Reading the Hebrew Bible After the Shoah: Engaging Holocaust Theology

REVIEW 6

Reading the Hebrew Bible After the Shoah                                                                                                                     Engaging Holocaust Theology                                                                                                                                   

Mervin A. Sweeny                                                                                                                                      Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2008

Reviewed by Yahu Vinayaraj

Mervin A. Sweeny’s book, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah, Engaging Holocaust Theology, deals with the impact of the Holocaust or Shoah on the reading of the Hebrew Bible in both Judaism and Christianity. Mervin argues that consideration of the Shoah points to a need to rethink traditional concepts of divine presence, power and righteousness together with traditional notions of human guilt or sin in relation to G-d. The book exhorts us the human beings as partners with G-d in creation are expected to play the primary role in completing the creation of the world begun by G-d and thereby in restoring the presence of G-d that was shattered by the very act of creation itself.

The Shoah refers to the issue of mass extermination of Jewish population in Europe by the Nazis during the World War II. The writer argues that Shoah in the patristic period employed the power of state deliberately to suppress Judaism and pointed to the oppressed state of Jews in Christian society as a means to demonstrate the consequences of failure to acknowledge Christ and church authority. Such a stance played a major role in promoting antagonism against Jews throughout the Christian world. The author raises the question of the absence of Christian theological response to this issue in the earlier times.

In the introduction, Mervin makes a survey of Jewish theological discourses of Shoah. He starts his enquiry on the assumption that the biblical theology especially Old testament had failed to account for the Shoah, so he turns to the discussion of the theological interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the twentieth century. This study argues that the problem posed by the Shoah call for human beings to take on greater responsibility for the sanctity, well-being, and fundamental justice of the world in which we live.

The book consists of ten chapters excluding introduction and conclusion, which cover the pages 1-283. The first chapter “Abraham and the Problem of Divine fidelity,” deals with the Abraham –YHWH relationship and the Abraham-Sarah narratives. He argues that it points to a fundamental concern with Divine fidelity in the Genesis narratives concerning Israel’s first ancestors, Abraham and Sarah (P.25).

Chapter two discusses with Moses-the founding leader of Israel in the pentateuchal narrative and the problem of Divine violence. The condemnation of Moses is on the context of emergence of priestly and political leadership to Israel and the author argues that with those new changes in the leadership, Israel is capable enough to address the hostile situations against them (P. 63). Chapter three “The Question of Theodicy in the historical Books (Jeroboam, Manasseh, and Josiah) defends the power and righteousness of YHWH in the face of disaster and evil. The fall of Jerusalem, the exile of the people, the death and the suffering of so many were not due to YHWH’s impotency, moral fidelity or lack of attention. Rather YHWH”s power, righteousness, and attention to the human affairs brings about the disaster when human beings fail in their obligations to YHWH (P. 83).

Chapter four discusses with the Isaiah’s question to G-d. The book of Isaiah is a work of theodicy that attempts to defend YHWH from the charges of impotence and immorality. YHWH is the G-d who brings judgment against those nations when they fail to recognize YHWH as the source of power and He is the G-d who restores the people from exile to Jerusalem as it symbolizes YHWH’s role in the world (P. 103).  Jeremiah’s struggle with his Divine commission is the content of discussion in the fifth chapter. Mervin contents that in order to defend the sanctity, righteousness, and power of YHWH, Jeremiah’s only recourse was to argue that the people-and not YHWH- were responsible for their own fate and that YHWH would ultimately act to restore Jerusalem, Judah and Israel once the period of exile and punishment was over (P. 127).

In the chapter six where the author deals with Ezekiel and the issue of the Holiness of G-d, he contends that Ezekiel describes a restored temple and a restored Israel at the centre of a restored creation to signify the outcome of YHWH’s efforts to purge the world of its impurity and corruption and to reestablish the sanctity of creation (P. 145). The next chapter discusses with the Twelve Prophets and the Question of Shoah. According to Mervin, every one of these books raises issues concerning YHWH’s power, righteousness and willingness to act in relation to the experiences of Shoah in the ancient world. For Mervin, these are the questions posed about G-d in relation to the modern experience of Shoah (P. 166).

The eighth chapter deals with the complaints to G-d in Psalms and Lamentations, the voice of the victims. When he discusses with the role of Laments, he argues that “such a dialogue points to a robust relationship between YHWH and the people in which both parties express themselves, forcefully and deliberately when either perceives wrongdoing on the part of the other. Nevertheless, neither YHWH nor the people abandon the dialogue, but instead look for the means to ensure its continuity (P. 187). He discusses with the Divine hiddenness and human initiatives in the Wisdom Literature that constitutes the ninth chapter. Mervin is convinced that the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible calls upon human being to act, that is, to discern wisdom and order in the world and to act on that knowledge, however limited it might be, to ensure a stable and productive order in creation and life in the world (P. 207).

In the last chapter, “Lessons from the Didactic narratives of the Writings,” he is of the opinion that readers of the didactic narrative literature of the Hebrew bible learn the importance of Jewish life, practice, and identity, and the imperative to assert and defend all three when living in a gentle world (P. 227). In the conclusion Mervin compares the predicament of the human being with experience of Eve in the Garden of Eden. G-d’s absence is because of our wrong doings. “To a dialogue, the question of divine engagement or absence is irrelevant.” For him, the key question is, “will we continue to uphold the ideas learned from G-d of power, righteousness, fidelity and engagement in our own lives? He exhorts us that “we need to accept our own responsibility to complete and sanctify the world of creation in which we live (P. 241).   

This book is a meaningful intervention to the efforts that propagates hate against people, communities and nationalities. Especially in the case of Jews, as Mervin A. Sweeny argues, there has been a conscious effort to alienate them at the cost of the biblical narratives on Jews. In that matter, it is a hermeneutical resistance to those engagements of hate and alienation. The best way to challenge the programme of hate is to retreat/ re-read/ re-imagine/ re-member the history and re-locate it theologically. That is what Mervin is doing through this work. As a hermeneutical engagement for love and reconciliation, this effort is to be acknowledged and appreciated.

 However this book, from the very beginning seems to defend God’s fidelity and righteousness against the question of theodicy.  As he tries to attend the question of theodicy, Mervin blames human beings for their irresponsible life on the earth. This condemnation of the human being on the basis of the “original sin,” locates its hermeneutical stand point against the contemporary discussions on the biblical hermeneutical engagements.  Condemning human beings in total and demanding their universal change outrageously, strategically places these discussions in the ‘air’ and it lacks the specific attention to the particular textual engagements that problematize the hermeneutic programme of hate.