Review in: Interpretation
2001 55: 426
Review door: Dennis
T. OlsonGevonden op: http://int.sagepub.com/content/55/4/426.full.pdf+html
Numbers
21-36: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
Baruch Levine Anchor Bible 4A. Doubleday, New York, 2000.
614 pp. $45.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-385-41256-8.
NUMBERS TRACES THE
MARCH OF ISRAEL in the wilderness on its way from Egyptian bondage to Canaan's
promised land. The book is filled with lists of numbers, tribal leaders,
sacrifices, itineraries, laws, and cultic instructions along with its core
narratives. Origen observed that Christians in his day tended to read these
sections and then "constantly spit them out as heavy and burdensome
food." In a long series of sermons on Numbers, Origen sought to
resuscitate it as a biblical book filled with food for the soul. Baruch Levine,
biblical scholar and ordained rabbi, seeks to do the same in his second of two
volumes on Numbers for the Anchor Bible series. Levine writes that his work on
Numbers has been guided by this line from the Morning Benedictions of the
Jewish prayer service: Ό Lord, our God! Please make the words of your Torah
sweet in our mouths" (p. xvi).
Levine's commentary is
a rich and varied feast. He combines a profound appreciation of law, cult, and
ethics nurtured by his Jewish commitments with a rigorous and
historical-critical interest in the varied literary sources underlying the
biblical text, ancient Near Eastern backgrounds, and the development of ancient
Israel's religious and political life. After an original translation of the
masoretic Hebrew text, an introduction to critical issues and themes, and a
fifteen-page reference bibliography, there are 500 pages of commentary on
Numbers 21-36. Each section of commentary contains an introduction and detailed
notes on grammar and syntax along with historical and literary analysis. Some
of the most interesting material may be found in extensive "Comments"
on broader issues and themes, with special attention to the wider ancient Near
Eastern backgrounds. For example, when discussing Moses' bronze serpent with
its healing power, Levine includes a section on "the phenomenology of
ancient Near Eastern magic" (pp. 88-90). By far the largest section in
this commentary (140 pages) is devoted to the Balaam cycle of narratives and
poetic oracles in Numbers 22-24. Levine guides the reader into the religious
perspectives of the poetic oracles (assuming a polytheism of gods such as the
Shaddai gods along with El as the high god), which are fundamentally different
from the narratives (a monotheism of YHWH alone). Levine discusses at length
the striking parallels and differences between this biblical material and
recently discovered eighth-century B.C.E. inscriptions at Deir Alia in the
Transjordan. These remarkable inscriptions include the name of a prophet Balaam
and various gods including El and Shaddai. As Levine observes, "Rarely has
the recent discovery of an
extra-biblical source had so direct a bearing on the interpretation of biblical
texts" (p. 41). One would be hard pressed to find a more thorough
discussion of this Balaam material.
The focus of this commentary is neither literary nor
theological but historical. Levine pays homage to the 1903 ICC commentary on
Numbers by George Buchanan Gray, describing it as his "anchor and
compass" (p. xv). However, Levine is not just after the historical
"facts" but the broader agendas and concerns, both political and
religious, that animated the various sources and traditions woven together in
the rich tapestry of Numbers. Levine sets forth his basic interpretive stance:
The main function of Torah literature, and of Numbers even
more so, is to lay the foundation for the life of the Israelite people in its
land by defining the "self" in contrast to the "other,"
thereby differentiating between Israel and its enemies The Torah contains
historical information, to be sure, but its function is not primarily to record
history, as such, but to present several overlapping versions of Israel's
formative phase as a people (p. 59).
Levine distinguishes two primary perspectives regarding
Israel's relationship with the "other" in Numbers. First, the JE
(Yahwist/Elohist) and other earlier poetic and narrative material in Numbers
21-36 is pre-exilic and dates from the time of the monarchy in Israel. These
early traditions sought to justify Israelite hegemony over the territory of
northern Moab in the Transjordan area after it had been captured by the
Israelite king Omri in the ninth century B.C.E. (pp. 39-40, 477). These
traditions also wrestled with the issue of whether Israelites living in the
Transjordan were true and full members of Israel (e.g., Num 32). Second, the
later Priestly material which dominates Numbers 21-36 focused not on the
Transjordan but on the temple and its cult in Jerusalem after the Babylonian
exile in the Persian period. The agendas of the Priestly traditions that Levine
detects are many and complex. For example, the massive killing of the
Midianites in Numbers 31 suggests that "animosity against neighboring
peoples was intense" in the Persian period, which contrasts with other
Priestly traditions in Genesis in which Israel's ancestors seek to live in
peace with the Canaanites (p. 55). Another concern is to legitimate Persian
period cultic practices in Jerusalem by rooting them in ancient Mosaic
authority from the time of the wilderness sojourn.
Levine's two-volume work on Numbers will become the standard
historical-critical commentary on Numbers for years to come. One will not find
much wrestling here with more recent debates about the Documentary Hypothesis
and alternative models or dating for the sources of the Pentateuch. Nor will
one find much help in bridging Levine's analysis of history, political agendas,
and Near Eastern backgrounds with contemporary theological exposition. Other
commentaries will need to carry that burden. But Levine is as reliable a guide
as any to the sources, history, and cultural backgrounds of a book that for
Christians may be unfamiliar. Enjoy the feast of Numbers, and may the words of
Torah be sweet in your mouth!
Dennis T. Olson
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
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