I’m pretty sure that reading class notes is not what many readers of this blog want to do. But a few are interested and I don’t have time to come up with more edifying material at this point. Below are two sections from last week’s class in Torah and Former Prophets. I selected these sections from 11 pages of notes because I thought they would be of greatest interest. The first story is classic.
Subject #1: Scientist or Priest?
Third word is the big U – Ãœberlieferungsgeschichte – history of tradition. Von Rad describes this as peeling away the rings of an onion. He comes to the Bible, such as the Book of Exodus and he assumes that there have been centuries of accretions, embellishments, and it is the goal of the critical scholar to peel away layers of accretia like the rings of an onion to come to “a critically assured minimum” and they call that the kernel of historical truth. What that kernel is is going to be dependent on who is peeling away the rings, because there are no rules for this, it is just done as it is done. The peeling away of the rings is to come to the critically assured minimum and then it is the task of the critical scholar to rebuild those rings for the kerygmatic maximum. Now listen to what I just said. The critically assured minimum is what really happened. The kerygmatic maximum is what you proclaim. So one of Prof’s teachers when he was at DTS 40 years ago was Dr. George Peters and he was born in a German-speaking home, his church background was German Mennonite and he was very much at home in German-speaking families and one summer he spent the whole summer in Germany and he got there early and went to Tubingen(?) and he attended a lecture by von Rad and von Rad recognized this visitor and asked him to come to the podium after the lecture and had him introduce himself and he invited him to his home that night for dinner. That evening in von Rad’s home, Peters said that they had a marvelous meal, and it was very wealthy old-style European where the kids ate in a separate room and everyone dressed up in suit and tie for dinner, and then kids came running in after meal and then he had family devotions for little children. Peters was just amazed at the warmth and devotion that he instilled in young children and then they were sent to bed. Then out came the brandy and cigars. Peters said he was non-plussed at what has happened tonight. Von Rad has on a silk robe over his clothes. Peters said that this morning you were in the same passage that you shared with the children; this morning you were tearing that passage to shreds but tonight with your grandchildren you did what I would hope my best students would do in a Sunday school class. Von Rad laughed and said that this morning in class he was the scientist but this evening I am the priest. To the scientist I go to the critically assured minimum but to the priest I go to the kerygmatic maximum. Peters asked if that was hard to do, and von Rad said he just had to remember who he was. Francis Schaeffer went against this as the ‘divided field of knowledge.”
Subject #2: Are the Plagues Attacks on Egyptian Gods?
James Hoffmeier in a lecture about function of plagues says that conventional evangelical understanding is that each of the plagues is a frontal attack on an Egyptian deity. That works on a few, such as the Nile. It’s true of the sun. But after you’ve done Nile and sun, then you run into some problems. Attempting to find significant deities that represent frogs, flies, and lice may be. Boils, can’t do it (no boil god). And no hail god. And no locust god. So he said in this very powerful lecture that we should view the plagues as attacks on the gods of Egypt as an indirect or blanket matter and think as the Nile and sun as two principal deities under attack. More significant is maat. That is the word for order. That is one of the Egyptian deities. A major god. Every time since hearing his lecture when Prof has gone to an Egyptian archaeological display and he sees images of maat in all of the statue rooms. Not just the god but the function of pharaoh. Pharaoh’s position was to maintain maat, which means order. Moses standing before Pharaoh and the plagues sequentially an attack on pharaoh who is the representation of order in an ordered land. The sense of order is very important in Egypt. They have 365 days of sun; if there is rain it’s not needed; it is a nuisance. The sun and the water are representative of the order of Egyptian life. Each plague in a general sense is an attack on the gods of Egypt, but more pointedly on maat, the sense of order that Pharaoh should provide.
Follow-up on Judah and Joseph story (Gen 38)
See Exegetical study of Genesis 38, by Steven Matthewson. Fine paper; summary of his master’s thesis. Published in Bib Sac.
I love reading your class notes. Keep them coming!
Ditto!
That’s really interesting, Todd — thanks for sharing the knowledge! :-)
You listened to James Hoffmeier speak? How exciting. I guess that’s one of the “perks” you receive in exchange for all the hard work you’re required to do.
His book “Israel in Egypt” should be in all your former students’ libraries.
I’m enjoying your bird’s-eye-view accounts. Thanks.
Debi – I’ve probably heard Hoffmeier speak, but not in the notes above. This is just a transcript from a lecture, so here the prof was talking about when he heard Hoffmeier.