Biblical background and historical context

¶ … History of Israel

Author John Bright puts out a seemingly thorough editorial effort in covering events in history leading up to the time when Israel (Palestine) became a land inhabited by Jews. One might argue though that he builds up the case for their not being an adequate way in which to determine something close to the exact history of Israel, he then seems to be backing away from that perspective, after which, confusingly, he goes back to the first position. Why, in the beginning, he spends so much time describing events in ancient Middle Eastern cultures leading up to the creation of Israel becomes somewhat clear as we move along in the book.

Bright, for example, writes - in his book, A History of Israel - that the land now known as Palestine was being "infiltrated" by "seminomadic groups" (Bright, 48) in the middle of the Bronze Age. Some time late in the Bronze Age, Palestine became a "virtual nomad's land," and stayed that way until the thirteenth century. In time, western Palestine and northern Transjordan saw a "rapid recovery" (48) beginning to take place, with newcomers settling the land; and by the early part of the nineteenth century some towns were being established. The newcomers were Canaanites.

As to why Bright's description of some of the early clans and marauding tribes' arrival in early "Palestine" is important in terms of what is later known as "The Promised Land" (Palestine later to become Israel), becomes clear a bit later in his book (Bright 62).

The Book of Genesis - and its patriarchal religious "truths" - were looked upon by some scholars as "animism" (the belief in the existence of spiritual beings), or even "polydaemonism" (the belief that spirits or Gods inhabit specific people or places).

Who were the Patriarchs?

Prior to launching into his narrative, Bright offers an apology of sorts (Bright 60-61) for the fact that "...virtually all we know of the origins of Israel, and of her prehistory before she began her life as a people in Palestine," is arrived at through the narrative of "the Hexateuch" (the first six books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua).

And, as a result, the story of Israel, Bright continues, is based on information and stories that were handed down from one generation to the next. The problem, he explains, is the "degree to which, if at all, one may use these early traditions..." As a foundation for portraying historical events as absolutely accurate.

The author is caught in a conundrum, he explains on pages 60-61; one cannot totally sell Biblical records as the absolute bottom line truth regarding the history of Israel. Indeed, stories re-told through the pages of the first six books of the Bible are "patriarchal narratives... [and] certainly not historical documents contemporaneous with the events of which they tell." But, he goes on, though the Hexateuch accounts may have a kind of tone "...that divine inspiration insures their historical accuracy," to "dismiss the problem by appeal to dogma" is "unwise."

To wit, the Bible is not immune from "rigorous historical method," and yet, the Bible may be "trusted to withstand the scrutiny to which other documents of history are submitted," the author concludes.

And, a pivotal question arises: were the patriarchal narratives really written by Moses himself - who lived centuries later? How could they be trusted as far as accuracy, given the difference between events and the recording of those events? Indeed, the lack of contemporaneousness poses a big problem, when considering the documentary hypothesis of these historical records, Bright explains. He goes on to say that when, late in the nineteenth century, the Bible came under the scrutiny of "modern historiography," the hypothesis emerged that the Hexateuch was four major documents (J, E, D, and P). And, Bright writes, J was dated in the ninth century, and P. was dated after the exile.

So, given this hypothesis, skepticism emerged; why would the fact that historical records are also Scripture "guarantee their factual accuracy"? Extreme "negativity" resulted from the historiography and "as for the patriarchal stories," Bright explains, they had value in terms of the "light they cast on beliefs and practices" of those periods during which the accounts were written, but not much more credibility than that. Even the actual existence of such giants of the Old Testament as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were passed off, Bright continues, as "eponymous ancestors of clans," or even as mythical figures, and others doubted that they even had existed.

But, having made those points, on page 63 Bright discusses - with obvious enthusiasm - the finding of scrolls (Mari texts, over 20,000 of them; Cappadocian, First Dynasty of Babylon, Alalaka and Ras Shamra tablets by the texts thousands) that has, subsequent to the negativity described in the previous paragraph, led to "sweeping modifications" of the previously held documentary hypothesis. Still, Bright goes on to say - "let it be admitted" - that it still is "impossible in the proper sense to write a history of Israel's origins." Why is this so?

One reason is that the "great empires" (Bright 67) of that period are "scarcely more than voices off stage." And it is "impossible," he goes on, to determine (within centuries), exactly when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob really lived - nor do scholars know anything about the lives of those Old Testament personalities, he asserts. The "witness of archeology is indirect" and yet, when evaluating the patriarchal narratives "for what they are" - part of "a great theological history" through "sacred tradition" - Bright sees in them "...the redemptive acts of God in behalf of his people" (68).

A reader could certainly claim to be confused by Bright's off-again and on-again belief that he can offer the facts of Israel's history. Then he offers another kind of seeming apology, saying (68), "The historian, being but a man, cannot write history from the side of God." This is true even though that historian, Bright says in third person while meaning to convey as his opinion, "may indeed believe that Israel's history was divinely guided as the Bible says (and he may say so!)."

At this point in the paper, it will be instructive to note that John Bright, who published this text in 1959, is somewhat controversial in some scholarly communities. Bright wrote the book not so much as a history textbook, but rather as "a theological interpretation of history," and a "tool of proselytization" (Noll, 1999) according to professor K.L. Noll, of Kentucky Wesleyan College. Noll, who has also written about Israel's history and founding, writes about Bright's book in an essay titled "Looking on the Bright Side of Israel's History: Is There Pedagogical Value in a Theological Presentation of History?"

Noll notes that Bright's book has been "challenged during the past twenty years." And the reason for those challenges, Noll writes, is because Bright's "...interest in history was secondary to his interest in theology" (Noll 3). Noll quotes Bright as saying (following Bright's retirement), "[History] has always been a hobby" (quoted from an interview with James L. Mays in 1980). Noll also believes that "Bright did not consider himself a professional historian," and that Bright had a reputation as a "powerful preacher"; moreover, Bright wrote in his Introduction to his essay "A Psychological Study" that he (Bright) was aware of the "...kinship of the prophet to the race of man."

What does all of this mean? This paper is a critique of A History of Israel, and in terms of answering part of the assignment - which is to off a viewpoint, to list "...the strengths and weaknesses of the author's perspective on the historicity of the Old Testament" - it should be clear that Bright is tackling an historical problem with a theological heart beating strong within that assignment. There is no crime in being more of a theologian than a historian per se, if indeed that is what Bright is; but the point is brought into this paper as an issue because it helps this reader understand why Bright seems to vacillate between whether or not the Hexateuch is to be believed as history or not.

Another scholar who critiqued Bright's book, Joseph Jensen (quoted in Noll's essay), wrote that Bright illustrated "...a reverent appreciation of God's part in the events being studied"; and while Bright's "strictly historical part is handled with scholarly competence and thoroughness, the special merit of the book lies in the attention given to the theological meaning of the events covered."

Indeed, a quick glance back at the Foreword to Bright's book (Bright, 10), reveals that while he hoped the book would be "useful to a wide circle of readers," including "all serious students of the Bible..." he goes on to say it was prepared "with the particular needs of the undergraduate theological student in mind."

That said, he adds that biblical students should be referring "constantly" to the Bible while reading A History of Israel, and he further remarks that he "has been troubled by the awareness that complex issues were being dealt with summarily" when more in-depth searching "would have been desirable." (This statement appears to fly in the face of his detailed emphasis on trying to be terribly thorough at other times throughout the book; and his seeming editorial neurosis creates doubts in the minds of the reader as to precisely how consistent and valid his values are vis-a-vis what he believes to be true.)

Those biblical students probably read his book and had a sense that he was in a classroom, behind a podium, lecturing to them, when, on pages 18-20, he discusses pre-history (Stone Age) and Neolithic Jericho. His bias towards places and people who are in some way connected to Scripture comes across numerous times in obviously favored passages.

To wit: one can almost hear his voice as he describes the relative distance in time to make his point about the advent of the Israel we know today. "Difficult as it is for us to realize, it is quite as far if not farther from the beginnings of civilization in the Near East to the age of Israel's origins as it is from that latter time to our own!" [explanation point by Bright].

And, it is clear that when there are not certified links to biblical names and places and eras, he shows little interest. "The story of Stone Age man is not our concern," he writes on 18. Not "our concern" because it doesn't relate to theology? And as to how far back mankind can be traced, he passes it of with "...who can say?"

Further, when quickly covering the transition from Stone Age people to settled life, and he writes (18) that the Middle Paleolithic period can be documented - it is "richly witnessed by skeletal remains, especially in Palestine" - it is not, a reader is led to understand, just a fact that is "witnessed" through bones, but it is "richly witnessed" because there were bones in Palestine.

He continues writing as though is a university professor walking around a stage with no notes - rather than a scholarly historian providing well-researched narrative in a respected book - when he offers (19) that "Earliest Jericho is truly amazing. So far as is know, its people - whoever they may have been - led all the world in the march toward civilization (dare one believe it!) some five thousand years before Abraham!"

Why would he add the phrase, "dare one believe it..."? To a sentence that already uses "amazing" when referring to a city whose roots connect dots with Israel's later origins? The answer is known only to Bright, of course: perhaps he wanted to excite his readers, or his reported evangelical leanings cannot stay hidden for any sustained period of time.

Noll (11) asserts that Bright's book is riddled with the above-mentioned "evangelical" hints and leanings, but adds that Bright is "...not just a sinister secular seducer of the evangelical soul." Bright is "one of them, and his Protestant bias is evidence in sweeping generalizations with which an evangelical reader will concur." Noll goes on to emphasize that Bright "and his implied reader presuppose theology as central, and history as a subject to be fitted into the theological program."

How will an objective, unbiased reader know that Bright has this theological agenda? There are clues - that go farther then hints - throughout the book. In Chapter 1, Bright gives his review of the Middle Bronze Age; and while admitting (42) that the task of describing this period "is not easy to do, for it was a most confused world," he later explains that this era was "redemptive" and even "divinely guided." Hence, a reader should accept Bright's spin on this part of history because he, Bright, is showing that he has the intellectual capability to determine what is guided by divine power, and what is not.

In Chapter 2, Bright enlightens readers by claiming that biblical stories provide a "wealth of detail, literary beauty, and theological depth," a depth that is "without parallel." Noll admits that Bright's "proselytization" is "honest" and "unambiguous" when it comes to bringing his "implied reader into the fold of the theologically motivated historical-critical" school of thought. But he takes Bright to task (Noll, 14) though for apparently arm-twisting the "believer to a new way of articulating the faith" by occasionally utilizing "seemingly secular scholarship."

Noll seems to be saying he (Noll) is not terribly put off by Bright's apparent goal of motivating the existing "believer" into a kind of "enslavement of theology to history," which is carried out though (Noll, 16) the "enslavement of the theologian to the role of historian." Still, that "bondage" is "awkward," Noll explains, and yet, in time, it was "inevitable that the tables would get turned," and history would become "enslaved to theology." Continuing with the "enslavement" metaphor - and carrying his argument to a definition of scholarship - Noll (17) accuses Bright of enslaving "historical study to a theological conceptualization." good contemporary analogy to this "bonding" of theology to history and history to theology was placed right before the alert eyes of social scientists and objective political observers in America during the 2004 presidential election. One of the most visible leaders of the conservative Christian movement, Rev. Jerry Fallwell, announced after the election that his movement had "delivered" some 30 million votes to George W. Bush, helping put Bush into the White House for four more years. The uniting of conservative Christian causes - the pro-life movement, anti-gay feelings manifest through the attacks on gay marriage, and other issues - with politics is of course tearing down the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. But nevertheless, pastors in thousands of churches who buy into the conservative Christian themes (the above-mentioned issues, plus the pitting of evolution against creationism) urged their congregations to vote Republican, since Bush is seen as anti-abortion and against gay marriage. There were instances reported in the South, where pastors who refused to toe the line of the conservative Christian voting bloc were asked to leave their churches.]

Noll reaches this opinion because, he writes, there is "no such thing" as "normative" in historical studies; and there is no such subjective word used as "aberrant"; using words like that, which Bright does, can prejudice the narrative in a way that historians "would prefer to avoid," Noll concludes.

After reviewing Noll's observations and critiques, and reviewing Bright's book for a second time with Noll's narrative fresh in one's mind, it becomes much clearer that there are numerous examples where Bright shows his theological colors at the expense of real history. Having said that, what would be wrong to approach history from a theological perspective? The answer is that of course there is nothing at all wrong with that approach, as long as the writer is honest about his intentions and his agenda.