Philosophical Interpretations of the Old Testament

Seizo Sekine, J. Randall Short

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9783110340150
• eBook ISBN: 9783110374629
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

Western biblical studies have tended to follow either faith-based theological approaches or value-free historical-critical methods. This monograph challenges the two extremes by pursuing the middle path of philosophical hermeneutics. While drawing on Eastern and Western philosophical writings from ancient to modern times, the author proposes original interpretive solutions to a wide range of important biblical texts, including the Akedah, Second Isaiah, the Decalogue, Qohelet, Job, and Jeremiah. Yet, this is not a collection of antiquarian studies. Readers will also gain fresh and stimulating perspectives concerning monotheism, religious faith and identity, suffering and salvation, and modern and postmodern ethics. Finally, in a supplementary essay, the author introduces readers to the history of Old Testament studies in Japan, and he outlines prospects for the future.

Part I

The Old Testament and Philosophy

Chapter 1

Philosophical Interpretations of the Sacrifice of Isaac: Inquiring into the True Significance of the Akedah

Introduction

Allow me to begin my reflections in this chapter with personal memories concerning the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac as recounted in Genesis 22:1–19.⁴ Following convention, I shall refer to this account as “the Akedah” (the Hebrew for “binding”). When reading this story, I often recall the print of Rembrandt’s “Sacrifice of Isaac” that my late father, Masao, who devoted his life to Old Testament studies and Christian evangelism, hung in his study. Though it was an eerie painting to me as a child, as I grew and came to understand its meaning, I could not accept that I might have been killed for the sake of my father’s faith. I eventually left home to pursue Old Testament studies in Munich. Whenever I viewed the original of this painting during visits to the Alte Pinakothek, which was diagonally across from my dormitory, I was left dissatisfied. People should view it from Isaac’s perspective, I thought. Looking back, however, I realize that since I am my father’s third-born son there would in fact have been no obligation or right for me to have been offered up in the firstborn sacrifice. My father might have hung this painting as a memorial to his firstborn son, whom he lost shortly after birth in the midst of hardships while dedicating himself to evangelism. I did not have the opportunity to confirm this while my father was alive, but that is what I now think. Whatever the case, the story of this father who almost committed filicide is, for a son, terrifying.

Yet it seems that there is a general abundance of interpretations lavishly praising Abraham, who was on the verge of killing his son, without considering Isaac’s plight. The prime example is Sören Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. I would like to begin my interpretation of this baffling text, which is so tied up with my own personal memories, by considering whether his interpretation hits upon the nub of the text.

1 An Evaluation of Kierkegaard’s Interpretation

1.1 Kierkegaard’s Interpretation

Let us briefly review the interpretation of the Akedah in Fear and Trembling.⁵

Kierkegaard praises Abraham as a “knight of faith” in that “even after he sacrificed his own will he held on to it firmly,” “he was a man who hoped for the impossible,” and “he was a man who believed God.” Someone who merely relinquishes the finite for the infinite is a “knight of infinite resignation,” but someone who, after relinquishing it, is able to make the “double movement” of regaining what he has lost through the “strength of the absurd” is a “knight of faith.”⁶ Kierkegaard indirectly accepts Kant’s categorical imperative.⁷ (1) He states that while the ethical is universal, it may lead to a “teleological suspension.” ⁸ That is, from the standpoint of a higher religious objective, there are situations in which the ethical temporarily ceases to apply, such as when the ethically reprehensible act of killing a child becomes, under exceptional circumstances, religiously acceptable as a sacrificing of that child to God—that is Abraham’s “paradox of faith.” (2) Kierkegaard expresses this as an “absolute duty to God” and says that “in this tie of obligation the individual relates himself absolutely, as the single individual, to the absolute” and “relinquishes the universal.” ⁹ This is a “lonely path,” so (3) Abraham cannot be held ethically accountable for not divulging his intentions to Isaac and others.¹⁰ Rather, it is silence and secrecy that make a man truly great, and Abraham must be praised because he lived out this kind of faith that is “the ultimate passion in man.”

The above is a bare-bones view of the portrayal of Abraham in Fear and Trembling.

1.2 Westermann’s Critique

From the perspective of Old Testament studies, a commentary by Claus Westermann has cast doubt on Kierkegaard’s interpretation.¹¹ Kierkegaard was unaware of the problem of source layers, and so of course he could not even imagine literary-critical and redaction-critical problems arising from secondary additions and the like. Based among other reasons on the view that verses 15 – 18, which praise Abraham, are an addition from a later period, Westermann argues, however, as follows:

It is a misunderstanding of the narrative to hear it as the song of praise of a person … It seems to me … that when one refers the praise to Abraham (Kierkegaard), one has not understood the narrative … The narrative looks not to the praise of a creature, but to the praise of God [who saw the suffering].¹²

If we restrict ourselves to the original text, problems such as this arise in Kierkegaard’s interpretation. Yet is Westermann’s alternative conclusion satisfactory? Is praise of God the aim of this text?

1.3 Questions for Westermann

Let us reconsider now the God depicted in this text. Here, God is a god who commands bloody filicide (v. 2). Even if we suppose, with Kierkegaard, that God transcends the ethical and may require whatsoever he wishes, it is a contradictory god who on the one hand commands not to kill (Exod 20:13, etc.) and on the other commands filicide. What is more, perhaps God gave this command to test Abraham’s obedience (vv. 1, 12), and perhaps it stemmed from God’s jealousy of Isaac (Exod 34:14; Deut 4:24; 6:15; etc.). Furthermore, if it was “God’s plan from the beginning” that nothing happen to the child, as Westermann claims,¹³ and if Abraham believed all along that he would not lose Isaac, as Kierkegaard says,¹⁴ this is tantamount to Abraham seeing through this test by God from the outset. Although Westermann calls God the “God who saw the suffering,” this is only natural because it was God himself who gave the suffering in the first place, so it is not clear why he merits praise for taking away the suffering at the appropriate moment.

From this perspective, it seems there is no need to agree with Westermann’s conclusion. Instead, we must confront the text with our candid questions on its portrayal of God and then listen to the text’s response. If, then, we wish to understand the history of interpretation on this issue, above and beyond theological works that presuppose Christian faith (including those of historical-critical Old Testament scholars), we can find sustained interest in these questions in statements by philosophers who do not presuppose faith. That is why examining “philosophical interpretations of the sacrifice of Isaac” is the focus of this chapter. In fact, besides Kierkegaard, the concept of God in the Akedah has stimulated the thinking of Kant and many other modern philosophers down to the present day. Below, let us take a critical look at several leading interpretations.¹⁵

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2 Interpretations by Kant, Buber, Levinas, Derrida, and Miyamoto, and a Critical Summary

2.1 Kant’s Interpretation

In his 1798 Der Streit der Fakultäten (“The Contest of the Faculties”), Immanuel Kant refers to the Akedah and declares it impossible that a god who makes a demand such as this, which violates moral law, could be the true God. Kant makes the interesting statement that Abraham should have replied as follows:

The fact that I should not kill my good son is absolutely certain. But...

Table of contents

• Philosophical Interpretations of the Old Testament
• Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Explanatory Notes
• Abbreviations
• Introduction - Philosophical and Historical Interpretations
• Part I - The Old Testament and Philosophy
• Part II - Old Testament Thought and the Modern World
• Part III - The Prophets and Soteriology
• Part IV - Old Testament Studies in Japan
• Subject Index
• Author Index
• Ancient Sources Index