mitchell,
I would try his JPS commentary on the Haftarot texts. It is a splendid exemplification of his hermeneutical model.
Posted by: John Hobbins | May 21, 2012 at 03:36 PM
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll track it down next.
Posted by: Mitchell Powell | May 27, 2012 at 05:04 PM