John Anderson has a post on one of those perennial topics: what to call the collection of Scriptures that are common to both Judaism and Christianity? In the comments on that post Doug Mangum draws attention to a post of his on the topic from 18 months ago. Those who used to read my past metacatholic blog will know I toyed for a time with First Testament, a usage I have not carried over here. It of course gave me the problem of how to refer to the New Testament: I suggested then that “Last Testament” might be a more appropriately eschatological term than Second Testament. I am now more pragmatic, depending on context.
John clearly inclines towards Hebrew Bible as the best available title. I am not so sure. His “closing thought” touches on part of the problem:
in my Ph.D. admissions interview at Baylor, I was asked whether it was possible for a Christian to read the Hebrew Bible, or whether they are always reading the Old Testament. This question bears significantly on the present discussion. At bottom, my answer was a resounding yes . . . . as an empathetic, sympathetic, and intimate part of Israel (see Rom 9-11, as well as Boccacini, Segal, and Boyarin on the origins of early [Jewish]-Christianity), it was possible for Christians to read the Hebrew Bible. I firmly believe this–indeed, I am trying to do it!
In many ways I agree with the sentiment and the attempt at empathetic reading. The fact is though, that John belongs to a community that reads these scriptures, qua scriptures as Old Testament. In many respects the community that reads them as their scripture in totality reads them within a community tradition crystallised in Mishnah and Talmud. I wonder, very tentatively, whether reading them apart from this tradition as “the [Hebrew] Bible” is to some extent importing a Protestant idea of scripture into the concept of Hebrew Bible. I’m not sure.
It would also seem to me to be the case that the Christian reader, however much they may bracket it out for the purpose of empathetic study, know that there is a Christ shaped story climax from which further readings of the text can be and are generated. The Jewish and Christian (and other) scholars can agree and disagree on the question of what the text meant then. I am not sure that they can agree on how its meaning is to be read now.
The other interesting point John raises is in relation to the canonical ordering of the text. I think he’s right that whatever people call these common Judaeo-Christian texts, they have a Christian canonical order in mind. What I would note is that while there is a different Jewish classification of the books that are common to both canons (and one it is helpful to be aware of in the work of interpretation), it is very doubtful if we can speak of the ordering of them with any degree of confidence until after the “parting of the ways”.
That of course leads us into one of the most complicated areas of all, that the selection of these Hebrew scriptures as the Jewish Bible may well have been caught up in the self-definition of Rabbinic Judaism over against early Christianity and its adoption of a wider range of Greek scriptures. If that is so, as I think quite possible, perhaps probable, then “Hebrew Bible” is actually a canon defined to be “Not the Old Testament”. The “Hebrew Bible” of today’s scholarship may well not be the Hebrew Bible known and used by either the Jewish Jesus movement or the proto-Rabbinic movement that later became the non-sacrificing religions of Christianity and Judaism. It is, in that sense, a Jewish Bible, because it is better defined by its community than its language.
The other point that follows is that it is only within Protestantism that one can assume that Hebrew Bible and Old Testament refer to the same canonical collection. In the wider Christian world, this is not the case. In that context arguably the contrast with Hebrew Bible is not New Testament but Greek Bible, and broadly speaking for nearly one and a half millennia Old Testament referred to the Greek Jewish Scriptures and not the Hebrew Bible.
All of which suggest to me that a context sensitive pragmatic promiscuity is the only real option left to us. All the names carry an implicit theological (and historical) judgement. Use the one that best fits the purpose.
Update 4 July. For what it’s worth (and I’d forgotten until looking for a different book) Marc Zvi Brettler’s introduction is of course entitled How to Read the Jewish Bible.
{ 6 comments }
Thanks for picking up this topic.
I would challenge your all-too-easy claim that I am among a community of those who read the HB as the OT. There is not, in my view, any imperative that says one must read in this way. Indeed, if you read my post again, you will see that I am saying I read in a much different way . . . . NOT assuming a Christian order. That isn’t the order of my Hebrew Bible.
Either way, it is a muddy issue, but I think muddier than what the implications end up being. I am much more emphatic in my view that the Divine Name should not be pronounced than I am that one use the designation “Hebrew Bible” over “Old Testament.”
All the best!
Gosh, that was quick! I agree with you that its “a muddy issue”. Can I just note that when I said you “belong to a community that reads these scriptures, qua scriptures as Old ” I had deduced from you blog that you were a Christian, and therefore de facto a member of the community – the Christian Church – that read these Scriptures as its Old Testament. I’m not quite sure what you’re taking issue with in that statement.
Doug:
The jury is still out for some on where I belong!! Of course, I don’t take much interest in where others think I belong.
My quibble is simply the easy equation with “Christian” and “Old Testament.” I suspect this can be chalked up to our disagreement on whether or not a Christian can read the Hebrew Bible. I certainly think I am doing so . . . . and in a way that is not confessionally biased (I know many say that, but those who know my work and know it well, I suspect, would attest to this very point . . . . in fact, if you read my current article while it was posted on my blog for a short time I suspect that view may be more patent). I guess I just don’t see myself taking confessional issues into account when I interpret. That doesn’t mean I don’t think the scholarship I do has implications for the life of faith, but at this early stage of my career I haven’t begun to spin those issues out. Primarily, I am a reader and interpreter of texts. My eclectic and diverse (and liberal) faith positions surely have a bearing on how I interpret, as they do for us all, but I simply struggle to see myself as one who is giving a Christian reading of the HB/OT. Again, it seems our disagreement resides mainly in a Christian’s ability to read the HB.
John, thanks for the clarification. I’m afraid nested comments run out at this level, so you may have to reply below instead. But I want to ask whether the word “Bible” isn’t implicitly confessional. that is it treats any particular collection of sacred writings as a Holy Book. What Christians and Jews etc do is disagree about the extent of the writings that make up The Book. I think that’s partly why I think Hebrew Bible is as much a problem as any other term.
Clayboy, I think you have it almost right. On only one point I disagree with you — there are no scriptures common to Judaism and Christianity.
Christianity’s Obsolete Testament is properly based on that poorly kept set of random Hellenistic translations known as the “Septuagint.” While clearly of Jewish origin, as maintained by the Church they drifted considerably — the textual background of them is poor that the current scholarly NETS translation is forced to printing translations of the multiple versions of the surviving document. Fortunately for Christians, it is made abundantly clear that any laws that the Obsolete Testament might contain are pretty much suspended — so the Obsolete Testament can be treated as a quaint set of cute stories — right up there with Aesop.
In contrast Judaism’s Torah was given at Sinai from God and is binding for all time. It is read several times a week during morning prayer services in Hebrew. There’s not a lot of fighting about Bible translations in Judaism because the Jews have the Hebrew. And true, there are lesser documents as well, the Prophets, and the Writings, and, of course the traditions known as the Oral Torah.
(By the way, I loved your comment about “non-sacrificing” — while there, of course, no Temple, Jews still give sacrifices — as just one example, the famous burning of kosher bread [hafrashat challah] — a tradition most Christians will be unfamiliar with because they never actually made it to Numbers 15:17-21.)
Of course, perhaps fewer than one in a thousand Christians can read the Torah in Hebrew — and even for those who attempt it in one of the modern language translations — only a tiny fraction makes it all the way through the Torah with any degree of comprehension. Most start skimming the text somewhere in the middle of the book of Exodus.
And after all — what is the point? What does a Christian need to know of the Obsolete Testament? The portions of Isaiah that form the chorus of Handel’s Messiah? The Decalogue — the ten utterances — that most Christians can’t even recite? (E.g., in Christianity, not the “ten commandments”, but the “ten suggestions”.) The main Christian teaching from the Obsolete Testament — especially in the cruder quarters of Christiandom — is “the Messiah is coming.”
And the truth is — the ignoring of the Obsolete Testament by Christians is convenient for both religions. A careful reading of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings can be a bit embarrassing for Christians (although, the magic phrase “second coming” can address some — but not all — of those concerns.) And for Judaism, where it is forbidden for tamei (impure people — this includes all gentiles) to even touch a Torah scroll — many right-wing haredi feel that allowing gentiles to read the Torah was a mistake in the first place.
So I say — let Christians read their Obsolete Testament unburdened by any actual connections to Judaism. Indeed, that seems to be the practice now (and the practice that you advocate in your comment.)
(By the way, for the humor-impaired — this comment was meant to be sarcastic.)
Theo – the problem with resorting to such a long, patently polemical comment, and then posting at the end that it’s meant to be sarcastic, is that my main reaction is WTF?
Unlike John Hobbins with whom you seem to have a relationship of mutual insult, I don’t know your real identity, and I can’t distinguish what is meant to be humourous or sarcastic from what is meant to be serious.
If you want to just post insults to Christians, piss off and do it elsewhere. If there’s a serious point try making it in plain English.
if I knew who you were, I might read your comment differently.
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