RBL 07/2013 Biddle, Mark E. Reading Judges: A Literary and Theological Commentary Macon, Ga.: Smyth & Helwys, 2012. Pp. xiv + 221. Paper. $22.00. ISBN 9781573126311. Trent C. Butler Gallatin, Tennessee Judges is in right now. Commentaries, monographs, and important articles keep rolling off the press. Since 2008, we can see Butler, Word Biblical; Gross, Herder Theologischer Kommentar; Webb, New International Commentary; Boda, Revised Expositor s Bible; Block, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary; Niditch, Old Testament Library; Yee, ed., Judges and Method, rev ed; Dell, ed., Ethical and Unethical in the Old Testament; Younger, Judges and Ruth, NIV Application Commentary; Heller, Conversations with Scripture: The Book of Judges, Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars Study Series; McCann, Interpretation; Gunn, Blackwell Bible Commentaries; Guillame, Waiting for Josiah; Ryan, Readings: A New Bible Commentary; Mobley, The Empty Men; Wong, Compositional Strategies of the Book of Judges; Jost, Gender, Sexualität und Macht in der Anthroplogie des Richterbuches. Still many titles are not listed. The point here is that the title under review should not be left off anyone s list. Biddle has provided us a rather brief but important reading of Judges with this literary and theological commentary. As so many of us claim, Biddle seeks the impossible, to provide a work accessible to and helpful for every one from specialists in the field to educated laity. Having written a 500+ page commentary on the same subject, I now realize the search for this educated layperson may never end. As an aside, I also wonder how we help these laity by transliterating biblical languages.
Reading through Biddle, one is impressed by the ability to interact with current literature just enough to recall the exegetical and textual problems that are essential to deal with. At the same time, little is provided for preaching helps and modern application. This places the book on the students desks in courses covering Judges or Judges and the adjoining books. At this level professors and students should grab the book and settle into the questions that are truly challenging and interesting as students learn how to identify and work through exegetical problems with their own skills. Biddle also shows students that often the biblical student must admit that no answer comes ready to hand for exegetical issues. Biddle reads Judges as a part of the Christian canon, thus as a witness to God s ongoing relationship with God s people and as rooted in tradition (3). A sensitive reading must investigate at the same time the compositional character of the book. Biddle reads Judges, then, as a complex unit, not as a homogenous uniformity (4, emphasis original). Reading Judges in a modern setting calls for restraint to allow the book to speak in its own setting. The central core appears in Judges 3 16. It deals exclusively with northern tribes and has little care for cultic or religious matters. The Deuteronomistic framework relates to the longer Deuteronomistic History from Joshua through Kings, the editors possibly having composed and inserted the lists of Minor Judges. Judges concentrates on the Deuteronomistic paradigm found in Judg 2:6 11 (compare 2 Kgs 17:7 23). A strong emphasis in Judges is the coming of the Spirit. Biddle finds that this has the character of empowerment for extraordinary physical feats, not inspiration with wisdom or the prophetic word (13). Apostasy seems seldom related to repentance and more to Yahweh s grace and faithfulness. Neither the institution of the judges nor that of kingship prove to solve Israel s problems. Legitimacy does not come from an institution (15). Textually, Biddle believes that the Hebrew tradition continued to develop until late antiquity while the Greek was completed earlier but obviously did not understand the Hebrew at many points. Biddle seeks to ask what interpretive issue the ancient manuscript traditions recognized in the text and what lines of interpretation they initiated (17). The object is neither synchronic nor diachronic but an attempt to deal with both the whole and its parts while dealing with literary units rather than individual verses. (17). The opening chapters of Judges show a favoritism for the Davidic monarchy and the weakness of the small tribe of Benjamin and its royal representative Saul. The dealings with foreign peoples in chapter 1 opens a theme for the rest of the book. The theological
issue hinges on what was God s original plan and how it related to Israel s disobedience. God anticipated Israel s apostasy and so did not give Joshua the entire land. Biddle concludes that readers must be aware that Judges tells history through theology. It makes faith claims. Turning to the saviors or deliverers, Biddle sees this section as older than the preface or the appendices. The judges section sees apostasy, repentance, and religious reform play no part at all in these narratives. Othniel is an idealized prototype used to evaluate all following judges, addressing the major theme of the book leadership. The editors of the Ehud story show no moral. It has no point. The narrative does exemplify bold leadership in a person who refused to quit in a desperate situation. Such charismatic leadership, however, does not lead to solidarity. The Shamgar insertion simply presents a puzzle. He does stand over against the program to do away with foreigners. He is not a liberator for Israel but a Canaanite bandit fighting the Philistines. Turning to Deborah and Barak (Judg 4 5), the sense is that neither chapter borrowed from the other but that both go back to separate traditions of the same event. Here Biddle decides that God creates the conditions, but human beings, often acting on God s commission, execute the deed (59). Neither poet nor narrator of Barak/Deborah materials mentions God s direction, intervention, or empowerment. Ehud and Jael succeed through craftiness, deception, or bravery. After this, however, women become nameless victims rather than agents in the narratives. Biddle emphasizes repeatedly the ancient liturgical source behind the song of Deborah along with contemporary ignorance in many linguistic details. In Gideon, the book shows Israel s understanding of evil-doing (78). The opening Gideon story moves from a commission or call narrative to a cultic etiology. The fleece texts let us see Gideon as having much less faith and courage than we had thought. The use of two names Gideon and Jerubbaal points to two traditions behind the narrative. With his penchant and skill for describing the personal traits and natures of biblical characters, Biddle speaks of Gideon: The dream of a Midianite warrior accomplishes what the wondrous consumption of the burnt offering (6:21), possession by the spirit of Yahweh (6:34), and the twofold sign of the fleece (6:36 40) could not (91). Gideon begins to move from fear to self-assertion. He also inspired opposition to his own leadership. He assumed that his own family possessed an air of regality (97). As frequently, Biddle finds in the last unit of chapter 7 a number of inconsistencies and improbabilities (91). Chapter 8 introduces the theme of kingship. The text portrays a figure who effectively reigned as king, regardless of whether he bore the title (98).
The change in Gideon s character does not show in Abimelech, who is consistently negative. Judges does not indicate that any element of Israel recognized Abimelech s authority. Abimelech shows the result of authority built on aggression and raw power. Jotham s parable is open to many interpretations. It apparently deals with status and shows the great loss of status that Abimelech endured, becoming a servant. Eventually God brought the seed of disloyalty distrust, jealousy, and treachery to full and destructive fruition. Fraticide cannot be the foundation for authentic leadership (112). The Jephthah story, for Biddle, forms the central part of the book and so is doubly important. The minor judges function to frame the stories of the major ones. Minor judges served only in local areas, but so did the major judges. They show us that deliverer and judge are synonyms in Judges. Jephthah is chosen by the leaders of Gilead without consulting God, and they give more than they intended in the bargaining. All Jephthah does comes from mistrust. God lacks enthusiasm for Jephthah s judgeship, and Jephthah lacks confidence in God s support. Jephthah tries to get what God has already given. The story makes us wonder if the need to fulfill a vow can ever be more important than a human life. In the Jephthah section God reacts to human decisions, never initiating ideas. Samson s chapters represent a series of traditions now pasted together. The Nazirite theme apparently is imposed by the editors, who changed a wild man theme into an Israelite Nazirite. God works through human motivations and behaviors. For Samson the fruit of the spirit becomes extraordinary strength and horribly hot anger. Samson s first deception comes as his wife seeks to pull his secret out of him before being asked to do so. The Gaza story apparently lacks motivation or attitudes. It does contribute to the portrayal of Samson as a young man driven primarily by his sexual appetite unbridled by caution, morality, or ethnic and religious boundaries (160). For Israel Samson is a liberator and judge, but to the Phislistines he is a rebel and terrorist. Samson is not stupid; he just likes to play games and chooses to play the one greedy Delilah initiates. Biddle argues from a reading of Numbers that Samson did not really violate a Nazirite vow; he only put it at risk, the vow binding him not to cut his own hair. The appendices show total ethical, moral, political, and religious disarray. Now the anti- Baal materials reemerge. The authenticity of sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan are taken away. Israel is shown to have disdain as they break God s covenant. The salaried Levite is unique in scripture, with Levites livelihood coming from tithes and offerings. Trying to describe the history of the sanctuary at Dan is an impossible task. Judges 19 21 is a comedy of horrors. Marital strife leads to betrayal, rape, murder, and the near eradication of a tribe and ends with captive brides. The attack on one woman by
one village leads to the deaths of thousands. The issue is dominance over victims, not homosexuality. The central theme is hospitality. Violence spreads throughout Israel. The victories by the Benjaminites obviously contrasts, even conflicts, with the assumption that YHWH supports the Israelites effort to obtain justice for the anonymous murder victim. The congregation evidences no awareness of the perversity of their actions (200). In the end the people do not pray, do not make confession, do not seek blessing. They just go home. Biddle ends his tightly written, well thought out, and illustrative book for students with the note, a significant point of the book arguably highlights the failures of the judges to deal with Israel s tendencies toward apostasy, civial contention, and immorality. Israel s shortcomings did not result from its form of leadership but from the constitution of the human heart (205). One can simply conclude that a college or seminary student may see illustrated various methods of study of a biblical text and can find an open invitation to determine if the narratives are really built on such varying traditions, if textual decisions can be made in the manner Biddle does, if form-critical study can gain information by showing a passage does not quite fit a standard form in differing ways, and if one comes to theological decisions in the way Biddle does.