This is taken from the Anchor Bible Dictionary. It may be more than you want to read, but it is worth reading imo.
COVENANT. A “covenant” is an agreement enacted between two parties in which one or both make promises under oath to perform or refrain from certain actions stipulated in advance. As indicated by the designation of the two sections of the Christian Bible—Old Testament (= covenant) and New Testament—“covenant” in the Bible is the major metaphor used to describe the relation between God and Israel (the people of God). As such, covenant is the instrument constituting the rule (or kingdom) of God, and therefore it is a valuable lens through which one can recognize and appreciate the biblical ideal of religious community.
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A. Underlying Problems in Approaching the Topic
B. ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] Treaties
1. The Nature of Ancient Covenants
2. The Structure of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age Treaties
3. The Structure of Iron Age Loyalty Oaths
C. The Sinai Covenant
1. Formal Elements of the Sinai Covenant
2. Its Historical and Conceptual Context
3. History of the Sinai Covenant Tradition
D. The Divine Charter
1. The Nature of the Divine Charter
2. The Davidic Charter
3. The “Covenant” with Abraham
4. The “Covenant” of Noah
E. Covenant Traditions in the Prophets
1. Continuity of the Sinai Covenant
2. Reappropriation of the Davidic Charter
3. The “New Covenant”
F. Later Biblical “Covenants”
1. The “Covenant” of Josiah
2. The “Covenant” of Nehemiah
G. Other Covenant Traditions
1. The Covenant Banquet
2. Marriage as Covenant
H. Postbiblical Developments
1. Covenant in Early Judaism
2. Covenant in Early Christianity
I. Conclusion
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A.Underlying Problems in Approaching the Topic
At the outset it should be noted that two factors often inhibit the ability of many modern Western readers to appreciate fully the biblical portrayal of the covenant between God and Israel. The first is the problem of the so-called “sociology of knowledge” in the modern Western world. On the one hand, the English word “covenant” itself has largely fallen into disuse, and today is limited to certain highly technical legal matters. On the other hand, as a practical form of social organization and behavior, covenant-based relationships in the West have become almost obsolete, the fragile institution of marriage remaining the most noteworthy vestige of such relationships. Thus, one legitimate issue in the study of biblical covenant must be the extent to which modern and Western students of the Bible can conceive and imagine relationships built upon little more than promises reliably made and honorably kept.
The second is generally a problem associated ultimately with the “sociology of knowledge” in ancient Israel. How fully did the ancient Israelite scribes themselves understand what it meant to live in terms of a covenant? As we shall see, in the millennium during which ancient Israelite society and thought developed and changed, and in which the biblical documents were written, the same single term— beáréÆt —came to be used to refer to many different types of oath-bound promises and relationships. Therefore, any study of covenant in the Bible must be sensitive to the varying social and ideological contexts associated with different types of oath-taking, and it must also be prepared to make careful distinctions between different phenomena underlying the singular use of the Hebrew word beáréÆt. These phenomena may be roughly classified as “treaties,” “loyalty oaths,” and “charters.” Especially in the later periods of biblical history and in connection with the subsequent utilization of covenant imagery within early Judaism and early Christianity (see H below), it is also necessary to distinguish between covenants as socially enacted historical realities that were expected to bring about functional changes in patterns of behavior, and covenants as formal or symbolic dogmatic concepts that were supposed to be the objects of tradition and belief.
In the past century scholars have rarely been sensitive to such ancient phenomena, and consequently there has been much debate recently as to whether the biblical covenant appeared at the beginning of the history of ancient Israel (the time of Moses) as an adaptation of Late Bronze (LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] ) Age suzerainty treaty forms, or later during the time of the monarchy (introduced either by the classical prophets or by Josiah) as an adaptation of Iron Age “loyalty oaths” (both McCarthy [1973] and Nicholson [1986] embrace relatively limited perspectives on covenant and opt for its relatively late appearance in Israelite religion).
B.ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] Treaties
1.The Nature of Ancient Covenants. The large number of international treaties preserved in texts from all over the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] world is dramatic witness to the importance of covenants in ancient social and political life. See also TREATIES. For some periods, especially the Syro-Hittite LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age, these treaties constitute a major source of our knowledge of the ancient history of the region. As instruments for the creation and regulation of relationships between different social groups, they seem to have been universal in the ancient world. Even the Greek historian Herodotus regarded the forms by which a society established binding covenants as an important element in the description of that culture (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] Hdt. [Hdt. Herodotus] 1.74).
By their very nature, covenants are complex enactments. As complex acts they combine: (1) historical events that create relationships, usually (though not necessarily) between unequal partners; (2) customary ways of thinking characteristic of both parties, especially common religious ideas associated with deities; (3) descriptions of norms for future behavior (which are often confused with “laws” ); (4) literary or oral forms in which the agreement is couched; and (5) almost always some ritual act that is regarded as essential to the ratification of the binding promise. It follows that a covenant cannot be understood merely by regarding it as a rigid literary form, nor can it be understood by reducing it to a literary law code, a ritual act, or a theological or political idea or concept. Thus, most studies of OT [OT Old Testament] covenant in the past quarter century that have been delimited by one or another of such concepts have largely generated a great deal of unnecessary confusion.
Covenants in the form of international treaties appeared almost as soon as writing itself began to be used for literary purposes. From the EB [EB Early Bronze (Age); or Echter Bibel] Age at Ebla through the Iron Age a sufficient number of such treaties were recorded and have been preserved so that we can identify changes in the conventional contents and forms of treaties. It is highly probable that these instruments for the regularization of public relationships between sovereigns developed in prehistoric times from customary forms used for making behavior predictable between private persons. One such occasion for private agreements would be marriage contracts, and it is significant that marriage is one of the most pervasive and constant types of covenant throughout history.
Since covenants are typically enacted between parties to create relationships that did not previously exist, both the substance and the form of covenants must be valid and meaningful to both. Thus, covenants constituted a most important feature of ancient cultures that operated to transcend a narrow parochialism and so to prepare the way for a broader perspective on society and history.
As is the case in so many other features of ancient civilizations, it was the Bronze Age that produced the most highly developed structure of international treaties. Although these treaties are known primarily through Hittite sources, there is no reason to believe that the Hittites originated this treaty form. Since treaties are intrinsically cross-cultural in nature, the basic underlying patterns of thought incorporated in the texts would necessarily have been common property to most ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] cultures of the time. Note, for example, the (parity) treaty between HÉattusilis and Rameses II (ANET [ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3d ed. with suppl., ed. J. B. Pritchard, Princeton, 1969] , 199–203) which (however temporarily or ephemerally) was meaningful to both an Egyptian audience and a Hittite one. Indeed, the simple fundamental elements of the treaty structure are already found in a text from Byblos dating probably to the end of the EB [EB Early Bronze (Age); or Echter Bibel] Age (Mendenhall 1985, chap. 5).
2.The Structure of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age Treaties. The structure of treaties in the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age was fully described already in 1931 by V. Korosec, but it was not until 1954 that the extraordinary similarity to certain OT [OT Old Testament] traditions was pointed out (Mendenhall 1954a). Though there has been an enormous amount of discussion since that time, there still seems to be no consensus concerning the historical significance or even the validity of those similarities.
The “ideal structure” of LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Hittite treaties has been abstracted from numerous examples. It is not surprising that not every treaty exhibits all of the individual elements of the structure. The modern idea that all the covenants had to conform to some rigid form defined in advance is characteristic of a “strict law” type of legalistic mentality that not only is quite rare in the history of jurisprudence but also was probably foreign to the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] historical reality.
a.Identification of the Covenant Giver. This introduction to the treaty text typically begins with the formula “The words of . . . ,” followed by the name of the Hittite king, his genealogy, and his various titles, ending with the epithet “the hero.” The vast majority of the treaties preserved are suzerainty treaties in which the underlying ideology held that the great and powerful king was bestowing a gracious relationship upon an inferior. It followed, then, that the relationship of the vassal to the overlord had to be an exclusive one: the vassal could not engage in treaty or other relationships with other independent monarchs without being guilty of treason, and therefore becoming subject to the death penalty. (The similarity between this ideology centering upon the Hittite great king and the biblical monotheism seems obvious.)
b.The Historical Prologue. This section, in which the Hittite king recounted his past deeds of benefit to the vassal, is frequently so detailed and extensive as to constitute a major source for our knowledge of ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] history in this period. The motivation for this section was obviously not an academic interest in the past for its own sake, but rather to have that past serve as the foundation for the present obligation of the vassal to be obedient to the stipulations of the covenant. The implications of this element of the covenant structure are far-reaching, but it is difficult if not impossible to prove what those implications might have been. It can at least be suggested that certain concepts were presupposed as present in the minds of both parties to the covenant.
In the first place, the historical prologue is inseparable from the concept of reciprocity that is so prevalent in premodern cultures. The narration of the past history emphasized very strongly the benefits that the great king had already bestowed upon the vassal in the past. The implication is, of course, that the common decency of gratitude would place the vassal under obligation to comply with the wishes of his benefactor. The principles underlying this sort of relationship are illustrated by an old Arabic saying (which actually applies to persons who are equals in an egalitarian society): “If someone does you a favor, you never forget it; if you do someone else a favor, you never mention it.” (The latter part of the saying of course does not apply to a king or to a god, who is in the position to specify what he wishes.)
These prologues are not unrelated to the question of the origin of history writing in the ancient world (a subject surrounded by obscurity, mystery, and controversy). This is even more true of the biblical tradition. In view of the fact that the earliest literary materials of the Hebrew Bible (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , Exodus 15 and Judges 5) are poetic descriptions of the acts of God, we should consider more seriously the practical purposes associated with the treaty prologues as the ideological matrix from which the biblical historiography developed. In short, just as in the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties, so also even in the late repristination of the old covenant traditions of ancient Israel, the past was recounted for the specific purpose of instilling a sense of gratitude as the foundation and ground for future obedience.
c.The Stipulations. This section of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties, often phrased in the case-law format (“if . . . , then . . .” ), described the interests of the great king that the vassal is bound to protect and obey under the covenant relationship. Already in this section there is an implicit distinction between what might be termed public vs. private concerns. The imperial control over vassals involved no interest in the internal affairs of the vassal state other than the obvious one of suppressing or controlling subversive activities and elements that might disrupt the harmonious relationship between the vassal and his overlord.
d.The Provision for Deposit and Periodic Public Reading. This segment of the treaty is again surprisingly sophisticated. Deposit of a copy of the treaty in the temple was an act that now placed that treaty within the interests of the local deity and under its protection. In more modern terminology, the treaty and its contents were to be incorporated into the operating value system of the vassal state, and thus to be internalized as determinants of future behavior. To put it in simplest terms, the treaty was a sacred act and object. (As is often the case, there was undoubtedly a considerable difference between this official doctrine and practical reality.)
The provision for periodic public reading implies that although the treaty was formally established with the vassal king himself, nevertheless it was also binding upon the population over which he ruled. The treaty became a part of the public policy of the king and thus was integrated into the “law” of his kingdom. Interestingly enough, the frequency specified for the periodic public reading varied, but it was usually scheduled from one to four times a year. (It would be interesting to know whether or not these public readings coincided with local festivals, and therefore became part of a public ritual form, but no such information is so far available.)
e.The List of Witnesses to the Treaty. These treaties also typically listed those “third parties” who would witness the enactment of the treaty. It is of especial interest that the witnesses were exclusively deities or deified elements of the natural world. The list of deities was frequently so lengthy as to justify the conclusion that it was intended to be exhaustive: all gods relevant to both parties were called upon as witnesses, so that there was no god left that the vassal could appeal to for protection if he wanted to violate his solemn oath. It is especially amusing that often the “ >apiru gods,” i.e., even the gods of renegade rebel bands, were included in the list of witnesses.
The witnesses also included the heavens and the earth, and mountains and rivers, a fact of particular significance because the motif continues in the poetic and prophetic traditions of the Bible (Deuteronomy 32; Isa 1:2; Mic 6:1–2), but there is little if any trace of it in any other extrabiblical Iron Age covenant texts and ideologies centuries later. The witnesses were those entities that were called upon to observe the behavior of the party under oath and to carry out the appropriate rewards and punishments (the blessings and curses) connected with the treaty (see below). The fact that these enforcers are all supernatural beings reflects the underlying idea that in this covenant ideology strenuous (if not pretentious) efforts were made to place the entire covenant complex outside the realm of political and military coercive force, and into the realm of a voluntary acceptance of a commonality of interest between suzerain and vassal. In other words, there is expressed here the hope that the vassal’s obedience will be “self-policing,” i.e., based upon a conscientious regard for higher principles (the gods) than simply upon the fear of superior military force.
f.The Blessings and Curses. This section of the treaty text described in detail the consequences of obedience and disobedience with which the witnesses to the treaty rewarded or punished the vassal. Because the witnesses were the supernatural entities mentioned in the previous section, the blessings and curses were appropriately (in large measure) those experiences that are beyond normal human ability to predict, much less control. Particularly in this prescientific age the most important concerns of humanity were clearly beyond mortal control: health, productivity of fields and flocks and wives, and freedom from external violence. See also BLESSINGS AND CURSES. Thus the treaty made an inseparable connection between ethical adherence to promises made and the consequences of economic prosperity, freedom from disease, and tranquil long life. The text of the treaty typically concluded with this enumeration of the consequences of obedience and disobedience.
It is important to observe that the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaty formulas included not only punitive threats to be carried out by supernatural powers but also positive rewards of similar origin. This aspect of international treaties was normal in the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age, but later Iron Age treaties typically contained nothing but the curses (see B.3 below).
g.The Ratification Ceremony. It would be extremely naive to think that the mere writing of a treaty text brought into existence the treaty and the relationship it stipulated. Even today a treaty must be signed, ratified, or otherwise formally accepted before it can become binding. In antiquity, the formal ritual by which a covenant came into force had such a variety of forms and procedures that no generalization can be made. These formal rituals are the customs that Herodotus specified for the societies that he described. There is no reason to believe, therefore, that some specified rigid formality was always carried out—indeed, it would be unthinkable in view of the variety of cultures and societies that are involved in the dozens of treaties preserved.
One observation, however, is probably valid: the ratification of the covenant was frequently associated with the sacrifice of an animal. The significance of animal sacrifice in general is a complex and intractable subject, and the problem becomes even more complex when it takes place within the framework of covenant relationships. An Iron Age Assyrian treaty, however (ANET [ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3d ed. with suppl., ed. J. B. Pritchard, Princeton, 1969] , 532–33), makes perfectly clear that at that time and place (N [N north(ern)] Syria), the sacrificed animal represented, and was identified with, the vassal who was being placed under oath: just as the animal was slaughtered, so would the vassal and his dependents be slaughtered if he violated his oath. The same concept is attested for the earliest Roman covenant traditions (Mendenhall 1954a), so we may safely assume that this sacrificial identification was widespread in both time and space. Once the animal was killed, the vassal could expect the same fate if he violated his oath. Perhaps associated with sacrificial ritual as an enactment ceremony is the well-attested fact that covenants were often officially ratified by a common meal (see G.1 below).
It is characteristic of this period that the treaties do not contain a verbal oath formula. The oath is a conditional self-cursing: i.e., an appeal to the gods to bring certain penalties upon the oath taker if he violates the promise that he is swearing to keep. The sacrifice is thus the enactment of the oath; therefore, a verbal formula is unnecessary in the text of the treaty itself (though some such verbalization possibly accompanied the slaughter of the animal, as in the early Roman ritual).
h.The Imposition of the Curses. A final element in the entire covenant complex is one which, like the oath formula itself, is not provided in the treaty text but is implied at least by parallels from other cultures of the ancient world. This is the often delicate problem of imprecations and curses. Though there is no certain evidence for a ritual form that effectively imposed the curses for breach of covenant, it seems probable that such a custom did exist. Under what circumstances could a sovereign declare the curses to be in effect, thus depriving the vassal of the protection that the covenant relationship normally would provide? How flagrant must a violation be before the sovereign could legitimately muster his military forces and attack the recalcitrant vassal? Although the treaty texts themselves make no provision for such punitive action by the suzerain himself (this would negate the entire ideology of the covenant!), there must have been some means by which the suzerain could proclaim that the covenant no longer existed, and that the vassal therefore could be dealt with by force. In such circumstances, the suzerain could legitimately claim to be the agent of the avenging deities, since the actions of the deities themselves were evidently unreliable (and therefore insufficient). As the ultimate curse for the breach of covenant was the complete destruction of the vassal kingdom, the logical instrument for realizing such a historical event (in distinction from the curses of the treaty text that represent natural events) would be the suzerain himself.
3.The Structure of Iron Age Loyalty Oaths. The treaties that have become known in recent decades especially from the late Assyrian Empire reveal that structurally and ideologically they belong to a different world from that of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age (Parpola 1987; Grayson 1987). Gone is the historical prologue, except for one example, significantly enough, preserved in extremely rudimentary form in a treaty with an Arab political entity—a culture that we know also preserved Bronze Age linguistic structures. Gone also are most of the other sophisticated and elaborate elements of the treaty forms, such as the gratitude for previous benefits conferred, the blessings, and the provision for deposit and public reading. Instead, these Iron Age treaties give the strong impression that a promise to obey has simply been imposed by superior military force and is now being reinforced by an incredible elaboration of curses. Thus, these treaties have appropriately been termed “loyalty oaths” (Weinfeld 1976).
The structure of the Iron Age loyalty oaths known from Assyrian sources seems to have been very flexible, but usually it included these basic elements:
1. The preamble, giving the name and titles of the Assyrian king, and the name of the vassal who is placed under oath, together with his descendants and the population of his realm.
2. The designation of the Assyrian ruler or successor to whom loyalty is due.
3. The invocation of the deities in whose presence the vassal swears.
4. The definition of the acts of commission and omission that subject the vassal to the curses.
5. The curses, or evils, brought upon the disobedient vassal by each deity, some curses in mašal (“parable” ) form.
Compared with the treaties of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age, these of the Assyrian period are simplistic and one might say almost brutal. Although the text emphasizes the various ills to be brought upon the disloyal by the panoply of gods, the fate of the disobedient vassal is depicted quite tangibly by the Assyrian annals themselves (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , ANET [ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3d ed. with suppl., ed. J. B. Pritchard, Princeton, 1969] , 277–301). The ideological matrix of these loyalty oaths suggests that the only motivation for obedience was simply the self-interested desire to avoid the fate so graphically illustrated in the Assyrian texts and reliefs, in sharp contrast to the gratitude that was supposed to be the foundation of obedience in the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Hittite treaties. Thus almost all pretense of any transcendent moral or ethical foundations for the suzerain-vassal relationship was abandoned in favor simply of brute military force. Even the power of the supernatural forces to punish violation of oaths was of little importance compared with the vindictive power of the Assyrian king himself to do the punishing (in which some of these Assyrian kings at least seem to have taken a sadistic delight). It is ironic that a major purpose of the 7th-century treaties was to guarantee the succession of the designated heir to the Assyrian throne. The pathetic reliance on subjugated vassals to assure such succession is vivid witness to the internal hostilities within the Assyrian court itself.
In conclusion, the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] international treaties exhibit a sophistication and elaboration of concepts that were very largely lost during the Iron Age. In comparison, the treaties of the Iron Age seem to have been based mostly on mere military power reinforced by superstition. It must be observed, however, that the political instruments of the Hittite Empire were precisely that: political instruments. They were devised and adapted from the age-old common property of ancient cultures in the vain hope that they could bring about the voluntary subservience of peoples who in fact had been subjugated by military force. Although the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] covenant ideology certainly represented an admirable attempt to place cross-cultural relationships on a basis of something other than sheer military superiority, the brute facts of the historical evidence lead inevitably to the conclusion that Hittite foreign policy was exclusively military (Goetze 1957). The treaties, in other words, were imposed relationships in which the vassal had freedom to choose either capitulation under the covenant or annihilation; thus, the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties were instruments of propaganda, not of practical reality. Nevertheless, as instruments of propaganda they appealed to a different matrix of ideas than did the (equally propagandistic) loyalty oaths of the Iron Age.
C.The Sinai Covenant
The ongoing scholarly debate concerning the relationship between the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] suzerainty treaties and the biblical traditions depicting a “covenant” in Israel before the monarchy centers on one fundamental point: whether the Sinai covenant was indeed a historical reality known to the Israelite population in the premonarchic period (ca. [ca. circa (about, approximately)] 1200–1000 b.c. [b.c. before Christ] ), or whether it was instead nothing more than a pious literary fabrication of the later monarchic period, an attempt to “invent” a (fictitious) past (nevertheless) replete with religious “meaning.” If the former applies, then the relationship between the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties and the Sinai covenant traditions are historically significant, and one could justifiably conclude that the Sinai covenant was conceived to be a type of “suzerainty treaty” establishing Yahweh as king and Israel as vassal. If the latter applies, then any similarity between the Sinai covenant traditions and the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties is coincidental, and the real source of inspiration for the biblical idea of covenant must be sought either generally in the monarchic period, specifically at the time of the Assyrian Empire (ca. [ca. circa (about, approximately)] 750–620 b.c. [b.c. before Christ] ), or perhaps sometime in the postmonarchic period (after 586 b.c. [b.c. before Christ] ).
Here it should be stated unequivocally that all of the various elements of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] suzerainty treaties (presented above) in one way or another are either present or reflected in biblical traditions associated with the premonarchic (Sinai) covenant. But, as will be noted below, these traditions also bear the marks of later “creative writers” who embellished and reworked the traditions from the radically different perspective of the monarchic period. The first task is to delineate the formal elements of the premonarchic covenant, and then to establish the function that such a covenant could reasonably have been expected to perform in Israel in the century or two before the rise of the monarchy.
1.Formal Elements of the Sinai Covenant. a.Identification and Historical Prologue. The historical investigation of any cultural form must begin with the realization that forms are almost never transferred from one cultural context (such as the international political treaties of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age) to another (such as the hill-country tribes of early Iron Age Palestine) without some modification or adaptation inevitably resulting. This is the “Law of Functional Shift.” This principle is aptly illustrated in the first two formal elements of the suzerainty treaty: the identification of the covenant giver and the historical prologue, which have been fused together in the two forms of the Decalogue preserved in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 6. Unlike the “great kings” in the Bronze Age political treaties, the one God of Mosaic monotheism was not identified by heaping up divine epithets and attributes so characteristic of ancient polytheism; rather, at the very beginning God was simply identified in terms of what God had done: “. . . who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exod 20:2). The identification of the deity thus became synonymous with the historical prologue, and although the entire structure of the Sinai covenant represented a continuity with age-old patterns of thought, both the deity and the historical prologue represented a complete discontinuity from earlier ways of thinking. The historical event that was crucial to the identification of the deity became inseparable from the historical event of the establishment of the covenant itself. As Huffmon (1965) has shown, attempts made by some scholars to separate entirely the Exodus tradition from the Sinai covenant tradition are based upon a rejection of and, at the same time, a failure to understand both the biblical traditions themselves and the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] patterns of thought that underlie them.
Whether the name of the deity, Yahweh, was a continuation from some earlier tradition is a debated issue to which there is no clear answer (see YAHWEH); it is certain that if there was a god by this name worshipped earlier by some group, it could hardly have been associated with any of the well-known politically organized imperial powers or even city-states of the previous age. The suggestion that it was the name of a Midianite deity simply attempts to explain the obscure by the more obscure.
b.Stipulations. The biblical traditions insist that the text of the covenant established at Sinai (the stipulations) was the Decalogue, the Ten Words (Deut 10:4), and there is no modern evidence that would disprove the ancient information. Virtually all scholars agree that the original Ten Words were the simple prohibitions plus the two positive obligations of sabbath observance and honoring of parents (without all the elaborations that were added at a much later period). According to the Exodus 20 tradition, these were written on two tablets of stone, and contained only the first three of the elements of the suzerainty treaty described above. Some scholars have recently argued that the lack of other LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaty elements in this text is evidence that the Sinai covenant had nothing to do with the suzerainty treaty. However, this line of reasoning is fatuous because it attempts to draw a historical conclusion from an observation about mere literary forms: even if all the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] elements are not attested in the first 17 verses of Exodus 20 (they are not even all attested in many LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties!), virtually all of them are nevertheless reflected in the later elaboration of traditions associated with the Sinai covenant (see below). The most that one can conclude from the literary form of Exod 20:1–17 is that the author (or editor) responsible for its final canonical shape did not believe that he had to pattern the text of the Sinai covenant deliberately after LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] suzerainty treaties (if he even knew what they were), and felt that it was sufficient simply (1) to identify Yahweh formally (even though contextually this is unnecessary), (2) to restate what Yahweh did on behalf of Israel (again, contextually this is unnecessary), and (3) to list Yahweh’s Ten Words. What is surprising is not that the other LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaty elements are absent in this text but rather that v 2 is present, even though it could just as easily have been omitted. It was included precisely because the received tradition already linked item (3) above to items (1) and (2); the only explanation for this linkage is to be found in the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] suzerainty treaties.
The Ten Words are not commands, nor are they couched in command (i.e., imperative) language. They are simple future indicative verbs that indicate the future action that is the expected consequence of the preceding prologue: “I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt . . . , (and therefore) you will have no other gods before me . . . ,” etc. [etc. et cetera (and so forth)] Later biblical tradition itself was utterly confused in its interpretation of the Decalogue, and subsequent postbiblical interpreters have added to the confusion, ranging from the traditional pious view that the phrase “I am Yahweh your God . . .” is the first commandment, to very recent views held by many scholars that the Decalogue is a classical example of an “apodictic” (as opposed to the “casuistic” ) legal form. See LAW (FORMS OF BIBLICAL LAW).
The confusion continues with the interpretation of the statements themselves, which traditionally have been classified as three (or four) “laws” having to do with obligations to God (Exod 20:2–8), followed by seven (or six) “laws” of obligations to fellow human beings (Exod 20:12–17). Although this classification is admirable in intention, it has nothing to do with ancient religious reality. All of the stipulations represent those characteristics of human behavior that constitute the definition of the will of God: they describe the highest value, the “ultimate concern” of the community formed by covenant, for they are the principles upon which the one God directs the historical fate of the community.
c.Deposit and Public Reading, Witnesses, Blessings and Curses. It is true that the Exodus 20 text does not include the provision for deposit and peridic public reading, the list of witnesses, or the curses and blessings. However, it is most inappropriate to conclude that the Sinai covenant therefore had no connection with LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaty patterns, or that it was a later pious literary invention, or that the Decalogue was completely unrelated to covenant traditions. If these elements were truly absent from the complex of traditions about the very founding of the ancient Israelite community, it is indeed strange that in later times (when most of these elements had been completely forgotten in the process of ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] treaty enactments) some biblical scribes felt it necessary to add them to the complex of the Mosaic tradition.
Since early Israel did not have a temple in which to deposit the text of the covenant written on the tablets of stone, the tablets were deposited in the ark of the covenant (according to numerous variants of the tradition even in Exodus alone). Note also the formal deposit of a text in a “sanctuary” in Josh 24:26. Periodic public reading is not directly attested, but it is certainly implied in ritual customs, such as those described in Exod 23:17 and Deut 27:11–26; and practiced in late OT [OT Old Testament] times and early Judaism (“The recitation of the Shma> is the rabbinic covenantal renewal” [Levenson 1985: 86]). If these traditions did not ultimately derive from the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] /early Iron Age, from whence did the later Israelite scribes derive these motifs, and why would their later audiences find them meaningful?
The list of gods as witnesses was of course incompatible with the monotheistic community, and so the members of the community themselves became the witnesses (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Josh 24:22, but also v 27 where the stone is a witness; later tradition evidently did not quite know what to do with this otherwise bizarre but inherited element of the treaty structure). Thus the enforcers of the covenant became the members of the community themselves (when Yahweh’s enforcement became regarded as not sufficiently predictable, or when it was believed that God was not sufficiently concerned to carry out the duties of reward and punishment [cf. [cf. confer, compare] Zeph 1:12]); consequently, the stipulations of covenant became socially enforced law. Again, if this tradition of witnesses was not derived ultimately from the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] /early Iron Age, what would inspire some later scribe to introduce otherwise awkward references to them?
The blessings and curses were enormously elaborated in Deuteronomy 28. In this late elaboration the blessings were enumerated in only 14 verses, while the remaining 68 verses enumerate in vivid detail the curses resulting from breach of covenant. At the later (Assyrian?) period when Deuteronomy 28 was composed, the multiplication of curses is not at all surprising (see MANASSEH); what is surprising in that later milieu is that any blessings were enumerated at all, something that could not have been predicted from the structure and content of the Assyrian loyalty oaths (see B.3 above). It is difficult to imagine how an Israelite scribe of that time could invent the covenant idea and include blessings; rather that element of the covenant tradition already had to have been preexistent in the earliest biblical tradition, and therefore at the disposal of the Deuteronomic writer (and also of the Priestly writer, who similarly wanted to append a list of blessings and curses to his distinctive version of covenant obligations [Leviticus 26]). On the other hand, the multiplication of curses that we find in Deuteronomy 28 (and Leviticus 26) represents later elaboration of a tradition similar to that which is universally found in the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] (Hillers 1964). Though the text of the Decalogue (Exod 20:1–17) does not refer to either blessings or curses, the latter are implied in the narrative accounts that refer to sacrificed animals (“oxen” according to a later embellishment—inappropriate to a desert environment) and to a common covenant meal with Yahweh (Exod 24:4–8, 11).
d.The Ratification Ceremony. This seems to have two elements, the first a verbal assent to the covenant (“All that the Lord has spoken we will do,” Exod 19:8; 24:3; cf. [cf. confer, compare] Josh 24:24 for a quite different formula), and the second a ritual act involving the sacrifice of an animal, the blood of which is thrown upon an altar and upon the people (Exod 24:5–8). The latter was a symbolic action in which the people were identified with the sacrificed animal, so that the fate of the latter is presented as the fate to be expected by the people if they violated their sacred promise (i.e., it is a form of self-curse). Thus the ratification ceremony was, in effect, the pledging of their lives as a guarantee of obedience to the divine will. (In time the ratification ceremony simply became a ritual form signaling membership in the ritual society; i.e., circumcision.)
Traces of other ratification ceremonies or covenant enactments have been preserved in later biblical traditions about the premonarchic period, but nevertheless these narratives correspond entirely to what might be expected in the process of the formation of the twelve tribe federation. Most important in this regard is the narrative in Joshua 24 that reproduces much of the content of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] suzerainty treaty. It contains an elaborate historical prologue (of course in much later language, vv 2–13), an emphasis upon witnesses (the people themselves, v 22; but also the inscribed stone, v 27), and the warning of the curses of divine wrath in case of disobedience (v 20). (Entirely consistent with the late date of this garbled account is the fact that the blessings are entirely absent.) The formal verbal acceptance by the gathered population is accompanied by a brief recapitulation of the historical prologue (vv 16–18), and the stipulations are identified with the “statutes and ordinances” that Joshua wrote in the “book of the law of God” (vv 25–26).
Although the language is much later and the chapter does not reproduce the text of the treaty, Joshua 24 is a narrative description of a covenant enactment. In fact, in its present form the narrative is anachronistically modeled somewhat after the reform of Josiah and the Iron Age “loyalty oath” that was characteristic of that time (see F.1 below). The character of Joshua is a sort of literary prototype of Josiah, and the population is represented as having fallen away from Yahweh, as they had in Josiah’s day. But the original event of Joshua’s time was that covenant enactment by which various population groups of Canaan proper (who had escaped the collapse of LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age civilization) formally became members of the Yahwist confederation, and thus the “tribes” of Yahweh. Other features of Josiah’s reform that were read back into the time of Joshua include the identification of the covenant stipulations with a written law code (a confusion that is perpetuated to the present day) and the emphasis upon the Abrahamic tradition (vv 2–4, 14–15) that was essential to Josiah’s claim to rule over all the land of Canaan (after three centuries during which the Jerusalem regime governed only Judah).
The ritual of the recitation of the blessings and curses from Mts. Ebal and Gerizim in Deut 27:11–26 was probably a part of the Shechem covenant enactment recounted in Joshua 24 (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Josh 8:30–35, esp. [esp. especially] v 34), although the present form of the tradition has completely severed any literary connection between the two, probably because the Deuteronomic tradition had become associated with the commands of Moses. The passage in Deuteronomy plus several others may well contain remote reminiscences of the fact that there had also been a covenant ceremony in Transjordan at the time of Moses, by which population groups of that region had become members of the Yahwist federation. This tradition of a Transjordanian ratification in Moses’ latter days is perhaps also reflected in Deut 27:9 “Keep silence and hear, O Israel: this day you have become the people of Yahweh your God” (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Deut 32:6, 18).
e.Formal Procedures for Violation of Covenant. Just as later biblical texts such as Joshua 24 preserve certain premonarchic covenant elements discussed above, so they also unwittingly preserve the element pertaining to procedures in case of covenant violations. The narratives of Exodus and Numbers give many illustrations of procedures taken against such violators during the lifetime of Moses himself, but because these are embedded in the late Priestly narratives marked by substantial literary embellishment, it is very difficult to evaluate them historically. Nevertheless, even the very late literary (“envelope” ?) structure of the Priestly motif of the “murmuring in the wilderness” illustrates the continuity of this ancient element: the people’s complaints about lack of food and water while on the way to Sinai (Exod 15:22–17:7) characteristically induce Yahweh to respond favorably, but when they complain about the same things on the way from Sinai (Numbers 11; 14; 16) Yahweh characteristically punishes them. Why this reversal?
All historical considerations aside, it is evident even at the literary level that the Priestly writer believed that the status of the people was changed at Sinai (i.e., there they became subject to the covenant): consequently, they can no longer be viewed as being in “dire distress” but now rather in outright “rebellion.” Therefore the way in which Yahweh (or the narrator) deals with Israel has changed: Yahweh no longer is portrayed as soliciting a relationship by multiplying favors that could potentially be listed in a covenant’s historical prologue; he is now depicted taking punitive measures against those who have violated their covenant obligations. Murmuring (grumbling) against an overlord constituted violation of covenant in the Hittite texts, and it is listed (using the same verb, luµn ) in a syllabic text from Byblos (ca. [ca. circa (about, approximately)] 2000 b.c. [b.c. before Christ] ) as the acts against a sovereign that will result in a curse (Mendenhall 1985: 60). Thus, while the Priestly authors of these late biblical texts felt quite comfortable viewing the Sinai event as Yahweh’s license now to punish “murmurings,” they were probably completely unaware that this religious motif associated with covenant ultimately went back at least to LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] notions about formal procedures for dealing with covenant violations.
2.Its Historical and Conceptual Context. The foregoing discussion by no means exhausts the formal similarities between the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] suzerainty treaties and the complex of traditions associated with Israel’s premonarchic covenant. Yet in the final analysis the formal links are not the only connections, nor are they necessarily the most important ones (they are simply the ones that modern scholarly method is best equipped to handle). But studies that deal merely at the formal level will inevitably miss an important part of the historical process. Perhaps more important are the substantive links between the ideological matrix of those LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties (i.e., their rhetorical appeals to a common interest between suzerain and vassal, and to concepts such as the integrity of promises and the obligations of reciprocity) and the range of biblical concepts associated with the Sinai covenant relationship (such as the “knowledge” of God, the “love” of God, the “fear” of God, righteousness, mercy, justice, repentance, divine wrath, retribution, vengeance, forgiveness, salvation, etc. [etc. et cetera (and so forth)] ). Thus, in the absence of any evidence that early Israelite society was defined by any ritual (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , “amphictyonic” ) or political organizations—and excluding outright the later and artificial biblical construct of an Israelite unity mystically based on some primordial blood kinship—the conclusion seems inescapable that early Israel existed largely because such an ideological matrix ceased being mere political rhetoric and became, however imperfectly and temporarily, the functional basis of community life for a vast diversity of villages in Palestine and N [N north(ern)] Transjordan. Our task here is to delineate that process and ideology, and to trace its subsequent development.
The context of the Sinai covenant was that of an extremely traumatic period in the history of the then civilized world, namely the transition from the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age to the early Iron Age (ca. [ca. circa (about, approximately)] 1250–1150 b.c. [b.c. before Christ] ). After having been regarded for centuries as divine institutions ruled ultimately by gods or semigods, empires and states were crumbling and eroding, if not being altogether abandoned and destroyed. The attendant economic and demographic chaos is clearly attested or inferable from the historical and archaeological record. The heartland of the ancient Hittite Empire in central Anatolia was almost entirely depopulated (and would remain so for the next three centuries), and much of Syria experienced a significant drop in population that would not be recovered until much later in the Iron Age. But precisely at this time Palestine and Transjordan experienced a very rapid rise in population (this period also reveals the first settlements in the adjacent regions of the NW [NW northwest(ern)] section of the Arabian Peninsula contiguous to Transjordan). The only conceivable source for this sudden rise of population was the region to the N [N north(ern)] whence came the Philistines, the “Sea Peoples,” and no doubt many Arameans, to name only some identifiable groups. To add to the chaotic conditions of this period, the old power centers of the Canaanite cities were either drastically reduced or destroyed, and considerable segments of their population probably moved into the hill country, establishing new villages. See “Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement” under ISRAEL, HISTORY OF.
Such calamitous events cannot have taken place without an equally traumatic questioning and abandonment of the moral and religious as well as economic systems that undergirded those political institutions, although this is not so well attested outside the biblical record with its bitter condemnation of Baal-worship. This situation furnished an extremely favorable climate for the introduction and initial acceptance of different and “better” ways of envisioning and structuring life in a community that could not possibly be a mere continuation of the old that now lay in ruins.
The only surviving articulation of such a “better” way is that realized in the ancient Israelite covenant, which was initially enacted by a group of fugitive slaves led by Moses, presumably at a place called “Sinai.” (Exodus 20–24 of course contains a very complex interweaving of much later, much garbled, and much embellished accounts of what actually transpired there.) The new understanding of the nature of deity and of the course of human experience, both of which were associated with this covenant, also proved attractive to much of the population of Palestine and Transjordan, who in the course of the previous two generations had witnessed the demise of virtually every venerable Bronze Age institution while managing to survive the wholesale destruction of cities and the ravages of war, epidemic disease, famine, and violent death. Thus, for many of these people the ancient Israelite covenant provided a framework within which they could effectively dispose of any lingering attachments to the old order now in ruins, and enact for themselves a new order of community and of self-understanding as the “people” of a transcendent God. Their enactment of the covenant apparently occurred at Shechem (again, Joshua 24 is a much later and distorted account of this event).
Given all that has been said above, and given the probability that there was no place in the ancient civilized world where the political ideology of empire and its mythological legitimation were unknown, the ancient Israelite understanding of a deity who ruled without a human intermediary and his standing contingent of soldiers and tax collectors was very welcome, and it was an understanding that was proclaimed ironically in a formal way similar to that of the old political suzerainty treaties. However, unlike those old and failed political policies, these of the new Sovereign were ones which met the needs of the population of the village farmers and shepherds that he governed: namely, the value and dignity of persons regardless of their social and economic status, the predictability that follows from reciprocity and fairness in their interrelationships, and the reliability of the peace that would result (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Isa 32:17). Regardless of how practically these “policies of the new King” could be implemented, they nevertheless furnished an ideological matrix on which a broad and functional unity of hill-country tribes could be based.
For example, it is clear that most of the stipulations of the covenant (the Decalogue) represent the concerns that individuals in community legitimately expect in normal civilized human life (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , no lying, killing, stealing, adultery). The first two “commandments” are so specifically relevant to the historical situation of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] /early Iron Age transition as to present difficulties for religious communities ever since. What was (and is) meant by “other gods” remains a perennial and insoluble problem in the history of religion (and in the modern ecumenical movement). However, the contrast to the one God, Yahweh, was clear and absolute ca. [ca. circa (about, approximately)] 1200 b.c. [b.c. before Christ] The “other gods” could hardly be anything other than the parochial symbols of existent political or tribal entities; Yahweh was the deity who represented concerns beyond the immediate interests of any petty political or tribal group, and who thus opposed the elevation of any political power structure to an object of worship wherein its policies took precedence over all other concerns, especially ethical ones.
Likewise the prohibition of “graven images,” etc. [etc. et cetera (and so forth)] , represents an ancient iconoclastic movement that was a necessary corollary to the antimonarchic theology of the early Israelite movement. Such images, including those of gold and silver mentioned in Exod 20:23, were largely the product of the urban political establishments that were being destroyed; evidently these “images” were not highly valued anywhere in the E [E east(ern); or “Elohist” source] Mediterranean at the time. The graven images were essentially symbols of legitimacy for ancient political regimes in which the differences between gods and kings were always problematic and vague. As such, the images were incompatible with the value system of a community based not upon a monopoly of force but upon an ethical and moral consensus. But perhaps it is the final “commandment” that most powerfully underscores the fact that the morale of the early Israelite community (i.e., its ability to act consistently over a period of time and to meet crises effectively) was not dependent upon any political instruments of social control: how can any human control system hope to legislate against covetousness?
Thus arose the celebrated biblical “monotheism,” the product not of philosophers and technical theologians but of people who could plainly see that the careful adherence to the stated will of a single God could guarantee community morale only if other competing value systems (represented by “other gods” ) were rejected as thoroughly as is humanly possible. In turn, this value system could become an operative and tangible reality only so long as a sufficient number of people accepted the suzerainty of Yahweh, so that together they could offer one another some measure of protection and security from those whose value systems were still symbolized by the old state idols of pagan imperialism. The idolatry of the political state and its symbolism of “graven images” of Baals and kings were incompatible with the sovereign rule of Yahweh (i.e., the kingdom of God).
3.History of the Sinai Covenant Tradition. Of course, we should legitimately question the extent to which such a LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] /early Iron Age enactment (i.e., such a premonarchic covenant) actually succeeded in exorcising old attachments and in effecting a new self-understanding. For some it no doubt did succeed both deeply and permanently, and at least enough people were sufficiently committed to it so that this “religious experiment” functioned reasonably well for somewhat more than a century. But even later biblical traditions about the ensuing periods of the judges and the kings are quick to point out how many Israelites “fell back” into the old pagan ways. But the crucial point is that at one time in history, in the absence of any competing sociopolitical organizations, such a covenant was the practical and functional norm of Israelite self-definition. As such, this covenant would leave a lasting (indeed a permanent) imprint on Israelite traditions and self-understanding, even though at specific times and in particular places (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , Jerusalem during the monarchic period) it either failed to have a decisive impact or was grossly distorted.
Nevertheless, even centuries later in Jerusalem the Deuteronomistic Historian, attempting to “reconstruct” a premonarchic period that he little understood, could be found characteristically describing Israelite apostasy in the same sentence that he would mention the past favors of Yahweh (Judg 2:12; 8:33–35). The net effect of this juxtaposition is to characterize the Israelites not simply as sinners but as ungrateful sinners. Even though the language of these passages is unquestionably Deuteronomistic and therefore quite late, this motif juxtaposing covenant violation with past favor reflects an ideological matrix quite foreign to the Iron Age loyalty oaths, and quite at home in LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age treaties. The only conclusion is that this motif was already deeply embedded within traditions about the premonarchic period centuries before it fell into the hands of the Deuteronomistic Historian, and that the latter had little choice but to pass it on. If he considered it important to characterize Israelite covenant trespass in terms of ingratitude (and apparently he did; cf. [cf. confer, compare] 2 Kgs 17:7, 35–40; 21:15), he got this idea not from the Assyrian loyalty oaths of his day but because he learned it ultimately from the old Israelite traditions themselves.
Because both the form of Assyrian loyalty oaths and the ideological matrix to which they appeal is radically different from that of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties, two major problems would arise if we accepted the recent argument that biblical covenant concepts originated later under the influence of these loyalty oaths. First, how do we account for the presence of certain LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaty elements in the biblical tradition complex, treaty elements that are not present in the Assyrian loyalty oaths (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , the historical prologue and the blessings; see C.1.a and C.1.c above)? Second, how did there arise in Israel a matrix of covenant ideas not reflected in the Assyrian loyalty oaths (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , the motif of a relationship based on gratitude and a sense of obligation to values shared by suzerain and vassal alike)? Or if these covenant elements and ideas arose later than the Assyrian period, how and from where did they emerge?
On balance, more problems are solved and fewer ones are raised by acknowledging that Hebrew covenant ideas emerged with the formation of the society itself in the premonarchic period and were adaptations of patterns of thought that even then were already centuries old.
This is not to say that this premonarchic covenant tradition was unaffected by the proliferation of Assyrian loyalty oaths of the later Iron Age. The extent to which the state of Judah was thoroughly integrated into ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] culture is indicated by the fact that these Assyrian loyalty oaths did have an impact on how some Judeans (particularly in the Jerusalem royal establishment) came to think of their own covenant traditions. In short, over the course of the Iron Age the tradition that God had established a covenant with Israel at Sinai (and at Shechem) was revised and transformed in such a way as to erase gradually (but not completely) the increasingly archaic suzerainty treaty features of that covenant. In the process this Sinaitic tradition was reformulated more along the lines of the prevalent oath-taking procedures of the later period (reflected particularly in the increasing emphasis on curses). In fact, it was precisely this late misunderstanding and reformulation that has led some scholars recently to the mistaken conclusion that the Israelite covenant tradition was actually created in this historical context of the Assyrian Empire and derived from its loyalty oaths. It is probably true that the concept of covenant obligations to Yahweh was not taken seriously by the political establishment of either Israel or Judah until the ephemeral attempt of Josiah to return to the past (see F.1 below), but it is simply wrong to conclude on this basis that earlier traditions of covenant did not exist, particularly outside the royal establishment. Some of those earlier covenant features are still reflected imperfectly in those later texts (see C.1 above and E [E east(ern); or “Elohist” source] below), a fact that cannot be explained away by appealing to some Iron Age “inspired creativity.” See also MOSAIC COVENANT.
D.The Divine Charter
1.The Nature of the Divine Charter. A charter is, among other definitions, “a written grant of rights by a sovereign.” This definition (deriving ultimately from English political history) applies remarkably well to three biblical themes that have traditionally been regarded as “covenants,” but which now should rather be reclassified as “charters.” (Even in modern American usage, the term “charter” has also come to mean “pact, treaty” among other things.)
The term “charter” is used here to refer to a number of ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] and biblical motifs wherein a deity or group of deities presents some special privilege, power, or status to a human being, almost always a king. There does not seem to be any specific literary form involved; rather the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] charters are mythological statements about the actions of the gods who characteristically confer the power of kingship upon a successful warrior. The historical background of such concepts is doubtless to be found in military history. The king had succeeded in expanding his economic and political power over realms remote from his home base (which was usually a city-state). In such circumstances, his legitimacy could not possibly rest upon the will of the governed (including the conquered!); now it had to be presented as being based upon the decision of the supernatural powers—especially those identified with his home base.
In the order of their emergence in the developing biblical tradition, these three “charters” are the promise to David (2 Samuel 7), the “covenant” of Abraham (Genesis 15), and the “covenant” of Noah (Gen 9:8–17). Only the latter two narratives specifically designate the divine promise as a “covenant.” Although the promise to David is not termed a “covenant” (beáréÆt) in the narrative of 2 Samuel, it is so designated in the associated traditions (and doubtless royal rituals) recorded in Psalm 89 (see vv 28 and 34; cf. [cf. confer, compare] also 2 Sam 23:5). See also DAVIDIC COVENANT. This use of the word beáréÆt to include now a unilateral divine promise has resulted in enormous confusion in the modern scholarly world, as it probably did in the ancient world as well. (This is another example of the confusion that results from a failure to recognize the fact that verbal classifications often bring together into the same category very diverse historical phenomena simply because they share some important formal trait—in this case the fact that a promise is supported by a sworn oath.)
In all three of these biblical traditions—in sharp contrast to the Sinai covenant—it is God, not human beings, who is bound by oath. In all three, some promise is given: first to David and his dynasty (that they would enjoy perpetual rule, 2 Sam 7:12–16), then to Abraham and his offspring (that all Israel would possess the land, Gen 15:18–19), then to Noah and all those on the ark (that all creation need never fear another flood, Gen 9:8–11). The three exhibit an increasing (and very important) transition from covenant as a historical enactment that furnished the foundation of a community to a simple ideological (or theological) assertion. The first two especially presuppose not only an existing religious community already ostensibly in a relationship with Yahweh, but also a specific sociopolitical and economic organization that is given legitimacy in the context of the existing historical situation. In other words, unlike the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] treaties and the Sinai covenant, nothing really new is created in any of these “charters” ; they are all merely ideological legitimizations of the existing status quo—an expression in traditional theological terms of the value system of the dominant power structure that in the first place created the narratives and in the second place profited by their claims.
The source of this political/religious “charter” tradition is not far to seek (Weinfeld 1970). The old Amorite theory of kingship must certainly have had an elaborate ideology concerning this divine charter. It is specifically stated in the prologue to the Code of Hammurapi (ANET [ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3d ed. with suppl., ed. J. B. Pritchard, Princeton, 1969] , 164–65), and is illustrated on that famous stele as well as elsewhere in ancient Mesopotamian and in Iron Age Syro-Hittite art. Always it is the deity of the king who grants to the king the symbols of sovereignty, for he is the “chosen” one of the committee of gods who in the first place established the kingship as a divine institution.
2.The Davidic Charter. In view of the significant Amorite cultural influence in the city of Jerusalem itself (Ezek 16:3), there is little reason to doubt that the prophet Nathan, in proclaiming the divine promise to David (2 Sam 7:1–17) at the outset of the monarchic period, was simply applying the age-old Amorite political theology of Jebus (now Jerusalem) to its new king (and now in the name of the new king’s god, Yahweh). The historical conditions that brought about this fateful ideological development are clearly described, but typically the connections are not delineated—the ancient writer assumed that everyone knew these connections.
David had first become king by two distinct covenants enacted by the two major demographic groups of ancient Israel (each accompanied by the attendant rite of anointing): first with Judah in the S [S south(ern)] (2 Sam 2:4, though no covenant is specified), and subsequently with the elders of Israel in the N [N north(ern)] (2 Sam 5:1–3; clearly a suzerainty treaty in form!). Though it is precarious to draw conclusions from the very slight hints of evidence that we have, it is possible to argue that the ritual act of anointing signified the transfer of authority from a superior to his designated agent. For this reason, David’s authority over all of the tribes of Israel had been confirmed by covenant.
There were two reasons it was politically necessary subsequently to promote an additional divine covenant that superseded these earlier tribal covenants. First, there had to be some ideological resolution of the latent conflict between the N [N north(ern)] and S [S south(ern)] tribes. Both groups in the first place presumably existed because of a prior commitment to Yahweh. Despite this, the narrative goes out of its way to emphasize the fact that the old antagonisms between them continued. Subsequently, however, each group on its own had presumably sworn allegiance to David; although it was an allegiance that could be abrogated for good cause (see 1 Kgs 12:16), both had nevertheless agreed on one fundamental thing: David should rule. Thus, common sense led to the inevitable conclusion that only in the king could the regional, tribal conflict be transcended: this king must therefore represent the will of Yahweh, who would want his people to be one. Nothing would so powerfully affirm this conviction as would Nathan’s oracle (2 Samuel 7).
Second, as a result of his military conquests David now ruled over a population comprising far more than the original twelve tribes of Yahwist villagers. His realm now included most, if not all, of the old lowland Canaanite urban power centers that had never been incorporated into the community of Yahweh, and only now were beginning to recover from the ravages of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] /early Iron Age transition period. These populations (as conditioned as they were to the inevitability and the propriety of ritually reinforced political organizations) could not possibly have had any understanding of the Mosaic tradition, or necessarily any sympathy with its belief that community can proceed directly from the will of God unmediated through ritual or political organizations. Since David and his son-successor Solomon could not afford to alienate further these subjugated peoples, it proved fortunate that in the religious ideology of Jerusalem there existed a type of (Amorite?) sanctification of political authority that David and Solomon could promulgate and that the non-Yahwist populations could comprehend (however grudgingly). This ideology persisted in Jerusalem for centuries after the death of Solomon, and we have every reason to believe that after the schism of 922 b.c. [b.c. before Christ] a similar type of ideology was adapted also in the N [N north(ern)] kingdom to legitimize the various regimes that ruled there over the next two centuries.
Thus the divine charter to David was introduced in an attempt to transcend these two political antipathies. By the proclamation that the king (and his dynasty) was established on the throne in perpetuity by Yahweh himself, it was hoped that the king’s vulnerability to the tribal rivalries and conflicts would be greatly reduced. To the conquered Canaanite cities—as well as to the pagan, urban population of Jerusalem—the ideology was normal procedure just as it had been for probably a millennium or more. As far as the Jerusalem regime was concerned, the political doctrine was evidently successful. But although such pious propaganda was normal procedure in antiquity, it was also normal to expect that the behavior of the ruling regime would correspond to the reasonable expectations of the citizenry. Upon the death of Solomon, Rehoboam, his successor, refused to meet those expectations; therefore he was unable to retain the allegiance of the N [N north(ern)] population (whether Yahwist or urban pagan) and the Israelite kingdom split into two (2 Kgs 12:1–20).
The divine charter theology and literary motif are classified as a “covenant” in the biblical tradition simply because in these three traditions of promises (to David, Abraham, and Noah) it is Yahweh who swears to perform certain acts for the benefit of the recipient and his descendants in perpetuity. In all three cases, the recipient is not bound by oath, though it is clear that, in the case of the Davidic charter, later tradition attempted lamely to introduce the concept of accompanying conditions, i.e., “obedience to the Torah,” that was itself the product of several centuries of development after the time of David and Solomon (cf. [cf. confer, compare] 2 Sam 7:14b, which is almost unanimously attributed to the Deuteronomistic Historian of the 7th or 6th century b.c. [b.c. before Christ] ; an even more feeble attachment of obligations to the Davidic charter is evident in 1 Kgs 6:12; see also Ps 89:31–34—Eng [Eng English] vv 30–33; cf. [cf. confer, compare] also 1 Kgs 8:25 which is unquestionably [post-]exilic and now sees the Davidic charter as entirely conditional).
Despite this, the priority of the Sinaitic covenant structure is still evident in the fact that even this divine charter theology must include some provision for witnesses to enforce the stipulations. Just as the people themselves could be witnesses in the Sinai covenant, so also in the divine charter Yahweh is represented as swearing “by himself” as witness (Ps 89:36—Eng [Eng English] v 35), since obviously another deity could not serve in this capacity.
In summary, the Sinai covenant was a historical enactment involving two parties, Yahweh being represented by his agent Moses. In contrast, the divine charter was not something done in a two-party agreement at all, but in the case of David it was simply a prophet’s (Nathan’s) formal verbal proclamation of a message (privately) received from Yahweh. Similarly, the “covenants” with Abraham and Noah were not functional or historical realities but rather literary ideological motifs undoubtedly superimposed on ancient traditions.
3.The “Covenant” with Abraham. The basic biblical tradition about Abraham stems from the period of the united monarchy, for there is no trace of it in the premonarchic biblical sources (the archaic poetry in Genesis 49; Exodus 15; Numbers 23–24; Deuteronomy 32 and 33), and in those sources it is characteristically Jacob (= Israel), not Abraham, who serves as the common ancestor (cf. [cf. confer, compare] also Deut 26:5). On the other hand, recent attempts to see the Abraham traditions as originating late in the monarchy (or even later) have proved unconvincing, if only because they can just as well be explained in terms of a renewed interest in those traditions during the later periods (see especially the P [P “Priestly” source] materials). As a product of the period of the united monarchy, the covenant with Abraham is a part of that same ideological matrix that brought about the Davidic charter. In fact, it so closely resembles the Davidic charter as to justify the conclusion that they both ultimately come from the same source (see Clements 1967). In its original form, that source was probably the old Canaanite traditions of Jebusite Jerusalem, though certainly the tradition had a long and complex history before it was adapted by biblical writers.
It is probable that the Abrahamic covenant itself went through at least two versions, and more probably three (Mendenhall 1987). The original, Davidic version was not preserved after the demise of David’s dynasty, and therefore it must remain hypothetical. In it the divine promise would have been to Abraham and his (Hebronite?) dynasty to which the Davidic dynasty could easily attach itself by the well-known ancient genealogical techniques (note also the association with Hebron and kingship in 2 Sam 2:1–5:5; 15:7–10; and even Josh 12:10).
With the discrediting of the monarchy at the fall of Jerusalem (586 b.c. [b.c. before Christ] ), this charter had to be revised and depoliticized; now the population as a whole became the recipients of the promise as in Genesis 15, where the “seed of Abraham” is now much more than merely David and his descendants. (This transference of motifs from the ruling dynasty to the population as a whole is also illustrated in the development of the idea of the “chosen” of Yahweh. Originally it designated the king or high priest, but in the exilic/postexilic period it became increasingly applied to the community at large [“the chosen people” ]). Despite these later revisions, the archaic source of the narrative in Genesis 15 is illustrated by the fact that only here is the divine charter “sealed” by a ritual form: the eerie vision of the smoking fire pot and flaming torch passing between the parts of the sacrificed animals (v 17) represents the manifestation of deity by which the deity identified himself with the slaughtered animals as a guarantee of the reliability of the promise. The similar ritual attested in Jer 34:18 indicates that this was a very archaic ritual form for the ratification of a covenant.
Yahweh’s promise of the land (Gen 15:18–21) had nothing to do with the ancient Israelite enjoyment of their allotments under the Sinai covenant, which took place some two hundred years prior to David; rather, it was a religious legitimizing of the Davidic empire that had already been established by military force, and is specifically described in vv 18–21 as extending from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River, most of it never having been Israelite.
The final adaptation of the Abraham tradition is illustrated in Genesis 17, where the covenant is sealed by the ritual of circumcision—a marker that designates the recipient of the promise. From this time on, into the postbiblical Jewish tradition, “circumcision” and “covenant” became virtually identical (the late Heb [Heb Hebrew; Epistle to the Hebrews] term beáréÆt having both meanings). The historical context of this late reuse of the Abraham tradition seems to have been the continuity of the royal/priestly religious tradition in the postexilic period. This is suggested by the emphasis upon the ritual importance of circumcision, a practice that evidently had no particular religious significance in earlier times, since it is not even mentioned in early law collections (no doubt it was originally a folk custom, since it was very widespread in the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] from the Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia on). It was especially emphasized in the prophecies of the priest of exile, Ezekiel (44:6–9). In this context, “covenant” is hardly a functional reality that creates community by transcending old parochialisms, but is itself merely a formal, ritual demarcation of a particular preexisting group.
4.The “Covenant” of Noah. The narrative of the covenant established with Noah, his descendants, and all the occupants of the ark (Gen 9:8–17) perhaps illustrates the ultimate demise of the “covenant” tradition. The historical development of the covenant from a constitutive act instrumental in creating a new society and a correspondingly new value system in the time of Moses has, in this late narrative, become little more than a theological motif or literary device by which to confer religious value upon that which already existed, namely, the orderly process of the natural world. Even the oath that upheld a promise is gone, but in its place there is simply the sign that serves to remind God of his promise. In place of the rich complexity of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] suzerainty treaty tradition and its function as a vain attempt to create orderly and peaceful relationships between political entities, the covenant has become a mere word-label giving religious value to an old folkloristic “explanation” of the rainbow.
E.Covenant Traditions in the Prophets
1.Continuity of the Sinai Covenant. On the basis of the politically motivated traditions of “covenants” associated with David and (originally) Abraham (as well as the subsequent politically motivated covenants of Josiah and Nehemiah; see F below), it would be erroneous to conclude that the form, purpose, and ideological matrix of the old premonarchic suzerainty tradition was everywhere forgotten or suppressed. As in any complex society, there was great social and ideological diversity within Israel and Judah, and it would be foolish to assume that the significant transformations of the covenant traditions in the hands of politically ambitious Jerusalem bureaucrats were accepted without question or protest in the rural hinterland where religious values and social processes tended to work differently. Indeed, if any vestiges of the old Sinai covenant tradition should be preserved relatively unadulterated, we would expect to see these emanating from the more conservative villages of the countryside. There the pattern of social life proceeded along lines not much different from that of the early Iron Age, except for the noteworthy intrusions of the kings’ tax collectors; and in those villages one might not be too surprised to find an ongoing dissatisfaction with the basic premise of the (Israelite or Judean) state: namely, that meaningful community life must proceed from political bases.
However “theoretical” all this might seem, two points deserve mention. First, the introspective reflections of ancient village agriculturalists and pastoralists are rarely preserved by the “official” religious specialists (priests, scribes, and other functionaries), who tend to dismiss such reflections as unsophisticated and “backward.” It is therefore not surprising that most of the biblical narratives dealing with covenant traditions come to us mediated through the minds and pens of various (usually Jerusalem-educated) scribes whom scholars usually identify as J [J “Yahwist” source] , D [D “Deuteronomic” source; or Codex Bezae] , P [P “Priestly” source] , DH “Early Source,” “Late Source,” etc. [etc. et cetera (and so forth)] Second, what is surprising is that the Bible preserves the utterances of certain “prophetic” individuals, a good number of whom came from small rural villages (Tekoa, Moresheth, Anathoth—indeed, Isaiah of Jerusalem is the anomaly!) and who encountered notable opposition from “establishment” officials. Nevertheless, it is within the Iron Age oracles of Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, and even Isaiah that we can find vestiges of the old Sinai suzerainty treaty.
These individuals were neither historiographers intent on recounting the role of covenant in premonarchic Israel (but cf. [cf. confer, compare] Jer 7:22–23), nor systematic theologians intent on outlining the various formal elements of premonarchic Israelite covenant theology. However, within their oracles we can discern not only surviving LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] covenant forms but, more importantly, a surviving matrix of ideas about covenant that has antecedents in the Bronze Age.
Above, we noted that the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties and some biblical traditions about covenant provide for certain formal procedures by which the suzerain declares the covenant to be broken and the vassal now to be susceptible to the imposition of the curses. In this regard we must examine briefly one recurrent procedural form often used in prophetic utterances: the rîb, “indictment, lawsuit.” Probably the earliest and most dramatic illustration of such a procedure is preserved in Deuteronomy 32, although the date of this poem is much debated. (Decades ago Albright and Eissfeldt independently argued for an 11th-century date, but some recent studies [CMHE [CMHE F. M. Cross. 1973. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. Cambridge, MA] , 264, n. [n. note(s)] 193] have unconvincingly opted for a later date.) Regardless of its date, the poem illustrates a theological interpretation of historical processes incorporating virtually every single element of the old suzerainty treaties described above. This literary convention—which begins with an appeal to witnesses (heaven and earth) to hear the case, which recites the previous divine favors conferred upon the “defendant” (i.e., the “vassal” ), which describes the defendant’s subsequent violation of obligation, and which then announces the punishment—was undoubtedly a well-known form already by the time it was used by both Isaiah (chap. 1) and Micah (6:1–8) toward the end of the 8th century b.c. [b.c. before Christ] (see Hillers 1969, chap. 6). The entire structure presupposes that a covenant relationship had existed and was now being abrogated by the behavior of those subject to it. In short, the pattern of ideas represented in the rîb had to have existed long before these prophets made use of it, otherwise their contemporaries would not have had the slightest idea what the “message” was within the prophets’ words. Simply stated, the prophets of the monarchic period did not invent the rîb lawsuit form.
But aside from the formal similarities between the rîb and the old suzerainty treaties, the most constant (and specifically biblical) motif shared by the old covenant and the later prophets is the inseparable link between the receipt of past benefits and the consequent obligations binding upon the recipients. The rîb form is entirely dependent upon this motif. Insofar as it makes appeal to one’s sense of gratitude and obligation as a basis for (re-)establishing a covenant bond, the rîb exhibits an ideological matrix similar to that of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] suzerainty treaties. Theologically, it means that divine “grace” precedes and becomes the foundation for human obedience to the divine will, a will that is revealed most clearly in the experience of “grace” itself and not in some fixed code of social and legal norms. (This lies at the heart of the Christian insistence that “gospel” supersedes “law.” ) Morally and psychologically, it implies that persons under covenant are capable of recognizing the fact that individually and corporately they have received benefits in their past that they have in no way earned. It furthermore implies that it is the good things in life that they have received in the past (and not some politically determined, legally defined, and socially enforced set of formal patterns of behavior) that provide the basis for defining the good they hope to realize in their future choices in community life and in their dealings with other people. It is probably also with regard to this matrix of ideas that we can begin to appreciate the well-known prophetic tendency to think of covenant obligations more broadly in terms of “social justice” than narrowly in terms of “sacred rites” (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Deut 24:17–22, esp. [esp. especially] vv 18 and 22).
Since the obligations were to the giver of the covenant they were binding upon the individual no matter where and in what context he may find himself: they were not and could not be mere duties to obey culturally or politically prescribed norms and laws. This ethical transcending of political legal systems and ritual cultic systems had as its inevitable correlative the fact that normal social contrasts were also transcended: the community of God cannot be identified merely with the usual “tribal mentality” of political and social organizations that are themselves ephemeral within the broader vision of historical perspective: “Are you not like the Ethiopians to me?” (Amos 9:7).
2.Reappropriation of the Davidic Charter. Despite whatever attachments the Hebrew prophets had to the old Sinai covenant ideology, they were aware of the competing Davidic charter ideology being championed by the official establishment in Jerusalem. In some respects that ideology proclaimed certain “truths” that the prophets could in no way endorse, particularly the assertion that God for eternity had chosen to reconstitute his people as mere subjects of yet another political state. But instead of outright declaring the charter to be a fraud, the prophets instead chose to utilize certain superficial elements of the charter but to reconfigure them against the ideological matrix of the premonarchic covenant tradition. Such a practice of removing something (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , the tradition of the promise to David) from its original functional context (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , legitimizing a dynasty’s political claims) and reapplying it in a new and different functional context is here called “reappropriation.”
The dates of the few prophetic allusions to the Davidic dynasty and its privileged position have been the subject of much debate. It is clear, however, that regardless of their dates they have a significantly different point of reference than the two major “Davidic charter” texts of 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 89. For example, Micah’s vision of a David redivivus (5:1–3—Eng [Eng English] 5:2–4) clearly implies at least a major disruption of the political organization of Judah, since the “ruler who will come forth” is not identified with Jerusalem (which will lie in ruins, Mic 3:12) but rather with the village of Bethlehem. It is not clear whether or not the “messianic prophecies” of Isa 9:1–6—Eng [Eng English] 9:2–7 and 11:1–10 originally focused their hopes on a political deliverer (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , Hezekiah?). However, the hyperbolic language in these texts heightens expectations for things that no political organization can realistically be expected to provide; the net (and perhaps intended?) effect of the prophecies therefore is ironically to delegitimize any present-day Davidic claim to be the fulfillment of God’s purpose in the anticipation of some future (eschatological?) act of divine favor (note the ubiquitous prophetic phrases such as “in that day,” “it will come to pass,” and “the days are coming” ).
The major issue must therefore center on whether the Davidic covenant was so pervasive as to shift the major metaphorical image that Israelites had of their covenant relationship with God. The old Sinai covenant tradition claimed that God himself ruled as king over a religiously constituted body (thesis). The Davidic charter tradition held that God guaranteed that in perpetuity the Davidic dynasty would rule over a politically constituted body (antithesis). Prophetic “messianism” envisioned God eventually reestablishing his rule over his people, but through an ideal Davidite who governs not by any of the well-known “material” means of politics but through “spiritual” means and by the force of moral example (Isa 9:6b—Eng [Eng English] 7b; 11:2–5; Mic 5:3a—Eng [Eng English] 4a; Jer 23:5–6) (synthesis). One could argue that indeed the metaphor of covenant did shift decisively during the monarchic period, so much so that from that time on any attempt to envision the relationship between God and his people in some way had to accommodate the new synthesis incorporating some (usually vaguely defined) Davidic figure (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Jer 30:8–33; 33:14). But for the prophets this Davidic figure could not be simply another in a line of human politicians; and indeed it is noteworthy that not all prophets in their visions of the future benevolent acts of God felt it necessary to refer to any Davidic figure whatsoever. Indeed, when the Davidic figure is mentioned, often he is so vaguely defined that his identity and that of God merge together (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Ezek 34:11–16 with 34:23). The impact that this development had on early Christology and its understanding of Christ’s person and role in the covenant between God and [new] Israel is transparent [see H.2 below].) Obviously, early rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity had radically different understandings of the meanings and even the significance of this subsequent prophetic synthesis.
The point is that the original blend of form and substance that made the old Sinai covenant uniquely recognizable and compelling began to dissolve during the monarchic period. Leaving aside the metaphysical forces that would naturally undercut any Israelite’s ability to remain faithful to the covenant with God, it is noteworthy that all the significant social forces working against such faithfulness emanated from within official circles in Jerusalem. In the first place, the state-sanctioned Davidic charter forced upon the Israelites a competing way of conceptualizing the nature of their relationship with God. One could challenge its legitimacy only at the risk of his/her own life (Jeremiah 26).
In the second place, the bureaucratic scribes of the monarchy so distorted all Sinai traditions that the ideological matrix associated with the premonarchic covenant began to shift significantly. This is most evident in the Exodus traditions themselves, where originally deliverance from Egypt served ideologically to instill a sense of gratitude among Israelites, leading them to feel obligated to reciprocate accordingly in the future moral choices they would make in life (note how memory of the Exodus serves this function in the old “law codes” [Exod 22:21–24; 23:9; cf. [cf. confer, compare] also Lev 19:33–36; 25:35–38; Deut 15:12–15; 24:17–22]). Indeed, the prophets preserved this matrix, and a prophetic command to “remember” (zeákoµr) the Exodus characteristically envisioned such a moral response (Mic 6:4–5, 8). But in the hands of official Priestly historiographers, the memory of God’s benevolent deeds during the Exodus became increasingly connected with the establishment of the cult, so much so that a Priestly command to “remember” (zeákoµr) the Exodus ideologically envisioned a ritual response (Exod 13:3–10). The traditions fared no better in the hands of Deuteronomistic historiographers; there the benevolent deeds of God associated with the Exodus became a literary (and ideological) foil against which to portray (stereotypically) an Israel fundamentally ungovernable by God (and therefore legitimately consigned to human rulers and managers? cf. [cf. confer, compare] Judg 2:11–12; 1 Sam 8:8–9). With the ideological matrix of the old historical prologue focusing on the Exodus so effectively dismantled, what remained to instill the requisite sense of gratitude among the people? The prophets’ ultimate answer was to envision a new and future act of benevolence by God, but one that must be preceded by the dismantling of the political state (Jer 16:14–15).
3.The “New Covenant.” The date and authorship of Jeremiah’s remarkable prophecy of a “new covenant” (Jer 31:31–34) are controversial and probably indeterminable, but there is no pressing reason to doubt the traditional attribution to Jeremiah himself. The context and content of the prophecy suggest that it comes from a time shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. [b.c. before Christ] See also NEW COVENANT.
It should first be noted that in the ancient concepts of covenant the ultimate curse for breach of covenant was the destruction and scattering of the body politic with which the covenant initially was formed. This had happened in 586 b.c. [b.c. before Christ] Thus the old covenant was no more—theoretically, there was no longer any body politic to which the covenant would apply. Therefore, if there was to be any continuity in the relationships between Yahweh and the former members of the body politic, it would have to be through the enactment of a new covenant with the people, not with a political organization through its king.
Thus the prophecy of the new covenant actually presupposed conditions much like those at the end of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age, the time of the old Sinai covenant, in which there was likewise no body politic with which the covenant could be established. It was persons, not social organizations, who would receive the benefits and accept the obligations involved in the relationship with God. The “house of Judah and the house of Israel” (31:31) are deliberate uses of terminology deriving from family life, not from that of political institutions.
The substance of the prophecy itself emphasizes the discontinuity from the old covenant traditions. There is barely any formal similarity to the old Sinai covenant structure. As always, the covenant is granted by the divine sovereign, but there is no historical prologue—the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah was doubtless too painful a memory. Instead there is a prediction of the future acts of God, which consist not of the normal expectations of riches, territory, long life, health, and progeny, but rather of “forgiveness” (i.e., the restoration of a broken relationship; v 34). The restoration of the relationship with God is the only benefit mentioned. There are neither oath, nor curses and blessings, nor witnesses, nor any of the paraphernalia of externally enacted covenants (deposit, public reading, ratification rituals, etc. [etc. et cetera (and so forth)] ).
The single element of the Sinai old covenant retained in this “new covenant” is simply the stipulations (which are characteristically absent in divine charters). But no longer are they a set of prohibitions and injunctions, no code of laws or externally enforced and legalistically defined body of “commandments, statutes, and ordinances” such as depicted in the Deuteronomistic History. Instead the tôrâ (“teaching” ) of Yahweh “will be written on their hearts” (not on tablets of stone) and “placed in their inward parts” (v 33). It is a description of the complete internalization of the divine will that makes unnecessary the entire machinery of external enforcement.
Even more astonishing is the abrogation of the entire paraphernalia of religious indoctrination: “they shall no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying ‘Know Yahweh’ ” (v 34). Instead of the deposit and periodic reading of the covenant text, the knowledge of the divine will is deposited within the conscience of the members of the community. Special training in theology, doctrine, or tôrâ is irrelevant, since “they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. . . .” Thus the knowledge of God cannot be identified with the accumulated written corpus of prestigious scribes or theologians: the knowledge of God possessed by the most humble is on a par with that of the elite. The community thus envisioned is not one subject to human social control but one that can only be monitored and maintained by the deity himself. In this regard, the vision and hope associated with this “new covenant” draw deeply from that originally associated with the old.
F.Later Biblical “Covenants”
1.The “Covenant” of Josiah. The narrative of Josiah’s reform in 2 Kings 22–23 gives considerable detail concerning not only the events leading up to it but also to the royal acts that ensued; however, it contains virtually nothing concerning the nature of the “covenant” that Josiah made (23:3). Nevertheless, there are sufficient details in the narrative to make it impossible to regard this reform as the basis or origin of the OT [OT Old Testament] covenant tradition. To the contrary, it is presented not as a novum (a creative writer could have easily depicted a theophany in 2 Kings 22) but precisely as a reform, which by its very nature consists of a return to earlier traditions, or at least what were thought to be earlier traditions.
The chain of events began with the discovery in the Jerusalem temple of a “Book of the Law” ( seµper hattoÆraÆ ; 2 Kgs 22:8–10), which is also called the “Book of the Covenant” ( seµper habbeáréÆt; 2 Kgs 23:2–3). The king’s distress upon hearing the words of the book indicates in the first place that the contents were previously unknown to him—and presumably unknown also to his whole bureaucracy, since in order to authenticate the document his bureaucrats had to turn to an otherwise obscure wife of a minor functionary resident in the city, who was known to be a “prophetess” (22:13–14).
The second and most important aspect of the king’s distress is the fact that the entire procedure was carried out in order to escape the curses for violation of covenant that were evidently included in the document that had been found (2 Kgs 22:13). It is this fact that makes it impossible to regard Josiah’s action as a mere loyalty oath patterned after Assyrian models. The latter is the procedure by which a vassal initially becomes subject to the curses for disobedience. Josiah, however, learned from the “Book of the Covenant” that they were already subject to the curses because of past disobedience to a covenant that was currently in effect and binding (even though they had been ignorant of its content). To avoid the curses it is merely necessary to obey the stipulations, which in the case of the Deuteronomic law conveniently enough demanded the extermination of any religiously or ritually based potential rival to his regime (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , Deut 12:1–14).
The narrative tells us that Josiah assembled the population to hear all the words of the “Book of the Covenant” : at first it was the elders of Judah and Jerusalem (23:1), then it was all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem (v 2). The king then “made a covenant” to obey the commands in the Book of the Law, “and all the people joined in the covenant” (v 3). There is nothing in the narrative to indicate that the procedure was a “covenant” other than the fact that it is labeled as such. There is no reference to an oath, other than that implied in the phrase “to make a covenant.” There is no evidence whatever of the old conviction that the ground for obedience was simple gratitude for benefits that had already been received; instead there is simply a concern to escape the curses for disobedience. There is no reference to any ritual or symbolic action that made the covenant binding, which seems to have been a requisite even in the Assyrian treaties of the time. All that is certain is that the king made some public commitment to obey the words of a document found in the temple, and that the people under the king made a similar commitment. In fact, the procedure more properly should be designated as a “vow,” since there are not two parties to the process (other than possibly the king and people). The evidence thus seems to justify the conclusion that in Josiah’s time “making a covenant” amounted to little more than the repetition of some verbal formula. In more modern terminology, it was simply royal legislation made binding by royal command, but ratified in some way by the assembled population’s public promise to obey. It is small wonder that earlier Israelite traditions of covenant suffered under the pens of (Deuteronomistic) scribes who possessed such a limited understanding of what a “covenant” was.
It is quite probable that Josiah’s reform was a politically inspired exploitation of an old religious tradition for the purpose of reestablishing old political ambitions (the empire of David) and destroying the religious institutions of any potential political rivals, whether of Israel in the N [N north(ern)] or of Judah in the S [S south(ern)] . The wholesale slaughter of the priests of the N [N north(ern)] shrines (23:20) is reflected in the Deuteronomistic concept that Moses had commanded the utter destruction of the pagan nations of the land (Deut 7:2, 16; 3:12–18). The empire of David was also marked by such wholesale murder of foreigners (1 Kgs 11:15–16, 24).
It should not be surprising that the prophets at that time (and later) barely, if at all, mention this major religio-political event that was carried out by monarchic bureaucrats who evidently had no real understanding of (much less any real commitment to) the religious tradition that derived from the premonarchic period. The reform was superficial and short-lived: after the untimely death of Josiah at the hands of Pharaoh Neco (the direct consequence of Josiah’s ambitious dabbling in international politics), the situation in Jerusalem reverted to the normal pluralistic political ideology and policy that had existed previously and that in two short decades would lead inevitably to the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah, just as the prophets had predicted. Even more unfortunate because of its perpetual confusion of religion with politics, however, was the fact that Josiah’s hybridized ideas about the religious foundations of ancient Israel—canonized in the Deuteronomistic History—became the “normative” way that much of subsequent Judaism and Christianity (mis)understood the “Old Testament” tradition of Sinai.
2.The “Covenant” of Nehemiah. The latest exemplar of a “covenant” in ancient Israel is narrated in Nehemiah 9–10. Although most, but not all, of the motifs in this narrative have antecedents in earlier OT [OT Old Testament] traditions, the entire description justifies the conclusion that with this episode we have entered an entirely different cultural world in which the underlying concepts and values of the old covenant of Sinai were completely foreign.
As in the covenant of Josiah, here also it is the highest political authority—Nehemiah, the governor appointed by the Persian Empire (10:2—Eng [Eng English] 10:1)—who exercises the initiative in the covenant making. A sort of “historical prologue” still appears, but in this case it is a long prayer by the priest Ezra, who is reminding God (!) of all his prior mighty acts (9:6–31). Curiously enough, with this historical narrative (a sort of “canonical version” of the history of Israel beginning now, of course, with Abraham), the prayer combines a repeated litany of covenant violations derived from the old rîb structure. The major purpose of the historical prologue/prayer seems to be a theodicy: to show that Yahweh was right in bringing all those curses upon the disobedient society (9:33–35). It certainly has nothing to do with the original purpose of historical prologues: reminding the people of past benefits received for the purpose of instilling in them a sense of gratitude as the motivation for future obedience.
Instead it is plainly stated that the reason for entering into the covenant is the fact that the Judeans’ economic resources were being tapped by a foreign government in the form of taxes (Neh 9:36–10:1—Eng [Eng English] 9:36–38). This unfortunate situation was seen to be caused by their failure to obey the laws of the Torah; therefore they entered into covenant to remedy this regrettable situation. The motivation for the vow of obedience is thus very similar to that behind Josiah’s reform, though in the case of Josiah it was fear of future calamity that prompted the covenant to obey the Deuteronomic law code, while here it is the concern to escape continued subjugation by a foreign empire. In both instances the “covenants” were entirely political undertakings that show concerns only for the political autonomy and ethnic exclusiveness of the society and for the ritual necessities that accompany it (10:33–40—Eng [Eng English] 10:32–39).
Yahweh had nothing to do with the entire procedure except to be the passive recipient of Ezra’s long reminder of what he had done in times gone by (the text does not even indicate whether God was moved to respond to this reminder). There are not two parties to this “covenant,” unless they be the governor Nehemiah and the rest of the people who are listed in a markedly hierarchical order of decreasing social status. Neh 10:30—Eng [Eng English] 10:29 states that the people were to “enter into a curse and an oath,” but no oath formula or ritual enactment is mentioned. The witnesses are completely absent; instead the notables of the time set a seal upon what seems to have been a written document (10:1—Eng [Eng English] 9:38).
By the time of Nehemiah the evolution of the covenant (and of the word beáréÆt ) had run full course from the actual and constitutive foundation of a community to a theological concept to little more now than a ritual form and legal document. In the process the transition was also made from a population seeking through the acts of God a “better” way than that of the economically and ethically bankrupt political empires to a group now ambitious for political power and prestige, for whom deity apparently was (as in the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age) a mere symbol for the body politic, legitimizing both its system of enforced legal norms and the social functionaries who presided over it. In some respects this transformation marks the end of “Israelite/ religion” (in all its complexity) and the rise of a distinctive and new religion called “Judaism” (which understood itself to be a continuation of Israelite Yahwism, and which itself underwent many transformations in the following centuries; see H.1 below).
G.Other Covenant Traditions
1.The Covenant Banquet. Eating and drinking together has been such a universal expression of social solidarities of various sorts that it is not surprising to find common meals appearing very frequently in connection with the creation of covenants, both in the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] and in the biblical narratives. Their specific association with covenants, however, seems to be a rather archaic cultural trait. In the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] there are references to such eating and drinking in the Mari documents, interestingly enough, referring specifically to the partaking of bread and (presumably) wine as well as anointing with oil as symbolic acts sealing important legal transactions (ARMT [ARMT Archives royals de Mari: transcriptions et traductions] 8:13). Similarly, in the problematic narrative of Genesis 14, the king of Salem brings forth bread and wine, though there seems to be little or no context for the act—the narrative is evidently only a fragment.
In the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age the Amarna Letters include one from the king of Egypt to his vassal king of Amurru, vigorously upbraiding him for having made a covenant with an enemy of the king by eating and drinking with him (EA [EA Tell el-Amarna tablets [cited from J. A. Knudtzon, O. Weber, and E. Ebeling, Die El-Amarna Tafeln, 2 vols., VAB 2, Leipzig, 1915; and A. F. Rainey, El-Amarna Tablets 359–379: Supplement to J. A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna Tafeln, 2d rev. ed., AOAT 8, Kevelaer and Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1970]] 162: 22–25). In Gen 26:26–33, Isaac and Abimelech made a nonaggression pact that is represented as a parity treaty, in that both swore oaths, but the oath taking is preceded the evening before by a feast prepared by Isaac. A similar treaty of peace with a related meal is described in Gen 31:43–54 as having been enacted by Jacob and Laban, where mutual nonaggression is combined with a stipulation forbidding Jacob to mistreat Laban’s daughters or take additional wives.
One of the several narratives of the Sinai event seems to have been inspired by this kind of covenant. In Exod 24:9–11 seventy of the elders of Israel went up the mountain to eat and drink in the presence of Yahweh, “and Yahweh did not lay a hand on them.” The covenant with the Gibeonites narrated in Joshua 9 seems to have been a similar sort of peace covenant that was obtained by fraud and subterfuge; their offer of (moldy) bread and (old) wine was accepted by the Israelites, and the eating and the drinking seem to be related to the ratification of the peace covenant (vv 11–15). It is typical that the oath sworn was regarded as binding even though fraud was involved; instead the pact was downgraded from a parity treaty to a suzerainty treaty in which the Gibeonites became subservient.
2.Marriage as Covenant. The narrative of the covenant between Jacob and Laban mentioned above (Gen 31:43–54) seems to combine two quite distinct acts, one of which involves marriage relationships. Nowhere else in ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] literature is marriage associated with a sworn oath, although it is certainly the most common social institution by which new relationships are created. However, it is interesting to note Malachi’s use of the word “covenant” (Heb [Heb Hebrew; Epistle to the Hebrews] beáréÆt ) in connection with references to “the wife of (one’s) youth” (2:14–15). There, Yahweh is explicitly acknowledged to be a (third-party) “witness” between the two parties of the marriage, and there are clear allusions to (violated) obligations and to resultant curses (2:13). As we have seen, these elements also appear in LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] suzerainty treaties.
Although marriage does not correspond formally to the covenant structure as we know it from LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] suzerainty treaties, it was an important metaphor for expressing relationships that could also be expressed in political terms. For example, in biblical Hebrew verbs like “love” (<aµhab) and “know” (yaµda>) have nuances of meaning in both conjugal and political contexts (Moran 1963; Huffmon 1966), and biblical prophets often characterized Israelite foreign policy as a series of illicit sexual relations. Therefore it is not surprising that, in addition to the suzerainty treaty analogy, the relationship between God and Israel was also very frequently viewed as analogous to that of husband and wife (Hosea 1–3; Jer 31:32; Ezekiel 16). This metaphor continued in use not only in early rabbinic Judaism but also in NT [NT New Testament] Christology, where Christ is portrayed as “bridegroom” and the Church as “bride.”
In conclusion, these other covenant traditions (banquets and marriage) are noteworthy because they demonstrate how pervasive covenant traditions generally were in the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] , and how frequently they were utilized in any discussion or presentation of something so fundamental as “community” and “relationships.”
H.Postbiblical Developments
In the discussion on Nehemiah (see F.2 above) we noted that by the 5th–4th centuries b.c. [b.c. before Christ] the old suzerainty covenant form had been virtually forgotten; even the prophetic rîb which was most persistent in preserving (elements of) that form tended to emphasize less the formal components of covenant than the accompanying ideological matrix. Thus, in moving now into a discussion of even later covenant ideas in early Judaism and early Christianity the focus must shift still further away from covenant forms and into covenant ideas; and in discussing covenant ideas, it must be prepared to distinguish between ideas that were largely symbolic and rhetorical and those that were functional and operational. In short, the issue now becomes the nature of the early Jewish and early Christian communities themselves: not so much how their traditions formally preserved covenant ideas as how the respective communities themselves were constituted with respect to those ideas.
1.Covenant in Early Judaism. a. Preliminary Remarks. Comparatively little work has been spent on the subject of covenant in early Judaism. Part of the problem is that by the late Hellenistic–early Roman period there was really no such thing as an early “Judaism” in the E [E east(ern); or “Elohist” source] Mediterranean world; even within Palestine there were numerous “Judaisms,” each claiming to be the legitimate continuation of the people of the God of Israel (perhaps one of the most sharply defined of these being the community revealed in the sectarian documents of Qumran). And yet any discussion of covenant in early Judaism cannot ignore the fact of this marked sectarianism; for if indeed covenant is a device for transcending old parochialisms and factions, then one may reasonably conclude that by the turn of the era it was no longer functioning in this respect. It seems largely to have been symbolic, and there seems to have been simply widespread disagreement as to what specifically it symbolized (i.e., which sect constituted the “true Israel” still in covenant with God?).
Another reason for the comparative lack of study of covenant in early Judaism is that most scholars still seem reluctant to expose one major form of early Judaism—rabbinic Judaism—to any sort of critical “history of religions” investigation. Perhaps there is an underlying fear that, because it is the antecedent of modern Judaism, such critical study will somehow be construed as being “anti-Jewish” (just as the application of this approach to the NT [NT New Testament] over a century ago was construed as being “anti-Christian” ); if so, the reasons for this inhibition are obvious and understandable. Yet if we are to do justice to the history of covenant we cannot avoid subjecting early Judaism to the same level of critical inquiry to which we have subjected ancient Israelite religion. However, we must recognize that such endeavors are still very much in their infancy, and for that reason we offer here in preliminary fashion some of the crucial issues we feel must be addressed critically in any future study not only of covenant in early Judaism but also of the nature of early rabbinic Jewish religion.
First, there is virtually no evidence from the Second Temple period that the notion of “covenant” community was ever effective in transcending existing parochialisms. Indeed, the evidence to the contrary emerges as early as Zerubbabel’s unwillingness even to consider searching for “common ground” with the Samaritans, who nonetheless professed devotion to the Judean God (Ezra 4:1–3; note also the tensions with “the people of the land,” most of whom were fellow Judeans; see also AM HA<AREZ ). The evidence from the Hellenistic period (books of Maccabees) and the Roman period (especially Josephus) goes even further to document how ineffective anything was for transcending the parochialisms that developed within Judaism itself. The point to be noted is that in fact the early Judean community (like most of post-Constantinian Christendom) was held together by a socially enforced prestige system, until this degenerated into competing systems within Judaism (as they eventually did within much of Christianity). We shall therefore focus particularly on one system, rabbinic Judaism, that emerged from the debacle of the Jewish War (a.d. [a.d. anno domini (year)] 66–70).
b.The Antecedents of Rabbinic Judaism. By tracing itself from Moses and Sinai through the prophets to Ezra and then to subsequent Pharisaic sages (m. <Abot ), rabbinic Judaism formally laid claim to a certain connection with Hebrew covenant thought. Before examining the rabbinic Judaism that is most closely connected with the Mishnah (2d [2d second] century a.d. [a.d. anno domini (year)] ) and subsequently with the Talmud, we need to trace this claim backward, examining each “link” in this rabbinic “chain” of tradition.
The Pharisees present a special problem owing to the nature of the historical sources, most of which are either much later (the Mishnah) or demonstrably polemical in tone (the NT [NT New Testament] ). Since the 1960s much research has focused upon the parochial character of the Pharisaic h\eber (“society” ), which seems initially to have been based on peculiar class interests of an economic and political sort (Finkelstein 1962: vol. [vol. volume] 1, esp. [esp. especially] pp. [pp. pages; past] 75–76; Neusner 1973a). It is arguable whether notions of “duty” (a formal equivalent to covenant “obligations” ?) were taken more seriously by the Pharisees than by the other sects; however, there can be no doubt that obedience to religious law was paramount in the Pharisaic sect (note the Talmudic reference to “the Pharisee [who says,] ‘What is my duty, that I may perform it?’ ” [ Sot\a [ Sot\a Sot\a ] 22a]). It is also noteworthy that some Pharisaic leaders articulated their concept of religious duty more in prophetic than in priestly terms: Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai is reported to have said: “We have another atonement as effective as [the temple cult]. And what is it? It is acts of lovingkindness, as it is said, ‘For I desire mercy and not sacrifice’ ” ( <Abot R. Nat [ <Abot R. Nat <Abot de Rabbi Nathan ] . 4; cf. [cf. confer, compare] Hos 6:6).
However, Neusner (1973b, esp. [esp. especially] pp. [pp. pages; past] 24, 31) notes that for the most part these ideas of obligation were tied in with the Pharisaic sense of “purity,” which in fact was morally neutral and unrelated to anything “prophetic.” Finkelstein (1962: vol. [vol. volume] 1, 31) underscores its parochial character by noting that, when Pharisees were scattered among the various towns and hamlets after the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. [a.d. anno domini (year)] 70, their “rules of purity meant separation from next-door neighbors, [and] refusal to mingle freely with fellow-villagers.” If accurate, this suggests that, despite formal, ideological appeals to a “prophetic” sense of (“covenant” ?) obligations to an ostensibly transcendent God, in practice the Pharisees were unwilling and therefore unable to transcend existing socioeconomic, political, and ethnic parochialisms (this gap between moral vision and moral practice may in part account for the polemical charges of hypocrisy that the various rival schools within Pharisaism often directed at one another; cf. [cf. confer, compare] b. Ber. 28a; Assum. Mos. [Assum. Mos. Assumption of Moses] 7.4 ff. [ff. following pages] ; see also Matt 23:2). The religious obligations (haálakôt) were in fact simply a distinctive mark of “in-group” status. As both Finkelstein (1962: vol. [vol. volume] 1, 17–20, 266) and Neusner (1973b) point out, and as Josephus’ references to the Pharisees seem to confirm (JW [JW Josephus, The Jewish War (= Bellum Judaicum)] 1.107–14, 571; 2.162–66; Ant [Ant Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (= Antiquitates Judaicae)] 13.171–73, 288–98, 399–418; 17.41–44; 18.11–17), Pharisaic religion in general was a secondary accretion to a group that was primarily constituted by socioeconomic and sociopolitical factors.
Ezra is held to have been the precursor of Pharisaic (and subsequently rabbinic) Judaism, and in that regard he has often been considered a “second Moses” (b. Sanh. 21b). If Ezra historically played such a decisive role, then rabbinic Judaism was heir to many of the same sorts of social processes that accompanied the Nehemiah loyalty oath (see F.2 above). In this regard it is noteworthy how in Ezra 9–10 the will of God—i.e., the dynamic equivalent to covenant obligations (intended originally to encourage the transcending of parochialisms)—has for Ezra been reduced to prohibiting intermarriage (reinforcing ethnic parochialisms).
The differences between this understanding of “covenant people” (an endogamous ethnic group) and that reflected earlier in the prophets and still earlier in the Sinai covenant (a unity of diverse tribes/peoples based on shared values) are both obvious and categorical. They perhaps reinforce the conclusion that the reputed links between Ezra and the prophets (and Moses/Sinai) are largely formal and secondary and not substantive or integral; this linkage appears to have been designed at a later time to enhance the prestige (and therefore the authority and power) of rabbinic institutions. (In antiquity the same technique was used by individuals to concoct personal genealogies.)
Early rabbinic Judaism’s formal emphasis on the centrality of the Sinai covenant can be adequately understood in light of early rabbinic emphasis on ethnic exclusivity. In the first place, early rabbinic Judaism understandably avoided the prophetic synthesis and reappropriation of the Davidic covenant (see E.2 above) that its chief rival, early Christianity, had embraced and interpreted in light of Jesus. For that reason, it is not surprising that covenant ideas in early rabbinic Judaism characteristically avoided the topics of “messianism” and the Davidic “covenant,” and focused instead almost exclusively on the Sinai covenant. In the second place, its understanding of the Sinai covenant (unlike that of the early prophets) was based largely on written Scripture, particularly the canonical Torah, which (as we have seen) depicts the Sinai covenant not as it really was in ancient Israel but as it was later (mis)understood by generations living in a much different (postmonarchic) social context. Chief among these distortions is the canonical sequence itself, which regards the Sinai covenant (Exodus 1–20) as a subsequent event in the history of a community already defined earlier (Genesis 17) in ethnic terms of blood kinship (the covenant of Abraham, understood to refer literally to Abraham’s biological offspring; cf. [cf. confer, compare] how early Christianity embraced the same canonical sequence but emphasized Abraham’s importance in terms of Gen 12:3).
In summarizing the connection between early rabbinic Judaism and earlier biblical covenant ideas, it seems that the chain of transmission in m. <Abot 1:1 linking rabbinic Judaism to Moses and Mt. Sinai functioned much as the Davidic charter functioned in monarchic Judah: to legitimize an existing social order. The ideological matrix it expresses is actually drawn more from the world of divine charters than from the world of treaties and covenants. This suggests that, if rabbinic authorities realized the historical and functional significance of the Sinai covenant (and they probably did not), they chose not to embrace that as a practical means for self-definition and self-understanding. Their covenant ideas did not function practically to articulate a transcendent set of values that could potentially cut across and dissolve old parochialisms as these ideas did in early Israel; indeed they tended to function in just the opposite way—to reinforce and heighten already existing (and increasingly ethnic) parochialisms.
c.Post-Mishnaic Judaism. This is perhaps underscored by rabbinic Judaism’s comparative inability to attract converts precisely at a time when the E [E east(ern); or “Elohist” source] Mediterranean world was most receptive to monotheism. Instead, in declaring the current inactivity of the Holy Spirit (Seder >Olam Rabbah 30), early rabbinic Judaism seems to have denied (at least for the time being) the reality of any religious forces beyond human control operating to create relationships and community where none had previously existed. Instead, early rabbinic Judaism seems to have been content to establish itself in terms of various (parochial) social forces operating to delimit and define an already existing community (note the rabbinic metaphor of “building a fence around the Torah” ). These parochial criteria certainly had great “spiritual value” for specific pious Jews, and they received authoritative expression in the Mishnah (although the numerous legal norms contained therein were never regarded as ends unto themselves, nor would early rabbis dare regard them as primarily social or cultural in function). The triumph of parochialism (and the paramount importance of Genesis 17) is perhaps most obvious in the reduction of the term beáréÆt (“covenant” ) to mean primarily “circumcision” ; the rabbinic need to coin a new word in its place to refer to the Exodus “pact” between God and Israel (Talmudic deáyaµytéÆqéÆ, loan word from Gk [Gk Greek] diatheµkeµ ) is evidence that the functional significance of “covenant” had been largely replaced by other concerns. In this context, “covenant” was hardly an operating reality that created community by transcending old parochialisms but was itself merely a formal, ritual demarcation of a particular existing group.
There is little doubt that formal covenant imagery continued to be valued within “orthodox” Jewish circles, and that one’s religious obligations continued to be verbalized in prophetic terms as obedience to a transcendent God (cf. [cf. confer, compare] especially b. Mak. 23b–24a, quoted in Hertzberg 1962: 72–73). However, these obligations were now promulgated within a context that insisted that the orthodox Jewish “circle” be clearly (and ritually) circumscribed. In short, “covenant” was largely symbolic in early Judaism (i.e., a formal part of the tradition), although no doubt for some pious individuals it was a very meaningful symbol insofar as it attempted to inspire Jews to obey an ostensibly transcendent God. In the Talmud (b. Yebam. 47a–b) there is an interesting passage about people who convert to Judaism at times when Jews are being persecuted, a passage that implies certain latent covenant forms: the proselyte must first admit that he is not worthy (a statement that perhaps implies he has received some undeserved benefit?), then he is instructed in the lighter and more stringent commandments (obligations), and informed about rewards and punishments that follow from obedience/disobedience (blessings/curses). In lieu of an oath, he is circumcised and later ritually immersed. Despite the apparent survival of old covenant forms, one would have to note that the entire procedure is done in a setting where commandments have a clear social control function, and where circumcision becomes a marker of in-group status. Thus, covenant seems to remain largely symbolic.
The diversity within Judaism, of course, continues to the present; indeed, in the West even most Jews have repudiated as too parochial the rabbinic Judaism manifested in the Mishnah and Talmud. In this regard, a significant issue has been conflicting Jewish understandings about the nature of its covenant with God (Hertzberg 1962: 37–45). Consequently, some Jews have felt it possible to assimilate into a larger pluralistic community without feeling that they have severed their “covenant” bonds to a transcendent God. (This, of course, assumes that such Jews still believe in God; Jewish atheism is another modern Western paradox, perhaps suggesting that the orthodox forms of Judaism were actually counterproductive in their efforts to communicate transcendent values.) Indeed, some Jewish writers (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , Feuerlicht 1983) have recently argued that Diaspora and assimilation have been positive experiences (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Jer 29:7), enabling Jews to reclaim both the essentially moral character of (Israelite) religious obligations and the (prophetic) vision of a world universally committed to those obligations (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Isa 2:2–4).
Perhaps it is no coincidence that, in the West for example, a noteworthy number of Jews have been some of the most outspoken advocates for cultural pluralism. As such they have been in the vanguard of efforts to enact the same sort of “ideological matrix” found in the early Israelite covenant (i.e., a broad human community united by shared commitments to transcendent moral values). Often at some personal risk they have played instrumental roles in such “liberal” causes as the civil rights movement; more recently, a few have even become the most outspoken advocates of justice for the Palestinians (and not surprisingly their efforts have been met with hostile opposition from Zionists for whom the state of Israel has become the ultimate concern). Nevertheless, such Western “liberal” Jewish commitments to pluralism and justice—regardless of how compelling they may or may not be to others in the West—may well be a functioning survival of premonarchic covenant ideas insofar as they embody the same hopes and expectations of the premonarchic Israelite villagers: namely, the value and dignity of persons regardless of their social and economic status or ethnic background, the predictability that follows from reciprocity and fairness in their interrelationships, and the reliability of the peace that would result (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Isa 32:17).
2.Covenant in Early Christianity. Just as our treatment of early Jewish covenant ideas focused on the best-known form of early Judaism—“rabbinic Judaism” associated with the Mishnah and Talmud—so our treatment of early Christian covenant ideas will focus only on the best-known form of early Christianity—so called “apostolic Christianity” associated with the canonical OT [OT Old Testament] and NT [NT New Testament] . The subject of covenant ideas in other early (especially gnostic) forms of Christianity will not be discussed here, although it should be pointed out that their dependence on other “scriptures” and other intellectual wellsprings signals that “covenant” was likely not a significant metaphor by which these early “Christian” groups understood their relationship to God and to Jesus.
a.Covenant and Sacrament. The first and most important context within which we encounter covenant ideas in the NT [NT New Testament] are the texts recounting the Last Supper Jesus had with his disciples (Matt 26:26–29 and parallels; cf. [cf. confer, compare] 1 Cor 11:23–25). In all the NT [NT New Testament] traditions concerning the Eucharist (except John, of course) it is reported that Jesus gave a cup of wine to his disciples, identifying it as the “covenant” or “new covenant.” Here the NT [NT New Testament] tradition seems to be making some deliberate and conscious connection with older covenant traditions (especially Jer 31:31–34).
The subsequent ritual celebration of the Eucharist (or “Lord’s Supper” ) that arose in conjunction with this Last Supper tradition became a fundamental (and perhaps even a definitive) feature of early Christian gatherings. Around a.d. [a.d. anno domini (year)] 112, Pliny the Younger, writing to the Roman emperor Trajan, who was interested in keeping informed of the spread of the Christian movement, reported that the interrogation of a captured Christian yielded the information that Christians gathered se sacramento obstringere, “to bind themselves by an oath.” The reference is almost certainly to the Eucharist ritual, which perhaps as early as the 1st [1st first] century was already being identified as a sacramentum, “sacrament.” Although the English equivalent “sacrament” has subsequently come to mean “having a sacred character or mysterious meaning” (and perhaps it meant such in early Christian mystery sects), the Latin sacramentum at the time of the early Church referred to a soldier’s oath of loyalty to the Roman emperor.
Thus, a vast number of early Christians seem to have understood the Eucharist in some context associated with oath taking, specifically oath taking with respect to “Christ” (i.e., Jesus), whose interests were understood to transcend those of the Roman Empire (hence Trajan’s concern). There was indeed widespread and growing disillusionment with the Roman Empire by the 1st [1st first] century (not unlike the disillusionment with imperial powers that existed during the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] /early Iron Age transition), and it is in that context that we must note the growing body of diverse peoples throughout the E [E east(ern); or “Elohist” source] Mediterranean world who were now participating in this eucharistic rite and identifying themselves as “Christians” (followers of “Christ” ). The Roman persecution of Christians indicates that Roman imperial officials took a dim view of their subjects’ swearing oaths of loyalty to anyone but the emperor, although it is equally clear from the historical sources that the Christians were categorically different from those power groups seeking politically to unseat the Roman Empire (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Rom 13:1–7).
This brings us back to the late developments in ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] thought when covenants had come to be regarded primarily as “loyalty oaths.” No doubt this formal similarity between Iron Age Near Eastern, Roman imperial, and early Christian concepts of “covenant” facilitated the communication of early Christianity in the non-Palestinian environment of Mediterranean civilization. However, it would be a grave mistake to conclude (as Roman bureaucrats apparently did) that this formal similarity to political/military loyalty oaths explains the early Christian understanding of covenant.
There is no doubt that, in addition to the formal similarity to Iron Age loyalty oaths, the Christian Eucharist has significant formal connections to other ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] covenant motifs (see Herion 1982). First, its utilization of bread and wine is relevant not just because of general associations with covenant banquet imagery (see G.1 above). Bread and wine appear in ancient Mari in connection with the resolution of enmity and the restoration of personal relationships, and they were associated with the internalization of a vassal’s obligations in the Assyrian loyalty oaths: “Just as bread and wine enter the intestines, so may the [gods] let this oath enter your intestines” (ANET [ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3d ed. with suppl., ed. J. B. Pritchard, Princeton, 1969] , 539).
Second, some of the Semitic terminology used in the Last Supper narrative (reflected in Gk [Gk Greek] translation) betrays patterns of thought also attested in early biblical and ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] sources. Specifically, the noteworthy appearance of the word “remembrance” (Gk [Gk Greek] anamneµsis ) has a significance in Semitic languages (root zkr) that is lacking in Greek (and in English). In the Code of Hammurapi the root zkr often means “to swear,” and this root seems to convey that meaning in 2 Sam 14:11 (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] “invoke” ); its cognate is still used with this sense in modern village Arabic. The verb “to remember” in the context of (the new) covenant therefore does not mean merely “to call to mind” ; it implies recalling some benefit received (in this case the atoning death of Jesus) as a basis for present and future action and decision making. In this we see the revival of the central motif in the ideological matrix of the Sinai covenant (and the earlier LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties): the basis for a covenant relationship is the grateful recognition and response to the receipt of an undeserved favor.
Third, the identification of the bread and wine with the body and blood of Christ (“this is my body/blood” ) in turn made possible the identification of the disciples (who eat and drink it) with the sacrificial victim (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Gal 2:20). This has a clear connection with the Iron Age treaties wherein the animal sacrificed is stated specifically to be not a sacrificial animal but the vassal being placed under the loyalty oath (cf. [cf. confer, compare] “this is the head/shoulder/etc. of Mat<ilu, ” ANET [ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3d ed. with suppl., ed. J. B. Pritchard, Princeton, 1969] , 532–33). What is certain is that a central metaphor by which the early Church identified itself was “the body of Christ” (Rom 12:4–5; 1 Corinthians 12), and its individual members understood themselves to be the embodiments of the spirit of Christ (1 Cor 6:15ff. [ff. following pages] ; 2 Cor 4:10–11). The “fruit” of this spirit that they were to manifest in their lives was typically those things that make it possible for a diverse body of people to live together in a community that transcends the typical culturally proscribed, parochial bases of social morale (Gal 5:22–25). In this respect, in contrast with the contemporaneous early rabbinic Judaism, there was no codification of culturally bound norms and practices to govern or regulate the behavior of persons in the community (and subsequent attempts to import such norms, whether Jewish or Greco-Roman, were met with strong resistance [Acts 15; Galatians, esp. [esp. especially] 3:3]).
In the centuries prior to Constantine, when there was no social reward but often the threat of persecution and possible death for identifying oneself as a Christian, the Eucharist by and large could have been little else but the participants’ sacramentum (“oath” ) in which they actually submitted to the lordship of Christ (i.e., to a transcendent, extra-social authority; the “kingdom of God” ). This “submission” occurred not merely at the intangible “spiritual” level or simply at the “liturgical” level—both of which Rome would probably have tolerated—but at the tangible level of ethics and values finding expression in the social realm of interpersonal relations. In short, participation in the ritual was an “index” of submission to the transcendent lordship of Christ (on “indexical” rituals whereby participants transmit information about their own current physical, psychic, or sometimes social states, see Rappaport 1979, esp. [esp. especially] pp. [pp. pages; past] 179ff. [ff. following pages] ). This would have been a concern to imperial officials, who would understandably want to monitor such a movement closely.
In other words, few Christians in those early centuries could have consumed the bread and wine unless they also really and tangibly became constituted as Christ’s body in the world (i.e., they were, in fact, subject to something that transcended the interests of the major political powers of their day, or else they would not have taken the risks associated with being recognized as “Christians” ). Thus, as in early Israel, the “new covenant” was a socially enacted historical reality that brought into existence a pluralistic community of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds who were united by their commitment to some basic, transcendent values identified with “Christ.” (The connection between this development and the OT [OT Old Testament] hopes for the “ingathering of the gentiles” was not lost upon the early Church.)
The situation was, of course, radically reversed when Christianity (especially the church at Rome) became systematically associated with the institutions of political power after the time of Constantine. Under those very different social and historical circumstances, participation in the Christian Eucharist quickly became less constitutive of anything and became much more symbolic in nature. In other words, there were now tangible social rewards for participation in the Eucharist, and the distinction between a pledge of loyalty to a transcendent Christ and a pledge of loyalty to the temporal (but now “Christian” ) emperor in Rome became increasingly fuzzy. At the very least, the ritual was now an “index” of little more than the participants’ acceptance of the rule of the new, “Christianized” Roman Empire, which could not be identical to the rule of Christ (on “symbolic” ritual and how it facilitates deception and hypocrisy, see Rappaport 1979).
In the following centuries the original meaning of the eucharistic sacramentum was entirely forgotten, and increasingly it came to be viewed either as a mysterious and mystical “communion” with Christ, or (particularly for the laity) as a sacrificial ritual that served to heighten the sanctity (and the authority) of the presiding priestly hierarchy. Despite its claim to transcendence, the bloody history that followed indicates that in practice Christianity by and large had now become the (parochial) handmaid serving the advance of Western culture.
b.OT [OT Old Testament] Covenant Motifs in the NT [NT New Testament] . The preceding discussion of the covenantal associations of the Eucharist has begged the fundamentally important question: what exactly was this “Christ” with whom the early Christians identified themselves? The creation of the gospel genre seems, in part, designed to answer this question by presenting to the reader the identity and activity of Jesus of Nazareth, who was claimed to be the Messiah (or Christ) of Israel. From these narratives it is fundamentally clear that, while Jesus claimed for himself the title “king,” Christians did not regard this as a political claim (John 18:36; supposedly “historical” studies claiming that Jesus was a political revolutionary have proven entirely unconvincing). Thus, a sacramentum taken with respect to Christ could not legitimately signal any movement of those ambitious for political power and prestige (Matt 5:5).
The complex issue of the historical Jesus need not detain us here, since our main object of study is early Christianity. However, we must point out that the entire NT [NT New Testament] tradition points to some very important substantive connections with the type of suzerainty treaty exhibited in the Sinai covenant. Those connections, however, are not the external, formal continuities that can be easily traced with the standard scholarly methods that compare and classify phenomena in terms of formal features and surface characteristics. For that reason, this tradition must be explicated in terms of its underlying ideological matrix, and not in terms of any formal covenant elements (which were already being atomized at least as early as the writings of the Deuteronomistic Historian). Scholars dependent upon methods of formal classification have sometimes been quick to (mis)understand the formal “new” -ness of Christianity as indicating its fundamental unrelatedness to earlier Hebrew religion. Indeed, comparatively few of the superficial “forms” of Israelite religion are present in early Christianity (as they are in rabbinic Judaism, whose continued reverence for the Hebrew language and onomastics, the rite of circumcision, the levitical dietary laws, and the liturgical calendar insured at least the formal appearance of continuity with [certain aspects of] Israelite religion). But early Christian community and thought each reflect sometimes subtle links with OT [OT Old Testament] covenant traditions, and to appreciate this requires a scholarly sensitivity to something other than formal characteristics. It also probably requires the assumption that the historical Jesus played some role in articulating those old covenant traditions in a new idiom, although it is highly doubtful that even he understood the Sinai covenant in the formal terms of suzerainty treaty elements.
(1)Identification and Historical Prologue. The constant and crucial issue of the identification of the covenant giver is a good case in point. As the Eucharist tradition indicates, the early Church unquestionably understood this to be Jesus himself. The gospel traditions presenting the person and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth assert the same thing, but in a more roundabout way. There, as in the Sinai covenant tradition (Exod 20:2), the identification of the covenant giver is integrally linked to the historical prologue: it is achieved through a narrative of “benevolent deeds” performed, not merely a heaping up of titles and epithets. The importance of this is evident in Matt 11:2–6, where John the Baptist asks Jesus, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” The answer indeed identifies Jesus as such by quoting the manifestations of deity envisioned in the book of Isaiah (35:5–6; 61:1; cf. [cf. confer, compare] Luke 4:16–21). In other words, Jesus does the things that God does. It is significant that this is a functional rather than a formal identification, and perhaps is based on old concepts that tended to view the Messiah as servant (1 Kgs 12:7) rather than powerful overlord (1 Kgs 12:11; cf. [cf. confer, compare] Matt 20:25–28=Mark 10:42–45; Mendenhall 1986).
Thus, it appears that already during his historical ministry Jesus’ identity was being linked to the tangible “benevolent deeds” he was seen to perform (especially the miraculous healings). However, for the early Christians who lived with the knowledge of Jesus’ death and resurrection (which for them was a historical reality, not a metaphysical proposition), the most important “benevolent deed” performed by the covenant giver was intangible: the atonement, Jesus’ offering of himself for the removal of sin and guilt. This suggests at least a formal connection with the prophecy of the “new covenant” in Jeremiah 31, where the forgiveness of sins is the only act of benevolence mentioned. (It is debatable whether the historical Jesus understood himself to be such an “intangible” [i.e., post-mortem] benefit to his followers.)
In sharp contrast to the use of the historical narrative in the prayer of Ezra, where God is supposed to remember his past deeds performed for the benefit of the corporate body Israel (Nehemiah 9), the historical narrative constituting the gospels emphasizes the direct and immediate benefits that God in Christ bestows on individuals. This understanding of historical events as acts of God that furnish the foundation for a lasting relationship is one of the most striking features of the formative period in early Christianity, and it constitutes a tangible reintroduction of the most fundamental religious feature of the OT [OT Old Testament] tradition; namely, that a covenant relationship with God is based on the receipt of a prior and undeserved act of deliverance (whether physically from the grip of Pharaoh, or metaphysically from the grip of sin and death).
(2)Stipulations. The notion of covenant stipulations was subjected to a most important transformation in the NT [NT New Testament] traditions, or at least what appears to be a “transformation” with respect to postbiblical and early rabbinic Jewish traditions equating covenant stipulations with written (and oral) “law.” But what on first glance appears to be a “transformation” was in fact a way of recovering and returning to early and authentic OT [OT Old Testament] covenant traditions. As in the case of the historical prologue, there was a two-stage development: the first stage associated with the life and teaching of the historical Jesus, and the second associated with the understandings subsequently reflected in early Christian traditions.
Any understanding of Jesus’ notion of religious “obligation” (cf. [cf. confer, compare] Pharisaic “duty” ) must begin by recognizing that for several centuries before Jesus there had been no unanimity among Palestinian Jews—indeed, there had been outright hostilities culminating in civil war—over who had the authority to define and enforce the law of God. It is therefore neither unusual nor surprising to find in the teachings of Jesus (and in the gospel narratives) polemical statements directed against most of the prestigious and ambitious Jewish power blocs of the time (Sadducees, scribes, and Pharisees). As a growing number of scholars are beginning to concede, this has nothing to do with “anti-Semitism” but rather emphasizes that the early Christian movement was an inner-Jewish phenomenon (and as such participated fully in inner-Jewish polemics). The necessary corollary to this hostile polemic is the fact that Jesus of Nazareth and the early Christian movement had no ideology for, and no intention to engage in, the centuries-old power struggle among Palestinian Jewry (Matt 20:25–27). As in the early Iron Age, the rule (“kingdom” ) of God was a reality that had nothing to do with the usual paraphernalia of social and political organizations that were based on little more than coercive force.
Jesus apparently did have a strong respect for the commandments (Matt 5:17–20). He was no libertarian, and in the Sermon on the Mount—as elsewhere throughout the gospel traditions—Jesus is consistently portrayed as a “commanding” personality speaking in the imperative. It has long been noted that the essence of Jesus’ teaching is not to advocate relaxing—much less abolishing—the Law (which subsequently became Paul’s position) but rather just the opposite: to advocate a more stringent observation of the Law: “You therefore must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt 5:48; cf. [cf. confer, compare] 5:20!). Of course, since no one can attain such perfection the net rhetorical effect of Jesus’ teaching ironically is to condemn in advance anyone who seeks to earn covenant blessings by faithful adherence to the stipulations of the Law (which is a structural premise of the “old covenant” tradition). But while subsequent Christians, particularly Paul, used this as the basis for the classic Law/faith dichotomy (and for proclaiming the end of the “old covenant” ), Jesus himself seems to have absolutized the Law for different—but reciprocally interrelated—reasons.
In the first place, he removed religious obligations from the realm of social monitoring and enforcement: thus, his absolutized redefinition of the commandments against killing (Matt 5:21–26) and adultery (5:27–30) effectively removes them from the realm of human monitors and sociopolitical authorities. In short, the concept of religious obligation could no longer be indirectly linked to the perfect will of God through a verbal listing of do’s and don’ts that can be managed and overseen by imperfect human authorities.
In the second place, in exhorting to absolute moral perfection, Jesus now linked the concept of religious obligation directly to the character of God. In short, he advocated a total and complete commonality of interests between suzerain and vassal, and in so doing he (unknowingly) reasserted part of the ideological matrix of the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] treaties. The issue is not just reciprocity (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” ); rather, it is the recognition that the ultimate character of one’s religious obligations proceeds from the character of God as revealed in God’s benevolent deeds (his “grace” ), not as revealed in God’s law (1 John 4:11). To state it covenantally, the ultimate will of the sovereign is manifested more deeply in the character of him whose benevolent deeds are recounted in the historical prologue than in him whose words are recorded in the stipulations. To put it more bluntly, God’s actions (character) speak truer and deeper than God’s words (will) (a point Jesus himself seems to make in Matt 19:3–9).
There is here the recognition that in the ongoing quest for a truly “blessed” community, the behavior of individuals ultimately must correspond directly to the “blessings” they have already received (and not to some impersonal codification of laws, statutes, and ordinances). The notion that the Christian’s obligations should mirror past benefits is reflected in many NT [NT New Testament] traditions which define Christian “duty” in terms of what Jesus did: forgive, forsake worldly goods, preach, teach, heal (even raise the dead!), take up a cross, die. If the “new covenant” should require a “new commandment,” such is given in John 13:34. What is significant about this is the context, definition, and example given for “love” —“. . . even as I have loved you.” “Love” (the stipulation of the covenant) is not codified in words but is rather defined by example, more specifically, by the example of a benefit received (“the Word become flesh” ). This suggests a return to the same ideological matrix as the prophets, who, like Jesus, understood obligations in absolute moral terms and were likewise considered to be threats to the social authorities, who reserved for themselves the right to define, interpret, and enforce obligations.
(3)Deposit, Witnesses, Curses and Blessings. The provision for deposit and periodic public reading in one respect was almost irrelevant in early Christianity, since there was no material object to deposit. But in another respect, certainly related to the “new covenant” vision of the internalization of the covenant (Jer 31:33), the early Church seems to have developed notions that the “covenant” was deposited within the believer.
The list of witnesses was also subject to drastic transformation of a most curious and almost inexplicable sort. Originally the witnesses were supposed to enforce the covenant stipulations by bringing to bear the covenant curses, including the death penalty. In the NT [NT New Testament] from the earliest time the “witness” is the “martyr” (Gk [Gk Greek] martus, “witness” ) who is put to death as a result of adhering (and thereby testifying) to the truth of the faith.
The formula of blessings and curses also underwent significant transformation. As was true also of pre-Christian Judaism, the rewards and punishments meted out by God were to be realized in the “world to come” ; the importance of this is very important to early Christianity as can be seen from the significant role that eschatology plays in early Christian thought. In addition to the eschatological meting out of rewards and punishments in the final judgment, blessings and curses are certainly connected to the “power of the keys” (Matt 16:13–20). The terms translated “binding” and “loosing” have meaning primarily in the ANE [ANE Ancient Near East(ern)] context of imposing, and freeing from, a curse. (It is not surprising that after the time of Constantine the Roman church—identifying itself with Peter—claimed for itself this power. In this regard, we see the Matthew 16 text being used as a sort of “divine charter” to legitimize the authority of the Roman priestly hierarchy, an authority that in reality had been conferred on it by imperial concordat.) The several references to the anathema, especially in the letters of Paul, probably bear on this same theme, but as in Matt 18:18 and perhaps a parallel in John 20:23 this is not a power given to an authority but is rather a characteristic of the community of the faithful.
c.Summary. At precisely the same time that rabbinic Judaism was “building a fence around the Torah” (and rationalizing such by a general appeal to the OT [OT Old Testament] covenant tradition), apostolic Christianity was expanding. In early rabbinic Judaism, “covenant” was largely a formal or symbolic dogmatic concept that gave meaning mainly to those already within a group whose base of solidarity and cohesion was primarily ethnic. In early apostolic Christianity, on the other hand, “covenant” was largely a socially enacted historical reality that accompanied sufficient functional changes in old patterns of behavior so as to rupture old ethnic and political bases of social solidarity and cohesion and to replace these with a larger vision of the human community. Certainly the tenor here was initially set by Jesus himself, who not only sought relationships with people who were outside the “proper” cultural boundaries (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , eating with tax collectors and sinners), but also challenged the religious legitimacy of those boundaries (e.g. [e.g. exempli gratia (for example)] , sabbath observance). In this we see the reappearance of the same ideological matrix found in the Sinai covenant and prophetic faith: that religious community can cut across old parochialisms and need not be defined in terms of legal norms backed up by coercive power.
The entire covenant complex of NT [NT New Testament] thought that has been only briefly sketched here illustrates the complete internalization of the ethic of the rule of God, ideally envisioned (but imperfectly realized) in the Sinai suzerainty treaty and so frequently pleaded for (largely in vain) by the OT [OT Old Testament] prophets (Ezek 36:26–27). At the same time, this ethic became freed from the cultural parochialism and political arrogation that inevitably accompanies a defined code of norms and laws. It is clear enough that not all Christians (just as not all early Israelites) succeeded in grasping these points, as illustrated by the reversion to a canon law system in later centuries. In that respect, one could argue that even today the ability of most people to grasp the significance of what it means to be in a “covenant” relationship with a transcendent “God” has advanced little from the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Age. Nevertheless, the radical transformation that constituted the early Christian Church remains an excellent example of what can happen when new wine is put into old bottles.
I.Conclusion
Because “covenant” is a central biblical metaphor for the relationship between God and his people, it is not surprising that the attempts of biblical theologians to find a thematic “center” (Mitte) of the Bible invariably return time and again to the subject of covenant, or to some particular aspect of covenant. But as long as theologians conceive their task as primarily elucidating biblical “ideas,” they will continue to miss the fundamental significance of covenant in the biblical tradition. Covenant is not an “idea” to be embraced in the mind, and therefore religious community cannot be defined with respect to “orthodox” appraisals of that idea. Covenant is an “enacted reality” that is either manifested in the concrete choices individuals make, or not. The rule of God is defined with respect to those whose concrete choices arise out of certain positive values that actually transcend culturally bound norms and politically enforced laws.
Similarly, as long as biblical scholars remain content to deal with covenant “ideas” in terms of formal elements and rigidly defined categories, most of the matrix of ideas associated with covenant will remain unnoticed and unappreciated. Covenant form was apparently never that important anywhere in antiquity: even for the LB [LB Late Bronze (Age)] Hittites it was merely a device for communicating values envisioning human relationships proceeding along some moral plane higher than coercive force.
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