WHAT DOES "REVELATION" MEAN TODAY?

 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

The term “revelation” can be defined as “the divine disclosure to humans of something regarding the human existence or the world.”

In the ancient Near East, it was commonly believed that gods verbally communicated with their subjects: Thus, for example, “This is the word of Ninlil [the goddess] for the king, “Fear not, O Ashurbanipal! Now, as I have spoken, it will come to pass” (ANET, p.451). Gods also communicated through dreams: “In my dream, (the goddess) Belet-biri stood by me. She spoke to me as follows…..” (1)

In biblical times, too, where God appears to the Israelites as a Father, King, or Creator, “revelations” appear to have taken place in a variety of ways. They included,

a.     Direct Speech, such as: “The Lord said to Abram: Go forth from your native land…”(Gen.12: 1, all biblical quotes from JPS), or, “The word of the Lord came to me” (Jer.1:4), even, at times, to animals, “The Lord opened the ass’s mouth and she said to Balaam” (Num.22:28).

b.     Through an angel: “An angel of the Lord appeared to him (Moses) in a blazing fire out of a bush” (Ex.3: 2), or “The angel of the Lord said to her: ‘Go back to your mistress, and submit to her harsh treatment” (Gen. 16:9).

c.     Dreams and visions: “When a prophet of the Lord arises among you, I make Myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream” (Num.12:6); or “The hand of the Lord came upon me. He took me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the valley” (Dan 37: 1).

d.     Writing on the wall: “He therefore made the hand appear, and caused the writing to be inscribed.” (Dan. 5:24).

e.     Urim and Thummim: “Inside the breast piece of decision you shall place the Urim and Thummim so that they are over Aaron’s heart when he comes before the Lord” (Ex. 28: 30). [We do not know what these objects were. Many suggest that they were a type of sacred lots used for divination]

Biblical books, containing statements attributed to God, were written by unknown human authors: The Book of Psalms, attributed to King David, is a collection of poems/prayers to God. The books of Joshua, Judges , Samuel, Kings and Chronicles are quasi-historical books but not God’s work. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes deal with human wisdom. Song of Songs is a book about human love. Each prophet assumedly wrote his own book. The Book of Esther does not even include the name of God.

What about the Pentateuch? Even though, just before the reading of the Torah,  the Jewish liturgy proclaims: “This is the Torah which Moses set before the Children of Israel, according to the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses” (Hertz), we really don’t know who finally put it all together. Nowhere in the Five Books of Moses is it stated that Moses was the author of the entire Pentateuch. In the expression “Moses wrote down this Torah”  (Deut.31:9), the word “Torah” simply means “teaching,” namely,  general instruction and not the entire Pentateuch(2). Even the Rabbis had to admit that Moses could not have been the author of the statement in Deuteronomy, “So Moses, God’s servant, died there” (34:5). Their answer: Joshua wrote it.

During rabbinic times, the Rabbis were aware of the issue of authorship of various texts in the Hebrew Bible; hence they presented a list of authors for each biblical text : e.g., Moses wrote the Pentateuch and the book of Job  (BB 14b). In the medieval period, divine revelation was generally accepted by many. Yet Maimonides (12^th cent) stated that “when we call the Torah ‘God’s word’ we speak metaphorically.” But, then, making an exception with regard to Moses, he surprisingly added “We do not know exactly how it [the Pentateuch] reached us, but only that it came to us through Moses who acted like a secretary taking dictation” (Helek: San. Ch.10, No.8).

Today, can we take the concept of revelation literally? If, so how can we explain the so many internal discrepancies within the biblical material? For instance, of the two sets of the Decalogue, Ex.20 and Deut. 5, which is God’s real words? Did God change “his” mind?  

In trying to ascertain how the Bible took shape, many Biblical scholars tell us that the Hebrew Bible is made up of four different literary strands, JEDP, which were composed by various human authors over a long period of time. We don’t know exactly when the Hebrew Canon was completed. Some have argued that the Council of Jamnia finalized the Hebrew Bible in the first cent. CE., but this theory has been challenged by many critics. Scholars now suggest dates that vary from the 1^st cent. BCE to the 2^nd cent. CE.   

From the perspective of Jewish religious naturalism, my position, we can say that all biblical texts and rabbinic instructions were written by extraordinary human beings who were inspired by the circumstances that surrounded them. They were eventually collected as sacred texts for the larger community to read and study. Instead of “revelation,” most religious naturalists use the idea of “discovery.”  So, if we want to find out God’s will, they would say, all we need to do is investigate and study the evidence that is provided to us by nature. Even though, that is not perfect and always subject to change based on the discovery of new data, it is, at least, verifiable.

1.     Prophets and Prophecy in the ANE, SBL, M. Nissinen, SBL, 2003, p.69.

2.     Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS, 1996, 291

WHERE ARE THE PROPHETS TODAY?

 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

You think prophets are gone? Not so in some Christian groups. I recently learned that Ellen G. White (d.1915), the co-founder of the Seven Day Adventists, was regarded as a “prophetess.” Bishop D.T. Tonne of the Elijah Prophet of Fire Ministries International is identified online as a “prophet.” Similarly, Russell M. Nelson Sr. is the 17^th and current president as well as the prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Who is a prophet? A prophet by definition is a mouthpiece of God, a human medium capable of receiving and transmitting a verbal message from the divine. Prophecy is an ancient phenomenon in the Near East, where we find a number of references to people who claimed that they received the word of God and shared this message with other people. They went by different names, including: muhhu in Babylonia, apilu in Mari (of Syria) and navi in ancient Israel. Some of them were simple diviners, others acted as social critics. Some were attached to sanctuaries, others roamed alone. They were men and women. Their language is at times banal but often impressive. They spoke up at temples but also in the market places.

Examples are plentiful: an unknown prophet of Akkad looked forward to the day when “the country will live safely….the people will have abundance” (ANET, 606). The Jewish prophet Amos (8^th cent. BCE), preached in the northern kingdom of Israel: “Seek good and not evil that you may live…Hate evil and love good and establish justice in the gate” (5:14-15, JPS). Micah (8^th cent. BCE) expressed his hope in Jerusalem that people “will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never again know war” (4: 3, JPS). First Isaiah (8^th cent. BCE) looked forward to the day when God “will hold up a signal to the nations and assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (11: 12, JPS).

Ancient prophets usually shared their messages verbally and, later on, scribes turned them into written texts, often ex post facto.

In the New Testament, both John the Baptist (Mat 11:9-11) and Jesus (Acts 3:22) are called prophets.  In the Quran, Mohammad is viewed as one. Even though Mohammad accepted Jesus and the biblical prophets as legitimate, Christians do not view Muhammad as a prophet and Jews do not consider Mohammad or Jesus as prophets.

How does one know if a prophet is legitimate or not? In Jewish history, not everyone was accepted as a legitimate prophet. Many were in fact declared false. The book of Deuteronomy, for example, tells us that “if a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and the oracle does not come true, that oracle was not spoken by the Lord” (Deut.18:22). That prophet is false. During the reign of King Jehoshaphat of Judah (870-846 BCE), “a lying spirit (fell) in the mouth of the prophets” (I K 22: 23). The prophet Ezekiel attacked “the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit.” (13:3-4). In the NT, Jesus warns of false prophets “who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7: 15).

During the medieval times, the concept of prophecy came under heavy criticism among major Jewish philosophers, because divine revelation was becoming more and more problematic and philosophically untenable. Thus, for instance, even though Saadia Gaon (d. 942) of Egypt defended the old concept of prophecy as verbal revelation from God, others, like Abraham Ibn Ezra (d.1167) of Tudela, Spain  and Moses Maimonides (d.1204) of Cordoba, Spain argued that when the prophets spoke up, they used their own reason and imaginative powers.  

We do not know when prophecy ended in ancient Israel. According to the Talmud, “After the last prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi died (about 5^th cent. BCE), the Divine Spirit of prophetic revelation departed from the Jewish people, and they were still utilizing a Divine Voice, which they heard as an echo of prophecy” (Yoma 9b). On the other hand, Seder Olam Rabba ,30, a rabbinic text that deals with chronology, places it at the time of Alexander the Great (d.323 BCE). The Jewish historian Josephus (1^st cent CE) still speaks of “false prophets” during the Roman period (Wars 6/5/2). It must have been a slow process.

Today, for all practical purposes, we live in a post-prophetic era. Except for very few examples in the Christian world today (see above), no human being is given the title of “prophet” anymore. Today, it is almost impossible to ascertain who has received “the word of God,” and how. Now, at best, we talk about wise people or charismatic individuals who can speak with a commanding voice on major social, political  and religious issues, not because they received verbal messages from the divinity but because of the forceful arguments they can muster when they speak up. We pay attention to them and often follow their teachings. They are our modern teachers and guides.