Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg
352 pp. Grove Press 2004
My pleasure reading this past week was Harold Bloom's not uncontroversial work, The Book of J (1990). I first learned of it while reading the introduction to Donald Harman Akenson's highly recommended Surpassing Wonder (which I'll write about at a later date), and quickly ended up dropping the latter in favor of rapidly consuming the former. "Whenever one immerses oneself in recent scholarship concerning the Bible... the effect is curiously anesthetic, even depressing," Akenson writes. "Hardly anyone seems to be having any fun, and if they are, they do a good job of keeping their pleasure well hidden behind stone faces and dirge-like prose." (5) This had more than a ring of truth in it, so when the author went on to discuss Harold Bloom, a literary critic, as one of the few people who seemed to truly enjoy biblical scholarship, I was intrigued.
"Though fully competent in biblical Hebrew and given to studying the scriptures with a hawklike eye, he is too frighteningly bright and too much of an incorrigible beard-puller to be welcomed by the more solemn of the [scholarly] guild," Akenson wryly observes. "His The Book of J (1990) is a dazzling analysis of the nature of the "J" source, the most important segment of the Books of Moses." (7)
For those who aren't familiar, the "documentary hypothesis" is a widely-accepted explanation for the authorship of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Books of Moses, who to whom authorship is traditionally attributed). According to this hypothesis, the final writings that we have are the product of the the editing together of four separate sources:
- 1. The Yahwhist, which is referred to as "J" (from the German "Jahwhist"), so named because of the writer's use of "YHWH" as the name for God.
- 2. The Elohist, "E", so named because of the writer's use of Elohim as the name for God.
- 3. The Deuteronomist, "D", much of the author's material is found in Deuteronomy
- 4. The Priestly writer, "P", the theologian interpreting Israel's history
Interestingly, one of the main contentions of the documentary hypothesis is that the Yahwhist and the Elohist were in a sense writing about different understandings of God. The Yahwhist tradition is thought to originate in the southern kingdom of Judah (and Harold Bloom contends was a female writer in the Judahite court who pined for the united monarchy of David and Solomon). The Elohist tradition is thought to have originated in the northern kingdom of Israel. There are correlations between the J source and it's focus on Judah, as well as the E source and its focus on Israel.
Perhaps even more interesting are the variant ways in which "YHWH" and "Elohim" are portrayed in the Bible. YHWH is portrayed in a way biblical scholars refer to as "anthropomorphic", meaning that his is described as having (at times alarmingly) human attributes and emotions. Personally, I was familiar with reading passages which made reference to God's face and hands and feet, but was trained to understand all of this as metaphorical. Fair enough. But in the early part of the Bible, in the "J" source, there are even clearer parallels between God's activity and what we would understand as the normal behavior of humans, not gods. Consider for example that YWHW enjoyed walking in the Garden of Eden "in the cool of the evening", enjoying the breezes. He shapes man from clay with his hands (unlike other Mesopotamian traditions that depict god using a potter's wheel), like a child making mudpies (xl). Instead of destroying the tower of Babel, he mischievously confuses the languages of the builders and then sits back to observe the ensuing chaos. The Elohist, on the other hand, emphasizes the transcendence of God. In "E" texts, God prefers to speak in dreams and visions, and angels often serve as His proxy in their interactions with humans. Elohim is invisible. YHWH bargains with Abraham face-to-face.
You can test this out for yourself. The next time you pick up a Bible, play close attention to the names used for God. You'll notice that at times He's referred to as "God" and at tother times he's referred to as "The LORD". These are the two different pronouns used to translate the names for God used by the Yahwhist and Elohist. When the Hebrew refers to "Elohim", it is translated as "God". When the it uses "Yahweh", it is translated as "The LORD". If you're paying attention, you'll notice that the two are very different.
What makes The Book of J such a fascinating read is not just it's lively introduction the documentary hypothesis, but the way in which Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg tease "J" from its surrounding text, translate it, and interpret it. About half the book consists of Rosenberg's translation of "J" (which itself has received plenty of praise), the other half commentary from Bloom. One of Bloom's observations about the Yahwhist's God I found most fascinating is that, contra to what you'll hear from most pulpits, YHWH seems to learn and change over time. Contrast the way in which he appeared to Abraham, with Abraham feeding him and showing him the way to Sodom, and the ways in which God chose to speak (or more accurately, silently lead) as the Israelites walked away from bondage in Egypt: a burning push, a pillar of fire. As Bloom writes, "Yahweh's ironies move toward two limits, the first at our creation where Yahweh implicitly says to us, 'Be like me, breathe my breath,' and the second at the Sinai theophany: 'Don't you dare be too like me.'... Yahweh's touchiness about limits indicates at once a lively pride and an anxiety about his creatures." Far from the somewhat detached, magisterial God of pop theology, J's YHWH is invested in our successes and failures (though probably not in the manner we might assume) to the point of anxiety. Indeed, in moving from the favor of a select few (Adam, Noah, Abraham) to the favor of a nation, the anxiety and boundary-setting seems to increase. When writing of Moses' encounters with God on Mt. Sinai, Bloom observes that "Yahweh... in J's vision, becomes dangerously confused in the anxious expectations of at once favoring and threatening the host of the people, rather than the individuals that he has chosen." (255)
Probably the most controversial aspect of the book were the inferences that Bloom made about J's author. Although not nearly as interesting as Bloom's exposition of J's YHWH (for me), his authorial hypothesis merits review. According to Bloom, the Yahwist was a woman of the Judahite court living just after the reign of King Solomon. The former assertion is easy enough to infer, given the text's preoccupation with Judah and the ascendancy of the Hebraic south. The conjecture of gender is rooted in J's portrayal of her female vs. male characters: the former are far more multi-dimensional and nuanced than the latter, and often emerge from their trials with much more of their moral integrity intact.
Bloom's dating of the authorship is more interesting. Most scholars agree in their dating of J to around the time of Solomon. For Bloom, J was written during the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon's unworthy successor. According to Bloom, J longed for the return of the golden days of Israel's united monarchy under King David, and this was her overarching concern when she penned her writings. For her, David was the recipient of YHWH's "most overwhelming Blessing... beyond covenant" (227). And Bloom spares nothing when describing J's vision of David:
It is YHWH's love of David that both simultaneously colors J's entire narrative, and reflexively colors J's understanding of the inexhaustible personality that is YHWH; a personality that was subsequently subdued by later redactions and splicing with the writings of E, D, and P. But Bloom can still make out the contours of J's God within the text, even if popular belief holds opposite. And the picture that emerges was one of the most personally affecting aspects of Bloom's writing: the reminder that the Creator God is bursting with life and vitality, the reminder that when the text speaks of a God who walked and talked with hands and feet among his people it does not automatically signal a requisite deeper meaning. The reminder that there is more between us that we share than we've been led to believe, that God is as close to us as our own inhale.
You can test this out for yourself. The next time you pick up a Bible, play close attention to the names used for God. You'll notice that at times He's referred to as "God" and at tother times he's referred to as "The LORD". These are the two different pronouns used to translate the names for God used by the Yahwhist and Elohist. When the Hebrew refers to "Elohim", it is translated as "God". When the it uses "Yahweh", it is translated as "The LORD". If you're paying attention, you'll notice that the two are very different.
What makes The Book of J such a fascinating read is not just it's lively introduction the documentary hypothesis, but the way in which Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg tease "J" from its surrounding text, translate it, and interpret it. About half the book consists of Rosenberg's translation of "J" (which itself has received plenty of praise), the other half commentary from Bloom. One of Bloom's observations about the Yahwhist's God I found most fascinating is that, contra to what you'll hear from most pulpits, YHWH seems to learn and change over time. Contrast the way in which he appeared to Abraham, with Abraham feeding him and showing him the way to Sodom, and the ways in which God chose to speak (or more accurately, silently lead) as the Israelites walked away from bondage in Egypt: a burning push, a pillar of fire. As Bloom writes, "Yahweh's ironies move toward two limits, the first at our creation where Yahweh implicitly says to us, 'Be like me, breathe my breath,' and the second at the Sinai theophany: 'Don't you dare be too like me.'... Yahweh's touchiness about limits indicates at once a lively pride and an anxiety about his creatures." Far from the somewhat detached, magisterial God of pop theology, J's YHWH is invested in our successes and failures (though probably not in the manner we might assume) to the point of anxiety. Indeed, in moving from the favor of a select few (Adam, Noah, Abraham) to the favor of a nation, the anxiety and boundary-setting seems to increase. When writing of Moses' encounters with God on Mt. Sinai, Bloom observes that "Yahweh... in J's vision, becomes dangerously confused in the anxious expectations of at once favoring and threatening the host of the people, rather than the individuals that he has chosen." (255)
Probably the most controversial aspect of the book were the inferences that Bloom made about J's author. Although not nearly as interesting as Bloom's exposition of J's YHWH (for me), his authorial hypothesis merits review. According to Bloom, the Yahwist was a woman of the Judahite court living just after the reign of King Solomon. The former assertion is easy enough to infer, given the text's preoccupation with Judah and the ascendancy of the Hebraic south. The conjecture of gender is rooted in J's portrayal of her female vs. male characters: the former are far more multi-dimensional and nuanced than the latter, and often emerge from their trials with much more of their moral integrity intact.
Bloom's dating of the authorship is more interesting. Most scholars agree in their dating of J to around the time of Solomon. For Bloom, J was written during the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon's unworthy successor. According to Bloom, J longed for the return of the golden days of Israel's united monarchy under King David, and this was her overarching concern when she penned her writings. For her, David was the recipient of YHWH's "most overwhelming Blessing... beyond covenant" (227). And Bloom spares nothing when describing J's vision of David:
David... in his own person carries his people from an obscure hill clan to a high culture dominant in its part of the world. Before David, there is almost no Hebrew literature. After David, and because of him, J and the writer of 2 Samuel [whom Bloom conjectures to have been a contemporary and friend of J] appear, establishing the sublime limits of Hebrew literature almost at its beginnings. It is as though Achilles, Pericles, and Pindar were combined in one individual, a blend that dazzles our powers of imagining and interpreting. David clearly was a difference that made a difference, one that took its origins in the elusive matter of personality. For a people to move so rapidly, in a single generation, from and inward-turning community to an international power, must have been bewildering... Scholars are united in seeing that for the Israelites David was a new kind of man, or perhaps a new image of human existence, with all human potentialities fulfilled in him. (43)Bloom emphasizes that YHWH's favored individuals, David chief among them, display "theomorphic" qualities: A zest for life and all of the experiences, joyful and not, that come with it. This is sharply illustrated in the story of Jacob and Esau: While Esau is a nice enough guy, Jacob is the one with cunning, the one who thirsts for more, the one who isn't satisfied. This, to J's mind, is what merits his blessing. And it's worth noting here that in Bloom's interpretation of J, "good" and "bad" are almost meaningless; the story of Jacob and Esau isn't a morality tale about the good brother and the bad brother. Her version of the Garden of Eden neither blames Adam and Ever, nor blames God. As Bloom puts it, J simply isn't interested in casting aspersions. She's after the story. And David's winsome charisma, beguiling both to Israel and its God, is the chief driver. "The truly theomorphic man, David, is stationed between the outer limit of J's subject as a writer and her own historical moment as a human being," he writes. "J looks back through the sophisticated splendors of the Solomonic period, and what she sees is the heroic vitalism of David. She never ceases to keep her eyes on that charismatic glory, but what she hears, and makes us hear, is the story of the realities of the remote past that were transformed forever when they were seen as the necessary prelude to David." (289)
It is YHWH's love of David that both simultaneously colors J's entire narrative, and reflexively colors J's understanding of the inexhaustible personality that is YHWH; a personality that was subsequently subdued by later redactions and splicing with the writings of E, D, and P. But Bloom can still make out the contours of J's God within the text, even if popular belief holds opposite. And the picture that emerges was one of the most personally affecting aspects of Bloom's writing: the reminder that the Creator God is bursting with life and vitality, the reminder that when the text speaks of a God who walked and talked with hands and feet among his people it does not automatically signal a requisite deeper meaning. The reminder that there is more between us that we share than we've been led to believe, that God is as close to us as our own inhale.
The largest difference between J's Yahweh and the more normative versions of God that come after J is that this original Yahweh is just too much for us; he is nonstop and he knows no rest. In J's version of the Commandments, there is no Sabbath. Her Yahweh is presence, is the will to change, is origination and originality. His leading quality is not holiness, or justice, or love, or righteousness, but the sheer energy and force of becoming, of breaking into fresh being. What we encounter in him, however, is not an abstract becoming or being but an outrageous personality, a person who is more than a person yet never less than a person... He is in every sense livelier than we are, because he is not to be distinguished from living more abundantly, living more like David, who had exhausted every human possibility yet went on in fullness of being, open to more experience, more love, more grief, more guilt and suffering, more dancing in exuberance before the Ark of Yahweh. (294)
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