The Bible in and as History: Hosea

The major prophets are gone, and now we have the rapid-fire, often easily readable in a day minor prophets.  We start with with the Book of Hosea.

We have very little information about Hosea, the book of Hosea, or external references to it.  From it’s internal context it’s believed to have been written by ‘Hosea’ a man from the Northern Kingdom of Samaria.  It’s historical context makes many assume it was written in the 8th Century BCE, probably from within Judah, after the fall of Samaria’s Capital.

As a quick reminder, ‘Israel’ separated into the two states of Judah and Samaria.  Samaria, at least in the biblical context, is largely painted as a kingdom that fell away from God.  Embraced the worship of other gods, such as the Canaanite sky-god Baal.

The book of Hosea is sort of broken down into two parts.  The first is basically an autobiographical metaphor of sorts.  God commands Hosea to marry a ‘promiscuous woman’.  He has a son with this woman, she continues her ‘harlotry’ and than he divorces her.  The context of marriage within 8th century Judah and Samaria is instructive.  Like most pre-modern cultures, Marriage is a contractual arrangement, functionally between families.  The patriarchal structure of these ancient societies means men are expected to have dominion over their wives, and their wives are suppose to be obedient.  The analogy here to God and Israel is obvious.  In this metaphor Israel, or specifically Samaria in this instance, is the wayward wife.  ‘Whoring’ with other gods and violating the covenant.

The remainder of Hosea is prophecy regarding the destruction of Samaria for it’s failure to return to God.  Some in rather Graphic detail.  13:16 for example talks of infants being dashed to pieces and pregnant women being gutted.  Though this is a little more visceral than some of what has come before it’s in a very similar tradition, and a motif repeated over, and over, and over again.  Obedience to God equals good stuff, disobedience equals destruction.

Hosea’s place in later history has a couple of interesting facets; Obviously it has usages in a variety of theologies.  It justifies notions such as negative things in life being a consequence of sin, both in personal and national terms.  It’s quoted and references in the new testament as prophesying Jesus, though as with most such usages the link is tenuous.  Hosea is pretty obviously speaking from the context of his time and about a return of Samaria, the largest of the two Israelite communities, into the fold of the particular worship Hosea advocates.  Still it’s important to recall that theology isn’t about historical reconstruction.  New theologies often use old theologies in new ways to justify themselves.  The Chinese Scholars of the 19th century, for example, utilizing millenia old Confucian texts to justify radical shifts towards modernism.  Or Protestant reference to ‘early Christians’ or indeed particulars aspects of the bible during and after the reformation.

So we should go through these pretty quickly, the next is Joel.  Interestingly I’m actually getting ahead of myself in reading terms here, so I might do more than one post a week, which was my initial goal.

 

 

 

The Bible in and as History: Daniel

So, into the Lion’s Den!  The Book of Daniel forms another of the Prophets of the Hebrew Bible, and how different it is from the previous books.

The text itself is considered by scholars to be a collection of stories assembled first from court tales, and than adjusted by Hebrew religious iconography.  We can narrow down pretty specifically when certain sections were penned to the middle of the 2nd Century BCE.

The Book’s first section is a set of stories featuring the character of Daniel.  Israel is ruled by Babylon, and the king, Nebuchadnezzar, has an assortment of Hebrew Noble youth brought to his court to be trained.  Four of these, led by Daniel, refuse the wine and meat set aside for them, least they be contaminated.  Proving themselves and maintaining their devotion to God, Daniel is granted visions and abilities.

He successfully interprets a dream of the King, winning his favour, a mirror somewhat of Joseph and a repeated connected theme; The Hebrew who by virtue and God’s gifts becomes the favourite of a foreign king.

What follows is series of stories; Daniel’s companions refuse to bow to the statue the Babylonian king has made and are thrown to a fire.  Looking in the King see’s not three, but four figures, one seeming godly.  Astonished, he removes the others from the furnace, decreeing that none should blasphemy against the Hebrew’s god.

The King goes mad and is only made sane and restored when he acknowledges heaven’s supremacy.  After dying the New King profanes some holy vessels from the Jewish temple and is beset by a strange vision.  Daniel criticizes him and he repents, only to die and be replaced by another King after rewarding Daniel.

The most famous passages regard the ‘Lions Den’.  Raised up by the Third king of Babylon he has served, Daniel makes the other advisors jealous so they conspire to have a law passed forbidding the worship of any god for 30 days.  Since Daniel cannot stop his worship, he breaks the law and is thrown to the Lions.  God ‘stops up their mouths’ and Daniel escapes unharmed.  Daniel’s accusers, along with their wives and children, are than cast into the fire.

There are then a succession of visions, some prophecies both vague and somewhat more specific.

Like many sections of the bible thus-far, Daniel is a book written in a particular historical context that has been used for purposes far outside that context.  The context is a crisis in 2nd century, as a Greek kings of the Seleucid Empire made traditional sacrifice and worship in the temple of Jerusalem impossible.  The Seleucid was one of the many successor states to the massive empire of Alexander the Great.  The Greek king defiled the temple and engaged in a Hellenization campaign, prohibiting Jewish texts and such.  violent resistance to this was able to re-purify the temple.  Indeed, it is how we can date the book accurately.  The prophecies describe some events up to about 167 B.C. very accurately, but prophecies wars between the Syrians and Egyptians that do not happen.

Daniel had an immense impact on Christianity and ‘Christendom’.  Much of it is essential a book about faith; Daniel is given special powers by God for following Gods rules.  He follows those rules even in the face of oppression, violence and attacks by others, and God brings him and his fellows through it.  It’s pretty obvious why this narrative appeals to Christian theologians.  Also, for the lay person, it’s just far more exciting than many of the previous prophets.  Rather than esoteric verses about four-winged beings or the rebirth of the temple, there are people being thrown in furnaces, Lions!  People being devoured!  A king going Mad!  Really you can imagine much of Daniel being performed as a play for entertainment as much as a holy book.  It has much purchase outside the Christian faith as well, appearing both in iconography and story-telling motifs in a variety of sources.  It’s the first book since I believe Job to have a story in it I was familiar with from my youth.

An important side note here; Daniel has sections of it that appear in the Apocrypha.  That is, there are ‘extra’ sections that were considered Canonical by the Christianity until the Protestant reformation.  All pre-reformation denominations(Roman Catholic, Coptic, Eastern Orthodox, etc.) consider it cannon, but Protestants and Jews do not.  Indeed the reasons Protestants do not is because it is not part of the Hebrew text.  It’s important to remember that arguments about the text and texts are a long-standing part of it’s history.   The notion that the Hebrew text should be considered above the Greek is itself a theological discussion.

Alright, so the major prophets are done and I’m down to the minor prophets; Next up, Hosea!

 

 

 

The Bible in and as History: Ezekiel

Well at long last I am back and at this again and finally overcoming the real slog that is the Book of Ezekiel.  More than two years ago I made a commitment here, and perhaps this year I’ll actually finish it, so without further adieu.

Ezekiel is the last of the ‘Major’ Prophets of the Old Testament.  It’s also, for want of a better phrase, the most ‘biblical’ in the sense I originally had coming into this project.  It has the language one most associates with say Scripture quoting preachers on TV.  There are reasons for this, and it’s historicity and place both within Jewish and Christian thought is pretty interesting.

It starts with a rather trippy opening, describing creatures ‘like men’ with four faces and four wings.  It, unlike some of the previous books, very sincerely paints itself as the recordings of a single person.  Besides using personal pronouns(I say, on the fourth day I witnessed, etc.)  it places each of its prophecies as occurring on a particular day.  This makes them more personal in a way, but also, strangely, less mystical.  Perhaps it’s the ‘Well on Tuesday the 8th, God talked to me’ aspect of it that makes you wonder if Ezekiel was quite all there.

The themes that follow in the first sets of prophecies are familiar to us by now; Ezekiel as a prophet was supposed to have lived during the Babylonian captivity between 593-571 BCE.  Scholars generally agree that the book follows the writings of this figure, but with additional edits over time.  The first sections of the prophecy are all about the iniquities of Jerusalem and the state of Israel.  Comparisons made in flowing, lyrical language describe Jerusalem as a harlot and a whore.  The author really seems enamored of this comparison.  We see here a continuation of prior themes; the state and people of Israel and Judah going astray, away from the ‘God of their fathers’.  Attempts by the priest-class, in exile, to reassert power.  The language warns of iniquity, that the prophet, informed by God, needs to bring the wickedness of men to their attention, least the prophet also be condemned.

It’s clear from the language that there are specific contexts being addressed here.  That is Ezekiel is making specific criticisms of practices in his age.  13:17 for example talks about women sewing pillows to their armholes.  That seems a really odd thing to be specifically calling out as evil.  Yet we find that this is most likely a reference to specific spiritual or magical practices of female prophets in and around the area Ezekiel is in.

One way in which Ezekiel’s language turns out to be useful for late philosophers is that it’s lyricism, it’s use of metaphor and simile, mean it can be adapted away from the specific context it was written in and into other forms.  Jerusalem can be any corrupt city and has been. Preachers have railed against Rome, Moscow, London, New York and probably every major city on earth using the language of Ezekiel.  Even less specific, references to rotted vines, to corruption, can be extracted and used against any adversary.

After the prophecies regarding Jerusalem, which are of the theme “The People abandon God, bad stuff happens, when the people return to God, good stuff happens”, are the prophecies regarding other nations.  This reads some-what, if I may use the analogy, like a teenagers list of grievances: “The Ammonites will get theirs!  and then the Egyptians!  and then Assyrians!”  Again, placed more specifically in the context of Ezekiel’ time.

Lastly is the second on the New Temple.  This section is often now referenced as the ‘Third Temple’ though of course at the time it was written the Second Temple didn’t yet exist.  It is exhaustive in its details and specifics, though with just enough ambiguity to have particular disagreements between scholars on some of the exact features of this future temple.

As I have said, Ezekial was an important book in both Judaism and Christianity.  It serves as a foundational element of the idea of the ‘Third Temple’ for the Jews.  For Christians its symbolism has made its way into many a Fire and Brimstone preachers sermon, but on a broader theological level serves to point towards both Jesus’ return(seen here as the rhetorical and metaphysical restoration of Jerusalem) and towards redemptive theology in general.

Alright, so Ezekiel is a bit of a slog.  It’s the third longest book as far as I can tell, second to Genesis and Psalms and matching Numbers.  Next come a string of the ‘minor’ prophets, which are much shorter and I should be able to get through relatively rapidly.  Than, finally, on to the New Testament to find out what all this talk about this Jesus guy is about.