Passover in Biblical Narratives

[JSOT 82 (1999) 45-55]

PASSOVER IN BIBLICAL NARRATIVES

Tamara Prosic 3/38 Grandview Road, Preston, Victoria 3072, Australia

Passover appears in a variety of texts in the Old Testament. It is a concern of some narratives, instructions, lists and laws. In narratives there are the Passover in Egypt before the exodus, I the Passover on Sinai.? the Passover immediately after entering Canaan," the mentioning of Passover within the context of the account of Solomon's reign," Hezekiah' s Passover.! Josiah's Passover," and the Passover after the return from exile." The legislative texts all come from the Pentateuch with the exception of the one in Ezekie1.8 Until recently, it was believed that the investigation of the four generally recognized biblical sources/ is the most reliable method to gather some knowledge about the original character of Passover. Scholars invested an incredible effort on comparing descriptions of Passover from various sources and analysing particular words used in those descriptions. The result was a number of explanations the versatility of which already speaks against the employment of method of literary criticism in establishing the true character of Passover. Passover

3. 4.

Exod. 12. Num. 9.4-6. Josh. 5.10-12. 1 Kgs 9.25; 2 Chron. 8.12-13.

5.

2 Chron. 30.

1.

2.

6. 2 Kgs 21-23; 2 Chron. 35.1-19. 7. Ezra 6.19-22. 8. Ezek.45.21-24. 9. The Yahwistic (1), the Elohistic (E), the Deuteronomic (D) and the Priestly (P) traditions.

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appeared both as pastoral and agricultural ritual, apothropaic rite,!" thanksgiving festival, I I harvest festival,'? sanctification ritual':' and ritual drama. 14 Segal's objection to the literary criticism that words and phrases are always employed as the context requires and that they are not 'stock-intrade' of individual sources 15 strikes at the core of the source hypothesis and certainly provides us with a good argument for its rejection. This warning by Segal from the early sixties today has been further substantiated by theories which dispute the traditional notion that J is the oldest stratum in the Old Testament." In relation to Passover, these theories raise doubts as to whether J's description of Passover can be held to be the oldest version of the festival and accordingly whether the J version can be taken as a firm starting point in a quest for its pagan, pre-Yahwistic prototype. Thus the question of discovering the original character of Passover poses itself in the first instance as a question of finding the appropriate method to read and interpret the biblical text. Until recently, the majority of biblical scholars tended to regard the Bible as a truthful source of information, in particular the so-called historical narratives which deal with the early history of the Israelites. However, today there is a growing number of theories which maintain that the material in the Old Testament constitutes a sacred history which does not have much in common with the real history of Israelites. 17 The main narratives in the Bible which are concerned with the early history of the Israelites are seen and interpreted as retrojective ideological constructions. 18 Regardless of whether the legends of the sacred history have any real value for an historian or not, what is beyond any doubt is that stories in sacred books are always told in symbolic language.'? Origen and Maimonides, whose times did not know the rigid scientism that has been

10. II. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

De Vaux 1965: 484-93; Kraus 1966: 46-49. Wellhausen 1895: 83-94. Beer 1912: 9. Pedersen 1959: 398. Mowinckel 1922: 37-40. Segal 1963:91. Thompson 1975; Van Seters 1975; Schmid 1976. Leach 1983: 8-29. Garbini 1988. Eilberg-Schwartz 1990: 115-41.

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dominating the studies of Old Testament since the nineteenth century, were both aware of this way of reading the Bible, claiming that some of the biblical stories pose unbridgeable obstacles when one follows only their narrative meaning." In Philo's interpretation of the Old Testament there is always the 'literal' and the 'deeper meaning' of the biblical text;" even the prophets speak of riddles, allegories and parables as a means of wisdom." Exactly because the biblical text is also a symbolic text I believe that instead of accounting and classifying differences in the Passover ritual as they appear in various sources, it is more fruitful to start the investigation of its original character with an analysis of its symbolic connotation within the context of certain narratives where its celebration is mentioned. The second reason for choosing to investigate the symbolism of the biblical Passover stems from the fact that important religious traditions are never easily abandoned and that new religions usually inherit the outstanding moments of their immediate predecessors. That heritage very often assumes a symbolic form and we might add that its incorporation into the new theology in such a form is one of the links that surmounts the gap between the new and the old, since as a thing which can be recognized and understood, it alleviates the process of accepting the new theology. We can take Christianity as an example, which incorporated many of the pagan religious traditions, but with new explanations which were moulded according to its own theology. The pagan festival dedicated to the re-birth of the Sun and usually held at the winter solstice, Christianity translated into the birth of Jesus Christ. Another prominent example is the Virgin Mary, which was the Christian rendition of the Great Mother. To paraphrase Goodenough: theology is for the few: symbols are for all, intellectuals and childish alike." In this respect Yahwism was not an exception. Following Leach's suggestion that religious texts contain mystery which is still decodable from the text itself," we might as well conclude that in the case of Passover our task is to establish whether its mentioning as part of certain historical 20. Origen, On First Principles. especially Book IV, Chapters 2 and 3. Maimonides, The Guide to the Perplexed, especially the Introduction and Part I, Chapters 2 and 5. 21. Philo. Works. 22. Prov. 1.6; Ezek. 17.2; 24.3; Hos. 12.1I (ET v. 10); Dan. 5.12; 8.23. 23. Goodenough 1988: 49-51. 24. Leach 1983: 3.

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narratives has any symbolic function and whether that particular function can be seen as a projection of the original purpose and meaning of Passover. As Fohr notes, there is always a possibility to object to this approach on the ground that we are actually equating the stories with what we think is their symbolic meaning. However, as he suggests, one should never forget that what a symbol was to the people of Israel a couple of thousands years ago does not have to be a symbol for US. 25 Among the three monotheistic religions that developed and managed to survive in the Near East, Yahwism paved the way for the others. It appeared in a world where other religious formulae other than polytheistic were simply non-existent. As in the case of its predecessor, Akhenaten's monotheistic cult of the Sun disc, as a spiritual and religious phenomenon, Yahwism was a divergence from the contemporary spirit of the age and contemporary Weltanschauung. And that Weltanschauung was marked by particularized polytheistic comprehension of the world, where every significant human activity and every natural phenomenon had their divine patron, while the vivid and dynamic mythological constructions projected the ideas about the world and the cosmos. That was the native soil from which Yahwistic monotheistic principle emerged and consequently, everything that was as a symbol included in its theology had to mean something for the people of that time; in short, it had to mean something within the pagan framework of reasoning. So what then are the occasions in which Passover is mentioned? In the book of Exodus it is mentioned in connection with the tenth plague." The Passover on Sinai happens after all the laws of Yahweh are declared and the Tabernacle finished." One can argue that the Sinai celebration does not constitute an event since it is a part of the regulations on second Passover. However, although the rules on the second Passover are dominant, they are nevertheless presented within the context of a certain story. The preparations for the Passover actually start on the first day after Moses finished setting up the Tabernacle. Every following day is separately accounted for, with elaborate descriptions of offerings for the altar, brought by twelve tribal leaders. On the thirteenth day, Levites are consecrated as a substitution for sparing the Israelite first-born in Egypt. Just after that, on the fourteenth day, comes 25. Fohr 1986: 11. 26. Exod. 12. 27. Num.9.4-6.

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the celebration of Passover, as the event that crowns the whole of the preceding ceremonial presentation of offerings. It is evident from the general framework of the narrative that the celebration of Passover is its integral part and that it certainly has a definite purpose. That purpose, on the other hand, does not serve as an introduction to the regulations on second Passover. In fact, within the context, the regulations seem to be secondary, since they are very awkwardly interpolated with an apparent discrepancy between the question asked by the people and the answer Moses gives them." After the Passover in Sinai comes the first Passover in Canaan," following the miraculous crossing of the Jordan and the arrival of the Israelites in the 'promised land'. In the accounts about the construction of the temple, Passover is mentioned along with other cultic ceremonies as a conclusion to the works on the temple. 30 Hezekiah's Passover comes after re-sanctification of the Temple and the long period of kings who worshipped other gods." Josiah's Passover follows the religious purge which eradicated pagan idols, sacred places and priests." Finally, there is the Passover celebration held after the people returned from the exile and the Temple was rebuilt. 33 In all these situations, the Passover celebration is differently described. In the book of Exodus it is presented as a rite with the main function of enabling Yahweh to recognize the homes of Israelites and pass over them in his deadly mission. The focus is on the handling of blood which is poured in the basin and sprinkled onto the houses with a bunch of hyssop. The inhabitants of the house are to remain for the rest of the night in the house. There is no mentioning of the unleavened bread. The Passover held immediately after entering Canaan presents a completely different picture. People must be circumcised before they are allowed to observe the festival. The celebration is kept on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, and in a sacred place. The next morning they eat unleavened cakes and parched grain. Manna ceases. The Bible does not give any details about the Passover kept in Sinai except that it is kept on the fourteenth day of the first month in the 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

Num.9.6-11. Josh. 5.10-12. 1 Kgs 9.25; 2 Chron. 8.12-13. 2 Cbron. 30. 2 Kgs 21-23; 2 Cbron. 35.1-19. Ezra 6.19-22.

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evening. People who at the time of its observance are in touch with dead bodies are banned from the festival. As in the book of Joshua, Solomon's PassoverlUnleavened Bread is kept in a sacred place, the Temple. In the account of Chronicles, its celebration is mentioned in conjunction with the sabbaths, new moons and the other two big annual feasts, Weeks and Tabernacles. The three occasions on which Solomon burnt offerings, mentioned in 1 Kings, are generally regarded as an allusion to the three annual feasts. However, it should be noted that in Solomon's Passover the king has a notable role in burning the offerings and that the offerings are burned on the altar. Hezekiah's and Josiah's Passovers are elaborately described, with many details about the Temple practice which include holy assembly, royal contribution of Passover lambs, killing of the sacrificial victims, sprinkling of blood, eating of unleavened bread, singing and ritual sanctification. In both accounts, the accent is on cleanliness and the Levites are assigned the job of killing the sacrificial animals. In the account of Josiah's Passover, observance of the feast of Unleavened Bread is separately mentioned, while Hezekiah' s Passover takes place in the second month and instead of seven it is kept for fourteen days. In the Passover of the returned exiles, the accent is also on cleanliness and, again, the Levites are the ones who kill the Passover lamb on behalf of the rest of the community. The feast of Unleavened Bread is kept for seven days. The first impression is that among all the recounted events and Passover descriptions, apart from the Yahwistic ideological message, there is not a single element that can be identified as common to all of them. Some of the events seem to be related to the history of the cult, like the law declaration on Sinai, building of the Temple and Josiah's and Hezekiah's religious reforms. Others, such as the exodus, entering into Canaan and the return from exile, seem to be related more to the mundane history of Israelites. Also, the descriptions of Passover significantly vary from occasion to occasion and it is evident that in some cases the final compilers either overemphasized some of its features or even designed new ones in an effort to achieve congruity with the nature of the circumstances that precede the actual celebration. However, all these differences are differences of detail, and as the critics of the positivistic method would remark, as long as we are interested in trees we will not be able to see the forest. Precisely at the level of general structure 0 f these events a constant repetition of the same

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structural elements appears. In short, they all follow the same structural pattern. First of the structural elements that is constantly repeated is certainly the mentioning of Passover as part of the narratives. Its inclusion is undoubtedly not accidental since it serves as a common designator which in some sense separates those particular legends from other events in the sacred history of the Israelites. That, on the other hand, makes it possible to assume that the meaning of Passover goes beyond the plane of the clearly perceptible and that it is not limited just to the theologically declared meaning, the meaning of commemoration festival. In all of the occasions, the Passover celebration appears as an intermediary element between the two stages in the history of the Israelites. After the exodus, it concludes the period in which they were slaves and introduces the period of freedom. On Sinai, it comes after all the laws of Yahweh are declared and the Tabernacle is erected, thus inaugurating the new life governed by the ordinances of the covenant with Yahweh. The Passover in Canaan closes the period of destitution during the wandering in the wilderness and inaugurates the abundance of the new homeland. Solomon's Passover finishes the period of the Tabernacle as Yahweh's dwelling place and begins the era of the Temple. Both Hezekiah's and Josiah's Passovers end the epochs of faithlessness and come as a sign that the covenant with Yahweh and his rule is re-established. Passover in Ezra closes the period of exile and introduces the new life in Israel. It is more than clear that the conditions mediated by Passover are fundamentally different, and that they stand in an antithetical correlation. Thus we have the opposites between 'deathllife' and its derivative 'slavery/freedom' (exodus), 'wanting/abundance' (Canaan), 'nonexistence of law/establishment of law' (Sinai), 'temporary sanctuary/ permanent sanctuary', 'worship of many/worship of one' (Hezekiah, Josiah) and 'exile/homeland' (return from exile). Such a structure which consists of binary oppositions is, on the other hand, usually ascribed to myths by structural anthropologists. 34 Genesis, which is generally believed to contain the majority of mythological material preserved in the Bible, abounds in explicit examples. God creates heavens and earth, day and night, dry land and seas. Cain and Abel are respectively farmer and shepherd. When the flood is over, making a vow that he will never again send another flood, God says that while

34. Levi-Strauss 1955.

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the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." Biblical stories with Passover as their integral part follow the same pattern, though not in an explicit form and not as suggested earlier, with respect to their details and fractions, but more on the plane of their connotative meaning and in view of their general outline. That however does not necessarily mean that they are myths and that, as myths, they do not have anything to do with historical truth. One may argue that some of the stories are certainly neither myths nor ideological projections, but undeniable historical facts, like the return from the exile. However, such an argument would be relevant if the biblical text was historiography in the sense that we usually ascribe to it: as a discipline that conforms to the contemporary way of rationalizing events in history and to the requests of scientific research. The point is that what we are dealing with in the biblical text is some kind of national historiography, but that historiography is of the kind which still does not make a clear cut between mythical and real." It both transforms mythological figures and events into historical ones and assigns mythological qualities to historical figures and events." Such national history where the mythical and the real are so closely intertwined clearly demonstrates that in matters of rationalizing events Bible as historiography still pertains to the mythological pattern of thinking. The events described in our stories, regardless of their historicity, were also moulded according to that pattern and show a structure proper to myths, because they were perceived and felt to be of mythological proportions for the history of Israelites and the associated, inseparable history of Yahweh. In the structuralist analysis of myths, beside the binary oppositions there is another, third category with a function which parallels that of Passover in our stories: it mediates between the opposed conditions. According to Leach, exactly this 'middle ground' between the two oppositions is 'typically the focus of all taboo and ritual observance'. 38 In myths, this third category is usually represented by contradictory beings who possess qualities of both antipodes, such as virgin mothers or dying gods. In biblical stories where Passover is mentioned, there is

35. 36. 37. 38.

Gen. 8.22. Johnstone 1990: 31-36. Goldziher 1967: 250-58; Fishbane 1985: 356-57. Leach 1969: 11.

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not a single reference to any such being, unless we take 'the destroyer' from Exodus as being contradictory, since its involvement means both death and life, death for the Egyptians, and indirectly, by passing over marked houses, life and freedom for the Israelites. However, regardless of the fact whether 'the destroyer' can be taken as a relic from the original myth or not, it is evident from the general structural pattern of biblical stories, in which its observance is mentioned, that Passover as a ritual covers some kind of a 'middle ground' and that in that role it was included in the mythologized events of the history of the Israelites and the cult of Yahweh. In the context of narratives, that role of mediation entails several functions. It serves to differentiate and separate the conditions, thus stressing their contrasting qualities, then to ease the transition from one to another stage and, finally, to advance the new condition. However, the distribution among these functions is not even, and sometimes there is more stress on separation, sometimes on the transition and sometimes on the new conditions. In the Passover in Egypt the accent is obviously on separation (marking of the houses). In Hezekiah's and Josiah's Passovers, the more prominent part is allocated to its transitional function (both stress the length of the festival, with Hezekiah's Passover even celebrated for two weeks, which is divergent from the usual practice), and advancement of the new condition (both were specially joyful celebrations), while the focus in the first Passover in Canaan is on the advancement of the new conditions (eating of the produce of the new land). Usually such manifold yet still dialectically interrelated functions are associated with various types of rites of passages." Their main purpose, according to Van Gennep, is to enable the passage from one defined condition to another, which is equally defined." As we have seen, the same purpose is allocated to Passover in our stories, although never in an explicit form. It appears as an implicit sign, a symbol, which in the mythological pattern of understanding the world and events signifies a change of conditions. The reasons as to why precisely Passover was chosen to symbolize the crucial changes in the history of Israelites probably stem from the great relevance which as a rite of passage Passover had had among the Israelites in the pagan context; it could have been the rite of passage par excellence, the ultimate rite of

39. Van Gennep 1960: II. 40. Van Gennep 1960: 3.

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passage, parallel to the Babylonian New Year festival, as Segal suggests, or other important seasonal rites of passages such as the Egyptian Osirian festivals or the Greek Eleusinian mysteries.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Bernhard w.

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The Living World of the Old Testament (London: Longman, Green & Co., 3rd edn) (published in America as Understanding the Old Testament [Philadelphia: Westminster Press]).

Beer, G.

1912

Pesachim (Ostern): Text. Ubersetzung und Erkldrung (Giessen: Alfred Topelmann).

De Vaux, Roland

1965

Ancient Israel (trans. John McHugh; New York: McGraw-Hili), II.

Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard

1990

The Savage in Judaism: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).

Fishbane, Michael

1985

Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Fohr, S.D.

1986

Adam and Eve: The Spiritual Symbolism of Genesis and Exodus

(Lanham, MD: University Press of America). Garbini, Giovanni 1988 History and Ideology in Ancient Israel (trans. John Bowden; New York: Crossroad). Goldziher, Ignaz 1967 Mythology among the Hebrews and Its Historical Development (trans. Russell Martineau; New York: Cooper Square Books [1877]). Goodenough, Erwin R. 1988 Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (Bollingen Series: Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, abridged edn). Johnstone, W. 1990 Exodus (OTG, 3; Sheffield: JSOT Press). Kraus, Hans-Joachim 1966 Worship in Israel: A Cultic History of the Old Testament (trans. Geoffrey Buswell; Oxford: Basil Blackwell). Leach Edmund 1969 Genesis as Myth and Other Essays (Cape Editions, 39; London: Jonathan Cape). Leach, Edmund and Alan D. Aycock 1983 Structuralist Interpretation of Biblical Myth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

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Levi-Strauss, C. 1955 The Structural Study of Myth in Myth: A Symposium (ed. T.A. Sebeok; Philadelphia: American Folklore Society). Mowinckel, Sigmund 1922 Psalmenstudien (Oslo: Skrifer utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akaderni i Oslo), II. Pedersen, Johs 1959 Israel: Its Life and Culture (London: Oxford University Press), ill-IV. Schmid, H.H. 1976 Der sogenannte Jahwist (ZUrich:Theologischer Verlag). Segal, J.B. 1963 The Hebrew Passover: From the Earliest Times to AD 70 (London: Oxford University Press). Van Gennep, Arnold 1960 The Rites of Passage (trans. Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee; Chicago: University of Chicago Press [1908]). Van Seters, J. 1975 Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press). Thompson, Thomas L. 1975 The Historicity of Patriarchal Narratives (BZAW, 133; Berlin: W. de Gruyter). Wellhausen, Julius 1885 Prolegomena to the History of Israel (trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Manzies; London A. & C. Black).

ABSTRACT This article attempts to reveal the function of the pre-Yahwistic Passover. Rather then applying the usual methods of analysing the biblical text, the author applies the method of structural anthropology in an attempt to penetrate beyond the conspicuous plane of the stories. The aim of this study is to establish the symbolic function of mentioning Passover observances in the retellings of biblical events.

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