Don Collett Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Transcription

1 RBL 03/2013 Scheetz, Jordan M. The Concept of Canonical Intertextuality and the Book of Daniel Cambridge: James Clarke, Pp. x Paper ISBN Don Collett Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry Ambridge, Pennsylvania The Concept of Canonical Intertextuality and the Book of Daniel by Jordan M. Scheetz offers much that is helpful for understanding the overall literary structure of Daniel, especially the complex character of its interlocking literary relations and themes. Composed of six chapters, along with a bibliography and two indexes, the book offers readers a brief overview of different ways of conceiving intertextuality (ch. 1), three different ways of conceiving its historical setting (ch. 2), and an extended study of the book s intertextual relations. Two chapters are devoted to a close reading of the book s internal literary relationships (chs. 3 4), while the last two chapters discuss the book s external literary relations with the Old and New Testaments, respectively (chs. 5 6). In the first chapter Scheetz traces the lineage of intertextuality from Ferdinand Saussure through Mikhail Bakhtin and Julia Kristeva, then turns to a discussion of James Sanders, Michael Fishbane, and Brevard Childs as representatives of canon criticism. He notes that the key issue for sorting out the differences between these three figures revolves around how one understands the nature of development in biblical texts (9). Although all three approaches recognize textual-exegetical, sociological, and theological forces at work, Scheetz notes that for Fishbane the exegetical, semantic, or verbal aspects of this process are fundamental, while for Sanders the text s sociological role in Gemeindebildung, or

2 community identity formation, is crucial. Finally, for Childs the text s theological role as witness remains fundamental (19 20). Scheetz then turns to consider criticisms of Childs offered by James Barr, John Barton, and John J. Collins. While acknowledging the limitations inherent in these criticisms, he suggests that Collins is nevertheless right to call attention to a methodological weakness in Childs s approach: its failure to provide a specific model for understanding how the Bible mediates the revelation of God in such a way as to shape and enliven the church (24). On Scheetz s view, intertextual models for understanding the inner development of biblical books supply what is lacking in Childs s approach, and this leads him into a further discussion of George Lindbeck and Georg Steins, both of whom are set forth as constructive alternatives to Childs s negative critics. Steins also finds a methodological weakness in Childs s approach, arguing that, while Childs rightly saw that the context for the development of Scripture involves both the theological reality of canon and its interpretive reception by a community of faith, he failed to develop a reception theory corresponding to this insight. Although Scheetz suggests that Childs s published criticisms of Steins were misguided, he then goes on to make a number of clarifications that put distance between his own approach to intertextuality and that of Steins, clarifications that appear to share a fair amount in common with Childs s own criticisms of Steins (31 32). In his second chapter Scheetz discusses three broad approaches to the historical setting of Daniel, the first of which locates the origin of the book in the period of the Babylonian exile or shortly thereafter. He notes that in the twentieth century this view is often associated with conservative responses to historical criticism and thus tends to be apologetic in nature. Representatives of this approach include Robert Dick Wilson, Gleason Archer, and R. K. Harrison. A second approach to Daniel s historical setting argues that the book derives from the Maccabean period of the early to mid-second century B.C.E. Norman Porteous s commentary on Daniel is taken as the classic articulation of this view. Other commentators who fall within the broad parameters of this view include W. Sibley Towner and Werner H. Schmidt. The third approach Scheetz discusses views the book as the final product of both the Babylonian and the Maccabean periods. Von Rad and Brevard Childs are taken as examples of this view, both of whom find material in the book that originates from an earlier, Babylonian time period, as well as material that has been retrospectively reinterpreted in light of the threat to Israel s identity and worship connected with the Seleucid rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Childs in particular warns against tying the book s message too closely to the Maccabean period, not only because it flattens out the perspectival depth of the book s editorial history but also because the editorial process involved in the book s formation history was

3 theologically motivated. It therefore sought to lay authoritative claim upon future generations, not merely to publish a version of Daniel for Maccabean readers. Scheetz s third chapter discusses the larger structure of the book, as well as the nature of the intertextual links in the narrative section of the book (Dan 1 6). 1 He argues that Daniel is divided into ten discrete scenes by regnal synchronisms (1:1, 2:1, 6:1, 7:1, 8:1, 9:1, and 10:1) and distinctive changes of setting (3:1, 4:1, and 5:1), the latter of which, while not chronological, nevertheless mark the presence of a decided break from the narrative scenes that precede and follow them. The book s narrative order is clearly not identical with its historical order, and this serves to underscore a thesis Scheetz pursues in various ways throughout the book, that the verbal repetitions and expansions within the book illustrate the true nature of its intertextuality. The fact that the writer or redactor(s) of Daniel allowed such chronological dissonance to stand suggests not only that its smaller narrative units once circulated independently but also that the intertextuality at work in Daniel did not seek to harmonize chronological discrepancies, thereby flattening out the perspectival depth of the book s historical dimension (55). The third chapter then turns to a discussion of Dan 1 6, beginning with chapter 1. Scheetz elucidates the various ways in which the book s first chapter introduces the key characters, settings, and theological themes from which the rest of the book proceeds, noting that its closing verse (1:21) spans the time of Daniel in Nebuchadnezzar s court to the court of Cyrus. Chapter 1 thus not only frames the narrative section of the book (1:21; cf. 6:29 BHS) but also serves as a literary bridge that encloses the furthest chronological point reference in the book (the third year of Cyrus s reign; cf. 10:1). Scheetz also argues that the themes in chapter 2 are reinterpreted throughout the following chapters. For example, chapter 3 is closely associated with chapter 2 through a key Aramaic word for image (sẹlem) that occurs seventeen times in chapters 2 3 but nowhere else in the book. While in chapter 2 this term encompasses four kingdoms symbolized by gold, silver, bronze, and iron, in chapter 3 it is no longer composed of four parts but transmuted into a single golden image to symbolize Nebuchadnezzar s hubris. In chapter 4 the image of a head of gold for Nebuchadnezzar s kingdom in Dan 2 is further transformed into the image of a great tree. Although chapters 5 and 6 represent events in the life of Daniel that chronologically follow chapters 7 8, they are positioned earlier for interpretive reasons that serve to illustrate and reinforce the message of the first four chapters, especially the theological 1. Discrepancies exist in chapters 3 6 between the verse numbering of the English versions and the Aramaic portion of Daniel. In order to alert readers to these differences I have added the letters BHS after a verse reference when the MT numbering differs from English versions.

4 force of the retrospective confession Nebuchadnezzar makes in chapter 4 (4:31 32 BHS). In chapter 6 the intertextual nature of the relation between chapters 6 and 3 is especially evident. Just as the would-be executors of Daniel s companions fell dead before the fires of judgment (3:22) while Daniel s three friends were delivered, so also in chapter 6 those who accused Daniel were thrown into the lions den while Daniel was delivered. In his fourth chapter Scheetz discusses the second section of the book (chs. 7 12). The judgment visions of these chapters form an extension of the judgment upon king and empire already articulated in chapters 1 6, as well as resistance to the oppressive social order of things such empires typically underwrite. The intertextual repetitions and expansions in the second half of the book clearly demonstrate that chapter 2 functions as a theological and hermeneutical lens for developing its visions. Chapter 7 expands the description of the fourth kingdom in chapter 2, while chapter 8 expands upon the transition between the third and fourth kingdom, adding ethnic specificity to the three kingdoms following that of Babylon (Medes, Persians, and Greeks). Chapters 9 and 10 expand the prophetic time frame in between the third and fourth kingdom, while chapters add further detail to the breakup of the fourth kingdom and the conflicts between two of its successor kingdoms (north and south). Chapter 5 discusses the book of Daniel s external intertextual links with Ezra 7 and the Mosaic law (Exodus and Deuteronomy), then turns to a brief discussion of biblical and extrabiblical textual evidence supporting the different canonical placements of Daniel in the LXX and the MT traditions. Scheetz suggests that the book of Daniel presupposes some form of the Mosaic Torah as a source or hypotext, especially since it would have been difficult for Daniel s enemies to conspire against him unless they had some way of knowing what the law of his God required (6:6 BHS). Texts from Deut would also seem to be presupposed by Daniel s prayer in chapter 9. With respect to the available textual evidence, Scheetz judges the case for Masoretic Text s placement of Daniel to be plausible albeit inconclusive. However, in his judgment the difficulty involved in settling the issue is due not simply to a lack of evidence but also to the fact that the book lends itself to either placement, inasmuch as its dischronologized character resembles the nature of prophetic literature, while its emphasis upon wisdom resembles the Writings. Scheetz is not concerned to demonstrate whether either placement is the original. Instead, he suggests that its differing canonical placements are not the result of imposing external criteria upon the book but ultimately made possible by intertextual tensions within the book itself (144). The sixth chapter examines citations of Daniel in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as Rev 1:7. Scheetz concludes his discussion of these texts as follows:

5 When we find in the Synoptic gospels that Jesus interprets a quote from Daniel 9:27 as applying to the present temple and not to the historical situation from the Hellenistic era it is not a radical break with the Old Testament. Rather he follows the pattern that is already found in the development of the Old Testament and is also active in the development of the New Testament, where revelation and inspiration continually work together (159). With these closing words Scheetz returns to an issue he touched upon at the outset of his book, to wit, the analogy Fishbane draws between the inner- and postbiblical exegesis (3). While there is doubtless an analogy between these two forms of exegesis, pressing the analogy too far suggests that canonization proper establishes no contextual distinction between innerbiblical and postbiblical readers of Scripture. 2 This marks a significant difference between Childs s understanding of this analogy and that of Sanders and Fishbane, a point that Scheetz does not address. That being said, the book is well worth reading for its insights into the literary structure and intertextual relations within Daniel. 2. For further elaboration on this point, see Christopher Seitz, We Are Not Prophets or Apostles: The Biblical Theology of B. S. Childs, in Word without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 102 9, esp. his closing remarks on