Pay attention up the back!

We've spent two weeks on this, and so far we've only looked at the first five books of the Bible. But bear with me, because the pace picks up a bit now. We're covering fourteen more books this week, so pay attention at the back!

	The groupings of the books of the Old Testament: The Torah (The Law); The Histories: The Prophets: The Writings

After the Torah, we have the Histories (Samuel, Kings, etc.), the Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc.), and the Writings, or wisdom literature (Psalms, Proverbs, etc.).

The histories, since they deal with wars and kings and so forth, can be easier to date than some other parts of the Bible.

Not "history" as we understand the word…

True, they aren't "history" as we understand the word. They present the story of Israel within a moral/religious framework. Actual historical events are only included to cast light the point the author wants to make. The author isn't at all interested in a "balanced view" of history.

But, having said all this, the historical books include many verifiable historical events. This is neatly illustrated in II Kings, which records an invasion by the Assyrian king Sennacherib, who defeated the Israelites and exacted tribute from them. But then his army was devastated by plague; he retreated in short order. God's hand is detected in the plague, of course — from the biblical point of view this is the point of the story.

Sennacherib is a historical character. Monuments from his palace at Nineveh confirm that he successfully invaded, that tribute was paid, and that he came home in triumph. (Unsurprisingly, not a word about the plague. Evidently war reporting then was no more reliable than today.)

Still, to a large extent, scholars are working off internal evidence to date the histories; the language, the grammar, the style, the subject matter.

But this need not be guesswork. To illustrate; nobody reading, say, Jane Austen would think that her novels were written in the 21st century, or the 17th. From the style alone, they look like 19th century books. From the content, some of the books refer to the end of the Napoleonic wars, so they must date from after 1815, and the others from not much before that. They clearly predate the time when railways were a significant presence in English country life, which began to happen from the 1830s. The social customs point strongly to the regency period, which is generally regarded as having ended by 1837. As it happens, we know exactly when each of Austen's books was published but, even if we didn't, we could estimate to within a few years with a high degree of accuracy and reliability.

Looking at the traditional and scholarly views on authorship of the Histories…

So, having said that, let me zip through the Histories, summarising the traditional and scholarly views on authorship. To follow this it may help to open last week's commentary in a separate window — the timeline of Jewish history will be useful.

Joshua describes the conquest of Canaan at the start of the period of the Judges — i.e. around 1250 BC. Tradition says that it was written mostly by Joshua himself. The scholarly view is that much of it is indeed old--some find traces of our friends the J-writer and the E-writer. Probably the stories were transmitted orally to begin with, and written down later. The final compilation was done later still, perhaps 600 BC.

Judges tells the story of the various Judges who emerged to lead Israel from time to time — Deborah, Samson, Gideon and so on. By tradition, it was written mostly by Samuel, the last Judge, around 1000 BC. The scholarly view is that many of the stories are actually older than that, handed down from generation to generation, but only compiled and edited much later, around 600 BC.

I and II Samuel deal with the early kings of Israel — mostly David and Samuel himself. By tradition, Samuel wrote at least I Samuel, but scholars disagree. They reckon:

• one author, writing in the ninth century BC, wrote the part dealing with the life and career of David;
• a second author about 700 BC contributed the rest of the work; and
• an editor put the lot together, again around 600 BC

I and II Kings tell the story of the various kings of the northern and southern kingdoms, more or less in chronological order. It takes the story down to the Babylonian captivity, which began in 586 BC.

Among traditionalists, majority opinion says that the prophet Jeremiah wrote Kings. This is interesting, and here's why.

All the histories we have just looked at have a consistency of framework and outlook, which they share with Deuteronomy. For instance, the kings are judged as good or bad based on how well they stick to the rules set out in Deuteronomy. For that reason these books are sometimes called the Deuteronomistic history.

As we saw last week, Deuteronomy is thought to have been composed around 622 BC, and as noted above stylistic features lead most scholars to date the Deuteronomistic history books to roughly the same period. It's not stretching the bounds of possibility to suggest that the same person could have written, or edited, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history. And at least some scholars reckon that that author could have been the prophet Jeremiah, whom tradition identifies as the author of I and II Kings (though not the rest of the Deuteronomistic history). We'll have more on this when we get to Jeremiah (next week).

Regeneration and rebirth…

Ezra and Nehemiah tell the story of that the regeneration and rebirth of the Jewish people following the end of the Babylonian Captivity. They are one book in the Hebrew scriptures, but the Christians have split them into two. Tradition says the authors were Ezra, a scribe and a priest, and Nehemiah, a political leader, both active at this period. or alternatively an author known as the Chronicler (who might have been Ezra, anyway). More about the Chronicler below.

I and II Chronicles tell the story of Israel from the earliest days up to the Babylonian Exile in 586 BC. In other words, they cover the ground already covered by the Deuteronomistic history.

The last verses of Chronicles are identical to the opening verses of Ezra, thus connecting the works. Tradition says that Ezra, and possibly also Nehemiah, were the authors. Scholars identify the author as the Chronicler but, as noted above, some scholars speculate that the Chronicler was indeed Ezra. (Other scholars deny this, of course. Some say that the Chronicler is a group rather than an individual.) Tradition and scholarship agree on a composition date of 450 BC — 400 BC.

Chronicles is fascinating. It certainly post-dates the Deuteronomistic history, and may have been written as a revision of it. Sometimes it copies the Deuteronomistic history word for word; in other places it ignores, changes or omits it.

The Chronicler uses history to make moral points. He includes or excludes material according to how well it fits his ethical outlook. His theological perspective is a priestly one (which fits with Ezra being the Chronicler). The Deuteronomistic history judges kings on their adherence to the laws set out in Deuteronomy, but Chronicles judges them based on their treatment of the priesthood. The Deuteronomistic history presents Israel as a nation; the Chronicler presents Israel as a religious community.

So what we have here is basically a rewrite of an existing history, from a new standpoint. And this is interesting, because the Deuteronomistic history dates from around 600 BC, when the southern kingdom had stabilized, and was governing itself under a line of Davidic kings. Politically, things were going fairly well. But the Chronicler is writing after the Babylonian Captivity, when Israel has reestablished itself with some great difficulty, and under priestly rather than royal rulers. In the new environment Israel needs a different take on history, and the Chronicler supplies it.

Ruth is set during the era of the Judges, around 1100 BC (three generations before David.). For that reason it appears in most bibles between Judges and Samuel, but I have taken it out of order here in order to discuss the Deuteronomistic history books all together.

Tradition says it was written by Samuel. Most scholars suggest that it dates from the 9th century BC, which would be maybe 200 years later.

Esther is set during the reign of a Persian King called Ahasuerus, usually identified with the historical figure of Xerxes I (486-465 BC). The story has some plot points which scholars consider historically implausible for the period in which it is set, and scholars reckon that the book probably dates from about 350 BC,. But the basics of the story may rest on a real historical memory of an event involving Xerxes.

Traditions says the author was Mordecai, a character in the book. Scholars say that the author was probably a Jew who was familiar with the Persian court of a later period.

I and II Maccabees describe the revolt of 165 BC against the Seleucid empire — much later than all the other histories. The Jewish tradition does not consider these books to be scriptural (we'll see why not later on), and so it does not have much to say about who wrote them. According to the scholars, they show strong Hellenistic influences. I Maccabees probably was composed around 103-76 BC. II Maccabees is based on a history known to have been written by Jason of Cyrene around 120 BC.

That's it for the histories. As we can see, more than once the bible includes different books offering different accounts of the same period of history. These different histories arise, not because of disagreement about the events which happened, but because in the light of later circumstances and later needs, events are seen to have a new significance, not brought out in the older histories. In other words, these are not just histories of a particular time, but histories written for a particular audience, in particular circumstances. They emerge from the experiences and reflections of the Jewish people, therefore, in more senses than one.

Next week: the prophetic books and the wisdom literature.

ARTICLE NAVIGATION: PART I | PART II | PART III | PART IV | PART V | PART VI

What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

Peregrinus can be contacted at: Peregrinus <peregrinus@catholica.com.au>

©2007 Peregrinus

[Peregrinus' Archive]