Abstract
Because of Protestant modernism’s reconstrual of older Protestant views of inspiration around the Romantic notion of the male charismatic prophet, it unintentionally opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the prophets. Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, it can end up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and thus engage in unexamined gender bias. Vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. This is a case study in one of the founders of historical-critical Jeremiah study, Sigmund Mowinckel, focusing not on Protestant modernism broadly but rather on Mowinckel’s clear expression of the modernist Protestant notion of the inspiration of sacred speech.
Introduction
Protestant modernism/liberalism’s substantial reinterpretation of core Christian doctrines (e.g., the resurrection, the inspiration of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, to name a few) created some unintended problems in the critical study of the Hebrew Bible. It is a commonplace that the academy is dominated by viewpoints more in line with Protestant modernism/liberalism than any other religious viewpoint, which urges special caution for scholars to be consciously self-reflective concerning potential scholarly bias. (Marsden and Longfield 1992; Marsden 1994; Wacker 2000; Ariel 2011) Sigmund Mowinckel, who was firmly committed to Protestant modernism and critical biblical study, provides a case study, in that his appropriation of the new (for his time) Protestant modernist understanding of the inspiration of the Bible fits uncomfortably well with a clear gender bias against Israelite women’s religion that at times persists today and that causes him to fall short of his own liberal ideals. 1 There is an indication in Mowinckel’s treatment of Jeremiah 44, Jeremiah’s final confrontation with the women, which provides a potential explanation for where Mowinckel’s apparent gender bias originated.
Mowinckel was an ardent proponent of Protestant modernism, especially in its radical reconstrual of the doctrine of inspiration around the Romantic ideal of the male ecstatic poet. This opened doors for the latent gender inequality of its misogynist cultural context when interpreting female religious activity in the Nevi’im. 2 Because of Protestant modernism’s inability to distinguish itself from its 19th-20th century social elite status, particularly in Europe, it sometimes ended up enabling gender stereotypes of its time and at times engaged in unexamined gender bias.
Scholarship has moved beyond the close connection between Protestant modernist theology and critical scholarship of an earlier time, but vestiges at times remain in literature that assumes the non- or reduced agency of women in Israelite religion. Scholars sometimes assume that women’s religion is generally viewed negatively in the Hebrew Bible and presupposes that women will follow the religion of their husbands. If they fail to do this, so the thinking goes, trouble ensues. Other scholars assume that religious duties for women revolved around their domestic duties. 3
In fact, even today, our field at times needs reminding that women occupied religious leadership positions in ancient Israelite literature. One thinks of Maacah in 1 Kings 15, the all-important Huldah, who begins the prophetic reformation under Isaiah and Hezekiah, and religious and political leaders such as Miriam, Deborah, and Jezebel. 4 Women’s religious leadership was common throughout the ancient Near East, so common that it makes Mowinckel’s (and others’) silence in this regard so striking. 5 He used comparative information extensively in his recreation of his notion of the Israelite enthronement festival, comparing it to Babylonian and Canaanite festivals, which depended both on female and male religious leadership. How could he indulge in such obvious gender bias in regard to ancient Israel? Let us observe Jeremiah 44 and Mowinckel’s treatment of the scene in contrast to that of precritical and fellow critical interpreters.
Jeremiah 44
In Jeremiah 44, Jeremiah has a confrontation with the women of Jerusalem whom he accuses of worshiping the Queen of Heaven and thus incurring the wrath of Yahweh, his last words before he disappears from history. 6 It is reminiscent of a similar scene in Chapter 7 in Jerusalem where the women remained silent, but in this scene, in Egypt, the women have moved to the foreground in taking responsibility for the worship of the Queen of Heaven. The women are portrayed as more powerful than the men in cultic activities in Jeremiah 44, and the deities and the cult are female. 7 In fact, as others have already noted, feminine presence and power is replete throughout.
The narrative intends to reveal the depth of idolatrous thinking, but it also shows women with minds of their own and spiritual resources to which they hold fast (O’Connor 1992). The women speak for themselves reporting that life collapsed when they stopped worshipping the queen of heaven. They would, therefore, continue to make cakes for her and offer libations. The text portrays the women as brazen violators of the covenant who implicate their husbands in their practices, revealing the husbands to be weak but not idolaters themselves (vv. 15–19).
8
Jeremiah 44 is the conclusion of the section begun in MT 37 detailing the justice of the punishment that is about to fall upon Jerusalem. Those whose history included freedom from the slavery of Egypt are now headed back to bondage in Egypt. Perhaps it is the context of an Egyptian frontier town that gives the women courage, yet for whatever reason, they overwhelmingly resist Jeremiah, and the men simply form a backdrop to that. These were families that were attempting to occupy the middle ground between pure Yahwism and a thoroughgoing polytheism. Their religion had a vested interest in their political, economic, and family circumstances. Not unlike religious believers of many times and ages, they faced a conflicting and confusing composite of forces that compelled them into a mediating position, to which Jeremiah objects strenuously. 9
Consider the following observations from the passage:
The context, removed from the land of Judah and back in the land of Egypt, along with the relational and role disruption that such journeys entail, may well have contributed to the confidence of the women in using their voices (cf. ch. 7 where they are silent in Jerusalem).
Strikingly, it is the women, not the men, who are repeating the words of Nebuzaradan (40.3), the male Babylonian government official, in v. 3.
One can see how seriously Jeremiah takes this confrontation in the long rhetorical question in vv. 7–8, particularly in his use of a lengthy speech and rhetorical skill in confronting the women’s arguments.
In verse 9, Jeremiah begins his attack on these mediating positions by singling out a king, most likely Solomon, and “his wives” as the beginning of the evils, thus portraying King Solomon as the mere pawn of women. The remnant will not escape the judgment those evils have purchased.
In v. 14, Jeremiah uses language that he has previously used in what many scholars believe is the harshest oracle in the book, the oracle against Jehoiachin in Jeremiah 22 where it is directed against the Babylon community.
In verse 15, the author demonstrates the strictly limited agency of the men, whose only part appears to be their knowledge of – and noninterference with – their wives’ sacrificing to other gods in addition to Yahweh.
In verse 23, Jeremiah identifies the women, not the men, as those who again are repeating the words of Nebuzaradan.
The last known words of Jeremiah (vv. 24–30) are directed at these Judahite women in Egypt – and the women prevail.
Interestingly, there does not seem to be any confrontation between the women and the leaders of the Babylonian community such as there was with Jeremiah.
The extent of the women’s power and agency can be seen in the strongest possible rebuttal Jeremiah can give: he promises them the same fate as that of Babylon in Jeremiah 50–51, 10 thus appearing to view them as just as powerful as Babylon. In fact, Jeremiah appears to pull out all of his rhetorical tools in this confrontation with the women – and still loses. The only male with any actual power in this confrontation appears to be Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt! All of this shows us how important this final confrontation is for Jeremiah and the women. 11
After this determined and unyielding resistance by the women, Jeremiah falls silent and is not heard from again in the canonical tradition. Jeremiah’s message has not achieved its goal despite the number of rhetorical skills demonstrated by both Jeremiah and his editors.
Now compare this with Mowinckel’s description of the scene:
Man kann sich die Szene nicht lebhaft genug vorstellen : die empörten Weiber kreischend und schimpfend um den alten Mann geschart, der in seinem zerlumpten, abgerissenen Nabimantel, mit den brennenden Augen und dem verwilderten Aussehen des ekstatischen Fanatikers mitten unter ihnen steht, ohne eine Wort zur Widerlegung ihrer Logik sagen zu können.
12
One cannot imagine the scene vividly enough, the angry women yelling and cursing, gathered around the old man in their midst, who in his tattered, torn prophet mantle, with the burning eyes and the wild look of an ecstatic fanatic, without saying a word, is able to refute their logic.
The contrast is striking! Rather than “the angry women” silenced by a mere glance from Jeremiah, as Mowinckel supposes, the women apparently silence Jeremiah with their arguments. Jeremiah takes the women of Jerusalem quite seriously. and an entire chapter is devoted to his oracular responses to them. He does not make use of an imagined icy male gaze to intimidate women, nor does he rely upon an imagined psychological superiority over the women based on his “gifts,” nor does he demand that the husbands rein in their wives, although he could have, based on Numbers 30.8. Jeremiah speaks to the women directly, not through their husbands, takes their challenge seriously, and responds directly to them at length. Though it is quite clear that few areas of agreement between them exist, there is no doubt that Jeremiah considers them a formidable force to be reckoned with.
Perhaps what is most fascinating about this passage is that it is the last confrontation with his own people before Jeremiah’s demise. In the end, the women’s argument, not Jeremiah’s, carried the day: the Queen of Heaven had taken care of them when they worshipped her, and Yahweh had not. The women’s argument trumped Jeremiah’s oracle and, while conjectural, we can reasonably speculate that it was not a new one and may even have resulted in his forced exile to Egypt. This makes Mowinckel’s characterization of the women in the passage all the more puzzling. He has completely written them out of the story against the clear statements of the text.
Furthermore, his is not a mediating position between precritical approaches and a full-blown feminist critique. It is, in fact, something new altogether that demands consideration on its own merits. To gain perspective on this phenomenon, we look briefly at a small collage of precritical Protestant approaches, then the relationship between Mowinckel and Romanticism, then at Mowinckel’s contemporaries, and then at Mowinckel’s unique approach itself.
Precritical Protestant Interpreters
Puritan commentator Matthew Henry observes in this passage an equality of transgression by both men and women equally, and even in his pastoral application, he does not distinguish between genders. 13
It is sad when those who are in the nearest relation to each other, who should quicken each other to that which is good and so help one another to heaven, harden each other in sin and so ripen one another for hell.
14
If one investigates the context around Henry’s thoughts on this passage, it becomes clear that, while he could have used it to cement and reinforce gender bias, in fact, he applies it equally to both men and women. Other precritical interpreters drew similar conclusions. John Calvin notes this: …the men ought to have interfered so as to restrain their wives from polluting themselves with ungodly superstitions; but this they patiently endured. Then their consent was the same as the deed.
15
(emphasis added)
Calvin is no feminist interpreter, of course, but he clearly takes pains to not allow the women to bear the full weight of blame, whereas Mowinckel does. 16 In fact, Calvin takes issue explicitly with interpreters who wish to blame only the women (Calvin 2002b, chap. 44:19). Indeed, one searches the precritical tradition in vain for such a heavily weighted interpretation of this passage as Mowinckel’s against women in general. Mowinckel’s is not a mediating position but rather a stark contrast. But what of his contemporaries?
Mowinckel and His Context
Mowinckel’s Contemporaries
Mowinckel, as we shall see below, was entranced by the Nietzschean ideal of the male ecstatic romantic poet as the truest type of Hebrew prophetism. His contemporaries, Bernhard Duhm and Samuel Rolles Driver, preceded Mowinckel by just a few years. Duhm shared Mowinckel’s explicit commitment to Protestant modernism but in a unique way. Duhm was more committed to a triumphalist European Christianity as a sort of final Hegelian synthesis of human religious quests. 17 Therefore, for Duhm, the Szene is not centered on the women but on the Egyptian context, situated in the great imperial struggles of the ancient Near East (Duhm 1901, 329). Furthermore, Duhm does not implicate women in general but only those who worship the Queen of Heaven (Duhm 1901, 330). The difference between Duhm and Mowinckel in terms of their interpretation of the role of women in Jeremiah 44 appears to lie in their different theological foci within their Protestant modernist frameworks. That is, Mowinckel centers on the doctrine of inspiration reframed according to the Romantic male poet, whereas Duhm focuses on a triumphalist Protestant modernist Christianity, which, though just as concerning in other contexts, does not appear to lead him in the same direction as Mowinckel regarding the women in Jeremiah 44.
Another important predecessor who worked closely on the text was Samuel Rolles Driver. Driver publishes far less about his personal theological views, and this may explain why he focuses neither on the problem of the angry women (Mowinckel) nor the imperial context (Duhm) but rather the clear intent of the women to keep their vows to the Queen of Heaven regardless of what their husbands may attempt to do to invalidate those vows (had the men chosen to rely on Numbers 30.8) (Driver 1907, 262). Driver notes the feminine gender in Jeremiah’s recorded speech in 44.25, which would appear to give the women the primary role of agency in the dispute as opposed to their husbands (Driver 1907, 264). Driver is no conservative by the standards of his day, but his close attention to the canonical text leads him to highlight the primary role of the women in this passage, whereas the exact opposite happens in Mowinckel’s modernist/liberal treatment.
Mowinckel’s Unique Interpretation
Sigmund Mowinckel, along with Bernhard Duhm, is one of the pillars of modern critical research on Jeremiah. Mowinckel is justly celebrated for his unparalleled contributions to scholarship and for forming a basis for modern critical research on Jeremiah. 18 Yet Mowinckel is prone to reading his own biases into the text just as much as any other interpreter does. 19 His description raises one of the most important questions for contemporary feminist interpreters of the prophets: ‘… how prophetic masculinity is represented in relation to the written representation of divine speech’(Harding 2013, 210).
The piercing gaze of Jeremiah described by Mowinckel reminds one more of Clint Eastwood’s steely gaze in a spaghetti Western than what actually happened in the text. Mowinckel’s imaginative scene is the exact opposite of what happened, according to Jeremiah 44. There, Jeremiah responds in full and has the last word against not only the women but also their husbands. It raises the question of why Mowinckel would imagine a scene with no relationship to the text, especially when he himself admits that this scene never happened. 20 Is it simply an outlier, an abnormality? Or is it, like the problem of antisemitism in Protestant modernism, related to deeper thought structures within Mowinckel and his social context (Ariel 2011, 2, 14–17)? To answer these questions, we focus on an analysis of Mowinckel’s account of matters such as prophecy, inspiration, gender, and authority along with his relationship to Protestant modernist notions of the idea of inspiration of divine texts.
Several things seem clear in this vignette: Mowinckel’s portrayal of the women as angry and in opposition to the prophet with their husbands out of sight along with his understanding of prophetic inspiration. Additionally, we can make reasonable conjectures from Mowinckel’s other works about his attitudes toward women, which seem, in the main, to follow along with late 19th to early 20th century elite, white modernist Protestantism. Finally, there is his view of religious authority centered in the male charismatic ecstatic. Then we can attempt to see what connections there might be between them.
Mowinckel’s Place in Protestant Modernism and Romanticism
It has long been a commonplace in biblical studies that the 19th century ideal of the Romantic poet, considered authentic because of his originality and individuality, provided the basis for many stylistic decisions in early critical biblical studies. It is important to understand Mowinckel’s theological and cultural context, particularly in relation to his predecessor in Jeremiah studies, Bernhard Duhm. Mowinckel does not explain or define his notion of religious authority centered in the male charismatic ecstatic, because it did not need explanation at the time. It was part and parcel of the Protestant modernist intellectual cultural environment in Europe and could be found in Duhm and many others. As we will see below, Mowinckel was wedded to the Romantic notion of the supremacy of male poetic originality in art. 21 The rise of the Protestant modernist notion of inspiration, as opposed to classical Protestant views, was a surprising turn in biblical studies because a revised doctrine of inspiration was not needed to account for the new critical methodology. Even Calvin clearly acknowledged the composite nature of the text. 22
But when one listens carefully, and looks at the mature work of these men, especially Duhm (and later Mowinckel), it is quite evident that there is a definition of literary style in place that reflects a strong theological impetus. Yet never does Duhm disclose his sources for his style. It seems likely that Duhm relied on Nietzsche’s definitions of style, and on his theological categories, (which Nietzsche had inherited from Strauss) and used them extensively throughout his work. 23
It will be noted, of course, that Duhm never apparently mentioned Nietzsche in his writings. 24 But there is a reason for this that is both plausible and probable: Nietzsche’s lack of favour within the German Academy and the regnant modernist Protestantism of the time. The winds of influence that blew through Göttingen, Bonn and Leipzig, where Duhm and Nietzsche studied respectively, and the University of Basel, where Nietzsche taught from 1869 to 1879, and where Duhm taught from 1888 until his death in 1913, all gave Duhm a prudent reason for leaving Nietzsche’s name out of his work and provided the common currents of thought that Duhm and later Mowinckel could draw from. 25 Duhm’s liberal Protestant reaction against Nietzsche could have been a cause for him to subversively use Nietzsche’s stylistic categories as a means of protest against Nietzsche’s attacks on the dominant Christianity, liberal Protestantism, of that time. 26
In one important way, Mowinckel carried forward and modified Duhm’s legacy, that is, he believed in the primacy of the oral tradition as carried by the charismatic, ecstatic prophet. Scholars tend to forget this part of Mowinckel’s research in an analysis of his work. At the core of Mowinckel’s project was the desire to dispense with the text and find once again the primitive charismatic ecstatic in which the spirit of true religion remained. This appears to be a clear appropriation of the Nietzschean ideal of the frenzied, ecstatic Dionysian state, as he sees in this scene he imagines in Jeremiah 44, noted above. 27 Thus, Mowinckel, like some other Protestants, felt he needed a radically new definition of inspiration, and Romantic ideals based on a strong male charismatic religious presence seemed a perfect fit.
Mowinckel’s Restructuring of the Doctrine of Inspiration
Older Protestant ideas of inspiration were primarily an extension of the doctrine of divine providence, and were fully at home with human errors, inconsistencies, and other flaws in the text (at least from a historical standpoint) and affirmed that the “humanness” of the messenger, including fallibilities and weaknesses, was an essential part of the process of inspiration (Hodge and Warfield 1881; Silva 1988; Chapman 2006; but contrast Mowinckel 1959, 11–12). Moises Silva observed how discussions of “inerrancy” received careful nuance in the days of old Princeton, especially as formulated by B. B. Warfield. He goes on to quote in his article both Warfield and A. A. Hodge as reflecting a view of inerrancy, which includes acknowledgment of the human authors’ limitations of knowledge, personal defects, “indelible traces of error,” dependence upon fallible sources and methods, and personal knowledge and judgments that were in many matters hesitating, defective, or even wrong – all while fully affirming plenary inspiration. 28
Like other Protestant modernists, Mowinckel, in contrast to previous Protestant views on inspiration as an extension of divine providence, adopted a view of inspiration as emanating from the spiritual and psychological interior of the prophet (Sensenig 2019): … we now know from the ancient Near East that writing at that time derived from special inspiration. The writer was a divinely inspired man who had received a ‘supernatural’ gift.(Mowinckel 2002, 118) (emphasis added).
One must assume that the idea of the possessing, immanent spirit of Yahweh as the cause of the prophet special qualities and powers was fundamental in the older, primitive ‘nebi’ism.’ Considerations of space preclude me from pursuing this point. And it should further be observed, as important for the understanding of what follows, that the idea of Yahweh’s spirit in the older nebi’ism refers almost exclusively to the ecstatic behavior and activities of the nabi’. His possession by the spirit was what made him ecstatic; it was precisely this that explained to the ancient Israelites the strange, irrational, ‘frenzied character of the nabi’, as well as his conduct and work. The spirit made him lose control of himself and behave differently from normal people. (Mowinckel 2002, 83).
Yet Mowinckel spends the following pages demonstrating that this, in fact, hardly ever appears in the descriptions of the Israelite prophets. His only explanation is psychological (Mowinckel 2002, 86–87). He continually refers to the “older nebi’ism” yet never adduces a single example (Mowinckel 2002, 88). Within the triumphalism of the Protestant modernism of the time, this was a point that needed only to be asserted, not argued. To be “inspired” meant only that humans were inspired to create voluntary social justice associations, as older views of “plenary inspiration” were no longer necessary, and “improvements” were welcomed with enthusiasm and confidence (Hutchison 1992, 26, 53, 119–20; Cornille 2013, chap. Jewish-Christian Dialogue).
Mowinckel, along with the rest of Protestant modernism, derided the older understanding as the straw man of “mechanical dictation” or “verbal dictation,” which does not seem to bear much resemblance to such theories of inspiration, at least as explicated by their ablest exponents. Mowinckel’s caricature appears in the following statement:
… the “theory of verbal inspiration,” … was applied to the Old and New Testaments without differentiation. The Scripture was created by divine inspiration that had the character of direct divine dictation. The Holy Spirit told the authors both the content and the form of that which they wrote. Scripture therefore, it was held, was “infallible” even in the externals and down to the smallest details. It contained historical, geographical, botanical, zoological, and metaphysical “information about reality,” as if for the sake of this information itself.
29
Here, Mowinckel brilliantly misunderstands – or radically reinterprets – the theory of verbal inspiration to mean an inspiration attached to the verbal actions of the prophet as opposed to his mystic, ecstatic, non-verbal experience. 30 Mowinckel seems to identify “inspiration” as that which happens in the psychological interior of the prophet as opposed to what he calls a mechanical dictation theory of inspiration. 31 This straw man of “mechanical dictation” he then was able to easily dismantle and replace with the new version rooted in Romantic notions of authenticity manifested in the figure of the poet or prophet. 32 This theological shift is what allows Mowinckel to add this imaginative scene as a possible reality behind the text as an alternative reading of the text’s portrayal of reality, focused on Jeremiah’s oracles.
Mowinckel’s Protestant Modernism and Gender
While the latest works on gender and religion tend to equate Protestant modernism with women’s rights, it is not clear that this is accurate (Cady and Fessenden 2013, 85; Braude 2001, 46; Roof and McKinney 1987, 208). While Mowinckel’s comments are somewhat more tangential, we can see a general bent in his attitudes toward women. In his most influential work, Psalmenstudien, he notes this about sorcery: Sorcery is almost always regarded as something evil, illegitimate, practiced in secret, ruinous to the normal, decent person, harmful to the interests of the community, that pursues the self-interest of the practitioner in an inconsiderate manner, that violates the rights of the neighbor, is practiced especially by women or strangers, and competes with, and thus runs contrary to, the sacral orders of the community. It is often practiced with a bad conscience, which is aware that it involves evil and danger. (Mowinckel 2014, 668) (emphasis added)
Furthermore, though it is difficult to say much about an argument from silence, the fact that Huldah, the prophetess who initiated the first reform under Josiah, never appears in his writings is a significant oversight. References to “women,” “female,” “Frauen,” and “Weiber” are rare and only used in a neutral or negative way. 33 In contrast to both precritical and contemporary feminist scholarship, Mowinckel demonstrates no awareness of women’s unique voices in Israel’s prophetic scriptures. 34 In fact, Mowinckel, by situating his view of authority within the psychological interior of the prophet (understood as an analog to the Romantic male ecstatic), is unable to avoid demonizing women.
Just as by means of his immanent power and potent word the prophet was supposed to be able to bring on leprosy and other evils (2 Kings 5.27), and a priest smite an unfaithful wife with some deadly illness by means of a potent draft with its accompanying curse (Numbers 5. 21ff, cf. Ex 32.20), so there existed also other less legitimate operators, especially women, versed in magic and acting as soothsayers, who were supposed to be able to bring some evil on people, or to cure them of it (Ezekiel 13. 17). And just as the legitimate representatives of religion might use the potent curse against the enemies of society or other culprits, so there were malicious people who would use the curse and the power of disaster against decent folk.(Mowinckel 1962, 2–3) (Emphasis added)
Mowinckel’s View of Prophetic Authority
In older Protestant theology, immanence and potency were reserved for God, whereas here, Mowinckel, consistent with Romantic notions of authenticity, has transferred them to the psychological interior of the male prophet. As is evident, the legitimate operators (priests and prophets) were male, and the less legitimate operators were women. While we cannot pretend to fully understand the psychological interior of anyone, including Mowinckel, it is reasonable to surmise that there lurks here a sense of the inherent superiority of the male psychological makeup which better suits him to honorable religious practice, while subversive religious practices were reserved for women. 35 So we can observe that for Mowinckel, religious authority rests in the psychological interior of specially gifted men.
By contrast, in Jeremiah 44, Jeremiah does not appear to hold any of these beliefs. In fact, his extensive dialogue with the women parallels, both in length and stridency, his climactic confrontation with Hananiah in Jeremiah 28 (which he also apparently lost). Jeremiah holds no illusions about his superior spirituality, his superior maleness, or the power of his icy gaze. His position is vulnerable, the voices of the women were powerful, and they could easily carry the day, and in the end, they prevail over him. He never condemns them for being women, for being weak, foolish, psychologically unstable, or any of the other stereotypes at times attributed to women. It could even be argued that he treats them as possessing more power than their husbands do, for when the men intervene, he does not leave off addressing the women to address the men, as if the husbands could be trusted to get control of the situation.
In fact, Jeremiah’s oracles at the time do nothing to change the situation. Jeremiah’s destiny, ironically, lies in the hands of his own scribe, Baruch, of whom he expresses doubts in the following chapter. It is only in the hands of scribes such as Baruch, Seraiah, and others that the words remain for later generations and bear a sense of authority in themselves, not dependent on the psychological interior of the prophet or his charismatic, ecstatic gifts.
Of course, some (though not all) biblical studies scholars have become much more self-aware since Mowinckel wrote his observations. A representative example in the critical tradition appears in the Oxford Commentary on the Bible, as seen above. One can see how far the critical tradition has progressed since Mowinckel – in being able to observe some (what should be) obvious things in the text: women with minds of their own, who express agency and religious choice, challenge religious beliefs with which they do not agree, and are willing to implicate their husbands publicly in transgressions of the covenant. In some ways, as O’Connor notes previously, this passage even serves as a recapitulation of the account of the transgression of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3, where Eve appears as the high point of creation and is the only one who engages the serpent in dialogue about the nature of God’s speech. 36
Yet if one were to conclude that this is a simple progression from darkness into light, with Mowinckel representing the mediating position between the dark night of precritical patriarchalism and the bright light of day of contemporary feminist critical studies, one would be mistaken. Indeed, in comparison to precritical interpreters, often assumed to be patriarchal in comparison to contemporary interpreters, the difference in the gender implications of Jeremiah 44 between them and Mowinckel is stark and striking. This demonstrates that gender bias in the interpretation of Jeremiah 44 began with Mowinckel, not previous interpreters. 37
Conclusion
Mowinckel’s bias against female religious practices is clear, and these biases sometimes persist in contemporary literature. 38 It is not a bias that is shared with his precritical predecessors, who apply the moral lessons equally to both genders. It is not shared with two of his most important contemporaries because of their different interests (for Duhm, the Egyptian imperial context, and for Driver, a close attention to the Hebrew text and grammar). The distinguishing feature of Mowinckel’s thought structures that can explain this is his full commitment to the thoroughly revised Protestant modernist doctrine of inspiration, based on the perceived superiority of the Romantic male poet, as applied to the historical-critical reconstruction of the text.
Protestant modernism is currently considered to be in decline, and mainline Protestant denominations continue to decline as well. Yet the significant impact of its radical redefinition of Christian doctrine, along with its inherited Western elite white male biases on gender, antisemitism and potentially other issues, even despite reforms in these areas, continues to appear in Western religious culture and, sometimes, in critical biblical studies. This has led to the erasure of women’s leadership from which Mowinckel drew.
Though Protestant modernism was viewed originally as liberal and liberating, if bathed in the rosy glow of 19th-20th century Western triumphalism and not understood critically, it seems just as capable of exercising oppression through implicit bias and systemic advantage over women as well as in other areas. In this sense, for all that Mowinckel is (justly) highly regarded for his work in the Psalms and Jeremiah, his is also a cautionary tale of how new religious movements (in this case Protestant modernism) that began with great promise of new freedoms sometimes ended up creating new patterns of oppression in different ways and with different language based on what turned out to be unnecessary revisions of Protestant notions of inspiration. 39
This example in Mowinckel shows us that sometimes the desire for theological innovation stems more from the pull of the Zeitgeist and cultural hubris than from actual engagement with the text. The temptation for Mowinckel, as for all biblical scholars, was to attempt to fix something that was not broken (the Protestant doctrine of inspiration), stemming from the desire to simply have a religious expression that fit the culture of the time, to “get on the right side of history.” And when critical scholars hasten to redefine theological constructs, they are liable to fall into unintended forms of oppression invisible to themselves but evident to others in later historical perspective.
Footnotes
Appendix: Jeremiah 44 translation and notes
1 The word which came to pass to Jeremiah, 40
to all the Judahites who were dwelling in the land of Egypt, 41
saying,
2 ‘Thus said Yahweh of armies, God of Israel,
‘You, you are seeing all the evil which I brought
upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah,
and behold, they are a waste this day and no one is dwelling in them,
3 from the presence of their evil which they did to anger me,
to go, to sacrifice, to serve other gods which they did not know,
they, you, nor your fathers, 44
4 and I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending, to say,
“Please, do not do this word of abomination which I hate.”
5 ‘And they did not listen
and they did not incline their ears
to return from their evil,
to not sacrifice to other gods.
6 And my rage and my anger poured out and burned
among the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem,
and they became a waste, a devastation, as it is this day.’
7 And now, thus said Yahweh, God of armies, God of Israel,
‘Why are you doing great evil to your lives,
to cut off in regard to you
man and woman,
child and nursing infant, 45
from the midst of Judah,
to not leave for yourselves a remnant,
8 to vex me by the works of your hands,
to sacrifice to other gods in the land of Egypt,
where you are going to sojourn there,
in order to cut yourselves off,
and in order to your becoming a reproach and to curse among all the nations of the earth? 46
9 You forgot
the evil of your fathers
and the evil of the kings of Judah
and the evil of his 47 wives
and your evil 48
and the evil of your wives
which they did in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.
10 They were not made contrite this day
and they did not fear
and they did not walk in my law and in my statutes
which I gave to your presence and to the presence of your fathers.’
11 Therefore, thus said Yahweh of armies, God of Israel,
‘Behold, I am placing my presence among you in regard to evil,
and to cut off all Judah.
12 And I will take the remnant of Judah,
who set their faces to go to the land of Egypt to sojourn there,
and they will be finished off entirely,
in the land of Egypt they will fall by the sword,
by the famine they will be finished off,
from the least to the greatest,
they will be finished off by the sword
and by the famine they will die,
and they will come to be an execration, a waste, a curse and a reproach. 49
13 And I will visit upon those dwelling in the land of Egypt just as I visited upon Jerusalem:
by the sword, by the famine and by the pestilence.
14 And there will not be a fugitive and the survivor to the remnant of Judah,
who is going to sojourn there in the land of Egypt,
nor to return to the land of Judah,
where they were lifting up their lives 50 to return to dwell there,
15 Then they answered Jeremiah,
and all the women who were standing,
a great congregation, 55
and all the people who were dwelling in the land of Egypt, in Patros, saying,
16 ‘The word which you spoke to us in the name of Yahweh – we are not listening to you! 56
17 For we will surely do every word which came from our mouth,
to sacrifice to the queen of heaven 57 and pour out to her drink offerings,
just as we did,
we, our fathers, our kings and our princes
in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem,
and we were satisfied with bread,
and we were good,
and we did not see evil.
18 And from the time we ceased to sacrifice to the queen of heaven and pour out to her drink offerings,
we lacked everything,
and by the sword and by the famine we died.
19 And because we are sacrificing to the queen of heaven and pouring out to her drink offerings,
why should our men not make cakes 58 – to grieve her,
and pour out to her drink offerings?’
20 And Jeremiah spoke to all the people,
upon all the strongmen and upon the women, and upon all the people who were answering him a word, saying,
21 ‘Is it not incense which you are sacrificing
in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem,
you, your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land with you?
Yahweh remembered, and it ascended upon his heart.
22 And Yahweh is not able to bear anymore,
from the presence of the evil of your practices, the abominations which you did,
and your land will become a waste and a horror and a curse, from no one dwelling [in it],
according to this day, 59
23 from the presence of what you sacrificed and what you sinned against Yahweh,
and you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh,
and in his instructions, and in his statutes, and in his testimonies you did not walk;
therefore, you called this evil [on] yourself, 60 according to this day.’
24 And Jeremiah 61 said to all the people, and all the women,
‘Hear the word of Yahweh, all Judah, which is in the land of Egypt,
25 thus said Yahweh of armies, God of Israel, saying,
“You and your wives spoke with your mouths and fulfilled with your hands, saying,
‘We will surely do our vows which we vowed, to sacrifice to the queen of heaven, and pour out to her drink offerings;
surely, you will establish your vows and you will surely do your vows.’”
26 ‘Therefore, hear the word of Yahweh, all Judah, who is dwelling in the land of Egypt,
“Behold I, I am swearing by my great name,”
said Yahweh,
“If my name will ever be called in the mouth of every man of Judah who is saying, ‘Living Lord Yahweh,’ in all the land of Egypt.”
27 ‘Behold, I am watching over them for evil 62 and not for good,
and they will die,
every man of Judah who is in the land of Egypt,
by the sword and by the famine,
until their finishing-off.
28 And the fugitive from the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah,
males beyond number,
and they will know, all the remnant of Judah who are going to the land of Egypt to sojourn there,
whose word will be established from me and from them. 63
29 And this is the sign to you
– Utterance of Yahweh! –
that I am watching over you in this place, 64
in order that you will know that my words upon you will surely be established unto evil.”
30 Thus said Yahweh,
“Behold, I am giving Pharaoh Hophra, 65 king of Egypt,
in the hand of his enemies,
and in the hand of those pursuing his life,
just as I gave Zedekiah, king of Judah,
in the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, his enemy,
and the one pursuing his life.”‘ 66
1.
Note that I am taking a narrow look at the links between unexamined gender bias and the Protestant modernist theology of inspiration rather than attempting a full-blown feminist critique, which would require significantly more space. For a succinct, but comprehensive, introduction to the issue of the feminist critique of the history of interpretation, see the Introduction in (
).
2.
3.
(Stanley 2010, 363; Harris 1992, 955) For more on unexamined gender bias, see (McNew 1989, 60; , 469).
4.
5.
7.
(Hadley 2001, 32–33; Harding 2013, 213) The women are no longer portrayed as ‘… a devoted bride who has gone astray, sprawling under every green tree and playing the whore…’ (, 150).
8.
9.
It is in some ways similar to the portrayal of Jesus’ ongoing quarrels with the Pharisees in the New Testament.
12.
(Mowinckel 1914, 11) A more recent biography of Mowinckel documents his antipathy to feminism, rooted in his admiration for German ‘manliness’ (Hjelde 2006, 83). The roots of such cultural misogynism lie deep within the creation of the modern pre-Nazi German myth ().
13.
See also the same perspective in other Puritans (Brooks, 1867: 168; Manton, 1872: 183).
14.
(Henry 1991, bk. Jer. 44:15-19) Although Henry’s voice is only one of many Puritan and Calvinist writers of the time, he is representative because of the outsize influence of his commentary on the Bible (, 1, 219).
15.
17.
‘The old Indian Wisdom said that the real root of life is the will to live; and the Indian sages condemned this will to live, because they looked on individual life as misfortune. But Christianity wills to have and give life; and it calls itself the way to life. Christianity is a will and not a doctrine.’ (, 9 see also 6-7, 31-33, 43-47, 70).
18.
See, e.g., the sympathetic (but dated) portrayal in (Ap-Thomas 1966) See also the equally-sympathetic festschrift: (Smend 1999). However, even here, Mowinckel’s troubled relationship with confessional Christianity produced a decided bias in his scholarship (Smend 1999, 83). While he is a Norwegian scholar in the Lutheran Church, which is not necessarily the same thing as German Lutheranism, yet his stature in the field is international in scope (, 161).
19.
“As we all know, the composition of the book of Jeremiah is far from being as arbitrary as claimed by older scholarship, for example, by Sigmund Mowinckel in 1914. As demonstrated by Martin Kessler in 1968, the aim of its composition is to present the divine word as spoken by Jeremiah and to illustrate the reception, or rather, the non-reception of this divine word.” (Holt 1999, 162) Holt references these scholars (Mowinckel 1914; M. Kessler 1968; ).
20.
22.
Calvin, in fact, taught that Jeremiah had written none of the book ascribed to him but committed all of it to his scribes. ‘We have said that the prophets, after having spoken in the Temple, or to the people, afterward collected brief summaries and that these contained the principal things: from these the prophetic books were made up. For Jeremiah did not write the volume as we have it at this day, except the chapters; and it appears evident that it was not written in the order in which he spoke.’ (Calvin 2002a, bk. Jer 51.60). As Hermerén notes: ‘… Shakespeare was not a poor playwright just because he sometimes used stories taken from Italian writers, thoughts from French writers, and verses from older compatriots. The point is that what we appreciate in Shakespeare is not that he borrowed extensively (if this is so) but rather something else: that he succeeded in creating unique and coherent works of art of all these borrowings and impulses. The moral of this is that one should have a less moralistic view of influence: it need not be a fault or sign of weakness to be influenced by others; and this, in turn, would be to challenge the basically Romantic conception of originality as the supreme value in art.’ (, 130–31).
23.
Strauss’s work has come under serious scrutiny and is no longer finding a welcome reception. ‘Strauss’s analysis has been criticized on grounds that his employment of the category of myth was far too broad and undiscriminating. In particular, the work of Karl Barth, Erich Auerbach and Hans Frei has indicated that many of the miraculous phenomena—including the resurrection appearances—are not represented in legendary or mythical modes of presentation, but are instead, notwithstanding their subject matter, presented in the form of realistic narrative. The question of their status as historical truth-claims has thereby re-emerged in academic theology. Moreover, it is arguable that the rationality of such truth-claims precludes the validity of Strauss’s genetic account in much the same way that the rationality of theistic truth-claims precludes the validity of theories of the origins of religion such as those proposed by Feuerbach, Nietzsche and Freud.’ (, 531–32).
24.
Even though Nietzsche along with Marx, Freud and the Romantic poets has been cast as a secular prophet (Orr 2003, 153) ().
25.
For the phenomenon of negative influence that I am here suggesting, see (Hermerén 1975, 47–49) Here, Duhm fits the figure that Thomas Mann creates in Prof. Kumpf, the paradigmatic middle-of-the-road German theologian, a ‘juicy’ lecturer of an ‘… intermediary conservatism with critical-liberal infusions…’, whom Adrian Leverkuhn first confuses with the devil (, 104–5, 241).
26.
It should be remembered that Nietzschean Christians were overwhelmingly Protestant. Yet Nietzsche did not approve of the liberal, mediating Protestantism that Duhm and most of the German theological guild espoused. Further, Nietzsche’s vociferous attacks on Christianity had made him unwelcome in the German academy, which, although liberal, still was supported by state funding and was expected to turn out ministers!
27.
Nietzsche was one of a handful of Germans who interpreted the Wagnerian phenomenon within the context of Romantic scholarship on myth (Williamson 2004, 236). So also (Badcock 2000). For Mowinckel, the word of God and the word of man maintain their separate identities in the canonical text. It is true that for Mowinckel the traditioning process turned the canonical text into a Gordian knot that no one can now untie. Yet it also represents the final stage of any religious tradition prior to its demise, the last stop before death. (, 13).
28.
(Silva 1988, 66–67). Silva cites A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, Inspiration (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979, orig. 1881) 12f., 28. He further comments, “Interestingly, the second quotation was attacked at the time of publication as reflecting a lowered view of inspiration. Cf. Warfield’s responses, included as Appendices 1 and 2 in Inspiration, 73-82.” Similarly, A. A. Hodge could affirm that ‘… with the advance of historical and critical knowledge…the Church as a community has made progress in the accurate interpretation of Scripture…’ (, chap. I, 7).
30.
Verbal inspiration only affirms that the text is inspired, not the sources, the liturgical setting of ancient Israel, the author(s), editor(s), redactor(s), tradent(s), or the process of textualization itself.
32.
See, e.g., (Tongue 2014, 51; Holt and Sharp 2015, 11; Henderson 2019; Sherwood 2012, 132; , 152).
33.
34.
Of course, he is not unique in disregarding women’s voices. This was standard for the time. The key point here is that it connects to his views of prophecy as centering on his notions of Romantic male poets.
35.
37.
Some may uncritically assume that early Protestant liberal scholarship, because it is liberal, is less prone to gender bias than more conservative forms, but this is not the case. ‘Advocates for equality speak of the issue in terms of rights and modern progress, while reactionaries ground their authority in religious and scriptural appeals. Both sides presume women’s emancipation is tied to secularization’ (Cady and Fessenden 2013 abstract; , 6–7).
38.
(Stanley 2010, 363; Harris 1992, 955) Interestingly, with the rise of the suffragette movement biblical scholars reacted against women leaders, erasing women leadership in the New Testament as well as in the time of Protestant modernism, transforming “Junia” to “Junius” in Romans 16 (Gaventa 2016, 7–9; , 21–68).
39.
40.
‘Together with the concluding Deuteronomistic sermon of ch. 44, Jer. 37.1–10 forms an inclusio, underlining the justice of the punishment.’ (Holt 1999, 163) For more on the structure of 37-44 as a literarily structured unity, see (Roncace 2005, 1, 26–29; , 25).
41.
42.
43.
Note contextual note above (p. 3) and the starkly contrasting affects of the women in Egypt versus Jerusalem. ‘We know of one party that fled thither after the assassination of Gedaliah, taking Jeremiah with it (Jer., ch. 42f.), and it probably was not the first’ (Bright 1981, chap. 9.A.1.b) So also (Nickelsburg 2005, 13–14). “As different as the Egyptian Diaspora was from the Babylonian, both in its origins and in its type, the two were alike in two respects: an independent economic and social life was developed in a foreign land, and at the same time, Jewish identity was retained and concretely expressed in that the Land, and especially Jerusalem, were acknowledged as cultural reference points” (, 152).
44.
‘The MT plus ‘44/51:3 neither they, nor you, nor your ancestors’ … connects the present with a sinful past, and expresses the solidarity of the present generation with its forebears in disobedience and judgment—but now there is no further Deuteronomic / Deuteronomistic call to repentance, and no further prophetic plea (vv. 4–5)…’ (Wells, Jr. 1999, 287) (emphasis added).
45.
‘…these families, or those interests they represent and embody, occupy a delicate middle ground which refuses both ‘innocent religion’ and cynical politics. They affirm that Jeremiah’s ‘innocent’ rhetoric speaks a truth which effectively impinges upon the political reality. They accept the poetry as germane to public policy and practice, I imagine, not simply because they are pious, but, as is always the case when religion sounds politically credible, because the poetry at least in part coheres with vested interest and perceived interest’ (, 377). It is these kinds of families especially that react angrily when their religious practices are attacked. The Pharisees in the New Testament fill a similar position in relation to Jesus.
47.
48.
‘The focus on the solidarity of the remnant with its forebears is continued in the awkward addition of “your own crimes”…’ (Wells, Jr. 1999, 287).
49.
‘If the communities under Gedaliah (40:7 the poorest of the land; 40:12 all the Judeans … from all the places to which they had been scattered) and Johanan (41:10 all the rest/remnant of the people who were in Mizpah; 41.13 all the people whom Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah) are brought forward into this context, there seem to be no standing claimants to the land—whether it is empty or not’ (Wells, Jr. 1999, 288).
50.
Cf. Jer. 22.27, where this same language appears to be directed at the Babylonian golah-community. Interestingly, there are no parallel confrontations between women and the leaders of the Babylon community.
51.
52.
‘The MT plusses in 44/51:11–14, as at 42/49.13–22, considerably amplify the accusation and the threat addressed to the remnant, or in the MT, the remnant of Judah.’ (Wells, Jr. 1999, 288)
53.
54.
‘…glimpses of people who, undoubtedly because they lacked confidence in Yahweh’s all-sufficient power, thought it wise to propitiate other gods (Jer. 7.17–19; cf. 44.15–18; Ezek., ch. 8)…’ (, chap. 8.C.1.a) ‘…the tragic death of Josiah and the attendant national humiliation, coming as it did virtually on the heels of the reform, must have seemed to many a denial of the Deuteronomic theology, for compliance with the Deuteronomic demands had not forestalled disaster as promised. Years later, it appears that there were those who viewed the reform as a mistake, and even blamed the national calamity upon it (Jer. 44.17f.)’ (Bright 1981, chap. 8.C.1.b).
55.
While vv. 16-18 could have been spoken by either men or women or both, verse 19 makes it clear that it is the women who are speaking throughout.
56.
57.
‘… that is, in the Babylonian Ishtar, the mother-goddess worshiped far and wide…’ (von Rad 1962, 1:82) ‘…The southern kingdom was not immune to the worship of goddesses. We know that in Jerusalem, for a long time, they worshipped Ishtar, who was called “the Queen of Heaven,” and who very likely was identified with a West Semitic deity as well, presumably Asherah, who was, after all, the queen of the gods…’ (Freedman 1987) ‘As with the sun, the Israelites were forbidden to worship the moon, and those who defied this ban were to be stoned at the gates of the city (Deut. 4.19, 17.2–5). Still moon worship, like sun worship, continued. King Manasseh set up altars to the celestial bodies (2 Kings 21.3); and during Jeremiah’s (44.17) time, the Israelites worshiped the moon as the “Queen of Heaven”’ (, 614).
58.
‘The term for cakes described here is a loanword from Akkadian. The Babylonians used sweetened cakes in the cult of the goddess Ishtar. It is possible that the Queen of Heaven here is Ishtar as well, but some evidence points to an unnamed mother-goddess or to Asherah… the entire family took part in the cult rituals’ (Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas 2000, bk. Je 7.18).
59.
‘The response to the credo (44/51:15–19) of the worshipers of the Queen of Heaven transmutes the accursed land that results from idolatry into a still empty land, that continues to attest the idolatry of the Judeans who went to Egypt… This verse forms an inclusio in the LXX and the MT, placing the Judeans under Johanan in the situation under Zedekiah before the destruction of the nation: ‘40/47:3 All of you sinned against the LORD (LXX him) and did not obey his voice. Therefore this thing has come upon you.’ The judgment in the new situation is analogous to the old judgment—the essential annihilation of the Judeans in the land of Egypt, described in a “doom oracle complex” that climaxes in the MT plus at 44/51:29’ (Wells, Jr. 1999, 288–289).
60.
61.
These appear to be the last words of Jeremiah, directed to the women of Egypt, something which the history of interpretation has not always been quick to recognize, probably because of the many deuterocanonical accounts about Jeremiah. Canonically, however, this is the end. ‘While scripture is silent on what happened to Jeremiah after the events of this chapter, the tradition has been overly active’ (, 644–45).
62.
63.
In his confrontation, Jeremiah promises the women of Egypt the same fate as that of Babylon in Jeremiah 50-51. ‘In his final word to the recalcitrant refugees, Jeremiah identifies the central issue: argument about the past is inconclusive; the real test of a hypothesis is the future… The confirming sign will be the invasion and overthrow of Egypt, their hoped-for place of refuge ( Jer. 44.24-30)’ (, 37).
64.
Note how many different ways Jeremiah uses the utmost of his prophetic authority in his confrontation with the women of Egypt, all to no apparent avail. ‘The MT plus in v. 29 explicitly makes this defeat a confirmation not only of Jeremiah’s prophetic act in 43/50:8–13, but also of his words of judgment upon the Judeans in Egypt’ (Wells, Jr. 1999, 290).
65.
The only man with any apparent power in this confrontation! ‘Hophra had sent an army to help the Libyans against the Greek colony of Cyrene. The Egyptian force was overwhelmingly defeated, and the Egyptians accused Hophra of having sent their countrymen to their deaths and of unduly favoring the Greeks. Revolt broke out, and Amasis became its leader, defeating and capturing Hophra. Hophra was then probably put to death; at any rate, soon afterward he was buried as befitted a pharaoh by Amasis his successor’ ().