Abstract
This essay has three goals. With the definition of politics as the art of learning to live together (Aristotle and Hannah Arendt), it aims (1) to highlight some reasons why the Bible should be part of our public political conversations at this time of turmoil; (2) to suggest what we, as scholars and members of the SBL, can contribute to such conversations; and (3) to touch on issues of ethics and interpretation, in particular as they pertain to the attitudes toward the Hebrew Bible and toward one another. I examine why renewed attention to placing the Bible in its own cultural and historical settings is a prerequisite and foundational for newer approaches that incorporate the interpreters’ social location and/or ethical priorities. I celebrate the polyphonous nature of current scholarship but call for greater awareness of the ramifications of different forms of interpretation and their unintended consequences. With an emphasis on a hermeneutics of ḥesed alongside other interpretive lenses (such as a hermeneutics of suspicion and a hermeneutics of chutzpah), I invite readers to consider how forms of interpretation and scholarship can best contribute to a society into which one may want to bring children.
This address was delivered as the SBL Presidential Address on 23 November 2024 at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Diego, California. The present version includes footnotes and minor changes for the sake of clarification. The address is part of an ongoing conversation with special friends and colleagues, extending with some for decades: Rachel Adler, Annette Aronowicz, Stanley Davids, John Kutsko, Brie Laskota, Barbara Lehman, Marilyn Levy, Hugh R. Page Jr., Kent H. Richards, Joseph Sievers, Jesper Svartvik, and Jacob L. Wright. Their insights and friendship are a major part of this essay (although it does not necessarily mean they endorse the views I present). Years-long dialogues with my beloved husbands, David Eskenazi (z”l) and J. William (Bill) Whedbee (z”l), are the foundation of my work, and particularly important in terms of this address. Special thanks go to Beth Lieberman, whose generosity and astute editorial skills helped shape this essay.
Notes
For a full discussion of the Bible as the product of crises, see, e.g., Jacob L. Wright, Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and Its Origins (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
Although much of what I say applies to the New Testament as well, I use Bible to refer primarily to the Hebrew Bible, the TaNaKh.
Kaitlyn Schiess, The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here (Brazos, 2023). See, e.g., also Paul R. Abramson, Politics in the Bible (2012; repr., Routledge, 2017); Richard Bauckham, The Bible in Politics: How to Read the Bible Politically, 2nd ed. (Westminster John Knox, 2011); Matthew B. Schwartz and Kalman J. Kaplan, Politics in the Hebrew Bible: God, Man, and Government (Jason Aronson, 2013).
Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes, The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel (Princeton University Press, 2017). On the political nature of the Bible, see also Mira Morgenstern, Conceiving a Nation: The Development of Political Discourse in the Hebrew Bible (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009).
See, e.g., Aristotle, Pol. 1.1.1252a; and Eth. nic. 1.2.1094a–95a.
See, e.g., Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (University of Chicago Press, 1957), esp. 23–27. For a different angle on the subject, see her essay “Truth and Politics,” in Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (Penguin, 1961), 227–64.
This is how David Graeber and David Wengrow (The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity [Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021], 86) sum up the view of politics by anthropologist Christopher Boehm.
See esp. Mark G. Brett, “What Is Political Theology?,” in Political Theologies in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Mark G. Brett and Rachelle Gilmour, JAJSup 35 (Brill; Schöningh, 2023), 1–20. Brett rescues the term political theology from the distortions that had resulted from Carl Schmitt’s use of it and sets the ground for a fresh and constructive application of political thinking to biblical texts, while remaining attuned to the theologies embedded in the Bible. Note also Brett’s caution in conflating modern politics anachronistically with the messages of biblical texts. “Only an ill-conceived homiletics would jump straight from ancient texts to contemporary aspirations, neglecting the myriad complexities of the traditions that carry the Hebrew Bible, and the varieties of social concerns that belong to public space” (20).
John Kutsko says it well in his “Afterword”: “The canons of the Bible contain both soaring heights of the human spirit and humanity’s basest motivations and therefore inspire both good and evil,” in Black Scholars Matter: Visions, Struggles, and Hopes in Africana Biblical Studies, ed. Gay L. Byron and Hugh R. Page Jr., RBS 100 (SBL Press, 2022), 207–21, here 210.
See, e.g., James P. Byrd, A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood: The Bible and the American Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2021).
For the role of the humanities in the public square and the role of free public exchange, see the writings of the philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum, one of America’s most prominent public intellectuals. Her works include Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (2010; repr., Princeton University Press, 2016); and “Undemocratic Vistas,” New York Review of Books (5 November 1987), 20–26.
On this subject, see Carol A. Newsom, “Bakhtin, the Bible, and Dialogic Truth,” JR 76 (1996): 290–306. As Newsom puts it, “Polyphony is a useful model for understanding the biblical text” (296).
In his book The Oldest Dead White European Males and Other Reflections on the Classics (Norton, 1993), the classicist Bernard Knox demonstrates how ancient Greek sources have much to offer us for what is urgent in our lives today. See also his Backing into the Future: The Classical Tradition and Its Renewal (Norton, 1994). Similar arguments can be made for the Bible, of course.
For a concise review of the place of the Bible in American culture, see Kutsko, “Afterword,” esp. 209–12. Kutsko notes the following, for example: “Consider this from the ‘Bible in American Life’ report: ‘Nearly eight in ten Americans regard the Bible as either the literal word of God or as inspired by God’ (Goff, Farnsley, and Thuesen, 2017, 2)” (209, referring to The Bible in American Life, ed. Philip Goff, Arthur E. Farnsley II, and Peter J. Thuesen [Oxford University Press, 2017]).
Satan’s Guide to the Bible, directed by Zeke Piestrup, produced by Tim Johnson, (2023), YouTube, https://youtu.be/z8j3HvmgpYc. A critical assessment of the documentary was offered at a “Panel Discussion of the Film ‘Satan’s Guide to the Bible,’ ” Metacriticism of Biblical Scholarship Section, during the 2024 SBL Annual Meeting (26 November 2024).
Bible Odyssey, Society of Biblical Literature, https://www.bibleodyssey.org/.
Michael Walzer, In God’s Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible (Yale University Press, 2012), 72–75.
I thus agree with Brett’s critique of Walzer and with Brett’s exposition on the Bible’s politics in “What Is Political Theology?,” 1–20; see also n. 8 above. For more on the political nature of the Hebrew Bible, see also Jacob L. Wright’s online Coursera course, “The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future” (https://www.coursera.org/learn/bible-history), which continues to draw thousands of students across the globe.
For examples, see Wright, Why the Bible Began, e.g., 204–20; and Newsom, “Bakhtin, the Bible, and Dialogic Truth,” 296–99.
Walzer, In God’s Shadow, 23–24.
For a detailed discussion of the text, scholarly reflections, and an extensive bibliography, see David H. Aaron, “The Ruse of Zelophehad’s Daughters,” HUCA 80 (2009): 1–38.
See André Lemaire, Inscriptions hébraïques, vol. 1: Les ostraca, LAPO 9 (Cerf, 1977), 29–81, esp. 63; Noa appears in ostraca 50, 52, and 64; Hoglah in 45, 47, and 66.
For an analysis of the nature and importance of the public space, or public square, see Arendt’s section “The Public Realm: The Common,” in The Human Condition, 2nd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 1998), 50–58.
On the grave consequences of shirking responsibility as scholars, see Kutsko, “Afterword,” e.g., 214.
David J. A. Clines, “Reading Esther from Left to Right: Contemporary Strategies for Reading a Biblical Text,” in The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield, ed. David J. A. Clines, Stephen E. Fowl, and Stanley E. Porter, JSOTSup 87 (JSOT Press, 1990), 32–52.
Adele Reinhartz, “The Hermeneutics of Chutzpah: A Disquisition on the Value/s of ‘Critical Investigation of the Bible,’” JBL 140 (2021): 8-30, https://doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1401.2021.1b. “Hermeneutics” refers to interpretation and the study of interpretation, especially of the Bible and other, usually, literary texts.
Reinhartz, “Hermeneutics of Chutzpah,” 13.
See, e.g., David J. A. Clines, ed., with David M. Stec, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew Revised, vol. 1 (Sheffield Phoenix, 2018). On the importance of philology and other right-to-left tools, see also Kutsko, “Afterword,” 208: “Philology’s origins (which are largely the origins of biblical studies) are before and beyond so-called Western civilization. . . . Philology (and its partners, textual and literary criticism) has not been and is not now limited to the West or simply a product of Orientalism. Even Edward Said made this case in his 2004 essay ‘The Return to Philology.’ He counted himself a philologist, and made a passionate case for philology, not least because, when done well, it is not only not cultural appropriation and colonial but quite the opposite. It can display deep respect by a reader who is both humanitarian and humanist.” See also Edward Said, “The Return to Philology,” in Humanism and Democratic Criticism, Columbia Themes in Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 2004), 57–84.
The political theorist Hannah Arendt regards “understanding” as crucial for political thinking. See, e.g., “Understanding and Politics (The Difficulties of Understanding),” Partisan Review 20.4 (1954): 307–27. To understand is to use reason, facts, and imagination to stand in the place of the other, as it were. Arendt thus writes in her teaching notes that “imagination . . . is the prerequisite of understanding. You should imagine how the world looks from the point of view where these people are located” (cited by Lyndsey Stonebridge, We are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience [Hogarth, 2024], 189). Importantly Arendt also makes it clear that to understand is not to condone (“Understanding and Politics,” 308).
Arendt, “Understanding and Politics,” 308.
See, e.g., Schiess, Ballot and the Bible, e.g., 42–52; and Nathan Lopes Cardozo, Jewish Law as Rebellion: A Plea for Religious Authenticity and Halachic Courage (Urim, 2018). See also Richard Newton, who asks the question, “Why would African Americans follow a text that says, ‘slaves obey your earthly masters’ (Col 3:21),” then answers it: “Because of the African American Bible, we know that this same faith gave black people a vocabulary for talking back to America” (“The African American Bible: Bound in a Christian Nation,” JBL 136 [2017]: 221–28, here 225).
Arendt, “Understanding and Politics,” 308.
The Bible is itself a public exercise, spanning centuries and showcasing diverse approaches to the question of the just life. And understanding, identifying, and discussing what it has to say on these subjects is a task for which our training prepares us—or should. To reiterate: to understand, as Arendt says, is not to condone (“Understanding and Politics,” 308).
Although I find most of Judith Butler’s statements about current international events marred by a narrow, binary view of the world (in contrast to Butler’s nuanced work on gender), I consider Butler’s appreciation of marginalized voices to be on the mark and important for the present discussion. Butler observes that marginalized voices have “always been linked with fundamental questions of how to survive, live, fight, flourish, and pursue the promise of a collective radical transformation of the world” (“The Public Futures of the Humanities,” Daedalus 151.3 [2022]: 40–53, here 48–49). This view of Butler likewise applies to the Bible. The humanities, Butler claims, offer “a way of thinking about . . . our common and uncommon lives together, ways of telling our histories and imagining our futures” (45).
Jacob L. Wright, War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 4.
For a superb reflection on why and how biblical scholarship matters, see Kutsko’s “Afterword,” esp. 212; for his reflection on how SBL members can help, see esp. 212–19. Although Kutsko focuses on African American scholars and scholarship, his reflections and recommendations have relevance for the entire field of biblical scholarship.
Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Profession 2006 (1991): 33–40, here 34. I thank Alice Yafe-Deigh for introducing me to Pratt’s important work.
Phyllis Trible, “Hagar: The Desolation of Rejection,” in Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives, OBT 13 (Fortress, 1984), 9–35.
Delores S. Williams, “Hagar in African American Biblical Appropriation,” in Hagar, Sarah, and Their Children: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives, ed. Phyllis Trible and Letty M. Russell (Westminster John Knox, 2006), 171–84.
Daniel Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture, New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics (University of California Press, 1995), 5.
Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey (University of Chicago Press, 1994), 180.
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 180.
See my “Introduction” in Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Ruth רות: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation, JPS Bible Commentary (Jewish Publication Society, 2011), xlviii–l.
See Wright, Why the Bible Began, 464–71.
Interpreters have now removed Naomi and Boaz from their pedestal as paragons of virtue. See, e.g., Danna Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn, “ ‘A Son Is Born to Naomi!’ Literary Allusions and Interpretation in the Book of Ruth,” JSOT 40 (1988): 99–108.
Phyllis Trible, “A Human Comedy,” in God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, OBT 2 (Fortress, 1978), 166–99. Recent books illustrate a change of focus. See, for example, the presentation of Ruth as a migrant; so Ilana Pardes, Ruth: A Migrant’s Tale (Yale University Press, 2022); or the focus on identity and ethics; so Peter H. W. Lau, Identity and Ethics in the Book of Ruth: A Social Identity Approach, BZAW 416 (De Gruyter, 2011).
Philip P. Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon, and How Goodness Happened There (Harper & Row, 1980). Hallie describes at length how the villagers risked yet saved thousands. He uses this expression to describe the collaboration among the villagers and their impact on those around them.
This paragraph is a close paraphrase of what Hugh R. Page Jr. wrote when summing up my points in response to a draft of my paper. I thank him for this and for the meaningful conversations that led to this work.
According to the Mishnah, “Hillel used to say: ‘If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?’ ” (Pirqe Avot 1.14).
