Huldah - Israel's Prophetess and Professor

 

 

[AMAIC: Our view that Huldah was the heroine Judith would incline us to modify a few points in this otherwise excellent piece]

 

The Bible Account Of This Story Is Found In 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34

Huldah is another little known woman [sic] of the Bible who made an incredible impact on Israel and the history of the Hebrews. She never went to war like Deborah or killed to protect her people like Jael [sic]; she didn’t nurse a sick aging king like Abishag or build cities like Sheerah. She did impart truth to a nation that was spiritually sick and dying because they were worshipping idols and false gods. This is Huldah’s story.

Huldah is only mentioned twice in the Bible and was a wife, possibly a mother, who allowed God to use her as He saw fit. She was married to Shallum, keeper of the wardrobe to King Josiah and she lived in the “college”, a place of education. Since few people knew how to read and write, teachings were oral. Huldah was one of the teachers. This is the only recorded instance of a woman being in a position to educate others and Jewish tradition agrees with this account. Men and women of the time did not mingle or visit in closed quarters, she was probably teacher to the younger boy and girls. Since Huldah was educated, we must conclude that other females were also therefore I include girls in this reference. Another possibility is that she taught the Mishanh (oral law) to elders in a public place. Her rooms (widely accepted as fact) were open to the outside courts so her modesty and reputation were protected.

Being married to Shallum, she would have been a regular visitor to the court and was apparently well known and respected by the king himself. She may have taught some of the courtiers’ children and perhaps even the royal children. She was acknowledged as a prophetess and was surely experienced in speaking to wealthy, powerful people. Her anointing as a prophet would have brought her into the vicinity of the temple priests where her word was respected and obeyed. The prophets were known to interpret what God had imparted to them. If Huldah witnessed an improper act or injustice, she had authority to call it out as such publically. She was herself a powerful, influential and respected woman.

The time in which Huldah lived was about 3,000 before Christ and approximately 300 after the reign of King Solomon. The nation of Israel had again left following God but the young king, Josiah, was a godly man who was interested in the Lord. He had commissioned a total reconstruction of Solomon’s temple. During the digging and rebuilding, a lost scroll was found hidden in a wall. This was the Book of the Law which was given to Moses from God Himself. The high priest took it to the king’s palace and gave it to a scribe (secretary), Shaphan, who read it aloud to Josiah.

The contents were so frightening that the king tore his clothing in grief and repentance. The book of the law told of God’s anger against the nation because the ancestors of the current people had been disobedient and worshiped other gods. Josiah was concerned. He needed to know just what all this meant for the nation and the people who depended upon him to care for them. Was it even authentic or could it be a forgery? An interpreter was needed. So Josiah called his trusted advisors to seek the Lord about the matter. This meant a prophet needed to be consulted. They went to Huldah and she was not impressed at all. She didn’t care they were from the king; she was used to speaking the truth and would not compromise for anyone. To do that would contaminate her integrity and that was not an option.

She told them what God imparted to her. He was going to bring disaster on them and their homeland because they had abandoned their faith and given their love to other false gods. I can see her now, all regal and lovely in her robes, scrolls in hand. She must have been a breathtaking sight. She did not even refer to Josiah as the king, but as “the man who sent you to me.” She was showing them that she spoke for God, not the king who was human and might make a poor decision.

Then interestingly, she called Josiah king. When she was giving the bad news, she spoke of him as just another citizen. But when the report was positive news, she recognized him as God’s chosen leader of Judah. He had been working diligently to clean the land of idols and removed alters used to sacrifice to Baal. His instructions to rebuild the temple were due to his faith and quest for righteousness in the land and in the hearts of his people. He had begun the cleansing when only twelve years old (Josiah had begun to reign at eight). So God recognized his work and vowed to spare Josiah. He would not allow strife and disaster to come while Josiah was living.

The men returned to the palace and gave Huldah’s interpretation to the king. He immediately called everyone in the kingdom to the temple and read the Law to them all “from the least to the greatest.” Then Josiah the King renewed the Covenant with the Lord and had every person pledge themselves to it also.

He finished removing the idols and false gods, temples and alters. The land was clean and the hearts of the people were too. As long as Josiah lived, Judah was faithful to The Lord God Jehovah, as their beloved King David had been. The Passover was celebrated in a purity that had not happened for centuries, since the time of Samuel. Josiah reigned for another thirteen years, and then was killed in battle. During that time he finished the temple project and kept the covenant promise he had made to God, and all the people did also.

And Huldah was responsible in part because she lived a godly life and kept the mandates so God was able to use her when the time was right. She was instrumental in bringing revival to Israel and renewing love for God in the hearts of the people.

Then Huldah faded back into obscurity like most of the other women who changed history. They didn’t demand equal attention or change who they were. They just obeyed God and made themselves available while remaining wives and mothers; sisters and daughters. The common thread that ties these ladies together is their obedience to, and worship of, God in their lives.

As we have seen with other rarely seen women of the Old Testament Bible, one person can make a difference in thousands of lives. God felt it necessary to record the names and actions of Huldah and other women throughout centuries and even millennia. He obviously trusted that they knew Him and His word and law. He knew Huldah was faithful, self confident in her knowledge and also in right standing with her husband and community. And she trusted God also. She was not afraid to give herself over to Him, but was confident in placing her life in His hands. We should not be hesitant either. He has promised in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” With that kind of commitment from the Creator, we can be assured all will work out to our benefit and to His glory. Are we confident, strong and ready to change the world we live in? What is your legacy? What is mine going to be?

Huldah’s legacy of faithfulness and righteousness still lives and is known in Jerusalem. There are the remains of the Huldah Gates on the Temple mound and according to Jewish writings her tomb has been kept intact since her death even unto our present time. I pray we all live in such integrity that our actions are remembered and preserved in hearts the world over-and in the heart of God.

Fascinating Facts

• Nothing in the Bible indicated it was unusual or strange for the men to seek spiritual insight from a woman.
• According to Jewish history, the discovered scroll, a "Sefer Torah", had been hidden to keep it safe. The evil King Ahab had burnt one during his reign.
• Josiah's advisor and teacher, Hilkiah, was the great grandfather of Ezra the scribe who has a book in the Bible named after him.
• Another advisor was the great prophet Jeremiah.
• Huldah lived about 3300 years before Christ.
• Josiah was sixteen when he started the spiritual cleansing of his kingdom.

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Taken from: http://hyphenbird.hubpages.com/hub/Huldah-Israels-Prophetess-and-Professor
 

The Documentary Hypothesis does Damage to the Bible



Published on October 23, 2009 by Stephen Rives

This series came in seven installments: an Intro, then Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Because I am preaching through Genesis it seems fair to introduce the Old Testament documentary hypothesis (sometimes called the JEDP theory), its relationship to Genesis studies, and my reasons for rejecting it.
Instead of working from scratch it is expedient to construct the next few blogs around the book, Before Abraham Was: A Provocative Challenge to the Documentary Hypothesis by Kikawada (Berkeley) and Quinn (Princeton). Their book is borrowed scaffolding. Along the way I will show where my perspective varies from theirs, but my main objective is to explore the documentary hypothesis and reasons for my rejection of it.

An Admission
I am not trying to be fair to all adherents of the documentary hypothesis. That is, I necessarily will work with main thrusts coming from the theory, even as I know that nuances abound and updated versions have new tweaks, twists and turns. I maintain, however, that updates and tweaks to a sunken ship won’t free it from its watery grave, restore its crew, and get it sailing. I am no more persuaded by the latest apologetics of Jehovah Witnesses or Islam than I am with the next defense from the documentary hypothesizers.
A Definition
The documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) states that there is a long history and complex layering of story fragments that comprise Genesis. The Darwinian view of the Grand Canyon is illustrative of the hypothesis. As with the Canyon, one looks upon stratum and supposedly gets irrefutable evidence for long evolutionary periods. The writings of Moses are his in name only, for really they are accretions — the production of so many editors over so many centuries. Each contributor laid down their particular layer until, over time, the Pentateuch finally reached a settled state. This is a hypothesis grown in the same dark and moldy room as Darwinian evolution. It too is rooted in the 1800s as it is, “a characteristic product of its time…” (9).
According to the program of the documentary hypothesizers, Genesis 1-11 is not read as the unveiling of one mind — not Moses’s, let alone God’s — but is a particolored quilt of seams and patches that betray the tinkerings of Jewish scribes. These editors secretly and anonymously created a poorly done religious history that shows no higher design than propagandized agendas. As man evolved from apes, so the books of Moses are not by special design; they are manuscripts that suffer the accidents of time. They emerged as survivors of religious fitness and scribal mutations.
They have a presently stable form despite their tumultuous struggle to emerge from the scribal slime. According to the clever inspectional work of specially trained researchers from the 19th century, that scribal slime turns out to be composed of at least four detectable editors. We don’t know who the editors are, of course, but we can assign them names. The most common monikers for the four are J, E, P and D. That is, the J editor (along with her disciples and followers) is uniquely discernible behind particular patches in the variegated quilt. Of course, discerning J is not a black and white venture because the specially trained researches are not uniform in their imaginations.
A Problem
Just as Darwin’s evolution is pre-Micro Biology, pre-Computer, pre-Flight, pre-Hubble, pre-NASA, pre-GNOME, pre-Einstein, pre-Nuclear, … so the documentary hypothesis is a leftover from an age long gone. The documentary hypothesis was a mistake of history never meant to upstage the real sciences of Archaeology, Egyptology, Assyriology and Linguistics. Biblical studies can be likened to other sciences. As the physical sciences frequently abandon false starts, Biblical studies are not beholden to failed conjectures advanced during the pre-archaeological period.
Before Abraham Was. Chapter 1
Genesis 1-11 tells the story of creation, Adam, the fall, Noah, the flood, the tower of Babel and the emergence of nations. The pre-flood period is as its own world with its own history. Out of the ark emerged a new history distinct from Genesis 1-5. And in terms of God’s redemptive activity, all of it is a prelude to Abraham (who shows up in Genesis 12). “Before Abraham Was” refers to the long and complex history of Genesis 1-11.
The Name (הַשֵּׁם)
In the telling of Judah’s long and complex history, God’s name is alternatively “Elohim”, “Yahweh” and sometimes “Yahweh Elohim”. Switches between these names are taken to be the DNA evidence of different editors. According to the documentary hypothesis, Genesis 1-5 is internally grouped according to two editorial schools — one written by priests who use “Elohim” and one from the editors who use “Yahweh.” To this day Yahweh is not a name often spoken by Jews. At some point in the Jewish past (perhaps after the destruction of the temple in AD 70), the name Yahweh ceased to be pronounced by the religiously pious. It is a priestly concern that guards the name as holy.
The Sources: J, E, P, D
J, E, P and D are names given to the theoretical schools who wrote that which Moses wished he wrote (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). In fact, the only thing that documentary scholars seem to agree about is that Moses and his helpers were too dense to pull off the complex writing that recorded God’s activities. In fact, when they get done with their hypothetical scholarship, Moses himself probably did not exist, the exodus is a myth, and the only thing that is certain is that they are scholars of what they consider to be a fairytale book. Following this pattern, in 2000 years I expect people to get their PhDs in Harry Potter and then to endlessly debate and pretend that their ideas merit the attention of other scholars.
P stands for Priestly and designates the supposed editor who reworked material according to a late priest’s perspective. An orthodox priest of Jerusalem (writing after the Babylonians took Jerusalem) sees God as above, wholly other, far off, creating by his words, inhabiting his high mountain, instituting Sabbath, and dwelling in a heavenly and exalted temple. The P editors used Elohim as the name of the deity (being too humble to evoke the covenant name). Thus the P material of Genesis can be detected in the use of the name Elohim, particularly when God is acting or speaking with priest-like concerns (holiness, sacrifices, otherness, exalted status, etc.).
J is for Jehovah. The Hebrew name Yahweh was rendered by Germans scholars (leaders in the development of the documentary hypothesis) as Jehovah. I use Yahweh and Jehovah interchangeably. The documentary hypothesis postulates that Yahweh/Jehovah would have connoted the view of a conservative religious editor writing from a Jerusalem-like perspective. Namely, Yahweh is the name of the God who was with Israel in the wilderness. Yahweh is the God who walked in the garden of Eden. He is the relational God with a revealed covenantal name. The conservative religious editor is from the southern kingdom of Judah and employed the name Jehovah as a polemical way to obtain distance from the polytheistic religions.
E is the name of the non-Priestly editor who used “Elohim” to reference God. Elohim is plural. This plural form is interpreted as a residual of a polytheistic editor. It represents a theological point of view — a view that would have been at home in the northern kingdom of Israel (Ephraim). Roughly speaking, E designates editors from Ephraim who were less critical of polytheism and who used the name Elohim to reference God (II Kings 1:3).
One can see how the documentary hypothesis is capable of putting a lot of stock in a name. The selection of a name to alternately encode a polytheistic or monotheistic worldview is to laden one word with the essence of a religious debate. Of course it is possible that the plural ending is a theological polemic revealing the polytheistic DNA of northern editors, but if we go by an argument from possibilities, then it is just possible that it is not the case. In fact, by Occam’s razor, the documentary hypothesis asks one word to do too much.
Naming the different editors and authors, the books of “Moses” can be graphically sliced and color coded according to the different contributors.
However, the documentary hypothesis is sophisticated enough that it won’t be boiled-down to name usage only. One can observe that with each switch in name (Elohim vs. Yahweh), there is a corresponding switch in literary style. Genesis 1, for example, has a different feel than Genesis 2. Genesis 1 uses Elohim and Genesis 2 uses Yahweh. One style is Priestly (P), another is Yahwehistic (J).

So what we find in Genesis 1-5 are not only changes in vocabulary, narrative styles, and theologies, but also unnecessary…repetitions–and all these obey the general sectioning of Genesis 1-5 suggested by the divine names. (20).

Inventors of the Documentary Hypothesis have Invented a Crisis
The astute reader detects stylistic changes as Genesis unfolds; chapter 1 gives way to chapter 2, and things move around and the story has development and action as we go from 2 to 3 all the way to the end of the book. At this point the documentary hypothesis invents a crisis by finding contradictions whenever the camera angle changes or when a new character comes in uninvited. After the crisis is elevated to the level of a force-ten hurricane, the hypothetical scholar puts on his cape and the documentary hero emerges to save us from the dreadful deluge.

The documentary hypothesis had its own Noah, and his name was Wellhausen (21).

Without a single story teller, we are quickly saved from the notion of a single theme. The story of the Bible can’t be about Jesus (who named himself as the theme in John 5:39), but is about something altogether different. The Bible becomes the story of hypothesizing scholars. It becomes the story of how 19th century scholarship untangled the mess of ancient Hebrew texts.
Scholars of the Documentary Hypothesis are Self Created Heroes
The creation story ceases to be how the Holy Spirit brooded over the formless void to create order. Genesis becomes a formless mass of texts where vipers find their brood wherein to hatch hypothetical scholars. The documentary scholars have come to save us from the despair of an ancient story that moves along and has development. They save us by saying there is no theme and there is no single author. They relieve us of seeing how God and Moses wrote the Pentateuch. The hypothetical scholar becomes the hypothetical savior to save us from thinking that God wrote a book. God is dethroned, and the scholar is put in his place.
Our salvation comes in realizing that we have been tricked. There is no unified author and only the discovery of editors shows the order embedded in the formless crisis. They created the problem, and they created the solution, and they are the real heroes of the story. The Bible, it turns out, is about them and their scholarship.
The Documentary Hypothesizers are Blind to Masterminds and Artists
The documentary hypothesizers don’t know about single authors who write complex, changing and multi-faceted masterpieces. A single book, like Genesis, with a single author… it is preposterous! Who could imagine such a thing? Moses writing Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 would be like a musician who could play two instruments. Vocalists can sing only one song. Artists can make only one album. Narrators can’t write poetry, and poets can’t write history, and historians can’t make music. Moses couldn’t write Genesis, because that would mean he was able to write both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 (and that insanity would be a crisis of Biblical proportion). It is too complex. Genesis was created over centuries and each editor attributed his part according to his editorial-kind. And so the crisis is solved. Salvation has come and we are relieved from believing that one author could have written an amazing book.

If Genesis 1-5 is the product of a single author, then that author is capable of two quite different narrative styles and no compunction about using them…from this thesis and antithesis we would expect him to attempt a synthesis, a synthesis that would exhibit to an even greater degree his theological profundity and literary virtuosity (21).

How to Answer a Fool
Kikawada and Quinn are sharp, almost sarcastic, in how they represent the documentary hypothesis — perhaps following the Proverb, “answer a fool according to his folly.” If a fool thinks that the many colors of a great painting prove that the painting had many artists and many pallets, then what is left to say? Great artists do paint great paintings. Genius authors do write complex books. God did create the visible and invisible realms and all that is in them — writing down his deeds seems like a lesser feat. The answer for the fool is too obvious to give, so sarcasm may be all that is left for them.
God is the Author of the Bible
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. His story has a beginning and an end, and Jesus is the Alpha and Omega. The story is history that radiates from a point and consummates in a Lamb. God has worked and created according to a unified purpose; the Holy Spirit hovered over the formless void to bring it into conformity to the pattern of the architect. The same God who did this promised by his Spirit that he would attend to the keeping of the divine records. Earth would contain a written copy of the heavenly records (John 14:26), and it does. We have the Bible. It is a book divine in origin. This is no more incredible than a God who can create the whole cosmos. Whoever invented atoms, molecules, air, water, cells, blood, frogs, trees, dirt, elephants, you, volcanoes, quarks, planets, space, and light can have a book. In the grand scheme of things, to believe that God wrote a book is not a crisis.
The documentary hypothesis is a rival theology that presumes to talk about God. It refuses to have him as he is revealed. Like the first rebel force, it starts by asking, “Has God really said” (Gen 3:1), and then goes on to articulate how God is not the Alpha and Omega. God becomes like us, only less so, for he is nothing more than the invention of an editor or a theologian from the 1800s. Documentary hypothesizers are unable to see a single author, and so the question of a single theme is not even a possibility for them. When we can’t find a single author for the Bible, it becomes a collection of circumstantially gathered writings bound together from evolutionary processes. If God can’t keep a record, then he can’t give us his grand theme or purpose. The documentary hypothesis is nothing more than another way of saying Amen to the crafty serpent of the garden.

Steve Rives
Eastside Church of the Cross

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Taken from: http://mrrives.com/Gezer/?p=187

Wife of Pontius Pilate



Obscure but fascinating people:

Claudia Procula

Posted on October 27, 2010 | 5 Comments

As far as we know Claudia Procula was the granddaughter of the Emperor Augustus. She had been born in rather dubious circumstances to Claudia the third wife of Tiberius. However the young Claudia Procula was deemed a good girl by her grandfather who had her live in Rome under his guardianship.

Meanwhile the politically savvy and utterly corrupt Sejanus had grabbed the power of Rome sending the paranoid Emperor to live in isolation and continued fear on the island of Capri.

With the whole Empire in his hands Sejanus set about handing over nice little titles and places of work to his personal cronies. Most of these men had reputations as vicious and corrupt, and it has to be said that Sejanus friend Pontius Pilate of the Equestrian rank fitted the bill nicely.

It seems as though Claudia was married off to Pilate to help solidify his political possition and then he was given the Governorship of Judea, arriving there with his wife in about 26 AD. It has been suggested that as Claudia actually accompanied her husband rather than staying in Rome, that their marriage was a happy one. Legend has it that they had a son Pilo who was disabled in some way, and was apparently healed in the Church.

If that had been the sum of Claudia’s life, she would have been a mere footnote in obscure history, but the thing that brought her just a little more attention was the dream she had one fine siesta around Passover in the year 33AD (ish). She dreamed something about a Jewish rabbi who was behaving and speaking as though he was King of the Jews.

The High Priest who had very coincidentally remained in power while Pilate was there had the man in question standing for trial. Claudia sent a message to her husband begging him to have nothing to do with the man on trial because of the dream she had just had.

Pilate obviously valued his wife’s opinion and must have taken her dream seriously because he spent a great deal of effort trying not to have this Jesus of Nazareth crucified. But in end he had to agree to it all.

Pilate had Christ’s title written on the board for the cross; Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews and he refused to change it. He then went on to break with the normal treatment of crucified criminal in allowing a relation of Christ’s, Joseph of Arimathea and his friend Nicodemus to receive the body for proper entombment.

While some of Pilate’s caution may have been to do with his shaky political position under Sejanus at this point, there is pretty well grounded speculation that Claudia Procula encouraged her husband to behave the way he did.

The Vatican Archives have a first century letter that was apparently written by Claudia. It was found in a monastery in Belgium and has been translated into English.

From the Gospel of Nicodemus and Acts of Pilate, apocryphal books, it is suggested that Claudia was baptised and became a follower of st Paul.

The implication is that she separated from Pilate, and served God with the other women. She is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox churches and her feast day is today,.

But there is also a story that suggests Pilate was also baptised and was even martyred. His is a saint in the Coptic church alongside his wife.

We will probably never get to the whole story of Claudia Procula, but I think it’s fair to say that traditions often have a huge amount of truth to them.

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Taken from: http://mum6kids.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/obscure-but-fascinating-people-claudia-procula/