Intro to Scriptures- Seminar 1: Hand-outs 2

TORAH: A story/history that forms/informs a Community

Although richer in nuance than the translation, Pentateuch, meaning five containers to

mean Law, Torah is broad and tricky in the word of Professor Bandstra. Basically, it means

teaching or instruction, whether this teaching comes from God through Moses, or from a parent

(cf Prov 10:1).1 In its most limited sense, "Torah" refers to the Five Books attributed to Genesis,

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. But the word "torah" can also be used to refer to

the entire Jewish bible (the body of scripture known to non-Jews as the Old Testament and to

Jews as the Tanakh or Written Torah), or in its broadest sense, to the whole body of Jewish law

and teachings. Walter Brueggeman says that nowadays scholars return to the view that it is

Primary Narrative and that means it runs from Genesis to 2Kings except Ruth2. This paper tackles

a) Torah as primary a Story and a History that continues to form a community through the b)

ethos of conviction and foundation of faith and c) a look at the continuing normative tradition that

is carried out by the community’s “imaginative remembering and interpretative intentionality.”

I. Story/History. Before the written Torah, there was the Oral Torah. For the Jews, storytelling

was the mode of knowing. The Torah as a story educates because its epistemological

characteristics are: 3Stories are “concrete, open-ended in its telling., intended for the practice of

imagination, experiential and is the bottom line of reality. Torah talks about particular persons in

particular times and places and the Jews view Torah as their own story and so it is open-ended,

and expands their imagination also because the emphasis is an experience of a people and their

process of experience was the touch stones of reality.

Joseph Blenkinsopp4 summarizes the first five books (the topic of our report: Pentateuch) of

Hebrew Bible (see appendix, p.6)

The trust of the Narrative, even from the time of Abraham has been the promise of a land.

But Pentateuch ends with the people just on the verge of the promised land. The natural end of

the storyline is the book Joshua that related the possession of the land under Joshua, and the

settlement there. James Sanders explains why the “Torah” ends with looking at the land. He says

1 Roland E. Murphy. Responses to 101 Questions on the Biblical Torah. Reflections on the Pentateuch.

(New York: Paulist Press, 1996), p. 5 2 Walter Brueggemann. An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination.

(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), pp. 15-27 3 Walter Brueggemann. The Creative Word as a Model for Biblical Education. (Philadelphia: Fortress

Press, 1982),pp. 23-27. 4 4 Joseph Blenkinssop. The Pentateuch. (New York: Doubleday, 1992), p. 9.

when the Torah received its final form in the immediate post-exilic period, there was a desire to

stress fidelity to the Law of Moses. The tribulations of the exile (587-539) were due to infidelity

to the Torah. Since the first five books contained the manifestation of God’s will in the sweep of

the of text that goes from Exodus 19 to Numbers 10, as well as in the Deuteronomic laws that are

preached fervently in Deuteronomy 12-26, and since Moses was the lawgiver par excellence, it

made good sense for the people to return to these “origins” and to live by them in the post-exilic

period. Moses became the hero for a people who interpreted their downfall as a failure to hear the

word of God5.

II. Substance of the Story. What themes does one find in Pentateuch, that more or less give an

idea about what is being communicated in the Torah? And in the light of Deuteronomy 6:3-9

"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. And you shall love the Lord your God, with

all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your resources" (Deut. 6:4-5), how are these

themes fulfilled?, how does one appreciate or evaluate these themes in terms of their valuation of

the Torah?

A. Promise. David Clines asserts that promise is the central theological claim of the Torah. As

Brueggemann elaborates it, “The Torah is the announcement of the promise and, the slow painful keeping

of the promise, and a reflection of what to do (obedience) while waiting. Related to this is the theme of

binding that is in Gen 2:15-17. Brueggemann explains that binding is clearly seen in three ways: a) binding

a vocation: “to till it and to keep it,” b) binding as a gift: “you may eat of every tree of the garden, “ and c)

binding as prohibition: “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat..” Of course,

one later finds out that Adam and Eve did not listen to the command. In fact accordingly, this seems to be

stressed rather than the middle of the blessing which is the tree of command. At the very beginning, already

in the creation, Israel understands “life to be under command.” The structure of creation according to

Brueggemann is picked up in the catechetical tradition of Deut. 6:20-24: “And the Lord commanded us to

do all these statutes, to feat the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as at

this day.” So even in this moment, Israel is exhorted to “Hear!”

B.“Law”. Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers contain a great bulk of “Law” or Instruction. The

Decalogue is given twice: Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. But what is the point of all this long lists of

instructions, rites and rituals? When torah is presented as primarily a legal concept, it is in the context of a

very specific perspective and agenda, almost always relating to the identity and solidarity of the community

as a religious and social unit. As instruction/guidance, a fitting example is the extended celebration of torah

in Psalm 119, since in these 176 verses the term occurs 25 times with most of the major parallel words used

5 Roland E. Murphy, p. 6.

in the OT. -19- The psalm begins: Blessed are those whose path is wholesome [tamim], who walk by the

torah of the LORD!(v. 20)

Torah describes the parameters of life lived out in response to God’s graciousness. But those

parameters are not simply words written in a book, nor are they legal stipulations to obey. Torah must be

learned, meditated on, and understood. It must be taken into the heart, which in OT metaphorical language

is the seat of will, intentionality, and volition. Torah must become part of the person in the process of living

so that she lives life faithfully in response to the deliverance, grace, love, even the creation, that God has

given. Brueggemann says, it is basically righteousness. And to be righteous, the only commandment that is

the basis for all is “There will be no other Gods before me.” And this has a corresponding responsibility:

valuing the brother and the sister. Now this kind of understanding is really present when they pray the

Shima. Rabbi Shraga Simmons says, “The Shema speaks of loving God, learning Torah, and passing on

Jewish tradition to our children.” The need for obedience is certainly present, even a strong sense of

obligation. But it is not viewed in terms of legal constraint here, but as a joyful, loving, intentional response

of the heart.

C. Land. Brueggemann points out the playful connection between the earth of Genesis and the

land in Deuteronomy. Both are “aretz” in Hebrew. This has long been the issue since Genesis 1 when

Adam and Eve were given the “good land.” Then in Exodus, the promise of the land was taken up when

they moved out of slavery into their own land (Exod. 6;7). Then in the wilderness, they were murmuring

when to finally settle in a land they could truly call their own. And then in Deuteronomy there is a

“knowing look across the Jordan into the land.” The Anchor Bible Commentary says, “God is about to

fulfill his oath sworn to the fathers by bringing Israel into the land to inherit it. While Israel is to participate

actively by going into it to take possession of it, the success will depend totally on God. He will subdue the

former owners of the land and give it to Israel as a gift. It is a good land, praiseworthy in most glowing

terms (e.g., Deut 8:7–9). It is the tangible token of God’s faithfulness, the concrete expression of the

covenant relationship, and the goal of Israel’s wanderings where the people will find rest (12:9). But the

land, like the original garden of Eden, constitutes a task for Israel. Its careful administration according to

covenant law (rehearsed in chaps. 12–26), in single-hearted love and devotion to God will sustain Israel’s

claim to its possession and its blessings (e.g., 6:4–15; 8:11–20; 11:26–32; 28). Thus Israel is hearkened to

hear! They realize that any deviation from God’s statutes, commandments, and ordinances, and in

particular the sin of idolatry that characterized the previous owners, will swiftly bring down on Israel the

covenant curses, the last and worst of which is a return to Egypt (28:68). Thus the land becomes the

touchstone for life or death; it is given out of God’s free grace, but retained by means of obedience.

III. Torah as Normative Resource. Thus Brueggemann points out five themes that are

normative to the community: “Torah is constituted by narratives and commandments, the

relationship of which is complex and unsettled; the complex corpus of narratives in the Torah is

matched by a complex of corpus of commandments, issued, according to canonical form, to and

through Moses at Sinai; this Torah is a normative act of imagination that serves to sustain and

legitimate a distinct community of gratitude and obedience; if the requirements of exile were

costly and demanding for adults who went deep into memory and so sustained hope, we may

imagine that the transmission of this radical, buoyant distinctiveness to the next generation of the

young was urgent and deeply problematic; thus, the Torah provides the materials for social

construction of reality and for socialization of the young into an alternative world where YHWH

lives and governs.” In this process, Brueggemann sees three factors in the traditioning process:

imagination, ideology, and inspiration. They do not cohere easily with each other, and that makes

the interpretation of the Old Testament complex and problematic, endlessly interesting and

compelling.” . Hence, the traditional process can never be concluded, “because the text is

endlessly needful of new rendering.”

IV. Comments. Torah is a binding force for us Christians and Jews. In a section of DABRU

EMET6, a Jewish Statement on Christian and Christianity, the Jewish scholars declare that: “Jews

and Christians accept the moral principles of Torah. Central to the moral principles of Torah is

the inalienable sanctity and dignity of every human being. All of us were created in the image of

God. This shared moral emphasis can be the basis of an improved relationship between our two

communities. It can also be the basis of a powerful witness to all humanity for improving the

lives of our fellow human beings and for standing against the immoralities and idolatries that

harm and degrade us. Such witness is especially needed after the unprecedented horrors of the

past century."

- Hansel B. Mapayo

Bibliography:

Blenkinsopp, Joseph. The Pentateuch. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Brueggemann, Walter. An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian

Imagination. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. Brueggemann,Walter. The Creative Word as a Model for Biblical Education.

Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982.

Murphy. Roland, E. Responses to 101 Questions on the Biblical Torah. Reflections on

the Pentateuch. New York: Paulist Press, 1996.

Article:

Document on Dabru Emet. The New York Times, Sunday, September 10,2000. English Ed.

6 appeared as full page advertisement in The New York Times, Sunday, September 10, 2000, p. 23

APPENDIX. “G_D, Elohim, created the world and everything in it in six days and rested on the seventh. The earth,

however, was uncultivated, and there was no rainwater and no one to put it to use. God, now YHWH Elohim, therefore formed a man

and set him in the garden of Eden, giving him access to everything in it with the exception of a certain tree. Since the animals, also

formed out of earth, did not provide suitable companionship for the man, YHWH Elohim made out of the man’s body a woman whom

he joyfully acknowledge as a suitable companion. But a snake skillful in speech persuaded her, and through her the man , to eat the

fruit from the tree from which they were forbidden to eat, resulting in their expulsion from Eden. Children were born, a son killed the

other and the initial evil flowered throughout the wider society, leading to the destruction of all life in a great deluge with the

exception of Noah, his immediate family, and the species taken with him into the ark. A new order was established, but another

aberration within Noah’s family tainted the new humanity, and with the confusion of tongues at Babel the nations were dispersed over

the earth.

IN the tenth generation after the deluge, Abram, later Abraham was called by God to emigrate from Mesopotamia to

Canaan with the promise that from him would spring a great nation. After various difficulties, Abraham and his wife Sarah bore

children in old age; first Ishmael, through Sarah’s proxy Hagar, then Isaac. After surviving an attempted ritual sacrifice, the latter

obtained a Mesopotamian wife, Rebekah, who in her turn bore him two sons, Esau and Jacob, later named Israel. Conflict between

these two sons, beginning remarkably, in the womb, led to the securing of the birthright and blessing by Jacob, the younger. At the

cost of a twenty-year exile in Mesopotamia as a hired hand of his uncle Laban, Jacob won two wives, Leah and Rachel who with the

help of proxy-wives gave him twelve sons and a daughter. Upon his return to Canaan there occurred a reconciliation of sorts with

Esau and a last meeting with Isaac before the latter’s death.

IN the course of time, Joseph, second youngest of the sons, and Jacob’s favorite, aroused the jealousy of his brothers who

conspired to kill him. The plot miscarried; Joseph survived, and after traders had carried him as a slave to Egypt, he rose to the highest

position in the service of the Pharaoh. The rest of Jacob’s family were meanwhile compelled by famine to emigrate to Egypt, where

eventually a reconciliation took place and they were permitted to settle. The original seventy settlers grew into a numerous and

powerful people until a new Pharaoh ascended the throne and, for the reasons that are not entirely clear, launched a genocidal

campaign against them.

ONE of these Israelites in Egypt, son of Levite parents, survived under remarkable circumstances— the massacre of

Hebrew infants ordered by the tyrant— and was brought up in the palace as an Egyptian. Chancing one day to see an Egyptian beating

a Hebrew worker, Moses killed the Egyptian and buried the body in the sand. Word of the homicide nevertheless spread, and he was

forced to flee for his life to Midian, where he married Zipporah, daughter of the priest of Midian, and fathered the first two sons

named Gershom. While guarding his father-in-law’s sheep in the wilderness, he (Moses) had an extraordinary experience in which a

deity revealed himself as YHWH(ADONAI), God of the Hebrews, and sent him on a mission to lead his oppressed people out of

bondage. With the help of his brother Aaron, Moses eventually succeeded in this mission, but only after the Egyptians experienced a

series of disasters culminating in the death of the firstborn children. After celebrating a spring festival the Israelites headed out into the

wilderness and the pursuing Egyptians were providentially destroyed as they attempted to follow them across a body of water.

THE Israelite horde, reported to be 600,000 strong(men), not counting women and children, continued to plot an erratic

course which led them, after several crises and setbacks, to a mountain in the Sinai. There Moses received a revelation from YHWH:

first, ten commandments which were promulgated at once, then a collection of laws communicated to Moses alone. There followed a

covenant ceremony and the revelation to Moses of the plan for a mobile sanctuary, together with detailed specifications for how

worship was to be conducted in it. During Moses’ absence on the mountain, however, an act of apostasy led to the breaking and

rewriting of the law tablets and the issuing of further statutes. The cult was then set up as prescribed, the priesthood was inaugurated,

and after the lapse of about a year, the Israelites were able to proceed on their way.

AFTER further difficulties, including an abortive attempt to invade Canaan, they arrived in Moab, on the east bank of Jordan. The

hostility of the Moabite king was deflected by an inspired seer hired to curse them, and those who succumbed to the allure of orgiastic

rites practiced in the region were summarily dispatched. More statutes were issued, and preparations were made for occupying the

land on the west bank of the Jordan. On the last day of his life Moses reminded the people of the providential events that had

transpired and the obligations thereby incurred. His valedictory address included a new collection of laws and norms for living in the

land about to be occupied. Joshua was installed as Moses successor, whereupon Moses died at the age of 120 and was buried in an

unmarked grave”