Don C Benjamin
Don C. Benjamin teaches biblical and Near Eastern Studies at Arizona State University. He is the author of The Social World of Deuteronomy: a new feminist commentary, the commentary on Deuteronomy in the Jerome Biblical Commentary, and the editor of the Oxford Handbook on Deuteronomy. With Victor H. Matthews he has also published Old Testament Parallels: laws and stories from the Ancient Near East and the Social World of Ancient Israel: 1250-587 B.C.E.
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I wrote Stones & Stories for at least three reasons. First, I wanted readers to realize how productive the last one hundred years of fieldwork in the world of the Bible has been. Second, I wanted to encourage archaeologists working in the world of the Bible to put at least as much effort into thinking about what they were doing in the field – theory, as they have put into how they are doing fieldwork -- practice. Third, I wanted to encourage archaeologists working in the world of the Bible to make a more concerted effort to collaborate more often with archaeologists working in other parts of the world.
I wrote Stones & Stories for at least three reasons. First, I wanted readers to realize how productive the last one hundred years of fieldwork in the world of the Bible has been. Second, I wanted to encourage archaeologists working in the world of the Bible to put at least as much effort into thinking about what they were doing in the field – theory, as they have put into how they are doing fieldwork -- practice. Third, I wanted to encourage archaeologists working in the world of the Bible to make a more concerted effort to collaborate more often with archaeologists working in other parts of the world.
The Yahad Community at Qumran was still studying Deuteronomy as the 36 copies of Deuteronomy among some 800 Dead Sea Scrolls
testify – equal to Psalms and more than Isaiah (21x). Jews today read Torah as part of daily prayer. Deuteronomy provides the Torah readings for the 11 weeks leading to the Simchat Torah holyday following Rosh Hashanah.
The New Testament refers to Deuteronomy 39 times -- less only than Psalms (80x) and Isaiah (56x). The descriptions of the kingdom of heaven in the Gospel of Matthew and the kingdom of God in the Gospels of Mark and Luke also mirror an ideal community similar to the
Israel which Deuteronomy envisions. More than 20 Christian communities today, who use the Revised Common Lectionary,
proclaim Deuteronomy on 10 Sundays and on some 20 other days during the liturgical year. Although social encyclicals like Rerum Novarum (1891) by Leo XII, Quadregesimo Anno (1931)
by Pius IX and Progressio Populorum (1967) by Paul VI do not cite Deuteronomy, they nonetheless reflect a similar concern for human rights.
The Qur’an does not cite, but does know, Deuteronomy (Q 2:67-73; 2:178; 4:164; 5:45; 6:146; 7:144; 46:10; 110:1). Moses promulgates Deuteronomy; Muhammad recites the Qur’an. The furqan which ‘Allah gives Moses (Q 2:53; 3:3; 21:48; 25:1) is probably Deuteronomy (Q
2:185; 8:29+41;). Both Muhammad and Moses follow only one divine patron (Q 16:9; 17:2; 25; 28:56; 37:4). Both leave a last will and testament (Q 5:1-119).
Deuteronomy does not invite Jews, Christians and Muslims today to mimic the lives of the people of YHWH long ago. In Deuteronomy, Moses himself transforms the received traditions of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers and applies them to new situations. Deuteronomy invites people of faith to craft lives of gratitude in all the aspects of daily life
addressed by its instructions -- to embrace a life of selfless gratitude modeled by Moses and reflected in the sufferings of Jeremiah (Jer 11:18-23) and of the Servant of YHWH (Isa 52:13—53:12). Like pregnant mothers their labor births new worlds where the cosmos envisioned by
YHWH is completed and even the powerless can survive. Only those who remember their own sufferings well enough are compassionate. With remarkable candor the people of YHWH remember that they were once landless slaves (Exod 1:7—7:13), childless parents (Isa 7:14) and
insignificant creatures (Isa 41:14), and that only selfless gratitude for what YHWH has done – and is doing every day in every aspect of daily life -- can create the shalom which brings women and the land to life so that the entire community can choose life for themselves and their
descendants (29:1—31:29).