Arch of Titus, spoils of the Roman plunder of Jerusalem
The New Oxford Annotated Bible
5thedition, Oxford University Press, fully revised and expanded, NRSV with Apocrypha. Pp. xxiii, 2416, ISBN: 978-0190276096. $95.00., reviewed by Darrell Sutton
When Early Modern English was becoming the vernacular speech, Edward VI (1537-1553) removed restrictions on the printing of the Bible. Mary Tudor (1516-1568) later reversed these changes. Once again, the Crown looked favorably on Catholicism. So Reformers went into exile, during which time a Church of England was formed in Geneva. There, the “Marian Exiles” agreed to undertake a new rendition of the scriptures. The Geneva Bible of 1560 was the fruit of their extensive labors. It was unique, seeing that it contained not only a new translation, but also over 300,000 annotations to the text. The exiles’ popular interpretations of the English text and alternate renderings of Hebrew and Greek terms opened the minds of citizens whose thoughts had been inured to established beliefs. Since that time, new interpretative ideas and arguments have been received; closed-mindedness has gone out of fashion.
From its inception in 1962, The Oxford Annotated Bible provided students of scripture with non-traditional insights into the contours of the development of the canon. The transformation of the New Oxford Annotated Bible (NOAB) is now complete. Originally edited by Herbert May and Bruce Metzger, cutting edge scholarship on the text and context of scripture was popularized. May was a distinguished Old Testament specialist; Metzger was a recognized doyen of New Testament textual criticism. May and Metzger found various facets of select biblical books dubious and legendary. They were broad-minded; but they still maintained sympathies toward the salvific work of Christ outlined in the New Testament. Scholarship advanced in profound ways through their researches. But in light of some of the notes now accepted in the Bible under review, both May and Metzger could be considered somewhat conformist.
Containing sixteen Apocryphal/Deutero-canonical books, the NOAB 5th ed. is advertised as “An Ecumenical Study Bible”. Edited by Michael D. Coogan, along with associate editors Marc Z. Brettler, Carol A. Newsom and Pheme Perkins, the ripest fruit of biblical investigations is presented. More than 50 respected scholars were involved in the elucidation of the books. Several of them also supplied scholarship for The Jewish Study Bible (2004). The NRSV text remains essentially the same except for the inclusion of information from United Bible Societies Greek New Testament, 4thed. (see Textual Criticism, p.2246); notes at the bottom of the page have been revised. New interpretative essays were commissioned.
The Editor’s Preface (p.xiii) states:
The editors recognize that no single interpretation or approach is sufficient for informed reading of these ancient texts, and have aimed at inclusivity of interpretive strategies.
Yet academics who hold Low Church views or Evangelical positions are absent from the list of contributors on page v. Consequently the editor and associate Editors do not appear to have achieved the inclusivity for which they aimed. The volume is thick at c.2400 pages. Each contributing editor to individual books was free to pursue his or her own lines of inquiry. This liberty takes them in different directions. And their independence of thought is refreshing. The historical critical method is the main tool employed in the analyses of texts; the use of typology as an implement for demonstrating that Jesus Christ was the realization of ancient Jewish longing, and the messianic fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, is regularly overlooked; but typology is mentioned in the essay ‘Christian Interpretation in the Premodern Era’ (p.2267).
Evidence for literary allusion is strained at times: e.g., competent Hellenists may doubt that Paul had Plato’s Phaedra 245c-257d in mind when he wrote his defense of Jesus’ resurrection in I Corinthians 15. And the editors are sensitive, indeed almost apologetic, about accounts in the New Testament that put Jewish parties in a negative light, but they are not so touchy about ancient Jewish warfare against the inhabitants of Canaan’s districts.
Few should doubt the perspicuity of the editors. But after two centuries of critical studies, better grounds are needed for solving difficulties than the inclusion of the quip ‘what so and so writes in the text of scripture is untrue.’ As for commentators, the claims of naiveté that are leveled so readily at holders of conventional views today, seem to fit equally well those erudite persons whose scholarship has not proceeded beyond the “assured scientific results” of yesteryear’s Teutonic studies. Parsons and laypersons today who disallow critical remarks into their spheres of interpretation, usually do so after consciously weighing those remarks against statements made by persons in the New Testament whose recorded speeches consist of allusions and quotations from the Old Testament, a body of documentary literature that was believed to have been properly conserved and passed down.
Biblical writers who cited wording from biblical texts composed in previous centuries believed that the MSS from which they quoted were trustworthy and reliable. It remains an inexplicable wonder that Jesus and other New Testament authors seem wholly unaware of the most rudimentary claims made by modern biblical critics, i.e., that Jewish ancient texts were incorrectly preserved, that their origins and compositional forms were attributed to the wrong writers, and that they were habitually misunderstood by successive generations of rabbis and readers.
Upon those unsuspecting convictions, customary views of Christians were based, from the literate circles of the early sects of Christendom up to Medieval and Renaissance times. Since the Enlightenment, induction in the fundamentals of “critical” scholarship of the Bible has produced academics that now may be rightly labeled ‘traditionists’. The traditional texts and interpretations they revere are also numerous, being visible everywhere to close readers of this new study-bible. Below, a few of the NOAB editors’ opinions are presented;
Genesis: note at 3:1-24: Of Adam and Eve – ‘Though the story is often taken by Christians as an account of “original sin”, the word “sin” never occurs in it. Instead, it is a sophisticated narrative describing how God’s acts and their aftermath lead to the formation of fully adult, mortal humans to till the earth … .’
Exodus: note at 12:29-52: Of the flight from Egypt, ‘like virtually every stop on the journey, they cannot be clearly identified and do not reflect accurate or actual memories. Six hundred thousand men is hyperbole … .’
Daniel: p.1249: ‘According to ch 1, Daniel was taken to Babylon at the beginning of the Babylonian exile and was chosen to serve in the royal court. This setting, however, does not necessarily reflect the realities of the book’s historical context and composition. Several major historical errors in ch 1 suggest that the author wrote long after the Babylonian conquest of Judah and very likely was not attempting to write a historical account at all, but rather a series of historical fictions set in that time period.’
Jonah: p.1320: ‘Jonah is not a historical book in the sense of recalling events that actually occurred.’
The above quotations illustrate the low view of scripture by all of the editors. Their observations deserve to be read carefully because, as is apparent, thorough going “skepticism” is now the dominant mode of approach to the study of the Bible in universities and divinity departments in which they teach.
The editors supplied the NRSV with a superb apparatus. They did so as they kept nearby the source-texts in their original languages. All of the scholarly devices (footnotes and essays etc.) equip students with resources necessary to agree or disagree with specific annotations. Here and there the notes contain gems of historical details about the ancient near east.
In the main, the footnotes develop ideas on the crucifixion and resurrection in a clear-cut manner. Greek and Roman literature is cited in ways that are commensurate to the discussion; but every note on same-sex relations misleads readers, except the one at I Corinthians 6:1-11. Though I disagree with much that is written in various book introductions, each editor writes clearly and adeptly. The editors are well aware that there are elements of truth in the Apocryphal books. Dates and figures are discussed fairly in Kings and Chronicles. The “Dead Sea Scrolls” and Septuagint are used to explain several textual variations. The former of the two frequently is treated as if they were much more true to fact than the “canonical” texts to which some editors are appending notes.
The place in the road to which scholars have come is an intersection. A new course is needed. The road to here has been long. The old findings, although redressed in new questions, seem commonplace. Literary exposition is an ever-developing field of study. Invention and reinvention creates new ways of looking at texts, and refurbishes old models, renewing them for the next generation. There are examples – 19thcentury German scholarship forever altered the way academics dealt with cuneiform, Hieroglyph, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin literature and the Bible. Biblical scholars in the west, whose criticisms were founded on rationalist thought and not on any objective appreciation or treatment of supernaturalism, still have been unable to emancipate their researches from German cynicism. In these studies, miraculous occurrences are downplayed. Such investigations are carried out with clinical solemnity and do not inspire confidence in Christians, Jews or in some cases, Muslims.
So in NOAB, Genesis through Deuteronomy is still regarded as a patchwork of accounts, some true and some false, arranged in their present form by prejudiced editors. And Joshua is thought to contain reports of a conquest that are unquestionably erroneous (see p.322); in Judges, the literary redactor is said to have represented northern heroes in an apostate culture, but showed a positive bias toward the tribe of Judah in the southern Kingdom (p.359). The NOAB editor for Samuel doubts that it is ‘a narrative of history’ (p.405). Evidently ‘Esther contains some folktale motifs’ (p.715). Job is described as a ‘naïve narrative’ of a ‘folktale world’ (p.779). Isaiah wrote chapters 1-39, then an editor composed 2nd Isaiah, chapters 40-55 and later the redactor of 3rd Isaiah, chapters 56-66, came to collect the speeches of several unknown prophets (p.977). Moreover, Zachariah wrote chapters 1-8 of his scrolls, but someone else compiled 9-14 (p.1357).
As for how the New Testament should be understood, in the opening essay, which is entitled ‘The Introduction to The Gospels’, we encounter these words:
Scholars who reject biography as a description of the Gospels often overemphasize the ideological or legendary elements found in the narratives. They prefer to read the Gospels as etiological legends explaining the emergence of a new religion or as ideological representations of the Christology of particular early Christian communities. Such writings … operate like myths and symbols to support Christian beliefs and practices (p.1777).
Authorial inscriptions in the NOAB that are attached to several New Testament epistles are doubted. Nothing new exists in that regard. Aside from titular statements ascribed to the Church Fathers, no one can definitively show epistolary origins anyway. For some reason, however, the Pax Augusta assigned to the period of Augustus’ rule (27BC-AD14) is routinely interpreted by biblical critics to have been a time of peace (see note at Luke 2:1-7). Untrue: keep in mind the Pannonian Revolt in 6-9AD. Oddly, John 21:1-25 is considered to be a later addition to the Gospel. How one could know if the chapter was written 1 year or 125 years afterward without any identifying markers in the text is anyone’s guess.
This edition has its merits. A number of individual books deserve notice. Among them, the technicalities of Leviticus are handled well. And readers of the Psalms will not be left in the dark as obscure idioms of hymns are expounded. The notes to Proverbs are encyclopedic and constitute an excellent compendium of insights. Jeremiah and the Maccabees exemplify the results of superlative researches. The Commentaries to The Gospel of John, Hebrews and Revelation prove that a theology ensconced in metaphors can be agreeably managed.
This Bible will likely find an abundance of readers. Politically correct churches will urge it upon their parishioners. But it will not dissolve the doubts that people have about the verity of the religious beliefs of Jesus Christ. One hopes that serious students of the Bible will not presume that the published researches in the NOAB are representative of the views of mainstream scholars or of adherents to Judaism and Christianity around the world. Depending on how it is used privately, the volume is to be recommended for purchase, but it should be read with caution alongside study editions issued by Christian committees of other traditions.
[On page 2293 Israel is misspelled “Irael”]
Darrell Sutton resides in Red Cloud, Nebraska (USA), where he oversees multiple congregations and writes on biblical and classical literature
The Professor versus the Philosopher
George Parkin Grant
The Professor versus the Philosopher
by Mark Wegierski
In recent years, the Canadian establishment media have relentlessly criticized George Parkin Grant (1918-1988), one of Canada’s pre-eminent thinkers. Some years ago, an editorial article in Saturday Night, at that time a leading magazine, decried the supposed prevalence of “the Creighton-Grant nationalist thesis.” Donald Creighton was Canada’s long-deceased, pre-eminent, conservative nationalist historian. In response to the publication of Grant’s Selected Letters, edited by William Christian, University of Toronto Press, 1996, the well-known literary figure, Robert Fulford, wrote a snide review “Re-evaluating praise for George Grant.” (The Globe and Mail, September 11, 1996), in which he expressed surprise at Grant’s religious beliefs. Thomas Hurka’s column of March 17, 1992, also in The Globe and Mail– entitled “Thomas Hurka laments George Grant’s ideas on the morality of technology”, was another pointed example of this harping against Grant. It seems to have become a Canadian “tradition” to deride Canada’s genuine achievers — from philosophers and literary critics, such as Northrop Frye, to business people and even pop-stars (such as Bryan Adams) – while elevating “politically-correct” mediocrities.
Professor Hurka’s by-line states that he “teaches philosophy at the University of Calgary specializing in ethics.” However, judging from his Grant piece, as well as his last column during this major stint at The Globe and Mail, “Thomas Hurka explains why academic writing is so boring and the musings of journalists are so shallow,” March 24, 1992, he seems unaware of certain developments in modern philosophy.
The latter is now heavily influenced by subjective and hermeneutic approaches, as Hurka’s citing of Nietzsche as well as Derrida in that last column shows. However, the paradigm of scholarship Hurka describes in his last piece appears outdated. Much of modern philosophy has abandoned the goal of attaining pure objectivity, and no longer posits that it is readily accessible to the practitioner.
The academy is in no way immune from the passions of political polemic which Hurka thinks confined to the worlds of journalism, business, and conventional politics. Indeed, university professors are renowned for their hair-splitting quarrels, their Machiavellian intrigues to advance their status and their willingness to damn to scholarly oblivion anyone who diverges from their various pet-theories. Today, it is widely considered that all arguments outside the purest “hard sciences” are in fact “interested” and “clouded” by subjective and emotional responses. The positivist consensus of the 1950s is long-gone — and it is generally accepted that, even in the physical sciences, paradigms are postulated first, and then the appropriate facts are found to support the paradigms.
Many thinkers point to the deep problem of the all-devouring nature of the subjective approach in philosophy and other areas of study outside the physical sciences, and that the philosopher must admit to being a sort of polemicist. The issue of the inaccessibility of an absolute grounding of one’s philosophical position, especially in its ethical dimension — and on what basis one can make such “truth-claims” — is arguably the central issue of modern philosophy.
The position of classical moral theory (as described by Professor Hurka) — that “what’s good and evil is independent of our will and should guide it” — clearly does not correspond with the picture of the human personality as it is understood today. We generally desire that which we think to be “good,” and we in most cases do that which we find in some sense “pleasurable,” or which helps us avoid “pain,” but the ultimate roots of our behaviours and beliefs — although they can be endlessly speculated upon — can never be fully uncovered. A sharp line of distinction between behaviour motivated by human reason and behaviour motivated by human desire cannot be established. The notion of an objective external ethical absolute is arguably a fiction — however necessary it may be for the functioning of human personality and society — and that ultimately, for every person, “right and wrong are whatever we want them to be,” though what we “want” is based, in varying degrees, on our place in society and history, family conditioning and biological make-up, as well as other, less discernible and perhaps unknowable factors.
Professor Hurka’s triumphalist “trouncing” of George Grant as a philosopher can be viewed as an appeal to Hurka’s own “authority” as a paragon of Western Aristotelian logic, and also on his prestige as someone who teaches philosophy at a prestigious university, and writes a newspaper column.
In regard to modern technology, which Hurka says we choose to construct in a way which serves human purposes, Grant would riposte that it ends up creating drives and tendencies independent of human control, and that these drives and tendencies, generally-speaking, have a negative effect, from the standpoint of premodern notions of the good. The computer ultimately imposes on us the ways in which it will be used — and these are frequently maleficent directions!
Although both Grant and Hurka espoused a similar epistemology (one that recognised the possibility of a discernible, objective standard), Grant had thought deeply about the problem of subjectivity in late modernity. He had retained a belief in a transcendent God, as Professor William Christian reminds us, in his March 18, 1992, “Feedback” piece “The philosopher, the vacuum cleaner and the perfection of God”, in The Globe and Mail.
Moreover, Grant was aware of the dystopic nature of late modernity. He did not repose — over-sanguine, content, unalienated, and without serious reflection — in the bosom of this late modernity. George Parkin Grant was a person who, confronting the near-insanity and surreal texture of life in our period, the repudiation of nearly all hitherto-existing notions of the good, anchored his hopes on the idea of an absolute, transcendent standard in the heavens, which he called “God.”
Other possible positions of resistance are some types of “immanentism,” which see something like human nature — as understood by the thinker — itself constituting a standard; also, some types of “historicism,” which see human history and the rooted communities derived therefrom, as a standard; or “existentialism,” which, while it realizes that there are no ultimate standards, makes the struggle a choice of will, and of commitment to one’s own posited humanity and genuine inner freedom.
The notion that contemporary society is “inclusive” or “pluralistic” — that it does not strive to impose a single, ultimately narrow vision of the good on everyone — is a delusion. Mass-marketing, mass-media, mass-education and state-therapeutic systems have conferred an unprecedented power to supersaturate a person with their views. And although we are ostensibly free to make choices concerning sexual practices, luxury foods, market-labels, retirement options, or conventional entertainments and amusements — which is often mistaken for “pluralism” – it is increasingly difficult to articulate any alternative notion of the good.
Professor Hurka believes that in the liberal order, technology can be used in a “positive” way. Grant’s thesis, in contrast, is that the development of modern technology, however initially attractive, is ultimately destructive of people’s humanity. George Grant argued furthermore that “liberalism is the perfect ideology for capitalism,” i.e., that there is a powerful nexus between the development of a certain type of liberalism and the development of a hyper-technological economy. Social liberalism, basically coterminous with increasing consumption and the economic conservatism of the corporations, go hand in hand. Herbert Marcuse and the chairman of General Motors are travelling on the same road to Huxley’s “liberated” Brave New World. The apposite metaphor here is a never-ending orgy in which “all of our various orifices are incessantly satisfied,” but everything of real human worth and meaning has been lost.
As modern Western technology encroaches upon the world, our fate is most likely one of three alternatives: the relatively near-term extinction of human beings through some massive technologically-derived and/or ecological disaster; the extinction of human beings over the next few hundred years in grotesque satiation (if technology does indeed “solve” all of our problems, but without our ability to set any kind of limits on it); or the annihilation of the West and choking off of technological over-development by more vital, prolific peoples possessing a greater measure of life-instinct. The possibilities of Western cultural and social renewal, and of the West’s own taming of its technology, now seem remote.
In a world of genetic experimentation, of carrots with the genes of mice, of flies engineered with eyes in places where they never naturally occur, of mice with genetically human blood, all of which are violations of the natural order, Professor Hurka’s criticism of George Grant is petty.
Only by reflecting on technology and about the way the world is going can anything recognizably human be salvaged from the wreck to come. George Grant was a brave and authentic thinker who gave to these issues the most serious consideration.
Sociologist Mark Wegierski writes from Toronto
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