Biblical Texts as Historical Texts - with Susan Wise Bauer

This is the third post examining Susan Wise Bauer's use of the different sorts of evidence available to her in the The History of the Ancient World (and also the post sixth in a larger series). The first dealt with her treatment of ancient narratives of a great flood, which may be found most everywhere you look in the ancient world. The second addressed her differing approaches to epic poetry and ancient history. Now, a friend over at Policy Tensor has complained that the second, in particular, cannot be read as a stand-alone unit. I respond by saying: My purpose here is to develop a series of thoughts by interacting with The Ancient World. It won't do to reinvent the wheel every time I begin a new post.

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A modern 'critical' attitude towards the biblical canon was summarized by G.E. Lessing in his short tract On the Proof of the Spirit and the Power. It struck a very clear distinction between a historical statement and a truthful statement.

Miracles, which I see with my own eyes, and which I have the oppourtunity to verify for myself, are one thing; miracles, of which I know only from history that other say they have seen them and verified them, are another.

By drawing a single distinction, many of the best known biblical narratives were placed beyond the reach of inquiring minds. Did Moses part the Red Sea? Was Elijah carried by a chariot into heaven? Did Christ rise from the dead? I cannot be sure the testimony of the original witnesses can be trusted. There was no way for me to determine that with any certainty. The direction of Lessing's criticisms leads away, however, no only from belief in miracle narratives, but from knowledge of the past as such. I myself have witnessed only the narrowest sliver of the grand human narrative.

The English term bible, or the Greek term biblion, means something analogous to a library, or a collection of texts. The variety of texts composing the biblical canon ought to be embraced in their literal plurality; the difficulty of providing neat summaries of its essential message should be underscored more often.

Recognition of the plurality of the canon, however, does not mean embracing Lessing's skepticism towards the possibility of recovering a knowledge of the human past. Taken as a hermeneutic of the human past, the doctrine of the Incarnation suggests that the sorts of textual evidence that helps us see the world from the inside out must be taken especially seriously, not in spite of the fact they are human testimony, but because they are. God speaks to human beings, not as a transcendent being, but as another human being. Only as something witnessed by human beings, as something reported by human beings, does the human past become intelligible--a point which I made at greater length examining Bauer's analysis of the reasons for distinguishing between pre-history and history.

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Surprisingly, the treatment Bauer gives the biblical texts is remarkably flat when compared to her sensitive readings of epic poetry and the ancient historians. Well aware that texts may only reach their final form centuries after the events to which they bear witness, she expertly followed the direction of specialists by assigning temporal significance where appropriate. In The Histories, for example, Herodotus may have commented on the Trojan War, but he was writing for a generation more interested in the Persian Wars. The Indian epic, the Mahabharata, most likely passes along the courtly ritual and stylized accounts of warfare from a much later date, but is probably a record of a contest between early nomadic peoples. Consideration of the many sources of evidence yields historical depth and nuance, illuminating much more than the text itself is able to speak to directly.

So it is rather jarring to read Bauer characterize Abraham's departure from the city of Ur in these terms:

By blood Abram was no different from the Semites around him, and not so different from the people who inhabited the land he was headed towards. But by divine fiat, he was separated from the rest and began something new: one Semite out of the rest, one God rising above the chaos of polytheism. He was the first monotheist. (Ancient History 129)

Was he really a monotheist? Two general studies of Jewish history, Paul Johnson's A History of the Jews and Wanderings: Chaim Potok's History of the Jews, both treat the question of the nature of Abraham's idea of God with the delicacy it deserves. Our evidence is scant. The strongly monotheist cast of the Hebrew canon is generally thought to date to the 6th century B.C.E., working with and transforming earlier narrative traditions. The biblical texts shows evidence of new traditions being layered on top of older ones. God is alternatively identified as God of the mountains, God of battle, a God who covenants, and a God who promises. But the sort of conceptual purity that the term monotheism entails does not seem to be present at such an early date.

Look at the problem in more personal terms. The Hebrew canon describes a personal God, who is interested in future prospects of Abraham's offspring. Now, if you meet someone out of the blue, with whom you have no other acquaintance, it's entirely possible a considerable amount of time might pass before you ever think to ask what they do for a living. If they are not venturing the information, how would you find out? The same sort of considerations would seem to apply also in the case of a personal God. Abraham is told to go to a land God would show him; he is not told that God is the only God, and that all other gods are false gods.

The flat treatment resurfaces when Bauer relates the story of Moses and the Israelite Exodus from Egypt. She says, 'These years are historically invisible, but theologically central', before outlining the contents of the biblical narrative. Why distinguish history from theology? Why not stick with history? Much safer ground to stand on would have been to illustrate the difficult of confirming the biblical texts against extra-biblical evidences, while highlighting the importance of the Exodus to later generations.

At other points, Bauer seems to reach into the past to draw out a meaning from the biblical text for the whole of human history that flirts with anachronism. Perhaps she has something she wants to say, but not enough space with which to say it, so she falls back on theological shorthand. I cannot be certain

In a few days I want to compare Bauer's comments on the Chinese idea of the Mandate of Heaven with her comments on a Hebrew understanding of God's Covenant. The comparison will further illustrate what I think is Bauer's problematic acceptance of the 'face value' of the biblical texts.

For the moment, however, let me say that the reasons she provides for choosing to use BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini; 'In the year of our Lord'), rather than BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) appear lacking in imaginative sympathy. She says, '[T]o avoid seeing history entirely from a Judeo-Christian point of view, but using BCE while still reckoning from Christ's birth seems, to me, fairly pointless.'

How is it pointless? The replacement of BC and AD with BCE and CE is a guard, as Bauer understands, against the intellectual arrogance of filtering the whole of human history with a Judeo-Christian lens. But that intellectual concern accords well with a Christian understanding of the birth of God in human form.

If the most exceptional being in the universe assumed a exceedingly common form, as Christians profess to believe, then Bauer should have no problem with the birth of Christ inaugurating the Common Era.