In the last post, we began to discuss the theology of liturgy as it is constructed in the Biblical history running from Joshua to Kings. Within Biblical criticism, Kings is considered part of the “Deuteronomistic history” designed to reinforce the absolute centrality of Jerusalem as the sole place of sacrifice. Yet the literary center of the Book of Kings is a sequence of sacrificial altars and images that lie far north of Jerusalem. The manifest nature of the alleged contradiction suggests that what we have encountered is not an obvious contradiction but a failure to properly interpret the teaching of Deuteronomy. So let us consider its actual content.
First, does Deuteronomy 12 refer to the city of Jerusalem in referring to the place where God will make His Name dwell? This is assumed to be the case, and the lack of a named reference to the city is explained by the desire of the forger to avoid anachronism by identifying a city which would only come to prominence several centuries after the time of Moses. But if the forger was so concerned to avoid references to later institutions, why does he refer to the institution of the monarchy in Deuteronomy 17? This makes no sense. The fact that biblical critics believe Deuteronomy 12 to be a prophetic reference to the building of the temple of Jerusalem reflects their deep lack of care in interpreting the text.
The Book of Joshua is suffused with the language and theological emphases of Deuteronomy. Yet Joshua 8 describes the construction of a cult site on Mt. Ebal as the ark of the covenant is processed before them. Later, in Joshua 24, there is a covenant renewal in the presence of the sanctuary at Shechem. If the heart of Deuteronomy were the centralization of worship in the city of Jerusalem, why does the first book in the “deuteronomistic history” refer directly to liturgical worship at sites other than Jerusalem? The answer to this question lies in the point that Deuteronomy 12 is not about Jerusalem. It is simply about the principle of a central sanctuary for Israel. The actual site of the sanctuary moved around. Throughout much of the period of the judges the cult site is focused on Shiloh. A passage from Jeremiah actually makes note of this directly:
(Jeremiah 7:10-12) and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’–only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.
The desolation of Shiloh in 1 Samuel 4 is here cited by the Lord as a paradigm for the desolation of the Temple of Jerusalem. In Kings, the prophet-historian Jeremiah describes the fall of the Temple and sack of Jerusalem in language drawn from the catastrophe of the battle of Aphek. The sons of Zedekiah are killed like the sons of Eli. And as Eli became blind at the end of his life, so also is King Zedekiah blinded as punishment. Deuteronomy 12 does not mention Jerusalem because Moses did not intend Jerusalem as the referent. The Biblical history features a central sanctuary, but that sanctuary is mobile. It moves from Shiloh to Philistia to Zion, and a temple is constructed to permanently house the footstool of God in Jerusalem in the reign of King Solomon.