Last week, we were talking a bit about the historical context of Hosea, a context that was split between a short 30 years in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, but spanned 75 or more years in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. That's one prophet with two different lifetimes. I invited you to think about how this could be, and now I'd like to consider the possible answer.
Most of the scholarship is agreed that Hosea was a prophet of the Northern Kingdom. Worth saying is that we don't have a lot like him. The Bible was recorded and preserved by the people of the south, in Judah, just before and during the exile in Babylonia. (A few books, like Daniel, were written after this time.) The northern kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians generations earlier, and any writings unique to their context would have been lost. That is to say, if Hosea was a prophet of the north, his prophecies must have passed to the south before they could have been preserved by the southerners.
What's more, when Hosea's prophecy came to Judah, the southerners must have found in it something worth keeping. The people who read his prophecy, written in about 760 B.C.E., heard something that still made sense for their context, around 710, in the south. It's possible, even, that they added more on to Hosea's prophecy to help others see how it still pertained to them.
I have to admit that my own reading of Hosea is in its infancy; I don't know the prophet as well as I might like. But I do know Amos quite well, and we'll see the same thing for him. It's clear that Amos wrote his prophecy to the people of Israel. Then a hundred years later, someone else adapted his prophecy to the people of Judah. And another hundred years passed, and yet a third writer added on some prophecy to give new hope to the people in the exile. Three layers (at least!) of Amos's prophecy, spanning centuries.
This could be troubling. We might be very uncomfortable with the idea that someone could have edited scripture! But the truth is, what we're seeing is a hint of the timelessness of prophecy, encoded in the very scriptures themselves. Prophetic words once spoken to one generation still have meaning to another. And of course this is true; otherwise, why would we read the prophets? To see what God once had to say to a people long past? Hardly! We read ancient prophecy in order to help us listen to what God is saying to us, now! We are like those who rewrote each layer of the prophet's work, reading Hosea's words for Israel, then for Judah, then for the exile, for the return, for the Roman empire, for medieval Christendom, for today's church.
And what strange prophecy it is! Hosea continues (1:2-3a):
The first time the Word of YHWH came to Hosea, YHWH said to Hosea, "Take for yourself a wife of promiscuity and children of promiscuity, for the land has truly been promiscuous against YHWH." And he went, and he took Gomer, daughter of Diblaim.
There has been no end to the discussion of this promiscuous wife of Hosea. As early as the Aramaic translation and commentary on the book we now know as the Targum Johnathan (about 50 B.C.E.), scholars of the Bible suggested that this was all metaphorical, perhaps taking place in a dream of the prophet, or something like that. There is no way that God could have instructed Hosea to take a prostitute as a wife, is there? Those who have affirmed her likely career as a prostitute have looked to surrounding cultures and their practice of having temple prostitutes who would be involved in religious sexual rituals. This is complicated by some scholars' assertion that there never was any such thing.
In any case, modern scholars are less sensitive to seeming breaches of etiquette and morality. Even so, Gale A. Yee, in the Women's Bible Commentary, is careful to point out that the Hebrew word here has a wideness of meaning. Though traditionally though of as a prostitute, the prophet's wife could simply be an adulteress or known for promiscuity, giving the translation above. Not that this helps matters much.
It's a weird instruction for God to give the prophet. But prophets have been known to do worse things. (Jeremiah wore nothing but a dirty loincloth for some hundred days, if I remember correctly.) So he does it. Our first prophet in the Book of the Twelve performs a prophetic action by getting married. We're told that the reason is because the land (of Israel) has been promiscuous. Instead of worshiping God alone, people have turned to these other "gods," the idols of Canaan, the Baals and perhaps even the goddess Asherah, and have forgotten the Lord, who is feeling a bit like a jilted lover. Why exactly God decides that this needs to be acted out by the prophet is unclear, but it does perhaps get the message across.
The Bible is surprisingly (or not, based on your opinion of the oppressive patriarchy) silent on how Gomer feels about all this. A woman remembered for millennia for her sleeping around. Of course, one might take note that she has a certain kind of power and notoriety through her sexuality, one of the few arenas in which ancient women could find themselves powerful. One might equally wonder if this sets her up for possible abuse later on in the book? We shall see as we continue to read next week.
Questions for Thought:
1) Is it difficult to consider the editing history of the Bible? How does it change the nature of scripture to know that many hands, not just one, might have gone into writing it? How might a Biblical "literalist" encounter such an idea? Or on the other extreme, someone who feels the Bible is just "another" good book?
2) What about God's instruction to marry a wife of promiscuity? What about the moral implications of a prophet marrying a woman he knows won't be sexually faithful to him? Doesn't a prophet have a certain standard he should live up to?
3) Bring that thought into today's world. What if a pastor were to marry a prostitute? Don't pastors have to uphold certain moral standards? For that matter, don't all Christians? What should be our attitude toward prostitutes and the like?
4) How are we like the land that took up promiscuity against God? What do we worship instead of God? How might we see ourselves as unfaithful to God, prostitutes with our own devotion?
From Lorraine D:
1) The bible is first and foremost a story of love and salvation and, not unlike a great novel or movie, can change hearts and minds of it's readers. The "literalist" and the person who sees it as "just another good book" both short-change themselves. The first can get so absorbed in the details that they never see the big picture while the person who thinks it's "just another good book" never recognizes self as the beloved main character of the story, a love story that is both communal and personal.
2) I don't think "Political correctness" is the point. It is about a God who loves and is faithful even when that love and fidelity is not returned.
3) If only we could see one another through the eyes of THE Loving Father. Actually, I believe that to do so is the ultimate challenge for what it is to be Christian? Instead, Christians are often noted for being self-righteous. It reminds me of Satan's line from the movie "The Devil's Advocate" : "Ahhh, vanity, my favorite sin"!
4) Answering these questions could fill volumes. The last one calls to mind that even in our devotion and worship, we often measure i's value based on what we get out of it rather than what we put into it.
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