Dr Alice C. Linsley
I have been asked about the response of Jews to my research. While I have never been concerned about the reaction of anyone to my work, I attempt to be sensitive to the religious traditions of my many readers.
Generally, I have found a positive reaction from the Jews who have reached out to me. A Jewish woman who teaches women in her synagogue wrote:
Alice Linsley - I have used some of your work as background material for a small women's group in my synagogue as a part of a teaching Sukkot celebration these past few years. The material has just been part of my brief oral presentations - not given out textually about the women personalities in Torah and Tanach.
Sukkot commemorates the forty-year period during which the children of Israel (Jacob's clan) were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters. I have written about the wanderings from mountain to mountain and theorized that these mountains were sacred to various Hebrew clans who were kin to the Israelites.
Follow the Mountains: A Different View of the ExodusAfter leaving Egypt, the clan of Jacob (Israel) journeyed by stages, making contact with Hebrew kinsmen at each stage. The first people to help them were their cousins the Midianites (descendants of Abraham by Keturah) in the region of Horeb, the Midianite sacred mountain (Deut. 29:1).
Another people to help them were the Edomites related to Seir the Horite Hebrew chief named in Genesis 36. The Edomite sacred mountain was Paran (Deut. 33:2).
Crossing through Edomite territory (where Aaron was buried), the Hebrews moved northeast into Moab. They visited with Lot’s descendants and worshipped on Mount Nebo (Deut. 32:49), where Moses died.
At each of these sacred sites, the reunion of kin was celebrated by a covenant that included animal sacrifice and a night of feasting. These covenants resembled the covenant made between Jacob and Laban at Mizpah (Gen. 31:44-54).
The early Hebrew ruler-priests (4000-2000 BC) established themselves at high places where they built temples, palaces, garrisons, etc. These places were supported by permanent water sources. That is why the earliest known archaeological sites of the Ancient Near East are on high ground near major rivers such as the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Jordan, and the Nile.
Response to my distinction between the historical realities revealed through kinship analysis and Midrash.
I also have had a positive response to my exposition of the common themes of Midrash, the rabbinic method of interpreting events that took place thousands of years before Judaism emerged. Midrash has influenced the shape of the Jewish ethnic narrative. Some people, including this writer, claim that the influence of the rabbis on Jewish identity has been greater than the influence of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Knowledge of the social structure of the
Hebrew ruler-priest caste explains why many things happened the way they did. However, the midrashim in the Old Testament often give a different explanation for events that took place before Judaism.
Midrash is characterized by some narrative devices such as famines that drive the Hebrew people into other lands.
Famines in Caanan are a device to explain why Abraham went to Egypt and why Noami and her family went to Moab. The rabbis are anxious to disguise the fact that there were Hebrew living in Egypt and in Moab. The earliest known Hebrew clans lived in the Nile Valley, and the Moabites and Hebrew share a common ancestor in Terah, Abraham’s father.
However, the Book of Genesis makes it clear that the early Hebrew had dispersed into many regions long before the time of Abraham. Their dispersal was driven by features of their social structure such as endogamy and the sending away of non-ascendant sons.
Another device of Midrash is jealousy among brothers. Though the Genesis story does not explain why Cain killed Abel, midrash supplies the explanation that he was jealous. Likewise, Joseph’s treatment by his brothers is explained as an act motivated by jealousy.
Midrash employs the practice of slavery to explain why Joseph is in Egypt, why Daniel is in Babylon, and why Mordecai and Esther are in Persia. In the sixth century B.C., many Judean noblemen were taken to Babylon, and Babylon was conquered by the Persians who took captives to Susa. These events have been historically verified. Midrash embroiders historical events to convey a theological message.
Midrash tends to point to God or supernatural intervention as an explanation for why things happened. An example is Joseph’s declaration to his brothers: “Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” (Genesis 45:5-7)
Another example is Mordecai’s declaration to Esther: “Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:12-14)
Jewish Reactions versus Evangelical Reactions
Over the 40 years that I have been investigating the social structure of the biblical Hebrew I have found that Jewish readers are more appreciative of my work than Evangelical Christians who espouse the profoundly errant doctrine of inerrancy.
It is best to read the biblical texts critically, but since God is truthful and He has superintended the Scriptures, they tell us truth. We should read them as if they were law briefs: there is a majority opinion and a minority opinion. Or to express this differently: close listening reveals dominant voices and subservient voices. When these are singing to the glory of God, the music is rapturous.
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