|
Border Lines: The Partition of Judeo-Christianity
by Daniel Boyarin
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2004. 392 pp. $38.50 (cloth). ISBN 0-8122-3764-1.
This is a book about the mutual formation of Judaism and Christianity in late antiquity. The previous statement is not a typographical error. Boyarin's major thesis is that Judaism and Christianity, rather than having a mother-daughter relationship, are in fact a common creation of the same discourse of late antiquityÑa discourse that established them as orthodoxies, while separating them both from their heresies and from each other. Using theoretical tools from postcolonial studies, Boyarin claims that the border between religions is itself an outcome of a long cultural give and take. Indeed, it is the concept of the border that stands at the heart of Boyarin's explanatory endeavor: "How and why that border was written and who wrote it are the questions that drive that book" (p. 2).
The book has three parts. In the first, Boyarin strives to show that it is not the heretics that appear in second century but heresiology itself. Further, this heresiological discourse appears in Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity more or less at the same time, and plays a crucial role in the very creation of the borders between them.
The second part discusses the Logos. Boyarin's reconstruction of the history of this concept is meant to show that rather than a heterodox idea entering rabbinic Judaism from without, the Logos was actually a well established ancient Jewish idea that was labeled as heresy in second-century rabbinic Judaism as part of its border-making efforts.
The third and last part concentrates on the Babylonian Talmud and its creation of a culture of debate (Machloket). Boyarin shows that the Bavli constructs a series of foundational stories regarding the creation of the first academy in post-destruction Javne that actually mirrors the Babylonian discourse of debate.
Students of rabbinic studies will find here a thorough work on rabbinic heresiology (the first one since Alan Segal's Two Powers in Heaven in 1977), as well as a fresh look at the Babylonian Talmud and its cultural settings. For scholars of early Christianity, the book is a brilliant problematization of the common understanding of the relationships between Judaism and Christianity in late antiquity.
The book is written from the explicitly stated point of view of an "orthodox Jew who is fascinated with Christianity," and although this viewpoint creates some unavoidable biases, it also nurtures new fascinating readings.
Ishay Rosen-Zvi
Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel
Ruth: A Continental Commentary
by Andre LaCocque
Fortress, Minneapolis, 2004. 187 pp. $28.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8006-9515-1.
LaCocque argues that the book of Ruth functions as a commentary on the Torah, a commentary prepared in the post-exilic era to subvert the narrowly nationalist policies of those holding the perspective represented by Ezra. As commentary on Torah, the story is about more than "a simple dispute between different schools" (p. 26), and this is LaCocque's central emphasis. The author of Ruth wants to advocate for the spirit of the law, rather than its literal meaning, and to present Ruth the Moabite as the catalyst for moving the community toward such a perspective. At every point the story is about h9esed ("love," in LaCocque's translation) as the meaning of the Torah; thus he consistently presents the characters as concerned for the welfare of others. Readings against this perspective by other commentators who see selfishness or other petty possibilities underlying the characters' actions are treated dismissively.
Translated from French by K. C. Hanson, this version of LaCocque's commentary interacts extensively with English language scholarship on the book of Ruth, as well as with traditional rabbinic literature. LaCocque believes that the book of Ruth was authored by a woman; he argued his case in a previous work and it is simply presumed here. Although I doubt that the gender of a biblical author can be determined with certainty, LaCocque's views of the book itself do not appear to depend upon or require his female author.
His sustained reasoning for the post-exilic placement of the book is attractive, although inevitably it depends upon many assumptions about the dating of other Old Testament texts. Imagining the subversiveness of the author of Ruth as comparable to the subversiveness of Second Isaiah before and of Jesus later on provides a broad canonical horizion.
The commentary contains many excellent insights (and as with any commentary, many debatable interpretive proposals). Yet it is not easy reading, and the challenge goes beyond the assumption of facility with Hebrew characteristic of this commentary series. Arguments are exceedingly compactly written and treatments of details often seem to jump from one topic to another so that the larger picture becomes hazy. Readers interested in advanced study of the book of Ruth will benefit from placing this volume alongside other studies.
Katharine Doob Sakenfeld
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey
The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1:14
by B. K. Waltke
The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2004. 693 pp. $50.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8028-2545-1.
The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 15:31
by B. K. Waltke
The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2005. 589 pp. $50.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8028-2776-4.
Bruce Waltke, professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Oviedo, Florida, has enhanced his already distinguished career with a major commentary on Proverbs. He states that he is writing for ministers and laypeople, and there is much here for that audience if they are willing to think deeply about the material. The book is also addressed to the scholarly community, who will have to take his arguments into account in future academic work.
Waltke is perhaps best known as the lead author in the widely used Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (with M. P. O'Connor, 1990). His exegesis of Proverbs shows the careful concern for grammar described in this earlier work. He is also an adept philologist as he discusses Proverbs' vocabulary. However, laypeople and ministers will be most interested in his attention to the theological meaning of the book of Proverbs.
Concerning authorship, Waltke takes the ascription to Solomon seriously (1:1; 10:1; 25:1), refuting typical arguments against the idea (with notable appeal to the comparative work of Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen). Waltke admits, of course, in keeping with the biblical data, that not all of the book is Solomonic, and that the final product is the result of an unnamed editor. He has a helpful discussion of the Near Eastern background of the genre, noting that Solomon would have been familiar with comparable Egyptian literature in particular.
In his discussion of structure and final form, Waltke aligns himself with those who see coherence to the collection of Proverbs in the second part of the book. This leads to a fairly monumental interpretive practice. Instead of reading the individual proverbs as random and isolated, he reads them as forming clusters that inform the meaning of each individual proverb. Waltke puts this principle into practice in his verse-by-verse commentary.
An astute biblical theologian, Waltke is interested in the meaning of words, structure, and literary background as these serve the final meaning of the text. An extensive section in the introduction describes the theological contribution of Proverbs. It is also noteworthy that he describes the Christian appropriation of the book, in particular, the relationship between Woman Wisdom and Christ. Also striking is that Waltke bucks the modern trend and argues that "life" in Proverbs, often a reward for wise living, entails more than mere earthly existence. His arguments favor a more robust reading of "life" as often signifying eternal life, and will have to be taken seriously.
My generally positive evaluation does not preclude some specific criticisms. The commentary is not helped by his viewpoint that the proverbs in Proverbs 10 and following form coherent units. I think he sees clusters where there is only a random listing of proverbs. True, there are some groupings of similar proverbs, but he uses too many different types of criteria (lexicographical, thematic, phonological, word pairs, etc.) in order to connect proverbs. On the surface, these proverbs seem rather haphazard in their order, and in this case, the surface reality is the true reality.
A second criticism has to do with the description of Proverbs' theology in the introduction. It is not clear that it is helpful or engaging to structure such a discussion in terms of a traditional systematic theology (theology, doctrine of the word, anthropology, pedagogy, and christology). Shaping the discussion this way seems to force the material into unnecessary foreign categories. Even so, these sections are full of interesting comments.
Even with these caveats, I would not hesitate to say that this is the best overall commentary on Proverbs available at this time. Its two volumes greatly enrich our understanding of an important biblical book.
Tremper Longman III
Westmont College
Santa Barbara, California |
