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Courtney Zwieg
RLST012
Sec: 021
TA: Charles Townsend
Midterm 2

Part 1:

There are many terms to describe both Jewish and Christian scripture. The Tanakh is an

acronym with vowels filled in to make it pronounceable. The actual acronym is TNK. The 'T'

represents the Torah, the 'N' stands for Nevi’im and the 'K' stands for the Ketuvim. The Torah,

also called the 5 books of Moses, is considered to be a book full of Teaching. It contains all of

Moses’ laws. The Nevi’im is a prophetic book that contains some aspects of history. Finally, the

Ketuvim is composed of writings, essentially everything that did not fit into the first two

categories; for example, the Psalms and the Proverbs. The Mishnah is the Oral Torah. This was

passed down orally from Moses through Rabbis until the destruction of the temple. It was written

down between the second and third centuries CE. The Gemara is the discussion and commentary

on the Mishnah. Together the Gemara and the Mishnah comprise the Talmud. The Talmud

typically is composed of many volumes of books, due to the amount of discussion and

commentary on the Mishnah, as well as other midrashic writings. The Hebrew Bible is

essentially the same thing as the Tanakh. It contains all the same books that are in the Tanakh,

but is written in Hebrew. The Jewish Scripture is composed of the same books of the Tanakh but

it may include more writings than the Tanakh. The Old Testament is a Christian term. The Jews

do not have a New Testament; therefore they do not have a need to call it the Old Testament.

The Christians do not follow the majority of the laws laid out in the Old Testament hence calling
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it 'Old'. The content of the Old Testament in the Christian faith is the same as the Tanakh in the

Jewish faith. Finally, the First Testament is another way to say Old Testament. It is a Christian

attempt to respect the Jews more and get rid of the word 'Old'. It is evident by the definitions of

all of these terms that they are related to one another, as most of the definitions contain another

of the terms.

According to the Documentary Hypothesis, the 5 books of Moses, or the Torah, were not

written by one single person, but composed over a long period of time. Therefore a classification

system was created to date the writings of the Torah. J, E, P, and D all represent different time

periods. 'J' stands for Jahwist. Within the 'J' texts God is referred to by YHWH, a term that was

not meant to be pronounced. The 'E' stands for Elohist. In these passages God is referred to as

Elohim. The language used in the ‘E’ passages differs from the 'J' which along with the name

differences imply time passage. 'P' represents Priestly source. This is evident by the fact that

there are two creation stories put back to back in Genesis. It would seem that they were placed

together due to the similar topic. Lastly, 'D' stands for Deuteronomist, essentially in

Deuteronomy; the laws of Moses are restated. Like the passages in the 'J' and 'E' categories, there

also is another name for God used in Deuteronomy, as well as language differences. Along with

time differences represented by these categories, it would seem that the Torah was redacted, or

edited, before it reached the final state recognizable to the one used today.

Along with the issues with the Torah's authors as represented by J, E, P and D, there is an

issue with the Synoptic Gospels that are located in the New Testament. The Synoptic Gospels are

Matthew, Mark and Luke; Mark being the first to be written. Matthew and Luke both mirror

about half of what Mark says in his Gospel. However Matthew and Luke's content contain about

25% verbatim texts, implying that Matthew and Luke had a source other than Mark's Gospel.
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This is referred to as 'Q' which stands for the German word 'Quelle' meaning source. Although

there is no real physical evidence of 'Q', it is evident that it did exist, but the document may have

been destroyed.

Part 2:

Modern day Christians and Jews are faced with interpreting the complexities of the

Christian and Hebrew Bibles. There are many stories in both that offer retaliation as a response

to being wronged. Although the Hebrew Bible does not resolve the issues of this thought-

process, the Christian Bible's New Testament offers a solution on what to do when being

wronged.

Although the Hebrew Bible is filled with many examples that illustrate the grace of God

over all else, there are also many examples of retribution. In the book of Judges there is a story

of Levites Concubine. In this story a man gives a crowd of drunken locals who are looking to

rape his Levite house guest his virgin daughter and his guest's concubine instead. The concubine

is killed in the process and her husband cuts her up and sends her body to the tribes of Israel.

They then proceed to attack the Benjamites and kill many of them. They then instruct the

survivors to steal the girls away from Shiloh to make their wives and rebuild their tribe. This is a

relatively brutal passage in the Hebrew Bible. It is hard for the modern reader to get anything of

out this. However, this passage shows that these people are not deities, they are human. The

Levite responds to the killing of his Concubine with anger and retaliation. The same anyone

might do if their spouse was raped and murdered. This should illustrate to the modern day reader

that this story was about humans, who acted like humans. It is also stated at both the beginning

of this story and the end, "There was no King in Israel." This serves as an excuse for the
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Bejamites. There was no one telling them what to do, so they essentially just did as they pleased.

Another example of retaliation illustrated in the Hebrew Bible is Psalm 137. In this Psalm

it is stated that the writer is in Babylon against his will. He does not want to sing the song of

Zion in a foreign land. There is also a recollection of the destruction of the Temple and the

Edomites encouraging it. The final verse states "...Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy

little ones against the stones." (Psalm 137:9) This shows once again a theme of retaliation. They

are angry that their temple was torn down and they were taken to Babylon. In retaliation they

wanted to dash the babies of their enemies on the rocks. A modern day reader may be horrified

to find this subject matter in the Hebrew Bible, but the Psalms are about human beings, they are

not above being angry and feeling the need to get even.

There is a great change in tone if you turn from the Hebrew Bible to the Christian Bible.

Considering the two have the Old Testament in common, the change of tone comes in the New

Testament with the writings about Jesus. Although Jesus struggles with what comes with being

human, he is clearly not just human. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus gives "The Sermon on the

Mount" which takes examples of the human wrong doing previously mentioned from the Hebrew

Bible and gives an ethical response. It seems the teaching previous to Jesus addressing it was

"...an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth..."(Matthew 5:38) This would explain the retaliation

that was either done, like in Levites Concubine, or thought about, as in Psalm 137. Jesus went on

to say that, "... if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also..."(Matthew 5:39).

The Christian New Testament is not talking about the lives of humans alone anymore; it is

talking about the lives of humans along with and after Jesus. This is a clear contrast to many

writings in the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. The New Testament helps modern day

Christians interpret stories like the aforementioned ones because it offers an ethical sermon given
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by Jesus in response.

Although there are some horrendous things mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and the

Christian Old Testament, it is possible for modern day readers of these texts to attribute the anger

and retribution, to the general nature of human beings. This coupled with the fact that the rule in

those times seemed to have been “…an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth…” (Matthew 5:38),

helps with the understanding of the actions of those people. The Christian Bible even offers

redemption in Jesus for the actions done before his time, as he offers new rules to live by in “The

Sermon on the Mount.”