The Problem of Identifying with Biblical Persons and Times

　　For Christian teachers and preachers, we have a necessary and good problem. We must move back and forth between theoretical academic studies and practical application of knowledge. The two areas enrich each other. As a biblical teacher and as advisor pastor and preacher, I have been particularly helped by relating biblical study with hermeneutical questions and spirituality. We are concerned with proper methods of interpreting the Bible and not abusing this basic tool of the faith community. We are also concerned with a healthy and full-bodied spirituality that gives us deepened reverence for God and ethical integrity.

　　The Christian experience, of course, is more complicated than having passive pious people receive divine information or commands without interaction, questions, dialogue. Why is this so? The divine revelation coming through scripture is given in human words by struggling human saints. Biblical truth is not one dimensional or so easy to discern. We find multiple points of view of various persons in various eras. Can we jump from our time into a past biblical time and make an equation between our age and an earlier one? With whom do we identify in biblical narratives? What is a proper movement from academic critical study of a text to application done in preaching and teaching?

　　I have found help from a South African scholar, Gerrie Snyman, who comments on how the Book of Esther was used in a South African setting. And there is help from Walter Brueggemann, systematic Old Testament theologian who relates Esther to wider message of Old Testament.

　　The title of the essay by Snyman reveals the framework of his thought, “Identification and the Discourse of Fundamentalism: Reflections on a Reading of the Book of Esther.” ¹

　　Snyman had asked his students to write an exegesis paper on Esther chapter 9. It was to be narratological and address their church communities. He cites two papers of his students who made an equation between biblical characters and contemporary persons. The oppressed Blacks of South Africa were equal to Esther and Mordecai the Jews. The ruling Whites who enforced apartheid, racial segregation, were the evil Haman. Snyman probed his discomfort with these positions. His students expressed what was seen as the higher moral position. They celebrated the overthrow of the old White minority rule. But there was a justification of violence and a simplistic reading of the biblical text that upset Snyman. He saw a religious fundamentalism at work in both the spokesmen for the old apartheid regime and in the liberationist views of the current ruling ideology.

　　To review the Esther narrative, we recall that the Jews were fighting to survive. Haman, a leading Persian official, hated Mordecai, the Jewish cousin and guardian parent of Queen Esther. He used racial prejudice and fear to manipulate the Persian king to destroy the Jews. Haman commented on the Jewish refusal to be assimilated to Persian culture. He gave a proposal that all Jews be destroyed on a given date throughout the empire; total genocide. Mordecai persuaded Queen Esther, a Jew who had concealed her identity, to intercede for her people. She had to demonstrate courage and ingenuity in obtaining access to the king and making her case. After feasting the king and winning his good will, she boldly denounced Haman and asked for mercy. Haman was exposed and suffered the anger of the king. He and his sons were executed.

　　Queen Esther was able to raise her kinsman Mordecai to high counselor. With royal power, he wrote a decree giving the Jews permission to protect themselves on the day intended for their execution. Chapter 9 gives an account that can be most disturbing. The Jews do not wait to protect themselves from enemies coming to kill them. They take the initiative and kill all persons they suspect could be their enemies. This aggressive move leads to the death of several thousands. No one dares resist the Jews who single out those they suspect of harming them. Everyone knows that the king has raised Mordecai to high power and honors the will of Queen Esther. There are interpreters who justify this move as a practical and wise action. Others question the moral base for such an action.

　　Synman does not approve of the action of Mordecai and Esther. The Persians who were killed were in one sense helpless and not an immediate problem. Synman would see justification of the action as due to failures within fundamentalism views. Fundamentalism would move too quickly in making equation between biblical times and modern times. With an overly simplified view of Bible as word of God, fundamentalists would not be sympathetic with questioning value systems that seemed to be acceptable in biblical times, even approved or allowed by God.

　　South African White Christians in an earlier time believed the Bible was clear that the White and Black races should not be mixed. Intermarriage and many social interactions were forbidden. White Christians equated themselves with the biblical Chosen People. As Jews were not to mix with Canaanites, so Whites should not mix with Blacks. It was Christian duty to implement this division of a pure race from an inferior people. It was believed to be basic biblical teaching. When there was protest, refusal to abide by apartheid laws, Whites felt justified in brutal measures of enforcing their policies. Violence was seen as inevitable, and the Bible spoke of holy warfare.

　　Synman would remind us that while we try to find connections with biblical times and principles, there is a vast difference between the ancient world and our own. All biblical stories occur within settings with worldviews, laws, and customs different from our own. Synman would go further to restrain us from making quick equations of ourselves with biblical stories. We must be careful of ideologies, even biblical ideologies, that are one-dimensional. In other words, some biblical pictures for dramatic theological reasons may portray some characters as totally bad. We may demonize some people, refusing to see any humanity or value in persons described. Others we may give excessive praise and overlook weaknesses.

　　Since I am an Old Testament teacher, I can think of so many examples of this truth. We think of the portrayal of King Saul in Chronicles. While the accounts in the deuteronomic history give a fuller picture of Saul, including his good deliverance of the people of Jabesh Gilead, Chronicles gives no redeeming point to the value of Saul. He is a total failure, no record of his delivering the people of Jabesh Gilead. While the deuteronomic history gives a fuller picture of King David, including victory over a pagan giant and adultery with wife of a faithful soldier, Chronicles gives no negative story of David. It conspicuously leaves out his sin of adultery with Bathsheba.

　　In equating a biblical time and situation with a modern time and situation, we have to remember there were different forces at work. We may find points of identification, similar points of interest or contact, but identification with a person or situation should not be seen as equation, total coinciding of two worlds.

　　It is important to find terms which indicate how we may relate old and modern worlds and find terms that indicate where this is not done properly. It would seem a good term for a good connection of biblical and modern world would be forms of identification. But it is not wise to push identification to the point of equation.

　　Synman discusses different versions of identification. Aesthetic Identification can be positive. This means that one has the aesthetic pleasure of entering the story world of a text, feeling the problems and vitality of that world. But one knows at the same time, the story world is not equal to the real world. Recognition is present that there remain two different worlds despite the power of being swept into the story world. If one denies or forgets the different world one has come from, aesthetic experience is replaced by fundamentalist ethical imperative. This demands duplicating the story and obliterating all other versions or revisions from other stories and present time.

　　Five versions of identification are richly pursued: associative identification, admiring identification, sympathetic identification, catharsis identification, and ironic identification. Synman is building on the work of Hans-Robert Jauss, Asthetische Erfahrung und literarische Hermeneutik (1982). This study is very helpful.

　　As an Old Testament teacher, I believe we can find discussion of how to use Bible deepened by insights from Walter Brueggemann. About two years ago I had a conference with Brueggemann and asked him if he saw a problem with Jews in Esther’s time making a preemptive strike, killing their enemies before they were actually attacked. Perhaps there could have been another solution. After all, the Jews enjoyed royal protection once Esther was recognized as Jewish and beloved consort of the king. Brueggemann had not probed the Book of Esther with that particular problem in mind. I am very pleased to find that it has engaged the mind and efforts of the South African scholar Gerrie Snyman.

　　Brueggemann gives a rather positive interpretation of the Book of Esther. It would be improved if he incorporated what Snyman has taught us. The insight of Brueggemann is to see the problem faced by Book of Esther in a large context. He gives his usual rich probing in his recent An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination.

　　He reminds us that the Book of Esther is the last of the five festival scrolls used yearly in the Jewish worship year. In form, it is a tale of Jewish courage amidst the threats and risks of living in the Persian Empire. Holy imagination has shaped a story that was to be edifying for Jews trying to survive in a hostile world. While the book itself cannot be documented as histories, it is canonical word of God, which deals seriously with the real problem of living in any historical setting where one can be absorbed or destroyed. (We see Brueggemann’s indebtedness at this point to Gerhard von Rad and his kinship with Brevard Childs.)

　　Brueggemann summarizes four studies on Book of Esther, all being quite different in probing and assessing the book. It is characteristic of Brueggemann not to endorse any one of the views as the correct one but to grant multiple interpretations of scripture are always needed. A fourth study that he mentions is one that would obviously suit much of Brueggemann’s preference.

　　It is a study of the ambivalence of character roles in the book. Esther is portrayed as limited person of power in a patriarchal world. The Persian king is portrayed as tyrant with absolute power. Yet the king is easily swayed by evil counsel from Haman and different counsel from Esther and Mordecai. Also, Esther is not really a marginalized person, for she in her seeming powerless state has enormous power over the king. God is not specifically mentioned in the text, but God may be seen as hidden in the processes by which His people are saved. In a world with such ambiguous characters and situations, there is hope, for nothing is truly settled once and for all.

　　Brueggemann has a high view of the Book of Esther, since it is a religious tale deeply laden with theological challenge. A faith community is trying to survive in an alien world. It must learn to accommodate itself as did Esther and Mordecai and it must retain its unique identity as do Esther and Mordecai. This faith is nurtured by sacred stories. They require theological substance and are done through holy imagination, seeing another world that can break through into the present one. Some biblical narratives speak of a God miraculously present and obvious to the faith community. Some biblical materials arise in a setting where the hand of God is not apparent or God so easily seen.

　　We return to our original questions. With whom do we identify in the Bible? How do our lives and stories correspond with biblical stories of another age? We can identify with many characters and situations in limited ways. At one level, many Christians are like the Jews trying to survive in a hostile environment that does not understand or value Christian views. At one level, those who persecute Christians or the church are like Haman. But there is never an absolute equation of our situation with another time or set of characters.

　　We learn from deconstructionists to critique making absolute identifications of one set of characters and times with another set. We critique the easy equation made by some South Africans of oppressed Black being the equivalent of endangered Jews and of ruling Whites being the equivalent of Haman. Mordecai and Esther were not helpless like many Blacks. They had access to royal power and wit to use it. Haman was not a total villain, the only one with faults. He represented a legitimate concern that those who would not be assimilated to their host country could be a threat. Surely Esther and Mordecai could have made the Persian king aware of the contribution of the Jewish subjects long before Haman precipitated great crisis. Mordecai was not prudent in showing contempt for Haman when the king honored him. Mordecai perhaps lacked courage in not moving Esther earlier to disclose her identity and the good presence of Jews.

　　We do not make complete identification of ourselves with Mordecai and Esther. But we do identify with their concerns. At one valid point of connection, we are like the marginalized Jews who must face the problem of accommodating to our society and not compromise our essential identity. At one valid point of connection, we castigate Haman for his rabid plan of genocide, violent solution to handling people different from himself in values. There are endless points of connection between our stories and lives and those of scripture. It is helpful to explore the similar interests. And it is helpful to see if solutions found by earlier generations give guidance or warnings to us in coping with life.

　　We affirm then the paradox: we see the Bible as a strange other world and as a place where we see ourselves. We must be wise not to identify completely with the persons, solutions, and times of Bible; this is related to a kind of fundamentalism that reduces life to prescribed unchanging pictures and answers. We live by the Spirit which gives us continuity with God and the past and with a future that has new dimensions. This Spirit equips us to an open future with new opportunities and challenges. It is not duplication of the past. We learn from the past but add our own unique new chapter.

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¹ In Rhetorical Criticism and the Bible (New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 160-208.