[Dialogue] 7/16/09, Spong: The Origins of the Bible, Part XXVII: The Liturgical Books of Lamentations and Esther

Thu Jul 16 10:45:43 CDT 2009

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Thursday July 16, 2009 

The Origins of the Bible, Part XXVII
The Liturgical Books of Lamentations and Esther

One of the things that seems to escape the notice of those who believe that the Bible was somehow dictated by God is that the Bible is first and foremost a liturgical book. That is, the Bible was written to be used on occasions of public worship. It was never intended to be read as history or biography. We have seen this principle many times on this journey through the scriptures in this column. We noted that the original story of Jesus' passion and death on the cross, as it was composed by Mark (14:17-15:49), was not a description of how Jesus died; it was rather a liturgical reliving of the meaning of his crucifixio
n. It was originally written to be used by the Christian community while they were still part of the synagogue and thus still observing the Passover. In that early Christian adaptation of Jewish worship Jesus was likened to the Paschal lamb of Passover who broke the power of death. That is why Mark's Passion narrative was written in eight three-hour segments. It was a liturgical piece designed to satisfy the demands of a twenty-four-hour vigil service. We also noted that Mark's gospel itself was originally written to be read on the Sabbaths of the liturgical year between Rosh Hashanah and Passover. That is why it suggests that Jesus' public ministry was one year in duration. That was the time span in which his life was liturgically remembered while the followers of Jesus were still involved in the life of the synagogue. The Christian church did not separate itself from the synagogue until at least 58 years after the crucifixion, by which time Mark's Gospel had been around for at least 17 years.
In other illustrations of the influence of liturgy on scripture we need to note that Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the Psalter, was a hymn to the glory and wonder of the Torah. It was composed to be read at the Jewish festival of Shavuot, or Pentecost, when the giving of the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai was celebrated. In a similar fashion Zechariah 9-14 has a particular connection to the eight-day fall harvest festival of Sukkoth, or Booths. Perhaps that is why this part of Zechariah occupied so favored 
a position among the early Christians, who quote from this source constantly, building the Palm Sunday story on Zechariah 9:9-11. 

Once this pattern is discerned, two other little-known books of the Bible begin to make sense. I refer to the book of Lamentations, found immediately after the book of Jeremiah; and the book of Esther, found after the book of Nehemiah closes the "history" section of the Old Testament and before the book of Job opens the Wisdom section. I focus today on these two books as we near our completion in this "Origins" series of the Old Testament part of our study. 

Lamentations was a book written to be read on the Jewish observance of a holy day known as the 9th of Ab, which would come generally in our month of August. It is a series of laments over Jerusalem, designed both to recall and to bewail the fall of that city to the Babylonians in the early years of the 6th century BCE. The 9th of Ab was the day chosen to mark in every generation their ultimate national tragedy. People once attributed this book to Jeremiah, and that probably accounts for its placement in the Bible immediately following Jeremiah, but Jeremiah had been dead for hundreds of years before Lamentations was written. It is a book written for liturgical recital on this day of public fasting and mourning. Four of its chapters follow a form we know as alphabetical acrostics, that is, they each have 22 verses, one for each of the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The book was designed to be20a series of dirges to allow the defeats of history to be recalled on a day that was set aside for national mourning.

Most Christians are familiar with this book only because it has been adapted for Christian use on Good Friday. Often Good Friday liturgies begin with these words from Lamentations: "Is it nothing to you all ye who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow with which the Lord has afflicted me." By using these words from Lamentations on Good Friday, Christians were likening the death of Jesus liturgically to the death of the Jewish nation.

Other words from Lamentations that have found their way into Christian worship include the 1822 hymn by John Keble, "New Every Morning is the Love," based on Lamentations 3:22; the phrase used in Christian prayers to a God who has "taught us in thy holy word that thou dost not willingly grieve or afflict the sons of man," from Lamentations 3:32; and the secular phrase that something is "worth its weight in gold," which comes from Lamentations 4:2. This little book can be read in five minutes and it constantly surprises the reader with its message.

A second little-known biblical liturgical work is the book of Esther. Like Lamentations this book was also written to be read in synagogue worship on a Jewish holiday. Esther is attached to the Jewish Festival of Purim, which normally comes in February or March in our calendar. It is a charming and purely secular story in which no Jewish religious practice is mentioned and=2
0the name of God is never used. I recall meeting a musician from New York, while we were both walking the Milford Track on the beautiful South Island of New Zealand, whose ambition it was to turn the story of Esther into a modern opera. I hope he does so, for it lends itself to that medium with great power.

The story line of the book of Esther is fascinating. A Persian king named Ahasuerus, who ruled a kingdom that stretched from Ethiopia to India, was drinking with some royal guests and some of the leading citizens in the city of Susa. He decided to invite his queen Vashti into the feast so that these guests could stare with envy at her beauty. Vashti, however, refused to come, which created an embarrassing moment. If the king's wife could defy her husband, then any wife could defy any husband and the power of patriarchy would be over. All women must give honor to their husbands, the text said, for this is "the law of the Medes and the Persians." So in response to the Queen's disobedience, the order was sent across the land that "every man shall be king of his home." Queen Vashti was banished and a contest set up to pick the most beautiful virgin in the land to be the new queen. The choice fell on Esther, the niece of a Jewish man named Mordecai. It appears that her Jewish identity was unknown to the king. Later two of the king's eunuchs conspired to remove the king from the throne, but their scheme was discovered by Mordecai and reported to the king, who had the e
unuchs hanged and who then placed the good deed done by Mordecai in informing the king of this danger in the "Book of Memorable Deeds." Meanwhile, the king reorganized his administration and appointed a man named Haman to be over all his affairs. Haman, drunk with his new authority, required the populace to bow down before him. They all did so except for one man, Mordecai the Jew, who bowed his head to no human being. This infuriated Haman and he initiated a plan to hang Mordecai and to destroy all the Jews in the realm. When notice of this intention became public, Mordecai asked his daughter Esther to intercede with the king on behalf of her people. She did so even though it identified her as a Jew and placed her in mortal danger by demanding the king's attention.

Still smitten by her charms, the king allowed this intrusion on his royal dignity and asked to hear her request. She invited him to come with Haman alone to a dinner she would prepare and at which she would make her petition known. They came, but she now said she would not make her request known until a second dinner that again only Haman and the king would attend.

Haman was quite pleased to be included in these dinners along with the king and the queen and he began to fantasize about his increasing power. He built a gallows on which to hang Mordecai, his major nemesis. Before they attended the second dinner, the king has a restless night and in his sleeplessness read from the "Book of Memorable Deeds" where Morde
cai's act in saving the king was recorded. The next day he inquired of Haman what should be done for a man the king wanted to honor. Haman, assuming that he was to be the honoree, spelled out a list of public acts to be bestowed upon this fortunate man. The king agreed and directed Haman to do all of the things he had outlined to Mordecai the Jew. To his chagrin, Haman had to carry out this order on the one he considered his bitterest enemy. Things get even worse for Haman when he accompanied the king to the second dinner with Queen Esther to hear her petition. She asked that the law designed to annihilate the Jews be rescinded and that Haman, the author of this law, be executed. The king did as Esther had requested. The Jewish people were saved and Haman was hanged on the same gallows that he had erected for Mordecai. This escape from peril was then ordered to be celebrated annually on the Feast of Purim so that the Jews could recall the time when Queen Esther saved them from annihilation.

It is an exciting story, but it hardly qualifies as the "Word of God," especially when the Jews, now freed from annihilation, responded by slaying five hundred of their tormentors, including the ten sons of Haman.

There is so much in the Bible that is lively and insightful to read, once we crack the pious framework and remove the outrageous claims to authority that have been placed into and around these ancient words. Human beings almost inevitably and intuitively seek the truth of God 
and it comes through many sources of which the Bible is one. The truth of God, however, cannot be captured in propositional form, for it is always bigger than the human mind can embrace. Our perception of truth evolves as human consciousness expands. We claim no finite book as the literal source of truth without becoming idolaters. The Christians of the world need to face the fact that the biblical books of Lamentations and Esther make that point in a very obvious way.

Next week we will conclude our study of the Old Testament with a look at the work of the Chronicler, which includes Ezra and Nehemiah. 

– John Shelby Spong

Log in to the essay archive at JohnShelbySpong.com 
to read previous columns in the Origins of the Bible series.

Question and Answer 
With John Shelby Spong

The Shady Ladies 
Tad Evans, a retired Episcopal priest and the grandson of the well known and well remembered Walter Russell Bowie, sent the following verse that he attributes without certainty to English Bible scholar Michael Donald Goulder. One of my columns on "The Shady Ladies" of Matthew's genealogy inspired Tad to pass this along. I thought it too much fun to keep it to myself and so I run it today in place of the "Question and Answer" feature.
I hope you both enjoy it and that it sends you back to your Bibles to read Matthew 1:1-17 on which it is based and to check out his references to the Hebrew Scriptures.

– John Shelby Spong

0A

Exceedingly odd is the means by which
God has directed our path to the heavenly shore.
Of the girls from whose line the true light was to shine, 
There was one an adulteress, one was a whore. 

There was Tamar who bore what we all should deplore: 
A fine pair of twins to her father-in-law. 

And Rahab, the harlot, her sins were as scarlet, 
As red as the thread she hung from her door. 
Yet alone of her nation she came to salvation, 
And lived to be mother of Boaz of yore. 

And he married Ruth, a Gentile uncouth, 
In a manner quite counter to Biblical lore, 

And from her there did spring blessed David, the king, 
Who walked on his palace one morning and spied 
The wife of Uriah from whom he did sire, 
A baby who died, Oh and princes, a score. 

And a mother, unmarried, it was, too, who carried, 
God's son whom she laid in a cradle of straw, 
That the moral might wait at the Heavenly Gate, 
While sinners and publicans go in before, 
Who have not earned their place, but received it by grace, 
And have found them a righteousness, not of the law.

Send your questions to support at johnshelbyspong.com 

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