On scroll-making in ancient Jerusalem

Abstract

This paper, read to an Association of Bible collectors, considers the way in which a small scroll-making community constituted by a prophet, scribes, and political operators formed a community with an alternative vision of social reality in opposition to the dominant vision and the dominant power structure of ancient Jerusalem. It is proposed that this oppositional community that produced its subversive scroll began the scroll movement that eventuated in "canon," a text production that was characteristically subversive of established social vision.

**********

Two beginning points are clear as we think about the scroll-making that eventuated in the Old Testament. First, writing was widespread and widely used in the cultural environment of ancient Israel; and second, writing (and so reading) was an enterprise that was likely limited to the urban elites who always seek to maintain a monopoly of the newest technologies in order to sustain a rough monopoly of power. The non-urban non-elites characteristically occupy an oral culture in which communicative signs need not be so complex (Scott 1985, 1990). In that ancient world, it is possible to identify the primary foci of writing:

* priests and temple archives;

* royal records and annals, in part concerning tax and property and law, in part braggadocio propaganda;

* scribes, the writing class characteristically in the service of the crown (Davies).

I

Given these two premises of the pervasiveness of writing and the power monopoly of writing, I begin my comments with a widely accepted critical judgment that simply astonishes. There arose in Israel--likely in Northern Israel away from the power center of the urban elites in Jerusalem--a literary enterprise at the end of the 8th century or beginning of the 7th century BCE, that is, about 700 BCE. Such a movement, of course, is never de novo; it seems, however, to be as much from scratch as can be imagined. This movement is termed by scholars the "Deuteronomic movement" because it eventuated in the Book of Deuteronomy, the most formal and fullest articulation of covenant theology that is given in the Old Testament (Shearing; de Moor & van Rooy; de Pury, Romer, & Macchi).

In terms of substance, we may identify two apparent antecedents:

The Book of Hosea is approximately dated to the middle of the eighth century and is a poetic articulation of covenant theology. It is entirely plausible that the poetry of Hosea precedes the literature that became the Book of Deuteronomy (Wilson: 135-252).

The tradition that became Deuteronomy claims links to the tradition of Moses, though current historical judgments about Moses are exceedingly difficult. This literary enterprise purports to reach all the way back to Moses.

In terms of form, it is now widely thought that the form in which the Book of Deuteronomy emerged is appropriated from the political arena of the Assyrians, the great superpower of that period (McCarthy; Wiseman; Nicholson: 56-82). This form articulates, so runs the hypothesis, the way in which superpowers posed alliances on lesser powers:

* a review of the generosity of the superpower;

* the requirements that the superpower imposes upon the lesser power;

* mutual oaths and promises of a formal kind;

* formal sanctions to guarantee compliance, that is, blessings and curses.

This pattern, as Gerhard von Rad has already seen, is the pattern of the Book of Deuteronomy (von Rad 1966: 26-33); now, however, YHWH is the superpower and Israel is the vassal state that is bound in obedience. One may note the terseness and starkness of the agreement between the two parties in Deuteronomy 30:15-20:

   See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death
   and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord
   your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the
   Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments,
   decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live
   and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you
   in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart
   turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow
   down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today
   that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that
   you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven
   and earth to witness against you today that I have set
   before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life
   so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord
   your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that
   means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in
   the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to
   Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

The rigor of this demand from YHWH as "superpower" is not very different from the demand of the U.S. as current superpower: "You are either with us or against us."

This amazingly creative literary effort at the end of the eighth century articulates primal theological claims for YHWH (that eventuate in monotheism) in an imperial political mode. The most popular hypothesis for the agents who created this movement is that it is accomplished by the Levites, small-time priests who specialized in Torah and who characteristically stood outside the royal-sacerdotal enterprise of the urban elites (Nicholson 37-44, von Rad 1953: 60-69). Thus one can entertain the thought that this is a theo-political statement on behalf of the rule of YHWH that intends to subvert or de-legitimate the power pretensions of the monarchy. If it is correct that the Levites are the progenitors of this literature, then it is most plausible that the affirmation of YHWH against every other claimant of power is not an altogether disinterested program. That is, insistence upon the direct rule of YHWH implied a de-absolutizing of every other claimant to power. Thus we have the makings of a quite subversive literary tradition that seeks to undermine the tightly controlled world of the urban elites.