Hamilton, Mark W.

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LeavenVolume 21Issue 2 The Book of Exodus Article 134-1-2013Resources for the Study of ExodusMark W. Hamiltonmwh00c@acu.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leavenThis Resource Guide is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion inLeaven by an authorized administrator of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact Kevin.Miller3@pepperdine.edu.Recommended CitationHamilton, Mark W. (2013) "Resources for the Study of Exodus," Leaven: Vol. 21: Iss. 2, Article 13.Available at: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol21/iss2/13Like many people my age, I first came to the story of the exodus through the great filmmaker Cecil B.DeMille, whose four-hour masterpiece, The Ten Commandments, graced television screens oneSunday night a year just before Easter. Who can forget the barely submerged eroticism of AnneBaxter, to say nothing of the insolence of Edward G. Robinson’s Dathan or the Proustian pitifulness of YulBrenner’s Ramesses? Set against the backdrop of the Cold War’s struggle against tyranny and drawing ona longer tradition of biblical interpretation of the exodus story going back to the ancient books of Enoch andJubilees and the Bible itself, DeMille spoke for a generation that took the Bible for granted.That reality no longer exists, at least not in the same way. The 1990s story of sibling rivalry and politicalfreedom, The Prince of Egypt, did not capture the cultural imagination in the way DeMille’s work did—norcould it have, even though in many respects it is a better film. (And even more biblical, with its final song beinga direct quotation from the Hebrew of Exodus 15.) Times have changed, and the interpretation of the book ofExodus and the story behind it has changed with them. The politics of the mid-twentieth century, in which anti-Communism and Zionism were the preferred options of enlightened Westerners, have given way to a new,more cynical and inward-looking politics suspicious of metanarratives and sensitive to the costs of liberationmovements in bloodshed and displacement of peoples. Today’s radical chic cannot see Israel’s liberationwithout considering the fate of the Canaanites. So we live in chastened times.Exodus in HistoryTo recover Exodus for our time, we must recognize that, as with any biblical book, understanding thismasterpiece requires examination of its historical, literary and theological aspects. To begin, historicalproblems include both the truth about events in the second millennium BCE that apparently lie behind thebiblical stories and the afterlife of the text among its many interpreters. Against a range of historians whohave felt the exodus to be largely fictional, James K. Hoffmeier has argued in Israel in Egypt: theEvidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) andAncient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2005) that many elements of the stories have a plausible historical core. In the formerwork, he traces evidence for Semites in Egypt during the second millennium, situates some aspects of theJoseph story in Egyptian political practices and finds Egyptian elements in the first few chapters of Exodus.A welcome antidote to the almost incredible arbitrariness of some so-called minimalist approaches to biblicalhistory (e.g., the work of Thomas Thompson and Niels Peter Lemche), Hoffmeier’s books force areconsideration of Israel’s stories.His second volume extends the discussion into the rest of the Pentateuch, in which he rightly avoids theextreme literalist views of the biblical texts (noting, for example, that the 600,000 warriors allegedly found inMoses’ army cannot be the correct translation of the Hebrew word ’eleph), but still finds historical kernelsin notions of the Mountain of God and the desert tent sanctuary. Much of this work has earlier precedents inthe research of Frank Moore Cross and some of his students and colleagues (i.e., the so-called AlbrightResources for the Study of ExodusMark W. Hamilton1Hamilton: Resources for the Study of ExodusPublished by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2013110  LEAVEN Second Quarter 2013School), but Hoffmeier has carefully considered counterarguments. Hence, his work represents the state ofthe discussion by and large.From a very different direction comes Hector Avalos’s provocative book Slavery, Abolitionism, and theEthics of Biblical Scholarship (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2011). Though his study traces portrayals ofslavery throughout the Christian canon and (selectively, perhaps tendentiously) in the history of Christiantheology, he offers a long discussion of Exodus and argues that it is not the liberating text often assumed. Orrather, given the Bible’s long history of use in the defense of slavery, he insists on its uselessness for formingmoral arguments. He arrives at this drastic viewpoint, so consonant with the approaches of the so-called NewAtheists, by denying the legitimacy of reinterpretation or refiguration of the biblical text. While such anextreme hermeneutical position might seem unwarranted, at least Avalos’s work forces anyone taking asentimental approach to theology to tread carefully.Exodus as LiteratureThe historical issues thus intertwine with literary ones, which are more crucial to the understanding of Exodusas a book. Understanding its creative deployment of genealogy, conflict story, war song, laws, theophanyreports and cultic blueprints (to name only the most important literary forms) requires a sense of the wholework as well as its constituent parts. Several recent major commentaries aid this understanding. For example,Thomas B. Dozeman (Exodus [Eerdmans Critical Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009]) situates hiswork in the scholarship now emerging after the disintegration of the Documentary Hypothesis. Hedistinguishes between P and Non-P accounts, dating both to the exilic or post-exilic periods (though with manyexamples of earlier material embedded within them), and concludes that their precise dating is not essential totheir interpretation. Rather, he argues, a careful study of the P material “will reveal a dynamic inner-biblicalrelationship with the Non-P History in Exodus, in which divergent interpretations of origin stories are relatedwithout being harmonized” (42). The 763 pages (plus indexes and bibliography) of the commentary explorethat relationship in detail, along the way offering many useful insights into the text.Even more massive is the commentary of William H. C. Propp (Exodus [2 vols.; Anchor Bible 2; New York:Doubleday, 1999, 2006]), which—in addition to the expected attention to text critical and historical criticalissues—tries to understand many of the motifs of Exodus in light of folklore studies, especially the work of theeponymous V. I. Propp in his pioneering work The Morphology of the Folktale (Austin: University of TexasPress, 1968). Many of the biblical stories seem to fit patterns of hero-story found in oral traditions around theworld. This commentary offers several items that are particularly instructive, notably extensive references totraditional Jewish (rabbinic) sources and occasional excurses clearly and refreshingly labeled as “Speculation.”Most extensive of all is the four-volume work of Cornelis Houtman (Exodus [Historical Commentary onthe Old Testament; Kampen, Netherlands: Kok, 1993–2002]). Like other volumes in the HCOT series,Houtman attempts to address most text-critical, grammatical and historical issues of the biblical text.Preachers and teachers will benefit most fully from the long discussions for each pericope labeled “Essentialsand Perspectives.” These sections offer detailed yet engaging discussions of the theological and literarydimensions of a text. The author then proceeds to a verse-by-verse “Scholarly Exposition” of a given unit inwhich he works out the major critical issues. Although the former section depends on the latter, each worksindependently to serve the purposes of a given reader.For those who do not wish to traverse the wide expanses of these three books, a learned companion forExodus appears in Carol Meyers’ Exodus (New Cambridge Bible Commentary; Cambridge/New York:Cambridge University Press, 2005). Meyers states her task as understanding the book’s story line,sociocultural context, literary and rhetorical strategies and themes and values (innovative and otherwise), aswell as the interpretive and moral issues it raises (18). She achieves even this ambitious set of goals in aboutthree hundred pages, an extraordinary feat that makes hers the best available (in English, at least) shortcommentary on Exodus.Any study of the literary issues involved in Exodus should consider John T. Willis’ work on the history ofthe interpretation of Exodus 4:24–26, the odd text in which YHWH attempts to slay Moses while on the road2Leaven, Vol. 21 [2013], Iss. 2, Art. 13http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol21/iss2/13THE BOOK OF EXODUS LEAVEN  111to Egypt (Yahweh and Moses in Conflict: The Role of Exodus 4:24–26 in the Book of Exodus [Bern:Peter Lang, 2010]). Willis spends most of the volume on a thorough description of the pericope’s history ofinterpretation and reception but offers the beginnings of a new proposal that situates the encounter on the roadto Egypt in the context of a pattern of stories about conflicts involving Moses, some with God and others withIsrael. The volume provides the raw material for a scaled-up proposal that would help illuminate not only thisenigmatic text, but also a key dimension of the Moses stories in the Pentateuch.Theological and Pastoral ImplicationsIf the struggle between Moses and YHWH reveals the theological complexity—and otherness—of Exodus,then informed readers of the book must ask what it wishes to say about the God who elected Israel. SurelyDozeman and others are right to recognize that multiple perspectives are in play in Exodus and that the finalredactor has both privileged the P point of view and left non-P ideas fully exposed so that the inevitabletensions created can be theologically generative. This tensive generativity of a text that offers, for example,both a fixed holy site at Horeb and a movable one in a Tent (both ideas from P, but also other strands) isvery high. Hence the extraordinary theological afterlife of the text of Exodus as the synagogue and churchreceived it.Though not strictly theological, David P. Wright’s book Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Codeof the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) offers animportant example of how the biblical texts engaged long-standing traditions—in this case, legal—and addednew insights to them. Particularly for conservative Protestants whose view of biblical law is often profoundlyill-informed and wrong-headed, Wright’s learned comparison of the Covenant Code’s (Exodus 21–23)provisions with those in other ancient law codes—notably Hammurabi’s—illustrates the intellectual andspiritual work that lies behind biblical law.Similarly, Joshua Berman’s discussion of the Bible’s recasting of ancient Near Eastern political thought(Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought [Oxford: Oxford University Press,2008]) should be required reading for anyone seeking to apply the Bible to modern life. His chapter on Exodus(135–66) focuses on the long-known parallel between the stories of Moses and Sargon of Agade being drawnout of the water. For Berman, the Sargon story (known in a Neo-Assyrian text, but telling a tale about a rulerfrom the third millennium) reeks of authoritarianism: its first-person narration is typical of royal pseudo-autobiography designed to “construct an authoritarian personality” (147). By contrast, Exodus employs a third-person narrative, in which humans act with freedom while God lurks in the background. The readerapproaches the text as if it were an “objective” reality, not a device for cowing him or her into submission to adominant power. This difference, according to Berman, reveals one of many examples of the Bible’s strikingemphasis on a covenantal pattern of life that is far more egalitarian than anything in its environment.For preachers, a valuable book is Reclaiming the Imagination: The Exodus as Paradigmatic Narrativefor Preaching (ed. David Fleer and Dave Bland; St. Louis: Chalice, 2009). The essays and sermons in thebook closely interact with each other to create a model of the possibilities for imaginative preaching groundedin the biblical text. By providing a forum for dialogue between scholars and preachers (and some who areboth), the editors signal the importance of preaching as a mode of biblical interpretation and the centrality ofthe Bible, insofar as it reveals the working of the God of Jesus Christ, to the language of the church.Finally, to return to the theology of Exodus proper, one should consider Donald Gowan’s Theology inExodus: Biblical Theology in the Form of a Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994). Moreaccessible to a general audience and more focused on the overall theological profile of Exodus, Gowan’svolume provides ample material for reflection for preachers and Bible class teachers. The same could be saidof the commentary on Exodus by Terence Fretheim in the Interpretation series (Louisville: Westminster JohnKnox, 1991). Fretheim shares with numerous contemporary scholars a preference for “story” as a way ofconceiving of the biblical narrative (as opposed to “history”), pointing to the key theological ideas of the book(creation, knowledge of God, images for God, liberation, worship and divine presence as well as law, covenantand identity) as pieces of a paradigm for any community worshiping the God of Israel.3Hamilton: Resources for the Study of ExodusPublished by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2013112  LEAVEN Second Quarter 2013Conclusions Since the volume of literature about the book of Exodus and the history of its reception in commentary,sermon, song and visual media defies cataloguing, much less description, I have sought here to recommend asmall library of books that would help readers begin the work of serious critical engagement with one of themost important works ever written. The influence of the exodus story and the book reporting it would bedifficult to overestimate because some of the most fundamental assumptions about human nature—not leastthe very idea of a common human nature—originated there. For preachers and teachers of the work,engagement with Exodus can become an avenue to engagement with God so that, with Moses, we standbefore the burning bush hearing our own life claimed for a liberating mission. Anything that helps us move toour own Horeb—and good scholarship does this—deserves our attention.MARK HAMILTON IS THE AUTHOR AND EDITOR OF NUMEROUS ARTICLES, REVIEWS AND BOOKS, INCLUDING A STUDY OFEXODUS, ON THE MOUNTAIN WITH GOD, PUBLISHED BY ACU PRESS IN 2009 (MWH00C@ACU.EDU).4Leaven, Vol. 21 [2013], Iss. 2, Art. 13http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol21/iss2/13

Resources for the Study of Exodus

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Resources for the Study of Exodus

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