Were Sinful Individuals Authorized to Pray? Evidence from 1 Kgs 8 and Psalms

• In Event: The Bible and the Human Condition

Abstract

Scholars have often noted that penitential prayer is rarely found in the Hebrew Bible until the late Second Temple period. By definition, penitential prayer is the resort of admittedly sinful individuals, groups, or the nation of Israel as a whole. Remarkably, the situation of sinful individuals is omitted from Solomon's petition to God to hear prayer in 1 Kgs 8: 31-51 at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem. The centerpiece of the entire ceremony is Solomon's request to God to answer prayers of individuals and the nation in certain crisis situations when they pray at the temple or even simply face in its direction. The seven authorized situations give equal weight to crises faced by single and multiple personages: three for individuals, three for the nation, and one subsuming both. They also attend equally to crises associated with sin and what must be considered inexplicable crises. Notably, many of the possible combinations of these two factors are represented except for prayers from sinful individuals. The omission has interesting implications for our understanding of the concept of Israelite prayer and its relationship to the sacrificial system, regardless of whether Solomon's prayer reflects the concerns of the Deuteronomic centralization period (as Gary Knoppers argues) or post-exilic Second Temple concerns (following Judith Newman). Evidence that the omission is not a fluke comes from examination of the types of crises described in psalms. Nearly all the seven authorized situations are represented. No psalms represent the request of a foreign visitor. And in only one psalm, Ps. 51, is the speaker clearly a sinful individual. Obviously, sinful individuals did have recourse to the Temple to make sacrificial offerings of expiation. The talk will conclude with hypotheses for why discourse surrounding such expiations might not have been considered "prayer."

Author

• Davida Charney, The University of Texas at Austin