Revelation at Sinai in the hebrew bible and in jewish theology

Journal of Religion

Volumn 79, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 422-450

  Sommer, Benjamin D ^a  

^a NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 63849270675     PISSN: 00224189     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/490456     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. see, e.g., James Barr, Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), esp. pp. 49-74.
2. For Heschel's view, see Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1956), p. 185;
3. For Rosenzweig, see Franz Rosenzweig, On Jewish Learning, ed. Nahum Glatzer (New York: Schocken, 1955), p. 118.
4. See Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, trans. William Hallo (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970), pp. 176-78. Glatzer expressed a kindred view of revelation, as Rosenzweig notes in On Jewish Learning, p. 119. A similar, but not identical, idea appears in the work of Martin Buber, who understands revelation as involving divine presence (but not divine command);
5. See esp. Aryeh Toeg, Lawgiving at Sinai (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977), pp. 13-14 (in Hebrew);
6. Brevard Childs, The Book of Exodus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), p. 244;
7. Moshe Greenberg, "The Decalogue Tradition Critically Examined," in Segal, ed., pp. 83-88. An especially clear description of the oddities produced by attempting to read Exodus 19-24 as a continuous narrative appears in Baruch Schwartz, "What Really Happened at Mount Sinai? Four Biblical Answers to One Question," Bible Review 12, no. 5 (October 1997): 20-46, esp. 23-25. The various textual components of these chapters approach crucial narrative and thematic issues very differently, as Baruch Schwartz shows in "The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai," in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. Michael Fox et al. (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1996), pp. 103-34, esp. pp. 122-30. A recent review of literature, followed by a detailed treatment of source critical and redactional issues, appears in Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990), esp. pp. 45-47.
8. See, e.g., the comprehensive discussion of Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 147-77 (emphasizing the Canaanite background of these motifs);
9. Samuel Loewenstamm, "The Trembling of Nature during the Theophany," in Comparative Studies in Biblical and Ancient Oriental Literatures (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1980), pp. 172-89 (stressing the Mesopotamian parallels);
10. Jörg Jeremias, Theophanie: Die Geschichte einer alttestamentlichen Gattung, 2d ed. (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1977), pp. 73-90, 174 (stressing both).
11. See Samuel R. Driver, The Book of Exodus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), p. 201;
12. See, e.g., P. Joüon and T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1991), sec. 121, subsec. f; sec. 167, subsec. h.
13. see J. Carpenter and G. Harford-Battersby, The Hexateuch according to the Revised Version (London: Longmans, Green, 1900), 1:110.
14. and Thomas Dozeman, God on the Mountain (Atlanta: Scholars, 1989), pp. 47-49.
15. cf. Blum, pp. 45-99;
16. and Licht (n. 11 above), pp. 252-54.
17. See Samuel Loewenstamm, "The Formula 'At That Time' in the Introductory Speeches in the Book of Deuteronomy," Tarbiz 38 (1969): 99-104 (in Hebrew). Loewenstamm collects fourteen other examples in chapters 1-10 in which context shows that the sections starting with this formula, "at that time," are secondary.
18. On this tendency in Jewish learning, see David Weiss Halivni, Midrash, Mishna, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 108-15.
19. and Moshe Greenberg, "The True Meaning of the Bible," in his collection of essays, On the Bible and Judaism, ed. Avraham Shapira (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1984), pp. 345-49 (in Hebrew).
20. Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), p. 364. Maimonides is troubled by the phrase, qol devarim in Deut. 4:12, and he argues that the presence of the phrase "voice of words" rather than just "words" shows that the nation heard a sound but not words directly. Thus he attempts to read the minimalist position into a line that was intended to clarify Exodus 19 according to the maximalist one.
21. For other references to this teaching in Hasidic literature, see M. Weisbaum, ed., Yalqul Menachem (Jerusalem: Machon Siftei Tsadiqim, 1986), pp. 158-59. The association between Mendel's interpretation and Maimonides' comments in Guide 2:33 is noted in Aliron Marcus, Der Chassidismus: Eine Kulturgeschichtliche Studie (Pleschen: Jeschurun, 1901), p. 239;
22. and in Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, trans. Ralph Mannheim (London: Routledge & Kegan, 1965), pp. 30-31. Both these books attribute the Rymanover's teaching to his work Toral Menachem (also known as Menachem Tsion), where it does not in fact appear.
23. On which, see Eliot Wolfson, "The Hermeneutics of Visionary Experience: Revelation and Interpretation in the Zohar" Religion 18 (1988): 311-45, esp. 313 and n. 11.
24. Yair Zakovitch, "Qol Děmamah Daqqah," Tarbiz 51 (1982): 334-35, 345 (in Hebrew);
25. and Marsha White, The Elijah Legends and Jehu's Coup (Atlanta: Scholars, 1997), pp. 4-11.
26. This perspective differs from that of Deuteronomy, which insists that the nation heard the entirety of the Ten Commandments. However, Deuteronomy shares an affinity with the Rymanover/Tishbite approach. Geller shows that Deuteronomy 4 carefully contrasts hearing to seeing. That chapter insists on the theological superiority of the former: God revealed Himself through sound rather than sight because the former allowed God to remain transcendent. (See Stephen Geller, "Fiery Wisdom: Logos and Lexis in Deuteronomy 4," Prooftexts 14 [1994]: 103-39, esp. 133.) Similarly, a revelation through a "thin sound of utter silence" projects a sign of divine presence into the world without requiring any sort of incarnation.
27. See Yehezkel Kaufmann, Toledot Ha-Emunah Ha-Yisra'elit (History of the religion of Israel) (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Bialik & Devir, 1937-56), 2:477-78 (in Hebrew);
28. and Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), pp. 148-52. The notion of the "sanctuary of silence" appears specifically in P texts, not in H or D. Significantly, it is precisely in the P strand in Exodus 19 that we find a view of revelation without words or thunder, as Schwartz points out (in "Priestly Account" [n. 8 above], p. 125).
29. See the discussions and many additional sources in Abraham Joshua Heschel, Torah min Ha-shamayim (London: Soncino, 1965;
30. and in E. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. I. Abrahamson (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975), pp. 197-201 and notes. This notion has prerabbinic roots. Heschel points out that Philo already distinguished between the written Torah we know and the heavenly logos through which God created the world;
31. For further discussion, see Michael Fishbane, The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Henneneutics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), pp. 33-46;
32. Gershom Scholem, "Revelation and Tradition as Religious Categories in Judaism," in his The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York: Schocken, 1971), pp. 292-303;
33. on various attitudes toward post-Sinaitic law prior to revelation, see Gary Anderson, "The Status of the Torah before Sinai," Dead Sea Discoveries 1 (1994): 1-29.
34. This question is addressed in a different way in Lawrence Perlman, Abraham Heschel's Idea of Revelation (Atlanta: Scholars, 1989), pp. 119-33 and implicitly throughout Heschel's Torah, especially vol. 2. Heschel endeavors in particular to show that what I call the stenographic model of revelation is not the only one current in rabbinic and medieval Judaism (see, e.g., 2:146-56). My own attempt to answer this question differs in my assertion that the attitude - better, temper - found in some modern thinkers such as Rosenzweig and Heschel can be traced not only in rabbinic and medieval literature but in biblical texts themselves.
35. See also Stephan Moses, System and Revelation: The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig, trans. Catherine Tihanyi (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992), pp. 113-15;
36. and Paul Mendes-Flohr, "Law and Sacrament: Ritual Observance in Twentieth Century Jewish Thought," in Jewish Spirituality from the Six-teenth Century to the Present, ed. Arthur Green (New York: Crossroads, 1987), pp. 327-29. Similarly, one must emphasize that the presence was a real one, even though the words of the Torah are reflection of (or on) contact with that presence. Here we recall Heschel's insistence that revelation is filled with objective content although the words in biblical texts were fashioned by the prophets who wrote them.