The Doctrine of Humankind
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 63, No. 2 – Spring 2021
Editor: David S. Dockery
By Mark McEntire. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2019, 300pp., $30.00
Mark McEntire, who serves as professor of biblical studies at Belmont University, has written a provocative and erudite book. He argues that scribes reshaped and rearranged their source material, so that the final form of the OT had a positive perspective toward cities. He states, “the central question of this volume is how the understandings of cities and urban life in biblical texts shift in response to the changes in the culture that produced those texts” (p. 2). To justify this claim, he brings together literary, historical, and archaeological data on ancient Israel and its scribal class.
McEntire largely agrees with the neo-documentary hypothesis and contends that a supposed J source had a decidedly anti-urban bent. On his reading, the traditions associated with J see “city building and technology [as] skills that humans acquire illegitimately and use in opposition to God” (p. 67). He contends that the original J composition situated the Tower of Babel narrative before the Flood narrative. Thus, the flood is God’s response to their city-building project. He suggests that later scribes moved the Tower of Babel narrative into its current position within a post-flood world as part of a strategy to dilute “the anti-city tone of J without removing it” (p. 73). In this arrangement, God’s judgment in Genesis 6 arises solely from evil human inclinations and is no longer associated with the city-building project of Babel. Instead of Genesis 11 serving purely as a condemnation of city-building policies, in the final form of Genesis it now serves as an expansion of the story of Nimrod’s construction of Babylon in Genesis 10, which resulted in the formation of multiple cities (Gen 10:9–12). On this account, the redactor has changed the story so that God merely slows the city-building efforts of humans, so that they spread further before settling and developing cities.
McEntire’s general assessment of the anti-urban and pro-urban sentiments that Genesis 1–11 continues throughout his assessment of the OT. In passages that critical scholars have often associated with a J tradition, he finds a consistent, anti-urban sentiment. In passages that critical scholars have often associated with a P tradition, he finds a consistent, pro-urban sentiment. McEntire reads these passages closely, searching for seams between traditions that he suggests reveal opposing sentiments toward urban life.
Evangelical scholars will find much of value in this volume. Although evangelicals will disagree with some of his core presuppositions and reconstructions of the text, his close reading often produces valuable exegetical insights. For instance, his comments on the urban ideals that both Genesis 1 and the covenant code presuppose offer much for evangelical readers, particularly those with a missiological interest.
In response to McEntire’s primary arguments, an evangelical could respond that the texts he associates with J are not anti-urban—or at least that they are neutral toward cities. As an example, John Sailhamer and others have argued that Cain’s narrative and city-building have literary ties to the cities of refuge. On this reading, the city should be seen as a sign of God’s grace given to a manslayer, whom Israelite laws would condemn to death. Furthermore, many evangelical scholars have argued that God’s punishment on Babel arises not as a response to their city-building, but to their refusal to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Their rebellious act came not through city-building, but from seeking a name for themselves apart from God’s command. If scholars can show that these texts view cities in a positive light, then the Pentateuch does not have opposing views on cities but sees them as generally positive.
Although evangelicals will not agree with many of the presuppositions and conclusions of McEntire’s work, they can justly appreciate his erudition and close reading of the text. McEntire does not claim to have written a biblical theology on cities, yet each chapter ends with a reflection on implications for the rapidly urbanizing world of the twenty-first century. Whereas these are noble attempts to apply his research, the book still fits more squarely as a work of biblical criticism. Pastors and church leaders will most likely not profit from this work and without a sufficient understanding of biblical criticism and its presuppositions, evangelical pastors may come away confused. I recommend the book for biblical scholars, more familiar with this type of argument, who can profit from various insights, even if they do not agree with his overall thesis or conclusions.
