Professor Christine
Hayes: All right,
let's go ahead and get started;
there's a lot to cover.
But I want to try to unite a
lot of these disparate parts of
the Bible, the many small books
clustered here at the end that
we'll be considering.
 
I'm going to try to unite them
by elaborating certain themes as
we move through them.
 
But as you can see,
from this giant chart,
there's quite a bit.
 
First, let's begin with the
Book of Ruth.
The Book of Ruth is set in the
days of the Judges;
that's the opening line of the
book.
It tells you that this happened
in the days of Judges,
but it was certainly written
later,
and whether it was post-exilic
or pre-exilic is not certain,
so we're going to be asking the
questions of a canonical critic.
Whatever its origin,
how did this book function for
Second Temple Jews?
 
As the story of a foreign
woman, whose foreign status is
continually emphasized
throughout the book,
(Ruth the Moabite,
Ruth the Moabitess)-- as a
foreign woman who acts nobly and
enters the community of Israel
by choice,
this story would have stood in
opposition to the negative view
of foreigners,
the ban on intermarriage and
the purely genealogical
definition of Israelite identity
that was promulgated by Ezra and
Nehemiah in the post-exilic
period.
So in the story you have a
famine in Judah and that causes
a Bethlehemite man,
Elimelech and his wife Naomi,
and their two children to leave
Judah.
They're going to reside in the
country of Moab,
where the Moabites live,
and their two sons marry
Moabite women,
Orpah and Ruth.
You have to consider the effect
that these opening verses would
have had on an ancient Israelite
listener or reader.
Moab was a hostile neighbor on
Israel's southeastern border.
And the Moabites were hated for
their ill-treatment of the
Israelites when they were
traveling to the Promised Land.
Their lack of hospitality had
already led to a prohibition of
intermarriage in the Torah
itself.
So the Moabites and Ammonites
are two foreign groups that are
explicitly prohibited from
entering the congregation in
Deuteronomy 23.
The Israelites' low opinion of
the Moabites is also expressed
in Genesis in the very degrading
story of Moab's descent from the
incestuous relationship between
Lot and one of his daughters,
after the fall of Sodom.
And yet here we read,
in the opening lines of this
story a man from Bethlehem,
who travels to Moab,
and his two sons marry Moabite
women!
Then in short order Elimelech
and his two sons (who are
appropriately named Sickness and
Death, by the way,
in Hebrew) they die.
 
And the Israelite widow,
Naomi, is left now with no
blood relation,
no blood male relation,
only her two Moabite
daughters-in-law.
And Naomi weepily tells the
girls that they should return to
their father's home.
 
She's poor, she'll never be
able to support them as a poor
widow, she has no further sons
to give to them,
and clearly they have no legal
or moral obligation or tie to
Naomi.
And we'll pick up the story
then in chapter 1:11:
But Naomi replied,
"Turn back, my daughters!
 
Why should you go with me?
 
Have I any more sons in my body
who might be husbands for you?
Turn back, my daughters,
for I am too old to be married.
Even if I thought there was
hope for me, even if I married
tonight and I also bore sons,
should you wait for them to
grow up?
Should you on their account
debar yourselves from marriage?
 
Oh no, my daughters!
 
My lot is far more bitter than
yours, for the hand of the Lord
has struck out against me."
 
They broke into weeping again,
and Orpah kissed her
mother-in-law farewell.
 
But Ruth clung to her.
 
So she said,
"See, your sister-in-law has
returned to her people and her
gods.
Go follow your sister-in-law."
 
But Ruth replied,
"Do not urge me to leave you,
to turn back and not follow
you.
For wherever you go, I will go;
wherever you lodge,
I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
 
Where you die,
I will die, and there I will be
buried.
Thus and more may the Lord do
to me if even death parts me
from you."
When [Naomi]
saw how determined she was to
go with her, she ceased to argue
with her;
and the two went on until they
reached Bethlehem.
All of the names in this story
are wonderfully symbolic.
Sickness and Death – it's
like they walk on the stage with
a big sign saying "I'm in a bit
part and I'm ready to die."
Orpah's name means the back of
the neck because she turns her
back on her mother-in-law as
well.
It's a wonderful story with
lots of name symbolisms.
But by the force of sheer
conviction, Ruth joins herself
to the people of her
mother-in-law.
Back in Judah,
Ruth supports her mother-in-law
and herself by gleaning the
fallen sheaves behind the
reapers in the field.
 
Because according to the
Pentateuch, the sheaves that
fall behind the reapers must be
left for the poor to collect;
you don't go back and collect
them.
So Ruth gleans,
and she gleans in the field of
a kinsman named Boaz,
and he's described as a man of
substance and she's very
diligent and she soon comes to
his attention.
He's very kind to her,
he looks out for her safety
among the rough field workers.
He provides water for her.
 
He's heard of what Ruth has
done for Naomi;
how she left her home and left
her family to come to a people
that she really didn't know,
and he blesses her.
He says, "May the Lord reward
your deeds.
May you have a full recompense
from the Lord,
the God of Israel,
under whose wings you have
sought refuge!"
chapter 2:12.
He increases his generosity;
he shares his meal with Ruth
and gives her from the heaps of
grain in addition to the
gleanings that she's collecting.
 
So Naomi is very delighted with
Ruth's gleanings,
they more than suffice for
their needs.
But she's even more pleased to
learn that Ruth seems to have
found favor in the eyes of Boaz.
 
He's been very kind and
generous, and she points out:
you know he is among our
redeeming kinsmen.
Now the term here,
the Hebrew term is goel.
Goel means redeemer.
 
In fact, in a lot of the
Christian language later,
this is the word they're using
when they talk about "my
redeemer liveth."
 
It's simply this word
goel, and the goel
is a person who as the nearest
relative or as a close relative,
has certain legal obligations
to another person.
Those obligations--the primary
obligations are three:
(1)To redeem the person or
their property if they've been
sold to a stranger due to
poverty.
So to redeem them from debt
servitude essentially.
So your goel should do
that for you.
(2)To marry a childless widow.
 
So if a man dies and his wife
is childless the goel is
supposed to marry her,
provide seed,
and the firstborn son will be
named after the name who is
dead.
So he's supposed to marry a
childless widow and produce
offspring for the deceased;
usually, that falls first to
the brother;
And then (3) in the case of the
blood redeemer,
also the redeemer is supposed
to avenge the blood of a
kinsman.
So if you are killed your
redeemer is supposed to seek
vengeance for you.
Boaz is a somewhat distant
relative, but Naomi believes
he's the answer to their dual
problem of poverty on the one
hand,
and Ruth's widowhood on the
other hand.
So in chapter 3 she urges Ruth
to make a visit to Boaz.
 
He's winnowing barley on the
threshing floor and Ruth is
supposed to bathe herself,
anoint herself,
dress up and go out at night to
the threshing floor.
You should know that
biblically, threshing floors
tend to be places of revelry at
the end of the harvest time and
they are often frequented by
prostitutes.
But Naomi seems to be planning
Ruth's seduction of Boaz.
She instructs Ruth not to
reveal herself until Boaz has
finished eating and drinking,
and when he lies down,
Ruth is to approach him and
uncover his feet--this is
possibly a sexual euphemism--and
lie down,
and he will tell her what she
is to do.
So Ruth follows these
instructions exactly.
In 3:7-11:
Boaz ate and drank,
and in a cheerful mood went to
lie down beside the grainpile.
Then she went over stealthily
and uncovered his feet and lay
down.
In the middle of the night,
the man gave a start and pulled
back--there was a woman lying at
his feet!
"Who are you?" he asked.
And she replied,
"I am your handmaid Ruth.
Spread your robe over you
handmaid, for you are a
redeeming kinsman."
 
[a goel]
He exclaimed,
"Be blessed of the Lord,
daughter!
Your latest deed of loyalty is
greater than the first,
in that you have not turned to
younger men, whether poor or
rich.
And now, daughter, have no fear.
I will do in your behalf
whatever you ask,
for all the elders of my town
know what a fine woman you
are."
So Ruth's request is that Boaz
act as her redeemer and spread
his robe over her,
which is a formal act of
protection and espousal.
And Boaz assures her that he
will redeem her.
He then goes on to point out,
however, that there is another
kinsman who is actually a closer
relation,
and therefore has the first
right of refusal,
and Boaz will settle the matter
legally in the morning.
And we're left wondering what
transpired in the night.
In chapter 4 we read the legal
proceeding by which the other
kinsman is freed of his
obligation and his claim to Ruth
and this then clears the way,
enables Boaz to marry her.
But the punchline to the whole
story is yet to come and that
occurs in chapter 4,
verses 13-17,
So Boaz married Ruth;
she became his wife,
and he cohabited with her.
 
The Lord let her conceive,
and she bore a son.
And the women said to Naomi,
"Blessed by the Lord,
who has not withheld a redeemer
from you today!
May his name be perpetuated in
Israel!
He will renew your life and
sustain your old age;
for he is born of your
daughter-in-law,
who loves you and is better to
you than seven sons."
Naomi took the child and held
it to her bosom.
She became its foster mother,
and the women neighbors gave
him a name saying,
"A son is born to Naomi!"
They named him Obed;
he was the father of Jesse,
father of David.
So David, God's anointed king
over Israel;
David, with whom God covenanted
that his house should reign
forever;
David, from whose line would
come the messianic king to rule
in the final age--This David is
said to be the direct
descendant,
the great grandson of a foreign
woman from a country of idol
worshippers, and a Moabitess no
less.
So it seems that this very
short and very moving story
represents a strand of thought
that stood in opposition to the
line of thinking found,
for example,
in Ezra's call for a ban on
intermarriage as the only means
of insuring faithfulness to
Israel's God.
Not only is Ruth,
the Moabitess,
not guilty of abominable
practices, she is the ancestress
of Yahweh's chosen monarch.
And she's praised in the story
by all who know her as a paragon
of hesed,
this quality of steadfast love
and covenantal loyalty that
binds the members of the
covenant community to one
another and to God.
Ruth, the Moabitess,
stood by an elderly widow to
whom she had no real legal
obligation and she was accepted
into the covenant community.
 
The acceptance of foreigners is
well documented in post-exilic
Judaism, despite Ezra's
polemical efforts to exclude
foreigners from the community.
 
It's important to remember that
Ezra's reforms never became
normative for the entire
community.
Post-exilic,
and later rabbinic Judaism,
never adopted the purely
genealogical definition of
Jewish identity.
They allowed for the phenomenon
of conversion and marriage into
the covenant by persons of
foreign birth who accepted the
God of Israel;
a possibility that Ezra
completely forecloses.
Ezra's extreme views were
popular among sectarian groups,
so Ezra and exclusivism is
championed, for example,
in writings that are found at
Qumram.
It exerted some influence on
early Christian bans on
marriage, absolute bans on
marriage between believers and
unbelievers,
but it's the Book of Ruth that
features prominently in the
Jewish conversion ceremony to
this day.
We have a different kind of
acceptance of foreigners that's
voiced by prophets of the
restoration period.
 
So these are prophets,
fifth century--late sixth and
fifth century.
We're going to look now briefly
at some of the last prophetic
books, and these are writings
that date to the time of the
first generations of returned
exiles and on.
Earlier prophets in the
pre-exilic period--the classical
prophets we've already looked
at--they had spoken of a remnant
that would be restored and would
be restored gloriously to its
land,
but the returned exiles faced a
life of great hardship.
The reality of poverty and the
difficulties in rebuilding the
temple, and the hostility of the
Judeans who had remained behind,
as well as the hostility of the
surrounding peoples,
the absence of any real
political independence under a
Davidic King--all of these
things fell far short of the
early prophets' glorious
descriptions of this restored
remnant.
So new prophets in the period
of the Restoration have to
address the community's
disappointment.
The short Book of Haggai
contains the words of the
Prophet Haggai,
spoken primarily to Zerubabbel,
(Zerubabbel is the governor of
Judea).
Haggai prophesies around 520,
and he declares that all of the
difficulties the community was
facing,
the agricultural setbacks and
the famines, these were all
signs of God's displeasure that
the temple hadn't been
completed.
Zerubabbel is convinced by
this, the people return to their
task enthusiastically,
and as we know,
the temple is rebuilt as Haggai
promised.
He says it's a humble structure
but soon it's going to be filled
with treasures flowing in from
all nations.
And the promises of the
Restoration that were made by
the prophets of old are just
around the corner.
So Haggai longed for a rebuilt
temple.
But not only that,
also for the re-establishment
of Judah's independence under a
Davidic King.
And he held out hope for
Zerubabbel, the governor,
who was, after all,
a descendant of David,
through the last king that went
into exile.
He hoped that he would serve as
God's messiah,
or appointed king.
 
That hope is even stronger in
the work of Haggai's
contemporary,
the prophet,
Zechariah.
Zechariah is 14 chapters long,
and the first eight chapters
contain the prophecies of the
historical Zechariah around 520
or so.
The last chapters--chapters 9
through 14, this is known as
Second Zechariah--these chapters
contain obscure writings from a
later hand and they are of a
very different type or genre.
They are written in the
apocalyptic vein,
so we won't talk about those
now, we'll consider those
momentarily.
I'm going to be talking about
apocalyptic for the last half of
the lecture.
So for right now I'm
interested, however,
in the first eight chapters
which represent the oracles of
the historical prophet Zechariah
around 520.
He preached and prophesied for
about two years.
He urges in these chapters the
rebuilding of the temple.
The first six chapters contain
a series of elaborate and
symbolic visions,
eight different visions that
are revealed by an angel and/or
a divine messenger.
That's a mode of revelation
that's going to be standard in
apocalyptic literature,
as we'll soon see.
Earlier prophets received a
word or a vision but as we move
towards apocalyptic literature
and later literature,
prophets often receive messages
from God through an angel or a
messenger.
These visions focus hope on
Zerubabbel, the governor,
and on the priest Joshua,
the high priest Joshua.
 
And the idea is that they'll
rule in a kind of diarchy as
monarch and priest.
 
At the same time,
however, it seems that the
Persians got rid of Zerubabbel.
 
He was ousted perhaps because
messianic hope was starting to
gather around Zerubabbel.
 
So Zechariah's prophesies seem
to be adjusted to refer solely
to Joshua.
Although they originally
referred to Zerubabbel,
and although chapter 6 in
particular seems to refer
originally to Zerubabbel,
it is altered so that it now
depicts Joshua as a shoot or a
branch from Jesse's
stock--Jesse's stock,
meaning a Davidide.
 
(David's father was Jesse;
so to say a root from Jesse's
stock is to say a Davidide.) It
says that Joshua will rebuild
the sanctuary;
he will wear the royal
insignia, although he is the
priest.
The elevation,
however, of the high priest is
a feature of the post-exilic
period.
It's a feature of Judah in the
post-exilic period,
the high priest coming to take
some of the trappings of royal
office.
Chapters 7 and 8,
declare God's promise to turn
and to do good things in
Jerusalem and the House of
Judah,
so long as the people will turn
from their unjust and evil ways.
And Zechariah points forward to
the glorious day when all the
nations of the world will
eagerly come to seek the Lord in
Jerusalem and to entreat his
favor.
So we read in Zechariah 8:23,
"Thus said the Lord of Hosts:
In those days,
ten men from nations of every
tongue will take hold--they will
take hold of every Jew by a
corner of his cloak and say,
'Let us go with you,
for we have heard that God is
with you,'" and thus this
Restoration period,
you can see,
features prophets who envision
other nations joining Israel in
the worship of Yahweh.
 
They will come to rally around
and join Israel in the worship
of God in Jerusalem.
 
The last wave of prophetic
writings that we have addresses
the disappointment and the
disillusionment of late sixth-
and fifth-century Judeans.
 
What was the message of these
writings?
The basic message was that the
earlier prophets,
their promises of future glory
for the restored remnant--these
were all true.
The future just isn't now.
It's only going to happen in
the eschaton,
the final day.
Only then will the glory of
Jerusalem and a messianic ruler
be restored, and the hope that
has to sustain the community
through the bleak present is
therefore an eschatological
hope,
a hope that focuses on an ideal
account of the end,
(eschatology = an account of
the end).
Because in the end of days
everything will be set right.
So as we move later into the
period, we find increasingly the
hope for the community is thrust
off into the future,
in an eschatology.
 
Parts of Third Isaiah depict
the bitter reality of life in
post-exilic Judah and advance in
eschatology.
You remember the Book of
Isaiah, which is 66 chapters,
we divided into three parts:
1 through 39,
which is the historical Isaiah;
then we have Second Isaiah;
and then ThirdIsaiah,
we're dealing with now--that's
chapters 56 to 66.
 
The anonymous prophetic author
of these chapters denounces the
failings of the exiles,
but does hold out an
eschatology;
a doctrine of final things that
depicts what's going to happen
in the end of days.
This kind of eschatology
differs from the depiction of
Zion's future glory that we had
in the early classical prophets.
The earlier prophetic
pronouncements generally
referred to a re-establishment
of Judah's fortunes in
historical time,
but eschatological works like
Third Isaiah look beyond
historical time.
They're looking to a time of a
new heaven and a new earth,
when Judah's sins will be
forgotten.
The land will become an earthly
paradise transformed,
and blessed with peace and
prosperity and length of days.
This is from Isaiah 65:17-25,
For behold!
I am creating
A new heaven and a new earth;
The former things shall not be
remembered,
They shall never come to mind.
 
Be glad, then,
and rejoice forever
In what I am creating.
 
For I shall create Jerusalem as
a joy,
And her people as a delight;
...
Never again shall be heard there
The sounds of weeping and
wailing.
No more shall there be an
infant or graybeard
Who does not live out his days.
He who dies at a hundred years
Shall be reckoned a youth,
And he who fails to reach a
hundred
Shall be reckoned accursed.
 
…For the days of My people
shall be
As long as the days of the tree,
My chosen ones shall outlive
The work of their hands.
 
They shall not toil to no
purpose;
They shall not bear children
for terror,
But they shall be a people
blessed by the Lord,
And their offspring shall
remain with them.
Before they pray, I will answer;
While they are still speaking,
I will respond.
The wolf and the lamb shall
graze together,
And the lion shall eat straw
like the ox,
And the serpent's food shall be
earth.In all My sacred mount
Nothing evil or vile shall be
done--said the Lord.
See this interesting notion of
a completely new,
transformed heaven and earth.
The lion is vegetarian again,
the serpent no longer
is--there's not this animosity
between the serpent and humans
as was decreed at the end of
Genesis with the curse on the
serpent.
They're going to just be eating
earth and there will be no
danger.
Third Isaiah also sounds this
theme of openness,
reassuring foreigners and
eunuchs who have joined
themselves to Yahweh that
they'll be welcome in the Holy
Temple to serve God and to offer
sacrifices.
Now, this is significant.
 
Again, remember that
Deuteronomy 23 right in the
heart of the Pentateuch,
bans eunuchs specifically,
and certain
foreigners--Moabites,
Ammonites--from entering the
congregation.
Remember also that Ezekiel
explicitly excluded foreigners
from the restored temple in his
visions at the end of the book.
This is also clearly the policy
of Ezra and Nehemiah.
They had an Ammonite who had
his lodgings or office or room
in the temple--they had him
thrown out of that area in the
temple.
Third Isaiah seems to oppose
such restrictions.
 
Isaiah 56:3-7:
Let not the foreigner say,
Who has attached himself to the
Lord,
"The Lord will keep me apart
from his people";
And let not the eunuchs say,
"I am a withered tree."
For thus said the Lord:
"As for the eunuchs who keep My
sabbaths,
Who have chosen what I desire
And hold fast to My covenant--
I will give them, in My House
And within My walls,
A monument and a name
Better than sons or daughters.
 
I will give them an everlasting
name
Which shall not perish.
 
As for the foreigners
Who attach themselves to the
Lord,
To minister to Him,
And to love the name of the
Lord,
To be His servants--
All who keep the Sabbath and do
not profane it,
And who hold fast to my
covenant.
…I will bring them to My
sacred mount
And let them rejoice in My
house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and
sacrifices
Shall be welcome on My altar;
For My House shall be called
A house of prayer for all
peoples."
So on this issue clearly the
post-exilic community was quite
divided.
Now, there's only one biblical
book, which pretty much in its
entirety, belongs to the genre
of literature known as
apocalyptic.
Not in its entirety,
but it is the most significant
and through-going apocalyptic
book in the Bible.
 
The term apocalyptic derives
from the Greek word
apocalypsis.
 
An apocalypsis is a
revealing, so something that's
apocalyptic is a revealing.
 
Apocalypse is a revelation of
things to come,
and as apocalypses generally
predict the end of historical
time and the beginning of a new
world order,
they are generally concerned
with eschatology;
so apocalyptic works tend to be
eschatological.
That doesn't mean all
eschatological work is
apocalyptic.
Apocalyptic literature within
the Bible, and then much more
significantly outside the Hebrew
Bible,
is characterized by certain
distinguishing features which
I've thrown up in brief note
form over here.
So apocalyptic literature is
always eschatological,
deals with the end of time.
But to be apocalyptic a work
has to have certain kinds of
features and not all
eschatologies have these
features.
This is what they are.
Most apocalyptic writings are
pseudonymous.
They're generally attributed to
important figures of the past,
Enoch or Abraham or someone.
 
 
 
They tend to also feature a
revelation by a heavenly
messenger, an angel who comes in
a vision or a dream to deliver
some sort of message.
 
In general, the message is
highly symbolic.
It's coded and often the
symbolism is quite bizarre.
You'll have surreal images of
beasts and monsters and usually
these depict foreign nations.
 
The visions tend to be
chronological.
They tend to be a systematic
chronology of past,
present and future events that
represent the march of history,
in coded form again,
and so it tends to require
interpretation.
And that's usually given by the
divine messenger,
who reveals the symbolic
chronological code.
 
Fourthly, apocalypses tend to
predict a series of
catastrophes.
These are signs of the coming
of the end, that final point in
the march of history that's
being laid out.
You have motifs from ancient
myths very often used to
describe these catastrophes.
I'll come back to that in a
minute.
Apocalypses also tend to be
what I call morally dualistic.
They tend to divide humankind
into two mutually exclusive
groups;
the righteous which is always a
tiny minority,
and the wicked,
which is always the vast
majority.
There's going to be some final
public judgment and the
righteous will be saved and the
wicked will be destroyed.
In this respect,
especially later apocalypses
show the influence of Persian
thought.
Persian thought is also quite
dualist in nature,
with oppositions of light and
darkness, or good and evil,
and life and death and so on.
 
So there does seem to be some
Persian influence and of course
we're well into the Persian
period at this point.
A sixth feature is that God
generally appears in apocalyptic
literature as an enthroned king.
 
He brings all of history to a
crashing end,
and demonstrates his
sovereignty.
He confounds the wicked;
he does all of these things at
the same time.
He confounds the wicked and
establishes himself as the
sovereign and enthroned king,
in control.
Seventh, apocalyptic
literature, as I briefly
mentioned before,
often incorporates mythological
motifs and imagery,
especially the motif of a
battle between God and
primordial, chaotic elements.
 
And that will often be the
imagery that's used in depicting
the final battle with the
godless or the wicked.
Apocalypses also generally
depict a judgment of the
individual dead,
followed by everlasting life or
punishment.
So again, apocalypses develop
quite substantially outside the
writings of the Hebrew Bible;
and in the Bible,
we have a few scattered
apocalyptic elements and then
much of the Book of Daniel.
And so we don't see the idea of
life after death really in the
Hebrew Bible until this very
late apocalyptic book of Daniel.
The idea is very influential in
the Dead Sea Scrolls (they are
very dualist) and in the
writings of the New Testament of
course.
So a belief in personal
immortality, a belief in a
general resurrection of the
dead--these arise from a
negative view of this world as a
place where justice can be
obtained.
So apocalyptic writers examined
the world they lived in;
they drew the conclusion that
reward and punishment were going
to be made in an afterlife.
 
They were certainly not doled
out in this life,
as Israel suffered.
 
This is a marked break from the
general conviction of the Hebrew
Bible that human life is limited
to this world,
and that the fundamental
concern of humans and God is
morality in this life and not
immortality in another.
I think apocalyptic literature
can be described as a literature
of hope and despair.
 
It's a literature of despair or
pessimism because its basic
premise is that this world holds
out no promise for the
righteous.
It's a literature of hope or
optimism because it affirms that
God will intervene.
He will intervene in human
history, he'll set everything
right, he'll interrupt the
natural order,
he's going to destroy this
broken world as we know it,
and he'll do so in order to
rescue the righteous and
humiliate the wicked,
and if you've already died
don't worry there will be a
resurrection,
it will all be made right.
 
But this hope for supreme and
ultimate vindication is thrust
off into the future.
 
So apocalyptic constitutes yet
one more response to the
traumatic events,
the crises, and the
disappointments of Israel's
history.
In a second we'll get to
Daniel, but there are a few
apocalyptic passages of varying
length in other post-exilic
books.
I'll just touch on them very
quickly.
SecondZechariah and,
a little bit,
the book of Joel,
just to prepare us for Daniel.
 
Second Zechariah.
 
Now, these are chapters 9
through 14.
We talked about the historical
Zechariah, chapters 1 through 8,
so this is Second Zechariah,
chapters 9 through 14,
and it's a collection of
diverse oracles,
probably fifth-century or
later,
that contain these strange
visions and predictions.
Their meanings cannot always be
fathomed, but they seem to focus
on the Day of the Lord,
and the restoration of
Jerusalem, and the rise of a new
and humble king who will reign
in peace,
really over a new world order.
Chapter 14 is a vision of this
global battle that will bring
history to an end.
 
God is going to bring all the
nations to Jerusalem where they
will plunder the city,
they will kill almost all of
the inhabitants and then at the
last moment when things look the
most desperate,
God will intervene and he'll
fight for Israel and exact
revenge on her enemies.
And it's after this final
battle that God will transform
the earth into a paradise.
 
So Israel's enemies will rage
against one another,
the surviving nations will
pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Again, Jerusalem now is
elevated above all cities,
and these nations will come to
Jerusalem to worship Yahweh at
his temple,
and Yahweh will be sovereign
over the world.
Joel, a very short little book,
probably the latest prophetic
book, also contains apocalyptic
material.
The versification of Joel
varies tremendously in different
English translations,
so I'm using the verse markings
that are in the Bible you have.
But if you consult another
Bible some of them only have
three chapters,
some have four--it can be
confusing.
But we can divide Joel into two
parts.
Up to chapter 2,
verse 27--that's the first
part, from 1:1 to 2:27 (or 1:2
really).
And that contains a description
of a military invasion.
 
It's symbolized by an army of
locusts.
And this invasion--this army of
locusts--is interpreted as a
divine punishment that is
necessary or that must come
before the day of the Lord.
 
The second part of Joel which
begins in verse 28 of chapter 2
is a fully apocalyptic
description of the final day of
terror.
Reading from chapter 3:3-4,
Before the great and
terrible day of the Lord comes,
I will set portents in the sky
and on earth:
Blood and fire,
and pillars of smoke;
The sun shall be turned to
darkness
And the moon to blood.
Before the great and terrible
Day of the Lord comes--but the
righteous are going to survive.
This is pointed out in chapter
3:5, "But everyone who invokes
the name of the Lord shall
escape;
for there shall be a remnant on
Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
as the Lord promised."
 
As we move into chapter 4 of
Joel, the Day of the Lord is
envisaged as a judgment day for
all peoples.
So this is increasingly the
view of the eschaton:
a final battle and also a
judgment day,
and that judgment day will then
issue in a new age.
This is an idea that the book
of Daniel will elaborate on in a
minute, not to mention the
apocalyptic writings that are
outside of the Hebrew Bible.
 
In this judgment day,
God will summon all of the
godless nations to the valley of
judgment,
Jehosaphat which means "God
will judge", so the Valley of
Jehosaphat.
And here the final battle
between good and evil will take
place, and after that God's
people will be blessed and the
Holy City will never again
suffer shame.:
For lo!
in those days
And in that time,
When I restore the fortunes
Of Judah and Jerusalem,
I will gather all the nations
And bring them down to the
Valley of Jehosaphat,
There I will contend with them
Over My very own people, Israel,
Which they scattered among the
nations.
Towards the end,
then, of the book we read,
Let the nations rouse
themselves and march up
To the Valley of Jehosaphat;
For there I will sit in judgment
Over all the nations roundabout.
Swing the sickle,
For the crop is ripe;
Come and tread,
For the winepress is full,
The vats are overflowing!
 
For great is their wickedness.
 
…
But the Lord will be a shelter
to His people,
A refuge to the children of
Israel.
…
And Jerusalem shall be holy;
Nevermore shall strangers pass
through it.
And in that day,
The mountains shall drip with
wine,
The hills shall flow with milk,
And all the watercourses of
Judah shall flow with water;
A spring shall issue from the
House of the Lord
And shall water the Wadi of
Acacias.
…
But Judah shall be inhabited
forever,
And Jerusalem throughout the
ages.
So we see a lot of
eschatological features in the
Book of Joel.
You have, first of all,
the series of disasters;
they signal the impending wrath
of God.
You have a cosmic battle in
which Yahweh triumphs over
Israel's enemy.
And we see in apocalyptic
literature in general,
a facile equation of the
righteous and the wicked with
Israel and other nations.
 
Then also we have this
outpouring of blessings on God's
people, city,
and land.
And finally,
God's continued protection and
presence;
and nations who are not
Israel's enemies join in the
worship of God in that final
time.
Again, note the important
difference between classical
prophecy and the apocalyptic
literature.
Both of them speak about final
things;
both of them speak about an
end-time.
But the classical prophets did
not in general expect that the
course of human affairs would
come to an end.
Only that Israel's rebellion
would end or that Israel would
live under a perfect king
anointed by God.
In the apocalyptic imagination
history itself is a closed
process;
it will end,
and then a new age,
a new world order would begin.
 
And the present age and the new
age are qualitatively distinct.
The present age is under the
dominion of evil powers.
We see it particularly in the
apocalyptic writings outside of
the Bible and in the New
Testament.
That power that has dominion
over the present age is Satan.
Satan is the arch enemy of God.
 
The age to come will be free of
all evil, moral corruption,
and death;
Satan will be defeated.
But God himself is the one who
has to do this.
God must intervene to bring the
present age to a crashing halt
and initiate this new world
order.
So let's turn now to Daniel for
a full apocalyptic work.
Daniel also can be divided
really into two parts and the
first six chapters have often
been described as heroic
fiction.
They're a bit like the book of
Esther that we'll be talking
about on Wednesday.
Just a good story.
 
(Esther particularly has a lot
or irony and is very,
very funny.) But like the book
of Esther,
Daniel features a Jew who lives
in a Gentile court and he's
saved from disaster.
 
I've listed the kings who are
discussed in the Book of Daniel.
These chapters tell of Daniel's
adventures under two Babylonian
kings, Nebuchadnezzar and
Belshazzar;
the text says two
Babylonian kings,
Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar;
a Median king Darius who
happens to be unknown to
history, a Persian king
Cyrus--that's a whole lot of
years!
The historical inaccuracy of
the work, right?
You have the chronology of more
than a century being telescoped
here!
There're other inaccuracies.
Belshazzar was actually never a
king;
he was sort of a prince regent.
 
He was defeated by Cyrus,
not by Darius,
so there are tremendous
historical inaccuracies and this
is a sign that this was written
at a much later time,
looking back when the history
of a period 300 years ago was
very confused.
There's no clear historical
knowledge of the Babylonian and
Persian period.
So the book,
we know, was written quite
late, perhaps the end of the
third century,
those first six chapters.
 
We have a better idea about the
remainder of the book.
Chapters 7 through 12 are fully
apocalyptic in genre and they
were composed between 167 and
164--I don't know if I wrote
that up there,
yeah, 167 and 164 BCE.
This was a time when Jews were
suffering intense persecution at
the hands of the Seleucid King
of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes,
Antiochus IV.
And so Daniel is the latest
book of the Hebrew Bible.
 
It was chronologically the
latest book, written between 167
and 164 BCE.
But the author writes in code.
He writes in code so that some
hostile person would not be able
to understand.
The author disguises his
references to contemporary
historical events and
personalities in these visions,
these symbolic visions that are
attributed to a remote era of
the past.
Let's go back and look at the
contents of these two sections.
In chapters 1 through 6,
Daniel is represented as a
loyal Jew who's living in the
exile in Babylonia,
sixth-century exilic period
among idol worshippers.
He refuses to bow down to any
other god.
He observes the dietary laws
and he prays facing Jerusalem.
He seems to occupy a position
of some honor in the court.
He has the power to interpret
dreams and to predict the
future, and although he's
severely tested he remains true
to Yahweh and Yahweh aids him in
more than one miraculous escape
from danger.
The main themes of this first
section of the book of Daniel
are Daniel's interpretations of
the dreams of these kings
(Nebuchadnezzar) and his
allegiance to his God.
 
In chapter 2,
Nebuchadnezzar has a dream of a
huge statute.
It has a head of gold,
has a torso and arms of silver,
the belly and the thighs are of
bronze,
the legs are of iron,
and the feet are of mixed iron
and clay.
I've kind of given you a little
grid and in a minute we're going
to have another symbolic dream
that's going to use animals to
represent the same things that
are being represented here by
the metals.
So you have this statue with
these metals and iron and clay
feet.
Then a great stone that's uncut
by human hands flies from heaven
and smashes the clay feet of the
statue,
and the statue crumbles and
this stone becomes a mountain
that fills all the earth.
 
Daniel decodes the dream's
symbolism;
and it's a historical
symbolism, the march of history.
Each metal represents a kingdom
that ruled the Ancient Near
East.
Daniel only explicitly mentions
gold as Babylon,
but we can figure out the rest.
Silver is Media,
bronze is Persia,
and iron is Alexander's Greece,
right, Macedonian Greece that
conquered the Ancient Near East
in the 330's,
and brought Hellenism,
and introduced the Hellenistic
period into Ancient Near Eastern
history.
After Alexander's death,
his empire was divided into
smaller Hellenistic kingdoms.
 
The ones of greatest relevance
to us are Ptolemaic Egypt and
Seleucid Syria because as you
can imagine Palestine is caught
between those two great powers.
 
So it's going to be fought over
by those two great powers.
So you have Egypt ruled by the
Ptolemies;
you have Syria ruled by the
Seleucids;
they're wrangling for control
of the land of Israel that's
lying between them.
 
So the iron and clay feet of
the statue in Daniel's dream
represent these lesser
Hellenistic kingdoms of Egypt
and Syria that succeeded
Alexander's empire and are a mix
of Hellenistic and Eastern
elements.
The stone from heaven
represents the future kingdom of
God.
It's going to come and destroy
these godless kingdoms and fill
all of the earth forever.
Chapter 3 tells the story of
Daniel's three companions who
refuse to worship a giant gold
statue and they get themselves
thrown into a fiery furnace.
 
When they emerge unscathed the
king is greatly impressed and so
he acknowledges the God of
Israel.
In chapter 4 there's a second
dream.
It's interpreted by Daniel as a
sign that Nebuchadnezzar will be
struck down seven times.
 
He's going to lose his reason,
he's going to lose his throne,
until he realizes that God is
the source of all divine and
human power.
When this in fact comes to
pass--Nebuchadnezzar seems to
suffer a fit of insanity that
drives him from society--the
king then praises the God most
high as the universal king.
 
In chapter 5,
Daniel's enemies at court trick
the Median king (now Darius,
so we're moving to different
kings).
They trick him into issuing an
edict against those who pray to
anyone but the king.
This is a problem for Daniel.
 
Daniel violates the edict,
of course, and he's arrested
and he's thrown into a den of
lions.
But he emerges unharmed,
and the result is,
again, that the foreign king,
in this case Darius now,
recognizes the supremacy of
Yahweh and orders all in his
kingdom to revere the Jewish
God.
There is, of course,
no historical merit to these
stories of Babylonian and
Persian kings acknowledging or
adopting the God of the Jews who
lived in exile among them.
These stories seem to give
voice to the hope or the fantasy
that a cruel and impious monarch
might be taught humility by
Yahweh.
They also provide a model for
life in the Diaspora.
 
Jews can live in the Gentile
world but they must never forget
God and his laws.
 
Then we move into the second
half of the Book of Daniel,
chapters 7 to 12.
 
As we move into this part of
Daniel we switch from the third
person into the first person,
so Daniel 7 to 12 is written in
the first person and it's fully
apocalyptic.
Here Daniel has a series of
visions and dreams that are
interpreted for him by an angel,
and again, that's a classic
feature of the apocalyptic
genre.
And these visions,
again, survey Ancient Near
Eastern history from the sixth
to the second centuries.
Chapter 7 again represents the
succession of kingdoms,
the Babylonian,
the Median, the Persian,
the Macedonian Empires,
but this time as beasts.
So you have a lion,
a bear, a winged leopard and an
ogre.
The ogre has horns and the
horns of this ogre then
represent these two lesser
Hellenistic kingdoms,
the Ptolemies of Egypt and the
Seleucids of Syria.
 
The boastful little horn is the
Syrian king, Antiochus
Epiphanies, himself.
 
In a second vision,
the "ancient of days,"--this is
the term that's used,
it seems to be God in a white
robe and a beard seated on a
fiery chariot throne,
but--"the ancient of days"
confers glory and kingship on
one like a Son of Man.
 
Now in Daniel,
this phrase,
the Son of Man--which generally
means mortal as opposed to
divine in the Bible,
but--in Daniel the phrase seems
to refer to a figure that's in
human form, but more than a
human.
Probably an angel like Michael
or Gabriel.
(Both of them are represented
as leaders against the forces of
Persia and Greece.) And this
figure establishes an
everlasting kingdom to replace
the bestial kingdoms that have
preceded it.
So the Son of Man overwhelms
the little horn Antiochus,
who is said to be making war on
saints (that's a code for loyal
Jews),
who is said to have been trying
to change their law and abolish
their religion--and we know that
these were parts of the
persecution in 167 to 164 by
Antiochus.
He tried to stop worship in the
sanctuary and so on.
 
In a third vision then,
the horn that represents
Antiochus is said to trample the
land of splendor (Israel),
to challenge the army of
heaven, to remove the perpetual
sacrifice (Antiochus did halt
the sacrificial service in the
temple) and to set up an
"abomination of desolation" on
the sacrificial altar (and we
know that Antiochus set up some
kind of pagan altar on the
sacrificial altar in the temple
in Jerusalem and erected a
statue of Zeus in the
sanctuary).
So this depiction of the
persecution under Antiochus is
presented here,
but it's presented in veiled
form for reasons of safety.
In chapter 9 we have a moving
prayer for deliverance.
The Angel Gabriel assures
Daniel that the end is near,
and that the end was even
predicted by Jeremiah who had
said that Jerusalem would lie
desolate 70years,
you will recall.
Now, Jeremiah prophesied--I'm
going to do some math now,
so this is dangerous.
Jeremiah prophesied in the
early sixth century and the
chapters of Daniel were written
many centuries later,
someone can figure it out,
in the 160's.
So was Jeremiah prophesying
falsely when he said that God
would deliver Israel from her
enemies and establish a kingdom
in Judah in 70 years?
 
No, not according to the book
of Daniel, because in the book
of Daniel it's said that
Jeremiah also was speaking in a
code.
Jeremiah meant that 70 weeks of
years, which is to say 490
years, would pass before the
consummation of all things.
 
And the last week was the reign
Antiochus Epiphanes:
we are in the last week of
these years now.
So the writer is maintaining
that he is living in the last
days, in the final moments of
the last week of years,
and this is very typical of
apocalyptic literature.
The time is at hand,
we are in the final stage,
this is now all the birth pangs
of the Messiah,
these terrible things that are
being visited upon us,
and God is soon going to win
victory through a mighty act and
introduce the Messianic Age,
ending Israel's long years of
desolation.
So apocalyptic literature sees
history as determined.
 
It's a closed drama that must
be played out,
requiring no action on the part
of humans except faithful
waiting.
God's kingdom will come solely
by God's power,
but it has to be preceded by
this time of trouble.
 
These troubles are nothing but
the birth pangs of the Messianic
Age and the faithful whose names
are recorded in God's book will
be rescued.
Chapter 12 imagines a
resurrection of the dead as a
compensation to those who died
under the persecutions of
Antiochus.
It's a clear attempt to deal
with the injustice that mars
this world, and it's the only
passage of the Bible to
explicitly espouse the idea of
an individual life after death,
and as I say,
breaks with a longer Israelite
tradition that's vague or silent
on this issue.
Not all Jews accepted the idea,
but it would be essential to
the rise of Christianity which
is deeply indebted to
apocalyptic thinking.
 
And through Christianity,
it came to have a very
far-reaching impact on Western
civilization.
The Book of Daniel is a
response to specific historical
circumstances.
It's a response to the crisis
of persecution and martyrdom
that was going on in the second
century.
That was a new kind of crisis
that led to a new kind of
response, because the earlier
crises of 722 and 586--they
could be explained as punishment
for sin and faithlessness.
 
But now in the second century,
Jews were dying not because
they were faithless but
precisely because they were
faithful;
because they refused to obey
the decrees of Antiochus and to
violate their law and covenant
and they were dying.
 
So this new phenomenon of
martyrdom, really for the first
time, required new responses and
the book of Daniel provides a
fully apocalyptic response.
 
Remain faithful,
wait, Daniel urges,
know that this will all be set
right by God,
not in this world but in an
ultimate and cataclysmic triumph
of life and faith over death and
evil,
and it will be soon.
 
Daniel emphasizes God's firm
control of history and so
bolsters loyal Jews who are
suffering indignities and
torture and even death all
around him because of their
faith.
So we've seen the zealous
fifth-century response of Ezra
and Nehemiah to the fateful
events of Israel's history.
 
They believed Israel's
rededication to God and the
covenant involved as a first
step,
cessation of intimate relations
with foreigners,
separation from their
abominable practices.
We've seen very different views
that would integrate foreigners
in the worship of Yahweh.
 
We've seen also the later
emergence of apocalyptic as an
expression of present despair
and future hope that entailed
the divinely orchestrated and
cataclysmic defeat of the wicked
enemies who persecuted Israel.
 
And in the last lecture we're
going to look at two books of
the Hebrew Bible that take very
different approaches,
the Book of Esther and the Book
of Jonah.
