Text, Translation, Theology

Selected Essays on the Hebrew Bible

Bertil Albrektson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780754669081
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317045663
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Text, translation, theology - the three nouns in the title indicate the main fields of Old Testament study which are covered in this collection of essays. Text refers both to the history of biblical texts and to problems of textual criticism. Translation of the Hebrew Bible as a philological task is a central subject in several essays. Theology does not define what the essays are but what some of them are about: religious ideologies are objects of enquiry. Bertil Albrektson gathers together a selection of his essays, some of which have become classics, which were written on separate occasions and published in different, sometimes rather remote, places. They cover more than four decades of research, and for the first time they are now brought together in this accessible volume. Bertil Albrektson is a Swedish Old Testament scholar of international repute, awarded the Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies by The British Academy in 2003. His writing was characterized by the late Professor P.R. Ackroyd of King's College, London, as 'a model of learning, clarity and dry humour'. This volume offers a unique resource to current scholars of biblical studies.

1
The Background and Origin of the Theology of Lamentations

(1963)

1

As N. K. Gottwald has pointed out in the introduction to his Studies in the Book of Lamentations, the question of the theology of Lamentations has been treated in rather a cavalier fashion by scholars.1 Most works about this book have taken the form of commentaries, where the text is interpreted or paraphrased verse by verse, but where little or no space could be devoted to, for example, analyses of the leading ideas in the book or to its position within the theological traditions of Israel. Gottwald observes with justification that ‘this is the peculiar fate of the shorter Biblical books.’2 With the Book of Lamentations, moreover, the discussion has often been inseparably bound up with the problem of its authorship: the commentators, especially the older ones, have to a large extent devoted themselves to proving that Jeremiah either has or has not written the five laments on the destruction of Jerusalem.

Recently, however, the question has come to be viewed in a somewhat different light. The most important contribution is unquestionably Gottwald’s book, where the theological analysis of the Book of Lamentations is at the centre of interest. The most recent commentaries also usually devote a special section in the introduction to theological questions, even though such a treatment must naturally be fairly brief. Kraus, in the second, enlarged edition of his commentary, has introduced a paragraph with the heading ‘Zur Theologie der Threni’,3 and Weiser has a similar section in his commentary called ‘Die religiöse Bedeutung der Klagelieder’.4 The problem has also been touched upon by E. Janssen in connection with an attempt to sketch the spiritual state of Judah in the time immediately after the catastrophe of 587.5 It should also be mentioned that H. Wiesmann, both in his posthumously published commentary6 and in a number of smaller articles,7 has treated some of the theological problems in the Book of Lamentations. Gottwald’s criticism of these contributions, however, seems justified: ‘his treatment becomes highly speculative at points and seems frequently to be prematurely interested in relating the book’s message to Roman Catholic Theology.’8

In these works the emphasis lies generally on a characterization of the religious concepts that can be found in Lamentations – the treatment has thus more of a descriptive character. An excellent example of such a presentation is Kraus’ above-mentioned paragraph ‘Zur Theologie der Threni’. Under some main headings, those ideas and concepts that dominate the Book of Lamentations are summarized: ‘Gericht Gottes’, ‘Busse’, ‘Wendung des Geschicks’, ‘Jahwes Freiheit und Souveränität’. Again, Gottwald summarizes the message of the book in his two chapter headings ‘The Theology of Doom’ and ‘The Theology of Hope’.

When the main motifs in the teaching of the Book of Lamentations have been thus presented, however, the theological analysis is not yet complete. At least one important question remains to be discussed: that of classification. What is the origin and background of the message of the Book of Lamentations? It not only contains a description of the calamities, but above all tries to understand and make sense of the catastrophe of 587. Especially true of the Book of Lamentations is H. Butterfield’s characterization of the Old Testament as ‘the search for an interpretation of history which would embrace catastrophe itself and transcend the immediate spectacle of tragedy.’9 But he who attempted to elucidate the meaning of the disaster naturally started from some basic presuppositions which were implicit in his theological traditions, and which determined his method of interpretation. Of course Ancient Israel, from a theological point of view, was not a uniform milieu. On the contrary, one can distinguish different circles and groups of traditions, tendencies, and currents. And we are then faced with the question: where does the author of the Book of Lamentations belong? Which theological traditions form the background to his way of interpreting the catastrophe and the problems it presents? Which starting points, conscious or unconscious, does he have for his attempts to get a grip on the significance of what happened?

In the commentaries one can, of course, find certain suggestions about the direction in which one ought to look for the answers to these questions. One finds in them, however, rather vague reasoning along extremely general lines, often not directly connected with the discussion of theological problems, but with the question of the author, when the commentators are indicating, usually in brief, the circles within which we must look for the author of Lamentations. Haller, for example, writes that all we know about the authors is that though they were not themselves priests or prophets, they lived in the ‘Gedanken- und Gefühlswelt’ of these circles, and that certain features could indicate that they were temple-singers; but no positive conclusions are possible.10 Kraus’ suggestion is similar: the author(s) is (are) probably to be found in priestly or cult-prophet circles in Jerusalem.11 If Kraus points to a connection with the temple prophets, Rudolph, instead, emphasizes the similarities with the great prophets: the author is ‘Gesinnungsgenosse d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Place of Previous Publication
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The Background and Origin of the Theology of Lamentations (1963)
• 2 On the Syntax of היהא רשא היהא in Exodus 3:14 (1968)
• 3 Reflections on the Emergence of a Standard Text of the Hebrew Bible (1978)
• 4 Some Observations on Two Oracular Passages in 1 Sam. (1978)
• 5 Difficilior lectio probabilior: A Rule of Textual Criticism and its Use in Old Testament Studies (1981)
• 6 Etymological Semantics: Response to J. C. Greenfield (1993)
• 7 Translation and Emendation (1994)
• 8 Ezekiel 30:16 – A Conjecture (1995)
• 9 A Disputed Sense in a Covenant Context: On the Interpretation of Genesis 15:6 (2003)
• 10 Masoretic or Mixed: On Choosing a Textual Basis for a Translation of the Hebrew Bible (2007)
• Index of Biblical References
• Index of Authors