The Book of Revolutions (Edward Feld) - A Review
THE BOOK OF REVOLUTIONS: The Battles of Priests, Prophets, and Kings that Birthed the Torah. By Edward Feld. Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society, 2022. xxiii + 292 pages.
How did
the Torah, also known in some circles as the Pentateuch, come into
existence? Traditionally the first five books of the Tanakh or the
Christian Old Testament were understood to be written by Moses. While there may
be a few defenders of Mosaic authorship running around they are few in number.
Since the nineteenth century, we've often spoken in terms of Wellhausen's JEDP,
but that theory has its own problems. So maybe we need to look in other places
to find greater insight as to the origins of these five books. For Christians
that means listening to our Jewish cousins who share this Testament with us. If
we choose to do so there is much to learn.
One
scholar who has attempted to provide an intriguing and helpful introduction to
the origins of the Torah is found in Edward Feld’s The Book of Revolutions.
As the subtitle denotes, these revolutions that led to the emergence of the Torah
involved priests, prophets, and kings. As for the author, Edward Feld, he
serves as the Rabbi-in-Residence at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
where he is an advisor and mentor to rabbinical students. He is also a Rabbi of
the Society for the Advancement of Judaism and Hillel Director at Princeton
University. Along with these duties, he is
the senior editor of Siddur Lev Shalem, which is the Rabbinical Assembly
prayerbook used during Sabbaths and festivals. He is also the editor of the
High Holiday companion volume Mahzor Lev Shalem.
According to Feld, the Torah is
the product of several revolutions, the first of which was a military coup that
took place in the northern kingdom of Israel, along with the assassination of a
king in the southern kingdom of Judea, and a quieter revolution that later took
place during the Babylonian exile. These events produced three legal codes, the
first is the Covenant code as found in the book of Exodus. The second is the
Deuteronomic Code as found in Deuteronomy. Finally, there is the Holiness Code
found in Leviticus. These three codes helped create biblical and modern
Judaism.
With these three revolutions in
mind, Feld seeks to read Torah with a historian's eye, seeking to understand
the context in which the texts emerged. While skepticism is warranted when it
comes to historical analysis, he believes that skepticism can go too far. Thus,
this is a call for a balanced approach.
As for the direction taken by the
author in analyzing the text of the Torah, Feld notes that unlike many
biblical scholars he chose not to primarily focus on the narrative portions of
these texts, but instead focused on the legal sections. In his view, while the various
editors of the Torah sought to create a continuous narrative, they
largely left the legal codes intact. Thus, there isn't just one legal code.
With that in mind, Feld notes that when it comes to these legal codes "it
is often easy to show the ways in which one code reworks the language of
another. This evidence of priority leads to a historical understanding of
cultural development." Additionally, he believes and seeks to demonstrate
(I think he does this rather well) how each of the three legal codes is the
"product of revolutions that took place in biblical times" (p.
xviii). As we move through the book, Feld provides his analysis of this
evidence.
After opening with a prelude in
which he takes note of the origins of the people of Israel, origins that are
not necessarily clear, he begins to lay out the evidence of each of the four
revolutions. The fourth revolution is essentially the final production of the Torah.
Regarding the origins of Israel, he acknowledges that these are cloudy and that
the biblical texts themselves provide divergent stories. As an example, he
notes that the books of Joshua and Judges offer different versions of the settlement
of the Land. However the nation came into existence, he suggests that we can
point to the beginning of the first millennium as the point at which the clans
and tribes moved toward the creation of a united kingdom, first under Saul and
then under David. He notes that it's possible that this process of uniting
together as one nation that the tribes required the creation of a common origin
story. While the tribes did unite for a time, they quickly broke into two
kingdoms after the close of Solomon’s reign. Although these two kingdoms shared
certain common elements and would from time to time be allies, they often were
enemies or at the very least rivals. These realities contribute to the
development of the different elements, including legal codes, that make up the Torah.
Feld divides the book into four
parts, with each part focusing on one of the four revolutions. In Part 1 we
encounter the first revolution that took place in the northern kingdom of
Israel. The contributors to this revolution included the prophets Elijah and
Elisha. along with the dynasty of Jehu, the king of Israel. Jehu’s dynasty
replaced the dynasty of Omri (a dynasty that included the infamous couple—Ahab
and Jezebel) with the support of the two prophets. The revolution that led to
the replacement of the dynasty of Omri led to the creation, as Feld tells us,
of the Covenant Code found in the Book of Exodus. He helpfully sets this code
in its larger context. What is especially important here is that this code
influences later developments among the biblical authors. So, items mentioned
briefly in Exodus will get developed further in later books. One of the ways in
which it influenced later developments involved how later Jews and Christians
came to understand the nature of the covenant. Feld writes that "the code
formulates a relationship of mutuality between God and the people Israel"
(p. 43). In this section, Feld not only introduces us to how the idea of the
covenant emerges in Exodus but introduces us to later rabbinic developments
leading up to the present. Though the covenant code emerged in the north, it
would later emerge in the southern kingdom of Judah in the form of Deuteronomy.
Before moving to the next revolution,
the one that takes place in the south, Feld provides an interlude in which he
sets up the upcoming conversation. Here he links the house of Jehu in Israel
with the monarchy in Judea. Earlier in the book he had reminded us that while the
northern monarchy was rather unstable, featuring several separate dynasties,
none of which had links to David, the situation in the south was different. The
monarchy in Judah remained in the hands of the descendants of David until the
Babylonians ended the monarchy. While the monarchy remained in Davidic hands there
was a link between the dynasty of Jehu and that of David in the form of Ahab's
sister Athaliah, who was the queen mother of Israel. She even ruled Judah for
nearly six years before her son Joash gained maturity. It should be noted that the
authors of 2 Kings rate the monarchs from Joash to Hezekiah very highly. It was
also during this period that the northern kingdom fell to Assyria. While the
southern kingdom shrunk, so that under Hezekiah it didn’t extend much beyond
the walls of Jerusalem, the monarchy persisted.
In Part III we are invited to
explore with Feld a third revolution, one that took place among the exiles in
Babylon. This next revolution involved not monarchs, who no longer ruled, but
priests, prophets (such as Jeremiah), and scribes. As the exiles sought to
discern a path forward after the destruction of the Temple and with the end of traditional
Jewish religious experience, Jews began to develop a new legal code, the
Holiness Code found in Leviticus. While a significant portion of Leviticus
focuses on Temple worship and its leadership, ultimately the focus was on
living as a people without the Temple. The concept of the holiness code as
found in Leviticus is reflected in chapter 19 of that book where the people are
commanded: "to be holy, because the Lord Your God is holy." Feld
writes that the texts, which include much of Leviticus along with parts of
Numbers and other passages of Torah share this theological conception: "an
emphasis on the practice of holiness even outside the Temple confines, amid all
of the people" (p. 187). The authors of this code are understood to be
reformist priests (no longer serving in the Temple). They seek to combine their
calling with a prophetic perspective that leads to a vision of the future of
this society. Thus, "while their rhetoric is formed from the priestly
language of holiness and purity, it incorporates the prophetic demand of the
centrality of personal behavior on the part of each person in serving God."
(p. 188). He takes us through discussions of such things as the Sabbath and
Jubilee, along with how the stranger is to be treated. While Exodus and
Deuteronomy focused on civil jurisprudence and ethical imperatives, he writes
that "The Holiness Code added to this understanding its own insistence on
the need for personal transformation and its dream of a utopian society"
(p. 208). This discussion of the Holiness Code casts a new light on the code
and the way we might understand Leviticus. It makes sense that a code focused
on personal transformation would emerge in the context of an exile.
Part IV is the briefest section of
the book, but it helps bring together everything we’ve encountered in previous
sections. It is here that Feld shows us how the Torah took shape and was
experienced after the exiles returned to Jerusalem and Judea under the Persians
and began to put things back together. One of the key figures in this part of
the story is Nehemiah who served as the Persian-appointed governor and worked
with Ezra the scribe who was responsible for bringing much of this heritage
together that would become Scripture and then promulgating it among the people.
While the later prophets such as Haggai, Malachi, and Zechariah do not speak of
Torah, one of the elements of the emergence of the Torah is the
role played by the priestly leadership in the post-exilic period since the
monarchy was not restored. Feld notes helpfully that the Persians were willing
to allow religious expression and forms of self-government but not a monarchy,
which might give the people a sense that political independence might be
possible. As for the religious perspective that emerges at this point, it is clearly
monotheistic.
Feld has provided us with an
intriguing picture of early Judaism by focusing not on the historical narrative
but on the development of the legal codes. By building on earlier legal codes
that emerged in the context of three revolutions, and layering new realities on
earlier foundations, the Jewish people were able to create a sense of identity
that united them together as they faced challenge after challenge. While the
northern kingdom of Israel may have disappeared, it continued to live on in the
legal code that emerged in the southern kingdom of Judah. While later readers
might read the Torah/Pentateuch as a singular/unitary narrative, that narrative
emerged from several revolutionary moments. As Feld notes, reading it as a
singular story, we discover that “exile from the Garden can be redeemed by a
people living in its land with God in its midst (p. 241). Although we have
become accustomed to reading it as a unitary story, there are many
contradictions present in these five books. Those contradictions reveal the
different eras in the life of the people that produced these texts. They also
give later interpreters grist for their own interpretive ventures, which often
involved resolving difficulties. In The Book of Revolutions, Edward Feld
invites us to step back from that interpretive move and take note of the
disparate parts and how they emerged as a people moved through time. That can
be uncomfortable, but also useful. Thus, as a Christian reader of Judaism’s
foundational text, a text that Christians have built upon, we will find
enrichment if we take seriously this book. As such, I believe that this book
can prove helpful not only to Jewish readers of the Torah but also to Christian
readers of a common text.
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