Reports from a Scholar's Life

Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, emeritus professor of Hebrew Bible at Lund University, has long been one of the best known and most admired voices in biblical studies. His eight (English-language) books and countless articles, published in a career spanning over four decades, have changed the field in many ways. Mettinger is renowned not as an iconoclast, but as one working within mainstream scholarship who is nevertheless willing to challenge cherished ideas and who takes nothing for granted. For example, in one of his earliest works, A Farewell to the Servant Songs—published in its entirety in this volume—Mettinger, with his trademark brevity and articulation, drew attention to the shaky ground on which this consensus idea was built and called fellow scholars to reexamine this notion taken for granted by so many for so long. For Mettinger, the Bible is sacred literature, but in biblical interpretation there are no sacred cows.

Reports from a Scholar’s Life: Select Papers on the Hebrew Bible collects 16 studies (one short monograph, twelve articles, and three reviews), originally published between 1977 and 2008, into one volume, along with a new reflective essay. The papers included provide not only Mettinger’s most groundbreaking publications, but also glimpses into several of the areas of study that occupied the author. Mettinger’s work ranged far and wide in the Hebrew Bible, and here one finds examples of his contributions to the study of, among other things:

• the notions of God, the Gottesbild, in ancient Israel ;<li>the theology of “YHWH Sabaoth” in the monarchic period ;

• the development of the story of David in 1–2 Samuel;

• aniconism in ancient Israel;<li>the motif of the “dying and rising god” in the ancient world ;• narrative criticism of the book of Job;

• the development and structure of Second Isaiah

The entire volume is opened by the titular essay, published for the first time here, “Report from a Scholar’s Life.” This article was originally delivered as the farewell address upon his retirement from Lund University, and it provides a retrospective on his entire life and career.

“Highly valuable and relevant. I am convinced that this book will ensure that the remarkable achievements of the Swedish exegete will be appreciated for many years to come.”—CIan Power, Swedish Exegetical Yearbook

Author’s Preface

The Enigma of Tryggve: Editor’s Preface by Andrew Knapp

Select Publications of Tryggve N. D. Mettinger Report from a Scholar’s Life: My Work on the Enigmas and the Notions of God

Part I: The God of Israel in the Ancient Near Eastern Milieu: Continuities and Contrasts

The Study of the Gottesbild: Problems and Suggestions

The Elusive Essence: Yhwh, El and Baal and the Distinctiveness of Israelite Faith

Yhwh Sabaoth: The Heavenly King on the Cherubim Throne

The Name and the Glory: The Zion–Sabaoth Theology and Its Exilic Successors

The “Dying and Rising God”: The Peregrinations of a Mytheme

Part II: Aniconism

The Veto on Images and the Aniconic God in Ancient Israel

A Conversation with My Critics: Cultic Image or Aniconism in the First Temple?

Part III: Davidic Trajectories

“The Last Words of David”: A Study of Structure and Meaning in II Samuel 23:1–7

Cui Bono? The Prophecy of Nathan (2 Samuel 7) as a Piece of Political Rhetoric

Part IV: Job

Intertextuality: Allusion and Vertical Context Systems in Some Job Passages

The Enigma of Job: The Deconstruction of God in Intertextual Perspective

Part V: Second Isaiah

A Farewell to the Servant Songs: A Critical Examination of an Exegetical Axiom

In Search of the Hidden Structure: Yhwh as King in Isaiah 40–55

Part VI: Reviews

Review of James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament

Review of Ernst Jenni, Das hebräische Piʿel

Review of Sandra L. Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology

Indexes

Index of Scripture

Index of Authors