On scroll-making in ancient Jerusalem.

Abstract

This paper, read to an Association of Bible collectors, considers the way in which a small scroll-making community constituted by a prophet, scribes, and political operators formed a community with an alternative vision of social reality in opposition to the dominant vision and the dominant power structure of ancient Jerusalem. It is proposed that this oppositional community that produced its subversive scroll began the scroll movement that eventuated in "canon," a text production that was characteristically subversive of established social vision.

**********

Two beginning points are clear as we think about the scroll-making that eventuated in the Old Testament. First, writing was widespread and widely used in the cultural environment of ancient Israel; and second, writing (and so reading) was an enterprise that was likely limited to the urban elites who always seek to maintain a monopoly of the newest technologies in order to sustain a rough monopoly of power. The non-urban non-elites characteristically occupy an oral culture in which communicative signs need not be so complex (Scott 1985, 1990). In that ancient world, it is possible to identify the primary foci of writing:

* priests and temple archives;

* royal records and annals, in part concerning tax and property and law, in part braggadocio propaganda;

* scribes, the writing class characteristically in the service of the crown (Davies).

I

Given these two premises of the pervasiveness of writing and the power monopoly of writing, I begin my comments with a widely accepted critical judgment that simply astonishes. There arose in Israel--likely in Northern Israel away from the power center of the urban elites in Jerusalem--a literary enterprise at the end of the 8th century or beginning of the 7th century BCE, that is, about 700 BCE. Such a movement, of course, is never de novo; it seems, however, to be as much from scratch as can be imagined. This movement is termed by scholars the "Deuteronomic movement" because it eventuated in the Book of Deuteronomy, the most formal and fullest articulation of covenant theology that is given in the Old Testament (Shearing; de Moor & van Rooy; de Pury, Romer, & Macchi).

In terms of substance, we may identify two apparent antecedents:

The Book of Hosea is approximately dated to the middle of the eighth century and is a poetic articulation of covenant theology. It is entirely plausible that the poetry of Hosea precedes the literature that became the Book of Deuteronomy (Wilson: 135-252).

The tradition that became Deuteronomy claims links to the tradition of Moses, though current historical judgments about Moses are exceedingly difficult. This literary enterprise purports to reach all the way back to Moses.

In terms of form, it is now widely thought that the form in which the Book of Deuteronomy emerged is appropriated from the political arena of the Assyrians, the great superpower of that period (McCarthy; Wiseman; Nicholson: 56-82). This form articulates, so runs the hypothesis, the way in which superpowers posed alliances on lesser powers:

* a review of the generosity of the superpower;

* the requirements that the superpower imposes upon the lesser power;

* mutual oaths and promises of a formal kind;

* formal sanctions to guarantee compliance, that is, blessings and curses.

This pattern, as Gerhard von Rad has already seen, is the pattern of the Book of Deuteronomy (von Rad 1966: 26-33); now, however, YHWH is the superpower and Israel is the vassal state that is bound in obedience. One may note the terseness and starkness of the agreement between the two parties in Deuteronomy 30:15-20:

   See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death
   and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord
   your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the
   Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments,
   decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live
   and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you
   in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart
   turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow
   down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today
   that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that
   you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven
   and earth to witness against you today that I have set
   before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life
   so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord
   your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that
   means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in
   the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to
   Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

The rigor of this demand from YHWH as "superpower" is not very different from the demand of the U.S. as current superpower: "You are either with us or against us."

This amazingly creative literary effort at the end of the eighth century articulates primal theological claims for YHWH (that eventuate in monotheism) in an imperial political mode. The most popular hypothesis for the agents who created this movement is that it is accomplished by the Levites, small-time priests who specialized in Torah and who characteristically stood outside the royal-sacerdotal enterprise of the urban elites (Nicholson 37-44, von Rad 1953: 60-69). Thus one can entertain the thought that this is a theo-political statement on behalf of the rule of YHWH that intends to subvert or de-legitimate the power pretensions of the monarchy. If it is correct that the Levites are the progenitors of this literature, then it is most plausible that the affirmation of YHWH against every other claimant of power is not an altogether disinterested program. That is, insistence upon the direct rule of YHWH implied a de-absolutizing of every other claimant to power. Thus we have the makings of a quite subversive literary tradition that seeks to undermine the tightly controlled world of the urban elites.

This literary tradition purposes and exemplifies the most supple, dynamic, elastic interpretive tradition in ancient Israel. It does so by the literary "fiction" that this Torah teaching that constitutes the Book of Deuteronomy is "on the plains of Moab" by Moses, just outside the land of promise (Deut 1:1-5). The literature thus is authorized by Moses, but it is distanced from Sinai, and so is, in fact, the earliest interpretive commentary on the Sinai memory, the earliest commentary that became the model and legitimator of all commentaries to follow. As Robert Alter, in a reference now lost to me, has suggested, Judaism is a "culture of commentary"; it is, moreover, in this particular emergent literature that seems to stand outside regulated power that this peculiar "culture of commentary" begins. Deuteronomy models the dynamism whereby the Torah is endlessly reiterated in fresh form in order to be pertinent to a new generation of the faithful in a new circumstance. Deuteronomy--perhaps at the hands of the Levites--is evidently the fundamental protest in ancient Israel against any "strict constructionism" of the Mosaic Torah. Not all normative law is situated at Sinai. Much of it arises elsewhere as interpretation. The movement that resulted in the Book of Deuteronomy is a movement of immense dynamic and imagination. I will comment on two products of this scroll-making enterprise.

II

It is a common critical assumption since the defining work of Martin Noth that the long history of Joshua-Judges-Samuel-Kings (of course excepting the Book of Ruth in our familiar ordering) is a theological interpretation of the life of Israel in the land of promise (Noth; see Campbell & O'Brien). That is, this corpus is not primarily "history" but is a theological interpretation. This account of Israel in the land stretches from the early part of the Book of Joshua (when Israel crosses the Jordan River into the land) to 2 Kings 24-25 (when Israel is deported and exiled away from the land). It is commonly held, moreover, that the interpretive angle of this extended account is derived from the Book of Deuteronomy, so that this corpus of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings is commonly termed "Deuteronomic history." The account offered in this corpus of Israel in the land culminates in the Books of Kings with four hundred years of monarchy in Jerusalem. This theological interpretation is, in fact, quite ambivalent about the institution of monarchy and seems to hold that obedience to Torah (specifically the Torah of the Book of Deuteronomy) is the prerequisite of keeping the land, even a prerequisite for kings with their own immense power and their own versions of legitimacy (see Deut 17:14-20). Thus, on the hypothesis, the same ongoing circles of interpreters that produced the Book of Deuteronomy a good deal later reread the entire history of Israel in the land according to the Book of Deuteronomy.

Of this long narrative account, I will mention only two texts:

First, in Joshua 1:7-8, 16-18, the Deuteronomic history has Joshua, the great proponent of Torah, say,

   Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in
   Accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded
   you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the
   left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. This
   book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall
   meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to
   act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you
   shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful
   [Josh 1:7-8].

The phrase "Be strong and courageous" is a military phrase not unlike a coach's pep talk. But here the military phrase is claimed for Torah obedience. The only "weapon" needed for the taking of the land is the Torah of Deuteronomy. This is the first chapter of the long account of life in the land and voices a primal thesis concerning the cruciality of the Torah that is to dominate the entire account to follow. That is, Torah obedience is the single requirement for keeping the land; alternately it is, so goes the argument, the neglect of Torah that eventuated in the loss of land and the culminating deportation.

And second, in 2 Kings 22, near the end of this long account, it is reported that a scroll was unexpectedly found in the temple. In contemporary criticism, the historicity of the event narrated in 2 Kings 22 is treated skeptically. If it is historical, the narrative report presents Josiah as the royal embodiment of the passions of the scroll-makers. If on the other hand the narrative report is fictive, the role of Josiah is in any case offered as a didactic model. Either way, interest turns on the intention of the scroll-makers. The scroll was read to King Josiah. The scroll was so startling and demanding that this obedient king immediately instituted a great reform in an attempt to save the realm from the threats articulated in the scroll (see Deut 28). Almost all scholars believe that this scroll that motivated King Josiah to reform is some form of the Book of Deuteronomy, and so Josiah's great reform is referred to as the "Deuteronomic reform."

If we consider Joshua 1 at the beginning of the account and 2 Kings 22 at its end, this entire "history" of life in the land is framed by accent upon a Torah scroll and an insistence upon the defining conditionality for secure life in the land. In the second text, Josiah is presented as the perfectly good king who takes the Torah scroll seriously, and Joshua, at the outset, is taken to be a deliberate anticipation of Josiah. Taken together, Joshua and Josiah are offered as the two defining witnesses to an alternative reading of Israel's life, a subversive, scroll-based alternative to the posture and pretenses of the urban elite. Indeed, one could imagine that this account is as dangerous and threatening to established power in Jerusalem as were the "Pentagon papers" to established power in Washington D.C.

III

The other scroll to be considered is the Book of Jeremiah, commonly thought, in its final form, to be saturated with Deuteronomic ideology (Romer).

Jeremiah was a prophet-poet at the end of the seventh century whose burden was to recite subversive poetry against the policies of the royal regime. We are told at the outset that he was "of the priests of Anatoth," a village North of Jerusalem outside the tribe of Judah  (1:1). If one looks behind this reference to 1 Kings 2:26-27--a text carefully placed by the Deuteronomists at the beginning of the royal history in the regime of Solomon--we learn that four hundred years before Jeremiah Abiathar, a priest of David, was banished by Solomon to his home village of Anatoth because he did not support the craven ambitions of the money-mad Solomon (Wilson: 233-35).

The likely conclusion to draw is that Jeremiah is an heir in Anatoth to Abiathar, a product of four hundred years of exclusion from influence in the royal house. Thus we may imagine that Jeremiah was deeply set in opposition and nurtured in resentment to the Davidic regime, taught from little on to resist, resent, and subvert the doubtful power and pretensions of the urban elite in Jerusalem. The Book of Jeremiah surely has its beginnings in a collection of poetic utterances by Jeremiah, in daring image and metaphor, all to the effect that Jerusalem would be destroyed because the powerful did not practice Torah.

Jeremiah, however, is no scroll-maker. He is a poet. Scholars however have observed that the collection of Jeremiah's poetry is permeated with interpretive prose that "explains" the poetry, and the "explanations" have a distinctly Deuteronomic casting to them. Thus it is a common hypothesis that the lively ongoing Deuteronomic tradition took up Jeremiah's poetry and shaped it into a coherent scroll that stood as a powerful and subversive testimony against the military-political policies of Jerusalem, because from a Deuteronomic perspective those royal policies amounted to deathly options. The precise relationships of the prose and the poetic remains unsettled and highly contested in contemporary scholarship.

The signature text of the tradition is in Jeremiah 36 that purports to tell how the scroll of Jeremiah came into being (Romer: 419-21). We are told that Jeremiah dictated his words to Baruch, his scribal secretary. The scroll passed through several channels of reading and was recognized as both dangerous and important. Finally the scroll was read to King Jehoiakim who rejected the teaching of the scroll and ostentatiously cut the scroll and threw the pieces of it into the fireplace, an early example of "shredding documents" (v. 23). The king then dispatched soldiers to kill Jeremiah as an enemy of the state. We are told, however, that Jeremiah and Baruch were "hid by the Lord" (v. 26) and that in hiding the scroll was reiterated and supplemented.

   Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the secretary
   Baruch son of Neriah, who wrote on it at Jeremiah's dictation
   all the words of the scroll that King Jehoiakim of
   Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were
   added to them [Jer 36:32].

With such supplementation what is probably given is a fuller version of what became the Book of Jeremiah. As with the narrative report in 2 Kings 22, so the "historicity" of this narrative report is highly contested. Again, however, the report functions as a clue to the intent of the scroll-makers, whether the report is fictional or not.

IV

Thus we are able to identify considerable scroll-making and scroll-finding amid a relatively small cast of characters just near the end of the 7th century, that is, 600 BCE, just a century after the initiation of the movement according to the common hypothesis. On the basis of this evidence, we may suggest a small, intentional, well-resourced community of scroll-makers who fostered and advocated an alternative vision of social reality that was rooted in Sinai and referred to YHWH. The ongoing work this scroll-making community is an act of high-sustained advocacy. This scroll movement, alternative to the entrenched power of the urban elite, was opposed to the arrogant royal policies of autonomy, policies taken in this movement to be doomed to failure and death.

Concerning this small, intentional, subversive community of scroll-makers, we may say the following:

We may see the two texts of 2 Kings 22 and Jeremiah 36 in close relationship to each other, both texts perhaps historically faithful, but both texts perhaps tendentious fiction by the Deuteronomists. In the end, it does not matter whether these two narrative accounts of scrolls are historically accurate or whether they are fictions. Either way, they reflect the advocacy of the Deuteronomic community.

2 Kings 22 reports that Shaphan read the scroll (the Book of Deuteronomy) to Josiah and that the king rent his clothes in repentance in response to the scroll (qr'). That is, from the lips of Shaphan, a close advisor to the king, King Josiah--model Deuteronomic king--takes the scroll with great seriousness.

Jeremiah 36 is reported--perhaps fictively--that Gemariah, son of Shaphan, among others, got the scroll of Jeremiah to the king. When King Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, heard the scroll he cut (qr') the scroll in contempt, seeking thereby to eliminate the scroll.

Long ago Ernest Nicholson proposed that these two texts, 2 Kings 22 and Jeremiah 36, are intimately connected (Nicholson 1970). Both use the verb qr', but in order to purport contrasting receptions of the scroll, Josiah in an act of repentance and Jehoiakim in an act of contempt. In both narrative accounts, response to the scroll by the king, leader of the urban elites, is what counts for the larger narrative.

In the two accounts that are deliberately twinned, Shaphan's name is present. In 2 Kings 22, Shaphan reads the scroll to Josiah (v. 10). In Jeremiah 36 Gemariah, the son of Shaphan helps the scroll along. In 26:24, moreover, Shaphan rescues Jeremiah from a death threat:

But the hand of Ahikam son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah so that he was not given over into the hands of the people to be put to death (Jer 26:24).

And in chapters 40-41 (41:5, 9, 11; 41:2), Gedaliah, grandson of Shaphan, is made governor by the Babylonians after the monarchy is terminated.

From this evidence we may draw two conclusions. First, Shaphan and his family were major, major political players in Jerusalem; and second, their view was that it is prudent--and YHWH's will--to surrender to Babylon.

There is no doubt that this advocacy of surrender to Babylon is the reason that Gedeliah, the grandson of Shaphan, received the governorship from Babylon after the termination of the monarchy. The policy advocated by Shaphan and supported in the prose accounts of the book of Jeremiah, is antithetical to royal policy that was to resist Babylon. The royal policy of resistance against Babylon was thought by Shaphan to be political suicide and thought by Jeremiah to be against the will of YHWH (Wilson: 247-48).

The other important connection to notice is that Jeremiah relies on Baruch the scribe, son of Neriah. In Jeremiah 51:59, moreover, Jeremiah dispatches Seriah, son of Neriah and therefore brother of Baruch, to throw a scroll in the Euphrates as a prophetic sign. From this we may deduce that Jeremiah was deeply tied to a scribal political presence, a group of the learned that was not committed to the urban power structure of the city of Jerusalem. It is most likely that this particular group of scribes stood apart from the general population of scribes that was characteristically allied to and in the service of the urban elites. Thus these particular scribes are as noteworthy for their peculiar loyalty among scribes as the family of Shaphan stands out among the urban elites and as Jeremiah stands out among the prophets who most often supported dominant social forces and dominant social opinion. In all three cases--scribes, Shaphan, and Jeremiah--these scribes, political leaders, and this prophet are set apart from the conventional scribes, political leaders and prophets who characteristically support the regime:

   For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy
   for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals
   falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly,
   saying, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. They
   acted shamefully, they committed abomination; yet they
   were not ashamed, they did not know how to blush.
   Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time
   that I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord
   [Jer 6:13-15; see 8:10-12]

We now notice some remarkable lines of convergence in this seventh-sixth century scroll-making that was preoccupied with the failure of Jerusalem and that advocated policies against the crown:

* Jeremiah is the point person for this movement, the one with immense powers of poetic imagination and with a claim to prophetic authority.

* Shaphan and his family provide serious political muscle for the movement, so that they are not only supporters of Jeremiah but his patrons, for his prophetic-poetic passion cohered with their practical political judgment concerning Babylon.

* The scribal presence in the persons of the sons of Neriah assures that as Judah forfeits temple and monarchy and depends upon scrolls that there will be a durable testimony to the "Deuteronomic alternative" and by implication to the foolishness of royal policy.

I submit that this convergence of prophetic-political-scribal energy is what is indicated by the nomenclature of "the Deuteronomists." It is not to be missed that this political vision given with political force in sustained literary activity represents a genuine alternative to the world of Real Politik of the urban elite in Jerusalem. This vision shrewdly accepted the reality of Babylonian hegemony, but understood with great clarity that the capacity of a superpower is inevitably provisional and penultimate and cannot endure, because in, with, and under the power of Babylon there is the ultimate governance of YHWH to which this interpretive tradition bears passionate witness.

V

The Deuteronomic scrolls of Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomic history (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings), and Jeremiah of Course were formed in the heat of urgent, high-stakes public dispute. Remarkably the literary product of such disputatiousness eventually became Scripture, that is, books with normative quality for the community. I shall argue that it is this particular scroll movement in the midst of other royal, prophetic, priestly, and sapiential interests that gave decisive character to the entire Bible as the normative book.

There is no doubt that through the sixth century exile and the fifth century emergence of Judaism, the scribes emerged as a powerful interpretive force. Scribes are to be understood on the one hand as a conservative force that wrote things down to stand as abiding testimony over time in the community. In that regard, the Books of Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomic history, and Jeremiah stand as testimony to the divine governance. On the other hand, at the same time, the scribes are also an imaginative force, for they understood that old scrolls cannot simply be reiterated; they must be endlessly interpreted and agilely rewritten in order to stay current.

Thus we can, I have no doubt, see a direct connection between this ongoing scroll-making movement initiated at the end of the eighth and the definitive work of Ezra, the shaping scribe of Judaism (see Nehemiah 8:1-8). One can notice the continued vitality of this testimony from the Book of Jeremiah, for in 2 Chronicles 36:12, 22 it is both Jeremiah's word of judgment and Jeremiah's word of hope to which appeal is made as the text anticipates the coming Persian settlement of Judaism. The dynamism of this interpretive tradition, moreover, is attested in explicit ways by the citation of the Book of Jeremiah in the Book of Daniel:

   In the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, by birth a Mede,
   who became king over the realm of the Chaldeans--in the
   first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the
   number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to
   the prophet Jeremiah, must be fulfilled for the devastation of
   Jerusalem, namely, seventy years [Dan 9:1-2].

There is no doubt that this same scroll-making, scribal teaching that came to characterize Judaism lies at the base of the Christian movement. The issue is, of course, complex; there is no doubt, however, that Jesus functions as a scroll-interpreting rabbi who engages in playful dispute about how old texts must now be re-rendered. It is clear that the Christian movement is in one important aspect a durable practice of the same scrolling activity that characterized Judaism. In Matthew 4 and Luke 4, for example, Jesus offers three quotations from the Book of Deuteronomy as a refutation of the tempter:

   But he answered, "It is written, One does not live by bread
   alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
   God" [Matt 4:4].

   Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, `Do not put the Lord
   your God to the test'" [Matt 4:7].

   Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
   "Worship the Lord your God; and serve only him'" [Matt
   4:10].

The narrative suggests that the scroll is the best "weapon" against every assault on faith, even against the power of the devil who seeks to undermine the radical claims of faith embodied by Jesus.

As the Deuteronomic movement that was a scroll-making operation established the primal character of Judaism and offered a key practice for Christianity, so it is finally to be insisted that the Jeremiah-Baruch-Shaphan "junta," an alternative government in exile, were doing "public theology" of the most extraordinary kind. In the end, the core teaching of Torah testimony that is rooted in holiness and aimed at neighbor is lodged here, a gift of Jews, but no monopoly of either Jews or Christians. The scroll continues to subvert every penultimate pretense, perhaps no pretense of ultimacy more lethal and more urgent than our own current U.S. pretense as a superpower, thus a scroll tradition perhaps currently addressed to taxpayers in the last superpower with its shameless arrogance.

Who would have thought that such a little scroll movement would matter decisively in all thinkable futures? Surely the Levites did not imagine their work to be so abidingly important, nor did Jeremiah, nor did Baruch, nor did Shaphan. That lack of recognition on their part, however, perhaps simply attests to how urgent, how abiding, and how dangerous a book can be. This particular circle of books has a life and a powerful future of its own. No wonder Jews and Christians dare to claim in different ways that the literature is "inspired." We need not make too much of the claim of "inspiration," for such phrasing clarifies very little. It is enough to honor the warning label on every subversive script, "Let the reader beware." Always let the reader beware, whether in ancient Jerusalem or in contemporary America. Because what the reader will endlessly discern is that such a scroll, even when contemptuously shredded by Jehoiakim, speaks its own terrible threat and its wondrously alternative life in the world. A scroll is so innocent and so dated, so outrageous, and even yet so durably powerful!

Works Cited

Campbell, Anthony F., & Mark A. O'Brien. 2000. UNFOLDING THE DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY: ORIGINS, UPGRADES, PRESENT TEXT. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Davies, Philip R. 1998. SCRIBES AND SCHOOLS: THE CANONIZATION OF THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES. Library of Ancient Israel. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

De Moor, Johannes C. and Harry E. van Rooy. 2000. PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE: THE DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY AND THE PROPHETS. OTS 44; Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

De Pury, Albert, Thomas Roemer, and Jean-Daniel Macchi. 2002. ISRAEL CONSTRUCTS ITS HISTORY: DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORIOGRAPHY IN RECENT RESEARCH. JSOT Supp. 306; Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press.

McCarthy, Dennis J. 1978. TREATY AND COVENANT: A STUDY IN FORM IN THE ANCIENT ORIENTAL DOCUMENTS AND IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. Analecta Biblica 21A; Rome, Italy: Biblical Institute Press.

Nicholson, Ernest W. 1986. GOD AND HIS PEOPLE: COVENANT AND THEOLOGY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

Nicholson, E. W. 1970. PREACHING TO THE EXILES: A STUDY OF THE PROSE TRADITION IN THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Noth, Martin. 1981. THE DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY. JSOT Supp. 15; Sheffield, UK: JSOT Press.

Romer, Thomas. 2000. Is There a Deuteronomistic Redaction in the Book of Jeremiah? in ISRAEL CONSTRUCTS ITS HISTORY: DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORIOGRAPHY IN RECENT RESEARCH, edited by Albert de Pury, Thomas Romer, & Jean-Daniel Macchi. JSOT Supp. 306; Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press.

Schearing, Linda, ed. 1999. THESE ELUSIVE DEUTERONOMISTS. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press.

Scott, James C. 1990. DOMINATION AND THE ARTS OF RESISTANCE: HIDDEN TRANSCRIPTS. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

1985. WEAPONS OF THE WEAK: EVERYDAY FORMS OF PEASANT RESISTANCE. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Von Rad, Gerhard. 1966. THE PROBLEM OF THE HEXATEUCH AND OTHER ESSAYS. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

1953. STUDIES IN DEUTERONOMY. Studies in Biblical Theology 9. Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery Company.

Wilson, Robert R. 1980. PROPHECY AND SOCIETY IN ANCIENT ISRAEL. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Wiseman, D. J. 1958. THE VASSAL TREATIES OF ESARHADDON. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1958.

Walter Brueggemann, Th.D. (Union Theological Seminary, New York) is William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, P. O. Box 520, Decatur, GA 30031. He is the author of several recent works, including TEXTS UNDER NEGOTIATION: THE BIBLE AND POSTMODERN IMAGINATION (Fortress, 1993), BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES ON EVANGELISM: LIVING IN A THREE-STORIED UNIVERSE (Abingdon, 1993), and OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY: ESSAYS ON STRUCTURE, THEME, AND TEXT (Fortress, 1992). His article, A Brief Moment for a One-Person Remnant (2 Kings 5:2-3) appeared in BTB 31:2 (Summer, 2001).