The testament: continuities and discontinuities

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 1999 by Roland E. Murphy

Abstract

This article, based on a research report at the 1999 CBA annual meeting at Notre Dame, Indiana, approaches the topic from the point of view of the impact of the Israelite world view on the data of biblical theology: Sheol and immortality; the heavenly court and angelology; the levels of interpretation of the Song of Songs; and finally, discontinuity within the wisdom literature.

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This essay is triggered by an observation about the Testaments made by Brevard Childs (93): "It would seem to me to be a major enterprise of Biblical Theology to describe carefully both the continuity and discontinuity between these two different witnesses of the Christian Bible." It would be a major enterprise, indeed. Recent developments in biblical theology have even pointed beyond discontinuities within the Bible to "disjunction" within the Godhead (Brueggemann: 268). I want to discuss a few modest examples of continuities/discontinuities.

Sheol and Immortality

The descriptions of Sheol are many and varied. In general it is both a place, where the "dead" or "shades" reside; it is also a kind of code to describe the adversities or non-life that afflict human beings in real life (Ps 30:4: "You brought me up from Sheol"). It is used in many different ways within the Hebrew Bible.

In Job 3 it serves as the great equalizer, where kings, counselors, and princes are gathered with the stillborn, the wicked, weary prisoners, slaves, and taskmasters. Of course, Job would prefer this over his present condition. He uses it as a motif to move the intractable God to whom he speaks: "Oh, that you would hide me in Sheol, shelter me until your anger is over, would fix a time for me and then remember me" (14:13; cf. 10:2-22; 17:14-16).

Qoheleth has a straightforward description: "There will be no work, nor reason, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol, where you are going" (9:10). It is portrayed in a very imaginative way in Ezekiel. Egypt is brought down to Sheol with the uncircumcised and those slain by the sword. But there is a slightly privileged spot, the "Pit," where "mighty men of old" were buried in full military regalia (Ezek 32:18, 27-28).

Isaiah's poem about the descent of the king of Babylon is along the same line: in Sheol "the kings of all nations rise from their thrones" to greet ironically the king of Babylon, who is brought down to the bottom of the Pit (Is 14:15). Any difference among them all is negligible,, for the kings call out: "You have become weak like us, the same as we" (14:10).

These texts can only be termed imaginative portrayals. Not only are there various understandings of Sheol (from which no one ever returned, not even Samuel); there is no evidence of any speculation about the manner of this transition from here to there, or back. It is said that one is in Sheol, but the "one" is never defined except as a person who has died; there is no indication of a "soul" or of a living body. Some have argued that this means the dissolution of a person at death. That might be a logical conclusion for a modern to draw, but it is not a conclusion expressed in the Bible. The biblical writers did not find it difficult to speak of some kind of "existence"--such as the qualified continuation described by Qoheleth ("no action, no answer, no knowledge"; Eccl 9:10). In short, the nether world constitutes non-life, where all, the just and the unjust, finally gather. There is neither reward nor punishment. "Maggots and worms" (Is 14:11) await all who will be buried in the grave, which serves as a kind of ante-room to Sheol. Whatever differentiation might have been imagined within Sheol, such as the bottom of the Pit, there is the same hopelessness for all (Job 14:12, 19). One of the most frequent motifs in the Psalms is that in Sheol there is no longer any loving contact with the Lord; one can no longer offer praise (e.g., Ps 6:6).

The question naturally arises: if this is all an imaginative flight, what is its status as a theological datum? Can one interpret it as a theologoumenon, to be classified as simply an important factor in Israelite world view, but not a true theological datum? I understand theologoumenon in the sense of Karl Rahner (455-56):

   This term may be used to designate a theological doctrine that is not
   directly taught by the Church's magisterium, and thus does not
   authoritatively demand our assent, but is of such a nature that it sheds
   light on the connexion among many other explicit doctrines of the Church
   and for this reason is commendable.

Although this distinction is not made in the Bible itself, it functions in the way in which the Bible is interpreted by moderns. Sheol is a "given," part of the three-storey universe and the various descriptions of the physical aspects of creation. The modern interpreter "demythologizes" such data, as it were, to arrive at the theological substance (or is this a modern ruse that wrings relevance from the ancient world view?). Israel seems to have operated within the same mythological perspective as Mesopotamia and others did. One can admire the clever way in which Sheol serves as a motif on different levels within the biblical writings, but ultimately it is an imaginative flight by which Israel confronted the mystery of life beyond death. The well-known phrase, "the land of no return" (cf. Job 7:9-10), fits perfectly here; no one did return and was thus able to describe such "existence." Ironically, essentially the same observation is made by Hamlet when he speaks of our "dread of death": "the undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns"--that makes us bear "those ills we have" (Hamlet, III, 1).