Pier Francesco Foschi (1502–1567), Judgement of Solomon, c. 1520. Location: Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy.
Hosea are viewed together, the lessons they contain multiply.
When my sister and I were little girls, Mom sometimes took us to the department store downtown. In those days, department stores sold some of everything; and because exploring was my favorite activity, I often wandered off, leaving Mom to tell my sister for the umpteenth time, “Pem, go find Kathe.” My favorite section of the store was the Ladies’ Department—not because I was interested in the clothing (that came later!), but because I was enthralled by the tall, three-paneled mirrors that allowed shoppers to scrutinize the outfits they tried on from the front, the left, and the right. Viewing myself from three different angles was fun, but it was not really the source of my fascination. I was intrigued by how reflections in one mirror were reflected in the others, permitting me to look into the infinite number of images they created. I longed to walk through those mirrors, to enter their endlessly reflecting and reflected world. What follows here, like the mirrors in the Ladies’ Department, is a triptych. It looks at three biblical texts—each etched, as it were, on a panel of our mirror, each reflecting and reflected in the others, and together creating angles of vision not available when any one text is viewed in isolation. We shall begin with the text engraved on the left panel of our triptych, Deuteronomy 6:4–9.
HEART, BREATH, AND MIGHT
When I began thinking about a subject for this piece, I asked myself, “Which text in the Hebrew Bible most reminds me of Harrell F. Beck (’45, GRS’54), former professor of Old Testament, and of Simon Parker, our first Harrell F. Beck Scholar of Hebrew Bible?” To my surprise, the answer came immediately: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). Both Beck and Parker would have told you that the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation I’ve used is far from perfect. Ancient Israel regarded the heart as the seat of emotions and intellect. Hebrew nepeš does not mean “soul” in the Greek, dualistic sense; it refers to the bodies of all
About the Author Katheryn Pfisterer Darr teaches courses in Ezekiel, proverbs, and goddesses and women in Ancient Israel, as well as Hebrew Bible and Biblical Hebrew. She’s the author of three books.
school of theology
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www.bu.edu/sth
Photo by Frank Curran
Photo: Mauro Magliani for Alinari 1997/Art Resource, NY
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hen the texts of Deuteronomy, Luke, and
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