A Hermeneutic of Suspicion or King Josiah's "Reforms"
A sermon preached on October 6, 2024
(This sermon is the second in a sermon series based on the Season of Origins and Undoing Conquest by Dr. Kate Common.)
Scripture: 2 Kings 23:1-7, 12, 21-23 NRSVUE
Listen to these headlines and article titles from this week:
1. “Vanderbilt upsets No. 1 Alabama 40-35 in historic college football win” (NBC)
2. “How Trump Will Challenge the 2024 Election if He Loses” (The Onion)
3. “Trump pitches watches, crypto and his wife's book in the campaign's final weeks” (NBC)
4. “Racist Birds Leading to Debate within Bird Community” (CNN with my adaptations)
5. “Prison isn't working for women, ministers say. Can it be fixed?” (BBC)
Which ones are actual headlines from reputable sources? Well, it’s numbers 1, 3, and 5.
At best we’ve all become discerning with headlines and stories in the news, at worst we’ve become cynical. Why shouldn’t we be? Between outlandish claims from politicians and candidates; the ability of normal people to post “news” on their blogs or social media and claim its veracity; intentional dis- and misinformation; and websites set up to parody what’s happening in the news; you can’t be blamed for being suspicious and skeptical.
Do we read the Bible with the same suspicious and skepticism? Sure, we understand that through mistranslations and misinterpretations that the meaning of many parts of the Bible have changed. Do you ever read a passage from the Bible and think, “I’m not sure about that” or “I think more or less is going on here than what the text is portraying.” This response can be called a hermeneutic of suspicion. We should read the Bible with a healthy suspicion or skepticism with neither means we consider the Bible untrue, nor does it mean we doubt the power or glory of God.
In tonight’s scripture we hear about what the NRSV translation calls “Josiah’s Reforms.” Remember from last week, King Josiah is a king of Judah, and his reforms are meant to return to worshipping the one true God. There is definitely a religious motive behind his reforms. The northern kingdom of the Hebrew, the Kingdom of Israel, has already been captured by the Assyrians and will very soon be captured by the Babylonians. Josiah wants to appeal to God to protect the Kingdom of Judah. However, he also has political motivations for this project. We’re told that Josiah goes to the temple and reads from the “book of the covenant.” This is the sefer ha-torah the special book of the law which was either written by Moses or dictated by Moses to Joshua. It had been found during work on the temple commissioned by Josiah.
Josiah and his servants then remove all the idols, the items used for their worship, and the houses or chambers designated for the priests who served those idols. The items are burned and beaten to dust and the dust in thrown on to graves. These items are thus defiled and can no longer be used for ritualistic practice. He then orders that the Passover be celebrated in the temple as it had it hadn’t been in quite some time.
We should read this passage with suspicion because it not only provides a window in more ancient Jewish practice, but it also portrays the extent of Josiah’s political calculations. There are three important names mentioned briefly in this passage: Manasseh, Asherah, and Baal. Manasseh was a previous king of Judah who is largely condemned in the Bible in 2 Kings 21 and 2 Chronicles 33 because he reintroduced the worship of Baal and Asherah after his father, Hezekiah, had ended those practices. However, scholars have argued that Manasseh did not intend to worship other gods, he intended to return Judah to ancient ways of worshiping God. Which brings us to Asherah. Throughout the Ancient Near East, the region we now call the Middle East, Asherah appears under a number of similar names. She is often portrayed as a mother goddess and is connected with fertility and agricultural. Many small figurines thought to depict her have been found in the archeological projects in the Highland Settlements. Scholars believe in ancient Jewish practice, Asherah was seen as the wife and consort of God; that ancient Jewish religion contained an equal status for a male god and a female goddess. And this brings us to Baal. The word “Baal” has been used in a variety of contexts to mean “lord” both in the sense of a member of the nobility or a wealthy landowner as well as the name of a deity. In fact, the root words of both “Baal” and “Adonai” are very similar. There are both Biblical and non-Biblical texts which use “Baal” and “Adonai” interchangeably. Some scholars believe that when God was worshiped in conjunction with Asherah, that the two deities were called “Asherah” and “Baal.” The passage hints at this practice when it says, “the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord.” Why would there be two courts in the house of God if not for the worship of two deities? Unfortunately, material evidence is often unable to tell us much about theology and belief. This is the case for Asherah and God or Baal. We don’t know if these deities were considered to be two persons in one god like the Christian Trinity; if they were manifestations of a singular divinity similar to Hinduism; or if they were regarded as separate deities. However, they were revered, their removal made the religion solely patriarchal. God became a man and a man alone. Then, to quote the philosopher Mary Daly, “If God is male, then male is God.”
Our passage tonight ends with the reinstitution of the Passover as an event in the temple. Bear in mind that, first, seder-type dinners offering bread and wine in a ritualistic way had been going on for centuries and was a fairly common cultural practice throughout the region. Second, if the history of the Highland Settlements is correct then the great Passover celebrated in Egypt as God strikes down the Egyptian first born children didn’t happen and therefore was never a cultural practice for the Hebrews. Most importantly, Josiah instituted the practice to occur at the temple and only at the temple. This way people had to come to Jerusalem where they could be counted, taxed, etc. Religion aside, he was centralizing into one place, his capital city.
There is good historical evidence from many sources that Josiah was either influenced by or doing the bidding of two powerful factions in Judah. The Yahwehists were a cult of believers in a single god they called Yahweh. The Deuteronomists were a group promoting an alternative version of history which became the conquest narrative. There are several scholars who wonder if Josiah himself was real given the extremely close association between Joshua and Josiah as people and their names. One minor theory posits that the Yahwehists and the Deuteronomists were the de fac to rulers of Judah and that the kings were figureheads.
In any case, over the next several decades, the Assyrian Empire falls. Josiah decides to elevate the profile of his kingdom by either forming an alliance with or conquering Egypt, but he dies in battle leaving several ineffective descendants in power. Soon Babylon enters and fills the power vacuum and begins exiling the Hebrews. When these people and their children return to Jerusalem, they use the religion they had under Josiah to rebuild both their faith and their temple.
Perhaps it’s obvious, but I want to make sure I say it: we can and we should apply a certain skepticism to anything we read, including to what scholars tell us. It’s far from clear what motivated Hezekiah’s and Manasseh’s changes in the temple. We’re a bit clearer about Josiah, but only so much. You can accept the Bible as an historical account of the Hebrew people. You can accept the Bible as authoritative over your faith and life. You can accept some of what scholars argue and reject other parts. Perhaps concluding that God was worshiped as Baal and Asherah is going too far for you. Perhaps Manasseh really thought that the right way was the older way whereas his father had believed that innovation was more appropriate. Maybe they both liked screwing with the priests and the temple’s interior designers. Perhaps the scholars are wrong. Maybe the Highland Settlements have been dated or interpreted incorrectly. We can approach the Bible with a hermeneutic of suspicion and reach different conclusion. God is big enough for all our truths.
Church, pray with me: God help us search our sacred texts and find you, the source and summit of all truths. Grant us the diligence to question Biblical authority and those interpretations we’ve been told are true. Help us remember that our searches for truth and meaning, our searches for you, are better done in community even if we disagree with our neighbors. We ask this in your name, Amen.