The Centre for Jewish Studies
University of Manchester
Extra-Mural Lectures January-March 2000
Roger Tomes
DIVIDED BY A COMMON SCRIPTURE:
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN APPROACHES TO THE BIBLE
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What is the explanation for this apparent lack of enthusiasm for collaborating
in the critical enterprise? One reason is the suspicion that, at least until
very recently, its practitioners had a Christian, if not an antisemitic
agenda. The conscious or unconscious assumption would be that postexilic
or Second Temple Judaism had somehow failed to live up to the ideals of
the prophets, and that progressive revelation culminated in Jesus and Christianity
rather than in rabbinic Judaism. I first realised this when I read Chaim
Potok's novel, In the Beginning. You may know the story. David Lurie
grows up in the 1930s as a second generation American Jew in New York. He
studies Torah in the traditional manner with the commentaries in the Mikra'ot
Gedolot, but he is not satisfied with the explanations they give, e.g. of
the number of animals taken into the ark. He comes across J.H. Hertz's commentary
and discovers that it draws on non-Jewish as well as Jewish commentaries,
modern as well as ancient. He learns that a great deal of work has been
done on the Bible, but is warned that it is the work of 'anti-semitic German
goyim who tried to destroy the Bible.' He decides to find out what the goyim
have been saying, despite opposition at home: his father objects to having
German books in the house, even Moses Mendelssohn's translation of the Bible;
his cousin regards it as stealing time from the proper study of Torah. He
did find an anti-semitic element in some of the books he read: Walther Eichrodt
called Judaism 'a religion of harsh observances,' and keeping the sabbath
'a burdensome duty,' and said that Judaism in separation from Christianity
had 'a torso-like appearance.' But that was not true of them all, and he
thought that S.R. Driver, in his commentary on Genesis, was talking sense
when he said 'The Bible cannot in every part, especially not in its early
parts, be read precisely as it was read by our forefathers. We live in a
light they did not possess.' But a rabbi warns him that if he becomes a
scientific biblical scholar no one will understand him: 'Goyim will be suspicious
of you and Jews will be uneasy in your presence. Everyone will be wondering
what sacred truths of their childhood you are destroying.'
Another possibility is that study of the Bible on critical lines does
not seem to have a very prominent place in the training of rabbis, either
at the London School of Jewish Studies or at Leo Baeck College, and that
not many Jews are encouraged to take biblical courses in the universities.
Nor is there very much encouragement to rabbis and clergy in training to
study together. Leo Baeck College does invite Christian ordinands to spend
weekends at the college and in Jewish homes, but I know of no joint courses.
Even scholars who do not feel threatened by historical-critical scholarship
nevertheless feel that it is more destructive than constructive, because
it takes away the traditional basis of revelation, divinely given scripture,
without putting anything satisfactory in its place. Alan Unterman has written:
'Those who have accepted the critical view of the Bible are faced with the
problem of building a new framework for the idea of revelation' (Jews,
p.40). In similar vein, Nicholas De Lange says: 'Those Jews who reject the
fundamentalist approach are left with the problem of making sense of the
concept of revelation and biblical tradition in a world fundamentally different
from that in which traditional ideas developed' (Judaism, p.64).
In America Jon D. Levenson, who describes himself as 'an observant Jew,
who teaches Hebrew Bible at a liberal Protestant divinity school in a university
of Baptist origin,' in a careful account of the historical-critical method,
says that it 'takes the text apart by concentrating on contradictions,'
but 'lacks a method of putting it back together again' (The Hebrew Bible,
the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (1993), p.2). Morris Joseph,
rabbi of the West London Synagogue at the beginning of the last century,
who accepted totally the critical findings on the Pentateuch, Isaiah, the
Psalms and Daniel (Judaism as Creed and Life (1903), p.24), argued
in his book Judaism as Creed and Life that 'the final test of the
authority and inspiration of the Bible was the sufficiency of its appeal
to human reason, the value of its teaching for the religious life. That
the Bible was declared Divine centuries ago does not prove that it possesses
that character. It is a plea for tender and respectful treatment of the
Scriptures, but nothing more.... The Bible must in the last resort plead
for itself' (Judaism as Creed and Life (1903), pp.18-19). Louis Jacobs
also recognised the problem, but argued that 'God's power is not lessened
because he preferred to cooperate with his creatures in producing the Book
of Books' (We Have Reason to Believe, pp.80-81). Jewish practices
derive their authority from their intrinsic worth, 'from the fact that they
have provided Jews with ìladders to heavenî' and 'still have
the power of sanctifying Jewish life' (We Have Reason to Believe,
p.73), not from any external guarantee of their divine origin. Levenson
points out that of course this is a problem for Christians as well: 'Jews
and Christians can participate equally in the Spinozan agenda' - he denied
supernatural revelation - 'only because its naturalistic presuppositions
negate the theological foundations of both Judaism and Christianity' (The
Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism, p.5). But
Levenson admits that historical criticism, reading the Bible in its historical
context, is inevitable (The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical
Criticism, p.110), and obviously feels that it is important that Jews,
as well as Christians and those who are not committed to either religious
tradition, should take part in it.
The reading of the Bible is of course bound to have been affected by
the events of the twentieth century. It is much more difficult since the
Holocaust for Christians to appropriate the Hebrew Bible as their sacred
history and ignore its significance for Jews. Certain books have taken on
new meaning. Sybil Sheridan says of Lamentations: 'As writers and theologians
today grapple to find meaning in the Holocaust, one can appreciate the contribution
of Lamentations as though for the first time.... We can see a faith unshakable
in the midst of immeasurable suffering' (Creating the Old Testament,
p.308); and of Esther: 'In the post-Holocaust era, it is surprising that
more notice is not taken of this book. Such evil raises important issues
involving survival, ethics and providence' (Creating the Old Testament,
p.316). Last year I read a PhD thesis by Moshe Ish-Horovitz on 'Theodicy
as evidenced by early rabbinic discussions of the Flood,' and its relevance
to thinking about the Holocaust was very evident. I was particularly struck
by the early rabbis' readiness to question God's justice, something I have
yet to find in Christian commentary on the Flood story, ancient or modern.
However I think that there are dangers in allowing the Holocaust to overshadow
any attempts by Jews and Christians to study the Bible together. It would
not be very fruitful for present day Jews to approach the Bible as victims
or for Christians always to feel conscience-stricken. Emil Fackenheim suggests
a shared reading of those texts which have set Jews and Christians apart,
such as Jer 31.15-16 (Rachel weeping for her children) and Jer 31.31-34
(the new covenant) (Emil L. Fackenheim, The Jewish Bible after the Holocaust:
a re-reading (1990), pp.73-74,83). I would add Isa 53. Jon Levenson
in the USA has stimulated an internet discussion of the Aqedah, by suggesting
its role in Christian ideas of atonement and resurrection. And in our multi-faith
society study of the Bible's attitudes to religions other than our own is
I think a necessary task.
The other great event is of course the founding and first fifty years
of the State of Israel. Raphael Loewe, writing in 1969, said that the population
of Israel, living as it does as 'an independent political entity in its
original homeland ... evinces enormous enthusiasm for the Hebrew Bible and
for biblical archaeology, together with a substantial, if indeed somewhat
superficial familiarity with the scriptural text,' treating it 'as if the
Hebrew Bible were a charter for the Jewish people' (Prolegomenon' to reprint
of S.R.Driver and Adolf Neubauer, The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah according
to the Jewish Interpreters. II.Translations, p.11). Aryeh Newman, in
his introduction to Nehema Leibowitz's Studies in Bereshit, says
that the experience of 'direct contact with the soil of the homeland' and
of 'reliving the process of return and redemption' has led to a 'rehabilitation
of the Jewish approach to biblical study at the academic level' and 'national
and literary approaches in schools' (Studies in Bereshit (Genesis) in
the context of ancient and modern Jewish Bible commentary, pp.xxv,xxvii).
This is an experience which Christians have not shared, and many perhaps,
while admiring Israel's achievements, find it difficult to support wholeheartedly
all Israel's aspirations and policies. The conviction that the land is exclusively
Israel's by divine right is problematical for Christians as well as for
Muslims. But unwillingness to be openly critical of Israel can deter Christians
from engaging in Bible study with Jews. Perhaps we ought to put the question
of 'the Land' on the agenda.
On a rather different level I think that both Jewish and Christian believers
expect Bible reading to be uplifting and nourishing, and that they find
the historical-critical approach clinical and sterile. Some years ago two
Jewish students attended a course of mine on 'Law, Wisdom and Psalms'. It
was solidly based on the historical-critical approach. At the end of it
one of them commented that it had been an interesting academic exercise,
but that the beauty of the Bible and its permanent meaningfulness had been
ignored. My attempt to be objective had not helped to establish common ground.
Sharing of our spiritual experience of reading the Bible, while perhaps
not appropriate in a university seminar or lecture room, is also called
for.
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