Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | März/2021 |
Spalte: | 163-165 |
Kategorie: | Altes Testament |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Sanders, James A. |
Titel/Untertitel: | Scripture in Its Historical Contexts. Vol. II: Exegesis, Hermeneutics, and Theology. Ed. by C. A. Evans. |
Verlag: | Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2019. XVI, 336 S. = Forschungen zum Alten Testament, 126. Lw. EUR 119,00. ISBN 9783161557576. |
Rezensent: | Arie van der Kooij |
Neben dem angegebenen Titel in dieser Rezension besprochen:
Sanders, James A.: Scripture in Its Historical Contexts. Vol.I: Text, Canon, and Qumran. Ed. by C. A. Evans. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2018. XIX, 548 S. = Forschungen zum Alten Testament, 118. Lw. EUR 134,00. ISBN 9783161557569.
The two volumes contain a collection of essays by the late James A. Sanders (he died October 1, 2020), edited by Craig A. Evans, documenting his views on a number of important topics – the text and canon of the Old Testament, the impact of Qumran on biblical studies, the hermeneutics (of antiquity), exegesis, and theology.
The first volume has two parts, »Text and Canon« (3–368) and »Qumran« (371–510). An Appendix, entitled »The History of the Ancient Biblical Manuscripts Center, 1976–2003«, and two Indexes complete the work. To quote S. himself (in the Prologue to the first volume): »I very much hope that it (i. e. the first volume) will be helpful to see how a (late) first-generation student of the Dead Sea Scrolls perceived the new situation their discovery and study have affected in two areas of critical study of the Bible: (1) the art and practice of textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible; and (2) the rise and development of canons of Scripture in the various believing communities, Jewish and Christian, in antiquity« (VII). The study of biblical texts discovered at Qumran, in his case the famous Scroll of the Psalms (11QPs; he was the one who unrolled and published this large scroll from Qumran Cave 11) in particular, greatly stimulated him to develop his own views on two disciplines – the study of texts and ancient versions and study of the Bible as canon.
The first part, »Text and Canon«, consists of 20 contributions, including articles with significant titles such as »Stability and Fluidity in Text and Canon«, »Adaptable for Life: The Nature and Function of Canon«, »The Integrity of Biblical Pluralism«, »Torah and Christ«. The discoveries of the biblical texts at Qumran have led to the conclusion that the history of transmission was marked by fluidity and plurality of these texts, in particular in books like Samuel and Jeremiah, in the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. The same can be said of books to be found in the Septuagint. The main point of S. is that the plurality of texts should not only be analyzed from a text-critical point of view, but also since the texts concerned were regarded as »canonical« in the sense of authorita-tive, from a hermeneutical perspective. As he argues the variety of biblical texts and versions testifies to the way ancient texts were made relevant to the communities for which they were produced. »Canonical is by nature adaptable or relevant to the ongoing life of the believing community« (82). As an example he discusses the well-known case of Isaiah 40:6a (MT [Masoretic Text], »A voice says, Call, and one replied, ›What shall I call?‹ – 1QIsaa and the Septuagint: ›[…] and I replied […]‹«) (37 f.85 f.). Instead of limiting the discussion to the textual difference on its own, as is usual in textual criticism, he advocates for an analysis of this detail within the immediate context in each of the texts involved (Isa 40:1–11). In doing so, the Septuagint version appears to reflect a picture of the passage as a whole different from that of MT. Comparing in this way (by discourse analysis) the ancient texts one might detect how tradents tried to make them relevant for their own community. It is of note that S. also states that the way ancient texts were made significant is not only related to the fluidity of texts, because a stabilized text too is still multivalent as the history of biblical interpretation shows.
S. does not limit his twofold approach to the Hebrew Bible, but is also strongly interested, as scholar of the (Christian) Bible as a whole, in the relationship between both Testaments. Articles en-titled, »Torah and Christ«, »Torah and Paul«, »The Gospels and Canonical Process«, are of particular note in this respect. One of the questions he deals with is why the Jews did not accept Jesus. As to the claims Paul is making in this regard (Romans 9–11), S. states: »The frustration of Paul did not stem so much from a lack of con-firmation of Christ by the majority of Jews of his day, but that he could not get them to read the Torah and the Prophets correctly, that is, in the way he read them« (261). His point is that one should do justice to this and similar issues by reading texts such as the New Testament by »comparative midrash«, i. e., by comparing the way authors, Paul and the Rabbis, were reading the Torah and the Prophets. By searching and analysing the different views S. tried to understand better the divergent ways people like Paul and the Rabbis made the Old Testament traditions relevant for their own time, seeking in this way to overcome current judgments about Jesus and the Jews (see esp. 276–279).
The second part, »Qumran«, contains 10 contributions, including those entitled, »Habakkuk in Qumran, Paul, and the Old Testament«, »Cave 11 Surprises and the Question of Canon«, »Psalm 154 Revisited«, »The Impact of the Scrolls on Biblical Studies«. Ques-tions of hermeneutics, esp. the use of historical typology and ful-filment interpretation both in the Scrolls and in the New Testament, and the issue of the canonical status of a text like the Qumran Psalm Scroll (11QPsa), are at the centre of this part. Then fact that the Psalm Scroll was regarded, in the Qumran community, a canonical, i. e., authoritative, text, implied, in S.’ view, that »the Psalter at Qumran was open-ended […] not yet closed in its latter third« (414).
The second volume has three parts: »Exegesis« (1–104), »Hermeneutics« (105–230), and »Theology« (231–307). An Appendix (Cur-riculum Vitae of S.), and two Indexes complete the work.
The section »Exegesis«, consists a number of articles including »The Function of Annunciations in Scripture«, »The Ethic of Elec-tion in Luke’s Great Banquet Parable«, »From Isaiah 61 to Luke 4«, and »Isaiah in Luke«, all representing interesting examples of comparative midrash (»tracing the function of a passage through early Judaism into Christianity and rabbinic Judaism« [225]). In his well-known piece on Isaiah 61 and Luke 4, for example, attention is given to the early witnesses (Isaiah manuscripts from Qumran, Septuagint, Vulgate, Targum), as well as to the Rabbis, texts of Qumran (such as 11QMelch), including a discussion of the (two) hermeneutic axioms of Qumran, which are also typical of Luke 4.
The next part, »Hermeneutics«, has 8 contributions among which »Hermeneutics in True and False Prophecy«, and »The Hermeneutics of Establishing the Text«. The latter, one of his latest articles (2017), offers a brief but insightful discussion of great scholars of the past, all of them being important for textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible: Jewish scholars in the Middle Ages, Martin Luther, Cappel and Morin, as well as Houbigant, Spinoza, and Richard Simon. In this essay, S. also summarizes his view of the history of transmission of the Hebrew Bible (see also Vol. I, 31–34): in the early period, before the »great divide« in Judaism (caused by the dramatic events in 70 AD), the focus of transmission of the text was on preserving the message, permitting scribes to make slight scribal changes, while after 70 AD »the focus shifted dramatically to preserving the words of the text« (208 [italics vdK]).
The last part of the second volume, »Theology«, includes contributions entitled, »God is God«, »The Book of Job and the Origin of Judaism«, and »Paul and Theological History«.
The essays brought together in both volumes are all well written, carefully worded and well-considered pieces of scholarly work. Inevitably, given the large number of contributions on some topics the volumes are to some extent repetitive. Nevertheless, the vol-umes are to be welcomed as they document S.’ points of view, which are very stimulating. This applies in particular to his important thesis that the study of textual criticism of the Old Testament text and the history of its transmission should be related with the study of the »hermeneutics of antiquity« (Vol. II, VII) because as the ancient sources clearly indicate, the texts concerned were regarded canonical in the sense of authoritative. Hence, the idea of S. that the plurality of biblical texts and versions testifies to a process of making ancient texts relevant for different communities seems to be well taken. Of course, it is not easy to find a balanced approach between textual criticism in the strict sense of the word and the study of the hermeneutical side of the coin, but this is the chal-lenge posed in S.’ essays, which have been carefully edited by Craig A. Evans.