HarperCollins Study Bible, page 10
Significant new developments occurred after the foundation of the State of Israel when Jewish scholars made every effort to excavate systematically and independently the material roots of their culture in their new homeland. Only then was it possible to confront ideas about Jewish religion and identity drawn from literature with an ever increasing wave of evidence from actual settlement contexts. Much of the data recovered in large-scale, often highly publicized excavations had immediate relevance for NT scholars, including Yadin’s excavations in Masada, the exploration of the Dead Sea caves, Qumran, and the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, and the study of synagogue architecture, even though many of these expeditions only had a peripheral interest in the NT itself. If NT research wanted to keep pace with these rapid developments, more professionalization was required as well as the willingness to engage in international and inter disciplinary cooperation. Owing to the long and uninterrupted history of Jewish-Christian dialogue, ample material resources, and the accommodating diversity of institutional settings in which NT research was conducted in the United States, the leading projects were and to an extent still are sponsored by U.S. academic institutions.
In the 1970s, a pioneering and especially fruitful example of cooperation was launched between scholars of Judaic, NT, and religious studies. In the Meiron project, Meyers, Strange, Groh, and their colleagues, beginning from the premise that the early, formative phase of Christianity in the Galilee was paralleled by similar trends in the formation of Jewish communities, developed a concrete research plan with objectives applicable to actual fieldwork. Their systematic survey of the Galilee for traces of synagogues and excavations at exemplary sites produced the first “hard” data about rural life in a region extremely important for Judaism and Christianity. They also fully acknowledged the importance of regional factors for understanding Jewish and Christian culture. Their work produced many groundbreaking results regarding synagogue architecture (Meiron, Gush Halav, Nabratein), the interaction between Jewish and Hellenistic cultures, and many important details of regional material culture, such as ceramic typology. That such an integrative approach inspired further studies in related fields of Jesus research, regional history, Galilean Judaism, and rabbinic history is significant.
The Profile of an Interdisciplinary Discipline
FOR VARIOUS REASONS ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH on the NT has its own profile. First, the texts and traditions contained in the NT are extremely diverse. Backgrounds range from Aramaic-speaking Jewish Palestine to Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome with their Greek-speaking Jewish diaspora communities and multiple forms of indigenous Greek and Roman paganism. Such diversity precludes the possibility of conceiving of NT archaeology as a simple continuation or special case of traditional “biblical” or “Syro-Palestinian” archaeology. Since the composition of the canon of the NT followed criteria that are nonarchaeological, the themes and regions on the agenda for NT archaeology are somewhat arbitrary and artificial, representing a diverse segment of ancient culture. With its wide geographical and cultural outlook NT archaeology is inevitably a more interdisciplinary and cooperative endeavor than classical biblical archaeology with its mainly Palestinian/Near Eastern perspective. Since the cultural profile of a site being excavated dictates the forms of research and cooperation, so that a team working in Ostia may be confronted with quite different material than another team excavating in Galilean Tiberias, the contours of “NT archaeology” are much less clear-cut than traditional biblical or Syro-Palestinian archaeology.
Second, “NT archaeology” is almost a contradiction in itself, because the literature to which the designation refers covers only a relatively short period of time, about a hundred years, a period far too brief for the kinds of long-term analysis common in archaeology. Moreover, archaeological relics of persons or events mentioned in the NT are notoriously scarce, with the exception of members of the upper classes like Pilate, Gallio, and Caiaphas, who is possibly mentioned on an ossuary, a box for the reburial of bones. Although they need to be analyzed by acknowledged methods and integrated into our reconstructions of the history of nascent Christianity if proven genuine, archaeological relics of such figures cannot constitute the main occupation of the discipline. Hence, NT archaeology is also not to be concerned primarily with the analysis of particular events. In the earliest period of their movement, Christian groups did not produce group-specific elements of material culture but used what their surrounding cultures had available, thereby making it virtually impossible to identify their presence in the material record. The impact of the intellectual impulses triggered by Christianity on material culture becomes apparent only in the late second century CE and matures during the age of Constantine. To follow those trends considerably expands the traditional boundaries of NT studies as an academic discipline. Moreover, the cultural impulses and milieus that created the world of the NT are treated by Judaic or classical studies. Therefore, NT archaeologists are necessarily eclectic.
Since the NT represents a segment of ancient culture that is quantitatively too small and chronologically too short to produce its own identifiable material remains, NT archaeology does not operate diachronically, by tracing cultural trajectories or general social and religious developments, but rather regionally, concentrating on reconstructing as accurately as possible the concrete cultural circumstances of a given place at a given time in its dynamic interaction. It thus enables us to contextualize the early Christian traditions and texts pertinent to specific places such as Galilee, Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome. Of special interest are factors of natural and human-made conditions of living; questions of religious, ethnic, and social identity formation, represented by such things as synagogues, temples, purity-related artifacts and structures, burial places and practices, and village structures; and questions of cultural influence and exchange. Insights gained from these fields can be integrated into more general studies of Christian identity formation and history. That NT archaeology naturally overlaps with much research conducted in the neighboring disciplines of classics and Judaic studies is to be expected.
Needless to say, despite its methodological flexibility and diversification and despite its concern with a textual corpus normative for many people, NT archaeology works strictly according to the methods of its discipline. Fieldwork, documentation, and modes of interpretation in NT archaeology differ in no way from similar proceedings in archaeology in general. There can and should be no archaeologia sacra (sacred archaeology)! Archaeology will neither prove nor disprove faith claims, nor be subject to them. Reservations about the critical and sometimes deconstructive potential of archaeology are as unjustified as those about other critical scholarly disciplines. What counts in, for instance, determining the authenticity of some artifact will be arguments that are comprehensible by those familiar with archaeological method.
The Future of a Successful Discipline
OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE NT is notably different today from what it would be without the interdisciplinary efforts of archaeologists and textual scholars. Archaeological work relative to the NT underscores its intimate connectedness to the ancient world, to Judaism in particular. Archaeological work on the NT and early Christianity also emphasizes the diversity of ways in which new faith came to expression and the complexity of the processes of enculturation and identity formation. Therefore, that many elements of the diverse world of ancient Judaism and Greco-Roman culture are reflected in the NT is not surprising.
Despite all progress and success, however, few people doubt that the situation of the discipline today is complex and sometimes confusing. On the one hand, we are in the privileged position of having a wealth of data available that no earlier period has enjoyed. NT scholars fruitfully cooperate with archaeologists in projects all around the ancient Mediterranean, producing data that refine our picture of early Christianity and our understanding of the NT. Places like Jerusalem, Tiberias, Sepphoris, Hippos, Jewish and early Christian Rome, Ostia, Corinth, Athens, Philippi, Pergamon, Ephesus, Miletus, Sagalassos, Sardis, and many more are under exploration, as well as regions like the Dead Sea area, Galilee, Samaria, Troas, Galatia, and Phrygia.
NT studies in general are also experiencing methodological experimentation. Historical research into the context of the original communities vies with linguistic, intertextual, and literary approaches to the text that often emphasize the subjective role of readers of the texts in construing their meaning. Yet even these approaches are not in principle “ahistorical,” since context does not only involve texts, but the entire social and spatial circumstances of living interpreters. Debates similar to those in NT circles about how to read a text rage in archaeological circles about the conditions of “reading archaeological remains as expressions of past and present culture.” The debates present an opportunity for both disciplines to continue dialogue and benefit from mutual inspiration and criticism, just as transcending traditional lines of disciplines in the 1960s and 1970s brought innovation and progress to the study of the NT.
Archaeology, as a disciplined way of treating contextual and diachronic factors in the production of culture, will continue to be an essential partner for NT scholars.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES
Commonly Called
THE OLD TESTAMENT
NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION
GENESIS
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THE BOOK OF GENESIS derives its name from the Greek translation of 2.4 and 5.1, “This is the book of the origin of (biblos geneseos).” In Jewish tradition the book is called Bereshit, after the first word of the book, which means “in the beginning of.” Both names accurately convey the content of the book—it tells of the origins of the cosmos, humankind, and the ancestors of Israel. The origins of the cosmos and humans are recounted in the primeval narratives (chs. 1–11) and the origins of Israel’s ancestors in the patriarchal narratives (chs. 12–50). In the ancient world as in the modern, the era of origins has a special authority—its formative events set the rules and conditions for all subsequent developments. As a book of origins, Genesis partakes of the sacredness and authority of this era and has served as a foundation for thought, belief, and action for millennia.
The Genesis of Genesis
ACCORDING TO JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TRADITION, the book of Genesis was dictated by God to Moses, but this belief is not found in the Hebrew Bible. (It seems to be first attested in the book of Jubilees and in the Dead Sea Scrolls from about the second century BCE.) Commentators have long noted that several points in Genesis indicate the narrator lived well after Moses, at a time when the Canaanites had disappeared from the promised land (12.6) and when kings ruled over Israel (36.31; 49.10). Modern archaeological and historical discoveries confirm this general picture: the constellation of peoples, places, and religious practices and the language of Genesis indicate that the book was primarily composed and compiled during the centuries of monarchical rule and immediately thereafter, roughly from the tenth through the sixth centuries BCE.
Biblical scholarship has identified three major literary sources that were edited together to form the book of Genesis called the Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), and Priestly (P) sources. The first two (often called “old epic” sources) reflect the predominance in certain narratives of forms of the divine name, Yahweh (Jahweh in German, hence J) and Elohim. The P source reflects concerns of the Priestly writers most evident in the book of Leviticus. There are also a few texts that belong to none of these sources (including chs. 14, 15, 24, and 49). The literary sources drew on traditional oral lore as well as written records and were engaged in preserving and revising Israel’s traditions of the past. This is the standard model of the composition of Genesis, and although various scholars have proposed modifications, it remains the most coherent explanation of the evidence.
The editor (or editors) who wove the literary sources together created a text with an abundance of meaning, combining the different theologies, philosophical perspectives, and literary styles of the sources into a work of great power and complexity. The editors were not embarrassed by the duplications of particular episodes (e.g., the different creation accounts in 1.1–2.3 and 2.4–25, the two flood stories in chs. 6–9, the three wife-sister stories in 12.10–20; 20; and 26.1–11, and the multiple accounts of Jacob’s change of name to Israel and the founding of Bethel in 28.10–22; 32.22–32; and 35.9–15), but, rather, valued the preservation of different traditions. One result of this complexity is that Genesis is a layered “mosaic” of meanings that is richer than any of the sources alone. Yet its lucid and tersely evocative narrative style generally allows readers to pass untroubled over its internal compositional seams.
Science, History, and Genesis
GENESIS IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC OR HISTORICAL TEXTBOOK in the modern sense. Rather, it is a narration of ancient Israel’s traditions and concepts of the past—a mixture of myths and legends, cultural memories, revisions of tradition, and literary brilliance. It is a complex portrait of the past that encodes the values of biblical religion and creates a rich array of perspectives on the world.
There are authentic historical memories in the book, but most of the historical details reflect the period when Israel was an established nation. The older memories include the rise of urban civilization in the land of Sumer (10.8–12; 11.1–9), the region of Haran as an ancient tribal homeland (12.4; 24; 27.43), Semitic rulers and officials in Egypt (ch. 41), and the worship of the high god named El in pre-Israelite times (17.1). These and other old memories are mingled with more recent memories, such as relations with Israel’s neighbors, including Aram, Philistia, Edom, Ammon, and Moab, which arose at roughly the same time as Israel. The portrayal of the natural world in Genesis also belongs to the worldview of its time—a geocentric universe with light and the earth created before the sun, and with the stars, sun, and moon attached to the surface of the dome of heaven (ch. 1); the first woman fashioned from the first man’s rib (2.21–22); the rainbow as God’s huge weapon set in the clouds (9.13); and the desolate landscape of the Dead Sea (including the pillar that was once Lot’s wife) as the result of ancient transgressions (ch. 19). These and other details reflect ancient lore about life, the earth, and the universe.
It is somewhat unfair to note the scientific inadequacies of Genesis, since it was not written to be a work of modern science. We need to learn to read Genesis as a book that speaks strongly to modern readers, but we need to read it on its terms, recognize its ancient voice, and not superimpose on it our own. It is a book of memories—of marvels and miracles, imperfect saints and holy sinners, a beneficent and often inscrutable God, and promises that bind the past to the present and the future. It tells us where we came from, not in the sense that the book is historically accurate, but in the sense that the book itself is our historical root. [RONALD HENDEL]
GENESIS 1
Six Days of Creation and the Sabbath
1In the beginning when God createda the heavens and the earth, 2the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from Godb swept over the face of the waters. 3Then God said, “Let there be light” and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
6And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. 12The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
14And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
