Society for Old Testament Studies Winter 2013 Conference, Cambridge

Just over 100 scholars assembled at Fitzwilliam College in mild weather for this conference on the 2^nd-4^th January. Prof. Eryl Davies of Bangor University opened the conference with a talk on post-modernism, objectivity and ideology as these have affected how scholars have approached biblical history. The talk lacked a philosophical discussion of the relevant notions, and was of little value, but it was interesting to note that a scholar nearing retirement was still fighting the minimalist/maximalist debates of the 1990s.

The next talk was by Dr. Janet Tollington of Cambridge on “Reading Ruth in Dialogue with Torah”. Her view was that Ruth highlights aspects contrary to the Law or action beyond the Law. The first point noted was the favourable picture of Moabite women—this contrasts with Numbers’ portrayal of such women leading Israelite men astray. She then noted that Ruth’s gleaning was broader than that which the Law allowed (the whole field). After this she discussed the wider responsibilities of the ‘redeeming kinsman’ in Ruth—the Law does not extend these to taking on board a childless widow. She made the point that the author of the book does know of the Principle of Levirate Marriage because Naomi expresses this principle in the first chapter. She concluded her talk by discussing the ending of Ruth: she puzzled over the son being given to Naomi because this would imply that the loss of her sons and lack of a husband was the point of the book—to carry on her husband’s name. All in all this was the best talk of the conference.

The next speaker was Dr. Jenni Williams of Oxford who spoke on “Childlessness in the Hebrew Bible”. Her concern was that the Bible stories do not allow a woman the right to choose to have children. Discussing the usual stories, she observed, for example, that Elkanah thinks Hannah should be happy because he already has children. She concluded her talk by looking at the puzzle of the indifference of the husband of the Great Woman of Shunem (2 Kings 4).

A change of tone followed with the next talk, “On Lovers and Labyrinths: Revisiting Space in the Song of Songs” by Dr. Christopher Meredith. This was a discussion of the symbolic values that could be assigned to the ‘spaces’ in Songs—private, public, intimate, masculine, feminine, threatening, safe, and so on. It was high on structuralist jargon and low on intertextual content.[1]

The morning talks closed with a presentation of some dreary oratorios that had been written based on the Book of Job. The presenter, Dr. Helen Leneman (Bethesda), was evidently enthused about them.

A couple of seminars in the afternoon on “Downloadable Resources on the Internet” and “Wikipedia” were interesting. The top three searches on Wikipedia for Bible topics are “God of the Bible”, “Michael the Archangel” and “Lilith”. Given the prominence of Wikipedia, the Society is setting up its own ‘Wiki’ in conjunction with Wikipedia to ‘guarantee’ the quality of articles. (The problem with Wikipedia is editorial control—those who have it for a given article don’t like to be corrected or re-balanced—those who don’t have control are locked out.) There is obviously an opportunity here for an enterprising group to set up www.christadelphianwiki.com as a preaching/Bible resource and benefit from the traction that ‘wiki’ has as a search term in Google.

Not all talks can be reported, simply because they are either well beyond your reporter, or they have little interest for him, or he was too tired. So I pass over Professor John Healey (Manchester) “Aspects of Late Aramaic Epigraphy and Law”, because I switched off at the beginning of the talk when the first Aramaic ostracon went up on PowerPoint. I also pass over Professor George Brooke (Manchester) “Some Issues behind the Ethics in the Qumran Scrolls”, because, although we were all given a two page handout, it was the evening, it had been a long day, and I was past caring.

The first talk on day two was by Dr. Katharine Dell (Cambridge) on “Reject or retrieve? Feminist Readings of Ecclesiastes 7:23-9”. It was a feminist approach looking at the ‘seemingly’ misogynist aspects. Her approach, (after reviewing recent feminist commentary), was theological rather than intertextual, but it was still a set of exegetical claims. The goal was to ‘rehabilitate’ the text for today. The text is a quest for wisdom. The main ‘feminist’ problem is the statement that ‘the woman is a trap’ which is usually taken in the sense that she can be a ‘folly’ to a man. The next problematic statement is the ‘one in a thousand’ point and the failure to find a woman among a thousand. Is this a negative statement? What is the author looking for? She did not seem to have an answer of her own for this question. But she made the point that, if we cannot know what the author is looking for, we cannot accuse him of misogyny. Overall, though, her reading was that there is a negative appreciation of ‘woman’ in the text. The underlying unexplored assumption in the talk was that there actually is an agenda in the text that is sexist, but given that any text can criticize men and/or women, why should any text that criticizes men and/or women be dubbed misogynist or misanthropic on that basis? There was naïve stereo-typing in her talk with little deeper analysis. On a final wider note, it is perhaps a cause for concern that so many women scholars in the Biblical Studies field are focused on feminist criticism rather than other methodologies.

The second talk was by Dr. Mary Mills (Liverpool) “City-space and Cosmic Determinism in texts from the Minor Prophets”. Her unexceptionable point was that the destruction of cities is related to God’s will. She discussed the cosmic/meteorological figures of speech for this theme in various texts. Why are the threats and disasters that befall cities configured in cosmic/meteorological terms? Is there a concept of the city in the Bible that is ‘of creation’ – ‘of heaven and earth’ that is a basis for such figures? She did not explore this line of enquiry, but rather reviewed the cosmic/meteorological figures in a somewhat descriptive way. The point of the talk was to give an abstract and sociological theoretical framework to the figures – her treatment did not try and relate the figures to the ‘history on the ground’; her texts were such ‘Day of the Lord’ prophecies as those of Amos 5 and Joel 1-2. In short, the talk was more about abstract sociological-religious categories and their application to urban life under threat.

The last talk of the conference was by Professor Ronald Clements (Cambridge) on “Solomon and the Regulation of Kingship in Deut.17.14-19”. The office of the king in the Psalter is highly exalted, but in the history books, things are more critical. Reviewing scholarship, he noted that in the 1950s, a distinction was drawn between ‘divine sonship’ kingship and ‘sacral’ kingship in order to preserve the distance of kingship but preclude divinity. He asked whether the language about kingship in the Psalms was hyperbolic. Deuteronomy sets the king below the rank of Moses and the Law. Is this significant? Clements did not think that Deuteronomy 17 was original to Moses and so he sought to situate the text in late seventh century history. This he did because the law is couched in terms that ‘reflect’ Israelite history (e.g. kings should not multiply their wives) and also because the law has an aspect requiring the kings to rule under a superior power – i.e. Assyria. However, the terms of the law are not exceptionable for kings in the Near East in the second millennium and the relationship of king to God in terms of the extant documented legitimization rituals. He was reluctant to put aside the texts (e.g. Isaiah 9) that spoke of divine sonship in relation to the kings and their accession to the throne, since this idea was common to the Near East. Consequently, he just sought to explain how texts such as Deuteronomy 17 could have co-existed with the ‘divine texts’ – he tried to sketch this out in terms of the ‘development’ of ideas in Israelite religion. All in all, the talk was fairly standard critical material positing problems where none exist.

So ends another SOTS conference. These are really about networking for professional academics rather than the talks. There may be one or two snippets of information to take away from the talks, but it is what you chat about over coffee that matters. So it was that your reporter had a useful exchange with Ken Kitchen about Cyrus and Isaiah. And, of course, he did buy a few books on discount.