Gee's Latest Volley on Hebrew Bible

[_Kishkumen]

Gee's attribution to critics that Israel wasn't sophisticated enough for annuls also eludes me. If I understood Van Seters correctly, then the keeping of annuls isn't particularly innovative (even if by positivist standards the keeping of annuls might represent a landmark of intellectual honesty) but Israel was special for alone (amongst neighbors) inventing historiography. In fact, if I understood, then there seems to be a near consensus between conservative and secular prone writers that Israel was special in this way -- special in terms of advancement and not for being behind the curve.

I suppose I can't fully connect your own views or David's to these little excerpts I've been reading and I certainly don't have the lay of the land sorted out, but I'm having trouble finding Gee on the map at all.

My problem is that the word historiography itself has a very broad meaning and it includes many different types of writing. All one need do is to compare thoughtfully writers like Herodotus, Thucydides, Caesar, and Livy, to see that writing about the past comes in many forms. I added Caesar to the mix because he wrote commentaries, not histories, but they are useful in better understanding the history of his career, among other things.

Thucydides was doing something quite different from what Herodotus was doing, and consciously so. He writes about this in his history. So, to throw out a word like "historiography" is not especially useful without an accompanying definition. Sources must be used critically, with an understanding of their distinctive value and problems. We can't just say, "well, Herodotus (ca. 484 - 425 BC) was an historiographer, so what he says definitely happened." Thucydides would laugh you out of the room for saying something so stupid. Gee is still catching up to Thucydides (ca. 460 - ca. 395 BC), evidently.

[_Gadianton]

...

[_Kishkumen]

For anyone interested in the problems involved in ascertaining the value of the Roman Annales Maximi, there is a convenient resource in this paper on Academia.edu.

https://www.academia.edu/762825/Annales_Maximi_Writing_Memory_and_Religious_Performance_in_the_Roman_Republic

At the very least, this gives one a taste of the kinds of problems that are explored in these discussions.

[_Symmachus]

Kishkumen gets right to the heart of matter: Israelite historiography, yes, but what's the nature of that historiography?

If it is hard to put Gee on the map, it's because he doesn't distinguish between different kinds of historiography and thus he is all over the place. The putative Israelite annals would have been very different (to judge by other examples from the near east) from the Book of Kings, which in turn is very different from, say, a late Roman historian like Ammianus Marcellinus, who is in turn different from a modern historian like A.H.M. Jones or Peter Brown or G.M.E. de St. Croix, who themselves have very different approaches. But if you compare someone like de St. Croix to the writer of the Book of Kings, you'd be hard-pressed to explain how they are both doing "history" because they are so vastly different. Rather, you'd really have to qualify things in order to explain the difference. So, these qualifications and complications matter, but Gee would rather reduce them to a very simplistic scenario, where a few references to putative Israelite annals are supposed to prove that the writer Kings was trying to do history in a modern sense. It's all just "history" to him.

The same kind of thinking would make hagiography and biography synonymous and elide any differences between the approaches of Joseph Fielding Smith and Leonard Arrington, both of whom were officially "Church Historian" but only one of whom actually did any history and deserved that title for his work rather than his last name.

[_Gadianton]

Hi there Reverend,

Thank you for the additional information and the time taken away from your extensive academic duties to provide it, and of course the spirit of humility in which you provide it. For the record, I'm not exactly siding against Gee as my opinion is entirely irrelevant for one, but I'm not sure I even understand the various positions well enough even to hold an opinion. All I've said so far is I'm not finding a good fit for Gee's position, but that could be my lack of comprehension or happening upon the wrong books as I follow up from index cards and pull these dusty old volumes off the shelves nearly at random.

My problem is that the word historiography itself has a very broad meaning and it includes many different types of writing... So, to throw out a word like "historiography" is not especially useful without an accompanying definition...was an historiographer, so what he says definitely happened

Excellent point. This is one of several matters I've grappled with trying to follow along. I had discovered this book that at least in title, should be a dead hit for sorting out the spectrum that Bokovoy and Gee presumably fall upon, but it is proving difficult even as I expand to other sources. The book is In Search of History: Historiography in the ancient world and the origins of Biblical history by John Van Seters.

"History is the intellectual form in which a civilization renders account to itself of its past." Hunzingtons definition...

1. History writing is a specific form of tradition in its own right...

2. History writing is not primarily the accurate reporting of past events.

3 History writing examines the causes of present conditions and circumstances. In antiquity these causes are primarily moral...(It goes without saying, of course, that modern scientific theories about causation or laws of evidence cannot be applied to the ancient writer)

4 History writing is national or corporate in character. Therefore, merely reporting the deeds of the king may be only biographical...

5 History writing is part of the literary tradition...

So per your Herodotus example, I do not find "apologetic" examples of writers summarized who believe historiography in Israel is credible in the objective sense that the average believer would find satisfying. The "apologetic" examples are more nuanced, and closer to what David appears to believe. Here is the closest I found to Gee (granting the book is dated but my assumption is the basic positions haven't revolutionized in the last few years).

pg. 235

Another fundamental departure by Mowinckel is his quite different assessment of the role of "official" documents in the rise of history writing. He discusses the references in the books of Kings to the "Annals of the Kings of Israel"...and finds in these works a "popular and narrative 'edition'" of the official records which could then be used as a framework for the addition of other nonofficial materials. Consequently, Mowinckel asserts that "in the annals lies the point of departure for a historiography."..."It is a wellknown fact, that Israel is the only people in the whole ancient Near East, where annalistic writing develped into real historiography."...Mowinckel's explanation for why "real historiography" evolved in Israel but not in these other regions is the same as von Rad's "third predisposing factor," the theological orientation of Israelite historians.

Here is a view that perhaps matches Gee about the existence of annals and then some, but I could not see a takeaway that the resulting historiography was "objective" in nature, but better fits Bokovoy's overall point (sans the status of annals). Further, the "special" status holds the Israelites as having the greater sophistication (though the 'consensus' I supposed in my last post I now see is wrong).

Well, that's a start.

[_Kishkumen]

Greetings, Dean:

Thanks for introducing these materials. As you have noted, the spinning of annalistic lists of events and people into narratives is no guarantee of accuracy. Moreover, the lists themselves may not be free from tampering and thus completely reliable. I am interested in pursuing the matter further, but it seems to me that Gee is not really addressing the salient issues; all he is essentially affirming is the existence of a sophisticated literacy and scribal culture that emerged somewhere between the tenth and eighth centuries.

So what? What does that tell us about Jewish historical consciousness, philosophy, and methods? Not a whole lot. It tells us they were concerned about the past and wrote about it. There is a vast range of possible differences to be found in that territory. Gee has little to say about this. We would agree that these matters deserve careful consideration, but I may be more hesitant to ascribe a consciousness of history similar to the modern one to the learned people of Iron Age Israel.

Since my expertise is Ancient Rome, I find it easiest to illustrate the problems by using them as an example. Roman historical narratives often began with the legendary foundations of the city. The date of that foundation was a point of argument in antiquity, and even today we have no idea precisely when one could say the city was founded. Large scale urban structures developed between the 7th and 6th centuries BC.

The Annales Maximi, the lists of people and events, may have been kept from the end of the fifth century, but the city was sacked by the Gauls in the early fourth century, and much historical information may have been lost at the time. The first narrative history of Rome was probably Fabius Pictor's, and it was written at the end of the third century BC.

It is difficult to reconstruct Roman history before the third century with any degree of confidence, in spite of the existence of the Annales. Camillus, the hero of the early fourth century is practically a mythological figure, and has been treated as one by modern scholars, for good reasons.

Before the last half of the first century BC, we have no more than fragments of historical writing on Rome. When one compares the various ancient authors, one finds a great deal of difference in the details of accounts of even the most famous events. Look at, for example, the discovery of the books of Numa, which occurred in the first quarter of second century BC, or comfortably within the era of historical writing. How many books were found, how they were uncovered, and many other crucial details differ between the many ancient accounts.

Such problems make understanding exactly what happened and why extremely challenging. The fact that interpretations and even relevant facts differ significantly from one ancient source to another raises big questions about our ability to trust these sources to tell us accurately much more than the fact that Books of Numa came to light and were likely destroyed shortly after their discovery. Even the latter point has been questioned.

The propensity of Roman historians to think about their past through the lens of myth has prompted Professor T. P. Wiseman to explore the mythological thought present even in the historical writing of the imperial period. History was never simply a factual account of the past. It was always highly rhetorical, subject to manipulation, and filled with elements of myth and fiction.

Knowing this, I find it difficult to trust Iron Age scribes in Israel as purveyors of fulsome and accurate historical narratives.

[_Gadianton]

So what? What does that tell us about Jewish historical consciousness, philosophy, and methods?

Indeed Reverend, indeed. I am totally lost. However, Bokovoy apparently isn't.

I should like to emphasize the obvious: the epigraphic evidence demonstrates that elites in ancient Israel were writing during the Iron IIA (900-800 B.C.E.), Iron IIB (800-722 B.C.E.), and Iron IIC (722-586 B.C.E.). Thompson has written that "we cannot seek an origin of literature in Palestine prior to the eighth, or perhaps even better the seventh-century" (1992, 391). With all due respect to Thompson, I must state that his position is in direct conflict with the epigraphic evidence and I do not consider his position to be at all defensible.

Bokovoy responds: (or is it the other way around?)

This is not to say that “scribalism” did not exist in ancient Israel and Judah. Remember, the Bible itself is a compilation of scribal material from these two kingdoms. But it’s really from the 8th century onward that we encounter what Seth L. Sanders has illustrated constitutes a “unity and breadth of Hebrew.” During this era, the epigraphic evidence points towards “coherent” scribal training.

Perhaps like two masters of the game chess, Bokovoy and Gee bring out their knights and what to spectators is nothing but an ordinary beginning, to the masters, the possibilities for where the game can go have severely been restricted, and this early control of the board of great importance. A clue might be in the work of Thompson, which I have gotten only a glimpse of. A crude guess might be that a later date for a "scribal culture" increases the chance that the output of that culture will not reflect authentic traditions, whether that's due to the Assyrian conquest or something else.

Anyway, your examples of ambiguity in the Roman historical record are quite interesting, and I think I see your point that even granting the existence of source documents, the journey has barely begun. Perhaps the apologists put far to much weight in the hope minimal plausibility grants.

[_Kishkumen]

Anyone who is following the exchange between Bokovoy and Gee should read Bokovoy's latest post to get a sense of how problematic Gee's position is.

See http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidbokovoy/2015/01/william-schniedewind-on-scribalism-and-the-development-of-the-bible/

Some important quotes from Bokovoy's sources:

During the early Iron Age, the term Hebrew writing is problematic. It is better to employ a local geographical term like Israelite writing or a more general term like Levantine or Canaanite writing. Though the ancient Israelites undoubtedly had their own local dialects and speech communities, there is little evidence to suggest that they developed an independent writing system or scribal community.

The lack of drastic change over the relatively long period suggests no significant changes in administrative control systems to enhance agricultural production or security in response to other forces, whether from outside the society or within… There is no reason to posit scribal institutions of any kind for Israel during this period.

The reason these quotes are important is because Gee is contending that there is a strong, centralized scribal culture as early as the tenth century BC, which ought to fill us with confidence in the existence of a highly literate society with a reliable historical narrative. Unfortunately, the evidence to support such a position is lacking.

One more quote:

There is… no archeological evidence in Judah for a building that was dedicated to the training of scribes. There is no extensive discussion in the Hebrew Bible dealing with the training of scribes. The comparative evidence from the Near East would suggest that scribes were trained in family houses and that scribal training worked on an apprenticeship-type system. However, it is dangerous to rely to heavily on comparative evidence. From Mesopotamian, for example, there is extensive literary evidence about the edubba, the cuneiform scribal school, as well as the nature of the scribal training and curriculum. Egypt also had excellent evidence about scribes, their curriculum, and their training. Nothing like this exists in the archeological, epigraphic, or literary record for ancient Israel.

Gee, to the contrary, insisted that one could rely on comparative evidence. I was skeptical that we could rely on it to the degree Gee was suggesting, and I feel somewhat vindicated by Schniedewind's expert's view.

Anyway, I would highly recommend that anyone who is interested in this exchange read David Bokovoy's full blog post.

[_Kishkumen]

A crude guess might be that a later date for a "scribal culture" increases the chance that the output of that culture will not reflect authentic traditions, whether that's due to the Assyrian conquest or something else.

One ought also to wonder what the value of an authentic tradition is. An authentic Honda commercial may not tell me much about the workings of the car itself. It may instead be a highly stylized message that is intended to attract me to the car by building up its mystique.

Not all authentic traditions are of equal value. An historian, hopefully having many different evidences, weighs the different kinds of evidence and tries to arrive at the solution that best fits the fact pattern. The fewer the evidences, the more questionable their quality, the harder it becomes to arrive at an accurate and reliable picture of what actually occurred.

One is often better off talking about the response to, reception of, or evolving memory of events than trying to nail down exactly what happened, which can be very difficult indeed.

Anyway, your examples of ambiguity in the Roman historical record are quite interesting, and I think I see your point that even granting the existence of source documents, the journey has barely begun. Perhaps the apologists put far to much weight in the hope minimal plausibility grants.

You are too kind, Dean. It is what I could offer on the fly from my phone while watching my kids. But it seems that you were able to get the point anyway, so I must not have done too poorly. Yes, there are many considerations when it comes to weighing properly the value of different evidences. One must also find the best models to provide a kind of context in which those evidences find their best interpretation. We see that Gee very optimistically posits a robust centralized scribal culture operating in a world where a rich historiographical tradition already exists. We just happen to have later versions of those earlier reliable accounts. The model Bokovoy presents is of a non-centralized, more haphazard scribal culture--in short, a much more uncertain situation.

Remember, it could very well be that Gee strongly believes in the existence of a literary tradition that originates with Adam and probably passes down much like the tradition of plates in the Book of Mormon. If so, he needs there to be a robust centralized scribal tradition in existence long before the evidence really supports it. So he puts the most positive possible spin on the picture. Granted, it is not impossible. But, I would say that it is highly improbable.

And that is the problem that I have with most of these apologetic arguments concerning the antiquity of LDS scripture: they usually rely on these unique occurrences, best case scenarios, and so forth, in order to be plausible. At the end of the day, one is left saying, "well, I suppose it is not impossible for this to have happened." The person of faith may then say, "if nothing precludes me believing this, then I will continue to believe it." I am personally fine with that, even though it is not the only possible faithful response. It is also not my choice, but to each his own. Unfortunately, these slivers of possibility often exist in a pool of big problems that apologists are waiting to find routes to overcome.

My solution is to find a new way of thinking about these problems altogether. The classic-FARMS model of chipping at the history until one can find the possibly LDS-compatible solution is just not working. It was always a methodologically dubious approach anyway. Best to abandon it, I think.

[_Gadianton]

One ought also to wonder what the value of an authentic tradition is. An authentic Honda commercial may not tell me much about the workings of the car itself. It may instead be a highly stylized message that is intended to attract me to the car by building up its mystique.

I totally see your point and I have to agree. But I'm also trying to look at this from the apologetic perspective, and by that I don't just mean Gee, but faithful Bible students who have relevance to the field. And these little holdouts seem to be important. To give an example: these two chaps, Van Seters and Thompson -- and apparently Thompson was the Catholic equivalent to Michael Quinn career wise -- both rejected patriarchal traditions but Van Seters steps up the game in rejecting the existence of oral traditions entirely. In other words, where the standard faithful model has oral traditions about Abraham that are eventually preserved in writing and then copied or redacted over centuries by a professional institution of scribes, and we might doubt that any tale could survive the centuries and be anything but a tale, on the one percent chance that such a thing could happen -- as you yourself note in explaining apologist psychology -- there is still hope that there is truth to the story of Abraham, no matter how embellished. However, if we assume no oral traditions, then sans direct revelation to the scribes (as to Joseph Smith) then there is a zero percent chance that there is any truth to the story of Abraham. So from the apologist perspective, that stronghold might not be very strong, but if it's the last hope than it's the last hope.

David made a point that Van Seters (and no doubt a host of others) have made that what, the sun standing still in the sky for three days? Mana from heaven? a seven-day creation? For examples as these no one will win the day by proving a scribal culture existed for centuries with professional standards rivaling modern process controls for ensuring accuracy. And then he made the even more important point -- as Van Seters also -- that the internal consistency alone of the biblical books make them impossible to take as intended for objective history. So it would seem debating things like the dating of writing should be moot for salvaging faith in the conservative faithful version, but nevertheless, these things are apparently still debated as Gee's reference to Rollston shows. Perhaps as a Roman historian it might be more difficult to see how this would be possible, as no one has their faith tied to Roman myth.

Remember, it could very well be that Gee strongly believes in the existence of a literary tradition that originates with Adam and probably passes down much like the tradition of plates in the Book of Mormon.

I laughed out loud with moderate irreverence when I read this, but then I thought about it for a moment and I realized that you may very well be correct here and not exaggerating at all. I find reference to some work by LDS scholars regarding "the Book of Adam".