CHAPTER 18

FROM LITERATURE TO SCRIPTURE: REFLECTIONS ON THE GROWTH OF A TEXT'S AUTHORITATIVENESS

RIBALD PLAYS FROM BROADWAY are not to be advocated generally as one's primary source for theological insight, but Beyond the Fringe may clearly establish the point from which this chapter begins. Alan Bennett delivers a quasi-sermon on one verse from Genesis: But my brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man (Gen 27:11) which is "paraphrased" by another "from the grand old prophet, Nehemiah": And he said unto me, what seest thou And I said unto him, lo I see the children ofBebai, Numbering six hundred and seventy-three, And I see the children ofAsgad Numbering one thousand, four hundred and seventy-four (Neh 7:16) .1 The reader should be warned that the words which followed were aimed rather at frivolous ears than pious, and that the maximum to be gained from that sermon is therapeutic chuckles, not exegetical insight or spiritual nourishment. A primary source for this humor, of course, is in calling attention to the nature of these specific sentences as, of all things, verses of Holy Scripture. By what process, in fact, did they become Scripture? In this playa text classified as Sacred Scripture becomes part of a text of (merely) literature. This is not at all uncommon, inasmuch as Scripture is frequently quoted in numerous types of works: most obviously commentaries on Scripture but also religious works seeking authoritative support for ideas or claims, as well as nonreligious works simply quoting scriptural texts as part of the cultural heritage. In contrast, the present chapter attempts to study the transformation involved when a text properly labeled as (merely) literature becomes acknowledged as Sacred Scripture. It tries to understand some of the factors involved in a text's acquisition of the character of authority along the road toward what will eventually become the canon.? Just as there was a lengthy process leading up to the final canon of Scripture, so too there was a

1 Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore, Beyond the Fringe (New York: Random House, 1963), 78 . 2 For the terminological distinctions regarding canon and related concepts, see Ch. 17. For neither Jews nor Christians was there a clear canon prior to the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. This chapter mainly focuses on "the canonical process," or the process toward the canon. 282 THE ROAD TOWARD CANON

lengthy process by which what we now consider "biblical literature" developed from what should properly be termed "literature" to what we properly call "Scripture." The pages that follow will explore some of the factors at work in transforming the status of a literary work from revered literature to the revealed word of God.

I. THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF WHAT BECAME SCRIPTURE

A. Our Image of "Scripture" Most who will read this book first encountered the Bible as Sacred Scripture, each complete book of which was regarded as recorded verbal revelation. It was a primary element in a text-based religion, and the text was stable and unchangeable, part of a fixed collection in book (codex) form.

B. The Search for a Historical Image What has long since become Sacred Scripture, however, did not have its ongms as Scripture, and inquiry into its origins and its development within the history of the believing community is profitable for intelligent reflection on it. It will be helpful to analyze each of those five factors just mentioned: • Most of what became Scripture began as small, separate, anonymous oral and written units gradually joined together to form complexes of tradition.I • What became viewed as a complete verbally revealed text for each book began as separate incidents in which an individual claimed, or was understood, to be saying to the people what God wanted said to them; these incidents were editorially attached and encased in nonrevealed prose. • The texts, later so important for a geographically dispersed faith group, did not exercise such a primary function while the Second Temple stood in Jerusalem and while its sacrificial rituals provided the primary focus of the religion." • What ended as a stable and unchangeable text for each book had for centuries been pluriform and dynamically growing, in the form of both major new editions and minor expansions or errors, through the repeated creativity of anonymous religious leaders and thinkers, priests and scribes. • What was encountered as a well-accepted book with known contents, between two covers of a codex, excluding works that did not properly belong, had for a long time

3 Helpful in illustrating the developmental growth of the collected Hebrew Bible is the approach of Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction : The History of the Formation of the Old Testament (trans. Peter R. Ackroyd; New York: Harper and Row, 1965). 4 With respect to the text's importance after the loss of the Temple, notice that one of the few mentions of a book of Scripture in Maccabees-that Judas and his warriors "opened the book of the law to inquire" (1 Mace 3:48)- occurs in the context of their exclusion from the Temple. With respect to the dominant focus on ritual and the virtual silence about texts, see, e.g., the account of the cleansing and rededication of the sanctuary in 1 Mace 4:41-58. The first item mentioned is the altar of burnt offering (4:44,47), and the emphasis throughout is on furnishings of the sanctuary, sacrifices, and celebration. The only mention of texts is in the subordinate clause "as the law directs" (4:53), in the context of describing the sacrifice on the new altar. See similarly the description of Aaron and Phinehas in Ben Sira 45:6-25.