SALVATION HISTORY AND SCRIPTURE

Select Bibliography

GENERAL OVERVIEWS

• Bergsma, John. Bible Basics for Catholics: A New Picture of Salvation History. Revised Edition.
South Bend: Ave Maria Press, 2015.
• Bergsma, John. New Testament Basics for Catholics. South Bend: Ave Maria Press, 2015.
• Bergsma, John and Brant Pitre. A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament. San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2018.
• Boadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. Second Edition. Revised and
Updated by Richard Clifford and Daniel Harrington. New York: Paulist Press, 2012.
• Dauphinias, Michael and Matthew Levering. Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduc-
tion to the Bible. Brazos Press, 2005.
• Hahn, Scott. Understanding The Scriptures: A Complete Course On Bible Study. The Didache
Series. Downers Grove, IL: Midwest Theological Forum, 2005.
• Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Writings of the New Testament. 3rd edition. Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 2010.
• Levenson, Jon D. Sinai and Zion: An Entry Into the Jewish Bible. HarperOne, 1987.
• Wright, N. T. and Michael F. Bird. The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the
History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic,
2019.

BIBLICAL HISTORY

• Bright, John. A History of Israel. 4th edition. Philadelphia: Westminister John Knox Press,
2000.
• Currid, John D. and David P. Barrett. Crossway ESV Bible Atlas. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.
• Coogan, Michael, ed. The Oxford History of the Biblical World. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998.

BIBLICAL INSPIRATION

• Benoit, Pierre, O.P. Aspects of Biblical Inspiration. Priory Press, 1965.

• Benoit, Pierre, O.P. Inspiration and the Bible. Sheed and Ward, 1965.

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• Farkasfalvy, Dennis, [Link]. Inspiration and Interpretation: A Theological Introduction to Sa-
cred Scripture. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2010.
• Farkasfalvy, Dennis, [Link]. A Theology of the Christian Bible: Revelation, Inspiration, Canon.
Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2018.
• Hahn, Scott. For the Sake of Our Salvation: The Truth and Humility of God’s Word. Letter and
Spirit, vol 6. Steubenville: St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 2010.
• Pontifical Biblical Commission. The Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture.
• Pontifical Biblical Commission. The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church.
• Synave, Paul, O.P. and Pierre Benoit, O.P. Prophecy and Inspiration. A Commentary on the
Summa Theologica II-II, Questions 171-178. New York: Desclee Company, 1961.

MORE DETAILED STUDIES

• Barthélemy, Jean-Dominique, O.P. God and His Image: An Outline of Biblical Theology. San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007.
• Benedict XVI. Jesus of Nazareth. 3 vols. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008-2012.
• Gadenz, Pablo T. The Gospel of Luke. Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture. Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018.
• Gorman, Michael J. Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His
Letters. Second Edition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016.
• Hamilton, Victor P. Handbook on the Pentateuch. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,
2015.
• Hamilton, Victor P. Handbook on the Historical Books. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008.
• Heschel, Abraham J. The Prophets. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
• Kurz, William S., S.J. Acts of the Apostles. Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture. Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014.
• Pitre, Brant. Jesus and the Bridegroom: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told. New York: Image,
2014.
• Pitre, Brant. Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Sup-
per. New York: Image, 2011.
• Pitre, Brant. Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah. New
York: Image, 2018.
• Pitre, Brant, Michael P. Barber, and John A. Kincaid. Paul, A New Covenant Jew: Rethinking
Pauline Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2019.
• Pontifical Biblical Commission. The Bible and Morality: The Biblical Roots of Christian Con-
duct. Available online at [Link]
• Smith, Steven C. The House of the Lord: A Catholic Biblical Theology of God’s Temple Pres-
ence in the Old and New Testaments. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1997.

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• Weinandy, Thomas G., [Link]. Jesus Becoming Jesus: A Theological Interpretation of the
Synoptic Gospels. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2018.

CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES

• Austriaco, Nicanor, O.P, et al. Thomistic Evolution: A Catholic Approach to Understanding

Evolution in the Light of Faith. Providence: Cluny Media, 2016.
• Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Second
Edition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.
• Horn, Trent. Hard Sayings: A Catholic Approach to Answering Bible Difficulties. El Cajon, CA:
Catholic Answers Press, 2016.
• Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the
Truth of the Traditional Gospels. New York: HarperOne, 1997.
• Keener, Craig, S. The Historical Jesus of the Gospels. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.
• Licona, Michael R. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. Downer’s
Grove: IVP Academic, 2010.
• Pitre, Brant. The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ. New York:
Image, 2016
• Ratzinger, Joseph. In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of Creation and the Fall. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.
• Witherington III, Ben. The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth. Downer’s
Grove: IVP Academic, 1997.
• Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.

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 SALVATION HISTORY AND SCRIPTURE
Schedule of Required Readings
The following readings are required for this course. Each set of readings has a due date. On that
due date, you must submit either a Reading Response Paper (for non-Biblical readings), or a com-
pleted Reading Quiz (for Biblical Readings).

1. Course Introduction

• No Reading

2. Revelation

• Vatican II, Dei Verbum

• Reading Response Paper Due Tuesday, September 3

3. Scripture: Inspiration, Inerrancy, Canon

• Dubarle, “Introduction to Sacred Scripture”

• Reading Response Paper Due Thursday, September 5

4. Scripture: Reading the Bible as a Catholic

• Bergsma, Bible Basics for Catholics

• Reading Response Paper Due Thursday, September 12

5. An Introduction to the Biblical World

• ESV Bible Atlas, chs. 1 and 2

• Reading Response Paper Due Tuesday, September 17

7. Introduction to the Pentateuch

• No Reading
8. The Primeval History

• Genesis 1-11
• Reading Quiz Due Thursday, September 19

9. The Patriarchs

• Genesis 12-50
• Reading Quiz Due Tuesday, September 24

10. The Exodus

• Exodus 1-20; 32-34

• Reading Quiz Due Tuesday, October 1

11. The Law: Leviticus

• No Reading

12. Wilderness Wandering: Numbers

• Numbers 11-25; 27; 31-33;

• Deuteronomy 34
• Reading Quiz Due Tuesday, October 8

13. Introduction to the Historical Books

• No Reading

14. The Conquest: Joshua

• Joshua 1-12; 23-24

• Reading Quiz Due Tuesday, October 15

15. The Settlement: Judges

• Judges 1-21
• Reading Quiz Due Thursday, October 17
16. The United Monarchy: 1 and 2 Samuel

• 1 Samuel 1-4; 7-18; 26-28

• 2 Samuel 5-7; 11-20
• Reading Quiz Due Thursday, October 24

17. Solomon and the Divided Monarchy: 1 Kings

• 1 Kings 1-5; 8-16

• Reading Quiz Due Tuesday, October 29

18. Elijah and Elisha: 1-2 Kings

• 1 Kings 17 - 2 Kings 13
• Reading Quiz Due Tuesday, November 5

19. Prophets

• Isaiah 1-12
• Jeremiah 1-7
• Reading Quiz Due Thursday, November 12

20. The Fall of Israel and Judah: 2 Kings

• 2 Kings 15-25
• Jeremiah 29-33; 37-45
• Daniel 1-6
• Reading Quiz Due Thursday, November 14

21. The Return: Ezra and Nehemiah

• Ezra
• Nehemiah
• Reading Quiz Due Tuesday, November 19

22. The Maccabean Revolt

• 1 Maccabees
• Reading Quiz Due Thursday, November 21
23. Wisdom Literature

• Proverbs 1-9
• Wisdom 1-9
• Sirach 1-4
• Reading Quiz Due Tuesday, November 26

24. Between the Old and the New Testaments

• No Reading

25. Messianic Fulfillment: Luke

• Luke
• Reading Quiz Due Thursday, December 5

26. The Church: Acts

• Acts
• Reading Quiz Due by 11:59pm on Friday, December 13
 2. Revelation
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

August 27, 2019

Introduction

The goal of our first lecture topic is to set the stage for the whole course. We will spend the course investigating
how God has intervened in human history to “save” the human race. This is the story of the growth of God’s
chosen people, as it is related in the Bible, which culminates in Jesus Christ and His Church. We want to get a
sense of what it means to “save” us. When we say that God “saves” us, we mean that he brings us to our final
end—the proper goal of our lives. We cannot reach this goal for two reasons.

First, this goal is supernatural, that is, it is inherently beyond our our ability to attain. God was not content leave
us as mere rational animals who are his creatures. Rather, he has freely chosen to share his own life with us. He
literally wants to be his children, and he wants to be our Father. Since we cannot attain this goal by ourselves,
and since we do not deserve it nor could we ever earn it, God has to bestow it on us freely as a gift.

Second, we have spurned this gift of divine life (as well as harmed our own natural life) through sin. Sin alienates
us from God, the Source of all good, and its effect propagate through the whole of the human community, and
indeed through the whole cosmos. Again, this is a problem that we are unable to fix on our own. We are not
owed a solution to this problem, nor could we ever earn it.

In the Bible, God has announced that he will not let this situation stand. And so he enters our history to draw
us back to himself. This course will explore what the Bible has to say about all of the mighty deeds that God has
done for us, in order to bring us back to himself.

Lecture Notes

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own
blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know
him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family,
the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son
and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.1

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1.

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Why We Need Revelation: God’s Supernatural Plan for Us

1. Man: Unique Among God’s Creatures

(a) Open to reality in a unique way
i) Can be re-formed by it.
ii) Can re-form it.
(b) Does what other animals do, but differently
(c) Wonder: Asking Questions
(d) Actions: Understanding the Relationship Between Activity and Its Goal
(e) Creating: Making Technology and Fine Art
(f) The Image and Likeness of God
i) According to nature
ii) According to grace and glory
(g) The natural end of human nature and the supernatural end of the human person
i) Natural: to know the true and love the good in friendship with others in community
ii) Supernatural: to know and love God the Trinity—the True and Good—personally in fellowship
with the saints. Friends of God in the City of God or Children of God in the Family of God.
2. Natural Knowledge of God and Natural Religion
(a) “Natural” and “Supernatural”
i) Nature = a principle by which a thing performs its characteristic actions
ii) Natural = an activity that is proportionate to the kind of being that performs it
iii) Supernatural = an activity that exceeds the capacities of any created kind of being at all
(b) We Can Know God Through Natural Reason Alone
i) “Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of
all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human
reason.”2
(c) Ways of Coming to Know God’s Existence
i) “The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency and the world’s order and
beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.”3
ii) “The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his
freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness,
man questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul.
The soul the ‘seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely merely material’,”
can have its origin only in God.4
iii) “The world and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their
final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in
different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end
of all things, a reality ‘that everyone calls God.’” 5

2. Vatican I, Dei Filius 2: DS 3004.

3. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 32
4. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 33
5. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 34

2
 (d) What We Know of God Naturally
i) Creator and Lord
ii) Providence
iii) An unknown which lies behind reality and underwrites the being and perfection of everything
in reality
iv) Radically transcendent over reality, and so radically present to it.
(e) From Knowledge to Worship
(f) What is Religion?
i) A person or culture’s attempt to order itself with respect to what it takes to be ultimate in
reality
ii) Justice with respect to God
iii) Thanksgiving, Praise, Oblation
(g) Religion is a part of the life of natural man.
3. Why We Need Revelation
(a) We need revelation because God has freely chosen to give us a supernatural end
i) To know and love God personally as a Father and a Friend.
ii) This is what the creation story of Genesis 2 describes poetically.
iii) “Man’s faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal
God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal
himself to man, and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. So
the proofs of God’s existence can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not
opposed to reason.”6
(b) Revelation even helps us to attain our natural end.
i) Attaining our natural end on our own is difficult, especially given the effects of sin.
ii) St. Thomas’s Reasons: “the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be
known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors.”7
iii) “Though human reason is, strictly speaking, truly capable by its own natural power and light
of attaining to a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, who watches over and
controls the world by his providence, and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Cre-
ator; yet there are many obstacles which prevent reason from the effective and fruitful use of
this inborn faculty. For the truths that concern the relations between God and man wholly
transcend the visible order of things, and, if they are translated into human action and influ-
ence it, they call for self-surrender and abnegation. the human mind, in its turn, is hampered
in the attaining of such truths, not only by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but
also by disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin. So it happens that men
in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or
at least doubtful.”8
iv) “It is for this reason that divine ‘revelation’ must be considered morally necessary so that those
religious and moral truths that are not of their nature beyond the reach of reason in the present
condition of the human race may be known by all men readily, with a firm certainty and with
all freedom from error.”9

6. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 35.

7. Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 1, a. 1, c.
8. Pius XII, Encyclical Humani Generis, DS 3875
9. Pius XII, Encyclical Humani Generis, DS 3876

3
 4. Revelation is God showing us who he is by entering into history to redeem us.
(a) Salvation history
i) The account of how God entered into history to choose a people and save them by performing
mighty deeds.
ii) Starts with the Promise of the Redeemer, Goes through the history of God’s chosen people as
recounted in the Old Testament, and culminates in the Paschal Mystery.
iii) The Paschal Mystery is the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ taken
as a unit.
(b) Salvation history can be understood as a progressive series of covenants
i) An agreement between two parties by which they agree to share their lives together.
ii) E.g. a vassal and his lord; a husband and a wife
iii) God makes successively more profound covenants with his people, and in so doing, shows
them, little-by-little what he is like.

What Revelation Is

1. Some Philosophical Terms

(a) Definitions
i) Nominal definition = an explanation of how a word is used.
ii) Real definition = an explanation of what the essence of a thing is.
(b) Causes
i) Cause = That which accounts for why a thing is or why it is the way that it is.
ii) Any explanatory factor for the being, change, or properties of a thing is a cause.
(c) The Four Causes
i) Efficient Cause (Agent) = that which brings about the being or change in something else.
ii) Material Cause (Matter) = that out of which something is made or comes to be
iii) Formal Cause (Form) = that into which something is made or comes to be
iv) Final Cause (End) = the reason why the efficient cause introduces the form into the matter.
v) Classic Example: The sculptor is the agent; the marble is the matter; the figure is the form; the
reason why the sculptor sculpted it is the end.
(d) Order of Intention and Order of Execution
i) Order of Intention: Final Cause, Formal Cause, Material Cause, Efficient Cause
ii) Order of Execution: Efficient Cause, Material Cause, Formal Cause, Final Cause
(e) Principal Efficient Cause and Instrumental Efficient Cause
i) Principal Efficient Cause = the agent himself
ii) Instrumental Efficient Cause = a tool that the agent uses to bring about the from in the matter.
iii) The effect comes 100% from the principal cause and 100% from the instrument
iv) The agent and the instrument both leave their mark on the effect.
v) More on this when we talk about inspiration . . .
(f) Causes and Real Definitions
i) Since causes account for why things are the way that they are, and a real definition is an expla-
nation of what a thing is, it follows that we can give a real definition of a thing by identifying
its four causes

4
 ii) We will do this with Revelation.
2. Definition
(a) Etymology
i) “lifting the veil”
(b) Nominal Definition
i) “the manifestation of a thing that was previously secret, or at least obscure.”
(c) Real Definition
i) The free and essentially supernatural divine action by which God, in order to lead the human
race to its supernatural end which consists in the beatific vision of the divine essence, has
manifested supernatural mysteries and natural truths of religion by performing mighty deeds
in history and inspiring prophets to interpret them, and in these latter days through his Son
Jesus Christ.10
3. Breaking Down The Real Definition
(a) Final Cause: The Beatific Vision
i) God has freely chosen to give us a supernatural end: a personal relationship with him.
ii) So, he needs to tell us about himself in order to have a relationship with us.
iii) And he needs to deify us—give us a supernatural share in his own life—to make this happen.
iv) The final cause: beatific vision, deification, becoming an adopted son, becoming a member of
God’s family.
(b) Principal Efficient Cause: God speaking, as author of the supernatural order
i) God speaking — the specific aspect under which God is the cause of revelation
ii) God as author of the supernatural order — Revelation is not just about what we can naturally
know from creation. It is about God’s supernatural plan of salvation for us.
(c) Instrumental Efficient Cause: God’s mighty deeds in history, as interpreted by the words of the
prophets and of Christ.
i) God uses deeds in history and human words in order to reveal himself to us.
ii) “The deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and
realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery
contained in them.”ˆ[Vatican II, Dei Verbum, n. 11].
iii) Prophet here is used in the most general sense as anyone who is enlightened by the Holy Spirit to
be able to speak for God and explain how he is at work in actions in history. The Jewish people,
for instance, called the authors of the historical books “prophets”, because they explained the
divine purpose that laid behind the historical events in Israel’s history.
iv) Jesus actually brings together words and deeds in his own life. Every deed that Jesus did and
word that he spoke revealed God, because Jesus was God. The mighty deed by which Jesus
revealed God most of all was his Paschal Mystery: his suffering, death, and resurrection.
(d) Formal Cause: The truth which God wanted to communicate to us for our salvationˆ[cf. Vatican
II, Dei Verbum,
n. 12]
i) “Salvation” here means something more than “going to heaven when I die, instead of hell.” It
means making the human family members of God’s family eternally, by sharing his own life
with them eternally.

10. Modified from Garrigou-Lagrange De revelatione

5
 (e) Material Cause: The human race
i) Revelation is directed to the whole human race.
ii) God acts on the whole human race to instill the truth necessary for our salvation in all of us.
4. The historical nature of revelation
(a) God reveals himself by entering into our history.
(b) From all eternity, he has a plan which will culminate in his full disclosure and full salvation in Christ.
(c) Key stages in God’s revelation in history
i) Adam
ii) Noah
iii) Abraham
iv) Moses: Exodus and Sinai
v) David
vi) The Later Prophets
vii) The Return from Exile
(d) Jesus: The Culmination
i) God spoke everything in Jesus, when his Word became flesh.
ii) We can understand the full significance of revelation prior to Jesus in the light of Jesus
iii) In Jesus’ words and deeds, God fully reveals himself to us. Especially his suffering, death, and
resurrection.
iv) There can be no further revelation after the death of the last apostle.
5. A Note on Private Revelation
(a) Does not contribute or add anything to the revelation made by Jesus and guarded by the Church
(b) They have utility for a particular person or group live the Christian faith more fully in a certain
context.
(c) The Church does not vouch for any private revelations, other than to say that some of them do not
contradict the faith. (A similar thing holds true for miracles)
(d) Revelations that claim to modify, correct, surpass, or add to Church teaching cannot be correct.
(e) Private revelations should be judged by their fruits, their orthodoxy, their submission to the Church
(f) Private revelations are not sources from which we make theological arguments.

The Transmission of Revelation: Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium

5. The Transmission of Revelation

(a) Tradition
i) Tradition literally means “what is handed on”.
ii) Tradition is divine revelation inasmuch as it is unwritten
iii) It is in the whole life of the Church, because the Spirit in the Church keeps Christ alive in her.
iv) Tradition is the echo of Christ, who is kept alive in the Church because his Spirit animates her.
v) Sacred Tradition shows up in various traditions in the Church, but is not reducible to them.
vi) Sometimes we also call it “Sacred Tradition” or the “Apostolic Tradition”
(b) Sacred Scripture i) Divine revelation inasmuch as it is recorded in written form. i) See immediately
below for the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. i) See below in the section on “Canon”
for the formation of the NT and OT canon.

6
 (c) Apostolic Succession
i) If tradition is what is handed on, then apostolic succession is how it is handed on.
ii) Christ gave the apostles authority to teach, sanctify, and govern the Church in his name.
iii) The apostles went out and founded local Churches
iv) They left successors in the local Churches to succeed them and carry on their Christ-appointed
ministry of teaching, sanctifying, and governing the Church in his name.
v) These successors of the apostles are the bishops.
vi) Just like the apostles formed one group (“college”) with Peter at its head, so too do the bishops
of the world form one group (“college”) with the Pope at its head.
vii) The bishops’ job: to pass on the Apostolic Tradition in its integrity to succeeding generations.
viii) Cf. 2 Thes. 2:15; 1 Cor 11:2; 1 Cor 16:13; 2 Thes 3:6; Titus 1:9
(d) Magisterium of the Church
i) The official teaching office of the Church: comprised of the Pope and the bishops in commu-
nion with him.
ii) Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition together form the “deposit of faith”
iii) The Magisterium guards the deposit of faith, protects it from corruption, interprets it, teaches
it, and proposes it for belief authoritatively, as well as applying it to contemporary situations
that arise.
iv) The deposit of faith does not change, but our understanding of it matures as the Magisterium
of the Church reflects on it in order to apply it to new situations.
6. Relation of Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium
(a) Scripture and Tradition are two distinct things, but they are interrelated and form one deposit of
divine revelation,.
i) Tradition is divine revelation inasmuch as this is active in the life of the Church
ii) Scripture is divine revelation inasmuch as it can be written down.
iii) Tradition and Scripture work together as a team, and play two complementary roles. Scripture
without Tradition would be misinterpreted; Tradition without Scripture (i.e. a written record)
would become corrupted.
(b) Catholics believe what is taught in Scripture, as it is read in the context of Tradition, by the Magis-
terium, who are specially empowered by the Holy Spirit to do this correctly.
(c) What not to think:
i) Scripture and Tradition are two separate collections of truths, one written, the other unwrit-
ten.
ii) Some of our dogmas are in scripture, but not in tradition; some of our dogmas are taught in
tradition, but not in scripture; some are taught in both.
(d) The Truth:
i) All of our dogmas come from Scripture as read in the light of tradition and interpreted by the
magisterium, who proposes them to us for belief.
7. A Note on Private Revelation
(a) Does not contribute or add anything to the revelation made by Jesus and guarded by the Church
(b) They have utility for a particular person or group live the Christian faith more fully in a certain
context.
(c) The Church does not vouch for any private revelations, other than to say that some of them do not
contradict the faith. (A similar thing holds true for miracles)

7
 (d) Revelations that claim to modify, correct, surpass, or add to Church teaching cannot be correct.
(e) Private revelations should be judged by their fruits, their orthodoxy, their submission to the Church
(f) Private revelations are not sources from which we make theological arguments.

Review

Essential Understandings

1. Human beings are different from all other creatures (apart from perhaps angels), because they are created
in the image and likeness of God. This is because they have an intellect and, consequently, the power of
free choice.

2. Human beings can come to know that a First Principle and Ultimate End (which we can call “God”) exists
with certainty through reason alone. He does this by considering the things of the world. We can develop
demonstrative arguments by examining the characteristics of the ordinary beings of our experience. We
can develop probable arguments by considering man and concluding that he has a spiritual nature.

3. God revealed himself to us because he has freely decided to give us a supernatural end—sharing his own
life in personal intimacy with him. He also revealed himself to us so that we could know important truths
which we could, in principle, discover on our own, but are frequently wrong about, or lack the time and
talent to investigate.

4. Knowledge of God makes us aware of obligations that we have with respect to him. “Religion” is the
virtue of rendering to God what we owe him. Which is a debt we could never repay.

5. Since man could know God apart from revelation, some form of religion is natural to him even apart
from revelation. But we are not in a purely natural state. Our religion is fallen and (for Christians at
least) redeemed. Due to our fallen nature, religion is distorted by the way that sin has damaged us. Due
to God’s covenants, religion is healed and elevated among Christians.

6. God comes to save us by entering the human race and making successive covenants with his chosen
people. A covenant is an agreement between to parties by which they agree to share their their lives with
each other.

7. The story of God’s dealings in history with the human race by which he saves us is “salvation history.” It
begins with God’s promise to send a savior in Gen. 3:15, extends through the story of the Israelites in the
Old Testament, and culminates in Jesus Christ and his Church in the New Testament.

8. Revelation is the free and essentially supernatural divine action by which God, in order to lead the hu-
man race to its supernatural end, which consists in the beatific vision of the divine essence, has manifested
supernatural mysteries and natural truths of religion by performing mighty deeds in history and inter-
preting them through the words of the prophets, and in these latter days through his Son Jesus Christ.

9. God gives us revelation, that is, he tells us about himself—or better, he shows us who he is by intervening
in history with mighty deeds by which he saves us and fills us with his own divine life—because he wants
to have a direct, personal relationship with us as our Father and Friend and and share his eternal life with
us.

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 10. Scripture and Tradition complement each other and form one single deposit of faith. Every Catholic
dogma is an interpretation of Scripture, read in the light of Tradition.

11. Catholics believe what is taught in Scripture, as it is read in the context of Tradition, as interpreted
and proposed for belief by the Magisterium, who are specially empowered by the Holy Spirit to do this
correctly.

Vocabulary

Apostolic Succession. Apostolic succession is the passing of the authority which Jesus himself gave to his apostles
to teach, sanctify, and govern the Church on to their successors, who are the bishops.

Cause. A cause is anything that accounts for the being or change in another thing. A cause explains why a thing
is at all, or why a thing is the way that it is. There are four types of causes. The efficient cause, or agent, is that
which actually brings about the being or change in something else. The material cause, or matter, is that out of
which the effect is made. The formal cause, or form, is that into which the effect is made, and the final cause,
or end, is the reason why the efficient cause introduces the form into the matter.

Magisterium. The Magisterium is the official teaching office of the Church. It is exercised by the college of
bishops in union with the Pope at its head. It is the function of the Magisterium to officially and authoritatively
interpret Scripture in the light of Tradition and propose it to the faithful for belief.

Natural. Something is natural when it is proportionate to the nature of the thing to which it belongs. The
opposite of natural is supernatural.

Nature. A nature is the principle by which a thing performs its characteristic actions. It is the same principle
as a thing’s essence, but under a different description. The essence of a thing is the principle by which a thing
is a certain kind of thing. Nature and essence amount to the same thing described differently because a thing
performs certain characteristic actions precisely because it is a certain kind of a thing.

Paschal Mystery. The Paschal Mystery is the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ taken
as a unit.

Revelation. The free and essentially supernatural divine action by which God, in order to lead the human race
to its supernatural end which consists in the beatific vision of the divine essence, has manifested supernatu-
ral mysteries and natural truths of religion by performing mighty deeds in history and inspiring prophets to
interpret them, and in these latter days through his Son Jesus Christ.

Salvation History. Salvation history is the sequence of interventions that God has made in history by performing
mighty deeds to save his people. It extends from the promise of a Redeemer right after the Fall, through the
election of Abraham, the Exodus, the life of the Israelite People, the Exile, and the Return. The culmination of
salvation history is the Paschal Mystery.

Scripture. Scripture is divine revelation inasmuch as God has inspired it to be written down.

Supernatural. Something is supernatural when it exceeds the proportion of any created thing at all.

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Tradition. Tradition is divine revelation inasmuch as it is unable to be written down because it is embedded
into the life of the Church. Tradition is the echo of Jesus’ words as they are kept alive in the life of the Church
through the presence of the Holy Spirit who lives in her. Tradition is not so much a body of teachings as it is
the context in which the authentic meaning of Sacred Scripture comes to light. The Magisterium of the Church
authoritatively interprets Scripture by reading it in the light of Tradition and proposing its interpretations for
belief by the faithful.

Learning Targets

1. I can explain what the terms “natural” and “supernatural” mean.

2. I can state the different ways that we can come to know God through natural reason alone.
3. I can explain why some people do not come to know of God’s existence through reason alone.
4. I can explain what we mean by the term “religion.”
5. I can explain why man is naturally religious.
6. I can state the reasons why we need revelation.
7. I can state the supernatural end that God has given us.
8. I can define the term “salvation history.”
9. I can define the term “covenant.”
10. I can give the full, real definition of “revelation” and explain it according to the four causes.

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 3. Inspiration, Inerrancy, and Canon
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

September 3, 2019

Introduction

Now that we have covered divine revelation in general, we turn to that stream of divine revelation
which this course is meant to investigate: Sacred Scripture. Under this topic, we will discuss one
of the central properties of Sacred Scripture, a property which makes the books of the Bible to be
divine revelation, and not just interesting works of ancient literature: inspiration. Inspiration is the
notion that God intervened in a special way in the writings of the books in the Bible so that they
would be truly revelatory of him. But God’s “authorship” of Sacred Scripture must be understood
in a way that makes sense of the evident human contributions which have gone into the composition
of the various books of the Bible. In studying inspiration, then, we will have to see how the various
activities of God and the human authors are coordinated (or better, subordinated) so that the Bible
faithfully reveals who God is and what his plan for us is.

A consequence of the doctrine of inspiration is that the Bible must be in some sense “inerrant.” But
we will have to be careful to say exactly what this means. For instance, if the Bible is inerrant, does
that mean we have to believe that there really was a talking snake in a real Garden of Eden?

Finally, in this topic we will consider the canon of Sacred Scripture. The “canon” of Scripture is the
official list of the books that make up the bible. We will see, in a very general way, how the books
of the Bible came to be, how they were collected in various ways, and eventually arranged into the
canon of books that the Church recognizes as the Bible today.

In future topics, we will go on to give a description of the various parts and types of books of the
Bible, we will lay out some basic principles for properly reading and interpreting the Bible, and we
will look at the setting in which the Bible takes place: the ancient near East.

Lecture Notes

Inspiration

1. The Problem of Inspiration: Reconciling Divine and Human Contributions to Scripture

(a) What did God contribute to the Bible? In what sense is he the author?

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 (b) What did human writers contribute to the Bible? In what sense are they the authors?
(c) If “author” means “person who chooses the exact words of the text” then the same text
can’t have two of them.
i) Problems with making this God: how to account for the evident human effort and
talent in the Bible?
ii) Problems with making this man: how is the Bible revelatory of God and different
from other ancient literature?
(d) We want to delineate the contributions of God and man to the Bible so that all Scripture is
truly “God-breathed” (in-spired) and hence suitable to draw authoritative teaching from,
but yet also the product of human beings.

2. Instrumental Causality

(a) Informally: An instrument is a tool.

(b) Formally: An instrument is something that an agent uses to make contact with a patient
in order to produce its effect in that patient—an effect which is proper to the agent but
exceeds the proper capacity if the instrument.
(c) An instrumental cause is a type of efficient cause. It is a true cause because it helps to
contribute to the being of the effect.
(d) Key Principles of Instrumental Causality
i) The effect exceeds the proper power of the instrument
ii) The effect comes primarily from the agent, who subordinates the instrument to him-
self and communicates to the instrument a transitory power to achieve an effect that
exceeds the instrument’s own natural power.
iii) Nevertheless, the effect comes 100% from the agent and 100% from the patient at
the same time.
iv) The agent makes use of all the properties of the instrument.
v) The instrument leaves its own proper mark on the effect.
(e) Example: A piece of chalk
(f) A Further Refinement: Inanimate vs. Animate Instruments
i) Animate instrument = an instrument that is a living thing.
ii) Inanimate instrument = an instrument that is a non-living thing
iii) A natural example: an ambassador is a king’s animate instrument
iv) This works in a deeper way with God.
v) God isn’t just another being in the world, albeit the most powerful one. He is that
on which everything else depends on for its being.
vi) Consequently, God can work in the depths of every being, moving it to perform its
proper activity and using that proper activity to accomplish his own purposes, which
exceed the natural power of the agent.
vii) God makes use of the powers and actions of the animate instrument themselves in
order to accomplish his purposes.

3. In Sacred Scripture, God uses the human author as his animate instrument.

(a) He moves the author to judge what to write down, making full use of the author’s talents.
i) That is, God inspires the very practical judgments of the inspired author so that he
judges correctly about what is to be communicated.

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 ii) But the author’s literary talents, scientific and historical knowledge, fund of images,
etc. remain and are fundamentally useful.
(b) This does not necessarily require the human author to be aware that he is being inspired.
(c) God speaks to us by inspiring the human author’s speaking to his own audience.
(d) Using instrumental causality as a model for thinking about how inspiration works is a
theological opinion; it is not technically Church teaching.

4. Inspiration is the divine enlightenment of an author’s mind, which enables the author himself
to judge what he knows and how to communicate it so that the truth that God wishes to see
consigned to writing is done firmly, faithfully, and without error. i) Inspiration occurs primarily
at the level of the author’s practical intellect, and affects the judgments that he makes about
what he is to say.

5. Accounting for Multiple Human Authors

(a) Most Biblical texts (especially in the OT) are the products of lots and lots of authors
i) Stories like Genesis are folklore and were shaped through many re-tellings.
ii) Psalms and echoes of liturgical hymns in other books were shaped over time.
iii) Law codes were distilled from practices and customs.
iv) All these could potentially have thousands of “authors.”
(b) Most Biblical texts were stitched together from earlier sources by later editors.,
(c) All of these authors and editors must be inspired.
(d) We can think of inspiration as a charism of God’s people, of which different members
partake, up through apostolic times.
i) This is just a theological opinion, though, not official Church teaching.

6. Two Errors about Inspiration (Condemned at Vatical I)

(a) Subsequent Approbation

i) Error: What makes the books inspired is that they were recognized as canonical by
the Church
ii) Truth: The books were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the Church was able to
recognize this feature about them in faith.
(b) Negative Assistance
i) Error: The human author wrote on his own, the Holy Spirit only intervened at points
to stop him from writing down (certain kinds of) error.
ii) Truth: The whole process of composing and editing the books of the Bible was done
under the active inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

7. A Consequence of Inspiration: Inerrancy

(a) If the Bible is divinely inspired, then it follows that it cannot teach error, when it is inter-
preted correctly
(b) “Since, therefore, everything which the inspired authors, or hagiophers, assert must be
upheld as asserted by
the Holy Spirit, the books of Scripture thus teach firmly, faithfully, and without error

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 teach truth which, for the sake of our salvation God wished to be consigned to the sacred
books.”1
i) The Fathers of Vatican II explicitly said that this passage is not intended to limit
inerrancy only to certain passages of the Bible (e.g. ones dealing with faith and morals,
or with truths relevant to our salvation).
ii) This passage means that every passage of the Bible is true when it is read according
to the normal rules of reading literature, and when it is read from the perspective of
teaching us how God is saving us.
(c) The point is not to determine which verses of the Bible are “allowed” to contain error.
The point is to determine how each and every verse of the Bible correctly teaches the truth
that we need so that God can bring us into a relationship with him.
(d) Answering alleged “contradictions” and “errors” in the Bible: just use the steps that any
normal person would use in reading a library of ancient texts:
i) Understand the type of literature it is
ii) Understand the figures of speech that were common in the human author’s day.
iii) Understand the way that people told stories or related information in the author’s
day.
iv) Understand the culture of its author(s) and audience
v) Understand the place of the passage in the story of salvation.
vi) So, for example, the whole of Genesis 1-3 is absolutely true and inerrant, even though
there never was a talking snake.
(e) Most people who claim to find errors or contradictions in the Bible treat each verse as an
isolated proposition, and they treat the Bible as a whole collection of isolated propositions,
rather than as a library of ancient literature.
(f) The wisdom of communicating scripture in a literary mode.2

“Therefore, divine inspiration does not imply that each passage and sentence of the biblical text must
be found free from error from every conceivable point of view. The grammarian, the scientist, the
psychologist, the philosopher, the historian, and others may point out a particular passage which,
when examined from some limited point of view by some specialized endeavor of human learning,
can be found faulty. But such a realization does not prove that God’s word asserts error. Rather,
it only means that God’s message is expressed, at one or another point in salvation history with the
imperfections characteristic of human existence. Nevertheless, in the way it serves both the human
author’s concretely defined purpose and its divine author’s salvific purpose, every passage expresses
the truth which it is supposed to express according to God’s salvific will.”

1. Dei Verbum n. 11. This translation is different from the usual English translation (which says “…teach firmly,
faithfully, and without error that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation…”). This latter translation seems to imply
that only certain parts of the Biblical text, those dealing with saving truths, are inerrant. This interpretation, however,
is contrary to the explicitly stated intentions of the Council Fathers and Pope Paul VI, as well as the explicit teaching of
Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus. This translation was inspired by Denis Farkasfalvy, Inspiration and Interpretation:
A Theological Introduction to Sacred Scripture (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2008) 226-230. The
Latin text is “Cum ergo omne id quod auctores inspirati seu hagiographi asserunt, retineri debeat assertum a Spiritu Sancto,
inde Scripturae libri veritatem quam Deus nostrae salutis causa Litteris sacris consignari voluit, firmiter, fideliter, et sine
errore docere profitendi sunt.”
2. cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 1, a. 9

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“However, one must be careful to avoid the mistranslation and/or misinterpretation of Dei Verbum
that formally attributes inerrancy only to all that the biblical author intends to assert for the purpose
of man’s salvation and thus restricts inerrancy materially to those statements of the Bible that teach
doctrine necessary for man’s salvation. A correct interpretation would emphasize that all parts of
the Bible are relevant to and teach about salvation history, and would add that different biblical
texts carry out this objective in different ways but each does so without asserting error. It would be
incorrect to attribute inerrancy selectively to some parts of the Bible and to deny it to some others
according to what is or is not, in the subjective judgment of the reader religiously relevant and for
the sake of salvation.” (Rom 15:3)3 .

Canon

1. What “Canon” is
(a) A “canon” is any official list.
(b) The “canon” of Sacred Scripture is the set of books that constitute Sacred Scripture
(c) This is the list of books that contain divine revelation, and so are absolutely regulative of
Church life.
(d) Books not on the canon may be helpful, but they are not Bible.
2. The Determination of the OT canon
(a) Pre-Exilic Times
i) Israelite institutions were more complex: temple liturgy, customary laws, practices,
feasts, folklore
ii) Some things eventually got written down. But not quite the books that we have today.
iii) The reforms under King Josiah in the year 622 suggest that a form of the Book of
Deuteronomy become known then.
(b) Prophets
i) Shortly before the time of the Exile the prophets exercised their ministry.
ii) The Lord told them in some instances, “write this down.”
iii) Their sayings got collected and assembled into books.
iv) Some of the prophetic books reached their final form before the Exile. (e.g. Amos)
v) Some of the prophetic books have parts that come from before, during, and after the
Exile (e.g. Isaiah)
(c) The Final form of the Pentateuch: Exile and Return
i) Exile forced a consolidation and preservation of the tradition.
ii) The Jewish people had to rebuild their national institutions.
iii) They codified their law into the Pentateuch as we have it today
iv) Because their nation was greatly diminished, they had to rely more and more on
written texts to preserve their tradition.
(d) The Historical Books were written to recount Israel’s history in light of the Exile.
(e) Wisdom Books were written/consolidated in the Post-Exilic Period
(f) By the 2nd Century B.C., “The Law and the Prophets” was already a standard terminology

3. Farkasfalvy, Inspiration and Interpretation, 232

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 i) NB: For Jewish people, “The Prophets” includes the historical books.
(g) Diaspora Jews translated the Bible into Greek (“the Septuagint”).
(h) The Canon was somewhat fluid and somewhat in dispute in Jesus’ and the earliest Chris-
tians’ day.
i) Sadducees only accepted the Torah.
ii) The Pharisees accepted all the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.
(i) The raising of the Temple in AD 70 caused another time of consolidation
i)This is when the Jews (in the remaining, Pharisaic tradition) closed their canon.
ii)This happened after the Christians had basically already split off.
iii)They decided on a canon of Hebrew only books.
iv) The early Protestants, trying to go back to the sources, accepted the Jewish canon of
Hebrew books.
v) The Protestants kept the Christian order of the books, which is different from the
Jewish order.
vi) Catholics and Protestants alike, however, favor using the Hebrew text (where avail-
able) for Biblical study.
(j) Christian acceptance of the OT
i) NB: “Scripture” in the NT means the OT
ii) The conviction that Jesus Christ is the culmination of the work God began with the
Israelites implies that the Jewish scriptures have to be scriptures for Christians, too.
iii) This pattern is demonstrated by the extensive use that the NT makes of the OT.
iv) Thus, the Greek translation of the Jewish Bible (the “Septuagint”) was also used by
Christians, and the Hebrew bible is used today.
(k) The Catholic-Protestant controversy over the Deuterocanonical books
i) “Deuterocanonical” = “second(ary) canon”; “Apocryphal” = “of doubtful author-
ship or authenticity”
ii) Wisdom, Sirach, Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Macabees, Baruch, as well as some
additions to Daniel and Esther.
iii) These are the seven books plus some other fragments that are in Catholic Bibles, but
not in Protestant ones.
iv) The inspiration of the deuterocanonical books had been contested here-and-there
down through the centuries.
v) The general teaching of the Church was to accept them as Bible, because they were
in the LXX
vi) Early Protestantism was influenced by Renaissance humanism, which emphasized the
study of texts in original languages
vii) In Protestant circles, it was felt, then, that only the Hebrew Bible could be real scrip-
ture.
viii) But they still respected the so-called “Apocrypha” as useful reading.
ix) The Catholic Church formally defined that the apocrypha (deuterocanonical books)
were really part of Scripture at the Council of Trent, in the immediate wake of the
Protestant Reformation.
x) As some of this history was forgotten, positions hardened, and this issue became a
standard part of Catholic-Protestant polemics.
3. Codification of the NT Canon

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 (a) By the end of the first century, Christians saw some Christian documents as Scripture as
well
i) They were formed into mini-collections. (e.g. the letters of Paul)
ii) They were read in the liturgy alongside the Jewish scriptures.
(b) Need to Codify the Canon
i)The apostles were dying
ii)The church was expanding.
iii)Liturgy, preaching, and teaching needed to be regulated
iv) Mainstream Christians had a basic agreement about which Christian documents were
also Scripture.
v) Marcion denied that the OT and all of the NT (except for Paul and his own version
of Luke) were canonical.
vi) Other heretical groups proposed fanciful documents, written long after Jesus’ day as
scripture.
(c) The Codification of the Canon
i) Church councils in the early fourth century codified and standardized the canon we
use today
ii) Note carefully: they did not invent the canon from nothing. They codified and stan-
dardized practices that had existed for centuries among mainstream Christians.
iii) Their choices have held up well in the light of later scholarship.
(d) The Criteria for Codifying the Canon
i) Apostolic origin
ii) Conformity with Apostolic tradition
iii) Liturgical Use in the major Apostolic churches.
4. The Formation of the Canonical Gospels
(a) Jesus’ own life and teaching
(b) Oral Transmission
i) The “telephone theory” is wrong.
ii) Jesus systematically trained his disciples in his doctrines.
iii) That’s why we can rely on oral transmission based on eyewitness testimony
(c) Oral traditions get written down
(d) These written parts get edited (“redacted”) into the gospel books we know today.
(e) These four gospels are recognized as canonical
i) Already well-established by AD 200.

Review

Essential Understandings

1. Inspiration is the divine enlightenment of an author’s mind, which enables the author himself
to judge what he knows and how to communicate it so that the truth that God wishes to see
consigned to writing is done firmly, faithfully, and without error. God uses the human authors

7
 as animate instruments, making use of their own talents, cultural backgrounds, etc. He so
moves their practical judgment about how to communicate his truth that they reveal it in the
way that he wants, but fully making use of their personality.

2. Because the Bible is inspired, it must also be inerrant. But this term must be correctly under-
stood. It means that no part of the Bible asserts something erroneous to be true, when it is
interpreted properly in the way it was meant to be taken.

3. To resolve alleged “errors” or “contradictions” in the Bible, just use the techniques that any
normal person would use in interpreting a library of ancient literature.

4. The books of the Old Testament had a complex genesis which began with oral traditions,
folklore, and customary practices (some which have roots that even predate the Isralites), pieces
of which got written down. The ensemble of oral stories, customary practices, and written
sources eventually got written down and edited into the collections that we find in our Bibles
today: the Pentateuch, the Historical books, the Prophets. The Exodus and Return were the
great catalyst for many of these projects. Trying to preserve the national identity and to make
sense of the event of the Exile, as well as to rouse up renewed hope in God’s fidelity were major
literary impetus at the time which prompted the formation and consolidation of the Hebrew
Bible. The prophets preached before and during the Exodus; priestly writers sought to preserve
traditions and create a comprehensive origin story by forming the Pentateuch; Deuteronomic
writers tried to make sense of God’s promises and their seeming lack of fulfillment by narrating
Israel’s history as a story of continued infidelity.

5. The collections of books that make up the New Testament have various origins. For the first
Christians, “Scripture” meant what we now call the Old Testament. But, the deaths of the
apostles as well as the expansion of the Church gave rise to the need to preserve the apostolic
teaching and regulate the public life and liturgical worship of the Church. Additionally, some
fringe voices (Marcion, Gnostics) began to contest the general consensus about which docu-
ments constituted genuine apostolic teaching and which did not. Consequently, the decision
was made to codify the canon, a process which happened in a piecemeal way here and there, but
happened definitively in the fourth century. As the Church grew and spread, she began to see
her own “memoirs of the apostles” as documents which should stand alongside the “law and
the prophets” as things which should be read in public worship. This lead to the understanding
that the Church’s own documents also stood as “Scripture”

6. The Canon is the official list of 46 Old Testament Books and 27 New Testament books that
Catholics believe to be Sacred Scripture. We accept the Old Testament because it was the
preparation for Christ, and so a part of his divine plan. The Church codified and standardized
its canon of the NT in the early fourth century.

Vocabulary

Canon. A canon is any official list. With respect to scripture, it is the official list of books that make
up the Bible.

Inerrancy. Inerrancy is a consequence of the fact that the Scriptures are divinely inspired. It is the idea
that no part of the Bible asserts something false to be true, when the passage is properly interpreted.

8
Inspiration. Inspiration is the divine enlightenment of an author’s mind, which enables the author
himself to judge what he knows and how to communicate it so that the truth that God wishes to see
consigned to writing is done firmly, faithfully, and without error.

Instrument. An instrument, or instrumental cause, is something that an agent uses to make contact
with a patient in order to produce its effect in that patient—an effect which is proper to the agent
but exceeds the proper capacity if the instrument. The effect comes primarily from the agent, who
works in and through the patient. Thus the effect comes totally from the agent and totally from the
patient, and both the agent and the patient leave their marks on the effect. An instrumental cause is
a type of efficient cause.

Negative Assistance. The heretical teaching, condemned by the First Vatican Council, which says
that the human author wrote on his own, without any special divine assistance, but the Holy Spirit
intervened to prevent the author from making an error.

Septuagint. The Greek translation of the Old Testament which was made probably in the environs
of Alexandria, over the course of the second century, B.C.

Subsequent Approbation. The heretical teaching, condemned by the First Vatican Council, which
states that the books of the Bible are inspired because the Church declared them to be so.

Learning Targets

1. I can explain what an “instrumental cause” is.

2. I can explain how an instrumental cause works, that is, how an agent uses an instrument to
produce an effect.
3. I can explain what inspiration is, and how the composition of a biblical text involves both God
and the human author.
4. I can explain what it means to say that the Bible is inerrant.
5. I can explain how to resolve alleged conflicts in biblical passages.
6. I can explain the errors of “subsequent approbation” and “negative assistance.” I can say why
they are wrong and can give the true teaching of the Church which are opposed to these errors.
7. I can explain how the Old Testament Canon came to be.
8. I can explain how the New Testament Canon came to be.
9. I can explain how it came about the Catholics and Protestants have different canons of the Old
Testament.
10. I know what a “deuterocanonical” or “apocryphal” book of the Bible is.
11. I can name the deuterocanonical books.
12. I can explain, in a basic way, how the four gospels came to be.

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 4. Reading the Bible Like a Catholic
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

September 10, 2019

Introduction

The goal of this lecture is to give some information about how ordinary Catholics are supposed to go about
reading the Bible. In the first place, we will summarize the official criteria for reading the Bible that are provided
by the document Dei Verbum of the Second Vatican Council, as well as the Catechism of the Catholic Church. These
criteria are a good start for all Bible reading, but you will learn some more advanced techniques as you study
more about Sacred Scripture.

The feature that distinguishes the Bible from all other texts or collections of texts is that it is inspired. We saw
what it means to say that the Bible is inspired in our last topic. But, one of the interesting corollaries of the idea
of Biblical inspiration is that there is more to the meaning of any Biblical text than is simply on the page. We say
that the Bible has a literal sense and a spiritual sense (or a senus plenior, a “fuller sense”). The literal sense here
means something more like the “literary sense” of Scripture, because it is the meaning of the text that emerges
from interpreting it according to the usual norms for reading literature. But, since God is inspiring the human
author, there is more to the human author’s words than the human author himself might realize. God can use
the words and the underlying deeds that these words recount to indicate further realities. These insights into
the further meaning of the Biblical text are called the sensus plenior or the spiritual sense of the passage. As we
will see, the tradition of the Church has delineated several spiritual senses of Scripture.

But, the Bible is not simply a literary text—even an inspired one. It is an important source of prayer, contempla-
tion, and communion with God. Every Catholic (and especially Catholics who are aspiring to the priesthood)
should have a prayer life with a deeply Biblical basis. The classic way to do this is through the practice of the
slow and prayerful reading of Scripture, a practice called lectio divina. We will learn this important way that
Catholics have for reading—and praying with—the Bible.

Finally, we will give a basic orientation to the Bible. The Bible is actually a whole library of ancient literature,
written, edited, and collected piecemeal over thousands of years. We will look at all the parts that make the
Bible up, and we will see how they are organized into one collection of Scripture.

1
Lecture Outline

Reading the Bible

1. Official Criteria1
(a) Discover the author’s intention
i) The genre and literary forms that he is using
ii) The historical and cultural context that he is writing in
iii) What he is trying to accomplish in his audience
(b) Be attentive to the content and unity of the whole Scripture
i) The whole Scripture should be viewed as the revelation of God’s one plan for salvation which
culminates in Jesus.
ii) Pay attention to the place
iii) Pay attention to how the passage fits into the canon of Scripture
iv) Pay attention to how the passage fits into its surrounding context
(c) Read the Scripture within the living tradition of the whole Church
i) Church teaching is the Magisterium’s official interpretation of the Bible, so it should at least
set boundaries
ii) Study how the great Catholics, especially the Saints, Fathers, and Doctors read the passage
iii) Study how the passage is used in the liturgy of the Church
(d) Be attentive to the analogy of the faith
i) “the coherence of truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of revelation.”
ii) Do not set Scriptural texts against one another
iii) Do not “proof text”
iv) Do not set Scripture against tradition or against the teaching of the Church
v) Explain a difficult point by analogy with a related, but better understood point.
vi) Recognize that Scripture is “symphonic.”
vii) e.g. explaining Mary’s assumption in terms of the destiny of the whole Mystical Body.
2. Why Scripture has a literary sense and a sensus plenior
(a) It is fitting that God hand on Scripture in a literary way
i) We need sensible images
ii) Sensible images make the Bible (or, at least parts of it, accessible to all)
iii) Literature builds community
iv) We can return to literature again and again.
v) It fits the needs of all the people of God, from small children to sophisticated scholars.
vi) The very literary mode itself reminds us that God is the ever-greater mystery
(b) Sensus plenior (“fuller sense”)
i) Trying to get at what God is trying to reveal in all its fullness.
ii) Also called the “spiritual senses” of scripture
iii) Ancient readers commonly deployed this method.
iv) Later Biblical writers themselves read earlier Biblical texts this way.

1. CCC 109-114; Dei Verbum 12

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 v) These are not directly useful for theological argument. They are used to show the unity of
God’s plan across the Old and New Testaments, for prayer, devotion, worship, preaching,
teaching, and exhortation.
vi) Justification: God can signify more with words than the human author is aware of, indicating a
significance of the deeds by which he reveals himself that goes beyond what the human author
has written.
vii) e.g. The Exodus signifies the Paschal Mystery
(c) Distinguish carefully between the sensus plenior and accomodated readings
i) “Accomodated readings” are my own private thoughts, not a discernment of what God is trying
to reveal
ii) May be devotionally useful, but is not really Scriptural interpretation
iii) e.g. “playing a song on the ten-stringed lyre” means “living a good life according to the 10
commandments”
3. The Four Senses of Scripture
(a) Literal Sense
i) What the inspired author is trying to convey with his words.
ii) This takes into account all of the usual rules for reading literature
iii) NB: The “literary” sense, NOT the “literalistic” sense.
iv) This is the basic meaning of the text that everything else must be founded upon.
v) This is the only sense of Scripture that is suitable for theological argument.
(b) Moral Sense (or the “Tropological Sense”)
i) How this passage exemplifies godly action
ii) e.g. how we should apply King David or Paul’s behavior to our own lives
(c) Allegorical Sense
i) How one event in the Bible foreshadows another
ii) e.g. How the Exodus foreshadows the Paschal Mystery
(d) Anagogical Sense
i) How something in the Bible signifies a heavenly reality
ii) e.g. How Jerusalem or Zion signify heaven.
iii) e.g. How the queen arrayed in glory signifies Mary glorified in heaven.
4. Praying Scripture: Lectio Divina
(a) Stages
i) Letio — careful reading
ii) Meditatio — drawing out the implications of the passage and comparing it to others
iii) Oratio — praying to God based on the passage (Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, Suppli-
cation)
iv) Contemplatio — sitting with the passage, and enjoying being with God.
(b) Notes
i) Do not get too caught up on the method; it is not helpful if followed rigidly.

The Parts and Divisions of the Bible

1. The Christian Order of the OT (follows the LXX)

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 (a) Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
(b) Historical Books
i) Deuteronomic History: Joshua, Judges, (Ruth), 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings2
ii) Chronicles: 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah
iii) Stories: Tobit, Judith, Esther
iv) Maccabees: 1-2 Maccabees
(c) Wisdom Literature
i) Job
ii) Psalms
iii) “Solomonic” Books: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs
iv) Wisdom of Solomon
v) Sirach
(d) Prophets
i) Major: Isaiah, Jeremiah (Lamentations, Baruch), Ezekiel, Daniel
ii) Minor: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai,
Zechariah, Malachi

2. The Jewish Order of the OT

(a) The Law (Torah): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
(b) The Prophets (Nevi’im)
i) The Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings
ii) The Latter Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, The Book of the Twelve
(c) The Writings (Kethuvim)
i) Psalms
ii) Proverbs
iii) The Scrolls: Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther
iv) Daniel
v) Ezra
vi) Nehemiah
vii) 1-2 Chronicles
3. Order of the New Testament
(a) Gospels
i) Synoptic: Matthew, Mark, Luke
ii) John
(b) Acts of the Apostles
(c) Epistles

2. Although the Christian order of the Old Testament follows the Septuagint Order, modern Christian Bibles nevertheless borrow
some of the names of books from the Hebrew form of the Bible. What modern Christian Bibles call First and Second Samuel, the
Septuagint actually calls First and Second Kingdoms, respectively. What modern Christian Bibles call First and Second Kings, the
Septuagint actually calls Third and Fourth Kingdoms. What modern Christian Bibles call First and Second Chronicles, the Septuagint
actually calls First and Second Paralipomenon (Greek for “things left out” of the books of Kings). This is important to keep in mind
when looking at older Catholic translations of the Bible, the Latin translation of the Bible (called the “Vulgate”), as well as older Catholic
books. Additionally, older Catholic Bibles and theological works will often use the Greek spellings of Biblical names, rather than the
Hebrew spellings that modern Christian Bibles use.

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 i) Paul: Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1-2 Thessaloni-
ans, 1-2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon
ii) The Letter to the Hebrews
iii) James
iv) 1-2 Peter
v) 1-3 John
vi) Jude
(d) Revelation

Review

Essential Understandings

1. To properly interpret a passage of Scripture, you must pay attention to the author’s intention (genre,
literary forms, historical and cultural context, and the aims he has in communicating); how the passage
fits into the whole Biblical story, as well as its literary and canonical context; and the analogy of the faith.
You must also read the Bible from within the living tradition of the whole Church, being illuminated by
her teachings on faith and morals, reading the passage in the light of insights from Fathers and Doctors,
and considering how the passage is used in liturgy and worship.

2. It is fitting the God gave us his revelation in a literary way, because we need sensible images and metaphors
to purify our idolatrous ones, as well as to help us think aright about God. Moreover the very limitations
of such sensible metaphors can remind us that God transcends them all. A literary mode of revelation is
something that we can return to again and again, it fits the needs of all the people of God from the most
simple to the most sophisticated, and shared literature builds community.

3. Beyond the literal sense of a passage, Scripture has fuller, spiritual senses. This is because God can say
more with the human author’s words about the saving deeds he has wrought in history than the saving
author himself may be aware of. The literal sense is the primary sense of Scripture, upon which the
spiritual senses are founded, and as such, the literal sense is the foundation for theological arguments.
The spiritual sense is useful for prayer, liturgy, devotion, instruction, preaching, exhortation, and the
like. Moreover, a robust use of the spiritual sense highlights the unity of God’s plan across the Old and
New Testaments.

4. The four senses of scripture are the literal (or better, “literary”) sense of Scripture, which is the human au-
thor’s intended meaning, discerned through the prudent application of sound criteria for interpretation,
as well as the three spiritual senses of Scripture: the moral sense (which indicates how to live), the ana-
logical sense (which indicates how one Biblical event foreshadows another, and particularly the mystery
of Christ), and the anagogical sense (which indicates what heaven is like).

5. Every Catholic should put the Bible at the center of his life of prayer. A classic way to do this is to engage
in the prayerful and careful reading of Sacred Scripture, called lectio divina, which consists in reading a
passage of scripture, drawing out its implications through meditation, praying and talking to God based
on the results of the reading and meditation (through adoration, contrition, prayer, and supplication),
and contemplating God’s presence.

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 6. Christians divide the Old Testament into the Pentateuch, the Historical Books, the Wisdom Literature,
and the Prophets. Jews divide the Old Testament into the Law, the Prophets (Former and Latter), and
the Writings.

7. The New Testament is divided into the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and Revelation.

Vocabulary

Accommodated Readings. An accomodated reading of a passage of the Bible is a private thought of my own that
occurs to me while I am reading a passage of the Bible. These are spiritually and devotionally useful, but they
are not true Scriptural interpretations. Great care must be taken when considering the spiritual sense (i.e. the
sensus plenior) of a Scripture passage to make sure that it is a legitimate interpretation of the passage and not
just my own personal accommodated reading of the passage. An example of an accommodated reading of the
passage in the Psalms where we are told to “play on the ten-stringed harp . . . loudly with all our skill” is to
think of our own life as a song which we are playing on the strings of the ten commandments.

Anagogical Sense. An anagogical sense of a passage of Scripture is how the passage in question signifies a heav-
enly reality. For example, Zion or Jerusalem can signify not just the mountain or the city (which would be their
literal sense), but also heaven. Or, when the Psalms say that “the queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in
gold.”, it can refer to the heavenly court where the Virgin Mary stands glorified next to Jesus.

Analogical Sense. An analogical sense (or “typological sense”) of a passage of Scripture is how the passage in ques-
tion foreshadows another event in scripture. The foreshadowing event is called the type, and the foreshadowed
event is called the anti-type. For example, the allegorical sense of the Passover is the Paschal Mystery (suffering,
death, resurrection, and ascension) of Jesus, because the Passover foreshadows the Paschal Mystery.

Analogy of Faith. The analogy of faith is the coherence of the truths of the faith among themselves and within
the whole plan of salvation. To attend to the analogy of faith when interpreting scripture means to see how a
passage in question fits into God’s whole plan for us, and to see how it illuminates and is illuminated by other
passages of scripture and teachings of the Church. For example, we can think of Mary’s bodily assumption on
analogy with what the Bible teaches us about the destiny of the whole Mystical Body of the Church.

Deuteronomic History. This is the name for the books of Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, and 1-2 Kings. These
books narrate the history of the Israelites from their arrival in the land of Canaan until their exile under Assyria
and Babylon. They are called “deuteronomic” because they explain the tragic fate of Israel by interpreting her
history in the light of the theology of the book of Deuteronomy. Jewish people call these books the Former
Prophets.

Evangelist. An evangelist is a person who wrote one of the canonical gospels.

Former Prophets. This is the Jewish name for the books of Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, and 1-2 Kings. They
are so-called on account of their heavily moralizing tone, which seeks to discern how God is at work in the
history of the Israelites. The other name for this collection of books is the Deuteronomic History.

Lectio Divina. The spiritual practice of the slow and careful reading of Sacred Scripture for the purposes of
entering into prayer and contemplation based on God’s Word.

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Genre. The genre of a piece of literature is the type of literature that it is. For example, mystery, science fiction,
lyric poem, historical narrative, and proverb are all examples of different genres of literature.

Latter Prophets. This is the Jewish name for Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the book of the twelve minor
prophets.

Literal Sense. The literal sense of a passage of Sacred Scripture is what the inspired author is trying convey with
his words, as this is discovered by applying sound criteria for interpretation. It is probably better called the
“literary” sense, because it is the sense of Scripture that emerges from reading the Bible like literature; it does
not mean the meaning that emerges from “taking the Bible literally” in the modern, popular sense of that term,
where assertions are simplistically taken to be direct historical or scientific truth. The literal sense is the basic
and foundational sense of Sacred Scripture that everything else must be founded upon. It is the only sense of
Scripture that is suitable for theological argument. Everything that is found in the spiritual senses of Scripture
in one place can be found in the literal sense in another.

Major Prophets. This is the name for the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. They are so-named
because they are long and influential works. This contrasts with the twelve minor prophets, whose works are
shorter, and consequently, in general of less influence.

Minor Prophets. This is the name for the twelve short books of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah,
Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. They are so-called because they are short works,
in contrast to those of the major prophets, which are longer, and, consequently, in general of more influence.
The twelve minor prophets are commonly grouped together into one “Book”.

Moral Sense. A moral sense (also called the “tropological sense”) of a passage of Scripture is a spiritual sense of
Scripture which considers how the passage in question exemplifies godly action. For example, the literal sense
of the passage of David and Goliath recounts how David defeated a Philistine warrior. The moral sense of this
passage sees the attitude of David in the face of Goliath as an example of the way that we are supposed to act
when we have to face our own giants.

Pentateuch. The Christian name for the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy. These books tell the story of the origins of the Israelites in light of the history of the whole
world, and explain the origin of their laws and customs. The central character of these books is Moses. Jewish
people call this collection the Torah.

Sensus Plenior. the sensus plenior (“fuller sense”) is a synonym for the spiritual sense of a Scriptural passage,
especially its analogical sense.

Spiritual Sense. A spiritual sense of a passage of Scripture is an authentic meaning found in the passage that
goes beyond the actual meaning of the text of the human author. That is to say, a spiritual sense is founded
upon the literal sense, but goes beyond it. The justification for the existence of such a sense is that God, as
the inspiring author of the passage can give the text of the passage—and its underlying deeds—a meaning that
goes beyond the perception of the inspired human author. Theology properly focuses on the literal sense of
the passage; the spiritual sense of the passage is useful for prayer, preaching, exhortation, teaching, devotion,
and the like. The reality of the spiritual sense also highlights the unity of God’s plan across the Old and New
Testaments. Whatever is taught in the spiritual sense of one passage can be found in the literal passage of
another. Great care must be taken to ensure that a putative spiritual sense really is a meaning of the text, and
not just an accommodated reading. In addition to the sound judgment of the interpreter, we ensure this by
looking to the tradition of the Church, her liturgy, and her great teachers. (Though, in their teaching many

7
great teachers have themselves suggested their own accommodated readings of passages.) The tradition of the
Church has discerned three different kinds of spiritual senses of a passage: the moral (or “tropological”), the
analogical (or “typological”) and the anagogical.

Synoptic Gospels. The synoptic gospels are the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are so-named because
they share many common characteristics with each other (style, themes, content), especially in comparison with
the gospel of John.

Torah. The Jewish name for the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy. The word Torah means “Law” or “Instruction.” Christians call this collection of books the
Pentateuch.

Learning Targets

1. I can identify and explain the criteria for reading the Bible that are found in Dei Verbum and the Catechism
of the Catholic Church
2. I can explain why it is fitting that God gave us his revelation in a literary mode.
3. I know what the sensus plenior is and why the Bible has it.
4. I can explain and outline the Christian and Jewish orders of the canon of the Bible.
5. I can explain the names of the major parts of the Bible.
6. I can name the books of the Deuteronomic history.
7. I can explain why it is called the Deuteronomic history.
8. I can name the four major prophets.
9. I can explain the four senses of Sacred Scripture.
10. I can explain the process of lectio divina.
11. I can engage in the process of lectio divina.

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 5. Introduction to the Biblical World
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.
September 17, 2019

Introduction

Now that we have examined the properties of God’s revelation as it is expressed in Sacred Scripture, we now
start to look a the contents of the Bible itself. Here we will take an overarching perspective on the whole of the
Old Testament, so that we can better understand the books of the Old Testament when we read them in detail.

To that end, we will first look at the setting of the Old Testament in the world of the Ancient Near East. We will
look at the people and places that composed this world, with the hope that this background information will
illuminate some otherwise obscure passages in the Bible. Then we will take in a brief overview of the history
of Israel and see how that history is told in the various biblical books. Finally, we will round out our discussion
of the Biblical world by looking at some of the major theological themes which run through the whole Old
Testament and set the stage for its fulfillment in Jesus Christ in the New.

Lecture Notes

The Setting: The Ancient Near East

Many of the ANE’s most important ideas and cultural patterns were already being set in the last centuries of the stone Age
as the human family moved from a nomadic and hunting lifestyle to a settled town and agricultural life. As far as present
knowledge goes, this change first took root in the very area of the “Bible lands,” stretching from the Mediterranean seacoast
of Palestine and turkey eastward to modern Iran. This was a profound change—and its effect forced people together and to
lear how to cooperate with one another. It was the beginning of civilization, and it took place in the period between about
9000 BC and the beginning of the Bronze Age about 3400 B.C.1

1. Useful Maps from the ESV Bible Atlas

(a) Map 0-1 (p. 18): Major Regions of the Ancient Near East
(b) map 0-2 (p. 19): Natural Geographic Regions of Palestine
2. Archaeological Historical Eras of the ANE
(a) Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age (25,000 to 10,000 B.C.)

1. Lawrence Boadt, *Reading the Old Testament, revised and updated ed., page ?

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 (b) Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age (10,000 to 8,000 B.C.)
(c) Neolithic, or New Stone Age (8,000 to 3,800 B.C.)
(d) Chalcolithic, or Copper-Stone Period (3,800 to 3,400 B.C.)
(e) Early Bronze Age (3,400 to 2,000 B.C.)
(f) Middle Bronze Age (2,000 B.C. to 1,550 B.C.)
(g) Late Bronze Age (1,550 to 1,200 B.C.)
(h) Iron Age (1,200 B.C. to 539 B.C.)
(i) Persian Period (539 to 323 B.C.)
(j) Hellenistic Period (323 to 63 B.C.)
(k) Roman Period (63 B.C. to A.D. 324)
(l) Byzantine Period (A.D. 324 to A.D. 630)
3. Geography of the ANE
(a) Egypt
i) Naturally fortified by deserts
(b) Canaan
i) Natural crossroads between Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Hittite culture
ii) Not just modern day Israel, but can mean the whole eastern Mediterranean coast from Turkey
on
iii) The southern part acquired the name “Palestine” after the Philistines who lived there
iv) The northern coastal part is “Phonecia” from the purple dye which was the major export of the
people in the region of Tyre and Sidon.
(c) Syria
(d) Mesopotamia
i) The name means, “between the rivers”, i.e. the Tigris and the Euphrates.
(e) Persia
(f) Turkey
4. Peoples of the ANE
(a) Egypt
i) Narrow band around the last 1,000 miles of 4,000 long Nile river
ii) Widens in the last 160 miles in the Nile Delta
iii) Menes, king of Upper Egypt united the Egypts in 3,000 B.C., but governed separately
iv) Oriented more towards trade and domination of Lebanon and Palestine than Africa.
v) Active sea trade with Asia Minor
vi) Certain formal aspects of Israelite religion (e.g. the Ark of the Covenant) seem to be based on
Egyptian models
vii) Much of Israelite cultic law is explicitly anti-Egyptian.
(b) The Dynasties of Egypt
i) The Archaic Period: Dynasties 1-2 (3100 to 2675 B.C.)
ii) The Old Kingdom: Dynasties 3-8 (2675 B.C. to 2130 B.C.) (NB: This is when the pyramids
were built).
iii) The First Intermediate Period: Dynasties 9-11 (2130 B.C to 1980 B.C.)
iv) Middle Kingdom: Dynasties 11-14 (1980 B.C. to 1630 B.C)
v) The Second Intermediate Period: Semitic Conquerors (“Hyksos”) Checked Princes: Dynasties
15-17 (1630 B.C. to 1539 B.C.)

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 vi) The New Kingdom: Dynasty 18 (1539 B.C. to 1295 B.C.): Control of Palestine, Lebanon Syria
vii) The New Kingdom: Dynasty 19-20 (1295 B.C. to 1075 B.C.): Ramses II builds new capital in
the east delta. Likely Seti I enslaved Israel and Ramses II was the Pharaoh during the actual
exodus. This was followed by a rapid decline in power under the age of the Sea People
viii) Third Intermediate Period (1075 to 656 B.C.): Only occasional influence over Palestine.
ix) Late Period (664 B.C to 332 B.C.)
x) Greco-Roman Period (332 B.C. to 642 A.D.): Macedonian (332-305); Ptolemaic (305-30); Ro-
man (30 B.C. - A.D. 642)
(c) Sumer
i) The first major civilization in Mesopotamia (emerged 3000 B.C.)
ii) Complex social organization (for irrigation projects)
iii) Governance by free citizens
iv) Sophisticated culture, math, and technology
v) Unique language, but learned by later Akkadian scribes, who adapted and adopted its literature.
vi) Rich Literature: Circulated until 1st century A.D., considered classical.
(d) Akkadia
i) Semitic people who migrated to Mesopotamia from the west
ii) Sargon of Akkad breaks power of Sumer (2400 B.C.), builds an empire, appropriated Sumerian
culture
iii) Mesopotamia controlled by Semitic peoples until Cyrus the Great of Persia 1800 years later.
iv) Akkadian is the diplomatic language of the ANE
v) Both Babylon and Assyria had same language and general culture.
(e) South Mesopotamia: Babylon
i) Under Hammurabi and successors (1792-1595), became a cultural center and model of all true
civilization
ii) Babylon didn’t emerge again until Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar (625-632)
(f) North Mesopotamia: Assyria, more trading and warlike.
i) Became a world power in 10th Century B.C. until the fall of Nineveh to Babylon in 612 B.C.
ii) Conquered Syria up to the Northern Kingdom under Asshur-nasirpal II and Shalmaneser (888-
824)
iii) Army and empire reorganized (involving mass deportation) under Tiglath-pileser III (745
B.C.).
iv) Last great king: Ashurbanipal (669-632) left a large library to preserve Akkadian culture.
v) Until the fall of Nineveh in 612, every king in Israel and Judah had to worry about the Assyrian
threat.
vi) Fall of Nineveh celebrated throughout the ANE (cf. Nahum)
(g) Aram (in Syria, or the Levant)
i) A group of Syrian city-states formed in a gradual consolidation and settlement of desert tribal
groups (after 1300)
ii) 9th century Damascus became an important kingdom under Ben Hadad and Hazael
iii) Warred with Israel, but held in check by the Assyrian threat.
iv) Conquering these was an Assyrian goal under Tiglath-Pileser
v) NB: Ugarit: Archeological discoveries uncovered texts which shed light on Canaanite culture.
(h) Phonecians
i) Lived in the coastal cities of Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, and Beiruit

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 ii) Control never extended more than 30 miles inline
iii) Culture and wealth from Mediterranean trade (colonies in Sardinia and Spain)
iv) Welcomed the best crafts from where they were
v) Were using an alphabet by mid-second millennium. (Thought to have been invented by Asi-
atics in Egypt in 2000 B.C.)
vi) Still a power in commerce as late as the 6th century B.C.
(i) Philistines
i) This is where the name of Palestine came from
ii) Part of the “Sea People” (from Mycenean culture?) who settled in Palestine after defeat by
Ramses III in 1180, about the time the Israelites began their conquest.
iii) Tight alliance of 5 city-states: Ekron, Asdod, Ashkelon, Gaza, and Gath
iv) Had a monopoly on iron-making, which made them fierce.
v) During the end of the period of the Judges (c. 1050 B.C.), Philistines had a major expansion
into the hill country where they entered into conflict with the settled Israelites. This led to
Israelite calls for a king, and set up the events for the rise of Saul.
vi) King David subjected them, but after the death of Solomon in 930, they regained independence
until the Assyrians came. But they were never strong enough to menace Israel or Judah.
(j) Small Transjordanian States (Moab, Edom, etc.)
i) Groups began to settle here at about the time of the Exodus
ii) Various conflicts with the Israelites
iii) Conflict with Edom was continuous in the period of the kings
(k) ’Apiru
i) An epithet for a class of landless and marginalized peoples
ii) A subset might be connected with Biblical “Hebrews” (but this is contested)
(l) Hittites
i) Indo-European Kingdom from 1700-1200. Defeated c. 1200 by the Sea Peoples
ii) After 1200, formed small neo-Hittite communities
iii) Often got into contact with Aramean tribes.
iv) Eventually absorbed into Assyrian empire
v) Affinities with Greek mythology; borrowed from Mesopotamian, Syrian, and Canaanite
sources for art and religion
vi) Raised horses, built chariots, and pioneered the use of iron
vii) ritual texts with many formal parallels with the priestly legislation of the Pentateuch.
viii) law codes that compare and contrast with mosaic law
ix) possible source for the idea of a covenant?
(m) Persians
i) In the area of southern Iran
ii) Cyrus the Great (reigned 559-530) built an empire that stretched from Greece to India.
iii) The Persian empire was organized into “satrapies”, with local leaders having power under Per-
sian governors
iv) Subject countries followed their own religion
v) Religion: Zoroastrianism – a dualistic religion with a great diversity of good and evil forces
vi) Heaven, hell, angels, and the Last Judgment have a certain Zoroastrian coloration
vii) The two centuries of Persian rule in Israel (539-333) were relatively peaceful, so they leave
little written impact in the OT.
(n) Greeks

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 i) Alexander the Great gained control of Greece in c. 336 and took on the Persians from 333 to
323, conquering up to the Ganges river in India.
ii) Settled colonies of Greeks throughout the ANE as part of a quest to impose Greek language
and values on the East
iii) Alexander died in 323 at the age of 33
iv) Upon his death, Alexander’s generals divided his empire into three pieces
5. The Canaanites
(a) A Semitic People
(b) A crossroads of Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Hittite power
i) City-states with high culture
ii) Within and surrounding Israelite settlements
(c) During 2nd millennium B.C. a large number of city-states with high culture within and surrounding
Israelite settlements
(d) Canaanite Nature Religion
i) Details come from the town of Ugarit in the far north, where many clay tablets are preserved
ii) A religion based on the rhythms of nature and agriculture, tied to the fertility cult.
iii) Emphasis on sexual actions that would bring about fertility by human imitation of divine pow-
ers that bestowed fertilizing seed and life on the land.
iv) Worship of gods who controlled the forces of nature, especially rain and drought.
v) The rituals were designed to reflect and bring proper order to nature; they attempt to gain
gods’ blessings and cosmic order.
vi) The gods were little more than the personified power of the storm, the drought, the growing
crops, sexual fertility
vii) The gods were violent, unscrupulous, and sexually perverse
viii) “But their religion also reveals itself strongly dependent on the forces of nature. It sought
to control those forces by turning the hearts and wills of the divine beings to look favorably
on the worshippers. Ancient peoples lived with a great deal of uncertainty about the power
of the gods, always celebrating their return from powerlessness, as when Baal escaped from
the hands of death. They relied on magical recitation of prayers and rituals, and indulged
in degrading sexual practices, hoping to achieve union with the gods. Israel, with its strong
Mosaic faith in the complete power and compassion of the one God Yahweh who stood above
all natural forces, saw through the weaknesses of Canaan’s desperate search for security in
life and rejected any worship of nature. Israel instead insisted upon a God who stood above
the frailties and temptations of human beings, who was not chained to the patterns of the
seasons, who ruled over all of creation, and who controlled the histories of each nation. He
was unfailingly merciful and faithful, and never capricious or uncertain, and he demanded
strict moral standards of conduct from his people. Sex was subordinated to marriage and to
the social good of the families, and drunkenness and other revelry were ruled out as part of
worship.”2
(e) Canaanite gods
i) El (“God”)
i) The high god; the Father of the gods and final judge in the dispute among other gods
ii) Portrayed as wise and old

2. Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, 192-3

5
 iii) At times influenced by Asherah his wife and Anat
iv) Source of two cosmic rivers that are source of fresh water on earth.
v) Dwells on a mountain
vi) Worshipped in the form of a bull.
vii) Traits of El have influenced the biblical portrait of Yahweh.
viii) In places “Elohim” is the Hebrew word for God.
ii) Ba’al (“Master” or “Lord”)
i)Storm god and day-to-day king of gods
ii)Controls rainstorm and fertility cycle: agricultural success depends on him.
iii)“King and Eternal One” and “Lord of Heaven and Earth”
iv) Portrayed with arm upraised holding a war club, symbol of thunder, with a twisted staff
symbolizing lightning
v) Affects the biblical portrait of Yahweh
iii) Asherah
i) The wife or consort of El.
ii) Needs to be won over to Ba’al’s side.
iii) Fertility Cults: Worship around poles.
iv) Anat
i) Sister of Ba’al and possibly his consort
ii) A goddess of the hunt, love and war, possibly like the Babylonian Ishtar.
iii) A warrior in bloodthirsty battles on behalf of Ba’al
iv) Can be identified with sexual charms.
v) Astarte
i) Third goddess, strongly identified with fertility cults.
ii) Naked goddess, holding out her breasts to the worshipper.
iii) Has a lot in common with Anat.
iv) Just as common in Israelite cities as in Canaanite ones
v) The goddesses manifest the feminine side of nature/deity: mother, protector of childbirth,
giver of fertility, helper of sexual charm.
vi) Dagon
i) The god of grain
(f) The Religious Myth of Ba’al: A Dramatization of the Conflict Between Wet and Dry Seasons
i) A story about how Ba’al gained the kingship of the gods by overcoming his enemies, Sea and
Death.
ii) Yamm (god of the sea) and Ba’al (god of the storm and devestation) battled over who should
be king of earth
iii) Ba’al wins with the help of magical weapons and puts Yamm under permanent restraint.
iv) The victory of Ba’al symbolizes the victory of divine order over chaos, represented by the wa-
ters
v) Gets sisters/wives Anat and Astarte to win over Asherah, who persuades El to allow him to
have a palace/temple built.
vi) Baal holds a fest for the gods to celebrate, in which his kingship is acknowledged.
vii) Order and peace prevail
viii) Mot (“death”) is unhappy. He demands that El and the assembly of gods hand Ba’al over to his
power

6
 ix) Ba’al accepts the challenge and descends to the netherworld to fight Mot.
x) Ba’al is overcome when he eats the bread of death.
xi) The earth wilts and fades for lack of rain and the gods go into mourning over his death.
xii) Anat goes in search of her missing brother, and with the help of Shapash (the Sun goddess)
who travels by night through the underworld from west to east, locates him and frees him.
xiii) Anat slays Mot, winnows him like wheat and sprinkles his remains across the fields.
xiv) In another incident, Ba’al fights Mot into the night. Shapash begs El not to let death rule the
earth, So El forces Mot to go back to ruling the realm of the dead. This symbolizes the triumph
of rains and life-giving forces over teh killing heat and dryness of the summer.
xv) Ba’al disappears from April to October, but returns.
(g) Canaanite religious practices
i) Child sacrifice — evidently widespread in Canaanite areas
ii) High Places — hilltop altars. (Early Israelite practice, too)
iii) Burning incense before a female goddess and offering baked cakes
iv) Burning incense to Baal
v) Worshipping sun, moon, and stars as gods
vi) Making graven images to carry around
vii) Respect and care for parents in old age and after death.
(h) The Bible Condemns Many Canaanite religious practices
i) But according to both Biblical and archaeological witness, Israelites were still drawn to them.
ii) Possibly assimilated peoples were not really converted to “orthodox” Yahwism.
iii) Possibly the lure of the cultic practices themselves
iv) Possibly the need for assurance about crops.
v) Possibly the influence of foreign leaders married into royal families. (e.g. Jezebel, Solomon’s
wives)
6. The Israelites (NB: Not “Jews”)
(a) Origins
i) We find them at the beginning of the Iron age as a confederation of Semitic speaking tribes
dwelling among the Canaanites.
ii) They had common legal and cultic practices, as well as a common “monolatristic” (later more
properly monotheistic) devotion to one God, “Yahweh”.
iii) Their own origin story is recorded in the Bible: About 400 years beforehand, the common
founder of their tribes came from Mesopotamia via Aram and settled in Canaan. This family
emigrated to Egypt, lived there for 430 years, mostly under slavery, were delivered by Moses
and given a distinct identity. They then entered the land of Canaan and began a program of
conquest and settlement, eventually establishing an imperial dynasty.
iv) The main outlines of the story fit the archaeological record, but the story has many legendary
elements.
(b) Family Structure
i) Patriarchal, clan-based family structure, for protection of all members
ii) Strong sense of the need to care for widows
iii) Levirate Marriage (Latin levir: brother-in-law): the brother-in-law sired children of widows
to perpetuate the name of the deceased and to keep the family claim on the land.
iv) Children are headstrong and full of self-will, and need to be educated.
v) The basic unit of society was the extended family, not the nuclear family, so “brothers and
sisters” included aunts, cousins, and the like.

7
 vi) The ideal family is large
vii) Women are inferior, but they are never treaded with contempt, and sometimes are important
leaders.
(c) Sexual Attitudes
i) The notion of covenant created a sense of joy in children and the need to treat sex specially.
ii) The Israelites were not to practice the fertility cult that was around them.
iii) Carefully regulated: sexual offenses of men and women taken seriously
iv) Any sexual relations of a couple before marriage carried the obligation to marriage.
v) Other sexually-oriented acts were usually condemned very strongly
vi) A warrior in a holy war should abstain.
vii) The sexual drive is unruly and needs the regulation of marriage
(d) Marriage
i) Monogamy the norm from the time of David and Solomon
ii) Polygamy is remembered as the exception, not the rule (eg. the clear expression of Genesis
and Proverbs)
(e) Legal Justice
i) Before the monarchy, this was taken care of on a family clan/level
ii) Exercised through town elders at city gates
iii) Judgments based on custom or tradition — not even kings seem to have made many laws.
iv) Penalties less severe than in neighboring countries.
v) Capital offenses for only a few cases (and none against property): blasphemy, adultery, dishon-
oring parents.
(f) Slavery
i) The nation tried to limit its use and encourage sympathy for the plight of slaves.
ii) You couldn’t make an Israelite a slave, be he could sell himself into slavery for payment of his
debts for seven years. (But children could not be manumitted).
iii) Probably relatively rare, due to lack of mention in the Bible.
iv) Mostly disappeared after the Exile, because living under the dominion of others.
(g) Death and Afterlife
i) All the dead live a shadowy existence in Sheol: a grave, a pit, or a swamp. No memory of God
exists and his praise is not sung there.
ii) Earlier books had some intimations of the resurrection.
iii) A doctrine of an afterlife of rewards and punishments emerged after the Exile, and make their
appearance only in very late books.
(h) The Lure of Canaanite Religion
i) The Israelites struggled against Canaanite practices for centuries, right up until the exile.
ii) Israel often fell short of complete adherence to “orthodox” Yahwism.
iii) Many groups were added to the Israelites over time, and they brought customs with them, and
often not and interior conversion to “orthodox” Yahwism
(i) Religion (NB: Not “Judaism”)
i) We will consider the Israelite view of God below
ii) We will talk about specific religious practices when we cover Leviticus.

8
The History of Israel, According to the OT3

1. The Growth of Semitic Civilization (3000-2000 B.C.)

(a) Classical Civilization of Sumer
(b) Mesopotamian Semitic Civilizations (Akkad, Babylon, Assyria)
(c) Syro-Palestine Civilizations (Mari, Ebla)
(d) These set the cultural backdrop for Biblical traditions
(e) The cultures from which the Israelites will emerge
2. The Patriarchal Period (1900-1300 B.C.)
(a) Migration of peoples over Palestine and Mesopotamia
(b) Traditions of nomadic peoples
(c) Migrations to Egypt
(d) The cultural backdrop for the Israelites’ traditions about God’s revelation to their ancestors as “the
God of Our Fathers”
3. The Exodus and Journey to Canaan (1300-1250 B.C.)
(a) Most likely time: During reign of Pharaoh Ramsees II (1290-1235 B.C.)
(b) The notion of the “Chosen People” formed on account of the Sinai experience.
4. The Period of the Judges (1250-1020 B.C.)
(a) The invasion led by Joshua did not produce an complete conquest
(b) 200 years of fighting, upheaval, peaceful penetration, and tribal alliances
(c) Israel gradually formed into a single nation
5. The United Monarchy of David and Solomon (1020-930 B.C.)
(a) The high point of Israel’s power and prestige as a nation
(b) In 100 years, moved from a tribal federation to petty kingdom to modest empire
(c) Developed a sophisticated culture
(d) A conflict between the traditions of the tribal past and the worldly ambitions of the new kings.
6. The Empire of David and Solomon Splits (930-722 B.C.)
(a) The Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah) develop different interpreta-
tions of Israel’s past traditions. (Both are reflected in the Bible)
(b) The two kingdoms fight one another, as well as the small states to the east: Damascus, Edom, and
Moab
(c) Assyrian empire begins its rise in the east.
(d) Israel is defeated, and its leading men go into exile in 722/721 B.C.
7. Judah Alone (722-586 B.C.)
(a) The Southern Kingdom of Judah survives after the fall of Israel
(b) Assyrian domination. Some kings resist (Hezekiah and Josiah); Others Give in Totally (Manasseh)
(c) Religious Reform under Josiah (640-609)
(d) Assyria declines, and Babylon rises under Nebuchadnezzar

3. cf. Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, revised and updated, 11-12

9
 (e) Babylon destroys Judah in two invasions (598 B.C. and 587 B.C.)
8. Babylonian Exile (585-539 B.C.)
(a) The leading men of Judah are sent into Exile
(b) Persian Empire under Cyrus defeats Babylon in 539 B.C.
(c) Cyrus allows the Jews to return home.
9. The Postexilic Period (539-332 B.C.)
(a) Judah is a very small state of the land immediately around Jerusalem
(b) Not independent, but governed by Persian governors
(c) Religious guidance by the high priests of the temple.
(d) Ezra (458-390) and Nehemiah (445-420) begin the religious reform that leads to the canonization
of the Scriptures and the religious practices based on the Torah.
10. Greek Rule (332-175 B.C.)
(a) Alexander the Great conquers the Ancient Near East and begins the Hellenistic Period
(b) Alexander’s short-lived empire is divided by his generals upon his death.
(c) Israel is first ruled by the Ptolomies in Egypt, then after the Battle of Paneas (198 B.C.) by the
Seleucids in Syria
11. The Maccabees (175 B.C-63 B.C.)
(a) Instigated by forced Hellenization, this family fights for Jewish independence.
(b) Wins a period of independence under the Hasmonean dynasty.
(c) Infighting among Jewish factions leads to rival Jewish factions: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes
12. Roman Rule (63 B.C- 1 B.C.)
(a) Pompey conquers Palestine in 63 B.C.
(b) Eventually romans give power to a local ruler: Herod the Great

The Overall Story of the Old Testament

1. Pentateuch
(a) Genesis
i) The prehistory of God’s People: Creation, Fall, Genealogies, Noah, Table of Nations, Babel
ii) The call and history of the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (plus the story of Joseph)
(b) Exodus
i) The deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt
ii) God’s giving of the covenant and the law
iii) The building of the Ark and the Tent of Meeting
(c) Leviticus
i) A continuation of the giving of the Law, especially with what pertains to the priests (Levites)
and worship
ii) The initiation of the cult.
(d) Numbers

10
 i) The story of Israel’s mostly unfaithful wandering in the desert.
(e) Deuteronomy
i) A long speech by Moses, given to the Israelites right before they enter the Promised Land
ii) Sum up the meaning of the Covenant
iii) Gives extra laws of the Covenant.
iv) Records the death of Moses.
2. Deuteronomic History: Israel’s Infidelity and Coming Destruction
(a) Joshua
i) The conquest of the land
ii) The allotment of the land to the different tribes.
(b) Judges
i) The settlement of the land
ii) The struggle for survival against attacking non-Israelite kings and nations
(c) 1-2 Samuel
i) The need for a king
ii) The rise and fall of Saul
iii) The rise and reign of David
(d) 1-2 Kings
i) The reign of Solomon
ii) The split of the nation into the north (Israel) and south (Judah).
iii) The religious infidelity of the kings that followed David, down to the exile (c. 586 B.C.)
iv) The prophetic activities of Elijah and Elisha
3. Chronicles
(a) 1-2 Chronicles
i) A retelling of the history of Israel, from the perspective of the Southern Kingdom, focused on
priestly concerns.
(b) Ezra and Nehemiah
i) Tell the story of the return from Exile up to the end of the fifth century B.C.
4. 1-2 Maccabees
(a) Tells the story of the Maccabean revolt (167-160 B.C.)
(b) A rebellion against the forced Hellenization that occurred under the Selucid emperor Antiochus IV.

Ten Great Themes of Old Testament Theology

“The only real candidate for a single dominant theme in the Old Testament would be the person of God. the implied
questions—‘Who is God?’ ‘What does Gd do?’’Why does God do it?—fill every page and every level of tradition in the Bible.
Naturally, the Old Testament is also the story of the people Israel, for this one God interacted with them, and they began to
understand God through their experience as a people. But it is not primarily the story of God and Israel alone. Although
the people remembered what God had done for them, they also spoke about what God does for the whole world and all its
nations . . . Because Israel had a strong sense of God’s special intervention into its history, it saw its duty both to remember

11
the wonderful things God had done for it alone and to proclaim and affirm the truth about this God for and to the whole
world.” 4

1. The Only God

(a) The Shema is the central prayer: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deut. 6:4)
(b) Other cultures were polytheistic and had many debased ideas about divine power
i) Divinizing nature and making natural forces have different ideas regarding human beings
ii) Manipulated the gods into doing what people wanted
iii) Religious rites that imitated the forces of storms, seasons, sex, etc.
iv) The gods are really just glorified human beings, with all of our attitudes, only moreso.
v) Nature and gods are nearly identical
(c) The God of Israel
i) A single divine being who ordered and controlled everything out of the goodness of creation
ii) Does not act out of whims
iii) Does not tolerate immoral behavior as a part of worship
iv) Does not have rivals — no force can successfully struggle against him
v) God rules history
(d) From Monolatry to Monotheism: The Development of Israel’s Notion of the One God
i) The idea is that Israelite’s history brought about a more and more profound understanding of
the promises the God made to them, and this in turn brought about a more profound under-
standing of who the God must be who could promise such things and direct their history in
such a way. God reveals himself in and through the historical development of his people Israel.
ii) Abraham and the God of the Clan
iii) Moses and the God of the Tribes
iv) David and the God of the Nation
v) The Prophets and the God of All Nations
vi) The Exile and the God of All Creation
vii) There is no god but YHWH.
2. God is Active in History
(a) God creates and elects Israel.
(b) “God reveals that History is not neutral, but is a stage for the discovery of the self-revealing God.”5
(c) Time is not circular and cyclical, but linear. History is ever-new and has an ultimate destination:
the renewal of all things.
(d) God is not a part of nature, acting out its cycles; God is the creator of nature who can definitively
act on it and intervene in its history.
(e) Israel’s religious breakthrough is that God cares about humans and acts in a carefully-ordered and
loving way for the good of humans.
(f) Above all, God is a liberator and savior.
3. God’s Actions Demand a Personal Response

4. Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, revised and updated ed. Much of this section is adapted from Boadt.
5. Boadt, 475.

12
 (a) Because God has acted on our behalf, we must respond with friendship, fidelity, and obedience
(b) Keeping God’s commandments
(c) Acknowledging God’s Glory
(d) Our response to God involves the full range of human emotions—even sadness, anger, and com-
plaining!
4. Prayer
(a) The whole Biblical text is a confession of praise and thanksgiving to God for his mighty deeds
(b) Every bit of the narrative is shot through with prayer and worship
(c) The Psalms are at the very center of the (Christian) Bible for just this reason.
5. Covenant
(a) God elects and chooses a people to share his life with, to make a part of his family.
6. Tradition
(a) The Torah is an instruction in a holistic, integral way of life—it talks about everything all together.
(b) “The greatness of biblical revelation is that it uses the structure of society to help a community
function religiously, but at the same time moves beyond these structures. Thus Israel could demand
of its kings a fidelity and an obedience to God’s law that no other ancient Near Eastern monarch had
to face . . . When the Assyrians destroyed the Northen Kingdom of ten tribes, the rest could move
on to a new understanding that God worked even when they did not have the promised land to live
in; and when the temple and king were destroyed by the Babylonians, they moved on to perceive
that these too could be dispensed with, and thatGod would now act in new ways. The Scriptures
were written down so that Israel could be freed from a single human social structure or government
or land and continue to meditate on and proclaim the enduring covenant through time.”6
7. Justice and Mercy
(a) Justice is a feature that is embedded in the very created order of things.
(b) The right order of a just society was just a part and parcel of the right order of all creation.
(c) The healing of all creation and the healing of human society are really the same project.
(d) Human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, therefore they are called to be holy like
God and reflect his holiness and justice in the world.
(e) But God “shows mercy to the thousandth generation.” cf. All of Psalm 103
(f) This is shown especially in the prophetic tradition
(g) The prophets are ethical watchdogs
(h) The prophetic word is: Remember! Remember what God did for you, and what you must do in
return!
8. Hope for the Future
(a) The prophet’s job is also to speak a word of comfort and hope to God’s people
(b) Eschatology
i) “Eschatology” is the study of the last things
ii) Because God is the Lord of History, he will act decisively in the future in a way that will change
everything.

6. Boadt, 477-478.

13
 (c) God’s promises founded an unshakeable hope: no matter what happened to them as a result of what
they did, God would not let it end like this — he must have something even bigger in mind for the
future.
(d) Lead to the development of Messianism
9. The Goodness of Creation
(a) God is a continuous source of blessing for the whole world
10. Wisdom: The Mystery of God’s Ways
(a) Express the fact that humans are rational and free
(b) Express the fact that humans are searching and choosing beings
(c) The search for wisdom must be done in awe and fear of the Lord
(d) Emphasized the mysteriousness of existence and of the human condition
(e) Israel develops critiques of its theology internal to its theology

Learning Targets

1. I can identify on a map where the major groups of Ancient Near Eastern peoples lived: Egyptians,
Canaanites, Arameans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Edomites, Moabites, Phonecians, and
Philistines.

2. I can identify major historical figures of the Ancient Near East: Sargon of Akkad, Hammurabi, Tiglath-
pileser III, Ashurbanipal, Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, and Pompey.

3. I can explain some of the basic features and practices of Canaanite nature religion.

4. I can identify the following Canaanite gods: El, Ba’al, Asherah, Anat, Astarte, and Dagon

5. I can summarize the religious myth of Ba’al.

6. I can outline very broadly the history of the Israelites.

7. I can outline very broadly the story of the Old Testaement.

8. I can explain the Israelites’ developing views of God.

9. I can explain the major themes of Old Testament theology.

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 6. Introduction to the Pentateuch
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

September 26, 2019

Introduction

Now that we have considered the people of the Ancient Near East, the overall history of the Israelites, as well
as the narrative and themes of the Old Testament overall, we are ready to give our consideration to Sacred
Scripture itself.

We will be emphasizing salvation history, that is, we will be emphasizing the narrative parts of the Bible, so that
we can learn the overall story of the Bible. But we will not simply be studying the events as a mere human
story—or even a human story in which God is also involved—we will be studying the narrative of the Bible
inasmuch as it reveals to us who God is and what his plan for us is.

In order to begin, we will look at the first division of the Bible, which is known as the Pentateuch. It is so-called
because it consists of five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The central protago-
nist is Moses, and these books recount the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, the establishment
of a covenant with God at Mount Sinai, and the journey to the promised land. This narrative is set in the context
of world, and indeed cosmic history, by its prequel in the book of Genesis, which stretches back to the creation
of the world and the founding of the Israelite people.

Lecture Notes

The Name of This Collection

1. Greek Name: Pentateuch

(a) Means “Five Scrolls”
(b) The books get their English names from the Greek names for the book as these are found in the
LXX.
i) Genesis: The origins of the world, the nations, and the Israelites.
ii) Exodus: The deliverance from Egypt, Receiving the Covenant and Law on Sinai, and Building
the Ark
iii) Leviticus: Levitical Matters, that is, matters concerning worship
iv) Numbers: Named from the two censuses taken of the people during their wilderness wander-
ing.

1
 v) Deuteronomy: The “second law” given by Moses on the eve of entering into the promised land.
(c) The Hebrew names of the book come from the first word of the book in Hebrew.
2. Hebrew Name: Torah
(a) Means “Law”
i) When Jewish people talk about “The Law”, they are talking about the contents of these five
books.
ii) Many times the term means actual laws.
iii) Law is a prominent genre in the Torah.
(b) Perhaps a better translation is “teaching” or “instruction”
i) Studying the Torah initiates you into a community.
ii) The laws teach a holistic worldview and way of life for a whole community.
iii) The stories amid which the laws are set are to make you feel like you are a part of the community
by showing you how their (your) world fits into everything, and by telling you where you came
from.
(c) The term torah is not used in the Pentateuch to mean these five books, but this use is found in late
Old Testament books (e.g. Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles)

Origins of the Pentateuch

1. Traditional Authorship: Moses

(a) Why Did This Seem Plausible?
i) The Pentateuch and Historical Books speak of Moses as writing things down (Ex. 17:14, 24:4,
34:27, Num 33:2)
ii) The Pentateuch itself says that Moses wrote down the entire Torah (Dt. 31:9, 24-26)
iii) Other parts of the OT – even from after the return – attribute law to Moses. (Josh 8:32; 1 Kg.
2:3; 2 Kg 14:6; Ez. 3:2, 6:18; Neh 8:1, 8:14; 2 Chron. 25:4, 35:12)
iv) Jesus refers to Mosaic authorship (Jn 7:23; Mk 7:10; Mt. 8:4; Mk 1:44; Mt. 19:7; Jn 5:46-7)
(b) But note: nothing of this attributes the whole of it to Moses.
(c) In the Jewish, and especially in the Christian, tradition this attribution was usually taken with a
degree of flexibility.
(d) Why Call Moses the “Author”
i) Traditional ascription reflects the closeness that comes from being close to God.
ii) Moses is the prototypical lawgiver. Just like the Psalms are ascribed to David and Wisdom to
Solomon.
(e) A traditional theory for the compiler of the Pentateuch: Ezra.
i) He instructs the people on it, and insists on its observance
ii) Tradition associates him with establishing it among the people.
2. Reasons to Doubt Mosaic Authorship
(a) The text does not appear to be written by a single person with a single perspective
i) Contains duplications and repetitions of material which seem to come from different sources
ii) Contains different theological perspectives (e.g. is the central theme the promise of the land or
the Sinai experience?)

2
 (b) The text appears to contain anachronisms
i) Contains examples of post-Mosaic material
ii) Contains chronological glosses from after Moses’ time (eg. Gen 12:6, Gen. 36:31, Ex 16:35)
iii) Contains passages written from the perspective of someone living in the promised land (Num
22:1, Deut 1:1)
3. Modern Theories of Authorship: A Complex Origin
(a) The mythologies and worldview of Semitic culture from which Israelites emerged
i) Especially in Genesis
ii) Material that lies behind the creation stories
iii) The names and side-remarks in the genealogies
(b) Oral Folklore, Religious Customs, Legal Traditions passed down through tribal and family life.
(c) Different pieces that would come to be incorporated into the Pentateuch got written down.
i) Shorter pieces
ii) Continuous accounts
(d) King Josiah had a religious reform
i) In 622 B.C., an early version of Deuteronomy is found (“found”?) in the Temple
ii) Formed the basis for a religious reform.
(e) The Exile as a Crisis Point
i) The Exile created a need to preserve the traditions of the people

ii) The Exile called for a re-interpretation of how God was being faithful to his covenant.
iii) Israel was a religious, priestly community, not mainly a political one, called to make Yahweh
known through holiness, fidelity, and worship. Despite their infidelities to this ideal, God was
always ready to begin again.
iv) The Priests, as stewards of the tradition, began to gather, consolidate, and write it down.
v) Since they were priests, they had an ordered and liturgical vision of reality. They were espe-
cially concerned with
(f) The Needs of a Returning Community
i)The people needed to re-build their society and re-establish its institutions
ii)The need to teach the people
iii)The need to provide a local code of governance under the Persians.
iv) The priests took the material they had written down, and assembled it with earlier sources
concerning the life of Moses. This is the core of our Torah/Pentateuch.
v) Thus a few generations of priests thus served as authors of parts of the Pentateuch, and editors
of the whole thing.
vi) Later, the book of Deuteronomy would be added to this collection.
vii) By the time of the prophet Ezra (c. 450 B.C.), the Pentateuch as we know it was pretty much
in place.
(g) The work may be divided into five scrolls on account of the length of a typical scroll.

Literary Features of the Pentateuch

1. Literary Genres of the Pentateuch

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 (a) Primarily a Narrative
i) The narratives appear to be stitched together from a variety of sources
(b) Law Codes form a central part of the Pentateuch
i) The most important law codes are literally in the center of the book.
(c) Repetitions, digressions, lists
i) Suggest an incremental development
(d) Genealogies
i) Important especially in Genesis
ii) Show how everything is related
iii) Show how the Israelites fit into everything
2. A Compendium of Literary Sources Edited into a Whole
(a) “It is sufficient to notice that in contrast to modern editing, which is typically interested in devel-
oping a single viewpoint, the redaction of the Torah, like the editing of other ancient works, was
not interested in creating a purely consistent, singular perspective but incorporated in a variety of
voices and perspectives and wished to preserve them despite their repetitions and contradictions.”1

The Basic Outline of the Pentateuch

1. Basic Outline of the Plot of the Pentateuch

(a) Creation and the Fall (Genesis 1-3)
(b) The Flood and the Rise of Nations (Genesis 4-11)
i) The Flood: God Regrets Creating, Except for Noah
ii) The Table of the Nations: Where People Came From
iii) The Tower of Babel: Scattering the Languages
(c) The Patriarchs (Genesis 12-50)
i) Abraham: Call, Covenant, and Promise
ii) Jacob and His Sons
iii) Joseph and The Settlement in Egypt
(d) Slavery in Egypt (Exodus 1-2)
i) Children of Israel Grow numerous and powerful
ii) The Pharaoh begins a program of slavery and genocide
iii) Moses, a Levite, is found by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised at court.
(e) God Calls Moses (Exodus 3)
i) Moses kills an Egyptian overseer and takes refuge in Midian
ii) Had an extraordinary experience of Yahweh, the God of their fathers
iii) Sent on a mission to free the people.
(f) The Exodus from Egypt
i) The Ten Plagues, culminating in the Passover
ii) The Drowning in the Red Sea

1. Marc Z. Brettler, “Introduction to the Pentateuch,” New Oxford Annotated Bible, 6

4
 (g) The Encampment at Sinai (Exodus 19-Numbers 10)
i) The Giving of the Law
ii) The Establishment of the Covenant
iii) The Plans for the Tabernacle and the Cult
iv) The Incident with the Golden Calf
v) The Construction of the Tabernacle and the Beginning of the Cult
(h) Desert Wanderings (Numbers 11-20)
i) Murmuring and Rebellion in the Desert
ii) Refusing to Enter Canaan
iii) The Waters of Meribah
(i) Encampment On the Plains of Moab (Numbers 21-36)
i) Israelites make their way around the south of Canaan and Encamp east of the Jordan
ii) The Conquering of the Transjordan
iii) Balak and Balaam
iv) Idolatry with Baal-Peor
v) The Succession of Joshua
vi) Planning the Settlement of the Land
(j) The Last Day of Moses (Deuteronomy)
i) A Recollection of Recent Events (Deuteronomy 1-4)
ii) A Second Law (Deuteronomy 5-26)
iii) An Exhortation About the Future (Deuteronomy 29-31)
iv) The Death of Moses (Deuteronomy 32-34)
v) Moses dies at 120 on Mount Nebo, overlooking the Plains of Moab; dies in an unmarked grave.
(k) NB: According to the timeline of the Pentateuch, its events take place over 2706 years. The stay at
Sinai, which is about 20% of the Pentateuch, lasts less than one year. Another 20% is dedicated to
the last day of Moses’ life.

Learning Targets

1. I can name the books of the Pentateuch.

2. I can explain where the word “Pentateuch” and the names of its five books come from.
3. I know what the word “Torah” means, and can explain why these five books also have this name.
4. I can explain why Moses was traditionally seen as the author of these books.
5. I can explain why Moses is not now seen as the author of these books.
6. I can outline the process by which the Pentateuch came to be.
7. I can name the main literary genres used in the Pentateuch
8. I can give a basic overview of the story of the Pentateuch, knowing which books contain each part of the
story.

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 7. The Primeval History
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

October 14, 2018

Introduction

Now we turn to a consideration of the Biblical text itself. Since, as we have said, our focus will
be salvation history, we will begin with the first book of the Bible: Genesis, and its account of the
origins of the world, of the human race and the Israelite nation.

The Book of Genesis has two major divisions: The Primeval History (chapters 1-11), which recounts
the origins of the world and the human race, and the Patriarchal History (chapters 12-50), which
tell the stories of the remote founders of the Israelite people.

In this unit we will cover the first part of Genesis, the Primeval History. This largely legendary
compilation of folklore sets the backdrop against which the Israelites understand the world and how
they fit into it. Many of the key themes of the Old Testament are actually anticipated in its stories.

Lecture Outline

Introduction to Genesis

“The Book of Genesis sets up the tensions that will drive the plot of the rest of the Bible”1

1. Origin of the Name

(a) Genesis is a Greek word for “beginning.”
i) Beginning of the natural world
ii) Beginning of human culture
iii) Beginning of the people Israel
(b) It is also a Greek translation for the Hebrew word toledoth, which means generations
i) “These are the generations . . .” is a structural marker in the book.
2. The Literary Style of the Book of Genesis

1. John Bergsma and Brant Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, 93

1
 (a) “Saga” (in the sense of German die Sage), which means more like folklore.
(b) Genesis (especially chapters 1-11) is like a compendium of a community’s folklore.
(c) It is tied together and placed in real historical time by the genealogies which structure the
book.
(d) The rich Mesopotamian oral and literary culture provided a fund of images and ideas
which the Israelites borrowed, reworked, and sometimes reacted against.
(e) The point of the book is to situate Israel’s identity by giving it an origin
i) The origin of creation, and what God is like
ii) The origin of the human race, and what man’s identity is
iii) How the human race is a family, and Israel’s place in that family.
(f) Listening to and telling the stories makes you a part of the community. We read Genesis
so that its story can become our story.
3. Genesis 1-11: The Primeval History (covers the origins of the human race)
(a) Genesis 1-5: Adam and Sons
i) Genesis 1: The First Account of Creation
ii) Genesis 2: The Second Account of Creation
iii) Genesis 3: The Fall
iv) Genesis 4: Cain and Abel; Cain’s Descendants
v) Genesis 5: The Descendants of Adam through Seth to Noah
(b) Genesis 6-11: Noah and Sons
i) Genesis 6: The Preparations for the Flood
ii) Genesis 7: The Flood
iii) Genesis 8: The Receding of the Flood
iv) Genesis 9: The Covenant with Noah and the Curse of Canaan
v) Genesis 10: The Table of the Nations
vi) Genesis 11: The Tower of Babel
(c) Genesis 12-50: The Patriarchal History (covers the origins of Israel)
i) Genesis 12-[Link] The Abraham Cycle
ii) Genesis 25:19-36: The Jacob Cycle
iii) Genesis 37-50: The Joseph Cycle
iv) NB: The material on Isaac is mixed into the Abraham cycle and the Jacob cycle.

“In Genesis, the origins of Israel . . . lie in a mysterious promise of God to a Mesopotamian named
Abram . . . The essence of the promise is that He will make of him a great nation, bless him abun-
dantly, and grant him the land of Canaan. Ostensibly absurd when it first comes, the promise faces
one obstacle after another throughout the course of Genesis—principally, the barrenness of Abra-
ham’s primary wife (and of other matriarchs in the next two generations) and the murderous frater-
nal rivalry among his descendants. And yet, by the end of Genesis, all the obstacles notwithstanding,
the twelve tribes that make up the people Israel have indeed come into existence, an Israelite effec-
tively rules a superpower (Egypt), and the promise of the land, though far from fulfillment (which
comes about only in the book of Joshua), is anything but forgotten.”2

2. Jon Levenson, Jewish Study Bible, p. 8

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The Primeval History (Genesis 1-11)

1. Covers the time from the creation of the world through the birth of Abraham’s father, 19
generations later

2. Has a very legendary literary style

3. God is portrayed anthropomorphically (= God is portrayed rather like a human being)

4. Etiological Concerns (= shows the origins of things)

(a) Where music, language, cities, the rainbow, etc. come from

5. Overriding Themes

(a) Spread of human wickedness

(b) Refusal of mankind to accept creaturely status
(c) Mankind’s attempt to blur the distinction between the human and divine
(d) As a result, bringing disaster on themselves.

Creation and the Fall (Genesis 1-3)

1. Two Accounts of Creation

(a) Genesis 1 gives a majestic portrayal of the six days of creation, probably composed as a
preface by priests
(b) Genesis 2 gives a more intimate closeup of the origins of the human race.
(c) The details don’t cohere perfectly, but they were redacted together, so they yield their
inspired meaning when they are read symphonically.
2. Creation Accounts in General
(a) Creation and the Importance of Origin Stories
i) Where you come from tells you who you are and what you have to hope for.
ii) Modern science often comes with an origin story: chance and purposelessness. This
is what Genesis challenges in modern science.
iii) Ancient Mesopotamians had origin stories: the world a cosmic struggle, human be-
ings created by blood of dead gods, meant to be slaves of the gods (and the king),
etc.
iv) Modern science often comes with an origin story that denies human dignity. This is
where modern science needs to be distinguished from the philosophical (and mytho-
logical?) baggage which all too often accompanies it.
(b) Israel’s Origin Story
i) Mostly monotheistic
ii) There is no theogony (= story of the origin of the gods)
iii) There is no conflict among gods
iv) There is no battle with primeval chaos

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 v) The whole world is good because it is shot through with God’s ordering and blessing
activity.
vi) A high value is given to human beings: man is created in the image of God, and all
men exercise dominion with him
vii) There is no attempt to justify or legitimate (unjust) political structures
viii) Israel’s vocation has a cosmic scope: God is using them to set the world to rights.
(c) Images of God the Creator
i) Speaking
ii) Potter and Clay
iii) Gardener
iv) Subdued notion of primal cosmic battle with chaos
3. The First Account of Creation (Genesis 1)
(a) A preface to the whole Torah, written by the (relatively) final priestly redactors (i.e. edi-
tors) of Pentateuch
(b) Church Fathers called this the “Hexaemeron” (= six days)
(c) It gives a cosmogony (= an account of the origins of the world)
(d) God creates by speaking
i) Creation is a deliberate action of God’s will
ii) Creation expresses what God intends
iii) It shows that creation is a free product of God’s wisdom and love
iv) It shows that God has a personal concern for what he has created
v) It shows God’s transcendence over and separateness from creation.
(e) Some features of the creation account
i) There is another source of light apart from the sun (e.g. light on cloudy days)
ii) Everything is water, until a physical dome (the sky) is built
iii) The dome/sky has slits for the waters from above to come through (rain)
iv) The dome is held up by pillars
(f) The structure of the six days
i) First set of three days build the realms of creation (time; space; habitat)
ii) Second set of three days build their respective rulers (sun, moon, and stars; birds and
fish; animals and man).
iii) Man rules over everything
iv) Sabbath is the crowning of the achievement
(g) Liturgical Structure
i) The cosmos is engaged in an act of worship
ii) The world is a temple.
iii) The worship in the Temple is meant to put right the order of creation
(h) The Image of God
i) A viceroy of God
ii) Covenant language: Adopted into God’s family
4. The Second Account of Creation (Genesis 2)
(a) More focused on the creation of man.
(b) God is portrayed anthropomorphically to emphasize his immanence

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 (c) Eden is depicted as a mountaintop with precious stones nearby.
(d) God speaks in the plural
i) A reference to the high God (“El”) speaking to his divine council of Gods.
ii) Later softened to God speaking to the angels.
iii) Some Fathers of the Church read this as a kind of pre-revelation of the Trinity.
(e) Adam is a caretaker for creation
i) tills the soul
ii) names the animals
(f) Eve is Adam’s helpmeet
5. The Fall (Genesis 3)
(a) How did the serpent tempt
i) Asked clever questions that couldn’t be answered “Yes” or “No”
ii) Got Eve to stop trusting in God and to start doubting his goodness.
iii) God is tricking them by holding back the whole truth from them.
iv) God does not want them to be happy
(b) The Irony: “You will be like gods.”
i) That is what God did for them
ii) That is what the Fall took from them.
(c) The tree of the knowledge of good and evil
i) The self-determination of what is good and evil
ii) A power that, as creatures, they are unequal to
iii) So they get knowledge of their true weakness, vulerability, and shame
(d) A promise of redemption: The Protoevangelium (Gen 3:15)
i) Note that God promises redemption before the curse
(e) The curse
i) Disordered family life
ii) Fraught relations between woman and man
iii) Pains in childbirth
iv) Pains in providing food for family.
6. Fundamental Catholic Truths About Creation
(a) creatio ex nihilo
i) Not explicit in the Genesis account, but in the OT when all of its creation themes are
considered
ii) The language of Genesis does lean in the direction of creatio ex nihilo.
iii) Genesis does not contain the common idea of God engaging in a primordial battle
against a sea monster, representing the forces of chaos
(b) A newly-created spiritual soul is infused into the embryo at the very moment of its con-
ception
(c) monogenism
i) The doctrine that all human beings come from an original pair.
ii) Not quite defined dogma—but it is hard to explain the transmission of original sin
otherwise.

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 (d) In the state of original justice, man would not have had to die.
(e) There was a historical fall of the first human couple
(f) Original sin was transmitted by propagation to the whole human race from the first man
and woman.
7. What the Creation Account Teaches About God
(a) God’s oneness
i) No pantheon; God does not have a consort.
ii) God is completely self-fulfilled and fulfills others.
(b) The distinction between God and man
i) Other creation narratives trace men back to gods.
ii) Genesis traces man back to a first man
iii) God is very different.
(c) God is moral and holy
(d) God’s sovreignty and majesty
i) Speaks creation into being, molding creation
ii) No competition from sun, moon, stars as divine beings
iii) No primordial struggle with a sea monster

Cain and Abel (Genesis 4)

1. Why was Cain’s sacrifice not approved?

(a) Text not clear
(b) A suggestion is that he did not offer his best to God.
2. Older and Younger: A Common Pattern
(a) The younger is favored over the older (Jacob and Esau, Isaac and Ishmael, David, etc.)
(b) But the older is still looked after by God
(c) The point: God’s election upends human conventions
3. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
(a) Respect for kin is a very important theme in the Pentateuch.
4. The descendants of Cain
(a) The spread of sin and the increasing evil of the human race
(b) Gives us etiologies for aspects of human culture.
(c) These were given by the gods in Mesopotamian literature, here they are demythologized.
(d) Is this an epitome of Mesopotamian literature?

The Generations of Adam (Genesis 5-6:1-4)

1. The plot of genesis is a genealogy

(a) The spine or backbone of the story, from which the book takes its name

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 (b) Anchors the story in history (not intended to be myth)
(c) Shows how everyone is kin to everyone else.
(d) The world’s story is that of a big, extended family.
(e) Israel is situated in a particular place in world history and in the human family.
(f) Israel is kin to the surrounding peoples.
2. The line of Seth represents a relatively righteous line, Cain a relatively evil one
(a) Though there are exceptions
(b) The Bible tells stories with very rounded characters.
3. The “sons of God” and the “daughters of men”
(a) Traditional interpretation: Sons of God are descendants of Seth who took many wives
from among the descendants of Cain.
(b) The traditional interpretation is contested, more modern exegesis tends to read this simply
as legendary material.

The Story of Noah (Genesis 6-9)

1. Parallel of Adam and Noah Cycles

(a) A – Creation and Covenant (Gen 1-2)
(b) A’ - Recreation (6:9-8:19) and Renewal (8:20-9:17) (creation from watery chaos)
(c) B – Sin of Adam and Son (3:1-4:16)
(d) B’– Sin of Noah and Son (9:18-28)
(e) C – Expansion of Adam’s Sons (4:17-26)
(f) C’– Expansion of Noah’s Sons (10)
(g) D – Adam to Noah: Ten Generations to Three Sons (5:1-32)
(h) D’ – Collective Sin of Mankind: Tower of Babel (11:1-9)
(i) E – Collective Sin of Mankind: “Sons of God” with “Daughters of Men” (6:1-8)
(j) E’ – Shem to Terah: Ten Generations to Three Sons (11:10-26)
2. The Ark
(a) Looks a lot like a floating house
(b) A floating Eden which comes to rest on a mountain.
(c) There are parallels between the building of the Ark and the temple.
(d) “The ark symoolizes the tender mercies and protective grace with which God envelopes
the righteous even in the harshest circumstances.”3
3. The Flood is a kind of re-creation
(a) Watery chaos (almost tohu wabohu again)
(b) The ark is like a floating house and a floating Eden, which comes to rest on a mountain
(c) Noah is a new Adam
i) Father of the human race
ii) Given Similar commands to Adam

3. Jon Levension, The Jewish Study Bible, 22

7
 iii) Covenant with Creation
4. The Covenant With Noah (Genesis 9)
(a) God’s promises
i) Be fruitful and multiply
ii) Animals will be afraid of you, and you can eat them.
(b) The Nohanic Code (derived from Genesis 9 in the Talmud) — a law that applies to every-
one
i) Not to worship idols
ii) Not to curse God
iii) To establish courts of justice
iv) Not to commit murder
v) Not to commit adultery or sexual immorality
vi) Not to steal
vii) Not to eat flesh from a living animal
(c) The sign of the covenant: The rainbow
i) Rainbow and lightning: divine weapons in Mesopotamian literature
ii) These are no longer pointed at man.
(d) The covenant through Noah with all creation is the condition of possibility for all other
covenants.
5. Noah and His Sons
(a) Shem, Ham, Japheth
i) Shem: Source of the term “Semetic” — The ancestor of Israel
ii) Ham: The source of Israel’s traditional enemies: Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, Nineveh,
Amorites, Sodom, Gemorrah
iii) Japheth: The sea faring peoples north of the Holy Land
(b) Ham’s Sin
i) Publicly disgracing their father
ii) Familial relations will be an important part of the Law.

The Table of Nations (Genesis 10)

1. There is a fluidity with which a nation and a person represent the same thing

2. The names of the people foreshadow their future history.

3. These national derivations reflect contemporary political and economic relationships, not ethic
ones

(a) Race is not a basis for human division in Gen. 10.

(b) e.g. Canaanites are Semites, but they are listed as descendants of Ham, because they were
under the political control of Egypt

4. Could these names contain some allusions to well-known, but no longer extant literature?

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 (a) E.g. Nimrod

5. Ashkenaz: a descendant of Japheth is where the Jews of Northern Places Live.

6. Lineage of Abraham

(a) Noah –> Shem –> Arpachshad –> Shelah –> Eber –> Peleg –> Reu –>> serug –> Nehor –>
Terah –> Abram
(b) One of Terah’s other sons was Haran, who begot Lot. So Lot was Abram’s nephew
(c) Terah takes Abram, Lot, and Sarai from Ur to Canaan, but settled in Haran first. Terah
died in Haran

The Tower of Babel

1. Babel means confusion.

2. Babel is where Babylon got its name.

3. This reflects a fascination with Babylonian technology

(a) The tower was probably a Babylonian ziggurat.

(b) Technology leads to pride. It needs to be accompanied with reverence for God.

4. The story represents a widespread collective rebellion: a synthetic holy mountain

(a) A nice bit of Irony: Human beings build the highest tower they can, but God still has to
come down to see it (11:5)

5. God confuses the languages so that the people go and fill the earth, but sows division in the
process

(a) This process will be reversed at Pentecost, when God unites all the people of different
nations.

6. This story sets the stage for Abraham

(a) God will unite the people through him.

7. The reversal of the confusion of languages comes at Pentecost, when God gathers the nations
again into his Church

A Summary

Genesis 1-11 established the background for salvation history by describing God’s
sovereign creation of the cosmos as a temple for worship of himself, with mankind at
the pinnacle of a hierarchy of good creatures over which man serves as king, priest, and
mediator of the covenant by virtue of his status as son of God. Mankind’s subsequent

9
 rejection of the privileges of divine sonship by rebellion against the paternal command
launches a sad history of progressively increasing defiance of God and the natural order,
necessitating God’s intervention through the Flood and the confusion of languages at
the Tower of Babel
The initial covenant with Adam reveals the roles that god intended for all of mankind:
sonship, kinship, priesthood, prophethood, and nuptial (or spousal) relationship. The
celebratory account of matrimony at the conclusion of the creation accounts points to
the significance of this mystery in the economy of salvation, since it provides an icon of
the covenant relationship between God and his people.
The covenant with Noah is a restoration of the Adamic filial relationship, but in an
impaired form in which the initial shalom that characterized man’s interaction with the
creation has been lost. However, Noah offends against even this impaired covenant, and
mankind once more falls into a pattern of rebellion against God (Gen 11:1-9). This sets
up the biblical narrative for the introduction of Abraham, the one through whom a more
definitive solution for the alienation of mankind from communion with God will come
(Gen 22:18; Gal 3:29).4

Review

Helpful Maps from the ESV Bible Atlas

1. The Table of the Nations: Map 1-2, p. 55

Essential Understandings

1. The structure of the book of Genesis (see below).

2. The Primeval History (Genesis 1-11) consists mostly of short episodic episodes which are con-
nected by the genealogies which form its structural backbone. The Primeval History tells us
about the origin and purpose of creation, the beginnings and growth of the human family, and
the spread of sin through human beings refusing to accept their creaturely status. In addition,
it gives us a number of etiologies, that is, purported origins of various things in the world.

Learning Targets

5. I can outline the book of Genesis, down to the chapter level for the Primeval History
6. I can name the central themes of the Primeval history
7. I can explain why creation accounts are important.
8. I can explain the significant features of the first creation account
9. I can explain the structure of the six days of creation

4. John Bergsma and Brant Pitre. A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, p. 128

10
10. I can can summarize the second account of creation
11. I can explain how it was that Eve was tempted and fell
12. I can list the six Catholic doctrines regarding creation
13. I can summarize the story of Cain and Abel.
14. I can explain the point of the genealogies in the Bible.
15. I can summarize the covenant the God made with Noah and explain its importance.
16. I can name Noah’s three sons, who their descendants were in general, and where they settled.
17. I can summarize the story of the Tower of Babel and explain its significance.
18. I can explain how the story of the Tower of Babel sets up the story of Abraham.
19. I can explain the relationship between the story of the Tower of Babel and Pentecost.

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 8. The Patriarchal History
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

October 22, 2019

Introduction

Lecture Notes

Introduction to the Patriarchal History

1. Relation Between the Primeval History and the Patriarchal History

(a) The Primeval History tells the history of mankind as a whole.

(b) The Patriarchal History tells the history of Israel specifically
(c) Israel Is a Microcosm of World History
(d) Tells the Story of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) and those who will descend from them.
(e) The covenant of Noah is the covenant with creation, the covenant with Abraham is for God’s plan
of salvation

2. The Structure of Genesis

(a) Genesis 1-11 — The Primeval History

(b) Genesis 12-50 — Patriarchal History
i) Genesis 12-25:18 — The Abraham Cycle
ii) Genesis 25:19-36 — The Jacob Cycle
iii) Genesis 37-50 — The Joseph Cycle

3. The Primeval History leaves the human race spread throughout the earth and divided, and then moves
quickly to focus on Abraham, whose significance will be of a universal scope (Gen 12:1-3).

4. The promises made in Genesis 12:1-7 set the whole framework of the story of Israels origins, through
the book of Joshua at least–and arguably right up to King Solomon, if not the rest of the OT.

5. Note the primacy of God’s initiative: The Primeval History and the Patriarchal History are one single
history of the salvation of mankind by God’s grace.

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 Whereas God’s relationship to human beings in the primeval history is marked mostly (but not
exclusively) by judgment, expulsion and exile, in the story of Abraham the dominant notes are the
contrasting ones of blessing and promise, especially the promise of the land. But the narrative does
not spare us the knowledge that while the blessings and promises are as yet unrealized, Abraham’s
family have their moments of anguish and even ugliness. God . . . overcomes the obstacles to His
promises and blessings, so that Abraham finally acquires both the son from whom the promised na-
tion shall descend and a foothold in the promised land. The Lord accomplishes this partly through
palpable miracles and partly through His silent guidance of the course of human events. As the
story of Abraham unfolds, its human protagonist, despite some arguably serious lapses, gradually
assumes the role of the ideal religious person–obedient to God’s commands (even at the cost of the
most painful sacrifice), faithful even when the promise seems impossible, gracious, generous, and
hospitable, yet committed to justice and compassion even to the point of firmly (if deferentially)
questioning God’s counsel.1

The Abraham Cycle

1. The Structure of the Abraham Cycle (Gen. 12-25:18)

(a) Genesis 12 — The Call of Abraham
(b) Genesis 13-14 — Abram and Lot
(c) Genesis 15 — The Covenant with Abram
(d) Genesis 16 — The Birth of Ishmael
(e) Genesis 17 — Circumcision: The Sign of the Covenant with Abraham
(f) Genesis 18:1-15 — A Son Promised Through Sarah
(g) Genesis 18:16-19 — the Story of Sodom and Gomorrah
(h) Genesis 21 — The Birth of Isaac
(i) Genesis 22 — The Testing of Abraham
(j) Genesis 23 — The Death of Sarah
(k) Genesis 24 — Isaac Marries Rebekah
(l) Genesis 25 — The End of Abraham’s Life
2. The Three Promises Made to Abraham
(a) God made three promises to Abraham, which will turn into three covenants in the most important
chapters of the cycle.
(b) God will make of Abraham a great nation
i) Shown in the sacrifice of the animals
ii) Genesis 15
(c) God will give Abraham a great name
i) Shown in the circumcision
ii) This is where Abram’s name is changed to Abraham.
iii) Genesis 17
(d) God will give a universal blessing through Abraham.
i) Shown in the covenant made after the abortive sacrifice of Isaac.
ii) Genesis 22

1. Jon Levenson, The Jewish Study Bible, 10

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3. The Covenant With Abram (Genesis 15)
(a) Descendants
i) God confirms his blessing: Sons numerous as the stars (Genesis 15:5)
ii) Abram’s response: “And he believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
(Gen. 15:6)
(b) Land
i) Abram acquires animals from the land for sacrifice
ii) He transforms the promise of the land into a covenant by means of a sacrifice.
iii) This is a covenant making ceremony with parallels in the ANE.
iv) If I do not keep my promises, may I be slain like these animals.
4. Circumcision and an New Name (Genesis 17)
(a) Surrogacy (having Ishmael through the slave woman) is an ANE practice
i) Note the disapproval: “you have listened to the voice of your wife” – cf. Gen 3:17
ii) Note the pattern: polygamy brings problems
(b) God promises to make Abraham’s name great.
i) The promise of a land and descendants implies nationhood.
ii) The promise of nationhood implies royalty.
iii) “Great name” means being a kind of a king
iv) This is fulfilled in David and Solomon who become emperors over nations
(c) Circumcision
i) Penance for the Hagar affair; the Heir is not to be Ishmael
ii) Covenant is to come therough carnal generation
(d) Circumcision and Baptism
i) Circumcision is a sign of baptism
ii) Make us members of God’s people and a part of the covenant
iii) Circumcision: through carnal generation
iv) Baptism: through spiritual regeneration.
5. The Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22)
(a) Isaac is a young man in this scene
i) He carries up enough wood to sacrifice an animal, while Abraham only carries a fire and a kive
ii) The text uses the same word for Isaac and Abraham’s servants.
(b) Isaac willingly offers himself in sacrifice.
(c) God never actually intends for Isaac to be put to death.
(d) “Go to a land that I will show you”
i) A microcosm of Abraham’s journey
ii) Shows Abraham’s growth in faith
(e) The sacrifice happens at Moriah
i) The site of the future Jerusalem temple (2 Chron. 3:1)
ii) The animal sacrifices of the temple are memorials or re-presentations of the sacrifice of Isaac
(f) Culminates in a universal blessing. (Gen 22:15-18)
(g) “In your seed” — through your descendants shall all nations be blessed
(h) NB: The Philistines here are not the same as the Philistines in the time of Saul and David.

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 (i) A foreshadowing for the Crucifixion
i) The only beloved Son of the Father
ii) Isaac carries the wood on his back
iii) God himself will supply the sacrifice
6. The Sin of Sodom (Genesis 19)
(a) Homosexuality, inhospitality, or injustice?
i) The context strongly suggests homosexuality.
ii) The prophets associate the sin of Sodom with a lack of social justice (Is. 1:9, 3:9; Ez. 16:46-51)
and widespread immorality (Jer. 23:14)
iii) The prophetic use of the sin of Sodom are not redefinitions of the sin of Sodom, but rather
prophetic applications of proverbial depravity of Sodom to contemporary Jerusalem.
iv) St. Peter says that the sin of Sodom is “licentiousness” (2 Pet. 1:6-7). This attests to the con-
temporary understanding, at any rate.
(b) We seem to have found potential candidates for these cities near the dead see, which were extremely
powerful and wealthy in early second millennium, but were destroyed suddenly by a natural disaster
in mid-second millennium, and remained uninhabited sites for 700 years.

The Jacob Cycle

The plot [of the Jacob cycle] has to do with how the second son acquires his older brothers’ su-
perior status and the attendant rights to the Abrahamic promise, yet eventually reconciles with
the brother he has wronged and emerges legitimately as the patriarch from whom the people Is-
rael takes its name. Various types of trickery play a major role as this plot develops. The human
dimension is more central here than in the Abraham narrative, and the resourcefulness of the pro-
tagonists, especially Jacob himself and his mother Rebekah, proportionately more important.2

1. The Name of Jacob

(a) Jacob
i) He grasps the heel [he deceives], pulling your leg
ii) Refers to Jacob’s tricky nature
(b) Israel
i) The name Jacob is given when wrestling with the angel at Penuel
ii) “He who struggles with God”
iii) An apt name for the Israelites
iv) Continues the pattern of the person in Genesis being representative of the later historical
group.
2. Outline of the Jacob Cycle
(a) Esau and Jacob (25:19-26)
i) Foreshadowing: They were born struggling.

2. Jon Levenson, The Jewish Study Bible, 10

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 ii) Esau Sells His Birthright (25:27-34)
iii) Esau will found Edom, a rival petty-kingdom across the Jordan.
(b) Isaac and Abimelech (26)
i) Sojourned with the Philistines during a famine, at the command of God.
ii) God renews his promises to Abraham.
iii) Isaac passes Rebekah off as his sister, so the Philistines would not kill him.
iv) Isaac became wealthy, and was asked to leave the Philistines. Fights about digging wells.
v) God renews his promise again at Beersheba; Isaac sacrifices and calls on the name of the Lord.
vi) Isaac makes a covenant with Abimelech
(c) Isaac blesses Jacob (27:1-40)
i) Isaac was blind
ii) Asks Esau to hunt and cook him food and promises to bless him.
iii) Rebekah plots with Jacob: she cooks the food and puts hairy skins on Jacob
iv) Isaac blesses Jacob, thinking that he is Esau
v) Esau comes back with the food.
vi) Isaac prophesies that Esau and his descendants will serve Jacob and his descendants.
(d) Esau seeks Revenge (27:41-28:9)
i) Esau plans to kill Jacob
ii) Rebekah send Jacob to stay with her brother Laban in Haran.
iii) Esau takes an Ishmaelite woman as his wife.
(e) Jacob’s Dream at Bethel (28:10-22)
i) On his way from Beersheba to Haran to stay with Laban
ii) Spends a night at a sight, and has a dream of a ladder with angels ascending and descending
iii) God renews the promises he made to Abraham and Isaac. Tells him to eventually return to
Canaan.
iv) Jacob named the place Bethel.
(f) Jacob stays with Laban (29-31)
i) Jacob meets Rachel while she is watering the sheep. It is love at first sight.
ii) Jacob agrees to serve Laban for seven years to marry Rachel.
iii) Laban tricks Jacob into consummating a marriage with Leah first (allegedly because she is
older)
iv) Jacob works another seven years for Rachel.
v) Rachel and Leah compete for children and Jacob’s favor.
vi) Leah bears children; Rachel is barren. (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah)
vii) Jacob gives children to Rachel through her maid Bilhah (Dan, Naphtali)
viii) Jacob gives more children to Leah through her made Zilphah (Gad, Asher)
ix) Leah conceives again (Issachar, Zebulun, Dinah)
x) Rachel conceives (Joseph).
xi) Jacob stays six more years to earn a flock.
xii) Jacob leaves with flocks; Laban tried to trick him out of a flock, but Jacob foiled Laban.
(g) Jacob Wrestles with the Stranger (32:22-32)
i) Jacob wrestled with a man all night, to a draw.
ii) The man touched Jacob in the thigh and gave him an injury.
iii) Jacob would not let the man go until the man gave up his name.
iv) The man named Jacob Israel

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 (h) Jacob and Esau Meet (32:1-21; 33)
i) Jacob divides his possessions and prepares a gift to appease Esau.
ii) Jacob comes bowing; Esau runs up and embraces him.
(i) Jacob arives at Schechem (34)
i) Shechem is a city in Canaan and the name of its leading man.
ii) Shechem defiled Dinah.
iii) Jacob and his sons agree to give him Dinah if they all get circumcised.
iv) While they were healing, Simon and Levi killed all the males in revenge.
(j) Jacob returns to Bethel (35:1-15)
i) God renews his covenant promises
ii) Jacob offers a sacrifice.
(k) Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin (35:16-22)
(l) Isaac dies. Jacob and Esau bury him (35:27-29)
3. People and Places of the Jacob Cycle
(a) Jacob.
(b) Esau. Jacob’s older twin brother. A hunter who sold his birthright to Jacob. He founded the
Edomites.
(c) Laban. Rebekah’s brother who lives in Haran. He tricks Jacob into working seven years to marry
Leah, and then working seven more years to marry Rachel, the woman whom he really loved.
(d) Beersheba. The place where Isaac and his clan eventually settle after making peace with Abimelech.
(e) Bethel. The site where Jacob had the dream of the ladder and God first spoke to him. Jacob returns
after all his adventures. God again renews his covenant promises and Jacob erects a pillar there and
offers sacrifice.
(f) Leah. Laban’s oldest daughter. Laban tricks Jacob into taking her in marriage.
(g) Rachel. Laban’s younger daughter. Jacob wants to marry her, but ends up marrying Leah first.
(h) Penuel. The site where Jacob wrestled with the angel and received the name Israel.
4. Jacob is not the natural heir, he is not chosen according to worldly logic, and he desires for God’s blessing
and struggles for it. We also see a change in his character. The ultimate lesson is that he (like us) is not
worthy of the divine blessing, but God bestows it upon him graciously, and little-by-little he becomes a
more admirable figure.

The Joseph Cycle

Here, even more than in the Jacob cycle, God works through the ambivalent and devious designs
of flawed human beings, providentially bringing good out of human evil and arranging “the sur-
vival of many people” (50.20)—including the brothers who, seething with resentment, once plotted
Joseph’ s death and enslavement but now graciously accept subordination to the younger brother
who has saved their lives.3

1. Major Events in the Joseph Cycle

3. Jon Levenson, The Jewish Study Bible, 11

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 (a) Jacob’s other sons are jealous of Joseph. (37)
i)Jacob favors Joseph as the son of his old age.
ii)Joseph dreams of his superiority over his brothers (sheaves of wheat)
iii)Joseph’s brothers plot to kill him.
iv) They decide to sell him into slavery, but Midianites do it first. They sell him to Potiphar in
Egypt.
v) They tell his father that an animal ate him.
(b) Joseph in Potiphar’s House (39)
i) Joseph becomes the overseer
ii) Potiphar’s wife wants Joseph to lie with her. When he demurs, she frames him.
iii) Joseph goes to prison, and rises to the top there
(c) Joseph interprets the dreams of two prisoners. (40)
(d) Joseph interprets the dream of Pharaoh. (41)
i) On recommendation of his butler, who remembered Joseph from prison.
ii) Seven good years; Seven lean years.
iii) Pharaoh sets Joseph over all of Egypt
iv) Joseph has two sons: Ephraim and Manasseh.
(e) Joseph’s brothers go to Egypt for food aid (42-45)
i) Joseph conceals his identity
ii) Joseph demands Benjamin
iii) Joseph detains Benjamin
iv) Joseph reveals himself.
(f) Jacob Brings Whole Family to Egypt
i) Rachel dies on the way. She is buried in Ephrath = Bethlehem.
(g) During the famine, Joseph sells the Egyptians the food he gathered. The Pharaoh owns the people
and the land
(h) Jacob dies
i) Blesses Joseph and his sons.
ii) Last words to his other sons. (Note special blessing to Judah)
iii) Jacob embalmed and buried with his family in Canaan.
(i) Joseph dies
i) Predicts that one day they will return to Canaan
ii) They will take Joseph’s bones with them.
2. Major Places and Characters in the Joseph cycle
(a) Potiphar. The captain of the guard for Pharaoh. Joseph’s master.
(b) Onan. Judah’s son. Spilled his seed when siring children for his departed brother-in-law’s widow.
(c) Goshen. The part of Egypt where Jacob and his family settles after Joseph invites them in.

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 6. The Exodus
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

October 24, 2019

Introduction

“Throughout the bible and its long developmental history, the Exodus saga operates as the national epic of an-
cient Israel. Critical to Israel’s understanding of itself and its relationship to God, the Exodus account constitutes
Israel’s confession of faith; and its unfailing invocation, sometimes in no more than capsule form (‘the Lord who
brought your ancestors up out of the land of Egypt’; ‘the law of Moses’), provides a perpetual affirmation of that
faith. In the Exodus narrative, we find the core doctrine at the heart of one of the world’s great religions.”1

“The book of Exodus recounts the foundational historical events by which God formed the people of Israel into
a nation and entered into covenant with them. These events are commemorated, celebrated, and sacramentally
experienced in the liturgy of the people of Israel as well as in the New Covenant liturgy. If Genesis recounts
the creation of the world, Exodus recounts the creation of Israel, the first manifestation of the people of God in
salvation history.”2

Lecture Notes

Historical Background to Exodus

1. Historical Traditions, Redactional Rereadings, Theological Exaggerations

(a) Clear historical core (see below)
(b) Activity of Redactors
i) Weaving together different pieces of oral and written tradition
ii) Shaping the story in the light of contemporary concerns
(c) Theological Statements
i) There are folkloric elements to the story.
ii) Not everything can be exactly as is stated.
iii) All Israel was involved in the Exodus
iv) God does truly mighty deeds to save and constitute his people

1. Carol A. Redmount, “Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt” in The Oxford History of the Biblical World, 79.
2. John Bergsma and Brant Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, 199.

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 v) God puts down other “gods.”
2. Plausible Setting Toward the End of the Reign of Ramesses II (c. 1279-1213 B.C.)
(a) Strong presence of Semitic peoples functioning in various capacities, including slaves.
i) Semitic peoples from Canaan migrated into Egypt
ii) We have evidence of bands of slaves escaping
iii) We have extra-biblical attestation of slaves making bricks with clay and straw
(b) Ramesees II built a capital in the area where the Israelites lived.
(c) The plagues have some analogues with natural disasters
(d) There was contemporary turmoil in Canaan, supplying a context for the settlement
i) Warring city-states nominally under Egyptian suzerainty, with a small and unpopular warrior-
king class making life difficult for a tiny middle class and a large peasantry.
ii) There already were groups of raiders on the fringes of society who were destabilizing it.
iii) Many of these people would have been ethnically close to a group of Semites coming from
Egypt. (Common language, customs, laws, traditions, stories, etc.)
(e) Ramsees successor Merneptah (1213-1203) left a stele which mentions a defeat of an ethnic group
known as the “Israelites” (who had not settled yet) during his reign.
(f) Why not a fifteenth century date?
i) 1 Kg. 6:1 says that the Exodus was 480 years before Solomon built the temple (c. 960 B.C.),
which would put the Exodus in the 15th century.
ii) But 480 seems to be a stylized estimate (12 generations x 40 years/generation), which could be
lowered.
(g) Why not recorded outside of Bible?
i) Egyptian historical records only record Pharaoh’s triumphs
ii) Not a defeat that is significant enough to record.
3. The Size of the Exodus
(a) The reported size of 600,000 military-age men is not likely.
i) This would mean about 2.5 million people plus livestock and goods total.
ii) This is about the size of the population of Egypt at the time
iii) This is larger than the population of Israel and Judah would have been.
iv) It would have taken them 8-9 days to march across a point.
v) If they were in columns, the columns would stretch from Sinai back to Egypt.
vi) Why would they have needed to fear the Egyptian army?
vii) How could about 70 people grow into 2.5 million in just 430 years?
(b) The traditions that make up the canonical text themselves hint at a smaller exodus
i) Two midwives for all of the Hebrews
(c) Likely that the Exodus group was a motley crew of Semites that came into Egypt at different times.
(d) Likely that the Exodus group picked up people as time went on.
(e) Likely that the Exodus group took on disaffected members of Canaanite city-states as their conquest
progressed.
i) All of these would have been integrated into some sort of tribal structure.
(f) The significance of such a large number: All Israel was present at the Exodus.
4. The Historicity of the Tabernacle

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 (a) Not just a retrojection of the later temple.
i) Doesn’t have the same shape or proportions.
(b) Resembles Egyptian tent shrines
(c) Resembles Ramesees’ war tent.

Structure of the Book of Exodus

The Book is set in three places: Egypt, the Wilderness, and Sinai.

1. God Calls And Liberates Israel: The Exodus from Egypt (1-15)
(a) God Calls Moses (1-4)
(b) God Delivers His People from Egypt (5-15)
i) Moses Boldness Provokes Pharaoh (5-6)
ii) The First Nine Plagues (7-11)
iii) The Final Plague, Passover, and Unleavened Bread (12-13)
iv) The Parting of the Sea of Reeds (14)
2. God Cares For His People in the Wilderness (15-18)
(a) Sweet Water at Marah (15)
(b) The Manna (16)
(c) The Water from the Rock: Meribah and Massah (17)
(d) The Defeat of the Amalekites (17)
(e) The Provision of Leadership (18)
3. God Makes a Covenant with Israel: The Revelation at Sinai (19-24)
(a) The Arrival at Sinai (19)
(b) The Ten Commandments (20)
(c) The Covenant Code (21-23)
(d) The Solemnization of the Covenant
4. God Draws Israel Into Filial Communion: The Tabernacle (25-40)
(a) Instructions for Building the Tabernacle (25-31)
(b) The Fall: The Golden Calf (32)
(c) The Restoration (33-34)
(d) The Construction of the Tabernacle (35-40)

The Plot of Exodus

1. Israel in Egypt (ch. 1)

(a) The Israelites increase greatly in number
i) Blessing of Adam and Noah; Promise to Abraham
(b) Pharaoh is going to kill the people through a program of forced labor and infanticide.

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 i) This is the counterbalance to the 10th plague: Pharaoh kills all males; the angel kills firstborn
males.
(c) The Israelites will go from serving Pharaoh to serving God.
2. Birth and Youth of Moses (ch. 2)
(a) Moses comes from tribe of Levi
(b) Mother placed three-month child in a basket in the Nile
i) Nile was a god; maybe the child would be thought of as given by the gods to a person
ii) Found by Pharaoh’s daughter
(c) Moses is raised at court
i) Moses’ sister arranged for his mother to be his nurse.
(d) Moses kills an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew and flees to Midian
i) Nomadic peoples who lived across the Jordan river, on the fringes of the Syro-Arabian desert,
southeast of Edom. But part of this story seems to be set on the Sinai peninsula.
ii) Shepherding a major step down for Moses.
iii) Would Moses have been better able to help the Hebrews at court? Or did God providentially
turn his killing to his own purpose?
iv) Meets Ruel (=Jethro), priest of Midian. Marries his daughter Zipporah, and they have a son,
Gershom.
(e) “The Sons of Israel groaned under their bondage, and cried out for help, and their cry under bondage
came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with
Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the sons of Israel, and God knew their condition.” (Ex. 2:23-25)
3. God Reveals His Name to Moses (ch. 3)
(a) Names are significant in the Bible
i) Knowing the name gives you knowledge of what a thing is
ii) Knowing the name gives you personal knowledge of who someone is
iii) Change of names is a change of identity or relationship
iv) Biblical names often have significant etymologies.
(b) “The God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3:6)
i) Comes with a promise of deliverance
(c) “I AM WHO I AM” (3:14)
i) possibly “I will be who I will be”
ii) references God’s mysteriousness, otherness, or incomprehensibility
(d) “YHWH, The God of Your Fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”
i) The tetragrammaton. (Greek for “for letters”)
ii) A form of the verb “to be”, meaning roughly “He who is”
(e) The Septuagint gave this name a metaphysical sense–He who is–that is classic for Christian tradi-
tion.
4. God gives Aaron as a helper (ch. 4)
(a) Moses protests his unworthiness and lack of talent to the point of angering god.
(b) The Lord appoints Aaron as a spokesman; he meets Moses as he returns to Egypt.
5. Moses’ first abortive efforts (ch. 6)

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 (a) Pharaoh will not let the people go into the wilderness to sacrifice for three days.
(b) Burden is increased
(c) Even the Israelites dislike Moses.
(d) God renews his promises of deliverance
6. The First Nine Plagues (ch. 7-11)
(a) A theomachy
i) theomachy = a battle of the Gods
ii) each of the plagues is a contest between the LORD and one of the Egyptian gods
iii) proves that the Lord is God and the
(b) a proclamation of who is the true God
(c) The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart
i) Pharaoh was antecedently responsible for this.
ii) Rejecting the grace of God, God abandons Pharaoh
iii) Pharaoh falls further and further into vice without God’s grace.
7. The Tenth Plague, The Passover, and Unleavened Bread
(a) Kill all the firstborn in the land.
(b) Passover
i) Fourteenth day of the first month (reckoned )
ii) father of family offers a sacrifice
iii) place the blood of the lamb on the doorpost
iv) then angel of death will pass over.
v) eaten like people ready to take flight
vi) the Lord will “pass over” the houses with the blood of the lamb on the doorpost.
(c) Unleavened Bread
i) Seven days after Passover
ii) Eat no leaven
iii) holy assembly on first and seventh days
iv) Commemorates the rush in which people left Egypt
(d) Consecration of the Firstborn Males
i) Redeem back from the Lord as a remembrance of the sparing of the firstborn in Egypt.
(e) Anamnesis
i) “Remember”
ii) The past is made present in memory
iii) Important idea in Israel: Remember what I did for you in the Exodus.
8. Crossing the Sea of Reeds
(a) The Route of the Exodus
i) Did not go along the main, northern route towards the Philistines – not ready for war
ii) Went further south
iii) Led by a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud.
(b) The Sea of Reeds
i) “Red Sea” is an LXX translation
ii) Really “Sea of Reeds”

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 iii) Probably a freshwater, marshy body of water north of the Red Sea, along the present route of
the Suez canal.
9. Wandering in the Wilderness
(a) Bitter Waters Made Sweet at Marah
(b) The Manna
i) “What is it?”
ii) “it was like coriander seed , white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” (Ex.
16:31)
iii) Also quail came at this point.
iv) Distributed in miraculous quantities: Twice as much on Friday, none on Sabbath, can’t take
too much.
v) God’s response to the murmuring of the Israelites when they were yearning for the fleshpots
of Egypt.
(c) Water from the Rock at Meribah and Massah
(d) Amalek Attacks Israel
i) Joshua makes his first appearance
ii) When Moses held up his hands Israel prevailed; when he let them down, the Amalekites pre-
vailed.
(e) Moses appoints Leaders
i) Jethro had been looking out for Moses’ wife (his daughter): Zipporah, Gershom, and Eliezer
ii) Jethro brings Moses’ family to him.
iii) Jethro urges him to set up judges.
iv) Jethro departs
10. The Covanant at Sinai
(a) They will camp at Sinai for a year (through the beginning of Numbers)
(b) Arrival
i) God promises: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings
and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for the earth is mine, and you shall be to
me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:4-6)
ii) The people agree to do all that the Lord commands
iii) The people consecrate themselves for three days.
(c) The Ten Commandments
i) Given to All – A sign that they are co-eval with the Natural Law
ii) So terrifying that the people wanted Moses alone to get the rest of the Law and tell them about
it.
(d) The Covenant Code
i) Moral Precepts: Implications of the Natural Law, Not Evident to All; Perpetually Valid
ii) Ceremonial Precepts: For Right Worship; Teach them to Long for the Messiah; Fulfilled with
Christ
iii) Judicial Precepts: Order the Society of Israel for their Vocation; Food for thought but not
necessary
iv) This distinction is an attempt to make sense of the Torah in the light of Christ.

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 (e) Solemnization of the Covenant
i) Promise to follow the Lord
ii) Offer Sacrifice (May my blood be shed like these animals if I violate it.)
iii) God writes down the commandments on tablets of stone.
iv) Sacrificial Banquet on the mountain of God – Like another Eden.
v) Israel has filial fellowship with God.
11. The Construction of the Tabernacle
(a) Effectively told twice: The plan (25-31) and the Construction (35-40)
(b) The whole of the Exodus is directed to worship
(c) Structure
i)Outer tent and an inner court
ii)Faces west; entrance at east end
iii)Inner court divided into Holy Place and Holy of Holies
iv) Holy of Holies has Ark of Covenant at the Western End
v) Holy Place: Altar of Incense (West); Bread of the Presence (North); Lampstand/Menorah
(South)
vi) Outer Court: Bronze Laver and Bronze Altar
(d) Ark of the Covenant
i) Acacia wood covered in Gold
ii) Carried by poles inserted through rings on corner
iii) Mercy seat on top with two cherubs flanking it; wings overshadowing mercy seat.
iv) Tablets of Law go in it
v) Other OT texts suggest that Aaron’s budded rod, with a golden jar with manna
(e) Tabernacle is a portable Sinai/Eden/Heaven
i) Outer court: Base of Sinai, where the people were encamped
ii) Holy Place: Higher up on Sinai where the Elders ate with Moses
iii) Holy of Holies: Where Only Moses could Behold glory
12. Fall and Restoration: The Golden Calf
(a) The Calf might be an Egyptian God which gets identified with the LORD.
(b) “Rise up to play” (32:6): Immoral sexual activity that accompanied pagan worship
(c) The Israelites broke the covenant; Signified by the breaking of the stone tablets
(d) The Levis rally to the Lord’s side and kill 3,000 ringleaders — this is how they are ordained for
priestly service.
(e) Moses stands into the breach to intervene for the people
(f) Moses attains a new intimacy with God
(g) The covenant is renewed, but restructured
i) More mediation
ii) Heads of Families aren’t priests; the Levites are.

Themes in Exodus

1. Theological Themes

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 (a) God acts in history.
(b) Divine Promise and Fulfillment
(c) An Eternal Covenant
(d) Israel as the Son of God
(e) The Ordination of God’s People to Worship
2. Literary Themes
(a) An Archetype: The Definitive Deliverance
i) A power symbol in Western thought for redemption and liberation
ii) Shapes all of our thinking about liberation.

Spiritual Senses in Exodus

1. Typological
(a) The Burning Bush is a type of the virgin motherhood of Mary.
(b) The Wood that Made the Bitter Water Sweet at Marah is a type of the Cross.
(c) The Passover Lamb is a type of the Passion of Christ
(d) The Crossing of the Red Sea is a type of Christian Baptism
i) “I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through
the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” (1 Cor. 10:1-2)
(e) The Manna is a type of the Bread of Life
i) “So they said to him, ‘Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work
do you perform that we may believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the
manna in the wilderness; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus then said
to them, ‘Turly truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my
Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down
from heaven, and gives life to the world.’ . . . I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna
in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven; if any one
eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give is my flesh for the life
of the world.” (John 6: 30-33, 48-51)
(f) The Water from the Rock is a type of the Sacraments
(g) The Bread of the Presence is a type of the Blessed Sacrament
i) Sometimes this is called the “showbread” or the “shewbread”
ii) It is the earthly sign of the heavenly bread atop Sinai.
2. Anagogical
(a) The worship on top of Mount Sinai is a sign of heavenly worship
(b) The Temple is a symbolic of Mount Sinal, Eden, and hence Heaven
3. Exodus and Christian Mysticism
(a) The thick clouds preventing people from seeing God
(b) Entering into the cloud to experience the glory of God.
(c) Seeing God and living
(d) “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to a friend” (33:11)

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 (e) Beholding the Lord’s Glory and his Back (33:17-22)
(f) The Shining face of Moses: (Ex. 34:29-35)
(g) Dialetic between apophatic and kataphatic mysticism.
i) Gregory of Nyssa
ii) Dionysius the Areopagite

Review

Learning Targets

1. I can identify the following people and explain their importance: Jethro/Ruel, Zipporah, Gershom,
Eliezer, Aaron, Miriam, Joshua
2. I can identify the following places and explain what happened there: Sinai/Horeb, Midian, Marah
3. I can identify the following things and explain their significance: Tetragrammaton, Passover, Unleavened
Bread, Manna, Tabernacle, Holy Place, Holy of Holies, Ark of the Covenant, Bread of the Presence, Mercy
Seat
4. I can explain the following concepts: Anamnesis

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 10. Numbers
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

November 5, 2019

Introduction

The book of Numbers refers to the two censuses (i.e. “numberings”) of the Israelites that are included in the
book—a census of the first generation in chapter 1, and a census in the second generation in chapter 26. The
Hebrew name of the book is Bamidbar, “in the wilderness,” which is taken from the opening words of the book,
but it also indicates the geographic and spiritual setting of the book.

The book is set in three locations. Chapters 1-10 are set at the base of Mount Sinai, at the end of the Israelites’
year-long stay there, as they make preparations to depart. Chapters 11 to 21 are set in the wilderness. This
part takes 40 years. It should not have taken this long, but the Israelites refused to take Canaan early on, at the
pessimistic report of the spies that Moses sent to reconnoiter Canaan (chapter 14). In punishment, God extends
the wandering of the Israelites until all of the generation who have left Egypt have died. On account of Moses’
and Aaron’s sin in producing water from the rock at Meribah, even Moses and Aaron will not be able to enter
into the Promised Land. In Chapter 21, the Israelites enter into the land of Moab, which is actually to the east
of the Promised Land. They will remain here through the remainder of the book of Numbers, and through
the book of Deuteronomy. In the book of Joshua, its eponymous protagonist will lead the Israelites across the
Jordan from east to west, into the Promised Land.

Lecture Notes

The Structure of Numbers

1. The First Generation in the Wilderness (1-25)

(a) The First Generation Prepares to Enter the Land (In Good Order) (1-10)
i) The Census of the First Generation (1)
ii) The Arrangement of Israel as a War Camp (2)
iii) Assignment of Levites to Transport the Tabernacle (3-4)
iv) Laws (5-6) [NB: Priestly Blessing: 6:22-27]
v) Tribes Offer Gifts for the Tabernacle (7)
vi) Levites Ordained and Installed (8)
vii) The Departure from Sinai (9-10)
(b) The First Generation Rebels In the Wilderness, The Second Generation Grows Up (11-25)

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 i) Rebellion 1: Complaint and Fire at Taberah (11:1-3)
ii) Rebellion 2: Quails and Plague at Kibroth-hattaavah (11:4-35)
iii) Rebellion 3: Miriam and Aaron Challenge Moses as Hazeroth (12:1-16)
iv) Rebellion 4: Israel Revolts at the Spies’ Report at Kadesh (13:1-14:38)
v) Rebellion 5: The People Disobey and Invade the Land Anyways (14:39-45)
vi) Block of Laws in Response to Israel’s Sin (15)
vii) Rebellion 6: Revolt of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram at Kadesh (16:1-40)
viii) Rebellion 7: Revolt of the People after Death of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (16:41-17:13)
ix) Block of Laws in Response to Israel’s Sin (19-20)
x) Rebellion 8: People Murmur for Water at Meribah (20:1-13)
xi) Passage Through Edom Refused (20:14-21)
xii) Aaron Dies at Mount Hor (20:22-29)
xiii) Rebellion 9: Plague of Snakes and the Bronze Serpent (21:1-9)
xiv) Journey to Moab (21:10-20)
xv) Defeat of Sihon and Og; Conquering of Transjordan (21:21-35)
xvi) The Balaam Cycle (22-24)
xvii) Rebellion 10: Idolatry and Fornication at Beth-Peor (25)
2. The Second Generation Prepares to Enter the Promised Land (26-36)
(a) The Census of the Second Generation (26)
(b) The Inheritance of Zelophehad: His Daughters’ Rights Protected (27:1-11)
(c) Joshua Appointed to Succeed Moses (27:12-23)
(d) Laws (28-30)
(e) Vengeance on Midian (31)
(f) Ruben and Gad Settle in Gilead (32)
(g) Recap of Israel’s Wanderings (33)
(h) Settling Cisjordan (34-35)
(i) The Inheritance of Zelophehad: His Tribe’s Rights Protected (36)

Overview of Numbers

1. Preparations for Departure (1-10)

(a) Census
i) Israel is living the blessing: they are being fruitful and multiplying, sustained by God
(b) Arranged like a war camp
(c) Levites around the tabernacle.
2. The First Three Rebellions (11-12)
(a) Major shift: 1-10 were optimistic; here there is rebellion and grumbling
(b) Plague of fire at Taberah (Num. 11:1-3)
(c) Despising the Manna
i) God gives quail (mentioned in Ex. 16, though)
ii) So much that the people will be full of it
iii) Gives Moses with 70/72 spirit-inspired under prophets to deal with the mnurmuring people.
iv) Plague breaks out after partaking in the quail (Num 11:33-34)

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 (d) Rebellion of Miriam and Aaron
i) Miriam primary protagonist
ii) Challenge Moses’ role as sole mediator
iii) Ironic punishment: Miriam complained of Moses’ Cushite wife, her skin turned white with
leprosy.
iv) Moses intercedes, and the punishment is lifted after a week
3. The Revolt (Numbers 13-14)
(a) Moses chooses 12 spies, one from each tribe to reconnoiter Canaan
i) 10 spies: return to Egypt
ii) 2 spies (Joshua and Caleb): immediate conquest.
(b) The People accept the majority report, attempt to stone Moses, choose another leader and return
to Egypt
(c) Moses magnanimously intercedes for the People.
(d) The Lord responds: All of those in Egypt will not be able to enter into the promised land.
i) They will have to wander for 40 years.
(e) “God’s punishment of the Israelites in the book of Numbers is a mysterious combination of irony,
justice, and mercy. The irony can be found in the biblical principle that God punishes his people by
giving them what they want, when what they desire is not him and his will.”1
(f) Followed by a block of Laws (Ex. 15)
i) A kind of punishment and correction: “The Law was added because of our transgressions” (Gal
3:19)
ii) Increase sacrificial offerings (more costly)
iii) Death Penalty
iv) Sewing tassels to remember sinfulness
4. The Ten Times Israel Tests the Lord in Exodus and Numbers (cf. Num. 14:22)2
(a) When Moses’ initial efforts backfire. (Ex. 5:15-6:9)
(b) Israel loses faith on the shores of the Red Sea (Ex. 14:10-12)
(c) Israel murmurs about the bitter water at Marah (Ex. 15:22-23)
(d) Israel murmurs before being given the Manna (Ex. 16:1-36)
(e) Israel murmurs and tests the Lord before being given water at Massah. (Ex. 17:1-19)
(f) The Golden Calf (Ex. 32:1-35)
(g) Israel murmurs and God sends down fire at Taberah (Num 11:1-3) (= Rebellion 1 in Numbers
Outline)
(h) Israel demands meat and God give quail (Num 11:4-35) (= Rebellion 2 in Numbers Outline)
(i) Miriam and Aaron Challenge Moses at Hazeroth (= Rebellion 3 in Numbers Outline)
(j) Revolt after the report of the Spies (Num 14:1-38) (= Rebellion 4 in Numbers Outline)
5. Korah’s Rebellion and its Aftermath (Num 16-17)
(a) Korah, not in the line of Aaron, so not a priest, is dissatisfied with his “diaconal” Levite role
i) Korah’s motto: “All are priests”
ii) Does not reflect the post-Calf reality

1. John Bergsma and Brant Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, 239
2. Bergsma and Pitre, 238

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 iii) Wanted priesthood for himself and his supporters.
(b) Korah tries to enlist the political support of Dathan and Abiram
i) Leaders of the tribe of Reuben.
ii) Reuben oldest of Israel’s sons, should have natural leadership, but didn’t because of Reuben’s
offense against his father (Gen 35:22; 49:3-4)
iii) They don’t object to priesthood, but Moses making himself “prince”
(c) Aaron and Moses beg for clemency for the people
(d) The ground swallows Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
(e) Aaron again makes atonement for the Israelites, stopping a plague which killes 14,700
(f) The Lord vindicates Aaron by making his staff Blossom.
6. The Waters of Meribah
(a) God tells Moses: “tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.” (20:8)
(b) Moses: “Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And struck the Rock twice (20:10-11)
(c) Moses and Aaron now also cannot enter the Promised Land
(d) What was Moses’ Sin?
i) Mysterious and a subject for debate.
ii) Perhaps they did not believe their word alone would do it? They would have to do it like in
Ex. 17
iii) Perhaps it was Moses’ pride
iv) Perhaps it was a kind of ingratitude
v) Maybe it was the culmination of a variety of things, including negligence (cf. Josh. 5:5)
7. The Serpents
(a) In response to grumbling, God sends seraph (“firey”) serpents to bite the people
(b) Moses intercedes
(c) Moses makes an image of a firey serpent; those who look on it are healed.
(d) A type of the Cross
i) “An as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that
whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15)
8. The Balaam Cycle (Num 22-24)
(a) Balak, king of Midian, hires a Meopotamian seer, Balaam (who knows YHWH), to curse Israel.
i) Ends up blessing
ii) En route, the angel of the Lord blocks him, his donkey sees the angel, but he doesn’t. After
repeatedly beating his donkey, the donkey talks to him.
(b) Balaam’s fourth oracle is a classic Messianic prophecy, read during Advent (Num 24:17)
(c) Balaam will help the Midianite women to ensnare the Israleites at Beth-Peor (Num 33:16)
9. Apostasy at Beth-Peor (Num 25)
(a) The setting is in the plains of Moab
(b) Midianite daughters get Israelite men to participate in the sexual rites of the Midianite cult.
(c) The baal (“god” or “lord”) of Peor.
(d) The Bible often links idolatry and adultery.
(e) The adulterer-idolaters are hanged.
(f) Phineas (son of Eleazar, grandson of Aaron) kills an egregious offender, Zimri.

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 i) Demonstrates jealousy for the Lord
ii) Wins the high priesthood for himself and his descendants
(g) The rest of the Pentateuch will be set here
i) Associated with failures of Israel, including members of the second generation (verified by
census in Num 26)
ii) The setting where Moses preaches in Deuteronomy—which preaches and institutes harsh laws
re the people’s infidelity
(h) What the Golden Calf was to the first generation, Baal worship at Beth-Peor was to the second.
i) The census in Num 26 verifies that only a few very old members of the first generation were
even still alive.
10. Preparations for the Second Generation
(a) Census taken (26)
(b) Joshua appointed leader (27)
(c) Vengeance on Midian for Beth-Peor (including women and children) (31)
(d) Reuben and Gad settle in Gilead in the Transjordan (32)
i) Agree to help with the conquest of Cisjordan, though.

A Note on Deuteronomy

The Pentateuch closes with the Book of Deuteronomy, which is a long speech that Moses gave on the last day
of his life, while the Israelites were encamped in the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan river, and were getting
ready to cross the Jordan river and enter into the Promised Land.

Here, Moses recounts the saving deeds that God has done for the Israelites in the desert, he lays out a code
of laws (called the Deuteronomic Code) that the people are to obey, and he lays out the “two ways” that the
Israelites may follow when they enter the land. On the one hand, they can remember what the Lord did for
them and be faithful to their obligations under the covenant by keeping the law of the Lord. If they do so, then
they will receive life and blessing—they will prosper in the land that the Lord wants to give to them. On the
other hand, they can forget the Lord and what he did for them, and fail in fidelity to the covenant by failing to
keep the laws of the Lord. If they do this, they will experience death and curse—they will fail to hold on to the
land that the Lord God gave to them.

Conclusion

“Numbers tells the history of God’s people under the economy of the renewed or Levitical covenant [i.e. the
covenant as re-established and re-configured after the incident with the Golden Calf] (Ex. 34–Lev 27) as they
journey through the wilderness to take possession of the Promised Land of Canaan. Although the preparation
of the nation to depart from Sinai goes smoothly (Num. 1-10), the journey through the wilderness is a disaster,
a nadir in the relationship between between the Israelites and their God consisting of ten rebellions involving
every element and sector of Israelite society. The generation of the exodus dies out in the wilderness, largely
due to retributive plagues. The second generation grows up in the wilderness, but the narratives implicate
the second generation in some of the rebellions and cast serious doubt on whether there has been a significant
change in the heart of God’s people. Nonetheless, the positive oracles of Balaam the foreign prophet and the

5
laws that guarantee the inheritance of those who died in the wilderness are clear literary indicators that there
remains hope for Israel, based not on its own merit, but on the oath-bound promise of God.”3 .

3. Bergsma and Pitre, 255-256

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 11. Introduction to the Historical Books
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

November 12, 2019

Introduction

The Pentateuch ends with the death of Moses and the Israelites poised to enter the Promised Land. The next
section of the Bible (in the Christian order of the books) is called the “Historical Books.” They first received this
appellation from the great Church Father, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, in the Fourth Century.

The great Church Father St. Athanasius of Alexandria was the first person to call this section of the Bible “his-
tories” in the fourth century. We must remember, however, that these books are not history in the modern,
academic sense of this word—they are a history told with a purpose: to show how God is at work in the history
of the Israelites. This is the justification for the traditional name for these books (or at least Joshua, Judges,
Samuel, and Kings) among the Jewish people: The “Former Prophets.”

Here we want to give a basic overview of the background and contents of these books.

Lecture Notes

Historiographical Issues: What Is the Genre Here?

“The idea that historical writing should capture the events ‘as they really were,’ that historians should attempt
to write an objective account of the events of the past is a notion that developed inEuropean universities in
modern times. Before that, history was typically didactic in nature, teaching readers how to be good citizens
or how to lead proper religious lives. Sometimes histories produced in royal courts were apologetic, showing
that the king fulfilled his royal duties; elsewhere they were written by religious officials who aimed to show that
their particular religious practices were correct by recounting their ancient sacred origin. Surviving historical
documents from the ancient Near East show similar religious and ideological goals. Thus, it should not be
surprising that the biblical writers are not necessarily interested in the accurate recording of events; rather, they
use narratives set in the past to illustrate issues of significance to their audience, the ancient Israelite community,
over a period encompassing nearly a millennium, and in different places.”1

1. The Deuteronomic History

1. Marc Z. Brettler, “Introduction to the Historical Books,” *The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 5th ed., 315

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 (a) The story of Israel from the beginning of the Conquest to the Exile
i) Joshua, Judges, (Ruth), 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings
ii) Don’t make too much out of the unity of these books.
(b) In Jewish tradition these books are called the “Former Prophets”
i) There is a tradition of prophetic authorship: Joshua wrote Joshua; Samuel wrote Judges and
Samuel; Jeremiah wrote Kings.
ii) The books have a moral message
iii) They show how God’s word is fulfilled.
iv) They show how God is acting in history.
(c) Written During the Exile
i) Near the end of the Exile (c. 550 B.C.), someone continued the outlook of Jeremiah and
Deuteronomy and started to put together the whole history down to their own day.
ii) Assembled traditional materials both oral and written
iii) Filled in details
iv) Put speeches on the mouths of important figures — to show what they “would have” said.
(d) Why the history was written
i) To understand why the nation had failed
ii) To understand how God acts in history
iii) To understand how God remains faithful to his covenant
iv) To provide grounds for a continued hope, even in the midst of exile.
(e) Embodies the theology of the Book of Deuteronomy and of the Prophet Jeremiah
i) The Book of Deuteronomy is a bridge book: it is a conclusion to the Pentateuch and an intro-
duction to the history.
ii) From this theological perspective, the tragedy could be understood.
iii) Fidelity to the obligations under the covenant leads to blessing and life; Infidelity brings curse
and death.
(f) Central Concerns of the Deuteronomic History
i) God’s election of Israel
ii) The theocratic nature of Israel, which results from this election
iii) The exclusive worship of God (cf. The Shema – Dt. 6:4-5)
iv) The consequences of idolatry
v) The centrality of Jerusalem
vi) Belief in the everlasting dynasty of David
(g) “An older belief that God had fought for Israel as a warrior, defeating all enemies and promising all
blessing, had given way in the face of defeat to a deeper and more spiritual view of God’s actions in
the world.”2
2. The Pattern of the Deuteronomic History
(a) The Conquest (Joshua)
i) Glory and pride in Israel
ii) The Israelites made a place in the land and proved their superiority to the Canaanites
iii) The obedience of the people brought about blessings from Yahweh.
iv) The role of the Ark as a help from God

2. Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, revised ed.

2
 v) The importance of places of worship
vi) Warnings about infidelity
(b) The Settlement (Judges and 1 Samuel)
i) Troubled times with Ups and Downs
ii) Disorganized Leadership
iii) A long and slow process of settlement
iv) The Deuteronomist does not see any contradiction between a relatively successful conquest
and a slow settlement
v) Shows different responses to the covenant
vi) Re-interprets the adventure stories of the old heroes to show how often Israel had sinned and
needed God to rescue them.
vii) The pattern of stories in Judges illustrates the Deuteronomic theology perfectly.
(c) The Reign of David (2 Samuel)
i) The high point of Israelite’s fidelity
ii) God made a personal covenant with David as a sign of his care for the people
(d) The Period of the Kings (1-2 Kings)
i)Passes over the important “political” works of the kings
ii)Focuses on how well the kings obeyed the demands of the covenant
iii)All of the northern kings were evil
iv) Among the kings of Judah, Asa, Hezekiah and Josiah all “walked in the footsteps of David their
father.”
v) The real history centered on the prophets that God sends to warn the people (e.g. Elijah)
vi) Whatever the prophet speaks, God performs.
(e) The Exile (2 Kings)
3. The Chronicler
(a) The Books
i) 1 and 2 Chronicles
ii) Ezra
iii) Nehemiah
iv) Think of this more as a school of thought than a unified set of books.
(b) Purpose
i) How the small community in Judah adapted itself to a new way of life that no longer depended
on a king or national freedom to survive
ii) In this period, the nation underwent profound changes that eventually produced the begin-
nings of modern Judaism.
iii) Chronicles stress the role of prayer, worship, and ritual purity as a way of life.
iv) Ezra and Nehemiah begin a shift to separateness—priests and Levites handle holy things; Jews
live separately from Gentiles.
v) Needs to be balanced by the views of minor prophets: Malachi, Joel, and Jonah
(c) The Books of Chronicles
i) Thought to have been written in late fifth or fourth century.
ii) The title comes from St. Jerome, who called these books “a chronicle of the whole of divine
history.”
iii) LXX title: “Paralipomena” = “Things Left Out”

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 iv) Building national identity by rewriting the history of the nation.
v) Based off of the Deuteronomic history
vi) Done by the priestly leaders after the return from the exile.
vii) Reflects priestly concerns: worship and temple.
viii) Clarifies the roles of priests and levites from how they are presented in the Deuteronomic
history
ix) Whereas the Deuteronomic history stresses the centrality of prophecy, the Chronicles stress the
centrality of cult.
x) Told from the perspective of Judah and the South; concerned with the people of the North,
but not their kingdom.
(d) The Book of Ezra
i) First Part (1-6): The first groups of returning exiles, culminating in the rebuilding of the Tem-
ple in 516
ii) Second Part (7-10): Ezra the Priest is sent from Babylon to restore the Law (especially concern-
ing marriage and the cult).
(e) The Book of Nehemiah
i) Nehemiah (a Jew) began his work as a Persian official in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes I in
c. 445 B.C.
ii) Nehemiah heard about the bad conditions around Jerusalem, got it named a province, and got
himself named as governor
iii) Rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and fixed observances of the Law.
iv) A pious memoir that paints Nehemiah in a favorable light.

Issues in Historical Literature

1. Herem Warfare
(a) aka. the Bann
(b) Difficulty of translation
i) Means dedicated or consecrated
ii) What exactly does this mean in a military context?
(c) The city was an offering to God
i) No booty could be taken
ii) On analogy with a whole burnt offering.
(d) Not unique to Israelites
i) There is a relatively common ANE view that wars were a part of the glorification of the national
deity and an extension of their reign.a
(e) Keep in mind the usual hyperbole
i) If this practice was done too often, then there would not be anyone left in the ANE. So it is
likely that this practice was only for especially decisive moments of great danger.
(f) People in the cities were given a chance to convert to Yahwism and be assimilated
(g) Many non-combatants fled before the attack, and returned
i) Accounting for a part of the difficulty of taking and holding cities

4
 (h) But, undoubtedly, non-combatants were killed. How can this be justified?3
i) Revelation at its early stages, and not yet completed; God working with people as they are?
ii) Divine judgment for the abominations of the Canaanites? Especially the ones who rejected
conversion to Yahwism?
iii) Not part of original Sinai covenant, but concession to Israel’s sinfulness and hardhartedness?
(cf. Ez. 20:11,25; Mt. 19:7-8)
(i) For an interpretation according to the moral sense, cf.
i) John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, I.11.7-85
ii) Origen, Homilies on Joshua, 12.1
(j) Ideological Justifications
i) Obedient servants of the Lord, who is the Lord of life
ii) Just divine punishment
iii) protect religious integrity of Israelites
iv) fulfill the promise of the land.
(k) Don’t pit the “bad” God of the OT against the “good” God of the NT: “The horrors of Gehenna will
be no less than those of Jericho.”6

“The people responsible for carrying on the ancient traditions of the conquest emphasized that the victories
came from God, and that Joshua and the tribes followed God’s directions carefully and always dedicated their
military victories a s a sacrifice in thanksgiving for his aid. This is the context for the ancient Near East custom
of the ‘ban’called in Hebrew, a herem, in which everyone in a defeated town was slain. Victory belonged to the
god and so did the spoils—-gold and silver, weapons, captured soldiers, ordinary people, and domestic animals.

3. “In discussing the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments, the Synod also considered those passages in the Bible
which, due to the violence and immorality they occasionally contain, prove obscure and difficult. Here it must be remembered first
and foremost that biblical revelation is deeply rooted in history. God’s plan is manifested progressively and it is accomplished slowly, in
successive stages and despite human resistance. God chose a people and patiently worked to guide and educate them. Revelation is
suited to the cultural and moral level of distant times and thus describes facts and customs, such as cheating and trickery, and acts of
violence and massacre, without explicitly denouncing the immorality of such things. This can be explained by the historical context,
yet it can cause the modern reader to be taken aback, especially if he or she fails to take account of the many ‘dark’ deeds carried out
down the centuries, and also in our own day. In the Old Testament, the preaching of the prophets vigorously challenged every kind
of injustice and violence, whether collective or individual, and thus became God’s way of training his people in preparation for the
Gospel. So it would be a mistake to neglect those passages of Scripture that strike us as problematic. Rather, we should be aware
that the correct interpretation of these passages requires a degree of expertise, acquired through a training that interprets the texts in
their historical-literary context and within the Christian perspective which has as its ultimate hermeneutical key ‘the Gospel and the
new commandment of Jesus Christ brought about in the paschal mystery’. I encourage scholars and pastors to help all the faithful to
approach these passages through an interpretation which enables their meaning to emerge in the light of the mystery of Christ.”4
5. “We have a figure of this in the Book of Judges. It narrates that the angel announced to the children oof Israel that because they had
not completely destroyed their enemies but made a pact with some of them, these enemies would be left in their midst as an occasion of
their fall and perdition [Jgs. 2:1-3]. God does precisely this with some souls. He has withdrawn them from the world, slain the giants
which are their sins, and destroyed the multitude of their enemies (the occasions of sin encountered in the world) for the sole purpose
of their entering with greater freedom into the promised land of divine union. Nevertheless, in spite of all this they will fraternize and
make pacts with the insignificant people of their imperfections by not mortifying them completely. And God in His anger allows them
to go from bad to worse in their appetites. We find another figure of this in the book of Joshua. there we read that God commanded
Joshua, when he was about to enter into possession of the promised land, to destroy everything in the city of Jericho without leaving
anything alive, neither men nor women, young nor old, nor any animals. And He ordered him not to covet or seize any of the booty.
The lesson here is that all objects living in the soul—whether they be many or few, large or small—must die in order that the soul enter
divine union, and it must bear no desire for them but remain detached as though they were nonexistent to it, and it to them.” (St. John
of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, I.11.7-8)
6. Victor P. Hamilton, Handbook on the Historical Books, 37.

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Gold and silver could be transferred to the divine realm by being donated to the god’s house, the temple, but
human beings could be transferred in the divine realm only by being removed from this life, that is, killed. On
many occasions, in practice perhaps most of the time, the god might signal through a spokesperson that the
booty be distributed to the soldiers, but in theory everything belonged to the god who alone was responsible for
the victory. The Bible’s depiction of the ban as strictly enforced was meant to teach later generations to make
no compromises with the native religions of the land and to put all their trust in God alone.” (Boadt 166)

“The very power of these examples to shock and appall us as history is perhaps their most important character-
istic as theology, since here we find the ferocity of spiritual war made unbearably real to us. No eloquence could
drive home more powerfully the fact that God’s war now, and His judgment to come, are alike total: that for us
the world, the flesh, and the devil are enemies to fight to the death, and that the last judgment will make this
herem absolute.”7

7. Kinder, F. D. “Old Testament Perspectives on War.” Evangelical Quarterly 57:107-108.

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 12. The Conquest: Joshua
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.
November 12, 2019

Introduction

The book of Joshua recounts the conquest of Canaan and its division among the twelve tribes. It is named after
the protagonist of the book, Moses successor as leader of the people, Joshua son of Nun. Joshua (meaning: “The
Lord saves”) is the same name as Jesus. His former name was Hoshea, but he received the name Joshua from
Moses when he was appointed one of the twelve spies to reconnoiter the land of Canaan at the beginning of
the wanderings in the wilderness.

Lecture Notes

Structure of Joshua

1. Preparations to take the Land (1-5)

(a) Practical Preparations (1-3)

i) Joshua commissioned (1)
ii) Joshua orders Israel to Pack Up (1)
iii) Joshua sends spies to Jericho (2)
I) The people cross the Jordan (3)
(b) Cultic Preparations
i) Joshua builds altar of stones from Jordan at Gilgal (4)
ii) Joshua circumcises Israel (5:1-9)
iii) The people celebrate Passover (5:10-15)

2. Taking the Land (6-12)

(a) The central campaign (6-8)

i) Jericho (6)
ii) Ai (7-8)
iii) Covenant Renewal (8)
(b) The southern campaign (9-10)
i) The ruse of the Gibeonites (9)

1
 ii) Campaign to the south to defend the Gibeonites (10)
(c) The northern campaign (11)
(d) Summary of Kings Conquered Under Moses and Joshua (12)

3. Dividing the Land (13-21)

4. Keeping the Land (22-24)

(a) The Transjordanian Altar: A Reminder to be Faithful (22)

(b) Joshua’s Concluding Exhortation (23-24)

Major Events in the Book

1. Preparations to take the Land (1-5)

(a) Echoes of the life of Moses
i) Commissioning of Joshua
ii) Sending Spies into Promised Land
iii) Crossing the Jordan1
iv) Celebration of Passover before a New Stage in the Journey (Egypt and Sinai)
(b) The second generation had to be circumcised
i) A culpable omission of Moses?
(c) The rescue of Rahab
i) Rahab’s agreement to help – a sign that the conquest was in part dissatisfaction with rulers?
ii) From the perspective of the narrative, the fact that the Canaanites know of the power of
YHWH indicates their culpability
2. Conquest of the Land (6-12)
(a) Base camp at Gilgal
(b) Jericho (6)
i) A liturgical and miraculous overthrow, rather than a strategic and military one
ii) Note parallels between Exodus and rescue of Rahab: window marked by red cord while angels
of death pass by
iii) Rahab marries Salmon father of Boaz, the great-great-grandfather of David.
(c) Ai (7:1-8:29)
i) Achan took loot from Jerico
ii) God does not accompany them to Ai, leading to defeat.
iii) Achan and his family are executed
iv) They can then take Ai
v) Note the theme: fidelity and obedience bring victory; covetousness and self-confidence bring
defeat.

1. “For a second time the Israelites encounter a ‘water hazard’ on their trek from Egypt to Canaan. The difference between the Re(e)d
Sea and the Jordan River is that the former represents an exit, and the latter an entrance. the sea points to that territory to which they
must never return. The ricver points to that territory which lies before them and toward which they must press. At the sea the enemy
is behind them; at the river the enemy is before them.” (Victor P. Hamilton, Handbook on the Historical Books, 24)

2
 (d) Covenant renewal at Mount Ebal and Mount Gerezim (8:30-35)
i) What Moses said to do: (Deut. 27:1-26)
(e) Gibeonites (9-10)
i) Send messengers with warn-out clothes and few provisions, pretending to be immigrants seek-
ing an alliance with Israel.
ii) Israelites discover the deception, but are bound by oath. The Gibeonites serve the material
needs of the sanctuary.
iii) a race of sacristans
iv) 5 southern Canaanite kings attack; Israelites win by a surprise attack, a hailstorm, and pro-
longed daylight
v) Joshua captures each of their cities, except Jerusalem
vi) Returns to Gilgal – the center of operations
(f) Northern Campaign (11)
i) Jabin of Hazor et al attacks
(g) There were many other campaigns over years (11:18)
3. Dividing the Promised Land (13-21)
(a) Many territories left to take: Canaanites have retreated to fortified cities and have yet to be dislodged
(b) Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh are in the Transjordan (Josh. 13; cf. Ex. 31)
(c) Major Cisjordanian tribes: Judah, Ephraim, West Manasseh (Josh 14-15)
(d) Small Cisjordainian tribes: Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, Dan
i) NB: Zebulun and Naphtali: where the Galilee will be in NT times.
(e) 48 cities given to Levites (Josh 20-21)
i) Some are cities of refuge for those who committed unintentional manslaughter.
(f) Note that the description of Israels ideal boundaries (Joshua 1:4; Gen. 15:18; Deut 1:7, 11:24), along
with its partial concession that much work in conquering and settling remained to be done even in
the heart of Canaan, give the book a sense of unfulfilled promise.
4. Keeping the Land: Reminders to Remain Faithful
(a) The transjordanian tribes build an altar on their side of the Jordan (22)
i) Almost causes a war with the other tribes.
ii) Remains as a sign of the commitment of these tribes.
(b) Joshua delivers “Deuteronomic” farewell addresses at Shechem between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerzim
(c) Tribal system sealed with a covenant.

The Tribal Federation

By the end of the Book of Joshua, the Israelites were organized into a federation of twelve tribes. These twelve
tribes derive their (legendary?) origin from the sons of the patriarch Jacob (whose other name was Israel). The
stories of Jacob are told in the Book of Genesis. Like so many other people in the book of Genesis, individual
people come to foreshadow different groups. According to Gen. 49:1-27, these are his sons:

1. Sons of Leah: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun

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 2. Sons of Leah’s Maid Zilpah: Gad and Asher
3. Sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin
4. Sons of Rachel’s Servant Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali.

But the traditional “twelve tribes of Israel” do not quite line up with this list. The twelve tribes are listed again
in the first census in the book of Numbers (1:5-15). Here the list is slightly different:

Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, Gad, Naphtali.

This list differs in two ways from the one given in Genesis. First, notice the absence of the tribe of Levi. At
this point in the story, the Levites are priests, and so they will not have their own ancestral heritage. (Their
inheritance is the Lord). Second, Joseph is not represented on this list. Rather, there are two tribes named for
each of his sons: Ephraim and Manasseh.

There is a third listing of the twelve tribes, given in Moses’ blessing, which is found in Deuteronomy 33:1-29.
Here the twelve tribes are given as follows:

Reuben, Judah, Levi, Benjamin, Ephraim, Manasseh, Zebulun, Issachar, Gad, Dan, Naphtali, Asher

Notice that here, Levi is included in the list, along with Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh, but Simeon is not
included. This perhaps reflects the fact that Simeon (whose traditional land was located within that of Judah)
was absorbed into the tribe of Judah and lost its independent identity as a tribe early on.

This highlights the reason for the differences in the lists. It took many years for the twelve tribes to be united.
The story of Jacob and his sons masks a long history of groups and individuals coming together to form what
emerges at the end of the period of the judges as the nation of Israel.

These twelve tribes formed a loose federation centered on worship of Yahweh. Each year delegates would meet
at a central sanctuary, offer renewed devotion and sacrifice, pledge themselves to one another and to God anew,
and submit all disputes and problems of common concern to a decision there before God. Common worship of
Yahweh united the quarrelling tribes. And there was a central location of the Ark. First at Schechem in Joshua
23-24, and later at Shiloh in 1 Sam 1-4.

Literary Features of Joshua

1. Logical Geographic Arrangement

(a) East-to-West Crossing

(b) Campaigns
i) Central
ii) South
iii) North
iv) Summary List
(c) Allotment of Land
i) Transjordanian
ii) Southern and Central

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 iii) Northern
iv) Marginal Entities (20-21)

2. Some uses of flashback complicate the structure

3. Portraying Joshua as Foreshadowed By Moses

(a) Leading Israelites Out of Egypt / Into Canaan

(b) Crossing of the Red Sea / Crossing the Jordan
(c) Sending out Scouts
(d) Alloting Land East of Jordan / West of Jordan

Issues in Joshua

1. Did the Israelites completely conquer the land?

(a) Some passages suggest complete conquest; others suggest large unconquered portions
(b) Hyperbole is part of the convention of the genre.
i) e.g. “When Joshua and the sons of Israel had finished striking them with a great blow until they
were wiped out, and when the remnant that remained of them had entered into the fortified
cities . . .” (Josh 10:20)
ii) A city can be sacked or occupied
iii) A king can be defeated, but his city not taken
iv) Inhabitants can join Israelites?
(c) A Likely Scenario
i) Initial conquests established a foothold in the land for the Israelites
ii) As the conquests increased, more and more disaffected people joined the movement and were
incorporated into Israel
iii) These groups formed a tribal federation.
iv) But although they had a foothold, they did not establish outright hegemony. That would take
much longer, and the struggle for it is recounted in the book of Judges.

Themes in Joshua

1. The faithfulness of God. (cf. 21:43-45)

(a) “So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had solemnly promised to their ancestors, and they conquered
it and lived in it. The Lrd made them secure, in fulfillment of all he had solemnly promised their
ancestors. None of their enemies could resist them. Not one of the Lord’s faithful promises to the
family of Israel was unfulfilled; every one was realized.” (21:43-45)
2. God’s presence to his people.
(a) When Israel crossed the Jordan, the Ark of the Covenant was paraded before the people.
(b) At Jericho, the priests marched the Ark around the city.
(c) The Lord sent the general of his heavenly army to reassure the city.

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 3. God’s power
(a) Rahab’s reason for helping the Israelites
(b) Supernatural phenomena
(c) The nations will know God’s power
4. The necessity of the people’s fidelity. (cf. 23:5-8)
(a) Joshua and Caleb are paradigms of faithfulness.
(b) Obedience or disobedience to the law of Moses predicts the outcome of the battle ()

The Purpose of the Book of Joshua

1. “The Lord fulfilled his promise to give his people the land” and “his powerful presence was all that Israel
needed to be successful against opposition. In the context of the larger history that Joshua introduces,
this theme serves as an apology for the Lord. Israel’s subsequent defeats, culminatiung in exile, were not
due to any deficiency on the Lord’s part.”2

2. “The book also challenges Israel to remain faithful to the Lord by reminding them that disobedience
brings divine discipline and threatens to undermine their position as the Lord’s covenant. This theme
also contributes to the history’s apology for the Lord. Israel’s subsequent failure was due to its rejection
of the Lord’s authority.”3

Conclusion

”The book of Joshua serves as an epilogue to the Pentateuch, in which the promise of the gift of the land to
the descendants of the patriarchs is finally fulfilled (cf. Gen 12:7). The book is permeated with the memory of
Moses and the language of Deuteronomy. Joshua is obedient to all that Moses commanded; he conquers the
main centers of Canaanite power and establishes Israel permanently in the land of Canaan. At the end of his life,
he renews the Deuteronomic covenant with Israel (Josh. 24:25), but not without warning Israel sternly about
the implications of the covenant curses (Josh. 24:19-22).

“In spiritual interpretation, Joshua is a type of Christ, who leads Israel through prefigurements of the sacraments
into the Promised Land, a foretaste of heaven, life in God’s presence. The warfare against the Canaanites poses
theological questions that can only be resolved in light of the Cross; but the spiritual sense of these texts pow-
erfully reminds us of unrelenting combat in the spiritual life and of the very real dangers posed by compromise
with the sin or the spiritual forces of evil (Eph. 6:12)”4 .

2. Robert B. Crisholm Jr., Interpreting the Historical Books, 92-93

3. ibid.
4. Bergsma and Pitre, 315-6

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 13. Judges
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.
November 14, 2019

Introduction

The Book of Judges recounts the chaotic times from the death of Joshua to the time of the prophet Samuel and
the eventual rise of the monarchy. Judges are charismatic leaders who rose up to provide direction when things
grew chaotic. The period of the judges lasted roughly between 1200 B.C. and 1050 B.C.

The typical cycle during this period is disobedience (usually by lapsing into paganism), punishment (usually defeat
and subjugation by enemies), repentance, and finally restoration through the ministry of a judge sent by God. They
would fall again after a time of prosperity. By the end of the book, we are given to understand the rationale for
a monarchy.

Lecture Notes

The Judges and the Settlement of the Land

The so-called “judges” were really more warlords and chieftains than legal judges. They arose (or, according
to the interpretation of the Bible, God raised them up) in times of great need. They exercised legal authority
because of their prior success in battle. These judges were more local heroes: they were not leaders of Israelites
as a whole.

The period of the judges was a time when the tribal federation of the Israelites struggled to gain a foothold in
the land. However successful the different campaigns for conquest which are related in Joshua might have been,
it nevertheless seems clear that it took centuries for the Israelites to actually establish a definitive hegemony in
the land of Canaan. “The picture that emerges from the book [of Judges] shows an Israelite confederation of
twelve tribes still struggling to find unity among themselves while at the same time fighting for footholds in
different parts of the Canaanite territory. It was a time of small local wars and defensive fighting against desert
nomads . . . Strife was constant throughout the age of the judges. As some writers have remarked, it was like
the Wild West of American folklore in the nineteenth century.”1

There were twelve judges in Israel (six major and six minor), plus one anti-judge (the short-lived king Abim-
elech). They are widely distributed across all the tribes. Some scholars see a motion from the south to the north,
and a corresponding motion from more positive judges to more tragic and morally corrupt judges. Abimelech
seems to be the turning-point in this arc.

1. Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, revised edition, 168.

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 Major Judge Minor Judge Home of Judge Primary Enemy Years Scriptural Text
Othniel Judah Mesopotamians 40 3:7-11
Ehud Benjamin Moabites 80 3:12-30
Shamgar Southern Dan? Philistines ? 3:31
Deborah Ephraim Northern 40 4:1-5:31
Canaanites
Gideon Manasseh Midianites 40 6:1-8:32
Abimelech Schechem Other Israelites 3 8:33-9:57
Tola Issachar/Ephraim ? 23 10:1-2
Jair Gilead (pr. Gad) ? 22 10:3-5
Jephthah Gilead (pr. Gad) Ammonites 6 10:6-12:7
Ibzan Bethlehem (Judah) ? 7 12:8-10
Elon Zebulun ? 10 12:11-12
Hillel Ephraim Amalekites? 8 12:13-15

Samson Southern Dan Philistines 20 13:11-16:31

Structure of the Book of Judges

1. Prologue: Failures of Israel in the Time of the Judges (1:1-3:6)

(a) Material, Specific, Retrospective Introduction (1:1-2:5)
(b) Theological, General, Prospective Introduction (2:6-3:6)
2. Central Narrative: Twelve Judges and an Anti-Judge (3:7-16:31)
(a) Othniel (3:7-11)
(b) Ehud (3:12-50)
(c) Shamgar (3:31)
(d) Deborah (4:1-5:31)
(e) Gideon (6:1-8:32)
(f) Abimelech (8:33-9:57)
(g) Tola (10:1-2)
(h) Jair (10:3-5)
(i) Jepthah (10:6-12:7)
(j) Ibzan (12:8-10)
(k) Elon (12:11-12)
(l) Hillel (12:13-15)
(m) Samson (13:121-16:31)
3. Epilogue: Abuses of the Time of the Judges (17-21)
(a) Theological and Liturgical Abuse in this Period (17-18)
(b) Material, Social, and Civil Abuse in this Period (19-21)

2
Literary Style in Judges

• Judges has many very fine examples of storytelling.

• There is a carefully-selected variety of judges.
• All of the judges exhibit irony, however: unusual figures for leaders.
– highlights the chaotic nature of the period
– when the traditional sources of leadership fail, God raises up unexpected leaders.

Overview of the Book

1. The Time of Judges and the Cycle of Sin (1:1-3:6)

(a) The Israelites failed to completely drive the Canaanites from the land, and started to live like them.
i) The period of the judges represented a spirit of compromise with the pagan culture of the land.
ii) This was the greatest sin of the Israelites, and they would repeat it over and over again.
(b) Do not drive the Canaanites from the land, and start to live like them
(c) Five Step Pattern (2:11-23)
i) sin – suffering – supplication – salvation – setback
ii) rebellion – retribution – repentance – redemption – relapse
(d) Exhibits perfectly the theology of Deuteronomy
i) God stood by the Israelites when they were faithful and obedient to him.
ii) God allowed the Israelites to fall into disaster and the results of their own sins when they turned
from his covenant and disobeyed him.
2. Othoniel
(a) Only judge who comes from a major lineage
i) A nephew of Caleb
(b) Delivers Israel from Cushan-Krishathaim of Northwest Meopotamia
i) Like a Nebudchenezzar figure: he goes from being an instrument of divine judgement to an
object of it.
ii) Name means “Cushan of double wickedness” or “cushan of double dastardliness” or “Cushan of
compound criminality.”
(c) Described extremely positively
i) “The Othniel episode is the one judge segment of the six in which the behavior of the judge s
totally exemplary. Othniel plunges a dagger into nobody, nails nobody’s head to the ground,
puts no demand or test on God, makes no foolish vow and does not consort with harlots. As
in 1:1-3:6, where Judah is the model tribe, so [here] the Judean judge is the model. Both one
tribe and that tribe’s judge become the standard against which to measure all the other tribes
and all the other judges.”2
ii) There have been three generations so far: The first generation was that of the Exodus, which
was wicked, and from which only Joshua and Caleb survive and do not die from sin. The
second generation was that of the conquest, including Joshua and Caleb, and this generation
was righteous. The third generation was the post-Joshua generation, and was again faithless.

2. Victor P. Hamilton, Handbook on the Historical Books, 112

3
 (d) Othniel establishes the pattern for the rest of the judges.
(e) Brought rest for 40 years.
i) A sign of his enduring effectiveness.
3. Ehud
(a) Delivers from Eglon, king of Moab
i) Name means “rotund”
(b) Left-handed, usually bad but in this case good
i) His weapon on his right thigh enables him to slip past King Eglon’s security guards
ii) Ironic because “Benjamin” means “son of the right hand.”
iii) “Ehud represents an anomalous, subordinate segment of his society. Ehud is a left-hander
in a world of right-handers. Deborah is a woman, and a leader at that, in a world of men
(leaders). Gideon is the youngest son in a world of older brothers. Jephthah is the son of a
harlot in a world of ‘legitimate’ children. Samson is a nonshaving, non-intoxicant-imbibing
ascetic Nazirite in a world of ‘normal’ people.”3
(c) Eglon receives Ehud’s message on the toilet
i) Attested to elsewhere
ii) Euphemism: “and the dirt came out” (3:22d)
(d) Ehud kills Eglon and rallies the Israelite’s militia
(e) Decisive victory brings 80 years of peace.
4. Deborah
(a) Deborah is a civil, not military official
(b) Barak the naphtalite is a military commander
(c) Launch an attack on Jabin, king of Hazor and his general Sisera
(d) Deborah needs to encourage Barak
(e) Barak defeats Sisera at Mt. Tabor
(f) Sisera hides among his Kenite allies, but is killed by his hostess Jael
(g) Celebrated in a poem attributed to Deborah and Barak (Judg. 5)
i) Archaic
ii) Witness to Israelite national identity in this period.
5. Gideon
(a) Alternative name: Jerubbaal (or Jerubbesheth, removing the pagan root).
(b) Gideon starts out as a weak coward
i) Responds to the angel’s commands with “why”, “where”, and “how”
ii) Destroys his father’s altar to Baal and his Asherah pole in the middle of the night.
iii) found cowering in a wine press, trying to thresh grain outside the sight of the Midianites
iv) Wine presses were out of sight; threshing floors are in public places.
v) requires multiple miraculous signs to bolster his courage.
(c) God will gain the victory over Midian using the weakest forces possible.
(d) God winnows Israelite forces down to 300 who have uncouth drinking habits.
i) A 98% reduction in forces (from 42,000)!

3. Victor P. Hamilton, Handbook on the Historical Books, 116.

4
 (e) More a psychological prank than a military attack
i) Scaring the forces in early morning with torches, trumpets, and shouting.
ii) Sets off panic in the Midianite ranks
iii) Get help from Epharimite militia.
(f) Forty years of peace
(g) Sets up an ilicit shrine in his hometown, though.
6. Abimelech
(a) NB: Not a major judge; this is a continuation of the story of Gideon
(b) an anti-judge who sets himself up as a king and oppresses Israel, rather than its neighbors
(c) Abimelech is a young son of Gideon by a concubine from Shechem.
(d) Persuades Schechemites to throw off the rule of Gideon’s descendants, and make Gideon the sole
king.
(e) They slaughtered all Gideon’s sons, except youngest.
(f) A civil war breaks out that takes the lives of Abimelech and Schechem.
7. Jephthah
(a) The Ammonites threatened the transjordanian tribes of Reuben and Gad (terrotory: Gilead)
(b) Jephthah is the son of the Manassite chief Gilead and a prostitute, who gained his military experi-
ence as a bandit and outlaw
(c) Rashly vows to offer to the Lord whatever comes forth from his house to greet him when he returns
victorious.
i) Turns out to be his only daughter.
ii) Was she sacrificed, or consecrated to service in the temple?
(d) Short reign of six years, during which Jephthah led transjordanian tribes in civil war against
Ephraim.
8. Samson
(a) A maverick champion with supernatural strength, vandalizing the territory of the oppressing
Philistines.
(b) Samson’s parents were instructed to raise him as a Nazarite
i) lay person consecrated by a vow
ii) Samson’s vow is unusual because it is lifelong
iii) Conditions: No contact with a dead body; no wine or strong drink; no razor
iv) Samson breaks all of these
(c) His weakness for Philistine women is his undoing
i) First Marriage
ii) Affair with Philistine harlot Delilah
(d) Samson loses his strength because he breaks his Nazarite vow
(e) Samson is brazenly foolish in the whole Delilah affair
i) Warning to Israel about the corrupting influence of intermarriage.
9. Epilogue: Abuse in the Time of Judges
(a) Micah, the Levite, and the Danites
i) Micah of Ephraim sets up a private shrine and gets a Levite (Jonathan) to serve as a sort of
chaplain

5
 ii) The Danites couldn’t secure their land, and were looking for a home in Ephraim.
iii) The Danites seize Micah’s shrine and establish themselves nearby.
iv) Disregard for Mosaic Law and liturgical chaos
(b) Levite Concubine and the Tribe of Benjamin
i) A Levite at Bethlehem takes a concubine.
ii) Stops at Gibeah in Benjamin; they demand to have relations
iii) The Levite hands over his concubine; they rape her to death.
iv) Levite dismembers concubine’s body, sends pieces to tribes asking for vengeance (they often
did war-calls with animals)
v) The other tribes almost destroy Benjamin
vi) They leave 600 survivors, finding wives for them by warfare and abduction.
vii) Note the change: at the beginning of the book, the Israelites were going to unite against the
Canannite foe, now they are uniting against one of their brothers. (cf. 1:1 vs. 20:18)

Themes in Judges

1. Rounded Characters and Failed Leadership

(a) They are victorious and flawed.
i) This is the point: these are not savior-people, apart from the call of Yahweh.
ii) The book is meant to justify the need for a king, and for good leadership.
iii) The characters are not meant to be moral exemplars.
(b) The declining quality of leadership
i) Joshua and Caleb are exemplary — they are foils for the judges.
ii) The quality of the judges declines, reaching a nadir in Samson.
iii) Note that Judah is portrayed the most favorably. (And Dan the most unfavorably).
(c) Escalating Civil Conflict
i) Abimelech, Samson
ii) Culminating in Micah and the affair at Gibeah.
2. An Apology for the Lord
(a) The Lord’s reputation was jeopardized by Israel’s failure.
i) Explains why the Israelites failed
ii) Shows that the Lord warned them from the beginning.
iii) Justifies the Lord’s decision to test people
(b) Shows the Lord’s commitment to his people
i) Despite his harsh discipline, he showed compassion and continued to deliver the people.
ii) “God graciously and continually raised up judges to rectify the situation, not because of any
repentance from the people, but because of the kind of God he is: ‘for the Lord would be
moved to pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and oppressed them’ (2:18b).
‘Goaning’ (i.e., an appeal for help and respite) does not mean penitence and godly sorow. If
post-Joshua Israel is to survive from generation to generation, it will not be because of any up-
and-down cycles of rebellion and repentance, but because of yahweh’s merciful actions, which

6
 guarantee perpetuity—actions from a God whose judgment is always accompanied by his grief
and pity.”4
(c) Israel’s obsession with idols did not bring success.
i) Idolatry brings defeat and humiliation.
ii) Explains why Israel should have chosen Yahweh over Baal.
3. The Dangers of Assimilation
(a) As a punishment for idolatry, God put on hold his plans to give the Israelites the land.
i) The nations would remain to test the Israelites’ loyalty.
(b) “As Israel became more like the Canaanites, their national identity as God’s covenant community
began to dissolve. The unified nation of [the end of] Joshua’s time began to disintegrate, making
it more vulnerable to invasion . . . Tribal conflict threatened the nations’ stability; tribal loyalty at
the expense of justice eventually precipitated a civil war.”5
4. The Need for Competent Leadership
(a) Israel’s leaders failed on account of their lack of faith and wisdom.
(b) ”Israel needed a king who would ensure social order and cultic purity. Without such a leader, the na-
tion rejected God’s authority and each person followed his or her own code of conduct. Only when
Israel again acknowledged God as their true King would the original vision, which had seemingly
died with Joshua, be realized. The epilogue brings the leadership theme of the stories to its alarm-
ing conclusion and paves the way for 1 Samuel, which describes how the Lord restored competent,
Joshua/Caleb-like leadership to Israel, at least for a time.6

Issues with Judges

1. Do the pictures of the conquest in Joshua and Judges contradict each other?
(a) To some, its sounds like Joshua presents a complete, clear conquest, whereas Judges presents settle-
ment and coexistence with Canaanites.
(b) The differences are not as stark, if we pay attention to the data in the two books, and read in the
light of contemporary literary conventions.
i) The accounts of Joshua do not always imply an Israelite settlement of a conquered town.
ii) Joshua hints that areas remain to be conquered (eg. 13:1-2)
iii) Judges is not really concerned with conquest or settlement, but Israel being menaced by peoples
on its borders.
(c) The precise problem in Judges is that there is not conflict with Canaanites, but assimilation to them!
i) According to Judges, God punishes this internal infidelity with menace from external enemies.
2. How long did the period of the Judges last?
(a) The period of the Judges lasts from approximately 1200 B.C. to 1050 B.C.

4. Victor P. Hamilton, Handbook on the Historical Books, 111.

5. Robert B. Chisholm, Jr., Interpreting the Historical Books, 98-99.
6. Robert B. Chisholm, Jr., Interpreting the Historical Books, 99.

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 (b) The chronology of the Judges suggests that the period lasts over 300 years.
(c) The narrative is compatible with some chronological overlap of judges ruling over different parts
of Israel.
(d) There may have been other judges, as well.
3. Authorship and Origin
(a) Does not identify an author.
(b) No strong Jewish or Christian tradition about authorship.
(c) Judg. 18:30 has an editorial remark that refers to the “captivity of the land”
i) Philistine incursion at Shiloh, where Tabernacle was (c. 1060 B.C.)
ii) Assyrian captivity (722 B.C.)
iii) Babylonian captivity (587 B.C.)
(d) Double epilogue has an apology for monarchy; final story refers to places that are important to
David.
i) So, some compiling could have gone on early in David’s time, when his dynasty needed shoring
up.
4. Violence in Judges
(a) Bible characters are not really meant to be unqualified moral exemplars.
(b) In fact, every character in the Bible (except Jesus) is rounded—they all have warts.
(c) The whole point of the book of Judges is that this was a very chaotic time.
i) This is just what happens when “everyone does what is right in his own eyes” (Judg. 21:25)

Conclusion

”The book of Judges recounts one of the darkest periods—morally, spiritually, politically, socially—in Israel’s
history. Abandonment of the worship of the Lord in favor of Canaanite paganism was rampant; and even
efforts to worship the Lord were often carried out either in ignorance or in contempt of divine law. Although
the sufferings of this era were periodically alleviated by the judges, who often displayed true heroism, fortitude,
and religious zeal, nonetheless even many of these charismatic leaders were deeply flawed and thus unable to
lead Israel to greater fidelity.

“Judges marks the point in the biblical narrative where it becomes apparent that the economy of the Mosaic
covenant, even in its final Deuteronomic form, is inadequate for the flourishing of God’s people. The sacred
author begins to turn our attention forward, toward the anticipation of a king who will inaugurate a New
Covenant (2 Sam 7:1-17; Ps 98:19-37) that will not replace but, rather, assimilate and even transform the Mosaic
covenant.”7

7. John Bergsma and Brant Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, 337-338.

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 14. Kings
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

November 21, 2019

Introduction

The books of Kings were originally one book. They cover the successors of David (starting with Solomon in
c. 960 B.C.) all the way up to the time of the collapse of the kingdom of Judah in the face of the Babylonian
captivity (in 587 B.C.). Thus, the central theme of the book of Kings is the rise and fall of the Davidic Kingdom.

The whole Deutoronomic history reaches its high point with Solomon’s dedication of the Temple in 1 Kings 8.
After this, the story is pretty much one of both spiritual and political decline until the Babylonian Captivity.

Lecture Notes

The Kings of Israel and Judah

In the wake of Solomon’s death, the 11 northern tribes split off into their own separate kingdom called the
Kingdom of Israel, while the southern tribe of Judah continued to be ruled by David’s dynasty. The books of
Kings give a careful chronology of both kingdoms, dating the reign of each northern king in terms of the reign
of the contemporary southern king, and vice-versa. The kingdom of Israel came to an end in 722 B.C., when it
was destroyed by the Assyrians, and the leading citizens were sent into Exile. The kingdom of Judah came to an
end in 586 B.C., when Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians, and their leading citizens were sent into exile.

We can summarize the reigns of the kings of Israel in the north and Judah in the south as follows:

Kings of Israel Kings of Judah

Jeroboam I (922-911) Rehoboam (922-915)
Nadab (911-910) Abijam (915-913)
Baasha (910-887) Asa (913-873)
Elah (887-886) Jehoshaphat (873-849)
Zimri (886) Jehoram (849-842)
Omri (886-875) Ahaziah (842)
Ahab (875-854) Athaliah (842-837)
Ahaziah (854-853) Joash/Jehoash (836-797)
Jehoram/Joram (853-842) Amaziah (797-769)
Jehu (842-815) Uzziah/Azariah (769-741)

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 Kings of Israel Kings of Judah
Jehoahaz/Jehoahas (815-799) Jotham-Ahaz Coregency (741-726)
Jehoash (Joash) (799-784) Hezekiah (726-697)
Jeroboam II (784-744) Manasseh (697-642)
Zechariah (744) Amon (640)
Shallum (744) Josiah (640-609)
Menahem (744-735) Jehoahaz (609)
Pekahiah (735-734) Jehoiakim (609-598)
Pekah (734-731) Jehoiachin (598)
Hoshea (731-722) Zedekiah (598-587)

Structure of Kings

1. The Rise and Fall of King Solomon (1 Kings 1-11)

(a) Solomon’s Tumultuous Accession (1-2)
(b) Solomon’s Wisdom and Glory (3-4)
(c) Solomon Builds the Temple and Palace (5-8)
(d) The Height of Solomon’s Glory (9-10)
(e) The Fall and Death of King Solomon (11)
2. The Two Kingdoms: Israel vs. Judah (1 Kings 12–2 Kings 14)
(a) King Rehoboam (Judah) vs. King Jeroboam (Israel) (12-16)
i) The Sin of Jeroboam: The Two Golden Calves (12:1-14:20)
ii) Kings of Judah: Rehoboam, Abijam, Asa (14:21-15:24)
iii) Kings of Israel: Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, Ahab (15:25-16)
(b) The Elijah Cycle (1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2)
i) Elijah, the Drought, and the Widow of Zerephath (17)
ii) Elijah and the Prophets of Baal (18)
iii) Elijah flees from Jezebel to Horeb (19)
iv) Ahab’s War With the Syrians (20)
v) Naboth’s Vineyard (21)
vi) Ahab Dies When Israel and Judah Fight the Syrians (22:1-40)
vii) King of Judah: Jehosapat (22)
viii) King of Israel: Ahaziah (22)
ix) Elijah and Ahaziah (2 Kings 1)
x) Elijah is Taken Up to Heaven (2)
(c) The Elisha Cycle (2 Kings 3-13)
i) Jehoram and His War With Moab (3)
ii) Elisha and the Widow’s Jar of Oil (4:1-7)
iii) Elisha and the Shunammite Couple (4:8-37)
iv) Elisha Purifies the Pottage (4:38-41)
v) Elisha Feeds A Hundred Men (4:42-44)
vi) Elisha Heals Naaman the Syrian (5)
vii) Elisha Recovers an Axe Head (6:1-7)

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 viii) Elisha Saves Israel from the Syrians (6-7)
ix) Elisha Restores the Shunammite Woman’s Land (8:1-6)
x) Elisha Declares Hazael as King of Syria (8:7-15)
xi) Kings of Judah: Johoram and Ahaziah (8:16-29)
xii) Kings of Israel: Jehu and His Bloody Revolution (10-11)
xiii) Kings of Judah: Athaliah the Usurper and Johoash (11-12)
xiv) Kings of Israel: Johoahaz and Jehoash (13)
xv) The Death of Elisha (13)
xvi) Israel Recaptures its Cities from Syria (13)
(d) After the Prophets (14)
i) King of Judah: Amaziah (14:1-22)
ii) King of Israel: Jeroboam II (14:23-29)
3. The Fall of Israel: The Assyrian Exile (2 Kings 15-17)
(a) King of Judah: Azariah (15:1-7)
(b) The Wicked Kings of Israel: Zechariah through Pekah (15:8-31)
i) Exile Begins During the Reign of Pekah (15:29)
ii) Hoshea Stages a Coup Against Pekah (15:30)
(c) The Beginning of the Assyrian Exile (15:29-31)
(d) King of Judah: Jotham and Ahaz (15:32 – 16)
(e) The Exile of Israel (17)
i) Hoshea is the last King of Israel (17:1-6)
ii) The Sins of Israel Lead to Deportation (17:7-23)
iii) The Origin of the Samaritains and the End of the Northern Kingdom (17:24-41)
4. The Fall of Judah: The Babylonian Exile (2 Kings 18-25)
(a) The Righteous King Hezekiah (18-20)
(b) The Wicked Kings Manasseh and Amon (21)
(c) The Righteous King Josiah (22-23)
(d) The Wicked Kings Johoahaz, Jehoikim, Jehoachin, Zedekiah (23:31-25:7)
(e) The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile (25:8-21)
(f) The Aftermath of the Destruction (25:22-30)
i) The ill-fated Governorship of Gedeliah (25:22-26)
ii) The hopeful release of Johoiachin (25:27-30)

Literary Features

• The division of Kings into two books seems to be unmotivated by the narrative structure of the text. The
break is right after Ahaziah is introduced as King of Israel, and it occurs right in the middle of Elijah’s
dealings with Ahaziah.

• The first eleven chapters, which recount the reign of Solomon, are similar in style to the books of Samuel.
This style is slightly different from the rest of the books of Kings.

• With the rise of the divided monarchy after Samuel, the style of Kings changes. Beginning with the reigns
of Rehoboam and Jeroboam, the author shuttles back and forth between Israel and Judah.

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 • There is a typical style for covering the reign of each king:

1. Date of the king’s accession according to the regnal years of the other kingdom
2. Total years of his reign
3. For kings of Judah (usually) his age at accession
4. For kings of Judah, the name of his mother; for Kings of Israel, the name of his father
5. A moral evaluation of his reign based on his fidelity to the Lord and his sanctuary in Jerusalem
6. A notice of the most significant events in his reign
7. A referral to another source where more can be learned about the king’s reign.
8. A notice of the king’s death, burial place, and successor

Overview of 1-2 Kings

1. The Rule of Solomon (1 Kings 1-11)

(a) Solomon decisively consolidates his reign.
i) Put to death rivals: Adonijah, Joab, Shimei, Abiathar.
ii) Cemented relations with neighboring kings: Hiram of Tyre, marrying a daughter of Pharaoh
iii) Organized the new empire of Israel along the lines of administration used in Egypt.
iv) Developed extensive trade with foreign powers.
(b) A Pax Solomonica
i) All 12 Tribes are united
ii) Builds a glorious temple
iii) Material wealth
iv) Other nations start to stream toward Israel—looks like it is filling out his vocation
(c) Important aspects of Solomon’s Kingdom
i) Preliminary fulfillment of God’s promise to David that his son would be king
ii) Solomon asks for wisdom before he comes to reign.
iii) Solomon builds an empire
iv) Solomon builds a temple
(d) Adonijah intrigues concerning the throne. (1 Kings 1-2)
(e) Solomon receives riches because he asked for Wisdom (1 Kings 3)
i) 3,000 proverbs and 1005 psalms (1 Kings 4)
(f) Solomon Builds an empire (1 Kings 4)
(g) Solomon Builds a Temple (1 Kings 6-8)
i) Replicates the structure of Moses’ tabernacle, but on a grander scale.
ii) Temple meant to be a microcosm — a little eden
iii) The dedication of the Temple is the high point of the whole OT history of Israel
(h) Visit from the Queen of Sheba is political high point of Solomon’s reign (1 Kings 10)
i) Sheba is in Yemen
ii) To discuss trade deals.
(i) Problems with Solomon’s Civil Policies
i) Imposed new taxes for massive bureaucracy.
ii) Forced labor for building projects.

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 iii) Transferred rights and privileges from the tribes to the person of the king
iv) Broke up tribes with new provincial divisions
(j) The moral fall of Solomon. (1 Kings 10-11)
i) Solomon gives himself over to pleasure (wives), possessions (gold), and power (horses and
weaponry)
ii) To secure his reign, Solomon entered into polygamous marriages with the other nations. His
wives brought their gods. Solomon builds shrines for their worship.
iii) Including Chemosh and Molech, who desire human sacrifice.
iv) Performed rites for Astarte and Milcom (1 Kings 11:5)
v) Punishment: Breakdown of the kingdom (1 Kings 11:5-8)
(k) Solomon died as “a king who had begubn with great promise and brought Israel glory to an extent
it had never seen before nor would again, but a king who died out of touch with his own people.
He had become total master of the people’s lives like the kings of other nations in every bad sense,
just as Samuel had warned eighty year earlier (1 Sam 8:10-18). Ironically, Israel had received what
it asked for when it asked to be like other nations. But its faith, despite its apparent triumph over
other peoples and their gods, was now in real danger.”1
2. The Two Kingdoms Under Rehoboam and Jeroboam (1 Kings 12–16:28)
(a) The Kingdom Splits (1 Kings 12)
i) Northern Ten Tribes: Israel
ii) Southern Two Tribes: Judah (and Benjamin)
iii) Rehoboam is Solomon’s heir.
iv) Rehoboam does not listen to wise elderly counselors; rather, he listens to his spoiled young
friends who grew up with him in luxury at Solomon’s court. They convince him to double
down even harder on Solomon’s policies.
v) The tribes meet at Shechem (a neutral site) upon Solomon’s death.
vi) The northern tribes ask for a reduction in taxes and forced labor. Rehoboam declines.
vii) The ten northern tribes revolt and choose Jeroboam (son of Solomon’s former officer of forced
labor) as king
viii) Rehoboam declines to start a civil war.
ix) Jeroboam sets up his kingdom in northern territories.
x) Jeroboam’s capital: Schechem
(b) The Sin of Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:28 - 14:20)
i)Jeroboam erects two golden calves for worship at the shrines of Dan and Bethel
ii)Appointed non-Levitical priests
iii)Invented his own feast
iv) Jeroboam offered sacrifices (like Saul)
v) Seals the fate of Israel
vi) A prophet prophesies about reforming king Josiah of Judah who will destroy Jeroboam’s
shrines (1 Kg. 13:10; cf. 2 Kg. 15:20)
vii) Jeroboam’s son, Abijah falls ill and dies.
viii) The prophet Ahijah curses the line of Jeroboam, so that it will die out.
ix) NB: No prophet at work in the Northern Kingdom, while that kingdom existed, criticized any
of this as false worship. This was a retrospective judgment.

1. Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, revised edition, 206.

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 (c) Politics and Geography of the Kingdoms
i) The North had a much larger population and more arable land.
ii) The South had a smaller population and arid land, but was more politically unified.
iii) Jeroboam rebuilt the places of Jacob: Shechem, Bethel, and Penuel, to help people re-identify
with their older traditions, and to forget the more recent Davidic traditions.
iv) Northern prophets and tribal leaders were much harder on their kings.
(d) The history of Israel has many bloody coups.
i) Jeroboam’s son Nadab and his house are assassinated by Baasha of Issachar. Moves capital to
Tizrah
ii) Baasha’s house is wiped out by Zimri (1 Kg. 16:1-7)
iii) Zimri is unpopular, so the people acclaim Omri king. (1 Kg. 16:15-24). Moves capital to
Samaria, where it will stay
iv) Omri’s dynasty is strong. It lasts four generations. Time of Elijah and Elisha.
v) Omri’s dynasty will end with the zealous Yahwistic revolution of King Jehu (2 Kg. 9-10)
vi) Most of the 200 history of Israel will be taken up with wars.
(e) Judah is only slightly better than Israel
i) Rehoboam continues Solomon’s pagan practices and builds other shrines to Yahweh(1 Kg.
14:22-24)
ii) Abijam (Rehoboam’s son) continues these practices and constantly wars with Israel. (1 Kg
15:1-8)
iii) Asa (Abijam’s son) abolishes pagan shrines, but not illicit shrines to Yahweh (“high places”)
iv) Asa stabilizes the border between Israel and Judah by battle, diplomacy, and fortification. (1
Kg 16:-24)
3. The Prophet Elijah (1 Kg 16:29–2 Kg 2)
(a) The Tishbite (from Tishbe in Gilead, which is in the transjordan)
(b) Most of his ministry takes place during the reign of King Ahab of Israel, a wicked king.
i) Continues the schismatic and idolotrous cult of Jeroboam
ii) Marries the Phoenician Jezebel as his queen. She introduces him and Israel to worship of Baal
and Asherah
iii) The Drought and the Widow of Zarephath (first account of raising the dead)
iv) The Prophets of Baal (1 Kg 18-19)
v) Naboth’s Vineyard (1 Kg 21)
vi) Although he repents, as punishment, he dies in battle with the Syrians (1 Kg 21:17-19; 22:38)
(c) Five Major Scenes
i) Elijah commands a drought and blesses the widow of Sidon (1 Kg 17)
ii) Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al (1 Kg 18)
iii) Elijah flees to Horeb (1 Kg 19)
iv) Elijah and Naboth (1 Kg 21)
v) Elijah judges Ahaziah for consulting with Baal-zebub (2 Kg 1)
(d) Four Important Aspects of Elijah’s Reign
i) Miracle worker. This is a rather unique feature among other OT characters.
ii) Cultic reformer.
iii) New Moses Figure. His life recapitulates Moses’ in important respects.
iv) Ascends to heaven.

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4. The Prophet Elisha (2 Kg. 3-14)
(a) Elijah’s successor
(b) A different sort of prophet
i) Elijah was a wild man with a hairy garment who appeared and disappeared almost at will
ii) Elisha was the head of a band of prophets who prophesied in ecstacy.
iii) Elisha was more of a miracle worker, in fact the greatest of all OT prophets.
iv) Directly entered into political affairs
v) Was consulted by elders.
(c) Ministry takes place under a variety of Israelite kings
i) Jehoram, successor of Ahab
ii) Jehu, Anointed King at the command of Elisha (see below)
iii) Jehoahaz
iv) Jehoash, son of Jehoahaz (!) (Joash for short) — this is where most of Elisha’s miracles take place
(d) King Jehu unleashes a bloody revolution in Israel (2 Kg. 10-11)
i) Elisha chooses him as king, and commissions him to blot out the house of Ahab, including
Jezebel
ii) Jehu kills Jehoram, son of Ahab, king of Israel; Ahaziah, king of Judah, and all his relatives; the
70 sons of Ahab; and all the prophets of Baal
iii) When Ahaziah, king of Judah is assassinated, Athaliah of the house of Omri reigns as queen
in Judah and slaughters all the potential successors of Ahaziah
iv) But, Ahaziah’s sister Jehosheba hides Ahaziah’s young son Joash (Johoash) and raises the boy
in secret.
v) When Joash son of Ahaziah is seven, the high priest Jehoiada musters the palace guard and the
priesthood to proclaim him king
vi) NB: For a time, there was a Joash on both thrones simultaneously.
(e) Important Events
i) The Widow’s Jar of Oil (2 Kings 4:1-7)
ii) Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5)
5. The Fall of Israel: The Assyrian Exile (2 Kg. 15-17)
(a) After the death of Elisha, things go from bad to worse
i) Corrupt kings
ii) Coups
iii) Disordered worship
iv) The author of 2 Kings gives a theological interpretation of this history (2 Kg 17:5-18)
(b) Assyria arose to power in the mid-10th century and became the dominant superpower from 900-
600.
i) Around 800, Israel and Judah have prosperity under a temporary Assyrian weakening.
ii) Assyria re-gained its footing in c. 740 when a general led a coup and began to rule as Tiglath-
pileser III.
iii) Deportation was a way that Assyrians controlled their empire under Tiglath-pileser.
iv) First wave of deportation under Pekah (740-732), beginning with Galilee and Naphtali (2 Kg
15:25)
v) Second wave under Hoshea, last king of Israel (732-722) (2 Kg. 17:6)
vi) Israel as a country is wiped of the map; people from other nations are brought in to populate
the land

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 (c) Not quite all the Israelites left
i) At least some of the peasantry remained.
ii) Some fled to Judah, swelling the population of Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah
iii) Hezekiah and possibly Josiah made forays into the north, inviting Israelites to Judah.
iv) e.g. The Prophetess Anna is said to be of the tribe of Asher in Luke 2:36.
(d) Who were the Samaritans of the NT?
i) There were Israelites remaining in the former territory of Israel.
ii) The Assyrians re-settled Mesopotamian and Levantine pagans in the land.
iii) The pagans brought their gods, and included the Israelite God in their worship as they began
to intermingle with the remaining Israelites
iv) Effectively, they developed a syncretistic religious practice that was not too different from what
the Israelites themselves had already been practicing.
v) They tried to help the returned Judeans rebuild the temple after the exile, but the Judeans
rebuffed them. (Ezra 4:1-5)
vi) They built their own rival temple on Mount Gerizim in the ancient territory of Ephraim.
vii) By NT times, they had abandoned paganism, and worshipped Yahweh devoutly and exclu-
sively, but rejected the Jerusalem Temple
viii) The name “Samaritan” comes from Samaria, the capital of the old Israel.
6. The Fall of Judah: The Babylonian Exile (2 Kg. 18-25)
(a) The fate of Judah was still undecided—some kings were good, some were bad
(b) Hezekiah (729-686 B.C.)
i) Son of Ahaz
ii) Moral and political resurgence (1 Kg 18)
iii) Removed illicit shrines that lasted since the latter days of Solomon.
iv) Hezekiah was in a position of strength, so he asserted his power, and antagonized Assyria.
v) Sennacherib of Assyria invaded Judah in 701 B.C.
vi) Sennacherib limited his attack to the countryside, until Hezekiah was unable to pay an in-
creased tribute. So he invaded Jerusalem and humiliated Hezekiah.
vii) Hezekiah appealed to the prophet Isaiah, who prophesied a plague on the Assyrians.
viii) The Assyrians withdrew without ever capturing Jerusalem.
ix) Isaiah prophesies that Judah will go into exile as well (2 Kings 20:12-19)
(c) Manasseh (696-642 B.C.)
i) Undoes Hezekiah’s reforms
ii) The most evil king of Judah—a moral disaster from which Judah never fully recovers (2 Kg.
21)
iii) Rebuilds all pagan altars and shrines, and putting them in the Temple. Consulted magicians
and astrologers.
iv) Murder people and even sacrificed his own son.
v) A long reign (44 years)
vi) Extremely docile vassal to Assyria, which might account for some of his paganism.
vii) Chronicles mentions that he is captured and repents. His prayer of repentance is the apocryphal
“Prayer of Manasseh”
(d) Ammon (642-640)
i) Continues Manasseh’s practices
ii) Named after the Egyptian sun god, the head of the Egyptian pantheon (which says something
about Manasseh)

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 iii) Third Davidite to be assassinated and replaced by his son.
(e) Josiah (640-609)
i) Reforming reign
ii) Eventually developed an anti-Assyrian policy, when that empire was in decline.
iii) Cultic reforms and a restoration of the temple (622 B.C.)
iv) The high priest finds a book of the law (probably an early edition of Deuteronomy), which will
serve as the basis of his reform (2 Kg. 22:3-13)
v) There had apparently been a lot of syncretism, and even outright paganism.
vi) High point: national passover celebration (2 Kg 23:21-23)
vii) Becomes a caretaker of the north and finally purifies the cult of those who remained there.
viii) Too little, too late
ix) Overconfident, he attacks the army of Pharaoh Neco on the plains of Megiddo in northern
Israel and dies in battle. (2 Kg. 24:28-30)
(f) The Last Days of Judah
i) Jehoahaz (609 B.C) succeeds Josiah for three months.
ii) Pharaoh arrives at Jerusalem and takes Jehoahaz hostage.
iii) Pharaoh places his brother Eliakim (Johoakim, 609-598) on the throne (2 Kg 23:31-35)
iv) Babylon defeats Egypt and forces Jehoakim into vassalage.
v) Jehoakim rebells, but dies before he has to face the Babylonian army.
vi) The Babylonians show up three months into the reign of his son, Jehoikin (598=597, 2 Kg. 24)
vii) Babylonians conquer Jerusalem, deport the middle and upper classes, and leave Zedekiah (597-
586 B.C.), Jehoikin’s brother as king of a vassal state.
viii) Jehoikin is taken in chains to Babylon.
ix) Zedekiah rebels ten years later
x) Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon returns and razes Jerusalem and its Temple
xi) Babylonians leave Gedaliah, a Judean aristocrat, as governor of a decimated territory.
xii) Gedaliah is assainated by Ishmael
xiii) Most of the remaining population flees to Egypt (!) to escape retaliation from the Babylonians.
xiv) After 37 years, Jehoichin is released from prison, is fed from the royal table, draws a stipend
for the rest of his life.

Theological Issues in 1-2 Kings

1. A Homology Between Eden, the Temple, and Paradise

(a) The temple is creation set aright.
i) There are subtle allusions to Eden in the account of the construction of the Temple
(b) The temple is a “sacramental” of Eden and Heaven
i) Going into the temple and participating in its rites is a “proleptic” participation in the new
Creation
ii) The temple is beautiful.
iii) The people are united.
iv) The liturgy exhibits peace with God.
2. The Relationship Between the Mosaic and Davidic Covenants
(a) The Davidic covenant does not replace the Mosaic covenant

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 (b) The Mosaic covenant is incorporated into the Davidic covenant and transformed by it.
(c) The furnishings and vessels of the Mosaic covenant are brought into the Son of David.
(d) “In sum, then, the message of Kings is that Israel and Judah are condemned because of failure to
keep the Mosaic covenant, but there remains a glimmer of hope for them through the line of David,
to whom God has made irrevocable covenant promises.”2
3. Liturgical Focus
(a) The books begin with the construction of the Temple, and end with its destruction.
(b) The Israelite kings are all evil
i) Counterfeit cults
ii) Idolatrous practices
iii) Illicit priests
iv) Recapitulate the worship of the Golden Calf
(c) The Judahite kings are judged in terms of their fidelity to the cult
4. The book cares more about how faithful each king was to Yahweh than about the king’s actual accom-
plishments
(a) E.g. we know that Omri was a man of some renown, who really built up Israel, but Kings hardly
gives him a mention.
(b) Infidelity to the covenant will lead to disaster and destruction.

Conclusion

“The books of Kings tell the story of Israel from the accession of Solomon to the destruction of Jerusalem—that
is, from the highest point in Israel’s history (the dedication of the Temple under Solomon) to its lowest point
(the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian exile). Despite the constant ministry of God’s prophets,
the royal sponsorship of illegitimate worship leads first to the division and ultimately to the destruction of the
kingdom of David. Neither the royal son of David, the Temple itself, nor even the ministry of the prophets
is able to prevent the dissolution of the people of Israel. Nonetheless, this final chapter of the great ‘primary
history’ (Genesis-2 Kings) does not end without hope. The last reigning son of David, Jehoiachin, receives
mercy at the end of his life, a sign that God has not forgotten his covenant with David and may yet send a royal
son ‘greater than Solomon’(Mt 12:42) who will rebuild the Temple (Jn 2:19-21) and complete the prophetic
ministry of Elijah and Elisha (Lk. 7:16)”3

2. John Bergsma and Brand Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, 417.
3. John Bergsma and Brant Ptire, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, 429

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 16. The Return: Ezra and Nehemiah
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

November 26, 2019

Introduction

The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah recount the struggles of the Jews (for this term is now appropriate) who
returned to the environs of Jerusalem after the decree of Cyrus the Great of the newly-ruling Persian empire
permitted it. The books tell of a variety of episodes that occurred over about a century, and recount the mix of
ups and downs in the experience of the returnees.

To the good, they consolidate the law of Moses, rebuild a humbler version of the Temple, and fortify Jerusalem.
In order to ensure the integrity of their religious observance, the Jews agree not to intermarry with the inhabi-
tants of the land. (That is, the mix of Israelite peasants and people imported by the Assyrians and Babylonians,
who practiced a syncretistic devotion to Yahweh). But the completion of these tasks was definitely imperfect.
The people struggled to follow through with their resolutions to obey the law and to prevent cultural assimila-
tion by avoiding intermarriage.

The work of restoration is notably led by priests and Levites. Their vocation here is not just to run the sacrifice
system in the Temple, but also to instruct and lead the people.

Historically, the time seems to be one of relative peace. (Which is why it is hard to know many specifics about
this time period!). But, nevertheless, many prophecies about the end of the Exile remain unfulfilled, which gives
the books a bit of a melancholic tone.

Lecture Notes

Historical Background on the Return

1. The Exile Nears Its End

(a) Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 B.C. and is succeeded by a series of short-lived and weak rulers
i) e.g. His immediate successor Amelmarduk/Evil-merodach relaxes his policy towards subju-
gated peoples. This is reflected in the Bible when Jehoiachin is released from prison and fed at
the imperial table (2 Kg. 25:27-30)
ii) The Babylonian general Nabonidus eventually seized power in 555.
iii) Nabonidus left for the oasis city of Teiman (553-543), leaving his son Belshazzar in power.

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 iv) Nabonidus’ absence created discontent, and led to the conquest of Cyrus of Persia in 539.
2. The Rise of Persia
(a) Cyrus the Great rose to power in 559
i) Switched his alliance from the Medes to the Babylonians under Nabonidus
ii) With Babylonian help, he conquered the Medes in 550
iii) Nabonidus now feared Cyrus, and allied himself with the Egyptians
iv) Cyrus attacked Syria in 547
v) Cyrus spent the remainder of the 540’s building his empire in the east (Afghanistan and India)
vi) It was obvious that Cyrus would now have to attack Babylon
vii) In 539, he attacked Babylon with popular support of the Babylonians
(b) Cyrus died fighting in Afghanistan in c. 530. His son Cambyses succeeded him
i) Annexed Egypt
ii) Died on the way home from Egypt in 522.
(c) After two years of brutal war, the general Darius came to power and ruled for 36 years.
i) Expanded empire to its height: from Greece to India.
ii) Organized the empire into 20 “satrapies”, each of which contained “provinces”
iii) We are interested in satrapy 5, “Beyond the River” and its province, Judah/Yehud.
iv) Each satrapy had three rulers: a governor, a general, and “The Eyes and Ears of the King”
v) Darius and his son/successor Artaxerxes failed twice to take Greece (Marathon/Salamis) in
490 and 480.
(d) The Persian empire declined after Artaxerxes
i) Last ruler: Darius III (336-331)
ii) Fell to Alexander the Great in 331.
(e) The Persian Empire had a high degree of cultural tolerance and some local self-rule
i) Judah was really quiet during this period.
3. The Return Gets Underway
(a) In 538, Cyrus issued a decree allowing the exiles to go home.
i) Not every Israelite returned; some preferred to stay.
ii) The Exiles that did return did so in small groups.
iii) First group led by Jehoiakin’s son Prince Sheshbazzar
(b) Judea was part of the satrapy “Beyond the River” (i.e. the river Jordan)
(c) A four-stage process.
i) Earliest returnees led by Sheshbazzar in 538 began to rebuild the Temple but abandoned the
project for some reason
ii) A later group of returning exiles, under Zerubbabel and Jeshua, resumed building during the
reign of Darius I (522-486), completing the reconstruction in 516. They were encouraged by
the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.
iii) A group led by Ezra in 458 during reign of Artaxerxes I (464-424) reestablished the Torah as
the authority for Jews in Yehud
iv) A group led by Nehemiah beginning in 445 restored Jerusalem’s walls and repopulated
Jerusalem.
(d) The strong local opposition to the rebuilding of the temple and the walls of Jerusalem indicated the
strong degree of local self-rule. The Persian governor of Beyond the River only got involved when
the squabbling between the provinces of the satrapy got too intense.

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 4. This period begins “Second Temple Judaism”

“The returned exiles were not only concerned with restoring preexilic institutions, such as the altar and the
Temple, and restoring the city; they also adapted to changed circumstances by establishing new religious prac-
tices granting decisive authority to the book of the law/Torah, which likely reached its familiar form in the
late postexilic period. To the author, the returned exiles were a godly remnant with a renewed commitment to
perpetuate the covenantal teachings that kept them distinct. Being a minority within the vast polytheistic an
multicultural Persian empire, they sought to protect their ethnic and religious identify by establishing rigorous
religious boundaries between themselves and their neighbors. The author was worried that the community
might repeat the mistakes that caused the exile, including intermarriage, and that a new destruction would
follow.”1

Post-Exilic Chronology

597 First Deportations to Babylon

586 Babylonian Exile Begins
562 Death of Nebuchadnezzar
556 Reign of Nabonidus and Belshazzar Begins
539 Cyrus the Great Captures Babylon
538 Decree Allowing Jews to Return
520 Temple Rebuilt
458 Ezra’s Mission
445 Nehemiah Arrives
334 Alexander the Great Begins to Fight for Persia
332 Alexander the Great Conquers Palestine from Persia
324 Persia Falls to Alexander the Great
323 Alexander the Great Dies
323 Control of Palestine Passes to Ptolomies in Alexandria
198 Control of Palestine Passes to Selucids in Antioch After Battle of Paneas
168 Maccabean Revolt
166 Hasmonean Dynasty Begins
143 Simon as King and Priest
63 Pompey Conquers Palestine for Rome
41 Herod the Great Begins His Rule

The Background of Ezra-Nehemiah

Ezra and Nehemiah describe the return from exile in 538 and the reconstruction of Jewish life under Persian
rule down to c. 420. They were likely composed in Judah sometime after 400 bvy an unknown author who used
material from Ezra and Nehemiah’s own memoirs as well as many other kinds of documents.

1. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, Introduction to Ezra in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, 5th ed, 676.

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Ezra and Nehemiah were one book in early Greek and Hebrew manuscripts (the Hebrew apparatus treats them
as one book, for example). The work actually has a rather complex textual history. The books of Ezra and
Nehemiah as they are found in most English bibles follow the Masoretic Text. The Septuagint has two books
called 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras (Or Esdras A’ and Esdras B’, respectively). It is actually the latter book, 2 Esdras,
that corresponds to the canonical books of Ezra-Nehemiah. 1 Esdras in the Septuagint is a combination of the
last two chapters of Chronicles and the canonical book of Ezra, with a narrative expansion and some verses
from Nehemiah at the end. To make matters more complicated, the Latin Vulgate (and, consequently, the
Douay-Rheims translation into English) has four books of Esdras! 1 Esdras corresponds to canonical Ezra; 2
Esdras corresponds to canonical Nehemiah; 3 Esdras corresponds to the Septuagint’s 1 Esdras; and 4 Esdras is a
non-canonical Document of a very different progeny; it is an apocalyptic book.

The book comes from a similar ideological point of view as 1-2 Chronicles, but it is best not to see these books
as produced by some sort of unified school of thought. Like 1-2 Chronicles, although they form part of the
historical books in the Christian Old Testament, they are nevertheless not classified as part of the “Former
Prophets” of the Hebrew Bible. Rather, like 1-2 Chronicles, they belong to the “Writings”—the third great
division of the Hebrew Bible.

The Structure of Ezra-Nehemiah

1. Cyrus’ Decree to the Completion of the Temple, 538-516 (Ezra 1-6)

(a) The Decree of Cyrus Permitting Return (1:1-6)
(b) The Return of the Temple Vessels (1:7-10)
(c) The Census of the Returnees (2)
(d) Restoration of the Sacrificial Liturgy (3:1-7)
(e) Foundation of the Temple Relaid (3:8-13)
(f) The Building Slowed and Halted by Opposition (4-5)
(g) The Decree of Darius Permitting Temple Reconstruction (6:1-12)
(h) Completion of Temple and Celebration of Passover (6:13-22)
2. Ezra’s Mission of Reform and Renewal, 458 (Ezra 7-10)
(a) Ezra Arrives in Jerusalem With a Letter of Commission (7)
(b) The Persons, Materials, and Manner of Ezra’s Return (8)
(c) Ezra’s Prayer of Repentance Upon His Arrival (9)
(d) People’s Response to Ezra’s Prayer: Separation From Gentiles (10)
3. Nehemiah Rebuilds the Walls of Jerusalem, 444 (Nehemiah 1-7)
(a) The Prelude to the Rebuilding of the Walls (1-2)
i) Nehemiah’s Prayer (1)
ii) Nehemiah’s Request (2:1-8)
iii) Nehemiah’s Commission (2:9-10)
iv) Nehemiah’s Inspection of the Walls (2:11-20)
(b) The Wall is Built: List of the Builders (3)
(c) Hostile Plots Are Frustrated (4)
(d) Nehemiah’s Efforts for Social Justice (5)
(e) More Hostile Plots Frustrated (6:1-14)

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 (f) The Wall is Completed: List of Returnees (6:15-7)
4. The Great Covenant Renewal, 444 (Nehemiah 8-13:3)
(a) Ezra and the Feast of Tabernacles (8-10)
i) Reading of the Law (8:1-12)
ii) Celebration of Tabernacles (8:13-18)
iii) Public Confession of Sin (9:1-5)
iv) Solemnization of the Covenant-Renewal Document (9:38-10)
(b) Census of the Returned Exiles (11-12:26)
(c) Nehemiah and the Dedication of the Wall (12:27-47)
(d) Reading of the Law and Separation From the Gentiles (13:1-3)
5. Epilogue: Nehemiah’s Disappointing Retun After Several Years (Nehemiah 13)
(a) Temple Reforms (13:4-14)
(b) Sabbath Reform (13:15-22)
(c) Marriage Reform (13:23-30)

Overview of Ezra-Nehemiah

1. The Decree of King Cyrus and the Rebuilding of the Temple, 538-516 (Ezra 1-6)
(a) There is a continuation between the end of 2 Chronicles and Ezra
(b) The First Group is led by Zerubbabel of the house of David, and Jeshua the High Priest.
(c) The Jewish Prince Sheshbazzar brought back the Temple vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken
(d) They build an altar for sacrifices, then they re-build the Temple.
i) The people who remembered the old Temple wept at the inferior sight of the new one.
(e) The ancestors of the Samaritains (“the people of the land”) offer to help rebuild the Temple
i) When their overtures are rebuffed, they persuade the Persian authorities to stop the rebuild.
(f) The efforts to rebuild the Temple resume around 520 with the preaching of the prophets Haggai
and Zechariah
i) They succeed with the new emperor Darius
(g) There is a national celebration of Passover for the first time in a long time.
i) In Joshua, the Passover celebrated the entry into the land.
ii) Here, the Passover celebrated the return to the land under Jeshua and Zerubbabel.
2. The Mission of Ezra the Priest, 458 (Ezra 7-10)
(a) Over half a century passes in silence.
(b) The story resumes in the seventh year of the emperor Artaxerxes (458)
(c) Artaxerxes sent the priest-scribe Ezra to return to Jerusalem
i) Revive the Temple cult
ii) Impose traditional Jewish law (the emerging Torah) on the province of Beyond-the-River
(d) Ezra returns with an entourage of leading Jewish residents of Meopotamia, many descendants of
priests and Levites.
(e) The intercultic marriages that Ezra found prevented the full observation of Jewish law.

5
 i) The classical problem of assimilation continues.
ii) Ezra and Nehemiah are really going to attack these practices.
3. The Mission of Nehemiah and the Building of the Walls, 444 (Nehemiah 1-7)
(a) Sixteen years pass
(b) Nehemiah
i) Layman
ii) The “cupbearer” of Artaxerxes — actually, a highly-trusted royal advisor.
(c) After prayer, Nehemiah uses his influence to obtain an imperial commission to return to Jerusalem
and fortify the city.
i) Of course, the emperor would not have minded the fortification of a Jerusalem loyal to Persia.
ii) Persia was threatened by a resurgent Egypt at the time.
(d) The Jews live in a state of military readiness, due to the hostility of the people of the land.
(e) They rebuild the walls in less than two months
4. The Celebration of Tabernacles and the Completion of the Walls (Nehemiah 8-12)
(a) Ezra and Nehemiah lead the people of Judah and Jerusalem in celebrating Tabernacles.
(b) The most ancient description we possess of a liturgical ceremony in the law of Moses.
i) The descriptions in 9:38-10:39 and 12:27-13:3 might be the same.
(c) The priests had to explain the law, because the people now spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew.
i) Aramaic was the international language at the time, a sign of the Exile.
ii) The people are sorry, but Ezra counsels them to temper their sorrow with joy.
(d) The leaders ratify a covenant-renal document
i) Follow all the Laws of Moses (the emerging Torah)
ii) Refraining from Intermarriage
iii) Observance of the Sabbath
iv) Observance of Mosaic Laws of Debt Forgiveness
v) Generous fulfillment of the laws of tithes and sacrifices for support of Temple.
(e) Followed by a census and an account (Nehemiah’s) of the dedication of the city walls.
5. Nehemiah’s Return and the Crisis of Intermarriage
(a) Nehemiah governs Judah for 12 years before returning to the service of Artaxerxes
(b) Sometime later, he receives permission to return to Jerusalem to check up on things
(c) Affairs are in disarray
i) Foreigners reside in Temple
ii) Tithes and offerings unpaid
iii) Temple personnel fled back to their homes
iv) Sabbath violated
v) Intermarriage with Gentiles Resumed
(d) Nehemiah takes strenuous countermeasures
(e) Book ends with melancholy
i) There were some good leaders
ii) But most people really were not observing the laws.
iii) Like Temple renewal, reform of the people remains incomplete.

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“Ezra’s role was decisive. Up to this time, we have seen a Judah with little cohesion, an inability to get itself
together, and dashed hopes of a glorious new day after the exile. Ezra was able to restore the spirit of the people
and set the underpinnings for the ideals of holiness, a sense of election, and a worship0-centered community
of faith. He gave a new charter for a new Israel—the authentic traditions of the past now written down in the
Pentateuch as a normative guidebook for the future. And most important of all, the final priestly character of
the Pentateuch showed a concrete way to put these traditions into daily practice for ordinary believers.”2

Important Themes of Ezra-Nehemiah

1. Partial Fulfillment of the Prophecies of Restoration

(a) Positive Signs (Prophecy Fulfilled)

i) Return of a large number of Judeans to their homeland
ii) Freedom and encouragement to live by and enforce the law
iii) The rebuilding of the Temple
(b) Negative Elements (Prophecy Not Yet Fulfilled)
i) The restoration of the house of David and the Davidic Covenant (Jer. 33:15-17)
ii) The implementation of the “new covenant” with its promise of interior transformation (Jer.
31:31-34)
iii) The restoration of the twelve tribes in a new Exodus (Is 11:11-16)
iv) The arrival of God’s servant: Anointed One, Messiah, Christ (Is 61:1)
(c) The continuing problem of assimilation and intermarriage
(d) Had the Exile really ended?
i) Non-canonical Jewish writings of the period attest to this worry.

2. The Importance of Liturgy

3. The Importance of Hearing the Law of the Lord Read

(a) “Here we see one of the key contributions of Ezra-Nehemiah: a developing centrality of the liturgical
proclamation of the inspired law of God. In the wake of the Babylonian exile the priests and the
people retrieve the need for all God’s people, and not only the priests, to hear the word of God
proclaimed.”3

4. Ushers in the Period of “Second Temple Judaism”

(a) A definitive consolidation of the tradition

(b) The finalization of the Pentateuch and the National History
(c) Coalescing around the Temple and the Priesthood and Torah observance
(d) Theoretical Monotheism
(e) A growth in apocalyptic and universalist concerns
(f) Lasts until Jesus’ time
i) Temple destroyed in A.D. 70
ii) Bar Kochba revolt in A.D. 135
iii) These prompt further consolidations of the tradition.

2. Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, revised edition, 398.

3. John Bergsma and Brant Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, 459.

7
Conclusion

”The book of Ezra-Nehemiah extends the sacred history of Israel, which ended at the exile in Kings and Chron-
icles, down into the postexilic or Persian period. Three major events dominate the book: the initial return of
the exiles under Zerubbabel and their ultimately successful efforts to rebuild the Temple (Ezra 1-6), the mission
of Ezra to restore observance of the Mosaic Law (Ezra 7-10), and the successful mission of Nehemiah to rebuild
the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 1:1-13:3).

”Ezra-Nehemiah is a book of partial fulfillments, which implies partial unfulfillments as well. By the end of the
book the people of Judah are blessed by li ing in their land once more, with freedom to practice their religion,
a rebuilt Temple, and a restored Jerusalem. However, it is quite clear that the promised New Covenant has
not arrived, the twelve tribes have not been restored, and the son of David has not returned to the throne in
accordance with the Davidic covenant. The book ends on a melancholy note, looking forward in muted hope
for the intervention of God.

“Following a trajectory already present in their earlier history, in Ezra-Nehemiah the people of Judah learn ever
more that their identity as a people is to be found in their worship of God at his Temple and obedience to his
covenant law. They become a Temple-state, which, after the death of Nehemiah, will be increasingly ruled by
the priesthood, and especially the high priest”4

4. John Bergsma and Brant Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, 460-461.

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 17. From the Old Testament to the New
Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P.

December 5, 2019

Lecture Notes

Judaism in the Hellenistic World

1. Conflict Between Persia and the Greeks

(a) The Persians tried to conquer the Greeks twice and failed.
i) The Battle of Marathon in 490 under Darius
ii) The Battle of Salamis in 480 under Artaxerxes.
(b) The Persians started to bribe the different Greek city-states
i) Created division among the fissiparous City-States
ii) e.g. Athens and Sparta warred from 459 to 404.
iii) This left the Greeks weak and divided.
(c) Philip of Macedon took leadership of a Greek military union.
i) Macedon: a semi-barbarian land just north of the Attic peninsula.
ii) Defeated the rest of the Greeks in battle in 338, and became the leader of their military league.
iii) Assassinated in 336, leaving his 20 year old son Alexander on the throne.
iv) Alexander was educated as a Greek by Aristotle, who was Macedonian on his father’s side.
v) Alexander fiercely put down a revolt by Thebes, thereby holding leadership among the Greeks.
(d) Alexander takes on the Persians
i) In 334 B.C. Alexander liberated Greek city-states in western Anatolia under Persian rule at
Battle of Granicus
ii) In 333 B.C. Alexander won the battle of Issus in Syria, and wins the Near East up to the Eu-
phrates
iii) In 331 B.C. Alexander established Alexandria in Egypt.
iv) In 331 B.C. Alexander wins control of Persian empire by defeating Darius III at the battle
Guagamela
v) In 326 B.C. Alexander makes it to Afghanistan, and his exhausted troops force him to turn
back.
vi) In 323 B.C. Alexander dies in Babylon of fever at 33 years old.
vii) Alexander used the nimble hoplite phalanx (perfected by his father) against more cumbersome
Persian military arrangements.
2. Hellenistic Culture

1
 (a) Alexander desired cultural unity in his empire by merging Greek and local culture.
i) Had himself named the successor of the various ruling dynasties
ii) Identified himself with the peoples he ruled
iii) Made Greek the lingua franca
iv) Settled Greek soldiers in various places.
(b) The Greek culture that spread to the East and was influenced by indigenous cultures was called
“Hellenistic Culture”.
i) The Greeks also built Greek-style cities in conquered lands, with Greek (and other) inhabitants.
ii) E.g. the “Decapolis” a league of 10 Greek-style cities in Galilee and Transjordan.
iii) Jewish thought was influenced by this milieux, both in the diaspora and in Palestine.
(c) Alexander’s Empire was divided after his early death
i) Lysimachus got Thrace
ii) Cassander got Macedon and Greece
iii) Antigonus, then Selucus got Syria and the East
iv) Ptolemy got Egypt and Palestine
(d) Palestine was disputed between the Selucids and the Ptolomies
i) The Ptolomies held it from 323 to 198.
ii) Control passed from the Ptolomies to the Selucids after the latter’s victory at the Battle of
Paneas in 198.
(e) Greek education, sport, art, and culture seemed cutting-edge in comparison with more “barbarian”
practices of the Israelites.
i) This way of life was often one of materialism and sensuality, and somewhat offensive to pious
Jews.

The Maccabean Revolt

1. The Seludid Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-16) began a program of rigorous Hellenization in his Empire,
including the Jews.
(a) Raided Temple for loot in 169 and 168.
(b) Forbade Jewish practices of circumcision, abstinence from work, and temple sacrifice.
(c) Abrogated Jewish law
(d) Set up an image of Zeus in the Holy of Holies in the Temple. (“Abomination of Desolation”)
2. In 167 a revolt breaks out in Judean town of Modein
(a) The leader is the elderly priest Mattathias.
i) Family name: Hasmoneans, after a long-dead ancestor
ii) Sons: Judas, Jonathan, Simon
(b) Judas is given the epithet “Maccabeus” (“The Hammer”) on account of his exploits.
(c) Account is Recorded in
i) Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews (AD 100)
ii) First and Second Maccabees
3. The Books of Maccabees

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 (a) Tell the story of the Maccabean revolt down to 134
(b) In the Catholic canon, but not the Protestant or Jewish one.
(c) Written from a very traditional Jewish perspective.
(d) First Maccabees is a historical account
i) Written about 100 B.C.
ii) Judas Maccabeus was a skilled guerrilla warrior
iii) He rededicated the Temple in 164 B.C., the origin of the feast of Hanukkah
iv) By the time Judas died in 160, he freed Palestine from the Galilee to the Negev, from the
Mediterranean to beyond the Jordan.
v) Jonathan ruled from 160 to his capture in 143, making more gains through battle and manip-
ulation of Selucid rivals to the throne.
vi) Simon ruled until 134, successfully, until he was killed by his own son-in-law.
vii) Simon’s son John Hyrcanus in 134.
(e) Second Maccabees is a series of heroic exploits
i) Purpose is more for edification than history.
ii) Claims to be an abridgment of a five-volume history of the Maccabees by one Jason of Cyrene,
but there is no way of testing this claim.
iii) Popular in Christian circles for its heroic tales.
iv) Clear statement of creatio ex nihilo

Apocalyptic Literature

1. Much Jewish literature takes on a new form called “apocalyptic” (“lifting the veil”)

(a) Biblical Examples

i) Daniel
ii) Revelation
(b) Pseudepigrapha (i.e. non-canonical Jewish writings of the late centuries B.C. and early centuries
A.D.)
i) First Enoch
ii) 2 Bartuch
iii) 4 Ezra
iv) Assumption of Moses
v) Jubilees

2. “Apocalypticism refers to the belief that God has revealed the imminent end of the ongoing struggle be-
tween good and evil in history. Apocalypse is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework,
in which a revelation about the future or the heavenly realm is mediated by an otherworldly being to a
human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality.”1

3. Prophecy continued in a new form.

(a) God directs all of history providently

(b) God reveals his plan for the world through special agents, visions, and dreams

1. Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction, revised ed., 444-445.

3
 (c) Unlike prophecy, apocalyptic uses symbolic and obscure language
(d) Unlike prophecy, there is little interest in politics, whether domestic or international. Change will
come from God’s radical intervention in history on behalf of the good and upright.

4. Apocalypticism frequently represented the hopes of minority groups within Jerusalem, who were frus-
trated with the teaching or practices of the Pharisees and Saducees. They were written for people who
were suffering persecution and needed hope and consolation. (a) Accounts for the symbolism; it was
needed to mask the message.

5. Common features of apocalyptic literature

(a) Use famous names to receive revelations of what is to come in the present day, in comparison with
present priestly leadership.
(b) The revelation is secret and must be kept so.
(c) The language is symbolic and can be decoded only by initiates.
(d) Anonymous authorship, though using the authority of a great figure from the past.
(e) Pessimism about the state of the world, and human ability to change it.
(f) Dualism between the forces of good and evil
(g) Determinism of the divine plan
(h) Confidence in divine intervention
(i) Cosmic viewpoint
(j) Intermediary beings: angels and demons
(k) Hope in the resurrection of the dead, with consequent rewards and punishments.
(l) Hope in a new kingdom in heaven or on earth, where God will reign over the just and the wicked
will perish.

6. The Value of Apocalyptic Literature

(a) God is not indifferent to the world, nor is he powerless to intervene on behalf of the just.
(b) There are important moments in history when we expect God to intervene in new ways.
(c) Rejects the ultimate rule of sin, evil, and death in our world
(d) We must show a strong trust in God for deliverance.
(e) We must be passionate about the kingdom of God and its beginnings among us through the culti-
vation of justice and wisdom.
(f) The imagery of the resurrection of the dead.
(g) The imagery of the last judgment, the great assize, where the good will go to heaven and the evil
will go to hell.

7. Apocalyptic literature forms an important part of the backdrop of the preaching of both John the Baptist
and Jesus.

Judaism at the Dawn of the Christian Era

1. To properly understand the preaching of Jesus and the early Christians, you must understand the Jewish
thought-world in which they lived.

2. Judaism did not wither after the coming of Christianity. Rather, it continued to thrive, and it continued
to produce its own literature, right on through the Mishnah and the Talmud.

4
 (a) Mishnah: Collection of so-called Oral Torah, composed in the turbulent times of the second century
A.D.
(b) Talmud: Rabbinic commentary on the Mishnah.

3. Large Jewish communities existed in many cities in the ancient world. Their special way of life and
their attachment to Jerusalem made them suspect in the eyes of their contemporaries. But their ethical
monotheism also attracted a number of Gentiles to their communities.

(a) These Jewish communities with their Gentile fellow-travelers were the seedbed of the early Chris-
tian Church.

The End of Jewish Rule and the Coming of the Romans

1. The Hasmonean Dynasty

(a) The descendants of Mattathias.
(b) After the death of Simon in 134, his son John Hyrcanus ruled until 104, when he was succeeded by
his sons Aristobulus I (104-103) and Alexander Jamnaeus (103-76), and so on.
(c) The dynasty was unstable
i) Many opposed them because they illicitly appointed themselves or their sons to be high priests,
to consolidate their rule.
ii) They constantly intrigued against each other, often by appealing to foreign rulers, who were
more than happy to destabilize the regime.
(d) In 63 B.C., Alexander Jamnaeus’ sons Hyrcannus II and Aristobulus II both appealed to Pompey for
help. He used the situation to annex Judea to Rome, making it subject to the new Roman governor
of Syria, who now oversaw the Selucids.
(e) From about this time until the rise of Octavian in 31, Roman politics themselves were unstable,
and so Hyrcanus II was permitted to function as high priest and to have some rule over the country
from the years 63-41.

The Reign of Herod the Great

1. The Rise of Herod

(a) Herod was the son of Antipater, the ruler of Idumaea (Edom), the southernmost part of the Roman
province of Judea.
(b) During the period of instability in Rome before and after the time of Julius Caesar, there was parallel
infighting in Palestine, and Herod came out on top.
(c) Through careful politicking, Herod got himself named king of Judea in 41 B.C. and won his territory
with the help of a Roman army in 37.
(d) Herod and his sons would rule the area right until the Jewish rebellion which began in A.D. 66
i) But Herod’s sons were not good rulers; the Romans confined them to ever-more petty king-
doms.
(e) Herod was “the Great” due to his iron control and building projects

5
 i) Began a rebuild of the Temple in 20 B.C. The bulk of it was done under his rule, but parts
continued to be done right up until A.D. 63.
(f) But Herod was a ruthless ruler, who would do anything to hold on to control of power.
i) Murdered all his rivals, including most of his family, including wives and children.
(g) The N.T. puts Jesus’ birth 1-2 years before the death of Herod.

Jewish Parties in the Time of Jesus

Judaism began its ideological splits during the Hellenistic period. The question there was the degree to which
Greek culture could or should be adopted, and the extent to which Jews should remain ethnically and culturally
separate from the ambient culture. Many of the upper and urban classes felt the lure of sophisticated Greek
culture, while many of the poorer and rural classes preferred more separatist and traditional ways. These ten-
sions came out openly during the Maccabean period and the subsequent political instability of the Hasmonean
dynasty. From these divisions three main parties eventually emerged:

1. The Pharisees
(a) Background
i) A group of rigorous followers of the law called the hasidim (“pious ones” or “devout ones”)
aligned themselves with the Maccabees.
ii) By 140 B.C., this group appears again in opposition to John Hyrcanus’ claim to be high priest.
It is here that they are called Pharisees (“separated ones”)
iii) Gained favor under the rule of Alexander Jannaeus’ widow, Salome Alexandra.
iv) Enjoyed power and prestige from 75-65
v) Often opposed Herod, but tried to stay out of political power.
(b) Characteristics
i)Non-priests, but lay teachers and experts in the law
ii)Strict obedience to all laws of Torah
iii)Accepted “oral torah” (see below)
iv) Believed in doctrines not in Torah: resurrection of dead, eternal rewards and punishments,
angels.
v) Strong stress on human freedom and ability to accomplish works of the law
vi) Hoped for a “messiah” who would restore Israel politically.
(c) Oral Torah
i) traditional teachers of scribes since Ezra, traced (allegedly) back to Moses
ii) a “fence around the law”
iii) a system for how to observe each commandment of Torah, often more exacting than the Torah
itself. Meant to keep from breaking the actual laws.
iv) Haughty with respect to people who did not or could not keep the law
v) Looked down on the “people of the land”, i.e. the illiterate peasantry who could not read and
study the law.
vi) Source of Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees
vii) But also gave the Pharisees the means to adapt to changing times.
viii) The only sect to survive the destruction of the temple and loss of Jewish freedom in Palestine.

6
 (d) Their love of learning contributed greatly to the synagogue system and the canon of the Old Testa-
ment
2. The Saducees
(a) Background
i) The priestly personnel and wealthy families of Judah.
ii) Name comes from “Zadok”, the high priest under david
iii) The powerful political class
iv) Played a major role in all national decisions
v) Claimed to preserve the old ways against the innovations of the Pharisees (e.g. believing only
in the written Torah, denying the resurrection of the dead, etc.)
vi) But really, they represented the greater deviation from Jewish traditions (Hellenizers, accept-
ing Hasmonean claims to high priesthoood—even in opposition to their own priestly status—to
align themselves with power, collaboration with Rome)
(b) Concerned with the role of the Temple, the sacrificial system, and its traditions
i) Suspicious of the “lay theology” of the Pharisees which relativized the role of the Temple cult.
ii) Collaboration with Romans in order to protect the Temple.
(c) Beliefs
i) Accepted only the written Torah
ii) Denied angelsm, the resurrection of the dead, afterlife, rewards and punishments
(d) Formed an important group in the Sanhedrin, the council of Jewish leaders that decided religious
matters during the Roman period
(e) During the Jewish revolt, they finally opposed Rome and were executed. But with the destruction
of the Temple, they were unable to adapt their type of Judaism, and disappeared from history.
3. The Essenes
(a) Background
i) Probably originally part of the hasidim movement
ii) Broke with Saducees over unqualified high priests, and with Pharisees over legitimacy of Tem-
ple worship.
iii) Origins in perhaps the end of the rule of John Hyrcanus (so c. 110-104??)
(b) Beliefs
i) Communal way of life.
ii) Loyalty to the teachings of the “Righteous Teacher” who opposed the “Wicked Priest” to allow
unqualified high priests.
iii) Water rites in cleansing and admission to the group
iv) Celibacy in light of the end times
v) Two messiahs: a political leader and a priest
(c) May have some connection to the Qumran community, whose writings (“The Dead Sea Scrolls”)
were found in a cave in 1947.
(d) Tantalizing similarities between Essene and early Christian and contemporary Jewish practices. But
we do not know enough to judge.

7
Hope For A Messiah

1. The Judaism of Jesus’ time was shot through with Messianic (Messiah = Christ = Anointed One) expec-
tation.

2. There is little overt messianic expectation in the OT itself, because so few of its canonical books were
written in the late centuries B.C. (Though, of course, we can find plenty of Messianic themes, as Jesus
and the inspired NT did, when we read it in the light of its fulfillment in Christ).

3. A Messiah is an annointed one, consecrated by God for a task and set off from ordinary people on account
of this. In this sense, it is used for “an expected future king who will deliver the people from their present
oppression or misfortune and restore the glory of David’s kingdom”2

(a) The role of this Messiah was captured under several different images: Davidic King, “Son of Man”
(a heavenly being who would bring about God’s rule from heaven), the whole people Israel, the
suffering servant in glory, a new Moses

4. Stages in Messianic Development

(a) God’s everlasting covenant with David

(b) Prophesies of a better sort of king in the future (e.g. “Emmanuel” in Is. 7, 9, 11).
(c) Hopes for a member of the House of David (e.g. Zerubbabel) after the return.
(d) Hopes for a king some time in the distant future.
(e) An eschatological king, in view of the Jews’ continuing domination under foreign powers.
(f)Messianic hope tends to be political and this-worldly; Apocalyptic hope tends to expect a new sort
of direct intervention of God in the world, and finds solace in a beyond-this-world kingdom of
God.
(g) Jesus claimed to be a Messiah
i) But of a different sort
ii) “The disciples of Jesus recognized him as the Messiah and the Son of Man combined because
they understood his kingship to be of a different kind altogether from political rule over Israel.
Jesus’ authority came from God, and thus from beyond the present world order (Son of Man),
but it demanded the total covenant loyalty and obedience to God that the Davidic king embod-
ied on earth (Messiah). They also saw in Jesus both the prophet like Moses and the Suffering
Servant of Isaiah 53. There is no other example of such claims anywhere in Jewish history.”3

2. Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, revised ed., 463.

3. Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, revised ed., 465.

8
 THE PRIMEVAL HISTORY
Reading Quiz

1. What are the names of the two trees in the Garden of Eden?

2. What are the names of the four rivers flowing out of the Garden of Eden?

3. What are the two curses that God pronounces on the woman?

4. What are the two curses that God pronounces on the man?

5. What was Cain’s profession?

6. What was Abel’s profession?

7. Where did Cain settle after he killed Abel?

8. What was the name of Adam and Eve’s third son?

9. Of the people mentioned in Genesis 5, who lived the longest?

10. Which descendent of Adam “walked with God”?

11. What are the names of Noah’s three sons?

12. What were the dimensions of the Ark?

13. What mountains did the Ark come to rest on?

14. Which of Noah’s grandsons was cursed? Who was his father?

15. What is the name of the region in which the tower of Babel was built?

16. Who was the son of Shelah?

17. Who was Abram’s father?

18. How were Abram and Lot related?

19. What city was Abram from?

20. What region was Abram’s first destination?

21. What region was Abram’s ultimate destination?

 THE PATRIARCHAL HISTORY
Reading Quiz
(Gen 12-50)

1. What was the name of Abram’s wife (before it was changed)?

2. Where did Abram reside during the famine in Canaan?

3. Which king blessed Abram? Of which city was he the king?

4. What was the name of Abram’s slave woman?

5. What was the name of Abram’s son by his slave woman?

6. What covenant promises did God make to Abraham in Genesis 17?

7. What action did God command Abraham to do in response to his

covenant promises?

8. To which city did Lot escape when he fled from Sodom?

9. Where did Abraham’s slave girl wander after he put her out?

10. What is the name of the land in which Abraham attempted to sacrifice
Isaac?

—!1—-
11. Where did Sarah die?

12. What was the name of Isaac’s wife?

13. What was the name of the father of Isaac’s wife?

14. Whom did Abraham take as his wife after the death of his first wife?

15. Who was Isaac’s older son?

16. Where did Jacob go in order to escape the vengeance of his brother?

17. What name did Jacob give to the place where he had the vision of the
ladder?

18. What was the name of Jacob’s first wife?

19. What was the name of Jacob’s second wife?

20. What are the names of the maids of Jacob’s wives

21. What wages did Jacob ask from his father-in-law?

—!2—-
22. What name did Jacob give to the place where he made a covenant with
his father-in-law?

23. Where did Jacob have the dream where he wrestled with the man/angel?

24. What name did the man/angel give to Jacob after the wrestled?

25. Who defiled Dinah?

26. Who was the youngest son of Jacob?

27. Where did Esau finally settle?

28. To whom was Joseph sold in Egypt?

29. Pharaoh’s dream had 14 of which kind of animal?

30. What was the name of Joseph’s life?

31. What were the names of Joseph’s two sons?

32. What region of Egypt did Joseph have his family settle in?

33. Where did Jacob stop to offer sacrifice on his way to Egypt?

—!3—-
34. Where was Jacob buried?

35. How old was Jacob when he died?

—!4—-
 THE EXODUS
Reading Quiz
(Exodus 1-20, 32-34)

1. What are the supply cities that the Hebrews built?

2. What were the names of the Hebrew midwives?

3. Which tribe of Israel was Moses a part of?

4. To where did Moses go when he fled from Pharaoh?

5. What is the name of Moses wife?

6. What is the name of Moses eldest son?

7. What was the name of Moses’ father-in-law?

8. What did God tell Moses that his name was?

9. What is the name of Moses’ brother?

10. What were the names of Aaron’s sons?

11. Which plague immediately preceded the plague of the firstborn?

12. How many male Israelites journeyed out from Ramses to Succoth?

13. How many years were the Israelites in Egypt?

14. Where did the Israelites make camp beside Red Sea?

15. What was the name of Moses’ and Aaron’s sister?

16. What was the name of the place where Moses made the bitter waters
sweet in the wilderness of Shur?

17. What two foodstuffs did God provide the Israelites in the desert?

18. Where did Moses bring forth water from the rock after the Israelites
complained and tested the Lord?

19. What group did the Israelites defeat, with Moses keeping his hands raised
up?

20. What was the name of Moses’ younger son?

21. Who fashioned the golden calf?

 WILDERNESS WANDERING: NUMBERS
Reading Quiz
(Numbers 11-25, 27, 31-33; Deuteronoy 34)

1. Where did the Lord send fire to burn against the Israelites in punishment
for their murmuring?

2. What is the name of the bread-like food (“like coriander seed, and its
color was like the color of gum resin”) that God gave the Israelites to eat
in the desert?

3. How many elders did God give a share of Moses’ spirit to?

4. What type of meat did the Lord give the Israelites to eat in the desert?

5. Who are the elders who remained in the camp, but nevertheless prophe-
sied when their share of Moses’ spirit came upon them?

6. Where did Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses? What was Miriam’s
punishment?

7. What was Joshua’s name before it was “Joshua”?

8. Who from the tribe of Judah was in the scouting party sent to Canaan?
Who from the tribe of Ephraim?
9. How many days did the scouting party reconnoiter the land of Canaan?
How many years were the Israelites forced to wander in the wilderness in
punishment for their refusal to take the land?

10. What were the names of the Levite and Reubenites who attempted to
lead a popular revolt against Moses and Aaron

11. Whose staff blossomed in the tent of meeting?

12. Where did Miriam die?

13. Where did Moses disobediently strike the rock twice to bring forth water
for the Israelites?

14. Where did Aaron die?

15. What healed the people when they were bitten by the poisonous (“firey”,
“seraph”) serpents that the Lord sent on them?

16. Which king fought against the Israelites at Jahaz to prevent their passage
through his land?

17. What king came out to meet the Israelites at Edrei?

18. Who was the king of Moab when the Israelites encamped there?
19. Who was the seer who was summoned to curse the Israelites, but was
unable to, and blessed them instead?

20. Who stopped the plague of the Lord by spearing the Midianite woman
and the Israelite who took her as his wife?

21. The daughters of which man asked for an inheritance with their father’s
brothers?

22. How many Israelite soldiers died in the battle against the Midianites?

23. To which three tribes was it granted to be allowed to settle on the east
side of the Jordan River?

24. What mountain did Moses die on?

 THE CONQUEST: JOSHUA
Reading Quiz
(Joshua 1-12, 23-24)

1. From what place did Joshua send two spies to scout Jericho?

2. Whose house did the Israelite spies stay in while they were in Jericho?

3. At what geographic location did the waters of the Jordan rise up in a

heap?

4. How many soldiers from the transjordanian tribes crossed over the river
armed for battle?

5. Where did the Israelites make camp after they crossed the Jordan?

6. How many days did the Israelites march around Jericho?

7. Who was the Lord angry at for taking some of the devoted things from
the Israelite booty at Jericho?

8. Where was he (the man from question 7) executed?

9. With how many men did Joshua march on Ai, when he was successful?
10. How many Israelite troops were lying in ambush in the successful attack
on Ai?

11. Between which two mountains did Joshua read out the Law of Moses in
the presence of the Ark?

12. Which group of people made a treaty with the Israelites, agreeing to be-
come hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for
the altar of the Lord?

13. What were the names of the five Amorite kings who attacked Israels new-
found ally?

14. What happened to the sun when Joshua went out to fight the Amorite
kings?

15. Where was the cave where the Amorite kings hid themselves?

16. Where did Joshua gather all the Israelites in order to renew the covenant?

17. How old was Joshua when he died?

18. Where were the bones of Joseph buried?

19. Where was Eleazar buried?

 THE SETTLEMENT: JUDGES
Reading Quiz
(Joshua 1-12, 23-24)

1. Who married Caleb’s daughter?

2. What ethnic group lived in Jerusalem?

3. Which Israelite tribe was supposed to inhabit Jerusalem?

4. Where was Joshua buried?

5. Who was the king of Edom that oppressed the Israelites? Which Israelite
judge fought against him?

6. Who was the king of Moab that oppressed the Israelites? Which Israelite
judge fought against him?

7. Who was Jabin’s general?

8. Who killed Jabin’s general?

9. What is the name of Gideon’s father?

10. What is Gideon’s other name?

11. How many troops did Gideon take into battle?

12. What were the names of the two surviving sons of Gideon?

13. Where did Jephtha settle?

14. What tribe was Samson from?

15. What was the name of the Philistine woman who seduced Samson into
revealing the source of his strength?

16. Where in Ephraim was an illicit shrine to the Lord (with a graven image)
set up?

17. In what city did the Danites establish their shrine? What was the name of
its priest?

18. What is the other name of the city of Jerusalem?

19. At what city was a crime committed against a Levite’s concubine? What
tribal area is this city in?
20. The young women of which two towns were given to the Benjamanites to
repopulate their town?
 THE UNITED MONARCHY: 1 AND 2 SAMUEL
Reading Quiz
(1 Samuel 1-4, 7-18; 26-28; 2 Samuel 5-7; 11-20)

1. What were the names of Eli’s sons?

2. Who were Samuel’s parents?

3. What shrine were Eli and Samuel based out of?

4. What was the name of Eli’s grandson, whose mother died in giving birth
to him at hearing the news of the capture of the Ark?

5. In what town was the Ark eventually placed when it was retrieved from
the Philistines.

6. What was the name of the stone that Samuel erected to commemorate the
Israelites’ victory over the Philistines at Mizpah?

7. What are the names of Samuel’s sons? Where did they judge?

8. Who is the Ammonite king over whom Saul won his first victory?

9. Where was Saul proclaimed king?

10. What were the names of Saul’s sons?

11. What were the names of Saul’s daughters?

12. What is the name of the Amalekite king, whose life Saul spared?

13. Where did Samuel kill the Amalekite king?

14. What is the name of David’s father?

15. What is the name of David’s hometown?

16. What is the name of Saul’s chief general?

17. Which of Saul’s daughters became David’s wife?

18. Where was the place where David had the opportunity to kill Saul?

19. After sparing Saul’s life, to where did David flee?

20. Saul consulted a medium. Where was she from?

21. What was David’s initial capital as king?

22. Who died because he touched the Ark of the Covenant?

23. Whose house was the Ark stored at?

24. Who was the woman that David saw bathing while he was walking along
the roof of his house? Who was her husband?

25. What was the name of the prophet who chastised David?

26. Who was Solomon’s mother?

27. Who raped Tamar?

28. Who killed the person who raped Tamar?

29. Where was Absalom proclaimed king?

30. Which member of Saul’s family taunted David?

31. Who killed Absalom?

 SOLOMON AND THE DIVIDED MONARCHY: 1 KINGS
Reading Quiz
(1 Kings 1-5; 8-16)

1. Which of David’s sons ambitiously tried to become king?

2. Who was the priest and who was the prophet that anointed Solomon
king?

3. Why was Adonijah executed?

4. Where did the Lord speak to Solomon in a dream?

5. How many proverbs did Solomon write? How many songs?

6. Who supplied cedar wood for Solomon’s temple?

7. After he dedicated the Temple, how many oxen and sheep did Solomon
offer as sacrifices of well-being?

8. How many princesses and concubines were among Solomon’s wives?

9. What two named foreign gods did Solomon build high places for?
10. Which prophet encouraged Jeroboam to become king of the northern
tribes?

11. Who was Solomon’s successor as king?

12. Which prophet encouraged Rehoboam not to march against Israel?

13. In what two places did Jeroboam place the golden calves?

14. What was the name of Jeroboam’s son?

15. What was the name of Rehoboam’s mother?

16. Who was Rehoboam’s successor?

17. Who was Abijam’s successor?

18. Who was Jeroboam’s successor?

19. Who led a coup against King Elah of Israel, and succeeded him to the
kingship?

20. Who succeeded King Omri of Israel?

 ELIJAH AND ELISHA: 1-2 KINGS
Reading Quiz
(1 Kings 17 - 2 Kings 13)

1. What wadi did Elijah find refuge and water at during his conflict with
Ahab?

2. In what town did Elijah work a miracle for the widow?

3. What was the name of Ahab’s righteous servant?

4. Where did Elijah slay the prophets of Baal and Asherah?

5. Where did the Israelites kill the prophets of Baal?

6. Where was Elijah when the Lord passed by in “a sound of sheer silence.”

7. Who was the Aramean king who first tried to attack, but then was de-
feated by the Israelites?

8. Whose vineyard did Ahab want to seize?

9. What is the name of Ahab’s wife?

10. Who was the dissenting prophet who prophesied against the military suc-
cess of Ahab and Jehosaphat?

11. Who was Ahab’s son and successor?

12. Which god did Ahaziah consult concerning his recovery?

13. Who succeeded Ahaziah as king of Israel?

14. What was the name of Elisha’s servant?

15. Which Aramean king was cured of leprosy by Elisha?

16. Who succeeded king Ben-Hadad in Aram?

17. Who succeded Jehosaphat as king in Judah?

18. What was the name of Jehu’s assistant?

19. Which priest instructed Jehoash?

20. Which Syrian king menaced Israel while Jehoahaz was king?
 THE FALL OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH: 2 KINGS
Reading Quiz
(2 Kings 15-25; Jeremiah 29-33, 37-45; Daniel 1-6)

1. Which Assyrian king reduced Menahem of Israel to vassalage?

2. Under which Israelite king did the Assyrian deportations begin?

3. Which Assyrian king deported them?

4. Which Judahite king became an Assyrian vassal?

5. Who was the last king of Israel?

6. Which Assyrian king finally conquered Israel?

7. What was the name of the bronze serpent kept in the temple, which
Moses had made?

8. Which Judahite king destroyed it?

9. When the Israelites were deported, where did the Assyrians settle them?

10. Which Assyrian king tried to take Jerusalem, but failed?

11. Which high priest found the book of the law of the Lord?

12. Which king of Judah was taken prisoner by the king of Babylon?

13. What was the name of the king of Babylon who took him prisoner?

14. Who was the last king of Judah?

15. Which Babylonian general razed Jerusalem?

16. Whom did the Babylonians install as governor over the people who re-
mained in Judah?

17. Who led the insurrection against this governor, killing him?

18. Which Babylonian king released Jehoiakin from prison?

19. According to Jeremiah, how long would it be before God brought the
Judeans back from exile?

20. Where did Jeremiah say that God would write his law?

21. Where was the field that God told Jeremiah to buy?
22. Who arrested Jeremiah?

23. Who rescued Jeremiah from the cistern of Malchiah?

24. Who led the remnant of the Judeans into Egypt, against the prophecy of
Jeremiah?

25. According to Jeremiah, which Egyptian Pharaoh would be delivered to

his enemies?

26. Who were four of the Israelites whom Nebuchadnezzar recruited into his
royal service?

27. What new names were they given?

28. Who was Nebuchadnezzar’s chief executioner?

29. Where did Nebuchadnezzar set up his gold statue?

30. What three words were the “writing on the wall” at King Belshazzar’s
feast?

31. What happened to Daniel when he was caught praying to his God during
the reign of king Darius?
 THE RETURN: EZRA AND NEHEMIAH
Reading Quiz
(Ezra and Nehemiah)

1. Which Persian king allowed the Jews to return to their homeland?

2. How many exiles (in terms of male heads of household) came back to
Jerusalem?

3. To what action of the Jews did the inhabitants of the land (who were
transplanted there durinng the Exile) object to kings Ahasuerus and Ar-
taxerxes?

4. When was the work of the house of God in Jerusalem continued?

5. Which two prophets prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah in

Jerusalem concerning the rebuilding of the Temple?

6. Who was the leader of the first group of Jews to return from the exile,
under whom the initial attempts to rebuild the Temple were made?

7. Under the reign of which Persian king did Ezra return to Jerusalem?

8. What was the capital city of the Persian empire?

9. Which high priest rebuilt the Sheep Gate?

10. How many days did it take to finish the wall around Jerusalem?

11. Who was Nehemiah’s brother?

12. Who read the book of the law of the Lord to all of the Jewish people?

13. Who was the overseer of the Levites in Jerusalem?

14. Who illicitly prepared a room in the Temple for Tobiah?