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The Moral

Foundations

of Politics

i a n s h a p i r o

New Haven and London


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Copyright2003 by Yale University.

All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including

illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


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For all the graduates of MoFoPo

"The Moral Foundations of Politics," by Ian Shapiro

Copyright 2012 by Yale University


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. . . certainty is beautiful,but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Wisawa Szymborska




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c o n t e n t s

Preface, xi

Introduction, 1

chapter 1

Enlightenment Politics, 7

chapter 2

Classical Utilitarianism, 18

chapter 3

Synthesizing Rights and Utility, 37

chapter 4

Marxism, 71

chapter 5

The Social Contract, 109

chapter 6

Anti-Enlightenment Politics, 151

chapter 7

Democracy, 190

chapter 8Democracy in the Mature

Enlightenment, 224

Notes, 231

Index, 267




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p r e f a c e

This book grew out of a lecture course called The Moral Foun-

dations of Politics that I have been teaching at Yale since the early

1980s. The course, a version of which I inherited from Douglas

Rae, has changed out of all recognition since that time. Yet it has

evolved more in the manner of rebuilding a ship at sea than

redesigning it from scratch. As a result, my debt to Rae is greater

than he might realize from perusing the present text. The idea to

turn the course into a book came in the mid-1990s from John

Covell, then my editor at Yale University Press. These two people

have my enduring gratitude as the projects step-parents. BruceAckerman, Robert Dahl, Clarissa Hayward, Nancy Hirschman,

Nicoli Nattrass, Jennifer Pitts, Mark Stein, and two anonymous

readers for Yale University Press all read the manuscript from

stem to stern, oering helpful suggestions large and small. A

fleet of research assistants, all graduates of Moral Foundations,

worked on dierent aspects of the project under the helpful

supervision of Katharine Darst. They were Carol Huang, KarlChang, Clinton Dockery, Dan Kruger, George Maglares, Melody

Redbird, David Schroedel, and Michael Seibel. Jerey Mueller

served as a sterling research assistant as I wrote the final manu-

script; his assistance was invaluable. Jennifer Carters help in the

final stages was also most welcome.

The book is conceived of as introductory in the sense that no

prior knowledge of political philosophy is assumed. Its centralfocus is on dierent theories of political legitimacy in the utili-




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xii p r e f a c e

tarian, Marxist, social contract, anti-Enlightenment, and demo-

cratic traditions. My discussion of these dierent theories is

meant to give readers a grasp of the major intellectual traditions

that have shaped political argument in the West over the past

several centuries. The theories are set in historical context, but the

main focus is on current formulations as applied to contempo-

rary problems. Although introductory, the book is written from a

distinctive point of view and advances a particular argument. I

will not be disappointed if instructors find it to be a helpful teach-

ing tool, yet feel the need to argue with it as they teach it.

Some of the material in 1.2, 4.2.3, and 5.5 appeared previously

in my article Resources, capacities, and ownership: The work-

manship ideal and distributive justice, Political Theory, vol. 19,

no. 1 (February 1991), pp. 2846. It is copyright 1991 by Sage

Publications, Inc., and drawn on by permission here.




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1

i n t r o d u c t i o n

When do governments merit our allegiance, and when should

they be denied it? This most enduring of political dilemmas moti-

vates our inquiry. Socrates, Martin Luther, and Thomas More

remind us of its vintage; Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela, and Aung

San Suu Kyi underscore its continuing force. They are moral

heroes because they faced down wrongful political authority, just

as surely as Adolph Eichmann was a moral villain for his failure to

do so. His motivation and behavior as a middle-level ocer in

Nazi Germany exemplify obedience to a technically legitimate

authority. Yet his actions in sending countless thousands to Naziconcentration camps suggest that there must be limits to any

governments legitimate authority.

As the events surrounding Eichmanns own death underscore,

it is a good deal easier to say that there should be such limits than

to say what they should be or how they should be enforced. Cap-

tured by Israeli commandos in violation of Argentinean and in-

ternational law, he was spirited to Israel, tried and executed forcrimes against humanity and against the Jewish people. Many

who shed no tears for Eichmann were nonetheless troubled by

the manner of his apprehension: he was tried in a country and by

courts that did not exist when he committed his crimes and a law

was tailor-made to facilitate his sentencing and execution. These

actions seem at odds with the hallmarks of legitimate political

authority that rule out illegal searches and seizures, post hoccrafting of laws to fit particular cases, and bills of attainder. Yet if




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2 i n t r o d u c t i o n

we are unnerved both by Israels acting on what its leaders saw as

a moral imperative despite the legal institutions of the day and by

Eichmanns slavish adherence to the legal institutions of hisday,

our question is thrown into sharp relief. Who is to judge, and by

what criteria, whether the laws and actions of states that claim our

allegiance measure up? In this book we explore the principal

answers given to these questions in the modern West.

One set of answers grows out of the utilitarian tradition, fa-

mously associated with the name of Jeremy Bentham (1748

1832). His Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,

first published in 1789, is its locus classicus, although utilitarian-

ism has older roots than this, and it has since been reformulated

and refined in numerous ways as we will see. Utilitarians answer

our question with a variant of the claim that the legitimacy of

governments is tied to their willingness and capacity to maxi-

mize happiness. What counts as happiness, whose happiness is

to count, how it is measured, and who does the counting are

among the contentious issues that distinguish dierent utilitar-ians from one another as will become plain in chapters 2 and

3. Despite disagreements about these and other consequential

matters, utilitarians generally agree that we should judge gov-

ernments by reference to Benthams memorable, if ambiguous,

dictum that they should be expected to maximize the greatest

happiness of the greatest number of people.

The Marxist tradition that occupies us in chapter 4 takesthe idea of exploitation as the benchmark for judging political le-

gitimacy. Marxists dier substantially from one another on the

definition of exploitation, its relations both to labor and to the

economic and political systems, and on the role of political in-

stitutions in eradicating it. On all Marxist understandings, how-

ever, political institutions lack legitimacy to the degree that they

underwrite exploitation and they gain it to the degree that theypromote its antithesis, human freedom. Every political system in




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i n t r o d u c t i o n 3

history has countenanced some kind of exploitation from the

Marxist point of view, but socialism and communism are thought

to hold out the possibility of a world that is free of exploitation.

History has not looked kindly on these possibilities since Karl

Marx (18181883) wrote, but, even if desirable variants of them

are unavailable, we will see that aspects of Marxist theory may

nonetheless be helpful in understanding the normative proper-

ties of capitalism and in distinguishing the relative legitimacy of

dierent types of capitalist systems.

The social contract tradition examined in chapter 5 oers a

third sort of answer to my initial question. Social contract argu-

ments are as old as the hills, but in their modern form they are

generally thought to originate with Thomas Hobbess Leviathan,

published in 1651, and John Lockes Second Treatise on Govern-

mentwhich first appeared as an anonymous tract in England in

the 1680s. For social contract theorists, the states legitimacy is

rooted in the idea of agreement. From the beginning they have

disagreed among themselves about the nature of the agreement,who the parties to the agreement are, and how, if at all, the agree-

ment is to be enforced, but they agree that consent of the gov-

erned, somehow understood, is the source of the states legit-

imacy. We owe the state allegiance if it embodies our consent, and

we are free (and in some formulations even obliged) to resist it

when it does not.

Each of the utilitarian, Marxist, and contractarian traditionsbrings a distinctive focus and set of questions about political legit-

imacy to the fore, but the traditions also overlap a good deal more

than is often realized. I will argue that this is mainly because they

have all been decisively shaped by the Enlightenment. This is the

philosophical movement aimed at rationalizing social life by bas-

ing it on scientific principles and in which there is a powerful

normative impetus to take seriously the ideal of human free-dom as expressed in a political doctrine of individual rights. The




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Enlightenment project, as Alasdair MacIntyre has dubbed it, is

generally associated with the writings of such European thinkers

as Ren Descartes (15961650), Gottfried Leibnitz (16461716),

Benedict Spinoza (16321677), and Immanuel Kant (1724

1804), though it was also greatly influenced by the English Em-

piricists, John Locke (16321704), George Berkeley (16851753),

and David Hume (17111776). We will see how Enlightenment

values have shaped the utilitarian, Marxist, and social contract

traditions, and, in the course of examining those traditions, we

will also evaluate their understandings of the Enlightenment

values of science and individual rights.

The Enlightenment has always had its detractors; they are our

focus in chapter 6. Critics of Enlightenment political thinking

range from traditionalists like Edmund Burke (17291797) to

various postmodern and communitarian theorists in the contem-

porary literature. Despite their many dierences, they share in

common considerable skepticism, not to say hostility, to the goal

of rationalizing politics along scientific lines as well as to theidea that the freedoms embodied in individual rights are the

most important political value. Instead they are inclined to attach

normative weight to inherited norms and practices, linking the le-

gitimacy of political institutions to how well they embody com-

munal values that shape, and give meaning to, the lives of individ-

uals. The sources of the self, as Charles Taylor describes them, are

seen as rooted in systems of attachment and aliation that pre-cede and survive individuals, shaping their expectations of politi-

cal legitimacy.

By the end of chapter 6 it becomes plain that, despite serious

diculties with the utilitarian, Marxist, and social contract tradi-

tions, wholesale rejection of the Enlightenment project in politics

is infeasible and would be undesirable even if it were feasible.

Some of the diculties with the dierent theories are specific to




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i n t r o d u c t i o n 5

them; others flow from the particular understandings of Enlight-

enment values they embody. With respect to the former, each of

the three traditions contains insights that survive their failures as

comprehensive political doctrines and should inform our think-

ing about of the sources of political legitimacy. With respect to the

latter, I distinguish the early Enlightenment, which is vulnerable

to the arguments of anti-Enlightenment critics, from the mature

Enlightenment, which is not. Attacks on the Enlightenments

preoccupation with foundational certainty are not telling against

the fallibilist view of science that informs most contemporary

thinking and practice and, whatever the diculties with the idea

of individual rights, they pale in comparison with trying to de-

velop a theory of political legitimacy without them.

This raises the question: What political theory best embodies

mature Enlightenment values? My answer in chapter 7 is democ-

racy. The democratic tradition has ancient origins, but the mod-

ern formulations that shape contemporary political argument

spring from, or react against, Jean-Jacques Rousseaus discussionof the general will in The Social Contract,published in 1762. Dem-

ocrats hold that governments are legitimate when those who are

aected by decisions play an appropriate role in making them and

when there are meaningful opportunities to oppose the govern-

ment of the day, replacing it with an alternative. Democrats dier

on many particulars of how government and opposition should

be organized, who should be entitled to vote, how their votesshould be counted, and what limits, if any, should be placed on

the decisions of democratic majorities. Yet they share a common

commitment to democratic procedures as the most viable source

of political legitimacy. My claim that they are correct will seem

vulnerable to some, at least initially. Democracy has long and

often been criticized as profoundly hostile both to the truth and to

the sanctity of individual rights. However, I make the case that on




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the mature Enlightenment understandings of these values that

make the most sense, the critique is wrongheaded. The demo-

cratic tradition oers better resources than the going alternatives

for ensuring that political claims and counter-claims are tested for

their veracity in the public arena, and for protecting those individ-

ual rights that best embody the aspiration for human freedom.




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7

c h a p t e r 1

Enlightenment

Politics

The philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment was

really several distinct, if overlapping, intellectual movements. Its

roots can be traced at least to the 1600s, and its influence has

been felt in every walk of life. From philosophy, science, and

invention, to art, architecture, and literature, to politics, econom-

ics, and organization, every field of human activity bears the in-

delible stamp of one aspect or another of the Enlightenment.

Despite innumerable assaults that have been leveled against dif-

ferent aspects of its philosophical assumptions and practical con-

sequences from the beginning, the Enlightenment outlook hasdominated intellectual consciousness in the West for the better

part of four centuries.

If there is a single overarching idea shared in common by

adherents to dierent strands of Enlightenment thinking, it is

faith in the power of human reason to understand the true nature

of our circumstances and ourselves. The Enlightenment outlook

is optimistic to its core, supplying impetus to the idea of progressin human aairs. As reasons reach expands, it seems plausible

to think that understanding will yield the possibility to control

and perhaps even improve our environments and our lives. En-

thusiasts of the Enlightenment have always found this possibility

of progress seductive, even if fraught with attendant dangeras

current debates about advances in genetics underscore. When

knowledge advances, so too does the possibility of genetic en-gineering to eradicate inherited diseases and birth defects. The




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8 e n l i g h t e n m e n t p o l i t i c s

same advances in knowledge might, however, be pressed in the

service of Orwellian manipulation of peoples psyches. Partisans

of the Enlightenment think the best bet is that the potential ad-

vantages of gaining knowledge outweigh the risks, or in some

cases that human beings are incapable of resisting the allure of

authentic knowledge. Whether the product of unvarnished en-

thusiasm or a more chastened desire to direct the inevitable in

felicitous directions, the Enlightenment enterprise is one of de-

ploying reason in the service of improvement in human aairs.

The aspirations to understand the social and natural world

through the deployment of reason, and to press understanding

into the service of human improvement, are by no means new

with the Enlightenment. One need not read far into Platos Re-

public to discover an abiding value being placed on the pursuit

of knowledge through reason, and a central preoccupation of

Aristotles Nicomachean Ethicsis with improvement that can be

achieved by shaping the malleable aspects of the human psyche

in accordance with objectively identifiable virtues. Yet the Enlight-enment understandings of reason and human improvement are

distinctive. Reasons pursuit of knowledge is seen as mediated by,

and achieved through, science; and human improvement is mea-

sured by the yardstick of individual rights that embody, and pro-

tect, human freedom.

1.1 Sciences Ascendancy

The preoccupation with science stemmed from a program to

make all knowledge secure, measured by a standard first articu-

lated by Descartes when he announced that he was in search of

propositions that are impossible to doubt. His famous example,

known as the cogito,was I think, therefore I am.The very act of

trying to doubt it seems necessarily to arm it. Dierent Enlight-enment thinkers would comprehend knowledge and science in

strongly diering ways over the next several centuries, but they all




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e n l i g h t e n m e n t p o l i t i c s 9

have been consumed with the task, as Immanuel Kant defined it

in The Critique of Pure Reason(1781), of placing knowledge on the

secure path of a science. These developments in philosophy

reflected and reinforced the emergence of modern scientific

consciousness. That consciousness involved not merely a com-

mitment to the idea that science provides the only genuine knowl-

edge but also a massive and optimistic faith in its liberating ef-

fects. Francis Bacons (15611626) declaration that knowledge is

powerembodied a programmatic commitment to a double faith

in science as the only reliable means of authentic understanding

of the universe and the best tool for transforming it in accordance

with human aspirations.

It is important for our purposes to note that the status of the

human sciences evolved considerably over the course of the En-

lightenment. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

when the hallmark of scientific knowledge was indubitable cer-

tainty, ethics, political philosophy, and the human sciences were

regarded as superior to the natural sciences. This view seemsstrange from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, when

fields like physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, and biology

have all advanced with astonishing speed to discoveries that

would have been unimaginable in the eighteenth century. The

human sciences, by contrast, have produced little, if any, endur-

ing knowledge, and many doubt that ethics and political philoso-

phy can be studied scientifically at all. Understanding why con-temporary views of the relative statuses of these various fields of

inquiry dier so radically from those prevalent in the early En-

lightenment requires attention to two features of its distinctive

epistemology that would subsequently be abandoned.

1.1.1 The Workmanship Ideal of Knowledge

The first distinctive feature of the early Enlightenment concernsthe range of a priori knowledge, the kind of knowledge that either

follows from definitions or is otherwise deduced from covering




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principles. This is the kind of knowledge Descartes had in mind

when he formulated his cogitoand that Kant located in the realm

of analytic judgments. Kant distinguished these from syn-

thetic judgments. They always involve a leap from a subject to a

predicate, which has not been in any wise thought in it [the

subject], and which no analysis could possibly extract from it.

Analytic judgments are best thought of as being logically implied

by the meanings of terms, whereas synthetic judgments are not

usually because they depend for their veracity on the world be-

yond deductive meanings. Some twentieth-century philosophers

challenged the existence of an analytic/synthetic distinction,but

most would still accept a version of it.

Where most, today, woulddier sharply from the philosophers

of the early Enlightenment concerns the epistemological status of

ethics, political philosophy, and the human sciences. These en-

deavors were all classified within the realm of a priori knowledge

by the earlier Enlightenment thinkers, because the relevant crite-

rion was not a distinction between knowledge that is true bydefinition versus knowledge that is derived from experience. In-

stead, it was a distinction between knowledge that depends on

the human will versus knowledge that is independent of it. As

Thomas Hobbes put it in De Homine,the pure or mathematical

sciences can be known a priori, but the mixed mathematics,

such as physics, depend on the causes of natural things [which

are] not in our power.He put it more fully in the Epistle Dedica-tory to his Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics:

Of arts, some are demonstrable, others indemonstrable; and the

demonstrable are those the construction of the subject whereof is

in the power of the artist himself, who, in his demonstration does

no more but deduce the consequences of his own operation. The

reason whereof is this, that the science of every subject is derived

from a precognition of the causes, generation, and construction ofthe same; and consequently where the causes are known, there is




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place for demonstration, but not where the causes are to seek for.

Geometry therefore is demonstrable, for the lines and figures from

which we reason are drawn and described by ourselves; and civil

philosophy is demonstrable, because we make the commonwealthourselves. But because natural bodies we know not the construc-

tion, but seek it from eects, there lies no demonstration of what

the causes be we seek for, but only what they may be.

This creationist or workmanship theory conferred a vastly

superior epistemological status on moral matters in pre-Humean

Enlightenment thought to any they have enjoyed since. Consider

Hobbess statement at the end of his introduction to Leviathan:

that when he has laid out his own argument orderly, and per-

spicuously, the only task for the reader was to consider whether

he also finds the same in himself, for this kind of Doctrine,

admitteth no other Demonstration. Far from suggesting that

readers must see how their intuitions compare with Hobbess, he

is underscoring his belief that the argument of Leviathanhas the

force of a mathematical proof.

John Locke held a similar view, though its underpinning lay in

theological controversies that will initially seem arcane. However,

the way he dealt with these controversies influenced many of the

doctrines discussed in this book. A basic issue for Locke and

many of his contemporaries was the ontological status of natural

law and in particular its relation to Gods will. If one took the view,

common among natural law theorists of his day, that natural lawis eternal and unchanging, then this view threatened another

notion many of them thought compelling: that God is omnipo-

tent. By definition, an all-powerful God could not be bound by

natural law. Yet if God has the capacity to change natural law, we

cannot assume it to be timeless and fixed. Locke wrestled with

this tension without ever resolving it to his own satisfaction, but

in his moral and political writings he came down decisively in thevoluntarist, or will-centered, camp.He could not relinquish the




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proposition that for something to have the status of a law, it must

be the product of a will. By adopting this voluntarist view, Locke

aligned himself with other will-centered theorists of the early

Enlightenment, notably German philosopher and natural law the-

orist Samuel von Pufendorf.

The voluntarist theory of natural law dovetailed neatly with

Lockes general epistemology, which mirrored the Hobbesian one

just described. Locke distinguished ectype from archetype

ideas: ectypes are general ideas of substances, and archetypes are

ideas constructed by man. This distinction generated a radical

disjunction between natural and conventional knowledge, under-

pinned by a further distinction between nominal and real

essences. In substances that depend on the external world for

their existence (such as trees or animals), only nominal essences

can be known to man. The real essence is available only to the

maker of the substance, God. In the case of archetypes, however,

nominal and real essences are synonymous so that real essences

can by definition be known by man. Because social practices arealways a function of archetype ideas, it follows that real social

essences can be known by man. We know what we make. For

Locke, as for Hobbes, man can thus have incontrovertible knowl-

edge of his creationsmost importantly, for our purposes, of

political arrangements and institutions.

1.1.2 The Preoccupation with CertaintyInsisting that will-centeredness is the hallmark of the highest

form of knowledge involved an archaic gloss on what we today

think of as analytic truth. No less archaic was the related depreca-

tion of forms of knowledge that are not will-dependent. The post-

Humean Enlightenment tradition has been marked, in contrast,

by a fallibilist view of knowledge. All knowledge claims are falli-

ble, on this account, and science advances not by making knowl-




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edge more certain but by producing more knowledge. Recogniz-

ing the corrigibility of all knowledge claims and the possibility

that one might always be wrong exemplifies the modern scientific

attitude. As Karl Popper (19021994) noted, the most that we can

say, when hypotheses survive empirical tests, is that they have not

been falsified so that we can accept them provisionally. As a

dramatic illustration, a recent study by a distinguished group of

astrophysicists suggests that what have been accepted as the basic

laws of nature may not be unchanging. If true, the consequences

for our understanding of modern science will be at least as pro-

found as was Einsteins theory of relativity.

Ethics, political philosophy, and substantial parts of the human

sciences would thus come to face a double threat as the Enlight-

enment matured. The abandonment of creationist theories of

knowledge would deprive them of their early Enlightenment iden-

tification with logic and mathematics as preeminent sciences, but

it was far from clear that they contained propositions that could be

tested empirically by the standards of a critical, fallibilist science.Neither certain nor subject to falsification, these fields of inquiry

were challenged to escape the bugbear of being merely subjec-

tive, to be cast, as A. J. Ayer argued so dramatically in Language,

Truth,and Logicin 1936, along with metaphysics, into the trashcan

of speculation. Since the expression of a value judgment is not a

proposition, Ayer insisted, the question of truth or falsehood

does not here arise.Theorists of ethical science treat proposi-tions which refer to the causes and attributes of our ethical feel-

ings as if they were definitions of ethical concepts. As a result,

Ayer held, they fail to recognize that ethical concepts are pseudo-

concepts and consequently indefinable.Ayers doctrine of logi-

cal positivism is often attacked, but we will see that his view of the

nonscientific character of normative inquiry has endured in both

the academy and the public mind.




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1.2 The Centrality of Individual Rights

In addition to faith in science, the Enlightenments central focus

on individual rights dierentiates its political philosophy fromthe ancient and medieval commitments to order and hierarchy.

This focus brings the freedom of the individual to the center of

arguments about politics. This move was signaled in the natural

law tradition by a shift in emphasis from the logic of law to the

idea of natural right. Hobbes contended in Leviathanthat it was

customary to conflate Jus,and Lex, Rightand Law;yet they ought

to be distinguished; because RIGHT, consisteth in liberty to do, orto forbeare; Whereas LAW, determineth, and bindeth to one of

them; which in one and the same matter are inconsistent.We

find similar reasoning in Lockes Essays on the Law of Nature,

written in 1663. Rejecting the traditional Christian correlativities

between right and law, he insisted instead that natural law ought

to be distinguished from natural right: for right is grounded in

the fact that we have the free use of a thing, whereas law is what

enjoins or forbids the doing of a thing. Just how distinctive

these moves were can be gleaned from the fact that European

languages other than English lack this linguistic distinction. The

German word Recht,the Italian diritto,and the French droitare all

used to signify law in the abstract as well as right; so closely bound

are the etymologies of these ideas historically. Although the En-

glish social contract theorists spearheaded this change, we will

see that it has left its indelible stamp on a much wider swath of the

political terrain.

We have already seen that in Lockes voluntarist theology, Gods

omnipotence is foundational. What humans perceive as natural

law is in fact Gods natural right, an expression of his will.

Lockes theory of ownership flows naturally out of this scheme,

transforming the workmanship model of knowledge into a nor-

mative theory of right. It is through acts of autonomous making

that rights over what is created come into being: making entails




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ownership so that natural law is at bottom Gods natural right over

his creation. Lockes frequent appeals to metaphors of work-

manship and watch making in the Two Treatisesand elsewhere

make it fundamental that men are obliged to God because of his

purposes in making them. Men are the Workmanship of one

Omnipotent, and infinitely wise Maker. . . . They are his Property,

whose Workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one

anothers pleasure.

For Locke, human beings are unique among Gods creations

because he gave them the capacity to make, to create rights of

their own. We will see that this idea, in a secularized form, would

long outlive the workmanship theology and epistemology that

spawned it. In Lockes formulation, natural law dictates that man

is subject to divine imperatives to live in certain ways, but, within

the limits set by the law of nature, men can act in a godlike

fashion. Man as maker has a makers knowledge of his inten-

tional actions, and a natural right to dominion over mans prod-

ucts. Provided we do not violate natural law, we stand in the samerelation to the objects we create as God stands to us; we own them

just as he owns us.Natural law, or Gods natural right, thus sets

outer boundaries to a field within which humans have divine

authority to act as miniature gods, creating rights and obligations

of their own.

1.3 Tensions Between Science and Individual Rights

How the preoccupation with science and the commitment to indi-

vidual rights have influenced arguments about the source of polit-

ical legitimacy will be explored in subsequent chapters. A general

point to bear in mind, already suggested by my discussion of

Lockes theology, is that these two Enlightenment values live in

potential tension with one another. Science is a deterministicenterprise, concerned with discovering the laws that govern the




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universe. In the social and political realms this point has obvious

potential for conflict with an ethic that emphasizes individual

freedom: if human actions are law-governed, how can there be

the freedom of action that gives the commitment to individual

rights its meaning and point? This is an instance of the long-

standing tension between free will and determinism that reared

its head in Lockes theological concerns, but it takes on a charac-

teristic Enlightenment hue when formulated as a tension be-

tween science and individual rights.

Even Hobbes and Locke, who placed so much emphasis on the

existence of definitive answers to normative questions, could not

escape this tension completely. Both believed that people are free

to act as they choose when natural law is silent, but, when it is not,

neither was entirely comfortable with the proposition that free

human will must always succumb to natural laws requirements.

This was so despite the fact that both of them believed natural law

had the full force of both science and theology behind it. Hobbes

held that rational individuals would agree to submit to an abso-lute sovereign because the alternative was horrific civil war. This

thinking implies that the sovereign could legitimately order his

subject to lay down his life in battle, but Hobbes felt compelled to

warn the sovereign not to be surprised if subjects were unwilling

to do this.Although Locke thought natural law as expressed in

the Scriptures binding on human beings, he recognized that the

Scriptures are suciently ambiguous to allow room for interpre-tive disagreement. One of his main arguments with Sir Robert

Filmer in the First Treatiseconcerned Lockes insistence that God

speaks directly to every individual who reads the Scriptures, and

that no human authority is entitled to declare one interpretation

authoritative in the face of a conflicting one.This freedom to

comprehend natural law by ones own lights supplied the basis of

Lockes right to resist that could be invoked against the sovereign,and to which he himself appealed when opposing the English




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crown during the 1680s. His conviction that right answers can be

discovered about the meaning of the Scriptures, and, hence, what

natural law requires, was not understood to obliterate human

freedom to disagree even about that very subject.

In short, although the workmanship ideal is an attempt to syn-

thesize the deterministic injunctions of science with an ethic that

gives centrality to individual freedom, that ideal contains tensions

for human beings that are analogous to the natural law paradox

that concerned Locke. If there are unassailable right answers

about political legitimacy that any clearheaded person must af-

firm, in what sense do people really have the right to decide this

for themselves? But if they are free to reject what science reveals

on the basis of their own convictions, then what is left of sciences

claim to priority over other modes of engaging with the world?

We will see this tension surface repeatedly in the utilitarian,

Marxist, and social contract traditions, without ever being fully

resolved. The tension is recast in the democratic tradition and

managed through procedural devices that diminish it, but there,too, the tension is never entirely dispatched. Its tenacity reflects

the reality that the allure of science and the commitment to indi-

vidual rights are both basic to the political consciousness of the

Enlightenment.




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Introduction tothe Bible

New Haven and London


30/73

Copyright 2012 by Yale University.

All rights reserved.

Tis book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including

illustrations, in any orm (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107

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Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity or educational,

business, or promotional use. For inormation, please e-mail

[email protected] (U.S. offi ce) or [email protected] (U.K. offi ce).

Set in Minion type by Westchester Book Group

Printed in the United States o America

Biblical verses reprinted rom anakh: Te Holy Scripturesby permission

o the University o Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 Te Jewish

Publication Society, Philadelphia.

able 3: From Exploring Exodus: Te Heritage of Biblical Israel,by Nahum

M. Sarna, copyright 1986 by Nahum M. Sarna, table appears on p. 76.

Used by permission o Schocken Books, a division o Random House, Inc.

For inormation about this and other Random House, Inc., books and

authors, see the Web site at http://www.randomhouse.com.

Map 6: From Te Old estament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to

the Hebrew Scriptures, by Michael Coogan, copyright 2006 by Oxord

University Press, Inc., map appears on p. 403. Used by permission o

Oxord University Press, Inc.

Library o Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hayes, Christine Elizabeth.

Introduction to the Bible / Christine Hayes.

pages cm (Te open Yale courses series)

Includes bibliographical reerences and index.

ISBN 978-0-300-18179-1 (pbk.)

1. Bible. O..Introductions. I. itle.

BS1140.3.H39 2012

221.6'1dc23

2012022003

A catalogue record or this book is available rom the British Library.

Tis paper meets the requirements o ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992

(Permanence o Paper).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


31/73

For my students,

real and virtual,

past, present, and future

"Introduction to the Bible," by Christine Hayes



32/73




33/73

Preface ix

Chronology of Signicant Events in the History of Ancient Israel xiii

1. Te Legacy o Ancient Israel 1

2. Understanding Biblical Monotheism 15

3. Genesis 13: Te Biblical Creation

Stories 29

4. Doublets and Contradictions 43

5. Te Modern Critical Study o the Bible 58

6. Biblical Narrative: Te Stories o the

Patriarchs (Genesis 1236) 76

7. Israel in Egypt: Moses and the

Beginning o Yahwism 94

8. From Egypt to Sinai 111

9. Biblical Law 127

10. Te Priestly Legacy: Cult and Sacrice,

Purity and Holiness 148

11. On the Steps o Moab: Deuteronomy

and the Figure o Moses 165

12. Te Deuteronomistic History I: Joshua 185

13. Te Deuteronomistic History II:

O Judges, Prophets, and Kings 19814. Te Kingdoms o Judah and Israel 216

15. Israelite Prophecy 236

16. Te Prophetic Response to the Events

o History: Amos as Paradigm 248

17. Prophets o the Assyrian Crisis:

Hosea and First Isaiah 263

18. Judean Prophets: Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum,

Habakkuk, Jeremiah 280

Contents




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viii Contents

19. Responses to the Destruction:

Ezekiel and 23 Isaiah 298

20. Responses to the Destruction:

Lamentations and Wisdom 315

21. Canonical Criticism: Ecclesiastes,

Psalms, and the Song o Songs 338

22. Te Restoration: Ezra-Nehemiah

and Ruth 360

23. Postexilic Prophets and the Rise o

Apocalyptic 379

24. Israel and the Nations: Estherand Jonah 391

Epilogue 400

Notes

Index




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ix

Tis book examines the small library o twenty-our books common to all

Jewish and Christian Bibles everywherebooks that preserve the diverse

efforts o various writers over a period o nearly a millennium to make

sense o both the historical odyssey and the human experience o the an-

cient Israelite people. Like any library, this ancient collection contains

books by many authors writing in many contexts and responding to many

crises and questionspolitical, historical, socioeconomic, cultural, philo-sophical, religious, and moraloffering an unresolved polyphony that re-

wards careul reading and reection.

Te great variety and complexity o the many books o the Bible can

be daunting to those who wish to understand not only its contents but also

its continuing inuence through history. Tis volume guides readers through

the complex and polyphonous literature o the twenty-our biblical books

that would serve as a oundational pillar o western civilization. Introduc-

ing readers to the modern methods o study that have led to deep and power-ul insights into the original context and meaning o biblical texts, this book

traces the diverse strands o Israelite culture and thought incorporated in

the Bible, against the backdrop o their historical and cultural setting in the

ancient Near East. It probes the passionate and highly raught struggle o

different biblical writers to understand and represent their nations histori-

cal experience and covenantal relationship with its god.

Te twenty-our chapters that constitute the present volume are based

on the twenty-our lectures presented in my undergraduate course Intro-duction to the Old estament,which is widely available online through

Yale Universitys Open Yale Courses project (http://oyc.yale.edu/). Tis vol-

ume is not an exact transcript o those lectures; it revises and adapts them

or a written ormat. At times a different order o presentation is adopted.

Repetitions and inelicitous ormulations have been deleted, and some new

material has been incorporatedin particular, close analysis o primary

sources and biblical texts that, in the context o the Yale course, was under-

taken by students in small discussion sections.

Preace




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x Preface

By their very nature as introductory, the course and the current vol-

ume do not represent my own original research. Rather, they draw upon

and synthesize a vast body o existing scholarship on the Bible o ancient

Israelespecially the writings o Michael Coogan, Moshe Greenberg,

Yehezkel Kaumann, Jonathan Klawans, Jacob Milgrom, Nahum Sarna,

and the excellent scholarly essays in Te Jewish Study Bible,edited by Adele

Berlin and Marc Brettler (New York: Oxord University Press, 2004). Read-

ers will also see some correspondences between the present volume and

two summary chapters on biblical Israel in my textbook Te Emergence of

Judaism: Classical raditions in Contemporary Perspectives (Minneapolis,

MN: Fortress Press, 2010).

Chapter 1 is a general introduction to the Bible in its ancient NearEastern context. Chapters 2 through 15 ollow the narrative chronology o

the Bible, rom Genesis through 2 Kings. Readers should be aware that the

narrative sequence does not reect the compositional sequence o the Bible.

In other words, and as just one example, most scholars now agree that parts

o Genesis were written long afer parts o Exodus or Deuteronomy or Isa-

iah. Many biblical books came into being through the accretion o various

materials over the course o centuries. Tus, while ollowing the narrative

chronology imposed by the nal redactor o Genesis through 2 Kings, wewill simultaneously attend to the compositional history o the text, noting

the likely provenance o the various units that make up the nal redacted

biblical text and considering how and why the text acquired the orm we

see today. Chapters 16 through 19 examine the books o the prophets in his-

torical sequence rather than canonical sequence, and chapters 20 through

24 take a somewhat thematic approach to the books collected in the section

o the Hebrew Bible known as the Writings.

Readers o this volume will derive maximum benet i they are amil-iar with the biblical material analyzed in each chapter. Tus, readers are

strongly urged to read the relevant biblical passages listed at the begin-

ning o each chapter. However, even readers unable to complete the biblical

readings will learn much rom the presentations and discussions in this

book.

Te biblical translation that serves as the basis or both the course and

this volume is that o the Jewish Publication Society, particularly as ound

in Te Jewish Study Bible.Citations o biblical texts in this volume are takenprimarily rom anakh: Te Holy Scriptures (Philadelphia: Jewish Publica-

tion Society, 1985)but also occasionally rom the Revised Standard Version

(particularly in the case o well-known passages such as the twenty-third




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Preace xi

psalm). In both cases, I have modied the translation to more accurately

reect the various modes o reerence employed or the Israelite deity. Bibli-

cal writings regularly use our distinct terms to reer directly to the Israelite

deity (I include here terms o consistent direct address only and not more

occasional and descriptive epithets): El, Elohim, Yahweh, and (with less

requency) Adonai. El is the name o the chie god o the Canaanite pan-

theon. Elohim is a grammatically plural orm (gods), but in reerence to

the god o Israel, it takes singular verbs and thus may be understood as

another name or this specic god. Yahweh is a divine name attested in ar-

chaeological nds rom regions to the south o biblical Israel and applied to

the Israelite god in biblical writings. Adonai, literally my lord, is used as a

reerence to the deity in a ew biblical books. Many English translations othe Bible adopt the convention o rendering El and Elohim as God (with

a capital G) and Yahweh as the (in capital letters). Te latter render-

ing is a pious substitution made in deerence to a postbiblical reluctance to

pronounce the name Yahweh. Unortunately, all o these renderings are

misleading. On the one hand, they obscure the historical connections be-

tween Israels god and the gods o surrounding peoples (specically the

Canaanite deity El and the southern deity Yahweh). On the other hand, the

rendering God causes readers to conuse the deity o the Hebrew Bible withthe deity constructed by the much later tradition o western theology, a deity

commonly reerred to as God (with a capital G). As any astute reader o

the Pentateuch will immediately discern, the biblical character El, or Elo-

him or Yahweh, is not represented by the biblical writer as possessing the

attributes attributed to the deity reerred to as God by the later tradition o

western theology (or example, in many narratives he lacks the attributes

o omniscience and immutability). It is best that the reader keep these two

constructions (the biblical deity and the theologians God) distinct in or-der to ully appreciate the biblical texts. For that reason, the word Godwith

a capital Gdoes not appear in this volume (except when quoting the work

o a scholar who does employ the term).In order to provide the most un-

mediated access to the conceptions o the divine ound in ancient Israel, the

direct names El, Elohim, and Yahweh will be rendered as they appear in the

biblical text.

Te terms Hebrew, Israelite,andJudeanalso require some explanation.

Hebrew is the name employed in some biblical sources to designate themost ancient ancestors o the Israelite people. It is primarily an ethnic and

linguistic term denoting persons who spoke Hebrew, a Canaanite dialect.

Te Hebrews are thought to have established themselves in the land o Ca-




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xii Preface

naan (roughly modern-day Israel) by about 1200 ... Te terms Israeland

Israelitereer to a member o the twelve Hebrew tribes o the Israelite eth-

nos who inhabited Canaan, eventually orming themselves into a united

kingdom around 1000 ... Te kingdom o Israel later split into a north-

ern kingdom, Israel, and a southern kingdom, Judah. Although any member

o the twelve tribes was a member o the Israelite ethnos, inhabitants o the

northern kingdom were Israelites also by virtue o being rom the kingdom

o Israel, while inhabitants o the southern kingdom were (additionally)

known as Judeans by virtue o being rom the kingdomo Judah. However,

with the destruction o the northern kingdom in 722, the only Israelites re-

maining were the Judeans, and thus the terms IsraeliteandJudeanbecome

somewhat interchangeable (except in contexts that reer clearly to the or-mer inhabitants o the destroyed kingdom o Israel). Falling under Persian

rule at the end o the sixth century, the area around Jerusalem was named

Yehud and the term Yehudi(ofen translated Jew but more properly Ju-

dean) reerred to an inhabitant o Yehud/Judea. It would be some centuries

beore the term Yehudiwas understood to designate an adherent o the tradi-

tion o Judaism (a Jew), rather than an inhabitant o the province o Yehud/

Judea (a Judean).

Te land in which the kingdoms o Israel and Judah were located isreerred to by many biblical writers as the land o Canaan, and it is that

designation that will be adopted in this volume. Finally, throughout this

volume, the abbreviations .. (Common Era) and ... (Beore the Com-

mon Era) will be employed instead o the corresponding abbreviations ..

(Beore Christ) and .. (Anno Domini).




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xiii

Chronology o Signicant Events in the

History o Ancient Israel

20001900 ... Tird dynasty o Ur in Mesopotamia; XII dynasty in Egypt19001800 ... First Babylonian dynasty

17281686 ... Period o Hammurapi, the historical setting or the patriarchal narratives,

spanning our generations rom Abraham to the sons o Jacob

17001600 ... Hyksos invade Egypt; Babylonia declines; possible Hebrew migration into

Egypt

12901211 ... XIX dynasty in Egypt, Pharaohs Ramses II and Merneptah: the historical

setting or the story o the Jews enslavement in Egypt, the rise o Moses,

and the Exodus

End o thirteenthcentury ...

An entity known as Israel is attested in Canaan

12001000 ... Philistines settle along the coast o Canaan; the historical setting or the

events o the book o JudgesIsraelite tribes inhabit tribal areas throughout

Canaan, at times orming alliances against common enemies under the

leadership o judges

11001000 ... Philistine ascendancy in Canaan; the prophet Samuel anoints Saul rst king

in Israel

1000961 ... King David consolidates the Israelite tribes in a united kingdom and

establishes Jerusalem as the national capital961922 ... King Solomon builds the emple in Jerusalem

922 ... Upon Solomons death, the ten northern tribes rebel, creating Israel in the

north, ruled by Jeroboam I, and Judah in the south, ruled by Rehoboam

876842 ... In Israel: the Omri dynasty; the prophet Elijah (c. 850 ...) rails against

Baal worship under Ahab and his queen, Jezebel. In Judah: Jehoshaphat

rules, ollowed by Jehoram

842 ... In Israel: Jehu establishes a dynasty and pays tribute to Assyria. In Judah:

Athaliah rules

786746 ... In Israel: Jeroboam II reigns; the prophets Amos and Hosea deliver their

oracles

750730 ... Aggressive Assyrian expansion; the prophet Isaiah begins his prophetic

career in Judah (c. 742700 ...)

732 ... Syria alls to the Assyrians; soon afer, the prophet Micah delivers oracles in

Judah

722 ... Assyrians under Shalmaneser V conquer Samaria, the capital o Israel;

Sargon II makes Samaria an Assyrian province, marking the end o the

northern kingdom; mass Israelite deportation

(continued)




40/73

xiv Chronology of Significant Events

715 ... Hezekiah reigns in Judah and initiates religious reorms in line with

Deuteronomistic ideology

701 ... Sennacherib o Assyria lays siege to Jerusalem; Judah becomes a tributary

vassal o Assyria

687642 ... Manasseh reigns in Judah and reintroduces oreign cultic practices

640609 ... Josiah reigns in Judah; initiates religious reorms, centralizing the worship

o Yahweh in the Jerusalem emple; short period o Judean independence

628622 ... Zephaniah delivers his prophecies

626587 ... Jeremiah delivers his prophecies

612 ... Babylonians and Medes raze Nineveh, the capital o Assyria; Babylonians

soon establish dominance over the ancient Near East

609 ... Judean King Josiah killed in the Battle o Megiddo605 ... Habakkuk delivers his prophecies

597 ... Nebuchadrezzar o Babylonia attacks Judah; rst deportation to Babylonia

includes Judahs king Jehoiachin and the prophet Ezekiel

593 ... Ezekiel begins to deliver his prophecies in Babylonia

587586 ... Jerusalem alls to the Babylonians; second deportation includes Judahs

King Zedekiah; the prophet Jeremiah ees to Egypt

539 ... Babylon alls to Cyrus II o Persia; period o the prophecies o Second Isaiah

538 ... Cyruss edict permits Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the emple; rst

exiles return under Sheshbazzar

520515 ... Jerusalem emple is rebuilt; the prophets Haggai and Zechariah are active;

Judah (Yehud) is a semiautonomous province o the Persian Empire

Fifh century ... Malachi delivers his prophecies; a second return under Ezra occurs (date

uncertain)

445 ... Nehemiah arrives in Judah; rebuilds the walls o Jerusalem

336323 ... Alexander conquers the ancient Near East; Hellenistic period begins

300200 ... Palestine alls under the control o the Ptolemies o Egypt; rise o the Jewish

community o Alexandria in Egypt200 ... Palestine alls under the control o the Seleucids o Syria

175163 ... Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes inames actional violence in

Jerusalem; Judah Maccabee and his sons lead a revolt in 167 ...

164 ... Maccabean victory; the desecrated emple is rededicated to Yahweh; Judea

becomes an independent kingdom under the Hasmoneans




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1

1

Te Legacy o Ancient Israel

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, archaeologists unearthed the

great civilizations o the ancient Near East: ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia,

and the area we reer to as the Fertile Crescent, including Canaan. Scholars

have been stunned by the ruins and records o these remarkable cultures

and civilizationsmassive, complex empires in some cases, many o which

had completely disappeared rom human memory. Teir newly uncoveredlanguages had been long orgotten; their rich literary and legal texts were

indecipherable (though that soon changed). Tanks to these discoveries,

scholars were soon in a position to appreciate the monumental achieve-

ments o these early civilizations.

Many scholars have remarked that it is no small irony that the ancient

Near Eastern people with one o the most lasting legacies was not a people

that built and inhabited one o the great centers o ancient Near Eastern civi-

lization. It can be argued that the ancient Near Eastern people with the mostlasting legacy was a people that had an idea. It was a new idea that broke

with the ideas o their neighbors. Tose people were the Israelites.

Scholars have come to the realization that despite the Bibles preten-

sions to the contrary, the Israelites were a small and relatively insignicant

group or much o their history. Around the year 1000 ..., they did es-

tablish a kingdom in the land that was known in antiquity as Canaan. Tey

probably succeeded in subduing some o their neighbors and collecting trib-

ute (though there is controversy about that), but in approximately 922 ...,




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2 Te Legacy of Ancient Israel

this kingdom divided into two smaller kingdoms o lesser importance. Te

northern kingdom, consisting o ten o the twelve Israelite tribes and re-

taining the name Israel, was destroyed in 722 ... by the Assyrians. Te

southern kingdom, consisting o two o the twelve tribes and known as Ju-

dah, managed to survive until the year 586 ..., when the Babylonians

conquered it. Jerusalemthe capitalell, the emple was destroyed, and

large numbers o Judeans were sent into exile.

In antiquity, conquest and exile usually spelled the end o an ethnic

national group. Conquered peoples traded their deeated god or the victo-

rious god o their conquerors. Trough cultural and religious assimilation,

the conquered nation disappeared as a distinctive entity. Indeed, that is

what happened to the ten tribes o the northern kingdom o Israel afer 722... Tey were lost to history. But it did not happen to those members o

the Israelite nation who lived in the southern kingdom o Judah (the Ju-

deans).Despite the demise o their national political base in 586 ...,

the Judeans, alone among the many peoples who have gured in ancient

Near Eastern historySumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Hittites, Phoe-

nicians, Hurrians, Canaanitesemerged afer the death o their state, and

produced a community and a culture that can be traced, through various

twists and turns, transormations and vicissitudes, down to the modernperiod. And these Judeans carried with them a radical new idea, a sacred

Scripture, and a set o traditions that would lay the oundation or the

major religions o the western world: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. So

what is this radical new idea that shaped a culture and enabled its sur-

vival not only into later antiquity but even into the present day in some

orm?

Te Israelite Idea

Scholars have postulated that the conception o the universe widespread

among ancient peoples was one in which the various natural orces were

understood to be imbued with divine power, to be in some sense divinities

themselves.Te earth was a divinity, the sky was a divinity, the water was

a divinity, or possessed divine power. In other words, the gods were identi-

cal withor immanent inthe orces o nature. Tere were thus many gods,

and no one single god was all powerul.Tere is very good evidence to suggest that most ancient Israelites

shared this worldview. Tey participated, at the earliest stages o their his-

tory, in the wider religious and cultic culture o the ancient Near East. Over




43/73

Te Legacy o Ancient Israel 3

the course o time, however, some ancient Israelites, not all at once and not

unanimously, broke with this view and articulated a different view accord-

ing to which there was one divine power, one god. More important than

this gods singularity was the act that this god was outside o and above

nature. Tis god was not identied with nature; he transcended nature. Tis

god was not known through nature or natural phenomena; he was known

through history and a particular relationship with humankind.

Tis ideawhich seems simple at rst and not so very revolutionary

affected every aspect o Israelite culture and in ways that will become clear

ensured the survival o the ancient Israelites as an ethnic-religious entity.

In various complicated ways, the view o an utterly transcendent god with

absolute control over history made it possible or some Israelites to inter-pret even the most tragic and catastrophic events, such as the destruction o

their capital and the exile o the nation not as a deeat o Israels god or even

that gods rejection o them, but as a necessary part o the deitys larger

purpose or plan or Israel.

Goals of the Book

Te Israelites bequeathed to later generations the record o their religiousand cultural revolution in the writings that are known as the Hebrew Bible.

Te present book is an introduction to the Hebrew Bible as an expression o

the religious lie and thought o ancient Israel and as a oundational docu-

ment o western civilization. Te book has several primary goals. First and

oremost, this book aims to amiliarize readers with the contents o the

Hebrew Bible. Second, this book introduces readers to a number o differ-

ent methodological approaches to the study o the Bible advanced by mod-

ern scholars. At times, the approach adopted will be that o a historian, attimes it will be that o a literary critic, and at times that o a religious and

cultural critic. Tird, the book will on occasion provide some insight into

the history o biblical interpretation. Te Bibles radically new conception

o the divine, its revolutionary depiction o the human being as a moral

agent, and its riveting saga o the nation o Israel have drawn generations o

readers to ponder its meaning and message. As a result, the Bible has be-

come the base o an enormous edice o interpretation and commentary

and debate, not only in traditional settings but also in academic and secu-lar settings. Very occasionally, this book considers how certain biblical pas-

sages have been interpretedsometimes in contradictory waysover the

centuries.




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A ourth goal o the book is to explore the culture o ancient Israel

against the backdrop o its historical and cultural setting in the ancient

Near East. Te archaeological discoveries in the ancient Near East reerred

to above reveal the spiritual and cultural heritage o all o the inhabitants

o the region, including the Israelites, and shed light on the background

and origin o the materials in the Bible. It is now clear that the traditions in

the Bible did not come out o a vacuum. Te early chapters o Genesis are

an excellent example o this claim. Genesis 1 through 11known as the

primeval history (an unortunate name because these chapters are not

best read or understood as history in the conventional sense)owe a great

deal to ancient Near Eastern mythology. Te creation story in Genesis 1

echoes themes and motis ound in the Babylonian creation epic known asEnuma Elish. Te story o the rst human pair in the Garden o Eden,

ound in Genesis 2 and 3, has clear affi nities with the Epic of Gilgamesh,an

ancient Near Eastern epic in which a hero embarks on an exhausting search

or immortality. Te story o Noah and the ood ound in Genesis 69 is

simply an Israelite version o recently discovered ancient Near Eastern pro-

totypes: a Mesopotamian ood story called the Epic of Atrahasis and a

ood story incorporated into the Epic of Gilgamesh. In short, biblical tradi-

tions have roots that stretch deep into earlier times and out into surround-ing lands and traditions. Te parallels between the biblical stories and

ancient Near Eastern stories have been the subject o intense study and will

be considered in some depth in this book.

It isnt just the similarity between the biblical materials and the an-

cient Near Eastern sources that is remarkable. Te dissimilarity is also im-

portant because it shows us how the biblical writers transormed a common

Near Eastern heritage in light o radically new Israelite conceptions o the

nature o the deity, o the created world, and o humankind. For example, aSumerian story dating to the third millennium ..., the story o Ziusu-

dra, is very similar to the Genesis ood story o Noah. In both the Sume-

rian and the Israelite ood stories, a ood occurs as the result o a deliberate

divine decision; one individual is chosen to be rescued; that individual is

given very specic instructions regarding the construction o a boat and

whom to bring on board; the ood comes and exterminates all living

things; the boat comes to rest on a mountaintop; the hero sends out birds to

reconnoiter the land; and when he comes out o the ark, he offers a sacriceto his god. Te same narrative elements appear in these two stories, but

what is o great signicance is that the biblical writer does not simply retell

a story that circulated widely in ancient Mesopotamia. Te biblical writer




45/73


transformsthe story so that it becomes a vehicle or the expression o differ-

ent values and views. In the Mesopotamian ood stories, or example, the

gods act capriciously. In act, in one o the stories, the gods complain that

noisy humans disturb their sleep and decide to wipe them all out indis-

criminately with no moral scruple. Te gods destroy the helpless but stoical

humans who chae under their tyrannical, unjust, and uncaring rule. But

in the biblical story, the details are modied to reect a moral purpose: It is

the deitys uncompromising ethical standard that leads him to bring the

ood in an act o divine justice. He is punishing the evil corruption o the

human beings he has so lovingly created and whose degradation he cannot

bear to witness. Tus, the story provides a very different message in its Isra-

elite version.Comparing the Bible with the literature o the ancient Near East re-

veals not only the cultural and literary heritage common to them but also

the ideological gul that separated them. Te biblical writers used these

stories as a vehicle or the expression o a radically new idea. Tey drew

upon older sources but shaped them in a particular way, creating a critical

problem or anyone seeking to reconstruct ancient Israelite religion or cul-

ture on the basis o the biblical materials: the conicting perspectives o the

nal editors o the text and o the older sources that are incorporated intothe Bible. Tose who were responsible or the nal edited orm o the text

had a decidedly monotheistic perspective that they attempted to impose on

the older source materials. For the most part they were successul. But at

times the result o their effort is a deeply conicted, deeply ambiguous text

eaturing a cacophony o voices.

In many respects, the Bible represents or expresses a basic discontent

with the larger cultural milieu in which it was produced. And yet, many

moderns think o the Bible as an emblem o conservatism, an outdateddocument with outdated ideas. Te challenge o the present book is to help

readers view the Bible with resh eyes in order to appreciate it or what it

was: a revolutionary cultural critique. o view the Bible with resh and ap-

preciative eyes, readers must rst acknowledge and set aside some o their

presuppositions about the Bible.

Myths and Facts about the Bible

It is impossible not to hold opinions about this text because it is an intimate

part o our culture. Even those who have never opened or read the Bible can

cite a verse or a phrase, such as an eye or an eye, a tooth or a tooth or




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the poor will always be with youalthough it is likely they do not know

what these phrases really mean in their original context. Verses are quoted

or alluded to, whether to be championed and valorized or lampooned and

pilloried, and such citations create within us a general impression o the

biblical text and its meaning. As a result, people believe they have a rough

idea o the Bible and its outlook, when in act what they have are popular

misconceptions that come rom the way the Bible has been used or mis-

used. Indeed, many o our cherished presuppositions about the Bible are

based on astonishing claims that others have made on behal o the Bible,

claims that the Bible has not made on behal o itsel.

Tere is value in examining and setting aside some o the more com-

mon myths about the Bible. Te rst common myth is that the Bible is abook. In act, the Bible is not a book with the characteristic eatures that

such a designation implies. For example, the Bible does not have a uniorm

style, a single author, or a single messageeatures conventionally implied

by the word book.Te Bible is a library or an anthology o books written

and edited over an extensive period o time by people in very different situ-

ations responding to very different issues and stimulipolitical, historical,

philosophical, religious, and moral stimuli. Moreover, there are many

types or genres o material in the Bible. Tere are narrative texts, and thereare legal texts. Tere are cultic and ritual texts that prescribe how a given

ceremony is to be perormed. Tere are records o the messages o proph-

ets. Tere is lyric poetry and love poetry. Tere are proverbs, and there are

psalms o thanksgiving and lament. In short, there is a tremendous variety

o material in this library.

It ollows rom the act that the Bible is not a book but an anthology o

diverse works that it is also not an ideological monolith. Each book within

the biblical collection, or strand o tradition within a biblical book, soundsits own distinctive note in the symphony o reection that is the Bible. Gen-

esis is concerned to account or the origin o things and wrestles with the

existence o evil, idolatry, and suffering in a world created by a good god.

Te priestly texts in Leviticus and Numbers emphasize the sanctity o all

lie, the ideal o holiness, and ethical and ritual purity. Tere are odes to

human reason and learning in the wisdom book o Proverbs. Ecclesiastes

scoffs at the vanity o all things, including wisdom, and espouses a kind o

positive existentialism. Te Psalms contain writings that express the ullrange o emotions experienced by the worshipper toward his or her god.

Job challenges conventional religious piety and arrives at the bittersweet

conclusion that there is no justice in this world or any other, but that none-




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theless we are not excused rom the thankless, and perhaps ultimately mean-

ingless, task o righteous living.

One o the most wonderul and ortuitous acts o history is that later

Jewish communities chose to put this diverse material in the collection we

call the Bible. Tey chose to include all o these dissonant voices and did

not strive to reconcile the conictsand nor should modern readers be-

cause the Bible isnt a book but a library. Each book, each writer, each voice

reects another thread in the rich tapestry o human experience, human

response to lie and its puzzles, and human reection on the sublime and

the depraved.

A second myth about the Bible that should be set aside is that biblical

narratives are pious parables about saints. Biblical narratives are not simple,pious tales. Tey are psychologically real literature about realistic people

whose actions are not always exemplary and whose lives should not always

be models or our own. Tere isa genre o literature that details the lives o

saints called hagiography, but that genre emerges later in the Christian era.

It is not ound in the Hebrew Bible. Te Bible abounds with human, not

superhuman, beings and their behavior can be scandalous, violent, rebel-

lious, outrageous, lewd, and vicious. But at the same time, like real people,

biblical characters can turn and act in ways that are loyal and true or aboveand beyond the call o duty. Tey can and do change.

Nevertheless, many people open the Bible or the rst time and

quickly close it in shock and disgust. Jacob is a deceiver! Joseph is an arro-

gant, spoiled brat! Judah reneges on his obligations to his daughter-in-law

and sleeps with a prostitute! Who are these people? Why are they in the

Bible? Te shock some readers eel comes rom their expectation that the

heroes o the Bible are perectly pious people. Such a claim is not made by

the Bible itsel. Biblical characters are realistically portrayed, with realisticand compelling moral conicts, ambitions, and desires. Tey can act short-

sightedly and selshly, but like real people they can learn and grow and

change. I we work too hard and too quickly to vindicate biblical characters

just because they are in the Bible, or attribute to them pious qualities and

characteristics as dictated by later religious traditions, then we miss the

moral sophistication and the deep psychological insights that have made

these stories o timeless interest.

A third myth to be set aside is that the Bible is suitable or children.Te subject matter in the Bible is very adult, particularly in the narrative texts.

Tere are episodes o treachery and incest and murder and rape. Neither

is the Bible or nave optimists. It speaks to those who have the courage to




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acknowledge that lie is rie with pain and conict, just as it is lled with

compassion and joy.

Te Bible is not or children in a second sense. Like any literary mas-

terpiece, the Bible is characterized by a sophistication o structure and style

and an artistry o theme and metaphor that are ofen lost even on adult

readers. Te Bible makes its readers work. It doesnt moralize, or at least it

rarely moralizes. It exploresmoral issues and situations; it places its charac-

ters in moral dilemmasbut very ofen the reader must draw the conclu-

sions. Tere are also paradoxes, subtle puns, and ironies that the careul

reader soon learns to appreciate.

Te ourth myth to be set aside is that the Bible is a book o theology.

Te Bible is not a catechism, a book o systematic theology, or a manual oreligion, despite the act that at a much later time, very complex systems o

theology would be spun rom particular interpretations o biblical pas-

sages. Tere is nothing in the Bible that corresponds to prevailing modern

western notions o religion; indeed, there is no word or religion in the lan-

guage o biblical Hebrew. With the rise o Christianity, western religion

came to be dened, to a large degree, in terms o doctrine and belie. Te

notion o religion as requiring conession o, or intellectual assent to, a cat-

echism o belies is entirely alien in biblical times and in the ancient NearEast generally. Tus, to become an Israelite, one simply joined the Israelite

community, lived an Israelite lie, and died an Israelite death; one obeyed

Israelite law and custom, revered Israelite lore, and entered into the historical

community o Israel by accepting a common ate. Te process most resem-

bled what today would be called naturalization.

In short, the Hebrew Bible is not a theological textbook. It is not pri-

marily an account o the divine, which is what the word theologyconnotes.

It eatures a great deal o narrative, and its narrative materials provide anaccount o the odyssey o apeople,the nation o Israel. o be sure, although

the Bible does not contain ormal statements o religious belie or system-

atic theology, it does treat moral and sometimes existential issues that would

become central to the later discipline o theology, but it treats them in a very

different manner. Te Bibles treatment o these issues is indirect and im-

plicit. It uses the language o story and song, poetry, paradox, and metaphor

a language and a style very distant rom the language and style o later

philosophy and abstract theology.It is important that readers not import into their reading o the He-

brew Bible their conceptions o a divine being generated by the later dis-

cipline o philosophical theology. Te character Yahweh o the Hebrew




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Bible should not be conused with the god o western theological specula-

tion (generally denoted as God). Qualities attributed to the latter by

theologianssuch as omniscience and immutabilitysimply are not at-

tributed to the biblical character Yahweh by the biblical narrators. Yahweh

is ofen surprised by the actions o humans and is known to change his

mind and adjust his plans in response to what he learns about human na-

ture and behavior. Accordingly, one o the greatest challenges or modern

readers o the Hebrew Bible is to allow the text to mean what it says, when

what it says ies in the ace o centuries o theological construction o the

concept God.

A nal myth concerns the Bibles provenance. Te Bible itsel does not

claim to have been written by a deity. Te belie in the Bibles divineauthorship is a religious doctrine o a much later age, though how literally

it was meant is not clear. Similarly, the books o Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,

Numbers, and Deuteronomy, known as the Pentateuch, nowhere claim to

have been written in their entirety by Moses. Later tradition would reer to

these ve books as the orah (Instruction) o Moses, and eventually the

belie would arise that they were authored by Moses, a view questioned al-

ready in the Middle Ages and not accepted by modern scholars. Te Bible

was ormulated, assembled, edited, modied, censored, and transmittedrst orally and then in writingby human beings. Tere were many con-

tributors over many centuries, and the individual styles and concerns o

those writers and editors, their political and religious motivations, betray

themselves requently.

Structure and Contents

Te Hebrew Bible is an assemblage o books and writings dating rom ap-proximately 1000 ... (opinions vary on this point) down to the second

century ... Te last book within the Hebrew Bible was written in the

160s ... Some o these books contain narrative snippets, legal materials,

or oral traditions that may date back even urther in time. Tese materials

may have been transmitted orally but eventual

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