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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
A cutting-edge scholarly review of how the Pentateuch functions as a scripture, and how it came to be ritualized in this way. Understanding the Pentateuch as a Scripture is a unique account of the first five books of the Bible, describing how Jews and Christians ritualize the Pentateuch as a scripture by interpreting it, by performing its text and contents, and by venerating the physical scroll and book. Pentateuchal studies are known for intense focus on questions of how and when the first five books of the Bible were composed, edited, and canonized as scripture. Rather than such purely historical, literary, or theological approaches, Hebrew Bible scholar James W. Watts organizes this description of the Pentateuch from the perspectives of comparative scriptures and religious studies. He describes how the Pentateuch has been used in the centuries since it began to function as a scripture in the time of Ezra, and the origins of its ritualization before that time. The book: * Analyzes the semantic contents of the Pentateuch as oral rhetoric that takes the form of stories followed by lists of laws and sanctions * Gives equal space to its ritualization in the iconic and performative dimensions as to its semantic interpretation * Fully integrates the cultural history of the Pentateuch and Bible with its influence on Jewish and Christian ritual, and in art, music, theatre, and film Understanding the Pentateuch as a Scripture is a groundbreaking work that highlights new research data and organizes the material to focus attention on the Pentateuch's--and Bible's-- function as a scripture.
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Table of Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
LIST OF BOXES
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF FIGURES
ABBREVIATIONS
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 RITUALIZED TEXT
Torah and Pentateuch
Scripture and Ritual
The Three Dimensions of Written Texts
Ritualizing Scriptures in Three Dimensions
The Pentateuch in Three Dimensions
Scripturalizing Torah in the Time of Ezra
Reading the Pentateuch as a Scripture
2 TEXTUAL RHETORIC
The Pentateuch as Literature
The Pentateuch as Rhetoric
Logos
: The Story‐List‐Sanction Rhetorical Strategy
Ethos
and
Pathos
in Pentateuchal Rhetoric
3 SCROLL, TABLET, AND CODEX
The Iconic Dimension of Scriptures
The Pentateuch’s Iconic Dimension After Ezra
The Pentateuch’s Iconic Dimension Before Ezra
4 READING, PERFORMANCE, AND ART
The Performative Dimension of Scriptures
The Pentateuch’s Performative Dimension After Ezra
The Pentateuch’s Performative Dimension Before Ezra
5 TEXTUAL INTERPRETATION
The Semantic Dimension of Scriptures
The Pentateuch’s Semantic Dimension After Ezra
The Pentateuch’s Semantic Dimension Before Ezra
6 SCRIPTURES
Scripturalization and Canonization
In the Time of Judah Maccabee
Understanding the Tanak as a Scripture
In the Time of Judah
Ha‐Nasi
In the Time of Irenaeus
Understanding the Bible as a Scripture
INDEX OF QUOTATIONS AND CITATIONS OF BIBLICAL AND RABBINIC TEXTS
INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND AUTHORS
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
List of Illustrations
Chapter 01
Figure 1.1 The three dimensions of written texts.
Chapter 02
Figure 2.1 Barrel cylinder with a cuneiform inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon from 605 to 562
BCE
, to celebrate the discovery of a temple foundation inscription of Naram‐Sin, King of Akkad, 1,700 years earlier. In the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
Figure 2.2 Stone administrative tablet from Mesopotamia recording a land grant, ca. 3100–2900
BCE
. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 2.3 (a) Diorite stela of Hammurabi’s Laws, from Babylon, ca. 1700
BCE
. Relief at top shows King Hammurabi standing before the god Shamash. (b) The cuneiform text of the laws covers the front, back, and sides of the stela. In the Louvre, Paris.
Chapter 03
Figure 3.1 Iconic scriptures: (a) Sikh carrying Guru Granth Sahib, image from Imperial War Museum Q24777 Open Government Licence v1.0 via Wikimedia Commons, (b) Qur’an from India, ca. 1851, in the library of the University of Saint Andrews, Scotland, (c) miniature sutra, in the Korean National Museum, Seoul.
Figure 3.2 A modern mezuzah.
Figure 3.3 Relief of wheeled ark, ca. third century
CE
, in the synagogue at Kefer‐Nahum/Capernaum, Israel.
Figure 3.4 Gold glass bowl from Rome, ca. 300–350
CE,
showing an open Torah ark with scrolls on its shelves. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Figure 3.5 Torah scrolls in the ark in the Vilna Shul (synagogue) in Boston, Massachusetts, built in 1919.
Figure 3.6 A scribe copying a new Torah scroll.
Figure 3.7 (a) Clothed Torah scroll in the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. (b) Torah case in the Yosef Caro synagogue in Tzfat/Safed, Israel.
Figure 3.8 The Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
Figure 3.9 An Egyptian Book of the Dead showing, at right, the ibis‐headed scribal god, Thoth, recording human worship of the gods. In the Louvre, Paris.
Figure 3.10 A Torah scroll open to Exodus 30.
Figure 3.11 Genesis 28–29 in the Leningrad Codex (tenth century
CE
), in the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg.
Figure 3.12 Processing the Gospel in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem.
Figure 3.13 Lectern Bible, Saint Andrews, Scotland.
Figure 3.14 Frontispiece of the Ottonian Gospels, ca. 1000
CE
, in the treasury of the Cathedral in Aachen, Germany.
Figure 3.15 Contemporary English bibles.
Figure 3.16
Mikraot Gedolot
, a Rabbinic Bible, open to Exod. 13:4–6 in Hebrew and the Aramaic Targum of Onkelos, and commentaries by Rashi, Rashbam and others.
Figure 3.17 Complutensian Polyglot Bible open to Genesis 1 in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, with a Latin translation of the Aramaic; in the library of Saint Andrews University.
Figure 3.18 Moses, Solon, and Confucius on the east pediment of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC. Built in 1935.
Figure 3.19 Ten Commandments on a monument at the Texas State Capitol in Austin.
Figure 3.20 Anubis chest in the treasury of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt.
Figure 3.21 Stone sphinx throne supporting carved stelae; first millennium
BCE
, Phoenician, in the Louvre, Paris.
Figure 3.22 Silver amulet scrolls from Ketef Hinnom; seventh to fifth century
BCE
; in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
Figure 3.23 Scribe holding scroll over sarcophagus in a model of a funerary boat from the tomb of Djehuty, Egypt ca. 1962–1786
BCE
. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Chapter 04
Figure 4.1 Buddhist monks chanting sutras at Bodh Gaya, India.
Figure 4.2 The Theodotus Inscription, Jerusalem, mid‐first century
CE
; in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Translation:
Theodotos, son of Vettenos, priest and head of the synagogue, son of the head of the synagogue, who was also the son of the head of the synagogue, built the synagogue for the reading of the Law and for the study of the precepts, as well as the hospice and the chambers and the bathing‐establishment, for lodging those who need them, from abroad; it (the synagogue) was founded by his ancestors and the elders and Simonidas
.
Figure 4.3 Bible translations in Bengali, Coptic, and Chinese.
Figure 4.4 Exodus 30:22–23 in a manuscript scroll and a printed
chumash
.
Figure 4.5 Floor mosaic (sixth century
CE
) of Abraham sacrificing Isaac (Gen. 22:1–11) in the ruins of the Bet Alpha synagogue, Israel.
Figure 4.6 Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. Woodcut from an early sixteenth‐century design by Hans Holbein.
Figure 4.7 Horned Moses, ca. 1894, on Alexander Hall, Princeton University.
Figure 4.8 Moses receiving the law and giving it to the Israelites. An illuminated page from the Moutier‐Grandval Bible created in Tours, France in 835
CE
.
Figure 4.9 Illustration of Tabernacle Furniture and High Priest (Exodus 25, 28).
Figure 4.10 Full‐size reconstruction of the Tabernacle (Exodus 25–40) in Timna Park, Israel.
Figure 4.11 Statue of a scribe with a baboon representing the scribal god, Thoth, sitting on or fused to his head. Egyptian, ca. 1275–1085
BCE
, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Chapter 05
Figure 5.1 Jerome at his desk. Detail of stained glass window, ca. 1490. In the Stadtschloss Museum in Weimar, Germany.
Figure 5.2 Poster for 1960 film
Exodus
. Artist: Paul Bass.
Figure 5.3 A scribe standing before Barrakib, the king of Samal. Relief from Samal/Zincirli, ca. 730
BCE
. In the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin.
Figure 5.4 Cuneiform tablet cataloguing 68 works of Sumerian literature, probably the collection of a temple library. From Nippur, ca. 2,000
BCE
. In the Louvre, Paris.
Chapter 06
Figure 6.1 A
Megillah
(Esther scroll) from Italy, ca. 1616. In the National Library of Israel.
Figure 6.2 (a) The four Gospels represented by a human‐faced angel for Matthew, a lion for Mark, (b) an ox for Luke, and an eagle for John. Details of mosaics in Santa Prassede basilica, Rome, 817–824
CE
.
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Table of Contents
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UNDERSTANDING THE PENTATEUCH AS A SCRIPTURE
James W. Watts
This edition first published 2017© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Name: Watts, James W. (James Washington), 1960– author.Title: Understanding the Pentateuch as a scripture / James W. Watts, Syracuse University, NY, US.Description: Hoboken : Wiley, 2017. | Includes index. |Identifiers: LCCN 2017012536 (print) | LCCN 2017024992 (ebook) | ISBN 9781118786390 (pdf) | ISBN 9781118786383 (epub) | ISBN 9781405196390 (cloth) | ISBN 9781405196383 (pbk.)Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Pentateuch–Hermeneutics. | Bible. Pentateuch–Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Sacred books–Comparative studies.Classification: LCC BS1227 (ebook) | LCC BS1227 .W38 2017 (print) | DDC 222/.1066–dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017012536
Cover Design: WileyCover Image: Samaritan Torah scroll held high during Passover on Mount Gerizim’; photo Zeev Elitzur 2007; used by permission
LIST OF BOXES
The nature of scripture
Ritual theories
The effects of ritualizing scriptures
Deuteronomy commands Torah’s ritualization
Ezra’s Torah reading
The Persian Empire and the Pentateuch
Ezra in history and tradition
Rhetoric
Kurigalzu’s inscription
Outline of the Pentateuch’s rhetoric
Law and narrative
Eponymous ancestry in Genesis
YHWH’s reputation in Exodus
The Pentateuch’s unstated premise and enthymeme
Priestly (in)competence and priestly authority in Leviticus 10
The rhetoric of lists
Law collections in the Pentateuch
Eternal sanctions
The Letter of Aristeas 177
Dedicatory Torah plaque
Lost Samaritan books
Desecrating Torah scrolls
Fragment of Aleppo Codex as amulet
Fraudulent sales of Holocaust scrolls
The heavenly Torah
The eternal word of God in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures
Hymn, “O Word of God Incarnate”
The tablets of the commandments
The Ark of the Covenant
Torah monuments
Finding a Torah scroll in the temple
The power of sound, word, and scripture
Reading the Greek Torah
The Mishnah on reading rituals
Torah blessings in synagogue liturgy
Reading scripture aloud in ancient Christianity
A Hasmonean curriculum
Why do Jews, Christians, and Muslims chant scripture?
Biblical maps and social imagination
A Samnite reading ritual
Moses reads the covenant book
The Shema
Pentateuchal promises
Pentateuchal threats
Interpretive expertise in Ezra‐Nehemiah
Citations of the Pentateuch in later books of the Hebrew Bible
Philo of Alexandria on the Septuagint as a miracle of translation
Citing and debating Torah in 4QMMT
Rabbinic interpretation through discussion and debate
The gendering of Talmud and Tanak
Identifying with exodus Israel
Go Down, Moses
Apocalyptic eschatology
The Letter of Aristeas on food laws
The rabbis on offerings and Torah study
The Apostle Paul on the law
Adam’s sin, reason, and empirical science
Phyllis Trible on Genesis 3:16
Memory variants and historical criticism
Prophets versus Deuteronomy about written Torah
Sanctions in ancient suzerainty treaties
Sanctions in the Hebrew Bible outside the Pentateuch
The birth legend of King Sargon
Ritualizing Decalogue and Torah in Pentateuchal traditions
The Libraries of Nehemiah and Judah Maccabee
The sections of the Mishnah
Irenaeus on the necessity of four Gospels
LIST OF TABLES
Genealogies in Genesis
Books with more than 10 copies found among the Dead Sea Scrolls
Modern publication of significant ancient Middle Eastern texts
When Jewish and Christian scriptures changed
LIST OF FIGURES
1.1 The three dimensions of written texts.
2.1 Barrel cylinder with a cuneiform inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon from 605 to 562 bce, to celebrate the discovery of a temple foundation inscription of Naram‐Sin, King of Akkad, 1,700 years earlier. In the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
2.2 Stone administrative tablet from Mesopotamia recording a land grant, ca. 3100–2900 bce. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
2.3 (a) Diorite stela of Hammurabi’s Laws, from Babylon, ca. 1700 bce. Relief at top shows King Hammurabi standing before the god Shamash. (b) The cuneiform text of the laws covers the front, back, and sides of the stela. In the Louvre, Paris.
3.1 Iconic scriptures: (a) 3.1 Sikh carrying Guru Granth Sahib, image from Imperial War Museum Q24777 Open Government Licence v1.0 via Wikimedia Commons, (b) Qur’an from India, ca. 1851, in the library of the University of Saint Andrews, Scotland,(c) Miniature Sutra, in the Korean National Museum, Seoul.
3.2 A modern mezuzah.
3.3 Relief of wheeled ark, ca. third century ce, in the synagogue at Kefer‐Nahum/Capernaum, Israel.
3.4 Gold glass bowl from Rome, ca. 300–350 ce, showing an open Torah ark with scrolls on its shelves. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
3.5 Torah scrolls in the ark in the Vilna Shul (synagogue) in Boston, Massachusetts, built in 1919.
3.6 A scribe copying a new Torah scroll.
3.7 (a) Clothed Torah scroll in the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; (b) Torah case in the Yosef Caro synagogue in Tzfat/Safed, Israel.
3.8 The Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
3.9 An Egyptian Book of the Dead showing, at right, the ibis‐headed scribal god, Thoth, recording human worship of the gods. In the Louvre, Paris.
3.10 A Torah scroll open to Exodus 30.
3.11 Genesis 28–29 in the Leningrad Codex (tenth century ce), in the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg.
3.12 Processing the Gospel in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem.
3.13 Lectern Bible, Saint Andrews, Scotland.
3.14 Frontispiece of the Ottonian Gospels, ca. 1000 ce, in the treasury of the Cathedral in Aachen, Germany.
3.15 Contemporary English bibles.
3.16 Mikraot Gedolot, a Rabbinic Bible, open to Exod. 13:4–6 in Hebrew and the Aramaic Targum of Onkelos, and commentaries by Rashi, Rashbam and others.
3.17 Complutensian Polyglot Bible open to Genesis 1 in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, with a Latin translation of the Aramaic; in the library of Saint Andrews University.
3.18 Moses, Solon, and Confucius on the east pediment of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC. Built in 1935.
3.19 Ten Commandments on a monument at the Texas State Capitol in Austin.
3.20 Anubis chest in the treasury of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt. Photo by Harry Burton, 1926.
3.21 Stone sphinx throne supporting carved stelae; first millennium bce, Phoenician, in the Louvre, Paris.
3.22 Silver amulet scrolls from Ketef Hinnom; seventh to fifth century bce; in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
3.23 Scribe holding scroll over sarcophagus in a model of a funerary boat from the tomb of Djehuty, Egypt ca. 1962–1786 bce. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
4.1 Buddhist monks chanting sutras at Bodh Gaya, India.
4.2 The Theodotus Inscription, Jerusalem, mid‐first century ce; in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
4.3 Bible translations in Bengali, Coptic, and Chinese.
4.4 Exodus 30:22–23 in a manuscript scroll and a printed chumash.
4.5 Floor mosaic (sixth century ce) of Abraham sacrificing Isaac (Gen. 22:1–11) in the ruins of the Bet Alpha synagogue, Israel.
4.6 Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. Woodcut from an early sixteenth‐century design by Hans Holbein.
4.7 Horned Moses, ca. 1894, on Alexander Hall, Princeton University.
4.8 Moses receiving the law and giving it to the Israelites. An illuminated page from the Moutier‐Grandval Bible created in Tours, France in 835 ce.
4.9 Illustration of Tabernacle Furniture and High Priest (Exodus 25, 28).
4.10 Full‐size reconstruction of the Tabernacle (Exodus 25–40) in Timna Park, Israel.
4.11 Statue of a scribe with a baboon representing the scribal god, Thoth, sitting on or fused to his head. Egyptian, ca. 1275–1085 bce, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
5.1 Jerome at his desk. Detail of stained glass window, ca. 1490. In the Stadtschloss Museum in Weimar, Germany.187
5.2 Poster for 1960 film Exodus. Artist: Paul Bass.193
5.3 A scribe standing before Barrakib, the king of Samal. Relief from Samal/Zincirli, ca. 730 bce. In the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin.225
5.4 Cuneiform tablet cataloguing 68 works of Sumerian literature, probably the collection of a temple library. From Nippur, ca. 2,000 bce. In the Louvre, Paris.226
6.1 A Megillah (Esther scroll) from Italy, ca. 1616. In the National Library of Israel.
6.2 (a) The four Gospels represented by a human‐faced angel for Matthew, a lion for Mark,(b) an ox for Luke, and an eagle for John. Details of mosaics in Santa Prassede basilica, Rome, 817–824 ce.
ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations of Biblical and Apocryphal Literature
1–2 Chr.
1–2 Chronicles
1–2 Cor.
1–2 Corinthians
1–2 Kgs.
1–2 Kings
1–2–3–4 Macc.
1–2–3–4 Maccabees
1–2 Pet.
1–2 Peter
1–2 Sam.
1–2 Samuel
1–2 Thess.
1–2 Thessalonians
1–2 Tim.
1–2 Timothy
Bar.
Baruch
Col.
Colossians
Dan.
Daniel
Deut.
Deuteronomy
Eccl.
Ecclesiastes
Eph.
Ephesians
Esth.
Esther
Exod.
Exodus
Ezek.
Ezekiel
Gal.
Galatians
Gen.
Genesis
Hab.
Habakkuk
Hag.
Haggai
Heb.
Hebrews
Hos.
Hosea
Isa.
Isaiah
Jas.
James
Jdt.
Judith
Jer.
Jeremiah
Josh.
Joshua
Judg.
Judges
Lam.
Lamentations
Lev.
Leviticus
Mal.
Malachi
Matt.
Matthew
Mic.
Micah
Nah.
Nahum
Neh.
Nehemiah
Num.
Numbers
Obad.
Obadiah
Phil.
Philippians
Phlm.
Philemon
Prov.
Proverbs
Ps./Pss.
Psalm/Psalms
Rev.
Revelation
Rom.
Romans
Sir.
Sirach/Ecclesiasticus
Song
Song of Songs (Song of Solomon)
Sus.
Susanna
Tob.
Tobit
Wis.
Wisdom of Solomon
Zech.
Zechariah
Zeph.
Zephaniah
Abbreviations of Bible Translations
CEB
Common English Bible
NRSV
New Revised Standard Version
Abbreviations in Citations of Rabbinic Literature
b
.
Babylonian Talmud
m
.
Mishnah
y
.
Jerusalem Talmud
PREFACE
The title of this book, Understanding the Pentateuch as a Scripture, requires some explanation. Chapter 1 will give attention to defining the nouns, “Pentateuch” and “scripture,” and their relationship to another name for this literature, “the Torah.” Here I need to explain why I chose this phrase for the title of this book, and particularly why “scripture” is preceded by the indefinite article, “a.”
Biblical studies is an ancient and flourishing field. Scholars put great effort into explaining the language, meaning, and history of biblical books down to their tiniest detail. They have done so for more than 2,000 years and continue to do so today. The published literature on the Pentateuch is vast, and keeps growing.
Yet little of this research focuses on how the Bible, much less the Pentateuch, functions as a scripture. Biblical scholars tend to concentrate on the meaning of biblical texts within the literary contexts of individual books and within their original historical settings in ancient Israel, Second Temple Judaism, and early Christianity.
Forty years ago, the historian of religions Wilfred Cantwell Smith criticized biblical scholars for focusing only “on the Bible in its pre‐scriptural phase.” He wanted to position biblical studies within research on religions generally, rather than just within the study of Judaism and Christianity. Smith called for studying “the Bible as scripture” in comparison with other religious scriptures, such as the Qur’an, the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, the Buddhist sutras, and the Sikh’s Guru Granth Sahib. He understood that a religious studies context would draw more attention to how people in various times and places have interpreted the Bible. It would also highlight how they have used it in their personal and communal rituals, in their art and theater, in their economic activities, and in their politics.
One of Smith’s students, William Graham, took such a religious studies approach to scriptures by comparing their oral performances in various traditions. Noting the importance of oral recitation to Muslims’ veneration of the Qur’an and to Hindu Brahmins’ use of the Vedas, Graham also observed the prominent role that reading scripture aloud plays in Jewish and Christian worship. He thought that modern publishing had obscured the importance of oral performance of scriptures. He argued that oral performance, more than interpretation, established and maintained a text’s status as scripture within a religious community.1
Another academic movement that takes seriously the Bible’s function as scripture is canonical criticism, which is oriented towards theology rather than religious studies. Brevard Childs wrote a book with a title similar to this one, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (1979), in which he advocated a canonical approach to biblical interpretation. Childs argued that reading the Bible “as scripture” should focus on its theological meaning within the context of the Jewish or Christian canons as a whole. While he employed the full range of historical tools to understand the development of biblical texts, Childs emphasized that its final canonical form should be decisive for its religious meaning. Childs has been much more influential than Smith on biblical scholarship. It is fair to say, however, that neither Child’s nor Smith’s approaches dominate the field.2
What has changed in biblical research over the past 30 years is that more attention is being directed at the history of the Bible’s interpretation. Such studies often include not only its interpretation by theologians and preachers, but also its use by artists and creative writers of poetry, novels, plays, and films. This trend has spawned several new journals in the field, such as Biblical Interpretation, Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds, and Biblical Reception. Prominent book series, such as the Blackwell Bible Commentaries, focus on reception history. Some of this research takes a theological interest in the history of Jewish and Christian religious traditions that resembles Childs’ canonical approach. But much of this research abstains from theological commitments, and discusses instead the cultural influence of the Bible in religious and secular contexts.
Nevertheless, biblical scholarship remains focused on interpretation, that is, on how people have understood the meaning of the Bible’s words and utilized them in various ways. Much less research focuses on how people perform those words in religious and secular contexts, and even less on how they make use of the physical books of Jewish and Christian scriptures: Torah scrolls, tanaks and bibles. Performance Criticism has gained a foothold among biblical scholars, but still tends to reconstruct the original performance settings of particular books more than the history of biblical performances. Outside of biblical scholarship, the rise of book history as an academic discipline has drawn attention to the history of religious publishing and reading since the adoption of mass printing in the fifteenth century. But very little has been done to integrate these strands into a unified account of how the Bible functions in religious and secular cultures as a scripture.
I was a student of Brevard Childs during my PhD studies. I was drawn to his work because he focused on scripture as the defining characteristic of the Bible. Like him, I think biblical scholars should give more attention to the Bible’s status as Jewish and Christian scripture, because that is what attracts people’s attention in the first place. Were it not for the Bible’s contemporary prestige and influence, the field of biblical studies would be a minor part of the study of ancient Middle Eastern literature rather than a subject of popular and scholarly interest around the world.
I have, however, spent my teaching career in departments of religious studies, first at Hastings College and then at Syracuse University. That context has shown me the benefits of comparing the Bible’s scriptural status with the scriptures of other religions. Comparison reveals similar strategies for using sacred texts across cultures, even when the literary contents and theological meaning of the books differ dramatically.
For the past 15 years, I have engaged with a growing number of collaborators in a research project on the social uses of books and other written texts. Originally called the Iconic Books Project, it has more recently evolved into a scholarly association, the Society for Comparative Research on Iconic and Performative Texts (SCRIPT). We do research on how physical books get manipulated and depicted as well as on oral performances and their artistic illustration, and the social effects of these activities. The early results of this research were brought together in several journal issues and then in the collection Iconic Books and Texts (2013). This collaboration continues to produce innovative research by scholars working on a wide variety of religions, cultures, and time periods.3
Understanding the Pentateuch as a Scripture brings this comparative research on textual performances and iconic books into Pentateuchal studies. Applying comparative scripture studies to the Pentateuch is productive because the Pentateuch was the first part of the Bible to function as a scripture and its example has influenced the use of all subsequent scriptures in Western religious traditions. In this book, I bring historical and literary biblical criticism and the history of the Bible’s cultural reception into interaction with the comparative study of scriptures. The results integrate what we know about the Pentateuch as an ancient Middle Eastern document with what we know about its material, oral, artistic, ritual, and interpretive uses today.
So I use an indefinite pronoun in the title of this book, “… as a Scripture,” to indicate a comparative perspective on the Pentateuch’s scriptural function. This, then, is not the canonical approach to scripture that I learned from Professor Childs. I am very grateful for his instruction and support, and I do not discount the importance of theological interpretation of the Bible for Jewish and Christian audiences. I simply think that a comparative analysis allows us to understand its influence and function in ways that theological interpretation does not.
This book introduces innovative ways of thinking about biblical literature as well as surveying established conclusions in the field. That combination might seem strange in an introductory textbook. In the field of biblical studies, however, an “introduction” has long served to provide a critical evaluation of the state of the field. It shows how biblical studies should go forward as well as surveys where it has been. This book follows in that tradition by demonstrating how the study of the Pentateuch can be re‐envisioned from a religious studies perspective on comparative scriptures. It show that research on the Pentateuch’s scriptural function can integrate investigations of its origins with its cultural history. The results illuminate its contemporary interpretation in the academy as well as in synagogues, in churches, and in the wider culture.
I hope this book will be read with interest by people in many different settings. It has, however, been organized with classroom instruction in mind. Instructors might use this book at the beginning of a course on the Hebrew Bible or Christian Bible, or to introduce or conclude a course on the Pentateuch. They could assign its chapters and sections at different times during a course, interlaced with other topics and more detailed analysis of Pentateuchal texts.
Chapter 1 introduces the concepts that are crucial to this book’s approach: the idea of scripture, comparative scriptures studies, and the meaning of the words “Pentateuch” and “Torah.” It also introduces the time of Ezra, 2,400 years ago, when the Pentateuch first began to function as a scripture. Chapter 2 then surveys the contents of the Pentateuch from literary and rhetorical perspectives, which it introduces and defines. My expectation in writing this chapter is that it will accompany assignments to read large parts, preferably all, of the Pentateuch.
Chapters 3, 4, and 5 analyze how the Pentateuch functions as a scripture in each of the dimensions defined in Chapter 1: the iconic, performative, and semantic dimensions. Each chapter first describes the Pentateuch’s ritualization “after Ezra,” that is, after the time that it began to function as scripture up to the present day. Only then does attention turn to the time “before Ezra,” that is, before the Pentateuch was scripturalized. It is this period that has traditionally received most of the attention of biblical scholars. Presenting the history of the Pentateuch in this sequence allows students to compare cultural history with historical criticism directly. Class discussion will likely include frequent consideration of the relative amounts of evidence for various periods and scripturalizing activities, of the different kinds of historical arguments that various kinds of evidence and periods require, and of the significance of particular developments for shaping the meaning and use of the Pentateuch and Bible in the present day.
Chapter 6 briefly extends this book’s analysis to the larger scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. It suggests a historical template for understanding key moments in the scripturalization of other biblical books in the developing Jewish and Christian traditions.
I have included many images and quotations of ancient texts for illustration. Text boxes appear periodically to define key ideas and give examples referred to in the immediate context. The table of Contents therefore provides a detailed list of the chapter subheadings to aid in constructing a course syllabus. A sample syllabus for assigning this book in a Hebrew Bible course can be found at http://jameswwatts.net/Understanding.
The literature on the Pentateuch that this book presupposes is voluminous. I have cited in the “Cited Works and Further Reading” sources of direct quotations. I have also included references to a very small number of English‐language publications where instructors can find more detailed discussions of particular issues and fuller bibliographies. Some of these texts could also serve as further reading assignments to supplement the summaries in this book.
1
. On comparative scripture studies, see Wilfred Cantwell Smith, “The Study of Religion and the Study of the Bible,”
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
39 (1971), 131–40; reprinted in
Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective
, ed. Miriam Levering, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989, 18–28; Wilfred Cantwell Smith, “Scripture as Form and Concept: Their Emergence for the Western World,” in
Rethinking Scripture
, 29–57; and William A. Graham,
Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
2
. On the canonical approach, see Brevard S. Childs,
Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture
, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1979; and Brevard S. Childs,
The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction
, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1984.
3
. On the Iconic Books Project, see James W. Watts, ed.,
Iconic Books and Texts
. London: Equinox, 2013, and
http://iconicbooks.net
. For SCRIPT, see
www.script‐site.net
.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many people have generously supported my work on this book and the longer research projects that contribute to it. I am very grateful to all those scholars who have joined me in the research of the Iconic Books Project and in SCRIPT. They are too many to mention, but I should especially single out Dorina Miller Parmenter, S. Brent Plate, Yohan Yoo, and Jason Larson. My colleagues in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University have been generous with their time and support for my projects. I especially appreciate the support for SCRIPT and Iconic Books by Joanne Waghorne, Philip Arnold, and Zachary Braiterman, and the valuable feedback from the members of Lemadim Olam. The College of Arts and Sciences of Syracuse University enabled me to write this book by granting a research leave for the 2015–16 academic year, and the Käte Hamburger Kolleg in the Center for Religious Studies at Ruhr University Bochum enabled its rapid progress with a generous visiting fellowship during that year. I am very grateful to Dean Karin Ruhlandt in the College at Syracuse and to Professors Volkhard Krech and Christian Frevel in Bochum, as well as to all the participants in the 2015–16 seminar on the theme of “religion and the senses.” I am most grateful to my wife, Maurine, who accompanied me to Germany and has participated gamely in too many conversations about the Pentateuch.
This book culminates and summarizes much of my previous research on scriptures and on the Pentateuch. It therefore includes many ideas and arguments that I have published previously in articles and books. References to those works appear where appropriate in the lists of “Cited Works and Further Reading.” I have occasionally reproduced paragraphs previously published elsewhere. I am grateful to the publishers of the following works for permission to reproduce these selections here:
“Narrative, Lists, Rhetoric, Ritual and the Pentateuch as a Scripture,” in
The Formation of the Pentateuch
(ed. Jan C. Gertz et al.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 1135–45.
“From Ark of the Covenant to Torah Scroll: Ritualizing Israel’s Iconic Texts,” in
Ritual Innovation in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism
(ed. Nathan MacDonald; BZAW 468; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 21–34.
“Ritual Legitimacy and Scriptural Authority,”
Journal of Biblical Literature
124/3 (2005), 401–417.
English quotations of biblical verses are my translations unless otherwise noted. Photographs are my own except as noted.
1RITUALIZED TEXT: THE PENTATEUCH AS A SCRIPTURE
The Pentateuch consists of five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The most obvious fact about these books is that they are scripture. In fact, they are revered as scripture by three different religious traditions.
Jewish tradition names these five books the Torah, which in Hebrew means “law” or “instruction.” The Torah is the first part of the Jewish Bible, which is often called the Tanak, an acronym for its three sections that also include the Prophets (the Nebi’im) and the Writings (the Kethubim). The Torah has always been the most important of the three parts. Its five books have shaped Jewish thought and life far more than the other books of Jewish scripture.
Christian tradition preserves Jewish scriptures in the first part, the Old Testament, of the Christian Bible. (For a neutral designation of the collection of books that Jews and Christians both regard as scripture, scholars now usually call it the Hebrew Bible.) So the bibles of different churches all start with the Pentateuch just as the Jewish Bible does. However, Christians emphasize the New Testament, which consists of uniquely Christian books, more than the Old Testament. They focus especially on the four Gospels that contain stories about Jesus’s life and teachings, and on the letters of Paul.
There is another religious tradition that reveres the Pentateuch as scripture. The Samaritans now number fewer than 1,000 people, but two millennia ago they were a large and vibrant community. Since antiquity, they have used the Torah as their only scripture.
You could object that the “Pentateuch,” by that name, is really nobody’s scripture. That name is a scholarly label for the contents of the Jewish and Samaritan Torah. Samaritans venerate the Torah as their only scripture. Jews venerate the Torah as the most important part of scripture, but the Tanak also contains 19 other books. Christians do not usually distinguish the Pentateuch from the rest of the Bible. They venerate it only as the first five books of their Old Testament, which is overshadowed in Christian thought and liturgy by the New Testament and, especially, by the four Gospels. The phrase, “the Pentateuch as a scripture,” in this book’s title is artificial. All three religious traditions define the scope of their scriptures differently from one another and by different names.
Nevertheless, describing the Pentateuch as a scripture draws attention to the similar ways in which all three religions treat their scriptures, including these five books. Saying the Pentateuch is a scripture means much more than just that it appears among the sacred books of these three religions. Congregations and religious individuals ritualize these books in distinctive ways that distinguish them as scriptures. Describing the Pentateuch as a scripture therefore requires us to consider the nature and function of scriptures in religious communities generally.
First, however, we need to discuss the term that evokes the Pentateuch’s scriptural function for Jews and Samaritans most vividly, the name “Torah.”
Torah and Pentateuch
The word torah appears in the Hebrew Bible frequently to refer to specific instructions (e.g. Lev. 6:9, 14, etc.). It may also refer to sets of instructions (Lev. 7:37) and, together with mishpatim and huqim, to all the stipulations of God’s covenant with Israel (Gen. 26:5; Exod. 24:12; Lev. 26:46). The word torah, by itself, often refers specifically to priestly instructions or “teachings” (Deut. 33:10; Mal. 2:4–9). It typifies one of the priests’ major responsibilities (Deut. 17:11, 18; Ezek. 22:26).4
Torah has traditionally been translated by “law.” The first to do so were the ancient translators of the Septuagint who used the Greek word nomos. Many interpreters now find this translation too restrictive, because torah connotes instruction in the form of advice and direction as much as legal mandate. Furthermore, ancient Middle Eastern law collections do not seem to have functioned as normative legislation. Actually, the Greek word nomos described correct performance of temple rituals just as priestly torah does in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, written ritual instructions seem to have functioned as normative texts long before written legislation did, and may have been the stimulus for the gradual development of normative written law.
Deuteronomy uses torah most often to refer to itself as containing all the stipulations of the covenant (e.g. Deut. 1:5) in the form of a written scroll, sefer hatorah “the book of the Torah” (e.g. Deut. 28:61; cf. 2 Kgs. 22:8, 11). Other books of the Hebrew Bible connect this book with Moses, sefer torat Moshe “the book of the Torah of Moses” (e.g. Josh. 8:31; 1 Kgs. 2:3; Ezra 7:6; Neh. 8:1). By the early Second Temple period, “the Torah” had come to refer to the Pentateuch in more or less the form we have it today.
Early Christian writers referred to the collection as ho nomos, “the Law,” often together with “the prophets” to describe all the scriptures. The Greek name pentateuchos “Pentateuch” means “five cases” and refers to the five books of the Torah. It appeared first in second‐ and third‐century CE Christian authors such as Origen and Tertullian, and probably reflected Hebrew or Aramaic phrases used by the ancient rabbis, such as “the five books of the Torah” (y. Sotah 5:6) or “the five fifths of the Torah” (b. Meg. 15a). However, the Torah’s division into five books was already reflected in the first century CE by Philo (De Abrahamo 1) and Josephus (Apion 1.8), and perhaps by a fragment among the Dead Sea Scrolls (1Q30).
For Jews and Samaritans, “the Torah” remains the name of the five books of the Pentateuch. It evokes not just the literature but the entire tradition of interpreting and living according to its teachings. Thus “Torah” names how the Pentateuch functions as scripture for these religions. But what does it mean to call the Torah, or any other text, “a scripture”?
Scripture and Ritual
Scholars of religions struggle to define the word “scripture.” Religious communities tend to describe their scriptures as holy or sacred, as inspired by God, and as authoritative for their beliefs and practices. They also tend to describe their own scriptures as unique, unlike any other books or texts on earth. Religious communities therefore often resist classifying their sacred texts as belonging to the same category as the scriptures of other religions.5
Those who study multiple religions notice, however, that many traditions venerate some texts as sacred and distinguish them from all other texts. Scholars of religion have therefore filled the category “scripture” with books from many religions. They often distinguish “book religions” from traditions that do not venerate sacred texts. Already in the Middle Ages, Muslim theologians described Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as “religions of the book.” In the nineteenth century, Oxford University Press published 50 volumes of English translations of The Sacred Books of the East. The editor, Max Müller, wanted to expose Westerners to the scriptures of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Now textbook anthologies, such as Robert Van Voorst’s Anthology of World Scriptures, make excerpts available from the scriptures of all these religions.
However, reading these various scriptures together shows that their contents have little in common. They contain stories, laws, oracles, moral principles, philosophical speculation, practical advice, prayers, hymns, spells, and much more. No one genre of literature describes them all. “Scripture,” then, is not a literary category. Instead, what these texts have in common is that religious communities venerate them.
The nature of scripture
William Graham observed: “A text becomes ‘scripture’ in living, subjective relationship to persons and to historical tradition. No text, written, oral, or both, is sacred or authoritative in isolation from a community. A text is only ‘scripture’ insofar as a group of persons perceives it to be sacred or holy, powerful and meaningful, possessed of an exalted authority, and in some fashion transcendent of, and hence distinct from, other speech and writing. … The ‘scriptural’ characteristics of a text belong not to the text itself but to its role in a community. ‘Scripture’ is not a literary genre but a religio‐historical one.”
Veneration of scriptures takes the form of public and private rituals of various kinds. Rituals draw people’s attention to specific practices and ideas. They focus attention on the ritual activity itself in order to make participants more aware of their own relationship to what it represents. Studies of ritual (see Box, “Ritual theories”) have revealed the central role that rituals play in human societies at every level.
Rituals, however, have a bad reputation. People associate ritual with unreality, with superstition, and with magic, which they contrast with practical, effective actions. Though this attitude feels modern, it is actually rooted in ancient religious polemics. Christians contrasted “empty rituals” and superstition with knowledge and “true faith” long before rationalists and scientists employed the contrast. Protestants used the term “ritual” to attack Catholic ceremonies during the Reformation, medieval Christians used it to disparage Jews, and ancient Christians used it to criticize and suppress pagan sacrifices.
Ritual theories
Throughout the twentieth century, many anthropologists and scholars of religion have studied rituals and how they work. They have increasingly focused not on distinguishing rituals from non‐rituals, which can be hard to do, but rather on the activity of performing rituals or “ritualizing” which can take place at almost any time and place.
“Ritualization is a way of acting that specifically establishes a privileged contrast, differentiating itself as more important or powerful.” (Catherine Bell)
Ritualizing requires participants and audience to pay attention to what is being done, how it is being done, and who is doing it. Ritualizing involves doing ordinary activities, such as eating, entering a room, or reading a book, in a formal and regulated way.
“Ritual relies for its power on the fact that it is concerned with quite ordinary activities placed within an extraordinary setting, that what it describes and displays is, in principle, possible for every occurrence of these acts.” (Jonathan Z. Smith)
By performing rituals and witnessing them, people identify themselves with the values represented in the rituals.
“By performing a [ritual] the participants accept, and indicate to themselves and to others that they accept whatever is encoded in the canon of that order.” (Roy Rappaport)
So rituals identify (index) participants with the institutions and traditions that promote and perform those rituals.6
In contrast to the reputation of rituals, scriptures have been venerated as containers of knowledge and truth. Reading has been cast as the opposite of ritualizing. It can therefore sound very odd to hear reading and writing described as rituals in some circumstances. The concept of ritualized books is so strange that scholars have done little research on this phenomenon, in contrast to the massive amounts of scholarship on the interpretation of books and religions.
Nevertheless, the display, reading, and interpretation of scriptures play obvious roles in the worship services – the rituals – of Jews and Christians, as well as of Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and many other religious groups. In fact, ritualizing scriptures clearly encourages people to believe that these books are authoritative and inspired texts that establish the truth and legitimacy of the religious tradition. By setting aside the polemical history of debates over ritual, we can better understand how ritualizing books promotes religious ideas and practices, and secular ones too.
Rituals make participants pay attention to people, objects, and actions that they otherwise take for granted. Ritualized meals, for example, draw attention to the food itself, how it is prepared, and what it means: the unleavened bread of a Passover Seder, the bread and wine of Communion, the tea of a tea ceremony. Ritual processions require attention to the manner and order in which people enter and leave a room. Ceremonies that mark life transitions focus attention on particular people: the bride and groom at a wedding, the graduates at a college commencement, or the recently deceased at a funeral.
Ritualizing scriptures therefore draws attention to the books themselves – their verbal contents, and also the sound of their words and their physical form and appearance. Scriptures get ritualized in three distinct ways that correspond to the three dimensions of texts.
The Three Dimensions of Written Texts
Every written text consists of three aspects or dimensions. We usually focus on its meaning, the significance of its words and what they tell us. This interpretive act engages a text’s semantic dimension.
Before we can understand the meaning of writing, we must turn the visual signs into words. The text must be read aloud or enunciated in our heads. This oral or mental performance engages a text’s performative dimension.
But before we can even perform a text, we must recognize it as a written text. We have to interpret visual marks as written language (letters or signs), not as art or natural patterns, or we must recognize the shape of an object as likely to contain writing (an envelope, a scroll, or a book, for example). This act of recognition engages a text’s iconic dimension.
We usually do not pay attention to the three different dimensions of texts. Consider this book that you are now reading. You instantly recognize its shape as a book that probably contains written text. You recognize its Roman letters and (if you are reading this) you turn them into English words without thinking much about what you are doing. I hope that you also understand the meaning of these sentences without too much difficulty.
Figure 1.1 The three dimensions of written texts.
We pay attention to the individual dimensions of texts only if we have difficulty – if we have trouble figuring out their meaning (the semantic dimension), if we cannot read smudged type or illegible handwriting (the performative dimension), or if we cannot decide whether marks on paper represent written words or art or random patterns (the iconic dimension). Otherwise, the three dimensions of texts are trivial features of the experience of reading and usually ignored.
When texts get ritualized, however, the three dimensions become important, because texts can be ritualized in each of the dimensions.
The semantic dimension of interpretation can be ritualized by delivering lectures and sermons, by staging debates, and by writing interpretive commentaries on texts. For example, laws and national constitutions get ritualized regularly in the semantic dimension by oral and written interpretations that multiply and grow more elaborate over time. They serve the ritual function of drawing attention to the laws and they index the readers’ and listeners’ responsibilities under those laws.
The performative dimension of texts can be ritualized by private and public readings and recitations. Religious worship services often focus on reading selections of sacred texts. People may memorize the text. Oral performances may be standardized as chants or set to music as songs. Theatrical scripts, for example, are designed for public performance in ritual spaces (theaters). They expect audiences and actors to behave in conventional ways that call attention to the play being performed.
The iconic dimension of texts can be ritualized by changing how a book looks and by handling it in special ways. The text can be written in distinctive scripts or printed in unusual fonts. Its pages can be decorated and illustrated. Its binding or container can be embellished with art and valuable materials. For example, publishers produce collector’s editions in leather bindings and gilt edges so buyers can show visually that they find a particular book valuable. Texts can also be displayed prominently on shelves or tables, held up for people to see, and paraded in elaborate processions. Rare books frequently get displayed in museums, in libraries, and even in private homes.
Only written texts can be ritualized in these three dimensions. A visual symbol such as a cross or a flag can be ritualized in the iconic dimension: it can be displayed, elaborated in art, and paraded in processions. Visual symbols can also be ritualized in the semantic dimension: their meanings can be elaborated and debated, sometimes at great length. But crosses and flags cannot be ritualized in the performative dimension: they contain no written words that can be turned into mental or oral language. On the other hand, an oral epic can be ritualized by retelling it or even staging it. Its interpretation can also be elaborated and debated at length. But there is no physical object to display or decorate. Therefore, oral epics and other oral traditions can be ritualized in the performative and semantic dimension, but not in the iconic dimension, while visual symbols can be ritualized in the iconic and semantic dimensions, but not in the performative dimension. Only written texts can be ritualized in all three dimensions.
Ritualizing Scriptures in Three Dimensions
Most texts do not get ritualized much in any dimension, and those that do usually get ritualized in only one or two dimensions. A distinctive feature of religious scriptures is that they get ritualized in all three dimensions.
Religious traditions that emphasize scriptures give prominent attention to their semantic interpretation. They include Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, and Jains, as well as Jews, Samaritans, and Christians. All of them sponsor speakers and literature that interpret their scriptures, and give their best interpreters positions of respect and influence. Most of them encourage lay people to study the scriptures and their interpretations. Ritualizing the semantic dimension tends to increase the authority of scriptures and the authority of people who can interpret them convincingly. These religions therefore give respect and influence to scholars, priests, preachers, rabbis, imams, or sages who are expert in the scriptures and their interpretation.
These traditions also highlight the oral performance of scriptures, to the point that reading or reciting scripture is a key component of their worship services. They often require that scriptures be performed orally in distinctive ways, with particular pronunciations or with prescribed chants. Verses of scriptures frequently get sung to melodies, with or without instrumental accompaniments. Some scriptures that contain vivid stories get performed theatrically. Traditions of enacting scriptural stories are thousands of years old in Europe and India. Now they frequently appear on television and in films. There is even older evidence for artistic traditions of illustrating scriptural stories and calligraphy that elaborates the written texts artistically. All these media can be used to perform the words and contents of scriptures. Ritualizing their performative dimension in these ways draws people’s attention to the scriptures and inspires those who hear and see the performances. They often regard inspiration as characteristic of scripture.
Religious traditions that emphasize scripture also ritualize the physical form of their scriptures. The script or typeface may take distinctive forms and be arranged in unusual ways. The pages may be decorated and their contents may be illustrated. The cover or binding of the book may take a stereotypical form so that people easily recognize it as that scripture, or it may be bound in expensive materials. People display scriptures in their congregations, sanctuaries and homes. They carry them in the form of complete books or as miniature amulets. They wave them in rituals of worship or preaching, of celebration or protest. In all these ways, the visual appearance of scriptures distinguishes them from other books and emphasizes their importance. Ritualizing their iconic dimensions in these ways draws attention and legitimizes the religious tradition that venerates them and the people who possess and handle them.
The effects of ritualizing scriptures
Ritualizing each of a scripture’s three dimensions makes the book’s message more persuasive to those who venerate it. Theories of rhetoric, that is, of persuasion, help us understand how this works. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE) described three factors necessary to make a speech persuasive. The words (logos) of the speech must, of course, make a convincing argument. The speech, however, must also appeal to the audience’s assumptions and feelings (pathos). And the speaker must project an attractive and trustworthy character (ethos). Scriptures are not speeches, but ritualizing their three dimensions increases their persuasive appeal in these same ways: interpreting them increases the authority (logos) of their contents and their interpreters, performing their words and contents inspires audiences (pathos), and displaying and decorating them legitimizes (ethos) the communities and traditions that venerate them.7
Ritualization plays an important role in making some texts seem more authoritative than others. Regular and repeated interpretation of the same book makes its contents seem more important for how to think and act. But the reverse is also true: displaying a book of instructions makes rituals seem more legitimate. The visible presence of authoritative books counters doubts about the competence or honesty of the person leading the rituals.8
In fact, people in the ancient Middle East first began regarding some texts as normative, that is, as authoritative for how to behave, when those texts described how to conduct rituals. Kings and priests and magicians from Babylon to Egypt consulted ritual texts to tell them, for example, where to build temples, when to make offerings to the gods, and how to cast curses. But the famous law code of Hammurabi and other royal law codes were not consulted for how to conduct criminal trials, which were based on custom instead. Textual authority developed first around ritual texts.
The same pattern can be observed in the developing authority of biblical books. Many claim inspiration from God, most obviously books like Isaiah and Jeremiah that state that God gave the prophets these messages. The first Jewish scripture did not consist of prophetic books, however, but of the Pentateuch. Genesis 1 does not begin with any explicit claim of inspiration or even of authorship. The Pentateuch does contain laws spoken by God to Moses. But what differentiates it most from other biblical books is that ritual instructions lie at its center in Exodus 25–40, Leviticus, and parts of Numbers. Stories of the Torah’s growing authority in the Second Temple period emphasize that it first dictated ritual behavior, especially how to celebrate the annual festivals of Passover and Sukkot (Booths). Only centuries later did its laws begin to apply in criminal courts and civil society. (See “The Rhetoric of Law After Ezra” on p. 200.)
The Pentateuch in Three Dimensions
Understanding how a book functions as scripture therefore involves how it gets ritualized in each of three dimensions and the social effects of these rituals. Chapters 3–5 will describe how religious communities have ritualized the Pentateuch. The specifics vary from one tradition to another and from time to time and place to place.
