On the Reliability of the Old Testament

Abstract

For K., the biblical scholar deals with two types of evidence (p. 4): explicit or direct (e.g., the mention of Israel in the Merneptah stela or the name of an Israelite king in Assyrian texts) and implicit or indirect (e.g., treaty formulations, social practices, personal/place names, creation narratives, and other evidence that allow K. to isolate a specific time period for a text or "event"). [...] it is in his utilization of indirect/implicit evidence that he draws most of his conclusions (e.g., see pp. 310-11); that is, we have no direct evidence, but it is not impossible that something like this could have happened in a certain time period given the overall context, which, for K., is a short step to implying or simply concluding that said individuals did exist or said biblical events did in fact occur (e.g., see pp. 352-54 on the circumstantial or indirect evidence for the ancestors followed by his conclusion on p. 366 that "a real historical family of a man Terah once existed in and around Ur this side of circa 2000 B.c."; or his conclusion on p. 447 that Genesis 1-11 must have been written no later than 1500 b.c.e. based on parallels with Mesopotamian texts of the early second millennium).

K. A. KITCHEN, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2003). Pp. xii + 662. $45.

The name of Kenneth Kitchen is well known to both biblical scholars and Egyptologists. The former will recall his earlier books, apologetic in nature, on the Hebrew Bible in its ancient Near Eastern context (Ancient Orient and Old Testament [London: Tyndale, 1966], followed by The Bible in Its World: The Bible and Archaeology Today [Exeter: Paternoster, 1977]). The volume under review consists often chapters, with thirty-eight tables (interspersed throughout the volume), notes (totaling one hundred pages), sixty-two figures (maps, illustrations, charts, drawings, etc.), and indexes of subjects and scriptural references. The ten chapters break down as follows: (1) "First Things First-What's in a Question?"; (2) '"In Medias Res'-the Era of the Hebrew Kingdoms"; (3) "Home and Away-Exile and Return"; (4) "The Empire Strikes Back-Saul, David, and Solomon"; (5) "Humble Beginnings-around and in Canaan"; (6) "Lotus Eating and Moving On-Exodus and Covenant"; (7) "Founding Fathers or Fleeting Phantoms-The Patriarchs"; (8) "A Vitamin Supplement-Prophets and Prophecy"; (9) "Back to Methuselah-and Well Beyond"; and (10) "Last Things Last-a Few Conclusions." Curiously, the numbered figures are also assigned plate numbers (forty in all), although the two do not match, which is very confusing; for example, plate XXI consists of figures 22 A-B and 23, while plate XXXV equals figures 41 A-D. One gets the impression that the plate designations were added later in the editorial process, especially since one finds no listing of them alongside the tables or figures. The lack of an index of authors is bothersome, but, given K.'s often belittling and downright hostile language when citing the views of others and the disciplines they represent, perhaps the need is less relevant. Furthermore, his colorful criticisms vary little from person to person.

In his preface, K. notes that this volume was initially conceived as the OT counterpart to the similarly titled slim volume by the late British classicist and NT scholar F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (5th ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960). Bruce opens his preface with the "discerning question" of a reviewer: "Reliable as what?" For his part, K. defines "reliability" as a "quest into finding out what may be authentic (or otherwise) in the content and formats of the books of the Hebrew Bible" (p. 3), a definition that leaves much to be desired (authentic as what?), certainly from a historiographical and theoretical standpoint. K. then offers the reader three possible options: the Hebrew Bible is (1) "purely fiction," (2) a work "of major historical content and value," or (3) "a fictional matrix with a few historical nuggets embedded" (p. 3). Ultimately, for K., options 1 and 3 (his "otherwise") are not viable alternatives (but note how these options change somewhat in his conclusions on p. 499). In his concluding paragraph, K. summarizes: "In terms of general reliability ... the Old Testament comes out remarkably well" (p. 500). The essence of reliability for K. resides in the "very high level of direct correlation" and the "consistent level of good, fact-based correlations" with extrabiblical evidence via the use of "chronologically typological comparisons of the biblical and external [ancient Near Eastem] phenomena," extending from ca. 2000 down to 400 b.c.e. (p. 500).

For K., the biblical scholar deals with two types of evidence (p. 4): explicit or direct (e.g., the mention of Israel in the Merneptah stela or the name of an Israelite king in Assyrian texts) and implicit or indirect (e.g., treaty formulations, social practices, personal/place names, creation narratives, and other evidence that allow K. to isolate a specific time period for a text or "event"). Given the sparseness of the former with respect to much of the biblical account, K. naturally places great emphasis on the latter (p. 4). Indeed, it is in his utilization of indirect/implicit evidence that he draws most of his conclusions (e.g., see pp. 310-11); that is, we have no direct evidence, but it is not impossible that something like this could have happened in a certain time period given the overall context, which, for K., is a short step to implying or simply concluding that said individuals did exist or said biblical events did in fact occur (e.g., see pp. 352-54 on the circumstantial or indirect evidence for the ancestors followed by his conclusion on p. 366 that "a real historical family of a man Terah once existed in and around Ur this side of circa 2000 B.c."; or his conclusion on p. 447 that Genesis 1-11 must have been written no later than 1500 b.c.e. based on parallels with Mesopotamian texts of the early second millennium). With respect to the latter, K. is acutely aware of the problem of a Pentateuch, Joshua, or Deuteronomy written in standard Biblical Hebrew in the early to mid-second millennium. He thus contends that the texts were initially written in "late Canaanite" ("we should consider a Moses or a Joshua writing on papyrus, skins, or waxed tablets in alphabetic late Canaanite") and then later recopied with changes to update the archaic features of the language (pp. 304-5). Such a scenario will sway few, if any, with the exception of those who already share the author's views regarding the biblical text.

At the same time, readers will recognize K.'s rehashing of traditional apologetic in his explanations for the absence of evidence. For example, on the long-standing problem of the archaeology of Ai, K. asserts that "this site is not the only Et-TeIl in Canaan," followed by "There might well be another site of a similar kind that does [fit the biblical Ai], yet to be found" (pp. 188-89). Similarly, and predictably, the problem of Jericho is dismissed with the statement: "There may well have been a Jericho during 1275-1220, but above the tiny remains ofthat of 1400-1275, so to speak, and all of this has long, long since gone. We will never find 'Joshua's Jericho' for that very simple reason" (p. 187). As for the complete lack of Egyptian evidence for the biblical exodus (e.g., official archives), K. repeatedly counters that it is now lost in the "sopping wet mud of the Delta" (p. 311 ; see also pp. 431, 466-67); the same is true of the ancient Eden of Genesis, the probable location of which is now "underwater" and thus "Gone forever!" (p. 430).

Given its subject matter, one would expect a serious treatment of the issue of historiography, along with some interaction with the relevant literature, yet here the reader is sadly disappointed. K. adopts a naive, academically discredited view of history. Both his agenda and the belligerent tone of the volume are displayed in the preface:

The facts are wholly independent of me, my prejudices, or my knowledge, and of everyone else's. This itself is an absolute fact of life, along with countless others. And so, we must firmly say to philosophical cranks (politically correct, postmodernist, or whatever else)-"Your fantasy agendas are irrelevant in and to the real world, both of today and of all preceding time back into remotest antiquity. Get real or (alas!) get lost!" (p. xiv).

K. reserves his harshest criticism for those who allow any type of theoretical application to get in the way of his "hard facts." His utter disdain for theory, historical or otherwise, is evident throughout the volume (e.g., "ideological claptrap" [p. xiv]; "too much anthropological claptrap theory" [p. 473]; "Dumb-cluck socio-anthropologists" [p. 467]; "neo-Nazi thought police" [p. xiv]-among numerous examples). K.'s naive, "commonsense" view of historical interpretation assumes that, whereas others bring their "ideological claptrap" to their reading of the text, K. himself does not. In terms of method, K.'s statement that texts must be read with "initial empathy" (p. 471)-meaning essentially that narratives should be taken as historically reliable until proven otherwise-flies in the face of conventional historiography. Even those who express misgivings about postmodernist theory would find such an approach unacceptable (e.g., Richard J. Evans, In Defense of History [New York: W. W. Norton, 1999]). By way of authority, K. prefers personal experience, appealing to his "over half a century's experience (since his young days) in reading texts, ancient and modem, in a dozen languages," and his "long and hard experience that goes well beyond" that of most practitioners of the "New Literary Criticism" (pp. 469-70). The author's stance illustrates in splendid fashion (unwittingly, to be sure) one of postmodernism's most enduring lessons, namely, that everyone comes to the text with ideological baggage. But then K.'s grasp of the tenets of modem historiography or any type of literary criticism is distorted at best (e.g., note his wildly misinformed view of the unbounded nature of texts/language on p. 471). Despite his protestations to the contrary, K.'s work manifests a clear "us versus them" mentality: me with the "hard facts" and common sense, opposed to everyone else with their ideological agendas. Indeed, it is in the consistency with which the author obsesses over accounting for the accuracy or plausibility of nearly every aspect of the biblical text that one discerns a larger theological motivation and agenda here.

One key element in K.'s argument for "reliability" is that the Bible must be given the same benefit of the doubt as other ancient Near Eastern texts. Thus, the author calls attention to similarities in style, structure, and rhetoric between the military campaigns of Joshua and those of Egypt or Anatolia (pp. 174-75). For example, both stress divine aid or intervention, a common ancient Near Eastern theme. For K., however, once one peels back the religious rhetoric of the nonbiblical accounts, one is left with "straightforward historical accounts" (pp. 175; also pp. 63-64). Thus, having done the same for Joshua (referring to the summary statements in chaps. 10 and 11), how, the author asks, can the historian then reject the essential historicity of the biblical narrative? The argument is suspect on a number of fronts. First, K. stresses the nonhistorical character of such rhetorical boasts in Egyptian and Hittite accounts, yet asks the reader to accept that similar boasts in Joshua, which are in line with ancient Near Eastern practice, are nevertheless historical. second, K. is highly selective in his use of comparative material: Why restrict the application of ancient Near Eastern campaign ideology to Joshua alone? Third, K.'s simplistic view of the general veracity of ancient Near Eastern campaign accounts (minus references to deity) ignores the vast scholarly literature on history and history writing, and, more importantly, the extent to which literary conventions pervade "historical" texts. Many, if not most, Egyptologists and Assyriologists would find K.'s assumptions highly problematic (for Egyptian historiography, compare Eberhard Otto, Erik Hornung, Christopher Eyre, John Baines, Jan Assmann, Antonio Loprieno, to name a few). Examples of an Egyptian king's copying or outright usurpation of military accounts of his predecessors are easily found where no such battle(s) took place (summary of issues in Christopher J. Eyre, "Is Historical Literature 'Political' or 'Literary'?" in Ancient Egyptian Literature: History and Forms [ed. Antonio Loprieno; Probleme der Ägyptologie 10; Leiden: Brill, 1996] 415-33; also essays in "Never Had the Like Occurred": Egypt's View of Its Past [ed. John Tait; Encounters with Ancient Egypt; London: University College Press, 2003]). In his zeal to promote the reliability of the biblical account, K. frequently simplifies or ignores the complex historiographical issues involved in reading other texts.

On the positive side, K.'s volume is packed full of useful, informative, and at times enlightening comparative material, even if his conclusions are not always convincing. This is one of the best volumes I know for demonstrating the importance of reading the Hebrew Bible as a thoroughly ancient Near Eastern product. Still, in ploughing through such a massive tome, the wary reader must never let down his/her ideological guard, as it were. It is a pity that the author's hostile and belligerent tone detracts from much of what could be of value in the volume. By comparison, Brace's much smaller offering on the NT, although dated, accomplishes its stated purpose more effectively.