Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction, by Lawrence Boadt (Paulist Press, 1984).
This work was recently revised and updated but I have the older, original version of this work which has been quite popular in some circles. While it’s not of much value for a book review, it’s of great value for evaluating critical approaches to the OT. This book was published in 1984 and in some ways shows its datedness. For example, his chapter on the psalms has nothing about the shape and shaping discussions because Wilson didn’t publish his monograph until 1985. As a textbook, the revised and updated version is assuredly helpful, but I want to focus here on Boadt’s approach to the OT and what we can learn from it.
I would classify this work as first Christian, second critical, and third Catholic. While I’m not Catholic, the benefit of a Catholic textbook on the OT is that it includes discussion of the other seven Greek intertestamental works that are important for NT backgrounds (and, of course, for seeing to where the stream(s) of the OT flow). Moreoever, Boadt enlists Pope Pius XII’s support for a critical approach to the OT based on his Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943). More recently in 1989, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) called for a “criticism of criticism.” The failure to produce objective and assured results does not call for rejecting the method, but recognizing its limits and purifying it. Religious evolution is improvable, and Christian history shows us that the greatest thinkers were often followed by lesser thinkers, not the reverse. He suggests that exegetical method is a matter of philosophical debate, and the way forward must involve the great search for a philosophical foundation in our modern time. He suggests there should be no dualistic split of event and word, and the principle of discontinuity should be replaced by the analogy of Scripture. The tools of exegesis should still be used, but with a proper understanding of philosophical assumptions that can affect them. Also, the full range of historical exegesis should be considered, not only the last couple centuries. This papal support for critical interpretation (specifically from Pius XII, but Ratzinger is in line with the spirit of critical interpretation as well) undergirds Boadt’s methodology in this work.
His critical approach is intriguing for me since I like to see what aspects of historical criticism and what tools from other disciplines may be integrated into a hermeneutical framework that respects the texts and avoids philosophical problems (as Ratzinger mentioned). The critical elements of this book are typical: Deuteronomy was written during the exile, prophecy is ex eventu, Wellhausen’s DH still stands, Genesis 1-11 is myth, Israel borrowed many religious ideas from her neighbors, etc. Boadt believes that, although the Bible is now joined together as one canon, “a series student of the Old Testament must get behind the present unity to discover how Israel grew and changed and deepened its faith” (81). He advocates using source criticism, form criticism, and tradition historical criticism. Here he misses a few other tools he could have included such as sociological methods and literary methods, but not all were in full bloom yet.
How does he salvage any Christian value to a fragmented, syncretistic, and varied Old Testament? The fact that he does so is the reason I say this work is first a Christian introduction to the OT, and secondly a critical introduction. He values the OT for Christian faith and believes it still speaks to us today. Here I find his attempt to take critical dogmas and translate them into pious devotional points to fall flat. If Deuteronomy was written in the exile, it’s quite difficult for me to conceive of its usefulness for Christians (or anyone). Boadt makes the typical statement that “the authors manage to get their message across by the very effective means of putting the warnings in the mouth of the great founder himself. This was a very common method of writing in the ancient world. It was not an attempt to deceive, but to link a writer’s religious teaching to its real, and much more ancient source of authority” (347).
There are three problems with this claim. First, the premise that Deuteronomy was written by someone other than the author(s) of the rest of the Pentateuch shows us that there is a difference in theology, language, teaching, and ideas between Deuteronomy and the other books of Moses. So for these exilic authors to claim Moses’ voice creates a stark opposition to more ancient Mosaic tradition; they have opposed their own tradition, which doesn’t quite move me to pious devotion. Second, we have no evidence that these hypothetical exilic authors claimed Moses’s voice in good faith. In fact, many scholars see this as a political power play to get the Jewish exiles under their sway. There’s no evidence either way, so how can we claim it wasn’t an attempt to deceive? It’s an unprovable claim with no evidence. Third, a true Christian method would take into consideration (at least) that Jesus believed Moses wrote Deuteronomy (or parts of it), and that Jewish tradition held the same. Here there is a way out: Jesus either pretended Moses wrote it (even though he knew better), or his divine knowledge that he exhibited in the realm of peoples’ thoughts, actions, locations, and plots did not work in the realm of biblical authorship. But are these really honest, academic conclusions? I don’t think so; they seem to me to be ad hoc suppositions to get you out of a corner you’ve backed yourself into. There’s no evidence for either conclusion (that Jesus pretended not to know about JEPD or that Jesus was ignorant), and they are both ad hoc creations to solve a major hermeneutical and theological problem.
Some other problems with Boadt’s critical method should be noted. He follows Wellhausen quite closely and does not mention many major criticisms of his work, while nowadays the Elohistic source is entirely questioned and alternate paradigms have been proposed. Boadt omits other major Pentateuchal compositional theories. Another problem common for the critical method is its incredibly small pool of data. Boadt follows the consensus of his time that Ps 29 is borrowed from Ugaritic mythology, with the ideas applied to Yahweh (222). More recent scholarship has been far more cautious about concluding this, as Peter Craigie notes in his Ugarit and the Old Testament, along with giving several other examples of this type of academic overstep. The problem here with both of these examples (and they could be multiplied) is that these examples are used to form the conclusion that Moses did not write the Pentateuch and that Israel borrowed ideas, language, and theology from her neighbors. Both the evidence is little, and it can be interpreted in many different ways. Here is the downfall of the “assured results of historical criticism.” What is assured in one age is no longer assured in another.
I could praise this textbook for many positive elements, but I wanted to focus on its use of the critical method since it is an important issue for Christian faith. Indeed, an edited work, Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism, recently tried to square many historical-critical dogmas with Evangelical (or orthodox) theology, and I found again some major hermeneutical problems in this attempt. The more I consider the two approaches to Scripture, the more I find that they are ultimately mismatched puzzle pieces that simply don’t fit together. But the question will always be one to pursue and consider.
Find it here on Amazon.
