Autumal New Year Festival and the Gospels
I noted here that I believe the ideas drawn out in John H. Eaton’s Festal Drama in Deutero-Isaiah will have serious implications for how we read the Gospels.
What I want to argue is that the Gospels tell the story of Jesus through using the Autumnal New Year festival as the basic narrative. This narrative includes the following as key themes as noted by Eaton: (1) Yahweh’s victorious procession into Zion, (2) Yahweh’s kingship as an event in the festival, (3) Yahweh’s speech as Covenant-Lord, (4) Yahweh regulates the elements , (5) a new start, and (6) Royal passion narratives.
It is immediately apparent that these are all found within the Gospels. I shall look briefly at each:
(1) Yahweh’s victorious procession into Zion
This we find in Luke 19:36-38
As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!
(2) Yahweh’s kingship as an event in the festival
This we find throughout the narrative from Jesus being annointed king at his baptism, his coronation at his resurrection and his enthronement at his ascension.
(3) Yahweh’s speech as Covenant-Lord
This takes place especially at the Sermon on the Mount.
(4) Yahweh regulates the elements
This happens throughout the Gospel narratives and I have explained the imagery of Jesus calming the storm here.
(5) a new start
In the ANE the annual enthronement of the god was tied to the renewal of the creation and so signified a new start. Hence we find prayers for rain in Psalm 65 which would have been sung at the Autumnal Festival. This theme is contained within the story of Jesus for by his death he renews creation, it is a new start. As St. Paul states in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
(6) Royal passion narratives
In the ANE at the New Year festival the king would be ritually humiliated and some scholars have argued that this represented the death and resurrection of the god. Now the king of Israel would have gone through this and Psalm 22 would have been used. This is exactly the prayer Jesus used during his passion, or at least this is the Psalm that the writer places upon the lips of Jesus.
I hope this brief outline has sketched a picture of how it is possible the Gospels tell the story of Jesus through using the Autumnal New Year festival as the basic narrative. This is further strengthened when one finds that Isaiah 40-55 is based upon the Autumnal New Year festival and this section of Isaiah is the basic narrative of the Gospels.
I didn’t realise you had two blogs …
The parallels are striking. My question is: how did the authors of the gospels have access to this ancient paradigm if it can only be reconstructed by critical scholarship using comparative material? Even if the theory is correct, it exits a layer of the text unaccessible to 1st century Jews.
Hi Phil,
Thanks for the comments. Yep, this blog is for my musings on things other than the psalms.
1stly, I will dig out the Jewish sources when I get the time. We find clues, or hints, within the Jewish non-canonical writings. Mowinckel has them in his book The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (pp. 106 ff.).
2ndly, I don’t agree that it can only be reconstructed by critical scholarship using comparative material. I think that there is overwhelming biblical evidence that such a festival took place. The comparative material helps us to see what we perhaps would have missed. I would point you to Mowinckel and Eaton, especially the latter’s Kingship and the Psalms (out of print).
Also check out pp. 143-149 of this.
The latter should help you see that it exits a layer of the text wholly accessible to 1st century Jews. Indeed, Jewish eschatology and the messianic hope stemmed from the Autumnal festival. Year upon year they had celebrated the kingship of Yahweh and the Royal house at the feast of Tabernacles. Then the Royal house was taken away (cf. Psalm 89) and the hope became a future king would come who would end the exile etc (cf. N. T. Wright). I see this as important to the canonical shape of the Psalter.
Mowinckel rights that “As king, Yahweh will gather His people and lead them home; as king, He will then be enthroned in their midst; to pay homage to the king, Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, all nations will stream to Jerusalem on the day of His festival.” He goes on to say of the phrase “The day of Yahweh”; “Its original meaning is really the day of His manifestation or epiphany, the day of His festival, and particularly that festal day which was also the day of His enthronement, His royal day, the festival of Yahweh, the day when as king He came and ‘wrought salvation for His people’… [It is] the term which sums up the greatest transformation, when He comes and restores His people, and assumes kingly rule of the world.”
Then of course we have Zechariah 14:16ff where the Autumnal festival is linked with the enthronment of Yahweh and which was embedded in Jewish thinking
“Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The LORD will bring on them the plague he inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.”
Mowinckel on the Net! It’s amazing what you can get for free these days. Unfortunately, the bit on the king is not included, which I will need when I get round to reading him.
I look forward to the resources.
You said: I think that there is overwhelming biblical evidence that such a festival took place.
My question is not whether there was such a festival. Assuming there was, would the Jews have read the OT in such a ways as to see it. Is its existence part of the message of the final form, such that the NT authors could have read it, or is it a matter of a shared cultural background between post-exilic Jews and ancient Israel, such that the former had preserved a cultural memory of the latter and allowed it to influence their exegesis of a canonical corpus which hadn’t explicitly preserved the rite? I don’t know. These are just thoughts. It’s just that I always thought that the canonical process had “covered up” its cultic roots in order to communicate a new message via a form of inter-canonical referentiality. E.g. the davidic narratives in Samuel or the prophetic hope provided the matrix for meaning, rather than the ancient cult, which declined in significance. Are you saying that the gospels were reading the Festival in the canonical form of the OT or are you saying that there was enough of a vestige of the old rite around in 1st temple Judaism that it could have influenced the authors at another level, via extra-biblical tradition? I’m not saying that there was no Autumn Festival, I’m just trying to understand the nature of the influence it could have exerted on the NT writers. In your last example from Zecharaiah, for example, there is no mention of a festival as providing the paradigm for this eschatological event. There is just the event. It may well have done in reality, but it looks as if the redactors have let this dimension of the text fall into the literary back ground and instead – it would seem – focus on the bare narrative. I have never studied Zecharaiah so I have no idea, I’m just trying to understand the nature of the connection that you are proposing: is it an exegesis of the OT or is it a matter of a shared cultural background influincing the two?
Another possibility is that the NT authors had no idea of the rite but given that the two assumed a similar theology they inevitably had a similar form.
Thanks for making me aware of different possibilities.
By the way, you could also submit this to the Biblical Studies List and see if those more qualified than I respond. I’d love to hear what they have to say.
I have a question, you seem to draw the gospel material from all the gospels, would the case be stronger if you focused on one?
And I somewhat agree that it would be good to have evidence of an awareness of gthe pattern in 1st C Jewish material…
Tim, I have focused upon the synoptic tradition as opposed to focusing upon one Gospel. One reason is that each writer says something ‘different’, i.e. Luke’s presentation of Yahweh’s victorious procession into Zion is clearer than the other synoptics and so it makes sense to quote the clearer than the unclear. The narratice of Jesus calming the storm was used from Mark simply because I have already written on that. So I will take your point for future reference.
Phil, I will try to post the references tomorrow. On the other issues I will also try to respond tomorrow. BTW, I ordered Childs Biblical Theology of Old and New Testaments yesterday. I have finished Koch and am about to start on Noth’s History of Israel!
Ok then,
Jewish references:
Bab. Sukka IV. 5, 9f, 48a&b.
Bab. Rosh Hasshana 16a.
Bab. Ta ‘anit 2a.
Soperfm
Most of the Jewish references used by Mowinckel are in his Psalmenstudien which I don’t have and is in German.
Now turning to Phil,
In your last example from Zecharaiah, for example, there is no mention of a festival as providing the paradigm for this eschatological event.
I am not sure what you are actually looking for. I believe that the Sitz im Leben of Zechariah 14:16ff. is the feast of Tabernacles or at least it sets the underlying narrative of the text. See pp. 154 ff. of this.
I will pick up on this later.
Assuming there was, would the Jews have read the OT in such a ways as to see it. Is its existence part of the message of the final form, such that the NT authors could have read it, or is it a matter of a shared cultural background between post-exilic Jews and ancient Israel, such that the former had preserved a cultural memory of the latter and allowed it to influence their exegesis of a canonical corpus which hadn’t explicitly preserved the rite? … Are you saying that the gospels were reading the Festival in the canonical form of the OT or are you saying that there was enough of a vestige of the old rite around in 1st temple Judaism that it could have influenced the authors at another level, via extra-biblical tradition?
The eschatological (and messianic) hope of Israel which develped during the exile had as its central plank the kingship of Yahweh. Mowinckel explains that the hope envisioned the following, “As king, Yahweh will gather His people and lead them home; as king, He will then be enthroned in their midst; to pay homage to the king, Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, all nations will stream to Jerusalem on the day of His festival.”
So we read the following:
Micah 2:13 “One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate and go out. Their king will pass through before them, the LORD at their head.”
Zephaniah 3:15 “The LORD has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy.
The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.”
Zechariah 14:16ff. “Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The LORD will bring on them the plague he inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.”
F. F. Bruce notes that “Mowinckel holds that at the annual New Year festival in Jerusalem the kingship of Yahweh was celebrated and the promises made by Yahweh to the house of David were recalled, but the contrast between the ideal embodied in these promises and the actual fortunes of the royal house became so painfully evident as time went on that the ideal was projected into the future and associated with the figure of that coming prince of the house of David who came to be known as the Messiah sagas phrase, with whose advent the expected Day of Yahweh would be inaugurated. Mowinckel has certainly identified one factor in the eschatology of the Old Testament, though not the only factor.”
The Jewish eschatological hope stems then from the Autumnal festival. This hope is that of the NT writers and they shape their material accordingly. The precise mechanics of how I am not at the position to say, but this is the broad trajectory of my thought. Does this make any more sense? I am arguing that Jewish eschatology and the messianic hope of Israel, which was the same as that of the NT writers, had been shapped over centuries by the Autumnal festival and so this is reflected in the shape of the NT narrative.
Thanks for all the quotes, but I’m afraid my main question remains unanswered: what is the nature of the connection. You make two statements:
The Jewish eschatological hope stems then from the Autumnal festival. This hope is that of the NT writers and they shape their material accordingly
I don’t see how the first leads to the second. The first statement, and indeed your entire analysis, is regligionsgeschichtlich, it is based on an attempt to objectively describe the development of Israelite religion. But such an analysis does not leand unambiguously to the stated faith claims of the New Testament. The New Testament proclaimed something, and it did not do it by critically analysing the OT according to its Sitz im Leben. I think the hermeneutical assumptions of the NT in its handling of the Old need to be taken into account in order to understand the similarities you observe. The only possibility is what I said above: either they were unconcsiously influenced by a broader tradition or it is coincidence based on similar theological outlooks (assuming the Autumnal festival existed, which I believe is debated). I’m not sure if I’m doing a good job of making my position clear … I think catgories such as midrash and allegory are more useful for talking about nature of the effect of the OT on the NT, and not theories of evolutionary development. It may well be the case that historically eschatology had its roots in a pre-exilic festival. I just doubt anyone in the NT would have known that so I think it is peripheral to its message.
Glad you’ve ordered Childs, by the way. He’s very important. He was a big fan of Noth and von Rad, by the way. Though obviously not uncritical.
The nature of the connection is that from the pre-exilic Autumnal festival there came, in time, an eschatological hope the content of which was that Yahweh would, as king, gather Israel and lead them home (new exodus), that He would be enthroned in their midst and that all nations will stream to Jerusalem on the day of His festival to pay homage to the king, Yahweh, the Lord of hosts.
This was the hope of Israel at the time of Jesus. N. T. Wright has persuasively articulated that in a number of places. He notes that Isaiah 52:7-12 teaches that “when Zion’s God becomes king, three things will happen, according to this short and pregnant passage. The exile will end at last, with a purified people returning home; evil will be defeated, as Babylon falls at last; and, most important, Yahweh himself will return to Zion. Again, I find it astonishing that the theme of Yahweh’s return to Zion has been so largely ignored in New Testament scholarship, though it is assuredly one of the two great themes of Second Isaiah as a whole, announced in chapter 40 as the main message of good news”.
Indeed Eaton has argued that Second Isaiah itself stems from the Autumnal festival, that it functioned as a festal drama.
The point remains that the eschatological hope of Israel was determined by the Autumnal festival and, because the NT writers were working with that eschatological hope, their presentation of it corresponds to the shape of the Autumnal festival. The central features of the festival were (1) New Creation, (2) Covenant Renewal, (3) the Enthronement of Yahweh and (4) the Kingdom of God. These are all the central features of the synoptic Gospels.
This may well be regligionsgeschichtlich but I have never heard of that.
From what I understand of what you’ve written,the relationship is a relation of content, rather then genetic connection. The faith of 1st C. Jews was of the same kind as the hypothetical proposed Autumnual festival. Beyond that I can’t figure out a link. The N.T. Wright quote you give is nothing more than an interpretation of the text of Isaiah, with no reference to an Autumnal festival as a matrix for meaning. In other words, the key ingredients of continuity are available as they stand in the final form of the text. A Sitz im Leben does not need to be reconstructed, because the text makes sense as it stands.
Unless you can provide a link between the gospels and the Autumn ritual itself, and not just its key theological propositions.