Antiquitopia

This is the third installment on chapter 2; there is one more to come. To see what I have written before, just follow the "Richard Bauckham" or "Jesus and the God of Israel" tags back. In this part, Bauckham turns to canonical criticism. Note that we have not engaged any passage of any length in this chapter since Deuteronomy! B claims that, contra MacDonald, not everyone who perceives monotheism in ancient documents is influenced by the Enlightenment. He suggests that Second Temple and NT scholars are more immune. I disagree: they too have a tendency toward Enlightenment universalizing categories and, too, often employ evolutionary or progressivist models. Nonetheless, he still, I think wisely, keeps to his language of “exclusive Yahwism.” Shifting from pre-exilic Israelite historical models and their usage for current theology, he shifts lenses to canonical criticism. This criticism does not engage with what a text might have originally meant, but how it...

Continuing in Chapter 2 (to see earlier posts, just hit the "Richard Bauckham" or the "Jesus and the God of Israel" tags), Bauckham turns to historical models and their applicability to modern theology for the biblical theologian. In the next section, Bauckham discusses the problem of how a biblical theologian to construct a theology of the old testament while allowing historical “facts” could have been different than the bible’s own narrative? I appreciate his recognition of a possible divergence here, and the archaeological evidence indicates such a divergence in ancient Israelite practice. I find this section difficult to evaluate, since I am not a theologian, but as a historian, I’ll give it my best try. For example, I could never ask, “Could YHWH really be as the Old Testament portrays him if, historically, even the claim of exclusive Yahwism has merely been projected back through fictionalized history after the exile all the way to Moses?” (71). I am more...