Three Theological “Gaps”
in the Tanak / Old Testament
I once went on a journey, and in the middle of a
marketplace, I met a Rabbi. I inquired
of him, “What is the theology of Judaism?”
The Rabbi told me this story:
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai, the
tribes had already begun worshiping a Golden Calf. Moses’ own brother Aaron led them in the
making of a graven image. From nothing
in the Wilderness, they smelted and cobbled together the jewelry their women
had stolen, during their enslavement, from Egyptians. So Moses looks at the Tablets he is holding. Jehovah, with his finger, had written some
instructions on them. While Moses looks
on, suddenly the Tablets go blank; the
Words had flown away.
Moses broke the Tablets
at the foot of the Mountain. The place became
a forgotten hill. Yet at that moment, a decree was passed concerning
Israel—that amidst idolatry, sorrow, homelessness, and confusion, they were to
study those words that had flown away.
The Theology of Judaism remains “flown away”
invisible. There have been many attempts to formulate a theology, but after
consideration, it has not been a serious concern of Jews. “Historically, Judaism has often looked with
disfavor upon theology.” [Cohen, reprinted in Glatzer, “The Judaic Tradition”
at 747.] For that matter, theology may
not be foremost in the minds of any people
burdened by sorrows.
Guided by theology or not, we seek some model for
improving the morals and conduct of our people and leaders. Where is this Promised Land ?
Theological
Conceptualization in the Tanak
The Tanak itself is not an organized body of
theological doctrines. It is given
instead to ideas which can unite and empower a practical people – including
stories, poems, and instructions for ritual behavior. A fair amount of “theology” may inhere in these
elements. Indeed beliefs about deity may be reified by daily practices. As to such rituals, the minyan hamitzvot, the “practices” are visible, and are drawn
directly from the Tanak. The number of
them added, not mathmatically, but by
convention – go as high as 613 religious duties. Yet Moses Maimonides listed only 13, and
Joseph Albo lays down only three. Clearly, even “the Commandments” are
considered guidelines. And whatever their number, the rituals are not
theological concepts.
Masoretic
Theology is either Sparse or Absent
The absence of doctrine in the Tanak is not a
weakness. This Scripture is at the heart
of the most perduring and widespread faith, crossing “religious systems” of
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and through the Manes/Buddha syncretic period,
into Buddhism. The silentium may even
explain why the Tanak is so widely received.
Even within Judaism, the Tanak has achieved a level of canonization that
no other Scripture has among adherents.
Theologically, what does the absence of articles of
“faith” or religious theories mean? No
unique distinctive authority infuses the entirety. For example, Noah’s epic
flood story involves the annihilation of almost all life. The same annihilating waters and even the
bird arrivals to signal the end, have non-Semitic roots in the Epic of
Gilgamesh [Pritchard 39ff]. Psalms 104
and the arguably precedent monotheistic Egyptian Hymn to the Aton [Ibid. 324
ff] are tonally, textually, linguistically and functionally similar. The Book of Job lacks Judaic names or
practices and is a lesson in Theodicy.
The absence of any mention of
deity in Song of Solomon, and Esther, gainsays their role in, or even inclusion
in, a “theology”.
Conceptualization of a theology requires finding, even
sealing, a unity or common theme.
Perhaps a form of courage or tolerance, a signature which unites the
texts as Scripture. Grace, redemption, anything that needs Belief in order to
exist? We are listening to the obvious
plurality of contradictory voices. [McKenzie at 153]. And of course, there is the matter of the Deity
which sits in the text we study.
So, before comparing the “theology” of the Tanak, to
its discrepant iteration in the “Old Testament” of the Christians, we have to
realize we already stepped over the body of its likely non-existence. Without knowing it. Tanak theology exists, but it is rare and thin:
It is shadow on bare air. What existence
it may have is but an accretion over generations of time.
The
Theology of All Ancient Scripture:
“It’s
all about that Base”
The primary and often over-looked but unifying
theology of the Tanak, is sex. The womb
is “that base” about which Songs are sung and which are a thematic obsession
which “hag”-rides every section of the Torah. What may appear to be male
posturing, or even secular tribal business, is probably about sex. And not
necessarily reproduction. Even the
isolated Ecclesiast departs from his misanthropy to indulge wholesale misogyny.
Eccles. 7:20; 26-28.
Of all the Commandments and religious duties, how many
are mixed up with human sexuality? How
many “purification” rituals are particular burdens for women, singling them out
as requiring special precautions?
And what theology explains the inexplicable “shame” of
nakedness? Gen. 3:7-10, repeated with
Noah and the curse of Canaan, Gen. 9:23-26.
The irresistibility of Sara to the Pharaoh, and her taking by Abimelech
as the cause of lies and breeding reprisals -- “the Lord closed up all the
wombs of the house of Abimelech” -- is
awkward theology. Gen. 20:18. And the
Book of Job ends, after God had slaughtered his family, with replacements for
his dead daughters, with an even more
beautiful cohort. Interestingly, the
names of the beauties are tenderly passed down to us while the names of the
replaced sons do not. Job 42:14-15. In the Psalms we find a dramatic feminization
of God. Ps. 45. 48:3.
Of all the Prophet scrolls, not one is authored by an
acknowledged woman, with “Esther” the foreign martyr who is at least honored
with a title, as the exception that proves the rule. Yet the “history” narratives document the
existence of many women whose prophesy was unexcelled and relied upon. Huldah, 2 Chron 34:21. This tradition endured, see Anna, spoken of
in Luke 2:36-38. And many of the Psalms
and Songs were either written by women (Song of “Solomon” [sic] 1:1-12), or by
homosexual men. David physically loved
and laments Jonathan. 1 Sam. 181; 2 Sam. 1.17. Ecclesiastes 25:22, considers women “the
beginning of sin, and through her we all die”, an interesting twist on
motherhood. Starting with Origen,
several “Old Testament” fathers pick up the hostility to women with pronounced
zeal. Origen is one of the early
Christian fathers in Alexandria. He was devoted to Christian apologetics so
intensely that he self-castrated himself to avoid distraction.
The women of the formative period who were seeking
religion and building churches were abundant
and devoted, but often deliberately desaperacido
– disappeared. The leaders of the
greatest Temples – one in Alexandria, with the world’s largest library, and one
in Delphi with the famous mystery cult, were in fact women. Constantine’s mother was the power behind his
rule and she became the Christian, not him.
Augustine’s mother was an accomplished and powerful Manichaean
priestess, and yet history only remembers Augustine. For complex reasons, a male-dominated
patriarchical system continued its ascension.
Subordination or fear of “unclean”
women is not necessarily theology or even text; the sexism may result from the
“reading” of the text. McKenzie, ed.
Fewell at 270, 277.
This dominance of males has not always been the case.
Kitchen middens of Europe for centuries filled up with figures of “venuses” –
little fertility goddesses. The world first known buildings were Temples to a
Goddess -- Göbekli Tepe is a sanctuary in eastern Turkey clearly attended
by matriarchically-organized pre-agricultural societies. 20,000
years ago on the cave walls of Chauvet and Lescaux women were painting gravid
horses and aurochs. [More than half the “hand-prints” are female.] They were
not depicting gods or kings or wars.
They depicted births and pregnancy.
They were drawing a pre-Mosaic Tanak, with particular emphasis on the Song
of Solomon. They were depicting their hopes for us.
Where do we come from? Where do our mothers come
from? The matrilineal descent understood
today does not appear to be drawn from the Tanak, which devotes entire chapters
to patrilineal begattings. Deut. 7:3-4
simply prohibits miscegeny. Moses, Joseph, and Jacob's sons had non-Jewish
wives. Yet the ancient dominance of women in the regional Hebiru and Semitic
communities stamped a matrilineal meta-matriarchal rule over patriarchal tribal
kinship structure. Perhaps this is a
remnant of the earlier and widespread dominance of the female in pre-Hebrew
cultures – consider the powerful primordial Akkadian goddess, Tiamet. [Pritchard, at 27-28; compare, the
characterization of a powerful female priestess who subdues and makes Enkidu a
god, is referred to by the translator as a “harlot” {42-43}. Ishtar-worship has
continuing influence in Judaic culture, particularly in festivals, and further explains
the awkward curiosity of matrilineal descent in an intensely partriarchal
society. By comparison, “Old Testament”
iterations passed through the hands of Origen and Eusebius repeatedly and
expressly attempt to further subvert and subordinate women. Still, in the lays of David and lonely
lamentations of the Prophets, we see the concern for us, the future
generations.
Every section of the Tanak sings of the hopes for
reproduction and vitality. The threshold childlessness of Abram and Sara is a
theological scream. Gen. 18-21.
The
Concept of Monotheism is obscured by a Pantheon
Monotheism is often taken to be a characteristic
feature of Judaic traditions. In fact, it is the second theological “gap” in the Tanak. The temporal priority and the existence of
its monotheism, are as debatable as Akh-en-Aton’s earlier but very personal sun
worship in Amarna. [Pritchard, at
324]. Multiple re-appearing angels,
lesser and competing gods, and Holy Spirits trouble the threshhold theological
“conceptualization” of Monotheism. The
Tanak gives proof to the plight.
One of the most important parts of the Bereshith is the first line. Indeed the
weight given to “firstness” is a principle which graces many exegetical
studies. The first line of Scripture is
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Gen. 1.1. The Creator function is existentially the sine qua non and by whatever mechanism,
the only one we can look to across the infinities of What Is and Is Not. We have already adverted to the role of the
female.
In this first line of “Genesis”, the Hebrew text does
not use the word “God”, which is a Teutonic word for any divinity. That word
was introduced in the “Old Testament”. It
first came into use after the German tribes were converted to Unitarian
Christianity by Ulfilas, circa 350.
The converted “Goths”, adopted the name for the many different Germanic tribes
who had united in the worship of One God.
Once united, they conquered Rome.
Interestingly, Ulfilas translated the entire Tanak (except I&II
Kings, which he felt were too martial for barbarians). Ulfilas painstakingly recognized the
importance of Scripture to a cohesive religion as the unifying force. The mass conversions of Germans, driven by
the Tanak and “gospels” combined, is a demonstration of the power of Scripture.
Durant, Age of Faith, 4:46.
But here emerges the “translation” issue: The Greek version of the Tanak used the word
“Ieus”, and God’s son was Ieusus, “-us” being the begetting cognate. Zeus’ son was Dionysius, the resurrected god
who brought wine to humankind (his first miracle at a wedding feast after his
resurrection), and both Zeus and his son were known as The Redeemer “Christo”
in Greek. Ulfilas was using a Greek
version with a singular “Zeus”.
Hebrew is a well-studied enduring and
consonantally-written tongue. The word
used in Genesis in Hebrew in many texts is “Elohim”. The word is plural of the singular
Eloah. This word is not a Name, and in
fact the Tanak never reveals the Name of God.
Elohim describes a group – “Mighty Ones”. It references multiple gods.
The plurality is consistent with beliefs of the
Hebrews and other people in the region. The
“Queen of Heaven” independently and as a consort of Yahweh is invoked by
Jeremiah. Jer. 44:16-19. She was
worshiped in Temples throughout the region. The Canaanite god of rain/storms,
Baal, would die, and be resurrected by the mourning of women appealing to Anat/
Ishtar rescuing Tammuz. [Re-enacted in Sukkoth, the male commentators missing
the point, noted by Sweeney, The Twelve
Prophets at 157]. The greatest
pilgrimage, from both flanks of the Red Sea, in ancient times in the region was
to the Kaaba in Mecca built by
Jewish Kabbalah practitioners. Multiple deities
were worshiped.
Archeology has not found a tell in the region which does not
contain both Stars of David and images of Ishtar mixed together. Brown, ed. The Holy Land page 65.
The plural is also consistent with other textual
occurrences: “Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy
people.” Exodus 22:28 [Cited by Thomas
Paine, Letters/Age of Reason, p 205]. In the Book of Job 1:6. “Now there was a day when the sons of God
came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came among them.” The
Tanak is filled with demons and angels – the lesser gods. Satan beguiles Eve in Eden. Gen. 3. Abraham has conversations with God
and angels, who also appear to Sara and Haggar. Gen. 16. Most of the Prophets
did as well – for example, the conversations of Zechariah with an angel who
explains the work of yet another “spirit” which produces visible signs of God’s
involvement in our lives. Zech 4:6.
Theologically, the
command that “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” clearly infers a
pantheon. Ex. 20:3; Deut. 5:7. To this day, the name “Ba-al”, the actual
name of a competing Levantine deity, is in use in the region. The authors of the Tanak referred to and
believed there were other competing gods.
Islam uses the green flag and horned moon of Ishtar as symbols carried
over seamlessly from her Temples of worship, which were widespread in the House
of David, the Semitic regions between Constantinople and Persia. The Kaaba of Mecca was built by Jewish Kabbalah
practitioners who welcomed a variety of gods. One can find no monotheist
asseveration even on the part of Abraham, who is nowhere in any Scripture
described as a Believer in only One God.
The Hidden Text in the Tanak –
the Meaning of “I am”, and the Unknowable
The third theological
issue raised in the Tanak is the “name” of God. Israel worshiped a God
who first introduced himself to Moses by saying His name is “I am”. This is the
God of No Name issue. How can we call
upon a God with no Name? Paul Tillich’s
theology takes God at his word, and accepts God as “being-in-itself”. [Accord, Cobb, Process Theology, description of Tillich at 51.] The narratives of the Tanak repeatedly expose
the absence of causation behind the illegitimate impression of creative
influence. What are we doing?
The theology, and the “real meaning” of the Tanak, is
hidden. In Leo Straus’ “Persecution and the Style of Writing” we
find the idea that pre-Gutenberg authors and copyists often resorted to hidden
or Sod text. Lives were at stake. One chapter of the book applies this methodology to Maimonides’
“Guide to the Perplexed” part of
which is a guide to the Maaseh Bereishit and Maaseh Merkavah, being two guides
to the two main mystical texts in the Torah. Pre-Gutenberg writing is in
code. Rabbis forbid teaching about
Ezekiel’s Chariot. Like Plato and the Unitarian Clement of Alexandria who he
cites with approval, Maimonides taught and practiced apophacy – the belief that
we can only know God by what he is not; God is literally unknowable to us.
The secret is that a “conscious self” is divine, and we
call upon ourselves in the unknowable “I am”.
Every human mirrors the image of God – that is what image means. But for 6500 years, this secret could get you
stoned to death. This is a “theological
conception” with stones. It is in the
Tanak, but is hidden. Ps.53.1-4.
The conceptual interplay of theology and canon acted
to some degree as an engine of developing Monotheism. Sanders, The
Monotheizing Process,1, 10, questioning the canonical scrolls in light of
Qumran discoveries, and noting that while the three Abrahamic faiths claim to
be monotheistic, “none of them actually is”.
The
Christian “Old Testament” Theology is a Trifecta of Absence
The point is that the
theology of and in the Tanak is “all about that base”, and is not
Monotheistic; it is not even cataphatic. It is a theology of No image, No name,
No description. The apophacy argued by Maimonides
(Guide to the Perplexed).
And on the Christian “Old Testament” side, the absence
is trebled. The silentium is itself
part of a Trifecta – a Trinity completely alien to the Tanak is now slipped in.
“Father” (family => son) replaces the frightening storm Jehovah, and other
names of No God. The Christians fully
adopt the Teutonic Unitarian “God”. The Tanak knows no such “God” and even the
use of the euphemism “God” gives entirely too much credit to Ulfilas and the
Unitarians.
In coopting the Tanak as their “Old Testament”, the
Clementine Alexandrian Unitarians, and the consummate compilers of Scripture
under Eusebius “Pamphili” of Caesarea, purged the Hebrew names of Elohim from
their Bibles. Eventually the Jehovahs, Yahwehs, Els and Tetragrammatons were
replaced by the Roman Ieus “Pater” or the Gothic “God”. The deification of Ieus/us with an
intermittently-appearing Holy Spirit, and the complete loss of Elohim as
Creator or Jehovah as punisher, is a dramatic theological contrast between
Tanak and “Old Testament”. The theological re-conceptualization was
accomplished largely by “translation” from Hebrew (“mighty ones”) to Greek
(Zeus) to Latin (Ieus), and the Gothic “God”.
The
Order of the Scrolls (Tanak) and Books (OT)
With the brilliant efforts of Eusebius in the 4th
century, a Christian canon was cobbled together, which is used to this
day. Eusebius exploited the book-form
and paginate linearity to “point” to Ieusus as the Christo. By slightly changing the order, he created an
apocalyptic vector out of the “Old” Testament.
But the perfection of a canon in his capable hands never reveals the
hand-off: In creating a “canon” of
Scripture for believers in a Messianic Son, Eusebius was not able to limn, and
the generations have still not found, the Christo. The Christo was never the Judaic Messiah; he always
was the Hellenic Egyptian resurrected Redeemer.
The formative centuries between Cleopatra’s conquest
of three Roman Emperors and the decision by Constantine to build a new Capital
in the East, created an opportunity for synchrony coupled with great hopes for
a Messiah. After centuries of indifference to religion, Romans began seeing
Temple networks as a means of uniting a far-flung Empire. Romanized Greeks like Plutarch, and
Hellenized Jews like Paul, were scouring the world literally looking for “new”
gods to replace the pantheons they recognized were either ineffective or
immoral. Clement of Alexandria described
the gods as “misanthropic demons”, and saw a need for the Redeemer long sought
in the Egyptian cults. The millenarian religious radicals needed
Scripture. They wanted to use the Tanak, but the Sanhedrin
rejected the Pauline focus on “belief” over ritual and the Messiah
complex. Understanding its power, the
Christians retained the Tanak in its entirety.
They added to it, and cobbled together the “good news” Gospels as a
supplement. In so doing, they renamed
the Tanak, the “Old” Testament, suggesting supersession. By keeping the Tanak as canon, of course,
they keep its issues.
On their part, of course, the Sanhedrin found the
unleashed antinomianism of the Pauline missionaries to be unacceptable. We do not take up the “New Testament” here,
but it is necessary to note that the “Old” Testament/Tanak simply does not
support Gospel theology. For example, Paul’s concept of Christic atonement [Rom
3:23-28], which is purely Orphic Dionysian, and the Lord’s Supper rituals [1
Cor. 11:24-30], are foreign to Aaron’s rites spelled out in Leviticus
16:23-28. Atonement becomes a key
Christian theology, barely even mentioned in the New, and not at all in the
same way in the Old of the two canonical Testaments. Compare Rom. 5:11 with
Gen. 32:21 and Ps 16:14.
Citing the forceful synchronic
dimensions limned by Rolf Knierim, Sweeney states that the “exegete cannot
assume that earlier text forms appear in the present form of the text.” [McKinsey
at 67] We have a number of early texts to choose from, not one of which is
sealed or drawn directly from the official Arc of the Covenant, or handed down
from Moses. We can be assured that the
text forms we have are processed in some way “by redactors, who select, modify,
supplement, and reconceive earlier texts in accordance with their own purposes
and presuppositions.” [67] In addition,
the anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss, argues that “deep structures of the
human mind are based in the structure of language that in turn is derived from
and defines the social structure of the society in which it functions.” Structural
Anthropology, [cited by Sweeney in McKinsey at 67]
The internet provides many tools and materials for
responding further to the ordering issue
in literal ways. http://www.biblewheel.com/Canon/ChristianOT_vs_Tanakh.php
. Better minds than mine might find “meaning” in the differences in the way the
Tanak presents the parts. The same books
are presented in slightly different order in the Old Testament. In addition, there are slight differences in
the order of the canonical texts between the Protestant and the Roman and Eastern Orthodox
traditions.
As a result of the compromised acquisition of texts
and the selective processing by redactors, and because of the constraints of
our minds and words, the meaning of the Canon will necessarily remain elusive. We canonize text, not meaning. It appears that the differences are real, but
they only create relatively minor “drifts” or subtle morgana fatas. While the Tanak and “Old Testament” are truly not
the same, they still rise and fall together. The differences pale compared to
the major theological issues which remain in common with all four of the
Canonical traditions. Bonhoeffer
graciously refers to these issues as “gaps” in our understanding of the
presence of a divine creative force in the world. [Cobb, Process
Theology, at 51.] The major
theological “gaps” are shared through the Abrahamic traditions. And all can benefit from the study of the
words which flew from the stones.
