Forum Post #1 - Introduction

Welcome to the online forum / group discussion of John Sailhamer’s book, The Meaning of the Pentateuch. I hope that many of us will be able to dive deep into this book, and I am happy we are taking it slow. Professor Sailhamer has spent his whole career writing this book, and if its introduction is any indication of things to come, the remaining portion of the book will be well worth the read. For those of you completely unfamiliar with the key features of Sailhamer’s methodology, wrapping your mind around his observations can take time – and time I hope to give you.

In this first post, I intend to summarize what I think are the three key features of the introduction of the book. I am assuming that you have at least a cursory idea about the content since I am assuming you’ve read it. If not, hopefully you’ll get the gist of it and go back to read it. Many of you who will contribute to this discussion are already familiar to many of Dr. Sailhamer’s foundational ideas about the Pentateuch and biblical hermeneutics. For you, I'm guessing that this introduction was not much of a surprise.

Feature #1 – The meaning of the Pentateuch is about hearing revelation, not studying religion.

Stated simply, revelation is different than religion. When we study the Pentateuch, we are not studying what the ancient Israelites believed, but what Yahweh wanted the Israelites to believe. For Sailhamer, modern evangelicals have confused this point. Rather than explaining what faith the text prescribes to its readers, evangelicals have focused on explaining what they think ancient Israel actually believed. As such, the text no longer confronts its readers, but gives its readers a history lesson. For Sailhamer, that is not biblical theology.

Instead, biblical theology is concerned with hearing the text. In his own words, “One can know the mind of God (mens dei) by reading the words of the human author” (12). When we do this, we find that the location and arrangement of texts can affect how a reader understands the text. The reader also finds that the Old Testament itself provides a hermeneutical (method of reading) strategy for the reader by interpreting itself. This is what Sailhamer calls a “prophetic echo”. Later canonical prophets “hear” earlier ones, exegete them, and then echo their texts with new clarity and relevance. That is, they articulate earlier texts for a better understanding. For Sailhamer, this suggests that there is intelligent life behind the biblical books.

In the end, this distinction is a very important one that gets at the heart of the matter in studies on the Pentateuch. Are we after the religion of the ancient Israelites (think Mount Sinai and the law code given through Moses), or are we after the message of the Pentateuch (something entirely different than the law codes at Sinai)? The past century abounded with theologies that focused entirely on Israel’s religion. What Sailhamer is telling us it that his book is not going to be about that at all; instead, it is how God is speaking to the reader through this written text.

Feature #2 – The meaning of the Pentateuch is found by reading it, and having a big idea which explains the most and most important features of text.

Hermeneutic books abound today, offering many different theories on how to best read a text. Here, Sailhamer does not give us anything new, but directs us back to a rather old goal of reading: finding the biblical author’s intent as it is realized in the work itself. We are after the “verbal meaning” of the text; that is, “what the words say as part of the book”. We are not after what this text means to me, or what this text meant to a more ancient audience. Rather, we want to know what the author intended to communicate in his book – and the best at getting that message is by reading the book itself. For the more academic, this is essentially the same idea put forward by Ernesti in his “historical; that is, grammatical” approach (read Sailhamer’s article on Ernesti). And if I remember correctly, it is also the view put forward by Hirsch (Validity in Interpretation) and recently defended by Vanhoozer (Is There Meaning In This Text?).

An important caveat of his hermeneutic is not equating words with the things that they refer to. Instead, they only point to those things and tell us about them. In this regard, words are much like paintings. Take the Rembrandt on the cover of the book. If we were able to go back and find a photograph of the real-life two men disputing, that photograph would certainly help us know more about these guys. But that photograph does nothing to help us understand what Rembrandt has actually painted. Applied more broadly, this also means that the words about events in a text are not equivalent with those events. Instead, the words point to the events and tell us about them. This means that to understand a book, one must read it, and not what lies behind it.

For Sailhamer, the most effective way to do this is to read toward a “big idea”. The big idea here is that the “meaning of the whole helps us see the importance and meaning of each of the parts.” And our guiding principle is this, that “the best big idea is that which explains the most and the most important features of the text” (20-21). Furthermore, what is most important should be related to the author’s intent. For more, read his summary on page 22.

Feature #3 – The meaning of the Pentateuch is best read by paying attention to how the author put his text together; that is, by using a compositional approach.

This last feature makes up the bulk of the introduction, and can really be split up into three sections: defining a compositional approach, the observations of a canonical approach regarding the Pentateuch, and the significance of those observations for the meaning of the Pentateuch.

What is a compositional approach?

A compositional approach begins with features 1 and 2 above. What we are after in reading is the author’s verbal meaning; that is, what the words mean as part of the whole book (words in context). When we think about biblical books, we begin by noting that biblical books are the product of much reflection and organization. The biblical authors chose their texts and words carefully. In doing so, they have left traces of a “strategy” in the final shape of the work (which can be quite subtle). This is because, in general, biblical authors take written texts and weave them together into a coherent whole so that the whole of their work has a center, a focus, and tells a complete story of real events. A compositional approach is after these, and the most direct indication of the author’s verbal meaning is the overall literary strategy in the book and the verbal seams that unite the final form of the text. That is, the final shape of the text represents a literary strategy in which the author strives to teach a theological message (in the case of biblical books).

This approach applies not only to narrative texts, like the Pentateuch or Kings, but also to poetic texts, like the Psalter or Proverbs. In applying the approach to the Pentateuch, Sailhamer provides us with a great example of how it works. And in doing so, he might surprise some with his important remarks concerning audience (pgs. 25-29). In the end, it will show us that the Pentateuch is not a book of law (as it is commonly understood), but is a source of divine wisdom and meditation, meant to “remind God’s people of their commitment to the Sinai covenant and the law give to Israel at Sinai” (28), and “to teach them about the new covenant” (28).

What observations does a compositional approach make regarding the Pentateuch?

When applying a compositional approach to the Pentateuch, several initial questions emerge. First, where and how does the book begin? And second, where and how does a book end? Sailhamer notes that the Pentateuch begins with creation, not a law, or a promise, or even with nature itself. This means that the Pentateuch begins with a theological beginning. It ends in an even more surprising way, with Israel still in the wilderness. What does this mean? That, “The author of the Pentateuch leaves open the question of the time of the fulfillment of the patriarchal blessings” (33).

Beyond the introduction and conclusion to a book, the next step is to look at what makes up the larger sections of the book, and also how the sections are structured. In this respect, Sailhamer has picked up on several important strategies employed by the author. First, poems are used in the Pentateuch to help link together collections of independent narratives. These poems are attached to the end of each narrative, and using the poems to provide an interpretive context for the narratives surrounding it. This strategy is principally used in Genesis 1-11, but is again used to help give meaning to larger texts as well (cf. Genesis 12-50). I cannot do the introduction justice, so read pgs 34-37 to get a hang of it. In my opinion, this is one of Sailhamer’s best observations.

And this is only the beginning. Sailhamer goes on to describe how the theme of faith is mentioned at very crucial sections of the Pentateuch, which suggests to him that “one of the overriding purposes of the Pentateuch is to teach the message of faith and trust in God” (39). He also introduces his “bag of laws” conversation, which from the looks of the table of contents, will take up a bulk of chapter 7. He finally speaks of his understanding of the relationship between the collections of law codes and narratives within the Pentateuch; and, in particular, the law codes within the Sinai narrative. This seems to be taken into greater depth in chapter 10.

What is the significance of these observations?

This approach suggests that “the Pentateuch was not the product of a long and complicated process of literary growth, but comes to us more or less as an updated edition of a single earlier Mosaic composition” (48). This “updated” version preserves the original composition, but also retrofits it within the broader context of Scripture. When this happens, meaningful relationships exists between the original (“Pentateuch 1.0”) and the updated version (“Pentateuch 2.0”). This new edition looks at the Pentateuch from the perspective of the end of Israel’s history and God’s further work with Israel and the nations.

Already explained briefly above, these observations change the entire nature of our discussion about the Pentateuch. Instead of being a book of law, the Pentateuch has become this carefully crafted reflection on the Sinai covenant – a reflection that principally notes the failure of the Sinai and calls for hope and faith in a new covenant. If this “big idea” put forward by Sailhamer has any merit (which it seems to have), then for most of us it calls for an entire re-reading of the book. Genesis is no longer the history of the primeval world and the patriarchs, but is important commentary on the Sinai covenant and its relationship to the new covenant. Also, how is the Abrahamic covenant related to these covenants? This is only one question among many that arises given this new approach.

Discussion Questions

As a final part of this opening summary, I want to recommend a few other works by S. that will certainly complement what you have read in this introduction. First, I recommend reading the introduction to The Pentateuch as Narrative (Zondervan). Almost everyone I have spoken with has agreed that it is perhaps the most important 80 pages the professor has written. Second, I also recommend reading the appendices to Introduction to Old Testament Theology (Zondervan). Lastly, for lighter reading (and a Christmas gift!) pick up his Biblical Prophecy (Zondervan). All three selections will give you both a broad and detailed glimpse into his approach to Scripture.

For our forum discussions, I wrote down several questions, but will only ask two:

1) One of Sailhamer’s most controversial key ideas is explaining the difference between revelation and religion, and it’s offspring, an emphasis on events. For him, there is a difference between the events as they stand in the text and the events which lie behind the text. The former can be studied through strategies of reading, or literary studies of the Scriptures; the latter, however, are not studied literarily, but historically. What is the significance of making this distinction? Or, is this distinction even necessary?

2) Many of us have been introduced to the Pentateuch as five separate books, rather than one complete text. That is, for many of us Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, stand on their own. Does our study of these texts change as radically as Sailhamer suggests when we look at them as a whole, or is he overstating his case?

Feel free to comment. Right now, I am not going to moderate comments. But, if need be, I will begin to. If this happens, I will do my best to moderate comments at least once a day, hopefully twice.

Blessings,

Andy Witt