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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] TITHING
  • Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:40:14 EST


1. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, revised 1988 (ISBE), was
quoted as follows: “Genesis 28:20-22 records Jacob's vow to tithe all of the
increase that God
would give him.”

No. Jacob says that he will tithe a tenth of everything to YHWH, not that
Jacob will tithe Jacob’s entire increase to YHWH. In Hebrew, “tithe” and “
give a tenth” are the same word.

2. ISBE was further quoted as follows: “This was predicated upon the
supposition that God would care for him and prosper his way; the Lord would
be
Jacob's God, and he would give a tenth to confirm that fact.”

The word “supposition” here conceals the great audacity of what Jacob in
fact says in the text. Jacob brazenly says that Jacob will worship YHWH as
Jacob’
s deity if and only if YHWH comes through with all of the following: (i)
Jacob has a successful trip out to Harran to marry a daughter of Laban; (ii)
Jacob has food to eat; (iii) Jacob has clothing to wear; and (iv) Jacob
eventually returns safely to his father Isaac’s home in Canaan.

Such brazen bargaining with YHWH would have seemed like blasphemy to the
southern Hebrews of Judah in the 1st millennium BCE. Is YHWH to be honored
if and
only if YHWH comes through and provides prosperity to the southern Hebrews?
How would such a theology work after the state of Judah had been destroyed by
Assyria, and then Jerusalem itself was destroyed by Babylonia?

There is no way that southern Hebrews in the mid-1st millennium BCE would
have made up a story like that. No way.

3. Finally, ISBE was further quoted as follows: “The tithe went to support ‘
God's house’, symbolized by the pillar (v 22); this proleptically
demonstrated [anticipated] a major purpose of the tithe in later Israel,
namely, the
care of God's house.”

No. Jacob’s pillar needed no tithing for support.

Jacob’s tithing of a tenth would occur only if YHWH saw to it that Jacob
prospered. There is no way that in later Israel (or Judah), the 1st
millennium
BCE Hebrews would create a story in which their namesake, “Israel”, says that
he will tithe a tenth to YHWH if and only if things go well for “Israel”.
That was not the theology of the Hebrews in the mid-1st millennium BCE.

4. Genesis 28: 20-22 simply cannot be squared with the theology of the
Hebrews in the 1st millennium BCE. Rather, it is an authentic story coming
straight out of the mid-2nd millennium BCE, unvarnished, and un-edited.
Jacob’s
audacity with YHWH is truly breathtaking. It is an exciting, memorable
story.
But it’s vintage mid-2nd millennium BCE all the way, and is not a convenient
myth created in the mid-1st millennium BCE.

Indeed, very few aspects of the Patriarchal narratives can be squared with
the views of the mid-1st millennium BCE Hebrews. One of the key reasons why
these strange, disconcerting stories continued to be embraced by the mid-1st
millennium BCE Hebrews was precisely because their substantive content made
it
abundantly clear that this was truly ancient material, not something recently
ginned up in an attempt to cobble together a modern theology. When you’re
reading the Patriarchal narratives, you’re seeing authentic, truly ancient
material.

I guess the ISBE can say whatever it wants to say. But anyone who reads
Genesis 28: 20-22 can see that what ISBE says, just tain’t so.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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