Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy. By Walter Brueggcmann. Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001, 306 pp., $34.00 paper.

The AOTC series, under the general editorship of Patrick Miller, intends to provide a "compact critical commentary for theological students and pastors" that can also benefit upper-level college and university students and others who teach in a congregational setting (p. 9). Each volume provides a brief introduction to the biblical book studied and commentary divided into three forms of analysis-literary, exegetical, and theological/ ethical. This volume ends with an eight page bibliography and a subject/author index.

Brueggemann's introductory notes trace the development of the three major speeches of Deuteronomy. In his reconstruction, the middle speech (4:44-29:1) emerged in the eighth or seventh century BC as a foil to judah's attempted covenantal agreements with Assyria, and reflected in vocabulary and form the treaties of that period. The first and third speeches (1:1-4:40; 29:2-32:47) originated in the sixth century BC and were directed to the exilic community. The total work, then, served to encourage a community out of the land regarding the possibility of a return, styled in a fictive account of an earlier entrance into the land. The material was then reused by the Ezra movement as the book took on its canonical shape and established "Judaism as a people of the Torah" (p. 20). For me, the scholarship of this section would have been strengthened if Brueggemann had at least mentioned that Deuteronomy shows some parallels with earlier Hittite treaty documents.

Regarding Deuteronomy's development, Brueggemann sees a process of the reinterpretation of earlier material for use by subsequent generations (e.g. Deuteronomy as a "second law" is not the same as that of Sinai, p. 22). The modern interpreter participates in this same process. For Brueggemann, "In the hands of imaginative, faithful interpreters, the text always 'means again' and 'means differently'" (p. 23). This notion of an ongoing, interpretative process might explain Brueggemann's ability to see in the "call for obedience in order to receive blessings in the land" passage of Deuteronomy 11 a natural opening for a discussion of the dangers of agribusiness that drains the land of its productivity, or of the denuding of the South American rain forests to the detriment of the world's climate (p. 140).

Following the form of the Abingdon series, Brueggemann provides introductory structural observations. These occasionally go beyond a simple outline of the paragraphs. The exegetical sections are not technical, but do provide some helpful observations. The theological and ethical section is sometimes suggestive only, especially in the discussions after Deuteronomy 11 where the pace of the comments picks up. The discussion of Deuteronomy 1-11 occupies almost one-half of the book.

In his theological and ethical comments, Brueggemann displays his method and advances his concerns. Some of his observations illustrate the principle of a text that "means again." For example, the laws given to Israel show that the community of faith is called to display a "contrast society," with its rejection of the idolatry of Canaan. Brueggemann's observation that this speaks again today against an embracing of modern icons in a commercialized society (pp. 59-62) is, I think, quite helpful. Today we sometimes worship things rather than God. Brueggemann's assessment that Commands 6-9 reveal there are no autonomous agents and that they show God's governance over every area of life hits a current target.

But according to Brueggemann, in some cases the text "means differently" for us. Deuteronomy's laws are not to be interpreted along the lines of a "settled literalism" (p. 23). So, for example, this giving of the "second law" validates a process that favors a liberal interpretation in American constitutional law, speaking against a "strict constructionism" (pp. 79-80). Laws regarding "life for life" capital punishment give rise to a "bloodthirsty passion for capital punishment in the United States" (p. 206). Laws concerning things under the ban are "troublesome" for our pluralistic society (p. 101).

The nasty snag, however, in an interpretative process that is at once "faithful" and then "imaginative" is, "By what criterion does one decide when something means again or means differently?" Brueggemann shows a process that would leave the text at the mercy of the interpreter's perspective on the world; what does not fit might be ignored.

Brueggemann is always worth reading. He often states his interpretations in fresh language showing keen insight. For me he opens avenues of application in the psychological, social, and political implications of Scripture I often do not see at first. One weakness of the commentary is that there are few examples of application for the workings of the present day Church as a corporate community of faith. Certainly, for example, the texts that speak of "we versus them" have something to say about doctrinal purity in the organized Church.