Living without Justice
Loren R. Fisher
LIVING WITHOUT JUSTICE
Copyright © 2013 Loren R. Fisher. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf & Stock, 199 W. 8th Ave., Eugene, OR 97401.
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ISBN 13: 978-1-61097-302-1
EISBN 13: 978-1-62189-660-9
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Fisher, Loren R.
Living without justice / Loren R. Fisher.
x + 174 p. ; 23cm.
ISBN 13: 978-1-61097-302-1
1. Bible. O.T.—Fiction. 2. Job (Biblical figure). I. Title.
ps3606 f57 2013
Manufactured in the USA
For Susan
1953–2010
Vanishing Flakes
Early this morning there was snow on the deck.
It arrived quietly in large white flakes.
By 11:00 am the snow was gone,
The sun was out, and the steam was rising.
The flakes came down, but the moisture returned.
It was all so fast, and it did not last.
The picture is clear. Our moments create:
Brush strokes in a large landscape! Beautiful!
So, I shout, “Violence,” and I am not answered;
I cry for help, and there is no justice.
Job 19:7
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to my teachers, my colleagues, and to my students. My teachers taught me to work with ancient texts and to use multiple tools for deciphering and understanding them. My colleagues helped me to evaluate my findings. Working in this way I experienced many changes in my thinking along an exciting and adventurous road. My students reminded me that they loved their freedom. They were all different. Their strengths and interests were varied, and they resisted any attempt to mold them into a school of thought. They inspired me to follow them.
Stefan Heym’s novel, The King David Report (1973), fascinated my students, my family, and me. This novel earned a place in the bibliography for my class on The History of Israel. Many times, my students commented on the importance of this novel and suggested that we needed a few more. I thought about their suggestions and decided to write a novel about scribal life in the time of King David. Living without Justice is the third historical novel in my trilogy about the scribes of Israel. In the first novel, The Jerusalem Academy, I wrote an Afterword, which discusses the importance of historical novels for historical studies. When history is only the stage for a novel, that novel is not a historical novel. An authentic historical novel uses real people and fictional people; both are necessary. Also the places are real, and the events are actual occasions. In addition, fictional elements are essential in narrating the response of the people as they experience these events.
My wife, Jane, is an excellent writer and editor. She helps me not only with my manuscripts, but she listens to my discussions of my work that unduly dominate our table talk.
I want to thank K. C. Hanson, my editor at Wipf and Stock Publishers, whose keen insight springs from the fact that he is also a proven scholar of Ancient Mediterranean Literature.
Loren R. Fisher
Medford, Oregon
7 December 2011
Abbreviations
BCE Before the Common Era
CE The Common Era
1 & 2 Chr 1 & 2 Chronicles
Deut Deuteronomy
EA El Amarna
Exod Exodus
Gen Genesis
Isa Isaiah
Judg Judges
1 & 2 Kgs 1 & 2 Kings
l.p.h. life, prosperity, health
p page
pp pages
1 & 2 Sam 1 & 2 Samuel
Prologue
My name is Naam. I am the son of Jonathan and Keziah. In the following text, I will narrate my story and my family’s activities during the last part of David’s reign in Jerusalem and during Solomon’s reign. My mother wrote the first two books in this series. In her first book, The Jerusalem Academy, she writes about how The Royal Epic (Genesis) was compiled by my father and his fellow scribes at The Jerusalem Academy. In her second book, The Minority Report, she focused on my father’s poem, The Rebel Job. In this third book, I will continue our story and include our friends who lived and worked at The Jerusalem Academy. Also, I will relate experiences from my life that illustrate the central point in The Rebel Job: there is no justice.
At the age of twenty I became a teacher in the academy where I was able to continue the work and interests of my father and mother, plus my own special interest in all things Egyptian. Also, I was fortunate to have the help of a small group of teachers and friends who were not bound by old traditions. Old traditions are important, but they must be sifted. At The Jerusalem Academy we rejected some traditions while we rescued others. All of this was done in the context of the international scene and with the aim of moving toward a new future. We had the desire and ability to extend our horizons, but after the death of King David, his heir, King Solomon, instituted policies that enslaved our people and proved once again that there is no justice.
1
The day I met Khety—a scribe and teacher from Egypt—is a day that I will always remember. As I
