The Song of Moses: A Theological Quarry (review)

Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 166 Reviews been important that their covenant was written in a recognized treaty and land grant style. giving it legitimacy and the authority of long used tradition. One deviation in this standard form is the clause regarding divine retribution against the violator of the covenant. Using Jer 31:28 and Ezek 18:2. Weinfeld again argues for a shift to "individual responsibility"' and away from the idea of the father's sins being placed on the heads of his descendants (p. 371). While there may have been a greater recognition of the individual in these texts. it is hard to fathom that a society which was based on communal identity and recognition would absolutely reject this for individuality. More likely. these texts refer to individuals as they relate to the community as a whole. not to individuals separate from the community. Otherwise. the covenant promise to the nation as it is formulated throughout the biblical text loses its emphasis and ultimate force in governing the activities of a people. In form and style. this commentary is very clear in setting out its position and in arguing forcefully for its understanding of Deuteronomy as a crux document. It should be read and used by all scholars interested in a better understanding of the transition of Judaism during and after the exilic period. Weinfeld has given us a important key to textual study which should be enhanced with the publication of his second volume. Victor H. Matthews Southwest Missouri State University Springfield, MO 65804-0095 THE SONG OF MOSES: A THEOLOGICAL QUARRY. By George A. F. Knight. Pp. viii + 156. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 1995. Paper. $12.95. In this commentary on Deuteronomy 32. Knight intends "to move beyond the commonly used 'historical critical' approach" to "a theological interpretation of the Hebrew text" (p. vii). He highlights the inner-biblical interpretation (Hebrew Bible and New Testament) of the Song of Moses and draws attention to the theological implications implicit in the ancient versions' renditions of particular phrases. He draws on non-Western forms of thought to illuminate the conceptual world of ancient Israel. Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 167 Reviews One might expect from this description that the book comments on recent discussions of intertextuality in the Bible, sociological and interpretive contexts, and canonical criticism, but that would be a mistake. Knight ignores both the theoretical discussions of these issues as well as the interpretive insights they bring to the text under discussion. He engages instead in old-fashioned exegesis which uses verbal or thematic similarities to link biblical and extra-biblical materials together into a unified theology. For example, the metaphorical description of God as ha~~ar "the rock" (Deut 32:4, etc.) prompts Knight into a range of reflections: (1) the metaphor was inspired by Moses' and the Israelites' encounter with an early version of the rock city of Petra in Trans-Jordan (despite the fact that the Hebrew name uses a different root, sela<, in Knight's citations of Judg 1:36, 2 Kgs 14:7, and Isa 16:I, p. 20); (2) the metaphor is used to represent the abstract idea of God's lJesed to illiterate and unscientific minds (p. 21); (3) the Septuagint eliminates the metaphor, thus replacing the personal God of the Hebrew text with a philosophical concept derived from Greek philosophy , a tendency which "has remained alive to this day and is the chief implement employed by secular humanists to deny the significance of this medium of revelation in the Scriptures as a whole" (pp. 23-24). Knight concludes: "we learn that God as Rock is the God of lJesed (a word which, as we noted, does not occur in the Song of Moses)" (p. 25). Knight describes the Song as a "quarry" out of which later biblical writers mined ideas and imagery, and defends this claim to its influence on "recent" research that has established its Mosaic origins (pp. 3-4). He refers to the work of Albright, Eissfeldt and others in the 1950s and 1960s. Knight also expresses the confidence typical of that period of scholarship in the reliability of oral tradition (pp. 4-5). As a result, he maintains that "the Song does truly originate from Moses, was repeated orally for a couple of centuries, and was then given fixed form in the proto-Hebraic script which Solomon's schools taught their young students to acquire" (p. 6). None of the challenges which recent decades have brought 10 this post-war synthesis are mentioned, much less reflected in this book. Knight's theological interpretations also seem out-of-date. His polemical defense of the Hebrew Bible as a part of Christian scriptures ("no line can be drawn to separate the theology of the Song of Moses and the theology of the NT," p. 139) blurs the differences between the two parts of the Christian Bible by juxtaposing diverse texts and interpreting them in light of each other (e.g., pp. 10-11, 119-120, 141-142). The results hint at supersessionism: the Judeans who "had clearly learned much from their ex- Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 168 Reviews perience of God's love during the exile...became an 'underground' movement once Haggai and Zechariah gained the leadership.... Their theological position was to be revived only with the coming of Christianity" (p. 22). One may well sympathize with Knight's wish that the Christian Old Testament be heard more loudly in the churches (pp. 139-140) and that the three Western monotheistic faiths could find in their common heritage the grounds for rapprochement (pp. 143-145). Knight's methods, however, are a step backwards. For those trained in the "archeological" methods of modern historical and literary criticisms, which pay attention to every layer of meaning and composition, Knight's "strip-mining" of Deuteronomy 32 by tearing ideas and metaphors out of all literary and historical contexts leaves the text looking like a quarry indeed. James W. Walls Hastings College Hastings, NE 68902-0269 ISAIAH'S VISION AND THE FAMILY OF GOD. By Katheryn Pfisterer Darr. Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation. Pp. 280. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994. Paper, $21.99. The last two decades have seen a dramatic shift among critical scholars who increasingly recognize the need to read the book of Isaiah as a coherent work of literature. This shift does not entail the end of scholarly attempts to reconstruct the literary history of Isaiah or to identify the perspectives and concerns of the individual writers whose works appear in the present form of the book. Rather, it represents a major advance, enabling scholars to assess the literary character and the ideological or theological perspective of the book as a whole and to gain some understanding of the hermeneutical process by which Isaiah was created. Darr's monograph stands squarely in the midst of this discussion as one of the first critical attempts to read major Isaian metaphors, namely, the family metaphors of children and women in relation to the present form of the book of Isaiah as a whole. (An earlier noteworthy work by Kirsten Nielsen, There is Hope for a Tree: The Tree as Metaphor in Isaiah [JSOTSup 65; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989] treats only Isaiah 1-39.) Darr's work grows out of two convictions: 1) that sequential readers of the book of Isaiah will discover the unfolding themes and motifs that are usually ...