One hundred and seventy years ago, on 17 July 1816, the Society for the Promotion of Theological Education in Harvard University was established, thus beginning a process that led to the founding of a “faculty of theology” or Theological Seminary at the University. Undergraduate education at Harvard College had by this time moved quite far from the founders' original concern to provide a literate ministry to the churches. By the beginning of the nineteenth century Harvard men were educated in a broad curriculum oriented more toward liberal education than professional training. So the theological faculty was created in order to provide specialized training for those preparing to enter the Christian ministry

This paper contains some thoughts about words. It is a modest undertaking and is meant to do no more than elaborate upon and set forth the reasoning underlying a proposal that I advanced some years ago regarding the meaning of Akkadian alaktu and its relation to the Jewish terms Hebrew hălāḵā and Aramaic hilḵĕṯā. In preparing this paper, I have had before me two distinct goals and have, accordingly, divided the paper into two separate sections. First, I try to establish an additional (and thus far unnoticed) set of meanings for alaktu (= Sumerian a.rá) and to track this meaning especially when alaktu appears in combination with the verb lamādu. Then, turning to halakhah, I set out some of the implications of our inner Assyriological examination for the origin of the Hebrew and Aramaic terms hălāḵā and hilḵĕṯā. In doing so, I register my dissent from a previous proposal of a particular Akkadian term (ilku) as the source of the word halakhah, and present a set of alternative hypotheses as to the derivation of the Jewish terms. The opinions expressed about even alaktu are tentative and in need of further refinement, and our thoughts on the relation of alaktu and halakhah remain perforce in the realm of conjecture.

As is well known, the beginnings of biblical exegesis are to be found within the Hebrew Bible itself: later books or passages often comment on earlier ones, clarifying perceived ambiguities, at times harmonizing apparent contradictions, or seeking to bring an ancient text up to date, even rewriting history or trying to bring out some would-be esoteric meaning. Indeed, evidence of these interpretive concerns is to be found not only within the later parts of the Jewish canon, but among the biblical apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, in the Qumran documents, Hellenistic Jewish writings, the New Testament, rabbinic literature, and so forth. Sometimes we can do more than simply catalogue how a given verse or passage was interpreted in various sources—we can actually try to glimpse something of the history and evolution of its interpretation.

When historical reconstruction of the nature of a person or a group is carried out under ideal circumstances, we should have two kinds of evidence: we should know the self description of the subject, and be able to compare this self description with the way the subject was seen by others. These two types of evidence give historians the perspective which should allow them to draw a wellrounded portrait of the nature of their subject. When viewed in this light, the problems presented in attempting a historical reconstruction of the nature of the Pharisees before 70 CE make this case a classic example of the problems of historical work. Virtually no documents have survived that come from the Pharisees themselves. We know them as seen by Josephus (who claimed to have been and to be a Pharisee, but who in fact shows little indication of Pharisaic belief or practice in his life or writings), as they appeared to the authors of the gospels, or as seen in the hindsight of their heirs, the rabbis. Thanks to Qumran texts we may learn how the Pharisees were viewed by members of a competing group. Paul claimed to have once been a Pharisee, but was writing his letters as a Christian. The first type of evidence discussed above is thus almost entirely lacking; the second is available in abundance.

My purpose in this article will not be to deal with the tradition history behind Matt 25:31–46 or with the actual eschatological identity of the nations, the sheep and the goats, and Jesus' least brothers, although some attention will need to be given to the latter. My primary purpose will rather be to inquire about the nature and quality of the stance or posture or self-understanding that constitutes the responses of the sheep and goats—which responses Matthew is implicitly calling his readers respectively to actualize and to reject. And what is required of human beings has implications for the possibilities and nature of human beings. The first order of business, however, will be to locate the text generically and in the context of Matthew 23–25.

In The Spirit and the Letter Augustine claims that grace not only avoids abrogating human freedom it actually establishes free will. His claim raises some intriguing questions. What sort of freedom is it that can be established only by the influence of another agent—in this case, God—and what sort of bondage is it that is overcome by grace? If we remain exclusively within Augustine's theological discourse, the answers come straightforwardly and by now have a ring of familiarity. The freedom in question is the state of loving God over and above his worldly and time-bound creations, fulfilling (with divine assistance) the demands of the Law, and finding one's happiness in reconciliation with the eternal through the mediation of Jesus Christ. Bondage is conversely the blindness and perversity of keeping one's attention fixed on creation apart from its relation to its Creator and of courting the satisfaction of only those desires which are framed independently of God's claims on every human being. Freedom is loving well or having a bona voluntas; bondage is loving aimlessly, unreflectively, and hence destructively.