Semeia 87: The Social World of the Hebrew Bible: Twenty-five years of the Social Sciences in the Academy

S emeia is an experimental journal devoted to the exploration of new and emergent areas and methods of biblical critici...

Author: Ronald A. Simkins | Stephen L. Cook (eds.)

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emeia is an experimental journal devoted to the exploration of new and emergent areas and methods of biblical criticism. Proposals for volumes employing the methods, models, and findings of linguistics, folklore studies, contemporary literary criticism, structuralism, social anthropology, and other such disciplines and approaches are invited. Although experimental in both form and content, Semeia proposes to publish work that reflects a well-defined methodology that is appropriate to the material being interpreted. Semeia is complemented by Semeia Studies, also published by the Society of Biblical Literature. As a monograph series, Semeia Studies encourages publication of more elaborate explorations of new and emergent approaches to the study of the Bible. founding editor (1974–1980): general editor: editor for Semeia Studies:

Robert W. Funk David Jobling, St. Andrew’s College, Saskatoon Danna Nolan Fewell, Theological School, Drew University

associate editors: Athalya Brenner, University of Amsterdam; Sheila Briggs, University of Southern California; Musa Dube, University of Botswana; Danna Nolan Fewell (Semeia Studies Editor), Theological School, Drew University; David M. Gunn, Texas Christian University; Richard A. Horsley, University of Massachusetts; Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, Graduate Theological Union; Stephen D. Moore, Theological School, Drew University; Tina Pippin, Agnes Scott College; Adele Reinhartz, McMaster University; Fernando Segovia, Vanderbilt University; Yvonne M. Sherwood, Glasgow University; Abraham Smith, Andover Newton Theological School; R. S. Sugirtharajah, University of Birmingham, UK; Gerald O. West, University of Natal; Gale A. Yee, Episcopal Divinity School. assistant to the general editor: Audrey Swan, University of Saskatchewan Issues of Semeia are unified around a central theme and edited by members of the editorial board or guest editors. Future themes and editors are given at the back of each issue of Semeia. Inquiries or volume proposals should be sent to the General Editor: David Jobling, St. Andrew’s College, Saskatoon, SK S7N OW3, Canada. Inquiries or manuscripts for Semeia Studies should be sent to the series editor: Danna Nolan Fewell, Theological School, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940. Semeia and Semeia Studies are published by the Society of Biblical Literature as part of its research and publications program. A subscription unit to Semeia consists of four issues (85–88 for 1999), and costs $25 for SBL members; $50 for non-members. Members and subscribers outside the U.S., Canada, and Mexico are requested to pay a postal surcharge. All payments should be in U.S. currency or its equivalency. Single issues are $19.95. Institutional subscription inquiries, subscription orders and orders for single issues (including multiple copy orders) should be sent to the Society of Biblical Literature, P.O. Box 2243, Williston, VT 05495-2243. Phone: (877) 725-3334 (toll free); Fax: (802) 864-7626.

SEMEIA 87

THE SOCIAL WORLD OF THE HEBREW BIBLE: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE ACADEMY

Guest Editors: Ronald A. Simkins and Stephen L. Cook Board Editor: Athalya Brenner

© 1999 by the Society of Biblical Literature

Published Quarterly by THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE 825 Houston Mill Road Atlanta, GA 30329

Printed in the United States of America on acid free paper

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CONTENTS Contributors to this Issue......................................................................................v Introduction: Case Studies from the Second Wave of Research in the Social World of the Hebrew Bible Stephen L. Cook and Ronald A. Simkins ..........................................1

CASE STUDIES 1.

Ancient Perceptions of Space/Perceptions of Ancient Space James W. Flanagan ..............................................................................15

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In the Shadow of Cain Paula M. McNutt ................................................................................45

3.

The Gift in Ancient Israel Gary Stansell ........................................................................................65

4.

The Unwanted Gift: Implications of Obligatory Gift Giving in Ancient Israel Victor H. Matthews ............................................................................91

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Whose Sour Grapes? The Addressees of Isaiah 5:1–7 in the Light of Political Economy Marvin L. Chaney..............................................................................105

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Patronage and the Political Economy of Monarchic Israel Ronald A. Simkins ............................................................................123

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The Lineage Roots of Hosea’s Yahwism Stephen L. Cook ................................................................................145

8.

To Shame or Not to Shame: Sexuality in the Mediterranean Diaspora Susan A. Brayford ............................................................................163

9.

Gender, Class, and the Social-Scientific Study of Genesis 2–3 Gale A. Yee ........................................................................................177

10. Ideology, Pierre Bourdieu’s Doxa, and the Hebrew Bible Jacques Berlinerblau..........................................................................193 11. Confronting Redundancy As Middle Manager and Wife: The Feisty Woman of Genesis 39 Heather A. McKay ............................................................................215

RESPONSES 12. Reconstructing Ancient Israel’s Social World Frank S. Frick ....................................................................................233 13. Twenty-Five Years and Counting Norman K. Gottwald ........................................................................255

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

Jacques Berlinerblau (Hofstra University) 311 Greenwich St. #9E New York, NY 10013 [email protected]

Victor H. Matthews Department of Religious Studies Southwest Missouri State University Springfield, MO 65804 [email protected]

Susan A. Brayford Centenary College of Louisiana 426 Coventry Ct. Shreveport, LA 71115 [email protected]

Heather A. McKay Religious Studies Department Edge Hill College of Higher Education Ormskirk L39 4QP United Kingdom [email protected]

Marvin L. Chaney San Francisco Theological Seminary 2 Kensington Rd. San Anselmo, CA 94960 [email protected] Stephen L. Cook Virginia Theological Seminary 3737 Seminary Rd. Alexandria, VA 22304 [email protected] James W. Flanagan Department of Religion Mather House Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH 44106 [email protected] Frank S. Frick Department of Religious Studies Albion College Albion, MI 49224 [email protected] Norman K. Gottwald (Pacific School of Religion) 765 Hilldale Ave. Berkeley, CA 94708 [email protected]

Paula M. McNutt Department of Religious Studies Canisius College 2001 Main St. Buffalo, NY 14208 [email protected] Ronald A. Simkins Theology Department Creighton University Omaha, NE 68178 [email protected] Gary Stansell St. Olaf College Northfield, MN 55057 [email protected] Gale A. Yee Episcopal Divinity School 99 Brattle St. Cambridge, MA 02138 [email protected]

INTRODUCTION: CASE STUDIES FROM THE SECOND WAVE OF RESEARCH IN THE SOCIAL WORLD OF THE HEBREW BIBLE Stephen L. Cook Virginia Theological Seminary

Ronald A. Simkins Creighton University

The Social Sciences in Biblical Interpretation The present volume appears in conjunction with the twenty-fifth anniversary of sessions in the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) exploring the use of the social sciences in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. In 1975, Norman Gottwald and Frank Frick cochaired the first program unit in the SBL devoted to the use of the social sciences in biblical studies. The “Consultation on the Social World of Ancient Israel” had two objectives. It sought (1) to identify emerging (and reemerging) types of sociological study of the Hebrew Bible in relation to other forms of biblical study. In addition, it aimed (2) to explore the potentialities and implications of sociological method for the understanding of biblical Israel. Since this initial consultation, the aim of incorporating social-scientific methods and theories into biblical studies has played a prominent role in successive and multiple SBL program units. Gottwald and Frick’s consultation was followed by the formation of a group on the “Social World of Ancient Israel,” which they also chaired. James Flanagan then joined Frick in cochairing a seminar on the “Sociology of the Monarchy in Ancient Israel.” Flanagan went on to chair with others the “Constructs of Ancient History and Religion” and “Constructs of the Social and Cultural World of Antiquity” groups. By 1990, the SBL had recognized the established place of social-scientific criticism in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible with the formation of the “Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures” section, under the initial leadership of Frick, but now chaired by Stephen Cook.1 The use of the social sciences in biblical interpretation traces back, of course, to the pioneering work of W. Robertson Smith. Early practitioners included Louis Wallis and the “Chicago School,” Johannes Pedersen,

1 On the New Testament side, a consultation on “Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament” began in 1983. The “Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament Section” was founded in 1985 under the leadership of Bruce Malina. The section has been renewed three times and is currently chaired by Douglas Oakman and Dennis Duling.

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Roland de Vaux, and Antonin Causse. These scholars, however, either did not develop a viable social-scientific agenda for biblical scholarship or did not give sufficient attention to social-scientific method and theory. Moreover, the contemporary scholarly atmosphere, which was conditioned by traditional European biblical scholarship, neo-orthodoxy, and the Biblical Theology movement, was mostly unconducive to social-scientific research programs. This “first wave” of social-scientific research thus failed to stimulate a wider program of social inquiry in biblical scholarship. Frank Frick, in his response in this volume, traces the beginning of a “second wave” of social-scientific research to George Mendenhall’s 1962 essay, “The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine.” In this essay, Mendenhall consciously constructed a new ideal model for explaining the historical process of the Israelites’ establishment in Palestine within an economic, sociological, and political framework. This essay challenged long-held assumptions and gave expression to a growing dissatisfaction with the limits of historical biblical criticism. Due to these combined qualities, the essay stimulated new modes of social-scientific inquiry in the biblical field, which were championed a decade later in the “Consultation” chaired by Gottwald and Frick. Various developments since 1975 have facilitated the acceptance and growth of social-scientific approaches in the scholarly study of the Hebrew Bible. James Flanagan in this volume associates the renewed interest in the social sciences with the founding of new academic publications. Scholars Press was established in 1974, and the experimental journal Semeia also first appeared in that year. The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament began publishing in 1976, and Almond Press followed three years later in 1979. These and other publication outlets became significant forums for disseminating the scholarship of the new SBL program units utilizing the social sciences. Attention to the social world of the biblical texts at our SBL socialscience sessions and in the publication outlets just described has clarified innumerable obscurities and enigmas. Social-scientific models and crosscultural comparisons have continued to round out the sparse social and historical data of the biblical texts, bridging gaps in our knowledge left open by historical-critical and literary-critical methods. Due in significant measure to SBL units utilizing the social sciences, biblical scholars are asking a far broader range of questions about Israelite society than was the case two decades ago. In significant ways, these developments move beyond modernist, historical criticism. Many scholars are increasingly aware of the social construction of biblical texts—that they more closely reflect the social practices, structures, and concepts of the ancient Israelites than objective historical events and chronologies. Social forces, not merely discrete historical events and actions, shaped the biblical texts. Recently, at the 1999 meeting of the SBL in Boston, the “Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures” section celebrated the

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twenty-fifth anniversary of our section and its predecessors with a special session. At the session, five senior scholars in the specialty—Frank Frick, Norman Gottwald, David Petersen, Robert Wilson, and Robert Carroll2— reflected on the continuing promise and the future prospects of the social sciences in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible.3 Although each scholar offered his own insight into the benefits and problems of using the social sciences in biblical interpretation, all agreed that the use and results of the social sciences have become an accepted part of biblical scholarship. Some of these reflections are included in this volume in the retrospective essays by Frick and Gottwald. On the occasion of this twenty-fifth anniversary, the “Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures” section’s steering committee decided to publish a celebratory volume highlighting the use of the social sciences for interpreting the Hebrew Bible. The volume would present a critical evaluation of the current state of social-scientific criticism in Hebrew Bible studies. We envisioned a wide range of articles covering many of the areas that we had addressed in our sessions over the years. We would request neither overviews of the subdiscipline in its present shape nor new, broad-ranging syntheses. Rather, we would assemble significant case studies that together would represent, but not exhaustively cover, the current state of social-scientific study of the Hebrew Bible. Retrospective articles would follow these contributions. All the contributors to this volume, selected from the steering committee and past participants in our section, were invited to write on a relevant topic on which they were currently working. Articles could encompass any aspect of the Hebrew Bible, and the use of the social sciences in the work should be explicit. We asked each author to assess, either explicitly or implicitly, the contribution of the social sciences for her or his particular research. We were not disappointed. The articles address a wide range of issues and topics. They largely reflect the papers delivered in our section at the annual meeting of the SBL, and this accounts for an underrepresentation of some perspectives. (For example, some European, especially French and Italian, social-scientific scholarship of the last several decades is underrepresented.) Nevertheless, the contributions effectively display the vast spectrum of social-science approaches currently at work in scholarship on the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel.

As this volume goes to press, we note with sadness the sudden death of Robert Carroll. Several persons during the session noted the lack of women on the panel. Few women biblical scholars were actively using the social sciences in the early years of this “second wave.” Carol Meyers is an exception, but she was unable to participate in the session. Happily, women are much better represented in the specialty today, as the contributors to this volume attest. 2 3

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Despite the volume’s range of topics, the explicit evaluation of the use of social sciences in biblical studies provides a strong unity to the volume. As we had hoped, each contributor makes explicit in his or her article the use of the social sciences. Each endeavors to be self-conscious about the contribution of the social sciences for her or his particular research. Each of the contributions in this volume thus demonstrates a mature use of the social sciences by accomplished practitioners in the specialty. Frank Frick and Norman Gottwald appropriately agreed to survey the articles of the volume and to provide retrospective evaluations. Their essays are not traditional responses to the articles, as readers of Semeia have come to expect. Rather, their comments on the articles evaluate the use of the social sciences in the biblical field, and their contributions conclude with some suggestions for future directions and areas for further research. As noted above, Frick and Gottwald were responsible twenty-five years ago for introducing the first program unit specifically utilizing the social sciences in the SBL. Since then, they have followed the trajectory of social-science methods over more than two decades. They are thus able to participate in this project not only as seasoned experts in applying the social sciences to biblical studies but also as longtime advocates of social-scientific approaches, who are able to speak somewhat more personally as catalysts and insiders. After twenty-five years of the interpermeation of biblical studies and the social sciences, we can more easily defend the use and see the benefits of a combined pursuit of these two disciplines. Unfortunately, defense of socialscientific criticism is often necessary. The old heresy of Docetism is still alive and well in universities and seminaries. Many biblical critics may feel most comfortable with a literary approach to biblical ideas and traditions, which minimizes the importance of their physical and social embodiment. When pressed, however, biblical scholars must agree that biblical traditions and theologies did not hover in the air, disconnected from people’s lives in groups and society. Social-scientific approaches help uncover what was going on “on the ground” in the use, reuse, and transmission of these traditions. On the one hand, social-scientific approaches have complemented and expanded traditional, historical-critical methods. Social-scientific criticism recognizes that the biblical texts have a social context in addition to a historical context—that the biblical authors and contemporary readers are social beings, subject to social forces, and that the biblical texts embed a social system. Social-scientific approaches thus provide the social context for the insights gleaned through historical and literary criticisms. For example, social-scientific criticism may offer a fuller explanation for the particular formation or wording of a literary text (see the articles by Brayford and Chaney). It may elucidate the customs and values expressed in the text (see the articles by Matthews and Stansell). Or, it may suggest the social dynamics at work in the creation of the text (see the articles by Cook, McNutt,

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Simkins, and Yee). In every case, social-scientific approaches extend what otherwise could be known through historical-critical approaches. Traditional methods and social-scientific approaches can interact in mutuality, illuminating and correcting each other. On the other hand, the newer social-scientific approaches have sometimes represented a challenge, and even a threat, to modernist, critical modes of biblical scholarship and to some of the senior scholars and major research centers supporting them. With their rise in the guild, social-scientific approaches began to legitimate questions and areas of inquiry that historical criticism had abandoned in frustration. As James Flanagan shows in this volume, the new research, new units within the guild, and new venues of publication diminished the hegemony of the older, established scholarly structures of authority and power. As a result, Heather McKay (in this volume) can raise questions about the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife and offer a new interpretation from the perspective of hotel management, an approach that many traditional, modernist interpreters might deem illegitimate. Social-scientific approaches do not simply challenge traditional or modernist interpretations. The multiplicity of social-scientific approaches also provides a challenge to the modernist tendencies of those engaged in social-scientific research. The multiple approaches lead to multiple claims of knowledge, dispelling naive claims of objectivity. The social-scientific interpreters of the Hebrew Bible therefore must also confront their own social location and the limits of their approach. In this volume, for example, Stansell and Matthews present competing interpretations of the same biblical passage, even though they use similar social-scientific models. Simkins and Yee offer opposing formulations of the modes of production in ancient Israel. And Jacques Berlinerblau’s article challenges the way in which most biblical scholars, including those of this volume, employ an overly subjectivist understanding of ideology. Such competing interpretations are fruitful, when divorced from modernist concerns for objectivity, for they serve to stimulate further inquiry and assessment of the social location of the text and reader. One long-standing criticism of social-scientific biblical interpretation is that the use of social-scientific theories and models represents an imposition on the biblical text. This criticism takes two forms. On the one hand, critics accuse socially oriented interpreters of forcing a generalizing theory or principle of interpretation onto the particularity of the biblical texts. On the other hand, critics question the value of interpretive models that are removed in time and place from the social world of the ancient Israelites. Both of these criticisms reflect the contextualist and diffusionist strategies that have dominated the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in biblical scholarship (Eilberg-Schwartz: 88–89). Social-scientific criticism offers an alternative interpretive approach: the comparativist strategy.

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The comparativist strategy is based on the synthesis of the general and the particular, of the “etic” and the “emic” perspective. By definition, the comparative approach emphasizes the general and the “etic,” and as a result, this approach risks missing the rich particularity of the local, historical realities behind biblical texts. However, the comparative approach is no longer characterized by the crude generalizations of Sir James Frazer or even William Robertson Smith. The comparativist strategy is now rooted in an epistemology that recognizes the comparative nature of most knowledge, that knowledge of the general entails knowledge of the specific, and that pure contextual interpretations are impossible. In other words, every interpretation about the particular entails assumptions—explicit or implicit—about the general. The social-scientific critic’s use of models and theories aims at defining and thereby controlling the general assumptions by which we interpret the biblical texts. In light of the risk of reducing the “particular” to the “general,” scholars should not apply models and theories to a set of data without a clear awareness of the assumptions at stake. They must be honest about, and self-critical of, their theoretical presuppositions. Critical distance and methodological rigor aid in allowing the scholar to evaluate whether a given social-scientific approach or comparative model applies to a set of texts and contributes to their elucidation. Interpreters should be willing to argue their choice of approaches and to adjust and modify theories, when new data and new discoveries impel them in this direction. The use of cross-cultural comparisons in biblical exegesis has been judged by many modernist critics to be particularly suspect. Again, the proper approach for the researcher is to avoid using comparative materials to construct a single model to which a given biblical structure or pattern must conform. Rather, the comparative materials are most useful in suggesting the complexity and range of possibilities at stake in various biblical structures and patterns. Comparative materials merely suggest new questions and new options in the interpretation of biblical texts. Exegesis of the biblical text is always the test of whether we have learned anything new about the Hebrew Bible based on comparative study. Happily, as noted below, several of the contributions in this volume exemplify such methodological cautions. As long as interpreters observe the above caveats, many scholars increasingly recognize that any comparisons, even comparisons to material from cultures and contexts that are temporally and spatially remote from the Bible’s own milieu, may prove valuable and illuminating in biblical interpretation. For many purposes, it ultimately does not matter from where a hypothetically applicable comparative phenomenon comes. What matters is developing a workable model and then giving it, including its permutations and combinations, a fair truth test as to its logical coherence, its fit with the data of the biblical text, and its heuristic value. In some cases, a biblical

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text provides only hints that aspects of a given model are applicable to it. At such times, extrapolations are permissible if the researcher claims only some degree of probability rather than definitiveness for them. The new knowledge derived from social-scientific study will scarcely enjoy the status of historical certainty. This is not surprising. One major factor allowing social-scientific approaches to flourish in the last quarter century was the realization that despite the assumptions of modernist, historically focused modes of scholarship, biblical criticism in general cannot deliver completely neutral, objective, and certain results. The Case Studies The contributions of this volume interconnect and contrast with each other in multiple ways and at various levels. We present them here in one possible sequence based on the following rationale, which we find compelling. James Flanagan’s essay introduces the series by reviewing how current social-scientific research on the Hebrew Bible arose amidst dramatic changes within biblical studies during the last quarter century. His essay outlines a new shift in this current research, a shift toward space and critical spatial studies. Paula McNutt picks up and applies Flanagan’s concept of critical spatiality to a specific case study as part of her contribution, which comes next in the volume. The four papers that follow fit together based on their common focus on economic topics. Gary Stansell and Victor Matthews examine the socioeconomic significance of the exchange of gifts in ancient Israel. Marvin Chaney and Ronald Simkins both treat the political economy of Israel in the monarchic period. Stephen Cook’s essay follows Chaney’s and Simkins’s contributions, since these three papers cohere together in their common interest in how Israel’s social structure changed over time, marginalizing and dismantling older systems. The papers by Susan Brayford and Gale Yee come next. Both take a social-scientific approach to gender issues in biblical studies. Jacques Berlinerblau’s contribution follows Yee’s essay. Both Yee and Berlinerblau are concerned with ideological criticism and its application to the social world of the Hebrew Bible. Heather McKay’s contribution forms the volume’s last case study. This is fitting since she shifts our social-scientific focus in a postmodern direction, toward the reader of the biblical text. The contributions by Frank Frick and Norman Gottwald follow the case studies and conclude the volume. Using the studies as a basis, Frick and Gottwald discuss the status and new horizons of social-scientific biblical scholarship as we begin the twenty-first century. Beyond the general overlappings that allow for the above described ordering of the volume, many additional confluences and contrasts come into clear focus as one reads the contributions closely. Several of these interconnections

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bear highlighting here. We shall flag significant crisscrossings in the course of the following introductory overview of the case studies. As noted, the first contribution in the volume by Flanagan analyzes the changes in modern scholarly political-culture that facilitated the current flourishing of social-scientific readings of the Hebrew Bible. For Flanagan, one precipitating factor in the successful emergence of social-world studies in the last quarter century was a societal shift, beginning in the 1970s, away from the hegemony of modernist and objectivist, historically oriented biblical study and towards postmodernism. He describes significant technological innovations that sustained this postmodern shift. Flanagan identifies the cognitive construct of “social space” as a major new object and area of study in social-world studies of ancient Israel. Because his essay is programmatic rather than historical, he does not apply spatial theory to biblical texts. Nevertheless, Flanagan argues for the significance of critical spatiality in biblical interpretation and offers suggestive ways in which spatiality can alter our understanding of texts and our role in interpreting them. In a complementarily text-focused contribution, McNutt applies a social-scientific approach to the interpretation of Genesis 4. McNutt interprets the story of Cain and Abel based on comparative information, specifically anthropological studies of artisans and smiths in traditional African and Middle Eastern societies. She argues that Cain and his descendants are the cultural heroes and eponymous ancestors of socially marginalized groups of smiths and artisans. The social status of these groups is symbolized and encoded in the structure and details of the text, and especially in Cain’s role in the myth. Following Flanagan’s theoretical approach to spatiality, McNutt, as part of her contribution, highlights how social concepts and constructs of space are visible in her text. She calls our attention to how spatiality may signify the social status and roles of groups within Israelite society. By happy coincidence, McNutt’s contribution flags other significant highlights from recent decades of sociological interpretation that reappear elsewhere in this volume. For example, her essay views early Israel as a segmented, tribal society. This tenet appeared in Flanagan’s essay, and it reappears in other of our essays, including those by Simkins and Cook. The next two essays in the volume, by Stansell and Matthews, examine gift giving in the Hebrew Bible. Both contributors extend the work of Marcel Mauss in understanding this type of social exchange. The two studies draw attention to how an unequal exchange of gifts results in social tension in the biblical narrative. By the same token, in the midst of tensions people may use unbalanced gift giving as a coping strategy. Both essays relate gift giving to the sociological concepts of honor and shame. Honor and shame have been a major area of interest in social-scientific approaches to the Bible

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in recent years. This significant area of emphasis appears again in this volume in the article by Brayford. Stansell’s and Matthews’s contributions complement each other in helpful ways, but they also diverge at some interesting points. In interpreting Jacob’s sending of gifts to Esau in Gen 32:13-21, for example, Stansell emphasizes that Jacob seeks to appease his brother by compensating him for the loss of his inheritance, even to the point of submitting to him. Matthews, in contrast, suggests that despite Jacob’s submissive language, his generous gift giving functions to intimidate Esau by implying the nearly unlimited wealth—and thus power—of Jacob. Nonetheless, each interpretation offers a compelling explanation of the social features of the text. One quality of Stansell’s methodology is both noteworthy and worthy of emulation. Although he approaches the biblical text armed with an anthropological model of gift exchange, he is willing to critique aspects of this model in the face of resistance by the biblical data. This type of cautious, self-critical approach is very helpful in meeting some of the recurring objections to social-scientific approaches in biblical analysis mentioned above. The next two contributions of the volume, by Chaney and Simkins, both deal with political economy in ancient Israel. Political economics analyzes economic behavior in the context of social life. It studies and theorizes the social relations that lie behind a society’s processes of production. (Yee’s essay likewise studies issues of economics, class, and political ideology along with her attention to gender.) Chaney reads Isaiah 5 in the context of the rapidly changing political economics of its eighth-century historical setting. He accords the social sciences a major role in reconstructing the political economy at this historical juncture. His aim, therefore, is the historical reconstruction of his text, but it is the lenses of the social sciences that enable and focus this task. Therewith, in a different manner from Stansell, Chaney buttresses his work against the charges of those who are critical of social-scientific approaches. His study is not only compatible with but also informed by standard historicalcritical and archaeological evidence. His conclusions rely not just on an imposed social-scientific model of political economy but also on the convergence of several different modes of analysis and bodies of evidence, including traditional historical, archaeological, and philological evidence. Like several other essays in the collection, such as those by McNutt, Cook, Yee, and McKay, Chaney’s essay interprets one particular biblical text. Chaney’s approach is to peel away layers of the text in order to step back into its precise eighth-century meaning. Yee will also look at her text’s original historical intention, although she will argue that in her case, the intention is intentionally hidden! McKay’s approach, by contrast, will be to step in front of the text to examine how taking up specific reader perspectives may illuminate the interpretation of the text.

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Simkins’s study of political economy differs somewhat from that of Chaney. Simkins focuses not on the exegesis of a particular text but on an analysis of ancient Israelite society. His thesis is that the institution of “patronage” socially structured the economic inequalities of monarchic Israel. Moreover, he argues that patronage, in conflict with the earlier kinship structures of tribal Israel, functioned as the mechanism that produced the unequal distribution of wealth and power necessary for the formation of the monarchy. He advocates a social-scientific model of patronage as superior to the widely known “Asiatic” model for explicating monarchic Israel’s political economy. One of Simkins’s arguments resonates with a view that Yee will express in her contribution. Both authors make a similar observation about a strategy of centralized states in maintaining their political control. Both authors argue that state systems may use the methods at their disposal to try to turn their populaces away from the ties of extended kinship toward the more personal ties of the nuclear family. This strategy aims to weaken older forms of societal organization that may compete with state systems. The social-scientific model of extended kinship and lineage-based society, which Chaney, Simkins, and Yee take up, also figures largely in Cook’s essay in this volume. Each of these authors highlights to some extent how Israel’s formation as a monarchy took place at the expense of the older, domestic modes of production and communitarian relations of the society. As the initial study of the volume by Flanagan points out, the explication of old Israel’s nature as a segmentary, lineage-based society has been a major emphasis and contribution of the social-world studies that began within the SBL in the mid-1970s. The contribution by Cook, which comes next in the volume, focuses not on Israel’s larger society but on a subunit within that society. Cook endeavors to unearth the social roots of the polemics and traditions of a minority group, the circle behind Hosea. He applies insights from ethnographic studies by social anthropologists to the text of Hosea, using cross-cultural evidence in a mode similar to that employed by McNutt. He forms a social-scientific model based on these ethnographic studies, and then he tests the model on the Hosean texts through exegesis. The model proves fruitful in sociologically “grounding” the polemics of Hosea. Hosean polemics have their social basis in the disenfranchisement of Hosea’s traditional, lineage-based ritual system. The model also suggests the sort of textual clues and evidence to search for in Hosea that would further confirm and explicate his social provenance and religious framework. The next two contributions by Brayford and by Yee are social-scientific studies that highlight the issue of gender. (The article by McKay later in the volume will also use a social-scientific approach to enhance our understanding of gender roles in the Hebrew Bible.) Brayford argues against a

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monolithic understanding and application of the concepts of honor and shame in interpreting the Hebrew Bible’s social world. As noted above in connection with Stansell’s essay, this sort of critical use of social-scientific models represents just the sort of disciplinary maturity that meets the objections of some biblical historians to social-scientific approaches to the Bible. Brayford argues that shame in its positive sense (as “appropriate,” that is, controlled, female modesty) does not characterize the matriarchs of the Pentateuch. Compared with Greek literature, and with the Septuagint, texts in the Hebrew Bible have a relatively positive view of female sexuality. Yee’s contribution is a Marxist literary analysis of Genesis 2–3, which combines a study of gender with an examination of class and economics. She is interested in the political use of gender by her biblical text. Yee argues that Genesis 2–3 contains an ideology of gender that aims to support the Israelite state’s control over its populace and that subordinates wives to husbands, and husbands, in turn, to the wider social hierarchy. The theological tenets of the text are a “cover” for its real intention of inculcating this ideology. The text thus has a disguised agenda of ideological manipulation aimed at supporting the politics of state centralization. It carries out this agenda by using the biblical text to mystify and obscure the class contradictions and conflicts that the tributary political economy of the monarchic period created. Berlinerblau, our next contributor, is developing a reputation for promoting a disciplined attentiveness to theory and to theorists in the study of Israel’s social world. We have placed Berlinerblau’s essay after Yee’s contribution because the two are in clear tension. Simply stated, the “voluntaristic” conception of ideology in Yee’s article illustrates the target of Berlinerblau’s critique. Berlinerblau by no means attacks Yee’s piece in particular; his attack challenges premises in other of this volume’s contributions as well. Rather, he makes a broad plea for a more critical and theory-based understanding of ideology in biblical scholarship in general. The voluntaristic conception of ideology, which Berlinerblau critiques, is the idea that ideology in the Bible represents the deliberate attempt of biblical writers to use their writings as a means of persuading others to adopt their group’s worldview. Berlinerblau believes that the common view that ideology entails a conscious attempt at manipulation by a group or class involves an extremely undersocialized and hyper-subjectivist understanding of biblical writers. He recommends Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of “doxa” as an alternative. A “doxic” approach understands ideology to entail unrecognized, tacit assumptions about the world rather than conscious propaganda. Berlinerblau questions whether biblical writers would intentionally resort to the sort of cryptic narrative encoding that Yee unearths in Genesis 2–3. We might better understand the ideology of such texts in “doxic” terms. The final case-study contribution to the volume calls our attention to the location and social world of the interpreter of the Bible. McKay’s

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contribution is a study of the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife in Genesis 39. Following the lead of others, she raises questions and problems about the text using a “reader-response” approach. She moves in a postmodern direction here, in some ways bringing us full circle in this volume, since the initial contribution by Flanagan also takes seriously our postmodern world. McKay’s reader-response approach focuses largely on her text’s ambiguities and on its narrative gaps. McKay then suggests possible ways of resolving these ambiguities and gaps by taking up different theoretical reading positions. She describes two different theoretical positions, one involving management theory, and the other involving social psychology. Each theoretical position informs and directs an interpretation of the biblical text. We invite readers of this volume to enjoy as many of these contributions as accord with their interests. The retrospective essays by Frank Frick and Norman Gottwald follow the case-study contributions. Based on a careful review and evaluation of the case studies of this volume, Frick and Gottwald present helpful and fascinating commentaries on the current state of social-scientific study of the Hebrew Bible and on its possible future directions and prospects. We can think of no better way to mark this twenty-fifth anniversary juncture than to pause for such retrospective and prospective reflections. New Research under the Sun: Portals of Discovery The above introduction to the case studies of this volume attests to the multiplicity of ways in which scholars of the Hebrew Bible are now using social-scientific approaches. Biblical scholars currently employing socialscientific tools are experimenting with a diversity of approaches and theoretical stances. The result is the burgeoning of a broad methodological and theoretical variety in social-scientific perspectives on the Hebrew Bible. As stated above, most of the contributions to this volume make clear the basis of their study in a theory, model, or approach derived from the social sciences. The subdiscipline is increasingly demanding this type of explicit articulation, with the goal of achieving theoretical depth. This goal calls for thoroughgoing engagement with the broad range of social-scientific theory. Beyond illustrating the current theoretical variety in this subdiscipline, a perusal of this volume also soon reveals the new variety of topics of interest in social-scientific investigation of the Hebrew Bible. Although some of the topics have been under investigation for some time, they are now being revisited and interconnected with new areas of inquiry in fruitful ways. Essays in this volume, for example, apply the time-tested rubrics of honor and shame to the specific phenomenon of gift giving in Israelite society. Again, scholars have been interested in readers’ responses to the biblical text for some years now. It remains a new horizon, however, to examine these

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responses with particular attention to readers’ social worlds, worlds that inform the character and content of the responses. The present collection makes particularly apparent the distinct levels of focus that currently occupy the attention of scholars involved in the socialscientific subdiscipline of biblical studies. Some contributors take up a social-scientific approach in order to illuminate or more sharply focus specific figures, customs, scenarios, or social locations appearing in the Hebrew Bible. Others—also exegetically focused—take a social-scientific approach in fleshing out the social settings and roots of biblical texts and traditions. In this vein, note that social-scientific approaches shift our focus away from the statements and intentions of authors as isolated individuals to the authors’ support groups and place in their wider society, or from a disembodied literary text to the social institutions that produced the text. (Indeed, a distinctive of social-scientific biblical studies is their conception of ancient cultures and societies as totalities.) Still other scholars begin to move somewhat farther away from a text focus, in order to attend to the nature, structure, history, and development over time of ancient Israelite society. Additional essays in this collection illustrate still other interests in the use of the social sciences in biblical interpretation. Contributors oriented primarily in methodological and theoretical directions concentrate on developing the work of specific social-scientific theorists by applying this work rigorously to what we know of Israelite society and religion. The Hebrew Bible and Israelite society have long provided a fascinating database for testing and honing sociological and anthropological theory. Other contributors are interested in ideology, sometimes with a constructive feminist or liberationist goal of uncovering the oppressive biases and assumptions of our traditions and of our past. Still others are interested in social-scientific approaches to the Bible for the light that they may shed on modern readers of the Bible, that is, on us. Several current trends in the social-scientific investigation of the Hebrew Bible reveal themselves in the present collection. The discussion above highlighted particular examples of a new methodological care and rigor in the case studies. Stansell’s and Brayford’s essays exhibit an exemplary critical and flexible use of models from the social sciences that respects the integrity and particularity of their biblical subject matter. The essays by Chaney and Cook use tools from the social sciences in concert with standard historical- and literary-critical tools so that their exegetical results derive from converging lines of evidence that reinforce one another. This critical use of the social sciences in these case studies reveals a new level of control in the subdiscipline. One innovation in social-scientific study of the Hebrew Bible plotted in the present essay collection is the current movement to examine not only material aspects of ancient societies but also cognitive or mental aspects. The

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contributions by Flanagan, McNutt, and Berlinerblau each display the new concern to analyze cognition. Flanagan and McNutt consider mental constructs of space in particular. Flanagan’s exposition of this mental construct combined with McNutt’s application of spatiality to a specific textual case gives this new horizon of investigation in biblical social-world studies a significant place in this volume. Also attested in this essay collection is a new social-scientific reconsideration of ideological criticism. Several contributors to this volume plumb below surface-level presentation in biblical texts to explore conscious ideologies. The essays by Flanagan and Berlinerblau go beyond this, however, in attending to unexamined cultural subtexts. Berlinerblau, in particular, calls us to focus on the unintentional—tacit and unrecognized— assumptions that the social world imparts to biblical authors and their texts. Gottwald offers some masterful insights on ideology in biblical interpretation as part of his concluding essay. Both Frick and Gottwald call for more selfinvestigation and up-front ideological self-disclosure from biblical scholars in the coming years. Other essays in the collection present new challenges to commonplace views in contemporary Hebrew Bible scholarship. Simkins argues a promising alternative to the commonplace “Asiatic” model of the Israelite monarchy’s political economy. He presents a convincing case that patronage was the social structure of the political economy of monarchic Israel. Cook’s argument that Hosea is fundamentally incompatible with an ideology of centralized power runs counter to a current tendency to associate most biblical literature with the interests of power holders and economic elites. Brayford’s argument goes against the common view that Hebrew Bible texts have a negative attitude toward female sexuality. She argues that the Hebrew texts neither deny nor repress female sexuality. These are only examples. Readers are now invited to study the actual essays of this volume, in order to sample for themselves the current, “second wave” of socialworld studies in Hebrew Bible interpretation and the new and provocative insights, interpretations, and approaches that they propose.

WORKS CITED Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard 1990 The Savage in Judaism: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mendenhall, George E. 1962 “The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine.” BA 25:66–87.

ANCIENT PERCEPTIONS OF SPACE/ PERCEPTIONS OF ANCIENT SPACE1 James W. Flanagan Case Western Reserve University

abstract The final quarter of the twentieth century has been a time of dramatic change within biblical studies. Their content and modes of production have evolved in unison. In this essay, I explore the emergence of social-world studies, their location in a larger field of scholarship and scholarly communication, the relationship between their early focus on decentralization and the recent decentralization in modes of communication, and the studies’ movement toward cognitive and cultural phenomena, especially space and critical spatiality, that inform and regulate social processes. The last interest, as foreseen by Foucault, is shared across Western cultures and across disciplines. This emphasis is related to postmodern developments and the emergence of globalization sustained by late-century technologies, especially electronic modes of communication. Because scholarship during this period has focused increasingly on social theory, as is evident in social world studies, a shift toward space and critical spatial studies within biblical studies could be anticipated.

The great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as we know, history, with its themes of development and suspension, of crisis and cycle, themes of the ever-accumulating past, with its great preponderance of dead men and the meaning glaciation of the world. . . . The present epoch will perhaps be above all an epoch of space. —Foucault: 22

Introduction For Jonathan Boyarin, “ ‘postmodernism’ implies not the progressive supersession of the modern, but a critique from within that preserves the

1 Portions of this essay were delivered at the 1996 and 1998 meetings of the AAR/SBL Constructs of the Social and Cultural Worlds of Antiquity Group, the 1996 meeting of the Biblical Colloquium, and a 1999 plenary session of the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada. I am grateful for the comments and criticisms offered by respondents and participants at those sessions.

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freedom of modernism while dismantling its progressivist pretensions to be the last and culminating word” (Boyarin: 438). Although incomplete, the description captures the spirit of the last quarter of the twentieth century and calls attention to two important traits. We live in a cultural swirl that mixes so-called modernist experiences with postmodernist, and the latter challenge the stability, certainty, absolutism, and hegemony of the former. By these canons, in 1975 Norman K. Gottwald and Frank S. Frick stepped forward in a challenged and challenging modernist-postmodernist world when they organized the Society of Biblical Literature Consultation on the Social World of Ancient Israel and prepublished the consultation’s charter document in the SBL Seminar Papers. Although unforeseen at the time, theirs was a movement against modernist pretensions and toward postmodern critique. With hindsight many seemingly unconnected developments can now be understood as related elements in the constructs of an integral, complex, fluid academic/public world. A Quarter Century’s Development of a Discipline The early and mid-1970s are often credited with turning toward postmodernism. Architect Charles Jencks, for example, identifies a day and hour, place, and momentary event in 1972 that marked the end of modernism (23). While most support Boyarin in rejecting precise temporal boundaries, the last half of the twentieth century, especially the last quarter, has witnessed economic, political, social, and cultural transitions and transformations that can be labelled “postmodern.” Spatiality looms large in this milieu. Social space has become a major concern in social theory, especially in fields such as cultural geography and postmodern cartography. With Kevin Hetherington, I contend that space has become a primary interest among social theorists (20). A decade ago, David Harvey and Stephen Toulmin associated the movements wrought by and accompanying postmodernism with changes in society’s spatial and temporal subtexts, and those in turn with shifts in economic bases and modes of production. They agree that subtexts are cultural presuppositions or worldviews that are generally unexamined because they are assumed to be “the way things are.” Toulmin, however, denies a distinct demarcation of modernity from postmodernity, implying continuing subtexts and opting for a transformed “humanized modernity” rather than postmodernity (180). The well-formulated spatial and temporal theories and practices associated with the organized worlds inspired by Descartes and Newton, he says, remain intact. Although Harvey agrees that space is a cultural subtext and can be useful in assaying social and cultural shifts, he equates the transformation from modernity to postmodernity with a change in space and time experience:

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It is, however, by no means necessary to subordinate all objective conceptions of time and space to this [physicist’s] particular physical conception, since it, also, is a construct that rests upon a particular version of the constitution of matter and the origin of the universe. The history of concepts of time, space, and time-space in physics has, in fact, been marked by strong epistemological breaks and reconstructions. The conclusion we should draw is simply that neither time nor space can be assigned objective meanings independently of material processes, and that it is only through investigation of the latter that we can properly ground our concepts of the former. This is not, of course, a new conclusion. (1989:203–4; emphasis added)

Here and in more recent studies, Harvey insists that space and time are basic categories of human experience whose meanings derive from material processes (see Harvey, 2000: passim). Hence, spatial subtexts are constructs that result from praxis. Developments within biblical studies, including social-world studies, are part of this fabric. The content of biblical studies and their praxis, that is, their modes of investigation, production, and dissemination, have been transformed in this quarter century. It is important to emphasize that the content and practice have been symbiotic, as Harvey suggests in other arenas. Bible and literature, on the one hand, and Bible and history, on the other, emerged as subspecialties within the discipline at the same time that new outlets for scholarship were being established. Semeia, an experimental journal for biblical criticism, first published in 1974, provided an impetus leading the field toward new literary modes of biblical interpretation. In the same year, Scholars Press (SP) was launched in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Montana, and an annual meeting program structure that invited research proposals (such as the Social World Group) from rank and file members of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), meeting jointly, was formalized. Robert W. Funk, then Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Montana, provided vision and enthusiasm for these endeavors with considerable support in the University and the AAR from his colleagues, Ray L. Hart, then editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and Alexander P. Madison, Director of University Printing Services. Meanwhile in the U.K., Australian and British colleagues David M. Gunn, David J. A. Clines, and Philip R. Davies were independently planning JSOT Press and its Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (JSOT) during 1974–1975 and began publication in Sheffield University’s Department of Biblical Studies in 1976. Within a few years, the press had grown substantially so that in 1979 Gunn founded Almond Press with monograph series devoted to studies on Bible and Literature and the Social World of Biblical Antiquities. Meanwhile, Clines and Davies nurtured JSOT Press into

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Sheffield Academic Press (SAP), which quickly became a major international publisher in biblical studies and other disciplines. In each instance, the new outlets filled quickly with forms of scholarship that previously had not surfaced, and the Almond Press Social World series became the principal forum for published scholarship begun in Gottwald’s and Frick’s Social World Group and a subsequent SBL/AAR Sociology of Monarchy Seminar cochaired by Frick and myself. These developments reveal how scholarship’s content is enmeshed in its economics, politics, and sociology, associations that Harvey has argued affect transformations in cultural subtexts. A founding principle of Scholars Press and to a lesser extent of JSOT Press was that scholarship and the crafts and technologies supporting it are inseparably linked. Indeed, the founders thought that for innovative scholarship, particularly humanities scholarship, to emerge and survive in an age of increasing centralization among publishing outlets, rising costs, and growing elitist ranking among academic institutions—which drive innovation from bookstores, libraries, and classrooms—alternative modes of scholarly discourse with differing economies under the custody of scholars themselves must be introduced.2 The role of technology in these developments, usually ignored, deserves emphasis. The founding of the new publishing outlets corresponded with the printing industry’s displacing linotype with offset printing technologies.3 This innovation was contemporaneous with the introduction of, first, IBM Selectric typewriters with typing elements that included bar codes that could be read by optical scanners, and later, first generation word processors with daisy wheel elements. These, in effect, removed typesetting from the printer’s shop and placed it in individual scholars’ offices. An industry transformed itself, as did its supporting economies. It was no accident that the first composition room for SP was the Department of Religious Studies office in Missoula and for JSOT the office of Sheffield’s Department of Biblical Studies. By giving academics new custody

2 In “A Note to the Reader” on cover 2 of SP’s first Descriptive Catalog dated March 1, 1975, Director Funk and Assistant Director John A. Miles Jr. wrote: “SCHOLARS PRESS was organized a year ago as a response to a crisis. The price of scholarly books, tuned to the budget of the major university collection, was rapidly making the personal library a thing of the past. Worse, since high prices meant sinking sales and fewer new titles, younger scholars had fewer publishing opportunities. A downward spiral threatened scholarly discourse itself. . . . SCHOLARS PRESS has attempted to reverse that spiral by letting scholars do for themselves that [which] they once hired others to do for them.” 3 The “Note” continues, SP’s production utilized “modern cost-cutting techniques once considered beneath the dignity of a scholarly publisher,” a veiled allusion to photo offset printing replacing linotype—a hotly debated issue at the time. Indeed, in order to win over editorial boards, Alexander Madison once typeset the same page twice using both technologies. When confronted with the evidence, members could not tell the difference. The case was won!

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over the editing, management, and material production of their own work, the technology enabled them to create new academic space for themselves, their research, and in other ways, their colleges, seminaries, and universities. In the early 1970s, neither Missoula nor Sheffield was considered a first-tier research space. On several spatial scales, they were peripheral. Spatial practice changed the playing field in the U.S. and U.K. by creating new centers of scholarly publication. These made affordable resources, often written by nontraditional and younger scholars and on topics using new approaches, available to those who were otherwise excluded from national and international scholarly discourse. Indeed, the decentralizing that occurred in scholarly communication practices interlaced with the emphasis on noncentralized societies being pursued in social-world studies. Again, this was more than a coincidence. New spatialities, new spatial practices, and new spatial studies developed on two planes, even if their relationships were not fully recognized at the time. The exceptional concatenation of founding events, changing scholarly circumstances, and new technologies demonstrates that biblical scholarship took part in the full blooming of Boyarin-style postmodernism in the early and mid-1970s. All aspects of the scholarly enterprise—content, scholar, technology, and institutional base—entered into new organic relationships. Two new “noncommercial” academic presses headed by university-based “full-time” academic teaching scholars in English-speaking countries from three regions of the globe, two new experimental journals, and two new modes of biblical interpretation that focused both on literary studies and social-scientific approaches entered the scene simultaneously. Each exhibited anticentralizing tendencies that challenged modernist “progressivist pretensions” cited above. Contrarily, there is ample evidence that such experimental research, program units, articles, and monographs were not previously nurtured, and in some cases not tolerated, in existing establishment institutions, meetings, journals, and presses. The reciprocities demonstrate what I am stressing, namely, that without changes in the economies, politics, and sociology of scholarship the new voices and new approaches such as social-world studies could not have been introduced when they were. If spatialities had not changed, the field would have remained the same. Twenty-five years later at the end of the twentieth century, similar changes in scholarship, economies, and modes of communication and dissemination are occurring. Computer-based electronic communications and aligned technologies of the Internet and World Wide Web continue to transform commerce, education, travel, and almost every other human endeavor. We may classify Internet resources a “defining technology” whose impact is comparable to and shared with that which Jay David Bolter attributes to computer technology: technology that affects a culture well beyond the capacity of the technology itself.

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semeia A defining technology develops links, metaphorical or otherwise, with a culture’s science, philosophy, or literature; it is always available to serve as a metaphor, example, model, or symbol. A defining technology resembles a magnifying glass, which collects and focuses seemingly disparate ideas in a culture into one bright, sometimes piercing ray. Technology does not call forth major cultural changes by itself, but it does bring ideas into a new focus by explaining and exemplifying them in new ways to larger audiences. (Bolter: 11)

Visualized Internet traffic is a clear model and symbol of societies’ social practices and experienced spatialities. But the claim for the Internet and World Wide Web can be extended. Not only does the technology “bring new ideas into focus,” as Bolter’s definition stipulates, it creates a “space of flows” that stands over against a historically rooted “space of places” (Castells: 376–428), and it displaces the industrial age’s defining mode of production with today’s mode of information (Poster). Technologies used for communication and publication are further decentralized, moving now from the press to individuals’ offices, homes, and automobiles. Following these leads and borrowing John Ruggie’s argument for postmodern international relations, I contend that the cluster of practices and technologies we know as “the Net” are forcing a new social epistemology, that is, the “mental equipment” needed for understanding spatiality today (157). This is a space where territorial boundaries are diminished or abandoned, where communications and changes are instantaneous, where communities are formed by individuals working in solitude, where global no longer implies assembled parts, and where “where” loses much of its previous force. For social-world studies, it invites a review of presuppositions and subtexts, keeping minds open to issues of territoriality that modernist scholarly essentialist pretensions have struggled to define, defend, and foreclose. These past and current changes, therefore, make today’s spatial subtexts especially powerful and important for understanding history and society— past, present, and future. The mutations affect the pasts we construct as well as the way we construct the past. Information, visualization, and spatiality operate in a new organic synthesis. Today’s society becomes visual informational space while past societies’ spatial subtexts are thrown open for reinvestigation. Expectedly, space is in the forefront of disciplines as they redefine their subject matters. Serious minds are exploring the anthropology of cyberspace (Escobar), architecture of cyberspace (Benedikt), sociology of cyberspace (Turkle), and urbanology of cyberspace (Boyer). In a different sphere, a cyberdiocese has been established with its own ordained Roman Catholic bishop (http://www.partenia.fr). Each testifies to redefined social and cultural spatialities based on globalized relationships that electronic technologies now sustain. The milieu confirms Foucault’s prediction and suggests a devolving of territorial boundaries and territorial spatiality that

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modernist scholarship felt it had demonstrated. While they are beyond our scope, places like Nunavut, Quebec, Kosovo, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, IsraelPalestine, the Soviet Union, the ethereal space of offshore commerce, and city “nations” like Hong Kong and Singapore demonstrate present-day practical consequences of territorial unbundling and a search for new spatialities. Social-World Studies Twenty-Five Years Later In order to discuss space and critical spatiality two discoveries of the past twenty-five years must be recalled. They are (1) a shifting from “scientificaccuracy” models to “social-theory” models of scholarship and (2) realization of the importance of segmented social systems and their modes of production and organization for understanding nonstate societies. As in other disciplines, biblical studies has witnessed a movement beyond exclusive modernist “scientific-accuracy” models toward postmodern “social-theory” models of scholarship. Although social-world criticism is a litmus test for this claim, the same transition has been explicit in cartography, where a move toward postmodernism and deconstruction championed by the late J. B. Harley and others has introduced alternative epistemologies rooted in social theory rather than scientific positivism. “[T]he task is to search for the social forces that have structured cartography and to locate the presence of power and its effects in all map knowledge” (1992:232). There postmodernism is challenging Enlightenment and modernist assumptions by exposing alternative rules governing the cultural production of maps. Contrary to the belief that maps are neutral, mimetic representations of real physical and social worlds—that is, images with scientific reliability that will become more accurate with new technologies such as Global Positioning Systems and satellite imaging—social theory is demonstrating that maps, like other texts, disguise social contexts and impose their own hegemonies of power and privilege. The hegemonic strategies are first the “rule of ethnocentricity,” the tendency for societies to put themselves at the center of maps, and second the “rule of social order,” the tendency of cartographers to use verbal text on maps as commentary in order to convey information and impressions about classifications and measurements of social and political factors beyond the physical or human landscape (Harley, 1992:236). “Biblical studies” could be substituted for “cartography,” and the foregoing statement would retain its validity. Confidence in scientific-accuracy models of research began to wane as historical-critical and literary-critical methods and their companion comparative-philological studies that had held sway were supplemented and challenged by new approaches. Not surprisingly, power and privilege were at stake. The former approaches enjoyed the authority of senior scholars and major research centers, mostly northern hemisphere, white males together with their alma maters and

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places of employment. Convinced of the exclusive validity of traditional methods, they and their approaches dominated the field for much of this century, until other approaches were proposed by new voices seeking a first hearing in the guild. As the mood and balance began to shift because of new economies of scholarly discourse, questions that could not be answered by earlier methods and approaches became legitimate research interests, albeit often in the recesses of the discipline inhabited by graduate students, minority academics, and researchers at second- and third-tier institutions. The march toward scientific accuracy as the only or primary goal slowed as certainty about past “truths” and scholars’ ability to “recover” them in literature and history were challenged. The new mood led directly to the second new awareness, namely, of segmented social systems. Diminished confidence in scholars’ ability to determine authors’ intentions and ancient meanings forced specialists to think more broadly about cultures and societies in toto rather than searching piecemeal through texts and artifacts for an individual author’s or actor’s statements, actions, or aspirations. The forest came into focus as the trees began to fade. Social-world studies demonstrated that the nature and organization of ancient societies, including those commonly referred to as “ancient Israel,” organized themselves according to varying economic strategies. Earlier perceptions of high centralization that followed predictable lockstep evolutionary stages of nonstate development were abandoned or greatly refined. We must admit that the evolutionary bias of early studies using social-theory models, including those in Social World of Biblical Antiquity studies, sometimes employed wooden cross-cultural comparisons uncritically. To the extent that the studies lacked sophistication, their specific conclusions are open to reinterpretation. Nevertheless, the comparisons, clumsy as they may have been, enabled users to detect information embedded in literary and material remains that otherwise could not have been noticed. Furthermore, the attempt to investigate ancient societies freed investigators from essentialist quests for ancient “facts” and “truths” about individuals and isolated events that prevailed in modernist scientific-accuracy models of research. Thus, in spite of shortcomings, early uses of social theory advanced scholarship and knowledge of the past. Segmentary societies figured prominently in early studies by Wilson, Gottwald, Frick, Coote and Whitelam, myself (1981, 1983, 1988), and others.4 Each borrowed freely from comparative sociology and political anthropology,

4 My sampling is limited to participants in the Social World Group and Sociology of Monarchy Seminar. No slighting is intended for important contributions made by others on this continent or elsewhere, especially Europe (e.g., Neils Peter Lemche, Bernhard Lang, Frank Crüsemann) that in several instances were published in the outlets mentioned here.

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and understandings of segmentation varied accordingly. One of the least complicated, but when examined in light of comparative ethnography most accurate, is the late Ernest Gellner’s classic description that proposes only two characteristics (4). Social order is maintained through balanced opposition rather than being enforced from above by a monopoly of power. And, units within a segmented system—families, tribes, moieties, and the like— are apt to describe themselves by using kinship and/or territorial terminology. I accept Gellner’s view, and as we progress we shall see additional reasons for doing so. But social-world studies have continued to develop and expand their scope. The technological changes that have moved the world into an age of space and globalization have pressed academic disciplines, not only toward other territorialities, but also toward cognitive issues. Social-scientific means of analyzing ancient social structures and institutions now include interest in cognitive aspects of ancient social worlds such as spatiality. In spite of surface appearances, this late-century interest in mental aspects of ancient societies is not a return to earlier quests for authors’ intent. The earlier interest centered on individuals, real or fictive, while the latter remains focused on societies and cultures, and their interest is in cultural subtexts rather than explicit claims and actions. Hence, the discipline has not entered a circularity. A parallel development within archaeology is illuminating. There, essentialist, positivist, and modernist preprocessual archaeology that examined ancient data as if it were innately “history” or could be read as factual history gave way to processual “new” archaeology with interest in social processes that can be recovered from material remains. This in turn raised questions that moved the discipline toward postprocessual quests, such as postmodern and cognitive archaeology, subfields that examine societies’ cultural phenomena (Renfrew and Zubrow). Social-world criticism has moved biblical studies in the same direction(s). Technology and New Mental Equipment Most of these observations have been made before. The novelty is the emphasis on spatiality. I am not concerned with either modernist causeeffect relationships or the intellectual history of a discipline but with the way that praxis, spatiality, and content interact to play off against status quo positionings that would hold privileged spaces for themselves. Although new modes of production did offer new openings for innovative research, I do not mean that new technologies merely opened new opportunities for innovations in scholarly organizations. Opportunism was never the issue. The circumstances were more complex and profound. Much recent biblical scholarship has emphasized the connections among authors, readers, and texts and how the experiences in the worlds

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of each are enmeshed in understandings of the others. Similarly, in their studies of the experience of European nation-states, Sasson and Whitelam have demonstrated the influence that scholars’ personal experiences have on reconstructions of the biblical past. My argument is analogous, although rooted in the economies and experiences of modes of scholarly communications. I am proposing that living in the last quarter of the twentieth century, when decentralizing tendencies were witnessed in two stages of communication technology—first printing, then electronic—has affected scholars’ thinking, their social epistemology. The formation of new presses and journals in the 1970s, made possible by new technologies, contributed—for some consciously, for others unconsciously—to interests in new topics of research. Not surprisingly, those interests centered on ancient processes that were analogous to ones at work in the scholars’ own lives. The first decade of social-world studies in the Social World Group and Sociology of Monarchy Seminar examined almost exclusively the place of noncentralized segmentary societies and their relation to centralized systems! This was surely influenced by George Mendenhall’s peasant-revolt hypothesis, the experience of Vietnam, and Norman Gottwald’s long-term work on tribal Yahwism. But technological changes in the academy were instrumental as well. Today, electronic technologies again force new questions about alternative boundaries, ethereal spaces, and networks of relationships. And once again, social-world studies have engaged the issues, this time in a decade of research in the AAR/ASOR/SBL Constructs of Ancient History and Religion Group (now the AAR/SBL Constructs of the Social and Cultural Worlds of Antiquity Group), and from the year 2000, in an AAR/SBL Constructions of Ancient Space Seminar, cochaired by Jon L. Berquist and myself. Beyond the spatial theory outlined below, a theoretical basis for these claims can be found in the philosophy and sociology of science, where science is understood to be a moral achievement rather than a quest for truth. The same can be argued for any scholarship. Without trust and consensus among scholars, there is no scholarly knowledge (Harré: 19–21). Knowledge that is not public and does not evoke a consensus is not considered scholarly. And a new consensus can displace an earlier one as knowledge advances. John Ziman argues convincingly that the locus for consensus building and consensus changing is publication (8–9). That is where scholar, community, and knowledge intersect and interact. Because he was speaking in an age dominated by print media, his remark should now be recast to include electronic forms of “publication.” In any case, control over modes of communication affects scholarly space by either opening or limiting access, thereby controlling the rise and demise of consensus and careers.

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Readers will recognize autobiographical traits in my descriptions.5 For me, electronic communication technology did not begin the process of illuminating relationships between technology and scholarly content. The Internet and Web are not the first or only metaphors or cultural symbols appropriate to changes in spatiality. If Renaissance art and the invention of single-point perspective signaled and symbolized a breakthrough whose consequences were felt from artists’ paintings to the bundling of territorial space in ways that gave rise to the concept of nation-states under single sovereigns (Edgerton; Ruggie: 159), the symbolic equivalent in the age of unbundling is holography. This technology, following on two-dimensional cubism, offers new “mental equipment” by shattering single-point perspective. In an earlier study, I stressed that in a hologram any viewer within the image’s parallax can see an entire image in three-dimensional splendor from his or her own perspective (1988). As Renaissance painting allowed societies to focus on spatiality from a sovereign’s perspective, thereby nurturing territorial rule and boundaries, so holography breaks that monopoly and

5 In the absence of a history of either SP or SAP, I rely in part on personal experiences, files, and memory. By peculiar coincidence, on March 20–23, 1974, although not a delegate, I hosted the meeting of the “Committee of Fifteen,” comprising five members each from the Council on the Study of Religion (CSR now CSSR), AAR, and SBL at St. John’s Provincial Seminary in Plymouth, Mich., where I had lived when I began teaching at the University of Michigan. There, the Center for Scholarly Publishing and Service with SP was formally established and Missoula chosen as its location and Funk its director. The meeting site was chosen only a few days before because the seminary offered space for the press for five years at no cost if it should be located at the University of Michigan, where David Noel Freedman, SBL President-Elect, taught. By coincidence, he was also ASOR’s Vice President for Publication. The CSR was involved because Funk had cooperated with its director, Norman Wagner of Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier) on several society and publishing projects (the first book published at Montana was a CSR volume [1971]) and because member and subscriber lists for AAR and SBL were maintained by CSR. The lists and their management fees were important for the economies of the Press and distribution of its publications. Wagner did not attend the meeting. [Sadly, since this writing, Scholars Press has been closed and disbanded for reasons that remain unclear and unexplained. The move marks the demise of an institution some have called “the major twentiethcentury contribution to scholarly collaboration in our disciplines.”] My interest in publishing technologies and economies heightened when I met Gunn, Clines, and Davies in Sheffield on May 12, 1976, where discussions of the two presses persuaded me to accept posts at Montana. From then my involvement has continued: Associate Director of SP (1976–1978); chair of Religious Studies at the University of Montana—SP’s legal base, until it received IRS tax-exempt status in the late 1970s, and its institutional home, until it moved to Chico, Calif., in 1980 (1976–1986); editor of the Almond/SAP SWBA (1982–1991); publication of my book in SWBA (1988); ASOR Vice President (and BASOR editor), when I negotiated for SP to be again ASOR’s publisher. Finally, my move to Case Western Reserve University in 1986 was motivated in part by my interest in holography and electronic publications. Now the “most wired university in the U.S.” (Yahoo 1999), the institution encourages faculty to think spatially and use the Internet and technologies of cyberspace.

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distributes its rewards evenly among all who can and care to observe. Modernist spatial boundaries dissolve, stable images become fluid, and dimensionality increases. Postmodern multiperspective imagining enters, and alternative spatialities must be sought. Need for Critical Spatiality Critical spatiality attempts to confront social and historical disparities by consciously counterbalancing nineteenth- and twentieth-century (over)emphases on society and especially on history. Emerging within postmodern geography and cartography, critical studies on space seek to reintroduce spatiality in an ontological trialectic that includes historicality, sociality, and spatiality (Soja, 1989:131–37, 1996:70–76; also, Harley, 1992). Like a surveyor’s theodolite that is missing one of its three leveling screws, omitting, ignoring, or suppressing spatiality leads to imbalanced, distorted, and continually flawed understandings and practices in the real world. Many lenses are available for penetrating surface appearances. “Landscape,” “land,” “place,” “home,” “geographical imagination,” and other related concepts are all employed (e.g., Tuan; Hirsch and O’Hanlon; Gregory, 1994a, 1994b, 1995). However, before summarizing and applying the theories I borrow, it will be helpful to cite a case that illustrates the importance of critical spatiality: Mrs. Rosa Parks on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Mrs. Parks’s simple gesture of refusing to relinquish her seat to a white male in the front of a bus on December 1, 1955 ignited the American Civil Rights movement. Hers was an act against long-term discriminatory practices that occluded her and all other black people from a particular space, and it was a catalyst for radical racial change in the U.S. The front of the bus was of course physically the front of a bus. It was a material space (Soja’s Firstspace; see 1996). And the bus had been designed in such a way that the front was preferred over the rear for its comfort, ability to see, ease of access, and the like (Soja’s Secondspace). But they were not the issues giving the front seats their meaning and significance. American culture, U.S. history, slavery, racial discrimination, and the bus being in a southern city meant that Mrs. Parks, and all African Americans, were by practice and policy marginalized, excluded, and denied access to that space. Her rights and dignity, indeed her entire life, were spatially circumscribed and controlled in such a way that we cannot understand the Civil Rights movement, U.S. culture, or the trauma in our society if we ignore space and its meaning on that bus. Ironically, the space was simultaneously central and peripheral. Holding it was central to both the cause and the countercause. Holding its center also made it marginal, off limits, and out of bounds for those who did not hold it.

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Yes, history was an issue, and so was society. But it was space and contesting space with a spatial practice that changed life in America’s southlands. Segregated praxis was overwhelmed by integrating action. The same for the strikes, marches, and sit-ins that followed in those painful years. Clear evidence, I propose, that spatiality is constructed through social practice and that there is a spatiality beyond Firstspace and Secondspace that we will discuss below. We must understand Mrs. Parks’s spatiality and understand it critically the same way we would understand her status not just historically, but critically historically. Critical spatiality is an important part of an ontological trialectic. The scene forces critical spatiality by raising a telling question. If someone born, raised, and living in that time and place had been asked to portray that society, would this scene have entered the record? The answer is “probably not!” The persons compiling the record would undoubtedly have been the same as those deciding where Mrs. Parks could not sit. They would appeal to history and society as reasons for maintaining the status quo. The interplay of the material Firstspace and social designer’s Secondspace would continue unchallenged and unscathed. Without Mrs. Parks’s action, her power, knowledge, and space would remain in a singular interlocked hegemony that excluded her. Postmodern Spatial Theory Much of the work on critical spatiality is inspired by Foucault’s concept of heterotopia and Henri Lefebvre’s monumental, Production of Space, whose views are extended by geographer Edward W. Soja (1989, 1993, 1996). For the first, heterotopia are places of Otherness that in relation to other sites either unsettle spatial and social relations or cause alternative representations of those relations. They are spaces of alternate ordering, which may or may not be places of oppression and resistance (Hetherington: 41). Several themes unite cultural geographers who develop concepts of alternative spatiality. First, space and place are not treated as sets of relations outside of society but implicated in the production of those social relations and are themselves, in turn, socially produced. Second, space and place are seen to be situated within relations of power and in some cases within relations of power-knowledge. Power is said to be performed through spatial relations and encoded in the representation of space or as “place myths.” Third, spatial relations and places associated with those spatial relations are seen to be multiple and contested. A place does not mean the same thing for one group of social agents as it does for another. (Hetherington: 20)

Although not always, the alternate spaces are often seen as places of resistance, struggle, or change, as suggested in the example of Mrs. Parks

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cited above. Lefebvre emphasizes such contesting and associates it with capitalism. For him, space is produced in society through a triadic process consisting of “Spatial Practice,” “Representations of Space,” and “Representational Spaces” (33). Spatial practice (espace perçu, perceived space) produces space by capitalist production and reproduction. It is both medium and outcome of human activity, behavior, and experience. Representations of space (espace conçu, conceived space) are the hegemonic ideological representations associated with this space that obscure its social practices by rendering them invisible. These mental spaces are representations of power, ideology, control, and surveillance. Resistance to these relations must make them visible. Representational spaces or spaces of representations (espace vécu, lived space) linked to resistance movements do just that. Associated with the clandestine and underground side of social life, these are spaces as directly lived. They are, therefore, spaces of freedom and change. Soja (1996) draws heavily and explicitly on Lefebvre as well as on the literature of minorities and marginalized individuals and groups, such as the writings of critics Cornel West, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, and bell hooks. Edward Said’s studies on Orientalism are especially important for him, as they are for others (compare Boyarin; Gregory, 1995). In his first study, Soja spells out the need for restoring spatiality to the status of equal partner with historicality and sociality (1989). In a later article, he describes the stages in the development of modernity that he presumes have led to the present condition of postmodernity (1993:117–23). His most cogent and sustained arguments for critical spatiality, however, are found in his third study, entitled Thirdspace (1996). There he moves beyond Lefebvre’s Marxism in an effort to embrace the unvoiced and disenfranchised, who are persistently excluded because their spatiality is ignored (1996:106–44). Soja proposes two trialectics, one ontological, the other epistemological: The three moments of the ontological trialectic thus contain each other; they cannot successfully be understood in isolation or epistemologically privileged separately, although they are all too frequently studied and conceptualized in this way, in compartmentalized disciplines and discourses. Here again, however, the third term, Spatiality, obtains a strategic positioning to defend against any form of binary reductionism or totalization. The assertion of Spatiality opens the Historicality and Sociality of human lifeworlds to interpretations and knowledges that many of its most disciplined observers never imagined, while simultaneously maintaining the rich insights they provide for understanding the production of lived space. (1996:72)

The trialectic ontology on its own, however, does not satisfy Soja’s concerns. Again following Lefebvre, he proposes “Thirding-as-Othering” as a means of escaping the binarisms, dialectics, and opposition that lead to a

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“closed logic of either/or” that captures physicalist (materialist) and mentalist (idealist) geographers in a hopelessly closed, mutually reinforcing exchange. In it, geographers trade the material world and representations of it as if they were object and subject when in fact they are one and the same. Openness to “a third possibility or ‘moment’ that partakes of the original pairing but is not just a simple combination or an ‘in between’ position along an all-inclusive continuum” enables one to consider other spatialities (1996:60). To introduce social spatiality produced through social practice, a trialectic epistemology of spatiality is proposed. Social space is not a thing but a set of relations that are produced through praxis. Soja offers his own descriptions of this trialectic of spatiality, each with its own epistemology: Firstspace (perceived space), Secondspace (conceived space), and Thirdspace (lived space). For him, all spaces are all three (private communication, May 27, 1999). Firstspace epistemologies tend to privilege objectivity and materiality, and to aim toward a formal science of space. The human occupance of the surface of the earth, the relations between society and nature, the architectonics and resultant geographies of the human “built environment,” provide the almost naively given sources for the accumulations of (First)spatial knowledge. Spatiality thus takes on the qualities of a substantial text to be carefully read, digested, and understood in all its details. As an empirical text, Firstspace is conventionally read at two levels, one which concentrates on the accurate description of surface appearances (an indigenous mode of spatial analysis), and the other which searches for spatial explanation in primarily exogenous social, psychological, and biophysical processes. (1996:75)

This is the space that has dominated geography. It is positivist, materialist, and becomes increasingly detailed with new technologies as mentioned above. It is the space of the physical world, but it can also be that of social entities that geographers study. Alone, however, it is fundamentally incomplete and partial (1996:78). The boundary separating it from Secondspace is blurred. Despite these overlappings, Secondspace epistemologies are immediately distinguishable by their explanatory concentration on conceived rather than perceived space and their implicit assumption that spatial knowledge is primarily produced through discursively devised representations of space, through the spatial workings of the mind. In its purest form, Secondspace is entirely ideational, made up of projections into the empirical world from conceived or imagined geographies. This does not mean that there is no material reality, no Firstspace, but rather that the knowledge of this material reality is comprehended essentially through thought, as res cognito, literally “thought things.” In empowering the mind, explanation becomes more reflexive, subjective, introspective, philosophical, and individualized. (1996:78–79)

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Secondspace is the domain of artists and architects who present the world of their imaginations. It encompasses the cognitive maps that, in some cases, become substitutes for “real” maps that plot Firstspace. If Secondspace images were taken seriously, Firstspace would collapse into Secondspace as the latter becomes the substitute for the former. Soja’s description of Thirdspace is not as precise or detailed as the others. Like “Thirding-as-Othering,” Thirdspace is a “strategic reopening and rethinking new possibilities” that shift from epistemology to ontology, an “ontological rebalancing act [that] induces a radical skepticism toward all established epistemologies” (1996:81). Relating Thirdspace to Lefebvre’s spaces of representation, Soja stresses political choice and lived space as strategic locations and places of resistance. These spaces are also vitally filled with politics and ideology, with the real and the imagined intertwined, and with capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and other material spatial practices that concretize the social relations of production, reproduction, exploitation, domination, and subjection. They are the “dominated spaces,” the spaces of the peripheries, the margins and the marginalized, the “Third Worlds” that can be found on all scales, in the corpo-reality of the body and mind, in sexuality and subjectivity, in individual and collective identities from the most local to the most global. They are the chosen spaces for struggle, liberation, and emancipation. (1996:68)

Others agree on the importance of spaces/places filled with meaning, emotion, and struggle. Places are constructed and experienced as material ecological artifacts and intricate networks of social relations. They are the focus of the imaginary, of beliefs, longings, and desires (most particularly with respect to the psychological pull and push of the idea of “home”). They are an intense focus of discursive activity, filled with symbolic and representational meanings, and they are a distinctive product of institutionalized social and politicaleconomic power. (Harvey, 1996:316)

Thirdspaces, that is, the lived spaces, command Soja’s attention. They (or it), he insists, have been lost or suppressed and need to be restored. A trialectic that brings lived space into tension with physical space and mental conceptions of it is required, and Soja believes that postmodernism is doing so. This is the space that I have attributed to Rosa Parks and to those who are excluded from the world’s resources, such as publishing and Internet access. It is the spatiality that must be examined critically the same way scholarship has examined history and society in order to understand, as best we can, what happened in the past and is happening in our world today.

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Postmodern International Territoriality I borrow a first application from work on postmodernism and medieval polity. International relations specialist John Ruggie argues that “the spatial extension of the medieval system of rule was structured by a nonexclusive form or territoriality,” where frontier zones rather than firm boundary lines allowed mobility lost in modernist structures (151). He claims, first, that the modernist period is a territorial “epochal threshold” (144); second, as we have already noted, that as a result of dominant modernist perspectives, today new “mental equipment” is needed in order to think about territoriality (157); and, third, that single-point perspective is important for understanding modernist territoriality (159). For him, medieval territoriality holds a corrective model. In contrast to the modernist perspectives, during the medieval period legitimacies were nested and overlapping. This concept of multiperspective institutional forms, he contends, “offers a lens through which to view other possible instances of international transformation today,” where, again as we have noted, a process of territorial unbundling and rebundling is occurring across the globe (172). Therefore, the search for paradigms bypasses the modernist era and returns to premodern conditions in search of insights and models. Ruggie is not alone. Regarding the European Union, James Anderson also links today to the medieval period and to changes in spatiality. Whereas the medieval-to-modern transformation involved sovereignty over everything, secular and spiritual, being bundled together in territorial states, we may now be witnessing an accelerated unbundling of territoriality, with for example the growth of “common markets” and of various transnational (or, more strictly speaking, transstate) functional regimes and political communities not delimited primarily in territorial terms. . . . The medieval-to-modern transformation in sovereignty and territoriality has been linked to changes in the social experience and conceptualization of space and time. It is hypothesized that a contemporary modern-to-postmodern transformation, or the emergence of “late-modern” political forms reminiscent of medieval Europe, is associated with similarly radical changes in how we are now experiencing space-time in conditions of accelerating globalization. (134)

Anderson goes on to argue that the modernist bundling of territoriality, sovereignty, and nationalism was in fact a historical anomaly. “The historical uniqueness of this modern system of rule is suggested by the contrasting variety, fluidity, nonterritoriality, or nonexclusive territoriality of premodern political systems” (141). He continues by proposing what might be called a cluster of postmodern “nested sovereignties” modeled on the overlapping authorities and hierarchies of the medieval era (147–50).

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semeia Medieval Muslim Territoriality

Ruggie’s and Anderson’s claims for fluidity, nonexclusive territoriality, and alternative spatialities have been graphically illustrated. A number of medieval Muslim maps do not contain clear boundary markers or lines separating territories (Brauer). In Muslim geography, “border zones” existed where boundary lines did not. These were areas where the sovereignty of neighboring powers competed and overlapped at the outer reaches of the sovereigns’ domains. On the margins, neighboring powers competed and/or shared “control.” It was demonstrated that in fact medieval Arabo-Islamic geographers, . . . if they admitted the existences of political boundaries at all, did not conceive of the margins of adjoining individual states as sharp borderlines. . . . [G]eographers described all such borders in terms implying boundary zones of significant depth surrounding a core area of any given political entity within which its capital was located. Transition zones associated with external frontiers were shown to be occupied by a mixed border population differing in its composition from that of the core areas of these states. (Brauer: 65)

A central polity’s power diminished in proportion to a region’s distance from the center, and the maps reflect this. Geographers between 820 and 1320 C.E., nevertheless, did not seem to have a concept of area, a lack that Brauer credits to the breakdown of communication between these specialists and Arabo-Islamic mathematicians of the day, who were already using area as an abstract concept (67). From this he resolves his own query: With these data we concluded that, in accordance with Ibn Khaldun’s dictum, medieval Muslim states were indeed conceived of as being surrounded on all sides by boundary zones and hence lacked the sharply defined territory that would require border lines. Clearly, one could conclude that such states cannot have been conceived of as territorial states by the people of the time. (67)

Although he does not develop his insight, Brauer strongly implies a linkage between boundary lines and statehood or nationhood. In other words, as many others have argued, boundary lines are constitutive parts of nations, states, and empires, but are lacking in less centralized political structures. Boundaries are associated with a particular kind of knowledge, power, and spatiality, so that in nonstate environments spatiality bears a different meaning. Contrasting Territorialities Comparative ethnographic examples of “premodern” territoriality are limited, but the available studies are both compelling and reminiscent of

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Gellner’s description of segmented societies and Soja’s claims for Thirdspace. Caroline Humphrey’s work on landscapes in Mongolia demonstrates the way in which people identify with uses and practices rather than appearances or views of land. “In Mongolian culture itself landscapes are more in the nature of practices designed to have results: it is not contemplation of the land (gazar) that is important but interaction with it, as something with energies far greater than the human” (135). The land pervades inhabitants and their herds, and it influences where they graze and settle. Humphrey contrasts two notions of “energies-in-nature” found among the chiefs on the one hand and the shamans on the other. In terms similar to those used by Soja, she notes that these “emerge by the exercise of different forms of agency which are socially constituted in a basically asymmetrical way” (136). People actually have relationships to natural entities so that nature’s “unpredictable energies and beneficial powers can be tamed by ritualized actions” (137). Both chiefs and shamans engage with land on behalf of social groups, but the chiefly groups characteristically do not include women where the shaman groups do. The chiefly landscape is an ego-centered universe with a center that moves. It includes the sky and all its phenomena and therefore is more hierarchical than the shaman landscape. The goal is a reaching upward to join the earth and sky, and the position of the center does not matter. This landscape determines nomadic patterns with a new center established with every new camp. In the shamanic landscape, the earth is female and the sky male. It opens up a vision of the cosmos. “Here the earth as a whole, with its complexities and its subterranean depths, is seen in relation to the sky, with its ethereal layers” (149). Where the chiefly landscape is “punctual” focusing on centrality, the shamanic includes the idea of laterality and movement. Notions of power are also contrasted. Chiefs (and Buddhist lamas) gain legitimacy from social processes, whereas shamans gain their power directly from the energies of the world rather than from social training. Social Practice Creating Thirdspace How the experience of space and land can be used in order to create a sense of Thirdspace is apparent in Tom Selwyn’s anthropology of modern Israeli landscape. There he documents how landscape contributes “potent metaphors” that force the will to establish and maintain the State of Israel (114–34). Selwyn’s study is in some ways the reverse side of Soja’s coin. Instead of showing how a Thirdspace epistemology that depends on social practice can expose the lived space of others, he demonstrates how creating Thirdspace experiences in a particular land can transform a Firstspace into a Thirdspace, a lived space, that is loaded with meaning for its inhabitants.

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Sadly, but predictably, he illustrates as well that the same process depends on, or at least results in, a redefining of indigenous inhabitants, Arabs and others, as the “bad others” (114, 117–19). For early Zionist settlers, the redemptive quality of physical labor blended with ideology to enliven ideas of liberation and redemption. First, there was the idea of establishing a direct and working partnership both with the land, and more broadly, with the landscape as a whole, in order to express a human nature that had become cramped and partial in the ghetto. Secondly, there was the comparable notion of cognitively associating land, landscape, and the “nature” therein with the resurgent nation. Thirdly, subsuming both of these, was a strong holistic ethic in which the “whole person” was realized only within the encompassing framework of the nation organized on the basis of collective ownership and collective agricultural work: ideologically, this was not an individualistic revolution, but an essentially socialist one. Fourthly, there was the idea of building and releasing the “old-new” Jewish culture (to borrow from Herzl) based on farming rather than commerce: rediscovering, in some senses, a way of life which was widely believed to have ended for Jews with the sacking of the Second Temple. Fifthly, there was the ideal of the “pioneer” (chalutz) who was associated with a particular and recognizable set of dispositions towards the landscape and who went out into the land and countryside to discover its most intimate pathways, characteristics, and secrets in order to settle on and in it. Radically connected with these dispositions and practices were views about social relations which challenged established ideas and values about hierarchies of sex, age, and (in a more problematic sense) class. Indeed the significance of the term chalutz was, precisely, that it combined these elements. Finally, the whole project was conceived of as a redemptive process from which, as Liebman and Don-Yehiya (1984: 49) put it “God was excised, and nature . . . emphasised.” (Selwyn: 117)

Moving to the contemporary scene, Selwyn argues that landscape metaphors form part of a moral discourse to be used in making distinctions between “us” and “them”—the good and the bad. Activities organized by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), such as walking tours, workers’ education programs, scouting practices, and studying land in a way that bases it on both the Bible and science, create a knowledge of the country. Each activity, first of all, is just that, an activity, and each involves a degree of physical exertion. The idea is to experience the space “holistically,” associating history, architecture, ancient studies, and other realms that when woven together produce patriotic feelings. One SPNI administrator noted, “We don’t like to say we teach love of the country; it just happens by itself; it’s fascinating” (Selwyn: 120). Selwyn concludes by showing the connection between the SPNI (in Hebrew, the Society for the Defense of Nature of Israel) and the Israel

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Defense Force. He suggests that the use of the word defense is significant. Why does Israel’s nature and landscape need defending? The short answer is ecological. The long one has a great deal to do with the State and politics. Writing Holy Land guide books and sponsoring biblically based museum exhibits by romantic, Bible-loving, empire-building peoples abroad (and Selwyn emphasizes the British) contributes to the fusing of a defense myth. nature touring serves the fundamental function of uniting a potentially divided society. He [Ze’evi] sees Israel as being split between orthodox and non-orthodox Jews, between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, between the political left and right and so forth. The only common factor they have is a properly organized landscape. This is the only arena in which Jews from all these divisions, as well as others from abroad, can be guaranteed to express their common nationality. . . . Conservation of the landscape, and intimate contact with it, thus appears as the surest way of protecting the nation as a whole, both from internal schisms and external influences and threats. In that sense the Israeli government is right to recognize the part played by the SPNI—and the Israeli landscape it defends—in the war effort. (131)

Segmented Spatiality One of the most widely quoted statements on premodern space—in spite of its critics and its occasional cultural insensitivity—is geographer Robert Sack’s study of human territoriality. Sack notes that in band and tribal societies “[f]amily, kin, and ritualized friendships provide the complex channel of reciprocity through which labor, resources, and products flow to equalize discrepancies and to share in times of emergencies” (57). There is an organic linkage between peoples and their territories, so that the balanced opposition in segmentary systems is not between geometrically defined or delineated geographical spaces. The balance is between peoples and, speaking geographically, between territorialities they occupy because opposing peoples are there. The locations can be places, Thirdspaces, and lived spaces as outlined above. Territoriality is “the attempt by an individual or group to affect, influence, or control people, phenomena, and relationships, by delimiting and asserting control over a geographic area” (19). The effort to exclude and control means, of course, that some are included and others are not. Hence, Sack can claim, “Territories are socially constructed forms of spatial relations and their effects depend on who is controlling whom and for what purposes” (216). This description of a redistributive economy in segmented societies draws attention to a perception of spatiality among such peoples. Classification by geographical area is unnecessary. People do not determine who is a member of their group and who is not by referring to territoriality. Instead,

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they reverse the priorities. They and territory are identified by membership in a group. By this Sack insists that members of segmentary societies perceive themselves as networks of alliances (i.e., reciprocal exchange groups) and not as residents or custodians of territory. This is a different spatiality from that of peoples who see themselves as members of territories and states. Critical Spatiality and the Social World of Biblical Antiquity The purpose of this essay is programmatic rather than historical or an application of spatial theory to biblical data. Restrictions of space require that the latter be postponed for a longer study. However, we may indicate several areas where critical spatiality can enhance social-world studies of biblical antiquity. Mapping Genealogies First is studies on genealogies and studies using them. Keeping in mind the character of medieval paradigms, ethnographies, and information regarding segmentary societies and their spatialities cited above, we now understand that genealogies convey substantial spatial information. In fact, because they were used and reused as they passed from noncentralized to centralized systems—as Robert R. Wilson demonstrated two decades ago— genealogies can be used to gain perspectives on space in multiple ancient social circumstances. Similarly, mixing kinship and place names conforms to Gellner’s second criterion for segmented systems, that is, self-identification in kinship or territorial terms. In the ancients’ spatiality, they are one and the same. The terms stand for sets of relationships among peoples expressed sometimes by naming the peoples and at other times the spaces the peoples are known to reside in or control. As in the modern examples reviewed by Selwyn, those spaces can be included because the people feel that they “belong” there. It is the territoriality noted by Sack, their lived space, their Thirdspace. Critical spatiality exposes the difficulty if not the folly in trying to draw detailed maps based on genealogical texts. Brauer’s review of medieval Muslim territoriality and mapping is symptomatic of the wider problem. The most that could be reconstructed on such a basis would be estimates of border zones and overlapping “sovereignties” of segmentary leaders. This proscription applies to most attempts to map biblical antiquity as if cartographers had textual Firstspace data available. As Soja warned, their Secondspace mental conceptions of material Firstspace become substitutes for it. Firstspace collapses into Secondspace, and Thirdspace, especially of those who did not write the biblical text, is ignored.

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Examples of such collapsing are as abundant in biblical scholarship as they are, according to Selwyn’s description, in modern Middle Eastern politics. A paradigm is the way that the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, reused in the Book of Jubilees, has affected and been used in cartographic studies. There the Bible’s attempt to claim both worldwide expanse for Noah’s family in a postdiluvial age and central unifying ancestry for Noah has ensnared cartographers who ignore critical spatiality. Taking the genealogies as mimetic representations of a then-known global network of territorialities, they have attempted to plot the statements graphically onto Asia, Africa, and Europe. It is interesting to observe how the fusion of biblical and premodernist medieval cartography is caught up in modernist scientific accuracy quests for reclaiming the past. The classic map-texts of the Table of Nations are the T-O (terraoceanus) maps of the medieval period. The earliest extant example may be Isidore of Seville’s seventh-century C.E. diagram in De natura rerum (Stevens: 272). The dual processes of ethnocentricity and social ordering are already evident. The maps are circular illustrations of an ocean enclosing Asia (top), Europe (left), and Africa (right) separated by a “T” shape. The “T” presumably stands for three bodies of water, perhaps the Don and Nile atop the Mediterranean. In these Christian attempts to organize and theologize space, Jerusalem stands at the center at the intersection of the waters, which leads Sack to observe, “Wherever one actually is located in physical space is immaterial unless one is at the center in the heavenly city, Jerusalem” (85). In Thirdspace epistemology, all other spaces are “non-Jerusalem.” The medieval T-O form has become an anachronistic model for recent attempts to understand the Table. We see this failure in Philip Alexander’s mapping of Noah’s family from the second century B.C.E. Book of Jubilees 8–9 using the medieval T-O template (1982, 1992). Alexander supposes that a drawing, that is, a map, of the textual division of the earth among Noah’s descendants has been lost from the manuscript tradition but that an original drawing based upon the Ionian world map tradition and the Hebrew Bible had been included (1982:197). He substitutes his own T-O drawing and claims, If what we have argued above is correct, then the world map represents in an unusually concrete form the harmonization of the Bible and “science”: the author of Jubilees interpreted the Bible in light of non-Jewish “scientific” knowledge of his day. (1982:210)

Apparently caught in an impulse for scientific accuracy, Alexander collapses the cartographic tradition by combining later map forms with earlier verbal images. In a second article he moves closer to the social theory that might have saved him.

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semeia [The author used] the principle of genealogy (derived from family and tribal history) to organize certain geographical data, viz., the nations of the world known to him. He arranges them in families, relates them in terms of descent from common ancestors, or from each other, and, by tracing them back to Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet, integrates them into the narrative of sacred history. (1992:980)

Here is a case where awareness of critical spatiality would assist and guide a scholar in a different direction. Alexander’s later description casts the Jubilees material in terms of genealogy and segmentation, which brings him close to grasping the spatiality that characterized ancient society. But he does not catch either the social-world or spatial implications of his own remarks. Spatiality of Settlement Stories A second area where critical spatiality can illumine social-world studies and ancient spatial subtexts is the so-called settlement period. In response to current intense and sometimes bitter arguments about the origins of Israel, Peter Machinist surveyed most of the passages that others examine when arguing for or against settlement from outside Canaan. Without explicitly taking sides in the internal peasants’ revolt versus the external invasion/ infiltration debates, he concluded: In sum, the biblical story tradition of Israel entering as outsiders to take over Palestine should not be dismissed historically, despite the buffeting it has taken in the wake of recent study of Israelite origins. . . . The pervasiveness of this tradition in the Hebrew Bible, and the multiple historical contexts in which it seems to occur there, suggest a protean adaptability to the problems and crises that ancient Israel had to face. Particularly crucial in this regard, as we may now see, was the sense of marginality and contingency inherent in the tradition. . . . This explanatory power of our story tradition, it may be added, did not cease with the end of the biblical period. As the Passover Haggadah makes clear, Israel in a sense is always emerging from Egypt and the Wilderness to enter its promised land; the desire is only that it should stay there and live an exemplary and prosperous life. (54; emphasis added)

Machinist’s attempt to read the tradition faithfully can be applauded for its caution and thoroughness. However, when the same stories are reread in toto, as he has done, but without historical presuppositions and in light of critical spatiality, a different conclusion might be reached. The stories’ historicity may not be in their “historical” claims. They may not depict either a material or social Firstspace. The spatiality that is argued from the “maximalist” side in the so-called “maximalist-minimalist” debate that is in the background of Machinist’s study presumes Firstspace and Secondspace in the stories. The disputants

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presume a people physically outside a Firstspace—longing to be inside that Firstspace—who describe that Firstspace according to their Secondspace perceptions. This casts the debate in a dialectic that uses modernist, Cartesian spatial subtext terms that do not conform to Late Bronze–Early Iron Age or any other segmented biblical mentality. The spatiality that is claimed and whose recognition is desired in the stories must be the territoriality of a segmented society. It is “people space,” not bordered territories. And it is Thirdspace, the lived space of outsider peoples. As with Mrs. Parks, there is a “sense of marginality and contingency.” It is a space that is sought and hoped for, regardless of the location of the speakers. For unlike Mrs. Parks, according to Machinist’s claim, “This explanatory power of our story tradition . . . did not cease with the end of the biblical period. . . . Israel in a sense is always emerging from Egypt and the Wilderness to enter its promised land.” There is a desire and struggle that is felt always and anywhere the speaker may be. To repeat, it is a Thirdspace, a lived space, in this case felt to be obstructed and impeded. Hence, we may ask whether or how the hope was to be fulfilled? Would moving into a Firstspace satisfy? Apparently not, according to the claim of perpetuity. Therefore, is the tradition “historical” because it tells of a people who share a desire? Or because it tells of a desire never achieved? Both? Neither? The story’s continual reuse within the tradition and its recalling of the so-called tribal period suggests that segmentary space and Thirdspace are envisaged, the kind that is not easily mapped onto Firstspace modernist territoriality. But such questions cannot be answered without examining them in a postmodern historicality, sociality, spatiality trialectic that includes critical spatiality. And that must wait for another space.

WORKS CONSULTED Alexander, Philip S. 1982 “Notes on the Imago Mundi in the Book of Jubilees.” JJS 33:197–213. 1992

“Early Jewish Geography.” ABD 2:977–88.

Anderson, James 1996 “The Shifting Stage of Politics: New Medieval and Postmodern Territorialities.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 14:133–53. Benedikt, Michael, ed. 1991 Cyberspace: First Steps. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Bolter, Jay David 1990 Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.

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Boyarin, Jonathan 1994 “The Other Within and the Other Without.” Pp. 424–52 in The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity. Ed. Laurence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn. New York: New York University Press. Boyer, M. Christine 1996 CyberCities: Visual Perception in the Age of Electronic Communication. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press. Brauer, Ralph W. 1995 Boundaries and Frontiers in Medieval Muslim Geography. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Brinkman, Johan M. 1992 The Perception of Space in the Old Testament: An Exploration of the Methodological Problems of Its Investigation Exemplified by a Study of Exodus 25 and 31. Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos. Castells, Manuel 1996 The Rise of Network Society, vol. 3. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell. Coote, Robert B., and Keith W. Whitelam 1987 The Emergence of Early Israel in Historical Perspective. SWBA 5. Sheffield: Almond. Edgerton, Samuel Y., Jr. 1975 The Renaissance Rediscovery of Linear Perspective. New York: Basic Books. Escobar, Arturo 1994 “Welcome to Cyberia. Notes on the Anthropology of Cyberculture.” Current Anthropology 35:211–31. Flanagan, James W. 1981 “Chiefs in Israel.” JSOT 20:47–73. 1983

“Succession and Genealogy in the Davidic Dynasty.” Pp. 35–55 in The Quest for the Kingdom of God: Studies in Honor of George E. Mendenhall. Ed. H. B. Huffmon et al. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.

1988

David’s Social Drama: A Hologram of Israel’s Early Iron Age. SWBA 7. Sheffield: Almond.

Foucault, Michel 1986 “Of Other Spaces.” Diacritics 16:22–27. Frick, Frank S. 1985 The Formation of the State in Ancient Israel. SWBA 4. Sheffield: Almond. Gellner, Ernest 1973 “Introduction to Nomadism.” Pp. 1–10 in The Desert and the Sown. Ed. Cynthia Nelson. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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Gottwald, Norman K. 1979 The Tribes of Yahweh. A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 B.C.E. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis. Gottwald, Norman K., and Frank S. Frick 1975 “The Social World of Ancient Israel: An Orientation Paper for the Consultation.” Pp. 165–78 in SBLSP, vol. 1. Ed. George MacRae. Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press. Gregory, Derek 1994a Geographical Imaginations. Oxford: Blackwell. 1994b

“Social Theory and Human Geography.” Pp. 78–109 in Human Geography: Society, Space, and Social Science. Ed. Derek Gregory, Ron Martin, and Graham Smith. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

1995

“Imaginative Geographies.” Progress in Human Geography 19:447–85.

Harley, J. B. 1992 “Deconstructing the Map.” Pp. 231–47 in Writing Worlds: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Representation of Landscape. Ed. Trevor J. Barnes and James S. Duncan. New York: Routledge. Harley, J. B., and David Woodward, eds. 1987 The History of Cartography, vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harré, Rom 1986 Varieties of Realism: A Rationale for the Natural Sciences. Oxford: Blackwell. Harvey, David 1989 The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell. 1996

Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell.

2000

Spaces of Hope. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Hetherington, Kevin 1997 The Badlands of Modernity: Heterotopia and Social Ordering. New York: Routledge. Hirsch, Eric, and Michael O’Hanlon, eds. 1995 The Anthropology of Landscape. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Humphrey, Caroline 1995 “Chiefly and Shamanist Landscapes in Mongolia.” Pp. 135–64 in The Anthropology of Landscape. Ed. Eric Hirsch and Michael O’Hanlon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Jencks, Charles 1991 The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. 6th ed. London: Academy Editions. Lefebvre, Henri 1991 The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson Smith. Oxford: Blackwell. (Production de l’espace. Paris: Editions Anthropos, 1974.) Machinist, Peter 1994 “Outsiders or Insiders: The Biblical View of Emergent Israel and Its Contexts.” Pp. 35–60 in The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity. Ed. Laurence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn. New York: New York University Press. Malina, Bruce J. 1993 “Apocalyptic and Territoriality.” Pp. 369–80 in Early Christianity in Context: Monuments and Documents. Ed. F. Manns and E. Alliata. Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Collectio Maior 38. Jerusalem: Franciscan. Pellow, Deborah, ed. 1996 Setting Boundaries: The Anthropology of Spatial and Social Organization. Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey. Pickles, John 1992 “Texts, Hermeneutics and Propaganda Maps.” Pp. 193–273 in Writing Worlds: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Representation of Landscape. Ed. Trevor J. Barnes and James S. Duncan. New York: Routledge. Poster, Mark 1990 The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Renfrew, Colin, and Ezra B. W. Zubrow, eds. 1994 The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology. New Directions in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ruggie, John 1993 “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations.” International Organization 47:139–74. Sack, Robert D. 1986 Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sasson, Jack 1981 “On Choosing Models for Recreating Israelite Pre-Monarchic History.” JSOT 21:3–24. Selwyn, Tom 1995 “Landscapes of Liberation and Imprisonment: Towards an Anthropology of the Israeli Landscape.” Pp. 114–34 in The Anthropology of Landscape. Ed. Eric Hirsch and Michael O’Hanlon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Shields, Rob 1991 Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity. New York: Routledge. Soja, Edward W. 1989 Postmodern Geography: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. New York: Verso. 1993

“Postmodern Geographies and the Critique of Historicism.” Pp. 113–36 in Postmodern Contentions: Epochs, Politics, Space. Ed. John Paul Jones III, Wolfgang Natter, and Theodore R. Schatzki. New York: Guildford.

1996

Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell.

Stevens, Wesley M. 1980 “The Figure of the Earth in Isidore’s De natura rerum.” Isis 71:268–77. Toulmin, Stephen 1990 Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tuan, Yi-Fu 1977 Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Turkle, Sherry 1995 Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster. Whitelam, Keith W. 1996 The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History. London: Routledge. Wilson, Robert R. 1977 Genealogy and History in the Biblical World. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Ziman, John 1984 An Introduction to Science Studies: The Philosophical and Social Aspects of Science and Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

IN THE SHADOW OF CAIN Paula M. McNutt Canisius College

abstract My concern in this article is with the traditional character of the story in Genesis 4 and the representation of Cain and his descendants as culture heroes and as the eponymous ancestors of smiths and artisans. The story is interpreted in light of comparative information and studies on the social status of artisans and smiths in traditional African and Middle Eastern societies and compared to similar types of myths from other traditional societies. Social information about the status of artisans and other culture-providers in ancient Israel, as well as the kinds of beliefs and attitudes associated with and directed toward them, I suggest, are symbolized and encoded in: (1) the structure of the text; (2) Cain’s role in the myth; (3) his “murder” of Abel; (4) the “mark” God puts on him as a symbol of divine protection; (5) his relationship to other culture heroes in the text; and (6) spatial references in the story.

Introduction Genesis 4 is a traditional story in which Cain, the “culture hero” and eponymous ancestor of tent dwellers, musicians, and metalworkers, is responsible for introducing to humankind some of the primary elements of civilization through the activities of his descendants. Cain is one of the most ambivalent figures in the Hebrew Bible. This ambivalence is apparent in a number of respects: he is a murderer, who is nevertheless protected by God (Gen 4:15), an agriculturalist for whom the earth will bear no fruit (vv. 12–13), a wanderer who “dwells” in the land of Nod (“wandering,” v. 16). As the ancestor of both city dwellers (Enoch) and tent dwellers (Jabal), he represents a kind of social marginality (vv. 17, 20). His other descendants, a metalworker (Tubal-Cain) and a musician (Jubal), introduce to culture both arts and technology (vv. 17–22) and represent categories of persons who in many traditional societies are equally welcome among both nomads and settled agriculturalists (cf. Leach, 1969:60). In contrast to traditional theological interpretations of this story that focus on the ethical issues associated with the act of fratricide and the question of whether Cain was repentant for shedding the blood of his pastoralist

-45-

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brother (see, e.g., Mellinkoff), my concern here is with the traditional character of the story and the representation of Cain and his descendants as culture heroes and as the eponymous ancestors of smiths and artisans. The story is interpreted in light of comparative information and studies on the social status of artisans and smiths in traditional African and Middle Eastern societies and compared to examples of similar types of myths from other traditional societies. On the surface, the story of Cain’s fratricide clearly carries a theological message that concerns family and ethical issues. But, as is often typical of traditional stories, it lacks clarity in some other respects in that it appears to the modern reader to be fragmented, incomplete, and contradictory in some specific details. For example, the text says nothing about why Abel’s offering is accepted and Cain’s is not. Cain is both punished and protected for the murder of his brother. And although he is condemned to be a wanderer, Cain nevertheless “settles” in the land of Nod and builds the first city. The questions of what the “mark” is that God puts on Cain and of what it means are also left unanswered. But these things that appear to the modern Western reader as problems in the text, if viewed as characteristic of traditional stories and myths and as bearing meaning because of their ambiguity, can actually provide a window for looking beneath the surface of the text to recover possible sociocultural meanings that may underlie the more overt theological message. Jan Vansina, for example, has pointed out that characters in traditional stories often reflect ideal types to which individuals with particular roles or statuses within a society are expected to conform. Although the particular characteristics of these ideal types are often distorted and the characteristics of one or more idealized persons are often attributed to other prototypical characters in ways that strike us as confused or contradictory, the idealization itself may nevertheless convey crucial cultural information. If we consider the story of Cain and his descendants in relation to Vansina’s observations, as ideal types, the characteristics and roles they play in the story can be viewed as encoding information about the roles and status of artisans and smiths in ancient Israel. The “distortions” Vansina points to result in part from the distinction anthropologists have identified between the cultural domains of actions and notions. The latter domain, often expressed through traditional stories and myths, does not always correspond with the former; what people say they do and what they actually do can be two different things (see, e.g., Flanagan, 1988:88–103). It is clear from the archaeological information, for example, that the peoples of ancient Israel were fully incorporated into ancient Near Eastern “civilization” and that they took full advantage of developments in the realm of technology (i.e., in their actions). Yet in the biblical myths about the processes of creation, both “civilization” and technology are regarded with ambivalence, as is particularly clear in the myth of Cain (notions).

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Vansina also makes a distinction between apparent meaning and intended meaning, arguing that the meanings of key words, symbols, metaphors, or stereotypes in traditional narratives that seem apparent to the interpreter are not necessarily the meanings that are intended. Myths typically have several levels of meaning—they are what anthropologists have referred to as multivalent (e.g., Turner) or polysemic (e.g., Leach). One of our aims, then, in interpreting ancient texts is to attempt to recover, not only what the ancient author or authors said, but also what they may have meant to convey to their audiences, trying to avoid allowing our own worldviews and biases to control our readings. The primary difficulty in trying to reconstruct the intended meanings of the authors and how these were appropriated by ancient audiences is our lack of understanding of their socially shared experiences and beliefs. One of the primary goals of the social-scientific approach, then, is to provide contemporary readers with possible scenarios for understanding texts that are from cultures radically different from our own (Malina: 255). Artisans and Smiths in Traditional African and Middle Eastern Societies I begin, therefore, with a presentation of some scenarios drawn from traditional African and Middle Eastern societies that may help us to understand the less apparent meanings underlying this enigmatic myth. One of the essential points in my understanding of the story is that it is associated with and reflects notions about a group or groups in ancient Israel that were socially marginal,1 in a way that is similar to the marginality of artisan and smithing groups in other traditional societies. According to Victor Turner, “marginals” . . . are simultaneously members (by ascription, optation, selfdefinition, or achievement) of two or more groups whose social definitions and cultural norms are distinct from, and often even opposed to, one another. . . . such marginals . . . often look to their group of origin, the socalled inferior group, for communitas, and to the more prestigious group in which they mainly live and in which they aspire to higher status, as their structural reference group. (1974:233)

Artisans and smiths in traditional African and Middle Eastern societies tend to form marginal groups that are regarded with ambivalence by the

1 Possibly including the Kenites, the Midianites, and the Rechabites. Their marginal character as represented in the biblical texts supports the hypothesis that they may have been associated in some way with metalworking and/or some other kind of craftsmanship (see, e.g., Albright, 1957:257, 1963; McNutt, 1990, 1994).

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dominant social groups with which they are associated. There is, in fact, a clear incongruence between notions and actions with regard to such groups—between the ambivalent attitudes directed toward them, on the one hand, and a reliance on them for the production of economic and cultural necessities on the other. Technological processes associated with the work of artisans are related to these apparent attitudes of ambivalence. They appear to be somewhat mysterious and magical and are therefore considered dangerous. Because of their knowledge and the power associated with facilitating transformation, smiths especially are at once respected and feared. Although the end products of their work are economic and social necessities, the technological processes are nevertheless regarded with some amount of fear—thus the material and notional realms of culture come into conflict. The fact that they typically do not participate in primary economic activities, such as farming or herding, reinforces these ambivalent attitudes. I have reviewed the information on African societies in some detail elsewhere (McNutt, 1990, 1991, 1994; see also, e.g., Herbert; Conrad and Frank). However, it is useful to summarize it briefly here. In the organization and structure of traditional African societies, smiths and other types of artisans such as leather workers, potters, and bards tend to form groups apart. This separation may be radical, especially in societies in which they are held in low esteem (see, e.g., Hollis; Huntingford; Shack), or it may take the form of endogamous families or guilds (see, e.g., Lloyd), as seems to be typical in societies in which they are honored. In either case, contact with them is avoided. Intermarriage with them is considered to be dangerous and polluting and, at least ideally, is forbidden. The roles and statuses attributed to smiths and other types of artisans, and the attitudes directed toward them, tend to vary according to social complexity. The general pattern is that in West African societies, where subsistence is based primarily on agriculture, social organization is hierarchical, and smiths and artisans are both respected and feared (see, e.g., McNaughton, 1988; Conrad and Frank). They are believed to be bearers of profound knowledge and power, are highly honored, and tend to have important social roles and primary roles in creation myths. In East African societies, on the other hand, especially among pastoral peoples with less hierarchically oriented social structures, smiths and artisans are viewed with more ambivalence and fear (see, e.g., Hollis; Huntingford; Shack). They are perceived as dangerous sorcerers or bearers of the “evil eye” and are often spurned, but are nevertheless held in awe. The stigma of East African smiths and artisans is often identified with the potency of their blood, which causes them to be ritually impure and induces fear in those who do not belong to smith or artisan “castes.” The social status of smiths in these societies tends to be lower, and they occupy less

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prominent social positions. However, in some cases they do have ritual functions. The role of the smith as religious specialist in initiation rites involving circumcision or excision is particularly pervasive in both East and West Africa. The pattern in traditional Middle Eastern bedouin societies basically conforms with that of East African pastoral societies (see, e.g., Coon, 1931, 1951; Dickson; Doughty; Musil; van Nieuwenhuijze, 1965, 1977; Patai, 1958, 1967). Artisans and smiths are marginalized, feared (they are believed to possess the “evil eye”), and shunned but function in some contexts as ritual specialists, circumcisers, entertainers, diviners, healers, or guides; and they are believed to have supernatural powers. They form groups apart that are typically fragmented and scattered, as is the case with the ßunna< (tinkers and blacksmiths) and the ®olubba who are counted among those tribes that are considered inferior or “non-Sharíf.” Intermarriage with them is discouraged or forbidden. The ®olubba, nicknamed by the bedouin “Abu al Khala”—“Father of the empty spaces” (Glubb: 14)—are found in small groups over much of the Arabian Peninsula.2 They are nonpastoralists who have formed a symbiotic relationship with bedouin tribes. ®olubba camps are similar to those of the bedouin except that they usually move in smaller groups, often only as an extended family unit comprising one or two tents. The exact character of their social organization is not entirely clear from the sources, but they seem to be divided into “clans.” Certain groups among the ®olubba are loosely affiliated with specific bedouin tribes. They pay khuwa (a form of protection tax) to the bedouin on the basis of extended family groups, which entitles them to protection. Although they are essentially a nonpastoral group, they sometimes breed white donkeys and occasionally keep a few sheep, goats, or camels. The ®olubba are smiths and woodworkers, who also derive part of their livelihood from hunting and tracking and from practicing their skills as veterinarians. They are particularly famed for their tracking skills and for their ability to find water in the deep desert, where even the bedouin would die of thirst. ®olubba men are said to be poets and magicians, and the women fortune-tellers, enchantresses, brewers of love potions, and bearers of the “evil eye.” They are also renowned for their music and dancing. The ®olubba are physically different from the bedouin—they often have fair hair and light eyes, their dress is distinctive (they dress in garments

2 For a good summary of the information on the ®olubba, see Betts; Dickson; Dostal; Doughty; Glubb; Musil, 1927, 1928; Patai, 1958, 1967; Philby. In presenting both the African and Middle Eastern information here, I use the “ethnographic present.” In both regions contact with Western culture has effected significant changes in the roles and statuses of artisan groups.

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made from gazelle skins; Betts: 63), and they have a pronounced accent (Musil, 1927:215) and some words exclusive to their own dialect. Their descent is unknown, and they are not considered to be either Arabs or bedouin. The bedouin say that “they are not of lineage,” that is, not descended from Kahtân (a noble-blooded tribe; Doughty: 326). There is a particularly pervasive legend that they are descended from some ancient Christian group (e.g., Philby: 268; Dickson: 516), possibly the Crusaders, having been captured in various conflicts and carried off into slavery by the bedouin.3 For a bedouin to marry a ®olubba is considered to be a disgrace, although there are references to ®olubba concubines and prostitutes.4 One account records that they had to provide their own drinking vessels for milk, as the bedouin consider them unclean (Doughty: 324). The Rwala bedouin believe they have the power to do both good and evil: to awaken love, but also to smother it; to strengthen and also to destroy the faculty of begetting; to increase as well as to hinder the growth of children; to lengthen and shorten life. (Musil, 1928:406)

Failure is often blamed on the ®olubba, and their tents are avoided by warriors on raids. But in spite of their apparent despised status, their hospitality is accepted when a warrior is ill or wounded. They are known to tend the sick carefully and to carry them home when they have recovered or to bury them when they die. The ®olubba are also considered to be neutral, and because of this, they are valued as scouts and are sent out in advance to see if hostile groups are camping in the vicinity. Van Nieuwenhuijze notes that this kind of people is basically “sacred” in the true, ambivalent sense of the word. Their “sacredness,” he suggests, is not in conflict with, but is in fact expressed in, a socially despised position (1965:36). The ßunna< (singular ßani<) are tinkers and blacksmiths,5 some of whom are settled in villages, and some of whom live as nomads among the bedouin (Doughty: 327). As is the case for the ®olubba, the ßunna< are marginal and treated as neutral. Their marginality is expressed in spatial as well as social terms. For example, in one source (Doughty: 581) the smith’s house is described as “the last in going out of the town.”6 Some ßunna< are minstrels (Dickson: 517), some practice the art of healing, and some perform circumcisions (Doughty: 437).

3 According to Dickson (516), the roots of this story lie in two things: (1) the traditional emblem of the ®olubba—a dress wrapped around a wooden cross and displayed on ceremonial occasions as a form of “standard”; and (2) the etymological relationship between the word ßalib, the Christian cross, and ßulaib (the plural of ®olubba) and also a diminutive form of ßalib. 4 Dickson (516) notes that a bedouin who married a ®olubba girl would be killed. 5 On the ßunna< see, e.g., Doughty; Musil, 1928; Patai, 1958, 1967. 6 Smiths and artisans also tend to live on the outskirts of settlements in African societies.

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Many camps and settlements have ßunna< living and working among them. But they form kin groups of their own that are related to other ßunna< throughout Arabia and are considered by others to be “strangers forever” (Musil, 1928:282). Unlike the bedouin, they never take part in wars or raids. The ßunna< are also said to have no recognized genealogy because nothing is known about their true descent. Among the Rwala bedouin, as is the case for the ®olubba, marriage with a ßani< is forbidden. In spite of these attitudes, the Rwala claim that, along with the first bedouin, the first smith assisted Allah with creation (Musil, 1928:281). The roles and statuses of smiths and artisans in town and city contexts in the Middle East, however, are quite different (see, e.g., van Nieuwenhuijze, 1965). There appears to be little evidence that they are marginalized in these contexts, and there is little indication that they are attributed any type of extraordinary status, either positive or negative. One corresponding characteristic is that craft specialization is traditionally passed on within families and/or organized in guilds. Apparently, in these contexts the artisans are better integrated into the overall social structure than is the case even in the hierarchically structured West African societies, where they are clearly attributed marginal status. In myths and traditional stories, the ambivalent character of artisans, especially smiths, is apparent in their portrayals as both human and divine, as individuals set apart from conventional morality, as sacrificing something of themselves for the good of humankind, and as both creators and destroyers. Patrick R. McNaughton has captured the ambiguity of the smith’s roles in African myths and traditional stories in his statement regarding smiths in Mande stories: Often enough the smiths are clear benefactors, whose efforts enhance individuals, communities, and the whole society. As often they perpetuate heinous acts and develop devices that can be viewed with the same mixed feelings with which Westerners regard their own nuclear energy. (1995:50)

Among the Dogon of West Africa, smiths are characterized as stigmatized individuals who possess a diminished life force that removes them from the category of the “living” (i.e., other Dogon). This is said to derive from the sacrifice of energy by the first smith for the common good of humanity and contributes to the belief that as a result smiths are impure (Dieterlen: 45; Margarido and Wasserman: 94). In one version of the myth, the primal smith is said by the Dogon to have participated in reordering the cosmos following the activities of the rebellious and earth-defiling trickster figure (see, e.g., Griaule and Dieterlen; Dieterlen; Pelton). He was responsible for building and bringing to the earth the first granary (into which he poured a large portion of his strength and life force), was the inventor of fire, and taught humans about agriculture and animal domestication. The first smith

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was also a “master of knowledge,” and he carried out the rites of circumcision and excision on the first ancestors in order to render them fit for marriage and to prepare them for learning. Among the West African Yoruba, Ogun, the god of metal and war, is variously regarded as one of the original gods or as a deified ancestor. He is considered to be the first forger of weapons and the first hunter. It is also believed that Ogun put the finishing touches on the creation of human beings by taking charge of the work of circumcision, tribal marking, tattooing, and other surgical operations necessary to keep humans in good health (Idowu: 85–87; Awolalu: 31). According to the religious traditions of the city of Ife, the center of Yoruba religion, Ogun was its first king (Pelton: 156). The story speaks of him as an explosive ruler who lost control when his subjects failed to show him proper respect. After killing a number of them, he then killed himself and disappeared into the earth, establishing himself as a mediator between the worlds of the living and the dead (Lawson: 61; Awolalu: 31). Ogun is believed by the Yoruba to be associated with both heaven and earth; his abode is both in the heavens and on (or under) the earth. He is both a living god and a dead ancestor (Lawson: 61–62; Awolalu: 33; Parrinder: 35). The smith’s role in African creation myths is essential to effecting transformations, and it often refers to crucial points of passage or transition in the lives of individuals or groups. He is sometimes conceived as having been created from the sacrifice of another divine being. As culture hero, he serves as a facilitator of the formation of order out of chaos between the first aborted creation and the present world; as both a descendant of the gods and one of the first human ancestors, he mediates between the heavenly and earthly realms and transmits to humans crucial knowledge about social organization, agriculture, animal domestication, technology, and the like. His abode is both in heaven and on or under the earth, and he sometimes serves as a link between the living and the dead. He thus “exists” on the boundaries, is “betwixt and between,” to use Victor Turner’s phrase. Edmund Leach sees this “middle” position in myth as “abnormal, nonnatural, holy,” and as being typically the focus of taboo (1969:11; cf. Leach, 1976:33–36). Mary Douglas, on the other hand, views marginals, including marginal social states, as often being identified with pollution and impurity because they are considered to be dangerous sources of power (1966:99; 1975:56). These seemingly opposing interpretations indicate that there is a fine line separating beliefs that associate margins with that which is holy and those that associate them with impurity and pollution. Both realms are the target of taboos, and both associate marginality with power. Whether we view them as “holy” or “polluting,” the social status of marginal, socially ambiguous individuals, and the mythical figures with whom they are associated, reflects this association of marginality and power.

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The marginality of smiths and other types of artisans and their families is reinforced by the fact that they are marginal in the socioeconomic realm, as they do not participate fully in the primary economic activities, whether they be farming or pastoralist. Even in societies in which they are honored, they are not included among those who are considered “noble.” Socially, then, they are located on the boundaries or margins of their communities. I have argued elsewhere that some of the marginal characteristics of traditional African and Middle Eastern smiths and artisans can also be seen in the biblical portrayals of the Kenites, Midianites, and Rechabites (1990, 1994). Here I will cite just a few of the more obvious examples. The characteristics of the Rechabites listed in Jer 35:8–10 (especially the restrictions against participating in farming activities, which were essential to the economy in ancient Israel) is the most straightforward representation of marginality. The military neutrality of the Kenites in Judges 4 and 5 is also reminiscent of the neutral status of marginal smithing groups in traditional societies. And the belief that intermarriage with individuals from marginal artisan or smithing clans is dangerous and polluting may be represented in Numbers 25, where a plague occurs because of the indiscretion of a man who “brought a Midianite woman to his family” at the tent of meeting (v. 6).7 As Max Weber argued (29; cf. Douglas, 1966:99), the social status of artisans and smiths in ancient Israel probably changed over time, particularly as the social structure became more hierarchical. They probably continued to be socially separated to some degree, perhaps as endogamous families or guilds, but not as radically as in earlier periods. The story of Cain thus very likely reflects early notions and attitudes, when the group or groups Cain and his descendants symbolized were still perceived as marginal in relation to socially dominant groups. Symbolic Interpretations of the Cain Myth/Cain As Culture Hero Social information about the status of artisans and other cultureproviders in ancient Israel, as well as the kinds of beliefs and attitudes associated with and directed toward them, I suggest, are symbolized and encoded in the story of Cain. This can be inferred from: (1) the structure of the text; (2) Cain’s role in the myth; (3) his “murder” of Abel; (4) the “mark” God puts on him as a symbol of divine protection; (5) his relationship to the other culture heroes in the text; and (6) spatial references in the story.

7 This contrasts with the apparent acceptance of Moses’ marriage to a Midianite woman. Compare Ezra 2:61–63 and Neh 7:63–65, where the descendants of Barzillai (from barzel, “iron”) are excluded by name from the centralized priesthood as unclean, in spite of their good relations with David (2 Sam 17:27–29; 19:31–39).

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The ambivalent and marginal character of smiths and artisans is clearly represented in the figure of Cain—the biblical culture hero and first builder of a city, the eponymous ancestor of tent dwellers, musicians, and metalsmiths—when he is compared to similar figures in other traditional culture hero stories. In a brief analysis of the structure of the story, in which “sinful Cain becomes tied to God (is redeemed) through the sacrifice of Abel” (4), Leach proposes meanings that are strikingly similar to the portrayal of smiths in other culture-hero myths (1983b:4–5). These meanings, he suggests, are embedded in the ambiguities in binary pairs, where crucial value is attached to the “middle term” in these binary oppositions. He identifies three phases in the structure of the myth. In phase 1, Cain symbolizes the here and now (agriculturalists/culture), Abel symbolizes the betwixt and between (pastoralists/wilderness), and God represents the “other” (God/heaven). In this phase, God accepts Abel’s sacrifice and rejects Cain’s. Abel is linked to God; Cain is not. In phase 2, Cain sacrifices Abel (see below), the sacrifice is accepted, and Cain is marked. Cain has replaced Abel (symbolizing the betwixt and between) and is now the one linked to God. The “sacrifice” of the semidivine Abel by sinful Cain thus “redeems” Cain. In phase 3, Cain, now sacred and linked to God, builds the first city (as a founding ancestor). The city of humans in this phase symbolizes the here and now (agriculturalists/culture), the wilderness (land of “Nod”) symbolizes the betwixt and between, and the “city of God” symbolizes the “other.”8 Leach also sees Cain and Abel as offspring of a “union that is contaminated with the sin of abnormality” (1983a:14), and the intermediate period in the story between the first creation and the flood, which includes the “period” of Cain and Abel, as an “Other Time which is fitted to an Other World inhabited by Other Creatures who are not altogether men” (15). Thus, as in other myths of this type and in the perceptions often associated with marginal smith and artisan groups, Cain “exists” in the “betwixt and between,” in a “middle” position that is “abnormal, nonnatural, holy,” while at the same time, paradoxically, he is “polluting.” In addition to Leach, several other recent studies argue that in the original version of the Cain story what is traditionally interpreted as a “murder” was more likely understood as an acceptable sacrifice. The most extensive is Hyam Maccoby’s The Sacred Executioner. Although I am not convinced by all of his arguments (for example, his assertion that the myth is historically

8 Note that Leach is concerned with uncovering symbolic meanings that are beneath the surface of the text. Thus, terms like “sacrifice” and “redeem” are not understood literally, but symbolically, with the notion of ambivalence as central.

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grounded in the actual practice of human sacrifice),9 I find a number of his observations compelling because they highlight the character of the story as typical of a traditional culture-hero myth. By “sacred executioner,” Maccoby means “the figure of a person (either a god or a human being) who slays another person, and as a result is treated as being both sacred and accursed” (7). Commonly, such an individual in myth is expelled from society and condemned to wander; yet he is also regarded as having special privileges, such as being protected from attack and having his life prolonged beyond the average (7). Few of the myths, he points out, portray human sacrifice openly. Most are stories about accidental deaths or murders, carried out for merely personal reasons. Typically, some positive consequence results, as is the case in culture-hero myths (8). The “punishment” for the killing is typically ambivalent—the slayer is cursed but not put to death; he acquires special magic power; he is driven out of society—but special pains are taken to ensure that he survives. By taking the blame for the slaying, he performs a great service—he absolves the society as a whole from guilt. On the basis of its fit with this myth type, Maccoby suggests that the original version of the story in Genesis 4 was a Kenite myth about their eponymous ancestor and that Cain was not a murderer but one who performed a human sacrifice to which no guilt was attached (11, 17). Because some ritual impurity resulted from the slaying, however, Cain had to retire to the desert until he was purged of his defilement (21). Maccoby further argues that Cain was originally a more important figure in the Israelite traditions about creation than is now apparent in the text (18). Although in the story as it now stands, Seth’s line is the one that is emphasized, it is really a reflection of and derives from the line of Cain. The names in the two genealogies in Genesis 4 and 5, he points out, are basically the same, with slight variations: Cain = Kenan, Enoch = Enoch, Irad = Jared, Mehujael = Mahalalel, Methushael = Methuselah, Lamech = Lamech. Each list also ends with a trio of names, even though they are not identical (Jabal/Jubal/Tubal Cain; Shem/Ham/Japheth). Cain’s “mark” is the most apparent symbol of his ambivalent and marginal character. Regardless of whether the author intended some “physical” identifier, the mark is a “stigma” of sorts. But, although it denotes Cain as a “murderer,” God designates him in this way precisely in order that no one shall kill him (Gen 4:15). According to D. Alan Aycock, this “stigma” identifies Cain as a person not quite human (one who is not to be slain although he is a murderer), an antisocial mediator who is neither human nor divine

9 The symbolic representation of human sacrifice in a myth need not be grounded in actual practice, as he seems to imply.

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(122). He represents, as Leach has noted, the margins of oppositions— purity/pollution, life/death, limitation/creativity, this world/the other world (1969:60). As applied to mythical individuals such as Cain, stigmata may . . . be regarded metaphorically, as visual clues to the moral status of a particular actor, where it is important that the moral status of that actor be multivalent, according to the level of interpretation which the audience evokes. This multivalence is diagnostic of mythological contexts, producing in the audience an intuition simultaneously of emotional involvement and of interpretive complexity. . . . there are four distinguishable, but interrelated levels subsumed by the metaphor of stigma: 1) stigma as an existential paradox expressing contradiction between physical mortality and spiritual immortality; 2) stigma as a sort of brand, a mark of “ownership” by a particular deity who sets apart the stigmatized person from his society and thus from conventional morality; 3) stigma as an element of sacrifice, mediating the realms of the human and divine; 4) stigma as a mythic paradox of creation and destruction akin to the worldwide theme of the “trickster.” (Aycock: 120–21)

At the first level of meaning, stigma as existential paradox is precursor to an even greater evidence of Cain’s role as culture hero—from Cain’s violent act of mortality arise exactly those activities that typify culture, in its immortal sense (Aycock: 121–22). At the second level of meaning, stigma as divine “ownership,” Cain’s consecration is effectively demonstrated by God’s threat to retaliate “sevenfold” (Gen 4:15) against anyone attempting to exact blood-vengeance for his murder of Abel. The effect of consecration, Aycock argues, is to remove an individual from his moral community, which results in his not being fully human. The characterization of the stigmatized as antisocial is thematically essential—it permits them, as mediators who are neither human nor divine, to communicate in both realms. This release from stereotypical social roles and norms also allows for the generation of creativity. At the third level of meaning, stigma as an element of sacrifice (122–23), Aycock views the “murder” of Abel as a sacrifice, with its associated symbols of purity and pollution (citing Douglas, 1966; and Turner, 1969). Aycock presents a rather complicated argument that I will not reproduce here, but essentially he concludes that stigmata, which are prominent during the most potent moments of a sacrificial ritual, express the contrasts between the important conceptual elements of sacrifice—purity and pollution, human and animal, life and death, limitation and creativity, this world and the other world—in such a way that the stigmatized may be perceived as permanently inhabiting the interface (or margin) of these oppositions. Stigmatized heroes are thus in a supremely multivalent condition, since the stigma proclaims them as in some sense morally transcendant, mediators who are both necessary and dangerous. In Aycock’s interpretation, Cain’s sacrifice of Abel

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represents, ironically, a direct solution to the inferiority of his initial nonblood offering. Pointing to the mythological device of characterizing twins or siblings as a means of displaying opposed qualities of a single hero, Aycock suggests that Cain sacrifices the “animal”-related aspect of himself. The stigmatization resulting from the sacrifice carries with it the contradictory implications of physical mortality and spiritual or social immortality. The fourth level of meaning, stigma and the theme of the trickster (124–25), is identified with the type of mythic hero who stands at the nexus of mortality and immortality, structure and antistructure, the individual and society— that is, the trickster. On one level of interpretation, the trickster is “Everyperson” caught in an existential dilemma. On another level, he functions in origin myths as an explanation for human mortality and for various elements of social art or craft. Thus, the “trick” played is to transcend ordinary reality by violating it in such a way that society is simultaneously disrupted and renewed—an act of creation with death as its inescapable attendant. These levels of interpretation are drawn together by the fate of the trickster, who is to be physically damaged or demarcated (never killed) by the very trick that produces both death and creativity.10 In other words, the stigmatization of the trickster is the sacrifice he makes. Cain’s character as represented in the biblical myth incorporates all these levels of stigmatization and closely parallels how divine or semidivine smiths are portrayed in myths from other cultures, such as those from Africa discussed above. The final aspect of the Cain myth that I would like to consider here is how spatiality is used to signify the social status and roles of groups implied in the myth. The most obvious references to space are those pointing to Cain’s destiny as a wanderer and his settlement in the land of Nod (“wandering”). Although there appears to be a contradiction here (how does one settle if he or she is destined to wander), as Leach would argue (e.g., 1983a:16), it is precisely in such ambiguities that the meanings underlying myths are conveyed. Just as Cain is neither fully human nor fully divine, for example, so he represents a category of being that is neither fully nomadic nor fully sedentary—a mediating category that is on the threshold between two modes of spatial existence, “betwixt and between,” as it were.11 Like the “wilderness” in other biblical traditions, and like the “empty spaces” occupied, for example, by the ®olubba, the “land of Nod” symbolizes a betwixt and between locality that is neither fully in This World nor fully in The Other (cf. Leach, 1983a:16), as is the case for those who “occupy” such

10 Note that in Gen 4:1 the verb “to create” is a play on Cain’s name and that Abel’s name means “breath/vapor”—i.e., transience/insubstantiality. 11 This is very similar to how ritual space is conceptualized (see, e.g., Turner, 1969, 1974).

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ambiguous space—that is, Cain as the symbol and eponymous ancestor of smiths and artisans. Two studies have contributed further to my readings of spatiality in the myth, one by John Sawyer, who first got me thinking about the significance of spatiality in the myth (beyond the references to wandering and the land of Nod), and the other by James Flanagan (see his article in this volume), who got me thinking about the social significance of spatial representations. One of the arguments Sawyer makes is that biblical references to metalworking sites in the Arabah (Num 21:4–9; 33:41–43; 1 Chr 4:1–23; the Arabah is a region associated in biblical texts with Edom)12 must presumably be ancient, since there is no archaeological evidence that mining and metalworking were carried out in these areas after the end of the Late Bronze Age (155–56). He further suggests that the story in Genesis 4 was originally an Edomite myth about the origins of a metalworking group from the coppermining region east of the Arabah and that rather than representing three separate groups (tent dwellers, musicians, and metalworkers), Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal Cain represent the varied roles carried out within a single group (160; compare the above descriptions of the ®olubba and ßunna<)—Edomite craftsmen from the copper-mining region of the Arabah, skilled in musicmaking and metalworking, and possibly involved in trading.13 This interpretation accords well with Vansina’s assertion (noted above) that traditional stories often reflect ideal types of particular roles or statuses. Here, the attributes of the ideal type are represented in both Cain and his descendants, who symbolize a social group skilled not only in metallurgy but in music, city building, and possibly trading. Sawyer also suggests that several of the names in the story have spatial significance. He points out that the names of Lamech’s wives (Gen 4:19–23) and Tubal Cain’s sister (Gen 4:22) are associated with Edom elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible and that they may, like Timna (Gen 36:12, 22), have once been copper-mining sites in the Arabah (158–59). Adah is also the name given to Esau’s first wife, according to the Edomite genealogy in Gen 36:2. The name Zillah is not attested elsewhere, but Sawyer suggests a possible connection with Hazzelelponi in 1 Chr 4:3, a genealogy that has Edomite as well as metallurgical connections (Irnahash and Geharashim; vv. 12, 14). Naamah (the sister of Tubal Cain) is also identified as the home of Zophar, one of Job’s comforters (Job 2:11), which Sawyer suggests was also most likely located in Midian or

12 Timna, for example, is listed as the first among the chiefs of Edom in Gen 36:40 (cf. 1 Chr 1:51). Punon, spelled Pinon but almost certainly the same place, according to Sawyer, is also listed among the chiefs of Edom (Gen 36:41). 13 Sawyer suggests (160) that “tent dwelling traders” is a reasonable translation of yoSeb ,ohel ûmiqneh (Gen 4:20; NRSV—”those who live in tents and have livestock”).

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Edom. The name Cain also appears in an Edomite context in Num 24:22. These geographical details in Genesis 4 are, in Sawyer’s view, relics of “Edomite” Bronze Age metalworking lore, which have survived in biblical tradition. It is tempting, he says, to suggest also that Tubal Cain and Naamah, as brother and sister, “represent two aspects of the metalworker’s craft, the smith and the copper deposits in Edom which provide him with his raw materials” (159). I would point out in addition that the geographic origin of the Kenites is normally identified on the basis of biblical references as southeast of Judah on the border with Edom. And the Midianites are believed to be associated with regions in southern Transjordan (Edom) and the northern Hejaz and with some sites where there is evidence of metallurgical activities (see McNutt, 1990:191–92). After reading some of Flanagan’s recent work on concepts of spatiality, I began to think about what the social significance of spatiality in this myth might be, particularly in relation to Cain’s wandering and his movement to the “land of Nod,” and how this in turn might represent notions of marginality. I was unaware until I read Sawyer’s article of how much spatiality might actually be represented in the text, beyond that which is apparent on the surface. Before saying anything about how I see the significance of spatial representations in the text, it is useful, I think, to look at some recent interpretations of how space is conceptualized. Although I cannot do justice to them here, I depend on Flanagan’s summaries, particularly of Edward Soja’s work on the spatiality of human life. In his own work, Flanagan suggests that peoples in the biblical world held concepts of space quite different from those held in modern Western societies, in part because their organizational strategies produced their own kinds of spatialities. He suggests that considering spatiality, especially what Soja calls lived space, can offer us different ways for reading the past. Flanagan emphasizes that concepts of space and time are cultural subtexts, that is, presuppositions that influence all other perceptions, experiences, and descriptions of reality, and that they typically change in unison with other cultural and social phenomena. Spatiality is also a construct that is created through action and experience—it is socially produced and therefore can be understood as a set of human relations and even as the embodiment of social life. Recent studies have thus emphasized the multiplicity of ways in which space can be perceived and constructed. For Soja, spatiality is an essential aspect of human life and descriptions of the world. He considers three modes of spatial thinking: perceived space, conceived space, and lived space (note that they are not completely distinct— the lines dividing them are blurred). My interest here is with the concept of “lived space.” Lived space is space that is created by social practice and thus is known by experience. Focusing on this mode of spatial thinking, Flanagan points to understandings of territoriality among tribal peoples. Although territory certainly

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enters into the equation, tribal peoples do not determine who is a member of their group and who is not by referring to territoriality. Rather, their identity rests more in membership in a group. He points to Bruce Malina’s comment that in such societies people move through people, not through space. They are not so preoccupied with physical space, or even with mental constructions of space. For them, lived space derives from relationships and affects their status within society. Territory per se, then, is not the primary measure of spatiality in tribal societies. Even when territorial terminology is used, this derives from the organic link between people and space, not an abstract mapping of land or imposition of geometric lines and organization. Members of tribes do know their own territory and that of others, and they know who has rights of access and who does not. They know when they are among their people and when they are not. Their lived space is produced through living there. But it is constructed through material practices such as hunting, gathering, pasturing, farming, wandering, and the like. And it is shared by being part of a social group who share rights of access often gained through kinship alliances, whether these are fictive or real. Assuming that the story of Cain reflects a segmented, tribal world,14 the spatial representations in the myth, I would argue, correspond more with Soja’s category of lived space than the actual physical space that Sawyer suggests (although this conception of space very likely is implied as well). It may be, as Sawyer suggests, that the names in the myth represent actual physical places in the region of the Arabah, but the spatiality of interrelationships is the more significant intended meaning. The storyteller is emphasizing the lived space of the group or groups with which Cain and his descendants are associated. Spatiality is thus another aspect of the story—along with the structure of the text, Cain’s role as culture hero and his relationship with other culture heroes in the story, his “murder/sacrifice” of Abel, and his “mark” or “stigma”—that embodies notions about the social identity, roles, statuses, marginality, and “separateness” of such groups and the kinds of beliefs and attitudes directed toward them.

14 On segmented systems, see, e.g., McNutt, 1999:75–81. Segmented systems often continue to exist even within a centralized system.

WORKS CONSULTED Albright, William Foxwell 1957 From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.

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Dickson, H. R. P. 1951 The Arab of the Desert: A Glimpse into Badawin Life in Kuwait and Sau’di Arabia. London: Allen & Unwin. Dieterlen, Germaine 1973 “A Contribution to the Study of Blacksmiths in West Africa.” Pp. 40–61 in French Perspectives in African Studies. Ed. Pierre Alexandre. London: Oxford University Press. Dostal, Walter 1956 “Die Sulubba und ihre Bedeutung für die Kulturgeschichte Arabiens.” Archiv für Völkerkunde 11:15–42. Doughty, Charles M. n.d. Travels in Arabia Deserta. New York: Random House. Douglas, Mary T. 1966 Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Praeger. 1975

Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Flanagan, James W. 1988 David’s Social Drama: A Hologram of Israel’s Early Iron Age. SWBA 7. Sheffield: Almond. Frick, Frank S. 1971 “The Rechabites Reconsidered.” JBL 90:279–87. 1992

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Glubb, J. B. 1943 “The Sulubba and Other Ignoble Tribes of Southwestern Asia.” Pp. 14–17 in The Yezidis, Rulubba, and Other Tribes of Iraq and Adjacent Regions. Ed. Henry Field and J. B. Glubb. General Series in Anthropology 10. Menasha, Wisc.: George Banta. Griaule, Marcel 1965 Conversations with Ogotemmêli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Griaule, Marcel, and Germaine Dieterlen 1954 “The Dogon.” Pp. 83–110 in African Worlds: Studies in the Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples. Ed. Daryll Forde. London: Oxford University Press. Halpern, Baruch 1992 “Kenites.” ABD 4:17–22. Herbert, Eugenia W. 1993 Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African Societies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hollis, A. C. 1905 The Masai. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Huntingford, G. W. B. 1931 “Free Hunters, Serf-Tribes and Submerged Classes in East Africa.” Man 31:262–66. Idowu, E. Bolaji 1962 Olódùmarè: God in Yoruba Belief. London: Longmans. Lawson, E. Thomas 1984 Religions of Africa: Traditions in Transformation. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Leach, Edmund 1969 Genesis As Myth and Other Essays. London: Jonathan Cape. 1976

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“Approaches to the Study of the Bible.” Pp. 7–32 in Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth. Ed. Edmund Leach and D. Alan Aycock. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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“Introduction.” Pp. 1–6 in Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth. Ed. Edmund Leach and D. Alan Aycock. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Maccoby, Hyam 1982 The Sacred Executioner: Human Sacrifice and the Legacy of Guilt. Bath: Pitman. Malina, Bruce J. 1989 “Interpretation: Reading, Abduction, Metaphor.” Pp. 253–66 in The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis. Ed. David Jobling, Peggy L. Day, and Gerald T. Sheppard. Cleveland: Pilgrim. Margarido, Alfred, and Françoise Germaix Wasserman 1972 “On the Myth and Practice of the Blacksmith in Africa.” Diogenes 78: 87–122. McNaughton, Patrick R. 1988 The Mande Blacksmiths: Knowledge, Power, and Art in West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1995

“The Semantics of jugu: Blacksmiths, Lore, and ‘Who’s Bad’ in Mande.” Pp. 46–57 in Status and Identity in West Africa: Nyamakalaw of Mande. Ed. D. C. Conrad and B. E. Frank. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

McNutt, Paula M. 1990 The Forging of Israel: Iron Technology, Symbolism, and Tradition in Ancient Society. SWBA 8. Sheffield: Almond. 1991

“The African Ironsmith As Marginal Mediator: A Symbolic Analysis.” Journal of Ritual Studies 5:75–98.

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“The Kenites, the Midianites, and the Rechabites As Marginal Mediators in Ancient Israelite Tradition.” Semeia 67:109–32.

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Mellinkoff, Ruth 1981 The Mark of Cain. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Merwe, Nicholas van der, and Donald H. Avery 1987 “Science and Magic in African Technology: Traditional Iron Smelting in Malawi.” Africa 57:143–72. Musil, Alois 1927 Arabia Deserta. New York: American Geographical Society. 1928

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Parrinder, Geoffrey 1961 West African Religion: A Study of the Beliefs and Practices of Akan, Ewe, Yoruba, Ibo, and Kindred Peoples. London: Epworth. Patai, Raphael 1958 The Kingdom of Jordan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1967

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Paulme, Denise 1973 “Blood Pacts, Age Classes and Castes in Black Africa.” Pp. 73–95 in French Perspectives in African Studies. Ed. Pierre Alexandre. London: Oxford University Press. Pelton, Robert D. 1980 The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Philby, H. St. J. B. 1922 The Heart of Arabia. London: Constable. Rothenberg, Beno 1972 Timna: Valley of the Biblical Copper Mines. London: Thames & Hudson. Sawyer, John F. A. 1986 “Cain and Hephaestus: Possible Relics of Metalworking Traditions in Genesis 4.” AbrN 24:155–66. Shack, William A. 1964 “Notes on the Occupational Castes among the Gurage of Southwest Ethiopia.” Man 54:50–52. Soja, Edward W. 1996 Thirdspace. Oxford: Blackwell. Turner, Victor 1969 The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. 1974

Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

Vansina, Jan 1985 Oral Tradition As History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Weber, Max 1952 Ancient Judaism. Trans. Hans H. Gerth and Don Martindale. New York: Free Press.

THE GIFT IN ANCIENT ISRAEL1 Gary Stansell St. Olaf College

abstract Since the foundational studies of Marcel Mauss and Bronislaw Malinowski, anthropologists have recognized the significance of the exchange of gifts and the principle of reciprocity in ancient societies. This essay briefly reviews Mauss’s thesis and its subsequent refinement and critique and then presents a model of gift exchange in ancient and peasant societies. On the basis of this model, several key narrative texts from the Hebrew Scriptures are analyzed in terms of gift giving in ancient Israel (Genesis 20; 23; 27; 32; 43; 45; Judges 15; 1 Samuel 1–2; 25; 2 Samuel 6; 1 Kings 10). Examples will suggest the social and economic significance of exchanging gifts between patron-client; of the royal (re)distribution of wealth; of tribute, as well as of gift giving within the family and in hospitality rituals.

Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. —Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Gifts” For there to be a gift, there must be no reciprocity, return, exchange, countergift, or debt. If the other gives me back or owes me, or has to give me back what I give him or her, there will not have been a gift. —Jacques Derrida

The Gift in Anthropological Research The exchange of gifts in the ancient world has become a topic of great significance for the social sciences since Marcel Mauss’s foundational piece

1 In an earlier version, this essay was presented to the Society of Biblical Literature’s section on Social Sciences and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible (San Francisco, 1997). I extend thanks to Prof. Victor Matthews for helpful critique in that setting. Thanks also are due to members of the Context Group and especially to Dr. K. C. Hanson and Prof. Jerome Neyrey for their critical and insightful comments on an expanded version presented to the Group’s annual meeting (Portland, 1999).

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“Essai sur le Don.” Ethnographers, cultural and economic anthropologists, social theorists, and philosophers have since the time of Mauss written voluminously on various aspects of the gift (bibliographies in Schrift; Carrier; Godelier). Indeed, the interest and energy unleashed by Mauss continues unabated, as the recently published book by the eminent French anthropologist, Maurice Godelier, indicates. Alan Schrift, editor of a recent, significant collection of essays on the gift, pointedly notes the continuing significance of gifts: “The theme of gift . . . can be located at the center of current discussions of deconstruction, gender, ethics, philosophy, anthropology, and economics. It is . . . one of the primary focal points at which contemporary disciplinary and interdisciplinary discourses intersect” (3). Although Mauss is properly the starting point for any analytic considerations of gift giving, including the present study of gift in the Hebrew Bible, Mauss was not alone in the 1920s among anthropologists who studied the social and economic factors relating to gift economies. His essay was barely preceded by a famous work of Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Malinowski studied oceanic island life, especially the phenomenon known as the kula ring of the Trobriand Islanders, and presented, among other things, illustrations of a wide network of exchange relationships and the problem of balance and imbalance in reciprocal relations. He arrived at seven categories of exchange: pure gifts, payments, services, gift exchange between friends, imbalance between gift and countergift, ceremonial exchange, and trade. Malinowski the functionalist focused on the usefulness of reciprocity and how it creates networks of rights and obligations, which make for social cohesion. But he did not puzzle over “why” people always and everywhere exchange gifts. The “why” of the gift, however, was precisely the question that exercised Mauss. Working independently of Malinowski, Mauss had come to the study of gifts from his research on contracts. Focusing particularly on the potlatch ceremony of the American Indians of the Pacific Northwest and of Polynesians, he came to speak of a system of “total prestations” and “counterprestations,” the act of exchange of gifts and services in which “the honor of giver and recipient are engaged. It is a total system in which every item of status or of spiritual or material possession is implicated for everyone in the whole community” (Douglas: viii). But Mauss was particularly interested in the notion of obligation. He found in archaic or primitive societies that, despite the appearance that all gift exchange is voluntary, there is in fact an obligation to give gifts, to receive, and to offer a countergift. Mauss asked, What rule is at work here, “What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back?” (3). He accepted the natives’ answer to this: there is a spiritual force that inheres in the gift—the Maori called it the hau, the life force of a person, which is embedded in his personal possessions—which incites the recipient of a gift to offer a countergift.

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Mauss’s essay on the gift has stimulated a significant and wide response, which both appropriates, critiques, and corrects his monumental insights into gift exhange and the principle of reciprocity among archaic peoples. Perhaps the most important, extended critical evaluations of Mauss are found in Firth, Johansen, Lévi-Strauss (1969, 1987), Sahlins (1968), Bourdieu (1990), and Pitt-Rivers (1992). Lévi-Strauss’s well-known application of the principle of reciprocity to the exchange of women (1969:52) takes its point of departure appreciatively but critically from Mauss, rejecting the notion that the hau as a reason for gift exchange is nothing more than the natives’ own belief. Separating the norm of reciprocity from gift giving, Lévi-Strauss takes the former as the larger term: reciprocity is a fundamental structure of the human mind; gift giving is its necessary by-product. Gift exchange for Lévi-Strauss has its chief importance not in the economic but in the social relations it engenders. Marshall Sahlins (1972:185–210), in an important essay on primitive exchange, builds upon Mauss’s foundation and, incorporating the economic analyses of Polanyi (1957, 1968), works out a typology of exchange. Sahlins differentiates between reciprocal exchanges and pooling, or redistribution. In a reciprocal exchange, A gives a gift (X) to B, then B offers a countergift (Y) to A; in redistribution, ABC etc. offer gifts (X) to the king or chief (Z), who redistributes the gifts (X) to ABC, thus gaining prestige by redistribution of wealth or goods. Further, Sahlins developed a model of reciprocity that has three elements: generalized reciprocity (altruistic, hospitality, gifts to kin and friends; countergift delayed, if given at all); balanced reciprocity (equivalent gifts; little or no delay; emphasis is on the social relationship); negative reciprocity (“the attempt to get something for nothing with impunity”: haggling, barter, theft).

The model includes a correlation between the three types and the kinship distance between social groups: generalized reciprocity belongs to kinship and friendship; balanced reciprocity to intratribal exchange; negative reciprocity to intertribal intercourse. Of course, there is an overlapping of categories. Moreover, to this horizontal dimension, Sahlins adds the vertical dimension of rank within the kinship group of the giver and the needs of the receiver (for an exposition of the model, cf. Malina, 1986:98–111). Pierre Bourdieu’s (1966, 1977:185–275, 1990:98–121, 1997) contributions to recent discussions of gift giving are important here. Speaking of the “logic” of the gift, a specific logic that focuses on an economy of symbolic goods, Bourdieu discusses any number of theoretical and practical perspectives, but four

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aspects are particularly pertinent for our development of a useful model: (1) the offered gift is understood in terms of the honor code, in which a gift is paratactic with a challenge or an insult; any of these three (gift, challenge, insult) calls another’s honor into question and requires a riposte; (2) the countergift must be deferred and (3) different, “because the immediate return of an exactly identical object clearly amounts to a refusal,” which would be an insult (1990:105). Such a deferral and difference is what makes a gift possible, but (4) the logic of the gift includes a “misrecognition” of the social rules, by individuals and collectives, which govern the act of reciprocation. Such a “misrecognition” permits to be hidden, among other things, the unspoken calculations that both giver and receiver are making, even as they appear to be exchanging disinterested gifts. Yet, this is not a violation of the rules of exchange but rather is a part of the rules themselves. Julian Pitt-Rivers, writing about gift and grace, makes a suggestive critique of Mauss. He emphasizes the “paradox” of the gift: a gift is not a gift unless it is a free gift—that is, the receiver is under no obligation to the giver. Mauss was aware of no paradox: the return of gifts is in theory voluntary but in fact is obligatory. For Pitt-Rivers, the gratuity of the gift is not a “sociological delusion”; Mauss’s failure to see this, he contends, results in a “slightly warped vision of the gift,” in part attributable to the fact that Mauss studied extra-European, Pitt-Rivers European materials (1992:235–36). This brief review intends to indicate some main issues in the continuing discussion by anthropologists about gift exchange in ancient societies. Curiously, except for brief or passing comments (Pedersen; Matthews and Benjamin), biblical scholars have shown little interest in gift exchange, although two recent dissertations suggest that this may be changing (Herman; Peterman). The Bible offers rich resources for studying gift giving in the ancient world of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. The chief aim of this essay is to offer, from a social-scientific perspective, a preliminary study of gifts and gift exchange in the Hebrew Bible. A Model of Gift Giving The following model will serve as a lens to help focus the issues to be encountered in our study of selected biblical texts. The model, relying especially on the work of Mauss, Sahlins, Bourdieu, and Carrier, will also help minimize the ethnocentrism and anachronism of the modern reader, who naturally approaches gift exchange in the ancient world with the Western industrial view of the gift, “that (a) it is something voluntarily given, and that (b) there is no expectation of compensation” (Belk: 100, quoted in Carrier: 22). Following Carrier (10), we may dub it a “Maussian Model” because it incorporates the essential insights from Mauss with critical refinement and development by later students of the gift.

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A cross-cultural model of gift exchange in ancient societies will include the following features: There is an obligation to give, to receive, and to return gifts. Gifts are presented as though they are voluntary, thus masking the obligatory character of exchange and hiding economic self-interest. Gift giving aims at reciprocity, but it is not always balanced (see Sahlins’s three kinds of reciprocity above). Gifts are not protected by law, yet public scrutiny and one’s personal honor requires that exchanges be reciprocal. Gift exchange is a public act. As such it may be ceremonial and also emphasize display of wealth and prestige. Kinship closeness or distance is related to objects exchanged, function of the gift, and accompanying type of reciprocity. Gift exchange is not the same as commodity exchange, which is impersonal. The former obligates, while the latter does not.2 The object given is inalienable; that is, the giver participates in or is a part of the object given away; hence the giver has a lien on his gift. Gifts establish a bond between persons or groups or strengthen an already existing social relationship. Thus the purpose is not simply the circulation of wealth. Honor accrues to the giver, who must be generous; it is shameful to be stingy. Size of the gift is correlated with the status/wealth of the giver and the needs of the receiver. But generosity may mask antagonism or competition, with the power to humiliate the receiver of the gift (the “poison” of the gift). The gift is a challenge, which does honor to the person addressed and at the same time tests his pride. To challenge someone who cannot riposte is a dishonor to the giver; likewise, to make a gift so great that it cannot be reciprocated dishonors the giver. The gift as challenge must be reasonable.

2 In gift exchange and in commodity exchange an object or service is transferred from A to B, and then there is a countertransfer from B to A. It is not the use of money that distinguishes one from the other. Rather, what distinguishes a gift from a commodity exchange is that in the former a relationship links the transactors to one another and to the object they transact. “Put most simply, in commodity relations the objects are alienated from the transactors. . . . such objects are treated solely as bearers of abstract value or utility” (Carrier: 20).

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semeia A gift, like a challenge, is a provocation to reply. He who accepts a gift inescapably commits himself to a series of exchanges. The countergift is a fresh challenge. The refusal of a gift heaps scorn upon the challenger. The refusal to offer a countergift dishonors both the giver of the initial gift and the recipient of that gift. The gift must please the recipient and be valued by the giver. One cannot give just anything away. The commensurate countergift halts the exchange. Only outbidding someone continues the exchange. The absence of a countergift brings dishonor to the giver of the initial gift; it also brings dishonor to its recipient. The countergift must be deferred and different; an immediate return of an identical gift is tantamount to a refusal of the gift.

Gift Giving in the Hebrew Bible The narrative material in the Hebrew Bible, to which this study will limit itself, contains a surprising number of examples of gift giving. In what follows, “gift giving” is used in its simple, narrow sense, to signify a concrete action whereby a good, service, or property is transferred from one party to another: “A gives X to B” or “B gives Y to A” (countergift).3 Important aspects of gift exchange, such as the giver’s intentions, the ceremonial occasion, the social or economic function, the quality or symbolic value of the gift, will be discussed below in relation to specific biblical texts. Excluded are broader and also metaphorical kinds of “giving” that can be predicated of countless human activities (e.g., giving in marriage, giving birth, dealing blows, granting pardon, offering solace, etc.). Moreover, limitations of space require that we leave aside certain types of gift giving such as marriage gift and dowry, bribes, or gifts to (sacrifice) and from God. A thorough study of gift exchange in the Hebrew Bible would require an analysis of the linguistic range of words for “to give,” “to receive,” “gift,” and the like. Here we may only note a few significant factors. The major study of gift language within Indo-European languages was done by Benveniste (53–70). His analysis of the root do and its Hittite relative da showed that “the

3 How to best define “gift” is, of course, highly disputed among anthropologists and philosophers. The definition offered by Thayer (658), “A gift in the broad sense is any transaction with the intention of gratuitously enriching another,” poses one of the major issues: is a gift gratuitous or not? If it is, then how does it evoke obligation? Cf. the above epigraph from Derrida.

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notion of ‘give’ and ‘take’ are . . . linked in pre-historic Indo-European” (67). On the basis of this and other linguistic data, Benveniste concluded that, confirming Mauss’s theory, exchange is not two acts but one, despite a certain semantic ambivalence. Perhaps the Scottish (dialect) expression “giffgaff,” (mutual giving, mutual help, OED: 6:502) suggests the unity of the two actions. In English “to take” can mean to receive or to bring, give. Similarly, jql can signify both “to take” and “to receive” (BDB: 542–43). In Hebrew a gift is typically “given/offered” (ˆtn), “brought” (awb hiph.), “prepared” (ˆwk hiph.), “distributed” (qlj). The verb may be followed by the preposition l (“to”) + noun or pronoun to designate the recipient. The gift itself is often denoted by the substantive hjnm,4 by words based on the root ˆtn (hntm, hantm, ˆtm, antm, ttm), by the word hkrb, or by the object itself (silver, gold, etc.). Acceptance of the gift may be signified by the verbs jql or acn, sometimes followed by the preposition ˆm. Refusal of a gift may be expressed by the phrase “I will receive none” (jqa µa) or “I have enough” (br ylAvy). It is, however, narrative contexts that provide the social and cultural meanings implicit in the actions and gestures of giving and receiving gifts, to which we now turn. A rich entry point to gift giving in the world of the Hebrew Bible may be found in two scenes from the Joseph Story (Genesis 37–50). Orientation: The Exchange of Gifts in the Joseph Story (Gen 43:11–34; 45:16–24) In the Joseph narrative, chs. 39–41 have to do with external and public realities: Joseph’s career as Potiphar’s steward, his subsequent imprisonment, and his appointment as chief administrator by the pharaoh. With chs. 42–44 the story moves to an “interplay [which] is primarily relational and even psychological” (Brueggemann: 335–36). A significant part of this “interplay” is structured by the exchange of gifts when the storyteller relates how the brothers present themselves to Joseph on the second of two visits (43:11–44:34). The patriarch Jacob many years before had provided the boy Joseph with the gift of a special coat—a symbol of his favorite son’s rank among his brothers (37:3). Now, prior to the brothers’ second visit to Egypt, Jacob says to his sons, Take (wjq) some of the choice fruits of the land . . . and carry them down as a present (hjnm) to the man. (Gen 43:11)

What is the purpose of the gift? As a token of submission, is it to calm the vizier’s suspicions aroused by the foreigner’s first visit (42:9)? Will it open

4

According to Fabry (415), the secular meaning of the word is “gift, present, tribute.”

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doors to the great man and demonstrate good will (cf. Prov 18:16), or help better to establish a trade relationship for further commercial exchange? Whatever the gift might accomplish socially and economically is theologized in Gen 43:14 with Jacob’s prayer, “May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man.” In any case, the narrator takes care to keep the father’s gift itself in the foreground: “So the brothers took the present” (43:15). Upon their arrival in Egypt, they “made ready the present” (v. 25). And when Joseph comes to the banquet he has prepared for the visitors, “they brought into the house to him the present” (v. 26). The careful, fourfold reference to the gift emphasizes the delicacy and diplomacy required. Rustic shepherds interested in trade must come into the presence of the elite with proper manners and gifts to appease and/or flatter. These gifts confer honor and convey deference; they do not make Joseph richer, but they may soften his heart. These foreign visitors must be received, their gifts accepted (Mauss: 41) and then reciprocated. So Joseph’s brothers are treated as honored guests5 at a banquet (43:16), preceded by the ceremonies of hospitality: their feet are washed, their asses fed (v. 24), and inquiry is made about their father’s welfare (v. 27). The scene thus contains elements typical of ancient hospitality (arrival, exchange of information [question and answer], feast, departure; Pitt-Rivers, 1977:94–112; Reece: 5–46). The banquet itself is a “gift of food,” with portions given to the guests taken from the host’s table (on food as gift, see Sahlins, 1972:215). Joseph’s countergifts to his brothers involve two surprising (to the brothers) symbolic gestures. (1) The brothers are seated by their host in order according to age and thus are given a rank and proper honor (v. 33). But this is undermined by (2) the extra “gifts” given to Benjamin, who receives a fivefold “portion,”6 and who is therefore singled out for even greater honors and rank (v. 34). The exchange of presents is far from over. In a later episode (Genesis 45), after Joseph revealed himself, his brothers prepare to make their way back home. Joseph gives them not only wagons, provisions for the journey, and a promise of “the best of the land” (vv. 19–21), but also a set of garments. For Benjamin, singled out for special presents and thus ranked again

5 On the first visit, in a public, commercial setting, Joseph’s brothers speak with Joseph, who treats them like “strangers” (42:7). But on the second visit, the narrator stresses multiple times that they are brought into the “house” or “Joseph’s house” (43:16, 17, 18, 19, 24, 26). They are now guests who are “embedded in the social space” (Malina, 1996:229) of the host. The spatial difference correlates with the change in relationship: they now are in a gift relationship to their host. 6 The phrase “to carry (give) portions” (tacm acy) is the equivalent of “to give a gift.” tacm, translated as “portions,” also means gift or largesse (BDB: 673), usually from a king or superior (cf. 2 Sam 11:8; 19:43 [42]). In Jer 40:5 and Esth 2:18 tacm occurs in the context of food and banquetting. The root acn can be used for the conferral of a gift as tribute (2 Sam 8:2, 6) or in later texts as an offering (Ps 96:8).

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above his brothers, there are silver and five sets of garments (v. 22). These guest gifts or parting gifts (Finley: 68 and passim) are part of the ritual of hospitality that concludes the visitors’ stay in ancient societies. But they are at the same time family gifts, based on kinship ties. Moreover, the departing guests carry back lavish gifts for the father (v. 23), the final countergift that completes the circuit of gift exchange between Jacob and Joseph (cf. 43:11). Not unexpectedly, the countergifts are much greater than the initial modest gifts sent by the patriarch and thus signs that exhibit the honor and political power of the giver. Joseph the vizier of Egypt has become the “patron” of his family. That is, he has assumed the father’s role, which is signaled by the words he sends back to Jacob, “You shall dwell in the land . . . and I will provide for you” (45:11; cf. “I will give you the best of the land,” v. 18). Like a wealthy patron, Joseph is not only generous; he wishes to display his “honor” (dbk), which the brothers have seen (45:13). His honor consists not only in his wealth, power, and prestige, but also in his generous bestowal of gifts.7 To summarize: The chain of gift giving is set within a complex irony. Jacob sends gifts to his son Joseph, but he does not know it. The brothers offer gifts and receive countergifts in the form of hospitality and feasting, unaware that the host is Joseph. Jacob’s son, Joseph, has become not only a “father to Pharoah” (45:8) but a father (patron) to his father and his brothers. Joseph the gift giver plays three roles simultaneously: a powerful political figure, a patron to clients, and a son/brother within his family. Through the instrument of gift exchange between host and guests, in a typical oriental setting of hospitality and feasting, a family is reconciled to itself (45:15). But this is what gifts are supposed to do: establish or reestablish personal ties and, within the household, help create familial intimacy. The brothers’ jealous aggression of an earlier time (Gen 37:20–24) is not requited with anger or violence but peace. In terms of reciprocity, the exchange of gifts here shows not only the customary magnanimity of the host but also the vertical ranking of vizier/patron/brother above clients/family who seek his help. Joseph’s gifts (hospitality, food, honor, provisions for the journey, wagons, festal garments, etc.) ultimately cannot and will not be repaid. But the social factor (reconciliation) stands side by side with the economic; these two factors are not to be separated, but the former, of course, assumes greater importance in the narrative.

7 But who bears the cost? Classical ethics raises this issue (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 4). Cicero, De officiis 2.55–60, distinguishes between two kinds of men who give gifts, the extravagant man and the liberal man. The former lavishes banquets and distributes meats and money, in order to be remembered. The latter ransoms captives, pays off a friend’s debts, or gives assistance. Further, see Seneca, De beneficiis. Aquinas, Summa theologica 2.117–20, distinguishes between prodigality (always a sin because it brings with it disorder) and liberality.

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Behind the literary artistry we find yet another irony. The reader knows that kinship is a key factor in the reciprocal actions of the narrative. But the brothers, until the recognition scene, understand the gift exchange to belong to the outward framework of the political/economic: a tribe (or family) deals with the royal power of Egypt for reasons that are commercial throughout. Buying and selling, the way smoothed by the appropriate gifts, are their open intentions (42:2; 43:2). Thus the story provides a striking example of gift exchange playing itself out within the larger framework of commodity exchange, two elements that the anthropology of the gift has taught us to distinguish (Mauss; Gregory; Carrier).8 Gift exchange is both a social and an economic fact. As an economic fact, it is not free standing but rather embedded in two of the major institutions of ancient societies, kinship and politics (Polanyi, 1957, 1968; Malina, 1997:7–10). The giving of gifts in the Joseph story offers a remarkable example: the gifts exchanged are subsumed under both the family (kinship) and political (Joseph’s rule) spheres. In the succeeding paragraphs, the categories of kinship and politics will provide the organizing principle for the texts to be studied. This means that the texts are grouped according to their context within spheres where either kinship or the political is the predominant factor; to be sure, there can be some overlapping of the two. Gifts within the Kinship Group Fathers/kings control wealth and goods in ancient Israel; hence, it is they who distribute gifts to family members. For example, Abraham gives presents to the sons of his concubines (Gen 25:6). Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, gives “great gifts” to his sons (2 Chr 21:3). A prince may give permanent gifts to his sons, but gifts to his servants are impermanent and must be returned at the “year of liberty” (Ezek 46:16). Kings/husbands offer gifts to the wives who please them (Esth 5:3). Father’s Gifts to Children. While inheritance, which is regulated by law, is a kind of gift, it is to be distinguished from gift giving as such. According to Gen 25:5–6, Abraham gave “all that he had” (inheritance) to Isaac, but to the sons of his concubines he gave gifts” (tntm . . . ˆtn) and sent them away from Isaac, eastward” (cf. 21:10–14, where Hagar and Ishmael are cast out, disinherited, but Abraham “gave” them bread and water for the journey). What

8 Gregory states, “commodity exchange establishes a relationship between the objects, whereas gift exchange establishes a relationship between the subjects” (19).

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the gifts (tntm) are remains unspecified. The passage anticipates what Isaac as father will do later with his sons: he endows Jacob with all that he has (27:37), while Esau receives not a gift but a curse (27:39–40). A distinction among sons by gift distribution is made when Jehoshaphat gives many gifts (gold and fortified cities) to his sons, but he gives the kingdom to Jehoram because he is his firstborn (2 Chr 21:1–3). Caleb gave his daughter “springs of water” as a present (hkrb Josh 15:19 = Judg 1:15). Gifts to children, therefore, can be a consolation prize to those who do not inherit wealth and title or symbolize rank and/or reorder the hierarchy established by age. When fathers gift their children, the expectation or the obligation to offer a countergift does not obtain; reciprocity is therefore at a minimum and belongs to the “generalized” category. Husband’s Gifts to Wives. The Samson legends include a brief episode that is suggestive and may illustrate how husbands bestow gifts on their wives. When Samson returns to the house of his unnamed Philistine wife, whom he had left in hot anger (Judg 14:19), he brings a kid as a present (15:1), not only to help reestablish the broken relationship, but to (re)open the door to sexual intimacy. To the wife’s father he says, “I want to go into my wife’s room” (Judg 15:1; cf. Gen 38:17, where a kid is offered in return for sexual favors).9 Samson’s gift is “perhaps the ancient’s counterpart of our box of chocolates” (Boling: 235). The gift, though not explicitly rejected, does not accomplish its purpose, for Samson’s wife, in his absence, has become a gift that her father had given to another man (14:20; 15:2). Samson’s response is to avenge himself by burning the fields of the Philistines (vv. 3–5), who in turn burn Samson’s former wife and her father. Then Samson swears further revenge. The anticipated gift exchange between Samson and his wife has in the episode turned into reciprocal violence. Gift and countergift become death and destruction, not ties that bind. This recalls the general observation of Mauss and others, that groups that do not exchange gifts must engage in war (e.g., Sahlins, 1972:169–79). The story of Elkanah and his family takes us a step further in understanding gift giving within the family (1 Samuel 1–2). Elkanah had two wives, Peninnah, who bore (“gave”) him children, and barren Hannah, who gave him none. He has “given himself” to both wives. Only one has given him countergifts of children (1 Sam 1:2). A symbolic extension of this lack of balance in reciprocal relationships is provided in a ceremonial setting at

9 Malinowski considers gifts to wives and children to be “pure gifts” (177–78). Mauss and others object that there are no pure gifts: gifts of husbands to wives, Mauss (73) proposed, are given in return for sexual favors in primitive societies. Such gifts are not freely given, and they are not really disinterested.

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Shiloh, where Elkanah sacrifices annually. At the sacrifice one year, Elkanah distributed gifts (“portions,” twnm)10 to his wives. To Peninnah and her children, he gave “portions.” But to Hannah he gave only one portion,11 because she was barren (v. 5). Here gift giving establishes or confirms honor and ranking (cf. Joseph’s food gifts to Benjamin at the feast). But it also appears to mirror reciprocity within the family network, for the larger gift is offered to the wife who has given to Elkanah the most children. The rivalry between the women (vv. 5–6) is exacerbated by the inequality of gifts. Brother’s Gifts to Brother. Jacob’s deception of Esau led to Esau’s hatred and intention to murder his brother (Genesis 27). But Jacob fled to Paddan-aram to save his life and find a wife. Years later, Jacob journeyed homeward and learned that his estranged brother was coming to meet him with four hundred men, a sign of danger for Jacob, who fears for his life (32:12 [11]). How else does one face this situation but with prayer (vv. 10–13 [9–12]) and presents? Jacob conceives an elaborate gift-giving scheme of three parts: (1) He sends his servants to meet Esau with signs of his strength and goodwill (oxen, asses, etc.; 32:4–6 [3–5]), a display of wealth and status. (2) Later he takes from his substance (she-goats, ewes, camels, etc.) “a present (hjnm) for Esau his brother” and sends them ahead in droves with three different groups of his servants, who are to offer them to Esau (vv. 14–20 [13–21]). (3) On meeting Esau, Jacob himself urges his brother to “accept my present from my hand” (ydym ytjnm tjql, 33:10), to accept “my gift that has been brought you” (tabh rva ytkrb, v. 11).12 The context for such gift giving is in the first instance neither brotherly love nor kinship ties, but rather past deceptions from which Jacob profited greatly. And, although Jacob offers gifts out of fear, he also at bottom wants reconciliation with a brother: “I may appease him (wynp hrpka)13 with the

10 The term means “part, portion” (BDB: 584) and belongs to the sphere of ceremonial meals, special feasts, and the distribution of food; cf. 1 Sam 9:23. In Esth 2:9 the term denotes food gifts along with other symbolic gestures of honor; see also Esth 9:19, 22, where gift exchange is accomplished when “the Jews . . . send choice portions to one another.” twnm is thus a synonym for tacm (“gift,” “portion,” as in the Joseph story, Gen 43:34). 11 Commentators and translations are divided on whether the difficult Hebrew text indicates that Elkanah gave Hannah one portion (Klein: 7) or a double portion (“portion of honor,” Hertzberg: 28; NRSV). 12 The term hkrb (“blessing”), which stands parallel to hjnm (“present”), harks back to Esau’s words spoken two decades earlier in Gen 27:36, “He has taken my hkrb.” In presenting the gift, “Jacob is making restitution for his primal theft, unwittingly using language that confirms the act of restitution” (Alter: 186). 13 Literally “cover his face,” that is, to be reconciled or to appease, assuage. The verb is used for an action between two persons only three times in the Hebrew Bible (Gen 32:21; Prov 16:6, 14).

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present (hjnm) that goes before me, and afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will accept me” (32:21 [20]). Jacob’s gifts have the specific function (social) of appeasing14 his angry brother while at the same time amounting to an immense transfer of wealth (economic). The social and the economic aspects of the gift are here, as in all ancient cultures, to be distinguished but not separated. The elaborate gifts show that Jacob, who was formerly a taker, is now a giver. Yet, there is an “owing” or an obligation here; it is not that Jacob simply owes Esau gifts as his brother but that he is indebted to him for “taking away his birthright and his blessing” (27:36). Further, the anthropology of gifts shows that Jacob’s presents to Esau constitute a challenge within the honor system. For, although Jacob’s gift offers a gesture of amends and appeasement, it also initiates a challenge that calls for a riposte. The challenge (gift) confers honor, but if there is no response, the receiver dishonors himself (Bourdieu, 1990:100). The maneuver is a delicate one: Jacob seeks to pacify Esau, yet the very act of bestowing the gift, as a challenge, draws Esau into an antagonistic exchange. This is veiled, however, by the narrator’s art in showing a change in the brothers’ relationship. The irony here is that Jacob has enjoyed a rank and status over his brother by virtue of his inheritance (27:29). But in his gift giving, this is reversed, as the narrator makes clear, for Jacob repeatedly puts himself in a subordinate relationship to Esau. Jacob seeks “to find favor in his (your) sight” (32:6 [5]; 33:8, 10; 32:21 [20], lit. “to lift up my face”; 33:8, 10). This is the language of client to patron (Malina, 1996:143–75); it is underscored by further expressions of submission (“your servant” 32:19 [18]; “my lord” 32:6 [5]; 33:8). Perhaps the story intends to show that, at this moment, the brotherly relationship having been drastically broken, Jacob wishes to be reconciled at the cost of his submission to Esau’s lordship. The economic cost appears high; or, in any case, the narrator stresses the abundance of the gifts. Having already received his brother warmly, at first Esau refuses to accept the gift (“I have enough” br ylAvy, 33:9), for Esau himself has become wealthy. But the narrator draws attention to Jacob’s insistence: “Accept my present from my hand” (v. 10). “‘Please accept my gift that is brought to you.’ So he urged him, and he took it” (v. 11). Is this first refusal simply good oriental form, after which one may accept presents? Or is it that the narrator understands the gifts to be unnecessary in that Esau’s gracious acceptance of Jacob precedes the presentation of gifts? According to the anthropology of

14 On “amends gifts” in the world of Homer, cf. Finley (passim) and his comment (65), “When Agamemnon was finally persuaded that appeasement of Achilles was absolutely essential to prevent the destruction of the Achaean forces, he went about it by offering amends through gifts.”

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gifts, absolute refusal of a gift heaps scorn on the giver and is tantamount to a declaration of war; the obligation is to receive an offered gift (Mauss: 13, 41). In any case, time has healed the wounds; the gifts do not and need not achieve their intended goal. But the gifts both symbolize the reconciliation and strengthen the bond of kinship. The gifts fit the anthropologist’s category of generalized reciprocity—it is a family matter, for the men are brothers. When, if ever, Esau reciprocates is left unsaid and is of little consequence; however, its potential has been established. Gifts outside the Kinship Group Gift exchange between persons or groups distantly kin or not kin at all is to be distinguished from gifts between family or closer kinship groups (Sahlins, 1972:198–204). But any gift exchange between “in-group” and “outgroup” creates or strengthens alliances. At the same time, rejection of gift exchange avoids obligations and further entanglement, conveys scorn, and may result in warfare. Reciprocity is usually minimal or “negative.” The following examples may serve to suggest the complexities of “intertribal” exchange in the biblical traditions. Abraham and Ephron the Hittite. That the exchange of gifts is of a different order than sale or barter has long been a principle of economic anthropology. The story of Abraham’s purchase of the cave at Machpelah (Genesis 23) from Ephron the Hittite offers a fascinating take on the differences between commercial and gift exchange between non-kin groups. After Sarah has died, Abraham, the sojourner who owns no property, needs a place to bury her. He addresses the elders of the Hittites with the request, Give (ˆtn) me property among you for a burying place. (Gen 23:4)

Have they understood Abraham to mean “sell me” the land or “give me” the land? By itself the verb ˆtn (“to give, sell, pay”) is of course ambiguous. The Hittites respond with the gracious offer of a gift. Addressing Abraham as “a prince of God,” an honorific term of “urbane politeness” (von Rad: 243), the Hittites offer the patriarch the choicest of sepulchers. We have here challenge and counterchallenge, and much honor is at stake (Bourdieu, 1966:206, 231), with the contest masked under the guise of polite word-exchange. Abraham rejects the offer of the gift and says this time, “Entreat Ephron the Hittite that he may give me the cave of Machpelah.” But now he adds, “For the full price let him give it to me” (v. 9). Three times Abraham has said “give” (ˆtn) and clearly means “sell.” Ephron, who is present, now replies with an emphatic but polite rejection of the challenge, which is remarkable for the thrice repeated root ˆtn: “No, my

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lord . . . I give you the field, I give you the cave . . . in the presence of my people I give it” (v. 11). The passage is remarkable for the symmetry of the wordplay on ˆtn; three times “give” means “sell”; three times “give” means “give.” The original hearers of the tale must have delighted in the narrator’s art. But what is going on here? Is this oriental politeness or haggling in the guise of euphemism? Can Middle Easterners not speak directly about a sale, as von Rad’s interpretation suggests? Moreover, scholars have debated whether the narrative (a Priestly text) reflects the purchase procedures of Hittite law or rather has its legal background in the “dialogue documents” (Zwiegesprächsurkunden) from the Neo-Babylonian period.15 But in light of gift-exchange customs and rules in ancient societies, a very different reading is required. Ephron genuinely offers the land as a gift. But there are no pure gifts. If Abraham accepts the cave from Ephron, he enters into a patron-client relationship with him, with its attendant conditions and obligations.16 Indeed, in that land is “inalienable,” the cave at Machpelah, though “given” to Abraham, would still belong to Ephron. Nevertheless, at a future time Abraham must respond with countergifts and services. Both he and Ephron know this; Ephron conceals behind the guise of generosity his own economic and social self-interest. But the narrator cannot let the patriarch be placed in subservience to a Hittite. The gift is rejected,17 and a sale is concluded (v. 16), thus ending the transaction and avoiding an endless cycle of reciprocity. “Whereas the gift establishes or strengthens a bond, a sale exhausts the (weak) link between the traders” (von Baal: 39). Abraham bought the land, and this gives him honor and an equal standing among the Hittites. The conclusion to the story in vv. 17–20 must emphasize twice that Abraham legitimately owns the field. Abraham and Abimelech. If Abraham can reject Ephron’s gift of the land and the resultant patron-client status, he had been willing to accept gifts from Abimelech, king of Gerar (Genesis 20; on the literary relationship between Gen 12:10–20; ch. 20; and 26:6–11, see Westermann: 187–88), and become an even richer man (12:16; 13:2; 14:23). The patriarch as a sojourner has apparently become a client of King Abimelech of Gerar, who allows him to dwell in

15 See van Seters: 98–100, who rejects the former and argues that Genesis 23 “follows this form [dialogue document] completely.” 16 For the basic characteristics of patron-client relations, see Eisenstadt and Roniger: 47–49. 17 Abraham has already rejected the gifts (spoils or rewards?) offered to him by the king of Sodom (Gen 14:22–24). The response “I will take nothing” (v. 24, NRSV; Heb. yd[lb; BDB: 116 translates “not at all”) is a formulaic, and indeed emphatic, rejection of gifts and subordination. The reason is given, and it is significant: Abraham will not have the reputation that he is dependent, and thus a client, of a foreign king.

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the king’s territory. The relationship is established as a reciprocal one: Abimelech gives him pasture for his flock; Abraham provides Abimelech with a wife for his harem. But the exchange is an illicit one—Sarah is already Abraham’s wife—as Abimelech learns in a dream (v. 3). This first transaction (wife for pasturage) must now end, and Sarah is restored to Abraham. But her honor has been compromised, and she must be publicly vindicated. This is accomplished by a series of gifts given by Abimelech in a scene (vv. 14–16) that is particularly highlighted and that takes on a juridical thrust. First, Abimelech gives (ˆtn) cattle and sheep to Abraham when he returns Sarah. Second, he “gives” him free access to the land so that he may “settle wherever [he] chooses.” Third, he gives to Abraham a present of a thousand pieces of silver, which symbolizes the restoration of Sarah’s honor in the eyes of her family. It appears that the first gift of Abimelech is a payment of debt for Abimelech’s (potential?) “sin” against Abraham. Whereas Pharaoh in Gen 12:16 had provided Abraham with a kind of indirect dowry (gifts of sheep, oxen, etc.) before Pharaoh took Sarah into his harem, Abimelech pays restitution after Sarah is returned, a kind of recompense for offenses that appear murky and ambiguous (he is “innocent,” vv. 4–6). Curiously, while Abraham seems to be a trickster (vv. 9–10) whose deceit is in “doing what ought not to be done,” the payment of debt falls to the king, who has a pure heart (v. 4). Thus the first gift clears Abimelech, or rather demonstrates that he is a man of integrity; the third, the silver, absolves Sarah in the eyes of the public. An analogue is found in the Roman world when the emperor Augustus gave a substantial gift to a certain (erring) senator to show that his status had been restored and his honor vindicated (Millar: 135). All is well that ends well: both Abimelech and Sarah are vindicated, their honor having been restored. Abraham is made richer, and a significant bond is forged between him and Abimelech. Ironically, the gifts also appease Abraham (and God?) for sins not committed. The patriarch is rewarded for a deceptive act by the transfer of wealth in a gift transaction. By contrast, in Genesis 26, after Abimelech restores Rebekah to Isaac, he becomes rich not by “a gift from the monarch but the fruit of his own industry” (Alter: 134). But the ending is not yet. Gifts must be reciprocated, so Abraham “offers” prayer for the king and his people. In the next chapter (21) the alliance between king and sojourner established here is strengthened when it is Abraham’s turn to intiate the giving of gifts. After a dispute over the ownership of a well, Abraham “gives sheep and oxen” to Abimelech and then, making a covenant (vv. 27–30), Abraham gives Abimelech seven ewe lambs as a witness to the event. Two disputes, one over a wife, the other over a well, are resolved by the giving of gifts. David and Abigail. Another example of gifts offered to appease or make amends is found in the narrative about David, Nabal, and Abigail (1 Samuel

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25). The clan chieftain Nabal is approached by David’s men, who ask for payment for their uncommissioned services of protecting Nabal’s flock at shearing time (25:8). Nabal refuses to “give” (ˆtn) anything to these unknown bandits (v. 11). This challenge-riposte situation between a wealthy chieftain and a man of uncertain genealogy (vv. 10–11) leaves David insulted (vv. 14, 21, 39) and ready to avenge his own honor (vv. 13, 22, 26, 33, 34; Stansell: 61–65). If Nabal has refused to give gifts in return for services rendered, not so his wife, Abigail. The narrator gives specific attention to her gift giving: (1) Abigail’s motivation for the gift is expressed (v. 17, evil has been planned, and it must be warded off; cf. Jacob’s hope that his gifts will appease Esau’s anger, Gen 32:20); (2) she prepares the gifts, which are enumerated (v. 18, two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, etc.; cf. Gen 32:5, 14); (3) she sends her gifts on ahead with a servant (v. 19; cf. Jacob in Gen 32:3, 4, 16); (4) in humility before David Abigail seeks forgiveness for the “trespass of your servant” (v. 28; cf. Jacob’s posture of servitude, Gen 33:3), even taking Nabal’s “guilt” upon herself (v. 24); (5) finally she asks David to accept her gifts: Let this present (hkrbh) which your servant has brought (aybh) to my lord be given (hntnw) to the young men. (25:27)18

The present has a double function; it repays David and his men for their work (Abigail thus does what Nabal refused to do); it is an amends gift intended to soften David’s heart and remove his anger toward Nabal. Thus the gift giving, which restores David’s honor, is intimately connected with Abigail’s work as mediator between Nabal and David. The connection of giving with “for-giving” is clearly made in the story, for David’s intended vengeance is appeased and he is turned from committing blood guilt (vv. 26, 31, 33, 39). David blesses Abigail in a courtly response (vv. 32–34), which is the prelude to his acceptance of the gift: Then David received (jqyw) from her hand what she had brought (haybh) to him. (v. 35)

David, who came to Nabal as a client, offering protection in return for gifts as payment, has now in some sense become the patron, as the next words indicate, “I have heeded your voice, I have granted your petition.” Clients request, patrons grant requests; Abigail is the “broker” for the transaction between David and her clan (on the broker in patron-client relations, see Malina, 1996:149–52).

18

The diction recalls Gen 33:11, “Please accept my gift that is brought to you” (ytkrb

tabh rva).

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Such a gift will have to be returned, for an alliance is being established. David is not a slacker, for his countergift to Abigail is that, after Nabal’s heart attack, he woos her (gifts must have been sent but they are not mentioned), marries her, and later “gives” her children (2 Sam 3:3; 1 Chr 3:1). The narrative especially suggests (1) how gift giving can function in an honor/shame dynamic, which appeases insult and prevents vengeance, and also (2) how gifts help form alliances between different groups with no previous kinship ties. Further, (3) Abigail’s work as mediator relies on the symbolic value of the gift presented and accepted. The gifts to David are thus not about economics as such but about his prestige and mutual recognition. Finally, (4) Abigail’s gifts are closely tied in the narrative to David’s future, when he will gain even higher rank and greater honor (1 Sam 25:28, 30).19 The Gifts of Politics (or the Politics of Gifts) In ancient societies gifts are situated, in addition to the sphere of kinship, within the realm of the political (monarchy, city, civic duties, taxes, military service and the like). For examples of gift exchange within the political domain, we limit ourselves here to a consideration of “royal gifts,” understood as gifts to and from the king. In tribal and peasant economies, the chief or king is the center of gift exchange, receiving and then redistributing gifts (Beattie: 95). Kings in the Semitic world were “habitually approached with gifts and tribute” to make them gracious (Smith: 346). In the Roman world, the emperor is honored with gifts but required in turn to make “a constant outflow of gifts . . . giving them in a magnificent and dignified manner” (Millar: 36). Gifts to the King. It is bad form, and shows disloyalty to the king, to come empty-handed into his presence. In 1 Samuel 10, in the concluding verses that may be an editorial expansion (vv. 26–27), certain l[ylb ynb, fellows lacking honor and repute, questioned Saul’s appointment as king, despised him, and “brought him no present” (hjnm wl waybhAal). Such an action is a provocative, dangerous gesture of dishonor and opposition, which normally would evoke an equally negative response. Hence, the narrator makes a point to note that Saul, who must ultimately respond to the affront, chooses to wait: “Saul held his peace” (v. 27). Such gifts from persons are of course

19 David’s journey to the throne has been replete with the attribution of honors and the giving of gifts to him: Jonathan’s gifts of friendship (1 Sam 18:4); Saul’s gift of a wife (18:17, 21); Ahimelech gives provisions and a sword (21:7 [6], 10 [9]); David’s patron King Achish, in response to David’s request, offers him a country town, Ziklag (27:5–6); on the other hand, David refuses Araunah’s gifts (2 Sam 24:22–23).

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to be distinguished from tribute paid by a tribe or nation to a ruler, which is the sign of servitude, the status of a vassal.20 Gifts from the King. In traditional economies kings redistribute wealth, giving gifts to their people, often on feast days or in times of need (Forde and Douglas: 22; Dalton: 73; Beattie: 95). The redistribution by the chief “is a centralized, formal organization of kinship-rank reciprocities, an extensive social integration of the dues and obligations of leadership” (Sahlins, 1972:209). The technical term “centricity” (Polanyi 1957; 1968) helps make a distinction between the reciprocal movement of gifts between two parties and the “pooling” of goods in the hands of an authority who then redistributes the goods (for an exposition, see Malina, 1986:106–11). That the monarchy in Israel practiced a form of centricity, or pooling, and redistribution is implied in 2 Samuel 6, when David has just finished with the installation of the ark in Jerusalem. The context is one of high drama and celebration, replete with music and dancing, sacrifices, and formal blessing of the people by the king (vv. 12–19). After the blessing, David “distributed (qlj) food among all the people . . . to each a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins” (v. 19, NRSV). This sacralpolitical act presents David as wealthy and generous. Perhaps the largesse21 is partly responsible for Michal’s pique (v. 20). After all, when did rustic King Saul, her father, ever make such a display? In any event, David is a gift giver,22 whose royal gifts solidify the ties between giver and receiver, between David and the tribes of Israel. The distribution may have been expected, but its extensive scope and the obvious “display” of economic clout make it an unambiguous political statement, however much the court historian may have been exaggerating. Kings can buy support and political power with gifts. In one example, that David provided royal gifts as a reciprocation for political support is

20 The line between gifts given and tribute exacted can be unclear, as the linguistic evidence suggests: Moab “brings tribute” (“gifts,” hjnm) to David (2 Sam 8:2, 6). Because of the ambiguity, Titus refused offers of contributions after the eruption of Vesuvius (Dio LXVI, 24, 4, 1590; cited in Millar: 143 n. 39). 21 Largesse stems from the Latin largitio, “that which gives an abundance, generous, expansive (in the moral sense) . . . [it] designates the liberalities of the prince and of important personages in a province or a city: these might be public meals, lands, individual bonuses in cash or kind, or games” (Starobinski: 11–12). 22 Earlier, when David was being pursued by Saul, the irate king asked the Benjaminites, “Will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards and make you commanders?” (1 Sam 22:7). David as bandit sends the spoil to his friends, the elders of Judah, saying: “Here is a gift” (hkrb, 1 Sam 30:26), and later as king he presumably knew how to distribute gifts to his political advantage; cf. 2 Sam 11:8, where David, having received Uriah back from the front, sends him home, followed by a present (˚lmh tacm).

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denied by the men of Judah. When David was brought across the Jordan to Jerusalem after Absalom had died, the men of Israel jealously dispute the prominence of the men of Judah in the dramatic political act of “bringing the king on his way” (2 Sam 19:42–44 [41–43]). Israel addresses King David, accusing Judah of “stealing the king away” (v. 42 [41]). But the men of Judah defend their status against Israel (1) by appealing to ties of blood (v. 43 [42]) and (2) by denying that they have eaten at the king’s expense or received any gift (wnl acn tacn). Their claim is thus that kinship (“the king is near of kin to us,” v. 43 [42]), not the royal distribution of gifts, is the justifiable reason for their prominence in honoring a weakened and politically embarrassed monarch. Royal gifts accomplished many ends, such as sharing (redistributing) wealth, gaining honor, forging political ties, influencing opinion, and the like. No doubt some commercial reciprocity between kings (or kings and their clients) took the form of gift exchange, in which the “gift” is essentially a payment. In 1 Kgs 9:10–14 an example of such an exchange is found in the report that Hiram of Tyre supplied Solomon with cedar, gold, and so forth, while in return Solomon “gave” Hiram twenty cities in Galilee (v. 11b). This is not a gift of political friendship but rather Solomon’s payment for the large amount of gold Hiram has given him (Noth: 212; see his discussion of the secondary nature of vv. 12–13). The cities, however, do not please Hiram, a note that suggests, nevertheless, the “gift” character of payment and exchange between monarchs.23 If Solomon’s “business contract” with Hiram, king of Tyre (1 Kgs 5; 9:10–14, 26–28) contributed to the magnificent wealth of the empire, Solomon’s encounter with the Queen of Sheba further illustrates how such wealth is accumulated and dispensed through gift exchange set within contexts of courtly hospitality and the building of foreign relations. According to 1 Kings 10, the Queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon, arriving in Jerusalem with “very great wealth” (lwj; RSV, “retinue”).24 Has she brought her gifts to honor Solomon for his wisdom or to display her own honor and power, or both? Grand displays of wealth belong to giftgiving ceremonies in ancient societies. The story makes clear that Solomon’s

23 Gifts as “payment” needs further discussion; here we can only note, e.g., that prophets are rewarded for their services by presents (or honoraria), as in 2 Kgs 5:14, where Naaman says to Elisha, “Accept now a present” (hkrb anAjq) after he has been healed. The continuation of the story illustrates the ever-present deception and greed in accepting presents at the improper time. 24 Noth (224) thinks the word means neither military strength nor “retinue” but “wealth” of gifts and treasures. In Homer, the equivalent would be keimhvlion (“treasure”). According to Finley, Telemachus says to Menelaus, “‘Whatever gift you would give me, let it be treasure’; i.e. literally something that can be laid away . . . bronze, iron, gold. The twin uses of treasure were in possessing it and giving it away, paradoxical as that may appear” (65).

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wealth is exhibited with considerable flair, demonstrating his great prestige and power, for it literally knocks the wind out of the queen (v. 5). But the Queen of Sheba recovers and, after a prolix speech of praise and macarisms, she “gives to the king” an abundance of gold, spices, and precious stones (v. 10). The significance of the act and its superabundance is underscored by the repetition of the phrase “which the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon” (v. 10). Much of the scene corresponds to the conventional hospitality scene from the world of Homer: arrival (vv. 1–2), description of guest’s wealth (v. 2), exchange of information (question and answer, vv. 2–3), feast (v. 5), guest praises and blesses the host (vv. 7–9), host’s guest gift (v. 13), departure (v. 13; Reece: 5–42). While in Homeric gift exchange a guest receives but does not bestow a gift, the larger literary context of the Queen of Sheba’s host gift fits in with the narrator’s purpose in showing how gifts and wealth flow to Solomon (1 Kgs 9:10–14, 28; 10:11–12, 14–15). Solomon’s guest gifts (v. 13) follow immediately upon the Queen of Sheba’s host gift (v. 10; vv. 11–12 appear to be a later insertion and interrupt the narrative). The text implies that his gifts consist of two parts: (1) the king gave her all that she asked for and desired; (2) moreover, he gave her (literally) “according to the king’s hand,” a phrase translated as “out of his royal bounty” by JPSV, the same phrase used in the Esther story (2:18). The point is clear: Solomon is not only wise and wealthy; he is generous, for he gave his lavish gifts in addition to all that the Queen of Sheba desired. This accords with what we know of traditional cultures. The niggardly host, or the party that does not offer generous gifts, is without honor. But Solomon’s gifts must by convention, and surely also for the national interests of the storyteller, be greater than the Queen of Sheba’s, a point that is implied but not stated. But beyond this, the exchange between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, who are equal in rank as heads of state, forges an alliance and personal ties, although it is clear that Solomon is the superior and the Queen of Sheba the inferior ruler (10:23). The reciprocity between them opens the door for future political exchange and trade. After the queen returns to her land, two motifs of the story must be reemphasized in vv. 24–25: like the Queen of Sheba, the whole earth seeks out Solomon for his wisdom and brings to him presents (wtjnm vya µyabm) of “silver and gold, garments and weapons, spices, horses, and mules, so much year by year.” Summary Conclusion These examples have only scratched the surface of the comprehensive topic of gift exchange in the Hebrew Bible. The paper has attempted to view these texts in the light of a cross-cultural Maussian model of gift exchange. A more extensive analysis would have to explore further the links between

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gifts and meals/banquets, gifts and wealth/treasure, gifts and the social rank of the giver, and gifts as an element of pact and treaty. Further, the gift as bribe, as dowry, and as tribute beg for further attention, as does the theory that sacrifice to God is to be seen chiefly as gift. The Hebrew Bible is replete with texts that allow some insight into the conventions of gift exchange in ancient Israel. Broadly speaking, what we have seen accords well enough with the generalities of archaic and preindustrial societies. Much of what the Maussian model presents finds echoes in the texts presented above: gifts are bound up in the honor/shame system and establish or deny rank; gifts establish intimate ties between persons or groups; gifts are often presented in a ceremonial setting; gifts amend and appease; gifts display wealth and power; the dynamics of gift exchange are related to kinship closeness or distance. We also saw that chiefs or rulers (re)distribute wealth to their people through gifts. Gifts, although they are about both social bonds and economics, are not commercial activites as such and are to be distinguished from trade. Gifts are a part of hospitality and friendship. Although the Maussian model places great emphasis on the obligation to return a gift, the biblical texts did not demonstrate directly that the Israelites strongly felt this necessity, though such an obligation may be safely assumed. Mauss saw hostility concealed in competitive gift giving; the selection of texts above gave no particular suggestion of this (though cf. Matthews in this volume). But is the competitive destruction of gifts in the potlatch ceremony perhaps echoed in the destruction of booty in the Yahweh war? Gift giving could of course be analyzed ad absurdum with the help of masses of data by the ethnographer (etic). But the deeper significance of the matter perhaps will be missed unless we pay attention to these words, spoken by an African Bushman (emic): The worse thing is not giving presents. If people do not like each other but one gives a gift and the other must accept, this brings peace between them. We give what we have. That is the way we live together. (Alfred Marshall, quoted in Sahlins, 1972:182)

WORKS CONSULTED Alter, Robert 1996 Genesis: Translation and Commentary. New York: Norton. Baal, J. von 1975 Reciprocity and the Position of Women. Amsterdam: van Gorcum.

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Beattie, J. H. M. 1967 “Bunjoro: An African Feudality.” Pp. 88–102 in Tribal and Peasant Economies. Ed. G. Dalton. Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History. Belk, Russell 1979 “Gift-Giving Behavior.” Research in Marketing, vol. 2. Ed. Jagdish E. Sheth. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI. Benveniste, Emile 1973 “Giving and Taking.” Pp. 53–100 in Indo-European Language and Society. Trans. Elizabeth Palmer. Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press. Boling, Robert G. 1975 Judges: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 7. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Bourdieu, Pierre 1966 “The Sentiment of Honour in Kabyle Society.” Pp. 193–241 in Honour and Shame. Ed. J. G. Peristiany. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1977

Outline of a Theory of Practice. Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1990

The Logic of Practice. Trans. Richard Nice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

1997

“Marginalia—Some Additional Notes on the Gift.” Pp. 231–41 in The Logic of the Gift. Ed. Alan D. Schrift. New York: Routledge.

Brueggemann, Walter 1982 Genesis. Atlanta: John Knox. Carrier, James G. 1995 Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism since 1700. London: Routledge. Dalton, George 1967 “Traditional Production in Primitive African Economics.” Pp. 61–87 in Tribal and Peasant Economies: Readings in Economic Anthropology. Ed. G. Dalton. Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History. Derrida, Jacques 1992 Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Douglas, Mary 1990 “No Free Gifts.” Pp. i–xviii in Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. NewYork: Norton. Eisenstadt, S.N., and L. Roniger 1984 Patron, Clients, and Friends: Interpersonal Relations and the Structure of Trust in Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Fabry, H.-J. 1997 “hjnm.” TDOT 8:407–21. Finley, M. I. 1965 The World of Odysseus. London: Chatto & Windus. Firth, Raymond 1959 Economics of the New Zealand Maori. 2d ed. Wellington, New Zealand: Owen. [Orig. Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Maori, 1929.] Forde, Daryll, and Mary Douglas 1967 “Primitive Economics.” Pp. 13–28 in Tribal and Peasant Economics: Readings in Economic Anthropology. Ed. George Dalton. Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History. Godelier, Maurice 1998 The Enigma of the Gift. Trans. Nora Scott. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gouldner, Alvin 1960 “The Principle of Reciprocity.” American Sociological Review 25:161–78. Gregory, C. A. 1982 Gifts and Commodities. London: Academic Press. Gunkel, Hermann 1964 Genesis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. [Orig. 1910.] Herman, Menachem 1991 The Tithe As Gift. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen. Hertzberg, Hans W. 1964 I and II Samuel: A Commentary. OTL. Trans. John Bowden. Philadelphia: Westminster. Johansen, J. Prytz 1954 The Maori and His Religion in Its Non-ritualistic Aspects. Copenhagen: I. Kommission Hos Ejnar Munksgaard. Klein, Ralph 1983 1 Samuel. WBC 10. Waco, Tex.: Word. Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1969 The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Trans. James Bell et al. Boston: Beacon. 1987

Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss. Trans. Felicity Baker. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. [Orig. 1950.]

Malina, Bruce 1986 Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology. Atlanta: John Knox. 1996

The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels. London: Routledge.

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“Embedded Economics: The Irrelevance of Christian Fictive Domestic Economy.” The Forum for Social Economics 26:1–20.

Malinowski, Bronislaw 1961 Argonauts of the Western Pacific. New York: Dutton. [Orig. 1922.] Matthews, Victor, and Don Benjamin 1993 Social World of Ancient Israel, 1250–587 BCE. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson. Mauss, Marcel 1990 The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Trans. W. D. Halls. NewYork: Norton. [Orig. 1925.] Millar, Fergus 1977 The Emperor in the Roman World. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Noth, Martin 1968 Könige. BKAT 9/1. Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag. Pedersen, Johannes 1953 Israel: Its Life and Culture III–IV. Trans. A. Moller and A. I. Fausbell. London: Oxford University Press. [Orig. 1940.] Peterman, G. W. 1997 Paul’s Gift from Philippi: Conventions of Gift-Exchange and Christian Giving. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pitt-Rivers, Julian 1977 “The Law of Hospitality.” Pp. 94–112 in The Fate of Shechem, or The Politics of Sex: Essays in the Anthropology of the Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1992

“Postscript: The Place of Grace in Anthropology.” Pp. 215–46 in Honor and Grace in Anthropology. Ed. J. G. Peristiany and J. Pitt-Rivers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Polanyi, Karl 1968 Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economies. Ed. George Dalton. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor. Polanyi, Karl, et al., eds. 1957 Trade and Market in the Early Empires. Glencoe: Free Press. Rad, Gerhard von 1972 Das Erste Buch Mose. ATD 2–4. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Reece, Steve 1993 The Stranger’s Welcome. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Sahlins, Marshall 1968 “Philosophie politique de ‘l’essai sur le don.’” L’Homme 8:5–17. 1972

Stone Age Economics. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton.

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Schrift, Alan, ed. 1997 The Logic of the Gift. New York: Routledge. Smith, William Robertson 1969 Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. New York: Ktav. Stansell, Gary 1994 “Honor and Shame in the David Narrative.” Semeia 68:55–79. Starobinski, Jean 1997 Largesse. Trans. Jane Marie Todd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Thayer, James B. 1931 “Law of Gifts.” Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences 6:658–60. Ed. E. R. A. Seligman. New York: Macmillan. Van Seters, John 1975 Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Westermann, Claus 1981 Genesis. BKAT 1/2. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag.

THE UNWANTED GIFT: IMPLICATIONS OF OBLIGATORY GIFT GIVING IN ANCIENT ISRAEL Victor H. Matthews Southwest Missouri State University

abstract Reciprocity is at the heart of both hospitality and gift–giving traditions in the ancient Near East. The system of obligatory gift giving carried with it both a means of garnering honor as well as a method for imposing shame. According to the “Protocol of Obligatory Gift Giving,” when a balanced exchange occurred, then both the person giving the gift and the recipient were placed in an honorable position. When an unequal exchange is proposed or imposed, as is noted in the story of Jacob and Esau (Gen 33:8–17), a social tension is created that may lead to open hostility or the loss of personal status. The obligation to give back in equal measure is so strong that it may impoverish an individual or place him or her in such a difficult situation as to slip into a mode of shame, embarrassment, or subservient clientage. In like manner, the attempt by Jeroboam to draw upon the power and authority of the “man from Judah” (1 Kings 13) takes the form of an offer of hospitality that is publicly rebuffed and thus becomes the basis for the king’s shame rather than a means of obtaining honor and political advantage.

Introduction At the heart of an exchange of gifts (defined loosely as goods, information, or honors) is the multitude of possibilities inherent to this practice. Aafke Komter refers to gift giving as “the cement that holds society together” (3), but I would add that it is also a means of drawing hierarchical lines between wealthy and poor, powerful and weak, and honorable and dishonorable (John Davis: 1). As Greg Alles has noted in his study of exchange in religious ritual, there is an art to gift giving that can be explored by either or both parties in the exchange (111). While there are rules placed on any human interaction by the society in which they live, they are not so confining that new applications and forms cannot be created as the situation allows. Thus any study of gift giving must take into account the real human need to reciprocate in order to maintain social parity or obtain an honorable position in society (Sahlins, 1968:9), as well as the more selfish or antagonistic

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motivations that cause them to seek social ascendancy or power through unequal exchange. Certainly, some gift giving is altruistic without any expectation of return, but even such a practice as almsgiving has a social or religious motivation that meets a standard of behavior within a set of cultural guidelines. What helps clarify this is analyzing actual motivations for the exchange and thereby demonstrating more fully the degree of selfinterest involved in the act (Alles: 117). Theories of Gift Giving In his sociological and psychological examination of the rituals of gift giving, Marcel Mauss (2) includes a quotation from the Havamal, one of the Scandinavian Edda. This poem outlines several of the principles of exchange that will be discussed below: 1. “One must be a friend to one’s friend, and give present for present”; 2. “But if you have another person whom you mistrust . . . presents given in return must be similar to those received”; 3. “The miser always fears presents”; 4. “A present given always expects one in return. It is better not to bring any offering than to spend too much on it.”

Although these morally based aphorisms are the product of an early Germanic culture, they may be applied to other societies, in other geographical areas and other time periods, based on ethnographic, demographic, and textual studies. For instance, as part of his study, Mauss examines Polynesian and North American Indian cultures and makes reference to Roman, early Hindi, and Germanic law. Mauss emphasizes a type of mystical link or energy between the owner of the item being given and the object itself, the “hau” (Mauss: 11–12; see also Csikszentmihaly and Rochberg-Halton). However, this cannot be applied as universally as he suggests. In particular, his theory breaks down in cultural systems that employ antagonistic or punitive gift giving, such as the potlach of the Northwest American Indian tribes, where the acquisition of honor and prestige do not depend on magical or overtly religious characteristics found within the property being ostentatiously destroyed (Racine: 87). In addition, a great deal of modern consumer research is centered on the motivational factors involved in gift giving—both its voluntary and obligatory motives (Beatty et al.; Bagozzi). None of this may be classified magical in origin or essence. Rather, as Barry Schwartz (1–11) has shown, it is more reflective of a society bent on demonstrating its ability to economically and culturally dominate a season of the year (i.e., Christmas).

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Alvin W. Gouldner (171–77) takes Mauss’s theory a step further by positing what he calls a “norm of reciprocity,” which is based on societal norms of proper behavior and serves as a “starting mechanism” that triggers the initiation of exchange. This theory, however, does not take into account Mauss’s sense of moral obligation and instead concentrates on a more utilitarian model: the motivation for gift giving based on anticipated returns (Befu: 201). A less functionalist approach is to be found in H. Befu’s “rule of exchange” (202–3), which can fluctuate based “on the nature of what is to be exchanged” (203). This is not to say that any one of these theories is applicable to every situation (see the market sampling methods employed in Beatty et al.: 22–24). However, it is clear that exchange is inexplicably tied to issues of sexuality as applied to bride price and marriage customs (Brandes; Fiske: 286–97) and is demonstrated in social rituals, such as the negotiation of a dowry (Schlegel: 727–28). It also can be found in attempts at the enhancement of social status (John H. R. Davis: 98), as well as in an unconscious or conscious perpetuation of a custom first established by “the ancients” and now performed to honor them and their wisdom (Racine: 79). The protocol that governs hospitality customs contains aspects of social advancement through hosting a stranger (Matthews and Benjamin, 1993:82–87). It includes a sphere of responsibility for the host and a set of obligations for the guest so that the level of exchange being made does not overburden each. However, Claude Lévi-Strauss indicates that this type of exchange has more to do with the temporary establishment of social bonds between strangers. He notes that even casual fields of social responsibility and exchange can be formed between persons sitting at the same table in a restaurant. This helps ease the tensions created by uncertainty when in contact with the unknown and makes it possible to complete the social exchange with a minimum of anxiety (58–60). Karl Polanyi’s discussion of non-Western, preindustrial societies sees reciprocity and reallocation as two social forces that distribute and redistribute goods and services throughout a culture. Reciprocity, according to his model, requires that goods be transferred based on kinship or clientage relationships and on the basis of personal status within the cultural hierarchy (Dalton: 9–10). In contrast, reallocation operates almost unconsciously within a society since it involves obligation to redistribute goods for religious or political purposes (Bleiberg: 6). Thus the covenantal obligation to allow widows to glean in a partially harvested field (Deut 24:19–21) functions as one method of reallocation of resources providing for the weaker members of Israelite society. It also serves to help complete the obligations of reciprocity laid on the group by their release from slavery in Egypt by Yahweh (Deut 24:22; see Sahlins, 1972:188–89). Taken from a more global perspective, gift giving as a cultural phenomenon can be defined as a vehicle of social obligation and political maneuver,

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which contains a symbolic dimension as well as a practical aspect of exchange of property (Schieffelin: 514–15). For a thorough analysis of exchange practices to take place, one must take into account both the ritual structures, with their rules and strategies, as well as motivational patterns and cultural frames of reference (Befu: 203–6). Furthermore, it should be understood that “gifts are tangible expressions of social relationships” and “the value of the gift reflects the weight of the relationship” (Sherry: 158). The social condition of the participants is a determinant in the process since the type of gift given or expected will change depending on age, wealth, and social status. Balance is generally a goal in reciprocal exchange, and an unbalanced exchange can create measurable tensions (Belk: 156–58; Macklin and Walker: 28). It is the strategy of unbalanced gift giving in an obligatory exchange system that is the focus of the remainder of this study. Traditional societies, such as those that existed in the ancient Near East, gauge themselves and their symbolic identities on the need to achieve personal and group honor and avoid shame. This is often achieved through the ritualized exchange of presents. Within these ancient Near Eastern cultures the concept of reciprocity was a common mechanism of social interaction designed to protect one’s household and to bring honor to both the one who gives a gift and to the recipient of the gift (Prov 19:6). This exchange could take the form of offering hospitality to strangers or simply sharing one’s wealth with others, both in terms of material goods as well as wisdom. A social system, such as that of the ancient Near East, that includes obligatory exchange as part of honor/shame ritualized behavior is open to abuses as well as strategically orchestrated advances on the part of the donor. Some gift givers may simply wish to bribe the powerful (Sir 20:29) or curry favor with the leadership (Prov 18:16). In some cases, the donor may be making an effort to test the intent of the recipient and thereby determine whether a balanced exchange can or will occur (Sherry: 159). Any attempt to coax or coerce another person into an exchange, however, may be damaging to either the gift giver or the recipient or both. The choice to refuse a gift may result in a moral dilemma, and that may in turn result in a loss of honor or status. What will be examined below are instances in the biblical narrative where it appears that gift giving is used as a punitive strategy, with the question in mind of what the consequences of this type of exchange are. Gift Giving As a Means of Obtaining Honor Pierre Bourdieu (98–111) asserts that the reality of exchange and counterexchange, especially in Mediterranean societies, is a conscious contest in which the participants jockey for honor and social status, no matter what is being exchanged. In the wisdom literature of the ancient Near East, it is made quite clear that the head of a household may obtain honor through his

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generosity. For instance, in the Egyptian “Teachings of Ptah-hotep” (ca. 2500 B.C.E.) the sage states that if you obtain a position of authority you should “be generous with the wealth that the gods give you and take care of your hometown now that you can” (Matthews and Benjamin, 1997:269). Similarly, the Egyptian wisdom of Amenemope (eleventh century B.C.E.) cautions that it is “better to be praised for loving your neighbor than loving your wealth” (Matthews and Benjamin, 1997:280). This model of generosity is also heralded in the Hellenistic writings of Ben Sira, where he states that “with every gift show a cheerful face” since the Lord “will repay you sevenfold” (Sir 35:11–13). These examples, however, are forms of nonobligatory giving. They simply represent a form of moral behavior. It may be expected of the rich and powerful, but their gifts do not carry the burden of obligatory response by the recipient. In the realm of obligatory gift giving, the protocol of exchange is much more rigidly defined. But such a system can be manipulated to the advantage of either party. The protocol of obligatory gift giving includes four elements: 1. Gifts must be given by a patron for every service rendered by a client. 2. All gifts must be equally measured so that there is no advantage to be gained by either side of the exchange. 3. Failure to give an appropriate gift dishonors the donor and insults the recipient. 4. The recipient may not contest the gift offered, but a demur, based on the honor of the household, may be employed either to refuse the gift or negotiate a change in the gift.

Since, within this type of system, it is possible to dishonor the recipient by giving a gift so large that it cannot be reciprocated, there is a real possibility of enmity by the donor (Racine: 89). The challenge to the respectability of the recipient must therefore be deflected using the rules of the protocol. So, for example, there are instances in which honor may be maintained while refusing a gift, especially if that gift may be transferred to one’s kin or client. An excellent example of this process of gift transference is found in 2 Sam 19:31–40. David has just survived Absalom’s revolt and is now rewarding those who helped him during his temporary exile and who made it possible for him to return to the throne. Among those whom he especially wishes to reward is Barzillai the Gileadite, who “provided the king with food” while he gathered his forces in Mahanaim (2 Sam 19:32). The gift offered in this instance is the right to accompany the king back to Jerusalem and to benefit from royal patronage (see Lemche: 120), as David says, to “provide for you in Jerusalem at my side” (2 Sam 19:33).

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Barzillai’s demur of this offer of hospitality and royal favor is based on a twofold strategy. First, he is an old man (eighty years old), and he realizes that he has little time left and wishes to spend it in his own land (2 Sam 19:34–36). This is certainly understandable. What is clever about his refusal of David’s gift is the way in which he gains a great deal more than what was initially offered. He plays on David’s need to reciprocate for services rendered, a critical aspect of the patronage system that centers on “loyalty” by both patron and client (Lemche: 125). Second, Barzillai refers to himself as a burden and one unworthy of such favor (vv. 35–36). This heightens tension within the narrative and makes it easier for the king to transfer the patronage position to the old man’s son (or perhaps client; see 1 Kgs 2:7), Chimham (2 Sam 19:37–38). This younger man will likely enjoy the king’s favor for many more years than Barzillai could have, and in fact the place name Geruth-Chimham may well indicate the existence of a fief or land grant made to the family (Jer 41:17; McCarter: 422). In this way, therefore, a gift offered to repay a political debt becomes a multigenerational grant and presumably the perpetuation of a political relationship for both families. It is also quite possibly what David expected Barzillai to negotiate when the king initiated this process, and thus, in their negotiations, using the rules of reciprocity, both sides eventually obtain the solution they desire. Punitive Nature of Gift Giving Obligatory gift giving can also take on a more sinister character when it is used to harm or gain power over the recipient of the gift. What follows are two examples demonstrating this process of punitive gift giving. Jacob and Esau In the narrative of Jacob’s and Esau’s reunion in Gen 33:8–17, each character makes a definite attempt to obtain the upper hand through gift giving. The exchange begins with Jacob sending to Esau three delegations of servants with presents (Gen 32:13–21). These gifts were designed to serve as a peace offering and a means of appeasing Esau’s anger. Jacob must have still feared his brother’s wrath even after an absence of over twenty years. Their enmity had begun when Jacob deceived their father Isaac into giving him the blessing intended for Esau (Genesis 27). The uncertainty of his welcome therefore provides at least one reason for Jacob’s generosity. Another possible explanation, however, may be found in the power of “display.” The Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest employ a form of competitive gift giving known as “potlach.” Codere refers to this practice of ritual mass destruction of goods as “fighting with property,” and

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Rider sees it as “predatory” behavior (208). The object of offering huge gifts is to force a reciprocal exchange and thereby impoverish or weaken the recipient of the initial gift. The three offerings presented by Jacob, including hundreds of prime stock (Gen 32:14–15), were spaced in such a way that the effect on Esau would be magnified—an apparently continuous stream of animals being sent to him—as evidence of nearly unlimited wealth. Also, the servants were instructed to repeat the following statement to Esau: “They belong to your servant Jacob; they are a present sent to my lord Esau; moreover he is behind us” (Gen 32:18). Despite the use of titles representing Jacob as Esau’s “servant,” a demonstration of submissive behavior, and an attempt to label the participants in the exchange, everything else about the incident is intimidating. Despite the fact that Jacob has reclassified his symbolic identity as a wealthy head of household, referring to himself as a “servant,” the tangible display of wealth gives him the exact opposite identity in the eyes of his brother Esau. For instance, if Jacob can afford to give up so much, then just how wealthy and powerful must he be? In addition, the repetition of the phrase “he is behind us” heightens tension and raises the anxiety level by suggesting that a potential threat is riding down on Esau, despite the fact that Esau is accompanied by a force of four hundred men. The threat of being overwhelmed by a superior force, however, is also magnified by the concern over how Esau will be able to reciprocate in the face of such generous gifts. Esau, therefore, employs a strategy of demur. He tells Jacob, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself” (Gen 33:9). In this way, he apparently is attempting to dodge the responsibility to reciprocate in kind, and he follows a pattern of positioning more typical of commercial transactions (see the exchange between Abraham and Ephron in Gen 23:7–16). Plus, by using the title “my brother,” he both acknowledges their kinship tie and portrays them as equals, hopefully diminishing the power gulf between them evidenced by the gifts. As a result, any hint of tribute payment by a vassal to a lord is removed and Esau is portrayed as a concerned family member who does not wish a member of his clan to be impoverished or his family deprived of what they need to survive. Jacob, however, has no intention of letting Esau off the hook. He continues to press Esau to accept the gift (Gen 33:10), and this now takes on even more clearly the transactional dialogue between Abraham and Ephron the Hittite in Gen 23:7–16. What had originally been a proffered gift is then transformed into a payment for passage into or through Esau’s territory and as such is acceptable and does not require reciprocation. At that point, therefore, Esau is free to accept. There is also within this narrative a sense of treaty language as well. Jacob and Esau had been enemies (see Gen 27:41). For a peace treaty to be

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enacted and amicable relations resumed, some exchange is necessary. The aggrieved party must receive some form of compensation, and the petitioning party must receive absolution and the establishment of future peaceful relations once the gift is accepted (Gen 33:11b). This can be compared to the language of the treaty between the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite king Hattusilis III, which ended a period of hostilities between the two nations and proclaimed that the monarchs henceforth “are brothers and are at peace with each other forever” (Matthews and Benjamin, 1997:87–88). Once Jacob’s initial gambit has been taken care of, Esau now attempts to gain the upper hand by inviting Jacob and his household to travel with him and his four hundred men. This is a form of gift offering (physical protection) that would transform Jacob and his household into a subsidiary position of clientage. There may also be some suggestion of physical threat, since four hundred warriors accompany Esau. It is certain that he has come prepared for trouble. Therefore, by suggesting that Jacob accept his protection he is making it clear that in his estimation Jacob is incapable of protecting his own household. If Jacob agrees, then he also is de facto relinquishing his rights as head of the household and transferring them to his brother’s leadership and lordship. It is not surprising, therefore, that Jacob now employs the demur strategy. He does not want this “gift” and immediately makes excuses (Gen 33:13) that allude to Esau’s not-so-veiled suggestions of their weakness. He notes that the women, children, and animals cannot maintain the pace set by Esau’s men, but a promise is made to follow them, at their own pace, to Seir. This last statement is a deception and simply follows the pattern of trickster activity that is so much a part of the Jacob narrative (Matthews and Mims; Niditch: 99–101, 106–10). Perhaps to satisfy his honor, Esau tries once more, offering a few of his men as a bodyguard for Jacob’s household. This is simply an abbreviated version of his first proffered gift. Jacob is able to push this aside as well by further denigrating himself as unworthy of such an honor from a man who could command such a host of warriors. Esau must therefore be satisfied with these words, really a return to Jacob’s original use of the titles “servant” and “lord.” Their parting in Gen 33:16–17 allows Esau to save face with his men and return to Seir with the expectation in their mind that Jacob will indeed follow them there. Free of his brother and his small army, Jacob turns west, not south to Edom, and reenters Canaan, taking up the role of heir to the covenantal lands. The exchange allows him to resume that role without any further qualms, since he has paid compensatory damages and each party has retreated to its own territory. The conclusion of the affair is much like that between Jacob and Laban. In their agreement in Gen 31:43–55, both men establish clear territorial boundaries and rights by means of a treaty, a

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boundary marker, and a covenant meal (Morrison: 163). Similarly, Jacob and Esau have come to a mutual understanding of territoriality (Crüsemann: 71–72). Jeroboam and the “Man of God” from Judah The scene in 1 Kings 13 initially appears to be simply a desecration ritual performed by the “man of God” from Judah against the shrine at Bethel. Walsh is correct in positing that the oracle against the altar is in fact a direct snub of Jeroboam’s cultic role, a part of the narrator’s “motif of opposition” (358). However, the prediction of the altar’s destruction in Josiah’s reign can easily be separated from the rest of the narrative (vv. 2–3, 5). This section is most likely a Deuteronomistic editorial intrusion designed to justify Josiah’s demolition and desecration of the cultic site as he attempted to revive Israelite nationalism in reaction to the demise of the Assyrian empire (De Vries: 170; Dozeman: 383). Only when Jeroboam stretches out his arm in verse 4 to gesture at the prophet is the audience drawn to the human confrontation. Like Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, who is irritated by Amos’s message in the eighth century (Amos 7:10–13), Jeroboam is upset that his dedicatory ceremony has been interrupted. His preemptory gesture is probably just a signal to his guards to remove this troublemaker. The withering of the king’s arm (v. 4b) follows the pattern of events so common in the Elijah/Elisha cycle where the person, or persons, who fail to give proper respect to the Lord’s representative are slain or wounded (see 2 Kgs 1:9–16; 2:23–24; 5:19b–27). It is at this point that the mechanism of reciprocal behavior begins. Jeroboam pleads with the prophet to pray to “the LORD your God” to heal his arm. This is an acknowledgement of the prophet’s authority and a curious response by Jeroboam who, presumably, had been about to offer incense on the altar to Yahweh. Perhaps in this way the Deuteronomist could further portray the Israelite king as both an idolater (note the golden calves in 1 Kgs 12:28) as well as a “foreigner,” no longer part of the covenantal community (Van Winkle: 110; Cohn: 31). When Jeroboam’s arm is healed, he is grateful and also obligated to reciprocate. He invites the prophet to “come home with me and dine, and I will give you a gift” (v. 7). This invitation fits into the manner of that used in the protocol of hospitality (see Gen 18:3–5; Matthews: 13–15). The protocol, however, allows for the “guest” to refuse without infringing on the honor of either party, if there is a need to move on or some other abiding reason that transcends the granting of the favor of acceptance (Matthews: 14). In this case, the prophet bases his refusal on a previous command from Yahweh that he “not eat food, or drink water, or return by the way that you came” (v. 9). Gross sees this as an expression of the need for absolute obedience to the command of God and thus a reinforcement of the magnitude of

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Jeroboam’s sin (129; see Van Winkle: 106, 112). The force with which the prophet refuses Jeroboam’s hospitality, however, does seem a bit excessive. He says, even “if you give me half your kingdom, I will not go in with you” (v. 8). What could be the reason for such a firm and categorical refusal? One possibility for the prophet’s refusal may be his recognition of Jeroboam’s gift-giving strategy. The king has already lost face in a public ceremony, been injured, and then forced to ask for assistance. His honor has been infringed so severely that it will be very difficult to recoup his losses. If, however, Jeroboam can get the prophet to come to his house and accept his hospitality, it will be a public demonstration of his generosity and his willingness to transform an enemy into a guest. It is also possible that within the public mind the power manifested by the prophet’s words and his healing ability could then be associated with Jeroboam’s regime. This would help legitimize the new king and his separatist northern kingdom. It might even help rehabilitate the sanctity of the shrine at Bethel despite the prophet’s curse. By so curtly turning down Jeroboam’s gift of hospitality, the prophet obeys God’s command and publicly snubs Jeroboam’s political ambitions (contra Reis: 377, who contends this is bargaining on the prophet’s part to obtain well-paid employ in the northern kingdom). Like Daniel, who refused Belshazzar’s offer to “rank third in the kingdom” (Dan 5:16–17), the “man of God” will not become a part of an illegitimate regime. He will not allow himself or Yahweh to be used in this manner, and thus it is mandatory that he refuse to “break bread” with the king (Walsh: 358). The prophet is safe in doing this since, according to the protocol of hospitality, Jeroboam cannot refuse to let him go on his way. This whole scene could also be compared to the narrative about the Syrian general Naaman in 2 Kgs 5:9–19. He also petitions for a cure, receives it after showing his faith in the prophet’s authority (dipping seven times in the Jordan River), and then offers a gift, which is refused by the prophet. Some measure of reciprocity, however, is achieved by giving gifts to Elisha’s servant Gehazi (vv. 21–23). There is no harm to the prophet since he does not accept payment for God’s demonstration of power, and Gehazi pays for his greed by receiving the leprosy that Naaman had shed. In this way, reciprocity is satisfied, if not to Gehazi’s satisfaction. Conclusion Based on this study it may be stated that the system of obligatory gift giving that existed in the ancient Near East carried with it both a means of garnering honor as well as a method for imposing shame. When a balanced exchange occurred, then both the person giving the gift and the recipient were placed in an honorable position. The basis for this sense of equilibrium

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is mutual recognition of the value of their individual actions, both at that moment and as part of previous, and presumably future, exchanges. When an unequal exchange is proposed or imposed, however, a social tension is created that may lead to open hostility or the loss of personal status. The obligation to give back in equal measure is so strong that it may impoverish an individual or place him or her in such a difficult situation that he or she slips into a mode of shame, embarrassment, or subservient clientage. Thus the gifts proffered by Jacob and Esau and their verbal sparring represent the type of jockeying that can occur in situations where obligatory gift giving takes on political as well as ethical dimensions (Crüsemann: 74). Similarly, the attempt by Jeroboam to co-opt the power and authority of the “man from Judah” takes the form of an offer of hospitality that is publicly rebuffed and thus becomes the basis for the king’s shame rather than a means of obtaining honor and political advantage.

WORKS CONSULTED Alles, Greg 2000 “Exchange.” Pp. 110–24 in Guide to the Study of Religion. Ed. Willi Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon. London: Cassell. Bagozzi, Richard P. 1975 “Marketing As Exchange.” Journal of Marketing 38:77–81. Beatty, Sharon E., Mahn-Hee Yoon, Suzanne C. Grunert, and James G. Helgeson 1996 “An Examination of Gift-Giving Behaviors and Personal Values in Four Countries.” Pp. 19–36 in Gift Giving: A Research Anthology. Ed. C. Otnes and Richard F. Beltramini. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. Befu, Harumi 1980 “Structural and Motivational Approaches in Social Exchange.” Pp. 197–214 in Social Exchange: Advances in Theory and Research. Ed. Kenneth Gergen, Martin Greenberg, and Richard Willis. New York: Plenum. Belk, Russell W. 1976 “It’s the Thought That Counts: A Signed Digraph Analysis of GiftGiving.” Journal of Consumer Research 3:155–62. Bleiberg, Edward 1996 The Official Gift in Ancient Egypt. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press. Bourdieu, Pierre 1990 The Logic of Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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Brandes, Stanley 1987 “Reflections on Honor and Shame in the Mediterranean.” Pp. 121–34 in Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean. Ed. D. D. Gilmore. American Anthropological Association Special Publication 22. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association. Codere, Helen 1950 Fighting with Property. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Cohn, Robert L. 1985 “Literary Technique in Jeroboam’s Narrative.” ZAW 97:23–35. Crüsemann, Frank 1995 “Dominion, Guilt, and Reconciliation: The Contribution of the Jacob Narrative in Genesis to Political Ethics.” Semeia 66:67–77. Csikszentmihaly, Mihaly, and Eugene Rochberg-Halton 1981 The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self. New York: Cambridge University Press. Dalton, George, ed. 1971 Primitive and Modern Economics: Essays of Karl Polanyi. Boston: Beacon. Davis, John 1992 Exchange. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Davis, John H. R. 1977 People of the Mediterranean: An Essay in Comparative Social Anthropology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. De Vries, Simon 1985 1 Kings. WBC 12. Waco, Tex.: Word. Dozeman, Thomas B. 1981 “The Way of the Man of God from Judah: True and False Prophecy in the Pre-Deuteronomic Legend of 1 Kings 13.” CBQ 44:379–93. Fiske, Alan P. 1991 Structures of Social Life: The Four Elementary Forms of Human Relations. New York: Free Press. Gouldner, Alvin W. 1960 “The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement.” American Sociological Review 25:161–78. Gross, Walter 1978 “Lying Prophet and Disobedient Man of God in 1 Kings 13: Role Analysis As an Instrument of Theological Interpretation of an Old Testament Narrative Text.” Semeia 15:97–135. Komter, Aafke E., ed. 1996 The Gift: An Inter-Disciplinary Perspective. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

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Lemche, Niels P. 1995 “Kings and Clients: On Loyalty between the Ruler and the Ruled in Ancient ‘Israel.’” Semeia 66:119–32. Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1969 The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Boston: Beacon. Macklin, M. Carole, and Mary Walker 1987 “The Joy and Irritation of Gift-Giving.” Pp. 28–32 in Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Ed. George Wills. Montreal: Academy of Marketing Science. Matthews, Victor H. 1991 “Hospitality and Hostility in Judges 4.” BTB 21:13–21. Matthews, Victor H., and Don C. Benjamin 1993 Social World of Ancient Israel, 1250–587 BCE. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson. 1997

Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East. 2d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist.

Matthews, Victor H., and Frances Mims 1985 “Jacob the Trickster and Heir of the Covenant: A Literary Interpretation.” PRSt 12:85–95. Mauss, Marcel 1990 The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Trans. W. D. Halls. NewYork: Norton. [Orig. 1925.] McCarter, P. Kyle 1984 II Samuel. AB 9. New York: Doubleday. Morrison, Martha A. 1983 “The Jacob and Laban Narratives in Light of Near Eastern Sources.” BA 46:155–64. Niditch, Susan 1987 Underdogs and Tricksters: A Prelude to Biblical Folklore. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Racine, Luc 1991 “The Obligation to Reciprocate Gifts and the Spirit of the Item Given: From Marcel Mauss to René Maunier.” Diogenes 154:71–98. Reis, Pamela T. 1994 “Vindicating God: Another Look at 1 Kings XIII.” VT 44:376–86. Rider, Robert 1998 “A Game-Theoretic Interpretation of Marcel Mauss’ ‘The Gift’.” The Social Journal 35:203–12. Sahlins, Marshall D. 1968 Tribesmen. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

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Schieffelin, Edward L. 1980 “Reciprocity and the Construction of Reality.” Man 15:502–17. Schlegel, Alice 1991 “Status, Property, and the Value of Virginity.” American Ethnologist 18:719–34. Schwartz, Barry 1967 “The Social Psychology of the Gift.” American Journal of Sociology 73:1–11. Sherry, John F., Jr. 1983 “Gift Giving in Anthropological Perspective.” Journal of Consumer Research 10:157–68. Van Winkle, Dwight W. 1995 “1 Kings XII 25–XIII 34: Jeroboam’s Cultic Innovations and the Man of God from Judah.” VT 46:101–14. Walsh, Jerome T. 1989 “The Contexts of 1 Kings XIII.” VT 39:355–70.

WHOSE SOUR GRAPES? THE ADDRESSEES OF ISAIAH 5:1–7 IN THE LIGHT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY Marvin L. Chaney San Francisco Theological Seminary

abstract When the “Song of the Vineyard” is read in the context of the rapid agricultural intensification of Judah and Israel in the eighth century B.C.E.—involving consolidation of small, subsistence plots into larger, market-oriented vineyards—previous interpretations of the pericope are rendered improbable. From Isaiah’s perspective, the peasant majorities of Israel and Judah were the victims of viticultural injury, not its perpetrators. The vocatives and identifications of verses 3 and 7 refer only to the top of the social pyramid in Israel and Judah. Social-scientific analysis of political economy in Isaiah’s time, examination of other Isaianic oracles involving vineyards, genre analysis of the juridical parable, and lexicographical analysis of the terms designating the addressees of this particular parable all point independently to the same conclusion. Those trapped into selfcondemnation by the parable were the ruling elites of Judah and Israel, led by the two dynastic houses, not the general populations of Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel.

Introduction Social-scientific methods and perspectives have contributed to the study of the Hebrew Bible in a variety of ways. In certain instances, wholly new questions have been asked. New universes of discourse are now at least in prospect as a result. In other cases, social-scientific perspectives prompt a fresh address to issues or problems already wellensconced in the history of interpretation. The following essay falls into the latter category. For the most part, it uses methodological tools long standard in the workshop of historical-critical exegesis. What is new— and social scientific—is its attention to how radically readers’ presuppositions about agrarian political economy condition the import of the literary unit in question. Despite their disagreement about much else, previous interpretations of Isaiah’s “Song of the Vineyard” seem all to have shared two

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presuppositions.1 Mostly at a tacit level, they have assumed that the extended imagery of the vineyard refers to artifacts and activities that were routine in the experience of the ancient audience and thus of neutral valence in the rhetorical sensibilities of that audience. More explicitly, exegetes have argued that the µlvwry bvwy and hdwhy vya of v. 3 and the larcy tyb and hdwhy vya of v. 7, though all singular morphologically, are to be understood as collectives referring indiscriminately to the populations of Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel. When this pericope is read in light of the rapid agricultural intensification of Judah and Israel in the eighth century B.C.E.—a dynamic elsewhere witnessed by all four eighth-century prophets—both these assumptions are rendered improbable. The goals of this paper, then, are the demonstration of that improbability and the suggestion of alternate understandings that better accord with what is known or knowable. “Vineyard”: A Fighting Word We may begin with the presumption that the preparation and cultivation of a new vineyard was a neutral topic in Isaiah’s context. In this regard, Yehoshua Gitay’s injunction is well repeated here, even if he himself fails to heed it fully: [W]e need to search for the condition, the polemic background against which the song has been recited. In this respect, it should be noted that a parable, a story, may be commonly known, but it must still be applied to a particular social moment. . . . [T]he point is to try to reconstruct the condition, the argumentative or rhetorical situation which caused the use of the parable. (93–94)

Even a cursory look at the dynamics of political economy in Isaiah’s time reveals a “social moment” that was polemical indeed, especially where the expansion of viticulture was concerned. Strictures of space preclude here all but the briefest epitome of those dynamics of agricultural intensification. I have elsewhere given a somewhat fuller account of my understanding of that process (Chaney, 1989, 1993), an account that sought to integrate insights from a number of sources and perspectives (Chaney, 1986; Coote; Dearman; Eitam; Elat; Geva; Hopkins, 1983; Lang; Premnath, 1984, 1988; Rainey; Silver; Stager, 1983, 1985). While individual details remain unclear or disputed, more recent studies (Broshi and Finkelstein; Herr; J. S. Holladay; Hopkins, 1996) have tended to confirm and nuance the salient features of the following sketch. 1 This analysis proceeds on the assumption that “Isaiah of Jerusalem” composed Isa 5:1–7. For a brief discussion of how subsequent levels of composition affected the reading of this unit, see the last paragraph.

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Eighth-century Israel and Judah saw an increase in international trade, in which their leaders imported luxury goods, military matériel, and the wherewithal of monumental architecture. To pay for these imports, foodstuffs—particularly the triad of wheat, olive oil, and wine—were exported. Imports mostly benefited an elite minority, while the exports necessary to procure them cut deeply into the sustenance of the peasant majority. Urban elites, whose priorities called for the maximally efficient production of the three preferred export commodities over the short term, pressed for a regional specialization of agriculture. Villagers’ traditional priorities for the long-term sufficiency of mixed, subsistence agriculture and its penchant for risk spreading were overwhelmed by these pressures, and land consolidation proceeded apace. Not only were agricultural labor and land ownership increasingly separated, but the various other factors of production were segmented and each subjected to separate rent. Absentee landlordism proliferated. Many peasants were left no alternative to survival loans at de facto interest rates usurious by any standards. Foreclosure upon family land and family members pledged as collateral was often at the discretion of the creditor. The courts of law called upon to process such foreclosure proceedings came increasingly under the control of the urban elites who had initiated the agricultural intensification. These courts gave a facade of legality to foreclosures regarded as illegal by most peasants and their prophetic defenders. The prophets declared that actions by Yahweh’s court of last resort had vindicated the poor peasants’ cause and had found the urban elites guilty regarding the matters under adjudication. Not all parts of the country were equally affected by these dynamics. The land best suited to wheat lay in the plains and the Shephelah, where most of it had long since been garnered into the large estates of the wealthiest and most powerful landlords. The conflict over agricultural priorities, techniques, and land took place primarily in the hill country, where the villagers’ preferences for the sustainability and sufficiency of mixed, subsistence cropping constituted a major impediment to the urban elites’ desire for the “efficient” production of ever greater quantities of wine and oil. The conflict within the political economy of upland agriculture was not fought on equal terms. As noted above, survival loans with hill-country peasants’ plots pledged as collateral gave urban elites a powerful tool to consolidate into their own hands lands from which they desired oil and wine, not mixed subsistence. This same small but powerful class also controlled state policies, including those of taxation. To further several of their goals at once, all they had to do was levy a heavy tax upon grain produced “inefficiently” by the subsistence farmers of the hill country. In the short term, such a tax secured them one of their three preferred commodities. But in the longer run, it also gave powerful incentive to convert into vineyards and olive orchards what had previously been multipurpose

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land. This conversion accomplished the increased production of wine and oil desired by the elite, both for domestic conspicuous consumption and for export. In the process, of course, many previously freeholding villagers lost their land and were ruined. Amos 5:11 most probably reflects this process and its causal linkages in its indictment and futility curses: Therefore, because you impose cereal tax2 upon the poor one, and exactions of grain you take from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted delightful vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

Nor is archaeological evidence lacking for the intensification of wine and oil production in the hills. While rock-cut olive and grape processing installations are probably almost as old as agriculture itself in Palestine, archaeological surveys (Eitam; Dar: 147–90; Campbell: 109–12) suggest a proliferation of and innovation in such installations in the eighth century B.C.E. Some ancient terracing can probably also be traced to this time (Edelstein and Kislev), though such installations are notoriously difficult to date with certainty. Anson F. Rainey argues strongly that the much-discussed lmlk seal impressions from Judah witness a system of royal vineyards toward the end of the eighth century. Farther north, the Samaria ostraca—despite all the controversies surrounding their exact dating and interpretation—“evidence the flow of oil and wine probably to officials of the royal court” (Premnath, 1984:62) sometime during that same century. A survey of west Samaria by Shimon Dar reports, not only the founding of new villages on virgin sites in Iron II, but the presence in and near them of wine and oil processing installations. While the best exemplars date from later periods, massive and well-constructed “towers” are frequently associated with these installations. Dar traces the antecedents of these towers to Iron II and interprets them as centers for the fermentation and storage of wine. Only wine’s need for darkness and moderately low, constant temperatures, he argues, can explain the unique features of these “towers,” whose construction required an enormous expenditure of labor.3 If one joins its excavators (Aharoni) in

2 This translation of the hapax legomenon, svb, is supported both by the parallel line and by a probable Akkadian cognate, SabaSu/Sabasu, as seen already by Harry Torczyner (6–7). Numerous commentators, translators, and lexicographers have since adopted this reading (Paul: 172–73). Whether or not the Hebrew term here involves a wordplay on swb, “tread down, trample,” must remain a matter of conjecture, though the suggestion is thoroughly plausible. 3 Walsh (49) has recently reiterated a more general interpretation of “field towers” as providing security against intruders and pests. While only a few Iron Age “field towers” have been found (ibid.), they might not all have shared the same function. Some may be interpreted

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identifying Ramat Rahel with biblical Beth-Haccherem, this “house of the vineyard” was founded, probably in the eighth century B.C.E., as a royal stronghold surrounded by vineyards, gardens, and farmhouses. Taken as a whole and in context, such evidence implies more than a simple boom in viticulture in Isaiah’s time. The vineyards being constructed and planted by the processes described in Isa 5:2 were at the vortex of a battle that convulsed Judahite and Israelite society. To the urban elite who had them built on the lands recently acquired by the processes sketched above, these vineyards were the proud symbols of economic progress and prosperity. To the peasants whose subsistence plots had been expropriated and combined to yield the sites for these new vineyards, matters looked different. The injustice of their loss of hereditary lands and livelihood was aggravated by a cruel irony—many now worked land that had been in their families for generations, but they worked it as landless day-laborers. That gnawing memory could only add to the bitterness of wages below subsistence for the backbreaking labor of vineyard construction. In such a context, “vineyard” was not a neutral word, nor was Isaiah’s choice of material for his parable a bucolic happenstance. Analysis of the sharp conflict provoked by the terms and conditions of this vineyard construction also calls into severe question the assumption that Isaiah’s parable condemns indiscriminately the entire populations of Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel. Only a tiny percentage of those populations initiated, benefited from, and favored the process, but they held the reins of power. The vast majority were the victims of a process they hated, not its perpetrators, but the workings of political economy rendered them helpless to ameliorate their own plight. Under those circumstances, one would expect a prophetic parable about a vineyard to condemn those responsible for the process, not to blame its victims. Victims and Perpetrators Elsewhere in Isaiah But we need not speculate. Other Isaianic texts in the immediate literary and historical context make the matter clear. If the consonantal text of Isa 3:12 is read according to most of the ancient versions and a growing consensus of modern commentators and translators (Kaiser: 74–78; Wildberger: 137–39; NJB; NEB), Isa 3:12–15 yields the following: My people—every one of their exactors is a gleaner, and creditors rule over them.

plausibly as defensive structures, but Dar reasons that the placement and construction of others preclude security as their main purpose.

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semeia My people, your leaders mislead you, and the course of your paths they confuse. Yahweh has taken his stand to litigate; he stands to vindicate his people.4 Yahweh comes in judgment against the elders of his people and their officials. “It is you who devour the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses! What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor?”

As is widely recognized, other elements of the same process are evinced by the “woe oracle” immediately following the parable of the vineyard in Isa 5:8–10. Alas for those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no place left, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land! Yahweh of Hosts in my hearing: “I swear that the great houses shall be desolate, large and fine ones without lordly inhabitant! For ten acres of vineyard shall produce but one bath, and a homer of seed shall produce only an ephah!”

Commentators frequently remark upon the land consolidation reflected in verse 8 and its similarity to the concerns expressed in Mic 2:2. The niceties of the “futility curses” in verse 10 have received less attention, though they are germane to the issues under discussion. The word translated “acre” is dmx, which means literally “yoke” or “span.” By extension, it also signifies the amount of land a plowman can plow in a day with a yoked team of traction animals (BDB: 855; HALAT: 967). Like its counterparts in the native languages of many other traditional agrarian societies, it is basically a unit of peasant labor, not a mathematically exact quantity of land treated as a commercial entity. In Isaiah’s carefully crafted language, however, the futilely low yield of formerly subsistence land now planted to vineyard is expressed in terms of a wine amphora of standardized capacity, designed to facilitate trade in wine as a commodity. Archaeology has now recovered several exemplars of this royally standardized eighth-century amphora inscribed with either tb or

4 I read wm[, “his people,” with LXX and Syr for MT’s µym[, “the peoples.” MT represents a later orientation to Israel among the nations. Here the focus is on Yahweh’s people as the poor whose vineyards are expropriated. For wm[ ˆydl as “to vindicate his people,” see the clear contexts in Deut 32:36; Pss 50:4 and 135:14.

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˚lml tb (Avigad; Inge; Mittmann; Naveh). Isaiah’s parallel line continues the contrast between a positive valence for vocabulary rooted in the world of village subsistence and a negative tenor for terms that epitomize the innovations pressed by the urban elite in their program of agricultural intensification. The rmj is an “ass-load,” an inexact measurement pertinent to the work realities of peasants (HALAT: 317). The hpya, approximately one tenth of a rmj, is the dry measure equivalent of the tb (BDB: 35; HALAT: 41), and like it, is a standardized unit intended to expedite commercial transactions—this time, in grain. As is so often the case with prophetic language, Isaiah’s words have both a concretely precise denotation and emotionally charged connotations that assist rhetorically in driving home the judgment rendered. Neither Isa 3:12–15 nor Isa 5:8–10 leaves any doubt about the identity of those guilty of crimes concerning vineyards. Even John H. Hayes and Stuart A. Irvine, who prefer to read the vast majority of Isaiah as addressing matters of international politics, see the obvious implications. Apropos Isa 5:8 they write: The verse appears to denounce those whose ambition is to acquire property, house after house and field after field, “until there is no more space and you (pl.) dwell alone in the midst of the land.” If the people being condemned here are the same as those in 3:14–15, then Isaiah is denouncing the government officials and social leaders who, through money-lending, land foreclosures, and their status as political administrators, are amassing enormous wealth from the peasant and small landowning classes. (103)

If both these passages clearly castigate the ruling classes for their aggressive activity in viticulture, how can the parable of the vineyard blame all the people, most of whom are victims? How indeed? Although he does not see how to resolve it, Hans Wildberger feels the incongruity surfaced by this question. He writes: And yet, one ought to note the ambivalence between 3:14 and 5:7: In the first passage, the leaders of the people are accused of having grazed the vineyard bare; in this verse [5:7], the people themselves must acknowledge that “being grazed bare” is certainly deserved. (185)

Form-Critical Considerations A quick glance at the form criticism of Isa 5:1–7 only heightens the incongruity. After the work of John T. Willis, Adrian Graffy, and Gale A. Yee, there can be little doubt that our passage is a juridical parable, the other three unambiguous examples of which in the Hebrew Bible occur in 2 Sam 12:1–14; 14:5–17; and 1 Kgs 20:35–43. As Yee notes repeatedly (33, 35, 36, 37, 39), all instances other than Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard concern a royal figure. Nor is the peculiar applicability of this genre to kings difficult to

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explicate. As quite literally the court of last resort, Judahite and Israelite monarchs were well accustomed to the role of judge. But who could pass judgment on the supreme judge of the land? Given his power, who was foolhardy enough to try? The juridical parable, or, as Graffy (408) prefers, the “self-condemnation parable,” addressed both these questions. If justice were poetic enough to fool the king, he could be tricked into self-judgment. Viewed from such a perspective, form criticism corroborates and amplifies the query already raised by our other analyses—can the terms in verses 3 and 7 designating the addressees of Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard be understood as referring to royal and/or elite figures? Lexicographical Evidence While I believe that lexicography allows an unambiguously affirmative answer to the question thus urged to the fore, I want to be careful not to overstate the evidence. The morphologically singular bvwy, vya, and tyb can all carry a collective sense, as a glance at any of the full-dress lexica will demonstrate. The terms’ collective meanings in certain other passages have allowed to go unchallenged their being so understood in Isaiah’s parable. But perusal of the more recent lexica reveals another, equally significant fact—each of the terms in question can and does refer to royal and/or elite figures. The briefest summary of the evidence must suffice here. That regarding bvwy is perhaps the most complicated. A heterogeneous group of distinguished scholars including Albrecht Alt (246), Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman (248–49), Norman K. Gottwald (512–34), and Wilfred G. E. Watson has argued persuasively that bvwy not infrequently refers to one who “sits on a throne” or “in judgment,” one who “rules,” who is “lord,” or who “presides in adjudication.” It may be added that a formulaic expression utilizing a cognate term in Ugaritic suggests that bvwy can also include the sense of “besitting” a major landed estate. The formula (KTU 1.1:3.1; 1.3:6.15–16; 1.4:8.12–14; 1.5:2.15–16) reads, “GN, the throne of his sitting (ksu Sbt), GN, the land of his ancestral inheritance (arß ngl).” Agrarian political economy makes ready sense of this cluster of meanings. It is precisely the wealthy landlords who occupy thrones of power, where they sit in judgment on their social inferiors. In all of these senses, the king is the bvwy par excellence. A survey of the uses of bvwy in the singular in Biblical Hebrew heightens the probability that µlvwry bvwy in Isa 5:3 refers to the ruling elite of Jerusalem and/or to the Davidic king. Some 72 of the 1785 occurrences in the

5 This enumeration does not include 2 Sam 23:8, where MT’s inclusion of bvy in a personal name apparently involves textual corruption (McCarter: 489).

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must be regarded as singular in meaning because they have a singular subject of the “sitting” expressed as a noun or pronoun.6 Of these 72, 32 witness a king doing the “sitting” or “ruling.”7 Among the remaining occurrences, another 16 refer to God as “enthroned” upon the cherubim or in other regal postures.8 bvwy also occurs as an unambiguously singular substantive 15 times.9 Nine of these 15 involve a “throne sitter.”10 One of these, Jer 33:17, evidences a significant concatenation of the terms under discussion in the parable of the vineyard: “David shall never lack a man (vya) sitting (bvy) upon the throne of the (dynastic) house of Israel (larcy tyb).” Another 20 occurrences of bvwy involve a formula of destruction and/or desolation that gains rhetorical power from its singularity—“without (even a single) inhabitant” or similar expressions.11 How, then, did the collective sense of the singular form, bvwy, as “inhabitants,” “population,” or “people” take its rise? The simplest answer probably lies in some 25 instances where it is immediately associated with a morphologically singular gentilic such as “the dweller of the land, the Canaanite.”12 Nine occurrences of ≈rah bvwy, (“inhabitant[s] of the land/ earth”)—or hb bvwy, in which ≈rah is the antecedent of the suffix—are readily understood as an extension of this usage.13 So, too, are one mention each of the “inhabitant(s)” (bvwy) of “this coastland” (Isa 20:6), and of the bawm bvwy (Jer 48:43; usually translated, “inhabitants of Moab”), if the latter is not to be understood with William L. Holladay (364) as “enthroned Moab.” “Tent dweller(s),” (µy)lha bvy (Gen 4:20; 25:27), is only a slight further extension. In a use of bvwy that is semantically related but syntactically unique, Isa 49:19 assures a destroyed Zion, “surely now you will be too cramped for (your) inhabitant(s)” (bvwym). Closely related to these uses of singular bvwy MT

6 The 40 of these occurrences not involving a king are Gen 14:12; 18:1; 19:1; 23:10; 24:3, 37, 62; Exod 18:14; Judg 3:20; 4:2; 10:1; 16:9, 12; 1 Sam 1:9; 4:13; 2 Sam 7:2; 1 Kgs 13:11, 14, 25; 17:19; 2 Kgs 1:9; 2:18; 6:32; Isa 6:5; Jer 29:32; 49:31; Ezek 2:6; 8:1; 12:2; Zech 7:7; Ps 17:12; Prov 3:29; Job 2:8; Esth 2:19, 21; 5:13; 6:10; Ezra 9:4; 1 Chr 5:8; 9:16. Two of these texts (1 Sam 1:9; 4:13) involve Eli’s “sitting” upon the “throne” or “seat of honor” (askh). 7 Exod 11:5; 12:29; Num 21:1, 34; 33:40; Deut 1:4 [2x]; 3:2; 4:46; Josh 12:2, 4; 1 Sam 14:2; 19:9; 22:6; 26:3; 2 Sam 7:2; 9:13; 11:1; 16:3; 18:24; 19:9; 1 Kgs 15:18; Jer 22:2; 29:16; 36:22; 38:7; 40:10; Prov 20:8; Esth 5:1; 1 Chr 17:1; 20:1; 2 Chr 16:2. 8 1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 1 Kgs 22:19; 2 Kgs 19:15; Isa 6:1; 37:16; 40:22; Pss 2:4; 9:12; 22:4; 55:20; 80:2; 99:1; 123:1; 1 Chr 13:6; 2 Chr 18:18. 9 In addition to the citations in the following note, Lev 15:6; 1 Sam 30:24; Isa 28:6; Jer 21:9; 38:2; Ps 91:1. Note that Isa 28:6 involves “the one who sits in judgment.” 10 1 Kgs 1:48; 3:6; 8:25; Jer 22:30; 33:17; 36:30; Amos 1:5, 8; 2 Chr 6:16. 11 Isa 5:9; 6:11; Jer 2:15; 4:7, 29; 9:10; 26:9; 33:10; 34:22; 44:2, 22; 46:19; 48:9; 50:3; 51:29, 37, 62; Zeph 2:5; 3:6; Ps 69:26. 12 Gen 13:7; 14:7; 34:30; 50:11; Num 13:29 [3x]; 14:25, 45; Deut 1:44; 11:30; Josh 9:7; 16:10; 17:16; 24:8, 18; Judg 1:9, 10, 17, 21, 29; 3:3; 11:21; 2 Sam 5:6; 1 Kgs 9:16. 13 Exod 34:12, 15: Num 14:14; Isa 24:17; 26:21; Jer 47:2; Ezek 7:7; Hos 4:3; Amos 8:8.

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to designate the “dweller(s), inhabitant(s),” or “population” in a given region or mode of existence is its occurrence with the collective noun, µ[, (“people”), as its subject, for example, “the people who dwell/live. . . . ”14 This enumeration leaves only eight occurrences of bvwy in the singular to be accounted for, including Isa 5:3, and all eight, significantly, involve the bvwy of a city. rwd bvwy in Judg 1:27 should probably be emended to rwd ybvwy on the basis of parallels within the verse, multiple Hebrew manuscripts, the versions, and the Qere. (The verse may involve more extensive textual corruption as well.) Norman K. Gottwald has already argued cogently that ˆwrmv bvwy in Isa 9:8 should be translated as “the ruling class of Samaria” (515). All other instances involve the µlvwry bvwy—usually translated “inhabitants of Jerusalem”—and thus, like Isa 9:8, the bvwy of a capital city. Three of those occurrences of µlvwry bvwy appear in Zech 12:7, 8, and 10. While the context is far from certain in a number of particulars, all three verses find µlvwry bvwy parallel to dywd tyb (“house of David”). In light of the evidence summarized here, emendation of these singulars to the plural, following several Hebrew manuscripts and the versions (Meyers and Meyers: 307) is probably not mandated. The more difficult reading, when fully comprehensible and closely paralleled, is to be preferred. The Meyerses are surely on the right track, however, when—following the lead of Gottwald—they translate and interpret the term: “Leaders of Jerusalem” is probably an inclusive term for the royal bureaucracy, with its authority extending not just in the city of Jerusalem itself but over all the territory for which Jerusalem is the capital. Thus, although “leaders” is coupled with “Jerusalem,” the extent of the leaders’ rule goes beyond the capital city. The term applies to the period of monarchic rule before the Exile but not to the exilic and postexilic periods, when kingship and its associated governance structures ceased to exist. Hence the use of “leaders of Jerusalem” and “house of David” in this context involves language of past political organization being projected upon the eschatological future. (323–24)

The usage in Zechariah 12 thus strengthens the conclusion that the bvwy of a capital city is probably that city’s ruling class of royal officials—absent conclusive contextual evidence to the contrary. Isaiah 8:14 presents a strikingly similar picture from a literary and historical context much nearer the “Song of the Vineyard.” A translation of vv. 12–14 is perhaps the quickest way to convey its significance. 12 Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and what it fears, neither fear nor dread. 13 Yahweh of Hosts, him you shall regard as a

14

Num 13:18, 19 [2x], 28; 22:5; Isa 10:24; 33:24; Jer 29:16.

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conspirator;15 he shall be your fear, he shall be your dread. 14 For he will become a conspiracy16 and a tripping rock and a stumbling stone to both (dynastic) houses of Israel (larcy ytb ynvl), a trap and a snare to the ruler(s) of Jerusalem (µlvwry bvwyl).

Can there be any real doubt that this passage speaks of dynastic houses and court elites, who routinely engage in conspiracies, and not of the general populace? Isaiah 22:21 is still more explicit. The context involves a critique of Shebna, the one tybhAl[ or “official in charge of the royal household” (v. 15), who is declared guilty of great presumption. He is called a disgrace to his master’s house and told that he will be pulled down from his post. The narrative continues, beginning in v. 20, with this address to Shebna: 20 On that day I will call my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah, 21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and your sash I will bind on him. Your authority I will commit to his hand, and he shall be a father (bal) to the ruler of Jerusalem (µlvwry bvwyl) and to the (dynastic) house of Judah (tyblw hdwhy). 22 I will place the key of the house of David (dwdAtyb) on his shoulder; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open.

The context and parallel phrases make clear that the new master of the royal household derives his authority from and owes his allegiance to the Davidic dynast, variously referred to as the µlvwry bvwy, the hdwhy tyb, and the dwdAtyb. Any lingering doubt can be removed by Gen 45:8, where Joseph, in the capacity of the vizier of Egypt, speaks as follows: “So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father (bal) to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.” In the parlance of Biblical Hebrew, then, the official over the palace is “father” to the king, “lord” of the royal household, and “ruler” to the general populace. The implications for the meaning of µlvwry bvwy in Isa 22:21 could scarcely be clearer. In light of this lexicographical evidence and the issues raised by the preceding discussions of the political economy of viticulture, of literary genre, and of other Isaianic passages regarding vineyards, the phrase µlvwry bvwy of Isa 5:3 is far more readily viewed as referring to the ruling dynast and/or ruling classes of Jerusalem than to the city’s general population. The plural imperative (anAwfpv) of verse 3 is no impediment to the most restrictive and singular sense of “ruling dynast.” It can be understood as deferential address to the monarch. Note the comparable, plural forms

15 This translation follows many commentators (Kaiser: 190; Watts: 119; Wildberger: 354–58) in reading wryvqt for MT’s wvydqt. While this emendation perhaps enhances the larger case being made here, the retention of MT’s reading in no way impedes it. 16 This translation follows Wildberger (354–56) and Watts (119) in reading rvqm for MT’s vdqm.

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addressed to Ahaz in Isa 7:13, where they, like the title, “House of David” (dwd tyb), are dripping with sarcasm. A situation similar to that with µlvwry bvwy exists with the hdwhy vya (“man/men of Judah”) in Isa 5:3, 7. Although the discussion must be severely limited, it is important once again to admit the complexity of the data base. hdwhy vya and its counterpart, larcy vya, clearly can have a collective meaning, but it occurs most often in military or quasi-military contexts referring to the body of Judahite or Israelite troops in much the sense of German Mannschaft (Moore: 207).17 By Isaiah’s time, the militarily significant hdwhy vya was a relatively small body of large and powerful landholders. On the other hand, A. Jirku (319) and A. D. Crown (110–12) have argued independently that vya in Biblical Hebrew can have the same sense as amilu in peripheral Akkadian. The latter is used routinely, especially in the Amarna letters, to refer to a local dynast as “the man” of the political entity over which he ruled. Jirku finds his examples in 2 Sam 10:6, 8, while Crown argues cogently from Exod 2:14 and 1 Kgs 2:2; 8:25. I have already noted 1 Kgs 8:25 above for its use of bvwy. Crown does not mention other texts previously treated here under bvwy (Jer 22:30; 33:17; 2 Chr 6:16) that also use vya to designate a member of a dynastic line. Quite apart from these lines of reasoning, Ps 49:3 has commonly been understood to pose vyaAynb and µda ynb as a contrasting pair. The former are the highborn, the latter the lowly. Hans-Joachim Kraus argues that the vya ynb of Ps 4:3 carry this same elite connotation (144, 148, 481). Given these patterns in the lexicographical data and the broader analysis developed here, hdwhy vya in Isa 5:3 and 7 is most easily read as referring either to the ruling dynast of Judah or to its military aristocracy. As with the term µlvwry bvwy, in fact, the use of hdwhy vya may finesse the distinction between the king and the other members of the ruling classes. Both initiated and benefited economically from the activities condemned by the prophet. Finally, the larcy tyb (“house of Israel”) of Isa 5:7 almost certainly has reference to the northern kingdom. Within the context of the juridical parable, however, does it connote the general population of that kingdom or its ruling, dynastic “house”? Examples of the former meaning are too numerous to require documentation, but the latter is unambiguously attested as well. Since a frequent sense of tyb is “household,” and since the state in agrarian societies is most often the extended “household” of the king, tyb can carry the meaning of “dynasty,” “dynastic house,” or even ruling “dynast.” Instances with dwd tyb (“house of David”), for example, include

17 Examples with hdwhy vya include Judg 15:10; 1 Sam 11:8; 15:4; 2 Sam 19:15, 17, 42, 43, 44; 20:4; 2 Kgs 23:2. For larcy vya, one could cite, e.g., Josh 9:6, 7; Judg 7:23; 8:22; 9:55; 20:20, 36; 2 Sam 19:44.

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1 Sam 20:16; 2 Sam 3:1, 6; 1 Kgs 12:19, 20, 26; 13:2; 14:8; 2 Kgs 17:21; Isa 7:2, 13; 22:22; Jer 21:12; Zech 12:7, 8, 10, 12; 13:1; Ps 122:5; 2 Chr 10:19; 21:7 (cf. HALAT: 120). The same sense of tyb occurs with Saul (2 Sam 3:1, 6; 1 Chr 12:30), Jeroboam (1 Kgs 13:34; 14:10 [2x], 13, 14; 15:29; 16:3, 7; 21:22; 2 Kgs 9:9; 13:6; Amos 7:9), Baasha (1 Kgs 16:11, 12; 2 Kgs 9:9), Ahab (2 Kgs 8:18, 27 [3x]; 9:7, 8, 9; 10:10, 11, 30; 21:13; Mic 6:16; 2 Chr 21:6, 13; 22:3, 4, 7, 8), Jehu (Hos 1:4), and Hazael (Amos 1:4). tb l[b in the sense of “lord of the dynasty” occurs in Phoenician and Punic (Gevirtz: 142 n. 1). Regarding the phrase larcy tyb itself, several passages, including two already cited, are germane. Jeremiah 33:17, quoted above in the discussion of bvwy, reads, “David shall never lack a man (vya) sitting (bvy) upon the throne of the dynastic house of Israel (larcyAtyb askAl[). Similarly, Isa 8:14 parallels “the two dynastic houses of Israel” (larcy tyb ynv) with the ruler(s) of Jerusalem (µlvwry bvwy). Hosea 1:4 is equally instructive: “And the LORD said to him, ‘name him Jezreel, for in a little while, I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the dynasty of Jehu (awhy tyb), and I will put an end to the reign (twklmm) of the dynastic house of Israel (larcy tyb).’ ” Other contexts where this meaning of larcy tyb seems likely include 2 Sam 12:8; 1 Kgs 20:31; Jer 2:26; Hos 1:6; 5:1; Amos 6:1; Mic 3:1, 9. Note, too, the parallel use of hdwhy tyb in texts such as Isa 22:21—already cited in the discussion of other terms—and 2 Chr 22:10. Clear lexicographical possibility thus allows what previous analysis has rendered probable—the larcy tyb of Isa 5:7 is the “dynastic house” or even the “ruling dynast” of Israel. Conclusions Several different modes of analysis and bodies of evidence point independently to the same conclusions about the addressees of Isaiah’s “Song of the Vineyard.” Study of the political economy of viticulture in Isaiah’s time reveals sharp conflict over a process of agricultural intensification that enriched the powerful few but dispossessed and impoverished many peasants. Form-critical analysis of juridical parables shows Isa 5:1–7 to be an exemplar of a genre uniquely applicable to an elite or—most particularly— a royal audience. Other Isaianic oracles with vineyards as a major theme specifically castigate the wealthy and powerful pinnacle of society, not the population of the nation as a whole. Lexicographical analysis of the terms designating the addressees of the “Song of the Vineyard” demonstrates that all can and do elsewhere refer to elite and/or royal figures. Thus, Isaiah’s choice of vineyard construction as the topic of his parable was most probably a polemical critique, not a neutral happenstance. Those trapped into self-condemnation by the parable were the ruling elites of Judah and Israel, led by the two dynastic houses and their sitting dynasts, not the general populations of Jerusalem, Judah, and Israel.

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These conclusions apply to Isa 5:1–7 as a separate unit. The unit was preserved, however, by a complex process of incorporation into a series of larger literary contexts in the growing book of Isaiah, each stage of which had its own sociohistorical context (Sweeney: 31–62). Two of the most significant of those contexts were the royal “reforms” of the late Judahite monarchy and the anticipation by Jewish exiles in Babylon of their return to Jerusalem to build the Second Temple. In both instances, the polemical focus of the text’s (re)composition—in the face of strong, countervailing forces— was upon national identity and unity. Under such circumstances, earlier prophetic judgments were understood to presage and explain the fall of the monarchic nation-states of Israel and Judah. Since the several terms designating the addressees of Isaiah’s “Song of the Vineyard” were intrinsically multivalent and context-dependent in their meaning, they came—in those literary and historical contexts—to be understood as referring to the nations and their populace as a whole. The dominance of the nation-state in much of modern history has rendered this shift in meaning only too congenial to subsequent readers representing a broad spectrum of perspectives. Historical interpretation, particularly when focused through the lens of the social sciences, reveals behind the later reuses a much more specific critique of those who ruled the political economies of ancient Judah and Israel.

WORKS CONSULTED Aharoni, Yohanan 1993 “Ramat Rahel.” Pp. 1261–67 in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. Ed. Ephraim Stern. New York: Simon & Schuster. Alt, Albrecht 1941 “Meros.” ZAW 58:244–47. [Repr. as pp. 274–77 in Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. 1. Munich: Beck, 1959.] Avigad, Nahman 1953 “Another bat le-melekh Inscription.” IEJ 3:121–22. Broshi, Magen, and Israel Finkelstein 1992 “The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II.” BASOR 287:47–60. Campbell, Edward F., Jr. 1991 Shechem II: Portrait of a Hill Country Vale, The Shechem Regional Survey. ASOR Archaeological Reports 2. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Chaney, Marvin L. 1986 “Systemic Study of the Israelite Monarchy.” Semeia 37:53–76.

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1989

“Bitter Bounty: The Dynamics of Political Economy Critiqued by the Eighth-Century Prophets.” Pp. 15–30 in Reformed Faith and Economics. Ed. Robert L. Stivers. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America.

1993

“Bitter Bounty: The Dynamics of Political Economy Critiqued by the Eighth-Century Prophets.” Pp. 250–63 in The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics. Ed. Norman K. Gottwald and Richard A. Horsley. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis. [A slightly revised republication of the 1989 paper.]

Coote, Robert B. 1981 Amos among the Prophets: Composition and Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress. Cross, Frank Moore, Jr., and David Noel Freedman 1955 “The Song of Miriam.” JNES 13:237–50. Crown, A. D. 1974 “An Alternative Meaning for vya in the Old Testament.” VT 24:110–12. Dar, Shimon 1986 Landscape and Pattern: An Archaeological Survey of Samaria 800 B.C.E.–636 C.E. BAR International Series 308. Oxford: B.A.R. Dearman, John Andrew 1988 Property Rights in the Eighth-Century Prophets: The Conflict and Its Background. SBLDS 106. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Edelstein, Gershon, and Mordechai Kislev 1981 “Mevasseret Yerushalayim: The Ancient Settlement and Its Agricultural Terraces.” BA 44:53–56. Eitam, David 1979 “Olive Presses of the Israelite Period.” Tel Aviv 4:146–54. Elat, Moshe 1979 “Trade and Commerce.” Pp. 173–86 in The Age of the Monarchies: Culture and Society. Ed. Abraham Malamat. Vol. 4.2 of The World History of the Jewish People. Ed. Benjamin Mazar. Jerusalem: Massada. Emerton, J. A. 1992 “The Translation of Isaiah 5,1.” Pp. 18–30 in The Scripture and the Scrolls: Studies in Honour of A. S. van der Woude on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Ed. F. García Martínez, A. Hilhorst, and C. J. Labuschagne. VTSup 49. Leiden: Brill. Geva, Shulamit 1982 “Archaeological Evidence for the Trade between Israel and Tyre.” BASOR 248:69–72. Gevirtz, Stanley 1961 “West-Semitic Curses and the Problem of the Origins of Hebrew Law.” VT 11:137–58.

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Gitay, Yehoshua 1991 Isaiah and His Audience: The Structure and Meaning of Isaiah 1–12. Assen: Van Gorcum. Gottwald, Norman K. 1979 The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 B.C.E. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis. Graffy, Adrian 1979 “The Literary Genre of Isaiah 5,1–7.” Bib 60:400–9. Hayes, John H., and Stuart A. Irvine 1987 Isaiah, the Eighth-Century Prophet: His Times and Preaching. Nashville: Abingdon. Herr, Larry G. 1997 “The Iron Age II Period: Emerging Nations.” BA 60:114–83. Holladay, John S., Jr. 1995 “The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah: Political and Economic Centralization in Iron IIA–B (ca. 1000–750 BCE). Pp. 368–98 in The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land. Ed. Thomas E. Levy. New York: Facts on File. Holladay, William L. 1989 Jeremiah 2: A Commentary on the Book of Jeremiah, Chapters 26–52. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress. Hopkins, David C. 1983 “The Dynamics of Agriculture in Monarchical Israel.” SBLSP 22:177–202. Ed. Kent Harold Richards. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press. 1996

“Bare Bones: Putting Flesh on the Economics of Ancient Israel.” Pp. 121–39 in The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States. Ed. Volkmar Fritz and Philip R. Davies. JSOTSup 228. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Inge, Charles 1941 “Post-Scriptum.” PEQ 73:106–9. Jirku, A. 1950

“Der ‘Mann von Tob’ (II. Sam 10:6.8).” ZAW 62:319.

Kaiser, Otto 1983 Isaiah 1–12: A Commentary. 2d ed. Trans. John Bowden. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster. Kraus, Hans-Joachim 1988 Psalms 1–59. Trans. Hilton C. Oswald. Minneapolis: Augsburg. KTU 1995

The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places. 2d ed. Ed. Manfried Dietrich, Oswald Loretz, and Joaquín Sanmartín. Münster: Ugarit.

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Lang, Bernhard 1983 “The Social Organization of Peasant Poverty in Biblical Israel.” Pp. 114–27 in Monotheism and the Prophetic Minority: An Essay in Biblical History and Sociology. SWBA 1. Sheffield: Almond. Lys, Daniel 1974 “La vigne et le double je. Exercice de style sur Esaïe V 1–7.” Pp.1–16 in Studies in Prophecy. VTSup 26. Leiden: Brill. McCarter, P. Kyle, Jr. 1984 II Samuel. AB 9. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Meyers, Carol L., and Eric M. Meyers 1993 Zechariah 9–14. AB 25C. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Mittmann, Siegfried 1992 “ ‘Königliches bat’ und ‘TEt-Symbol’. Mit einem Beitrag zu Micha 1,14b und 1 Chronik 4,21–23.” ZDPV 107:59–76. Moore, George F. 1895 A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Naveh, Joseph 1992 “The Numbers of Bat in the Arad Ostraca.” IEJ 42:52–54. Paul, Shalom M. 1991 Amos. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress. Premnath, Devadasan N. 1984 “The Process of Latifundialization Mirrored in the Oracles Pertaining to Eighth Century B.C.E. in the Books of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah.” Ph.D. diss., The Graduate Theological Union. 1988

“Latifundialization and Isaiah 5.8–10.” JSOT 40:49–60.

Rainey, Anson F. 1982 “Wine from the Royal Vineyards.” BASOR 245:57–62. Schottroff, Willy 1970 “Das Weinberglied Jesajas (Jes 5 1–7): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Parabel.” ZAW 82:68–91. Sheppard, Gerald T. 1982 “More on Isaiah 5:1–7 As a Juridical Parable.” CBQ 44:45–47. Silver, Morris 1983 Prophets and Markets: The Political Economy of Ancient Israel. Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff. Stager, Lawrence E. 1983 “The Finest Olive Oil in Samaria.” JSS 28:241–45. 1985

“The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel.” BASOR 260:1–35.

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Sweeney, Marvin A. 1996 Isaiah 1–39, with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature. FOTL 16. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Torczyner (Tur-Sinai), Harry 1936 “Presidential Address.” JPOS 16:6–7. Walsh, Carey Ellen 1998 “God’s Vineyard: Isaiah’s Prophecy As Vintner’s Textbook.” Bible Review 14, 4:43–49, 52–53. Watson, Wilfred G. E. 1970 “David Ousts the City Ruler of Jebus.” VT 20:501–2. Watts, John D. W. 1985 Isaiah 1–33. WBC 24. Waco, Tex.: Word. Wildberger, Hans 1991 Isaiah 1–12: A Commentary. Trans. Thomas H. Trapp. Minneapolis: Fortress. Williams, Gary Roye 1985 “Frustrated Expectations in Isaiah V 1–7: A Literary Interpretation.” VT 35:459–65. Willis, John T. 1977 “The Genre of Isaiah 5:1–7.” JBL 96:337–62. Yee, Gale A. 1981 “The Form-Critical Study of Isaiah 5:1–7.” CBQ 43:30–40.

PATRONAGE AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MONARCHIC ISRAEL Ronald A. Simkins Creighton University

abstract Whereas the social structure and economy of early (i.e., premonarchic) Israel has been extensively analyzed in recent years, relatively little attention has been given to the monarchic period. Moreover, those studies that have addressed this period rarely link social structure and economy within their analysis; they usually treat these features as independent variables or distinct institutions. In this paper, I will argue that the multiple economies of monarchic Israel were embedded in the political and kinship structures of the period, and the dominant political-economic structure was patronage. The paper will further demonstrate how the Marxist concepts of mode of production and social formation may serve as an integrative model for analyzing the social structure and economy of monarchic Israel.

Embeddedness and Political Economy The classical political economy of the nineteenth century took a macrotheoretical approach that incorporated the entire social order within an evolutionary framework. Economic activity was not dissected from the human relations that encompassed it; theorists recognized that the economy was embedded in the social system. According to Marx, for example, “all production is appropriation of nature on the part of an individual within and through a specific form of society” (87). However, with the explosion of knowledge in the first half of the twentieth century, the social sciences were specialized and compartmentalized within narrow parameters. Macrotheory was eschewed in favor of particularist interpretations of society. As a result, economic behavior was increasingly neglected in social analysis, and social processes were often deemed irrelevant to economic theory. Social scientists within the Marxist tradition largely resisted the fragmentation of academic disciplines, but the work of Karl Polanyi during the middle of this century can be credited with bringing the embeddedness of the economy to the forefront of social analysis (Halperin, 1984, argues that Polanyi’s work derives from Marxian origins and contains fundamentally Marxian concepts). Polanyi distinguished between a formal and a substantive meaning of

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“economic.” The formal meaning of economic refers to a set of rules governing the choice between the alternative uses of insufficient means. The substantive meaning of economic, in contrast, refers to the dependence of humans on the natural and social environment for supplying the material goods that satisfy biological and social wants. Whereas formal economics treats the logic of rational action within the means-ends relationship, the substantive approach investigates the empirical human economy. Because not all economies are governed by a sequence of choices arising out of an insufficiency of means, Polanyi argued that the rules of formal economics are relevant only to those societies governed by price-making markets. “Only the substantive meaning of ‘economic’ is capable of yielding the concepts that are required by the social sciences for an investigation of all the empirical economies of the past and the present” (244; compare Dalton). Although the distinction between formal and substantive economics in Polanyi’s work proved to be problematic (Humphreys; Granovetter; Halperin, 1985), his substantive approach underscored the social character of political economy. By his 1968 essay on “Economic Anthropology” for the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Manning Nash, a critic of Polanyi and the substantive approach, could nevertheless claim that a major theoretical question in the social sciences was how economic systems relate to the total social system (363). The embeddedness of the economy was fully recognized, yet the significance of this for understanding the political economy of precapitalist societies remained in dispute. Whether the economy of precapitalist societies differed from contemporary capitalist societies in quality or simply in quantity became the subject of debate. Anthropological political economy, inspired largely by nondogmatic Marxism, has steered a middle course in this debate. While recognizing the substantive differences between precapitalist and capitalist societies, political economists have drawn upon formal concepts and categories in their analysis of precapitalist societies. Formal economics, when adapted to the organizational differences of precapitalist societies, continues to offer heuristic insights into economic behavior (compare Halperin, 1985). But political economists do not stop at this. Unlike formal economics, political economy analyzes economic behavior in the context of social life. In the tradition of Marx and classical political economy, it places emphasis on the social relations of production. Just as it transcends formal economics, anthropological political economy also goes beyond the substantive approach. Substantivists focus on the social processes by which material goods are produced and distributed, but political economists analyze these processes within the context of a structured social system. Although the interdependence of the various elements of the social system is stressed, centrality is given to economics and the role of power inherent in the control of production and distribution. The economic activity

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in the society is viewed as a historical process, and social change is explained by a materialist view of causality (Léons and Rothstein, 1979a: xv–xxiv). Biblical studies has virtually ignored the developments in economic anthropology. Although the influence of Max Weber’s early economic analysis of ancient Israelite society occasionally may be felt in biblical scholarship, his work has rarely inspired further economic analysis, even among those scholars who regularly employ the theories and methods of the social sciences in biblical interpretation. As a result, the economic inequalities that are commonly recognized in the biblical record are rarely subject to analysis and explanation. Scholars have been content simply to describe the inequalities or, at most, to offer a moral evaluation of the exploitation resulting from gross inequalities. As recently as his 1992 presidential address before the Society of Biblical Literature, Norman Gottwald noted the failure of scholars to question the economic concerns of the biblical texts. He traced this “theoretical lag” to several sources but concluded that biblical scholars have simply viewed economic inequalities as “‘facts of nature,’ requiring no further explanation.” He went on to observe that scholars have customarily interpreted these inequalities to be “the result either of random idiosyncratic personal differences of ability or industry, on the one hand, or the inordinate greed and moral corruption of particular individuals, on the other” (Gottwald, 1993b:3). In other words, the formalist understanding of the Israelite economy and the inequalities it generated precluded a social analysis of its substantive features. Economic inequalities are ubiquitous in the contemporary world as well as throughout human history. “No known society has ever had a completely egalitarian social system” (Lenski: 3). Nevertheless, economic inequalities cannot be glossed over as mere “facts of nature,” for such inequalities take on a distinct configuration in each society. The material causes of these inequalities are embedded in the social system; they are substantive causes and must be explained in terms of the structured social system. How and, more importantly, why the inequalities of wealth and power attested in the Bible differ from the inequalities prevalent in contemporary societies is significant for understanding ancient Israelite society and the biblical literature generated by it. The thesis of this paper is that the economic inequalities of monarchic Israel were socially structured by the institution of patronage. Patron-client relationships were the mode by which wealth was exchanged and power was exercised. As an economic institution, patronage was embedded in the social system of monarchic Israel. It is attested repeatedly through the ideology preserved in the biblical literature. Political economy provides an analytical framework for unloosing the nexus of social relations of production and distribution, structures and conduits of power, and ideology that

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was characteristic of the institution of patronage and determinative of the economy and social structure in monarchic Israel. Marxian Analysis of Political Economy Mode of production and social formation are the focal analytical concepts in a Marxian analysis of political economy. In its restricted sense, a mode of production is a particular combination of the forces and relations of production that determine the structure and form of a society’s economic base or infrastructure. The productive forces include the means of production (raw materials, land, tools, and machines) and the organization of production (labor power). The forces of production determine the possibilities and the constraints of the productive process, but the specific patterns of allocation and stratification are determined by the social relations of production (Newman: 108; Godelier, 1977:36). These social relations determine the economic use that is made of the environment, the division of productive labor, the forms of appropriation and distribution of the social product, and the value of the surplus in relation to the costs of reproduction and the utilization of the surplus (Friedman: 446). According to Marx, the relations of distribution are the reverse aspect of the relations of production. He argued that the structure of distribution is determined entirely by the structure of production. Because the distribution process includes not only the distribution of the social product but more fundamentally the distribution of the means of production, distribution is subsumed under production. Polanyi, on the other hand, argued that the linkage between production and distribution is historically and culturally dependent upon capitalism. In precapitalist societies, the social relations of production and distribution may be structurally distinct (Halperin, 1984:261–62). Even in capitalist societies, the subsumption of distribution under production obscures, for example, the role of gender in social relations (Acker). Consequently, the relations of distribution should be distinguished, at least analytically, from the relations of production. The social relations that constitute a mode of production are historically determined. They are socially produced within a particular set of technological and ecological conditions. Similarly, the structures of decision making, words, ideas, and meanings are also socially produced within historical constraints. The social relations of production and distribution thus correspond to a political and ideological superstructure in a structurally compatible, historically determined, causal relationship (Godelier, 1977:18). Together, the economic base and the superstructure constitute a mode of production in its inclusive sense and is defined by the way in which the production surplus is defined, extracted, used, and controlled (Katz and Kemnitzer: 51).

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The relationship between the economic base and the superstructure of a mode of production is complex and has been debated within the Marxian tradition. Although many theorists have attributed to Marx a reductive and deterministic relationship—that the superstructure is founded on the economic base—Western Marxist theorists have posited a more dynamic relationship (see Anderson: esp. 75–94). The economic base does not simply give birth to the superstructure, nor is the superstructure a mere reflection of the economic base. Rather, the mode of production reproduces the social relations through which production is possible. The goal of social activity is not simply the creation of surplus but also the maintenance and consolidation of the social relations through which it was produced. As a result, the superstructure provides “the political and ideological conditions of the orderly reproduction of the relations of production” (Terray: 90). In other words, the continual reproduction of a society’s mode of production is dependent upon a determinate superstructure. A mode of production does not exist in a pure state except possibly in the most simple of societies. All other societies are characterized by change—change in the environment, technological progress, and new social relations—resulting in the configuration of new modes of production. Complex societies, therefore, are organized by social formations that are the result of a combination of at least two historically determined modes of production, one of which is dominant. The secondary modes of production are either vestiges of an earlier period or newly emerging modes that serve a subsidiary function. In either case, the dominant mode of production subjects the functioning of the other modes to the requirements of its own reproduction, but its own functioning is itself transformed by the subordinate modes of production (Terray: 91). The dominant mode of production in early Israel, for example, did not die out with the introduction of the monarchy. Although the increasing social and economic inequalities that resulted in the establishment of the monarchy produced new social relations, political structures, and symbols, the new mode of production appropriated, and was transformed by, the earlier mode of production. The social relations of early Israel continued to function in the social formation of monarchic Israel. Patronage in Israel Patronage is a system of social relations that are rooted in an unequal distribution of power and goods and expressed socially through a generalized exchange of different types of resources. The structure of these relations is hierarchical. Patrons are those who have access to goods and the centers of power, whereas clients are in need of such access. In fact, patronage is most prominent in those societies that are characterized by “highly elaborated hierarchies of rank and position, often related to the differential access

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of various groups to the center” (Eisenstadt and Roniger: 209–10). In spite of the social and economic hierarchy, the exchange between patrons and clients is based on reciprocity, and the relationship between them is idealized as friendship and expressed in terms of kinship. The patron is a “father” to his clients, who honor him as “sons” and faithful “servants.” Patron-client relations are foremost personal bonds to which one’s identity and honor are committed. The bonds are held together by mutual commitments of loyalty, though rarely ever formalized. The patron commits himself to protect and support his clients, and the client commits himself to serve his patron. By means of these interpersonal obligations, exercised through a generalized exchange, patron-client relations function to regulate and mitigate the effects of economic inequalities. Patronage is essentially an etic category in relation to ancient Israel. The biblical literature does not refer to either “patrons” or “clients.” Nevertheless, patronage does provide an appropriate framework for interpreting the patterned social relations that are observable in the biblical literature. In numerous works investigating the relationship between the Egyptian monarchy and its Palestinian vassals during the Late Bronze age (especially the Amarna period), Mario Liverani has demonstrated that Palestine was structured politically as a patronage society in contrast to the bureaucratic structure of Egypt (1979, 1983, 1990:187–202). Similarly, Niels Peter Lemche (1994, 1995, 1996, 1999) and T. R. Hobbs have argued that the political structure of monarchic Israel was also a patronage system. Unfortunately, only glimpses of the patronage system may be found in the biblical literature. Saul, for example, uses his gifts of fields and vineyards and appointments to military rank to secure the loyalty of his troops in his conflict with David (1 Sam 22:7–8). David, for his part, claims to be a faithful client to Saul, acknowledging him as his “father” (1 Sam 24:11). After David spares his life (a second time), Saul also acknowledges this relationship, repeatedly addressing David as his “son” (1 Sam 26:17–25). Elisha addresses Elijah as his patron by calling him “father” (2 Kgs 2:12). The servants of Naaman similarly address their patron as “father” (2 Kgs 5:13). In 2 Kgs 16:5–9 the patron-client relationship between Ahaz and Tiglath-pileser is described. In order to gain protection against the assault of Rezin and Pekah, Ahaz sought to become the client of Tiglath-pileser. He initiated the relationship by seeking military help from Tiglath-pileser as his “servant and son.” Ahaz then demonstrated his loyalty and friendship by sending gifts of silver and gold. Tiglath-pileser reciprocated by rescuing Ahaz from his enemies (2 Kgs 16:5–9). This suzerain-vassal relationship was an expression of patronage. The biblical literature does not adequately describe the patronage system in monarchic Israel, but neither does any other social structure receive adequate treatment. The importance of patronage can be detected, nonetheless, by its prominence in the ideology of biblical Israel. The

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relationship between the king and his people, for example, is ideologically modeled on the mythic conflict between a warrior-god and the forces of chaos or death. However, this mythic drama structures the relationship between king and people in terms of patronage. The king provides protection and security to his people in exchange for their loyalty and obedience. Similarly, patronage is the root metaphor underlying the fundamental idea of covenant in the biblical literature. Yahweh is the divine patron who protects and provides for his people Israel. Yahweh’s loyalty to his people is expressed by dsj. The people reciprocate through their “love” for Yahweh, through worship and obedience. Yahweh also bestows kingship as a divine grant upon the house of David—a gift of gratitude from the patron for service or loyalty previously rendered by the client. The kinship language of “father” and “son” expresses the intimate bond of the patronclient relationship. A thorough demonstration of patronage in ancient Israel is not possible in this context; other studies have argued sufficiently for its central role (Lemche, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999; Hobbs). The focus of this paper is limited to the role of patronage in the political economy of monarchic Israel. In order to explicate the economic function of patronage, the basic components of the social formation of monarchic Israel must be articulated. This analysis will include: (1) the identification of the different modes of production that constitute the economic base of the society; (2) the identification of the different elements of the political and ideological superstructures corresponding to the different modes of production; (3) the determination of the articulation of these modes of production in a hierarchical relationship; and (4) the determination of the function of the elements of the superstructures as they are transformed through the combination of different modes of production (see Godelier, 1977:63). An Asiatic Mode of Production in Israel? The transformation in ancient Israel that resulted in the establishment of the monarchy in Israel also gave rise to a new mode of production that would dominate the social formation of monarchic Israel. Below I will argue that this new mode of production was characterized by a generalized exchange between patrons and clients. However, most biblical scholars who have addressed the economic structures of ancient Israel (few though they are) have followed the work of Norman Gottwald in identifying this new mode of production as a variant form of Marx’s Asiatic mode of production. Although this mode of production has heuristic value for understanding the political economy of monarchic Israel—as the writings of Gottwald attest (1992, 1993a, 1993b)—the numerous problems raised by this model suggest that it does not readily correspond to the socioeconomic realities of ancient Israel.

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The Asiatic mode of production is characterized by three principal features: (1) the absence of private ownership of land so that all land is owned by the state; (2) a large number of self-sufficient agrarian villages; and (3) a highly centralized state in a commanding social role (Gottwald, 1993a:153–55). The defining feature of the Asiatic mode of production, however, is its mode of appropriation of the social product: As the owner of the land, the state extracts from the village communities all surplus above the level of subsistence in the form of a tax or rent on the land (Gottwald thus preferred “tributary mode of production” as a more appropriate label). Although the villagers maintain possession of the land, the state’s ownership of the land secures its right to collect tax-rent for their use of the land (Gottwald, 1992:84–85; compare Lang). The Asiatic mode of production has played a particularly controversial role within Marxist theory. Although Marx himself developed the idea of the Asiatic mode of production, it does not readily fit into his unilinear scheme of five modes of production—primitive, classical, feudal, capitalist, and socialist modes of production—through which human societies have developed (though the last mode is not yet realized). As a result, orthodox Marxists have rejected the Asiatic mode of production as a legitimate concept. A number of theorists, however, have resolved this problem by positing a multilinear scheme in which the Asiatic mode of production is conceived as an alternative route to capitalism (Melotti). In any case, the relationship of the Asiatic mode to Marx’s other modes of production is not problematic for an analysis of political economy. As Eric Hobsbawm notes, “the general theory of historical materialism requires only that there should be a succession of modes of production, though not necessarily any particular modes, and perhaps not in any particular predetermined order” (19–20). The problems raised by the application of the Asiatic mode of production to the analysis of the political economy of monarchic Israel, however, are fundamental to its conception. First, the Asiatic mode of production “entails no special mode of appropriation different from the general form of all state taxation” (Hindess and Hirst: 197). Because all states tax their populace, no articulated combination of forces and relations of production is distinctive to, or necessary for, this mode of appropriation of surplus. The mode of production derived from the appropriation of tax-rent is reduced to an arbitrary combination of forces and relations and thus loses its explanatory power. Second, the Asiatic mode of production does not provide the conditions for the existence of the state. State formation is dependent upon the development of classes associated with social and economic divisions between members of society. The Asiatic mode of production, however, posits no class divisions except between the peasant populace and the state functionaries. The state and its appropriation of surplus through tax-rent is conceived as the cause rather than the result of class divisions. Under the

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Asiatic mode of production, the state is its own raison d’être (Hindess and Hirst: 178–220). In addition to these conceptual problems, a significant analytical problem is posed by the Asiatic mode of production in relation to monarchic Israel: The fundamental role played by the absence of private property in the Asiatic mode of production does not correlate with the role played by property in ancient Israel. In early Israel land was owned by kinship units; each baAtyb (“family”) and hjpvm (“extended family,” “clan”) had its hljn (“ancestral land”) (on the relationship between baAtyb and hjpvm, see Bendor). A number of biblical laws, stories, and prophetic oracles suggest that family ownership of the land continued throughout the monarchy (Deut 19:14; 27:17; 1 Kgs 21; Jer 32:6–12; Isa 5:8; Mic 2:1–2; on the latter two passages, see Bendor: 248–53). It would appear from these passages that not all land was owned by the state, that private property, or at least family owned property, did exist (Hahn; Levine). At the root of this problem is the conception of property and ownership itself. In terms of the Asiatic mode of production, the ownership of the land is in the hands of the state, but possession and use of the land is in the hands of individuals or kinship units. This distinction, however, obscures the fact that “property consists basically of rights, not things” (Lenski: 216). Ownership is no more than the exercise of proprietary rights. In this regard, the state in monarchic Israel enjoyed proprietary rights over all of the land under its domain, and these rights were expressed primarily through taxation. But proprietary rights are not indivisible. Israelite peasants also held proprietary rights to their ancestral lands, and in relation to these lands the state’s proprietary rights were limited, as the story about Naboth’s vineyard illustrates. The conception of property in the Asiatic mode of production thus distorts the role of property in monarchic Israel. Because of the conceptual and analytical problems outlined above, the dominant mode of production in monarchic Israel can be characterized by neither the state ownership of the land nor the extraction of tax-rent. Certainly, tax revenue (1 Kgs 4:7; 10:14–15; 2 Kgs 15:20; 23:35; 2 Chr 17:5), and possibly even tax-rent (though it has not been sufficiently demonstrated), was collected by the state, but the conditions of its existence were other than those of the “Asiatic mode of production.” At issue is the specific mode by which surplus was drawn off, allocated, and utilized in monarchic Israel. State taxation is clearly one form of appropriation of surplus in monarchic Israel, but it is not sufficient to constitute a mode of production. Nor can tax-rent be treated in isolation or to the exclusion of other forms of surplus extraction. Consequently, the Asiatic mode of production is not a suitable model for analyzing the social formation of monarchic Israel.

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Social formation and mode of production in the Marxian model are dynamic, constantly evolving as a result of social conflict. Some scholars have criticized the Asiatic mode of production in relation to ancient Near Eastern societies because it presupposes, in contrast, a highly stable and static society (Liverani, 1984:33–35). In capitalist societies conflict is inherent in the relations of production and is expressed as conflict between social classes. The political and ideological superstructures function within this conflict to justify and reproduce the relations of production. In capitalist societies wealth is usually the basis for power. However, in precapitalist societies, as in monarchic Israel, wealth generally proceeded from power. Those with power can exploit new avenues of wealth by transforming the relations of production. As a result, the social conflict in precapitalist societies may be expressed by a tension between an economic base and a newly evolving superstructure. The new superstructure will eventually reproduce a new economic base and thus a new mode of production. “Tension in precapitalist societies between the economic base and the superstructure is therefore not between social groups that are denied access to the means of resources or socially segregated into classes and exploited, but rather in the activity of individuals who attempt to increase their political power at the expense of kin members” (Tuden: 26–27). In order to understand the social formation of monarchic Israel, we must begin with the dominant mode of production in early Israel, for this mode of production continued to function in a subordinate role throughout the monarchic period. The dominant mode of production in early Israel may be termed the domestic (Sahlins), the household (Meyers: 142), or the communitarian (Gottwald, 1992:83–84; 1993b:6–7) mode of production. The components of this mode have been extensively documented for early Israel in the ecological, archaeological, and anthropological studies of Hopkins (1985), Stager, and Meyers. The primary productive unit in early Israel was the family unit known as the baAtyb, consisting of several nuclear families covering as many as four generations, and linked in an extended kinship unit, the hjpvm (Bendor: 121–204). The baAtyb was a self-sustaining unit, which owned the means of production—primarily, the land (hljn), which was shared in common by the members of the kinship unit. Kinship relations served as the social relations of production and distribution, regulating access to the means of production and determining the distribution of the products of labor. However, within the domestic mode of production, the kinship system functioned simultaneously as the superstructure. The kinship system formed the condition for its own reproduction by regulating marriages. It provided the social framework for political and religious

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activity, and it functioned as an ideology expressing the relationship between kinsmen and between men and women (compare Godelier, 1975). Early Israel has often been characterized as an egalitarian society, as have many other societies structured by kinship relations. The assumption often made is that these kinship relations functioned to regulate and diminish social and economic inequalities. However, this assumption is not supported by ethnographic studies. Although tribal societies maintain egalitarian principles through their ideology, social and economic differentiation is the common experience of the people. The rich maintain and increase their wealth, often at the expense of the poor, and the poor inherit the poverty of their parents. Moreover, it is not uncommon for a kinsman to exploit his own kin for his personal or patrimonial advantage (Black). Social and economic inequalities are common even within extended kinship units. The domestic mode of production in early Israel undoubtedly reproduced and generated social and economic inequalities. In fact, the rise of the monarchy presupposed significant inequalities across Israelite society. The Bible itself attests to such inequalities. The increasing social and economic inequalities that resulted from the domestic mode of production in early Israel gave rise to a new mode of production. The social conditions for the existence of this mode of production were in fact these inequalities and the relative weakness of corporate kinship groups to neutralize the effects of these inequalities (Eisenstadt and Roniger: 206). Some households produced surpluses beyond the needs of subsistence; others tended toward underproduction (Sahlins; the archaeological evidence of the former is discussed by Holladay: 376–79). The inequalities were largely due to differential access to fertile land and material resources, size of the labor force, and ability, effort, and opportunity. Although the kinship system undoubtedly served to mitigate some of the inequalities between the nuclear families within the baAtyb and the hjpvm through a generalized exchange based on familial loyalty and obligation, it was unable to prevent the growing social and economic disparity within the extended family and across the society. In order to compensate for this disparity, the formation of social and economic relations across kinship boundaries was necessary. These relations were also based on a generalized exchange, but the inequality between the two members in their access and control of resources resulted in the formation of patron-client relationships (compare Wolf). In monarchic Israel the primary mode by which surplus was drawn off, allocated, and utilized was a generalized exchange between patrons and clients. This mode of appropriation eschews the problems with the Asiatic mode discussed above, and it differs from the tax-rent mode of appropriation in three significant ways. First, generalized exchange encompasses many forms of surplus appropriation under a single ideological superstructure.

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Even state taxation could be interpreted as simply an institutionalized form of this exchange. Ideologically, the tax would represent the people’s obligation to their great patron, the king. The widely attested conflict myth, for example, promotes a royal ideology that justifies the people’s indebtedness to the king by emphasizing that the king has defeated the enemies and preserved the well-being of the people (compare also the Priestly justification for the tithe in Num 18:21–24). Second, generalized exchange is based on reciprocity. Each party in the exchange receives some benefit—tangible or intangible. Although the exchange usually involves a material imbalance in favor of the patron, the ideology corresponding to this mode conceals the exploitation of the client (Sahlins: 134). By framing the exchange in terms of reciprocity, the ideology provides the conditions for the continual reproduction of the generalized exchange. Third, generalized exchange promotes the development of multiple social strata within an elaborate hierarchical structure, while hindering the widespread rise of class consciousness (Eisenstadt and Roniger: 209–10). Nevertheless, the dyadic relationship between patron and client enables the structure of society to be represented ideologically in binary terms: elite and peasants, king and people, and God and nation. Based on generalized exchange as the mode of surplus appropriation, the dominant mode of production in monarchic Israel can be characterized as a clientelistic mode of production. Patron-client relations constituted the social relations of this new mode of production. The condition of their existence entailed an inequality of wealth and power between individuals who had social interaction and would mutually benefit from generalized exchange (Eisenstadt and Roniger: 216–18). The patron usually controlled access to the means of production, to the major markets, and to the administrative centers of the society, whereas the client was in need of such access. The generalized exchange that characterized these relations took place on two distinct levels. On one level, the patron and client exchanged different types of resources, goods, or services. For example, the patron might secure for the client a “fair” exchange for his agricultural surplus, grant him access to land for grazing his flock, or provide him seed for planting. The client in turn might give to the patron a percentage of his surplus or provide the patron with his labor. Although framed as a reciprocal exchange, the patron was in a position to receive the best possible benefit for himself through his monopolization of needed resources or access to centers of power. The material imbalance of the exchange was concealed by the patron’s frequent displays of generosity, even though the product of his generosity had been appropriated from the client. On another level, however, the patron and client exchanged intangibles. The client offered loyalty, honor, and support to the patron in exchange for protection, loyalty, and the promise of reciprocity.

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The client “buys,” as it were, protection, first, against the exigencies of markets or nature; second, against the arbitrariness or weakness of the centre, or against the demands of other strong people or groups. The price the client pays is not just the rendering of a specific service but his acceptance of the patron’s control over his (the client’s) access to markets and to public goods, as well as over his ability fully to convert some of his own resources. (Eisenstadt and Roniger: 214)

By simultaneously exchanging tangibles and intangibles, the patron-client relationship mitigated the effects of the inherent social and economic inequalities between the members of society, while at the same time reproducing those inequalities. Moreover, the addition of intangibles to the exchange reinforced the ideological framework of an equitable and balanced exchange (i.e., reciprocity), despite the fact that the patron generally benefited materially at the client’s expense. The formation of patron-client relationships and the subsequent rise of the clientelistic mode of production in monarchic Israel stood in conflict with the earlier domestic mode of production, which it eventually subsumed under its own functioning. Although the primary productive unit in monarchic Israel continued to be the family, its social configuration was different in relation to each mode of production. The political superstructure of patronage, expressed most clearly through the establishment of kingship in Israel, posed a challenge to the economic base and the ideological superstructure of early Israel by transforming the social relations of production and distribution. As discussed above, the family under the domestic mode of production in early Israel was configured along extended kinship lines—the baAtyb and the hjpvm. The relations of production and distribution were kinship relations, further strengthening familial bonds and one’s loyalty and obligation toward family members. Although the male members of the family controlled the production and distribution of the social product, all members of the family benefited from the product. Competition for resources among kin was unnecessary, at least according to the ideology. The economic reality, however, was characterized by inequalities, even among kinsmen. With the formation of patron-client relationships, the relations of production and distribution cut across kinship boundaries. Patrons and clients were determined not by kinship relations but by control and access to needed material resources. Only those who entered into patron-client relationships were able to benefit directly from them. Kinsmen were no longer the primary recipients of one’s loyalty and obligation. The structure of patronage placed kinsmen in competition with one another—for access to resources by those in the lower social strata, and for control of large client bases by those in the upper social strata. Although established to compensate for the inequalities inherent in the kinship system, patron-client

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relations functioned to weaken kinship bonds and thus to give rise to a new mode of production and social formation. Ideology and Conflict in the Biblical Literature The inability of the kinship system to neutralize social and economic inequalities provided the social conditions for the existence of the patronage system and the clientelistic mode of production. In order to provide for its own reproduction, the patronage system exploited the weaknesses of the corporate kinship groups through its ideology. Moreover, because the patron benefited disproportionately from the exchange with his clients, the abatement of his clients’ loyalty and obligation to their baAtyb and hjpvm was in the patron’s own best interest. By undermining the kinship bond, the ideology of patronage functioned to increase both the number of clients dependent upon the patron and the value of their dependence to him. Clients functioned as the patron’s economic and political “capital”; they were the means by which the patron accumulated wealth and power. The more clients the patron controlled, the greater was his capital. Yet the patronage system could not just simply undermine the kinship system with impunity, for the clientelistic mode of production was also dependent on the production of the family unit. But unlike the domestic mode of production, which was dependent on extended kinship bonds, the clientelistic mode was dependent only on the production of the nuclear family. Indeed, extended family bonds posed an obstacle to the development of the patronage system. They provided the nuclear family with a network of relations and access to resources that minimized an individual’s contact with other social strata and impeded the formation of patron-client relations. As a result, the inherent contradiction between the clientelistic and the domestic modes of production took the form of a conflict between the interests of the nuclear family and the interests of the extended family—the baAtyb and especially the hjpvm. The successful functioning of the social formation of monarchic Israel was dependent on the resolution of this contradiction through the ideological superstructure. Although the biblical literature provides only a marginal description of the patronage system in monarchic Israel, the ideology of patronage is expressed throughout the biblical literature. Moreover, a number of biblical texts were generated through the process by which the ideological superstructure resolved the contradiction between the clientelistic mode of production and the earlier domestic mode of production. These texts suggest that the ideological superstructure functioned to resolve the contradiction between these modes of production in two ways. First, the ideological superstructure functioned to weaken extended kinship bonds, especially relations to one’s hjpvm, by extending the structure of kinship

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relations to incorporate all Israel so that all Israelites—patrons and clients— were considered kin, descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The ancestor narratives and genealogies in Genesis, for example, function to incorporate all Israelites within a single extended kinship group. Robert Wilson has demonstrated that segmented genealogies, which are usually fluid in their configuration, function to express social relations between persons and to rank the status of groups and individuals. The genealogies of the traditional twelve Israelite tribes, however, are frozen in form. Rather than functioning to rank one tribe over another, they function in the religious or ideological sphere as an expression of the ideal Israel (Wilson: 193–95). All Israelites are presented as equal members of the family of Jacob. By giving precedence to the unity of Israel, the genealogies and ancestor narratives function to diminish tribal and clan loyalties. Second, the ideological superstructure functioned to strengthen the nuclear family at the expense of extended kinship relations by emphasizing the importance of the conjugal bond between a husband and his wife. The ideology of the Yahwist creation myth, for example, suggests that the formulation of this myth emerged out of the contradiction posed by the clientelistic mode’s subsuming of the earlier domestic mode of production. At the climax to the first half of the myth, in celebration of the creation of the woman from the man, the narrator gave precedence to the conjugal relationship: Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. (Gen 2:24)

Although commentators early this century commonly argued that this passage reflects memory of an earlier matriarchal society, recent commentators have rightly rejected this interpretation as untenable. Nevertheless, this passage seems to be in conflict with the recognition that ancient Israel was a patrilocal society. What does it mean for a man to “leave” (bz[) his parents and “cling” (qbd) to his wife? Because a son physically remained in or near his parent’s house after marriage, scholars have interpreted bz[ and qbd figuratively in terms of the man’s loyalty and affection. “The alliance of one sex to another [in marriage] is seen as a divine ordinance of creation” (von Rad: 85). This verse “points to the basic power of love between man and woman” (Westermann: 233). “On marriage a man’s priorities change. Beforehand his first obligations are to his parents: afterwards they are to his wife” (Wenham: 71). Anthropologists have recognized that the strength of the conjugal bond is in inverse proportion to the strength of the bonds between extended kin (Cohen: 665). Therefore, by emphasizing the affective ties between husband and wife, the Yahwist myth undermines the husband’s bond to his consanguineous kin. He and his wife are “one flesh”; together the married couple form the primary kinship unit. The husband’s loyalty and obligation to his parents, his siblings, and his extended kin—his

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baAtyb and hjpvm—should be secondary to his devotion and responsibility to his wife. The ideology of the Yahwist creation myth thus functioned to neutralize the conflict that kinship ties posed for the formation of patronclient relations by circumscribing the family around the married couple. The conjugal bond of the nuclear family was also strengthened at the expense of extended kinship ties through laws regulating premarital sexual relations and prohibiting adultery and incest. Through crosscultural analysis, Yehudi Cohen has demonstrated that inchoate incorporative states—states in which local sources of solidarity, allegiance, and authority continue to exist—adopt restrictive controls over sexual behavior in order to weaken local corporate groups by strengthening conjugal bonds. Cohen argues that strong, affective conjugal bonds benefit the centralized state because, unlike corporate kinship groups, the nuclear family does not serve as a source of rebellion. Naomi Steinberg builds on the work of Cohen to argue that the legislation in Deuteronomy 19–25 had the purpose of weakening local political boundaries in order to strengthen the centralized authority of the monarchy. She notes that in this legislation the “centralized authority is established at the expense of local political boundaries, thereby emphasizing the primary importance of the nuclear family” (163). For example, the laws regarding foreign women taken captive in war (Deut 21:10–14) and a man who rapes an unbetrothed woman (Deut 22:28–29) preserve the nuclear family by establishing protective rights for women. Those committing adultery are subject to capital punishment (Deut 22:22), and illegitimate children are stigmatized (Deut 23:2). Newly married men are exempt from fighting in war in order to spend time with their wives (Deut 20:7; 24:5). A prohibition against remarriage functions to discourage divorce (Deut 24:1–4). The law of the Levirate marriage (Deut 25:5–10) maintains the widow’s right to a child but also protects her from her kinsman’s refusal to act as a Levir. These and other laws function to strengthen the nuclear family and thereby promote the formation of patron-client relations.

The Political Economy of Monarchic Israel This discussion has outlined the two primary modes of production in monarchic Israel: the dominant clientelistic mode of production based on the formation of patron-client relationships, and the subordinate domestic mode of production, which the dominant ideological superstructure endeavored to limit to the production of the nuclear family. Together, these two modes of production formed the basis of the social formation of monarchic Israel. However, these two modes of production cannot account for all the production in monarchic Israel. A number of subsidiary modes of production also functioned in the social formation of monarchic Israel.

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Liverani argued that a dominant mode of production throughout the history of the ancient Near East is the palace-temple mode of production. The palace-temple mode of production is similar to the domestic mode of production for it was essentially the production of the house of the king, but it differs largely in degree. The king was the head of the great urban palacetemple organization, assisted by thousands of staff who were organized by a social division of labor into a complex stratification and hierarchy (Liverani, 1984). In the great primary states of Mesopotamia and Egypt with their massive public works, the palace mode of production dominated all other modes of production. However, the palace-temple organization in monarchic Israel was neither large enough nor central enough to dominate the other modes of production. Even the process of centralization by Hezekiah and Josiah, initiated during brief periods of the eighth and seventh centuries, does not appear to have had lasting success in extending the dominance of the Jerusalem palace-temple complex over the countryside. The production of the palace-temple complex remained a subsidiary mode of production throughout monarchic Israel. Another subsidiary mode of production in monarchic Israel can be termed the trade-tribute mode of production. This mode encompasses the appropriation of all external sources of wealth whether they were the result of long-distance trade, tribute from military conquests, or taxes on transit trade. It functioned simply to supplement other modes of production. The prominence of this mode of production in monarchic Israel is uncertain. John Holladay has argued that the transit trade out of the Arabian desert contributed substantially to financing the monarchy in Jerusalem (383–86). Other scholars, such as David Hopkins, have questioned the extent of Judah’s control or the amount of wealth generated by this trade, at least during the early years of the monarchy (1996:136–38). The importance of the trade-tribute mode of production should not be underestimated, for it is often the means by which surplus is realized in the economy as a whole (Katz and Kemnitzer: 53). Nevertheless, the economic gain that monarchic Israel might have realized from transit trade was often offset by the outlay of wealth to other states, for throughout their histories Israel and Judah were repeatedly forced to pay tribute to their more powerful neighbors— most notably, Assyria and Egypt. The unity of the social formation of monarchic Israel was provided by the dominant clientelistic mode of production, which subsumed the other modes of production into its own functioning. Through a generalized exchange, the patron in monarchic Israel was able to exploit the household production of his clients. Patron-client relations replaced extended kinship relations as the social relations of production and distribution. Patron-client relations also formed the social relations of the palace-temple mode of production. As the head of the palace-temple organization, the king functioned

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as a patron in relation to his administrators, priests, and military elite. His clients’ positions in the royal administration were dependent upon his personal favor, and in exchange they committed to him their loyalty and service. Patronage also structured the relationship between the king’s household and the numerous households of the state. Through an extended hierarchy, perhaps including several intermediaries or brokers, patronage was the means by which the king, the great patron, bestowed favors on and granted aid to individual citizens. Patronage was also the means by which the citizens demonstrated their loyalty to the king. Patronage was the social structure of the political economy of monarchic Israel.

WORKS CONSULTED Acker, Joan 1988 “Class, Gender, and the Relations of Distribution.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13:473–97. Anderson, Perry 1976 Considerations on Western Marxism. London: NLB. Bendor, Shunya 1996 The Social Structure of Ancient Israel. Jerusalem: Simor. Black, Jacob 1972 “Tyranny As a Strategy for Survival in an ‘Egalitarian’ Society: Luri Facts versus an Anthropological Mystique.” Man n.s. 7:614–34. Cohen, Yehudi A. 1969 “Ends and Means in Political Control: State Organization and Punishment of Adultery, Incest, and Violation of Celibacy.” American Anthropologist 71:658–87. Dalton, George 1961 “Economic Theory and Primitive Society.” American Anthropologist 63:1–25. Eisenstadt, S. N., and L. Roniger 1984 Patrons, Clients and Friends: Interpersonal Relations and the Structure of Trust in Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Friedman, Jonathan 1974 “Marxism, Structuralism and Vulgar Materialism.” Man n.s. 9:444–69. Godelier, Maurice 1975 “Modes of Production, Kinship, and Demographic Structures.” Pp. 3–27 in Marxist Analyses and Social Anthropology. Ed. M. Bloch. London: Malaby.

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Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gottwald, Norman K. 1992 “Sociology of Ancient Israel.” ABD 6:79–89. 1993a

“A Hypothesis about Social Class in Monarchic Israel in Light of Contemporary Studies of Social Class and Social Stratification.” Pp. 139–64 in The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

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“Social Class As an Analytic and Hermeneutical Category in Biblical Studies.” JBL 112:3–22.

Granovetter, Mark 1985 “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness.” American Journal of Sociology 91:481–510. Hahn, I. 1978

“Representation of Society in the Old Testament and the Asiatic Mode of Production.” Oikumene 2:27–41.

Halperin, Rhoda H. 1984 “Polanyi, Marx, and the Institutional Paradigm in Economic Anthropology.” Research in Economic Anthropology 6:245–72. 1985

“The Concept of the Formal in Economic Anthropology.” Research in Economic Anthropology 7:339–68.

Hindess, Barry, and Paul Q. Hirst 1975 Precapitalist Modes of Production. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hobbs, T. R. 1997 “Reflections on Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations.” JBL 116:501–3. Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1965 “Introduction.” Pp. 1–65 in Karl Marx, Precapitalist Economic Formation. Trans. J. Cohen. New York: International. Holladay, John S., Jr. 1995 “The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah: Economic Centralization in Iron IIA–B (ca. 1000–750 BCE).” Pp. 368–98 in The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land. Ed. Thomas E. Levy. New York: Facts on File. Hopkins, David C. 1985 The Highlands of Canaan: Agricultural Life in the Early Iron Age. Sheffield: Almond. 1996

“Bare Bones: Putting Flesh on the Economics of Ancient Israel.” Pp. 121–39 in The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States. Ed. Volkmar Fritz and Philip R. Davies. JSOTSup 228. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Humphreys, S. C. 1969 “History, Economics, and Anthropology: The Work of Karl Polanyi.” History and Theory 8:165–212.

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Lenski, Gerhard E. 1984 Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Léons, Madeline Barbara, and Frances Rothstein 1979a “Introduction.” Pp. xv–xxviii in New Directions in Political Economy: An Approach from Anthropology. Ed. Madeline Barbara Léons and Frances Rothstein. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood. Léons, Madeline Barbara, and Frances Rothstein, eds. 1979b New Directions in Political Economy: An Approach from Anthropology. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood. Levine, Baruch A. 1996 “Farewell to the Ancient Near East: Evaluating Biblical References to Ownership of Land in Comparative Perspective.” Pp. 223–52 in Privatization in the Ancient Near East and Classical World. Peabody Museum Bulletin 5. Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Liverani, Mario 1979 “Pharaoh’s Letters to Rib-Adda.” Pp. 3–13 in Three Amarna Essays. Monographs on the Ancient Near East 1, 5. Malibu: Undena. 1983

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Melotti, Umberto 1977 Marx and the Third World. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities. Meyers, Carol 1988 Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. New York: Oxford University Press. Nash, Manning 1968 “Economic Anthropology.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 4:359–64. Ed. D. L. Sills. New York: Macmillan & Free. Newman, Katherine S. 1983 Law and Economic Organization: A Comparative Study of Preindustrial Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Polanyi, Karl 1957 “The Economy As Instituted Process.” Pp. 243–70 in Trade and Market in the Early Empires: Economies in History and Theory. Ed. K. Polanyi et al. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. Rad, Gerhard von 1972 Genesis: A Commentary. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Westminster. Sahlins, Marshall 1972 Stone Age Economics. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Stager, Lawrence E. 1985 “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel.” BASOR 260:1–35. Steinberg, Naomi 1991 “The Deuteronomic Law Code and the Politics of State Centralization.” Pp. 161–70 in The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Norman K. Gottwald on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Ed. D. Jobling, P. L. Day, and G. T. Sheppard. Cleveland: Pilgrim. Terray, Emmanuel 1975 “Classes and Class Consciousness in the Abron Kingdom of Gyaman.” Pp. 85–135 in Marxist Analyses and Social Anthropology. Ed. M. Block. London: Malaby.

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THE LINEAGE ROOTS OF HOSEA’S YAHWISM Stephen L. Cook Virginia Theological Seminary

abstract Two features of the book of Hosea deserve increased attention: Hosea’s insider knowledge of priests’ cultic responsibilities and his sharply contrastive, positive and negative language about the northern cult. These features suggest the need for a new, critical appraisal of Hosea’s membership in a priestly lineage and of that lineage’s factional conflict with other groups of priests. To this end, this essay undertakes a cross-cultural examination of how cults and circles of priests develop and come into conflict as segmentary societies undergo centralization over time. The examination produces a sociological model that illuminates the nature of Hosea’s lineagebased circle and its conflicts with the northern state cult and its state priests. Based on his roots in a prestate priestly lineage, Hosea engaged in a power struggle with his society’s contemporary cult, not from an outsider’s stance, but from within a cult and ritualistic framework.

Introduction Interpreters of the book of Hosea are clear that Hosea attacked the religious and ritual practice of the official state cultus of his time. Where interpreters often exhibit unclarity is in resolving Hosea’s own sociological status in relation to Israel’s cult. An erroneous, past consensus in biblical scholarship, established by such major figures as Weber and Wellhausen, even opposed Hosea and the other prophets in principle to both cult and ritual. This older scholarly view increasingly looks too simple. That Hosea strongly criticized the cult and its ritual does not mean that he rejected the cult out of hand. The actual social situation of Hosea involved much more of an entanglement. Sharply contrastive, positive and negative Hosean language about the northern cult suggests that Hosea had a complex and agonizing social relationship with the cultus. One place where Hosea presents a particularly positive view of the northern cult is Hos 12:3–7 [Eng. 12:2–6]. This text affirms the Bethel cult and its traditions, at least the Bethel cult of a preceding era. In making a legal case against Israel, the pericope condemns the people specifically in relation to their laudable history of proper ritual relations with God.

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According to v. 5, this history traces all the way back to Jacob’s encounter with God at Bethel (cf. the E strand in Gen 28:10–22). Jacob unexpectedly found YHWH at the Bethel site. This promulgation by Hosea of the tradition of Jacob’s discovery of Bethel’s holiness to YHWH means that for the prophet the Bethel cult and its ritual is originally and authentically Yahwistic. In case there is any doubt about this, v. 6 makes clear that the true, original nature of Bethel is that it is a YHWH shrine. (Redaction may have inserted the verse to remove all ambiguity; see Holt: 42.) The final colon of Hos 12:5 states that God not only spoke to Jacob at Bethel but also continued to speak there to Israel, at least for a time, through the ongoing cult of the site. The MT reads, “And there (µv) he would speak (Hebrew imperfect) with us (wnm[)” (cf. NJB; NASB). Scholarly attempts to emend the MT to read “with him [Jacob]” (e.g., NRSV, NAB, REB, NIV) abandon a lectio difficilior that has a perfectly meaningful sense. Already in Bethel’s founding legend (hieros logos) Jacob represents and embodies later Israel. The Hosean pericope is promoting the legend precisely because Jacob’s experiences are supposed to have had an ongoing symbolic significance for Israel (Davies: 72–73; Holt: 39). Hosea 12:7 summarizes the consistent content of YHWH’s communication at Bethel. The verse situates the typically Hosean demands for dsj (“loyalty”) and fpvm (“justice”) in the priestly teaching promulgated at the Bethel cult site (cf. Wolff, 1974:213). Davies makes a particularly strong argument that Hosea takes up the diction of v. 7 from some form of cultic instruction. The terms “loyalty” and “justice” appear in the preexilic Ps 101:1, and the words “wait” and “continually” in the Hosean verse are also characteristic of psalmic devotional language. Thus Hosea’s argument, according to Davies, is that “the Israel of his day (and indeed for a long time past) has failed to match the pattern of behavior that was prescribed in the traditions of their great . . . shrine” (Davies: 72). Hosea’s positive picture of Bethel’s past cultic history in Hos 12:3–7 is remarkable. Elsewhere in the book, the prophet mostly expresses contempt for the formerly holy site. In fact, he generally refers to it not by its proper name but as “Beth-aven” (“house of wickedness”; Hos 4:15; 5:8; 10:5; cf. 10:8). (The name “Beth-aven” is a derisive vocalization of “Beth-on,” a locality in Bethel’s vicinity.) Hosea’s call to the people to bwv (“return”) in Hos 12:7 thus must be a summons back to the true cult that once was in Bethel, which preceded the cult that Hosea refers to as Beth-aven (cf. Holt: 43, 46). Other features of the book of Hosea corroborate the suggestion of Hos 12:3–7 that Hosea advocated the ritual systems and the cult traditions of Israel’s past. Indeed, the prophet seems not only to have advocated these systems but also to have descended genealogically from those who had an active clerical role within them.

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Of particular interest are those critiques of cultic worship in the book of Hosea that betray specialized cultic knowledge that would not have occupied the attention of outsiders to the cult’s personnel. These specialized critiques surface, for example, in Hos 4:1–10. Starting with v. 4, this pericope contends against the priesthood of the contemporary cult. (I adopt some such emendation of v. 4 as that in the NRSV; cf. Wolff, 1974:70 n. b; Mays: 65 n. b.) The critique of the text voices the knowledge of an insider in applying detailed criteria in evaluating the performance of Yahwistic priests. These detailed criteria describe an approved ritual-service of God that contrasts sharply with the practices of the contemporary priesthood. According to Hosea’s traditional criteria, a proper priestly service of God would announce YHWH’s exclusive suzerainty over fertility (v. 10), and it would orient sacrificial practice towards atonement rather than priestly profiteering (v. 8). Above all, it would faithfully instruct the people in the “knowledge” (t[d) of YHWH’s “torah” (hrwt) stipulations (v. 6) (cf. Wolff, 1964:244–46; 1974:79, 81–82). The genealogical language about kin (reading hma [“tribe,” “people”] instead of µa [“mother”]) in v. 5, about descendents (µynb) in v. 6, and about lineage proliferation in v. 7 of the pericope is striking. This language suggests that Hosea is assuming the importance of lineage continuity among YHWH’s ritual functionaries. His threats against Israel’s contemporary priests assume that they should care about issues of patrilineal descent. This assumption reflects a serious role that genealogical lineage must have played in the religious and social background of Hosea’s own priestly circle. Indeed, the cross-cultural evidence presented below will attest that issues of descent often do figure largely in the self-identity of insiders to traditional cults. As several scholars have long suspected, the Hosea group’s specific priestly line was probably a Levitical phratry. The initial discovery of this identity of Hosea as a Levite is usually credited to Bernhard Duhm (130–31) and to Hans Walter Wolff (1964:243–50; 1974:xxii–xxiii, 79–81, 121–22, 144). Duhm and Wolff made this Levitical identification based on several convergent lines of evidence. In the text at hand, the tenets of the prophetic message attest to the identification’s validity. The background of v. 6 is the traditional association of the Levites with the transmission and authoritative application of Mosaic/Sinaitic torah (cf. Wolff, 1964:249; 1974:79–80; Mays: 69). For this association, see Deut 17:10, 18; 31:9; 33:10; 2 Kgs 17:27–28; Mal 2:6–7. These brief probes should suffice to signal the need for a new examination of Hosea’s roots in a priestly lineage and of that lineage’s conflict with a contemporary, adversarial system of cult and ritual. I want to launch such an examination by first surveying cross-cultural evidence about how traditional, lineage-based ritual systems may conflict with emerging, state-based ritual systems. This survey will help to form a model for elucidating texts in Hosea about power struggles between advocates of old and new systems of

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cult and ritual. Exegeses of two sample texts in Hosea will then test the sociological model and either confirm or invalidate its applicability in clarifying Hosea’s social background. Overlapping Ritual Systems in Cross-cultural Perspective Sociological and anthropological study suggests that religious change and alterations in ritual practices often accompany the development of a traditional society over time. Of particular interest for the study of Hosea are religious changes that societies may undergo when they make a transition from a lineage-based, stateless organization to a centralized political system. Such a transition usually outpaces existing cultural and religious mechanisms, especially mechanisms that rely primarily on kinship. Systems and roles that do not base themselves on patrilineal descent appear in a kinship-based society and perform significant functions facilitating a regrouping of the society at the state level. Centralizing, nonkinship forms of sacral and ritual leadership that emerge in a stateless society may appeal to the society’s populace in several ways. These forms may look like a means to ease a variety of pressures on the populace, such as population growth, limitations on trade possibilities, and external political and military threats. New religious forms may possess multiple assets for easing such pressures. They may provide a political ritual that has a centralizing appeal, they may provide psychological reassurance to the populace, and they may provide judicial resources with a much wider jurisdiction than lineage-based systems. Through exercising these types of functions, innovative, nonlineage-based religious and ritual adaptation may help to integrate the disparate segments of a growing, village-based society and allow that society to expand without fission. In the process, such religious adaptation may have the side effect of buttressing the hold on political power of an emerging state leadership. In a fascinating article on “Sacred Power and Centralization,” anthropologist Robert McC. Netting has outlined and illustrated the centrality of religious modes of focusing power in a society’s transition to statehood. Netting suggests that a whole variety of cultural devices are available for implementing the sort of religious shift that bolsters a society’s regrouping as a state system (233). For example, a foreign cult with a centralizing appeal may win over a majority of people in a society. Alternatively, a populace may neglect old lineage shrines in favor of a more inclusive cult, such as that of an earth god. In still other cases, monarchic leaders may co-opt and transform traditional religious symbols, rituals, and sacrifices in support of the structures of a new, state-based organization of society. Netting finds in the history of Ibo society a case study of how the advent of a new cultic system may foster centralization in a stateless society

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(230–31). From 1650 to 1850 C.E., a new oracle system spread throughout the Ibo people of Eastern Nigeria, exerting a centralizing influence. A group of oracle agents, known as the Aro, expanded out from their own area and propagated their oracle system among the Ibo. Before the advent of the Aro, the Ibo had a society with only dispersed and localized authority. The new Aro colonies promoted centralization among this acephalous people in two major ways. Aro agents provided oracular consultations to the Ibo that successfully managed matters that had overreached the capacities of localized Ibo systems. In addition, the agents carried on an extensive trade that extended the older Ibo networks of exchange. The new cultic system of the Aro thus provided “a method of organizing a widespread group of persons with a common identification in contrast to the segmentary characteristic of most Ibo society” (Netting: 231). The exercise of new sacred power induced political centralization in a similar way in the history of the Lugbara people. Around 1895 C.E. and again around 1910 C.E., religious agents from the nearby Kakwa peoples infiltrated the Lugbara area of the Nile-Congo Divide (Middleton: 225). The incursions spawned a syncretistic cult, known as Yakan or Dede, which quickly gained followers among both the north and central Lugbara tribes. The new cult unified the Lugbara tribes, and its expansion eventually resulted in a military revolt against the Europeans in 1919. In the process of centralizing Lugbara society, the Yakan cult co-opted many traditional Lugbara ritual functionaries. Finding their traditional roles supplanted, these priests had little choice but to join the new cult. The history of the Berbers of the central High Atlas Mountains of Morocco provides another illustration of the role of sacred power in societal centralization. From time to time, a centralizing religious force has moved the Berbers of the Atlas, a quasi-Muslim tribal people, in the direction of a state system of societal polity. The Berbers’ traditional cult is a lineage-based system with a distinctive Islamic form. Though the cult has a Muslim garb, Islamic religion itself generally does not override the normal tensions and oppositions between the Berbers’ autonomous lineage segments. Occasionally in Moroccan history, however, religious reformers or particularly holy leaders have used Islam to unite the Berbers at a level transcending their traditional genealogical bonds and rubrics. The sacred power of Islam has thus sometimes temporarily become a force for “supra-segmentary cohesion” among the Berbers (Gellner: 46). In some cases, the advent in a society of new sacred power with a centralizing appeal may generate conflict and acrimony between the society’s priests and priestly groups. This has sometimes happened, for example, among the Western Dinka of the central Nile basin in the Southern Sudan. The different political segments of Dinka society normally tend to distribute their allegiances among various descent groups of Dinka priests, known as

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“masters of the fishing spear.” On occasion, however, a particular Dinka priest who has been especially inspired by a sky spirit may exude a centralizing attraction that cuts across the normal lineage lines that structure Dinka society (Lienhardt, 1958:131). Such a figure may unite geographically disperse Dinka areas and hostile Dinka tribes. He may even draw in foreign groups as followers. The result of such cultic centralization is that older spear-master descent groups may lose many of their adherents and much of their religious influence among the Dinka. In this way, a religious and political realignment may occur that goes well beyond the normal shifts and cleavages of traditional Dinka social history (Lienhardt, 1961:212–15). Once established in power, state political and administrative systems may continue to draw on a centralizing cult for help in maintaining statebased forms of societal organization. For example, Ankole kingship in Uganda uses a drum cult, the cult of Bagyendanwa, as a mechanism for state maintenance (Oberg: 150–61). The Bagyendanwa cult does not have a general, tribal character but is specifically a monarchic cult, whose fetish resides in a royal enclosure. The cult embodies the beliefs and values of Ankole kingship and thus upholds the centralized and stratified character of Ankole society (Oberg: 156). Although they may abet emerging rulers and dynasties, new, statebased cultic systems tend to disrupt older, kinship-based systems and roles. The new, innovative systems tend to phase out valued, traditional features of older, lineage-based cult systems that they overlay. One major clash between an emerging state’s new and old cult-systems may center on the issue of lineage continuity. In many stateless societies, ritual functionaries traditionally stem only from certain specific descent lines. The advent of sacral centralization tends to have a detrimental effect on this traditional cult feature. Study of the Moroccan Berbers, discussed above, illustrates how a statebased priesthood may discount traditional priestly lineage norms and requirements. Lineage plays a markedly different role among the Berber holy men of the Moroccan Atlas than it does among Berber holy orders in urban Moroccan society. In Atlas tribalism, membership in a priestly lodge (zawiya) is restricted to those born within a definite tribal segment. The priests (igurramen) of these lodges keep detailed track of the long strings of names in their ancestral lines (Gellner: 40). In contrast, genealogy is not a requirement for membership in an urban zawiya. Although they may sometimes have a kinship-based core, the urban lodges are religious clubs whose membership is open to all who are interested (Gellner: 8–9). The specificity and rigidity of the requirement of lineage continuity varies with the priesthoods of different traditional cultures. A brief glance at some stateless societies that possess this requirement may serve to illustrate the cross-cultural variety.

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The Mossi people of the Yatenga Kingdom in the Upper Volta of West Africa practice a genealogical limitation on the priestly office. The Mossi have a ritual office of “Custodian of the Earth,” an office with priestly functions that is common among West African peoples. Custodians of the Earth only arise from within certain lineages, which have indigenous origins in the territory of the Mossi (Hammond: 239). These ritual functionaries reside in Mossi villages amidst the dwellings of their specific, Savadogo, lineage (Hammond: 246). The Tallensi of the African Gold Coast also restrict the office of Custodian of the Earth (the tendaana) to one genealogical line, the Talis and their congeners (Fortes: 255, 261). A hereditary priesthood that is limited to certain kin-groups likewise occurs in Dinka society in southern Sudan (Lienhardt, 1958:104; 1961:8–9, 64, 174). Dinka ritual functionaries, the masters of the fishing spear mentioned above, arise only out of the priestly category of Dinka clans (the bany). Dinka society places considerable stress on the hereditary ties of a spearmaster with his particular priestly tribe or clan. Lienhardt states, “The myth of the origin of spear-masters establishes a covenant between Divinity and men which derives its strength from its continuity through successive generations” (1961:216). Again, the Kofyar people of Nigeria maintain lineage continuity among their priests. Only brothers, sons, and near agnates of a priest-chief are eligible to succeed him upon his death (Netting: 225). Similar lineage-based priesthoods occur among the Bemba of North Eastern Rhodesia (Richards: 94–96), and among the Akans of Ghana, Africa (Ayisi: 50), to name but a few of many examples. Besides disrupting the lineage continuity of a society’s priests, the advent of a new state-level cult may also have a detrimental effect on traditional lines of ritual solidarity within a society. New ritual ceremonies and calendars may give an expanding populace a new political identity. These same cultic features, however, may also easily undercut preexisting ritual bonds that provide a traditional society’s diverse tribal units with a sense of belonging to a larger whole. Ritual solidarity and collaboration may take the form of festivals celebrated in common by the lineage segments of a stateless society. Sometimes these festivals are local events, but ones that include a consciously collective dimension. Subgroups among the Bantu of Kavirondo in Kenya, for example, coordinate their locally held circumcision feasts in this manner (G. Wagner: 210). The Bantu do not all assemble at one place for the feasts, but they do celebrate the feasts’ phases in the same way. At other times, central shrines that are external to the control of individual kin-groups and tribes may attract representatives from diverse tribal units for society-wide festivals. This latter pattern of collaboration is the case with the External Boyar shrine among the Tallensi in Ghana and with the Odwira festival among the Akans

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in southeastern Ghana (Ayisi: 83–84). The Mossi people of Upper Volta also celebrate a society-wide ceremonial cycle (Hammond: 250). New state cults can sever a people’s traditional bonds of solidarity in another way. Priestly lineages often support the unity of a segmentary society by securing supernatural aid on behalf of its entire populace and by mediating in disputes between its various lineage groups. If they disperse themselves throughout a populace, priestly lineages may form an interpenetrating sodality that helps to unify a people. The people may otherwise be held together only by lines of tension between autonomous lineage segments. The superimposition of a state cult tends to disrupt this mediatory and unifying role of priestly lineages. The Tallensi in Ghana provide an example of the unifying function of traditional priests. Among the Tallensi, the priestly tendaana figure, noted above, holds the ritual power to stop fighting among tribal segments (Ayisi: 60; Fortes: 261, 268). In this particular culture, people attribute this mediatory power to the tendaana’s representation of the Earth, which abhors bloodshed. The Kofyar people of Nigeria, West Africa, also have a priest figure, the Miskagam, who helps keep the peace among Kofyar groups (Netting: 224). Neutral priests often arbitrate disputes between villages. In case of war, priests from both sides of the conflict can meet on the battlefield to settle differences. The masters of the fishing spear in Dinka society also function as mediators and peacemakers. The Dinka regard these ritual functionaries as belonging to and supporting everyone in their tribes and subtribes, and the Dinka people call upon them for mediation between enemies and settlement of feuds (Lienhardt, 1961:145, 168, 211). Among the Dinka on the west bank of the Nile, there is a lineage of spear-masters with an especially strong tradition of intertribal mediation. This lineage, known as the Pagong clan, has spread itself widely throughout the territory of the Dinka. The Dinka people accord its members a much higher religious status than other priestly lines. Some Western Dinka say that, in past times, Pagong spear-masters brought about effective peace between autonomous, warring Dinka tribes, when no one else could have (Lienhardt, 1961:217). To summarize our cross-cultural study, cultic and ritual change and conflict in a traditional society may correlate with the society’s development as a centralized state. In this model of cultic transition, there is a superimposition and conflict of successive ritual systems, the first of which is lineage-based and the second, state-based. According to the model, the advent of centralizing sacred power may variously degrade and supplant the traditional ritual functionaries and features of a society in transition. It is not just that personal demotions in status occur and that bitter acrimonies result when new centralizing cults rise to power. Also at issue is the loss to

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society of valued, traditional cult features. Sacral centralization tends to undermine the traditional norm of lineage continuity among priests. It also tends to disrupt a society’s traditional lines of ritual solidarity, and it vitiates the unifying and mediating role of traditional priesthoods. Traditional priests and their followers naturally oppose and decry these developments. I want now to test this sociological model by exegesis of two sample texts in Hosea. The application of the model is indicated by the clues unearthed above about Hosea’s membership in a traditional priestly lineage and about that lineage’s conflictual relationship with the northern kingdom’s state cult. If they are to confirm the model’s applicability, the two sample texts should betray behind Hosea’s prophecy the cultic and ritualistic framework of a disenfranchised priest. For example, we might expect some priestly sarcasm within the texts. At least some of Hosea’s prophetic forms of speech might entail liturgical settings, and some settings involving mock rituals might even suggest themselves. Further, the model might ideally reveal some of the values of lineage-based priesthoods in the sample texts—values such as the tribal solidarity of society and the genealogical continuity of priestly lines. Examples of a Clash between Ritual Systems in Hosea There is little doubt that Israelite society, including the society of northern Israel, developed into a monarchical system from origins in an acephalous or segmentary system. In old Israel, lineage groups exercised the only forms of religious authority. Then as time progressed—in the northern kingdom probably already from the time of Jeroboam I—a state-based religious and ritual system arose. This new organization began to move away from Israel’s prestate cultic system, which was in the hands of priestly lineages of village-era Israel. At first, the new system overlaid the older one, but eventually it repressed it. The new system’s rise is pictured in 1 Kgs 12:25–33, with its description of the religious reforms of Jeroboam. Jeroboam elevated the shrines of Dan and Bethel to a new status as national cult centers, and he instituted new holidays (1 Kgs 12:32–33), new religious symbols (1 Kgs 12:28–30), and new priests (1 Kgs 12:32) at those centers. Jeroboam’s new state-system absorbed some elements and personnel of the older, lineage-based system while, of necessity, abandoning and disenfranchising others. The Levitical priests were one significant group among those who were alienated. Before the time of Jeroboam, Mushite Levites were priests in the northern kingdom, as Judg 18:30 attests. (According to this text, the Levites remained active at the Dan sanctuary through the fall of Israel!) Their exclusion from Bethel and other cult sites by the new cult of the state period is implied in 1 Kgs 12:31–32, which states that Jeroboam “made priests from among all the people who were not the sons of Levi,”

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stationing them in Bethel. The Levites’ concomitant expulsion is made explicit in 2 Chr 13:9. According to this text, Jeroboam drove out the Levitical priests and appointed instead anyone who could provide a young bull and seven rams for his priestly consecration (cf. 1 Kgs 13:33). Hosea operated in the long wake left by the cultic innovations of Jeroboam. As Wolff concludes, Hosea, standing in this wake, inherited a milieu of overlapping cults in conflict. In this milieu, “disenfranchised Levitical circles of priests in opposition [to state systems] occupied themselves vigorously with the earliest traditions of Israel.” Their role as tradents of these traditions led them to demand “a vassalage to God that stood in the sharpest contrast to the operations of the official cult” (1964:245). The texts of Hosea grapple with this societal and ritual power struggle. As a Levite, a ritual functionary, Hosea was able to create mock rituals as one significant tool in this struggle for the cult. Hosea 5:8–6:6 Hosea 5:8–6:6 is one clear text that exhibits the sort of clash between lineage-based and state-based ritual systems that the cross-cultural examples surveyed above have modeled. The passage reveals Hosea as a disenfranchised insider to Israel’s cult, assailing its present forms and practices based on presuppositions about its proper basis in village Israel’s traditional, lineage-based societal structures. The first section of the text, in Hos 5:8–15, describes Israel’s (“Ephraim’s”) decimated condition in the aftermath of the Syro-Ephraimite war. (Judah also stands as an object of YHWH’s wrath here, along with Ephraim.) The verses paint a picture of Ephraim as disloyal to YHWH’s suzerainty. By the end of the section, it is clear that YHWH thus intends judgment for Israel and will abandon the people until they become earnest about seeking him. A song of repentance put in Israel’s mouth follows in Hos 6:1–3. The song represents an attempt by Israel to meet God’s hopes for their repentance. Finally, a reply of YHWH follows in Hos 6:4–6, in which YHWH rejects Israel’s attempt at rapprochement. Within Hos 5:8–6:6, vv. 1–3 of chapter 6 specifically reveal the cultic and ritualistic springboard of Hosea’s critique. This song may well preserve some genuine words of the prophet’s contemporaries, but Hosea has taken up these liturgical words and molded them into a succinct and compact foil for his message. The song betrays Hosea’s creative hand in its catchwords from his preceding sayings, specifically apr (“heal”; Hos 5:13; 6:1) and πrf (“tear”; Hos 5:14; 6:1). Israel’s official ritual may have become responsive to Hosea’s critique, but it would not have actually hung on his very words in this way. The appearance in the song of Hosean theologems further suggests Hosea’s hand (cf. McKeating: 109). The song uses Hosea’s pet term

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bwv (“return”; 6:1; cf. 2:9 [7]; 5:4; 12:7 [6]), and it reflects his requirement hwhyAta t[dl (“to know YHWH”; 6:3; cf. 2:22 [20]; 5:4; 6:6; 13:4). Clearly,

Hosea has carefully molded a song intended to bring out the people’s partial, yet insufficient, acceptance of his message. As v. 4 makes clear, Hosea’s recital in vv. 1–3 is not a model for emulation but a parody of the people’s contemporary, cultic response to God. Though it is a parody, the song possesses a genuinely authentic cultic form and style. The prophet’s intimate familiarity with Israel’s cultic rites helps show that he engaged his struggle with the contemporary cult as an “insider,” that is, from within a cultic and ritualistic framework. The song begins with a cohortative summons to worship, similar to the one seen in Lam 3:40–42 (Davies: 71). The section goes on to express penitence in a cultic mode. The features of the song, particularly its assertions of confidence, appear as regular components of laments in the Psalter (Ward: 118; Mays: 93). The song sounds so acceptable as cultic worship that a tenacious tradition of interpretation (starting at least with the Septuagint) has taken the section to express agreeable worship (cf. the RSV, NAB, and NRSV of Hos 5:15). Given the cultic form of the song, Hosea may well have found it appropriate to enact this parody of the people’s response to God at a cult site. The parody would then be a mock ritual of penitence that the prophet performed. Hosea’s contemporaries would have been most receptive to Hosea’s song of penitence in its normal setting of a cultic assembly (cf. Hos 5:6). Hosea’s inversion of the genre would have had its greatest effect in such a setting. The easy and abrupt reference to sacrificial practice in Hos 6:6 tends to corroborate the suggestion (Ward: 117). The specific cultic situation at issue may have been a state ceremony in Samaria. Wolff argues that all of Hos 5:8–6:6 fits within the type of solemn state ceremony that would have occurred in Samaria after Israel’s renewed subjugation to Assyria (cf. Hos 5:13) in 733 B.C.E. (1974:112). I conclude that Hosea probably recited his satirical cult song as a mock ritual in a sanctuary, perhaps at Samaria. After performing the mock ritual of penitence, Hosea must have immediately turned around and given the ritual a priestly response (in the manner of a priestly Heilsorakel). Unlike a cultic salvation oracle, however, Hosea’s priestly response in Hos 6:4–6 immediately reveals itself as a judgment. The oracle makes clear that Hosea’s cultic song (Hos 6:1–3) has only portrayed the insufficiency of the people’s stance before God. As it stands, the people’s response does not pass the test of authenticity and constancy (v. 4b; Wolff, 1964:233–34). Even its content is questionable. The poem in vv. 1–3 mixes fertility-cult language with YHWH-cult terminology (cf. Mays: 94, 96; McKeating: 109–10). Through a cultic parody, Hosea has mimicked Israel as making an insufficient ritual attempt at motivating YHWH’s return to them.

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The people’s response to YHWH that Hos 6:1–3 mimics is insufficient only in terms of its inadequate commitment and equivocal content. Its ritual form and its nature as cultic penitence are perfectly acceptable to Hosea. In fact, what Hosea wants is a sufficient ritual response within a reformed cult. An entreaty of God’s favor in the liturgical context of a sanctuary is precisely the genuine requirement of God that has just been quoted by Hosea in 5:15. The Hebrew diction of this verse about “seeking the face” (µynp vqb) of God has a cultic and liturgical sense. The locution refers specifically to a liturgical act at a cult site (Pss 24:6; 27:8; 105:4; 1 Chr 16:11; 2 Chr 7:14). Thus, S. Wagner writes, “The phrase ‘seeking the face of a deity’ always refers to a comprehensible cultic rite at the holy places (temple, sanctuary), where it would have been possible to ‘seek God’ directly or mediately” (237). Hosea 6:6 does not belie my thesis that Hosea takes his stance firmly on one side of a clash between two cultic and ritual systems (although interpreters often misunderstand the verse as anticultic). Hosea’s use of the preposition ˆm (“more than”) in its comparative sense shows that he is stressing the relative importance of obedience to the covenant over cultic appearances and sacrifices (contrast, e.g., Mays: 122–23). He is not rejecting cult and ritual per se. Our introductory probes of Hos 4:6 and Hos 12:7 [6] made this clear. These verses show that for Hosea it was the cult itself that held primary responsibility for transmitting Hos 6:6’s requirements of dsj (“loyalty”) and t[d (“knowledge”) (cf. Wolff, 1964:247). One striking feature of Hos 5:8–6:6 is the passage’s wide scope of concern, which encompasses both the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. Hosea proclaims God’s worries about both Israel (“Ephraim”) and Judah (6:4), and he holds both accountable for forsaking the covenant (5:10–11, 12, 13, 14). Most of the references to Judah here seem original, rather than later Judean glosses (Wolff, 1964:235; Holt: 82 n. 117). The passage’s backdrop of the Syro-Ephraimite war makes the inclusion of Judah within the prophet’s scope appropriate. Indeed, it would be an absence of Judah from the text that would be remarkable. That the pericope overlooks state borders correlates well with the sociological evidence presented above. Hosea stubbornly ignores the northern state’s attempt to secure its national political identity through the establishment of an independent state cult. Instead, he clings to a role of promoting the unity of his whole people (cf. Wolff, 1964:235; Mays: 89, 96–97)—a common role of ritual functionaries in segmentary societies. We have seen above that such functionaries promote and mediate interlineage and intertribal solidarity. Hosea 1:2–2:3 [Eng. 1:2–2:1] The oracle of Hos 2:1–3 [1:10–2:1], which holds out a prospect of future promise for the Israelites, provides further support for my thesis that

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Hosea’s provenance was a lineage-based, disenfranchised priesthood. The initial verse of the oracle makes the following promise: “It will come about that, in the place where it is said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said to them, ‘[You are] the children of the living God.’ ” A striking feature of this verse is the way that it appears to ground its language of covenant renewal in some type of location. The verse refers to an unspecified µwqm (“place”) where the people are addressed and where they covenant with God. Some scholars identify the unnamed location as Jezreel, based on the statement of Hos 1:5 that Jezreel is the physical location where God rejects and punishes Israel (Mays: 32; cf. McKeating: 80). It is highly probable, however, that v. 5’s mention of the Jezreel Valley is merely a secondary, concretizing interpretation. The two verses preceding Hos 1:5 use the name “Jezreel” as an opaque, symbolic threat (with reference to Jehu’s bloody coup; cf. 2 Kgs 10:11), not a geographical locale. Verse 5 does not carry much weight in interpreting our promise oracle. Since the location of covenant mediation in Hos 2:1 [1:10] is not a geographical specification, such as Jezreel, the verse seems rather to ground Hosea’s covenantal message in a specific institution. In my view, the institution at issue is a cultic setting (cf. McKeating: 80). The verse’s use of the passive voice (“it will be said”) suggests that intermediary, ritual functionaries, that is, priests, address the verse’s covenant language to the people. A form-critical analysis supports this proposal. According to Hos 2:1, the “place” of covenant renewal is to be the same µwqm (“place”) where Hosea first announced his threatening statement, “Loammi” (“not my people”). Form criticism suggests that this “place” is a recurrent social setting. Hosea 1:9 made clear that “not my people” was a symbolic name, which Hosea gave to one of his sons as a symbolic action. The performance of such a symbolic action would not have been a random act but would have been an expression of a typical social pattern in a definite, concrete situation. Since with Hosea it is a case of announcing the name(s) of a Levite’s son(s), the concrete situation of his symbolic action may well have been some sort of cultic presentation of his children. If the settings of Hosea’s symbolic actions involving his children were presentations at the contemporary cult, they would most likely have been satirical presentations of his sons as priestly ministers. In conformity with our sociological model, Levites such as Hosea valued maintaining the lineage continuity of their priestly branch through dedicating their sons in this way (Deut 10:8–9; 18:1; cf. Num 8:14–16). The presentation of Samuel narrated in 1 Samuel 1–2 provides an indirect picture of what might normally have taken place. Hannah brought Samuel to Eli at Shiloh, after weaning him, and she dedicated him to lifelong Levitical service (1 Sam 1:11, 22, 24–28; cf. Luke 2:22). The picture of Samuel ministering before YHWH and wearing an ephod in 1 Sam 2:18 confirms that this presentation

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of him at Shiloh’s cult was for Levitical ministry. (Samuel’s priestly role is reconfirmed later by 1 Sam 7:9; 9:13; 10:8; cf. 1 Chr 6:13 [6:28].) Fascinatingly, it is at the point of cultic presentation that Hannah makes wordplays on the boy’s name (1 Sam 1:27–28). Should we not envision a similar cultic setting for Hosea’s symbolic announcements of his sons’ names? The difference would be that Hosea’s cultic presentation would be a mock ritual, since he knew his sons to be unwelcome as priests in the contemporary, state-based cult. The immediate literary context of Hosea’s cultic presentations of his sons gives the reasons for the threats inherent in their names. The situation that Hosea confronted in the northern cult was apparently rather complex. More so than the previously examined passage, this part of Hosea makes clear that the continued state usurpation of ritual control during Hosea’s time was exacerbated by a ritual worship of fertility gods alongside of YHWH. The symbolism of marital infidelity in ch. 1 is a major way that Hosea describes this ritual misallegiance to YHWH. (On marriage as “covenant,” see Mal 2:14; Levenson: 76; Hamilton: 565–67.) The complementarity between Hos 2:4–15 [2:2–13] and Hos 1:2–9 confirms that the incursion of fertility religion into the northern cult was indeed a major motivation behind the threatening names that Hosea gave his children (see Hamilton: 566). Robert Netting’s article on “Sacred Power and Centralization,” discussed above, is suggestive of how the type of preoccupation with fertility and fertility religion seen in Hosea’s milieu may accompany and facilitate a society’s transition to a state-based cult and ritual. Natural pressures towards societal centralization are often also factors that tend to heighten a farming population’s insecurity and anxiety over fertility and arable land. Such pressures may include population growth, external limitations on territorial expansion, and the threat of droughts and other natural catastrophes. By the same token, other conditions, such as a flourishing and diversifying economy, that may put economic and legal pressures on farmers’ control and ownership of fertile land may end up predisposing them for societal centralization and its possible judicial benefits (Netting: 235). New pressures toward centralization and a concentration on fertility may thus appear hand in hand within emerging states. Such conditions as these are ripe for the advent of new, centrally administered fertility rituals and centrally administered judicial mediation of disputes over arable land. A new, centralizing cult with a focus on fertility may offer precisely the sorts of mechanisms that would be extremely attractive to an agrarian, lineage-based society in need of innovative systems providing relief from fertility-related stresses (Netting: 241). Even adjustments to religion and ritual that are imposed authoritatively by a new state system may be welcomed under these conditions. As Netting states, “In these circumstances, a claim to control the rains or promote fertility with annual ceremonies may take on an impressiveness and power to convince”

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(236). In the case of the new state cult initiated by Jeroboam I, there was an added benefit in combining cult centralization and fertility-oriented syncretism. A fertility emphasis, which was a natural component of the state’s centralizing cult, helped to unite the Israelite population with the Canaanite population that remained in the northern kingdom. Conclusion Analysis of Hos 5:8–6:6 and Hos 1:2–2:3 confirms the applicability to Hosea’s setting of our sociological model of transition and conflict between lineage-based and state-based ritual systems. Hosea’s Yahwism was not hostile to the northern cult per se but was rooted in a priestly lineage that had been excluded from that cult. Hosea’s criticism of his religious situation thus focused on the contemporary misuse of the northern cult and on its control by those with an inadequate genealogical pedigree. Specifically, Hosea castigated a state cultic and ritual system whose implementation had disenfranchised his forebears and himself from their cultic privileges and ritual functions. One strategy in his confrontation with the contemporary cult was the use of mock ritual.

WORKS CONSULTED Ayisi, Eric O. 1979 An Introduction to the Study of African Culture. 2d. ed. London: Heinemann. Davies, Graham I. 1993 Hosea. OTG. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Duhm, Bernhard 1875 Die Theologie der Propheten als Grundlage für die innere Entwicklungsgeschichte der israelitischen Religion. Bonn: A. Marcus. Fortes, Meyer 1940 “The Political System of the Tallensi of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast.” Pp. 238–71 in African Political Systems. Ed. Meyer Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. London: Oxford University Press. Gellner, Ernest 1969 Saints of the Atlas. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Hamilton, Victor P. 1992 “Marriage (OT and ANE).” ABD 4:559–69. Hammond, Peter B. 1959 “Economic Change and Mossi Acculturation.” Pp. 238–56 in Continuity and Change in African Cultures. Ed. William R. Bascom and Melville J. Herskovits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Holt, Else Kragelund 1995 Prophesying the Past: The Use of Israel’s History in the Book of Hosea. JSOTSup 194. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Levenson, Jon D. 1985 Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible. San Francisco: Harper. Lienhardt, Godfrey 1958 “The Western Dinka.” Pp. 97–135 in Tribes without Rulers: Studies in African Segmentary Systems. Ed. John Middleton and David Tait. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1961

Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mays, James Luther 1969 Hosea: A Commentary. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster. McKeating, Henry 1971 The Books of Amos, Hosea and Micah. CBC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Middleton, John 1958 “The Political System of the Lugbara of the Nile-Congo Divide.” Pp. 203–29 in Tribes without Rulers: Studies in African Segmentary Systems. Ed. John Middleton and David Tait. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Netting, Robert McC. 1972 “Sacred Power and Centralization: Aspects of Political Adaptation in Africa.” Pp. 219–44 in Population Growth. Ed. B. J. Spooner. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Oberg, K. 1940

“The Kingdom of Ankole in Uganda.” Pp. 121–62 in African Political Systems. Ed. Meyer Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. London: Oxford University Press.

Richards, Audrey I. 1940 “The Political System of the Bemba Tribe—North-Eastern Rhodesia.” Pp. 83–120 in African Political Systems. Ed. Meyer Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. London: Oxford University Press. Wagner, Günter 1940 “The Political Organization of the Bantu of Kavirondo.” Pp. 197–236 in African Political Systems. Ed. Meyer Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. London: Oxford University Press. Wagner, Siegfried 1975 “vqb.” TDOT 2:229–41. Ward, James M. 1966 Hosea: A Theological Commentary. New York: Harper & Row.

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Willis, Timothy Mark 1990 “Elders in Pre-exilic Israelite Society.” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Wolff, Hans Walter 1964 “Hoseas Geistige Heimat.” Pp. 232–50 in Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament. Munich: C. Kaiser. 1974

Hosea. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress.

TO SHAME OR NOT TO SHAME: SEXUALITY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN DIASPORA Susan A. Brayford Centenary College of Louisiana

abstract Drawing on the work of Mediterranean anthropologists, biblical scholars have recognized the importance of the concepts of honor and shame for assessing social relationships represented in biblical texts. However, an examination of the function of honor and shame in the Pentateuch shows two interrelated problems that result from a monolithic understanding and application of honor and shame. First, although honor is an important category in assessing the character of the patriarchs, shame, in its positive sense, is not a major consideration in the characterization of the matriarchs. Second, pentateuchal texts do not reflect consistently the particular features that distinguish the Mediterranean, i.e., sexualized, model of honor and shame. These texts represent shame only in its negative sense, i.e., as a lack of honor, and not in its positive sense, i.e., as appropriate female modesty. When compared with classical Greek literature, as well as with their LXX translation, these Hebrew Bible texts demonstrate a relatively positive attitude toward female sexuality.

The anthropological code of honor/shame provides a useful model for assessing social relationships represented in biblical texts. The complementarity of this code, that is, that honor is most often associated with males and shame with females, makes it especially relevant for examining the function and significance of gender roles (Neyrey: 29–30). In its most basic form, honor denotes esteem, respect, and prestige, both in one’s own eyes and in the eyes of one’s social group (Pitt-Rivers: 1). All honor, however, is not equal. Vertical honor is unlimited and comes automatically to some men due to birthright, superior abilities, rank, or service. Horizontal honor, on the other hand, is in limited supply and can be won and lost. To acquire more honor, a man must take honor away from another man, who is then shamed (Stewart: 59; Malina: 29–33). Therefore, as an attribute of men, shame is negative and results in a state of dishonor and disrespect. However, when attributed to women, shame is positive and indicates a woman’s sexual modesty and social propriety (Malina and Neyrey: 42). Thus, in this system, a woman of shame is the status equivalent of a man of honor.

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Originating in prestate agricultural societies that competed for the resources required for production and reproduction, the honor/shame code provided a rudimentary system of social control and group identity. Such a system continued to be important in societies where culturally defined social boundaries between groups of people were subject to continual human intervention and redefinition in response to shifting political and economic power (Schneider: 2–3). Texts in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament reflect this ongoing redefinition of what it meant to be a Hebrew, Israelite, Jew, or Christian in the contexts of continually changing social and historical conditions. Scholars, therefore, have used the honor/shame code as an analytical tool to examine the gender aspects of the social worlds as they are represented in the biblical texts. I maintain, however, that although honor is almost always an important criterion in assessing the male characters, shame, in its positive sense, is not always a major factor in female characterization. Pentateuchal texts, in particular, do not represent consistently the value accorded to positive female shame in the Mediterranean1 model of the honor/shame code. Inasmuch as concepts of honor and shame operate in nearly every culture, what distinguishes the Mediterranean model from other cultural models of honor/shame? According to Stanley Brandes, the most notable characteristic of the Mediterranean model is its emphasis on “female sexuality with its procreative potential” (1987:122). David Gilmore similarly recognizes the sexual dimension of Mediterranean honor/shame and refers to it as “libidinized social reputation.” He goes on to say that “it is this eroticized aspect of honor—albeit unconscious or implicit—that seems to make the Mediterranean variant distinctive” (1987a:8–11). Carol Delaney likewise considers sexuality a prominent and distinguishing feature of the Mediterranean honor/shame code. However, as she and others emphasize, sexuality, in this context, refers not only to sexual intercourse per se but also to culturally constructed gender roles, especially those associated with procreation. While reproduction, she argues, “may be a universal physiological process, understandings of it are neither naturally determined nor universal” (36; see also Davis: 77). Thus, the connection of honor with men and positive shame with women in the Mediterranean honor/shame code is based, in part, on the socially constructed meanings associated with the roles of male and female in procreation. Accordingly, virility, that is, a man’s ability to father many children and to sexually satisfy his woman while doing so, attests most visibly to his

1 I acknowledge that the term “Mediterranean,” in a strictly geographic sense, would include the area in which the Hebrew Bible texts were produced. However, I use “Mediterranean” to describe the cultural milieu that most closely corresponds with the values of the dominant Hellenistic culture in the later centuries B.C.E and early centuries C.E.

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honor (Gilmore, 1987b:96–98). To be recognized as honorable and manly, a man must show visible proof of his performance. Despite the complementarity of the honor/shame code, however, female fertility, in and of itself, represents only one aspect of positive female shame. More significant are its lack and its misuse, both of which result in negative female shame, that is, shamelessness. Specifically, wives who are barren negatively impact a husband’s honor, while a woman who bears illegitimate children can bring dishonor on a man and his family for generations (Pitt-Rivers: 78; Campbell: 199). Furthermore, a visibly cuckolded husband not only loses his honorable social status, but he also bears the psychological stigma of being symbolically transformed into a female, that is, one who can be victimized and penetrated (Brandes, 1981:235). If fertility is not an indicator of positive female shame, what is? Classical Greek literature provides many descriptions of appropriately shameful female behavior. For example, Semonides describes a good wife as one who is “so chaste that she does not even like to listen to other women who talk about sex” (frag. 7, Diehl). Demosthenes defines appropriate female roles when he states, “mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our persons, but wives to bear us legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our household” (Against Neaera 122). In his writings, Plato conflates two common attitudes toward female sexuality. One Greek stereotype considers women as less able than men to resist pleasure in any form. Once initiated into the joys of sex, they become insatiable (e.g., Hippocrates, On the Seed 4; Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals 727b.9–10; and Galen, On the Seed, 2.1). In the language of honor/shame, this stereotype leads to the notion of women as naturally shameless. A second stereotype minimizes the importance of sexual desire for its own sake. Rather, a woman’s desire is conditioned by her physical nature, the goal of which is procreation (Halperin: 265). This stereotype underlies the notion that a properly cultivated, shameful woman is more concerned with (legitimate) progeny than pleasure. Therefore, a properly shameful wife engages in sexual relations only for procreative purposes and is not to express any desire for sex. Not only could sexual desire deprive her husband of his strength and youth through loss of semen, but also it could lead to the possibility of adulterous affairs and dishonor (Brandes, 1981:224–29). Because women have the power to destroy men’s honorable status, their sexuality must be controlled and limited, if not by themselves, then by the men in their family (Cole: 77; Giovannini: 63; Delaney: 41–43). Positive female shame, therefore, according to the Mediterranean model, can be understood as controlled female sexuality. Moreover, this control exceeds the “group-oriented” sanction that functions to protect the well-being of a group as a whole. This type of control instead serves an “individual-oriented” function that protects an individual male ego (Bechtel: 105).

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Some Hebrew Bible legal texts seemingly reflect a similar concern for positive female shame. For example, apodictic legislation defines the consequences that could result if the virginity of a newly married woman cannot be proven. For “prostituting herself in her father’s house,” the accused wife is to be stoned to death (Deut 22:13–21). Other Hebrew Bible legal texts show the importance of fidelity after marriage. The case of the Sotah woman describes what could happen if a husband even suspects his wife of being unfaithful (Num 5:11–31). The suspected woman must submit to a ritual ordeal that will determine her guilt or innocence. If shown to be guilty, the woman becomes an “execration” among her people. Only if exonerated will she be able to conceive children. These Hebrew Bible legal texts, on the surface, reflect the need to control female sexuality that is mandated by the Mediterranean model of honor/shame. However, I maintain that the value placed on virginity before and fidelity after marriage results primarily from socioeconomic factors, rather than from a condemnation of female sexuality per se. Such legislation is important in societies where families use marriage to maintain or enhance their social status. The virginity of a daughter prior to marriage ensures that undesirable suitors cannot claim her by making her pregnant and bringing her into a family that does not contribute to her own family’s status (Schlegel: 729). Equally important is fidelity within marriage. Both types of sexual abstinence represent the group-oriented control of female sexuality that functions to protect the continuity of the group and its pure genealogy by guaranteeing that a man’s offspring belongs to him. Furthermore, economically speaking, the paternity guarantee insures that a family’s property will remain with the family. The daughter whose virginity cannot be proven and the Sotah woman suspected of infidelity potentially threaten their family’s bloodline and property rights, since they could be carrying a child of someone outside the appropriate lineage. The particularly harsh consequence prescribed to women found guilty of the two sexual crimes discussed above shows the importance of verifiable paternity to the social world represented in the legal texts. Death would indeed prevent a woman from bearing an illegitimate child! Similarly, the Sotah woman could only conceive children if ritually cleared of the charges against her. The pentateuchal narrative text that reflects most closely the Mediterranean model of honor/shame is the Genesis 34 story of Dinah’s rape and its consequences. After Dinah is raped by the presumably love-smitten nonIsraelite Shechem, her brothers react violently to the “outrage” that Shechem had committed against their family and Israel by “defiling” their sister. The circumcision requirement that her family built into the marriage and trade agreement proposed by the Shechemites was only a ruse for incapacitating the men of Shechem and thereby making it easier to kill them, take their

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women, and plunder their property. The brothers justified their murderous revenge to their outraged father by asking the rhetorical question, “should our sister be treated like a whore?” Since neither Jacob nor the narrator himself responds differently, the answer is presumably “no.” This story represents the competitive or psychobiological aspect of the Mediterranean model of honor/shame, that is, that male honor depends on the degree to which men protect the sexual purity (shame) of their women. Since Jacob and his sons neglected their responsibility to protect Dinah by allowing her to walk around unchaperoned in a strange land, they needed to reestablish their honor by aggressively avenging her defilement. Their words and deeds, however, show that they were less concerned with protecting Dinah’s shame beforehand than with reclaiming their own lost honor after the fact. Nowhere do they, or the narrator, criticize Dinah herself for her lack of modesty. Rather, their actions are motivated by their own shameful behavior in allowing their sister to be treated like a whore. Dinah herself cannot regain her positive shame, but her brothers can, and do, take back their honor. The particularly harsh (over)reaction of Dinah’s brothers shows the significance of the psychobiological aspect of male honor, that is, that which reflects individual-oriented control for the protection of the male ego. This factor, I maintain, is the most obvious link between the Mediterranean model of honor/shame and that represented in Hebrew Bible texts. The legislation that prescribes the death penalty to both parties of an adulterous relationship (Deut 22:22) shows that there is more at stake than just illegitimate offspring. In order for the cuckolded husband to reclaim his lost honor, the man must also die. In fact, safeguarding the psychologically fragile male honor by controlling female sexuality is so important that it is built into YHWH’s primeval construction of gender roles (Gen 3:16–19). The story is familiar. After realizing that the first Woman and her husband had eaten from the one tree that he had declared off limits, YHWH needed to teach these now knowledgeable human beings a lesson. However, rather than following through with his earlier threat of death (2:16–17), YHWH punished them with life, but one characterized by hardship, toil, and pain. The Man, as the prototype for all men after him, would labor in hardship to produce food from the ground (3:17–18), while the Woman, as the prototype for all women after her, would labor in hardship to produce children (3:16). Specifically, YHWH sentences the Woman by declaring, ˚bAlvmy awhw ˚tqwvt ˚vyaAlaw µynb ydlt bx[b ˚nrhw ˚nwbx[ hbra hbrh, which I translate, “I will greatly increase your pain and your conceptions, with hardship, you will bear sons. While your desire will be to your husband, he will rule you.” Scholars traditionally have interpreted the gender roles imposed on the Woman—the pains of childbirth, her desire for her husband, and his

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domination over her—as the consequences of disobedience (e.g., von Rad: 94; Westermann: 261–63). Others attempt to mitigate the circumstances of the Woman’s subordination and to improve God’s character by arguing that God’s original plan was for equality between the sexes. Human sin was responsible for “the fall” (e.g., Sarna: 28; Trible: 128). Still others, less concerned with rehabilitating God, interpret the text from other more secular perspectives. Carol Meyers, for example, explains the Woman’s desire in the light of the reluctance of Israelite women to succumb to the risks associated with pregnancy and birth. Such reluctance could be overcome by compensatory sexual desire for their husbands, a desire that underscores their willingness to submit to male sexual advances. In Meyers’s words, “The male’s will within the realm of sexuality is to be imposed on the will of the female. He can insist on having sexual relations, with the hope that conception will result. Yet, because she experiences desire and yearning for the man, such male control would not be experienced as oppressive” (116–17). This interpretation, while limiting male authority to the sexual arena only, nevertheless could be read as implying divine sanction of male sexual dominance and its often abusive results. The honor/shame code offers a reading to complement that of Meyers by allowing a psychological motive for the necessity of the Man’s ruling role. Just as female sexual desire compensates for the reluctance of the Woman to risk the complications of reproduction, the Man’s rule compensates for the potential threat to male masculinity and honor posed by the Woman’s sexual desire. In other words, a man’s inability to satisfy his wife sexually and, according to ancient medical scientists such as Hippocrates and Soranus, cause her to conceive threatens his virility. He would be emasculated and therefore shamed. To minimize the potential for male loss of honor, the Man would rule in the sexual arena, presumably by determining the most auspicious time to perform his procreative duty and thereby preserve his psychobiological sense of honor. The Woman, in Ronald Simkins’s words, “would share in the honor of her husband by yielding to her husband’s ordering of her sexuality; to do otherwise would be shameless” (82). Thus, this reading allows both male honor and female shame to be maintained. What is significant, however, is that YHWH, in the Hebrew text, in fact mandates female sexual desire. This mandate becomes more evident when comparing the Hebrew with the Septuagint (hereafter LXX) Greek translation, which goes even further to safeguard individual-oriented male honor by eliminating, or at least masking, the element of female desire. YHWH, in the LXX, states, plhquvnwn plhqunw' ta;ı luvpaı sou kai; to;n stenagmovn sou, ejn luvpaiı tevxh/ tevkna kai; pro;ı to;n a[ndra sou hJ ajpostrofhv sou, kai; aujtovı sou kurieuvsei, which I translate, “I will greatly increase your pains and your groaning. With pains you will bear children. And to your husband will be

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your turning, and he will rule you.” As in the Hebrew text, the Woman’s punishment emphasizes the increase in the pain associated with childbirth. But instead of being promised more conceptions, a result whose benefits of more children might, in some sense, ameliorate the added pain, the LXX Woman is sentenced to even more suffering (stenagmovn). Furthermore, rather than being granted some compensatory conjugal desire for her husband, the LXX Woman would experience only a turning (ajpostrofhv) for her husband, an action that does not connote sexual desire. By eliminating female sexual desire from YHWH’s sentence, the LXX insures that male sexuality and honor cannot be compromised. The Woman exhibits proper female shame, even before the honor-elevating ruling role of the Man in the Hebrew original. The Mediterranean honor/shame code offers a similar interpretive option for the Hebrew Bible story of Sarah’s laughter (Gen 18:1–15). After overhearing a conversation in which one of her husband’s mysterious visitors predicts she would have a son, Sarah laughs to herself, saying ytlb yrja ˆqz yndaw hnd[ ylAhtyh, “after my wearing out, can I still have pleasure when my husband is old?” (v. 12). Not only has she been barren her whole life, but now that she no longer has “the way of women,” that is, menstruation, it is humanly impossible for her to bear children. Knowing this, Sarah realizes that she will be spared the punishing pains of childbirth. Why not enjoy herself with some (nonprocreative) intercourse, then, since Abraham would be sure to do “what was necessary” to beget his promised son? Sarah’s laughing thoughts imply her divinely ordained desire, not only for her husband, but also for the pleasure that she might be able to experience. The biggest problem, from Sarah’s perspective, is Abraham’s potency, given his age. YHWH, however, interprets the problem differently when he (mis)reports her laughing thoughts as, ytnqz ynaw dla µnma πah “can it really be true that I will bear a child, since I am old?” (v. 13). His paraphrase shows that YHWH attributes Sarah’s laughter to the impossibility of bearing children. He further misrepresents her concerns as being due, not to Abraham’s old age, but to her old age. YHWH thus refuses to acknowledge Sarah’s thoughts of pleasure, refocuses the issue, and redefines the problem. It is Sarah’s previous inability to bear children, rather than Abraham’s potential inability to provide Sarah pleasure, that becomes central. YHWH relieves any performance anxiety on Abraham’s part by omitting Sarah’s concern about Abraham’s age. He likewise relieves what should be Sarah’s procreative performance anxiety by announcing that this previously barren woman will conceive within the year. Sarah’s concerns, however, were not with her performance, but with Abraham’s. In the language of Mediterranean honor/shame, Sarah’s thoughts of the pleasures of sex would characterize her as a shameless woman to Hellenistic readers. This, combined with her questioning of his ability to provide her

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pleasure and/or progeny, impugns Abraham’s honor. Thus, her laughter reflects less a lack of faith in YHWH’s divine abilities than in Abraham’s manly ones. Furthermore, Sarah’s laughing thoughts could be interpreted as a denial not of faith but of YHWH’s primeval construction of appropriate gender roles. Her focus on the pleasure associated with procreation, while being sure that she would avoid the pain that YHWH built into childbearing, shows her subverting his primeval sentence on women. The LXX translation, however, does not wait for YHWH to put Sarah in her shameful place. Rather, it censors Sarah’s thoughts by omitting her question about the sexual pleasure she might experience. The Greek version of Sarah’s laughing thoughts reads, ou[pw mevn moi gevgonen e{wı tou' nu'n oJ de; kuvriovı mou presbuvteroı, “it hasn’t happened to me yet and now my husband is old.” In its literary context, “it” can refer only to Sarah’s inability to have children. Replacing Sarah’s thoughts of pleasure with an allusion to her continued barrenness also downplays the significance of Abraham’s age and the resulting threat to his manly honor. It denies Sarah her thoughts of pleasure by attributing her laughing thoughts to her own actual procreative deficiencies, rather than to Abraham’s potential pleasuring, and thus procreative, ones. One final example of a sexualized representation of honor/shame occurs in the story of Sarah’s plan (Gen 16:1–6). YHWH’s promises of numerous offspring to Abraham presuppose Abraham’s procreative ability. However, Sarah’s barrenness poses an obvious, but not insurmountable, problem. Although she cannot conceive a child, she does conceive a plan that involves her Egyptian handmaid Hagar, who will compensate for Sarah’s own procreative deficiencies. In the first words that Sarah speaks in the biblical text, she blames YHWH for her condition and tells Abraham to “go into my slave girl” (ytjpvAla anAab) (v. 2), for the implicit purpose of sexual intercourse, a purpose that becomes clear in Sarah’s announcement of the potential results (hnmm hnba ylwa). “Perhaps,” she says, “I might be ‘built up’ from her.” Hagar’s surrogacy, as many scholars argue, reflects the ancient Near Eastern custom of concubinage or polycoity, whereby a woman of lesser status will serve as a secondary wife in order to provide an heir for a man whose wife is infertile (Sarna: 119; Westermann: 239; cf. Van Seters: 68–71). Based on comparative anthropological evidence, the status of the child would be different from the status of its mother, and it could inherit the status and position of its father (Steinberg: 6–7). However, in this story, it is the status of the two women, Sarah and Hagar, that is highlighted. Hagar’s surrogacy would accomplish two purposes. It would provide an heir to Abraham and improve Sarah’s gendered status. Although Sarah was Hagar’s social, political, and economic superior, her barrenness lessened her status as a woman. The wordplay in Sarah’s comment, “perhaps I might be built up (hnba) through her” (16:2), implies Hagar’s double service.

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The literal meaning of the Hebrew root hnb, “to build,” refers to Sarah’s improved (“built up”) status when she is able to provide a child (presumably a son) to Abraham. The presumption of a male child is the basis of the wordplay between the verb “to build” (hnb) and the noun “son” (ˆb). Thus, Sarah hopes that Hagar will be able to build her up by producing a son, which carries more status than a daughter. As in the story of her laughter, Sarah focuses first on the impact of events on her own life. Although her plan will obviously provide an heir for Abraham, her explanation of its results centers on the increase in her status. The narrator’s terse report that Abraham listened to Sarah’s voice (v. 2) recalls a similar incident in the primeval garden. Because the Man listened to the voice of his wife and took something she gave him, he was sentenced by YHWH to a life of toil (3:17). In this story, however, Abraham’s silent obedience brings him good fortune. Abraham goes into Hagar and she conceives (16:4a). At first it seems as if Sarah’s plan has succeeded; Abraham would have a child. However, Sarah did not achieve her ultimate goal. Instead of being “built up” through Hagar’s conception, she was belittled (lqtw) and made insignificant in Hagar’s eyes (v. 4c). Neither is Sarah “sonned” through Hagar. Although Hagar indeed bears a son, she bears the son for Abraham, not Sarah. Sarah’s only role is that of a harsh mistress from whom Hagar flees (v. 6) and to whom Hagar is to return and submit (v. 9). By the time Hagar returns with her son, Sarah is completely out of the picture. The story ends with a summary report from the narrator who, three times within two short verses, emphasizes that Hagar bore the son Ishmael for Abraham (vv. 15a, b, 16b). When these same characters reappear later in the larger story, Ishmael is always designated either as Hagar’s son (21:9–10, 13) or as Abraham’s (21:13). Even Sarah herself distinguishes between the son of Hagar the Egyptian, her slave girl, and her own son Issac (21:10). Sarah was eventually “built up” and “sonned” (21:1–7), but not through Hagar. Hagar bore her son for Abraham. The LXX translation of this story accentuates Abraham’s paternity by including yet another reference that Hagar bore Ishmael for him when it adds an aujtw'/ to the narrator’s summary of Hagar’s action (kai; e[teken Agar tw'/ Abram uJiovn kai; ejkavlesen Abram to; o[noma tou' uJiou' aujtou' o}n e[teken autj w'/ Agar Ismahl, Gen 16:15). More importantly, however, the Greek version excludes all traces of Sarah’s expression of hope for an upgrade in her gendered status. The Greek of 16:2, ei\pen de; Sara pro;ı Abram ijdou; sunevkleisevn me kuvrioı tou' mh; tivktein ei[selqe ou\n pro;ı th;n paidivskhn mou i{na teknopoihvsh/ı ejx aujth'ı uJphvkousen de; Abram th'ı fwnh'ı Saraı, makes Abraham the subject and beneficiary of Hagar’s surrogacy. It is no longer Sarah who is to be “built up” or “sonned,” but Abraham (teknopoihvsh/ı). The intentions of the LXX Sarah are focused on the benefits that will accrue to her husband, not to her. Furthermore, the addition of the connective particle ou\n more directly

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connects the problem of Sarah’s infertility with her proposed solution. The Lord has “hemmed me in so as not to bear; therefore, go into my slave girl.” Finally, the Greek translation implies that the plan will succeed. Gone is the tentativeness of the Hebrew’s ylwa (“perhaps”). Instead the LXX Sarah tells her husband to go into her slave girl i{na (“in order that”) he would beget children. Like the story of Sarah’s laughter, the LXX version of Sarah’s plan shows her to be more interested in progeny for Abraham than in her own welfare. She knows her duty is to her husband. Also, as in the story of her laughter, the differences in the LXX represent an increase in Abraham’s honor. In the former story, his honor was increased as a result of her shame. Here the changes emphasize his virility, that is, his unquestioned ability to father children in his old age. The Greek verb teknopoievw makes the aspect of childbearing explicit at the expense of the double entendre of the Hebrew hnb. Although the act of translation often sacrifices the literary art of the original text, it need not sacrifice the sense of the text. In this case, both are banished for the sake of Abraham’s honor. His increased virility, to some extent, compensates for his silent obedience to his wife’s plan. The LXX version of the above stories of Sarah and Abraham not only emphasizes Abraham’s honor, but it also portrays Sarah as a woman of shame. No longer is she concerned with her own gendered status. Rather, she plays the role of Demosthenes’ ideal wife, whose duty is to provide legitimate children for the household. The elimination of sexual pleasure from her laughing thoughts results in a portrait of Sarah who, as a properly shameful wife, expresses no desire for sex and engages in sexual relations for procreative purposes only. The differences in the LXX underscore the importance of controlling female sexuality so as to preserve the psychologically fragile male honor. These differences represent a reconstruction of the ethnic identity of Hellenistic Jews, based in part on the Mediterranean honor/shame code of conduct (Brayford: 67–86). This reconstruction, among other things, defined the gender roles appropriate for a new time and a different place. One aspect of the redefined gender roles was their denial of female sexuality, a denial that both reflected the dominant Hellenistic contemporary values and continued to shape attitudes about proper female roles and behavior. In conclusion, the psychobiological aspect of male honor, while not the only type of honor represented in Hebrew Bible texts, is the factor that most closely resembles the sexualized Mediterranean version of the honor/shame social code. Missing from the pentateuchal texts discussed above, however, is the complementary aspect of positive female shame as it is described— and often prescribed—in classical Greek literature. Although I would be overstating my case to suggest that the Hebrew texts glorify female sexuality in its own right apart from childbearing, they do not deny or repress

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it—unless it negatively impacts male honor and the accompanying implications for socioeconomic status. Such repression enters these stories in their Greek translation and continues to shape views of female sexuality as they are represented in later Hellenistic religious texts, such as the book of Sirach (e.g., 9:1) and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (e.g., T. Reu. 5:1, 5). The misogyny in some of these texts points to the extremes to which these later writers go to condemn female sexuality and elevate male honor. As Claudia Camp demonstrates in her analysis of the book of Sirach, these later texts consistently link sexual and economic issues. “Both money and women,” she writes, “are overdetermined symbols of male honor, which has to do, in this case, at least, with the need for external signs of control: they are the sigla of manliness” (38). Camp goes on to suggest that this need for control resulted from the profound cultural, political, and religious changes that were ubiquitous in Ben Sira’s time (early second century B.C.E.) and place (Jerusalem). As a way of compensating for the loss of control and honor that he, as a Jewish man, may have experienced in his Hellenistic-influenced religious social world, Ben Sira obsessively controls the conditions in his literary social world (Camp: 36–39). Although he adopts the above described gender roles and values of the Mediterranean honor/shame system for his ideal world, he continues to hold firm to his Jewish religious traditions. For example, the attributes of his paradigmatic asexual woman (e.g., Sir 9:1–9; 25:21–22; 26:1–27) may correspond with those in classical Greek literature mentioned above, but his descriptions of the male Jewish ancestors continually emphasize their covenantal obedience (e.g., Sir 44:19–20; 45:6–7; 49:1–3). Like Ben Sira, the LXX translators worked in a social world dominated by Hellenistic culture and values. Therefore, their translation likewise reflects an acceptance of the values characteristic of Mediterranean honor/shame. I would argue, however, that the need of these Alexandrian Jews to maintain honor was even greater than it would have been for Ben Sira. Unlike Sira’s Palestine, where the Jews represented the ethnic majority, the translator’s Alexandrian environment was one in which Jews were only one ethnic minority, among several others. Competition between the different ethnic groups for a share of the city’s prosperity produced a situation that Davis identifies as particularly hospitable to an honor/shame system (89; see also Schneider: 2). As a product of its cultural milieu, the LXX translation not only represented the Jewish male ancestors as more honorable, it also improved the gendered image of the matriarchs. Unlike Ben Sira, however, the LXX did not emphasize the evils associated with female sexuality. Rather, it highlighted the positive shame of Sarah and the other Jewish literary foremothers. The LXX Eve, as the prototype of all women, is denied the desire that was to be part of childbearing; the LXX Sarah, as the literary foremother of the Jews, is recast as the ideal Hellenistic woman who is more concerned with

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progeny than pleasure. Their shame results in male gain, a gain made possible by protecting, and often increasing, the psychologically fragile male honor.

WORKS CONSULTED Bechtel, Lyn M. 1993 “Rethinking the Interpretation of Genesis 2.4b–3.24.” Pp. 77–117 in A Feminist Companion to Genesis. FCB 2. Ed. Athalya Brenner. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Brandes, Stanley 1981 “Like Wounded Stags: Male Sexual Ideology in an Andalusian Town.” Pp. 216–39 in Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality. Ed. Sherry B. Ortner and Harriet Whitehead. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1987

“Reflections on Honor and Shame in the Mediterranean.” Pp. 121–34 in Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean. American Anthropological Association Special Publication 22. Ed. David D. Gilmore. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association.

Brayford, Susan A. 1998 The Taming and Shaming of Sarah in the Septuagint of Genesis. Ph.D. diss. Iliff School of Theology and the University of Denver. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI (9829761). Camp, Claudia 1991 “Understanding a Patriarchy: Women in Second Century Judaism through the Eyes of Ben Sira.” Pp. 1–40 in Women Like This: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World. SBLEJL 1. Ed. Amy-Jill Levine. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Campbell, J. K. 1964 Honour, Family, and Patronage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cole, Sally 1991

Women of the Praia: Work and Lives in a Portuguese Coastal Community. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Davis, John 1977 People of the Mediterranean: An Essay in Comparative Social Anthropology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Delaney, Carol 1987 “Seeds of Honor, Fields of Shame.” Pp. 35–48 in Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean. American Anthropological Association Special Publication 22. Ed. David D. Gilmore. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association.

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Gilmore, David D. 1987a “Introduction: The Shame of Dishonor.” Pp. 2–21 in Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean. American Anthropological Association Special Publication 22. Ed. David D. Gilmore. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association. 1987b

“Honor, Honesty, Shame: Male Status in Contemporary Andalusia.” Pp. 90–103 in Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean. American Anthropological Association Special Publication 22. Ed. David D. Gilmore. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association.

Giovannini, Maureen J. 1987 “Female Chastity Codes in the Circum-Mediterranean: Comparative Perspectives. Pp. 61–74 in Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean. American Anthropological Association Special Publication 22. Ed. David D. Gilmore. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association. Halperin, David M. 1990 “Why Is Diotima a Woman?” Pp. 257–308 in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World. Ed. David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, and Froma I. Zeitlin. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Malina, Bruce 1981 The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology. Atlanta: John Knox. Malina, Bruce, and Jerome H. Neyrey 1991 “Honor and Shame in Luke-Acts: Pivotal Values of the Mediterranean World.” Pp. 25–65 in The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation. Ed. Jerome H. Neyrey. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson. Meyers, Carol 1988 Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. New York: Oxford University Press. Neyrey, Jerome H. 1998 Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Pitt-Rivers, Julian 1977 The Fate of Shechem: Essays in the Anthropology of the Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rad, Gerhard von 1973 Genesis: A Commentary. Trans. John H. Marks. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster. Sarna, Nahum M. 1989 Genesis: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation. JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: JPS.

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Schlegel, Alice 1991 “Status, Property, and the Value on Virginity.” American Ethnologist 18:719–34. Schneider, Jane 1971 “Of Vigilance and Virgins.” Ethnology 10:1–24. Simkins, Ronald A. 1999 “Class and Gender in Early Israel.” Pp. 71–83 in Concepts of Class in Ancient Israel. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 201. Ed. Mark R. Sneed. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Steinberg, Naomi 1993 Kinship and Marriage in Genesis: A Household Economics Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress. Stewart, Frank Henderson 1994 Honor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Trible, Phyllis 1974 God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. OBT 2. Philadelphia: Fortress. Van Seters, John 1975 Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Westermann, Claus 1984 Genesis 1–11: A Commentary. Trans. John J. Scullion. CC. Minneapolis: Augsburg.

GENDER, CLASS, AND THE SOCIAL-SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF GENESIS 2–3 Gale A. Yee Episcopal Divinity School

abstract The study of gender in the Hebrew Bible cannot be analyzed in isolation from socioeconomic class. The two are inextricably combined. I will be presenting the results of a materialist investigation on Genesis 2–3. Ostensibly a story about male-female relations, Genesis 2–3 functions as a “symbolic alibi” that mystifies and conceals the class interests of the text. To legitimate royal interests, as well as to justify the current lower status of the peasant in a native tributary economy, Genesis 2–3 shifts the point of conflict from the public arena of class relations between men to the more private domain of household relations between men and women. While stressing the nuclear family and marital bond in these domestic relations, the story simultaneously subverts lineages and other local power authorities that threaten the state.

Introduction This paper is a Marxist literary analysis of a very well known story, the Yahwist creation narrative in Genesis 2–3.1 A Marxist literary analysis complements a feminist examination by studying issues of class and economics, along with the study of gender (Yee, 1995:146–53, 1999:534–37). A major focus of a Marxist analysis is the mode of production dominant in the society that produces a particular text. Gottwald presents a succinct definition of mode of production in the following: At a minimum, the concept of mode of production coordinates the economic dimension (who produces what, by what technical means, and with what organization of labor?) with the political dimension (among existing economic options, who determines what will be produced, who benefits from what is produced, and by what mechanisms?). For the full picture of the social formation, however, mode of production encompasses a social dimension (into what groupings do the producers fall according to occupation, class, status,

1

This article is part of a larger work (Yee: forthcoming).

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semeia etc., and how do these groupings show up in family structure and in juridical process?) and an ideological dimension (what ideas, beliefs, feelings, and judgments do the variously grouped producers entertain about themselves, their society, and the ultimate meaning of their existence?). (1992:83)

Mode of production (MOP) thus refers to the various economic, political, social, and ideological interrelations and forces that are operative in a society’s production of material goods and services. In ancient Israel three dominant modes of production can be distinguished: a familial mode, a tributary (or tribute/tax-based) mode, and a slave mode, each undergirded by its own political economies, social structures and relations, power groups, and ideologies (Gottwald, 1992:83–87). I will argue that gender relations encoded in Genesis 2–3 should be contextualized in a society that has undergone a change in its mode of production, a change from a familial MOP characteristic of the tribal period to a native tributary MOP typical of the monarchical period. The conflict between the genders in Genesis 2–3 mystifies and obscures the very real class contradictions and conflicts created by this change in MOP. The familial MOP—what Gottwald refers to as the communitarian MOP—characterized the tribal period (Jobling, 1991:241–42). It was strongly kinship-based, consisting of “the father’s house,” “lineage,” and “tribe.” The family household was the basic socioeconomic unit. As self-sufficient, mutually supportive, and protecting entities, social groups were tributary free, having no state mechanisms, such as taxes or tributes, to appropriate their surpluses. The tribes remained in a familial mode of production as free agrarians for about two centuries. The transition to a monarchy and tributary MOP resulted from complex external and internal pressures affecting Israel. Through foreign conquests and the taxation of non-Israelite land in Canaan, King David was able to forestall the extraction of tribute from free agrarians. However, he initiated an array of political and economic structures that, under the rule of his son Solomon, assimilated the tribes back into a tributary economy and intensified social stratification among farmers (Wittenberg: 16–17). Those among the landed elite became part of the ruling class or otherwise profited from tax concessions and latifundiary arrangements. For the majority of Israel’s free agrarians, however, this was not the case. The king and the ruling elite began to demand their surpluses, in both human and natural resources, to foot the bill for the centralized bureaucracy, ambitious building projects, and luxurious lifestyle at court. These farmers therefore progressively became impoverished. Eventually they would fall to peasant status as they were increasingly taxed. Often, this taxation resulted in the loss of their ancestral lands to the state in order to pay for debts (Gottwald, 1993:6–9, 1986:81–86, 1992:84; Chaney: 67–70).

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Genesis 2–3 is a product of this traumatic time, encoding the inconsistencies and ruptures of this period. Genesis 2–3 responds to a particular socioeconomic contradiction: to maintain national unity and security against the threats of invaders, the confederated tribes of Israel revert back to an oppressive political system and MOP, which they had rejected when they became a confederacy (Guichard: 62–65). What began as a loose confederation of family groups, lineages, and tribes in reaction to state hegemony, a federation committed to mutual aid and defense, now reverts back to a hierarchical, socially stratified, and centralized territorial state governed by a dynastic monarchy. The changes in political system and MOP will have a substantial effect on family and gender relations. Under a familial MOP, the family kin group was the basic socioeconomic unit. By cutting across tribal boundaries in dividing the territory into twelve administrative districts, Solomon undermined tribal organization and kin-group loyalties by redirecting them to the centralized government in Jerusalem (1 Kgs 4:7–19). The family household gradually lost power and authority as the primary socioeconomic unit, as these loyalties shifted toward the state. Moreover, the impoverishment of the households as the state siphoned off their products and human resources had a damaging effect on all its members (Meyers: 189–96). It is especially in the area of sexuality that the formation of the state affects women and their men. Anthropologist Yehudi Cohen explores crossculturally one of the ways in which some national rulers exercise political authority by regulating sexual behavior. What is particularly relevant in Cohen’s study is that part of his database is the nascent monarchy in Israel. Cohen discovered that legislation regulating sexuality is characteristic of a certain type of state, namely, the inchoate incorporative state: an emerging state that has not yet completely subverted local sources of solidarity—for example, kinship ties and political and economic autonomy (661). In such a state, dominant and subordinate groups are culturally similar, speak the same language, share similar notions of cause and effect, and hold similar idioms regarding kinship and social organization. Since the symbolic gap between rulers and ruled is very narrow from the outset, rulers must therefore adopt measures that foster distance between social strata. In legal matters, an individual has a dual loyalty, one to the state and the other to the individual’s local corporate group, such as the lineage.2 Because it competes with local sources of authority for the allegiance of its citizens, the emerging state must proceed slowly in subverting local ties. A radical

2 In contrast to an inchoate incorporative state, a successful incorporative state has secured the transfer of loyalty and the exercise of authority from local nexuses to the state.

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destruction of the traditional ways would provoke resistance and rebellion. Moreover, the rulers themselves are products of the lineages that they seek to undermine. To legitimate its authority, the state must effect changes in the daily lives of the people subtly and gradually, before anyone realizes what is happening. Cohen argues that one of the ways the emerging state displaces and eventually replaces local authorities is by enacting tighter controls over sexual behavior. Laws demanding the death penalty for adultery, for example, will have four consequences, which will be advantageous for the state: 1) the weakening of local corporate groups; 2) the strengthening of bonds that cannot serve as sources of rebellion; 3) the control of the polity through the encouragement of the conjugal pair’s mobility; 4) the maintenance of social distance between rulers and ruled. (665)

Laws that prescribe death for adulterous acts encourage and intensify the marital bond at the expense of the kinship bond. Moreover, strengthening the conjugal bond would not conflict with the objectives of the emerging state. In fact, besides minimizing the kinship connection, it strengthens a bond that, in contrast to that of a lineage, cannot be a source of potential conspiracy and rebellion. Encouraging a couple’s mobility also reduces the potential for revolt, since rulers often try to disperse members of local corporate groups, in the most extreme cases by forced resettlement. Because rulers in emerging states must adopt strategies to widen the symbolic gap between ruler and ruled, adultery between a commoner and a ruler’s wife is regarded as a very serious transgression. Solomon had set into motion the breakdown of kinship authority through the redistricting of his kingdom. Moreover, several recent studies on sex and family laws in the Deuteronomic code would confirm Cohen’s hypothesis that emerging states tend to adopt more restrictive jurisdiction over sexuality (including the death penalty), gradually subverting regional social bonds. Steinberg, Stuhlman (1990, 1992), and Frymer-Kensky demonstrate how these sex and family laws slowly eroded the power of the paterfamilias in favor of the state (see also Whitelam: 41–42). What could have been resolved by the male head of the household is brought into the wider public arena. Steinberg also shows how the legislation of Deuteronomy 19–25 strengthens the nuclear family and the marital bond at the expense of the wider lineage (166). Bolstering the nuclear family and the marital bond would intensify ties that cannot become possible sources for insurrection. The increased mobility of the nuclear family also minimizes the potential for rebellion. Although it may appear that women benefited under the Deuteronomic code by becoming less subject to the absolute jurisdiction of the paterfamilias, they along with their men become more subject to control in

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the politics of state centralization (Steinberg: 168; Stuhlman, 1992:62–63; Frymer-Kensky: 61). Genesis 2: Adam and His Woman in the Politics of the State I will now demonstrate how the politics of gender encoded in Genesis 2–3 should be placed within the overall politics of state centralization. I will show that Genesis 2–3 articulates a gender ideology that (1) privileges the marriage bond over the kinship bond in the interests of state control over the population and (2) legitimizes an increased subordination of the wife to her husband, who himself becomes subordinate to a wider social hierarchy. The ideological design of Genesis 2 creates parallels between God’s role in creation and the king’s role in Israel. Correspondences exist between the activity of “YHWH, a god” in ordering chaos and the king’s endeavors to restructure the autonomous and acephalous tribes into a unified state (Guichard: 70–73). The Yahwist’s frequent expression, “YHWH, a god” (e.g., 2:4), highlights the difference between the divine and human realms and the prerogatives inherent to each (Coote and Ord: 51). This divine/human separation corresponds to the symbolic gulf between the king and his people that must be established in an inchoate incorporative state. The rest of the story, where the human farmer and his wife arrogate divine privilege and are banished from this god’s presence, will make this gulf very clear. The Yahwist situates the story in an arid land, where no wild or cultivated plants had yet sprung up. No wild plants exist, because “YHWH, a god, had not caused rain to fall upon the land.” Nor are there cultivated plants since “there was no male human being (,adam) to till the ground (,adamâ, 2:5)” (Stordalen: 12–13). God proceeds to rectify the absence of cultivated plants by fashioning a man from the ground (2:7). Although several feminists have accepted Trible’s explication of ,adam as a generic for “human being,” it seems clear from the analyses of others that the first human is envisioned in this text as a male peasant, responsible for tilling the ground in the production of cultivated plants (Stratton: 95–108; Lanser: 72; Clines: 40; Gardner: 6–7; Jobling, 1986:41). As the primordial man fashioned from the ground is utterly dependent upon YHWH, a god, for his very life, so is the Israelite peasant who works the ground reliant upon the king as his provider (Kennedy: 5). God puts the man into a royal garden, which he will till and guard (2:8, 15). The garden represents the civilized order of the state, where, as opposed to the chaos outside, fertility and prosperity can be found in abundance (Coote and Ord: 54). Moreover, as a place of unmediated access to the deity (Wallace: 70), it also signifies a primordial time when there was no rift between the king and his people. God prohibits the man under pain of death from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the center of the garden (Gen 2:17; 3:3). The

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precise meaning of this tree has generated much scholarly debate (Wallace: 115–32; Westermann: 242–45; Guichard: 71). Arguments that favor the meaning of the tree as offering the widest possible knowledge are very strong. This divine knowledge would include becoming like the gods, moving toward civilization and the knowledge of sexuality itself (Wallace: 129; Bailey: 148; von Rad: 81). The divine command preventing the man from eating of the tree of knowledge reveals another symbolic differentiation between the divine and human realms, having its social correlate in the intellectual distance between the king and the people (Kennedy: 6–7; Coote and Ord: 55; Wallace: 130–32). It is no mere coincidence that Solomon, who strongly centralized the state and stratified his society, is considered to be the quintessential “wise” man. The ruling elite holds the monopoly on wisdom and, according to its ideology, the ignorance of the peasant is part and parcel of the created social order. Should the peasant obtain a greater critical knowledge of the real state of affairs governing his life, it would constitute a danger to the tight political control of the elite (Mendenhall: 321–25; Kennedy: 6–7). The stories of the sons of God and daughters of men and the Tower of Babel (Gen 6:1–4 and 11:1–9) are other sections within the Yahwist narrative that manifest this same concern over the separation between divine and human realms. To overcome the man’s loneliness, the deity creates from the man’s rib a “help corresponding to him” (Gen 2:18).3 Within the ideology of the text, the “help” that the woman supplies is her sexual ability to produce children (Clines: 34; Mikaelsson: 87).4 Nevertheless, the priority of the male is indicated by the fact that the primal woman is formed from his substance, reversing of the real state of affairs where women give birth to men. Just as he names the animals, evincing his primacy over them, the man names the woman ,iSSâ (2:23), expressing his authority over her (Lanser: 72–73; Stratton: 100–1; Clines: 37–40; Mikaelsson: 87–88; contra Trible). As the man is created by YHWH, a god, from the ground to serve and tend the ground, the woman built from the man exists to serve and tend the man (Gardner: 7, 9). Traditional interpreters of Genesis 2 who justify the subordination of women by appealing to this text are consistent with its thoroughgoing androcentrism. Moreover, the politics of state centralization can be seen in the man’s poetic exclamation upon meeting the woman (2:23) and in its etiology

3 <ezer kenegdô does not imply equality between the genders (contra Trible), but rather a complementary entity of the same species (see Clines: 27–32; Gardner: 5–7). 4 The focus on the biological role of women in relation to man can be seen in 2:24, where the man becomes “one flesh” with his wife, which, on one level, signifies sexual intercourse. Moreover, in 3:20, the man names his women, Eve/Hawwâ, which means “mother of all living,” highlighting the biological result of this intercourse.

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regarding social relations (2:24). In acknowledging the woman as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” the text describes the relations between the man and his woman according to the ideology of kinship (2 Sam 5:1; 19:12–13; 1 Chr 11:1; note the monarchical context). Furthermore, the man abandons “his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two become one flesh.” The abandonment of parents should be seen within the politics of state centralization. Appropriating the familial idiom of kinship while simultaneously subverting it, the ideology of the text emphasizes the marriage bond at the expense of the kinship bond. A man forsakes his patrilocal household and lineage, “his father and his mother,” and becomes kin with his wife (Cohen: 667; cf. Meyers: 86). Instead of reflecting an earlier matriarchy or matrilocal residence, the ideological subversion of patrilineal kinship connections in favor of the state necessitates that the man leave his parents to cling to his wife. The husband does not join his wife’s clan. Rather, he and his wife, along with their subsequent children, bond together to form a nuclear family unit, thereby weakening lineage and extended family ties on both sides. The nuclear family would owe its allegiance, not to its kin-group connections, but to the state. As smaller, more independent social units than the lineage, nuclear families pose no threat of rebellion against the state. Significant is the fact that it is YHWH, a god, who brings the primal couple together (2:22). If “God” in this context is synonymous with, or the symbolic expression of, the state, the role of the state in subserving the solidarity of the husbandwife relationship at the expense of the lineage is unmistakable. (Cohen: 668)

Rather than a hallmark of gender mutuality and equality, as some would think, Gen 2:23–24 can be seen as part of the sexual agenda in the state’s ideological control over its populace. Genesis 3: The Rupture between God and Humanity, the King and His People, the Man and His Woman In Gen 3:1 the woman encounters the snake, who is described as being more crafty than all the other creatures that YHWH, a god, had made. In its ancient Near Eastern context, the snake can symbolize evil and chaos (Joines) as well as healing, life, wisdom, and fertility (Wallace: 158–61). As a “quintessentially ambiguous” character (Propp: 197), the snake embodies perceived and actual dangers to the state. The snake could represent the fertility cults observed in the Israelite population, offering “wisdom” that competed with the royal ideology of the one God, YHWH (Wallace: 155–72; Gardner: 12–13; Soggin: 96–99). As a veiled critique of Solomon’s foreign policy, it could symbolize the external threats posed by Israel’s political enemies (Holter: 106–12). On the other hand, it could also personify an

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internal threat, as Kennedy argues, where dissatisfied elements of society pose a danger to the state by educating and encouraging peasants to independent action (8). Whatever dangers to the state the snake represents, it is through the woman that the snake accomplishes the rift between human beings and God and, by analogy, between the people and their king. She is the “mediating” factor that determines the man’s passage from “inside” to “outside,” from direct access to God to the gulf that separates them (Jobling, 1986:27–32). In a masterful move, the snake approaches her with a question: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (3:1). God had, in fact, prefaced his command to the man with the generous privilege of eating freely of every tree in the garden. Only the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden to him (2:16–17). By focusing on God’s prohibition instead of God’s generosity, the snake implies that God is an unreasonable and oppressive being (Moberly: 6). The woman feels compelled to defend her God, but her response exhibits some reservations about what God had commanded: We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.” (3:2–3)

Picking up cues from the snake’s innuendoes, the woman downplays the generosity and privilege of God’s original command. The verb, “we may eat,” lacks the extravagance of God’s permission, “you may freely eat.” There is no reference to “every” tree, from which the couple may freely partake. Besides downplaying God’s generosity, the woman adds to God’s prohibition “nor touch it,” thus augmenting the portrayal of the unreasonable God that the snake tries to fabricate. Finally, the woman moderates the original death penalty. “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:17) simply becomes “lest you die” (3:3). Read politically, the subtext of these verses is clear: “Forces antithetical to the state would have you (the peasant) believe that the king, our benefactor upon whom our very lives depend, who freely gives to us out of his bounty, is a capricious and restrictive leader. In fact, our king only withholds from us what belongs properly to him in order to rule us fairly (viz., the knowledge of good and evil).” Note that Solomon asked for wisdom from God to accomplish this very aim: “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil” (1 Kgs 3:9). By having the woman respond to the snake, instead of the man, the subtext also implies that women are the ones most susceptible to these forces threatening the state. The snake counters God’s threat of death with “You will not die” (3:4). It then argues that the consequences of partaking the fruit will be very

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beneficial to the woman: “for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil” (3:5). By introducing its remarks with “for God knows. . . ,” the snake insinuates dubious purposes behind God’s prohibition. “The clear implication is that God acted out of fear and envy” (Moberly: 7). Desirous of the wisdom the tree would give, the woman takes and eats of its fruit. She then gives some to the man, who evidently was with her during this dialogue with the snake (3:6). Immediately their eyes are opened and they realize their nakedness (3:7). Although several scholars suggest a sexual awakening here (see the review by Westermann: 250–51; also Coote and Ord: 58–59; Gordis: 86–94), the wisdom that the couple unlawfully appropriate for themselves is one that is the sole prerogative of the creator/sustainer God. In recognizing their physical exposure, they also become cognizant of the gulf that separates them and God. They realize their humiliation and vulnerability before God because of their transgression.5 The woman is punished by God according to her “labor” in the social order, in the area where she was created to be a “help” to the man, namely, in the reproduction of offspring: I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. (3:16a)

Syntactically connected with the pains of childbearing6 is God’s statement to the woman in 3:16b that Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

The Hebrew noun for “desire” is found in only two other places in the Hebrew Bible. In Cant 7:11, where the woman speaks of her lover’s desire for her, “desire” has strong sexual connotations. Nevertheless, in the very same terminology as 3:16b, Gen 4:7 describes the desire of sin, lurking at the door, waiting to overcome Cain, a desire that Cain must “rule over.” Based on the meaning of “desire” in Gen 4:7, Foh contends that the woman’s desire in Gen 3:16b refers to her desire to control or possess her husband, challenging his headship (376–83).

5 See 2 Sam 10:4; Isa 20:2–4; 47:2–3, where stripping enemies naked epitomizes their humiliation. For nakedness as a symbol of vulnerability and powerlessness, see Isa 58:7; Ezek 16:4–5, 7; Job 1:21; 22:6; 24:7–10. 6 The conjunction waw links 3:16a with 3:16b. The waw is most frequently rendered “and,” but it can also mean “but,” “yet,” and “for,” depending on context. In this context, I read the waw as the conjunction “and,” which further elaborates on the pains of childbearing that the woman will henceforth undergo.

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Feminists and others have attempted to mitigate the androcentrism present in 3:16b (Meyers: 109–17; Schmitt). However, just as the etiology in 2:23–24 should be read in the context of the political agenda to control sexuality in a nascent monarchy, so should the etiology of 3:16 be read in the broader context of social and familial structures redefined under a monarchy (Wallace: 143–44, 171). We saw that Gen 2:23–24 attempts to subvert patrilineages by emphasizing the nuclear family unit. Genesis 3:16 focuses on the nuclear family unit itself. Besides identifying the primary social role of the woman according to her childbearing functions, 3:16 enforces the woman’s sexual fidelity to her husband. Consistent with the male ideology of honor and shame, a woman’s sexual desire will be directed only toward her legitimate marriage partner, thus guaranteeing the paternity of his children. Moreover, as the king rules over the people, so will the husband rule over his wife in the increased stratification of the Israelite society (Guichard: 67).7 Hierarchical relations between the genders, which were present during the premonarchic period, will be intensified during the new era of the state. If Foh is correct in arguing that “desire” refers to the woman’s attempt to control her husband, a desire to subvert divinely ordained relationships arising from the woman’s disobedience, a symbolic parallel can also be drawn between the peasants’ desire to rebel against the state and the state’s justification in prevailing over them by whatever means. As the woman is punished according to her “labor” in the social world, so too is the man. Utilizing the same word to describe the woman’s pain in childbearing (3:16:
7 The construction mSl + be describes the rule of kings or superiors over their subordinates: 1 Kgs 5:1; Josh 12:2; Neh 9:37; Isa 3:4; 19:4; Dan 11:3–5; Gen 37:8; Deut 15:6; Judg 8:22–23; 9:2; 14:4; 15:11. In arguing for a premonarchic provenance for the text, Meyers states that “it is intriguing to note that, except for the imperial dominion of David and Solomon or the eschatological hope for a similar extent of Judean control, the Israelite kings are never said to ‘rule’ over their people” (115). However, it is my contention that the Davidic/Solomonic monarchy is the institution involved in the very production of this text and its ideology of social and gender relations.

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about which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it. . . . ” (3:17)

The text does not narrate any conversation between the woman and the man when she gives him the fruit (3:6). However, the main point in the divine qualifier is that the man did not listen to God’s voice, which commanded the man not to eat of the fruit (2:17). The notion of Eve as the temptress or seducer of the man away from God’s commandments (and by analogy, the laws of the state) is implied in God’s statement, highlighting her mediation between the “before” and “after” of the man’s existence. Because of the danger she represents (both to her man and to the state), the woman must be brought under the stricter control of her husband (3:16). Just as the man’s first naming of the woman before the fall should be contextualized in the politics of state centralization, so should the man’s second naming of the woman after the fall: “The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (3:20). The woman does not name herself. She is named by the man who defines her identity. His exercise of power categorizes the woman strictly in her reproductive capacities within a larger system of hierarchical relations, of which he himself as peasant is very much a subordinate. The subordinate status of the male peasant vis-à-vis the king becomes most clear in the royal ideology expressed 3:21–22. Genesis 3:21 states that “YHWH, a god, made garments of skin for the man and for his wife, and he clothed them.” Although God’s covering the humans with clothes has been commonly interpreted as an expression of divine grace and compassion, Oden convincingly shows that the act of dressing in its ancient Near Eastern context “is rather a significant symbolic act that firmly distinguishes humans from the divine” (104; see also Wenham: 84–85). Moreover, YHWH, a god, exclaims that “the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (3:22). To prevent the man from seizing more divine prerogatives for himself, YHWH, a god, casts the man (and, presumably, his wife) out of the garden of Eden “to till the ground from which he was taken” (3:23). He places cherubim and a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life, making the chasm between himself and the man complete (3:24). Conclusion The analysis of gender relations in Genesis 2–3 reveals that one must take into consideration class relations in the literary production of the text. In the interests of the monarchy, the Yahwist’s broader project tries to resolve the contradiction of Israel regressing to a tributary mode of production

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(MOP), which it rejected two hundred years previously when it became a tribal confederacy. It explains that the current relationship between the king and his people has its theological origin in the relationship between the divine and the human at the primordial beginning. The ideological subtext of Genesis 2–3 accomplishes several things in service to the monarchy. In the first place, it reveals that “once upon a time” the peasant enjoyed unmediated access to the king as well as liberal privileges bestowed upon him by his benefactor. He was only forbidden court wisdom, which the king required to rule effectively. Secondly, it affirms the nuclear family unit at the expense of the lineage. Within this unit the peasant retains his authority over his wife, whose “help” to him is principally in her role in reproduction. Thirdly, it explains and legitimizes the current symbolic division between the king and the peasant by attributing this great divide to the unlawful appropriation of the knowledge of good and evil by the primeval peasant. The violation of this prohibition is accomplished through his wife’s mediation, thus subjecting her (and peasant women under the monarchy) to more pain in childbearing and greater control by her husband. Now regarded as a rebellious threat to the royal court, the peasant needs to be controlled. In the symbolic act of investiture, the peasant’s lower status is forever marked. He and his wife are banished from the king’s presence, and state apparatuses, represented by the cherubim and sword, enforce the alienation. The man continues to till the ground, as he was created to do, but, because of his transgression, he suffers in this menial labor “by the sweat of his brow” and in the royal extraction of his surpluses. To legitimize royal interests, as well as justify the current lower status of the peasant in the tributary economy, the story shifts the point of conflict from the public arena of class relations between men to the more private domain of household relations between men and women. While stressing the nuclear family and the marital bond in these domestic relations, the story simultaneously subverts lineages and other local power authorities that threaten the state. Moreover, through the introduction of the woman as the “middle semantics” (Jobling, 1986) that mediates the fundamental contradictions in the story, the gender conflict displaces and obscures the very real class conflict. The gender confrontation functions like a symbolic alibi8 for the class interests of the text, which become mystified and concealed through the theological cover of a story about origins and “the fall.” The class struggle is shifted to

8 This is a description that Peña uses of the “treacherous woman” theme found in Mexican folklore, which “symbolically conflates class and gender by shifting the point of conflict from the public domain of the former to the domestic domain of the latter” (31).

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the gender struggle, which is more predisposed to ideological manipulation during the monarchy, given the subordination of women to men even in a familial MOP during the prestate period. The woman becomes responsible for the man’s violation of the single prohibition that the deity had imposed upon him. In the politics of blame, the man, confronted by God with his transgression, diverts the crime to the woman: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate” (3:12). She becomes liable for the theological breach between the man and his God and the political breach between the peasant and his king. Because of her, the man is banished from God’s presence. He is condemned to till the land in suffering, passing on this legacy to the present-day peasant, alienated from his king. In the ideology of the text, the woman pays a big price. Renamed Hawwâ/Eve by her husband, she becomes mother of all living. She can only become mother, however, through suffering. For her role in the man’s transgression, God punishes her by increasing the pain of her childbearing. Her husband will rule over her, just as the king governs the peasant. Because her husband “listened to her voice,” she becomes temptress, seducer, the downfall of men. Moreover, as the history of interpretation of this text will reveal, women are condemned as the “poor banished children of Eve.”

WORKS CONSULTED Bailey, J. A. 1970 “Initiation and the Primal Woman in Gilgamesh and Genesis 2–3.” JBL 89:137–50. Busenitz, Irvin A. 1986 “A Woman’s Desire for Man: Gen 3:16 Reconsidered.” GTJ 7:203–12. Chaney, Marvin 1986 “Systemic Study of the Israelite Monarchy.” Semeia 37:53–76. Clines, David J. A. 1990 “What Does Eve Do to Help? And Other Irredeemably Androcentric Orientations in Genesis 1–3.” Pp. 25–48 in What Does Eve Do to Help? And Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament. Ed. David J. A. Clines. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Cohen, Yehudi A. 1969 “Ends and Means in Political Control: State Organization and the Punishment of Adultery, Incest, and the Violation of Celibacy.” American Anthropologist 71:658–87. Coote, Robert B., and David Robert Ord 1989 The Bible’s First History. Philadelphia: Fortress.

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“What Is the Woman’s Desire?” WJT 37:376–83.

Frymer-Kensky, Tikva 1992 “Deuteronomy.” Pp. 52–62 in The Women’s Bible Commentary. Ed. Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Gardner, Anne E. 1990 “Genesis 2:4b–3: A Mythological Paradigm of Sexual Equality or of the Religious History of Pre-Exilic Israel?” SJT 43:1–18. Gordis, Robert 1936 “The Significance of the Paradise Myth.” AJSL 52:86–94. Gottwald, Norman K. 1986 “The Participation of Free Agrarians in the Introduction of Monarchy to Ancient Israel: An Application of H. A. Landsberger’s Framework for the Analysis of Peasant Movements.” Semeia 37:77–106. 1992

“Sociology (Ancient Israel).” ABD 6:79–89.

1993

“Social Class As an Analytic and Hermeneutical Category in Biblical Studies.” JBL 112:3–22.

Guichard, Jean 1977 “Approche ‘Matérialiste’ du Récit de la Chute: Genèse 3.” Lumière et Vie 26:57–90. Holter, Knut 1990 “The Serpent in Eden As a Symbol of Israel’s Political Enemies: A Yahwistic Criticism of the Solomonic Foreign Policy?” SJOT 1:106–12. Jobling, David 1986 “Myth and Its Limits in Genesis 2.4b–3.24.” Pp. 17–43 in The Sense of Biblical Narrative: Structural Analyses in the Hebrew Bible, vol. 2. Sheffield: JSOT Press. 1991

“Feminism and ‘Mode of Production’ in Ancient Israel: Search for a Method.” Pp. 239–51 in The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Norman K. Gottwald on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Ed. David Jobling, Peggy L. Day, and Gerald T. Sheppard. Cleveland: Pilgrim.

Joines, K. R. 1975 “The Serpent in Genesis 3.” ZAW 87:1–11. Kennedy, James M. 1990 “Peasants in Revolt: Political Allegory in Genesis 2–3.” JSOT 47:3–14. Lanser, Susan S. 1988 “(Feminist) Criticism in the Garden: Inferring Genesis 2–3.” Semeia 41:67–84. Mendenhall, George E. 1974 “The Shady Side of Wisdom: The Date and Purpose of Genesis 3.” Pp. 319–34 in A Light unto My Path. Old Testament Studies in Honor of Jacob M.

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Myers. Ed. Howard N. Bream, Ralph D. Heim, and Carey A. Moore. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Meyers, Carol 1988 Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. New York: Oxford University Press. Mikaelsson, Lisbeth 1980 “Sexual Polarity: An Aspect of the Ideological Structure in the Paradise Narrative, Gen 2,4–3,24.” Temenos 16:84–91. Moberly, R. Walter 1988 “Did the Serpent Get It Right?” JTS 3:1–27. Oden, Robert A., Jr. 1987 The Bible without Theology: The Theological Tradition and Alternatives to It. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Peña, Manuel 1991 “Class, Gender, and Machismo: The ‘Treacherous-Woman’ Folklore of Mexican Male Workers.” Gender and Society 5:30–46. Propp, William H. 1990 “Eden Sketches.” Pp. 189–203 in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters. Ed. William H. Propp, Baruch Halpern, and David Noel Freedman. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Rad, Gerhard von 1972 Genesis: A Commentary. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Westminster. Schmitt, John J. 1991 “Like Eve, Like Adam: mSl in Gen 3,16.” Bib 72:1–22. Soggin, Alberto J. 1975 “The Fall of Man in the Third Chapter of Genesis.” Pp. 88–111 in Old Testament and Oriental Studies. Rome: Biblical Institute Press. Steinberg, Naomi 1991 “The Deuteronomic Law Code and the Politics of State Centralization.” Pp. 161–70 in The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Norman K. Gottwald on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Ed. David Jobling, Peggy L. Day, and Gerald T. Sheppard. Cleveland: Pilgrim. Stordalen, Terje 1992 “Man, Soil, Garden: Basic Plot in Gen 2–3 Reconsidered.” JSOT 53:3–26. Stratton, Beverly J. 1995 Out of Eden: A Feminist, Theological Study of Reading, Rhetoric, and Ideology in Genesis 2–3. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Stuhlman, Louis 1990 “Encroachment in Deuteronomy: Analysis of the Social World of the D Code.” JBL 109:613–32.

192 1992

semeia “Sex and Familial Crimes in the D Code: A Witness to Mores in Transition.” JSOT 53:47–64.

Trible, Phyllis 1978 God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress. Wallace, Howard N. 1985 The Eden Narrative. HSM 32. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Wenham, Gordon J. 1987 Genesis 1–15. WBC 1. Waco, Tex.: Word. Westermann, Claus 1984 Genesis 1–11: A Commentary. Trans. John J. Scullion. Minneapolis: Augsburg. Whitelam, Keith W. 1979 The Just King: Monarchical Judicial Authority in Ancient Israel. JSOTSup 12. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Wittenberg, Günther 1988 “King Solomon and the Theologians.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 63:16–29. Yee, Gale A. 1995 “Ideological Criticism: Judges 17–21 and the Dismembered Body.” Pp. 146–70 in Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies. Ed. Gale A. Yee. Minneapolis: Fortress. 1999

“Ideological Criticism.” Pp. 534–37 in Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation. A-J. Ed. John H. Hayes. Nashville: Abingdon.

Forthcoming

Poor Banished Children of Eve: A Materialist Reading of the Biblical Symbolization of Woman As Evil.

IDEOLOGY, PIERRE BOURDIEU’S DOXA, AND THE HEBREW BIBLE Jacques Berlinerblau Hofstra University

abstract In recent years “ideological criticism” has emerged as a new and important branch of inquiry in Old Testament studies. This essay examines the ways in which biblical scholars have appropriated the concept of ideology and applied it to the Hebrew Bible. It is argued that most of these researchers share certain fundamental assumptions about what ideology is and how ancient writers made use of it. This “voluntaristic conception,” as I call it, stresses the consciousness of the biblical ideologue qua ideologue. It focuses on the ideologue’s deliberate attempt to use his writing as a means of persuading others of the veracity of his group’s world view. As a means of broadening the variety of theoretical options available to ideological critics, this article challenges the fundamental assumptions of the voluntaristic conception. Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of doxa is discussed as one possible alternative for socioliterary analysis of the Hebrew Bible.

For that matter, I should probably not speak of writers having ideologies, but rather of ideologies having writers. —David J.A. Clines

The Voluntaristic Conception of Ideology In this essay I will examine the tacit assumptions that undergird many—though not all—discussions of ideology in contemporary biblical scholarship. For want of a better term, I will refer to this set of assumptions as the voluntaristic conception of ideology.1 The degree to which it appears in the relevant scholarly literature—including the writings of some of the most creative and theoretically informed minds in The Guild of Biblical Studies— is not insubstantial. It is not my intention to demonstrate that this approach

1 The following definition of this widely used term will suit our purposes: “In its crudest form voluntarism means that all social phenomena are directly traceable to the deliberate decisions of human beings” (Fichter: 750; also see Leftow).

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is “wrong.” It undoubtedly provides a useful optic for the sociological study of the Hebrew Bible, but not the only optic. By articulating the presuppositions of the voluntaristic conception and then drawing them into wider theoretical discussions, I hope to broaden the range of options available to those who engage in ideological criticism of ancient documents.2 As a means of identifying one possible alternative to this prevailing approach, I will attempt to transpose Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of doxa into the key of socioliterary analysis. The Voluntaristic Conception in Biblical Scholarship At the risk of homogenizing and oversimplifying the research of an intellectually heterogenous assortment of scholars, I will outline the major assumptions of the voluntaristic conception. To begin, the authors of the Hebrew Bible are said to be in possession of an ideology—one that is often referred to as Yahwist, patriarchal, and/or elitist.3 Enfolded within this view is an epistemological assumption about ancient writers. The biblical literati, it is implied, intentionally constructed and promulgated this ideology. Accordingly, they recognized what they were up to; they set out to produce ideology, to persuade others, and this they did consciously. I label this conception “voluntaristic” because it views various biblical authors as purposefully articulating a conception of the world, one predicated upon an accurate accounting of their own interests. These interests are thus envisioned as transparent to consciousness, capable of being assessed, understood, and made the object of discourse and social action. Some build upon these premises by suggesting that the ancient writers tried to conceal their ideology from the world. They craftily smuggled their agenda into the text—all the better to impose it upon their (seemingly) unsuspecting readership. Sometimes, the voluntaristic conception takes a political turn. A connection is made between ancient intellectuals on the one hand, and institutions of this-worldly power on the other. The authors of the Hebrew Bible thus appear as the literary appendage of a dominant group or

2 In this essay I will refrain from any analysis of the modern biblical reader’s and translator’s relation to ideology. For interesting attempts to theorize this relation, see The Bible and Culture Collective’s chapters on “Ideological Criticism” and “Reader-Response Criticism.” For my own views on The Collective’s insistence that “ideological criticism is to be seen as a resistant act, a positive, ethical response” (277; see also Yee: 116; Fewell and Gunn: 13; Gunn and Fewell: 205) and their repeated calls for ideological self-confession (280–81), see Berlinerblau, 1999a:17–20, 188–95 (see also Carroll, 1998). As for the ideology of the professional biblical translator, see the analyses of Carroll (1993, 1994) and Clines. 3 Fowl forcefully challenges the notion that texts have ideologies.

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class. Their task was to disseminate certain truths about the world; the biblical scroll was their medium.4 A wide variety of biblical scholars—often emanating from unrelated or even mutually antagonistic schools of thought—work with one or more of these assumptions. “The Bible,” writes Gale Yee, “was not written to be an object of aesthetic beauty or contemplation, but as a persuasive force forming opinion, making judgments, and exerting change. It was a form of power acting upon the world” (116, and see 112). David Penchansky opines: “The sins of the Deuteronomist are exactly my own sins. I too put forth a template, a reading strategy, and seek through persuasion to influence others to read texts my way” (40). In his study of royal ideology, Keith Whitelam remarks: “A feature of this psalm [72] in the context of the functioning of royal ideology needs to stress clearly that it provides an extremely powerful justification for the role of the state embodied in the king. . . . The promise of the defeat of the king’s enemies, represented as the powers of chaos . . . provides a powerful warning to those who would usurp the throne” (132; also see Laato; Brettler, 1989, 1995:91–111). Norman Habel claims: “A biblical ideology . . . is a complex and contested set of ideas, values, symbols, and aspirations being promoted with social and political force in a given literary complex to persuade the implied audience within that text of the truth of a given ideology” (11; also see 5, 10, 12). Philip Davies speaks of the “biblical ‘Israel’ which the literate parts of that society [Second Temple period Palestine] created as an ideological construct” (15). In a truly formidable work of interdisciplinarity, Meir Sternberg offers the following definition: “Ideology would above all establish a world view and, if militant, a consensus. It accordingly presses for transparent representation that will . . . bring the world into the appropriate doctrinal pattern, schematized in equal disregard for the intractability of historical fact and the ordering niceties of art” (44). Later, he says of the biblical narrator: “His persuasion is not only geared to an ideology but also designed to vindicate and inculcate it” (482). Below, we shall revisit Sternberg’s discussions of this “artful ideologist” (38). Norman Gottwald’s analysis of ideology in his 1979 The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 B.C.E. is firmly

4 Elsewhere, I have called into question the oft-encountered association between the authors of the Hebrew Bible and institutions of this-worldly power (1999b). The political variant of the voluntaristic conception can be compared to what Geertz once called “the interest theory” of ideology, which roots “cultural idea-systems in the social ground of social structure, through emphasis on the motivations of those who profess such systems and on the dependence of those motivations in turn upon social position, most especially social class” (52).

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grounded in classical Marxist theory.5 His recent writings (1992b, 1993; and see Milbank), however, are greatly influenced by contemporary Marxist literary critics such as Terry Eagleton and Fredric Jameson. What emerges are distinct, albeit imbricated, assumptions about ideology in ancient Israel. Gottwald’s complex analyses certainly merit far greater attention than they can receive here. For now, I wish only to delineate a few of his basic assumptions, mostly culled from his magnum opus. In The Tribes of Yahweh he defines ideology as: The consensual religious ideas which were structurally embedded in and functionally correlated to other social phenomena within the larger social system, and which served, in a more or less comprehensive manner, to provide explanations or interpretations of the distinctive social relations and historical experience of Israel and also to define and energize the Israelite social system oppositionally or polemically over against other social systems. (1979:66; italics in original)

Consciousness is a crucial variable in this reconstruction of emergent Israel. Gottwald refers to the latter as “a conscious, organized, broad-scale social egalitarian movement” (1979:489). Using Marx’s pointed term he describes Yahwistic Israel as “a class for itself” (1979:489). He points to its “consciousness of struggle . . . crystallized in the ideology of Yahwism” (1979:647; also see 77, 123, 702; 1983:19, 1992a:83) and speaks of proto-Israelites as “socially uprooted people seeking ideological roots for newly designed, comprehensive and cooperative intergroup relations” (1979:337). “Yahwistic religion,” he avers, “was the praxis and ideology of an actual social community” (1979:700). The ideological consciousness of emergent Israel finds a counterpart in statist Canaan, whose own ideology was a stanchion for “socioeconomic and political oppression” (1979:587). In later times the prophets advance a “counter-ideological attack on the abusive and corrupt leadership”of their own society (1996:147). For Gottwald, then, different ideologies coexist and compete (also see 1983:7). Regrettably, this mercilessly pared down version of this major writer’s work will have to suffice for now.6 The same injustice will be visited upon the immensely engrossing Robert Carroll. Throughout his writings he has experimented with a variety

5 For a much more detailed analysis of Gottwald’s conception of ideology as well as a discussion of his use of Parsonian systems theory, see Berlinerblau (forthcoming). 6 Elsewhere (and greatly reminiscent of Weber’s Ancient Judaism) there are references to the Levitical priesthood as an “organizational cadre of leadership” (1979:490), which plays a central role in the ideological process (also see 1992b:55). Yet even with his emphasis on consciousness, Gottwald is still well aware of the antivoluntaristic approaches to be discussed below. Further, he does discuss religion and ideology as “refraction,” “mystification,” or “camera obscura” (1979:28, 640-41, 648, 707; and see 1996:137-38). I am not sure how to reconcile these approaches. On Gottwald and ideology, see Jobling (1987).

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of approaches and strategies, showing himself to be one of the most thoughtful, theoretically nuanced, and supple biblical ideological critics. While Carroll is acutely aware of the types of alternative readings of ideology that I shall discuss below, more often than not he advances something akin to the voluntaristic conception. Repeatedly, and responsibly, reminding us to view his conclusions cautiously, he writes: “I suspect . . . that we should read the story of Jeremiah the landowner as a textual strategy helping to enforce the ideological claim to land on the part of those who could trace or claim association with Babylonian Jews” (1991:115; see also 1996:26, 30). Elsewhere he comments: “Such ideology can be extraordinarily rich in complexity and possibility, but it still represents a point of view maintained by a power group over the rest of the community” (1996:25). In another essay he remarks: “The Hebrew Bible comes to us as a collection of documents shaped by partisan, pro-Babylonian Jewish community ideological bias” (1997:310). And one last example: “Canons reflect the powerful ideologies of the canonizers” (1997:318; also see 1981:17).7 In her important study of “political and ideological aspects of female characterization in the biblical narrative” (69), Esther Fuchs makes a variety of intriguing observations pertaining to Genesis 31. Later I shall return to, and try to reinterpret, one of her findings. For now, the following quote is helpful in highlighting the epistemological assumption discussed above: Because menstruation is unique to women, it should come as no surprise that patriarchal ideology should attempt to associate it with both deception and idolatry. . . . if patriarchal politics cannot deny the existence of menstruation and its undeniable link to fertility and procreation, it can degrade it by defining it as impure and by legislating a series of laws to contain it. Similarly, if patriarchal politics cannot deny woman’s ability to think and speak, it can contain, or warp, the relationship of women and language by minimizing and constricting female dialogue and by implying that it is metaphorically impure, or, deceptive. (80; emphasis mine)

As for the furtive nature of biblical ideology, Danna Fewell and David Gunn quote Michel Foucault’s remark that: “Power is tolerable only on

7 Unlike most others in the guild, Carroll is very deliberate in pointing out that he prefers to work with what I call the voluntaristic conception (1990:309). Elsewhere (1994) he hints at another variable in ideological analysis: language. “What representation does is to choose a mode of discourse in which to tell a story, creating or shaping it by means of tropes and images employed. The story is not a list of facts strung together, but a highly and creatively shaped account constructed out of linguistic elements which carry specific charges determined by the language used” (1994:12). Here he seems to lighten the voluntaristic load somewhat on the biblical author, insinuating that language itself provides premade ideological optics through which the ideologue may glance.

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condition that it mask a substantial part of itself. Its success is proportional to its ability to hide its own mechanisms.” To this they add: “Biblical patriarchy has mastered this rule” (12). Robert Carroll invokes the theme of authorial stealth when he remarks: “As ideological literature the Hebrew Bible conceals or renders invisible as much as it makes apparent or represents” (1997:310; also see Gottwald 1992b:50, 1993:221). And while Meir Sternberg deploys a far less suspicious hermeneutic in his discussions of biblical narrative, he too is quick to point to the author’s “trickiness” or the “cunning route” he takes when trying to persuade his readers (492, 351). The Voluntaristic Conception and Its Others The fundamental theoretical components of the voluntaristic conception are: (1) the existence of (usually dominant) groups or classes across Judahite and/or Israelite time and space who, (2) conscious of their own political and theological interests, (3) formulated an ideology to express these interests (4) and sought to persuade others by inscribing them (overtly or covertly) in this or that biblical text. Since most discussions of ideology in biblical scholarship are undertheorized, or not theorized at all, it is difficult to identify the voluntaristic conception’s affinities with canonical works of social theory.8 With its implication of literary ideologues trying to convince others of their Yahwist, patriarchal, or class truths, it is vaguely reminiscent of the more agency-oriented positions of V. I. Lenin and Antonio Gramsci. For each writer, ideology can be a weapon, one that a class wields consciously against other classes who may themselves be in possession of their own ideologies (Salamini: 366, 369; Lenin: 37–42). In What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of our Movement, Lenin makes much of the “conscious element” and “political consciousness” (39, 37; and see Carlsnaes: 121). In Gramsci’s thought, intellectuals play a central role in articulating, promulgating, but most of all organizing the ideological imperatives of the hegemonic coalition (Gramsci: 5–23). As Thomas Bates notes: “The intellectuals succeed in creating hegemony to the extent that they extend the world view of the rulers to the ruled, and thereby secure the ‘free’ consent of the masses to the law and order of the land” (353; also see Femia: 35; Salamini: 378; Fontana: 25–34). Gramsci’s intellectuals, then, give form to a conception of the world in accord with their class interests and seek to persuade other groups of its salience.9

8 Thus Harris, Brueggemann, Japhet, Gorman, and Pippin and Aichele all refer to ideology in their titles but offer little or no discussion of the term. 9 On Gramsci’s voluntarism, see Femia (35–48).

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Be that as it may, in its currently undertheorized state, “ideology” in Hebrew Bible research tends to shed its theoretical brawn and to wither into a somewhat less freighted term: “propaganda.” In his Propaganda and Subversion in the Old Testament, Rex Mason defines “propaganda” as: “The presentation of material so as to express a particular belief or set of beliefs in such a way as to command assent to it from those to whom it is addressed” (170). Let there be no doubt: there is propaganda in the Hebrew Bible, especially of the Yahwist variety (see Carroll, 1995:29). But any attempt to make an analogous claim about ideology must confront the awesome word-andthought defying ambiguities inherent in the term.10 “Ideology,” Jorge Larrain cautions, is “perhaps one of the most equivocal and elusive concepts one can find in the social sciences” (1979:13). This state of affairs may be attributed, in large part, to the fact that the foundational text for the study of this issue, Marx and Engels’s The German Ideology, is problematic in the extreme (Barrett: 3, 46; also see Williams; Larrain, 1983; Abercrombie, Hill, and Turner: 7–11; Boudon: 19, 34–52; Ricoeur: 68–102). Not surprisingly, there exist “a startling variety of interpretations of what Marx actually thought on this subject” (Barrett: 3). Complicating matters immensely is the fact that many major social theorists, be they Marxist or non-Marxist, have developed their own idiosyncratic explanations of ideology. As Raymond Boudon observes, “The impression is that the same word is used to describe a multitude of phenomena rather than a single one, that theories of ideology are at odds on something they define differently, and that the large corpus which they constitute seems therefore like a dialogue of the deaf” (17; also see Eagleton, 1991:31). Bearing this in mind, I advise biblical ideological critics to follow the lead of Norman Gottwald (1996), Robert Carroll (1990), K. Lawson Younger Jr. (47–52), and David Clines (9–25). These writers devote sustained attention to the many possible readings of the term. Had the biblical researchers discussed in the preceding section employed the word propaganda, as opposed to ideology, I could find myself agreeing with many of their claims. Yet it seems to me that the very ambiguity of the term ideology has served to generate a variety of extremely fruitful theoretical possibilities in a manner that propaganda has not. For now, I want to explore some of these possibilities by demonstrating that two central contentions of the voluntaristic conception (i.e., points 2 and 3 above) have been, and can be, approached differently by theorists of ideology.

10 Brettler (1995:13–14) notes the overlap between these two terms. He defines propaganda as “the methods used to disseminate and foster” ideology, the latter defined as “a specific type of sets of beliefs.” For reasons that will become apparent momentarily, I do not think that the association of these two terms is helpful.

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In the voluntaristic conception the ideologue is conscious of his or her ideological production. Without engaging a host of thorny epistemological questions, I submit that one could derive an entirely different understanding of the ideologue’s consciousness after reading, for example, The German Ideology. There, ideology is referred to as an “illusion” (40, 43), “the illusion of that epoch” (30), and a “camera obscura” (14). Michèle Barrett parses Marx’s conception into the following equation: “ideology = mystification serving class interests” (167). Louis Althusser reads it as “an imaginary assemblage (bricolage), a pure dream, empty and vain” (1971:160). Boudon, arguing that Marx and Engels maintained two distinct positions within one text (41, 52), writes of the first, or “irrationalist,” approach: “People unknowingly adhere to false ideas because they are impelled by unconscious forces outside their control which make them slaves either to their own interests (if they belong to the ruling class) or to the interests of the ruling class (if they belong to the underclass)” (36). The point here is not to arrive at some type of verdict as to what Marx really meant (an unenviable task taken up with great wisdom and patience by Paul Ricoeur). Instead, I only maintain that there is theoretical precedent for prying apart the voluntaristic conception’s persistent coupling of ideology and consciousness. For a Marxist theorist such as Althusser, for example, ideology is precisely what is not transparent to the agent’s consciousness. “A philosopher,” he states, “thinks in it [i.e., ideology] rather than thinking of it.” He continues: “An ideology is already unconscious of its ‘theoretical presuppositions’” (1993:69). Ricoeur analyzed Althusser’s position as follows: “Ideology is unconscious in the sense that it is not mastered by consciousness or selfconsciousness” (120). Or, as Larrain puts it: “Men ‘practise’ their ideology but do not know it. Ideology is ‘profoundly unconscious’ and surpasses the way in which it is ‘lived’ by particular individuals” (1979:155; also see Barrett: 37, 109). As is well known, Fredric Jameson—a major influence on biblical ideological criticism—would speak of the political unconscious (1981).11 Suddenly, we see versions of ideology in which consciousness cannot be seen as transparent, as cognizant of its own political interests. This brings us to a second questionable component of the voluntaristic conception. The view I have been criticizing contends that ideology “belongs” to a particular group or social class. Again, a defensible proposition. But

11 Jameson describes the following situation as a “mirage”: “the vision of a moment in which the individual subject would be somehow fully conscious of his or her determination by class and would be able to square the circle of ideological conditioning by sheer lucidity and the taking of thought” (1981:283). Jameson’s influence on biblical ideological criticism has been noted (Briggs: 16; The Bible and Culture Collective: 273; and see Jameson’s interview with biblical scholars, 1992). In most cases, however, the problematic of consciousness or the political unconscious is not forcefully engaged, though see the interesting discussions of Boer, Jobling (1991), and Beal.

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another plausible reading of Marx and Engels suggests that ideologies are not possessions but possessors and, more importantly, not in possession of one class, but of entire social formations. Ideology is, after all, described as “the illusion of that epoch.” In my view, the illusion of an epoch is not necessarily synonymous with the illusion of the feudal aristocracy. In other words, ideology could be what all agents within a social body share. The ruling class, it is true, “regulate[s] the production and distribution of the ideas of their age” (Marx and Engels: 39). Nevertheless, theirs is an illusion that mystifies those who are not members of the ruling class as well. The Doxa of Scripture Doxa The preceding remarks are not intended—and are not sufficiently substantive—to invalidate the voluntaristic conception. Instead, they permit us to open up some theoretical space—to envision different approaches to socioliterary analysis of the Hebrew Bible. Pierre Bourdieu’s remarks on doxa do not constitute a theory of ideology per se. They do, however, contain affinities with the two alternative assumptions discussed above. In Outline of a Theory of Practice Bourdieu argues that within any field there will exist competing heterodox and orthodox opinions. But underneath these surface contentions—acrimonious as they might be—there exists an unstated and unrecognized domain of agreement. For Bourdieu, orthodoxy and heterodoxy exist in “the universe of discourse (or argument),” while doxa resides in “the universe of the undiscussed” (1992:168). Yet even though doxic beliefs are outside the realm of discourse, they are nevertheless “known” by agents. Or, as Loïc Wacquant describes it, they comprise “a realm of implicit and unstated beliefs . . . which govern their practices and representations” without the agents even realizing it (185). Discussions of doxa are scattered throughout Bourdieu’s work, usually ensconced in broader discussions of habitus and field. In his many asides on the topic, Bourdieu offers the following descriptions: “the pre-verbal takingfor-granted of the world that flows from practical sense” (1990:68); “fundamental acceptance of the established order situated outside the reach of critique” (Bourdieu and Wacquant: 247; also see 73–74); “the world of tradition experienced as a ‘natural world’ and taken for granted” (Bourdieu, 1992:164, 166); “presuppositions—doxa—of the game” (Bourdieu, 1990:66); “unthought assumptions” (Bourdieu, 1981:279); “ensemble de croyances fondamentales qui n’ont même pas besoin de s’affirmer sous la forme d’un dogme explicite et conscient de lui-même” (“the ensemble of fundamental beliefs, which do not even need to express themselves through the form of an explicit dogma, conscious of itself”; Bourdieu, 1997:26): “an adherence to

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relations of order which, because they structure inseparably both the real world and the thought world, are accepted as self-evident” (Bourdieu, 1984:471; also see 1983:6; Bourdieu and Passeron: 162; Calhoun: 56, 151). To this point we see that doxa is what agents immediately know, but do not know that they know. Or, as Bourdieu cleverly expresses this idea, it “goes without saying because it comes without saying” (1992:167). Moreover, these unrecognized or doxic beliefs are shared by all members of a field. Here there is unanimity, or what is referred to as “an unquestioned and unified cultural ‘tradition’ ” (Bourdieu and Wacquant: 248 n. 45; and see Bourdieu 1998:67, 1982:156, 1997:22, 123). Beate Krais notes: “Every mode of domination, even if it uses physical violence, presupposes a doxic order shared by the dominated and the dominants” (169). The question one might legitimately ask is: where does doxa come from? Bourdieu addresses this query with some clarity in Practical Reason: “Doxa is a particular point of view, the point of view of the dominant, which presents and imposes itself as a universal point of view—the point of view of those who dominate by dominating the state and who have constituted their point of view as universal by constituting the state” (1998:57). This elliptical remark would seem to indicate that doxic beliefs, although shared by all, are themselves produced and reproduced by the dominant class. What is odd, however, is that this group never deliberately planted them in a given field’s epistemological soil. Doxic assumptions, then, are a sort of unseen and unintended support for the rule of the dominant.12 For now let us summarize and draw comparisons. The fundamental theoretical components of the doxic approach to the Hebrew Bible are: (1) the existence of dominant groups or classes across Judahite and/or Israelite time and space who, (2) sharing certain unrecognized, tacit assumptions about the world with (3) all other synchronous, nondominant Judahite and/or Israelite groups and classes, (4) unknowingly inscribed these assumptions in this or that biblical text, and hence (5) unintentionally solidified their own dominant position (which they exerted great efforts to solidify through intentional efforts as well). Point three is crucial. Doxa refers to paradiscursive assumptions held by all synchronous Judahites and Israelites.13 To identify (what I call) the doxa of scripture, then, is not the same as identifying (what the voluntaristic conception calls) the ideology of

12 That this surmise resembles, in a few respects, the formula “ideology = mystification serving class interests” is an issue to be engaged elsewhere. 13 Admittedly, I have done some violence to Bourdieu’s scheme. For him, doxa binds together the members of a field. I have broadened the doxic base to include all of those Israelites and Judahites sharing time and space. I am thus shading doxa into the realm of what are known as “mentalities” (see Vovelle: 1–12; Hutton; Chartier).

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scripture. Doxa is what everyone in a social body “knows.” Ideology (or propaganda, as I label it), as the voluntaristic conception conceives it, is what one group or class knows and wants others to know as well. Since doxic beliefs are unrecognized beliefs, they motivate the “ideologue” to action without him or her actually being aware of it. As such, doxa cannot be deployed (as can propaganda), because it cannot be held or comprehended by the agent. The voluntaristic conception works from the premise of the ideologue’s consciousness, the doxic approach from the ideologue’s unconsciousness—or unawareness, or misrecognition—of those social factors that are stimulants to thought and action. The former argues that the literati concealed their agenda, the latter that this very agenda was concealed from the literati themselves. Both approaches, however, share the assumption that dominant classes or groups are the fount of literary production. Applications, Possibilities, Problems I have yet to see a biblical scholar work with all of the five doxic assumptions enumerated above. And perhaps this is a good thing. Momentarily, it will be noted that the scheme is not without its own difficulties. If any type of doxic initiative has surfaced in Old Testament research, it would center around the surmise that the Hebrew Bible, to paraphrase Michael Polanyi, knows more that it can tell. In his Interested Parties David Clines writes: “Since ideologies are, in my opinion, very often simply assumed, even without their adherents even knowing quite what they are assuming, it is my purpose in this book to do a lot of uncovering of ideologies” (12; see also 103). In his analysis of Amos, for example, Clines remarks: “It is an essential element in the text’s ideology that sin should be punished” (90). What is doxic (in the sense of point number 2 above) about Clines’s approach is that he looks, not at what the text explicitly articulates, but what it takes as a given. In the same spirit, I would add that as far as the author of the “oracle against the nations” (Amos 1:3–2:16) is concerned, when God punishes he punishes collectively. In the first moment of a doxic reading we do not concern ourselves as to whether the Ammonites really were cruel murderers (1:13), whether Tyre really deserved to be destroyed (1:9–10), or what have you. These are explicit statements—what the literati know and want us to know, propaganda. What is presupposed, however, is that all eight sociopolitical entities mentioned in the oracle are to be destroyed in their entirety; divine retribution is aimed at everyone within a social unit. For now, let us speculate that the author/s of this text simply “knew” that God’s retribution is collective—no one is spared. Going a bit further, we might propose that what they really “knew,” what went without saying in their times, was that human groups settled their scores collectively.

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A somewhat similar point was made in David Daube’s 1947 Studies in Biblical Law. In discussing Abraham’s negotiation with God in the Sodom episode of Genesis 18–19, Daube makes a crucial observation that I shall quote at length: Whereupon he [Abraham] replied [to God]: Preserve them—there may be a few good men. This was proposing the simplest alternative. Was it? Was the pardoning of all really the most plausible course when the punishing of all appeared unwarranted? Yes, it was, if one assumption continued to be made . . . the assumption that, for better or for worse, a community must be treated as a whole, no discrimination between its various members being possible. Abraham continued to make this assumption. . . . Probably, communal thinking was so deeprooted that Abraham could think in no other way; the method of judging a city as one unit so unreservedly accepted that he never questioned it as such. . . . While he expressed horror at the idea that “the righteous should be as the wicked,” his own proposal implied neither more nor less than that the wicked should be as the righteous. (156–57; emphasis mine)

If we substitute “the biblical author” for Daube’s “Abraham,” we seem to be veering in the direction of doxic readings. In the article by Esther Fuchs cited earlier, she observes: “There is a difference between the representation of male and female deceptiveness, a difference directly related to biblical patriarchal politics” (70). Her very close reading of the text reveals subtle discrepancies in the author’s treatment of male and female protagonists. Instead of directly reprimanding Rachel, he suspends judgment on her, leading to “a paleosymbolic association of femininity and deceptiveness” (70). The writer also fails to give her story—as opposed to Jacob’s and Laban’s—closure. This, Fuchs suggests, means that “in the case of women, deception is not a problem requiring punishment or reformation.” In addition, he fails to provide explicit indices of Rachel’s motivations—as he did for the male characters—making it “difficult for the reader to exonerate the female deceiver” (70). Fuchs’s analysis embraces nearly every single tenet of the voluntaristic conception and its political variant. The narrative discrepancies mentioned above are the vehicle through which the author gives vent to his patriarchal ideology. Instead of using more straightforward tools of slander to denigrate women, he cunningly deploys nearly imperceptible literary stratagems in order to get his patriarchal point across. He subtly manipulates the narrative to make different demands upon his male and female characters. He therefore uses his story as a means of gently ushering the reader to certain unflattering “truths” about the nature of Rachel (and hence all women). But why would the narrator resort to such cryptic narrative encoding? In a patriarchal society, what would constrain him from unambiguously

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expressing his patriarchal propaganda? Let us view the same data through a doxic filter. The author unknowingly depicts men and women differently. Without intent he skews his narrative so that he poses different questions of his male and female protagonists. He cannot help but associate menstruation with deception; of this degrading and sexist link he is unaware. But a sensitive critic such as Fuchs, standing a few thousand years away, can see it with abundant clarity. His assumptions about women are paradiscursive; they have been unintentionally put in their doxic place by a society that we recognize as patriarchal. As such, they served as an unintended and invisible truss of a system of patriarchal domination, albeit one that did not recognize itself as such. The voluntaristic conception and the doxic approach are not necessarily mutually exclusive strategies. Instead, they should be seen as two “moments” of socioliterary analysis. In the first, we look for explicit information, what the literati wanted us to know. Mason’s definition of propaganda strikes me as a plausible means of categorizing such data, and it roughly corresponds to what most biblical scholars have in mind when they speak of ideology. In the second moment, we plumb the sediment of the text for those things the authors did not “know” that they knew. It should be stressed that such information is often of the most banal variety. For example, I have suggested (1996:48–65) that biblical writers simply “knew” that vows were made by individuals, as opposed to groups. In and of itself, this discovery is not likely to elicit cries of “stop the presses!” However, when strung together with other banal tacit assumptions, and then compared with explicit ones, it is conceivable that certain intriguing patterns may emerge. But I do not wish to foster the impression that the inchoate method adumbrated above is unproblematic. Leaving a discussion of its internal theoretical defects for another forum, doxic readings are hampered by many of the limitations that afflict the voluntaristic approach. The Hebrew Bible was written, rewritten, cut-and-pasted, canonized, recanonized over a millennia. Thus, when we identify the doxa of collective punishment in Amos we cannot really be certain that this is an assumption from the prophet’s time. The effects of redaction and textual tampering may have resulted in a composite text and thus a series of completely distinct doxic assumptions poured into the prophet’s mouth from various times and places. Both approaches are also paralyzed by the paucity of written materials at our disposal. How do we know that what strikes us as a tacit assumption of the book of Joshua was not the explicit subject of a lengthy disquisition in the missing Book of the Wars of the Lord mentioned in Num 21:14–15? Finally, and uniquely vexing for the doxic approach, there is the nettlesome question of how we actually define an assumption. In forthcoming research we will have to distinguish between: (1) propaganda (what the biblical author knew and wanted his or her listeners to know as well), (2) doxic

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assumptions (what the biblical author “knew” but did not know that s/he knew), and (3) those things that the ancient writers did not know at all, but nevertheless impacted upon their writings.14 Finally, we must take into consideration our own helplessness in the face of doxa. We bring our own doxic assumptions to bear on the text, and according to Bourdieu’s theory it would be very difficult for us to recognize these.15 Conclusion Robert Carroll certainly identified an authentic intellectual fault line when he remarked that: “Between these two markers of politics and poetics, ideological study of the Hebrew Bible is likely to develop over the next few decades” (1990:310). That those standing on either side of the divide often occupy similar epistemological ground has been one of the major contentions of this article. It was argued that voluntaristic assumptions are currently the unrecognized theoretical hallmark of most biblical ideological criticism. Extreme proponents of “politics” incline to see a verse, or chapter, or narrative gap, or canon, as—to borrow a line from Terry Eagleton—“nothing but ideology” (1976:17). Here the consciousness of the ancient writer is a political consciousness, singularly bent on furthering its group’s interests. As much as this approach may disturb some proponents of poetics, they nevertheless share nearly identical suppositions about the relation between ideology and consciousness. Meir Sternberg clearly rejects the “nothing but ideology” view. He proposes, sensibly I think, that “Biblical narrative . . . is regulated by a set of three principles: ideological, historiographic and aesthetic” (41; see also Alter, 1992:44–45). Yet in developing this thesis his analysis becomes subjectivist in the extreme. “The very choice to devise an omniscient narrator,” Sternberg affirms, “serves the purpose of staging and glorifying an omniscient God” (89; and see Alter, 1981:25, 33). Having understood that a new, omnipotent, and omniscient God needs a new, omniscient narrative voice, the biblical author swings into action. The artful ideologue so brilliantly envisioned in The Poetics of Biblical Narrative might as well be described as omnipotent himself. As Sternberg describes him (or perhaps I should say Him), he is a writer who is cognizant of everything, who seamlessly weaves together ideology, history, and aesthetics, who retains a boundless capacity to finesse narratives as a means of winning

14 Of this last level I think of the young Georg Lukács’s remark that: “The essence of scientific Marxism consists . . . in the realisation that the real motor forces of history are independent of man’s (psychological) consciousness of them” (47). 15 Again proving the veracity of Carroll’s view of Ideologiekritik as “a double scrutiny, of text and reception—of writer and commentator” (1995:28).

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over the reader, who comprehends epistemological revolutions as they are happening and dutifully transcribes them into suitable literary form (also see Alter, 1992:83–84). This is the apotheosis of the biblical author. Unrestrained voluntarism of this sort is not a view that a student of ideology, or more broadly, social theory, could countenance without taking some pause. In The Philosophy of History, G. W. F. Hegel referred to “a hidden, most profoundly hidden, unconscious instinct” existing within “the whole process of History” (25). He continues: “In a simple act, something further may be implicated than lies in the intention and consciousness of the agent” (28). That human beings are unaware of the true determinants of their thought and action is a surmise whose innumerable variants have run like a thread throughout the history of social theory, coiling in and out of Marxist and non-Marxist schools of thought. In another contribution, I will try to trace the genealogy of Hegel’s claim and track down its manifold incarnations in the history of social theory. For now I submit that the voluntaristic conception affords us little opportunity to confront this rich theoretical tradition. With its extremely undersocialized and hyper-subjectivist view of the agent it turns our attention away from the study of unconscious influences upon the narrator, interest-based illusions, and social or cultural factors that impose constraints upon one’s capacity to make sense of the social. Let this not be construed as a call for a rigid methodological determinism as much as it is a plea for more biblical scholars to engage theories of ideology in all of their glorious complexity.16

16 On the merits and demerits of determinist and subjectivist theoretical traditions and particularly the need to explode this “Antinomy of Social Physics and Social Phenomenology,” see, for example, Bourdieu (1990:30–51); Bourdieu and Wacquant (7–12).

WORKS CONSULTED Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill, and Bryan Turner 1980 The Dominant Ideology Thesis. London: Allen & Unwin. Alter, Robert 1981 The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic Books. 1992

The World of Biblical Literature. New York: Basic Books.

Althusser, Louis 1971 Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Trans. B. Brewster. New York: Monthly Review. 1993

For Marx. Trans. B. Brewster. London: Verso.

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Barrett, Michèle 1991 The Politics of Truth: From Marx to Foucault. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bates, Thomas 1975 “Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony.” Journal of the History of Ideas 36:351–66. Beal, Timothy 1992 “Ideology and Intertextuality: Surplus of Meaning and Controlling the Means of Production.” Pp. 27–39 in Reading between Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible. Ed. D. N. Fewell. Louisville: Westminister. Berlinerblau, Jacques 1996 The Vow and the ‘Popular Religious Groups’ of Ancient Israel: A Philological and Sociological Inquiry. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. 1999a

Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

1999b

“Preliminary Remarks for the Sociological Study of Israelite ‘Official Religion.’ ” Pp. 153–70 in Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine. Ed. R. Chazan, W. W. Hallo, and L. Schiffman. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.

Forthcoming

“The Delicate Flower of Biblical Sociology.” In The Tribes of Yahweh, Twenty Years On. Ed. R. Boer. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

The Bible and Cultural Collective 1995 The Postmodern Bible. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Boer, Roland 1996 Jameson and Jeroboam. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Boudon, Raymond 1989 The Analysis of Ideology. Trans. Malcolm Slater. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bourdieu, Pierre 1981 “The Specificity of the Scientific Field.” Pp 257–92 in French Sociology: Rupture and Renewal since 1968. Ed. C. Lemert. New York: Columbia University Press. 1982

Ce que parler veut dire: L’économie des échanges linguistiques. Paris: Fayard.

1983

“The Philosophical Institution.” Pp. 1–8 in Philosophy in France Today. Ed. A. Montefiore. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1984

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. R. Nice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

1990

The Logic of Practice. Trans. R. Nice. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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1992

Outline of a Theory of Practice. Trans. R. Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1997

Méditations pascaliennes. Paris: Seuil.

1998

Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre, and J. C. Passeron 1967 “Sociology and Philosophy in France since 1945: Death and Resurrection of a Philosophy without Subject.” Social Research 34:162–212. Bourdieu, Pierre, and L. J. D. Wacquant 1992 An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Brettler, Marc 1989 “Ideology, History and Theology in 2 Kings XVII 7–23.” VT 39:268–82. 1995

The Creation of History in Ancient Israel. London: Routledge.

Briggs, Sheila 1992 “The Deceit of the Sublime: An Investigation into the Origins of Ideological Criticism of the Bible in Early Nineteenth-Century German Biblical Studies.” Semeia 59:1–23. Brueggemann, Walter 1988 Israel’s Praise: Doxology against Idolatry and Ideology. Philadelphia: Fortress. Calhoun, Craig 1996 Critical Social Theory: Culture, History, and the Challenge of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell. Carlsnaes, Walter 1981 The Concept of Ideology and Political Analysis: A Critical Examination of Its Usage by Marx, Lenin, and Mannheim. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood. Carroll, Robert 1981 From Chaos to Covenant: Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah. New York: Crossroad. 1990

“Ideology.” Pp. 309–11 in A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation. Ed. R. J. Coggins and J. L. Houlden. London: SCM.

1991

“Textual Strategies and Ideology in the Second Temple Period.” Pp. 108–24 in Second Temple Studies 1: Persian Period. JSOTSup 117. Ed. P. R. Davies. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

1992

“The Myth of the Empty Land.” Semeia 59:79–93.

1993

“As Seeing the Invisible: Ideology in Bible Translation.” JNWSL 19:79–93.

1994

“On Representation in the Bible: An Ideologiekritik Approach.” JNWSL 20:1–15.

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1995

“An Infinity of Traces: On Making an Inventory of Our Ideological Holdings. An Introduction to Ideologiekritik in Biblical Studies.” JNWSL 21:25–43.

1996

“Jeremiah, Intertextuality and Ideologiekritik.” JNWSL 22:15–34.

1997

“Clios and Canons: In Search of a Cultural Poetics of the Hebrew Bible.” BibInt 5:300–23.

1998

“Poststructuralist Approaches: New Historicism and Postmodernism.” Pp. 50–66 in The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation. Ed. J. Barton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chartier, R. 1988 Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations. Trans. L. Cochrane. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Clines, David 1995 Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Daube, David 1947 Studies in Biblical Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, Philip 1991 “Sociology and the Second Temple.” Pp. 11–19 in Second Temple Studies: 1. Persian Period. JSOTSup 117. Ed. P. R. Davies. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Eagleton, Terry 1976 Marxism and Literary Criticism. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1991

Ideology: An Introduction. London: Verso.

Femia, Joseph 1975 “Hegemony and Consciousness in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci.” Political Studies 23:29–48. Fewell, Danna Nolan, and David M. Gunn 1993 Gender, Power, and Promise: The Subject of the Bible’s First Story. Nashville: Abingdon. Fichter, Joseph 1964 “Voluntarism.” Pp. 750–51 in A Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Ed. J. Gould and W. L. Kolb. New York: Free Press. Fontana, Benedetto 1993 Hegemony and Power: On the Relation Between Gramsci and Machiavelli. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fowl, Stephen 1995 “Texts Don’t Have Ideologies.” BibInt 3:15–34.

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Fuchs, Esther 1988 “ ‘For I Have the Way of Women’: Deception, Gender, and Ideology in Biblical Narrative.” Semeia 42:68–83. Geertz, Clifford 1964 “Ideology As a Cultural System.” Pp. 47–76 in Ideology and Discontent. Ed. D. Apter. New York: Free Press. Gorman, Frank, Jr. 1990 The Ideology of Ritual: Space, Time and Status in the Priestly Theology. JSOTSup 91. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Gottwald, Norman 1979 The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel 1250–1050 B.C.E. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis. 1983

“Two Models for the Origins of Ancient Israel: Social Revolution or Frontier Development.” Pp. 5–24 in The Quest for the Kingdom of God: Studies in Honor of George E. Mendenhall. Ed. Herbert B. Huffmon, Frank A. Spina, and A. R. W. Green. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.

1992a

“Sociology.” ABD 6:79–88.

1992b

“Social Class and Ideology in Isaiah 40–55: An Eagletonian Reading.” Semeia 59:43–57.

1993

“Literary Criticism of the Hebrew Bible: Retrospect and Prospect.” Pp. 207–23 in The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours. Semeia Studies. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

1996

“Ideology and Ideologies in Israelite Prophecy.” Pp. 136–49 in Prophets and Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Gene M. Tucker. JSOTSup 229. Ed. Stephen Breck Reid. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Gramsci, Antonio 1971 Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. Ed. and trans. Q. Hoare and G. N. Smith. New York: International Publishers. Gunn, David M., and Fewell, Danna Nolan 1993 Narrative in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Habel, Norman 1995 The Land Is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies. OBT. Minneapolis: Fortress. Harris, Kevin 1984 Sex, Ideology and Religion: The Representation of Women in the Bible. New Jersey: Barnes & Noble. Hegel, G. W. F. 1956 The Philosophy of History. Trans. J. Sibree. New York: Dover.

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“The History of Mentalities: The New Map of Cultural History.” History and Theory 20:237–59.

Jameson, Fredric 1981 The Political Unconscious: Narrative As a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. 1992

“A Conversation with Fredric Jameson.” Semeia 59:227–37.

Japhet, Sara 1989 The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought. Frankfurt: Lang. Jobling, David 1987 “Sociological and Literary Approaches to the Bible: How Shall the Twain Meet?” JSOT 38:85–93. 1991

“ ‘Forced Labor’: Solomon’s Golden Age and the Question of Literary Representation.” Semeia 54:57–75.

Krais, Beate 1993 “Gender and Symbolic Violence: Female Oppression in the Light of Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Social Practice.” Pp. 156–77 in Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives. Ed. C. Calhoun, E. LiPuma, and M. Postone. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Laato, Antti 1992 “Psalm 132 and the Development of the Jerusalemite/Israelite Royal Ideology.” CBQ 54:49–66. Larrain, Jorge 1979 The Concept of Ideology. Athens: University of Georgia Press. 1983

“Ideology.” Pp. 219–23 in A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Ed. T. Bottomore. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Leftow, Brian 1998 “Voluntarism.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy 9:663–64. Ed. E. Craig. London: Routledge. Lenin, V. I. 1961 What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of our Movement. Trans. J. Fineberg and G. Hanna. New York: International Publishers. Lukács, Georg 1986 History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. Trans. R. Livingstone. Cambridge: MIT Press. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels 1939 The German Ideology: Parts I and III. Ed. R. Pascal. New York: International Publishers.

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Mason, Rex 1997 Propaganda and Subversion in the Old Testament. London: SPCK. Milbank, John 1992 “ ‘I Will Gasp and Pant’: Deutero-Isaiah and the Birth of the Suffering Subject, A Response to Norman K. Gottwald, ‘Social Class and Ideology in Isaiah 40–55.’” Semeia 61:59–71. Penchansky, David 1992 “Up for Grabs: A Tentative Proposal for Doing Ideological Criticism.” Semeia 59:35–42. Pippin, Tina, and George Aichele, eds. 1998 Violence, Utopia, and the Kingdom of God: Fantasy and Ideology in the Bible. London: Routledge. Polanyi, Michael 1966 The Tacit Dimension. New York: Doubleday. Ricoeur, Paul 1986 Lectures on Ideology and Utopia. New York: Columbia University Press. Salamini, Leonardo 1974 “Gramsci and Marxist Sociology of Knowledge: An Analysis of Hegemony-Ideology-Knowledge.” Sociological Quarterly 15:359–80. Sternberg, Meir 1987 The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Vovelle, M. 1990 Ideologies and Mentalities. Trans. E. O’Flaherty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wacquant, L. J. D. 1995 “Towards an Archeology of Academe: A Critical Appreciation of Fritz Ringer’s ‘Fields of Knowledge.’” Acta Sociologica 38:181–86. Whitelam, Keith 1991 “Israelite Kingship: The Royal Ideology and Its Opponents.” Pp. 119–39 in The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives, Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study. Ed. R. E. Clements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, Raymond 1985 Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. New York: Oxford University Press. Yee, Gale 1995

“The Author/Text/Reader and Power: Suggestions for a Critical Framework for Biblical Studies.” Pp. 109–18 in Reading from This Place.

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semeia Vol. 1: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States. Ed. F. F. Segovia and M. A. Tolbert. Minneapolis: Fortress.

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CONFRONTING REDUNDANCY AS MIDDLE MANAGER AND WIFE: THE FEISTY WOMAN OF GENESIS 391 Heather A. McKay Edge Hill College of Higher Education

abstract Naming Potiphar’s wife Rahpitop, I resist the characterization of her as “wicked” and present her as a woman with ordinary human desires, particularly that of motherhood, unrealized due to her husband’s being a eunuch. I apply two reading positions from the social sciences—management theory and social anthropology—to bring fresh insights to the interpretation of the story. From a management perspective, Potiphar is a senior manager who delegates running the household to his wife. When he appoints Joseph as his immediate deputy with career-development prospects, the power relationships in the household are upset. However, Rahpitop’s primary goal is not power but pregnancy, so, “emulating” the actions of Tamar (Genesis 38), she capitalizes on the new situation by seeking Joseph as a mate. A social anthropologist analyzing Rahpitop’s behavior would identify coercive violence in her persistent cajoling of Joseph to have a sexual relationship with her and appealing violence in her later, fraudulent, public attack on Joseph’s character, where she looks to others to take her part. The resolution of the story shows Potiphar to be an effective manager, quickly solving the problem precipitated by his lack of stated intentions and absenteeism. He saves the faces of all three and earns opprobrium from neither Joseph or Rahpitop. He has also prosecuted his plan for Joseph’s future career. Rahpitop, however, remains childless and marginal; her name appears in no biblical genealogies.

Introduction In this paper I present a reading of the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39) using a reader-response strategy based on theoretical approaches from two fields within the social sciences: management theory and social anthropology. I believe that reading from those two perspectives provides fresh insights to the interpretation of the story.

1 This paper was originally written in response to the request of Professor Friedemann Golka to present a paper illustrating the use of reader-response strategies on an aspect of the Joseph story at the Joseph seminar in the SBL International Meeting in Helsinki, July 1999.

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To resist the lack of identity of a woman character occasioned by her lack of a personal name in the text (McKay: 40–42), I have named Potiphar’s wife Rahpitop, the reverse of Potiphar’s name.2 I also resist the varied characterizations of her as a woman of “deceit” into whose “clutches” Joseph might have fallen (Humphreys: 76, 135), or as a “shrewd villain” (Lowenthal: 39), or a “vindictive and scared woman” (Hollis: 34), or a “negative Temptress” (Brenner: 112), or as “the embodiment of the sinister power of deathly temptation” (McKinlay: 80), or as a woman whose story has been suppressed in the patriarchal retelling of Joseph’s life (Bach: passim). I present her as an ordinary human being in a “true-to-life” story, no better, but certainly no worse, than her companions. The first reading position is that of a human-resources manager in the hotel and catering business (Riley). I have chosen this reading position because I believe that the world of a small hotel provides the closest modern analogy to the working arrangements of Potiphar’s household in biblical “ancient” Egypt. I see Potiphar as the senior manager, who is, in general, accustomed to leave the day-to-day running of his household enterprise in the hands of his wife while he manages his other, more “important” concerns. Then, one day, he suddenly appoints a new deputy manager and places him in his household as his immediate second-in-command, a move that leads to the series of outcomes recounted in the story. The second reading position is that of a social anthropologist, an expert in the field of the occurrence, causes, and consequences of aggression and violence between people, taking particular note of discussions of low-level violence in families or other small, close-knit communities (Marx). I have chosen this second reading position because I regard the behavior of Rahpitop in the story as manifesting two forms of low-level aggressive behavior: first, the persistent cajoling of Joseph to have a sexual relationship with her, culminating in waylaying him inside the house and grabbing at his clothes, and second, her angry and fraudulent attack on Joseph’s character and behavior twice declaimed before witnesses. But before I survey the theoretical backgrounds of the two designated reading positions, and before I show how my identified “readers” may read the story, I will begin by indicating the position and nature of key gaps and ambiguities in the story. I do this partly to reinforce the dislocation of dominant standard readings of the story already provided by Sternberg and, more recently, by Brenner and van Henten and particularly to highlight those narrative aporia that invite the readings I propose.

2 In Egyptian, Rahpitop would mean Ra (or sun)-on-head (Michael V. Fox, personal communication, July 1999).

mckay: confronting redundancy as middle manager and wife 217 As readers of texts, we create in our imaginations our own version of the story presented to us by the words of the text, and when we come to textual gaps or ambiguities we fill them by our own choices from a range of imagined possibilities. Then we construct the story, perhaps in a series of still photographs or as a moving sequence of images, perhaps in color, perhaps in black and white; we also add in the likely contributions from our other senses—sounds (voices, music, wind, water, cicadas, rustling clothes, footfalls), tastes or smells (food, drink, fire, perfume, sweat, dust, animals), touches (fabrics, skin), and also kinaesthetic responses (weight, effort, rhythm, vertigo). We further infer—and include—emotions and attitudes, stances, gestures, dramatic tension, and pace. Every one of us sees and hears individuated versions of the story performed in the mind’s eye. From the text, Potiphar’s job role and marital status are difficult to determine. He is an Egyptian, an important courtier, possibly a eunuch. If a eunuch, he might have been castrated before puberty (a castrato), sterile and incapable of sexual arousal, or castrated after having had significant sexual experience and, therefore, capable of achieving successful sexual congress, though sterile (Bell et al.: 486; Welbourn: 505). All these possibilities differently affect our understanding of Potiphar’s relationship with his wife, Rahpitop—and, possibly, also his relationship with Joseph. Potiphar’s employment is similarly unclear, whether administrative or executive. I identify him as a eunuch castrated after puberty who was somewhat of a mucho pomposo superintendent of the guard. Potiphar’s purchase of Joseph suggests motives in the arenas of work, the smooth running of the home, or the siring of children. Within the tale a worldly reader will observe the transfer of economic power and favor from Pharaoh to Potiphar and then from Potiphar to Joseph, with some domestic power being delegated to Rahpitop. The biblical narrator, however, presents a contrasting account: the power flows from God to Joseph and then from Joseph to Potiphar, with none—or very little, apparently—devolving to Rahpitop. The dynamics of power transfer play an important part in this story, the key players being Joseph and Potiphar. Joseph’s role in the household is also unclear. Perhaps he was bought as Potiphar’s body slave or steward. The belated notice of Joseph’s physical attractiveness suggests a reason for his purchase, while the verbal parallel reminds readers of the exceptional beauty of Rachel, his mother. Interestingly, Esther is the only person other than Joseph of whom it is said that she “found favor in his sight.” As we are quite clear what the phrase means when applied to Ahasuerus and Esther, why are we less certain of its meaning for Potiphar and Joseph? The likely reaction of Rahpitop to Joseph depends on what age and beauty we imagine for her. She could be middle-aged, plump, and wrinkled, or else an alluring femme fatale. The Midrash’s acceptance of the latter

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choice is evidenced in its negative comparison of Rahpitop’s invitation to Joseph with the “modesty” of Ruth’s approach to Boaz on the threshing floor—which modesty rather escapes me—saying that Rahpitop “spoke like an animal” in the words “Lie with me!”—which I hear as a husky, throaty whisper of desire. However, the similarity between the two scenes supports my interpretation that the conception of a son could well have been Rahpitop’s intended outcome, although that similarity does not produce the same conclusion elsewhere (Brenner). Yet another conjunction bears out this view. Many commentators on Genesis designate the story of Tamar and Judah in Genesis 38 an “intrusion” into the story of Joseph (see, for example, von Rad: 356). If, however, we recognize Tamar’s story as one of a series of stories in which women employ increasingly complex stratagems to achieve children sired by one of the biblical patriarchs, then the close sequencing of Tamar’s story and Rahpitop’s story becomes less enigmatic, and their juxtaposition strengthens the force of my interpretation. The sequence begins when the matriarchs Sarah, Leah, and Rachel acquire genetically acceptable children through their female servants. There is also the added maneuver of Leah bribing Rachel to release their shared husband to her for sexual purposes. Later, Tamar inveigles her father-in-law into impregnating her so that she can achieve acceptable issue. All these women characters are complicit in the needs of the patriarchal narrators for guaranteed patrilineal succession. The “right” sons appear in the narratives and, thereafter, also appear in genealogies in succeeding books of the Bible. Of all the women in that sequence, only Rahpitop—the last in the sequence—is thwarted in her desire for a child. It appears that no child of this Egyptian woman, similar perhaps to the situation of Hagar, could feasibly be included in either the narratives or the succeeding genealogies. Her stratagems must fail. Surprisingly, commentators find no incongruity in believing Joseph to have been first thrown into the lowest dungeon and thereafter moved from the sewage-infested cells to become the attendant of lofty officials from Pharaoh’s court. Such prominent personages were famous for their concern to avoid unpleasant odors. Notably, the text does not say that Joseph was confined in the prison; it is ambiguous what his exact position was. The end section of the story is a clear parallel to the beginning. The new relationship between Joseph and an older powerful man runs parallel to the relationship between Joseph and Potiphar, and the outcome shows a repetition of Joseph’s successful technique as he inches up the social ladder. The Theoretical Position of a Human-Resources Manager For Hotels I have chosen this reading position because hotels operate in a mode that is similar to both the running of a business and the running of a large

mckay: confronting redundancy as middle manager and wife 219 family home. Many problems and solutions are common to the two situations, so the theoretical framework of the management of hotel services can be used to illumine the dynamics of Potiphar’s household. First of all, the contracts between managers and staff in hotels consist of unspoken as well as spoken elements, similar to the unspoken contracts between family members. This is because both are psychological contracts, depending largely on the assumptions and expectations each partner makes or has about the other’s behavior, level of responsibility, loyalty, commitment to achieving common goals, and so on (Riley: 33, 38–40). Secondly, because no one can accurately determine another’s feelings and motives, anyone trying to understand them has to rely on their behavior to provide the only clues. So, when things turn out unexpectedly in this type of situation, managers should not say that some person has acted “out of character.” That, of course, is the wrong way of looking at it. It was the managerial expectations and assumptions that were wrong or incomplete. So, even while accepting that they will always have incomplete understanding of people’s behavior, managers nonetheless have to execute their work on the basis of their professional knowledge of common behavior patterns observed among people doing similar tasks in similar contexts. Apart from differences caused by individual expectations and hopes, the psychological contracts between staff generally operate on two axes of tension—“effort brings reward” and “lack of obedience brings discipline”— and any misunderstanding of these causes hiccoughs in the system. So, for any working relationship to remain stable and productive, both sides must have a closely similar understanding of these axes, even though this type of arrangement is always imprecise (Riley: 40). Adding to the complexity is the fact that much of what is apparently or seemingly agreed between colleagues remains unspoken and—to some extent—secret and only becomes visible when another, probably quite unrelated, event triggers its expression. The response of consternation from a colleague, who has been expecting quite another outcome—on-site promotion, for example, instead of the relocation that is announced—reveals the mismatch of expectations. Surprisingly strong conflict between employees can follow from “discoveries” that situations were not what they had believed them to be. The parties can feel great dissatisfaction and, even, grievance (Riley: 40). Generally speaking, however, entry into new employment follows a more or less predictable pattern. New staff go through an acclimatization process known as the “period of induction crisis,” during which many leave—for a variety of reasons (NEDO: 6, 29). One manager, for example, discovered by working alongside new staff that his more established employees were persistently making life difficult for the newcomers in petty ways as a means of making it impossible for them to settle in (NEDO: 28–29). Was Rahpitop harassing Joseph out of spite at his taking over her

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role in the household? Good managers, therefore, take special care to support new personnel by setting times for regular, private discussions and by paying particular attention to any problems experienced in the first days and weeks of service (NEDO: 8). If the induction period is successful, there follows a “period of differential transit,” when new personnel learn more about the enterprise and discover whether or not they have a long-term role there (NEDO: 6). The rarer departures that occur during this period may not prove to be wasteful of both parties’ time and effort but can be creative and productive, “especially if anticipated and planned for by management” (NEDO: 6). Could the silent Potiphar have foreseen that the situation in his household would come to a head? And did he have a relocation plan already in mind for Joseph? Because hotels are run by people, no hotel business can run perfectly smoothly at all times, but nonetheless the managers have to make sense of what went wrong and try to solve the problems that arise. Many find that a useful means of responding to awkward incidents is to do an attribution analysis of the actors, the action and the context (Riley: 34–37). The initial distinction that the analysis makes is to locate the origin of the trouble either with the people involved or else in the surrounding environment or context. So, in the case of unruly clients damaging the furniture in a hotel bar (the action), management could either refuse bookings from all-male clubs (the actors), dealing with the people aspect, or have a tougher policy on the “door” of the bar, dealing with the context aspect. In the case of Rahpitop and Joseph, it would be easy to blame either the participants or their enforced proximity in the house. Good managers check out both approaches to avoid having a favorite mode of generalizing about unpleasant incidents. Otherwise, they might tend to attribute all the desirable outcomes to their own interventions and the undesirable outcomes to another participant, or they might choose to blame the context if they were a participant, perhaps to deflect responsibility. The Potiphar of the narrative could either be creating the new job for Joseph in response to the explosive situation he found on his return, or he could have planned to move Joseph as soon as he had acquired enough training, but found his hand forced by the unpleasant situation. Often, however, irregular actions by employees in the workplace seem to be ignored, and this happens because managers in their daily working life—and in spite of guidelines for best practice—operate an “indulgency pattern,” a turning of a “blind eye” to certain small dishonesties or derelictions. This unnoticing ploy functions as a means of ensuring something more productive than mere “truculent co-operation” from their staff (Riley: 41). Such trade-offs happen almost everywhere in business, and they do “work” quite well. Was Potiphar turning a blind eye to the possibility of his wife’s sexual activity with Joseph?

mckay: confronting redundancy as middle manager and wife 221 In the extreme form, this determined avoidance of knowledge about what is going on in the business becomes dysfunctional management. Called managerial abdication (NEDO: 7–8), it produces its own set of problem outcomes, for the employees take too much into their own hands. It looks as if this term describes the point where Potiphar found himself required to step in and resume an authoritative senior manager’s role. Of course, in the daily round of hotel work, much communication between managers and staff remains unspoken, and yet the managers’ actions are all the time read as having symbolic meaning (Riley: 41–43). A manager who does not check for dust may be indicating that he does not care about cleanliness, or that she trusts her staff to do the cleaning properly, or that, today, there is an emergency elsewhere in the organization requiring his total attention, or that she may be “turning a blind eye” to the dustiness in exchange for extra cooperation elsewhere in the system. So, managers must always be aware of the symbolic messages they are sending out, whatever the origin of them, for symbolic communications, whether intentional or not, impact upon the psychological contracts, and not only on those between the manager and each individual, but also those between other individuals in their work relations. The watchword of a good manager must be clear and regular communication; this unifies the efforts of the workforce and legitimates the authority of the manager at one and the same time (Riley: 73). The persistent silence of Potiphar in the narrative leaves him open to charges of neglect over the managing of his household. The maintenance of a person’s sense of internal stability is a uniquely individual process involving the balancing and meeting of desires and needs and avoiding the negative emotions of frustration, guilt, and envy (Riley: 49). People, therefore, often restore their internal sense of equity by blaming others for the difficulties they experience or by complaining and fighting over something other than the real cause of the problem (Riley: 57). Thus the meaning of what seems to be a small incident can be of great significance to the participants, and even if managers cannot understand this, they must react as if they do. Action that functions as, and appears to be, an appropriate response is the first duty of a manager. Good managers must consider how to deploy their authority and, by following specified procedures, introduce an element of fairness into the proceedings and cool the emotions involved—even if they are actually doing no more than recognizing that a situation exists and that both sides have a position to state (Riley: 125). This seems to be the course that Potiphar followed. A Reading of Genesis 39 by a Human-Resources Manager for Hotels The story tells of a man, Potiphar, who has control of a substantial household and the royal prison. In the house much of his authority is delegated to

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his wife and in the prison to the keeper. One day he introduces a new member of staff, whom, either immediately or shortly thereafter, he appoints as his second-in-command. He apparently gives no explanations of the changes to his former second-in-command (his wife), so the characters in the story, as much as the readers, are left to make their own assumptions from the described behaviors of the actors. After an unpleasant disturbance, Potiphar transfers his new assistant manager to a new position in the prison and restores his wife to her previous role. If we try to imagine the ongoing state of affairs in Potiphar’s house before the addition of Joseph, we will envisage a thriving domestic household with living quarters, public rooms, servants’ quarters, kitchens, and stores all arranged round courtyards with colonnades—or some such thing. The role of Potiphar in the house is reasonably clear: he is in overall charge but often occupied with his work in the Pharaoh’s military hierarchy. Since he is (probably, in my view) a eunuch, he can devote most of his attentions to those tasks. Rahpitop’s role is more shadowy. She might function as the proverbial good housewife of Proverbs 31, though likely to be less bustling as the “mistress” of the establishment rather than the “housekeeper,” but there is a range of possibilities. Both Potiphar and Rahpitop will have reasonably stable expectations of each other. The addition of Joseph to the household changes all of these stable expectations and assumptions. There is no reason given in the text for the new regime; the only explanations belatedly offered are Joseph’s outstanding beauty and the fact that Potiphar made him his “personal assistant,” with unspecified connotations. No doubt, Potiphar expects Joseph to enhance his life in some way, but his intentions and desires are not shared with the reader. Neither is Rahpitop informed of the change, nor its reason. She is apparently presented with a fait accompli. A new member of the household has been added to the hierarchy, seemingly with higher authority than herself, though whether this superordinate authority is given immediately or after an induction period is not made clear—it is merely hinted at in v. 4. Her reactions and responses are not important to the storyteller; they are, however, of significance to us. Rahpitop could well have assumed that Joseph was brought to the house as a “gift” to her, an extra helper to make her workload easier, an aspect of great importance in view of the possible pregnancy that she could well expect to result from her encounters with Joseph within the house. She would have to build a new set of assumptions and expectations after the arrival of Joseph. In one set of possibilities she can see a benefit to her in Joseph and so will welcome him and aid his induction. If there turns out to be no benefit to herself, she can make his life difficult and soon get rid of him. I believe she moves from the first position to the second during the course of events.

mckay: confronting redundancy as middle manager and wife 223 Unless Joseph is very naive indeed, he would expect to use his position in Potiphar’s household to acquire more skills to help him scale the social and business ladder of the Egyptian administrative system. Potiphar’s house would be no more than a staging post for him. He is undergoing productive staff development under Potiphar’s eye. Having escaped death at his brothers’ hands and having acquired a reasonable master, he sees opportunities for self-betterment and is glad to seize them. Without knowledge of the time scale for Joseph’s time of employment in Potiphar’s house, it is difficult to be sure whether he lost his position during the initial phase of employment there or later in the period of differential transit; both possibilities should be considered. If the former, then the crisis blew up quickly, in the first few weeks of his employment; if the latter, after a more stable period of assumption of total management of the household affairs when he could conceivably have acquired the skills that would allow him to be transferred across to a similar job in Potiphar’s other enterprise— the prison. I find the latter choice to be more consonant with the story line. Obviously, we are not privy to the bargain struck between Joseph and Potiphar. Did his “work” include sexual services, or not? Or were they, in fact, expressly forbidden? It is possible that Potiphar was operating an indulgency pattern and was turning a “blind eye” to the likelihood of hankypanky between Joseph and Rahpitop (or with all the household women), in order to achieve maximum work from Joseph, or perhaps with the intention of achieving a clever and attractive heir. If giving Joseph the sexual “keys of the house” produced only good for his household, he might be well enough pleased as long as his attention was not drawn to what was going on. However, is it possible that we can recognize in Potiphar’s laissez-faire attitude to the running of his household a managerial abdication? He seems to have completely handed over the running of his affairs—almost his life—to Joseph and without appraising Rahpitop of the “meanings” of the change. Potiphar did not seem to be aware of, or take any care about, the variety of signals given out by his two unexplained actions, namely, taking Joseph home to be his personal attendant, and then installing him as secondin-command of his household. By these tokens he is a poor manager. Of all the household, Potiphar’s needs alone seem to be completely met by this addition to his staff. Joseph’s needs also appear to be met. Rahpitop, however, seems to be isolated in a maelstrom of changed and changing assumptions and expectations. Rahpitop’s needs for self-esteem and selfactualization have been dealt a heavy blow by Potiphar’s sterility and now another blow by his unexplained introduction of another young manager into the household economy. Until she can rationalize this action as providing a loophole for herself to achieve conception, she can see nothing but negative features in her life. But as we, and she, discover, she is frustrated in her assumptions and so becomes frustrated and aggressive in her actions.

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The unsatisfactory situation ultimately comes to a head in a disturbing event, a nasty scene. If we apply the technique of attribution analysis to it (Riley: 34–37), we see that the actors are clearly Joseph and Rahpitop, though Joseph might claim passivity and flight as his actions. Rahpitop’s actions are words and suggestive glances and gestures and, finally, ripping off Joseph’s kilt. The key feature of their context is its privacy, and any further private context might recreate the incident. The probable cause lies in the fact that both feel physical attraction but only Joseph resists the encounter. If blame were to be attributed, Joseph and Rahpitop would probably blame the situation rather than themselves. Potiphar and other onlookers would blame it on the participants. It is, therefore, possible to reassess Potiphar’s effectiveness as the manager of his household when suddenly faced with the tale of this incident. Potiphar had to resume his managerial role in the crisis; he could no longer leave matters in the hands of his two deputies. He listened to Rahpitop and, apparently, gave her what she overtly and allegedly wanted: Joseph was ejected and put in prison. He placed Joseph in a different organization that he, Potiphar, also ran and left him there possibly being punished but certainly having been put in another situation where career development could take place. Perhaps surprisingly, Potiphar proves to be a very effective manager; because he is competent at resolving the situation, both parties accede to his judgment. Whether Potiphar’s purchase of Joseph was a self-indulgent whim or a plan to allow his wife a motherhood role, it could have produced a good outcome. However, he did not stay at home and supervise the process but left his two assistant managers to work things out together, or not—a sign of bad management. However, when called in to resolve their grievance, he effectively did what suited both protagonists, saving the face of both, while holding on to the possibility of a restoration of the calm of his household at least to the level it was before he brought Joseph home from the slave sales. He succeeded in satisfying many of his own needs and goals and maintained his status and self-esteem. He proved himself to be a cool-headed and effective manager. This analysis has identified a significantly increased role for Potiphar in the story, almost to the status of deus ex machina, a reading that is not surprisingly confirmed by the fact that the Hebrew Bible text seven times refers to Potiphar as “master.” The reading also casts Joseph in a more self-serving light and paints Rahpitop as a misunderstood, frustrated, and maligned childless woman. The Theoretical Position of a Social Anthropologist The unpleasant incident between Rahpitop and Joseph and its aftermath portray a clear example of human aggression: persistent requests from the

mckay: confronting redundancy as middle manager and wife 225 woman for sexual congress followed by her grabbing of the man’s clothes and then, finally, her twice-told tale of attempted assault or rape. Current analyses of aggression and violence survey the full range of violent human behaviors and, after setting the limits of the terms by definition, analyze them in terms of causes, consequences, and means of control (see, for example, Berkowitz, Breakwell, Mummendey, Tedeschi, and Siann). The definitions are not always completely comprehensive, since each author has a particular focus in mind, but Gergen (62) indicates the kinds of actions that warrant the use of the term “aggression” or the term “violence”—often taken together by others. In Gergen’s view, the term “aggression” can be properly used to describe voluntary actions—whether warranted or unwarranted—that are carried out deliberately by one person against another person with the intention of causing pain or harm— whether deserved or undeserved (see also Berkowitz: 11; Felson: 107; Tedeschi: 5–10). A systematic analysis of the accounts of the origins of aggression and violence in humans is provided by Breakwell (1–25). She first distinguishes two different purposes or outcomes of violence: instrumental violence, which is a necessary means to an action the person wishes to carry out or to escape from capture, such as knocking a guard unconscious; and emotional violence, whose prime goal is to cause hurt, harm, pain, or injury to another. It is mainly with the latter that we are concerned here. A wider view than the basic Frustration-Aggression hypothesis includes the interactionist situational approach that takes into account all the background and context surrounding each act of violence and aggression: the age, education, attitudes, background, health, economic situation, and so on, of all the participants and observers (Breakwell: 18–20). A powerful exponent of this view is Emanuel Marx, a social anthropologist who elaborated his theories about aggression and violence through observing real-life cases of low-level violence in action and interviewing all the participants closely following the incidents. He concentrated on violence below the level of drawing blood, violence that consisted mainly of verbal threats, damage to objects and furniture, bodily obstruction, and so on. Other writers do, of course, discuss situations that involve only lowgrade violence and, making reference to Self Theory, recognize violence as a means of maintaining self-esteem (Siann: 240–43) or of impression management (Felson: 109). Many however, consider as violence only physical injury to persons who do not acquiesce in the violence (Berkowitz: 11; Breakwell: 1–25; Gergen: 62; Siann: 12–14) and, therefore, exclude such simpler forms as shouting, pulling at clothes, slamming of books and papers down on tabletops, and the like—all of which are included in Marx’s discussions. Tedeschi, on the other hand, does recognize that threats are a form of verbal aggression, having a clear end of coercion in view (11).

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But, of the theorists discussed above, only Berkowitz, mirroring Marx, accepts that denial of hopes and frustration of expectations can be experienced as aggression and, thus, as provocation prompting defense in words and actions (31–40). This approach recognizes the significance of triggers from a person’s own troubled life circumstances (244, 262–63) and of the crucial role of certain “precipitating encounters” (265, 268). Marx’s work, however, is unique in that, distinct from other writers on violence and aggression who adopt the position of either the dominant or official group or that of so-called “neutral” academic observers, he reads the situations from the point of view of an anthropologist and so can also present the perspective of those who feel wronged. He can accept that they see themselves as being in the right, or behaving “properly,” or in their own best interests and not at all “wrongly” or “out of control.” Because they feel “unfairly” denied something that is their right, they use two specific approaches that involve low grades of violence; Marx names these coercive violence and appealing violence. Marx’s study was based in an Israeli town in the late 1960s, a town where many civic resources were distributed to the new, mainly North African immigrant population through officials operating within a bureaucracy. Many of the benefits were rigidly controlled and allocated by clearly expressed rules laid down by the state, but some, more local, benefits were apportioned and distributed by local officials. One type of benefit that was apportionable in slightly flexible ways was the allotting of flats in new blocks. Another benefit was the allocated numbers of hours of welfare work: work created, and paid for, by the state. This work was considered to be of lower status than work in factories, shops, or businesses, but it could be apportioned in response to need. Those who did not absolutely need to take this work avoided it. In borderline cases, the officials were in a position to grant or deny the requests. For our purposes, the most interesting cases were those involving people without means of influence, the people at the lowest levels of the social scale. Some of these families desperately needed (perhaps because the major wage earner had broken a leg) the help that was available to them through the officials, but they were not absolutely on the bread line. To gain the help, they resorted to violent behavior: threatening, shouting, lifting chairs above the officials’ heads, and even “sitting-in” the officials’ rooms, though that only when their situations were at their most desperate. They were using coercive violence, that is, violence that is premeditated, controlled, and used to press stated demands, and they made direct threats that were, however, rarely carried out (32). They believed that this violence would focus attention on their plight and encourage officials to comply with their requests, but it also revealed their own helplessness to remedy their situation for themselves.

mckay: confronting redundancy as middle manager and wife 227 But the people with no resources behind them whatsoever could take no risks; they could not gamble to win as they had nothing to stake (no reputation or indispensability) and could not afford to lose the benefits they already held. In this circumstance the violent or aggressive behavior followed a quite different pattern (63–69). Damage was typically caused in a public place either to property, such as by smashing glasses in a cafe when refused further credit, or beating a child in the street when the kindergarten would not accept the documentation for her registration—the mother being frantic to get back to her smaller children left alone at home. Then, in the latter case, once the paperwork was accepted the child refused to go into the school. In response to this “stubbornness,” the mother beat her daughter violently on the body and head and resisted other parents’ remonstrances to stop. In each of these latter cases the violence is what Marx names appealing violence; the petitioners appeal to the crowd, or to the community, for support or intervention. They commit damage against inert objects or against a family member. Marx notes that this (nonetheless unacceptable) violence is by this means “confined” and not allowed physically to hurt “outsiders.” These citizens were not abnormal in any way; in fact, they were trying to be supremely normal, but circumstances were against them. They tried their utmost to live productive lives and to maintain family decency and respect (74). Whenever another citizen made them realize that they were not succeeding in those aims, they violently assaulted that person or, more usually, the person’s possessions, or their own relatives. To my mind, Marx has perfectly described and explained the needs, motives, aspirations, and failings of the people whose lives he observed so closely. There is no sense of superiority in his gaze as he records the varied interactions and their aftermaths, but fellow feeling and insight. It is with his qualities and insights that I will now probe the story of Rahpitop and Joseph for the second time. A Reading of Genesis 39 from the Perspective of a Social Anthropologist In Marx’s understanding of low-grade violent events, all those who used coercive or appealing violence needed a particular resource or facility. They believed they had earned it, deserved it, and were entitled to it; they believed their society endorsed their right to have it, but, for some reason or other, they were not receiving it. They applied pressure either to the withholder of the resource or appealed to an audience for intervention or help. But a side effect was, of course, that they revealed themselves to be unable to help themselves. Given that her husband, as a eunuch, was incapable of delivering it, the resource that Rahpitop needed and needed desperately was fertile sperm. The only person who could supply it was Joseph, yet she found that he

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persisted in withholding it from her. She tried to grab him and pressure him, but failed. She tried coercive violence, cornering him, gazing at him, and clutching him, but she succeeded only in catching and keeping hold of his clothes. Coercive violence had failed and, even, backfired on her. Her situation was now even more desperate. She had gambled all she had in this final attempt—her reputation and her pride—and both would be lost if she did not act quickly. She called in the outdoor servants and told them a tale of alleged violence to herself, a tale that was at the same time an attack on the man she desired, a violent aggressive fabrication against him couched in language that would draw support from the audience. All she could hope to salvage was her job role as household manager, if Potiphar could be persuaded to get rid of Joseph. This is appealing violence at its most pathetic. Her ruse was successful, apparently; Potiphar responded positively, seeming to believe her and removing Joseph from the household. She had ousted the interloper who had taken over her job, though she had not quite managed to achieve the arrangement for which she had originally hoped. What she had envisaged was an ideal job share with herself continuing as house manager part-time and as part-time mother. But now she had been forced to cut her losses and to settle for continuing in her previously successful role as household manager. Her hopes of pregnancy, however, were dashed afresh. The New Understanding of Genesis 39 Provided by Adopting These Reading Positions From the Perspective of the Human-Resources Management Consultant for Hotels Potiphar is shown to be an effective and resourceful manager, but only at the final call. He solves the problem precipitated by his lack of clarification of intentions and assumptions and by his absenteeism. His solution saves the faces of all three participants, and he earns opprobrium from neither Joseph or Rahpitop. He may even have prosecuted his own previously hatched plan for Joseph’s future. Joseph has put his skills and attributes to use and to his best advantage and has gained a new position that leads to advancement. Whether he has played his chosen role perfectly, and with cunning, or merely acted without thought or guile can never be determined, but I accept the former. His new situation offers rosy prospects for future advancement to the very top of the managerial ladder. Joseph moves to a period of differential transit on his way to Pharaoh’s side and a career with a long spell of settled connection in the second-highest office in the land of Egypt. Rahpitop has ended up more or less where she began in this story, but with the gnawing chill of “what might have been” present as a nagging

mckay: confronting redundancy as middle manager and wife 229 companion ever afterwards. She has neither gained nor lost position or status. She remains childless and definitely marginal, more marginal than Asenath, who is mentioned at least (and only) in the birth notice of her sons. Rahpitop’s un-name, “Potiphar’s wife,” appears in no subsequent biblical genealogies in distinct contrast to the un-name of Bathsheba, “Uriah’s wife” (Matt 1:6). From the Perspective of the Social Anthropologist Potiphar functions as an official who accedes, apparently, to the blandishments of his wife, while, at the same time continuing his patronage of his favored protégé. Rahpitop has put herself into a situation of risk of loss of life—if adultery were truly punished by death in the Hebrew Bible’s “ancient” Egypt—and status in a coercive attempt to become pregnant, but she recovers her original status by using appealing violence directed through her audience against the very person who might have helped her in her need. The superior official in this case, Potiphar, has the leeway to appear to accede to her desires by relocating Joseph. Throughout the events of the story, Joseph is neither physically damaged nor actually punished. Any smear to his character caused by Rahpitop’s allegations is quickly glossed over. His innocence is never established, but neither is his alleged guilt punished. His fortunes are in the ascendant. He moves onward and upward to the pinnacle role of his career, that of managing Pharaoh, and becomes the most powerful of officials controlling all the food in Egypt. The two approaches of hotel-management theory and social anthropology have brought fresh insights to the understanding of this complex story. They generate a more nuanced reading of the three main characters and of the events portrayed, turning the somewhat “pasteboard” players into “real” people.

WORKS CONSULTED Bach, Alice 1993 “Breaking Free of the Biblical Frame-Up: Uncovering the Woman in Genesis 39.” Pp. 318–42 in A Feminist Companion to Genesis. Ed. Athalya Brenner. FCB 2. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Bell, George H., Donald Emslie-Smith, and Colin R. Paterson, eds. 1980 Textbook of Physiology. 10th ed. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone. Berkowitz, Leonard 1993 Aggression: Its Causes, Consequences and Control. New York: McGraw-Hill.

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Breakwell, Glynis M. 1997 Coping with Aggressive Behaviour. Personal and Professional Development. Leicester: British Psychological Society. Brenner, Athalya 1985 The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative. The Biblical Seminar. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Brenner, Athalya, and Jan Willem van Henten 1998 “Madame Potiphar through a Culture Trip, or Which Side Are You On?” Pp 203–19 in Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium. Ed. J. Cheryl Exum and Stephen D. Moore. JSOTSup 266; Gender, Culture, Theory 7. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Felson, Richard B. 1984 “Patterns of Aggressive Social interaction.” Pp. 107–26 in Social Psychology of Aggression. Springer Series in Social Psychology. Ed. Amélie Mummendey. Berlin: Springer. Gergen, Kenneth J. 1984 “Aggression As Discourse.” Pp. 51–68 in Social Psychology of Aggression. Springer Series in Social Psychology. Ed. Amélie Mummendey. Berlin: Springer. Hollis, Susan Tower 1996 “The Woman in Ancient Examples of the Potiphar’s Wife Motif, K2111.” Pp. 28–42 in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel. Ed. Peggy L. Day. Minneapolis: Fortress. Humphreys, W. Lee 1988 Joseph and His Family: A Literary Study. Studies on Personalities of the Old Testament. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Lowenthal, Eric I. 1991 The Joseph Narrative in Genesis: An Interpretation. New York: Ktav. Marx, Emanuel 1976 The Social Context of Violent Behaviour: A Social Anthropological Study in an Israeli Immigrant Town. London: Routledge. McKay, Heather A. 1996 “Only a Remnant of Them Will Be Saved: New Testament Images of Hebrew Women.” Pp. 32–61 in The Hebrew Bible in the New Testament. Ed. Athalya Brenner. FCB 10. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. McKinlay, Judith 1995 “Potiphar’s Wife in Conversation.” Feminist Theology 10:69–80. Mummendey, Amélie, ed. 1984 Social Psychology of Aggression. Springer Series in Social Psychology. Berlin: Springer.

mckay: confronting redundancy as middle manager and wife 231 National Economic Development Office (NEDO) 1969 Staff Turnover: Hotel and Catering EDC. London: HMSO. Niehoff, Maren 1992 The Figure of Joseph in Post-Biblical Jewish Literature. AGJU 16. Leiden: Brill. Rad, Gerhard von 1972 Genesis: A Commentary. Rev. ed. OTL. London: SCM. Riley, Michael 1991 Human Resource Management: A Guide to Personnel Practice in the Hotel and Catering Industry. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Siann, Gerda 1985 Accounting for Aggression: Perspectives on Aggression and Violence. Boston: Allen & Unwin. Sternberg, Meir 1987 The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading. Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Tedeschi, James T. 1984 “A Social Psychological Interpretation of Human Aggression.” Pp. 5–20 in Social Psychology of Aggression. Springer Series in Social Psychology. Ed. Amélie Mummendey. Berlin: Springer. Welbourn, R. B. 1993 “Endocrine Diseases.” Pp. 484–511 in Companion Encyclopaedia of the History of Medicine. Ed. W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter. London: Routledge.

RESPONSE: RECONSTRUCTING ANCIENT ISRAEL’S SOCIAL WORLD Frank S. Frick Albion College

Just over twenty-five years ago Norman Gottwald and I sat in the cafeteria of Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem and discussed the desirability of an SBL program unit on the subject of the social world of ancient Israel. A year later, the first such unit, a Consultation on the Social World of Ancient Israel, convened in Chicago at the SBL meeting in the fall of 1975, and there has been an unbroken succession of such units ever since— including ones on the sociology of the monarchy, the sociology of the Second Temple, Constructs of the Social and Cultural World of Antiquity Group, and a general, ongoing open section on the Social Sciences and the Interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures. Most of the essays in this volume were written by scholars who have been affiliated with one or more of these SBL groups. Some are revised versions of papers that have been presented at an SBL meeting. The increasing presence and visibility of social-world studies that have been generated, at least in part, by this succession of SBL program units has had a far-reaching influence on biblical studies in general, quite apart from the work of those individuals who have been directly associated with one or more of the program units. Consequently, there is now a more general awareness of, and intentionality about, the application of methods and theories from the social sciences in the study of ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible. Heuristically, the range of questions now asked about ancient Israelite society has been significantly expanded, and, at the same time, it is now widely acknowledged that social constructs are just that—constructs. In an article that Gottwald and I coauthored for the first SBL program unit we said: Possibilities for using the social sciences in Old Testament studies have been greatly enhanced by broad advances in cultural and social anthropology, sociological theory, and historical sociology. A review of the sociological study of ancient Israel in the period 1880–1960 shows promising starts never systematically followed through. Since 1960 there have emerged much more methodologically astute studies of Israelite origins by means of sociological and anthropological understandings of nomadism and tribalism and of Israelite prophecy and apocalyptic by means of social data on shamanism, spirit-possession, and

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semeia millennial sects. The two primary social scientific models used in Old Testament sociological studies have been the structural-functional and the historical material models, respectively indebted to the theories and methods of Max Weber and Karl Marx. (Frick and Gottwald: 149)

In an essay included in this collection, Jim Flanagan, with whom I cochaired the program unit on the sociology of the monarchy in ancient Israel, and who has been a recognized leader in social-world studies throughout what I call their “second wave,” maintains that Gottwald and I “stepped forward in a challenged and challenging modernist-postmodernist world” in a “movement against modernist pretensions and toward postmodern critique” (16). Although I had honestly never thought of what has developed in social-world studies since the mid-1970s in the light of postmodernism, I heartily concur with his depiction of it this way, given the fact that socialworld studies have carved out their space in the last quarter of a century that has witnessed the kinds of economic, political, social, and cultural transitions and transformations that can only be labeled “postmodern”—a milieu in which space, especially social space, has become a major concern in social theory. I will return below to an assessment of why I think socialworld studies “took” in their “second wave.” I call what began in the SBL twenty-five years ago a “second wave” of socially informed studies of ancient Israel. The “first wave ” studies (from 1880–1960) referred to by Norman and me in our initial document commenced in the late nineteenth century with the publication of W. Robertson Smith’s (1846–1894) noted Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, one called “the founder of social anthropology” by Mary Douglas (13). Robertson Smith’s work, in which he compared the culture of ancient Israel with that of bedouin Arabs, was the first comprehensive anthropological study of biblical Israel. Even before his famous Lectures were published, he had written, in 1885, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, which became a widely used model for the analysis of acephalous, segmentary societies. His first series of lectures came three years later in the fall of 1888 and the spring of 1889, and the second and third early in 1890 and late in 1891. Following this beginning there appears to have been a hiatus in the use of the social sciences by biblical scholars—with some notable exceptions. The work of Robertson Smith, however, continued to have a strong influence on biblical studies in one area, which, in retrospect, appears to have been problematic. Although many of his conclusions were contested and dismissed, his basic assumption that early Israel was a pastoral nomadic society was accepted uncritically by many biblical scholars and, indeed, still persists in numerous popular works. Speaking of this concept twenty-five years ago, Norman and I could say: “In fact, that assumption is still the unchallenged operating scheme of most biblical scholars who have not had occasion to study the matter closely with the

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aid of improved social scientific understandings of pastoral nomadism” (Frick and Gottwald: 152). While we could not make that statement about the mainstream of scholarly work today, the idea still persists in some circles. A prominent American representative of “first wave” social-world studies was Louis Wallis of the University of Chicago, who published his first sociologically informed work concerning the Bible in the first decade of this century, an essay titled “Sociological Significance of the Bible” (1907). Wallis followed this early essay with more substantive works in 1912, 1935, and 1942. The sociohistorical context of Wallis’s work was the introduction of the academic discipline of sociology to the U.S. at the University of Chicago, coupled with the cultivation of process theology and the influence of the Social Gospel movement in American Protestantism. In the United States, the latter movement drew extensively on biblical sources and tended to produce works that summed up the social dimensions of the religion of the Bible in forms that were principally addressed to the needs of the broader religious community or to theologically oriented audiences such as seminarians and pastors. The impact of these works on scholarly biblical studies was minimal. They did not stimulate a program of social inquiry and research for biblical specialists, who at the time were under the influence of forms of European biblical scholarship that provided little encouragement for and few leads on how to pick up the sociological emphases of the Social Gospel movement as a valid project for serious biblical scholarship. For a period in the 1920s and 1930s biblical scholars at the University of Chicago tried to combine a broadly social approach with comparative religion in order to reconstruct the religious life of ancient Israel and the early church as living communities. Their accomplishments were, however, more notable in New Testament than in Old Testament studies. “The Chicago School,” as it came to be known, never developed the kind of specific sociological methods that could be readily applied to biblical studies. Rather, it tended in the direction of comparative cultural studies that did not take seriously the social structure of biblical communities per se. The University of Chicago approach eventually was overwhelmed by the tidal wave of neoorthodoxy and biblical theology that inundated North American religious and biblical scholarly circles in the late 1930s and the 1940s. Reflecting some of the concerns of nascent urban sociology, which, in turn, mirrored social concerns in America at the time, Wallis saw in Israelite history a rural-urban split, with the rural representing the true ideals of Yahwism, and the urban representing the social elite, first from the residual Canaanite and then from a stratified Israelite culture—with a consequent cultural and class struggle. As Charles Carter has recently observed, this concept of a protracted cultural and class struggle, roughed out by Wallis, was picked up and refined by Mendenhall and Gottwald (14–15).

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The hiatus following the “first wave” social-world studies is illustrated by the fact that the second and third series of Robertson Smith’s Lectures were only “discovered” by John Day in 1991, and published in 1995. While Robertson Smith’s work is representative of the emphases of “first wave” studies, as noted, it seems not to have had much of a direct impact on biblical studies in general. In fact, the pioneering significance of his work has only really been recognized since the advent of the “second wave” of socialworld studies. “Second wave” social-world studies have also benefitted from the pioneering work of Max Weber, the sociologist who was “the first to apply comprehensively to the study of ancient Israel the methods and approaches of sociological analysis” (McNutt: 17) and has probably had more influence on biblical scholarship than any other single social scientist. Carter catalogues some of Weber’s ideas that have been picked up and expanded by biblical scholars in the “second wave”: (1) the social importance of covenant (Mendenhall, Noth, and Cross); (2) the social context of prophecy (Wilson); (3) the social structure of Israel (Noth, Gottwald, and Stager); (4) the social setting of the Levites (Gottwald); (5) the development of sectarianism (Talmon); (6) the “routinization” of authority as it progresses from “charismatic” to “rational” (Malamat); and (7) his various “ideal types” that have been widely used (15). The hiatus between the “first wave” and the “second wave” was punctuated with some notable exceptions—for example, the work of Johannes Pedersen and Roland de Vaux, both of whom produced multivolume “handbooks” that still tend to be cited somewhat uncritically by some. Pedersen’s psychosocial study of biblical Israel was notable for its treatment of the mana-like Hebrew conceptions of “name,” “soul,” “holiness,” and the like. This work has seen wide use by biblical scholars searching for a way to overcome the fragmentation and hyper-rationalism of literary criticism. Pedersen applied to Israel the folk-soul and group-consciousness approach that the Danish historian of religion, V. P. Grønbech, had applied to old Nordic culture. He tended to see the social system as a mirror reflection of a people’s psychology or way of perceiving reality. Pedersen combined two very different approaches in his prodigious study. Alongside the betterknown psychically empathetic examination of key Israelite words, practices, and institutions, he interjected brief sketches of Israel’s social history, in which he endeavored to show how religion changed along with social forms. Unfortunately, he never successfully integrated the two approaches, and he apparently lacked the requisite social-scientific tools that would have enabled him fully to realize his efforts to produce a comprehensive socioreligious developmental history of ancient Israel. De Vaux’s invaluable compilation of social data in his Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions also lacks a sustained social-historical perspective and

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evidences only a limited knowledge of sociological theory. De Vaux gathered social and cultural data from assorted sources, including archaeological reports, studies of Israel’s neighbors, and even dictionary and encyclopedia articles. For the most part, he treated sociocultural data as a sideshow to the main attraction of the literary, historical, and religious study of the Old Testament. While we know something of ancient Israel’s social institutions of family, clan, and tribe from de Vaux’s work, we also know that he neglected large tracts of social reality, most notably economics and important aspects of politics, both of which have become critical areas of concern in “second wave” studies and are well-represented in this volume. In de Vaux’s work, synchronic and diachronic systematic analyses appear infrequently— instead, data are presented as so many discrete “facts.” Sometimes he organized his materials rather fragmentarily as commentary on biblical texts or topics. Finally, in this regard, the work of Antonin Causse should be noted, even though it has not enjoyed as widespread an application as Weber’s. Antonin Causse, who was indebted to Emile Durkheim, wrote an impressively synthesized account of Israelite sociocultural evolution in 1937 titled Du groupe ethnique à communauté religieuse: Le problème sociologique de la religion d’Israël. The thesis of Causse’s work was that Israel began as an ethnic pastoral nomadic community, gradually losing its organic solidarity as it settled down and diversified economically. This change was principally due to the pressure and attraction of Canaanite civilization. According to Causse, the original bond between society and religion was severed, and collective identity and responsibility dissolved into private interests, rupturing beyond repair the previous harmony of social life and religious thought and practice. In response, prophets arose to address the new confusions and divided loyalties from the critical perspective of the old solidarities. To his credit, Causse opposed romantic notions of bedouin life, emphasizing simply that Israelite peasants retained the old norms and practices of social solidarity. He failed to explain, however, how peasants managed to do so, other than by means of some sort of ethnic memory. It is now widely acknowledged that Causse’s too-simplistic trajectory from collectivism to individualism needs radical reformulation and nuancing. However, his sociocultural view of ancient Israel as a people in transit from a cohesive ethnicity to an individuated religiosity is probably the most lucid expression of what is still one of the “preferred theories” of Israel’s social history. Causse assumed that the important watershed in ancient Israel was the move from harmonious self-contained pastoral nomadic modes of existence to divisive atomizing agricultural, craft, and trading modes of existence. He characterized ancient Israel’s sociocultural movement as proceeding from “lower” to “higher” cultural adaptations, from “simple” to “complex” social and economic organization, as it transplanted itself from the desert to the

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sown land and then to city life. Like Wallis, Causse’s concept of the evolutionary social development of Israel was not very favorably received by the neo-orthodox and biblical theological “return to the Bible” movements of the day, but they did not criticize his social developmental theory on the grounds of social data. Instead, they either ignored it or sought to refute it on theological grounds. With hindsight, Causse’s socioreligious evolutionary conception should not be faulted for perceiving the organically social nature of Israel’s religion. Nor can we question the fact that Israel’s social organization changed adaptively throughout biblical history. From what we know today, the problem with Causse’s model is its insubstantial connection with the empirical data and its rootage in anthropological and sociological models that are outmoded—a continuing “Achilles’ heel” of social-world studies to which I will return below. So far as published scholarly output is concerned, an important marker for the inauguration of the “second wave” of social-world studies is the publication of Mendenhall’s 1962 essay on “The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine” (hence the time frame for “first wave” studies of 1880–1960 in our original essay). Mendenhall set forth an idea that has been central to biblical social-world studies ever since: This paper represents a conscious attempt to substitute a quite different “ideal model” for that which has so long been held; the purpose of this hypothesis is not to give dogmatic answers to historical problems, but rather to suggest further fruitful lines of inquiry, and to suggest relationships between seemingly unrelated bits of information. (66–67)

Why the lacuna between “first wave” and “second wave” social-world studies? What has enabled “second wave” studies to prosper and have a significant impact on biblical studies? My answer to these questions is that “second wave” studies have benefitted from both “pushes” and “pulls.” Like the catalyst for other developments in biblical studies, there was a heightening concern, among many scholars, with the growing fragmentation and hyper-rationalism of historical biblical criticism, coupled with the realization that it could not deliver dispassionate, objective answers. The “positivist-humanist” perspective that was still in vogue in biblical studies in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which included the expectation that “biblical archaeology” and “biblical theology” would provide more solid ground on which to stand than the “shifting sand” of anthropology and sociology, was fading. “Second wave” studies also have benefitted from other developments in content and praxis in the last quarter century. Flanagan argues in this volume, “The content of biblical studies and their praxis, that is, their modes of investigation, production, and dissemination, have been transformed in this quarter century” (17). He then itemizes some examples of this transformation:

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Semeia, the experimental journal that has fostered new modes of interpretation, was launched in 1974. Scholars Press also began in 1974. The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament began publication in Sheffield University’s Department of Biblical Studies in 1976. A significant spinoff of the JSOT Press for social-world studies was Almond Press, founded in 1979 by David Gunn with a monograph series that became a principal forum for published scholarship from the SBL program units referred to above.

Both the Scholars Press and the JSOT Press represented significant outlets for emerging social-world studies at a time when the high prices and sinking sales of scholarly books by major university presses were limiting the publishing opportunities of younger scholars. Behind these new forums for ideas there were also new technologies—even B.C. (before computers)—that enabled new work to become available rapidly and inexpensively, thanks to the ability of scholars to produce camera-ready copy. As but one example of this I cite my own Princeton University Ph.D. dissertation on “The City in Ancient Israel,” which was published in the SBL Dissertation Series of Scholars Press in 1977 from a camera-ready copy. Thus, as detailed by Flanagan (in this volume), “second wave” social-world studies were part of a series of revolutionary developments (see Flanagan above, 19). In spite of some initial resistance, “second wave” studies have also benefitted from and built on the growing recognition of biblical scholars that biblical literature was shaped by social forces as well as by the discrete historical phenomena for which both “biblical archaeology” and “biblical theology” had searched in vain. As late as 1988, however, Baruch Halpern represented those who voiced continuing resistance to the idea of biblical studies using methods and theories from the social sciences: Social-scientific (methods) . . . call on models extrinsic not just to the text, but to the culture as a whole. They apply universal, unhistorical schematics, like those of the natural sciences, yet deal, like the human sciences, in variables (e.g. forms of society) whose components, whose atoms, are never isolated. Such tools cannot usher in a revolution in historical certainty. Their promise, like that of the positivist program of the nineteenth century is an eschatological one. (5)

I believe, however that what began as a sometimes-mistrusted ancillary to “real” biblical studies has developed into an accepted part of biblical criticism, largely in the past fifteen years or so, and the essays in this volume represent diverse expressions of “the state of the art” in social-scientific criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Writing in 1984, Robert Wilson noted that “the use of social-scientific data in biblical studies is not in its infancy” (81). As the essays in this volume amply demonstrate, since 1984 social-scientific perspectives have come to be systematically applied to an ever-broadening

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range of questions about ancient Israel’s life, and it seems clear that this approach has moved out of its infancy and even its adolescence. While it may not yet have reached its maturity, it is well on its way to becoming a standard tool in the repertoire of biblical scholars, even among some of those who were its “cultured despisers” in the early years of the “second wave.” A recent (1996) collection of essays concerning social-scientific biblical criticism, edited by Charles Carter and Carol Meyers, divides them into (1) “classic” studies—those that were somehow foundational to the history or development of social-scientific biblical criticism as it is now practiced— including William Robertson Smith, Weber, and Causse, as well as Mendenhall and Gottwald, and (2) case studies that are representative of some of the major currents in biblical studies today (which is how the essays in this volume might also be characterized). While, as Carter says, early “second wave” studies tended to concentrate on two major areas: (1) the emergence of Israel in Palestine, early Israelite society, and the forces leading to state formation; and (2) institutions of ancient Israel, including prophecy, Israelite religion, and gender and sexuality in Israelite society (20), the essays collected here demonstrate how that range has expanded. In what follows I comment upon these essays and their place in social-scientific biblical criticism in alphabetical order, according to the author’s surname. The essay by Jacques Berlinerblau, titled “Ideology, Pierre Bourdieu’s Doxa, and the Hebrew Bible,” is representative of Berlinerblau’s special focus on the application of sociological methods to biblical study, in this case Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of doxa. Berlinerblau is a member of a very small tribe—those holding doctorates both in sociology and Northwest Semitic languages. In another essay Berlinerblau maintains that there are two distinct species of biblical sociology—one that, as a product of sociology’s patriarchal era, featured scholars like Weber, Robertson Smith, and Marx who used the Hebrew Bible or classical antiquity as a means of testing sociological or economic theory, and the other that is associated with contemporary biblical scholars who use the sociological theories of others as a means of gaining a better understanding of the Bible. He goes on to assert that these two species are entirely different and that it is theory that gets short shrift in the work of the latter (1999: 101–2). In the present essay Berlinerblau examines the theoretical assumptions that lie beneath the surface of many discussions of ideology in contemporary biblical scholarship, which view ideology as voluntaristic, that is, arising from the deliberate decisions of human beings. He contends that, like much sociological biblical criticism, most discussions of ideology in biblical scholarship are undertheorized. After critiquing what he sees as an uncritical adoption of a voluntaristic view of ideology in some biblical scholarship, Berlinerblau analyzes the fundamental theoretical components of a “doxic” approach to ideology, as developed by Bourdieu, that is concerned with an unstated and

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unrecognized domain of agreement, and advocates the consideration of this approach to ideology in biblical studies, concluding: “Let this not be construed as a call for a rigid methodological determinism as much as it is a plea for more biblical scholars to engage theories of ideology in all of their glorious complexity” (207). Susan A. Brayford’s essay, “To Shame or Not to Shame: Sexuality in the Mediterranean Diaspora,” is characteristic of two emphases of recent socialworld studies—the anthropological code of honor/shame and an increasing attention to gender constructs (on the former, cf. the 1994 volume of Semeia devoted to honor and shame in the biblical world referred to below that was edited by Matthews and Benjamin). While Brayford underscores the importance of the concepts of honor and shame for assessing social relationships in the Bible, she cautions against a rigid application of an oversimplified understanding and application of the Mediterranean, that is, sexualized, model of honor and shame. In doing so, she echoes concerns of the social anthropologist John Chance (referred to below) regarding a monolithic conception of honor and shame. She maintains that “although honor is . . . an important criterion in assessing . . . male [biblical] characters, shame, in its positive sense, is not always a major factor in female characterization. Pentateuchal texts, in particular, do not represent consistently the value accorded to positive female shame in the Mediterranean model of the honor/shame code” (164) that reflects an attempt to control female sexuality. Brayford contends that the honor/shame code, correctly understood, offers fruitful interpretive options for several pentateuchal narratives that concern female sexuality. Marvin Chaney’s essay, “Whose Sour Grapes? The Addressees of Isaiah 5:1–7 in the Light of Political Economy,” addresses, as its title implies, issues of political economy in the eighth-century prophets, a subject that has been central to Chaney’s contributions to SBL program units. Chaney has often focused on reading prophetic texts from the eighth century B.C.E. in light of the rapidly changing political economies of Judah and Israel at that time, a situation in whose reconstruction the social sciences have played a major role. He has been especially interested in the dynamics of agricultural intensification in the eighth century B.C.E. Chaney’s work represents that facet of social-scientific biblical criticism that prompts fresh address to “established” issues or problems in the history of interpretation. Chaney, while making masterful use of the standard tools of historical-critical exegesis and archaeological evidence, employs sociological theory to draw attention to ways in which one’s presuppositions about agrarian political economy condition one’s reading of such texts as Isaiah’s “Song of the Vineyard.” His careful study of the political economy of viticulture in Isaiah’s time, coupled with historicalcritical investigation that includes some skillful lexicographical analysis, discloses considerable strife associated with the process of agricultural

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intensification that enriched the powerful few but dispossessed and impoverished many peasants. Like Chaney’s, Stephen L. Cook’s essay, “The Lineage Roots of Hosea’s Yahwism,” focuses on what social analysis can bring to the study of one of the eighth-century prophets. Like Chaney, Cook uses some of the traditional historical-critical tools but also calls for a sociologically informed reappraisal of features of priestly kinship and lineage. Cook’s work represents another significant aspect of social-world studies, the application of insights derived from ethnographic studies done by social anthropologists. In this case, Cook applies a cross-cultural study to suggest that Hosea engaged his prophetic struggle with the northern cult not from an outsider’s stance but from within a cultic and ritualistic framework that had a particular prehistory— involving Hosea’s lineage having been excluded from participation in the cult. Hosea had roots in a traditional lineage-based ritual system that came into conflict with a state-based system. Cook forms a sociological model based on ethnographic studies of several African peoples and then tests it with an exacting exegesis of two texts in Hosea, which, as he concludes “confirms the applicability to Hosea’s setting of our sociological model of transition and conflict between lineage-based and state-based ritual systems” (159). James W. Flanagan’s essay on “Ancient Perceptions of Space/Perceptions of Ancient Space” has been referenced above. Flanagan’s essay differs from others in this volume in that it is programmatic rather than historical. Neither is it an application of a theory about space to particular biblical data. As noted above, in the first part of his essay, Flanagan establishes a social location for emerging social-world studies in the wider field of scholarship and information technology. In the second part of his essay, having demonstrated the fact that social space is a major concern in social theory, he proceeds to suggest that electronic technologies are today forcing new spatially related questions about “alternative boundaries, ethereal spaces, and networks of relationships” (24). In closing, he suggests two particular areas in which he thinks critical spatiality can enhance social-world studies of biblical antiquity—studies of genealogies, and studies of the “settlement” period. The intriguing title of Heather A. McKay’s essay, “Confronting Redundancy As Middle Manager and Wife: The Feisty Woman of Genesis 39,” suggests that, as in Brayford’s essay, we are here dealing with ways in which social-scientific analysis can enhance our understanding of gender roles in the Hebrew Bible. While like Chaney and Cook, McKay focuses on a particular text, her essay is unique in that she represents that small group of scholars who would apply methods and theories from the social sciences to biblical studies that do not derive from sociology and anthropology alone. The approach she uses here is reader response, and the theoretical bases are

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derived from management theory in addition to social anthropology. Her essay proceeds from an analysis of the ambiguities and narrative gaps in the biblical narrative, through the theoretical positions and readings of Genesis 39 that might be done by a human-resources management consultant and a social anthropologist, to a new understanding of the character and role of the three main players in the story that can be provided by adopting these reading positions. Paula McNutt’s work in social-world studies has often concentrated on the application of comparative information and studies on the social status of artisans and smiths in traditional African and Middle Eastern societies to biblical data. In her essay here, “In the Shadow of Cain,” she examines the narrative in Genesis 4 that represents Cain and his descendants as culture heroes and as the eponymous ancestors of smiths and artisans. Unlike many interpretations of the story of Cain that have concentrated on ethical and theological issues associated with fratricide, McNutt presents scenarios from traditional African and Middle Eastern societies that point to the social marginalization of smiths and other artisans. Like Flanagan, McNutt is concerned with critical spatiality and helps us to understand how spatiality is used to signify the social status and roles of groups in the Cain myth. The strategy of unbalanced gift giving in an obligatory exchange system provides the focus for Victor H. Matthews’s essay on “The Unwanted Gift: Implications of Obligatory Gift Giving in Ancient Israel.” Like Brayford, Matthews is also concerned with honor and shame in the ancient Near East, in his case with its relationship to the ritualized exchange of gifts. Matthews begins with Marcel Mauss’s sociological and psychological examination of the rituals of gift giving, augments it with other analyses of exchange, and applies exchange theory to selected biblical narratives that exhibit obligatory gift giving as a means of obtaining honor and the punitive nature of gift giving, both a means of garnering honor as well as a method for imposing shame. Like Chaney, Ronald A. Simkins is concerned with issues of political economy in his essay, “Patronage and the Political Economy of Monarchic Israel.” It is Simkins’s contention that economic behavior has been neglected in social analysis, and social processes have often been deemed irrelevant to economic theory. Anthropological political economy has, however, analyzed economic behavior in the context of social life. It has gone beyond a substantive approach in the tradition of Marx and classical political economy and has placed needed emphasis on the social relations of production. Simkins faults biblical scholars (even sociologically informed ones) for their apparent unconsciousness of developments in economic anthropology. Echoing the references above to biblical scholars’ use of the work of Max Weber, Simkins observes that “Although the influence of Max Weber’s early economic analysis of ancient Israelite society occasionally may be felt in

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biblical scholarship, his work has rarely inspired further economic analysis, even among those scholars who regularly employ the theories and methods of the social sciences in biblical interpretation” (125). As a corrective to this neglect, Simkins’s essay analyzes ways in which a nuanced Marxian analysis of political economy provides an analytical framework for unloosing the nexus of social relations of production and distribution, structures and conduits of power, and ideology that was characteristic of the institution of patronage and determinative of the economy and social structure in monarchic Israel, with its two primary modes of production: the dominant clientelistic and the subordinate domestic mode. Gary Stansell’s essay, “The Gift in Ancient Israel,” bears a close resemblance to Matthews’s essay described above. Stansell also uses the work of Marcel Mauss (coupled with Malinowski) as a point of departure for the analysis of gift giving. Stansell’s article provides helpful reviews of extended critical evaluations of Mauss’s work by other social theorists. Following the presentation of a cross-cultural model of gift exchange, he makes use of the model to analyze selected biblical texts dealing with gifts, grouping the texts according to their context within spheres where either a kinship sphere or a political one are predominant. He concludes that although the Maussian model finds echoes in the biblical texts, they do not demonstrate directly that the Israelites strongly felt the obligation to return a gift, though such an obligation can be assumed. Gale Yee, like Simkins, utilizes Marxian analysis of the mode of production to investigate the Yahwist creation narrative in her essay, “Gender, Class, and the Social-Scientific Study of Genesis 2–3.” Unlike Simkins, however, Yee identifies the dominant modes of production in ancient Israel as the tributary, the familial (what Gottwald calls “communitarian”), and the slave mode. She reads Genesis 2–3 as a response to a particular socioeconomic contradiction: “to maintain national unity and security against the threats of invaders, the confederated tribes of Israel revert back to an oppressive political system and MOP [mode of production], which they had rejected when they became a confederacy” (179). Yee’s work is characteristic of those who see the benefits of sociological criticism in exploring questions concerning sexuality in ancient Israel. Yee maintains that the politics of gender encoded in Genesis 2–3 should be placed within the overall politics of state centralization. When this is done, it appears that Genesis 2–3 articulates a gender ideology that both: (1) privileges the marriage bond over the kinship bond, in the interests of state control over population; and (2) attempts to legitimize the increased subordination of the wife to her husband, who, in turn, is subordinated to a wider social hierarchy. “To legitimize royal interests, as well as justify the current lower status of the peasant in the tributary economy, the story shifts the point of conflict from the public arena of class relations between men to the more private

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domain of household relations between men and women” (188). In Yee’s view, class struggle is shifted to gender struggle, which is more amenable to ideological manipulation, given the subordination of women to men during the monarchy. As these essays amply demonstrate, as biblical scholars have increasingly become aware of and have come to utilize methods and theories from the social sciences—especially sociology and social anthropology—there has also been, of necessity, a coming to terms with the nature of the Bible as a socially constructed source. The social location of those responsible for writing and editing the texts that came to constitute the Hebrew Bible, as well as those who read and interpret them, means that what we have in biblical literature hardly represents the interests and concerns of the general society, but rather the concerns of a small male literate elite, representing the interests of those in power. Attempts at reconstructing ancient Israel’s social world have hardly been unaffected by corresponding developments in the assessment of the Bible as a historical source, a subtext in these essays. In an earlier work, McNutt outlined the range of answers to the question, “To what degree can one construct an accurate history based on the Bible?”: At one end of the spectrum are those who insist that the Bible is literally accurate in all historical details. At the other end are those who view the overall value of the Bible as a historical source with great skepticism. Most biblical scholars fall somewhere between the two extremes, but the skeptics’ voices in recent years have been loud enough that they have generated some heated response from some who hold the middle ground or are closer to the other end of the spectrum. (7)

Wherever one places oneself in this spectrum, social-world studies have helped to make all biblical scholars more aware of the fact that history is a social construct. The purpose of biblical narratives is not to “present facts” but to answer questions that people ask about their relationships—relationships to the land on which they live, to the ethnic group with which they identify, and to the religious myths and rituals that undergird their sense of identity. While social-world studies have progressed in the face of developments in the assessment of the Bible as a historical source, they have also been accompanied by, and benefitted from, a reassessment of what archaeology can and cannot do for biblical studies—something that appears in several of the current essays. From a preeminent concern with reconstructing political history and providing support for understanding the “big events” in history, there has been a shift in archaeology that has been of great benefit to social-world studies. Archaeology has increasingly become interested in providing information about the everyday life of the average village dweller, not just those who lived in elite urban dwellings. The past ten years

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have seen, for example, the publication of works such as Bryant Wood’s The Sociology of Pottery in Ancient Palestine, which explores the relationship between pottery and its cultural and economic environment. Because ethnographic studies on the sociology of pottery in the Middle East are lacking, Wood drew on ethnographic studies from various parts of the world to demonstrate that cross-cultural generalizations can be made concerning the relationship of ceramics to environment and culture. In reconstructing ancient Israel’s social world, models and theories from both anthropology and sociology have been used, with the former discipline receiving more attention since sociology often focuses on industrial and postindustrial societies, while anthropologists tend to give more attention to preindustrial societies. Anthropology has, however, also undergone change and now gives more attention to the ways in which people symbolize meaning and the ways in which these constructed meanings, as well as techno-environmental factors, influence social, political, and economic change. Tom Overholt, an early participant in “second wave” SBL groups, recently produced a volume for the Guides to Biblical Scholarship series titled Cultural Anthropology and the Old Testament, in which he makes a compelling case for the usefulness of anthropological theory in the study of the Hebrew Bible. He observes that while an appeal to anthropological theory can help us think more clearly about the nature of culture, attention to theory should also result in an awareness of ongoing discussions and debates among anthropologists. He concludes: “This should have the salutary effect of warning us against uncritical dependence on [anthropological] studies based on outmoded or controversial presuppositions” (4). Overholt’s comment points to an ongoing concern in our use of anthropological theory, namely, the difficulties in critical engagement across disciplinary lines. While biblical scholars may increasingly utilize anthropologists’ work, there are few anthropologists who, because of their disciplinary commitments, have a command of critical biblical studies, and thus we have not been able to engage them as frequently as we might like. In one such recent engagement, Vic Matthews and Don Benjamin, who edited a volume of Semeia focusing on honor and shame in the world of the Bible, submitted five studies by biblical scholars to two anthropologists for review—John Chance, Professor of Anthropology at Arizona State University, who has interests in ethnohistory, political economy, social stratification, and ethnicity in colonial Mexico; and Gideon Kressel of the Blaustein Institute for Desert Research at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, much of whose research has centered on land usage by Negev bedouin and the relationships between the bedouin and state authorities. In his response, Kressel examines each of the studies in the volume separately and says that the critiques “are intended to provide a note of caution as well as to be helpful in future study of honor and shame in the biblical materials” (153). Unfortunately, there is not much either

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in the way of general cautionary notes nor of generic helpfulness in Kressel’s response. Neither is his brief conclusion very helpful, in that it offers nothing generalizable in terms of the title of the essay, “An Anthropologist’s Response to the Use of Social Science Models in Biblical Studies.” Rather, he offers only the descriptive comment: “The accent in the studies on honor and shame in this issue of Semeia oscillates between the concomitants of agnation (patrilineally tribal) and the vindication of what the individual person does in the eyes of God (viz., not necessarily in terms of what others expect him to do)” (160). He adds that the agnatic ethic is operative on the Southern littoral of the Mediterranean basin, while individual accountability characterizes the European littoral. He then comments: “The two littorals once encountered are at cross-purposes and the absurd can come into play” (160). That is it. There is not much there that we can take away. On the other hand, Chance has a number of helpful things to say. He begins with a brief survey of the ways in which cultural anthropology has studied value systems, admitting that anthropology has tended to merge values with its concept of culture and, until very recently, has never dealt very well with the affective dimensions of culture. He then comments: The papers in this volume might give the unwary reader the impression that anthropologists are largely in agreement on the meaning and significance of honor and shame in Mediterranean contexts. This is most definitely not the case, however. Just as the concepts themselves differ in meaning and nuance from one place to another, anthropologists have sought to explicate them in various ways. Cultural, psychological, symbolic, ecological, economic, political, and social structural interpretations have been offered, and a consensus on the fundamentals has been no easier to teach than it has been on anything else that anthropologists study. (140)

The fact that there is no obvious consensus among anthropologists on honor and shame, or for that matter on a myriad of other topics, invites us, as Overholt suggests, to be eclectic, carefully choosing theoretical insights that seem useful for particular exegetical ventures. To be eclectic does not imply that one must know about and give equal weight to the whole range of anthropological theories. Rather, by utilizing different theoretical insights one discovers where theoretical positions, while being conceptually divergent, have significant points of congruence. Overholt, for example, says that those anthropologists whose work he has found most useful generally agree (1) that in order to understand how societies work it is necessary to take into account both agency (i.e., individual human action) and social structure; (2) that social life is by nature contradictory; and (3) that it is necessary to operate with a nonpositivist epistemology that holds that anthropological description does not so much mirror social reality as provide one of several possible maps that can guide us in our attempt to understand society (5).

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Returning from Overholt’s comments as a biblical scholar on the work of anthropologists to an anthropologist’s assessment of the work of biblical scholars, Chance, in a general cautionary note, adds that those who seek to apply anthropology to the Bible face the problem of what ethnohistorians call “upstreaming”: how to validly project insights gained in the twentieth century—usually through ethnography—back into the past. Commenting on today’s anthropologists, he asserts that they are less naive than they used to be about the supposed autonomy of “traditional” societies. In contrast to the diversity of approaches to honor and shame in the anthropological literature, he says that “the biblical scholars in the present volume all seem to draw from the same well,” and indeed on one common essay. He adds: I found it refreshing to read the work of scholars who seek to use anthropology constructively. The positive tone and implicit adherence to a common analytical model have their benefits, and stand in sharp contrasts to the disagreement, self-doubt, and bickering which characterize so much current anthropological writing. If the biblical scholars show little inclination to get involved in the theoretical issues surrounding honor and shame (as most anthropologists who write on the topic feel they must), they may be excused on the grounds of discipline and training. On the other hand, as so often happens when one discipline borrows from another, the anthropology employed in these papers is beginning to look a bit dated. (142–43)

Chance thus argues that biblical scholars who seek to apply anthropological concepts would do well to recognize heterogeneity in the societies they study, develop a more sophisticated concept of culture, and pay more attention to the relationship between values and culture. At the conclusion of his essay he adds three more methodological challenges. The first cautions against blanket applications of monolithic models. The second and third of these challenges, while they focus more specifically on the essays in the volume on honor and shame, can be applied more generally. The first warns against any attempt to overextrapolate any given model from anthropology. He says: “There is more to Mediterranean culture than honor and shame. The Bible can be fruitfully approached with other insights from anthropology” (148). Finally, Chance calls for more attention to diachronic studies dealing with change and process rather than synchronic ones and remarks that “The papers in this volume provide valuable time depth, but the analyses—like most others in the literature—are remarkably static” (149). He does not find this surprising, since ethnographers themselves are seldom equipped or inclined to do history and Mediterranean historians are preoccupied with other topics. In conclusion, he opens a window of opportunity for biblical scholars: This is why interdisciplinary scholarship . . . is so important. Now that ethnographers are addressing spatial variations in Mediterranean values,

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biblical scholars with an anthropological bent are well-positioned to begin to explore comparatively their vicissitudes through time. (149)

Conclusion What, then, should we expect from reading the Hebrew Bible with a point of view informed by the social sciences? This set of essays should put to rest those suspicions that surfaced early in the “second wave”—that a social-scientific approach would lead biblical scholars to disparage the “standard” methodologies. Certainly any of us who have been in this business for any length of time realize that there are numerous obstacles we must overcome in our attempts to arrive at understandings of the Hebrew Bible—among them the gaps in time, space, and culture. Socially informed studies, however, have alerted us to other issues such as differences in the social locations, not only between ourselves and our ancient Israelite sisters and brothers, but also within ancient Israel itself. Because of our sometimes scanty knowledge about the social world of ancient Israel, it is often difficult to sort out the ideologies and other sociocultural features that provide the subtexts to the texts we study. Our knowledge of the society that produced the Hebrew Bible and of the social locations of individuals within that society contains large lacunae, and as Overholt says, “It is hard to miss the irony here: We turn to anthropology because of the paucity of our information, but that very paucity makes the use of anthropology problematic” (22). So, where are we today, and what is to be desired for the future? Certainly, as a consequence of what has transpired in the academy in the last twenty-five years, and as is demonstrated in this collection of essays, there is a healthy ferment about methods, models, and theories from the social sciences among biblical scholars today that has greatly expanded the type and range of questions that can be asked about the nature of ancient society. We now recognize that differing reconstructions of ancient Israelite society are a result, in part, of our own social location, although this is not often enough identified explicitly. One of my desiderata for social-world studies is that biblical scholars will become increasingly “upfront” on this point. An enduring critique, happily less true now than it was twenty-five years ago when many biblical scholars had less undergraduate training in the social sciences than many now have, is that biblical scholars are un- or at least underqualified to apply social-scientific methods and models. What is needed here is a realistic cost-benefit analysis. While there are costs in venturing into the social sciences as a biblical scholar, the benefits far outweigh them. Again, Paula McNutt said it well in her earlier work: Those who have taken these risks have generated new theories and fresh ways of conceptualizing the nature of, and interrelationships among, various

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semeia types of social phenomena in ancient Palestine—social organization and structure, kinship systems, gender relations, social stratification, the economy, the relationship between rural and urban populations, governmental institutions, leadership—and how these related to social processes, opening up new perspectives on the ancient information in a way that traditional approaches do not. The significance of this approach for the historian of ancient Israel lies, therefore, not in providing evidence or new data for “filling in the gaps,” but rather in providing “tools” for analyzing and raising questions about the ancient information. (215–16)

Certainly social-scientific models have allowed us to propose answers to questions for which the Bible can provide neither confirming nor disconfirming information. Such models also provide us with ways of dealing with the complex issues surrounding the key issues of “identity” and “conflict.” What about social-scientific biblical criticism in the near future? Two things are needed. The first is a greater theoretical consistency and depth. Berlinerblau has addressed this issue here and elsewhere. While I would side more with those who advocate a certain eclecticism in social-world studies, rather than a methodological/theoretical purity that ties Hebrew Bible interpretation to a particular social theorist in social-world studies, Berlinerblau, in an earlier essay, should be heard when he opines: “What consistently plagues modern biblical sociology . . . is an inability to participate in the process of theorizing” (102). Certainly, those of us who have either chaired program units or been on steering committees of units concerned with social-world studies since 1975 have seen far too many proposals that have lacked any real sense of methodological/theoretical self-consciousness and control in their use of methods and theories from the social sciences. The 1996 volume edited by Carter and Meyers (referred to above) and the 1997 reader edited by David Chalcraft, which thoroughly document the major traditions of biblical sociology and the ways in which they apply sociological methods and theories, should be required reading for all scholars of the Hebrew Bible. Berlinerblau’s proposed next step for the sociological study of the Hebrew Bible is also “right on target”: Reverence for the ancestors is part and parcel of the sociological enterprise. For better or for worse, most theoretical sociologists are still wrestling with the problems unleashed by Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, and other members of the pantheon. Any attempt to bring biblical sociology back, to lay the groundwork for a true triumph, will necessitate serious engagement with this body of theory. (117)

We also need an increased delivery of social-world insights beyond the pages of specialized volumes and essays to our colleagues in biblical studies and for more general consumption by serious nonprofessional students of the Bible. While there is certainly more “mainstreaming” of social-world

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thought than there was in 1975, we still lag behind our New Testament colleagues. New Testament social-scientific critics have published numerous works for scholars and the educated general reader alike. While those of us who work with the Hebrew Bible once floated a proposal to produce a series of social-scientific commentaries on books in the Hebrew Bible, that project never came to fruition. I end with a personal note. As one who has taught only undergraduate liberal arts students for thirty years, few of whom take courses in biblical studies beyond the introductory level, I was struck by the historicotheological tone of existing introductory Hebrew Bible textbooks. This led me to write an introductory textbook titled A Journey through the Hebrew Scriptures. In its preface I said: In recent years, some limits of historical criticism have been exposed as scholars have become aware of its inability to provide answers to important questions. While historical criticism could answer some historical questions, it could not produce satisfactory answers to questions about the literary shape of the Bible and the social environment of ancient Israel. Two of the more important developments in the study of the Hebrew Bible explore these areas. The past twenty years have seen an increased application of methods and theories from the social sciences to the study of social structures and processes that lay behind the biblical texts, the social world of ancient Israel. There has also been an interest in looking at biblical literature as literature, rather than as theology or history. Seen from one angle, these two new approaches may seem to be at odds with one another. Social scientific criticism, with its concern for the social world behind the text, is often allied with a historical criticism that sees meanings in the text that are determined by the circumstances of its production. On the other hand, the newer literary methods, with their focus on the world in the text, seem to be in agreement with those who say that the historical circumstances of a text’s production are unimportant and that we can interpret literature in any way we like. Our perspective here is that these two methods work best when used with one another, with one serving to check and correct the other. Common to both is a concern with structure—the structure of the literature in the Hebrew Bible and the structure of the society that produced and preserved that literature. (ix)

This textbook is fragmentary, in that it does not cover every book in the Hebrew Bible and, being almost five-years-old now, stands in need of revision or a successor, but it was a beginning in delivering some of the insights of social-scientific biblical criticism to those taking their first academic course in biblical studies. I stand in debt to Norman Gottwald for introducing me to the early Israelites in my first academic course in biblical studies in 1957, in which the textbook was his A Light to the Nations. Norman, via this book, introduced me

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to the study of the Hebrew Bible, with which social-scientific methods and theories have helped me to become much better acquainted. The poem he quoted in the dedication of his The Tribes of Yahweh bears repeating in this context: Think of them laughing, singing loving their people And all people who put love Before power then put love with power which is necessary To destroy power without love. (v)

I think methods and theories from the social sciences have provided important correctives to the old habits of presenting history as the story of the conscious actions of discrete individuals or particular groups. We now care about the social world of ancient Israel and its people in a more comprehensive sense, not just in its political and religious aspects, but in the way in which those constructs interact with the more mundane aspects of daily life in an ongoing, interconnected process.

WORKS CONSULTED Berlinerblau, Jacques 1999 “The Present Crisis and Uneven Triumphs of Biblical Sociology: Responses to N. K. Gottwald, S. Mandell, P. Davies, M. Sneed, R. Simkins and N. Lemche.” Pp 99–120 in Concepts of Class in Ancient Israel. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 201. Ed. Mark R. Sneed. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Carter, Charles E. 1996 “A Discipline in Transition: The Contributions of the Social Sciences to the Study of the Hebrew Bible.” Pp. 3–36 in Community, Identity, and Ideology: Social Science Approaches to the Hebrew Bible. Ed. Charles E. Carter and Carol L. Meyers. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Causse, Antonin 1937 Du groupe ethnique à communauté religieuse: Le problème sociologique de la religion d’Israël. Études d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 33. Paris: Alcan. Chalcraft, David, ed. 1997 Social-Scientific Old Testament Criticism: A Sheffield Reader. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

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Chance, John K. 1994 “The Anthropology of Honor and Shame: Culture, Values, and Practice.” Semeia 68:139–51. Douglas, Mary 1966 Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Frick, Frank S. 1995 A Journey through the Hebrew Scriptures. Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt Brace. Frick, Frank S., and Norman K. Gottwald 1976 “The Social World of Ancient Israel.” Pp. 149–65 in The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics. Ed. N. K. Gottwald. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis. Gottwald, Norman K. 1979 The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 B.C.E. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis. Halpern, Baruch 1988 The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History. New York: Harper & Row. Kressel, Gideon M. 1994 “An Anthropologist’s Response to the Use of Social Science Models in Biblical Studies.” Semeia 68:153–61. Matthews, Victor H., and Don C. Benjamin, eds. 1994 Honor and Shame in the World of the Bible. Semeia 68. McNutt, Paula M. 1999 Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. Library of Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Mendenhall, George 1962 “The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine.” BA 25:66–87. Overholt, Thomas W. 1996 Cultural Anthropology and the Old Testament. GBS. Ed. Gene M. Tucker. Minneapolis: Fortress. Pedersen, Johannes 1920 Israel: Its Life and Culture, I–IV. London: Oxford University Press. Vaux, Roland de 1958–60 Les institutions de l’Ancien Testament. Paris: Cerf. [ET: Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, 1961.] Wallis, Louis 1907 “Sociological Significance of the Bible.” American Journal of Sociology 12:532–52.

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1912

Sociological Study of the Bible. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1935

God and the Social Process: A Study in Hebrew History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1942

The Bible Is Human: A Study in Secular History. New York: Columbia University Press.

Wilson, Robert R. 1984 Sociological Approaches to the Old Testament. GBS. Philadelphia: Fortress. Wood, Bryant 1990 The Sociology of Pottery in Ancient Palestine. JSOTSup 103. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

RESPONSE: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AND COUNTING Norman K. Gottwald Pacific School of Religion

In his response to the essays in this volume, Frank Frick has done a superb job of recounting the history of social-world studies on the Hebrew Bible within SBL since 1975, situating them both in relation to preceding social-world research and within the wider cultural and social context of contemporary biblical scholarship. Consequently, I feel no need to cover the same ground since I am in virtually complete agreement with Frank’s assessments. For my response, I propose a more freewheeling reflection, touching on, elaborating, and illustrating a number of the points made by Frank, while adding a few of my own. It seems to me that the “sea change” in social-world studies over the last two decades has been the wide acceptance of social-scientific resources in biblical studies, to the point that we no longer need to argue for the application of social sciences to biblical studies, as was the case when the “second wave” of social-critical biblical studies began around 1960. We have an established subdiscipline whose legitimacy few would openly contest, even when they find its contributions marginal to their own interests. Indeed, we are now seeing a “rush” of studies that apply a growing number of socialscientific tools to a widening range of texts and topics in biblical studies. The movement of social-world studies “out of its infancy and even its adolescence,” to employ Frank’s apt phrase, was sharply impressed on me two years ago when I briefly entertained revising The Tribes of Yahweh instead of reprinting it. It took little more than a moment’s thought for me to realize that in order to say what I would now want to say about Israelite origins would require an entirely new book. Some of these alterations in perspective and in detail are scattered through my subsequent writings, and I have offered a summation of them in my new preface to the twentieth anniversary reprint of Tribes published by Sheffield Academic Press. Moreover, the vigor with which I defended social-scientific approaches to the Bible in Tribes, even to the point of “rhetorical overkill,” would today be largely “wasted breath.” The essays in the present volume are representative, although not exhaustive, of the spectrum of social-critical studies of the Hebrew Bible as they are practiced today. In one way or another the authors explore how particular theories and methods in the social sciences illuminate issues and texts whose treatment in previous biblical studies they find to have been

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incomplete or erroneous. They vary in the level and manner of their application of theory and method to biblical texts and topics. Some operate on a broad theoretical level, proposing shifts in orientation and categories of analysis that could potentially alter the way we look at all biblical texts (Simkins, Berlinerblau, Flanagan). Others take up an approach in the social sciences whose relevance to biblical studies they illustrate with reference to an assortment of thematically related texts (Matthews, Stansell, Brayford). Still others focus resolutely on puzzling biblical texts that stand to profit from social-critical elucidation (McNutt, Chaney, Cook, Yee, McKay). That all these articles have something noteworthy to say demonstrates that there is no one “correct” way of doing social-world studies. The converging and diverging results of using different approaches to the same text show up, for example, when three of the studies focus on the man-woman coupling in Genesis 2–3 (Simkins, Brayford, Yee). Even when the same anthropological data on gift giving are used to interpret the reunion of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 33, rather different emphases and nuances are elicited from the biblical text (Matthews, Stansell). In terms of textual focus, the present essays concentrate on the Pentateuch and the Former and Latter Prophets. That the Writings do not happen to be attended to in this collection does not reflect a lack of social-critical studies in the third division of the canon, but rather the happenstance of the particular research interests of the writers. Particularly striking is the broad spectrum of social-critical and biblical methodologies employed in diverse combinations. From the social sciences, we encounter macrosociology and political economy (Chaney, Simkins, Yee), cultural and political anthropology (McNutt, Matthews, Stansell, Chaney, Cook, Brayford), cultural studies (McNutt, Berlinerblau, Flanagan), ideological criticism (Berlinerblau, Yee), and social psychology and management theory (McKay). From biblical studies, in addition to historical-critical methods in the traditional sense (McNutt, Chaney, Cook, Yee), we find employment of gender criticism (Brayford, Yee, McKay), reader-response theory (McKay), narrative criticism (McNutt, McKay), and ideological criticism (Chaney, Simkins, Yee, Berlinerblau). I readily admit that my endeavor to specify the diverse methodologies in these essays is partial and to a degree subjective, since there are numerous theoretical and methodological “overlaps” and “crossovers” in the social sciences and a measure of eclecticism in many of the essays themselves. Interestingly, the one brand of methodology in biblical studies not represented here is the newer literary critical studies, which have been conjoined with social-critical studies by scholars such as David Jobling (1990, 1992) and Roland Boer (1996, 1998), and at which I have tried my hand on occasion (Gottwald, 1992). I attribute this “omission” to the fact that scholars who are most interested in the interface of social sciences and literary criticism have been working for the most part in the SBL program unit on Ideological Criticism, whereas the typical

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venues for the writers of the present essays have been in the SBL program units on Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures and on Constructs of the Social and Cultural Worlds of Antiquity. Indicative of the current self-confidence of social-world scholars, most of the essays make little or no effort to justify their choice of theory and method. Rather, they rely on the cogency of the insights they bring to biblical texts and topics to validate the analytical tools employed. The exceptions are the more programmatic essays of Simkins on “the patronage mode of production,” Berlinerblau on “covert ideology,” and Flanagan on “critical spatiality,” since they are not proposing conclusions about particular biblical data so much as they are inviting us to think about a range of biblical data in ways that are relatively new to biblical studies. McKay is also exceptional in that she understandably offers an extended rationale for employing two social-science schemas not hitherto familiar in biblical studies. The balance and interplay between macrosociology and anthropology is especially intriguing. The “second wave” of social-critical studies began with the macrosociology of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber in the forefront. Social studies on a macro scale continue to be well represented, as witnessed by the frequency with which the models of agrarian and bureaucratic societies proposed by Lenski, Kautsky, Eisenstadt, and Carney appear as a point of reference, and sometimes as the predominant frame of analysis, in socialcritical biblical studies. Alongside macrosociology, however, we are witnessing the burgeoning of anthropological approaches, amply evidenced in the present essays that mine the ethnographic data for cross-cultural perspectives on gift-giving rituals, honor-shame codes, lineage and state priesthoods, and artisans and smiths. In part, this “drift” toward anthropology results from specific sets of questions arising in biblical studies that are most concretely addressed by analogies from non- or semiliterate “traditional” societies. But a key factor in this development, in my opinion, is that anthropology has broadened and diversified in its approaches, opening up to history, admitting an interest in processes of social change, and extending its purview to how “traditional” and “modern” societies interact. Anthropology, as much or more than any of the other human sciences, has been fructified by the softening of boundaries between disciplines, to the point, for example, that political anthropology is now concerned with essentially the same issues of political economy that once were the specialty of macrosociologists. In my own work at present, I find a confluence and overlap of interest among anthropologists, sociologists, social historians, and literary and cultural critics that is valuable, sometimes essential, for grappling with the societal complexities of ancient Israel. In the course of writing my recent book on The Politics of Ancient Israel (2000), I was surprised to find the extent to which many scholars of the ancient Near East are drawing on macrosociology and anthropology to conceptualize and tackle problems

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previously approached largely through the humanities triad of history, literature, and religion. To get a perspective on political processes in the ancient Near East at large, the single most helpful work I found was that of Michael Mann (1986), a social historian well grounded in social theory and in cultural and political anthropology. Otherwise stated, “straight” Marx, Durkheim, or Weber are no longer sufficient resources, even as they “map out” strategies that are enduringly useful. No one theory or method, no single research strategy, has proven to be superior for all purposes in biblical studies. This contrasts in considerable measure, I believe, with the strategies of historical-critical methodologies, which are more clearly delimited, channeled, and constrained. The wide options available for social-scientific strategies call for great care in thinking through exactly what any particular theory or method is likely to demonstrate when applied to a biblical text or topic. Readers are not likely to be convinced of all the judgments made in the present collection, and it may not be easy for them to assess the potential and import of these essays for future studies. They will, however, not lack for provocative proposals that are carefully grounded and argued and that “leave the door open” for further development and debate. As Frick and many others have pointed out, this is one of the great merits of social-scientific theory and method. If you are going to use them at all, you are forced to be upfront about presuppositions and procedures. Although most of the present essays display a preference for one or another social-critical theory or method, they are not doctrinaire or purist. Several of the essays exhibit the judicious eclecticism commended, but also carefully circumscribed, in the work of Robert Wilson (1984) and Thomas Overholt (1996), as cited by Frick in his response to the present volume. The selective use of two or more methods is not to be faulted per se, as long as the inquiry clearly states the terms on which it is proceeding. Thus, when Chaney pulls together various strands of the political economy of a peasant society and musters intertexual exegesis, form criticism, and philology to make his case concerning Isaiah 5, the “parts” of his analysis serve an intelligible “whole.” Much the same can be said for Cook’s assembly of data on lineage and state priesthoods to illuminate the form-critical and text-critical difficulties that have obscured Hosea’s polemic against the northern cult. The effort of Simkins to interface household and statist political economies with patron-client political economy is legitimated by the way he is able to pose questions about the mechanisms that produced unequal distribution of wealth and power in monarchic Israel. Even McKay’s initially surprising yoking of the social psychology of aggression with hotel-management theory proves, on close reading, to offer some otherwise overlooked possibilities in understanding the story of Joseph, Potiphar, and “Rahpitop.” One social-critical approach that has not been explored to any great extent in

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recent studies is the comparison of ancient Israel with other societies taken as integral wholes in an effort to overcome the pitfalls of “picking and choosing” similarities torn out of context. Past macro comparisons of Israel with other societies and cultures have not proven very illuminating. One thinks of Evans-Pritchard’s linking of the Nuer people with the biblical Israelites (1956) and of Noth’s modeling of the Israelite confederacy on Greek amphictyonies (1930). It is not that Evans-Pritchard and Noth were wrong to undertake the comparisons or that their inquiries were entirely profitless. The problem was that their comparative frame was not broad enough synchronically and diachronically, and their allowance for shifting variables not refined enough, to render a well-proportioned comparison. It is my surmise that such well-advertised comparative studies by “giants in the field,” who nevertheless “missed the mark” in their major conclusions, have discouraged others from attempting comparisons on a macro scale. Recently I have had the nerve to tackle a macro comparison of Icelandic and Israelite origins, prompted by the manner in which Icelandic sagas and the Icelandic “law speaker” have been lifted out of context to illuminate early Israelite literature (1999a). I was curious to learn how the cited phenomenon was situated in Icelandic social history. In the course of my “probe,” I noted some very broad similarities between emerging Iceland and emerging Israel: aversion to political centralization, mixed patterns of agrarian/pastoral subsistence, relatively loose social organization, production of a rich variety of oral traditions, and competition among religious cults and practices, although in none of these categories were there any simple one-to-one correspondences that could be taken to “prove” anything about Israelite beginnings. In examining the diachronic trajectories of the two societies, certain debated points about early Israel came into sharper focus. The Icelandic trajectory is as follows: (1) Iceland retained an oral culture for about two hundred years (870–1100 C.E.), and the main outlines of its preliterate life were preserved with considerable accuracy; (2) during this same period, in the absence of centralized government, the confederated chieftainships of the Icelandic “commonwealth” maintained a viable communal order in spite of the established practice of blood feuding; (3) as an imbalance of wealth and power grew over time and blood feuding accelerated out of control, Icelanders—whose founders had fled political domination in Norway—sought inclusion in the Kingdom of Norway in the late thirteenth century. A century later, Iceland came under the “benign neglect” of Danish rule that lasted until a movement for independence led to its emergence in 1918 as a sovereign state under the Danish crown and finally to its declaration as the Republic of Iceland in 1944. I could thus see a trajectory of development in both societies from oral to written cultures closely correlated to social and political developments

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that “progressed” from decentralized to centralized political organization. However, the correlations between traditions and political organization were not temporally phased in the same manner in the two societies, which has a pronounced bearing on the evaluation of the sources of our information. My inquiry uncovered a significant difference in the status of our knowledge about Icelandic and Israelite origins. That difference hinges on the different points in time and in social and religious history when the orally recounted origins were captured in writing. In Iceland, the point of capture in writing occurred beginning around 1100 C.E., when Christianity brought a vibrant literary culture to Iceland. This literary florescence occurred while the Icelandic commonwealth was still operative and its traditions intact, and while the coexistence for some time of Nordic religion and newly accepted Christianity prevailed and is acknowledged in the sources. By contrast, in Israel the point of capture of the earliest traditions in writing occurred only after the tribal era had issued in monarchy and possibly as late as the postmonarchic period. Moreover, the mixture of Yahwistic and nonYahwistic cults, which we now believe to have been typical of both the tribal and monarchic eras, stood under the censure of the late traditionists who cannot be relied upon to give us a very accurate view of Israel’s tribal or monarchic religious practice. The complications in the divergent ways the two origin stories have come down to us may seem to discredit the heuristic value of the comparison. On the contrary, I think that this mix of a broadly similar sociopolitical history and idiosyncratic conditions affecting the preservation of traditions is exceedingly useful for rethinking Israelite origins by alerting us to the subtle interplay between society and literature in Israelite experience. It may even be of value in helping us to ascertain what sorts of preliterate traditions tend to survive and what sorts tend to be lost or confused. As I understand it, most controlled studies of that question have been based on African societies, as reported in the work of Vansina (1985). It is certainly to our advantage to have studies of the oral-to-written transmission of traditions in other societies. Work of this sort has indeed been done in Icelandic scholarship, but it remains largely inaccessible to scholars unfamiliar with the Scandinavian languages. To my knowledge, no one commanding both the Icelandic and biblical languages has made an in-depth assessment and appropriation of this work for the benefit of biblical studies. To be sure, I am well aware that my tentative conclusions from this brief sounding stand under the severe qualification that both Icelandic and biblical scholars are likely to take exception to the way I have construed one or the other phenomenon. So, I live under no illusions that my reading is conclusive; however, I am certain of one thing: I look at early Israel with freshened eyes now that I have seen the issues I have been pursuing played out in another society, alerted not only to structural and processual similarities but

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also to the one big difference in source status, which in turn awakens further questions and possible new angles for “getting at” Israelite origins. The plenitude of social-science methods, paralleled of course by a bounty of newer literary methods, is a source of anxiety and aggravation to many biblical scholars, who have enough on their hands just to keep up with developments in the more traditional historical-critical methods or in one of the other newer branches of biblical research such as literary criticism. Moreover, whenever comparative studies are attempted, a whole additional layer of work is involved. I would say, for example, that in order to make a half-way credible introductory comparison between Iceland and Israel, I must have spent several hundred hours of research in an unfamiliar field. It is an enormous challenge to keep abreast of developments in any one subfield in the social sciences that happens to interest us. To keep current with the “leading edge” in most or all of the subfields in any one of the recognized social sciences has become a scholarly and human impossibility. Although I have the luxury of retirement to read widely, I am continually surprised to learn of articles and books, even whole topics of discourse, highly germane to my interests that I have missed. As a case in point, I refer to the anthropological concept of heterarchy, distinguishable from egalitarianism and hierarchy, which in spite of my voluminous reading in anthropology I had never come upon until Carol Meyers alerted me to its possible relevance for interpreting the archaeological data on tribal Israel. I frankly depend a great deal on critical review essays in the social sciences and biblical studies to alert me at least to the major trends and to spot works that I need to consult. I also depend upon the scholarly “grapevine” that Flanagan astutely characterizes in his essay, grateful that more work is now more readily available through more channels. In the end, I am relieved to accept that I am not working alone in some vain attempt to be an encyclopedic repository of our subdiscipline, in the way to which historical-critical scholars of the past could plausibly aspire. I have come to value collegiality more than ever and to appreciate the differences and challenges that I encounter from others in the field. This brings me to one of the points that Frick emphasizes. Social-science concepts and the readings of society that they generate are social constructs. But so are the biblical texts, and so are the various literary, historical, and religious reconstructions of ancient Israel based on interpretations of those texts. Even the conclusions offered on the basis of social archaeology are increasingly recognized as social constructs. Until a couple of decades or so ago, we tended to lose sight of the tentativeness of all our scholarly reconstructions, chiefly because the variations in those constructs were within a relatively narrow range compared to the present “cafeteria” of options. Accordingly, I find it sadly anachronistic that some of the debates over Israelite history between “traditionalists” and “revisionists” seem to grow

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forgetful of the constructive role of imagination involved in construals of the same sets of data. The “twists” and “turns” that are made in weighing, combining, and prioritizing data, leading toward different emphases and perspectives, implies, I believe, that no single construct, however in the majority it may be at the moment, stands apart from the alternative constructs that shadow and call it into question. One could even go so far as to say that it is impossible to formulate any well-considered hypothesis without grappling with alternative ways of comprehending the evidence. So it is that we constantly measure what we claim to know with reference to those very predecessors and contemporaries in the field with whom we are in greatest disagreement. To my mind, the most puzzling aspect of the constructed nature of all our concepts about Bible and society is the ideological component. I believe it is widely recognized that identifying the social locations and ideologies of biblical texts is a precarious task. Strangely enough, our own social locations and ideologies as scholars, which we ought to know best because they are ours, are the hardest to grasp and theorize. Berlinerblau’s caution that a large part of ideology may be the “hidden” medium in which we think, and not simply or exclusively our self-identified ideas, is a timely contribution to a greatly neglected, or at least much taken-for-granted, aspect of our scholarly work. I first became keenly aware of this some years ago when I tried to formulate the political hermeneutics characterizing mainstream biblical scholarship but with minimal satisfaction. I could identify a certain drive toward personal accomplishment among scholars coming heavily from small-business and professional families and seeking to form “an aristocracy of the intellect” with a penchant for rewarding individual achievement. And I could see contradictions aplenty. There is the “value-free” orientation of scientific knowledge conceived as transcendent of social and political conflict, side by side with covert sociopolitical presuppositions and allegiances that remain unnoted and undiscussed. There is the will to objectivity and rational ordering of knowledge, crosscut by competitiveness and dogmatism. I could see a decided tendency to support the stability of institutions in state, society, and church, while simultaneously indulging in criticism of their narrowness of vision and rigid policies, as it were, “biting the hand that feeds us.” What was not so clear, and still is not clear, is how the permutations of these contradictory social-locational and ideological strands come to concrete expression in our scholarly work. Most of all, I admit to being hazy and ambivalent about my own social location and ideology, or, what often feels like—and probably is—multiple social locations and ideologies. I accept, with Berlinerblau, that much of my ideology is hidden from my view. Nevertheless, I do make uncoerced choices about the work I do based in part at least on those aspects of my

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ideology with which I am in touch. Even so, I am not always certain how particular choices flow from the aspects of my social location and ideology that I do understand, nor am I always clear that my teaching and writing are having the effects that I intend for them. Much of my uncertainty may indeed be due to an intrinsically “blindsiding” dimension in ideology, but a large factor may be my inadequate analysis of self-in-society. This consternation underscores how important it is that we should begin to clarify “where we are coming from” as scholars in a much more intentional way. Unfortunately, the most vocal “ideological work” is done when we take the liberty of telling others, usually our opponents, what their ideology surely is, often with the conceit that we have no ideology at all, or perhaps that we have the single correct one. Although there is now considerable acknowledgment of the crucial role of ideology in biblical interpretation, I do not sense that we, as a professional guild, know what to do about it and specifically how to make it an object of our inquiry. I have attempted to do a bit of ideological self-disclosure in the prolegomenon to The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours, in the new preface to the reprint of Tribes, and in the second chapter of The Politics of Ancient Israel, but these self-insights feel cursory and disjointed. Probably a modicum of ideological self-reflection occurs in collaboration on research and publication projects, particularly of the sort that are published in issues of Semeia or in jointly authored volumes, such as The Postmodern Bible (The Bible and Culture Collective) and the two-volume Reading from This Place (Segovia and Tolbert). So far, the most detailed single effort by a biblical scholar to uncover one’s ideology seems to be Daniel Patte’s autobiographical setting for explaining the processes and stages by which he moved from an “androcentric” to an “androcritical” perspective. But I am unaware of any continuing formal contexts in which scholars are getting together to undertake shared self-reflection, nor am I at all clear about the best format and agenda for such sharing to take place. If it is happening at all, it is “off the record,” outside the agenda of our regular work. That such shared ideological self-reflection could descend into profitless “navel gazing” does not seem a good enough reason to neglect so major a factor in the kind of work we do, the ends we have in mind in doing it, and not least the actual effects of our work in the various audiences that receive it directly or indirectly through our academic teaching, publications, participation in various religious bodies, and citizenship in society. I want to conclude by thanking all the contributors to this volume for their living proof that the social-scientific interpretation of the Hebrew Bible is alive and well.

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WORKS CITED The Bible and Culture Collective 1995 The Postmodern Bible. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Boer, Roland 1996 Jameson and Jeroboam. Semeia Studies. Atlanta: Scholars Press. 1998

“Deutero-Isaiah: Historical Materialism and Biblical Theology.” BibInt 7:181–204.

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1956 Nuer Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gottwald, Norman K. 1992 “Social Class and Ideology in Isaiah 40–55: An Eagletonian Reading.” Semeia 59:43–57. 1993

The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

1999a

“Icelandic and Israelite Beginnings: A Comparative Probe.” Pp. 209–24 in The Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation, and Biblical Interpretation. Ed. Fiona C. Black, Roland Boer, and Erin Runions. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

1999b

The Tribes of Yahweh. A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 B.C.E. Twentieth anniversary reprint with new preface. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

2000

The Politics of Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox.

Jobling, David 1990 “Writing the Wrongs of the World: The Deconstruction of the Biblical Text in the Context of Liberation Theologies.” Semeia 51:81–118. 1992

“Deconstruction and the Political Analysis of Biblical Texts: A Jamesonian Reading of Psalm 72.” Semeia 59:95–127.

Mann, Michael 1986 The Sources of Social Power. Vol. 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meyers, Carol Forth“Tribes and Tribulations: Retheorizing Earliest ‘Israel.’” In Tracking a coming Classic: The Tribes of Yahweh Twenty Years On. Ed. Roland Boer. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Noth, Martin 1930 Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Overholt, Thomas W. 1996 Cultural Anthropology and the Old Testament. GBS. Minneapolis: Fortress.

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Patte, Daniel 1995 Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: A Reevaluation. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Segovia, Fernando F., and Mary Ann Tolbert, eds. 1995 Reading from This Place. Vol. 1: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States; Vol. 2: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress. Vansina, Jan 1985 Oral Tradition As History. Rev. ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Wilson, Robert R. 1984 Sociological Approaches to the Old Testament. GBS. Philadelphia: Fortress.

Future Issues of Semeia Titles are descriptive rather than final, and the order given here is not necessarily definitive.

Levinas and Biblical Studies Tamara Eskenazi, Hebrew Union College Gary A. Phillips, University of the South

“Yet with a Steady Beat”: U. S. Afrocentric Biblical Interpretation Randall C. Bailey, Interdenominational Theological Center

Northrop Frye and the Afterlife of the Word James M. Kee, College of the Holy Cross Adele Reinhartz, Board Editor

The Bible in Asian America Tat-Siong Benny Liew, Chicago Theological Seminary Gale A. Yee, Board Editor

Semeia: An Experimental Journal for Biblical Criticism (ISSN 0095-571X) is published quarterly by the Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Atlanta, GA 30329. Periodical postage paid at Atlanta, GA and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Society of Biblical Literature, P.O. Box 2243, Williston, VT 05495-2243.

Semeia 87: The Social World of the Hebrew Bible: Twenty-five years of the Social Sciences in the Academy

250 years of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR

On the Logic of the Social Sciences

On the Logic of the Social Sciences

The Methodology of the Social Sciences

On the logic of the social sciences

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) (China Studies)

Phenomenology of the Social World

The Phenomenology of the Social World (SPEP)

The Unity of the Hebrew Bible

The Unity of the Hebrew Bible

International Encyclopedia Of The Social Behavioral Sciences

A Quantitative Tour of the Social Sciences

International encyclopedia of the social sciences volume2

International Encyclopedia Of The Social Behavioral Sciences

international encyclopedia of the social sciences volume1

Verstehen: The Uses of Understanding in the Social Sciences

Theodicy in the World of the Bible

The Basics of Sociology (Basics of the Social Sciences)

Social Sciences: The Big Issues

The Social Sciences and Democracy

The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences)

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences)

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences)

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences)

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences)

Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences (Mestizo Spaces Espaces Metisses)

Social Security: What Role for the Future? (Conference of the National Academy of Social Insurance)

Fuzzy Set Theory: Applications in the Social Sciences (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences)

Interpretation and Explanation in the Human Sciences (SUNY Series in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences)

Semeia 87: The Social World of the Hebrew Bible: Twenty-five years of the Social Sciences in the Academy

250 years of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR

On the Logic of the Social Sciences

On the Logic of the Social Sciences

The Methodology of the Social Sciences

On the logic of the social sciences

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) (China Studies)

Phenomenology of the Social World

The Phenomenology of the Social World (SPEP)

The Unity of the Hebrew Bible

The Unity of the Hebrew Bible

International Encyclopedia Of The Social Behavioral Sciences

A Quantitative Tour of the Social Sciences

International encyclopedia of the social sciences volume2

International Encyclopedia Of The Social Behavioral Sciences

international encyclopedia of the social sciences volume1

Verstehen: The Uses of Understanding in the Social Sciences

Theodicy in the World of the Bible

The Basics of Sociology (Basics of the Social Sciences)

Social Sciences: The Big Issues

The Social Sciences and Democracy

The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences)

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences)

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences)

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences)

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Penguin Social Sciences)

Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences (Mestizo Spaces Espaces Metisses)

Social Security: What Role for the Future? (Conference of the National Academy of Social Insurance)

Fuzzy Set Theory: Applications in the Social Sciences (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences)

Interpretation and Explanation in the Human Sciences (SUNY Series in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences)

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