The Covenant Nation of Israel: Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel

COVENANT,
PAROUSIA, & APOCALYPSE: INTRODUCTion to Scripture
as Narrative, LituRGY, and Patristic witness. Dr. Patrick S. Fodor
© 2017
INTRODUCTION Covenant Beginnings Introduction to Biblical Texts/ Orientation to the Methods of Biblical
Study
In this course, we will be taking a very quick overview of the Jewish and
Christian Scriptures. The primary text will be these Scriptures themselves
in the Revised Standard Version- the only translation approved for use by
Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches. By the
conclusion of this course you should have a very general sense of what
kinds of literature are included in the Bible, and the ways in which these
biblical texts are understood by the communities in which they were formed.
It will be presumed throughout this course that the major structural
framework of the Scriptures is one of covenants- about which we will say
more shortly. We will begin by looking at the general outline of the
Scriptures and a look at various methods which have been used to read,
hear, and study these texts. It should be pointed out at the outset that the original medium for the use
of the Scriptures was oral/aural. It was not a literary text at all, at
least not in the modern use of the term. It was intended to be spoken,
sung, and heard. The texts were only written down so that they could
repeatedly be made oral again. This is important because oral communication
has a different dynamic than reading or studying a text. To hear a text
spoken or sung is, in some sense, to have the message of that text imposed
upon the hearer. To read a text is, on the other hand, to impose one's self
on that text, and to immediately become occupied with "using it" for one's
own purposes. In the ancient world no one read documents silently. They were always read
"out loud," and were considered "living" words- words that performed some
function by virtue of their being so read. They were in no sense
"stagnant." Proclamation of decrees, publication of contracts, and the
speaking of various texts were all powerful, oral events which presumed a
certain relationship with the speaker and the hearers. Part of the dynamic of these oral events of Scripture reading was the
expectation that these word would take certain identifiable forms which the
hearers would be able to identify. One form in ancient texts, including the
Scriptures, is, for example, the chiasm. In the chiasm the details are
paired from the beginning and the end and move in toward the middle, where
the main point is made. We usually put the high point- the climax- at the
end. In the ancient Middle-East the high point was often in the middle
instead. The invisible outline which would be heard by the trained ear
looks like this: A (verse 1ab) Jesus calls the disciples to Himself.
B (verses 1c-3) The crowd is hungry.
C (4-5) Seven loaves.
D (6a) Jesus commands the crowd to recline on the ground.
C1 (6b-7) Seven loaves and a few fish.
B1 (8-9) The crowd eats and is satisfied.
A1 (10a) Jesus sends the crowds away. In this outline of Mark 8: 1-10 the main point of the feeding is made in
verse 6a: Jesus has the crowd recline. This posture recalls the way God
commanded the Israelites to eat in the wilderness after leading them out of
Egyptian slavery. It means that Jesus is identifying Himself with this same
God, come to set the people free from bondage. [1] In addition to the literary forms of the texts, there are also historical
details which serve to contextualize the texts' meaning. These details
include what has happened before, the laws God has given and how they have
been understood, the social institutions of the day, and various ways of
looking at reality, including matters such as the system of honor and
shame, the role between rulers and people, and many others. Finally, it is vital to understand that all translations of the ancient
texts are just that- translations. It is extremely difficult, and in many
cases impossible, to communicate the full meaning and flavor of words in
one language in another language. The knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Greek are important for the detailed study of these texts. Lexicons, which
show the meaning and context of the words of the original languages are
important tools. While this makes deeper study inaccessible for many
people, it is still possible to have some access to some of the insights of
the original languages through tools which have been designed for this
purpose. Many kinds of study aids have been developed for those who cannot
read the ancient languages. In order to rightly understand texts it is important to establish what
those texts are. In no case do we have the autographs- the first, original
documents. We have copies. This does not mean that the texts are
untrustworthy; but it does mean that we have to use some discernment in
determining which texts are trustworthy and which have, for various
reasons, been abridged, modified or embellished. This study is called
"lower Criticism." The original texts of the Old Testament were written primarily in Hebrew.
Some later texts of the Old Testament were originally written down in
Aramaic, or in Greek. The texts not already in Greek were translated in
Jewish scholars in Greek in the centuries before Christ. This edition of
the Scriptures all in Greek is called the Septuagint or LXX, for the
seventy scholars who reportedly worked on it. The modern Jewish edition of
the Hebrew texts was edited at a Jewish council at a town called Jamnia c.
100 AD. The list of accepted books, called the canon- meaning "rule," or
"standard"- was at this point set to exclude the books originally written
in Greek; these books were called Apocrypha, which means "hidden"
writings.. The Christian Church, which used the LXX as its standard text,
continued to use these books, which are called the "deuterocanonical" (or
"secondary canon") books. Most- but not all- of the quotations of the Old
Testament in the New Testament are from the LXX. At the time of the
Protestant Reformation the canon Jamnia was used. More recent discoveries
of ancient Hebrew texts, such as those found at Qumran, tend to support the
readings of the LXX over the edition of the Hebrew texts edited at
Jamnia.[2] Apocrypha is the more derogatory term, and reflects the
different canon accepted by Jews and Protestants over against that accepted
by Roman Catholics and the Orthodox. The New Testament texts have a similar story. The majority of texts, from a
wide geographical area in the ancient world, have a high degree of
uniformity. These make up what is often called the Received Text, or the
Ecclesiastical Text, and are the edition which has been formally accepted
by the Greek Churches (and others) to this day. More recent discoveries of
older manuscripts, or manuscript fragments, have convinced many scholars
that a different text should be constructed. This eclectic text is made up,
however, of a smaller number of manuscripts which often contradict one
another. A growing number of scholars are critical of the subjective biases
which creep into this eclectic text. In addition to "Lower Criticism," the study of manuscripts, there is also
the study called "Higher Criticism." This methodology attempts to determine
the meaning of texts by "getting behind" those texts to the authors and the
settings which may have influenced them. The presuppositions of those using
these methods are generally not as respectful of the texts as sources of
divine revelation; but many insights of higher criticism have been very
helpful in seeing the importance of various literary forms and the
conscious methodology of various biblical authors. Having established texts, it is then necessary to know the ways in which
the audience (literally, "hearers") interact with proclaimed texts. Ways of
hearing and understanding texts always (in the ancient world) have to do
with hearing them within the community, which gives their interpretation or
at least perimeters within which right interpretation takes place. This was
true in ancient Israel, in the Christian church of the first four
centuries, and in the Jewish and Christian communities until this day.
Individualism is not an historical phenomenon for the determination of
meaning.
The original use of the Old Testament texts was liturgical. The scrolls,
made of animal hide, were wrapped around two rods. The Scriptures were
classified as the Torah (Pentateuch), Prophets and Writings. The term
Pentateuch means, in fact, five scrolls, since this is the amount of space
these five books took up. The word Torah, which is often translated "law,"
means "instruction" or "revelation." The first five books are also known as
the "Five Books of Moses," after the primary human author. The acronym
TaNaKh points to all three categories of Scriptures used in liturgical
Services of the Temple. The Hebrew classification "Prophets" includes two
subcategories: the former prophets (Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2
Kings) and the latter prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the "Book of
the Twelve," also called the "minor prophets"). The "Writings" include
everything else, including what might be called historical books- Ezra,
Nehemiah, 1 & 2 Chronicles,