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.

      Wipf & Stock

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      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      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 look back, I realize my life changed course that day. I was about fourteen at the time. Khety was in Jerusalem interviewing for a teaching position in the academy. My father brought him to our home for dinner, and I remember asking him what Egyptians would serve at such a dinner. He gave us a typical menu using the Egyptian words and showed us how these words were written. From that moment my mother and I became interested in the Egyptian language. Meeting Khety was only one of the great moments I experienced growing up in Jerusalem, but it was a pivotal moment. I fell in love with the Egyptian language and culture, and this has placed its mark on my teaching and writing at The Jerusalem Academy. This is what makes the academy such an interesting place: there are teachers and students from many other cities, and there is always an air of excitement surrounding new discoveries, foreign news, or new translations of foreign literature.

      My father has mentioned on several occasions that he learned a great deal about foreign countries from some of our teachers, but he also said that some of his most interesting information came from people who were working in Jerusalem. When David’s palace was being constructed, he used many workmen from Tyre. Father talked with them about Tyre, about the ships that came to Tyre, and about the Egyptians and others who were just passing through. He also talked with