THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Resources for Biblical Study

Susan Ackerman, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Editor

Number 70

THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

 THE HEBREW BIBLE
AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

By
Jaco Gericke

Society of Biblical Literature

Atlanta
 THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gericke, Jaco.
The Hebrew Bible and philosophy of religion / Jaco Gericke.
p. cm. — (Society of Biblical Literature resources for biblical study ; no. 70)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 978-1-58983-707-2 (paper binding : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58983-708-9
(electronic format) — ISBN 978-1-58983-797-3 (hardcover binding : alk. paper)
1. Philosophy and religion. 2. God (Judaism) 3. Jewish ethics—Philosophy. 4. Bible.
O.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title.
BL51.G45 2012
221'.0601—dc23 2012041824

Printed on acid-free, recycled paper conforming to

ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) and ISO 9706:1994
standards for paper permanence.
 Contents

Preface ...............................................................................................................vii
Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................x
Abbreviations ....................................................................................................xi

Part 1

1. A Philosophical Approach to Ancient Israelite Religion ......................3

2. Philosophical Approaches to the Study of Religion.............................15

3. Philosophy of Religion and Hebrew Bible Interpretation:

A Brief History of Interdisciplinary Relations......................................41

4. The Hebrew Bible in Philosophy of Religion ........................................81

5. Descriptive Currents in Philosophy of Religion for

Hebrew Bible Studies .............................................................................115

6. Possible Analogies for a Philosophy of Ancient

Israelite Religion .....................................................................................155

7. Philosophical Criticism as Biblical Criticism .....................................199

8. Toward a Descriptive Philosophy of Ancient Israelite Religion.......223

Part 2

9. The Nature of Religious Language in the Hebrew Bible ...................243

10. The Concept of Generic Godhood in the Hebrew Bible ...................259

vi THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

11. Yhwh: A Philosophical Perspective .....................................................293

12. Natural A/theologies in Ancient Israel ................................................343

13. Epistemologies in Ancient Israelite Religion ......................................371

14. Religion and Morality in Ancient Israel ..............................................405

15. Summary and Conclusion ....................................................................447

Bibliography ...................................................................................................453
Index of Biblical References .........................................................................487
Index of Modern Authors.............................................................................489
Index of Subjects............................................................................................497
 Preface

I’m searching for the philosopher’s stone

And it’s a hard road,
It’s a hard road daddy-o
When my job is turning lead into gold.1

When the young Friedrich Nietzsche’s first book (The Birth of Tragedy)
came out, it appeared to merit only one review. According to the critic
who penned it, anyone who wrote a work of that sort was finished as a
scholar. The book was subsequently rejected by Nietzsche’s peers and only
served to distance him from the academic establishment of the time. One
reason for the work’s bad reception was the fact that it undermined the
traditional division between philosophical discourse and artistic expres-
sion so dear to western folk philosophy. Because Nietzsche’s philosophical
contribution to philology would not fit into the neat categories into which
the academic discussions of his day were separated, he was a “problem
philosopher” for many of his colleagues.2

1. From The Philosopher’s Stone by Van Morrison. In the context of this foreword, I
use the motif to symbolize a mad scientist seeking to achieve academic immortality with
a Great Work that involves turning nonphilosophical biblical texts into a philosophy of
Israelite religion. I have to say at the outset that I have no problem having recourse to
Wikipedia entries, even though my doing so will scandalize many of my peers. In aca-
demic circles, Wikipedia has the reputation of being too superficial or unreliable for
research purposes. As I see it, however, Wikipedia entries should be judged on their indi-
vidual merit. While there are many entries in the field of theology that are patently filled
with fundamentalist pseudoscholarship, there are also those that offer useful summaries
of ideas otherwise difficult to explain to biblical scholars with little philosophical back-
ground. Furthermore, by making use of that resource I am making a statement about the
supermodernist transgression this study represents.
2. See Laurence Gane and Kitty Chan, Introducing Nietzsche (Cambridge: Icon Books,
1999), 12.

-vii-
viii THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

This book has the potential to become Hebrew Bible scholarship’s

equivalent of Nietzsche’s attempt to think beyond the established cat-
egories. Very few biblical scholars are ready to imagine an independent
philosophical approach to ancient Israelite religion, one supplementing
already extant interpretative methodologies. Even worse, biblical studies
tends to be one of those fields where the discrediting of popular senti-
ments, rather than being welcomed as a sign of scientific progress, is
dreaded as a possible precursor to a personal existential disaster. Perhaps,
then, a tongue-in-cheek warning is required: readers who are comfortable
in the belief that philosophical concerns, categories and concepts are the
enemies of the biblical scholar may be in danger of being awakened from
one of the oldest dogmatic slumbers in the business.
In the pages to follow I hope to demonstrate that certain types of
descriptive varieties of philosophy of religion exist that are capable of
aiding the clarification of meaning in the Hebrew Bible. Obviously, not
everything written here is completely novel. Besides involving bits and
pieces of ideas of many others before me, this study represents a continua-
tion and marked revision of a chapter of methodological musings first put
forward in my Ph.D. dissertation written during the period 2002–2003.3
There I proposed the utilization of philosophy of religion as an auxiliary
discipline in Hebrew Bible Studies. At the time I was staggering from a
loss of faith from which I never recovered. My concerns were therefore
largely evaluative and critical, that is, atheological.
However, readers familiar with stereotypical analytic philosophy of
religion and hoping either for an attempted justification of biblical truth
claims or seeking an atheological critique of ancient Yahwism are advised
to turn elsewhere. The present work is motivated by a need for under-
standing and elucidation of the worlds in the text despite my essentially
postrealist (i.e., atheist) interpretative paradigm. So while some readers
will insist that it is impossible to come up with a theologically interesting
and hermeneutically legitimate nonrealist and descriptive perspective on
the Hebrew Bible, I believe I have done it. What the reader will encounter
in the pages to follow is something unlike anything currently typical of
mainstream biblical scholarship. To my mind it represents a pioneering

3. Jacobus W. Gericke, “Does Yahweh Exist? A Philosophical-Critical Reconstruction

of the Case against Realism in Old Testament Theology” (Ph.D. diss., University of Preto-
ria, 2004), 10–25.
 PREFACE ix

endeavor that has the potential of becoming the latest new form of inter-
disciplinary biblical scholarship.
Though my personal obsession is the possible role of and interest in
the Hebrew Bible in a readerly context outside of faith-based scholarship (a
topic debated on the SBL Forum), this study will enable biblical scholars of
all persuasions to access levels of meaning that lie beyond the scope of lin-
guistic, literary, historical and social-scientific perspectives on the text. It
even opens up new avenues for more objective theological thinking, since
I have no desire to make the text into an object of scorn, as is the case with
the New Atheist hermeneutic (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher
Hitchens, etc.). It is not a call for the end of biblical studies (Hector Avalos)
but for the beginning of a new era therein, one in which both believer and
skeptic can together read the ancient texts from a perspective as relatively
neutral as that found in the study of any other ancient culture such as that
of the Greeks.
If favorably received, this study therefore has the potential to revolu-
tionize the way we think about ancient Israelite religion. Indeed, perhaps
only die-hard biblical theologians of the older generation of biblical theol-
ogy enthusiasts will be able to really appreciate the mind shift its central
concern represents. The target reader, however, is the new generation,
twenty-first-century biblical scholar with philosophical interests, unham-
pered by the hermeneutical and ideological baggage of the past. Both
theistic and atheistic readers will find something to chew on and discover
why philosophy bashing in biblical scholarship, I am sorry to say, now has
to be considered as having been “so twentieth century.”
In conclusion, I believe that, like life itself, biblical scholarship is but
a game. This does not mean that one cannot take it very seriously. Yet for
me the challenge is not winning, but figuring out how to make it more
interesting than ever before. Of course, if the history of interpretation
has taught us anything, it is that all our profound ideas are destined to
become chaff in the wind. So rather than search for final answers, this
study intends to initiate the quest for ultimate questions. In the end, it
does not really matter which way the wind blows; and there is also no
reason why one cannot learn to ride on its wings, like a god who is medi-
tating, or wandering away, or on a journey, or perhaps asleep and in need
of being awakened.

Jaco Gericke
Pretoria, December 2011
 Acknowledgements

The writings of both biblical scholars and philosophers of religion have

played a role in the development of my thoughts. Ghost mentors include
biblical scholars such as James Barr, James Crenshaw, Robert Carroll,
David Clines, and Rolf Knierim. In philosophy of religion, the thoughts
of Don Cupitt and Keith Ward have greatly motivated my own endeavors.
Many other scholars from a variety of fields have at one time or another
influenced my thinking on issues addressed in this study and to all of them
I am extremely grateful.
As for people closer to home, I would like to thank my colleague at
the Vaal Campus of North-West University, Professor Hans van Deventer.
Without him, I would simply have been deprived of the opportunity to
undertake this study. Other supportive coconspirators include professors
Dirk Human, Jurie Le Roux, Hendrik Bosman, and Dr. Christo Lom-
baard.
I am also very grateful to two wonderful women, Marlize and Char-
lotte, who each in her own way and time supported me kindly under the
most complicated of circumstances.
Finally, I would like to thank Mrs. Isabelle Delvare for the proofread-
ing of the manuscript. Many thanks also to Susan Ackerman, Bob Buller,
and the SBL copyediting team for their painstaking and extended assis-
tance in removing many shortcomings in the manuscript
I would also like to acknowledge my gratitude to the editors of the
Journal for Semitics, Old Testament Essays, Verbum et Ecclesia, Hervormde
Teologiese Studies, and Scriptura for permission to utilize selections from
previously published articles in sections of this book
Without all of you, none of this would be possible. Well, technically
it might still be possible, but it would not have been easy. Not that it was
actually easy, but you know what I mean. I hope.

-x-
 Abbreviations

AD Ars Disputandi
APA American Philosophical Association
BCP Blackwell Companions to Philosophy
BCR Blackwell Companions to Religion
BRMT Blackwell Readings in Modern Theology
BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin
BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissen-
schaft
DDD Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible
ER Encyclopedia of Religion
FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament
FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und
Neuen Testaments
HCPR Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
HTS Hervormde Teologiese Studies
IEP Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
ISBE International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Edited by G. W.
Bromiley. 4 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979–1988.
IJPR Internet Journal for the Philosophy of Religion
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JBT Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie
JFR Jahrbuch für Religionsphilosophie
JNABI Journal of the National Association of Biblical Instructors
JNES Journal for Near Eastern Studies
JPS Journal of Philosophy and Scripture
JR Journal of Religion
JSem Journal for Semitics
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement
Series

-xi-
xii THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

LTT Library of Theological Translations

NPNF A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the
Christian Church. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace.
28 vols. in 2 series. 1886–1889.
NZSTR Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religions-
philosophie
OBT Overtures to Biblical Theology
OTE Old Testament Essays
OTL Old Testament Library
PEW Philosophy East and West
RCIP Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy
REP Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
RelStud Religious Studies
SBTS Sources for Biblical and Theological Study
SemeiaSt Semeia Studies
SEP Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
SJOT Scandinavian Journal ofthe Old Testament
SJT Scottish Journal of Theology
So Sophia: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion
ST Studia Theologica
TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by
G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren. Translated
by John T. Willis, G. W. Bromiley, and David E. Green.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–.
ThWAT Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament
ThZ Theologische Zeitschrift
TW Theologische Wissenschaft
UF Ugaritische Forschung
VE Verbum et Ecclesia
VT Vetus Testamentum
VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum
WTJ Westminster Theological Journal
ZAR Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsge-
schichte
ZAW Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZTK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche
 Part 1

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponent and
making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually
die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.*

* Max K. Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (trans. Frank Gaynor;
New York: Philosophical Library, 1949), 33–34.
 1
A Philosophical Approach to
Ancient Israelite Religion

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because
of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something—
because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry
do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him.—
And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking
and most powerful.1

1.1. The Philosophical Gap in Hebrew Bible Interpretation

Interdisciplinary research in the study of the Hebrew Bible is nothing

novel.2 In fact, it is impossible to do any other kind. All forms of biblical
criticism have recourse to at least one auxiliary subject, be it linguistics,
literary criticism, history, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, psychol-
ogy, theology, philosophy, or another. In a pluralist hermeneutical context
where different methodologies offer different insights, none of these aux-
iliary fields can lay claim to be the handmaid of biblical interpretation. All
are equally useful aids in their own right, depending on what one wants to
achieve in the reading of the text. The only essence in Hebrew Bible schol-
arship is thus not to be located in any particular approach to the text, but
rather in the Hebrew Bible itself. (This is despite the well-known fact that
the idea of a stable text is itself problematic.)

1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (trans. Gertrude E. M. Ans-

combe; New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001), §129.
2. Some ideas expressed here were first expressed in Jaco Gericke, “The Quest for
a Philosophical Yahweh (Part 1): Old Testament Studies and Philosophy of Religion,”
OTE 18 (2006): 579–602.

-3-
4 THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Surveying the interpretative smorgasbord, the biblical scholar is con-

fronted by an immense variety of reading strategies.3 The extended family
of biblical criticism include, inter alia, textual, source, tradition, redac-
tion, form, historical, narrative, rhetorical, new, social-scientific, delimita-
tion, feminist, ideological, canonical, psychological, mythological, com-
position, autobiographical and theological criticism. As for large scale
approaches to the text, one can choose among biblical Hebrew linguistics,
biblical geography, biblical archaeology, the history of Israel, the history of
Israelite religion, comparative ancient Near Eastern studies, the sociology
of Israelite religion, biblical theology, biblical ethics, biblical hermeneu-
tics, cognitive perspectives, and so on.
From this overview, one might be tempted to conclude that Hebrew
Bible scholars have at their disposal everything one could possibly need
for the purposes of comprehensive and holistic research. In fact, one
sometimes gets the impression that we have nearly exhausted possibilities
for reading the text. All that is left is refinement, application, and keep-
ing up to date with the latest trends in the auxiliary fields. Or so it seems.
However, this conclusion is premature. From the perspective of religious
studies proper, there is something seriously wrong with this picture. Some-
thing is missing as far as the multiplicity of approaches to ancient Israel-
ite religion is concerned. For while we offer linguistic, literary, historical,
theological, sociological, anthropological and psychological perspectives,
there is to this day no officially recognized, independent and descriptive
philosophical approach to the study of ancient Israelite religion.

1.2. The Involvement of Philosophy in Hebrew Bible Studies

To be sure, biblical scholars do make use of philosophy, in a number of

ways:

1. For a long time in the history of biblical interpretation, philos-

ophy was in fact the official handmaid of biblical commentary.
2. Every major era in biblical interpretation came about as a
result of philosophical (especially epistemological) fashions
that provided a hermeneutical justification for a particular

3. For discussion of the methods, see Richard N. Soulen and Kendall R. Soulen,
Handbook of Biblical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001).
 PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH TO ANCIENT ISRAELITE RELIGION 5

paradigm shift.4 The epistemology of modernism lies behind

the historical turn, while postmodern epistemologies pro-
vided the impetus for the creation and employment of a vari-
ety of socioliterary approaches.
3. A minimal acquaintance with ideas that have roots in phi-
losophy is required when coming to terms with the theory
underlying many forms of biblical criticism. Philosophy is
always covertly present as something indelible and all forms
of biblical criticism are only meaningful given a number of
unspoken philosophical assumptions.5
4. Some fields in the study of the Hebrew Bible are by their very
nature fundamentally linked to issues in related philosophical
trends, e.g., biblical hermeneutics and biblical ethics.
5. Overviews of the history of biblical interpretation often note
influential philosophical ideas in the makeup of notable bibli-
cal scholars. One cannot acquaint oneself with the history of
biblical interpretation without becoming knowingly or unwit-
tingly familiar with some of the popular assumptions in Pla-
tonism, Aristotelianism, rationalism, romanticism, idealism,
historicism, personalism, positivism, Marxism, existential-
ism, postmodernism, and so on.
6. Biblical theologians have never really stopped worrying
about the relation of philosophy to their subject. Even after
the separation of biblical criticism and biblical theology from
dogmatics, we find traces of dependence on ideas put forward
by fashionable philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx,
Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida, and so on.

A variety of philosophical subdisciplines are therefore indirectly still pull-

ing some of the strings behind the scenes in research on the Hebrew Bible.
Their influence is palpable, even in the writings of those scholars with no
training in philosophy. Philosophical fields that are most clearly visible

4. On the influential role of philosophy in American theology, see Nancey Murphy,

Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Philosophy Set
the Philosophical Agenda (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1996).
5. On the philosophical assumptions in those dismissive of philosophy, see James
Barr, The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1999), 152.
6 THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

include hermeneutics, ethics, philosophy of language, philosophy of litera-

ture, political philosophy, social philosophy and the philosophy of science.
It was the recognition of this state of affairs that once prompted a rare
retraction of earlier claims by none other than the late James Barr himself:

In this respect, incidentally, I should perhaps make an amendment to my

remarks in The Concept of Biblical Theology, ch. 10, in which I pointed
out how far Old Testament scholarship was remote from philosophy.
The judgment should perhaps have a temporal qualifier attached to it: it
certainly applies up to my own generation. Judging from the influential
hermeneutical philosophies, and from some of what is now written in
biblical studies, a kind of philosophy, especially social philosophy and
what is coming to be called critical-theory, is becoming more obvious
and central in biblical study. But this is for the most part a new thing, an
innovation as against what has been normal since the mid-nineteenth
century. It may certainly change the air of biblical study. Philosophical
claims or claims of critical theory, disquisitions about poststructural-
ism, postmodernism and the like may take the place of what used to be
called Hebrew Grammar or textual criticism. Derrida and Foucault will
become more familiar than the Septuagint or Brown, Driver and Briggs.
It certainly looks that way at the moment.6

Notwithstanding these overt and covert excursions to things philosophi-

cal, there is something that still does not make sense and that needs to be
examined more closely.

1.3. What about Philosophy of Religion?

It seems rather odd that Hebrew Bible scholars—whose main concern is

religious texts—have failed to make intensive and extensive use of the one
philosophical discipline actually exclusively devoted to the study of reli-
gious phenomena, i.e. philosophy of religion. To be sure, one does encoun-
ter isolated allusions to philosophy of religion in the works of biblical
scholars, that is, indirect references to philosophical debates on the nature
of religious language, the problem of evil and religious epistemology. Even
so, at present no dictionary or encyclopedia of biblical interpretation
includes entries such as “philosophical criticism” or “philosophy of Israelite

6. James Barr, History and Ideology in the Old Testament: Biblical Studies at the
End of a Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 27–28.
 PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH TO ANCIENT ISRAELITE RELIGION 7

religion.”7 No wonder even James Barr felt that the prospect for interdisci-
plinary research looked bleak:

It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree of alienation that the aver-

age biblical scholar has felt in relation to the work of disciplines like
philosophical theology or philosophy of religion. Their modes of discussion
and decision seem to him or her remote and unreal. The questions they
discuss and the criteria they apply seem to be contrived and artificial,
and the world of discourse in which they move seems to be quite a differ-
ent world from the world of the Bible, to which the biblical scholar feels
he has a sort of direct and empirical access.8

If this assessment is accurate, readers may be perplexed as to why anyone

in their right mind would want to consider such an apparent mismatch
as that between Hebrew Bible interpretation and philosophy of religion
in the first place. One maxim of “theological engineering” in the current
paradigm holds that the very different nature of the two subjects suggests
that they cannot be fused into a hybrid form of inquiry. Biblical studies are
descriptive and historical, while philosophy of religion is evaluative and
normative. Past attempts to read the texts from a philosophical perspec-
tive—and there have been many—are now considered to have failed spec-
tacularly. Philosophical concerns, categories, and concepts have severely
distorted biblical thought. Characterized by nonphilosophical genres, the
texts show no overt concern with philosophical issues. They contain nei-
ther philosophical definitions, nor formal arguments seeking to justify
religious truth claims. The last two centuries of biblical criticism since the
separation of biblical and dogmatic theology have therefore taught us, if
anything, that the Hebrew Bible is not a philosophical textbook.
As for philosophy of religion, in the West the discipline tends to be
equated with a critical appraisal of philosophical concepts in contempo-
rary Judeo-Christian religious truth claims. In stereotyped formats it is
difficult to distinguish the field from normative metaphysical speculation,
Christian apologetics, Christian philosophical theology, and so on. Hence

7. To be sure, a word search on the internet will reveal entries concerned with a
“biblical philosophy” of something in the vulgar sense of the term, as can be seen by
doing a Boolean word search with “Bible” and “philosophy” on the Internet. Here one
finds titles such as “A biblical philosophy of X” or “Biblical philosophy as X,” but most
of the time the term “philosophy” is used in the populist sense of “opinion.”
8. Barr, Concept of Biblical Theology, 146, emphasis added.
8 THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

belief revision in the history of Israelite religion, synchronic theological

pluralism, narrative and poetic representation, as well as metaphorical
god-talk all seem profoundly problematic to any reader of the Hebrew
Bible with some historical consciousness. We look in vain for any overt
philosophy of religion in the texts and cannot construct a unified contem-
porary relevant philosophy of religion from its contents.
But if we grant all this, which I do, why should anyone even want to
consider the possibility of a philosophical approach to ancient Israelite
religion in the first place?

1.4. Rationale for a Descriptive Philosophical Approach to

Ancient Israelite Religion

For my proposal of a philosophical approach to the study of ancient Isra-

elite religion to be taken seriously, it will have to satisfy two requirements.
First, I will have to demonstrate the possibility of involving philosophy
of religion in historical biblical interpretation without repeating the her-
meneutical fallacies of the past. Second, I will have to show that a philo-
sophical approach to ancient Israelite religion is worth our while and able
to deliver insights into the meaning of the biblical materials that already
existing approaches to the text are unable to offer. In this regard, I offer a
number of reasons as to why a philosophical approach to ancient Israelite
religion is not a luxury but a necessity.
First, there is the requirement to be comprehensive in our understand-
ing of ancient Israelite religion. In the scientific study of religion, it is taken
for granted that linguistic, literary, historical, anthropological, sociologi-
cal, psychological, and theological perspectives must be supplemented by
a philosophical approach to obtain a holistic understanding of the religion
in question:9

The study of religion, to be complete, needs to address basic philo-

sophical questions about what exists (metaphysics), what can be known
(epistemology), about what is valuable (value theory and ethics).… Phi-

9. Peter Connolly, ed., Approaches to the Study of Religion (London: Continuum,

1999). For a survey and discussion of approaches to the study of religion, see Robert A.
Segal, ed., The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion (BCR; New York: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2006).
 PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH TO ANCIENT ISRAELITE RELIGION 9

losophy is hard to avoid. Even radical dismissal of philosophy involves

a philosophy.10

One cannot begin to comprehend the fundamental structures of meaning

even in the study of ancient prephilosophical religions without attending
to their texts’ basic assumptions regarding reality, knowledge, and value.
It is therefore impossible to understand the conceptual backgrounds
implicit in the Hebrew Bible without a descriptive philosophical clarifica-
tion of the metaphysical, epistemological and moral presuppositions of
its discourses.
Second, a philosophical approach can help us to avoid possible
anachronistic philosophical-theological distortions in our research. Unless
we are able to come up with a historical-philosophical clarification of the
concepts, beliefs, and practices of ancient Israelite religion for its own
sake, we are left with a scenario in which we have no formal means of
controlling our tendency to project our own anachronistic Jewish or
Christian philosophical-theological assumptions about religious lan-
guage, religious epistemology, the nature of God, the existence of God,
the problem of evil, and so on, onto biblical god-talk. Contrary to popular
belief, therefore, we actually need more—not fewer—philosophical inqui-
ries, precisely because the Hebrew Bible is not a textbook in the philoso-
phy of religion.
Third, descriptive methods have been available in philosophy of religion
for quite a while now. Not all types of philosophical analysis of religion are
critical, speculative, systematic, or normative in nature. Certain methods
in analytic, phenomenological, and comparative currents in philosophy
of religion offer tools that can be utilized purely with the aim of clarifying
meaning. These methods make a historical approach within philosophy of
religion possible. In turn, descriptive philosophies of religion are suitable
for use in biblical criticism with its historical agenda. Since philosophy of
religion is no longer necessarily an endeavor whose concerns are limited
to apologetics or natural a/theology, the popular objections to the involve-
ment of it in biblical studies do not apply here.
Fourth, there exists a yawning philosophical gap in research on the
Hebrew Bible. Neither philosophers of religion (including Jewish philoso-

10. Charles Taliaferro, “Philosophy of Religion,” in Segal, Blackwell Companion

to the Study of Religion, 123. The need for a philosophical approach to the concept of
deity is also explained by Raimundo Panikkar, “Deity,” ER 4:274–76.
10 THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

phers) nor Hebrew Bible scholars have made much effort to come up with
purely descriptive, in-depth philosophical accounts of the beliefs, prac-
tices and concepts of ancient Yahwism(s). On the one hand, philosophers
of religion (and Jewish philosophers) focus mostly on contemporary or
past philosophical traditions within Judaism and Christianity and do not
have any desire to engage in a philosophical analysis elucidating ancient
Israelite religion for its own sake. On the other hand, scholars of the
Hebrew Bible who do study ancient Yahwism(s) have by default adopted
all possible approaches in religious studies, except a philosophical one. So
neither biblical scholars nor philosophers of religion study ancient Israel-
ite religion descriptively from the perspective of issues on the agenda in
philosophy of religion.
Taken together, these four points offer a cumulative argument as to
why a philosophical account of biblical Yahwism is timely, sorely needed
and, perhaps most important of all, possible.

1.5. Objectives of This Study

During the twentieth century, a debate has raged regarding the place and
role of philosophy as such in Hebrew Bible studies in general, and within
Old Testament theology in particular.11 The contents of this book are not
intended to contribute to that discussion and I leave it to biblical theolo-
gians to decide how they wish to operate in relation to philosophy per se.
Instead, my aim is to argue in favor of the establishment of a new and inde-
pendent interpretative methodology exclusively concerned with involving
philosophy of religion in particular as an auxiliary subject. As such my
goals overlap with, yet differ from, those of biblical theology; just as the
objectives of philosophy of religion overlap with yet differ from those of
systematic theology.
That being said, it is of paramount importance to note that the aim of
this study is not to show how the Hebrew Bible can contribute to popu-
lar debates in contemporary Jewish or Christian philosophy of religion.
Rather, the objective is to demonstrate how currents in descriptive phi-
losophy of religion can be of use to biblical scholars concerned with the
clarification of meaning in the Hebrew Bible. The findings of this type of
historical-philosophical analysis may or may not be relevant to philoso-

11. See James Barr, Concept of Biblical Theology, 146–71.

 PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH TO ANCIENT ISRAELITE RELIGION 11

phers of religion or biblical theologians proper. Whether they are can at

best be an epiphenomenon of the descriptive philosophical enterprise.
When philosophical-atheological relevance becomes a guiding principle
it predisposes us to distortive readings.
My agenda, therefore, has nothing to do with a personal interest in
either defending or criticizing Yahwistic religious beliefs to edify the ideo-
logical agenda of any religious or secular community of readers. I have no
desire to read (Judeo-Christian) philosophy into the Hebrew Bible, nor
any hope to construct a (Judeo-Christian) systematic philosophy of reli-
gion from its diverse contents. 12 I have no intention to reinterpret, actual-
ize, or demythologize the text for existentialist theological purposes. Nei-
ther am I after a reductionist philosophical (e.g., naturalist) explanation
of Israelite religion or a neo-Yahwistic philosophy of religion seeking to
subvert current constructions of reality. All I seek to do is to pioneer a new
approach within biblical studies aimed at a descriptive philosophical elu-
cidation of the beliefs, concepts, and practices of ancient Israelite religion
as represented in the Hebrew Bible.

1.6. Outline of Contents

The presentation to follow is divided into two parts corresponding roughly

to the theory and the practice of the new approach.
Part 1 consists of chapters 2 to 8, which provide the backdrop to, the
justification for, and the details of the new methodology.
In chapter 2 we face our demons with the aid of metaphilosophy of
religion and discover a plurality of answers to the question of what exactly
a philosophical approach to the study of religion is supposed to be. Chap-
ter 3 traces historical relations between Hebrew Bible interpretation and
philosophy of religion, from the perspective of biblical studies. In chap-
ter 4 we invert our point of view to look at relations between the disci-
plines from the perspective of philosophy of religion. Chapter 5 provides
a discussion of relevant descriptive currents in the philosophical study
of religion, and also refutes a number of popular objections against the
involvement of philosophy in the study of the Hebrew Bible. In chapter 6,
we consider a few possible analogies from both philosophy and biblical
studies for imagining the presence of folk-philosophical assumptions in

12. On the suspicion of system as manic, see Don Cupitt, Philosophy’s Own Reli-
gion (London: SCM, 2001), 170 n. 3.
12 THE HEBREW BIBLE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

the biblical discourse itself. In chapter 7 I introduce the theory behind

“philosophical criticism” as new exegetical methodology and in chapter 8
look at the theoretical intricacies of involving and combining descriptive
varieties of philosophy of religion on a larger scale.
As illustration of how the theory can be applied to operate in prac-
tice, we come to part 2, which consists of chapters 9 to 15. Here, loci on
the agenda of philosophy of religion are descriptively brought to bear on
the Hebrew Bible. This section shows some of the tangible results that
can be achieved when we look at and clarify what we have in the Hebrew
Bible from the perspective of descriptive currents in philosophy of reli-
gion.
Chapter 9 deals with the nature of religious language in ancient Israel
via a philosophical reassessment of many popular ideas in biblical theol-
ogy. In chapter 10, I offer an introductory philosophical analysis of the
concept of generic godhood in ancient Israelite religion. In chapter 11,
we consider some proposals and prospects for a philosophical theology
of the Hebrew Bible. In chapter 12, we look at traces of natural a/theolo-
gies implicit in the biblical discourse and discuss some interesting issues
in ancient Israelite ontology. The subject of chapter 13 is the epistemology
of Israelite religion, while chapter 14 deals with the relationship between
religion and morality in the Hebrew Bible (especially metaethics). Chapter
15 is the conclusion to the study.

1.7. A Supermodern Disclaimer

Books on the Hebrew Bible, whatever form they take, often tell readers as
much about their authors as about their subject, if not more. This study’s
plea for a philosophical approach to the text does not naively operate with
either precritical or positivist assumptions about the interpretative task. I
know as well as anybody that Christian philosophical concerns are anach-
ronistic and that pure historical description is a myth (in the pejorative
sense of the word). I am quite familiar with and accept the hermeneutical
insights of Gadamer and Ricoeur, who showed us the ways in which the
exegete is and remains a historical animal, never totally abstracted from
the local sociocultural matrix. I realize that my philosophical concerns are
not transhistorical or perennial in any sense.
However, the context in which this study asks to be located is not so
much postmodernism as supermodernism. The term is lesser known in
biblical hermeneutics and comes from anthropologist Marc Augé’s book,
 PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH TO ANCIENT ISRAELITE RELIGION 13

Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity.13 While

most biblical scholars appear to be modernists working on premodern
texts in a postmodern world, I would like to imagine that this study is
novel not only in terms of methodology but also in terms of its location
within the “supermodern condition.” Characterized by an excess of time,
space and ego, all of which supervene on the present study in ways that
distinguish its utilization of philosophy of religion from postmodern
obsessions with social and literary philosophy, supermodernism can be
introduced in the following manner:

If distinguished from hypermodernity, supermodernity is a step beyond

the ontological emptiness of postmodernism and relies upon a view
of plausible truths. Where modernism focused upon the creation of
great truths (or what Lyotard called ‘master narratives’ or ‘metanarra-
tives’), postmodernity is intent upon their destruction (deconstruction).
In contrast supermodernity does not concern itself with the creation
or identification of truth value. Instead, information that is useful is
selected from the superabundant sources of new media. Postmoder-
nity and deconstruction have made the creation of truths an impossible
construction. Supermodernity acts amid the chatter and excess of signi-
fication in order to escape the nihilistic tautology of postmodernity. The
Internet search and the construction of interconnected blogs are excel-
lent metaphors for the action of the supermodern subject.14

In supermodernism it is not that the world or the text lacks meaning—

rather, there seems to be too many possible meanings to discern from. It
is in the recognition of this that the theoretical discussion in this study
now commences.

13. Marc Augé, Non-places: Introduction to the Anthropology of Supermodernity

(trans. John Howe; London: Verso, 1995).
14. “Hypermodernity,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia [cited 16 January
2010]. Online: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hypermodernity&oldid=
329598080.