Why Biblical Anthropology?

Alice C. Linsley

Biblical anthropology seeks to understand antecedents and explores the beliefs of Abraham's cattle-herding Nilo-Saharan ancestors. Until we better understand their beliefs and religious practices we will continue to impose incorrect or inadequate interpretations on the Bible.

David Noel Freedman has said: “The Hebrew Bible is the one artifact from antiquity that not only maintained its integrity but continues to have a vital, powerful effect thousands of years later.” Both anthropologists and archaeologists turn to the Bible for clues and data. Very often this has led to wonderful discoveries!

The material in the Bible clearly has been divinely superintended through thousands of years. It contains material older than the first civilizations of the ancient Near East. The king lists of Genesis 4 and 5 are an example. Anthropological analysis of the kinship pattern of these ruler-priest lines has shown them to be authentic. The kinship pattern is unique and does not appear to change throughout the Bible. The evidence of this distinctive marriage and ascendancy could not have been written back into the texts at a later date. It is the thread that weaves through the Bible, like a scarlet cord, from beginning to end. Further, understanding this marriage and ascendancy pattern is essential for a biblical understanding of Jesus, the Son of God, as the fulfillment of Messianic expectation. He is a descendant of the earliest named rulers to whom the Creator made a promise concerning the divine Seed (Gen. 3:15). Jesus referred to Himself as the promised "Seed" when He foretold his death in Jerusalem. He said, "Unless a seed fall into the ground and die, it cannot give life." (John 12:24)

Jesus' ancestors were the "mighty men of old" and great kingdom builders who dispersed widely in the archaic world. They were a ruler caste (clans that practiced endogamy) who spread along the mountain chains (high places) of Southern Europe and the Hindu Kush. They likely controlled commerce through the Pamir Junction. These were aggressive kingdom builders who regarded themselves as divinely appointed to disperse and subdue the earth. Later rulers, such as Alexander the Great and Constantine I, held this idea as well.

A central task of biblical anthropology is to uncover cultural antecedents, such as the origin of messianic expectation. Culture traits, religious practices and beliefs do not spring suddenly into existence. They develop organically over time from traditions observed by the people and received from their ancestors. Biblical anthropology provides tested methods and tools to push back the veil of time, to uncover anthropologically significant data that clarifies precedents, etiology, and context. The discoveries made in biblical anthropology will prove helpful to students, pastors and academics.

Biblical anthropology seeks to understand the cultural context of the Bible at the oldest foundations. It is concerned with ancestors and received traditions. What events preceded the events recounted? From what earlier context did certain practices develop? What traces of ancient memory can be uncovered?

The biblical text always speaks of something older, some prior action that solicits a response from later generations. What Jacques Derrida called the "trace" is always there, and unless one moves toward that presence, the nature of it remains unknown. Even where later sources attempt to efface an earlier account, as happens in Genesis, the trace has a voice. The prior remains evident. There is always this "minority opinion" and those who care about the bigger picture read minorities opinions.

Derrida wrote, "The call of the other, having always already preceded the speech to which it has never been present a first time, announces itself as a recall. Such a reference to the other will always have taken place." (Psyche: Inventions of the Other)

Derrida also wrote, “It would be possible to show that all the terms related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the center have always designated the constant of a presence, ... essence, existence, substance, subject, ... transcendentality, consciousness or conscience, god, man, and so forth.” (The Sign, Structure and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences)

Derrida never denies the existence of something (or Someone?) at or as “the center” but for him the center is a function, not a person. This function is immutable and inescapable. It is always prior, always before human discourse. The biblical authors would say that the something older is Someone, the Atik Yomin or Ancient of Days. The biblical text and our discourse on the text self-efface before this Someone.

Biblical anthropology is not Near Eastern studies. To equate these is to wave a red herring. The red herring is the widely-held assumption that Abraham's earliest ancestors lived in Mesopotamia. Such a view ignores the data of Genesis 4-11. It fails to investigate the trace, to follow the trail back to Abraham’s Nilo-Saharan ancestors. Their story does not pertain initially to the ancient Near East, but to Africa and to the vast Afro-Asiatic Dominion that existed before the emergence of the great world religions. Biblical anthropology sets us on that trail.

Anthropological study of Genesis is as important as theological study. Indeed, it may be more important because it permits us to understand how the ancients of Eden understood God; to glimpse their intimate experience of the Creator who never changes. God’s immutability is communicated profoundly in the Genesis narratives and in the ancients’ understanding of divine rule and order.

All biblical narratives are connected to place and time, to environmental conditions, to the rising of rivers, the hewing of local stone, and to the expansion of herds. They speak to us from a particular place and time about the world of our ancestors.

G.K. Chesterton viewed Rudyard Kipling as a man of the world who loved no one place well enough to really know it. Chesterton wrote, “It is inspiriting without doubt to whizz in a motor-car round the earth, to feel Arabia as a whirl of sand or China as a flash of rice-fields. But Arabia is not a whirl of sand and China is not a flash of rice-fields. They are ancient civilizations with strange virtues buried like treasures. If we wish to understand them it must not be as tourists or inquirers, it must be with the loyalty of children and the patience of poets.” (Heretics, p. 51, 52)

Anthropological tools applied to the biblical narratives enable us to place the material in the proper cultural context. This resolves many theological controversies and helps to correct erroneous interpretations. We gain greater clarity about how the Creator has moved in time and space. He catch glimpses of His eternal power and immutable nature. We gain deeper insight into the nature of the eternal kingdom delivered to the eternal "sent-away" Son.

Biblical anthropology is in service of good theology. It serves the Church by grounding politics and doctrine, liturgy and prayer in the not-so-big ideas, but in the daily routine of our lives. It reminds us to heed the old ways, to honor our fathers and mothers, and to take courage from the faithfulness and blessing God has shown to our ancestors.

After 32 years of work as a biblical anthropologist, I am disheartened by the fact that no institution of higher learning in the world offers a single course in Biblical Anthropology.

Related reading: Haplogroups of Interest to Biblical Anthropologists; What Does a Biblical Anthropologist Do?; Genesis in Anthropological Context; Using the Bible to Test Hypotheses; When is the Evidence Sufficient?; Talking on Facebook About Biblical Anthropology; Religion of the Archaic Rulers; Some Marks of Prehistoric Religion; INDEX of Topics at Biblical Anthropology; African Religion Predates Hinduism; Lévi-Strauss and Derrida on Binary Oppositions