John Walton’s most recent book, The Lost World of the Torah takes the reader through a number of misconceptions we in the modern world tend to have about the Torah and then explains how the Torah was actually understood within its original, ancient Near Eastern (ANE) context. The book as a whole is, in my opinion, one of the better of the Lost World books, and is worth a good read if you have ever found yourself perplexed by all those strange laws and commandments within the Torah.
In my last post, I focused on the first two fundamental points Walton makes when it comes to seeing the Torah in its proper, ANE context. The first point emphasizes something that should be obvious: ancient Israelites living in the ANE viewed things differently than modern 21st century Americans. In making this point, Walton gives an analogy of rivers—cultural rivers. Just as each river has different currents, so too does each culture have different cultural currents. And so, whereas our modern “cultural river” views the concept of “law” in terms of law code, legislation, prescription, coercion, obedience, and obligation, the “cultural river” of the ANE viewed “law” in terms of wisdom, illustration, circumscription, description, instruction, comprehension, and assimilation of ideas.
The second point Walton then makes pertains specifically to what the Torah itself is. It isn’t codified law; rather it is legal wisdom. Simply put, it didn’t contain precedents from earlier “court cases” that judges had to strictly abide by (as in our legal system). Rather, it was meant as instruction to kings and judges for wisdom, so they could be wise in administering justice within the culture and tradition of their society.
In this post, I am going to focus on two more key points Walton makes in his book: (1) The importance of seeing the Torah against the larger backdrop of the covenant, and (2) The concept of holiness.
YHWH’s Covenant with Israel is What Makes Torah Unique
Many Christians have heard about “the covenant,” but it is safe to say that most really don’t know what that means or why it is so important. In the ANE context of the Old Testament, the Mosaic covenant at Sinai has to be viewed through two lenses. First, it needs to be seen as an outgrowth of the Abrahamic covenant. In YHWH’s covenant with Abraham, YHWH made a three-part promise: (1) To make Abraham’s name great, (2) To bring forth a great nation among Abraham’s descendants, and (3) To bless all nations through that nation.
The Mosaic covenant, therefore, marks the establishment of that “great nation” YHWH promised in the Abrahamic covenant. And to mark the establishment of the nation of Israel, YHWH enters into a covenant with them—and this brings us to the second lens: YHWH’s covenant with Israel is patterned after the Suzerain-Vassal Treaties of the ANE.
Basically, a Suzerainty treaty was made between a lord and a subject—a powerful king and a lesser kingdom or city, etc. Basically, the vassal agrees to live under the lord’s name and to live according to the stipulations set out in the treaty in order to enhance the glory and reputation of the lord. In return, the lord extends his identity to the vassal and protects the vassal, and both parties expect to reap the benefits and rewards of the arrangement. Think of it almost like when a professional athlete signs a contract with Nike—he wears their gear and promotes them as a company, they promote his career, and if both live up to their agreement, both reap the benefits, and both get more famous.
Now, in terms of the stipulations in the treaty/covenant, they weren’t seen as some sort of new revelation of morality. Most of the stuff in the Torah is actually quite similar to the customs and traditions in other ANE cultures. When first reading the Ten Commandments, for example, it is not like the Israelites were saying, “What? You mean to tell us that murder and adultery are wrong? Woah!” Of course not. There are fundamental concepts of right/wrong in all cultures—the Torah was not, therefore, introducing brand new moral rules to the Israelites. Those kinds of things in the Torah were just common everywhere.
That’s not to say that there aren’t things in the Torah that aren’t unique in the ANE world and that aren’t a “moral upgrade” so to speak. There are. But what makes the Torah so unique is that it is set up within the context of a covenant that God makes with Israel. Suzerain treaties were made between earthly rulers and earthly vassals; the ruler would be the one who would lend it identity to the vassal and dispense his wisdom—not a god or the gods. And yet, here in the Mosaic covenant we find a Suzerain treaty made between YHWH as the lord and Israel as the vassal. It is so easy to overlook how unique that is—God Himself enters into a covenant treaty with Israel as His vassal. As Walton states, “Yahweh was the suzerain who formed a covenant relationship with Israel, and so extended his identity to them: ‘I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God’ (Ex 6:7)” (51).
Therefore, what made the Torah unique wasn’t that it was giving some sort of brand-new laws that had never been heard before in history. What made the Torah unique was that it was part of a covenant that a vassal nation made with God. It wasn’t modern, codified legislation. It contained the stipulations that Israel agreed to in order to be identified with YHWH as their Suzerain. Walton puts it this way: “The Torah, then, far from being legislation, has as its objective to define the nature of the order that defines the people who in turn give some definition to the identity of Yahweh. The wisdom of the Torah instructs its primary audience—the kings and priests and their subordinate administrators—on the nature of the order they should be upholding if they want to reflect Yahweh’s identity properly and thereby retain his favor in the form of covenant blessings” (92).
So…the uniqueness of the Torah isn’t so much that it is dictating some never heard before moral legislation. Its uniqueness is that it is part of a covenant that the particular nation of Israel entered into with GOD, to be identified with Him. And that leads us to the second key point in this post…
Holy Identity, Batman! Holiness Doesn’t Mean What I Thought it Meant!
What do you think of when you think of “holiness”? If someone says, “That person is really holy,” or “Israel was a holy nation”—what goes through your mind? Chances are, you are thinking in terms of morality and piety. In our culture, if we say someone is “holy,” we usually mean, “That guy really is a moral and upright person—really pious, always in church, and always praying.” Here’s the point: We tend to define “holiness” in terms of being a good, moral, and pious person.
But that simply is not what “being holy” means from a biblical perspective. When YHWH tells the Israelites, “You are to be holy because I am holy,” He’s not saying, “Okay you Israelites, you need to keep all my moral rules and be morally pious people, because I am really moral, and you need to be like me.”
Now obviously, being moral is a good thing, and God certainly wants His people to be moral people, but “being moral and pious” simply isn’t want “being holy” is about. To be “holy” means to be set apart for a special purpose (and I’ll add) regardless of whether or not you are perfectly moral. Or, as Walton puts it, “Holiness is a status given by Yahweh to Israel that he makes the nation a part of his identity by virtue of his making a covenant with them” (57).
Holiness is a status—that’s the key thing to remember. Therefore, by entering into the Suzerain covenant-treaty with YHWH, Israel was made holy by virtue of being identified, not by some other earthly lord or ruler, but by YHWH Himself. And by identifying themselves with Him and living according to the covenant stipulations (i.e. Torah) He laid out for them, they were given a special purpose: to reflect YHWH’s character and commitment to order, wisdom, and justice.
Obviously, if Israel reflected YHWH’s character well, the result would be a much more moral society than other ANE societies—but Israel was “holy” regardless of how well or how poorly they were able to reflect YHWH’s character.
Conclusions Thus Far
The implications for how we today are to understand and approach the Torah will be addressed in the next two posts. But for now, it is important, once again, to clarify the four key points from Walton’s book thus far:
1. The ANE was an entirely different cultural river than 21st century America, and the “currents” that made up that river were considerably different—specifically in regard to how they even perceived legal material.
2. Thus, to ancient Israel, the Torah was not seen as codified case law that sought to legislate morality on pain of hellfire. Rather, the Torah was seen as giving examples, models, and illustrations to instruct and teach rulers and judges in the ways of wisdom, so that they could rule wisely and establish justice according to their customs and traditions. Simply put: it was not codified law, but rather instruction in wisdom.
3. The uniqueness of the Torah wasn’t the specific legal material included in it—for that matter, the legal material was very similar to other ANE cultures. That shouldn’t be surprising. What was unique about the Torah was that it seen as the stipulations within the Suzerain-Vassal covenant treaty that YHWH (a deity) entered into with Israel (a people).
4. It is because they entered into that covenant-treaty that they were given the status of being holy. And “being holy” was a status of their being identified with YHWH within the covenant; it was not a description of their moral integrity—because clearly, an honest reading of the Old Testament bears the fact out that the ancient Israelites were certainly not paragons of virtue!
In my next post, I’ll elaborate on some further implications there four points have for understanding both God’s purposes and Israel’s YHWH cult itself (i.e. Israel’s official religious practices). In addition to that, I am going to touch upon a fifth key point Walton makes in The Lost World of the Torah: that the Torah wasn’t trying to some kind of new moral order. dp
Great post. It is frustrating to repeatedly hear people in general, but esp. Christians, pontificate on the Torah from the standpoint of a legally-binding code of laws. I love the idea of holiness equaling status.
I’m def. going to have to order this book. I’ve read other books by Walton but not this one.
Pax.
Lee.
Thanks, Joel. I expect it’s that second point which will be most controversial. “the Torah was not seen as codified case law that sought to legislate morality on pain of hellfire. Rather, the Torah was seen as giving examples, models, and illustrations to instruct and teach rulers and judges in the ways of wisdom, so that they could rule wisely and establish justice according to their customs and traditions. Simply put: it was not codified law, but rather instruction in wisdom.”
While I have no problem affirming that Torah is “instruction in wisdom,” it is difficult for me to see how it isn’t “codified law.” I mean, Deuteronomy, for e.g. is pretty specific about some stuff. I wonder if a theological desire to promote a certain view of the law (something like new covenant theology) doesn’t underlie Walton’s push to get this thesis across. I’m not saying that’s necessarily wrong, only that that’s how it looks to me.
Well, to be clear, it certainly contains legal material–and in that sense it was part of the ancient concept of what constituted “law.” But the point is that the ANE (including Israel) viewed “law” in a much different way than we in the modern world. Walton says that a lot of the legal material in the Torah isn’t PRESCRIPTIVE (i.e. this must be the ruling in any cases like this), but rather DESCRIPTIVIE (i.e. this is an example of what justice would look like in situations like this, so judges should use their wisdom in making judgments, bearing this in mind, but they don’t “have their hands tied” in regard to rendering judgment). They offer underlying principles, not prescribed judgments. …if that helps.
Great summaries, sounds like this book addresses some things I’ve wondered about. However, while I can see that we might misinterpret the Torah as codified law today, it seems that this started much earlier, since Pharisees basically treated it that way. Perhaps the cultural river had shifted much earlier.
Yes, that is true. But it is also true (read Romans and Galatians, for example), that Paul was adamant that the Pharisaic treatment of Torah (i.e. as something that made you moral and righteous) was wrong, and that THAT was not the purpose of the Torah. I’ll probably touch upon that in the next post or two.
Interesting. I do recall a book that discussed contradictions in Proverbs and argued that they were not inadvertent, that the writer was attempting to convey that wisdom involved sorting out imperatives that frequently clashed.