Diwa: Studies in Philosophy and Theology 34 (2009)

Levinass Phenomenology and
Critique of Western Philosophy

RYAN C. URBANO
University of San Carlos
Cebu City
his paper discusses the development of Levinass phenomenology

and his critical stance toward Western philosophical tradition.
Levinass phenomenology provides a glimpse of how he criticizes
Western philosophy as well as how he develops his ethical metaphysics.
I. Levinass Phenomenological Background

In the years 1928-29, Levinas went to Freiburg and closely studied
the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. His
studies led to the following publications: a dissertation on Husserl
entitled The Theory of Intuition in Husserls Phenomenology (1930),1
which he submitted to the University of Strasbourg; Martin Heidegger
and Ontology (1932), originally intended as part of a book on Heidegger;
and a number of important articles on Husserl and Heidegger since
then. Also in 1931, Levinas in collaboration with a fellow Strasbourg
student Gabrielle Pfeier published a French translation of Husserls
lectures on phenomenology given at the Sorbonne known as Cartesian
Meditations. These accomplishments bear witness to Levinass deep
familiarity with phenomenology and so his eorts to move beyond
1
This work helped in introducing phenomenology to France particularly on

such thinkers as Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir and Levy-Bruhl. See Dermot
Moran, Husserl: Founder of Phenomenology (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2005),
pp. 245-246.
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
phenomenology and to propose an ethical philosophy of radical

alterity are more than justied.2 He is not merely a commentator of
phenomenology but a thinker whose erudition, originality, depth, and
sharpness of thought deserves serious and careful consideration.
Levinas claims in many of his writings that the most inuential
thinkers in his philosophy are Husserl and Heidegger. His indebtedness
to both great thinkers is discernible in all of his philosophical works.
Their phenomenological methods are deeply ingrained in his mind.
He says: Indeed, from the point of view of philosophical method
and discipline, I remain even today a phenomenologist.3 According
to Simon Critchley, Levinas maintains a methodological but not
a substantive commitment to Husserlian phenomenology.4 John
Drabinski stretches further Critchleys opinion and accentuates
Husserls inuence on Levinas by claiming that Levinass language is
more Husserlian than Heideggerian, although for Peperzak, Levinass
philosophical approach and style is more akin to Heiddeger than
to Husserl.5 Whichever is the case, it cannot be denied that Levinass
philosophical itinerary is constantly guided by both phenomenologists.
He reworks both thinkers methods to fashion his own distinct
philosophy.
2
This part of the chapter will not pit Levinas against Husserl and Heidegger. It
will just discuss how Levinas reads and interprets Husserl and Heidegger and how
he criticizes and departs from them. In discussing this part, the author relies on
Daviss excellent and lucid treatment of Levinass relation to Heidegger and Husserl
in Chapter 1 (entitled Phenomenology) of his book Levinas: An Introduction. See
pp. 7-33.
3
Emmanuel Levinas and Richard Kearney, Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas
in Face to Face with Levinas, ed. Richard A. Cohen, (Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press, 1986), p. 14. See also Levinas, Totality and Innity: An Essay on
Exteriority, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), p.
28 and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis (The Hague:
Martinus Nijho, 1981), p. 183.
4
Simon Critchley, Introduction in The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, ed.
Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2002), p. 8.
5
John E. Drabinski, Sensibility and Singularity: The Problem of Phenomenology
in Levinas (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001), p. 9; Adriaan
Peperzak, To The Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (West
Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993), p. 12.
Diwa: Studies in Philosophy and Theology

Diwa is a refereed journal published twice a year by the
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and Christ the King Mission Seminary, Quezon City,
Philippines
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DIWA
Title Header
Studies in Philosophy and Theology
Diwa is a refereed journal published twice a year by the

Graduate Schools of Divine Word Seminary, Tagaytay City
and Christ the King Mission Seminary, Quezon City,
Philippines
Volume 34, nos. 1 & 2
May & November 2009
CONTENTS
Levinass Phenomenology
and Critique of Western Philosophy
Ryan C. Urbano
Where Did Israel Come From?
28-63
Models of the Origins of Ancient Israel
Randolf C. Flores, SVD
Nation Building: The Kenosis of Moses
64-86
Rafael Dy-Liacco
87-105 Pauls Life and Missionary Zeal: Implications for
Consecrated Men and Women in the Church Today
Mary Jerome Obiorah, IHM
106-121 Searching for Jesus at Christmas
James H. Kroeger, M.M.
122-137 Pope Benedicts Motu Proprio: Summorum Ponticum
and Its Historical Background
Robert B. Fisher, SVD
138-147 Book Review
1-27
Downs, David J, The Oering of the Gentiles: Pauls

Collection for Jerusalem In Its Chronological, Cultural, and
Cultic Contexts (Carlito D. Reyes)
Contributors (Diwa 34, nos. 1 and 2)

1. RYAN C. URBANO teaches Philosophy at the University of San Carlos (Cebu
City) from where he obtained an M.A. in Philosophy in 1998 and a Ph.D. in 2010.
He also holds an M.A. in Applied Ethics from Utrecht University, The Netherlands
and Linkoping University, Sweden (2008).
2. RANDOLF C. FLORES, SVD teaches Old Testament and Biblical Hebrew
at Divine Word Seminary, Tagaytay City and is a visiting lecturer of the School
of Christian Studies of the University of St. Joseph in Macau, China. He holds a
Licentiate in Sacred Scripture (SSL) from the Pontical Biblical Institute, Rome
(1999). He is the President of the Catholic Biblical Association of the Philippines
(2008-2011) and Editor of Diwa.
3. RAFAEL DY-LIACCO holds an M.A. from Yale Divinity School (New Haven,
Connecticut) and presently teaches Theology at the Ateneo de Manila University (Quezon
City). He is a member of the Catholic Bibical Association of the Philippines.
4. MARY JEROME OBIORAH, IHM is a professor of Scripture at the University of
Nigeria (Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria). She obtained a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture
in 1999 and a Doctorate in Sacred Scripture in 2004 both from the Pontical Biblical
Institute (Rome), the rst African woman to obtain these degrees. She was also an
expert at the Synod on the Word of God (2008).
5. JAMES H. KROEGER, MM is a professor of Systematic Theology, Mission Studies
and Islamics at Loyola School of Theology (Quezon City). He holds a licentiate and
doctorate degrees in Missiology from the Pontical Greogorian University in Rome.
He is also President of the Philippine Association of Catholic Missiologists.
6. ROBERT B. FISHER, SVD teaches adult theology and liturgy for the Diocese
of Victoria (Texas, USA). He obtained his S.Th.D. from the Gregorian University
(Rome). He taught at the Immaculate Conception School Theology (Vigan City)
and at the Divine Word Seminary.
7. CARLITO D. REYES is a priest of the Diocese of Pasig (Manila). He holds an
M.A. and Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Ateneo de Manila University
and Loyola School of Theology. He taught New Testament at the Divine Word
Seminary and Theology at the Ateneo de Manila University. He is currently a pastor
of the Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, Wales, U.K.
--------------------------------Nota Bene: For the list of abbreviations used in the articles on biblical studies, see
CBQ, Instructions for Contributors, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 65 (2003), pp.
682-710; also availabe online at www.cba.cua.edu/cbqinstructions.cfm.
The main editor of this volume is RANDOLF C. FLORES, SVD.
Levinass Phenomenology and

Critique of Western Philosophy
RYAN C. URBANO
University of San Carlos
Cebu City
his paper discusses the development of Levinass phenomenology

and his critical stance toward Western philosophical tradition.
Levinass phenomenology provides a glimpse of how he criticizes
Western philosophy as well as how he develops his ethical metaphysics.
I. Levinass Phenomenological Background

In the years 1928-29, Levinas went to Freiburg and closely studied
the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. His
studies led to the following publications: a dissertation on Husserl
entitled The Theory of Intuition in Husserls Phenomenology (1930),1
which he submitted to the University of Strasbourg; Martin Heidegger
and Ontology (1932), originally intended as part of a book on Heidegger;
and a number of important articles on Husserl and Heidegger since
then. Also in 1931, Levinas in collaboration with a fellow Strasbourg
student Gabrielle Pfeier published a French translation of Husserls
lectures on phenomenology given at the Sorbonne known as Cartesian
Meditations. These accomplishments bear witness to Levinass deep
familiarity with phenomenology and so his eorts to move beyond
1
This work helped in introducing phenomenology to France particularly on

such thinkers as Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir and Levy-Bruhl. See Dermot
Moran, Husserl: Founder of Phenomenology (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2005),
pp. 245-246.
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
phenomenology and to propose an ethical philosophy of radical

alterity are more than justied.2 He is not merely a commentator of
phenomenology but a thinker whose erudition, originality, depth, and
sharpness of thought deserves serious and careful consideration.
Levinas claims in many of his writings that the most inuential
thinkers in his philosophy are Husserl and Heidegger. His indebtedness
to both great thinkers is discernible in all of his philosophical works.
Their phenomenological methods are deeply ingrained in his mind.
He says: Indeed, from the point of view of philosophical method
and discipline, I remain even today a phenomenologist.3 According
to Simon Critchley, Levinas maintains a methodological but not
a substantive commitment to Husserlian phenomenology.4 John
Drabinski stretches further Critchleys opinion and accentuates
Husserls inuence on Levinas by claiming that Levinass language is
more Husserlian than Heideggerian, although for Peperzak, Levinass
philosophical approach and style is more akin to Heiddeger than
to Husserl.5 Whichever is the case, it cannot be denied that Levinass
philosophical itinerary is constantly guided by both phenomenologists.
He reworks both thinkers methods to fashion his own distinct
philosophy.
2
This part of the chapter will not pit Levinas against Husserl and Heidegger. It
will just discuss how Levinas reads and interprets Husserl and Heidegger and how
he criticizes and departs from them. In discussing this part, the author relies on
Daviss excellent and lucid treatment of Levinass relation to Heidegger and Husserl
in Chapter 1 (entitled Phenomenology) of his book Levinas: An Introduction. See
pp. 7-33.
3
Emmanuel Levinas and Richard Kearney, Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas
in Face to Face with Levinas, ed. Richard A. Cohen, (Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press, 1986), p. 14. See also Levinas, Totality and Innity: An Essay on
Exteriority, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), p.
28 and Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis (The Hague:
Martinus Nijho, 1981), p. 183.
4
Simon Critchley, Introduction in The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, ed.
Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2002), p. 8.
5
John E. Drabinski, Sensibility and Singularity: The Problem of Phenomenology
in Levinas (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001), p. 9; Adriaan
Peperzak, To The Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (West
Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993), p. 12.
R. C. Urbano, Levinass Phenomenology
II. Levinass Interpretation of Husserlian Phenomenology

The proverbial phrase back to the things themselves is the
slogan of Husserlian phenomenology. This is Husserls way of going
back to mans lived experience so as to describe phenomena in their
own light, freed from the arbitrariness of presuppositions. The lived
experience is the selfs very rst encounter with things before they are
objectied in terms of conceptual judgments. Husserls chief aim in
phenomenology is to furnish philosophy with a rm foundation at
par with the mathematical sciences. This he tries to accomplish by
returning to the source and origin of philosophical questioning so
as to see the world anew.6 By venturing into mans lived experience,
Husserl hopes to overcome what science normally overlooks, i.e., the
role of perceiving consciousness in the constitution or formation of the
perceived world.7
Husserl questions the assumption of scientic realism, which he
calls natural attitude, because it assumes the existence of a world out
there independent of consciousness. In this scientic standpoint, the
world is viewed as an entity which encompasses all things including
man. This world is understood in terms of concepts formed out of
the data supplied by the senses.8 But according to Husserl, this way
of perceiving the world misses and takes for granted the original pretheoretical experience of man. He is convinced that the evidence of the
senses cannot be taken as the sole basis of knowledge. Ren Descartes
has already forewarned the possibility of deception caused by the senses
that inevitably leads to skepticism.9 What Husserl proposes in order
to avoid this skepticism, which David Hume so masterfully exposed
to the point of destroying knowledge, is his fundamental notion of
the intentionality of consciousness. Consciousness, according to
6
Richard Kearney, Modern Movements in European Philosophy, Phenomenology,

Critical Theory, Structuralism, 2nd ed. (Manchester, UK: Manchester University
Press), p. 14.
7
Davis, Levinas: An Introduction, p. 10.
8
Edmund Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans.
W.R. Boyce Gibson (New York: Collier Books, 1962), pp. 91-92.
9
Ren Descartes, Discourse on Method and The Meditations, trans. F.E. Sutclie
(Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1968), pp. 96.
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
Husserl, is inseparable from its intended object. All mental acts (noesis)
presuppose and point to their objects (noema).10 In the words of a
prominent Husserlian scholar, Consciousness is constantly stretching
out or reaching beyond itself towards something else.11
Phenomenology initially works by applying epoche or the
transcendental-phenomenological reduction to the scientic standpoint. This method suspends and brackets the belief in the existence of
things, including consciousness, in the natural world which, as already
noted, is obtained from experience or through the sciences that organize
the world into a system of facts.12 What this suspension reveals is the
reality of consciousness itself, known as the transcendental ego, and the
object (phenomenon) which appears to, is intended and constituted
by, this same ego. The ego is transcendental because it is not a part of
the bracketed world. It is through the ego that the world comes to be
known.13
For Husserl, the ego is the residue of the phenomenological
reduction. He considers this ego absolute because it is responsible for
constituting the meaning of the world through its intentional acts. But
in constituting the meaning of the world, the ego also constitutes itself,
thereby making its own life more self-conscious. In other words, its
meaning-giving act is self-reexive. It is through its own intentional
relation with the world that it attains self-consciousness.14 The ego is
therefore responsible for its own self-enrichment by means of its own
meaning-giving activities. Hence, it can be inferred that for Husserl,
the ego or consciousness is primary, sovereign and absolute, responsible
only for itself. All others are derived from ita point, which he shares
10
Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology,

trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijho, 1960), p. 33.
11
Dermot Moran, Husserl: Founder of Phenomenology (Cambridge: Polity, 2005),
p. 5.
12
Husserl, Ideas, p. 99.
13
Ibid.
14
Levinas says, Intentionality is what makes up the subjectivity of the subjects.
Intentionality is not a property of consciousness but the very life of consciousness itself.
Emmanuel Levinas, The Theory of Intuition in Husserls Phenomenology, 2nd ed., trans.
Andre Orianne (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1995), p. 41.
with Descartes although the latters rationalism and dualism caused

him some serious philosophical troubles.15
Husserls method is a milestone in philosophy because it avoids the
blunders of modern thinking, which either gives emphasis on the subject
as expressed in idealist and rationalist philosophies or the object as
expressed in realist and empiricist philosophies. Husserl rejects idealism
because it elevates the subject to the status of a solitary consciousness
cut o from the world.16 He likewise undermines realism because
it subordinates and reduces consciousness to objects in the external
world. As Levinas, writing on Husserl, says: If to be is to be in nature,
then consciousness, through which nature is known, must also be part
of nature inasmuch as it claims to exist.17 To Husserls mind then,
both opposing views in modern thinking ignore the basic structure
of the intentionality of consciousness. It is Husserls contention that
there can be no subject without an object and no object without a
subject. Husserl calls this subject-object anity as the noema-noesis
correlation.
For Levinas, Husserls innovative thinking is important because it
fastens philosophy to concrete existence.18 As Dermot Moran says,
Levinas credits Husserl with reawakening philosophy to the possibility
of being able to describe concrete, lived human life, without reducing
it to a series of inner psychic experiences (as with the Cartesian way of
viewing consciousness).19
The notion of intentionality, according to Levinas, makes possible
the contact of consciousness with an object or phenomenon, the essence
or meaning of which is intuited by and disclosed to the conscious subject
15
Levinas gives a brief discussion of the dierence between the Cartesian and
Husserlian notions of cogito in The Theory of Intuition in Husserls Phenomenology,
pp. 31-32.
16
Kearney, Modern Movements in European Philosophy, p. 16.
17
Levinas, The Theory of Intuition in Husserls Phenomenology, p. 13.
18
Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Innity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo,
trans. R. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), p. 28.
19
Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology (London: Routledge, 2000),
p. 328.
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
in manifold ways.20 Consciousness is not self-enclosed but is open

to what lies outside it. Levinas felicitates Husserl for discovering the
way to the heart of reality thereby overcoming naturalism. Naturalism
or scientic epistemology presupposes that there is an external world
independent of consciousness and that beneath this world there rests
a determinate essence, the discovery of which leads to truth. It also
reduces all beings including consciousness to the level of matter.21
But Husserl, Colin Davis alleges, opposes this theory of knowledge
because things are merely regarded as surfaces or phenomena which are
deceptive and conceal the truth.22 For him, phenomena do not hide the
essence of things but make possible their presentation to consciousness.
Hence, phenomenology disregards the notion that at the bottom of
things there is a single unchanging essence to which the mind must
conform. Things present themselves to the mind in their multiplicity.
Their meaning is conferred on them by acts of consciousness. Thus,
the task of phenomenology is not to examine cognitive contents but to
describe the intentions that give life to thought.
Levinas, seeing through the lenses of Heidegger, thinks that Husserls
phenomenology is not only epistemological but also ontological.23
Husserls phenomenology is ontological in that it wants to provide a
secure and self-evident foundation for the sciences. This foundation is
found in the transcendental ego after the phenomenological reduction.
The realm of the transcendental ego is dierent from the bracketed
world. This realm is unique because it now becomes the eld of a new
sciencethe science of Phenomenology.24 It thus functions as the
wellspring of meaning in its givenness to consciousness.
The paragraph below is a prcis of Levinass understanding of
Husserls phenomenology:
20

Ibid., p. 12.
22
Davis, Levinas: An Introduction, pp. 11-12.
23
Levinas, The Theory of Intuition in Husserls Phenomenology, p. 124. This
Heideggerian reading of Husserls phenomenology as ontology is acknowledged by
Levinas. See Levinas, The Theory of Intuition in Husserls Phenomenology, p. ix.
24
Husserl, Ideas, p. 102.
21
The most fundamental contribution of Husserls

phenomenology is its methodical disclosure of how
meaning comes to be, how it emerges in our consciousness
of the world, or more precisely, in our becoming conscious
of our intentional rapport (visee) with the world. The
phenomenological method enables us to discover meaning
within our lived experience; it reveals consciousness to be
an intentionality always in contact with objects outside of
itself, other than itself. Human experience is not some selftransparent substance or pure cogito; it is always intending
or tending towards something in the world that preoccupies
it. The phenomenological method permits consciousness to
understand its own preoccupations, to reect upon itself
and thus discover all the hidden or neglected horizons
of its intentionality. In other words, by returning to the
implicit horizon of consciousness, phenomenology enables
us to explicate or unfold the full intentional meaning of an
object, which would otherwise be presented as an abstract
and isolated entity cut o from its intentional horizons.
Phenomenology thus teaches us that consciousness is at
once tied to the object of its experience and yet free to
detach itself from this object in order to return upon itself,
focusing on those visees of intentionality in which the object
emerges as meaningful, as part of our lived experience. One
might say that phenomenology is a way of becoming aware
of where we are in the world, a sich besinnen that consists
of a recovery of the origin of meaning in our life world, or
Lebenswelt.25
Though Levinas admires Husserl, he nevertheless nds Husserls

phenomenology inadequate because it still maintains a kind of
intellectualism or theoreticism reminiscent of idealism. It is a fact
that Husserl does not only limit his understanding of intentionality
to the structure of consciousness. Intentionality also applies to nontheoretical acts like valuing, willing, feeling, desiring, etc.26 These acts
25
Levinas and Kearney, Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas, in Face to Face

with Levinas, pp. 14-15.
26
Levinas, The Theory of Intuition in Husserls Phenomenology, p. 132. In an earlier
part of the same work, Levinas remarks: Concrete life, the source of existence in
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
also have their own respective object-correlates. But Levinas claims

that these non-theoretical acts are still modeled after representational
intentionality, thereby not sparing them from the kind of intellectualism
that Levinas disapproves of.27
Levinas does not think that Husserl was really successful in his
desired project of going back to the things themselves. He says that
in a sense the object of representation is interior to thought: despite its
independence it falls under the power of thought.28 In phenomenology,
there is supposed to be a coincidence between consciousness and the
world, and yet the world is confronted as already constituted by and
within consciousness.29 The encounter promised by intentionality may
be precisely what the theory of intentionality precludes: consciousness
can never meet anything truly alien to itself because the external world
is a product of its own activity.30 Moreover, what is not discovered as
an object intended by consciousness has no being, is less than nothing.
Consciousness, then, is equal to thinking or to assuming everything
that appears since everything that befalls it is according to it.31 And as
such, consciousness remains reexive and it stands outside of historical
time as a consequence of phenomenological reduction. Husserlian
phenomenology leaves out the historical embeddedness of lived
experience.32 Hence, a philosophy of this type seems as independent
the world, is not pure theory, although for Husserl the latter has a special status. It
is a life of action and feeling, will and aesthetic judgment, interest and indierence,
etc. It follows that the world which is correlative to this life is a sensed or wanted
world, a world of action, beauty, ugliness, and meanness, as well as an object of
theoretical contemplation. . . . Will, desire, etc., are intentions which, along with
representations, constitute the existence of the world. They are not elements of
consciousness void of all relation to objects. Because of this, the existence of the
world has a rich structure which diers in each domain. Levinas, The Theory of
Intuition in Husserls Phenomenology, p. 45.
27
28
Levinas, Totality and Innity, p. 123.
29
30
Ibid.
31
Jerey Kosky, Levinas and The Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press, 2001), p. 83.
32
Critchley, Introduction, in The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, p. 7.
of the historical situation of man as any theory that tries to consider

everything sub species aeternitatis.33
Another aspect of Husserls thought that Levinas criticizes is the
notion of intersubjectivity. For Levinas, Husserl was unsuccessful in
trying to overcome solipsism despite attempts to address the issue in
Cartesian Meditations.34 The ego still remains isolated and monadic.
The notion of the existence of other egos arrived at through a second
phenomenological reduction, where the ego discovers that it has a body
similar to others, fails to account for the independence and separation of
these other egos. They are analogically known as those which resemble
the ego because they behave the way the ego behaves.35 Husserl calls
this appresentation or analogical apperception. But the other person that
appears as a noematic object in the eld of the egos noetic intention
betrays and fails to duplicate the original. Even if Husserl introduced
the notion of empathy (Einfhlung), this technique in the end still fails.
The Other is not truly the real Other but an alter ego.36 The ego of the
alter ego is still given priority and the alter is subsumed by it, i.e., by the
monadic ego. It is still the egos prior knowledge which forms the basis
of the intersubjective relation, including the values the alter ego takes
on and those attributed to it.37 Simply put, the meeting between the
ego and the Other in phenomenology is cognitive rather than ethical.
Hence, the notion of sensibility and proximity, that form of passivity
and aectivity in the ego that is pierced through by the Other and
which conditions their ethical encounter, remains largely unnoticed by
Husserlian phenomenology.
Levinas, according to Davis, elegantly sidesteps the epistemological
problem of the existence of other selves posed by philosophers like
Hume and Husserl. The problem is misguided because it presupposes
two things. First, it imagines that the self pre-exists the encounter with
others and second, it subordinates ethics to epistemology. For Levinas,
33

Emmanuel Levinas, Time and the Other in The Levinas Reader, trans. Sean
Hand (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), p. 43.
35
Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, p. 108.
36
Levinas, Time and the Other in The Levinas Reader, p. 43.
37
Emmanuel Levinas, Outside the Subject, trans. Michael B. Smith (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 101.
34
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
10
the self s very subjectivity is founded by its exposure and responsibility

to the Other. Second, the problem of other selves undermines the
priority of ethical relation.38 It looks at the dierence between the
self and the Other as an epistemological gap that must be bridged or
overcome. For Levinas, this dierence must be respected rather than
overcome because it is the site where ethics can thrive and develop.39
As will be shown later in this chapter, Levinass account of alterity
does not close the epistemological gap or dierence between the
ego and the Other. Rather, he is more concerned with establishing
and preserving this radical separation and dierence.40 For him,
this distance that divides the ego and the Other cannot be traversed
cognitively. It is indeed an irreducible and non-synthesizable distance
but one which must be maintained nonetheless in order to preserve
and promote the ethical relation.
III. Levinass Interpretationof Heideggerian Phenomenology

Levinas nds Heideggers phenomenology important because
it corrects Husserls absolutization of consciousness. It is Heideggers
notion of Dasein as being-in-the-world that allows Levinas to see and
locate consciousness as steeped in time and history.41 This is a feat
which, according to Levinas, Husserl failed to accomplish. Husserls
intellectualism is tempered by Heideggers phenomenology which
immerses consciousness in the world, in experience, facticity and
desire.42 This would in a way represent a rupture with the theoretical
structure of Western thought.43 To think is no longer to contemplate
but to commit oneself, to be engulfed by that which one thinks, to be
38
Davis, Levinas: An Introduction, p. 78

David Couzens Hoy, Critical Resistance: From Poststructuralism to PostCritique (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004), p. 153.
40
Ibid.
41
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward
Robinson (NY: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 79-81 passim.
42
43
Levinas, Is Ontology Fundamental? in Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical
Writings, ed. Adriaan Peperzak, Simon Critchley, and Robert Bernasconi (Bloomington
IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 4.
39
11
involved.44 Mans enrootedness or embeddedness in the world shapes

the way he thinks. Reason no longer stands above the world and sees
it from outside. Reason and the world belong together so that they
mutually shape and expand each others horizons. This view of reason
is in sharp contrast to the modern philosophy initiated and fathered by
Descartes. Reason, for many modern philosophers, must be objective
and free from the inuence of the world. Knowledge derived from a
thinking contaminated by the senses is biased and therefore, to borrow
from Plato, is not true knowledge (episteme) but a mere opinion (doxa).
The self in modern philosophy is generally understood as a disembodied
subject and it is reduced to a pure observer, a mere spectator, who looks
at the world from a distance just like the deist God.
Heidegger develops a phenomenology that renews the ancient
problem of Being which traditional philosophy has blurred with
beings.45 This time Heideggers Being is no longer an abstraction but
one which is conceived in time and history. Time, Heidegger says, is the
horizon for all understanding of Being and for any way of interpreting
it.46 Being cannot be understood beyond spatio-temporal conditions
because it reveals itself in things or phenomena. Phenomenon is the
locus through which Being manifests itself. In this sense, unlike in
Husserl in which it is understood as absolute, sovereign and outside of
history, consciousness becomes Da-sein to whom its own being is an
issue.47 Consciousness is not independent of the world but is being-inthe-world and whose being-there becomes the pre-theoretical condition
in the reception of Beings unconcealment. The Da of Dasein is now
the very foundation and condition of its truth.48 Here, ontology and
phenomenology are not incompatible projects since the phenomenon
is the site where Being manifests its truth.
Though Levinas nds Heidegger as a philosopher who gives primacy
to thought steeped in experience, he nevertheless criticizes Heidegger
for espousing an ontology that subjects the self, including the Other, to
44
Levinas, Is Ontology Fundamental?, p. 4.

Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 21.
46
Ibid., p. 39.
47
Ibid., p. 32.
48
45
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
12
the impersonal power of Being.49 Being, which is without the density

of existents, is the light by which existents become intelligible.50 It
also makes possible the opening of a space (clearing) within which a
phenomenon is perceivable. From this, it follows that truth regarding
the existent presupposes the prior openness of Being.51 Even
Heideggers notion of Seinlassen (to let be) situates the subject to a
position wherein all phenomena converge and unify towards it. The
ego in this case becomes the center of all meaning and intelligibility
since Being is inseparable from the comprehension of Being (which
unfolds as time); Being is already an appeal to subjectivity.52 Being
then becomes the main determinant of truth and the self is made to
receive and submit to it.53 Levinas writes: Heideggerian ontology,
which subordinates the relation with the Other to the relation with
Being in general, remains under obedience to the anonymous, and leads
inevitably to another power, to imperialist domination, to tyranny.54
For Levinas, the ontic-ontological dierence between beings
(particularly the human Dasein) and Being is not the primary
relationship. There is a more primordial relationship which overcomes
the dangers of ontology. And this, for Levinas, is the ethical. What is
more important and must take precedence is the face-to-face relationship
between the self and the Other. Levinass study of phenomenology
has already indicated the impossibility of the Others being absorbed
by thought although the method has revealed that thought and its
intentions are inseparable. The Other, however, eludes and resists
conceptualization for it poses a challenge to the selfs totalizing
tendency. Its presence is the very reason why it refuses re-presentation.
49
It must be noted that if it is Heideggers insights which permitted Levinas

to move beyond Husserls theoreticism, it is Franz Rosenzweigs notion of ethics
and justice in the Star of Redemption which induced Levinas to leave the orbit of
Heideggers ontological phenomenology. See Richard A. Cohen, Elevations: The
Height of the Good in Rosenzweig and Levinas (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1994), pp. 236-237. For Levinass acknowledgment of Rosenzweigs inuence
on his philosophical project, see Totality and Innity, p. 28.
50
51
Ibid., p. 44.
52
Peperzak, To The Other, p. 139.
53
Levinas, Totality and Innity, p. 45
54
Ibid., pp. 46-47.
13
For Levinas, there is a profound need to get out of being55 in

order to recognize and acknowledge that which consciousness cannot
re-present in thought. And here Levinas is referring to the Other
the Otherwise than Being. The Other is the innite which cannot be
contained by thought and yet it is given in ones consciousness. This
reveals the given-ness of the Other to ones mind and yet one is aware
that it resists ones thinking. From here it is clear that the Other goes
beyond phenomenology because it breaks the unity of Husserlian noemanoesis correlation. Even in Heideggers notion of intersubjectivity
where Dasein is viewed as a Being-with (Mitsein) Others,56 the Other
still plays a secondary role to Being. The egos primary relationship
is to Being and there seems to be no real encounter with the Other.
Though Dasein exists in the world, the world has meaning only insofar
as it is predetermined by Daseins understanding. The world is what it
is because it is given sense by Dasein and it facilitates the realization
of Daseins ownmost possibilities. Now this works only for things
encountered by Dasein but becomes problematic when Dasein faces
a human Other. The human Other cannot be encountered the way
things are encountered by Dasein. The Other cannot be used as tools
to realize the self-project of Dasein.57 Hence, there is what Michael
Purcell calls an ethical decit in Heideggers fundamental ontology.58
Other humans are mentioned only as companions within anonymous
communities, not as disturbing forces that displace the ego from its
monadic and hegemonic existence.59 Heideggers concept of mine-ness
(Jemeinigkeit), his notion of authentic existence in the face of death,
precludes the coming of the Other from the outside to challenge the
sovereignty of Daseins self-possession and comprehension of the world.
This concept is understood as Daseins primordial concern with its own
sense of self although for Levinas, this sense of self or mine-ness is
derived not from the egos autonomous eort to be but from its ethical
55
Emmanuel Levinas, On Escape, trans. Bettina Bergo, introduced and annotated

by Jacques Rolland (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), p. 72.
56
See Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 149-162.
57
Michael Purcell, Levinas and Theology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2006), pp. 78-79.
58
Purcell, Levinas and Theology, pp. 78-79.
59
Peperzak, To the Other, p. 17.
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
14
responsibility for the Other.60 In other words, whereas for Heidegger,

one becomes a self through self-interested (or egoistic) tendencies,
for Levinas, one becomes a self through a seless assumption of
responsibility for the Other. Hence, as in Husserl, Heideggers notion
of alterity or the Other is still absorbed into the Same.
It is in Levinass analysis of death that the solitude of the ego breaks.
In Heidegger, death is solely the unique experience of the ego and no one
can take the place of his dying.61 Death is an essential part of Daseins
relationship with Being as the sum of his possible experiences and as a
mode of Daseins mine-ness. Daseins relation to mortality is ontological.
Death prompts Da-sein towards self-responsibility. Levinas, however,
views death dierently. Death for him is an indication that there is
something utterly unknowable and this in a way breaks the subjects
sovereignty and virility.62 Death is not merely phenomenal where
the Other in his external appearance is immobilized.63 It also points to
the unknown (though not a purely negative unknown), the innite or
beyond being. In death, something disrupts the subjects self-mastery
and intentionality and it establishes the possibility of an encounter
between the self and that which is refractory to thoughtthe Other.
As Cohen eloquently notes in contrasting Levinas and Heideggers
views on death: It is not mastery of death that Levinas emphasizes
but its mystery, the exteriority of the death which always comes to take
me, against my will, too soon.64 Cohen continues: Death escapes the
subject not because the subject ees into supercial everyday existence,
into the avoidance of self which is the everyday world of Heideggerian
inauthenticity, but because the futurity of death, its unforeseeability, its
ungraspability, overwhelms the subjects powers.65
Death is an emotional or aective disquietude without an intention
or theme. It agitates and shows the proximity or nearness of the
60
Hoy, Critical Resistance, p. 153.

See Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 293-311.
62
Levinas, Time and the Other in The Levinas Reader, p. 41.
63
Emmanuel Levinas, God, Death and Time, trans. Bettina Bergo (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 16.
64
Richard A. Cohen, Elevations: The Height of the Good in Rosenzweig and
Levinas (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 142.
65
Cohen, Elevations, p. 142.
61
15
neighbor and the obligation of the survivor to the Other. Here, Levinas
likens death to the Other.66 Both are unthinkable. Just like death, the
Other is unpredictable and comes as a surprise to the ego. In Entre
Nous, Levinas goes as far as to characterize the face of the Other as an
expression of his mortality which summons the self to responsibility,
as if, through its indierence, the I became the accomplice to, and had
to answer for, this death of the other and not let him die alone.67 The
death of the Other is the self s responsibility. This is so because, as will
be shown later, the Other plays a decisive role in shaping the identity of
the self. Levinas relocates death from the Heideggerrian notion of death
as mine-ness (death as the possibility of impossibility) to his notion of
it as the impossibility of possibility of serving the Other.
According to Levinas, Heideggers notion of anxiety over death
or nothingness shows the priority of theory over this anxiety. Such
anxiety is ontological for Heidegger who still asks its meaning in the
context of Daseins relation to Being. Though for Heidegger anxiety
has no object or theme or intention for it is a mood in the face of
nothingness, Levinass reading of Heidegger looks at it as anxiety over
Being via nothingness.68 Nothingness is still dialectically connected
with being, of which it is a defective mode.69
IV. Beyond Mainstream Phenomenology

In the end, Levinas does not completely subscribe to both
Husserls and Heideggers phenomenologies because he thinks that the
transcendental ego of the former and the thinking of Being of the latter
do not do justice to the radical alterity of the human Other. It seems
that their notions of alterity are still deduced from and symptomatic of
the supremacy of the Cartesian self or the absoluteness of the Hegelian
66
Levinas, God, Death and Time, pp. 16-17.

Emmanuel Levinas, Entre Nous: On Thinking-of-the-Other, trans. Michael B.
Smith and Barbara Harshav (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 186.
See also Levinas and Kearney, Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas, in Face to Face
with Levinas, p. 26.
68
Levinas, God, Death and Time, pp. 18-19.
69
Michael B. Smith, Toward the Outside: Concepts and Themes in Emmanuel
Levinas (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2005), p. 187.
67
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
16
Geist. Both phenomenologies still retain notions of something primary

and ultimate which are paradigms of an ontological inquiry. These are
ways of thinking that emphasize the interior life of the ego manifested
in integration, synthesis, mastery and freedom.70 The face of the Other
cannot be encompassed by a totalizing gaze of the Same nor reduced
to a concept or neutral term like Being. For this reason, Levinas takes
leave of phenomenology by developing his own non-ontological and
non-phenomenological thinking of the Other. He calls his thought
meontology (from the Greek, me-on which means, non-being)
which arms a meaning beyond being.71 He makes use of Descartes
idea of the Innite as too much for the ego to contain in the Third
Meditation72 in order to point out that phenomenology fails to fully
take account of the human Other because it cannot be an object or
noema of consciousness.73 He writes:
The Cartesian notion of the idea of the Innite designates
a relation with a being that maintains its total exteriority
with respect to him who thinks it. It designates the contact
with the intangible, a contact that does not compromise the
integrity of what is touched.74
The innite as the human Other breaks the noesis-noema

structure of consciousness for it refuses to be regarded as an instance
or moment of the egos all-embracing gaze. It is not a phenomenon
that can be constituted by objectifying consciousness. It is rather
70
Levinas writes: In Husserl non-doxic intentionalities harbor an archetypical

doxa; Heideggers being-in-the-world is a comprehension: technological activity
itself is openness, discovery of Being, even if in the mode of a forgetting of Being.
The ontic, which at least involves an opaqueness, everywhere yields before the
ontological, before a covered-over luminosity to be disengaged. The existentiell
reveals its meaning in the existential, which is an articulation of ontology. An entity
counts only on the basis of knowing, of appearing, of phenomenology. Levinas,
Otherwise than Being, p. 80.
71
Levinas and Kearney, Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas, p. 25.
72
Ren Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations, trans. F.E. Sutclie
(London: Penguin, 1968), pp. 130-131.
73
Levinas, Totality and Innity, pp. 26-27.
74
Ibid., p. 50.
17
an enigma which is instilled into consciousness.75 It overows that

thought that thinks it and its innition is produced precisely by this
overowing.76 Though the idea of the innite is uncontainable, it is
nonetheless present a priori in the egos consciousness. Innity does
not rst exist, and then reveal itself but it is produced as revelation,
given as an idea already present in the egos consciousness. The self
could not produce and contain the innite by virtue of its identity
as nite.77 The innite in the nite, the more in the less, which is
accomplished by the idea of Innity, is produced as Desirenot a
desire that the possession of the Desirable slakes, but the Desire for
the Innite which the desirable arouses rather than satises.78 The
presence of the innite in thought is a desire of an unequalled and
unassumable passivitya passivity beyond all passivity.79 Desire as
passivity is not a receptivity. Receptivity is a collecting that takes in
a welcome, an assuming that takes place under the force of the blow
received.80 Desire is more of a passivity of a trauma through which
the idea of a God comes to mind.81 Innity is not purely and simply
lost as a result of its manifestation; it absolves itself from the relation
in which it presents itself.82 This idea of the Other as innite plays a
signicant role in Levinass notion of ethical relationship. The Other as
exceeding thought signies that it is irreducible and separate from the
ego. The a priori presence of the innite in the egos consciousness in
spite of the fact that it overows consciousness indicates that the Others
demand for responsibility is a constant and persistent appeal addressed to
the ego. It also implies that the ego is not pure interiority or completely
75
See Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, 65-77. See also Peperzak, To The
Other, p. 21.
76
77
Ibid., pp. 26-27.
78
Ibid., p. 50.
79
Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, p. 136; Emmanuel Levinas, Of God
Who Comes to Mind, trans. Bettina Bergo (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1998), p. 63.
80
Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, p. 137; Levinas, Of God Who Comes to
Mind, p. 64.
81
Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, p. 137; Levinas, Of God Who Comes to
Mind, p. 64.
82
18
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
enclosed within its own world but is also open to transcendence or the
innite.
Levinass patient study and critical engagement with phenomenology
develops into a critical reading of the history of Western philosophy
which he characterizes as an egology.
V. Western Philosophys Hegemonic Stature

Levinass philosophy of the responsible subject can best be
understood against the background of the salient features of Western
philosophy.83 Levinas, while acknowledging the contributions of past
philosophers to the formation of his thought, is critical of the negative
tendencies of Western philosophy insofar as it engenders violence to
the other person. As Levinas sees it, Western philosophy absorbs or
assimilates the Other and privileges the ego cogito or the thinking self.
This ego, to which everything is appropriated and must return, is what
Levinas calls the Same. Levinas borrows these two terms, the Same
and the Other, from Platos dialogue Sophist. These two terms are the
two categories of Being in Platos philosophy.
For Levinas, the Same basically possesses a nature that encompasses
what is other than itself. This way of assimilating things is to be
understood as the egos mode of self-existence through enjoyment and
material nourishment. This is also the reason why Levinas describes
Western philosophy as narcissistic because it gives primacy to and
enshrines the Same. The Other, in Platos thought, is not genuinely
other. It is other in a relative sense. For example, a book is not the
same as a pencil; so it is other than a pencil. The other is like nonbeing but not in an absolute sense. So what Levinas wants to achieve
83
Knowledge of Levinass philosophical formation as a student in France is
necessary in order for the reader to be sympathetic to his critical appraisal of Western
philosophy. Peperzak notes that philosophy in French universities emphasized the
study of what they considered great thinkers, namely, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics,
Plotinus, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte,
Comte, etc. Medieval and Christian philosophy, basically after Plotinus and before
Descartes and Pascal, was unnoticed. Bergson, Nietzsche and Marx at this time
were not yet as inuential as they were years later. See Peperzak, To The Other, pp.
9-10 and Beyond, p. 8.
19
in his thinking is to come up with a notion of otherness dierent from

Platos, an other that is not a category of Being.
Levinas also regards Western philosophy as an egology.84 Western
thought, according to him, seeks to enhance the egos knowledge
(theory), power and freedom by reducing and structuring the world into
totalizing concepts and categories. Levinass critique of Western reason
also includes his critique of ideology manifested in occidental lifestyle,
practice, planning and technology.85 This way of reading Western
philosophy coincides with Levinass phenomenological description of
the self as the Same and as enjoyment. For Levinas, the self acquires
its initial identity by appropriating what is other than itself. This
process of self-identication Levinas describes as enjoyment, a solitary
life of innocent satisfaction of things assimilated and possessed. This
refers to the selfs economic and hedonic existence. But in criticizing
Western philosophy, Levinas does not so much seek to overcome it as to
accomplish that which it has failed to realize. And this is metaphysics
as transcendence, a movement from the selfs solitary and complacent
existence to the desire of the Other expressed in responsibility. In
the history of Western philosophy there are some thinkers who have
ashes of insight into the Other but they have failed to fully recognize
it. For example, Platos notion of the Good which lies beyond Being;
Descartes idea of the Innite in a nite mind, the existence of which is
not within the power of the self to produce; Pseudo-Dionysiuss supraontological notions in his doctrine of via eminentiae where there is a
surplus in the divine over being; and St. Augustines distinction in his
Confessions, of the truth that challenges (veritas redarguens) and the
ontological truth that shines (veritas lucens).86
84
Levinas, Philosophy and the Idea of the Innite in Peperzak, To The Other
(West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993), p. 97; see also Levinas, Totality
and Innity, p. 44.
85
Peperzak, Beyond, p. 8.
86
Levinas and Kearney, Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas, p. 25. See also
Levinas, Otherwise than Being, p. 8. For a detailed treatment of how, to Levinass
mind, some Western thinkers dealt with the notion of the innite, see his Innity,
in Alterity and Transcendence, trans. Michael Smith (NY: Columbia University
Press, 1999), pp. 53-76.
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
20
Western knowledge or theory, as Levinas claims, tends to put selfmastery and control of things at the pedestal. By theory, Levinas means
the comprehension of beings which he calls ontology.87 He reserves
the term metaphysics to the desire for the innite Otherthe good
beyond Being.88 Benedict Spinozas notion of a conatus essendi, the
Darwinian concept of survival of the ttest and Freuds idea of the id
that seeks gratication, possession or powerthe libido dominandi
will t well with this basic structure of the ego.89 Although it appears
that this inclination of the ego to reduce the Other to itself is something
negative, Levinas understands it positively. Burggraeve points out that
this egocentrism does not connote a base fault or perversion but it is
the natural and perfectly healthy attachment of the ego to itself.90
He thinks that this is really mans way of being in the world. The
ego is by nature self-immersed and seeks enjoyment in the world.
However, this self-absorption of the ego is not what Levinas means by
the true life since this spontaneous enjoyment is equivalent to the
absorption by a depersonalized realm of pure materiality.91 The true
life is found in being responsible for, exposed to, wounded by and held
hostage by the Other.
Ontological inquiry, which serves as the highest form of human
enterprise based on the Aristotelian premise that man is a rational
animal, secures for the self, as Levinas points out, its own self-possession
and independence. It also enables the self to acquire mastery of its
surroundings through a rationality which homogenizes beings to a
totalizing system outside of its vision or comfort zone. This results to a
kind of consciousness that represents external objects and unies them
under a general concept nullifying their essential dierences. From
87

Ibid., pp. 33-35. The notion of the good beyond Being, the good as source
and provider of truth and knowledge is from Platos dialogue Republic. See Plato,
Republic, trans. Robin Watereld (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), p. 517b
and p. 518d.
89
Levinas and Kearney, Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas, 24. See also
Otherwise than Being, p. 4.
90
Roger Burggraeve, The Wisdom of Love in the Service of Love: Emmanuel
Levinas on Justice, Peace and Human Rights, trans. Jerey Bloechl (Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press, 2002), p. 43.
91
Peperzak, To The Other, p. 18.
88
21
this objectifying vision, climaxes super-consciousness a la Hegel that

includes and does violence not only to others but even to the individual
conscious self.92
Western philosophy, Levinas contends, has always been an ontology
subjugating the other to the same by the interposition of a middle
and neutral term that ensures comprehension of being.93 This neutral
term is equivalent to Parmenides Being, Platos World of Forms,
Aristotles notion of man as one who thinks freely and independently,
Descartes autonomous ego, Hegels Absolute Spirit, Husserls ontology
of self-consciousness, and Heideggers impersonal Being.94 Knowledge
acquired through the interposition of a middle term never encounters
anything truly other in the world.95 Here, the object of knowledge is
not the object as it is truly in itself but one which reason intends and
clothes with meaning. Reason is alone, as Levinas would remark.96
Thus ontology becomes so abstract and too farfetched from reality that
everything is totalized, systematized and synthesized into an impersonal
ego, which is wrongly identied as transcendence. For Levinas, this is
the profound truth of Idealism.97 Metaphysics as transcendence, in
so far as it is construed in Western philosophical tradition is not real
metaphysics, according to Levinas, for it is actually immanence in the
guise of transcendence. It is an egology that embraces or encompasses
everything with its outstretched arms leaving nothing outside of itself.98
Alterity or what is other than the self vanishes into the totalizing vision
92
For an explanation on how this type of knowledge grounded in traditional

metaphysics tends to lead the self not only to do violence to others but even to itself,
see Chapter 2 (Violence and the Self) of Benjamin Hutchens, Levinas: A Guide for
the Perplexed (New York: Continuum, 2004), pp. 36-46.
93
94
See William Paul Simmons, Autonomy, Totality, and Anti-Humanism:
Levinass Critique of the Western Tradition, Chapter I of his book An-archy
and Justice: An Introduction to Emmanuel Levinass Political Thought (Lanham,
Maryland: Lexington Books, 2003), pp. 19-33. See also Peter Atterton and Matthew
Calarco, Critique of Ontology, Chapter 1 of On Levinas (Belmont, CA: Thomson
Wadsworth, 2005), pp. 5-17.
95
Levinas, Time and the Other, in The Levinas Reader, p. 39.
96
Ibid.
97
Ibid.
98
Levinas, Ethics and Innity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo, trans. R.
Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), p. 75.
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
22
of the Same. The comprehending gaze of the ego eliminates the distance
between itself and its other because both have now become parts of a
synthesizing thought construct. Hence, transcendence is reduced into
immanence; innity is absorbed into and by totality.
Levinas reckons that Hegels philosophy exemplies this totalizing
and panoramic tendency of Western reason. He says:
It is in fact the whole trend of Western philosophy
culminating in the philosophy of Hegel, which, for very
good reason, can appear as the culmination of philosophy
itself. One can see this nostalgia for totality everywhere in
Western philosophy, where the spiritual and the reasonable
always reside in knowledge. It is as if the totality had been
lost, and that this loss were the sin of the mind. It is then the
panoramic vision of the real which is the truth and which
gives all its satisfaction to the mind.99
Because of this longing for the absolute truth which seems to be

lost or forgotten, the Western mind wants to recover from this loss
in a frenzied enfolding of reality under one unifying vision. Such an
eort has given rise to what Levinas calls ontological imperialism.100
The paradigm of truth is now for thought to coincide with its object so
as to make this object intelligible to itself. As a consequence, the object
is grasped out of nothing or is reduced to nothing, removing from
it its alterity.101
Western philosophys portrayal of knowledge is basically akin to
assimilation, synthesis, integration and absorption; it makes philosophy
a discipline of power since it provides the ego or the Same a god-like
99
Levinas, Ethics and Innity, p. 76.

101
Ibid. In Otherwise than Being, Levinas reechoes his critical appraisal of the
Western notion of truth: Truth can consist only in the exposition of being to itself,
in self-consciousness. The soul would live only for the disclosure of being which
arouses it or provokes it; it would be a moment of the life of the Spirit, that is, of
Being-totality, leaving nothing outside of itself, the same nding again the same
(p. 28).
100
23
vision. Knowledge acquired in ontology becomes absolute and thus

corroborates Francis Bacons now infamous claim that Knowledge
is power. Levinas remarks: I think comes down to I canto an
appropriation of what is, to an exploitation of reality. Ontology as rst
philosophy is a philosophy of power. A philosophy of power, ontology
is, as rst philosophy which does not call into question the same, a
philosophy of injustice.102
Heideggers fundamental ontology, according to Levinas, tends to
manifest this seemingly obscure will to master and dominate. Is this
not what Nietzsche is trying to say in his posthumous work The Will
to Power? Heideggers thinking of Being, says Levinas, subordinates
the relationship with the Other to the relation with Being in general,
remains under obedience to the anonymous, and leads inevitably to
another power, to imperialist domination, to tyranny.103
As ontology of power, Western philosophy promotes freedom
the freedom that is the identication of the same, not allowing itself to
be alienated by the other.104 The ego in his totalizing stance becomes
autonomous and free. It perceives the world from a standpoint free
from limitations and ventures into the vast expanse of reality in order
to conquer it and then returns to itself in order to digest what it has
in its possession. Possession, writes Levinas, is predominantly the
form in which the other becomes the same, by becoming mine.105
Thus Western thought very often seemed to exclude the transcendent,
encompass every Other in the same, and proclaim the philosophical
birthright of autonomy.106
In contrast to a philosophy of autonomy, Levinas proposes a
philosophy of heteronomy, a philosophy based on the Other. The
Other jolts the ego in its autonomous and contemplative state and
summons it to a beyond, to a transcendent, and to what Plato calls the
Good beyond Being.
102

Ibid., pp. 46-47.
104
Ibid., p. 42.
105
Ibid., p. 46.
106
Levinas, Philosophy and the Idea of the Innite, p. 93.
103
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
24
In order to illustrate the dierence between autonomic and

heteronomic philosophy, Levinas makes use of Odysseus and Abraham
as metaphors. Autonomic philosophy is likened to the journey of
Odysseus. It is a journey that begins from the ego, its homeland,
proceeds to a yonder and then returns to the same ego. Philosophical
knowledge is a priori: it searches for the adequate idea and assures
autonomy. In every new development it recognizes familiar structures
and greets old acquaintances. It is an Odyssey where all adventures are
only accidents of a return to self.107 Heteronomic philosophy, on the
contrary, is similar to the journey of Abraham. It guides the ego to the
truth beyond which is unfamiliar to it.108 It is the journey of Abraham
who leaves his fatherland for a yet unknown land, and forbids his
servant to even bring back his son to the point of departure.109 As
will be shown later, autonomic philosophy is spurred by need while
heteronomic philosophy is motivated by desire.
Though Levinas criticizes Western philosophy as an egology and
ontology of power, he however does not entirely reject traditional
metaphysics. In leaving the climate of traditional Western metaphysics,
he does not subscribe to its destruction or deconstruction but to its
reorientation from the preoccupation with the Same to the unwavering
concern for the Other.110 What he intends to do is not to overcome
metaphysics but to correct and complete it by being faithful to its true
meaning as transcendence.111 Levinas explains, We cannot obviate
the language of metaphysics, and yet we cannot, ethically speaking, be
satised with it: it is necessary but not enough.112 His entire project
is actually an attempt to reorient the direction of philosophy from
107
Levinas, Transcendence and Height, in Basic Philosophical Writings, p. 14.

See also Totality and Innity, p. 27, also p. 271 and Otherwise than Being, p. 99.
108
109
Emmanuel Levinas, The Trace of the Other, trans. Alphonso Lingis, in
Deconstruction in Context, ed. Mark Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1986), 348. Quoted in Simmons, An-archy and Justice, p. 20.
110
Hent de Vries, Levinas, in A Companion to Continental Philosophy, edited
by Simon Critchley and William Schroeder (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 245. See also
his Minimal Theologies, p. 372.
111
See Jerey Kosky, Ethics as the End of Metaphysics, in Levinas and the
Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. 3-24.
112
25
egoism to altruism and from freedom to responsibility. He sees the task

of philosophy as the wisdom of love at the service of love.113
Unlike Jacques Derrida, Levinas does not see the deconstruction of
the Western metaphysics of presence as an irredeemable crisis because
he looks at it as a golden opportunity to open itself to the dimension
of otherness and transcendence beyond being.114 The egos enclosure
with its own thinking, representing to itself the past by retention and
the future by protention, does not inevitably lead to the doom of
humanity or its disastrous destiny (nihilism) for the presence of the
Other gives hope of recovery towards goodness and justice.
Western philosophys orientation towards totality and the Same does
not really merit Levinass ire. Levinass opposition is not against totality
but against its absolutization. Levinas, Peperzak opines, recognizes the
necessity and contributions of practical and theoretical totalizations
for human planning and organization in science and technology,
economy, law and justice, administration and politics, the absence of
which would spell death to a society.115 Though philosophy works
towards an objectication (what Levinas calls the Said) of something,
it can also work towards a reduction of that objectication that leads to
recognition of innity, alterity and transcendence (what Levinas calls
the Saying).
VI. Conclusion
Levinass philosophy is deeply rooted in the phenomenological
tradition of Husserl and Heidegger. Though he is indebted to this
phenomenological tradition, Levinas also tried to show its limits. For
him phenomenology is still an expression of the philosophy of the Same
that totalizes the Other. Levinas criticizes Husserls phenomenology
because it privileges the transcendental ego. The object that the ego
confronts is already constituted by consciousness, thereby excluding
the alterity which lies beyond consciousness.
113
Levinas, Otherwise than Being, p. 162.

115
Peperzak, Beyond: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, pp. 11-12.
114
26
Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27
Heidegger contextualizes Husserlian phenomenology. He has

placed the ego back into its spatio-temporal existence. Here the ego is
now understood as Dasein who is being-in-the-world. But in Heidegger,
Being is still the dominant theme where everything is dependent on
its historical manifestation. For Levinas, this notion of Being still
prioritizes the Same at the expense of the Other. Alterity is subsumed
in Being and the Other is deprived of its radical dierence.
Levinass philosophical project seeks to transcend phenomenology
in order to show that the Other is not a phenomenon that can be
constituted by the ego or encompassed by the overpowering presence
of Being. In showing that the Other cannot be absorbed by the Same,
Levinas re-conceives philosophys main task by emphasizing the
ethics of responsibility for the Other over ontologys search for and
investigation of Being.
To accomplish his project, Levinas makes use of Descartes idea
of the innite that overows consciousness. In Levinass philosophy,
this innite is the human Other. Phenomenology fails to take into full
account the presence of the human Other because this Other resists the
objectifying vision of consciousness. The Other refuses to be regarded
as an instance or moment of the egos all-embracing gaze. For Levinas,
the Other is not a phenomenon that can be constituted by a totalizing
consciousness. Instead, it is an enigma instilled into consciousness
from an irrecoverable past. The self could not produce and contain
the innite by virtue of its nite nature. The presence of the innite in
thought is the awakening of a desire already present in the passivity of
the self.
This idea of the Other plays a signicant role in Levinass notion
of ethical relationship. The Other as exceeding thought signies its
irreducibility into a concept and its separation from the ego. The a
priori presence of the innite in the egos consciousness indicates that
the Others moral claim is a constant and unrelenting appeal addressed
to the ego. It also implies that the ego is not pure interiority shut in its
own world but is also open to the innite or transcendence.
Levinas regards Western philosophy as an egology. The
comprehending gaze of the ego eliminates the distance that separates
27
the ego from the Other. In this comprehension, both the ego and the
Other have now become components of a synthesizing thought. Hence,
in Western philosophy, transcendence is reduced into immanence;
innity is absorbed into and by totality.
Where Did Israel Come From?

Models of the Origins of Ancient Israel
RANDOLF C. FLORES, SVD
Divine Word Seminary
Tagaytay City, Philippines
o understand who we are, our behavior, our customs and

practices, our ways of thinking, our tendencies, our values and
vicesin other words, our identityit is important to know
our own origins. Where did we come from? Who were our ancestors?
What did our ancestors look like? their language? their beliefs? their
hopes? There is a saying in our language that goes this wayAng
hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan, hindi makararating sa paroroonan
(Those who do not look back from where they came, will not reach
their destination). Similarly, the question on the origins of ancient
Israel is fundamental in understanding the identity of this elected people,
their religion, their values, their sacred texts, and their faith in YHWH.
A Problematic Question
Where did ancient Israel come from? The question seems to have
an easy answerIsrael came from Egypt. A group of Abrahams
descendants, under the leadership of Moses, had escaped from slavery
in Egypt. They wandered for forty years through the wilderness;
crossed the Jordan River in the land of Canaan; and after a series of wars
against the inhabitants of Canaan, they conquered all the Canaanite
cities under the leadership of Joshua. Thus we read in the rst half of
the Book of Joshua (chaps. 1-12) the story of the total defeat of Canaan
and in the second half of the book (chaps. 13-24) the narrative of the
division of the land among the tribes of Israelites. The book ends with
R. C. Flores, Where Did Israel Come From?
29
the whole of Israel coming together at Shechem for a covenant renewal

ceremony.
When we turn however to the Book of Judges, we get a very
dierent picture. It begins with a listing of places not yet conquered
by Israelites, even territories mentioned earlier by Joshua as already
occupied (compare Josh 11:16-17 and Judg 1:9). Judges as a whole
gives the impression of a long, continuing battle between the newly
arrived Israelites against the Canaanites, who continually held on to
much of the territory. It was not until the beginning of the monarchy,
in the Second Book of Samuel, that David took the city of Jerusalem
from the Canaanites.
Besides the contradictions between Joshua and Judges, there
are problems reconciling archeological data with the stories in the
Septateuch (Pentateuch plus Joshua and Judges). For instance, the
Book of Exodus describes a series of catastrophic events in Egyptthe
plagueswith the death of the rstborn of the Egyptians as its violent
culmination. If all of these events within a short period of time did
take place in the magnitude in which Exodus describes them, we would
expect it to be carefully recorded. The biblical text carries that written
record. But they are found nowhere in the Egyptian records, even if
ancient Egypt is known for its great scribes who composed narratives
of historical events and wisdom instructions. Concerning the wars and
victories of the Israelites in the Book of Joshua, archeological evidence
does not support lightning, all-at-once conquest of Canaan. Several
cities mentioned as conquered, destroyed and burned by the Israelites
show no evidence of massive destruction. Examples are the cities of
Jericho and Ai. The popular story about walls of Jericho crumbling
down (Josh 6:20) could be anything but historical.
Scholars acknowledge that the biblical story of the beginnings of
Israel has a theological rather than historical purpose. It expresses
the fulllment of promises that God made to the chosen people
Abraham, Sarah and their descendants. The center of the promise was
that God would give them a land of their own. If the biblical account
of the origins of ancient Israel is not history in the modern sense of
the term, what is the historical origin of these people? With the help
of archeological data and extra-biblical sources in Israel and Egypt,
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
30
scholars today propose ways or models to answer this problem. This

paper then aims to provide a summary of the four models of origins of
ancient Israel.1
1. The Classical Model: Conquest from Outside

The emergence and settlement of Israel in Canaan could be explained
by the hostile entrance of an ethnic group coming from outside of
Canaan. This was the prevalent way of understanding the origins of
Israel in the late 1920s when an enormous increase of archeological
data seemed to synchronize with the biblical texts, primarily with the
Book of Joshua. William Foxwell Albright and some nascent Israeli
archeologists at the time, notably Yigael Yadin (Sukenik) developed this
1
This is a revised and updated version of a paper presented in partial fulllment

for the course on Biblical Archeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1997
under Professor Ann E. Killebrew.
Recent studies on the origins of ancient Israel include Recent Trends in
Reconstructing the History of Ancient Israel: A Report of the Conference, by
Giovanni Garbini. The conference was organized by the Associazione Orientalisti
and held at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome on March 6-7, 2003.
See an online report at http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres10/Recenttrends.
pdf. See also the following: Philip R. Davies, In Search of Ancient Israel (Sheeld:
Sheeld Academic, 1992); Nadav Naaman and Israel Finkelstein, From Nomadism
to Monarchy: Archeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel (Jerusalem: Israel
Exploration Society, 1995); Volkmar Fritz and Philip R. Davies, eds., The Origins
of Ancient Israel States (Sheeld: Sheeld Academic, 1996); Israel Finkelstein and
Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed (New York: Touchstone, 2002); William
Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003); Ann Killebrew, Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity:
An Archeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, and Early Israel 1300-1100 BCE
(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005); Israel Finkelstein and Amihai Mazar,
The Quest for the Historical Israel: Debating Archeology and the History of Early Israel,
ed. Brian B. Schmidt (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007); Lester Grabbe,
ed., Israel in Transition: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIa (c. 1250-850 BCE Volume
1: The Archeology (New York: T&T Clark, 2008). For a good bibliography of the
origins of ancient Israel, see Richard Hess, Early Israel in Canaan, A Survey of
Recent Evidence and Interpretations, in Israels Past in Present Research, Essays on
Ancient Israelite Historiography, ed. V. Philips Long (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns,
1999), pp. 492-518; originally published in Palestinian Exploration Quarterly 125
(1993), pp. 125-42.
31
model which soon became the classical and prevalent way to describe
the origins of ancient Israel and its history as a whole.2
The archeological data supporting this model can be broadly
categorized into two: (1) the evidence of destruction at some important
sites which are believed to be Canaanite strongholds; and (2) evidence
for a new type of subsequent settlement, i.e., Israelite settlement. In
order to have working statistics of the pattern of destruction, it is worth
enumerating at this point some of the destroyed Canaanite cities. Then
one of the most important sites, Hazor, will be dealt with as a casestudy for this model.
a. Destroyed Cities during the Late Thirteenth

and Early Twelfth Centuries BCE
The following cities (with their corresponding modern names),
mostly mentioned in Joshua 1-12, show evidence of destruction [see
Appendix A for map of the Israelite Settement]:3
Hazor (Tell el-Qedah) Josh 11:10-11
Megiddo (Tell el-Mutesillim) Josh 12:21
Succoth (Tell Deir Alla) Josh 13:27; Judges 8
Bethel (Beitin) Joshua 8
Beth Shemesh (Tell er-Remeileh) Josh 15:10; 19:22
Ashdod (Esdud) Josh 11:22; 15:46-47
Lachish (Tell ed-Durabudweir) Joshua 10
Eglon (Tell el-Hesi) Josh 10:34-35
For works of Albright, see D. N. Freedman, The Published Works of William

Foxwell Albright: A Comprehensive Bibliography (Cambridge, MS: American Schools
of Oriental Research, 1975).
3
See also Yohanan Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography,
trans. A.F. Rainey (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979), pp. 191.
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
32
Debir or Kiriath-Sepher (Tell Beit Mirsim or Khirbet Rahud)

Josh 10:38-39
The following are unconquered cities which show no sign of
destruction [see Appendix B for the map of unconquered Canaanite
cities]:
Gibeon (el-Jib) Joshua 9
Shechem (Tell Balatah) Joshua 24
Jerusalem (el-Quds) Josh 16:63; 2 Sam 5:6-9
Beth-shean (Tell el-Husn) Judg 1:27-28
Gezer (Tell Jezer) Josh 10:33
How does this conquest model take into account Jericho and Ai?
Excavations at Jericho reveal nothing of a fortied wall or signs of
destruction at the time Israel was entering Canaan as recounted in
Joshua 2. Rivka Gonen suggests that the fortications may have been
ceremonial,4 or that walls could have existed but have been washed
out by erosions because mudbricks and other weak materials rather
than stones were common building materials at that time.5 In the
case of Ai which shows no occupation for centuries thereby running
counter to Joshua 7-8, Albright and his followers suggest that there
was an exchange of names between Bethel and Ai because of their
geographical proximity to each other. The conquest of Bethel was thus
transferred to Ai. Furthermore Ai (it means ruin in Hebrew) was
literally a ruin in the Early Bronze Age. It is possible, Albright suggests,
that the settlers of Ai during the period of Judges, aware of the ruins of
the Early Bronze Age could have created the story of the conquest of Ai
to explain the name of the site, in short, an etiology.6
4
Rivka Gonen, Urban Canaan in the Late Bronze Period, BASOR 253 (1984),
pp. 61-73.
5
On Kathleen Kenyons excavation at Jericho, Albright writes, Late Bronze
level was almost completely denuded by wind and rain during the long abandonment
after the Conquest. Albright, The Archeology of Palestine (Baltimore: Penguin Books,
1956), p. 109. This argument pervaded through Albrights work even if Jericho was
the most excavated tell in Israel.
6
Albright, The Israelite Conquest of Canaan in the Light of Archeology, BASOR
33
Hazor is a typical example of a large Canaanite and Israelite

city (covering more than 80 hectares) located in Upper Galilee. As a
Canaanite city, it was rst mentioned in the Egyptian Execration texts
(nineteenth century BCE); also in the Mari documents (eighteenth
century BCE) which indicate its importance as a commercial center.
There are also references to the city in the Amarna Letters.7 Hazor
is mentioned several times in the Bible, especially in relation to its
destruction or burning by Joshua (Josh 11:10-13). The archeologists
who excavated the site, John Garstang, who did trial soundings in 1928,
the team of Yadin (1955-1958; 1968), and A. Ben-Tor (1990), made the
following observations out of the material remains of the site:8
1) Hazor was a city founded in the Middle Bronze Age II and
ourished throughout the Late Bronze Age, as indicated by fortications,
temples, public buildings and private houses.
2) Stratum XIII reveals remains of destruction, i.e., conagration.
Stratum XII shows remains of the earliest and most simple Israelite
settlement which consists of silos, tent, and hut foundations. The
pottery found has similarity with the pottery in other poor Israelite
settlements in Upper Galilee.
3) Because the Mari documents and the Amarna Letters mentioned
Hazor, it is possible to posit an absolute chronology of the nal destruction
of Hazor which is the second half of the thirteenth century BCE.
Granted that all the Canaanite cities enumerated have a similar
clear-cut evidence of destruction, the biblical conquest is a valid model
as Albright and company have defended. It is on this presumption that
Yadin, in what many perceive as a sweeping statement, wrote:
74 (1939): 11-23. See also John Bright, A History of Israel, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1981), p. 13; the same position is held in the fourth edition of the
book (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000); and G. Ernest Wright,
Biblical Archeology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), p. 80.
7
For an extensive discussion on Hazor, see Yigael Yadin, Hazor in New
Encyclopedia of Archeological Excavations in the Holy Land 2, pp. 595-606.
8
Ibid., p. 603.
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
34
All Late Bronze Age cities excavated came to a sudden end.

In many cases they were burnt. True, we are not yet able to
determine the exact dates or the identity of the destroyers,
but we would not be too far o the mark if we were to say
that this cataclysm occurred during the second half of the
thirteenth century BCE, and that the sacking was carried
out by the Egyptians, the Sea Peoples and Israelite tribes.9
b. Distinctive Material Culture and Type of Settlement

A necessary consequence of destruction is a new type of settlement
determined by an immediate process. This is not too hard to deduce
from the material remains of Hazor. Albright made this observation
earlier from the other excavated sites. He noticed a signicant break or
discontinuity of material culture and architecture of the new settlement
sites. Poorer pottery assemblage, less painted decoration or practically
no decoration at all, are a distinct characteristic compared to the
complex pottery of the Canaanites or of the Philistines. Its distinctive
pottery, the large storage jars or pithoi were rst found at Shiloh in the
destruction layer that Albright ascribed to the raid of the Philistines in
the wake of their triumph over Israel in the battle of Ebenezer in the
middle of the eleventh century BCE (see 1 Samuel 4) [see Appendix
C for a picture of collared-rim pithoi]. Further excavations reveal pithoi
to be scattered throughout the hill country settlement of Iron Age I.
Albright mentions the places where these pithoi were found: Bethel, Ai,
Tell eh-Nasbeh, Tell el-Ful, Beth-zur, Shechem, practically from south
to north of the hill country. The pithos has a characteristic collared rim
and rough clay texture. These collared-rim pithoi are apparently used
widely throughout the Iron Age I settlement sites.
These sites lack the massive fortication common in a Canaanite
settlement. Bronze Age walls were usually thick from 5 to 15 ft. while
9
Yadin, Biblical Archeology Today: The Archeological Aspect, in Biblical

Archeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archeology,
Jerusalem April 1984, ed. J. Amitai (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1984),
pp. 22-23.
35
the Iron Age wall is only 5 ft. thick.10 Iron Age I consists mostly of small
villages and the dwelling is the pillared house from which the typical
Israelite four-room house developed. One of the earliest examples of
this type of house is found in Giloh. The Iron Age I house found has a
large open area which was probably used as a livestock pen. The stone
walls of this courtyard were poorly built and its oor was bedrock. The
entrance of the house was through the open area which had a square
inner courtyard divided by stone pillars. It was further divided by a
row of three hewn stone pillars. The house looked then as if it were
surrounded by rooms. Benjamin Mazar, who did a salvage excavation
of this site between 1978 and 1982, regarded this house to be an early
attempt to construct a four-room house.11
In addition, cisterns, silos, and terrace agriculture characterized the
new settlement. Albright particularly pointed out the signicance of
cisterns lined with a waterproof lime plaster instead of the normal limy
marl of raw lime plaster. These plastered cisterns were invented by the
Israelites to allow settlement at places in the hill country which lacked
constant supply of water.12
c. Some Remarks on the Model

The view of Albright and his followers was inuential for many
years. Even today, we can read well-meaning Christian authors cite
uncritically this view to prove that the Bible is historically accurate.
There are serious problems with this view as biblical scholars and
archeologists have pointed out. First, its almost exclusive reliance on the
Book of Joshua does not give due explanation to the texts in the Book
of Judges that contradict the formers narrative accounts. Second, the
identity of those invaders that destroyed those cities cannot immediately
be identied as Israelites. Last but not the least, out of around twenty
identied Late Bronze and Iron Age I sites which were violently taken
10
Albright, The Archeology of Palestine and the Bible (NY: F. Revell Co., 193233), p. 101.
11
B. Mazar, Giloh, in Encyclopedia of Archeological Excavations in the Holy
Land 2, pp. 519-520.
12
Albright, Archeology of Palestine, p. 113.
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
36
in the account of the Book of Joshua, only Bethel and Hazor, as Dever
emphasizes, have any archaeological claims to destructions, i.e.,
historical claims supported by extra-biblical evidence. 13Norman K.
Gottwald also nds this view problematic:14
As a self-sucient explanation of the Israelite occupation of
the land, the conquest model is a failure. On the literaryhistorical side, the biblical traditions are too fragmentary
and contradictory to bear the interpretation put upon them
by the centralized cult and by the editorial framework
of Joshua. On the archaeological side, the data are too
fragmentary and ambiguous, even contradictory, to permit
the extravagant claims made by some archaeologists and
historians using archaeological data . . . What must be
avoided is a facile circle of presumed conrmation of the
conquest, built up from selective piecing together of biblical
and archaeological features which seem to correspond, but
in disregard of contradictory features and without respect
for the tenuous nature both of the literary and of the
archaeological data.
2. Peaceful Inltration Model:

Immigration From Outside
The model, as its name suggests, views the emergence of the Israelites
in Canaan as a long and gradual process of peaceful immigration of
semi-nomadic tribes from outside. Albrecht Alt pioneered this theory in
his early work followed by his former student, Martin Noth. Manfred
Weippert and Yohanan Aharoni who provided fresh archeological
13
See the critique of Dever on the conquest model in Archeology and the
Israelite Conquest, in ABD 3, pp. 545-558.
14
Norman K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of
Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 BCE (Sheeld: Sheeld Academic Press, 1999), p. 203.
This is a reprint with a new preface from Gottwald for the twentieth anniversary of
the book (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979).
37
evidence also belonged to his school.15 At the onset we can say that
this model relied primarily on the Book of Judges as more historically
accurate than the Book of Joshuaits narratives in chapters 2-11
considered as late etiologies composed to legitimate Israels claims to
possession of the land. It also based itself not only on archeology but
also on extra-biblical texts especially in the annals of the Egyptian
Pharaoh, Thutmose III (April 24, 1479 BCE to March 11, 1425 BCE)
and on the Amarna Letters.
a. History of Territorial Divisions

Alt described his method as inquiry into the history of territorial
divisions (territorialgeschichtliche Fragestellung) or at times known as
historical-territorial method. This method works on two levels: (1)
description of what archeologists say as the lie of the land or the
topographical situation which includes not only geographical but
also political conditions of settlement; but (2) in order to do this, the
method must not only depend on archeology but also on the analysis of
available historical sources relevant to Israel in the periods before and
right after the Israelite settlement.16 From these, it should be possible
to draw out a pattern of immigration and settlement and the motives
for immigrating to the new land.17
15
Albrecht Alt, The Settlement of the Israelites, in Essays on Old Testament

History and Religion, trans. R. Wilson (Bristol: Basil Blackwell, 1968), pp. 175221; Martin Noth, The History of Israel, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row,
1960); Manfred Weippert, The Settlement of Israelite Tribes in Palestine (SBT 2/21:
Naperville: A.R. Allenson, 1971); and Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible.
16
Alt actually borrowed this method from a study of immigration of Germanic
tribes into the Roman provinces. See Alt, The Settlement of the Israelites, pp. 175179, esp. footnote 2.
17
See Niels Peter Lemche, Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical Studies
on the Israelite Society Before the Monarchy, VT 37 (1986), p. 39.
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
38
b. Textual Evidence
As earlier pointed out, Alt and followers rely more on written texts
namely, the annals of Thutmose III, Amarna Letters, and of course the
canonical texts especially Joshua. For the military annals of Thutmose
III, Alt notices the discrepancy in the territorial divisions of the land
reected in its list of rebellious city states. The vassal city-states were
mostly located in the southernmost valley, in the coastal plain and in
the plain of Megiddo. Very few of this kind of political unit is found in
the mountainous regions particularly in Judah and Samaria although
their territorial formations were larger. At the Battle of Megiddo (1457
BCE), these tiny states did not join the large Canaanite coalition under
the king of Kadesh in order to resist the invading Egyptian forces of
Thutmose III.18
In the cuneiform archive from Egypt known as the Amarna Letters
which is dated a century later, Alt nds that the center of revolt was
no longer in the plains but this time in the mountainous regions. The
territorial divisions however remained the same.19 The thickly populated
plains were divided into small city-states while the hilly regions, sparsely
populated, yielded a few political centers but each of these ruled over
a larger territory. The city-states in the Amarna Letters can be grouped
together into the following territorial divisions [see Appendix E for the
map of the Canaanite city-states in the Amarna Letters]:20
The Syro-Phoenician Coast Ugarit, Arvad, Àrkat, Ardat, Ullasa,
Sumur, Baruna, Byblos, Beirut, Yarimut, Sidon, Tyre, Usu; Acco and
Achshaph on the Plain of Acco.
The Lebanese Beqa` Qatna, Kadesh, Lebo, Tubihi, Kumudi and
various towns in the land of Àmqi, e.g., Hasi, Hashabu, Tushulti, et al.
The Damascus Region The land of Upi, Damascus, and the land
of Tahshi.
Bashan Ashtaroth, Busruma, Kenath, Ziri-bashan.
18
Alt, The Settlement of the Israelites, pp. 188-197.

Ibid., pp. 197-204.
20
This list is taken from Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, pp. 171-172.
19
39
The Jordan Valley Megiddo, Taanach, Shimòn, Shunem, Gina[th],

Jahphia, plus Hannathon in the Sahl el-Battof.
The coastal plain Gath-padalla, Gath-rimmon, Joppa, Ashkelon,
Gaza, Yurza.
The Shephelah Gezer, Rubute, Zorah, Aijalon, Gath-carmel,
Lachish, Keilah, Mareshah.
The Hill Country Shechem, Jerusalem, Manahath and Bethhoron.
In this list we can immediately notice that there were many more political
centers in the plains than in the mountainous regions. Only Shechem
and Jerusalem and perhaps the towns of Beth-horon and Manahath
which were under the jurisdiction of Jerusalems king were listed as
city-states in the extensive hill country of Judah and Ephraim.
During the supposed period when the Israelites had settled in the
land (Iron Age IA and IB), Alt observes that the territorial divisions have
completely changed. The geopolitical structure of the city-states became
unstable and the number of these political centers declined due to the
collapse of the Egyptian hegemony and the subsequent immigration
of the Sea Peoples, i.e., the Philistines. Local politics started to assert
themselves away from dictates of Egypt. This could be reected in the
canonical texts as Alt and later followers pointed out. The Book of
Judges (chapter 1) for example mentions new tribes whose names were
in fact of local origin: Israelite, Judean, Edomite, Moabite, Ammonite,
and Aramean who persisted in dwelling in the land (see also 2 Sam
2:9). The new territorial divisions consisted of the following: (1) Gilead
in the area of east Jordan which was an Israelite settlement; (2) Asher in
Galilee; (3) Jezreel, the center of the tribe of Issachar; and (4) Ephraim
which comprised the whole house of Joseph.21 Martin Noth, Alts
former student, proposed that the structure of the tribal system at this
period would be similar to the amphictyony in ancient Greecethe
confederation of twelve cities.22 The narrative of the birth of the twelve
sons of Jacob in Genesis 29-30 and the census of the twelve tribes of
21
22
Alt, The Settlement of the Israelites, pp. 210-211.

Noth, Das System der zwlf Stmme Israels (BWANT 52; Stuttgart, 1930).
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
40
Israel in Numbers 26 are canonical texts that are claimed to support

Noths thesis.
Thus in the period of Judges, in the mountainous regions which
previously were sparsely populated, there appeared a confederation of
twelve sedentary tribes named Israel. They settled on those rugged
mountains and had their own political system even if they were of a
mixed multitude (see Exod 12:38). Concerning the city-states in
the plains, they also persisted during this period although with a much
reduced number.
c. The Immigration of Semi-Nomads

Alt discerned from his analysis of these written sources that the
supposed conquest of the Canaanite city-states from outside invaders
could not have happened. As we noticed, there were practically no
Canaanite cities to conquer. It would be more logical to think that
those who populated the hilly regions of Judea and Samaria were seminomads coming from the Transjordan. As semi-nomads they came
and wentpasturing during winter in the steppes towards the east
and the south and during summer in the hilly areas. In the process of
wandering, they began to hang around within the borders of Canaan
which were sparsely populated until such a time that they eventually
settled to till the land. More and more tribal groups gradually came
and settled there. Over a long period of time, all the tribes mentioned
in the biblical text eventually became permanent residents of what is to
be called later on as Israel.23
The semi-nomads did not have military power like war chariots or
iron weapons. Unlike the invading Sea Peoples from the Aegean Sea,
they came peacefully and quietly settled at rst in the hill country.
They were isolated from the local Canaanite city-states which gave
them that space and time to develop their own culture and political
23
See Alts fourth essay, The Formation of the Israelite State in Palestine, in
Essays on Old Testament History and Religion, pp. 223-309. See also the critique of
Aharoni of Alts thesis, The Land of the Bible, pp. 191-195.
41
organization.24 It would take some time before they made signicant

contacts with the indigenous population. The marriage of Judah to
Shua who was a Canaanite woman in Genesis 38 could reect these
initial contacts. Likewise the challenge to go against the Canaanites
in Judges 1 would be another example. There are also traces of old
alliances with them as in the covenant at Shechem initiated by Joshua
(Josh 24:25). Slowly these semi-nomads began to organize under an
alliance that worshipped YHWH. Like in the Greek amphictyonic
league, they gradually evolved into a confederation of twelve tribes
that now could pose a threat to the Canaanite city-states. Finally, this
confederation would eventually mutate to a monarchy.25
d. Archeological Evidence
Even if Aharoni did not totally agree with Alt, the works of the
former gave the archeological support to the latters thesis. With fresh
data gathered from his surveys in Galilee and excavations at Beersheba,
Aharoni described similar territorial divisions in these rugged areas. In
southern Upper Galilee (elevations average at about 3,000 feet above
sea level), it appeared that this site was not previously occupied before
the Israelites settled here as indicated by the pottery characteristic of
Early Israelite settlements. At Tel Harishim (Khirbet et-Tuleil) for
instance, remains of Early Israelite settlements were numerous.26 In
contrast, the tells at Beer-sheba (Tell es-Seba` and Tell Bir es-Seba`)
yielded no evidence of Late Bronze Age remains. Only a unique
well had been found notably for sheep and goats which indicated a
semi-nomadic and pastoral way of life in this area.27 The excavations
at Giloh and Ìzbet Sartah, Startum III likewise revealed typical
pastoral encampments, most signicantly the so-called four-room
house which characterized early Israelite settlements [see Appendix
D for an image of Ìzbet Sartah]. Volkmar Fritz suggested that the
24
Alt, The Formation of the Israelite State, pp. 228-229.

For this see Alts fth and last essay, The Monarchy in the Kingdom of Israel
and Judah, in Essays on Old Testament History and Religion, pp. 311-335.
26
Aharoni, The Archeology of the Land of Isarel, trans. Anson Fr. Rainey
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982).
27
Ibid., pp. 191-192.
25
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
42
houses found at Tel Masos were modeled upon Bedouin-like tents and
that the evidence of cattle raising and complex pottery assemblage at
the site indicate pastoralists settling down.28 Israel Finkelstein, often
labeled as neo-Altian, also found settlements in frontier areas with
small villages that apparently multiplied in the Iron Age.29 The surveys
of the hill country of Ephraim and Manasseh for instance revealed a
signicant inux of settlements during the thirteenth century BCE
and even the fourteenth. Likewise Shechem and Bethel practically
were unoccupied earlier but at the dawn of the Iron Age, there was an
inux of settlements there. This westward expansion was conrmed by
the appearance of later ceramic forms and more complex sites. Moshe
Kochavi observed likewise that this expansion could be understood as
a progressive adaptation to highland agriculture by people who were
used formerly to growing cereals and pasturing ocks like the seminomads.30 The bull gurine found at a cultic site on a hill-top east of
Dothan in the territory of Manasseh which originated from the north
of Canaan (hence a Canaanite site) gave also the hint that there were
peaceful contacts among the inhabitants even if they were dierent in
terms of culture, language, and provenance.31
e. Some Remarks on the Model

The model of peaceful inltration via immigration from outside
has a number of good points. First, it showed that the use of extrabiblical written sources (territorial divisions in particular) could be
essential to the interpretations of biblical texts and archeological data.
An example is the account of Judges that Judah took possession of
the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the
plains, because they had iron chariots (Judg 1:19; cf. 1:27, 29, 31, 33,
28
V. Fritz, The Israelite Conquest in the Light of Recent Excavations of

Khirbet el-Meshash, BASOR 241:51-73.
29
Finkelstein, The Archeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem: Israel
Exploration Society, 1988).
30
M. Kochavi, The Israelite Settlement in Canaan in the Light of Archeological
Surveys, in Biblical Archeology Today (Jerusalem, 1985), p. 56.
31
See Gsta Ahlstrm,The Bull Figurine from Dhahrat et-Tawileh, BASOR
280, pp. 77-82.
43
and 35). Indeed there are indications from the biblical text that such
migration occurred. Such migration might have been reected in the
narratives where foreign groups are said to be joining in with Israel
on their march to the landthe Midianites in Numbers 22-25; the
Kenites in Judg 4:11 and 1 Sam 15:6; the Gibeonites in Joshua 9, and
more. There are also areas like Shechem which in the Book of Joshua is
said to be occupied but a narrative of its conquest is missing. This could
indicate a peaceful immigration.32
Second, the studies of Alt and followers have provided students
with a wealth of data and insights into the territorial divisions of premonarchial Israel. As we shall see later, Gottwald and Finkelstein
would build their theories on Alts peaceful inltration model. Alts
inuence continues to be felt in the critical search for the historical
origins of Israel.33 Third but not the least, concerning theology, the nonviolent implication of this model would be acceptable to contemporary
understanding of the sacred text that would need its texts of terror to
be reinterpreted. Moreover this gradual process of migration parallels
the modern experience of many migrants all over the world which may
nd the biblical text life-giving in that particular situation.
The thesis has a number of weaknesses. First, the theory of the
amphictyonic league has long been considered anachronistic, nds little
support in the biblical text, and has now been abandoned by scholars.34
Second, the model is silent on a number of instances that the material
culture and the religion of the Canaanites show similarities with the
Israelites whom Alt and followers had claimed as coming from totally
dierent cultural backgrounds. Third but not the least, the theory
also has more to explain why the biblical textthe Book of Joshua in
particulartells a dierent story of Israelite origins.
32
Hess, Early Israel in Canaan, p. 495.

Fritz, Conquest or Settlement? The Early Iron Age in Palestine, BA 50
(1987): 84-100; Anson F. Rainey, Raineys Challenge, BAR 17 (1991): 56-60, 93.
34
See among others C. H. de Geus, The Tribes of Israel: An Investigation into
Some of the Presuppositions of Martin Noths Amphictyony Hypothesis (Studia Semitica
Neerlandica 18; Assen: Amsterdam, 1976).
33
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
44
3. The Social Struggle Model: Internal Revolt

This thesis maintains that most of the early Israelites were not
people who came into Canaan from elsewhere (contra Alt) but were
indigenous Canaanites. The lower-class Canaanites were heavily taxed
and oppressed by the Canaanite kings, had lost their freedom and were
reduced to poverty. They nally rose up in violent revolt to end this
oppressive system. The rebellion was a success and these people then
established a new decentralized, egalitarian society in the hill country.
a. Mendenhall: apiru as the Hebrews

George E. Mendenhall laid the foundation of this model by
employing social criticism to interpret the conquest of Canaan.35 An
ordained Lutheran minister and former intelligence ocer of the
United States Navy, Mendenhall attempted to identify the apiru, a
marginal and rebellious group mentioned in the Amarna Letters with
the early Israelites (~yrb[).36 In seven of the letters to Abdi-Heba, ruler
of Canaanite Jerusalem, a frequent complaint reads that apiru have
plundered all the lands of the king.37 For Mendenhall, the term
apiru was not a designation of an ethnic identity but of a sociopolitical status. The apiru withdrew from the Canaanite city-states due
to economic problems and political conicts. They were not originally
nomads or outlaws coming outside of Canaan but they were instead
35
Mendenhall, The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine, BA 25 (1962): 66-77.

The etymology of the Akkadian cuneiform expression is disputed. The
consonant X in Akkadian can be rendered to three West Semitic gutturals: X, X,
and . The second consonant is also a problem whether to render it as a labial b or
p. See Norman K. Gotwald, Habiru. Hapiru, in The New Interpreters Dictionary
of the Bible 2:209-710; also Niels Peter Lemche, XABIRU, XAPIRU, in The ABD
3:6-10. For the sake of presenting Mendenhalls view, the transliteration àPiru
is followed. See George E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the
Biblical Tradition (Baltimore, MD/ London: The John Hopkins University, 1973),
pp. 122-141.
37
See J. B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Easter Texts Relating to the Old Testament
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 483-90; W.W. Hallo and K.
Lawson Younger, Jr., The Context of Scripture, Vol. 3: Archival Documents from the
Biblical World (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 3.92, pp. 237-42.
36
45
natives of Canaan who revolted from time to time against what they
perceived as persecutions from the more structured and wealthier
Canaanite city-states. The social history of a nation, Mendenhall
pointed out, attests that when the political sovereignty could no longer
sustain the economic and political order, certain elements of this society
suspend their duty and relationship to it. Mendenhall then supported
his thesis with the biblical evidence. For example, he claimed that
David, because of the enmity between him and Saul, lost his status
in the established community, which was the reason why he withdrew
to the desert and lived there with other refugees like himself. He lost
his legal right as an ocial member of Sauls kingdom and had to
form his own band for his own protection and survival (see 1 Samuel
23-24).38
b. Gottwald: Settlement as Social Revolution

Norman K. Gottwald is best known for his landmark book, The Tribes
of Yahweha nine hundred-page work which aims at reconstructing
the origins of ancient Israel with the use of social scientic biblical
criticism.39 There is no doubt that this book has made a great impact
on modern biblical studies until today.40 Taking cue from Mendenhalls
thesis on apiru, Gottwald claims that a considerable part of early
Israel was composed of indigenous Canaanites who rebelled against
their overlords and joined forces with a nuclear group of invaders and
inltrators from the desert. He writes in the preface to the reprint of
The Tribes of Israel published for its twentieth anniversary:
...early Israel was indigenous to Canaan and that its cultural
and religious identity is not well explained by inltration or
eruption of pastoral nomads from outside the land but
was rather in the process of developing slowly toward such
38
See George E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation, pp. 122-141.

For full bibliographical data of The Tribes of Yahweh, see footnote 14.
40
See Roland Boer, ed., Tracking Tribes of Yahweh: On the Trail of a Classic,
(JSOTSup 351; Sheeld: Sheeld Academic Press, 2002).
39
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
46
an identity on the basis of a cluster of socioeconomic and

cultural factors that included religion.41
Early Israel then is a composite of indigenous Canaanites of the

lower class and former slaves from Egypt. Under the religion of
YHWH, they formed a new egalitarian society.42
1) Amarna Letters
Just like Mendenhall, Gottwald relies also on the Amarna Letters
as a major textual evidence for his thesis.43 He describes the Canaanite
city-states as feudal. This political system began during the reign
of the Hyksos extending even throughout the Egyptian domination
of Canaan during the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties (around
1570 BCE to 1200 BCE). Military technology brought about by
Hyksos use of the chariot changed the social and political structures.
Preparations to wage wars had to be nanced. The city-states had to
put up fortications and walls to protect the city from their enemies.
The technology to sustain an ecient chariotry needed much nancial
support and also disturbance of community life. The population had
to be relocated inside the fortied cities. There had to be a strong ruling
power to maintain order. A strong military had to be sustained. All
these had put a heavy toll on the ordinary people especially the poor
who needed to be taxed heavily and participate in the forced labor. a
situation like this, the tributary mode of production as Gottwald calls
it, created social divisions: between the military and the technocrats on
one hand and between the military and the ordinary people on the
other hand.44
Out of this situation, Gottwald discerns the socio-political prole
of Canaanthe local rulers were directly under the pharaohs while
41
Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh, p. xxxii.

For the discussion on the meaning of egalitarian in view of the new sociopolitical structure of early Israel, see ibid., parts IX and X, pp. 489-650.
43
Ibid., p. 213.
44
See Gottwalds comparison with the medieval feudal system of Europe, ibid.,
pp. 210-211; also pp. 391-394.
42
47
the indigenous population were directly under the local rulers and
indirectly under the Egyptians. There were times that Egyptian power
weakened and thus the city-states took advantage of the situation to
suspend taxation and grabbed power. According to Gottwald, this
situation is reected in the Amarna Letters. There are several instances
that a king was deposed and removed from his vassal state (like Ribaddi of Byblos and Yashdata of Taanach), or even killed (like Aduna of
Irqata, Zimeredda of Lachish, and the rulers of Ammiya and Ardata).
There were cases wherein power was held temporarily by the citizens.
The native rulers accused each other of jockeying for position to be
close to the pharaohs or of collaborating with the revolutionaries or
the apiru. Immediately one can create a picture here with Gottwald of
a socio-political crisis wherein the oppressed lower class revolted against
those who exploited them. It would not be too hard to identify them
with the apiru described earlier by Mendenhall as a loose group who
from time to time raided the established city-states and who withdrew
to the hilly, unpopulated regions of Canaan. The uprisings included
the protest against the tributary mode of productionheavy taxation
and forced labor. At times the rebels also joined with other city-states
that had promised them better living conditions.45
For Gottwald, the Amarna Letters correspond to the post-Exodus
period. A splinter group of YHWH-worshipping slaves escaped
from a similar oppressive situation in EgyptEgyptian-Canaanite
dominion in Gottwalds words, and entered Canaan. This group
found an immediate ally, the Canaanite peasants (apiru) both of whom
shared a common lower-class identity. Forming a coalition that was
sustained by a Yahwistic ideology which promised actual deliverance
from the socio-political bondage of the Egyptian-Canaanite dominion,
the two groups established themselves in the hill country away from
the political oppression of the city-state. Occasionally they raided the
city-states to topple down the feudal lords.46
45
46
Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh, pp. 213-219.

Ibid., pp. 210-211.
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
48
2) Canonical Evidence
As mentioned above, Yahwism was a unifying factor in the
formation of early Israel. Gottwald turns then to the biblical text to
support his thesis. For instance, the Amorite mockery song (Num
21:27-30) which recounts the attack on Moabite Heshbon, could have
come most likely from former Canaanites converted to Yahwism. Its
inclusion in Israels traditions, Gottwald asserts, may be understood
as the contribution of Amorite converts to the Yahwistic literature.
47
The detailed lists of Edomite kings (Genesis 36) could mean that a
considerable number of Edomites became Israelites. The victory over
the Amorite king, Og of Bashan, in the Ammonite city of RabbathAmmon (Deut 3:11) could have been achieved by Ammonites, some of
whom later defected to Israel and brought the memory of Ogs defeat
with them. Gottwald even equates the Manassite Yair (Deut 3:14)
with Yauri, an Aramean group in Assyrian royal inscriptions.48 Since
the tribe of Dan settled near the Philistines, Gottwald thinks they
could have come from the Danuna or Denen, names used to refer
to the Sea People in the Greek and Egyptian sources.49
There were treaties which could be traces of the Israelite-Canaanite
revolutionary alliance at Gibeon and Shechem. The peace treaty in
Gibeon (Joshua 9) showed how the indigenous people of Canaan
responded favorably to the Israelites, even joining forces with them.
The covenant at Shechem (Judges 9) was an alliance both to overthrow
a king and to renounce the Baal religion. Issachar who bowed his
shoulder to bear a burden and then became a slave of forced labor
(Gen 49:15) could indicate the oppressed status of the lower class in
the Valley of Jezreel and who had been forced to work at Beth-Shean,
Taanach, or Megiddo. Gottwald suggests that Issachar was collectively
a tribe that came from the Canaanite lower class who revolted with the
help of Israelite tribes against their overlords.50
47
Ibid., p. 215.
Ibid.
49
Ibid. See also Yadin, And Dan, Why Did He Remain in Ships? Australian
Journal of Biblical Archeology 1 (1968): 9-23.
50
Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh, p. 215.
48
49
3) Archeological Evidence
Six years after the publication of The Tribes of Yahweh, Gottwald
makes a clear armation of the importance of archeology in his
method, in particular its social aspect in the study of the settlement
and the identity of early Israel.51 In the Tribes of Yahweh, even if
Gottwald does not rely so much on archeology, he makes an attempt
to reconcile the archeological data of Albright with the revolt theory
suggesting that destruction of Ai and Hazor for example might have
been caused by multiple groupsinvading Israelite and indigenous
Canaanite rebels; or even by the Egyptians themselves to punish the
rebels. To support this interpretation, Gottwald claims that Israel
(ysry l) in the victory stela of the Merneptah (thirteenth century BCE)
received such kind of violent penalty.52
The typology of Iron Age I, for Gottwald, is also an indicator of
a growing Israelite and lower-class Canaanite symbiosis in a Yahwistic
alliance. The new kiln style pottery, for example, that appeared in
Iron I would suggest that the old potters were either killed or driven
out together with their Canaanite lords so that this new group had to
develop their own style in pottery-making. Furthermore, the color
dierence and lower incidence of imported pottery in the hill country
conrmed the developing conict between the Canaanite imperial
51
Gottwald, The Israeli Settlement as a Social Revolutionary Movement,

Biblical Archeology Today (Jerusalem, 1985): 34-46. For example, at Tel Beit Mirsim,
the dierent sizes of houses there could indicate the various social status of the
inhabitants.
52
Gottwald, The Tribes of Israel, p. 217. Although, Gottwald does not give
an ample analysis on the Merneptah Stele, his assumption found support in later
studies. For instance Michael Hasel who analyzed its literary structure as hymnicpoetic arranged in a chiasm and found out that the Israel in the Merneptah stele
was located within the region of Canaan and Hurru, designations that stand parallel
to each other. Israel was an agricultural-sedentary socio-ethnic entity. The term
seed, Egyptian prt, based on contextual relations in other military texts, means
grain, supporting the identication of Israel as a largely agricultural, non-citystate entity. Hence, Israel was a sedentary type of people which could live in the hill
country without possessing a city-state. This would mean that Israel did not seem to
consist of a pastoral nomadic population, against earlier views of Alt and Noth. See
M. Hasel, Israel in the Merneptah Stela, BASOR 296 (1994): 45-61.
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
50
feudal system and the Israelite egalitarian social system.53 Collared-rim

pithoi in the hill country which were previously identied as Israelite
were found as well in the lowlands indicating a possible alliance
between the two.54 Likewise studies on the Israelite four-room house
revealed that it has cultural antecedents in early Canaanite dwellings.55
Gottwald has already thought that these new house types could have
been the work of long settled people who developed the three-andfour-room pillared house for a functional purpose, which we do not yet
understand.56
c. Some Remarks on the Model

The internal revolt model can be seen as trying to strike a middle
ground between the conquest and peaceful immigration models. It
wanted to provide answers to the problems of the two models. For the
conquest model that is heavily criticized because it could not explain the
wars and destructions in the Book of Joshua on the basis of archeology,
it gives the sociological ground for those conicts. For the peaceful
immigration model that could not explain the similarities between the
continuity between Israelite and Canaanite cultures, it establishes a
basis for the relationship between the two.
Even an amateur historian will immediately spot a number of
problems of Gottwalds thesis. What is the basis for saying that early
Israelite society was egalitarian and Canaanite city-states were not?
53
Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh, p. 217.

See D. Esse, The Collared Store Jar: Scholarly Ideology and Ceramic
Typology, SJOT 5 (1991): 99-116; also Idem, The Collared Pithos at Megiddo:
Ceramic Distribution and Ethnicity, JNES 51 (1992): 81-104.
55
K. Schaar, An Architectural Theory for the Origin of the Four-Room
House, SJOT 5/2 (1991): 75-98.
56
Gottwald, Israelite Settlement, p. 40. Here Gottwald based his postulate
on Aharon Kempinksis observation: in the three-and-four-room house, the stones
resemble that of basalt found around the Sea of Galilee, the Golan, and Transjordan.
Therefore, the builders of Tel Masos could have been people who already had a
building tradition going back to the Bronze Age traditions of the mountainous
areas. See A. Kempinski, Israelite Conquest or Settlement? New Light from Tel
Masos, BAR 2 (1976): 29-30.
54
51
What makes one identify the four-room house and collared-rim pithoi
as exclusively Israelite? How would a class struggle or a social revolution
make sense in a sacred text like the Bible? These and other questions
reveal the shortcomings of Gottwalds model. This however is not the
place to make a detailed critique of Gottwalds massive work.57 In any
case, his work is inuential; his use of social criticism has contributed
to the wider acceptance of it as a valid approach in biblical studies.58
4. The Pastoral Canaanites Model:

Internal Migration
Israel Finkelstein, the main proponent, describes the model this
way:59
The rise of early Israel was not a unique event in the history
of Canaan. Rather, it was another repeated phase in longterm, cyclic, socio-economic, and demographic processes
that started in the fourth millennium B.C.E. The wave
of settlement that took place in the highlands in the latesecond millennium B.C.E. was merely another chapter
in alternating shifts along the typical Near Eastern socioeconomic continuum between sedentary and pastoral
modes of subsistence.
57
The work of Niels Peter Lemche (Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical
Studies on the Israelite Society Before the Monarchy [Leiden: Brill, 1986]) is essentially
a critique of Gottwalds thesis. See also the review of the The Tribes of Yahweh by J.
A. Soggin, Biblica 62 (1981): 583-590. For his response, see Gottwald, The Tribes of
Yahweh, Preface to the Reprint, pp. xxvi-xlix.
58
For a good example of the use of Gottwalds model in reading the Bible,
see Anthony R. Ceresko, Introduction to the Old Testament, rev. ed. (Quezon City:
Claretian Publications, 2002).
59
I. Finkelstein and A. Mazar, ed. B. Schmidt, The Quest for the Historical
Israel, p. 76.
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
52
a. Lower Chronology System

In the introduction to his rst major work, the respected Israeli
archeologist, Finkelstein has expressed already at that time his
objections concerning the methods and conclusions of the dierent
schools regarding the origins and settlement of Israel.60 The crux of
the problem for him lies in the way archeology was done, that was to
seek evidence to prove the historicity of biblical traditions. Thus for
many years, archeological inquiry had focused mainly on the excavation
of destruction layers of the large Canaanite tells. This has produced
meager and unsatisfactory results. Finkelstein thinks that archeological
inquiry should be done directly at the sitesin the central hill country
where the majority of historical cases happened. This work, which he
would later term as environmental archeology would however entail
detailed archeological surveys, goal-oriented excavations, and a study
of the ecological background and economic potential of the settlement
regions.61 Together with this approach, Finkelstein proposes to lower
the dating of the eleventh century BCE assemblages or Iron Age Ithe
traditional period of the origins of Ancient Israel to the early-to midtenth century BCE or a hundred years later. The implication of this is
that Israel in the Late Bronze Ageas apiru in the Amarna Letters
or rebellious Israel in the Merneptah Steledid not have a unique
identity (contra Gottwald). The Egyptian-Canaanite dominion that
60
See Finkelstein, The Archeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem: Israel

Exploration Society, 1988), pp. 15-23 (in chapter 8 he also presents critical discussion
on the three schools in the light of recent archeological evidence at the time, see pp.
295-314). This rst major work was based on his doctoral dissertation at Tel Aviv
University entitled, The Izbet Sartah Excavations and the Israelite Settlement in
the Hill Country (1983) under the supervision of Prof. Moshe Kochavi who is an
Altian. For other archeologists who belong to this new generation, see Finkelstein
and N. Naaman, eds., From Nomadism to Monarchy, Archeological and Historical
Aspects of Early Israel (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1994).
61
This comes from Finkelsteins response at the Session II of International
Congress on Biblical Archeology (Jerusalem, 1994). See Archeology, History and
Bible; the Israelite Settlement in Canaan: A Case Study in Biblical Archeology Today
(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1985), p. 80. On environmental archeology,
see idem, Environmental Archeology and Social History: Demographic and
Economic Aspects of the Monarchic Period, in Biblical Archeology Today (Jerusalem:
Israel Exploration Society, 1993).
53
was earlier portrayed to be collapsing in the Late Bronze Age continued

to function even until the time of Rameses IV (1155-1149 BCE). This
Low Chronology as he calls it has to do with his thesis on pastoral
nomadism.62
b. Archeological Evidence
For Finkelstein, there are factors that one should bear in mind in
evaluating the material culture and ethnicity of ancient Israel: the
environment in which they live; their socio-economic conditions; the
inuence of neighboring cultures; the inuence of previous culture;
in cases of migration, traditions that are brought from the country of
origin; and their cognitive world.63
62
The Low Chronology is a much debated issue. Finkelstein defended this

view in a number of instances. For the rst time he proposed this, see Finkelstein,
The Date of the Settlement of the Philistines in Canaan, Tel Aviv 22 (1995):
213-239; idem A Low Chronology Update: Archaeology, History and Bible, in
T. E. Levy and T. Higham, eds., The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology,
Text and Science (London: Equinox, 2005), pp. 31-4; a recent work includes idem,
A Great United Monarchy? Archaeological and Historical Perspectives, in R. G.
Kratz and H. Spieckermann, eds., One God One Cult One Nation: Archaeological
and Biblical Perspectives, in collaboration with B. Corzilius and T. Pilger (BZAW
405; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), pp. 3-28. For a critique of Finkelsteins thesis, see
the works of A. Mazar especially Iron Age Chronology: A Reply to I. Finkelstein,
Levant 29 (1997):157-167; and his recent article, idem, Archaeology and the
Biblical Narrative: The Case of the United Monarchy, in R. G. Kratz and H.
Spieckermann, eds., One God One Cult One Nation, pp. 29-58. For an online
bibliography of lower chronology, see Charles Conroy, Archaeological Debate about
a Proposed Low Chronology for Iron I-IIA, http://www.cjconroy.net/bib/chronlow.html (accessed August 25, 2011). For a popular presentation of the debate, see
Robert Draper, Kings of Controversy, National Geographic Magazine, December
2010, pp. 2-12.
63
Finkelstein and Mazar, The Quest for Historical Israel, p. 77; see also idem,
The Emergence of Early Israel: Anthropology, Environment and Archeology,
JAOS 110 (1990), p. 683.
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
54
1) The Environment
Given the harsh environment of the highlands, sedentary activity
was limited. Below is a list of the regions surveyed and a short description
of each in reference to the settlement in Iron Age I:64
Beersheba Valley: sparse Israelite settlement began in the Beersheba
Valley only in the eleventh century BCE with the establishment of two
sites;
Judean Hills: 10-12 Iron Age I sites, mostly located north of Hebron;
Jerusalem hills has no single early Iron Age site;
Judean Shepelah: uncertain whether the settlement is Israelite; two
sites found;
Judean Desert: no Iron Age I site with clear Israelite Settlement
discovered;
Benjamin (days of Samuel and Saul): concentration sites (12) in the
eastern part of the territory of Benjamin;
Ephraim: 122 Iron I sites; sedentary elements found;
Manasseh: more aggressively settled than any other part of the
hill country, 96 sites; sizeable sedentary elements; inhabited by the
sedentary Canaanite population;
Sharon: problematic whether the settlement is Israelite; about 10
sites found;
Jezreel Valley / Meggido: seems to be inhabited by an autochthonous
Canaanite population (Judg 1:27; Josh 17:11-12);
Lower Galilee: no indisputable evidence for dating the inception of
Israelite settlement to the thirteenth century BCE; 20 known sites;
Western Galilee: beyond the limits of Israelite settlement (Judg
1:31-32); 25 known sites;
64
See Finkelstein, The Archeology of the Israelite Settlement, pp. 34-234, especially
chapters 3 to 5.
55
Upper Galilee and Huleh Valley: 23 known sites; process of intensive

settlement after the destruction of Late Bronze Hazor, many new sites
emerged, at the end of twelfth century BCE or in the eleventh century
BCE (tribe of Naphtali);
Jordan Valley: 17-18 Iron Age I sites: the inhabitants had not yet
made the transition to permanent settlements, but spent winters in the
Jordan Valley and summers in the hilly regions on either side of the
valley;
Transjordan Plateau: Iron Age I, intensive settlement, hundreds of
sites found.
The major region of Israelite settlement is the northern part of the
central hill country, comprising ninety percent of all the sites. Ephraim
and Manasseh (located in the Samaritan highlands) are the preferred
choice of the settlement area.65 Most of the sites found in Ephraim are
located at the desert frontiers and in the interior valleys of the northern
highlands of the central range. The proximity of these sites to these
steppe areas make it ideal for pastoral activity. During summer the
sheep and goats are pastured in the highlands and when winter came,
they could easily be led to the steppe areas. The sites are hilly, forested,
and lack water supply. The way these adapted to this environment
shows that the settlers were pastoral nomads. The eastern slope of the
Samaritan highlands was an ideal place for sedentary activity where
animal husbandry and dry farming could be practiced.
Finkelstein likewise observed that the central hill country of
Canaan during the Middle Bronze, in contrast to the claims of the
three models, was already densely populated, with traces of plastered
water cisterns and the construction of terraces. It is therefore dicult
to maintain that an immediate migration or invasion happened in the
hill country as evidence of the beginning of Israelite settlement. It is
more likely that the settlement underwent a long and gradual process
65
Finkelstein divides the central hill country into two major geographical units:
(1) in the norththe Samaritan highlands, between Jerusalem and the Jezreel
Valley; (2) in the souththe Judean hills, between Jerusalem and the Beer-sheba
Valley. See Finkelstein and Mazar, The Quest for the Historical Israel, p. 77.
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
56
(as the Alts model), one that was part of the cyclic and demographic
processes of life from sedentary to pastoral and vice versa.66
The process of Israelite expansion in Canaan as we see had its initial
stage in Ephraim and Manasseh, and to some extent in Benjamin
and Judah. From this core, it expanded southward to the Judean
hill country and northward to Galilee. There was also a westward
expansion, as a result of concentration of population along the spine
of the central hill country. The western part which formerly was
uninhabited because of remoteness and harsh slopes, rugged landscape,
lack of water supply, and other geographical and natural restraints, saw
a gradual and sparse settlement towards Beersheba valley, to Western
Galilee as well as Upper Galilee.67 Based on this eldwork, Finkelstein
estimated the early Israelite population, just before the monarchy, to be
around 40,650 only.68
2) Architecture
For the earlier three models, architecture is a crucial factor in
determining the origins of Israel, especially the four-room house which
has been seen to dene the ethnicity of ancient Israel. Finkelstein has a
problem on this as four-room type of houses were found in lowland and
Transjordanian sites. Its popularity in the central hill country is due
to environmental adaptation and social factors rather than to ethnic
identity.69 The houses found in the Israelite sites approximate that of
a pastoral encampment. For instance, the excavations at the Israelite
site of Izbet Sartah, Stratum III reveal an elliptical cluster of rooms
surrounding a wide open courtyard at the center where a number of
stone-lined silos were located. A peripheral wall encloses the courtyard
with still another outer parallel wall but not uniform or even. The
outer wall was constructed connected to the rooms and they varied in
width. From the style of architecture, Finkelstein discerns this to be a
pastoral encampment [see Appendix D for Izbet Sartah].70
66
See Finkelstein and Mazar, The Quest for the Historical Israel, pp. 76-77.
See Finkelstein, The Archeology of Israelite Settlement, pp. 324-325.
68
See Ibid., pp. 330-332.
69
See Finkelstein and Mazar, The Quest for Historical Israel, p. 78.
70
See Ibid., p. 238. Closely connected with this is the typical Israelite four-room
67
57
3) Ceramic Assemblage
Finkelstein, similarly, has doubts on pottery as indicators of the
ethnicity of ancient Israel. Collared-rim pithoi which the earlier models
invoked as evidence because of its appearance in the regions of Israelite
Settlement were also found in lowland areas and at sites not settled
by Israelites (Tell Qasile, Megiddo, and Sahab; also Iron Age I site in
Ammon and Moab). The ceramic repertoire of the Israelite sites taken
as a whole might stand in sharp contrast to the ceramic assemblage of
the Canaanite centersthe former almost devoid of complexity while
the latter is more rened, with well-burnished red slip and painted
decoration. However, there are various and complicated factors like
distance, practicality, commercial purpose, and the like to explain
these rather than to make a hasty judgment of the site as Israelite.71
In addition, there are apparent dierences of pottery found in
Israelite sites. For instance, the cooking pots found in the Beersheba Valley diered evidently in their rims (barely convex on the
outside and slightly concave on this inside); while in Upper Galilee,
the cooking pot rims were slanting, elongated, and sometimes
slightly concave outside; it terminated in a long tongue.72 The social
background of the settlers is a major factor for such a design. At the
start of the sedentarization process, the pastoral nomads were made up
of small and isolated groups who settled down in naturally dicult
and isolated, harsh regions. It was out of basic necessity, adapting to
the place, that these types of seemingly distinctive pottery pithoi and
cooking pots were made.73
house that developed from two-and-three room houses borrowed from the design
of tents that were used prior to sedentarization. The tent plus the courtyard became
the boardroom plus courtyard (which was later divided into few spaces). Here
Finkelstein uses Kempinskis conclusion. See Kempinski, Tel Masos, Expedition
20 (1978): 29-37.
71
See Finkelstein and Mazar, The Quest for Historical Israel, p. 78.
72
See Finkelstein, The Archeology of Israelite Settlement, p. 271.
73
See Ibid., p. 274.
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
58
4) Dietary Practices
Biblical archeology should not only be limited to pottery and
architecture. Ethnic markers should include mortuary, cultic, and dietary
practices. Since there is little data on the rst two, Finkelstein turns to
dietary patterns or foodways to show that animal husbandry ourished
in Iron Age I. Pork consumption evidenced by pig bones was popular in
the southern coastal plain (Philistine site). In the highlands, pig raising
was attested in the Bronze Age but seemed to have disappeared in Iron Age
I. It may be interpreted in two ways: (1) settlers had a dietary prohibition
on pork; or better (2) as Finkelstein says, pig husbandry would indicate
that the settlers here had a pastoral nomadic background and pig raising
was not sustainable for this way of life.74
c. Few Remarks on the Model

Finkelsteins thesis appears to be the middle way between the
conquest model of Albright and the social revolution of Gottwald. His
emphasis on regional research of the principal settlement areas, the hill
country in particular, is a signicant advance in biblical archeology
that was stuck with the traditional ceramic and architecture studies.
As Finkelstein has shown, early Israel consisted of pastoral Canaanites
who gradually and peacefully settled in the hill country. They did not
originate from the urban setting of the Canaanite city-states but lived
in encampments in the hill country as early as in the Middle Bronze
Age. They did not come from the desert, much less from Egypt.75
This gradual and peaceful settlement however is not at all a new
idea as we have already seen in the model proposed by Alt and Noth.
In this way, we can say that Finkelstein is a neo-Altian as he builds
much of his studies on Alts previous works; but by so doing he in turn
supplements the necessary archeological data missing in Alts work.
Finkelsteins thesis is not without enormous problems. His proposal
on Lower Chronology is not accepted by the majority of biblical
74
75
See Finkelstein and Mazar, The Quest for Historical Israel, p. 78-79.
See Finkelstein, The Archeology of Israelite Settlement, p. 274.
59
scholars, historians and archeologists.76 Recent archeological surveys

also show that conquest narratives in the Bible have some reasonable
grounds.77 In view of theology, Finkelsteins model would also have to
reckon with the fact that the biblical text primarily was written in the
context of faith that claims to be grounded on historical realities.
Conclusion
We have seen that each model has its own strengths and weaknesses.
With prudent and judicious mind, the four models certainly help us
to have a bigger picture of the origins of ancient Israel with the biblical
text as its template. Thanks to archeology and critical history, we have
a more balanced and reasonable search for the meaning of what we call
sacred scripture veering us away from the dangers of fundamentalism
that breeds terrorism and oppression.
The four models teach us that historical search for the origins is
important and crucial to ones identity and faith. Christians claim
spiritual continuity with Abraham and Sarah. The quest for historical
Israel can also be a quest for the historical foundation of our faith.
Moreover, these models can convince us that the biblical text is
polyvalent and hope-lled. One who sees the Bible as a force and a
challenge to prevailing structures may nd the conquest theory of the
Albright school meaningful; in a situation of injustice and oppression,
one could nd inspiration from this struggle of the supposedly
oppressed Israelites as proposed by Gottwald; the migrant worker
todays nomad may nd the peaceful immigration models of Alt and
Finkelstein relevant.
76
See the critique of William Dever (Cultural Continuity, Ethnicity in the

Archeological Record and the Question of Israelite Origins, Eretz Israel 24 [1993]:
22-33 and Excavating the Hebrew Bible, or Burying It Again? BASOR 322 [2001]:
67-770).
77
See for example the rebuttal of A. Mazar, The Israelite Settlement, in
Finkelstein and Mazar, The Quest for the Historical Israel, pp. 85-98.
60
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
Appendices
Appendix A: The Conquest Narratives and the Regions of Early
Israelite Settlement
Source: Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, p. 213.
Appendices
61
Appendix B: The Land which remained and the Unconquered

Canaanite Cities
62
Diwa 34 (2009): 28-63
Appendix C: Collared-rim Pithoi

Source: A. Mazar, Archeology of the Land of the Bible, p. 346.
Appendix D: Ìzbet Sartah: a four-room house

Source: A. Mazar, Archeology of the Land of the Bible, p. 339.
Appendix E: Canaanite Cities in the Amarna Letters

63
Nation Building:
The Kenosis of Moses*
RAFAEL DYLIACCO
Ateneo de Manila University
Quezon City
Introductory Note:
The Place of Political Theory in the Biblical Text
uests for a new world have often seized upon the biblical
story of the Exodus as a socio-narrative exemplar of how the
new world emerges. These interpretations typically paint the
picture of a clash of worlds, the old world being a decrepit civilization
sunk in oppressive perversity. Scholarly interpretations, such as Morses,
whose historical outlook on the clash of conicting cultures or systems,
though dating to post Civil War America,1 anticipates Brueggemanns,
which dates a century later,2 nd echo in more popular portrayals. On
the more popular level, the pharaohs of the story have often received
portrayal as tyrants and megalomaniacs [e.g., as in the animated
feature Prince of Egypt (DreamWorks, 1998)]. The new world and its
heroes, on the other hand, are fresh, guileless, and egalitarian. These
depictions tend to leave one with the impression, in the popular case,
that Yhwhs purpose for the Exodus was to move the world towards
* I am grateful to Ateneo de Manila University Loyola Schools for the Scholarly

Work Faculty Grant that helped to make this essay possible, as part of a book project
on Practical Biblical Theology.
1
See Anson D. Morse, The Task and Education of Moses, The Old Testament
Student, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Sept. 1887), pp. 16-20.
2
See Walter Brueggemann, Hope Within History (Atlanta: John Knox Press,
1987).
R. Dy-Liacco, Nation Building: The Kenosis of Moses
65
liberal democracy, or, in the scholarly case, that Yhwh lives, moves,
and nds his being according to sociological rules of class revolution.3
Our own EDSA I revolt often receives interpretation in like manner.
We recall the massively organized and philosophically noble protest
against the crimes and tyranny of martial law and dictatorship, against
the megalomania of the rst family, against the greed of their cronies,
and against the overall oppression of a rotten system left over from
colonial days. Typically, depictions such as these try hard to move our
perception of the event into rational, empirical, and sociological realms
that assumedly are antithetical to realms of faith, God, and personal
human existence.4 To be sure, massive organization and idealism at
3
In the case of Brueggemanns Hope Within History, the story line in Exodus
is read as indicative of the agenda of a political / liberation theology. The social
dimension of the process of liberation receives stress and elaboration. The spiritual
dimension, on the other hand, receives only brief and peripheral mention: The
agent of such dismantling, deconstruction, and delegitimation [of the status quo]
is known by nameYhwh (Brueggemann, p. 12). Moreover, the two dimensions
are so unrelated, that the spiritual comes as an afterthought. Brueggemann nds
himself having to assert that the fundamental question facing those who are newly
liberated is: What shall you do with your time? (Brueggemann, p. 20). According
to Brueggemann, the answer which the Israelites eventually gure out is torah. Even
here, however, the motivation for this torah is political. (See Brueggemann, pp. 2024.) Over the course of his interpretation, Brueggemann eventually does come round
to stressing the necessary balance between the two dimensions. Nonetheless, the
reader is left with the uncomfortable sense that Brueggemanns spiritual dimension
has the quality of an elaborate caveat, merely as a warning that the revolution does
not go the way of the French or Russian ones of history. Brueggemanns problem,
as I see it, stems from his theological misjudgment. He treats as peripheral what is
central (Yhwh and the biblical dream of a holy people), and treats as central what is
peripheral and introductory (the sociology of our not yet being there).
4
See, for example, Agustin Martin G. Rodriguez, The Mass Raises Its Ugly
Head: When the Margins Speak with Their Own Voices, The Loyola Schools Review:
School of Humanities, Vol. VII (2008), pp. 77-99. While Rodriguezs thesis that a
just polity can only be built when social structures and the rules of cooperation
are founded on the just discourse of the multiplicity of rationalities of its citizens
(Rodriguez, p. 85) is laudable, his eort to distinguish between EDSA I and other
uprisings in Philippine history on the grounds that the latter were millenarian in
quality while the former possessed the dominant rationality of society betrays
a nave grasp of these phenomena and what they represent. First, EDSA I, of all
uprisings in our history, ts the description of a millenarian movement precisely
66
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
the grassroots level did make EDSA I possible, and this eort did occur
in the face of a megalomaniacal dictatorship.
Yet, for all the eorts to explain in such a way why we did what we
did, my own sharpest memories of EDSA Imemories that convince
me that this event must always be treasuredremain those of the
feeling of being invaded by the power of the Spirit of Godfeelings of
love of God and love of neighbor, and the memory of being part of the
unarmed human shield on Santolan Road the day before the dictator
ed, of waiting for elite army troops, the Scout Rangers, to attack; of
looking out upon Marikina valley as evening fell and seeing the lights
below and the few stars above, and thinking, Im beholding my country
and my people as if for the rst time, and if I die tonight, then I hope
heaven is as beautiful as this; and of the day dawning and the Scout
Rangers never appearing. Because of these I am also convinced that if
succeeding generations do not live up to the promises of EDSA I, then
it is due to our failure of memory of why this event mattered to us.5
A thoughtful reading of the story of Moses, as told in the Pentateuch,
suggests that the root of the distress that arises in Exodus 1 lies closer
to home, within the human heart itself. This reading neither precludes
nor excludes seeing wider social and political problems at work, but
the temptation to which Pharaoh and the Egyptians succumb lies
in anyone, whether Egyptian or Hebrew, who must negotiate the
quandaries of human existence.
[for a summary description of this social phenomenon, see Delbert R. Hillers, Micah
(Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), pp. 4-8; here, for reasons that he
explains, Hillers prefers to call these phenomena revitalizing movements]. Next,
Rodriguezs eorts to strip away the faades of faith and belief that attend all these
phenomena, in order to expose the rationalities behind them, shows that he has
already misunderstood them. He fails to understand that transcendent faith and
belief are precisely what make such movements politically eective and are what
constitute their rationality [see Karen E. Fields, Charismatic Religion as Popular
Protest: The Ordinary and the Extraordinary in Social Movements, Theory and
Society, Vol. 11, No. 3 (May 1982), pp. 321-361; here pp. 321-328].
5
My intention here is not to fabricate a political theory and support it by
universalizing a subjective judgment, which of course cannot be done. Rather, here
I give voice to what I believe is a well-known but highly neglected aspect of EDSA I,
in order to explore the dimension of human existence to which it points.
67
Exodus 1:1-22: A Master of Realpolitik

After giving us the briefest historical background, the narrator
in Exodus 1 without further ado lets us see that the new pharaoh,
unlike the one under whom Joseph served, possesses no personal sense
of obligation to Joseph nor to Josephs descendants, for he is a person
entirely of the present: There arose a new king over Egypt, one who
did not know Joseph6 (v. 8). Indeed, his rst reported remark is of
the present: And he said to his people, Look! The people of the sons
of Israel are abundant and numerous alongside of us (v. 9). Here
Pharaoh draws attention to a plain fact; the Biblical narrator himself
has presented it as truth in v. 7. Now Pharaoh, rather congenially,
points it out to his people for their consideration. As their leader, he
sees its implications for Egypt, and he hopes that they might see the
implications as well. He hopes that all see the need for action with
foresight: Come, let us act wisely (nitHaKKm) on it, lest it get out
of hand, and there come some war and they join our enemies, and they
battle against us and they depart from the land (v. 10).
Now nitHaKKm comes from Hkam, which may describe an
act of deception. The LXX follows that sense here, rendering it as
katasofisw m, eqa, from katasofi,zomai, which means to take advantage
of by trickery.7 But Hkam may also describe behaving in such a way
that ones intellectual skill is apparent, but with an implied negative
evaluation of the behavior so described. This with the reexive form of
the verb here suggests that the negativity of Pharaohs deception lies not
in some intention concealed from the Hebrews. Hebrew cooperation
gained through trickery does not matter to Pharaoh. Rather, the
negativity refers to Egyptian self-deception.8 Pharaoh intends to act
wisely, but his action shows not the wisdom of Hokm, which is a
cognate of Hkam and which biblically is often used for the divine
6
Unless otherwise indicated, in this paper all renditions of Sacred Scripture

from the Hebrew or the Greek are mine.
7
See A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature,
2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), s.v. katasofi,zomai, p. 418.
8
See Gerald H. Wilson, ~kx in The New International Dictionary of Old
Testament Theology and Exegesis, Willem A. VanGemeren, ed., Vol. 2 (Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan, 1997), pp. 130-134; here p. 131.
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
68
wisdom.9 Rather, it shows the pretense to wisdom that characterizes

those who are guided by tenets of what today we call Realpolitik.
Indeed, this is no mere tyrant speaking. Politically astute, the
Pharaoh seeks consensus on the matter. So he brings his Egyptian
subjects into the inner workings of the decision making process,
that they might own the nal decision as well. Moreover, this is no
megalomaniac. The plan of action that Pharaoh suggests in v. 11 is, from
the Egyptian point of view, not outlandish but perfectly reasonable.
The building of store-cities for times of shortageas perhaps in times
of warwith tribute and forced labor exacted from the Hebrews,
provides at little cost to the Egyptians a bulwark against the potential
national threat that the Hebrews pose. The proper characterization of
Pharaoh, therefore, is neither as tyrant nor as megalomaniac, but as
master of Realpolitik.
Realpolitik, with its combination of survival of the ttest world-view
and consequently ruthless but pragmatic practice, is not thought of
today as irredeemably evil.10 Indeed, eminent theologian Reinhold
Niebuhr of the last century has often been associated with the modern,
mainstream Christian version of it.11 Yet here the biblical text subtly
presents this way of thinking as being opposed to the mysterious power
of Yhwh. It will ultimately contradict the haunting existential horizon
to which the deity calls his people. Indeed, Dunne, in his aptly titled
essay Realpolitik in the Decline of the West, observed that:
Because of their concern to face the facts and make the
best of the facts, the political realists of an age are the most
reliable witnesses to the disorder as well as to the eective
order in that age, and placed side by side with the political
9
See Wilson, p. 133.

See Otto Panze, Bismarcks Realpolitik, The Review of Politics, Vol. 20,
No. 4, Twentieth Anniversary Issue: I (Oct. 1958), pp. 492-514; here pp. 493, 496.
Here Panze gives a denition of Realpolitik based on Bismarcks own description
of his world view and political practice.
11
See John S. Dunne, Realpolitik in the Decline of the West, The Review of
Politics, Vol. 21, No. 1, Twentieth Anniversary Issue: II (Jan. 1959), pp. 131-150;
here p. 146.
10
69
realists of preceding and succeeding ages they are the most

reliable witnesses to the fact and to the process of decline.
After examining their policies, though, one suspects that
they are not mere witnesses, innocent bystanders, before the
process of decline. One suspects that they not only assisted
at but also assisted in the decline.12
Here Dunne saw the West as historically declining from being

a community of belief, to being a community of reason, to nally
being a community of fear. In Dunnes view of this history, faith
or belief has provided motivation to reason, and the only historical
alternative to the community not motivated by faith to uphold universal
rational principles has been the community that is held stable by mutual
fear. Yet political leaders abet decline to the community of fear when
they act as if communities possess no transcendent motives but merely
respond to what is concrete and practical. For then, despite all these
leaders good intentions, their policies undercut those communities
that actually do possess such motives.
Community of fear describes the situation in Exodus 1. When
the Egyptian measures fail because, for some unexplained reason,
even as [the Hebrews] were aicted, even so they increased, and even
so they spread (v. 12), the Egyptians experience a sickening dread
(v. 12). If they are to hold on to their position of power, then they
must try harder. So they increase in ruthlessness and decree harsher
measures (vv. 13-16). Yet these also fail. But this time the measures
fail because they command no assent among a sub-community of
belief: the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt
commanded them (v. 17). So Pharaoh, perceiving the impasse, and
ever the master of Realpolitik, transfers enactment of the measures to
the Egyptians themselves (v. 22).
12
Dunne, pp. 149-150.
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
70
Exodus 2:1-22:
The Mystery That Enshrouds Existence
At this point the existential horizon painted by the biblical narrative
is one of forbidding darkness and violence; yet at the same time it is
shot through by a mysterious and hopeful dimension. The birth of
Moses only deepens this picture. Bible scholars generally acknowledge
in the birth narrative of Moses a common Ancient Near Eastern motif:
the great leader exposed and rescued as a child.13 This is a royal motif,
yet the Pentateuch depicts Moses more as a scribe or teacher than
as a king.14 Indeed, B.S. Childs has suggested that in the Hebrew
appropriation of this legendary motif for Moses birth narrative, it has
become interwoven with wisdom themes and perspectives. (1) No direct
theological statement about Gods hand in the sequence of serendipitous
events occurs. Yet, as Childs has pointed out, it is clear that the
writer sees the mystery of Gods providence through the action of the
humans involved. (2) Gods plans and human plans (represented here
by Pharaohs) are at cross purposes. But no matter what the purpose of
human beings is, Gods will prevails in the end. (3) The fear of God,
seen in the midwives, is a wisdom ideal. (4) Moreover, despite the
active concern of the Hebrew mother and her daughter, their ultimate
helplessness highlights a deep sense of faith in the ultimate will of
God which carries through its goal regardless of human intervention.
(5) Finally, the Egyptian princess receives an unbiased and genuinely
human portrayal. She correctly guesses that the child is a Hebrew,
but nonetheless adopts him out of spontaneous pity. In this open
attitude to the foreigner the text reects the international avor of the
wisdom circles.15 Though wisdom themes such as these receive profound
13
See Richard J. Cliord, The Birth of Moses in The New Jerome Biblical
Commentary, ed. R. E. Brown, J. A. Fitzmyer, and R. E. Murphy (Englewood Clis,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), p. 46.
14
See James W. Watts, The Legal Characterization of Moses in the Rhetoric of
the Pentateuch, JBL 117 (1998): 415-426.
15
See Brevard S. Childs, The Birth of Moses, JBL 84 (1965): 109-122; here pp.
119-121. I should note that fear of God in point (3) is also thematic of the Elohist.
What indicates a wisdom inuence is the entire complex of themes.
71
exploration in the Book of Job, perhaps not as often appreciated is

the profound wrestling with these themes in the story of Moses.16
The wrestling, already begun in Exodus 1, continues in Exodus 2.
In an act of desperation, the Levite woman sets her child in a basket
and leaves it among the reeds by the river (vv. 1-3). The boys sister
can only stand at a distance, to see what happens to him (v. 4). Here,
as biblical readers, we see that the defenseless child is not surrendered
to the river currents, but to what Bismarck called the time stream
whose ow no one may fully control or predict.17 At the same time,
we are aware of situational irony in Pharaohs concerted attempts to
predict and control as much of the time stream as he possibly can.
But Pharaohs daughter, acting on moral impulse, unexpectedly makes
what is for her the relatively innocuous choice that alters the course
of history. Only on this fortuitous event can the watchful sister step
forward in positive action. And thus the exposed child becomes the
adopted foundling (vv. 5-10). In this manner the narrative makes us
aware of the fundamental stance that we may take in life. We may
show trust in the mystery that enshrouds existence and that shoots
it through with profound moral dimensionsor we may completely
deny that trust, and instead bank solely on our own shrewdness and
calculation and power, however limited these may be, because these are
at the service of our will while the mystery is not.
This theme receives deeper play in vv. 11-25. Here the fundamental
stance of Moses life is the crucial question. We rst encounter a grownup Moses who feels quite self-assured about his own identity:
And it so happened,
in those days,
that Moses, grown up,
went out to his kinsfolk,
and he saw their forced labor,
and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew,
one of his kinsfolk (v. 11).
16
17
See Olson, pp. 56, 174-176.

See Panze, p. 496.
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
72
The text tells us that: (1) Moses has reached the age of personal
responsibility; (2) he sees the Hebrews suering in a massive and chronic
way; and (3) he identies with the Hebrews. Thus the time stream
has carried Moses into the thick of a world apparently of Pharaohs
making; into what has been described as an iron forge (Deut 4:20).
We also get the sense that Moses does not approve of this world. But
is all power only Pharaohs? Having reached the age of responsibility,
Moses is aware of his own power as well. Though his personal power
bears no comparison to Pharaohs power of oce, perhaps Moses
notices openings in Pharaohs world, openings not of Pharaohs making.
Perhaps these openings might become breaches. As Bismarck put it,
remarking further on the time stream:
[E]verything depends on chance and conjecture. One has
to reckon with a series of probabilities and improbabilities
To be sure, one can bring individual matters to a
conclusion, but even then there is no way of knowing what
the consequences will be.18
Indeed this world is shot through with openings, mysterious

glimmerings of other powers that may alter the course and meaning
of events. Thus Moses turned this way and that and indeed saw that
no one else was there; and he struck the Egyptian and concealed him
in the sand (v. 12).
Morse, writing in the victorious North only about two decades
after the great conagration that tore the American nation in two
(North and South) and that liberated a great American subpopulation,
perceived in Moses life a noble political vision:
It was necessary to win the condence of the Israelites, to
organize them, to negotiate on their behalf with Pharaoh;
and since a full and healthful development of this people on
Egyptian soil, subject to Egyptian inuence, and exposed
to Egyptian enmity, was not possible, it was necessary to
18
Cited by Panze, pp. 497-498.
73
lead them to a land suited to their geniusthe land of their

origin.19
If such a view is taken, then Moses act of killing the Egyptian, if

not proceeding from this vision, is not logically out of line with it,
either. Thus in Morses view, Moses act, though impulsive, reveals a
tness [for leadership]the fulll[m]ent of which is conditioned upon
a further development and discipline of character.20
Fagnani, writing in the North after the hiatus of another decade,
delivered a similar judgment in somewhat less sanguine fashion:
Much as we must sympathize with the motive that actuated
him in his chivalrous interposition on behalf of his oppressed
Hebrew brother, we cannot but recognize in his hasty act the
deed of one accustomed to give full rein to his impulses.21
Nonetheless, citing Hebrews 11:26, Fagnani suggested that here Moses

shows that he has made the fundamental decision of his existence. In
going out to his kinsfolk and acting in their behalf, he shows what
from now on, will give shape to his life: Moses choice was made
when he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens.
[B]etween the riches of Egypt and the reproach of his brethren
he had made the great decision to cast in his lot with the latter.22
But the narrative in Exodus limits the amount of praise that we
may heap upon Moses at this point. At this point the text even invites
us to reject him. Moses own self-claimed kinsfolk treat him with
profound reservation. When he upbraids them for quarreling among
themselves (v. 13; here one might read as Moses subtext: Hebrews
should be ghting Egyptians, not each other!), one of them shoots back:
19
Morse, p. 17.
Ibid., p. 19.
21
Charles P. Fagnani, The Boyhood of Moses, The Biblical World, Vol. 10,
No. 6 (Dec. 1897), pp. 422-432; here p. 428.
22
Fagnani, p. 430.
20
74
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
Who appointed you ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me
the way you killed the Egyptian? (v.14a, NRSV ). The mystery of the
world may hold glimmers of hope for the Hebrews, but Moses is not
part of that mystery. He is part of the iron forge. Despite his selfidentication with the Hebrews, the mold of his thought is Pharaohs
through and through. His decision on the direction of his life is
not made on a deep enough level. For Moses, as with Pharaoh, the
power of Realpolitik is still the measure of everything. His people
themselves now growing to doubt the ethical dimension of existence
easily perceive this in him. Thus Moses realizes that he is no hero in
the eyes of the Hebrews (v. 14b). Fearing Pharaohs power, he cuts and
runs (v. 15). He leaves his people to their fate. His motivating vision,
whatever it may beperhaps one day to lead the Hebrew Liberation
Movementproves in the end self-serving.
Perhaps our judgment on Moses is a bit too harsh. True, he has
abandoned his people and ed to the land of Midian. Here Pharaohs
power does not reach. But here, also, grand political ideologies
evaporate into the desert air like last nights bad dreams. And whatever
visions for himself that Moses had before, his heart has always been in
the right place. For when we nd him next, once again we see him
exerting himself on behalf of weaker fellows. This time, his exertions
win him a dinner invitation and a wife (vv. 15-21).
Nonetheless, we may also imagine that his status in life as a homeless
stranger adopted by a semi-nomadic family in the Sinai wilderness is
far from what it used to be, as the one-time adopted son of Egyptian
royalty. We even hear his moan in the naming of his son (v. 22). And
amid all this, in a last jab of biblical irony, when the shepherd girls
describe him to their father, they say, An Egyptian saved us (v. 19).
Thus Moses, not having surrendered to the mystery that enshrouds
existence with a transcendent moral dimension, cannot do true service.
Indeed, as his self-chosen community declines into a community of
fear, his actionsproceeding out of Realpolitik and an inated view of
his own role among his peopleonly abet that decline. The would-
75
be liberator, now a fugitive from justice, abandons his people. Seless

commitment to others and what motivates this are things he still has
to learn. Perhaps his rst real lessons are in Midian, where we may
imagine that he must learn commitment to his wife and family. In
any case, we will nd that over and against the self-centered and selfserving forces of decline, the biblical story of Moses will present to us
the radical de-centering of the ego in the service of Yhwh. This radical
de-centering will take place for the sake of building upto return to
Dunnes terminologythe community of belief.
Exodus 2:23-4:20:
An Empty Vessel for Gods Power
One day, while tending his father-in-laws ocks, Moses looks
up the mountain and sees a re that never goes out. Now, if anyone
knows the feeling of having lost everything, and for the re in ones
life to have gone out, Moses does. But here a re burns and never goes
out. Moses must turn aside and have a closer look at this majestic
sight (Exod 3:1-3). But the reader has been alerted as to what makes
this re burn:
After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites
groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the
slavery their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their
groaning, and God remembered (wayyizKr) his covenant
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the
Israelites, and God took notice of them (Exod 2:23-25,
NRSV ).
God has done what Moses has nothe has remembered. God has
remembered the intertwining of spirit with spirit, of heart with heart
and cry with cry. He has remembered the promise made of life in a
good land. These memories stoke the divine re. And though the
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
76
people do not specically cry to God, he takes notice of them. Now

God invites Moses to do the same.23
Thus, in front of this re, Moses is invited to remember a past that
both is and is not his. He too once heard the cry of these people. But
back then, he did not see them as Gods people. Now he does: And
God said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was
afraid to gaze at God (Exod 3:6). For Moses, this kind of remembering
extends his understanding of his own life and of his world into a world
with a mysterious moral dimension. For God, this act of remembering
is prelude to new creation. In like manner, before recreating the world
after the Great Flood, God remembered (wayyizkr) Noah and all
the wild animals and all the domestic animals that were with him in
the ark (Gen 8:1a, NRSV ). Only after this remembering is the
world brought out of its desolation and recreated under the power, as in
Gen 1:2, of a wind (rah) from God: And God brought a wind
(rah) upon the earth and the waters abated (Gen 8:1b, NRSV ).
The man who now receives Gods invitation to lead my people,
the sons of Israel, out of Egypt (Exod 3:10) is much older, wiser, and
humbler than his younger version. His younger version may well have
responded with a raised clenched st and the cheer, Yes, lets go bury
the Egyptians in the sand! Instead, Moses responds with the rst of
ve refusals.
The man who was once prince in the Egyptian royal household, but
who is now a family man and shepherd in the wilderness of Midian,
answers rst: But Moses said to God, Who am I, that I should go
to Pharaoh, and that I should lead the sons of Israel out of Egypt?
(Exod 3:11). God answers him: I will be with you and this shall be
23
Biblically, such forms of remembering typically occur when human beings

are the subject of the verb. When God is the subject, the verb has to do with Gods
attention and intervention. (See Leslie C. Allen, rkz in The New International
Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 1, pp. 1100-1106; here p.
1101.) In this case, God is the subject, yet both meanings occur. Thus the biblical
narrator has rst let occur in God what we may imagine will occur in Moses. In a
sense, Moses is invited to participate in Gods inner life.
77
the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have led the people
out of Egypt, you shall all serve God on this mountain (Exod 3:12).
In other words, God tells Moses that he is absolutely right. He is no
one to do it. God will do it. And God will be with him. Because of
this, all Israel shall serve not Moses, but God.
Now the man who identied with the Hebrews, but who was
rejected by them, speaks: If I come to the Israelites and say to them,
The God of your ancestors has sent me to you, and they ask me, What
is his name? what shall I say to them? (Exod 3:13, NRSV ). The divine
names were revealed to ancestors of renown. Now here this person
of confused allegiance comes along claiming to be in the service of
the same God. Wouldnt the people rightly demand to know who he
really represents? But God answers Moses: ehy er ehy (Exod
3:14a), which may mean I am He who is24 or I will be whatever I
choose25 (there is, of course, still no consensus on this). Thus Moses
is to tell the Israelites: I AM (ehy) has sent me to you (Exod 3:14b,
NRSV ), where ehy itself may mean he brings to pass.26 Whatever
this answer meansas often commented, it seemingly tries hard
to connect to the tetragram Yhwhit does provide a new divine
appellation. It makes Moses the latest in the line of Hebrew bearers of
promise. One immediate implication is the message to the Israelites in
Egypt: Yes, I have chosen Moses (of all people!) for doing this, and I shall
do it. At the same time, however, it does seem as if it is also trying to
elude all naming.
Thus a deeper implication is the representation of that mystery
which enshrouds existence and which gives existence its transcendent
moral dimension, with the divine name itself. In this name the
promise of the mystery once again opens up the horizon of hope for
the Israelites:
24
See E. Schild, On Exodus III 14: I am That I am, VT 4, (1954): pp. 296-
302.
25
See William R. Arnold, The Divine Name in Exodus iii:14, JBL 24 (1905):
107-165.
26
See David Noel Freedman, The Name of the God of Moses, JBL 79 (1960):
151-156.
78
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
Go and assemble the elders of Israel, and say to them,

The LORD (Yhwh), the God of your ancestors, the God
of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me,
saying: I have given heed to you and to what has been
done to you in Egypt. I declare that I will bring you up
out of the misery of Egypt, to the land of the Canaanites,
the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and
the Jebusites, a land owing with milk and honey (Exod
3:16-17, NRSV ).
This opening up of existential horizons into the realm of mystery and

promise gives Gods invitation to Moses a profound future dimension.
Is Moses to stay with the world view that builds iron forges, or is he to
put his trust in a world shot through with Gods mystery? Moses nds
himself invited to make a profound decision about the fundamental
stance of his life.
But as Moses considers this, another realization holds him back.
Now the fugitive from justice who abandoned his people speaks: But
lo, they shall not trust me nor pay heed to my voice, because they will
say, The LORD did not present himself to you (Exod 4:1). Paul
encountered a similar problem, as attested in Second Corinthians.
Even today we expect Gods representatives to come with letters of
recommendation rather than with dubious social backgrounds. In
response, God gives Moses miraculous abilities and goes through
them with him step by step (Exod 4:2-9). By these abilities the people
may give credence not to Moses but to the signs of Gods power that
accompany him.
Unfortunately, Pharaohs magicians possess the ability to work
look-alike tricks. Moses, having grown up in Pharaohs court, knows
this. Moreover, having received training in the ways of Egyptian rule,
he realizes that other skills are needed for leadership. Realpolitik, not
magic tricks, gets things done. And after so many years of running
after sheep in Midian, he frankly admits that he never possessed those
skills, after all. Pace Morse, he never was a natural born leader. And as
79
Bismarck supposed, Realpolitik cannot be taught, but is an art.27 Thus

Moses voices his fourth objection: O my Lord, I have never been
eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to
your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue (Exod 4:10,
NRSV ). The miraculous powers given him may at rst impress, but
what use is that when he has not the skill to stand up before a crowd
and deliver a rousing speech?
In answer, God makes clear that Gods word, not Moses nor any
humans, leads the journey into the mystery of Gods promise: Then
the LORD said to him, Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes
them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go,
and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak
(Exod 4:11-12, NRSV ). In short, for Moses a yes to God means
the surrender of all the ways of getting things done that Moses had
once believed in; a surrender even of all the ways of being that he has
known. It means the profound surrender to the ways of God and to
God himself.
Thus, like a gaping chasm, the immensity of the decision opens up
before Moses. If he is to choose for Gods mystery and Gods promise,
he must make a leap of faith, and he must leap with his entire existence.
Put another way, he must accept the radical de-centering of his self
and the complete overthrow of his everyday horizons. So he raises
one last and desperate objection: Pray excuse me, my LORD, send
whom you will send [but dont send me!] (Exod 4:13). He recognizes
the One who does what He will do, but he just does not want himself
to do it. However, just ve verses later, he has said his goodbyes and
is headed for Egypt with Gods sta in hand (Exod 4:18-20). He has
surrendered his will to Gods will. The point driven home here, after
this portrayal of an all too human Moses, is also made by Paul in
Second Corinthians: We possess this treasure in earthen vessels, so
that the supremacy of the power is Gods and not ours (2 Cor 4:7).
What will ensue in Egypt, in the clash of wonders worked by Moses
and Pharaohs magicians, and in the strange periodic hardenings of
27
See Panze, p. 513.
80
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
Pharaohs heart, will not be of Moses doing, nor of Pharaohs, but will
be the unfolding of the mystery of Gods power.
Covenant at Sinai:
The Biblical Dream of a People of God
The theme of kenosis in the face of Gods mystery also gives
interpretative depth to the scenario at Sinai, the place where God
and Israel meet in covenant. When the rst generation out of Egypt,
destined to die outside the land of promise because of the hardness of
their hearts, look up at the mountain, it is wrapped in smoke, because
the LORD had descended upon it in re; the smoke went up like the
smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently (Exod
19:18, NRSV ). As previously noted, slavery in Egypt was also a kiln
of sorts (an iron furnace; Deut 4:20). Apparently, here at Sinai, the
people have simply exchanged domination by one power for domination
by another. In this, their fundamental stance towards existence has
not changed since their days under Egyptian power. They still cling to
their old selves and to their old horizons. They have not yet surrendered
themselves to the mystery of God and the moral dimension of human
existence which that mystery brings. They are still a community of
fear. Appropriately, therefore, seeing that here is a power that they may
not meet and still live, they hold back in fear (Exod 20:18-19). Only
Moses approached the dark cloud where God was (Exod 20:21).
Indeed, failure of spirit brackets and punctuates the momentous
events in the rst generations story. Upon their exit from Egypt, in
the grand event at the Sea of Reeds that will destroy Pharaohs power,
they fall short in trust (Exod 14:1-14). At the foot of Sinai, though
they have heard the Ten Commandments spoken by God in thunder,
in Moses prolonged absence they forget the very rst commandment
and violate it (Exod 32:1-4). Ultimately, on the edge of the Promised
Land, despite all the wonders of God that they have witnessed, they
fail in true hope and courage (Num 13:1-14:4). Entirely self-seeking,
bounded by a horizon dominated only by their own whims and fears,
they act like a people bereft of any center. Thus the rst generation out
81
of Egypt proves itself incapable of apprehending the vision of life that

Sinai represents.
Nonetheless, in between the two accounts of the Sinai event
the rst in Exodus 20 and the next in Deuteronomy 5in Leviticus
19 an outline of that vision to which the people are called and for
which they must strive shines through. It exists alongside the rest of
the biblical material like an adjacent pure sereneto borrow Nobel
laureate Heaneys description of visionary worlds of which certain
poems, by means of shifts in tone and imagery, obtain for the reader
a glimpse.28 In Leviticus 19, as in Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy 5,
the Decalogue (or more detailed versions of them) also occur. But here
they stand side by side with laws of social justice and laws of holiness.
The picture is one of a holistic moral life framed by the call to be holy
like Yhwh is holy (Lev 19:1-2). Reminder of the divine name, I am
the LORD (Yhwh) punctuates it throughout. If indeed separation
from and union with the divine is the great theme and pattern of the
Pentateuch,29 then that theme and pattern nds its visionary point in
Leviticus 19. Those who lived in an iron forge are now called to live
in a world shot through with mysterious moral dimensions. Those who
knew only unholiness are now called into a world of holiness.
Curiously, Leviticus 19 also lies more or less at the textual center
of the ve books of Moses. Picking up on the motif of the textual
center, we nd that at the center (more or less) of Leviticus 19 lies the
commandment in verse 18: You shall not take vengeance or bear a
grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor
as yourself: I am the LORD (Lev 19:18, NRSV ). Not only does this
commandment lie at the textual center of the chapter, but the thematic
gist of it, namely the relationship between love and law,30 plays a crucial
role in the message of the Pentateuch.
28
See Seamus Heaney, The Main of Light, in The Government of the Tongue
(London: Faber and Faber, 1988), pp. 15-22.
29
See Richard H. Moye, In the Beginning: Myth and History in Genesis and
Exodus, JBL 109(1990): 577-598; here in particular p. 582.
30
See Richard A. Allbee, Asymmetrical Continuity of Love and Law between
the Old and New Testaments: Explicating the Implicit Side of a Hermeneutical
Bridge, Leviticus 19.11-18,JSOT 31 (2006): 147-166.
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
82
This last point emerges in the Book of Deuteronomy, where once

again, in chapter 5, we encounter the Decalogue. Here, however, we
have not the event at Sinai, but the memory of that event. The rst
generation out of Egypt has passed away in the wilderness. Now the
second generation stands at the edge of the Promised Land, and Moses
recounts to them the story of Israels meeting with God on the holy
mountain. Notably, Moses says to them: Not with our ancestors does
the Lord make this covenant, but with us who are here this day, all of
us, the living (v. 3). In other words, when God made the covenant
at Sinai, though it was a singular and one-time event, God made it
with every living generation of Israel. From now on each generation of
Israel, though standing with that rst one out of Egypt at the foot of
the mountain (v. 5), also stands with Moses who went up into the dark
cloud where God was, for Face to face the Lord spoke to you on the
mountain, from out of the re (v. 4). From now on, each generation
receives covenant with God not only in fear, but also in love, with the
vision of that life to which God calls them shining clearly.
Indeed, teaching the next generation of Israel to live a life that is
consonant with Gods choice for them as a people has been the task
of Moses from the start (Deut 4:14). From now on, even in Moses
absolute absence, Israel must turn not to images that violate the holiness
of God (Deut 4:15-19), but must love the LORD your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (Deut 6:5).
She must keep these words in her heart (Deut 6:6). Moreover, she
must in turn drill them into her children (Deut 6:7). She must recount
to themmuch like Moses recounts to this generation nowthe
entire story of their salvation. As Gods people, their righteousness
before God consists in keeping the covenant and teaching the story to
future generations (Deut 6:20-25). For the people, apart from Gods
antecedent choice for them, are in themselves no more meritorious
than any other people of Gods grace (Deut 9:1-6). But when they
consent to walk with God, then in them the world will nd not only
a model worthy of admiration (Deut 4:6-8), butto read across the
canonwill also receive the divine blessing (Gen 12:1-3).31 Thus, even
31
The text in Gen 12:1-3 addresses in the singular; but see Hans Walter Wol,
The Kerygma of the Yahwist, trans. Wilbur A. Benware, in Walter Brueggemann
83
though Moses is denied entry into the land (Deut 3:24-27), he takes
up the didactic task.
The Denial of Moses:

A Lesson for All Generations
In a sense, Moses dies to himself so that others may nd life.
This self-denial in submission to the mystery of Gods promise is rst
seen at the burning bush, in Exod 3:1-4:20. It appears again when
Moses intercedes on Israels behalf in Num 14:11-19. And Olson has
pointed out that the motif of dying to self so that others may live
occurs throughout the Book of Deuteronomy.32 Indeed, even the law
sections there convey the odd quality of giving up and giving away that
which has been received as divine gift, in order that all others may also
receive, in great measure, Gods blessing.33 But the motif nds its nal
and most poignant portrayal in the last chapter of Deuteronomy:
Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount
Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and
the LORD showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as
Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all
the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and
the Plainthat is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm
treesas far as Zoar. The LORD said to him, This is the
land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,
saying, I will give it to your descendants; I have let you see
it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there. Then
Moses, the servant of the LORD, died there in the land of
Moab, at the LORDs command. He was buried in a valley
in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows
his burial place to this day (Deut 34:1-6, NRSV ).
and Wol, Hans Walter, The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions, 2nd ed. (Atlanta,
GA: John Knox Press, 1982), pp. 41-66.
32
See Dennis T. Olson, Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses (OBT; Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1994).
33
See Olson, pp. 66-67.
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
84
The story of Moses, as told in the Pentateuch, ends with this image.
Thus, when we nish the great story and we put down the great book,
this is the image that lingers on in our mind. It paints our view of
existence with haunting colors.
It is haunting, for the servants of God, who pour themselves out
for others, sometimes nd themselves struggling with the question of
whether their surrender to the mystery of God was worthwhile. They
wonder if they were not, as Jeremiah put it, deceived (Jer 20:7). For on
a day-to-day basis, they experience rsthand Qoheleths disconcerting
observation:
There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are
righteous people who are treated according to the conduct
of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated
according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this
also is vanity (Eccl 8:14, NRSV ).
Yet, in counterpoint to this urge to empty oneself no more for others,

Levinas once observed that [the Innite] never appears as a theme,
butin the fact that the more I am just the more I am responsible;
one never quits with regard to the Other.34 And in the very life of
sacrice that knows no limits, The witness testies to what was said
by himself. For he has said Here I am! before the Other.The glory
of the Innite reveals itself through what it is capable of doing in the
witness.35 Thus the glory of God shines through precisely where the
servants of God are most broken in self-sacrice. Understanding this,
the servants learn to carry with them all their hopes and dreams, and
to stand with Moses on the mountaintop.
Yet the servants of God know an even deeper disquiet. For the
nightmare that assaults them runs deeper than the wounds and
disappointments of the day to day. The fear that their labor is in vain,
34
Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Innity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo,

trans. Richard A. Cohen (Quezon City, Philippines: Claretian Publications, 1997),
p. 105.
35
Levinas, p. 109.
85
that the land shall never be entered and there shall be no harvest,
neither now nor ever, stalks their horizon. Elijah must have suered
from this fear when he stood on the mountain of God and said: I have
been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites
have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed
your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking
my life, to take it away (1 Kgs 19:10, NRSV ). Elie Wiesel renders
Elijahs statement this way: I have fought for You, I have fought
Your children on Your behalf; I have punished those who have sinned
against Youand now, here I am in a cave, alone, and in danger; I am
the last.36 Here, according to Wiesel, who cites Midrashic tradition,
Elijah despairs. But in despairing he turns against his own community
he holds out no hope for them. Instead, when this servant is gone,
then all hope is gone. Despair like this ultimately works against God
himself. Because of this, God terminates Elijahs service.37 In the
broadest sense, this despair excludes the power of God from the picture
of human life. Levinas, in relation to such exclusion, only commented
enigmatically: a humanity which can do without [the consolations of
religion] perhaps may not be worthy of them.38
Paradoxically, the full theological view from the mountaintop
provides the answer to this despair. It provides the servants of God
with the horizon that breaks beyond the limits of human nitude.
Elijah, who comes out of his cave but who fails to go all the way up the
mountain (1 Kgs 19:11-13),39 perceives that answer in the sound of
a gaunt whisper (1 Kgs 19:12). The word of God shall arise and live
in prophet after unknown prophet after Elijah.40 The prophetic voice
shall have to compete with seemingly more powerful voices and may at
times seem drowned out. But in the end it shall prevail. As Olson has
put it for Moses who stands on the mountaintop:
36
Elie Wiesel, Five Biblical Portraits (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1981), pp. 52-53.
37
See Wiesel, pp. 53-55.
38
Levinas, p. 118.
39
See Jerome T. Walsh, Elijah Runs from Danger in The New Jerome Biblical
Commentary, pp. 172-173; here p. 172.
40
See Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 190-194.
Diwa 34 (2009): 64-86
86
[C]ountless other faithful servants of God have had visions

of an end they would not see. But the little bit they tasted
gave them courage to carry on with their life and work.
They trusted that God would work in and through their
lives, and they knew God would continue to work to bless
and save long after they were gone. Deuteronomy calls its
readers today to a similar vocation of working and hoping
for the promised land, knowing that its accomplishment
will nally be Gods doing, not theirs.41
Put in words for us here today, none of us will likely enter the new
Philippines of which we dream and for which we labor. But if we teach
all these things to our children, then maybe one day they will. But if
we fail to teach these things, then they never will. For their sake, we
are called to empty ourselves in self-giving. For us as Christians, what
upholds this ethos? In the New Testament, in the transguration that
signals the fulllment of Deut 8:15, Moses and Elijah appear alongside
JesusMoses, who longs to enter the land but never does, and Elijah,
who possesses the land but sees it slip through his ngers like sand. In
the Christian vision, Jesus, the beloved Son of the Father, enters the
land of the new creation, the place where God reigns. He invites us
to enter with him, and he will keep us and that land, the place of our
promised dwelling, forever.
41
Olson, p. 171.
Pauls Life and Missionary Zeal:

Implications for Consecrated Men
and Women in the Church Today
MARY JEROME OBIORAH, IHM
University of Nigeria
Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria
I. Introduction
he Roman Catholic Church, in 2009, celebrated the 2,000

years of Pauls life. This great missionary who traveled near
and far bringing Jesus to those who did not know him was
also a great writer whose work is the earliest Christian canonical
Scripture. From his letters, we know the life situation of the rst
disciples of Jesus. He shaped Christian theology, claried Christian
beliefs, and carried the marks of the life of Jesus in his own body.
Few, in fact, have loved Jesus as passionately as Paul did. For these
and many more, it was just right that the Church has honored
this contemporary of Jesus who never followed him on his earthly
mission but worked more than the eyewitnesses of the Messiah.
Paul is also a model of consecrated persons, who strive daily to
follow Christ. Obedience, Paul lived it! In poverty he excelled! In
chastity he invited all to imitate him! The Pauline Year was a year of
grace for all Christians all over the world. Many went on pilgrimages
to the ancient city of Tarsus in modern Turkey to see the birth place of
a man whose inuence made Tarsus a privileged pilgrimage and tourist
center. Others traveled to Rome, to the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside
the Walls, to pay homage to the remains of a great Apostle who, like
Diwa 34 (2009): 87-105
88
the Master, died for love. Courageous ones traced the footprints of
Saint Paul in his many missionary journeys. The following contribution
reects on the life of Paul, and its implications for consecrated persons
in the Church.
II. Paul of Tarsus

Any attentive reader of the Acts of the Apostles will not fail to
perceive the thrust of these accounts of the events in the early Church
narrated by the same person who wrote the Gospel according to Luke.1
The Acts seems to have a program which is stated at the beginning of
the book: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come
upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and
Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (1:8).2 The book has not gone
half way before a signicant person, who shaped both the theology
and the mission of the early Christians, and whose inuence we still
experience today, is dramatically introduced.
Pauls coming to the scene was dramatic, because he moved from
a persecutor of Jesus to an ardent apostle. As soon as he entered the
stage, according to Acts, he dominates the narratives until the end of
the book. Initially the writer of Acts called him Saul, a young man
who approved of the killing of the rst Christian martyr Stephen (cf.
7:54-8:1). Narrating the death of Stephen and the part Paul played, the
book continues: Then they dragged him out of the city and began to
stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man
named Saul (7:58). Paul was a young man at this time. A young man
(neani,aij in Greek) would be between twenty-four and forty years old.
Therefore, Paul would be a contemporary of Jesus.3
1
The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written by the same
writer. They are considered as a two-volume work by Luke. Both works are addressed
to the same person named Theophilus (cf. Luke 1:3 and Acts 1:1).
2
The Biblical citations in this work are according to the New Revised Standard
Version, Catholic Edition, 1989.
3
Jerome Murphy-OConnor, The Life of Paul, The International Bible
Commentary: A Catholic and Ecumenical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century
(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998), p. 265.
M. J. Obiorah, Pauls Life and Missionary Zeal
89
It is in 7:58 that Paul is introduced with the name Saul, a name that
reminds us of the rst king of Israel (1 Sam 9:2-17). The name Saul is
a passive participle from the Hebrew verb al which means to ask of.
The passive would be to be asked of (by God or YHWH implied).
For the great Paul of the New Testament, Acts calls him fteen times
by the name Saul and all these are found in 7:58-13:9. From 13:9,
the name Paul is used until the end of the book. The author of Acts
makes this transition with the words: But Saul, also known as Paul,
lled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him (13:9). From this
verse Luke shifts from the Jewish name, Saul, to a Roman family name,
Paul, a name which probably means little. The event during which
this change of name occurred is signicant in the life of Paul. First,
it was during the conversion of the Roman Proconsul, called Sergius
Paulus (cf. 13:7-12). Second, it was during the rst missionary attempt
of Paul. Third, the conversion of this Roman ocial was the rst fruit
of Pauls missionary zeal.
At the time of Paul, many Jews had two names: a Semitic name
and a Roman name. One nds traces of this in Acts: in 12:12 the
person called John, a Semitic name, adds Mark to his name; in
1:23, Joseph-Barsabbas bears a Greco-Roman name, Justus; Tabitha
is also called Dorcas; Simeon adds Niger to his name (cf. 13:1).
The author of Acts must have organized the material he has in his
book in such a way that he introduced this other name of Paul when
the letter rst came into full contact with the Gentile world where the
name Paul was a common surname. In the rest of Acts where Paul
continued his mission to the Gentile world, his name remains Paul.
Likewise in all his Letters he calls himself Paul. Besides Acts and
his Letters, the name Paul, referring to this great missionary, occurs
again only in 2 Pet 3:15.
We know about Paul from the Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline
letters and from 2 Pet 3:15-16. From these sources we learn that Paul
was born in Tarsus (Acts 22:3, 6; 21:39). Tarsus was a Hellenistic town
in the ancient territory of Cilicia in Asia Minor. It was the principal city
of the fertile plain of East Cilicia in South East Asia Minor. Antiochus
IV (175-164 BC) established a Jewish colony in Tarsus in order to foster
Diwa 34 (2009): 87-105
90
commerce and industry.4 Before this, Tarsus was an ancient city, about
4,000 years old. Today it is a Turkish city with inhabitants of about
100,000.5 According to Acts 23:16, Paul had a sister; and he was also a
Roman citizen from birth (see also Acts 16:37; 23:27; 22:25-59).
From his letters one gathers more information about the life and
works of Paul. In Gal 1:14 he writes: I advanced in Judaism beyond
many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for
the traditions of my ancestors. He has more to communicate about
himself in Phil 3:4-6: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the
people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews;
as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the Church; as
to righteousness under the law, blameless. Similarly in 2 Cor 11:22:
Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they
descendants of Abraham? So am I.
From these we learn that Paul was a Greek-speaking Jew who
could also speak Aramaica common language of the Jews living
in Palestine at the time of Paul. Pauls background as a Jew in the
Diaspora was of immense advantage in his mission. He could speak
and write in the language of the Gentiles to whom he strongly believed
he has been sent by God (cf. Gal 2:2). Furthermore, Paul was a Pharisee
in the true sense of the term. Pharisees were a Jewish sect known for
their strict observances and interpretation of the Jewish law.6 Besides
this, Paul also learned a trade. According to Acts 18:3, Pauls trade was
tent-making. Later in his letters he would remind his addressees how
he and his companions worked with their hands in order to support
themselves and to be of no burden to others (cf. 1 Thess 2:9; 1 Cor
4:12; 2 Thess 3:7-8). It was a Jewish custom, that every boy should
learn a trade.7 Paul did learn one and this was helpful in his mission.
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Paul, in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (London:

Georey Chapman, 1992), pp. 1329-1337.
5
W. Ward Gasque, Tarsus, ABD 4: 333-334.
6
Cf. Anthony J. Saldarini, Pharisees, ABD 5: 298-303.
7
Leon Morris, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians (Grand Rapids,
MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1991), p. 72.
91
Paul, a zealous Pharisee, persecuted the followers of Jesus because

he was convinced that these Christians were out to destroy the most
cherished patrimony of the Jews, the Law. Paul believed he was being
patriotic in persecuting the followers of Jesus. I was far more zealous
for the traditions of my ancestors (Gal 1:14). This was his life before he
encountered Jesus and his life was never the same again.
III. Conversion of Paul

Paul, a fervent Pharisee, was doing all he could to obstruct the
growth of the nascent Christian faith. Severe persecution of the Early
Christians became Pauls newly acquired occupation. Both Acts (cf.
8:1-3) and Paul (cf. Gal 1:11-17) bear testimony to the part he played in
his attempt to terminate the spread of the Gospel. Saul was ravaging
the Church by entering house after house; dragging o both men
and women, he committed them to prison (Acts 8:3). In his letter
to the Galatians (1:13), Paul alludes to his pre-Christian life in these
words: You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was
violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it.
This persecution, however, led to rapid spread of the good news of
Jesus because, all except the apostles were scattered throughout the
countryside of Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1).
It was in the midst of this unrest that the risen Jesus manifested to
Paul the plans he had long ago prepared for him. God chooses laborers
for his vineyard in a manner beyond human understanding. The life of
Paul and his abrupt conversion from a persecutor to an ardent believer
astonished many of his companions; others were infuriated and turned
against him all his life.
In the Acts of the Apostles, the events surrounding the conversion
of Paul were narrated three times. The rst, which is more elaborate,
is found in 9:1-19. In this rst account the narrator speaks about Paul
and his conversion. The remaining two are in 22:6-16 and 26:12-18;
in these two texts, Paul recalls his conversion. These two are narrated
by Paul himself in defense of the charges against him. He recalled this
dramatic conversion in his letters (Gal 1:11-24; 1 Cor 9:1; 15:8-10; Phil
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Diwa 34 (2009): 87-105
3:4-11 and 1 Tim 1:12-16). He who was a persecutor was persecuted

for the same cause for which he killed many Christians.
In fact,
Jesus encountered Paul at a time when Paul and the Christians did not
expect it: Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against
the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for
letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who
belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to
Jerusalem (Acts 9:1-2). He became Gods chosen instrument and his
suerings were foretold right from the time of his conversion: I myself
will show him how much he must suer for the sake of my name
(Acts 9:16).
Damascus, to which Paul was traveling in order to imprison the
Christians and to order for their execution, was the very place where
he rst proclaimed Jesus with the creedal formula characteristic of the
early Christians: Jesus is the Son of God! (9:20). This was Pauls rst
public proclamation of the Good News in the Jewish Synagogues of
Damascus in the presence of those whom he came to arrest. Tears of
joy, though initially concealed, ruptured in loud praises to God.
Reactions of the Christians and of his fellow Jews in particular,
who heard Paul in this city, are better described in his own words: they
only heard it said, The one who formerly was persecuting us is now
proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy. And they gloried God
because of me (Gal 1:23-24). At rst, the Christians were afraid to
receive him in their midst. As days passed by and as they watched him
closely, their joy was boundless. On the other hand, Jews, especially
those who sent Paul to Damascus, could not believe how the events
were evolving.
Gods ways are not our ways! No one who encountered Jesus remains
the same. Paul experienced him and his life and mission were completely
and irreversibly turned upside down, a metanoia. He has been called for
a special mission.
93
IV. Pauls Missionary Activities

Just as Paul moved in haste to persecute the followers of Jesus,
his journey of faith was also very rapid. Faith is an unconditional
acceptance of the contents and demands of the Gospel. It is dynamic
for it moves from initial adhesion which begins with the acceptance
of baptism to progressive assimilation in ones life, communitarian
expression in liturgical celebration and nally, in missionary stimulus.
For some people, it can take quite a long time to reach the owering
expression of faith in missionary activities. Pauls situation was dierent;
it was urgent. As soon as he received the faith he moved in haste for
he believed he was holding a precious gem meant for the whole world,
especially those who had not yet received it.
Pauls apostleship was a special grace and direct revelation from
God. In defense of his activities among the churches of Galatia, Paul
species this: For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the
gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did
not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received
it through a revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal 1:11-12). All the years he
spent before his conversion were years of preparation for his mission. In
Paul that intrinsic continuity between the old covenant and the new life
in Jesus is clearly seen. The transition is easy for those who cooperate
with the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Paul did and his whole life was
spent for the good news he received directly from God.
The good news that Paul preached is Gods or Christs good news,
eu vagge l, ion tou / qeou ,/ because it has God as its origin. Paul made it
his own, eu vagge l, ion mou my good news. What is this good news for
which Paul spent his whole life as a libation? But even if I am being
poured out as a libation over the sacrice and the oering of your faith,
I am glad and rejoice with all of you (Phil 2:17). It is the good news
of the Christ who died and rose from the dead. It is not just an event
of the past but is also something present. We re-live his death. The
Risen Christ has the capacity to apply his death and resurrection even
today. Christs death, which is the core of the eu vagge l, ion reaches every
human person. It makes us opt for a fundamental decision in our lives.
It makes human persons open up or close up, that is, to say either yes or
94
Diwa 34 (2009): 87-105
no to the message of salvation, to accept or reject it. On this acceptance

or rejection of the Good News depends the eschatological situation of
the person: the salvation or perdition, eternal death, damnation of the
person. According to Paul, salvation is the full realization of a human
person. Salvation is not optional; it is something necessary for a person.
A person cannot fully be a human being without being a Christian, a
believer in the paschal mystery of Christ.
All these motivated Pauls zeal for mission: If I proclaim the gospel,
this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me,
and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my
own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted
with a commission (1 Cor 9:16-17). Beginning from the scene of his
dramatic conversion, Paul toured the most part of Asia Minor and those
parts of Europe very close to Asia. He had the intention of reaching
Rome: I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the
wise and to the foolish, hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to
you also who are in Rome (Rom 1:14-15). He realized this dream of
preaching in Rome but only as a prisoner for Christ.
It has been a tradition to sketch Pauls missionary activities into
three. Hence one speaks of three missionary journeys of Paul. His
journeys are usually grouped into three, according to the interpretation
of the information given in the Acts of the Apostles. Pauls missionary
activities took him beyond Palestine. According to Acts 13-14 and
15:1-30, the rst missionary journey of Paul between 46-48 A.D.
covered Seleucia, the harbor of Antioch, Cyprus, Salamis, Paphos,
Perga in Pamphylia, Antioch in Pisidia, Derbe, Lystra. He returned to
Pamphilia, and passed through Attalia on his way back to Antioch in
Syria. This journey which he made in the company of Barnabas and
partly with Mark (Mark left them in Perga in Pamphylia; cf. 15:38)
was mainly in south-central Asia Minor, in the province of Galatia.
Pauls second missionary journey with Silas, and later with Timothy,
as his companions (cf. 15:39-18:22) took place between 49 and 52
A.D. He passed through the cities he visited in his rst journey. Moving
northwards, he then went to Galatia and Phrygia; from Troas he passed
over to Macedonia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens, and Corinth.
95
From Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, he sailed down to Ephesus and

then to Caesarea on the Palestinian coast, and to Jerusalem.
In Pauls third journey (cf. 18:23-21:15) between 53 and 57 A.D.,
he spent some time in Syria, Antioch, and from there he moved to
Galatia, Phrygia, Ephesus where he stayed for about three years. From
Ephesus he went to Troas, Macedonia, Achaia, stopping at Corinth for
some time. From Corinth, Paul moved back to Macedonia, spending
some time at Philippi from where he sailed to Troas, Miletus, back to
Tyre and Caesarea, and to Jerusalem. Paul proclaimed Jesus, suered
persecution, and gained many converts to Christianity in all these
places he visited. His letters were also written in some of these cities.
Pauls missionary activities were characterized by selessness, selfemptying, a kenosis that is of Christ who emptied himself, taking the
form of a slave, being born of human likeness (Phil 2:7). Quite unlike
itinerant teachers in the early Church, Pauls activities were completely
altruistic; he was ready to die for others. His mission did not spring
from deceit or impure motives or trickery (1 Thess 2:3). He did not
preach to please human beings but to please God (1 Thess 2:4). Again,
Paul and his companions did not use attery nor did they approach
their mission with pretext for greed, nor did they seek praise from
human beings (1 Thess 2:6). His intention as stated in 1 Thess 2:1-8
was to glorify God in winning as many souls as possible for God. He
did not depend on any one nor did he extort others or take advantage
of his apostleship: though we might have made demands as apostles
of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring
for her own children (1 Thess 2:7). Paul worked to support himself:
You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support
myself and my companions (Acts 20:34; cf. 1 Thess 2:9; 1 Cor 4:12;
2 Thess 3:7-8). He received gifts but only when these would help in the
furtherance of the Gospel.8
Although he spent his missionary activities mostly among the
Gentiles, he did not overlook the suerings of his own people in
Palestine, particularly in Jerusalem. Hence he encouraged the churches
8
Leon Morris, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, p. 73.
(2009): 87-105
Diwa 34 (2009
96
to make collections for the Christians in Jerusalem, thereby teaching

mutual support among the Christians (2 Cor 9:1-15). Sharing with
others beyond the immediate congregation glories God and will be
reciprocated by the recipients prayer for the givers, the distant brothers
and sisters in congregations beyond.9 In his mission, Paul knew that
love is best proved in suerings, which he fully experienced.
V. Pauls Suerings
The content of the Good News proclaimed by Paul is the Good
News of the Crucied Jesus. It is salvation through the Crucied
Christ, liberation from moral evil, and abundance of the messianic
blessings.10 This certainly rouses human sensibility for the message
about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who
are being saved, it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18). Paul believed
that Jesus suering liberated humanity from sin and made us sons
and daughters of God (cf. Gal 4:1-7). All who profess that Jesus is the
Lord and that he opted for the path of suering in order to save us,
should follow in his steps. This Paul faithfully did. His preaching of
the Crucied Jesus was exemplied in his life. His mission was marked
with suerings which he joyfully bore for the sake of the Gospel. He
was not ashamed of the Gospel (Rom 1:16). Paul knew fully well the
inevitability of the temptation to be ashamed of the Gospel in view
of the continuing hostility of the world to God and the nature of the
Gospel itself.11 He suered greatly for the Gospel. He articulated his
suerings in these words:
Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a
madmanI am a better one: with far greater labors, far
more imprisonments, with countless oggings, and often
near death. Five times I have received from the Jews the
9
Paul Barnett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.
B. Eerdmans, 1997), p. 449.
10
Ugo Vanni, Lettera ai Romani, Le Lettere di San Paolo (Milano: Edizioni
Paoline, 1990), p. 277.
11
C.E.B. Craneld, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the
Romans (Edinburgh: T&T. Clark, 1990), p. 86.
97
forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods.
Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked;
for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys,
in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from
my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city,
danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false
brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a
sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold
and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily
pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is
weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I
am not indignant (2 Cor 11:23-29)?
This catalogue of suerings is not to be seen as a form of boasting

on the part of Paul, or a display of pride. It is his daring response to
the intruders classication and comparison of themselves as superior
to him.12 Paul used the opportunity to recall many of his suerings.
He participated in the suerings of Jesus for the salvation of humanity:
From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of
Jesus branded on my body (Gal 6:17). From the scene of his conversion
until the end, his whole life was like the Stations of the Cross.13 This
was not a hindrance to him for the more he suered the more he
gained many souls for the Lord who has tested him and entrusted the
preaching of the Gospel to him (1 Thess 2:4).
Suering is an essential mark of discipleship for it brings a follower
of Christ closer to the Master who himself took the path of suering.
Those who shun suerings in their lives are enemies of the cross of
Jesus: For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told
you of them, and now I tell you even with tears (Phil 3:18). Suerings
prepare us for the coming glory: I consider that the suerings of
this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be
revealed to us (Rom 8:18). Just like Jesus who suered and rose from
the dead, the Christians crown of glory comes after the cross. The hymn
12
Paul Barnett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, p. 540.

Giuseppe Barbaglio, Paolo di Tarso e le origini cristiane (Assisi: Cittadella
Editrice, 1989), pp. 152-166.
13
98
Diwa 34 (2009): 87-105
in Pauls Letter to the Philippians (2:6-11) is structured on this: vv. 6-8

describe the self-emptying of Jesus; vv. 9-11 is on his exaltation. Today
we celebrate Paul and rejoice in his enormous achievement because he
knew the value of suering in human life.
VI. Paul A Theologian

Pauls early life before his conversion was a preparation for the great
work he did for Christianity. His knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures
prepared him for the articulation of Christian beliefs in the thirteen
letters attributed to him in the New Testament. The earliest Christian
writing was from Paul; this is his First Letter to the Thessalonians
which is believed to have been composed as early as 52 AD. It is a
witness of the belief and practice of the early Christians who professed
their faith in short formulae called creedal formulae. Some of these are
found in 1 Thessalonians:
For the people of those regions report about us what kind
of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God
from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his
Son from heaven, whom he raised from the deadJesus, who
rescues us from the wrath that is coming (1 Thess 1:9-10).
For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even
so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who
have died (1 Thess 4:14).
who died for us, so that whether we are awake or
asleep we may live with him (1 Thess 5:10).
In the three texts cited above, the faith of the Early Christians on
the death and resurrection of Jesus is accentuated. The Christians at
the time of Paul attached great importance to the Paschal Mystery
of Jesus. Their faith revolved on Jesus who died and was raised from
the dead. This is apparently the oldest summary of Pauls missionary
99
proclamation. The letter is a witness to the eschatological expectations

of the early Christians: the Parousia (4:13-18) and the Day of the Lord
(5:1-11).
According to the word count of the Greek New Testament, the
total number of words in the entire New Testament is 137,490. The
number of words in the Pauline Corpus is 32,349. Therefore the
words used by Paul are 23.5% of the total words in the Greek New
Testament.14 In modern versions of the Bible, the order of Pauline letters
is not according to their chronology but it follows the order in the
Vulgate. It is a stichometrical arrangement.15 His letters to the seven
churches precede the four letters to the individuals. In each group, the
length of the letters seems to determine their sequence. The Letter to
the Romans, for instance, takes precedence because of its length, and
the Letter to Philemon is in the rear list because of its length; it is the
shortest of Pauls writings.
Pauls letters follow the same pattern. His letters have an opening
formula or praescriptio in which Paul states his name as the sender;
sometime the names of co-senders and the addressee or addressees are
mentioned. Unlike his contemporaries, he did not simply use cai,rein
but this took the form of a wish. He gave it a Christian avor. Thus,
his praescriptio often begins with ca ,rij kai, eivrh n, h (grace and peace).
Grace in this initial greeting evokes that covenant, free gift, from
God which he lavishes on those who in all aspects do not deserve it.
Peace calls to mind the priestly blessing recorded in the Book of
Numbers (6:24-26). The phrase, ca ,rij kai, eivrh n, h occurs also in other
Christian letters in the New Testament and among early Christians (cf.
2 John 3; Rev 1:4).
The second part in Pauls letters contains thanksgiving very similar
to the pattern in the Greco-Roman world. With the exception of
his Letter to the Galatians, all his letters have a form of expression of
thanksgiving. Pauls thanksgiving is not a mere expression of religious
14
Cf. R. Morgenthaler, Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes, Zrich,
1958.
15
Stichometry is the measurement of a manuscript text by means of the number

of stichoi or xed average lines into which it may be divided.
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Diwa 34 (2009): 87-105
sentiment but it introduces the vital theme of the letter. His Letter to
the Galatians does not have the thanksgiving key word eu cv ariste w, , but
the expression I am amazed (cf. Gal 1:6-9) in its place focuses the
epistolary situation of the missive.
The third part is the body of the letter which is divided into two
sections. Its rst part contains Pauls expos of the Christian doctrine;
the second part is hortatory in nature. Drawing from the exposition
of the Christian doctrine of the rst part, he wrote on the behavior
betting those who call themselves Christians.
Part four of Pauls letters is the conclusion or nal greetings. It
contains personal news from himself and those who were with him,
specic instructions to his addressee or addressees, and a nal greeting
which is cast in the form of a blessing such as The grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ be with you or other similar characteristic blessing.
Apart from the Letter to the Romans, all the letters of Paul were
addressed to the churches and persons he encountered in his mission.
Many of these letters were in response to the situations of these churches.
Some of them, for instance, Galatians, First Thessalonians, and First
and Second Corinthians, aimed at solving the spiritual needs of the
Churches. Others were sent to encourage the Churches in their good
works. In these letters, Paul developed his theology, especially around
the person of Jesus. Some major synchronized theological themes
found in Pauls letters include: Gospel, Gods plan of salvation history,
dierent aspects of Christology, justication, salvation, reconciliation,
faith, sin, baptism, love, law, prayer, the Church, Eucharist, celibacy,
marriage, eschatology, etc.16 One hardly nds any aspect of Christian
theology that Paul did not include in his writings.
16
Cf. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Pauline Theology, The New Jerome Biblical

Commentary (London: Georey Chapman, 1992), pp. 1382-1416.
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VII. Aspects of Evangelical Counsels

in Pauls Life and Teaching
Following Christ more closely, consecrated persons radically
manifest in their lives the life of the obedient, poor and chaste Son
of God who assumed our human nature. They strive all the days of
their earthly existence to be Christs replicas in their vows of obedience,
poverty and chastity. Consecrated men and women in the Church
conform their whole existence to Christ in an all-encompassing
commitment which foreshadows the eschatological perfection, to the
extent that it is possible in time and in accordance with the dierent
charisms.17 These are persons who like Paul constantly avow: For to
me, living is Christ and dying is gain (Phil 1:21). They share in the
mission of the Son of God. An important aspect of this mission is
suering for the cause of the Gospel.18 It is a life of faith in the Son of
God (Gal 2:20).
Paul in his life and teaching revealed that close identication with
Jesus who calls whomever he wants for the spread of the Kingdom of
God. Like consecrated persons in the Church, who oer all they have
and are for the Gospel, Pauls life was a life of total consecration for
the Good News of Jesus who died for us. All his privileges as a Jew
with Roman citizenship, his knowledge of the Law and the inherent
satisfaction of keeping every detail of the Law are now considered as
nothing: More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the
surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have
suered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order
that I may gain Christ (Phil 3:8).
The evangelical vow of chastity after the footsteps of Jesus is so
much emphasized by Paul. This vow liberates consecrated persons so
17
John Paul II, Vita Consacrata: Post Synodal Exhortation on the Consecrated
Life and its Mission in the Church and in the World (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice
Vaticana, 1996), p. 16.
18
Mary Jerome Obiorah, Discipleship: Its Meaning and Implications in the
Scripture and in our Cultural Set-up, Discipleship and Renewal (Enugu: Snaap,
2005), p. 28.
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Diwa 34 (2009): 87-105
that they can serve the Lord with an undivided heart: the unmarried
woman and the virgin are anxious about the aairs of the Lord, so
that they may be holy in body and spirit (1 Cor 7:34). The Scriptures
communicate very little about the marital status of Paul. However,
from his life and letters, it is clear that he was not married; otherwise he
could not have been so free in his movement. Virginity is not embraced
for selsh ends but for the service of the Kingdom.
Jesus poverty is inspirational for Paul and for all consecrated
persons. For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by
his poverty you might become rich (2 Cor 8:9). Like Jesus who had
nowhere to lay his head, Pauls home was wherever the Spirit of the
Lord moved him to proclaim the Gospel. His personal belongings were
as light as his feet that carried him to far away places.
For just as by the one mans disobedience the many were made
sinners, so by the one mans obedience the many will be made
righteous (Rom 5:19). Christs obedience saved us from sin and made
us Gods sons and daughters. The whole life of Jesus on earth was a life
of constant obedience to the Father. He humbled himself and became
obedient to the point of deatheven death on a cross (Phil 2:8). A
recent document of the Church describes obedience of consecrated
persons as follows: Obedience to God is the path of growth and,
therefore, of freedom for the person because this obedience allows for
the acceptance of a plan or a will dierent from ones own that not only
does not deaden or lessen human dignity but is its basis.19
The paschal dimension of the consecrated life is of great importance
for it brings consecrated persons closer to the person of Jesus. Consecrated
life is not a life of comfort but a life in which the consecrated complete
in their esh what is lacking in Christs aictions (Col 1:24). They
constantly live in silent sacrice and abandonment to Gods holy will,
and in severe delity even as their strength and personal authority
19
Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic

Life, The Service of Authority and Obedience: Faciem tuam, Domine, requiram
(Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2008), p. 5.
103
wane.20 In doing this they add their own precious contribution by

joining themselves in their suerings to the patient and glorious Christ
through his body the Church.21 Paul knew what it means to suer for
Christ and for the Good News of our salvation.
Pauls hymn of love in 1 Cor 13:1-13 oers to all Christians and
in particular to all consecrated men and women, who have to share
their lives in common with one another, those virtues that make
community life possible. Pauls letters are rich in similar exhortation
to live in harmony with others (cf. Rom 12:9-21; 13:8-10; 14:1-12;
15:1-6; Gal 6:1-2; Eph 4:1-2; 1 Thess 4:9-12). The three vows are not
lived in isolation but in sharing with others in a constituted religious
community. Such common life is the acid test of the vows made to
God in the Church.
In his writings, Paul enjoins on all, particularly consecrated persons,
to live a life worthy of the calling they have received from God (Eph
4:1), and to grow towards that perfect stature of the body of Christ
(Eph 4:13).
VIII. Learning from Paul the Apostle

Consecrated persons learn from Paul to love Jesus above all and
to advance in this love all the days of their lives. They make Pauls
words their own: It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives
in me (Gal 2:20). His love for Jesus made him travel from one end
of the world to another in order to make him known to others. He
condently armed: For the love of Christ urges us on, because we
are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died (2 Cor
5:14). Paul did and endured all for the love he has for Jesus. His love
came from the conviction of having been loved by Jesus: For I am
convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
20
John Paul II, Vita Consacrata, p. 24.

Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic
Life, Starting Afresh from Christ: A Renewed Commitment to Consecrated Life in the
Third Millennium (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002), p. 6.
21
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Diwa 34 (2009): 87-105
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38-39).
As the Church celebrated the memories of the great apostle,
zealous missionary, dedicated Christian, and one who passionately
loved Jesus, she has beckoned all Christians in their varied states and
vocation within the Church to learn from Paul. He remains a model
and challenge to all consecrated men and women, who in their lives of
consecration strive to follow Christ more closely.
Pauls missionary zeal is an invitation to all consecrated persons to
renew their commitment to the Lord who has called each and everyone
into a particular religious family that has its charism and spirit. Each
charism is a participation in the life of the Lord and in his mission to
all humanity. Paul reminds all that there are varieties of gifts, but the
same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and
there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all
of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit
for the common good (1 Cor 12:4-7). Consecrated persons serve the
Lord in their varied gifts. Wherever they nd themselves is the place
where God is calling them to be missionaries, people sent to proclaim
the Good News. Many may not have the opportunity like Paul to
traverse deserts and seas. What the Lord requires of us is to give him
our best in humble services.
In a society where the spirit of sacrice is fast dying away and
disappearing even from the lifestyle of consecrated persons, we learn
from Paul who spent himself for the Gospel. Daily trials that are
intrinsic to the life of consecration should be endured with joy and
trust in him who out of mercy has called those whom he loves. Like
Paul, consecrated persons make theirs these words of consolation: We
are aicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to
despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus
may also be made visible in our bodies (2 Cor 4:8-10).
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IX. Conclusion
The events surrounding the death of Paul are not part of the accounts
given in the Acts of the Apostles. When he reached Rome, according
to the Acts, he lived under house arrest for some time, proclaiming the
kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ without
any hindrance (Acts 28:30-31). However, tradition relates that Paul
was beheaded in Rome during the persecution of Emperor Nero. This
persecution lasted from A.D. 64 until the death of the Emperor on
June 9, 68.22 Paul died towards the end of Neros life, and he was buried
on the Via Ostiense, near the site of the modern Basilica of Saint Paul
Outside the Walls.
While he rests until the resurrection of the dead when we shall
all become imperishable (cf. 1 Cor 15:42), his life and works live after
him. He continues his preaching through his inspiring letters. We
are beneciaries of his apostolic mission. Hence, we are challenged to
extend in our time this missionary activity with great passion and total
commitment.
22
Cf. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Paul, p. 1337.
Searching for Jesus at Christmas

JAMES H. KROEGER, M.M.
Loyola School of Theology
Quezon City, Philippines
nce or twice a year, usually around the season of Christmas or

Easter, many newspapers and popular newsmagazines (Time
or Newsweek) present an article on some aspect of Jesus or the
Judaeo-Christian faith. Often these features try to pique readers interest
by using attention-grabbing headlines. They ask: What is the true
Christmas Story? Why did Jesus have to die? How do Jews, Muslims, and
Buddhists view Jesus? Who was the real Jesus? Often the articles claim to
provide new and recent discoveries into the person and identity of Jesus.
Believing Christians can read these presentations with interest, but
they should realize that such popular portrayals of Jesus will probably
add little insight into their knowledge and practice of the faith. One
need not be alarmed by these magazine articles. Actually, the popularity
of such material shows the continuing interest on a broad public scale
in the person and mission of Jesus. Also, as adult believers, we admit
that we do have many recurring questions about Jesus and his meaning
for our lives and for the life of the world. Where can we and should we
look for answers to our questions? Where should we search?
At this point, I oer a word of disclosure, telling you who I am.
Thus, what I write in this presentation, which will explore some dicult
questions, will be anchored into a solid foundation. I am a man of
faith, a Catholic priest, serving in the Philippines for four decades.
I have taught Christology [theology of the person and mission of
Jesus Christ] for over thirty years in several schools of theology, major
seminaries, and catechetical centers. My personal library contains well
J. H. Kroeger, Searching for Jesus at Christmas
107
over one hundred books on Christology, and I have published numerous

articles and books on the subject. In short, I write as a believer, a man
of the Church.
I. Beginning the Search

For Christians, the primary written source of faith in the person
of Jesus is Sacred Scripture, the Gospels in particular. We rely on four
books included in the New Testament: the Gospels of Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John. Just about everything that the Christian Church
teaches about Jesus comes through the Gospels. These Gospels, in
turn, serve as a criterion of truth and authenticity for the Churchs
teaching about Jesus.
Because the Gospels are the central sources for understanding
Jesus, one has to ask: What is a Gospel? Parenthetically, readers will
note that before addressing specic questions about Jesus, it is necessary
to examine some general foundations upon which our faith is based.
Gospel derives from Old English meaning good spell/news; this
translates the Greek eu (good) and angelion (news, announcement). As
good news, the Gospels communicate the message of Gods saving
action in Christ and the accounts of Jesus activity produced by the
early Church.
A Gospel is a very unique kind of written literature; it is a genre of
writing that is dierent from other literary forms. Thus, a Gospel is
not simply a biography in the modern sense of that term (a detailed
account of someones life); it is also not history in the sense of a
chronological presentation of a series of events. Yet, the Gospels contain
both biographical and historical elements. However, Gospels are
written from another perspective and with another motive in mind.
Simply, a Gospel can be described as a faith summary. Gospels
contain material that will lead readers to know and lovein faiththe
person of Jesus. This means that biographical and historical materials
are at the service of the primary purpose of the Gospels: coming to a
loving knowledge and experience of Jesus. The Gospels aim to help us
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Diwa 34 (2009): 106-121
in knowing and encountering Jesus personally, not just knowing many

factual details about him.
Another simple way to express the nature of the Gospels is to
accept that they were written from faith to faith. The Gospels
emerged from the living faith of the evangelists and the early Church.
They were written to faith, to engender and strengthen the faith of
believers. The evangelists (Gospel writers) did not intend to supply
every detail about the life of Jesus; rather, they chose to include those
stories which would best serve the promotion of the faith. At heart,
Gospels are proclamation, not biography nor history. This insight is
well expressed by John the Evangelist: There were many other signs
that Jesus worked and the disciples saw, but they are not recorded in
this book. These are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing this you may have life
through his name (John 20:30-31).
II. Composing Gospels

Related to the nature and purpose of the Gospels, questions may
arise about how and when the Gospels were written. Here the Catholic
Church has provided solid guidance on the actual writing process,
explaining the coming-to-be of the four Gospels that we accept as
the inspired Word of God. Again, this background material will serve
to anchor our many Christmas-time questions about the person
of Jesus, questions which will be addressed in the later part of this
presentation.
Christians believe that the authors of the Bible (both Old and New
Testaments) were inspired, or guided, by the Holy Spirit. According
to Roman Catholic theology, this does not mean that God spoke to
the biblical authors directly, as one might dictate a letter to a secretary.
Neither did the evangelists have modern equipment such as a tape
recorder to capture the verbatim words of Jesus. Rather, our Church
holds that these inspired texts are writings whose authors, prompted by
the Holy Spirit, convey Gods revealed truth using their own abilities,
words, and styles. This is clearly evident in each of the four Gospels;
109
for example, Johns literary style diers from that of Matthew, Mark,
and Luke.
In short, Scripture contains Gods Word in human words. God
is the ultimate author of the Scriptures; the truth that God conveys in
and through them is reliable; we can securely build our faith upon these
written scriptures as they are interpreted within the faith community
of the Church.
It is this same Catholic Church that encourages the use of historicalcritical scholarship to better penetrate the full meaning of Gods Word.
Since the 1943 magna carta of Catholic biblical scholarship (Divino
Aante Spiritu), Scripture studies have ourished in the Churchall
to the benet of believers. The Church encourages its biblical scholars
and theologians to employ scientic approaches to delve deeper into
the full meaning of Gods revealed message in the Scriptures.
The Church accepts that the Gospels are, in fact, not literal,
chronological accounts of the words and deeds of Jesus. Our Gospels are
the products of a faith-development in early Christianity. They emerged
through a three-stage process that moves (a) from the ministry and oral
preaching of Jesus, (b) through the oral preaching of the apostles, and
(c) nally to the actual writing of the Gospels as we know them. This
understanding is echoed in the revelation document coming from the
Second Vatican Council. This fact does not imply in any sense that
the Gospels are not reliable sources. Today it is generally accepted that
the Gospels were written in this order: Mark (60s), Matthew and Luke
(70s-80s), and John (90s).
III. Are the Gospels Historical?

Although there are dicult questions that do not admit of easy, brief
answers, we must, in order to promote our faith, struggle to respond to
them. On the question of the historical nature of the Gospels [this will
directly aect our understanding of the Christmas stories], we can get
help by using two German words that give us insight into the nature
of history.
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Diwa 34 (2009): 106-121
History can validly be understood through two dierent, yet

interrelated, perspectives. Historisch (historical) designates the facts of
the past that can be demonstrated by documents and critically analyzed
by the methods of scientic history. Geschichtlich (historic) refers to the
same event(s) but focuses on the signicance and importance of that fact
for a certain group of people. In simpler language, historisch focuses on
the plain historical data [what happened], whereas geschichtlich seeks its
deeper signicance [what meaning does it have].
Some simple examples may prove helpful. As a missionary in the
Philippines for forty years, there are several dates that are important
for me (and all Filipinos), but they would have no signicance to
otherseven for my own siblings who live in the United States. For
Filipinos, December 30, 1896 is signicant; it is the death of Jose Rizal,
our national hero. The proclamation of Martial Law happened on
September 21, 1972with grave consequences for Filipinos. Ninoy
Aquino was assassinated on August 21, 1983; the EDSA people-power
revolution unfolded in February 22-25, 1986; Cory Aquino died on
August 1, 2009. Most Filipinos know these dates almost instinctively.
Yet, these same events would not be remembered by someone from
Italy, Canada, or Indonesia.
Here we see the importance and dierence between historisch and
geschichtlich. The historical facts and dates I have just mentioned are
true, factual history. However, they only have special meaning and
importance for Filipinos; they are seared into the consciousness of the
Filipino people. While true facts of history, they mean little or nothing
to non-Filipinos. Similarly, the Gospels have signicant meaningbut
only for believing Christians.
IV. Evangelists: Pastoral Theologians

Moving back to our discussion of the Gospels, we come to appreciate
that the evangelists were not primarily interested in presenting a
detailed historical chronology of Jesus life; nor were they interested
in providing a comprehensive biography of Jesus and his family. The
Gospel writers focused primarily on presenting the importance and
111
meaning of Jesus for believing Christians. Thus, while not denying or

falsifying the historisch (historical data and facts), the main interest of
the Gospels is to show the geschichtlich (signicance) of this man Jesus
for us and for our salvation. The Gospel writers focused primarily on
promoting faith in Jesus; that is why the Gospels are not primarily
history or biography. They are faith summaries; they are written
based on the evangelists faith with the purpose that we too would
come to faith in Jesus.
To achieve this goal of faith promotion, each evangelist shaped
his Gospel dierently. Matthew, writing for Jewish Christians, often
demonstrates by the use of Old Testament quotations that the scriptures
are fullled in the person and work of Jesus. Mark seeks to emphasize
that Jesus is manifested as the crucied Messiah, frequently rejected
by the people. Lukes Gospel is shaped by his religious mentality; he
is a faithful recorder of Jesus loving-kindness. The whole of Johns
thought is dominated by the mystery of the Incarnation.
Each of the Gospels is unique and adopts varied theological emphases,
while remaining focused on the person of Jesus. This was done so that
the message of Jesus would better reach the intended audience. In this
sense, I call the evangelists pastoral theologians, because they pastorally
shaped and focused their theological message with their audience in
mind. Matthew, for example, quoted the Old Testament frequently so
that his Jewish Christian audience would more easily come to faith in
Jesus. Although we have four canonical Gospels, they all coalesce to
produce an integrated Gospel portrait of the person of Jesus.
V. The Historical Jesus Question

Several questions may still logically arise in the minds of readers
even after our discussion of the nature and purpose of the Gospels.
These and similar questions may be posed: Who is the real Jesus?
How can I meet him? Is it really necessary for me to know many
details about the historical Jesus? How can I avoid all this complicated
discussion about Jesus? Is it possible that all these technical matters
will actually endanger my faith?
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Diwa 34 (2009): 106-121
Over the past several decades, the Church has seen the emergence
of Jesus research or historical Jesus studies. Stated simply, these
investigations seek to surface the knowable historical data about Jesus
of Nazareth. Thus, the historical Jesus refers to Jesus of Nazareth in
so far as the course of his earthly life can be constructed by historical
critical methods. John P. Meier, Catholic priest and biblical scholar,
is the foremost author on this topic; he has already published four
massive volumes in the continuing series A Marginal Jew: Rethinking
the Historical Jesus. It is noteworthy that Meiers work is published with
an imprimatur, meaning that it is completely consistent with the faith
of the Church.
Meier makes a very helpful distinction in the use of various terms,
providing clarity of thought and safeguarding the basis of our faith.
He distinguishes between the real Jesus, the historical Jesus, and the
theological Jesus. Briey, the historical Jesus is a modern theoretical
construction of the data of Jesus life, depending heavily on his last two
or three years here on earth. The theological Jesus is the interpretation
applied to the risen Jesus by the early Christian community and by the
Gospel writers themselves. The real Jesus, while certainly in continuity
with that Jesus who lived on earth 2,000 years ago and anchored in the
Churchs theological formulations, is the living, crucied-risen Jesus
that Christians now personally encounter through the mediation of
the Church. All too often people mix all three, especially equating
the historical Jesus with the real Jesus. They often think that if they
knew every detail about the historical Jesus, they would get to the real
Jesus.
Where is this real Jesus, the crucied-risen Lord, to be encountered
and experienced? Through the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church,
Christians todayyou and Iencounter the living person of Jesus
in the Sacred Scriptures, our prayer, Church teaching, liturgy and
sacraments, and charitable deeds of service for our brothers and sisters.
In other words, for example, a believer, coming to the Gospels in private
prayer or in the liturgy of the Church, encounters the real Jesus, and
that believer does not have to have special academic studies about the
historical Jesus.
113
Although the historical Jesus is an intellectual construct, such

knowledge is helpful for educated Christians in the modern world.
I believe that many an ordinary persons faith can be enriched and
nourished by understanding the historical Jesus. I am also sure that
my loving parents had a deep faith-encounter with Jesus, while never
exploring such questions as I address in this presentation. John Meier
writes: For a Catholic, the full reality of Jesus Christ is mediated
through many channels. My faith in Christ does not rise or fall
with my attempts to state what I can or cannot know about Jesus of
Nazareth by means of modern historical research.
VI. Serving the Faith

The historical Jesus, while not the object or essence of faith, can
serve the interests of faith in several ways. First, it guards against any
attempt to reduce faith in Christ to an ideal, a timeless archetype, a
model to be imitated. Jesus, a real human person, walked the face
of this earth. As stated by the Second Vatican Council: He worked
with human hands. He thought with a human mind, acted by human
choice, and loved with a human heart (GS 22).
Secondly, accepting the historical Jesus means that we will not be
tempted to reduce Jesus to his divine nature alone; we must accept
his full humanity along with his full divinity. Thirdly, knowing
the historical Jesus means that we cannot reduce him to our image,
making him into either a comfortable bourgeois gure or a politicalsocial reformer. Jesus refuses to be contained in the boxes we create
for him.
Finally, our understanding of the historical Jesus can serve the
faith, because the insights gained can help us, especially those who
preach on the Word of God, perform our task of proclamation better.
For example, knowing background on the Samaritans will help the
evangelizer better explain Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke
10:29-37), his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John
4:5-42), or his experience with the one grateful leper (Luke 17:11-19).
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Diwa 34 (2009): 106-121
VII. Christmas Stories in the Gospels

Now, at long last, we turn to a discussion of the infancy narratives,
as the Gospel stories of Jesus early years are known. It may come as a
shock to many Christians that Matthew and Luke are the only sources
of knowledge we have about Jesus infancy; it may even be a greater
shock to realize that the two Gospels contain many dierences.
Some authors have tried to reconcile or harmonize the dierences
between Luke and Matthewan invalid and fruitless approach to
biblical study. The fact of existing, diverging stories and varied emphases
of the two evangelists forces us to recall that the primary purpose of
a Gospel is not to provide an exact chronological or historical account
of events; rather, these evangelists were trying to teach us about the
religious message on which they both agree.
The core message of the infancy narratives is focused on the
identity of Jesus. Both Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus descent
is traced genealogically through Joseph; Jesus is truly a Son of David.
Both evangelists agree that Mary conceived Jesus, not through sexual
relations with Joseph, but by the creative power of the Holy Spirit;
Jesus is truly the Son of God. This dual identity, Son of David and
Son of God, is important for our understanding of the Gospel as good
news. Who is the Messiah born for us and for our salvation? He is a
descendant of David and the unique Son of God.
There are many other Gospel aspects about the identity of Jesus that
are found in the infancy narratives. For example, Jesus true identity can
be known only through Gods revelation. In both Matthew and Luke
Jesus identity is initially proclaimed by an angel as Gods messenger.
And, once his identity has been revealed, the news is quickly shared
with others. In Matthew the revelation given to Joseph is made known
to the Gentile magi; in Luke the revelation given to Mary is made
known to the Jewish shepherds. The identity of the Messiah has been
revealed to the entire world, to various classes of people, to Jews and
Gentiles alike.
Indeed, Mary and Joseph do not keep Jesus identity as a private
possession; this is good news and it is meant to be shared with the
115
entire world. Note that Matthew and Luke tell dierent stories with
the same purpose. In other words, the stories have theological meaning
and faith signicance [geschichtlich]; they are not merely providing
factual or biographical data [historisch]. This does not mean that they
are less valuable or untrue. On the contrary, they convey deep truths
about Jesus, his identity, and his mission.
VIII. Not Merely Childrens Stories

Once we perceive the deep theology and faith proclamation found
in the infancy narratives, we come to see that we should not treat these
narratives as if they were simply sweet little stories for children. The
infancy accounts of Matthew and Luke are intended for believing
adultsfor you and me, to strengthen our maturing faith!
The foremost authority on the infancy narratives is Raymond E.
Brown, a Catholic priest and eminent biblical scholar; twice he has been
appointed a member of the Roman Pontical Biblical Commission, by
Pope Paul VI in 1972 and by Pope John Paul II in 1996. His massive
volume of nearly 600 pages, The Birth of the Messiah, is a comprehensive
commentary on the infancy narratives; it has an imprimatur. Brown
popularized his insights in a 50-page pamphlet of essays on the biblical
Christmas stories, bearing the title An Adult Christ at Christmas.
Allow me to take one dimension of the Christmas narrative and
show how it speaks of an adult faith that recognizes the presence of God
in the birth of the messiah. We can imagine the nativity scene, since
we vividly portray it in our Christmas cribs. Jesus is born in a stable,
placed in a manger, and even an ox and an ass are present. This scene
has a direct connection to the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament,
where we read of Yahwehs lament against his unfaithful people: Hear,
O heavens, and listen, O earth, for the Lord is speaking: I reared sons,
I brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. An ox knows its
owner and an ass, its masters manger; yet, Israel knows nothing, my
people understand nothing (Isa 2:2-3).
When Luke the Evangelist speaks three times of the manger where
Jesus is laid and where the shepherds nd him (Luke 2:7, 12, 16), he is
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Diwa 34 (2009): 106-121
portraying the fulllment of the Old Testament. In other words, when

people of faith (as humble as the ox and ass) see the babe in the manger,
they, unlike faithless Israel, are to recognize the presence of God,
their Lord and Savior. This is simply one examplethere are many
otherswhere Jesus is portrayed as the summation and fulllment of
Israels history and destiny. Another clear example would be the rst
seventeen verses of Matthews Gospel that narrate the Jewish ancestry
of Jesus. In a word, Jesus sums up and fullls Israels story. To believe
this requires mature, adult faith.
IX. Theology-lled Stories

Our discussion has opened many new doors to understand the
nature and purpose of the Gospels, the role of the evangelists, questions
of the historical Jesus, the infancy narratives, and the need for an
adult faith at Christmas. What conclusions, then, should we draw
from these discussions?
First of all, we should treat the opening chapters of Matthew and
Luke respectfully for what they are: stories which embody a theology.
This means that the legitimate questions we should ask of these chapters
are theological ones. For example, as Catholics we have become
accustomed to see that the creation stories in Genesis do not intend to
communicate literal, historical, and scientic truth (e.g., Noahs ark);
similarly the infancy narratives, so full of symbols and images, are
focused primarily on communicating the truth of Jesus identity, his
person and mission. Indeed, Gospels are faith summaries, written
for us and for our salvation.
Does this mean that our historical questions should not be asked?
Does it mean that the Christmas stories have no biographical basis at
all? Did Matthew and Luke simply invent everything? Obviously,
the response to all these questions is no. Yet, following biblical
exegetes, we should focus our attention on the theology of the infancy
narratives. We continue our search for Jesus [see Appendices A-B-C
for a treatment of some special questions]. In our quest, we remain
focused on comprehending the core truths of faith, the theological
117
assertions, which the infancy narratives communicate: Jesus, messianic

king of the House of David and Gods unique Son, was truly born of
the Virgin Mary!
God always extends his mercy and revelation to everyone, to
all who seek him, especially to the lowly, to Jews and Gentiles, to
shepherds and magi. Am I willing to imitate Mary who treasured
all these things and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19)? Will I
follow the magi who oered their gifts as they fell on their knees and
did Him homage (Matt 2:11)?
----------------
Appendix A: Known Facts of Jesus Life

The sources of information about the Jesus of history are limited.
One also notes that what modern historical investigation can recover
about Jesus is only part of the full portrait of the Jesus of history; there
are many things that Jesus said and did to which modern historical
research has no access. Within these limits, a common consensus can
be drawn, a portrait to which most scholars would agree.
Jesus was a Palestinian Jew, born of a woman named Mary married
to Joseph. He lived in the rst third of the rst century, having been
born in the last days of Herod the Great (37-4 BC). He lived most
of his adult life in Galilee, originating in the small farming hamlet of
Nazareth and later, during his public ministry, in the region of the Sea
of Galilee with Capernaum as his base. He and his father appear to
have been craftsmen.
Jesus was a devout Jew, an itinerant preacher who used parables
and stories eectively. The leitmotif of his message was the coming
of Gods reign, a traditional Jewish metaphor of transformation and
renewal that Jesus had adapted from the preaching of John the Baptist,
whose mission had in some way inspired Jesus own ministry. He
gathered about him a group of disciples, prominent among who were
Simon bar Jonah and his brother Andrew, and the two sons of Zebedee,
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Diwa 34 (2009): 106-121
John and James. The formation of the twelve was a choice of Jesus
himself in his ministry.
The mission of Jesus was virtually conned to Jews and Jewish
territory. In both his teachings and healings, Jesus extended a radical
welcome to sinners and other marginalized people; his was a barrierbreaking ministry. This inclusive aspect of his message was also
communicated by table-fellowship with a large variety of people
including his close followers.
Jesus message, including his liberal interpretation of the Law
and his open association with sinners, provoked opposition from
many Jewish religious leaders such as the Pharisees. Eventually, Jesus
and his message came to the attention of the Roman authorities in
Jerusalem. The Gospels imply a public action in the temple by Jesus.
This triggered the apprehension of the authorities and led to his arrest.
Jesus crucixion by the Romans happened during the procuratorship
of Pontius Pilate (AD 23-36) and the high priesthood of Caiaphas (AD
18-36); he was buried the same day. Participation by Jewish religious
authorities in the death of Jesus remains a debated question.
Days later, on the rst day of the week, his tomb was found empty,
and his followers reported appearances of him alive, as raised from
the dead (e.g., Matt 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-20; Luke 24:1-53; John 20:129, 21:1-23; 1 Cor 15:5-8).
As mentioned earlier, virtually all modern biblical scholars would
agree on this minimal historical description of Jesus of Nazareth.
However, when one begins to ll in this minimal sketch with more
details, the consensus breaks down. I conclude with a clarication: this
overview is a composite portrait of the historical Jesus drawn from two
Catholic biblical experts, Joseph Fitzmyer, SJ and Donald Senior, CP.
Appendix B: Dating Jesus Birth

In reality, we do not know when Jesus was bornneither the year,
the month, nor the day. However, the core of Christian faith strongly
arms that he was born of the Virgin Mary. Saint Paul asserts that
119
when the appointed time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman
(Gal 4:4). Matthew notes that Jesus had been born at Bethlehem in
Judaea during the reign of King Herod (Matt 2:1). Luke records that
she gave birth to a son, her rst-born (Luke 2:7). Since King Herod
died in 4 BC, best estimates place Jesus birth somewhere in the range
of 6-4 BC.
Often it was thought that Jesus birth divided all time, and so his
birth was xed in year 1 BC or AD 1 (historians do not agree). This
calculation, which was mistaken, was made by Dionysius Exiguus, a
monk from Russia, who had been asked by Pope John I in AD 525 to
calculate new cycles for the date of Easter. Dionysius miscalculations
were not discovered until the ninth century. Having a system in use
for several centuries, it was decided not to try to re-date everything in
the calendar.
In addition to the Gospels, there are several secular witnesses
attesting to the true existence of Jesus, though they record nothing
specically about his birth. Three Roman writers arm Jesus actual
existence here on earth: (a) Suetonius, a compiler of biographies of
the Roman emperors; (b) Tacitus, the historian who wrote the Annals;
and, (c) Pliny the Younger, politician and writer, who served as imperial
legate in Bithynia.
The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus (37-100? AD), author of the
Jewish Antiquities (20 volumes) and the Jewish War, speaks of Jesus
twice in his Antiquities (volumes 18 and 20). When Josephus writes
about the life of Pontius Pilate, he mentions Jesus and gives a detailed
reference, conrming that Pilate condemned him to the cross.
Modern historians August Franzen and John Dolan in A History
of the Church (page 3) note that Non-Christian sources attest to the
historical existence of Jesus. [These records] are reliable and historically
conclusive, and we may admit them as trustworthy evidence.
Christian faith, founded upon certainthough limitedhistorical
evidence, is rmly established on solid ground, both from Christian as
well as secular sources and documents.
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Diwa 34 (2009): 106-121
Appendix C: Celebrating Christmas Day

Traditionally, the Roman or Western Church celebrates Christmas
on December 25, whereas the Eastern Church holds the feast on
January 6. However, December 25 is not the historical anniversary
of Christs nativity; that date is simply unknown. What explains the
choice of a December date by the Roman Church?
Christmas is a light feast; this is shown by its position in the
calendar. The choice of December 25 is based on symbolism, not
historical fact. In the Northern hemisphere, the winter solstice, the
time that the sun is farthest from the equator, is December 21, making
it the shortest day of the year. From June 21 until December 21,
daylight time continually gets shorter and shorter; darkness seems to be
conquering the world. Then, on December 21 that pattern is reversed;
it is the end of darkening days and the beginning of lengthening light,
a sign of renewal.
Ancient peoples perceptively observed these movements in nature;
they often incorporated them into their religious belief and practices.
For those associated with the mystery religion of Mithras, this date
meant the Day of the Invincible Sun, Dies Solis Invicti. Ancient
Rome observed the Saturnalia (December 17-24), a festival of revelry
and feasting in celebration of the god Saturn and the winter solstice; it
concluded with Brumalia (December 25) which marked the birthday
of the unconquered Sun, Sol Invictus.
The Church adapted these natural phenomena and the traditional
secular-religious practices. In popular language, one could say that the
Church baptized them and used them to serve its own proclamation.
It appeared logical and appropriate to locate the birth of Christ at this
time. Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12). Christ is the true
Sun-god who overcomes and vanquishes the worlds darkness. Hence,
the feast of his birth is appropriately placed at that point of time when
the sun again begins its ascent.
There may have been good mission methodology in the Churchs
choice. Rather than seek to initiate a totally new festival, it was more
eective to capitalize on an existing celebration. The approach used
121
the rhythm of nature and traditional practices, but imbued them

with new meanings that express Christian faith and theology. This
approach ultimately proved successful; worldwide, Christmas is a
widely observed celebration, although admittedly in many parts it has
also become quite secularized.
The Gospel chosen for the Third Mass of Christmas Day (John
1:1-18) captures the fact that Christmas is a light feast. The light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. The
true light [Christ], which enlightens everyone, was coming into the
world. When we Christians celebrate Christmas, we are reminded of
Christs words: You are the light of the world. Let your light shine
in the sight of all, so that, seeing your good works, they may give praise
to your Father in heaven (Matt 5:14-16).
Benedict XVIs Motu Proprio:

Summorum Ponticum and Its
Historical Background
ROBERT B. FISHER, SVD
Society of the Divine Word
Bay St. Louis, MS, USA
ithout fanfare, with no press conference, on a quiet

Saturday on July 7, 2007, Benedict XVI signed a very brief,
4-page text, titled in Latin: Summorum Ponticum, (Of
Supreme Pontis), which may go down in the annals of his ponticate
as his most controversial legislative act. With one quick signing of his
papal name, Benedictus PP. XVI, the former theologian and professor,
Josef Ratzinger, enacted a sea-change in the history of the Church a
point of view he has long held to be correct and while the other view,
established by Pope Paul VI after Vatican II, has, according to then
Cardinal Ratzinger, inicted serious damage upon the Church.1
In the opening paragraphs of his document and in the cover letter
Benedict XVI sent to all the Churchs bishops, he suggests that his
actions are in line with the traditions of the Roman Church, that is
the church of the city and diocese of Rome presided over by the popes.
What is interesting, while appealing to historical orthodoxy in line
with the adage concerning the law of prayer, or the way the Church
1
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, quoted from a Catholic News Service article,

Paul VI Damaged the Church, in The Catholic Messenger (Davenport, IA, USA,
vol. 115:17. April 24, 1997), pp. 1, 10, by Nathan Mitchell, The Amen Corner:
Rereading Reform, Worship 71 (1997): 462.
R. B. Fisher, Benedict XVIs Motu Proprio
123
prays, how it inuences and eventually becomes the law of faith, or the
way the Church believeslex orandi, lex credendithe Pope appeals to
the example of Pope St. Gregory the Great (died in 602). Benedict XVI
says that Gregory made every eort to ensure that the new peoples of
Europe received both the Catholic faith and the treasures of worship
and culture that had been accumulated by the Romans in preceding
centuries.2 In actual fact, when Augustine of Canterbury complained
to Gregory that the Roman church celebrated the Mass one way and
the Gallican churches celebrated another way, Gregory responded:
You know the custom of the Roman church in which you
were brought up; cherish it lovingly. But as far as I am
concerned, if you have discovered something more pleasing
to almighty Godin the Roman or Gallican or any other
churchchoose carefully, gathering the best customs from
many dierent churches, and arrange them for use in the
church of the English. . . For we should love the things not
because of the places where they are found, but because of
the goodness they contain.3
Gregorys words reected what was actually the classic Roman

tradition at this time, in other words, a generous acceptance of cultural
dierence and liturgical variation within the unity of the faith.4 But
there was more than just this.
Historically, it must be noted, that the liturgical traditions of the
Western churches outside of Rome used Latin, but the Roman church
used Greek, the original language of the Christian Bible and of its
rst liturgies, until the time of Pope Damasus I in the late fourth
century (perhaps between 360 and 382). It was this same pope who
commissioned St. Jerome to translate the bible into Latin from the
2
Benedict XVI, Apostolic Letter on the Use of Preconciliar Liturgical Forms,

Motu Proprio, Summorum Ponticum, English translation, USCCB, Washington,
D.C., Newsletter, Committee on the Liturgy, vol. XLIII, May/June 2007, p. 17.
3
Nathan Mitchell, Amen Corner: Rereading Reform, p. 465.
4
Ibid., p. 466.
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Diwa 34 (2009): 122-137
Hebrew and Greek while drawing on strategies and resources of ordinary

colloquial speech (for which reason it is called the Vulgate, like vulgar,
meaning coarse or crude). Educated indigenous Romans found the
Latin bible rather crude, bizarre, barbaric, and even embarrassing.5
Hence, it was probably the more educated Roman clergy that
composed the rst Latin texts for the liturgy. The Old Roman Canon
of the Mass is a case in point. The style of the Roman Canon imitated,
in many respects, the formal, hieratic speech that characterized
prayer in pagan Rome. That means that it owed its hieratic tone more
to pagan models than to the language of the Latin bible. It was a
language marked by formality, rigidity, juridical precisions, solemnity
and elegance, rhythm and balance, and, above all, by a deliberate and
somewhat articial sacred quality. To the common persons ear, the
hieratic language sounded elevated and inated, perhaps the way the
King James Version of the bible sounds to us today with its archaic
vocabulary and word order. In other words, the Roman Canon was
hieratic precisely because it was totally inculturated into a purely
Roman context and precisely because it relied on secular rhetorical
strategies and not that it was deeply rooted in the language of the Latin
bible.6 The great Latinist Christine Mohrmann called the language of
the Roman Canon and other early Latin prayers expressions of gravitas
Romana, Roman solemnity. The same gravitas, she says, is found in
the old pagan Roman prayers which exhibit an almost compulsive need
to approach the deity with a juridically precise and politically correct
manner.7 As time progressed into the early Middle Ages, with the
Byzantinication of the papal liturgy in Rome, this arcane language
would t comfortably into the Roman scene with all the formal social
structures and etiquette required for dealing with the upper echelons of
Roman life.8 No wonder that a re-Latinization of English translations
5
Mitchell, Amen Corner: That Really Long Prayer, Worship 74 (2000): 474.
Ibid., pp. 474-75.
7
Ibid., pp. 475-76.
8
For a more thorough study of translations from Greek into Latin see: Maura
K. Laerty, Translating Faith from Greek to Latin: Romanitas and Christianitas
in Late Fourth-Century Rome and Milan, Journal of Early Christian Studies 11
(2003): 21-62.
6
125
from the Roman Missal would sound arcane, too, and perhaps amusing
at rst, and then annoying. (I am referring to the demand for literal
translations of Latin texts in the document Liturgiam authenticam,
issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline
of the Sacraments in March 2001). I cannot imagine how anyones
prayer life is going to be uplifted a mere millimeter by a return to
the precise legalisms of such words as: Quam oblationem, tu, Deus...
benedictam, adscriptam, ratam, rationabilem, acceptabilemque facere
digneris, each word of which is accompanied with a sign of the cross
made over the oerings. Our present translation does away with all
those repetitious Romanisms this way: Bless and approve our oering;
make it acceptable to you. . .9 That is all and it is enough. Anyway,
in the Tridentine Mass, no one hears the words and all one sees is the
elbow of the priest moving back and forth.
Moving forward to where we left o, at the time of Gregory the
Great in the rst half of the seventh century, Rome had experienced a
dramatic inux of Greek-speaking monks and clerics, many of them
refugees from Arab invasion and Monothelite persecutions. In their
wake, according to historians like Jerey Richards, there came a largescale introduction of the cults of Greek saints, Greek liturgical rites
and rituals, and even Greek institutions in Rome.10 No wonder Pope
Gregory had to defend himself against the accusation by Bishop John of
Syracuse in 598 of having permitted the Roman liturgy to be usurped
by Greek usages.11
9
The ICEL translation up to now has chosen a more Ambrosian simpler style,
less hieratic than the Old Roman Canon. Mitchell, p. 476. The Latin of Damasus was
intended to worship in a truly Roman manner and not to suggest any Christological
or Eucharistic motives. Our translations and so our celebrations cannot therefore be
as Roman as that, as the bishops at Vatican II Council noted when they called for
noble simplicity an SC 34. The antiquity of the Roman Canon is attested by the fact
that there is no epiclesis included.
10
Jerrey Richards, The Consul of God: The Life and the Times of Gregory the
Great (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 121. According to the Ordo
Romanus I, the pope asked on Easter morning, How many infants were baptized
in Latin and how many in Greek?
11
Mitchell, 71, 5, p. 466. Gregory defended himself saying that he was restoring
older Roman customs but had also introduced new and useful customs that are
practiced by others. In other words, there was no standardized single rite even in
126
Diwa 34 (2009): 122-137
The old urban liturgy continued to be celebrated in the parishes of

Rome with a very simple ritual and text. As we can still attest from the
old architecture of the oldest Roman churches in the city and outlying
areas, the altar was free-standing. The liturgy was symbolic of the
Roman community where the congregation and the clergy participated.
At the same time, in the seventh and eighth-century Rome, the papal
household at the Lateran (where the pope resided and where he had his
cathedra, or episcopal throne) grew eventually into what would be called
the Roman curia or papal government four centuries later. During the
long ponticate of Pope St. Vitalian (657-672), there was a period of
peaceful penetration and imitation of Byzantine ideas and culture. Its
results are apparent in the two most outstanding documents of Roman
ecclesiastical high society, the Ordo Romanus Primus (see below) and the
Liber diurnus, or the daily calendar. The papal liturgy, with its stational
churches in the city, was heavily inuenced by Byzantine usages,
which in turn drew the attention of Charlemagne and the Carolingian
West. The spreading of the papal books over Gaul and Lotharingia,
under the protection of the secular power of the new Roman Empire,
repeated itself later on through the Mendicant Orders.12 The so-called
Roman Rite evolved as a loose confederation, a conuence of urban
and papal practices, that were further hybridized especially, though
not exclusively, by Gallican and Germanic material imported from
north of the Alps. As the liturgical historian Stephan van Dijk asserts,
Research into ecclesiastical history of medieval Rome still labors under
the assumption that, from the time liturgical documents are available,
the city had a single rite. This assumption is so long-standing that it has
become almost venerable, not to say venerated. To put forward another
view is like driving a wedge into foundations of an ancient monument;
it forebodes destruction.13
In fact, in thirteenth-century Rome (around 1275), the city of Rome
knew four dierent customs or liturgical rites. Van Dijk lists these
Rome. As we shall see later, the rst time a single rite was introduced was at the
Council of Trent.
12
S.J.P. van Dijk, The Urban and Papal Rites in Seventh and Eighth-Century
Rome, Sacris Erudiri 12 (1961): 411-487.
13
Ibid., p. 415.
127
four that inuenced each other: (1) the liturgy of the papal court (used
by the papal sta at the Lateran palace and in the popes own private
chapel); (2) the basilica liturgy at St. Peters in the Vatican (a revision
of the Old Roman urban rite); (3) a new urban liturgy in the parishes
that combined elements from earlier urban and papal rites; and (4) the
liturgy of the Lateran basilica (served by a group of Canons Regular).14
Eventually, the liturgy of the papal court became, for a complex of
political and pastoral reasons, the one that most decisively shaped what
we now call the Roman liturgy. The Roman liturgy was well on
its way to becoming a spectacle performed by trained specialists rather
than a common prayer celebrated by people and ministers together,
rigid etiquette, Byzantine grandiosity, and refusal to permit any
variation, change, or improvisation and thus became symbols of papal
sovereignty in the West, turning the congregation into spectators and
listeners. The new papal rite excluded the congregation and was built
around the glorication of the pope.15
The Ordo Romanus I is an extremely important document because
it contains the rst full description of eucharistic worship in Rome. It
describes the major structures of the Roman church and its internal
organization, its stational liturgies, which were celebrated by the pope
or his representative at certain city parishes on designated days in the
calendar, the precedence among the various prelates and nobility, and
the description of the papal cavalcade. In the Middle Ages, the solemn
or high Mass, episcopal or parochial, was a direct descendent of this
papal liturgy and even the so-called private Mass was merely a version of
it, according to Cyrille Vogel.16 That version of the Roman rite in time
came to dominate all other rites in the West to represent and reinforce
the prestige, powers, and personality of the presider, whether the pope,
the bishop, or the priest.17 This was the Roman rite, a descendent of
14
Ibid., pp. 416-21.

Richards, The Consul of God, p. 121.
16
Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, revised and
trans. William G. Storey and Niels K. Rasmussen (Washington, D.C.: The Pastoral
Press, 1986), p. 155.
17
It is predictable that when the missal of Paul VI appeared in 1970, presiders
continued to behave as though they were the center of liturgical gravity. Such clericalcentricity is probably why many young priests want to re-introduce the Tridentine
15
128
Diwa 34 (2009): 122-137
Byzantine imperial court ritual, that survived in the medieval ordines

of the papal court, was diused throughout Europe (especially through
the activity and inuence of the Mendicant friars, Franciscan and
Dominican), served as the basis for the Tridentine missal of 1570,
where one size t all, and continued in use until Vatican II. It is this
missal along with the other liturgical books from the 16th century, that
Benedict XVI wants to revive. What is called Latin is in name only
because the language in the missal is the medieval version of the Latin
language. After all, the new Vatican II missal is published in Latin
and may be celebrated in Latin as it is still done in the contemporary
papal Masses in St. Peters Square. The Roman liturgy, known as
the Tridentine Mass, is simply a mixture of dierent rites Rome has
adopted and adapted over the centuries. Prior to the Council of Trent,
liturgical normalcy in the western churches was characterized by
local variation, as far as ritual was concerned. For example, it was
a general practice to put the altar away from the wall in the apse of
the church building so that the celebrant could face the east, toward
the rising sun. This gesture was meant to honor Christ (the Sun)
and his city, Jerusalem (the East). Facing east was a greater priority
than facing toward the people.18 But in some Carolingian churches,
like Centula (709), Saint Gall (830), Mainz cathedral (978), and at the
older Canterbury cathedral, celebrations of the Mass were in the westend apse facing eastward into the body of the church and, therefore,
toward the people. Like so many other Carolingian practices, there was
a deliberate desire to imitate the Roman basilicas in the more Romano,
the Roman fashion.19
Yet, in 1993, Cardinal Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation of
the Faith, stated that in eect he believed that Mass facing the assembly
is a mistake and that there are strong theological reasons for returning
Mass. See Vogel, ibid., pp. 155-156.
18
Jaime Lara, Versus Populum Revisited, Worship 68 (1994): 210-221; here
215.
19
The new Rite for Christian Initiation of Adults revived many of the fourth
and fth century baptismal practices. One that it did not was where the candidates
faced east during their profession of faith. Luckily, neither did the RCIA restore the
historically accurate practice of spitting toward the west while renouncing Satan. Not
everything from tradition would pass muster according to modern sensibilities.
129
to the pre-Vatican II position in which the priest presided at the altar

(no chair) with his back to the congregation. His idea is that the whole
congregation is being guided in procession by the priest in the lead
facing toward God the Father with Christ on the altar.20 This is purely
his concoction and has no basis in the tradition of theology nor in the
history of church architecture. Only from Trent on, do we nd churches
being built where the congregation was behind the celebrant, as it were.
About fty churches were built in Rome since Trent and before Vatican
II. The most outstanding of them all, built in true Baroque style, is the
Jesuit church, the Ges.
It is true, however, that after Vatican II liturgical reforms, both
clergy and laity mistakenly believed they were given the license to be
free of all rubrics. Where there was silence before, the priest thought
he should vocalize everything from beginning to the end of the Mass.
Where there were restricted gestures, the priest either used no gestures
or very few of them, or was all over the church, hugging people at the
sign of peace, and wildly gesticulating or dancing to no end. Where
there were prayers and readings out of the one missal, now there was
improvisation of prayers, including long prayers of the faithful that
sometimes turned into sermons meant for someone in attendance, or
readings from non-biblical sources. And horror of horrors, there was
the introduction of popular folk songs from the 1960s with guitars
and psychedelic vestments. Some say, instead of bread and wine, they
used Coke and pretzels, or whatever one might nd served on airlines!
In short, while the Tridentine missal encouraged a clergy-centered, in
particular imperial presider-centered, liturgy embellished with gravitas
Romana, with deacons, sub-deacons, schola cantorum, and extra
professionals, and the people were in the pews praying their devotions
(where rural and small parishes still sang 1950s devotional hymns,
like Mother Dear, Oh Pray For Me at communion time) or being
distracted with what other people were wearing, on the other hand,
the Mass of Paul VI continued the cult of personality with presider
as chatty-show-host, perhaps leading an ensemble of rock bands or
gospel choirs (in the Neo-Baptist Revivalist tradition) really doing their
20
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as reported in the April 24, 1993 Italian magazine,
Il Sabato, and as reported in the USA Catholic News Service, April 26, 1993.
130
Diwa 34 (2009): 122-137
own thing, clapping and dancing for the entertainment of the crowd.
There has not been much change except for an update in the style.
This model was quite visible in the papal Masses of Pope John Paul
II, especially during his world tours. Whether in the solemn halls of
the Sistine chapel with its boy choirs of the castrati, or in the concert
halls or ball parks with their blasting loud speakers, the Mass has more
or less remained the same. In many ways, nothing has really changed
since the Tridentine Mass was in vogue.21
Yet then Cardinal Ratzinger was highly scandalized by such antics.
He was listening to many petitions and complaints not only from
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and his worldwide schismatic Fraternity of
St. Pius X and the Traditionalist Seminary at Econe in France back in
the 1970s, but from other traditionalist groups, such as the Legionaires
of Christ and certain lay groups nostalgic for the mystery they claim
has been lost by the Vatican II Mass in the Missal promulgated by
Pope Paul VI in 1970. Here in the United States we can think of all
those who read the newspaper The Wanderer, and other conservative
magazines, newspapers and organizations, like Una Voce America.22
Lefebvrism, one might say, is based on an older ecclesiology, for the
archbishop had declared that Vatican II is the illegitimate fruit of
the adulterous union of the Church with the French Revolution;
thus to him the three cardinal principles of the Revolution of 1789
that abolished the monarchy, namely, liberty, equality, and fraternity
(libert, galit, fraternit) were at the root of the three principles
of Vatican II, namely, religious liberty (thus allowing freedom of
21
To be fair, Ratzinger is right to insist that the subject of the liturgy is not us
with all our planning of a theme, but God and Christ. Liturgy means the same
as Opus Dei, Gods work. Perhaps, Ratzinger had in mind the German, Gottesdienst,
which expresses the double nature of the liturgy, the service God does for us and the
service that we do for God.
22
To get an idea of the many complaints Rome receives, look at all the list
of more serious crimes, grave matters, and other abuses found in the spring
2004 instruction of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of
the Sacraments, Redemptionis Sacramentum, While many of these abuses may have
occurred, it does not seem appropriate for a knee-jerk reaction that airs them all
publicly and to threaten the whole Church world-wide with the consequences.
131
conscience), collegiality of pope and bishops (thus abolishing the papal

monarchy), and ecumenism (thus fraternizing with Protestants). The
archbishop described John Paul II as a modernist pope. The rejection
of the liturgical reforms of Vatican II became for the schismatics
the symbol for all they stood for. In their eyes, the rites of Vatican
II were bastard sacraments performed by bastard priests. The
archbishop seemed quite fond of mild profanity to get his point across.
He made the Tridentine Latin Liturgy the battle ag of all else he
rejected at Vatican II. John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger bent over
backwards to try to accommodate the archbishop and his some half
million followers. In May 1988, Cardinal Ratzinger signed a protocol
with Archbishop Lefebvre which accorded the Fraternity of St. Pius
X the status of a Society of Apostolic Life, granting it exemption
from diocesan oversight. In all that concerns worship, the society was
allowed the right to use liturgical rituals in use before the reforms of
Vatican II. But in June of 1988, the archbishop, having repented of
his signature of the Protocol, ordained four bishops and thus incurred
excommunication automatically. As a result, John Paul II issued an
Apostolic Letter, Ecclesia Dei, which implemented the provisions of the
May protocol. The letter also set up a nine-member commission that
would try to bring back Lefebvres people plus oversee with respect
all those whose feelings hankered for the old Latin Mass, as granted in
the letter Quattuor abhinc annos, issued in October 1984, which gave
the right to bishops to approve regular celebrations of the Tridentine
liturgy for those Catholics who request it.23 This is the background of
these two documents Benedict XVI mentions in his Motu Proprio. The
same commission, Ecclesia Dei, is mentioned there as overseeing the
implementation of the new Motu Proprios provisions.
So, when Cardinal Ratzinger looked out over the whole Church,
he was highly displeased at what he saw as revealed in all the negative
23
This decree was issued almost in spite of the fact that the Latin Rite bishops,
responding to a survey in June 1980, insisted that there was no desire for a Latin
Mass and that even a limited restoration of theTridentine Mass was not desirable,
especially if the latter were portrayed as a separate-but-equal alternative. See
Notitiae, vol. 17 (December 1981) 587-611. Here the pope overrode the sense of the
global episcopacy in permitting the Tridentine Mass.
132
Diwa 34 (2009): 122-137
reports. In his anger he lashed out at what had been done by Paul VI
and Vatican II. In April 1997, the cardinal opined that the drastic
manner in which Paul VI reformed the Mass provoked extremely
serious damage to the Church. In another of his writings about his
own experience, Ratzinger lamented the wholesale replacement of one
liturgy for another. I am convinced, he wrote, that the ecclesial
crisis in which we nd ourselves today depends in great part on the
collapse of the liturgy.24 While Ratzinger admits that many of the
postconciliar reforms represent authentic improvements and a real
enrichment, he also admits of being dismayed by the ban on the old
[1570] missal, since such a development has never been seen in the history
of liturgy [emphasis added]. Apparently, Ratzinger wished to align
himself with the hermeneutic of consistent historical orthodoxy, as he
seems to claim in his Motu Proprio. He said back then in 1997 that
liturgies are formed through history, not produced by professional
specialists (liturgists?) and curial potentates (like the members of the
advisory commission called Consilium chaired by Cardinal Giacomo
Lecaro of Bologna and assisted by Archbishop Annibale Bugnini).
Yet, if he admitted that liturgy is formed by history, there is some
contradiction in his comments about Paul VI and the damage he
is said to have inicted upon the Church. The cardinal regretted that
after Vatican II the old [liturgical] structure was dismantled and its
pieces were used to construct another.25 Yet, we can contradict this
mistaken statement about the history of the liturgy and show from
history that no ecumenical council prior to Trent ever commissioned
a pope to reform the breviary and missal, and so create a single
standard invariably uniform liturgy for the entire Latin West.
But that is practically what the Council of Trent did, as Pope Pius
V conrmed in Quo primum (the apostolic constitution printed in
all ocial editions of the Missal of 1570). As is tting, wrote Pope
Pius V, and suitable, the missal should correspond to the breviary, for
there ought to be one rite of celebrating Mass. This is interesting that
the breviary should set the standard. The reason for this is that the
24
Ratzinger in the CNS story quoted in note 1. See also the Cardinals Milestones:
Memoires 1927-1977 (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1998): 148-49.
25
Ibid.
133
Roman curia invented an abbreviated form of the liturgical hours as

celebrated by cathedral canons as distinct from that used by monks. At
the dawn of printed books, this pocket book edition was used by the
curia and adopted by the Mendicant Friars to be used by them when
not living in community. Its calendar was Roman and not monastic
or diocesan. So also, Pius thought that the new missal should be an
abbreviated printed text containing the whole liturgical year in one
volume, including prayers of a sacramentary together with a limited set
of readings from a lectionary. Thus the Missale Romanum of Pius V was
one single volume, a kind of pocket book of one size ts all, whether
for pontical, high, low, or private Masses. All of this was an unheard
of innovation, a novelty, a kind of early modern adaptation, that ew
in the face of more than 1,500 years of local diocesan diversity and
liturgical pluralism in the West. Before this, as we noted, the historical
evolution of the Latin lectionaries, sacramentaries, and ponticals can
demonstrate that the Western rites were characterizeduntil well
into the Middle Agesby a constant cross-fertilization and migratory
hybridization with (for example) Frankish books inuencing Roman
ones and vice versa.26 Even after Rome moved to seize the initiative to
begin to supplant the local usages, the progress was gradual. What
Trent did can only be described, to use Cardinal Ratzingers phrase,
as a wholesale replacement of cherished local liturgies by a strange
new rite concocted by specialists and promulgated by persons with
juridical competence.27 Trent moved liturgical reform from pastors,
that is, bishops, and gave it to a new class of professional experts (a
class created by early modern humanism). The council remanded
liturgical reform to the papacy, which in turn established postconciliar
commissions to create a new liturgical library.28 Interestingly, Trent
conceded a major point of the revolutionary Protestant reformers,
that cognition, intelligent understanding, is key to lay participation
in the liturgy. While not allowing the vernacular, Trent did encourage
frequent explanations during the Mass of what was going on. Like
26
Vogel, pp. 249-71.

Mitchell, The Amen Corner: Rereading Reform, p. 465.
28
Mitchell, The Amen Corner: Crossing the Visible, Worship 79 (2005), pp.
556-57.
27
134
Diwa 34 (2009): 122-137
other reformers of their time, the bishops of the council believed that
educated lay participation was a basic source and goal of good eective
liturgy. That this goal of Trent was ever carried out is another thing.
Finally, Trent embraced the modern technology of the printing press
to produce a library of approved liturgical handbooks and rituals. This
way the experts produced a liturgy that was exact, purged of medieval
clutter. In the medieval world, Liturgiepolitik had been local, but in the
post-Tridentine world, liturgical politics became global, international,
and papal.29
The other popes the Motu proprio mentions, were those who at
rst simply re-enforced the liturgy of Trent. But Pius X, in the early
20th century, tried to encourage lay participation in the Roman Rite
through learning Gregorian chant in line with the thinking of the
Benedictine Dom Prosper Gueranger and the Solemnes research into
chant and the publication of the Liber Usualis. Benedict XV tried to
encourage receiving communion from the same hosts consecrated at
that Mass. Pope Pius XII changed the liturgy of the Easter Triduum
back to the more ancient time and practice. He also published a
liturgical encyclical, Mediator Dei, that became the basis for many
theological and liturgical notions found in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the
Constitution on the Liturgy of Vatican II. Pius XII also published the
encyclical Mystici Corporis, that prepared for the renewal of ecclesiology
found in the liturgical changes and in the Constitution on the Church,
Lumen Gentium. Of course, John XXIII made the last changes in the
old Roman Missal in 1962 and called for the opening of the Second
Vatican Council.30 Liturgical research in the twentieth century was at
29
Ibid., p. 558. We should note that the missal of 1570, combining sacramentary
with lectionary, plus, ordines, psalter, etc., was substantially contained in a missal
from 1474. Pius V decreed that the Tridentine missal was binding on all, except those
traditions that were more than 200 years old. This included rites like those of Milan,
the Carthusians and Dominicans. Thus, there was a kind of basic structure of the
Roman liturgy, allowing even the exibility derived from monastic, cathedral,
and mendicant needs.
30
Note that Blessed John XXIIIs revisions of the old Roman Missal had nothing
to do with Vatican II. He was merely proving for the doubters that change in ancient
texts was possible, e.g., the addition of St. Joseph to the Roman Canon.
135
a more advantageous position than it was in the sixteenth century at

the time of Trent.
Vatican II called us to move beyond the modernism of the Council
of Trent to the postmodernism of life in the world community, but
in each ones local culture and language. The key point of the council
is the participation of each person according to his or her role in the
local faith community, presided over by bishop or presbyter. This is
not a return to medieval confusion, but an armation of the genius of
each ones culture and language. The new liturgy expresses ritually the
renewed ecclesiology, which is more concentric than the old one, which
was pyramidal.
It is interesting to note that Cardinal Ratzinger lamented that
the Missal of the Council of Trent had been banned.31 In the Motu
Proprio, article 1, Benedict XVI claims that the missal promulgated by
Pius V and reissued by John XXIII is a venerable and ancient usage.
He says it was never abrogated. This was clearly not the mind of Paul
VI as Andrew Cameron-Mowat has ably demonstrated.32 In 1969,
Paul VIs apostolic constitution, Missale Romanum, required the use
of the newly revised Roman Missal and abrogated previous law that
had required the use of the Tridentine rite Mass. Paul VI decreed that
his constitution had the force of law now and in the future, and he
expressly revoked contrary law, including the apostolic constitutions
and ordinances issued by his predecessors and other prescriptions, even
those deserving special mention and amendment. The March 26, 1970
decree of the Sacred Congregation of Divine Worship promulgated the
ocial edition (editio typica) of the revised Roman Missal with the
words, Anything to the contrary not withstanding. This is a solemn
legal formula meaning that it revoked ALL contrary liturgical laws of
the previous missal. Paul VI clearly intended to abrogate the older rite,
allowing only for elderly priests to celebrate in private. Some authors
think that Benedict XVI is saying, since in some cases this old missal
31
Ratzinger admitted to being dismayed by the ban on the old [1570] missal,
since such a development had never been seen in the history of liturgy. In the article
quoted in note 1 above.
32
Andrew Cameron-Mowat, Summorum Ponticum: A Response, Pastoral
Review 4 (2007): 4-11.
136
Diwa 34 (2009): 122-137
has been in use, in that sense it has never been abrogated. He had
claimed earlier on that it was indeed banned. Now he claims that it has
not been banned (abrogated). 33
Finally, I wish to remark that this problem is largely a European
problem. Although there are those here in this country (the USA) who
would like to return to the Latin Mass, the center of the problem
lies in Europe. Benedict XVI is worried about Europe losing the true
faith and becoming grossly secular. In Italy, there are the theorists who
claim that Vatican II represented a rupture and a new beginning.
Such we nd in the writings of the founder and prior of the monastery
of Bose, Italy, Enzo Bianchi, and the historian of Christianity, Alberto
Melloni, co-author of the widely read (in Italy, at least) History of
Vatican Council II. For Melloni, the objective of Benedict XVI is
nothing less than that of deriding and demolishing Vatican II. The
Pope keeps coming back by saying he is in favor of the hermeneutic of
continuity between what went before the Council and after. So, in the
light of this Italian problem, the Motu Proprio is an expression of that
continuity. The question is: Why should the Pope foist on the entire
Church his solution for a local problem? The Pope tries to get around
his new issue by saying that the old usage, which he calls extraordinary,
and the new Vatican II version, which he calls normal, that they
are a twofold use of the one same Roman rite. This seems to skirt
around the issue of two ecclesiologies, one from before Vatican II that
was clergy-centered, and the one after Vatican II that emphasized the
priesthood of all the faithful. Whether he likes it or not, Benedict XVI
has to recognize that he has himself not always been consistent in his
analysis of history. There is also the European problem of laicismo,
which the Pope and other European clergy have been truly ghting
since the French Revolution and the Aufklrung, or Enlightenment. In
some mysterious way, Benedict XVI and Archbishop Lefebvre are not
far apart in their Weltanschauung. The European clergy, like Lefebvre,
33
The canonist John Huels argues that, even if the older Missal was never
explicitly abrogated, the freedom to use it was expressly abrogated. Why else
would priests require an indult to celebrate according to the older Missal? John
Huels, Reconciling the Old with the New: Canonical Questions on Summorum
Ponticum, The Jurist 68 (2008): 94.
137
have not yet gotten over the change. Benedict XVI has called this lack
of Roman precision (or perhaps Deutsche Ordnung) the dictatorship of
relativism. His approval of the Tridentine Mass seems to be a revival of
liturgical relativism and pluralism. Is that consistency or not? It seems
to be pastorally deadening and contradictory. It is using Liturgiepolitik
to enforce the Popes own version of Realpolitik. I cannot help but smile
that even Benedict XVI in his cover letter stated that those priests who
wish to celebrate the Mass according to the pre-Vatican II liturgy,
should have a minimal competence, a certain degree of liturgical
formation and some knowledge of the Latin language: neither of these is
found very often [emphasis added]. That sounds like tongue in cheek, if
you ask me. It will go back to mumbling some Latin with the assurance
of Canon Law: Ecclesia supplet, the Church will make up for the loss.
What all of this should teach us is that we should go back to the
Constitution on the Liturgy and read the introduction to the General
Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) and that of the Liturgy of the
Hours and learn what is proper for the correct celebration of the liturgy.
The same applies to the introductions to all the sacramental rites. There
is a right way for celebration that very many have not yet learned. This
includes the meaning and the celebration of the Easter Triduum and
the right way to implement the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults
and of Children and Adults Already Baptized. In this way, we wont
have psychedelic vestments coupled with guitars and ponytails, and
Coke and pretzels. Why, then, should the Catholic Church be the last
bastion of late 1960s folk rock, long after popular music has moved
through disco, reggae, house, techno and trance, rap and hip hop?
Is 1950ish hymnology as far as we can go? Is inculturation the same
as adoption of Baptist Sweet Jesus gospel or Pentecostal ranting?
Vatican II invites us to learn over again theology, pastoral practice, and
musical and environmental requirements. It just requires work as well
as inspiration.34
34
A good source for the present situation is John F. Baldovin, SJ, Reforming the
Liturgy: a Response to the Critics (A Pueblo Book; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press,
2008).
138
Diwa 34 (2009): 138-147
Book Review
DOWNS, DAVID J. The Oering of the Gentiles: Pauls Collection for
Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts. WUNT.
2 Reihe, no 248. Edited by Jrg Frey. Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008.
Pp. xvi + 204. 54.00.
Introduction
Two past issues of Diwa already mentioned that the collection of
St. Paul for the poor in Jerusalem is one of the most neglected topics in
Pauline studies (C. D. Reyes, Remembering Paul, Remembering the
Poor, Diwa 33 [2008]: 211-224; Becoming Rich Through Christs
Poverty, Diwa 32 [2007]: 39-74). It is good that towards the end of
the Pauline Jubilee Year (2009), another author shared his views on
the Pauline collection. D. J. Downs work is a revised version of his
dissertation at the Princeton Theological Seminary in 2007. This is
not the rst time he published a work related to the collection of Paul
for Jerusalem. More than a couple of years ago he already published
an article entitled, The Oering of the Gentiles in Romans 15:16, in
JSNT (2006). In this book, however, he refers not just to the Letter to
the Romans but to all the texts related to the collection in the Pauline
letters. He also discusses the collection mentioned in the Acts of the
Apostles. In Downs book he argues that Paul is discouraging his
contributors to seek for recognition, particularly public recognition,
in their benefaction. His book is divided into ve parts. The rst
two chapters serve as introduction to the general issues related to
the collection undertaken by Paul. The third chapter tries to situate
the collection of Paul in the context of the Greco-Roman voluntary
associations and benefaction. The fourth explains Pauls use of cultic
metaphor in his appeal for donation. And the nal chapter is a
conclusion.
The rst chapter is about the interpretative context of the Pauline
collection. He starts by referring to what S. McKnight enumerated
in his article as the four main interpretations of the collection for
the poor in the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (InterVarsity Press,
DOWNS, DAVID J.
139
1993). The rst three main interpretations of the Pauline collection

are very similar to what was published in my article, Remembering
Paul, Remembering the Poor (Diwa 33 [2008]: 211-224). The big
dierence is seen in the way where D. Downs traces the origins of the
dierent interpretations. For example, he points to J. Munich as the rst
interpreter to say that Pauls collection has an eschatological dimension,
that the gathering of the collection from many Gentile communities
represents the procession of the pagans to Jerusalem. For D. Downs,
the interpretation of the collection as an obligation started from the
inuential essay of K. Holl. This author highlights the important
role of Jerusalem, it is the mother church and all other communities
are supposed to make contributions to it. And nally, he points to
O. Cullmann as the most prominent scholar who sees an ecumenical
dimension for the Pauline collection. D. Downs successfully and
clearly explains the dierent interpretative models for the collection of
Paul. He also demonstrates the weaknesses of each of the interpretative
models. He then turns to S. McKnights fourth interpretation of the
collection; the alleviation of material poverty in Jerusalem is the best
interpretation for the Pauline collection. In this last interpretation,
D. Downs refers to what other scholars see as something signicant in
Pauls appeal to the Corinthians, the goal of the collection is equality
or reciprocation in the future when the situation changes. Here he
shows his disagreements with scholars who interpret the collection as
a means of establishing equality. He reasons that these scholars fail
to consider the context of the Greco-Roman culture of benefaction
and the nature of Greco-Roman voluntary associations. And after he
has presented the main interpretations and their weaknesses, he now
shows what his work has to oer. He says his study considers the
chronological framework of the collection, the relationship between
the Pauline collection and the culture of benefaction in the ancient
world, and cultic metaphor used by Paul.
The second chapter is about the chronology of the collection. He
admits that this is a dicult area of research. Indeed, ones understanding
of the Pauline collection is inuenced by the Pauline chronology. At
the same time ones understanding of the Pauline chronology is also
inuenced by the presence or absence of the mention of the Pauline
140
Diwa 34 (2009): 138-147
collection. Then he focuses on some methodological considerations.

He says that the problem in interpreting the collection of Paul is most
often based on confusing and conating the materials from Pauls
letters, the primary source, and Acts, a secondary source. He adds a
footnote that if one considers the we passages of the book of Acts,
it may appear that Lukes second volume is a primary source. At the
same time, however, he does not think that the we passages reect an
eyewitness account of a historian. He says that his chronology in this
chapter is relative and not absolute (p. 32). He also says that he focuses
mainly on the Pauline letters and then uses the data from the book of
Acts that have a bearing on the interpretation of the collection.
Is Gal 2:10 the beginning of the Pauline collection? D. Downs
gives four interesting interpretations of this verse. First, he notes that
the immediate context talks about the agreement between Paul and
the pillar apostles. In the agreement there is only one thing asked from
them, to remember the poor. Signicantly, however, nowhere in the
Letter to the Galatians does Paul refer to the collection. This is a serious
omission if Paul is really embarking on his collection project. Secondly,
he thinks that it is important to link Gal 2:10 with Antioch. In Gal
2:1-2, Paul says that he went to Jerusalem not because of the collection
but because of a revelation. Actually, there is no record that Antioch
has participated in the Pauline collection. There is no collection from
Antioch because Paul has broken his ties from them. This can be seen
in the event that is narrated in verses 11-14. From then on, Paul has
started his own independent mission. This verse, therefore, can be
interpreted as a defensive answer against Pauls opponents that he does
not keep his promise to remember the poor. This also explains why he
says, this very thing I was very eager to do so. Thirdly, D. Downs
observes that apart from Gal 2:10, Paul nowhere refers to the collection
as a fulllment of the agreement he entered into with the pillar apostles.
Moreover, if the collection is his way of fullling his part of the bargain
with the pillar apostles, why is he afraid that his project can be possibly
rejected by Jerusalem (Rom 15:30-31)? And nally, he refers to J.
Knoxs interpretation of Gal 2:10. This author says that there are three
possible ways to interpret it. One is to say Paul is engaged in a regular
collection for Jerusalem and he is now encouraged to continue doing
DOWNS, DAVID J.
141
so, a matter which the apostle says he is eager to do. Another way is to
consider that it is possible that there was another collection before the
collection eort in Corinth. And a popular interpretation is that the
verse is an allusion to the collection in Corinth. After presenting the
dierent interpretations, D. Downs concludes that Paul is involved in
more than one collection for Jerusalem. To strengthen his argument,
he turned to Acts 11:27-30. He says that the details here are very
similar to what Paul says in Gal 2:1-10. And he reiterates that Paul in
the two accounts is involved in the collection for Jerusalem before his
break up with the community of Antioch. He started a new collection
after that painful break up.
D. Downs forties his argument by saying that it is impossible to
determine when Paul discussed the collection with the Galatians. It is
also impossible to determine the method he wanted the Galatians to
observe in the gathering of the collection. He says that it is intriguing
that the canonical letter of the Galatians is preserved while the letter
of appeal for the collection is not. He thinks that Pauls negative
comments about the Jerusalem leadership have something to do with it.
But he admits that this is something speculative for one cannot produce
evidence to prove it. From this point, he reasons that Paul started a
new collection in Achaia and Corinth. In discussing the collection in
Corinth, he does not join the debate on the issue of whether the Letter
to the Corinthians is an integral letter or not. However, he takes the
Second Letter to the Corinthians as a composite letter. In a footnote he
says that even rhetorical criticism is not much of a help in determining
the unity of the letter. He also discusses Pauls collection in Macedonia
and Asia. And when he discusses the references to the collection in the
Letter to the Romans, he points to proper interpretation of 1:13 and
15:16. He says that many commentators use Rom 1:13 to prove that
the collection is a duty. He also observes that many commentators
interpret the oering of the Gentiles as objective genitive. He argues
that the oering of the Gentiles should be interpreted as subjective
genitive.
142
Diwa 34 (2009): 138-147
Other than arguing that the reference to the collection in Galatians

is dierent from the references to the collection in the Letters to the
Corinthians and Romans, D. Downs also talks about the delivery of
the collection. Here he goes against the opinion of the majority of
scholars, whom he names in a long footnote (p. 62, no. 85), who easily
relate the delivery of the collection with the almsgiving in Acts 24:17.
He uses Acts 19:21 as his rst argument: it says that Paul decides to
go to Jerusalem because of divine necessity. Then he refers to Acts
20:16 which he says claries the motive of Paul to go to Jerusalem,
he wants to be there before Pentecost. This verse, he admits, raises
another question: why is it necessary for Paul to reach Jerusalem before
Pentecost? He nds another clue in Pauls defense before Felix. In Acts
24:11 Paul says that he went up to worship in Jerusalem. From these
verses, he concludes that the purpose of Paul in going to Jerusalem
mentioned in Acts is dierent from the purpose of the same apostle in
going to Jerusalem in his letters, which is to deliver the collection. He
adds that the tendency of associating the collection with the journey of
Paul to Jerusalem in Acts is rooted in misinterpreting e lv ehmosu n, aj
and prosfora ,j in Acts 24:17. If one continues reading the verse up
to verse 18, one can see that Paul is oering alms and sacrices in the
temple: he is not delivering gifts to Jerusalem! Luke says nothing about
the collection for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. One must,
according to D. Downs, read Acts in its own rights.
D. Downs then analyzes, in chapter three, the collection in the
context of the Greco-Roman culture of benefaction. He mentions in
a footnote (p. 74, no. 1) that two works have already been done on
this topic: S. Jouberts, Paul as Benefactor (Mohr Siebeck, 2000) and J.
Harrisons Pauls Language of Grace in its Greco-Roman Context (Mohr
Siebeck, 2003). He, however, sees a lacuna in these works: both
authors have no discussions on voluntary associations. D. Downs
also comments that many scholars, when they are dealing with the
socio-cultural context of the New Testament, have the tendency of
nding what is unique in the early Christian community, or what
the early Christians borrowed from the religions of antiquity. He
oers a dierent method of understanding the New Testament context
in relation to ancient cultures, that is by means of analogies. By this
DOWNS, DAVID J.
143
he means that one should not look for an earlier examplar, or one
should not try to see the method of borrowing. Then using J. Smiths
method (Drudgery Divine: On the Composition of Early Christianities
and the Religions of Late Antiquity, University of Chicago Press, 1990),
he explains that what is needed is to underscore both the similarities
and dierences of one type of association when it is compared to
another association. D. Downs studies four areas in the Greco-Roman
voluntary associations that help one to understand the collection of
Paul: benefaction within associations, common funds and monetary
collections within associations, care for the poor within associations,
and translocal economic links among associations (p. 76). In his
studies he nds out that the Pauline collection is not a unique event,
neither is it a replication of an older model. Both pagan and Jewish
associations in antiquity share material resources to aid the people
in need. Dierent associations also cooperate among themselves in
their fund raising. It must be added that Jewish communities and
ancient authors are also cautious in giving honors to benefactors. This
restraint is rooted in the belief that God is the source of all goodness
and benefaction.
The ending of the third chapter, God as the source of all goodness
and richness, is the beginning and substance of the fourth chapter.
D. Downs desire here is to show that the theological ground of
Pauls collection is what distinguishes it from the other collections
done by ancient voluntary associations. He wants to show that Paul
discourages the honoring of human benefactors because good works
should terminate in giving greater honor to God. To prove this he
explores Pauls use of cultic metaphors in his appeal for the collection.
He does this by explaining how metaphors work. In a long footnote he
enumerates recent works of biblical scholars who employ contemporary
metaphor theory (p. 122, no. 4). But he on his part uses the model of G.
Lako and M. Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (University of Chicago
Press, 1980). These two authors believe that metaphors provide a frame
where one views the world and when one uses metaphors then one can
more or less structure the readers understanding of reality. D. Downs
then says that Paul is using cultic metaphors in order to motivate his
readers to respond to his appeal by adopting a theological framework
144
Diwa 34 (2009): 138-147
of oering. In other words he interprets Pauls invitation to his readers

to participate in the collection project as a participation in an act of
worship. D. Downs is also aware of the limitations of metaphors: a
single metaphor does not exhaustively dene or describe a single reality.
Because of this, he proposes that another metaphor one can use for the
collection is the image of harvesting.
D. Downs sets out to explore the language that Paul uses in his
appeal for the collection. He rst highlights the instruction which
Paul gives about the collection in 1 Cor 16:1-4. He notices that
Paul species the day when the Corinthians should contribute to the
common fund, the rst day of the week. He suspects that Paul has the
Sunday Christian gathering in mind when he gives the instruction.
Moreover, he notices Pauls use of the word logi,aj when he talks about
the collection. He says that this word is used, according to papyrological
and epigraphical sources, to refer to a religious collection for a god or a
temple. He then concludes that 1 Cor 16:1-4 can be used as argument
that Paul uses a cultic metaphor to refer to the collection. D. Downs,
secondly, also explores the language Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 8 and
9. He pays attention to two terms which Paul uses in the said chapters,
e p, itele w
, and leitourgi,a. In explaining the rst term, D. Downs refers
to the work of R. Ascough who compares Pauls use of the term which
he nds from Greek inscription: the term refers to the completion of
a religious duty. D. Downs, however, voices also his disagreement
with R. Ascough: the latter believes that the collection is a duty. In
explaining the second term, D. Downs refers to the LXXs use of the
word: it is used mainly in relation with priestly and Levitical services in
the temple. Other than explaining the two terms, the author refers to
an agricultural motif present especially in 2 Corinthians 9. It is related
to his thesis that Paul uses the metaphor of harvest when he talks about
the collection. Finally, the author explores the cultic metaphors used
by Paul in Romans. Again, he goes against the majority opinion in
his interpretation of Rom 15:16-17, particularly the interpretation of
the phrase h p. rosfora twn e q, nwn. Majority of scholars, ancient and
modern, interpret the phrase as a genitive of apposition. He argues that
the phrase should be considered as subjective genitive. If the phrase is
considered as a genitive of apposition, it appears that the Gentiles are the
oerings of Paul. But if one translates the phrase as subjective genitive,
DOWNS, DAVID J.
145
the oerings of the Gentiles refer to the collection. He says that Paul
does not put an eschatological dimension to his collection project. The
submission of his collection to Jerusalem does not fulll the prophecy
of Isaiah 66 where nations bearing gifts will go in procession to the holy
city. The phrase, therefore, should be considered as subjective genitive.
In addition to the proper interpretation of the phrase h p. rosfora twn
e q, nwn, D. Downs nds in Romans an abundance of terms related to
worship: leitourgo ,j, i,eroupge w, , prosfora ,, eu p, ro ,sdektoj, and a g, ia z, w.
These terms are evidences that Paul uses cultic metaphors to interpret
the collection as an act of worship.
The last chapter is a conclusion. Here the author summarizes
the individual chapters of the book. He concludes that the two most
acceptable interpretations of the Pauline collection are the ecumenical
and caritative interpretations; and that Paul is involved in two collections
for Jerusalem and Acts cannot be used in reconstructing the historical
background of the collection. The author stresses the importance of
studying the socio-cultural background of the collection, the GrecoRoman system of benefaction. In line with this, one needs to understand
how metaphor works. He believes that Paul uses the metaphors of
worship and harvest when he appeals for the collection. Likewise, he
thinks that if one considers the metaphor that structures Pauls appeal,
one can also see that his collection project is counter-cultural: the aim of
the collection is not to praise human benefactors but to give glory and
thanks to God.
D. Downs book is a worthy contribution to the area of Pauline
studies devoted to the collection. It challenges a lot of presuppositions
which are popularly held by many scholars. However, one still wonders
why the points he raises still remained unnoticed by recognized
scholars in the eld of Pauline studies. For sure, no one will disagree
with him that the best interpretation of the Pauline collection is to aid
the poor in Jerusalem. His other conclusions, however, need further
exploration. For example, he says that there are two Pauline collections:
the collection in First and Second Corinthians and Romans is dierent
from the collection mentioned in Gal 2:10. This has been raised by
the classic work of D. Georgi entitled Remembering the Poor (Herbert
Reich, 1965), yet some respectable scholars have not yet picked this up
146
Diwa 34 (2009): 138-147
in their interpretative works. Even the latest contribution of J. Fitzmyer

to the Anchor Yale Bible, 1 Corinthians (Yale University Press, 2008),
states that the collection mentioned in First Corinthians is the result
of the decision of the council in Gal 2:10. Moreover, even the use of
the reference to the collection in Acts, that the account in 24:17 has
nothing to do with the collection recorded in the Pauline letters, still
remains unnoticed to many scholars. This opinion was raised as early
as 1923 in the article of C. R. Bowen (JBL 42)! D. Downs says that
he himself comes to this conclusion even before he discovers the article
of C. R. Bowen. Again, one can cite J. Fitzmyer here who notices
that Luke is fond of recording the contribution of Gentiles to the Jews
(e.g., Luke 7:5 and Acts 10:2). This is not to say that the majority
opinion is the valid opinion in exegesis. Perhaps what one needs are
more convincing methods and arguments to shift from believing the
majority opinion to what D. Downs and others are saying.
The book is commendable for introducing another aspect or
dimension in understanding the Pauline collection. He is right when
he says that a proper chronology of Paul is important in understanding
the collection. However, it is sad that he does not discuss the issue
of the unity of Second Corinthians. He admits that space limits
him in saying something about the issue. He simply oers a select
bibliography where one can nd works of scholars who believe in the
unity of the letter, and scholars who believe that Second Corinthians
is a composite letter. One can still disagree with him on the basis of
external evidence. Indeed, textual criticism yields the conclusion that
the letter is preserved and passed on as a whole, not in fragments. In
the process of discussing the issue of the unity of the letter, he also
belittles the contribution of rhetorical criticism. He is right when he
says that even scholars do not agree on their ndings when they apply
the rules of rhetorics in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. This comment, however,
needs to be balanced. Paul is an educated Jew. And more, one should
remember that the letter about the collection is an appeal for generous
giving. There is not better means for Paul to appeal to the minds and
hearts of his readers than a wise use of the art of persuasion.
DOWNS, DAVID J.
147
D. Downs has creatively used the model provided by G. Lako

and M. Johnson on the use of metaphors. Indeed the author should
be praised for providing a good select bibliography on recent scholarly
works that use the contemporary metaphor theory (p. 122, no. 4).
One, however, misses the valuable work of Renita Weems on the use of
marriage metaphor in the prophetic books (Battered Love, Fortress Press,
1995). His application of the model of G. Lako and M. Johnson is very
interesting. His treatment of the two metaphorscollection is an act of
worship and collection is harvestis very uneven. There is very little
said about the collection as harvest. And one also wonders why he does
not use grace as a metaphor. When interpreting the cultic metaphors in
the Letter to the Romans, he notices the abundance of terms related to
worship. One expects that with the high frequency of the use of the term
grace in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, he would also say that the collection is
grace. The book would be more faithful to the thesis he aimed to explore
if he worked on this. It is very clear for Paul that collection is grace and
ones hunger to understand this is left unsatised.
Notwithstanding the minor comments raised above, the book
deserves a space in any serious library. The questions he raises in the
book, for example, the number of collections Paul initiated, can be
useful topics for future research. The book is reader-friendly. Mohr
Sieback publishers should be commended for supplying both the Greek
text and English translation of quoted ancient sources, something
which they introduced lately. And nally, both the footnotes and the
bibliography are very rich.
FR. CARLITO REYES

Our Lady of the Rosary Parish
Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, Wales, U.K.

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Levinass Phenomenology and

Critique of Western Philosophy

his paper discusses the development of Levinass phenomenology

I. Levinass Phenomenological Background

This work helped in introducing phenomenology to France particularly on

Diwa 34 (2009): 1-27

phenomenology and to propose an ethical philosophy of radical