The testament(s): continuities and discontinuities.

Abstract

This article, based on a research report at the 1999 CBA annual meeting at Notre Dame, Indiana, approaches the topic from the point of view of the impact of the Israelite world view on the data of biblical theology: Sheol and immortality; the heavenly court and angelology; the levels of interpretation of the Song of Songs; and finally, discontinuity within the wisdom literature.

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This essay is triggered by an observation about the Testaments made by Brevard Childs (93): "It would seem to me to be a major enterprise of Biblical Theology to describe carefully both the continuity and discontinuity between these two different witnesses of the Christian Bible." It would be a major enterprise, indeed. Recent developments in biblical theology have even pointed beyond discontinuities within the Bible to "disjunction" within the Godhead (Brueggemann: 268). I want to discuss a few modest examples of continuities/discontinuities.

Sheol and Immortality

The descriptions of Sheol are many and varied. In general it is both a place, where the "dead" or "shades" reside; it is also a kind of code to describe the adversities or non-life that afflict human beings in real life (Ps 30:4: "You brought me up from Sheol"). It is used in many different ways within the Hebrew Bible.

In Job 3 it serves as the great equalizer, where kings, counselors, and princes are gathered with the stillborn, the wicked, weary prisoners, slaves, and taskmasters. Of course, Job would prefer this over his present condition. He uses it as a motif to move the intractable God to whom he speaks: "Oh, that you would hide me in Sheol, shelter me until your anger is over, would fix a time for me and then remember me" (14:13; cf. 10:2-22; 17:14-16).

Qoheleth has a straightforward description: "There will be no work, nor reason, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol, where you are going" (9:10). It is portrayed in a very imaginative way in Ezekiel. Egypt is brought down to Sheol with the uncircumcised and those slain by the sword. But there is a slightly privileged spot, the "Pit," where "mighty men of old" were buried in full military regalia (Ezek 32:18, 27-28).

Isaiah's poem about the descent of the king of Babylon is along the same line: in Sheol "the kings of all nations rise from their thrones" to greet ironically the king of Babylon, who is brought down to the bottom of the Pit (Is 14:15). Any difference among them all is negligible,, for the kings call out: "You have become weak like us, the same as we" (14:10).

These texts can only be termed imaginative portrayals. Not only are there various understandings of Sheol (from which no one ever returned, not even Samuel); there is no evidence of any speculation about the manner of this transition from here to there, or back. It is said that one is in Sheol, but the "one" is never defined except as a person who has died; there is no indication of a "soul" or of a living body. Some have argued that this means the dissolution of a person at death. That might be a logical conclusion for a modern to draw, but it is not a conclusion expressed in the Bible. The biblical writers did not find it difficult to speak of some kind of "existence"--such as the qualified continuation described by Qoheleth ("no action, no answer, no knowledge"; Eccl 9:10). In short, the nether world constitutes non-life, where all, the just and the unjust, finally gather. There is neither reward nor punishment. "Maggots and worms" (Is 14:11) await all who will be buried in the grave, which serves as a kind of ante-room to Sheol. Whatever differentiation might have been imagined within Sheol, such as the bottom of the Pit, there is the same hopelessness for all (Job 14:12, 19). One of the most frequent motifs in the Psalms is that in Sheol there is no longer any loving contact with the Lord; one can no longer offer praise (e.g., Ps 6:6).

The question naturally arises: if this is all an imaginative flight, what is its status as a theological datum? Can one interpret it as a theologoumenon, to be classified as simply an important factor in Israelite world view, but not a true theological datum? I understand theologoumenon in the sense of Karl Rahner (455-56):

   This term may be used to designate a theological doctrine that is not
   directly taught by the Church's magisterium, and thus does not
   authoritatively demand our assent, but is of such a nature that it sheds
   light on the connexion among many other explicit doctrines of the Church
   and for this reason is commendable.

Although this distinction is not made in the Bible itself, it functions in the way in which the Bible is interpreted by moderns. Sheol is a "given," part of the three-storey universe and the various descriptions of the physical aspects of creation. The modern interpreter "demythologizes" such data, as it were, to arrive at the theological substance (or is this a modern ruse that wrings relevance from the ancient world view?). Israel seems to have operated within the same mythological perspective as Mesopotamia and others did. One can admire the clever way in which Sheol serves as a motif on different levels within the biblical writings, but ultimately it is an imaginative flight by which Israel confronted the mystery of life beyond death. The well-known phrase, "the land of no return" (cf. Job 7:9-10), fits perfectly here; no one did return and was thus able to describe such "existence." Ironically, essentially the same observation is made by Hamlet when he speaks of our "dread of death": "the undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns"--that makes us bear "those ills we have" (Hamlet, III, 1).

Sheol obviously presents a sharp discontinuity with the thought and theology of the Christian Bible, and even with the belief that is reflected in Daniel 12:1-3, and within the Septuagint, 2 Maccabees 7 and Wisdom 1:15; 3:1-4. Neither Hamlet nor we can dismiss Death/Sheol as having little theological value or relevance. It is a precious datum that corrects misplaced eschatological emphasis arising from views about human immortality. Faith, hope, and love--all are possible in this world, the only world that anyone has direct experience of. The resignation of the Israelites to the boundary that Sheol constituted is remarkable. It is not just a question of fate, the decree of the divinity. Human mortality becomes a "religious" thing, pondered over, utilized as a motif in prayer, until finally it is lamented strongly by Qoheleth (Eccl 2:16-17). The biblical emphasis on this world is well taken, for that is where humans live. Israel provides many examples of how to cope with its world (which is ours also) and God. This constitutes the particular appeal of the wisdom literature and also the psalms (cf. Pss 73 and 139), which highlight experience.

The Heavenly Court--Angels?

The "angels" of Christian tradition constitute a considerable development from the biblical "heavenly court" (cf. Cross: 177-90; Mullen). The references to this body of counselors or messengers (angels) are many, from Genesis to Job. "Let us make man in our image" (Gen 1:26) is a famous instance; who is the "our"? Presumably the Lord associates others with self, and these others are variously called in the Bible: Elim (cf. the usual emendation of Psalm 58:2), or elohim-beings (Ps. 82:1, 6). They are in the background of Isaiah 6:8, where the Lord asks, "Who will go for us?" In Job 1:6, 2:1, the "sons of Elohim" are mustered out, among them the satan, whose patrolling of the earth is clearly indicated, suggesting that one of their functions is to fulfill certain missions of the Lord. Certain members of the heavenly council seem to be responsible for judgment and justice on earth, as indicated in Psalm 82 (see also Psalm 58:2-3). In 1 Kings 22:19-22 the prophet Micaiah ben Imlah describes the Lord seated upon a throne surrounded by the "host of heaven." When the Lord asks who would fulfill a certain mission, from among them a ruah or spirit volunteers. For the Lord, he will entice King Ahab to go into battle. When the Lord asks him how he intends to carry this out, his formidable answer is that he will be a "lying spirit" in the mouths of the prophets; and he is so commissioned by the Lord. In Psalm 29:1 another function of the "sons of Elim" is indicated: they are to praise the Lord. Just as the term holy (qados) is reserved to the Lord, thrice in Isaiah 6:3, so also it is used to indicate the members of the heavenly court. Although Israelites are told to be holy (Lev 19:2), the adjective holy is not normally used of human beings except in Deuteronomy 33:3, Psalm 34:10, and Daniel 7:21, where the plural has the sense of "the faithful." The passage in Deuteronomy 32:8 (emended on a sound basis) is perhaps the most striking: "When the Most High made the nations heritages, when he parceled out the descendants of Adam, he set up the boundaries of the peoples after the number of the sons of God." This breathes Canaanite air: the high god, Elyon, allotted various nations to his various "sons," and Israel was given to YHWH (v 9).

So the Lord is not alone in glory; there is a heavenly court in attendance. It is widely agreed that this concept reflects the divine council that is to be found in the writings of ancient Ugarit. The majority of that council, however, are gods. What does this signify for Israelite monotheism? It has been customary, before the most recent intense discussion of biblical monotheism, to speak of henotheism, one "real" god among many. This allowed for other divinities in the Fertile Crescent, whose theoretical existence was not denied by Israel. But there was only one Lord, primus inter pares, and ultimately incomparable. Thus, "who is like to you among the gods?" (Exod 15:11); "all gods bow down before him" (Ps 97:7). It is not really possible to capture the levels of divinity on the basis of the biblical text, but theological reasoning would indicate that a movement from henotheism to monotheism took place over time.

The implications of this brief sketch should, however, be drawn. The members of the heavenly council in the Bible are demoted divinities. There has been a transfer from Canaan to Israel. Does the Israelitization, by whatever channels and with whatever modifications, of these ideas give them any more reality or validity than they have in the Canaanite (Ugaritic) myths? To imagine that Israel "demythologized" this thought world in establishing its understanding of the Lord, is a rather sophisticated claim. We demythologize, but did the ancients? What was the nature of the process that led to the more or less "pure" monotheism found in Deutero-Isaiah and the post-exilic period? Moderns use the language of "symbol" in this connection, but it may be merely our symbol. The transition from the ancient thought world to ours is precarious, because uncharted. What justifies our reinterpretation? The answer would seem to be that this is a necessary inference from the growth of monotheistic belief, extending from the origins of Israel to its experience in the Exile and beyond. One can catch a glimmer of such movement in the polemic against "idols" in later passages. The 'elilim, or "zeroes" (Pss 96:5; 97:7) are a kind of parody of elohim; divinities disappear, and only the "sons of God" remain, now domesticated. There is a continuity between this heavenly family and the angelology found in the Christian Bible, but any summary of that development would have to embrace apocryphal and pseudepigraphical works, which is beyond our purpose here. Our primary goal has been to explore the theological weight of the divine council.

The Song of Songs--Human/Divine Love

The Song is a unique mixture of continuity and discontinuity. On the one hand, it is an example of continuity on a specific level of understanding within the Jewish and the Christian traditions. On the other hand, it seems discontinuous on another level of understanding, for it sings a song about human sexual love in a literature that otherwise does not highlight the topic--indeed, in what Jerome called the "bibliotheca divina." This example is unique in that the continuity/discontinuity resides in the interpretation of the book. The Song is love poetry describing the sexual relationship of a man and a woman. It has no equal in the rest of the Bible. But one can also read it through the eyes of the marriage covenant between God and People, as has been done in both the Jewish and the Christian tradition. Therein lies an astonishing fact: both traditions agree on a more-than-literal sense in this book, and so make an implicit claim to a continuity--there is a relationship between human and divine love (Cant 8:6).

It is only within the last fifty years that the literal sense of the Song of Songs began to prevail among Catholic biblical scholars, and it now seems firmly established. Most Protestants had adopted this stance over the last few centuries, but there were and still are many who adhere to the traditional Christian interpretation. The agreement about the literal sense is important, even though the meaning of the Song has not been exhausted thereby. Many portions of it are still not understood, and thus far have eluded convincing comment. It is difficult even for commentators like M. Pope or M. Fox to arrive at the literal historical sense of individual passages, or even to approximate it. There is, however, general agreement that the Song is love poetry. But love poetry, by its nature, can easily become a symbol on various levels of interpretation. Is there a more-than-literal meaning that continues it, and on what level: human or divine? Perhaps this question can be answered only by the community of faith and the guidance of hermeneutical insights. But a practical interpretation, an actualization, is expressed in the work of Nicholas Ayo, SACRED MARRIAGE (53-69), that is worth pursuing.

It is one thing to read the Song as inspired poetry about human sexual love. It is quite another thing to ask what it can say to modern society. In Israelite society the arranged marriage, or mariage de convenance, prevailed. It also exists in varying degrees among modern cultures. The Song is biblical evidence that the emotional or, for lack of a better word, the "romantic" aspect of union between the sexes found canonical validity in the sacred writings. It matters not if a particular interpretation brought about community acceptance. There is much speculation on this score, but in fact, we do not know how or why the Song prevailed as part of Scripture. Jewish tradition has preserved evidence of some doubts about its acceptance (Pope: 89-112; Murphy: 12-14), but the concern seems to center around a particular use to which the Song was put. That is also an issue for modern readers: how does the Song serve for spiritual sustenance? By spiritual I mean the betterment of a person's relationship to God and to others. Perhaps it can be described as follows: the joy of sexual union, in every sense of the word, is there in the Song, to be appropriated and to be lived with. The sexual interaction of the man and the woman is clearly acceptable and even blessed by its incorporation into Scripture (cf. Gen 1:26-27, 31; 2:18-25). It is not to be limited merely to the physical. The poetry opens out into other aspects of relations between the sexes.

An appropriate saying for this view is Proverbs 30:18-19. It begins with awe and admiration: "Three things are too wonderful for me, and four I cannot understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a woman." This numerical proverb leads through three examples of mystery in order to emphasize a fourth. The word way is repeated in each case, to underline the final example. The "way" or course of these objects is simply not recoverable. At any one point it is impossible to capture the way that was traversed. When one thinks about it, the bird has no specific path mapped out, nor the serpent, nor the ship. Neither can the man and woman retrace all the byways that brought them together. As times and circumstances work out, they find themselves drawn together. From the very beginning a mysterious providence has guided them. "Finding" (Prov 18:22a) a wife is not a casual thing; a good wife is a gift from the Lord (Prov 19:14).

Eroticism joins with reality to express the message of the Song. The eroticism derives especially from the lively symbols with which the poetry abounds. These appeal to all the senses: taste, smell, and touch; as well as to fruits, flowers, and animals. The Song thus presents a host of precious stones, and a bewildering geography. The secret of these symbols lies in their subtlety; it is a delicate and unique eroticism that is portrayed in symbols of flowers, water, garden, and so forth. The power of the literal sense comes not merely from this expressive language, but from an extensive interplay of emotions and feelings that pervade human love. A basic feature of the love experience is the presence and also the absence of the beloved. The theme is developed explicitly in Cant 3:1-5 and 5:2-8, but it is also found in those scenes that seem to be more soliloquy than dialogue. The two characters share their deepest yearnings. She is delirious with love-sickness, and is compelled to search for him when he is "lost." No one who reads the Song can fail to note the mutuality of the feelings that draw together the man and the woman; they belong together: "My lover is mine and I am his" (2:16; 6:3). Perhaps the most profound statement in the Song is 8:6, where love is proclaimed to be as strong as Death/Sheol. In what sense can love be compared for strength to these twin identities? Death is the power that pursues so intensely every human being; Sheol is insatiable, its mouth (Is 5:14) ever open. But the power of love is its fire. The shafts of love are shafts of fire, "the flame of Yah[weh]" (cf. also the Jerusalem Bible). In some way, not specified in the text, human love is associated with the Lord, and this is an insight that needs to be recognized and developed in human lives.

The above emphasis on the literal sense is not contradictory to the traditional interpretation of the Song. The traditional view expands it and establishes continuity. There is room for the vision that understands human love as a mirror of divine love, that affirms the covenant relationship as a marriage relationship (e.g., Hos 1-3; Is 62:5). The letter to the Ephesians recognizes the marriage union as a symbol of the love of Christ for the Church (Eph 5:29-32). The unity of male and female (Gen 2:24) finds its reflection in the Song and reaches a climax in Christ and the Church. The fertility of the symbol is further demonstrated by its expanded treatment, embracing the union of God and the soul, as demonstrated by Christian writers such as Origen and Bernard of Clairvaux. The Spanish Carmelite mystic, St. John of the Cross, deserves particular mention. Like the Song, his Cantico Espiritual is a relatively short poem (40 stanzas of 5 lines), replete with symbols and even phrases drawn from the Latin Vulgate translation of the Song. But it contains no explicit reference to divinity, in agreement with the Song (allowing for an exception in Cant 8:6). His commentary on his own poem is of course explicitly theological along the lines of Christian mystical doctrine. The poem itself is simply an expression of an intense love experience. It is the fruit of his suffering in prison, his vision of divine love.

This consideration of the Song of Songs is chosen to illustrate how multifaceted is the issue of continuity and discontinuity between the Testaments. In sum, it tells us that a certain continuity is possible on a given level of interpretation. It is not exactly inner-biblical, but more of a continuity on the level of interpretation (the recognition of a more than literal sense) within the two communities of Judaism and Christianity. Also, even though there is no continuity of the literal historical sense of the Song in the later Testament, that sense stands on its own as a meaning that endures for all.

Discontinuities within a Testament

The latest presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature developed a salutary example of this aspect of discontinuity, calling it a "conversation" between two books, Deuteronomy and Psalms. Professor Patrick Miller (1999) described a theology from above (the voice of Moses, ultimately of YHWH) in Deuteronomy, and a theology from below (the human voice, often challenging the Lord) in the psalms. The dialogical relationship between these two books is shown by the fundamental positions taken by God and the Israelites. By means of sanctions, motives, and persuasion, the Lord calls for obedience. The psalms appeal to the history of the covenant God and his fidelity in the experience and history of Israel, even calling him to account in terms that reflect the divine/human relationship described in Deuteronomy. A "cultural memory" undergirds both the commands and the response that are so vividly reflected in these books. I would like to point out another dialogical relationship--one within the wisdom literature. This is the contrast between Proverbs and Job/Qoheleth on the issue of retribution. The promises of Wisdom in Proverbs are all positive. Wisdom means fear of the Lord, the cultivation of "righteousness," leading to the acquisition of a full life in the here and now. The strongest personification in the Bible, Woman Wisdom, promises: "Those who find me find life, and win the favor of the Lord" (Prov 8:35). The world view behind this book is optimistic, and it rests on the same premises as the Deuteronomic preaching, the bountiful relationship of the Lord to his people. The sages were not blind to the fact that things did not always work out that way; one came up before the mysterious actions of the Lord (Prov 3:11-12; 21:30). Certain paradoxes are freely pointed out; according to the accepted view of the working of divine justice, anyone who fears the Lord should be blessed. But by no means did this view glide over the events of real life (cf. Prov 15:15-17; 16:8; Pss 37; 111; 112). The bond between sin and suffering, traditionally accepted in Israel, created tensions in human experience. In both the laments of the Psalter and the Book of Job, a continuous dialogue with God is opened up, challenging the Lord to give reasons: Why?

The question forms an essential part of the inner wisdom dialogue. Job's friends marshal all the arguments they are capable of in order to defend the basic viewpoint of Deuteronomy and Proverbs, but that only stirs the author to greater and greater heights in describing Job's "conversation" with the three friends, and his prayers to God. Qoheleth is more reserved in expression, but no less fierce in recognizing the inequalities in life that make traditional views inert (e.g., Eccl 7:15; 9:1-3). He claims that ultimately human beings cannot know the "work of God" (Eccl 3:11; 8:17; 11:5). Despite his efforts to attain wisdom, and he was one who taught the people (12:9), he was not able to find wisdom (7:23-24). There is a dialogue between his thought and the epilogue (12:13-14) where his wisdom views are given a boundary. As M. Fox (1999: 375) describes it, Qoheleth does not contradict standard legal piety; he simply does not advocate it. The epilogue circumscribes wisdom:

   The postscript relegates all the words of the sages--Qohelet's among them
   but not more so than the others'--to a place of secondary importance by
   summing up the essence of wisdom as fearing God and keeping his
   commandments. Teachings such as Qohelet's and the other sages', though fine
   in themselves, are not identical with piety and obedience. Fear of God and
   obedience override wisdom in case of conflict, or, rather, "this"
   constitutes the essence of wisdom. Placing a boundary to wisdom ... allows
   everything to be heard and considered as long as everything is finally
   subordinated to the fundamental principle.

The wisdom literature presents other examples of the lively "conversation" that takes place within one book or more. These tensions reflect very well the human condition. No specific viewpoint can be absolutized. Especially in the case of wisdom literature, one saying balances another by modifying, even correcting it. Similarly, even within one Psalm we can see two different attitudes at work: a spirit of interior sacrifice, but also proper ritual in the cult (Ps 51:17-19, 20-21). Let me close this discussion of discontinuity in wisdom with an example of continuity. I refer to passages like Wis 1:15; 3:1-7; 5:5, where the "life" of earlier wisdom such as Proverbs finds an extension into eternal life.

Conclusion

Many other instances could be chosen to illustrate the issue of continuity/discontinuity. Even the above examples provoke more questions. Does the literal historical sense continue to be an indispensable (but not the only) factor in dealing with this issue? I think so, although prevailing wind(s) are subject to change, as is evidenced by the success of deconstruction and various oblique approaches to the text (feminist, sociological, etc.). How does one go about employing the Bible as a basis for living?--that is, how do we distinguish between real theology and mere world view? The Bible has authority for the community of faith, but one has to attend to the modification of that authority within the Bible itself.

Works Cited

Ayo, Nicholas. 1997. SACRED MARRIAGE. New York: Continuum Books.

Brueggemann, Walter. 1997. THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: TESTIMONY, DISPUTE, ADVOCACY. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Cross, F.M. 1973. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Fox, Michael V. 1999. A TIME TO BUILD AND A TIME TO TEAR DOWN. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans.

1985. THE SONG OF SONGS AND THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LOVE SONGS. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin.

Miller, Patrick D. 1999. Deuteronomy and Psalms: Evoking a Biblical Conversation, JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE 118: 3-18.

Mullen, E. T. 1980. THE DIVINE COUNCIL IN CANANNITE AND EARLY HEBREW LITERATURE. Chico, CA: Scholars Press.

Murphy, Roland E. 1990. THE SONG OF SONGS. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Pope, Marvin. 1977. SONG OF SONGS: A NEW TRANSLATION WITH INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARY. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Rahner, Karl, and Herbert Vorgrimler. 1965. THEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY. New York, NY: Herder & Herder.

Roland E. Murphy, S.T.D. (Catholic University of America), a member of the Carmelite Order, is George Washington Ivey Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies at Duke University, now residing at Whitefriars Hall, Washington, D.C. 20017. He is the author of two studies of Proverbs in the current year (WBC 22 from Nelson, and NIBCOT 12 from Hendrickson), and also THE BOOK OF JOB--A SHORT READING (Paulist, 1999).