Brief Thoughts after reading “Why the Bible Began,” by Jacob Wright (2023)

Reflections on a strong, scholarly work

AFBR

Jabob L. Wright, a scholar well-versed (and widely published) in Hebrew Bible, legal, and religious studies at Emory University, has written an insightful and penetrating study of the Christian Old Testament – or, originally and more accurately, the Hebrew Bible – called, “Why the Bible Began.” I have just finished reading it and have a few preliminary thoughts.

Markedly, this book as added to, and somewhat changed, the way I now see the Bible. Many books have, along the years, done this for me – Jack Miles’ “God: A Biography” and “Chirst: A Crisis in the Life of God”; John Barton’s “A History of the Bible”; diverse works by thinkers like Elaine Pagels, Bart Ehrman, Karen Armstrong, Jacques Derrida, Christopher Hitchens, and numerous others. I am grateful for the way Wright’s recent work has deepened my understanding of just how – and especially why – the HB formed for political, religious, historical, cultural, and theological reasons.

Wright uses archeology, literary studies of ancient times, and various historical documents and writers to dig deep into the HB’s texts, illuminating the construction of the HB/OT that directs light onto its pages and themes. Each chapter in WTBB opens with a scene from the Bible that anchors each section and draws the reader into the word of the text; and then the archeological and non-biblical texts are juxtaposed to explore the reasons behind the Bible’s construction.

The main insight Wright has provided me is that the HB is a product of scribal authors from both the kingdoms – the Northern, Israel, and the Southern, Judah – in an effort to redefine the identity of the Hebrew/Jewish people after the fall of each kingdom and the erasure of the monarchy. This happened primarily between the Assyrian capture of Israel in 722 BCE and the fall of Judah to the Babylonians in 587 BCE, but may have continued into the decades just before the appearance of Jesus. In his prologue, Wright’s controlling thesis expresses the primary motivation for scribes working to compile various threads from the Hebrew literature and myths. Here he notes that, 

Defeated populations viewed their subjugation as a source of shame… opting instead to extol the golden ages of the past… The thread that ties together [the Hebrew Bible] is a question that was trailblazing at the time: What does it mean to be a people? Not a kingdom, city, clan, empire, or ethnicity, but a people. In other words, a national community that embraces many different cities, clans, ethnicities, and so on… that does not depend on territorial sovereignty or statehood.

The Hebrew people were defeated, scattered (mostly, but not completely) across different cultures, forced to seek an identity without a temple, a capitol, a king. What they had was literature, myths, stories of origin, a developing mono-theology, often derived (borrowed? lifted?) from the cultures around them in Palestine and Egypt. When the kingdoms fell, the educated scribes from both Israel and Judah brought traditions together and compiled the HB that has been transmitted down to us today. 

What is interesting are the literary threads and traditions Wright brings to our notice here. With gradations and off-shoots, there is the Palace History and the People’s History that are combined by scribes over the centuries after the first kingdom’s defeat into a new, National Narrative. Nations with other gods and customs had defeated the people of YHWH, the one true God of the Hebrews, and this meant, usually, that a nation would descend into obscurity. What the scribes did was redefine their histories by bringing together the mythic traditions into one overarching story, albeit with shades and nuances, that redeemed both their God and their sense of being a people. 

Separate traditions came together to redeem and redefine this people’s past. The Palace History dealt with the rise and fall of the kings and their falling away from God, dragging the people with them. YHWH could not be expected to keep His end of the Covenant if the people broke theirs. The kings were not true kings – only God could be their true King. The kingdoms could not be true kingdoms – only the sense of community and identity would endure under God’s plan. When a heathen people conquered the Jews, was it their god who won over YHWH, the Lord? No! The Hebrew God had allowed that to happen and was really in charge of history.

The Family History defined the Hebrew’s claim to the land and, more importantly, to an identity linked to the religion, customs, and stories of that land long before the Northern and Southern Kingdoms were in place. The stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel are all woven together with the Palace myths to produce and new National Narrative that redefines defeat as victory. No longer do the Hebrews have a palace. No worries. They have an identity and a claim to the land that came before the kingdoms and their kings were established. No longer do the Hebrews have a temple. No worries. With the scriptures of the law and the profits, these ‘people of the book’ now have a strong and dynamic sense of God’s law that is not now dependent on place, but transcends aspects of palace and capitol that can travel with a scattered people.

The list of impressive scholarly themes and lessons to be derived from WTBB is much longer, of course. Wright sees many passages that are often read as patriarchal supports now as more subversive texts than first appear – an attempt by authors to appeal to a people now without a clear patriarchy who need to redefine how they now understand power and authority. The work also draws needed attention to the contradictions in the Bible that Wright believes were left there on purpose because the scribes wanted to represent even the conflicts present in bringing together various traditions. The two creation accounts in Genesis, the radically different tones in Psalms and Proverbs as compared to Ecclesiastes and Job, the severe (and sometimes heretical) questioning of God’s ways, are all allowed as the rough questions around identity are shaped into the National Narrative.

I strongly recommend this book for the educated lay person or clergy who want a deeper understanding of just how and why the Bible has come down to use today.