The Deuteronomic Concern for Women

Part 1: The Status of Women in Israelite Society
Part 2: The Deuteronomic Concern for Women

In Part 1 of my study on the plight of women in Israelite society, I wrote that “the status of women as persons of worth and dignity at times [is] betrayed by the social realities present in Israelite society.” In Part 2 of my study, I want to introduce how the reforms of Josiah and the book of Deuteronomy made an attempt at improving the status of women in Israelite society during the seventh century B.C.E.

The best effort to deal with the religious and social problems confronting Israelite society in the late monarchic period is found in the book of Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy was an attempt at developing a special sense of social responsibility in the life of every Israelite for the poor, slaves, women, and for those in society who were underprivileged and did not enjoy the whole benefit of the law.

The book of Deuteronomy is considered by the majority of scholars to be a revision of the Book of the Covenant. The book of Deuteronomy revises old laws and introduces new ones in order to meet the needs of Israelite society in the latter half of the seventh century B.C.E.

The book of Deuteronomy is presented as an exposition of the Mosaic law revealed by Yahweh at Mount Sinai. According to the book, Moses introduced the laws of God to the new generation of Israelites in preparation for their entrance into the Promised Land. This exposition of the law was also an invitation to the people of Israel to dedicate themselves to the demands of the covenant Yahweh had established with them.

The degeneration of the religious and social life in the Northern Kingdom in the days of Amos and Hosea and the religious syncretism in Judah in the days of Manasseh promoted an abandonment of moral values and a neglect of the demands of the covenant and the ancient traditions of the nation.

In 622 B.C.E., during the renovation of the temple in the days of Josiah, king of Judah (640-609), the book of the law was found by the workers in the temple. The book found in the temple probably was an earlier version of Deuteronomy. The reading of the book affected Josiah immensely.

In a ceremony in the temple, the king invited the people to renew the covenant and to abide by the demands of the Torah of Moses. In addition to the religious reforms of the Israelite cult, there was also a reformulation of several laws to improve the plight of the destitute and the oppressed in Israelite society.

The book of Deuteronomy reflects the rise of humanism in Israel. Deuteronomy contains several new laws and many revisions of old ones dealing with the oppressed in Israel. These laws became necessary because of the changes brought by the monarchy and by the deterioration of the social structures in Israelite society.

Several aspects of the Deuteronomic reform affected women for the better. The reformulation of Mosaic laws in the days of Josiah also served to call the people who lived in the seventh century B.C.E. to hear the words of Yahweh again and to renew their commitment to the God of Israel.

The book of Deuteronomy emphasizes Israel's experience in Egypt. Deuteronomy reintroduces the laws and demands of the God who had redeemed a people from the house of servitude in Egypt to make them a special people with a universal mission. Israel was called to be a religious community where the justice of God would be manifested to the whole world.

Among the many theological emphases of the book, three deserve attention. The first was that Yahweh, the God of Israel, loved Israel with a special love, even when the nation did not deserve his love. Now Israel had to love God with their whole being (Deuteronomy 6:5).

Second, Israel had served other gods, but now Israel had to serve Yahweh exclusively (Deuteronomy 6:4). Deuteronomy emphasizes the singularity of Yahweh in the life of Israel. Finally, the book of Deuteronomy relates obedience to God to the daily life of each member of the community. Because Israel was united to God by the demands of the covenant, each member of the community had to treat another Israelite with justice.

Israel, as God's people, was a special people, a people separated from the other nations and as such, the daily life and the moral conduct among the members of the community had to reflect this relationship with God.

The demands of the covenant required personal integrity and social justice of each Israelite. The poor, the slaves, the orphans, the widows, and the other destitute persons in Israel became the beneficiaries of the changes introduced by the social reforms of Deuteronomy. In addition, there was a real effort to improve the status of women in Israelite society by emphasizing the dignity of women and by bringing them relief from some of the injustices allowed by older laws. This improvement of the status of Israelite women came by revision of older laws found in the Book of the Covenant and by the enactment of new laws directly affecting the lives of women in Israelite society.

In upcoming posts, I will demonstrate how the book of Deuteronomy is concerned with the oppressive situation of women in Israelite society. I will examine several laws and study how Deuteronomic laws revise and improve the laws in the book of Exodus to address some social injustices in Israelite society, especially injustices against women.

To be continued.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Covenant Code, Deuteronomic Laws, Deuteronomy, Israelite Laws, Women

Angels, Angelina Jolie, and the Bible

In the Bible, the Hebrew word translated “angel” literally means “a messenger.” An angel is sent by God to execute his divine purposes.

Angelina Jolie, the famous actress known for her role as Lara Croft in “Tomb Raider,” has served as the Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. In a sense, she is a messenger or an angel of good will.

The name “Angelina” is a form of “Angela,” a name derived from “angel.” Some people think that Angelina Jolie is an angel because now her picture adorns the pages of the Bible. The Bible Illuminated: The Book was first published in Sweden last year. The Bible Illuminated is a glossy fashion magazine-style Bible that includes a picture of Angelina Jolie. The publisher said that the mixing of the biblical text with Angelina Jolie is designed to reach people who have never read the Bible. This is the reason the publishers hope this Bible will become a bestseller.

I have mix feelings about this new edition of the Bible. I think this Bible can be a success if the following caption appears with Angelina Jolie’s picture:

“Hear now my argument; listen to the plea of my lips” (Job 13:6).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Angels, Angelina Jolie, Bible, Bible Illuminated

Is the Bible Sexist?

Is the Bible sexist? Not according to Bess Twiston Davies. Writing for the Time Online, she said that new research claims that the Bible’s negative stance on women is a myth.

She wrote:

New research into Biblical women shows that the majority receive positive or matter-of-fact write-ups. Words such as “blessed”, “righteous” “outstanding” and - of course - “beautiful” crop up in descriptions of 60 of the Bible's 175 female characters, according to research from The Bible Society.

Is the Bible sexist? Read the article and what it says about Eve and then decide for yourself.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Eve, Sexism, Women

Obituary: Avraham Biran

The New York Times has published an obituary of Avraham Biran, the archaeologist who excavated Tel Dan and discovered the fragment of a monument containing a reference to the house of David. Biran died on September 16 at the age of 98.

Speaking of Biran’s work at Tel Dan, the article says:

In 1993, after nearly three decades of digging at Dan, which is on the Syrian border and near the headwaters of the Jordan River, Dr. Biran and his colleagues discovered a foot-long piece of stone with a partial inscription in Early Aramaic.

The archaeologists were able to decipher text on what was possibly a monument to commemorate victory in battle by a king of Aram over Israel. The inscription - which contained the words House of David - was dated to the ninth century B.C. and was hailed by biblical scholars as a unique find and evidence of the antiquity of King David's lineage. Some scholars, however, have questioned the interpretation of the discovery and even the existence of King David.

It was already known that the Bible, in the Book of Kings, refers to Dan as the city of the Golden Calf. The Israelite king Jeroboam placed a gilded idol in a shrine for his subjects to worship there, probably in the ninth century B.C.

Although Dr. Biran and his collaborators never found the calf, they did discover the remains of a mud-brick city gate of the Middle Bronze Age and tombs from the Late Bronze Age. After sifting through layers that contained pottery shards from Roman times, they also established that Israelite tribes probably arrived in the 12th century B.C. and later used the site as a fortress for defending against raids by Syrian tribes. He peeled away Dan's complex historical passage in a book, "Biblical Dan."

Israel has produced great archaeologists, and Avraham Biran was one of them.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Avraham Biran, Tel Dan

The Status of Women in Israelite Society

The status of women in Israelite society is a highly debated subject in biblical scholarship. In some texts of the Old Testament women are presented as property of their fathers and husbands. The husband was a woman's "baal.” This Hebrew word was translated sometimes as "husband,” "owner" or "master.”

In the Old Testament, as well as in the Ancient Near East, a man could have many wives; multiple marriage was the evidence of a man's wealth and power. Few women were independent, for they needed their fathers and husbands to provide for them. In other texts women are portrayed as victims of men's brutality and inhumanity: women were bought and sold, raped, enslaved, murdered, and abandoned. Daughters were sold as slaves by their fathers (Exodus 21:7-11). A law in Leviticus 19:29 was enacted, forbidding a man from selling his daughter as a prostitute. The implication of this law was that some men had no reservation about selling their daughters when forced by poverty or when compelled by greed.

In other Old Testament texts, women are portrayed as persons with dignity. In Genesis 1:26-27 the woman was created in the image of God, although this passage reflects a much developed theology. This theology of womanhood, woman as a person equal to the man, created in the image of God, developed gradually in Israel and finds full expression in the priestly theology of the postexilic time.

In Genesis 2:18 , the woman is portrayed as companion to her husband, his ‘ēzer kenegdô, a helper to the man. The Hebrew expression, ‘ēzer kenegdô, does not carry the connotation of inferiority or subordination. The creation of the woman is the climax of the Yahwistic creation story in Genesis 2. The woman was created to be a companion to a lonely man, thus giving to both of them the possibility of community, commonality, and wholeness.

These two theological views of the status of women as persons of worth and dignity at times are betrayed by the social realities present in Israelite society. The status of women probably became more difficult as a result of a misinterpretation of Genesis 3:16, a text in which God says that the man is to rule over his wife as a consequence of her disobedience. If this was so, then men in Israelite society understood the text to describe the life of a woman as a person "under the curse." Phyllis Trible (God and the Rethoric of Sexuality [Overture to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978) has said that as a result of the shared transgression of both man and woman, "oppression resulting from transgression is actualized by a design that emphasizes the man and minimizes the woman” (p. 128). Because of the social limitations imposed upon women, most women in Israel found their sense of worth, fulfillment, and personhood in being a mother and a wife.

In spite of the limitations imposed upon women, some women forged important places in Israelite society. Some, women, like Deborah served as a judge, others, like Huldah served as prophets. Some women served as queens and queen-mothers, thus exercising much power and authority in Israelite society. Centralization of wealth in the hands of a few families elevated the status of some women and enabled them to live a life of luxury and to exert power over men.

Over the centuries, Israelite society suffered many transformations. From a tribal community, in which people had much in common and where few inequalities existed, Israel became a state, with a monarchy and a royal family that consumed a large portion of the goods produced by the average Israelite. The growing number of civil servants forced the state to enact a system of taxation that served to create a class of rich citizens at the expense of Israelite farmers and villagers. These social, economic, and political changes in Israelite society served as a catalyst to impact the status of women in society and greatly affect their lives.

Over the years, many laws were enacted to provide some relief to the plight of women in Israelite society. The Book of the Covenant, also known as the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:22-23:33), is the oldest code of law in Israel. The Book of the Covenant is a codification of ancient laws and traditions that attained its final form either at the end of the tribal confederacy or at the beginning of the monarchy in the days of David or Solomon. There are many laws in the Book of the Covenant that deal with social injustice and the plight of the destitute and the oppressed in Israel.

In a future post I will study some of these laws and how Israel made an attempt at dealing with the religious and social problems of Israelite society. Israelite laws reveal that there was an attempt to develop a special sense of social responsibility in the life of every Israelite for the poor, women, and for those in society who were underprivileged and did not enjoy the whole benefit of the law.

To be continued.


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Covenant Code, Israelite Laws, Poor, Women

The Sarcophagus of the High Priest

Image: Fragment of the sarcophagus bearing the inscription


According to a press release, Israeli archaeologists have found a sarcophagus with an inscription that says that the sarcophagus belonged to a high priest who served in the Second Temple. The following is the press release in its entirety:

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli archaeologists on Monday announced the discovery of a stone sarcophagus fragment with Hebrew script that was apparently taken from the original burial grounds and used for a Muslim building near Jerusalem.

The discovery was made along the West Bank separation barrier north of Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement.

The sarcophagus is believed to be that of a Jewish priest from about 2,000 years ago. The fragment of the limestone lid bears the carved inscription "Ben HaCohen HaGadol" which can be loosely translated as "the high priest."

"It seems that the fragment was plundered from its original location approximately one thousand years ago and was used in the construction of a later Muslim building that was erected atop the ruins of the houses from the Second Temple period," the statement said.

The 60 centimetre by 48 centimetre (two foot by one-and-a-half foot) fragment likely comes from the sarcophagus of a priest who officiated at the Jewish Second Temple in Jerusalem some time between 30 and 70 of the first century, it said.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, High Priest, News, Sarcophagus

A Book Worth Reading

Last Friday, my son asked me if I had read a book which a lot of people were talking about. The book is The Shack (Los Angeles: Windblown Media, 2007). The author is William P. Young, a Canadian who was raised “among a stone-age tribe by his missionary parents in the highlands of what was New Guinea.”

I told my son that I had not heard anything about the book. So, he immediately took me to a bookstore to look for the book. On the front page of the book was this recommendation by Eugene Peterson: “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!”

I was hooked! I have read Pilgrim’s Progress several times, both in Portuguese and in English and I love Bunyan’s book. So, without any hesitation, I bought The Shack.

I began reading the book on Saturday morning and by early evening I was almost finished. On Sunday, after I came back from church, I finished reading the book. The story was so good that I could have finished reading the book on Saturday night, but I had other things to do, so I had to postpone the reading until Sunday afternoon.

I probably would classify this book as a theological novel. I cannot say much about the content of the book because that would give the plot away. I will summarize the book without giving away the plot of the book.

The book is focused on the experience of Mackenzie Allen Phillips, the main character of the book. While on a camping trip with his children, an accident happened. Mack’s (this is how he is called throughout the book) son and daughter went canoeing. While in the middle of the lake, Mack’s daughter lost her balance and tipped the canoe. His son’s life vest got tangled in the canoe and he was about to drown. Leaving his younger daughter behind, Mack raced to rescue his son and his older daughter.

While he was trying to rescue his son, Mack's younger daughter is kidnapped and eventually, as the authorities discovered later, murdered by a serial killer. Four years later, while still trying to recover from the murder of his daughter, Mack receives a mysterious note, asking him to return to the place where his daughter was killed. The disappearance and murder of Mack’s daughter is called The Great Sadness. The story, as told in the book, is Mack’s dealing with his Great Sadness.

The Shack is an abandoned cabin in the Oregon wilderness and the place where the body of Mack’s younger daughter was found and the place to which Mack returns to find redemption and forgiveness. There, in the place where he was touched by the discovery of his daughter’s body, where blood marked the place where her body was found, Mack had a personal encounter with God, an encounter that forced him to confront the demons that had been haunting him.

Mack’s encounter with God was life-changing. I cannot give more details because that would give part of the plot away. The theology behind The Shack is an attempt at dealing with the problem of evil in the world. The problem of theodicy has been addressed in different ways. Young’s attempt to deal with the issue of pain and suffering may be simplistic to some, but I believe that the book communicates a powerful message of the grace of God to troubled hearts.

I enjoyed the book and I am sure that those who want to discover God in the struggles of life will find a comforting message in The Shack.

You can read the Foreword and the First Chapter of the book by clicking here. You may also visit the author’s blog by clicking here.

You can buy the book at Amazon.com.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Missy Project, The Shack, William P. Young

Song of Songs

Song of Songs, by J. Cheryl Exum. Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. xxiv + 263 pp. $39.95. ISBN 0-664-22190-4.

No other book of the Old Testament has been the subject of more varied interpretations than Song of Songs. The traditional way of interpreting the book was allegorical, that is, that the book tells either of the love of God for Israel, or the love of Christ for the church, or the love of Christ for the believer.

In her commentary on this often-misunderstood book, J. Cheryl Exum rejects the allegorical view and interprets the book as a long lyrical poem dealing with erotic love and sexual desire. Her commentary aims to show that the book is a poem about true love between a man and a woman. In the dialogue between the two main protagonists of the poem, the poet shows what it means to be in love. The poet also shows that the body is both the object of desire and the source of delight, and that the two lovers seek to express their mutual love in the enjoyment of each other and in the consummation of their love.

Exum begins her book with a long introduction (86 pages) in which she discusses, among other topics, the poetics of the book and gender issues. In the poem, the lovers are not specific people. The man is a king and a shepherd but he is not Solomon. The woman is a member of the court and a woman who takes care of the vineyard. She is black (1:5) but she is also white like the moon and as radiant as the sun (6:10). Thus, according to Exum, although the man has been identified with Solomon (3:11) and the woman with the Shulammite (6:13), the lovers are universal. The man and the woman represent all lovers and this characterization allows readers to identify themselves with the characters of the book.

In another section of the introduction, Exum discusses reader strategies for understanding the sexual language of the book. One characteristic of Song of Songs is the strong, pervasive sexual language in the dialogue between the two lovers. The dialogue is filled with innuendos, double entendre, metaphors, and poetic language. This metaphorical language invites the reader to imagine whether sexual intimacy between the lovers has taken place. Exum’s interpretation of 5:2-6 is a good example of the explication of double entendre in the book. Readers must decide whether the book is voyeuristic or erotic (p. 24).

The introduction also deals with issues of composition, authorship, and date of writing. Exum rejects the view that the book is an anthology of songs or a collection of poems. Rather, she accepts Songs as a unity and that a single author composed the book. She recognizes the probability that the book received some minor editing in the process of transmission. According to Exum, a poetic vision of love inspired the author and that vision guided the poem’s composition. Thus, the only way to gain a proper understanding of the Song is by reading the book as a unified work.

In the section “The Song of Songs and Its World,” she shows how the author draws on the cultural heritage of love poetry of the Ancient Near East, primarily from Mesopotamia and Egypt (pp. 47-63). She rejects a cultic setting for the book by emphasizing that Songs is a literary work and not a cultic text. She also rejects the view that the book is associated with some kind of ritual celebrating the marriage between Yahweh and Asherah since such a dynamic would have prohibited acceptance into the canon (p. 64).

Exum says that that the gender of the author cannot be deduced from the book. She believes that given the level of literacy in ancient Israel, it is probable that a man wrote the poem; however, she does not rule out the possibility of an educated woman as author. She believes that it is also possible that a male author used a cultural product developed by a woman to compose his work. Exum acknowledges that it is, unfortunately, impossible to ascertain the date or place of composition (p. 67). The reference to Jerusalem in the book does not necessarily mean that the book was written in that city.

This commentary offers a fresh and inspiring approach to Song of Songs. Exum provides her own translation of the text, along with copious notes and identification of the speakers in the dialogue. The language of the book makes translation difficult as the book contains many words that appear only once in the Bible, many words that are unique to the Song, and many rare words whose meaning is obscure. Exum divides her commentary into ten sections with a verse by verse interpretation of the text. The book contains a bibliography listing commentaries on the Songs, monographs, and articles, but no indexes. I recommend this book to pastors and seminary students.

Note: This book review was published in the Review and Expositor 105 (Spring 2008), 333-35.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Song of Songs, J. Cheryl Exum

Archaeological Discoveries in the City of David

Image: The City of David. Credit: The Washington Times

An article published in The Washington Times reviews the work of Eilat Mazar in the city of David and the discovery of two clay seal impressions bearing the names of Gedalyahu ben Pashhur and Yehuchal ben Shelemayahu.

Both ben Pashhur and ben Shelemayahu are mentioned in Jeremiah 38:1. They were palace officials who served in the court of Zedekiah, king of Judah and the last king from the Davidic dynasty. Zedekiah reigned from 597 to 587 B.C. and his reign ended with the Babylonians’ destruction of the Temple and Zedekiah’s deportation to Babylon.

About her discovery, Mazar said: “It is not very often that archaeologists have surprises that bring them so close to the reality of the biblical text.”

According to Mazar, “this is the first time in the annals of Israeli archaeology that two 2,600-year-old clay bullae with two biblical names that appear in the same biblical verse have been unearthed in the same location.”

Read the article by visiting The Washington Times.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Archaeology, Eilat Mazar

Food in the Old Testament

Nathan MacDonald, a Lecturer in Old Testament at the University of St. Andrews has written a new book in which he examines some of the rich imagery about food and drink in the Old Testament. MacDonald’s book, Not Bread Alone: The Uses of Food in the Old Testament will be published by Oxford University Press in January 2006.

According to a press release reviewing the book, MacDonald’s work is designed to “contribute towards a better appreciation of the lives and ideas of ancient Israelites, as well as shedding new light on many parts of the Bible.” MacDonald said:

Too often the Bible has only been read for its profound intellectual and spiritual ideas, and the apparently mundane matters relating to food and physical appetite have been overlooked. But for the ancient Israelites most of their lives were spent in growing and processing food.

As a result different foods and the acts of eating and feasting become some of the most important symbols in the Bible. There is hardly a page in the Bible that does not mention food in some way.

This is another book that I want to add to my reading list. I enjoy reading about the social life of ancient Israelites. The sociological study of ancient Israel helps us gain a better understanding of what we read in the Old Testament.

Buy the book at Amazon.com.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Bible, Food

Visualizing the Bible

Image: Courtesy Chris Harrison, Carnegie Mellon University; Christoph Romhild, North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church/Science



National Geographic News has published the best science images of 2008. Among them, an image that received the honorable mention in the category of “Illustration” was “Visualizing the Bible.”

This is how National Geographic News describes the visualization of the Bible:

A colorful rainbow brings to light the interconnected nature of one of the world’s most familiar books.

The Bible’s 1,189 chapters are plotted along the horizontal axis at the bottom of the image, with each bar's length determined by the number of verses.

The arcs above the graph show the 63,779 cross-references between each chapter.

“It almost looks like one monolithic volume,” said Carnegie Mellon's Chris Harrison, who--along with Christoph Romhild of North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hamburg, Germany--won an honorable mention for illustrations in the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

I never though a visualization of the Bible would be as beautiful and as colorful.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible, News, Science

The Ten Commandments of Blogging

The Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain has published the Ten Commandments of Blogging. These Ten Commandments of Blogging were first published by Ruth Gledhill, The Times Religion Correspondent. Gledhill also has an article discussing these Commandments.

These are the Ten Commandments of Blogging:

1. You shall not put your blog before your integrity.
2. You shall not make an idol of your blog.
3. You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin.
4. Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog.
5. Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes.
6. You shall not murder someone else’s honour, reputation or feelings.
7. You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind.
8. You shall not steal another person’s content.
9. You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger.
10.You shall not covet your neighbour’s blog ranking. Be content with your own content.

I am well aware of the 8th Commandment for blogging. For this reason, I want to give credit to Ruth Gledhill by saying again that this list as well as Moses’ picture on this post were taken from her blog.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Blogging, Evangelical Alliance, Ruth Gledhill, Ten Commandments

Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Until recently, most scholars would say that the Essenes wrote the documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. This view was first proposed by Roland de Vaux, the archaeologist who found the scrolls. However, another theory has been proposed for the authorship of the scrolls.

In an article published in The Wall Street Journal, these two theories are discussed in detail. The article describes the two theories as follows:

There are two competing theories about the scrolls. The first is that they belonged to a single religious sect living nearby the caves, most likely the Essenes. The second theory is that the scrolls are a random collection of texts reflecting the beliefs of many Jewish groups of the period; the caves, under this theory, are a repository for sacred texts from various Jewish communities fleeing the Romans during the Jewish revolt of A.D. 68.

The debate continues. Norman Golb, Professor of History and Civilization at the University of Chicago is a leading proponent of the second theory. The article in The Wall Street Journal provides some of the arguments in defense of the second theory.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran

The Search for the Missing Pages of the Aleppo Codex

The Telegraph Journal, in an article published on Saturday, September 27, 2008, describes the search for the missing pages of the Aleppo Codex. The following are a few excerpts from the article:

A quest is under way on four continents to find the missing pages of one of the world's most important holy texts, the 1,000-year-old Hebrew Bible known as the Crown of Aleppo.

Crusaders held it for ransom, fire almost destroyed it and it was reputedly smuggled across Mideast borders hidden in a washing machine. But in 1958, when it finally reached Israel, 196 pages were missing - about 40 per cent of the total - and for some Old Testament scholars they have become a kind of holy grail.

The Codex, on 491 parchment pages about 30 centimetres by 25 centimetres, was transcribed sometime around 930 A.D. by Shlomo Ben Boya'a, a scribe in Tiberias on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. It was edited by a renowned scholar of the time, Aaron Ben-Asher. Its completion marked the end of a centuries-long process that created the final text of the Hebrew Bible.

According to the news report, the Codex is missing entire books, including most of the five books of Moses, the book of Esther, and the book of Daniel.

A study of the Codex will help scholars ascertain the accuracy of the biblical text and the Masoretic use of vowel signs and letters that could slightly alter pronunciation of some words.
According to Rafael Zer, of the Hebrew University Bible Project in Jerusalem, the Codex will be used to create what probably will become the authoritative text of the Old Testament.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Aleppo Codex, Bible, Manuscripts

How to Succeed in Business

How to succeed in business? Use the lessons and models found in the Torah!

In a new book, Jewish Wisdom for Business Success (Amacom, 2008), Rabbi Levi Brackman and Sam Jaffe write that the Torah provides models for people to succeed in business. In Chapter 4 of the book, titled “Patriarchal Business Models,” the authors provide an example of how Abraham began successfully building the brand of monotheism. According to the authors, Abraham used a bold marketing technique: he smashed all the idols in his father’s shop. They wrote:

“Abraham’s public relations stunt with his father’s idols succeeded even better than he could have imagined, earning him credibility and a reputation throughout Mesopotamia as an iconoclast and a holy man.”

Now, that is something pastors should consider. Maybe churches today need to smash a lot of idols if they want to promote Christianity in a world filled with idols.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Abraham, Business, Religion,Torah

Babylon and the War in Iraq

A recent video released by the National Geographic News shows how the ancient city of Babylon has been damage by American and Polish military forces as a result of the war in Iraq.

Watch the video by visiting the National Geographic News .

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Babylon

King Midas and His Beer

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has used some new methods of molecular archaeology to recreate a drink that dates back to the time of King Midas, around 2700 B.C. E.

King Midas was the ruler of the ancient kingdom of Phrygia around 700 B.C.E. According to published reports, his burial chambers contained the remnant of 157 different drinking vessels. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology using new developments in molecular archaeology was able to use residue found in these vessels to reproduce the beer that King Midas drank with his friends.

The result of this amazing work is “Midas Touch,” a beer for beer lovers. Read more about Midas’ beer and how the beer was recreated by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Beer,King Midas

Jesus as the Messiah

Part 1: The Messiah
Part 2: Messianic Expectation
Part 3: Jesus as the Messiah


In the study of the Messiahship of Jesus, several questions arise: Did Jesus know that he was the Messiah? If he did, when did he, in his lifetime, realize that he was the Messiah? Did Jesus proclaim to his disciples and to others that he was the Messiah? These questions are not easy to answer, and a simple answer to these questions may, perhaps, be a way to get out of the problem. Many scholars agree that the question whether Jesus ever declared openly that he was the Messiah or that he had a Messianic self-consciousness is one of the major problems for understanding Jesus’ life and teachings.

Messianic consciousness presupposes the claim to belong to a realm which extends far beyond the range of ordinary human possibilities. The Messianic claim presupposes that everything the prophets of the Old Testament had predicted about the coming Messiah, the son of David, was finding fulfillment in the person of Jesus. The Messianic hope proclaimed by the prophets includes the eschatological nearness of salvation, the nearness of the Kingdom of God, and the advent of reconciliation and redemption.

The message of the early church was that Jesus was the Messiah. In fact, the assertion that Jesus was the Christ was proclaimed by the church and this assertion became one of the most important characteristics of the Christian message. To deny that Jesus was the Christ is also to deny the focal point of the Christian message.

The Messiahship of Jesus is the foundation of Christianity. Christianity was born not with the birth of the man who was called “Jesus,” but in the moment in which one of his followers was driven to say to him: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16 NRSV).

If Jesus is the Messiah, how and when did he become conscious of his Messiahship? The answer to this question is not easy, for the gospels do not provide much information as to the manner in which Jesus’ Messianic consciousness arose.

Some scholars affirm that Jesus never made any explicit Messianic claim and that he displayed no direct Messianic consciousness. However, the New Testament clearly indicates that the disciples regarded Jesus as the coming Messiah. They believed that Jesus was the Messiah Israel had been expecting. It is important to understand an important problem in the Messianic claims of the New Testament: some of the passages in the Synoptic gospels in which the disciples recognized Jesus as Messiah reflect the Easter story projected backward into Jesus’ life and ministry. But the fact remains that the New Testament, the proclamation of the apostles, and the traditions of the early church affirm that Jesus was the promised Messiah. In addition, the events related to Jesus’ death reveal that he was crucified as a Messianic pretender.

As one studies the Messiahship of Jesus, two questions must be asked. First, did Jesus declare that he was the Messiah? Second, when did Jesus become aware that he was the Messiah? To answer the first question, several passages must be considered.

When Jesus was arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin, the high priest asked him: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” (Mark 14:61). In Matthew, the question appears in the form of a request: “Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God” (Matthew 26:63). When asked whether he was the Messiah, Jesus answered: “I am” (Mark 16:62).

When Jesus was brought before Pilate, Pilate asked him: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus told Pilate: “Yes, it is as you say” (Mark 15:2). Another passage that indicates that Jesus was aware of his Messiahship is Matthew 16:13-20 (cf. Mark 8:27-30), a passage that contains Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi. When Jesus asked his disciples, “who do you say I am?” Peter answered: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” According to Matthew, Jesus commanded his disciples “not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.”

The restraining order of Jesus to his disciples, asking them not to proclaim to others that he was the Messiah is known in scholarly circles as “The Messianic Secret.” Jesus’ reluctance to be proclaimed as the Messiah of Israel was based on the fact that he did not want people to be led to a false conception of the Messiah, the same conception he had rejected during his temptations in the wilderness.

The second issue that arises in the study of the Messiahship of Jesus is: when did he become conscious of his Messiahship?

Some Christians believe that at the age of twelve, the occasion when Jesus went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of the Passover (Luke 2:41-52), he was aware that he knew that the Father had sent him to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21) and that he would inherit the throne of David (Luke 1:32). Others believe that the Messianic consciousness came during his baptism, when the voice from heaven declared that he was God’s son (Luke 3:22). Still others believe that this consciousness came during the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13).

Although no specific occasion can be described as the exact moment when Jesus became aware of his Messiahship, it is clear that, early in the ministry of Jesus, the Synoptic gospels give evidence that Jesus was conscious of his special relationship with God and maybe even of the necessity of' suffering as a way to fulfill his mission.

During his baptism, a voice from heaven said: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). These words combine different Messianic ideas from the Old Testament. The first part of the statement, “You are my Son” identifies Jesus as the Messianic Son of God (2 Samuel 7:14). The second statement identifies Jesus as the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 42:1).

The temptations in the wilderness are based on the assumption that Jesus was conscious of his Messiahship, for apart from this assumption, the temptations are without meaning. What the gospels attempt to affirm is that after Caesarea Philippi the disciples recognized and acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah. Up to this point Jesus had been waiting for the disciples to recognize him as the Messiah. Once they accepted him as the promised Messiah, Jesus changed the focus of his ministry and taught them what kind of Messiah he was to be, namely, a suffering Messiah.

The gospels affirm that Jesus was the promised Messiah but he was a different Messiah. Jesus did not fulfill the popular expectation that the Messiah would “restore the kingdom of Israel” (Acts 1:6) during the time of his visitation. His work as the Messiah was not to establish a temporal and political kingdom, but to bring about the good news of the kingdom of God to all the nations of the earth (Matthew 28:16-20).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Christ, Jesus, Messiah, Religion

Vampires in the Old Testament

Guillermo del Toro, the film director who directed the Academy Award movie “Pan’s Labyrinth” has agreed to collaborate with crime author Chuck Hogan to write a trilogy of vampire novels. According to a press release published by the Associated Press, the novels will trace the history of vampires back to the Old Testament:

“The trilogy advances in unexpected ways and each book contains unique and surprising revelations about the history, physiology and lore of the vampiric race, tracing its roots all the way back to its Old Testament origins.”

Now, let me name all the vampires of the Old Testament: there is none.

Vampires are mythological creatures who live “by feeding on the blood of the living.” This means that if the authors are using the Old Testament to explain the origin of vampires, they have to remember the biblical prohibition against eating (or drinking) blood: “If anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood, and will cut that person off from the people” (Leviticus 17:10).

Only someone who does not know the Old Testament can speak of vampires in the Bible.


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Chuck Hogan, Guillermo del Toro, Vampires

Messianic Expectation

Part 1: The Messiah
Part 2: Messianic Expectation

According to the narratives of the biblical text, David, the second king of Israel, was one of the greatest kings Israel ever had. A leader, both in battle and in politics, a good administrator, organized, and a musician, David became a hero to his people very early in his life. Because of the exceptional qualities ascribed to him in the biblical text, to the biblical writers, David became the model for all the kings who succeeded him, both in Judah and in Israel.

The dynasty of David obtained its religious legitimation by the so-called Nathan prophecy found in 2 Samuel 7 (cf. 2 Samuel 23:l-7) where God made an everlasting covenant with David (2 Samuel 23:5), a covenant in which God promised to establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Samuel 7:13). In this covenant between God and David, the dynasty of David was promised eternal existence (2 Samuel 7:16, 29; cf. also Psalm 89:3-4, 29-37; 132:11-12).

Thus, the Messianic expectation in Israel is linked to God’s covenant with David and to a well-developed world of ideas that came with the aggrandizement of David and the idealization of the Davidic kingdom. This Messianic ideal in Israel grew as the monarchy declined. It appears that the beginning of what is known as the Messianic hope in Israel begins to take place in the eighth century, primarily with some of the oracles of the pre-exilic prophets Isaiah and Micah. These two prophets begin to speak of a deliverer in terms which suggest that this deliverer will be an ideal king like David. Passages such as Isaiah 9:l-7; 11:l-9 and Micah 5:2-4 speak of a “shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse” and a ruler who will come from Bethlehem, one “whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” The ancient time mentioned by Micah is a reference to the times of David.

The Messianic hope that God would send an ideal king, one who would be like David, increased during and after the exile, at a time when the people in Babylon hoped for a return to the promised land and the reestablishment of the Davidic kingdom. However, the lack of detail about a Messianic expectation in the prophetic books indicates that a developed Messianic hope in Israel did not come into full bloom until later in post-exilic times.

Later additions to the prophetic books provide a good overview of the development of the prophetic hope in the exile and the post-exilic period. For instance, an addition to Hosea declares that the Son of David would be the bond of union among the tribes (Hosea 3:4-5). An addition to Amos says that David’s tent, which had fallen down, would be set up again (Amos 9:11). Micah promised that the remnant of Israel would become a strong people and the Lord would reign over them and that Bethlehem would be the birth place of the son of David who would rule in Israel (Micah 5:2-4). Isaiah said that David’s throne would be occupied forever and that the Gentiles would come to the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:10). Jeremiah (Jeremiah 33:15-16) and Ezekiel (34:23-24) pointed to the reestablishment of the kingdom under one Shepherd and King, who should be David (that is, a son or descendant of David). The book of Daniel speaks about the coming of the Son of Man who should become ruler over nations (Daniel 7:13-14). Haggai and Zechariah speak of a son of David who was destined to be the great temple builder who would rule as the Lord’s “signet ring” (Haggai 2:23) and as the Lord’s servant and he would be known as “the Branch” (Zechariah 3:8).

In the inter-biblical period, at a time when many people began to believe that revelation had ceased, the expectation of a coming Messiah grew. The idea of a coming Messiah is present in the several apocalyptic writings of this time.

William Barclay, in his book, Jesus As They Saw Him (London: SCM Press, 1962), pp. 112-137,
developed a list of events and ideas associated with the coming of the Messiah. This list was drawn from the Old Testament and from the literature of the inter-biblical period:

(1) Elijah will return to be the herald and the forerunner of the Messiah.

(2) The Messianic Age was to begin with what was called the “travail of the Messiah.”

(3) Before the arrival of the Messianic age, there will be a time of terror.

(4) This time of terror will be a time of complete disintegration of society.

(5) The coming of the Messiah will be preceded by a time of cosmic upheaval.

(6) The beginning of the Messianic Age will be a time of judgment.

(7) The Gentiles will have a place in the Kingdom.

(8) The time of the Messiah will be a time for the ingathering of Israel.

(9) In the Messianic Age, Jerusalem would be restored and renewed.

(10) The resurrection of the dead is a regular hope and expectation of the Messianic Age.

At the beginning of the first century, the Messianic hope in Israel was in full bloom. In the Judaism of the time of Jesus, the Messiah expected by Israel was to be someone who would reveal God’s glory. This Messianic hope included the expectation of a deliverer who was to free the people of Israel, who for centuries were ruled and oppressed by foreign conquerors. The Messiah, who would be a man of Israel, would defeat Israel’s enemies and rule over the nations.

Thus, the Messianic expectation in Israel pointed to a coming king, a king who would be raised up from the family of David, reign over the house of Israel, who would rule supreme over the nations, and who would bring the end of time. This was the Messianic expectation of the first century.

This picture of the Messiah is not what the writers of the gospels presented in their writing. The Synoptic gospels’ presentation of Jesus’ life and work, when measured by Messianic expectations of first century Judaism, leaves no doubt that Jesus Christ was not the kind of Messiah people expected.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Christ, David, Messiah, Religion