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While some of the best known and most loved stories are found in the book of Genesis, congregations can often tune out a sermon or lesson on Genesis with the thought that they are travelling well worn paths. On the other hand, Bible readers regularly find much that leaves them surprised, shocked, or wondering about how some of these stories (the rape of Dinah and Tamar's seduction of Judah) have anything to say about God's ways in this world. A number of recent studies have been published that offer help to readers and communicators who wish to hear the stories of Genesis as they were intended to be heard and to discover their significance for life at the threshold of a new century.

Commentaries and Expository Guides

The first of three commentaries to be completed in 1994 is Gordon Wenham's, Genesis 16-50 (Word Biblical Commentary Series, Waco: Word, 517 pp., $27.99) a companion to his 1987 work on Gen 1-15. The introduction to the first volume included an extended discussions of both source criticism that seeks to describe how the text came to be and literary studies that explain how the final form of the text reads. He offered a detailed yet clear review of the recent challenges to the classic JEDP hypothesis and posited his own theory that J was an editor who drew together earlier sources (including P, a reversal of typical critical theory) into the narrative of Genesis somewhere between 1250-950 B.C.E.

Wenham is a careful commentator who sets out the interpretative options before offering his opinion. For example he lists five alternatives for understanding the "knowledge of good and evil" in Gen 2:9 before offering his decision that it is a reference to wisdom. A five page excursus reports on attempts to deal with the great ages of the early inhabitants. The introduction to the ancestral narratives observes a number of parallels between the stories of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph and their families: all leave their homeland, quarrel with their brothers, move south to or toward Egypt, receive God's blessing and are buried in the cave of Machpelah.

The introduction to the second volume treats the issues of historical setting, patriarchal religion, and the roles that history and theology play in commenting on the text. Although the narratives are written from a suprahistorical perspective that is prophetic (the writer knows the mind and intentions of God, which ordinary humans and historians do not), the events and figures must have some historical basis, otherwise the theological claims have no basis. Radical arguments for and against historicity are balanced out with a careful review of the ways that the story does fit with the early second millennium, 2200 to 2000 B.C.E.

Again, Wenham skillfully balances the competing claims of historical and literary analysis, holding up neither as primary. Some observations are especially helpful, such as the three-fold bowing or meeting Joseph as a companion to Joseph's three-part rise to power. Wenham's command over relevant literature is outstanding. He can describe the cup Joseph placed in the sack by reference a monograph The Tabernacle Menorah. Yet the commentary does not suggest a larger purpose for the Joseph story; the analyses are faithful to the details but lack an overall synthesis.

The commentary follows the Word format of bibliography (Wenham's are extensive), translation, notes on text and translation, form/structure/setting, comment, and explanation. The arrangement allows readers to select the issues they will engage, but also points to the necessity of all the steps for a proper exegesis.

Victor P. Hamilton has also completed the companion to his 1990 Genesis 1-17 (Genesis 18-50, New International Commentary on the Old Testament Series, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994, 800 pp., $39.95). The first volume offered a 100 page introduction that traced the rise of the documentary hypothesis, the challenges of Van Seters, Rendtrorff and Tengström and the fields of rhetorical and literary criticism. Other sections treated the theology of Genesis, the historicity of the patriarchs, canonicity and text, with a twenty-five page bibliography that handily put in one place all the major secondary sources. This is a valuable introduction, but Hamilton did not say much directly about his own commitments and approach. Given the diversity of methods that populate biblical studies these days, a word or two would have been welcome.

The familiar format of the NIOTC of translation, commentary and technical footnotes also help the user to choose the level of the discussion. The notes on the translation of Gen 1:3-5 take up most of the page! Following each section of commentary is a small section on New Testament appropriation of the Old Testament texts. The first shows how Genesis 1:1-2:3 was used in John 1:1-5, Col 1:15-20, Matt 19:4/Mark 10:6 , Galatians 3:28, Heb 4:4 and in general New Testament terminology. This is a very appropriate way to help preachers and teachers to develop a biblical theology. For example, Harrison's argument that the Old Testament does not explicitly link Adam and Eve's sin with the sin and death of all humans is followed by Paul's use of Genesis 3 in Romans 5:12-21 that does.

In treating the Joseph story, more emphasis is put on fine points of translation (often a boon for the preacher) than on the problems of reading that the many literary studies have raised. Ambiguity is glossed over, the man at Dothan is simply noted, Reuben intervenes because he is oldest brother, and Hamilton makes his own argument for the literary unity of Gen 37, only footnoting the literary studies that support the position. The now complete commentary offers a wealth of information that makes it a valuable resource, yet more theological synthesis of major sections would have been welcome.

The Genesis commentary of Terrance Fretheim in the New Interpreter's Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994, $65.00) takes up 355 pages of volume I. (The NIB deserves a review of its own as a commentary for pastors and teachers, supervised by a consultant team of pastors.) Fretheim discusses methods for study of Genesis, stating his own preference for literary study with an emphasis on "theological movement" within the texts. He covers the use of narrative and genealogical forms, the literary unity of the text, its structure and theme, and the issue of faith and history. He concludes that while it is not possible to demonstrate the historical existence of the figures in Genesis, we may understand that the ancient writers were able to recall authentic memories and to retell them with a theological intent. Fretheim rightly observes that alongside the theme of divine blessing goes a stress on "the role of the human in the divine economy," thus holding a certain tension between God's plans for "good" and human cooperation and resistance with that plan.

The Bible text is reproduced in both NRSV and NIV versions; this allows for comparison and communicates an interest in serving both mainline and evangelical christians. Hebrew words are printed and transliterated when they are important to the comments, but Hebrew is not used to engage in extended exegetical discussions. Emphasis is placed on the major point of the texts. For example, the image of God is judiciously explained, not as a distinguishing quality, but as a description to the whole human as a mirror of God's dominion in the earthly sphere. This view is similar to that of ancient kings, who thought themselves to be such reflections of deity. Genesis democratizes the image by claiming it for all.

Issues current in the debates on Genesis interpretation are raised and answered in non-technical jargon for the non-academic but informed reader. For instance, Fretheim calls the scholarly reliance on "chaos" forces into question in the light of God's sovereign will. His comments also show how a narrative like Gen 2-3 is open to interpretation and misinterpretation depending on the narrative signals and method one uses to read. Fretheim notes that the woman does not tempt the man or lead him into temptation in any way, but both succumb to the serpent's logic.

Each commentary section is followed by a series of reflections that usually answer readerly questions like the nature of the serpent, the language of a fall and original sin (with reference to Romans 5). The near-sacrifice of Isaac can be viewed as child abuse in modern eyes, but Fretheim notes that Isaac's questions show both his and Abraham's unwavering trust in God. Therefore, parents should be attentive to their own children's questions whenever the text is read and heard. Jacob wrestles with God, but this story does not symbolize repentance and character change; it is rather a test, as was God's test of Abraham. Would Jacob continue on with God, even when the going gets tough? In this way, Jacob's experience is like our own.

Many of the comments overturn traditional readings. When our tendency is moralize, Fretheim will stress God's activity, and when we will overtheologize, he will point out the human side of the story. The balance between human and divine effectiveness is most skillfully woven into his treatment of the Joseph story. Each reflection section concludes with a word on what has been said by or about God, stressing the theological nature of a story in which God seems hidden. Joseph's words of consolation to his brothers, "God sent me before you to preserve life" (Gen 45:5) are described as theophany based upon formal similarities to the speech of God (26:24 and 46:2-4) that eases fear and announces what God has done or will not do.

This is the first commentary to take seriously the point that the Joseph story is a story about God (by the way, "God" is the last word in the commentary) and God's work in the world, but not at the expense of the importance of human action as a response to that world involvement. The fresh and profound reading of the Joseph story serves as the capstone of Fretheim's stated approach. I was not always happy with the revisions of old readings- they sometimes seem to excuse human responsibility- but in the end evil is called evil and good is called good while an overly simple generalizations are avoided. This is literary reading with an eye to theology and a method to be emulated.

Donald E. Gowan in Genesis 1-11: From Eden to Babel (International Theological Commentary series, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988, pp. 125, $10.99) says little about his approach other than his conviction that the narratives of Genesis can proclaim theological truth when its reports are historically or scientifically inaccurate. He prefers the term "archetypal stories" over the traditional "saga," explaining that the stories explain what is typical about human nature, not what is unique to one time and place.

The theory of archetypal story is brought in to explain the appearance of the flood story in many ancient literatures, water being an archetypal metaphor for the chaos of life. Rather than explaining the repetitions in the Genesis flood story by reference to literary art, as Wenham and followers do, he compares the P and J versions. He concludes that P emphasizes the corruption of the whole creation, while J is more concerned with the sin of humanity. If so, then the pattern is similar to the movement of Gen 1 and 2-3, from creation as a whole to a focus on humankind. But whereas Gen 1 and 2-3 form two distinct literary units, the flood story does not. What Gowan does not discuss is how the different agendas of J and P coalesce into one whole telling of the story.

Gowan's work is cautious and meticulous, yet he is able to clearly lead the reader along his lines of argument. He works to remove a lot of underbrush of misunderstanding and moralizing of the text, seeking to listen to it on its own terms. By preferring to speak of archetypal stories and to point out what the text does not say or teach, I find his approach to be sometimes negative, especially when he chides readers for asking questions the text does not mean to answer.

David Atkinson's devotional interests come to the fore in the first sentence of , The Message of Genesis 1-11: The Dawn of Creation (The Bible Speaks Today Series, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1990, 190 pp., $12.99): "The poem of beauty and grandeur which forms the opening chapter of our Bibles is a hymn of praise ot the majesty of God the Creator." To say this is not to imply that he is not interested in understanding the text as an ancient document. Atkinson suggests that its portrait of God would be a rock of stability for people in exile who would be tempted to succumb to the religious ideas of their conquerors.

Atkinson, like Gowan, explains that the theological interest of the writer is not the same as our interest in how it happened, but his tone is gentler, adding that creation is not "a scientific category." Even so, he notes that the orderly style of Gen 1 reflects a mind that is "not far from the interests of science." The exposition engages issues of environment, time, and sabbath, quoting from C. K. Chesterton, Peter Berger, Arthur Peacocke, Fritjof Capra, Julian of Norwich, Augustine, Barth, and Moltmann- and all this for Genesis 1!

Probably the strongest section is the discussion of Noah and the flood. It is here that Atkinson finds a challenge to confront the problem of a creation that will either explode (the nuclear crisis has changed since 1990 but has not disappeared) or die of environmental poisoning. While not as thorough and penetrating as Gowan's commentary, Atkinson's work does satisfy by stating conventional positions without requiring dated applications of them. The many references to his reading show this to be an exposition compassionately connected to the world and its need to hear a message of good news.

J. Gerald Janzen's Genesis 12-50: Abraham and All the Families of the Earth (International Theological Commentary series, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993, pp. 215, $17.99) uses a method of analysis that is literary and theological. He rightly claims that literary work itself is not enough; it must be used in service of theology.

The overall result mixes literary and theological concerns in a way that not only gives preachers something to preach, but also gives them some clues as to how. Narrative preachers especially will appreciate suggestions for fresh retelling of the old, old stories. For example, Janzen suggests that Joseph was not a spoiled brat, but one who suffered persecution in ways similar to Jeremiah and the Psalmists.

Some interlacings are overread. Even if the Samaritan woman in John 4 makes a few allusions to Deuteronomy (mentioning the prophet to come and the right place to worship), this does not mean that this woman is following Tamar's example (Gen 38) in trying to raise offspring for her first husband in line with Deut 25. The reading is ingenious, but based on a few links that could lead in a number of directions. Even if Janzen stretches too far at points, his feel for the richness of language as a tool to inform, but also to evoke, makes this commentary a pleasure to read and an experience in rediscovering the ancestral stories. It is well worth the price.

In seeking to answer the introductory questions about date and setting, Joyce G. Baldwin in Genesis 12-50: From Abraham to Joseph (The Bible Speaks Today Series, Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 1986, 224 pp. $12.99) makes reference to the ongoing debate on the historicity of the ancestral figures. Through many footnotes, readers will become familiar with the content of Essays on the Patriarchal Narratives, (IVP, 1980, presently available from Eisenbrauns) and its argument that Abraham was a living figure.

The readings stress faith and its tests, but sometimes at the expense of the questions that readers might have in response. Abraham should have trusted God instead of passing off Sarah as his sister on the assumption that God would have protected him just as he protected Sarah (from Abimelech at the least). How do readers appropriate this affirmation of divine protection in the light of martyrdom or holocaust? Lessons of faith will also raise questions of faith, and Baldwin most often skirts these.

Baldwin's comparison of the sale of Joseph to other examples of suffering servants (Isaiah 53 :3-6; Zechariah 11:12-13, 13:7-9) echoes some of the typology used in early Christian interpretation and it is good not to overlook this part of the history of exegesis. However, the lessons often veer toward easy moralization. Judah's deception of Tamar is condemned (Gen 38), but nothing is said about Tamar's commitment to her rights and the survival of the family that motivated her deception of Judah. Joseph forgets his father's house and acknowledges that God made him fruitful (Gen 42-50-52), but this is no disloyalty to his family and heritage; it is a refusal to linger on past hurts in bitterness and establishes Joseph as a moral model. In sum, the commentary is strong on historical background and individual faith lessons, but does not penetrate beyond these to an appreciation of the ambiguity of faith in the midst of life, or the social responsibilities of the person of faith.

D. Stuart Briscoe's, Genesis: The Communicator's Commentary, (Word Books, Waco, Texas, 1987; also available in paper in the Mastering the Old Testament Series, 414 pp., $12.99.) seeks a middle road between a preacher/teacher's need for explication of the biblical text and application to daily life. Briscoe states his preference for application. He offers an outline of Genesis that breaks each chapter into three or more parallel points- "Faith's High Point: Gen 22:1-34" lists "The Incident as a Test, The Incident as a Triumph, The Incident as a Type." Each section opens with the text taken from the New King James Bible.

The writing style is friendly and vivid; in speaking of the believer's response to creation he writes, "This sense of wonder makes created people worshippers." Interspersed with the comments are illustrations, often taken from Briscoe's experiences and encounters with others. The readings are conventional; the tower represents human pride and independence, Abraham is a model of faith despite his failings, Jacob learns virtue through the school of hard knocks, and Joseph is a boy with some growing up to do, just like those boys Briscoe recalls from his days as a youth worker.

The emphasis is on relationships, faithful dealings with God and other people. Judah's speech before Joseph is commendable because it does not evade responsibility. Some of the proverbial wisdom is striking: "Man is free to make his choices but he is not free to determine the consequences of his choices." We may wish for inclusive language and may shy from such "moralizing" of the text, but coupled with Briscoe's lessons on theology and God's ways with people, such moral teaching does not seem out of place. Thus the commentary models one version of biblical exposition, that which organizes the exposition around the lessons of the text. It would serve well for examples of how the text could be taught and preached, and would remind those who read it to remember the needs and questions of the people who will be listening. The book could also be used as a devotional guide.

Allen P. Ross, in Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988, 744 pp., $29.99) states that his book is not a commentary of Genesis, but a guide to help teachers and preacher appreciate the richness and complexity of the narratives and to organize the theological teaching for presentation to a contemporary audience. He divides Genesis into over 60 sections. Each section's treatment includes a short introduction, a summary of theological ideas, an analysis of structure and synthesis into an exegetical outline followed by a development of the exposition. A bibliography concludes each section. Although Ross confesses his skepticism about historical-critical methods, he acknowledges that one can learn much from reading these studies, so the bibliography ranges widely across the theological landscape. Like Briscoe's work, the book is helpful in modeling an expository approach to exegesis and biblical preaching with a focus on individual application.

Monographs and Specialized Studies

The survey of commentaries and expository guides gives some indication of the diversity of method at work in biblical studies today. Even though they have made their way into the commentaries, literary and social-scientific approaches are still "what's new" in biblical studies. The following works use and refine one or both of these methods to answer new questions posed by careful reading of the texts.

Sharon Pace Jeansonne has used a literary method that attends to point of view, plot, pace, dialogue, and character development in The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Potiphar's Wife (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990, 152 pp., $12.00). Jeansonne's goal is to bring the overlooked women of Genesis 12-50 into the spotlight by reading the stories from their perspective. A helpful introduction helps readers understand the storytelling techniques of narrative gaps, ambiguity, repetition, combination and sequence of narratives, names and epithets, type scenes, and setting. Some interesting insights appear; what many interpreters have overlooked or excused, Jeansonne calls abuse. Thus we feel Sarah's shame and fear when she is taken into Pharaoh's household and are horrified that Lot would offer his daughters to the men of Sodom to protect his guests. Tamar is used sexually by Onan and Potiphar's wife is a plot device who is given no character of her own.

It is therefore puzzling that Jeansonne concludes with a brief reference to the narrative's function to define Israel's relation to its neighbors; this is clearly not her agenda in reading. She assumes that the narrative method will expose how the text would have itself read and does not recognize that her empathic stance is a concern she brings to the narrative. Some of her readings are taken from cues the narrator provides, while others are inferences she draws from the text. Reader response criticism is fine when it is acknowledged that that is what one is doing. Many of the insights generated are powerful and would enhance the teaching and preaching of these stories, but they should be used with a clear statement of the reader's stance, something like, "How do we encounter these stories? What do we feel when we see what happens to these women?"

Other literary studies do not take the general approach to narrative that Jeansonne does, but narrow in on some aspect of it. Laurence A. Turner in Announcements of Plot in Genesis (JSOT Supplement 96, Sheffield Academic Press, 1990, 210 pp., $37.50) argues that the narrative of Genesis offers four "Announcements" that not only give the reader a foretaste of what is to come, but provide signals for how the story is to be read. God's command to the first humans in Gen 1:28, God's promise to Abraham in Gen 12:1-3, God's oracle to Rebekah in Gen 25:23 and Joseph's God inspired dreams all signal a course of events and create an expectation in the reader that will either be satisfied or frustrated.

Turner uses contemporary literary theory to shape his definition of plot and chooses not to answer questions of authorship, date and composition. He concludes that the plot of Genesis does not follow a fixed pattern of promise and fulfillment, especially as humans carry out God's instructions. God told Abraham to go and leave his family, but he took Lot because, Turner argues, he hoped Lot would be his heir. He did not live his life as a blessing for others, and at the end of the story Abraham has only one legitimate son, and has only seen the land that he does not own. Why? Abraham's stumbling obedience is in part to blame. Likewise, Esau never serves Jacob as was promised in the oracle, and Joseph's father and mother never bowed down to him as he dreamed, because both father and son tried to make the foretold events happen through their own efforts.

In sum, by reading the announcements very strictly, Turner goes against the "predestinarian" mainstream of Genesis interpretation and sees God's commands and promises only partly fulfilled. His observations come together in an interesting formula: "human attempts to frustrate the Announcements tend to fulfil them; human attempts to fulfil the Announcements tend to frustrate them." This conclusion bears great theological significance for an understanding of human nature, obedience, and faith, but Turner seems content to state that it calls into question the idea that God's will overcomes all obstacles in Genesis. His comments do force readers to look closely and to ask if more is said about human resistance to God's will in Genesis than is typically assumed. While I wonder if Turner is using too tight a definition of fulfillment, his attempt to point out some unexamined assumptions about the text are well taken.

Hugh C. White, in Narration and Discourse in the Book of Genesis (Cambridge University Press, 1991, 312 pp.), examines the distinction between the speech of the narrator and that of the characters to see what light can be shed on Genesis. He observes that characters such as Adam and Abraham are introduced as recipients of the divine Word; little is said about their appearance or character traits and nothing is said about the source of the divine Voice. This divides the narrator's function and alters the typical relation of the narrator to the characters. The voice of God cannot be treated as simply another character, because it shares elements with the voices of both story-teller/creator and those whose stories are being told.

Speech-act theory informs his treatment of the divine promise, promise being a clear example of a word that does something for the listener (creates hope, doubt or questioning) even as it signifies. However, Genesis opens not with a promise, but divine Command ("Let there be light.") that is followed by words to the created humans of permission and prohibition (Gen 2:16-17). The material description of the scene in Eden sets the stage for a humanity motivated by desire, and sets up a contrast between the world inside and outside, again presaging the expulsion.

If inordinate desire was expelled by prohibition and punishment in the garden story, desire is introduced again in the promise to Abraham along with a new mode of living in relationship to desire. By receiving land, offspring and blessing from God in the form of a promise, Abraham's desire is satisfied in part and a new relationship is established with the promisor, a relationship of faith. Divine promise replaces divine prohibition.

The transmission of the promise to more than one son is the center of the Joseph story as the divine Voice recedes into the background. Joseph's dreams of greatness are a new form of divine promise and Joseph, in reporting the dreams, becomes a quasi-narrator who is caught up in the action. His theocentric words at the end of the story, "God sent me... God meant for good" writes a new story on top of the one told by the narrator, one in which God is the "primary acting subject." At the end of the story of Genesis God declares his purposes through a human voice.

This is a very sensitive and perceptive reading in which interpretations are grounded both in immediate context and in the context of the whole book. Modern narrative theory (which White surveys in the first third of the book) provides tools to help White observe what is going on, and so his larger conclusions are very solid, while some of the details seem overworked. Preachers and teachers would appreciate this book if they read it for an eye-opening account of the communication processes at work in narrative and for a renewed vision of the rhetoric of Genesis, but it will not offer quick help with Sunday's sermon or tonight's Bible study. White opts for richness and complexity over easy accessibility.

In The Voice of Jacob (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature Series, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990, 122 pp., $22.50) Leslie Brisman attempts to redefine the earliest of the modern biblical approaches, source criticism. Rejecting the traditional theory that the Pentateuch is the product of independent strands, Brisman postulates a multi-voiced text that resulted from the effort of one writer to reinterpret the viewpoint of another. The earlier foundational writer is not J, as Wellhausen suggested, but rather the voice of pious obedience and transcendent understanding of God (found outside the J texts in E and P). Brisman calls this voice Eisaac, joining the E of the Elohist strand with the name of the famous figure of faith and obedience. The earthy and irreverent style of J is revisionary, not pristine, and so J is called Jacob after Isaac's wily son.

Although Brisman's stated intent is to bring some sense of relationship between what are often viewed as separate literary strands, his reading fails to present a compelling vision of Genesis. The interplay between Eisaac and Jacob does produce a number of fresh insights into isolated features of the text, but what lacks is a clear notion of Jacob's purpose in re-reading the stories. Brisman does little to explore the motivation behind Jacob's revisionary spirit; therefore little insight is gained into the significance of this revised work for ancient or modern readers. We are left with a behind the scenes look at the making of a film without the film itself. While seeking to unify the texts (by pointing out their interaction), he has driven Eisaac and Jacob apart.

Another book in the same series, King and Kin: Political Allegory in the Hebrew Bible by Joel Rosenburg (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986, 254 pp., $10.95) speaks of the interaction between certain texts as political "midrash." Genesis is a commentary of sorts on the Davidic history in II Samuel, a political allegory. Key words in the account of Amnon's rape of Tamar remind the reader of the temptation in the garden, but the story is more than a moral fable; it also criticizes David's political strategies. Absalom's murder of Amnon resembles Abel's death at the hand of Cain, especially when interpreted by the woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14:5-7). Most importantly, the garden story sets out a pattern that can also be seen in the lives of Abraham and David: a protagonist leaves home and kin behind, suffers scandal and exile via a woman (note the assumptions concerning the woman's role), allows one son to be preferred and experiences the death of that son (Isaac was as good as dead in Abraham's eyes) and sees a another son exiled. Engaging and provocative, Rosenburg's treatments of the stories take these patterns and hold them forth, not as something imposed on the text, but as an underlying schema that urges one to read broadly and deeply. What readers may think to be forced patterning may turn out to be the subtle allusion that the narratives place before them.

The social scientific approach is best seen at work in Naomi Steinberg's Kinship and Marriage in Genesis: A Household Economics Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993, 162 pp., $12.00). Her thesis is that, "the stories in Gen 11:10-50:26 are concerned with genealogical continuity and inheritance." (p. 5) Against the anthropological system typified by Levi-Strauss, she holds that marriage establishes descent and not the formation of alliances. Her analysis of the narratives leads her to the conclusion that the issue of where the men of these stories find their spouses is central, since only patrilineal collateral marriage within the line of Terah establishes a claim to the land of Israel. Children born to marriages outside of that marriage system are ineligible.

Steinberg observes that three genealogies (Gen 11:10-32; 25:12-26; 36:1-43) introduce three major narrative cycles (Gen 12:1-25:11; 25:27-25:29; 37:1-50:26) that depict issues of reproduction and inheritance. The Sarah-Hagar cycle depicts polycoity, the practice of raising offspring through a woman who is not a wife. Ishmael is not to inherit because he is not a son of a female descendant of Terah, as is Isaac. The birth of Jacob and Esau to Rebekah shows how inheritance is resolved when a monogamous marriage with a female from Terah's line produces more than one candidate as heir. Jacob buys the birthright for lentils and Rebekah helps him steal the blessing, but between the two incidents is a report that Esau married a Hittite woman, one who is outside the line of Terah. Rebekah sends Jacob to her brother Laban to save Jacob from Esau's wrath, but also to make sure that he marries within the proper line. But Jacob marries two of Laban's daughters; which will produce his heir? In this situation of sororal polygyny, cross-cultural studies report multiple heirship. Multiple heirship is helpful in understanding the prominence given to two sons, Joseph and Judah, in the narrative and in the poetic blessing off Jacob in Genesis 49. In addition, all twelve sons may be also be considered heirs. Thus the problems of lineal descent is dissolved and a horizontal system is set in its place; in this system, descent from Terah can be traced through any of the twelve tribes.

The approach does not account for everything, however, especially the break in the pattern that appears as Judah and Joseph take wives that are not from the patrilineal heritage. It is simply observed with an explanation in narrative terms, that Jacob accepted the sons of Joseph. The issue of inheritance in general also carries theological overtones which Steinberg does not discuss, but her focus allows for a clear reading of the narrative that puts many confusing details in their place.

Literary concerns come into Steinberg's work, and they are present as well in two other studies that employ methods from the social sciences. Terry J. Prewitt's The Elusive Covenant: A Structural Semiotic Reading of Genesis (Advances in Semiotics Series, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990, 160 pp., $20.00) integrates the study of literary form, sign theory and kinship structures to demonstrate unifying structures in the narrative. He examines genealogical patterns, the depiction of polity and history, narrative structural patterns and the resultant mythos and ethos represented. He posits a chain of chiastic structures for each cycle of stories, but does not mention Gary Rendsburg's similar work in The Redaction of Genesis. As one would expect, there are many complex charts and explanations; therefore, the book is valuable as an analysis of the cultural and organizational dynamics at work in the text, not as a commentary.

Devora Steinmetz's title, From Father to Son: Kinship, Conflict, and Continuity in Genesis (Louisville: Westminster Knox, 1991, 224 pp., $15.95) reflects her interest in the tension between inheritance and aggression that is present in father-son relationships. After reviewing the theories of Malinowski, Freud, Girard and others on the role of fatherhood, Steinmetz uses the story of Oedipus to illustrate the problem; a father wants to insure immortality by passing on all of his "self" (both material and cultural) to an heir, but in so doing insures his own mortality and displacement. Hence the father-son conflict that must find resolution. The family relationships depicted in Genesis 12-50 both seek that resolution and model a social system for Israelite society in which members can live together without conflict. While violence between father and son does not arise as it does in other ancient stories, violence does threaten whenever blessing is about to be transmitted.

The book rightly notes the presence of violence and sacrificial images in the narratives (The ram at Moriah, the goat slaughtered to deceive Isaac, and the goat slaughtered to deceive Jacob) but the explanations derived seem far removed from the concerns of the text. The book is especially strong at pointing out links between the stories, especially the parallels between the pairings of Isaac and Rebekah and Judah and Tamar; both women covered their faces before meeting the men, both meetings occured near a well with a name that puns on the act of seeing, and both have twins who struggle in the womb, with one twin associated with the color red.

Steinmetz also rightly observes that the actions of characters in Genesis prefigure events in the later history of the nation; Abraham goes to Egypt and returns to Canaan and there fights with inhabitants of the land, just as Israel will do later. More importantly, key words related to the covenant show up in the stories of Abraham and Jacob. In sum, the book is strongest at pointing up links and connections and sensitively observing the use of these links to forge a typology of the nation in the patriarchal stories. It is less effective in handling the theme of intergenerational violence, something that seems to be more of a concern of modern psychological and sociological theory than that of the biblical narrator.

This survey of commentaries and books on Genesis is not exhaustive, but it should show that the practice of interpretation has continued to move away from concerns for the history of the composition of Genesis as it moves toward the study of the way the narratives tell their stories. This move places a new emphasis on the narrative's purpose to shape audiences' perceptions of the world around them and to instruct them in how to live in this world and relate to its God. To say this is not to say that historical concerns are unimportant to interpreters, but that these interpreters are becoming more and more aware of their role as readers of the historical and theological reality that is presented to them in the texts. In my opinion, this is a good development as long as the new emphasis on reading is matched by a concern for the theological teaching of Genesis. If the discovery of that theology is the goal, then attention to the communicative strategies of the texts ought to be able to help us to teach and preach with greater competence, sensitivity and power.

For over a decade the work of Robert Alter, Adele Berlin, and Meir Stemberg¹ has offered biblical interpreters and preachers new paths into the narratives of the Hebrew Bible. They have taught us to look closely at characterization, plot, and setting, and, when there is nothing left to see, to look for significance in what is not there in the gaps. Their names have made their way into the preaching textbooks.²

Two of the three call their work the study of poetics, defined by Berlin as looking "not only for what the text says, but also how it says it."³ Yet it is generally agreed that preachers are not only interested in what texts say, or even how, but also in their function-what is a given text supposed to do?

To speak of the function of a text is to speak of its rhetoric. Three recent works on rhetorical criticism of the Hebrew Bible discuss function in terms of effect on a reading or listening audience. Alan Hauser speaks of rhetorical criticism as one color in the spectrum of literary approaches to Old Testament interpretation. He explains that "a rhetorical critic will basically do two things in studying a unit of text: analyze the literary features of the text, to the maximum extent possible, from the perspective of literary style discernible in the works of ancient Israelite writers; and articulate the impact of the literary unit on its audience."⁴

Phyllis Trible takes her definition of rhetorical criticism from James Muilenburg’s famous address to the Society of Biblical Literature,⁵ which she summarizes as "A proper articulation of form yields a proper articulation of meaning." Her study of the book of Jonah concludes with a catalog of persuasive moves YHWH takes toward Jonah and the reading/listening audience: "In teaching rhetoric as the art of composition, the book of Jonah unfolds rhetoric as the art of persuasion."⁶

Dale Patrick, another of Muilenburg’s students, and Allen Scult, a rhetorician, believe that the rhetorical study must not be limited to matters of structure and style, but must consider the intention of writers to influence audiences. They broaden "the means by which a text establishes and manages its relationship to its audience in order to achieve a particular effect."⁷ The inspiration for this view of rhetoric comes not only from Muilenburg, but also from the late Kenneth Burke. Burke’s earliest writings were concerned with the effects writers meant to create in their reading audiences. Over time his focus turned from literary effects to what he began to call rhetorical effects, that is, what literary works are supposed to do for their creators and readers.⁸ His work sought to give attention to both poetics and rhetoric without imposing hard and fast boundaries on either.

 This essay will show how Burke’s recommendations for literary and rhetorical analysis can direct the reading of a biblical text in preparation for preaching. Preaching here is understood to be the communication of a text’s message for the purpose of achieving the same rhetorical effect that was intended for the original audience,⁹ or, in the case of a radically different contemporary audience/situation, one that corresponds closely to it. If a Scripture text was designed to encourage, convict, or move to action, the sermon based on that text should do the same.

Reading with Kenneth Burke

Throughout his career, Kenneth Burke sought to establish a balance between extrinsic and intrinsic types of criticism through his focus on literature as a "strategy for encompassing a situation."¹⁰ Burke’s commments on method were based on his theory that every literary work, as a work of language, has its own network of symbolic action that links the work to the environment within which it was created. II He described the internal analysis of the work in terms of poetics, but added that questions about symbolic action" do involve the relation of the work to the author and his"¹² environment, insofar as such information is available.¹³

Burke’s idea of the symbol as a link that is forged between writer and reader appeared in his first book of criticism, Counter-Statement (1931). "The symbol is the verbal parallel to a pattern of experience," and the appeal of the symbol is strongest when the artist’s and the reader’s pat, terns of experience closely coincide."¹⁴ Burke’s list of symbolic appeals stressed what the symbol, as the basis of a larger work of art, "does" for the writer and the reader. A symbol can interpret a situation, favor the acceptance of a situation, correct a situation, or liberate from a situation. "In sum, the symbol appeals either as the orienting of a situation, or as the adjustment to a situation, or as both."¹⁵

In order to determine the rhetorical function of a narrative, then, questions concerning the intention and design of the work as a form of symbolic action must be addressed. Burke stressed this function of communication when he defined rhetoric as "the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols."¹⁶ Here is an answer to the question, what is the interpreter to look for? The next question is how to look for it, and Burke cautioned that one should not ask one question without the other.

Burke made one of his first attempts to articulate his method in The Philosophy of Literary Form (1941), and suggested the following guide lines: First, the critic is to watch for dramatic alignments, or "what is versus what." Then one lists the equation, "what equals what." Attention is given to the beginnings and ends of works as well as the location of the peripety, noting the development "from what through what to what."¹⁷

Elsewhere, Burke has called this statistical analysis the "principle of the concordance."¹⁸ The critic notices key terms for acts, attitudes, ideas, images and relationships, beginnings and endings of sections, the significance of names, and details of the scene that may stand "astrologically" for motivations affecting character. By focusing attention on the words of a text and their use in their contexts, the interpreter discovers the symbolic function of those terms in relation to the work.¹⁹

The charting of "what leads to what" reveals the structure of the work, which in turn reveals the function of the work. Burke’s method begins with an internal analysis in order to discover the effect the work is meant to have on its author and audience. Acknowledging that much of the poet’s work does things for the poet that it does not do for the reader, he believed that, in general, by discovering what the poem does for the poet, one may discover "a set of generalizations as to what poems do for everybody" (Burke often referred to writers as poets).¹⁹

The main point is to note what the poem’s equational structure is. This is a statement about its form. But to guide our observations about the form itself, we seek to discover the functions which the structure serves. This takes us into a discussion of purpose, strategy, the symbolic act.²¹

In sum, the basic strategy underlying Burke’s method is a charting of the work’s structure in order to uncover its "medicine," that is, what it is supposed to do for the writer and the reader. Underlying the method is his primary assumption that an intrinsic analysis of the work will reveal its structure, which in turn will reveal its function or "medicine." Burke’s methods of analysis have been summarized as a series of four interpretive steps: 1) cluster analysis: what goes with what? 2) agon analysis: what is opposed to what? 3) analysis of progressive form: from what, through what, to what? and 4) analysis of transformations: what is changed into something or someone else?²² The four steps and their questions can help us discover the rhetorical strategy and purpose at work in the story of Judah and Tamar and their dealings with one another.

Genesis 38

While most modern interpreters of Genesis have viewed the story of Judah and Tamar as an unreldted intrusion into the Joseph story," a growing number are following the suggestion of Alter that this chapter is central to the story of Joseph and his family."²⁴ If one reads the story as part of the larger narrative concerning the family story (toledot) of Jacob (Genesis 37:2), then the verbal links with Judah’s suggestion to sell Joseph in chapter 37 and his later pledge and appeal for Benjamin in chapter 44 come to the foreground.²⁵ The figure of Tamar can recede in such a reading; it can be forgotten that the story can function on its own, centered on a woman’s clever solution to a serious problem when it is read as an independent short story, Tamar, not Judah, becomes the main character and hero. ²⁶

CLUSTER ANALYSIS: WHAT GOES WITH WHAT? Cluster analysis identifies key terms, noting either the frequency or the intensity of their use. Symbols and terms that are associated with key words indicate the meanings of those key words and their functions. One can then chart and look for patterns in associational clusters."²⁷

The descriptions and associations narrated in verses I and 2 of chapter 38 are predominantly masculine. Judah separates from his brothers and settles (Hebrew nth, "he turned") near an Adultamite named Hirah. He then sees and takes as a wife the daughter of a Canaanite man whose name, Shua, is given; the woman’s is not. The narration of verses 3, 4, and 5 uses descriptions that are predominantly feminine. The wife of Judah builds up a family; she conceives, bears, and names the sons at least two, if not three, times (some scholars emend the Hebrew masculine "he called" in verse 3 to agree with "she called" in verses 4 and 5).²⁸ The sequence of feminine active verbs, coming after a string of masculine verbs, sets up a distinction between the worlds of men and women that bears watching. Does it continue throughout the story?

In verses 6-11, the verbs are almost all masculine again. Judah "takes" for his firstborn son a wife named Tamar, just as he "takes" a wife for himself in verse 2. When Er’s evil moves YHWH to put him to death, Judah directs his second son, Onan, to fulfill the duty of the brother-in-law to father offspring to perpetuate the name and memory of his dead brother (see Deuteronomy 25:25). Onan only pretends to comply and is also put to death for the same reason as his brother: his deeds were "evil in the eyes of YHWH." This time Judah speaks to Tamar. He tells her to go to her father’s house until his third son, Shelah, grows up, but the storyteller reveals that Judah blames Tamar for the deaths. Tamar is silent in all of this. No verbs describe her action until she goes to her father’s house and stays there."²⁹

The separate verbal worlds of men and women continue throughout the story, with the exception of the interaction between Judah and the disguised Tamar in verses 16-18. Judah is not said to be present for the births of his twins in verses 27-30. We might speculate that the separation of the worlds of males and females was thought to be normal, but we cannot be certain. However, we also see that the actions of Er, Onan, and Judah have left Tamar childless and isolated. She is a woman without a place.³⁰

The separation breaks down in the scene that begins in verse 12. When Tamar hears that the widowed Judah is going up to shear the sheep at Timnah, she begins to act and speak. First, she disguises herself and sits by the road. The Hebrew word for "sit" (ysb) is the same one used for "remain" or "live" at the father’s house in verse 11; Judah sent her to live at her father’s house, but no one directed her to sit by the road. Second, Tamar speaks to Judah and bargains with him.³¹ He does not "take" her, as he took wives for himself and his son; he must tell her what he will give"(nm), three times (vv. 16,18). Judah later sends a goat to "take" the pledge back, but when she is not found, he decides to let her keep (again laq, "take") it. In her disguise, Tamar has entered the man’s world. She belongs to no one, and she directs her own actions, even negotiating for herself.³² It may be significant that the masculine and feminine verbs describing the sex act occur together for the first time in verse 18: "He went into her and she conceived by him."

So far the study of significant terms and their clusters has supported the reader’s notice that the actions of Tamar crossed the boundaries of propriety, not just in taking the role of a prostitute, but in taking the active role that had previously been unavailable to her. Tamar’s actions become even more significant when another cluster of key terms is charted. Words about seeing and recognition are clustered in verses 14-26. Tamar disguised herself because she "saw"(r ‘h) that Shelah had grown and she had not been given to him (v. 14). Judah "saw" her and took her for a prostitute (v. 15), for he did not "know"(yd’) that she was his daughter, in-law (v. 16). Judah heard that Tamar was pregnant and ordered her execution, but she set out his personal effects and said, "By the man who owns these I have conceived. Identify [or recognize, nkr] them; whose are they?"(v. 25). Judah identified them and revealed a new insight: "She is more in the right than I am, because I did not give her to Shelah my son" (v. 26).

Tamar acted because she "saw." As a result, Judah finally saw and ackowledged that he had acted unfairly toward his daughter-in-law. The idea is echoed in the name of the place where Tamar set herself, petah ‘enayim can mean "opening of the eyes."³² Yet Tamar and Judah are not the only ones who see; YHWH also sees that the acts of Er and Onan are evil (literally, "evil in the eyes of YHWH," vv. 7-10), and that moves YHWH to swift judgment. Judah is also judged for withholding offspring from Tamar, but much more gently. His death is the inner death of self-mortification that recognizes his injustice, and it ultimately leads to life. Are we encouraged to compare these different instances of seeing?

AGON ANALYSIS: WHAT IS VERSUS WHAT? The cluster of words related to seeing also has within it a pattern of opposition, much like the contrast between the worlds of men and women observed earlier. The agon analysis looks for words, themes, images, and principles that stand against one another. Agon analysis completes the work of cluster analysis by discovering the conflicts that may have motivated the work under study.³⁴

Certainly there is opposition between the actions of Er, Onan, and Judah that would deny life and the steps Tamar took to give life. There is also opposition between the life-taking judgment of YHWH in verses 7 and 10 and the life-saving intervention or "judgment" of Tamar. Not only did Tamar’s actions bring new life to the family (two sons for the two that were lost), but her exposure of Judah gave him the opportunity to mortify or "slay" himself and thereby avert the possibility of a deadly judgment from YHWH.

Why was YHWH merciful to Judah and not to Judah’s sons? Perhaps part of the answer is to be found in Tamar’s initiative on behalf of the family. The contrast may also be suggested by the use of the idiom "evil in the eyes of YHWH" (VV. 7 and 10), which, as mentioned above, becomes another term in the cluster of seeing. Nothing is said about YHWH seeing or judging judah’s actions, yet Tamar could see what Judah was doing. Judah was spared the judgment that had fallen on his sons when Tamar "saw" his wrong, acted to win her right, and caused Judah to see the injustice for himself The tragedy that begins the story is turned around so that it ends in comedy.

ANALYSIS OF PROGRESSIVE FORM: FROM WHAT, THROUGH WHAT, TO WHAT? Is the story over? Not until the second set of sons is born; and so we may look at the third step in Burke’s method, that of progressive form.³⁵ Burke also spoke of the "entelechial" test: "Look for moments at which, in your opinion, the work comes to fruition." The critic is here to attend to the terminology of these moments and then "spin from them."³⁶

The story ends not with Tamar’s exoneration, but with her delivery of twins. Two birth narratives form a frame around the story that begins with characters described as evil and ends with one who is called righteous, or at least "in the right" (sdkh). We can observe that verses 1-11 constitute a story of birth and succession that turns for the worse, while verses 12-30 tell another that ends in joy and uplift. One is filled with death and judgment, while redemptive mercy is at work in the other.

Tamar’s bearing of twins completes the cycle of two birth narratives, so comparison between the two sets of brothers seems to be in order. Strife between brothers runs throughout the stories of Abraham and Sarah’s descendants and appears in Onan’s mistreatment of his deceased older brother’s wife and memory. Yet we have seen that the sin and judgment of the first narrative (vv. 1-11) are answered with grace and redemption in the beginning of the second (vv. 12-26). Does this comic frame extend into the second birth narrative (vv. 27-30)? Perhaps so, for there is novelty, surprise, and perhaps even delight in the strange birth of the twins.

It is generally assumed that Perez "breaks out" (prs) violently and pulls his brother back in order to crawl over him.³⁷ Yet the brother’s hand is withdrawn, not pulled back, and there are no other indications of strife or violence. Could it be that the one marked as firstborn yields his position?³⁸ Perhaps this is to say too much about a sketchy narrative, but we should notice that there is no clear indication of brotherly strife or of twins fighting in the womb as Jacob and Esau did. The younger rises over the older, just as Joseph sees his youngest blessed first by Jacob (Genesis 48:8,20) and accepts the father’s favoritism, just as Judah learned to accept Jacob’s love for Joseph and Benjamin. Is there a foreshadow of that resolution here?

ANALYSIS OF TRANSFORMATION: WHAT IS CHANGED INTO SOMETHING ELSE? A number of changes have been noted throughout this analysis, especially in the persons of Judah and Tamar, but perhaps the most significant transformation is the transformation of the story itself. The second narrative parallels the first in structure, word choice, and theme, but it does so to rewrite the story. Tragedy becomes comedy, a widow gains her right, and a wrongdoer begins to see.

Tamar’s actions foreshadow those of Joseph, who also hides behind a disguise, uses personal effects to incriminate, and moves Judah to acknowledge guilt and act sacrificially.³⁹ By framing his brothers with the silver cup and claiming Benjamin as a slave (Genesis 42:6-44:17), Joseph recasts the scene of his own sale, hoping for a better outcome the second time around. In the same way, the second narrative of Genesis 38 begins in verses 12-16 with a second mention of Shua’s daughter, the man Hirah, and a journey in which Judah "saw" and "turned" (echoing the vocabulary of vv. 1-2), to indicate that this scene is a replay of the scene in verses I -II.

Here is no lightness in the first narrative, but in the second, the picture of a man leading a goat, looking for a prostitute that no one admits to having seen,⁴⁰ is quite comical. Judah realizes this and decides to cut his losses before he and Hirah become a laughingstock, yet the reader is already laughing at the thought that Judah has been beaten at his own game of deception.⁴¹ The laugh signals a brighter ending for this story, and for the larger story of Joseph and his family. Judah has been transformed, not killed; this transformation points to a greater one. Joseph will see God at work, not only in the life of Judah, who offers himself for Benjamin (Genesis 44:33), but in the entire constellation of events: "You meant to do evil to me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20). The story of Judah and Tamar recommends to the reader the work of God, sometimes hidden, but sometimes revealed to those with eyes to see.

Conclusion

Kenneth Burke’s body of work left many approaches to reading that readers and rhetorical critics have used with great profit.⁴² Yet more significant than the methods is the perspective that generated them. Richard B. Gregg writes, "Without taking anything away from Burke’s concrete methodological advice, his most valuable contribution to the rhetorical critic is his insight into the nature of human symbolic behavior and the potential effect of symbolic inducements."⁴³

The above analysis was written to show that Burke’s close reading of texts is different from, yet complementary to, the poetics of Alter, Berlin, and Stemberg. His focus on the rhetoric of symbolic action can help the preacher see the effects the writers of Scripture hoped to evoke in their audiences, thus unlocking their persuasive appeal. Preachers may want to highlight the associations and agons in a story-based sermon on Genesis 38, or they may choose to teach the biblical storyteller’s point that the injustice done to Tamar is corrected when the scene is replayed with a more active heroine. There ought to be plenty of freedom for invention in sermon writing. Preaching may or may not mirror the form of the biblical text, but it must recapture its function.

In sum, the analysis of clusters, agons, progressions, and transformations has helped us to chart not only the structure of Genesis 38, but its function, the effect it was intended to create. The chapter was written the way it was, the second story rewriting the first, to make us laugh and to make us glad that our own stories are also being written and rewritten by the same divine hand.⁴⁴

Endnotes

1. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981); Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (Sheffield: Almond, 1983); Meir Stemberg, ee (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).

2. Sidney Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching Biblical Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 188-227; John C. Holbert, Preaching Old Testament: Proclamation and Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991); Thomas G. Long, Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1989), 66-86
3. Berlin, Poetics, 20.
4. Alan J. Hauser, "Rhetorical Criticism of the Old Testament," in Rhetorical Criticism of the Bible: A Comprehensive Bibliography u4di Notes on History and Method, ed. Duane E Watson and Alan J. Hauser (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 1, 14.

6. Phyllis Trible, Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method and the Book of Jonah (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1994), 224-25.

7. Date Patrick and Allen Scult, Rhetoric and Biblical Interpretation, JSOT Supplement 82 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990): 12. A similar idea comes from Jerry Camery-Hoggatt, Speaking of God: Reading and Preaching the Word of God (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995), 56: "By managing the reader’s responses, the evangelist (gospel writer) makes the text a vehicle of transformation."

8. His taxonomy of the "kinds of criticism" distinguished extrinsic criticism (concerned with causes and effects of the work) and intrinsic criticism (analysis of the work itself). Kenneth Burke, "Kinds of Criticism," Poetry 68 (Aug. 1946): 274-79. However, Burke meant to appreciate both modes of criticism while seeking to deduce from such analysis the principles of the work, the way a writer crafts a work to produce certain effects. "The Principle of Composition," Poetry 99 (Oct. 1961): 52.

9. Camery-Hoggatt, Speaking of God, 16, 162.

10. Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action, 3d ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 109.

11. Greig Henderson see symbolic action as a mediatory term: "Because of the ambiguity built into the transaction between text and context, there arises a need for mediation. Symbolic action is the principle of mediation." Literature and Language as Symbolic Action (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988), 18.

12. Burke’s earlier writings do not exhibit the inclusive language he used in his last years of writing and speaking.

13. Kenneth Burke, "Poetics in Particular, Language in General," in Language as Symbolic Action (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 42. Burke also labeled the intrinsic approach as formalistic, while he called the extrinsic approach sociological. "Formalist Criticism: Its Principles and Limits," in Language as Symbolic Action, 495-99.

14. Kenneth Burke, "Lexicon Rhetoricae," in Counter-Statement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 152-53.

15. Ibid., 156.

16. Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 43.

17. Burke, Philosophy, 69-71.

18. Kenneth Burke, "Fact Inference and Proof in the Analysis of Literary Symbolism," in Symbol and Values: An Initial Study, Thirteenth Symposium of the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion (New York: Harper, 1954), 283-306. Reprinted in Terms for Order, ed. S. E. Hyman with B. Karmiller (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964), 145-72.

19. Ibid., 148.

20. Burke, Philosophy, 73-74.

21. Ibid., 101.

22. William H. Rueckert, "A Field Guide to Kenneth Burke-1990," in Extensions of the Burkeian System, ed. James W Chesebro (Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1993), 16-17.

23. J. Alberto Soggin, "Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38)," in Of Prophets’ Visions and the Wisdom of Sages: Essays in Honor of R. Norman Whybray on His Seventieth Birthday, ed. H. A. McKay and David J. A. Clines (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 281, citing the commentary of Claus Westermann, Genesis 37-50 (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986), 49-57. Westermann’s most recent book does not include any discussion of Genesis 38. Joseph: Eleven Bible Studies on Genesis (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996).

24. Alter, Biblical Narrative, 1-22. Judah Goldin, "The Youngest Son or Where Does Genesis 38 Belong," JBL 96 (1977): 27-44, notes that the problem was seen as early as Genesis Rabbah, par. 85.2, stating that the rabbi’s "approach of looking for idiomatic or thematic connection or association is sound," 3 1.

25. Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary (New York: Norton, 1996), 217-23, 265. Significant repetitions include the directive to "recognize" or "identify" personal effects (Genesis 37:32 and 38:25-26), and the pledge, or offer of security (Genesis 38:17-18 and 44:32). See also Terence Fretheim, "Genesis," in The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. I (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 604-5.

26. So also Harold Bloom, The Book of J (New York: Vintage Books), 220-23. The actions of Tamar also relate to the larger theme of the promise of nationhood in Genesis 12:1. Lawrence A. Turner, Announcements of Plot in Genesis (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 170; Gordon J. Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 2: Genesis 16-50 (Dallas: Word Books, 1994), 365.

27. Sonja K. Foss, Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1989), 368-70, 374, citing Burke, Philosophy, 20.

28. Westerrnann, Genesis 37-50, 47; Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 430.

29. For a description of these events from Tamar’s point of view, see Sharon Pace Jeansonne, The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Podphar’s Wife (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990), 98-106.

30. Susan Niditch, "The Wronged Woman Righted: An Analysis of Genesis 38," Harvard Theological Review 72 (1979): 143,48.

31. The change of costume and role may explain the repetition of the word nth in verses 1 and 16. It can be translated "turned aside" or even "spread the tent," in the sense of staying with someone. Soggin, "Judah and Tamar," 281, suggests that it be translated "to join in business" in verse 1, but says nothing about verse 16.

32. See Phyllis Bird, "The Harlot as Heroine. Narrative Art and Social Presupposition in Three Old Testament Texts," Semeia 46 (1989): 119-39.

33. Ira Robinson, "bepetah ‘enayim in Genesis 38:14," JBL 96/4 (1977): 509; Johanna W H. Bos, "An Eyeopener at the Gate: George Coats and Genesis 38," Lexington Theological Quarterly 27 (Oct 1992): 119-23; Hamilton, Genesis, 40.

34. William H. Rueckert, Kenneth Burke and the Drama of Human Relations, 2^nd ed. (Berkeley: Univiversity of California Press, 1982), 86, 90. See also Carol A. Berthold, "Kenneth Burke’s Cluster-Agon Method: Its Development and an Application," Central States Speech Journal 27 (Winter 1976): 302-9.

35. Burke, Counter-Statement, 124-25.

36. Burke, "Fact, Inference, and Proof," 167.

37. Westermann, Genesis 37-50, 55; Hamilton, Genesis 18-50, 453.

38. Perez is listed before Zerah in Genesis 46:12 and I Chronicles 2:4-6.

39. Peter F Lockwood, "Tamar’s Place in the Joseph Cycle," Lutheran Theological Journal 26 (May 1992): 35-43. Lockwood observes that the transformation of Judah in Genesis 38 "provides a pointer to what will occur in the Joseph cycle at large."

40. Rosemarie Anderson, "A Tent Full of Bedouin Women," Daughters of Sarah 19 (Winter, 1993): 34-35. Anderson, citing anthropological research on the nomadic and tribal Bedouin, suggests that Tamar did not act alone, but received help from her village in carrying out the deception.

41. Bernhard Luther saw here an expression of the naffator’s friendly attitude toward Judah: "But mixed in with the laughter of the spectator is the joy that the catastrophe has been averted, and, in novelistic terms, that he now has three sons again. Blessing has finally come to him. So affection for Judah is linked with the laughter." "The Novella of Judah and Tamar and Other Israelite Novellas," in Narrative and Novella in Samuel: Studies by Hugo Gressmann and Other Scholars, 1906-1923, trans. D. E. Orton, ed. David M. Gunn (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1991), 114.

42. In addition to Foss, see Bernard L. Block, Robert L. Scott, James W Chesebro, eds., Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Twentieth Century Perspective, 3d ed. rev. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990); and Roderick P. Hart, Modern Rhetorical Criticism (Glenview, Ill.: Scott Foresman, 1990).

43. Richard B. Gregg, "Kenneth Burke’s Concept of Rhetorical Negativity," in Extensions of the Burkeian System, 190.

44. An earlier version of this essay was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Homiletics, December 1996.

We find the most penetrating understanding of the power and politics in the biblical literature. Thus far we tend to suppress those biblical passages that expose radically the reality of the power such as Revelation 13. Churches have been preoccupied with Romans 13, which has often been misinterpreted.

There are three levels of power realities in the Bible: One is the Imperial powers, second is the power of kings in the history of Israel, and the third is the politics of the Messiah and politics of God(the Kingdom of Messiah and the Kingdom of God) among the people of God. The Sovereign Rule of God is a overarching theme of the Bible from beginning to end; and the imperial powers of the surrounding empires from Egypt and Babylon to Greece and Rome, is placed in the context of the govereignty of God. The powers of the kings in the history of the people of Israel was also set in the context of the Reign of God.

The people of God experienced the imperial power of the great empires as well as the rule of kings, in the history of Israel. They struggled to keep their faith in the Sovereignty of God, in the midst of their political experience of oppression and exile under the powers of the empires and kingdoms. The vision of the politics of the people of God emerged in the form of prophetic movement, priestly movement, and messianic movement.

The establishment of monarchy in the life of the people of Israel was an ambiguous project, for its relationship with the Sovereignty of God could not be clearly spelled out and the only model of monarchy available was that of despotic rule, which was already established among the peoples surrounding Israel. There was a need for the security of the covenant community of the tribal people of Israel against the powers of the despotic kingdoms that threatened Israel militarily, as is recorded in Judges; but at the same time the establishment of a monarchy modelled after despotic rule or modified despotic rule subverted the very essence of the covenant community.
 
 

This is the reason why Samuel in principle opposed the establishment of a monarchy in Israel, for it would enslave the people, God's covenant would be broken, and the security and rights of the people would be violated.In God's Covenant with the people, the Sovereignty of God entails the sovereign rights of the people, which God has ordained, and which the kingdoms and empires are to protect.It is in this light that the kingship of David, the monarchy and the empires must be judged. This means that the Davidic kingship was understood as permissible only as he was the servant king of Yahweh, and as his kingship consisted of service to God and to the sovereign rights of the people. This is called the Davidic Covenant. The Davidic kingship was permissible only in the framework of God's Covenant with the people of God.

We quote here the full text of objections as it appears in I Samuel 8:10-18.

All that Yahweh had said, Samuel repeated to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, "These will be the rights of the king who is to reign over you. He shall take your sons and assign them to his chariotry and cavalry, and they will run in front his chariot. He will use them as leaders of a thousand and leaders of fifty; he will make them plow his plowland and harvest his harvest and make his weapons of war and the gear for his chariots. He will also take your daughters as perfumers, cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields, of your vineyards and olive groves and give them to his officials. He will take the best of your man servants and maid servants, of your cattle and your donkeys, and make them work for him. He will tithe your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out on account of the king you have chosen for yourselves, but on that day God will not answer you."

Historically David the King of the people of Israel violated the covenant code, as illustrated in the story of confrontation between David and Nathan over the "robbing" of Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. The confrontation between Nathan and David reveals the nature of the Davidic rule, which followed the way of despotism and broke the covenant, At the same time it reveals the true nature of political leadership as preserver of justice, on the basis of the covenant(II Samuel 12:1-15).

King Solomon was a typical despotic ruler in violation of the covenant, due to his building of the kingdom along the lines of a despotic monarchy. Chaney's following description is very apt: "Solomon's attempts to finish the transformation of Israel into a typical agrarian nation-state, complete with his erection of the Temple as a royal chapel to house Yawehism as a state established and state-legitimizing religion, were minus that flow of booty. To finance ambitious building programs, the importation of military materiel and luxury goods on a grand scale, and the maintenance of burgeoning military, court, and cultic establishment, Solomon pressed his agrarian economic base to the breaking point."

Subsequently all the kings of the people of Israel are judged by the same covenant; and the Deutronomic assessment of monarchs in the history books of the Old Testament reflects this understanding of the relationship of kingship and the covenant. King Ahab became the symbol of the king who breaks the covenant, through his appropriation of the vinyard of Naboth.

The protest movement of Elijah rises against this background. When the covenant framework of political life for the people of God had been completely broken, there arose a the vision for the restoration of the covenant political community.

The covenant community emerges from the Exodus movement of the Hebrew people out of Pharaoh's Egypt. The story of the Exodus is the story of the Sovereignty of Yahweh in the political life of the Hebrew people. The covenant is that Yahweh is the Lord of the Hebrew people and they are the people of God; and that therefore, under the covenant the people can have loyalty to no one other than Yahweh. The Sovereignty of Yahweh means denial, rejection and resistance against the "sovereignty" of the Egyptian Pharaoh.

The Exodus movement was the historical beginning of opposition to any despotic and imperial rule over the people of God; and the covenant community is the first political and socio-economic expression of the Sovereignty of Yahweh, who liberated the Hebrew slaves from the land of Egypt.

This covenant politics was expressed in the prophetic movment. The prophetic movement was the political resistance against all despotic or imperial rule, and it was the witness to the Sovereignty of God and its political expression, that is, the restoration of the covenant community.

The Deuteronomic view of kings and their rules is a manifestation of the covenantal view of the politics of God with the people of God. It is in this context that the prophetic movement of politics should be understood. Prophetic politics is not only the criticism of the despotic powers that have violated the covenant with God in oppressing the poor and the weak; but also and specially a projection of the shape of the Sovereign Rule of God, which does not allow any absolute despotic powers, but which subjugates the powers into the form of "Servant" to the Sovereign God. This is the only form of power allowed under the Sovereignty of God the Servant, who protects the rights of the poor and oppressed, as prescribed in the covenant with God.

In prophetic politics the Sovereign Rule of God is just, in that the poor and the weak are protected against imperial and despotic rule, both of which are rebellious against God the Sovereign. The prophetic movement was to restore the faithful relationship between God and the people of God, which means the restoration of the covenant community. Therefore, prophetic politics is not merely critical and negative politics. not merely transcendent politics, but politics for the concrete resoration of the covenant community. It is not legalistic but dynamic(Jeremiah 31:31-34). Nevertheless, the prophets reminder that the true Sovereign is God means that the people of God had to have concrete legal provisions of do's and don't's.

The people of Israel wanted the restoration of Davidic rule in its ideal form, not in its historical form. For the Davidic kingship was permitted in the form of Servant King to Yaheweh, not in the image of the despotic and imperial powers, which were by definition rebellious against the Rule of Yahweh. What this means is that there is necessarily a polity of the Davidic king as Servanthood to the Sovereign and to the sovereign will of the people. And this polity is radically different from the despotic and imperial polity, which is authoritarian and absolute.

The people of God experienced the various kind of imperial powers in tragic and dramatic waya. The imperial powers of Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome are regarded as powers of darkness and chaos in the Biblical literature, especially in the Apocalyptic writings. Any reverence shown to these powers is seen as religious idolatry and politcal prostitution.

In Genesis chapter one, the chaos and darkness represent the rebellion against the Sovereignty of God by the empires; there is a rejection and absence of God's Reign in the imperial rule, under which there is no life, no justice and no shalom of God.

God's Sovereign Rule means the created order and the garden of God in it. In the garden there was the tree of life; and as the limit to human sovereignty there was placed the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Human rule violated the prohibition and claimed the place of God, who knows good and evil. The power that claims the knowledge of good and evil is in itself a rebellion against God, who is the very source of the Wisdom and knowledge of good and evil. But such is the truth-claim of the absolute powers.

The human power that is rebellious against God's Sovereign Rule, finds itself naked(self-knowledge of self-contradiction) and defends itself through its own rationalization before the Sovereignty of God.

This rebellion of human power is manifested in the vicious cycle of violence and enmity in human community, where the koinonia of Adam and Eve has been realized in their household. Not only Adam and Eve were chased out of the garden, but there were conflicts between the serpent and the woman, and later in Cain's killing of Abel. Adam and Eve and Cain defended themselves before God, for they could not stand naked before God. The naked power must hide itself with the veil of self-justification and rationalization, which is the ground of self-legitimation.

In the story of Noah the people of God were under the threat of the flood; and the Tower of Babel as the symbol of empire rose for the first time to defy God's sovereign rule. A monolithic language, the ideology of modern day power, was established for the erection of the Tower of Babel, the Babylonian Empire. The monolithic language and ideology of the Babylonian Empire did not create communication, but imposed the will of the power upon the people. The consequence was confusion between what the people wanted and what the imperial power wanted; and there was a contradiction between what God willed and what the empire willed.

In Daniel and Revelations, the principalities and powers are referred to as animals and mythical beasts which form a jungle of killing and death. These political perceptions show a profound understanding of history as is dominated by ruthless imperial powers that claim to be absolute. Historicism and rationalism in their understanding of this apocalyptic literature, have completely lost such a depth of understanding about power. We need to recover these apocalyptic stories as a way of understanding the reality of power today.

The stories of the victims of the oppressive political powers possess keen and penetrating political perceptions about the reality of the powers of domination. The apocalyptic literature should be regarded as the story of politically oppressed people about the dominating powers.

The author of the Book of Revelations sees the Roman Empire as Babylon and as Leviathan. Empires are described in a mythical and symbolic language, as Behemoth and Leviathan, which are monsters of evil and chaos. Several characteristics of the empires are shown in these symbolic and visionary descriptions: 1)The most important characteristic is their rebellious character against the Sovereignty of God. The religious character of the rulers of the empires as gods is the absolutization of political authority. The second most important characteristic is their power of violence. Behemoth and Leviathan are mystical powers, which are most violent against the people of God. These beasts are the main players in jungle. The third but most most significant reality of these powers is revealed by the suffering of their victims, the oppressed and persecuted people. These characteristics are not merely symbolic realities, but the very concrete, inner, dynamic realities of the imperial powers. It is noteworthy that the reality of the imperial powers is "revealed" rather than analyzed, although concrete facts about the powers are not lacking in the description of them. 

For Jewish homileticians, early spring is not a good time. According to the rabbinic cycle of Torah readings, this is when we come down from the great heights of Genesis and Exodus, with their breathtaking perspectives and sweeping visions, and enter the flat and seemingly arid plain of Leviticus. As my Protestant friends sympathetically remind me, Leviticus simply "does not preach."

And yet Leviticus is central, literally and figuratively, to what the Pentateuch is all about. The Pentateuch is the story of how the people of Israel came into being and came to receive their gift of the Promised Land. Genesis and Exodus introduce us to the story and bring us to its crucial turning point, the arrival at Sinai and the reception of the Revelation. Numbers and Deuteronomy complete the narrative, describing the experiences and lessons of the people as they leave Sinai and finally arrive at the edge of the Promised Land. In the middle stands Leviticus. Leviticus lets us pause and consider the content of the Revelation. It offers instruction in the technology of the holy—instruction that will shape the divine service in the temple and the rhythm and content of Israel’s holy life after it enters the land.

It is easy for us to skip over Leviticus because it appears so utterly foreign. The very institutions that Leviticus presupposes—the temple and its levitical priesthood—are completely alien to us, whether we are Jewish or Christian. To be sure, all Western religious traditions draw heavily on the vocabulary and symbolism of Leviticus: priesthood (whether clergy or "of the people"), sacrifice, offerings, uncleanness, purification, ablution/baptism, the redeeming power of blood, and on and on. But these are all bits and pieces of the levitical system taken out of their original context and transformed into the very different framework of church and synagogue. It is only in Leviticus that these elements come together naturally to form a comprehensive and coherent system.

Our challenge is to tease out what the book’s familiar-sounding terms and themes meant to people of another time and place. How did the priests, Levites and commoners of that time understand what they were doing, and what does their understanding mean for us today? Adducing and communicating this understanding is the job of modern critical commentaries like Erhard S. Gerstenberger’s. They take on the difficult if not impossible task of preserving the foreignness of Leviticus while still making it relevant.

There seems to be a scholarly consensus that the Book of Leviticus, more or less as we have it, is from exilic times. The generally agreed-upon context is the permission given by Cyrus of Persia (in approximately 538 B.C.E.) to the exiled Judeans to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. We know from archaeological evidence that Cyrus allowed a number of conquered peoples to rebuild their homelands and local temples. In each of these cases he required the newly re-established priesthood to publish its traditional law. Leviticus, in this scholarly view, is the result of the Judean priesthood’s effort to do so. This is why Leviticus (and the "P" document generally) reads like a priestly handbook. It was composed to inform Cyrus and his officials about what the Jerusalem priesthood intended to do with its newly granted authority.

This historical context does not mean, however, that scholars think Leviticus was made up out of whole cloth by exiled priests in the sixth century B.C.E. No doubt the priestly writers brought to their task memories or traditions of what once had been and so should be again. It is also clear that the book was not written at one sitting by a single author. Leviticus has every sign of being a composite work.

It is best, then, to think of Leviticus as a complex document written over an extended period of time (the rebuilding of the temple took nearly 25 years) by a variety of authors. It should not be treated as an historically reliable description of how the temple actually operated. Whether or not the Second Temple ever followed this blueprint exactly is an interesting question, but one that goes beyond the purview of this essay. But it is evident that in its details, Leviticus offers remarkable insight into the priestly imagination of exilic and postexilic Judah. It tells us what the priesthood, or at least an influential part of it, thought temple ritual ought to be.

Leviticus can be divided into two major parts. The first (chapters 1-16) is concerned with the operation of the priesthood and proper disposition of the sacrifices and offerings brought to the altar. The second (chapters 17-26) has to do with the maintenance of a certain purity or holiness by the Judean community as a whole. This holiness is deemed necessary if the temple and its sacred altar are to abide in the land.

Historically there have been three ways of approaching the rather technical material in the portion of Leviticus that deals with sacrifice. The first is best exemplified in rabbinic writings, especially the Mishnab and Talmud. This approach tries to work out the legal intricacies of the rules for sacrifice, to fill in the gaps and reconcile the inconsistencies embedded in the text: for example, determining the status of an animal designated for one type of sacrifice but erroneously slaughtered for another; or determining what to do if an animal that has been properly slaughtered and its blood correctly sprinkled on the altar is then found to have a blemish that should have disqualified it.

The second method for understanding sacrifice rules is what we might call the "history of religions" approach. The focus here is on how such religious rituals work on a deeper structural level. In this view, Leviticus is one example among many. In all religions priestly rituals are designed to overcome basic contradictions. In biblical Israel the contradiction consists of the fact that the most virulent sources of impurity are diseased and dead bodies and things pertaining thereto: bones, blood and the like. But to do their holy jobs, the priests must slaughter animals, sprinkle their blood on the altar, and burn and eat various portions of the carcasses. In classic religious fashion, that which is most dangerous and polluting is transformed by the proper ministrations of members of a holy caste ("priests" in this case) into a potent source of sanctity and holiness. The object of scholarship is to uncover the logic according to which this transvaluation occurs. According to the history-of-religions school, Leviticus tells us how this mythic transformation was understood in biblical Israel.

The third approach is to treat Leviticus as a symbolic or allegorical system that has little or nothing to do with sacrifices per se, but everything to do with teaching important lessons. Early use of this allegorical approach may be found in the work of Philo in the first century of the Common Era. An exemplary expression of this method is the work of Samson Raphael Hirsch, a mid-l9th-century Orthodox rabbi. In his interpretation, the offering ("korban," in Hebrew) is a means of getting close ("karob") to God; the whole-offering is the offering that one gives wholeheartedly—that is, with complete devotion. It must be without blemish to stress that our efforts to approach God come from strength and certainty, not weakness or compromise. An advantage of this approach is that it allows the book to "preach." One can find in the minutiae of the ancient priests’ daily routine some guidance and inspiration for our lives today. This approach’s disadvantage is that it strips the text of any historical meaning.

Although Gerstenberger’s commentary combines elements of all three approaches, he emphasizes the third. While he does attempt to indicate how the sacrifice laws of Leviticus operate, his real interest is in drawing larger religious conclusions from them. He does so by abstracting principles out of the specific laws of Leviticus and then associating those abstractions with other biblical passages. This approach has the advantage of rendering Leviticus immediately useful to the modern preacher, but it papers over the book’s special character and the uniqueness of its message. By privileging the Bible’s prophetic voice, Gerstenberger muffles the voice of the priests.

A good example of how Gerstenberger’s commentary proceeds can be found in his discussion of the sin- and guilt-offerings mentioned in Leviticus 4-5. After a brief discussion of how the sacrifices were carried out, Gerstenberger turns to his main concern, the larger religious meaning. He asserts that the point is "atonement"—that is, the need to "redress" a "disrupted relationship with God." This is an important theme, but it omits the context of Leviticus.

Gerstenberger virtually acknowledges as much when he notes that it "is difficult to explain rationally such ritualistic efforts at atonement. From biblical accounts of atonement situations, however, we are able to uncover the connection between rite and disrupted reality." Several paragraphs follow that ignore Leviticus but bring into the discussion citations from Genesis 4:10, Deuteronomy 2 1:1-9, II Samuel 21, Jonah 3:5-10 and so on.

This treatment illustrates some of the problems with Gerstenberger’s strategy. First is the generality of the terms he uses. Gerstenberger’s description of the situation calling for a sin- or guilt-offering as a "disrupted relationship with God" does not employ the phraseology of Leviticus. In fact, Leviticus seems to set forth the exact opposite meaning. It assumes that the proper offering will be efficacious just because the relationship with God is still functioning. Basically, a misuse of something has occurred and the illegitimate beneficiary has to make an appropriate gift to the altar. Within the covenant, a certain condition calls for a particular response.

A second and in some ways more problematic example is Gerstenberger’s use of the word "atonement." The Hebrew word "kapparah," although usually translated as "atonement," does not occupy exactly the same linguistic field as the English noun "atonement"—a word that has its own long theological history. Gerstenberger has subtly shifted the focus away from what the priests of Leviticus were talking about—namely effecting "kapparah"—and toward what is useful for Christian theological speculations, namely "atonement."

The problem goes deeper than simply substituting a word from one theological tradition for a word in another. Gerstenberger wants to explain what he has called Leviticus’s technology of "atonement" by associating it with other "atonement situations" in the Bible. There is no reason to suppose, however, that all biblical Israelites in all places and in all times held to the exact meaning of the verb "kipper." It is probable, for example, that the word has a different connotation in Jonah than it does in a technical priestly handbook such as Leviticus. Yet Gerstenberger writes as if all "biblical accounts of atonement situations" are the same and can be blended together to produce a single meaning, and that this meaning is fully captured in the word "atonement."

In his closing comment, significantly under the rubric of "theological content," Gerstenberger says, "In the ancient Orient and the Old Testament, atonement means the removal of detrimental elements, a re-establishment of disrupted order, a reconciliation with the deity, the elimination of anxiety among those who had incurred guilt, and the opening of new life possibilities." This is a huge claim. I grant that the word "atonement" in some modern Christian contexts might carry some, if not all, of these connotations. But I do not concede that "kapparah" and its equivalents meant all of this at all times in all the cultures of the "ancient Orient," and I am certain that Leviticus does not have these various meanings in mind. In short, Gerstenberger has gained preachability but lost precision. We learn a good deal about Gerstenberger and his theology, but less about the priesthood of biblical Israel.

The other part of Leviticus—the laws addressing the purity of the community as a whole—is called the Holiness Code. Among other themes, it describes the festival calendars, lists sexual taboos, deals with personal cultic purity and presents the Sabbatical and Jubilee cycles. It talks about the larger context within which the priests and the temple find themselves.

Gerstenberger adduces from these laws what he calls in some places the "theology of holiness." Again, as this label suggests, his interpretation addresses interests that are of more significance to Christianity than to Leviticus. Consider his summary remarks, for example: "Holiness, as we have said, is a sphere of power and purity unique to God. Yahweh’s person and his immediate surroundings, accordingly also the ‘house’ in which he dwells, are energy-laden to the highest degree. Every human infringement, every unauthorized encroachment into the holy sphere of necessity results in the death of the transgressor." These remarks do describe the effects of holiness, but I am far from convinced that they tell us what holiness means for the priestly writers of Leviticus.

The Hebrew word for holiness, "kedushah," carries with it a connotation of separateness or distinctiveness. The whole priestly enterprise of the Pentateuch is a matter of determining the natural divisions of creation and of ensuring that these are not violated. In terms of the altar, then, it follows that certain things belong in the realm of the community and certain things belong to the divine economy. The rules of sacrifice can certainly be read to indicate how we move things (such as sheep) from the one realm to the other. And it would follow that once an animal has left the human and entered the divine realm, it must be handled in special ways, in a special place by special people—i.e., in purity by priests within the temple compound. Holiness, then, is about treating in distinct ways that which is God’s. One who violates these boundaries earns punishment, but that punishment is a consequence of overstepping divinely ordained bounds, not of encountering an overwhelming energy field.

In this light, the Holiness Code functions to establish Israel itself as a holy entity, as a community different in certain ways from other peoples. This holiness is attained by the creation and maintenance of certain structures of time (the festival and sabbatical calendars), space (the temple and its component courtyards) and personal status (the sexual taboos). That these regulations have social benefits is beyond question; but for Leviticus they are important because they are divinely ordained, not because they serve utilitarian purposes. Thus Gerstenberger’s characterization of the holy times is, I think, beside the point. He notes, for example, that the "festival or sacred period often serves quite consciously to generate distance from the oppressive monotony of the workaday world, and through special presentations and rites to create the energy to experience a ‘different’ world, and possibly even to effect a thorough transformation of the burdensome circumstances of life." Though following the calendar might at times have resulted in such thoughts or emotions, there is nothing in the language of Leviticus to suggest that this was the reason these sacred times were commanded.

Leviticus presents us with a unique and detailed view into the mental world of a particular segment of biblical society. It speaks out of an institutional setting that is quite foreign to us, even if we have taken over much of its vocabulary. But the larger themes that Leviticus is working out through its minute "how to" instructions are universal religious themes. Leviticus tells us how to be holy not in emotion, intention or religious feeling, but in the details of everyday life. There are lessons here for us moderns, who often treat religion as an activity to be squeezed into a couple of hours on Friday nights or Sunday mornings. Leviticus suggests that everything we do can have a sacred quality if we pay attention to the details and perform each act properly. Although we do not have to do things exactly according to Leviticus, the book is not irrelevant.

It is this special meaning of Leviticus and its priestly authors that fails to come through in Gerstenberger’s commentary. But it is not a bad commentary. Much of Gerstenberger’s analysis is informed and sensitive, though he does not always ask the questions that are at the center of Leviticus’s concern. His commentary reminds us that not all of the Bible is prophetic. The Hebrew scriptures also express the Israelite priests’ deep concern for the sacralizing possibilities inherent in the mundane activity of everyday life.

This volume in the Old Testament Library series brings that other voice from our biblical heritage into our current religious discussion. The priests deserve a chance to have their own say on their own terms, rather than to be blended into some homogenous "biblical" view. Though Gerstenberger may not always have the right answers, he performs an important service in bringing the book and its voice to our attention.